From an obituary of Richard Avedon:

"We've lost one of the great visual imaginations of the last half century," said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker.

Avedon's influence on photography was immense, and his sensuous fashion work helped create the era of supermodels such as Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford (news). But Avedon went in another direction with his portrait work, shooting unsparing and often unflattering shots of subjects from Marilyn Monroe to Michael Moore.

"The results can be pitiless," Time magazine critic Richard Lacayo once noted. "With every wrinkle and sag set out in high relief, even the mightiest plutocrat seems just one more dwindling mortal."
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"If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up," [Avedon] said in 1970. "I know that the accident of my being a photographer has made my life possible."

Coming back from dancing, an essential art I discovered by accident, I read this and thought both of that and of poetry, which it's easy to neglect and impossible to replace. Men do die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. Happening on the Avedon obit also made me think of Peter Jennings, whose death I'm finding too sad to ponder. I liked Danny Schechter's reflections, though. As they've done before with breaking news and in light of the extra lag from the double issue, www.newyorker.com has a quick update and a link:

Peter Jennings, who anchored ABC News from 1965 until his diagnosis with cancer earlier this year, died at age sixty-seven this week. Last year, Jennings joined his fellow network news anchors Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw in this conversation with The New Yorker’s Ken Auletta, who spoke with the three men about the past, present, and future of television news.
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[Link]
Audio Q. & A.
The Three Anchors
Posted 2005-02-28

This week in the magazine, Ken Auletta profiles Dan Rather on the eve of his departure from the “CBS Evening News.” On October 2, 2004, Auletta moderated a panel discussion with Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings, in the Celeste Bartos Forum of the New York Public Library, as part of the sixth annual New Yorker Festival. Here, in three parts, is a recording of that conversation.

Perhaps appropriately, an Ad Council popup asking "Have you been a dad today?" is blocking my view of the Jennings links. National Fatherhood Initiative, indeed. When there was no TV below 14th St. on September 11 and the following days, there was still Peter Jennings. How was that? Remember that '50s movie The Next Voice You Hear...? Jennings wasn't a god, but his tired voice filled those nights. Giuliani got a lot of mileage for showing up, but it was Jennings who reassured us that even if the world was ending, he'd stay on air till it was done. I wonder if Remnick will write the piece; I can't find a link or even a reference to the old Talk about Bloomberg's smoking ban, but I think Remnick was responsible (I'll check later, but please write in if you remember). Even if not, I loved that the story contained both stern echoes that smoking is awful for you and blatant wistfulness for the lingering charms, the portable fire and easy talk, in the world of cigarettes. That Talk made me understand why people smoke beyond the facile "It's addictive." Dwindling mortals stand all over the city, poisoned and glamorous.