The court that had sentenced Altan, along with his brother and one colleague, to ten years in prison (on a charge of assisting the attempted 2016 coup that many believe was trumped-up) ordered them released under supervision last week. But the chief prosecutor appealed that decision, and police promptly went to detain Altan again. – Yahoo! (AFP)
Category: people
She Gave Up On A Pro Basketball Career To Sing Opera. Now She’s One Of The Met’s Next Stars
In younger days, J’Nai Bridges, who’s been getting terrific reviews for her house debut as Nefertiti in Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, really was a championship-level basketball player back home in Washington state. (When a singing rehearsal conflicted with a finals game, she made her choice.) But Bridges still plays, often with fellow musicians, for exercise and stress relief. Says her best friend, pianist Sakura Myers, “J’Nai is a low-key sadist when it comes to exercise.” – T — The New York Times Style Magazine
Shoji Sadao, 92, Architect Who Realized Visions Of Buckminster Fuller And Isamu Noguchi
“Fuller was pursuing out-there ideas in design and architecture, and it often fell to Mr. Sadao to do the practical work of implementing them. … [He] filled a similar role with Noguchi, the acclaimed sculptor and landscape architect. He helped turn Noguchi’s concepts, whether for the Hart Plaza fountain in Detroit or the 400-acre Moerenuma Park in Sapporo, Japan, into reality.” – The New York Times
Jan Erik Kongshaug, Revered Recording Engineer, Dead At 75
“[He] helped sculpt the rich and quietly splendorous sound of ECM Records, an influential label that has produced timeless jazz and contemporary classical recordings.” – The New York Times
Boy Thrown From Tate Modern Balcony Can Now Move Legs
The six-year-old French tourist who was hurled from the London museum’s 10th-floor viewing platform in August has now been moved from intensive care (in a “full armour of splints”) to a rehabilitation center. His family says he can now go outdoors in a wheelchair for brief periods and is able to make slight movements with his legs, notable progress for a patient with a severe spinal cord injury. – The Guardian (PA)
Russia’s Greatest Napoleonic Reenactor (That’s A Thing, Apparently) Pulled Drunk Out Of River With His Girlfriend’s Arms In His Backpack
Having been fished out of the Moika River early Saturday morning with a backpack containing a woman’s severed arms, he was in the Mariinsky Hospital, still very much alive but recovering from hypothermia and facing a murder charge. – Washington Post
Laurel Griggs, Actor On Broadway And ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Has Died At Age 13
Griggs, who played Ivanka in ONCE: The Musical for 17 months after making her Broadway debut at age six in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, died from a massive asthma attack. – Variety
Douglas Q. Barnett, Seattle’s Black Theatre Founder And African American Theatre History Author, Has Died At 88
Gillian Jagger, Sculptor Who Used Trees And Animal Carcasses, Has Died At 88
Jagger used the natural world as inspiration, and her work related to Land Art, ecofeminism, and Post-Minimalism without aligning to any one specific movement. The artist “hit upon one of her signature methods while living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 1960s. She began capturing direct impressions of the world around her by casting unlikely forms in plaster, like a cat that had been stoned to death by children and, most famously, manhole covers.” – The New York Times
Maria Perego, Who Created The Mouse Puppet Topo Gigio, Has Died At 95
Perego was an Italian puppeteer who came up with the 10-inch tall mouse puppet/marionette in the 1950s – and then the Ed Sullivan Show came calling, and calling, and calling. Of the puppet’s numerous appearances on the show, Perego said, “My puppet not only entered Americans’ households, I believe he also entered their hearts.” – The New York Times