07 May 2009

Regarding obituaries

Yesterday John Walkenbach blogged the following obit at J-Walk:

Dimmick, Chuck P. born December 29, 1958 in Riverside, CA passed away suddenly on April 18, 2009 while attending a NASCAR race to watch his favorite driver, Jeff Gordon. Chuck was the loving husband of Kristen and devoted father of Dillon. Chuck was the Director of Marketing for the Lund Cadillac Group. We are sure he would still want all to know that 0.9% financing is still available on all New 2008 Hummer H2's.

A mass celebrating Chuck's life will be held at 11:00 AM on Friday, April 24th at St. Patrick's Church - 10815 N. 84th St. Scottsdale, AZ. Arrangements handled by Hansen Desert Hill Mortuary 480-991-5800..
While researching whether the obit was real or not, I stumbled across an Obituary Forum. It's real, and it's serious - the weblog for a group called The Society of Professional Obituary Writers. I had not previously given a thought to this, probably assuming that newspapers just assigned people to do obits, or that families supplied them.

You learn something every day.

And before we leave the topic, I'll link a story from yesterday's Dublin Times in which a student, hearing of the death of Maurice Jarre, went to Wikipedia and inserted this paragraph:
“One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear,” Jarre was quoted as saying.
He had to reinsert it a few times when Wiki editors deleted it for not being referenced, but eventually the student was bemused to see his fabricated quotation showing up in mainstream prestigious online newspapers. More at the link re the implications.

2 comments:

  1. Actually, here in California, the funeral director writes the obituary unless the family specifically wishes to write it themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  2. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0876233/
    This movie; "The Last Word" was worth seeing. It's about a writer who composes peoples suicide notes for them. And it wasn't depressing!

    ReplyDelete

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