Second Anniversary of Joyce's Death 9/12/09

This is the piece of glass that was dedicated to Joyce by the Czech artist IVANA HOUSEROVA. It’s titled “Angel”



Dear Family and Friends,


9/12/2007 Joyce Shanock Simon

Today is the eighth anniversary of 9/11, the tragedy that took place eight years ago when terrorists flew into the Twin Towers in NYC and the Pentagon in DC. I recall that Joyce and I were seated at the breakfast table in the kitchen in Great Neck when Robert called and asked where we were. I remember I didn’t quite understand what he meant and answered stupidly, “I’m right here, what do you mean?” Then Robert told us to turn on the TV and in horror we watched that day’s events unfold.

No one who lived through that day will ever forget 9/11. So when Joyce died on 9/12/07, the two dates are linked together forever in my mind. Today we have public sorrow and memorials for the victims of 9/11. Tomorrow on 9/12, those of us who knew Joyce share a private grief and personal memories.

I think that I need to give voice to some of my memories of Joyce Shanock Simon, my wife, your mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, and friend. Earlier today, I was looking at an undated note that Joyce had made on a pad from The Ritz Hotel in London. Here are her words verbatim, “And So it is/ Just like you/Said it would be.” So I googled the phrase and here’s what I found, the first stanza of the lyrics to a song:
And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her skies

I wonder if Joyce was listening to that song when she wrote that note. No matter, but the fact Joyce might have jotted down the title of a song that she just heard makes complete sense to me. The fact is that Joyce jotted down book titles, song lyrics, poetry excerpts, birthdays, politics, travel destinations, artist’s names, and hosts of other things to remind her of the things she liked and loved in this world. Joyce had a huge appetite for life. It seems impossible that she is no longer with us and sharing, no explicitly STATING, her opinions on politics, authors she loved, glass art, travel, her children and grandchildren, the Knicks, tennis and in particular Bjorn Borg, Gustave Mahler, The Beatles, and anything else that she was passionate about (read that to mean everything in her life).

Sometime tomorrow, please take a moment or two to talk about Joyce with your spouse, with your kids, with any of her friends, and share some of your memories.

With loving memories of Joyce,

Seymour

From Nancy and Rob Schulman

Dear Seymour,
Thank you for your eloquence. I think of Joyce often and miss her as I enjoy my life in Greenwich Village and look at the beautiful glass pieces Rob and I have gotten from her.

Love,
Nancy

from Sami Harawi, Mostly Glass Gallery

Dear Seymour

Few weeks pass that I do not think of Joyce. It is always happy, restful thinking
She is one of the very few persons that made a positive and powerful difference in my life
It is a joy thinking of her, yet it does fill my eyes with tears.
So many difficult situations would be easier to handle with her support
So many happy moments would have been magnified by her enthusiasm
No passing away has had an impact on me like hers

Sami

From Vilma and Jack Farman

Joyce and I went to Prague nine times. More on this later.

In 1970, our family moved from New Haven to Great Neck to be closer to several South African friends whom we knew well. Some of them became surrogate family.

We had lived in Great Neck a few months when Jack was summoned to South Africa as his Mom was not well. One day, I was invited to meet a small gathering of neighbors. It was there that I met Seymour and Joyce. We chatted endlessly and at the end of the evening exchanged telephone numbers.

When Jack returned from South Africa we all became great friends. We discovered that we shared many interests – music, art, theatre, sports, books and just lots sof fun. Seymour encouraged Jack to collaborate in writing two science books for children. One on the heart and the other on the lungs.

At about this time, both Joyce and I were becoming restless and looking to see whether we could start a business. She was already interested in becoming a travel agent. She suggested we do a group trip for doctors and that was our first business venture. We led a small group to the Bahamas, made no money but enjoyed working together. However, I did not have the temperament for catering to people’s demands. Joyce flourished as a travel agent and remained one for the rest of her life. She traveled the world.

I decided to go into commerce with another friend and did so for twenty years.

We all remained good friends but saw less of each other due to running our respective businesses. Joyce was doing a wonderful job guiding groups of professionals all over the world. Of course, she was also our travel agent.

One year she came back raving about the Czech Republic and suggested that Jack and I go to Prague on our next trip. It sounded wonderful and it was more than that. We loved it!.

In 1995 I had been ill and retired from my business. Joyce suggested that she and I go to Prague and so we did. I was introduced to the Czech Republic. Joyce was an excellent guide and teacher and I guess I was a quick study! That is when she and I started going to Prague regularly. We also started a venture buying and selling glass sculpture.

We were very successful buying but not so great at selling. We could somehow not divest ourselves of our purchases because they had become part of our own collections! So that ended our second business venture.

We traveled many times to Europe. We made many friends, especially glass artists. Joyce had become very close to Jiri Harcuba, a professor and glass artist. It was their friendship that took me along this wonderful path.

Our friendship lasted for 38 years. When our children were younger we would have birthday parties for our dogs. Joyce, of course, loved dogs (and cats). We would invite other friends with dogs to celebrate our dog parties! Hysterical laughter would echo through the house!

We enjoyed so many things together. However, we also had our differences. Sometimes things got very heated as Joyce discussed everything with passion. Whether it was animals, glass, books, the Arts, tennis, the Knicks – even arguing about the comparative merits of stars like Duke Snyder and Willie May – you name it!

Her final illness came like a bolt from the blue. Due to medical reasons I was unable to visit her in early August for 2 weeks. By the time I was able to visit her, she was not in a fit state to have visitors.

We miss our friend terribly. She was one-of-a-kind.

Our love goes out to Seymour and all the family.

Vilma, Jack and family.

From Jirina and Bedrich Zert

Dear Seymour, thank for Your nice Chritmas mail.
Everytime when meeting some friends, Anna especially we are often remembering Joyce. We feel how much she was helpfull to the Czech glass artists making them publicity. We miss her very and know, that her absence we shall regrete for ever.

We are looking forward to meet You in Prague soon.

Best greetings Jirina and Bedrich Žert

From Alice Chappell

Joyce had the discerning eye of a curator, a keen intellect, and a heart of gold. I met her 11years ago at the first SOFA NY. We shared a love of minimalism in glass - and a desire to help homeless animals, particularly cats. I valued her insights: she collected carefully, and was always first to spot talent. And, through her my appreciation of the expanse of contemporary Czech glass grew because I saw that she always went beyond the obvious – that was too mundane for her – and sought out artists with their own, distinctive points of view. She vigorously promoted their work and I enjoyed working with her in this respect. She was a leader, not a follower.

One of my fondest memories was the Thanksgiving, in 2004, that my husband, Richard, and I spent with her in Prague. I had been there several times before, beginning in my student days, but the vision of the city that she revealed made me feel as though it were my first visit. Since that visit, any time that Prague or the Czech Republic is mentioned, my husband thinks wishfully of the prospect of returning to the rich and beautiful place that she shared with us. We are only saddened that Joyce would not be with us.

The world was her oyster. Very near the end of her life she asked to have one of Anna Matouskova’s works delivered to her. It was an extremely heavy piece and we asked a gentleman, with whom we have worked on several occasions, to take care of the delivery, unpacking and placement of the work. He himself is a very special person, a devoted Muslim convert whose sense of spirituality is second only to that of Joyce. When he returned from Joyce’s home, he came in to Chappell Gallery with his eyes shining. They had spoken for hours, sharing ideas. He could not stop saying what a wonderful person she was.

The world needs more people like Joyce. On a personal level, I miss her very much and often think about her, far more than others, no longer with us, whom I have known better. She was a generous and thoughtful person, at a time when people seem to becoming increasingly narrow and insular in their thinking. I fear for the loss of people like Joyce.

First Fig by ESVM

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

Memorial at Edna St. Vincent Millay's Steepletop house in Austerlitz

On December 23rd, Seymour, Robert and Michael, Nicole and Debra, Joel and Benjamin, Chloe and Jeremy had a family memorial service at Edna St. Vincent's Millay's Steepletop home in Austerlitz. Earlier that day we had read excerpts from this blog. At Steepletop we read Millay's poem Dirge Without Music aloud and then told of some of our memories of Joyce. We gave a donation to the Millay Society as a memory to Joyce and they will mount a plaque with her name on a wall of donors. Millay was of particular significance to Joyce. The first presents Joyce and Seymour exchanged were books of her poetry: Collected Sonnets and Collected Lyrics. Also there was an exhibit related to Millay's poem about a Czech village Lidice which had been destroyed by the Nazis in WW II. The powerful relation Joyce had with Millay and the Czech people came through clearly. We were all touched and thrilled by the incredible coincidence of Millay's house being so near our house in Copake and so perfect for a memorial to Joyce.

Houserova Glass Angel dedicated to Joyce Simon

Houserova

Click on Houserova above for the image.

Dirge without Music, Edna St. Vincent Millay

Stephen Orlofsky, (my "sweet" little nephew who used to wake me every morning one summer to ask if I had a "bu bu"--yiddish for a small injury), picked up on a beautiful poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay and I want to show the whole poem below. At the family's memorial service for Joyce on December 23 (Joyce would have been 75 if she had lived), we're going to try to go over to Millay's house (which is in Austerlitz not far from our house in Copake) and read a few of Millay's poems in Joyce's Memory.

Dirge without Music
--Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Stephen Orlofsky writes of his memories of Joyce

Dear Uncle Symo: I was at your wedding in that little synagogue in the Bronx (Was it on University Avenue?). I remember it clearly. Joyce was laughing, smiling, joking with me. She took me seriously all my life, from the day of your wedding. You, of course, as well as the rest of my family, knew better. Joyce did too, but she pretended there was more to me than there really was. After a while, because Joyce believed in me, I started to believe in me too. Of course, I knew in my heart of hearts that you did too, but you were my Uncle Symo, and we are guys and couldn't admit to something like that publicly. Joyce could and did. She was always supportive, and after Robbie and Michael were born, I was like a third son to her, albeit a much more difficult child than either of those two turkeys.

Sometimes, people would become impatient with Joyce's enthusiasms. I never did, although I never could understand how she rooted for the Knicks. Of course, she would be delighted to know that Patrick Ewing was just inducted into the Hall of Fame. She would also love to know that I too now have a dog named Riley. She made a difference in my life, and I miss her, especially her love and enthusiasms for all the things and the people who mattered to her.

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been , time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Dirge Without Music
Edna St. Vincent Millay

I love you Uncle Symo.

Stephen

Larry Rader writes of his memories of Joyce

Seymour

I think about her almost daily. Not so much because I spend my days reflecting on loved ones lost, but because, as you said, her passion was so intense and so inspiring. Of course Joyce’s views and knowledge informed us all during her lifetime, and continue to do so. But that’s not primarily why I think about her so often. Because that could be said for many people we know. What it is, is that her humor and approach to the things that got her fired up was voiced in a way that just continues to resonate. In my life, and I’d venture to say in the lives of most people we know, the things that inspired Joyce to (hmmm, how to put this?) subtly voice her opinion (haha) are the things we still deal with daily. Politics and the Knicks come to mind, but it’s not just that. On the last day that Elisa and I spent with Joyce, as weak as she was, she still became impassioned about both topics! To a point that we all had to try to change the subject because you telling her ‘Joyce save your energy – it’s not worth getting this upset’ wasn’t working. The point is that now, every day, something crosses our paths which leads to a WWJS (what would joyce say) moment. And I’m informed anew, but more importantly, I’m emboldened to never compromise my opinions, just as she wouldn’t. But I’m also amused, because as serious as she was and we all are about these topics, no conversation with Joyce about any of this ever took place without a lot of laughs. Just this morning, over coffee, before I read your email, I had a Joyce moment. I was reading about NBC busting Keith Olberman down to cheerful chimp cheerleader for the left instead of smart but biased commentator which he was during the primaries and conventions. ‘Pussies’, I thought, as I became enraged at the miserable ineffectiveness of the left at advocating its positions, now and always. And then I chuckled and thought of Joyce. How angry and passionate she’d be about this if she were here. How her hair would stand on end in rage at the typical media betrayal. How much we’ll all keep fighting the good fight, because of her passion.

And that’s why I think of her so often.

Much love, Larry