Willy Kurant was a Belgian cinematographer, famous for shooting films such as Trans-Europ-Express (1966), Man on Horseback (1969), Cannabis (1970) and Je t’aime moi non plus (1976).
Tag Archives: RIP
RIP Nick Kamen (1962 – 2021)
Nick Kamen was an English singer-songwriter best known to me for a) being featured on the January 1984 cover of The Face wearing a ski-hat, lipstick, orange roll-neck sweater and aviator sunglasses; and b) for appearing in a 1985 Levi’s advert.
He belonged to the Madonna stable.
RIP Anita Lane (c. 1959 – 2021)
Anita Lane was an Australian singer-songwriter who was briefly a member of The Bad Seeds with Nick Cave and Mick Harvey, and collaborated with both bandmates. Lane released two solo albums, Dirty Pearl (1993) and Sex O’Clock (2001).
From that album Sex O’Clock (2001), I give you “Do That Thing” (2001). Be sure to stick around until the guitar kicks in at 3:00.
RIP Johanna Fürstauer (1931 – 2018)
Johanna Fürstauer was an Austrian writer.
By reading Jan Verplaetse’s “Vrouwenpijn en mannenplezier: de antifeministische wortels van sadomasochisme in de Belle Epoque” (1999), I came across Johanna Fürstauer, an Austrian writer who specialized in Sittengeschichte, a famous German euphemism for histories of the vita sexualis. Fürstauer is from the same sex researching generation as Eberhard and Phyllis Kronhausen.
Above is a picture of the cover of Eros im alten Orient (1965) on Eastern erotica, the debut of Fürstauer.
RIP Monte Hellman (1929 – 2021)
Monte Hellman was an American film director known for his cult films.
I remember seeing Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) on the Moviedrome cult movies programme.
I’m fond of road movies and suddenly I am reminded of C’était un rendez-vous (1976) by Claude Lelouch, the short film that plays in Paris and where the race ends at the Sacré-Cœur.
Another road movie of particular interest is Vanishing Point (1971) with the unforgettable part of DJ Super Soul.
RIP Earl Kemp (1929 – 2020)
Earl Kemp was an American publisher, science fiction editor and critic.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Earl Kemp was involved in publishing erotic paperbacks through a company, Greenleaf Publishing, where he was employed by William Hamling. In an example of détournement, in 1970 Kemp published an Illustrated edition of the Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. According to Pornography and Sexual Representation: A Reference Guide, the book was “replete with the sort of photographs the commission examined.” Kemp eventually was sentenced to a one-year prison sentence for distributing the book (as was Hamling). However, both served only the federal minimum of three months and one day. The story of their arrest and prison time was covered in Gay Talese’s Thy Neighbor’s Wife (1981).
RIP William Knoles (1926 – 1972) and Robert Bonfils (1922 – 2018)
William Henley Knoles was an American writer known for such titles as Sadisto Royale (1966).
Robert Bonfils was an illustrator of pulp novels and he designed the cover of Sadisto Royale.
RIP Tempest Storm (1928 – 2021)
Tempest Storm was an American burlesque star. Burlesque was a tem invented as an ameliorative for striptease.
In the history of American erotica, burlesque films came just before nudist films. One difference between the two genres was that during the era of burlesque, pasties were used, while the nudism of nudist films provided an excuse to show full nudity, as far as toplessness went.
To my surprise the film above, Teaserama (1955) also includes silly skits in the style:
- “he’s so honest he finds things before they are lost”
- “he studied for a doctor once, the doctor was too busy to study for himself”
- “he treated a man for five years before he found out the guy was a chinaman.”
RIP Jim Steinman (1947 – 2021)
Jim Steinman was an American composer best known for his work with Meat Loaf.
In general I find his music unbearably swollen kitsch. Bombast is the word. Steinman himself called it Wagnerian rock.
However, I admit that I have soft spot for “Total Eclipse of the Heart” (1983), a song interpreted by Bonnie Tyler.
That song happens to be in the Jahsonic top 1000 (part 2).
RIP Marshall Sahlins (1930 – 2021)
Marshall Sahlins was an American anthropologist.
What currently interests me in anthropology are a) accusations of eurocentrism; b) discussions on the nature of human nature (innate good or bad); and c) sexual anthropology. By sexual anthropology I mean a particular variant of it, which I call anthropologica, namely the prurient interest in sex which masquerades as anthropology.
There is no anthropologica in Sahlins, anthropologica is more the province of the 17th and 18th centuries.
I know not of discussion by Sahlins on the innate goodness or badness of man.
There are accusations of eurocentrism in Sahlins: see the Sahlins–Obeyesekere debate.
Sahlins co-authored the book On Kings (2017) with David Graeber, who died recently and of whom I’ve read the book on debt and the book on bullshit jobs.
David Graeber also wrote a foreword to a later edition of Stone Age Economics (1972).