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PEOPLE

Will Banksy’s Identity Finally Be Revealed — Thanks To A Greeting Card Company?

"British greeting card company Full Colour Black and its owner Andrew Gallagher have filed a libel claim against anonymous artist Banksy in the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court over an Instagram post the British artist made in November 2022." The lawsuit could potentially require him to be named. - Artnet

James Jorden, Opera Critic And Founder Of The Blog Parterre Box, Is Dead At 69

He went from self-publishing a renegade gay-oriented opera fanzine, mimeographed and distributed by hand to — under the identity La Cieca — operating what The New York Times called "the most essential blog in opera," as well as reviewing more formally for several magazines and the New York Post and Observer. - OperaWire

Pianist Russell Sherman, 93

"(He) was a pianist of arresting insight, majestic technique, and transfiguring grace. In his prime, he was compared with 20th-century luminaries such as Maurizio Pollini and Alfred Brendel. But (he) ultimately chose a quieter path devoted principally to the study and teaching of his art." - MSN (The Boston Globe)

Ed Fancher, Co-Founder Of The Village Voice, Is Dead At 100

"(He started) the nationally known alternative weekly newspaper with two partners" — editor Dan Wolf and writer Norman Mailer, who stormed off after a few months — "in 1955 and remained its publisher until new ownership dismissed him 19 years later." - The New York Times

Nancy Van De Vate, Who Broke Gender Barriers In Contemporary Classical, 92

After earning her doctorate in music composition, she wrote "more than a hundred compositions in a seven-decade career, including seven operas, many orchestral works and a large body of chamber music." - The New York Times

Michael Caine Has A New Movie Out

He's 90. One of his costars (John Standing) is 89; the other (Glenda Jackson) has died. "No wonder tempted them from retirement: meaty roles dry up as you approach 100." - The Guardian (UK)

Right Wing Trolls Are Attacking Taylor Swift. Good Luck With That

"There's nothing the right could do that could meaningfully affect Swift. She has an incredibly devoted fanbase, a sold-out tour that lasts until November 2024, which again, is going to make her a billionaire, and maybe even has a hot new boyfriend." - Salon

How To Memorialize Dawn Powell When We Can’t Find Her Grave?

"She now inspires the kind of devotion that might include pilgrimages to her gravesite — had her body not wound up in an unmarked grave in New York City’s potter’s field, on Hart Island off the coast of the Bronx." Should there be a monument there, or elsewhere in New York? - The New York Times

Actor Michael Gambon Is Dead At 82

"(His) extraordinary acting career took him from Laurence Olivier’s nascent National Theatre to screen roles in The Singing Detective and the Harry Potter films. … admired by generations of fellow actors, he excelled in plays by Pinter, Beckett and Ayckbourn." - The Guardian

Think Our Politicians Indulge In Too Much Performance? Consider The Emperor Nero

"For a start, the boundary between the emperor and his acting parts was a significantly blurry one. … The awful black hole at the centre of Roman autocracy was that it was always as hard to tell an emperor from an actor as it can sometimes be for us." - The Guardian

Actor David McCallum, Star Of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” And “NCIS”, Is Dead At 90

As the mysterious secret agent Ilya Kuryakin on Man From U.N.C.L.E., the Scottish character actor became a major American TV star and teen heartthrob. 35 years later, he attracted a new generation of fans as medical examiner Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard on NCIS. - AP

More Former Employees of David Adjaye Decry Working Conditions

“David would yell at and berate the people he found responsible for executing his vision. Only senior leadership would be directly bullied by him, but they would offload that anxiety on the rest of us." - Artnet

Bollywood Star Wins Indian Court Case Over AI Use Of His Image

"Anil Kapoor (filed suit) because of the large number of morphed videos and emojis bearing his likeness going around as well as his iconic phrase 'jhakaas', first used in 1985 film Yudh. The phrase, which translates roughly as ‘awesome’ or ‘wicked,’ is now protected by the court order." - Variety

Things Emily Dickinson Collected — Now Online

Last week, a public database cataloging all those family objects—more than 8,000 of them—went live. The unparalleled collection has been assembled by the Amherst-based Emily Dickinson Museum and stored in an undisclosed warehouse in Western Massachusetts. - The Atlantic

Stephen Gould, One Of The World’s Leading Heldentenors, Dies Two Weeks After Announcing Cancer Diagnosis

"The (61-year-old) singer withdrew this summer from the Bayreuth Festival, where he was scheduled to perform (three different leading roles). He said he made the announcement after the Festival ended last week because 'I did not wish anything to cloud this year's achievements.'" - AP

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