Sunset, sunrise

Posted by rhsmith on August 26, 2008

This morning’s e-mail brought the news of a death and a birth. What a way to start the day.

Dan Ort was a professor of creative writing at Southern State College (later University) in New Haven, Connecticut, where I camped from 1980 until graduation in 1984. From my first day on campus, I was enrolled (by the power of some occult process I can only liken to the Babylon Lottery) in his Catch 22 course, a comparative literature class that studied the conflicting Apollonian and Dionysian forces at work in man throughout the ages, in fine art, in literature and in films. Ort (as everyone called him – like Zeus or Blofield) was one of a handful of steely profs who played good cop/bad cop to us fledgling thinkers. He had pioneered the concept of team-taught college level courses; the team graded our papers collectively, with each member adding his or her own comments (like the comments section on a blog), which meant you had to sift through a latticework of arguments among the teachers in different colored inks before you could determine whether or not you had passed their grade. Ort had a Gene Hackman quality to him – the same receding hairline and high forehead, the same wolfy intellect hidden by the sheep’s clothing of a self-deprecating smile, the same scorched earth contempt for muddy thinking. It was through this class that I first saw Citizen Kane and Red Desert and Battleship Potemkin and Black Orpheus and A Fatal Glass of Beer. Ort was a bona fide film geek – if you had a story for him, he’d want to know if it had “a wild finish.” He was the author of several books: Off to See the Wizard, Is This the End of Little Rico?, My Mother Always Called Me By My Brother’s Name and Ort Bran. The last of these collected essays he’d written for the Connecticut section of The New York Times. He was also a playwright and a watercolorist and had an exhibit of his art just a month before his death. In addition to the Parkinson’s that hobbled him later in life, he also suffered from a lifelong heart condition, of which I knew nothing until the day I popped into his office to leave him a note and, in search of a pen, opened a desk drawer to find a cache of prescription medicine. It was one of those “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” moments in life when my mentor, my tormentor, my Ozymandius, my Patton was made human to me. Of course, this insight didn’t diminish my respect for him in any way – I slid the drawer closed and kept my mouth shut but I’ve been expecting bad news for almost a quarter century. I was always grateful to Dan Ort for his many gifts to me and I dedicated a 1989 production of my play There Are No Runners Up in Russian Roulette to him. I had actually written the play for him, as part of a special credit course he had arranged just for me – I got to receive credit just for writing! I still have that manuscript, banged out on a Royal manual typewriter, the paper yellowed now, the ink faded… and fainter still, his handwritten note on the title page, just one word, a terse, empowering “Good.” Ort died on my birthday last year and I only found out this morning, from a fellow classmate who, like me, was made stronger in all the places Ort broke us.

In happier news, film and theatre critic, Cineaste associate editor and thinking blogger Robert Cashill became a first-time father yesterday in Brooklyn with the birth of his daughter. As Bob hasn’t yet made the announcement public, I’ll withhold all the pertinent information but use this space to wish him and Lora and Baby Girl Cashill all the best on the cusp of their new adventure. Pack away those Criterion discs and Taschen coffee table books, Bob… you’ve got bigger fish to fry.

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11 Responses Sunset, sunrise

Posted By meg : August 26, 2008 3:20 pm

“I’m cold,” Snowden whimpers, “I’m cold.” “There, there,” Yossarian says. “There, there.”

Posted By Chris Burdett : August 26, 2008 4:53 pm

Richard:

Meg just learned and told me yesterday that Dan had died. This is a lovely eulogy/tribute/rememberance. I only got to meet him twice, but he was crearly very special.

Regards,

Chris

Posted By movie fan : August 27, 2008 3:57 pm

I am a huge fan of your blogs. they are alwasy so much fun and very informative. I was wondering if you would blog about a favorite of mine called SUNDAYS AND CYBELE,a French film starring my favorite actor HARDY KRUGER . I saw it years and years ago, but cannot find it now. my friends and I would to read more about it from you. thanks so much :)

Posted By RHS : August 30, 2008 11:52 am

Hardy Kruger is one of my favorite actors, too – if I spoke any German at all I’d read one of his autobiographies. I’ll put SUNDAYS AND CYBELE on my to-do list!

Posted By movie fan : September 3, 2008 11:36 am

Thanks so much! I am so glad to know that somebody else besides me enjoys Hardy Kruger. I think he was a fine actor and a kind person. I can’t wait to read your next blog.

Posted By sharon ort : September 27, 2008 10:44 am

Thank you Richard for the wonderful tribute to my beloved Dan I shall read it to him as I spend time every day sitting in our yard on his memorial bench and tell him about my lonely day Sharon

Posted By Larry Moffi : September 28, 2008 5:45 pm

Your description of Dan was perfect! Thanks for such a fitting tribute.

Posted By Jacki Moffi : September 29, 2008 10:53 am

Your beautifully crafted memoir of Dan Ort makes those who miss him mourn him more and allows those who never met him glimpse the abundant life of a extraordinary man. Thank you so much.

Posted By Bob Cashill : October 4, 2008 12:08 pm

Bringing up baby has been so exhausting I hadn’t seen this until now, but Larissa Delitha Cashill (six weeks old this Monday) thanks RHS and all her Morlockian well-wishers. We’re trying to figure out her Halloween ensemble.

Posted By william plikaitis : July 19, 2009 1:35 am

My – my – with tears in my eyes, with trepidation and awe I discover Dan Ort is off chasing Antoneeonee Rainbows and Reifenstaller Wizards, while I remain full of remembering his snappy smile, cyclonic energy, and his never ending interest in how the students before him are doing with or without their muse. Is their life interesting and are they eating it as at a banquet and not as bird food or scraps. So much did this guy shovel into my life and help germinate my ability to create. Even before I met him, I was told about him by my friend Phyllis Leorardi. She reported to me when I asked about the creative writing prof, “Yea he is a smart one – a good looking man with a slight blond wife attached at his elbow”. I didn’t get it then and now so many adventures with Dan later, I kind of do get it, the two were in love – a course southern had a hard time teaching.

So I miss knowing Dan is out there in real life ready to chat and be interested in the last creative thing I accomplished. He gave like that – a lot to us all – over and over again. I hear his voice. I recall his passion about a simple camera move or an over the shoulder look by Ingmar Bergman to the camera. For my birth day one year he surprised me with an 8 and one half by 11 inch, black piece of cardboard he used to matt a 1 by 1 inch black and white photo – profile of Ingmar at 23 looking over her shoulder to the camera. It’s upstairs in the last box of college papers and poems reminding me of how powerful a connection there is between folks that love the cinema. We can never get enough.

Dan was always surprising us. Yes he was. One day he asked my friend Colin and I to stop by his office – he had a proposition for us. He said if we would take (escort) his teenage daughters to a heavy metal concert at the new haven coliseum we could get credit for it as background – a site survey, and he got off the hook with the girls and Sharon. He could stay home and watch basketball or football or both.

He made me believe that there would be a tomorrow. That man and woman could create. They could make a movie – could write a play – could take a photo – could make a pot that mattered – sing a song unsung – be moved by someone else’s ability to think to work to create to communicate to entertain to instruct to reveal – challenge – complete – support – diminish or enhance the moment.

He believed we could all do any of that. That we all possessed genius revealed or yet to be revealed.

I profited by knowing Dan. I became a better man by knowing Dan.

Dan is a model, a mentor a guide – even now here in my heart, close to my soul and at this table in my dinning room with a beer and a screwed up smile he sits before my minds eye commenting on my poor spelling and endless run on sentences – driven by my unique passion to be heard.

Hey Dan you would want to know that last Wednesday I sang with my coral group, the South Side Singers, average age 73, I am the youngest at 63,at the Como Park Pavilion and that I received a round of applause for the 3 verses of the Battle Hymn of the Republic I delivered in perfect-rich baritone – solo. Yeap me, the guy who won the poetry award at southern, the year you ran the jury and liked my poetry. I think you would like to know about my new singing career at 63; See, Dan, America really does have Talent, perhaps a little less since you moved on to the next thing.

My love to Sharon and the Girls and their families.
What wonderful DNA you all possess.

Jump Up, and live again
Honey in the heart
Thirteen thank yous
No evil

William Plikaitis
Minneapples

Posted By D. Haase : January 9, 2010 3:08 pm

Professor Ort taught me how to put my thoughts into words and write clearly and concisely. His Literature into Film class at SCSU was tough as hell but worth it.

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