I went to the Houston Ballet tonight, and as has often been the case, this is nudging me to post about it. The three pieces were programmed in the right order, going from the more classical ("The Leaves are Fading" by Antony Tudor) to the most contemporary, "Soldiers' Mass" by Jiří Kylián, on music by Bohuslav Martinů. The middle piece, "The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude," choreographed by William Forsythe on Schubert Ninth Symphony, was a nice transition piece, the most recently premiered of all three, yet not as modern as Soldiers' Mass, and in comparison just a nice little academic exercise.
Instead of writing my own review of Soldiers' Mass, though, I found this one written after the first New York City performance by the Nederlands Dans Theater (a year after the premiere in Scheveningen, Netherlands), and it is so good that I can only bow in deference to Anna Kisselgoff (The New York Times, 7 July 1981), and quote:
In some respects, "Soldiers' Mass" might recall Antony Tudor's "Echoing of Trumpets," a great antiwar ballet to another Martinu score, "Fantasies Symphoniques." That ballet, however, was inspired by the German massacre of Czech civilians at Lidice in World War II, an event that also spurred a Martinu work.
Like Antony Tudor, to whom he dedicates another ballet this season, Mr. Kylian is an expressionist and a romantic. He is, like Mr. Tudor, interested in the weighted gesture, the broad, abstracted emotion. He is not a step-oriented choreographer.
In "Soldiers' Mass," known otherwise as the "Field Mass," he is not concerned with civilians but with very human fears and youngsters called to duty, conscripts. His approach is generalized, and in this faceless mass of 12 men, the individual's predicament surges all the more poignantly.
The men, dressed in stylized khaki outfits, are seen in a typical Kylian pose, with their backs to us. Just as typically, they will tend to move in a mass. One of the glories of Kylian choreography at its peak is its choral sweep. And here the actual male chorus in the pit, conducted by David Porcelijn with Bernard Kruysen as the touching baritone soloist, is at one with the dancers onstage.
The images are not all unfamiliar -- men cringe and fall. They die multiple deaths, and their mutual consolation and isolated fears are all clear. When one small figure -- Chris Jensen -- breaks out for a solo, the picture of wasted youth becomes embodied in the very energy he displays and that we know will die out. There are also stereotyped movements, using Martha Graham's floorwork. But there are also sensational theatrical moments. At one point, the dancers sing, as the condemned, along with the chorus. Another time, they rip of their shirts. Mr. Kylian's horizon decor, which disappears and reappears, is just as dramatic. In the end, the cross and the firing squad become one: A ballet that moves the mind and the heart.
She said it all -- the passion, the humanity, the tragedy, the stupidity of war. It was beautiful and moving. I believe that the solo piece mentioned above was the one danced by principal dancer Connor Walsh tonight -- a dancer I have (app)lauded in this blog before (see the entry for 23 February 2008, about Swan Song). And yes, the venerable New York Times spelled "Kylian" and "Martinu" without the diacriticals on the "a" and "u". Shame on them.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Friday, November 7, 2008
Great Men Theory
A couple of weeks ago, TIME Magazine mentioned a survey on who was the greatest Russian leader. Of course, this was a survey run in Russia. You couldn't run such a survey in the U.S., where most people wouldn't be able to locate Russia on an unlabeled map of the world, let alone name one of their past leaders.
Reading the results, which are immaterial to my point, I tried to classify those leaders in my head. I came up with this: there are the feckless ones, the sinister ones, the dour managers, and the transformers. Arguably, the latter category included the Great Catherine, who brought Russia in contact with Europe and pulled it away from its Central Asia roots; Lenin, who upset the old order and ushered in the great and ultimately failed laboratory experiment of Communism; and Gorbachev, who closed that parenthesis. Note that I am not saying that their transformations were good or entirely successful: I am just saying that they were enormous, in some way "inspired," changes of direction. Whether Putin is just one of the "dour managers" à la Krushchev, or ranks among the sinister ones (Ivan the Terrible, Stalin) is yet to be seen, although it would be a stretch to compare his behavior to the degree of malevolence of those two.
After I had finished thinking of Russian leaders, I realized that it is a lot easier to start with another country, assuming one knows something about its history, than with one's own. For example, most French people learn about Napoleon in school in a very biased way. While he created a set of institutions and legal principles that endure to a large extent today, he arguably had a disastrous impact on all of Europe, not just France, through fifteen years of incessant wars. And to start with, he was basically a dictator who seized power in a coup, ostensibly because the previous governments were so dysfunctional that only a "providential man" with full powers could save the day. Which brings to mind the debate on whether Pétain, 140 years later, was a sinister or a feckless leader, a conscious ally of the fascists or a half-senile grandfather who was abused and manipulated by his ministers.
My model is too simple in many cases, for sure. If you look at U.S. leaders, what was Nixon? At home, he was sinister, but overseas, he was practically a transformer, considering that he ended the war in Vietnam and dealt constructively with China. For Bush No. 1 and Bush No. 2, the verdict of history will probably be one of double fecklessness, the second case being worse than the first because of the presence of some sinister puppetmasters named Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice. Now we shall see if Obama is a transformer. If his presidency is anything like the speech he gave the night of his election, there is a good chance of that.
Reading the results, which are immaterial to my point, I tried to classify those leaders in my head. I came up with this: there are the feckless ones, the sinister ones, the dour managers, and the transformers. Arguably, the latter category included the Great Catherine, who brought Russia in contact with Europe and pulled it away from its Central Asia roots; Lenin, who upset the old order and ushered in the great and ultimately failed laboratory experiment of Communism; and Gorbachev, who closed that parenthesis. Note that I am not saying that their transformations were good or entirely successful: I am just saying that they were enormous, in some way "inspired," changes of direction. Whether Putin is just one of the "dour managers" à la Krushchev, or ranks among the sinister ones (Ivan the Terrible, Stalin) is yet to be seen, although it would be a stretch to compare his behavior to the degree of malevolence of those two.
After I had finished thinking of Russian leaders, I realized that it is a lot easier to start with another country, assuming one knows something about its history, than with one's own. For example, most French people learn about Napoleon in school in a very biased way. While he created a set of institutions and legal principles that endure to a large extent today, he arguably had a disastrous impact on all of Europe, not just France, through fifteen years of incessant wars. And to start with, he was basically a dictator who seized power in a coup, ostensibly because the previous governments were so dysfunctional that only a "providential man" with full powers could save the day. Which brings to mind the debate on whether Pétain, 140 years later, was a sinister or a feckless leader, a conscious ally of the fascists or a half-senile grandfather who was abused and manipulated by his ministers.
My model is too simple in many cases, for sure. If you look at U.S. leaders, what was Nixon? At home, he was sinister, but overseas, he was practically a transformer, considering that he ended the war in Vietnam and dealt constructively with China. For Bush No. 1 and Bush No. 2, the verdict of history will probably be one of double fecklessness, the second case being worse than the first because of the presence of some sinister puppetmasters named Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice. Now we shall see if Obama is a transformer. If his presidency is anything like the speech he gave the night of his election, there is a good chance of that.
A Perfect New England Day
So many things have happened in the past six days, including the real beginning of the end of the Bush presidency, and the slap in the face we got in California with the success of the discriminatory Prop. 8, that I was in danger of glossing over what was a perfect day in Boston, last Saturday.
It was warm in the morning, I had breakfast at Crema Café in Harvard Square, then chatted with my other half for a long time, mostly about the election, while sitting on a brick ledge at the corner of Brattle and Eliot Streets. Being able to sit outside on Nov. 1 in Boston is a hit-or-miss proposition. It can still be Indian Summer, or it can be winter. Actually, two days earlier, it had been 36°F (2°C) in the morning. And now it was in the mid-sixties (18°C).
I went to the Symphony box office to buy a ticket for that night, then I walked over to my old haunt, Aquitaine on Tremont St., for brunch. I got the best table in the house — in the corner, in the back, facing the whole restaurant — and a very good server named Rebecca. And they had not run out of the pressed duck sandwich, my favorite brunch dish there.
After brunch, I walked through the Public Garden and the Boston Common to get on the T at Park Street. There were musicians everywhere, including an accordionist, a jazz duo that was rather incongruously made up of a young Asian couple, with the girl playing the trumpet and the guy playing the bass, and a lone saxophonist playing a little farther down.
It was warm in the morning, I had breakfast at Crema Café in Harvard Square, then chatted with my other half for a long time, mostly about the election, while sitting on a brick ledge at the corner of Brattle and Eliot Streets. Being able to sit outside on Nov. 1 in Boston is a hit-or-miss proposition. It can still be Indian Summer, or it can be winter. Actually, two days earlier, it had been 36°F (2°C) in the morning. And now it was in the mid-sixties (18°C).
I went to the Symphony box office to buy a ticket for that night, then I walked over to my old haunt, Aquitaine on Tremont St., for brunch. I got the best table in the house — in the corner, in the back, facing the whole restaurant — and a very good server named Rebecca. And they had not run out of the pressed duck sandwich, my favorite brunch dish there.
After brunch, I walked through the Public Garden and the Boston Common to get on the T at Park Street. There were musicians everywhere, including an accordionist, a jazz duo that was rather incongruously made up of a young Asian couple, with the girl playing the trumpet and the guy playing the bass, and a lone saxophonist playing a little farther down.
I Don't Get Richard Strauss
I went to the Boston Symphony last Saturday, Nov. 1. The first part of the program was Brahms' Violin Concerto, the second one was Richard Strauss' Symphonia domestica. I don't "get" Richard Strauss, except perhaps the famous and soaring Also sprach Zarathustra. I probably would nickname this piece the Cacophonia domestica, and that does not even take into account the gross narcissism of the whole thing, which is supposed to describe an entire day of the life of the Strauss family. If you want to describe "A Day in the Life..." of anything in music, give me the Pastoral Symphony anyday.
The program notes were very smartly written. About the Brahms concerto, they did not just focus on that piece, but contrasted it with the other great violin concertos (the Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Bruch — I have no idea why it omitted the Tchaikovsy). Some of the criticism made by others in the past, and reported in these notes, was rather shocking. For example, von Bülow said that other concertos were written for the violin, but Brahms had written his against it. And the reviewer contemptuously dismissed the Mendelssohn as an easy and gentle piece. I can't say anything about the ease aspect, but I have always found that concerto to be very moving, starting from the first bar (one of the earliest entrances of the solo instrument in the repertoire, I'm sure).
The program notes were very smartly written. About the Brahms concerto, they did not just focus on that piece, but contrasted it with the other great violin concertos (the Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Bruch — I have no idea why it omitted the Tchaikovsy). Some of the criticism made by others in the past, and reported in these notes, was rather shocking. For example, von Bülow said that other concertos were written for the violin, but Brahms had written his against it. And the reviewer contemptuously dismissed the Mendelssohn as an easy and gentle piece. I can't say anything about the ease aspect, but I have always found that concerto to be very moving, starting from the first bar (one of the earliest entrances of the solo instrument in the repertoire, I'm sure).
Rendez-Vous 2010
After the success of California Proposition 8 on the ballot three days ago, which writes into the Constitution of California that same-sex couples are not allowed to marry, my friends and I seem to have been shellshocked for a couple of days — even though the polls had actually predicted that we would lose this fight.
We're finally emerging from this catatonic state, and some of us have been exchanging messages. I wrote this today to other Board members of Stanford Pride, and I don't think I could paraphrase it better again, so I'll just quote myself here (I know it sounds arrogant the way I just said it):
"We need to lick our wounds a bit, but I think that this accident teaches us a lesson: we need to be proactive, and not wake up a month before the election, suddenly realizing that the polls are against us, and do a rearguard fight in the last couple of weeks to come back.
This being said, we can all be immensely proud that we did come back from a 10% deficit in the polls a month ago, to only 4% (and perhaps less once all the ballots are counted) in the end. This is still a tremendous improvement over the 22% spread from elections on this topic years ago.
History is on our side. In 2010, there will be about 3% of the voters who are currently between 16 and 18 years of age. While they are not all on our side, I think it is clear that young people are much more liberal on social issues, and much more used to studying and living side by side with "out" LGBT people whom they wouldn't think of hurting on the basis of their sexuality. Conversely, 3% of last Tuesday's voters, out of the older age range, will have passed away, and while I don't wish anyone dead, this is how the electoral base shifts over time even if you don't convince anyone else to change their vote.
I really believe that if we organize better, and maintain the effort throughout the period from now to the next election, we can reverse this unfortunate vote. And if not in 2010, then surely in 2012 (but 2010 must be our immediate goal).
I also welcome the idea that Stanford Pride should play a bigger role. I wonder if we can meet with our counterparts at Berkeley, UCLA, etc… the larger universities in the state. I also notice that one of the first Facebook groups about "repealing Prop. 8 in 2010" was created by UC Davis students. An intercollegiate consortium could be very effective in terms of its outreach. Everyone in the state must be at most 2-3 degrees apart from an LGBT alums from one of these colleges. Well… perhaps not in the boondocks, but the people in the boonies are not really a very useful target audience for us. The primary audience are the people who are educated and intelligent enough to change their vote once we explain to them what's really at stake and that some of the things they were told are lies."
I don't yet know if we will succeed in our resolution to be activists about this. Two years is a long time to maintain a level of engagement such as that which may be required here. But we must try.
We're finally emerging from this catatonic state, and some of us have been exchanging messages. I wrote this today to other Board members of Stanford Pride, and I don't think I could paraphrase it better again, so I'll just quote myself here (I know it sounds arrogant the way I just said it):
"We need to lick our wounds a bit, but I think that this accident teaches us a lesson: we need to be proactive, and not wake up a month before the election, suddenly realizing that the polls are against us, and do a rearguard fight in the last couple of weeks to come back.
This being said, we can all be immensely proud that we did come back from a 10% deficit in the polls a month ago, to only 4% (and perhaps less once all the ballots are counted) in the end. This is still a tremendous improvement over the 22% spread from elections on this topic years ago.
History is on our side. In 2010, there will be about 3% of the voters who are currently between 16 and 18 years of age. While they are not all on our side, I think it is clear that young people are much more liberal on social issues, and much more used to studying and living side by side with "out" LGBT people whom they wouldn't think of hurting on the basis of their sexuality. Conversely, 3% of last Tuesday's voters, out of the older age range, will have passed away, and while I don't wish anyone dead, this is how the electoral base shifts over time even if you don't convince anyone else to change their vote.
I really believe that if we organize better, and maintain the effort throughout the period from now to the next election, we can reverse this unfortunate vote. And if not in 2010, then surely in 2012 (but 2010 must be our immediate goal).
I also welcome the idea that Stanford Pride should play a bigger role. I wonder if we can meet with our counterparts at Berkeley, UCLA, etc… the larger universities in the state. I also notice that one of the first Facebook groups about "repealing Prop. 8 in 2010" was created by UC Davis students. An intercollegiate consortium could be very effective in terms of its outreach. Everyone in the state must be at most 2-3 degrees apart from an LGBT alums from one of these colleges. Well… perhaps not in the boondocks, but the people in the boonies are not really a very useful target audience for us. The primary audience are the people who are educated and intelligent enough to change their vote once we explain to them what's really at stake and that some of the things they were told are lies."
I don't yet know if we will succeed in our resolution to be activists about this. Two years is a long time to maintain a level of engagement such as that which may be required here. But we must try.
Icing on the Cake
I'm just back from seeing Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal at the Wortham Center, home of the Houston Ballet. Interesting program with two resolutely contemporary pieces, Toot and Noces, the latter on the eponymous music by Stravinsky.
I enjoyed the program, but the icing on the cake was the chance encounter with Connor Walsh during intermission. Mr. Walsh is a principal dancer with the Houston Ballet, with whom I had a very interesting conversation after a very moving performance — see my "Art and Politics" entry dated February 23rd. While I was buying a snack at intermission tonight, I saw a man rush through the line to order a pasta dish and sit down with it at a table. I thought I recognized him and chose a table that gave me a chance to observe... and got convinced that it must be him. Dancers can of course be hard to recognize in their street clothes, without makeup, and in his case with the beginning of a beard. He was obviously totally wolfing down his food to make it before the end of intermission, so I didn't interrupt then, but I kept staring and got worried that he'd be offended, although I would assume that he get stared at a lot!
Finally, he shoved the last bite into his mouth, it was high time to go back to our seats, but I went over and asked him if he was Connor Walsh. He was very gracious, we chatted for a second, mostly so I could remind him of the performance of Swan Song I had liked so much, and off we went our separate ways. I felt a bit like a groupie. Artists in general humble me, and people like him who personify the union of art, beauty and grace (I know this is multiply redundant to some extent) are exceptional. When I shake their hands, I wish that some of those gifts would rub off a little on me.
I enjoyed the program, but the icing on the cake was the chance encounter with Connor Walsh during intermission. Mr. Walsh is a principal dancer with the Houston Ballet, with whom I had a very interesting conversation after a very moving performance — see my "Art and Politics" entry dated February 23rd. While I was buying a snack at intermission tonight, I saw a man rush through the line to order a pasta dish and sit down with it at a table. I thought I recognized him and chose a table that gave me a chance to observe... and got convinced that it must be him. Dancers can of course be hard to recognize in their street clothes, without makeup, and in his case with the beginning of a beard. He was obviously totally wolfing down his food to make it before the end of intermission, so I didn't interrupt then, but I kept staring and got worried that he'd be offended, although I would assume that he get stared at a lot!
Finally, he shoved the last bite into his mouth, it was high time to go back to our seats, but I went over and asked him if he was Connor Walsh. He was very gracious, we chatted for a second, mostly so I could remind him of the performance of Swan Song I had liked so much, and off we went our separate ways. I felt a bit like a groupie. Artists in general humble me, and people like him who personify the union of art, beauty and grace (I know this is multiply redundant to some extent) are exceptional. When I shake their hands, I wish that some of those gifts would rub off a little on me.
Monday, October 20, 2008
The End of "Hamlet"
At the end of "Hamlet," everyone dies. It would be a literal bloodbath if some of the deaths weren't by way of poison instead of the sword.
I thought of the Bard's most famous play a lot in the past month, as I have literally been assaulted by news of people's deaths. Almost always people who were to young to die -- not that there is ever a good age, but you know what I mean. Some whom I didn't know, some whom I knew well, and every degree in between. Too many. The kind of events that makes you alternate between sadness and a sense of revolt: "f!@#, s$%^, why is this going on?"
My self-centered view of this started on Sep. 23, as I was talking to a colleague at the cafeteria of our offices in Clamart, outside Paris. He told me that a man whom I had casually known as a colleague for 30 years had died the week before, after a sudden relapse of a cancer he had fought off several years earlier. And then, as I was absorbing this, he asked me if I knew about another ex-colleague, who had left a few years back, was apparently working from home in the countryside, and had died of another long illness six months ago. I had not seen this man in many years, contrary to the first one, but this means that I could vividly remember him as his young self -- not only that, but I can even still hear his distinctive, constantly ironic tone of voice!
The next morning, as I walked into another one of our office locations, this one in Montrouge, I was greeted by two colleagues. We said hello and then, almost immediately, the woman went on: "Have you heard about M...?" When sentences start like that, you know what's coming. M..., a woman ex-colleague who was 58, had had a sudden heart attack (uncommon for a woman at that age), remained in the hospital for a while, and then died. So by now, that was three people whose passing away I was learning about in two days.
Back in Houston the following week, someone who actually used to work for M... was visiting for a training course, and invited me to have dinner. That was a nice chance to reconnect, as I hadn't seen him in two or three years. The last time was in a really ugly traffic jam at the end of the M4 coming into London, when I dropped him at an intersection where he could get on the Tube and I could turn around and go back to the airport (where I still missed my flight). We weren't in a panicked rush this time, and we ate a leisurely dinner at Churrasco's, an Argentinian steakhouse (the one near the Beltway, not the one near Montrose, for your locals). And then D... said, "oh, and by the way, did you know A...?" I did. Last time I had seen A..., in 2003, he had driven up from Houston to Austin, where I lived then, to discuss a project we were both working on. We spent the afternoon working together, then I took him to the Oasis to have a drink and watch the sunset over Lake Travis. When he left to drive back to Houston, we hugged and said "okay, let's make sure we see each other soon again." But A... left the company, and I had no chance to really remain in touch. And then D... dropped the bombshell: A..., who I think D... said was 35 years old, had accidentally killed himself just recently.
Six days later, on October 8, the "care page" maintained by my friend C... for his wife since she started her fight against inflammatory breast cancer four years ago took an ominous turn. There had been bad incidents before, and she had always come through. This time, after fighting infection and respiratory failure for days on end, she had just "crashed." The day went by, and early the next morning there was an urgent update: I opened it reluctantly -- she had passed away in the evening, at the age of 37. I will be going to a memorial service this week-end...
15 days, 5 deaths -- ranging from a dear friend to estranged colleagues. The last one was of course the one that affected me the most, but in some way the other deaths compounded the sense that something unusual had happened and that mortality wasn't just a concept.
Finally (for now), last week, while I was in Orlando at a conference, I got an email from one of the Stanford alumni with whom I work on alumni matters: a car carrying three business school alumni, aged 23, 24 and 29, had fallen off the road on the Pacific Coast Highway as they were on their way to a reunion in Big Sur. All three were killed. I didn't know them -- only one was listed among the members of the group I help manage, and I had never met him. Apart from the obviously tragic aspect of this event, this coming after the other five deaths seemed to continue a dramatic and improbable series.
People die all the time, of course. But in our age it's not often, absent wars or epidemics at home, that you hear about the deaths of 8 people, with whom you have some sort of connection, within a three-week period. Our ancestors had a sense of fatality about this -- all it took was an exceptionally harsh winter for people to fall like dominoes. But that was over 200 years ago.
I'm coming up on six days without hearing about another death. It would sound callous to say "I hope this series has come to an end" because it would seem to place my own mental comfort over the tragedy of these deaths and the anguish of those who have lost loved ones. All I can do is reflect on our fragile status, and cherish even more all the friends I still have among the living.
I thought of the Bard's most famous play a lot in the past month, as I have literally been assaulted by news of people's deaths. Almost always people who were to young to die -- not that there is ever a good age, but you know what I mean. Some whom I didn't know, some whom I knew well, and every degree in between. Too many. The kind of events that makes you alternate between sadness and a sense of revolt: "f!@#, s$%^, why is this going on?"
My self-centered view of this started on Sep. 23, as I was talking to a colleague at the cafeteria of our offices in Clamart, outside Paris. He told me that a man whom I had casually known as a colleague for 30 years had died the week before, after a sudden relapse of a cancer he had fought off several years earlier. And then, as I was absorbing this, he asked me if I knew about another ex-colleague, who had left a few years back, was apparently working from home in the countryside, and had died of another long illness six months ago. I had not seen this man in many years, contrary to the first one, but this means that I could vividly remember him as his young self -- not only that, but I can even still hear his distinctive, constantly ironic tone of voice!
The next morning, as I walked into another one of our office locations, this one in Montrouge, I was greeted by two colleagues. We said hello and then, almost immediately, the woman went on: "Have you heard about M...?" When sentences start like that, you know what's coming. M..., a woman ex-colleague who was 58, had had a sudden heart attack (uncommon for a woman at that age), remained in the hospital for a while, and then died. So by now, that was three people whose passing away I was learning about in two days.
Back in Houston the following week, someone who actually used to work for M... was visiting for a training course, and invited me to have dinner. That was a nice chance to reconnect, as I hadn't seen him in two or three years. The last time was in a really ugly traffic jam at the end of the M4 coming into London, when I dropped him at an intersection where he could get on the Tube and I could turn around and go back to the airport (where I still missed my flight). We weren't in a panicked rush this time, and we ate a leisurely dinner at Churrasco's, an Argentinian steakhouse (the one near the Beltway, not the one near Montrose, for your locals). And then D... said, "oh, and by the way, did you know A...?" I did. Last time I had seen A..., in 2003, he had driven up from Houston to Austin, where I lived then, to discuss a project we were both working on. We spent the afternoon working together, then I took him to the Oasis to have a drink and watch the sunset over Lake Travis. When he left to drive back to Houston, we hugged and said "okay, let's make sure we see each other soon again." But A... left the company, and I had no chance to really remain in touch. And then D... dropped the bombshell: A..., who I think D... said was 35 years old, had accidentally killed himself just recently.
Six days later, on October 8, the "care page" maintained by my friend C... for his wife since she started her fight against inflammatory breast cancer four years ago took an ominous turn. There had been bad incidents before, and she had always come through. This time, after fighting infection and respiratory failure for days on end, she had just "crashed." The day went by, and early the next morning there was an urgent update: I opened it reluctantly -- she had passed away in the evening, at the age of 37. I will be going to a memorial service this week-end...
15 days, 5 deaths -- ranging from a dear friend to estranged colleagues. The last one was of course the one that affected me the most, but in some way the other deaths compounded the sense that something unusual had happened and that mortality wasn't just a concept.
Finally (for now), last week, while I was in Orlando at a conference, I got an email from one of the Stanford alumni with whom I work on alumni matters: a car carrying three business school alumni, aged 23, 24 and 29, had fallen off the road on the Pacific Coast Highway as they were on their way to a reunion in Big Sur. All three were killed. I didn't know them -- only one was listed among the members of the group I help manage, and I had never met him. Apart from the obviously tragic aspect of this event, this coming after the other five deaths seemed to continue a dramatic and improbable series.
People die all the time, of course. But in our age it's not often, absent wars or epidemics at home, that you hear about the deaths of 8 people, with whom you have some sort of connection, within a three-week period. Our ancestors had a sense of fatality about this -- all it took was an exceptionally harsh winter for people to fall like dominoes. But that was over 200 years ago.
I'm coming up on six days without hearing about another death. It would sound callous to say "I hope this series has come to an end" because it would seem to place my own mental comfort over the tragedy of these deaths and the anguish of those who have lost loved ones. All I can do is reflect on our fragile status, and cherish even more all the friends I still have among the living.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)