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.
Interesting, overlooked, and significant obituaries from around the world, as they happen, emphasizing the positive achievements of those who have died. Member, Society of Professional Obituary Writers.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Dick Wagner
Guitarist and songwriter -- via Rolling Stone. Worked on such great albums as "Berlin" and "Welcome to My Nightmare"; wrote "Only Women Bleed."
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."
Martin Tahse
Producer on Broadway and on TV; the man behind the ABC Afterschool Specials -- via the New York Times.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Peter Marquardt
Actor and video game producer -- via Deadline Hollywood. Best known for playing El Moco in Robert Rodriguez's "El Mariachi" and "Desperado."
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Peter Marler
Animal behaviorist whose work on animal language led to spectacular advances in understanding -- via the New York Times.
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
‘Death
and denial in the hot zone’: Attempts to fight Ebola lead to demonization of
and attacks on health workers – via Foreign Policy magazine
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
Jewish
group recites the mourning prayer for all the victims in the Gaza conflict,
per Antonia Blumberg of the Huffington Post
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
From Modest Money, “Planning
Ahead with Burial and Funeral Insurance”
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.
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."
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
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)