My introduction to bossa nova, like that of most Americans, came through “The Girl from Ipanema,” which I heard not only on the radio as a boy but from a guitarist who had staked out a place under the IBM pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Even at that young age I felt in the music something cool, smooth, smart, sophisticated – all the things I hoped one day to be. As an adult I learned more about it, and traveled to Brazil, where I heard about the genius of Gilberto, and of course listened to other composers and genres. But of all the music in the world, bossa nova is the one that still speaks to me the strongest.
The problem with championing the unsung is that it’s easy to get overlooked.
(With that thought I'm off for a bit; back here on July 8.)
My brothers and I don’t exchange birthday presents, but slipped inside the card from my brother Bill this year was a wonderful gift: an official map, which he’d found while clearing out our mother’s apartment, of the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.
We must attempt, with these relics of the slow reconquest of history, to perpetuate the memory of that which no one has the right to forget. - Benoît, 15
(Comment in the visitors' book at the Airborne Museum in Sainte-Mère-Église, Normandy, a few weeks before the 50th anniversary of D-Day.)
I have never liked the term ‘class act,’ a cliché that doubles as an oxymoron. For people who truly possess class, it is not an ‘act.’
"Influencer" is simply a fancy word for "flack."