He Prefers The Sound Of One Hand Clapping
Loose talk
Fitness guru Richard Simmons, on his childhood (in Redbook magazine): “I knew that I was so different from everybody at school … Dad said a spaceship had come down and left me on the step.”
When a writer went to interview Oscarwinning soundtrack composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (“The Last Emperor”) for Musician magazine, he noticed several pieces of paper taped above the desk in Sakamoto’s Manhattan apartment/studio.
On them were scribbled such inscrutable messages as:
“You cannot control my life”; “It is part of your life”; “Do you want perfect silence?”; “You live in a wrong place”; “You should be delighted.”
Zen koans? New Age affirmations?
Cue cards, actually.
Explained Sakamoto: “The guy downstairs. Just a tiny noise, like when I drop a pen on the floor, he calls me. Not late at night. At nine in the evening! I have to be prepared with what to say.”
He’ll still probably have a pretty quiet week
Garrison Keillor turns 53 today.
They weren’t going to make a big stink about it
Estee Lauder’s $18 million ad campaign starring Hugh Grant gal pal Elizabeth Hurley was introduced over the weekend. A spokesman denied that the perfume company asked Hurley to dump Grant following his arrest with a prostitute, insisting, “It never crossed our minds.”
People who assume too much, on the next Oprah
A spokesman for Don Johnson is denying tabloid reports that he struck up a romance with Oprah Winfrey on the French Riviera, saying the two “had a dance together and that was that.”
Actually, beards and drag don’t usually mix
“Wings” co-star Steven Weber, who kisses “Days of Our Lives” hearthrob Michael T. Weiss in the new film “Jeffrey,” says it was no big deal. “The only thing that was slightly odd that I wasn’t used to was getting beard coming back at me,” Weber tells TV’s “Extra” in an interview to be broadcast tonight. “That was a bit of a drag.”
It’s probably used in many of their debriefings
Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione has offered the Unabomber a monthly column in the men’s magazine to air his anti-technology views if he agrees to stop his violence, noting in a full-page New York Times ad that “for 25 years (Penthouse) was and continues to be the single, biggest-selling magazine in the Pentagon.”
He’ll soon be seeking intelligent life on Earth
Let’s leave the last word to astronomer Carl Sagan, recovering from a bone-marrow transplant, in a Seattle speech last week: “One trend that bothers me is the glorification of stupidity, that the media are reassuring people that it’s all right not to know anything. That to me is far more dangerous than a little pornography on the Internet.”
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino