![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanFor those who just walked into the theater, the very bad news is that John M. Ford has died. I type that and it simply makes no sense. Oddly, or perhaps not so, a lot of my recollections are in the same state. I think that might partly be shock, but mostly it's that Mike was his own footnotes, his own exegesis, his own backdrop. I believe it was said of Richard Feynman's teaching that, while he was explaining things to you, they made sense, but when he left, you were in the dark again. Mike's explanations, like his glorious and multilayered writing, carried their own light, but the more mutable, complex, and delicate levels of his humor and erudition, whether you were looking at the incandescent sun, a fireworks display, some flittering marshlights, or a lightless pit -- all of which he evoked, in many forms, many times -- the more delicate expressions of his nature, as I was saying, needed him to provide the backdrop. I used to fall out of my chair laughing at "Ask Dr. Mike" and be unable to recall it a week later, unless I saw Mike, when it would come back whole.
Only on subjects where I already knew what he was talking about have I whole memories. This is one of my favorites. He and I had made our separate ways by bus to see a performance of Cats Laughing, and had been promised a ride home with Will and Emma if we were willing to go the long way round to drop off the equipment, which was being stored in somebody's basement. We were perfectly willing to carry some of the equipment, too. It was stashed in the back of an ancient and rickety van. The driver told us sternly not to open both back doors, because the one on the right had a dicey hinge, and the door would fall off and be difficult to put back on.
Somebody approached with the obvious intention of opening that door. It was four in the morning. "Don't do that!" I cried. "The hinge will fall off, the hinge will fall off!" This nonsensical utterance did stop the person in question from doing anything while Mike explained the actual situation. I was covered with confusion and very much embarrassed. The only light was a distant street lamp, but I could see Mike's face take on the wicked and delighted expression that preceded a terrible joke. There was always something reminiscent in that expression, too, as if all the past terrible jokes and the ones not yet made were all briefly present in his head. "It's all right," he said. "It was just metonymy. Suspender for the thing suspended."
I laughed so much that I had to sit down in the street.
P.
Only on subjects where I already knew what he was talking about have I whole memories. This is one of my favorites. He and I had made our separate ways by bus to see a performance of Cats Laughing, and had been promised a ride home with Will and Emma if we were willing to go the long way round to drop off the equipment, which was being stored in somebody's basement. We were perfectly willing to carry some of the equipment, too. It was stashed in the back of an ancient and rickety van. The driver told us sternly not to open both back doors, because the one on the right had a dicey hinge, and the door would fall off and be difficult to put back on.
Somebody approached with the obvious intention of opening that door. It was four in the morning. "Don't do that!" I cried. "The hinge will fall off, the hinge will fall off!" This nonsensical utterance did stop the person in question from doing anything while Mike explained the actual situation. I was covered with confusion and very much embarrassed. The only light was a distant street lamp, but I could see Mike's face take on the wicked and delighted expression that preceded a terrible joke. There was always something reminiscent in that expression, too, as if all the past terrible jokes and the ones not yet made were all briefly present in his head. "It's all right," he said. "It was just metonymy. Suspender for the thing suspended."
I laughed so much that I had to sit down in the street.
P.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 06:55 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 06:34 pm (UTC)*hug*
no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 06:37 pm (UTC)That's exactly how I intend to remember him. Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 10:21 pm (UTC)for some slightly smilier photos than the Flickr ones.
P.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 06:50 pm (UTC)"Did you understand The Dubious Hills?"
"No, but I asked Mike Ford, and he says it makes sense."
no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 06:55 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 10:24 pm (UTC)See, this was how it was supposed to work. One wasn't supposed to tell him to his face, one was supposed to tell somebody who would pass it on, whatever one thought of the writing. Or so I surmise. I never quite got the hang of it, but somehow word got around, in both directions, mostly.
I know that now I should tell you something he said to me about you, but I can't corral it. But you know his way of starting somewhere past the assumption that one was on his level? It was that kind of remark, about The King's Peace.
P.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 09:09 pm (UTC)I got a very puzzled letter from Mark McGarry about that story, many years ago -- Mark's an awfully insightful reader, but he just couldn't make out anything about it, except maybe that it did have words in a row -- and a few hours after, I called him up and explained the story to him.
McGarry as shocked. "Okay," he said, "I was wrong about you. Thought you were the plodding one of us, hardworking and all, and I'm not criticizing; that's serving you well. But figuring that out . . . I'm, well, I'm impressed. How on Earth did you do it?"
"Easy," I said, "I called up Ford, asked him to explain it to me, and took careful notes."
no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 05:00 am (UTC)But then, I also want the Dr. Mike DVDs.
Feh.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 04:09 pm (UTC)P.
You and a lot of people
Date: 2006-09-29 03:01 am (UTC)I've already had someone contact me from the gaming arena who wants to know about his early years. Wild.
Re: You and a lot of people
Date: 2006-09-30 05:53 pm (UTC)You know about the LJ community for him, right? It's Nemesis_Draco.
P.
Re: You and a lot of people
Date: 2006-09-30 06:48 pm (UTC)nemesis_draco. Sorry.
P.
Re: You and a lot of people
Date: 2006-10-09 09:39 pm (UTC)Re: You and a lot of people
Date: 2006-09-30 11:50 pm (UTC)Re: You and a lot of people
Date: 2006-10-01 03:50 am (UTC)P.
Re: You and a lot of people
Date: 2006-09-30 05:56 pm (UTC)P.
Re: You and a lot of people
Date: 2006-09-30 11:52 pm (UTC)Re: You and a lot of people
Date: 2006-10-01 03:51 am (UTC)pddb at demesne dot com.
P.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-25 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-26 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 05:30 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 11:16 pm (UTC)The world's just not right without Mike. As Teresa said, "there's a hole in the universe."
(sigh)
I've cried and grieved, and there'll be more of both yet still.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-29 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-01 03:50 am (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-01 01:21 pm (UTC)