Lanford Wilson, American playwright died he was , 73.

Lanford Wilson  was an American playwright,^[1] considered one of the founders of the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement  died he was , 73.. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

(April 13, 1937 – March 24, 2011)

Biography

Early years

Wilson was born to Ralph Eugene and Violetta Tate Wilson in Lebanon, Missouri. After his parents' divorce, he moved with his mother to Springfield, where they lived until she remarried; when he was 11, they moved again to Ozark. There he attended high school, and after graduation, he moved to San Diego, California, where he briefly attended San Diego State University, and lived with his father. Thereafter, he relocated for six years to Chicago, where he began to explore playwriting at the University of Chicago.^[2]

Career

Wilson began his active career as a playwright in the early 1960s at the Caffe Cino in Greenwich Village,^[3] writing one-act plays such as Ludlow Fair, Home Free!, and The Madness of Lady Bright. The Madness of Lady Bright premiered at the Caffe Cino in May 1964 and was the venue's first significant success. The play featured actor Neil Flanagan in the title role as Leslie Bright, a neurotic aging queen. The Madness of Lady Bright is considered a landmark play in the representation of homosexuality. It lasted for over 200 performances, making it the longest running play ever seen at the Caffe Cino. Wilson was subsequently invited to present his work Off-Broadway, including his plays Balm in Gilead and The Rimers of Eldritch produced at Cafe La MaMa.

Joanna (Lee Taylor-Allan) and Lawrence (Kenneth Boys) in a scene from the 1986 New York revival of Lanford Wilson's Home Free!

Wilson was a co-founder of the Circle Repertory Company in 1969 and many of his plays were first presented there, directed by his long-standing collaborator, Marshall W. Mason.^[4] The Circle Rep's production of Wilson's The Hot l Baltimore won the 1973 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Obie Award, and in 1980 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Talley's Folly.
Wilson's first full-length play, Balm in Gilead, depicts a doomed romance in a greasy spoon diner inhabited by junkies, prostitutes and thieves. It premiered at LaMaMa in 1965 directed by Marshall W. Mason, and had a memorable Off-Broadway revival in the 1984, directed by John Malkovich. The latter production was a co-production of Circle Repertory Company and the Steppenwolf Theatre Company.
As the above description of The Madness of Lady Bright indicates, gay identity is a major theme in Wilson's work,^[5] although some of his plays, such as Talley's Folly (1979), which won him the Pulitzer Prize, don't explore it at all. Lemon Sky (1970), Fifth of July (1978), and Burn This (1986) also deal with gay issues. Lemon Sky, his most autobiographical play, tells the story of a young man's struggle with his crude, uneducated father, when he tries to come out of the closet. In Fifth of July, a hit on Broadway in 1980-82, two of the central characters are a gay couple living in a Midwestern town, one of whom is a disabled Vietnam veteran. In Burn This a central character is a gay man who writes advertising for a living and is involved with both gay identity and straight friends, one of whom has died in a boating accident before the play begins. The entire group struggles together to deal with their collective grief.
Wilson's plays which have run nine months or more on Broadway include Fifth of July, Pulitzer Prize-winning Talley's Folly, and Burn This. Hot l Baltimore, one of his most successful plays, ran for 1,166 performances in a venue seating 299 people. It was also adapted into a short-lived television comedy by TV producer Norman Lear.Wilson was also a founding member of the New York State Summer School of the Arts, of which Circle Rep was the theater contingent.
Wilson and his directing collaborator Marshall W. Mason encouraged so-called "method" acting and often hark back to the classic techniques of Anton Chekhov, updated with some distinctly modernist and post-modernist touches.^{[citation needed]} They have also been close to and have been fervent admirers of Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee. Many of Wilson's plays feature strong, sympathetic central characters, truly repulsive villains, agonizing plot twists, and tragic or semi-tragic endings.
In addition to writing plays, Wilson wrote the texts for several 20th-century operas, including at least two collaborations with composer Lee Hoiby: Summer and Smoke (1971) and This is the Rill Speaking (1992) (based on his own play). With composer Kenneth Fuchs, he created three chamber musicals, The Great Nebula in Orion, A Betrothal, and Brontosaurus, which were originally presented by Circle Repertory Company in New York City.
In 2010, Debra Monk presented Wilson with the Artistic Achievement Award from the New York Innovative Theatre Awards. This honor was bestowed on Wilson on behalf of his peers and fellow artists of the Off-Off-Broadway community "in recognition of his brave and unique works that helped established the Off-Off-Broadway community, and propel the independent theatre voice as an important contributor to the American stage."^[6][7]

 A Personal Note

After Wilson moved to New York City in the early 1960's, he settled in a small apartment in West Greenwich Village on Sheridan Square, where he lived for many years. Later, after Hot L Baltimore became a hit, he was able to buy a house in Sag Harbor, Long Island. He then began living in both places, using the West Village apartment mainly when he had a play in production in New York. He also became active in a community theatre company in Sag Harbor and produced some of his shorter plays there. Around 1998 he finally gave up his apartment and lived full-time in Sag Harbor, where he was living when he died.

 Bibliography

The following list is not complete and includes only some major works. Wilson has written dozens of short plays, they are collected in a volume entitled "Twenty-one short plays of Lanford Wilson."

Home Free! (1964) The Madness of Lady Bright (1964) Balm in Gilead (1965) Ludlow Fair (1965) Wandering (1966) The Rimers of Eldritch (1967) The Gingham Dog (1968) Lemon Sky (1970) Serenading Louie (1970) The Hot l Baltimore (1973)

The Mound Builders (1975) Fifth of July (1978) Talley's Folly (1979) A Tale Told (1981, later revised and renamed Talley & Son) Angels Fall (1983) Burn This (1986) Redwood Curtain (1992) A Sense of Place (1996) Sympathetic Magic (1998) Book of Days (2000) Rain Dance (2002)

 

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José Argüelles, American New Age author died he was , 72.

Joseph Anthony Arguelles  better known as José Argüelles, was a world-renowned author, artist, visionary and educator died he was , 72.. He was the founder of Planet Art Network and the Foundation for the Law of Time. He held a Ph.D. in Art History and Aesthetics from the University of Chicago and taught at numerous colleges, including Princeton University and the San Francisco Art Institute. He was the twin brother of poet Ivan Argüelles. As one of the originators of the Earth Day concept, Argüelles founded the first Whole Earth Festival in 1970, at Davis, California.


(January 24, 1939 – March 23, 2011),

Artist

As a painter and visual artist, he provided illustrations for numerous books, as well as mural paintings at different universities. However, his scope as an artist included his education as an Art History Professor, and his views on art as a "psychophysical aesthetic" can be found in his doctoral dissertation Charles Henry and the Formation of a Psychophysical Aesthetic (Chicago University Press, 1972). When teaching as a professor in the University of California, Davis - one of his final exams to his students was to create "something they believed in" ^[3] - this became a living art event which eventually became the basis for the annual Whole Earth Festival, still held today at the University of California, Davis. After experimenting with LSD in the mid-1960s, Argüelles produced a series of psychedelic art paintings ^[4] that Humphrey Osmond—who originally coined the work "psychedelic"—named "The Doors of Perception" (after Aldous Huxley's 1954 book of the same name, itself a title drawn from William Blake's 18th-century poem). In a 2002 interview Argüelles says of his artwork, "as fantastic as painting was, it was a limited medium in terms of audience."^[5]

Fame

José Argüelles was known for his role in organizing the Harmonic Convergence event of 1987^{[citation needed]}, and his book The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology, published the same year. In The Mayan Factor Argüelles devises a complicated numerological system by combining elements taken from the pre-Columbian Maya calendar with the I Ching and other esoteric influences, interspersed with concepts drawn from modern sciences such as "genetic codes" and "galactic convergences".^[6] The book first popularized the Hunab Ku design as a symbol within New Age discourse, after altering its appearance from that originally presented by Mexican anthropologist Domingo Martínez Parédez ( 1904–1984 ) in his 1953 publication Hunab Kú: Síntesis del pensamiento filosófico maya.

Argüelles produced "Dreamspell: The Journey of Timeship Earth 2013" and a game/tool "Telektonon: The Talking Stone of Prophesy". The former is the source of Arguelles' 13 Moon/28 Day Calendar. This calendar begins on July 26 (heliacal rising of the star Sirius) and runs for 364 days. The remaining date, July 25, is celebrated in some quarters as the "Day out of Time/Peace through Culture Festival".^[7] - celebrated in over 90 countries around the world.

The Law of Time

In his 2002 book Time and the Technosphere, Argüelles devises and promotes a notion that he calls the "Law of Time", in part framed by his interpretations of how Maya calendrical mathematics functioned. In this notional framework Argüelles claims to have identified a "fundamental law" involving two timing frequencies: one he calls "mechanised time" with a "12:60 frequency", and the other "natural [time] codified by the Maya [that is] understood to be the frequency 13:20".^[8] To Argüelles, "the irregular 12-month [Gregorian] calendar and artificial, mechanised 60-minute hour" is a construct that artificially regulates human affairs, and is out-of-step with the natural "synchronic order". He proposes the universal abandonment of the Gregorian calendar and its replacement with athirteen moon, 28 day calendar, in order to "get the human race back on course" by the adoption of this calendar of perfect harmony so the human race could straighten its mind out again."^[9]

Criticism

Argüelles stated that his tools and calendar were not the Mayan Calendar, yet criticism has focused on the lack of support for his work by any professional Mayanist scholar^{[citation needed]}. Critics claim^[who?] that his new interpretation merely co-opts an ancient tradition by recasting it in New Age terms, although his approach could be defined as a Synthesis. Many religious and spiritual concepts throughout history have involved the eclectic syncretism of one or more previously existing worldviews. Many of Dreamspell's influences come from non-Maya sources, such as the 13-moon/28-day calendar, the I Ching, numerology, and assorted mystical and pseudohistorical works like Erich von Däniken's earlier Chariots of the Gods?.^[10] Argüelles' calendar is based on a different day-count than the traditional Maya calendar. For example, in the traditional count January 1, 2005 is 5 Muluk, while in the Dreamspell it is 2 Etznab. As mathematician Michael Finley notes:

"Since the 365 day Maya haab makes no provision for leap years, its starting date in the Gregorian Calendar advances by one day every four years. The beginning of Argüelles' year is fixed to July 26. Thus his count of days departs from the haab as it was known to Maya scribes before the Spanish conquest. Argüelles claims that the Thirteen Moon Calendar is synchronized with the calendar round. Clearly, it is not."^[11]

In defence Argüelles has stated that his calendar is "correct and biologically accurate...for the whole planet", and that he is the "heir of the legacy of Pacal Votan and the instrument of his prophecy, Telektonon". [2] Argüelles is one of several individuals who have contributed to the spread of Mayanism, a collection of beliefs based on speculation about the ancient Maya.

Planet Art Network

Argüelles co-founded the Planet Art Network (PAN) with Lloydine in 1983 as an autonomous, meta-political, worldwide peace organization engaging in art and spirituality. Active in over 90 countries, PAN upholds the Nicholas Roerich Peace Pact and Banner of Peace, symbolizing "Peace Through Culture".

The Planet Art Network operates as a network of self-organized collectives, centralized by a shared focus of promoting the worldwide adoption of Argüelles' Dreamspell 13-Moon/28 day Calendar. The network upholds the slogan "Time is Art", suggesting that time is a vehicle for our creative experience, instead of the familiar saying "Time is Money".

The British anthropologist and journalist Will Black has investigated the Planet Art Network, 2012 prophecies and other millenarian movements and cults. The experience of attending PAN events is documented in his 2010 book Beyond the End of the World – 2012 and Apocalypse. The book covers the history of millenarian thought and cults from their ancient roots to present day, examining everything from Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Hopi and the Maya.

Having spent years at PAN events and immersed himself in the thinking of Jose Arguelles and other PAN leaders, Will Black strongly satirises the organisation and the leadership. Drawing on the writing of Arguelles, Black points out that prophecies Jose made about the years leading up to 2012 have failed. For example, Argüelles had predicted that the 13 moon calendar would be widely used long before 2012 but it has not been. Having also studied with shamans and the Maya, Will Black contrasts New Age movements, such as PAN, with ancient shamanic cultures, such as the Maya. In that analysis Arguelles is portrayed as someone appropriating and misrepresenting the Maya in an exploitative manner.

Black is rather more sympathetic towards the Maya than to Arguelles and PAN and consequently his book includes a chapter called ‘Returning the Mayan calendar to the Maya’ and sections in which gritty realities of modern Central American life are outlined, including the impact of drug wars and poverty.

First Noosphere World Forum

At the time of his death, he was the director of the Noosphere II project of the Foundation's Galactic Research Institute, inclusive of the First Noosphere World Forum, a project that involves creating a dialogue that unifies a network of organizations working to promote a positive shift of consciousness by 2012 with the vision of the whole earth as a work of art.

Bibliography

• Argüelles, José (1972). Mandala. Shambhala Publications.
• Argüelles, José (1975). The Transformative Vision: Reflections on the Nature and History of Human Expression. Shambhala Publications.
• Argüelles, José (1987). The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology. Inner Traditions/Bear & Company. ISBN 0939680386.
• Argüelles, José (1988). Earth Ascending: An Illustrated Treatise on Law Governing Whole Systems. Inner Traditions/Bear & Company. ISBN 0939680459. (note - the 1st edition of this book was published in 1984, prior to The Mayan Factor, by Shambhala Publications)
• Argüelles, José (1989). Surfers of the Zuvuya: Tales of Interdimensional Travel. Inner Traditions/Bear & Company. ISBN 0939680556.
• Argüelles, José; Miriam Arguelles, Chogyam Trungpa (Foreword) (1995). Mandala. Shambhala. ISBN 1570621209.
• Argüelles, José (1996). The Arcturus Probe: Tales and Reports of an Ongoing Investigation. Light Technology Publishing. ISBN 0929385756.
• Argüelles, José (1996). The Call of Pacal Votan: Time is the Fourth Dimension. Altea Publishing. ISBN 0952455560.
• Argüelles, Jose (2002). Time and the Technosphere: The Law of Time in Human Affairs. Inner Traditions/Bear & Company. ISBN 1879181991.

Notes

1.      ^ [1]

2.      ^ "Valum Votan/José Arguelles Has Ascended". http://www.lawoftime.org/. Retrieved 26 March 2011.

3.      ^ South, Stephanie 2012 Biography of a Time Traveler - the Journey of Jose Arguelles

4.      ^ Arguelles, Jose Mandala 1972 (The psychedelic mandala-like paintings of Jose Arguelles are reproduced on color plates in the back of the book)

5.      ^ Moynihan 2002

6.      ^ Hess 1993: 72

7.      ^ Mutch, Stella. "A Day Out of Time". Going Coastal Magazine. Retrieved 2009-04-30.

8.      ^ Terminology and statements in quotation marks taken from 2002 interview with Argüelles, as transcribed in Moynihan (2002)

9.      ^ Moynihan (2002)

10.  ^ Feder 1990: 189; Hess 1993: 72–73

11.  ^ Quotation is from Finley (2002)

 

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Jean Bartik, American computer programmer (ENIAC), died she was , 86

Jean Bartik was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC computer died she was , 86.

(December 27, 1924 – March 23, 2011)
 

She was born Betty Jean Jennings^[2] in Gentry County, Missouri, in 1924 and attended Northwest Missouri State Teachers College, majoring in mathematics. In 1945, she was hired by the University of Pennsylvania to work for Army Ordnance at Aberdeen Proving Ground. When the ENIAC computer was developed for the purpose of calculating ballistics trajectories, she was selected to be one of its first programmers. Bartik later became part of a group charged with converting the ENIAC into a stored program computer; in the original implementation, ENIAC was programmed by setting dials and changing cable connections. She went on to work on the BINAC and UNIVAC I computers.^[1]

Bartik became an editor for Auerbach Publishers, an early publisher of information on high technology. She left Auerbach to join Data Decisions, a competitor to Datapro Research (now part of the Gartner Group) and Auerbach. Data Decisions was founded in 1980 by Elizabeth McKeown Sussman (formerly of Datapro) and Sandra Eisenberg, also of Datapro. Data Decisions was funded by Ziff-Davis Publishing in 1980. Jean joined Data Decisions in 1981 where she was a Senior Editor for the Communications Services research publication. Data Decisions was acquired by McGraw-Hill (then owners of Datapro) in 1985 and promptly shut down. With the demise of Data Decisions Jean left the IT industry, becoming a real estate agent.^[1].

Bartik was a friend of over 60 years with John Mauchly's widow, Kathleen "Kay" Antonelli. Mauchly was co-inventor of the ENIAC. He walked Jean down the aisle when she married and it was at Jean's wedding reception that he had the courage to approach Kay about dating. Kay was also one of the six original women programmers of the ENIAC. Bartik has a museum in her name at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The museum boasts rare one-of-a-kind ENIAC, BINAC and UNIVAC exhibits, including an original salesman pot-metal model of the UNIVAC I.^[3]

In addition to a BS in mathematics from Northwest Missouri State Teachers College, Bartik held an MS in English from the University of Pennsylvania and an honorary Dr. of Science from Northwest Missouri State University. In 1997 she was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame, along with the other original ENIAC programmers. In 2008 she was one of three Fellow Award honorees of the Computer History Museum, along with Bob Metcalfe and Linus Torvalds.

 

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Živorad Kovačević, Serbian diplomat died he was , 80.

Živorad Kovačević  was a Yugoslav (Serbian) diplomat, politician, NGO activist, academic and writer died he was , 80..

( 30 May 1930 - 23 March 2011)

Early life and education

Živorad Kovačević was born in Jagodina, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (present-day Serbia), of father Ilija, who spent WWII as a prisoner in Mauthausen, and mother Darinka. His older brother, Radovan, was killed by Germans in Jagodina in 1941; he is survived by an older sister, Stojanka. Živorad Kovačević was educated at an all-male Gymnasium called "Šesta Muška" in Belgrade, and then the Journalist Diplomatic Academy (Viša Novinarsko-Diplomatska Škola) graduating in 1952. He received his M.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1961, and specialized in international relations at Harvard University in 1963.

Political career

Kovačević worked as the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Komuna (1954-1962), Director of Public Administration Institute (1962–1964), Vice-Secretary of the Executive Council of Serbia (1964–1967), and Secretary General of the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities (1967–1973).

He served as Deputy Mayor and then Mayor of Belgrade for eight years, from 1974 to 1982. During his tenure, Sava Centar was built in time to host the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, as well as the Hotel InterContinental for the meeting of the IMF and the World Bank. Many other projects were carried out during this period, most notably, Ada Ciganlija and Klinički Centar Srbije (Serbian Clinical Center). Kovačević was quoted as being proud of the fact that each year during his term between 10,000 and 12,000 apartments were built in the capital.^[1] On a more symbolic level, as a mayor, he set up a monument to Karađorđe (the leader of the first Serbian uprising against the Turks) on the great lawn in front of the National Library of Serbia.

From 1982 to 1986, Kovačević was a Minister in the government of Milka Planinc, a Prime Minister of Yugoslavia who tried to undertake economic reform after years of stagnation. Working in the federal government, he was a member of the Federal Executive Council, as well as the President of the Foreign Affairs Commission, paving the way to a career that was more international in perspective.

Kovačević was appointed Ambassador of Yugoslavia to the United States in 1987, but was recalled in 1989^[2] after his disapproval of Slobodan Milosević's policy, which he openly criticized in Washington. He was noted as one of a few citizens of Belgrade who met six American presidents, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Regan, and George Bush, and five Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, George P. Shultz, James Baker, and Lawrence Eagleburger.His personal contribution, while ambassador in the USA, in sending Nikola Tesla's assets from the United States to Belgrade is widely acknowledged.

NGO activities

After his recall from the post of the Ambassador to the United States in 1989, Kovačević retired from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and spent the rest of his life as a prominent NGO activist and promoter of Serbia's integration in the European Union. He was the President of the Forum on International Relations, and in 1994, he joined the European Movement in Serbia, whose president he was to become in 1999. He held that position for the rest of his life.

Based on his personal account, Kovačević was offered the post of Foreign Minister in the Government of Milan Panić in 1992, but was prevented by Borisav Jović from taking it.

Kovačević was one of the founders of the Igman Initiative, which rallies 140 organizations in the so-called 'Dayton Triangle' (Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina). The Igman Initiative launched a "mini-Schengen" project, to bring about better relations on the territory of Former Yugoslavia similar to those that exist in the European Union, primarily in terms of a visa-free regime. The organization was founded following Kovačević's endeavors in April 1995, when, with a group of 38 anti-war intellectuals and activists from FR Yugoslavia, Kovačević crossed Mount Igman to join and support the citizens of Sarajevo during the siege.

Kovačević was the first President of the Foreign Relations Council of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia, established in 2007.

Academic activities

In parallel with his work in helping build democratic relations in Serbia and elsewhere, Kovačević was a prolific writer. Following his long-term passion for languages and the written word, he published the first dictionary of idioms (both English-Serbian and Serbian-English). To these, he added one of his most popular works, "Lažni prijatelji u engleskom jeziku: zamke doslovnog prevođenja" (False Friends in the English Language: Traps of Literal Translation), as well as a number of titles on international relations and negotiation. He taught international negotiations at the Diplomatic Academy and the Department of Political Sciences in Belgrade and Podgorica, often lecturing about U.S. foreign policy and the break-up of Yugoslavia. He delivered his last lecture a week before his death.

Awards

In 2000, Kovačević was awarded The Elise and Walter A. Haas International Award that "honors an alumnus of the University of California, Berkeley who is a native, citizen, and resident of a nation other than the United States of America, and who has a distinguished record of service to his or her country.^[3]

Published books

• Srpsko-engleski rečnik idioma, izraza i izreka. 1991. ISBN 86-7363-118-1.
• Englesko-srpski frazeološki rečnik. 1997. ISBN 86-7363-201-3.
• SAD i jugoslovenska kriza. 2000. ISBN 86-82297-39-6.
• Srpsko-engleski frazeološki rečnik. 2002. ISBN 86-7363-322-2.
• Englesko-srpski frazeološki rečnik (drugo izmenjeno i dopunjeno izdanje). 2002. ISBN 86-7363-338-9.
• Između arogancije i poniznosti: Srbija i svet. 2004. ISBN 86-7208-092-0.
• Međunarodno pregovaranje. 2004. ISBN 86-7363-391-5.
• Amerika i raspad Jugoslavije. 2007. ISBN 978-86-7363-536-1.
• Lažni prijatelji u engleskom jeziku: zamke doslovnog prevođenja. 2009. ISBN 978-86-6081-001-6.

Personal life

Živorad and Margita Kovačević walking with students in Belgrade in 1997. The sign behind them says "Walk with us."

Živorad Kovačević spent more than half a century married to Margita Kovačević, who died only three months before him. They shared a life as well as beliefs; she was with him every step of the way, among other things, taking part in demonstrations to protest the local election fraud during the reign of Slobodan Miošević. “Rain or shine we went there every day for 88 days,” Kovačević said.^[4]

 

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