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and now he's dead
and now he's dead
Jesse Helms
One is told not to speak ill of the dead, and even the obit writers of this ill-mannered site usually find some praiseworthy note—Hitler was kind to animals!—in even the shabbiest of lives. But it would be dishonest to pretend that Jesse Helms was anything other than a caricature of a Southern bigot. More »
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Clay Felker, Who Taught A City To Talk About Itself
Clay Felker, the founding editor of New York magazine, died today at the age of 80 after an extended illness. The Missouri native got his start in journalism as a magazine writer for titles like LIFE, Time, and Esquire, but he will go down in history as the man who codified a method for chronicling the elite of New York, while providing a platform for the city's best writers. He's responsible for creating the only real glossy city magazine that is also a good magazine on its own merits—unapologetically elitist, but not blinkered. And slick enough to justify it all. More »
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Comedian George Carlin Dead
Stand-up comedian George Carlin, whose routine about forbidden words on the airwaves led to a key Supreme Court decision on government broadcast oversight, died of heart failure near Los Angeles. He was 71. Carlin had been admitted to the hospital earlier in the day with chest pains. He launched to fame in the 1960s as a straightlaced, suit-and-tie comedian appearing on programs like the Ed Sullivan Show as characters like the "hippie-dippie weatherman." By the 1970s, he was doing more risque material in long hair and jeans, and his performance of the routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television" prompted an obscenity trial in Milwaukee, plus the Supreme Court fight, which arose from the airing of a similar routine on the radio in New York and an FCC fine. More »
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Political Adman Tony Schwartz Dead At 84
Media consultant Tony Schwartz, a creator of famed political ad "Daisy" (left), died Saturday of a heart condition. He was 84. From his home in Manhattan, Schwartz created not only infamous "Daisy" for Lyndon Johnson but also ads for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, among other mostly Democratic politicians. According to the Times, "detractors and admirers alike praised Mr. Schwartz as a pioneer in putting sound to more effective use in television advertising. He was credited, for instance, with being the first to use real children’s voices in television commercials, beginning in the late 1950s." Daisy is considered not only the most famous political ad of all time, but also one of the first and most influential negative ads. [Times]
obit
Tim Russert, 1950-2008
In what may or may not be an irony of some kind, but should probably not actually be noted, because it's sort of ghoulish and in poor taste, political journalism superstar Tim Russert went out today with a Friday newsdump, that hallowed Washington DC practice of burying news no one wants to see. Earlier today, June 13, 2008, Russert suffered a fatal heart attack. While working, obviously. Because he worked a lot, and he always looked like he loved it. More »
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Jim McKay, Sportscaster
"Jim McKay, the venerable and eloquent sportscaster thrust into the role of telling Americans about the tragedy at the 1972 Munich Olympics, has died. He was 87. McKay died Saturday of natural causes at his farm in Monkton, Md. The broadcaster who considered horse racing his favorite sport died only hours before Big Brown attempted to win a Triple Crown at the Belmont Stakes. He was host of ABC's influential 'Wide World of Sports' for more than 40 years, starting in 1961. The weekend series introduced viewers to all manner of strange, compelling and far-flung sports events. The show provided an international reach long before exotic backdrops became a staple of sports television." [AP] Rather than post grim Munich video, what follows is a lighter bit illustrating McKay's icon status. More »
Pioneering Black Journalist Dead
"Thomas A. Johnson, the first black reporter at Newsday and later, at The New York Times, one of the first black journalists to work as a foreign correspondent for a major daily newspaper, died on Monday in Queens. He was 79." [Times] (Photo via Times)
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Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley, whose role in the invention of rock and roll as we know it is matched only by Chuck Berry, died today of heart failure. He was 79. His innovations included flashy custom-built electric guitars and, obviously, the famous Bo Diddley beat (though, as Robert Christgau once noted, "there are as many diddleybeats as there are Diddley songs"). He was also an emotive, inspired singer. Here's one of my fave Diddley performances, of Willie Dixon's "You Can't Judge a Book By Looking at the Cover."
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Fashion Giant Yves Saint Laurent Dead At 71
Pioneering fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, who famously wove everything from pants to peasant clothes to leopard prints into the everyday wardrobes of women, and who adroitly evolved his designs over several decades, died in Paris of unknown causes. He was 71. Laurent "had been ill for some time," according to Agence France-Presse. The hugely influential designer retired in 2002. The cause of death has not been released, but according to the BBC, "Yves St Laurent suffered mental and physical ill health for much of his life and he appeared in public only rarely." The Times obit concludes with this quote: "I have known fear and the terrors of solitude. I have known those fair-weather friends we call tranquilizers and drugs. I have known the prison of depression and the confinement of hospital. But one day, I was able to come through all of that, dazzled yet sober." [AFP, Times]
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Sydney Pollack Dead At 73
Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack, whose credits included Out Of Africa, The Way We Were and Tootsie, died at home in Los Angeles of cancer. He was 73. His death came within three months of the cancer death of his business partner and fellow filmmaker Anthony Minghella, with whom he ran production company Mirage Enterprises. Able to draw talent with his passion for film and nuanced directing, Pollack was known for featuring top Hollywood stars in virtually all his films. At Dustin Hoffman's insistence, he took a role as the agent in Tootsie, and continued an acting sideline that culminated with a standout performance in Michael Clayton, featured after the jump along with an outtake from his journalism corrective Absence of Malice. More »
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John Phillip Law
John Philip Law—you know him as Pygar, the blind angel in Barbarella—died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 70. He was gloriously wooden in so many other nutty '60s cult classics, like The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming and Skidoo. [LAT]
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Robert Rauschenberg, 1925-2008
Artist Robert Rauschenberg, the man who saved us from abstract expressionism, died Monday at the age of 82. The Times describes him as a "brash, garrulous, hard-drinking, open-faced Southerner." People used to care way more about art when it was made by people like that instead of twee New School students. Rauschenberg started out making art out of junk he found on the streets of lower Manhattan, announcing that if you didn't find "soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles" beautiful than you must be a miserable bastard. So go to the Moma this week and see First Landing Jump, which is made of "a rusted license plate, an enamel light reflector, a tire impaled by a street barrier, a man's shirt, a blue lightbulb in a can, and a black tarpaulin." And some paint and canvas, sure. [NYT]
Baskin-Robbins Founder Dead
"Irvine Robbins, who with his brother-in-law, Burton Baskin, started the Baskin-Robbins chain of ice cream stores — together concocting quirky flavor combinations with names like Daiquiri Ice, Pink Bubblegum and Here Comes the Fudge — died on Monday near his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 90... One day in 1964... he received a phone call from a reporter for The New York Post, asking what flavor Baskin-Robbins was planning to introduce to celebrate the Beatles’ arrival for their appearance on Ed Sullivan’s television show. Caught unaware, he came up with Beatlenut, and then scrambled to find an unnamed flavor with nuts in it to match. Two days later, it was in all the company’s stores." [Times]
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Dr. Albert Hofmann, Father of LSD
Dr. Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who first synthesized Lysergic acid diethylamide in 1938 and first consumed it in 1943, has reportedly died at the age of 102. See, drugs will kill you. (In the attached clip, children at Timothy Leary's Millbrook estate describe their experiences on acid— "it can become even more important than reading the bible six times.")
Bob Greene Dead At 78
"Robert W. Greene, a pioneering investigative reporter and editor who helped Newsday twice win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and who left an indelible imprint on a newspaper whose reporting mission he deeply believed in, died Thursday after a long illness. He was 78." [Newsday, Romenesko]
grammar
And Now He's Dead: Semicolon; Punctuation Mark
The Semicolon died this week at the age of 417 from complications of irrelevancy and misuse. Semicolon was born in England in 1591 to Ben Jonson, the first notable writer to use them "systematically." The mark of punctuation dedicated its career to connecting independent clauses and indicating a closer relationship between the clauses than a period does. But mostly it just confused the shit out of English students everywhere. More »
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