We are losing a generation of shootists rather quickly—as well as enduring the early departure of a few, like Dave Arnold and Gary Sitton, who died way too young—one from living too cleanly, from being too good for this world; and the other from living too hard. (And yet he was a magical writer, and a fine human being.*)

(For those who do not know, Thomas Siatos was the editor of Guns & Ammo magazine, and went on to head up Petersen's entire "Outdoor Group," which was quite the empire within an empire, and included Hunting, Handguns, and myriad smaller publications. These magazines are now published by InterMedia Outdoors.)

* I'll pay cold, hard cash for anyone who can catch my literary allusion this time. I suspect I've got you guys stumped.

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You were, quite simply, the best. No one brought the West to life like you did, nor did anyone provide such illuminating glimpses into the the traditions of Native America.

You're who I want to be when I grow up (and I'm stealing that line, but I also mean it).

Goddammit, Tony. Goodbye.

Via Insty.

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I took you on my honeymoon; you were just what I needed.

That sounded wrong. I mean to say, I read most of Infinite Jest on a cruise in Alaska while I was recovering from an overwrought wedding. The book was very nice, though there was an awful lot of it.

Did you ever do anything about that attention-span problem? I really dug the footnotes; really.

* * *

Overheard:

A: I was in a bad way again on Friday night.

B: Are you okay?

A: I'm fine. I didn't think about The Bad Thing; I just threw up.

B: Throwing up is better than The Bad Thing.

* * *

Why didn't he just puke his guts out? This way is so . . . permanent. Nearly irreversible.

* * *

I keep finding out that circumstances push other people further than I will allow myself to be pushed. One time I was having one of those "make sure I don't do anything stupid" nights and the very same evening a friend of a friend swallowed a bottle of pills and had to get her stomach pumped.

* * *

I did discover that if you have a strong stomach, and you only barf every several years when afflicted by a bad case of influenza, there are abdominal muscles that simply don't get worked very often. No pain, no gain.

But I have concluded that it's not hormones; I think it's . . . sunspots.

It's all about . . . well, you know.

* * *

David Gates, in Newsweek:

In Wallace's last book, a story collection called Oblivion—oh, now we get it—the self-tormenting protagonist of "Good Old Neon," an ad man who has felt like a "fraud" his whole life (and who used to know one "David Wallace" when he was a kid) swallows antihistamines and drives his car into a bridge abutment. And in Wallace's commencement address to the class of 2005 at Kenyon College, he dragged in—if not exactly out of left field, certainly out of left center—"the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master . . . It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger."

It will take a while for all these apparent "clues" in Wallace's work to stop pulsing like neon signs when we stumble on them. But that work will outlast the garish particulars of his death. In years to come, no one will be able to dismiss it as the symptomatic productions of a depressive head case: the dread to which he gave artistic shape is too real, too universal. True, Wallace was a head case, but in the sense that we're all head cases: encased in our skulls, and sealed off from our fellow humans, we have worlds upon worlds of teeming, unruly sensations, emotions, attitudes, opinions and-that chillingly neutral word-information. "What goes on inside," Wallace wrote in "Good Old Neon," is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at a given instant."

Yeah. But that's no excuse; it's still an astonishingly selfish thing to do.

* * *

Marion Ettinger, the Los Angeles Times.

The Salon interview.

And the infamous/illustrious Ruth Reichl published him once, in Gourmet. Which is kind of cool.

The New York Press.

* * *

One thing, though: I think God secretly forgives; it's the people left behind who may or may not be able to accomplish that.

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You were amazing.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And thank you again.

(Full disclosure: I've only read Cancer Ward, because I'm a pussy [well . . . a bit tender-hearted]. But I know the impact his body of work had, and I'll do it now. It's too important not to.)

h/t: Ace.

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The first several words that come to mind when people young die so young of cancer are generally considered unprintable . . . not that I wouldn't print 'em. But it seems more respectful to the dead to let them go, rather than turning a public moment into my own private vendetta against cancer.

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I woke up this "morning" to a debate among my sisters as to whether he was a warrior on the side of the angels, a crass legislative power-broker, or simply an asshole.

I know which way I'm leaning, but sometimes we get more objective information after people die. And in any event, the husband was a fan of his fiscal stubbornness.

In any event: RIP, Senator Helms.

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Last night, heart failure. He was only 71.

And, of course, he helped to popularize Doc, Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Happy, Bashful, and Dopey.

No, wait: it was lust, gluttony, greed, envy, sloth, wrath, and pride.

Vaya con Dios, my friend. And . . . . mother fucker.

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It goes so quickly sometimes, doesn't it? "Between the forceps and the stone," as Joni Mitchell put it.

I'm in a Team America mood: I want to insist the my husband promise me he's immortal, in exchange for sex. Problem is, he's not a good liar.

Every minute here is precious; let's keep that in mind.

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We need more like her.

If she gets her wish, and we do manage to eliminate the "disabled Gulag," we will probably get more like her, and the world will be richer for it.

Thanks for the thoughtful tribute, Ed.

(X-posted at Right Wing News.)

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I haven't known what to say, exactly. Fortunately, this is Virginia Postrel's beat.

The Coco Chanel comparison was perfect. Perhaps neither one of them was of the world—but they were both in the world.

Thank you, Yves Saint Laurent.

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He was willing to laugh at other people's jokes. That is the mark of a comic who is also a gentleman.

So long, Buddy. So long.

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Everyone knows that Memorial Day is a day to honor and remember those who lost their lives fighting for the US. Ever wonder about its origins?

Memorial Day was originally called Declaration Day. More than two dozen cities and towns lay claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. In May of 1966, President Lydon Baines Johnson officially declared Waterloo, New York, as the birthplace, but there is no conclusive proof they were first.

Many towns had spontaneous or planned gatherings to honor war dead in the late 1860s, following the Civil War. In 1868, General Logan officially proclaimed the day a day of remembrance and honor.

Even though Memorial Day is now a three-day weekend of beer, barbecue and discount sales, we would do well to remember those who have given their lives for a cause greater than themselves.

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You changed everything. And it's still changing.

Thanks for all the varietals. Thanks for the top-notch—yet dirt-cheap—vino.

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Like, wow.

Are you getting the same colors I am off of the Safari browser window? 'Cause they've brightened it up a bit. I especially like the lime green mixed with cranberry, interspersed with streaks of hot pink.

Look at the coffee beans there in the canister. Do they usually breathe that fast? I think they're hyper-ventilating, myself. Hey, little dudes; relax. Time to meditate a bit.

Whose turn is it to call for Thai delivery this time? And where are the crayons? I might just lie on my back for a while: acoustical spray rawks.

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1 There you go! The server crashed and your individual entry pages got corrupted, so here I am apologizing!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at May 01, 2008 03:18 PM (2yngH)

2 Be careful what you wish for.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at May 01, 2008 03:18 PM (2yngH)

3 Thank you, Pixy! You're the BEST!

Posted by: Attila Girl at May 01, 2008 04:19 PM (Hgnbj)

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You were nothing short of amazing. As a fan of (certain select) movies, I bow to you—and as an advocate of gun rights I take my hat off to your service for all these many years.

I get it, Dear: you would rather have been spending time with your grandkids, rather than fighting the good fight at the NRA. But you did the right thing, setting yourself up for ridicule from your erstwhile colleagues; and we deeply appreciate it. We have for years. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And now, Paul Rugg, John McCann, and Tom Ruegger would like to make fun of you one more time. (I've alway suspected that the main point of "The Huntsman" was to give the guy doing Heston's voice the chance to say "darn the luck!" It's also fun that the Huntsman themes are invariably longer than the sequences they actually introduce.)

Of course, Ruegger, Rugg, and McCann did it with love; that makes all the difference, no?

UPDATE: Hackbarth has a Heston roundup over at The American Mind.

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Ola Brunkert.

Oddly enough, the song of ABBA's I remember most isn't "Dancing Queen." It's "Money, Money, Money," and Evan turned me onto it, back when I was doing more thematic compilation tapes.

And I'd like to state, for the record, that I do consider drummers to be real musicians. They are more than "timekeepers," dammit. And, yes: I do think of Ringo as a "real Beatle." Not just a lucky guy; he worked as hard as the rest of 'em.

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You were the John the Baptist of the modern Conservative Movement—a voice crying in the wilderness.

The world would be a much poorer place without you.

And I loved your Mr. Howell accent.

Holy shit; it's hard to say goodbye to someone with your force of personality and badass intellect.

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Pedro seems to suggest that you were as beautiful on the inside as you were on the outside.

Which, of course, is an amazing idea.

I don't think I ever saw Rosina without a smile on her face. My favorite Rosina moment? When one of the wives of the Warner Brothers Boys (from the Golden Age of the 1990s, of course) was complaining about some minor bit of assholism on the part of her husband (yes: sometimes we are the butts of their jokes; don't tell). Rosina dryly remarked, in her beautiful accent, "aren't you glad to have married such a funny guy?"

And we all laughed, because of course we were glad to have married funny guys, notwithstanding the price we all paid every now and then.

The world is a darker place without you, Rosina. You'll be missed, but your light endures.

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You were the first, and the best.

Hat tip to Linguist Guy.

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Our Islamic "militants" don't know yet what happens when a moderate is "martyred."

But they are about to fucking find out . . .

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