Category: people

Floyd “Creeky” Creekmore doesn’t give up. “At 95 years old, the former Montana rancher recently dubbed the oldest performing clown in the world has fewer magic tricks up his oversized sleeves than he once did. He gave up juggling several years ago after a stroke, and has long since parked the bicycle he once incorporated into his acts. But when the Shrine Circus comes through Billings, where Creekmore lives with his 96-year-old wife, Betty, Creeky the Clown returns to life.”

“A reporter with the presence of a performer, Mr. Wallace went head to head with chiefs of state, celebrities and con artists for more than 50 years, living for the moment when ‘you forget the lights, the cameras, everything else, and you’re really talking to each other.'”

An Argentinian who founded the printmaking program at the University of Iowa in 1945, Lasansky created massive prints with complex, multiple colors and techniques. “Although Lasansky was considered a wizard of printmaking technology, ‘The Nazi Drawings,’ as his series is known, used plain paper and ordinary pencil — the most humble, universal materials possible, he explained.”

The self-described “painter of light,” who made millions off his paintings and associated home furnishing products, died of natural causes in his California home. “His artistic philosophy was not to express himself through his paintings like many artists, but rather to give the masses what they wanted: warm, positive images.”

“Twenty years ago, as mortar shells began raining down on Sarajevo, killing his friends and neighbors, Vedran Smajlovic did what he knew best to help the city: he played his cello at funerals, in bomb shelters and in the streets.” This week, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Serbs’ siege of the city, Smajlovic performed there for the first time since the end of the war.

“People are getting confused about what is reality and what is opera … They say [in fan letters] things like: ‘I was the girl in the fifth row with the glasses and you were only singing for me, and what are we going to do now?’ It’s amazing and sometimes frightening that you have the power and potential to manipulate people in such a way.”

“Mr. Ai had set up four webcams in his home and studio in Beijing this week as a critique of the government’s decision to put him under constant surveillance since releasing him last summer from secret detention, where he had been held for 81 days without charge.”

“Chinese artist Ai Weiwei says he has been ordered to shut down four live webcams at his home, which he set up as a nod to the 24-hour police surveillance he has lived under for the last year.”

“Never in the history of postwar Germany has a prominent intellectual attacked Israel in such a cliche-laden way as Günter Grass with his controversial new poem, ‘What Must Be Said’.”