“The Japan Art Association on Thursday named British playwright Tom Stoppard as a recipient of the Praemium Imperiale, one of the richest awards in the arts world. Two more Britons also won the prize — Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid and sculptor Richard Long — as did Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and Austrian pianist Alfred Brendel.”
Category: people
A La Recherche de Chopin Perdu In Warsaw
“Paris has Chopin’s grave, where fans leave cough drops. In London a plaque marks the town house where he spent a few miserable weeks” before his last public performance. “Warsaw, on the other hand, has surprisingly little that is authentic left of its most famous artist. Looking for where he grew up reveals not many original sites from his past but … a palimpsest of ruin and memory.”
Remembering Samuel Johnson Correctly
“Johnson may well be the most celebrated lexicographer of English, yet many claims about his lexicography are exaggerated.” He wasn’t the first professional lexicographer; he wasn’t the first to use quotations to illustrate usage; he wasn’t even the first to write witty definitions. And yet he made dictionaries what they are today: “Among early English lexicographers, Johnson was the first to write memorably by design; he was the first to assert the cultural authority of dictionary definitions.”
L. Frank Baum: Do Pay Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain
“In 1900, a 44-year-old L. Frank Baum published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and became the father of the American fairy tale. … [He] was uniquely suited for this task. He was poised at the crossroads of his era – swept up in burgeoning feminism, the acceleration of new technologies, and the rise of huckster salesmanship.”
O’Keeffe And Stieglitz, The Heloise And Abelard Of American Art
“Tucked into the catalogue for [the big new O’Keeffe exhibit at the Whitney] are excerpts from recently unsealed letters – sometimes steamy, always emotional – that O’Keeffe wrote to the man who encouraged, marketed, photographed, married, and cheated on her.”
Retired Now, Harpist Ann Hobson Pilot Takes A Victory Lap
“‘No one thinks of Ann Hobson Pilot as an African-American harp player,’ says Mark Volpe, the BSO’s managing director. ‘They think of her as the great harp player of her time.’ The BSO is making that point by featuring Hobson Pilot in [an unprecedented series of] programs to celebrate her recent retirement.”
And The Word ‘Genius’ Will Hereafter Be Applied To…
Author Edwidge Danticat, documentarian James Longley, short-story writer Deborah Eisenberg, mixed-media artist Mark Bradford, installation artist Camille Utterback and poet Heather McHugh are among this year’s crop of MacArthur fellows.
Ralph Nader Turns Novelist (With Real-Life Characters)
“A few weeks ago, Nader was working the phones in Washington, trying to reach the people he had fictionalized. … Phil Donahue, a lifelong admirer, was flattered.” Ditto Yoko Ono. “Warren Beatty, whom Nader envisions running for governor against Arnold Schwarzenegger, and winning, with sixty-three per cent of the vote, blurbed the book.”
The Summer Of Celebrity Death
“Together, those who died in the summer of 2009 came from seemingly every phase of life. Among them were titans of the news business, moviemaking, television, politics, music and literature.”
Ralph Lauren: In Hard Times, Opportunity
“Lauren built a career by brazenly positioning himself as the quintessential interpreter of the American zeitgeist. More than any designer, he has used America’s mythology — our secular religion — for profit. In doing so, he has displayed a keen understanding of our cultural symbols.”