“This year, a single performance stood out as gut-wrenching and unforgettable: Nadia Beugré, from Côte d’Ivoire, delivered an almost unbearably compelling solo titled Quartiers Libres, wherein pleasure and pain, freedom and oppression, intermingled.”
Tag: 12.25.12
Television Star Jack Klugman, 90
“[The] three-time Emmy Award-winning actor [was] best known for his portrayals of slovenly sportswriter Oscar Madison on TV’s The Odd Couple and the title role of the murder-solving medical examiner on Quincy, M.E.”
Charles Durning, 89, King Of The Character Actors
Renowned for “his ability to inhabit almost any role, from everyday workingman to politician to priest, … [he] appeared in almost 200 movies, countless television shows and dozens of plays, portraying a range of characters from Shakespearean fools to crooked cops to military veterans haunted by the past.”
Iceland’s Book Flood
Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other country in the world, with five titles published for every 1,000 Icelanders. But what’s really unusual is the timing: Historically, a majority of books in Iceland are sold from late September to early November. It’s a national tradition, and it has a name: Jolabokaflod, or the “Christmas Book Flood.”
Composer Richard Rodney Bennett, 76
“Over the course of a distinguished career he has been equally at home writing music for the concert hall and performing cabaret at the Algonquin Hotel; as enthusiastic about Cole Porter as Pierre Boulez.”