Obituaries
would be a lot more interesting
if they told you how the person died.
From the NY
Times (ref. link below)“… Frederica Sagor
Maas, Silent Movie Era Scriptwriter dies at age 111. She told all — and
maybe more — in interviews and in her memoirs, which she published in 1999 at
the age of 99. Before dying on Jan. 5
(2012) in La Mesa, Calif., at 111, Mrs. Maas was one of the last living
links to cinema’s silent era. She wrote dozens of stories, adaptations and
scripts, sat with Greta Garbo at the famed long table in MGM’s commissary, and
adapted to sound in the movies, and then to color …”
That’s it. She “just
died” on Jan. 5 (2012). With 111 years
of living behind her and a profession as a movie scriptwriter, story-teller,
weaver of tales that were powerful enough to draw patrons to the theater and
stimulating enough to have them talking, discussing, arguing about the film
weeks later … you would think that her story at the end would be captivating
good reading. Nope. Just “died.”
The fascinating situation that surely would have captivated society at
the time was what happened sixty-two years before that last day in
January. Mrs. Maas and her husband … (as
told by Douglas Martin, of the NY Times and
published: January 14, 2012) …
"... Impoverished and disillusioned,
the couple drove to an isolated hilltop at sunset in 1950 with the intention of
asphyxiating themselves. But they could not go through with it, Mrs. Maas said.
Suddenly clutching each other, they cried and turned off the ignition ..."
They didn’t (fortunately) complete their plan but, if they had, it would have been more than “just dying.”
= = = = = =
From the NY Times (ref. link below) “Joel J. Tyler, Judge Who Pronounced ‘Deep Throat’ Obscene, Dies at 90, as told By Bruce Weber and published in the NY Times January 14, 2012
“Joel J. Tyler, who as a Manhattan judge ruled, in a
particularly explicit and colorful opinion, that the pornographic film “Deep
Throat” was obscene and that the New York City theaters showing it were
breaking the law, inadvertently helping it become perhaps the most popular
X-rated movie of all time, died in Yonkers on Nov. 9. He was 90. … The cause
was a heart attack … ”
Six words, “The cause was
a heart attack.” That’s all for the judge who fined producers
of pornographic film hundreds of thousands of dollars, was embroiled in
cleaning up Times Square, was an infant immigrant from Romania with his
parents, raised by his single-parent mother who supported the family by sewing
and who, as a young boy, was given the gift of a life-long limp by a
non-discriminating Polio virus. But he
made it. In fact, he made it big, this
man who named himself after a US President.
But, in the end, it all boiled down to just six words at dying.
What was he doing
when it hit? Was he talking with his
wife and daughters? Was he writing or
watching a movie or reading? If he was,
what was the topic of the essay or note, what might he have been watching or
what author’s work might he have been reading?
Wouldn’t the judge, described by Bruce Weber in the Times, “… as a
Manhattan judge (who) ruled, in a particularly explicit and colorful opinion,
that the pornographic film ‘Deep Throat’ was obscene and that the New York City
theaters showing it were breaking the law …” have had equally as colorful, if not
necessarily explicit, words to say at his parting? Perhaps not, but we will never know what
colorful opinions of this world he might have treated us to as his parting
gift.
= = = = = =
Mona Simpson is a novelist and a professor of English at the University of
California, Los Angeles. Since 1988, she has held the Sadie Samuelson Levy
Chair in Languages and Literature at Bard College. She delivered this eulogy
for her brother, Steve Jobs, on Oct. 16, 2011, at his memorial service at the
Memorial Church of Stanford University and published by the NY Times on Oct.
30, 2012.
" ...
Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time
at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their
shoulders past them. Steve’s final words were:
'OH WOW. OH
WOW. OH WOW.' " (no exclamation points)
Although, again
only six words, at least at the end of an enormously productive and
controversial life, we have been given reason to contemplate … just as Steve
did throughout his entire life … “what is out there” … “what he saw or didn’t
see” … “his reaction to whatever was transpiring within and around him” … “the
reaction to the situation that was part and parcel of what millions of users
felt about the products he had put in their hands while he was here.”
Ms. Simpson, a
consummate linguist, demonstrates that a single, perfectly chosen word can turn
a common “he died” eulogy into a visual experience, communicated with one word
, “Wow.”
Reference: from
the NYTimes article as told by Professor Simpson herself about her brother: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-steve-jobs.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
