Category: people

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, ex-wife of former South African leader Nelson Mandela, has been denied entry to Canada. She was scheduled to attend a fundraising gala in Toronto on Tuesday for the arts organization MusicaNoir, but the Canadian High Commission in South Africa denied her visa.

Writers Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Stephen King, Scott Turow and Mitch Albom, Maya Angelou and Roy Blount Jr have a band called the Rock Bottom Remainders. “They are what every garage band dreams of becoming: a bunch of middle-aged people with word-processing day jobs who every now and then get to go on tour, not in a rented van but in Aretha Franklin’s old bus. They have played benefit concerts all over the country, before live, paying audiences, and even have groupies.”

“Robert King, founder and director of the ensemble The King’s Consort and a major figure in the period-instrument movement, has been convicted by a London jury of 14 incidents of indecent assault over an 11-year period and sentenced to almost four years in prison.”

“Tracey’s reputation for doing shows and hanging them is not good, but she’s been a dream to work with. What it shows is that she’s moved a long way away from the YBAs. She’s quite a lady actually!”

“Several years ago, Koons developed a colour-by-numbers system, so that each of his 70 highly trained assistants could execute his super-realist canvases and sculptures as if they had been done by a single hand. One team identifies every area of a digital printout that requires its own colour – there are no gradations, and no room for interpretation; every distinct shade is identified, mapped out and given a number. Another team then mixes each of these colours, and passes them on to a third team: the painters. No paint leaves the colouring table before being approved by Koons.”

“Alex Prior is what used be to be called a child prodigy and is now regarded as a freak of nature. Were his gift of the sporting kind, he would be playing in gold studs at Wembley or Wimbledon and grinning from roadside hoardings from here to Calcutta. But modern times are suspicious of precocity and feel threatened by junior genius.”

“After a painstaking, two-year renovation scheme, Hoglands will open to the public for the very first time, restored to – as near as can be recreated – exactly how it was when Moore lived there at the peak of his fame in the 1960s and 70s.”

“The greatest role he would be offered was that of Charles Nelson Reilly. Self-dramatizing by nature, he knew the depth, intelligence and heart of his character, and he had no need to bluff. Still, as he related in his solo show, he was astonished by his own success in the part. Never in his wildest dream would he have imagined that he — an oddball kid from the Bronx — would have appeared, by his own count, more than 100 times on ‘The Tonight Show’ and been able to circle his name 38 times in the TV Guide listings for a single week. For an actor who had been told by a TV executive when he was starting out that a ‘queer’ like him didn’t stand a chance, his prevalence on the air must have been intoxicating.”

Pete Jordan has written a book about trying to wash dishes in every state. It’s an entertaining book, but is it true? “Jordan operates out of the medium-tall-tale tradition, using truth as bone structure and fantasy as flesh. It may not all be true, but it’s true enough. Few will doubt his claim that his favorite American city is Portland. He loitered from time to time in Seattle but thrived in Portland: ‘Even before arriving, I pretty much knew it was a pro-dishwasher town’.”

“Critics of Gehry say he keeps rehashing his best ideas, to the point of self-parody. Others, such as the artist Richard Serra, accuse him of plagiarising and cannibalising higher art forms, such as sculpture. At the age of 78, Gehry still seems impatient to prove everyone wrong – and becomes supercharged with enthusiasm when finally coaxed into talking about his work.”