Essayist David Rakoff dead at 47

Humorist David Rakoff died in New York at the age of 47 following a long battle with cancer, his family announced. Rakoff was author of essays on modern life and culture that appeared regularly in top-tier publications such as The New York Times, Salon, GQ and others. The Times said Rakoff had an "incisive wit and keen eye for the preposterous" that produced three collections of essays and earned praise from many critics. Among Rakoff's more memorable works chronicled his experience playing Sigmund Freud in the Christmas window display at a New York department store in 1996. The Times said merely sitting around on the set and being gawked at was too awkward. "I've decided to start seeing patients," Rakoff wrote. "I'm simply not man enough to sit exposed in a window doing nothing; it's too humiliating and too boring."