Flashbacks: Artist provocateur Paul Richard puts the ICA up for sale, king of the Bonds and where were you when Agnew Quit?

DEPT. OF REINTERPRETATION
10 years ago
October 16, 1998 | Reporter Sarah McNaught interviewed conceptual artist Paul Richard about his latest “work.”
“The 36-year-old provocateur...recently climbed up on a massive billboard in Kendall Square and pasted, beside a picture of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, a sign that read PAUL RICHARD PRESENTS APPLE COMPUTERS, SPECIAL THANKS TO JOHN AND YOKO.
...
“ ‘The billboard piece is designed to raise questions about advertising, appropriating images, and art,’ explains the artist...‘For example, is what Paul Richard doing in the spirit of Apple’s advertising campaign -- think differently? Or is what Paul Richard doing in the spirit of the ideal of the radicals and critical thinkers with whom Apple aligns themselves?’

“This is not the first time Richard has publicly altered something. Last year, he hung a FOR SALE BY OWNER sign, complete with his name and phone number, across the front of the Institute for Contemporary Art on Boylston Street.

“ ‘When asked whether he ever gets into trouble, Richard laughs. ‘In the case of the ICA building, the fire department, without questioning who I was or what I was doing, pulled the fire truck into the middle of the street and helped me hang the sign while a cop stopped and directed traffic.’ He even got a call from a broker.”

3-DIMENSIONAL TV
20 years ago
October 14, 1988 | Robin Dougherty fell in love with the new sit-com Roseanne.
“It’s hard to invest all hope in a series after seeing just the pilot, but my heart is going to be broken if this show doesn’t live up to its promise. That’s because Roseanne is more than a cartoon -- it’s about people who are conspicuously absent from televisionland, lower-middle class folks whose lives are as clogged up as Roseanne’s sink. Roseanne and Dan dress in last year’s sweatshirts and are about as likely to diet as fly to the moon. Their furniture is from Sears, and they have pictures of marlins on their kitchen wall. But Roseanne and Dan are fat and they’re sexy. They’re whiny and they’re lovable.”

KING OF THE BONDS
25 years ago
October 18, 1983 | Film guy David Edelstein was heartened by Sean Connery’s return to the Bond series in Never Say Never Again.
“A strong protagonist is the matrix of a great adventure film. Without one, the impossible stunts never gel; the hair-breadth escapes and the lean, leggy women are just props in a three-ring circus. In this summer’s Bond entry, Octopussy, the center didn’t hold. Roger Moore went beyond his usual blah apathy; he was starting to bloat and crinkle, and the movie doddered along with him...But the new Never Say Never Again resonates with the personality of Sean Connery. And the actor has so much élan, so much spiritual largesse, that he gives 007 more than license to kill: he gives him poetic license...Connery, whose last stab at Bond was in 1972’s Diamonds Are Forever, is a generous straight man to a slew of fruity character actors -- they end up basking in his self-assurance.”

MEMORY LANE
35 years ago
October 16, 1973 | The Phoenix's Sharon Basco was taking a train from Newark to Boston when she learned the news that Spiro T. Agnew had resigned from the vice presidency.
“ ‘AGNEW QUIT!!!’ Mr. Corning Glass next to me said. ‘At two oh five this afternoon.’

“I stopped tooling with the seat recline button in time to push my jaw off my belly button.

“ ‘Look at that. She’s speechless.’ Mr. Glass told his companions...

“ ‘What is Tricky bringing in as vice president? Another household name I betcha. Like Marvin Wringheiffer.’

“ ‘We’ll get Frank Sinatra!’ an elderly woman in B-10 said.

“ ‘Now take it serious,’ a greying fellow in a cowboy hat and black silk suit told us. ‘It will have to be someone real acceptable-like, heah? Billy Graham. There’s a reeeal clean spirit.’

“ ‘This is one of those Big Moments that you know you’ll remember forever,’ Mr. Glass told me. ‘Where were you when JFK was shot?’

‘Music class.’ I said. ‘Seventh grade. Mrs. Grabey.’

“ ‘Oh. Well, I know just where I was. On a train to Santa Fe. And I’ll never forget it. Like I’ll never forget this shuttle.’ he said. ‘Newark to Boston. I’ll never forget it.’

“Quite a burden. The Newark-Boston shuttle for the rest of your life. The stewardess came by and told us to buckle our seatbelts and cut out the smoking during takeoff.”