Obituaries editors probably belong by the sea. The cries of seagulls are their music, fading into infinity, and the light-filled sky bursts open like a gateway out of the world. The elderly gravitate there, shuffling in cheerful pairs along Marine Parade or jogging in slow motion past the Sea Gull Café, intent on some distant goal. Their skin is weathered and tanned, as if they have fossilised themselves in ozone to keep death at bay. They wear bright trainers, young clothes. But they have shifted to the shore here, or in Bexhill, or in Eastbourne, as if to the edge of life, and each flapping deck-chair reserves a waiting-place.
Ann Wroe, obituaries editor of The Economist, muses on mortality and the sea in the latest
correspondent's diary, a series of articles by various Economist writers. You can read the magazine's obituaries
here, including a recent one of former obituaries editor
Keith Colquhoun.
[Ann Wroe previously]
posted by Kattullus
on Jul 24, 2010 -
8 comments
Oil City Confidential is a new film from director
Julien Temple, previously responsible for
The Filth and the Fury, about the Sex Pistols, and
Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, focusing on Strummer and The Clash. This time round, in a kind of prequel to both those films, he tackles the life and turbulent times of
Dr. Feelgood. Finding fame on the same
Pub rock circuit (as
remembered by writer and Kursaal Flyers drummer Will Birch) that also supported
Ian Dury's Kilburn and the High Roads (not to mention
Eddie and the Hot Rods and Joe Strummer's pre-Clash band
The 101ers), Dr. Feelgood played stripped-down, taut and aggressive
R&B. Hailing from the wildlands of Essex's
Canvey Island – the "Oil City" of the film's title – Dr Feelgood were punk before punk really hit, a whirlwind of raucous energy, with a fierce work ethic. In
Wilko Johnson, they had a guitarist with a scorching, slash and burn technique, while their singer,
Lee Brilleaux (
1989 interview), who died of cancer in 1994,
aged just 41, oozed cheap-suited menace, and, into the bargain, helped found
Stiff Records.
[more inside]
posted by Len
on Jan 27, 2010 -
9 comments
Opening a restaurant is not an easy way to get rich, but for 36 year old Lovie Yancey, an African American woman living in Southern Califoria in 1947, the gamble paid off. As founder of the
Fatburger chain (warning - audio), Lovie is remembered as the creator of arguably the greatest hamburger in a nation obsessed with hamburgers.
Lovie passed away Jan 26, at 96 years of age, and even if you're not a fan of her burgers, take a moment in tribute to a remarkable woman.
posted by jonson
on Feb 4, 2008 -
34 comments
Some of the inventors and creators that died in 2007 who leave behind something for us to remember them by:
David H. Shepard (Optical Readers, Farrington B numeric font),
J. Robert Cade (Gatorade),
Herbert Saffir (The Hurricane Scale),
George Rieveschl (beta-dimethylaminoethylbenzhydryl ether hydrochloride --- a.k.a. Benadryl),
Arthur Jones (Nautilus machines),
Jack Odell (Matchbox Cars),
Raymond Douglas (Color in the NY Times),
George Kovacs (The ubiquitous halogen torchiere lamp),
Martin J. Weber (The Posterization technique),
Edwin Traisman (Cheez Whiz and McD's French Fries),
Ed Yost (Modern Hot-Air Ballooning),
Theodore Maiman (The Laser),
John Billings (The Rhythm Method),
Paul C. Lauterbur (The M.R.I.),
John W. Backus (Fortran),
Florence Z. Melton (Slippers),
James Hillier (The Electron Microscope),
Iwao Takamoto ("Scooby-Doo"),
and
Momofuku Ando (Instant Ramen).
So it goes.
posted by about_time
on Dec 26, 2007 -
13 comments
Bob "Mad Dog" Lassiter, dead at 61. Bob was one of the most notorious and entertaining "confrontational radio" hosts to ever sit behind a microphone.
WFMU's The Professor
wrote , "every other talk host I’ve ever heard usually gets off on like-minded callers, but not Bob. In fact, he was often quite impatient with callers who agreed with him."
Bob was an absolute master of baiting the listening audience, ensnaring many callers who thought that they were clever enough to outwit him. Of course,
none of
them were. He once played "dead air chicken" with a belligerent caller for 11 minutes straight, saying absolutely nothing until the caller finally gave up and hung up his phone. Tapes of these
broadcasts have been prized by aircheck collectors for years, many of which are now available as mp3 downloads at
BobLassiterAirchecks.com.
Bob knew he was dying, yet he actively resisted any measures that would improve his health. He
blogged nearly every moment of his last days, often in
graphic detail. His
last written words were posted yesterday.
posted by melorama
on Oct 17, 2006 -
24 comments
Obituaries of the Future An example:
June 5, 2019. Bush – George W. (72), the 43rd president of the United States, was struck down “in action” early yesterday morning from injuries sustained during a failed one-man invasion of Mexico. Write your own!
posted by jdroth
on Jul 6, 2005 -
19 comments
Saunders Mac Lane,
mathematician,
has died, age 95. Winner of the National Medal of Science, Vice-President of the National Academy of Science, President of the American Mathematical Society, author of three of the
canonical texts in
algebra [reg. maybe req., here's a local copy], Mac Lane was also mathematical ancestor to
over a thousand mathematicians, father of
category theory and
homological algebra, and expert in
topology,
topos theory, group cohomology, logic, and applied mathematics. He was one of the towering figures of postwar mathematics. Remembered by
his students and all of us who were affected by his work and his life.
posted by gleuschk
on Apr 22, 2005 -
7 comments
A Walk in the Woods. Farewell to the original
Cold War warrior:
Paul Nitze, the college professor's son who went to Hotchkiss and Harvard and worked as investment banker before going to Washington in 1940, where he quickly became one of the
chief architects of American policy towards the Soviet Union. His doctrine of "
strategic stability" became its cornerstone for half a century (Nitze held key government posts in Washington, from the era of Franklin Roosevelt
to Ronald Reagan's, when he was the
White House's
guru on
arms control).
By the end of 1949, Nitze had become director of the State Department's policy planning staff, helping to devise the role of Nato, deciding to press ahead with the manufacture of the H-bomb, and producing
National Security Council document 68, the document
at the heart of the Cold War: in it, Nitze called for a drastic expansion of the U.S. military budget. The paper also expanded containment’s scope beyond the defense of major centers of industrial power to encompass the entire world.
(NSC-68 was a top secret paper, written in April 1950 and declassified in the 70's, called "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security"). More inside.
posted by matteo
on Oct 22, 2004 -
7 comments
NFL player , who walked away from a $3.6 million contract in the aftermath of 9/11 to join his brother in the Special Forces, dies in Afganistan. Unselfishness personified.
posted by treywhit
on Apr 23, 2004 -
46 comments
"You, Walter, are indeed like a miracle that God has made."
African National Congress veteran Walter Sisulu, born in 1912, the year the ANC was founded, has died, the ANC said on Monday. He's the guy who practiced law with Nelson Mandela and spent a lot of time in jail with him.
I saw his cell, the prison courtyard and the quarry in which they toiled and laboured on Robben Island just a couple of weeks ago.
posted by tomcosgrave
on May 5, 2003 -
4 comments
GoogObits I have always had a fascination with the
obituaries page and
dead pools. I have hosted a small dead pool for friends for the past few years and have collected obituaries of famous and sent them out as email salvos to friends. But
this is an inspiration to us all. The joy of google, the fascination with the obit. Enjoy the dead.
posted by majikwah
on Feb 21, 2003 -
3 comments
Alan Lomax , the legendary collector of folk music who was the first to record towering figures like Leadbelly, Muddy Waters and Woody Guthrie, died yesterday at a nursing home in Sarasota, Fla. He was 87.
Mr. Lomax was a musicologist, author, disc jockey, singer, photographer, talent scout, filmmaker, concert and recording producer and television host. He did whatever was necessary to preserve traditional music and take it to a wider audience. (NY Times- Registraion Required)
And...
Additionally... And
this.
Also...
posted by y2karl
on Jul 20, 2002 -
26 comments
In 1997, Scott Shuger created for Slate.com what would quickly become the wildly popular column "Today's Papers."
The column was innovative in its brief and snarky discussions about that day's headlines on all the major news dailies.
The differences between each paper's choice of stories covered, and the variances from paper to paper in their coverage of those same stories was illustrative in a fashion we now take for granted around here on MeFi.
Shuger died suddenly over the weekend in a scuba mishap and is remembered here
by his colleagues at slate.com.
posted by BentPenguin
on Jun 17, 2002 -
8 comments
ObitMessenger Why it's useful: Never miss important obituaries.
Never miss an important obituary because you were traveling, on vacation, or missed the paper.
posted by srboisvert
on May 30, 2002 -
11 comments
Rose, the Dalmatian who greeted the rich and powerful at the Inn at Little Washington, died this morning at age 13...
posted by GriffX
on May 14, 2002 -
21 comments
