Wait… Julie Stiles is only 27 today?That means she was just 21 when she played a CIA operative in The Bourne Identity in 2002?Surprising. Of course, only in Hollywood could crucial national security issues be put in the hands of a callow 21-year-old who… oh, wait.Stiles, as an aside, was born the same year the Beastie Boys were founded.
Lovely, warmhearted George Vecsey column today about Bob Sheppard, the Yankee Stadium announcer since 1951.Sheppard is cagey about his age, but Vecsey notes that he played football at St. John’s from 1928-32. (Wikipedia claims Sheppard was born in 1910.) Still, he just signed a two-year contract with the Yanks.
Russian space pioneer and superstud Yuri Gagarin died 40 years ago today.
“Choosing from the parachutes he had was like choosing whether to take a Cadillac or a Volkswagen to California… The one he didn’t use was padded and very good. The one he used would cut you in the crotch area when the parachute opened. It would have worked, but it wasn’t the best choice.”Skydiving instructor Earl Cossey, who packed the parachutes used by D.B.
A parachute that may have belonged to skyjacker D.B. Cooper has turned up in rural Washington state.The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that the parachute was uncovered in rural Clark County, where kids found the parachute while playing in a recently-plowed field.
“Since the publication of Repetition, I’ve gone to bookstores to sign books and there’s a crowd of only young people. No old people. Let’s put it this way: I was once fashionable. And when I was in fashion, nobody read my books.”-“Anti-novelist” Alain Robbe-Grillet in a juicy 2003 interview with Bookforum.
St. Catherine of Siena was born this day in 1347.She arrived about seven years after bawdy author Geoffrey Chaucer, who then outlived her by 20 years. Saint Catherine herself died at 33.There must be a saying to fit that juxtaposition.
Last month we noted the remarriage of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, four months after his divorce from Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz.
“Look: I believe in Him. It’s that simple and that complex. I believe in Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the God Man who came to earth, born as a tiny baby and then lived over thirty years in our midst. I believe in what we celebrate this week: the scandal of the cross and the miracle of the Resurrection.
Last week we mentioned Steve McQueen and his chase scene from Bullitt.