Brian Stonehill

[jporter]

Out to lunch for nearly a week...too busy even to lurk- I return to find
285 messages, and buried early on: Brian Stonehill dead at age forty-three.
Fuck.

Out for a jog, the moon hangs full. It's hot, humid, twilight and where's
Brian tonight? I choose a pace I could maintain forever, a meditative pace,
and let the sweat slowly begin to soak my T, waiting for Brian to come
issuing into my belly-mind...

Before, I had rummaged through the cyber-attic searching for some private
messages from Brian, written in response to some of my earliest posts, when
he was more active on the list, to which he will never post again. I
couldn't find them, maybe in some out of the way file, maybe erased to make
room for something else, but I remember they were always kind and
encouraging, sometimes even enthusiastic. Brian was a fan of sorts I
suddenly realize, embarrassed, now that he is dead. And I was posting as
much for his approval as anything else. Pynchon was an excuse.

A new take on Pynchon, then, probably already obvious to everyone: an
excuse to seek recognition by and approval from people like Brian. Brian, a
surrogate Pynchon for me, was someone who could validate the excitement I
felt when I read the works of Pynchon, and riffed on them, here, in this
part social, part performance, part classroom, part fantasy space. Brian,
younger than me, someone I looked up to and admired, is dead. By not
publicizing himself, Pynchon has given people like Brian a special
significance in the lives of people like me, and Brian filled that role
better than anyone. Brian appreciated that I appreciated, and reflected it
back. We shared an appreciation of Pynchon, but Brian had let me know that
he appreciated me, too, and that felt good.

Pynchon, oblivious of course, to all the specifics of this coming together
of minds and souls- not just between me and Brian, but between all of us,
any of us who use Pynchon for all his art is worth, to come together- here,
and in other spaces, Pynchon, where are you on this night that I have
discovered that Brian is dead?  Pynchon, your "..fancy cannot cheat so
well, As she is famed to do, dececiving elf."

So from Dunne:

        Death be not proud, though some have called thee
        Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
        For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
        Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
        From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
        Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
        And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
        Rest of their bones and soules deliverie.
        Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desparate men,
        And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
        And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
        and better than thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
        One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
        And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.


Oh yea, death, and one more thing- from me and Brian: Fuck Off.

jody, with middle finger extended.