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speaking of obituaries…
The Economist Book of Obituaries
by Keith Colquhoun and Ann Wroe
(Bloomberg, 409 pages, $30)
When you pick up the newspaper, what do you like to read first? Comics? Sports? The editorial pages? Stock market quotes?
In the New York Times, I check two sections first: the book reviews and the obituaries. Of course I read the book reviews religiously. And then, in the obit section I learn about fascinating people who accomplished significant things during their lives. The writers frequently turn up marvelous anecdotes about the deceased. Some obits are downright humorous.
In my quest for additional purveyors of fine obituaries I’ve unearthed another source, The Economist. This publication is even older than the New York Times. It was founded in 1843 and curiously, never published obituaries prior to 1995.
They must be even more selective than the New York Times because they publish only one obituary per week. From 1995 to 2003 their obits were written by Keith Colquhoun. And for the past five years they have been written by Ann Wroe.
The best of these are now available in “The Economist Book of Obituaries.” There are obits for notable people that you’d expect: Diana, Princess of Wales; Gerald Ford; George Harrison; John Paul II; Frank Sinatra; and Hunter S. Thompson.
Then there are the ones that we knew little to nothing about — individuals who somehow rose up from among the teeming masses and took some bold action that did humanity proud. Or, in some instances, shamed the human race. In marking their exploits, our own lives seem richer. Here are a few of my favorites:
Momofuko Ando invented instant noodles in 1957. After a string of business failures, he created his secret instant noodle recipe. Ando, who died last year at age 96, held this philosophy of life: “peace will come when people have food. Eating wisely will enhance beauty and health. The creation of food will serve society.”
Rosemary Brown was a musical psychic. She claimed psychic contact with legendary composers like Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin, “who had employed her on earth to receive their latest compositions.” She made regular TV appearances in which she related that, “in heaven … there was no sex … ‘the earthy side of our being has been left behind.’ There was though, oddly, an interest in fashion. … Everyone was well. Beethoven was no longer deaf.” Brown died in 2001 at age 85.
Albert Hofmann was the Swiss chemist who first synthesized the drug LSD in 1943. “For the next decades, Mr. Hofmann took an awful lot of LSD. He ingested it listening to Mozart and looking at red roses.” Apparently, it didn’t do him any harm. He died this past April. He was 102.
Alex the African Gray was a parrot who “had a vocabulary of 150 words … he could count up to six, including zero (and was grappling with the concept of ‘seven’ when he died).”
Vick Mickunas
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