Masa takayama biography of martin
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The Art of Biography
Cosmic Scholar:
The life and Times of
harry smith
The Art of Biography
Cosmic Scholar:
The life and Times of
harry smith
Winter 2023 Issue
Raymond Foye sits down with John Szwed to discuss his recent biography of the experimental polymath.
Raymond Foye sits down with John Szwed to discuss his recent biography of the experimental polymath.
Harry Smith in profile, April 22, 1986, New York. Photo: Allen Ginsberg, by permission of the Allen Ginsberg Trust
Raymond Foye is a contributing editor to the Brooklyn Rail. His most recent publication is Harry Smith: The Naropa Lectures 1989–1991 (2023). Photo: Amy Grantham
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John Szwed is the author and editor of many books, including biographies of Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Sun Ra, and Alan Lomax. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, and in 2005 was awarded a Grammy for Doctor Jazz, a book included with the album Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax.
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When Harry Smith died impoverished in Manhat
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Sensing an opportunity to make a bigger mark, Gagosian began carrying fine art, mostly prints and photographs. The actor Steve Martin told me, “When he had his poster shop in Westwood, I went in. I was a novice art collector and he was a novice art dealer.” Martin and other ung Hollywood types who were starting to collect would get drawn in by something in the window and find themselves in conversation with the eager, gregarious proprietor. Gagosian had no training in art history, but the business he’d stumbled into was one for which he was preternaturally suited. He had a keen sense of aesthetics and design, and what fellow-connoisseurs describe as a near-photographic visual memory. He also was a quick learner. “Next to his bed, he had these stacks of art books,” a woman he briefly dated around this time, Xiliary Twil, recalled. “He was really studying.” One day in the mid-seventies, Gagosian was paging through a magazine and came across a series of photographs he liked—moody bla
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In New York City, What’s the Difference Between a $240 Sushi Roll and a $6.95 Sushi Roll?
Columbus Circle sits at the southwest corner of Central Park in New York City. At its center, a statue of Christopher Columbus peers over a sea of people, as though looking for land, while yellow taxis whirl around him. The tallest structure around the circle is the Time Warner Center. It’s a modern glassy building with twin 80-story towers, housing the headquarters of the eponymous media conglomerate, a hotel, a jazz concert hall, and a luxury shopping mall. If you enter through the building’s giant glass facade, you’ll pass bygd a Hugo Boss, a Whole Foods, and a Williams Sonoma. Take a series of escalators up to the fourth floor, turn right and you’ll reach Masa — the most expensive restaurant in the United States.
Masa was founded by the sushi wizard Masayoshi Takayama. Born and raised in Japan, Takayama, 62, built a cult following in Beverly Hills during the 1980s and ’90s and was lured