Annie Hill (born 1955 in Liverpool) is an English sailor, author of books and articles about sailboat voyaging, living on a small amount of money and sailing junk rigs.

Biography[link]

Annie Hill has been voyaging and living aboard various sailing yachts since 1975. Her book Voyaging on a Small Income is a study in the economics of continual travel and self-sufficiency. Hill writes using distinct British vernacular and colloquialisms.^{[citation needed]}

Annie Hill's first two books concerned voyaging aboard Badger, a 34-foot (10 m) double-ended dory with a two-masted junk rig of the schooner style, which was built by Annie and her former husband, Pete Hill. Badger was designed by Jay Benford for plywood construction. Annie's analysis and comparison of the modern junk rig is at least partly responsible for the recent re-popularization of the junk rig.^{[citation needed]}

Annie Hill continued her sailing aboard Iron Bark, a 35ft, steel gaff cutter. She and Pete divorced in 2001 and she now travels with her second husband, Trevor Robertson. In 2004/05 they spent the winter on Iron Bark frozen in a remote bay in Greenland.^{[citation needed]} She is now based in New Zealand where she lives aboard a 26ft fibreglass boat Fantail that she converted to junk rig in 2011.

Annie has now covered more than 165,000 nautical miles (306,000 km) under sail. In March 2010, she and Trevor received one of the most prestigious awards in the sailing world, the Blue Water Medal of the Cruising Club of America.^{[citation needed]}

Bibliography[link]

• Voyaging On a Small Income ISBN 1-85310-425-6
• Brazil and Beyond: Long Distance Voyaging with Annie Hill ISBN 1-84037-077-7

External references[link]

• http://anniehill.blogspot.com/
• http://annie-hill.blogspot.com/
• Flickr photo set of Pete and Annie Hill's boat Badger.
• http://silverdonaldcameron.com/columns/?tag=annie-hill

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2007)

Robert Oscar Lenkiewicz (31 December 1941 – August 5, 2002) was one of the South West England's most celebrated artists of modern times. Perennially unfashionable in high art circles, his work was nevertheless popular with the public.^[1][2] He painted on a large scale, usually in themed Projects investigating hidden communities (Vagrancy 1973, Mental Handicap 1976) or difficult social issues (Suicide 1980, Death 1982).

Early life[link]

Robert Lenkiewicz was born in London in 1941, the son of refugees who ran a Jewish hotel in Fordwych Road, whose elderly residents included a number of Holocaust survivors. He was inspired to paint after seeing Charles Laughton in Alexander Korda's biographical film Rembrandt. At 16, Lenkiewicz was accepted at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and later attended the Royal Academy. However, he was virtually impervious to contemporary art fashions, being more interested in his favourite paintings in the National Gallery.^[2]

Inspired by the example of Albert Schweitzer, Lenkiewicz threw open the doors of his studios to anyone in need of a roof – down and outs, addicts, criminals and the mentally ill congregated there. These individuals were the subjects of his paintings as a young man. However, such colourful characters were not welcomed by his neighbours and he was obliged to leave London in 1964.^[1]

Move to Plymouth[link]

He spent a year living in a remote cottage near Lanreath in Cornwall, supporting his young family by teaching, before being offered studio space on the Barbican in Plymouth by local artist John Nash. The artist's home and studios once more became a magnet for vagrants and street alcoholics, who then sat for paintings. Their numbers swelled and Lenkiewicz was forced to commandeer derelict warehouses in the city to house the 'dossers'. One of these warehouses also served as a studio and in 1973 became the exhibition space for the Vagrancy Project.

He first came to public attention when the media highlighted his giant mural man on Plymouth's Barbican in the 1970s. Another furore occurred in 1981 when he faked his own death in preparation for the forthcoming project of paintings on the theme of death (1982): "I could not know what it was like to be dead," said the artist, "but I could discover what it was like to be thought dead."^[3]

Later life and death[link]

After his first exhibition with an established art dealer, in the 1990s Lenkiewicz's work enjoyed growing commercial success and some recognition by the establishment. He received a major retrospective in 1997 at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, attended by 42,000 visitors.

Lenkiewicz, aged 60, died of a heart attack in 2002. Despite painting 10,000 works rated of 'national importance' by the British Museum he had only £12 cash in his possession (having never opened a bank account), and owed £2 million to various creditors.

Since his death examples of his best paintings have fetched ever-rising prices in London auction rooms. In his obituary of Lenkiewicz, art critic David Lee observed: "Robert's greatest gift was to show us that an artist could be genuinely concerned about social and domestic issues and attempt the difficult task of expressing this conscience through the deeply unfashionable medium of figurative painting. In that sense he was one of few serious painters of contemporary history."

The rise in Lenkiewicz's popularity was shown in a 2008 auction of his personal collection of his own works, the auction of his paintings and library raised £2.1million.^[4] The auction was held by Bearnes Auctioneers at Westpoint Arena in Exeter.

Lenkiewicz never paid tax or kept any records of sales of his works.

In 2009 when his estate was finally valued after lawyers spent 7 years going through personal effects he was found to have left £6.5 million. As well as paintings the estate included a £1 million book collection.

The father of 11 children, Lenkiewicz was the stepfather of Bianca Eliot, now the widow of Jago Eliot, Lord Eliot. His pupils include Piran Bishop, Yana Travail, Dan Wheatley, Lisa Stokes and Joe Stoneman. His daughter Alice Lenkiewicz is a painter, poet and editor of the literary magazine, Neon Highway. His stepdaughter, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, is an accomplished playwright who has had her work performed at the Royal National Theatre.

Vagrancy Project[link]

The Vagrancy Project consisted of several dozen paintings of vagrants and a large book of notes written by the dossers themselves and those involved in their 'care' and control. Lenkiewicz hoped that the exhibition, and the down and outs' own stories, would illuminate the plight of these 'invisible people' and galvanize the community into humane action on their behalf. The format of the 'Project' – combining thematically linked paintings with the publication of research notes and the collected observations of the sitters – was to be used consistently throughout Lenkiewicz's career. Projects such as Mental Handicap (1976), Old Age (1979) and Death (1982) followed the one on vagrancy as Lenkiewicz continued to examine the lives of ostracised, hidden sections of the community and bring them to the attention of the general public.

The Paul Downes song "Robert and the Cowboys" was inspired by the project and describes a number of the vagrants.

Other projects[link]

In a parallel line of inquiry, Lenkiewicz also investigated some of society's most persistent taboos in Projects such as Jealousy (1977), Orgasm (1978), Suicide (1980) and Sexual Behaviour (1983). Here, Lenkiewicz often adopted an allegorical pictorial style to portray human physiology in extremis. Lenkiewicz came to the conclusion that the kinds of sensations people felt when a lover abandoned them or when their cherished beliefs were threatened were identical in kind to the 'withdrawal symptoms' and anxieties experienced by addicts or alcoholics over their preferred narcotic. These Projects thus became an extended study in 'addictive behaviour' (the title of his 20th, unfinished, Project).

The conclusions drawn from his own observations were supported by his private library, which he viewed as a history of 'fanatical belief systems'. Lenkiewicz contended that in the absence of any good reasons for our beliefs or emotions we must always look to human physiology for an explanation of fanatical or obsessive behaviour and that it is there that we shall discover the roots of fascism – the tendency to treat another person as property. Lenkiewicz saw all his Projects (21 in all) as part of a large-scale investigation into the origins of fascism - the tendency to treat other people as property - and the roots of obsessive and fanatical behaviour.

On and off, for nearly 30 years, he worked on his great masterpiece, the Riddle Mural in the Round Room at Port Eliot house, home of the Earl of St. Germans, but died before its completion. Half of the mural, in the 40-foot-diameter (12 m) room, shows death, destruction, insanity, unrequited love, and the apocalyptic end of the world. The other half reflects love and affection, friendships, harmony, proportion and consensus. Hidden in the work are various references to family skeletons, art history and cabalistic mysteries, hence the name - the Riddle Mural.

Library[link]

Over forty years Lenkiewicz built up a library of some 25,000 volumes^[5] devoted to art, the occult sciences, demonolatry, magic, philosophy, especially metaphysics, alchemy, death, psychology and sexuality, preoccupations which surface in some of his paintings. His collection of books on magic and witchcraft was one of the finest in private hands and was largely sold at Sotheby's in 2003, and a substantial part of the remainder of his library was sold at auction in May 2007 by Lyon & Turnbull.

Further reading[link]

• Robert Lenkiewicz: Paintings & Projects ISBN 0-9531370-9-0 (Autumn 2006)

References[link]

External links[link]

• 'Lenkiewicz: The Legacy' exhibition at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, 8 April to 11 July 2009
• Lenkiewicz.org - non-profit forum with news and discussions
• The Lenkiewicz.Book Project - a collaboratively edited guide to the artist, Robert Lenkiewicz
• remembering Robert- the new book on Lenkiewicz
• Port Eliot House, St. Germans, Cornwall - home of the masterpiece, the Riddle Mural

Demetri Martin
Demetri Martin at Northeastern University on April 11, 2007
Born	(1973-05-25) May 25, 1973 (age 39) New York City, New York, United States
Nationality	American
Years active	Since 2002
Genres	Observational comedy, surreal humor, musical comedy, wit/wordplay, sketch comedy
Subject(s)	Everyday Life, American Culture, Random Subjects
Influences	Steven Wright, Eddie Izzard, Emo Philips, Mitch Hedberg, Socrates
Notable works and roles	· Demetri Martin. Person.  · Correspondent on The Daily Show  · Himself/Various on Important Things with Demetri Martin  · Elliot Tiber in Taking Woodstock (2009)
Website	www.demetrimartin.com

Demetri Martin (born May 25, 1973) is an American comedian, actor, artist, musician, writer and humorist. Martin is best known for his work as a stand-up comedian, contributor on The Daily Show and for his Comedy Central show Important Things with Demetri Martin.

Early life[link]

Demetri Martin was born to a Greek American family^[1] in New York City, New York, and grew up in Toms River, New Jersey. He is the son of Lillian, a nutritionist, and Dean C. Martin, now deceased, a Greek Orthodox priest.^[2] Martin graduated from Yale University in 1995. Although he was accepted into Harvard Law School, he went to New York University School of Law after he received a full scholarship.^[3]

Career[link]

In 2001, Martin caught his first big break in stand-up comedy when he appeared on Comedy Central's stand-up showcase Premium Blend. At the 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe he won the Perrier award with his show If I....^[4] The show was turned into a British television special in 2004. From 2003 to 2004, Martin wrote for Late Night with Conan O'Brien.^[5] In 2004, Martin had his own Comedy Central Presents stand-up special. His special was divided into three parts. In the first, he performed in traditional stand-up comedy fashion. In the second segment, he used humorous drawings as visual aids, which would serve either as the punchline or a background. During the third segment, he played a guitar and put on a pseudo-play where he would strum his guitar while alternating between playing harmonica and talking; some of his comedian friends dressed as fairies and dragons acted according to the story he was telling, detailing the magical land where his jokes came from. Martin's mother and grandmother also appeared.

Since late 2005, he has been credited as a contributor on The Daily Show, on which he has appeared as the named "Senior Youth Correspondent" and on which he hosts a segment called "Trendspotting". He has used this segment to talk about so-called hip trends among youth such as hookahs, wine, guerilla marketing and Xbox 360. A piece about social networking featured his profile on MySpace.^[6] On March 22, 2007, Demetri made another appearance on The Daily Show, talking about the Viacom lawsuit against Google and YouTube.

He has recorded a comedy CD/DVD titled These Are Jokes, which was released on September 26, 2006. This album also features Saturday Night Live member Will Forte and stand-up comedian Leo Allen.

Martin returned to The Daily Show on March 22, 2006, as the new Youth Correspondent, calling his segment "Professional Important News with Demetri Martin". In 2007, he starred in a Fountains of Wayne music video for "Someone to Love" as Seth Shapiro, a character in the song. He also starred in the video for the Travis single "Selfish Jean", in which he wears multiple t-shirts with lyrics written on them.

On September 2, 2007, Martin appeared on the season finale of the HBO series Flight of the Conchords. He appeared as a keytar player named Demetri.^[7]

He also had a part in the movie The Rocker (2008) starring Rainn Wilson. Martin played the part of the videographer when the band in the movie was making their first music video.

In 2009, he hosted and starred in his own television show called Important Things With Demetri Martin on Comedy Central. Later in June, it was announced his show had been renewed for a second season.^[8] The second season premiered, again on Comedy Central, on February 4, 2010. Martin has stated that Important Things will not return for a third season.

Prior to completing work on his second season, Martin starred in the comedy-drama film Taking Woodstock (2009), directed by Ang Lee, which premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. In the film Martin plays Elliot Tiber, a closeted gay artist who has given up his ambitions in the city to move upstate and help his old-world Jewish family run their Catskill Mountains motel. The film is based on the book written by Tiber.

On April 25, 2011, Martin released his first book, titled This Is a Book by Demetri Martin.

Martin was slated to portray Paul DePodesta as Oakland Athletics assistant GM to Billy Beane in the 2011 movie Moneyball, however was dropped and Jonah Hill took his place in the movie.

Plans[link]

Martin sold his movie concept Will to DreamWorks; he is expected to play a key supporting role.^[9] He will play the lead in the film Moon People, a pitch that he sold to Columbia Pictures.

Martin also signed a blind script deal with CBS in October 2010 to produce, write, and star in his own television series.^[10]

After CBS was shown the pilot for the series, they decided not to air it.^[11]

On August 11, 2011, Fox ordered a presentation of a new animated show they might air.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] If I

If I is a Perrier Comedy Award-winning comedy one-man show written and performed by Demetri Martin at the 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.^[12] It was also aired on British television as a special. The show is an autobiographical examination of Martin's life, as seen through various definitions of the word "if."

The title of the special comes from a lengthy palindromic poem that Martin wrote; the words "if I" are at the center of the poem.^[13]

Comedic style[link]

Martin is known for being an unconventional stand-up comic. He uses one-liners and drawings on a "large pad", as well as accompanying his jokes with music on either guitar, harmonica, piano, keyboard, glockenspiel, toy bells, ukulele, or tambourine, sometimes all at once.^[14] He has cited comedian Steven Wright as an important influence (both use deadpan one-liners in their acts) and he is also a fan of Bill Cosby.^[15]

Personal life[link]

According to a July 2011 interview on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Demetri had a short-lived marriage to a girl he knew from high school. They began dating after high school and got married when he was in NYU Law School and she was attending NYU Medical School. He was aged 25 and in the end of his marriage when his stand-up career began.^[3]

He is extremely allergic to nuts and peanuts.^[16]

Martin moved to Santa Monica, California in 2009.^[17]

Filmography[link]

• Invite Them Up (2005)
• These Are Jokes (2006)
• Demetri Martin. Person. (2007)
• Important Things with Demetri Martin (2009–2010)

Filmography and television work[link]

Written works[link]

• This Is a Book, April 2011, ISBN 978-0446539708.

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (May 2012)

• Official website
• Demetri Martin on Myspace
• Demetri Martin at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview from November, 2006, in Onion AV Club
• Interview from October 2006, in The DePaulia
• Article, in The Scotsman
• Article, in Gelf Magazine
• Interview by Brian M. Palmer
• MP3 Audio Interview on The Sound of Young America public radio show and podcast
• Interview Believer Mag
• New Jersey Monthly Magazine
• Fresh Air, NPR.org

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (April 2011)

This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available. (February 2009)

Lee Hill is the author of A Grand Guy—a biography of Terry Southern (2001)^[1]—as well as a monograph on the film Easy Rider (1996). He has contributed a wide range of journalism and commentary to Senses of Cinema, The Times, Scenario, Cinemascope, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and other outlets. He was the managing editor of Vox Magazine, the critically acclaimed music monthly and program guide of CJSW-FM from 1988 through 1990.

References[link]

Fred McDowell
McDowell in 1972
Background information
Born	(1904-01-12)January 12, 1904 Rossville, Tennessee, United States
Died	July 13, 1972(1972-07-13) (aged 68) Memphis, Tennessee, United States
Genres	Hill country blues
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1926–1972
Labels	Arhoolie, Testament, Oblivion, Rounder Records, Fat Possum, Mississippi Records
Associated acts	R. L. Burnside, Jimmie Noone, Wilber Sweatman, Spirits of Rhythm, Bonnie Raitt, The Rolling Stones, Tom Pomposello,[1][2] Johnny Woods[3]

Fred McDowell (January 12, 1904 – July 3, 1972) known by his stage name; Mississippi Fred McDowell, was an American Hill country blues singer and guitar player.

Career[link]

McDowell was born in Rossville, Tn. His parents, who were farmers, died when McDowell was a youth. He started playing guitar at the age of 14 and played at dances around Rossville. Wanting a change from plowing fields, he moved to Memphis in 1926 where he started to work in the Buck-Eye feed mill where they processed cotton into oil and other products.^[4] He also had a number of other jobs and played music for tips. Later in 1928 he moved south into Mississippi to pick cotton.^[4] He settled in Como, Mississippi, about 40 miles south of Memphis, in 1940 or 1941, and worked steadily as a farmer, continuing to perform music at dances and picnics. Initially he played slide guitar using a pocket knife and then a slide made from a beef rib bone, later switching to a glass slide for its clearer sound. He played with the slide on his ring finger.^[5]

While commonly lumped together with Delta Blues singers, McDowell actually may be considered the first of the bluesmen from the 'North Mississippi' region - parallel to, but somewhat east of the Delta region - to achieve widespread recognition for his work. A version of the state's signature musical form somewhat closer in structure to its African roots (often eschewing the chord change for the hypnotic effect of the droning, single chord vamp), the north hill country blues style (or at least its aesthetic) may be heard to have been carried on in the music of such figures as Junior Kimbrough and R. L. Burnside, while serving as the original impetus behind creation of the Fat Possum record label out of Oxford, Mississippi.^[6]

The 1950s brought a rising interest in blues music and folk music in the United States and McDowell was brought to wider public attention, beginning when he was discovered and recorded in 1959 by Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins.^[7] McDowell's records were popular, and he performed often at festivals and clubs.^[8] McDowell continued to perform blues in the North Mississippi blues style much as he had for decades, but he sometimes performed on electric guitar rather than acoustic guitar. While he famously declared "I do not play no rock and roll," McDowell was not averse to associating with many younger rock musicians: He coached Bonnie Raitt on slide guitar technique,^[8] and was reportedly flattered by The Rolling Stones' rather straightforward, authentic version of his "You Gotta Move" on their 1971 Sticky Fingers album^{[citation needed]}.

McDowell's 1969 Malaco Records album I Do Not Play No Rock 'N' Roll, recorded in Jackson, Mississippi, was his first featuring electric guitar. It features parts of an interview in which he discusses the origins of the blues and the nature of love. (This interview was sampled and mixed into a song, also titled "I Do Not Play No Rock 'N' Roll" by Dangerman in 1999.) McDowell's final album,^[9] Live in New York (Oblivion Records), was a concert performance from November 1971 at the Village Gaslight (aka The Gaslight Cafe), Greenwich Village, New York.

McDowell died of cancer in 1972, aged 68, and was buried at Hammond Hill Baptist Church, between Como and Senatobia, Mississippi. On August 6, 1993 a memorial was placed on his grave site by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund. The ceremony was presided over by Dick Waterman, and the memorial with McDowell's portrait upon it was paid for by Bonnie Raitt. The memorial stone was a replacement for an inaccurate and damaged marker (McDowell's name was misspelled) and the original stone was subsequently donated by McDowell's family to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Bibliography[link]

• William Ferris; - Give My Poor Heart Ease: Voices of the Mississippi Blues - The University of North Carolina Press; (2009) ISBN 0-8078-3325-8 ISBN 978-0807833254 (with CD and DVD)
• William Ferris; Glenn Hinson The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 14: Folklife The University of North Carolina Press (2009) ISBN 0-8078-3346-0 ISBN 978-0-8078-3346-9
• William Ferris; Blues From The Delta Da Capo Press; Revised edition (1988) ISBN 0-306-80327-5 ISBN 978-0306803277
• Ted Gioia; Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music - W. W. Norton & Company (2009) ISBN 0-393-33750-2 ISBN 978-0393337501
• Sheldon Harris; Blues Who's Who Da Capo Press 1979
• Alan Lomax - The Land Where The Blues Began. New York: Pantheon, 1993.
• Robert Nicholson; Mississippi Blues Today ! Da Capo Press (1999) ISBN 0-306-80883-8 ISBN 978-0-306-80883-8
• Robert Palmer (writer); Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta - Penguin Reprint edition (1982) ISBN 0-14-006223-8; ISBN 978-0-14-006223-6
• Charles Reagan Wilson - William Ferris - Ann J. Adadie; Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1656 pagine) The University of North Carolina Press; 2nd Edition (1989) - ISBN 0-8078-1823-2 - ISBN 978-0-8078-1823-7

See also[link]

• Hill country blues
• List of blues musicians
• List of blues revival musicians
• List of country blues musicians
• List of people from Mississippi
• Blues Hall of Fame
• List of Peel sessions

References[link]

External links[link]

• Short documentary about Fred McDowell with performance
• Illustrated Fred McDowell discography
• Fred McDowell on Oblivion Records
• The last album recorded