The artist, who usually styled himself as simply "Ben," was known primarily for enigmatic slogans, scrawled in white or bright-colored paint, which he sometimes hung en masse on walls. He took his own life just hours after his wife of 60 years died of a stroke. - Artforum
"On Friday, after less than an hour of deliberation, the jury … (found) him guilty of embezzling more than $260,000 from the bankruptcy estate of Ace Gallery while he acted as the estate’s trustee and custodian. He faces a statutory maximum sentence of 15 years in federal prison." - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
After 15 years running Geneva's opera house, he returned to Paris to restore the national opera after years of shrinking audiences, administrative turmoil, the flight of top-tier singers, and the difficult opening of the Opéra-Bastille. He had more success than most observers had dared hope for. - Forumopera (France) (via Google Translate)
Peter’s prose was always ruthlessly concentrated. His wit had a bubbling, organic quality: The line punched, but you never heard the clanking windup machinery. He had ready opinions on everything. - Washington Post
The security manager’s days "span 12-plus hours and can wrap as late as 2 a.m., but she doesn’t mind the long days. ‘It’s only for three weeks, and I’m on a high the whole time because I get to watch New York … being celebrated.’” - The New York Times
Venza was "a shoemaker’s son who almost single-handedly delivered to the proverbial ‘vast wasteland’ that was American television in the 1960s and ’70s an oasis of cultural programming, including ‘Great Performances’ and ‘Live From Lincoln Center.’” - The New York Times
Helen insisted that it was the poem’s shape—its form, the thing that made it look unlike any other type of utterance—that gave it meaning. In clear and elegant language, Helen proved this time and again across her 60-year career. - LA Review of Books
Manhattan prosecutors, preparing for retrial after Weinstein's 2020 conviction was overturned by New York state's highest court in late April, say they'll try to get indictments on additional charges because "some people who were not ready to speak out in 2020 now appear ready to do so in 2024." - CNN
“They were made by God for Walt Disney,” said Dick Van Dyke, who starred in “Mary Poppins” opposite Julie Andrews. “They somehow managed to convey Walt’s meaning in those songs.” - Los Angeles Times
Little about this matter has turned out to be what it first appeared, and there's little independent confirmation besides the email address that messages to the paper came from, but for what it's worth, the self-proclaimed culprit says he's based in Nigeria but wrote in a Ugandan language. - The New York Times
"The scarred and gifted son of founding Beat Lucien Carr, (he) endured a traumatizing childhood and became a bestselling novelist, accomplished military historian and late-life memoirist of his devoted cat, Masha." - AP
After Super Size Me, in which he ate only at McDonald's for a month (and suffered for it), Spurlock was for a time as prominent a documentarian as Michael Moore, producing 70 films on subjects like consumer susceptibility to marketing (The Greatest Movie Ever Sold) and minimum wage labor (30 Days). - Variety
Once Presley's granddaughter, actress Riley Keough, filed suit and provided evidence that the organization attempting to foreclose doesn't actually exist, the apparently fraudulent attempt was withdrawn. Now the Tennessee Attorney General is investigating, and so, reportedly, is the FBI, which won't officially comment. - AP
"Shelby County Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins issued a temporary injunction against the proposed auction that had been scheduled for Thursday in Memphis, where the king of rock ‘n’ roll’s former home is located." Elvis Presley's granddaughter says the debt allegedly racked up by Lisa Marie is based on fraudulent documents. - AP
Was it because, as a child mathematics prodigy, he wanted to fulfil his real vocation and become a great mathematician? Apparently not. He taught the course that humanities and social science majors have to take in the US university system. “Math for tenors,” he calls it. - The Guardian
