The writer Paige Williams annotates pieces she admires every Tuesday, inserting her questions and the author’s answers. This week, she aimed her laser focus on my August 2010 profile of Garry Shandling, which ran in GQ. Here’s a link.
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The Story Behind the Story//Shandling edition
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011Longform.org posted my 2002 story about boobs
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011California or Bust
When discussing the body, always go to the top. We’re talking cha-chas, ta-tas, wah-wahs, chihuahuas. L.A. loves ‘em—so we got ourselves some
By Amy Wallace
Originally appeared in Los Angeles magazine, January 2002
LET ME TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED WITH MY BREASTS TODAY. First, I spilled a latte all over them at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. The lid on my cup wasn’t tight, so when I went to take a sip, milk foam poured and then puddled on my sweater. Stooping to wipe up what I presumed would be a mess on the floor, I found that little coffee had gotten past me. For the first time ever, my breasts were too grande for my latte.
Later, I took my breasts out to lunch at the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, where they promptly attracted the attention of, well, everybody.
Here’s the link to read the rest!
GQ’s Comedy Issue: Jerry Lewis at 85
Friday, August 12th, 2011Jerry-atrics!
He’s the original lord of lowbrow, the king of the pratfall, the last surviving link to the bedrock of American comedy—vaudeville, burlesque, slapstick. Sure, he’s ancient, but he’s juggling half a dozen new projects and still found time to sit down with Amy Wallace for an eleven-hour interview. Call it the Jerry Lewis Marathon that covered, well, just about everything that’s ever been funny
Originally appeared in GQ, August 2011
Jerry Lewis sits behind his huge desk, neatening the items that stand like sentries between us: a can of Diet Sunkist; a container of silver pens, tips up; a container of red pens, same position; a handful of green plastic surgical scalpels he uses to open mail, a dish of lemon drops. When you’ve been on the planet for almost nine decades, like Lewis has, and when you can’t throw anything out (“I’ve kept everything!”), and when you’re slightly nuts (“Did you ever see a man who can look at one eye with the other?”), you require order. At 85, Lewis employs three full-time people to help him stay organized. He loves them fiercely—and drives them bonkers.
“Have you done anything today? Why not?” Lewis likes to bellow, his voice—three parts affection, one part curmudgeon—thundering through Jerry Lewis Films, a sprawling suite in an office park about four miles from the Las Vegas strip. He looks good—a little stooped, sure, but still sharp-eyed and quick-tongued and up-tempo, his red silk shirt unbuttoned low enough to reveal the scar from his double-bypass surgery twenty-nine years ago. On his feet are red velvet slippers embroidered with those iconic faces of Comedy and Tragedy. “Can I get another orange soda?” he asks, and when it arrives twenty seconds later: “What took you so long?”
Suddenly, Lewis’s face goes blank and his hazel eyes get big as quarters. Slamming his chair back—boom!—he reaches for a trash can under his desk and Click to continue »
NYT Prototype: Science to Art, and Vice Versa
Saturday, July 9th, 2011Science to Art, and Vice Versa
A sculptor and a lighting artist have very different techniques but the same goal: to promote understanding by finding new ways of seeing the world.
By AMY WALLACE
Originally appeared in the New York Times, July 10, 2011
Nathalie Miebach's Antarctic Explorer
NATHALIE MIEBACH uses science to make art. A sculptor who lives in Brookline, Mass., she translates weather data and other scientific measurements into three-dimensional objects that accurately display temperature variations, barometric pressure and moon phases, among other things.
Matthew McCrory, on the other hand, uses art to benefit science. A former lighting artist at DreamWorks Animation, he now uses his skills at the Center for Advanced Molecular Imaging at Northwestern University to help researchers in Chicago see their work in 3-D.
Ms. Miebach and Mr. McCrory may appear to be engaged in very different pursuits, but their goal is the same: to promote understanding by finding new ways of seeing the world. They’ve never met, but both are invested in the idea that better visualization leads to better thinking.
“You make discoveries much quicker when you have a different way of viewing your data,” says Mr. McCrory, whose official title is lead visualization engineer. “And your brain doesn’t have to work as hard to try to figure out what things are really like.”
Both have been in the news of late. In March, Northwestern unveiled what it calls Click to continue »
Sharon Stone is Shameless
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010A friend just told me she just received her June More magazine, whose cover story on Sharon Stone I had the pleasure of writing. The whole piece isn’t online yet, but here’s the lede (and a photo by Brigitte Lacombe):
Sharon Stone is shameless. The actress considers it a skill to have no shame. She thinks everyone should try it, though she cautions that if you’re female, shamelessness can cost you. Her refusal to feel guilty, she says, has gotten her labeled difficult, or worse.
“I’m like a Prohibition-era flapper. I’m like a juke-joint hussy,” Stone says over lunch at an Italian restaurant near Beverly Hills. But better to be called names than to be pressured into not being herself. Feeling ashamed, she says, “is not an organic state of being, so shamelessness is closer to godliness. You have to put shame down.”