Wiesner takes the three porkers from the familiar folk tale and puts them in the scenes of other nursery rhymes and fairy tales. This is his second Caldecott Medal. He won his first in 1992 for Tuesday. "So many incredible books come out every year," he said over the phone, "you can only hope you're one of the lucky ones."
Mark Moscowitz, 47, struck gold in a silver mine. The Chester Springs-based director of political campaign ads won the Special Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for his documentary Stone Reader at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Saturday. The filmmaker-programmed alternative to the more mainstream Sundance Film Festival, Slamdance holds screenings in a converted silver mine. Moscowitz's film, an exploration into Dow Mossman's 1972 novel The Stones of Summer, was hailed as "an epic non-fiction inquiry into fiction itself."
Giuliani doings
Rudolph Giuliani isn't sure he likes all the Rudy worship. Because of his leadership as New York's mayor after the Sept. 11 attacks, he found himself idolized and named Time magazine's Person of the Year.
At a Mets game after the attacks, Giuliani got a standing ovation from the Shea Stadium crowd even though he roots for the rival Yankees. "I was expecting, 'Get outta da stadium, ya bum! Go back to da Bronx,' but they were cheering me - and I realized I enjoyed it more the other way," he said in an address to the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles.
Giuliani spent two days in California, appearing on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, hosting a fund-raiser for the Twin Towers Fund, filming an HBO documentary about the attacks, and stumping for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon.
Giuliani's first book, Leadership, is expected out this summer, and he's scheduled to appear in a 30-second tribute funded by Monster.com during the Super Bowl. The book about management principles will be published June 5 by Talk Miramax. The publisher plans an initial printing of 500,000. Leadership and an as-yet-untitled second book will net Giuliani $2.7 million.
During the Super Bowl, Monster.com will give Giuliani $350,000 to be donated to the Twin Towers Fund to thank Americans for helping New York after the attacks.
Glover's stand
Danny Glover says the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would have endorsed the actor's anti-death penalty message. The civil-rights leader was a man "who died committed to defending the principles of nonviolence," Glover said at Christ Unity Baptist Church in Modesto, Calif., Saturday.
Glover, who starred in The Color Purple and the Lethal Weapon series, also addressed assertions that during a November speech at Princeton University he said Osama bin Laden should not be executed, even if he is found guilty of being involved in terrorist acts. During a question-and-answer session, Glover, 54, said that at the time he had simply repeated his opposition to the death penalty, without referring to the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks. "Nowhere is Osama bin Laden's name mentioned," said Glover, who brought copies of his Princeton remarks.
Author's plaint
The author of a new book that blasts the New York Times for politically correct reportage suspects he's been blacklisted from the paper's book review section. William McGowan, author of Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism, believes that Times editors are steering clear of his tome because it is harshly critical of the paper. According to the New York Post, the book accuses the broadsheet of inaccurate reporting on a rash of arson fires in black churches in the South (most of which turned out to be accidental) and its support for gays and women in the military.
"I just think that because diversity is such a priority for Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, it could be making the editors a little nervous about reviewing the book," McGowan said. A contributor to the Wall Street Journal, McGowan has written for the Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, and the Columbia Journalism Review. Evidently such props don't faze Toby Usnik, a spokesman for the Times. "We receive tens of thousands of books this year. We cannot review all of them," Usnik said.
Is Pink green with envy?
Outrageous popster Pink has renewed her catfight with Britney Spears by saying she wants to bed Spears' boyfriend, Justin Timberlake, the New York Post reported. Spears stormed out of her posh London hotel last week when she realized her rival was also staying there. Posters of Pink had been hung outside Ian Schrager's swank St. Martin's Lane, prompting Spears to move into a $7,000-a-night suite at the Mandarin Oriental.
Pink jetted to London after a week of partying in New York. She was spotted baring her breasts and drinking beers "two at a time" at the Saturday Night Live wrap party at TriBeCa restaurant Dylan Prime, as Hollywood hunk Josh Hartnett and SNL alum Dan Aykroyd looked on. Pink, 19, describes the 20-year-old Spears' music as "teeny-bopper garbage."
