Category: In Memoriam

Obituaries and memorials

He wrote the book

A belated memorial to Paul Samuelson, who died on 13 December at the age of 94. From The Economist‘s obituary:

“To understand economics you need to know not only fundamentals but also its nuances,” Mr Samuelson would explain. “When someone preaches ‘Economics in one lesson’ I advise: Go back for the second lesson.”

I learned the fundamentals of macroeconomics from Robert Eisner lecturing out of the 9th edition of Samuelson’s Economics (today’s edition, co-authored by William Nordhaus, is the 19th). Maybe the best thing about the book was its endpapers: the IBC gave a family tree of economic thought, from Aristotle and Aquinas to the post-Keynesian synthesis; while the IFC charted real per capita GNP on a log scale over the period 1870-1973 for six countries: the U.S., Germany, Great Britain, Japan (fourth overall but with the steepest growth), the Soviet Union, and (way down at the bottom of the chart) India (and notice we were talking about national product and not domestic product back then).

A questioner

The Economist remembers Helen Suzman, 36-year member of the South African parliament, a progressive gadfly duing the years of apartheid:

She was the sole survivor, for 13 years a one-woman opposition to the relentless consolidation of white rule.

* * *

She was a precious mouthpiece to the world, as she was also the first resort for communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, banned people, Coloureds resentful of their racial classification, and all the “sad harvest of the seeds of apartheid” that drifted through her office.

Lori

We said goodbye to Lori today.

Lori was one of the few people who bothered to read pedantic nuthatch. She once put Karen’s nose out of joint by passing along the tip, “Did you know that David Gorsline is blogging his rehearsal notes?”

Lori and I were connected through a web of theater people in Maryland. We were admirers of each other’s work, but we hadn’t done a project together, or so I misremembered. But Brendan reminded me that the three of us did a role-playing gig for the American Physical Society three years ago. It was an easy mistake, because Lori was so deeply into character as Lise Meitner from the moment we got to the hotel. Her Meitner was a withdrawn woman embittered by years of doing good physics while the men in her profession took the credit and the prizes. It was a committed, crafted piece of acting for something no more consequential than light entertainment for a cocktail reception. But Lori was serious about doing her work.

Erased

Via wood s lot comes the sad news that the French avant garde writer Alain Robbe-Grillet has passed away. Robbe-Grillet, as far as I can remember, was one of the first novelists that I discovered completely by myself. I was browsing in my college bookstore and I saw a copy of his Instantanés (Snapshots), pieces shorter than his nouveaux romans. I picked it up and thought, “well, this looks interesting.”

Time to go

I like to say that the D.C. metro area, up out of the floodplain at least, is optimal for avoiding natural disasters: hurricanes and tornadoes are infrequent, earthquakes almost nonexistent, heat, cold, and water are in moderation. Of course there’s that whole being a national capital and being a political target. Ah, well.

So I’ve been thinking again about disaster planning, sparked by Leta’s post and the unpleasantnesses in arid California this fall. We have a plan to drive west, over the mountains, to her father’s place. If the threat is coming from the west, or we don’t have time to meet up… well, we haven’t worked that one out. I guess we would take Alberta the Explorer, ’cause there’s room to sleep in the back if need be—unless access to fuel would be a problem.

I have a pretty good checklist for pulling things out of the house that we would need. It’s organized by room, so I’m not running up and downstairs a lot, and it’s got a rough priority ordering (the food and supplies bins and my passport go first, my briefcase and the carrier of hand tools are optional). And I’ve got some notes about things that would be good to pick up one of these days: two-way radios, a hand-cranked battery charger, fluorescent spray paint (this one suggested by the experience of Katrina). Fortunately I’m not dependent on medications that have to be kept cool. So I think I’m equipped to load up the car and be on the road with fifteen minutes’ notice.

And I wondered what I would take if I had one more trip that I could make back into the house. Nonessentials, but things I would want with me if the place was pancaked. And I settled on this short list:

  • the 20-odd books that are on my essential reading list; these are the ones that I would re-read multiple times if nothing else were available;
  • something to hang on the wall: a small box construction by Graceann Warn with a stylized painting of a blackbird;
  • a pot with one of the cuttings from a dracena that I’ve been growing for 20 years; Jenny hacked off a piece from a plant in the office back when I got my first apartment alone in Reston and gave it to me with a “here, you need a plant for your new place;” I stuck it in water and it rooted.

Everything else can be replaced. Like Roma says in Glengarry Glen Ross, “All it is is things that happen to you.”

So long, Don

Don Herbert, Mr. Wizard of my childhood, has passed away. When I was about nine years old, my hometown television station replaced Herbert’s show with some humdrum public affairs program: I fired off a snarky note to the editor of the TV section of the Dayton Daily News, and got it published. (My first and last effort at grassroots activism, and of course it didn’t have any effect.) Here’s hoping that there’s a Van de Graaff generator wherever you are, Mr. Wizard.

(Link via Boing Boing.)

Just the work

Conceptual artist Sol LeWitt has left us. From Michael Kimmelman’s obit:

To the sculptor Eva Hesse, he once wrote a letter while she was living in Germany and at a point when her work was at an impasse. “Stop it and just DO,” he advised her. “Try and tickle something inside you, your ‘weird humor.’ You belong in the most secret part of you. Don’t worry about cool, make your own uncool.” He added: “You are not responsible for the world—you are only responsible for your work, so do it. And don’t think that your work has to conform to any idea or flavor. It can be anything you want it to be.”