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How Gabby Giffords Uses The French Horn To Help Her Recovery

The ex-Arizona representative was shot ten years ago. She's rebuilt her life with constant therapy, including playing the French Horn, which helps with her ability to speak. - PBS News Hour

Benita Raphan, Maker Of Lyrical Short Films That Hover Between Documentary And Experiment, Has Died At 58

Raphan's "genius" films - about people with unusual minds and talents - weren't quite documentary; they were that, but more. "Up From Astonishment (2020), her most recent film, is about Emily Dickinson. In it, ink blooms on a page; butterflies pinwheel; there are empty bird nests, an abacus and various inscrutable shapes. Susan Howe, a poet, and Marta Werner, a Dickinson scholar,...

Gianluigi Colalucci, Restorer Of Michelangelo’s Colors, Has Died At 91

In the 1980s, Colalucci led the team that restored the Sistine Chapel. "To paint the Sistine ceiling, Michelangelo labored atop a towering scaffolding, his neck craned skyward and paint dripping onto his face. In an enterprise that captivated the international art world, Mr. Colalucci assumed the same position for the delicate task of cleansing the chapel of the layers...

Anne Beatts, Who Broke Into National Lampoon And Saturday Night Live Before Getting Her Own Sitcom, 74

Beatts helped shape the early days of Saturday Night Live. "'It was pretty much any adjective you want to throw at it,' she told the Orange County Register in 2013. 'It was exciting, stimulating and fabulous. It was also horrible, boring and exhausting.'" - Washington Post

Actor Riz Ahmed Says He’s At His Best When He’s Overwhelmed

Ahmed, whose performance in The Sound of Metal has been nominated for countless awards this season, doesn't prefer the easy life. When he was a kid, he says, "I wanted to perform in some way, but I didn’t think it was viable. Teachers told me I should be a barrister, because I was always arguing with them." - The...

Ethel Gabriel, Who Ran Parts Of RCA Victor For 40 Years, Has Died At 99

Gabriel began working at RCA when she was a student at Temple University, testing records for manufacturing imperfections. And she didn't leave. "Gabriel often said that she had produced some 2,500 records. Tucker said officials at Sony, which now holds RCA’s archives, had told her that the number may actually be higher, since contributions were not always credited."...

Yes, There Really Was An Eleanor Rigby

Paul McCartney invented the details of her life as recounted in the famous Beatles song, but he found her name on a gravestone in a village church cemetery on the outskirts of Liverpool that he and John Lennon used to take shortcuts through. Yes, the grave is still there, and we do know a bit of her actual biography....

Canada’s New Opera Champion Bob McPhee, 65

As head of Calgary Opera he was one of the most innovative champions of the art form. “I think he truly changed opera in Canada. I think there was Before Bob and there is After Bob." - The Globe and Mail (Canada)

George W. Bush, Painter (What Does His Art Say About Him? About Us?)

"Bush’s painting style is inelegant: his subjects’ eyes are often misaligned, his colors are sometimes muddied, and even though he attempts to create depth and shadow, the facial features ultimately fail to convey anything resembling human warmth. The book, providing an honorific framing, bestows a dignity upon his subjects that his presidential policies did not." - ARTnews

Valery Gergiev, Politics and Putin

By arranging himself with the powers that be, Gergiev has maneuvered his way to a singular position in Russian cultural politics. On January 30, 2018, he led a performance at the Russian National Defense Control Centre, viewing with Putin the weapons systems deployed by Russian forces in Syria. - Van

Lois Kirschenbaum, New York’s Most Beloved Opera Superfan, Dead At 88

Night after night, through multiple performances of a production's run at the Met or New York City Opera, Lois (the city's entire opera community referred to her as Lois) was in the audience, and more often than not went backstage afterwards to solicit autographs and talk to singers. "She could tell you anything going on in your performances on...

Producer Scott Rudin, “Monster” Boss

Even as others have been canceled or have dialed back their aggression, Rudin's behavior has continued unabated, leaving a trail of splintered objects and traumatized employees in his path. - The Hollywood Reporter

Manfred Fischbeck, Who Built Audience For Avant-Garde Dance In Philadelphia, Dead At 80

"For more than 50 years, was an indefatigable contributor to the contemporary experimental dance scene in Philadelphia and around the world. … Mr. Fischbeck; his former wife, Brigitta Herrmann; and fellow innovator Hellmut Gottschild founded and directed Group Motion Multimedia Dance Theater in 1968. The Philadelphia dance troupe, internationally known for its avant-garde performances and outreach to enthusiasts,...

Morris Dickstein, Cultural Historian And Literary Critic, Dead At 81

"A self-described 'freethinking intelligence yet a child of the ghetto,' … a public intellectual who examined such topics as the cultural ferment of the 1960s, the artistic legacy of the Depression and the evolution of the American novel in works that were both penetrating and penetrable, offering a model of what he regarded as the ideal role of...

Winfred Rembert, Artist Who Survived A Lynching And Southern Prisons, Has Died At 75

Rembert's art "told the story of the Jim Crow South. It was exhibited in galleries and museums and helped support his family, though they lived in poverty." - The New York Times

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