Peter O’Toole Gone
Peter O’Toole Dies; ‘Lawrence of Arabia’
Star Was 81
Steve Chagollan / Assistant Managing Editor, Features
Robert Mora/Getty Images
Irish-born stage and screen actor Peter O’Toole, who became an international star in the title role of David Lean’s Oscar-winning epic “Lawrence of Arabia,” died on Saturday at age 81.
He was undoubtedly one of the greatest actors of his generation. And yet with the 2006 film “Venus,” O’Toole surpassed Welshman Richard Burton and assumed the dubious distinction of being the most nominated actor never to win a competitive Oscar. When it was first announced that O’Toole would receive an Honorary Oscar in 2002, O’Toole astonished the Academy by turning it down, announcing in a letter to the organization that he was “still in the game and might win the lovely bugger outright, would the Academy please defer the honour until I am 80.’”
But he did indeed show up at the ceremony the following year, accepting the award from Meryl Streep. “Always a bridemaid never a bride,” he said with typical theatrical flair to an adoring crowd, “my very own Oscar now to be with me till death do us part.”
He racked up eight Oscar-nominated performances — including the beloved schoolmaster in “Goodbye Mr. Chips” (1969); two portrayals of King Henry II (“Becket,” 1964, “Lion in Winter,” 1968); an insane aristocrat who thinks he’s Jesus Christ in “The Ruling Class” (1972); the larger-than-life film director in “The Stunt Man” (1980); and the swashbuckling actor in “My Favorite Year” — but his “Lawrence” always loomed largest.
Very tall, improbably slender, ostentatiously opulent
Sky’s the limit: New towers for the rich soar in New York
The very tall, very skinny residential buildings popping up in Manhattan are being built for the world’s richest people
NEW YORK — Here’s how a 1932 guide to Manhattan describes the view of Central Park from the 43-story Essex House: “an unbroken vista — unequaled anywhere in the city. … Few apartment buildings in the world are more ideally located.”
Today, here’s how visitors typically describe the park view from One57, an apartment building a block south of the Essex House and more than twice its height: “Wow!”
The same can be said of the building itself. One57 exemplifies a new type of skyscraper — very tall, improbably slender, ostentatiously opulent — that is reshaping a famous skyline composed mostly of bulky office buildings.
One such apartment tower under construction, 432 Park Avenue, will have a top floor higher than the Empire State Building’s observation deck. Another will have a top floor higher than any in One World Trade Center, which is officially (by virtue of its spire) the nation’s tallest building.
The 432 Park penthouse has sold for $95 million; two duplex apartments at One57, now nearing completion, also are under contract, each for more than $90 million. Even a studio apartment on a lower floor at 432 Park (designed for staff — a maid or butler) costs $1.59 million.
Buffalo Wings
PICTURE OF THE DAY
A large adult buffalo attacks a young lion to protect a young buffalo in Kruger National Park, South Africa. PHOTOGRAPH BY Great Stock / Barcroft Media
It’s All Just A Bunch Of Bullshit
Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram
A ten-dimensional theory of gravity makes the same predictions as standard quantum physics in fewer dimensions.
by Ron Cowen
At a black hole, Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity apparently clashes with quantum physics, but that conflict could be solved if the Universe were a holographic projection. ARTIST’S IMPRESSION BY MARKUS GANN/ SHUTTERSTOCK
A team of physicists has provided some of the clearest evidence yet that our Universe could be just one big projection.
In 1997, theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena proposed1 that an audacious model of the Universe in which gravity arises from infinitesimally thin, vibrating strings could be reinterpreted in terms of well-established physics. The mathematically intricate world of strings, which exist in nine dimensions of space plus one of time, would be merely a hologram: the real action would play out in a simpler, flatter cosmos where there is no gravity.
Maldacena’s idea thrilled physicists because it offered a way to put the popular but still unproven theory of strings on solid footing — and because it solved apparent inconsistencies between quantum physics and Einstein’s theory of gravity. It provided physicists with a mathematical Rosetta stone, a ‘duality’, that allowed them to translate back and forth between the two languages, and solve problems in one model that seemed intractable in the other and vice versa. But although the validity of Maldacena’s ideas has pretty much been taken for granted ever since, a rigorous proof has been elusive.
In two papers posted on the arXiv repository, Yoshifumi Hyakutake of Ibaraki University in Japan and his colleagues now provide, if not an actual proof, at least compelling evidence that Maldacena’s conjecture is true.
Paper Airplane Guy
Win A Stool Made Of Fungus
 |
 |
| Win a stool made of fungus
This is certain to be the most-talked about item of furniture you ever own. New Scientist is offering one lucky reader the chance to win a beautiful stool made by artist Philip Ross from the reishi mushroom. Visit the competition page here, where you can find all the info about this unique prize, including how it was made, along with details on how to enter. But don’t delay as the competition closes this week on Thursday 12th December. Subscribe to New Scientist now as a treat for yourself or a gift for someone else – get our best deal here. Good luck! The New Scientist team |
“I don’t know any man who wants to just snuggle.”
Business selling snuggles raises suspicion in Madison, Wis.
By Todd Richmond
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin’s ultra-liberal capital city is a place where just about anything goes, from street parties to naked bike rides. But city officials say a business is pushing even Madison’s boundaries by offering, of all things, hugs.
For $60, customers at the Snuggle House can spend an hour hugging, cuddling and spooning with professional snugglers.
Snugglers contend that touching helps relieve stress. But Madison officials suspect that the business is a front for prostitution and, if it’s not, fear that snuggling could lead to sexual assault. Not buying the message that the business is all warm and fuzzy, police have talked openly about conducting a sting operation, and city lawyers are drafting a new ordinance to regulate snuggling.
“There’s no way that [sexual assault] will not happen,” Assistant City Attorney Jennifer Zilavy said. “No offense to men, but I don’t know any man who wants to just snuggle.”
Revolution Solo
FIVE FUTURISTIC CONTROLLERS RECONNECTING MUSICIANS WITH MACHINES
THE HUMAN TOUCH: FIVE FUTURISTIC CONTROLLERS RECONNECTING MUSICIANS WITH MACHINES
WORDS BY Laurent Fintoni
Our recent live music roundtable underlined the importance of ‘humanity’ in electronic music performances.
Despite appearances, it’s not quite ‘rise of the machines’ out there just yet. While plenty of people are content with live shows that are by-and-large pre-programmed and leave little room for error, thus being more akin to live dubbing or DJ sets than live music per se, our conversation with Scanner, debruit, Comfort Fit and Archie Pelago underlined the importance of human error and control in modern music performance. And what better way to bring this to audiences – both sonically and visually – than with new types of controllers and instruments?
There are plenty of controllers out there that allow musicians to control laptops and hardware in the studio and on stage, though some of the most interesting progress with regards to their evolution is coming from the fringes. A perfect example of this is the monome, a custom-built controller that has grown over the past decade to encompass a worldwide community of users and creators, with perhaps its most famous live exponent being Daedelus, who uses it for his own live shows.
Zeppelin’s deep wisdom and profound poetry… cleverly illustrated with children’s primer/classic rock art mash-ups
Everything I Need to Know I learned From Led Zeppelin
Moobs
Does smoking pot cause man boobs?
Editor’s note: Dr. Anthony Youn is a plastic surgeon in metro Detroit. He is the author of “In Stitches,” a humorous memoir about growing up Asian-American and becoming a doctor.
(CNN) — A young man in his 20s — let’s call him George — sits across from me in the exam room.
“Dr. Youn,” he says, “I have man boobs.”
I notice a not-so-unfamiliar smell wafting from his body. It’s the same odor that floated my way during a rock concert I recently attended.
“How long have you had a problem with this, George?”
“Hard to say. But it seems to have gotten worse over the past year or so.”
“George, the first thing you need to do is stop smoking pot. Marijuana could be causing your man boobs.”
She’s Alive
Bob Dylan détestable
Bob Dylan charged in France over Rolling Stone interview
Paris (AFP) – Bob Dylan has been charged with incitement to hatred in France after he was quoted comparing Croats with Nazis in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, a judicial source said Monday.
The world-famous American singer was questioned and charged last month while on a visit to Paris during which he gave several concerts and was awarded the Legion d’Honneur, one of France’s top honours, the source said.
The charge against him centres on a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone magazine during which he compared the relationship between Croats and Serbs to that of the Nazis and the Jews.
“This country is just too fucked up about colour…. People at each other’s throats just because they are of a different colour,” Dylan told Rolling Stone, discussing race relations in the United States.
“Blacks know that some whites didn’t want to give up slavery — that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can’t pretend they don’t know that.
“If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood.”
The charge came after the Council of Croats in France (CRICCF) filed a complaint about the comments.
First Killing By Cops Ever In Iceland
Rare Iceland armed police operation leaves man dead
The incident took place in the east of Reykjavik
Icelandic police have shot dead a man who was firing a shotgun in his apartment in the early hours of Monday.
It is the first time someone has been killed in an armed police operation in Iceland, officials say.
Tear gas canisters were fired through the windows in an attempt to subdue the 59-year-old, who lived in the east of the capital, Reykjavik.
When this failed he was shot after firing at police entering the building. Between 15 and 20 officers took part.
Back-up was provided by special forces.
The tear gas was used when the man, who has not been named, failed to respond to police attempts to contact him and continued shooting.
When they entered the apartment, two members of the special forces were injured by shotgun fire – one in the face, the other in the hand.
André Schiffrin Gone
André Schiffrin, Publishing Force and a Founder of New Press, Is Dead at 78
André Schiffrin, a publishing force for 50 years, whose passion for editorial independence produced shelves of serious books, a titanic collision with a conglomerate that forced him out to stem losses, and a late-in-life comeback as a nonprofit publisher, died in Paris on Sunday. He was 78.
The son of a distinguished Paris publisher who fled Nazi-occupied France during World War II, Mr. Schiffrin grew up in a socialist New York literary world and became one of America’s most influential men of letters. As editor in chief and managing director of Pantheon Books, a Random House imprint where making money was never the main point, he published novels and books of cultural, social and political significance by an international array of mostly highbrow, left-leaning authors.
Taking risks, running losses, resisting financial pressures and compromises, Mr. Schiffrin championed the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Günter Grass, Studs Terkel, Michel Foucault, Simone de Beauvoir, Noam Chomsky, Julio Cortázar, Marguerite Duras, Roy Medvedev, Gunnar Myrdal, George Kennan, Anita Brookner, R. D. Laing and many others.
But in 1990, after 28 years at Pantheon, Mr. Schiffrin was fired by Alberto Vitale, the chief executive of Random House, in a dispute over chronic losses and Mr. Schiffrin’s refusal to accept cutbacks and other changes. His departure made headlines, prompted resignations by colleagues, led to a protest march joined by world-renowned authors, and reverberated across the publishing industry in articles and debates.
Many in publishing spoke against the dismissal, calling it an assault on American culture by Random House’s billionaire owner, S. I. Newhouse Jr., who was accused of blocking a channel for contrary voices in favor of lucrative self-help books and ghostwritten memoirs for the sake of the bottom line. Mr. Schiffrin was conspicuously silent, his severance package barring him for a time from discussing the issue publicly.
Xmas-Time Is Here Again
Cloud-filled Canyon
Grand Canyon filled with fog, spectacular photos
By Erin Jordan
A ‘Temperature Inversion’ was responsible for this awesome sight.
Cold air was locked up in the Grand Canyon with warm air sitting above it.
The warm air acts like a lid, locking the cold air in the canyon and preventing movement and mixing between the two air masses.
The chilly air in the canyon cooled to the dew point and clouds formed, filling the canyon with fog.
Virtual Insanity
Landmark Johnie’s
Johnie’s coffee shop designated L.A. landmark
By Catherine Saillant and David Zahniser
(Cheryl A. Guerrero, Los Angeles Times / October 1, 2013)
The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to make a closed coffee shop used in the movie “The Big Lebowski” a historic-cultural landmark.
Councilman Paul Koretz said Johnie’s at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue is one of the most notable examples of work by the firm Armet & Davis, the architectural firm that designed Norms, Pann’s and other diners across Southern California.
Koretz, who represents the area, said he hopes the property’s owners can be talked into reopening the building as a coffee shop. The structure, built in 1956, is on a corner where Metro is planning a subway stop.
Preservationists describe Johnie’s as one of the best remaining examples of Googie architecture, a style popularized in Southern California coffee shops and diners from the 1940s through the early 1960s. Googie structures were designed to draw motorists and feature upswept roofs, geometric shapes and the use of steel, glass and neon.
Beastie Girls
Toy Company Pulls Beastie Boys Song From Viral Video
By DAVE ITZKOFF
A San Francisco-area toy company offered an olive branch to the Beastie Boys on Wednesday, saying that it had no intentions of fighting the rap group over a popular online video that used a parody of the band’s song “Girls.” The company has removed the parody song from the video.
“We don’t want to fight with you,” the toy company, GoldieBlox, said in an open letter to the Beastie Boys. “We love you and we are actually huge fans.”
GoldieBlox, which makes toys and games designed to encourage young women’s interests in engineering, had gained widespread attention for the video, set to an alternate version of “Girls,” in which girls sang about all the feats of science they can accomplish. (In the original song, the Beastie Boys rapped about women’s prowess “to do the dishes” and “to clean up my room.”)
Last week, GoldieBlox filed a lawsuit against the Beastie Boys, asserting what it said was its right to use its version of “Girls” in the video and saying that it had been created “to comment on the Beastie Boys song” and was “recognized by the press and the public as a parody and criticism of the original song.”
Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond, the surviving members of the Beastie Boys, responded to the suit in an open letter on Monday. “As creative as it is,” they said of the video, “make no mistake, your video is an advertisement that is designed to sell a product, and long ago, we made a conscious decision not to permit our music and/or name to be used in product ads.”
“When we tried to simply ask how and why our song ‘Girls’ had been used in your ad without our permission,” the letter continued, “YOU sued US.”
Brian Gone
‘Family Guy’ shocker: Major character killed off
(CNN) — It’s a shame what “Family Guy” has done to its dog.
On Sunday’s episode of the animated Fox series, the Griffin family pooch, Brian, was killed. (Seriously.)
The intelligent and verbose pet was headed into the street to play with his ace companion, mischievous baby Stewie, when he was struck by an oncoming car. His injuries were so severe, he ended up having to say farewell to the family he’s bonded with since 1999.
MOST WANTED – Richard Phillips and James Frey
PHILLIPS, Richard and James Frey (text).
Most Wanted.
London: White Cube, (2011). First Editions. Quartos. Set of 10 books; each features the same internal content, but was issued with different images on the front and rear boards. Published in conjunction with the exhibition Richard Phillips: Most Wanted, White Cube Hoxton Square, London, January 28 – March 5, 2011. Includes reproductions of Phillips’ Most Wanted series, a collection of pastels and paintings of ten young celebrities, alongside paparazzi photographs of the same figures: Chace Crawford, Kristen Stewart, Zac Efron, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Momsen, Dakota Fanning, Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift, and Robert Pattinson. With a text, titled Unwanted, by James Frey. Uniformly fine to near fine in illustrated boards. No jackets, as issued.
Item #17471
See all items in Art
See all items by text, Richard PHILLIPS, James Frey
Price: $1,000.00
INQUIRE
Eli Manning’s Special Balls
Eli Manning’s Footballs Are Months in Making
By BILL PENNINGTON
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — When Eli Manning drops back to throw his first pass Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys, the football in his hands will be as familiar as an old friend.
That is because the ball has been scoured, scrubbed, soaked and seasoned, a breaking-in process that takes months and ensures that every ball used by the Giants in a game will meet Manning’s exact preferences. The leather will have been softened, the grip enhanced and the overall feel painstakingly assessed.
There are no new balls thrown around in a N.F.L. game. A new ball, despised for its sheen and waxy gloss, is as popular as a late hit.
For every N.F.L. game, each team has 12 to 20 balls that it has meticulously groomed and prepared according to the needs of its starting quarterback. The balls, brushed and primed using various obvious and semisecret techniques, bear the team logo and are switched out from sideline to sideline depending on which team is on offense.
That means that from series to series, the ball in play can feel wholly different, but each team’s quarterback always has a ball prepped by his equipment staff the way he likes it.
Nothing is left to chance. The Giants, for example, have a special set of a dozen pregame practice balls so Manning can warm up with footballs that will feel exactly the same as the game balls, which are inspected and approved by the game officials before play starts.
In all, there are always about 36 specially marked Eli Manning balls sequestered and protected in four large ball bags. If a coach looking for a ball at practice should unwittingly approach one of the bags, the team’s equipment director, Joe Skiba, will pounce: “Get away, those are Eli’s game balls.”
Skiba added: “No one is allowed to touch those balls. They’re precious jewels. Too much work has gone into them.”
Techno Drummie
Warhol’s Missing Farrah
The case of Farrah Fawcett’s Warhol portrait: Call Charlie’s Angels
BY MARIA RECIO
WASHINGTON — Farrah Fawcett, iconic beauty. Ryan O’Neal, leading man. Andy Warhol, enfant terrible.
What could be missing from this 1970s soap opera?
It turns out that a very valuable Warhol painting of Fawcett allegedly is missing – and very much at the center of a tabloid-frenzied drama involving all three, even though Fawcett and Warhol are deceased.
Who owns the 1980 portrait of Fawcett by Warhol, done in his signature silk-screen pop art style, showing her with bright green eyes, eye makeup and red, red lips? O’Neal, her partner for many years, has it and says it’s his, but no less than the University of Texas Board of Regents is suing him, saying it’s missing from her bequest to her alma mater.
The drama will play out in Los Angeles Superior Court starting Wednesday, in a two-week trial with an all-star cast, including O’Neal; his son with Fawcett, Redmond O’Neal; celebrity Alana Stewart; and Fawcett’s fellow “Charlie’s Angel” Jaclyn Smith on the witness list.
To ramp up the voltage, O’Neal has a celebrity attorney, Martin Singer, described by The New York Times as “guard dog to the stars.”
Fawcett died of cancer in 2009 at age 62. She left all her artworks in her living trust to the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied before going to Hollywood in 1968 to become a model and actress.
But unbeknown to the university, a painting was missing. To the school’s surprise, it discovered there was not one Warhol painting of Fawcett, but two – the artist had painted nearly identical portraits at the same time – and they’d been in her Los Angeles home. The tipster was Fawcett’s secret Texas boyfriend. Only one of the “twin” portraits made it to Austin with her extensive art collection, where it’s on display at the university’s Blanton Museum of Art.
Birth Of A Dolphin
WES LANG (and James Frey)
Wes Lang Hardcover
by James Frey (Author) , Wes Lang (Artist)
Top-grossing Artists In China
Highest grossing artists at auction in China
ROOTS Redux
History Channel plans to remake historically problematic ‘Roots’
Levar Burton starred in “Roots” in 1977.
In the wake of successful slavery-themed movies like “12 Years a Slave,” “The Butler” and “Lincoln,” the History Channel just announced plans to remake “Roots,” the landmark 1977 mini-series that drew record ratings. How will they handle the hoax problem?
“Roots” was based on the late Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning runaway best-seller, which was billed as a factual account (albeit with some fictional embellishments) of his family’s history from Africa through slavery in the South to present times. All this was said to be based on generations of oral history corroborated by painstakingly researched outside documents.
But as I wrote in these pages back in 2002 (when ABC, which aired the original series, declined to broadcast a 25th anniversary tribute), historians and genealogists now widely agree that “Roots” has been discredited as a historical hoax.
More than a decade later, most people remain totally unaware of the troubling issues behind “Roots”….
The Inner Bach
Bach Unwigged: The Man Behind The Music
by TOM HUIZENGA
courtesy of William H. Scheide, Princeton, N.J.
Johann Sebastian Bach has been a central figure in the life of British conductor John Eliot Gardiner since he was a youngster. On his way to bed, he couldn’t help glancing up at the famous 18th-century portrait of Bach that hung in the first floor landing of the old mill house in Dorset, England where Gardiner was born. It was one of only two fully authenticated portraits of Bach by Elias Gottlob Haussmann, painted around 1750, and came to the Gardiner home in a knapsack, delivered on bicycle by a Silesian refugee who needed to keep it safe during World War II. Bach’s music also hung in the air of the Gardiner home. Each week the musically inclined family gathered for serious singalongs, which included Bach’s motets.
It’s a scene Gardiner sets at the beginning of his new book, BACH: Music in the Castle of Heaven, published today by Knopf. From his childhood interactions with Bach, Gardiner would grow up to become one of the composer’s greatest champions, creating his own orchestras (English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionaire et Romantique) and choir (Monteverdi Choir) to play the music in historically informed performances.
Gardiner’s obsession with Bach culminated in 2000, when he and his musical forces (and a team of recording engineers) embarked on a massive pilgrimage. Traveling around Europe and the U.S., they performed all of Bach’s sacred cantatas (about 200 of them) on their appropriate Sundays in different churches.
Gardiner’s new book was more than 12 years in the making, and one of its goals is to get to know Bach the man a little better, since scant information has been passed down about his personal life. Bach was filled with contradictions, Gardiner discovered. He had anger management issues, and yet he had the capacity for tenderness.
“He had normal flaws and failings, which make him very approachable,” Gardiner says. “But he had this unfathomably brilliant mind and a capacity to hear music and then to deliver music that is beyond the capacity of pretty well any musician before or since.”
Despite Bach’s contradictions, Gardiner says, in my conversation with him below, the composer would have been a great guy to hang out with.