bucket, kicked

[a quick note]

Chacun à son goût, as the French say,¹ but when it comes to death I’ll prefer, when my time comes, to in fact die rather than to pass away.

I’m not, though perhaps I might occasionally like to pretend otherwise, the boss of you, so y’all, please, go on doing as you like.

That said.

I don’t think that the euphemistic “pass away” has any place in serious or even semiserious journalism, which is why this

momentarily² irked and vexed me.

Speaking of death, I’ll be back later today with part 7 (🫢) of my “Garden Party” annotation.

See you again in a few hours.

B.

P.S. and post-publication addendum: The “He’s dead. Good.” bit that was flying around online, as it always does in such cases as this past weekend’s one-way departure, is not, as it’s often attributed, Bette Davis’s, nor is it Dorothy Parker’s, as it’s sometimes attributed. It’s Jackie “Moms” Mabley’s, and make of that erroneous redirection what you will.

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Cover illustration: Jimmy Durante (IYK, as the kids say, YK)

1. Everyone has gout.

Just kidding.

Also, as enchanted as I’ve become these last few years with the singular “they,” I gotta say that “To each their own” doesn’t hold a candle to “To each his own.” It just sounds . . . flat.

2. In the Brit sense. I’m well aware of how the American use (“we’ll be landing momentarily”) irks our cousins on the other side of the big water.

(I realized, two seconds after posting this squib, that I’d initially gotten it backward. So: fixed. Also: phew.)