Category: people

Nikil Saval — a Bernie Sanders–endorsed democratic socialist, former editor of the literary magazine n+1, New York Times contributor, author of Cubed: Secret History of the Workplace, and community organizer — is replacing Larry Farnese Jr. a Democrat who has been state senator since 2009. He is also the first Asian American to be elected to Pennsylvania’s senate. – Curbed

He devoted much of his life, and his writing, to rebellion against his parents, Gunnar and Alva Myrdal, each of whom won a Nobel Prize. But the body of his work was reportage and advocacy on Communism and those who lived under it; neither Scandinavian social democracy nor the Soviet system was leftist enough for him. He wrote the first Western eyewitness account of the lives of ordinary villagers under Mao, but his later years found him defending the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Khmer Rouge, and Holocaust denial. – The Washington Post

“[He] produced thousands of objects over a 60-year career, from pen holders and toys to chairs and vases. Each of those items drew inspiration from the Arts and Crafts movement, in the simplicity of their form, and from his own uncompromising belief in communism.” – The Guardian

During the past several months, while Joni Ernst and Theresa Greenfield debated each other (and gave us viral clips about the break-even price of corn and soybeans), a separate debate raged among Wikipedia’s volunteer editors about Greenfield’s eligibility for a page of her own. – Wired

“[He wrote] a half-dozen acerbic and poignant books and became a senior editor at the New Yorker and Random House. Along the way, he helped champion and shepherd works by authors such as Billy Collins, Alice Munro and George Saunders.” – The Washington Post

Vedernikov conducted at the Bolshoi Theatre from 2001 to 2009, “a tenure that is hailed for its renewing of the Bolshoi Theatre’s long reputation for artistic excellence.” He also founded the Russian Philharmonia Symphony Orchestra in 1995 and served as chief conductor for Denmark’s Odense Symphony Orchestra for many years. – Gramophone

Connery was Bond for seven films and embodied him for many Bond fans. He dismayed those fans “by walking away from the Bond franchise and went on to have a long and fruitful career as a respected actor and an always bankable star.” – The New York Times

“A double amputee whose combination of physical power and bewitching delicacy created arresting imagery on stage and TV around the globe,” — most famously at the opening ceremony for London’s 2012 Paralympics — “[he commanded] remarkable control, buoyancy and adept physical displays, sometimes giving the impression that his body was in flight.” – The Guardian

“[She] dropped out of college to join the poetry swirl in New York’s Greenwich Village in the 1950s. She arrived in San Francisco in 1968, too late for the North Beach Beats, but she established herself as a singular force, a feminist in a poetry culture that was overwhelmingly male. Her publishing career spanned more than 60 years and 40 books.” – San Francisco Chronicle