Remembering
I believe that nothing is truly gone until the last person forgets it. As long as someone remembers, it still exists in the present. This holds for things, but especially for people.
While a number of people have mentioned the passing of Steve Gilliard last year, and rightfully so, another early pioneer and great writer was lost at too young an age, Jim Capozzola of The Rittenhouse Review. Susie Madrak wrote a nice remembrance of her friend and fellow Philadelphian last summer, when he died from a lack of health insurance at a critical moment in his illness, another victim of the lack of universal health care in the US.
While Steve attacked head-on, Jim was more cut-and-thrust, dissecting and exposing fraud with a touch of humor. Both are missed but neither is forgotten.
8 comments
i originally found that post when i was researching just how bad the insurance companies are.
Steve wrote like a journalist, but Jim was an essayist.
He had coverage at the end, but his condition worsened as he was waiting for it. A few doctor’s visits and some medication and he would have probably beat it. but it came too late.
Capozzola once expressed a fantasy of playing duets with, of all the fine musicians in the blogosphere, retired professional oboist Mad Kane. I do hope he got his wish before he passed away.
Oboe? I would have thought something in the brass section.
He was a good writer and there are too few in the world.
I may not be correct in remembering Jim as a pianist, but I don’t think he was an oboist. Mad Kane, OTOH, was definitely a professional oboist in her earlier days, and performed in at least one large city symphony orchestra, though I don’t remember which. (I guess that lends credence to the old theory that long-term playing of oboe makes one Mad.) In any case, Philadelphia is not that far from New York City; I hope Capozzola realized his hope of a reading session with her before he passed away.
I agree about his writing… and about the scarcity of good writers.
I should have been clearer – I would have thought that Mad Kane would be a better fit with something loud and brassy.
Jim knew how to play 6-8 different instruments, but I’d be hard pressed to name them all. However, no piccolo was involved. That I do know.
His writing was excellence exercised – sharp, taut, precise, and very smart. I miss that. And him.
And so we remember, to be sure that others learn of him.