Our Daily Dead

from the NY Times
Vilgot Sjoman, a Swedish filmmaker whose notoriously risqué “I Am Curious (Yellow),” made in 1967 for $160,000, sufficiently alarmed censors to generate millions at the box office and jump-start a new cinematic explicitness, died on Sunday at a Stockholm hospital. He was 81.

The cause was complications from a brain hemorrhage, the Swedish Joint Committee for Artistic and Literary Professionals said, according to The Associated Press.

“I Am Curious” was not Mr. Sjoman’s first brush with censors, only his most famous. His sexually bold 1964 film “491″ was banned in Sweden and temporarily barred from the United States. His 1966 film, “My Sister, My Love,” was not banned, but its subject — a wild, incestuous love affair between a twin brother and sister — stirred impassioned discussion.

Mr. Sjoman, a protégé of Ingmar Bergman, insisted that his wanderings to forbidden frontiers were in pursuit of honesty, not sensationalism — and many students of film agreed. His avant-garde techniques were often compared to those of French New Wave directors like Jean-Luc Goddard.

“I Am Curious” tells of the social, political and sexual journey of a young Swedish woman. Critics lauded it for its documentary-style techniques, hand-held cameras and interpolation of real and made-up events. But the United States Customs Service was most impressed by its simulated intercourse and not-so-simulated oral sex, and in January 1968 it summarily banned the film from the country as obscene.

That November, a federal appeals court ruled that the movie was protected by the First Amendment, a move that allowed it to be released in March 1969. The movie made $5 million in six months. It remained the most financially successful foreign film in the United States for 23 years.

The new frankness was quickly copied by critically praised films like “Midnight Cowboy” in 1969, but it also led to nudity-filled potboilers about nurses and stewardesses — not to mention “Deep Throat.”

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from the LA Times
Allan Kaprow, the artist who combined painting, sculpture and theater in flamboyant events that he staged in unexpected locations and referred to as “happenings,” has died. He was 79.

A founding member of the visual arts department at UC San Diego, Kaprow died of natural causes Wednesday at his home in Encinitas, his studio manager, Tamara Bloomberg, said this week.

As a young artist in the late 1950s, Kaprow was influenced by Abstract Expressionist painters who moved around their vast canvases to pour and drip paint. He took the idea further by leading observers directly into the artwork, eliminating canvas and display walls.

He staged his happenings in industrial lofts, empty storefronts and other unlikely places and wrote about the events and the ideas behind them in magazine articles and his 1993 book “Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life.”

He compared happenings to mime, circus acts, carnivals and Dada art, as well as theater.

Technorati Tags: Allan Kaprow, artist, painting, sculpture, theater, happenings

from the LA Times
In the display window of a San Francisco portrait shop, a feather and a canine hand puppet became a tourist attraction in the 1960s. The playful wisp of a drama caused so many sightseeing buses to double-park that the city threatened to shut down the nightly shows.

The gloved hand that brought crowds and whimsy to Grant Street belonged to Lettie Connell Schubert, whose talent for organizing regional and national puppet festivals and teaching workshops made her a leading figure in American puppetry.

“She was a tremendous force and a major part of our history,” said Alan Cook, curator of the Conservatory of Puppetry Arts in Pasadena. “She was a really inspired performer and the best person at critiquing that I ever met.”

Schubert, who was diagnosed with cancer six months ago, died of liver failure March 21 at her home in Mill Valley, north of San Francisco, said her husband, Gage. She was 77.

When she wasn’t performing with her two favorite alter egos — a dog named George and a fairy called Twinkle — she was often mentoring up-and-coming performers.

Among those who benefited from her gentle critiques was a teenage Frank Oz, the future voice of Cookie Monster and Miss Piggy. Oz told The Times that Schubert was “one of the influential people” in his life.

“A Manual of Hand Puppet Manipulation,” a 20-page booklet Schubert self-published in 1974, is still considered one of the best guides to learning how to bring a glove puppet to life.

Technorati Tags: Lettie Connell Schubert, puppet festivals, puppetry, Conservatory of Puppetry Arts, Frank Oz, Cookie Monster, Miss Piggy

from the LA Times
Mohammad al-Maghout, 72, a Syrian poet and playwright known for his satirical depictions of authoritarian Arab regimes, died Monday of a stroke at his home in Damascus.

“Literary and cultural circles in Syria and the Arab world today lost a giant among Arab men of letters and poets,” Syria’s official SANA news agency said in reporting his death. Al-Maghout’s poems, plays and television and film scripts criticized corruption in the region’s governments and the restrictions they imposed on their citizens.

One of his better known screenplays became the 1978 movie “Al-Hudoud,” or “The Borders,” about a man who loses his passport and becomes trapped between countries.

The film, which starred Dureid Lahham, one of Syria’s better known actors, was a satire on Arab disunity.

Despite his sharp wit, Al-Maghout was allowed to continue writing by Syria’s authoritarian regimes, which granted him latitude to voice criticism as long as the Damascus regime wasn’t the target. Al-Maghout was born in the town of Salamieh, studied agriculture in college and first worked as a journalist.

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from the LA Times
Extreme skier Doug Coombs, 48, a mountaineer and guide from Jackson Hole, Wyo., died Monday in the French Alps after slipping and falling over a cliff while trying to aid a friend who had plunged over the same precipice, according to authorities and a family friend.

The accident occurred near the resort of La Grave in southeast France. Coombs guided skiers at La Grave and also operated Steep Skiing Camps Worldwide with his wife, Emily. He was skiing with friends at the time of the accident, in which the other man who fell also died.

French authorities and Miles Smart, a friend of Coombs and a colleague at Exum Mountain Guides in Jackson Hole, confirmed his death Tuesday to the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

Coombs was a two-time winner of the World Extreme Skiing Championships and served as ski ambassador for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in the early 1990s. He was due to be in Alaska this month for heli-ski guiding in Valdez, according to his website.

A native of Boston, Coombs was a ski racer at Montana State University, where he earned a degree in geology. In 1986 he moved to Jackson Hole to be a guide.

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“I was walkin’ down the street on a sunny day
Hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba
A feeling in my bones that I’ll have my way
Hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba

Well I’m a happy boy (happy boy)
Well I’m a happy boy (happy boy)
Oh ain’t it good when things are going your way, hey hey?

My little dog spot got hit by a car
Hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba
Put his guts in a box and put him in a drawer
Hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba

Well I’m a happy boy (happy boy)
Well I’m a happy boy (happy boy)
Oh ain’t it good when things are going your way, hey hey?

I forgot all about it for a month and a half
Hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba
I looked in the drawer and started to laugh
Hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba

Well I’m a happy boy (happy boy)
Well I’m a happy boy (happy boy)
Oh ain’t it good when things are going your way, hey hey?” ~ ‘Happy Boy’, The Beat Farmers

Its been sort of Music Week here, eh? Buddy Seigal of the Beat Farmers, Gene Pitney, Jackie McLean and Don Alias. Play on, play on. And given that we included Isaac Asimov in today’s list we should therefore add Igor Stravinsky to this musical mix. What’s a music mix without some long hair music? Son une vie merveilleuse, n’est pas?

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: My little dog spot got hit by a car, Happy Boy, Buddy Seigal, Beat Farmers, Gene Pitney, Jackie McLean, Don Alias, Isaac Asimov, Igor Stravinsky

from the NY Times
Don Alias, a percussionist who had a long career as a sought-after sideman, working with an illustrious array of artists in jazz and pop including Nina Simone, Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell, died on March 28 at his home in Manhattan. He was 66.

His death was announced by Melanie Futorian, his companion, who said the cause was under investigation.

Born Charles Donald Alias to Caribbean parents in New York, Mr. Alias liked to say that he learned percussion on the streets, picking up the techniques of Cuban and Puerto Rican hand drummers.

While in high school, he enlisted as a conga player with the Eartha Kitt Dance Foundation, which offered classes at a Y.M.C.A. Ms. Kitt herself took him along to the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, where he performed with the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra, his first professional experience.

At the urging of his family, Mr. Alias (pronounced uh-LIE-ess) studied biology at Gannon College in Erie, Pa., and the Carnegie Institute for Biochemistry in Boston. Playing in Boston clubs by night, he met students from the Berklee School of Music, most notably the bassist Gene Perla.

Technorati Tags: Don Alias, percussionist, sideman, jazz, pop, Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell

from the NY Times
Gene Pitney, the clean-cut crooner who became a teenage idol in the early 1960’s with hits like “Town Without Pity,” “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance” and “Only Love Can Break a Heart” — songs that showcased his keening tenor — was found dead yesterday in a hotel in Cardiff, Wales, while on a tour of Britain. He was 65.

He appeared to have died of natural causes, the police told The Associated Press. Mr. Pitney had performed in Cardiff the night before.

With a style less baroque than Roy Orbison and more restrained than the Righteous Brothers, Mr. Pitney emerged at the peak of the Brill Building era, when teenage pathos reigned in lyrics and a hit song could be both silly and grandiose. He recorded with Phil Spector and performed songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and others, scoring 16 titles in the Top 20 between 1961 and 1968.

Preppy and wholesome-looking, Mr. Pitney sang with perfect diction, making every cry-y-y perfectly clear. He was influenced by black R & B groups of the 1950’s and specialized in ballads that boiled over in romantic melodrama.

“Every Breath I Take,” from 1961, combines doo-wop backing vocals with a gathering tempest of sentimentality, culminating in Mr. Pitney’s ecstatic falsetto in the final chorus. Around him, strings swirl and drums thump in one of the earliest examples of Mr. Spector’s muscular “wall of sound” recording technique.

Technorati Tags: Gene Pitney, crooner, teenage idol, Roy Orbison, Righteous Brothers, Phil Spector

from the NY Times
Stella Snead, a British Surrealist painter and collage artist who fled wartime Europe to work in the United States and later became a photographer noted for her books on India, died on March 18 in New York. She was 96.

Her dealer, Pavel Zoubok, said she died of natural causes at the Jewish Home and Hospital in Manhattan.

Ms. Snead’s paintings of the 1940’s — nocturnal, dreamlike landscapes populated by fantastic animals and semi-human creatures — reflected the influences of painters like Yves Tanguy and Max Ernst. Though not well remembered as a painter today, Ms. Snead exhibited her work frequently in the United States and Europe during that decade. In 1949, her work was included in the prestigious Carnegie International exhibition in Pittsburgh.

But in the 1950’s, she abruptly stopped painting. The reason was depression, she later wrote in a reminiscence. She had suffered bouts of it before, she wrote, and now the breakup of a romantic relationship had set off another episode, draining her of her desire to paint. So she turned to photography.

In India, where she began making extended visits and where she lived throughout the 1960’s, she took photographs of street life, nature and Hindu sculpture. She published eight books of photography, including “Shiva’s Pigeons: An Experience of India” (Alfred A. Knopf, 1972) and “Animals in Four Worlds: Sculptures from India” (University of Chicago Press, 1989).

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from the NY Times
Isaac Asimov, the pre-eminent popular-science writer of the day and for more than 40 years one of the best and best-known writers of science fiction, died yesterday at New York University Hospital. He was 72 years old and lived in Manhattan.

He died of heart and kidney failure, said his brother, Stanley.

Mr. Asimov was amazingly prolific, writing nearly 500 books on a wide range of subjects, from works for preschoolers to college textbooks. He was perhaps best known for his science fiction and was a pioneer in elevating the genre from pulp-magazine adventure to a more intellectual level that dealt with sociology, history, mathematics and science. But he also wrote mysteries, as well as critically acclaimed books about the Bible, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, limericks, humor, Shakespeare, Gilbert and Sullivan, ancient and modern history, and many other subjects.

Mr. Asimov’s first book, ‘Pebble in the Sky’ (Ballantine), a science-fiction novel, was published in 1950. His first 100 books took him 237 months, or almost 20 years, until October 1969, to write. His second 100, a milestone he reached in March 1979, took 113 months, or about 9 1/2 years — a rate of more than 10 books a year. His third 100 took only 69 months, until December 1984, or less than 6 years.

‘Writing is more fun than ever,’ he said in a 1984 interview. ‘The longer I write, the easier it gets.’

Technorati Tags: Isaac Asimov, popular-science, writer, science fiction