Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery - Los Angeles - Pt. 1
Rosedale was the first cemetery in Los Angeles open to all races and creeds, and was the first to adopt the concept of the new approach of design called lawn cemeteries, where the grounds are enhanced to surround the burial places of the dead with beautiful and decorative trees, shrubs, flowers, natural scenery and works of monumental art. Among the more traditional structures, headstones and mausoleums, the cemetery also has several pyramid crypts.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Sci-Fi Phyllis Gotlieb 1926-2009 RIP
Canadian Science Fiction Novelist & Poet
Phyllis Fay Gotlieb
May 26, 1926 - July 14, 2009
RIP
Phyllis Fay Gotlieb, née Bloom, poet, short story writer, novelist (b at Toronto 25 May 1926). Phyllis Gotlieb was raised and educated in Toronto and attended the University of Toronto (BA, 1948; MA 1950). A celebrated poet and internationally popular writer, Gotlieb has been called the mother of contemporary Canadian science fiction.
Phyllis Gotlieb's first published work, Who Knows One (1961), is a pamphlet of poems; it has been followed by other poetic collections that joyfully celebrate the wonder of the natural universe. Her poetry explores family relationships, historical roots, and human psychology and biology, concerns evident in her first full-length volume, Within the Zodiac (1964).
In the poems of Ordinary Moving (1969), Phyllis Gotlieb often makes use of other people's words - childhood rhymes, folk verse, telephone numbers, parts of the human skeleton - to which she adds her own feelings and penetrating insights into the human condition. Also in 1969, Gotlieb published Why Should I Have All the Grief? (1969), a novel about the aftermath of Auschwitz projected into contemporary Canadian Jewish life. Doctor Umlaut's Earthly Kingdom (1974) includes shorter poems and several verse plays commissioned by the CBC. The Works: Collected Poems was published in 1978, and Red Blood, Black Ink, White Paper: New and Selected poems, 1961-2001 in 2002.
Phyllis Gotlieb is also a prolific and frequently translated science fiction writer. Like her poetry, her science fiction has a magical charm in its blending of fantasy and metaphysics, and also focuses on ethical questions. Sunburst (1964) examines the problems created by members of the community afflicted with telepathic powers, and O Master Caliban! (1976) evokes a world containing semi-human machines and genetic mutation. Her other fantasy novels include the bestselling Starcats trilogy: A Judgment of Dragons (1980), featuring 2 cat protagonists, Emperor, Swords, Pentacles (1982) and The Kingdom of the Cats (1985). A Judgment of Dragons won the inaugural Aurora Award for best Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Novel.
Phyllis Gotlieb has also written numerous science fiction stories, published in various magazines, anthologies and the collections Son of the Morning (1985) and Blue Apes (1995). Heart of Red Iron, a sequel to O Master Caliban!, was published in 1989. Flesh and Gold (1998), Violent Stars (1999) and MindWorlds (2002) make up the GalFed trilogy. Her feminist fantasy novel Birthstones was published in 2007. The Sunburst Award, Canada's first juried prize for Literature of the Fantastic, was named in honour of Phyllis Gotlieb's first science fiction novel.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Model & Actress Ruth Ford 1915-2009 RIP
American Model and Actress
Ruth Ford
July 7, 1915 - August 12, 2009
RIP
"Oh, Errol Flynn, I've never had the yen. Victor Mature? Don't know him well but believe Dorothy Parker, a good friend of mine, summed it up well when she said, "He acts as though his body has gone to his head!" My favorite actor of course is Orson Welles. He's wonderful, magnificent, a darling, and I adore him. I like Humphrey Bogart, too. He's just as nice as he can be and looks just the same all the time. Ingrid Bergman? She's just as beautiful and natural off the screen as she is on and is admired by everyone. But one of the nicest people in Hollywood is William Faulkner, who I had known in Mississippi when I was getting my Masters Degree in Philosophy at the University there."
-- wiki
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Truly, Eunice Shriver is an Irish-American Modern Saint
Eunice Kennedy Shriver
July 10, 1921 – August 11, 2009
RIP
Eunice Kennedy Shriver (July 10, 1921 – August 11, 2009) was a member of the Kennedy family and founded the Special Olympics in the 1960s as a national organization. Her husband, Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., was the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in the 1972 U.S. presidential election. Shriver actively campaigned for her elder brother, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, during his successful 1960 U.S. presidential election. In 1968, she helped Ann McGlone Burke nationalize the Special Olympics movement. Her daughter, Maria Shriver, is married to actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.
-- wiki
POE NOTE: Edgar Allan Poe's Irish-American family did not come as a result of the "Potato Famine" in Ireland. Poe's ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War. In fact, Poe used to regularly wear his Grandfather's Revolutionary War overcoat. During the cold Fordham nights when Virginia suffered greatly, Poe warmed her with his Grandfather's overcoat and the cozy presence of their cat.
Despite this grand American heredity, Poe's parents suffered some of the indignities of racial prejudice against the Irish that were "customary" at the time. But I think they suffered more because they were actors, than because they were Irish. Still, "No Irish Need Apply" was common in the period. Edgar was not only Irish, but raised a Virginia WASP, and, although born in Boston, soulfully a Southerner. So, even though this was pre-war, going north to make your fortune as a writer was an uphill climb at best. Poe was the best and he had a tough time of it.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Martha Ware Never Hung A Witch
The Honorable Judge
Martha Ware
October 6, 1917 - August 4, 2009
RIP
American District Court Judge
Plymouth County, Massachusetts
In 1956 Martha Ware was appointed as the first female judge in Plymouth County. Massachusetts. As far as we know, she never sentenced a witch to hang. So there's another nail in the coffin of that false metanarrative.
Check this woman out. She lived a full life!
Martha Ware - Colby Sawyer College