The NY Times Magazine has some wonderful essays this week, about people who died in 2002:

• Tony Kushner on Geraldine of Albania & Lucia Pamela
  
• A letter from Jimi Hendrix to his father -- before he was famous
  
• David Rakoff on Edith Bouvier Beale -- of Grey Gardens fame
  
• Armistead Maupin on Harry Hay
  
• Ann Patchett on Eileen Farrell -- an opera diva who lived with her NYPD husband on Staten Island
  
• Anthony Giardina on Stephen Ambrose -- notable for taking the historian to task for glorifying war, and thus making new ones more likely
  
• Plus, a beautiful "What They Were Thinking" with Arthur Miller with a photo taken by his late wife, Inge Morath