That is to say, Ismail Merchant has passed away and was buried in Bombay in his native India.
Merchant, 68, died Wednesday at a London hospital. He had recently undergone surgery for abdominal ulcers, according to Indian television reports. He was unmarried and had no children.
The Merchant-Ivory brand of costume drama spans some 40 films from "The Householder," a 1963 film set in India, to Le Divorce in 2003, an art house hit. Their films won six Academy Awards, including the best-actress Oscar for Emma Thompson for the 1992 film "Howards End."
They usually teamed up with screen writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala for movies filled with lush panoramas of the English and Indian countryside and told riveting stories of class, manners, desire and love.
He met Ivory in a New York City coffee shop in 1961. Their first film, "The Householder," was based on a novel by Prawer Jhabvala, and its 1963 premiere was held at the residence of then-U.S. Ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith.
Merchant and Ivory used to be such institutions within the period piece genre; so much so they garnered a position as a sub-genre of historic pieces all on their own - usually with a snide derogatory sneer at how corny they were from modernist cynics like me, but let's face it, if they weren't good on some level, they wouldn't have been able to keep going fo so long. Not having anymore to mock and sneer at makes me feel a little sad.
Back to Space
Millionaire scientist Greogry Olsen bought a berth on to the ISS for 20million dollars. He was delayed because of health concern, but his 'mission' is back on.
Olsen, who co-founded infrared-camera maker Sensors Unlimited Inc., appears to be confirmed for the next Soyuz space capsule mission in October, said Marshall Cohen, president and co-founder of the company based just outside Princeton, N.J.
"He's very excited," Cohen told The Associated Press. "He's having a great time. He said it's going very well."
The October Soyuz mission is one of two regularly scheduled flights each year, when the spaceship brings supplies and a fresh crew to the International Space Station, Tearne said. She could not confirm when Olsen, who is footing the bill for his flight, will depart.
However, Cohen said that Olsen, originally scheduled to fly in April, now is training with the two astronauts slated for the October mission. "He never gave up hope. The guy's a bulldog," Cohen said.
So there's hope for us all yet; we just need to fork over 20 million for the Russian Space programme.
Not Back To Space
More delays are reported on the Discovery shuttle mission.
Discovery's launch delay not only tacked extra time on Earth for the seven STS-114 crewmembers, it also lengthened the amount of time the space station - currently manned by the two-member crew of Expedition 11 - must wait for a shuttle resupply mission. NASA space shuttles have not visited the ISS since December 2002, when the Endeavour orbiter undocked from the station and returned to Earth during the STS-113 mission.
"We'd rather see the space shuttles up here sooner rather than later," said NASA astronaut John Phillips, flight engineer for Expedition 11, during a NASA TV video downlink with CBS News. "I was certainly disappointed." But the astronauts agreed that, launch chagrin aside, paying strict attention to safety and risk management - not schedules - should be the prime concern for NASA's space shuttle program.
"It was the failure of risk management that led to the Columbia disaster," STS-114 mission specialist Andrew Thomas told Australian reporters via NASA TV. "So I think these steps of risk management that you're seeing are entirely appropriate."
Right.
- Art Neuro
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