Can't Possibly Be True | Take That, Portland!

• Vicky Leyton, 72, announced her retirement recently in Benidorm, Spain, over health concerns, but the lady's 30-year run in her one-of-a-kind, "Sticky Vicky" magic show can hardly be forgotten by the 6 million fans who have witnessed it. Trained as a ballerina but emulating magicians who pull rabbits out of top hats, Vicky extracted an impressive array of items, also -- from the body cavity that is occasionally the subject of News of the Weird stories. One review in Spain's El Pais newspaper described a typical inventory: fluffy flags, flowers, ping-pong balls, sausages, eggs, a string of razor blades, a bottle and a light bulb (that was aglow!). [The Local (Madrid), 2-22-2016]

• Seattle's ambitious Office of Arts & Culture has allocated $10,000 this year to pay a poet or writer to create a work while present on the city's Fremont Bridge drawbridge. The office's deputy director told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in January that the city wants to encourage "public art" and that the grant will oblige the recipient to create a work of prose or poetry from the bridge's northwest tower, to help the people of Seattle understand the function of art in the city. (The artist will not be "in residence," for the tower has no running water.) [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1-14-2016]

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