A sad week this is, dear reader. Two fine men passed away in the
last few days.
The first is Sir Christopher Lee, who for my generation will always
be the first, the foremost and the ultimate Dracula to fill the silver screen
with his glittering performance. A man of taste and sophistication, with a
splendid war record and a host of exquisite roles to his name, Lee defied the
Grim Reaper for many decades on end. He lived to 93, no less! Which is a bit of
an irony, since – as a highly educated man with an extensive knowledge of the
classics – he must have known Menander’s famous dictum: ‘Those whom the gods
love, die young.’ His solution out of this tangle was ingenious: as the Undead
Count from Transylvania, he simply died a thousands deaths in twenty vampire
movies, only to resuscitate again for any next performance. What a glorious
manner to prove a Greek playwright wrong!
The other lamentable loss this week is Ornette Coleman, the
controversial, ever innovative saxophone player who took Free Jazz to a whole
new level. I only had the pleasure of seeing him perform in public once, at a
jazz festival in Groningen (the utmost north of the Netherlands) back in 1980,
where three feet away from me, he performed a feat I have never witnessed since:
playing uninterruptedly for nearly ten minutes by the technique of circular
breathing (i.e. the performer fills his cheeks with air like a chipmunk
hoarding nuts; then uses that air to continue playing while he fills his lungs
with fresh air through his nose; and repeating that process again so that the
stream of music is never interrupted for a single moment while taking breath).
It was magnificent. It was close to divine. And it reminded me that for the
ancient Egyptians, as for the ancient Jews, air and breath equalled soul and
life. A man who is physically capable of pulling off such a feat, certainly
deserves his undying fame and immortality.
RIP both of you fine fellows!
