Ill Timed Deaths

[Ea Kly, Vietnam on 3/31/19]

Last night, I saw myself in Philly. Even while dreaming, I could conclude, “This is rare.” Savages all over confuse dreaming with traveling. Waking up just after 2AM, I got news from Saigon that my friend, Kiệt, had just died. The same emailer had also announced, just months earlier, that Nguyễn Quí Đức was gone. Phan, you’re the bearer of worst tidings!

While in a half-star room in Port Moresby, Sorong or Kuching, I’ll wake up to an email from Phan, “Linh Dinh, best known for going on about next to nothing, has finally departed!” Most dead people don’t know they’re done.

In last night’s email, Phan asked me to write something for her to read to Kiệt’s spirit, family and friends. Just 39, he’s in a coffin. Without delay, I sent the below. The translation was done this morning after breakfast:

Thân xác chỉ là phương tiện tạm thời, sớm tàn lụi, nhưng tư tưởng và lý tưởng vẫn còn. Bất mãn với kinh điển chính thống, Kiệt tạo ra Nhà xuất bản Danh Vô. Kiệt muốn gom lại tất cả những nhà văn có thớ đã bị xóa sổ. Thay vì vô danh, họ sẽ được danh vô. Tôi chỉ gặp Kiệt có hai lần. Lần đầu tại Vũng Tàu, Kiệt bảo là sẽ in tất cả những gì tôi viết. Ở bàn có Nguyễn Quốc Chánh và Cao Hùng Lynh. Quay qua hai vị, tôi lắc đầu rồi nói, "Thằng này điên nặng!" Lần thứ hai tại Sài Gòn, Kiệt chở tôi đến một quán cà phê rất thú vị trong một con hẻm Quận 5. Được nhòa vào cuộc sống, hai thằng lải nhải. Sau đó tụi tôi mò qua Thảo Điền để đùa với Trịnh Cung. Đúng là sáng bùn, trưa mây. Tôi tưởng sẽ còn nhiều cơ hội la cà với Kiệt. Thật quá bất ngờ khi nghe tin, nhưng tư tưởng và lý tưởng của Kiệt vẫn còn. Văn học chính thống phải được xét lại. Gần như lần nào gặp Chánh, tôi cũng thúc nhà thơ này phải soạn lại tất cả những bài thơ đáng in, để Kiệt xuất bản. Không ai cấm tụi tao ra sách. Nhờ mày thúc, nên công việc này cấp bách hơn. Tao đủ điên, nhưng mày mới đùa dai, nhưng không sao, tao với mày vẫn còn nợ. Hẹn gặp lại Kiệt nhé! Ở Phnom Penh, tôi khóc.

The body is only a temporary means, quick to decay, but ideas and ideals endure. Unhappy with the official canon, Kiệt established Danh Vô Publishing. Kiệt wanted to gather all the subtantial authors who had been erased. Instead of being vô danh [no names], they’ll be danh vô [known names] . I only met Kiệt twice. The first was in Vung Tau, when Kiệt said he would publish everything I’d written. [Poet] Nguyễn Quốc Chánh and [photographer] Cao Hùng Lynh were at the table. Turning to them, I shook my head and said, “This guy is seriously insane!” The second time was in Saigon, when Kiệt took me to a very intriguing café inside a District 5 alley. Allowed to blend into life, we yakked. Afterwards we wandered to Thảo Điền [Saigon’s hippest district] to joke around with [painter and poet] Trịnh Cung. It’s clearly mud in the morning, then up in the clouds in the afternoon. I assumed I’d have many more chances to hang out with Kiệt. It’s such a shock to receive this news, but Kiệt’s ideas and ideals remain. The official canon must be reexamined. Nearly each time I saw Chánh, I’d urge him to assemble his collected poems, for Kiệt to publish. No one is banning us from publishing books [here I address Kiệt directly, with the rough sounding mày tao for you me]. Because of your urging, this task became more urgent. I’m mad enough, but you’re a hardcore joker, but it’s fine, we’re not done with each other. I’ll see you soon, Kiệt! In Phnom Penh, I cry.

Bodies drop left and right, with more each passing year, until you stand alone in a desolate landscape, speaking a language no one understands. With progress the universal religion, anything old is disgusting. Staring at a mirror, you clearly see the evidence. White hair, wrinkles and cheese multiply. Detecting maggots and mold, anything alive gives you a wide berth. Holding its nose, a youthful ant rushes by. Rapping cockroaches spit at your feet. Fluttering past, monarch butterflies don’t neglect to fling sideway farts your way.

Nguyen Qui Duc was 65. When I popped in at his Hanoi bar, Tadioto, in 2017, the man was being interviewed by CNN. Even his Tam Đảo house was featured by the New York Times. His 1,265 word obituary in the same newspaper has three professionally shot photos. Though seriously loved by the mainstream, Duc was not an important journalist, memoirist, poet, translator, sculptor or installation artist. Novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen sums it up, “I think of his life as his most important work of art.” Duc was celebrated for being a suave, cosmopolitan and good looking immigrant. Never controversial, he was the perfect global citizen. On a personal level, Duc was truly warm. In English, French or Vietnamese, he sounded bemused, reassuring and world weary. I can’t remember why he appeared in Philly 14 years ago, but I took that opportunity to show him my gritty city. We took the L to a neighborhood no sane tourist would come near. Last time I saw Duc was in Hoi An, where he had another chic bar. On top of everything, Duc was a good businessman. His favorite country was Morocco.

Someone who had everything and appeared in great health suddenly died. Wikipedia, “Nguyen died from cancer of the brain, lungs and abdomen on 22 November 2023.” The Vietnam-born French novelist, Linda Lê, died at age 58 of an unspecified cause. My friend Mai Sơn, a scholar and translator, got sick immediately after two Pfizer shots. For two years, he’s more or less an invalid. A mess, he still managed to come to Vung Tau twice to see friends. Mai Sơn died at 67.

Just three weeks ago, I talked to a café owner who had two sisters stricken with cancer within days of being Jewjabbed. She didn’t blame Pfizer, though, but credited it with exposing her sisters’ illnesses. Overly made up and a poor listener, she can’t follow anything said for more than 30 seconds. She did confide of knowing so many people in their 50’s and 60’s suddenly afflicted with cancer.

Upset by a flawed and unjust literary canon, Kiệt made it his life work to correct it. He barely got started before being struck down. I don’t know what killed him, but it’s certainly bizarre for a 39-year-old full of energy to drop dead. Similar incidents are occuring regularly across the globe.

There’s often a hidden agenda behind whoever or whatever that’s pushed. Diddy sucked Clive Davis’ dick, so became an obscenely wealthy demigod. Still, his wound festered, so he diddled a smooth skinned white boy, Justin Bieber, who in turn became a global icon. Just about every Super Bowl halftime performer is a dick sucking, devil worshiping whore, but don’t you impute Jews in any of this sordidness. Barbara Streisand and Barry Manilow never rocked Super Sunday. That alone is proof of enduring anti-Semitism.

Richard Serra has just died. To the general public, he’s best remembered for Tilted Arc, a 120-foot long, 12-foot high steel sheet that divided and frankly ruined Foley Square, right in the heart of New York’s Civic Center. Complaining workers who had to use this space each day were treated as irrelevant philistines. Though I’m not one to dismiss contemporary art, I think Serra’s oeuvre is unmatched in its grandiose ugliness and vapidity, yet it was heavily supported and praised. A quick check revealed, just hours ago, Serra’s Jewish. With Jewish critics and curators dominant in the American art scene, Serra, Rothko, Barnett Newman and Julian Schnabel, etc., are way overrated. Going back a few decades, we can include Soutine and Chagall.

Maybe Kiệt’s judgements were wrong, but in any healthy society, all topics and events should be open to debate. In sick nations, having wrong thoughts can get you arrested or even killed.

It’s getting dark here, Kiệt. By this time tomorrow, I will land in the city you loved so much. Turning into some alley, I might just see you, if only for a few seconds, still sitting on a low stool with a bottle of Tiger.

[funeral in Saigon on 12/27/18]

[Model gravestone in Korce, Albania, with inscription in Italian, “I want to remember you as before, to think you’re still alive, and just as before, you can hear me and are still smiling.”]

[Belgrade, 8/20/20]

[San Xavier del Bac, Arizona on 11/18/09]