Bless Me Now With Your Fierce Tears XI

Yes, he was a stray kitten. He was also exactly the same age as skdadl's oldest cats.

I'm really sorry to hear this.

It's a wee blessing for him that he got to leave on his own terms -- same as how he arrived, IIRC -- and that's a very cat-appropriate way to do things.  But he's also left you to do the heavy-lifting, so stay strong, even during the unwelcome quiet.

I am so deeply sorry to hear of this, lagatta.  I've lost a few furry children myself over the years.  It never gets easier. 

It's nice that he left this world in such a peaceful way, though, at home and near you and the things he knew and loved.

He is free and at peace now, if that helps at all.

My condolences, Lagatta.

Maybe Heph and Renzo are sharing some quality time with a laser pointer somewhere.

Not to mention skdadl and whichever of her bunch have shed the mortal coil.

Like shit, but revising a translation since the wee hours.

It as been a couple of days.

Austin Clarke:

http://www.cbc.ca/books/2016/06/austin-clarke-author-of-giller-prize-win...

I know serious scholars of the Nazi genocide who have deep reservations about Elie Wiesel's account.

Moreover, he was an uncritical cheerleader for the Israeli government, including its serious misdeeds against Palestinians and Lebanese. Who bore no responsibility for the horrors Nazi Germany and its allies and supporters (including King Edward and Henry Ford) inflicted on the Jewish people - and on the Roma people.

I was weirded out by commentators saying he was the first to tell the story of survivors - Primo Levi, an infinitely better writer, was among many who did so just after the war. It is true that most people didn't want to listen.

Obviously, every survivor who dies of old age means the horrific events are that much more distant from contemporary life, though. :(

Bill Harkus

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/another-man-charged-after-furby-s...

Quote:

Violence caught up to Bill Harcus more than two decades after he became notorious as the head of the Ku Klux Klan in Manitoba.

Harcus, 45, who had legally changed his name to James Edsel Tucker, died early Thursday after being stabbed in an apartment on Furby Street.

Lots of talk about this on FB, most of it quite understandably pointing out his past leadership of Manitoba's KKK. I didn't know him, but I met him a couple of times after he had left, and was surprised to hear about his past. While I don't think anyone deserves a medal for stopping being a hatemonger, and he did hide and change his name, rather than using his experience to actively fight racism, I do have friends who are mourning him and remembering the fact that he had changed his life around, and seriously regretted his past. He died trying to help someone  by stepping into an attempted robbery. 

So Long, Marianne

Quote:

Leonard Cohen penned a poignant final letter to his dying muse Marianne Ihlen, a longtime friend of hers revealed on Canadian radio.

Ihlen, whom Cohen wrote about in So Long, Marianne and Bird on a Wire, died in Norway on 29 July, aged 81.

“It took only two hours and in came this beautiful letter from Leonard to Marianne. We brought it to her the next day and she was fully conscious and she was so happy that he had already written something for her,” Mollestad said.

Mollestad, a documentary maker, read Cohen’s letter to her before she died. “It said well Marianne it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.

“And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.”

...................................................

Leonard Cohen wrote:

Poetry is just the evidence of your life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

[url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/gene-wilder-obit-1.3740168]Willy Wonka now runs the Chocolate Factory in the sky:[/url]

Quote:

Gene Wilder, star of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and Mel Brooks comedies such as The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, is dead at 83, his family says.

Wilder's nephew said Monday that the actor and writer died late Sunday at his home in Stamford, Conn., from complications from Alzheimer's disease.

Jordan Walker-Pearlman said in a statement that Wilder was diagnosed with the disease three years ago, but kept the condition private so as not to disappoint fans.

I will always be grateful to Gene Wilder for this moment of transendence and hope:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ-uV72pQKI

When the movie came out, I was ten or eleven.  I was a short, fat kid who liked to read and was totally uncoordinated(I couldn't run and bounce a ball at the same time. The teasing was relentless.  The sense of self was through the floor.) I realized later that this song helped keep me going.  It said "don't give up.  You have value and strength and there is something within you that matters.  Hang in there and life will get better...you can help MAKE it better".  I think this song, in some way, kept a lot of people like me going and maybe it still does.

Thank you Gene.  Dance with Gilda forever now.

Ken Burch wrote:

Thank you Gene.  Dance with Gilda forever now.

He was truly wonderful.

Also remember that he was married to Karen Boyer for 25 years - they married a few years after Gilda died. I'm sure there was something there, too. ;)

Here's a really good interview with Gene Wilder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezfVc5MGmIU

Great comedian.  And a nice decent guy.

Darren Seals, antiracist and antiviolence activist in Ferguson, MO...found dead with a gunshot wound in a burning car, at age 29.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/07/us/darren-seals-ferguson-activist-found-de...

Alexis Arquette, trans woman, actress and activist:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/11/entertainment/alexis-arquette-obit/index.html

Trịnh Thị Ngọ

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/04/hanoi-hannah-vietnam-war-p...

Very interesting interview on As It Happens last night about how, despite the fact her propaganda was rather wooden, she reported events back in the U.S. that soldiers were not able to hear on regular armed forces radio.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.3790820

"Port Huron Statement" author, Chicago Seven, defendant and lifelong activist Tom Hayden:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tom-hayden-dead-anti-war-activist_us...

"Dance me to the end of love."

Leonard Cohen (1934-2016), Canadian literary and music icon, has passed away.

Leonard Cohen Facebook page wrote:

It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away.
We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries.

A memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date. The family requests privacy during their time of grief.

En Francais ...

Quote:

C’est avec une profonde tristesse que nous vous annonçons que le poète, auteur-compositeur et artiste légendaire, Leonard Cohen est décédé.

Le monde de la musique a perdu un de ses visionnaires les plus prolifiques et vénérés.

Une cérémonie aura lieu à Los Angeles dans les prochains jours.  La famille souhaite vivre le deuil en toute intimité.

For those who haven't seen it, - here is an excerpt of a letter that Cohen sent to his long-ago lover Marianne this past summer, shortly before she died. As Unionist noted above, - he knew his own time was drawing near. 

When I was in St Petersburg about 8 years ago I went to the Anna Akhmatova museum in her old apartment in the Fontanka House. I signed the guestbook and flipped back through the pages looking for English comments. There was Leonard’s signature and a note about his poetic connection with her. I wish I could remember the words.

 When I was back in St Petersburg three months ago I found a new “Greatest Hits” double album, probably pirated, that I had never seen. The clerk’s eyes lit up when I was buying it and I said without thinking, “He’s my countryman.”