Passages

[dadaistnun]

Juliette Mayniel

[flyonthewall2983]

Sinead O’Connor

[hearthesilence]

Sinead O’Connor

Just heartbreaking. I haven't looked at the news just yet, but given her struggles over many years, I imagine it's what's been feared for a very long time. Absolutely loved her music, and it was wonderful to see something like a resurgence over the past decade as people re-discovered her or re-evaluated what they overlooked. (There was a stretch in the '00s where I felt like no one I knew ever talked about her, much less put on her records, which was remarkable for someone who had attained massive popularity not that long ago.) She was probably my favorite singer of the past 40 years, certainly my favorite outside of jazz. Her second and most popular album remains her best, a landmark, but anyone willing to dive deeper will be richly rewarded.

[Kracker]

Sinead O’Connor

Heartbreaking indeed. Her modern day Martin Luther moment where she tried to call attention to the child abuse at the hands of the church seems largely forgotten among the turbulent pop culture maelstrom of the 90's. I remember when Joe Pesci went on SNL the next week with a (mostly) restored picture of the Pope she ripped up, saying he would he would have "gave her such a smack". Today, he gets lauded as an actor who respects women the most. Then Madonna went on and told everyone to "fight the REAL enemy", ripping up a picture of Joey Buttafuoco, the subject of the big silly tabloid drama of that year. Today, Spotlight wins Best Picture for telling the story of when the Boston Globe exposed the rampant child sex abuse within the church but the story of when a pop singer sacrificed everything to call attention to their crimes long before remains largely untold.

[hearthesilence]

Sinead O’Connor

Heartbreaking indeed. Her modern day Martin Luther moment where she tried to call attention to the child abuse at the hands of the church seems largely forgotten among the turbulent pop culture maelstrom of the 90's. I remember when Joe Pesci went on SNL the next week with a (mostly) restored picture of the Pope she ripped up, saying he would he would have "gave her such a smack". Today, he gets lauded as an actor who respects women the most. Then Madonna went on and told everyone to "fight the REAL enemy", ripping up a picture of Joey Buttafuoco, the subject of the big silly tabloid drama of that year. Today, Spotlight wins Best Picture for telling the story of when the Boston Globe exposed the rampant child sex abuse within the church but the story of when a pop singer sacrificed everything to call attention to their crimes long before remains largely untold.

YES, thank you. I remember when the Globe's story broke, and the first thing that popped into my mind was "is this really a surprise? Sinéad O'Connor (and she wasn't the only one) was beating on this drum decades ago and you all made her a pariah." I think I saw one and only one news article that pointed this out in the immediate wake, but it seems to be more widely recognized now, even before the documentary that came out last year.

[FrauBlucher]

Sinead O’Connor

Heartbreaking indeed. Her modern day Martin Luther moment where she tried to call attention to the child abuse at the hands of the church seems largely forgotten among the turbulent pop culture maelstrom of the 90's. I remember when Joe Pesci went on SNL the next week with a (mostly) restored picture of the Pope she ripped up, saying he would he would have "gave her such a smack". Today, he gets lauded as an actor who respects women the most. Then Madonna went on and told everyone to "fight the REAL enemy", ripping up a picture of Joey Buttafuoco, the subject of the big silly tabloid drama of that year. Today, Spotlight wins Best Picture for telling the story of when the Boston Globe exposed the rampant child sex abuse within the church but the story of when a pop singer sacrificed everything to call attention to their crimes long before remains largely untold.

YES, thank you. I remember when the Globe's story broke, and the first thing that popped into my mind was "is this really a surprise? Sinéad O'Connor (and she wasn't the only one) was beating on this drum decades ago and you all made her a pariah." I think I saw one and only one news article that pointed this out in the immediate wake, but it seems to be more widely recognized now, even before the documentary that came out last year.

That was a tough period for her. Frank Sinatra also had some harsh words for her. And about a week or two afterwards she appeared at "Bobfest" tribute concert to Dylan at MSG. She was there and got roundly booed. She couldn't even finish the song which was a Bob Marley song she was performing. kris Kristofferson came out, hugged her and escorted off the stage.

Anyway, RIP. I was a fan. An absolutely beautiful voice

[jazzo]

I believe she was supposed to perform a Dylan song that night, but switched to the a cappella version of the Marley song, War, when the fuckheads in the crowd wouldn’t stop booing her.

I think she was among the bravest performers and artists of the 20th Century.

I’ve seen her in concert twice in my life, and both times left me stunned at the perfect instrument that was her voice.

Sinead’s brother, Joseph O’Connor:

https://dcebe.tripod.com/poem02.txt

This is his public response to his sister publishing a poem in the Irish Times in 1993, alleging that she was the victim of abuse at the hands of her mother and that her family didn't protect or love her. He's so balanced here - compassionate and allowing space for his sister, but challenging her memories/version of things. Among the better things I've ever read, especially as it deals with such intimate, important subject matter.

I was left with a bad taste in my mouth when she would come up in conversations over the last few years, and people would discount her as that “crazy”Sinead, which felt like, because she was a celebrity with mental health issues and trauma, it was okay to laugh at her and her life decisions, which of course it wasn’t. But people are cruel.

The documentary on her career and life isn’t particularly well done, but to relive those moments of protest and poignancy through the footage, and to get her perspective on her most controversial moments made it worth sitting through.

Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre summed her up perfectly but suggesting that she wasn’t a goddess, and she wasn’t “crazy” or angry or a revolutionary or whatever single label people wanted to impose on her for her actions or statements in the new cycle.

She was all of those things.

She was messy.

Like all of us.

And that voice…
Those lyrics…

[hearthesilence]

Bo Goldman, screenwriter best-known for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Shoot the Moon, The Rose, and my favorite, Melvin and Howard.

Re: the Dylan tribute, she was supposed to sing "I Believe in You." I never liked that song all that much until I heard her sing her own rendition of it, recorded not long after that tribute show - it's been issued as a B-side to one of her singles and as the last track of A Very Special Christmas 2. Great, great performance, moving as hell.

[beamish14]

Bo Goldman, screenwriter best-known for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Shoot the Moon, The Rose, and my favorite, Melvin and Howard.

Shoot the Moon is an incredible achievement. I was just thinking of the beautiful scene with Diane Keaton getting high while listening to the Rolling Stones’ “Plays with Fire” the other day. The DVD commentary with him and Alan Parker is a must-listen. An incredible amount of mutual love and respect for one another’s skills is so palpable throughout it

He did a huge amount of script doctoring work, particularly with Milos Forman and Warren Beatty. The bulk of The Rose, though, was Michael Cimino, who was denied credit by the WGA

I forgot that he’s credited on City Hall (1996). Hard to believe that a film credited to him, Nicholas Pileggi, AND Paul Schrader can be so horribly uninspired, but maybe their competing sensibilities and director Harold Becker just couldn’t make it hang together

[MichaelB]

Lelia Goldoni, whose acting career dated back to the 1940s and included major roles for John Cassavetes (Shadows) and Martin Scorsese (Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore).

[hearthesilence]

Randy Meisner of the Eagles

A founding member and bassist who left the year after Hotel California. Before Joe Walsh came into the picture, the one single I really liked from this band was Meisner’s, which he sang and originally wrote. He left because Frey was a royal dick to him.

[hearthesilence]

Per the Wim Wenders Foundation, Thomas Plenert, who helped Wim Wenders to secretly shoot footage for Wings of Desire in East Berlin. The film footage was smuggled into West Berlin under the back seat of an old VW.

[Aunt Peg]

Actress Inga Swenson, 90, https://variety.com/2023/tv/people-news ... 235682653/

[GaryC]

I've seen no online obituaries yet, but Rosemary Mangiamele has died at 79. She worked with the NFSA to preserve and restore the films of her late husband Giorgio (1926-2001), an Italian migrant who was one of the few people making films in Australia in the 1960s. His film Clay (1965) was selected in competition at Cannes. The NFSA have released a DVD set of Giorgio's work (also available to rent or buy on Vimeo) to which Rosemary contributes an interview.

[barryconvex]

Sinead O’Connor

Just heartbreaking. I haven't looked at the news just yet, but given her struggles over many years, I imagine it's what's been feared for a very long time. Absolutely loved her music, and it was wonderful to see something like a resurgence over the past decade as people re-discovered her or re-evaluated what they overlooked. (There was a stretch in the '00s where I felt like no one I knew ever talked about her, much less put on her records, which was remarkable for someone who had attained massive popularity not that long ago.) She was probably my favorite singer of the past 40 years, certainly my favorite outside of jazz. Her second and most popular album remains her best, a landmark, but anyone willing to dive deeper will be richly rewarded.

That kind of voice will never come around again, at least not in our lifetimes. The song Troy on her first record jumps off the wax as she outdoes herself with each passing line culminating in the "you should've left a light on" refrain that gives me the chills to this day. I was always thankful to Massive Attack for giving her some lead vocals on their 100th Window LP in 2003. I still remember hearing What Your Soul Sings for the first time and being reminded of the power of her voice because, as silence indicated Sinead was all but forgotten at that point. Part of the reason for that was the most ill advised follow up to a massive album anyone's ever recorded. Am I Not Your Girl? is the type of album one makes in the twilight of one's career not at the height of it, following up the biggest pop LP of two years earlier. It's a breathtaking record featuring some of her greatest performances but nobody wanted to hear her sing standards after the summer of grunge. The ensuing SNL and Dylan concert fiascos really killed her career. There is such a thing as bad publicity after all. Not that she seemed to care. She was fearless and naive simultaneously and treated her career as an afterthought. Remarkable as it's human nature to acquiesce to a certain degree as one gets accustomed to a certain comfortable lifestyle that selling huge amounts of records affords. She really did what she wanted.

I got to see her in concert in August of 1990 at Jones Beach and while it wasn't a great show she still cut an amazing figure onstage. Even tinier than I expected and unforgettable in her Doc Marten boots (that nobody has ever worn better) dancing an Irish jig during I Am Stretched On Your Grave are the things I remember. Really sad, I hope she's finally at peace.

[ynwa]

Jana Šulcová

[headacheboy]

There is a great quote from Sinéad, the source I'm uncertain of, but I read it on the Hoffman forum, and it is her take on the perceived end of her career via SNL. She suggested, "they're talking about the career they had in mind for me. I fucked up the house in Antigua that the record company dudes wanted to buy. I fucked up their career, not mine. It meant I had to make my living playing live, and I am born for live performance." Sinéad may have been troubled, but her perspective was always appreciated from this fan because it forced me to look at a situation differently. I was sitting in front of the television that night when she took her mother's photo of the Pope and ripped it up. It did not stop me from continuing to buy her music although I eventually drifted away from it following Universal Mother in 1994. I began rebuying her work with Throw Your Arms Down in 2005 on a chance finding of a vinyl pressing in some tiny out of the way record shop in Davenport, Iowa of all places and I never missed another release.

It is odd because when Andy Rourke died in May I began playing Sinéad's fantastic second album I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got as Rourke plays bass on a trio of songs. I was never a huge Smiths fan despite owning their catalog, so Sinéad's album worked well for me. I then began filling in the holes of the albums by her I lacked because I was so jazzed by hearing her voice again. In June I found the last piece needed (a group of her UK singles, still sealed, from her Am I Not Your Girl? album that I derided way back when but that I simply adore today). I've been playing her music considerably since Rourke's passing, so her voice has been vibrant and resonant from my household, much to Mrs headacheboy's dismay. She believed, like many, Sinéad never made another album after SNL.

[barryconvex]

One of my favorite records from the last 15 years or so is Prefab Sprout's acoustic reworking of Steve McQueen. After watching the documentary about her earlier this year I thought she should've done something similar with her first record, The Lion & The Cobra which has aged horribly and probably never sounded very good in the first place with its tinny digital sounds. The songs are good, Sinead's voice is otherworldly but the production is abysmal. The idea of a stripped down version of Lion... playing as a counterpart to the lush orchestration of Am I Not Your Girl? would've really been something.

[swo17]

I love Steve McQueen but what's the connection to Sinéad O'Connor?

Also, keeping on topic, this performance of "Jerusalem" is something fierce

[MichaelB]

Well, I picked up on the point being made.

[mteller]

I love Steve McQueen but what's the connection to Sinéad O'Connor?

One of my favorite records from the last 15 years or so is Prefab Sprout's acoustic reworking of Steve McQueen. After watching the documentary about her earlier this year I thought she should've done something similar with her first record

[swo17]

Ah right, sorry, not sure why that didn't register the first time

[Buttery Jeb]

Paul Reubens

[hearthesilence]

Oh man, Paul Reubens. It was announced on his social media accounts - he had been fighting cancer for six years but kept it private.

I posted about this here but I was already revisiting his show so this feels pretty shocking.

[The Curious Sofa]

I was a huge fan of Paul Rubens and still think Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is Tim Burton's best film. One of the great gonzo comedies, his and Rubens' pop sensibilities complimented each other perfectly. The way Ruben's snuck a distinctly queer sensibility into a film marketed at kids made him forever a hero of mine ("I wanted to look at that cute outfit you have on") I had a bunch of friends when studying film and we just watched that film over and over. I caught on to Pee Wee's Playhouse later, because it wasn't shown were I lived and it basically was John Waters for preschoolers.

I was very heartbroken over his "cancellation" scandal. I mean well cops, what do you think people do in a porn theatre ? Glad he eventually had his comeback and even managed to make another surprisingly decent Pee-Wee movie.