"B List Blogger" friend and excellent satirist Jon Swift has died. For about a year the last post has been a link to my own sad post "So Long My Boy" and the comments section was used by his mother to announce his death. Tom Watson adds some details.
Jon (Al) tossed this blog kudos from time to time and his approval meant a lot to me. I am sorry to lose this fellow blogger and I add my voice to the ones his family will hear - Thank you for giving us this man.
If this means something to you, please go over to Jon Swift and let his family know.
7 comments:
I hope all of you know how much help your expressions were. Jon, Skippy, and others drove a lot of people to that post who left expressions of sympathy and hope that helped - a lot.
The ironic confluence of the post and announcement really struck me. I hope Al's family gets something from us that helps.
Thanks Skippy.
I read that post a year ago and read yours on the night of your unbelievable grief too. I just reread that post and it came back to me about two sentences in like I had just read it an hour ago. It has been a year now and I have to know that Al's (Jon) passing has reopened fresh wounds.
My condolences that you have to have those wounds ripped open again but I know damn well that they will never heal completely anyway.
Best wishes. Busted
A note to say, akin to your remark, there really are no words for the juxtaposition of your loss and Jon Swift's death.
If it is not inappropriate, I would also like to express my admiration of you for the grace you have displayed here.
I suppose Jon Swift and irony are appropriate, if sad. But then, irony generally is only funny in a dark sort of way. Some scabs got pulled off, but then there was also the reinforcement of the kindness of strangers.
Mourning seems endless and those painful, sorrowful anniversaries are rarely limited to the hour, day, night, week, month or even season.
I'm afraid I blithely answered your comment--it's so rare anyone comments on my blog--by saying Jon Swift may have invented dark irony.
What's happening between Jon's last post and this month of your life, Chuck, is not what I would call irony. Words do fail.
And of course you're right, ultimately they don't even mean much. I forget that.
Words are what we've got, so we make do. American English is one of the most expressive and innovative of languages but our abstract and barely fathomable emotional life exceeds their reach. Poetry tries very hard to bridge that gap by tossing the rules of prose and turning words into symbols of other than their dictionary definitions. Still the reach is too long, and we try anyhow.
Learning of the passing of Jon Swift (aka Al Weisel) reminds me of how I felt 1/2 way through reading Joseph Heller's "Catch-22". I realized that characters I had come to know and love were disappearing; never to be heard from again (SPOILER ALERT! - save Orr).
In honor of the Conservative values being discussed, I offer a quote from Heller and a bit of dialog from the movie:
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1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Nately died a wealthy man, Yossarian. He had over sixty shares in the syndicate.
Yossarian: What difference does that make? He's dead.
1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Then his family will get it.
Yossarian: He didn't have time to have a family.
1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Then his parents will get it.
Yossarian: They don't need it, they're rich.
1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Then they'll understand.
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"Catch-22 means people have the right to do to you anything that you cannot prevent them from doing to you." ~ Joseph Heller
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That's some catch.
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