As a working archaeologist, a regional official, and the national Minister for Culture, Hamdani — born and raised very near the ancient Sumerian city of Ur — worked to protect antiquities from looters, established a comprehensive database and atlas of archaeological sites, and trained a generation of specialists. - The Art Newspaper
He was fond of the Beat writers who had emerged on the West Coast and elsewhere and began publishing them. The spring 1958 issue featured Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Ginsberg, Kerouac and others who had been making an impression on the San Francisco poetry scene. - The New York Times
Known early on for his "bright vanilla hair" and youthful mien in films by Jacques Demy, Vittorio De Seta, Claude Chabrol, and others, he later pursued darker roles with filmmaker Pierre Schoendoerffer. As a producer, he scored his greatest success with nature documentaries Microcosmos and Winged Migration. - The Guardian
Textile conservators and fashion curators are appalled that beauty mogul Kim Kardashian donned Marilyn Monroe’s iconic Jean Louis gown for the 2022 Met Gala. Monroe’s show-stopping garment became famous 60 years ago when the Hollywood legend wore it to sing a breathless “Happy Birthday." - Los Angeles Times
"Footage showed someone running on stage and tackling Chappelle during his performance at the Netflix Is a Joke festival ... on Tuesday night. ...Chappelle, 48, was apparently unharmed and returned to the stage to finish his set." - The Guardian
A handsome young Black man surprising Chinese immigrants with fluent Mandarin can amass quite a following on social media. Frankie Light is one of several people who pick up various languages (or, at least, phrases), spring them on native speakers, and post the video on YouTube. - The New York Times
Régine, a singer and actress "who once ran a nightclub empire from Paris to Los Angeles," opened her first club in the 1950s in Paris, replacing the jukeboxes with DJs and changing the nightclub game. However, in France, she was more famous for her quintessential French songwriting. - France 24
She died on April 30, one day before she and her daughters Wynonna and Ashley were due to perform at the Country Music Hall of Fame, and just after Naomi and Wynonna had announced a Judds farewell tour. - Variety
Julie Phillips: "When I actually looked at Lessing's life, I didn’t find either heartless abandonment or a bold dash for freedom. Unsurprisingly, the author who brilliantly laid bare the dissatisfactions and self-deceptions of mid-20th-century women's lives ... had a much more complicated story." - Slate
"All that stuff you squash, all that frustration, eventually you have to spoon it out, but then you're left with holes inside you. ... I see myself as a chunk of Swiss cheese, and I've spent five years trying to fill the holes so I become a chunk of Cheddar." - The New York Times Magazine
"The founder of the Istanbul nonprofit art center Anadolu Kültür and the creator of Depo Istanbul, an independent art space serving as a platform for critical voices, Osman Kavala had long been a central figure in in the Turkish cultural scene." His alleged crime: "attempting to overthrow the government." - Artforum
"The incident crystallised several Jeffersonian themes: televised glamour, Black entertainers, and the question of how to behave in public." (In short, Smith and Rock both "are definitely too old ... for these shenanigans.") - The Guardian (UK)
Panah Panahi is the son of acclaimed, and officially stifled, filmmaker Jafar Panahi. "No matter how hard you try to be positive and go on fighting, we feel completely trapped. The only possible option is this dream, sometimes reality, of fleeing." - The New York Times
Okay, you may well know about J. Paul Getty, and if you're an ArtsJournal regular you probably recognize Eli Broad. Writer Patt Morrison introduces us to them and to Percy Marmont, Sid Grauman, Collis P. Huntington, Jack Skirball, Charles Lummis, Armand Hammer (Armie's great-grandfather), and others. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
She had a gift for unusual metaphors that made her teachings stick. In the bedroom of her 17th-floor apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, where she gave lessons almost every day deep into her 80s, she would ask her students to build theaters inside their heads. - The New York Times
