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”.
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.
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.
Trini Lopez was an American singer known for his rendition of “If I Had a Hammer“.
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.
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)
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.
This happened in March but I only found out today.
How?
By reading Pandemic! by Slavoj Žižek which has a commemoration for Sorkin as epigraph.
Michael Sorkin was an American architect, architectural critic and activist.
An outdated version of Wikipedia says Sorkin was an outspoken supporter of politically leftist causes.
In 2005, he edited Against the Wall, which compares Israel to Apartheid South Africa.
This book caught my attention, as the geopolitical situation of the Middle East is becoming more and more of interest of me.
Not so long ago, it dawned on me that the Middle East was becoming my WWII. Allow me to explain. When I was younger I regularly came into contact with older gentlemen who were fascinated by everything which had to do with World War II.
World War II has never interested me much, except for the Holocaust.
As I grow older, I become fascinated with everything Middle East, with geopolitics and with clashes of civilization.
Alan Parker was an English filmmaker with a small but highly-rated output.
I give you “The Chase”, an electronic instrumental written by Giorgio Moroder for Parker’s film Midnight Express (1978).
Midnight Express, a story of drug smuggling and dirty Turkish prisons, was banned in Turkey under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code.
This caused a strain on US–Turkish relations.
CP Lee, was a British musician, author, broadcaster and lecturer from Manchester, England.
He was co-author of the witty composition “Gerry and the Holograms” (1979) which shows similarities with “Blue Monday” (1983) but then without the nagging tone which makes the latter nearly impossible to listen to in full.
CP Lee was also an authority on Dylan, a Dylanologist one might say. His comments after Dylan received the Nobel Prize were both deep and sharp.
He also contributed marginally to Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape (2010), an insightful documentary on the video nasty phenomenon.