David Gates

At first Nicholson Baker told his publisher he wouldn't do any interviews--he'd just let his new novel, "Checkpoint," speak for itself. But since this book is a 115-page dialogue between two characters about assassinating George W.

At first Nicholson Baker told his publisher he wouldn't do any interviews--he'd just let his new novel, "Checkpoint," speak for itself. But since this book is a 115-page dialogue between two characters about assassinating George W.

Jacquet, who died last week just days after playing his last gig, spent years living down 80 seconds of his life that took place when he was 19. That was how long it took to record his notorious, uproarious tenor-sax solo on Lionel Hampton's 1942 "Flying Home": a passionate exercise in musical demagoguery building up to a repeated screaming high note.

Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" isn't even out till late this week, and you probably already know what you think about it. Some of the advance reaction has been what you'd expect: Madonna recommending it to her audiences, a conservative group trying to pressure theaters not to show it.

You hardly need to play the recordings anymore to hear Ray Charles in your mind's ear. He was a musician of consummate taste--each funky little two-bar fill he played on piano or organ had a distinct shape--and played his voice like the precious, responsive instrument it was.

You'd expect Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to show up in the new DVD "NBA Dynasty Series: L.A. Lakers Complete History," but writing a history book? About World War II?

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David SedarisDavid Sedaris can really shtik it to you-with light but laugh-filled essays on his tortured youth and screwy siblings.

ELVIN JONES, 76 He played on with that demonic energy for another half century, but everyone remembers Elvin Jones for his five years with John Coltrane's once controversial, now classic quartet.

Faith And Fiction: Tim Lahaye And Jerry B. Jenkins Are An Unlikely Team With A Shared Evangelical Fervor--And America's Best-Selling Writers

When Alexander Hamilton was killed in that 1804 duel with Vice President Aaron Burr--which, along with his face on the 10-dollar bill, is what most people remember him for--his friend Gouverneur Morris had to deliver his eulogy. "The first point in his biography is that he was...

Fly or Die N.E.R.D. Apparently the Neptunes (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo) weren't satisfied producing hits for Justin, Britney and Beyonce, making their own hit album or winning producer-of-the-year Grammys.

The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud by Ben SherwoodWhen a novel begins with the words "I believe in miracles," it's usually a miracle if you can get to the end.

If you don't listen to the audience, you're dead," says Christopher Plummer. "They react, and you use that and go with it." If you think this is just actor-y talk, you should have been at last Wednesday's matinee of "King Lear" at New York's Lincoln Center.

Whatever you think about Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," it's clear that everything Hollywood insiders knew was wrong. After a massive opening on Ash Wednesday last week--the film took in more than $26 million that day--we're not hearing much from all those folks who said nobody would turn out to see an uncompromisingly gory Christian movie in Latin and Aramaic.

Mrs. Claus's CausePresident Bush wasn't the only one to spring a holiday surprise last week. The day before Thanksgiving, Harvey Fierstein, currently appearing as Edna Turnblad in Broadway's "Hairspray," wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times that noted he would be Mrs.

Joe McCarthy doesn't roar into sight until halfway through Ted Morgan's "Reds," his 685-page history of "McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America," and he drinks himself to death, at 48, with 100 pages to go.

Art Carney, who died last week at the age of 85, was a skillful and versatile actor who won an Academy Award for the 1974 "Harry and Tonto" and originated the role of Felix in the original Broadway production of "The Odd Couple." But he's revered for a single role: Ed Norton, the sewer worker in the vaudevillian proto-sitcom "The Honeymooners," a character who upstaged his creator forever.When you saw Carney as Norton, it was hard to believe you were watching an actor at work, exposed to the...

Primer on the Princely UproarMr. President: We hate to filter the news, but this mess in Buckingham Palace could use some filtering, and you need to be up to speed for your first state visit to Britain next week.It was stirred up a couple of weeks ago when Paul Burrell, Princess Diana's butler, published that tell-all book.

Among the many odd facts that longtime aficionados of Gabriel Garcia Marquez probably know about and the rest of us probably don't is that during his apprentice years he wrote a radio soap opera--which, luckily both for him and for world literature, turned out to be a flop.

Look at that face: Bob Dylan at about 20. Photographer-musician John Cohen took it in 1962, and he's just put out a book of these images (many never seen before) called "Young Bob" (powerHouse Books).

JOHNNY CASH, 71After a couple of pages of family history--the old Scottish name was Caesche--he began telling the story of his life with characteristic plainspokenness. "My name is John R.

Knowing Toni Morrison only from her magisterial public demeanor, and then entering this Pantheon-domed apartment palace in Manhattan, you expect Jeeves to open the door and administer some pre-intimidation before ushering you into the Nobel Prize-winning presence.

Jane's Addiction For a while, the Jane's Addiction story was just right: made two great CDs, invented Lollapalooza, imploded. All very punk rock. Now, after 13 years, the legendary L.A.

CELIA CRUZ, 78 She never went back to Cuba after Castro took power in 1959, but Celia Cruz kept the island and its music in her heart. With the 1950s Afro-Cuban ensemble La Sonora Matancera, she combined the image of Carmen Miranda with the musicianship of Ella Fitzgerald.

All 8.5 million copies of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" burst upon the world at midnight last Friday in a land-air assault: semis, forklifts, FedEx planes.

Gregory Peck: America's Quintessential Leading ManSooner or later in his long, illustrious career Gregory Peck had to play Abraham Lincoln. It was a role he seemed destined for, with his lanky, 6-foot-3 frame, his dark, formidable eyebrows, his aura of decency, judiciousness and flinty conviction.

In the long list of once splendid places that humans have rendered too dreary to contemplate, it's hard to top Mount Everest, no pun intended. When Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit, 50 years ago this week, London Times correspondent James Morris, who'd gone along to report, called it "the last innocent adventure." No Everest expedition has ever been truly innocent: that famous bit of film from 1953, in which the climbers return to camp, was stage-managed by the cameraman,...

What Eunice Waymon had wanted, when she was growing up poor and gifted in North Carolina, was to be a concert pianist. What she ended up with was the creation she called Nina Simone: a dark-voiced, almost scary singer, an eclectic jazz-based pianist, an impassioned songwriter, a civil-rights activist, a cult favorite, a troubled soul.

Papa and 'the Kraut'Nobody who's ever read Lillian Ross's classic New Yorker profile of Ernest Hemingway will forget the scene where Marlene Dietrich--whom he called "the Kraut"--shows up at his hotel.

Don't miss Norman Mailer's "Why Are We at War?"--a rush job combining interview snippets, a speech and added observations--even if you think you already know his whole trip.