Category: people

Classical music critic Donald Rosenberg is suing The Plain Dealer after he was taken off the Cleveland Orchestra beat. “The amended complaint eliminates claims that the newspaper defamed him, breached public policy and broke promises he had relied on. Instead, his only remaining claim is that his reassignment to cover arts and entertainment, as well as dance performances, was an act of age discrimination.”

“A master printmaker whose self-effacing style and virtuosic command of traditional techniques coaxed the best out of European artists including Picasso, Braque and Matisse, and later helped younger American artists like Jim Dine and Jasper Johns express their visions on paper.”

“There were writers who simply couldn’t have made a living for themselves if the writing hadn’t worked out; that meant Vonnegut, and that meant me. But Updike always gave me the impression that he could have/would have been successful at anything. He was smart; not all writers are intellectuals. I’m not. He was, but he was good-humored about it; he never flaunted it.”

“Rock singer Meat Loaf is to appear with a drumming puppy in a new cartoon aimed at helping children to read. … In the first episode, on 2 March, the Bat Out of Hell singer will read The Lamb Who Came for Dinner.”

Producers of “The Simpsons” “have denied any involvement with a Scientology-promoting voice mail recorded by Nancy Cartwright, who has provided the voice of Bart Simpson for 20 years…. The message begins with her saying, ‘Yo, what’s happenin’ man, this is Bart Simpson. Haha. Just kidding, don’t hang up, this is Nancy Cartwright.'”

Powell, who went from roadie with the band to being one of its stars, was found dead at his Florida home of an apparent heart attack, not long after he called 911 complaining of difficulty breathing.

She was “a fiery Hungarian ballerina who caused a sensation in 1953 with Istvan Rabovsky, her ballet partner and first husband, when they became the first highly publicized dance defectors to the West from the Soviet bloc.”

After a jazz career playing with the likes of Nelson Riddle, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and all the major studios, Bush turned to classical music and joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1962. After 20 years as associate principal trumpet, he served as the orchestra’s personnel manager until 1995.

From his 1994 letter to the editor of the Boston Globe: “I can’t believe that you’re cutting ‘Spiderman’ — the only comic strip in the Globe, except for ‘Doonesbury’ half the time, worth reading. Do think again in making way for what sounds like one more jejune set of unfunny panels pitched at the nonexistent (or at least nonreading) X-generation.”

“Among the many literary achievements of John Updike, who died Tuesday morning, is that he turned in one of the best and most famous pieces of baseball writing ever.”