Harlan Ellison, a writer with a more than active imagination and an activist for writers, died peacefully in his sleep yesterday. he was 84. You can see write-ups in Variety and the Los Angeles Times. A brief, but excellent remembrance is from Mark Evanier, who knew him for almost 50 years. I think he put it best when he said: Harlan was a writer who made other writers proud to be writers. He goes on to……
88 years is no small feat, but when my wife and I talked, we agreed, it would have been nice to see Ursula K. LeGuin, who passed away last week, reach a hundred. Far and beyond the worlds she created was her perspective: on writing, being a writer, and, well, managing to live this crazy life and perhaps make it a better place while being a writer. I only discovered her work later in life…
Turner Classic Movies (TCM), always releases their end of year remembrance a couple weeks early. Then they update it in case someone passes near the end of the year. I don’t care. I watch both versions. Even if you don’t recognize everyone, there’s always plenty to make you wistful… and remind you that a certain film or three is worth re-watching. Verklempt, right? And of course, they nailed the landing.
There will be a general lack of toast in the neighborhood this morning. And by “toast” I mean theater-related joy. And by “the neighborhood,” I mean “American theater.” And by “this morning,” I mean… well, I don’t know how long, but it’ll be longer than a morning. Actor, playwright, and director Sam Shepard has died at the age of 73. I first learned about it in a piece in Broadway World, which is worth checking…
Growing up in the DC area, my dad made full use of all the free film series places like the National Archives, Library of Congress, and East Gallery would provide. And, of course, he’d take us along. It was at these places that I first saw such classics as To Kill a Mockingbird, Fort Apache, and Gone with the Wind. “It was TCM before TCM,” I explained. Earlier this week, the man who epitomized Turner…
Someone I’ve known just shy of 20 years, Tricia McCauley, has died. This is hard. You can do remembrances for people who inspired you from afar or mentors who were decades older than you. And although I have lost friends and peers around my age, this is different. She went missing late in the afternoon of Christmas Day. Most of us found out through social media the following day, Monday, when she hadn’t checked in…
2016 really isn’t getting any new fans as our cultural icons continue to shuffle off this mortal coil in a manner that befits the most macabre dance number imaginable. Playwright Edward Albee is dead, as reported by NPR, the New York Times, and others. I suppose he wouldn’t mind, what with his work exploring death, gloom, and despair. He was also 88, which I’m sure actuaries would assure me is “pretty old,” statistically speaking. I…
I meant to post this earlier, but life keeps on getting in the way. Or maybe it’s bills to pay, and I’m not as clever as Max Bialystock at how to pay them. As has been reported in the Washington Post, AP, Variety, and elsewhere, Jerome Silberman aka Gene Wilder passed away last month, on Sunday, August 29th. He was 83. 2016 has proven to be lethal to the cultural icons many of my generation…
I did the math a couple years ago and realized he was in his 80s, so I knew it might happen sooner rather than later, but I am very sad to learn Carl Balson, theater professor and all-around audio-visual wizard, passed away on September 8th at the age of 84. An obituary appeared in the Beloit Daily News, but we learned of it a couple days earlier on social media. Here are some of the…
A couple weeks ago, I learned that longtime host of The Big Broadcast and even longer-time radio figure, Ed Walker, would be retiring. He was doing so to spend more time with his family and battle the cancer with which he had been diagnosed. His last broadcast would be Sunday, October 25th. Like many other longtime fans, I was determined to tune in at 7pm this past Sunday. This may seem strange in the age of streaming…