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Totems of Sorrow: The 14th Street Apple Store Street Memorial to Steve Jobs

Early Friday morning, David and I journeyed into Manhattan from our home in Jersey City to get our 24″ Apple Cinema Display repaired under our AppleCare warranty. The car service cost us $80 for a 20 minute ride that felt like we were on a bucking bronco, but made it we did.  We were so early for our 9:15am Genius Bar appointment that we had to wait outside the 14th Street Apple Store for it to open.

We took turns holding the heavy Cinema Display, and since it was the morning after Steve Jobs’ death, we were surprised to see the impromptu memorials to him from Apple fans that were plastered on the store windows and decorating the ground around the entrances.  I pulled out my broken, but still trusty, iPhone 3G — yes, we successfully ordered two Verizon iPhone 4s on Friday before we went to the store — and took a few pictures of the way people memorialized Steve Jobs.

There were lots of flowers and partially eaten apples.  Candles, too.  Some thank you cards were visible and lots of newspapers and handwritten thanks we piled up.  It was really touching.  Lots of people were taking pictures of these totems of sorrow.  The time for feeling sad was done.  Now was the time for others, like me, to record the heartbreak of what happened the night before.

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Farewell to Skippy O'Connell

We here at GO INSIDE Magazine are sad to announce the passing of Skippy O’Connell yesterday in California.  Skippy was our unofficial mascot for the magazine.  He kept us smiling on every holiday and his energy was beloved.

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The Harbinger of Renewal

As we age, and as we realize there are more days behind us than ahead of us, it becomes necessary to pay more attention to the wild terms of living a dangerous life.  The change of season from Winter to Spring is a harbinger of renewal — and you cannot have new beginnings without the onslaught of death.  Watch for the harbinger.  Weigh the harbinger.  Fight the harbinger.

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Do We Love Pets More than People?

Dealing with the death of a pet is, for some people, an event from which they never recover.  Where once we just buried pets in the backyard under a foot of dirt — or dumped the carcass in the trash bin like garbage–many now honor their deceased pets with cremation, mausoleums, headstones and other burial rites that were formerly reserved in the domain of people.

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NEWS FLASH: TIM RUSSERT STILL DEAD

NBC newsman Tim Russert died of a massive heart attack on Friday and, ever since his untimely death at age 58, MSNBC has been “All Tim’s Death, All The Time.”  We all loved Tim, but enough is enough.

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The Incongruity of Mourning and the 9/11 Memorial

When do the dead cost more than the living? Is there greater worth being dead than being a survivor? In the wake of a national tragedy the lost automatically become more important than the living and I wonder why such great value is placed on the dead. After the Towers fell there was great mourning and public expression of loss. 

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Celebrate the Dead, Mourn the Living

During July 2001, my wife and I were searching for a new apartment in Jersey City, New Jersey. After 14 years of living in New York City: Manhattan in Morningside Heights near Columbia University and Saint John the Divine; Alphabet City; the Bronx’s Co-Op City, we decided it was time for a change. We wanted more room for less money. We found a great real estate Broker named Gertrude who, in turn, found us a beautiful new place to live.

October 1999.

Continue reading → Celebrate the Dead, Mourn the Living