ululate!

How sad: actor and director Harold Ramis is dead at the tender age of 69.

Ramis was a childhood icon. "Stripes" came out before I was old enough to see it in the theaters, but I got an eyeful of female boobage when I saw it on video at my cousin's house. (My cousin was easily one of my most corrupting influences.) I was, however, old enough to enjoy "Ghostbusters" in the theater when that came out. I was in high school at the time. Ramis's 1990s "Groundhog Day" provided plenty of grist for my philosophical/theological mill; whether it's a film about karma/karuna, or metanoia, or tikkun olam is open to interpretation, but there's no doubt that it gets you thinking.

My mental image of Harold Ramis comes from the 1980s: he's tall, lanky, and quietly cerebral. Photos of Ramis in his later years—like recent photos of Carrie Fisher—never failed to shock me. His death from autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis came as a surprise. Like most everyone these days, I found out about his passing via Twitter—just another update in a constant stream of updates. Ramis would have appreciated the humor in that.

RIP, Mr. Ramis. You were one of the great ones.


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