Obituaries

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Physicist Peter Grünberg, Nobel Prize winner:


Peter Andreas Grünberg (18 May 1939 – April 2018[1]) was a German physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his discovery with Albert Fert of giant magnetoresistance which brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disk drives.[2]

Grünberg received his intermediate diploma in 1962 from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt. He then attended the Darmstadt University of Technology, where he received his diploma in physics in 1966 and his Ph.D. in 1969. From 1969 to 1972, he did postdoctoral work at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He later joined the Institute for Solid State Physics at Forschungszentrum Jülich, where he became a leading researcher in the field of thin film and multilayer magnetism until his retirement in 2004.[12]


In 1986 he discovered the antiparallel exchange coupling between ferromagnetic layers separated by a thin non-ferromagnetic layer, and in 1988 he discovered the giant magnetoresistive effect (GMR).[13] GMR was simultaneously and independently discovered by Albert Fert from the Université de Paris Sud. It has been used extensively in read heads of modern hard drives. Another application of the GMR effect is non-volatile, magnetic random access memory.

Apart from the Nobel Prize, Grünberg's work also has been rewarded with shared prizes in the APS International Prize for New Materials, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics Magnetism Award, the Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize, the Wolf Prize in Physics and the 2007 Japan Prize. He won the German Future Prize for Technology and Innovation in 1998 and was named European Inventor of the Year[14] in the category "Universities and research institutions" by the European Patent Office and European Commission in 2006.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gr%C3%BCnberg

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Cecil Taylor, jazz pianist

Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929 – April 5, 2018)[1][2][3][4] was an American pianist and poet.[5][6] Taylor was classically trained, and is generally acknowledged as having been one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex improvised sounds which frequently involve tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His piano technique has been likened to percussion—referring to the number of keys on a standard piano, Val Wilmer used the phrase "eighty-eight tuned drums" to describe Taylor's pianism.[7] He has also been described as "like Art Tatum with contemporary-classical leanings".[8]

Taylor was raised in the Corona, Queens neighborhood of New York City.[9] As an only child to a middle-class family, Taylor's mother encouraged him to play music at an early age. He began playing piano at age six and went on to study at the New York College of Music and New England Conservatory. At the New England Conservatory, Taylor majored in composition and arranging. During his time there, he also became familiar with contemporary European art music. Bartók and Stockhausen notably influenced his music.[10]

In 1955, Taylor moved from Boston to New York City. He formed a quartet with soprano saxophonist, Steve Lacy, the bassist Buell Neidlinger, and drummer Dennis Charles.[10]

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Taylor's first recording, [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_Advance]Jazz Advance, featured Lacy and was released in 1956.[11] It is described by Cook and Morton in the Penguin Guide to Jazz: "While there are still many nods to conventional post-bop form in this set, it already points to the freedoms in which the pianist would later immerse himself."[12] Taylor's Quartet featuring Lacy also appeared at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival which went on to be made into the album At Newport.[13] He collaborated with saxophonist John Coltrane in 1958 (Stereo Drive, currently available as Coltrane Time).[14]

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Taylor's music grew more complex and moved away from existing jazz styles. Gigs were often hard to come by, and club owners found Taylor's approach to performance (long pieces) unhelpful in conducting business.[15] His 1959 LP Looking Ahead!, showcased his innovation as a creator in comparison to the jazz mainstream. Unlike others at the time, Taylor utilized virtuosic techniques and made swift stylistic shifts from phrase to phrase. These qualities, among others, still remain notable distinctions of Taylor's music today.[16]
Landmark recordings, like Unit Structures (1966), also appeared. With 'the Unit', musicians developed often volcanic new forms of conversational interplay. In the early 1960s, an uncredited Albert Ayler worked for a time with Taylor, jamming and appearing on at least one recording, Four, which was unreleased until appearing on the 2004 Albert Ayler box set Holy Ghost: Rare & Unissued Recordings (1962–70).[17]

By 1961, Taylor was working regularly with alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, one of his most important and consistent collaborators. Taylor, Lyons and drummer Sunny Murray (and later Andrew Cyrille) formed the core personnel of The Unit, Taylor's primary group effort until Lyons's premature death in 1986. Lyons's playing, strongly influenced by jazz icon Charlie Parker, retained a strong blues sensibility and helped keep Taylor's increasingly avant garde music tethered to the jazz tradition.[18]

Taylor began to perform solo concerts in the second half of the sixties. The first known recorded solo performance (by Dutch radio) was 'Carmen With Rings' (59 min.) in De Doelen concert hall in Rotterdam on July 1, 1967. Two days before Taylor had played the same composition in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Many of the later concerts were released on album and include Indent (1973), side one of Spring of Two Blue-J's (1973),[19] Silent Tongues (1974), Garden (1982), For Olim (1987), Erzulie Maketh Scent (1989) and The Tree of Life (1998). He began to garner critical, if not popular, acclaim, playing for Jimmy Carter on the White House Lawn, lecturing as an in-residence artist at universities, and eventually being awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973 and then a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991.[20][21][22][23]

Following Lyons's death in 1986 Taylor formed the Feel Trio in the early 1990s with William Parker (bass) and Tony Oxley (drums); the group can be heard on Celebrated Blazons, Looking (Berlin Version) The Feel Trio and the 10-CD set 2 T's for a Lovely T.[24][25][26] Compared to his prior small groups with Jimmy Lyons, the Feel Trio had a more abstract approach, tethered less to jazz tradition and more aligned with the ethos of European free improvisation. He also performed with larger ensembles and big-band projects. His extended residence in Berlin in 1988 was extensively documented by the German label FMP, resulting in a boxed set of performances in duet and trio with a large number of European free improvisors, including Oxley, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Han Bennink, Tristan Honsinger, Louis Moholo and Paul Lovens. Most of his latter day recordings have been put out on European labels, with the exception of Momentum Space (a meeting with Dewey Redman and Elvin Jones) on Verve/Gitanes. The classical label Bridge released his 1998 Library of Congress performance Algonquin, a duet with violinist Mat Maneri.[27] Taylor continued to perform for capacity audiences around the world with live concerts, usually played on his favored instrument, a Bösendorfer piano that features nine extra lower-register keys. A documentary entitled All the Notes, was released on DVD in 2006 by director Chris Felver. Taylor was also featured in an earlier documentary film Imagine the Sound (1981), in which he discusses and performs his music, poetry and dance.[28]


Taylor recorded sparingly in the 2000s, but continued to perform with his own ensembles (the Cecil Taylor Ensemble and the Cecil Taylor Big Band) as well as with other musicians such as Joe Locke, Max Roach, and the poet Amiri Baraka.[29] In 2004, the Cecil Taylor Big Band at the Iridium 2005 was nominated a best performance of 2004 by All About Jazz,[30] and the same in 2009 for the Cecil Taylor Trio at the Highline Ballroom in 2009.[31] The trio consisted of Taylor, Albey Balgochian, and Jackson Krall. At time of Taylor's death in 2018, an autobiography, further concerts, and other projects were in the works.[32] In 2010, Triple Point Records released a deluxe limited edition double LP titled Ailanthus/Altissima: Bilateral Dimensions of Two Root Songs, a set of duos with long-time collaborator Tony Oxley that was recorded live at the Village Vanguard in New York City.[33]

In 2013, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize for Music;[34] the citation described him as "An Innovative Jazz Musician Who Has Fully Explored the Possibilities of Piano Improvisation".[35] In 2014, his career and 85th birthday were honored at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia with the tribute concert event "Celebrating Cecil".[36] In 2016 he received a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art entitled Open Plan: Cecil Taylor.[37]
Taylor, along with dancer Min Tanaka, was the subject of Amiel Courtin-Wilson's 2016 documentary film The Silent Eye.[38]

Taylor was a poet, citing Robert Duncan, Charles Olson and Amiri Baraka as major influences.[43] He often integrated his poems into his musical performances, and they frequently appear in the liner notes of his albums. The CD Chinampas, released by Leo Records in 1987, is a recording of Taylor reciting several of his poems, accompanying himself on percussion.[44]

According to Steven Block, free jazz originated with the performances of Cecil Taylor at the Five Spot Cafe in 1957 and Ornette Coleman in 1959.[45] In 1964, Taylor co-founded the Jazz Composers Guild to enhance the working possibilities of avant-garde jazz musicians.[46]

Taylor's style and methods have been described as "constructivist".[47] Despite Scott Yanow's warning regarding Taylor's "forbidding music" ("Suffice it to say that Cecil Taylor's music is not for everyone"), he goes on to praise Taylor's "remarkable technique and endurance", and his "advanced", "radical", "original", and uncompromising "musical vision".[6]

This vision is one of Taylor's greatest influences upon others:

Quote:Playing with Taylor I began to be liberated from thinking about chords. I'd been imitating John Coltrane unsuccessfully and because of that I was really chord conscious.

— Archie Shepp, quoted in LeRoi Jones, album liner notes for Four for Trane (Impulse A-71, 1964).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Taylor

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Czech-born director Milos Forman, who won best directing Oscars for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Amadeus,” has died. He was 86.

Forman died Friday in the U.S. after a brief illness, his wife, Martina, told the Czech news agency CTK. She said that “his departure was calm, and he was surrounded the whole time by his family and his closest friends.”

Having made just one American film at the time, the ironic comedy “Taking Off” (1971), which won critical acclaim but failed to connect with audiences, Forman seemed an unlikely choice to direct the adaptation of Ken Kesey’s countercultural novel “Cuckoo’s Nest.” But he brought a balance and objectivity to the film, which could easily have descended into histrionics. The critically lauded and immensely popular film starring the fast-rising Jack Nicholson struck a nerve in 1975, and on Academy Awards night it became the first film since 1934’s “It Happened One Night” to sweep the top five Oscar prizes: best picture, director, actress, actor and screenplay (adapted).

To shoot “Amadeus,” Forman returned to his native Czechoslovakia in 1983 and used little-known theater actors to play Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Thomas Hulce) and his rival Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), Forman created a compelling and cogent adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s award-winning stage play — helped in great measure by the magnificent Mozartian score. Again, Forman ruled the Oscars, taking another director trophy as the film also drew awards for picture, actor (Abraham), and screenplay, winning eight awards in all. The film was also his most financially successful after “Cuckoo’s Nest.”

With a style that film historian David Thomson said stressed the everyday over the melodramatic and a flair for improvisation, Forman had flourished as a young director in Czechoslovakia with such satirical films as 1966’s “Loves of a Blonde” and 1968’s “The Firemen’s Ball,” the latter of which was refused a showing in his native country because of its satire of bureaucratic thinking.

Forman was in Paris in August 1968 when Russian tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia, ending the Warsaw Pact country’s brief artistic renaissance. Soon thereafter he moved to New York, joining another celebrated Czech director, Ivan Passer, who had penned “Loves of a Blonde” with Forman and others. Forman’s first U.S. film, “Taking Off,” was similar in approach and style to his earlier work, and while it was praised by critics, it did little to establish him as an American director. He also took on “The Decathlon” episode of “Visions of Eight,” a compilation documentary of the Olympics by an octet of different helmers.

Over the years Forman directed few films, and his American track record was mixed. Though “Cuckoo’s Nest” transformed him into an A-list director, he waited four years before his next film, tackling another challenging piece of material, “Hair,” based on the ’60s smash hit musical. But 10 years later, the episodic piece seemed passe onscreen, and Forman’s simple approach was ill-suited for the musical material. He did better with 1981’s “Ragtime,” a mostly successful adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s bestseller centered on intersecting lives in the early 20th century. The film did not score at the box office, however.

He attained commercial and critical success once more with “Amadeus” but never quite scaled those heights again.

Forman appeared next in 1989 with “Valmont,” an adaptation he co-penned of the French period novel “Les Liaisons dangereuses” starring Colin Firth and Annette Bening. While graceful and witty, the film suffered from comparison to the more melodramatic “Dangerous Liaisons,” released the previous year and starring John Malkovich and Glenn Close.

He didn’t direct again until he issued two other satirical pieces in the late ’90s, the first of which was “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” a well-reviewed comedy about the First Amendment controversy stirred up by Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, embodied in the film by Woody Harrelson. While reviews were strong, the film did only moderately well at the box office. But it brought Forman another director nomination in 1996. The reception to his 1999 film “Man on the Moon,” about the offbeat comic Andy Kaufman, was mixed, though lead Jim Carrey pulled in great notices. Again, audiences seemed indifferent to the subject matter.

After an absence of seven years, Forman returned in 2006 with “Goya’s Ghosts,” in which he sought to wed the Inquisition, the life of the painter Goya and the Napoleonic Wars. Implausibilities frustrated critics, but Forman did pull an affecting performance from Natalie Portman, if not from Javier Bardem, Stellan Skarsgard or Randy Quaid as the king of Spain.

In 2009 Forman directed, with his son Petr, the Czech-language “A Walk Worthwhile,” a remake of his earlier 1966 work for Czech television.

Forman collaborated with Vaclav Havel on the adaptation of a novel about the Munich Agreement, through which Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia’s Sudentenland in 1938, but the project did not come to fruition. He also had in development as a directing project the story of Charles Ponzi, the early 20th century fraudster who lends his name to the Ponzi scheme.

In addition to his directing chores, Forman was co-director of the film program at Columbia U. and appeared as an actor in such films as “Keeping the Faith,” “Heartburn” and “New Year’s Day.”

Born in the town of Caslav (also spelled Kaslov), near Prague, Jan Tomas Forman was raised by an uncle and in foster homes following the death of his parents in WWII concentration camps. After graduating from the Prague Film Faculty of the Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1957, he wrote sketches for the mixed media Laterna Magika, which was celebrated at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels. After departing the group in 1961, he was hired by the Czech state film studio, where he came to attention with two medium-length films, 1961’s “The Talent Competition” and “If There Were No Music.” His feature debut in 1963, “Black Peter,” won the top prize at the Locarno Film Festival and led to such internationally acclaimed efforts as “Loves of a Blonde” and “The Fireman’s Ball.”

From Variety Magazine.

[Eric the Green]

Pahrump-based radio host Art Bell dies at 72
https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/loca...ies-at-72/
Updated April 14, 2018 - 1:57 am

Longtime radio host Art Bell died Friday at his Pahrump home, the Nye County Sheriff’s Office announced. He was 72.

Bell’s paranormal-themed show, “Coast to Coast AM,” was syndicated on about 500 North American stations in the 1990s before he left the nightly show in 2002. He broadcast the show from Pahrump’s KNYE 95.1 FM, a station he founded.

Bell retired several times in his career, which included a short-lived show on SiriusXM satellite radio in 2013.

Returning to terrestrial radio afterward was not a difficult decision, he told the Pahrump Valley Times in August 2013.
“That’s easy, because I love it,” he said at the time. “It’s my life, and that’s all I have ever done. I went through a lot of family problems, so that interrupted things, and I was overseas for four years, and that certainly interrupted things. I went back into radio because I love it.”

Bell was inducted into the Nevada Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 2006. He did not attend the presentation.
In 2008, Bell was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Bell was born in Jacksonville, North Carolina, on June 17, 1945. He served in the the U.S. Air Force as a medic during the Vietnam War.

According to the Coast to Coast AM website, Bell was an FCC licensed radio technician at age 13. He also set a Guinness World Record for a solo broadcast marathon, at more than 116 hours, while working as a DJ in Okinawa, Japan, the website said.

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oboist and early-music specialist Jean Malgloire

Jean-Claude Malgoire (25 November 1940 – 14 April 2018) was a French conductor.


Malgoire began his career as an oboist.[2] He played the cor anglais for the Orchestre de Paris, under the direction of conductor Charles Munch.[2] Over the course of his career, he played for conductors Herbert von Karajan, Georg Solti and Seiji Ozawa.[3] In 1971, he played the cor anglais in Ravel's Piano Concerto alongside pianist Samson François, conducted by André Cluytens.[2] He also played the cor anglais in Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.[2]

Malgoire founded La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy, a period-instrument Baroque music ensemble, in 1966.[1] He played the works of Jean-Baptiste Lully and André Campra.[1] He also founded the Florilegium Musicum de Paris,[5] a medieval music group.[2] In 1972, he joined Ensemble 2e2m founded by Paul Méfano.[2] He was the artistic director of the Atelier lyrique in Tourcoing from 1981 to 2018.[4]
Malgoire was awarded the Victoires de la Musique in 1992.[4]

more at Wikipedia,
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Malgoire#cite_note-teleramaobit-4][/url]

[Eric the Green]

Harry Laverne Anderson (October 14, 1952 – April 16, 2018) was an American actor and magician. He is best known for the role of Judge Harry Stone on the 1984–92 television series Night Court. In addition to eight appearances on Saturday Night Live between 1981 and 1985, Anderson had a recurring guest role as con man Harry "The Hat" Gittes on Cheers, toured extensively as a magician, and did several magic/comedy shows for broadcast, including Harry Anderson's Sideshow (1987).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Anderson

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Former First Lady Barbara Bush

Barbara Bush (née Pierce; June 8, 1925 – April 17, 2018) was the wife of George H. W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States, and served as the First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993. She was the mother of George W. Bush, the 43rd President, and Jeb Bush, the 43rd Governor of Florida. She served as the Second Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989.

Barbara Pierce was born in Manhattan. She graduated from Ashley Hall School in Charleston, South Carolina. She met George Herbert Walker Bush at age 16, and the two married in Rye, New York in 1945, while he was on leave during his deployment as a Naval officer in World War II. They had six children together. The Bush family soon moved to Midland, Texas, where George Bush entered political life.

While Barbara Bush was First Lady of the United States, she worked to advance the cause of universal literacy and founded the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.

Much more at Wikipedia.

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The last member of the Lost Generation with a verifiable birth-date, a Japanese woman, has died at the age of 117.

Nabi Tajima (田島 ナビ Tajima Nabi, 4 August 1900 – 21 April 2018)[1][2][3] was a Japanese supercentenarian.[4] She was also the oldest recorded Japanese and Asian person in history and the world's third oldest person ever to be validated by modern standards, behind Jeanne Calment and Sarah Knauss.[5]

She was the last living person to have been certified to have been born in the nineteenth century.


Tajima was born in Araki, an area which was then Wan Village, in the westernmost part of Kikaijima Island. From February 2002 until her death, she has resided in a nursing home named "Kikaien" (喜界園) in Kikai, Kagoshima.[6]

Her husband, Tominishi Tajima (田島 富二子), died in 1991 at the age of 95 according to some sources[7] or possibly 1992 or 1993 according to others.[8] She had nine children (seven sons and two daughters).[7] In September 2017 she was reported as having around 160 descendants, including great-great-great-grandchildren.[6]

Tajima became the oldest living person in Japan on 27 September 2015, upon the death of a 115-year-old anonymous woman who was living in Tokyo.[9] On 15 September 2017, upon the death of the 117-year-old Jamaican Violet Brown, Tajima became the oldest living person in the world—and the last surviving person born in the 19th century.[10] On 10 April 2018, Nabi Tajima became the world's third oldest person ever due to surpassing the final age of Lucy Hannah.[5] Others have claimed to be older, but none of these claims have been sufficiently validated.

She stated that her longevity was due to sleeping soundly and eating delicious food.[11]

Tajima died on 21 April 2018 at her home in Kikai, Kagoshima, aged 117 years, 260 days.[12] Chiyo Miyako, also from Japan, became the world's oldest living person.


(from Wikipedia)

(Chiyo Miyako was born on May 1, 1901, also in Japan, and is already the person to have achieved the ninth-oldest age of anyone with a verifiable date of birth).

The Lost Generation of Eleanor Roosevelt and Aaron Copland is now completely extinct.

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Verne Troyer (January 1, 1969 – April 21, 2018) was an American actor, stunt performer, and comedian. He was notable for his height of 2 ft 8 in (81 cm), the result of achondroplasia dwarfism,[1] which made him one of the shortest men in the world. He was best known for playing Mini-Me in the Austin Powers series of comedy films, and for his brief appearance as Griphook the goblin in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Troyer was born in Sturgis, Michigan, the son of Susan, a factory worker, and Reuben Troyer, a repair technician.[2] He had two siblings, Davon and Deborah. During his childhood, Troyer spent much time visiting Amish relatives[3] in Centreville, Michigan, and graduated from Centreville High School in 1987. Troyer was initially raised Amish but his parents left the faith when he was a child.[4] He stated that his parents "never treated me any different than my other average-sized siblings. I used to have to carry wood, feed the cows and pigs and farm animals".[5]

From Wikipedia

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Bob Dorough (December 12, 1923 – April 23, 2018) was an American bebop and cool jazz pianist, singer, composer, songwriter, arranger and producer.[1][2]

He was perhaps best known as the composer and performer of songs from Schoolhouse Rock!, a series of TV cartoons that appeared on Saturday mornings in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. He worked with Miles Davis and Blossom Dearie, and his adventurous style influenced Mose Allison.

More from Wikipedia

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Former Democratic Governor Philip Hoff, who's credited with starting Vermont's transition from one of the most Republican-entrenched states in the country to one of the most liberal, has died. He was 93.

Hoff, who became the first Democrat elected governor of Vermont in more than 100 years in 1962, died on Thursday, according to The Residence at Shelburne Bay, where he had been living.

During his six years in office, Hoff helped start a process that evolved into the state's environmental movement. He also emphasized education reform and helped revamp the state's judicial system.

Hoff was briefly considered as a vice presidential candidate in 1968 but withdrew his name when it became clear his friend, Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, was being considered. Hoff ran for the U.S. Senate in 1970, but lost to the incumbent Republican Senator Winston Prouty.

Hoff returned to the Legislature in 1982 after being elected to the state Senate. He served three, two-year terms.

http://wamc.org/post/former-vermont-gove...-hoff-dies

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Paul Junger Witt, TV and movie producer

Paul Junger Witt (March 20, 1941 – April 27, 2018) was an American film and television producer. He, with his partners Tony Thomas and Susan Harris (also his wife), produced such hit TV shows as Here Come the Brides, The Partridge Family, The Golden Girls, Soap, Benson, Empty Nest and Blossom. The majority of their shows have been produced by their company, Witt/Thomas Productions (alternately Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions), founded in 1975. Witt also produced the hit films Dead Poets Society, Three Kings, Insomnia, and the successful made-for-TV movie Brian's Song. He was a graduate of the University of Virginia.[1]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Junger_Witt

[Eric the Green]

Larry Harvey (January 11, 1948 – April 28, 2018) was an American artist, philanthropist and activist. He was the main co-founder of the Burning Man event, along with his friend Jerry James.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Harvey

Burning Man started in 1986 as a summer solstice evening ritual burning of their artistic creation of an effigy of a man with a group of just a dozen people at San Francisco's Baker Beach. It soon became an annual event that over four years grew to more than 800 people. In 1990, in collaboration with the SF Cacophony Society, the event moved to Labor Day weekend in the Black Rock Desert, where it has grown rapidly from a three-day, 80-person "zone trip" to an eight-day event with 70,000 participants.

In 1997, six of the main organizers formed Black Rock City LLC to manage the event, with Harvey as the executive director, a position he held until his death. He was also the president of the Black Rock Arts Foundation, a non-profit art grant foundation for promoting interactive collaborative public art installations in communities outside of Black Rock City.

He scripted and co-chaired/curated the arts department's annual event theme and was the main spokesperson and political strategist for the organization. He had been featured in such engagements as San Francisco's Grace Cathedral "Radical Ritual" with the Very Reverend Alan Jones, the Oxford Student Union, Cooper Union in New York City, Harvard's International Conference on Internet and Society as a panelist, the Walker Art Center in Minnesota and the San Francisco Commonwealth Club, as well as many others.[citation needed]

Harvey died on April 28, 2018 from a massive stroke he suffered earlier in the month.[2][3] He was 70 years old.

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Major figure of classical music in Poland:

Wanda Wiłkomirska (11 January 1929 – 1 May 2018)[1] was a Polish violinist and teacher. She was known for both the classical repertoire and for her interpretation of 20th-century music, having received two Polish State Awards for promoting Polish music to the world and also other awards for her contribution to music. She gave world premiere performances of numerous contemporary works including Tadeusz Baird and Krzysztof Penderecki. Wiłkomirska performed on a violin crafted by Pietro Guarneri in 1734 in Venice. She taught at the music academies of Mannheim and Sydney.

Born in Warsaw, Wiłkomirska first learned the violin from her father, and studied with Irena Dubiska at the Łódź Academy of Music,[2] graduating in 1947.[3] She graduated from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest in 1950, where she studied under Ede Zathureczki (a student of Jenő Hubay). She performed in Paris, which led to Henryk Szeryng asking her to study with him.[2] She won prizes at competitions in Geneva (1946), Budapest (1949) and Leipzig (the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition, 1950; 2nd prize).[2] She also studied in Warsaw under Tadeusz Wroński (pl), who helped her prepare for the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition in Poznań in December 1952, where she played Karol Szymanowski's Concerto No. 1 for the first time (it became a favourite of hers). She shared 2nd prize with Julian Sitkovetsky; the 1st prize winner was Igor Oistrakh.[4]

In 1955, Wanda Wiłkomirska performed at the inauguration of the rebuilt Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, with the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, playing Karol Szymanowski's First Violin Concerto under Witold Rowicki.[5] She became the orchestra's principal soloist that year[2] and gave many performances with the orchestra around the world, with such conductors as Rowicki, Stanisław Wisłocki and Antoni Wit. She held the position for 22 years.[3] In 1961, she made her debut in the US with the orchestra, which became the beginning of an international career.[3] The American impresario Sol Hurok (who managed such violinists as Isaac Stern and David Oistrakh) introduced her to enthusiastic audiences in the U.S. and Canada. She performed in over 50 countries, in all continents. In the 1960s and 1970s, she gave an average of 100 concerts per year.[2]


Wanda Wiłkomirska
In 1969, she gave 37 performances in Australia, a country she later emigrated to. These interpretations won her great acclaim and she received further recital and concert proposals from Australian orchestras. In 1973, she was the first violinist to perform a solo recital in the newly built Sydney Opera House (she was accompanied by Geoffrey Parsons).[2]

In 1976 she helped inaugurate the Barbican Hall in London[3] with a performance of Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto, scheduled to be conducted by Sir John Barbirolli, but in the end by Erich Leinsdorf.

In 1982, during the period of martial law in Poland, Wanda Wiłkomirska announced during a concert tour in the West that she would not return to Poland at the end of the tour. One of her sons, Arthur, also defected to West Germany. In 1983, she accepted the chair of music professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim.[2] From that time, teaching became her great passion and an opportunity to share her instrumental skills and experience as a musician with the next generation of virtuosos.[5]

In 1999 she joined the teaching staff of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music[2] and since February 2001 also worked for the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne. She continued to be a part of musical life in Europe, flying between the two continents for concerts, master classes and competitions, while remaining involved in musical life in Australia.

Wiłkomirska was often a jury member at violin competitions, such as those held in Moscow, Tokyo, London, Munich, Vienna, Graz, Hanover, Gorizia, and in Poland, in Poznań, Kraków, Łódź and Lublin.[2]

Wanda Wiłkomirska often performed in a piano trio, accompanied by her sister Maria at the piano and her brother Kazimierz on the cello, as the Wiłkomirska Trio. She also played with Krystian Zimerman, Daniel Barenboim, Gidon Kremer, Natalia Sheludiakova, Martha Argerich, Kim Kashkashian and Mischa Maisky.[2] She performed at such festivals as: "Bravo Maestro", Gidon Kremer and Friends in Kuhmo, and Martha Argerich and Friends in Bochum.

Wiłkomirska gave premiere performances of various Polish contemporary compositions, such as: Grażyna Bacewicz's Violin Concerto No. 5 (1951) and Violin Concerto No. 7 (1979), Tadeusz Baird's Expressions (1959), Augustyn Bloch's Dialogues (1966), Krzysztof Penderecki's Capriccio (1968), Zbigniew Bargielski's Violin Concerto (1977), Zbigniew Bujarski's Violin Concerto (1980), Roman Maciejewski's Sonata (1998) and Włodzimierz Kotoński's Violin Concerto (2000).[2]

In 1968, she began regularly recording for the Connoisseur Society record company in New York, for which she made 12 albums, some with the pianist Antonio Barbosa. Two of these won awards, namely "Best of the Year" (1972) and the "Grand Prix du Disque" (1974). She also recorded with Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Philips, Naxos, and Polskie Nagrania.

Her recordings include the works of Accolay, Bacewicz, Bach, Baird, Bargielski, Bartók, Beethoven, Augustyn Bloch, Brahms, Bujarski, Dancla, Franck, Handel, Karlowicz, Khachaturian, Kreisler, Martini, Mussorgsky, Pallasz, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Shostakovich, Szymanowski, Tchaikovsky, Viotti and Wieniawski.

More at Wikipedia.

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Pioneering black politician of Chicago:

Pioneering former Alderman Wilson Frost died Saturday in southern California at the age of 92.

Frost, born in downstate Cairo on Dec, 27, 1925, rose to prominence as a key African-American figure in Chicago’s City Council. He died in his adopted hometown of Palm Desert, according to Ald. Carrie Austin (34th).

After graduating from Fisk University in Nashville and Chicago-Kent College of Law, Frost was elected alderman of the 21st Ward in 1967. Four years later, he won an election to become alderman of the 34th Ward, a position he held until 1987. He later served on the Cook County Board of Tax Appeals until 1998. The Democrat is perhaps best known for declaring himself the city’s acting mayor when Richard J. Daley died in December 1976. Frost, who was serving as president pro tempore of the city council, based the move on his own interpretation of the city charter.

Following nearly a weeklong power struggle, during which Frost was locked out of the mayor’s office, the city council rebuffed Frost’s claim and appointed Michael Bilandic, then the 11th Ward alderman, as mayor. Had Frost’s reading of the city charter been upheld, he would have become the city’s first black mayor.

A group of black leaders, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, urged Frost to claim the mayorship after Daley’s death. Jackson, who was caught off guard by the news Frost had died, called him a “critical, smart and caring” leader, noting he had the skills to be the city’s mayor.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

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Eric, I am surprised that you missed this one:

Courken George Deukmejian Jr. (/djuːkˈmeɪdʒən/;[1] June 6, 1928 – May 8, 2018) was an American politician who was the 35th Governor of California from 1983 to 1991 and Attorney General of California from 1979 to 1983. Deukmejian was the first and so far the only governor of a U.S. state of Armenian descent.


Deukmejian was elected in 1982 to his first term as Governor of California, defeating Lieutenant Governor Mike Curb, a recording company owner, in the Republican primary (1,165,266 or 51.1 percent to 1,020,935 or 44.8 percent).[4] One of his early primary backers was former gubernatorial candidate Joe Shell of Bakersfield, California, a conservative who had opposed Richard M. Nixon in the 1962 primary.[8]



Deukmejian (dark red) defeated Tom Bradley (dark blue) with a 49.3% to 48.1% voter margin in the 1982 gubernatorial election
In the general election, Deukmejian ran as a conservative supporter of public safety and balanced budgets.[8] In addition, he was strongly critical of outgoing Governor Jerry Brown and promised to run a very different administration.[5] He also strongly criticized the Supreme Court of California, which was dominated by Brown appointees, notably controversial Chief Justice Rose Bird.[9]

Deukmejian narrowly defeated Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in the general election.[4] Deukmejian won the election by about 100,000 votes, about 1.2 percent of the 7.5 million votes cast.[4] The victory came despite opinion polls leading up to the election which consistently showed Bradley with a lead, and despite exit polling conducted after voting closed which led some news organizations on the night of the election to make early projections of a Bradley victory.[11][12] The discrepancy between the polling numbers and the election's ultimate results would come to be termed the "Bradley effect", which refers to a hypothesized tendency of white voters to tell interviewers or pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for a black candidate, but then actually vote for his opponent.[12]
Altogether Deukmejian's governorship was a departure from that of his predecessor, Jerry Brown.[13] He vowed not to raise taxes, appealing to the business community by repealing some consumer and environmental requirements.[14] In addition, he presented himself as a law and order candidate, proposing new efforts to fight crime.[5] He faced a Democrat-dominated California State Legislature during his two terms as governor.[8] He was the sole Republican statewide officeholder until Thomas W. Hayes was appointed California State Treasurer, following the death of Treasurer Jesse Unruh.[5]

In 1983, Deukmejian abolished the Caltrans Office of Bicycle Facilities and reduced state spending for bicycle projects from $5 million to the statutory minimum of $360,000 per year.[15] In 1984, he vetoed A.B. 1, the first bill to ban discrimination against gays and lesbians, which passed the Legislature.[16]



Deukmejian with President Ronald Reagan at a presidential campaign rally in Fountain Valley, California in September 1984

In 1986, Bradley sought a rematch and Deukmejian defeated him by a 61% to 37% percent margin, a record not broken as of 2015.[5] He was generally regarded as a moderate-to-conservative Republican.[5]

The Deukmejian administration entered office during a national economic recession.[17] He first halted the hiring of new state employees and banned out of state travel for those in government.[18] He rejected the legislature's demands for tax hikes, and pared $1.1 billion from its budget by selectively vetoing spending items.[19] One year later, further cuts, along with a nationwide economic rebound that benefited the state, created a billion dollar surplus for 1985.[18] At one point, his approval ratings reached 68%.[18] His 1985 budget slightly increased spending in highway construction, but cut heavily into the education, health, welfare and environmental budgets.[18] For this he was roundly criticized, and probably led to his low polling numbers at the end of his tenure as governor.[18][19]

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Three years later, Deukmejian faced his own billion dollar deficit.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Deukmejian#cite_note-LAD-17][17] He supported a raise in the state minimum wage in 1989.[17] During Deukmejian's administration, the general fund budget grew by 98% without any increase in general tax rates. (California State general fund budget: 1982–1983 $21.7 billion; 1990–1991 $42.9 billion).[9]

Deukmejian largely made his career by being tough on crime.[20] When he was in the legislature, he wrote California's capital punishment law.[9] As a candidate for reelection, in 1986 he opposed the retention election of three Brown-appointed justices of the Supreme Court of California due to their consistent opposition to the death penalty in any and all circumstances.[4] One of them (the best known) was Rose Bird, the first female Chief Justice of the Court (and the first one to be voted off).[4] Deukmejian proceeded to elevate his friend and law partner, Malcolm M. Lucas, from Associate Justice to Chief Justice, and appointed three new associate justices.[4] Under Deukmejian, the California prison population nearly tripled — as of December 31, 1982, the total prison population stood at 34,640 inmates.[8] He increased spending for the building of new prisons.[4]

In 1988, then-Vice President George H. W. Bush considered Governor Deukmejian as a possible running mate for the presidential election that year.[20] During a trade mission to South Korea in August, Deukmejian sent a letter saying he could not be considered for nomination, refusing to leave the governorship to Democratic Lieutenant Governor Leo T. McCarthy.[20] Deukmejian did not seek reelection to a third term as governor in the 1990 gubernatorial elections.[20] The Republicans instead nominated sitting United States Senator Pete Wilson, who defeated Dianne Feinstein in the general election.[5] He was the last governor not affected by the two-term limit that was passed by voters in 1990.[17][9]

On October 1, 1989, Governor Deukmejian signed legislation authorizing the purchasing of health insurance by uninsured Californians suffering from serious illnesses such as AIDS, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease through tobacco tax revenues.[21]
In 1991, in his last two hours in office, he vetoed the property tax exemption bill passed by both houses of the Legislature which applied to companies building solar thermal power plants in California.[22] Although the Legislature enacted the exemption in early 1991, companies would still face significant levels of property tax and other taxes.[13] This exemption was focused towards the Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) plants then being built by Luz International Limited (Luz) in the late 1980s.[23] The veto led directly to the bankruptcy of Luz.[23]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Deukmejian

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This creep (serial killer) can roast in Hell.

Dennis Andrew Nilsen (23 November 1945 – 12 May 2018) was a Scottish serial killer and necrophile, who murdered at least 15 young men in a series of killings committed between 1978 and 1983 in London, England. Convicted of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder at the Old Bailey,[1] Nilsen was sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 November 1983, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 25 years. In his later years, he was incarcerated at HM Prison maximum security prison in Full Sutton in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.

All of Nilsen's murders were committed in two North London addresses in which he alternately resided throughout the years he is known to have killed. His victims were lured to these addresses through guile and murdered by strangulation, sometimes accompanied by drowning. Following the murders, Nilsen observed a ritual in which he bathed and dressed the victims' bodies, which he retained for extended periods of time, before dissecting and disposing of them via burning upon a bonfire, or flushing down a lavatory.

He died in prison on 12 May 2018.

More at Wiki (if you want more, but get your barf bag ready).

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British film editor -- and of some renowned films:

Anne Voase Coates (12 December 1925 – 8 May 2018) was a British film editor with a more than 60-year-long career. She was perhaps best known as the editor of David Lean's epic film Lawrence of Arabia in 1962, for which she won an Oscar. Coates was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for the films Lawrence of Arabia, Becket (1963), The Elephant Man (1980), In the Line of Fire (1993) and Out of Sight (1998). In an industry where women accounted for only 16 percent of all editors working on the top 250 films of 2004, and 80 percent of the films had absolutely no females on their editing teams at all, Coates thrived as a top film editor.[2] She was awarded BAFTA's highest honour, a BAFTA Fellowship, in February 2007[3] and was given an Academy Honorary Award, which are popularly known as a Lifetime Achievement Oscar, in November 2016 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[4][5]

Coates was born in Reigate, Surrey, England, the daughter of Kathleen Voase (née Rank) and Major Laurence Calvert Coates.[6] Her first passion was horses. As a girl, she thought she might become a race-horse trainer.[7] She graduated from Bartrum Gables College and, before becoming a film editor, she worked as a nurse at Sir Archibald McIndoe's pioneering plastic surgery hospital in East Grinstead, England.[8]

Coates became interested in cinema after seeing Wuthering Heights by William Wyler.[9] She decided to pursue film directing and started working as an assistant at a production company specializing in religious films (also doing projectionist and sound recording work). There she fixed film prints of religious short films before sending them to various British church tours. This splicing work eventually led to the rare job as an assistant film editor at Pinewood Studios, where she worked on various films. Her first experience was assisting for film editor Reggie Mills.[7] Coates later worked with film director David Lean on Lawrence of Arabia. She had a long and varied career, and continued to edit films, including Out of Sight and Erin Brockovich for Steven Soderbergh. Coates was a member of both the Guild of British Film and Television Editors (GBFTE) and American Cinema Editors (ACE).

Variety's Eileen Kowalski notes that "Indeed, many of the editorial greats have been women: Margaret Booth, Dede Allen, Verna Fields, Thelma Schoonmaker, Anne V. Coates and Dorothy Spencer."[10]

Coates was at the centre of a film industry family. Besides being the niece of J. Arthur Rank, she was married to the director Douglas Hickox for many years.[11] Her brother, John Coates, was a producer (The Snowman and Yellow Submarine), and her two sons, oldest Anthony Hickox (b. 1959) and youngest James D. R. Hickox (b. 1965) used to be directors, and her daughter Emma E. Hickox (b. 1964) is also a film editor.[11]

Coates died on 8 May 2018, at the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.[12][9]

More at Wikipedia.

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Chuck Knox, successful NFL coach:

Charles Robert Knox (April 27, 1932 – May 12, 2018) was a former American football coach at the high school, collegiate and professional levels. He is best remembered as head coach of three National Football League (NFL) teams, the Los Angeles Rams (twice), Seattle Seahawks, and Buffalo Bills.


When Tommy Prothro was dismissed on January 24, 1973, Knox was hired as head coach of the Rams.
Sometimes referred to as 'Ground Chuck' for his team's emphasis on its rushing attack, Knox used a comeback year by veteran quarterback John Hadl to lead the Rams to a 12-2 record during his first season, winning the NFC West title. Knox earned NFC Coach of the Year honors, but in the first round of the playoffs, the team lost to the Cowboys, beginning what would be a frustrating string of play-off defeats for Knox.

John Hadl became the 1973 NFC Most Valuable Player under Knox, proof that the passing dimension of his offense was as significant as the run game in his system. Six games into the 1974 season, Knox traded John Hadl, whose performance had diminished from his MVP '73 season, to the Green Bay Packers for an unprecedented two first round picks, two second round picks and a third round pick. Knox started James Harris for the remainder of the 1974 season. Harris became the NFL's first African American regular quarterback. Despite two and a half successful seasons, including a 12 and 2 record in 1975 with Harris under center, Some Rams fans remained critical of Harris' play. Eventually, Coach Knox, under pressure from owner Carroll Rosenbloom, was forced to bench Harris in favor of Pat Haden.

Under Knox the Rams won five straight NFC West championships. However each season they faltered in the playoffs. They lost three consecutive NFC Championship games from 1974 to 1976, two of them to the Minnesota Vikings. In the team's rainy first round home playoff game against the Vikings on Monday December 26, 1977, quarterback Pat Haden was having problems handling the wet ball and moving the team. Joe Namath was warming up in preparation for what seemed to be a Hollywood ending in the making, but Knox hesitated and the Rams lost again in what was subsequently called the "Mud Bowl", 14-7. That was it as far as owner Carroll Rosenbloom was concerned and Knox got out before he could get fired. In five seasons as the Rams head coach the team had won five straight NFC West titles with five different starting quarterbacks (John Hadl, Ron Jaworski, Pat Haden, James Harris, and Joe Namath) and had a regular season record of 54-15-1 but a play-off record of only 3-5.


On January 11, 1978, Knox left the Rams to sign a $1.2 million, six-year contract with the Bills. The move was in response to the continuing conflict between Knox and team owner Carroll Rosenbloom, with Knox taking over a team that had won five of 28 games during the previous two seasons.

In his first year (under the new 16-game schedule), Knox led the Bills to a 5-11 mark. Just two years later, the Bills won the AFC East title with an 11-5 record, but dropped a close battle with the high-powered San Diego Chargers in the divisional playoffs. The following year, his team defeated the Jets in a wild card clash, but then fell to the Cincinnati Bengals. After a 4-5 strike-shortened season in 1982, Knox failed to come to terms on a new contract with team owner Ralph Wilson, and left to accept the head coaching position with the Seahawks on January 26, 1983.
During his first year in the Northwest, Knox led the team to its first playoff berth, beat the Denver Broncos 31-7 in the wildcard game and then upset the Miami Dolphins 27-20 in the Orange Bowl in the second round. However, the dream died in the AFC Championship game when the Seahawks fell to the Los Angeles Raiders 30-14. Subsequent seasons would see the Seahawks remain competitive, but did not reach a conference championship game again during his tenure, despite winning Seattle's first AFC West Division Title in 1988.

After nine years with Seattle, Knox left on December 27, 1991, having become the first NFL head coach to win division titles with three different teams. Looking to recapture the magic of two decades earlier, Knox returned to the Rams as head coach in 1992. While his tenure saw Jerome Bettis blossom into a star, his teams finished last in the NFC West in each of his three seasons. Additionally, his run-oriented offense was considered too predictable by 1990s NFL standards. He was fired on January 9, 1995.

Knox retired with a mark of 186 wins, 147 losses and 1 tie record, with his son, Chuck, Jr., keeping the family's name alive as an NFL assistant coach, most recently as defensive backs coach of the Minnesota Vikings until 2006.
In 2005, Knox donated $1 million to his alma mater, Juniata, to endow a chair in history, his major at the school. The donation was the largest of many contributions by Knox, with the institution renaming the school's football stadium in his honor in 1998. Quaker Valley High School in Knox's hometown of Sewickley, Pennsylvania has also named its football stadium in his honor [1]

In reporting about Knox's $1 million donation, the Seattle Times noted that Knox has been extremely generous in donating substiantial money to Juniata and his old high school. The Times also noted that Knox left the games before coaches were paid the large sum of salaries common today and reporters asked whether he was donating away a substantial amount of his retirement fund.

Knox answered the reporters this way: "sure it is (a lot of money).....that's what it was going to take to do it" [2]
On September 25, 2005 at age 73, Knox was inducted into the Seattle Seahawks Ring of Honor at Qwest Field in Seattle and is regularly under consideration for nomination into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. In 2015, the Professional Football Researchers Association named Knox to the PFRA Hall of Very Good Class of 2015 [3]

More from Wikipedia.

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Margot Kidder(1948-2018), "Lois Lane" in the Superman series with the late Christopher Reeve

In 1975, Kidder was cast in a lead role in The Great Waldo Pepper opposite Robert Redford, she also appeared in The Reincarnation of Peter Proud and 92 in the Shade (1975) with Peter Fonda, all of which established her as a commercially viable leading lady.[18] Kidder famously married the director of 92 in the Shade, Thomas McGuane. She appeared in the March 9, 1975 edition of The American Sportsman, learning how to hang glide, and providing the narration, with a remote microphone recording her reactions in flight; the segment concluded with Kidder doing solos soaring amid the Wyoming Rockies.[19]

Kidder also appeared in Playboy March 1975 photographed in black and white by Douglas Kirkland, with the article written by Kidder herself.[20]

After taking a break from acting after the birth of her daughter in 1976, Kidder sought to return to making films in the late 1970s. After doing a reading of Lois Lane for the 1978 superhero film Superman: The Movie, Kidder was flown to England by Richard Donner for screen-tests.[17] Donner ultimately cast Kidder in the role, which would become her most iconic.[17] Filming took over a year, and the film was released during Christmas 1978, to major commercial success. Kidder won a Saturn Award for best actress for her performance in the film. Kidder publicly disagreed with the decision of producers Alexander Salkind and Ilya Salkind to replace Richard Donner as director for Superman II (1980).[21] It was reported that as a result, Kidder's role in Superman III (1983) consisted of less than five minutes of footage,[22] though the producers have denied this in DVD commentaries. Her role in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) was more substantial.

Kidder's performance as Kathy Lutz in the 1979 summer release of The Amityville Horror further cemented her status as one of Hollywood's leading ladies. Though it received mixed reviews from critics, The Amityville Horror was a major commercial success, grossing over $86 million in the United States.[23] Janet Maslin of The New York Times, though giving the film a mixed review, said Kidder "stubbornly remains the bright-eyed life of the party [in the film]."[24] In retrospect, Kidder called the film "a piece of shit."[17] The same year, Kidder hosted an episode of the American sketch comedy TV show Saturday Night Live.
More at Wikipedia.