obit writers convention, new yorker fetishism

Nice piece in this week’s New Yorker on an obituary writer’s convention. (While I’m talking about jobs I’d like to have, I want Mark Singer’s job: roving national correspondent for the New Yorker, writing every three weeks or so. That’s the life. He now writes the U.S. Journal column, originated by my man Calvin Trillin back in the 1960s. Trillin compiled some of those early great pieces in a book called U.S. Journal; my favorite’s one on the annual tension between Jewish and non-Jewish leaders in New Orleans every Mardi Gras. He also put out a later compilation called American Stories, which has the definitive Penn and Teller profile.)