Send yourself off in style

   For years, I’ve read the obituaries in local newspapers all over the country. Having been a newspaper writer myself, I’ve often wondered: Why aren’t obituaries more interesting? Why are they preoccupied with details concerning those left behind?

   Death is often the only occasion when one's name is printed in the paper. Why, then, should the departed one not be given his or her due?

   As I’ve learned in writing about the living: Everyone’s life is a story. The dead should be honored, just for having lived. Creating a compelling obituary – telling one’s story concisely but elegantly – is an act of justice.

It's your life--why not have the last word? Write your own obituary--before it's too late!

Give people something to remember you by--the story of your life in your own words. Or you can pay me to use my own deathless ones. (Email me at paulerland@gmail.com.)

Here's an example:  http://www.amazon.com/Frances-Elise-Curtis-Miller-Erland/dp/1466497211/

Famous last words, by trade

Judge: I have no precedent for this.


Believer in reincarnation: Intermission time already?

Childless railroad conductor: End of the line.

Bridge player: I pass.

Gossip: I’m dying to tell someone.

Elevator operator: Going up?

A story played out

Today's ghost phrase:

Ad favreum: adj., Referring specifically to a sports news story -- often brett-takingly trivial to begin with -- reported to the point of absurdity.

Fraternite, egalite, aliteracy

"I see no point in reading." -- Louis XIV of France (1638-1715).

And then there was Louis Quatorze,
For whom all books were great bores;
   No Frenchman of breeding
   Would waste time on reading
While shirking the company of whores.

And how am I today?

Interviewee: "Do I think the situation is irreversible?"
Interviewee: "Absolutely not."
Interviewee: "Do I think we'll have to make some drastic changes in order to reverse things?"
Interviewee: "Absolutely."

No further need for reporters these days
 -- Let's put them all on the shelves;
We'll simply make do with this latter-day craze
Of interviewing ourselves.

Travel-logy

You tempt me not, o tower Eiffel,
O Louvre, you are the merest trifle.
While some may say that Paris sizzles,
I’d be there on the days its drizzles.

Why lug my camera off to Rome
For ruins? Have you seen my home?

Don’t talk to me of Hong Kong’s charm—
I’d rather see a poultry farm.

Darkest Africa? Not I—
It teems with anthropophagi!

Scandanavia? Too chilly.
Switzerland? The Alps? Too hilly!

Big Ben, Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square—
I find no romance anywhere.

No, London’s not my cup of tea,
And neither is the Baltic, see?

New Zealand fills me with no zeal—
I’d long for home again, I feel.

The Riviera’s just too crass.
On Monte Carlo’s games I’ll pass.

Swilling beer in bawdy Munich?
Not for me, though I’m no eunuch;

No, just the shy, retiring type,
Whose greatest joys are slipper, pipe,

An armchair where, with quilt of flannel,
I can watch the Travel Channel.

The baggage handler deserves a heads-up

“60 severed heads were discovered on a Southwest Airlines flight to Fort Worth, Texas.” — Harper’s Magazine.


Were they all in one trunk?
Don’t you think it would flunk
Pre-boarding inspection?
Did Economy section
Lose their heads when they learned
That these riders had earned
Discounts that were moreso?
(Flying without torso.)