Ambiance

Great Tributes to J [UPDATED]

December 2, 2010 at 10:05 am (By Amba)

Just in case you haven’t seen them:

by True Ancestor (my brother David)

by The Love Goddess (my friend Dalma Heyn)

by Head Butler (J’s old friend Jesse Kornbluth) (follow the link within for more)

by Stuck in the ’80s (St. Petersburg Times blogger Steve Spears)

by Dreidel Hustler (virtual friend Brian Abrams, formerly of Heeb magazine, who wanted to declare J an “Honorary Heeb.”  Which he was, anyway.)

The last two focus on J’s cameo of pop-culture immortality in Trading Places; there is even a clip.  (Proof that we can’t direct our own legacy.  What I’m going to be remembered for is this.)

I will add any others that turn up and front-page this post for a day or two each time.

The very friend who introduced us over cats writes to me:

Before a memorial gathering, isn’t it pushing on an open door to get an obit of Jacques printed in the NYT?  He is pure Big Apple legend.  And of course as photogenic as Nicole Kidman – in his own way.  The snag is you would have to write it. … Do you have it in you to do this so close out?  It does not have to be magnificent.  As your brother proved, the heart will tell the story.

I’m not sure I have it in me just yet, and if too early for me it must already be too late for the NYT; doesn’t an obit have to be news?

Meanwhile, I’m on the way to pick up his ashes.  When I called the mortuary, I was a bit staggered by a cheery, “He’s ready!”

Ready when you are, C.M.

UPDATE: From the Kyokushin Karate community in his birthland of Romania, old friends in Bucuresti, Sibiu, and Tirgu Mures.  I could almost translate them, but not quite.