Punch is dead.

@topffer (42156)
France
November 7, 2011 1:34pm CST
Sometimes you meet people you should have never met without the help of hazard. 20 years ago I was working in the same public building than a theater company. The toilets were shared among users of the building. I met Alain in front of an urinal : "May I introduce myself," he said, "I am an archeologist of the glitter." I responded : "Pleased to meet you. May we shake hands later ?" and we laughed. He was the director of the theater company and a sort of whimsical genius wanting to mix theater and puppet theater. He was writing plays full of double meanings, enjoyable by both children and adults. Maybe because we were sharing a common sense of humor we became friends, and I have often be invited for dinner. Those who were speaking here about kindergarten and zoos should have been there : I have seen a pataphysician flaming with a philosopher, an honorable senator swearing like a trooper, and some weird mass hysteria scenes ending with laughter or tears around his table. Alain was a friend of Federico Fellini who wanted to be a puppeteer before becoming a filmmaker. Fellini has been often announced by Alain, but he died without being seen, though I met several interesting relationships of Fellini there, among them the brothers De Marchi -- http://www.fratellidemarchi.it/index_eng.htm --. I had no news of Alain since months : his phone box was full and he was no more responding to emails. Today I read an email sent by a common friend quite two weeks ago -- maybe have I too many email addresses ? -- : she was announcing his death. It is difficult to imagine that a person like Alain could die -- BTW, you did me a bad joke : have you forgot the preface that you promised to write for me ? --. I was looking online today and I found several obituaries. This short one was published in the city where he died : http://translate.google.fr/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lanouvellerepublique.fr%2Fvienne%2FACTUALITE%2FInfos-Departementales%2FAlain-Le-Bon-clown-et-comedien&act=url The end, saying that testimonies were sent from Prague is amazing : in 1968, when the May Revolution ended in France, Alain went in Czechoslovakia and met his first wife in August in Prague near a soviet tank. The world was not large enough for him. Good bye Alain. Have you met accidentally people offering you an opportunity to rub shoulders with a community you should have never crossed without them ? NB : You should have met them elsewhere than in front of an urinal to be qualified to respond.
2 people like this
2 responses
@NoWayRo (1061)
• Romania
8 Nov 11
Sorry to hear about your friend's passing, and about you finding out like that. Seems he was a wonderful man - and Prague is the best city to honor a puppeteer, I'd say. I don't recall having met somebody that interesting by accident, but my friends are all very high-maintenance, I rarely have time to pay attention to others because of them My grandmother was a master at collecting acquaintances, and she often invited over people she only met once. This made for a very large group of people who otherwise did not fit together - it was fun to watch, but I hated all of them.
2 people like this
@topffer (42156)
• France
8 Nov 11
Thanks to him, I met several wonderful people among actors and puppeteers. These persons are hardly living from their work but they love it and are heartful. For him the best city for a puppeteer was Naples, and he was always accepting an invitation to play in Italy. I am not as sociable as your grandmother was, and quite all my friends are doing the same job than me. Alain offered me the opportunity to meet a profession I would have never met without him. Because I met him, I worked on a traveling theater company in the 1840's -- in public archives and with private documents --. I stopped it to do over tasks, and without having read a page, he accepted gladly to write a preface : he will never read this book if I finish it. I am sad to have missed a last appointment behind his coffin... The friend who sent me the news of his was away in holidays and not there too. She made a forward with two words : "Everything passes :(" Well, a page is turned.
1 person likes this
• United States
8 Nov 11
I have never yet met anyone in front of a urinal, so I guess that I am qualified to respond here, although I think it would be a far more interesting story if I had met them in front of a urinal. Your friend sounds like a fun and very interesting person - the kind of person that I would really like to spend time with. I am sure that he will be fondly remembered by many people for a long time. I have met a great many people from different areas, professions and backgrounds. I guess that people would say I am a social person, although I would tend to disagree, so I do not have problems meeting all different kinds of people. There is this one person that I even met over a wheelchair, and I am very glad that I met him, but that is a story that we will save for another time.
1 person likes this