Oh, man, more sad news: Donna Summer, "The Queen of Disco," has died, according to TMZ and then according to E!. She was only (maybe perhaps still is? Ah: definitely is not) 63. Spring 2012 is taking a brutal toll on the music world.
"Within her context, there was never a singing star who shone as brightly as Whitney Houston. The run was shorter than almost every one of her competitors, but diva greatness is not a marathon, but rather, a shining example of the possibility of the human being. There will probably never be another Aretha—certainly, the Beyonce BORG and the militias of teenybopper chart-toppers seem to indicate the end of her era—but it's probable that the never-to-be-famous next Aretha is singing in some church, somewhere. She exists but she simply will never be. Whitney, on the other hand, stretches what we can reasonably comprehend—how could we ever expect to see another [...]
"She mooed, out of the blue; she was definitely her own cow." —Aggie the cow has passed on.
My fondest childhood memories involve staying home sick from school and getting to watch TV on the couch. There were always four "I Love Lucy" episodes in a row at midday, which made me extremely happy. It's a show that is so commonplace in the firmament that we tend to forget just how influential and innovative it actually was. Anyway, trailblazing writer Madelyn Pugh Davis, who had a hand in every episode, has died. She was 90.
Taj, America's oldest elephant, died yesterday at her home at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, California. An Asian elephant born March 3, 1940, Taj weighed 9,000 pounds and was a circus performer before coming to Six Flags in 1978. She enjoyed painting and was known for her joie de vivre. Said an attendee of her 70th birthday party last year, "That's awesome. I wish I could eat cake like that."
"Elaine Kaufman, who became something of a symbol of New York as the salty den mother of Elaine’s, one of Manhattan’s best-known restaurants and a second home for almost half a century to a bevy of writers, actors, athletes and other celebrities, died Friday at Lenox Hill Hospital. She was 81 and lived in Manhattan."
"Planting the vegetables when the moon was in different constellations, she discovered, resulted in their growing into different forms and sizes. Over years of research she concluded that root crops (including onions and leeks, which are not technically root crops) do best if sown when the moon is passing through constellations associated with the earth element; leafy crops do best when the moon is associated with water signs; flowering plants do best associated with air signs, and fruits did better with fire signs." —German gardener Maria Thun, who put the "biodynamics" theory of cosmic, occultist philosopher Rudolph Steiner to test in her garden and wrote a popular [...]
"A woman thought to be the world's last known surviving service member of World War I has died aged 110. Florence Green, from King's Lynn, Norfolk, served as a mess steward at RAF bases in Marham and Narborough." If you missed it last May, make some time for Even Fleischer's amazing piece on Green and Claude Choules, who were then the last two veterans of the Great War. And now there are none.
A million years ago these friends told me about a saying they'd taken on, that came from a heated dinner party conversation. They were having an argument about Armenia or Iraq or something, or Palestine, who knows, and it was getting unreasonably heated due to the way these kinds of conversations go, and finally at one point a woman banged on the table and screamed, in an accent that I always do as "really fake French": BUT WHAT ABOUT ZE KURDS??? This is an argument stopper akin to invoking Hitler. What about the Kurds? Let us not discuss provisional governments or the rights of women or whatever, when don't [...]
Elizabeth Taylor—Oscar winner, legend, crusading fundraiser (who raised tens of millions of dollars for HIV prevention, treatment and advocacy) and also genetic mutant—has passed away, at the surprisingly tender age of 79.
"She was never eager to speak about the part of her life before her arrival in New York, and details about it are scarce…. What is known is that she studied to be a teacher at Arkansas State College and worked as a riveter in a defense plant in Chicago during World War II. In 1950, she moved to New York with the intention of going to design school, but ended up having to support herself with a variety of jobs. At one point she was a porter and operated an elevator at Saks Fifth Avenue. According to a story she often told, on a visit to Delancey Street [...]
Denise Borino-Quinn, the actress best known for playing Ginny Sacramoni on "The Sopranos," died last week after a battle with liver cancer. "A Roseland native who lived in Bordentown, Borino-Quinn had no acting experience when she was hired in 2000 to play Ginny Sacrimoni, the Mafia wife with a weight problem. Borino-Quinn had attended the casting call mostly to support a childhood friend and was shocked when she was hired for the HBO show." Borino-Quinn was 46.
"It was clear to everyone on the sea otter exhibit team that Toola, not me, was really in charge. When she wanted to work on something in a training session, she’d give me a ‘look’ or vocalize and I’d immediately cave in and do whatever she wanted. Now that she’s passed, we’re in need of another ‘head trainer’ to run the place.” —Monterey Bay Aquarium associate curator of mammals Christine DeAngelo remembers Toola, the 16-year-old sea otter who passed away Saturday from the infirmities of age. Toola was found in 2001 on Pismo Beach suffering from neurological disorders. She received twice daily anti-convulsant medication at the aquarium [...]
Etta James, one of the greatest singers of all time, has passed away from complications from leukemia at the age of 73. She is justifiably best known for "At Last," a song any performer would make a deal with the devil to have in her repertoire, but her talents ranged from blues to gospel to R&B to standards to really anything she was interested in performing. Some favorites follow.
"I had a guru who left the mortal world in December. He gave me a meditation on the spirit, it was a female spirit, very beautiful but it made me think about that; how this body is just a material body, like an outer shell. It will deteriorate and die, but we can leave something behind in our music or art." —Poly Styrene, born Marianne Joan Elliott-Said, has died at the age of 53. Oh, let's play one more!
"Ms. Robinson was paired with an art director, Bob Gage, and together they produced ads for marketers like Orbach’s department store, Polaroid instant cameras and Levy’s breads. For Levy’s Real Jewish Rye, there were colorful posters. Some showed a slice of rye disappearing, bite by bite. The headline: 'New York is eating it up!' Other posters showed New Yorkers of various ethnicities eating sandwiches. The headline, which entered the vernacular: 'You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye.'” —Longtime DDB copywriter Phyllis K. Robinson is dead. But those Levy's posters will live forever.
I tend to think of obituaries as having a funnel-shape. They start off wide and broad, and usually pretty, with the big announcement—whether they start with the news announcement of a death or not or not, the fact of the obituary itself serves the purpose. Then we go circling inwards, like in a comic book version of a black hole. It's the twisting and turning where obituaries often get odd. One obituary style that's popular is the news obit, which circles down in distinct phases: Big Broad Sketch; Details Revisited; and then Further Minutia As My Editor Has, Bizarrely, Asked For Three More Inches. That's an obituary style that [...]
Arianna Forster, who started the punk band The Slits at the age of 14, has passed away after "a serious illness." Lead singer Foster, better known as Ari Up, was 48.
