Our Daily Dead

NY Times
Bobby Short, the cherubic singer and pianist whose high-spirited but probing renditions of popular standards evoked the glamour and sophistication of Manhattan nightlife, died yesterday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. He was 80, and had homes in Manhattan and southern France.

The cause was leukemia, said his press agent, Virginia Wicks.

Mr. Short liked to call himself a saloon singer, and his “saloon” since 1968 was one of the most elegant in the country, the intimate Cafe Carlyle tucked in the Carlyle hotel on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. There for six months each year, in a room where he was only a few feet from his audience, he sang and accompanied himself on the piano. Although he had said that last year’s engagement would be his last, he reversed himself in June and extended for 2005, the 50th anniversary of the club.

Over the years, Mr. Short transcended the role of cabaret entertainer to become a New York institution and a symbol of civilized Manhattan culture. In Woody Allen’s films a visit to the Carlyle became an essential stop on his characters’ cultural tour. He attracted a chic international clientele that included royalty, movie stars, sports figures, captains of industry, socialites and jazz aficionados and was a guest and performer at the White House when President and Mrs. Richard M. Nixon entertained the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. He also appeared in small roles in a number of television commercials and movies.

Okay, we’re a little, should we say, ‘Short,’ today. So in the absence of enough players to make up a team for ODDassociations, we’ll crank up the DeLorean (see yesterday’s post and blog) and go back to the early 20th Century and the death of Buffalo Bill.

At the end of 1916, the old scout, William F. ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody was coming to the end of his trail. From 1913 to 1916 Cody had lost the Wild West to a sheriff’s sale in Denver (putting 500 people out of work’a Boy Scout troop touring with Cody had to walk home to Iowa), been forced to tour with the Sells-Foto Circus, and looked back on multiple failed businesses (including real estate, ranching, mining, newspapers, oil exploration, and a coffee substitute for Mormons). He was unable to get on a horse, and he was broke.

In December, 1916 he traveled from Cody, Wyoming to visit his sister. He caught a ‘bad cold,’ but by January 2, 1917 he was well enough to take the train to Glenwood Springs, Colorado to see if the hot springs and mineral waters would improve his health. This is the same spa John Henry ‘Doc’ Holliday visited in an unsuccessful attempt to cure his tuberculosis. Unfortunately, Cody’s health did not improve, and he returned to Denver on January 7th, too sick to return to Wyoming. He was taken to his sister’s home, where his physician, Dr. John East attributed Cody’s decline to a recent lunar eclipse .

On January 9th, the Denver Post reported that Cody realized ‘the end was near,’ and ‘calmly made arrangements for his funeral,’ including the menu to be served. He was also baptized into the Catholic Church.

On January 10th, after experiencing a ‘very bad night’ he lost consciousness at 10 a.m., and died at 12:05 p.m. The undertaker was called, and he embalmed Cody in the home. He died at age 70, a month short of his 71st birthday The cause of death was listed as ‘uremic poisoning
,’ a condition that results from kidney failure.

As was the custom of the time, Cody’s body lay in the front room of his sister’s home until January 14 when it was taken to the Colorado State Capitol . Cody lay in state throughout the day. An estimated 20,000 people filed past his casket. That afternoon he was taken to the nearby Elks Lodge where the funeral was conducted. It is still the largest state funeral in the history of Colorado.

It is probably that Cody’s widow, Luisa ‘Lulu’ Cody accepted $10,000 from the Denver Post in return for agreeing to Cody’s burial on Lookout Mountain west of Denver. Because his tomb had to be prepared, Cody’s body was kept at Olinger Mortuary where he was embalmed six more times until the body was interred on June 3, 1917.

Cody’s tomb was blasted 12 feet deep in solid granite. Over 20,000 people attended the event. Lulu asked that the casket be opened, and one rumor has it that the glass above Cody’s face fogged over when an old girl friend passed by. Following a Masonic service, the body was lowered into a steel vault, and a six foot thick concrete cap put in place. A bugler played taps, a artillery battery boomed an 11 gun salute (usually reserved for a brigadier general), and the national flag raised.

In 1924 Lulu died in Cody, Wyoming. Given the tumultuous nature of the Cody’s marriage, some found some irony in her burial atop Buffalo Bill.

In many ways, Buffalo Bill died ‘The Good Death.’ He died at home, not in a hospital. He was surrounded by family, friends, and a physician who cared for him up to the moment of his death, and his death was relatively rapid. However, ‘The Good Death’ never provides nostalgia for the primary participant. In the words of Thomas Mann in The Magic Mountain, ‘A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.’

Remember to turn off the lights when you leave the room.

NY Times
John Z. DeLorean, the flamboyant automobile industrialist whose dream of running his own car company dissolved into bankruptcy, died Saturday evening at Overlook Hospital in Summit, N.J. He was 80 years old and lived in Bedminster, N.J.

The cause was complications after a stroke, his family said.

Mr. DeLorean, a Detroit native, was once thought to be a contender for the presidency of General Motors but left the world’s largest automaker in 1973 and went on to start his own company, DeLorean Motor Company, with the backing of investors like Johnny Carson and Sammy Davis Jr.

DeLorean Motor produced only one model, the DMC-12, but it made a lasting impression. In the early 1980’s, with increasingly dull cars coming from Detroit, the unpainted, stainless steel-bodied sports car had doors that opened upward like a gull’s wings and was featured in the “Back to the Future” movies starring Michael J. Fox.

DeLorean Stainless Steel Illusion
GTOs on eBay.com
DeLoreans on eBay.com

NY Times
George H. O’Brien Jr., a Marine lieutenant in the Korean War who was awarded the Medal of Honor for spearheading the capture of an enemy-held hill while wounded by automatic-weapons fire, died on March 11 in Midland, Tex. Mr. O’Brien, who lived in Midland, was 78.

The cause was complications of emphysema, his son George said.

On the night of Oct. 26, 1952, with the Korean War well into its third year, Chinese Communist troops, backed by artillery, besieged marines holding a fishhook-shaped hill known as the Hook. If the Communists took the hill, the way could have been open for a drive on Seoul, the South Korean capital, some 35 miles to the south.

Several American positions were overrun, but the next day the marines counterattacked. Lieutenant O’Brien, commanding a rifle platoon of the Seventh Marines, First Marine Division, leapt from his trench, shouted for his men to follow and raced up the hill in the face of small-arms, artillery and mortar fire. He was shot through the arm and thrown to the ground but continued to lead the assault, pausing only to aid a wounded marine before hurling hand grenades into enemy bunkers.

Then, wielding his carbine in hand-to-hand combat, he killed at least three enemy soldiers. After that, he was knocked down three times by the concussion of grenades hurled at him but refused medical evacuation and continued to lead his platoon in combat over the next four hours.

When his men were relieved by another unit, Lieutenant O’Brien remained in place to cover the withdrawal and ensure that no wounded were left behind.

Lieutenant O’Brien was presented with the Medal of Honor by President Dwight D. Eisenhower one year to the day after his exploits at the Hook for his “exceptionally daring and forceful leadership in the face of overwhelming odds.”

White 1964 Pontiac ivory (not white!) GTO convertible, gold interior, Hurst 4-speed, 386 cubes, 4-barrel carb (tri-power way-cool, more ponys, but the three little brothers named ‘Rochester’ were their own special pain), U.S. Royal Tiger Paw tires, glass pack mufflers with straight pipes (chrome, of course)’thanks for the memories John Z. DeLorean.

Today’s ODDity: The GTO was the car that wasn’t to be (gloomy kind of day here, so pardon the passive voice). In 1964, the General Motors brass had mandated ‘no performance cars.’ (Incidentally, Pontiac’s ‘Grocery Getter’ full drag station wagon, snuck in under the ban.) DeLorean was the head engineer in the Pontiac division. Turns out that there was a loop hole. Options didn’t need approval from higher up. DeLorean made the GTO an option on the Pontiac Tempest LeMans. Pontiac thought that they would sell 10,000 in the first year. They sold 32,450, and started the muscle car craze. Pontiac recently brought back the GTO. Its 400 horses blast it from 0-60 in 5.3 seconds. Impressive’as is its handling which is more Deutschland than Detroit. The ODD fact: the new GTO is made in Australia. Crikey!

Do you have a favorite memory in a muscle car? Let us know at Contact Us. Life’s short, sometimes you just need to floor it.

NY Times
Humphrey Spender, a prominent English artist known for his photographs documenting the lives of ordinary Britons in the bleakest years of the Depression, died on March 11 at his home in Ulting, Essex. He was 94.

The cause was heart failure, his wife, Rachel, said.

Mr. Spender, who began his career as a photojournalist, was a pioneer of the British documentary photography movement of the 1930’s and 40’s. A brother of the poet Stephen Spender, he became known in later years as a textile designer and painter.

The Independent of London last week called Mr. Spender “one of the outstanding chroniclers of British life between the wars.”

Only one obit of note posted today. The photographic images of Humphrey Spender reminds us of the power of master photographers. Speaking of master photographers, f you are inclined to run away from home, consider Santa Fe. The Georgia O’Keefe Museum has a very nice exhibition of the potent photography of Charles SheelerCharles Sheeler. We think though, you’ll be disappointed with the O’Keefe images on display, her best work
best work hangs elsewhere. But, that’s just our ODD impression. (And maybe we shouldn’t have said ‘potent photography,’ but ‘great photography’ just sounded so, so…well…impotent.

In the absence of compelling passings, the Oddfellows are inspired by a story about Dr. William Osler, a Canadian physician who went on to become a famous professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins, and later Regis Professor of Medicine at Oxford. In the midst of a particularly contentious medical society meeting, with both sides passionately arguing back and forth, the chair stopped the meeting and asked renowned Dr. Osler his opinion. He stood, looked at the group, and said, ‘I have nothing to say–either.’

We have nothing more to say–either. Be careful, and to quote ‘Sideways’, don’t drink and dial.