Fred MacDara: A Photographer for the Village Voice

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Fred MacDara was a longtime photographer for the Village Voice. He documented the unwashed exploits of the beat generation, and as an enterprising freelance talent agent. "He started a business called Rent a Beatnik," he wrote in his obituary. The rental markets and everything, I would say Exactly.

The stereotypical obituary is a formulaic recitation of facts — dry, boring, and without craft. But Margalit Fox has shown the genre can produce some of the most memorable and moving stories in journalism. Exploiting its “pure narrative arc,” Fox has penned over 1,200 obituaries, covering well-known and obscure subjects with equal aplomb.

In her conversation with Tyler Cowen, Fox reveals not only the process for writing an obituary, but her thoughts on life, death, storytelling, puzzle-solving, her favorite cellist, and how it came to be that an economist sang opera 86 times at the Met.

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