Friday, February 23, 2007
Lothar-Gunther Buchheim, 89
Collector, Painter & Author of Das BootHe passed away from heart failure
February 6, 1918 - February 22, 2007
RIP
sources
Buchheim Museum der Phantasie
Lothar Gunther Buchheim
Labels: 1918 births, 2007 February deaths, author, heart failure
Friday, November 10, 2006
Ellen Willis, 65
No More Nice Girls
I took a personal economics course in high school. The main objective was to teach a person how to balance their check book, invest money and plan for retirement. I kinda blew off that class because my one and only plan for life was that I was going to write the Great American Novel by the time I was 25. Following the publication I was going to travel the world promoting the book and just being a eccentric tourist. But unfortunately on my way back from Great Britain while sitting in first class on the Concorde the plane would suddenly develop engine problems and would crash in the ocean. I along with the other passengers would be lost at sea for eternity. Well by the time I was 23 I hadn't even started the novel. I had changed my major to Accounting with a minor in English in hopes that after I spent the day toiling over debits and credits that I could still work on the great Great American Novel and perhaps some minor short stories, as a start to get in good with a reputable publisher. By the time I was 25 I changed my major again to Finance, no minor. I started working full time, learned how to balance a checkbook and started my own retirement account.
I guess if my life hadn't taken the direction it did I would've still liked to do some writing for a living (and blogging during work doesn't really count). I envy the career that Ellen Willis had. She was a political essayist, journalist, pop music critic and the Director of Cultural Reporting and Criticism graduate program at NYU. I think I liked the most was what I read on Wikipedia...
Ms. Willis passed away of cancer
1941 - November 9, 2006
RIP
I took a personal economics course in high school. The main objective was to teach a person how to balance their check book, invest money and plan for retirement. I kinda blew off that class because my one and only plan for life was that I was going to write the Great American Novel by the time I was 25. Following the publication I was going to travel the world promoting the book and just being a eccentric tourist. But unfortunately on my way back from Great Britain while sitting in first class on the Concorde the plane would suddenly develop engine problems and would crash in the ocean. I along with the other passengers would be lost at sea for eternity. Well by the time I was 23 I hadn't even started the novel. I had changed my major to Accounting with a minor in English in hopes that after I spent the day toiling over debits and credits that I could still work on the great Great American Novel and perhaps some minor short stories, as a start to get in good with a reputable publisher. By the time I was 25 I changed my major again to Finance, no minor. I started working full time, learned how to balance a checkbook and started my own retirement account.
I guess if my life hadn't taken the direction it did I would've still liked to do some writing for a living (and blogging during work doesn't really count). I envy the career that Ellen Willis had. She was a political essayist, journalist, pop music critic and the Director of Cultural Reporting and Criticism graduate program at NYU. I think I liked the most was what I read on Wikipedia...
She is also known for her feminist politics and was a founding member of Redstockings. She was one of the few women working in music criticism during its inaugural years, when it was by and large a male-dominated field. Starting in 1979, Willis wrote a number of essays that were highly critical of anti-pornography feminism, criticizing it for what she saw as its sexual puritanism and moral authoritarianism, as well as its threat to free speech. These essays were among the earliest expressions of feminist opposition to the anti-pornography movement. Her 1981 essay, "Lust Horizons: Is the Women's Movement Pro-Sex?" is the origin of the term, "pro-sex feminism".[1] She was also a strong supporter of women's abortion rights, and in the early 1980s was a founding member of the pro-choice street theater/protest group No More Nice Girls.I think that just about sums up why I wish I could be like her.
Ms. Willis passed away of cancer
1941 - November 9, 2006
RIP
Labels: 1941 births, 2006 November deaths, author, political, teacher
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
This Death In History: Emily Post, 86
Last night I went out and played my final game of softball in 2006. It was fun, we lost, both games, but I made one brilliant catch that is going to live forever in my personal highlight reel…I’m soooo conceited
So last night started like this...got to the park a little early, talked to a friend for a bit, another guy on the team walked over the three of us started b.s.-ing then decided to head out to the field to toss the ball around. I had downed a couple of Red Bulls (I’m old, I have to do that now a days) and it made me, how should I say, slightly gassy? Now I’ve often held the personal belief that every person has one mutant power, it’s a comic geeks basis on their existence really. So my one mutant power is the ability to burp. Not just some tiny little bitty ‘a,b,c’ type cute burps but window shaking, car alarm starting, from far inner reaches deep down inside me full on belches. So we’re walking…and I just let one go…my friend J, who has experienced worse explosions from me, just shook his head but the other guy, D, this was something new from a person he had only met a 5 days earlier. I giggled afterwards and said “…and I wonder why I’m single”. Besides that little show of vulgarity I really wasn’t on my best behavior. I later told D “if I ever played [softball] with him again I was going to drop a Xanex in his Powerade” and the oh so eloquent “Chill the fuck out”. Now I know I’ve got my faults. I’m rather obnoxious, a wee bit abrasive, compulsive yet lazy and as I discovered last night a little immature (the Pez collection & comic books should have clued me in earlier, huh?). Basically, I am Emily Posts worst nightmare.
Emily Post once said "Etiquette is the science of living. It embraces everything. It is the code of sportsmanship and of honor. It is ethics." She started her writing career at the turn of the century, writing about such things as architecture and interior design for magazines. Her writing career further expanded when she started writing books about travel; in 1922 her book Etiquette was published. She later started speaking on radio programs and wrote a daily column about ‘good taste’ which eventually appeared in over 200 newspapers. Her advice was pretty broad but her basic belief was that "no one should do anything that can either annoy or offend the sensibilities of others”. (oops)
Ms. Post passed away after a brief illness.
October 27, 1893 – September 25, 1960
RIP
as a post script to this entry...I clean up well and I'd say about 98% am pretty demure & well behaved.
So last night started like this...got to the park a little early, talked to a friend for a bit, another guy on the team walked over the three of us started b.s.-ing then decided to head out to the field to toss the ball around. I had downed a couple of Red Bulls (I’m old, I have to do that now a days) and it made me, how should I say, slightly gassy? Now I’ve often held the personal belief that every person has one mutant power, it’s a comic geeks basis on their existence really. So my one mutant power is the ability to burp. Not just some tiny little bitty ‘a,b,c’ type cute burps but window shaking, car alarm starting, from far inner reaches deep down inside me full on belches. So we’re walking…and I just let one go…my friend J, who has experienced worse explosions from me, just shook his head but the other guy, D, this was something new from a person he had only met a 5 days earlier. I giggled afterwards and said “…and I wonder why I’m single”. Besides that little show of vulgarity I really wasn’t on my best behavior. I later told D “if I ever played [softball] with him again I was going to drop a Xanex in his Powerade” and the oh so eloquent “Chill the fuck out”. Now I know I’ve got my faults. I’m rather obnoxious, a wee bit abrasive, compulsive yet lazy and as I discovered last night a little immature (the Pez collection & comic books should have clued me in earlier, huh?). Basically, I am Emily Posts worst nightmare.
Emily Post once said "Etiquette is the science of living. It embraces everything. It is the code of sportsmanship and of honor. It is ethics." She started her writing career at the turn of the century, writing about such things as architecture and interior design for magazines. Her writing career further expanded when she started writing books about travel; in 1922 her book Etiquette was published. She later started speaking on radio programs and wrote a daily column about ‘good taste’ which eventually appeared in over 200 newspapers. Her advice was pretty broad but her basic belief was that "no one should do anything that can either annoy or offend the sensibilities of others”. (oops)
Ms. Post passed away after a brief illness.
October 27, 1893 – September 25, 1960
RIP
as a post script to this entry...I clean up well and I'd say about 98% am pretty demure & well behaved.
Labels: 1893 births, 1960 September deaths, author, illiness
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Tobias Schneebaum, 83
Once upon a time I was proud of the fact that I walked along lonely downtown Detroit street and came back alive. I'm a suburbinite, I fear the seedy underbelly of a busy metropolis. My parents have long told stories of people that go to the big city but never come back the same. But at age 17 I was a bad ass. Oh how things change, now a days I spend my time searching the trecherous world wide web from the comfort of my hand-me-down desk. I AM FIERCE!
I don't think I could live the lifestyle of Tobias Schneebaum. In the 1950's Schneebaum lived amoung cannibals in the Amazon jungle and later wrote the book Keep the River to Your Right
which was turned into a documentary in 2000. Later in life, he wrote, that his passion for exploration derived out a need for community. He found that with the Arakmbut, a cannibal tribe, that his homosexuality was not looked down upon as it had been in the States in the early 1950's.
In addition to exploration Mr. Schneebaum was an artist, anthropologist and an AIDS activist.
Mr Schneebaum passed away from complications of Parkinson's disease.
March 22,1922 - September 20, 2005 RIP
Labels: 1922 births, 2006 September deaths, activist, author, Parkinsons
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Edward Bunker, 72
This ex-con turned writer was best known as Mr.Blue in Quentin Tarentino's 1992 classic "Reservoir Dogs". At the age of seventeen he became an inmate in Californias SanQuentin prison, later due to a parole violation he was listed on the FBI's most wanted list which landed him for a stretch in Folsom prison. His last stint in prison he spent writing "No Beast So Fierce" which caught the eye of Tarintino. His post prison life included writing other novels, writing a screenplay which he was nominated for an Academy Award, and acting. His latest role was as Skitchy Rivers in the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard.
RIP
December 31, 1933 - July 19, 2005
Labels: 1933 births, 2005 July deaths, actor, author, surgery
