Monday, July 14, 2014

Ramai Te Miha Hayward

Ray Lonnen

Actor -- via the Guardian.






Harry Whittaker

Child actor -- via The Daily Mirror.


George Morrison

Michael Henry Wilson

Filmmaker and writer -- via Variety. Did a great job on "A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies," as well as many other projects.








OBIT READER: Our weekly roundup of stories on death, dying, and more

TOP STORIES

From Confessions of a Funeral Director, "The Ultimate List of Mortician Themed License Plates" -- http://www.calebwilde.com/2014/07/the-ultimate-list-of-mortitian-themed-license-plates/

Via Katharine Q. Seelye of the New York Times, death on a island sheds light on a changing funeral industry http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/us/even-on-nantucket-a-funeral-home-is-a-luxury.html

R.I.P. T-shirts? Memorial casual wear is the thing in Baton Rouge; the story by Donna Britt of WAFB http://www.wafb.com/story/25991707/rip-shirts-have-changed-how-people-mourn-in-south-louisiana

DEATH

Mike Pleming on Modest Money talks about preparing for death, enotionally and financially http://www.modestmoney.com/prepare-financially-emotionally-death/

Is he dead? Wait just a minute, per ghanaweb.com http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=316513

A dying skill: film program cancelled due to projectionist's demise -- from Meredith Moss of the Dayton Daily News http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/projectionists-death-results-in-cancellation-of-fi/ngZ8D/

Per H5N1, a million-deaths study in India almost complete http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2014/07/india-the-million-deaths-study.html

There's a story here. Urn abandoned. Why? Via the Arizona Daily Independent http://www.arizonadailyindependent.com/2014/07/10/funeral-urn-ditched-at-phoenix-business/

 MOURNING

'Mourning in the age of Skype': Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig in The Atlantic  http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/07/figuring-out-how-to-mourn-in-the-age-of-skype/374044/

Finding meaning in loss, by Emily Lauren Townsend in Whole magazine http://www.wholemagazine.org/2014/07/death-as-way-to-life-finding-meaning-in.html

Lodro Rinzler in Elephant Journal reports on meditation and mourning http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/07/meditation-and-mourning-3-obstacles-to-successful-grieving/


OBITS

Um. Tom Hawthorne of the Vancouver Times Colonist reports on a unique anti-obit: http://www.legacy.com/news/stories-to-share/lovable-con-man-says-goodbye/2477/ and











P.N. "Nick" Furbank

Lou Nigro

Musician, and one of the country's most expert piano tuners -- via legacy.com. Father of Laura Nyro.

Marsha Mehran

Novelist -- via the L.A. Times.

Frank Mumford

Marionettist -- via the Telegraph.

John Leach

Musician and composer -- via the Telegraph.

Nadine Gordimer

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Friday, July 11, 2014

Charlie Haden

One of the great bassists in jazz history -- via the Ottawa Citizen. His deft touch, superb musicianship, and ability to lead, follow and meld with his fellow players makes him an exemplary figure in music history for me.  He made his name with Ornette Coleman, led the Liberation Music Orchestra, numerous ensembles, and nearly countless collaborations with the best musicians on the planet. Among my favorite recordings of his: "Haunted Heart," "Beyond the Missouri Sky," "Come Sunday," "Steal Away," "The Shape of Jazz to Come," "Farewell to Philosophy," "Pop Pop," "Sarabande," "Living Legend," "Jasmine" . . . and many more. From Yoko Ono to Gavin Bryars, he could play any- and everything, his talent and dedication expanding his musical circle ever wider. Can't really express how much I will always love him.










Dan Lenhardt

Ted Steeg

Hope Powell

Photographer -- via The Tennessean.

Zohra Sehgal aka Sahibzadi Zohra Begum Mumtaz-ullah Khan

Actress and choreographer -- via the Times of India. Best remembered for roles in "Bend It Like Beckham," "Bhaji on the Beach," and "Neecha Nagar."






Joe Alfasa

Actor -- via westernboothill.blogspot.com.


Thursday, July 10, 2014

Castro aka Theophilus Tagoe

Musician -- via the Guardian.

Andrew Mango

Biographer of Kemal Ataturk -- via the Hurriyet Daily News.

Bora Todorovic

Actor -- via In Serbia.

Jon Plapp

Artist -- via The Australian.

John Spinks

Ken Thorne

Oscar-winning composer -- via soundtrack.net. He won the Oscar for his wonderful adaptation of the score for "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"; he wrote the (non-Beatle portion of) the score for "Help!"; also wrote great scores for such films as "The Bed Sitting Room," "The Magic Christian," "Juggernaut," and "Superman II" and "Superman III." Also did the scoring for TV's "The Persuaders." Quite good, actually!









Peter Whelan

Playwright -- via the Guardian.

http://www.storyvault.com/video/view/childhood_memories_of_the_war

Rosemary Murphy

Emmy-winning and multiple Tony Award-nominated actress -- via the New York Times Best remembered as Maudie Atkinson in the film version of "To Kill a Mockingbird"; FDR's mom in "Eleanor and Franklin"; she originated the role of Claire in "A Delicate Balance" onstage.



Tom Veryzer

Former MLB shortstop -- via the Detroit Free Press.

Hans-Ulrich Wehler

Historian -- via Die Welt.

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Death and Beyond: 'December Project' reviewed


The December Project: An Extraordinary Rabbi and a Skeptical Seeker Confront Life’s Greatest Mystery
By Sara Davidson
2014
HarperOne

There’s thinking ahead, and then there’s thinking beyond.

Sara Davidson’s new book is the product of a two-year, face-to-face collaboration with one of the leading lights of modern Judaism, Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, who died on July 3. The radical and innovative spiritual leader, foreseeing his upcoming demise, which came at the age of 89, wanted to treat the subject of mortality, the end of life, and spiritual preparation for it. She quotes him: “What is the spiritual work of this time, and how do you prepare for the mystery?”

The result is this remarkable collaboration, a dialogue that splits into a multitude of levels, but doesn’t fail to cohere. Readers will learn about the author and her interlocutor, and measure with them insights, conjectures, lessons, and musings about the thin interface between human death and human life.


In case you are allergic to self-help books, this is not one (even though she includes spiritual exercises one can try at the end of the book). Davidson has the good sense not to write prescriptively, but to listen and solidify thought into cogent and compelling prose. She does not idolize Reb Zalman, nor is she merely transcribing his pronouncements . . . not that he was given to make them. She honors him more by transmitting her perceptions of him as a complex whole.

An outline of and illustrative highlights from Reb Zalman’s life are interwoven with Davidson’s. Here are beautifully articulate and brutally honest accounts of her thoughts and feelings surrounding her mother’s death, her own feelings of being increasingly ignored at a professional level as she ages, the frustration of increasing physical limitations.

We read about the insanity and randomness of sudden death, whether experienced by Zalman at the hands of the Nazis, or by Davidson’s happenstance escape from slaughter by terrorists in Afghanistan.

What surfaces from these contemplations? Unlike as in Christian and some other religions, there is no proffering of hope of salvation, or promises of bliss in an afterlife to come. The refusal of most Jewish thought to assert a definitive post-mortem reality is strongly here. Instead, there’s the calm assertion that the essence of a soul persists despite physical reduction or disability, that an essential unity with the universal has always and always will exist, and that relation to God is all.

Actions that Zalman advocates to reconcile himself with the end of his earthly life are just as applicable to anyone seeking peace at any stage of life – “December Project” creates a shorthand list of concepts and intentions that can guide us. Rather than try to retail them all in this review, I will enumerate them as involving the development of intuition, useful solitude, gratitude, disengagement from negativity, accepting the path one’s life has taken, overcoming fear, particularly the fear of giving one’s pain to God, and threefold forgiveness: to others, from others, and from oneself.

This quote from Davidson is a sample of the wisdom found in this book, one that has resonated profoundly with me and with everyone I’ve shared it with to date: “ . . . you have the capacity to forgive everyone. All you have to do is release the negative energy that keeps you bound to that person. You don’t need them to apologize, discuss it, or see your point of view. You don’t have to condone or forget what they did, understand it, see what in their childhood caused them to act that way, or become friends with them. You just let go – of the resentment and anger you’re holding.”


Easy? No, like most things that sound simple, it’s not. A lot of the information in “The December Project” may confuse you, irritate you, bother you, and upset you. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. For those seeking answers, Davidson and Schachter-Shalomi’s work together will help you get to work on figuring them out for yourself.

Kathy Stobart

Dave Bickers

Motorcyclist and stunt man -- via the BBC.




Lois Johnson

Country singer -- via knoxville.com.



Hank LoConti