L'ARNO RESTITUISCE IL CORPO DI JAMES KAYE
Parenti ed amici del professor James Kaye, potranno finalmente rendere i dovuti onori ad un caro amico scomparso il 18 febbraio scorso sulle acque dell'Arno. Restituita la sua salma durante la tarda mattinata, è già avvenuto il riconoscimento tramite il presidente della società Canottieri comunali Firenze, Gabriele Ferretti. Il corpo è stato ritrovato dieci chilometri più a valle da Varlungo, zona dove un mese fà circa era avvenuto l'incidente. Ricordiamo che James Kaye, professore di storia all'università europea di Fiesole e di Vienna, nostro socio, verso le 16:30 del 18 febbraio scorso, stava effettuando una seduta d'allenamento assieme al suo compagno Marco Bartoli di ventidue anni, con un'imbarcazione in metallo adibita alla voga veneta, ritrtovata dopo una decina di giorni dalla tragedia. Mentre il giovane raggiungeve a fatica la riva salvandosi, si dice che James si sarebbe incoscententemente attardato nel tentativo di recuperare un remo facendosi sopraffare dal freddo e dai vortici del fiume in piena. Ulteriori dettagli non appena saremo aggiornati.
Parenti ed amici del professor James Kaye, potranno finalmente rendere i dovuti onori ad un caro amico scomparso il 18 febbraio scorso sulle acque dell'Arno. Restituita la sua salma durante la tarda mattinata, è già avvenuto il riconoscimento tramite il presidente della società Canottieri comunali Firenze, Gabriele Ferretti. Il corpo è stato ritrovato dieci chilometri più a valle da Varlungo, zona dove un mese fà circa era avvenuto l'incidente. Ricordiamo che James Kaye, professore di storia all'università europea di Fiesole e di Vienna, nostro socio, verso le 16:30 del 18 febbraio scorso, stava effettuando una seduta d'allenamento assieme al suo compagno Marco Bartoli di ventidue anni, con un'imbarcazione in metallo adibita alla voga veneta, ritrtovata dopo una decina di giorni dalla tragedia. Mentre il giovane raggiungeve a fatica la riva salvandosi, si dice che James si sarebbe incoscententemente attardato nel tentativo di recuperare un remo facendosi sopraffare dal freddo e dai vortici del fiume in piena. Ulteriori dettagli non appena saremo aggiornati.
6 commenti:
Thank you for posting this. We here in the US are very sad over this news and we appreciate the love and support that James' family -- especially the rowing community -- has showed during this very difficult time.
James lives in my heart. I know he also lives in your heart. The news that his body is found brings closure to an unfortunate event which I prayed was just a dream, but this also shatters the hope that I will see him alive again, face to face, talking over a cup of tea. This dose of reality brings much sadness to my heart and I know to everyone´s heart.
However, there´s one thing we can do for ourselves and for James, and that´s to keep his spirit alive in us. Don´t think of this as the end of James, because his physical body died, think of this as a new beginning because he left so much for everyone to remember.
To James, may your spirit lives in all of us and transforms us for the better. Thank you and we love you.
- Willi
I thought the same you think Willi, James lives in our hearts and memories. As I knew about the accident I said to myself that now I have to keep his spirit living by traying to be a different person in such a way. To follow my passions and to be active and do sports and motion just like James often said to me. That will be my way of remembering James, smiling, passionate, and positive in life. Excuse me for my english, I hope you will understand what I mean.
silvia
Dear All,
I had been waiting for that moment for a while now, wondering where James' remains would be found. Whether they would be found at all. Wondering whether the Arno would be so strong as to wash him unnoticed over the many weirs that have been installed in the inner city since the floods of 1966. It was.
He was found at the outer city rim, close to the eery and beautiful end of the Cascine parc, near the sepulture of a young Indian prince who was traveling through Florence on his way home and passed away during his stay. How sadly appropriate a place for James' last tragic voyage.
We were very good friends from the EUI, but James and I also were passionate water-sportsfriends and were both regulars at the canottieri communali. His accident resonated deeply with me, knowing both the pleasures and often silent dangers of our shared passion.
As I can tell from the many contributions to date, James profoundly touched us all; and he certainly lives on within me.
I remember his place in Settignano, and the wonderful risottos with wild asparagus from the groves he would do for his visiting friends; his respectful and loving relation to the cat 'macchia' that was visiting his kitchen from time to time; his fearful respect for boars when he would go running at night in the olive groves; the olive harvests he invited his friends to, done in the early winterdays; his Spring pick-nicks in those same groves; the many words of Austrian dialect that he taught me, a German native speaker; the tips and advice he gave me for my first trip to New York--his city; his ability for deep, thoughtful reflection as well as his stubbornness when we would get into heated debates (annoying me particularly, since i was just as stubborn);
James. I could go on and on.
I was just about to buy a dinghy to be christened 'Ithaca' when I learned about his accident. I got scared. Then I decided to proceed. Its second name will be Jaime and I am sure that I will often come to think of James when on the water.
Sophie
Berlin
James had borrowed my camera during his visit to DC last year and started taking pictures of himself. When I downloaded the pics last year, I thought it was quite funny that he made all these quirky expressions for the camera while he was walking the streets of DC by himself. I'm quite saddened by the recent news but i wanted to share his radiant smile and this funny side of James.
Dear All, Dear Michelle,
Thank you for starting this possibility to share memories of James. It has been soothing to be able to read about James, his friends and family and all the facets of his character. I got to know James back in 1998 when I arrived in Florence. James came a year before me and had already blended in to his new life 'Tuscan-style' perfectly. We shared many interests and despite the fact that we were very different personalities we managed to work together very productively after orbiting around each
other cautiously for a while. We enjoyed the possibilities of the European University Institute and Bo's generous ways of allowing new ideas at his many workshops and conferences to consolidate inklings about art, history, the way pictures tell not only stories but histories and how the very concept of Europe may be approached in more creative and critical ways than before. While working, James could suddenly get caught by one line in a text, or one image (usually it would be an image) and he
would not stop pondering it for days, sometimes weeks, almost obsessively. He could see much in one image that arrived in front of him and mirrored his ideas, interpretations, and interlocutions with himself. And then he'd move on to the next.
During a research projectfrom 2004 to 2007, in which we both were members of the same team headed by Bo, I stayed with him up in his chapel above Settignano many weeks and we grew even closer. It was wonderful to be friends with James, because I knew that we would simply always be just that: friends. There was no need to call each other regularly or to send images and emails all the time. No, we were friends. Period. I knew I could always rely on him, trust him. And he knew that this was mutual. Recently, we
had begun working on a new research project and James was working on international art fairs to understand the role of art in more international settings and how the art represented would tell a story about historical change and about the ways in which a certain past and a certain future is imagined. James dug up many documents and catalogues from the Venice biennale, and Venice became a magnet for his academic work alongside his great love for rowing. I am very glad that he could write a paper for a conference
last June. He stayed with me during the conference and Hans-Ake came, too, staying together in my apartment like we did when we went on a sailing trip in the Danish archipelago in July 2008. Only Bo was missing last summer, who was with us on the sailing trip, steering us through the waters. It was a special trip and we talked about doing it again. And never did, not in that team. James enjoyed the water and the wind and all about the physical experience as much As he ( like all of us) enjoyed a strong drink, serious thoughts and lots of silly laughs once the boat was safely docked in the harbour of some Small, picturesque Danish coastal town. We all think of him and the shared experience with great pleasure and grief, now that he has landed on a very different shore. The images I attach reveal a lot about him and the ways in which he was happy. Luckily, James wrote that last academic paper and I am very glad, indeed feel quite privileged, to publish it later on this year in a collection of essays. We had a whole selection of names for us. So here it goes: Salute and good-bye James, Jamie, Caro, Bro!
Yours,
Hagen, Hagy, Hags
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