Category: people

“For better or worse, the Tennessee State Museum would not be where it is without Lois Riggins-Ezzell. She has run the museum since 1981, when it was an afterthought to both the state and the budget, with just six employees, in the basement of James K. Polk building. She has grown the staff and the collections and archives, and she has led the decades-long push for a building of the museum’s own.”

An excerpt from an early proof of her upcoming memoir, Walk Through Walls – a passage with a very uncomfortable description of Abramović’s first visit to the outback in 1979 and her first impressions of Australian aboriginals – has been getting a hard time online – complete with hashtag #TheRacistIsPresent.

“Gellhorn and Hemingway first met in 1936 at a bar called Sloppy Joe’s in Key West, Florida. Their relationship blossomed during their coverage of the civil war in Spain. Both were phenomenal writers, known for daring reportage from the battlefield. Their similarities made them natural allies, and passionate competitors, in journalism.”

There’s a centuries-long (millennia-long, really) tradition or scholars and writers trying to remove the small-l lesbianism from the great poetess of Lesbos. Lesbian classicist Ella Haselswerdt looks at those attempts and takes them apart, if not down.

“For the second year in a row, Mr. Obama released his summer vacation music and reading lists. And within a day, Mr. Obama’s playlist was the most listened-to on Spotify, other than those organized by the global music streaming service itself.”

“Though a tiny footnote in cultural history, the Jenkins tale endures because its borders can be drawn in so many ways.”

“Known for his 6-foot-3 stature and often expected to play villains, Finkel leaned more toward comedic roles, and he often appeared onstage with his white socks showing. The socks would eventually become his trademark.”

“The pair even discussed doing a jazz album inspired by her role in ‘After Midnight’ and a performance with the National Symphony Orchestra from earlier in the year.”

“The film company that made the movies, 20th Century Fox, posted a photograph of C3PO standing next to Baker’s Star Wars character, and wrote: ‘Rest in peace, Kenny Baker, the heart and soul of R2D2.'”

Remember the singer at the top of the Robert Altman movie ‘Cookie’s Fortune’? That was Ruby Wilson.