MAY 1990
For the second issue in a row, I'm going
to morn someone who died a year ago. When Corey died, I was able to write about it soon
because I was certain of my relationship with him. But when Jim Henson died on May 16,
1990, I didn't know what to do exactly. I was greatly depressed and felt like a friend had
died. I never met Jim Henson -- so why did I feel such strong grief?
David Fisher and I decided that one of the things we shared in our upbringings, long before we met each other, was Richard Scarry books. There was something about the intricacies of the Scarry cartoons that spurred us to be creative -- and to remember them years to come. We never mentioned Jim Henson, probably because it was too obvious.
I was born in 1965. Which put me at age three in 1968 when Sesame Street and the Children's Television Workshop really kicked into gear. I was there, in Omaha, watching channel 13 as Earnie ate cookies in Bert's bed, as the creatures of the planet Koosbean cooperated to eat a nectarine, learning what the number five meant in terms of cookies or snowballs. I even picked up a smidgeon of Spanish.
I feel that when Jim Henson died, I lost a teacher, a friend, someone I trusted. he taught me things, made me laugh, and let me know that the world is all one big neighborhood. There was a purity to Jim Henson. To the way he related to children and adults. He had a message that was timeless. Think of how different the world would be if George Bush knew that the world was one big neighborhood.
To be sure, some of the feelings that I
attribute to Jim Henson's death come from Corey's death. That purity was evident in both
of them. Through henson I learned that no matter what stupid political things may go on,
we are all neighbors and we should work to make the neighborhood a better place to live.
From Corey I learned that you could make the neighborhood a better place to live through
art and that political strategem, while they had their place, were not the only -- or even
the best -- approach.
I don't know what to make of the last 14 months. Death. War. George Bush. AIDS, Mapplethorpe, etc. It is most discouraging. Sometimes is it hard to imagine a world not constantly filled with political and social turmoil. It is hard to imagine a comfortable life. And when I get like that, i must remember Jim and Corey and what they taught me. If I were to combine the two it would go something like this:
The world is one big neighborhood that we can only beautify by example.
Wow.
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