Maggio 17, 2014

Hans Rudolf “Ruedi” Giger (/ˈɡiːɡər/; 5 February 1940 – 12 May 2014) was a Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor and set designer. He was part of the special effects team that won an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects for their design work on the film Alien.He was named to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2013.

Giger was born in 1940 in Chur, capital city of Graubünden, the largest and easternmost Swiss canton. His father, a chemist, viewed art as a “breadless profession” and strongly encouraged him to enter pharmaceutics, Giger recalls. Yet he moved in 1962 to Zürich, where he studied Architecture and industrial design at the School of Applied Arts until 1970. Giger had a relationship with Swiss actress Li Tobler until she committed suicide in 1975. He married Mia Bonzanigo in 1979; they separated a year and a half later.^{[citation needed]}

Giger’s style and thematic execution were influential. His design for the Alien was inspired by his painting Necronom IV and earned him an Oscar in 1980. His books of paintings, particularly Necronomicon and Necronomicon II (1985) and the frequent appearance of his art in Omni magazine continued his rise to international prominence.Giger is also well known for artwork on several music recording albums.

In 1998 Giger acquired the Château St. Germain in Gruyères, Switzerland, and it now houses the H. R. Giger Museum, a permanent repository of his work. The artist lived and worked in Zürich with his wife, Carmen Maria Scheifele Giger, who is the Director of the H.R. Giger Museum.

On 12 May 2014, Giger died in a hospital in Zürich after having suffered injuries in a fall.

In a New York Times obituary for Giger, Timothy Leary was quoted as having praised the artist by saying, “Giger’s work disturbs us, spooks us, because of its enormous evolutionary time span. It shows us, all too clearly, where we come from and where we are going.”

Maggio 9, 2014

Santiago (“Yago”) Lamela Tobío (July 24, 1977 – May 8, 2014) was a Spanish athlete competing in the long jump.

is greatest year was 1999, when he jumped 8.56 during the indoor season to win the silver medal at the 1999 World Indoor Championships. Later that year he set a new outdoors personal best with 8.56, and won another silver medal at the World Championships. His 8.56 m jump stayed as European indoor long jump record for ten years.

Maggio 1, 2014

Robert William “Bob” Hoskins, Jr.(26 October 1942 – 29 April 2014) was an English actor known for playing Cockneys and gangsters. He appeared in films such as The Long Good Friday (1980), Mona Lisa (1986), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Mermaids (1990), Hook (1991), Nixon (1995), A Christmas Carol (2009), Neverland (2011) and in his final role in Snow White and the Huntsman (2012).

Hoskins’ father was a communist and brought up Hoskins to be an atheist.^[12] In 1967, aged 25, Hoskins spent a short period of time volunteering in kibbutz Zikim in Israel,^[13][14] and also herded camels in Syria.^[15] In an interview, when asked what he owed his parents, he said, “Confidence. My mum used to say to me, ‘If somebody doesn’t like you, fuck ‘em, they’ve got bad taste.'”^[16] When asked which living person he most despised, Hoskins named Tony Blair and claimed that “he’s done even more damage than Thatcher”.He made light of his similarities with film actor Danny DeVito, who he joked would play him in a film about his life.^[16]On 8 August 2012, Hoskins announced his retirement from acting due to Parkinson’s disease.With his first wife Jane Livesey, Hoskins had two children, Alex (born 1968) and Sarah (born 1972). With his second wife Linda Banwell, he had two more children, Rosa (born 1983) and Jack (born 1986).

Maggio 1, 2014

Ayrton Senna da Silva (Brazilian Portuguese: [aˈiʁtõ ˈsẽnɐ dɐ ˈsiwvɐ]; 21 March 1960 – 1 May 1994) was a Brazilian racing driver who won three Formula One world championships. He was killed in an accident while leading the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. He was among the most dominant and successful Formula One drivers of the modern era and is considered one of the greatest drivers in the history of the sport. He remains the most recent driver fatality in Formula One.

Aprile 30, 2014

Jacques Le Goff (1 January 1924 – 1 April 2014) was a French historian and prolific author specializing in the Middle Ages, particularly the 12th and 13th centuries.
Le Goff championed the Annales School movement, which emphasizes long-term trends over the topics of politics, diplomacy, and war that dominated 19th century historical research. From 1972 to 1977, he was the head of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). He was a leading figure of New History, related to cultural history. Le Goff argued that the Middle Ages formed a civilization of its own, distinct from both the Greco-Roman antiquity and the modern world.

A prolific medievalist of international renown, Le Goff was sometimes considered the principal heir and continuator of the movement known as Annales School (École des Annales), founded by his intellectual mentor Marc Bloch. Le Goff succeeded Fernand Braudel in 1972 at the head of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and was succeeded by François Furet in 1977. Along with Pierre Nora, he was one of the leading figures of New History (Nouvelle histoire) in the 1970s.

Since then, he dedicated himself to studies on the historical anthropology of Western Europe during medieval times. He was well known for contesting the very name of “Middle Ages” and its chronology, highlighting achievements of this period and variations inside it, in particular by attracting attention to the Renaissance of the 12th century.

In his 1984 book The Birth of Purgatory, he argued that the conception of purgatory as a physical place, rather than merely as a state, dates to the 12th century, the heyday of medieval otherworld-journey narratives such as the Irish Visio Tnugdali, and of pilgrims’ tales about St Patrick’s Purgatory, a cavelike entrance to purgatory on a remote island in Ireland.[2]
An agnostic, Le Goff presented an equidistant position between the detractors and the apologists of the Middle Ages. His opinion was that the Middle Ages formed a civilization of its own, distinct of both the Greco-Roman antiquity and the modern world.
Among his numerous works were two widely accepted biographies, a genre his school did not usually favor: the life of Louis IX, the only King of France to be canonized, and the life of Saint Francis of Assisi, the Italian mendicant friar.
In October 2000 he received an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree from University of Pavia.
In 2004 Le Goff received the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for History from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Aprile 28, 2014

Vujadin Boškov (Serbian Cyrillic: Вујадин Бошков; 16 May 1931 – 27 April 2014) was a Serbian footballer and coach. Boškov was born in the village of Begeč near Novi Sad, Serbia. He played with FK Vojvodina for most of his career (1946–1960).

In 1961 he moved to Italy to play for Serie A club Sampdoria for one season (1961/62), before accepting a stint as a player/coach at Swiss side Young Boys (1962–1964).^[Boškov then returned to the club that made him as a player – FK Vojvodina – and coached it for 7 seasons (1964–1971) winning one Yugoslav league championship in 1965–66. He also became a playing member of the Yugoslavia national team, and was part of the team that won the silver medal at the 1952 Olympic football tournament. Also he played at the 1954 and 1958 FIFA World Cups. He soon developed a successful international coaching career with stints in Dutch Eredivisie (FC Den Haag (1974–1976), and Feyenoord (1976–1978)), Spanish La Liga (Real Zaragoza (1978/79), Real Madrid (1979–1982), and Sporting de Gijon (1983–84)), Italian Serie A (Ascoli Calcio 1898 (1984–1986), U.C. Sampdoria (1986–1992, 1997–98), A.S. Roma (1992–93), S.S.C. Napoli (1994–1996), and A.C. Perugia (1999)), and Swiss league (Servette Geneva (1996–97)).

Arguably his greatest achievement as a coach came in 1991, when he steered Sampdoria to the Serie A scudetto. The following season, he got them to the European Cup final, where they lost 1–0 to Barcelona at Wembley.

He also coached Yugoslavia at Euro 2000, where they famously lost 4–3 to Spain in Brugge and later went out to Holland in the quarter-finals.

Aprile 27, 2014

Peter Scoones (27 October 1937 – 20 April 2014) was an Emmy Award winning underwater cameraman known for his evocative work on the oceans. His work inspired many people to dive and many divers to take up underwater photography.

Scoones is one of those very rare filmmakers who could visualise a new and exciting way to reveal a different side to his subjects. He could also invent the technology to make his vision reality. His naturalistic images are testimony not just to his imagination with a camera but also to his innovative equipment designs.Peter Scoones was diving and taking underwater photographs from 1959 until his death. He originally trained as a naval architect and,with a keen interest in dinghy racing, his service with the RAF in the Far East initiated his underwater interests. He died aged 76 on 20 April 2014.

Aprile 26, 2014

Fred Ho,(Chinese: 侯维翰; pinyin: Hóu Wéihàn; born Fred Wei-han Houn; August 10, 1957 – April 12, 2014) was an American jazz baritone saxophonist, composer, bandleader, playwright, writer and Marxist social activist. In 1988, he changed his surname to “Ho”. He was born in Palo Alto, California.

While he is sometimes associated with the Asian American jazz or avant-garde jazz movements, Ho himself was opposed to the use of term “jazz” to describe traditional African American music because the word “jazz” was used pejoratively by white Americans to denigrate the music of African Americans.In his role as an activist, many of his works fuse the melodies of indigenous and traditional Asian and African musics, which as Ho would have said^{[citation needed]} is the music of the majority of the world’s people.^{[citation needed]}

Ho also co-edited two books: Legacy to Liberation: Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America and Sounding Off! Music as Subversion/Resistance/Revolution. At the time of his death Hp had a third book in progress about African Americans and Asians working together in civil rights, which he was co-writing with Purdue University professor of African-American studies Bill Mullen. His contributions to the Asian American empowerment movement are varied and many. He is credited with co-founding several Asian American civic groups such as the East Coast Asian Students Union (while a student at Harvard), the Asian American Arts Alliance in New York City, the Asian American Resource Center in Boston and the Asian Improv record label.

Aprile 23, 2014

Sergei Alexandrovich Belov, 1944-2013, was a professional basketball player, most noted for playing for the Soviet Union national basketball team at the Olympic Games.

Belov was born in the village of Nashchyokovo, Shegarsky District, Tomsk Oblast, Soviet Union.^[2] He trained at Trud Voluntary Sports Society, and later at Armed Forces sports society.In 1968, he became an Honored Master of Sports of the USSR. Later, he became an Honored Coach of Russia (1995), and the President of the Russian Basketball Federation (1993–98).Belov is considered to be one of the best non-American basketball players of all time. He was given the honor of lighting the Olympic Cauldron with the Olympic flame, during the 1980 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, in Moscow. In 1991, FIBA named him theBest FIBA Player Ever. He became the first international player to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on May 11, 1992. He was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2007.^[5] He was named of the 50 Greatest Euroleague Contributors in 2008. Belov died on 3 October 2013 in Perm, Russia.

Aprile 22, 2014

Malcolm Scott Carpenter, 1925-2013.was an American test pilot, astronaut, and aquanaut. He was one of the original seven astronauts selected for NASA’s Project Mercury in April 1959

 Born in Boulder, Colorado, Carpenter moved to New York City with his parents Marion Scott Carpenter and Florence [née Noxon] Carpenter for the first two years of his life. His father had been awarded a postdoctoral research post at Columbia University. In the summer of 1927, Scott returned to Boulder with his mother, then ill with tuberculosis. He was raised by his maternal grandparents in the family home at the corner of Aurora Avenue and Seventh Street, until his graduation from Boulder High School in 1943.(It was claimed that his reason for choosing the name ‘Aurora 7’ for his spacecraft was for the fact that he was raised at this house on the corner of Aurora and Seventh, but Carpenter denied this.)After being chosen for Project Mercury in 1959, Carpenter served as backup pilot for John Glenn, who flew the first U.S. orbital mission aboardFriendship 7 in February 1962. When Deke Slayton was withdrawn on medical grounds from Project Mercury’s second manned orbital flight (to be titled Delta 7), Carpenter was assigned to replace him. He flew into space on May 24, 1962, atop the Mercury-Atlas 7 rocket for a three-orbit science mission that lasted nearly five hours. His Aurora 7 spacecraft attained a maximum altitude of 164 miles (264 km) and an orbital velocity of 17,532 miles per hour (28,215 km/h).