Jiří Menzel (1938 – 2020) was a Czech director, actor and screenwriter.
He is best-known for the film Closely Watched Trains (1966).
Category Archives: Uncategorized
RIP David Graeber (1961 – 2020)
David Graeber was an American left-wing thinker and activist, author of Bullshit Jobs, Debt: The First 5000 Years and The Utopia of Rules.
He coined the phrase we are the 99%.
He will be missed.
RIP Itaru Oki (1941 – 2020)
Itaru Oki was a Japanese jazz trumpeter and flugelhornist.
He was part of the French Opération Rhino collective and as such appeared on the famous Nurse with Wound list.
RIP Hal Singer (1919-2020)
Hal Singer was an American R&B and jazz bandleader and saxophonist. He was the last surviving male survivor of the Tulsa race massacre.
He is known for such instrumentals as “Malcolm X” on the album Paris Soul Food (1969), produced by Bernard Estardy.
If you are a melomaniac, I’d check the latter’s “Ombilic Contact” en “Cha Tatch Ka”.
RIP Stuart Christie (1946 – 2020)
Stuart Christie was a British anarchist, best-known for plotting a failed assassination of General Franco in Spain.
Stuart Christie links to the Situationists, Paris 68, the American hippies and the European Years of Lead era.
RIP Edmond Kiraz (1923 – 2020)
Edmond Kiraz was a French-Armenian cartoonist and illustrator.
He is best known for his Parisiennes, his post-war Parisian wafer-thin model girls which first appeared in print in 1966.
RIP Trini Lopez (1937 – 2020)
Trini Lopez was an American singer known for his rendition of “If I Had a Hammer“.
RIP Salome Bey (1939 – 2020)
Salome Bey was an American-born Canadian composer and singer.
She did solo work but in my book she is famous for having part in an unforgettable version of “Round Midnight” (1944) with the unforgettable lines
“But it really gets bad,
’round midnight.”
She did that version with her brother Andy and her sister Geraldine, both of whom survive her.
RIP Bernard Stiegler (1952 – 2020)
Bernard Stiegler was a French philosopher known for his reflections on technology.
Outside the field of philosophy, he is of interest for his delightful retelling of the Epimetheus creation myth from Protagoras told in the film The Ister (2004).
The transcript of that story (above):
‘One day Zeus said to Prometheus, “the time has come for you, for us gods, to bring into the day the non-immortals.” The non-immortals being animals and men. Prometheus, who is put in charge of this task, has a twin brother named Epimetheus. Epimetheus resembles Prometheus; he is his double. But in fact Epimetheus is his brother’s opposite. Epimetheus is the god of the fault of forgetting. Prometheus is a figure of knowledge, of absolute mastery, total memory. Prometheus forgets nothing, Epimetheus forgets everything. Epimetheus says to his brother: “Zeus has given you this task – I want to do it! Me me me! I’ll take care of it.” Epimetheus is a rather simple-minded brother, and Prometheus is fond of him. He dares not refuse and says, “OK, you take care of it.” So Epimetheus distributes the qualities. He will give the gazelle its speed, for example. […] He distributes the qualities in equilibrium. Epimetheus’ distribution of the qualities describes the ecological balance of nature. […] Now, as Epimetheus is distributing the qualities, he suddenly notices something… […] “There are no qualities left! I forgot to save a quality for man!” […] “I still have to bring mankind, mortals, into the day.” […] but there are no qualities left to give him a form. So Prometheus goes to the workshop of the god Hephaestus, to steal fire. Fire, which is obviously the symbol of technics, but which is also the symbol of the power of god. Zeus.’–Bernard Stiegler retelling the creation myth of Protagoras in The Ister (2004)
RIP Wayne Fontana (1945 – 2020)
Wayne Fontana was an English singer best-known as the singer of “The Game of Love” (1965), covered as “Quand tu es là” by Sylvie Vartan that same year.