J ackie Mason – Comedian, actor Born June 9, 1928; died July 24, 2021 Jackie Mason, who has died aged 93, was an acerbic and forthright comedian, whose shtick of amused outrage maintained an unreconstructed attitude over a career that stretched over more than half a century. As a stand-up, his former calling as a rabbi held him in good stead, with his Jewishness a key part of his act. This was delivered in a thickset Yiddish-inflected Brooklynese that never left him. His one-man shows filled theatres, won Tony awards, and saw him nominated for an Olivier award. As a satirist he was compared to Mark Twain, and his contemporary Mel Brooks declared him one of the greatest comedians of all time. In the 1960s, Mason was a major draw on the American TV circuit, before being kept off The Ed Sullivan Show for two years after being accused of giving the host the finger when Sullivan gave him a three-minute to start winding up his act. There was a conflict too with Frank Sinatra in the 198
Michael Horovitz – Poet, publisher, editor, promoter Born April 4, 1935; died July 7, 2021 Michael Horovitz, who has died aged 86, was a poet who helped kick open the doors of perception for an artform hitherto presumed to be the preserve of dusty scholars penning slim volumes held in hallowed halls. While Horovitz published twelve volumes of his own work across five decades, beyond his own writing, he became a tireless evangelist for a very English counter culture. He spread the word initially through New Departures, the magazine he co-founded with Anna Lovell and David Sladen in 1959 as an audacious counterblast to received literary orthodoxies. Early issues of New Departures published work by William Burroughs, Stevie Smith, Samuel Beckett and Allen Ginsberg, as well as poems and dialogues by future founder of 7:84 Theatre Company, John McGrath. As the magazine moved through the 1970s and into the 1980s, Horovitz introduced newer voices, including Kathy Acker, Joolz Denby,