Passages

[MichaelB]

Gilbert Adair.

Pretty much as soon as I heard he'd died, I got in touch with Sight & Sound and offered to compile a memorial selection of favourite pieces (out of the ones he wrote for Sight & Sound and the Monthly Film Bulletin, anyway).

The response was an immediate and enthusiastic yes, and the end result has just gone live.

[Numero Trois]

At least Havel's safe from ever being visited by Norman Podhoretz again.

During some interviews on the BBC News earlier there was some discussion of the way that Havel was on 'shakier ground in the modern era of realpolitik'. I think that they meant it as a criticism but it actually seemed like quite a compliment!

Well, he was in favor of the Iraq War. Given that, I seriously doubt he was troubled by any visit from Norman Podhoretz. There is definetly some rust on that saintly halo of his, no matter how justified his international standing is.

[Polybius]

I thought the anecdote was fairly well known but since it apparently isn't, I'll share.

Sometime around 1988, Podhoetz inflicted himself on Havel (and I would presume others) while on a trip to Europe. Noticing a large poster of John Lennon that Havel had, he immediately began one of those charming harrangues he's famous for, scolding Havel about how the western counterculture was no friend of anti-Communism.

Anyone who has encountered Podhoretz is familiar with his epic reservoir of gall, but this was over and above, even for him.

[Arthur Bannister]

Johannes Heesters

[dadaistnun]

Sam Rivers

[Markson]

Sam Rivers

Damn. One of the best.

[Gregory]

Oh god, I just listened to his Crystals album about an hour before reading this here. Have now pulled out Contrasts, Streams, Hues. The Quest, Paragon, Rendez-Vous and both duet albums with Dave Holland for some marathon listening. A great musician, who was not discussed often enough and was underrecorded in the later phase of his career. I'll have to pick up the Mosaic set because I hadn't heard a single note of anything he'd played in the last decade.

[Anhedionisiac]

Pedro Armendáriz Jr.

[flyonthewall2983]

Cheetah

[jdcopp]

Helen Frankenthaler

[Feego]

Cheetah

Awww.

"Cobb said Cheetah wasn't a troublemaker. Still, sanctuary volunteer Ron Priest said that when the chimp didn't like what was going on, he would throw feces." Funniest obit ever.

[skuhn8]

Cheetah

Awww.

"Cobb said Cheetah wasn't a troublemaker. Still, sanctuary volunteer Ron Priest said that when the chimp didn't like what was going on, he would throw feces." Funniest obit ever.

I'd like to have that last bit appear in my obit.

[Gregory]

Back in his Tarzan career days his behavior was horrible. Maureen O'Sullivan hated him because he was always biting her.

[Kirkinson]

Here's some skepticism about whether that Cheetah was really THE Cheetah.

[Feego]

Kaye Stevens

[dx23]

Bob Anderson, the man who played Darth Vader under the suit.

[MichaelB]

Bob Anderson, the man who played Darth Vader under the suit.

...during the fight scenes. The mighty Green Cross Code Man, Dave Prowse, played him at other times.

[MichaelB]

Ronald Searle, cartoonist and St Trinian's creator.

[MichaelB]

Josef Škvorecký, writer, poet, publisher and authority on Czech cinema (his All the Bright Young Men and Women was the best English-language text until Peter Hames' The Czechoslovak New Wave came along, and has the advantage of close insider knowledge) - and one of the most important Czech literary figures of the last half-century.

Even if he'd never written a word himself (though his novels are excellent, and he was tipped for a Nobel on more than one occasion), his Toronto-based publishing house 68 Publishers kept uncensored Czech literature in circulation during the last two decades of the communist era, when writers like Milan Kundera didn't have a hope in hell of being published at home.

[antnield]

Harry Fowler

[kinjitsu]

Photographer Eve Arnold

[antnield]

British TV presenter Bob Holness.

[Ovader]

Frederica Sagor Maas: Silent Film Era Screenwriter Dies at Age 111

[Donald Brown]

Ronald Searle, cartoonist and St Trinian's creator.

The Comics Journal has posted a wonderful obit for Searle. Few artists maintain such a high form over such a long period of time.

[jbeall]

Josef Škvorecký, writer, poet, publisher and authority on Czech cinema (his All the Bright Young Men and Women was the best English-language text until Peter Hames' The Czechoslovak New Wave came along, and has the advantage of close insider knowledge) - and one of the most important Czech literary figures of the last half-century.

Just saw this, too. Don't forget that he's a highly visible extra in The Party and the Guests!