Lou Reed By Chris Colin
The Velvet Underground founder gave us heroin, the exalted transvestite and euphoric nastiness. Who knew salvation could sound so good? (05/16/00)

Joel-Peter Witkin By Cintra Wilson
Is his darkly imaginative photography an intellectually camouflaged freak show or high art? (05/09/00)

R. Crumb By Steve Burgess
Is the bull-goose legend of underground comix the Brueghel of our time or the purveyor of an arrested juvenile vision? (05/02/00)

Robert Moog By Frank Houston
His invention had an extraordinary impact on how musicians create, and radically changed the way music is made. (04/25/00)

Martina Navratilova By Steve Kettmann
The most daring player in the history of tennis, her attacking style and superb athleticism revolutionized the sport. (04/18/00)

Christo By Charles Taylor
He's the world's greatest wrap star; his grand and beautiful public projects transcend the barriers between life and art. (04/11/00)

Joni Mitchell By Frank Houston
As pure an artist as can be found in the entertainment industry, her confessional lyrics and lilting, soaring soprano have inspired countless musicians. (04/04/00)

Mary Ellen Mark By Andrew Long
With her strongly personal approach, she documents the lives of people on the edges of society -- from the prostitutes of Bombay to the street kids of Seattle to the cowboys of small-town Texas rodeos. (03/28/00)

Timothy Ferris By William Speed Weed
Disregarding our illusory firewalls of thought, he boldly goes where no science writer has gone before. (03/21/00)

Bobby "Blue" Bland By Sean Elder
A master musician with extraordinary staying power, for decades his evocative vocal style has taken the blues out of the barroom and into the bedroom. (03/14/00)

Arthur C. Clarke By Frank Houston
For decades, the author of the science-fiction classics "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Childhood's End" has exhibited an uncanny ability to see the future. (03/07/00)

Janet Malcolm By Craig Seligman
In her relentless pursuit of the truth she's left a few bodies in her wake, but isn't that part of a journalist's job? (02/29/00)

Cher By Cintra Wilson
Locked forever in Teflon celebrity, the woman with the world's most beautiful armpits always gets the last laugh ... or so she says. (02/22/00)

Edward Gorey By Amy Benfer
No one sheds light on darkness from quite the same perspective as this Cape Cod specialist in morbid, fine-lined jocularity. (02/15/00)

Brilliant Careers: William Wegman By Kevin Conley
His wry, wildly popular photography owes a great debt to the gifted performance artists he works with. (02/08/00)

Brilliant Careers: Tom Wolfe By Cary Tennis
He put New Journalism on the map with writing that shook as fiercely as it shimmered. (02/01/00)

Brilliant Careers: David Bowie By Greg Villepique
As the master of self-reinvention -- from Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke to Normal David -- he became the most influential rock star of the post-Beatles era. (01/25/00)

Brilliant Careers: Seymour Hersh By David Rubien
The man who broke the story of Vietnam's My Lai massacre is still the hardest-working muckraker in the journalism business. (01/18/00)

Brilliant Careers: Lucinda Williams By Elizabeth Bukowski
With her gorgeously "flawed" voice, the genre-bending singer has exquisitely mapped out the South -- as well as her own heart. (01/11/00)

Brilliant Careers: Charles Schulz By Steve Burgess
With his globally recognized Peanuts characters, he delved into the psyche of children and created daily morality plays that became part of the public consciousness. (01/04/00)

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Brilliant Careers archives for: 1999 | 1998