Requiescat In Pace Tom Lehrer

Retired satirist, and retired professor of mathematics and music theater, Tom Lehrer has died at age 97.  One might assume from his Vatican Rag (above) that I would have had no use for him, but that would be incorrect.  Lehrer was quite talented and funny, in a very, very dark humored way.  He never married, and I suspect his biting sarcasm probably insulated him from finding, if he ever sought it, marital bliss.  He had the good sense to have his moment of entertainment fame and then move on with his life.  He entered into the public domain all of his songs in 2023.  Drafted into the Army in 1955-1957 he joked that he made specialist three which he described as a corporal without portfolio.  Decades later it was learned that while in the Army he worked for the National Security Agency, a top secret outfit at the time.

I assume that he was probably left of center judging from some of his songs, but he made almost no comments on current events after he largely retired from performing in the sixties.  Lehrer danced to his own macabre tune in his life and I admire that type of integrity, even though I disagree with its substance.