tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post4449303509408235701..comments2024-03-27T13:28:50.405-07:00Comments on Alienated in Vancouver: RIP Thomas ZiorjenAllan MacInnishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05394301776870727673noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-70456200074174259792018-11-21T18:56:28.395-08:002018-11-21T18:56:28.395-08:00Yes, that is Thomas with Burroughs! He was quite p...Yes, that is Thomas with Burroughs! He was quite pleased to have met him and I believe hung out with him for awhile when Burroughs was in Toronto... Thanks for sharing that.Allan MacInnishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05394301776870727673noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-10301378181022263402018-11-21T18:15:09.268-08:002018-11-21T18:15:09.268-08:00Because the internet is in some respects beyond ti...Because the internet is in some respects beyond time, and because a friend posted a William S. Burroughs photo dating to his appearance in a Toronto bookstore circa late 1981-early 1982, I found a photo that appears to show your late friend, who I vaguely remember but only knew as "that other guy in my favourite bookstore". Sorry for your loss, even though it's been a few years. <br /><br />http://69.27.112.202/sites/default/files/Thomas%20Ziorjen%20and%20William%20Burroughs.jpegRhyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00598445145507204424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-71857592298340082302016-06-29T16:19:51.062-07:002016-06-29T16:19:51.062-07:00I just saw this today June 29, 2016. Now I underst...I just saw this today June 29, 2016. Now I understand why Thomas hasn't answered my text messages.<br />We first met in 1968 in Air Cadets as young boys. We shared art, literature, chess, Go, photography, music, film and of course coffee and cigarettes. <br />We went to design school together and explored the sketchy neighborhoods late at night making photos. We drew body outlines on sidewalks for shock value.<br />I spent many long nights sitting up with Thomas as he contemplated suicide and dragged a razorblade across his wrist. He used to say "thought of suicide has gotten me through many a bad night".<br />Last time I saw him, he was a guest in my suburban Los Angeles home. I took him to sketchy neighborhoods of LA so he could photograph interesting things.<br />I know he's in a better place now, driving his sportscar with the top down, as we used to in mine in our youth.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07552480228834871386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-12529142999087851942012-04-22T22:49:39.838-07:002012-04-22T22:49:39.838-07:00I mourn Thomas, and am haunted by the fact that I ...I mourn Thomas, and am haunted by the fact that I sent him a YouTube 'Momorial' I'd done to honor my mother, who'd died five months earlier. Thomas mentioned that he'd been battling depression, and I wrote him back to tell him I was glad he was that honest with me, because I wanted to tell him how much he meant to me. About two weeks later, he ended his life. I felt a strong, deep, loving connection with him, and his suicide really shocked and horrified me--still does, actually.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-89370700523054063962012-03-24T11:44:12.276-07:002012-03-24T11:44:12.276-07:00What a wonderful reflection...you nailed this man&...What a wonderful reflection...you nailed this man's intellect. I enjoyed reading this.<br /><br />I knew Thomas fairly well, meeting through our wives who worked together in the early-mid 80's. Later as we parted locals we would visit them in on the coast or they would stop for a day or two on one of their excursions south. The friendship may have thinned but never ended over those 30 years.<br /><br />I have three pieces of that early pastel work you mentioned in my home. All gifts for one occasion or another and all linked to a given moment in our friendship. My favorite is a still life of some plums. Thomas presented the piece a month or so after I had visited him and had commented on the Rembrandt red color in another work he had done. I was very touched that he had taken the time to do the work, had it framed and presented it to me base on that single passing comment. <br /><br />Another, in the same medium and presented in the same fashion is an abstraction of canyon walls done from a photograph he had taken while we were on a camping trip together in the Sun Lakes region of Washington. I was stunned at the amazing colors he so easily saw in such a desolate place. <br /><br />I will miss Thomas.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-78313249605743658222012-02-21T19:20:50.831-08:002012-02-21T19:20:50.831-08:00I am sorry about your friend.I am sorry about your friend.zedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00787971114755475438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-3718688928376491482012-02-19T20:20:55.414-08:002012-02-19T20:20:55.414-08:00Actually, he wasn't so interested in Bukowski ...Actually, he wasn't so interested in Bukowski - it was just a leftover from his days working at a bookstore, I think. <br /><br />Listening to Can's Delay tonight in part in honour of him - he particularly dug "Little Star"...Allan MacInnishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05394301776870727673noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-53579764575951595472012-02-19T12:47:52.571-08:002012-02-19T12:47:52.571-08:00Thank you for this. Thomas was a friend of mine, o...Thank you for this. Thomas was a friend of mine, one I never got to meet. We exchanged mail, music, a phone call or two, and email for over ten years... Your insights into his music taste evolution gave me knowledge of where much of what he shared with me came from, which is wonderful.<br /><br />I, too, had things put off... cd's I was going to mail, a book I had read that I thought he'd dig, kept putting it forward... Things I wish I'd said.<br /><br />Again, thanks... He was a dear, if distant, friend of mine and I've been putting together the pieces of his life in retrospect to fill out the Thomas I knew. I can't believe he never mentioned Bukowski (one of my poetry gods), but it does explain why our senses of humor meshed so well.Cumulonimbus Congestushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10446337683294613355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-39846547159422379222012-02-15T15:57:32.420-08:002012-02-15T15:57:32.420-08:00Hi. I don't know you or Thomas, but I have rea...Hi. I don't know you or Thomas, but I have read your blog every once in a while -- I share Thomas' complaint about white type on a black background.<br /><br />I am so sorry for your loss.<br /><br />I am also sorry that I cannot come up with better words than that, when the truth is that there are no words for certain things. And at the same time, I can identify oh-so-much with many of the words you have used here.<br /><br />The phone call, the knowing-but-not-wanting-it-to-be-true, the whys and bastard and the wishing he had made different choices and wishing I had made different choices, too. <br /><br />I am just so sorry that your friend made this choice. And I am so touched, and awed, by the coherence in this blog post -- I think that so soon after my brother-in-law killed himself, I was just incoherently howling.Carriehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07690864162844927797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-86204306934998508632012-02-15T13:07:58.749-08:002012-02-15T13:07:58.749-08:00Very sorry to read of your loss. Writing is, indee...Very sorry to read of your loss. Writing is, indeed, a good way to process things. It's like stepping into a confession box and a therapist's office at the same time and there's certainly no hiding from yourself. As we go through the process of recalling events and setting them on paper, we come to terms with them. I think you're smart in not telling your Mother; my father died in November and I find myself self-censoring when I speak with her. To have had a friend like this is such a rare thing. It's so exciting to find a person and share one of those "you get it" moments. When such a friend dies, a bit of you disappears also; that shared history---those exhanges. Depression is an isolating illness, however. You mentioned migraines, also. Even if a person wants to keep in touch, it can be hard. Migraines can preclude people from seeing others due to a difficulty going out in light(for some), or intense pain. Nevertheless, we now have to carry this grief without the support of that friend. Take care.Not Waving But Drowninghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18028430037973037907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-66974619344654427522012-02-15T11:30:18.165-08:002012-02-15T11:30:18.165-08:00Thanks for this, Al. See you soon. Love, LizThanks for this, Al. See you soon. Love, LizElizabeth Bachinskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05285149105936117403noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8762075.post-3036864079226026972012-02-14T22:12:24.621-08:002012-02-14T22:12:24.621-08:00Bizarre - Thomas used to complain when he checked ...Bizarre - Thomas used to complain when he checked in on my blog that the letters - white on a black background - were hard to read. Somehow, in posting this, Blogger decided to change my I's and L's to PURPLE, for no reason known to me, and I've just gone through quite a struggle to just get them back to the regular white. The post may have behaved oddly while editing it (I even accidentally blacked the whole thing out for a second there). It looks normal now... very strange...Allan MacInnishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05394301776870727673noreply@blogger.com