What other conclusion can be drawn from (HBO) Max’s decision to cancel Rap Sh!t? But: "Rae is ... bidding on land in her stomping grounds of South L.A. on which to build a production studio. Cancel some shows? Fine. She’ll make more." - Washington Post
Gustafson won an Oscar last year for the stop-motion animation he and Del Toro co-directed. He "upheld a tradition of craftsmanship at a time when CGI, or computer-generated imagery, was sweeping the animation industry with its relative ease of production." - Oregon ArtsWatch
"After taking up art as a teenager at boarding school in the 1940s, Ms. Mackler spent a lifetime supporting herself with low-level office jobs while dedicating her nights and weekends to painting” - but exploded on the art scene when she switched to sculpture. - The New York Times
"(She was) a prodigious and peripatetic author who published best-selling books about the actresses Vivien Leigh and Katharine Hepburn as well as 14 other celebrity biographies, eight novels, three children’s books, two memoirs and one autobiography." - The New York Times
We are drawing a new musical map. Looking back, the 20th no longer seems the century of Stravinsky. Prokofiev once eclipsed Shostakovich—but no longer. And Sergei Rachmaninoff stands apart from the turmoil that enveloped him, a pillar of implacable poise and sovereign humanity. - The American Scholar
A potential Swift appearance at Super Bowl LVIII alongside her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, has already prompted the MAGA right’s culture-war pugilists into a conspiracy-fueled froth about how this NFL season has been rigged to boost Biden. - Rolling Stone
"No critic since Kenneth Tynan was better able to capture in vivid, richly metaphoric language the unique brilliance of a stage performance." Charles McNulty pays tribute to his professor/colleague/friend, who was a longtime professor at Yale's School of Drama and wrote for, among others, The Village Voice. - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
"Alejandro Triana Prevez, a 30-year-old Cuban national, was arrested just days after the 75-year-old New York gallerist was found dead in his apartment in Rio. … Prevez’s lawyer Greg Andrade revealed that his client had confessed and alleged the crime was masterminded by another person." - Artnet
"With her raven hair, lithe frame and smoky voice, Ms. Rivera cut a mesmerizing Broadway figure for more than six decades, her name synonymous with vitality and longevity on the musical stage. She was a reliable box-office draw, … and proved choreographically adaptable from Bob Fosse to Jerome Robbins." - The Washington Post (MSN)
"(As) editorial director of Bantam Books, … he oversaw a boom in paperback publishing beginning in the 1960s, putting out hitmakers from The Catcher in the Rye to Jaws" to rapid-turnaround books about the Entebbe hostage rescue and the Jonestown massacre to novels by Judith Krantz and Louis L'Amour. - The New York Times
"An author, literature professor and member of the Kiowa Indian tribe who became the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize — for his 1968 debut novel, House Made of Dawn — (he) helped inspire a flowering of contemporary Native American literature." - The Washington Post (MSN)
As an actor from a working-class background, Lynch says, "You’ve gotta decide: am I buying eggs, or putting money on my Oyster card? And I had to make that decision many a time." - The Guardian (UK)
Shaw sang with Count Basie's big band and with Sammy Davis Jr., and moved from singing at church to jazz performances with an edge that she honed into personal, ribald stories. - The New York Times
"Skal was an author with encyclopedic knowledge of a subject not always taken seriously — movies meant to scare the bejesus out of people — whose erudition, combined with a chatty writing style, made his books lively and entertaining." - The New York Times
"A child of small-town Appalachia for whom the idea of going to New York City was like 'going to the moon,' he … danced with Martha Graham, was an early member of the Paul Taylor Dance Company and led his own well-regarded troupe for 25 years." - The New York Times
