Note: Written 23 July 2011

The original 27 Club was Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, who died within 2 years of each other in 1969-1971. Kurt Cobain is usually added to this list next who committed suicide in 1994 at the age of 27. Then there’s a score of other famous people, largely musicians, who have also died at 27 for one reason or another including: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Pope John XII, Robert Johnson, Dave Alexander (The Stooges), Chris Bell (Big Star), Pete de Freitas (Echo and the Bunnymen) and so forth. Today a new one on the list: Amy Winehouse.

This is especially disturbing for a 27 year old girl. (Am I alone here?) What is it about twenty-seven years of life that encourages so many suicides and suspicious deaths at this age? You are officially an adult though not yet thirty – the age that many people feel is their deadline for responsible living. A house, a wife/husband, a car, a career path, plans to reproduce. The pressure? The stress? The expectation? Or is it all just an odd coincidence? I’m on my way to the halfway mark and have no current inclinations to off myself. Curious to see how I will feel about life, in the abstract, as this year continues. Send your age theories.