wow...

This is so sad, the Kennedy family has been "cursed" as some say, I am watching Dan Rather now, tears are welling up in his eyes. An all out search is under way. President Kennedy was killed in 63, Robert Kennedy was shot in 68. What a hammer to the heart of the Amerian public. Wham.

CNN is carrying live coverage. I know that part of the world and the Atlantic around there. I can also think of a thousand people who deserved this more than he. I am stunned. Poor Caroline. Poorer America! You are right, Terry...Wham!

...those whom the gods would destroy they first endow with outrageous gifts... It is the story of the entire much-gifted Kennedy family! How very sad...

Oh man, too many questions. Conspiracy nuts will have a field day. Any foul play involved? Very sad and tragic.

It looks like they've found bits of lugage and debris from the plane. They found Lauren Bisset's luggage with her business card tag on it. This is looking more dismal as the day goes on. All regular tv programming has been canceled and the media is pursuing this with the fervor of Lady Di's death, it is the same scale of thing and is arising in what normally is a slow news month. A potential future president is still missing and it's now looking good.

are there any updates? i've been out all day but did know about the luggage...there were four people on the plane, jfk jr, caroline, lauren, and the instructor, right?

Only 3, Wolf. No instructor. Lauren's luggage and a little zipper wallet-like thing with her business card inside of it, and a headrest. It is dark now, so they are just searching the shoreline tonight. Tomorrow divers go down to retrieve the enevitable.

my God.....

......very difficult to comprehend. Very sad...

and there's really no new news this morning on this tragedy...

From: sitzkan@planet-tech.com (Seth Itzkan) Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 10:29:52 +0100 Subject: John John, Martha's Vineyard, and Innocence Lost John John, Martha's Vineyard, and Innocence Lost He is my peer. We are the same age. We grew up through the same times. Dare I say, we even look alike. When I see the photo of him peeping out from under his father's oval office desk, the same desk Clinton has now made infamous, it's myself I see there. We are classmates. And his father is symbolically my father. JFK was the father of our generation, he was all our fathers. Just as FDR was my grandfather. John John and I were more than classmates, we were brothers. The connection to Martha's Vineyard is now that much more poignant. I lost my innocence on the Gay Head beaches of Martha's Vineyard. The same beaches where debris from John John's plane is now washing ashore. For me, Martha's Vineyard has always been a magical place of passage. I have written poems about the spot. Some of my most memorable moments have occurred right where State Police are know combing the sands. I know the area well. Gay Head beach is one of the few places in the Eastern United States where you can watch the sun go down over the Atlantic. Countless times I have watched the sun set from there and countless times I have watched the haze and fog come ashore, just as it apparently was doing last night during the fateful flight. Although you may not know Gay Head by name, you've no doubt seen its photo; it is the obligatory image that always accompanies any Martha's Vineyard story, the lighthouse on top of the huge cliffs, surrounded by wild flowers and long white beaches - English Isle-esque. The lighthouse is legendary. It's guided whalers and other mariners for centuries. The cliffs are equally legendary, steeped in Native American history. Their composition is predominantly red and black clay, and at their base are large natural clay pools which beach goers often bathe themselves in. The liquid clay quickly dries on one's skin, allowing bathers to give themselves complete body clay treatments for free that a salon would charge hundreds of dollars for, and not only that, they have their choice of colors. In fact, it's common to see bathers use the clay to paint their bodies in colorful patterns, some even taking on warrier-like displays of stripes and spirals. The Philbin Beach area, mentioned frequently in the news, is a southern extension of Gay Head. There is no natural boundary. There is only one road that goes out this way, and it is here that for decades Jacqueline Kennedy had her personal compound retreat. Part of our Martha's Vineyard fun was to walk along the beach in front of her property, moving but not stopping. As Massachusetts law allows citizens to own beach front property up to the surf but not beyond, so as long as you were walking with your ankles in the water you could pass by. Another favorite was to try to guess which unmarked dirt road off the Gay Head main drag was the entrance to her compound. Of course there are so many secluded luminaries on Martha's Vineyard. Most of the roads aren't named and most aren't paved. That's just the way the locals want it. If you don't know people from the Island, you will unfortunately never get to see most of its beauty. Hidden from most tourists by an intentional labyrinth are incredible vistas of rolling fields, silver lakes, soft hills, private homes with unimaginable views, and even working farms with horses, goats, cows, and swans. The proximity, however, between Jacquie's waterfront compound and the plane debris is a bit too much to stomach. Bits of plane wreckage and personal belongings belonging to her son and daughter-in-law are literally washing up on her former beach property, or just a few hundred yards from it. How sick is that? As if the Kennedys needed another cosmic twist of fate, the ocean which for decades helped Jacqueline to forget her tragedies, is now returning them to her door step. I've already lost my innocence once on Marthas Vineyard beaches, now it appears, I've lost it again. Seth J. Itzkan Planet-TECH Associates 2 Washington St. Haverhill MA 01832-5524 | 978-556-5044 sitzkan@planet-tech.com | http://www.planet-tech.com

* sitting sadly and waiting with the rest of the world, for news * (Thanks, Barry, for sharing those words.)

The saddest part of all is that the Bessette family has just lost two of their three children; a tragedy no parent should have to endure. I suppose their loss will be eclipsed much like the family of Ron Goldman's was.

indeed!

Wolf, if you lived closer, I'd go out on a deserted beach with you and just sit down and hug you and cry...it is most difficult alone...!

Tragedies seem to come in multiples. My ex sent me the following this morning with a photo attached (from Pennsylvania). This memorial was planned way in advance, but how achingly appropriate on this day. This is a photo from the front page of today's newspaper. It is at the memorial service in Montoursville for the students and their chaperones who died in the TWA flight 800 airliner crash three years ago. A memorial garden was dedicated by the service. The garden has 21 sugar-maple trees for the 16 students and 5 chaperones who died. There is also an 8 ft. bronze statue and a brick walkway. The bell-ringer tolled the bell for each of the lost people.

They're still looking but the chances are almost nonexistent that they're alive. President Clinton's coming on the tv in a few minutes. And a big storm is doing up on the Cape Monday night. If there's the tiniest sliver of hope, it would have to pan out in the next 24 hours before the big storm comes in. Stress tiny sliver.

I'm glad the coverage of this is expanding to include the loss to the Bessette family, who had two daughters on that plane...

me too...we can't give up hope, because to do that would mean calling the search off. maybe there's a chance they broke the curse....both of them were athletic and healthy (maybe lauren was too), maybe they found something to float on.....

JFK Jr, like other members of his family, played leadership roles in mapping out and promoting the advance of civilization. JFK Jr launched George, a magazine of politics and culture, to enliven the national dialogue and to present ideas leading to better practices within the culture and the body politic. Like Lady Di, the press played up his celebrity status and his love life more than his efforts to leave the planet better off than he found it. I hope we are able to honor his memory by celebrating th important work that his vision called him to dedicate his public life to.

I was touched by the discussion with Arthur Schlesinger Jr. who said that JFK Jr. had a "secret life of good works". And Christianne Amanpour, who was his roommate for two years in college, said nothing but marvelous things about him being an unpretentious and loving human being. These two interviews convinced me that a great future was nipped in the bud. Which makes this all even more tragic. John John wasn't just a superficial pop culture idol, at the end of the day he realized there was much more than all this fame. And he, like his father, cared deeply about humanity.

A ship called the Rude, at this hour, has stopped over where an electronic beacon was detected. It's a highly specialized sonar ship. It's about 4 to 4.5 miles south/southwest of Gay's Head. This may be vital new information. NBC News is reporting this. A 9:30 pm EST will have an annoucment 28 minutes from now. Reuters is also reporting this. Dusk is giving way to darkness, it's still light here in Austin. The massive search is still continuing.

i liked the commentary on jfk jr's giving lifestyle and his wish to keep it private. a navy ship out of norfolk va is on it's way out (unless that was the rude, in which case, it's there already).

The misson has been switched from a search and rescue to a search and recovery mission. The most they could have survived in the 68 degree water would have been 12-18 hours and it's been 48 hours now. There is no definite location of a plane under water.

I received the following by Email (I told her response 26 had not posted) Unfortunately I could not get through again. Our electricity is restricted today and perhaps it has some effect. What I did say was: All I could think of was that little boy standing beside the grave of his father and saluting. Our commiserations to you all from Australia - perhaps you would post my comments for me. Anne Hale

the emergency beacon turned out to be a false alarm....

(Terry)And Christianne Amanpour, who was his roommate for two years in college, said nothing but marvelous things about him being an unpretentious and loving human being. I saw this, too (flipping back and forth between 60 Mins and Dateline). This was the best interview yet. She was forthright and honest but didn't gush. You could tell she *really* knew him, 20 years ago through last weekend when they were together on the Cape. (Seth) He is my peer. That's the way I feel (for different reasons!). Caroline and I are just a few weeks apart in age. John and Caroline have been around my whole life. He lost his mother to cancer, as did I. John was a New Yorker, and from what I hear, a regular neighborhood guy. They took off on this ill-fated journey from an airport not far from where I live. This is so unbelievable. My heart goes out to Caroline and the Bessette family. I'm getting annoyed with the reports from other pilots who jump to the conclusion he was "in over his head" and never should have flown that night. I think those who know his flying ability best will attest that he had more flight hours and knowledge of instrument flying (though not the certification) than what's being said. Even if it turns out he did lose the horizon in the haze and darkness and the plane went into a death spin as is the current conjecture, I don't think he took a foolish, careless ri k (no more so than anyone who flies a single engine plane). I hope they find the remains of the plane soon.

on the news at lunchtime, they had an obituary only for jfk jr. let's not forget the two other people, caroline and lauren, who also went down with the plane. my heart goes out to all the families involved.

My fervent wish at this point is that they find the bodies and put this story to rest.

See if you can spot a couple of remarkable revelations in the MSNBC story: A SOURCE close to the investigation said the signal was picked up by the Rude, a U.S. government ship equipped with high-tech sonar. The �target� could be the fuselage of John F. Kennedy Jr.�s plane, Hager reported, adding that a similar breakthrough happened when sonar uncovered the first big pieces of TWA 800 in 1996. Hager added that the target is much more significant than any other object spotted underwater so far. How much will ever be found was still a big question mark, though. Ned Clark was among the aviation experts who doubted much wreckage � or even the bodies of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette � would ever be found. "The destruction of the airframe is extreme� in a plunge like the one apparently experienced by Kennedy�s plane, Clark told the �Today� show. �And I think you can extrapolate to that the same for the passengers.� Investigators late Monday said radar data indicated the plane plunged 1,400 feet in 14 seconds before crashing into the Atlantic Ocean on Friday night. That�s a rate of 4,700 feet per minute, up to 10 times normal. The investigators refused to characterize the descent as abnormal, but other experts said the drop was so fast it indicates a plane out of control and about at the limit of what the plane could take without breaking up. Experts said the high-performance Piper Saratoga 32 generally cannot handle a descent faster than 1,500 feet per minute. The plane�s gauge shows a maximum of 2,000 feet per minute. �That airplane would not come down that fast in any normal configuration,� said Warren Morningstar, a spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. �The normal rate of descent you�re shooting for as a pilot is 500-700 feet per minute for passenger comfort.� EERIE FIND Also Tuesday, the Cape Cod Times reported that registration papers for JFK Jr.�s plane washed up Saturday on Martha�s Vineyard property owned by Kennedy and his sister Caroline. The soggy papers, turned over to state police that day, did not include Kennedy�s name but did have the plane�s tail number, the newspaper said, quoting unidentified sources close to the investigation. State police would not confirm the papers had been found. As the search continued, a source who had been close to Kennedy and his wife told MSNBC�s Jeannette Walls that Carolyn Bessette Kennedy feared riding in the plane and told her sister Lauren she didn�t want to make the flight to Martha�s Vineyard and Hyannisport. Lauren Bessette was to have been dropped off on Martha�s Vineyard and then the Kennedys were to continue on to their family compound at Hyannisport for the wedding of Rory Kennedy, daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. The source said Bessette Kennedy was �near tears� on Friday morning. �She was saying, �He's crazy. He�s a Kennedy and he's flying,�� the source said.

I just heard on the radio that they found the plane with jfk jr inside but not the bodies of carolyn or lauren....i'll have to verify it for you.

It's true, the body of JFK Jr. has been found.

The AP wire story: Kennedy, Airplane Wreckage Located WASHINGTON (AP)--The wreckage of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s airplane was located today, with Kennedy's body still aboard, off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Mass., The Associated Press was told. ``They've got the fuselage and John Kennedy's in it,'' a high-level government source said. Jim Hall, the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, and Coast Guard Rear Adm. Richard Larrabee, who was overseeing the search, canceled a round of morning TV appearances and went to the USS Grasp, the ship where the wreckage was to be deposited after being raised from the ocean floor. The heightened activity took place after ships from the Navy, Coast Guard and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration spent Tuesday night scouring a site 7 1/2 miles southwest of the Martha's Vineyard coast, a spot that investigators had speculated was the likely splash point for the plane.

and now all three bodies are accounted for...

really? haven't heard that yet.

according to msnbc.com: Kennedy's body was found inside a large section of the fuselage found in 100-foot-deep water, less than a half mile from the spot the agency had identified as the most likely crash site based on analysis of radar images. The bodies of his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, were not discovered until divers examined the wreckage Wednesday. The National Transportation and Safety Board issued a statement saying a second dive aimed at recovering the bodies as under way. very sad, indeed.

Now, this is where people start booing and hissing at me. They (Coast Guard, etc.) went to all that effort and expense to recover JFK Jr.'s body, and now the family is having a burial at sea? Hellooo? Isn't that what he already had? I don't mean to sound insensitive, I just don't understand. No word yet on what the Bessette family will have done with their daughters' remains.

all three were scattered were they not?

i don't know, but i have the same sentiments as autumn....i found it to be tragically ironic, really....

Actually, I think the newspaper made a distinction between "burial at sea" and "scattered." Like their cremains (new word I learned thru this) might have been encapsulated in something and thrown to the depths of the sea. Apparently, the Catholic faith prohibits scattering of ashes; they have to be kept together and buried (or whatever). Although I think the Bessettes were Episcopal; either way, they got the same treatment.

I thought catholics were pretty much against cremation at all?

I watched part of the funeral yesterday and in the homily the church's thoughts on cremation were mentioned as all right providing it was not to hide the body nor to destroy it in some other less than innocent way. Most confusing and convoluted explanation...Alexander, I still think the RC church would still prefer inhumation intact - but I rather think this was a done deed before the church knew about it.

Autumn, if they didn't recover the bodies wouldn't the National Inquirer sub be collecting bodies in a matter of days? He was in only 100' or so of water, so they would have selling the body parts on ebay. I think that had to happen to preserve the dignity of these people. The Coast Guard and Navy do this stuff as a matter of course, especially for Presidents' families. It really didn't take that much time and effort, it's as good an exercise for the Navy and Coast Guard as anything. John's dad and uncle gave their lives for the country, and his dad was a Navy war hero. I think they did the right think by recovering the bodies and burying them at sea. On the other hand, Rush Limbaugh is making an asshole of himself by trying to diminish JFK Jr.'s importance, the point of criticising the famous John John salute during JFK Sr's funeral procession. Rush said that his mom trained him to do this and that it wasn't sincere. What actually happened is that little John got antsy during the procession and his mom, well, I'll quote the person who told this story, Dave Hughes: "Some cynical talk show host (Rush) complained that the 3 year old John John salute to his father's casket was 'staged' by his mother. Of course is was - she asked him to salute. But there was a little story behind that. During the church service just before the pass by, he became figity up front, so Jacqueline asked a Secret Service man to carry him to the rear of the church. where a uniformed Army lieutant colonel told him stories. Young John saluted the officer - but with the left hand. The officer showed him how to do it correctly with the right hand. A few minutes later he was standing out where the pass by, and the picture of him saluting was taken. That Secret Service man told this in one of the interview sessions last week. I must say, except for the slight curl of his little fingers, his salute was militarily fine. Considerably better than Clinton does it. I am sure the Secret Service, and lots of the aides around the family dealt with the children a lot." - Dave Hughes (the wireless king)

Terry, for part of the time we watched the navy ship heading out to sea there was a little white boat around the bow. I immediately thought as you did about the National Inquirer. I hoped they had the security of the ashes in mind when they planned to scatter them at sea...that little boat with a dip net would be on eBay today. I just hope they were somehow secure for all time from the predacious.

autumn, they mentioned that the catholic church had only recently changed their views on cremation.... i think it would we would be a sick bunch of folks if anybody went deep sea diving to retrieve a box of ashes....let them lay in peace...

*shudder*

Warning, this next post is long. It's John Perry Barlow's account of his friendship with JFK Jr.

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 06:00:31 +0100 From: John Perry Barlow Subject: BarlowFriendz 5.5: Johnny, They Hardly Knew Ye... To: eff-friends@eff.org (eff-friends mailing list) X-Proccessed-By: mail2list Sender: postmaster@eff.org ^ /_ _ ---------> B a R L o W F R i e N D Z -----> ------------------------------> -------------------> --------> Somewhere Over Mississippi Thursday, July 22, 1999 It is dawn. I am flying from Atlanta to New Orleans and I know that the haze below, while gray, is probably not cold. Still it seems so. The universe - or at least that part of it that passes through the filters of my own heart - seems cold and gray. This is because later this morning someone will pour the powdered bones of my long-dear friend and hero John Kennedy into the sea. They will also scatter the horribly reduced beauty of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, the fairy godmother of my three teen-aged daughters. That gray powder is all that remains of two people from whose spirits sparkled a large part of the magic in my life. With these two merciless deaths, the whole world has become less alive to meI less adventuresome, less vital, less funny, less loving. I'm tempted, in my fatigue and sorrow, to just say "fuck it," but, three daughters that's no option. And besides, it would hardly serve their memory well to make others hurt as much as I do now. J I met John 22 years ago this month. His mother - whose maternal achievements were the least renowned and most extraordinary of her manifestations - had decided that it was time to toss John from her 5th Avenue nest. With characteristic - though astonishing - faith in the essential safety of the world, she'd sent him off to a Youth Conservation Corps camp in Yellowstone Park. However appropriate to her politics, this option wasn't working out well. Green John, who had never been alone and unprotected before, was naked to the press and being mercilessly hit on by his fellow corpsmen. He was miserable and wanted to come home. But Jackie wasn't ready to bring him in from the cold. So she called a Congressman from Wyoming from Teno Roncalio to ask him if he might know a rancher who would be both willing to hire John for the summer and sensitive enough to his peculiar condition to extend him something like normality. Teno had been a special actor in both her life and mine. When John F. Kennedy, Sr. sought the Democratic nomination in 1960, the vote was tied between him and Lyndon Johnson all the way down through the alphabet of states to Wyoming. Teno, the leader of the Wyoming delegation, knew that three of his six delegates were for Johnson. Their votes would have led to a tie and thus a second ballot. And it was generally assumed that Johnson, the ultimate backroom operator, would out-maneuver the upstart if it came to that. So Teno stood up and declared all Wyoming's votes for Kennedy, betting that in the ensuing hullabaloo, his Johnson delegates would find it expedient to keep quiet. They did and history found its present shape. I knew Teno because he'd helped raise me. In Wyoming, ideology is less a part of the political process than personal chemistry. So, despite the fact that Teno was a union Democrat and my father was a Republican state senator of such troglodyte views that he suspected Barry Goldwater of communism leanings, they were such close friends that had entrusted me to Teno at an early age. Teno took me off to Aspen and taught me to ski. He also taught me a lot about political reality. He was and remains my hero. When Jackie called him, Teno recommended sending John to the Bar Cross, the large family cattle ranch that I operated for 17 years. By odd coincidence, this suggestion that was seconded by Tom Carney, a good friend of mine who was dating Caroline Kennedy at the time and who happened to be at dinner that night. Next thing I knew there, was a breathy voice on my phone saying, "Hello, this is Jacqueline Onassis." "Well," I replied, "in the unlikely event that this isn't a joke, what can I do for you?" Two days later, John rode the bus from Jackson Hole into my life. (I imagined my father turning about 2500 rpm in his grave.) John was not what I had expected. Goofy and self-effacing, he was a gangly quasar of random energy. Fifteen minutes into it, I think we both knew we'd be friends for life. I never would have guessed that that the terminated life would be his and not mine. When he showed up on the Bar Cross, he was so wide-eyed and energetic that he was like a giant Labrador puppy. But he was amenable to being focused. The first thing I put him to was digging post holes, and he went at it like he was killing snakes. I was erecting a new corral fence, and he dug through glacial alluvium, all gravel and rock, with a ravenous intensity. It was the first time in his life he'd ever done anything for money, not that he was getting paid a hell of a lot. At least he had a job. This wasn't something that his mother was paying for. It was something that he was doing on his own. He was delighted to be a wage-earner. Even the menial nature of his employment was a boon to him. Even his vile accommodations down in the bunkhouse where he was housed with the beautiful losers that wash up on an employer of last resort seemed just ducky to him.J To my surprise, he wasn't a particularly stellar horseman. This might have been because he was riding a western saddle for the first time, but I'm more inclined to think that it was because riding was his mother's thing, and he avoided the obvious paths his parents had inscribed. Still, he was plumb willin' and perfectly patient with being given the drag, i.e., riding on the tail end of the herd and pushing along the laggardly cows and calves. Pretty boring work, really. Damned little romance to it. But he did it uncomplainingly and enthusiastically, as he did everything. He was the light in our world that summer and remained the brightest in mine until last Friday. No task I put him to was beneath his germinating dignity. He operated a shovel like a human backhoe. He was patient with both cows and cowboys. Within a day or so he ceased to be remarkable for whom he was and became remarkable for what he was. I believe that had he been born to nobody in particular, his personal qualities would have propelled him to stardom. I suppose I was the first "father figure" in his life who was neither an uncle, nor a Secret Service agent, nor some mother-imposed friend of the father he never really knew. But, over the course of our friendship, he became a brother and eventually something like a father to me. That is, I found his instincts, probity, and judgement to be so appropriate that I relied on his counsel to temper and guide my own behavior. Now that I've allowed myself to participate in the media frenzy that's currently feeding on his corpse, I long for his guidance. Still, despite our inversely symmetrical relationship, I did still occasionally proffer my own. Only three weeks ago, I extended some advice I wish he'd taken. He'd broken his ankle crash-landing a flying contraption called a Buckeye, something like a cross between a paraglider and a snowmobile. While I'd always trusted his ability to dance on the edge of danger, I thought the Buckeye might veer a little too close to the Abyss. The conversation turned to piloting in general. I'm a pilot myself and I remembered clearly the period in my flying career when I knew just enough to be dangerously confident in my abilities. "Listen, " I said, "when I had about 150 hours, I thought I knew what I was doing. I kept flying myself into conditions that were beyond my abilities. The Holy Who Knows preserved me, but please remember: if you can't see he horizon outside the plane, don't look for it. Glue your eyes to the instrument panel." "I'll bear that in mind," he said. It now appears that he didn't. I understand. Shattered as I feel I don't blame him. It could have happened to me as easily. There was another element to that conversation. He had been through a number of dark tribulations in the past couple of years. He danced through them with the very personification of Hemingway's definition of courage: Grace under pressure. I told him that he had become a hero to me. Of course, it's rare that one can remain a hero to his friends. It's rarer still that one can become a hero after years of friendship. Rather than diverting the compliment with automatic modesty, he said, "I'm honored you feel that way." "I'm honored you're honored." I replied. When I last heard from John, I could no longer reply. On July 10, my ancient mother died in my arms after 12 days of preparing to shed her mortal self. As you BarlowFriendz will recall, I sent out a message describing the hour of her death and the 93 year wonder of a life that preceded it. On Saturday, July 17th, We buried Mim under a violet Wyoming sky. That hard day had begun early with a phone call informing me of John and Carolyn's disappearance. Suddenly her death, which I had accepted, was permanently smeared with tragedy. I came back from the cemetery and reflexively checked my e-mail. There was a message from John, dated 4:05 pm Friday afternoon, not long before he left the office to fly off into the sea. It read: I received the news of your mother. Though I'm truly sorry that I never met her, your elegiac epistle rendered her vividly. I'm happy for you that you were there at the critical moment of her passing - it was something I'll never forget when it happened to me and not something that was at all macabre. Give yourself a little time to reflect now.... come visit john k These are the words of a true mensch. God, how I wish I could come visit him now. How much I now have to reflect on. Nevertheless, I think he and Carolyn will always visit me. Relationships don't necessarily die with their participants. For over two decades, John and I were so woven into one another's lives that he will always be embedded in the fabric of mine. I will always have methods of being and looking at things that I contracted from him. I will always respond to certain situations in imitation of him. The same applies to Carolyn. Even though she was not a part of my life as long as he was, she swiftly became as nearly important in it. Though her, it seemed I could connect with all that was female in this world. She helped me accept that I would never understand women, despite the study of women's being one of my current lifetime's core curricula. She also helped me accept that one extended women more appropriate honor by simply appreciating them rather than trying, with endless futility, to figure them out. Still. John and Carolyn are dead. It seems impossible, but of course I realize that it was not only possible but likely. At the risk of sounding like someone whose reason as been tainted with newage, I will tell you that I believe there are angels among us, appearing to be human in the bodies they lightly wear. My late lamented Dr. Cynthia Horner was surely one. And so were John and Carolyn. My experience with these creatures - which has been unusually, blessedly, and tragically extensive - indicates that they don't wear their bodies long. John's mother was the longest-lived of the angels I've known, and she died younger than most expected she would. I think angels enter our sordid midst to encourage and teach us. To remind us that there is more to life than life itself. They embody love and faith and humor, which are, I believe, the essential characteristics of the Immaterial. The last thing Cynthia said to me was, "Nothing can keep us apart, Baby." I now understand that the only that could have been true was through what immediately followed. The same applies to John and Carolyn. Nothing can keep us apart. @@@ London Tuesday, July 27, 1999 - Wednesday, July 28, 1999 So I'm taking a little time to reflect. The last five days have been impossibly hard, but I'm doing my best to behave, as I said earlier, as John would have had me do. I'm trying to draw on his dignity and courage. When I arrived in New Orleans - where I was contracted to speak to a group of architects (including the man who designed John, Sr.'s grave) - I learned that I had been disinvited from John's memorial service for having made myself accessible to the media. Perhaps I shouldn't have done that, but I wanted people to know who he and Carolyn really were and I knew that both Clan Kennedy and all who curried their favor would observe the information embargo, leaving the world to imagine the essences of these remarkable people.J An ugly part of me presently suspects that there is a self-serving method to their silence. I wonder if there isn't a "myth management system" among the Kennedys that is better served by increasing mystery. This may be a necessary expedience since their personal reality is often not so worthy of mythologizing. I suppose they reflexively extended it to John, of whom the truth would have only served to elevate, both out of reflexive habit and because he was not really one of them. They may have been practicing a game of "capture the flag" with his memory, attempting to own in death what they could never quite claim while he lived. But such thoughts are graceless. While I was deeply hurt that I couldn't attend the death rituals of two of my closest friends, I understood that anger and sorrow are often cross-wired and that no one can gainsay what another does in grief. In any event - since I knew John and Carolyn to be special in ways that never shown back through the klieg light glare, and since no one else who knew them well was uttering a word - I took it to be my hard responsibility to eulogize them accurately and from the heart. (Not to say that Uncle Teddy didn't, but someone else wrote the eloquent words he spoke last Friday at St. Thomas More's Church.) This has been a greater sacrifice than I might have made had I known what I was getting myself into. In a single week, I appeared three times on Larry King Live, twice on Dateline, once on 48 Hours, twice on the Today Show, repeatedly in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and one of John's secretly favorite rags, The New York Daily News. On last Wednesday morning, I found that my various voice mail boxes contained 105 unheard messages from the press. I started to feel like the big chocolate bunny on Easter morning, nibbled everywhere by many ravenously unconscious teeth, hollow inside. Further, I'm sure that many beyond Clan Kennedy, perhaps even including some of you, thought that I acted as I have out of some self-aggrandizing impusle. And, while a self-confessed egomaniac, I can assure you this was not my motive in this instance. Consider what's in this for me. By identifying myself as an official "Friend of John," I will be hounded for the rest of my days for further evidence in the media autopsies. This will be a drag. But I felt what I was doing was right, and I still do. The flood of e-mail and phone calls I received from all over the world assured this conviction. Most said that they were grateful to have more human flesh placed on these glowing bones. Most seemed to think that, through mine, their own grief had been somehow "de-virtualized." And some were simply glad that I had shared publicly what they had privately experienced. All these hundreds of messages were moving and re-affirming, but there was one that eulogized Carolyn more accurately that I have (or probably could) which I will quote: Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 18:24:17 -0400 Subject: rachel feinstein From: Anthony James To: barlow@eff.org John, First off, let me tell you how I know you. I am a friend of Rachel Feinstein's. I have had several opportunities to meet and converse with you over the years, most recently at Rachel's wedding in Miami. I was the guy producing television shows in Spain (if that helps). Anyway, the reason I'm writing you is to thank you for going on television recently and being one of the first people to humanize Carolyn in the press. I was lucky enough to be her friend. I met Carolyn years ago when she first started to date John, just weeks after first meeting you at a party you where throwing at your Chelsea Apartment. She and I met at Barneys and instantly became friends. At that time I really needed a friend but Rachel was going through her Ethan Hawk debacle so consequently was M.I.A. I was without direction (professionally and personally), lonely, depressed and suffering from very low self-esteem. It was the worst time of my life and Carolyn was there for me every step of the way. She was solely responsible for raising my spirits and getting me out of my depression. She wanted me to quit my job and go to work with her at Calvin Klein. She even set me up with an interview with her boss and Calvin. She would talk endlessly on the phone with me about everything from her situation with John to what movies to go see. One of my favorite things about her was that she would go out shopping with me and introduce me to the most beautiful women on earth and tell them really great things about me. She was so good at boosting someone's ego and she had a talent for making people feel special. I miss talking to her on the phone, having lunches with her and shopping with her, but most importantly, and this is the first time I can bring myself to say this (which, to me is accepting that she is gone)...I'm going to miss her terribly. She forever changed me, she confided in me, she encouraged me, she trusted me, she saw me as being more than I could have ever imagined for myself. She is and always will be a beautiful, beautiful person, and I thank God I now have a friend in heaven. I never had a chance to thank her for what she did for me, so I thank you John for letting the world know a little bit of what I always knew. Thanks again. Sincerely, Anthony James Thank you, Anthony James. That was Carolyn alright Always touching your sleeve lightly at the elbow, always fixing you like a pinned bug in her pale blue stare, and making you believe that you were utterly extraordinary, because she genuinely believed you were. There was no artifice in this. She believed it, because it is true. Each of us is extraordinary. She could see it. And so could John. But more of him directly. I first heard of Carolyn well before I met her. He told me about her one night at Tramps in early '94. He was still very attached to Daryl Hannah. But he said that there was a woman he'd met who was having a heavy and not entirely welcome effect on him. He wasn't going to pursue it, he declared, because he was loyal to Daryl. (Loyalty was one of his many virtues.) But it was hard for him, because he couldn't get his mind off her. "Who is she?" I asked. He said, "Ah, she's not really anybody. She's some kind of functionary at Calvin Klein. She's an ordinary person." Which of course she manifestly was not. She was anything but an ordinary person, but as far as the rest of the world knew at that point - or even today - she was. He maintained a platonic relationship with her until after he and Daryl had broken up. In fact, he even passed what I would consider to be a decent waiting period before engaging that relationship. An aside: John was not, as was commonly believed, a dog with the ladies. (I admit that some might think this assessment descends from my own liberal standards in this regard, but I believe that far less Casanovian observers than myself would have reached the same conclusion.) There were not so many women in his life that he took seriously. I think I knew them all. And there were even fewer that he took casually. In this regard, as in most others, he was anything but a Kennedy. Furthermore, once John came to love someone, he never quit loving her, even if circumstance, his own fragile heart, and the asymmetries that inevitably developed between "The Sexiest Man in the World" and most mortal woman conspired to separate them. Years after he and Daryl broke up, he was always asking me about how she was doing, hoping that I was being the friend to her that he could no longer be. In any event, I didn't meet Carolyn until the fall of '94. At once, I found her to be as charismatic as he was. "Charisma," you may know, was once a theological term meaning "grace." She had that. She was utterly compelling I was also impressed with the fact that she was more than a little eccentric. She was not conventional in any sense. Carolyn seemed a lot like John's mother in her quirkiness and also in her unbelievable capacity to engage one's attention. Jackie could be talking to six people at one time and make each of them feel like he was the only one in the room. Carolyn had the same ability. But like many angels, her empathy was her enemy. She was too raw to the pain of others. She felt it as deeply herself. And after she became the "Howard Hughes of Brides," as I darkly put it to her, she found that she couldn't go out in public without reducing practically all whom she encountered. I remember one occasion when she emerged from the bunker for a long nocturnal walk with me up 6th Avenue (which we agreed was as stupid a street as 5th Avenue was smart.) At a certain point, we went into an ATM enclosure. While she was getting cash, another smart and beautiful young New Yorker flounced in, looking utterly self-possessed. This girl moved into the machine next to Carolyn's and was about to get her cash when suddenly she turned, looked at Carolyn and lost it. "Wait," she said in a thin, clutched voice. "I know you." "I don't think so," Carolyn softly replied. "No, I do! Is your name Carolyn?" "Yes." Suddenly the girl lost herself. She become what Bob Dylan sang about in Idiot Wind: People see me all the time And they can't remember how to act. Their minds are filled with big ideas, Images and distorted facts. And it makes me feel so sorryI What the girl then did made Carolyn feel just that sorry. She seized Carolyn by both her delicate shoulders and insisted with hysterical intensity, "Carolyn! You have to come with me! We have so much to talk about. Really! My friend in the car just has to talk to talk to you too!" I ended up having to literally tear this formerly poised young lady away from Carolyn. I had to drag her to the door of her waiting car, shove her inside, and tell the driver to get the hell out of there before slamming the door against her imploring hands. Carolyn never wanted to turn anyone into the mess this girl had instantaneously become in the intersection between the media hallucination of familiarity and the actual presence of the weirdly "known." It hurt her so much she hid from it. Otherwise, she was better at being a fully developed beautiful smart woman than any of the many I've studied. Since all of my daughters seem destined to become something like her, I gave them over to her instruction. It was the greatest compliment I could pay her. I can't imagine who will assume that role in her absence. I'm grateful that Daryl has just re-emerged from her own exile. Perhaps shell be willing to reassume this tutelage. Otherwise, I'll be left with what I can impart from my own entirely vicarious appreciation of Female Mysticism. @@@ And what was John really like? I'll try to tell you. But I know too much. I have an embarrassment of riches in the memories I could convey here. As I've said, the reality exceeded the myth, though over the time I knew him, he was many different versions of his essential self. Some of his qualities were constant. He was always gracious, decent, loving, egalitarian, and engaged. He was always adventuresome, energetic, and endearing. He hated alcohol - especially when there was a lot of it in me - but he was a was a veteran pothead and a fearless psychedelic cadet. He took refuge in the countless and delicious ironies that surrounded him. He was a great gossip, though never malicious. In his sly, dry, perfectly timed wit, he was more like Noel Coward or Oscar Wilde than any of those ruddy Kennedy jocks who imagined him one of their own. He was also forgetful and incurably tardy. The other night Larry King asked me if I could ascribe to him a humanizing fault - since I had been suspiciously uncritical of John in all three episodes where I'd appeared - and I said, "Well, you wouldn't want to set your watch by him." But even this deficit was understandable given his utter inhabitation of whatever moment contained him. He was easily transfixed on the here and now. The over there and some soon time could always wait. I personally found that easy to forgive, since it was one of many characteristics we shared. He was a great prankster. He played more tricks on me than you'd be willing to read about now, but a couple come to mind. There was the time I was roller-blading through Central Park when, all of a sudden, this apparent madman lunged out of the bushes and tackled me. I had no idea who it was, because he emerged in such a blur. I thought, "Oh, God. It's a wilding," as the press then had it. "I'm gonna be wilded." Cynthia, who was skating with me, howled as already raped and beaten. I had cocked back a desperate fist and was about to land it when the jaw that was my target turned full-face. It was John. Grinning at the perfection of my terror. Or there was the last time I actually saw him, May 19 of this year. George Magazine and Newman's Own were staging an awards banquet in Manhattan's majestic old Customs House to honor philanthropic enterprises. John sat me with himself at the head table near Kenneth Cole, Puff Daddy, and right next to the dread Alfonse D'Amato (who, despite is fellow Republicanism, I'd always abhorred.) To John's obvious across-the-table delight, I found the actual Al D'Amato utterly likable. Sooner than I could have ever thought possible, we had our arms around one another's shoulders, conspiring like Borgia cardinals. Meanwhile, Kenneth Cole seemed a stick and Puff Daddy, maintaining phony a sunglass-ed cool in the near darkness, seemed almost without human merit. (I recounted this bizarre episode later to Leah, my eldest daughter. The revelation that I actually liked Al D'Amato was as baffling to me as another encounter, earlier in the year, which I spent an afternoon with Kenneth Starr and was even more surprisingly beguiled. After I admitted my consternation, she said dryly, "Daddy, there's probably an explanation for this that you haven't considered." What might that be, I wondered. "You could be turning into a bad man," she replied.) I don't think that was it. It was actually a lesson, imparted by John, that returned me all the way back to my father's relationship with Teno Roncalio: Except for true ideologues (which is to say people who have given over their humanity to a political philosophy), ideology counts for less than heart. John knew that. And when D'Amato, at one point that night, told John that the funniest and most useful thing he could do at that moment would be to run for Mayor of New York as a Republican, I honestly believe there was at least a New York nanosecond when he seriously considered it. It is for such heterodoxy that I will ever treasure him. He was his own man. The most knowing innocent I ever met. John "The Hunk Flunks" Kennedy was actually a genius. I mean that. I have always defined genius as the ability to see that which becomes obvious to all the moment the genius points it out. John's genius was more refined and instructive than that. He had the ability to ask the guilelessly dumb question the answer to which seems trivial until you realize that you don't know it. He could ask the obvious that no one else has asked. In this way, he taught me more about matters of my own supposed expertise than any of my other mentors, none of whom was ever so humble in his instruction. @@@ I can't yet imagine what my life will be like without John and Carolyn. Without them or my old dragon mother, I feel terribly lost. I suppose that learning how to live on in a world that lacks them will become one of the greatest lessons of the long trudge that awaits the non-angelic likes of myself. (There is, after all, a corollary to the world-believed notion that "only the good die young.") But I take some solace in the fact that they will always be as perfect as they were as they spun down into the wine-dark sea. As "Shakespeare" had Caesar say of Cleopatra, "Age cannot wither, nor custom stale her infinite variety." This would have been true of them had they lived to rare antiquity. Now it is irrevocably, horribly, and wonderfully true. Forever and ever. Amen. ************************************************************* John Perry Barlow, Cognitive Dissident Co-Founder & Vice Chairman, Electronic Frontier Foundation Berkman Fellow, Harvard Law School JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ Home(stead) Page: http://www.eff.org/~barlow MegaPhone: 800/654-4322 eFAX: 603/215-1529 European RentaFistFone: +44(0)700-770-7779 Barlow in Meatspace Now: Grosvenor House, London Coming soon to: Amsterdam 8/3-8 -> Stonehenge/Cornwall 8/9-11 -> London 8/12-13 -> New York City 13-15 -> Salt Lake City 8/16 -> Pinedale, Wyoming 8/16-19 -> San Francisco..?J In Memoriam: Miriam Jenkins Barlow Bailey (1905-1999) John Kennedy (1960-1999) Carolyn Bessette Kennedy (1966-1999) JJJJ ************************************************************** My guru is death. -- The Buddha