I just read an interview of Roger Ebert. Surgeries have finally removed his cancer, but left him unable to eat or drink. Or talk. He called it a gift from the gods – all his desires had been replaced by all his memories of satiety.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/01/nil_by_mouth.html
I froze, unsatisfied with my memories, undone by my own terrors, running mental slide shows of the Roger I once knew, a man incapable of containing his passions, a whirlwind, a mind unfamiliar with the concept of abstinence.
Roger and I went to the same college. He was already one of the elite, already published and traveled and destined for things far outside a Midwestern campus. When our paths crossed, he was editor of the school newspaper and I was his drama critic. (He was very good at this job, I was infinitely less so, but that’s beside the point.)
What I knew then, what I remember now is his passion. A passion for words mostly, but for damn near everything else, too.
My routine was to see a play on campus, then rush to the newsroom to churn out a review before the paper went to press. That gave me about an hour at most, to deliver my art on demand. My date de noir would purse her mouth and prink, tapping her little foot to mark her impatience. “Maybe I should just go home, we can meet next week. Or something….”
I was never good about choosing between art and love. “No, no, I’m almost done here, just a few (hundred) words to go. Wait, wait….”
Invariably, one rewrite from perfection, Roger would burst into the room, larger than the room, louder than the room. And leap onto the communal “desk” that spanned from door to wall, announcing that everyone’s copy was late, that the typesetters were tired of waiting and, louder still, that Thomas Wolfe was the finest writer who ever lived, Shakespeare and Proust be damned.
“A poem, a leaf, a door,” he’d begin, words flowing from memory, filling the space like maple syrup of the mind. It mesmerized the lot of us on Monday. By Wednesday we still paid some attention. At Friday’s end, our ears were closed and we typed on.
If Roger saw, he’d jar us back. Feet solidly planted in Wolfe, he’d leap from the gospels of Goddard and Fellini to Bergman and Kubrick, lunge from film to Pound and Elliot, Mann and Joyce, from the best pizza in town to the little dive that had the richest barbecue….
What he loved the most was goading anyone into argument. He would lay trails of verbal crumbs to trap us. “No, I don’t’ think so…” someone would say.
Roger would light up, puff up, pounce up, joyous to find a worthy sparring mate. His words were weapons to shred any opponent who failed to meet him on even ground. Bruce Lee in battle with the knowledge ninjas.
I’m sure Roger still fights the same battles, though the vocals are gone. Ever the loud sort, demanding to own the room, he now settles for owning the page. I’m glad he writes that he’s content with it.
Of course Roger was (and is) incredibly talented. Smart, too, with a prodigious memory (and enough bluster to cover any lapses). Essential skills for success, but that’s not why I remember him. Or why I treasure his books, his reviews, his thoughts.
It’s the passion that endures. Passion.
Passion makes movies worth seeing. Passion turns painting into art, gold into treasure, writing into literature. Passion makes any little thing worth everything. Passion.
When I look at movies now, my memories of Roger have become my rule of thumb. I ask myself, is this film pounce-worthy? Would it coax a tirade from anyone, make poets leap to desktops, raise voices in delight, in dissension, in discussion. Does the artist’s passion make me want to scream, strut, sing, slide their words around my mouth like honey….
If not, I don’t have room for it. I’m far too busy thinking of the way things should be. Thanks for that, Roger.
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