Other People, via Neil Gaiman

I am a fan of Neil Gaiman's arts, and came across this post from his blog that fits in with the Virginia Tech event follow-up. The Red/Gold/Blue is an image from Jamie's site - memory39. Rose photo is Dwain Ritchie's.

Thursday, April 19, 2007 http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/

Here is Neil G's post: Other People

My memories of Virginia Tech are of one perfect day in 1998, when I was wandering around the country for a couple of days with Tori on tour, spending the afternoon at her grandmother's farm and then driving up to Blacksburg for a wonderful evening of watching wonderful music and meeting nice people.

I haven't posted about the Virginia Tech shooting, and wasn't going to. But...

I'm in the UK right now, and it's a long way away, and I'm reading about what happened in newspapers (because I don't turn on TVs in hotel rooms. I don't know why this is, but I don't), still managing to think of this as something that happened, tragically, to Other People. And then I see this, and my heart sinks, because this is the Michael Bishop who I met in 1999 when we were Guests of Honour at World Horror, whose son was a Sandman fan and oh god, and then I click on this, and I get my nose rubbed hard and painfully in the fact that there are no Other People. It's just us.
Jamie Bishop memory39

Kathy Oddenino wrote a great piece on her blog about "Hidden Memories and Mind Control" to help understand events such as the shootings at Virginia Tech. I know this is a new way of thinking about "mental illness," or "memories," and the psychology of us as human beings, and will not make sense to many. For those who find it a gateway to relating to themselves and their own sensory life, and "bigger than life" experiences, this is a real addition to our human education and self-expression. Kathy Oddenino's blog post

I've been reading about Einstein some lately, and how he loved children. Einstein has been quoted as saying, his secret was to "be like a child." He took time to respond to children's letters. I think of how Kathy has explained the ways her parents, particularly her father, responded to her in her creative expressions as a child. I think of my parents and their loving ways of guiding each of us in our explorations of life. Without these memories, who are we?