These principals of the architectural firm WORKac found it challenging to design their own home. The psychological complexity of domestic life? The culmination of years of thought? “The hardest thing about designing our house was that we just haven’t designed a lot of houses.” Produced with the Center for Architecture. Photo: Harry Willks.
The artistic director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company summarizes his aesthetic: “The curtain goes up, twenty minutes happen, the curtain comes down, and it is transformative.” Easy to say, brilliant to achieve. And they do.
TV fans know her as an actor – Mochinne on The Walking Dead. Theater goers know her as a playwright: her Eclipsed, starring Lupita Nyong’o, is on Broadway. Moose hunters know her as… no! They don’t know her at all. She hunts no moose. But she spoke with wit and insight when we met … Continue reading »
Photographer Gregory Crewdson takes pictures much the way a director makes movies: working with a crew, including a DP, and never touching a camera. The results are haunting and beautiful. We convened at Planthouse Gallery with musical guest Paul Grimstad. PERSON: his father, Frank Crewdson PLACE: Upper Goose Pond THING: a Fender Stratocaster guitar … Continue reading »
His novels include the much admired Netherland, and The Dog, long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. We spoke at the American Irish Historical Society, where we were joined by the splendid musicans Eamon O’Leary and Stephanie Coleman who put down their instruments during the conversational part of the program. People are so considerate. PERSON: Seamus Heaney … Continue reading »
Her website, Man Repeller, offers witty and insightful ideas about fashion, not just as what we wear but as who we are: clothing as a window onto the larger culture. Although who’d want a window made of cotton? The rain would soak through, and you couldn’t see out. Metaphors: they only take you so … Continue reading »
The writer-producers of Law and Order SVU describe the pains and pleasures of shooting in New York – mostly pleasures… no, pains… no, pleasures derives from pains – and make this astute observation: it’s not just that an actor shapes a character but that playing a character transforms the actor herself. In this case it … Continue reading »
He has designed both elegant private houses (Alexander McQueen’s) and grand public spaces (the Nobel Peace Prize Center in Oslo). While he was working on the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History and Culture, he was often asked: will it look African American? But what does that mean? Does Renzo Piano’s Times building look newspapery? … Continue reading »
Most musicians, even talented musicians, have no career at all. Hers has lasted, depending how you count, 40 years? 50 years? Or with my special math, 1000 years, dating to the middle ages. At 15, she was singing commercial jingles; while still in high school, she was a staff writer for Chappell Music. Her first hits, … Continue reading »
Most musicians, even talented musicians, have no career at all. Hers has lasted, depending how you count, 40 years? 50 years? Or with my special math, 1000 years, dating to the middle ages. At 15, she was singing commercial jingles; while still in high school, she was a staff writer for Chappell Music. Her first hits, … Continue reading »
It is his core belief that food affects not only our personal but our political health, a principle he has expressed through cook books, cooking shows, and an op-ed column in the New York Times. During our conversation at JCC Manhattan, he cooked chili for the entire audience. Of course he didn’t. But he did … Continue reading »
He represents New York City’s third congressional district, comprising much of both Nassau and Suffolk counties, as Long Islandian as you can get, and is the first member of Congress to be a guest on the show, so the stakes were pretty… actually, there was no pressure at all. He was amiable, I was attentive … Continue reading »
If he is best known for klezmer music, he has only himself to blame: he plays it brilliantly, honoring its roots without making it a museum piece. And he leaps across genres, sometimes in a single work. He once recorded an album that charted top ten for Jewish music, funk, jazz and, for all … Continue reading »
His book Animal Liberation constructed an ethical framework for the animal rights movement. His ideas about euthanasia, altruism and world poverty have inspired both protest and acclaim – overwhelmingly the latter when we spoke at the Princeton Public Library. Plus, for your dancing and philosophizing pleasure, music from Jefferson Hamer. PERSON: David Oppenheim PLACE: Balliol … Continue reading »