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Eulogies to Joel |
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Simon Loekle |
If there was ever something to look forward to during the omnipresent fundraisers here, it was the arrival of Joel Greenberg: the ring of the elevator bell Saturday morning, around five — ah, that must be Joel. His dedication was inspiring, I believe about 18 years all told — back in 1987, BAI was located on Eighth Avenue, and the station maintained control of the lift overnight; sometimes I’d surprise him and make the run myself. When I spoke of him on the air, I used to call him the “Jolly Scientist” — but after some years, he admitted the name embarrassed him, because he was really “no more than a glorified lab technician” and after a while I took to calling him the Jolly Lexicographer instead, which seemed to please him, and he also seemed proud to be associated with Sam Johnson, who defined lexicographer as “a harmless drudge.” Joel was no drudge, and no mere lab technician. He was generous, and genuinely helpful, and generally good-tempered — qualities that I must admit are rare — and not just at WBAI. I called him “lexicographer” because of the enormous pleasure he found in his CD Rom Second Edition Oxford English Dictionary, and many’s the time I called him for citations more recent than my bound edition offered.Joel was probably the worst speller I have known, and regular perusal of the OED did not rub off on him. But his bad spelling did not affect his love for reading — perhaps it’s no wonder he became a Waker, a devoted reader of Finnegans Wake, for surely the Wake demonstrates that a great book does not depend on “proper” spelling. We did not talk exclusively about the Wake, but that’s because we knew that anything we might speak of was included in the Wake. His generosity was more than the contribution he made of time and money to the station, it’s present in his enjoyment of the Wake, his desire to share the Wake’s abundance. The abundance of opera pleased him too, especially Wagner, and the abundance of baseball, and his belovéd Yankees. (If I can be said to follow any sport, it would be baseball and the Yankees — in large part because of Joel’s joy.) Though I teased Joel about his poor spelling (something he had in common with Yeats), I came to see it as an element of his particular literary pleasure, which was not bookish (in the sense of coveting special editions or cataloguing printer’s errors) but far more fundamental: receiving the uttered word. Opera is a rather sophisticated example, and a non-academic lecture in a saloon a trivial one, but each offers a kind of community occasion, and Joel kept many such social engagements, from membership in the Finnegans Wake Society to season tickets to the Met, to Stand Up Academy, where he functioned as my right hand man, offering a booster shot of confidence and enthusiasm. On the very few occasions where a prior engagement prevented his attending, I missed him terribly. I guess I must get used to it. |
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Murray
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Let's call it grief - but is it really grief? We can't use the same term for the death of a loved one, for a close friend, for an associate, for an acquaintance -- or to believe John Donne, the death of just anyone does not diminish me. Let us not trivialize or dilute the concept -- for most of us it's a shock of disappointment, a shock that leads not to anger but to sadness. The death of Joel is like an operation for the ripping
out of an organ without anaesthesia -- we do not mourn the organ, but
feel pain and sorrow for ourselves -- an unprepared hurt. This is how
it should be -- we must come to terms with the death - Joel already has. But there is always the dark side: his wonderful volunteer
work at WBAI, the countless hours he spent answering the phones, engineering
the Opera broadcasts and other tasks which lightened the burden of others.
The dark side? a waste of precious hours when he could have been studying
Finnegans Wake. Speaking of wasting time he was also an avid Yankee fan.
I cannot describe that as a dark side of Joel's interest, since each
dark side must have a light and I just can't see one there. At our last Finnegan's Wake meeting a question arose on a scientific matter -- we usually deferred to Joel on those. No one had an answer and someone wailed, Joel, where are you? now when we need you? We didn't know then that he had died the night before. . . . Joel, where are you? now when we need you?
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Murray & |
Jacob von Uexkll developed a theory of cognitive biology based on
the concept of the ''umwelt'' - loosely defined as the actual world as
experienced by a species. Thus the world of the tick is vastly different
from that of a fish. The world view of
each species is determined from its physical and mental limitations acting as
a
constraint on what the species can experience. Although von Uexkll's theory
stopped at the species level, there is no reason why we cannot extend it to a
more The world of the criminal is certainly different from that of the choir-master. Although apparently noticing the same persons, the street scene viewed by the detective -- who sees pimps, prostitutes, wise guys and would-be burglars -- registers on most of us as the normal mix of ordinary New Yorkers. There is, I assume, one basic difference between the human species as opposed to the tick or fish regarding this world view; it is that we have -- to a greater or lessor extent - many world views; they are superimposed, one on the other, making one''s life both wondrous and ponderous at the same time. Some of us lead not a more complicated existence (although some do) but actually inhabit many worlds. Joel was a man of many worlds. I am not speaking of many interests -- that on its own would not constitute a 'world'. There must be a depth of interest, understanding and involvement to gain entrance to that 'umwelt'. Many persons love music and opera; few non- professional musicians pursue such an interest with the verve and intensity of Joel: from his vast knowledge of things Wagnerian to learning the techniques of conducting. I could, of course, go on to the many fields which Joel dominated and in fact inhabited. It was this musical aspect of Joel that started my mind ranging over many possibilities and landing, I believe, on a perfect image for him, one created by W.S. Gilbert of Gilbert & Sullivan fame and one our friend would heartily approve of: Joel was none other than the . . . . . . very model of a modern Major-General.
It would be no exaggeration or braggadocio, with which we would all agree,
if he
We certainly recognize our friend - it's as if Gilbert was thinking
of Joel. I would like to think that Joel has just moved to a richer more exciting world it was a temptation and an experiment he just could not resist. |
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