Hilo Heroes, June 21-27

By: HILOBROW

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, this week, to the following high-, low-, no-, and hilobrow heroes. Click here for more HiLo Hero birthdays. JUNE 21 Today, the name MARY McCARTHY (1912-89) first brings to mind the frank bed-hopping […]

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Brian Wilson

By: Franklin Bruno

Just as it isn’t Burt Bacharach’s fault that his name is now rock-critical shorthand for “This band knows someone with a flugelhorn,” BRIAN WILSON (born 1942) is not to be blamed that his is invoked […]

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Repo Man Generation

By: Joshua Glenn

In a recent HiLobrow.com post, I casually asserted that the so-called Baby Boomers [I call them the Blank Generation] were born from 1944-53. I’m aware, of course, that America’s postwar “baby boom” began in 1946 […]

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Shirley Muldowney

By: Mimi Lipson

In 1965, SHIRLEY MULDOWNEY (born 1940) beat down the doors of the National Hot Rod Association and became the first licensed female drag racer. And despite the signature pink cars monogrammed with her nickname, “Cha-Cha” […]

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Judging the judges

By: Joshua Glenn

Looking back on it all, from the vantage point of a couple months, it’s apparent that the Susan Boyle Phenomenon (SBP) had very little to do with poor Susan Boyle (SB) herself. Susan Boyle’s judges […]

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Jürgen Habermas

By: Tor Aarestad

Perhaps JÜRGEN HABERMAS (born 1929) is most dear to us for developing and elaborating over the course of decades an intricately woven Grand Theory founded in the notion that sincere, earnest public discussion is the […]

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Jello Biafra

By: Jason Grote

It’s never been easy to like Eric Reed Boucher, better known as JELLO BIAFRA (born 1958). In my New Jersey high school, the mainstream kids were offended the very idea of the Dead Kennedys, while […]

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Stan Laurel

By: Greg Rowland

While it’s conventional to call Oliver Hardy a “straight man,” it would be more accurate to think of the character created by British comic actor STAN LAUREL (1890- 1965) as the duo’s “curved man.” Though […]

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Hugo Pratt

By: Joe Alterio

The 1960s-80s comic series Corto Maltese, by Italian-born cartoonist HUGO PRATT (1927-95), was — on the surface — a 1930s-style pulp adventure that improved on Terry & The Pirates and the like through its attention […]

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The Trouble with Boomers

By: Joshua Glenn

The oldest Boomers turn 65 this year, and the youngest turn 56. By now, they’ve partially relinquished their collective death grip on the best jobs — though not the best lifestyles, which they’ll always enjoy. […]

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Margaret Bourke-White

By: Lynn Peril

The name MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE (1904-71) conjures up an image: a woman with a camera balanced atop one of the chromed, art-deco eagles that guard the upper reaches of New York’s Chrysler Building. Though she didn’t […]

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Hilo Heroes, June 14-20

By: HILOBROW

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, this week, to the following high-, low-, no-, and hilobrow heroes. Click here for more HiLo Hero birthdays. JUNE 14 The name MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE (1904-71) conjures up an image: a woman with a […]

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William Butler Yeats

By: Erik Davis

You can grok many modernists through the forms of tradition they undermine and idolize. While Irish lore loomed mighty for WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (1865-1939), the more scandalous tradition which beguiled the poet was the practical […]

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Egon Schiele

By: Peggy Nelson

EGON SCHIELE (1890-1918) was the best thing about the blizzard I spent in Vienna. I had gone to see the remnants of a nervous splendor, expecting well-behaved aesthetic souvenirs from a once-hypermodern past. But when […]

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Jacques-Yves Cousteau

By: Matthew Battles

In more than 120 television specials JACQUES-YVES COUSTEAU (1910–97) portrayed a floating utopia in which perfectly tanned, massively skilled argonauts roamed the seven seas in search of beauty and danger, supported by donations and calendar […]

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