Rolling Obituary Thread: 2021

I hated Arrested Development, but loved her in Archer.

Also, this is fucking hilarious:

RIP and a true story - when I made her Arrested Development character my Twitter avatar, she sent me an email asking me to take it down https://t.co/tKZuMqhhjc

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 25, 2021

queen

The Archer role is amazing -- like Kaleb Horton said, what if the same character, in essence, in a totally different thing and being just as funny/essential thanks to her delivery?

I’m sad to not hear what random role Morbs remembers her from

I looked in the archives, didn’t really find anything

feel like morbs would remember her as the long-suffering wife of washed-up alcoholic saints quarterback charlton heston in 'number one' (1969)

would also complain about football being a terrible sport unworthy of cinematic notice

Nah, he probably would have brought up her debut (alongside the also debuting Gene Hackman as her horrible husband) in Lilith (1964), which I myself finally saw a few months ago.

Malory Archer is All-Time.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/8e0a683f475977a2d8927501c69ba63d/1517b330e2cf97f4-ed/s1280x1920/1cc9f8e43a197c3d0069fcd30f352e0de04ae2cd.jpg

A couple years later she played a model torn between James Garner & Brian Bedford in Grand Prix.

https://slotracer.online/grand-prix/images/270w/Grand-Prix-270w-089.jpg

Is Archer still going? Not sure if the series could continue without her tbh

Just posted

She will be greatly missed, but never forgotten. pic.twitter.com/FRqb964ZOX

— Archer (@archerfxx) March 25, 2021

The most recent Archer season ended in October. I believe there were plans for a further couple after that.

https://deconstructingarresteddevelopment.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/115-photomontage2.gif?w=332

With deep sadness, we bid farewell to muMs - a brilliant and beloved poet, actor, and playwright, and a kind and generous friend and mentor to many artists. muMs was a member of our slam team in 1996, and he graced the stage here many times since. He will be greatly missed. pic.twitter.com/jziVKRmrsg

— Nuyorican Poets Cafe (@NuyoricanPoets) March 25, 2021

52

Fuck! Way too young!

He was great https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFpXx-pEFAs

Larry McMurtry

https://cdn.nybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Larry-McMurtry-and-Diana-Ossana.jpg

The NY Times obit is really interesting; he owned a massive bookstore in Texas for 50 years. Normally you don't read in a novelist's obit that they made money by other means for their entire lives, though 99% of them do.

He was president of the PEN American Center when I worked there and constantly bitched that rare booksellers in London wouldn’t show him the good stuff!

Beverly Cleary, author, 104.

Aw. And awe! That's old.

Imagining Bev & McMurtry kicking it in heaven.

Beverly Cleary was still alive? wow

Her name had been a linchpin of the "people you didn't realize were still alive" thread --- I almost posted an update on her this week, but figured it could wait til next month, when she would have hit 105.

RIP. The Ramona books really were something special, and very connected to the psychological reality - the shames and furies - of children, in a way basically nothing else of that era was.

She had such empathy and understanding for her characters. I never read them as a kid but my daughter loves them, and we've read them multiple times.

This is where I point out that there was a shortly-lived Ramona TV show wherein our heroine was played by Sarah Polley.

https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0133ee680f11970b-800wi

i definitely saw that! at least like a couple episodes. maybe some of it got bundled for a VHS we rented, not sure.

Oh man, RIP Beverly Cleary. I read all her books as a kid, and most of them I don't remember that well, but I picked up a copy of Ramona and Her Father at a little free library not that long ago and was amazed by how real it felt.

still feeling sad about Beverly Cleary, even though she lived an amazing, long life. Hers were the first books I remember reading myself, apart from the Frances Hodgkin Burnetts, and details from them are indelibly imprinted on my memory. Such an empathetic and clever writer.

*Hodgson

cleary was alive during the woodrow wilson administration, she led an amazing life

not sure how i never read any cleary, because i read a bunch of judy blume books. anyway

Once I had the chance to get a quote from @judyblume about Beverly Cleary and this is what she said ❤️❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/vDod41pFNO

— Reyhan Harmanci (@harmancipants) March 26, 2021

Cleary perhaps pitched to a slightly younger audience

I almost said earlier that it was hard to imagine a Judy Blume without Beverly Cleary showing the way, but then thought maybe that was a little too grandiose and reductive.

Longtime Houston Reporter & Columnist Leon Hale

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/lifestyle/amp/Beloved-Houston-Chronicle-columnist-Leon-Hale-dies-16058091.php

Malcolm Cecil, master synthesist and member of Tonto's Expanding Head Band

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share the passing of the legendary creative genius, musician, engineer, producer, & synthesizer pioneer, Malcolm Cecil, show here w his creation TONTO. He passed away today at 1:17am after a long illness. #malcolmcecil #TONTO #moog pic.twitter.com/yYqcmuf5AV

— Bob Moog Foundation (@MoogFoundation) March 28, 2021

Oh shame, RIP Malcolm.

Brian Rohan, who defended Ken Kesey and the Grateful Dead and others from drug busts in the sixties and onwards.

https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/sf-brian-rohan-grateful-dead-kesey-summer-of-love-16059011.php

Also became a music lawyer, which leads to this 'what the' anecdote in the story:

Thanks to his association with the Dead, Rohan also became a music lawyer. In 1966, he helped the band negotiation its first contract with Warner Bros. His advocacy for his clients sometimes turned physical, as columnist Herb Caen recounted in 1977. Rohan was in attendance at Clive Davis' Grammy Awards party when he spotted record producer David Geffen. “Brian has been stewing for some time because Geffen refuses to return his phone calls and besides that ‘has stepped on my clients,'" Caen wrote.

Rohan reportedly walked up to Geffen and said, "David, here or outside?" to which Geffen retorted, "Get lost."

“I am going to shove your face into the marmalade,” was Rohan's reply.

“Being on a low-calorie diet, Geffen turned away, at which Rohan grabbed him by his hand-stitched lapels, stood him upright and belted him,” Caen wrote. Bob Dylan’s lawyer allegedly quipped, “I wish I’d done that.”

Damn, RIP Malcolm Cecil

RIP Cecil. My partner follows an event series called Ambient Church that does various kinds of ambient music/art performances at church spaces in Brooklyn... she'd been to some and wanted me to check it out, and I recognized TONTO in his bio I think, and we ended up seeing him play at the Bushwick Methodist Church three years ago, with projection by the artist Paloma Kop. It was a really cool show and very absorbing/meditative, I dug it. Afterwards his people were selling copies of his 1981 album Radiance for cheap (I think he said while onstage that a bunch had recently been found in a storage unit or an attic or something) so I grabbed one, it's been good listening from time to time. My best photo of Cecil didn't really showcase what the projection was doing unfortunately, but it got the color/lighting intensity pretty close. Obviously he'll be best remembered for TONTO and especially their work for Wonder, but on top of that I'm glad I have a nice memory of that show to draw on.

RIP Ethiopian independent record label owner Ali Tango Kaifa ( per Facebook (

Ali Birra , Mahmoud Ahmed ( Ethiopiques #7 ) and non Ethiopiques Aster Aweke all first came out on Ali “Tango” Kaifa ‘s Kaifa records . Sadly , Ali Kaifa has just passed , I see on Facebook. His role has been analogized to Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic, and Berry Gordy at Motown. Here’s a 2016 article on him:

https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/ali-kaifa-man-who-built-ethiopia%E2%80%99s-motown

Hasn't made the rounds yet, but have it from a personal friend and mentee of his that light and sound artist Tony Martin has passed away. More on him and his work here:
https://bombmagazine.org/articles/the-variable-place-of-tony-martin/

G. Gordon Liddy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/gordon-liddy-dead/2021/03/30/4d50c40c-91ae-11eb-a74e-1f4cf89fd948_story.html

Ratfuck in peace

People You Thought Were Already...

have fun sucking dicks in hell, gordo

No take on G. Gordon Liddy will ever top Richard Nixon's assessment of the man on the "smoking gun" tapehttps://t.co/IRwXsr7Vwa pic.twitter.com/JRuMMFOP0z

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) March 31, 2021

REAGANLAND, p. 779. Rest in pieces. pic.twitter.com/2SlcckoQWt

— Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) March 31, 2021

LOL at Perlstein citing his own book. But, he did write it!