I’ve always believed that to know someone truly you
must first sit with them and engage in easy free-flowing conversation for many
hours. Booze may be involved but it need not be. Some need prompting, some
require encouragement, but most of us have an aching desire to communicate – and
perhaps that’s why we spend as much time as we do writing letters, novels, and adding
those meaningless little status updates on (anti)social media.
Perhaps there’s this deep primeval desire to
communicate. We are the modern-day cave painters who instead of illustrating bison
in smears of blood and urine tap photo montages on our Samsung A637s.
But sometimes we must speak with a real human being in
actual time. The fear is overwhelming. Conversation is a strange dance. Certain
steps must be learned, boundaries tested, and areas avoided. With both the cha
cha and the chit chat there’s an almost tangible shared respect at play. You
can step on their toes once or twice but don’t make a habit of it.
Yes, we must be considerate of our partner yet be
challenging enough to create the edge of conflict and danger required for total
engagement. From an early age our parents and guardians taught us not to talk
with strangers. We tend not to dance with them neither.
Collin Piprill, who died at the age of 76, a few days
ago was no stranger and almost certainly not much of a dancer. He was, however,
a wonderful conversationalist blessed with a sharp acidic wit, intelligence, solid
comedic timing, and more than a handful of original ideas. He wasn’t, as one
poster commented on social media, a jolly person always in a good mood. Often his moods were darker than a politician’s
heart. The first ten minutes or so of conversation would often be a venting period, but he’d always brighten
up as the opportunity to interject humor into the proceedings arose.
He knew how to balance a conversation. Like most
writers, small talk bothered Collin greatly. He was often not interested in
sharing pleasantries. I recall once arriving for our usual meeting and without
even greeting the older man simply asking him “what’s the difference between guilt
and shame?” Right of the bat an intense discussion comparing the western concept of guilt and the eastern
shame phenomenon ensued. It’s rare to find someone who can just pick up a
subject and run with it without stamping their identity all over it.
Collin laughed a lot. Collin believed
in the actual existence of a muse in a Greek mythological sense. His favorite books were The Gingerman by J.P Donleavy, Under the Volcano by Malcom Lowry, and Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace. A mutual friend Kevin Cummings had set up that first
meeting with Collin, and we remained in contact on a regular basis ever since. He bought
me a French edition of one of Bukowski's from Paris. I returned this with a copy of The Sopranos by Alan Warner that I had (somehow) had signed in my
collection. We were generations apart yet
bonded over wine and literature, philosophy, jokes, and stories - he was the
kind of man who had good answers to big questions.
Recently Collin withdrew from social media and we
continued our correspondence by email. I set up a meeting at the new Hemingway’s
restaurant on soi 11 around a month ago. The large man bounded into the bar with his usual swagger. We spoke of new
projects – his in literature and mine in film. We were both two writers, as before, waiting for the next lucky break.
I have neither guilt nor shame, just
a little sadness that those big questions will need to be answered by others
now. Collin has passed into the writer's lounge in the sky.
Save me a spot right under the clock.
words: J.D. Strange pictures: Eric Nelson and J.D. Strange.
