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Planetist

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Posts posted by Planetist

  6. Posted

    Only saw this thread now, but a few months ago I had a dream where I was reading NYT and noticed a headline "Steve Buscemi dead at 75". It was such a mundane dream that after waking up I thought he was really dead for a while until I checked it. Turns out Steve is not only alive but also only 66 years old. I'll try to remember this when it's time for the "Ideas and possibilities for 2033" thread.

  8. Posted

    From his 2010 diary, not health-related but might be of interest to deathlisters:
     

    Quote

    13 August. When I go up on the train to Leeds I’ll generally sit in the same seat, often in front of the same businessman, who must also be a creature of habit. We chat, though without really knowing one another, and today as we’re getting out at Leeds he tells me that he’s been staying with friends in East Anglia. He had mentioned that he often sees me on the train whereupon his hosts had looked rather sheepish. It turns out that at their work, office or whatever they have a sweepstake to which they contribute every month with the participants drawing various well-known names from a hat; the winner being the one whose named notable is the first to die. I am one of their names.

    They haven’t had a win for some time, their last bonanza coming with the death of Spike Milligan, who died in an otherwise fallow period so the pot had grown quite large, which it isn’t always: if two names die within a month or two of each other when the pot hasn’t had time to accumulate the winner will only get a paltry sum.

    I laugh about this when he tells me, but I find it depressing to think that even in a lighthearted way there is at least one family in the kingdom waiting (if not longing) for my death. I don’t know what the monthly contribution amounts to but were it substantial I suppose a game like this might even lead to murder – even if it’s only a murder such as occurs in Midsomer.

    It’s also another instance of ‘write it and it happens.’ Towards the end of The Habit of Art Humphrey Carpenter tells the ageing Auden and Britten that they have reached that stage in their lives when even their most devoted fans would be happy to close the book on them: no more poetry, no more music. Enough. It’s not the same but still, the thought of anyone who for whatever reason would be happy to see the back of you is disturbing even if it’s a joke. Good plot (or sub-plot) though.


     

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  10. Posted

    On 16/01/2023 at 12:36, Spade_Cooley said:

    After my one-year-too-early theme team effort with Sopranos alums, someone could do a lot worse than by putting together a team of 20 Wire possibles...

     

    I did end up putting together a Wire themed list. Will be interesting to compare them if anyone else did the same. Certainly not hoping for hits.

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