Kohle Yohannan, author of Valentina: American Couture and The Cult of Celebrity

It was rumored Valentina was a Russian spy. Some believed she was a convent-raised aristocrat, others that she was a ballerina and had danced and worked with Fokine and Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes.

And if that weren't tantalizing enough, there were the rumors and whispers about love affair with screen goddess Greta Garbo.

Exotically beautiful, menacingly talented, and hypnotically elegant in her every gesture -- I found Valentina lied about nearly everything.

In fact, after years of research and trying to wrestle Valentina's story free from the effects of her powerful potions and elixirs, only one thing seemed to emerge as irrefutably true: By all accounts, and wherever she really came from, long before her rise to fame and fortune Valentina always and undeniably had about her the presence and bearing of being someone.

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Continue reading "The Mystery of Valentina" >

Gemma Watters, Production Assistant

For the past several months, we've been scouring the internet and bugging publicists for fun people to read our puzzle prizes, and this week we have a jewel. His name's Judson Laipply, and you may recognize him from his very popular "You Tube" video called Evolution of Dance. I came across it one day when I was searching the web for tips on dancing, not that I need help with my moves - cough, cough. Have fun watching the video, and don't be surprised if it gets you movin' and a groovin' like a pratt, as we say in England. Oh, and Judson's recently released Evolution of Dance 2.

Thomas Pierce, Weekend Edition

Tomorrow morning on the show, Scott Simon and Andy Carvin, NPR's social media guru, are giving Dan Schorr a tour of Twitter:

And of course you can always find the show and Scott on Twitter.

Jacob Soboroff, vlogger

Do you have "technophobic" parents or grandparents? Click below and check out some of the tools we have been using to communicate AND some of Weekend Edition's social media tools.

Thomas Pierce, Weekend Edition

We asked for Barbie photos, and you provided. You've tagged over 1,000 photos on Flickr, and our staff looked at them all. We've picked 20 or so and made them into a slide show. Check it out:

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Peter Breslow, Senior Producer
My nine-year-old daughters Eden and Danielle have gone through many rounds of doll love--Groovy Girls, Polly Pockets and Winx. But their one everlasting affection is for their Barbies. Okay, there was about a year-and-a-half when the whole collection disappeared into the closet. But now Barbie has re-emerged and is back in force-- ready to be dressed up and sometimes just a little bit mutilated. As a matter of fact, just this week their mom took them to a thrift store where they rescued a couple of second hand Barbies to add to the team.

Peter Breslow/Senior Producer

 

Davar Ardalan, Senior Producer

Barbie has inspired other dolls around the world. These "Persian" barbies were gifts from my mother. I use them as deocrations each year when we celebrate Norouz or Persian New Year! I'll have them out on display again on March 20th. Here they are posing in front of NPR microphones for David Gilkey. Tell us about your "Barbie inspired" dolls!

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Sylvia Poggioli, European Correspondent

Two "right to die" controversies have dominated headlines in Europe in recent weeks. The cases have highlighted sharp divisions in how the continent deals with its terminally ill.

In Italy, the highest court ruled that feeding tubes could be removed from Eluana Englaro, a woman who had been in a vegetative state for 17 years. But the government - pressed by the Vatican - defied the ruling and tried to pass an emergency law that would prevent doctors from removing all life support from ailing patients. Englaro died during the Senate debate.

Continue reading "Poggioli: Letter from Europe" >

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Blues-singer Shemekia Copeland visited NPR to talk about her new album, "Never Going Back." She talked with Liane Hansen about her new music and the influence that her father, the late blues-guitarist, Johnny Clyde Copeland, has had on her career. If you missed the conversation on today's show, you can listen again by clicking here.

Next weekend, we're throwing a birthday party of sorts for everyone's favorite impossibly slender doll, Barbie. She'll be 50-years-old, but she sure doesn't look it.

David Gilkey/NPR

 

Over the past five decades, she's had countless makeovers -- Malibu, Princess, Southern Belle, and Harley-Davidson Barbie, just to name a few. She's traveled the world. She's played guitar in a rock band. She's acted in a Todd Haynes film. What can't she do? She's probably at work on the next great American novel.

Whatever the state of your Barbie (limbless or in pristine condition), we'd like you to send us a photo. And be creative: if you live near the St. Louis arch, photograph her there. Or take your Barbie hiking in the mountains and get her picture on the overlook.

Upload your photos to Flickr and tag them "NPRBARBIE."

If your Barbie has a story, include that in the caption field.

We'll be featuring some of the best here all week long.

Kimberly Adams, Production Assistant

This weekend, Liane Hansen is interviewing author Kitty Burns Florey, who wrote a book about the decline of penmanship in our digital age. I remember how proud I was in the third grade, when I was finally allowed to start writing in cursive. But I have also seen the quality of my handwriting decline after spending years using a computer.

But last December, my father passed away. Among the mementos I inherited from him were several beautiful fountain pens and inkwells. Having never used a fountain pen, I had no idea how to fill them or use them, but I tried. After several months of sporting ink-stained hands from pen-filling mishaps, I've gotten the hang of it.

I have always been a person who enjoys writing letters in cursive, despite the ease and speed of e-mail. I find the experience of writing a letter on pretty stationery in my best (attempt at) handwriting to be a rewarding one. My letters always get positive feedback.

Recently, I began keeping a journal. Sometimes it's in cursive. Sometimes it's in print.

But I'm doing all of this as a hobby. I think I'd be fine if I didn't know how to write in cursive.

So I wonder... is it really NECESSARY for schools to focus on cursive handwriting? What do you think?

Gemma Watters, Production Assistant

February 12th, 2009, marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, and it has brought new focus on -- and new books about -- the 16th president of the United States. At the top of our pile is one about Lincoln's tragic death. "Oh no!" I hear you cry. "Another book about Lincoln?" Yes, but this one has been sourced from previously unpublished journal entries, diaries and letters. Historian and former journalist Anthony S. Pitch is the author of the "They Have Killed Papa Dead!" He also gives Lincoln tours around Washington, including a stop just two blocks from NPR -- at the house where the assassination plot was hatched. And he tells Liane Hansen about the conspiracy to murder the president, the controversy around the plotters' trial by military tribunal, and how they were held in horrific conditions that nearly drove them mad. Listen to their conversation to find out the details!

Look at a slideshow of some pictures

Kathryn Dalrymple, NPR Weekend Edition

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Sarah Beyer Kelly, Senior Producer

A couple of weeks ago, Liane and I went to Lawrence, Kansas to do some reporting for Weekend Edition Sunday's "Darwin 200" series. The Spencer Research Library library at the University of Kansas has a first edition of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" -- and we had some fun trying to find it.

Watch a Video of Liane and Joe looking at an original edition of the book "On the Origin of Species."