The Obit Writer Has Left the Building
Since I reminded you yesterday about islands in the South Pacific, and since Pitcairn Island figures into it, here’s an amusing article by and about Margalit Fox, who wrote obits for the New York Times for 14 years. She thinks she had the best job on the paper.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/insider/obituary-writer-margalit-fox-retires.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fobituaries&action=click&contentCollection=obituaries®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=9&pgtype=sectionfront
My dear and sadly departed friend Barbara and I used to snail-mail Boston Globe obits to one another when we found the known or, in many cases, unknown person’s life particularly interesting — or the obit particularly well written. That’s how, more than a decade ago, I learned that it is possible to LIVE aboard a cruise ship. A woman who had been sailing around the world on (I think it was) the QE2 for many years had died. The obit made a convincing case for choosing an ocean liner over a nursing home. The QE2 stopped her transatlantic and cruising duties in 2008. After undergoing, I assume, a 10-year refurb, since April 2018 she has begun her new life as a floating hotel — in Dubai!
By the way, I just went back and changed all the it and its to she and her because Captain Knutsen always referred to the Sun as she. Which begs the question: Is an aircraft carrier named the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (aka ‘Ike’) also a she? Answer: Yes, she is.
Here’s an obit I read last week that is a fine piece. From the Concord Monitor, it is, imho, better than the subsequent one in the Times. If you like 20th- and 21st-century poetry, it’s a must-read for what it tells you about Donald Hall and his life and his place in contemporary poetry, and for its construction and style.
http://www.concordmonitor.com/Donald-Hall-Poet-Laureate-Wilmot-NH-18399476
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