Farewells

FAREWELLS now in print

2012-01-31T07:23:00.000-08:00

"If I were a maker of books, I would make a register, with comments, of various deaths. He who would teach men to die would teach them to live." -- Montaigne.

FAREWELLS, your almanac of last words and last thoughts, is now available at Amazon and also from the author. The book is a wide-ranging collection of quotes, by the famous, the near-famous, and the not-so-famous. Some excerpts:

“I am dying, with the help of many doctors.” – Alexander the Great.

“I did not get my spaghetti. I got Spaghetti-Os. I want the press to know this.” – Condemned murderer Thomas Grasso, referring to his last meal.

“In heaven all the interesting people are missing.” – Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

To order a copy of FAREWELLS, go to

http://www.amazon.com/Farewells-Last-Words-Thoughts-Things/dp/1468083252/.

To save on shipping, get your copy directly from the author. Call 516-5678 or email paulerland@gmail.com.

Here today, Gandhi tomorrow

2012-01-31T06:25:00.000-08:00

Mohands (Mahatma) Gandhi died on this day in 1948.

"By the holy waters of the Yamuna, near New Delhi, almost a million people waited in the sun for the funeral procession to reach the cremation grounds. White predominated - the white of women's cotton saris and of men's clothes, caps and bulbous turbans. At Rajghat, a few hundred feet from the river, a fresh pyre had been built of stone, brick, and earth. It was eight feet square and about two feet high. Long, thin sandalwood logs sprinkled with incense were stacked on it. Mahatma Gandhi's body lay on the pyre with his head to the north. In that position Buddha met his end. At 4:45 p.m., Ramdas, the third son of the Mahatma, set fire to the funeral pyre. The logs burst into flames. The vast assemblage groaned. Women wailed; men wept. The wood crackled and seethed and the flames united into a single fire. Now there was silence. Gandhi's body was being reduced to ashes and cinders. A nation's father was dead.

"On Friday 30 January 1948, Gandhi woke up at his usual hour, 3:30 a.m. After the morning prayer he put the final touches to the new constitution for Congress which he had been unable to finish the previous night. The rest of the morning was spent answering letters. Someone mentioned the fact that despite his poor health he was working incessently. 'Tomorrow', he explained, 'I may not be here'.

"He was aware of the strengthening of the police guard around the Birla House, but notwithstanding Home Minister Patel's earnest request, Gandhi would not permit those who attended the prayer meetings: 'If I have to die I should like to die at the prayer meeting. You are wrong in believing that you can protect me from harm. God is my protector.'

"Gandhi had been busy since the early morning. It was now nearly four o' clock in the afternoon, and soon there would be a meeting with Patel. Gandhi had earlier been drawn into the ideological differences and rivalry between Patel and Nehru, and had expressed the view that one of the two should withdraw from the cabinet. He had since come to the conclusion that both were indispensable, pointing out that the government would be seriously weakened if it lost either.

"Patel arrived with his daughter, Manibehn, and was promptly ushered into the room where Gandhi sat at his spinning wheel. The conversation with Patel was long and absorbing one. Gandhi stressed that any breach between the two senior party colleagues would be disastrous. He would seek out Nehru after the evening prayer and discuss the whole matter with him as well. Earlier in the day someone had shown him a clipping from the London Times, an article suggesting that the conflict between Nehru and Patel was irreconcilable. He was determined to put an end to the disunity between them, even if it meant delaying his journey to Sevagram.

"While the conversation continued he took his evening meal. It was now past 5 p.m., but Gandhi did not notice that he was late for the prayer meeting. Abhabehn, the young wife of Kanu Gandhi, grandson of the Mahatma's cousin, held up a watch, but neither Gandhi nor Patel paid any attention. After sometime Patel's daughter reminded them that it was ten minutes past five and that Gandhi had been late for his prayer meeting , whereupon the two men rose. It had been decided that Gandhi, Patel and Nehru would together discuss the matter the following day.

"Patel and his daughter immediately left the Birla House while Gandhi, a little vexed at being unpunctual, made his way to the prayer meeting. Leaning lightly on the two girls, Manu and Abha, his 'walking sticks', he took a short cut accross the grass, walking briskly to make up for the lost time and then mounted the six low steps upto the level of the prayer ground. As he took a few paces in the direction of the wooden platform on which he sat during services, the crowd opened to enable him to pass through, bowing to his feet as he went by. Gandhi took his arms off the girls' shoulders and for a moment stood there smiling, touching his palms in the traditional greeting-blessing.

"Just then a stocky young man in a khaki bush jacket jostled through the crowd, and when he was directly in front of Gandhi, he fired three shots into the Mahatma at point blank range. The Mahatma's hands folded in friendly greeting, descended slowly. 'He Ram (Oh God Rama),' he murmured, and sighed softly as the frail body slumped to the ground.

"The assassin was held by the Police. He was Nathuram Godse, an editor of a Marathi newspaper, Hindu Rashtra and an active and fanatic member of the Hindu Mahasabha. Gandhi was carried indoors, but he was already unconscious. Within a few moments a doctor pronounced him dead. Patel, who lived not far from Birla House, had hardly reached home when he rushed back. A few minutes later Nehru arrived. Soon one of Gandhi's disciples appeared at the door of Birla House to speak to the anxiously waiting crowd: 'Bapuji is finished.' A moan went up from the crowd. An epic in the saga of Indian and world history had ended. The world had lost yet another of its great sons to the hands of religion. A nation's destiny was dead. The world's tutor was dead."

(From thinkquest.org)

Be prepared for nothing

2012-01-28T07:44:00.000-08:00

Poet Willam Butler Yeats died on this day in 1939. His epitaph, self-composed:

"Horseman, cast a cold eye
On Life, on death,
Horseman, Pass by."

Yeats once wrote:

"All life weighed in the scales of my own life seems to me to be a preparation for something that never happens."

We're counting our blessings, then

2012-01-27T08:56:00.000-08:00

Composer Giuseppe Verdi died on this day in 1901. He once said:

"Oh blessed a thousand times the peasant who is born, eats and dies without anybody bothering about his affairs."

"Giuseppe Verdi died on 27 Jan 1901 after a debilitating stroke six days earlier. A funeral befitting a king was in the planning but in accordance with Verdi's wishes he was buried, without grandeur, beside his wife Giuseppina Strepponi on a damp, foggy morning. However, one month later there was a great public funeral when both caskets, again according to his wishes, were moved to the Casa di Riposa after State approval had been met.

"It should be noted that some of the more notable biographies on Verdi give different versions and dates of the events that surrounded his death.."

(From HistoricOpera.com. Visit the site to see these different versions.)

The end of Rob-o

2012-01-26T13:21:00.000-08:00

Actor Edward G. Robinson died on this day in 1973. He delivered one of the most famous last lines in movie history:

"Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?" (Little Caesar)

Yay! We did it!

2012-01-17T10:42:00.000-08:00

Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in Utah on this day in 1977. He was the first person to be put to death legally in the U. S. in ten years. Gilmore was the subject of Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song.

Gary Gilmore's last words:

"Let's do it!"

Don't go near the water

2011-10-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

Author E. B. White (Charlotte's Web) died on this day in 1985. His famous essay, "Once More to the Lake," ends like this:

"When the others went swimming my son said he was going in too. He pulled his dripping trunks from the line where they had hung all through the shower, and wrung them out. Languidly, and with no thought of going in, I watched him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death."

Just what was the root of his neurosis?

2011-09-26T04:59:00.000-07:00

September 23, 1939: Sigmund Freud died at age 83, of cancer of the jaw, brought on by the some two-dozen cigars he smoked daily. His last words have been variously recorded, sometimes as:

"My dear Schur (his doctor), you remember our first talk. You promised to help me (by giving him morphine) when I could no longer carry on. It is only torture now, and it has no longer any sense."

And as:

"It's absurd."

Deathless thoughts of Montaigne

2011-09-25T04:40:00.000-07:00

I missed this: Michel de Montaigne, the master of the personal essay (he invented the form) and aphorist extraordinaire, died on September 13, 1592. Of death, he had this to say, among other things:

"If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it."

"It is not death, it is dying that alarms me."

"Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations."

And:

"The ceaseless labour of one's whole life is to build the house of death."

Out of the Darkness

2011-09-22T12:47:00.000-07:00

Woody Miller writes: "On December 20th, 2009, I went to visit my son Jeff – it was his birthday. I entered his apartment to find that he was a causality of suicide. I lost a son and my world has been forever changed by that tragic event.
This year on October 8th, I will be participating in the Out of the Darkness Community Walk for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The Nashville Music Row Walk will start at 10:00 am at Owen Bradley Park. Funds from this event will support education and research programs for suicide prevention, erase the sigma surrounding suicide and its causes, and encourage those who are suffering from mental troubles to seek treatment.

I think of Jeff everyday – remembering him and doing good in his memory is something that helps me cope with the loss. To join me in support of this worthy cause please visit www.outofthedarkness.org and register with my team “Jeff Miller – Our Love”. Please consider donating to help – you can do so online. Donations of any amount will be appreciated.

If you have any question or need more information contact me at my email address - woody.miller@att.net or at my cell number - (615) 509-0975.

I'm asking for a reprieve

2011-09-19T04:02:00.000-07:00

The idea that life is a term of penal servitude (The Cynic's Almanac, Sept. 18) is one touched upon, to one degree or another, by philosphers and writers from Plato and Saint Augustine to Schopenhauer and novelist Jonathan Franzen, whose The Corrections takes the subject as a theme.

Augustine said that our hearts are restless because this is not our true home. Jesus said as much. Go and sin no more, and perhaps you will one day be able to enter (or re-enter) the kingdom of Heaven.

None of us are without guilt, even as babes. How can that be, unless we have committed crimes elsewhere?

If we are all prisoners, how, then, should we be expected to act toward each other? Jesus said, of course, to love one another. But as criminals who can't recall their crimes, isn't it natural for us to be bitter, to think everyone worse than ourselves? Can we blamed for endlessly seeking some mean advantage? We can't help it -- we were born that way.

Words Elvis did not live by

2011-09-16T05:04:00.000-07:00

Louis XVIII of France died on this day in 1824. Wheelchair-bound for most of his later life because of a severe case of gout, he supposedly uttered these last words as he was about to die:

"A king should die standing."

The quotation has been attributed to others, as well, such as the Roman emperor Vespasian, and the Danish king Liward, who said:

"Let me up that I may die standing, not lying down like a cow."

Make a hobbit of patience

2011-09-02T02:00:00.000-07:00

Author J. R. R. Tolkein died on this day in 1973.

"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." -- The Lord of the Rings.

Also on this day, in 2002, basketball coach Abe Lemons died. He once said:

"I don't jog. If I die I want to be sick."

Well, everyone needs gainful employment

2011-09-01T04:16:00.000-07:00

World War II began On September 1, 1939, ended on September 1, 1945.

"Man: An animal whose chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species." -- Ambrose Bierce.

We'll drink to that

2011-08-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

English playwright John Fletcher died on this day in 1625. He was one of the most influential of the Jacobean playwrights; he collaborated with many others, most often with Francis Beaumont. He collaborated with Shakespeare on Henry VIII.

Fletcher wrote:

"Drink to-day, and drown all sorrow;
You shall perhaps not do 't to-morrow."

Yesterday was the date (in the year 430 AD) of death of Saint Augustine. Here is a prayer of his:

"O, Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; To be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; And it is in dying to ourselves that we are born to eternal life. Amen."

He was dying to get it off his chest

2011-08-27T02:47:00.000-07:00

Spanish playwright Lope de Vega died on this day in 1635. He wrote some 2,000 plays. His supposed last words were:

"All right, then, I'll say it, Dante makes me sick."

I think, therefore I'm dead

2011-08-25T13:53:00.000-07:00

A couple of famous philosophers died on this day.

Scottish philosopher David Hume (pictured here) died on this day in 1776.

"The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster," Hume wrote, and also:

“It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.”

And German philosoher Friedrich Nietzsche died August 25, 1900.

"In heaven all the interesting people are missing," Nietzsche wrote.

He already knew all the loopholes

2011-08-24T11:00:00.000-07:00

British priest and author Ronald Knox died on this day in 1957. He was the Catholic chaplain at Oxford for many years and completed a translation of the New Testament. Evelyn Waugh wrote a biography of him.

On his deathbed, Knox was asked by a friend if he wanted her to read from his New Testament. He answered:

"No...Awfully jolly of you to suggest it, though."

On this day in 1899, Argentine author Jorges Luis Borges was born. On the subject of death Borges was prolific.

"To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal," he wrote. Also:

"The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things."

On his idea of the location of our everlasing stomping-ground, Borges wrote:

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."

Interesting, and all right

2011-08-22T00:30:00.000-07:00

August 21, 1762: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, English aristocrat and writer, died. Her last words:

"It has all been most interesting."

August 23, 1926: Actor and heartthrob Rudolph Valentino died. His last words:

"Don't worry chief, it will be all right."

Did you hear what that dumbass Balzac said?

2011-08-20T12:21:00.000-07:00

August 18, 1850: French novelist Honore de Balzac died. He wrote:

"If we all said to people's faces what we say behind one another's back, society would be impossible."

August 19, 1977: Groucho Marx died. His last words, according to legend:

"Die, my dear? Why, that's the last thing I'll do."

But he may be mistaken

2011-08-16T03:57:00.000-07:00

Two immortals died on this day: Babe Ruth in 1948, Elvis Presley in 1977.

"To desire immortality is to desire the perpetuation of a great mistake." -- Arthur Schopenhauer.

Deaths updated

2011-08-15T05:20:00.000-07:00

August 12, 2007: TV host and quiz-show pioneer Merv Griffin’s headstone reads “I Will Not Be Right Back After This Message.”

August 13, 1946: Author H. G. Wells (The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds) died. His last words:

"Go away. I'm all right."

August 14, 1956: Playwright Bertold Brecht died. He wrote:

“Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.”

August 15, 1935: Humorist Will Rogers died. He said:

"This thing of being a hero, about the main thing to it is to know when to die."

To eradicate mankind, yes

2011-07-25T02:49:00.000-07:00

Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge died on July 25, 1834.

"A man may devote himself to death and destruction to save a nation;" Coleridge wrote, "but no nation will devote itself to death and destruction to save mankind."

Only the worms care

2011-07-23T04:29:00.000-07:00

July 23, 1880: American mystery writer Raymond Chandler was born. In The Big Sleep, he wrote:

"Where did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered with things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you."

Chandler also wrote:

"Woe, woe, woe... in a little while we shall all be dead. Therefore let us behave as though we were dead already."

And so on

2011-07-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

Poet Carl Sandburg died on July 22, 1967. He wrote:

"A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake."