Justin and I wrote a song, with lots of help from our friends, for Marcel. You can listen to it here: http://www.newchicagosound.com/songformarcel.html

My love for Marcel extends to all of you in equal measure,
Thea

“The Flowerburgers”

by Richard Brautigan

Baudelaire opened
up a hamburger stand
in San Francisco,
but he put flowers
between the buns.
People would come in
and say, “Give me a
hamburger with plenty
of onions on it.”
Baudelaire would give
them a flowerburger
instead and the people
would say, “What kind
of a hamburger stand
is this?”

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=3de6398e0682344019747bd91027d4dd46e6d0b860586011

A friend told me of the passing of Marcel last night and my heart sank because you can just tell when someone is good and I immediately thought of those he knew better.

I did not know Marcel well, but when we connected through friends at a party in 2001 or 2002 his few comforting words to me have stayed with me to this day and I know will stay with me forever. I think of the words and his kind smile and eyes when needed.

I am so sorry and I am thinking of his friends and family. He was a very special soul.

Kim from Chicago and now in STL.

April 16th 1996
Last night I met Marcel at Fox park while he was walking his dog. We talked like we used to and it was good. We told nightmares and explained stories. He said “I never ask for a hug when I most need one.” We talked about people and meditation. I said I wanted to know when I’m going to die, so I can prepare. He said “I don’t think I could do any better than what’s already in the plan for me. If I knew I was going to die I wouldn’t call anyone.” He asked me what I would say if he was going to die, “cause you never know, I could die tomorrow.” I said I’ll look for you in everything and I’ll write you things and burn them so you get them and talk to you out loud and wait for you in my dreams and I would say I love you and thank you and to be continued.
And we held on so long.

He was able to be there when I was a troubled seventeen year old, and when I was exploring myself and the world in college and later as I moved to Seattle and began to grow my life here. Always a voice on the phone, and a few times a year in person, to listen and challenge me and hold my secrets.

Most of us meet a fair amount of people as we pass through the world. And we find ways to show our selves to a lucky few, to expose what is truest and best in us to someone who will find it worthy. It was always obvious to everyone that Marcel was that person- who could see your secret self and consider himself blessed and honored to do so.

It’s hard to describe him to someone who never met him. He sounds beyond the bounds of human reality. But we know- that’s just Marcel. And we always knew we were blessed to have him walk with us for a while.

-Polly Jirkovsky

I am so sorry and sad about Marcel. When Aaron told me, I could not believe it. All I could think of was the cute and cuddly little boy with curly blond locks. How could he be riding a motorcycle? But time had marched on.

I heard news from time to time—Marcel is studying this, Nathan and Marcel are doing that. I checked out the Fonogginate myspace and laughed at “Sounds like: Simon and Garfunkel.” I thought: Simon and Garfunkel for the 2000s, with the gentleness wrapped up in brittleness and beat.

Marcel obviously embraced life and lived to the fullest. He touched so many. All three of you can be so proud and happy that you raised such a wonderful son and brother. I have been so sad about what Marcel lost, what you lost, what all his friends and family lost, and the loss to the world of an excellent young man with so much to give. I know that Marcel will be in your hearts and on your minds every day. No Kuehn or Fremont holiday will ever be the same.

It is at times like this that I am glad I believe in life after death. But it is also at times like this that life seems too unfair, too open to chance. I can understand my parents dying, after their long, full lives. But I do not understand a peaceful, healthy young person dying. It is part of life I suppose I may never understand and never accept.

I have heard that people come to grips with and even make use of their great sorrow, channeling it into doing good in honor of their loved one. I have heard that peace comes and sorrow mellows. I find it hard to believe. If you have greatly loved, then you have greatly lost. I have been told that strength will be given, commensurate with the test at hand. I hope this is true.

May that peace and that strength be with you, and may it mellow your sorrow.

– Sue Basko

I’ve enjoyed reading all your great and touching words, it has been a pleasure to meet several of you at the funeral and open-mic, for that I am grateful. Marcel spun a pretty magnificent web of people together. Johnny-friends, this passing reminds me how much I miss you, and the times we all shared in that strong community of quirky & curious folk.

The last time I saw Marcel, I was on a similar cross-country trek back from New Orleans and stopped in St louis. We went south to a place called the Elephant Rocks. We camped for the night nearby; cooked steak, beans & potatoes on the campfire, playing Go by candlelight. He was better than me, but I managed to win on a minor oversight of his, a rare pleasure (the faces he made when frustrated, or feigning frustration, were particularly humorous I think). The next day at Elephant rocks, which are bizarre rose-colored bulbous shaped formations, we went swimming in a cool deep lagoon, not talking really, just enjoying nature. We also went on a local festive bike ride called the moonlight ramble. He was friends with the local bicycle-shop gearhead punks, and borrowed a chopper-bicycle, with an elongated neck. All the kids we passed along the way would exclaim, “cool”, or “Hey dad, look at that guy!”. I think Marcel alone converted 200 would-be young drivers into bicyclists that night though his power of inspiration through whimsy - such a marvelous trait.

I remember Marcel as a touchstone of many many good memories, most of them related to exploring and uncovering what is enjoyable in life. He knew how to play, an non-traditional art which rekindles our interest in living and awakens us to joy. But he was also very familiar with the inner-passage ways of thought, with its labyrinthine twists and turns, and I always appreciated how he had wisdom to spare when I would feel at a dead-end. He could be, by turns, light and heavy - humble and fierce - goofy and wise. I miss him very much.

I wish all the best for his family, lovers & friends, and hope that, though the center of our love may be gone, we can find ways to support one another - and grow stronger the gifts of joy which Marcel gave to us. For now though, it is hard to get there, and I wish peace for you in dealing with this loss.

Your friend,

Justin Kray

p.s. I did manage to walk to O’hare

this flickr set is made out of a collective batch of pictures from a bunch of friends, including polly, mike and tim.

“Here is the essay I wrote for my friend about moving away, if yer interested.
In 1951, their families and country damaged by war, Heinz, Regina and their young daughter Angelika moved from their home in the outskirts of Berlin to a foreign country, the native land of the occupiers of one-half of Germany’s capital. They learned the language, found work and then careers, eventually settling in a suburb of Chicago to raise five more children. In 1975, a man from Ohio married their third daughter, Veronica, and a few years later I was born. I can’t really know what the relocation must have been like for my grandparents, nor for my father, but having now moved away from Oak Park myself (albeit not so distantly, nor with or for wife and child), I can imagine.

The first date, the job interview, almost getting hit by a car, a fever that overtakes you in a supermarket; moments of strangeness that drive you to seek out the familiar, to touch base - but in your first weeks and months in a new city, your base is so new you can still remember the first time you touched it, and with no retreat, the newness seeps in irrevocably. Returned from a funeral, removing his tie, my father told me that one of the hardest aspects of death is not just losing a friend, but losing the part of yourself only they knew. All your shared memories, now held only in your fragile recollection and subject to your smudgings and edits, and the smile only they could provoke now put up on a high shelf, perhaps never to be brought down again. Moving away from home, alone, can be like that; never asked to tell that stupid story again, you are no longer the person who groans, secretly happy, and starts, “Alright, so I had just got my first driver’s license…” You realize that who you are does not stop at your skin. When you smile, it is at different people, and when you are lonely, you go different places, and like a canyon swept out by new winds, you change.

As you begin the act of living in a foreign land growing familiar, like the first date, between the sidewalk glances and forkfuls of food, casual conversations, small tragedies and autobiographic confessions, you may find yourself asking your new home, “Are you worth getting to know? Will we fall in love? Will you remember me?” and you may begin to feel the strange tug of a new smile you have never used before, and living stories you will be asked to recount by dear strangers. ”

I’m still getting a photo set together and will send it soon.
All my love,
Helen Klein