January 4, 2005
COLLISIONS OF MONUMENTS:
The bizarre poetry of random encounters (Robert Fulford, February 27, 2001, The National Post)
Leon Trotsky, one of the two leaders of the Russian revolution, was murdered in a suburb of Mexico City, in 1940, by an assassin sent by his enemy, Joseph Stalin. The next morning, two young Americans arrived in town, hoping to meet Trotsky, and instead learned of his death. They went to the morgue where his body had been taken. The police, perhaps thinking they were American journalists, let them in. They saw Trotsky lying in an open coffin, his cheeks and beard streaked with blood, while photographers stood on ladders taking pictures.Posted by Orrin Judd at January 4, 2005 8:19 PMThe point of the story, for me, is that one of the Americans was Saul Bellow, the future novelist. The assassination, and this intimate glimpse of its effect, left him with an acute sense of how easy it is for despots to kill, and how slight a hold most us have on our own lives.
Decades later, when I read of Bellow's experience, it seemed to me that this eccentric confluence of historic personalities held an oblique kind of meaning. Since then, I've been idly collecting similar footnotes to history. Others collect matchbooks, Renaissance drawings or exotic swords. I collect random encounters between artists and thinkers.
To qualify for my collection, those involved needn't be famous at the time of the meeting (Bellow was unknown in 1940), nor need they be aware that the event took place (Trotsky was in no position to notice Bellow). What makes a footnote worth collecting is that the encounter is unpredictable, startling and vaguely mysterious.
My collection might be titled No Degrees of Separation, or Accidental Collisions of Monuments.
Dostoevsky and the czar. Then the same thing all over again with Solzhenitsyn and the Communists.
Posted by: Frosty at January 4, 2005 10:39 PMHere's my contribution (w/apologies to my friend Alec for I didn't consult him B4 posting this):
My friend Alec and I were youth delegates to the 1980 GOP convention in Detroit. Alec had (and continues to have) a deep interest in the life & career of Harold Stassen. On the second day of the convention we were walking past a row of payphones, when Alec stoped and said to me, "that's Harold Stassen over there on the phone." I doubted, but Alec was sure that it was him. We waited, and when the man was finished w/his call, Alec went up to him and asked if he was Harold Stassen. It was him. Alec had met someone whom he admired and Mr. Stassen, whose quick-rising political star had gone out some 30+ years earlier, had met someone who admired and knew him. They had made each others day! The picture I took that day of Harold Stassen is priceless!
Posted by: Dave W. at January 4, 2005 10:42 PMThoreau collected turtles (and other specimens) for Louis Agassiz.
Milton visited Galileo while he was under house arrest.
John Donne (acting in official capacity, I think, I can't remember) met Kepler (they conversed in Latin).
Jefferson would have dinner with UVA students in groups of three by alphabetical order. In Poe's freshman year Jefferson died before reaching the letter P.
Nabokov claimed he discovered years afterward that he and Kafka would often ride on the same commuter train in Germany.
When Balthus was a child his mother dated Rilke.
Posted by: carter at January 4, 2005 11:39 PMthe famous picture of George HW Bush and Babe Ruth
Posted by: Foos at January 5, 2005 10:55 AMWhat about the argument that Hitler and Wittgenstein were in school together (in Braunau?). There is a class photograph in a book that advances this argument (not at hand at this moment) that purportedly shows both men as 13-year-olds.
Posted by: alex at January 5, 2005 3:49 PM"At the age of fourteen, he was sent to a rather unacademic school at Linz. Adolf Hitler, who was almost exactly the same age as Ludwig, was also there."
That's who he should have it with the poker.
Posted by: oj at January 5, 2005 4:01 PMI've often thought it would be interesting -- and perhaps worthy of a plaque on the National Mall -- to list all the heads of foreign states who were, at one time or another, school teachers in the United States.
Just the list for New York City would be pretty long.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at January 5, 2005 5:14 PM