Disambiguation & Gratitude

First off, I would like to thank everyone who has tendered their thoughts via comments here, the Gowanus Lounge and via email. Frankly I was overwhelmed by the response. I suppose I shouldn’t have been: Bob’s dedication and hard work were an inspiration to many, myself included. For those of you who reached out to me I want to tender my heart felt gratitude and sincerest thanks. To those of you I have not replied to (yet) my silence should not be construed personally. The last few days have been very been hard ones. I simply needed time to sort through my feelings. I guess you could call it grieving.

The previous having been said I would like to make a long overdue clarification regarding this post:

With great sadness, a few of Bob’s friends, who were given access to his site, will try to update Gowanus Lounge with:

1) An obituary and other links

2) An announcement of a memorial service…

In keeping with his wife’s wishes (amidst all the hype, gossip and rumor-mongering it seems to have been forgotten that she is the one who has been most impacted by his passing. She has and will continue to have a heavy cross to bear.) Bob’s funeral service will be a small affair limited to close friends and family. When my colleague wrote the previous it was not intended to intimate that the funeral was going to be an open affair but I suspect it was taken as such. I am not trying to lay blame here; we have all been under a lot of stress and such missteps/ambiguities can and should be expected. We are doing the best we can to both cope with our grief and ensure that Bob’s wishes are faithfully observed.

The previous having been said, I do not want to suggest that a “memorial service” (or wake) is not in order. It is. To this end myself and a number of his close friends are going to organize a tasteful forum where people who knew him, people he has inspired, in short; people whose lives were affected by Bob can have their say. This effort is in its infancy but as the arrangements— “a plan” if you will— become more concrete I will relay the details both here and via the Gowanus Lounge. In the meantime I will be reaching out to people I know Bob respected both as professional colleagues and friends. People he would have wanted to be key note speakers at just such an event.

The fate/future of the Gowanus Lounge

After reeling from the initial shock (and, in my case, reading some of the rumors abounding on the Internet) the Mister and I agreed it should be brought back online as soon as the caprice and/or ineptitude of Lunar Pages, the Gowanus Lounge’s host, could and would permit. It is still experiencing problems and will be offline for awhile so my husband can conduct some much-needed trouble-shooting. A number of people close to Bob— including his wife— felt that it should remain online as a living memorial to his work. The Mister is working very hard to make this happen, e.g.; pulling late nights and working many an early morning. We will also do everything in our power to preserve his photographs on Flickr and wonderful YouTube footage. At the moment we are circumscribed from doing so but in due time it will happen.

In closing I want to thank again all of you who have tendered your kind thoughts and have volunteered to help organizing an event to celebrate the life and work of Robert Guskind. Wherever he is he now (as an agnostic the previous is an example of the  type of schmaltz I ordinarily revile and yet feel compelled to write here. Go figure.) he is undoubtedly very touched— and perhaps a wee bit surprised: he had always underestimated the impact he had on others— be it personally, professionally and otherwise. I cannot help but suspect he is smiling down upon us now.

Thank you again.

Miss Heather