Category: people

“Few writers are more acclaimed right now than the Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño, who died of an unspecified liver ailment in 2003, at the age of 50. … [I]nterest in him and his work has been further kindled by his growing reputation as a hard-living literary outlaw.” But his widow and some of his friends say he invented elements of that biography: not only a heroin habit but his presence in Chile “during the military coup that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power.”

“[F]or me, the lasting image of John Updike, who died Tuesday of lung cancer at age 76, is as a self-described ‘freelancer,’ who produced a nearly endless stream of book reviews, novels, stories, poems and occasional pieces — more than 60 volumes’ worth in all — because he felt he’d be forgotten if he didn’t keep his name in print.”

She was “the model whose ample flesh and soft curves inspired the sculptor Aristide Maillol, rejuvenating his career, and who eventually founded a museum dedicated to his work.” In addition, during World War II, she ” ed refugees from Nazism across the Pyrenees into Spain as part of an American organization operating out of Marseille.”

“Allen Zwerdling, a founder of Back Stage, the weekly theater newspaper that is widely considered the casting bible for performers, died on Jan. 12 at his home in Rosendale, N.Y.”

“Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg can now claim to be No. 1 in a category he cares deeply about: giving his money away. Mr. Bloomberg, the self-made billionaire founder of the Bloomberg financial information firm, donated $235 million in 2008, making him the leading individual living donor in the United States, according to a list released online on Monday by The Chronicle of Philanthropy.”

The English composer, soon to turn 75, “is now a highly visible spokesman for the British music establishment and more: a national scourge of mediocrity and compromise, firing broadsides at the art world for its commercialism and at the government for everything from cultural vacuity to the war in Iraq.”

Like the Serialists, Mr. Perle argued that if the 12 notes of the chromatic scale were treated equally, they would yield greater expressive possibilities than the seven-note major and minor scales that had dominated Western harmony for centuries. The difference between Mr. Perle’s method and strict Serialism, though, was that he did not insist on predetermined and rigorously ordered tone rows (or note sequences). He was equally free in his use of rhythms and dynamics.

After two concerned citizens wrote letters to the Bureau complaining about Carlin making fun of J. Edgar Hoover and his agency, the FBI began keeping tabs on the comedian. But the file contained nothing about Carlin’s “seven words you can never say on television” routine, which led to a landmark Supreme Court case.

“Jean-Paul Belmondo uses a metal crutch and drags his right leg when he walks. His upper body tilts to the left when he moves. He speaks in short sentences, sometimes slurring his words. His right arm sits lifeless by his side. But when the 75-year-old French actor with the blue-green eyes and broken nose smiles, he evokes the image of the charming gangster and cocky seducer he played in films decades ago.” Now, still marked by the stroke he suffered in 2001, he has returned to the movies.

That would be Edward Villella, according to New York magazine, which has posted a Q&A with Mr. V. as his Miami City Ballet comes to town. Sample Q: “You were held up as a paragon of heterosexuality. The word ‘virile’ was used a lot.”