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Mourning Roundup: August 9, 2010

AUGUST 9, 2010        TAGS: ACTORS, WRITER, MUSICIANS         ADD A COMMENT

Remember That You Will Die: The Podcast

Listen in to highlights from the July 30th reading at the Rubin Museum in New York… Rebecca O. Johnson's piece, "Love's Bright Fire" appears today. Rebecca could not read her winning essay on the 30th, but you can read her essay HERE. Gene Dulaney’s piece “Heraclitus at the Crematorium” will be published tomorrow and Silvia Sukop’s “Difficult Light” will run on Thursday. Stay tuned.




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Comeback Story

Patricia Neal can be described alternately as sad-eyed or husky-voiced, talented, captivating or stoic. But perhaps her most appropriate descriptor is perservering. She scooped up an Oscar for her starring role as a housekeeper in the 1963 film Hud, opposite a lecherous, sozzled Paul Newman.

Two years later she suffered multiple strokes that limited her movement and speech greatly. But she returned to the screen on only years later, earning accolades, nominations and the awed respect of her viewing public on the way. Romances with author Roald Dahl and Gary Cooper followed.

Neal died yesterday at the age of 84. Look for Gigi Anders’ take on her life and legacy next week on Obit-mag.com

Here's a clip from Hud. Neal refuses Paul Newman’s gin-soaked advances.

Words, Words, Words…

The effects of Tony Judt’s ALS came quickly and were physically devastating. He was confined to a wheel chair shortly after his diagnosis in 2008 and ceased speaking just months thereafter. To a man of such bright and varied elocution, the process was difficult. He did keep writing for the New York Review of Books, however, where he was a frequent contributor.

In this year’s July 15th issue he penned an essay about the power of words, in his life as a critic and professor and in the life of a public intellectual, of which he no doubt was a paragon.

From “Words” published on July 15, 2010…

“I was raised on words. They tumbled off the kitchen table onto the floor where I sat: grandfather, uncles, and refugees flung Russian, Polish, Yiddish, French, and what passed for English at one another in a competitive cascade of assertion and interrogation. Sententious flotsam from the Edwardian-era Socialist Party of Great Britain hung around our kitchen promoting the True Cause. I spent long, happy hours listening to Central European autodidacts arguing deep into the night: Marxismus, Zionismus, Socialismus. Talking, it seemed to me, was the point of adult existence. I have never lost that sense.”

Judt’s death on Friday at the age of 62 leaves a hole in the world of passionate and reasoned analysis of political speech and the moral centrality of debate. There was a time when how “well you expressed a position corresponded closely to the credibility of your argument.” Judt’s credible arguments will be missed.

An American Beauty

What a long strange trip it has been, indeed. Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia might be best remembered by his Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor, Cherry Garcia, but it’s his cultural impact and (strangely) his business management principles that endure 15 years after his death in 1995.

Musically, Garcia never stopped. His songs ranged well past the 20-minute mark, he enjoyed multiple side projects and his soaring, crystal-toned guitar playing rambled around the heads of fans for generations spawning what we now call the Jam band.

As far as the business of the industry, Garcia displayed a knack of gentle brand management, which included indelible icons (bears and skeletons), community-based fan outreach and incessant touring. Books are dedicated to his successes.

Boomer marketing may have moved on from the days in Haight Ashbury nostalgia, but it will never forget its friendliest-looking icon.

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