to be remembered for

Alan Sillitoe has died at 82.

Alan Sillitoe: An important British writer who is to be remembered for Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, both of which were made into acclaimed movies. The latter movie impressed me as a kid in high school. I did read both works, though long ago. Tough and gritty.

The titles alone are terrific.

mortality

This just in, from the L.A. Times, reminds me of my 2007 post on the untimely and tragic death of cosmologist Jeffrey Willick and other thought-provoking matters:

EL CAJON, Calif. (AP) — Authorities say a 66-year-old man eating breakfast at a California fast-food restaurant was killed when a vehicle plowed through the corner of the building.

El Cajon Police Lt. Jeff Davis says the man was sitting in a front corner booth at a Carl's Jr. in San Diego County on Sunday morning when a Honda CRV slammed into the restaurant.

The 74-year-old driver, a resident of El Cajon, was taken to a hospital with moderate injuries.

The cause of the crash is under investigation. A witness told officers it appeared the SUV was going 45 to 50 mph.

The restaurant is closed as officials determine the structural integrity of the building.

Arbitrary Obituary Somnolence (AOS)

Late on Sunday nights I used to loll myself to sleep sometimes by reading the wedding announcements in the Times. It was mindless entertainment highlighted by the fact that in many ways it was always about the same people, the same clubs, the same lineage, the same celebrity-mongering, the same square-jawed celebration of power, prestige, and position (3P).

Last night, not having yet gotten to that section, I browsed the obituaries at the end of Section A.

You learn things.

A finely written obit is an art.

It tells a story.

I learned about Marty Forscher and Shelby Singleton.

The paid obits are another story (other stories): more heart-braking (stopping the heart) as well as heart-breaking, less objective, more celebratory.

Still, you learn things.

I saw the name "Chast": two paid obits for Elizabeth Chast, 97, and thought of Roz Chast, one of my favorite cartoonists in The New Yorker.

Sure enough, Roz Chast is listed as one of the survivors.

Condolences.

This is probably a tiresome and old-fogey thing to say, but I don't think you find information like that by browsing the Internet. Granted, you find different information.

But I don't think I would have ever made such obituary discoveries with my laptop on my lap in bed. No, there's something about droopy eyes, paper curling downward or slipping out of your grip, and reading the last dregs of Section A.

Kss of Death

Kss of death.

No, it's not a typo.

Yesterday, doing what old people do, I read the obituaries.

In reading the obits, I saw my name in there. Almost.

It was my first name and my last name, with one vowel's difference.

Close cull.

A brash with death.

Saved by a vowel.

Thank you [insert vocative comma here] Vanna White!

Zen Living

I saw this quote in a New York Times obituary for Andrea (Andy) Mead Lawrence, who died at 76. She had won two gold medals as a skier in the 1948 Winter Olympics.

"There are few times in our lives where we become the thing we're doing."

A true Zen observation.

Obituary of Silences

Harold Pinter is dead at 78. I claim no special knowledge of his works. I saw a film version of "The Homecoming" in the 1970s. I thought the lovely Lee Remick was in it but now don't find any evidence of that at various movie sites. My wife and I saw a fine Syracuse Stage production of Harold Pinter's "Betrayal" a few years ago.

Critics talk of the power of the tortured silences in Pinter dialogue.

Yes.

Oh yes.

True.

We had a bite to eat afterward.

Some tea.

What?

Yes, some tea.

In Memoriam

. . . for Raymond Davidson,

who

meant

more

than

words

can

illustrate.

APB: Missing Matter

While earnestly trying to work today, albeit a Monday, I was jolted awake by the following story racing along the Information Superhighway (remember that oh-so-Nineties term?):

Scientists trying to create a detailed inventory of all the matter and energy in the cosmos run into a curious problem--the vast majority of it is missing.

"I call it the dark side of the universe," said Michael Turner, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, referring to the great mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.

In fact, only 4 percent of the matter and energy in the universe has been found. The other 96 percent remains elusive. . . .

Now, there's an all-points bulletin (APB), and we mean all points of the cosmos!

I am greatly relieved to hear this (manifested as a high-pitched, tinny voice in my left ear; do you hear those voices, too? really? adjust thy medication).

This explains the Chaos Theory of the Dining-Room Table; my desk at work; the papers piled on the shelf by the window where Nickie the Cat pisses; missing credit-card bills; the seemingly lost autographs of Willie Mays, Woody Allen, and William F. Buckley, Jr.; lost virginity; missing appetite; misplaced ancient family photos, both framed and unframed; dangling participles; the dearth of semicolons; and the plethora of missing serial commas.

Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Cosmologist, whoever you are (missing or not).

I am so freaking relieved!

Speaking of cosmologists, I want to relate a little story. I have a weird hobby of being fascinated by weird obituaries. Probably goes back to my days as a newspaper copy editor. Well, there are actually people who do that as a hobby. They go to conventions and everything.

Anyway, one odd obituary sticks in my mind from 2000. I have a rather photographic or obsessive memory for minutiae, and I have always remembered the name of Jeffrey Willick.

As you can see, his untimely death was like a comment in and of itself: "Cosmologist Killed Sipping Coffee at Starbucks." See for yourself.

I mean no disrespect or anything like that. I mean, "Sheeesh, when your time is up, it's up, eh?" Or, "When your Maker summons, the bill is due." Something like that.

Carry on.

Back to the cosmological search for all that missing matter.

Dust balls, anyone?