Taking Woodstock

August 16, 2009

Gang,

It was so nice to see so many of you at David's memorial last week, and to meet many folks I'd heard David speak of over the years. A big consolation through the shock and sadness was to see how many disparate groups of people David had reached out to, and how carefully he maintained friendships with so many different circles. It's truly galvanizing to see that a life lived in fervent embrace of the arts could touch, move and change so many people. (And wow, my brother belonged to the Science Fiction Book Club too, and had many of the books Matt mentioned in his beautiful remembrance of David.)

I went to see a new film last week, "Taking Woodstock," at an early screening. David would have loved it. I couldn't stop thinking of him during it. It's based on a book called "Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life," co-written by a guy named Elliot Tiber (he's the protagonist of the movie). Tiber is the fellow who held a permit--gained under dubious circumstances--that allowed the concert to happen after several towns rejected it. The movie begins as a touching picture of life in a dull Catskills town, and of the Tiber character's struggle to care for his aging parents. I highly recommend it--and if only David were still here, we'd have been talking for hours about it...

Peace and love,
Steve Daly