It happens every year, really: however, in 2013, we must admit to have the most celebrated collection of
notables there could be to remember; and the most astonishing
departures from this world to reminisce about, commemorate and ''celebrate'' (in the most sober sense there is) as well.
So, even though we, at
the lugubrious blog, remain steadfast in our position regarding the non-partisanship attributable to any and all of the departed, we would have been remiss if we had omitted to, at the very least, tip our hats to some of those that took a powder fifty long years ago this year.
We'll run down the top 50 fast enough - in part thanks to our good friends over at
NNDB (much more than ''the iMDB of the dead'' -though we like to call it that- and a division of Soylent Communications; can ye all hear Charlton's voice in your heads yet, people? ''Soylent Green
is people! It's pee-pull!'' - and that is what it's all about, too, y'know! But we are digressing now...)
Thus... here it goes:
There is absolutely no question at all who is in the top three: sorry, Edith & Edith, but it has got to be JFK, C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley - in that exact order, we are afraid, too! The sheer coincidence that these three kicked the bucket on the exact same day makes it stand out immediately: two celebrities of equal stature and notoriety passing away on the same day is rare enough, but three...? This has to take the funeral cake - and it just did, again.
Now, since this
is the lugubrious blog and all, and since we
do know better, we are going to take them one at a time in the order that they deserve to be taken: and, so, JFK drops to second place in favor of... C.S.L. (what, you didn't really think it was going to be Aldous, now, did you?!?)
C.S. Lewis had an extremely quiet passing from this world to the next: in comparison with JFK's, evidently, but in comparison with most everyone else, in truth. The love of his life had passed away three years earlier, taken away by cancer, and it almost seems as he drifted away slowly, for the three remaining years of his earthly life, slowly but surely letting go of each one of his chores, preparing for the transition - readying himself to be reunited with her once more...?
JFK.. now, what hasn't been written about JFK's most bloody and violent assassination? It has been analysed upside down and sideways, re-thought and re-analyzed, countless theories have emerged about ''who really did it'' and so on... And even though everything (and anything) has been said about it already - we feel we can always rehash it one more time, for the fiftieth anniversary; why not? So here we'll simply copy and paste what our blogger-in-chief penned for
another of the myriad blogs part of the TLB Prime Network - and we'll let it speak all for itself! Enjoy:
Remember, remember... On the 22nd of November. At the Coordinated Universal Time of 18:30 (UTC, as it is known to be abbreviated) in Dallas, Texas, more precisely on Elm Street, died the single most admirable U.S. President of modern times: second only to Honest Abe, overall.
JFK was assassinated fifty years ago.
And it seems like yesterday - even for those historians among us who weren't even born to this world back then...
He had meant to change things around - and it unsettled those who stood to lose a lot of liquidities, power and influence. And so, they came together and devised a plan to liquidate him...
He who would dare to take away from the true controllers of society all that they hold dear.
One can never be so foolish - or so optimistic - as to think that he will be allowed to right all wrongs; to think that the avarice that drives some will subside for but one second, preventing them from committing the irreversible in order to preserve their temporary gains...
If there is one thing we can learn from both JFK's end as well as from Honest Abe's, it is that you cannot fight corruption: if you do aspire to, then you have to go all out and show no mercy whatsoever, as they will show you none either. You have to extirpate it, eradicate it, destroy it without a second thought. But, the thing is that you are not meant to do that - at all. The only one who should do this is The One Who Knows All: so leave it to God to pass judgment, to separate the good harvest from all the rye grass out there, ever so abundant...
In 1963, there were concepts of good and evil: they seemed to be more well-defined, not as blurred into mere shades of grey as they are nowadays. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States, a true leader of the free world, in a golden age era that made the White House garner an aura of Camelot itself... Hence, it was doomed to end tragically from the very start.
Never mind the fact that JFK was a very much flawed man (unfaithful, prone to mood swings, hyperactivity and impaired judgment, among others, but that was due to his many ailments next to no one knew about at the time... In fact, the drugs he was taking to be able to deal with Addison's disease, for instance, appeared to have the side-effect of increasing his virility, leading to all of his indiscretions throughout his presidency: it was that kind of a vicious circle.) JFK wanted to set things right, as did his brother Bobby and as had Abraham Lincoln before them both: and each and every one, like them, were murdered for all of these good intentions.
On this most delicate of anniversaries, one that is of an event that truly shows the evil underbelly of the proud and once-mighty U.S. of A. and how the so-called ''leader of the free world'' is not free whatsoever, we cannot help but draw upon what some may call ''old news'' indeed - but hey, this is all about ''old news'' here, as this is the Saudades Blog (a ''simulpost'' as we call them, really) here: where we reminisce about recorded facts, the very facts that make up these ''old news'' and should therefore prevent history (bad history, that is) from ever repeating itself... And yet it does - it always does, no matter what we do, no matter how much we indulge in reminiscing and in re-reading them ''old news'' over and over again... *sigh*
And so - we mentioned Honest Abe (his assassination will reach the impressive number of a 150th anniversary on April 2015...) But this is all about JFK's anniversary now... However, the two of them are quite obviously intricately and irremediably linked and we cannot mention one without the other anymore: for both of them were assassinated just so that the evil powers-that-be, behind the scenes, continued to wield the power they would never relinquish in their lifetime... But they will: oh yes, they will, whether they want to or not, they will relinquish it all and pay for all the evil that they've done. One day... soon.
Hence, let us indulge in these ''old news'' - totally and completely, indeed... For, to do so, can only make us feel better in the present: giving us a sense of perspective much needed when we cannot decipher any semblance of an infinitesimal possibility for true justice in this world... For, where there is a sense of pre-ordinance, there can be found an iota, at least, of serenity and acceptance - for, if this was all pre-ordained to happen as it did, surely that means that there will be a reckoning, where everything that apparently went wrong will be set right - in due time.
And, perhaps, the two of them are sitting together, in an ethereal realm we do not fully comprehend yet -one where the energies that animated both, during their short stay in this world, ascended to- and they are themselves quite amused by all the clues that have been given out to us all, regarding the Greater Plan for them and all of us too, by association... For clues at the ones that follow exist for everyone: we have but to look for them, decipher them, understand them...
As the picture above (courtesy of FB) mentions,
both of these Presidents were eager to make changes
to certain practices that actually pre-date
even the USA's precious Independence Day
and, so, both of their presidencies as well:
the Federal Reserve banking system had existed,
as a rather-timid attempt to institute a system of
central banking, in 1791 for about 20 years...
Then, again, in 1816, until about 1836;
and young Honest Abe didn't see the honesty in it...
The privately-owned model of the ''Fed Res''
was eventually created in 1913
under its original charter for privately-owned
central banking - and JFK was looking into changing that,
most probably inspired by the following words on the subject
the third overall:
"If the American people ever allow private banks
to control the issue of their money,
first by inflation and then by deflation,
the banks and corporations that will grow up
around them will deprive the people of their property
until their children will wake up homeless
on the continent their fathers conquered."
It can be argued that both Lincoln and Kennedy
were murdered for having messed with THIS...
But there are so many other astounding links between the two:
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.
The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both of their wives lost children while living in the White House.
Both wives sat next to their husbands when they were assassinated,
being first-hand witnesses of this traumatic horror.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both were shot in the head.
Both were shot with one bullet.
Both were rumoured to have been murdered
as the result of a vast conspiracy.
Neither will ever be confirmed to have been a conspiracy.
Lincoln was shot in the Ford Theater
.
Kennedy was shot in a card made by the Ford Motor Company
- the Ford Lincoln.
Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln.
Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners.
Both successors were named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
Their first names both contain six letters.
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839
.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names comprise fifteen letters.
Booth ran from the theater and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.
Both assassins were assassinated before their trials.
The only complete filming of Kennedy's assassination
was shot by Abraham Zapruder
.
The only complete account of Lincoln's assassination
was written by John Zelfindorfer.
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was with friends
in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with his friend
Marilyn Monroe.
Lincoln's last child, Tad, had his funeral held on July 16, 1871.
Later he was exhumed and moved to a different grave site.
Kennedy's son, JFK Jr. was lost at sea on July 16, 1999.
Later he was found, brought up, and then re-buried at sea.
JFK was survived only by his daughter, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, now Mrs. Schlossberg, hence the name Kennedy ends there, as far as JFK's branch goes. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ex-wife, Maria Shriver, is a cousin of the Kennedy Princess. Lincoln had only one of his four sons reach adulthood; however, his last undisputed descendent, grandson Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died in 1985. Actor Tom Hanks is a distant relation, though, through his Portuguese grandmother...!
Lincoln's assassin was killed by one Sergeant Boston Corbett who acted on a self-righteous ''Providence-guided'' but direct orders-disobedient stance. This hero then perished in mysterious circumstances, in a fire, years later. Kennedy's assassin was murdered, we remember well, mere days after this sad date, by Jack Ruby. The revenger eventually died from a fire too - one in his lungs: lung cancer, or more precisely pulmonary embolism. Both were never celebrated for having killed the vile murderer of a great President, for having carried out ''justice'' with their own hands: on the contrary...
There is a lesson to be learned there, as well...
And now, to complete the top three
here...
Aldous Huxley. A fascinating character, no doubt: though totally utterly confused, in comparison with C.S. Lewis and not as, shall we say ''active'' as JFK either... As we mentioned before, the mere fact that these three passed away on the same day has fascinated all by itself: enough to inspire the likes of Peter Kreeft wrote a compelling bit of fiction about it that borrows the concept of ''the meeting of the minds'' as he explores what a conversation between this unlikely trio (but not with God) would have gone like, on the way to purgatory or something... Though it is all coincidence, of course, and, truth be told, any three who have died at any other time might have met on the way to heaven or hell (or, as we know it, on the way to be
The Great Big Waiting Room In The Cosmos - Carl Sagan is there, among many, many others... Say hi from us.) and have had much greater (not to mention longer - yeah, even longer than this post, wise guys) conversations than this particular trio allegedly had...! Odds are, of course, the trio in question here went three different places indeed and never even shared a word, certainly not in ghostly form: and, no, we do not mean the old catholic precepts of heaven-purgatory-and-hell here, at all! Need we remind you all that there has been no
Reckoning yet: no Judgment Day- yet! Hence, when one dies, one is free to roam the cosmos; within reason! All of these stars are part of
The Great Big Waiting Room In The Cosmos - so why in blue blazes would they limit themselves to the same tiny corner of it all? Why would they stick around, also? Unless they have valid reasons to, odds are they won't stick around. And surely the author of so many imaginative works as Huxley was would
not be inclined towards limiting himself so much...!
But we have got an entire top 50 list to go through: and we've limited ourselves to only three so far...! Let's move on...! We mentioned the two Ediths earlier:
Hamilton, my favorite, and
Piaf. We'll give number 4 to Piaf, due to her notoriety; but, in truth, we were really saving number 5 for Hamilton, authoress and historian as well as the patron saint of educators, as far as
we are concerned...! For five rhymes with ALIVE...! As for Piaf: no, she didn't regret a thing,
rien de rien; ce qui rime à rien, en fin de compte, n'est-ce pas? But it's all French to you now...
Pope John XXIII has to come next on this list: speaking of candidates for sainthood and all...
Next, in no particular order, we'll complete the top ten of the 50 Who Died 50 Years Ago with these notable names:
Sabu (who unfortunately inspired a wrestler to bear his name)
Jason Robards Sr. (most barely know his son nowadays)
Sylvia Plath (what a tragic figure) and
Thomas Kennedy (no, Jack wasn't the only Kennedy to croak in '63 - but this one is no relation and didn't die as violently, either.)
For the next ten, we'll start with actor
Monte Blue - a good guy. (And we love the name, too!)
The actual Birdman of Alcatraz himself, born
Robert Franklin Stroud comes in at number 12 then; may God Have mercy on his soul (he did have one redeeming quality, at least?)
Pedro Armendàriz, painter
Georges Braque, Israeli premier
Yitzhal Ben-Zvi, sweet
Patsy Cline (who died like Buddy Holly and his buddies did before her - and Aaliyah in 2001), rumored Rosicrucian
Jean Cocteau, operatic soprano
Rosa Raisa,
Dinah Washington, and hall of famer John Franklin
''Home Run'' Baker all went to the field of dreams in '63 as well...
W.E.B. Du Bois also kicked the bucket in 1963 - a sociologist and civil rights activist, Du Bois was clearly born in the wrong century, not only due to his field of interests, multiracial state of being and avant-garde ideas, way ahead of his time... Not even because of his initials, which would have made him thrive and garner such a humongous following on this wild, wild web of ours here... But simply because *he* was the leader the black community needed, at all times: when his contemporary Booker T. Washington (another who, unfortunately, inspired a wrestler to bear his name...) fumbled the ball in 1895, when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated or now, in the woeful days of
Obama Care...
Number 22 is awarded to radio man
Phil Baker - if for nothing other than, though born an American, he chose to die on European soil...! (
Take it or leave it at that, folks...!)
Next trio of departees reads as it goes now:
Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist murdered for all his efforts, French-Jewish mathematician
Jacques-Salomon Hadamard and the Romanian-born founder of the Dada movement, Parisian of adoption Tristan Tzara (aka
Samuel Rosenstock). That takes us to the half-way mark right there: 25 down, 25 to go...!
Engineer
Isaac Shoenberg, one of the five core inventors of television. Historian
Perry Miller, opportunistic newspaper woman
Alicia Patterson and astronomer
Seth Barnes Nicholson were, most likely, a trio that would have had little to tell each other on the way to the afterlife: unlike Lewis, Huxley and Kennedy, admittedly. Then again...
Number 30: Indian-born (in Calcutta, no less) but English citizen confused soul
Margaret Murray (no wonder she was confused) who doubled as an Egyptologist (told you so) and archeologist and bears the significant distinction, also, of being the founding mommy (not mummy - although... Just read on...!) of wicca! She lived to be exactly 100 (and four months - to the day!) and produced three bizarre books in her lifetime;
not recommended reading!
31 through 40 now: playwright (and playboy)
Clifford Odets, classic actor
Adolphe Menjou, Irish poet and playwright
Louis MacNeice, anthropologist
Merville J. Herskovits, composer
Paul Hindemith, songwriter
Otto Abels Hauerbach, perky American actress
Eliza Susan ''Zazu'' Pitts, confused composer
Francis Poulenc, American footballer
Ernie Davies and NYC publisher
Orvil Dryfoos (we will always wonder why a publisher would choose not to use his middle name of Eugene, in this particular case - but that is another story...)
The Final Ten shall go smoothly now: all names you've seen or heard before, but whose notoriety may have dwindled just a tad, with the decades since their passing...
Robert L. Cochran, thespians
Henry Daniell,
Vernon Dent,
Gordon Jones,
Larry Keating,
Dick Powell, conductor
Fritz Reiner, author
John Cowper Powys, Canadian-born actor
Jack Carson and the one, the only
Robert Frost (born in Frisco, but made the transition in Boston: that's enough redemption for us! No, quite obviously, Lee Harvey Oswald was never meant to be part of this ''top fifty'' - duh.)
So there you have it: 50 Who Died 50 Long Years Ago... and it all seems like yesterday, when they were walking among us, hmm? Some are so very well-remembered: through film and archival footage in which they were immortalized; films that
some may still watch (Turner Classics and History Channel viewers - this one's for you!) and others are fondly remembered for their works, by their words and deeds, through their legacy.
Of course, many more died in 1963 - more notorious and famous ones and many more completely anonymous ones; as it happens each and every year. Some believe that the goal is not to live forever but to leave something that will; others think it far more important to focus upon the forever quality of the energy inside, that which animates each and every single one of us - our souls. Whether you are a celebrity or not, we are equal in death: thus, ultimately, who cares if three famous ones croaked in unison - we could all go kablooey all at once, say, when the sun explodes;
what then?!?
Well, for one thing, Peter Kreeft won't be there to write about the conversation that follows. And we won't be blogging about it, either!
Sempre Por O Melhor
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