Globe Notes
Well, somebody at The Boston Globe likes Bill Koch's exhbit at the Museum of Fine Arts and it turns out to be the paper's versatile critic
Ed Siegel.
As you may know, Koch, the multi-millionaire (or billionaire) businessman, America's Cup winner and art collector, is demanding an apology and retraction for an Aug. 9 Alex Beam column in the Globe and making noise like he's going to sue if he doesn't get satisfaction. Although the Beam column is the focus of his ire, he clearly wasn't happy with two pieces on the exhibit written by Geoff Edgers and a review by Cate McQuaid.
Asked about yesterday's Siegel column, Koch spokesman Brad Goldstein said "I think Bill liked it." Asked if it might impact Koch's legal/negotiating posture toward the Globe, Goldstein replied: "Not one bit."
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First, the good news about yesterday's
James Spader profile in the Globe's Sunday magazine. Given that Spader won an Emmy last night for his work in "Boston Legal" it was really well timed.
Now, the bad news. It's true that every profile of a famous figure has that paragraph or two in which the writer desperately tries to convey the "essence" of that celebrity to the public and create a sense of intimiacy. But these two graphs by Nelson Handel just try way too hard to push that "eureka" moment way too far. I don't think Spader's shrink (if he has one) would talk this way about him after 10 years of therapy. Take a gander:
"As we sit there, the comparison resonates. His hands flourish in a surprisingly effeminate way. His words spin out like colored scarves, beautiful to look at, but you sense something that isn't being said. He steers your attention to what he wants you to see - the philosophical and abstract - and away from what he does not, namely his private life and his acting process. It's been a long and winding road for this Boston native to the stardom that many will argue he has always deserved. It required something more like serendipity - an offer out of nowhere, arriving at a particularly vulnerable personal moment, the end of a long marriage that produced two beautiful boys.
As I sit across from him in the nondescript greenroom of the studio outside Los Angeles where Boston Legal is filmed, fixed in his slightly cockeyed gaze, and try to imagine what's going on inside that head of his, what becomes perfectly clear is that James Todd Spader is not an actor lost in just any moment. This moment belongs to him."