Rolling Obituary Thread 2023

Mikala Jones, 44

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/jul/11/mikala-jones-surfer-death-accident-indonesia

Milan Kundera, 94.

I just read his essay «The Tragedy of Central Europe» the other day. RIP.

RIP. One of the reasons I first moved to Prague, and not completely a coincidence that my oldest is called Milan (though he isn't named after him)

Aw. I was into Kundera 30 years ago... laughter and forgetting / unbearable lightness were big then in my circle.

"It's abut chicks, right?"

Es muss sein.

Upon reflection I don't think I got as much out of those books as I should have. So much of the context is specifically Czech, specifically Eastern European, specifically Cold War-tastic, specific to a certain philosophical tradition. If you tried to view them just as human stories you would fail.

That's my memory anyway.

Oh wow I had no idea Kundera was still alive; like, it had never even occurred to me to check. RIP

One of the reasons I first moved to Prague

Was your experience similar to mine in that most locals seemed dismissive or outright hostile towards Kundera?

oh yeah, nobody had the slightest interest in him, not even literary types.

I think he had more influence on the psychogeography of the place for me, that and Too Loud A Solitude and Kafka's The Castle.

New wave: Bob Segarini.

https://www.torontomike.com/2023/07/bob-segarni-dead-at-77/

Proto new-age San Diego mystic Wilburn Burnette, along with his brother, in rather mysterious circumstances:

https://timesofsandiego.com/crime/2023/07/10/brothers-ages-84-and-76-found-dead-in-blossom-valley-home-near-lakeside-identified/

Burchette's work is well worth the seeking out:

https://masterwilburnburchette.bandcamp.com/music

Will also relatedly recommend Bill Perrine's new book:

https://billingsgate.bigcartel.com/product/book-alien-territory-radical-experimental-irrelevant-music-in-1970s-san-diego-by-bill-perrine

I’ve just heard the very sad news that George Armstrong aka Alan Humphries passed away yesterday. RIP George. A true Grange Hill legend xxxx pic.twitter.com/6uGoeUWQ8x

— Grange Hill (@hill_grange) July 12, 2023

Former Rolling Stones and Grateful Dead tour manager Sam Cutler.

https://www.noise11.com/news/former-rolling-stones-tour-manager-sam-cutler-has-died-aged-80-20230714

Sam was the first to utter the famous Stones concert intro, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World…The Rolling Stones!”. Sam told A Current Affair in Australia, “Mick walked offstage and gave me a dirty look and said ‘I want to speak to you’ and he said ‘we don’t want you to call us the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world it’s embarrassing’.”

Also Mick: "Copywrite that phrase! NOW!"

Film critic Derek Malcolm https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/16/derek-malcolm-longtime-guardian-film-critic-dies-aged-91

Jane Birkin https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66216417

Right at that age, for my generation, where you think, wow, too young and then you think 76, not really that young I guess.

My first 'crush' thanks to that milk advert with John Junkin!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGVrL0OBHBg

RIP Derek Malcolm btw - I wish you'd stayed at the Guardian longer

RIP Derek and Jane

RIP Jane B

Aw, Jane. I first saw her in Daddy Nostalgie and went to see it twice so I could spend another hour in her presence.

some great stuff on Malcom's century of cinema 100. RIP

Jane B. Par Agnes V. encapsulates 1988 po-mo and haute couture in a way that makes me feel ironically sentimental for that era.

Nataniël Gomes, 47. The Dutch hairdresser who kept ordering his own combination of fries, shoarma, sambal, garlic sauce, etc so often 20-odd years ago that it got called "kapsalon" (hairdresser's) by the shoarma shop.

https://nos.nl/artikel/2483044-bedenker-van-de-kapsalon-op-47-jarige-leeftijd-overleden

Should have gone easy on all those sandwiches.

DJ Deeon, Chicago ghetto-house legend. Great producer. RIP.

At the respectable age of 87 and apparently active until the end: Spanish comic book artist and writer Francisco Ibáñez, most famous for his long running series Mortadelo y Filemón. He could get too stereotypical and offensive at times, most notably his drawings of people of colour were pretty awful, but I still cherish all issues which I could read in the Dutch translations as 'Paling & Ko', I've also come across new German prints (Clever & Smart) recently.
Always featuring delightful over-the-top, cartoonish violence. RIP!

Legendary super hacker Kevin Mitnick, 59, from pancreatic cancer
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/technology/kevin-mitnick-dead-hacker.html

Tony Bennett

Oh wow, thought he would never pass. RIP.

aw :(

a late career burst that lasted 30 years

I confess I have no strong impression of Bennett in his prime. I do not wish to speak ill of him but my main association with him is of late-career novelty duets and movie cameos. Dude seems to have had a talent for surviving and thriving and enjoying his work.

Amazing anecdote at the end of the NYT obit:

“I like the funny things in life that could only happen to me now,” he said. “Once, when I was singing Kurt Weill’s ‘Lost in the Stars’ in the Hollywood Bowl with Basie’s band and Buddy Rich on drums, a shooting star went falling through the sky right over my head and everyone was talking about it, and the next morning the phone rang and it was Ray Charles, who I’d never met, calling from New York. He said, ‘Hey, Tony, how’d you do that, man?’ and hung up.”

There is another story about Tony plucking the one out-of-tune string inside a piano from John Bunch in a Tony bio, let me see if I can find it. Althought then I asked somebody who had also played with him and he said "That was an accident. Tony has a savant quality about him, I guarantee you that was an accident.

Don't forget his painting. When you tour Louis Armstrong's home in Corona Queens you get to see a portrait Bennet painted and gifted.

We had a greatest hits compilation that my oldest and I listened to regularly. She used to sing along with "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." Tony had a quality to his voice that I'm not even sure how to describe. An ease in delivery, a world-weariness that was somehow still sweet and pure. RIP.

RIP Tony ;_;

hes obviously had a long tail but its worth noting (bennett made sure to note it himself tbf) that sinatra was on record as having bennett as the best singer around even in bennetts relatively early days

João Donato, 88 :(

xpost There is a great anecdote I read once, maybe in the New Yorker. The gist of the essay was that if you are an icon, obviously you can't cite yourself in everyday speech. Like, Scorsese can't describe a movie as capturing the spirit of a young Scorsese, say, or, I don't know, Jeff Goldblum can't describe someone as a Jeff Goldblum type. That sort of thing. Anyway, the piece worked up to a chance encounter with Frank Sinatra, which gave the author the opportunity to ask him, essentially, who is your Frank Sinatra? And without missing a beat, Sinatra answered Tony Benedetto.

Of course. And Tony repaid that by naming a high school after Frank.

RIP Derek Malcolm btw - I wish you'd stayed at the Guardian longer

― Alba, Sunday, 16 July 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Had some upbringing.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news/derek-malcolm-obituary-renowned-british-film-critic-lff-director

Bennett's wartime experiences were a hell of a thing -- not new news, but worth remembering. (Gift link.)

https://wapo.st/3Y3CXHb

Remembered most of that, forgot about liberating the camps.

Actress Josephine Chaplin

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/21/josephine-chaplin-dies-actor-daughter-charlie-chaplin

UK singer Vince Hill dies at the age of 86. Didn't realise he was still alive, I must confess.

Sadly we have to share news none of us want to hear
We're very sorry to have to tell you Vince has left us
He passed peacefully at home
Vince created a musical legacy...
His tunes will remain forever in our hearts
Here's to you V... you bloody legend xxx
#VinceHill #Legend pic.twitter.com/f4kHr93taB

— Vince Hill (@SingerVinceHill) July 22, 2023

I remember Marcello constantly calling him one of those showbiz Tory Scousers which was odd as he wasn't a Scouser... almost certainly a Tory though.

Vince Hill opening up his spot with a pop at "Your Mother Should Know" which is less Edwardian than the Beatles version.

― The buttermilk of Beelzebub (Tom D.), Friday, 24 November 2017 20:13 (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink