Category: people

“Mr. Robbins, whose creations adorned millions of American homes in their heyday, was a self-described ‘right guy at the right time in the right place.’ The time was the prosperous lull after World War II, when Americans had newfound time for recreation. The place was Detroit, birthplace of the assembly line, where Mr. Robbins, then in his 20s, worked for Palmer Paint.” – The Washington Post

There is something undeniably glamorous about their story—the prince and princess of American dance—and something undeniably magical in the work they crafted together. In 2019, this story should be an act of reclamation, at least for Verdon; of her agency, of her contributions, of her pain. But instead of focusing on her interiority, on developing her feelings of betrayal and resentment as more than Douglas Sirk-esque melodrama, it often shows her dancing around and on top of her emotions. – The New Republic

“A Moscow city court judge overturned a decision by a lower tribunal last week to extend his arrest for three more months … The 49-year-old head of Moscow’s Gogol Centre theatre — who supporters say is facing politically motivated [embezzlement] charges — has been detained since August 2017. He will now be able to work and communicate, as long as he stays in Moscow.” – Yahoo! (AFP)

“To be a perennial adjunct professor is to hear the constant tone of higher education’s death knell. The story is well known—the long hours, the heavy workload, the insufficient pay—as academia relies on adjunct professors, non-tenured faculty members, who are often paid pennies on the dollar to do the same work required of their tenured colleagues.” – The Atlantic

The Nebula and Hugo-award winning McIntyre was a good friend of Ursula LeGuin’s, and founder of the Clarion West writers’ workshop in Seattle. She wrote feminist science fiction, including about issues of birth control and consent in the future, and she long advocated for other women in the genre (oh, and she wrote five Star Trek novels, including The Wrath of Khan). She pushed to finish one final novel before her death of pancreatic cancer. – The New York Times

Sasha Weiss: “When I once made the mistake of calling his drag a ‘persona,’ or a character he plays, he promptly corrected me: ‘I’m just exposing what I look like on the inside.’ Wearing jeans and a T-shirt is his way of hiding; drag is the opposite — it’s revealing, with tremendous confidence and panache, who he really is, and making room for the audience to be as odd and authoritative and mischievous and exposed as he is.” – The New York Times Magazine

“When Michou” — né Michel Catty — “first set foot in Montmartre in the 1950s, it was a cheap bohemian area, home to artists, writers and performers, as well as beggars and an ethnically mixed working class. These days, the neighborhood gleams with an expensive gentrification. … Yet in the twilight of his life, this darling of the Parisian demimonde and his club are still attracting large crowds even while performing an act fine-tuned decades ago.” – The New York Times

Pianist and teacher Thelma Wilson has performed for the Queen, taught thousands of students, and is the mother and wife in a family of illustrious musicians, including one of the founders of the Emerson Quartet. And she can still play a mean Kinderszenen. – Winnipeg Free Press

Peter Marks: “In the absence of a White House that welcomes the nation’s preeminent composers, painters, scholars and singers to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — and let’s face it, many of them would probably say no thanks — Pelosi seems more and more inclined to cast herself as the ceremonial head of state for the arts.” – Washington Post

“Tuttle, who considered himself a social pioneer, was celebrated for pushing tattoos toward mainstream acceptance, especially for women. He left his indelible mark on stars such as Janis Joplin, Joan Baez and Cher (that was his work on her derrière in the ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ video) – along with more hirsute clients, such as Henry Fonda and the Allman Brothers.” – San Francisco Chronicle