"The Curious Case of Sidd Finch" was one of the greatest April Fools pranks of all time. For that, and for scores of other reasons, this is sad news:
George Plimpton, the New York aristocrat and literary journalist whose exploits in editing and writing seesawed between belles lettres and the witty accounts he wrote of his various madcap attempts to slip into other people's high-profile careers, died yesterday at his home in Manhattan. He was 76.
Plimpton's writing gave other "ordinary" people a glimpse of what it would be like to be an NFL quarterback, a professional boxer or the member of a world-class symphony orchestra. I only wish he could write about this latest adventure — a radical new step in "participatory journalism" that would prove even more interesting than Paper Lion.
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