The author Frank Delaney has died. He suffered a stroke at his home in Connecticut on Tuesday, and he died on Wednesday. He was 74. Delaney was an occasional guest on Scott Simon’s Weekend Edition Saturday, and that was where I first encountered him. Fifteen-ish years ago — ah, I’ve looked, it was merely twelve … Continue reading Frank Delaney, A Reminiscence
Tag: obituary
In the mid-90s I bought an audiobook read by John Hurt. The book was Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I found the cassette one day at Big Lots, along with some others (Ian Fleming’s “The Living Daylights,” read by Anthony Valentine; Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the … Continue reading John Hurt, a Reminisence
There is a generation for whom their Star Trek isn’t one of the television series. It’s the movies. Maroon jackets. Admiral Kirk. James Horner. “Of all the souls I have encountered…” Protomatter and Project Genesis. “My god, Bones, what have I done?” Humpback whales. “A double dumb-ass on you.” Born too late for the animated … Continue reading Harve Bennett: A Reminiscence
It was a strange weekend. A colleague of mine at the office, Lance Woods, did an autographing of his first novel, Heroic Park, at a bookstore about ten minutes from the house, so Saturday afternoon I drove up to Reisterstown. There was a nice group of people crowded into the bookstore, all people I knew … Continue reading On the Death of a Friend
Ray Bradbury, one of the most celebrated authors of the last century and the writer of such classic works of science fiction as Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, died on June 5, 2012 after a lingering illness. He was 91. A voracious reader when he was growing up in Waukegan, Illinois, the young Bradbury … Continue reading On Ray Bradbury
I woke this morning to two messages on Facebook from an old acquaintance. Someone who worked for me at EB Games a decade ago had passed away last month. His name was Chris Jackson, and I met him one of my first days working for EB Games in Exton in June 1999. He was a … Continue reading On Remembering An Old Employee
When I was twelve, Sarah Jane Smith was my first Doctor Who companion and the actress, Lis Sladen, was my first crush, and even though I never met her, she set the impossible standard for my romantic life. Lis Sladen passed away, earlier today, after a bout with cancer, aged 63. Tonight I’ll remember her, … Continue reading On Lis Sladen
Three years ago, I began taking the Baltimore mass transit system to work. There’s a subway station near my house, there’s a light rail stop two blocks away that I can see from my sixth floor office. Why drive the Baltimore Beltway, when I can use public transportation? Not only is it the socially responsible … Continue reading On Eulogizing a Man I Didn’t Know
I have a routine on Saturday mornings. I fix coffee. I listen to Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott Simon. And one of the things I listen for each week is Simon’s weekly discussion with Daniel Schorr. Simon tweeted a few minutes ago that “My longtime friend and colleague Dan Schorr has died. Please find a … Continue reading On Daniel Schorr
First, fun. Matt Smith’s appearance at Glastonbury last night with Orbital as they performed the Doctor Who theme: I’ve seen other videos of this performance, but this one is, by far, the best quality. In other news, Robert Byrd, the senior Senator from West Virginia, passed away. The longest serving Senator in history — fifty-one … Continue reading On Glastonbury and Robert Byrd
My junior and senior years in high school, I was Philip Barbour’s computer lab manager during the lunch period. (Well, that’s what my class period overlapped with.) The computer lab consisted of about fifteen TRS-80 Model IIIs or Model IVs, some Epson PC-XT compatible computers with monochrome monitors, a couple of flywheel printers, and two … Continue reading On Paul Harvey
Joanie Winston passed away earlier this week. It seems strange to me that I’m referring to her as “Joanie,” but that was how she introduced herself to me at Shore Leave a few years ago, and even though she was a decade shy of my grandmother’s age, she’ll always be, in my mind, Joanie. Joan … Continue reading On Joan Winston