Newspapers like the NY Times will have obituaries for persons of, shall we say, a certain age, written and ready-to-go. You may recall an incident a few years back when some pre-written obituaries were mistakenly made available on a certain online news site. The SF Chronicle’s “NWZCHIK” points out another interesting possibility with advance obits: when the author dies before the obituary is published. The NY Times’ obituary for James A. Van Allen published last week was written, presumably at least ten years ago, by Walter Sullivan who died in 1996. Bob Hope’s 2003 NYT obituary was written by Vincent Canby who died in 2000.