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Category Archives: In Memoriam
Missing the 70s
Winter is now a little quieter: NPR reports that Gerry Rafferty has died. Just the other day, I was just listening to City to City on my walk.
To be free
A slightly belated tribute to Billy Taylor, who passed away this week after a long long career, as reported by A Blog Supreme. Several years ago, I attended a series of “jazz appreciation 101″ talks by Dr. Taylor, given in Kennedy Center rehearsal space. He was a welcoming, generous teacher. One of the things I remember is his observation that you can learn a lot about jazz harmony just by mastering Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life.”
No more»
Via Languagehat comes the sad news of the passing of Denis Dutton, founder and editor of Arts & Letters Daily.
It’s magic
Robbins Barstow, Wethersfield, Connecticut’s prototype of the vlogger, has passed away. His 1956 Disneyland Dream, a home movie documentary of the family trip to Disneyland (by way of a 3M Scotch Tape contest), with narration added in 1995 (and more than a few corny jokes), is available through the Internet Archive. Disneyland Dream is one of the few amateur works named to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry.
Mr. Barstow’s survivors include the original cast of Disneyland Dream: his wife, the former Margaret Vanderbeek, whom he married in 1942; his sons, David and Dan; and his daughter, now known as Cedar.
A journalist
Let us mark the passing of Daniel Schorr: hired into Edward Murrow’s news team in the 1950s, named on the Nixon “enemies” list, barred from Khrushchev’s Soviet Union, dubbed a “son of a bitch” by CIA Director Richard Helms. Quite a life of accomplishments.
In the recent past, many of Schorr’s radio commentaries came off as nothing more than a recap of the week’s events. Perhaps that was his point.
A little less splendor today
Harvey Pekar, autobiographical mensch of the comics world, has passed away.
(Link via Leta.)
He wrote the book
A belated memorial to Paul Samuelson, who died on 13 December at the age of 94. From The Economist‘s obituary:
“To understand economics you need to know not only fundamentals but also its nuances,” Mr Samuelson would explain. “When someone preaches ‘Economics in one lesson’ I advise: Go back for the second lesson.”
I learned the fundamentals of macroeconomics from Robert Eisner lecturing out of the 9th edition of Samuelson’s Economics (today’s edition, co-authored by William Nordhaus, is the 19th). Maybe the best thing about the book was its endpapers: the IBC gave a family tree of economic thought, from Aristotle and Aquinas to the post-Keynesian synthesis; while the IFC charted real per capita GNP on a log scale over the period 1870-1973 for six countries: the U.S., Germany, Great Britain, Japan (fourth overall but with the steepest growth), the Soviet Union, and (way down at the bottom of the chart) India (and notice we were talking about national product and not domestic product back then).
Iconic
Here comes the sad but inevitable news that Merce Cunningham has died at the age of 90.
Dancing about architecture
Melissa Block remembers the brilliant street photographer Helen Levitt, who left us this past weekend at the age of 95. Levitt proved to be a less than voluble interview subject.
I asked her why it was hard to talk about her photography.
“If it were easy to talk about, I’d be a writer,” she said.
John at rest
Via About Last Night comes the unhappy news of John Updike’s passing. Teachout and I are nearly at opposite poles about Updike (the one book he liked I found tediously narcissistic), but we both regret his leaving us.
See also Christopher Lehmann-Haupt’s obit for the Times.
A questioner
The Economist remembers Helen Suzman, 36-year member of the South African parliament, a progressive gadfly duing the years of apartheid:
She was the sole survivor, for 13 years a one-woman opposition to the relentless consolidation of white rule.
* * *
She was a precious mouthpiece to the world, as she was also the first resort for communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, banned people, Coloureds resentful of their racial classification, and all the “sad harvest of the seeds of apartheid” that drifted through her office.
Some links: 33
Lori
We said goodbye to Lori today.
Lori was one of the few people who bothered to read pedantic nuthatch. She once put Karen’s nose out of joint by passing along the tip, “Did you know that David Gorsline is blogging his rehearsal notes?”
Lori and I were connected through a web of theater people in Maryland. We were admirers of each other’s work, but we hadn’t done a project together, or so I misremembered. But Brendan reminded me that the three of us did a role-playing gig for the American Physical Society three years ago. It was an easy mistake, because Lori was so deeply into character as Lise Meitner from the moment we got to the hotel. Her Meitner was a withdrawn woman embittered by years of doing good physics while the men in her profession took the credit and the prizes. It was a committed, crafted piece of acting for something no more consequential than light entertainment for a cocktail reception. But Lori was serious about doing her work.
