“As a kid, he was once caught having a crafty tab in the woods and frogmarched home by a family friend. His mother was furious with him. ‘And how working-class is this?’ he laughs, as he spins the Loachian tale. ‘When the woman had gone, my mother said to me, “If you’re going to smoke, you smoke in our house, not outside.”‘”-From a Sunday Times (UK) interview with actor Clive Owen
Editor Paul Hehn, manning the Fairy Tales and Air Power desk, has just profiled Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of The Little Prince.He passes along this odd little report from The Mail (UK) about a WWII Luftwaffe ace who loved Saint-Exupéry’s books — and just found out that he himself shot down the author in 1944.
David Paterson was sworn in as governor of New York today.Newsday has the story and the photos.
Sci-fi author William Gibson turns 60 today.He was 34 when he coined the term cyberspace and 36 when his groundbreaking novel Neuromancer was published in (ahem) 1984.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day.Nothing about Patrick’s life is particularly clear, but he seems to have been born a mere 1623 years ago, in 385. (Not on March 17th, though, as far as we know.) That would have made Patrick a contemporary of St. Augustine of Hippo and of Theodosius the Great, the last emperor of the unified Roman Empire.
Ever want to hear Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” played on the Theremin? Here’s your chance.(Tip from Mike Duffy in the Who2 boiler room.)
Enchanted was the movie on Delta’s SFO-CVG flight today. Amy Adams is just terrific. I couldn’t stop smiling.And I was watching it without sound.
Fitness guru Jack LaLanne, still doing push-ups at age 93.(Side note: LaLanne was born the same year as the guru of anti-fitness, William S. Burroughs.)
The Washington Post remembers its coverage of the final days of poet Walt Whitman in 1891 (and 1892).Biography fans should visit the Post’s wonderful blog Post Mortem, source of the Whitman piece. Obituary writers Patricia Sullivan, Adam Bernstein and Matt Schudel use the blog to reflect on their craft and on the people they cover.
“The notion that it is of great advantage to me to be an African American named Barack Obama and pursue the presidency, I think, is not a view that has been commonly shared by the general public.”