Art Buchwald Has Left The Building

[Adam Smith]

Art Buchwald, once described as "Will Rogers with chutzpah", died last night. He was 81. Buchwald learned early in life that he could use his wry sense of humor to make his miserable circumstances more tolerable. He began writing humorous columns for the International Herald Tribune while in Paris, famously attempting, unsuccessfully, to explain Thanksgiving to the French. Returning to the US, his syndicated column, Capital Punishment, poked fun at the rich, powerful, and pompous. Buchwald once said that he "worshiped the quicksand Richard Nixon stood on" because Nixon provided him with so much good material. However, I most remember his July 4, 1976 column, an incredibly warm, humane piece on growing up poor in Depression-era New York, and what America meant to him. In his last years Buchwald suffered from kidney failure, and checked himself into a hospice. But his kidneys kept working, he checked out of the hospice, and he left this life pretty much on his own terms.

He will be greatly missed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/washington/17cnd-buchwald.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Lord Avalon]

RIP

[Zkribbler]

When ask on the witness stand in Buchwald v. Paramount Pictures whether he was on Nixon's infamous Enemys' List, Buchwald replied, "No. I didn't make it."

[Provost Harrison]

Buchwald once said that he "worshiped the quicksand Richard Nixon stood on"

I'll have to remember that one!