I’ve been mostly away from computers today, so I’m late in commenting on the passing of Soupy Sales, so I’ll just leave it at this: I hope there’s at least a small piece of Heaven given over to pie fights.
Thanks for the memories, Soupy!
Something for Thursday
Patrick
Erich
Maestro Erich Kunzel has died, after a battle with cancer.
Kunzel has been active for many years, but his most noted accomplishment may be his founding of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra (comprised of musicians from the Cincinnati Symphony), and the lengthy body of recording work he did with that ensemble. Kunzel’s recording frequently featured film music, and nearly any lover of film music will own at least a few of Kunzel’s recordings. He conducted film music with sparkle and verve, and he will be greatly missed.
Here are a few samples from his baton.
The Magnificent Seven:
The Love Theme from Spartacus:
Gone With the Wind:
“Across the Universe”, by the Beatles (performed by the King’s Singers):
The last few minutes of the 1812 Overture, performed at “A Capitol Fourth”:
Farewell, Maestro Kunzel, and thanks for the music.
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Fallen Heroes
For me, the greatest heroes in American public life are firefighters and EMTs. These are people whose job is simply to do whatever they need to do to save lives, no matter whose. They charge into terribly dangerous situations, often almost by reflex, in order to save people. There is no occupation which I consider more admirable — and there are a lot of admirable occupations out there.
Two Buffalo firefighters died this morning in a fire. The building was a deli in one of Buffalo’s poorest neighborhoods. The fire was in the middle of the night, and the two firefighters in question, Lt. Charles ‘Chip’ McCarthy and Firefighter Jonathan Croom, apparently had the floor collapse from under their feet. Reports are that they were looking for someone whom they thought was trapped in the building.
They died doing what firefighters do: being heroic and almost certainly not even questioning why they were doing it. I’ll bet that if you asked them, they’d have shrugged and said, It’s what firefighters do..
Bless their souls, forever.
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For Mr. Cronkite
I don’t recall Walter Cronkite doing the news a whole lot from when I was a kid, but I do remember him. What I remember more, though, was his wonderful baritone voice showing up in all manner of documentary-type stuff over the years after his retirement from the anchor’s desk. He was once the voice of the ride at EPCOT that goes up inside the big geosphere-golfball thing; his voice was appropriate as that ride takes passengers through the history of communications. I loved his delivery of the vocal portion of that ride when I was in EPCOT in 1990, and I was disappointed to learn in 1998, when we returned, that Mr. Cronkite’s narration had been replaced by a new version voiced by Jeremy Irons. (Nothing against Jeremy Irons, of course — but he’s not Walter Cronkite, is he?)
My main memory of Cronkite, though, is watching him on the yearly New Year’s From Vienna concerts that are the major New Year’s Day tradition in my family. We’d watch the telecast every year on PBS, in which Cronkite would introduce the pieces and give brief vignettes about the history of Vienna around the time the Strauss Family was producing some of the most glittering dance-hall music in history. This past year, however, Cronkite was replaced by Julie Andrews. A fine choice, but I figured at the time that Cronkite must have finally become too old and frail to continue his duties as the host of New Year’s From Vienna.
I couldn’t find any YouTube clips that showed Cronkite actually executing his duties thereof, so this will have to do. For older people of that era, Cronkite’s reportage of the JFK assassination and Vietnam and Watergate are their key memories of him. For me, though, this work will always be associated, in part, with Walter Cronkite.
Here’s the most famous waltz ever written, Johann Strauss’s On the Beautiful Blue Danube.
Thanks for the memories, Mr. Cronkite.
(But why, oh why, couldn’t he at least have lived three more days to see the 40th anniversary of the moon landing? That’s just mean, Mr. Reaper.)
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McNair
While the act of consummate sporting evil that was Homerun Throwback had me loathing the Tennessee Titans for a while, I never disliked their quarterback, Steve McNair, at all. He was just too classy of a player, with toughness that you don’t see all that often anymore. I remember when he was being drafted, hoping somehow that the Bills might swing some kind of big trade to move up in the draft to get him (at the time it was clear that Jim Kelly was down to his last year or two), and frankly, the last twelve years of Bills history would certainly look different had they done something like that. (I don’t recall any actual trade talk that year; it was just wishful thinking on my part.)
McNair was found shot to death yesterday. They don’t know what happened yet. He had retired from the NFL a year ago, but even so — this was a fine player, one of the best of the last fifteen years. Damn.
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Something for Thursday
I didn’t get around to picking something out ahead of time, so now I’m late…and, as it happens, timely. Here’s Michael, as I prefer to remember his work:
And here’s something in remembrance of Farrah Fawcett:
I don’t really remember much of Farrah Fawcett, to be honest; she was off Charlie’s Angels before I became aware of the show’s existence, and since I was six or seven, the show was more interesting to me for the action and funny detective stuff than for the beauty of the three leads, whoever they might have been. Nothing against Farrah, but she was never really on my personal cultural radar screen. But still, for these two to die at fifty and sixty-two? Harsh, Mr. Reaper. Harsh indeed.
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Dom
Waiting for an absolution that would never come.
Ninety-seven years ago tonight, the HMS Titanic was steaming across the North Atlantic when it hit an iceberg and sank two hour later. It’s a well-known story, obviously — but it’s one of the most compelling stories of the modern age, being one of the most famous reminders that with all our technological prowess, Mother Nature can always lift a hand and swat us down like the mosquitoes that we probably are, in her eyes.
Sheila has a nifty post up about the sinking, in which she ruminates more on people who develop a high degree of interest in the ship and its dolorous fate. Sheila’s posts often teach me something new, and this one is no exception: I had no idea that photos exist of the probable iceberg itself.
(Images courtesy titanic-nautical.com.)
