The Awl

Summer of Death: The Next Chapter

Alex Balk — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 09:00:10 +0000

To: Staff
From: Alex Balk
Re: Seasonal Demises

The passings this weekend of former child star Gary Coleman and actor/director/Ameriprise pitchman Dennis Hopper have resulted in pressure from both internal and external sources for this organization to reassert its hold on the phrase "Summer of Death," an appellation first bestowed by the site early last July. There are obvious arguments for why we should insist upon our claim over the expression, not least of which being the fact that those sonsofbitches in the rest of the media will happily steal it from us without giving it a second thought. Also, two famous people died.

However, after serious reflection we have decided, particularly given the earliness of the season and the not exactly shocking identities of the two deceased in question-Hopper was dying for months-that it would be prudent at this juncture to refrain from making such an assertion. It is barely June yet, and while our actuaries have forecast a fairly robust summer of celebrity expiration, they advise that we remain in a "hold" position until at least three more C-listers under the age of 70, or two more B-listers no older than 65, or one A-lister of any vintage, make the final journey into the unknown.

Also, we're still looking for a snappy title. I'm partial to "Summer of Death 2" (tagline: "Death never takes a vacation"), "Again With The Summer Of Death," or "Summer of Death: Deathsummer 2010," but am open to suggestions. More on this subject as appropriate.

Oh, btw, happy summer, gang! Let's make the most of it.

Best, etc.,

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Summer of Death, June 21-September 22

Alex Balk — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:40:41 +0000

There are about five hours left until the end of the Summer of Death (TM symbol goes here!), so this may be my last chance to fulminate about how Big Media continues its campaign to deny me credit for coining the phrase.

This weekend the AP played its part in this sickening conspiracy, noting that during this season of mortality, "The phrase 'summer of death' popped up, perhaps first used by New York magazine, which cheekily claimed the trademark." [Italics mine, but only because there has yet to be invented a kind of stylizing which accurately displays the anger and contempt I feel when reading that misattribution.] Screw you, AP! Screw you, New York! Me me me Alex Balk me I created "Summer of Death"!

Also, note the picture above, which we posted on the day the legendary phrase was coined: It seems so empty now. Who knew that there would be so much death this summer? Oh, right, ME. Anyway, you had a good run, Summer of Death. Nice try with Robert Byrd, but you can't win them all. Still, it was indeed a heck of a summer. Of death. (Credit: Alex Balk.) I hope you're confident and serene when you hand over the scythe to Autumn this evening.

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New York Times Examines Summer Of Death

Alex Balk — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:00:16 +0000

This article suggests that the Summer of Death™ is essentially a Boomer meditation on mortality, but we shouldn't let that contention obscure the most important part of the story: The Summer of Death™ IS MINE, BITCHES! Where is my goddamn credit?

In other news, autumn officially starts on the 22nd, so there are only five days left for the Reaper to pad his total. Yesterday he added actor/comedian Henry Gibson, whose performance in Nashville really should be up on YouTube.

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Marvel and NyQuil: Everything is Bad, Go to Sleep

Mary HK Choi — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:10:03 +0000

In the wake of the Summer of Death and the colossally major news that Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion (a number that means "death" in Cantonese and is therefore avoided at all costs-not in enumerations of 4, obvs-in addresses, car license plates, cell phone numbers, etc., and, cue ominous, chongy music) and because Mr. Nasir "Nas" Jones says that sleep is the cousin of death, we must report the (in some circles, equally) important news that the soporific in Nyquil (doxylamine succinate) is found in much higher doses elsewhere. Namely Unisom (25 mg per pill vs. 6.25 mg in a 15 ml dose).

This may not be such the whoopin' end of Nyquil-but it is when you consider it can be purchased generically for about 75 percent of the retail price and that Unisom is misleading because their Quick dissolve tablets and gelcaps DO NOT use the good stuff (seriously, check any drug store, the one that needs re-upping is the original tablet kind).

The wrong kind uses the same ingredient as Benadryl, which is a racket, 'cause any OTC pillhead knows you can't sleep fitfully on the pinks. Also, vis-ÃƒÂ -vis my dwindling attention span (side effect of what? Who can say!) we (me and Twitter) would like to now report that despite other reports of fanboys FUHREAKING out about the quality of the Marvel Universe maintaining its present state of awesome post Civil War radicalness that The Runaways (not the band) WOULD make a dynamite ABC Family TV show and we would watch the shit out of it and that, to those of us in the dork community, it kinda doesn't matter who owns what rights to theme park rides, because The Dark Knight (which should be an epic testament to physics and turmoil) at New Jersey's Great Adventure is utter garbage. Somewhere in the DC Universe someone is crying/NEEDS A NAP.

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DJ AM Dead At 36

Choire Sicha — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:36:37 +0000

According to TMZ and NBC New York, Adam Goldstein, known as "DJ AM," and described by NBC as a "celebrity disk-jockey," was found dead in his New York City apartment. And now back to your regularly-scheduled summer of death.

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My Summer Of Death

Alex Balk — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:40:39 +0000

I have held my tongue thus far, but a man can only stand silent for so long while others pillage the fruits of his labor for their own ends without offering proper testament to his genius. It was I, Alex Balk, who first used the term "Summer of Death" to refer to this tragic season. It happened right here, at the beginning of July, and in the weeks that followed I have been forced to endure the agony of seeing my creation tossed willy-nilly about the Internet without a nod in the direction of my brilliance. (Those stealy bastards at New York actually suggested that they had trademarked the thing.) It may seem a small point, a minor question of phrasing so obvious in and of itself that it had already been used in another context, but no: "Summer of Death," when uttered to encompass the spate of celebrity passings that marked the grim dog days of 2009, is utterly an invention of MINE, and I demand to be festooned with all the accolades such virtuosity merits. Preferably in book deal form. Thank you.

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Les Paul: June 9, 1915 - August 13, 2009

Dave Bry — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:09:41 +0000

Is anyone not going to die this summer? (That joke, I guess, is still kicking. Barely.) Les Paul-a virtuoso jazz guitarist who pioneered the practice of multitrack recording and invented what is still the most beautiful electric guitar ever made, the Gibson Les Paul-died of pneumonia today in White Plains, New York. He was 94. He was great and very, very important. Above, a video for "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise," the 1951 hit he recorded with his wife, Mary Ford.

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RIP Rashied Ali, Coltrane's Free-Jazz Rhythmic Conspirator

Seth Colter Walls — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:40:09 +0000

So according to Rashied Ali's website, the legendary free-jazz drummer is dead. He was 74. There are no details regarding the cause just yet, but a French-language site seems to date Ali's death as occurring on Wednesday, July 12. (Either that, or the 12th is when they learned about it.) His passing will probably only rate a footnote-at most-in this, our star-studded Summer Of Death, but you know what? Ali was a titan. And at least one album that features his skittering, complex drumming will prove to be immortal: John Coltrane's Interstellar Space. You can listen to "Venus," from that record, on the YouTubes. The Amazon mp3 download is here. (And why not shell out for quality?)

The whole album plays that way: just Coltrane on sax (plus bells/chimes) and Ali on drums, dancing across a bevy of time signatures and rhythms, turning up the heat to way past boiling and then bringing things down to a meditative simmer. It was so on some next shit-so unlike Coltrane's classic quartet-that Impulse! records sat on the album for seven years. I remember how, when I was a teenager, the clerk at a jazz record store in Portland looked at me kinda cock-eyed when I brought the CD reissue up to the register, as though maybe I didn't know what I was getting into. But nobody who's never heard Ali before really knows what he or she is getting into. Which is a good thing. Surprises like that are beyond welcome in life.

I saw Ali in concert only once while living in New York-which I guess makes me something of a moron, since he was active and gigging around in his later years, both with his own quintet, as well as with various other groups. The show I did see was a monster: Ali in a trio with bassist Bill Laswell and Japanese guitarist/vocalist/noise-freak Keiji Haino. They were called Purple Trap, and they were loud. It was black metal, noise, angular funk and free jazz all rolled into one. They freaked everyone out in the best possible way. Their one record on John Zorn's Tzadik label doesn't quite do the group justice, but it's good to have around as a measure of Ali's versatility. Also, the title is cool: Decided – Already The Motionless Heart Of Tranquility, Tangling The Prayer Called "i".

Word.

Others will have their favorites. Apparently, Thurston Moore is partial to Duo Exchange with Frank Lowe. The Generation Bass blog is offering a download of Ali's first quintet recording, long out of print. I'm not familiar with those records, but in the last couple months, I had been digging one of Ali's final outings, a duo thing with bassist Henry Grimes, titled Going To the Ritual. RIP.

Seth Colter Walls is a culture reporter at Newsweek. Previously, he wrote about U.S. and Middle East politics for a variety of outlets.

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Hank the Crocosaurus Dead at 47

Dave Bry — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:20:00 +0000

The Summer of Death is a heartless season. On Saturday, staff at the Miami tourist attraction Jungle Island found the two-ton, 20-foot-long, crocodile known as Hank the Crocosaurus dead at the bottom of his pool. As reported in the Miami Herald, Hank died a bachelor; his only companion was a five-pound turtle named Frank.

The Herald's Robert Samuels:

The son of an Asian crocodile and a saltwater crocodile, the Thailand native's girth left him isolated for most of his life. He had no mating partners, no friends. It wasn't clear whether other animals were scared of him for being too massive-or if he shunned them for being too small.

Three years ago, however, Frank mysteriously appeared in Hank's enclosed habitat. No one knows how he got in, but the fearless turtle soon took to riding atop the Hank's massive snout, cleaning up the algae that collected between the gnarly scales there. "People used to be scared [Hank] would eat the turtle,'' said Jungle Island spokesperson Brigette Grosjean. "But he never did.''

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Summer Of Death Pads Roster: Walter Cronkite, Frank McCourt

Alex Balk — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:53:19 +0000

I grew up in an NBC household; I have vague memories of John Chancellor reading the news and stronger memories of Tom Brokaw doing the same. Walter Cronkite never really meant a lot to me as an anchor; I think I sometimes used to get him confused with Captain Kangaroo. As for Frank McCourt, plenty people tell me that Angela's Ashes was great, but the last thing I ever want to read is another Irishman recounting poverty and his father's alcoholism (or another Jew on the Holocaust, another Italian about petty crime, etc.), so I've never read it. I'm aware that both of these men made Important Contributions In Their Field and I am not at all attempting to diminish that; I just don't really have anything to say about them. But don't let that stop you if you do!

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