Back in 2018 I was shocked when Anthony Bourdain died in mid flight as it were. I started writing this 7 years ago but never pushed publish. Hearing about his death was a shock because he seemed so much larger than life and the TV personality was generally resilient although somewhat troubled.
Two Three years ago Sinéad O’Connor died. She was another person who made a real difference because she /they had a heart for the people. It is a cliche that ‘life what happens when you’re making other plans’. A sentiment that John Lennon made popular is a song back in 1980. In the past 10 years both of my parents have passed on.
Once again going to funerals is something that most of us do out of respect and obligations to our friends and families. But when it is someone close it hits harder and sometimes you don’t even realise until later on what you’ve missed. Even when death is expected these because of age or health that still doesn’t make it easier when those people are well known to you.
Because of media, people like Anthony Bourdain and Sinéad O’Connor have sometimes reached through the void and connected in a way (para -social ?) that would have been surprising in pre-internet times.
Even though it is often music and video that is carrying the connection it has been the internet where we link all the dots together so to speak.
Back in 1991 I was briefly in Ireland for a few days. I managed to go to the Irish music awards which was the symbolic of a prosperous Ireland. The next night I was in another part of the city. A poorer area and even then at the beginning of the ’90’s it almost seemed like another country. My sense was that religion and politics trapped many of the population against their will.
I was an international visitor based in the UK for just a few months and able to hop a flight back to London and home to NZ later on.
Anthony was conscious that by being in a particular place with a camera he would be changing that particular place and I think he tried to use that power for good as much as he could. Kind of like a social Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in the flesh. Yes walking around in Gaza or the Congo with a film crew changes the dynamic. But he did try to tread softly when he could.
The Bourdain interview below is from 2018. The comments about how Bourdain was trying to get past competence and was looking for another kind of story each time was very much of interest. He was in a space where that team had resources to get “under the skin” so to speak.
There were many episodes in ‘Parts Unknown’ where the food is really just an excuse to be in that location. The Gaza episode for example used food as a cultural gateway to the bigger stories and so did the Congo episode*. A meal is also the perfect way to have a conversation about hopes and dreams and just what it means to be human. * The whole series was not really about food or travel it was about the human condition.
Like many others I have been rewatching episodes of the Anthony Bourdain ‘Parts Unknown’ series. We didn’t know back in 2018 what was really happening with Bourdain but the work remains.
In the remake of Heart of Darkness as Apocalypse Now the Kurtz character was insane but he still managed a few lines of poetry from TS Eliot and others including this.
“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper…”
And I was thinking of Bourdain when I found this quote. There is an answer to a question about staff where he says that they burn people out and in the end I wonder if (at least in part) he was part of that burnout factor. He went to many places and situations that where not safe but we are richer for all of those interactions.
“One can advise comfortably from a safe port.” Soren Kierkegaard
And this song from Sinéad. At the time it was for a film soundtrack of a movie I still haven’t seen so I missed it.
It is now 2026. As a planet we are still up shit creek without a paddle or in search of the hypothetical Colonel Kurtz only to find that the so called leaders of the Western world are incompetent and short on answers.
I still think about visionaries like Anthony Bourdain and Sinéad O’Connor often. They are sorely missed.
