Growing up in Milwaukee, we often heard about George Carlin's infamous arrest at Summerfest in 1972 for performing his "Seven Dirty Words" routine, excerpted above. Carlin, who died yesterday in California, had his charges dismissed later that year, after a state D.A. — who'd been in the audience for the show and refused to press charges that night — was asked in court if he saw the peace disturbed by Carlin's routine, and replied, "I saw people laughing."

Last year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel got in touch with the off-duty police officer who complained to his superiors, spurring the arrest, which gave Milwaukee some unwanted publicity and Carlin plenty of, well, wanted publicity. (A few days after the arrest, Carlin appeared on The Dick Cavett Show, entering to the tune of "On Wisconsin," and referred for a time to the seven dirty words as the "Milwaukee Seven.") The officer, Elmer Lenz, has been retired for 28 years and lives in northern Wisconsin. He admitted that he watched a George Carlin HBO special recently. "I laughed a few times," he said. "He was funny."

George Carlin, Splenetic Comedian, Dies at 71 [NYT]
Carlin's naughty words still ring in officer's ears [Journal Sentinel]

Photo: Getty Images

Bo Diddley, Rock Pioneer, Dies at 79 [AP]

Sydney Pollack in 1995.Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Pollack had been ill for some time, and indeed just Sunday Recount, a film he was originally slated to direct, premiered on HBO; Pollack was listed as an executive producer on the acclaimed project but had to bow out of directing the movie, replaced by Jay Roach. That the movie still maintained Pollack's spiky intelligence is testament to how closely his influence was felt in his projects, seemingly even as his illness advanced. Forthcoming from Pollack are Minghella's pilot for The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret, and the adaptation of Bernard Schlink's novel The Reader.

O'Faolain in 2003.Photo: Getty Images

A well-known opinion writer for the Irish Times, Nuala became an international celebrity in 1996 after the publication of her memoir Are You Somebody? — a trenchant depiction of Irish misogyny and her bleak, impoverished childhood as the child of an alcoholic mother and distant father — became a rallying call for second-wave feminists and social reform. It was followed by a novel, My Dream of You, a historical biography, and a follow-up memoir, Almost There, which she was working on when I met her six years ago in the lobby of Penguin, her American publisher. She was a busty, middle-aged woman with a brogue, waiting in sensible shoes. I was an editorial assistant, just out of college, fresh from a thesis on Irish literature, and naturally smitten — one of the legion of fans who responded to her uncompromising prose. One of my tasks was to forward fan mail to the authors we worked with. No one got more mail than Nuala.

Rauschenberg in 1953.Photo: Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

In Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan's Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Willem de Kooning, they tell the story of de Kooning's 1953 visit from Rauschenberg, a kindred spirit in loving "the rude parodic squawk in the temple of art." But Rauschenberg wasn't stopping by de Kooning's studio to pay homage; he was there to ask for a de Kooning drawing — to erase. In honor of the late Robert Rauschenberg, we're pleased to present the scene in its entirety.

Click here to read the three-page PDF.

From de Kooning: An American Master, ©2004 by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. With many thanks to the authors.

Photo: Getty Images

Minghella also wrote original screenplays, including 2006's underrated Breaking and Entering and — perhaps his best film — 1990's Truly, Madly, Deeply, which fans love for being like Ghost, except British, and ten times better, and starring Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson instead of Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. Minghella also was set as a writer and director for a segment of the anthology film New York, I Love You — a sequel to last year's Paris, Je T'Aime — but it's unclear whether Minghella had shot his short film yet. Minghella was also an acclaimed playwright and theater director; he was scheduled to write the libretto for an opera by Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov and direct the ensuing production at the Met. His son Max is a rising Hollywood actor, with roles in Bee Season, Syriana, and Art School Confidential.

Whether you loved or were irritated by his films, it's hard to deny that Minghella was an intelligent and ambitious filmmaker with a head for serious but warm-hearted storytelling. He never made a stupid movie; his films always had something to say. His death is a real loss.

Oscar-winning director Minghella dies [Guardian]

Photo: Alan De Smet/Wikipedia

In sad news today, Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons, has died. He passed away at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and is survived by his wife and [rolls dice] six children. (This joke brought to you courtesy of Futurama.) To learn more about the fascinating Gygax, check out this terrific 2006 profile by Paul La Farge in The Believer, written in the format of a Dungeons and Dragons manual.

Dungeons & Dragons co-creator dies at 69 [AP]
Destroy All Monsters [Believer]

Drawing of Robert Cunniff at work by Charles Saxon, from the May 6, 1972, New Yorker.Courtesy of Jill Cunniff's BraveNet blog.

The pop of an acquaintance of ours died the other day. We always knew that our softball buddy Steve was pretty devoted to his dad, and he talked often about what a great guy he was, but he never talked about what his dad did for a living. We just found Robert Cunniff's Associated Press obituary, and we were somewhat blown away by the guy's life. In an era in which Ben Silverman is given a major television award, it's remarkable to see what a real cultural life in television looked like.

Cunniff won an Emmy as a writer and producer of Sesame Street from 1972 to 1975, but that's just the beginning of what he accomplished on the New York television scene. He was a writer for the Today show when Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters hosted. He booked guests for The Dick Cavett Show on ABC, bringing Norman Mailer, Ingmar Bergman, Jimi Hendrix, and more into America's living rooms. (One memorable episode featured the amazing guest list of Salvador Dalí, Lillian Gish, and Satchel Paige.) He wrote a speech for Pope Paul VI. He won $4,750 on a TV quiz show in 1953, then lost his newspaper column in 1957 when he exposed the secrets of another TV quiz show. He wrote for Live From Lincoln Center and created Mousterpiece Theatre on the Disney Channel.