ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

PEOPLE

P.J. O’Rourke, Conservative Writer And Humorist, Dead At 74

"O'Rourke was one of the most quoted writers in America, dissecting US politics and culture with a withering disdain and a powerful line in put-downs – often laced with a warm, self-deprecating humanity." A frequent magazine contributor and talk-show guest, he was once Rolling Stone's foreign affairs correspondent. - The Guardian

Artist Carmen Herrera, Whose Big Break Came When She Was 89, Is Dead At 106

"Critics and collectors, once made aware that Ms. Herrera existed, were rapt by the intensity of her work, which she achieved by juxtaposing geometric shapes in contrasting colors." - MSN (The Washington Post)

Ghostbusters Director Ivan Reitman, 75

Born in Czechoslovakia and raised in Canada (where he first met such young comics as his later stars Dan Aykroyd and Rick Moranis), Reitman made his first major impression as the producer of “National Lampoon’s Animal House” (1978). - Variety

Julie Saul, Effervescent Manhattan Gallerist Who Began Championing Photographers Out Of An Upper West Side Apartment, Has Died At 67

Saul, an art historian with the ability to be bluntly honest with her artists but also to protect them fiercely, created a place for mixed media artists, photographers, and artists from opera composers to the fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi. - The New York Times

Stephanie Selby, Known To Millions As ‘A Very Young Dancer,’ Has Died

The book that inspired thousands of aspiring dancers caused the subject serious issues. "Stephanie was not just another young woman who decided that the boot-camp-like demands of dance were not for her; she was the heroine of a beloved book." - The New York Times

Peter Jackson Tops Highest-Paid Entertainer List

Last year he sold his fx company. Forbes estimates Jackson personally made about $600m in cash and $375m in stock from the deal, making him the third person in history to become a billionaire from making films, after Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. - The Guardian

“What If John Lennon Was A World-Class Intellectual With An Insatiable Curiosity For Third World Literature?”

A long, loving profile of Caetano Veloso, who has transformed Brazilian music more than once, was a famous exile during the dictatorship, and has become a leading voice of opposition to Jair Bolsonaro. - The New Yorker

King Tut Was Not A Significant Pharaoh, Yet The Modern World Remains Fascinated By Him

"Tutankhamun represents an extremely narrow slice of Egyptian history; imagine if, in the year 4850, the world understood the United States largely through the Presidency of Millard Fillmore." - The New Yorker

A Childhood Friend Of Charlie Chaplin Remembers His “Always Hungry”, “Ragged” Early Years

In a 1983 interview that has resurfaced, the then-92-year-old Effie Wisdom remembers how the dirt-poor, parentless London child (his father ran away with a chorus girl, his mother had a breakdown) used to steal eggs and wear rags until her aunt took him in. - The Guardian

Why Joe Rogan Matters

He channels his audience into extended conversations with famously smart people who are willing to give them hours of attention. Through him, they feel like the world is a little bit less incomprehensible and their lives are a little bit less uncontrollable. - Post Alley

One Of The Most Recorded Singers In History Has Died Of COVID At Age 92

No voice was so completely associated with the music of Bollywood movies as that of Lata Mangeshkar: she sang on the soundtracks of more than 1,000 films and recorded more than 25,000 songs (a figure exceeded only by her younger sister, Asha Bhosle) over a 60-year career. - The Guardian

Cellist Leslie Parnas, 90

From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, Parnas was the principal cellist of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He went on to be a prizewinner at the Tchaikovsky, Geneva, and Musich International Cello Competitions, as well as a Pablo Casals Prize recipient at the Paris International Cello Competition. - The Violin Channel

Composer George Crumb, 92

While rejecting the sometimes arid 12-tone technique of Modernists, Mr. Crumb beguiled audiences with his own musical language, composing colorful and concise works that range in mood from peaceful to nightmarish. - The New York Times

Jason Epstein’s Influence On American Publishing Was Massive, And Continued For Decades

Epstein was the editor of Philip Roth, Jane Jacobs, and W.H. Auden; one of the founders of The New York Review of Books; and the masterful pusher of the trade paperback. "His major publishing achievements owed much to an uncommon mix of literary and marketing instincts." - The New York Times

Todd Gitlin Defined The Way Many People Saw The Sixties

Later, Gitlin critiqued identity politics, annoying some former colleagues in Students for a Democratic Society and other causes. In 2021, he pulled together "a group of ideologically disparate writers and activists to oppose continuing efforts by Republicans ... to undermine free and fair elections." - The New York Times

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