So I've been intrigued by obituaries for several years. I got interested in them by occasionally strikingly well-written obituaries at the end of "The Economist" and have learned to lament the decline of the art of obituary writing, which has been replaced by a form that is filled in and newspaper space boughten, like some sort of morbid advertisement (note: please pronounce advertisement in the Canadian manner, because that is much more aesthetically pleasing and evokes thoughts of Gilbert Blythe).

What led to this change? A lack of respect for life? A modern aversion to death (as opposed to a previous respect for and understanding of death that we have lost and must replace with a shunning of death)?

What is it that makes a good obituary (which, at its finest is a concise biography that captures and conveys the essence of the person)? It seems that T. S. Eliot's idea of the "objective correlative"--an object that stands for and gets at a corresponding emotion---is useful here. An excellent obituary contains images from that person's life that sum up that person's life. Or, better yet, the obituary includes specific seminal moments of that person's life that frame and give us categories for thinking about his life. This story should provide insight and order to that person's life.

If I died now, I think that good objective correlatives for my obituary would be my typewriter, my room, my tea-light holder, and my picture of a woman reading.