Winner of the Sloan Public Service Award, he is chief medical officer for clinical services and population health at NYC Health + Hospitals, but not responsible for substituting that “+” for the civilized “and.” Presented with the Fund for the City of New York.
Sought-after accompanist, artistic director of the New York Festival of Song, author of the memoir From Ear to Ear, purveyor of beauty tips: “I don’t recommend a coma as a way of looking good, but if you are ever in a coma, trust me, you’re going to look your best.” What the music teaches. Produced …
An original cast member on Saturday Night Live (Connie Conehead!), she’s now a voice actor—Shrek, Finding Nemo. Her later-in-life pleasure: Coachella, but she won’t attend this year. “I can’t, I can’t, my knees just won’t take it any more.” We talk about phases of life and the inadequate seating at music festivals. Continue reading »
Many people share this writer’s admiration of John James Audubon as a naturalist and an artist, especially his magisterial Birds of America. “But fewer people know about him as a slave owner and a white supremacist,” she says. Birds, beauty, climate change, and racial justice: it’s complicated. And delightfully so. Produced with Orion Magazine. Continue reading »
His first feature-length documentary, The War Room, was Oscar-nominated. He won an Emmy for American High, a TV series. Years earlier he received this professional tip from his mentor, D. A. Pennebaker: “You’re not a director until you wake up screaming in the middle of the night.” Apparently I am a director. As are we all. Continue reading »
When he set out to become an actor, this Broadway great—Rent, Wicked, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels—was opposed by his conservative Catholic family. But they came around, even his Fox-watching father. “He loved Rent. My homophobic dad would come to Rent, probably once a month.” Tales of reconciliation. And show tunes. Continue reading »
A Russia specialist at the Brookings Institution, she testified at the House impeachment hearings with erudition, integrity, and courage. She got her start as a child dominoes hustler at a miners’ pub in the north of England. “My granddad would have me play and bet on me, and every time I won I would get … Continue reading »
This flutist and composer was born in Chicago, where her grandparents arrived during the Great Migration. “It wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely an upgrade from Mississippi.” There’s a slogan the visitors bureau won’t be using. A musician reflects on her home town and one of its sons. Another in our series On Collaboration with violist … Continue reading »
Having won the Pulitzer Prize for his play A Strange Loop, what will he do next? One possibility, move to Wyoming. “I’d get my house somewhere, get my shotgun, if I needed it, and sit on my porch in my rocking chair.” An eastern sophisticate contemplates the West, Tori Amos, and soap opera. Presented with Federal Hall … Continue reading »
Before embracing a more salubrious life in Los Angeles, he rollicked through a years-long spree back east. “New York is paradise if you’re a drunk, and a very challenging place to be sober.” A slogan inexplicably rejected by the New York Visitors Bureau. This master of electronic dance music talks about religion, wilderness, and David Bowie’s … Continue reading »
This actor and singer won a Grammy, an Emmy, and a Tony for The Color Purple. She played Harriet Tubman in Harriet and Aretha Franklin in Genius. Is there anything she can’t do? “I will not be releasing an album of Hawaiian guitar music; I don’t think I can nearly get good enough to do that.” Hey, if she turned her … Continue reading »
He is the writer of Drafted: A Memoir of the ‘60s and the screenplays for The Boys from Brazil (Gregory Peck) Fort Apache, the Bronx (Paul Newman), and Cocktail (Tom Cruise). “I definitely learned how to deal with people who were tougher than me, smarter than me, stronger than me; I had to find my way in that world.” He means the schoolyard. He … Continue reading »
“I have no interest in completing projects,” says this architect, winner of the Pritzker Prize. “A lot of our stuff just keeps moving; it refuses to have an edge, a boundary; it’s in constant change.” For someone who feels that way, he’s completed an awful lot of them, and to great acclaim. Presented with the … Continue reading »
Every musician relishes applause — who wouldn’t? — but the principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic also finds value in an audience booing. “To know that someone was infuriated by a performance or a set or something like that is kind of enjoyable in a sick sort of way, too.” The joys of a … Continue reading »