Sunday, August 11, 2013

Where's Nick Beef?

If anyone has been following some of these blogs, or even some news from the New York Times's public editor, Margaret Sullivan, you will then remember that the NYT has started a policy of putting more notable obituaries on their front page. The frequency of front page death spreads has visibly increased, to the point that even a gorilla has been given the honor. A real gorilla, not just someone's opinion of what someone was like.

So, given this editorial enlightenment, we now have a front page story about footstones in a cemetery and the grave marker of someone who is not yet dead, not even using their real name, and who might eventually rate an news obituary of their own. The placement of this future news obituary, given that there will be one, is yet to be determined. Alive, the guy made the front page anyway.

We thus have the oddest of stories that involves someone who was six years old when they saw JFK and Jackie Kennedy at a Texas airport, the day before the president was assassinated on November 22, 1963.

The story progresses to where a young man purchases the plot next to that of Lee Harvey Oswald and later tops the plot with a footstone that plainly just says Nick Beef, a joke name of Patric Abedin, a person who is of great interest in all this, who lives in Greenwich Village. 

Anyone who knows anything about Greenwich Village knows it creates a very wide version of artistry. Mr. Abedin's inspiration and explanation for all that he's done is revealed in the story. Well, maybe.

The bigger picture, to me at least, is that it means a grave marker can be placed over a plot where no one is yet buried. Advertising has to follow.

Consider the possible fast-food markers that could be plopped into the ground, mistaken for names of people, or a family clan..

McDonalds
Dennys
Long John Silver
Applebees
Wendys
Roy Rogers
Colonel Sanders

I know on many occasions grave markers contain the name of someone who is not yet interred. But this is usually when the spouse has already passed away, and their name and years are on the stone. The one to follow might have their name and year of birth on the same stone, awaiting the inscription of the final year. But at least someone is already under the stone.

My guess is, given the reach of yesterday's story, cemeteries will be extremely careful, if they aren't already, about markers, and if anyone is really there yet.

This won't prevent the inventive thinking of markers that might be placed in a cemetery that might really be advertising in granite.

A recreation of the Burma Shave signs that once lined the highways might occur. Start with a headstone in the front, and follow it to a surprise, perhaps further up the hill. Advertising and games.

Or, think of the grave markers that should be somewhere, if only there were some physical evidence.

James Hoffa
Judge Joseph Force Crater
D. B. Cooper
Amelia Earhart
Michael Rockefeller
Glenn Miller

No Internet cheating allowed. Batteries not included.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

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