filmmaker
PROFILE
Stephen Kessler
Guest
FROM Stephen Kessler
The Business
Paul Williams and Stephen Kessler Paul Williams was perhaps the foremost songwriter of the 70's and 80's. He wrote or co-wrote hits like "The Rainbow Connection" and the Oscar-winning song "Evergreen," which was the theme to the Barbra Streisand film A Star is Born. He was also a fixture on The Tonight Show and The Merv Griffin Show and made guest appearances in prime time and on game shows. But in recent years Williams has been largely absent from Hollywood. Stephen Kessler sought out his childhood hero expecting to find someone worse off than when he was at his peak. Instead he found a grateful man with nearly two decades of sobriety who looked back on his life in the limelight with a mixture of shame and good humor. He documents it all in Paul Williams: Still Alive .
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Design and Architecture
Securing Public Spaces, Super Wealthy Asians Vehicles are increasingly being used as weapons, as seen in the London Bridge attack over the weekend and in New York’s Times Square last month. The Compton-based company Calpipe is designing security bollards to help make public spaces safer. And novelist Kevin Kwan satirizes the “crazy rich” Asian jet set and their luxurious tastes in his latest book, “Rich People Problems.”
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Why is Trump so behind on filling staff jobs, establishing concrete policies? Yesterday Donald Trump signed a “decision memo” to revamp the air traffic control system. But there was little legislative detail in the plan. There’s not much to other splashy announcements from the White House, including tax cuts and the arms deal with Saudi Arabia. And hundreds of positions are unfilled in federal agencies.
Bookworm
George Saunders: Lincoln in the Bardo (Part I) Lincoln in the Bardo dramatizes a grieving President Lincoln as he visits the grave of his beloved son Willie, who died at age eleven. In the novel, the buried dead believe they're not dead -- "they're sick and refer to their coffins as "sick boxes."
Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Accusations of lying fly between James Comey and White House During his testimony Thursday, former FBI Director James Comey accused President Trump and other White House officials of lying when they said the FBI was in disarray and its staff had lost confidence in him. President Trump’s lawyer said Comey was wrong -- that the president never asked for his loyalty, and never asked him to back off the investigation into former NSA director Michael Flynn.