Mourning Roundup: April 4, 2012

APRIL 4, 2012 TAGS: COMEDY, LEGACY ADD A COMMENT

- Does the dead comic Bill Hicks deserve to be considered as a more than just a comedian? A case for an expanded view of his legacy at SplitSider. As Simon Pegg says:

“Bill Hicks wasn’t just a comic, he was a crusader against humanity’s relentless capacity to underachieve.”

- Author Susan Jacoby is none too sentimental about advancing age and the decrepitude of the body. In her book, Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age, is a full-throated attack against the. As Paul Wilner wrote in his review:

Jacoby has adopted a personal mission to correct the vaporous, Hallmark goop in which the fortunate few – the likes of Betty White, the impossibly athletic-looking senior citizens depicted in Viagra commercials, and the occasional skydiving grandmother – are portrayed as the “new normal,’’ representing an ideal example of what the aging process is going to look like in the future.

In Saturday's New York Times, Jacoby returns to the point, but trains her grumpy-but-insightful focus on aging Americans who refuse to make plans for end-of-life care:

As the aging baby boom generation places unprecedented demands on the health care system, there is little ordinary citizens can do — witness the tortuous arguments in the Supreme Court this week over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act — to influence either the cost or the quality of the treatment they receive. However, end-of-life planning is one of the few actions within the power of individuals who wish to help themselves and their society. Too few Americans are shouldering this responsibility.

Susan Jacoby, you should Dr. Dan Morhaim.

- The sculptor Elizabeth Catlett was a pioneering African American artist. She died on April 1. She talks about her work in this interview.