“I honestly believe that the single most important quality is being a genuinely nice person. Â In the arts and in Washington, DC, so much happens when people want to work with you. Â It is all well and good to have collaboration mandated or legislated, but it works best when people ask for it themselves.”
Category: people
Samuel L. Jackson Doesn’t Spare Directors, Other Actors – Or A.O. Scott
“It’s like, ‘Yes, motherfucker, I pay attention.’ Unlike other actors, I don’t lie and I don’t bullshit people. I read shit about me. I read everything I can about me. And if you say something bad about me and I agree with it, I’ll be OK with it. But if you say something that’s fucked-up … “
The Pope Versus Justin Bieber (I Win!)
“Pope Benedict, white-haired, 85, and a neophyte to social media site Twitter, has beaten out 18-year old heartthrob Justin Bieber to set a percentage record for retweeting by his followers, the Vatican said on Thursday.”
The Jewish Diva Who Won Over Vienna’s Ex-Nazis
“It was 1947 in post-war Vienna, and Hilde Zadek remembers taking a deep breath behind the curtain. A rookie on her first opera gig, she was about to sing the prestigious role of Aida for an audience full of particularly harsh critics – whistle-packing Nazis she says were determined to show ‘that Jew from Palestine’ she was not welcome at one of the world’s greatest opera houses.”
Quentin Tarantino On Being A Middle-School Dropout
“The fact that I would quit in middle school just shows how little of the world that I knew. I thought the way it was in middle school would be the way it was going to be forever. I didn’t even realize that college would be different from ninth grade. I just thought it was more school.”
Study: Rock Stars Have Shorter Life Expectancy
“Specifically, they found the gap in life expectancy between pop stars and the public widened consistently until 25 years after the musicians first became famous.”
Remembering Dave Brubeck, My Dad
“At this age many in my generation are experiencing the loss of their parents. My situation is a bit different than most because not only did I lose a father, but I lost a dear friend and musical partner. We have been recording, performing, and writing together for over 40 years.”
Aging Rock Stars – Tough To Be A Young Rebel
“Their visible aging happens under the microscope, and seems somehow more tragic since they toil in a business built on youthful rebellion, and contrasts so sharply with our shared cultural images of them, frozen in youthful glory.”
Why Were So Many People Upset About Philip Roth Retiring?
Morgan Meis suggests that famous artists at the top of their professions serve, in a secularized and educated society, as something like patron saints. And saints aren’t supposed to retire. “Imagine Mother Theresa suddenly announcing that she was done with her work and would spend the last few years of her life vacationing in the Caribbean.”
Catching Up With Sergei Polunin, Ballet’s Most Famous Runaway
The prodigiously gifted young Ukrainian made headlines back in January when he abruptly quit the Royal Ballet, the company that trained him and made him a principal at age 19, and mused about leaving dance altogether and opening a tattoo parlor. Well, for now, he’s safely in Moscow and still dancing …