Author Topic: Philip Seymour Hoffman dead  (Read 26818 times)

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Philip Seymour Hoffman dead
« Reply #20 on: February 06, 2014, 12:18:26 pm »
Click for Video
http://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/100000002691327/broadway-dims-lights-for-hoffman.html


N.Y./Region

Broadway Dims Lights for Hoffman
BY ROBIN LINDSAY AND STEPHEN FARRELL
February 5th, 2014


Broadway theaters dimmed their marquee lights for one minute Wednesday in memory of the acclaimed screen and stage actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died on Sunday, apparently of a drug overdose.




Click for Video
http://www.nytimes.com/video/movies/100000002684821/philip-seymour-hoffmans-many-roles.html


Arts

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Many Roles
BY BEN LAFFIN
February 2nd, 2014


A look back at the career of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was found dead Sunday. He was perhaps the most admired American actor of his generation.




Also, that evening:



Hundreds of people gather for a candlelight vigil for actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in the courtyard
of the Bank Street Theater on Wednesday, 5 February, 2014




« Last Edit: February 07, 2014, 07:05:26 pm by Aloysius J. Gleek »
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Offline Penthesilea

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Re: Philip Seymour Hoffman dead
« Reply #21 on: February 06, 2014, 01:20:59 pm »
I was pretty shocked and saddened by PSH's passing. May he rest in peace.

I read one of the articles John posted, and skimmed through some others.
All too familiar. All too similar. And pictures I really don't want to see.
 :(



Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Philip Seymour Hoffman dead
« Reply #22 on: February 06, 2014, 02:29:53 pm »
I was pretty shocked and saddened by PSH's passing. May he rest in peace.

I read one of the articles John posted, and skimmed through some others.
All too familiar. All too similar. And pictures I really don't want to see.
 :(


I know. There are lots of photos I will not be posting at all, some of them too sad, some too intimate.

 :(

"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Penthesilea

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Re: Philip Seymour Hoffman dead
« Reply #23 on: February 06, 2014, 03:17:59 pm »

I know. There are lots of photos I will not be posting at all, some of them too sad, some too intimate.

 :(


Thank you for being so considerate, John.
Just for the record, it's okay that you posted the pictures you did post (even if I didn't want to see some of them). My comment wasn't a criticism of you.

You know how much I appreciate your efforts. All the info and background info you continue to give us on so many topics - thank you. :-*

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Philip Seymour Hoffman dead
« Reply #24 on: February 07, 2014, 03:31:46 pm »

Thank you for being so considerate, John.
Just for the record, it's okay that you posted the pictures you did post (even if I didn't want to see some of them). My comment wasn't a criticism of you.

You know how much I appreciate your efforts. All the info and background info you continue to give us on so many topics - thank you. :-*


Thank you, Chrissi!  :-*
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Philip Seymour Hoffman dead
« Reply #25 on: February 07, 2014, 03:52:03 pm »


http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/hoffman-and-the-terrible-heroin-deaths-in-the-shadows/283533/

Hoffman
and the Terrible Heroin
Deaths in the Shadows


Narcotics-related mortality in the U.S. has been on the rise
for years. Should it be easier for addicts to inject as safely
as possible?


By JEFF DEENEY
FEB 3 2014, 7:24 AM ET



Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rachel McAdams in the film A Most Wanted Man which
premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival (Sundance Institute/AP)



It’s a particularly bad time to be an injecting heroin user. That's not to say there's ever a good time. You could argue that things were worse in the '80s and early '90s before syringe exchanges became increasingly available, and HIV was leveling entire communities of drug users. Nonetheless, these are not good times to be cooking drugs off the street and shooting them in your veins. We didn’t need Philip Seymour Hoffman—by all accounts a dedicated father and universally recognized as one of the great actors of his generation—to die tragically with a needle in his arm and five empty bags of dope next to him to know this.

Now that Hoffman is gone the one purpose his passing can offer is to bring into sharp focus the fact that overdose deaths have long been on the rise in the U.S. (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths from drug overdoses increased by 102 percent between 1999 and 2010), and to more vigorously continue the discussion about what to do about it.

As a recovering addict who still works with active users in communities where heroin is sold on the street, I can tell you that it’s particularly dangerous out there right now. Recently, an unpredictable and hard-to-track bad batch of Fentanyl-tainted heroin dipped and dodged its way through the mid-Atlantic: Camden, Philadelphia, moving west to Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and now Pittsburgh. It also popped up to the south in Baltimore. Health practitioners in North Philly are getting bombarded with faxes from the Centers for Disease Control about the bad bags working their way around the streets, with instructions to warn their patients who might be using. Fentanyl-tainted bags go fast; ironically, when news of a batch laying users low spreads on the streets, heavy users seek the potent bags out by their brand stamp.

Overdoses become advertisements for strong product. So as quick as the alarm goes up the supply runs dry, only to emerge somewhere else on the black market. Tainted drug batches are hard to track and hard to predict. Useful advice that keeps users "safe"—in a relative sense—like not running the whole barrel at once (but injecting a little to see how potent the bag is) can be unrealistic for street addicts trying to quickly get a shot off before getting nabbed by the cops.

Needle users are getting worse infections. A 2010 study shows that infection rates among injecting drug users can be as high as 33 percent. It stands to reason with drug-resistant bacteria tearing through the health system, that people repeatedly sticking themselves in unsanitary conditions with no medical oversight would be a prime breeding ground for skin infections of devastating new power. MRSA and other drug-resistant bacterial infections are hitting needle users with increased frequency and devastating consequences. Injection drug users with resistant infections, many of whom are poor and without health coverage, face massively invasive and expensive medical procedures in order to be cured. Sometimes users require major surgeries, which often result in profound disability. HIV persists and remains a constant concern for public health practitioners, but today there are more ways than ever for injecting drug users to get sick.

More people are using heroin, according to a 2012 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration survey. The survey found that between 2007 and 2012, the number of heroin users ages 12 and up increased from 373,000 to 669,000.

Public health professionals have known for nearly a decade that a new cohort of heroin users was in the making as the prescription drug epidemic spread. This is a matter of pure economics. Prescription dope isn’t cheap. In Philadelphia, an 80 milligram OxyContin pill will cost you $40. "Oxys" are safe in that the potency is predictable. Pills usually trade in safer parts of town than the North Philadelphia heroin corners where bullets can fly at any moment and the Narc Squad is always on the prowl. You pay a premium for upscale product, though; for the same amount of money, you could get four bags of heroin that are just as potent. Eventually, heavy users run out of money for pills and seek out cheaper powders. These new users are fueling a surge in heroin purchases in locations as remote as Vermont. Hoffman himself reportedly first relapsed on pills before moving into heroin use.

There is hope. Naloxone, a non-narcotic, easily-dispensed medication, is being hailed as a miracle drug for reversing overdoses. Like Lazarus, an overdosed user on the verge of death will spring back to life when Naloxone mist hits his nostrils. Police are becoming more willing to carry and dispense the drug. More townships are passing Good Samaritan laws that make it safe for other drug users to contact emergency responders in the event of an overdose, without having to worry about getting arrested for having made the call. Advocates want Naloxone, which is safe and non-toxic, to be available over the counter. Had Hoffman followed simple instructions from a Naloxone training session (Don’t use alone. Train those who use with you to administer the drug.), he might still be with us. Not every overdose can be prevented, but we should strive to prevent as many as possible. Naloxone isn’t drug treatment, and many who have their overdoses reversed will continue to use drugs, but we can’t get hung up on this. Dead people can’t get clean. Every reversed overdose is another chance at life.

U.S. drug policies are shifting. Slowly, and not enough, but there is progress. Mandatory minimums are being phased out. Treatment is increasingly available to those caught up in the criminal justice system. As the Affordable Care Act begins to take effect, treatment will become more broadly funded, especially for the poor. There is concern among public health professionals, myself included, that the policy shift will fall short of what we need to change conditions for injecting drug users.

Legal pot isn’t enough. For there to be an American version of Insite, Vancouver's celebrated, medically-supervised, legal injecting space, the U.S. would need to decriminalize entirely. If Philip Seymour Hoffman had taken his last bags to a legal injecting space, would he still be alive? Had he overdosed there, medical staff on call might have reversed it with Naloxone. Had he acquired an abscess or other skin infection, he could have sought nonjudgmental medical intervention. Perhaps injection site staff could have directed him back to treatment.

Safe injecting sites are an amazing, life saving, humanity restoring intervention we can’t have because our laws preclude them. Too frequently, heroin addicts instead utilize abandoned buildings and vacant lots to shoot up in order to evade arrest. The risk for assault, particularly sexual assault for women, in off-the-grid, hidden get-high places is incredible. Overdosed bodies are routinely pulled from such spaces in North Philadelphia.

There is a particularly chilling aspect to Hoffman’s death that only another recovering addict can feel. He had 23 years clean, and then went back out. Just two weeks ago, I celebrated ten years off my own crippling drug habit. Sometimes I feel convinced that I’ll never relapse and experience that kind of pain and insanity again. Recovery programs warn that this kind of thinking can be dangerous. The addicting substance is characterized as “cunning, baffling and powerful.” It sounds like a cliché until someone with more than two decades clean, with a beautiful family and a career that is the envy of the world trades it in for a glassine envelope of dope and a set of works.

Those of us in recovery need to remain vigilant in maintaining our mental health. There is much work to be done on America’s addiction problem. It involves ensuring effective treatment, expanding the science of the field, and making sure that those who are actively using can do so in a way that is safe and dignified. There is a way to make meaning from the otherwise senseless early death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, and that is to let it refocus our efforts on making sure the smallest number of people possible find the same fate.


"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Philip Seymour Hoffman dead
« Reply #26 on: February 07, 2014, 06:17:33 pm »


Gathering to Mourn
Philip Seymour Hoffman


Friday, 7 February 2014



The Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue and 84th Street in New York



Michelle Williams


Michelle Williams


Jake Gyllenhaal and Michelle Williams




Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton


Cate Blanchett walks to the church for the funeral service for actor Philip Seymour Hoffman with
her husband Australian screenwriter and director Andrew Upton



Cate Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton wept as they left the church on Friday following
the funeral of their close friend Philip Seymour Hoffman





Joaquin Phoenix


Joaquin Phoenix and his girlfriend arrive at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola




Ashley Olsen looked somber as she walked into the funeral service for actor Philip Seymour Hoffman




Amy Adams and Darren Le Gallo


A distraught Amy Adams and her fiancé Darren Le Gallo arrive at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola.
She had worked multiple times with Hoffman in movies Doubt, The Master and Charlie Wilson's War



Amy Adams and Mad Men star John Slattery leave the funeral of Philip Seymour Hoffman among
the dozens of members of the acting community who were invited to the private funeral





Anna Paquin arrives at the church on Friday to mourn the loss of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.
She starred with Hoffman in Almost Famous and 25th Hour





Actress Marisa Tomei was somber as she walked into the church ceremony on Friday for
Philip Seymour Hoffman's funeral. She starred with the late actor in the Ides of March





Mary-Louise Parker attends the funeral service for actor Philip Seymour Hoffman whom she
starred with in Hannibal Lector thriller Red Dragon in 2002





Director Mike Nichols, left, and his wife news anchor Diane Sawyer arrive for the funeral of actor
Philip Seymour Hoffman





Spike Lee waits outside prior to the funeral service for actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in Manhattan


Spike Lee




Ethan Hawke attends the funeral with wife Ryan (pictured left) along with another of Hoffman's
longtime friends, actor Justin Theroux

 



Director Joel Coen (pictured left) and actor Josh Charles (right) came to the church to pay their
respects to Hoffman on Friday

 



Actors Ellen Burstyn and Louis CK arrived together for the funeral of Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
Along with his Hollywood credits, Hoffman was well-known on the New York theater scene





Brian Dennehy attends the funeral service for actor Philip Seymour Hoffman at
St. Ignatius Of Loyola



Brian Dennehy looked drained as he left the Funeral Mass. The actor had starred with Hoffman in
the play Long Day's Journey Into Night





John C. Reilly attended the funeral of Hoffman on Friday, one of dozens of the acting community
who came out to say goodbye to a friend





Julianne Moore


Julianne Moore who starred in several movies with Philip Seymour Hoffman, arrives at the church
on the Upper East Side on Friday





Meryl Streep


Oscar winner Meryl Streep , who co-starred with Hoffman in Doubt, looked distraught as she
arrived for the funeral on Friday

"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Philip Seymour Hoffman dead
« Reply #27 on: February 08, 2014, 10:20:14 pm »


“There’s a lot we don’t know about alcoholism and drug addiction,” Mr. Mnookin wrote, “but one thing is clear: Regardless of how much time clean you have, relapsing is always as easy as moving your hand to your mouth.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/fashion/Philip-Seymour-Hoffman-AA-addiction-recovery.html


His Death, Their Lives
For Some in A.A. and Other
Addiction Recovery Groups,

the Death of
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Hits Home
By JACOB BERNSTEIN
FEB. 7, 2014



A makeshift memorial to Philip Seymour Hoffman, found dead a week ago. Seth Wenig/Associated Press


In the first hours and days that followed Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death from an apparent overdose of heroin, there was an outpouring of grief on Facebook, on Twitter and in columns by recovering addicts and alcoholics like the journalist Seth Mnookin and the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin about their own struggles with sobriety and the rarely distant fear of relapsing back into the throes of active addiction.

There was also a palpably visceral reaction in the meeting rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, where, according to some in attendance, many discussions since last Sunday quickly turned from the death of a great actor to the precariousness of sobriety, and the fears of many sober people that they could easily slip back into their old ways, no matter how many years they have been clean.

Mr. Hoffman’s overdose after what had been widely reported as 23 years without either drugs or alcohol, years in which Mr. Hoffman talked openly of his addictions, was discussed in meetings in church basements downtown and in the attics of synagogues uptown. Around Times Square, and the nearby Theater District, creative types in recovery debated what his death meant to everyone else.



A candlelight vigil for actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in the courtyard of the Bank Street Theater. Kathy Willens/Associated Press



“I’ve been to three meetings since it happened,” said Rita, who was sitting in a restaurant on West 10th Street on Monday following a recovery meeting, and who, like others interviewed for this article, requested that her last name be left out in accordance with A.A.’s tradition of anonymity. “There hasn’t been one meeting where I haven’t heard about it. People in the public eye see it as ‘We lost a great talent.’ People in recovery see it as ‘We lost a brother in arms.’ ”

A woman who attended an A.A. meeting in Los Angeles on Sunday said that Mr. Hoffman was “all anyone could talk about,” though she added that none of the participants, mindful of the second “A” in A.A., actually spoke Mr. Hoffman’s name aloud.

The 24-hour cable news coverage of a celebrity’s death is not new, of course, nor are the impromptu memorials created outside the dead person’s home, or the editorials about the apparently self-destructive natures of those who seem to have everything going for them. It happened with Michael Jackson. It happened with Heath Ledger. It happened with Whitney Houston. It happened not too long ago with Cory Monteith.

But there was something different in the circumstances of Mr. Hoffman’s death that seemed to make it resonate more deeply with people who are sober and struggle every day to keep their own addictions at bay.

Their talk quickly turned from sorrow and shock over Mr. Hoffman’s death to one of a more personal nature: What does this mean for me, the recovering alcoholic or drug addict? Can all my years of sobriety, years I have fought hard to maintain, slip away more easily than I acknowledge? If it happened to someone universally respected by his peers, and one who had been open about his own years of sobriety, could it also happen to me?

“I cried when I heard about Philip Seymour Hoffman,” Mr. Mnookin wrote in an essay in Slate last week. “The news scared me: He got sober when he was 22 and didn’t drink or use drugs for the next 23 years. During that time, he won an Academy Award, was nominated for three more, and was widely cited as the most talented actor of his generation. He also became a father to three children. Then, one day in 2012, he began popping prescription pain pills. And now he’s dead.”

Mr. Mnookin then wrote about how his own years of addiction — first alcohol and then heroin — began when he was still a teenager, and how, no matter that he was now clean, and a husband and the father of a young daughter, he worried almost every day about the kind of temptation that seems to have snared Mr. Hoffman.

“There’s a lot we don’t know about alcoholism and drug addiction,” Mr. Mnookin wrote, “but one thing is clear: Regardless of how much time clean you have, relapsing is always as easy as moving your hand to your mouth.”

Mr. Hoffman seemed to be an ideal role model. “He was a tremendously talented actor and everybody knew he was sober,” said Gregory, who said he worked on a play with Mr. Hoffman and cites the actor as a person who helped him get clean. “But he wasn’t saying, ‘Hey, I’m in A.A., man.’ ”

By being so casual and understated about it, Gregory added, Mr. Hoffman was a “power of example” to him rather than some sort of “program-pushing spokesperson” or someone who “seemed to get off on the idea of being publicly sober in the vein of a celebrity rehab cast member.”

“I remember hearing him speak at a meeting,” said Chris, another person in recovery. “My understanding is that he sponsored a ton of actors, and I thought then: I’m so glad he is getting famous instead of yet another pretty face. He got sober young. He really got his life together and was able to cultivate this nascent talent even though he was not your leading man. It was over 20 years he was sober, and in that time, he was super present and accounted for. There are other people who are in and out [of recovery] with the seasons. But he was there.”

For people who have relapsed after achieving long-term sobriety and struggled to come back, Mr. Hoffman’s death hit especially hard.

“He is me,” said Jim, an addict who said that he relapsed after more than two decades in recovery, and who has been sober again since 2006. “His story is so similar to mine. I had 21 years [clean], I had terrible back pain, I was on Martha’s Vineyard and somebody said, ‘Would you like a Fioricet?’ It’s mostly a migraine medication, and I took that little blue pill and I became perfect in a way I hadn’t been in 21 years. I had that wonderful feeling you don’t get sober. Suddenly, I’m at a party and someone says, ‘You want a hit of rock?’ I didn’t even know what crack was. The next day I was calling that guy’s dealer.”

As Jim tells it, his relapse lasted four years, and required four months of rehab, including an extended stay at the Betty Ford Center. He remains mystified by the fact that he didn’t die; that he was able to make it back to Alcoholics Anonymous when so many others do not, among them Mr. Hoffman.

“Why did I have a moment where I could get back and he couldn’t? That’s just mysterious,” Jim said. “I’m sure we were doing comparable amounts of drugs. I was trying to die as fast as I could, and I’m here and that guy is gone.”

Henry, another person who has been sober for a long time, said, “We all know of close friends who after many years have for one reason or another been unable to hold onto this lifeline.

“I knew a great actor,” he continued, “who had 20-something years sober and went out and basically disappeared off the face of the earth. When he came back, his brain was shriveled. And he died sober, but the damage done was debilitating. And he was somebody who had never stopped going to meetings. He sponsored people in A.A.

“All of us know people that this happened to. It’s exceptional, it’s unusual, but there’s also a rattling frequency to it.”
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Mandy21

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Re: Philip Seymour Hoffman dead
« Reply #28 on: February 10, 2014, 03:16:44 pm »
As a recovering alcoholic 2-1/2 years' sober, this sentence


“Regardless of how much time clean you have, relapsing is always as easy as moving your hand to your mouth.”


does indeed hit home.
Dawn is coming,
Open your eyes...

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Philip Seymour Hoffman dead
« Reply #29 on: February 10, 2014, 05:11:05 pm »
As a recovering alcoholic 2-1/2 years' sober, this sentence


“Regardless of how much time clean you have, relapsing is always as easy as moving your hand to your mouth.”


does indeed hit home.


Thank you for your candor, Mandy.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.