Thursday, July 31, 2014

Manny Roth

Founded and ran Cafe Wha?, one of the musical centers of the folk and rick scenes in New York City in the 1960s -- via Rolling Stone.




Dick Wagner

Guitarist and songwriter -- via Rolling Stone. Worked on such great albums as "Berlin" and "Welcome to My Nightmare"; wrote "Only Women Bleed."





Len Belzer

Producer and writer -- via the New York Post.

Robert Halmi Sr.

TV producer -- via Variety.

Richard Larter

Artist -- via the Sydney Morning Herald.


Dick Smith

Master of makeup for film and television -- via Variety. Among his amazing projects: "Mark Twain Tonight!", "The Exorcist," "The Godfather," "Amadeus," "Death Becomes Her," "Altered States," "The Hunger," "Scanners," and "Little Big Man."








Robert Drew

Harun Farocki

Filmmaker -- via artnet.com.





Colpan Ilhan

Actress -- via aa.com.tr.

Art Schult

Former MLB player -- via baseballhappenings.net.


Louise Shivers

Writer -- via the New York Times.

Martin Tahse

Roland Verhavert

Film director -- via VRT Nieuws.



James "Little Otis" Govan

Singer, percussionist, and guitarist -- via the Memphis Commercial Appeal.







Don "Dirt" Lanier

Songwriter, guitarist, and music publisher -- via songwritingandmusicbusiness.com.




Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Vanna Bonta


Poet, novelist, essayist, actress, and inventor -- via the Los Angeles Times.


John Hoover

Former MLB pitcher -- via the Fresno Bee.

George Riddle

Musician and songwriter -- via USA Today.






Peter Marquardt

Actor and video game producer -- via Deadline Hollywood. Best known for playing El Moco in Robert Rodriguez's "El Mariachi" and "Desperado."




Augustin Rodriguez

Mambo dancer -- via the New York Times.




Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Karen Walter Goodwin

Innovative theater producer -- via the New York Times.

Peter Marler

Yoo Chae-young

Singer, actress, and radio host -- via The Korea Times.

Sushilarani Patel

Singer -- via the Times of India.

Christian Falk

Music producer -- via Pitchfork.

WEEKLY READER: a compendium of stories on death, mourning and more


TOP STORIES

From Agence France-Presse: Who counts the dead in Gaza?

On the Wellness Web, clinical psychologist Rosemary Stauber talks about her own grief and mourning

Stephen Cave in Aeon Magazine talks about the momentousness – and insignificance – of death

DEATH

From Chez Oswell, Death 101: A Checklist


Anger over an adventurous death from Darlene Ensor of the Mail Tribune

The death of adventurer Harry Devert by Louise Stewart in Newsweek

In Scope, Jacqueline Genovese reports on physicians discussing death and their patients

Ciara Kelly of the Irish Independent on opening the dialogue about death

Kerrie Noonan of Mama Mia on talking to kids about death

Harvesting organs from the dead: Danielle McCrea reports for the Las Vegas Sun

Oldest medical report of near-death experience found, from Bahar Gholipour in Signs of the Times

From National Geographic, a new book about “the stories and science of life after death”

MOURNING

Startup intends to connect family, friends, and funeral services, according to Chris Rauber of the San Francisco Business Times


An exhibit of memorial art reported on by Elissa Barnard of the Halifax Herald

Gordon Boyd of Wave3 News reports on “Death 101: Courses in Coping”

A contestant in isolation on a reality TV show mourns his grandfather on camera – from Hollywood Life

New funeral museum opens in Virginia, per Susan Worley in the Chatham Star-Tribune

In The Toast, Lindsey Palka writes about “Victorian Hair Art and Mourning Traditions”

OBITS

From jimromanesko.com – How truthful should any obituary be?

FUNERALS


From Alltop, a link to a Telegraph article about a new service that will launch your remains into space

Funeral home loses license again, six months after ‘leaky bodies’ complaints – via Jesse McLean and Joel Eastwood in the Caledon Enterprise.

MISC


Norman Leyden

Conductor, composer, arranger, and clarinetist -- via the Oregonian. Worked with Glenn Miller, Disney, Arthur Godfrey, and dozens of Golden Age vocalists. He co-wrote "I Sustain the Wings" with Miller.



Mohan Nadkarni

Musicologist and music critic -- via the Times of India.

Bill Thompson aka Wallace Snead

Kids' TV show host -- via KSAZ-TV.

Anatoly Solin

Animator -- via jumifra.com.



Bob Chase

Artist -- via the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Monday, July 28, 2014

James Shigeta

Actor -- via Variety. An exemplary leading man who could sing and dance, he did great work in a significant number of good films and with some great directors: Fuller's "The Crimson Kimono," "Flower Drum Song," Pollack's "The Yakuza," Vice Admiral Nagumo in "Midway," and of course Mr. Takagi in "Die Hard."

Margot Adler

Iconic radio reporter -- via NPR.



Sunday, July 27, 2014

Carlo Bergonzi

Tenor -- via the New York Times. While not often ranked with the Big Three tenors of the mid-20th century -- Corelli, di Stephano, and Del Monaco -- he was a supreme interpreter of Verdi.





Friday, July 25, 2014

Bella 'Bel' Kaufman

Verda Erman

Pianist -- via the Daily Sabah.

Tommy Mundon

Comedian -- via the Express & Star.

Rod Franks

Trumpeter -- via the Telegraph & Argus.

William Schoen

Violist -- via the Chicago Tribune.

FRIDAY BOOK REVIEW: 'The Book of the Dead'

By BRAD WEISMANN


The Book of the Dead: Lives of Justly Famous and the Unreservedly Obscure
John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
2009
Crown Publishers
New York


When I was a kid, the most prevalent form of literature in our house was the Reader’s Digest and its assorted ancillary products, derivatives, and uncategorized spawn. Condensed Books. Spring 1961 through Autumn 1968? Check. Treasury of Great Operettas, Mood Music for Listening and Relaxation, Joyous Music at Christmastime? On my turntable.

One of these was what first spawned by interest in biographies, and eventually obituaries. “Great Lives, Great Deeds” is an out-of-print Readers Digest compendium of more than 80 little inspirational life sketches of heroic figures – sans warts, contradictions, controversy, or depth.
These mini-hagiographies first inspired me, and later confounded me. The chasm of cognitive dissonance between our official narratives and the textured, ambivalent truths of lives lived made me want to crack jokes, or read a corrective.

Subsequent journeys through Vasari, Plutarch, Suetonius, and modern counterparts such as Schonberg’s “Lives of the Great Composers” and the Durants’ “Interpretations of Life” have proven to be tasty samplers for me, gateway drugs that encourage deeper investigations.

How pleasant it was to find this gem in a street rack a few weeks ago. “The Book of the Dead” is a delightfully readable, completely disrespectful – and still thoughtful – mashup of bios from across the historical spectrum.

It helps that the authors are the redoubtable John Lloyd (Britain’s “Blackadder” TV series) and the master researcher John Mitchinson. Between the two of them, they subsume a plethora of fascinating facts about each subject into a charming, provocative, and sometimes silly narrative.

Rather than categorize their subjects by nation, vocation, or other criteria, the duo engages our minds by lumping them together under unlikely banners such as sex, food, questing, particularly rotten childhoods, imposters, and those who kept monkeys. Somehow, it all works. For those who might otherwise fail to consider figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Moll Cutpurse, St. Cuthbert and Bucky Fuller, or Oliver Cromwell and Frida Kahlo as people with something significant in common, well. (And for those intrigued by the outlandish details, there is a helpful list of sources for further reading in the back of the text.)

The unifying element of this brisk, absorbing read is its tone. “The Book of the Dead” is shot through with the sheer pleasure of storytelling, the high spirits that come from shedding light on dusty, musty old exemplars, and a kind of bitter optimism – the faith that mankind’s peculiarities lead as often to good as to evil, and that the unexamined life is not worth laughing at. This cheeky cynicism animates the book and makes it something to purchase, hold onto, share, and read aloud to someone who is easily upset by such things.