Bruce the Blog

Oh, come on. Please. Who among you doubted that that the New Orleans Saints Necessarily So would vanquish the Indianoplace Dolts? Well, you can hang your hangdog head in shame, justifiably so. The Saints just ain’t about to be denied.

This arguably was one of the bestest superbowl games in the annals of bestest superbowl games. You wanna fight about it, homie? Bring it on, baby boobie!

Oh, well, the NO Saints only won by two touchdowns, yes? You cain’t have ev’ry thin’, kin you?

Traffic came to a standstill in the center of Yorktown Heights Saturday at 1:00 p.m. It was for good reason. A saint was coming through town: Colin John Patrick Lampersberger. He was two years three months 15 days old when he lost his battle with neuroblastoma cancer last Tuesday.

“You have a family member who is a saint in heaven,” Father Tom Collins told Colin’s mother Christine, father Mark and siblings Kyle, Caleigh, Connor and Kieran during the funeral mass Saturday at St. Patrick’s Church, where there was hardly an empty seat, or a dry eye.

“Beyond question,” continued Father Collins, “a saint beholds the face of God, and beholds the glory of God.”

When a very young child’s life ends we are shockingly reminded of our own fragility. The sadness chills our bones and rends our hearts. You could see it in the stark, ashen faces of the mourners in the chapel. The outpouring for the Lampersbergers was so prodigious that it was the first time in anyone’s recollection that a wake was held inside the church, to better accommodate the endless stream of mourners.

Father Collins sermonized on suffering, saying it functions as a form of discipline to help us become better people. He cited such examples as 1960s Olympic track and field gold medalist Wilma Rudolph’s childhood bout with polio, and the seminal stuttering that afflicted British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill and thespian giant James Earl Jones, both known for their stentorian oratory skills.

Suffering, he elaborated, forces us to focus on those qualities within us that need refinement. Similarly, said the priest, it is precisely at those moments that our faith, for whatever reason, is weakening, that we need more faith. “We must learn how to give joy and happiness to others, and it will never run out. We must learn to give our life away.

“Biblically,” Father Collins summarized, “the call is to give. Hard as it may be, we will find what we are looking for.”

As Mark Lampersberger bravely eulogized the son he never will kiss and hug again, others in the pews empathized with his ineffable heartache, while this mourner, who had the same misfortune six years ago, sympathized. At the wake on Friday, New Year’s Day, my wife Elyse and I went to pay respects. She did know anyone in the family, and I only had met Mark Lampersberger, who a few years ago was kind enough to play in the annual tournament hosted by the foundation we run in memory of our son Harrison. Neither of us had the privilege of meeting Colin. That mattered not. It’s a profoundly sad fact of life — and death — that parents who have lost children find themselves members of the world’s most exclusive “club” that nobody ever wants to join. That’s just the way it is, and — for all the wrong reasons, of course — you instantly bond and become kindred spirits with others who are new to the “club.” We could not conceive of NOT paying condolences in person to such a family, especially losing a child at such a heart-breakingly tender age. Leaving the funeral Saturday, a woman I know rolled down her window to say to me, “You’re such a good egg for coming.” I replied, “I know what it’s like.”

Independent of each other — without even realizing it until when we left and compared notes — Elyse and I said to Mark and Christine at the wake, “There is nothing to say,” because there just isn’t. Nothing can be said to ease the pain. As Mark and I embraced, and he allowed as how I knew what he was going through, the emotions in both of us overflowed, as they must.

I told him Mark whatever he needs, I’m there. He said he will take me up on it, and I will make sure he does. We cannot help but be in full sympathy with each other.

I never met Colin, but that doesn’t stop my heart from breaking just the same for his family. And, yes, for my own as well. It all comes back. Nothing can stop it. As I am so very, very sorry to say the Lampersbergers must now know as well, losing a child is the epitome of endless sorrow that cannot be described or explained to anyone else. That’s not a statement of self-pity. It’s a cold, hard fact. Very cold. Very hard. Even sitting at my keyboard now, writing this, as Jackson Browne sang, here come those tears again.

In his eulogy, Mark called the past week “the darkest and saddest days of our lives.” As devout a family as the Lampersbergers are known to be, it should come as a surprise to nobody that the death of a two year-old “gentle soul,” who courageously endured “pain and suffering” for much of his brief life, would cause Mark to “question my faith” for the first time in his life.

Yet, thinking through what the answer must be to restore his faith, Mark concluded that “God might not have a specific plan, but he is there to support us, to guide us through what obstacles may come our way.” That is the thought process and words not only of a man of faith, but a person of profound dignity and inner strength.

Colin’s dad said he kept hearing the words to a poem by Mary Stevenson titled “Footprints in the Sand,” which allowed him to cope with Colin’s passing and which he recited in full:

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.

This bothered me because I noticed
that during the low periods of my life,
when I was suffering from
anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.

So I said to the Lord,
“You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during
the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one
set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most,
you have not been there for me?”

The Lord replied,
“The times when you have
seen only one set of footprints in the sand,
is when I carried you.”

Mary Stevenson

Mark Lampersberger went on to celebrate his son as“positive and fighting, a true shining star, and example of how we should all strive to improve our lives.” He called Colin the “true driving force behind the selfless community” of relatives, friends, neighbors – a remarkable extended family – who have gone to protean lengths to sustain Colin and his family as best they can.

As happens in extraordinary circumstances such as this, Mark said he’s been told by others that Colin’s plight and his inspiring fortitude gave them reason to “re-examine and change their lives.”

“Colin’s message is loud and clear,” said Mark. “The way to a happy life is a happy family. My dearest Colin, keep shining your light on us.” He will, Mark. He’s been beatified. Besides, shining a light on us is what saints do. God blessed you all.

To leave a message for the Lampersbergers, or make a donation, go to http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/colinclub.

Last weekend, I took in two documentaries. That expression ironically used to mean the opposite of today’s context. Taking in a movie meant going OUT to a theater. It was figurative. Now it’s literal. We take movies into our home, either fed to us by a digital pipe or from a storefront or, for the growing legion of Netflixers, taken in from the mailbox.

There was an unexpected link between the two non-fiction films I witnessed, really an oblique inflection point, as it were.

First, I viewed “Sketches of Frank Gehry by Sydney Pollack,” an absorbing, stimulating, leisurely look at the foremost — certainly most celebrated at least — architect of our time. His off-kilter perspective is what informs the eye-catching profiles and postures of his eccentric structures, epitomized by Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, both of which receive lingering attention and admiration in Pollack’s loving canvas of his longtime boon buddy.

Inevitably, there are those — or one, at least, in this depiction — who fairly luxuriate in their contrarian cove. That would be Hal Foster, an academic martinet by way of Princeton University whose cavils about Gehry are thoroughly unconvincing. He even allows that he feels somebody has to take an unapproving point of view, yet his expression of thought lacks clarity; it is, in fact, downright muddy and borders on circumlocution. He gropes for reasons to dislike Gehry’s work, at one point dripping disdain for what he sees as a “brand.” As if establishing such indelible credentials is to be bemoaned. Professor Foster’s brand of criticism is flaccid and mediocre.

I was able to put my finger on what bothered me about his arch negativity toward Gehry’s artistry when I turned to the second documentary in my vestpocket film festival. It is an episode in PBS’s Independent Lens series, “Subtitles Not Necessary: Laszlo and Vilmos,” profiling a pair of Hungarian emigres who escaped the Eastern European country’s 1956 revolution to work their way into legendary and beloved Hollywood cinematographers whose visions easily can be considered “brands.” From Laszlo Kovacs’s Easy Rider to Vilmos Szigmond’s Oscar-winning work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, they left indelible signatures on celluloid.

I had the pleasure of interviewing the late Laszlo Kovacs on stage at a digital media convention in Burbank, California,several years ago, and he was fully engaging and full of great anecdotes. In fact, I recall during the run-through realizing I’d have my hands full keeping us both on schedule and squeezing in all my questions. He was as irrepressible a storyteller on stage as much as he was on film.

During the segment on Close Encounters, famed film composer John Williams credits Szigmond’s inspired use of light to depict the alien spaceship alighting outside a home with making the audience feel “we don’t need to be fearful of what we don’t know.”

That remark took me back to Professor Foster’s rather bumptious efforts to ground Gehry into gruel. He doesn’t understand the architect’s unprecedented, iconoclastic style, therefore he doesn’t like it, therefore it cannot possibly be good.

In the sense of John Williams’s words, Foster fears what Gehry does for he doesn’t get where it comes from and believes it deconstructs all that is artful and affirming about architecture. His craven inability to embrace that which he doesn’t understand might even be deemed a highly artistic form of bigotry, but bigotry all the same.

Then again, what does that make me for not wanting to accept Professor Foster’s unacceptance of Frank Gehry’s over-the-top, outsize sensibility that pushes the classical borders of architecture into outer space? Call me Bruce the Bigot. It will take its place of honor among many other names I’ve been called. I can deal.

“And I can’t stay away cuz you’re a radio wave
and you always seem to be transmiting to my brain.”

Those are the words of the late Justin Veatch, from his haunting and contagious song ESRT Page 14. Justin, who passed away September 2008, was a fiercely talented and original songwriter/performer whose muse is alive and well through a CD and other formats his dad Jeffrey is shepherding.

Here is a description of the CD from www.thejustinveatchfund.org.

Justin’s presence permeated the debut of First Fridays Cafe at Yorktown Teen Center on Dec. 4, where some nine individuals or groups of students strutted their stuff on guitar, drums, keyboard and even violin. The project is a joint venture of The Justin Veatch Fund and Yorktown Teen Center.

Elyse and I were so taken with the merit of this debut program we pledged a $200 donation and are in talks with Yorktown Teen Center President Helena Rodriguez to make a more substantial donation through our Harrison Apar Field of Dreams Foundation in the next few weeks.

The first First Fridays Cafe Open Mike Night got off to a rousing start Friday, thanks both to the impressive lineup of budding talent and the turnout of their cohort, with more than 50 in the audience, listening with enthusiasm, politeness and appreciation for being entertained by the self-expression of their peers.

I was fortunate to catch several of the acts, including Esteban Rivera, Bea Nauman and Andrew Sacher. Each was superb and unique in their musical skills.

Esteban Rivera is a troubador talent whose strong stage presence is confident and charismatic. You can sample his wares at myspace.com/estebanriveramusic.

Jeff Veatch pointed out to me that the hand-painted backdrop scrims hanging behind the performance space were meant to “simulate CBGBs,” the counter-cultural ’70s-era Greenwich Village mecca where rock bands such as The Ramones and Talking Heads held forth. I recently attended a CD-release party on the site of CBGBs, now a rock ‘n’ roll art gallery named Morrison Hotel in tribute to The Doors’ ringleader.

Bea Nauman contributed a lovely rendition of “Adelaide” on the violin, to an impressively quiet and rapt room who gave her appreciative applause. These are students who like their tuneful fun, but also display a sophistication in their wide musical embrace.

The closing act was Andrew Sacher and friends, all students at SUNY Purchase. He won Yorktown’s Battle of the Bands when he was in high school and donates all the monies he makes from gigs to charities. His drummer Stephen Graniero was the first recipient of the Justin Veatch Fund Scholarship this past June at Yorktown High School. Check him out at myspace.com/andrewsacher.

Yorktown Teen Center president Helena Rodriquez told me a couple of the evening’s performers will be asked to perform in behalf of the Teen Center on December 20 as part of the Jefferson Valley Mall holiday entertainment. In addition to donations from board members of Yorktown Teen Center, Panera and the Jefferson Valley chocolatier contributed to the First Fridays Cafe.

The next Open Mike Night at Yorktown Cultural Community Center Nutrition Room is Friday, January 8, 2010, from 6:30-9:00p. To sign up for a shot at Mr. Mike, contact yorktownteencenter@gmail.com. Please note it is “First come, first serve” and maximum set time is 15 minutes. After all, Andy Warhol said so — a long time ago.