Remember Yann

Eric,

 You and I were never friends, but we were friendly.  You were one of the couple of hundred people that I would see just about every day for the six or so years of Jr. High School and High School.  I would see you in the halls, we would have classes together, and later on, we would be at the same parties.  I don’t know very much about you.  I have no stories to share right now.  We never worked in a Club Med together, nor did we ever fish for salmon together.  While you were swimming across Walden Pond during your A.P. English class trip, I was probably cutting curriculum II Social Studies and smoking Marlboros in the parking lot.  What can I say?, we were very different people in very different places in our lives. 

It was a joy knowing you, however.  You always had a spark, a joy, a life.  You had real compassion, and you had a lot of heart.  I never knew you to speak badly of anyone, nor did I ever hear anyone speak badly of you.  I thought about you quite a bit after I heard that you were ill.  And since I heard that you’ve passed on, I think about you regularly.  You are a  really good guy, Eric.  I hate that you had such a long sickness.  I watch the slideshow that your aunt made, and I honestly don’t know what to think.  I guess I just had to write to you.  I don’t post much of anything, really, but I needed share my thoughts about you with others who have felt your light, and have been touched by your spirit. 

 Jon Clermont

I remember going out to the Arb with him and hanging out with him and Isaac in their Carleton dorm room. Here are some photos I had of him. I can’t believe he’s gone - he was one of the most full of life people i’ve ever met.

I was stunned when I read the news in the Carleton Voice. I assumed that meant it wasn’t even “new” anymore.

When I was working on my comps/senior project I needed help with a used ibook I had acquired and Yann graciously and generously agreed to set it up it for me. When he finished he gave it to me and said, “I left you a surprise.” A little unsure what he meant by that, I thanked him and went back to work. When I turned on the computer I saw Yann’s surprise. He had made the start up screen his image, a huge smile framed by unruly dreads! I was only on campus one more term and then completed my project in the Twin Cities. I smiled at his infectious grin every time I turned on that machine even though all i wanted at that point was to finish.
I am sorry I won’t get to see Yann again, the world was a better more joyous place with him in it.

-Michelle

I met him as Eric. Adding the French, it sounded sort of like “err-eek-ah. at least the way i said it. i remember him doing a cameo in my movie. i remember being fully engaged with our moment. he told it how it was…and how it could be…and what he expected you to be. which was the best of yourself. thanks for making me grin until it hurts my tummy.

~g

Once in college I compiled some Eric’s side of our email correspondence over a couple weeks and handed it in as a paper in college. I wanted to write like Eric. His true stories read like great fiction.

Eric was one of my only friends who would come visit me when he came to town, and not only for selfish reasons. And for that I looked forward to the holidays, especially Thanksgiving. My last memory of him was four Thanksgivings ago when he and Douglass came to my studio and recorded some experimental tracks. It was a pleasure to hang with him and if I knew that was the last time I would see him I would have made more out of it. But we hung until 4 in the morning nonetheless and I guess every moment can’t last forever. I also remember him coming by my parents house, sitting in my miniature room watching movies and telling me stories about his adventures in Mexico and other fun places. Another fond memory was when we walked the streets of NYC one day we both happened to be in town at the same time to visit Douglass in Brooklyn. That’s a day I will never forget…

A bad memory was when we all found out he got cancer and met at City Side. Everyone was having a great time like it was some sort of reunion. I think I was the only one crying, unless everyone else was just keeping it inside like me. I think I said three words that entire night…

Eric you were one of nicest people I knew and I wish I could still visit you but that of course is impossible except for reliving my memories. I am sure you are resting peacefully now in heaven. I miss you.

‘Abes’

I remember seeing ‘Tommy’ (the play based on the Who album) with you some time in high school, and running across Boston Common (it was snowing) and feeling about as free as I ever felt in high school.

I remember swimming across Walden Pond in our senior AP English trip there… in November

I remember our Carmina Burana presentation in the same class… it was all about the revelry

I always felt that you were the extrovert I could never be

I wish I’d gotten back in touch

I wish I could have said good bye

I miss you

-Noah

I heard the news today…

Hi, as you can tell, I have been sorely out of the Carleton loop, for better or for WORSE…I just talked to Molly J. today for the first time in years, and she told me about Yann’s passing.  I probably didn’t know Yann as well as some, but we had an affinity for each other that probably grew stronger because of our mutually rocky relationship with Carleton.  I met Yann through Lars and this is how the story starts….

So Yann and I knew each other a little, but I knew Lars better.  I was going to be in DC for the Millenium and my friend backed out at the last minute…Luckily, I knew Lars well enough to call him up and see what he would be doing.  He told me he and Yann were both working on/around new years in their role as Clinton-era white house interns…Lars had to go in at 9PM, but that was when Eric was getting out.  Lars and I met, hung out, then he went to work and passed me on the Yann.  What a great chance to bond and fraternize with this “mad one”  We went to this bar  north of the mall, drank, talked, and quoted Kerouac.  As midnight approached, we headed down to the action…We huddled for a rastafarian moment in a little plaza a couple blocks off the mall, then headed towards the ruckus.  The crowds were pretty thick, and while we were not as far back as the Washington Monument, we were quite a distance away, so…we climbed a tree!  Well of course, what else…We were soon joined by a few mexicans who we were happy to have, but with whom I could not say more than hi to.  Of course Yann became the interpreter.  We enjoyed the festivities, hit a party or two at GW, then split for the night…We saw each other off and on again when we both happened to be in Northfield…Obviously time and space drifted us apart…I don’t have anything more productive of my own to say, so I’ll leave you with a quote I started to say to him that night, and which he finished for me (I think it was in his application essay for college)-he embodies it:

“The only one’s for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who NEVER YAWN or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles, exploding like spiders across the sky, and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop! and everyone goes AHHH!!!

Tom Andrews

im really sad for Eric, i was thinking of him from time to time wondering how he was going.
I’ll always remember this great guy who cooked me a cake in Carleton with my name on it (except my mum nobody ever did that to me again), and who sang a french cartoon from when i was 5 “remi sans famille”.
And i’ll remember when i came back from Spain he was waitting for me at the train station with a bottle of champagne that we drunk watching train departure, he told me that it was where his parents met years ago. he was about to leave france and he told me : “leaving….what a sweet suffering”
I never saw a guy like him able to talk so easily to other human being, when he had left  Paris he had more friends then i in some few month, he knew half of Paris…

Marion

I’ve greatly enjoyed all the Eric stories that got passed around at the memorials, & all the postings here, thank you all so much for sharing your memories! I’ve been slow to post anything myself, largely because my thoughts of Eric don’t seem to crystallize into any one representative anecdote–I must have been about 6 or 7 when I met him in Newton, a time in life when everything seems completely new yet also completely immutable–you can’t conceive of a time when you’ll no longer remember the names of most of your playmates…But of course Eric remained an immutable presence, an essential character throughout our public school careers together–always up for adventure, usually generating it himself, though also paradoxically one of the calmest & steadiest people I’ve ever known, quick with advice & counsel whenever you needed it (which for me, in high school, was pretty frequently).

Freshman year of college we got our first e-mail accounts (exotic & glamorous back in ‘94) & Eric’s updates on life in Mexico were an easy highlight of the academic year for me. I remember he had a pal down there who wanted to practice his English on Eric, & always addressed him as “hey-you-fucking-guy!” I liked that & called Eric that for a while–in turn he’d call me “Bugaliki,” in reference to a memorable mangling of my name by one of my professors…His best e-mails, of course, were the ones about girls–they occasionally verged on pornographic, but were always sweet-natured & filled with enthusiasm, as if he were as amazed by his exploits as I surely was. Lord knows how I responded to them, I think I just churned out different variations on “Wow, man…”

He was a beautiful & unique guy, and remains so in all of our memories–certainly his presence has always raised inspired uncharacteristic optimism in me. I had the tremendous good fortune to see Eric the week before he passed, and though the physical transformation since the last time I’d seen him (a couple years earlier) was shocking & painful to absorb, somehow his strength & his humor, and of course his incredible family, left me once more optimistic…It’s a hard thing to explain, but driving out of Alexandria that day, though I couldn’t have been sadder about what I’d seen, I nonetheless felt like this was a pretty wonderful world to be living in. Eric could always do that, and I think he’ll keep doing it for many of us…

Andrew Bujalski