Friday, August 8, 2014

Menahem Golan

Director and producer -- via Haaretz. Hey, remember the oft-seen logo for Cannon Films, or the credit that read "a Golan/Globus Production"? He's Golan. Directed 44 films, and produced more than 200, including "New Year's Evil," "Death Wish II," "Love Streams," "Breakin'," "Missing in Action," "Runaway Train," "The Delta Force," "Superman IV," "Barfly," "Bloodsport," any and every thing.







Here's a recent presentation of a documentary on Golan/Globus, at Cannes

Danny Murphy

Actor and activist -- via TMZ.

Cristina Deutekom

Soprano -- via Dutch News.





Alan Wills

Record-label founder and drummer -- via the Guardian.

Lindy Jones

Writer and teacher -- via the Guardian.

Ken Tickell

Organ builder -- via the Telegraph.

FRIDAY BOOK REVIEW: 'American Afterlife'

By BRAD WEISMANN

American Afterlife: Encounters in the Customs of Mourning
By Kate Sweeney
2014
University of Georgia Press

What is the landscape of death and mourning in America? Given our potpourri of cultural traditions, the general ebb of religious impulses, and the uniquely American terror of aging and mortality, it’s difficult at best to sketch an outline of it. However, if anyone can delineate its dimensions, it is Kate Sweeney.

“In a sense, death in today’s America is always unexpected. Even when it’s not a literal surprise, it has a power, when first encountered, to deeply jar people who have come of age bathed in the deep unspoken conviction: This is not what is supposed to happen to us. To me. Like those strange dreams in which we find ourselves pushing open the door of a wing of our house we didn’t know existed but now realize was there all along . . . “

Combining the thoroughness of a beat reporter with the skill of an eminently readable social historian, she sets out a clear and densely factual assessment of mourning practices, punctuated with vibrant portraits of such industry-related individuals as a memorial tattoo artist, a funeral chaplain, an obituary writer, an online baroness of crematory appliances, and a photographer who has made memorial portraits of deceased newborns.

Sweeney’s ability to listen and judiciously present leads to a plethora of diverse voices coming through, loud and clear – but it does not exempt an appropriate and apt amount of personal statements by the author in relation to the subject.

Sweeney’s abundance of historical detail contextualizes the state of the art today. The Puritans had no funeral ceremonies – they buried their dead in silence. (They did, however, love to compose funeral elegies.) The double sweep of the evangelical Second Great Awakening and the rise of gloomy, death-obsessed Romanticism led to a revolution in the consideration of death and in the commemoration of the dead. Graveyards became cemeteries; undertakers became funeral directors. In Christendom, at least, the rituals of mourning, the length of the mourning period, and sumptuary customs as rigid as though regulated by law.

Another shift Sweeney clocks is that of the casting aside of Victorian era’s thanatological obsessions in response to the wholesale slaughters of World War I. Multigenerational families, long the norm in American life, began to fragment. Old people were a newly segregated underclass. The aged no longer died at home but in rest homes, nursing homes, retirement homes, old folks’ homes, senior centers . . . Likewise, the body didn’t sit up all night on sawhorses in the front parlor.

Sweeney’s travels lead her to folks who can shoot your remains into space, on put some of you into a necklace or brooch (the Victorian-era funeral jewelry making a comeback!), or bury you in a nature preserve in a wicker basket, or do it “right,” the old-fashioned way, complete with a top-line casket (aka coffin), makeup and fine clothes for the deceased, a viewing, a funeral, a burial. (Thanks to Sweeney, I finally understand the transition from funeral chapel to funeral parlor to funeral home to funeral service. Did you ever wonder why your childhood funeral homes always seemed to be Victorian mansions? “The large houses provided social prominence, expansive living areas upstairs for the directors’ families, and large basements that were ideal for embalming.” Shiver.)

The stats point to a marked increase in cremations and a decline in funeral ceremonies. All aspects of the American death industry are in flux. Like many others, it has undergone a radical consolidation in recent years, one largely overlooked. The old-school family businesses are falling to corporate protocol. [NOTE: A note from Sweeney herself, just in, clarifies that this last supposition is incorrect. After inroads in the 1990s and 2000s, the preponderance of independently-owned and -run funeral services is restored.] Meanwhile, the market fragmentation has led to a lot of non-standard, cut-out-the-middleman approaches toward the care and deposition of the dead, and the observances and needs of the mourning. Even a seeming firefight between obituary writers and their enthusiasts fades to nothing as market realities destroy the beat. Death is certain, but a business model never is.

Sweeney describes funerals as “intricate events involving emotional people.” The daunting, morbid territories she has explored were no less challenging, and she brought us back an eloquent and sharply limned map of them.

Peter Sculthorpe


Composer -- via ABC News.



Ronnie Wilson

Director and actor -- via the Telegraph.

Dharmesh Tiwari

Actor -- via the Times of India.

Imre Bajor

Actor and comedian -- via index.hu.

James Thompson

Crime writer -- via Helsingen Sanomat.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

David Holgate

Sculptor -- via the Guardian.

Gorge Freese

Former MLB player -- via legacy.com.

Karen X. Gaylord aka Jane Goerner

Actress. Her death is asserted but unsubstantiated on IMDb; still searching for third-party confirmation. However, here is an excellent page of information on her, courtesy obscureactresses.wordpress.com.

Kenny Drew Jr.

Dorothy Salisbury Davis

Writer -- via lohud.


Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Pran aka Pran Kumar Sharma aka The Disney of India

Smita Talwalkar

Actress, producer, and director -- via Daily News and Analysis.

Khalil Morsi

Actor -- via Ahram Online.


Walter Massey

Actor -- via the Glode and Mail.

Richie Taylor

Journalist and musician -- via independent.ie.

Jake Hooker aka Jerry Mamberg

Guitarist and songwriter; best known for co-writing "I Love Rock 'n' Roll"! -- via Highlight Hollywood. PLEASE NOTE: Sharp-eyed reader Viv Holt corrects me -- Jake co-wrote the rock anthem with Alan Merrill, aka Allan Sachs, of the Arrows, who sings the original version shown below.



Marilyn Burns

Vratislav Schilder

Actor and puppeteer -- via blesk.cz.

Keith Newbery

Journalist -- via the Portsmouth News.

Rafael Santa Cruz

Actor and musician -- via La Republica



Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Billie Letts

Writer and teacher -- via the New York Times.

Steve Post

Radio host -- via the New York Times. Just one of those wonderful, intelligent, funny, descriptive voices that make radio so enchanting. A long-time staple of mornings at classical radio WNYC-FM. Here's a great profile of him by that station:

David Lee Bakenhaster

Former MLB player -- via legacy.com.

Bill Koski

Former MLB player -- via Dignity Memorial.

Yvette Lebon

Actress --via Le Parisien.

Velma Smith

Guitarist and songwriter -- via tasteofcountry.com A session player, she worked with Willie, Waylon, Hank Snow, Eddy Arnold, Roy Acuff, Jim Reeves, Porter Wagoner, and Patsy Cline!






Mike Smith

Radio host -- via the BBC.

Olga Voronets

Folk singer -- via ITAR-TASS.



Juno Alexander

Actress -- via the Telegraph.

Rod de'Ath

Drummer -- via Ultimate Classic Rock.

Monday, August 4, 2014

James Brady

Betty Jo "Grandma Betty" Simpson

Instagram focus of interest -- via the New York Daily News.

Jess Marlow

TV newscaster -- via the NBC Los Angeles.

Benjamin Olmstead

Kevin McGroarty

Master of the self-penned obituary -- via the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. Here is his highly entertaining autoeulogy: -- via legacy.com.

WEEKLY READER: International roundup of stories on death, mourning, and more

TOP STORIES

Via Apartment Therapy, the story of the death mask


Funny, creative obits stick out – via Bob Kalinowski of citizensvoice.com.

MOURNING

Mourning as performance art? – from Cheryl Rossi in the Vancouver Courier

Disturbing or comforting? Photos of stillborns, dead infants becoming memorial practice – by Joel Landau of the New York Daily News

Sharon Randall of McClatchy-Tribune on the need for funerals

Pamela Jay Gottfried on a beautiful day for a funeral

End-of-life ethicist reflects on her own mourning for her husband, from Peggy Fletcher Stack of the Salt Lake Tribune

Howard Barbanel on Huffington Post, on mourning his mother

OBITS

From Confessions of a Funeral Director: “10 Ways to Make Your Obituary Spicy”

FUNERALS


Funeral home buries wrong body – from Deborah Hastings at the New York Daily News

Veteran plans ahead by purchasing Jack Daniels coffin: from Alex Crook at the Daily Star

Paul Sullivan of the New York Times talks about planning ahead



Rich Ceisler

Comedian -- form his Facebook page.

King Robbo

Graffiti artist -- via the BBC.


Sadanam Divakara Marar

Percussionist -- via the Hindu.

Sam Hunter

Scholar, writer, and curator -- via Princeton University.

Natale Tulli

Actor -- via westernboothill.blogspot.com.