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Sheila O’Malley re-shared her post on the anniversary of Roger Ebert’s passing today, and I thought, why not do the same? Here’s what I posted the day he died. I still miss his writing. There’s something about those Chicago newspaper men…. I was trying to figure out something to write on the passing today of Roger Ebert, but nothing was leaping to mind, so I figured I’d just repost my original thoughts, from January 2012, on his book, Life Itself. I have loved and admired Ebert since I was nine, and his output of thoughtful writing even in the faceDown the rabbit hole….

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Filmmaker and special effects guru Douglas Trumbull died earlier this month. His body of work is not large, but its influence is gigantic. For filmgoers of a certain age and a certain disposition to genre–say, 50ish and inclined to fantasy and science fiction–Trumbull’s work is likely as big an influence on how such stories are visualized as George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic. Trumbull was instrumental in the look and feel of such films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner, and, probably the granddaddy of them all in terms of lasting influence, 2001: A Space Odyssey. TrumbullDown the rabbit hole….

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I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short-term. Earnest is long-term. –Randy Pausch, “The Last Lecture” Terry Teachout died the other day, at the age of 65. Mr. Teachout was a critic, playwright, and commentator on the arts, primarily for the Wall Street Journal, but he was also a blogger from the early heyday of the format until his last entry, eight days ago. His blog was a daily read of mine for a long time, but as blogging went from Hot New Thing to Quaint Old Pastime in less than ten years, IDown the rabbit hole….

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Two giants of my early eating and drinking life, Tony Marra and Patsy Collins, died in 2021. Patsy ran a bar. Tony ran a restaurant. Patsy’s bar was called The Burton Hotel, or The Burton for short. It’s located on a street corner in Allegany, NY, and it was one of my parents’ favorite watering holes for much of the time they lived down there. I spent quite a lot of time sitting in The Burton with my parents as they quaffed beers and I quaffed grapefruit soda right along with them (at least until I turned 21). I supposeDown the rabbit hole….

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Carrie Fisher, gone five years yesterday. My friend Jason has some words: I’ve written a lot of dead-celebrity posts on this blog over the years. Some of them have been quite good, if I say so myself. And they’ve all been from the heart; I always feel genuine emotion about the loss of the people whose work matters to me. But not like Carrie. Not like her. I’m not ashamed to say that when Carrie Fisher died, a big part of me went with her. A part that came from childhood and from adolescence, from my imagination since I wasDown the rabbit hole….

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Paddy Moloney, the great front-man for the Celtic band The Chieftains, has died. He was 83. In my musical life, Paddy Moloney ranks very high. Very high. When I list musical figures who shaped my world and the way it sounds in my heart, Paddy Moloney is right up there with John Williams, Hector Berlioz, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Leonard Bernstein, Annie Lennox, and Sam Cooke. I can tell you when I first heard each one of those artists, and I can tell you when I first heard Paddy Moloney and The Chieftains. I don’t know why I remember this with suchDown the rabbit hole….

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 Last week, Dusty Hill died. He was the bass player for ZZ Top. ZZ Top is one of those bands that has been a part of the soundtrack of my life pretty much ever since early-adolescence, when I first became aware of rock music. They’re one of those acts that seems like they’ve been around forever, partly owing to their look: famous for their long beards, they cultivated an air of being old when they were still quite young. But there’s also a timeless quality to their music, which plays equally at ease on a classic rock station and anDown the rabbit hole….

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Actor Ned Beatty has died at the age of 83. Beatty had a long and wonderful and varied career, and he played a wide variety of characters. I suppose he’s seen more as a “character actor” than as a lead, but…I don’t know, surely there should be something between a character actor and a proper lead, right? Beatty was always recognizable, but he never seemed the same, if that makes any sense. Every time I saw him in something he managed to create something all new. My first exposure to him was in Superman: The Movie, which remains my favoriteDown the rabbit hole….

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 Blogger Lance Mannion, whose real-life name was David Reilly, has died suddenly. I’ve been reading Lance for…I honestly don’t know. At least seventeen years, I would guess. He was a deeply literate man, with wide interests and voracious reading that informed his bright and curious writings. I didn’t visit his blog daily, but that’s OK, since he didn’t post to it daily. He was one of those bloggers whom you could tell worked hard on every post. He ignored the often-cited “laws” of writing online that advised brevity at all costs; even when he did do a short post, there wasDown the rabbit hole….