Shine off, you crazy diamond—Pink Floyd founder and acid casualty Syd Barrett has died of diabetes-related complications. He was 60.

The narrow parabola that was Barrett’s functional career—bursting onto the Brit psychedelic scene in 1965 and being more or less ejected from the band three years later after unravelling—is a sort of model, an inspiration, to many of The Interns, who find the idea of taking tremendous amounts of drugs and retiring after three years attractive. Today’s song features seven or eight of them having some sort of sonic argument with guitars.

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Stanislaw Lem is dead.  He was 84, and he was magnificent.

It’s not easy being Editor-in-chief, you know.  It’s hard to run a business, and it’s hard to keep everything in place.  I do my best, but sometimes I get caught so utterly off-guard that things slip away from me—and before I know it, the Interns are running around playing grabass and there’s a fire in the staff washroom’s toilet and I don’t even feel like yelling at them.

Such is the power of losing a hero.  I sit here, listening to the bluesy obit number we’ve put together for this issue, and I thumb through a well-worn copy of The Cyberiad which was my father’s before he gave it to me.

If you have not read any of Stanislaw Lem’s works, do so.  The Cybriad is wonderful, The Star Diaries likewise; really, all of his work is excellent, though in some cases (for example, the twice-filmed Solaris), the English translation—Lem wrote in Polish—is less-than-stellar.  Ask your local independent bookseller; they will almost certainly have a suggestion.

Funny how just talking about something can make you feel better.  In fact, I think I am quite ready to yell at some Interns now.

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Peter Benchley, author of the classic, best-selling novel-cum-summer-blockbuster ‘Jaws’, died Monday, February 13th at the age of 65. Benchley had written several other books.

Mr. Benchley has, in a number of the obituary columns written since his death, been quoted as having said, “If I were to be elected pope or if I cured cancer, still, at my funeral, should anybody care, they’ll play, ‘Duh dum, duh dum’.”

And, with earnest respect for the man, we could not resist. While John Williams was not available for a consultation, we were not non-feasant in our adaptation of his submarinal theme: the whole of the Times‘ writing and editorial staff met for a lengthy hum session to be sure we had it right.

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