Sean Conlon

Brother

This is a passage from a famous sermon by Henry Scott Holland:

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well.

I think James might comment that this poem is a bit optimistic on the topic of death, but I’ll take the opposing view and say it is wholly appropriate.

Of course I am sad beyond belief, but I have to say I am angry as well over his sudden departure. He had accomplished so much, and touched so many but there was much more James had to do. I’ll put these feelings aside for now and share with you a few recollections I’ve recently had of James.

After a good day in the city, we’d return to the place in Queens and James would enthusiastically scoop Solomon up, and while cradling the happy cat, speak fluent Arabic to him in a broad booming voice-the cat meowing in return. It was the only cat in the world who understood Arabic.

When James was in high school, I tried to pass on the virtues of pool hopping to him. I left town and a week later I got a call from Mom. It seems the police had come to the door with a waterlogged wallet bearing James’ name. Apparently James did go pool hopping but forgot to leave his wallet at home.

His ability to show patience and love to both my kids when I was ready to strangle them, as well as his devotion to teaching Taekwondo, was amazing.

His matter-of-fact analysis that there was no way the Cleveland Cavaliers' puny guards could deal with Lewis and Türkoğlu of the Orlando Magic proved prophetic.

James' knowledge of Middle Eastern culture and his command of its language awed and inspired me.

Our occasional fondness of tobacco – his enjoyed through a long pipe that bubbles, mine between the cheek and gum. Further evidence James would say, with a laugh, of the sophistication gap between New York and Cincinnati.

Thank you all for being a significant part of James' life. Perhaps in some way we all can carry forward his spirit and instill it within our own lives.

I will miss you every day brother

My love from here to heaven

– Sean

James with his brother Sean, nephew Vincent, niece Lucy, sister Meg, niece Anna Daisy, and brother-in-law David at Chautauqua, NY 2008

Meg Conlon

Sister

When James was little – about 3 or 4 – my older brother and I told him we found him in the barn with our cat Maurice, and decided we may as well keep them both. He was incredibly upset. But, as he got older and realized our family was a bit nutty, the possibility that he was found in a barn didn’t seem so bad. And, being found there with a cat may be why he was so devoted to his cat Solomon.

He may have been unsure of where he got his start, but to me he always seemed confident and sure of where he was going. A skeptic even in his teens, who skipped being confirmed, he surprised everyone by majoring in religion. He walked away from a PhD and forged an unbelievable career in restoration that took him all over the Middle East and Africa. He brought that same confidence to the languages he loved, the food he ate with gusto (especially cheese), the neighborhood he chose to live in, the books he read, and of course his friendships.

There’s a children’s book called The Three Questions, based on a Tolstoy short story. The questions are: Who is the most important one? What is the most important thing to do? And what is the most important time? The answers are: the one you’re with; helping them with what they need; and right now.

I think that’s how James lived his life. When you were with him, you were the most important one, doing what seemed most important at that moment.

I felt it when he took me to a favorite restaurant, introduced me to the owner and helped choose what he considered the best food.

I think my family felt it even if he was lounging like only he could do, teasing us, baiting my mother or arguing with us.

His Arabic neighbors felt it the day after 9/11, as he shared coffee with them at a nearby café, and hid with them under the tables when a drunk wandered in, cursing foreigners.

I hope Jacqui felt it, because he was clear to me in the weeks before he died about who he wanted to be with, building a life together, at that moment.

I imagine the kids he taught Taekwondo to felt it too, as did the people he met and worked with in Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Italy, Egypt, Africa and Turkey.

Of course, all this was true only if Solomon wasn’t in the room at the same time.




Solomon in James' old apartment, 2006

David Mudd

Brother-in-law

In Egypt, in 1992, because James did not know the Arabic words for, “Mr. Taxi Driver, we are almost certain your cab is about to throw a rod,” our trip into the desert in search of a famed oasis ended with a sickening bang on an empty highway.

The driver, grieving over his ruined engine looked around the hood as we started on foot across the sand toward what seemed to be a cluster of ornate buildings, a village, in the distance.

He laughed and said something James interpreted for us. “City of the Dead,” he said. “It’s a cemetery.”

We were rescued by a bus before any of us suffered heatstroke or sand blindness, and because the bus went past Giza on the way back to Cairo, James figured he could salvage the day by showing us the great pyramids. To make it all the more special he arranged for a man operating a tiny stable to let the five us see them on horseback, the twitching ponies charging up the dunes at dusk, kicking sand and snorting.

But because James did not know the Arabic words for, “Young man, why don’t you let go of your pony so my brother-in-law can gallop up the dunes with the rest of us?” one of us saw the great pyramids only at the pace a sullen teenager would walk, clinging to his pony’s reins, willing to lend the horse last-minute to his uncle’s enterprise, but not to let it out of his grasp.

That was one day, 17 years ago, and the last time I witnessed James not knowing something.

Since then he directed me and his sister Meg unfailingly to interesting music we never would have come across on our own, the best-ever places to eat in Chinatown, and Queens, Bloomington, Rochester and Rome, and to a Ukrainian bakery so good I’m keeping its location a secret. The best novels by writers we’d never heard of, the most cogent political journalism, the writers and commentators who knew and spoke the truth about what was happening in the Middle East and Africa, a passel of brilliant friends, and the places in the world with ancient human works so splendid they give you a sense that maybe we are capable, at least occasionally, of engineering our way out of the troubles we bring on ourselves.

We’ll miss him for all that. For the news he brought us of far-off places and times, and for the example he set for how to live – expose yourself to interesting people and places, take it all in, dig down.

And show subservience only to your cat.




Astoria, 2005

Jacqui Khiu

Friend

I'd like to share two different translations of a poem by Omar Khayyam, a Persian astronomer, philosopher and poet from the medieval period whose work James had studied and admired. Taken from a series of poems called the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, this one reminded me of James.

Before time takes you by surprise
Ask for good red wine and get wise
You are not of gold, don't believe the lies
You are put to dust, once again you will rise

Do not focus upon the size
Not for worldly compromise
Quality is your only prize
Transcend your earthly disguise
Without fear, without despise
With love and joy improvise

James was a true partner, my best friend. I could go on and on about all the great things he did or the great person he was. I should set up a number, a 1800-JAMES, for anyone who will listen. Perhaps I could cure insomniacs with my streaming James talk.

Which is to say that there was a lot I loved about him and being with him right down to those little moments, like just walking in the streets of New York arm in arm, or cooking a meal together. Whatever it was, he made it engaging and enjoyable. There was such an ease to James, it didn't take much to feel completely open and comfortable around him, to feel that good connection.

James achieved a lot in his professional life and gave much back to his work and his community, and to people and organizations around the world—it's incredibly inspiring. But even at the everyday level he was extraordinary, with his own special brand of humor and irreverence, his kind, thoughtful, open mind, his warmth and compassion, and his sense of fun. I'm so thankful to have been on the receiving end of all that, even for a brief moment. I will always cherish James and our all-too-short time together. I miss him so very much.




Governors Island NY, April 2009

Noah Vadnai

Friend

There aren’t too many people you meet in life who you know will be friends for the long haul. For me, James was one of them.

I met James the first day of freshman year at the University of Rochester in 1990. He was wearing a Joy Division t-shirt and carrying a crate of records that matched up shockingly well with my own. Along with our pals Dan, Bill and Nina, we were literally inseparable for the four years we spent at university – so much so that people didn’t use our names, but just referred to us “those guys.” From a freshman dorm, to a bizarre humanities housing project called Medieval House on the frat quad, to a decrepit off-campus house, to a year studying abroad in the Middle East – he in Cairo, me in Jerusalem – James and I were never far apart.

James was a true scholar. Not just of art history. Not just of architecture or Near Eastern studies or of Roman ruins. But a scholar of life – he could tell you where any NBA player went to college and their free throw percentage. He could take you to the best Bosnian restaurant in Queens. And discuss with you Nas’ first record over a shisha in a coffee shop in Astoria where everyone knew his name. Oh, and his Netflix queue is a thing of beauty.

James had an awesome curiosity about the world and relished all the many ways to enjoy life. He had a sense of adventure and an appreciation for the absurdities of the world that made him good fun to drink with, but also the depth and compassion to get your back when life smacked you around.

I feel so blessed to have known James and to have so many great memories from the last 19 years. And in a stroke of New York happenstance, I ran into James last Tuesday on a subway platform in Times Square with his brother Sean. And while I could immediately tell that he was not well, I feel lucky to have been able to see him one last time and get one of his big hugs. I will miss him terribly.

November 2001

Dan Brustman

Friend

I am heartbroken that I cannot be here in person, but it is nothing compared to the anguish of losing my dear friend James.

I take comfort in the fact that James lived his life exactly as he wanted. Had he known from the outset his life were to be cut short, I don't think he would have done anything differently. He was the rare man among us with no regrets. He made the best of his much too short time on this Earth. This is something we can all learn from.

As painful as it is to lose someone we love, we are all better off having known James.

November 2007

Ted Burns

Friend

Right after I heard that James passed away I started recounting the stories I often tell in which he was present and realized how integral he was in my best material. I started mentally composing a eulogy and when Meg sent out a note that people could speak at the Newman House service I called and asked if I could participate. I then started writing and went through several versions. When I spoke it was pulled from notes and copy but mostly the memory of what I had written multiple times over the preceding few days. Below is a copy of my planned talk with editorial to provide more color and details on what James meant.

My name is Ted Burns, and I am a friend of James from high school. I actually went to elementary school with James at Vestal Hills which is a short walk from where we are now.

In the last 20 years I have lived in six different cities making it difficult at times to have traditional friendships. I have found it necessary to surround myself with people that I can plug into after being absent for long periods of time. My friends need to be comfortable maintaining a long distance connection or being able to pick up where we left off. I think of it like a circle where I will always end up with back with my friends in a new city, or on a vacation, pick up where we left off… until one of us moves on again.

When reflecting on James I realized how many different points we reconnected at and how he’s a part of so many of the significant stories of my life.

Even though I went to elementary school with James I did not really get to know him until high school. The connection for James and I was cycling. James was part of a small team I was on and we traveled to several races together in New York, New Jersey, and even were able to attend the Olympic Training Center together in Lake Placid. At the Olympic Training Center neither of us exhibited the talent that the polish coaches desired. The only words of advice we elicited from the coaches as they yelled at us from their follow car were “faster, faster” and “echelon, echelon.”

Our nemesis was George Hincapie who is infamous as one of the most experienced American riders in the Tour de France. George was intimidating at 14 years old. He was six foot, 170 pounds and could compete with the pros at 14. After one race with George, James came up to me all excited. "Ted… George might be a good rider, but he’s not too bright. He spelled junior ‘J-U-N-O-R.’” (Ed. note: Later, when I was recounting the story to Jacqui and Meg they laughed because apparently James was a notoriously bad speller.)

After college James returned to Binghamton for a few months before heading to do his graduate work. I had been living with my parents since graduating from college and James became a part of the small group of friends I spent time with. James ended up driving with me to my wedding that summer in Montreal which turned out to be about as weird of an event as it possibly could have been. As we left Binghamton the temperature was 85 and humid. By the time we hit Montreal the temperature was 116 – it was so hot, varnish from church pews was staining people’s shirts. The night before the wedding the entire party watched OJ get chased down the highway adding to the surreal nature of the event. My Scottish in-laws, who my grandfather called “the funny little people with accents” and James eloquently called the “leprechauns,” proceeded to drink themselves into oblivion creating a festive environment.

That marriage did not last long and up to that point it had been the most difficult moment in my life. Shortly after things disintegrated James called me and expressed both his regret and sympathy. While I don’t remember the exact words, I remember the feeling it gave me. It struck me as a mature, sophisticated action at the time as many of my friends, being young at the time, did not seem to know how to treat me. To this day I use it as a model for how I think I should behave in those kinds of situations.

After James went back to school and I moved to Canada we would connect occasionally in DC, NY, or on the occasional business trip to San Francisco. I saw him most recently in November during a conference he was attending in San Francisco. During dinner I got a call from my wife Caitlin that she was in labor. James was very understanding and that night my second child was born. I sent James a note that my son, Edward Dillon Southwood Burns, was healthy and that both he and Caitlin were doing fine. James replied, “Congratulations, and that is a very impressive name – but what about James?” The truth is, I named Ned after my father because I could not imagine my life without an Edward. Now I find it difficult to imagine my life without James. (Ed note: This is usually where I break down, mostly because I do wish I could work his name in my life somehow so I can remember him more.)

James' passing has robbed me of that reconnection I was so sure would happen. I am thankful that James was able to get past my prickly and sometimes difficult nature and maintain a relationship for so many years. I am thankful that he is a part of so many of my best stories, many of which I can’t share because my parents are here.




November 2008

Tom Moore

Friend

I would like to say that I am sorry I could not be with you all today. Four years ago, at his birthday party in the basement of the Bohemian Beer Garden, James introduced me to a woman he had worked with in Yemen. Some of you who are here today were there that night. Nuha and I were married a year later, then I followed her to Switzerland and then last March we had a child, a boy. I regret that my son will never know James, the man who brought his parents together. I have seen James playing with Alfred and know that kids adored him. James was a good man in a world in need of good men. I hope my son grows up to be as curious, intelligent, generous and brave as James was.

Taken by Tom Moore, June 2007

John Barr

Friend

I guess I don’t quite know how to begin. The thing I keep coming back to is how much I learned from James.

I could probably make a list of all the singular qualities, disciplines, and passions that made James such an engaging person to have around, but I’m sure it would sound familiar to you all. There was very little he didn’t know something about, and a great deal he seemed to know everything about. The examples are myriad. And still, with so much to offer and so much raw data at the ready, I found there was a part of him I couldn’t reach, something about him was unknowable.

This vexed me, and we all used to chide him for being a CIA operative, forever disappearing into desert countries for months at a time doing his “research”. It was funny. And it was great, too, because if you asked him what the hell was going in the Middle East, he could tell you. Sometimes I’m amazed that despite his murky dealings abroad and my utter ignorance of all things James, we managed to develop such a close and dear friendship.

This brings me to the now of things, far flung in Afghanistan, as much a mystery to myself as James ever was. He loved that I got the chance to come here. Only James would envy me a yearlong deployment to a failed-state war zone. I read a quote recently that I’ll share. It’s from Beryl Markham’s memoir, West With The Night:

You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself.

I think that’s true and think James understood that better than many of us. Perhaps that’s why he always had a move on, and kept a ready plan for the next departure, months, years in advance. He knew to leave the gaze turned outward and let the world come in. Of course, there was no sense to any of this a week ago, at least not to me. None of it mattered. It’s just a lesson I learned by circumstance, walking dumb through the recent days, wondering what in the hell it’s all for, the helicopter crashes, the rocket attacks. I really miss James.

To the Conlon family, you have my deepest regrets. Thank you for sharing your son and brother with me for the last 10 years. I’ll never forget him.

Amheida, Egypt 2002

Sam Lipsyte

Friend

I just want to speak briefly about a man I really adored. I can’t believe James isn’t here. It’s shocking and horrible. This has been one of the saddest and most jarring weeks of my life. So I cannot even imagine the pain all of you who knew James better and longer are feeling. I cannot imagine the pain of the Conlon family. My heart is with you.

We can feel good about one thing, and that is that we had James in our lives. As an example of the best a human being can be. I knew a few different sides of James, and delighted in them all. They weren’t that different, they were all warm and generous and wise. But James on the football field, as the man we called the General in the old Astoria Football League, he wasn’t necessarily exactly like the James who wanted to play you an amazing record, or show you some of the work he’d been doing at Columbia, his projects in Yemen and elsewhere. They were all passionate and kind. But the General did want the ball. He wanted to put it in the end zone. And he would. And he hoped you didn’t intend to stop him.

James shared himself in effortless ways, with his cooking, with his conversation. Even with his gifts. One of my favorite objects in the world is the 13th century Yemeni door latch James gave us for our wedding. It spoke so eloquently of how my wife and I were trying to make a home together, and it spoke so truly of James, his wonderful empathy and his generosity of spirit, to bring back this beautiful and symbolically perfect thing for us from a world that had such claim on his imagination and curiosity.

James was a fantastic uncle to my son, Alfred. Alfred loved James, the way he would frolic, engage in the strange little mind of a three, four, five-year-old boy. Alfred is not here but he knows what has happened and he has had many tears and many questions. But one of things he keeps saying is, “I didn’t have enough time with him.” I guess at the gut level that’s what we’re all feeling, finally.

James bridged worlds, with his work at Buzzer Thirty, with his teaching, with his Tae Kwon Do. He did it in little ways all the time. I remember not long after I’d met James we were in a livery cab and the young driver had a friend of his in front – they were conversing in Arabic. When I am not with James in this situation I just get to thinking how sad it is that there is such a gulf between people from different places, cultures, language groups. But I watched James listen to the conversation of the driver and his friend from the back of the car. Then he broke into the conversation in Arabic. What are you doing James, I remember thinking. There is supposed to be this sad gulf? What are you doing to the sad gulf? Well, a very lively conversation among us all followed. The topic: the insidious nature of college loans. We had some laughs. It was the first and last time the driver of a livery cab offered me a stick of gum when the ride was over. Of course, this exchange was run-of-the-mill for James, but it made me understand how serious he was about living the notions many us just talk about.

Which is not to underestimate the talk. The guy was a great talker, a great storyteller, and one of things I loved about James was his ability to settle in for the encounter, to give himself over to the moment, the gathered friends, the jokes, the riffs. He was a great talker and he was a great doer. It’s a rare combination. Look, there is no getting around the tragedy. Nobody should die that young, especially somebody as vital as James. He was on the verge of wonderful things, with his work, with the life he was planning, which, I can tell you, the last time I spoke to him, filled him with no end of happiness. But this isn’t just a case of potential cut short. The man had already done things, real things, with his work and his friendships. He’d traveled and learned and taught. He’d helped a lot of people know more about the world and be better people. Most important, he lived deeply. He did the things he wanted to do. He took great joy and pride in them, and they gave other people joy and deeper understanding. He left a lasting mark. I know it’s no consolation. It doesn’t change how horrible this all is, and will be for as long we live. But we must not forget it either.

Goodbye James.

James with (left to right) Sam Lipsyte, Tom Moore, John Barr, Alex Abramovich, Summer 2007

Nina Goodman

Friend

Sojourner – For James

A man journeyed
From New York to the Near East and beyond
And took us with him.

To places in between and along the way
And to the places that exist between two people.
You know that place. Only you know that place.
That place between you and him
You are there now.

Just look at any photograph
And his gaze will most often be
Transfixed intently on a subject
His lip upturned slightly.
And you have been the subject of that content expression.
It didn’t only exist in photographs
It was just like that when you were in that space with him, with James.

He created that space.
And you will think of it, and sojourn there
When you notice the elegant spine of a door frame curved just so
Or see some fat cat splayed on a friend’s sofa
Or hear an unexpected Sam Cooke tune on the radio
Or come across a curious found object.
And perhaps you too will craft it into art
Or elevate its relevance simply by caring deeply about it.

It helps to be a scholar
But it has so much more meaning
When the scholar is so human.
Eyes bright
A wit that was used wisely, gently, so as to never damage a soul.
Soft and strong, with arms that aproned
And at the core, a heart, so pure.

A man journeyed
From New York to Egypt to Jordan to Mali to Yemen to China to Turkey to Iran and beyond
And took us with him
And brings us here.

Piecing together a collective photograph, right now
Where he is looking, intently, at us
As we touch each others hands
And gulp our salty breath
And hold onto our hearts, our broken hearts
To honor a heart that can never be broken.




November 2001

Carl Derrick

Friend

I remember standing with James near the Bab Zuela, the walled area in the old part of Cairo, talking about life and politics, our hopes and our youthful ambitions. I remember the smell of the half rotten, all beautiful city. I remember us at 21 years old and full of ourselves. I remember that he got it all right. All of it, the social and economic changes, and the wars to come. I remember well, how he spoke to our taxi driver and found out the man used to get shot out of a canon in the circus. This was James, that extra thing that made life interesting and valuable. He is missed.

Whether it was his volumes of incredible music. Albums like Pazant Brothers playing at MoMA in the mid-1970s with a heavy funk and blues. Still playing with real feeling, the feeling of lives lived hard but even in that sorrow, joy, connection, and meaning. Or whether it was cooking a meal for our round table of (un)savory characters, the crazy intellectual talk, the out there-out there stuff. Or even if it was just the love of CAT. These things that can never be replaced. That is what James was, irreplaceable. He is missed.

He brought depth and character to my life and I will never be able to thank him enough. Never have I known a more serious, giving, and intelligent person. Never will I know such warmth and kindness. He will always be a brother to me. He is missed.

Photos by Carl Derrick

Caleb Smith

Colleague and friend

I got to know James about three years ago when he became the Director of the Visual Media Center. He was such a large presence in this place and in all of our lives, and in his time as Director, he really transformed this place into a challenging, engaging, and truly fun place to work. He was an accomplished administrator, we all felt secure and confident in his leadership, and he was successful in just about every enterprise he set out to do. He led the transition from the Luna database to ARTstor, and greatly increased the robustness of all of our websites. He established important collaborations with various agencies to secure funding to lead fieldwork expeditions around the world. He played a leading role in Professor Stephen Murray’s Mapping Gothic France projects. His collaborative ventures reached across the campus and across institutions. He was simultaneously a scholar and a technician; I’ve never met anyone who embodied that often overused title “educational technologist” as well as him.

As a boss, he was loyal, protective, kind, and fair, we always knew we were in good hands; he was on our side. But most importantly, in just a few years, James changed the culture of the Visual Media Center by encouraging all of us to expand our approach to our jobs; whatever we were interested in doing, whether it was web design, field photography, writing content for a web page, or contributing our own skills and interests to a project, James always supported us, and enthusiastically encouraged us to learn, to maximize our interest and participation. Through James’ incredible knowledge, skill, guidance and support, all of our skills, abilities and experience grew dramatically over the last three years. He showed us, by his example, how to take a more expansive approach to any project. He was an inspiration.

Things have been pretty quiet around here without him. His great booming voice filled our offices, often with some exuberant or passionate statement about work, or basketball, or politics, or film, or some amusing anecdote. James was hilarious. When I think back on his funniest moments, I realize that they are mostly too shockingly inappropriate to repeat in a forum such as this, but suffice to say, he always kept our crew entertained.

Then there was music; James adored music, which was a major source of bonding between us. I remember coming in many mornings to find James working in the room next to my office, uploading images to the server, and playing his music VERY LOUDLY, first thing in the morning; invariably it was some obscure genre that he was exploring that month like "swamp klezmer" or "chutney punk". He would periodically shout I LOVE THIS SONG to us from the next room. Once, professor Zoey Strother needed to play a particular James Brown song as contextual material for her African art class, and she told me that she was having trouble finding it. I informed her that we had a professor of "funkology" in residence, and sent her to talk to James. James was delighted with Prof. Strother’s query, and, just like most things of this sort, he took her request very seriously. That night in his apartment, he spent hours listening to every James Brown album he owned (and he owned quite a lot of them) as he cooked up a big batch of chili, until he finally found the obscure track that professor Strother was looking for. That night, James achieved a perfect synchronism between work and life: doing research for a professor, while simultaneously doing two of his favorite tasks: cooking spicy food and listening to funky music. But in a larger sense, this wonderful mix of work and play, labor and diversion, was a more common experience for James than for most of us, I think. I've never met anyone who worked harder; one could say he was almost always working, but you could just as easily say he was always playing. Whether he was doing fieldwork, creating databases, working on websites, or creating any one of the myriad pedagogical resources that he created for the Department, James loved what he did, he was passionate about it. He came as close as anyone I've known to achieving a seamless relationship between work life and life work.

I really can't express how lucky I feel to have had James as a friend and colleague; he enriched my life in so many ways, and I truly miss him

Caleb and James at their colleague Pilar's wedding, July 2008

Cassy Juhl

Colleague and friend

I don’t really have words to express what I feel about James. Just about anything I could say seems inadequate and inelegant.

James was so much more than my boss

so much more than a colleague

so much more than a fellow photographer

so much more than a fellow foodie

he was a mentor and above all he was my friend

James was the kind of guy who you would have a conversation with and the next day he would come in with a list of related readings, articles, movies, songs and pieces of art.

He was the kind of guy who, while uploading images, would have songs blaring with titles such as Eat a Little More and You’re The Worm That Used To Be Apple of My Eye. He would wheel around on his chair and yell “I love this song!”

He was the kind of guy who, when I forgot my umbrella during a mid-summer rainstorm, gave me half of his tiny umbrella. By the time we reached the subway, we were both half soaked and laughing.

He was the kind of guy who organized food excursions to his beloved Astoria for us. We talked and laughed over Serbian food or maybe it was Croatian and then it was off to the coffee house for scalding cups of Turkish coffee and apple scented tobacco.

It’s an odd thing that I spent the entire time I was away on fieldwork this summer extolling the virtues of James. Speaking about what a wonderful person he was to work for and how much he had taught me. After he passed, Rory said to me that it was as if I had been eulogizing him the whole summer. For some people, you don’t realize what you had in them until they are gone, but the great thing about James was that you always knew how much you had in him.

At the end of the day I just feel so privileged to know him, so lucky to have learned from him and profoundly grateful that, for even a moment, I got to call him a friend.

James, Cassy and Pilar in Venice, March 2007

Will Raynolds

Colleague and friend

James Conlon was a mentor to me at Columbia. When I first arrived in New York two years ago to study in the Historic Preservation program, I was concerned that the school might not be able to accomodate my strong interest in the preservation and archaeology of the Near East. Within the first week, one of the faculty suggested that I seek James out, which I did; we hit it off immediately, and my concerns about making the right choice evaporated. Like James, I had studied with the Fulbright program in Jordan, and had devoted a lot of effort to Arabic. I had the pleasure of working with him in the Hadramaut on the Tarim project, he supported me when I went to Yemen for a second time to document the flood damage, and I was collaborating with him on a new GSAPP initiative to restore a historic house in downtown Amman. The last time I saw him was about a month before he passed away, just before I got on a plane for Jordan. I had just bought my own set of equipment to take spherical photographs (which he had trained me to take), and he was helping me get things in order for the summer field season in Amman. Though he wasn't my formal professor, I learned more by working with him than I did from any of my classes. And I looked forward to decades of conversation and laughter with him around the hookah, from Steinway Street to Sana'a.

James, Will and the team at the Al-Falas Palace, Seyoun, Yemen 2007-8

Clemente Marconi & Dipti Kehra

Professor Clemente Marconi

I had great esteem and admiration for James, who was a great person and a great colleague. James was an essential part of our operations in Selinunte, to which he contributed a big deal, particularly in its early stages.

Our first preliminary report on our operations in Sicily, to be published in the American Journal of Archaeology, will be dedicated to his memory. I would also like to give my donation for the Yemen Red Crescent Society fund. James' passing was a big loss for the Department, for Columbia, but also for all of us who had the privilege and fortune of working with him. We will miss him very much on the Akropolis of Selinunte.

Dipti Kehra

I am a graduate student at Columbia University, who worked with James and received his help on multiple occasions. I cannot even imagine the loss that you all would be feeling. My thoughts and prayers are with you. I am sure all of you contributed to the energy, sincerity, intellect, and humility that James embodied, and that touched many lives… May his warm, glowing, and positive energy provide you the strength to bear this huge loss. His enthusiasm for new ideas and enabling maximum public access of resources was always inspiring and encouraging. James was not only an amazing person to work with, but also a dear friend.
James, amongst other people at Columbia, was one of the key persons who made it possible for me to spend time with my father in his last few months. Having recently experienced the unexpected death of young cousin, I very well know that my words may not offer much comfort… but I did want to let you know that James made it possible for me to do important things at a stressful and emotional point in my life.

As I work on the ideas we discussed together, I carry James’ smiling face in front of my eyes, which at times helps me to work and at times I only weep. I feel lucky that my years at Columbia have been marked and touched by his presence… I will be always obliged to him and hope that I’ll be able to pass on some of the affection, knowledge, and humanity that he shared with me to others who come along my way…

Al-Munaysurah Palace, Tarim, Yemen 2007-8