A couple of years ago, Tyler Perry came out of nowhere–at least for white Americans–with the smashing success of his film “Diary of a Mad Black Woman.” A well-known playwright and actor among African Americans, Perry was suddenly one of the most in-demand filmmakers in Hollywood, and now every film he releases is big news.…

My female friends and I often muse that if we were given a personal chef, a personal trainer, and a personal hair and makeup person, we too could look as good as any starlet out there. Apparently, though, another type of personal assistant is needed to attain the immaculately kept mien of Madonna: A personal…

The passing of a great man’s widow is often taken as a second opportunity to mourn the man himself, but when Alice Coltrane, widow of the sax giant John Coltrane, died late last week, it was her accomplishments, and her spiritual path, that filled her obits. A jazz pianist and harpist–the latter putting her in…

All through the elephant-dung Virgin Mary dust-up and the “Piss Christ” controversy, one might have drawn the conclusion that Catholic League president Bill Donohue just didn’t get modern art. Who would want to tackle the task of explaining to Donohue how Western art at the turn of the 2000s had come to “appropriate” icons, materials,…

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