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You are here: Home / Absent Friends / RIP / David Rakoff, RIP

Reader Interactions

41Comments

  1. 1.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    how about “Ana and Eve”? Why does the Right always think about two guys when the gay thing is mentioned. Why can’t we have long, detailed national dialog about two attractive women?

  3. 3.

    Yutsano

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: A lesbian couple petitioned a rabbinical court in Israel demanding religious recognition of their marriage. The Orthodox rabbis were forced to conclude there is no prohibition of lesbian relationships in the Torah. I thought that was mildly amusing.

  4. 4.

    Violet

    Was just in the car and listening to Terry Gross’s show on NPR. It was a repeat of a 2010 interview with Rakoff. Very good if you can catch it.

    He said he didn’t like being a child and always thought his inner age was somewhere between 47 and 53. He died at the age of 47. So poignant.

  6. 6.

    PurpleGirl

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Because a wingnut man thinks that attractive women are lesbians only because they haven’t met them yet (the wingnug man) and if they had sex with them (the wingnut man) they (the lesbian) wouldn’t be a lesbian anymore. This only applies to attractive women; they don’t consider “unattractive” women to matter and hold no fantasies about them.

  9. 9.

    Steve

    he was one of the first people I met moving to NYC and made me feel very welcome and that I belonged. Will really miss him.

  10. 10.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    and BTW, that wasn’t to trivialize Rakoff’s death. 47 is just to young in this day and age.

  11. 11.

    meander

    Here’s a page from Fresh Air that should link to downloadable audio in a few hours. Right now, it has text and links to other pieces by/about Rakoff.

  14. 14.

    scav

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I don’t think anyone that wrote about possible amputation “There are other extrafunctional and noncosmetic realities I have to consider, . . . How does someone without a left arm know he’s having a heart attack, for example?” would be at all upset at a tribute thread with jokes therein.

  15. 15.

    David Hunt

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Personally, I think it has to do with the right’s view that women shouldn’t have control over their sexuality even in a heterosexual context. All important decisions should be made by men. Since the women are irrelevant, they envision male homosexual acts, so that’s what they talk about. I’ll leave it to others as to why those thoughts disturb them…

  17. 17.

    Roger Moore

    @Yutsano:

    The Orthodox rabbis were forced to conclude there is no prohibition of lesbian relationships in the Torah.

    It’s amazing how male centered the Bible is. It was clearly written by men for a male audience and just didn’t consider stuff like lesbianism to be an issue. Who cared what women did that wasn’t related to the all-important role of producing babies?

  20. 20.

    Yutsano

    @Roger Moore: Which is fascinating considering the tale of Esther. Not to mention the book of Ruth, which is essentially a lesbian love story doctored up for ancient Jewish sensibilities.

    PS I think Rakoff would approve of this discussion. :)

  21. 21.

    Steve

    That “God didn’t make Adam and Steve” thing always pissed me off. He did too make me!

  22. 22.

    Violet

    OT, Huntsman, Sr. says he’s not the source of Reid’s info, but:

    However, in a move that could be significant, Huntsman forcefully called on Romney to release his tax returns. This matters, because Huntsman is a longtime backer of Romney — he has long been close to Romney; he supported his early campaigns; he was the national finance chairman of Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign; and he has raised a lot of money for him over the years. (He backed his own son in the latest GOP primary.)
    __
    “I feel very badly that Mitt won’t release his taxes and won’t be fair with the American people,” Huntsman told me. In a reference to Romney’s father, who pioneered the release of returns as a presidential candidate, Huntsman said: “I loved George. He always said, pay your taxes for at least 10 or 12 years.”
    __
    “Mr. Romney ought to square with the American people and release his taxes like any other candidate,” Huntsman said. “I’ve supported Mitt all along. I wish him well. But I do think he should release his income taxes.

    Interesting.

  23. 23.

    Elizabelle

    A commenter on NYTimes thread suggested listening to Rakoff’s audiobooks, read by the author himself.

    There’s a pleasure to look forward to.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    @Violet:

    I just wonder if Romney’s releasing his tax returns — as he should and must — will make him so toxic the GOP goes with another nominee.

    Someone who didn’t participate in the clown car calvacade primaries.

    Huntsman Sr. gives good advice, but you wonder if there’s an ulterior motive.

  27. 27.

    scav

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s amazing how male centered the Bible is. It was clearly written by men for a male audience and just didn’t consider stuff like lesbianism to be an issue. Who cared what women did that wasn’t related to the all-important role of producing babies?

    I’m not sure it was about audience exactly, I think it might have been more practical than that.
    If we interpret at least parts of it a rules of conduct, and, moreover, rules of conduct to ensure the lineage, it does make a sort of sense. What women do sexually with other woman doesn’t endanger the lineage, doesn’t ever really slow it down because they’re generally being married off by the will of their fathers and can still pop out legitimate heirs. No reason bother with rules — except for adultery with men, which is covered. Men’s (specifically, sons’) homosexuality can threaten the lineage if they choose to ignore their wives and thus needs to be under explicit control.

  28. 28.

    Steve

    @Violet: That’s a weird quote. George Romney said, “Pay your taxes for at least 10 or 12 years”? Something is getting lost in translation.

  29. 29.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s amazing how male centered the Bible is.

    WRT the “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” bit, especially so, since the first part of the Genesis story said god made man in his imagine, and then, oh, yeah, made Eve so he’d have a playmate.

  31. 31.

    Comrade Mary

    Rakoff was an amazing talent. Those pieces in mistermix’s last link are an unexpected bonus, too.

    I loved listening to Rakoff talk, for reasons I could never express properly, but I think these two people hit it out of the park.

    David Rakoff was a giant kitty.

    David Rakoff always had the most perfect cat-as-human voice. If cats could talk they would sound just like David, with his gentle, occasional “I’m so bored” tone.
    __
    Every time I heard him on the radio I would inadvertently picture a giant talking cat. In my mind he’s been a giant kitty sitting on the windowsill in a bed and breakfast, and a smug kitty who has the highest testosterone rate, a kitty giving the stink-eye to 5000 chickens. This even extends to his written work, where I picture a cat sewing a pair of jeans alone in his apartment.

    David Rakoff was the voice of God.

    A few years ago I was lucky enough to crowd into the small Laurie Beechman Theatre in Midtown Manhattan to see the first-ever showing of Rachel Shukert’s Passover Parody, “Everything’s Coming up Moses.” While I’d heard Rakoff’s voice a dozen times before through his contributions to This American Life, and had the pleasure of speaking with him on a few occasions, the show’s debut was very different. Rakoff had a voice that I can honestly only describe as a gay, Canadian, Orson Welles. It was the sort of voice you hear and immediately find yourself trying to imitate each special syllable. But when he played God in what was a light-hearted and campy musical in a tiny space on 42nd Street and 9th Avenue, he did it so perfectly and with such dignity and aplomb that my idea of what God sounds like was changed forever.

  32. 32.

    Comrade Mary

    This American Life just posted video of one of Rakoff’s last performances from May of this year. You simply must see this.

  35. 35.

    WaterGirl

    @Comrade Mary: OT, but I have to thank you for your info last year on the clear 3M bandages. Was that you> I just tripped in the yard and landed on hands and knees. Hands pretty torn up, but i washed them and just used my last 2 of the bandages. Thought of you, gratefully, and here you are. If not you, it was another Mary.

    one handed typing, left hand worse than right

  37. 37.

    Comrade Mary

    @WaterGirl: That was almost certainly me, Water Girl. I’m glad they’re working for you! (The soreness will fade a bit, then comes the stiffness, but it does get better. Have a drink to help you relax :-)

  38. 38.

    BethanyAnne

    I loved his books, and his TAL pieces. Here’s one of my favorite quotes:

    “If psychoanalysis was late 19th century secular Judaism’s way of finding spiritual meaning in a post-religious world, and retail is the late 20th century’s way of finding spiritual meaning in a post-religious world, what does it mean that I’m impersonating the father of psychoanalysis in a store window to commemorate a religious holiday?”
    — David Rakoff in “Christmas Freud,” a segment of the Christmas and Commerce episode of This American Life.

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