Tributes
Leave a tributeI love you
Lizzy
travel light.. stay in touch.. dont lie.. show, dont tell.
read a book. be a dreamer. fight for justice.. right the wrongs.
sing a song. make art. are just a few of what you taught.
you taught and taught and taught and taught but mostly you showed me what it means to create.. to make new... to live with suprise and invention and I am still trying to catch it.. to capture it.. to bottle it every,single chance I get..
thanks you.. gracias and merci beaucoup
I think of you and Dr. Lotte often and miss you both. Cinco de Mayo this year was a beautiful night, with a full moon rising over Tetilla Peak, which we see from the back deck of our New Mexico home. The “Flower Moon” was huge and bright, and somehow it felt as though you were both present, illuminating the darkness.
Thanks for all the love, support, wit & wisdom, music, and editorial contributions through the years. Thinking of you still and always, with love and gratitude - Cyndi
I do miss your presence when I visit the house, like now. I miss seeing you with mom.
I fear I won't live as long as you and mom did, as I fight my own early aging issues (early 60s now).
I think I became not just a musician, but specifically an extremely eclectic one, because of your own incredible eclecticism - everything from folk music to classical, from jazz to Mexican folklore. Same thing with languages (you used to call me, as a joke, "My son the Arab.")
Hang in there on your death anniversary, David
You have left me with a mountain of beauty and a deep appreciation of the human spirit. You are one rock star and you were punk before punks were punk
I seek you by the mountainside
I seek you by the shore
there is no container big enough
in which my grief to store
Like your family and other friends, I miss you still, though nearly 5 years have passed (it was so "you" to choose to leave us - physically - on Cinco de Mayo, a celebratory day). But, as you know well, I am no stranger to navigating the loss of family and friends - and I had you, and Dr. Lotte, and Anina to help float the boat in the most difficult of times. I have wished these past several years that we lived closer to Dr. Lotte and Anina, to be there for them at this time. And yet, I know you and they understand Bill's and my need to continue to do what we can to "liberate" the planet, to preserve the beauty we have been graced to experience in our lifetimes and to create some that can be contributed forward. I think of you so often; and as I listen to the news, I remind myself of your admonition to the human race to "be kind" and to follow Anne Herbert's instructions to, "practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty." I attempt, each day, to follow this excellent advice, because in practicing we become accomplished; and in creating senseless acts of beauty, we offer a gift free of expectation of any particular outcome and one that no critique can negate, because its intent is pure.
Thinking of you, Dr. Lotte, and your family brought two poems I wrote years ago to mind: One, "The Elder," reminded me of you; and so it is first in this tribute. The second, "Fairy Bells," was written after my mother, brother, and father passed. I have always turned to nature for solace, and I hope that its message may bring a bit of comfort to those who, like me, find their way back to this page during these challenging times. Because the flame of your spirit still burns brightly, and all of your children are still listening:
The Elder
Armies of saguaro cactus
march up the parched slopes
of the desert range,
arms extended upward,
outward,
toward the blazing turquoise sky.
Needle-sharp spines ward off the enemy—
poised weapons of defense.
And yet the elder,
the greatest saguaro of them all,
has arms that curve
and would embrace;
it has yielded its tender heart
to nesting birds.
Open your eyes, little one;
take the food from your mother’s beak.
Impale yourself, and you will find
the answers you would seek.
Heart to heart,
from mouth to mouth,
arm in arm—
the path to peace. ~cyndi
Fairy Bells
Stand in silence,
and in awe,
of all the eye can see,
the ear can hear,
the sense of touch,
of smell.
Be at one with nature.
Take time–
absorb her well.
Her sighing winds will comfort,
her birdsongs bring you joy;
no lasting sorrows can abide
where she weaves her wondrous spell.
Keep her safe and guard her
for your children’s children
and their dreams;
Share with her your secret thoughts,
for she will never tell.
Stand in silence,
and in awe;
you may hear the sweet refrain
of babbling brooks
and buzzing bees
in a lemon-scented rain.
If you listen closely
and you learn your lessons well,
you may even hear
the distant chime
of the snow-white fairy bells. ~ cyndi
Can't believe its almost 5 years.
You missed the whole shit show of Trump and now the Pandemic. Wish you were here to say This Too Shall Pass. Reading your screenplay Journey South again, ( or your movie-novel as Pauline Kael called it) and moved all over again by its humanity and prescient forecast of our present times. Thanks for the music, and San Miguel de Allende, and, well, all of it. Naomi
I cant believe you are not here . Itis surreal.But you are in my heart- forever and forever......we had each other for 64 years..5/5/2019
12:45 PM (7 hours ago)
to Lotte, me
Wow I can't believe it's only been four years...it feels like a different world and I feel like a different person than the me that exhisted within that era.
As far as memories go, I don't think I've ever met another person to this day with the capacity for language that Alan had, in natural eloquence, oration abilities, and ever expanding vocabulary. While he did, at times, come off as slightly verbose in emails at me where the basic question could have been more succinctly summed up as 'how are you,' I cannot emphasize enough how his dedication to language as a whole inspired me to read more, pick up new world's, and resist the path of least resistance, that is weak minded humans are too likely to fall prey too. A terrific person who lives within us constantly.
Lots of love, and, as Alan would say, 'mantequilla por favor'
Some men, many undeserving, achieve the ability to influence the World through fame, wealth or power.
Alan changed our worlds through the force of his intellect, creativity and love of humanity, inspiring us to be more than what we thought we were.
Like the butterfly of chaos, Alan's legacy continues to warp and weft through the innermost fabric of our lives.
Thank you, Alan, on your 96th birthday.
I have plans for you. 1) We are making a memorial garden with a rise of
15 or so different bulbs below Anina's trailer . 2) I have had "Miracles" retyped - including your prologue. I could read all of your handwritten insertions .We are going to Amazon.com to publish it. Three): I am combining your poems with my poems in a book to be published entitled "So Green Our Beginnings" Four: I am going to publish six stories -including an excerptfrom - OfStreets& Stars -1) the Death of CorporalCutie Pie ; 2)I don't Care Three)The Man Who Disturbed the Peace 4)the Girl Without A Name 4) Tierra
I might combine Tierra with CarmenConsuelo Garcia
I cant find but will look for
The Way Things Are
Children in the Modern World
The IlesofGreece
The LethalFactor
The Man Who Couldn't Lose
We will publish The Morning The Wall Came Down
I want you to know that English onWheels - your creation and my practical application for 18 years is housed at Univs of Stanford,Chicano HistorySection
You know that Wellstone Center - Steve Kettman - will house all our fiction books, the chronology and printed parts of your work, my two books of poems, in something he will call Alan'sand Lotte's literary legacy...........
We were, I have come to feel, each other's love for 64 years : the above is
what remains.
Alan: intelligent,intellectual, downpour of words, agressive-power-house of political agenda. Vigilant, complicated, conflicted, pushy yet self deprecating. A bright candle standing up to a storm.
Keen, dapper, a lion in his round den. He loved his hearth and his kingdom-extended genuine hospitality at his round table: loyal, supportive, mischievous, humorous and warm.. like our wedding song.
A true mate to Lotte (I felt the torch he carried for her beauty) a warrior. gardener and a family man.
He had daniels back.
When I brought music-I felt an authentic, quiet nurturing response that mattered to me... and still does..
ZIA SHAPIRO DEC 2017
I go through my days as a widow with our adult children and have figured this out :alan,how lucky, how miraculous that we found each other at metro goldwyn-mayer - what a random accident,how it might not have happened by a slightly changed timing or by passing each other by, how different both our lives could have been.. After all, we came from a different class of Jews, you were so American,I was then,so the Refugee..... but you took all that in and made me feel safe for the first time. Have I thanked you enough for that?Nor did I know when we married how truly talented y0u were in literature,music,& the changing issues involving social justice. As JerryCohen recently said:Alan had wit and he had integrity!And then, through marriage,through raising individually talented children, through working as partners (English onWheels, Natividad Medical Center,Family Medicine) , we became each other's echo - it doesnt get better than that and my deep love for you doesnt go away.Not a bit. Lotte
is sorely missed and the remembrance and love of what we meant to each other remains as a treasure in heart and mind
This sort of thing happens every week or so.
Alan had no equal for exploring any deep reaction (intellectual, emotional, or spiritual) to a work of art, or a public action. He was so generous in sharing the benign ferocity of his mind and heart.
I can never think of his passing without remembering Antonio Machado’s elegy for his mentor, Francisco Giner de los Rios. It begins:
Como se fue el maestro,
la luz de esta mañana
me dijo: Van tres días
que mi hermano Francisco no trabaja.
¿Murió? . . .
Alan was another such “brother of the dawn light”.
Later in the poem Machado writes:
¡Yunques, sonad; enmudeced, campanas! (Ring the anvils; hush the bells!)
That’s what Alan would want us to do. And keep doing.
To a Tiger of a Teddy...a Titan
So volatile:voracious and vocal
Humorous, hungry to hear it all
Heart-full and heartless; honing in to his truth
Complicated, cunning and cantankerous,
He filled many a night with tales and sails to many a new shore
For this alone and so much more, we honor his gifts...
And the rest? Well...we ignore
Happy B'Day
Thank you Anina and Lotte for this wonderful anniversary remembrance. Charles
yes , he left eight piles of papers on the floor -his dying body curled upon the same floor in between the paper heaps - and then some fourteen boxes on shelves.I have spent about five hours each week for a year now together with Madina, a young helper, sorting through them..............
But in the course of this year, I learned two important things.What i called "a big mess" was how Alan needed to put things away.
Many times I would have to ask him for a bill or a piece of paper , and I'd look for a file with bills;but "no" he would say, "i have to
go through my stuff and then I will give it to you......". (sometimes he did and sometimes he didnt - but not because he
couldnt find it but because he forgot). I realize now that he visualized where his papers lay but he had to
intuit his way back to them: just like his favorite books on his office shelf.They were in no particular order and yet he knew exactly
where each one was.........his "mess" was a comfort to him : ...
So in this year I learned that it was I who saw it as a mess but it was he who had memorized it (but never felt
he needed to explain it).; he captured it in his head. It didnt need to be written down .
Secondly, i learned that in this long year, this "mess" has kept me in touch with him in the way a more scrupulously organized
inventory would not have: it has allowed me to pick up a piece of writing, here,.a letter there, ideas realized and discarded,
in a way that it brought me back to everything from our serendipitous meeting in 1948 to the present - a long trajectory -.
i have had the luxury to relive what have been the happiest years of my life. Alan was my soulmate,who with great delicacy helped me recover from World War II wounds and vice versa, with whom we parented three wonderful children, and for whom i was a muse, and ditto, vice versa...................... who can ask for more? Love, Lotte
THIS TRIBUTE WAS WRITTEN BY LOTTE MARCUS NOT ANINA MARCUS
By Cynthia Nelson Guion
In Memory of:
Alan Richard Marcus
July 10, 1922 ~ May 5, 2015
Carmel Highlands, CA
Alan Richard Marcus, 92 years old, whose life was dedicated to the arts and who was also a passionate advocate for social justice, passed away unexpectedly on May 5th at 5:25 AM. He suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage that came with no warning and no pain.
A Carmel Highlands resident since 1955, he was loved and is mourned by his wife and frequent collaborator of 63 years, psychologist Dr. Lotte Marcus, as well as his three adult children, Naomi Beth, Anina Ruth, and David Jonathan, son-in-law Colin Campbell, daughter-in-law Barbara Hall, three grandchildren, Gabriel Joseph, Ana Sofia and Jonathan Alan, brother-in-law Marvin Okanes, and two nephews, Jonathan and Paul Okanes.
(Excerpt from the Monterey Herald online obituary, which may be read in full at http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/montereyherald/obituary.aspx?pid=174860692)
Dear MSQLP and Friends,
It is with an apology for a slight delay, as well as some sadness, that I write this note to contribute to MSQLP’s June newsletter. The announcement above may not come as a surprise to those of you who have recently been in touch with Dr. Lotte Marcus, her family or friends. At Gene Harter’s request and with Dr. Lotte’s permission to “go for it”, I have been asked to let the MSQLP family and friends know that Dr. Lotte’s husband, Alan, passed away recently. Whether or not you knew Alan personally, there is no doubt that he touched your life and that of each and every individual who has been in contact with MSQLP.
As most of you are aware, Dr. Lotte Marcus was the inspiration, first President and a founding member of the non-profit organization that became the Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life Project, growing (not without pains) from the grassroots efforts of Dr. Lotte and other individuals, who shared the common denominator of multiple sclerosis. There is more than one person who worked tirelessly to create what eventually became the 501(c)3 organization known as MSQLP today. Some became founding members, others contributed advice or knowledge, and yet others shared their personal histories, spearheaded fundraising efforts or performed any task necessary to further efforts to serve the MS community and friends.
Alan Marcus is one of those whose name will not be found on the formative documents for MSQLP but whose strength of character –and opinion—dedicated research, ready advice, stalwart support and (in spite of his immense frustration at times with the plodding pace and endless discussions) effervescent humour, were as instrumental in moving MSQLP forward –or as Alan would say, “getting down to brass tacks”— as filing the Articles of Incorporation, submitting the federal exempt application, hiring the first social worker and all subsequent hallmark moments.
In remembrance, I submit this excerpt from an e-mail Alan sent me in 2010, when an “MSQLP round” (of discussions) had erupted. It is one of my favorites—his usual acerbic, tongue-in-cheek analysis has only been edited to protect the names of the innocent (and others):
“It has always bemused me that there's frequently ---at the start of people-helping projects ---what Alan Greenspan (who these days is running for cover!) once called, in relationship to the stock market, "irrational exuberance" –- i.e. lots of happy expectations & hopes, an inclination to just go out and to do it, before one has truly thought everything through. The needs assessment, which everyone seems to [be] proud of, certainly required lots of careful work to complete. But it's not secret that its statistical conclusions came from facts and assumptions, which were largely known before hand. Its main value was as a device to raise money with; i.e. to demonstrate to potential donors that QLP was for "real." I.E., could point to stuff which had been "scientifically" measured, and which "proved" there was an urgent need to help people. Everyone out to get grants --and that has included me in various past incarnations ---has to pander to the American penchant for counting and measuring over & over again stuff which, in fact, is either already known, or--because of its very nature ---simply can't be measured, exclamation point! The only thing we learned that we weren't sure about before in QLP's needs assessment was that people wanted to stay in their own homes, didn't want new kinds of collective housing, didn't want to be stigmatized that way etc. Big discovery! But it "validated" QLP in the eyes of potential donors. And this continual necessity of, in effect, re-inventing the wheel by means of measuring what's going on (including things which simply defy organized measurement!) is something people prefer not to talk about. They certainly don't like to discuss the things which lie far below the surface of the ways people are suffering, and the "discoveries" made through counting heads etc. Well, you know all that.“
“I wish you every good thing in your new re-incarnation in Texas and I'm sure you'll be sending communiques to Lotte from time to time who'll share them with me. So arriba y adelante, verdad?” All best ---Alan
For those of you who knew Alan, you will no doubt be comforted by his daughter Anina’s words--and will not be able to resist a smile (and conjure up an image of Alan with that somewhat devilish twinkle in his eye, beret tilted at a jaunty angle, getting ready to deliver yet another zinger):
“He was working on the rewrite of his latest book Journey South up until the end doing what he loved and what he cared about in a place of beauty in his own home…there is also a huge exhale knowing that my dad went peacefully, no prolonged drawn out affair.. very unlike my dad.. who is a big drama king.. but his death was the most peaceful thing I have ever seen.”
If anyone would like to send condolences to Dr. Lotte and family, get to know Alan better, or share an Alan memory; please don’t miss the special place his family has created, where Alan himself stars in the most remarkable screenplay he has written—his own life story. In her note, Dr. Lotte expressed:
“…because of the suddenness of this event, my adult children and especially I, yearn to hear from you about any memories, recollections, or snapshots of Alan that occur to you. Anina has created a memorial page at forevermissed.com, where you may share thoughts, stories, photos, or movies: http://www.forevermissed.com/alan-richard-marcus/#about
“Contributions in his memory may be made to your local library. If you would please let us know of any such library contributions, we, in turn, will ship Alan’s latest books to the library as our co-donation, as Alan was disconsolate about the state of reading in our culture.”
“I will live off of my (our) and your memories. Thank you,
Lotte and Naomi, Anina and David.”
In closing, I will add that like every other person who came in contact with Alan, I found that his shell might appear to have been crusty; but he was the kindest and gentlest of souls. In a piece he wrote, which is included at the end of a presentation Dr. Lotte gave on her experience as a Holocaust survivor, he quoted a character from Kurt Vonnegut’s “God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater” who is passing on injunctions for the future, “God dammit, babies…You’ve got to be kind.”
And then, Alan himself adds:
“To be kind? Is that all? My answer, unprovisionally, is: why not?! For despite everything---despite the well-known terrors & terrorists of yesterday and today, (and, most certainly, alas, tomorrow); despite the intolerable details of the Holocaust sagas we’ve been revisiting over the years—we ought to try, I think, to keep fiercely imagining –& trying to believe in– the sheer redemptive possibilities—the transformative power—of mere, ordinary, everyday, one-on-one human kindness! And while we’re at it, we might as well pretend to live as though we were all, perhaps, part of some vast, hidden, open-ended conspiracy, striving to spread this precious attribute–lone antidote to gratuitous mad-made cruelty & suffering–as far and wide as possible…”
And because Alan deserves to have the final word in this–and because he, Dr. Lotte and I have poetry in common–may you all be kind and touched by the kindness of others, may your work with or support from MSQLP remind you daily that there are others who share or can learn from your experience. Here’s to kindness, and here’s to finding the holy spark that causes your flame to burn as brightly as Alan’s–
"Praise the labyrinth of sighs
Praise the fire in the skys
Praise the arrow in its ark
Praise the leaper in the dark.. Praise the blessed point of poise which makes gold of dull alloys and which finds for every flame its holy spark..and which finds for every flame its holy spark...
by alan marcus
Here’s where we raise our glasses and say: “I’ll toast to that!” and “Thank you, Alan!
[December 2015 postscript:
Dear Dr. Lotte, Anina, Naomi and David--
Thinking of you all this holiday season and sending best wishes for the coming year. While Alan is missed, the torch he has passed burns brightly--and given recent world events, the admonition to be kind seems particularly necessary and pertinent today.--Cyndi]
It is Christmas Eve day. For some reason, I found myself remembering your father and decided to surf the internet, where I learned just now of his passing last May.
I still vividly remember an evening with you and your parents at your beautiful woodsy home in Carmel Highlands in 1978, just before I left for the Peace Corps. In the "backstage" setting of that remarkable house, I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. Immediately after, I read two of your father's books, and shared them with many people. I lost those books (and everything else) in the Oakland fire in 1991 but later replaced them. Plan to reread them now. May Alan's spirit soar! I'm privileged to have known him, and you. Hugs to you and your mother. David Whitman, San Jose
While Dana and I shared some thoughts upon notice of Alan's passing, we have just discovered this wonderful site of many beautiful tributes to Alan as a partner and a parent, as a friend, a writer, an artist, a politico, and so much more. Just seeing how Alan touched so many people affirms Dana's and my memories of his strong presence that included a mix of keen focus on an issue at hand with his humor and sometimes acerbic wit. Dana and I will remember some of our early meetings as we settled in the Salinas Valley after meeting in the United Farm Workers movement and connecting with Lotte and Alan in what would become periodic intersections at political rallies, demonstrations, and house meetings.
Lotte, our thoughts are with you and your children as we know these days must be full of emptiness and the pain of loss of your longtime partner, husband, and friend, but we also know that you carry a rich catalogue of not only memories, but also Alan's extensive writings that we hope will provide a sense of his voice and presence that will come to provide solace and connection.
We appreciate what you have shared as we appreciate your continued ability to look at the bigger world around us and raise your voice in a cry for justice and sanctuary for those who have been forced to flee from countries plagued by war.
With a strong embrace and deep affection,
Bill Monning and Dana Kent
Alan Richard Marcus, my ever loving 92 year old died this morning at 5:30 at Community Hospital. Last night, my mom found him on the floor in his study unresponsive to any stimuli and a small amount of blood coming from his mouth. Paramedics and ambulance came and rushed him to emergency where an MD Grover? (I think) said he has suffered a massive hemorrhage and will not survive. He was put on comfort measures and has no pain till the end. He was, working on the rewrite of his latest book Journey South up until the end doing what he loved and what he cared about in a place of beauty in his own home.. Surreal is hardly the word for what I feel right now.. it is a deep ache, a deep longing.. a deep understanding that nothing will ever be the same again without my dad...... but there is also a huge exhale knowing that my dad went peacefully, no prolonged drawn out affair.. very unlike my dad.. who is a big drama king.. but his death was the most peaceful thing I have ever seen. Naomi, Lotte and I went to the morgue in the hospital and there he was: cold, blue, white, jaw tight and open. His skin looked beautiful and I held his hand and said: "Dad you would have loved the stories the nursing supervisor told us about other people she has accompanied to the morgue including a Buddhist who chanted and danced around the hospital for 3 hours and she swears the hospital was calmer. I thank you dad for this rich and complicated life you gave me.. You were the coolest cat and way cool without even knowing it. The beret just added to your look but you were just as cool without it.... "
Dad: Soulful, deeply loving, wildly original, intensely passionate.
You had bouts of tremendous anger and rage and yet you were astoundingly kind and generous. A natural loner, who dug into your crab like study and stayed for hours to work; but, you also craved so much attention.. it was almost impossible to ever fill you up. Truest lover to the world of the Arts and a deep devotion and dedication to the written and spoken word.
You could be so damn funny.. a la Lenny Bruce and within the same breath show a lot of sadness towards the way things were going in the world.
Your curiosity about every little thing to how machines work, to hummingbirds, to politics, to justice but most of all to the details of peoples lives. You would stop whatever you were doing most anytime to hear The story.. to see how things go... You turned me onto the great jazz artists of the 50's.. but also you loved The Beatles and Johnny Cash and Edith Piaf and Mahalia Jackson.. The list goes on and on..
Travel light my friend in Peace. I am with you. I want to quote from one of your all time favorite songs:
the water's wide I can't swim o,er
And nor have I the wings to fly
Build me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row, my love and I
Now love is gentle, love is kind
It's like a flower when first it's new
But love grows old and waxes cold
And fades away like morning dew
There is a ship, she sails the sea
She's laden deep, as deep can be
But not as deep as the love I'm in
I know not where I'll sink or swim
The water's wide I can't swim o'er
And nor have I the wings to fly
Build me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row, my love and I
love to you all, anina
hold fast to this life....
Dear Marcuses,
Alan was an integral part of that magnificent community of artists, writers, musicians, poets, madmen and madwomen, which made up Carmel Highlands and the surrounding universe.
I particularly appreciate how kind and supportive he was to Mimi, recognizing the gifted musician she was, helping her find her inner strength in the fragile world around her...
I hope you are all coming to terms with the loss of Alan and life with his spirit only. There will always be the absence of his presence, and the eternal presence of his absence......
With great affection, Joan Baez
I was trying to act (community theatre), trying to write (poetry, plays) , trying to play music (piano, sax, guitar), trying to learn Spanish, and in love with science, math, chickens, and the Carmel Coast.
And there was Alan, in the very same elevator with me, an award winning writer, a real musician (perfect pitch! my god!), an actual flesh and blood artist who loved science, knew his calculus, fought for immigrant justice, loved chickens, spoke five languages, lived on the Carmel Coast AND was asking me where I wanted to go. I say this about Alan, but Alan was never Alan alone. Lotte, you were there too, going up to see Naomi. Alan was always only one half of the entity we know as "Alan and Lotte". It was "Alan and Lotte" that took us into a life of the mind, of thought, of articulated concern, of music, writing, outrage, overflowing bookshelves, poetry, ping pong, exotic chickens, highland gardens, hidden beaches, aspic, "little lunches", and always "Where have you been?" "Where are you going?", and, for me, at least, the assurance that I had been somewhat close to where I needed to have been and had the stuff to go where I wanted. I saw Alan's death in Anne's voice when she took Naomi's call. I felt Alan's death only when Anne said "Alan is dead." "What?" "Alan is dead." "That's not possible." "No. Yes." "Can't be. How can that be..." as if a part of my body had been torn away. Now there is a bloody confusing hole where Alan had been. But "Alan and Lotte" survives and that is the greater part of me. We hope to see you soon.
Jonathan McCurdy
I remember him fussing with the internet, playing the piano, eating a wonderful meal together, and sitting at his desk, writing and writing. His stories were engrossing and his laugh, contagious. My heart goes out to you Lotte and Anina for you loss. Sending love to you at this time.
Rachel and I spent a weekend with Alan and Lotte last year, which was such a wonderful and significant moment for us. Alan's energy, wisdom and convictions, his relationship to Lotte and to the rest of the family, all are things that we will keep with us for the rest of our lives. All my thoughts are with Lotte and their children.
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I love you
![classic alan and lotte form 8 years ago](https://photo.forevermissed.com/lst/a/l/alan-richard-marcus/p/0832320_235x235_83fb94.jpg)
![DSC_2950](https://photo.forevermissed.com/lst/a/l/alan-richard-marcus/p/0832319_235x235_83fb94.jpg)
![DSC_2867](https://photo.forevermissed.com/lst/a/l/alan-richard-marcus/p/0832318_235x235_83fb94.jpg)
![DSC_2911](https://photo.forevermissed.com/lst/a/l/alan-richard-marcus/p/0832317_235x235_83fb94.jpg)
![Alan1](https://photo.forevermissed.com/lst/a/l/alan-richard-marcus/p/0817112_235x235_83fb94.jpg)
![Alan2](https://photo.forevermissed.com/lst/a/l/alan-richard-marcus/p/0817111_235x235_83fb94.jpg)
![Alan](https://photo.forevermissed.com/lst/a/l/alan-richard-marcus/p/0477967_235x235_83fb94.jpg)
![Alan&Nina](https://photo.forevermissed.com/lst/a/l/alan-richard-marcus/p/0477966_235x235_83fb94.jpg)
![Alan&Lotte_dancing. that is one cool couple](https://photo.forevermissed.com/lst/a/l/alan-richard-marcus/p/0477921_235x235_83fb94.jpg)
July 10th. This is my birthday card for you,Alan
I go through my days as a widow with our adult children and have figured this out :alan,how lucky, how miraculous that we found each other at metro goldwyn-mayer - what a random accident,how it might not have happened by a slightly changed timing or by passing each other by, how different both our lives could have been.. After all, we came from a different class of Jews, you were so American,I was then,so the Refugee..... but you took all that in and made me feel safe for the first time. Have I thanked you enough for that?Nor did I know when we married how truly talented y0u were in literature,music,& the changing issues involving social justice. As JerryCohen recently said:Alan had wit and he had integrity!And then, through marriage,through raising individually talented children, through working as partners (English onWheels, Natividad Medical Center,Family Medicine) , we became each other's echo - it doesnt get better than that and my deep love for you doesnt go away.Not a bit. Lotte
Obituary for Alan Richard Marcus
Alan Richard Marcus, 92 years old, whose life was dedicated to the arts and who was also a passionate advocate for social justice, passed away unexpectedly on May 5th at 5:25 AM. He suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage that came with no warning and no pain.
A Carmel Highlands resident since 1955, he was loved and is mourned by his wife and frequent collaborator of 63 years, psychologist Dr. Lotte Marcus, as well as his three adult children, Naomi Beth, Anina Ruth, and David Jonathan, son-in-law Colin Campbell, daughter-in-law Barbara Hall, three grandchildren, Gabriel Joseph, Ana Sofia and Jonathan Alan, brother-in-law Marvin Okanes, and two nephews, Jonathan and Paul Okanes.
A professional writer over the course of seventy years, Alan worked commercially in radio, television and film. In addition, he wrote four novels (one just recently published on Amazon.com), and many short stories, one of which won an Atlantic Monthly First Prize, and poetry. His fictional work received acclaim from Archibald MacLeish, Saul Bellow and Dorothy Parker, and was honored with a Guggenheim and a McDowell Colony fellowship. He wrote critical essays on politics, psychology, public policy, and multiple sclerosis. He was also a jazz pianist and over the years he composed both words and music for songs he performed with daughter Naomi and son David, with whom he recently composed a piano rag. He mentored and was passionate about helping artists to bring their work to fruition, though he could be a very acerbic critic at times.
Born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, Alan Marcus was the son of Philip Marcus and Rose Duwinsky, and brother to Barbara Marcus. Educated at Brown University, Alan served in the US Army in World War II, during the invasion of Normandy, the liberation of France, and the post-war occupation of Germany. The short stories that emerged from these experiences appeared first in the Atlantic Monthly magazine, culminating in the publication of his first novel, Straw to Make Brick, which is about the chaos and trauma of Germany immediately after the war.
He then became a staff writer for MGM Studios in Los Angeles, scripting half a dozen feature films and numerous other television dramas. His treatment titled “Wives Ahoy” became the basis for the hit ABC series, “Here Come the Brides.” This commercial work led to the writing of his much-praised second novel, Of Streets and Stars, a poetic description of the lives of those who work and live in the artificial Hollywood film world.
In the 1970’s, Alan, with his wife Lotte, founded AKTOS Inc. This educational company was dedicated to producing and teaching video dramas for English-As-A-Second-Language classrooms, which evoked and cut through cross-cultural dissonance in the Salinas Valley. He then turned his attention to health care policy, and published a series of articles in medical journals such as Family Medicine and Family Systems Medicine. His final years were spent supporting playwright Rick Foster’s non-profit organization, Duende, dedicated to bringing California history into children’s classrooms in Sonoma County. On the last day of his life, he was engrossed in editing a new novel, Promised Land, the third that he will have published on Amazon.
Our dear Alan will be cremated by the Mission Mortuary within the next two weeks, and a memorial service will be held on the Monterey Peninsula at some future point.
Our entire family, and especially Lotte, would gratefully appreciate any memories, photos, or thoughts of Alan that will help us in our grief. These may be posted at Alan’s memorial site, http://www.forevermissed.com/alan-richard-marcus/#about. Contributions in his memory may be made to your local library. If you would please let us know of any such library contributions through the memorial site, we, in turn, will ship Alan’s latest books to the library as our co-donation, as Alan was disconsolate about the state of reading in our culture.
"Sitting Shiva" by a Gentile
After my father died, I wondered where all that extraordinary "Chi", that brilliance, that force of intellect, that Energy....where did it go after the body that housed it went dark? I ask the same of Alan, whom I only knew as an old man, but so full of piss and vinegar, a know-it-all, passionate, compassionate outraged ranter and disturber of the peace and status quo. Then that disarming chuckle - and you knew he was enjoying every minute of it! He often told me that like him, I am a writer, and so I must write. But my writing would not do justice to Alan, and so I offer one of my favorites of his in his memory.
Manli *****************************************************
Sitting Shiva Among The Gentiles! ( The “Liberator”
and the “Survivor” visit Mercy High School ) ******************************************** Recently, my wife Lotte and myself yielded to an “ecumenical” impulse after Lotte got a call from a teacher at a plushCatholicBoarding Schoolfor High School girls inSouth San Francisco, who happened to hear about Lotte’s web-published Holocaust-related adventures from a friend and fellow teacher.
What Lotte and I experienced at Mercy High is partly something which perhaps might be subtitled: "Sitting Shiva for the Holocaust Among the Gentiles..." ( “Sitting Shiva” : a jewish group mourning ritual for the dead) . At one point, we all found ourselves reverently standing in the "Commemoration Room" (for the Holocaust) ---an elaborately decorated salon with (donated) survivor portraits of Holocaust Survivors -- or kids of Survivors, -- populated by invited overweight well-intentioned Jewish philanthropist-types , (many with multiple chins!,) bowing their heads to the earnest fervent remarks of Jim,, the teacher who founded the Holocaust Studies program at Mercy High ---incidentally, learning a lot of yiddish phrases along the way( i.e. "nash", "meshuganeh", "zoftig." )
Jim’s devotion to the memory of the Holocaust has produced an annual ceremony & colloquy , which draws scholars, witnesses, survivors, ecclesiastics , historians, free lance humanitarians, and many others equally dedicated, as he is, to the perpetuation of the Holocaust saga as both living monument, --and Cautionary Tale ---recalling yet again to those who may have forgotten what we as erstwhile inheritors of the Enlightenment and representatives of a technologically advanced age,-- nevertheless, --in the grip of our worst daemons, --- remain capable of. .
After Jim spoke, there was a chorus of "never agains!" by several octogenarian ex concentration camp inmates,. We were then requested to bow heads again to the prayers of a young (holocaust circuit-riding) reform Rabbi (wearing a high-style Macy's knitted yamulkeh!) who intoned an abbreviated version of the kaddish prayer for the dead beneath a large framed stone statuette of Mary Magdalene & baby Jesus nailed to a nearby wall. This statue he interpreted, as the unsurpassed symbol of "that mysterious eternal gift of mother love for which, let us now open our hearts together in prayer, -- ah-men." At which, one of the scheduled Main Speakers, -- a sly 79 yr old perky chipmunk of a Viennese jewish survivor, with a definite twinkle in his eye, (in current retirement from his previous 30 yr Professorship of French at UC Berkeley). gave me a mischievous wink. These days, he spends quite a bit of his time going around, making speeches about his own getaway from Vienna to Belgium, meanwhile peddling his own self-published memoir, "Breaking The Silence,"from out of the trunk of his car,--He finally couldn't help nudging me with a grin, surreptitiously nodding towards beatified Mary and Jesus on the wall while wearily shrugging his dissent from all the instant piety flooding the room, and simultaneously summing up the ironies he saw invoked in the Mother and Child statue by correctly identifying the two figures on the wall -- ---as “those two Jews”----(which they, inarguably, were !…)
It was the Main Event ,though, during which Lotte and I, were seated side by side on the stage in a huge auditorium, before a large audience of female teen-agers, all dressed in school uniforms,( plaid skirts and white blouses, their bursting bosoms barely contained by their prim outfits) many with pigtails saucily framing their open faces, ) which really got to me.
They sat, spellbound, whilst Lotte eloquently recited the poignant history of her own Getaway from Vienna to Shanghai, beginning with the goose-stepping entry of Nazi troops into her native city, Vienna in 1938, then going on to the trials of life under the Japanese Occupation in the international city of Shanghai, , and then, later, dodging bombs the Yanks began loosing on the city----a prelude to their own subsequent triumphal entry into Shanghai itself, after the Japanese surrendered to McArthur at the close of WW2. . And finally Lotte described the Wizard of Oz ( though temporary! )
Happy Ending to her saga, by bumping into me one day in the corridors of the Irving Thalberg bldng at MGM studios in Culver City, California, where she'd been hired as a german-speaking legal secretary (and where I --- -----in the guise of a neophyte screenwriter ----entertained myself with fantasies of blowing the whole place up ----including our loveable leader ---that famous human-orangutan ---- L.B. Mayer ------in a cloud of satisfying smithereens!..) ...
In our first upbeat encounter, ---- (I should mention that in those days Lotte used to wear pigtails nearly down to her waist )---- I noticed a radiant dirndl-wearing young woman lighting up the grayish corridors of the Thalberg building at MGM with her unnerving 1000 watt smile, itself often punctuated by frequent exclamations of happy surprise & wonderment at so much American peace & plenty all around her. --- Imagine : toilet paper available in seven different shades !, Nineteen different offerings of breakfast cereal for sale at the corner store ! And how about the festivity of the good humor man’s regular appearance , --his hurdy-gurdy daily playing from atop his white ice cream truck parked just outside the gates , summoning enthusiastic executive- types from their top floor offices , streams of actors, many still in makeup and costume, and flocks of female clerical workers --bursting from their secretarial cubicles –all joining in our spontaneous national ice-cream eating pastime, hollering their favorite flavors to Pedro, the wise-cracking vendor standing on the truck; s flatbed, who used to brandish sugar cones as if they were bandilleros
Everything seemed so wonderful to Lotte in those days, so marvelous, so fairy tale like, almost too miraculous to last. -.
Which, alas, turned out to be true. ! For , as she memorably recounted to the students, , -after 18 months or so, her Shangri La existence in LA abruptly collapsed; she began to suffer scarifying flashbacks , trembling suddenly at sudden noises, became unnerved at bright lights or unexpected movement,;, The sound of German spoken anywhere in her vicinity made her want to throw up, Worse, she started to dream of images she’d had --ostensbily ---long since put behind her… --Her ex-Viennese childhood chum & playmate. from Vienna, for instance --Maxerl, --returned, in dreams, as the ghostly goose-stepping Nazi he over night had turned into in 1938., bristling with polished boots & swastikas, shiny pistol in hand, proudly brandishing his brand new Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) badge! The hospital bed in which her dear father-- dying of cancer---lay, listening to a small bedside table radio, in dreams, kept inching closer & closer to the radio to which his ear was permanently glued, as it kept relaying exuberant bulletins of successive US military victories & advances against the Nazis .And eventually, ----(though by this time her father had died) ----it reported American bombs were falling nearer & nearer to Shanghai itself. Then the contorted swollen face of a 26 yr old Japanese army Sergeant named Khano Goya kept re-appearing. Sgt Goya had been appointed “official” Overseer of the improvised ghetto for “Stateless Refugees” which the Japanese had instigated, and into which Lotte and her family had been herded. The Sergeant like to call himself “King of the Jews” And in Lotte’s dreams, he began to loom more and more balefully, --- castigating Lotte for this or that (imaginary) infringement of Ghetto rules, & slapping her face in public (as had happened once in life ) only this time the face slapping kept repeating itself, , over and over again…It was as if a ferocious, (though soundless) hurricane ,-- a miniature invisible earthquake, -- had seized her -& wouldn’t let go –She felt herself assaulted night after night -- pulled & buffeted and tossed around like pieces of debris from a wrecked ship & wondering, ---through chattering lips and light-blinded eyes, ---when –if ever – these malevolent apparitions from the past , (which I tried to exorcise as best I could by holding her in my arms,) would, please God, finally stop and go away for good, once and for all !… ….
Well, stop they did! . In two years time , as she recounted to her Mercy High listeners, ,most of her worst symptoms ---legacy of her previously suppressed charades of terror & fear, --, the trembling , the stop-and-go shivers, the drum rolls of chattering teeth, --- -- began draining away as mysteriously as they’d begun. AFter the birth of our first child--- by which time we’d moved to Carmel , California, a paradisiacal village above the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles from LA ----Lotte was well on the way to recovery, putting down roots, in our new community , which today –after 50 odd years ---numbers her among its most distinguished Senior Citizens.. Yet the experience left deep fissures., From time to time, they can still occasionally, trigger a minor relapse. At Heathrow airport one time in England, for instance, just after we’d flown in from the States, she sat down and adamantly refused to join the long queue of international arrivals, being processed before a row of uniformed custom agents seated at their Union-Jack bedecked tables; perhaps it was the sudden crowding and chaos . Or the jumble & clash of foreign tongues. Or the felt presence of an arbitrary authority ----But it all seemed to produce an involuntary recoil in Lotte, , --a temporary paralysis of terror and fear . Indeed, it was only after I sat down and gently began pointing out to her that this time , in fact, she, had all the necessary attributes and bonafides,–---i.e. she had 1) a stamped & validated US passport; 2) ,a pocket full of US travelers checks;, 3), an international driving license . Gradually, after a few minutes, the black cloud enshrouding her began to lift; within a few more minutes she was able to pick up her bags, square her shoulders and follow me calmly through the vaudevillian maze of the usual customs folderol, , enduring the airport pandemonium roaring around us with determined calm. . .
Our individual experiences , of course, inevitably shape our response to whatever befalls us. . Perhaps that’s why, over the years, Lotte--and myself, too, as an ex-member of the U.S. military--engaged in the victorious tide-turning struggle against Hitler in 1944-45 ---have turned into steadfast backers of justice-mongering causes; we ran a Settlement house in Salinas, CA,, for instance, aimed at trying to secure–among other things--- better working conditions for farm workers; we lobbied for more equitable --& affordable -- health care for Seniors, we publicly decried our Government’s seeming affection , (to us, incomprehensible!) for foreign dictators, & we demonstrated against environmental degradation, while, at the same time, emphasizing the vital ( and statistically indisputable) link between economic –and political---democracy And Lotte remembered to remind her well-meaning (and plainly well fed!) students, that -even as she spoke ---- that very minute! ------hundreds of thousands of desperate fugitives were in flight all over the world;--- running from hunger, from exploitation, from peonage , from atrocious abuses of one kind or another etc. She pointed to the current crop of the expelled, the visa-less , the “ethnically cleansed”, ---daily expanding numbers of would-be escapees drawn from the widening ranks of political, ethnic, and economic “undesirables.” They were crowding into overloaded fishing boats, trudging through tropical forests, climbing icy mountain passes, braving attack dogs , brutal border guards, wayward brigands and cynical bounty hunters, --all in order to reach some tantalizing , idealized, desperately clung to dream of political and economic “ sanctuary”, where, , finally,( if they were lucky,) they might be able to feel safe enough to think of themselves as “free.”.
Notwithstanding this melancholy litany of flight and pursuit, Lotte managed to finish her contribution on an upbeat refrain. She sounded a “despite everything” note by quoting from “Anthem,” a haunting hymn-like song by the distinguished Canadian poet , singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen, which even though its main stanzas indict widespread deceit , fraud & cruelty in the world , nevertheless manages to tease a sort of saving grace out of the two line choruses –or “mantras” –Cohen has slyly inserted between the main stanzas , which hint of redemption & possibility,--- something Lotte’s own long life experience has eloquently confirmed in spades, (and which makes her own appearance at Mercy High , together with other Holocaust survivors, such a truly celebratory event.. )
(Lines from “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen)
“The birds they sing
At break of day
Start again
I hear them say
Don’t dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what has yet to be… Chorus:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect off-ering
there is a crack –a crack, --in everything…
That’s how the light comes in
That’s how the light comes in…..”
******************************************************************************
After Lotte finished speaking , she handed me the microphone. I stood , speechless, for a few seconds. ( According to the “official” brochure, I wasn’t even scheduled to be on the program!.) They’d seated me next to Lotte, I’d been told, - -- so that the impressionable audience of young girls ---already primed with more than their share of Holocaust horror tales ----would be able to see, with their own eyes, what an authentic American “liberator” (me!) looks like.
Not having prepared remarks , I decided ,first , to try to downplay the too easily invoked ( though duly enshrined in many countries ----–and richly endowed -- - -- globally thriving Worldwide Holocaust Remembrance Biz… Its automatic Golden Oldie mantra, , “Never Again ! -- ( though mocked, and profaned every time a new slaughter-of-innocents tale pops up somewhere in the press !)) ) is regularly repeated ---and earnestly prayed for (in the direction of heaven, let’s hope !) ,year after year after year.
I then went on to describe how one day , in April, `1945, near the war’s end, , I came upon a heart-stopping scene: wraithlike beings, skeletal, some scarcely breathing, cavernous of eye and bearing their death-sentence tattoos like lepers stigmata; they were jammed into bunks blanketed by what seemed cast-off rags or scraps of paper, listlessly bunched in sardine like clusters, oblivious to the stench around them (plus an occasional rotting corpse or two,) and by this time seemingly indifferent to the advanced decay of their coffinlike barracks as well –What I was looking at were the pajama-clad remnants of the walking dead at Buchenwald Concentration Camp!. .
Then, a month later, ---as one of only three German speaking members of a Mil Gov team assigned to Erlbach, a medium sized town, in the state of Bavaria , I found myself charged with sorting out the "bad" nazis" from the "nominal" ones. We military linguists were supplied with dozens of boxes of printed questionnaires ( ‘ fragebogen” in German ) which had been professionally prepared, so we were told, by “experts” in the psychological warfare section of the US Dept of State . .
Employing these carefully prepared instruments, , -- which consisted of long lists of queries involving political affiliation, party membership , attendance at rallies , contributions to Nazi groups, ratings of the nations leaders , attitudes towards the War , etc..( demanding mostly simple yes or no answers)--- ---- we’d soon be able , we were told, to “accurately” distinguish "toxic" nazis from "not so toxic” ones , and "borderline” ones from “reclaimable” ones, etc, ----& thus be ready to place those being queried on a statistically determined Nazi “complicity” graph,” which would help us in administering whatever legally mandated punishment –as set down by Mil Gov regulations, ----might eventually be decreed. .
To me, the whole questionnaire project was a sample of pure think-tank malarkey, cooked up by well paid (and doubtless well tenured! ) refugees from academia ! ….It was based, of course, on our national fixation on measurement ----our confidence that anything and everybody is capable of being accurately summed up statistically --- and hence can thus be rewardingly sliced, diced, digitized, and “explained.” !.....
–Meanwhile, my own knowledge of German had already made me privy, to a great deal of local political and social gossip, as well as a fair amount of Erlbach’s more familial—or “tribal” -- history--- Which meant I had already been able to glean a general sense of what actually had been occurring in the territory under our control (a unit of local government called a landkreis , comprising an area about the size of RI.) That’s why I quickly managed to “lose” my latest batch of think-tank fragebogen , into the nearest waste paper basket !. Which left me, of course, with nothing to officially “orient” myself with --..-no uniform “criteria” -- by which to assess degrees of“political innocence or complicity, though that was ---supposedly --part of our mission --- in regard to potential war crimes proceedings which might be inaugurated later on. . .
But my 22 yr old “intuition” proved no match for the infinite variety—and ambiguity --of individual responses among the people I was dealing with. I soon found out they’d been compelled to live their lives under constant scrutiny –and intimidation --by the local branch of the Nazi terror machine, an often invisible , yet increasingly threatening presence, which kept swelling –or metastasizing—(like some faulty sci-fi laboratory experiment gone wrong !) -to Orwellian size by the time Hitller’s vaingloriously proclaimed “Thousand Year Reich” --- was forced to surrender -- a mere dozen years after it was founded --in 1945.
I related to the students, too, how one night, I found myself assigned ,-- to my distaste , --- to lead a group of fellow GI’s surreptitiously “shadowing” a sallow-faced teen-ager, . back to his home in the working class district of the city, (where, we suspected, he’d been stock-piling US cigarettes, chocolates, soap, cereal, and other difficult-to-get items, filched from our Mil Gov storehouse. .) As it happened, these suspicions, turned out to be true., But all at once, I found myself witnessing an appalling: scene: my dear army buddies seemed to have abruptly morphed into replicas of that publicly caricatured figure , the “Ugly American”, made so notoriously infamous in Vietnam. They were taking out all their pent up frustrations, fear, loneliness, homesickness (and God knows what else,! )--, ..on the quivering 14 yr old "perpetrator ,” hand-cuffed in front of them, while his terrified family, --a war-widowed mama and his two younger sisters ,-- stood helplessly by, shaking with fear;; in a few minutes they’d practically destroyed the first floor of this family’s bungalow --- smashing cupboards, kicking open glass doors, throwing all kinds of stuff ----food, toiletries, cosmetics, clothing etc ---helter skelter all over the floor in a spontaneous orgy of self-righteous ”evidence-seeking” zeal. Preposterously, I found myself having to pull rank on them -- even brandish my favorite battle-scarred tommy gun in their faces, --so as to get my avenging, freaked-out, fellow countrymen to cease & desist their violent, illegal,-- unauthorized, --rampage ….
That night, though, I couldn’t sleep. I began to realize that I’d been forced to face into something I’d been trying ---for weeks --- to AVOID facing into : i.e. the demoralizing fact that it was the Occupation itself that was probably responsible for the kind of freak-out I’d just been describing: for weeks we’d been on the receiving end of anonymous threats & rising hostility (due, I think, to the occasional arbitrary, or heavy-handed way somebody from our office would treat a local Erlbach-er or functionary.
Word of this indiscretion would soon spread, stoking up the temperature of residual humiliation, still simmering among hard liners hunkered down behind their still- closed curtains and dead- bolted doors ; it was a humiliation worsened , too, by the bitterness of demobilized returning German war vets who would sit around, disconsolate , unable to find work to help feed their families… --- I’m talking here about the often unintentional blunders or psychological faux pas that we ourselves, at times, committed, contributing to a backlash among various segments in town . They sowed the seeds which often hardened attitudes on both sides. And --for our part,-- they threatened to endanger the stability ---or “mental health” –---of a number of our personnel, ----I’m referring here to decent, steadfast, veteran campaigners ,-- decoration-honored GI’s, with some of whom I’d been in various sticky situations from Normandy to the Rhineland. It wasn’t their fault, after all, that they’d ended up in Erlbach, forced to play roles they were wholly unequipped to play, --marooned in an obscure Bavarian township , unable to cope with contingencies and circumstances they’d had no training for & no context ,either, to help them evaluate, analyze or understand just what we –and they ----as Occupiers---might, sooner or later, be up against… …. … … ….
Next morning, to relieve my conscience , ,-- ---after the near impromptu mayhem I’d interrupted the night before, ---I trudged back to the working class part of town, lugging a few gifts , as penance –(or maybe as a kind of bribe for forgiveness from the widowed mother of the jailed teen-ager) -- offering my purchased and wrapped “apology” for the sudden brutality we’d inflicted on her 12 hours earlier ….
When the woman caught a glimpse of me, however, she turned & fled down a nearby street..., Who could blame her ? In her mind, I was no different than those who had trashed her home the night before,.. This was the exact moment , I think, that I decided, to hand in my resignation to Mil Gov & put in a request for demobilization , so I could reserve a seat as soon as possible on one of those military transport trains chugging North to the port of Brest in France from whence ships carrying GI's back home to the States were embarking daily .
I can remember, though, how astonished , --and moved ---I was at the agitation the recital of these just described events raised in many young listeners.. At one point, one of their teachers, --a young woman in her thirties, be-shawled, dark haired, & fierce- eyed, ---rose and began cross-examining me about torture. How harshly should we judge those who ordered torture to take place under Bush? -- How far up the chain of command should we go to pinpoint and hold accountable those who contrived to make such torture "legal?-“---,- How should one find one's way, -- one’s “ethical compass” -- in such seemingly out-of-control, heartless, jehad-threatening and increasingly violence-stricken times etc..? Excruciating questions, to which I admit I didn’t, ---and don’t---- have readily acceptable answers. (Who does ? )
Yet questions, somehow which forced me to acknowledge that our pilgrimage to Mercy High School ---- despite its accidental asides into humor (or “inter-faith-y” geniality )--- had inspired us to try to “transmogrify” Cohen’s mournful (musical) roll call of our collective and individual transgressions & betrayals i.e. exploitation, greed, deceit , war, mendacity, murder, self-aggrandizement , spiritual vainglory etc. into a kind of reverse spin communiqué, encoded with agendas of hope and healing ,(helped by clues hinted at –--between stanzas --by the poet himself! ) which reflects in some way our own lifelong attempts (however miniscule) to bind up wounds whenever & however we could. The song itself , in fact, amounts to a kind of instruction manual, suggesting implicit ways to smuggle a rehabilitative and restored humanity into the cracks and crevices of our common life, by summoning ---and embracing ----the genius of a rare human attribute,-- magnanimity,------something apt to be extolled say, by High School or College Graduation Day Speakers, but more likely to be lamented.--.within the handed-down treadmill routines of our (often unrecognized) uppmanship-paced days -- as largely quote Missing In Action end quote.!...Yet if one keeps looking long enough and hard enough ,---as Cohen himself has succeeded in doing ---- one may find it possible to locate unexpected opportunities for such rehabilitative break-throughs in familiar , though surprising , places ----- May this happen sooner rather than later----ojalla! ( And may it happen not very far from where you and I happen to be standing this very minute.!.)
As our Poet himself sings, in his hoarsely eloquent, ambiguous, & wise threnody of resignation & renewal.., “”
“ The wars, they will be fought again
The holy dove,
She will be
Bought again..
Bought and sold
And bought again..
Still, there’s a crack, --
a crack in everything””
that’s ’how the light comes in..
that’s how the light comes in
that’s how the light comes in….. (Amen!.)
--------------Alan M.