"All my life I’ve focused on the poor. The rich ones have their own photographers."
Social documentary photographer
Milton Rogovin's '
life was about seeing. In the literal sense, he was an optometrist. In a more figurative sense, through the lens of his camera, he saw things and people that were often ignored — the poor, the oppressed, the "
forgotten ones," as he called them.' "A librarian in Buffalo's Communist Party, he was called before the
House Un-American Activities Committee in 1957, and was named "Buffalo's Top Red" in the Buffalo Evening News. Losing business and facing intense social persecution, Rogovin turned to photography
in order to create images that conveyed his desire for a more equal and just society, and to give voice to others who were persecuted, who were invisible to most." Mr. Rogovin
died on January 18th at his home in Buffalo at the
age of 101.
Previously on Metafilter [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jan 21, 2011 -
9 comments
Debbie Friedman passed away today. She was the most well known and influential composer of Jewish music and litergy in the United States.
The Jerusalem Post says that "Friedman’s music is performed in synagogues around the world more than that of any other modern composer."
Her most well known song is a setting of
Mi Shebeirach, a prayer for healing.
posted by kdern
on Jan 9, 2011 -
24 comments
19th-century newspaper ads for patented stomach cures and digestive aids [...] foregrounded mince pie as the K2 of digestive summits. But for every published warning on the dangers of mince, the newspapers published a poem, essay, or editorial praising it as a great symbol of American cultural heritage or a nostalgic reminder of mother love and better times bygone—or even, as the State of Columbia, South Carolina, asserted in 1901, a beneficial Darwinian instrument that had "thinned out the weak ones" among the pioneering generations.
So wrote Cliff Doerksen in his wonderful, James Beard award-winning article
Mince Pie: The Real American Pie. Doerksen not only gives the history of this once most American of foods, he also makes two mince pies from 19th Century recipes to see if they are indeed all that. This is but one of many great articles Doerksen wrote for The Chicago Reader in recent years (links to a selection below the cut). Sadly, Cliff Doerksen
passed at the age of 47 just before Christmas.
[more inside]
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 29, 2010 -
73 comments
Elaine Kaufman, who became something of a symbol of New York as the salty den mother of Elaine’s, one of the city’s best-known restaurants and a second home for almost half a century to a bevy of writers, actors, athletes and other celebrities, died Friday in Manhattan. She was 81.
posted by Joe Beese
on Dec 3, 2010 -
21 comments
Irvin Kershner isn't a household name. Often incorrectly billed as Irving, Ervin, or Irwin, the director's filmography includes such films as the uninspiring sequel
Robocop 2, the subpar "unofficial" James Bond film
Never Say Never Again, and
The Luck of Ginger Coffey, which, according to
Kershner's site has in recent years become a cult film, but whose cult status is hardly evident elsewhere on the internet. So why should we care that Irvin
Kershner has just died at age 78? Kershner directed the best of the Star Wars movies, and one of the best "second act" films ever,
The Empire Strikes Back. Just before he died,
Kershner spoke with Vanity Fair about the film, 30 years after its release in 1980.
posted by ocherdraco
on Nov 29, 2010 -
64 comments
Graham Crowden, character actor,
has died at 87 after a 52 year career on stage, television, and film. In the United States he may be best known for playing the whimsical Tom Ballard alongside Stephanie Cole's cynical Diana in the BBC series
Waiting for God, often shown on PBS. Born in Edinburgh in 1922, he had a distinguished career on stage, particularly at Olivier's National Theatre, undertaking (among other roles) The Player King in Tom Stoppard's
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
In 1974, citing an inability to commit to a single role, he turned down the part of the
Fourth Doctor, which eventually went to his friend Tom Baker. A few years later, in 1977, he played in Terry Gilliam's
Jabberwocky.
He had another star turn on television in a previous BBC series,
A Very Peculiar Practice, as the physician Jock McCannon.
His last role was in 2008 in an episode of
Foyle's War, "
Broken Souls."
Said his agent Sue Grantley
to the BBC, "We will all miss him enormously."
posted by sister nunchaku of love and mercy
on Oct 30, 2010 -
23 comments
Dame Joan Sutherland has
died at the age of 83.
One of the most remarkable female opera singers of the 20th century, she was dubbed La Stupenda by a La Fenice audience in 1960 after a performance as Alcina. She possessed a voice of beauty and power, combining extraordinary agility, accurate intonation, "pin point staccatos, a splendid trill and a tremendous upper register, although music critics often complained about the imprecision of her diction. Her friend Luciano Pavarotti once called Sutherland the "Voice of the Century", while Montserrat Caballé described the Australian's voice as being like "heaven".
posted by Joe Beese
on Oct 11, 2010 -
16 comments
Satoshi Kon, the director of such celebrated anime movies as
Perfect Blue,
Millennium Actress, and
Paprika, has died (reportedly of cancer) at the age of 47.
Kon's movies dealt with the slipperiness of the boundaries between performance and reality, truth and illusion. His death leaves the status of his next movie,
The Dream Machine (Yume miru kikai), in doubt. As outsourcing and a long recession have taken their toll on Japan's increasingly insular anime industry, David Cabrera notes,
I cannot think of a single person alive in the Japanese animation industry who would have been a greater loss than Mr. Kon.
posted by Jeanne
on Aug 24, 2010 -
99 comments
When "Proto-Pop" artist
Larry Rivers' died in
2002, he left behind extensive archives of his letters, paperwork, photographs and film documenting the New York artistic and literary scene from the 1940s through the 1980s. They chronicle his friendships and relationships with dozens of artists, musicians and writers, from Willem de Kooning and Andy Warhol to Frank O’Hara. Also included: films and videos of his two adolescent daughters, naked or topless, being interviewed by their father about their developing breasts. Now, one daughter, who says she was pressured to participate beginning when she was 11, is
demanding that material be removed from the archive and returned to her and her sister. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jul 8, 2010 -
74 comments
Robert Byrd, Respected Voice of the Senate, Dies at 92 Robert C. Byrd, who used his record tenure as a United States senator to fight for the primacy of the legislative branch of government and to build a modern West Virginia with vast amounts of federal money, died early on Monday. He was 92. He was the longest-serving Senator as well as the longest-serving member in congressional history. In his younger days he
joined the Ku Klux Klan when he was 24 in 1942.
posted by Blake
on Jun 28, 2010 -
137 comments
