Several Owl Chatter readers sent very nice notes about Susan. Thank you! Here’s a photo Liz shared with me.
Hi S. We’re holding on.
Recently, Rex commenter LMS was sort of lamenting not having become a suburban lady, lunching with the girls, etc. But she walked that back today. Here’s what she posted:
I guess I misrepresented myself yesterday. Just because I didn’t end up being a carefree Lady Who Lunches, that I ended up teaching at an alternative school, doesn’t mean I don’t like my job. I love my job – because of the students. They’re bright, courageous, honest (in a bass-ackwards way) kids who deserve to be “seen.” If the superintendent of Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools called and offered to double my salary to move to a “better” school to teach AP and Honors English, I’d be like Nope. No thanks.. (Those kinds of students are snarky, sneaky, entitled know-it-alls. I know this precisely because I was one, and I have occasionally taught such kids.) Yesterday morning I was poring over the questionnaires they had filled out (new semester, new kids) about themselves. I had added the question, How would your parents/guardians describe you? thinking this would let them share some good aspects of who they are. I was blindsided by some of the devastating responses – “I’m a bad kid, I’ll never amount to anything, I’m lazy. . .” One guy wrote that he was “dead to them.” I just sat there and cried.
You never know who will pop up in the grid on a Saturday. Hello ARI SHAPIRO! The clue at 15A was “First NPR reporter promoted to correspondent before age 30.” He was born in Fargo, ND — whodathunkit? The family moved to Oregon when he was eight. He graduated magna cum laude from Yale in 2000. In Feb. 2004 in SF, Shapiro married Michael Gottlieb, a lawyer who worked in the White House Counsel’s office from 2013 to 2015. (Relax — it was for Obama.) Shapiro and NPR’s Susan Stamberg are cousins.
In addition to his work as a journalist, for which he has won numerous prestigious awards, Ari has been a regular guest singer with the band Pink Martini. He appears on four of their albums, singing in several languages. He made his live debut with them at the Hollywood Bowl, and has performed with them frequently, including at Carnegie Hall, NY’s Beacon Theater, and the Kennedy Center in DC.
Owl Chatter caught him unawares, at the station.
And here he is gettin’ down with the band.
One of Owl Chatter’s favorite people in the world died in Brooklyn last Monday: Everett Quinton of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company. He was 71. He was also born in Brooklyn.
Quinton dropped out of high school but earned a GED. He was taking drama courses at Hunter College when he hooked up with Charles Ludlum, whom he met “cruising on Christopher Street,” and they produced and starred in many wonderful insane shows at their Ridiculous Theater in Sheridan Square in Lower Manhattan. Ludlum died in 1987, but Quinton carried on.
He was especially good (and hysterically funny) portraying women. Of his first on-stage role he said: “I was the ballerina who got kidnapped. I knew I’d found my niche.” Their biggest hit was The Mystery of Irma Vep, which they performed over 330 times: a parody of Victorian penny dreadfuls in which they played all the roles, male and female, switching deftly and rapidly. Quinton held down four roles — a maid, an aristocrat named Lord Edgar, a monster/vampire, and a woman hidden in the manor house. (“Irma Vep” is an anagram of vampire.)
Frank Rich, in his review in The Times said: “Each character is such a complete, precise comic creation that it often takes one’s breath away to watch the actors move from one role to the next (and back again) with nary a pause. Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Quinton have raised the Ridiculous to the sublime.”
In the NYT review of Drop Dead Perfect last performed in 2015, Anita Gates began with: “In a sweet 1950s peach crocheted dress and matching bolero, Everett Quinton has never looked lovelier.”
Oh, they are having a f**king blast up there in heaven.
The clue for POST MALONE at 13D was “His 2016 debut album unseated ‘Thriller’ for the most weeks spent in the top 10 on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop chart (77).” Pretty impressive. Of course, I hadn’t heard of him. What the hell kind of first name is Post? It turns out Post is actually his last name (Austin Richard Post), and he got Malone by plugging his birth name into a “rap name generator.” It worked; he’s very successful. The album in the clue is Stoney. He gained acclaim for blending hip hop, pop, R&B, and trap. I hadn’t heard of “trap” either (duh). It’s a subgenre of hip-hop, derived from an Atlanta slang word for a house that is used exclusively for drug sales. How it slipped by me is a mystery.
I suggested an alternate clue for POST MALONE on Rex’s blog: “Cheers, after Sam retires.”
He likes tattoos. Under his eyes it says “Always Tired.” Wait till you hit 70, Post.
Tyre Nichols, who died in Memphis at the hands of the Memphis Police on January 10 at age 29, worked for Fedex and was a photographer. Here’s one of his shots. He gave it a title: “That Playful Kind Of Love.”
Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 