A general RIP

I’ll return you back to your regularly scheduled hiatus (which will officially break on Sunday morning) but dammit, the news just keeps getting worse.

The entire world’s covered the earthquake/tsunami that’s ripped apart Southeast Asia, so like my fellow litbloggers, I’ll point you towards this clearinghouse blog where you can learn more and find a requisite of links for aid, relief and other necessary items.

Susan Sontag passed yesterday (and Ed has links galore devoted to her), and now it’s Jerry Orbach. For some reason, the latter hit me a lot harder than the former. Maybe because prostate cancer’s so easily detectable that it seems a damn shame this wasn’t diagnosed earlier. Maybe because when L&O devolved into preach-o-rama antics, Orbach could throw in a quip here, a line there that cut through the bullshit. Or maybe because I first knew of him from his musical theater days–The FANTASTICKS, CHICAGO, and much more, like his role as the Jewish dad in Dirty Dancing, long a guilty pleasure of mine.

From a mystery standpoint, he emceed the Edgars in 2003, and did what few thought possible–kept it moving, kept it brisk, and kept the ceremony under two and a half hours. Whatever he did, he was a consummate professional, and that simply cannot be quantified. He will be missed.