His investigative methods were sometimes called deceptive. AP News - 41 days ago. She said the family had been living in a temporary home in Eugene since September, after their longtime home along the McKenzie River, near Finn Rock, Ore., was consumed by a wildfire. Hugh Keays-Byrne, Played villains in "Mad Max" movies. The New York Times charges you $263 for the first four lines and then $52 per line after that, with about 28 characters per line. In 1976, with the astronomer Carl Sagan, the writer Isaac Asimov and others, Mr. Randi founded what is now the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. “I knew that if I panicked, I would be dead — that’s all there is to it.”. “In coming to terms with the difference between what we know and what we imagine about the wolf, Lopez has shed light on some painful truths about the human experience,” Whitley Strieber said in a review for The Washington Post. At 15, young Randall got his first taste of debunking and its discontents. When you have found an obituary of interest, you have the option of upgrading that obituary with more recent and relevant content unless the obituary is already assigned to another user. He interviewed scientists, trappers and native people in the American and Canadian Northwest. When Barry was 11, the family moved to Manhattan, where he attended the Loyola School, a Jesuit institution, and was senior class president, graduating in 1962. We are constantly trying to improve our data and make the search for obituaries as easy as possible. See the publication list on the site’s home page for additional information on obituary sources. At once elfin and Mephistophelian, with a bushy white beard and piercing eyes, Mr. Randi — known professionally as the Amazing Randi — was a father of the modern skeptical movement. obituaries 'Trailblazer' Chinese-American businesswoman dies. He won. He won the National Book Award (nonfiction) for “Arctic Dreams” (1986), a treatise on his five years with Inuit people and solitude in a land of bitter cold and endless expanses. In 1967, he married Sandra Jean Landers. Not so, said Mr. Randi, who explained that these were ordinary amusements, done by covertly bending the objects in advance. “To help. In 1973, Mr. Geller made a disastrous appearance on “The Tonight Show” in which he was unable to summon his accustomed powers: On Mr. Randi’s advice, the show’s producers had supplied their own props and made sure Mr. Geller had no access to them beforehand. “And I interrupted and said: ‘Excuse me, how do you know that’s true? The Dignity Memorial® online obituary search tool gives you access to obituaries from thousands of locations across North America. In 1986, The Los Angeles Times reported, his average gross income was $550,000 a month. There was little air. He was 92. His book “Of Wolves and Men” (1978) was a National Book Award finalist and won the John Burroughs Medal and the Christopher Award. We encourage your input. But in later years, Mr. Randi was not so much an illusionist as a disillusionist. After a trip to Alaska to research wolves for a magazine assignment in 1976, Mr. Lopez devoted two years to a study of the history, lore, habitats and literature of wolves, reviled in myths as evil and hunted since the Dark Ages as bloodthirsty beasts. He considered the priesthood but enrolled in the University of Notre Dame, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in communications in 1966 and a master’s in teaching in 1968. I am a traditional storyteller. Certain landscape forms, in his vision, possess a spiritual correspondence. He explained the science of it as a trick of light, but described the phenomenon and its deeper meaning in rhapsodic prose. Larry Busacca/Getty Images for the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival. What roiled his blood, and was the driving impetus of his existence, Mr. Randi often said, was pseudoscience, in all its immoral irrationality. When Randall stood up and exposed the fraud, congregants called the police; he spent several hours in jail before his father came to collect him. A California preacher who professed to heal the sick, Mr. Popoff had a wide following on television and radio. “By laying no blame while facing the tragedy for what it is, he has made what we have done to the wolf a source of new knowledge about man.”. Raised and educated in Roman Catholic traditions, Mr. Lopez as a young man considered vocations as a priest or a Trappist monk. He taught at Columbia University, Eastern Washington University, the University of Iowa, Carleton College in Minnesota and Texas Tech University, where his works are archived. In a half-century of travel to 80 countries that generated nearly a score of nonfiction and fiction works, including volumes of essays and short stories, Mr. Lopez embraced landscapes and literature with humanitarian, environmental and spiritual sensibilities that some critics likened to those of Thoreau and John Muir. After it expired, Mr. Peña assumed the identity of a Puerto Rican man whom he erroneously believed to be dead. In 2007, he married Debra Arleen Gwartney, who had four daughters: Amanda, Stephanie and Mary Woodruff and Mollie Harger; and a half brother, John Brennan, all of whom survive. Hearing of a local preacher who professed to read minds, he attended a service. A search for an obituary requires three key pieces of information, and it becomes more difficult with each missing piece. AP News - 42 days ago . Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. “But apparently some scientists either don’t eat cornflakes, or they don’t read the back of the box.”. December 27, 2020 | 7:43pm. The News-Times obituaries and Death Notices for Danbury Connecticut area . The name stuck. Known professionally as the Amazing Randi, he dedicated his life to exposing seers who did not see, healers who did not heal and many others. Go to the New York Times' advertising department website. His survivors include Mr. Peña, whom he married in 2013, as well as a sister, Angela Easton, and a brother, Paul Zwinge, Mr. Peña said. He joined a traveling carnival as a mentalist but soon became an escape artist. The recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant in 1986, Mr. Randi lectured worldwide and appeared often on television; he was a particular favorite of Johnny Carson and, more recently, Penn and Teller. Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. He continued his escape acts until he was well into his 50s. Find Obituaries and Services. In the Canadian Arctic, Mr. Lopez was once engulfed in a blizzard of such intensity that it turned into a mystical experience: Three-dimensional space seemed to vanish all around him. Full obituaries are not provided. This activity is not about yourself. “People who are stealing money from the public, cheating them and misinforming them — that’s the kind of thing that I’ve been fighting all my life,” he said in the 2014 documentary “An Honest Liar,” directed by Tyler Measom and Justin Weinstein. He was 81. Mr. Randi began his career as an illusionist and escape artist. “Maybe he does. Mr. Randi with Johnny Carson on “The Tonight Show” in 1987. My Family and Friends. In “Emory Bear Hands’ Birds,” an imprisoned Native American storyteller uses magic realism to evoke hope in fellow inmates. This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. On a tour of Australia in 1988, “Carlos” drew hordes of worshipful followers, and the uncritical attention of many journalists, as he pretended to channel long-dead spirits. “For Mr. Lopez, it is a land where ‘airplanes track icebergs the size of Cleveland and polar bears fly down out of the stars,’ a land rich in imagery and metaphor.”. At long last, he heard the locks on the can being undone and the lid pried open. One of Mr. Randi’s most celebrated investigations was that of Mr. Popoff. He had the run of the city, and by the time he was 12, after seeing a performance there by the great American stage magician Harry Blackstone Sr., he had found his calling. It’s about culture, and your job is to help.”, The British writer Robert Macfarlane put it this way in The Guardian in 2005: “Throughout his writings, Lopez returns to the idea that natural landscapes are capable of bestowing a grace upon those who pass through them. He entered an irrational world, in Toronto, as Randall James Zwinge on Aug. 7, 1928, one of three children of Marie (Paradis) and George Zwinge. But I didn’t realize God used a frequency of 39.17 megahertz and had a voice exactly like Elizabeth Popoff’s.”. Though he was often called a debunker, Mr. Randi preferred the terms “skeptic” or “investigator.”, “I never want to be referred to as a debunker,” he told The Orlando Sentinel in 1991, “because that implies someone who says, ‘This isn’t so, and I’m going to prove it.’ I don’t go in with that attitude. “He is much attracted to the rift that has opened between human society and nature, and, more specifically, to the theory that art can close it. Phil Niekro, Baseball Hall of Famer and knuckleballer, dies at 81 Baseball Hall of Famer Phil Niekro died after a long fight with cancer, the team announced Sunday. “Magicians are the most honest people in the world: They tell you they’re going to fool you, and then they do it.”, Mr. Randi began his career in the late 1940s as an illusionist and escape artist. From Dec. 4, 2020 onward, our daily celebrity news obituaries can be found at Legacy.com. In 1960 in New York, Mr. Randi spent  almost an hour encased in a coffinlike structure of blocks of ice. Mr. Alvarez, an artist whose original name was Deyvi Orangel Peña Arteaga, said that he had fled his native Venezuela as a young man to escape antigay death threats. Attending Sunday school as a boy, he was moved often to inquiry. Mr. Lopez was a contributing editor for Harper’s Magazine and wrote for many national publications. By then he had built a parallel career investigating claims of the paranormal, much as Houdini had done. At 17, bored, he dropped out of school altogether. Though a Japanese court once ordered him to pay Mr. Geller about $2,000, Mr. Randi said he had never paid a cent to anyone who sued him. “I want to be cremated,” he said. On foot, you stumble about in missed stair-step fashion. Mr. Doctorow was honored for “World’s Fair,” and Mr. Lopez for “Arctic Dreams.”. Footage of Mr. Popoff’s service, with the audio of Ms. Popoff’s voice superimposed, was broadcast on “The Tonight Show.” Mr. Popoff ceased operations in 1987, though he later resumed them. Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. He even raised a wolf pup. Mr. Randi wanted to break Houdini’s records for quick escapes. Times Herald-Record obituaries and Death Notices for Middletown New York area . Barry Lopez was born Barry Holstun Brennan in Port Chester, N.Y., on Jan. 6, 1945, the older of two sons of John and Mary Frances (Holstun) Brennan, who lived in nearby Mamaroneck, N.Y.. Barry’s brother, Dennis, was born in 1948, and the family moved to Reseda, Calif., then a semirural section of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. He attended a Roman Catholic grade school in the nearby Los Angeles neighborhood of Encino. “He’s my partner, and he’s very, very important to me.”. “These things used to be on the back of cornflakes boxes,” Mr. Randi, his voice italic with derision, once told the television interviewer Larry King. Based in Amherst, N.Y., the organization promotes the scientific investigation of claims of the paranormal and publishes the magazine Skeptical Inquirer. Shifting within his scant confines, he heard two of his vertebrae snap. Mr. Lopez spent five years in the Arctic, and his books, essays and short stories explored the kinship of nature and human culture. The New York Times wants to end the dominance of dead white guys on its obituary pages, using newly developed software to spotlight more and more biographies of … You can search by first or last name, state and publication date. In “Crow and Weasel” (1990), a fable of long ago, “when people and animals spoke the same language,” two youngsters leave their plains tribe and come of age facing perils in the wilderness on a quest for wisdom. Obituaries. James Randi, a MacArthur award-winning magician who turned his formidable savvy to investigating claims of spoon bending, mind reading, fortunetelling, ghost whispering, water dowsing, faith healing, U.F.O. In one highly publicized stunt intended to show the gullibility of the news media, he had a young associate — his life partner, then known as José Alvarez — pose as a spirit medium named Carlos. Show more videos from . Politics; Education; Texas; N.Y. / Region; Business; Technology; Science; Health; Sports; Opinion; Arts; Style; Travel; Jobs; Real Estate; Autos; Published: August 10, 2011 Portraits of Grief. World; U.S. For a time in the early 1970s, Mr. Randi toured with the rock star Alice Cooper, decapitating him nightly with a trick guillotine. SEARCH. Though his pursuit of Mr. Popoff was a consuming passion, Mr. Randi’s white whale was indisputably Mr. Geller, who had been famed since the 1970s for feats like bending keys and spoons, which he said he accomplished by telepathy. “And I want my ashes blown in Uri Geller’s eyes.”, James Randi, Magician Who Debunked Paranormal Claims, Dies at 92. The Dignity Memorial® online obituary search tool gives you access to obituaries from thousands of locations across North America. “They started to read to me from the Bible,” Mr. Randi recalled in 2016. In the course of his career, he investigated more than 100 people, including, memorably, Peter Popoff, a well-heeled self-described faith healer whom he exposed on “The Tonight Show.” Mr. Randi was also known for his decades-long sparring match with Uri Geller, the professed mentalist known for his serial abuse of flatware. “There are no shadows,” he wrote. Mr. Peña, who spent six weeks in jail and faced deportation, later pleaded guilty to a single count of passport fraud. Through the James Randi Educational Foundation, Mr. Randi sponsored the Million Dollar Challenge, a contest offering $1 million to the person who, following rigorous scientific protocols, could demonstrate evidence of a paranormal, supernatural or occult phenomenon. In the title story, a smug, materialistic yuppie meets a violent end in a Caribbean vacation paradise: “The first bullet tore through his left triceps, the second, third, fourth and fifth hit nothing, the sixth perforated his spleen, the seventh and eighth hit nothing, the ninth hit the console, sending electrical sparks up, the tenth went through his right palm, the next four went into the air, the fifteenth tore his left ear away, the sixteenth ricocheted off the sixth cervical vertebra and drove down through his heart, exiting through his abdomen and lodging in his foot.”. Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. On one occasion he extricated himself from a straitjacket while dangling upside down over Niagara Falls; on another, after almost an hour, from within a vast block of ice (“a cinch,” he later said); and on a third from still another straitjacket, this one suspended over Broadway, where he hung, as The New York Herald Tribune reported, like “a great dead tuna.”, “I wanted to break his records,” Mr. Randi said in the film, invoking the master, Houdini. We encourage your input. After a divorce in 1950, Mary Brennan taught home economics in high schools and a junior college. Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. He decided it was time to forsake escapism. John Paul Stevens: The Case That Drove Him to Retire. After he sprang himself from a Quebec jail cell, a local newspaper christened him “L’Étonnant Randi” — the Amazing Randi. A history of man’s relationship with wolves, it separated fact from fiction in what critics called a cleareyed evaluation of a creature that has been superstitiously scapegoated and historically slaughtered nearly to extinction in regions of Europe and North America. Montreal Gazette - a place for remembering loved ones; a space for sharing memories, life stories, milestones, to express condolences, and celebrate life of your loved ones. New York Times obituaries and Death Notices for New York New York area . See all Celebrity Death News Remember. We are constantly trying to improve our data and make the search for obituaries as easy as possible. The lid of the can jammed, trapping Mr. Randi inside. John Prine, the raspy-voiced country-folk singer whose ingenious lyrics to … S. ” important to me. ” s my partner, and I interrupted and said Mr.... Of defamation suits, including several by Mr. Geller me from the obituary daily Times a of... 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