GoogObits:
Obituaries and essays augmented by Google seaches. There is a lot to learn from the dead.

Tuesday, December 2, 2003

Moved You can pick up fresh GoogObits at www.googobits.com See the latest one, on Daniel Nehme, right here.   12:54:00 PM    comment []

Sunday, November 9, 2003

Coin I dream of coining a term that has currency throughout the world. A word or phrase that spills from lips and organizes thoughts in minds. God bless Richard Wollheim, coiner of minimalism. November 8, 2003 Richard Wollheim, Philosopher, Dies at 80 By DOUGLAS MARTIN Richard Wollheim, a philosopher who synthesized analytic philosophy, psychoanalysis and the study of painting to develop aesthetic insights that are considered among the most profound of the postwar era, died on Tuesday at his home in London. He was 80. The cause was heart failure, said a statement released by the philosophy department of the University of California at Berkeley; Professor Wollheim was the department's chairman from 1998 to 2002. His intellectual dexterity, at times almost playfulness, was suggested by works ranging from a widely respected biography of Freud to a well-received novel to an examination of human emotions that some reviewers saw as the basis for a general theory of a subject largely ignored by philosophers. But his greatest impact, also unusual for an analytic philosopher, was on art. He coined the term Minimalism in his 1965 essay "Minimal Art." It actually referred not to the new artists, soon to be called Minimalists, who were then beginning to emerge, but to monochromatic paintings and Marcel Duchamp's display of ordinary objects as art. A larger and much heralded accomplishment was developing a new approach and vocabulary for experiencing art. Mr. Wollheim, developing the ideas of Wittgenstein and Freud, argued that art could be understood only within its total context, from history to the nature of the surrounding community to the viewers' and artists' emotional dispositions and physical and psychic needs. His idea was to begin viewing a painted surface in the same way that you might try to find a face in the clouds or in the way that you might, as Leonardo did, visualize landscapes in stains on a wall. Then he would try to interpret the artist's intentions. Mr. Wollheim believed that unlocking the meaning of a painting involved retrieving, or almost re-enacting, the creative activity that produced it. He asserted that this was possible because artists and viewers shared a universal human nature. In "Painting as an Art: The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts" (Princeton University Press, 1987), a collection of talks originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1984, he called such a communion "seeing in." His personal method of "seeing in" became famously idiosyncratic. He said in the lectures: "I evolved a way of looking at paintings which was massively time-consuming and deeply rewarding. For I came to recognize that it often took the first hour or so in front of a painting for stray associations or motivated misperceptions to settle down, and it was only then, with the same amount of time or more spent looking at it, that the picture could be relied upon to disclose itself as it was. "I noticed that I became an object of suspicion to passers-by, and so did the picture that I was looking at." All that looking, however, seemed to bring rewards. Many reviewers remarked on the insightfulness of the book's final chapter, in which Mr. Wollheim contends that certain paintings by Titian, Bellini, Willem de Kooning and others represent the painter's attempt to project his fantasies about the human body onto his canvas. He wrote that de Kooning cultivated "those senses that give us our first access to the external world," through actions like sucking, excreting and gurgling. Reviewing the book in The Los Angeles Times, Daniel A. Herwitz said Mr. Wollheim had "done no less than recover for psychology its obvious and irresistible place in the explanation of what is most profound and subtle about paintings." Richard Arthur Wollheim was born in London on May 5, 1923. He graduated from the Westminster School and received bachelor's and master's degrees from Balliol College, Oxford. He served in the infantry in France during World War II and was briefly captured by the Germans. He left the Army as a captain. From 1949 until 1982 Mr. Wollheim taught philosophy at University College, London. He then taught in the United States, first at Columbia from 1982 to 1985, then at Berkeley until his retirement in 2002. From 1989 to 1996, he split his time between Berkeley and the University of California at Davis. His books received mixed reviews but were never ignored. For example, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt suggested in The New York Times that Mr. Wollheim's attention to detail in his biography, "Sigmund Freud" (Viking, 1971), had obscured his view of Freud's significance today. Harold Bloom, the scholar and author, strongly disagreed with this view in an article on Freud published in The Times Book Review in 1986. Professor Bloom called Mr. Wollheim "the most impressive interpreter of Freud to emerge from analytical philosophy" and praised his characterization of Freud's work as "research into the deafness of the mind." Mr. Wollheim's novel, "A Family Romance" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 1969), also drew on his insights into psychology. The Book Review described it as " old-fashioned in a refreshing way [~] post-Freud, and prewar." In The Los Angeles Times in 2000, Jonathan Ree praised "On the Emotions" (Yale University Press), another of Mr. Wollheim's books, for treating intricate issues with the care they deserved. "But beneath a dense ground cover of details, he has laid the foundations of a large general theory" of how emotions work, Mr. Ree wrote. Mr. Wollheim is survived by his wife, Mary Dan Lanier, a potter; their daughter, Emilia; and by two sons from his first marriage, Bruno and Rupert. Copyright 2003 The New York Times 5:06:04 PM    comment []

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Matta Work Last November, in my GoogObit for Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren, I had no links to his actual paintings. I couldn't find any. Now here's a bunch: 9:26:19 AM    comment []

Friday, October 24, 2003

Fantastik James Marshall Wiley: Fantastik developer, 75 Associated Press TULSA, Okla. [^] James Marshall Wiley, the developer of Fantastik household cleaner, has died. He was 75. The family didn't release a cause of death. Born March 29, 1928, in Tulsa, Mr. Wiley attended Central High School and joined the Army as a paratrooper after leaving school. In the 1960s, he developed Fantastik in a bathtub in his home. Mr. Wiley marketed the product (warning: adult content) door-to-door in Tulsa and eventually sold the formula, which is now produced and marketed by S.C. Johnson and Son. Mr. Wiley is survived by his wife, Madeline Joy Bradley; three sons; three daughters; 16 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. 7:59:39 AM    comment []

Monday, October 20, 2003

Friends Sometimes I don't feel safe in my own neighborhood. By "neighborhood", I mean the United States of America, home of 3,000 dead agnates. Reading Alija Izetbegovic's obituary can give you some pretty good insight into the source of my anxiety. He was a waffler, a Muslim, a good man. Like all nationalists, he wanted a place to call "home". To be safe there. He made the mistake of trusting a United States Ambassador. He hosted Usama bin Laden. He was one of three leaders to sign the Dayton Peace Plan, the necessity of which is one of the more disgusting recent facts of American lameness. He thought we would help him. 8,000 dead in Srebrenica proved him wrong. Please, let's find the new Izetbegovic(es), beat a path to their doors, ask them to be our friend, back it up with earnest action, and maybe they won't have Usama bin Laden over for lunch. Here's an excerpt from the NYT obit: Indecision gripped Mr. Izetbegovic, who had made scant preparation for war. On Feb. 23, in Lisbon, he signed, along with leaders of Bosnia's Croats and Serbs, a European-brokered agreement creating a confederal structure for the three Bosnian ethnic groups. A few days later, influenced by what he saw as an encouraging conversation with Warren Zimmermann, the United States ambassador, he changed his mind. The Izetbegovic government then staged a countrywide referendum on the issue of Bosnian independence. Muslims and Croats endorsed independence by 99.4 percent while the Serbs boycotted a vote their leaders said was illegal. Street fighting broke out in Sarajevo on April 5. The next day, the European Union recognized Bosnia, and the United States did so a day later. By then, the Serbs were already shelling Sarajevo, and a concerted campaign to drive Muslims from their homes along the Drina, Bosna and Sava rivers in eastern and northern Bosnia had begun. Through the summer, Bosnian Serb forces seized 70 percent of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, expelling hundreds of thousands of Muslims. Many were herded into detention camps where men of fighting age were sometimes executed; women and children were pushed across the lines after suffering abuse and humiliation. With neither the United States nor the European Union ready to go to war for the state they had recognized, Mr. Izetbegovic turned increasingly to Islamic states, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Libya, for assistance. Osama bin Laden visited him in Sarajevo in 1993 and sponsored some fighters from Arabic countries to fight on the Muslims' side in Bosnia, according to a report in the German magazine Der Spiegel. Copyright 2003 New York Times Company 6:06:42 PM    comment []

Thursday, October 16, 2003

Cub Fan Statement In the very first installment of GoogOgraphy, we take a look at the text of Steve Bartman, the Cub fan who did something he probably shouldn't have: "There are few words to describe how awful I feel and what I have experienced within these last 24 hours. I've been a Cubs fan all my life and fully understand the relationship between my actions and the outcome of the game. I had my eyes glued on the approaching ball the entire time and was so caught up in the moment that I did not even see Moises Alou, much less that he may have had a play. Had I thought for one second that the ball was playable or had I seen Alou approaching, I would have done whatever I could to get out of the way and give Alou a chance to make the catch. To Moises Alou, the Chicago Cubs organization, Ron Santo, Ernie Banks and Cubs fans everywhere, I am so truly sorry from the bottom of this Cubs fan's broken heart. I ask that Cubs fans everywhere redirect the negative energy that has been vented toward my family, my friends and myself into the usual positive support for our beloved team on their way to being National League champs." 12:10:27 PM    comment []

Colonialism With a French Accent It's easy to forget France's colonial past. Let's not. Moktar Ould Daddah, 78, Who Led Mauritania to Independence in 1961, Dies By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania, Oct. 15 - Moktar Ould Daddah, who led Mauritania to independence, died Tuesday in a Paris hospital, his family announced here on Wednesday. He was 78 and had been in the hospital for several weeks. Mr. Ould Daddah became Mauritania's first president in 1961 and was re-elected three times, governing 17 years before being ousted in a coup in 1978. Born on Dec. 25, 1924, into a family of Muslim religious leaders, Mr. Ould Daddah studied and married in France. From his first political post at 33, when he was elected regional councilor for the central region of Adrar, he rose quickly in Mauritanian politics, becoming vice president of the governing Executive Council the same year and president the next. Mr. Ould Daddah campaigned for a "yes" vote on preserving some ties with France in a referendum in 1958, two years before independence. Nine months later he was elected the first president of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. He was also in the conflict over Western Sahara after he signed a deal dividing the mineral-rich area between Morocco and Mauritania in 1975. That accord backfired on Mr. Ould Daddah when Western Sahara separatists, the Polisario Front, battled troops loyal to Nouakchott for independence. In 1977, Mr. Ould Daddah's government had to call on the French military to intervene against Polisario. In 1978, the human and financial costs of the war, combined with a severe drought and a drop in world demand for iron ore, Mauritania's main foreign-exchange earner, brought on the military coup that forced Mr. Ould Daddah from power. He went to France in 1979 for medical treatment and spent most of his later years in exile, returning home in 2001 saying he wanted to serve as ``an arbiter, someone to turn to for resolving problems.'' Copyright 2003 New York Times Company 8:22:59 AM    comment []

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Good riddance. Otto Günsche, 86, Dies; Helped to Burn Hitler's Body By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BERLIN, Oct. 13 (AP) [~] Otto Günsche, an aide to Hitler who took part in burning the Nazi dictator's body to keep it from the advancing Soviets in the final days of World War II, died on Oct. 2 in Lohmar, near Bonn. He was 86. The cause of death was heart failure, said a son, Kai. An SS major and a member of Hitler's inner circle, Mr. Günsche spent the last hours with the Nazi leader in his Berlin bunker before Hitler and his companion, Eva Braun, committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Otto Günsche said in a recent interview with The Associated Press that Hitler personally ordered him to burn his body. When the day came, he and another aide poured gasoline on the bodies of Hitler and Braun, which were then set on fire. Mr. Günsche was captured by Red Army troops at the end of the war and spent 12 years in Soviet captivity. He lived quietly in West Germany after his release. He was born Sept. 24, 1917. He joined the Wehrmacht, but transferred to the SS where he rose to the rank of major, said Kurt Schrimm, a prosecutor who is chief of Germany's central office for investigating former Nazis. The agency's files show no investigation against Mr. Günsche for Nazi-era crimes, Mr. Schrimm said. Mr. Günsche is survived by three children. His body was cremated, his son said. Copyright 2003 New York Times Company 12:17:11 PM    comment []