Fwd: Re: Mark Jones

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(posted to pen-l by Rob Schaap)

> It has been my lot - and I'm sure no-one in Leftopia is alone in this -
> to become deeply fond of fellows who ended up hating each other.  Mark
> loudly and eloquently despised a few blokes I persist in rating most
> highly, and each of those despised him right back.
>
> That's why the left is so thoroughly fucked, I suppose.
>
> Anyway, I bloody loved Mark Jones.
>
> I loved his way with words, I loved his humour, I loved his passion, and
> I loved his erudition. Most of all, I loved his point-stretching,
> chance-taking, future-grasping, totality-embracing, norm-despising,
> diplomacy-abjuring, neck-on-the-block, bollocks-under-the-guillotine,
> damn-the-torpedoes courage.
>
> He had all of that long before sentence was passed, so it was all The
> Essential Mark Jones.
>
> Rare stuff.
>
> I've had people die on me with whom I've grown up, played football,
> drained pints, and lost elections - with whom I've shared all the
> visceral joys and sorrows of corporeal life du jour.
>
> I never even met Mark in the flesh.  Yet I feel his passing as deeply as
> any of those, and I've decided it's not nearly good enough merely to
> drink myself unto maudlin stupor.  Nope.  This is a sad torpidity I feel
> obliged to share with all.
>
> Sorry.

Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org