"We're here to have fun until the money runs out."

June 28, 2023 8:16 AM

This magazine started as a joke. Whenever a celebrity dies, especially a very old one, people online express surprise that he was still alive. Years ago, I posted on Twitter about a notional magazine where each issue would focus on "a person who it would surprise you to learn is still alive." Read about the remarkable lives of people like John Dean, Tippi Hedren, and Jonathan the tortoise, the oldest land animal on earth in Issue #1.
posted by jessamyn (22 comments total)

Well Ms. Google helped, but the result probably deserves it's own FPP. I typed "is tippi hedren" but the suggestion I clicked is "is tippi hedren left handed".

Interesting Facts: Alfred Hitchcock frequently had left-handed lead actresses in his films, which include Kim Novak, Tippi Hedren, and Eva Marie Saint.

posted by sammyo at 8:25 AM on June 28, 2023

May I put in a bid for David Hockney? I just did that "he's still alive?" thing for him this morning.
posted by dlugoczaj at 8:27 AM on June 28, 2023

Love this! The article on John Dean was great - a lot I didn't know about him and the folks around him during that time. Thanks for posting.
posted by sundrop at 8:42 AM on June 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Who falls on the scale -- "Wanted Dead or Alive -- What's the Difference?" TFG is definitely in Lovecraft Country there.
posted by y2karl at 8:44 AM on June 28, 2023

"I just did that "he's still alive?" thing for him this morning."

I regularly check on Tom Lehrer, James Burke, and Desmond Morris (all still with us, thankfully).

[*knock on wood*]
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:52 AM on June 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

Some sharp writing on that site. The only puzzler is the selection of some of the "still alive?" profiles - for instance, Michael Richards.
posted by davidmsc at 8:52 AM on June 28, 2023

Bobi is still alive and turned 31 in May.
posted by chavenet at 9:04 AM on June 28, 2023

Good dog <3
posted by obfuscation at 9:18 AM on June 28, 2023

The only puzzler is the selection of some of the "still alive?" profiles - for instance, Michael Richards.

Agree, it's clearly a hobby project at some level and people write what they write. I found them via the Dean profile and then stayed for Hedren and the tortoise. I'm sort of tickled anyone is starting a print magazine in 2023 and I kind of want to know more about the "sad aunt" whose home sale after her death funded this whole project.
posted by jessamyn at 9:19 AM on June 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

I wasn’t too surprised to see Desmond Morris still kicking around, what surprised me was a) his two new books about the Surrealists that recently appeared and b) that he was a surrealist painter too! All I knew about him was The Naked Ape, a book I enjoyed way back then. His books on the surrealists, The Lives of the Surrealists & The British Surrealists, are really good.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:57 AM on June 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

TIL Australian diminutes
posted by y2karl at 10:00 AM on June 28, 2023

I knew that Joan Baez was still alive, but I missed her singing 'Diamonds and Rust' with Lana Del Rey back in 2019, so thanks for that, people who are starting a print magazine in 2023.

(To further show my appreciation, I also bought a copy.)
posted by box at 10:03 AM on June 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

It sometimes strikes me that "The Big Takeover" is mining similar territory w/their many profiles of musicians who hit various levels of mass cultural visibility in the 90s + are still working, now often considerably more under the radar.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:42 AM on June 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Can you get me off the hook, God? For old times' sake?"

-Abe Vigoda
posted by clavdivs at 11:51 AM on June 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

Looking at their site, I'm just pleased and impressed that William Eggleston got a top-page mention. I didn't think too many people ever knew who he was, alive or purportedly dead.
posted by Rykey at 12:15 PM on June 28, 2023

Pre-Internet, my office used to keep a list of Dead Famous People on the wall for everyone's reference.
posted by JanetLand at 12:40 PM on June 28, 2023

Most of the people I recognized from this first issue (really absorbing and well-written!!) I knew were still alive, except I thought Chubby Checkers had died. (I'd conflated him with Fats Domino, who died in 2017.)

Keith Morris is still VERY VERY ALIVE and yeah, the same person he ever was.

Also, fuck Michael Richards. He was the most humorless of the Seinfeld bunch, despite the most comically talented. But, physically comedically talented. He was not made for stand-up, not with a temper and misanthropy like his; he couldn't climb out of it, and then got trapped by it by poor heckler-extinguisher control.
posted by not_on_display at 1:10 PM on June 28, 2023

June Lockhart just turned 98 over this past weekend.
posted by briank at 1:10 PM on June 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

I was not terribly surprised to see Harrison Ruffin Tyler (the grandson of the tenth president of the United States--yes, six before Lincoln), but I do have to point out that the essay is a very good one that gives other examples of historical connections, such as that young Bob Dylan lived in the same neighborhood as Albert Woolson, the last living Civil War veteran.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:42 PM on June 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

src: I'd conflated him with Fats Domino.
I conflated Tippi Hedren with Hedy Lamarr ( who died in 2000 and was a physics-whizz in WWII).
The piece on Clint Eastwood was interesting in picking out internal self-references in his filmography: which I, of course, had missed.
A couple of weekends ago I got to watch Paolo Sorrentino's Youth (2015) starring Michael Caine at 83 and Harvey Keitel at 76. They continue with us 8 years later. Still time for a sequel!
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:42 PM on June 28, 2023

I'd conflated him with Fats Domino.

I mean, he literally named himself like a mockbuster movie so that you would.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 2:53 PM on June 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Terry Moore is 94.
posted by clavdivs at 3:16 PM on June 28, 2023