The obituaries contained more world-changing news than usual on Saturday. Alas, our internet connection speed has hovered somewhere around 56k for many days now (It’s Comcastic!) so I couldn’t gorge myself on the Aaron Spelling news the way I wished. Rather than rehash his career, here’s the L.A. Times piece from Saturday:
I had to settle for watching some of his, um, greatest hits on TV rather than reading the overwrought coverage of his death that abounded online. It’s appropriate to mourn his passing by watching his programs, but really, you watch too much of that stuff and your brain mooshes into something with the relative consistency of Velveeta. I do hope that all of the networks will carry the funeral coverage wall-to-wall like they did for the Pope. I mean come on, it’s Aaron Spelling. Kids should get the day off from school. Not right now, since even year-round schools are going on break. I think Aaron Spelling day should be sometime during Fall Sweeps. It seems only fitting.
Perhaps more personally distressing to Washingtonians was the death of Joseph Nardelli, jr, owner of the Tune Inn. I remember during Freshman orientation in college when they were trying to herd us onto buses to attend a performance of the infernal Kennedy Center “hit” Shear Madness, our R.A. held us back because she had a better plan. She took us to the Tune Inn. I believe we were all better people for it.
To round out the parade of death, Harriet the 176 year old tortoise also died. Sure, most of us probably didn’t even know she existed until she died, but now that you know about her doesn’t it sort of boggle your mind? I have to say that I do find it silly when people say things like, “Think of all the history she witnessed!”
She was a tortoise, I doubt very much she was even aware of the rise and fall of empires, wars, monarchies, technology, or, for that matter, Satan’s School for Girls.