George Carlin, 1937 - 2008.

George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like 'Seven Words You Can Never Use on Television,' died in Santa Monica, Calif, on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71....

By the mid-70s, like his comic predecessor Lenny Bruce and the fast-rising Richard Pryor, Mr Carlin had emerged as a cultural renegade.... By 1977, when his first HBO comedy special, George Carlin at USC was aired, he was recognized as one of the era's most influential comedians.

Mel Watkins, New York Times.

See also: The site; Wikipedia.

Updated through 6/26.

Online viewing. Film Threat gathers routines and reflections.

Updates: "Not just aware of but steeped in the traditions of American populism - more William Jennings Bryan and Eugene Victor Debs than Bill Clinton or John Kerry - Carlin preached against the consolidation of wealth and power with a fire-and-brimstone rage that betrayed a deep moral sense that could never quite be cloaked with four-letter words," blogs John Nichols at the Nation. "Carlin did not want Americans to get involved with the system. He wanted citizens to get angry enough to remake the system.... There will, of course, be those who dismiss Carlin as a remnant of the 60s who introduced obscenity to the public discourse - just as there will be those who misread his critique of the American political and economic systems as little more than verbal nihilism. In fact, George Carlin was, like the radicals of an earlier age, an idealist - and a patriot - of a deeper sort than is encountered very often these days.

"George grew tougher and sharper over the years, putting more of himself, and his intellect, at the service of his always nimble, always adventurous comedy mind," writes Harry Shearer at the Huffington Post. "And, while his comedy was dark, his spirit with his peers was generous."

For Salon's King Kaufman, Carlin "was one of the best sports humorists around."

The AV Club gathers its two interviews (1999 and 2005) and Carlin's recent routine on death.

"By the time he died Sunday night (of heart failure at age 71), the transformation he helped bring about in stand-up had become so ingrained that it's hard to think of Carlin as one of America's most radical and courageous popular artists," writes Richard Zoglin, author of Comedy on the Edge: How Stand-Up in the 1970s Changed America, for Time. "But he was."

Esquire pulls out Larry Getlen's talk with Carlin, the "What I've Learned" feature.

Ed Champion gathers a lot more video.

"Ironically, I first became aware of Carlin when he and Richard Pryor were conservatively dressed (i.e., coat and tie), ever-so-polite stand-up comics during their weekly stints on the 1966 Kraft Summer Music Hall hosted by - no, I’m not making this up - John Davidson." Joe Leydon.

Updates, 6/24: "In 2001, George did me a solid when he accepted the part of the orally fixated hitchhiker who knew exactly how to get a ride in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," recalls Kevin Smith in Newsweek. "When he wrapped his scene in that flick, I thanked him for making the time, and he said, 'Just do me a favor: Write me my dream role one day.' When I inquired what that'd be, he offered, 'I wanna play a priest who strangles children.'" Via Movie City News.

"Like all the great comics, Mr Carlin had a gift for saying - and thinking - things that other people wouldn't or couldn't," writes Charles McGrath in the NYT. "Especially in his later years, when, mostly bald but with a white beard and just a hint of a ponytail in back, he would bounce onstage in a black sweater, black pants and sneakers, his persona was warmer, cranky rather than angry. He was like your outrageous beatnik uncle."

Update, 6/26: For Slate, Joshua David Mann watches all 800 minutes of All My Stuff:

Carlin discusses his craft in more philosophical terms - his expertise, he says, lies in "reminding you of things you already know but forgot to laugh at the first time they happened." The bulk of the material in his early shows was concerned with such pedestrian acts as grocery shopping and, yes, walking. In one early performance, he constructs a bit around the phantom stair phenomenon, when we accidentally trick our legs into thinking a staircase has one more step than it actually does.

The stair bit works on an observational level because we have all experienced it. But Carlin also makes it work on a physical level, embellishing the joke through his wild gesticulations. Unlike Seinfeld, Carlin was also a gifted physical comic, and in his early performances, the influence of Carlin's idols - Buster Keaton, Danny Kaye, the Marx Brothers - is particularly evident. He contorts his face into wrinkly malformations. He squats slightly and mimes masturbatory motions. He freezes onstage in strange postures, an American ambassador to Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks.

Posted by dwhudson at June 23, 2008 12:38 AM