Category: people

“His literary judgement was shrewd. At the Tamarack or the CBC he could explain why one short story worked and another didn’t. That naturally made him Canada’s chief anthologist of stories. He was editor or co-editor of 10 anthologies for Oxford University Press plus three or four more for other publishers.”

The influential literary editor, anthologist and broadcaster died Saturday in Toronto after a brief illness. He has been described as “the best friend Canadian writers ever had.”

Thirteen people have been arrested in Turkey as part of an investigation into an ultra-nationalist gang reported to be planning the assassination of Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.

“He loves to dance. I’m sure that’s what gets him up in the morning. I perhaps have never met anyone who loves to dance as much as Misha does. It’s fused with living — it’s how he lives. Not all dancers embody poetry, but some in their very essence in movement do. And he’s the poet laureate.”

“Born in South Philadelphia in 1927, the youngest of 14 children, Mr. Robinson had said he learned the time step from his mother on the kitchen floor when he was 6. He went on to tap in Philadelphia and on stages around the world, was named a national treasure, and taught tap at the University of the Arts for 20 years.”

A curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Conisbee organized some of that museum’s most popular exhibitions.

“A global art phenomenon, [Vanessa] Beecroft is best known as the bard of bulimia (she has serious food issues) and for her infamous performance pieces in which she assembles dozens of naked women, accessorized in wigs or chains or Gucci, and displays them before an audience of elites, who sip champagne and stare.” Her latest project has taken her to Sudan, where she’s stirred up new controversies.

Florence Foster Jenkins was one of the great enigmas of the 20th century music world, an energetic socialite convinced that she was a brilliant singer when anyone with an ear and a brain could hear that she was a vocal train wreck. Her “career,” such as it was, has inspired books, documentaries, and even a play.

Actor Heath Ledger, whose career took a major leap when he starred in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, has been found dead in a New York hotel room. Foul play is not suspected, and there was no obvious indication of suicide. An autopsy will be conducted later in the week.

Double amputees tend to draw no small number of stares, awkward questions, and rude reactions. One legless artist decided to turn the tables by snapping photographs of those who just couldn’t stop staring at him, and creating a gallery of our collective human fascination with the disabled.