My New Year's resolution for 2007

I, Alana Baranick, keeper of this blog, do resolve to keep the "obituary forum" blog more current by posting new items more often and by bugging my fellow grimsters to do the same.

But before I start trying to hold true to that resolution, I plan to post a succession of year-end items that I've been meaning to post over the last month or more. And I invite my obit-writing and obit-loving friends to do the same.

Have a wonderful, prosperous and enjoyable 2007.

They come in 3s.

The proverbial "they" say that deaths come in threes.

That's probably because "they" are aware of two newsmakers, two colleagues, two relatives or any two people, whom they have known or heard about, who may or may not be connected to them in some way, who have died on the same day or within a short time of one another.

Then they wait for the third shoe to drop, which is peculiar when you think about it, since most of us wear only two shoes at a time.

They're reading the obit pages. They're watching the cable news crawls more closely. They get up early to watch morning television shows in case someone famous died overnight. Surely they'll find a third decedent to complete the hat trick.

On Christmas, James Brown, internationally recognized as the Godfather of Soul, died. His music is, as they say, is part of the soundtrack of our lives. He influenced and will continue to influence generations of musicians and genres of music that go way beyond R&B, funk and rock 'n' roll.

Some of his less-than-steller offstage behavior landed him in court and/or jail, but that didn't diminish our affection for him. After listening to a James Brown song or seeing him perform, we could always say, "I feel good!"

His farewell funeral tour, which included stops at memorial musical-, preaching- and love-fests at the Apollo Theater in New York City, a small church in North Augusta, N.C., and James Brown Arena in Augusta, Ga., was barely announced when along comes Ford.

Gerald Ford, who had a short stint as president of the United States, died Tuesday, Dec. 26.

They're calling Ford "the accidental president." Appointed, never elected to national office. He landed in the White House on the support of what in the big picture amounted to only a handful of Michigan voters and by virtue of, well, his virtue.

His reputation as a good guy, an honest man and agreeable Congressman tipped the scale in the decision of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, in selecting him to replace the disgraced Spiro Agnew as vice president. And that, of course, automatically made him president when Nixon resigned as president.

Like Brown, Ford's funerary events are taking place at several venues: in Palm Desert, Calif., Washington, D.C., and Grand Rapids, Mich.

Unlike Brown with his offstage behavior and jail time, Ford upset a lot of people by pardoning Nixon for crimes he may have committed in office. Ford himself later got a pardon of sorts for granting the Nixon pardon in the form of a Profiles in Courage award from the Kennedy clan.

We'd been waiting for the death of the 93-year-old ex-president, whose frequent hospital visits in recent years had newspaper editors ready to stop the presses. But we were stunned when the 73-year-old hardest-working man in show business died.

As happens after just about every pair of notable deaths, I speculated with friends and family on "Who will be the third?"

Although we could mention elderly and/or ailing newsmakers from the United States and, oh, I don't know, maybe Cuba, in our private musings about "The Third," we talked about No. 3 being someone different from Ford and Brown. Maybe someone on a lesser plane of fame, significance. Maybe female. Younger than those we might expect. Possibly one of those tabloid celebrities, whose contributions to the world, if any, will quickly be forgotten.

Boy! Were we wrong! Out there in plain sight, a death sentence (you'll excuse the expression) hanging over his head. I never would have thought that Saddam Hussein would seemingly come out of nowhere to catapult to No. 3 on death charts. But he did. Dec. 29. Executed. Hanged. For crimes against humanity.

As eulogies, memorial events and our mourning for Gerald Ford and James Brown continue, reporters and pundits will remind us of the life that Saddam Hussein lived and the countless lives he ruined.

That's a good thing - reminding us. I'm glad that disturbing images of torture and murder committed under SH's regime in Iraq are shown on TV while assorted voices discuss his life and the significance of his death.

We should not forget. As "they" also say: Those who forget history are destined to repeat it.

The Journalism of Death

The Sacramento Bee in Sacramento, Calif., has decided to give obituaries a higher priority.

According to the paper's public editor Armando Acuña, The Bee is currently publishing a local news obit nearly every day. Recent features include a homeless man, a flood control expert, a pilot who ferried governors around the state and an organist.

These well-written obits are not only informative, they're also popular with readers. They're "consistently among the highest read items on the paper's Web site," Acuña said.

Adam B. and his weekly radio gig

Every Sunday at around 11:40 a.m., Adam Bernstein, deputy obituaries editor for The Washington Post, gets 10 minutes of radio airtime to talk about the lives of people who died during the previous week.

He gets his sixth-of-an-hour on Bob Levey's Sunday morning show, which is accessible via the Internet at Washington Post Radio.

This morning, Adam talked with Bob about Peter Boyle ("Young Frankenstein" and "Everybody Loves Raymond") and Ahmet Ertegun (Atlantic Records, Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame).

Adam mentioned some things about these men that didn't make it into the published obits.

It was short, but sweet. Tune in next time.

Nigel Starck's "Life After Death"

Just in time for Insert-appropriate-winter-holiday-here, I received a copy of "Life After Death" by Nigel Starck, Australia's and possibly the world's greatest authority on obituaries in English-language newspapers.

His book was my gift to myself.

I thought I could read the entire book in a couple of days and post a complete report for you here. But such is not the case. Like a ravenous guest at a buffet dinner, I devoured samples from each chapter much faster than my brain could digest the text.

I'll have to read it again more slowly and thoroughly, but that won't stop me from giving a short report now.

In his book, Nigel writes about the history and development of obits from 1622 to modern times. He talks about various styles of obits, how lives and deaths are portrayed in print and such issues as ethics and judgement. He includes many of his all-time favorite obits.

Much of the information is familiar to those of us who have attended Carolyn Gilbert's Great Obituary Writers Conferences and to readers and contributors to this Obituary Forum blog.

We've heard Nigel give presentations on the subject during the years in which he traveled throughout the United States, United Kingdom and, of course, Australia conducting research for his doctoral thesis on obituary and newspaper practice.

He cites many of us, the obits we've written, books and other articles we've penned, remarks we've made at conference sessions and in casual conversation. Tom Hobbs, our favorite university librarian, gets a special nod for his contributions as a researcher.

The tone of "Life After Death" reflects the personality of its author. Scholarly, charming, amusing and fun.

To order "Life After Death," click the "Life on the Death Beat" image at the top of the sidebar on the right. It will take you to a page with links to Nigel's and several other obit-related books.

Newer version of the obituary forum blog

Attention, fellow obit bloggers.

Our blogger hosts have done some technical stuff that I don't completely understand yet. It has something to do with switching to Blogger in beta. You can go to blogger help to read about this new development. I welcome your explanations - in layman's terms - of what this all means.

Apparently, as the administrator of this team blog, I will be required at some point to switch to the newer version. When I do that, you may not be able to post items immediately. You may have to go through the registration process all over again.

If this happens, please tell me about it, so we can fix things.

I hope to understand this stuff before the end of 2006 and make the switch for 2007.

Dying to be on screen

"$136 a day, including lunch from Kraft Services." It's not easy being a dead body.

State of not-necessarily-holy matrimony

I recently wrote a feature obituary in which I included the fact that, when the man I was writing about died, he and his wife were in the process of legally ending their marriage.

I got the sum total of two complaints for saying this. One was from the wife. The other from an anonymous caller, who also called our managing editor.

When I write what I would call a standard obituary, I include a list of surviving relatives. No matter what the relationship between the deceased and the spouse was, the spouse would be listed as the spouse, as long as they were still married. And an ex-spouse would not be listed because we don't include ex-spouses, no matter how close the two were.

I did an obit a few years ago for a man, who had been living in an apartment with his live-in girlfriend for something like 25 years, while his wife lived in the house in which they had raised their kids. These two would never legally divorce. I think it had something to do with their religion. I listed his wife as the surviving spouse. I did not list or even mention the girlfriend.

I've done obits for people who had divorces in the works at the time that one of them died. Again, I listed the surviving spouse. They weren't exed yet.

The recent feature obit in which I mentioned the divorce-in-the-works was "A Life Story," which takes up half a page, has a 20-inch story, a small biobox with mug and three other pictures, showing the story subject at different times of life and engaged in different activities.

I don't often use up precious space to list all of the person's surviving relatives. If the deceased had five kids, for example, I would call her "the mother of five" rather than name all the kids. (Once in a while, circumstances dictate that I name them. But I won't get into that here.)

Also, when we run a picture of the deceased with all the kids, I give their names in the caption.

One of the pictures for the man with the pending divorce showed him and his wife on their wedding day. (I'm getting tired of running wedding pictures with these features, but this was an exceptionally good photo.)

So in the caption, I wrote that they were married on such-and-such a date. And that at the time of his death, they were separated and in the process of legally ending their 25-year marriage. That statement was accurate.

The wife never mentioned to me that they were getting divorced. I found out about that, when I checked the online county court docket to see whether he was involved in any pending court cases or had a criminal record.

Friends and family confirmed what I read in the court account - that if he had lived another two weeks, their marriage would have been over. But I really should have called the wife to address this. Or at least alerted her to the fact that I was going to mention it.

When she complained about it after the story ran, she said that, if I had called her, she would have told me that they had agreed to reconcile. I would have no way to know whether that was true. I probably would have put it in quotes.

In retrospect, I should have told my editor that we should not include the wedding photo. I mentioned the wife in the story, saying that this fellow met his wife when they both worked at the same place. That might have been sufficient.

Censoring obits for political content

When a 93-year-old Bush-bashing woman penned her obit in advance, she included some political comments that kept the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union from printing the piece for three days. And it was a paid obit!

Protests from members of the First Unitarian Universalist Society, who apparently knew the woman, prompted the paper to publish a slightly altered version (with the consent of her daughter) and do a story about the incident.

In the story, which ran Nov. 3, 2006, reporter Paul Grondahl shared the portion of Helen Sharpe's auto-obituary that "ran afoul" of his paper's guidelines:

She left strict instructions that there be no schmaltzy sentimentality of mourning, urging that in lieu of expressions of grief people should send urgent messages to their legislators to force U.S. signing of the Kyoto Protocol, then vote in such a way as to send Bush a strong message of disgust with his policies and politics.

At first, newspaper ad reps tried to get Sharpe's daughter to "tone down the political rhetoric," but the daughter declined. She was prepared to take out a half-page display ad (which apparently would not have gone through such scrutiny) with a $7,100 pricetag, in order to publish her mom's own words.

According to Grondahl's article, the daughter said: "It's not about the money. It's about the principle."

In the end, it was amended to say that Sharpe hoped that people who wish to remember her continue to support the Kyoto Protocol and oppose the Bush Administration.

Grondahl added some nice touches to his story. He pointed out that Sharpe, a self-described born-again atheist, frequently wrote letters to the editor advocating euthanasia for humans, as well as respect for atheists and agnostics. She decided she was ready to die and took prearranged steps to end her life on Monday.

It was unclear what prearranged steps Sharpe took.

Grondahl wrote: In her final hours, Helen Sharpe struggled to rise from her sickbed to make her daughter jelly tarts, "So you'll have sweetness in your mouth, instead of bitterness."

He described a planned celebration of her life and ended his piece with her last words:

She left instructions for that event, as well: a case of good wine and a selection of gourmet cheeses. A pianist will play Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."

Helen Sharpe's final words to her daughter were these: "We're so lucky, aren't we?"

Well done, Paul Grondahl!

I have to give credit to Pam Vetter for forwarding this story that's been circulating among funeral celebrants.

And I must confess that I too engaged in a form of censorship regarding this. I waited to post this item until after the Nov. 7 elections were over. I know, I know. Shame on me.

Censors for on-line obituary guest books

If you haven't read it -- fascinating New York Times story about people who vet the Legacy.com online obituary guest book before the posts are made public.

Grande & Secret Order of Obituary Cocktail

One of our editors was in New Orleans and photographed a banner for the Grande & Secret Order of Obituary Cocktail. Searching for more information on the Grande & Secret Order of Obituary Cocktail, I found two recipes on the internet.
Atlanta has two bar/restaurants dear to our profession, one is named Graveyard and the other is Six Feet Under, across from the historic Oakland Cemetery. Check them out next time you're in Atlanta and order the Obituary Cocktail. If the bartender doesn't know how to make it, here are the two recipes:

Adapted from Obituary Cocktail: The Great Saloons of New Orleans, by Kerri McCaffety.

Around the beginning of the twentieth century, America invented the ultimate cocktail the martini. Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop made a special version with an added splash of absinthe and called it the Obituary Cocktail.

• 4 jiggers dry gin
• 1/2 jigger dry vermouth
• 1/2 jigger Pernod (a legal absinthe substitute)

Chill in a shaker and strain.

Here's another version:

Obituary Cocktail

• 2 ounces gin
• 1/4 ounce dry vermouth
• 1/4 ounce pastis

Stir with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass.

Bottoms up.
Kay Powell
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Obituaries Editor

Twilight Zone moment

Wally Guenther, my partner-in-grim at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, wrote an obituary that appeared in today's (Oct. 26, 2006) paper for Nikki Kukwa, a remarkable 22-year-old Kent State University aviation student who died of leukemia.

Even the time of her death was remarkable. And somewhat eerie.

Wally writes: "Her favorite time of the day was 11:11 a.m.," an uncle, Rick Kukwa, of Philadelphia, said. "We don't know why, but when she saw the time on the clock she would always say, 'Make a wish.' "

Nikki Kukwa died at 11:11 a.m. Monday, her family said.

Please cue the "Twilight Zone" theme.

Engraved on headstone in Montreal

Not really obituary-related, but funny and sort of on-topic.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/signs/headstone.asp

"Died Doing What He Loved"

Why do (some) obit writers do that?? It's so aggravating.
I agree with Kathy Kemp of the Birmingham (Ala.) News ... (no link available, posted on alt.obits)
and Trevor Brown, former journalism dean, Indiana University (posted 9/25 on Romenesko's Web site)

Living Doing What You Love Is The Best
FROM: The Birmingham (Alabama) News ~ By Kathy Kemp
I don't know if you've noticed this, but often, when a person dies unexpectedly - especially while mountain climbing, skydiving or flying solo over the Bermuda triangle - we're told he "died doing what he loved."
Latest example: Steve Irwin, Australia's intrepid and beloved crocodile hunter, killed Monday when a stingray pierced his heart while Irwin filmed a TV segment in the Great Barrier Reef. Immediately, news organizations reported Irwin had "died doing what he loved."
They were quoting Irwin's manager, John Stainton, who added that Irwin "left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind."
Stainton meant well, of course. But let's take a moment to think about this. Irwin spoke often of his love of family, of conservation and of reptiles and sea creatures. He never mentioned a desire to yank a stingray's barb from his chest and then gasp a final breath.
Go to Google and type in "died doing what he loved" and you'll get 1,290,000 responses (type in "doing what she loved" and you'll net 423 more). Those words are spoken about soldiers killed in Iraq and grandfathers who dropped dead of heart attacks while playing baseball with the kids.
The news media sometimes promote the cliché. A reporter for The Register Guard in Eugene, Ore., didn't rely on friends or family to speak the dreaded words: "Jane Vanneman Higdon died doing what she loved," declares the first sentence on a story in June detailing how Higdon had fallen off her bike and been hit by a truck.
Friends told the reporter that Higdon, 47, loved her husband, endurance sports and her job as a nurse. None mentioned that she looked forward to being crushed by a loaded logging truck.
When extreme skier Douglas Coombs was killed in May in a skiing accident, NPR commentator Alex Markels started a tribute to Coombs by saying, "There's probably no obituary more admiring of a man than to say that he died doing what he loved."
I don't know of any research confirming that dying happy equals dying well, but lots of people clearly want to believe it. In Tennessee just last week, 25-year-old Kristin Reese, a member of a women's football team, died in a motorcycle accident. Her coach, Steve Lewis, couldn't help himself. "She died doing what she loved. I hope I can die doing what I love, and I hope everybody else can too," he said.
Fewer of us seem content anymore just to say a prayer and mourn the dead. We live in exciting times that require exciting endings. Perhaps human nature dictates our search for meaning in tragedy, whether it involves a famous adventurer, an astronaut or a friend's ill mother. We don't want to think that the dead might have suffered or perhaps wished, in those final moments, to celebrate another birthday, to drive the kids to school tomorrow or to hunt for exotic creatures in another ocean on another day.
The truth is, if we're lucky, we live doing what we love. If we're blessed, our lives have meaning that transcends how we die.
And if you ask me, that's enough.

----and -------

From: Trevor Brown, Former journalism dean, Indiana University
After yanking a limb driven into the lawn like a javelin and then heaving it into the neighbor's yard, I wondered again at Steve Irwin's death. "He left this world in a peaceful and happy state of mind," a fellow snorkeler said, "doing what he loved best." I doubt that, in the moments after the stingray's barb pierced his heart, Irwin was in a peaceful and happy state of mind. But I'm sick of the unctuous bromide that so-and-so died doing what he loved best.It could happen that a plunging limb from the trees at the bottom of our garden will take me out while I'm mowing. Yes, I enjoy mucking about on my John Deere LT133. But, please, please, I've told my wife and children, no line in my obituary, "He died doing what he loved best." I've implored them to edit an obituary like this:
Trevor Brown, 69, died Monday in his home. His wife, Charlene, found him slumped over on a couch in the living room, a victim, apparently, of a heart attack while doing the New York Times crossword. Preliminary speculation is that he was entering an answer to 9-across -- "One making a point at church?" -- when he succumbed. He had written only "E-L" to the five-letter answer and still clutched his favorite pencil, a 0.7 Pentel with a large eraser. Will Shortz, editor of the New York Times crossword, said, "I met Trevor Brown only once during a visit some years ago to Indiana University and did not learn that he was a crossword fan until after his death. Then I was surprised to discover that a faculty member at my alma mater was rarely able to get beyond Monday's crossword, the least challenging of the week's puzzles, until I was told he was a dean. It must be of great comfort to the family that Dean Brown died doing what he loved best. By the way, the answer to 9-across in this Monday's puzzle was SPIRE."Coaches like you should urge obit writers to resist the quote of comfort from well-meaning family and friends. I say, go for "The horror! The horror!"

How they lived their 100-plus years

Nothing is sadder than an obit for a centenarian, which says little more than "This person lived a really long time."

I recently wrote an obit that ran in The Plain Dealer on Aug. 16, 2006, for Florence Homan, who had been the oldest person in Ohio. Age 112. A lot of years, and yet there was little more for me to say about her.

She had outlived her husband. She had no children. The "next of kin," who handled her funeral arrangements, was a stepsomething-in-law of a relative of her husband's a few times removed.

The only story about her that I could find in our archives was written a few months earlier when the previous oldest-person-in-Ohio died. It was more about centenarians in general than it was about Florence in particular.

I put together a short obit that said she:
(1)was born Florence Wilker on Nov. 18, 1893, in Middleburg Township, more than 30 years before the area was incorporated as the village of Middleburg Heights;
(2)grew up on a farm;
(3)had an 8th-grade education;
(4)worked for Higbee's department store as a seamstress for more than 50 years;
(5)married a railroad worker, who was 10 years her junior, in 1941;
(6)lived most of her life in Cleveland in a house that was torn down to make way for the construction of an interstate highway;
(7)moved to the suburbs;
(8)was widowed in 1988;
(9)and moved into a nursing home at age 105.

That's actually a lot more than I could dig up about other centenarians, who have died on my watch. I have to believe there was much more to tell about Florence. I just couldn't find people or documentation that could help me get it together on deadline.

Bryan Marquard's obit for artist Polly Thayer Starr, which ran in the Sept. 3, 2006, edition of the Boston Globe shows a centenarian, who lived a fascinating 101 years.

Polly had children and friends with sundry details about her New England ancestry, which included Ralph Waldo Emerson and a host of Episcopalian ministers, her art training and career, marriage and motherhood.

And the Smithsonian Institution had interviewed her 11 years before her death.

Bryan was able to gather a considerable amount of information about this centenarian. And he selected terrific facts and quotes that made this a delightful obit to read.

He included details about her work - portraits that range from literal to ethereal; to landscapes illuminating the spirit of a milieu; to a series of paintings capturing the life span of a thistle - that illustrate the depth of her art.

And this revealing quote from Polly's Smithsonian interview: "I was pretty gun-shy of marriage when it would mean giving up painting. . . . It took a long time to make up my mind."

Here are more gems:

"You never achieve what you want," she told a friend late in life, "but you're always getting nearer to the essence . . . and that's a search that is all important."

From one of her daughters: "She could pat bumblebees. While he was on the flower, she would take her finger and stroke his fur and his wings would buzz like mad, and he wouldn't fly away until she stopped. It always seemed to me the equivalent of a cat's purr."

She became a Quaker and ventured away from home, seeking new inspiration. She attended wrestling matches and was invited into an operating room to watch surgery, telling a friend that "to see the living organs pushing up uncovered out of a woman's body . . . I forgot everything in the wonder of it."

Then, in her 70s, she developed glaucoma and macular degeneration. Before completely losing her sight, her final works in her late 80s were drawings of a thistle and a diaphanous self-portrait that seemed to place her both in this world and the next.

Bryan ended the story with this: The pull of creativity, she told the Smithsonian, never ceases. "It's the Hound of Heaven," she said with a chuckle. "It's always after you."

Please share your favorite centenarian-obit stories and tips on how to gather info about the dearly departed, whose family and friends are long departed.

Eugene Crawford, physiology/biophysics professor, boxing champ

I love Gerry Hostetler's "It's a Matter of Life" column that runs in the Charlotte Observer.

In her Aug. 30, 2006, column about the late Eugene Carson "Gene" Crawford Jr., a retired University of Kentucky physiology and biophysics professor and Golden Gloves Hall of Fame boxer, Gerry chooses a fascinating subject and uses quotes that make you want to smile.

She writes: Gene was well-known in the Carolinas for his boxing ability, but even better known nationally for his physiological research. . . His academic career is stellar.

Crawford studied with eminent physiologist Knut Schmidt-Nielsen at Duke University.

"He spoke glowingly of going to Australia with Schmidt-Nielsen and studying camels and ostriches," said son-in-law Tracy Campbell.

Early in the piece, Gerry quotes Carl Holt, a Golden Gloves HOF board member: "Looking at him, you didn't think he was a boxer, but he was a good little ol' fighter."

She gives a detailed record of Crawford's impressive (30 wins, 1 draw, four losses) but brief (1949-1952) boxing career. More than half of his wins were by knockout.

Gene joined the Navy and promptly fought and defeated the brigade champion. After his discharge, he fought four professional fights and won them. He was invited to try out for the 1952 U.S. Olympic trials, but did not accept. He was about to marry sweetheart Helen Suggs, whom he spotted at a public park in Durham.

Then comes this nifty quote from Crawford's sister: "He was about 18 and she was ... very pretty."


Later in life, Crawford's wife developed Pick's disease, which cost her the ability to speak. When Gene began losing his sight, folks asked how they would manage life together. "I will take care of Helen and Helen will be my eyes," he answered.

And so she was, until her death five years ago. And Gene was a good little ol' fighter, right up to the end.

Excellent ending, Gerry!

Obit for 2-year-old, platform for discussing palliative care for babies

In her Aug. 29, 2006, Lifelines column in the Toronto Star, Catherine Dunphy tells the story of Sasha Bella, 2-year-old daughter of Pamela Stein and Jonathan Blumberg, who spent most of her brief life dying.

Cathy showed Sasha's kiddie qualities. She writes the sick baby was noisy, intense, passionate, and she loved an audience.

While strangers may have seen that her skin was jaundiced and her belly distended, What her parents saw were her long fingers that could turn fragile pages in a telephone book without tearing them, her love of chips, crushed ice and watermelon toothpaste, the way she danced in her crib to Stevie Wonder, the big grin with which she'd greet her dad, how she would slap her forehead as if to say "Oy vey."

The writer explained Sasha's illness in layman's terms:
Born with a complex and very serious form of the rare Alagille Syndrome and a paucity of bile ducts causing bleeding and relentless internal itching, Sasha was missing the connection from her heart to her lungs.

It's clear that Cathy and Sasha's parents used this obit to tell readers that palliative care is for babies too and that To honour her, Stein and Blumberg have set up the Sasha Bella Fund through the Sick Kids Foundation to explore ways to support the parents — and perhaps some staff — of dying babies and children in a hospital geared and better suited to miracles.

Psycho scriptwriter, songwriter

Adam Bernstein's Aug. 30, 2006, obit for
Joseph Stefano gives the dead writer's scriptography, enhanced by details of what influenced Stefano's decisions in crafting his stories.

Stefano wrote the script for Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" based on the novel of the same name. The first shock of the film is the killing off of the leading lady, played by then mega-movie-star Janet Leigh, in the first 20 minutes. Adam explains how the script craftsman's introduction of Leigh's character brilliantly differed from the novel.

Adam also pointed out early in the obit that Stefano, who also wrote for the science fiction TV series "The Outer Limits," had begun his entertainment career as a minor Greenwich Village showman and penned songs for Las Vegas showman Donn Arden.

Just before the obit's closing credits, a.k.a. list of surviving relatives, Adam throws in this gem:

Mr. Stefano had an enormous sheet-music collection and once spent five hours challenging pianist Michael Feinstein about who could name increasingly obscure Tin Pan Alley songs.

Death of Australia's best-known obituary writer

It's our business to tell our readers when a fellow human being has died. It's even harder when the dearly departed is someone you know and feel is one of your own.

Philip Jones, the obit writer of Oz, who spoke to gatherings of grimsters at a couple of Great Obituary Writers Conferences, has died.

His fellow Aussie Nigel Starck, internationally known obits scholar, said he had just recommended Philip to a Melbourne company for a series of corporate obituaries, when he read about his death at Crikey.com.au, an Australian electronic newsletter site.

Here is the obit written by Crikey arts correspondent Stephen Feneley, who also counted Philip as one of his own:

Vale Philip Jones
By arts correspondent Stephen Feneley

Australia's best-known obituary writer is dead, so it will be left to lesser known and less capable obituarists to pen tributes to what was an extraordinarily varied and interesting life.

Philip Jones died on Friday, aged 74, of a suspected heart attack. I counted him as a friend but, regrettably, our friendship was only forged in relatively recent times. He was an odd mix -- self-effacing and melancholic, funny and mischievous, single-minded and fearless. He managed to upset many prominent figures, including Barry Humphries and the widow of artist Sid Nolan.

Jones and his long-time partner Barrie Reid lived for 25 years with the renowned art patrons John and Sunday Reed at Heide, the farm on the outskirts of Melbourne that had earlier been the gathering point for an extraordinary group of artists, including Sid Nolan, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester.

After the deaths of John and Sunday in 1981, the relationship between Jones and Barrie Reid fell apart, with Jones agreeing to leave old Heide farm house. Under the terms of the Reeds' will, the house was to go to whoever lived the longest out of Reid and Jones, but after Reid died in 1995, Jones was blocked from regaining possession of the house, something that remained a cause of bitterness and sadness until he died.

Nevertheless Reid's death proved to be the catalyst for Jones to make a career change in his autumn years. He wrote a controversial warts-and-all obituary of his ex-lover, and the notoriety he gained from it launched him into a whole new career chronicling the lives of the recently departed. He had previously worked as an actor and bookseller.

As well as obits, Jones also wrote occasional features and op-ed pieces, his most recent appearing in The Age only the weekend before last. It was an angry tirade on the state of contemporary culture, with Jones declaring that art -- instead of being a revolutionary activity -- had become "an aspect of lifestyle". He said too much art was being made today and he dismissed most of it as "clapped-out copies of the modern movement that expired a quarter of century ago".

Coming from someone who'd spent the best part of his life celebrating Australian culture, it was a very angry polemic, with Jones clearly believing that less is more. "A plethora of activity denigrates any human activity, be it food, s-x, art or even sport. In short, the quality of any human activity is mitigated by satiety."

I spoke to him the day after the op-ed piece was published to congratulate him on being so forthright. In his inimitably self-deprecating yet chuffed-with-himself way, he said he might have gone a bit too far but was bored with everyone being in thunderous agreement about everything and wanted to stir things up a bit. That was our last conversation.

Jones had been battling debilitating depression for many months. He suffered a major setback late last year when a publishing deal to write the definitive biography on Sidney Nolan fell through after Nolan's widow refused to cooperate. Penguin had given him a substantial advance, most of which he spent on two research trips to the UK before Lady (Mary) Nolan denied him access to her late husband's papers. Penguin didn't ask for the money back but that didn't assuage Jones's guilt at failing to deliver. He'd been severely critical of Nolan, whom he described as a psychopath, and other expatriates, including Barry Humphries, in his memoir Art & Life, published two years ago.

Writing about the dead, a topic at the Society of Professional Journalists National Conference

Larken Bradley of the Point Reyes Light, Adam Bernstein of The Washington Post and I (Alana Baranick of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio) are the panelists for a session on obituary writing at the Society of Professional Journalists National Conference at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago this week.

Our session is scheduled for Friday, Aug. 25, from 10:45-11:45 a.m.

If you attend the conference, please stop by and say, "Hi." If you're there on Friday, but won't be at our session, you may find at least one of us in the booksellers area.

I'll be at the Marion Street Press table, signing copies of "Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers," which I wrote with Jim Sheeler, now a Pulitzer-Prize-winning feature writer for the Rocky Mountain News, and Stephen Miller, obits editor for the New York Sun and writer of the Wall Street Journal's new obits column, "Remembrances." (Sorry. Those two accomplished guys won't be there.)

For more information about the Society of Professional Journalists and the conference, go to: www.spj.org.

Obit Laureate -- Fantastic!

The Morning News (online magazine) has recent obituaries — a gong striker, a burger matriarch, a bagpipe virtuoso— transformed into light verse. See this link

Wall Street Journal finally has obits!!!

On Saturday, Aug. 5, 2006, The Wall Street Journal debuted "Remembrances," which it calls "a weekly column that notes the passing of people who have left an imprint on the world of business."

Tracking the "imprints" is Stephen Miller, creator and editor of The New York Sun's obituary section, co-author of "Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers," and regular contributor to his blog.

Way to go, Steve!

Steve's first WSJ column notes the death of Govindappa Venkataswamy, an ophthamologist who patterned the system his eye-care clinics use to provide cataract surgery to millions in India after the way McDonald's restaurants serve Big Macs to countless fast-food junkies around the world.

The headline: "McSurgery: A Man Who Saved 2.4 Million Eyes."

The big story is followed by a few obit briefs for other recently deceased folks who made their mark on the business world.

Sorry. I can't give you a link to the full Venkataswamy obit. You have to subscribe to WSJ or find someone who has a copy to read it. If you don't want to subscribe, you might consider buying the Weekend WSJ to read "Remembrances" in the future.

Legacy.com, Moving Tributes

Editor & Publisher Online wanted to know what obituary writers think of Legacy.com and its multimedia Moving Tributes.

Sarah Weber, an E&P Onliner, sought answers from:

Dick Peery, my partner-in-grim, my mentor and the senior obit writer at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio;

Carolyn Gilbert, founder of the International Association of Obituarists, its annual Great Obituary Writers Conferences and Obitpage.com;

and Steve Miller, obits editor at The New York Sun and co-author of "Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers."

In Weber's online article, "Multimedia Online Memorials Draw Mixed Reviews From Obit Editors," Dick (whose byline is Richard M. Peery) says he doesn’t feel threatened by the Moving Tributes section and points out that these family-composed items should not be confused with obituaries written by journalists.

“If people have a real story to tell about their loved one, I don’t see them passing us up to get on Legacy.com. As long as papers don’t pick these things up and run these as stories, I’m okay with it."

From her perspective as probably the most knowledgeable readers of obituaries and dedicated friend of obituary writers from publications around the world, Carolyn sees value in Legacy.com and its Moving Tributes, but says that value may be limited to folks, who are Web savvy and, the article implies, have the means to pay for the service.

“It serves a segment of the community for sure,” Gilbert said, “but maybe the more sophisticated clientele.”

Steve Miller (whose byline is Stephen Miller) told Weber what he really thinks.

“From my point of view, they’re a pain in the butt,” said Miller.

His chief complaint is that Legacy.com takes away the ability to browse through paid obits, making it difficult to find interesting obit subjects.

"I don’t like the whole interface; if you don’t know the person’s name that you’re looking for, you have to click through the whole page. I want to see a whole string of stuff to scan real quickly to find the important information, and they don’t make that possible.”

I have found Legacy.com helpful when I'm trying to verify the deaths of potential obit subjects who have died outside of the Cleveland area.

As for Moving Tributes, I haven't used it for this yet, but I see that these could be helpful in getting an idea of the deceased's life, occupation, interests, etc.

What do you think?

A Wiki Obituary

In a recent interview with Popmatters.com, ex-reporter Jayson Blair lamented the fact that his obit will surely lead with his fall from grace at The New York Times.

"I cannot imagine anything I could do, no matter how long I live, that will change that first line of my obituary," Blair said.

In response to this statement, Gawker.com issued a challenge to its readers: Write the first sentence Blair's obituary. The winner of the contest will receive a one-year subscription to Times Select.

George Hopkins died again Friday.

Once again, Kay Powell has come up with an opening hook to catch the attention of Atlanta Journal-Constitution readers.

You have to keep reading her July 18, 2006, obit for George Hopkins, if you want to know how he manage to die AGAIN.

Was he a peer of Dracula, an undead vampire who was finally done in by a stake through the heart? Did he have a resurrection of biblical proportions? Or did some obituary writer kill him off prematurely years ago?

No. None of the above.

Kay writes:

The first time he died, the experienced World War II hard hat diver was a law school student testing experimental diving equipment. He was resuscitated and suffered only a bout with pneumonia.

" 'Let me tell you about the time I died,' that was his big introduction," said his daughter Edith Collins of Buford. "He said it was the most peaceful experience of his life. I don't think he dived in experimental equipment again."

This time he died of complications from Alzheimer's disease at his Atlanta residence.

Be sure to read the rest of the twice-dead Hopkins' story, told by Kay, the supreme Southern storyteller.

Fred Clark's Last Laugh

My View from the Reference Desk - Occasional Musings on
the World of Obits from Tom Hobbs:

'Ole Fred Clark was a jokester, all right. So it was only fitting that he got his last laugh -- and more than the allotted 15 minutes of fame -- on July 9 when the Richmond Times-Dispatch ran his self-penned obituary. The family had to tweak it a bit, as Fred had never expected to die as the result of an automobile accident. The spirit of the man shines through though, and we are all a bit the poorer for his passing.

It's pretty clear that this 61 year old Richmond resident and Verizon retiree was a rascal at heart. He wanted us to know of his affection for "bacon, butter, cigars, and bourbon" but he was clear on this: it was the sight of his wonderful wife Alice that really lit up his world. Fred was a patriot and a godly man in his way. He didn't hold politicians in high regard, though, as he professed his amazement at "what the voters would tolerate." Sorry that he couldn't realize his final wish -- "to be run over by a beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a double date to include his wife, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter to crash an ACLU cocktail party" -- Fred asked that you commemorate his passing by making a "sizeable purchase" of spirits to get rip roaring drunk at home "with someone you love or hope to make love to." Something else about Fred . . . he wanted you to know that "he never peed in the shower - on purpose."

In a Times-Dispatch follow up piece running on July 11, Fred's son confirmed that his Dad had tamed the rowdy ways some during his last years but would still be going out literally with a bang. Fred's remains are to be shot from a cannon later this summer at a family party.

Clearly Fred Clark's obituary struck a responsive chord all across the political spectrum. As of late July 17, his guestbook at the legacy.com online obit contained 111 pages of entries.

Way to go, Fred! (Really!)

That's this View from the Reference Desk. I hope to be with you again from time to time.

(Tom Hobbs is a Reference Librarian at the University of South Carolina Aiken.)

New published story about the 8th and other Greats

Cathy Dunphy's editors at the Toronto Star gave her so much space for "Death Becomes Us," a feature about the 8th Great Obituary Writers Conference, that she added observations and lessons from the 6th and 7th Greats.

Great job, Cathy. I especially enjoyed the stranger's comment about obit writers being poets. Nice touch.

Censoring paid obituaries/death notices.

Cathy Dunphy, writer of the Toronto Star's "Lifelines" feature, wants to know about other newspapers' policies regarding the censoring of paid obits, a.k.a. death notices.

In lieu of a request for memorial donations in a paid obit, the bereaved relatives of one deceased mom asked mourners to wage a letter-writing campaign. They were unhappy about the "uneven" health care their mom had received from professional caregivers.

They ended their prepared obituary with a request that mourners send letters to the minister of health, requesting that more funds go toward providing the elderly with safe and dignified care in their final days.

Cathy's paper wouldn't run the request line because they deemed it too political.

Cathy said: "Our paper's classified people declared that this was a political statement and that our policy forbids running it. They also said that paid death notices are officially considered as editorial material. (That was a surprise.) It ran in the Globe and Mail though, which is where I saw it.

"Do you know anything about this issue? Our ombud is looking into it and asked me if I knew what other papers' policies are.

"Thanks for anything you can do."

Please share your thoughts on this one.

USA T'other day

And, as every year, Señor McKie's cowboy hat gets all the attention in USA Today today, also featuring Marilyn reading from The Dead Beat. Sounds like another great conference. And onwards to the ninth! I wonder if Isabel and I could arrange it for Spain next time?

The 8th was Great!

Approximately 40 conferees (plus 7 spouses) shared obit-writing anecdotes, philosophies and tips during conference sessions, over enchiladas, ice cream or brewskis at various eateries and bars and sometimes in front of cameras wielded by 2 filmmaking crews (10 people in all) at the 8th Great Obituary Writers Conference held last weekend at the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, N.M.

I won't identify all the participants here, but I will mention the presenters.

Bob Chaundy talked about assembling obituaries - complete with news, TV and film clips, previously recorded interviews with the deceased celebrity and man-on-the-street comments - for the BBC television news. Most interesting: How Bob put together an audiovisual obit for a rarely filmed scientist who discovered, identified or insert-the-correct-past-tense-verb-here DNA.

Kay Powell, the always delightful obituaries editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, talked about the history of obits for women and encouraged us to find interesting recently deceased women to write about. Mack Lundstrom (San Jose State University professor), Cathy Dunphy (Toronto Star reporter and journalism professor) and Tom Berner (retired Pennsylvania State University professor) talked about reporting suicides in obits. Spencer Michlin, who calls himself an iconoclast from Dallas, promoted family-written-and-paid-for obits that need not meet journalistic standards of truth or style.

Tim Bullamore, freelance obit writer who now sums up lives for The Daily Telegraph of London, explained how obits, similar to the New York Times' heralded "Portraits of Grief" series for folks who died in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, were done for victims of terrorist attacks in London and Bali. He recommended that every newspaper have a plan for such events.

Marilyn Johnson, author of "The Dead Beat," wanted us to adopt specific terminology for the standard parts of the obituary, so we obit writers could have a common language. While we all love Marilyn and enjoyed her stories and opinions, reaction to her suggested obit lingo was mixed. Some in our number felt we should stick with common newspaper terms for story parts. Having a separate language peculiar to obits could set us back in the respect we've worked so hard and so long to gain from our newspaper colleagues, who haven't always regarded obit writing as real journalism. Some conferees pointed out that "tombstone," Marilyn's term for the phrase in which we sum up a person's life, is what some of us call details - such as birth and death dates - that show up in an obit info box. During the Q&A, the word "furniture," which Mack Lundstrom uses for the mandatory list of survivors and funeral services that bog down our storytelling efforts, was mentioned. Interestingly, Marilyn's "tombstone" and Mack's "furniture" were used repeatedly during discussions throughout the conference.

Stephen Miller, obits editor at the New York Sun and a co-author (with me - Alana Baranick - and Jim Sheeler) of "Life on the Death Beat," talked about the only obit that won a Pulitzer Prize, appropriately for "deadline" reporting, and the amazing life of that Pulitzer-winning reporter, who is still living and writing under a different name.

Jim Sheeler, our co-author and a Rocky Mountain News general assignment reporter who sometimes pens obits, won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing - but not for an obit. He was the star of the 8th Great show. As usual, we sniffled through his heartstrings-tugging stories about military personnel who died too young. Jim himself got choked up when International Association of Obituarists founder and conference diva Carolyn Gilbert inducted him into the IAO Hall of Fame.

Betty Abah, a journalist from Nigeria and an Alfred Friendly Press Fellow with Sheeler's Rocky Mountain News, gave an impassioned presentation titled "Holding the Corrupt Dead Accountable, Celebrating the Wretched of the Earth: A Case for Obit Writing in Africa."

Two other conference newcomers, neither of whom write obits but whose work involves gathering facts about people's lives, also gave presentations.

EllynAnne Geisel, whose thick North Carolina accent has not been diluted after living for decades in Pueblo, Colo., told us some interesting stories about people she learned about while working on "The Apron Book," her aptly titled book about - you guessed it - aprons.

Pam Vetter, a former TV reporter, told us about her work as a funeral celebrant. She prepares and conducts funeral services and eulogies for folks who don't want formal religious rites. She's kind of like the funeral-arranging version of a wedding planner.

Andrew McKie wrapped up the conference with a general talk about the importance of writing obits. I really liked this. I hope future conferences end with similar tie-up-the-loose-ends sessions, led by veteran obit writers, with questions and comments from the conferees.

Carolyn told us to circle June 14-16 on the 2007 calendar for the 9th Great Obituary Writers Conference, but she hasn't decided on the location. She mentioned three potential sites, but didn't identify them to us. She said she will consult with a few IAO members before making a decision.

I for one hope the 9th Great is not in Las Vegas, N.M., again. I'd like a change of scenery.

But I also hope it's not in Israel, which was mentioned last year as a possibility for 2007. If it's held overseas, I'll have to miss it. I can't afford the expense or the time for such a trip.

Please post your comments about the 8th and 9th Great Obituary Writers Conferences.

The internet and the future of death

Sadly, I couldn't make it to this year's Obituary Writers' Conference, and due to lack of internet and lack of time, I didn't even manage to get my essay sent in time to make it into the brochure (sorry Carolyn!). Did you all have fun? Did you miss me?

Anyway, due to the wonders of the interwebnet, I can post my slightly flabby piece on here for you all. It's a development of a piece I wrote not long ago about the objects we leave behind. And hopefully it might get a few people thinking.

All thoughts, replies, comments gratefully perceived.

A.



The internet and the future of death


Within three generations, people start to disappear.

A century and a half from now, there will be no-one who remembers first-hand what anyone now living was like. They will exist as faint traces from the past, appearing only randomly in whatever mementoes journalism, sheer luck and bureaucratic documents create.

What remains in your home now from 1856? Or even 1906? If you’re lucky, perhaps a pile of faded photographs, a few sticks of furniture, the detritus of heirloom – medals, coils, lace tablecloths. Personal correspondence, wrapped in string or ribbon; handwritten names inside the front covers of books; savings books, registered at long-disappeared addresses, in denominations that no longer exist.

And then there is the official, where names are inscribed and given wider context by an official seal. Public records of birth, marriage, divorce and death. Housing deeds. Wills and testaments. Changes of name. Royally bestowed honours. Formations and cessations of companies. Planning permission. Just the facts, on the record, and names there for anyone who wants to find them. It’s not our most important life moments that live on – it’s the ones that are most legally significant. And then there's the added colour of self-appointed officialdom. Those publications that, by common consent, offer their own barometers of societal participation. The OED. The Guinness Book of Records. Who's Who. Hansard. The Encyclopaedia Britannica. Wisden. Insert your own cultural equivalent here.

What does this have to do with obituaries? An awful lot, as the nature of this detritus is changing – and what it is changing to will have an enormous impact on the research methods of the next generation of obituary writers.

Firstly, we don't tend to hang onto useful objects for as long as our great-grandfathers did - increased commerce, marketing and wealth have helped our tastes to change, quickly and almost constantly. Furniture lasts perhaps ten years, not generations. The few objects that will remain from us are rarely useful as anything but emotive hand-me-downs.

Secondly, who is to say that our legacy will exist through physical objects? Think of your grandmother’s yellowing love letters, your childhood photographs – or those of your subjects, that have helped you in your research. Who now aged under 30 handwrites a letter? How often do digital photos actually get printed? (And even when they are, modern inks and papers are known to be less durable.) Where once we wrote, now we make phone calls, where meaningful words and significant moments vanish along the line and into the ether as suddenly as they are called into existence.

Will any of our correspondence, our photography, our private, tender moments be available for our grandchildren? Will emails last that long? And will they even be available to journalists of today, as passwords and computer failure keep us from accessing the finer details of their lives. As more objects, from books to photographs, become virtual, so does the quantity of data at our disposal.

If we do assume the constancy of data (groups like the internet archive are fighting to store as much as they can), then what are the consequences of this? The obituarists and, in turn, our great-grandchildren will read our blogs and our messageboard postings, see our online photo streams and watch our videocasts, as the archived caches of Google Past make it into classrooms and universities.

The concept of webpage as historical document is a sobering one. Self-promotion and overexaggeration in the online public arenas are not new phenomena, but for the first time, it is not our carefully chosen words but the wider, poorly phrased public arena that will outlast us. Finding out usernames, working out passwords, scraping antique hard drives for all but useless personal information will become a socially useful art in itself. Hackaeologists will appear as the new society’s historians.

And who will the virtual obituarists be? Online social networks are already changing the nature of friendships, of who your neighbour is and how people know each other. A familiar face around town is just as likely to be a familiar face in the online group. It can surely only be a matter of time before MySpace or LiveJournal appoints its own obituary professional, sensitive to the unique bonds that form over time in virtual public spaces, talking not to relatives but friends about their memories of people they have never met, on the other side of the globe. One obituary for meatspace, one for virtual space. I suspect that the people they will document may often appear markedly different in each.

Just as personal relationships and what we understand of as society is changing thanks to the internet, so will personal histories and obituary writing. Already, an online world called Second Life has its own embedded journalist, whose weblog is seen as the communty’s newspaper. And where there are communities and there’s a newspaper, there’s always a need for well-written, well-researched obituaries. The skills and sensibilities of their writers will be the same, but the tools markedly different.

(ends)

Fictional obit writers on film and in print

In the movie, "Closer," actor Jude Law portrays an obituary writer for a London newspaper. I was infuriated when his character told Natalie Portman's that obit writing is the Siberia of journalism.

I laughed at the opening scene of "Perfect" in which John Travolta is a fledgling reporter and reluctant obit writer. I got a kick out of his phone interview with a bereaved relative, as he asked for the name of the funeral home, the deceased's age and the cause of death. When he begged his editor to get him off obit duty and got his wish, I lost interest in the film.

Both Jeremy Piven in "Serendipity" and Jennifer Aniston in "Rumor Has It" are described as obit writers for the New York Times. Piven's character is shown as a reporter who writes obits, but I believe Aniston's character would actually be a person who takes obit info from funeral homes and families for the classified advertising department - basically, a clerk-typist, not a journalist.

Fictional obit writers usually are portrayed in movies (and in books, like Carl Hiaasen's "Basket Case" and Porter Shreve's "The Obituary Writer") as unfortunate souls who are stuck with the dirtiest job in the newsroom. The writers of these screenplays and books are using the term "obit writer" as a synonym for "loser." To them, the obit writer represents as person who is in a dead-end job, who yearns for some higher calling, who is ready for a change.

For some reporters, this may be true. To the public, this is probably the perception. But it's not always the case. Many of us regard our jobs as the best in the newsroom.

We love writing about the dead. We're not writing about death. We're writing about lives. (FYI: Many of us, who love what we do, will attend the 8th Great Obituary Writers Conference in Las Vegas, N.M., June 15-17. For details go to www.obitpage.com.)

What other movies, books, TV shows or whatever include obit-writing characters? How were they portrayed? What did you think about them?

More on military "heroes"

This one's still alive.
As I recall this was a big topic at the obituary writers' confab in 2004.
Story from Atlanta Journal Constitution

My new address is...

There's something quite stylish about this death notice.

(via Boing Boing)

Obits can get political, says Chris Reed

THE FOLLOWING COMES FROM OUR INTERNATIONAL OBIT-WRITING COLLEAGUE CHRIS REED:

Obits can get political too. See how my obit on Abe Rosenthal was used in a devastating rebuttal to the "P.T. Barnum" of neo-liberalism, the New York Times's Thomas Friedman's absurd claim that the late Abe did not influence his correspondents' political reporting.

Of the Big Three (WP, NYT, LAT), not one mentioned Ray Bonner's superb reporting from El Salvador, for which Abe cravenly humiliated and demoted him. The NYT now looks stupid for not doing so.

Lesson: Obits are political too.

ROSENTHAL LINKS:

To read Alexander Cockburn's lead piece of May 15 - which includes an excerpt from Chris Reed's story, go to www.counterpunch.org and scroll down a little

And read Chris Reed's Rosenthal obituary from The Guardian of London.

You should be able to find the New York Times' Rosenthal obituary and Friedman's Rosenthal reflections at www.nytimes.com, but you have to be a subscriber. You also could go to your library or your newspaper's electronic library.

As an alternative, read Stephen Miller's Rosenthal obit in the New York Sun.

Death online

"[W]hile few, if any, British news sources have covered the story, tens of thousands of British web users know about Anna. But the case also brings up some moral dilemmas. Should we be intruding on someone else's grief, even if we have been invited to? And in circulating the story of Anna's death, are we treating her with the same triviality we would afford to a funny forwarded email?"

Grief, sympathy and voyeurism online in today's Guardian.

Time runs out for Aussie 60 Minutes reporter

The following obit comes from our own wizard of Oz, Nigel Starck, offshore program director of the School of Communication at University of South Australia.

Richard Carleton
60 Minutes reporter, Australia
(born New South Wales 24 February 1943; died Tasmania 7 May 2006)

Richard Carleton fired off his typically hostile question, shuffled away from the media scrum at a Tasmanian mine where two men were trapped underground, collapsed, and died of heart failure. That heart had twice endured by-pass surgery; each operation was the subject of a 60 Minutes report fronted, naturally, by the patient.

Carleton, 63, brought individuality, eccentricity, and a touch of arrogance to the process of news gathering, blurring the line between journalism and entertainment, on the principle that a story is not a story if nobody sees it. In the earlier stages of his 40-year television career, he was slender and darkly sideburned, challenging Australia’s political leaders with an incisive line of questioning. He soon won a reputation as the press corps man who had the nerve to raise the offensive, the embarrassing and the infuriating probes that nobody else dared to ask.

Perhaps his most famous moment came in a 1983 encounter with the labor leader Bob Hawke, who was running for prime minister. Hawke had just beaten a decent, diligent but dull political colleague for the nomination – and then he faced Carleton, live on national television. Carleton’s first question rattled the loquacious, nail-hard Hawke. “Could I ask you,” he spat, “whether you feel a little embarrassed tonight at the blood that's on your hands?”

For 60 Minutes, he reported from all the hot spots: Kabul, Bosnia, Jerusalem, Chernobyl, Baghdad, and East Timor. The East Timor report, on an independence referendum, led to an episode – 16 years after the Hawke clash – that might have caused Carleton himself some embarrassment. He was deported by the authorities, for pestering voters at a polling station. After this forced departure, the local police found that Carleton’s hotel room was stocked with gourmet cheeses, caviar, smoked mussels, aparagus spears and quince jams. Rival reporters gleefully filed colour stories on the discovery, for Carleton was not universally loved. Indeed, he had been known to scream abuse at his own camera crews and line producers.

In later life, he became jowly in appearance and pontificating in manner. He would ask long questions in a fruity adversarial quizzing, peering over reading glasses at his interviewees. This interrogation would be spiced too by great slabs of silence, as Carleton waited for the ultimate confession. One television critic found that Carleton “looked at interviewees as if they were pieces of diseased tissue floating in formaldehyde”.

Away from television, he loved fly-fishing in the mountains. He was also an accomplished magician, travelling as far as Florida to learn new sleight-of-hand artistry at an illusionists’ convention. Richard Carleton had a son and a daughter from his first marriage, and a son from his second. He won three ‘Reporter of the Year’ awards.

Even in death, this veteran of Australian television made it to air-time as scheduled. His report, on the Tasmanian mine cave-in, was cobbled together by the production unit and broadcast on the evening of the day that he died. The 60 Minutes watch had stopped on the reporter with the piranha smile.

- Nigel Starck
(with file material from The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald)

AsiaMedia obit for Richard Carleton

Oxymoronic? Or business as usual?

Patricia Sullivan wrote an obit that ran in the Washington Post May 7, 2006, for Herbert Burkholz, a mystery novelist who briefly was a speechwriter at the Food and Drug Administration in the 1990s.

Sullivan doesn't tell readers, "Isn't it ironic, dontcha think?" She deftly presents the facts of Burkholz' life so that additional commentary isn't necessary.

She writes: Burkholz wrote 10 novels and two nonfiction books, including "The FDA Follies" (1994), an attack on the FDA in the Reagan era that grew out of a series of health-related articles he wrote for the New York Times Magazine.

After the book was published, Burkholz was hired to write speeches for David Kessler, FDA commissioner in the Clinton administration.

The titles of Burkholz' commercially successfuly mysteries and a series that included "The Sensitives" (1987), "Strange Bedfellows" (1988) and "Brain Damage" (1992) add to the weirdness of it all.

It makes you wonder where our government officials find their speechwriters and what their motives are.

Perfume obituaries

An email I received over the weekend from someone called Carolyn (not our one):

"I am looking for information on obits of people connected to the perfume industry, including perfumers (who until very recently were not visibly promoted by the oil companies). and others who were part of developing the perfume industry (like Baron Walter Langer of White Shoulder fame).

I am a retired senior exploring a subject that is dear to my heart - the history of perfumery.

I need to know where to look online and how to "ask " for it.

I know I can go to the local library and check their newpaper resources."

I could only suggest newspaper websites. Can anyone help her with more? You can email her at perfumeladi@gmail.com.

Obituary writing tips

The May 2006 edition of Quill, the Society of Professional Journalists' monthly magazine, features some tips for writing obituaries. The title is Beat Guide: Obituaries.

The chief reason I know about this is that I wrote it. Joe Skeel, Quill Magazine editor, asked me and several other reporters to share tips for covering their beats. My beat, of course, is the death beat.

I'm sure this won't help my fellow obit writers much. It's aimed at those journalists who haven't written much about the dead. And my space was limited.

I know I didn't cover everything. What other tips would you have for fledgling obituary writers?

Write after death

Robert Ballantyne, who calls himself a "popjournalist," put together a short radio documentary called "Write After Death" for CKLN in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

It's a nifty mix of comments from Cathy Dunphy of the Toronto Star, Steve Miller of the New York Sun and me (Alana Baranick of Cleveland's Plain Dealer), intermingled with theme music from HBO's "Six Feet Under" and other bits of sound, including part of John Travolta's opening scene from the movie "Perfect."

Well done, Robert!

Click the title above to get connected to the audio and, at some point, to what should be a longer written version of Ballantyne's look at obituaries and obit writers.

What a way to go!

Scott Crossfield, a legendary test pilot who pushed the boundaries of flight in supersonic planes, was killed Wednesday when the small Cessna he was piloting crashed into the pine-shrouded mountains of northeast Georgia during a storm. - from Washington Post obit, April 20, 2006.

Lawrence Grodsky, a nationally known motorcycle safety expert and author who taught thousands of riders to handle themselves on the roads, died Saturday on his bike in Fort Stockton, Texas, after being hit by a deer. He was 55, and had been on his way from a safety conference in California to Pittsburgh for his mother's 85th birthday. - from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette obit, April 11, 2006.

Anthony Burger, 44, died while playing piano on a gospel music ocean cruise trip sponsored by Bill and Gloria Gaither and all their gospel music friends. Some 1,500 passengers were aboard. According to a doctor's report, Burger's heart simply burst while he was doing what he loved best, playing a gospel song before the cruise ship passengers and the other singers on the ship. - from story printed in the Leaf-Chronicle of Clarksville, Tenn., March 5, 2006. (More on Burger's life and death can be accessed online through the Christian Concert Authority news archives.)

Folks who died while doing what they loved. Let's add this to the obit writer's version of "These are a few of my favorite things."

Joe Holley and Stephanie McCrummen include little details that make the Crossfield obit take off. When Crossfield's Cessna 210, which he had been flying for years, went down, he was returning home from Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala., where he had given a talk, the pair of Washington Posties write.

They add: In a lifetime of flying, Crossfield was well acquainted with risk, having survived at least one crash landing and a catastrophic engine explosion while testing the X-15, a revolutionary rocket-powered airplane.

And the clincher, a quote from retired Marine Corps. Gen. John R. "Jack" Dailey, director of the Air and Space Museum, who noted the irony of a man who survived crash landings and explosions only to die in a small, private plane in a storm. "But if he'd been given a choice," he said, "he probably wouldn't have had it any other way. He would not have wanted it to happen on a front porch, in a rocker."

Isn't that great?

Sally Kalson filled Grodsky's obit with details and comments that add to the irony of his manner of leaving the planet.

Side note: I don't recall ever meeting Grodsky, although we attended the same high school - Gateway Senior High School, Monroeville, Pa. - at the same time. Our common scholastic heritage and the fact that Myron Cope, the radio voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers, was his uncle make me feel connected to him. Isn't it interesting how obits can have that affect on people?

Anthony Burger. I was heart-broken when I read the wire reports of Burger's death. I was a big fan.

Burger used to do this bit during a Gaither concert in which he'd play a happy instrumental piece really fast. It seemed that he was playing increasingly faster and more ferociously until, thanks to special effects, smoke poured out of the piano as though Burger had set the keys and strings on fire.

Performers at gospel concerts often sing songs about heaven and make comments about feeling exhilarated by the music and the message in the music. They say things like, "It feels like we're in heaven already," or "I can't wait to go to my heavenly home."

I hope Anthony Burger was in that frame of mind when he died. I couldn't find a report that gave the title of the song he was playing when he made his exit. It would have been nice to know.

In Praise of Jim Sheeler, Pulitzer Prize Winner

I have been in awe of Jim Sheeler's writing talents since the Third Great Obituary Writers Conference, when retired journalism professor Garrett Ray shared copies of Jim's "A Colorado Life," a freelance obit feature Jim started at the Denver Post.

It wasn't until the winter of 2003 that I was able to convince my editors at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, to allow me to try something similar. We call it "A Life Story."

This new feature was certainly better than the type of obits I had been doing, but it didn't hold a candle to Jim's work.

Last year, when the American Society of Newspaper Editors announced that its revolving category for 2005 would be obituary writing, my boss kept telling me, "You're a shoe-in for this award."

I told him he was overconfident. That he didn't realize what terrific work is being done by my obit-writing friends across the country and by many other obit writers whom I haven't had the pleasure of meeting.

And then I told him what I truly believed. "If the Rocky Mountain News submits Jim Sheeler's work in the obit category, there's absolutely no way I or anyone else can win."

I have to believe that Jim's paper must have submitted his general assignment work and not his obits. After all, he does more than walk the death beat these days.

That decision cleared the way so the rest of us would stand a chance. I got lucky and took home the ASNE honors, but I knew I didn't - and still don't - measure up to the standard of excellence the Jim sets.

A few weeks ago, we learned that Jim won the 2006 ASNE Award for nondeadline writing. And now, he's got the top prize in journalism - the Pulitzer - for feature writing.

Congratulations, Jim! Nobody deserves this honor more than you.

For those who don't know, Jim, Steve Miller (whose byline in the New York Sun is "Stephen Miller") and I are co-authors of "Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers." For more information on the book and how to order it, visit www.deathbeat.com and click he "my book" button.

Marilyn Johnson and Adam Bernstein on BookTV

Be sure to watch or tape BookTV (CSpan2) from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Sunday, April 16, for Marilyn Johnson's discussion of her book, "The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries." Adam Bernstein of the Washington Post is the interviewer.

Here's what is posted on the BookTV Web site:

The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries - Marilyn Johnson

Description: Author Marilyn Johnson talks about her book, "The Dead Beat," at Borders Books & Music in Washington, DC. Ms. Johnson looks at obituaries and the people who write them. She also examines the regional and international differences between obituaries written about the same person.

The author is interviewed by Adam Bernstein, staff obituary writer for the Washington Post, who is also featured in her book. Both the author and the interviewer answer audience questions following their discussion.

Author Bio: Marilyn Johnson, former staff writer for Life magazine and an editor at Esquire, has written obituaries for Katharine Hepburn, Princess Diana, Jackie Onassis, Johnny Cash, Bob Hope, and Marlon Brando.

Publisher: HARPER COLLINS 10 E. 53rd Street New York, NY 10022

Everlasting Love

It's not unusual for couples who have been married for a long time to die close together, and we've all written obits about that. Holly Crenshaw, an obit writer for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, gave readers a glimpse into the successful 76-year marriage of Mae Smith and her husband Charlie Smith of Jonesboro, GA: She led, he followed, even unto death.

They were in hospital rooms across the hall from each other, and Mr. Smith was expected to die first. Instead, Mrs. Smith died first and Mr. Smith died the next day. His mother, her son said, "was going to take the lead in everything."

This love story was the most viewed and emailed story online at www.ajc.com Friday and continues to be in the Top 10 online stories. It's the top viewed story of the month.

Here's the link to http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/
obits/stories/0407metobsmith.html
Holly's email address is hcrenshaw@ajc.com

An Atlanta radio station read the obit on the air Friday, and a steady stream of emails has been coming to Holly since the double obit was published. It will make you laugh; it will make you cry—at the same time.

Kay Powell

Ivor Cutler, alt.obituaries and an obit postscript

Amelia Rosner posted some hilarious obits at alt.obituaries that the British papers printed for the late Ivor Cutler, an unlikely cult hero, in early March 2006.

In case you are as clueless as I used to be about alt.obituaries, it's a Google Group devoted to news of the dead. Go to www.google.com, choose the "groups" option, and type alt.obituaries in the search field. That will take you to alt.obituaries. To find Cutler's obits, put his name in the alt.obits search field.

The bulk of the Cutler obit in The Independent of London was written by Colin Irwin, who I presume is a freelance obit writer like many of the Brit grimsters. His name appears at the end of his text.

Then the obit continues as follows:
Like many others, I had admired Ivor Cutler's stories, told in his graveyard Scottish voice, on Monday Night at Home when in my late teens, writes Caroline Richmond. I met him on computer dat-ing in 1966 and we remained good friends for several years.

Caroline Richmond? Our Caroline? Writer of obits for internationally known physicians, scientists and medical researchers? Identifiable at obituary writers conferences by her red Harry Potter glasses flanked by the letters L and K to form the word LOOK?

Yes. That's the one.

"When Ivor died, I emailed the Independent and said that I wasn't the best person to do him, but if they didn't get a better offer I could have a crack," Caroline wrote in response to my query. "They did have a better offer, so my additional comments were tacked on at the end. I was pleased about that."

I'm pleased about it too. All of the Cutler obits printed in publications across the pond offer glorious descriptions of this eccentric humorist, songwriter and poet. Caroline's mini-memoir offers details the others don't.

Like this:
I once went to watch him teaching at Fox primary school in Notting Hill Gate. He played "God Save the Queen" in boogie on the piano and got the children to sing it (difficult). Then he stopped the piano with some crashing chords and asked, glaring with feigned disapproval, "Who sang 'God shave the Queen'?" No one owned up, of course, because no one had. He ticked them off and restarted. Whereupon, of course, they all sang it.

I love her references to his graveyard Scottish voice and his wearing a straw hat that a donkey would have rejected.

Kudos, Caroline!

Obituary for a Hoosier editor

Here's a great look at what his obituary should have said.

John Doe died. No, really. That's his real name.

Obituary writers love to do obits for people with names to die for.

I know I got excited years ago when I did an obit for Happy Laffin, who had a service station called "Laffin Gas" and a wife who went by her initials - "I.M." - so when people called her name, they'd have to say, "I. M. Laffin."

Kay Powell hit the jackpot last week, when John Doe met his maker during her watch at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. And she made the most of it.

In the obituary for the real John Doe that ran in the AJC on March 25, 2006, Kay wrote: For most of his 92 years, he had to show his marriage license or his driver's license to prove to suspicious hotel clerks and doubting hospital personnel that he really was John Doe.

She included intriguing statistics: In Georgia, 125 John Does have died since 1970, according to an AJC analysis of death records on file with the state Department of Human Resources. Those records do not indicate who died unidentified and who was actually named John Doe.

She threw in a nifty tidbit that never would have occurred to me: He was rarely sick, but when he did have to go to the hospital, medical personnel were constantly dropping by his room to check his identity in case he was a famous person seeking anonymity.

Great job, Kay. Does anyone else have a cool story to share about names?

The "You Died" Blog

Someone commented on our blog posting about Marilyn Johnson's recent segment on NPR. I say "someone" because that's the name the person signed.

A quick click of the name led to another blog: "You Died."

It's a place for posting your own obit. It appears to be a relatively new blog site. The auto-obituaries range from touching to amusing to bizarre. Check it out.

Oh, and thanks, Someone. We appreciate your plugging our blogs, our Web sites and our books. Question for you: Do we know you?

Album cover

Claire Martin says this record album is meant to be framed & hung on an obit writer's wall.

It's from the Museum of Bad Album Covers.

From a certain point of view

Joe Simnacher of the Dallas Morning News and I (Alana Baranick of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio) wrote obits from opposite perspectives about the same man.

Joe's obit, which ran March 10, 2006, carries this headline: William H. Bricker: Brought Diamond Shamrock to Dallas - which was a positive for Texas.

The problem for my readers in Cleveland is that Bricker "brought" the oil/energy/chemicals corporation's headquarters to Dallas from Cleveland. So the headline for the Cleveland obit of March 13, 2006, is: William Bricker, led Shamrock to Dallas, LTV in bankruptcy.

That "LTV" thing cemented the man's unfavorable reputation in my neck of the woods. You'll have to read the entire story to understand why Clevelanders didn't like him much.

I'm not opposed to writing negative things about the deceased, but I do not relish doing it. Sometimes there's no way to avoid it. These are news stories, after all.

Both obits are worth reading and comparing.

I can't say that Joe wrote a eulogy for the man, but he did include some comments from the family emphasizing his good points. And that's understandable.

Hats off to Joe for working in a most unusual anecdote! How many places will you read about semen from a prized bull, oil-drilling and Indonesia in a single paragraph? Only in the obits!

Marilyn Johnson's media blitz

Our own Marilyn Johnson has been getting an amazing amount of big-time media attention for her book, "The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs and Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries."

In case you don't know, her book is about, well, us. Obit writers. Fobits, a.k.a. Friends of Obits. And obits of all sorts. Many of us are mentioned by name.

I won't go into great detail on the newspapers, magazines, radio and television views and reviews of Marilyn's book. There's just too many.

But here are some of the more prominent publications that are telling the world about Marilyn, her book and those of us fortunate enough to have been mentioned by her: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, People magazine, Parade magazine and Publisher's Weekly. The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and USA Today are among the newspapers that are expected to print something about the book in the near future.

Her interviews include National Public Radio's "On The Media" (March 11 & 12) and "Morning Edition" (Renee Montagne, sometime this week).

Marilyn's appearance with Adam Bernstein of the Washington Post at Borders in Washington, D.C., Wednesday (March 15), will be taped for CSPAN2's BookTV. Check the BookTV Web site to find out when it will air.

Visit Marilyn's Web site to learn more about her book tour and other media exposure.

Nice going, Marilyn. We're proud of you and grateful for the spotlight you are shining on the obit world.

obituary forum

obituary forum The Daily Telegraph obituary on John Profumo, I'm assuming it's Andrew's, is my early nominee for best obituary of the year. It's at once touching and fascinating. A must read.

She habitually wore a fur hat that made it look as if a cat was curled up on her head

"When I die I want someone to write that sort of obituary about me."

Famous fantasy writer Neil Gaiman mentions a favourite obit, one of the Telegraph's Sohohound tributes. One of yours, Andrew?

Dead or alive?

Sometimes it's not the obit writer's fault that the death notices aren't accurate.

Dead Doughboy

obituary forum In memoriam - Pillsbury Doughboy - He's Gone IN Remembrance Please join me in remembering a great icon of the entertainmentcommunity here in America.The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71. Doughboy wasburied in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out topay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, theCalifornia Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and CaptainCrunch. The grave site was piled high with flours.Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as aman who never knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly inshow business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was notconsidered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-bakedschemes. Despite being a little flaky at times he was a crusty old manand was considered a roll model for millions.Doughboy is survived by his wife Play Dough, two children, John Doughand Jane Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived byhis elderly father, Pop Tart.The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes.

Dead? Or alive?

Kay Powell, obits editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, shares this confirmation-of-death story that a funeral director told her about his uncle:

Per the funeral director: My uncle was recently hospitalized in very serious condition and not expected to live. He recoverd to some degree and went home to recuperate.

Social security called his wife Tuesday morning to inform her that she needed to reimburse the agency for the check sent him the first of this month. Somewhat puzzled, she inquired "Why".

They had been advised of his death on _____ of January. That came as somewhat of a surprise to her, she reported, since he was sitting in the chair next to her and was apparently very much alive and didn't smell bad at all.

She now has to take him to their office to prove that he is, indeed, alive and kicking.

He went to his doctor's appointment yesterday. His appointment had been cancelled due to his death and his Medicare benefits were frozen.

Oh, and his retirement pension was also terminated.

Fortunately, he is one of those few who revel in the folly of life in today's world. He said he always wanted to slip peacefully away some day when that time comes. From now on he says he will check with SS each morning before shaving in case he died during the night and nobody got the memo out to him.

First Rule of Obit Writing, Part II

Speaking of which, I read a short story called "Mortals" by Tobias Wolff about a newspaper obit writer who fails to confirm an obit with the family or the funeral home. The result is about what you might expect, except with a twist. I found it in a book of Wolff's short stories at the library.

Cause of death as public health warning

I recently wrote a feature obit for a 91-year-old man, who happened to die from C. diff. Forgive my lack of medical expertise in explaining this, but apparently C. diff is synonymous with killing a patient with antibiotic therapy. It ranks high on the list of the potentially fatal side effects of being in a hospital.

I received an email from a reader, who knew the deceased. He suggested that I should have written about how this man died. By doing that, I would have enlightened readers to this terrible health risk, the emailer said. He believed it was my duty as a journalist to warn the public.

In the obits I write, I prefer to celebrate the person's life. I don't usually make a big deal about the way people die, unless it enhances the stories of their lives or gives the circumstances of death for a person, who was too young to die.

I'm big on irony - like the young mountain climber, who died of head injuries after falling down the cellar steps.

And Steve Courson, the former super-strong Pittsburgh Steeler lineman who became a poster boy for steroid abuse around 1990. I always thought steroid-inflicted heart problems would kill him. Instead, it was a tree. The tree fell on Steve while he was trying to save his dog from getting crushed by it.

It's easy to warn folks about the dangers posed by drugs. We can say that a person died from a heart condition caused by steroid abuse. We can write that a fatal heart attack was brought on by heroin addiction or that someone accidentally overdosed on prescription medicine.

But if I had said that this guy died of C. diff, then I'd have to explain what C. diff is. In this particular case, the explanation would have interrupted the flow of the story. Also, I had a limited amount of space in which to cram the man's 91 years of life. I didn't want to leave out interesting aspects of his life to belabor his agonizing death.

Give me some feedback. How do you handle this sort of thing? Do you have any stories to share regarding this?

Fabulous Facts

One reason the Telegraph is so good. Where else do you find facts like the one in the last sentence of the paragraph in Freddie Laker's obit describing antitrust action involving Laker Airlines?: In 1983 the liquidators Touche Ross began an anti-trust action in America, claiming a billion dollars from 10 major airlines. The allegations went beyond predatory pricing; British Airways, Pan Am, TWA and Lufthansa were said to have met to plot Laker's downfall. In particular, several airlines had threatened the manufacturer McDonnell Douglas that they would buy elsewhere if it rescheduled Laker's debt. The Justice Department found the evidence in a school project by the daughter of a McDonnell Douglas director.

Radio days

As promised, here's the MP3 of the BBC Radio 4 documentary The Obituary Writers, featuring a few familiar voices.

Download it here (26.5MB file)

It's rather good - and also mentions that the Radio 4 is starting its own weekly audio obit show, Last Word. It starts on Friday. Anyone interested in that?

Before his time

"I'm curious how a funeral looks from the other side," Halasz told BBC World Service's Outlook programme. "I want to take a look at my friends and listen to the eulogies, and the final farewell."

I wonder if any newspapers will get into the spirit, and print the obituary early?

Obeebtuaries

It never ends. Our own señor McKie may have been keeping it quiet, but there's a half hour featuring him and other luminaries over on BBC Radio 4 at 1500 GMT on Thursday, on a special programme called "The Obit Writers".

I'll try to grab a copy, and pass it around. Media whores, the lot of you...

Reheat on gas mark six

"Vincent Canby couldn't accurately tell you that Bob Hope is dead, because he was dead."

Via the Editor's Weblog, there's a nice little story about pre-written obituaries over at E&P.

How many 'ready to goes' do you have?