The Morning Jason Died

Genzlinger, Neil
Jan 27, 2020, 10:28 AM

to me

Hello Professor,

Neil Genzlinger on the obituaries desk at the New York Times here. I'm writing about your friend Jason Polan. First, my condolences. If you're up to it, I wonder if you might want to offer a quotable sentence or two about him for the piece? I'm told you collaborated with him on some projects, though I'm not sure what they were. We shy away from encomiums here (in other words, "He was a great guy" isn't very useful), but I'd love to have an anecdote from you about a particular project, or a description of how he worked, or what the nature of his artistry was.

If you do want to offer something, it needn't be long -- a sentence or two. Thanks for considering, and sorry for the loss.

Neil Genzlinger

Fritz Swanson
Jan 27, 2020, 1:32 PM

to Neil

Hi, Neil:

I realize you are on a deadline, and have a word count, so I will try to be helpful.

Jason and I have been friends for 20 years. He was my first student, I was a graduate student, I was 24, he was probably 18, a freshman in my first English Composition class at the University of Michigan, we immediately had a lot in common. We both loved comic books, and illustration work, but also had similar taste in literature and in writing.

But I think the key was we both expected the same thing of people, and rarely found it, except we found it in each other.

I used to help Jason make websites, and one time we thought of building a website (pre-blogging) called BUT ARE THEY NICE? Jason loved seeing and meeting famous people, but he was always really interested in how they treated people, how they acted when you met them. And we would always share stories about people we met, and whether they were "nice". Were they generous, patient, did they understand what you the fan were feeling and did they treat you graciously and with a full awareness of what things were like from your perspective. Were they "nice". We never made that website (though I have lots of emails from J on this theme). We didn't want to judge anyone harshly. But grace was, I think, essential to Jason. Grace in the sense of "forgiveness for you being you" and perhaps an open pleasure in "you being you". A kind of pre-forgiveness. A niceness that never implied judgement. This is what we valued.

Once, we were talking about art. Jason was still in school at the time. This was in Ann Arbor. He and I were struggling with how other students did or didn't care about things we thought were obviously important. Jason said, " It's like, anyone can figure out how to draw something. But it's hard to tell people how to SEE something."

Jason wanted people to see things, he wanted to call your attention to what he saw, and how he saw it. (Jason hated it when I would "explain" him. I'm so sorry, Jason. But the New York Times asked!)

In addition to teaching, I am a print maker. One of our earliest projects was Jason did a big drawing of a giant squid and a whale swirling around each other. A riff on that They Might Be Giants album cover. The squid and the whale are fighting. The squid's hunting arms are wrapped around the whale, the diamond shaped endpoints striking the head of the whale, the squid's other tentacles swirled around in a frenzy of motion.

I printed that image in blue.

And then, beneath it, Jason had me set in all caps, in Caslon:

"THEY ARE HUGGING."

Jason would always have us choose to see a kindness.

He was in Japan once, immediately arrived in Tokyo for the first time, and there were no clouds, and he saw Mount Fuji clearly and perfectly. He thought it was beautiful, but maybe also unremarkable, to see such a thing. He told me later that his guide was in awe, that he should be so fortunate. To see the great mountain, unimpeded by smog or clouds, at first glance so to speak, and without effort.

We were eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches one day, and he said, "These are so good. They make me so happy. We should, like, do a pamphlet. You know. To argue in favor of the PB and J." And we did. We did so many things.

He was my first student. He was my best friend. He was my last teacher.

I know that it is impossible to use this. But maybe you can extract something helpful from it. Or email me again with questions. Whatever you need, man. He was a large part of my whole life, and now he's gone, so I don't really have anything else going on.

I'm sorry I couldn't be more concise.

Best,
Fritz Swanson