Category: people

Eric Whitacre, the blond California composer/conductor who has become something of a rock star among young choir geeks (and the man behind the YouTube choir videos), has joined the roster of the Storm Models agency.

“Is retirement an option for creative artists? The film director Steven Soderbergh recently announced that he plans to retire from movie-making once his next two films are finished. A folly? A whim? A PR stunt? Who knows…”

Simon Heffer: “I am disqualified to an extent by the fact that he was a playwright, and therefore a species I barely understand. But there is one way in which I can grasp Rattigan’s greatness. He wrote screenplays, and some of his finest plays were made into stunningly good films in the golden age of our cinema. In fact, Rattigan wrote five or six of the finest films ever made in this country.”

E.A. Hoppé: “Like most of the artists who sketched or painted him, I had to be satisfied with glimpses of him obtained either from the stage wings or by hanging about in draughty corridors. When eventually he sat to me, I found him the least cooperative of all other members of the Ballet. I actually had to ‘waylay’ him.”

I remember one particularly discouraging morning when, after sending around a flurry of pitches and queries, I noticed it was only 10:30. Now what?

“Collecting for me isn’t just about buying objects. It’s an educational process, and I think it’s made me a better person. I’d be bored to death if I spent all my time with other businesspeople, bankers and lawyers.”

“One of the most important things I’ve learned from looking at art, especially with my father [noted painter Simon Dinnerstein], is understanding how the quality of line holds a form together. This visual idea directly relates to musical phrasing. The pulse of a tempo is never mechanically even, but always expanding and contracting, like Modigliani’s line.”

“I love writing when the writing goes well, which is far from always. It’s not only a joy but things seem to come together and integrate themselves in the act of writing. I often can’t put things together unless I write about them.

Minnesota Public Radio CEO Bill Kling: “I don’t consider it news because Garrison has been talking about things like this for the last couple of years and when Garrison says it, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything more than that morning’s musings … I’ve known him for 44 years and I don’t think there is a version of Garrison that you could call ‘retirement’.”

Jack Garfein, now 80, went through 11 different Nazi concentration camps in his early teens, was an actual UJA poster child, studied at the Actors’ Studio with James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Carroll Baker (whom he married), got blacklisted in Hollywood, and opened acting schools in Los Angeles and Paris.