Who2 Editorial Blog
Notes and Commentary from the Editors
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Chronicles of John Updike
Author John Updike has died at age 76. (Of lung cancer, in a hospice in Massachusetts.)Obituary lede writers agree: Updike was all about the chronicles.
"John Updike, the great chronicler of middle-class America..." -The Financial Times
"John Updike, the Pulitzer prize-winning author and revered chronicler of small-town American life..." -The Daily Telegraph
"John Updike, the prolific writer who was... a chronicler of the loves and losses of small-town America..." -The Guardian
"John Updike... a prolific chronicler of American suburban mores, manners and misbehaviour..." -The Independent
"John Updike, the chronicler of American suburban adultery..." -The Times of London
"John Updike... who chronicled the drama of small-town American life with flowing and vivid prose, wit and a frank eye for sex..." -Reuters
"Prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning US novelist John Updike, whose books and short stories chronicled small-town American life..." -Agence France-Presse
"John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce and other adventures in the postwar prime of the American empire..." -The Associated Press
Labels: John Updike, Obituary First Lines
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 7:47 PM 
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Thursday, December 25, 2008
Obituary First Lines: Harold Pinter
Playwright Harold Pinter has died after a long battle with throat cancer. Here's how some papers are summing up his life."No one made the sound of silence more ominously theatrical than Harold Pinter." -The Associated Press
"Harold Pinter, the fiercely political Nobel Prize-winning British playwright who used suspenseful plots, odd halting dialogue, and working-class settings full of menace to create puzzling yet riveting drama..." -The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Harold Pinter, the son of tailor from London's East End who rose to become one of the nation's greatest playwrights..." -The Independent
"Playwright Harold Pinter's dialogue has been compared to everyday prattle that covers a menacing subtext." -The Los Angeles Times
"You can measure the mark that Harold Pinter has left on British theatre by one word: Pinteresque. Few playwrights get their own adjective." -The Times of LondonThe Independent also has a lovely little piece about Pinter's love of cricket.
Labels: Obituary First Lines
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Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Obituary First Lines: Michael Crichton
A sampling of opening lines about the celebrated author:"Michael Crichton, who died on Tuesday at the age of 66, was like a character in a Michael Crichton novel." -The New York Times
"The gone-haywire theme parks of Jurassic Park and Westworld. The breakneck medical decisions of ER. The storm chasers of Twister. All these and more came from the mind of Michael Crichton..." -E! Online
"Michael Crichton, a Harvard-trained medical doctor who applied his love and knowledge of science to write some of the most iconic sci-fi tales of his generation, died Tuesday of cancer." -Wired News
"His 1969 novel, The Andromeda Strain, alone would have been enough to make him a science fiction legend, but he turned out string of taut technothrillers, even equalling The Andromeda Strain's iconic status with 1990's Jurassic Park." -Discover Magazine
"Michael Crichton may puzzle or annoy in his occasional lapses in taste, but he cannot be dismissed." -The Christian Science Monitor
Labels: Michael Crichton, Obituary First Lines
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Monday, June 23, 2008
Obituary First Lines: George Carlin
Comedian George Carlin has died at age 71. Here's how some news outlets began their Carlin obits."At the end of his rackety and eventful life, George Carlin, the US comedian and hero of the counter-culture, has been best remembered for seven words." -The Independent
"George Carlin, an extraordinary standup comedian whose dark social satire won him multigenerational popularity and a starring role in the most famous broadcast obscenity case of modern times..." -The New York Daily News
"Comedian George Carlin, a counter-culture hero famed for his routines about drugs and dirty words..." -The Calgary Herald
"When he shucked the coat and tie for black T-shirts and jeans, grew his hair long and began to riff about those 'Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV,' George Carlin became more than just the countercultural comedian." -The Associated Press
"George Carlin loved words -- the good, the 'bad,' the 'filthy.'" -E! Online
Labels: George Carlin, Obituary First Lines
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Monday, June 02, 2008
Obituary First Lines: Bo Diddley
Guitarist Bo Diddley has died of heart failure at age 79. Here's how some news outlets are summing up his life:"Bo Diddley, the pioneering electric guitarist who was playing rock'n'roll when white America was still calling it jungle music..." -The Independent
"Bo Diddley, the rhythm and blues musician whose distinctive choppy rhythm shaped rock'n'roll..." -The Guardian
"Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins remembers the late Bo Diddley as more than just a rock 'n' roll pioneer -- for the Hawk, Diddley was one of his biggest mentors when it came to the after-show ritual of picking up women." -The Canadian Press
"Bo Diddley, the rock 'n' roll originator with the rectangular guitar whose signature beat influenced musicians from Buddy Holly to the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead and Bruce Springsteen..." -The Vancouver Sun
"He burst into pop music in 1955 with a song named after himself and topped the R&B charts shortly afterward. A few years later, he built his own rectangular Gretsch, nicknamed 'The Twang Machine,' which he would use to play thousands of concerts across decades of rousing performance..." -Wired
Labels: Bo Diddley, Obituary First Lines
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Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Obituary First Lines: Dick Martin
TV comedy star Dick Martin has died at age 83. Here's how some major news outlets are summing up his life."Dick Martin, co-host of 'Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In,' which popularized the phrase, 'Sock it to me'..." -Bloomberg News
"Dick Martin, the zany half of the comedy team whose 'Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In' took television by storm in the 1960s..." -The Associated Press
"Dick Martin, a veteran nightclub comic who with his partner, Dan Rowan, turned a midseason replacement slot at NBC in 1968 into a hit that redefined what could be done on television..." -The International Herald Tribune
"The death of Dick Martin is shattering showbiz news — his 'Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In' once not only had all America howling, it got the last laugh at the Emmys too." -The Los Angeles Times
"'I never thought of us as hosts. We were two guys walking through a mélange of madness.'" -Newsday
Labels: Dan Rowan, Dick Martin, Obituary First Lines
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Sunday, April 06, 2008
Obituary First Lines: Charlton Heston
Actor Charlton Heston has died at age 83. Here are the opening lines of some of his obituaries:"Charlton Heston, the successful but controversial movie actor whose hawklike features, air of authority and resonant bass voice made him the star of choice in historical epics for half a century..." -The Chicago Tribune
"Charlton Heston, whose chiseled-granite looks and commanding manner led him to portray some of history's most extraordinary men -- from Moses to Michelangelo, John the Baptist to El Cid..." -The Hollywood Reporter
"Charlton Heston, who appeared in some 100 films in his 60-year acting career but who is remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo..." -The New York Times
"Charlton Heston, an actor forged at a time when America produced unashamedly male stars..." -The Australian
"Charlton Heston, the Oscar-winning actor who achieved stardom playing larger-than-life figures including Moses, Michelangelo and Andrew Jackson and went on to become an unapologetic gun advocate and darling of conservative causes..." -The Los Angeles Times
That Chicago Tribune piece takes a pass at listing all the prominent people Heston played during his career:
"...American presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, Moses, Michelangelo, Marc Antony, Gen. Charles 'Chinese' Gordon, the Earl of Essex, Cardinal Richelieu, 'Buffalo Bill' Cody, Sir Thomas More (as well as his antagonist, Henry VIII), and John the Baptist -- along with such fictional luminaries as Sherlock Holmes, El Cid, Heathcliff, and the role that won Heston the best actor Oscar: biblical adventurer/charioteer Judah Ben-Hur in William Wyler's classic 1959 movie Ben-Hur."
Labels: Charlton Heston, Obituary First Lines
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Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Obituary First Lines: Arthur C. Clarke
The first lines from selected remembrances of Arthur C. Clarke, who died on Wednesday in Sri Lanka:"Arthur C. Clarke could claim to have inspired, among other things, the development of communications satellites and the space race. Yet he never drove a car." -The Age of Melbourne
"Science fiction visionary Arthur C. Clarke, who died on Wednesday at 90, seized the world's imagination with his best-known book '2001: A Space Odyssey' and visions of extra-terrestrial civilisations." -Agence France-Presse
"Arthur C. Clarke came from an era when science fiction had the power to rewire your brain." -The Times of London
"'He's a recluse, a nut who lives in a tree in India or someplace.' So said Stanley Kubrick, according to his biographer Vincent LoBrutto, when the suggestion was made to him that Arthur C. Clarke should be his collaborator on a science-fiction film." -The Guardian
"With the death of Sir Arthur C. Clarke we have lost one of the last original visionaries of the Space Age, and one of its most eloquent dreamers." -New Scientist
Labels: Arthur C. Clarke, Obituary First Lines
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