Our Daily Dead

NY Times
Al Loving, a prominent abstract painter and collage artist whose work explored the ways color, space, line and form play out in vibrant counterpoint, died on June 21 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. He was 69 and lived in Kerhonkson, N.Y. The cause was complications of lung cancer, his wife, Mara, said.

Mr. Loving first came to public attention with a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1969. Crisp and hard-edged, his early paintings were studies in pure geometric form, often depicting arrangements of cubes. His later works were more fluid: layered constructions of heavy paper that had been painted with bright acrylics, cut into circles, whorls and ribbons, and arranged in multilayered compositions.

Reviewing an exhibition of Mr. Loving’s constructed pieces in The New York Times in 1974, Peter Schjeldahl wrote, “As dynamically composed reliefs - as ‘wall pieces’ - they energize the space around them, seemingly almost to be caught in the act of moving across the wall.”

It was striking for an African-American of Mr. Loving’s generation to make his reputation in abstract art, a genre from which most black artists were discouraged. In the 1960’s and 70’s, when he entered the field, African-American artists were under great public pressure to depict the black experience in their work, pushing them toward figurative art.

Alvin Demar Loving Jr. was born in Detroit on Sept. 19, 1935. His father, Alvin Demar Loving Sr., was an educator and part-time sign painter who was later a dean at the University of Michigan School of Education. His mother, the former Mary Helen Greene, was a quilter, as was his grandmother. As a boy, Alvin used to sit at their feet as they sewed, watching their layered constructions take shape.
Lighter Than Air ― The Spatial Art of Al Loving
Abstract Body Art Themes Pack #2

That he flashes trophies of war and ribbons of euphoria

Orange is young, full of daring,

But very unsteady for the first go round

My yellow in this case is not so mellow

In fact I’m trying to say it’s frightened like me

And all these emotions of mine keep holding me from, eh,

Giving my life to a rainbow like you

But, I’m, yeah, I’m bold as love

If you spend awhile with the art of Al Loving you will find those confident reds, full of daring oranges and more. Bold as Loving you might say - just ask the axis. Loving was a black man who choose his own road. Instead of caving into the pressures of the day on young black artists - painting images of the Black experience and figurative art - Mr. Loving made his way into the abstract art world.

My yellow in this case is not so mellow in fact I’m trying to say its like Canada and Spain. Or something like that. Sheesh, all the turns, puns and phras-e-ology can’t be good - you’ve got to expect that once in awhile. Do we expect to see a new exodus to Canada now? Do you say “Good RiddAnce!!”? because your “frightened like me”? Or just because your god, preacher, parents, president, senator, kindegarten teacher or some other authority figure told you to say such and you never once thought about it or weighed it in your own mind and decided for your self? All of these emotions of mine keep holding me from, hmmmm, from what exactly do your fears and emotions hold you from accomplishing? Maybe we should have stuck with stoplights, eh what?

While you’re chewing on that consider chewing a bit at this altitude. Hopefully they didn’t drop any cutlery and that they aren’t drinking and driving after the meal. Look Out Below!!!

NY Times
Shelby Foote, the historian whose incisive, seasoned commentary - delivered in a drawl so mellifluous that one critic called it “molasses over hominy” - evoked the Civil War for millions in the 11-hour PBS documentary in 1990, died on Monday at a Memphis hospital He was 88 and lived in Memphis. His death was reported by his wife, Gwyn, The Associated Press said.

Mr. Foote’s 89 cameo appearances in Ken Burns’s series “The Civil War” were informed by his own three-volume history of the war, two decades in the making, that blended his practiced novelist’s touch with punctilious, but defiantly unfootnoted research.

His mission was to tell what he considered America’s biggest story as a vast, finely detailed, deeply human narrative. He could focus on broad shifts in strategy or on solitary moments of poignancy, like the tearful but still proud Robert E. Lee picking his way through the ranks of his vanquished army to surrender.

“He made the war real for us,” Mr. Burns said.

His goal was to emulate the authoritative narrative voice of the 18th-century British historian Edward Gibbon. Mr. Foote’s books carried a great plot, and as academic historians increasingly saw themselves as social scientists armed with the tools of quantitative analysis, he turned to Shakespeare for metaphors and to colloquialisms for literary impact.

And shine the emptiness down on my bed

The tiny island sags downstream

‘Cause the life that they lived is dead

And the wind screams Mary

We here at ODD, after much diligence, personal expense and long hours spent shuttered away from our families, have discovered the absolute key issue facing those of us living in the modern era: traffic lights. While we await government funding to further our research into this ODDtheory we remain confident that you will find the truth of this a forehead slap D’oh realization. Each time you boldly sally forth the Evil Traffic Light awaits with sole purpose to foil and frustrate. And the awful fact is this: they could be programmed better. Traffic lights typically work based on PLCs - Programmable Logic Controllers. Or perhaps that should be Poorly-programmed Lack-of-logic Controllers. At least now you know whom to curse when your light goes red just before you get to the intersection to allow for exactly no one crossing said intersection all at 2am. Grrrrr…makes you mad enough to melt that tub of Tutti-Frutti, eh?

Now if you only had a friend like Seth Green’s character in the Italian Job - just think how quickly that trip to Bountiful could be completed!

We should add - as a public service of course - that you could take destiny by the reins (or horns perhaps) and get a MIRT. Go Greyhound! And leave the driving to us!

Oh, and Mr. Shelby Foote - thanks for making the Civil War interesting for us. Loved your narration in Mr. Burns’ film. Oh! (we’re just full of O’s today (?!)) If you might find interest (and no profit) in guest blogging for us, then drop us a wee line via the Contact Us page.

NY Times
Chet Helms, known as the father of the Summer of Love and the rock promoter who brought Janis Joplin to San Francisco, died here on Saturday. He was 62. The cause was complications of a stroke, his family said.

Mr. Helms was the founder and manager of Big Brother and the Holding Company, with Joplin as its legendary lead singer. He helped stage free concerts and Human Be-ins at Golden Gate Park, which became the backdrop for the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967.

He was the first producer of psychedelic light-show concerts at the Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom and was instrumental in helping to develop bands delivering the San Francisco sound.

“Without Chet, there would be no Grateful Dead, no Big Brother and the Holding Company, no Jefferson Airplane, no Country Joe and the Fish, no Quicksilver Messenger Service,” said Barry Melton, the lead guitarist for Country Joe and the Fish. “He wasn’t just a promoter; he was a supporter of music and art. He supported people emotionally, psychologically and psychically. He made the scene what it was.”

Chester Leo Helms was born in Santa Maria, Calif., in 1942, and spent most of his youth in Missouri and Texas, where he helped stage benefits for civil and human rights groups. He moved from Austin to San Francisco in 1962, returning once to persuade Joplin, an old college friend, to hitchhike back with him.

He united Joplin with Big Brother for jam sessions in a Haight-Ashbury basement. They made their debut in June 1966 at the Avalon, officially starting Joplin’s career as a rock diva.

Mr. Helms and Bill Graham worked together to produce three shows at the Fillmore Auditorium that year before Mr. Graham went off on his own to build the Fillmore into one of the most important rock venues in history. Mr. Helms continued producing concerts under his Family Dog company at the Avalon, an old dance academy at Sutter Street and Van Ness Avenue.

Mr. Helms eventually dropped out of the concert business for a time in 1970, but he proudly sported a grizzled beard and long hair topped by a hat throughout much of his adult life.

“Chet was a hippie,” said Mickey Hart, drummer for the Grateful Dead. “We were all hippies. He hated to charge for the music.”

NY Times
John Walton, billionaire son of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton and a member of the company’s board, died Monday in a plane crash in Wyoming.

Walton, 58, of Jackson, Wyo., was piloting the ultralight craft that crashed shortly after takeoff from the Jackson Hole Airport in Grand Teton National Park, the company said. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and the cause of the afternoon crash was not known, officials said.

The plane was an experimental ultralight aircraft equipped with a small gasoline-powered engine and wings wrapped in fabric similar to heavy-duty sailcloth, officials said.

In March, Forbes magazine listed John Walton as No. 11 on its list of the world’s richest people, with a net worth of $18.2 billion. He was tied with his brother Jim, one spot behind his brother Rob and just ahead of his sister, Alice, and his mother, Helen.

John Walton joined the board of Wal-Mart in 1992 but did not work for the company.

“We’re sad that John Walton, who was well known and much loved in this valley, died doing something that he loved to do, which was fly aircraft,” said Joan Anzelmo, a spokeswoman for Grand Teton National Park.

“I saw parts of it,” she said. “I didn’t realize what I was seeing at first. It was so lightweight it looked like a giant model airplane.”

Anzelmo said officials notified the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. “Because this is a homemade, nonregistered, experimental aircraft, at least today they told us there was not going to be an investigation,” she said. Grand Teton rangers will conduct their own probe, as is done with any major accident in the park, she said.

I don’t mind, I don’t mind.

If all the hippies cut off all their hair

I don’t care, I don’t care.

Got my own world to live through

And I ain’t gonna copy you.

Happy Trails Chet Helms. Thanks for all the memories - Janis and Big Brother, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver and Country Joe to name a few. We had an ODD friend (hard to believe we know, we know!) who once stood on the corner of Haight and Ashbury and then said out loud “Well, I made it”. A passer by caught the proclamation and rejoined “Yep, but you are about 20 years late”. Word has it however that The Haight still ain’t straight.

And what exactly to you say about a billionaire who flys an experimental ultra-light into the Wyoming turf? Oh those magnificent men and their flying machines!

We’ve spent considerable time this morn communing with our ODDself and have decided that what with all the Tom Cruise things and Michael Jackson things and Iraq things and EU instability things and the price of oil and that we missed out on getting any ODDcash from the Gates Foundation (like we were going to move to Saskachewan anyway) well then we’re just going to call a full retreat and spend the rest of the day listening to our collection of late 1960s music. All Y’all will have to manage without us for a moment until we can get our collective heads re-grooved. And remember don’t go in the water.