Category: people

Turkey’s most famous classical pianist and composer “has said that he is going to leave his native country and move to Japan after he was placed under investigation by the Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office for ‘insulting religious values’ and offending Islamic belief. His (alleged) crime? Tweeting that he is an atheist.”

“Legendary French singer Charles Aznavour, who cancelled three New York shows for this week, said he was in a dispute with his producer – and not ill – in an interview Monday.” He accused the producer of breach of contract and said that “there is no reason for us to take the stage with him owing us so much money already.”

“I have the strength to live more than others. Most of the time when you meet someone and they say, ‘I’m 50,’ they do this (Aznavour slumps down in his chair) and then 60 and so on. I refuse! One day it’s going to be impossible but I’m sure I can do something with a (mimes a walker).”

“My host sat back in his club chair, silenced, and I worried for a moment that I had made a terrible mistake. But then a look of wild delight sprang into his eyes — the look, I thought, of a man who hadn’t been surprised in 40 years.”

“Roberto Prosseda is a concert pianist of the old school who typically performs in white tie and tails. But for his most recent spate of concerts, he pairs them with slippers–five-fingered rubber-coated slippers that look vaguely amphibian. That’s because Mr. Prosseda plays with his feet as well as his hands. The Italian pianist is on a one-man mission to revive the music of the pedal piano, a monstrous double-decker grand piano that was popular in the late-19th century but has long since fallen out of fashion.”

Rebecca Allen: “If you’re an animator, it’s already clear that you’re a fanatic — an obsessive. Anybody who wants to make frames for every second of movement is obviously pretty obsessive about things.”

“Frid starred in the 1960s gothic-flavored soap opera about odd, supernatural goings-on at a family estate in Maine. His death comes just weeks before a Tim Burton-directed version of Dark Shadows is due out next month starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins. Frid has a cameo role in the new movie in which he meets Depp’s character in a party scene with two other original actors from the show.”

“Before the invention of teenagers [in the 1960s] there had been bobbysoxers in the 1940s but no generational tag for adolescence. … He instinctively understood that the best way to capitalize on the emerging market was to pose as a kind of older brother, a safe-as-milk intermediary who kept the peace between worried parents and their restless children.”

“Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is learning a frustrating lesson about challenging Chinese authorities – he is welcome to sue the government over a festering tax case, but must first produce a company seal confiscated by police that he has no way of recovering.”