i can slay a dragon

[pensnest]

Stephen Sondheim died.

I grieve.

To be sure, dying at the age of 91 is not indicative of a life tragically cut short, but. He was working on a new show. Which no doubt will come to the stage in due course.

He was absolutely a genius at what he did. With some reservations, he was also a pretty decent human being. He created so much that I adore. I could have wished him to live to be 120, with all his creative faculties intact.

***

Beast played to me a wonderful, terrible piece on the radio which was written as from the point of view of a migrant child desperately clinging to a small boat. Beast had tears, I had tears. And I wish very much that I lived in the country that child thought he was travelling to. Even though I don't, however, it's still a better place than wherever that child, those migrants, are travelling from, and why the fuck are we as a society so almightily cruel and heartless about letting them in?

Comments

[watervole]

Job vacancies everywhere. People desperate to work in the UK.

The government have lost the plot...

[pensnest]

There seem to be far too many people in this country who would prefer to be racist and cruel rather than open-minded and practical. It is so infuriatingly STUPID.

[frausorge]

I wish I did not have to ask the same about my society, but: same.

[pensnest]

It is so very depressing.

[minoanmiss]

I hear you, so much.

[pensnest]

I don't seem to be able to find many words today, but, well. Thank you.

[corvidology]

I was sad to hear of his death as well as I've been a lifelong fan.

[pensnest]

Yes. I can't remember the first Sondheim show that I knowingly loved (I went to see 'Gypsy' when I was fourteen but tragically don't remember it at all! Angela Lansbury!), but I get such pleasure from his crunchy lyrics and even crunchier chords.

[turps]

why the fuck are we as a society so almightily cruel and heartless about letting them in?

I wish I knew, and that piece does sound powerful.

[pensnest]

It was very well written and well read, and I hope it gets a wider hearing.

[brandywine28]

Ugh. I barely had time to process this back when it happened, but the other day someone retweeted a photo of Sondheim and Jonathan Larson at some event and captioned it, There are giants in the sky and that was it. The thing that finally broke me.

I don't even know how you chose a quote to head up this entry. Like, how did you narrow it down? I couldn't have done it.

[pensnest]

Ohhhh, that is a good caption. There was a comforting mourning thread on MetaFilter in which a lot of people quoted bits here and there. Now, of course, the BBC has had a spate of Sondheim *stuff*, though not so far very many of his actual shows on telly, and my cable box has faithfully captured them.

It's just - some people you kinda want to live for ever, just to see what they'll *DO*.