Category: people

Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez is getting parties across the globe. “Aracataca, his hometown, woke up to 80 cannon salvos. Paper and metal yellow butterflies then filled public spaces. Cities and towns across Colombia are holding events – but the author, who now lives in Mexico, is not expected to set foot in the country. Spain has already marked the occasion with a marathon reading of the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

“Henri Troyat, the Russian-born French writer whose novels and biographies earned him an immense following in France and considerable recognition abroad, died here on Sunday. … As Le Figaro wrote Monday, ‘the favorite writer of the French is dead.'”

“Those who knew H. David Meyers for his musical achievements likely had no idea of his other pursuits. Between early 2001 and 2004, according to his plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Meyers operated a business called Sports International 2000 that solicited and helped place thousands of bets on college and pro football and basketball games from gamblers in Montgomery County, Northern Virginia and elsewhere.”

“As a largely self-taught musician who dared to be different in the late 1940s and ’50s, Coleman suffered worse indignities than even the most hapless “American Idol” contestant. One bandleader paid him not to solo; others simply fired him. Musicians walked off the stage when he showed up at jam sessions. Coleman was told he played out-of-tune and didn’t know the basics of jazz improvisation.”

“Referring to the 33-year-old Glover as a ‘tap dancer’ is technically accurate (his instrument is his body) but oddly beside the point. Glover couldn’t care less how he looks; what he lavishes infinite pains over is how he sounds.”

Robert Fitzpatrick plans to step down next year after a decade as director and chief executive officer of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

As Kurt Masur nears his 80th birthday and the end of his tenure with the London Philharmonic, he recently “seemed hardier than he had when visited in November in London, though still a bit fragile — a description that no one would have associated with this imposing figure a decade ago — and with a marked tremor in his hands. ‘I’m fine again,’ he said, ‘in the middle of my life again.'”

Thomas Adès is frequently championed as the “savior” of British music, a label he is not the least bit comfortable with. “It’s clear the weight of expectation on him has been a mixed blessing… He has an uneasy relationship with the media. His publisher Sally Cavendish explains that an early interview implied unfairly that he was comparing himself to Mozart, while another opened by asking him if he was the new Britten.”

“Arvo Pärt, whose meditative, spiritually-themed music has made him among the most popular and recorded of living classical composers, has been named the winner of the 2008 Léonie Sonning Music Prize, Denmark’s top award in the field.” The award pays just over $100,000.

“Madison Avenue is taking a cue from the adage that history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce. In a trend perhaps also inspired by the popular 1980 movie ‘Airplane!,’ agencies are hiring venerable actors, once known for serious straight roles, to display cleverly self-mocking sides of their personalities in campaigns aimed at younger as well as older consumers.”