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Outsider Fashionista Passes Torch To 20-Year-Old, Takes Life, And A New Museum Is Born

Professionally, Steven Klein created logos and slogans for hotels and restaurants. But he belonged to no agency. Instead, as an independent consultant, he was a walking encyclopedia — and booster — of pop culture from the 1970s. The New York Times

Lee Maracle Propelled Herself And Other First Nations Writers Into Canadian Consciousness

Maracle died at 71, after having "chronicled the effect of Canadian settlement on the land’s Indigenous people and the persistence of discrimination, only to find herself in recent years championed by the very cultural and political establishment she had spent her career attacking." - The New York Times

How To Stay Focused When The World Turns A Spotlight On You

National Book Award finalist and MacArthur "genius" grant winner Hanif Abdurraqib keeps to himself most of the time, far from the madding crowds. "I’m not trying to be aloof," he says. "My superpower is that I mind my own business." - The New York Times

Bettina Grossman, Artist And Artistic ‘Feature’ At The Chelsea Hotel, 94

Grossman "was unusual even by the standards of the Chelsea, the storied haven for quirky artists." Her apartment "had become so crowded with her accumulated artwork — largely abstract, highly conceptual drawings, sculptures and photographs — that ... she slept in her hallway on a lawn chair." - The New York Times

Oliva Colman Says It’s Easier To Portray A Murderer Than The Queen

That two-year stint on The Crown wasn't the easiest for the multiple award-winning Colman, but "it wasn’t the actual Queen she found the hardest act to follow – it was Claire Foy, who had played the same character at a younger age in the earlier series."- The Guardian (UK)

A Judge Rules Britney Spears Can Be Free Of Conservatorship

Fans celebrate - and some wonder about the many non-famous, non-white, disabled folks who are also in conservatorships: "Spears’ case is expected to be used as fuel for conservatorship reform." - Los Angeles Times

Petra Mayer, NPR’s Beloved, Passionate Books Editor Has Died Suddenly

"Mayer was a proud nerd ... shared those passions with readers and listeners through her reviews of sci-fi, fantasy, romance, thrillers and comics, her trusty on-the-scene reporting at Comic-Con, and her contributions to the Book Concierge." - NPR

Sylvère Lotringer, Who Founded Semiotext(e) And Brought French Theory To America’s Art World, Dead At 83

We leave it to you to speculate on which direction St. Peter will send him for that, but his work did spark enormous changes in American arts and intellectual life — not least through the riotous 1975 colloquium "Schizo-Culture" he organized at Columbia. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

Man And Daughter Killed Over Four Stradivarius Violins

“Our principal hypothesis is that the motive for the double crime was to find the international certification of authenticity of the violins so they could be sold.” - Daily Beast

David Graeber Was A Startlingly Smart Anthropologist. He Died Just After Completing His Magnum Opus

"Since one cannot know a radically better world is not possible, are we not betraying everyone by insisting on continuing to justify and reproduce the mess we have today?” - New York Magazine

How A Nice Jewish Boy From Oakland Became A Busy Bollywood Actor

Richard Klein seemed well set as a math and science teacher and amateur performer in the Bay Area. Then, at 45, he up and moved to Mumbai, determined to make it in Indian showbiz. Now he's one of Bollywood's go-to white-guy character actors. - The New York Times

John Cleese Cancels Cambridge Union Appearance Over Speaker Blacklist

"I was looking forward to talking to students at the Cambridge Union this Friday, but I hear that someone there has been blacklisted for doing an impersonation of Hitler I regret that I did the same on a Monty Python show, so I am blacklisting myself before someone else does." - The Telegraph (UK)

Actor Dean Stockwell Dead At 85

After a successful but unhappy career as a child star, he left and returned to acting several times: in the late '50s and 60s, winning two prizes at Cannes; in '70s B-pictures; under '80s and '90s auteurs Demme, Altman, Lynch, etc.; and finally in science fiction TV. - The Guardian

Golden Age Hollywood Director John Farrow Had An Extraordinary Life. Why Have We Forgotten Him?

He was more than Mia's father and Ronan's grandfather. He ran away to become a sailor, he wrote a Tahitian-English-French dictionary; he pretended to be an Annapolis grad and a physician; he really did fight in Latin American rebellions. And he made 50 movies. - The Guardian

Big Bird In The Crosshairs: Ted Cruz Attacks After The Big Guy Gets Vaccinated

“My wing is feeling a little sore, but it’ll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy. Erica Hill even said I’ve been getting vaccines since I was a little bird!” Cruz responded: “Government propaganda … for your 5-year-old!” - The Guardian

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