Requiescat in pace...

[fajrdrako]

Today on thefridayfive: "Morbid Questions We All Think About" . Actually, I never think about this kind of thing - "Be unprepared" ought to be my motto. Do other people think about it? Really?

1. If you were to die today, what would your last words be?

"What, already?"

2. What would you want your epitaph to say?

"Beautiful, brilliant, brave." Epitaphs don't have to be true.

3. What song would you want played at your funeral?

I was about to say "I don't want a funeral", but I instantly thought of a song - "If Ever I Would Leave You", sung by John Barrowman.

4. In lieu of flowers, what should loved ones do in your honor?

Hey, I want flowers! Okay, okay, if not flowers... I'd like everyone to write a story or poem or song, or draw a picture, in my honour. Not about me. About something that's important to them.

5. What unfinished business would you wrap up?

The writing of a novel or two. But if I only have a day... I suppose I'd like to look at a sunset, or see the ocean.

Comments

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Who is that gorgeous woman? Such lovely b&w!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

That's Louise Brooks, a gorgeous movie star from the 1920. She was an interesting, intelligent woman, too.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

I want to find out more.

That era's attitudes towards art are fascinating. Also, the sheer fact that so many media for art were new in that era -- such creativity! I could go on and on.

I have a book called Only Yesterday which was written in 1931. It's about the decade of the 1920s. What a find!! I have it in my locker at work, reading it in carefully-rationed little pieces so I'm not through with it too soon.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Let me know if there are any particularly good nuggets of info in there.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

It's like reading Vanity Fair from seven decades ago...! It's all so fresh. He talks about events and people that all of his readers remember the same way he does -- um, you know what I mean, there. He synthesizes it into a coherent overview, but his material is so fresh. In front of him. In his hands. In everyone's concurrent minds.

And now, all of those who remember those events in that way are gone, I'd say. Which is just one reason I was so thrilled to find this book. How seldom people think to write down such descriptions of current life! Well, maybe not so seldom these days, but... even so, huh?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

This is one reason I love memoirs and autobiographies. It's such fun to hear things from the point of view of the person who is there, who is writing about experience.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I recently ran across a catalog of reprinted books -- there was one from 1910 about the latest innovations in aeroplanes, one from 1913 edited by Hugo Gernsback (yes, that one) collecting letters from amateur radio buffs, talking about how they'd built their sets and what they'd done with them, and other incredibly precious nuggets from earlier years. The catalog was Lindsay Books (hee), and they are online at lindsaybks.com, if you'd like to go look. I plan to get my dad his Christmas gifts from here -- in fact, one book was from 1951, about new discoveries and innovations in electronics, and that was right about when he was learning radar in the Navy and was soon to come home to become an apprentice electrician at Mesta Machine in Pittsburgh! He may cry. But... it's all good.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

What a great site to find! Thanks for the tip.