Obit watch: May 23, 2018.

May 23rd, 2018

Philip Roth, noted American novelist.

I wish I had more to say about this, but: I just found out about his death, I’ve never read a Roth novel, and I don’t much like liver.

Clint Walker, actor. He was the star of “Cheyenne”, and appeared in “The Dirty Dozen” (among other credits).

As shooting of the show’s first season began, Mr. Walker confessed to the crew that he did not have a great deal of experience on horseback. He later recalled the response: “You’ll either be a good rider, or a dead one.”

Robert Indiana, visual artist, passed away on Saturday. He was most famous for his rendering of “L-O-V-E”:

I’m not sure I ordinarily would have noted this, but:

Mr. Indiana believed the piracy of the image harmed his reputation in the New York art world, and he retreated to Maine in 1978.

More:

Mr. Indiana, whose career was made, and nearly consumed, by his creation of the sculpture “LOVE,” had sought refuge here four decades ago, an exile from a New York art world he had come to resent, and settled into a rambling Victorian lodge hall overlooking Penobscot Bay, where he was, more or less, left alone to create his art.

He had become increasingly reclusive over the years, and his friends and associates wondered why. Turns out that, on Friday, the day before Mr. Indiana died:

…a company that says it has long held the rights to several of Mr. Indiana’s best-known works proposed an answer, arguing in court papers that the caretaker and a New York art publisher had tucked the artist away while they churned out unauthorized or adulterated versions of his work.

“They have isolated Indiana from his friends and supporters, forged some of Indiana’s most recognizable works, exhibited the fraudulent works in museums, and sold the fraudulent works to unsuspecting collectors,” said the lawsuit filed last week by Morgan Art Foundation Ltd. in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

They filed the lawsuit on Friday. Mr. Indiana’s death was announced on Saturday. Very interesting.

Posted in Art, Books, Law, Movies, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 22, 2018.

May 22nd, 2018

Murray Newman, over at Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, has a nice tribute up to Judge Frank Price, who passed away on Sunday.

Judge Price was not someone I knew, but I wish I had known him: he sounds like a good and genuinely fun guy.

…he was among the greatest practitioners of sleight of hand and close-up magic, performing routinely as a professional magician at Magic Island and many other venues. Training his hands to betray the closest scrutiny took the kind of discipline that was his forte. He took immense pride in the craft of magic and considered it a noble art, his “other” profession.

(Oddly enough, I was just refreshing my memory of the “Blood and Money” story Sunday night: I had no idea that Judge Price had died until I saw Mr. Newman’s post yesterday.)

Posted in Law, Magic, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 21, 2018.

May 21st, 2018

NYT obit for Joseph Campanella.

Billy Cannon, running back for the Houston Oilers. Noted here for “compare and contrast” reasons:

HouChron obit by John McClain. Note that this obit discusses his legal troubles in one two sentence paragraph, and that close to the bottom of the article.

NYT obit. Note that this obit basically headlines and leads off with his legal troubles, and devotes the better part of six paragraphs to them and the fallout from his conviction.

Posted in 1970s, Media, NFL, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 17, 2018.

May 17th, 2018

Joseph Campanella, noted actor. He was in everything: most notably, he was Joe Mannix’s boss at Intertect during the first season of “Mannix”. He was also one of the lawyers in “The Lawyers” portion of “The Bold Ones”, appeared several times on “Mama’s Family”, and…well, if you’ve heard of it, he was on it at some point.

Glenn Branca, avant-garde composer.

Mr. Branca’s compositions often used massed amplified guitars of various kinds — soprano, alto, tenor and bass — to give his sound the same breadth as that of an orchestra.
Many of his works are meant to be performed at high volumes, partly so that the overtones of his amplified guitars would linger and pile up, creating a phantom layer of harmony beyond what the musicians were playing, and partly as a purely tactile element, meant to both envelop and physically shake his listeners.

Posted in 1970s, Mannix, Music, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Smart people writing smart stuff.

May 17th, 2018

This isn’t me being lazy, hand to God: this is me pointing out some things other people wrote that deserve wider attention.

1. There’s a good (and by “good”, I mean “reflects my biases”) op-end in the Statesman that’s a response to the complaints about the academy (previously discussed here):

While our police should be both guardians and warriors, they should eschew militarization, in which a preference for use of force is the answer to all problems. As guardians, our officers must be willing and able to use appropriate force as a warrior but understand it is not the preferred course of action.

…

Skill level is part of what determines the justification for force; therefore, highly skilled officers are desired. Officers should prefer de-escalation — an important part of their training — but also be capable of escalation, and not just to the final option of a firearm that less capable officers are limited to. Unfit or less capable officers are a liability to themselves and to the public. Weeding them out is properly done in the academy.

2. Pat Cadigan (who, as we all know, is two orders of magnitude smarter than I am) takes apart a misguided recommendation from the Macmillan Cancer Support folks: avoid using the “fighting” metaphor.

Macmillan, honey, it’s not the fighting metaphor that makes patients feel guilty about admitting fear and preventing them from planning properly for their death––it’s the fact that they have frickin’ terminal cancer––literally, not metaphorically!

3. South Texas Pistolero on two recent books about Pearl Harbor and Curtis LeMay.

Also, both Kimmel and Short knew they were woefully undergunned; they repeatedly begged for more weapons from Washington and were refused every time. And we haven’t even gotten into the monumental amount of intercepted communications between Japanese forces in the months leading up to the attack that were kept from them.

The Summers and Swan book looks interesting: I plan to keep an eye out for it. I have heard the Kimmel and Short theory before, though: when we rewatched “Tora! Tora! Tora!” recently, one of the themes that stood out for me was that Kimmel and Short got the shaft because of stupid decisions above them.

You know that an invasion of Japan would have brought about more of that if they had managed to somehow gain the upper hand. And even if they had not, they were all still going to fight to the death. It was going to be brutal either way. The bombings sucked, but in the end, I think it’s safe to say they saved lives on both sides.

See also: “Thank God For the Atom Bomb” by Paul Fussel.

Posted in Austin, Books, Cops, History, Law, Politics | 1 Comment »

Sometimes there’s nothing you can say.

May 17th, 2018

At least, not without looking like a jerk.

A pack of wild small dogs believed to be “standard dachshund and terrier mix” canines — yes, the little dogs with short legs and long bodies — mauled to death an Oklahoma woman in a surreal and brutal onslaught that can only be described as a nightmare.

Posted in Mammals | Comments Closed

Historical note, fun for use in schools.

May 16th, 2018

I missed it, but I hope not by too much.

May 5th was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Herb Parsons. I, of course, was on the road at the time: even if I hadn’t been, I was unaware of this until yesterday, when a copy of Showman Shooter: The Life and Times of Herb Parsons came into my hands.

Who was Herb Parsons? He was a famous exhibition shooter: he worked for Winchester from 1929 until his untimely death in 1959 (with, of course, a break during WWII, where he served as a gunnery instructor). Quoting from the Showman Shooter website:

He would toss seven clay pigeons into the sky and shatter the last while pieces from the first were hitting the ground. He would “center” a handful of eggs between his legs, wheel around with a shotgun and scramble ’em, one at a time. He would suspend a can of gasoline over a candle inside a 55-gallon barrel, then render the whole works to a towering inferno from a safe distance. Using a mirror and two rifles, he would break two targets at the same instant—one in front, the other directly behind him.

His sons, Lynn and Jerry, are working to keep Herb’s legacy alive. The Showman Shooter website offers copies of the book, and videos of Herb, Ad and Plinky Toepperwein, John Satterwhite, and the excellent compilation, “Fast and Fancy Shooters”, along with some more background about Herb. I commend the site to your attention, and will be sending off a check for the DVD soon.

Here are a couple of videos that aren’t on the website, but that I think are interesting:

Posted in Books, Guns, Winchester | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: May 16, 2018.

May 16th, 2018

Tom Wolfe roundup: NYT.

Young Tom was educated at a private boys’ school in Richmond. He graduated cum laude from Washington and Lee University in 1951 with a bachelor’s degree in English and enough skill as a pitcher to earn a tryout with the New York Giants. He did not make the cut.

Quoted for the benefit of the Washington and Lee graduates in my audience. Wolfe was apparently quite the mover and shaker at W&L:

Upon graduation in 1947, he turned down admission to Princeton University to attend Washington and Lee University. At Washington and Lee, Wolfe was a member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity. He majored in English, was sports editor of the college newspaper, and helped found a literary magazine, Shenandoah, giving him opportunities to practice his writing both inside and outside the classroom.

He enrolled at Yale University in the American studies program and received his Ph.D. in 1957.

As for his remarkable attire, he called it “a harmless form of aggression.”
“I found early in the game that for me there’s no use trying to blend in,” he told The Paris Review. “I might as well be the village information-gatherer, the man from Mars who simply wants to know. Fortunately the world is full of people with information-compulsion who want to tell you their stories. They want to tell you things that you don’t know.”

NYT appreciation. NYT appreciation of his style:

Whether thrift or canniness inspired Mr. Wolfe to persist in wearing the suit into the following season, the effect was instantaneous, as he once said, “annoying people enormously.’’ Just by wearing white after Labor Day, he became the talk of any room he entered, and getting dressed each morning evolved for him into “a harmless form of assault.’’

WP.

He entered the world of stock-car driver Junior Johnson — the title figure of a 20,000-word Esquire article, “The Last American Hero” — so completely that he described the chickens walking across Johnson’s yard in Ingle Hollow, N.C.

Lawrence is a huge fan of this essay, especially for Wolfe’s observation that in Johnson’s part of the country, they grew courage like it was a natural resource. I’d happily link to it, but Esquire wants you to pay a subscription fee to access their archive, and I refuse to give those sumitches any money.

LAT:

“He had this kind of cynicism about liberalism,” said writer and friend Ann Louise Bardach. “If you look at what upset Tom, it was the card-carrying, raving, bring-down-the-barricade liberalism, but more than that, he was contrarian and a cynic in the sense that every great reporter is.”
He would later attend a state dinner at the White House during the Reagan administration, support President George W. Bush and complain against having to pay too much income tax. Walking the crowded streets of New York, Wolfe would wear a American flag lapel pin that he likened to “holding up a cross to werewolves.”

Borepatch sent over a nice note, and made a similar observation:

…my thoughts are that Wolfe and Reagan are inextricably linked. Political Correctness would not have allowed Bonfires to be published post-Reagan.

Posted in Books, Obits | Comments Closed

It’s Baltimore, gentlemen.

May 15th, 2018

The gods will not save your job as police commissioner.

The commissioner, Darryl De Sousa, 53, a career Baltimore officer, had been in the post for just four months. He resigned after being charged by federal prosecutors in Maryland with willfully failing to file income tax returns for 2013, 2014 and 2015. The charges are misdemeanors, with a maximum sentence of up to one year in prison and a $25,000 fine for each of the three counts.

Commissioner De Sousa was the third commissioner in three years. The previous two were both fired.

Posted in Cops, Law | Comments Closed

Bring me my extinguisher of burning hyenas…

May 15th, 2018

The felony invasion of privacy charges against Missouri governor Eric Greitens were dropped on Monday. In the middle of jury selection, no less.

(Previously on WCD.)

It sounds like the case had become a freaking mess. The supposed photo that kicked off the case hasn’t been found, the victim is reluctant to testify, the judge disqualified some of the expert witnesses the prosecution planned to call, and the defense was apparently planning to call the prosecutor who filed the charges as a witness.

But don’t throw away the popcorn yet:

Mr. Greitens, only a year and a half into his first term in office, remains entangled in a legal and political thicket, and his future remains very much in doubt. A second felony charge, of tampering with computer data, awaits; prosecutors contend that he illegally obtained a donor list from a veterans’ charity he founded and used it for his 2016 campaign. And he faces a looming threat to his governorship from the Missouri General Assembly, which has scheduled a special session on Friday that could lead to a vote on impeachment.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Bonfire of the obituaries.

May 15th, 2018

I’ll wait until tomorrow to post the Tom Wolfe obits. I think it’s better to give these things a chance to shake out, at least overnight. And I expect some thoughtful retrospectives and corrections to the initial press coverage.

Posted in Books, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch (and other things): May 15, 2018.

May 15th, 2018

I decided to put the Margo Kidder obits here: NYT. WP.

Adam Parfrey, publisher of weird stuff under the Amok Press and Feral House imprints.

My feelings about baseball in general, and the New York Yankees specifically, are well known. But this is a nice story:

For the past three years, the Yankees have been quietly sending flowers to the families and police departments of slain law enforcement officers across the country.

…

While the flowers usually arrive without warning or explanation beyond the message on the card, the gesture can elicit strong emotions. In Fargo, when Officer Jason Moszer was shot and killed in the line of duty in 2016, his 11-year-old stepson, Dillan Dahl, was devastated. When the flowers from the Yankees arrived, Dillan took them to his room and watered them, trying to keep them alive for as long as possible, said his father, Tim Dahl.
“It was the first time he smiled in days,” Dahl said.

This is a good story, too, and one I didn’t have time to blog on Sunday:

Posted in Law, Movies, Obits, Religion, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 14, 2018.

May 14th, 2018

This is a placeholder for Margot Kidder obits: once they start going up, I’ll add them here.

In the meantime:

Chuck Knox, noted NFL coach.

Ernest Medina, one of the central figures in the My Lai massacre.

Captain Medina went on trial in September 1971, defended by the prominent criminal lawyer F. Lee Bailey, as well as a military lawyer. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter of at least 100 civilians, the murder of a woman and two counts of assault against a prisoner by firing twice over his head to frighten him the night after the massacre.
The defense contended that Captain Medina was unaware of large-scale killings of defenseless civilians until they had already occurred. The prosecution argued that the defense account was not credible since Captain Medina had been in continual radio contact with his platoons. The court-martial panel of five combat officers returned not guilty verdicts on all counts after an hour’s deliberation.

Doreen Simmons.

“Who?”

She was born in England, studied theology and classics at the University of Cambridge, and taught school in Singapore.

She was best known as an English-language sumo commentator for NHK from 1992 until March of this year.

“At the beginning, there were three play-by-play men who had experience of broadcasting games like baseball, but their knowledge of basic sumo was newly acquired and pretty limited,” she said in an interview last year with The Daily Express, a British newspaper. “They wanted the color provided by commentators like me who were hired because we were already knowledgeable about some aspect of sumo.”

Posted in History, Movies, NFL, Obits, Sports, Sumo, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: May 11, 2018.

May 11th, 2018

Sammy Allred, noted musician and later local radio host.

Allred’s band, the Geezinslaw Brothers – who once opened for Sun Records-era Elvis Presley – were regulars on the “Louisiana Hayride” radio show based in Shreveport in the late 1950s.
James White, owner of the Broken Spoke restaurant where the Geezinslaw Brothers played, told the American-Statesman in 2007 he remembered the first time he saw them perform on a flatbed truck in 1954 at the opening of the Twin Oaks shopping center in South Austin.

…

Allred, a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame, joined KVET-FM in 1969, and in 1990 joined Bob Cole for a morning show that played country music before Allred was fired from KVET in 2007.

Posted in Music, Radio | Comments Closed

Historical note, suitable for use in schools.

May 11th, 2018

42 years ago today, a truck fell from Loop 610 West in Houston and landed on the Southwest Freeway below the overpass.

The truck was pretty much obliterated.

It was carrying 7,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia, all of which was released when the truck crashed.

Six people, including the truck driver, were either killed outright or died shortly afterwards. A seventh person died in 1979 of complications from their injuries.

HouChron retrospective. My family was living in suburban Houston at the time: we were well out of the danger zone, but I remember it being a huge deal for several days.

Posted in History | 1 Comment »

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