November 20, 2013
Cus D’Amato (1908 – 1985) was an American boxing manager and trainer who handled the careers of three boxers who would go on to become members of the International Boxing Hall of Fame: Floyd Patterson, José Torres, and most notably, Mike Tyson.
He was a proponent of the ‘peek-a-boo’ style of boxing, in which the fighter holds his gloves close to his cheeks and pulls his arms tight against his torso. That style was criticized by some because it was believed that a legitimate attack could not be launched from it.
read more »
Posted in Games |
2 Comments »
November 10, 2013
Jiro [jee-roh] Ono is an 85-year-old sushi master and owner of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a 3 Michelin star sushi restaurant in Tokyo. He was the subject of a 2011 documentary, ‘Jiro Dreams of Sushi.’ The film also profiles Jiro’s two sons, both of whom are also sushi chefs.
The younger son, Takashi, left Sukiyabashi Jiro to open a mirror image of his father’s restaurant in Roppongi Hills. The 50-year-old elder son, Yoshikazu, obligated to succeed his father, still works for Jiro and is faced with the prospect of one day taking over the flagship restaurant.
read more »
Posted in Food, World |
Leave a Comment »
November 5, 2013
Bill de Blasio (b. 1961) is the current Public Advocate for the City of New York, a citywide elected position, which is first in line to succeed the Mayor. The office serves as a direct link between the electorate and city government, effectively acting as an ombudsman, or ‘watchdog,’ for New Yorkers. He formerly served as a New York City Council member representing the 39th District in Brooklyn.
De Blasio and his wife, activist and poet Chirlane McCray, met while both were working for the Dinkins administration. They live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with their two children, Dante and Chiara. Both children attended or still attend public schools.
read more »
Posted in Politics |
Leave a Comment »
October 29, 2013
Patrice Wilson is a Nigerian singer and songwriter who goes by the stage names Pato and Fat Usher. He got his start in music as a backup singer with Malian-Slovak pop star Ibrahim Maiga (and learned to speak fluent Slovak while touring Eastern Europe).
Wilson moved to the US in 2001, where he took his flavor of Nigerian music, along with eastern Europe pop, and combined it with hip-hop. In 2010 he co-founded ARK Music Factory in partnership with Clarence Jey, an Australian record producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist musician. Jey left the following year, with Wilson remaining the CEO of the company. He co-authored and co-produced alongside Jey the song ‘Friday’ sung by Rebecca Black.
read more »
Posted in Humor, Money |
Leave a Comment »
October 14, 2013
René Redzepi (b. 1977) is a Danish chef and co-owner of the two-Michelin star restaurant Noma in Copenhagen. Redzepi is noted for his work for the reinvention and refinement of a new Nordic cuisine and food that is characterized by inventiveness and clean flavors. He trained at Pierre André in Copenhagen, before visiting El Bulli in Spain as a guest in 1998 and subsequently working there during the following season.
Back in Copenhagen he started working at Kong Hans Kælder which had been one of the city’s leading gourmet restaurants since the mid-1970s. In 2001 he spent four months working at French Laundry in California but returned to Kong Hans Kælder. In 2002, Redzepi was contacted by Claus Meyer, who had been offered to operate a restaurant at the North Atlantic House, a former 18th century warehouse which was being turned into a cultural centre for the North Atlantic region. Noma was opened in 2004 with Redzepi as the head chef.
Posted in Food, World |
Leave a Comment »
October 9, 2013
Victor Papanek (1923 – 1998) was a designer and educator who became a strong advocate of the socially and ecologically responsible design of products, tools, and community infrastructures. He disapproved of manufactured products that were unsafe, showy, maladapted, or essentially useless. Papanek was a philosopher of design and as such he was an untiring, eloquent promoter of design aims and approaches that would be sensitive to social and ecological considerations.
He wrote that ‘design has become the most powerful tool with which man shapes his tools and environments (and, by extension, society and himself).’ With his interest in all aspects of design and how they affected people and the environment, Papanek felt that much of what was manufactured in the U.S. was inconvenient, often frivolous and even unsafe.
read more »
Posted in Money, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
October 7, 2013
Rick Roderick (1949–2002) was an American professor of philosophy, best known for his lectures for The Teaching Company. Roderick was born in Abilene, Texas, son of (by his own description a ‘con-man’ and a ‘beautician.’
He taught at several universities, where he was much revered by many students for a Socratic style combined with a brash and often humorous approach. His breakthrough into wider circles came with his engagement with The Teaching Company where he recorded several memorable lecture series. Rick Roderick died in 2002 from a congestive heart condition.
Posted in Education, Philosophy |
Leave a Comment »
October 4, 2013
George Grosz [grohs] (1893 – 1959) was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group during the Weimar Republic before he emigrated to the United States in 1933.
According to art critic Robert Hughes: ‘In Grosz’s Germany, everything and everybody is for sale. All human transactions, except for the class solidarity of the workers, are poisoned. The world is owned by four breeds of pig: the capitalist, the officer, the priest and the hooker, whose other form is the sociable wife. He was one of the hanging judges of art.’
read more »
Posted in Art, Politics |
2 Comments »
October 3, 2013
Adrian Schoolcraft (b. 1976) was a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer who secretly recorded police conversations from 2008 to 2009. He brought these tapes to NYPD investigators in October 2009 as evidence of corruption and wrongdoing within the department. He used the tapes as evidence that arrest quotas were leading to police abuses such as wrongful arrests, while the emphasis of fighting crime sometimes resulted in underreporting of crimes to keep the numbers down.
After voicing his concerns, Schoolcraft was reportedly harassed and reassigned to a desk job. After he left work early one day, a swat unit illegally entered his apartment, physically abducted him and forcibly admitted him to a psychiatric facility, where he was held against his will for six days. In 2010, he released the audio recordings to ‘The Village Voice,’ leading to the reporting of a multi-part series titled ‘The NYPD Tapes.’
read more »
Posted in Politics |
1 Comment »
September 26, 2013
Danny Tamberelli (b. 1982) is an American actor, comedian and musician. Tamberelli played Jackie Rodowsky on the television series ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ shortly before more notably playing Little Pete on the Nickelodeon television show ‘The Adventures of Pete & Pete’ and provided the voice for Arnold in ‘The Magic School Bus,’ as well as appearing in the films ‘Igby Goes Down’ and ‘The Mighty Ducks.’ Many may also know him for his work on Nickelodeon’s ‘All That,’ as well as ‘Figure It Out’ (and his famed ‘head flip,’ where he would flip his head back after getting slimed to cover the audience in slime).
Tamberelli was born in Wyckoff, New Jersey. He is a graduate of Hampshire College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Arts focusing on music performance and booking management. He is the bassist and vocalist for the rock band Jounce, formed in Northern New Jersey. They released an eponymous debut album in 2006, followed by their sophomore effort, ‘These Things’ in 2009. Tamberelli is also a member of the sketch comedy group ‘Man Boobs Comedy’ with co-creators Brendan O’Rourke and Jeremy Balon. Tamberelli appears in the 2013 video game ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ as Jimmy De Santa.
Posted in Humor |
Leave a Comment »
September 25, 2013
Ronald Dworkin (1931 – 2013) was an American philosopher and scholar of constitutional law. His theory of law as integrity, in which judges interpret the law in terms of consistent and communal moral principles, especially justice and fairness, is among the most influential contemporary theories about the nature of law.
Dworkin advocated a ‘moral reading’ of the United States Constitution, and an interpretivist approach to law and morality. He was a frequent commentator on contemporary political and legal issues, particularly those concerning the Supreme Court of the United States, often in the pages of ‘The New York Review of Books.’
read more »
Posted in Philosophy, Politics |
Leave a Comment »
September 22, 2013
Clive Thompson (b. 1968) is a Canadian freelance journalist, blogger and science and technology writer. Thompson graduated from the University of Toronto with majors in political science and English. He previously worked for ‘Canada’s Report on Business’ magazine and ‘Shift’ magazine, then became a freelance contributor for ‘The New York Times Magazine,’ ‘The Washington Post, and several other publications. He writes about digital technologies and their social and cultural impact
He started his science and technology blog, ‘Collision Detection,’ in 2002. Thompson lives in Brooklyn with his wife Emily Nussbaum who is the TV critic for ‘The New Yorker.’
Posted in Language, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
The Daily Omnivore 