Timur PANKOV
ALMATY, April 8
(THE GLOBE)
I don�t really feel desirable just because a camera told someone to desire me.
-Patricia Arquette
Patricia Arquette is not afraid to take chances. She has no formal schooling in the art of acting, but, between the ages of eighteen and nineteen, she decided to �give it a try.� (�I always wanted to do it, but figured I probably wouldn�t be any good. And if I was good, I figured I wouldn�t get any work anyway. It was such a gamble, really.�)
She made her movie debut in the little-seen Pretty Smart, then had a major role in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3. She had her first starring role in the futuristic neo-Nazi thriller Prayer of the Rollerboys. (�I had just had a baby and didn�t have any money. I�ll never apologize for or qualify that movie because it fed me.�) She has since moved on to bigger and better things, including leading roles in True Romance and Ed Wood.
Her work in Beyond Rangoon garnered mixed reviews, but it is the performance she is most proud of thus far in her career. (�The movie itself was such an intense experience. I really couldn�t have taken on any more.�) As for the critics, she never reads them. (�Nobody�s harsher on me than me.�)
She is married, famously, to actor Nicolas Cage, who has a four-year-old of his own. (�Everyone gets along. He courted me eight years ago. We went out for a little while and became friends. I had a child; then he had a child. We talked on the phone, ran into each other a few times. We were always very connected.�) She is aware of the difficulties of a two-celebrity marriage, but believes their union will last. (�Neither of us entered marriage thinking it wouldn�t be a strain. Life has strains in it, and he�s the person I want to strain with.�)
She was born in Chicago on April 8, 1968. (�My father watched through the hospital window. He made a pledge with God that if my mother and I were healthy, he would quit smoking. Eventually he did�ten years later.�)
She was raised on a commune in Virgina. Her childhood home was filled with reading material. (�Stacks of newspapers and leaflets, poems, and little drawings people had made. I still don�t really feel like I�m living somewhere, even when I�m in a hotel room, unless I have a pile of papers there�messages, notes I wrote to myself, or things sent to me, whatever. I don�t like anything to be too pristine. It bothers me.�)
She comes from a show business family. Her great-grandparents were vaudevillians; her grandfather Cliff was on Hollywood Squares; her father, Lewis, has appeared on Broadway; her older sister, Rosanna, is a famous actress; and her three brothers are all actors. Her mother is a poet who has taught mythology and is now a marriage and family counselor. She says her family was always supportive. (�They thought I could do anything.�)
She says that she does not look in a mirror much, and admits she is fearful of the camera. (�Actors sometimes say they can�t act when people are in their eye-line. I have a joke where I say, �There�s a big camera in my eyeline.� It�s like there�s a big mirror on you all the time. You don�t have to look at it, but you know the mirror�s looking at you.�)
She would like to move behind the camera some time soon. (�I want to know more about film. I�m very intrigued by it. But I would never act in anything I directed.�)
She says she is tough, and can throw a good punch. (�A stranger was grabbing my private parts, so I punched him. I have three brothers, so I learned to practice my punching.�) She had no problem filming the scene in True Romance in which her character was beaten to a pulp. (�It was fun. I know that sounds sick.�)
Patricia Arquette � actress, descendant from family of actors, married to actor Nicolas Cage.
Aigul MYRZATAI
ALMATY, April 4
(Specially for THE GLOBE)
On April 2 I attended a concert by Aiman Musohodzhaeva (violin) and Michail Kugel (alt) at the Dzhambul State Philharmonic society. Mr. Kugel is a graduate of the Leningrad conservatory. Today the musician is a soloist of the Israel Chamber orchestra and a professor at Gent conservatory (Belgium).
Strangely, the hall was not full, though it was a performance of the great artists (especially for a Kazakh audience). I was also struck by the absence of theatre booklets.
After an excessively long enumeration of all their victories and achievements, Aiman Musohodzhaeva and Michail Kugel finally came out on the scene.
Mr. Kugel�s performance was obviously good and professionally skillful (the musician was once a student in the class of the renowned professor Kramer), but not more. Mr. Kugel accompanied the violin well, managing to perform the sophisticated accompaniment - especially in the �Vienna festival.� On the other hand, Kugel could not support the musical dialogue as an interlocutor, and failed to become a worthy competitor or good companion. In spite of all his efforts, the musician could not persuade the violin to observe the conversational harmony and the symbol-intonation unity.
Having listened to the first part of their concert, I had to unfortunately conclude that A. Musohodzhaeva and M. Kugel had not formed an ensemble.
I much preferred the second part of the concert, in which the musicians performed V.A. Mozart�s Symphony-Concertanta. The only moment of the second half to taint my impression occurred after solo of the alt and the violin. Conductor Bahytzhan Musohodzhaeva, having paid all her attention to the soloists, did not give the sign for the French horns to start. As a result, the French horns did not sound in unison.
At last I would like to mention the tactless behavior of the TV journalists invited to the concert. To make a real picture of the audience�s emotional impression, they constantly turned the lighted camera to a listener, distracting him from perception. Such film-shooting techniques at the concerts have been forgotten both in the West and Russia long ago, but still exist in our country.
09/04/1945 - National Football League officials decreed that it was mandatory for football players to wear socks in all league games. Yeah, but were shoes optional?
09/04/1933 - Jean-Paul Belmondo was born (actor: Casino Royale, The Brain, Is Paris Burning, Swashbuckler, Le Magnifique, Love and the Frenchwoman)
10/04/1849 - Walter Hunt of New York City patented the safety pin on this day. Most of us still use the device which comes in a variety of sizes and is still quite handy to have around. Mr. Hunt, however, didn�t think so. He thought the safety pin to be a temporary convenience and sold the patent for a total of $400. Bet he could just �stick� himself for doing that.
10/04/1948 - General Dwight D. Eisenhower stood by an earlier newspaper report in which he said that a professional soldier should not seek high political office. It was only four years later that General Eisenhower would find himself in the highest political office in the land � that of President of the United States.
10/04/1847 - Joseph Pulitzer was born (publisher: namesake of the Pulitzer Prize which he founded in 1917)
10/04/1932 - Omar Sharif was born (Michael Shalhoub) (actor: Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, Funny Girl, Funny Lady, Peter the Great, Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna, Beyond Justice, Crime & Passion)
11/04/1876 - The stenotype was patented by John C. Zachos of New York City. And then, he invented the stenographer...
11/04/1961 - Soviet cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin became the first human in space and also the first human to orbit the earth in a spacecraft.
12/04/1833 - Charles Gaylor patented the fireproof safe in New York City. Today, these safes are widely used to protect everything from priceless art to sensitive computer software. Some of these safes can burn at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour and the contents will still be as cool as a cucumber. Other units can sustain heat up to 400-500 degrees for about the same time without damaging the valuable contents within.
April, 10
The Kazakh Concert Hall. The opera �Mahambet� by B. Dzhumaniazov. 6.00 p.m.
From 4 th of March
Gallery of Modern Art �Orkhon�. Bouquet of Flowers Exhibition.
From 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.
From 25st of March to 14 of April
The Kosteyev State National Museum. �Modern drawing of 80th�. Rhine artists.
The Kosteyev State National Museum. Exhibition of the works of S. Kalmykov, I. Itkind, V. Eifert, and Rudolf Nuriev�s painting.
From 10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. Closed on Monday.
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