Our Daily Dead

From the LA Times…Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden, botanical artist known for detailed paintings of flowers and insects, has died at age 99.

Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden, a botanical artist who wrote and illustrated a number of books and displayed her watercolors at museums and botanical gardens around the country, has died. She was 99.

Dowden died Jan. 4 in her sleep at Frasier Meadows Retirement Community in Boulder, Colorado, according to Carolyn Crawford, a longtime friend.

A native of Denver, Dowden spent many years in New York City but returned to her home state in 1990. She was known for painting flowers, herbs and insects in precise anatomical detail, using only live blossoms as models. She also kept a large collection of beetles and bugs for her work, and once said she had spent six weeks painting the hairs on a bee’s leg for one of her works.

You may find examples of her work here: Hunt Institute For Botanical Documentation

Several of her books won awards. “Look at a Flower” (1963) and “Wild Green Things in the City, A Book of Weeds” (1972) received awards from the American Library Assn. “The Blossom on the Bough, A Book of Trees” (1975) was named an outstanding book for children by the National Science Teachers Assn.

She also illustrated books written by others. “Shakespeare’s Flowers” by Jessica Kerr (1969) and “Roses” by Louis Untermeyer (1970) are among her best-known collaborations.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

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Sneaky Pete Kleinow, a steel guitar prodigy and one of the original members of the Flying Burrito Brothers, has died at age 72.

The Columbian.com article continues with “…his [Sneaky Pete’s] prowess with the pedal steel guitar influenced a generation of rock-and-rollers, including the Eagles, the Steve Miller Band and Poco.”

“Besides co-founding the Burrito Brothers with the Byrds’ Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons in 1968, he enjoyed a steady gig as a session musician, recording with such singer-songwriters as John Lennon, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt and Joni Mitchell and bands as varied as the Bee Gees and Sly and the Family Stone.”

Seems he kept some pretty nice company. And we’d have to agree with the use of the word ‘varied’ leveraged in there betwixt the Bee Gees and Sly’s group. Varied indeed.

And yet there was another side that we never realized he had…did you? Again, from the Columbian: “…Kleinow also won acclaim as an animator, special effects artist and director of commercials in television and film. His credits ranged from the original ‘Gumby’ series - he wrote and performed the theme music as well as designed cartoons - and the relaunched ‘The Twilight Zone’ to the movies ‘Under Siege,’ ‘Fearless‘ and ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’ He won an Emmy award in 1983 for his work on the miniseries, ‘The Winds of War.’”

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

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Carlo Ponti the film producer who discovered Sophia Loren has died at age 95.

As per the Independent Online article - “Carlo Ponti was one of the most successful producers of the post-war Italian film boom, backing works by directors such as Alberto Lattuada, Frederico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica, but there can be no doubt that the most spectacular ‘production’ of his long career was the transformation of Sofia Scicolone from impoverished bit-part actress into Sophia Loren, international film star, iconic embodiment of Italian womanhood and, not irrelevantly, the second Signora Carlo Ponti.”

There was of course a bit of an issue with the marriage of Carlo and his ‘production’ Sophia. It seems that Carlo was already married and at the time divorce was illegal in Italy. Pointi however managed to get a Mexican divorce during a visit to Hollywood in 1957. At the same time he also wrangled a Mexican marriage by proxy to Loren.

Ah bugger but didn’t that new marriage just put him in the way of trouble from the Italians in general and the scary red-hats over at the Vatican too. Subsequently “…Ponti was informed by the Italian authorities that he would face charges of bigamy should he return home, while Loren would be charged with ‘concubinage’”.

Bigamy derives from the French bigamie, and from the Latin bis meaning twice, and the Greek gamos meaning marriage.

(TIME OUT! … BTW - Do you recall the lines from Groucho as Captain Spalding in Animal Crackers?:

Spalding: “Well whadaya say girls? Are we all gonna get married?” Mrs. Whitehead: “All of us?” Spalding: “All of us!” Mrs. Whitehead: “But that’s bigamy!” Spalding: “Yes, and it’s big-a-me too.”

Twice Married. Tisk, tisk. All this and the Vatican threatened him with excommunication too.

Now in case you skipped catechism:

Concubinage covers “…those unions only in which the man and the woman are free from any obligation arising from a vow, the state of matrimony or Holy Orders, or the fact of relationship or affinity; it is immaterial whether the parties dwell together or not, the repetition or continuance of illicit relations between the same persons being the essential element.”

Excommunication comes from the Latin ex, out of, and communio or communicatio, communion — thus ‘exclusion from the communion’. Excommunication “…is a medicinal, spiritual penalty that deprives the guilty Christian of all participation in the common blessings of ecclesiastical society.” En otras palabas: you don’t get be part of the club no mo’.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

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