Catie Lazarus, Comedian With a Lot of Questions, Dies at 44

 I had never heard of her (which she probably would have remarked on). Saw her obituary today.

On her live show “Employee of the Month,” she got laughs by interrogating writers, artists, politicians, intellectuals and her fellow comics.

“I started hosting this show because I couldn’t quite figure out how to break in,” Ms. Lazarus told The New York Times in 2015. “I wanted to hear from people who, for the most part, love what they do and have carved out a niche for themselves. It wasn’t just about how they broke in, but what they continue to find worth struggling for, worth the heartache and the rejection and the economic toil and other types of losses that go along with it.”

Without being flip, this is the sort of detail I enjoy seeing about people, and often see in obits of people I knew nothing about: 

Catherine Simone Avnet Lazarus was born on April, 26, 1976, in Washington. Her father was a public policy lawyer who had been associate director of the White House domestic policy staff in the Carter administration. Her mother, Rosalind (Avnet) Lazarus, was a federal government lawyer. A great-great-great-grandfather was Simon Lazarus, founder of the Lazarus & Company department store chain, which later became Macy’s Inc.

What travels?

 Life changed in March of 2020. A pandemic changed how we live our lives, what we do, how we live every day. I stopped taking buses and trains, favorite modes of transportation. I left my home in Flushing for long periods, escaping to our little corner of the Catskills. I stopped going out to restaurants. I wore masks all the time, washed my hands often, cleaned incessantly, and kept my social distance from everyone. I stayed healthy. No one I know got the virus, though that was the exception locally and nationally. I fumed at the temerity and stupidity of people who refused to believe that the virus was real. Of course, those idiots had an example in the man with the fake tan and blonde hair and triple chins who kept ranting about law and order as he broke the law and threatened social order. Now, he is a loser, and soon will leave the public sphere (though he will rant and rave so the mainstream media he purports to hate will give him free coverage). At least responsible adults will be in charge of our wounded nation, and once again science will reign. Perhaps next year I will again travel. 

Deb Price, a First as a Columnist on Gay Life, Dies at 62

 I had never heard of her until I read her New York Times obituary. Now I know what an impact Deb Price made.

Ms. Price was working in the Washington bureau of The Detroit News, when she proposed a column from the gay perspective.

“I found the courage to ask for the column that I’d always wanted to read,” she said in a 1993 speech in New York to what is now called The Association of L.G.B.T.Q. Journalists.

“I wanted to be entertained, not offended,” she said. “Talked to, not about. Informed, not maligned. Inspired, not demoralized.”

Her publisher, Bob Giles, agreed and announced the column in a front-page letter to readers.

In her first column, Ms. Price asked how she should introduce Ms. Murdoch (girlfriend? lover?). Some readers were disgusted and offered their own choice suggestions of what Ms. Price could call Ms. Murdoch.

Mr. Giles said at the time that such bigotry only hardened his resolve to continue the column.

Ms. Price took the attacks in stride. “If there weren’t hostility and if there weren’t misunderstandings about gay people,” she told The Associated Press, “there would be no point in doing this column.”

Camilla Wicks, Dazzling Violinist From a Young Age, Dies at 92

 Hers is not one of the oft-repeated names of virtuosi.

She was a rare female soloist in a male-dominated era, but cut back on performing to raise her children. Howard Taubman, reviewing the violinist Camilla Wicks’s New York debut at Town Hall in The New York Times in 1942, had to admit that she had “a certain flair for the fiddle.” He was especially impressed by her handling of difficult passages in the Paganini D major Concerto, a work requiring an abundance of technical skill. By the way, Ms. Wicks at the time was, as the review’s opening sentence noted, “a pretty, flaxen-haired lass of thirteen and a half.”

With that attitude, it’s easy to understand why.

Dick Allen, 78, Dies; Baseball Slugger Withstood Bigotry

 Withstood is not the half of it . Had he been white, he would have been recognized as a great player. I once saw him hit a home run at Shea Stadium with one hand.

Erroll Garner

 

I don’t know why he isn’t more highly regarded, more famous. The influence of Art Tatum and Fats Waller on him are palpable. His talent was monumental.