Interesting, overlooked, and significant obituaries from around the world, as they happen, emphasizing the positive achievements of those who have died. Member, Society of Professional Obituary Writers.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Ken Takakura
Iconic actor -- via Variety. AKA Goichi Oda. A hugely popular performer in Japan, he is known in America only for roles in such films as "The Yakuza" and "Black Rain." He typified the strong, silent an of action in films such as "The Yellow Handkerchief," "The Railroad Man," and "Abashiri Prison."
Monday, November 17, 2014
Hannes Hegen
Cartoonist and illustrator -- via mdr.de. AKA Johannes Eduard Hegenbarth. Best known for his cretion of the comic book Mosaik and its lead characters, the Digedags.
DEATHCETERA: A weekly reader of stories from around the world on death and dying
TOP
STORIES
Wayne Coyne of
the Flaming Lips on living with the awareness of death – interview
with Jennifer van Evra, animated by Blank on Blank – via Boingboing
Ask a Mortician:
Can we compost the dead? – via Caitlin Doughty at the Order of the Good
Death
“Don’t Lose the
Body: 8 Tips to Plot a Funeral” from Elaine Ambrose in the Huffington
Post
DEATH
Another
excellent feature story on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Death Becomes Her”
exhibit
by Allison Meier at Hyperallergic
10 Things Bodies
Can Do After Death
– from Confessions of a Funeral Director
FUNERALS
Ebola
concerns reshape funeral practices in U.S. – via Andrew Meacham, Tampa Bay
Times
Ice Age funeral
site discovered by archaeologists – via Laura Geggel at Fox News
Another
“drive-thru” funeral home – from Lauren Fluker at WHLT
OBITUARIES
Finding
the right words for an obituary for a beloved aunt – from John
Walsh in the Providence Journal
Hey, are you
dead? Best celebrity responses to death hoaxes – via Luchina
Fisher at ABC
Redskins fan
makes final request in his self-penned obit – via Micah Peters at USA Today
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Glen A. Larson
TV writer and producer -- via the Hollywood Reporter. He was the creator of a remarkable string of hits, including "Knight Rider," the original "Battlestar Galactica," "Quincy," "B.J. and the Bear," "Magnum, P.I.," "The Fall Guy" . . . and "Manimal." Larson was expert at retooling winning concepts, usually from feature films, for TV.
Fun fact: he started off in show biz as a singer and songwriter with the Four Preps -- their big hit "26 Miles (Santa Catalina)."
Fun fact: he started off in show biz as a singer and songwriter with the Four Preps -- their big hit "26 Miles (Santa Catalina)."
Friday, November 14, 2014
Ernest Kinoy
Writer for radio, TV, film, and stage -- via Variety. He joined NBC as a staff writer in 1948; he worked on shows such as "Dimension X," "Rocky Fortune," and "NBC Prsents: Short Story." In TV, he wrote for "Studio One," "Playhouse 90," "The Defenders," "Naked City," "Route 66," and much more. Films: "Buck and the Preacher," "Leadbelly," "Raid at Entebbe." Awards won for "The Defenders," "Roots," and "Skokie."
Ravi Chopra
Film director and producer -- via NDTV Movies. Best known for his direction of the rpic Indian TV series, "The Mahabhrata."
FRIDAY REVIEW: 'Being Mortal' -- America's End-of-Life Challenge
Being Mortal: Medicine and What
Matters in the End
Atul Gawande
Henry Holt and Company
2014
New York
Dr. Atul Gawande is a model writer
of non-fiction, a game-changing analyst of the medical scene, and an honest and
appealing narrator. In his fourth book, he details his investigations and
experiences in the land medicine can’t touch – mortality and death.
With a huge bulge of 64 million
Baby Boomers (myself included) in America destined for geriatric status and
death in the next few decades, a corresponding upswing in interest in
end-of-life decision-making, death, and what was known as ars moriendi, the art of dying, is taking place. This movement is
beginning to counter a long-standing cultural abhorrence of aging and death,
and the decades-long relocation of the elderly and the dying from the home to
medical facilities.
“Being Mortal” is the most
effective examination of the problem I have read to date. Gawande explores the
problems and frustrations of a system that institutionalizes the elderly,
because it has no viable alternative mandate. Gawande illustrates his
conclusions with several threads of narrative – persons failing and succeeding
at achieving a “good death,” and includes his own story, of his father’s
passing, in clear-eyed but heart-rending detail.
Along the way, we are given
illuminating historical context. Modern medicine’s life-saving technologies made
the hospital the logical destination for the dying in the 20th Century
(most people died at home until after World War I). However, by 1954, the
chronically ill and elderly were taking up all the hospital beds, and “custodial
units” were created by mandate. These morphed into nursing homes.
For those of us who remember some
of the places in which our ancestors and relatives were warehoused, the idea
that no real planning went into their creation is transparent. Additionally,
the resources and knowledge to help the aging simply doesn’t exist.
“I asked Chad Boult,
the geriatrics professor, what could be done to ensure that there are enough
geriatricians for the surging elderly population. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s too
late.’”
But Gawande is not content to
bemoan the state of things. First, he cites the stories of many innovators who
bucked the system to create new living systems and concepts that provide the
elderly with purpose, choice, community, information, and autonomy. People such
as Bill Thomas and Keren Wilson, and places such as NewBridge on the Charles
and Peter Sanborn Place, and groups such as Eden Alternative and Beacon Hill
Villages, all of whom/which have developed viable alternatives that actually
extend participants’ lives, improve their heath and sense of well-being, and,
ironically, cost less to boot. (He even includes Chad Boult’s solution to the
dearth of geriatricians – have them train all doctors and nurses in elderly
care!)
These aren’t theories. They are
proven methods, spelled out in a practical and they radiate out from the
central concern of humanizing the medical process. Gawande neatly summarizes
the medical profession’s aversion to acknowledging death – to it, death
signifies failure. He outlines his own painful lack of experience in discussing
unavoidable death, or the more excruciating task of helping patients evaluate
when to stop requesting medical procedures that might prolong life, but at a
debilitating and painful cost.
He comes up with essential questions: “What is your
understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes? What are your fears
and what are your hopes? What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and
not willing to make? And what is the course of action that best serves this
understanding?” (Again, cited studies in the text demonstrate that discussing
the inevitable improves health and prolongs life.)
Despite the plethora of proactive benefits to be reaped from
reading “Being Mortal,” the real pain and dismay of families forced to face an
impending loss, the agonizing change of dynamics as the children become
caregivers for parents, is not avoided or minimalized. However, in contrast to
much of the challenging material I plow through in my efforts to understand and
communicate on this subject, here is sense of hope and achievable positive
change.
And in the broadest sense the book reminds me that the
elements enumerated as essential to quality of life at its end is equally valid
for all ages. “Human beings . . . have a need for both privacy and community,
for flexible daily rhythms and patterns, and for the possibility of forming
caring relationships with those around them.” At the end at always, we need not
just safety and protection, but worth and freedom, meaning and purpose, what
Gawande calls “shaping our stories,” within the limitations imposed by our
bodies and the dimensions of human life.
The perils and possibilities are still there, but “Being Mortal”
gives us some tools with which to work.
Leigh Chapman
Screenwriter and actress -- via the Hollywood Reporter. She was in a lot of '60s television, but moved on to writing scripts. She's best known for writing "Dirty Mary Crazy Larry," "The Octagon," and other action films, as well as many TV episodes.
Daniel B. Meltzer
Writer, teacher, and savior of New York City's Beacon Theater -- via the New York Times.
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Alvin Dark
All-Star, pennant- and Series-winning former MLB shortstop and manager -- via the Sporting News. AKA Al, Blackie, the Swamp Fox. Won the '54 Series with the old New York Giants; won the '74 Series as manager of the A's. His service in WWII might have kept him out of the Hall of Fame, according to Bill James. He was accused of racist comments in 1964, but was defended by Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson. His autobiography bears a title that is testimony to his coaching career: "When in Doubt, Fire the Manager."
Harry Pearson
Journalist and audiophile -- via the New York Times. He founded the magazine Absolute Sound, and crusaded against the playback limitations of CDs.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
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