An excellent survey of the many new actions being taken to demystify and humanize the dying process, by Tara Bahrampour.
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.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
From Ghost Hunting Theories: The Victorian Way of Death
An interesting survey of death and mourning practices in the 19th century. Finally, a reference to the unnerving practice of the time of photographing the dead -- a tradition carried on in my family through 1967!
Friday, May 2, 2014
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
Emblematic actor of the 1960s -- via the Hollywood Reporter. The son of famed musicians -- violinist Erfrem Sr. and soprano Alma Gluck -- Zimbalist worked his way through stage, on the way producing three of Menoti's most significant operas -- "The Telephone," "The Medium," and "The Consul." He first made a splash in the guest role of Dandy Jim Buckley on the short-lived but significant Western comedy "Maverick." He then starred in the lighthearted detective series "77 Sunset Strip."
Most significantly, he portrayed the central figure of straight-arrow Inspector Lewis Erskine on the series "The F.B.I." for 15 years. He embodied Hoover's ideal of how an agent should look and act. However, once free to act again, he proved his droll charm on his daughter Stephanie's "Remington Steele" show as a suave con man Daniel Chalmers. Later still, he became the voice of Alfred on various animated "Batman" series. A fine talent!
Most significantly, he portrayed the central figure of straight-arrow Inspector Lewis Erskine on the series "The F.B.I." for 15 years. He embodied Hoover's ideal of how an agent should look and act. However, once free to act again, he proved his droll charm on his daughter Stephanie's "Remington Steele" show as a suave con man Daniel Chalmers. Later still, he became the voice of Alfred on various animated "Batman" series. A fine talent!
William Ash
Legendary 'cooler king' -- WWII escape artist, writer, and Communist agitator -- via the Guardian.
Edmund Abel
Engineer and inventor of Mr. Coffee, the automatic drip coffeemaker -- via the Boston Globe. He has earned my undying gratitude! The innovation created mellower, most flavorful coffee and made it faster. It saves my life on a daily basis. P.S. -- he never drank coffee.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
'Levels of Life': No art in grief?
Levels of Life
Julian Barnes
2013
Alfred A. Knopf
If you haven’t read any of Julian Barnes’ work yet, why not?
This incredibly talented and readable author has been lauded in many ways, most
notably by being awarded England’s prestigious (and usually controversial and
disputed) Man Booker Prize in 2011. My favorites of his works include the
novels “Metroland,” “Flaubert’s Parrot,” and “Arthur & George.”
His most recent work is a meditation on the death of his
wife, literary agent Pat Kavanagh, who passed away in 2008. “Levels of Life” is
a powerful and unflinching examination of the after-life of the author as the
survivor of a loved one.
Barnes’ approach to his subject is circuitous, taking an
oblique route first through stories about early ballooning, photography, and
Sarah Bernhardt. This is an approach Barnes has used before, and although it
seems quite counterintuitive at face value, it is astonishingly effective. The
writing, three interconnected essays titled “The Sin of Height,” “On the Level,”
and “The Loss of Depth,” has been criticized by some as being not sufficiently
to the point, to which I can simply respond, well blow it out your fundament then,
write your own damn book about mourning.
Patient and intelligent readers will be drawn in by the
disparate threads that Barnes deftly gathers as he goes, weaving them into a
deeply moving self-portrait. I see the writer’s seeming diffidence as the only
effective way to circle in and name painful truths, sparing himself absolutely
nothing on the way.
Neither does he spare the well-intentioned around him, whose
blundering attempts to assuage his feelings are accurately analyzed as a distaste
for the discomfort his loss causes them. Case in point:
Someone I had only met twice wrote to
tell me that a few months previously he had ‘lost his wife to cancer’ (another
phrase that jarred: compare “We lost our dog to gypsies,” or “He lost his wife
to a commercial traveler”). He reassured me that one does survive the grief; moreover,
one emerges a “stronger,” and in some ways a “better,” person. This struck me
as outrageous and self-praising (as well as too quickly decided). How could I
possibly be a better person without her than with her? Later, I thought: but he
is just echoing Nietzsche’s line about what doesn’t kill us making us stronger.
And as it happens, I have long considered this epigram particularly specious.
There are many things that fail to kill us but weaken us for ever. Ask anyone
who deals with victims of torture. Ask rape counsellors and those who handle
domestic violence. Look around at those emotionally damaged by mere ordinary
life.”
Barnes conveys his fluctuating inner state with a dry
compassion that neither kids himself nor discounts the depth, confusion, and
profusion of thoughts and feelings attendant on the death of his wife. The
honesty and accuracy here is brave, and intensely comforting.
When I am at my desk, I am frequently writing simply to find
out what is on my mind – thinking with my fingers (and scraping up a buck or
two in the process – two missions that sometimes cohere). Barnes’ words have
the effortless flow of free association, but multiple readings reveal a
meticulous arrangement and honing of the text, which in itself a reward or
those who seek good writing. We are long past the time when “meta” in
literature was a novelty; Barnes is such a master of it that it draws no
attention to itself.
In the end, Barnes gives us no neat conclusions, but he does
ties his metaphors together. The crude and pilotless pioneer air journeys
resemble marriage itself; early photography mirrors his attempts to redefine
the landscape of his solitaire life. The act of writing affirms the act of
living.
Perhaps grief, which destroys all
patterns, destroys even more: the belief that any pattern exists. But we
cannot, I think, survive without such belief. So each of us must pretend to
find, or re-erect, a pattern. Writers believe in the patterns their words make,
which they hope and trust add up to ideas, to stories, to truths. This is
always their salvation, whether griefless or griefstruck.
From First Coast News: In death, segregation?
Well, this will blow your mind -- evidently, some people don't want corpses of different races in the same funeral homes or cemeteries. What the what??? It's not history, folks, it's still happening.
Malcom Tierney
Actor -- via the Guardian. Marvelous at playing baddies, his range was actually exceptionally broad, embracing comedy and classical works as well.
Malcolm Tierney Interview from Music & Performing Arts on Vimeo.
Malcolm Tierney Interview from Music & Performing Arts on Vimeo.
Al Feldstein
Editor of MAD magazine, writer, and illustrator -- via the New York Times. Wow -- while not the funniest or non-grumpiest of people himself, he got the mag out on time and under budget, and made all the key hires that made the magazine one that we all waited around the drugstore for in order to grab the newest copy! He employed Don Martin ("Shtoink! Fladdaddaddap!"), Antonio Prohias ("Spy vs. Spy"), Dave Berg, Mort Drucker, and many others. Plus he made buck-toothed Alfred E. Neuman the poster boy of our generation.
Much gratitude to Al and "the usual gang of idiots" -- the humor was dumb, infantile, gross, and sometimes just not funny. However, it gave us permission to think differently about just about everything, and groomed a lot of us for comedy careers down the road. Thanks, Al, for giving us something we treasured that pissed our parents off as well.
Much gratitude to Al and "the usual gang of idiots" -- the humor was dumb, infantile, gross, and sometimes just not funny. However, it gave us permission to think differently about just about everything, and groomed a lot of us for comedy careers down the road. Thanks, Al, for giving us something we treasured that pissed our parents off as well.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
From Charles Garfield: 'Seven Keys to a Good Death'
Is there such a thing as as "good death"? I wonder. Still, I have witnessed many, many mismanaged end-of-life scenarios. Knowledge is power, and Garfield eloquently outlines important considerations for those nearing death, and those who care for them.
Bob Hoskins
Actor -- via the Guardian. One of my all-time favorite performers, he was typed as Cockney lads, gangsters, and detectives, but his emotional range, expressiveness, and subtlety was far beyond those seeming limitations. Best roles: of course, his star-making turn as Arthur Parker in the BBC-TV original version of "Pennies from Heaven"; Shand in "The Long Good Friday"; Iago in the otherwise not-so-great BBC-TV "Othello"; Eddie Valiant in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"; and Micawber in Simon Curtis' "David Copperfield." My dream Brit cast for a parody remake of "The Ten Commandments" always featured Bob as a profanity-spewing Pharaoh, Michael Caine as Moses, and Sean Connery as God.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
From CTV London Ontario: On the International Day of Mourning
A day of remembering those killed on the job, originated in Canada in 1984. It emphasizes the preventable nature of many of these deaths, and helps to incite action to make workplaces safer.
Monday, April 28, 2014
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