Tom Lehrer, RIP: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/arts/music/tom-lehrer-dead.html
Post
@cstross the man responsible for teaching me the periodic table of the elements, so kind of an educator too, RIP
@cstross Sad.. Off to poison pigeons in the Big Park in the Sky...
@cstross He outlived one of the two obituary writers.
@cstross
Well, this is a terrible way to start the day.
@cstross My late-ex went to Boston to interview him for the BBC in the 90's and said that he was very kind to her. And now, let's poison some pigeons in the park in his memory!
@cstross the first works of his I encountered were some of his last, teaching me to read on "The Electric Company":
"You enter a very dark room
And sitting there in the gloom
Is Dracula...
How do you say goodbye?
Immediately, immediately, immediate-L-Y. Bye bye!!"
@cstross As my grandfather used to say « Vieillir, c’est voir partir les siens. »
@cstross I understand that on the occasion of playing before the royal family he observed “perversity is universal “.
@cstross In other news: He was still alive last week.
What a glorious wit. RIP
@cstross Well that sucks. What a legend! The fact he made all his songs public domain says it all, and a lot of them still feel extremely relevant in the modern day.
@cstross I discovered him on summer holidays when we stayed in our wealthy aunt's house as she went on her posh holiday abroad. Discovered Flanders and Swann at the same time too.
Mum and dad did get me the 10" album for my birthday despite me knowing all the words off by heart to The Masochism Tango... It was my 10th birthday!!
Mum and dad did get me the 10" album for my birthday despite me knowing all the words off by heart to The Masochism Tango... It was my 10th birthday!!
