Who's Who

Volume 295 No. 1 / Jan.-Feb. 2005

Adams, John, sharp-tongued supporters of, 105

Aga Khan, as exchange student, 140

Alfred the Great, as usage authority, 208

Allawi, Ayad, illegitimacy of, 98

Allison, Graham, on airport-security absurdity, 82; price of nuclear safety as calculated by, 90

Anderson, Laurie, as harbinger of shame, 150-151

Armitage, Richard, burliness of, 80

Auden, W. H., as literary chieftain, 169; as Isherwood lover, 171; productivity of, 175; rectal fissure of, 175

Bachardy, Don, artist, as Isherwood lover, 171; as literal gay icon, 173

Ball, Lucille, as Cy Coleman muse, 210

Barthelme, Donald, as jazz critic, 195

Batman, as snowbird, 129

Baudelaire, Charles, as poster boy for creative derangement, 150

Baudouin, Belgian king, as quiz-show footnote, 51

Bergen, Candice, as final answer, 51

Berlin, Isaiah, as excellent judge of character, 175; as CIA shill, 176-177

Bin Laden, Osama, child-killing fatwa of, 88; high approval rating of, 85

Bloom, Harold, lame novel of, 177

Bochco, Steven, as barrel of laughs, 167

Bowles, Erskine, failed Senate candidate, Clintonian albatross of, 38

Bradley, Bill, as textbook Rhodes scholar, 152

Bush, George H.W., as TV critic, 166; as Simpsons antagonist, 166; overeager thyroid of, 42; intestinal diplomacy of, 42

Byron, Lord, as role model, 153, 175; scorn of, 174

Carson, Johnny, as late-night Cronkite, 166; bifurcated legacy of, 166

Cher, as TV producer, 19

Churchill, Winston, as Ann Landers correspondent, 135

Chuzzlewit, Martin, news diet of, 124

Clinton, Bill, as object of adoration, 37-38; toxic legacy of, 37-38; as campaign kryptonite, 38; allergies of, 42

Coleman, Cy, lyricist, as Broadway's "last good time," 210; on "Reader's Digest opera," 210; as Beethoven fan, 210; as teen nightclub act, 210

Coleman, Ornette, as Captain Beefheart of jazz, 197

Coltrane, John, heirlessness of, 195; Pentecostal influences of, 198

Cosby, Bill, unimpeachable virtue of, 166; as Goliath, 166; as Cornwallis, 166

Cronkite, Walter, ; as bonding agent, 123; as last of his kind, 166; papal infallibility of, 168

Curzon, Lord, matrimonial secrets of, 194

Darin, Bobby, as stylistic chameleon, 179-182; political aspirations of, 179; weak heart of, 179; as Oscar nominee, 179; as woodsman, 179; as protest singer, 180-181; darkly poignant ambition of, 181; as "fucking genius," 181

Davis, Miles, commercial compromises of, 197

Dickinson, Amy, advice columnist, as Benatar avatar, 132; field-hockey career of, 134; as lounge singer, 135; as soothing presence, 137-140; reader feedback and, 136-138; blind dates of, 135, 138; as comics-store cruiser, 137

Dion, Celine, as benchmark of Broadway decline, 210

Dobby, elf, possible demise of, 52

Drudge, Matt, as dependent maverick, 126

Dylan, Bob, as unnecessary ornament, 160; self-reinvention of, 181

Ehrenhalt, Alan, on self-selecting mediocrity in Washington, 105-108

Eisenhower, Dwight, troubled digestive system of, 42

Eliot, T. S., as literary critic, 176-177; as interpersonal critic, 174; semiotic instability of, 146

Faulkner, William, as travel agent, 194

Finn, Huckleberry, benevolent mischief and, 130; as therapist, 154

Foxworthy, Jeff, talismanic surname of, 168

Garfield, James, slow death of, 42

God, as Republican, 120

Hannity, Sean, patriotic smirk of, 163

Hefner, Hugh, grotto of, 211

Hitler, Adolf, as bank manager, 171

Hunter, James Davison, sociologist, as culture-war correspondent, 102-103, 120

Hussein, Saddam, fall of, 94; resurrection of, 95

Isherwood, Christopher, Greco-Roman foreplay of, 170; as Hallmark cad, 170; as chemical compound, 170; as third-person person, 169-170; as yogi, 171; swami of, 171; sexual conquests of, 169-171; as screenwriter, 171; as avuncular totem, 172

Ivan the Terrible, as Cossack patron, 203

Jenkins, Brian Michael, terrorism analyst, prescience of, 80; as al-Qaeda war gamer, 86; as Roy Scheider lookalike, 80

Jennings, Ken, Jeopardy champ, record winning streak of, 51

Kael, Pauline, as egg connoisseur, 177

Kennedy, John F., medicine cabinet of, 42; inspiring rhetoric of, 88; as tourist attraction, 193

Land, Richard, as Baptist, 117; triumphant ecumenicalism of, 117; the pope and, 117

Lederer, Eppie, Ann Landers, as Dear Abby twin, 132-134; as "America's Mom," 134; as anti-McCarthyite, 134; as night owl, 134

Lederer, Jules, as Mr. Ann Landers, 134; as hat salesman, 134; as car-rental pioneer, 134

Leno, Jay, as no Johnny Carson, 166

Lewis, Bernard, on Muslim-majority Europe, 58, 70

Lewis, Meriwether, as explorer of red America, 193

Lil' Kim, bling of, 47

Limbaugh, Rush, as fount of resentment, 126

Lincoln, Abraham, as credit snitch, 160

MacLammermoor, Spicy, fictional jazz great, 195

Malinauskas, Viliumas, tourism entrepreneur, Stalin World and, 193

Mather, Cotton, as public-health official, 123

McGraw, Dr. Phil, as dream fodder, 132

Moore, Michael, as Oscar hopeful, 19; hero's welcome received by, 110

Moore, Thurston, Sonic Youth front man, as jazz collector, 198

Murdoch, Rupert, Fox overlord, baffling creepiness of, 166; cultural contradictions of, 166; cultivated disreputability of, 167

Nelson, Willie, as engine of social change, 129

North, Oliver, as "banana Republican," 163

O'Reilly, Bill, as Al Bundy soulmate, 168; surliness of, 168; as showman, 168; "barroom contempt" harbored by, 168; obsequious iconoclasm of, 168

Orwell, George, as Pritchett pal, 157; on "nancy poets," 175; on inferiority of tourism to gunrunning, 194

Parker, Peter, Isherwood biographer, hidden superpowers of, 172

Peter the Great, as genocidaire, 203

Potter, Harry, possibly numbered days of, 52

Pritchett, V. S., Woolfian greatness of, 157; as Rushdie fan, 157; as disappointing husband, 158-159; as slogger, 158; hypergraphia of, 158

Reagan, Ronald, inspiring rhetoric of, 88; colon of, 42

Reich, Robert, on creative destruction, 116; held tongue of, 116

Reston, James, as ghostwriter, 124

Rowling, J. K., as executioner, 52

Sandage, Scott, as historian of failure, 124, 159-160; scholarly non-failure of, 160

Scalia, Antonin, as culture warrior, 102

Schumer, Charles, as mall guardian, 65

Shipp, Matthew, pianist, "X Jazz" and, 195-200; as Monk disciple, 196; as Sinatra interpreter, 196; as boxing enthusiast, 196; as Throbbing Gristle label-mate, 197

Simpson, Bart, as snappy comebacker, 166; as angel of cultural death, 168

Smith, Anna Nicole, Trumpian subtlety of, 166

Sontag, Susan, as determinedly mediocre novelist, 177

Spender, Stephen, as dirty-limerick subject, 174; vague preposterousness of, 174; as Lakers fan, 174; as fireman, 176; as cultural statesman, 176; principled core of, 175; as bloody fool, 177; as useful idiot, 177

Stewart, Jon, refined audience of, 56

Stewart, Martha, as jailhouse producer, 19; as future reality-TV star, 19

Strom, Robert, pint-size quizmaster, 51

Tappan, Lewis, as moral reformer, 160; as busybody, 160; as spy, 160

Tocqueville, Alexis de, as press critic, 123

Van Doren, Charles, as quiz-show disgrace, 51

Van Gogh, Theo, Dutch filmmaker, assassination of, 42, 59

Wayans, Keenen Ivory, comic innovations of, 163

Wharton, Edith, as Joe Millionaire fan, 168

Wilde, Oscar, on self-love, 172

Wilson, Edmund, as lackluster novelist, 177

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, as fashion accessory, 146

Wolfe, Alan, sociologist, as uniter, 103, 119

Yeltsin, Boris, as Cossack champion, 202

Young, Sean, actress, as signifier of terribleness, 211

Zapatero, José Luís Rodríguez, Spanish prime minister, as sports fan, 44