“For serious Wire aficionados, both Lippman’s name and appearance will be familiar. A character is seen reading one of her novels in season one, while in season five she has a brief cameo as a Baltimore Sun journalist (‘I got terrible reviews!’). She also points out that Simon stole jokes, a song and the names of two detectives from her novels. ‘He has definitely taken more from my work than I’ve taken from his,’ she says, looking rather pleased about it.”
Category: people
A Stand-Up Violinist, Leading The L.A. Phil
L.A. Phil concertmaster Martin Chalifour likes to make jokes, but not about performing. Chalifour “is the portrait of moderation and restraint. He’s serious about keeping in shape for the physical demands of performing (‘Our pulse rate is sometimes comparable to a really fast run’) and carefully monitors diet, rest and even caffeine intake to be in optimum condition to perform. Everything is controlled and in balance.”
Tom Davis, 59, SNL Writer And Al Franken’s Partner
“In 2004, contestants on Jeopardy! were stumped by the clue ‘He was the comedy partner of Al Franken.’ … But the fact is that Mr. Davis helped shape Mr. Franken’s comedy, and vice versa, from the time they entertained students with rebellious, razor-edged humor at high school assemblies in Minnesota.”
Susan Sarandon Says She’s Done Everything Wrong
“I’ve done everything wrong so there’s really no explanation as to why I’m still around. … I’ve taken movies that people told me I shouldn’t, I’ve taken years off to have children, I’ve been outspoken politically, and here I am. … I’m here because all my plans failed.”
Who Was Edmund Burke? (Besides Statesman, Author And Orator)
“Everyone claims Edmund Burke as his patron saint, political forefather, lodestar and compass point, ancestral bulwark against the tide of whatever seething modern ill he despises. … But Edmund Burke the actual man is faded away – the man his wife called Ned, fond of vulgar puns and lewd jokes, an ample man, thin as a lad and then never again; the chatterbox ‘never unwilling to begin to talk, nor in haste to leave off,’ as Samuel Johnson said.”
Rajesh Khanna, 69, Bollywood’s First Superstar Heartthrob
“[His] dark, soulful, somewhat fleshy good looks established him as India’s leading romantic hero, and [his 1969 film Aradhana] marked the beginning of a phenomenon, familiar enough in Europe and America but never seen before in Hindi cinema – the frenzied mass hysteria of fans.”
John Irving On Writing About Sexual Difference
“When I finished The World According to Garp in 1978, I was naïve enough to think that I will never write about this subject again; that our intolerance of our own sexual differences will surely go away, and that Garp will be seen someday as a relic of the post-sexual-liberation days … [But] it’s still the same damn subject. It’s still about our obstinate intolerance to sexual differences.”
What It’s Like To Interview Fiona Shaw
“Her words keep hurtling off through exclamations, exhortations, then collapsing in laughter. She revises herself regularly, shouting into my dictaphone: ‘Don’t write that!’ She worries about anything that might come across as pretentious on the page, but in the flesh she is fast and funny.”
The Great Philosophers And The Music They Made
“Early on, a conductor rejected one of Nietzsche’s compositions in brutally humiliating terms, asking if he meant it as a joke. But he went on playing and composing anyway, leaving behind about 70 works, including, strange to say, a mass.”
Toni Morrison On Black Literature And The White Gaze
“In American literature, African American male writers justifiably write books about their oppression. Confronting the oppressor who is white male or white woman. It’s race. And the person who defines you under those circumstances is a white mind … African American women never do that. They never write about white men. I couldn’t care less – I didn’t want to spend my energy refuting that gaze.”