BREAKING: Sometimes Famous People Die

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Ted Kaczynski - Wikipedia

[JoeP]

Silvio Berlusconi, former Italian prime minister, dies aged 86 | Silvio Berlusconi | The Guardian

More good riddance.

[Ensign Steve]

Wow, of the last handful the Unabomber is the most tragic? What incredible timing.

[lisarea]

My dumb tangential Unabomber story, which I have possibly told before:

I was sitting on a jury in a case where the cops were charging an elderly, disabled union representative with assault for having the shit beaten out of him by the cops. It was horrific and super-obvious, and even in the heavily edited video they showed us, they were beating that guy up, not vice versa. And the whole time, the cops and their cop pals were pretty much mean-mugging the jury, like they were trying to intimidate us.

For the lunch break, the judge reminded us not to talk to anyone, including each other, about the case. So we all walked as a group to the pedestrian mall to get something to eat. But on our way, a whole camera crew stopped me, put a full-sized TV camera in my face, and there was a guy holding a mic over my head, and this other guy started asking me really weird questions about what I think of when he says the word 'quality' and a couple of others, like, 'reliable' and 'trustworthy' and stuff.

Thing is, at the time, it was before the Unabomber was caught, and he was in the news a lot. And I thought it was pretty funny how all the media were fawning over the how the bombs were so meticulously and lovingly hand crafted. So with this camera in my face and this guy basically yelling at me, all I could think of was 'UNABOMBER.' I kept saying I didn't know, and I was way too paranoid about the whole jury thing to even try, but I think I might have finally said Unabomber was the only thing I thought of, because they laughed at me and said they were trying to get me to say Tide laundry detergent. Like what the fuck.

PS: Re James Watt, one of the funniest books I ever read was this autobiography by his wife that I got out of a trashpile or something. She had a whole long justification of that time he said, "I have a black, I have a woman, two Jews and a cripple," and it came down to her argument that it was TRUE. He had a black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple. For some time, it was a cherished household tradition that I would read selected passages from that book aloud to captive audiences.

PPS: I apologize that I have no dumb personal remembrances about Silvio Berlusconi.

[Miss Shelby]

I heard that invitations got mailed out to Ted's funeral but no one wants to risk opening them. It'd be SO like Ted to mail out one more bomb, they said.

[Stephen Maturin]

We'd need to tempt drusus back to get a truly proper Berlusconi retrospective.

[ceptimus]

I saw Berlusconi as a kind of John the Baptist precursor to the populist narcissist liar messiahs that were Trump and Boris.

I hope it's safe to speak of Trump and Boris in the past tense, but with the idiots that make up our electorates, it's never safe to do that until, like Berlusconi, our glorious leaders take the ultimate step.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Stephen Maturin

We'd need to tempt drusus back to get a truly proper Berlusconi retrospective.

[BrotherMan]

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

obsessed with the image of the unabombers entire cabin in an fbi storage facility https://t.co/0qq9WmoS3J pic.twitter.com/qvSyBra3dO

— laura 🦠 (@ecto_fun) June 10, 2023

show spoiler

Pink_Floyd_Cabin_in_the_Woods.png

[vremya]

Come back liv!!!!!

[Miss Shelby]

I didn't know Treat Williams died. Did you guys?

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/12/enter...ath/index.html

[LarsMac]

Originally Posted by Miss Shelby

I didn't know Treat Williams died. Did you guys?

Treat Williams, 'Everwood' and 'Deep Rising' star, dead at 71 | CNN

Well, it was just last night.
Bummer.

[JoeP]

Cormac McCarthy, Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, dies at 89 : NPR

[SharonDee]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Cormac McCarthy, Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, dies at 89: NPR

I just finished trying to read his latest book, The Passenger, and had to give up. Seriously, what was this guy's problem with quotation marks?

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by SharonDee

I just finished trying to read his latest book, The Passenger, and had to give up. Seriously, what was this guy's problem with quotation marks?

[mickthinks]

Originally Posted by Ensign Steve

quotation

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

[mickthinks]

Originally Posted by JoeP

[JoeP]

This thrad is getting busy.

Glenda Jackson, fearless actor and politician, dies aged 87 | Glenda Jackson | The Guardian

[mickthinks]

She was one of the greats. Here's the famous much-lauded appearance on The Morcambe and Wise Show in the-play-within-a-play that became a regular segment of their show. I think it's fair to say that it was this perfomance by Jackson that established the "Play wot Ernie wrote" feature* as an indispensible element of all the duo's succeeding TV series.

Morecombe & Wise with Glenda Jackson: COMPLETE...

Many of the best jokes were either running gags and catchphrases ("What do you think of it so far?—Rubbish!") or had been set up earlier in the programme, so much of the humour will be lost to the uninitiated. But still, I think Jackson's dignity in the face of indignities shows how special she was and why she held this TV moment up as the apotheosis of her acting career.

* The Play What I Wrote - Wikipedia

[Stephen Maturin]

Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame.

[vremya]

I thought he was already dead. My bad.

Well, he'll be waiting for Kissinger when he goes. And it won't be pretty.

[Stephen Maturin]

Originally Posted by vremya

Well, he'll be waiting for Kissinger when he goes.

So, what, another 30, 40 years?

[JoeP]