Names and faces

Suzy Favor Hamilton is shown in this September 2008 file photo.
Suzy Favor Hamilton is shown in this September 2008 file photo.

Former U.S. Olympian and University of Wisconsin track star Suzy Favor Hamilton said Wednesday that she will release a memoir next month that will touch on the mental-health issues that compelled her to lead a double life as a Las Vegas call girl. Favor Hamilton told her Twitter followers that the book, Fast Girl, will go on sale Sept. 14. She tweeted that she’s “so excited to finally share my story with you next month.” A blurb on publisher HarperCollins’ website says the book will recount how manic depression and bipolar disorder drove Favor Hamilton to excel as an athlete. It also will explain how medication exacerbated her mania and made her become hypersexual, giving her a new-found strength and a desire that drove her to secretly become a $600-anhour Las Vegas escort known as Kelly. The blurb also promised that Favor Hamilton will discuss how she contemplated suicide after word of her secret life was revealed on The Smoking Gun website in 2012 and how she finally got the right medical help. Favor Hamilton, a middle-distance runner, competed for the U.S. at the Olympics in 1992, 1996 and 2000 but didn’t win a medal. She also captured seven U.S. national titles.

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Bob Dylan is shown at Los Angeles in this Feb. 6 file photo.

A team of artists is working on a giant mural featuring a portrait of musician Bob Dylan on a building in downtown Minneapolis. On Wednesday, the artists began painting the 60-foot tall, 150-foot wide portrait of Dylan, who originally hailed from Duluth and once owned the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. The kaleidoscopic portrait will fill a whitewashed wall at Fifth Street and Hennepin Avenue. Commissioned by the building’s owner, Goldman Sachs, the mural is part of the Hennepin Theatre Trust’s effort to help revitalize downtown Minneapolis with a Cultural District. The $50,000 project is being planned by Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra, who has left his mark on facades across three continents, including a mural of rappers Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. in Miami and one of Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai in Rome. This will be his largest project outside of Brazil. Kobra’s team of five artists, three from Brazil and two from Minnesota, will use boom lifts and air compressors as they work on the mural over the next two weeks. Kobra wants to keep the design a surprise, but he welcomes people who want to witness the creative process. He envisions a triptych of Dylan, with three black-and-white images of the musician over different periods of his long career. The mural will include lyrics from Dylan’s song “The Times They Are A-Changin’.”

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