In honor of Art Buchwald

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/fashion/sundaystyles/26art.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1143598792-sLzQ18A473rgsSFckHzJSA

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By SHARON WAXMAN
Published: March 26, 2006


THE other day when I called Art Buchwald, he couldn't come to the phone. John Glenn, the former senator, was at his bedside in the Washington hospice where, for 10 weeks now, Mr. Buchwald has been waiting to die.

Art I can't easily call him Mr. Buchwald because we are acquaintances has lived a storied life, cutting a swath through postwar Paris, where he wined with Taylor (Elizabeth) and dined with Bergman (Ingrid), then returned to the United States to write a column that won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1982. He's also written some 30 books.

So he's not complaining now, despite losing a leg to amputation this winter and an apparently imminent death sentence. He has decided he would prefer to die rather than undergo hours of dialysis to cleanse his kidneys every few days.

But he also hasn't died yet, despite predictions that he would only last three or four weeks without the dialysis. That may be because he's having too much fun. His hospice room, where he intends to stay until the end, has become an informal salon, filled with various members of the Kennedy clan, Marine brass, Senator Glenn, Benjamin C. Bradlee, Representative Nancy Pelosi. On Tuesday the French ambassador showed up to make him a commander of the Order of Arts and Letters and give him a medal. And he's been writing words of wisdom about the end of life.

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On a personal note, my husband Matt and I were hanging out with our cousin Oliver and his then-girlfriend, now wife, Rumyana, in Georgetown about 8 years ago. We went into the Barnes and Noble (or Borders..can't recall which), and to our surprise, there was Art Buchwald, just hanging out at a table near the coffee shop. I was too nervous (and in awe) to bother the man (after all, it was his Saturday morning, too), so I let him be. I bought a couple of copies of "I'll Always Have Paris" which he had autographed and kept one for myself, and gave one to my Dad who is the person who turned me on to Buchwald. Art Buchwald will truly be missed.

[ThoughtCriminal]

1. For those who were not around during Watergate

Art Buchwald's columns helped us cope with Nixon in the same way John Stewart helps us cope with W today.

[mcscajun]

5. He had a great line about the infamous tape gap...

Buchwald rose to new heights during the Watergate scandal, explaining that the sound in the 18 1/2 -minute gap in the White House tapes actually was Nixon humming.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/03/AR2006030301614.html

[Redstone]

2. Nice story, but don't you think someone who writes for the Times

would have a better grasp of the use of the comma?

"Art I can't easily call him Mr. Buchwald because we are acquaintances has lived a storied life..."

Redstone

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

3. That sentence is in serious need of a couple of hypens, for sure.

Let me try:

"Art -- I can't easily call him Mr. Buchwald because we are
acquaintances -- has lived a storied life..."

[Redstone]

4. Parentheses would work too.

Anything to break it up.

Redstone

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

6. True.

[Warpy]

7. There was a great interview with him tonight on PBS

where he said he didn't think dying would be this much fun. He's already outlived the predictions, he's made his peace, and he's quite ready to go, not expecting much of anything but allowing it all to happen as it's supposed to.

He did say he wrote gainst every president in office and took pride in that, saying he hated anyone who got into power because they all started to do the same damned things all over again.

My mother lasted 5 months after she turned down dialysis ("Get the hell outta here!" were the words that did it), so that 3-4 week prediction was only to scare him into it.

I hope he'll enjoy dying for another few months. He will be missed when it happens.