The Grapevine Art & Soul Salon

Robin McLaurin Williams: July 21, 1951 - August 11, 2014

We acknowledge in this issue the sad demise of performing artist Robin Williams, mourned around the world for the loss of his comic genius that penetrated all fixed notions about life, death, nature, world, darkness and light, stirred the elements in us to make us think and smile and go into life-enhancing fits of laughter even as we, no more or less redeemed than he, struggle to understand ourselves and the world.

His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him that nature might stand up
And say to all the world "This was a man."

Shakespeare might as well have been saying this of Robin Williams as Anthony was saying it of Julius Caesar.

Here are our editors' choices for soul-stirring pieces to watch on YouTube in memorium:

Robin Williams Aging Morph "What a Wonderful World" HerBunk

Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters

Two full-length appearances can be accessed here:

Robin Williams - Live At The Met (Full) 1986 standup special

Robin Williams - Inside The Actors Studio (Full) Video

And this brief clip from one of our favorite films, Dead Poets Society, for which Robin Williams won an Oscar. We hope you will be moved to see or revisit the film.

Dead Poets Society opening of "Seize the Day" speech