A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many

That's Eliot in The Wasteland and as I wander down to the rising and more-turbulant-than-usual Maumee, I think about the latest--my friend Dan Wittels, who died last week in Philadelphia,  at 56.  Again, I learned this from Mania, who daily fishes through the Philly obits, and has reeled in quite a few keepers lately.  Dan was mostly a painter, though he later dabbled in music and for a while ran an art hauling business.  I met him at Temple where we were both religion majors and taking DeMartino's Zen class.  Dan--he preferred Daniel then to complement his bearded and ascetic look--ended up transferring to The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and became a painter, though that part of his career that became public, briefly, in the 1970s, identified him as the painter who suffered from Zen sickness.   For several years we shared a large house in Germantown, along with two other painters, Mark and Vivien, and Fred who'd been a gymnast and then a dancer and then something of an environmental engineer.  Dan eventually married Vivien (divorced a few years later) and lived for decades in a moldy appartment just off South Street.   Always a painter, at times he took up body-building, psychoanalysis, drinking, philandering, hanging out at Dirty Frank's on Pine Street, the harmonica, and finally, dementia.  I wasn't around for the final two, which was probably for the best.  He claimed to be descended from the Vidals of Provencal, particularly Peire Vidal the 12th century troubador from Toulouse.  As well as from an old Sephardic Jewish family from Provence.  His mother owned an original Pissaro.  When Mania shouted out the news of his death, we both immediately thought of the time when Magda was about 10 weeks old and we were out with Dan & Mark & Janet & and a few others and were sittng on a sloping green outside the Armory at Drexel University after a city-wide art exhibit, the highlight of which was a dog frozen in a block of ice that dripped throughout the evening.....It was dusk and Magda was nursing vigorously and Dan couldn't take his eyes off the sight, as if it were as frought with meaning as a pieta and he began to stroke Magda's laboring cheeks in a way that calmed her frenzied feeding.  We were all a bit shocked--none more than Mania--but this led to a discussion about breast feeding.  And how much  he, Dan, longed to be breastfed.  It didn't happen that night, but let's hope that now he's somewhere, sucking away to his heart's content, taking in, from the most perfect and gorgeously full breast--through the straw of the nipple--all the mother's milk he can possibly get.

Dan Wittels, 1981 (our wedding, Henry Braun in the background)

(click to enlarge)

Comments

[john guzlowski]

Hi, Leonard, I was just passing through and was caught by the reference to Eliot. I like Eliot--there's true poetry there. "I had not thought Death had undone so many." It's one of my favorite quotes. I use it all the time, more so as I get older for obvious reasons. Undone? Such a curious word.

Let me also say that I was sorry to hear about your friend's death. I was listening to Philip Roth talking with Terry Gross on Fresh Air about his book Everyman (by the way, a great book), and he talked about the deaths of friends. He said something interesting. He said that we are prepared for the deaths of parents and grandparents but we aren't ever prepared for the deaths of friends. Our moms and dads die in their time, and we think yes, it's their time; but friends? We never think they will die. We think that they will be like us, living on and on, forever paddling our canoes and breathing the fine morning air.

[jocelyn Stein]

Dear Leonard,
I dont think we ever met--but Dan and I lived together before the Germantown house when he was a stiudent at the Academy. He was a friend and lover for many years on and off. The last time I was in contact with him he was already sick from drinking and very difficult to deal with. I kept praying he would rise out of the ashes...The other night I dreamt that my brother had died--I checked with my actual brother the next morning and he was ok--but this morning I woke up and thought of Dan and googled him and found your website mentioning his death. So it turned out that after all my karmic brother is now gone. I loved him. Thanks for your post so that people like myself could find out.
Joss

[myshkin2]

Joss, if you check back here--I think I did meet you with Dan, maybe even a few times. Dan always used to talk about you and always with a tone of awe and respect. I always thought that you were one of the most important people in his life...maybe even the love of his life...

[Mike Wittels]

Hi Leonard,

I was touched by your nice memory of Dan, who was my youngest brother. I've put together a site of some of his work, at http://www.DanWittels.com, as a small memorial. I am hoping that people who have any of his work or know others who do will contact me. I am interested in finding out the whereabouts of it all and reproducing as much of it as possible on the site.

I'd also like to post reminiscences about him. There's a link there that allows people to email such things to me and I hope they will. Would you mind a link to your blog entry on Dan?

Peace,

Mike Wittels

[Mike Wittels]

Somehow the URL for the Dan Wittels site got a comma attached to it by the posting program. So it doesn't work right. So here it is without the comma:
http://www.DanWittels.com

[Hal Shanis]

I appreciate the reminisces of Dan. There was a memorial service for Dan, when other memories were shared. I will try to recollect what I said and post it. Dan and I could talk forever, or sit and do nothing together and enjoy it. He said that he had a good life and it was time for him to go. He had clarity in his final days. He loved his friends. We loved him.

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