"I contain that sort of empathetic people-pleasing person who I'm playing on the radio. ... But I'm a person under weekly deadlines, and I get freaked out and tired and irritable and don't want to talk to people and get annoyed. And I curse a lot in real life." - NPR
Attending the London opening of the musical The Devil Wears Prada (for which he composed the score), the 77-year-old said that an infection earlier this year had left him with only limited vision in one eye. - AP
Caserta and Joplin bonded over a pair of jeans. “The two became fast friends, occasional lovers and then dope-shooting comrades, even as their fortunes rose.” - The New York Times
Lindsey was “a onetime Mississippi Delta tugboat captain who became a campus preacher and improbably vaulted to fame and riches by writing that the world would soon end with natural catastrophes and ruinous wars.” - The New York Times
Even her teachers called her that instead of her name. But Auli’i Cravalho now says, "I’m looking forward to directing, to producing, to starting a production company. ... But I have so much growth to do before then. I grew up without a television.” - The New York Times
Says the daughter of actress Ingrid Bergman and filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, "Of course it opens the door, because people are curious to see you. But I don’t know that it was an advantage. The judgment is much more severe, and you don’t have time to grow." - The Guardian
"With his childhood friends Jerry and David Zucker, Abrahams formed the filmmaking trio, called Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, and popularized the spoof genre of the 1980s" with Kentucky Fried Movie, the Naked Gun series, Ruthless People, and, most indelibly, Airplane! - Variety
Murakami’s approach to consciousness is less representational than literal, with many of his characters literally being transported to a realm created by (or wholly inside of) their minds. - Esquire
"(He) was a celebrated wordsmith, a leading voice in literature in Afrikaans — an offshoot of Dutch that was developed by white settlers (in South Africa) — and a fierce critic of apartheid that was imposed against the country’s Black majority between 1948 and 1990." - AP
Aside from the many, many collaborations with playwright Pinter, “her influence on BBC design work, ‘a slightly crazy mix of boarding-school perfectionism and free-spirited iconoclasm,' was baked in.” - The Guardian (UK)
In almost any Auerbach oil painting, early or late, rawness is thick on the ground. So dense, so clotted, and so busily heaped is the pigment that you’re not sure whether to gaze at it, lick it, chew it, or file a weather report. - The New Yorker
In 2021, he was convicted for staging a fake hate crime against himself in Chicago in January 2019. But the local DA had dropped charges, and, under public pressure, a special prosecutor revived the case. The Illinois Supreme Court has now ruled that this violated Smollett's civil rights. - CNN
"Clarisse Yeung, 38, is an artist and, previously, an elected member of Hong Kong’s district council. She first rose to prominence during the 2014 pro-democracy protests. … (She) was among 45 of 47 defendants convicted under the national security law for their roles in an unofficial party primary election (in 2020)." - Artnet
