Anita left behind some juicy gossip, bless her heart. Yesterday the Corriere della Sera published an interview she gave them in 2010 but told them not to publish until she was dead. They got right on it. The entire interview does not appear to be online on the main site, but this literary offshoot has the goods. My translation below.
Man, I wish she'd spilled what he said about Visconti. My guess is something homophobic.
Colleen McCullough, author of The Thorn Birds and my favorite historical novels of all time, the Masters of Rome series, is dead at 77. She should have gotten a Pulitzer for the glossary at the back of The First Man in Rome alone.
I'm not going to lie, I really didn't like him when he was everywhere all the time.
But now that he hasn't been so ubiquitous for a while, I can say, "Oh, that's too bad."
I picture him as sort of having his own font, the way Dick Clark did. McKuen's is one of those chubby, rounded 70s-style fonts, with little curlicues as the serifs? I see the name Rod McKuen and picture it in that font, but I'm searching and it turns out that his name appeared in a number of different fonts, none of which are exactly the one I am picturing, which leads me to the uncomfortable possibility that maybe that I actually mentally invented a font for thinking about Rod McKuen.
Billionaire candy-maker and Nutella magnate Michele Ferrero died on Valentine's Day at age 89 after a several months illness. Ferrero invented Tic Tac breath mints, Kinder chocolates, and Ferrero Rocher chocolate-hazelnut balls.
I liked his balls.
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Sleep - the most beautiful experience in life - except drink.--W.C. Fields
My friend's mama died on Valentine's day. She's not famous, though. I wanted to drive out there and support her this weekend but we just couldn't pull off the logistics in time.
The tough part for me to get my head around is my friend has a daughter about the same age my friend was when her maternal grandmother passed away of the exact same thing (the cancer). Her grandmother's death affected my friend deeply for years, so now I can't help but wonder if it will be the same for her daughter, only with the added benefit of having the anniversary fall on Valentine's day.
In news that got vastly less attention than I believe it deserved, Louis Jourdan died on Saturday. It took forever for obits to show up, but they got with the program at last. You guys have heard me go on about this before, but my life would be vastly different with Louis Jourdan's Dracula. The whole 15 years studying vampire myths would never have happened. So I'm in mourning, but saying Rest in Peace seems hypocritical when I really want him to come back.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
Why have I kept silent, held back so long,
on something openly practised in
war games, at the end of which those of us
who survive will at best be footnotes?
It's the alleged right to a first strike
that could destroy an Iranian people
subjugated by a loudmouth
and gathered in organized rallies,
because an atom bomb may be being
developed within his arc of power.
Yet why do I hesitate to name
that other land in which
for years – although kept secret –
a growing nuclear power has existed
beyond supervision or verification,
subject to no inspection of any kind?
This general silence on the facts,
before which my own silence has bowed,
seems to me a troubling, enforced lie,
leading to a likely punishment
the moment it's broken:
the verdict "Anti-semitism" falls easily.
But now that my own country,
brought in time after time
for questioning about its own crimes,
profound and beyond compare,
has delivered yet another submarine to Israel,
(in what is purely a business transaction,
though glibly declared an act of reparation)
whose speciality consists in its ability
to direct nuclear warheads toward
an area in which not a single atom bomb
has yet been proved to exist, its feared
existence proof enough, I'll say what must be said.
But why have I kept silent till now?
Because I thought my own origins,
tarnished by a stain that can never be removed,
meant I could not expect Israel, a land
to which I am, and always will be, attached,
to accept this open declaration of the truth.
Why only now, grown old,
and with what ink remains, do I say:
Israel's atomic power endangers
an already fragile world peace?
Because what must be said
may be too late tomorrow;
and because – burdened enough as Germans –
we may be providing material for a crime
that is foreseeable, so that our complicity
will not be expunged by any
of the usual excuses.
And granted: I've broken my silence
because I'm sick of the West's hypocrisy;
and I hope too that many may be freed
from their silence, may demand
that those responsible for the open danger
we face renounce the use of force,
may insist that the governments of
both Iran and Israel allow an international authority
free and open inspection of
the nuclear potential and capability of both.
No other course offers help
to Israelis and Palestinians alike,
to all those living side by side in enmity
in this region occupied by illusions,
and ultimately, to all of us.
Günter Grass - Translated by Breon Mitchell.
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... it's just an idea
Last edited by mickthinks; 04-13-2015 at 02:49 PM.
He was probably only limited purpose famous, but Tex Logan, prominent electrical engineer and bluegrass fiddler, died the other day. And as if that doesn't make him interesting enough already, I only saw the notice because it showed up on a linguistics blog I read.
Singer-songwriter Ben E. King, author/singer of "Stand by Me" and former member of the Drifters, age 76.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
Movie and television actor, union leader, unabashed liberal Democrat, and one of my favorite people, James Garner died at home of natural causes. He was 86 years old.
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Sleep - the most beautiful experience in life - except drink.--W.C. Fields
Re: BREAKING: Sometimes Famous People Die
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