Everyone loves
the saucy obituaries of Margalit Fox! And I am no exception. How oft
have I championed her work. Twice, that's how oft. But my old brain got to thinking today after I hyperbolically emailed
Megan Abbott that the
New York Times is "SO BORING!" and she semi-
ironically countered with
a Margalit Fox obit of an old spinning wheel dude. I suddenly recalled tweeting this back in January:
but I couldn't remember why. As you can see, it deserved and received no faves or retweets. What set me off? Why did I think, apparently, that Margalit Fox was going mad with power, ha ha, mad with obituary writing power, I suppose? Or did something remind me of when
Larry King's tweets became too self-aware and
I had to block him? An investigation was called for! The NYT published two Fox obits on the date in question, and I suspect it's this opening paragraph that put me over the edge:
In her spinning wheel obit, Fox refers to the deceased as "a
Burl Ives of a man." Can someone be a Burl Ives of a man? I mean, other than Burl Ives? Shouldn't the object of comparison be something other than an actual man? Isn't that like calling a Chrysler "the Cadillac of cars" or something? Now I'm just complaining for the sake of complaining. Maybe I'm in a bad mood. I'm sorry, Margalit Fox!
Don't write anything bad about me when I'm dead. PS This photo of
Mitzi Gaynor in today's paper is what started the whole discussion.
