Tag Archives: RIP

RIP Greg Tate (1957 – 2021)

Greg Tate was was an American writer, musician, and producer.

Track from All You Zombies Dig The Luminosity! (2017)

A long-time critic for The Village Voice, Tate focused particularly on African-American music and culture.

Also a musician himself, he was a founding member of the Black Rock Coalition and the leader of Burnt Sugar.

He is known for such pieces as “Yo! Hermeneutics!” (1985) and was interviewed by Mark Dery in “Black to the Future” (1994), making Tate a key figure in the protohistory of black science fiction.

Some have called a rogue scholar and when one reads “Yo! Hermeneutics!”, one does get the feeling of having landed in an African-American version of the Sokal affair.

RIP John Miles (1949 – 2021)

“Music” (1976) by John Miles

John Miles was a British composer and musician best known for his composition “Music” (1976).

“Music” is a camp monstrosity in the category “foute muziek”.

The second movement of “Music”, which is uptempo, reminds me of “The Mexican” (1972) by Babe Ruth.

“The Mexican” shares some of “Music’s” campy qualities, but it is altogether a more satisfying song.

RIP Lawrence Weiner (1942 – 2021)

“Wind And The Willows” from ‘Monsters from the Deep’ (1997), probably based on the artwork of 1995 of the same title.

Lawrence Weiner is an American artist who made visual poetry and who wrote the art manifesto “Declaration of Intent” (1968).

He designed the Quando Quango and Section 25 poster for Factory Records in 1985.

With Ned Sublette, he released the albums Ships At Sea, Sailors & Shoes (1993) and Monsters from the Deep (1997).

In Antwerp, his poem “Iron and gold in the air, dust and smoke on the ground” is on permanent display at the Middelheim Open Air Sculpture Museum.

RIP Vladimir Naumov (1927 – 2021)

From the Legend of Thiele

Vladimir Naumov was a Russian film director, best-known in my universe for Legend of Thiele. This film is an episode in the Till Eulenspiegel legend.

I’ve known Eulenspiegel since my youth but I recently stumbled upon him again in that wonderful history of irreverence: Critique of Cynical Reason (1983) by Peter Sloterdijk.

RIP Peter Weiermair (1944 – 2021)

Via fellow erotomaniac Hans-Jürgen Döpp it came to my attention that German art historian and curator Peter Weiermair has died. He is the author of such books as The Nude. Ideal and Reality.

What was interesting, just after he died, I googled him and I switched to Google images. I found photo books of Ann Mandelbaum and one of Roger Ballen. The one by Mandelbaum had a human with a vegetable in his or her mouth.

The one by Ballen was called Outland, and the cover photo depicted two very dirty feet with a hand stuck between them which is holding a puppy it seems.

Ballen’s photo is called “Puppy between Feet”, I learn afterwards.

RIP Antonio Escohotado (1941 – 2021)

The Smoker by Joos van Craesbeeck 

Antonio Escohotado was a Spanish philosopher and writer. I discovered him through his A Brief History of Drugs: From the Stone Age to the Stoned Age which was written in Spanish in 1989 and translated to English in 1996.

On the cover of one Spanish edition is The Smoker by Joos van Craesbeeck (photo).