Naomi Bishop at Gordon Bishop's memorial service--flowers sent by Megawati and Gus Door

Gordon Bishop's Miniatures Samples

Eulogy

Gordon Bishop

Eulogy to my dad:

This quote encompasses how he lived his life:

“The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away and never, never to forget.”

I don’t attempt to be able to express the spectrum of emotions I feel right now because words cannot possibly suffice. He wasn’t only my dad—he was my mentor, the apple of my eye, my mom, my son, but, most of all, my best friend all wrapped into one person. Ever since Mama died, we became a team—learning from each other, figuring out our roles, tugging at the strings. I feel lucky to have had the enchanting, alchemic time we spent together—in central park, museums, the 3 a.m. walks he’d take me on in strange cities like Jogjakarta, Bali, Venice, Madrid, Jakarta, poetry readings, dancing to music together, the intense battles of scrabble, the notes he’d leave me in the bathroom mirror written in toothpaste saying “I love you, honey. Please memorize just a few words from the dictionary today,” the late night conversations and stories about life and travel and love and nonsense. He was a true character and iconoclast—in every sense of the word: full of contradiction, eclectic, impulsive, entrepreneurial, idiosyncratic, genius, magnetic, frenetic, rebellious yet traditional—hard to pin down. His passions ranged wide—from activism, to art projects, to spurts of fascinations with little things: for months at a time he’d be fixated on something random like cabinet of wonders, blue eyeshadow, odd gadgets, magical things, or maps, or eating the same dish every night for two months in a row, getting sick of it and then repeating the cycle all over again with something else.

He had an encyclopedic mind highlighted with other-worldly stories. I always admired how he could have a 30 minute conversation about anything with anyone—he didn’t believe in barriers between people like most do. I just wish I had his brain—I wish I could download all the experiences he had and all the things he knew. When I think of him, I see all of his faces—a prep-school boy on the upper west side playing football, a dashing politico of the 60’s, falling in love in legendary ways, being immersed in Indonesian culture, and being my dad in New York.

Ours was a relationship filled with extreme emotion, surrealism and discovery. It was much like a psychedelic trip. They say people learn to cope from their parents… Well, my dad certainly pursued beauty to its lair and loved life more than anyone, even when faced with such adversity, unspeakable injuries and dehumanizing tragedies. Until his last days, when he was enervated, withered into a shade, falling uncontrollably like a leaf swept by the wind, he rolled his eye, showed his generous spirit and never lost his sense of humor. Just a few days ago, there he was in his hospital bed overlooking central park encouraging laughter, saying “Eh, Takeiteasy, Molto grazie ” under his oxygen mask.

It took me a long time for me to navigate the map and to understand the layers of his strata, but taking care of him in the last month of his life, sleeping in the hospital, learning how to treat his wounds, move him, soothe him, being his nurse along with Anna day in, day out, seeing him go through every level of consciousness, getting busted for having parties in his hospital room and smoking his pipe there—was ironically the most enjoyable and fun experience of my life. How does someone make that fun? He recently said “You know, Naom… I’ve always fantasized of a Swiss family Robinson daughter… and never had that. But now, I finally do. We’re the Swiss Family Shnakenau and we make the best Shneckens in town.”

To be honest, I always lived in fear of regret overwhelming me and killing after he died, because we were so intimate and he was my everything—but it’s strange and relieving to say that I don’t regret a thing—I even love every fight we had. To know him was to love him, to be a changed person, to lust life to a new degree—as I’ve heard time and time again from his friends and as I saw at his 60^th birthday party—he brought together a crowd so eclectic and a fantasy world so rich only he could manifest. His greatest gift to me, other than his stories, courage and limitless curiosity, is that he gave me a permanent childhood.

Our goodbye was beautiful, I spoke to him and lay in bed with him until he died in my arms, holding hands and clutching the magic wand he loved. The night before his death he said “You’re a magnificent klutz, Naomi… do you mind coming into bed with me for just a minute?” I did, and sure enough he said, “Okay, that’s enough. C’mon, Naomi. C’mon. I need to sleep,” and shooed me away. Typical, but so endearing. He had the biggest heart, expressed his love in the most unique, enraging ways and opened my eyes to depths of life I would have otherwise overlooked.

Seeing the process of his death and being there for it was heartbreaking, but strangely cathartic. I just hope he’s in a good place now, where he’ll have two legs, two eyes and be surrounded by sodden ruins, tropical fruits, vibrant colors, and motorcycle rides at dusk with Mama. The strangest thing happened in the days prior to his death—he spoke Indonesian non-stop. He never did that before and it was as though he was practicing for her, to reunite on their anniversary, July 22^nd, the day after he died. When his soul left his body, it entered all those he loved, and we all became that much more Gordonian.

A dear friend of his, Scott Cohen, who is also struggling with cancer, said he spoke to him about death yesterday. He said, “It’s like going on a train. You have all of your stuff and there are these turnstiles—some are shiny and new, some are old, wooden and splintered. And it’s easy—just like that.” So, maybe he’s simply going on another one of his adventures.

What haunts me is how much I’ll miss our conversations, his stories, voice, touch, hands, expressions—even his screaming. I can’t believe I’ll never be able to talk to him again. That I won’t ever hear him frantically banging at his keyboard at odd hours of the night with one finger, interrupted by intermittent beating of his pipe against his glass ashtray. I won’t ever see him with his beret and colorful scarves, I won’t smell his signature scent of cologne and captain black white tobacco. I will never see his scars again—they were so beautiful to me. He certainly didn’t live life by the books—but his exuberance taught me what’s really important in life—to live every day beautifully, because we are all fragile, and no matter how much we focus on our routines, our careers, our set-identities, ephemera will stay in tact—“for life’s not a paragraph, and death I think is no parentheses”

A part of me died with him and will never come back… but he wanted me to be okay, to help people, to pass on his legacy, to make him proud, to be happy and to love. So, let’s not focus on his death today, but instead, celebrate the richness of the 25 lifetimes he managed to pack into his 60 years on earth. I miss you and love you with all my heart, Daddy and promise me you’ll visit me, please.

I’ll now make a wish with his cherished magic wand—

Gordon Bishop’s Memorial Service, 24 July 2007

Robert David Cohen’s Eulogy

Gordon used to roll his eyes – well, his eye – whenever you’d try to compliment him. Praise embarrassed him, but I suppose he also loved it like the rest of us do. So I can picture him now, rolling his good eye in heaven, or wherever he is, enjoying the well-deserved praise we heap on him today.

Gordon was my oldest and best friend. We met in the mid-60s in New York, two young poets going around the city on the back of a flatbed truck as part of Angry Arts against the Vietnam War. In early 1968, after Che Guevara was assassinated in Bolivia, we went to Mexico, filled with idealism and romantic dreams of contributing to the world revolution. Then our paths diverged; I remained in Latin America and Gordon linked his destiny to Indonesia, and the rest is history you all know or will hear from other speakers.

I loved Gordon for many reasons, most of them impossible to put into words. But I’ll mention just two of them:

· First, his love of life and beauty and love itself. That was his militancy, far more than any politics or ideology. It drove him with an insatiable hunger to go everywhere, do everything, meet everybody, learn everything and give everything back to the universe. I know of no other explanation than this for his extraordinary capacity to bounce back from tragedy and overcome excruciating pain as he did during the last years of his life. As his body deteriorated, his spirit rose up. I never met anyone so powerful.

· Second, I loved Gordon for the unique way he lived his days, erasing -- or at least blurring – the line between art and life. He was a surrealist in his remarkable poetry and artwork and in his relationships with people and reality. He created myths and lived them, a not-always comfortable coexistence with the practical imperatives of everyday life.

Gordon’s sense of the absurd was legendary. I recall that Gordon once gave a huge party in his garden apartment in Brooklyn Heights and never showed up himself. When I asked him why he did it, he said it was more fun to hide behind a parked car across the street, watching people come and go.

The anecdotes could go on and on for hours, down to his partying in the hospital, dancing on his death-bed, virtually until the end.

I propose that all of us consider this memorial service as another party Gordon organized but didn’t attend – that he’s watching us an enjoying every minute.. rolling his eye as we pay tribute to our hero and friend.

Now I’d like to read a poem that Gordon “ordered” me to write in 2005, the day after his leg was amputated and I was flying back to Panama where I was working.

For Gordon, as ordered

1.

A jealous spirit

Stole your wife,

Left a black hole in your heart.

More punishment was needed

So he sent the Crab.

He wanted your vision.

He took an eye.

Still hungry

He took a breast.

Greedy for more

Now he’s taken your right leg.

Doped up

You told me

The surgeon replaced it

With my mother’s leg,

Amputated 50 years ago.

And you ordered me to write this poem

In the plane.

2.

At 36,000 feet

The clouds are wearing saffron robes

To celebrate sunset.

I am flying to Panama.

Beauty before and behind me

Above and below me

3.

Almost everything can be taken away.

A man can be torn to pieces,

Disassembled and scattered like a puzzle.

He can be deconstructed and left with only his breath

And his pain

And his goodness going out

Like ripples into the world.

4.

So much taken and still you are giving.

So much taken and still you are whole.

5.

Here is a pain-killer

Made out of pain.

Here is the poem you ordered.

I’ve included penguins with sunglasses

And nuns with mysterious suitcases

So you’ll feel at home in it.

I’ve thrown in Brooklyn Heights and Playa Mimosa

And the 40 years of our crazy friendship,

With apologies for taking more than I ever gave back.

Here’s Naomi opening like a flower.

Here’s my manuscript waiting for your blue pencil.

Here we are on the Angry Arts flatbed truck,

Declaiming against the Vietnam war.

And here is Dubjinski Barefoot singing and eating babyfood

And here is Joyo sending the Dictatorship packing.

6.

It’s all here, my brother

Jokes to remind us that we are miniatures

That nothing makes sense

Other than loving as best we can

An offering of light on the altar of darkness.

-- Robert David Cohen

4 May 2005, New York – Panama City