BIG!

Rob just got back from his rehearsal at the National Archives. His speech is tonight. Walking to the Archives from the hotel, he almost accidentally stepped in front of the Presidential motorcade. So, we're all grateful for Mary Rose, his friend from the Academy, who kept him from stepping off the curb toward certain doom.

The talk is a part of a current exhibition at the archives called not just, "Big" but "Big!"

Big with an exclamation mark is bigger than big, I guess. I imagine the exhibition to be a bit hard to process mentally, when the only thing that ties the exhibits together is size. And since size is relative, I'm wondering how they decide if something is indeed, "big!" (A microscopic creature could be big! for its size but not as big! as the bailout is, for example.) Anyway, Rob will talk about big! film formats like Cinemascope! and VistaVision! Then he'll show the movie, "Tucker" which is a wide-screen film, shot by the god of cinematography, Vittorio Storaro. When Rob took Vittorio to a reception of cinematographers at Panavision last year, Rob saw first hand what it's like to be Vittorio, i.e. big! in the cinematography world.

That this event is scheduled one day before Uncle Jack's service is one of the great mysteries in my life that I choose to not question. Rob has worked so hard on his presentation, and so much of our conversation of late has had something to do with film formats, that right now it feels disjointed to have the speech placed next to a memorial for Jack. It is hard to flip the pages between the two events in my mind. And when I'm paying attention to one, I feel like I'm neglecting the other. I can't hold them in my mind at the same time. Does not compute.

From Kemps

I guess the word big! would describe Jack's life about as well as any other word. And big! has been the coverage of his passing. Our friend, documentarian Jake Boritt, put together a Facebook page that covers the coverage. (Click here for the link.) I'm not sure any of us could have had an idea of the magnitude of the impact his life had on others. The impact of his ideas certainly, but also the impact of his character, his passion, his faith, his insistence on helping the underdog, his comfortableness in working with others no matter what their differences in ideology or background.

There are many of us that are quite at home with the small, with detail and story that is close to us and to our experience. Not Jack. It might have started with the small - with the one delivery truck bought by his dad and his dad's brother (as Jack would say in speech after speech, "audaciously called California Delivery Service"). But Jack's message would reach far beyond his dreams, and include everyone who wanted to be a part of it.

I wrote to him several months ago as I was, like my dad before me, yet again frustrated after reading a column by David Francis, the economic editor of the Christian Science Monitor. I suggested to Jack that he may want to write a response to Francis. Instead, he sent me a massive array of articles on supply-side economics with notes pointing out which I should read first, etc. Always the quarterback, he was throwing me a pass and I had to start running to be in place to catch it and run in the right direction. I think he's thrown us all a pass long and deep, and we better start hustling to be where we need to be to receive it.

And yet, as big as his public life was (and is), his private life (what I saw of it) was bigger. The last time I spoke with him, he couldn't say much. He tried, but he was thinking of my dad and when we Kemps get emotional, we go silent. My dad went silent a lot. So, it was a fitting tribute to dad to hear nothing but quiet in Jack's call. I knew well the emotion he was feeling. It was as big! as they come.

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