Most of you won’t have heard of him; he and I collaborated on research on zebrafish goosecoid about 20 years ago, and were good friends at the University of Utah, although we drifted out of contact during the usual academic wanderings since. I’ve just now learned that he died on his boat while living in the Dominican Republic.
That’s Scott all over — he was fractious, opinionated, and never satisfied with settling down in just one place. My wife and I knew him as a wonderful story-teller, who’d had a life of spectacular travel. When we were expecting our daughter, he was the first to know about it, and toasted the happy event with a glass of his best wine (and he did know his wines). But I don’t think he ever had a calm relationship with anyone, including his post-doctoral mentor, me, random colleagues everywhere, his wife, or quite possibly anyone he bumped into on the street.
Except, probably, his kids. He was crazy about them.
But it’s sad to learn that he was gone. He was a creative turbulence that burbled through my life for about five years.
Sorry to hear about the passing of your friend, PZ. Condolences to his friends and family.
He sounds amazing. I am glad that you were friends.
What an interesting person. I’m sorry for your loss, PZ.
PZ, I’m sorry for the loss of your friend and colleague.
Without being disrespectful, I’d like to note two things about the obituary: 1) there is no mention of the cause of death, and 2) the phrase “left the planet” seems to be cropping up with more frequency in obituary notices these days. Has this phrasing always been in use, or am I just now noticing it? Obviously death causes no one to ever leave the planet in any form. The phrasing and its implications both seem leaden to me. Thoughts, anyone?
Morgan:
Why should there be? It’s enough, I think, to know he’s dead, and to focus more on what went on while he was alive.
Eh, I use it, and a variant when someone has a baby, “baby X has landed on the planet”. It’s kind of a ‘Elvis has left the building’ sort of thing. I don’t think it’s a hill worth dying on.
Iyeska,
Oh definitely not a hill worth dying on. But the implication that a soul has decamped to a supernatural realm just irks me a bit. The Xian cacophony seems to get louder and louder.
:) He sounds like a book character, PZ. From a very exciting book. I’m glad you got to be in it.
Morgan:
I can’t speak for anyone else, but there’s nothing remotely religious about ‘left the planet’. It simply means dead. No longer here, living and interacting with other living things.
Morgan,
Realize that this obit was written by some lower-level writer using notes probably written by someone else who took a phone call from a friend or relative of the deceased. Also realize this is the Colorado Springs Gazette, in Colorado Springs – home of Focus on the Family, not the New York Times. And finally, cause of death usually requires an autopsy which is seldom done under ordinary circumstances.
Yeah, and unless there are criminal circumstances, it’s no damn business of anyone else to know the details of his death. Focus on the life.
moarscienceplz:
You are seriously full of shit. There was nothing at all wrong with the obituary, there’s no need to attempt to link Mr. Stachel with Focus on the Family, and for every person who dies, there is a death certificate which needs to be filled and filed. Most deaths don’t require an autopsy to determine cause, and whether or not there was one is another thing that isn’t anyone’s fucking business. It is up to survivors to state the cause of death in an obit, and most people now choose not to do so.
So it goes.
When I wrote an obit for my father (the paper doesn’t do it, they have the family or funeral director do it), they actually edited it to grind all the flavor out of it and turn it into bland pablum.
I don’t see anything wrong with that obituary, it actually does a reasonable job of describing his life. Except that it doesn’t mention how Scott could drive some of us utterly crazy.
Quite often the cause of death isn’t mentioned in obituaries. Occasionally you’ll read “died after a long illness” or “died suddenly” but generally there’s little detail. A lot of people don’t think it’s anyone’s business what caused Dad to become an ex-Dad.
PZ:
I’ll bet it was a main topic of remembrances, though. “Oh, that turbulent scientist!” I would have liked to have known more about his living on a boat. I’ve always had a fondness for people who decide to live on a boat. (I really wanted to do that when I was young.)
PZ @13:
Isn’t that what ‘complex’ means?
PZ, I’m sorry for the loss of your friend.
Morgan, does it really matter that other people use terms that suggest they have other beliefs from yours, in an obituary you’d never have known about if PZ hadn’t written about it? It’s no more your business (or anyone else’s) than the cause of Scott Stachel’s death.
Iyéska, the living on a boat part caught my eye, too. I have this random feeling that living on a boat would be fun, though I’d go more for a canal boat than anything on the ocean.
2kittehs:
Oh, ocean for me. Not to say I couldn’t adapt to narrowboat life.
Iyéska
The boating bookshop I used to work at is close to the sea, and right on the edge of where sea levels are predicted to rise to in the not-too-distant. I used to joke that we’d be real boat books then, ‘cos we’d need to have the shop on a houseboat.
I’d never cope with ocean living, I get seasick very easily. But a canal … in England … or France … oh yes!
So sorry for your and Scott’s family’s loss, PZ.
(But boat? Dominican? Looks like he got the cushy end of that zebrafish deal. ;) )