tina turner + sweet berries + danny ocean

+ the things we won’t do, not even for love

The conversations with my editor were about people who died in 2023. That’s already eerie and emotional and places one immediately in touch with one’s mortality. These are writerly conversations, filmic conversations, often deeply personal conversations, though. And no matter the time of year, creative people are having them — passionately, and often.

On my mind were the baseball player Vida Blue, the singer/songwriter Bobby Caldwell, and Tina Turner, in reverse order. Turner became my assignment. While I was vaguely nervous about writing the essay for the New York Times Magazine’s year-end The Lives They Lived issue, “vaguely nervous” is high-key a personality trait of mine. My essay is here, and I’m honored, because all of work in this collection is amazing (I will say though, that the Roslayn Carter from Michael Paterniti is especially glorious).

Creating obituary is strange. At Shine Bright HQ, I’ve talked generally about writing obituary, here. And I alluded to my typical researc…