RIP David Halberstam

If anyone is in NYC later today, a small memorial service for David will be held at the 40/35 firehouse on Amsterdam and 65th.
This is the house that lost 12 guys in 9/11, and was memorialized in David's book "Firehouse." I live a few blocks from the house and have known several of the guys for years. Briefly I thought of asking if I might write a book about their experiences that autumn, maybe help the world get to know their fallen brothers, but there's no way I ever expected to be allowed that privilege.
David, who lived across the street, showed up at their door a few days after the attacks, charmed his way inside to the kitchen, and over the next few months managed to drag stories and gut-wrenching details from them that even their families didn't know. One day he literally had these tough, gruf guys crying as he cooked spaghetti dinner. He accompanied them to ground zero as they searched for their brothers -- it was many months before all 12 were found -- and went to all the funerals, and many times comforted the families.
More than his reporting skills, it's David's warmth they'll remember.

 

Someone needs to find Kevin Jones and send him this way.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The journalism student who was chauffeuring David Halberstam when the Pulitzer Prize winner was killed said Tuesday he jumped at the chance to spend time with the writer and is grief-stricken at what happened.
“I want to apologize to his family because I feel so bad,” said Kevin Jones, 26, who is in his first year of a two-year program at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. “I just wanted to help him.”
Although police have not established who was at fault in Monday’s crash, Jones said he felt responsible for the safety of his celebrated passenger.
An autopsy conducted Tuesday showed Halberstam died almost instantly when a broken rib punctured his heart, San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said. The cause of death was listed as multiple blunt force trauma.
Jones was driving through an intersection with a traffic light when another car broadsided his, smashing into the passenger side, authorities said. Police said they were interviewing witnesses.
Halberstam, the author of 21 nonfiction books, was at work on a new one about the legendary 1958 NFL championship game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants. Jones was taking him to interview Hall of Fame quarterback Y.A. Tittle, who lives south of San Francisco.
Jones, who suffered a small puncture in one lung, said he received an e-mail from the journalism school last Friday saying Halberstam was looking for a driver who would get $20 an hour and a one-on-one journalism lesson.
Jones was the first one to reply.
“He is one of those people you can’t say his name without saying Pulitzer Prize-winning author,” Jones said. “I’m a journalist and that deserves the utmost respect.”
Halberstam’s interview had been set for Saturday but was rescheduled for Monday morning, according to Jones. During the hour they spent in the car, they spoke about having children and about how Jones’ wife and Halberstam’s daughter were teachers. Jones, who has hired a lawyer, would not discuss the crash itself. But he repeatedly expressed a desire “to make some kind of tribute” to the man who reached the pinnacle of his profession and spent the last hour of his life giving advice to a man just beginning his career.

 

I don't understand the criticism here.

Epithet works, as does epitaph.

 

The only way "epithet" works is if Halberstam's last thought was,
"Holy fuck, is that guy a hack!"

 

You can torture the secondary or tertiary meaning of "epithet" to fit the sentence. "Epitaph" would have gladly completed the thought without the waterboarding or cattle prod.

 

The primary definition of epithet works.

http://www.answers.com/topic/epithet

ep·i·thet (ĕp'ə-thĕt')
n.

1. a. A term used to characterize a person or thing, such as rosy-fingered in rosy-fingered dawn or the Great in Catherine the Great.
b. A term used as a descriptive substitute for the name or title of a person, such as The Great Emancipator for Abraham Lincoln.
2. An abusive or contemptuous word or phrase.
3. Biology. A word in the scientific name of an animal or plant following the name of the genus and denoting a species, variety, or other division of the genus, as sativa in Lactuca sativa.

 

Simon -

Who "pens" his own "epithet?"

I doubt that Mr. Halbertam would have referred to himself as "David Halberstam - the Best and the Brightest," as in example 1. Or referred to himself as "The Best and the Brightest," interchangeably with "David Halberstam" as in example 2.

Again, the word "epithet" can be made to fit the thought. "Epitaph" or "epigraph" actually suits it.

 

You doubt that?

Yet you don't doubt that he would have referred to himself that in an epitaph?

Odd.

I mean, Albom did start that sentence by saying "LIttle did he know..."

Of course Halberstam had no intent.

It's Albom ascribing the greatness to Halberstam.

Cliche as it is, it is accurate.

 

Again - is an "epithet" something one "pens?" To refer to oneself? Or is it a characterization that others attribute to the subject? 100 years from now, when people in the newsroom talk about David Halberstam, will they use the phrase "David Halberstam the Best and the Brightest" in the same way we use "Catherine the Great" today? Will they say "The Best and the Brightest" and expect us to know that they're referring to David Halberstam - in the same way "The Great Emancipator" signifies "Abraham Lincoln?"

Setting aside the fact that "epithet" in common usage has come almost entirely to mean a contemptuous oath or obscenity spoken in anger, I continue to agree that it can be made to fit the sentence Albom wrote. It is not, however, given the sentence preceding it, the most apt word to complete the phrase.

My sense of things, given the body of his work, is that Mr. Albom arrived at the end of the sentence, and, swerving to avoid cliche, reached for the word "epithet" as a slightly odder, more arcane and therefore more writerly, conveyance for his thoughts.

 

"Take that, muthafuckin' cuckoo!!!" is one of the great anecdotes, and beautifully told.

 

Can we stay on the topic and not get into a debate over epitaph or epitpet, however you spell the damn word.

Thank you. Carry on.

 

Of course, when MA referenced "The Best and the Brightest" in regard Halberstam, he completely overran the irony in Halberstam's original use of the phrase - it was not a term necessarily denoting praise, but the arrogance that comes when one believes one is the best and the brightest. In missing that, MA was unintentionally accurate in regard to himself.