"I'm a rock critic. I also write and record music. I write poetry, fiction, straight journalism, unstraight journalism, beatnik drivel, mortifying love letters, death threats to white jazz critics signed "The Mau Maus of East Harlem," and once a year my own obituary (latest entry: "He was promising...")." - Lester Bangs.
While I am not a rock critic nor musician, I do consider myself a writer. I write fiction, scripts, straight journalism, blog posts, television recaps about truly awful shows, poetry so bad it would impress the Vogons, frothing, foaming emails about how I would like advocates of creationism to be consumed by a hoard of rabid, starving raptors and notes inside greeting cards which fall just short of being clever.
As Mr. Bangs' work is inclined to do, it got me thinking.
I've read entirely too many of my high school classmates' obituaries and I'm struck by two things.
One -- I'm way too young to be reading an obit for someone who sat behind me in biology class.
Two -- Obits are, as a general rule, total bullshit.
They're soft-focus memories of a person coupled with generic writing that could be about anyone. I'm sure they're done with the best intentions and can be comforting in times of grief, but I'd much rather memorialize someone for a unique attribute (like wearing plaid golf pants every day in eighth grade) than the fact that he was an accountant.
So, I'm taking a page out of Bangs' book and writing my own.
Am I tempting fate by doing this? I hope not. I want to live to be an old woman with skin like paper with a penchant for wearing Pucci caftans and making great cookies (I'm still working on the cookie thing and you know I've realized? The doughboy is my homeboy).
Is it morbid to write your own obit? Sure, but I think I know myself better than anyone else does and I'd much rather go out in my own words than anyone else's.
While I am not a rock critic nor musician, I do consider myself a writer. I write fiction, scripts, straight journalism, blog posts, television recaps about truly awful shows, poetry so bad it would impress the Vogons, frothing, foaming emails about how I would like advocates of creationism to be consumed by a hoard of rabid, starving raptors and notes inside greeting cards which fall just short of being clever.
As Mr. Bangs' work is inclined to do, it got me thinking.
I've read entirely too many of my high school classmates' obituaries and I'm struck by two things.
One -- I'm way too young to be reading an obit for someone who sat behind me in biology class.
Two -- Obits are, as a general rule, total bullshit.
They're soft-focus memories of a person coupled with generic writing that could be about anyone. I'm sure they're done with the best intentions and can be comforting in times of grief, but I'd much rather memorialize someone for a unique attribute (like wearing plaid golf pants every day in eighth grade) than the fact that he was an accountant.
So, I'm taking a page out of Bangs' book and writing my own.
Am I tempting fate by doing this? I hope not. I want to live to be an old woman with skin like paper with a penchant for wearing Pucci caftans and making great cookies (I'm still working on the cookie thing and you know I've realized? The doughboy is my homeboy).
Is it morbid to write your own obit? Sure, but I think I know myself better than anyone else does and I'd much rather go out in my own words than anyone else's.
1 comments on "Herman Melville was such an overlooked nobody when he was alive that when he died, his obituary reported his name as Henry Melville"
The second I read that quote, I immediately wanted to go write my own obit, too! It could be fun.
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