The last word January 24, 2007
ART Buchwald had a very interesting announcement last week. “Hi,” he said on an obituary video, “I’m Art Buchwald and I just died.”
Buchwald, a Pulitzer Prize winner, bit the dust at 81 last Thursday in the United States, after accomplishing his mission in life, which was “to make people laugh.” He did that while writing a humor-filled column for five decades. He ended as he had begun.
While at this though, my favorite American columnist of that generation isn’t Buchwald, it is Russell Baker. Thank God he remains with us, even if his hold on this earth is slowly slipping. He’s a year older than Buchwald and a veritable font of wit and wisdom, the one often indistinguishable from the other. His funniest statements contain gems of insight, such as, “Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all but just terrible things.”
To go back: Buchwald’s announcement made me recall some pretty slick deathbed utterances, and I went on to look them up in the world library, also called the Internet. I was astonished by the sheer abundance of them. We can all do with laughing in the face of adversity today -- in lieu of heckling a non-president, which the audience of El Divo already brilliantly did last weekend -- and we can’t do better than to laugh in the face of death.
The utterances I picked out are outstanding in that regard. I disregarded the more serious ones, like Jesus Christ’s “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” or Julius Caesar’s “Et tu, Brute?” in favor of the more outrageous ones. John Donne did say, “Death, be not proud,” and Dylan Thomas did declare, “Death shall have no dominion.” But somehow the lines below seem to say it better, helped in no small way by the fact that their authors put their bodies where their mouths were. You get to have the image of the swashbuckling Errol Flynn, sword in hand and grin on mouth, daring death catch up with him, or do its worst.
Or you get to have a sense of people fighting to have the last word.
• P. T. Barnum, entrepreneur, d. 1891: “How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden?”
• John Barrymore, actor, d. May 29, 1942: “Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.”
• Ludwig van Beethoven, d. March 26, 1827: “Friends applaud, the comedy is over.”
• Humphrey Bogart, d. Jan. 14, 1957: “I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.”
• Elizabeth I, Queen of England, d. 1603: “All my possessions for a moment of time.”
• Ernesto “Che” Guevara, d. Oct. 9, 1967 (while facing his assassin): “I know you have come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.”
• Edmund Gwenn, actor, d. Sept. 6, 1959 (asked if dying was tough): “Yes, it’s tough, but not as tough as doing comedy.”
• Timothy Leary, d. May 31, 1996: “Why not? Yeah.”
• Karl Marx, d. 1883 (to a housekeeper who wanted to know if he had any last words): “Go on, get out, last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.”
• Eugene O’Neill, d. Nov. 27, 1953: “I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room -- and God damn it -- died in a hotel room.”
• Anna Pavlova, ballerina, d. 1931: “Get my swan costume ready.”
• Dylan Thomas, d. 1953: “I’ve had 18 straight whiskies, I think that’s the record . . .”
• Anton Chekhov, d. 1904 (from TB): “It’s been a long time since I’ve had champagne.”
• Oscar Wilde, writer, d. Nov. 30, 1900: “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.”
• Marie Antoinette, after accidentally stepping on the foot of her executioner on the way to the guillotine: “Pardonnez-moi, monsieur.” ["Pardon me, sir."]
• John Jacob Astor, the richest man in the world, while about to board a lifeboat with his family during the sinking of the Titanic, to his wife (his second and his great love, Madeleine) upon seeing a desperate female passenger: “The ladies have to go first.... Get in the lifeboat, to please me.... Goodbye, dearie. I’ll see you later.”
• Lord Chesterfield, an absolute gentleman, to a servant when his godson visited him as he lay dying: “Give Dayrolles a chair.”
• Archimedes, to a Roman soldier who was arresting him during the Roman invasion of Carthage, while working out a mathematical problem on the ground: “Don’t step on my equation!” (The soldier killed him.)
• Charlie Chaplin, after being told by a priest, “May the Lord have mercy on your soul”: “Why not? After all, it belongs to him.”
• General John Sedgwick, Union commander, shot dead in 1864 while surveying the field of battle: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist.…"
• Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian, d. 1702: “I am about to -- or I am going to -- die. Either expression is correct.”
• Marquis de Favras, on his way to the guillotine, after being shown his official death sentence by the clerk of court: “I see that you have made three spelling mistakes.”
• John Fields, musician, asked on his deathbed if he was a Papist or a Calvinist: “I am a pianist.”
• Joe Hill, legendary unionist, while about to be executed for murder: “Don’t mourn for me. Organize!”
• Saint Lawrence, martyr, while burning at the stake: “Turn me. I am roasted on one side.”
• James French, plain murderer, while about to be electrocuted in 1966: “How about this for a headline: ‘French fries’?”
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=45265
Buchwald, a Pulitzer Prize winner, bit the dust at 81 last Thursday in the United States, after accomplishing his mission in life, which was “to make people laugh.” He did that while writing a humor-filled column for five decades. He ended as he had begun.
While at this though, my favorite American columnist of that generation isn’t Buchwald, it is Russell Baker. Thank God he remains with us, even if his hold on this earth is slowly slipping. He’s a year older than Buchwald and a veritable font of wit and wisdom, the one often indistinguishable from the other. His funniest statements contain gems of insight, such as, “Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all but just terrible things.”
To go back: Buchwald’s announcement made me recall some pretty slick deathbed utterances, and I went on to look them up in the world library, also called the Internet. I was astonished by the sheer abundance of them. We can all do with laughing in the face of adversity today -- in lieu of heckling a non-president, which the audience of El Divo already brilliantly did last weekend -- and we can’t do better than to laugh in the face of death.
The utterances I picked out are outstanding in that regard. I disregarded the more serious ones, like Jesus Christ’s “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” or Julius Caesar’s “Et tu, Brute?” in favor of the more outrageous ones. John Donne did say, “Death, be not proud,” and Dylan Thomas did declare, “Death shall have no dominion.” But somehow the lines below seem to say it better, helped in no small way by the fact that their authors put their bodies where their mouths were. You get to have the image of the swashbuckling Errol Flynn, sword in hand and grin on mouth, daring death catch up with him, or do its worst.
Or you get to have a sense of people fighting to have the last word.
• P. T. Barnum, entrepreneur, d. 1891: “How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden?”
• John Barrymore, actor, d. May 29, 1942: “Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.”
• Ludwig van Beethoven, d. March 26, 1827: “Friends applaud, the comedy is over.”
• Humphrey Bogart, d. Jan. 14, 1957: “I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.”
• Elizabeth I, Queen of England, d. 1603: “All my possessions for a moment of time.”
• Ernesto “Che” Guevara, d. Oct. 9, 1967 (while facing his assassin): “I know you have come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.”
• Edmund Gwenn, actor, d. Sept. 6, 1959 (asked if dying was tough): “Yes, it’s tough, but not as tough as doing comedy.”
• Timothy Leary, d. May 31, 1996: “Why not? Yeah.”
• Karl Marx, d. 1883 (to a housekeeper who wanted to know if he had any last words): “Go on, get out, last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.”
• Eugene O’Neill, d. Nov. 27, 1953: “I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room -- and God damn it -- died in a hotel room.”
• Anna Pavlova, ballerina, d. 1931: “Get my swan costume ready.”
• Dylan Thomas, d. 1953: “I’ve had 18 straight whiskies, I think that’s the record . . .”
• Anton Chekhov, d. 1904 (from TB): “It’s been a long time since I’ve had champagne.”
• Oscar Wilde, writer, d. Nov. 30, 1900: “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.”
• Marie Antoinette, after accidentally stepping on the foot of her executioner on the way to the guillotine: “Pardonnez-moi, monsieur.” ["Pardon me, sir."]
• John Jacob Astor, the richest man in the world, while about to board a lifeboat with his family during the sinking of the Titanic, to his wife (his second and his great love, Madeleine) upon seeing a desperate female passenger: “The ladies have to go first.... Get in the lifeboat, to please me.... Goodbye, dearie. I’ll see you later.”
• Lord Chesterfield, an absolute gentleman, to a servant when his godson visited him as he lay dying: “Give Dayrolles a chair.”
• Archimedes, to a Roman soldier who was arresting him during the Roman invasion of Carthage, while working out a mathematical problem on the ground: “Don’t step on my equation!” (The soldier killed him.)
• Charlie Chaplin, after being told by a priest, “May the Lord have mercy on your soul”: “Why not? After all, it belongs to him.”
• General John Sedgwick, Union commander, shot dead in 1864 while surveying the field of battle: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist.…"
• Dominique Bouhours, French grammarian, d. 1702: “I am about to -- or I am going to -- die. Either expression is correct.”
• Marquis de Favras, on his way to the guillotine, after being shown his official death sentence by the clerk of court: “I see that you have made three spelling mistakes.”
• John Fields, musician, asked on his deathbed if he was a Papist or a Calvinist: “I am a pianist.”
• Joe Hill, legendary unionist, while about to be executed for murder: “Don’t mourn for me. Organize!”
• Saint Lawrence, martyr, while burning at the stake: “Turn me. I am roasted on one side.”
• James French, plain murderer, while about to be electrocuted in 1966: “How about this for a headline: ‘French fries’?”
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=45265
posted by dqfan06 @ 2:53 AM
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