…he was reminded of the brave little group of Bilbo, Frodo, Sam and the rest, who left the quiet Shire “to shake the towers and counsels of the Great”. They were small, shaggy-haired and barefoot, usually unarmed and often frightened. But they lived, and eventually triumphed, by their wits. Every problem had a solution, and every battle could be won, if you thought hard and fast enough.
—The Economist, in ‘Obituary: Steve Sawyer died on July 31st’
No amount of money or sex could take the place of friendship, loyalty and a girlie heart-to-heart. “Sex [you] could, and did, get everywhere,” she once wrote. “Warmth was rare.”
—The Economist, in ‘Obituary: Judith Krantz died on June 22nd’
(Also: why I believe that sexual infidelity is immaterial. Emotional infidelity is what really matters. Yet, the society considers them the reverse.)
Archaic, illiberal drinking laws that banned serving alcohol in pubs after 11pm were scrapped, and gambling restrictions were loosened at her behest, too. “We will give adults the freedom they deserve and yobs the tough treatment they deserve,” she said at the time
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather…I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.
The Economist: Obituary: John Perry Barlow died on February 7th
A writer whose prose could make your soul ache who stopped writing, because, it didn’t matter.
Kottke, writing about Dean Allen
… you could think of him as like an old-fashioned: sweet, bitter and strong, who left you intoxicated because of his friendship
Carluccio the brand had come to obscure the man. The glossy stores were too far removed from handling and making things. They were too far from the woods and the joys of gathering, but that was the life that was true to him. The motto he chose was in natura veritas. In Nature lay his truth
Antonio Carluccio died on November 8th
The obituary in the Economist is frequently a piece of art – better than the best editorial in most other news organisations. I live reading them 🙂
P.S.: Carluccio’s on St John’s Wood high street was also our first frequently visited Italian place, in our first year in the UK 🙂
Use my marker 