Category: people

“Trained in Hungary and the Soviet Union, Mr. Rabovsky and [his wife Nora] Kovach created a sensation with their technical virtuosity and an energetic style virtually unknown to Western audiences until the Bolshoi Ballet appeared in London and New York in 1956 and 1959.” – The New York Times

Gail Sheehy, a lively participant in New York’s literary scene and a practitioner of creative nonfiction, studied anthropology with Margaret Mead. She applied those skills to explore the cultural upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s and to gain psychological insights into the newsmakers she profiled — among them Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev and both Presidents Bush. – The New York Times

Spencer Kornhaber: “So-called diva antics never canceled the careers of, say, Christian Bale or Aretha Franklin. Yet DeGeneres may well be held to a different standard than other entertainers — because her product is her own persona, because she has centered that persona around niceness, and because the same cultural forces that led her to create that persona still exist today. To look back over her career now is to wonder whether the secret, bitter ingredient in her success has been revealed. Softness has long been her shield — and this scandal, on some level, shows what it was protecting against.” – The Atlantic

Some of the subpoenas are for companies that Leon Black, the chairman of the Museum of Modern Art, has used to build a collection that includes paintings by Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. – The New York Times

Popova, who died of Covid-19, lived a dramatic early life and found stability, if not joy, on Broadway and TV before becoming a ballet teacher. – The New York Times

Barcha held the landlord off while Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote the book, and when he emerged with the manuscript, “pawned her hair dryer and the couple’s blender so she could pay the postage to send the manuscript to his Argentine editor.” – The New York Times

Kanstantsin Shyshmakou, the 29-year-old director of a military history museum in Vawkavysk, refused to sign anything certifying the re-election of Lukashenko – and was found dead in a river after disappearing. Authorities claim there’s nothing criminal about his death. – KHPG (Ukraine)

It’s American history’s oldest mystery: in 1587, 100-odd colonists sent by Walter Raleigh settled on Roanoke Island in what is now North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Within a few weeks, their leader had to go back to England for supplies, and he wasn’t able to return for three years. When he finally did, he found the settlement abandoned — with the word “CROATOAN” carved on a post. No Europeans ever found the missing Roanoke settlers, and there’s been speculation ever since about what became of them. Now a writer working with a group of archaeologists says that the solution to this puzzle has been hiding in plain sight all along. – The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)

The National Susan B. Anthony Museum and House in Rochester, New York, explained in a lengthy Twitter thread Tuesday why it objected to Trump’s pardon for Anthony, who was arrested and charged in 1872 for voting illegally. It also suggested some other ways that Anthony could be honored. – AOL

“By day Dr. Bernard was an English professor at Long Island University, a job he took in 1959 and held for more than 40 years. By night he was a central figure in the experimental theater movement that began bubbling up in the small performance spaces of Midtown and Downtown Manhattan in the 1960s. His works were a favorite of John Vaccaro, the director behind the Playhouse of the Ridiculous, whose assaultive, anarchic productions were part of the stew that gave rise to punk, queer theater and more.” – The New York Times