Category: people

Questions of strength and weakness have hovered around Boström Knausgård ever since the novelist with whom she shares a last name wrote, in rather excruciating detail, about their life together and Boström Knausgård’s mental illness. Because the novel—like her other fiction—draws closely from its author’s past, it will surely invite comparison with My Struggle, by her former husband, Karl Ove Knausgaard. – Vanity Fair

“What I’ve learned is: I love the danger. This thing I thought I hated all my life, that’s why I was doing it. If the show is at 8, and it’s 6, what will I be doing? Pacing. After 60 years, still pacing. I like that feeling.” – The New York Times

As editor at Universal Press Syndicate, beginning in 1974, “he signed up Calvin and Hobbes and Cul de Sac and For Better or For Worse. He discovered The Boondocks and Cathy. He guided Doonesbury and Fox Trot and The Far Side … [And he] was renowned within the industry for having his creators’ backs in times of controversy and then dealing with rankled newspaper editors and persistent media inquiries with a gentlemanly charm.” – The Washington Post

Last year Dr. Monica Gagliano published a heady and meandering memoir about the conversations with plants that inspired her peer-reviewed work, titled “Thus Spoke the Plant.” She believes, like many scientists and environmentalists do, that in order to save the planet we have to understand ourselves as part of the natural world. It’s just that she also believes the plants themselves can speak to this point. – The New York Times

His weekly satire program, The Night Night Show, has been on television for not quite 18 months, and already Brian Tseng has become a big star. Why? Likely because he’ll talk and joke openly about mainland China, a subject most Taiwanese avoid. – 1843 Magazine

“I have a form of Parkinsonism that doesn’t respond to standard Parkinson’s meds, so there’s no treatment for what I have. It’s called P.S.P.—Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. I just have to stay home a lot. The main attraction in San Francisco is the opera and the symphony, and I make an effort and go out, but I can only do it a few times a year.” – The New Yorker

Joshua Robison and Michael Tilson Thomas met in their junior high orchestra in North Hollywood when they were 11 and 12 years old (Robison is a year and a half younger). “I played cello, and across the room playing the oboe was this Jewish, nerdy looking guy,” says Robison of his first memory of Thomas. “I really remember him because at recess I’d hang around and he’d play piano. I never heard piano playing like that.” – San Francisco Chronicle

“[She] amassed four Emmys during her time as Rhoda [Morgenstern] — three for her sidekick role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977, and one as the lead character in the spinoff Rhoda, which ran from 1974 to 1978 on the same network. She continued to act on television and in the theater for more than three decades, her stage roles ranging from the flamboyant actress Tallulah Bankhead to former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir. But she was forever known as Rhoda — a reflection of the preservative power of reruns, and the enduring appeal of her signature character.” – The Washington Post

London dealer Joseph Nahmad, 31 and part of a powerful multibillion-dollar family network of art dealers, got a suspended sentence of 14 weeks along with the rehab order from Judge Jeffrey Pegden, who told Nahmad, “There are mitigating factors. You are of good character and have taken steps to address your offending behaviour.” As compensation for her injuries, Pegden also ordered Nahmad to pay his victim £750 ($906). – The Daily Mail (UK)

With his Stanley Love Performance Group, “[he] helped shape New York’s downtown performance scene since the mid-1990s with large-scale, vibrant performances that he set to pop music.” – ARTnews