May. 29th, 2008

thatcrazycajun: Image of Matt with a rainbow facemask on (Fenton)
Creatively cribbed from about half my f-list:
1 - Go to Wikipedia's "random article" link. The first random article you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to "Random Quotes" on the Quotations Page site. The last four words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to flickr's "explore the last seven days". Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
thatcrazycajun: (memorial)
It is with deep sadness that I must report, informed by several on my friends list, that television and movie composer Alexander Courage has died of natural causes at the age of 88 after a long period of declining health. He worked during his lifetime on compositions and/or orchestrations for a couple dozen TV series and many classic feature-film musicals including My Fair Lady and Doctor Doolittle. But his signature work—better known to more people, it is reported, than even Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man"—is a tune that begins with the most famous eight notes ever heard in science fiction: the original theme from Star Trek.

It not only heralded new episodes of the original series every week for three years, it was written into the themes of every single Trek feature film and that of the 1987-93 Next Generation series. It has passed into history along with Marius Constant's amelodic Twilight Zone theme and John Williams' five-note Close Encounters riff as cultural keystones for the genre. [profile] kradical  has kindly provided this link to an obituary by the Film Music Society.

Requiescat in pace, Mr. Courage, and thank you for the gift of your talents that made so much of our chosen form of entertainment so much better.
thatcrazycajun: (memorial)
With thanks to [personal profile] filkertom  for the heads-up and linkage: The dismal roll call of TV's comedy greats dying off continues to grow. Harvey Korman, foil to Carol Burnett and company for 10 seasons as a mainstay of her eponymous CBS show's sketch troupe and for Mel Brooks in several of his now-classic films, has died of an abdominal aortic aneurysm at 81 in Los Angeles' UCLA Medical Center. Yahoo! News provides the obituary here.

Having recently seen him on PBS' American Masters show talking about his work on the Burnett show, and noted his frail appearance thereon, I can't say I'm surprised...but I am greatly saddened all the same. He was a TV and film icon of my youth and made me laugh many times, but never harder than when he was trying desperately not to (such as when Carol or their costar Tim Conway would make it their mission from God to force poor Harv to break up on camera).

Okay, Universe, you can stop now. Really. Seriously. Enough already. Goodbye, Mr. Korman, and thank you so very much for all the laughs.

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