Category: people

“In a departure from the standard, liberal notion that literature must be free to offend, he proposes that literature, properly understood, cannot offend.”

“David Oliver Relin, a journalist and adventurer who achieved acclaim as co-author of the best seller Three Cups of Tea (2006) and then suffered emotionally and financially as basic facts in the book were called into question, died Nov. 15.” His family said that he took his own life.

“For decades, Mr. Foy was a quiet if supremely capable avatar of the city’s gracious, aesthetically minded, boldface-named social milieu, a latter-day Gilded Age that flourished in New York in the years before the Stonewall uprising and for some time after, of which Truman Capote was perhaps the best-known embodiment.”

“Her paternal grandmother was a rabid biblio and had a collection of encyclopedias, [Maria] Popova said, and she credits the act of randomly opening volumes and happening upon entries for her passion to discover old knowledge. ‘The Web has such a presentism bias,’ she said, with Facebook updates, tweets and blog entries always appearing with the latest first. By contrast, flipping through the encyclopedia was ‘an interesting model of learning about the world serendipitously and also guidedely.'”

Fran Walsh co-writes all of Peter Jackson’s movies, produces them, and even directs scenes. “Walsh, 53, is also one of Hollywood’s biggest living mysteries. She rarely grants interviews and refuses to sit for a photograph. Forget walking a red carpet alongside Mr. Jackson. Ms. Walsh has not even allowed her face to be shown on camera when contributing DVD commentary.”

David Schwendeman, the chief taxidermist at the American Museum of Natural History for 29 years, “was an extraordinary artist, an expert sculptor. … He could pose animals accurately and scientifically, and at the same time make them aesthetically beautiful.”

“We don’t make the distinction between ‘wit’ and ‘humor’ anymore, but in the nineteenth century people did. Wit was sarcastic and antipathetic while humor was congenial and empathetic. It’s the difference we note now when we distinguish between ‘laughing with’ and ‘laughing at.’ Lincoln was much more about ‘laughing with’ than ‘laughing at.’ And when ‘laughing at,’ it was often himself he was mocking.”

“Beheading, believe it or not, was a privilege reserved usually for the aristocracy, for gentlemen and gentlewomen. Now, I don’t want you to get the idea that these were weekly events in Henry’s England; it’s because beheadings were rare that they made such a terrible impact on the imagination of the close circle around Henry.”

“The burly actor was picked up off after he fell off his scooter in northwest Paris, the Sipa news agency reported. He failed a sobriety test and was taken to a police station, according to Sipa.”