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Friday, December 17, 2004

Good Humor Zone

“Just heard Terry Gross do her 1990 interview with Paul? Brown, who died last week at 53 of a heart-attack. He was the fireman who became a writer. I actually mentioned him to you, as the result of an NPR broadcast in a late nineties that featured his life and work.

I thought you could publish your life on the internet, and, low and
behold, that’s pretty much what happened. The Blog appeared. Now you’re being discovered: by your self, your family, not mention an endearingly wide circle of friends. Maybe that’s where it ends, happily, without the wide world looking in, and the heart attack looking out.

When I thought I would write you about this story, I suddenly remembered how I had been reading the obituaries since I was ten. Not formally, but I’d always notice in the succeeding years how I’d fixate on the death of some kid slightly younger than me. My reflex would be …Well, I made it past him.

Funny how I hardly ever think about those thoughts, yet they were a regular fixture in my thinking for years and years, only to be replaced, for some time, by the feeling that I would be shot in the back on a dark city street, or in restaurant, which is why I hated sitting with my back to the door, and why dark city streets make my neck hairs stand on end. And why, I suppose, my dream would deal with that anxiety by featuring a dark urban night, where I suddenly faced a circle of figures with clubs, to which I responded, “Oh, I get it, this is a stickup.” And so it goes. There’s the fireman, dead. You, writing about deaths and your near-death experiences, and there’s me, still in my childhood factory of apocalypses, ringed by a good humor zone. ”

posted by michael at 7:23 am  

3 Comments

  1. I can’t be the only reader wondering who wrote that, and perhaps not commenting because of that……. Well, hesitance be damned. I have my theory, which I’ll not post here, but thanks for allowing it to be shared (right, Michael?) to whoever wrote it. Rich piece. It tells well of a certain facet of character, but beckons the mind to many shadows and reflections thereof.

    Comment by rapt — December 18, 2004 @ 8:07 am

  2. This is academic dishonesty, punishable by the direst of consequences in some settings. Cite your sources.

    Comment by etudiant — December 18, 2004 @ 9:28 am

  3. This is academic dishonesty, punishable by the direst of consequences in some settings. Cite your sources.

    Comment by etudiant — December 18, 2004 @ 9:29 am

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