Tag Archives: 1936

RIP Reinhold Aman (1936 – 2019)

This happened in 2019 but I only found out today. How? Well, I consider writing a book, an anthology of haatspraak.

Haatspraak is Dutch for hate speech and the book would be something along the lines of Rants and Incendiary Tracts (1989).

For this purpose, I wanted to get Maledicta from my university library. They do not have it.

Maledicta, complete set, photo by Alta Glamour Inc., a bookshop specialized in erotica based in Seattle.

Who was Reinhold?

Reinhold Aman was the editor and founder of Maledicta. Incidentally, maledicta means male (bad) and dicta (things people say).

Reinhold appears to have been a colourful figure and spent some time in jail for sending what he called “prank” postcards to his ex-wife to be, but which the judge considered to be threats.

RIP Max Crook (1936 – 2020)

Max Crook was an American musician whose name is virtually unknown.

“Runaway” keyboard solo.

Some research yields his co-authorship of “Runaway” (1961), the Del Shannon song.

In that song he also plays the keyboard solo.

That solo was played on a self-invented electric keyboard called the “Maximillian” which was based the clavioline, which was in turn a variation on the Musitron.

RIP Mal Sharpe (1936 – 2020)

“Maniacs In Living Hell”, from The Insane (But Hilarious) Minds Of Coyle & Sharpe (1964).

Mal Sharpe was an American humorist.

His most notable work was done as part of the duo Coyle and Sharpe.  They were active as street interviewers in the early 1960s and were simply hilarious.

The filmed sequence of “The Warbler” is hilarious. Sadly, it appears to be offline at the moment.

I give you “Maniacs In Living Hell”, collected on the album The Insane (But Hilarious) Minds Of Coyle & Sharpe (1964).

RIP José Mojica ‘Coffin Joe’ Marins (1936 – 2020)

José Mojica Marins was a Brazilian film director, best-known for his persona “Coffin Joe“.

 At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964)

I just finished watching At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964) and it’s actually quite good. I especially like the atheist bits, his materialist world view, his Nietzschean take on things.

For example, Coffin Joe eats meat on Holy Friday, just to taunt his catholic fellow townspeople.

And consider the opening oration of Coffin Joe:

“What is life?
It is the beggining of death.
What is death?
It is the end of life!
What is the existence?
It is the continuity of blood.
What is blood?
It is the reason of the existence!”

All this blasphemous discourse makes you wonder how this went down in Brasil. After all, it was 1964, another four years for 1968 to happen … and … did that even ‘happen’ in Brasil, the sexual revolution?

See atheism in Brazil, the sexual revolution in Brazil.

RIP Dyanne ‘SS-Ilsa’ Thorne (1936 – 2020)

Dyanne Thorne was an American actress best known for her film Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1974).

Unidentified documentary on the career of Thorne

I actually saw that film.

Ilsa conducts sadistic scientific experiments designed to demonstrate that women are more capable of enduring pain than men are, and therefore should be allowed to fight in the army. Ilsa is also portrayed as having a voracious sexual appetite for her male prisoners, whom she then castrates and kills.

It plays with the tropes of male anxiety of sexual inadequacy and the fear of castration.

Her character was very loosely based on that of Ilse Koch.

RIP Henri Belolo (1936 – 2019)

Henri Belolo was a French music producer and songwriter active during the disco era.

He co-created The Ritchie Family, the Village People.

In the course of my research following his death, I found that Belolo was co-responsible for a horrifying version of “Aquarela do Brasil” by the Ritchie Family, and for the kitsch classics “Y.M.C.A.”, “In the Navy”, and “Go West” by the Village People.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2HQJbpWT8w

However, it is Break Machine’s record “Street Dance” (1983) which I want to bring your attention here. A personal favorite, of however questionable taste it may appear to be.