Brian H. Appleton
11-26-2007, 08:41 AM
Dear readers,
an exceptional person died Friday,Nov 23rd, the day after Thanksgiving...
although death is a part of the human condition and is not unexpected in someone of such an advanced age, this was a great mind and a great Italophile...and his passing is not without sadness. His name was Stuart Wagman and he was an International Grand Chess Master.
The day of Thanksgiving, I was playing bridge with some relatives and friends and I mentioned about Stuart and how once a year he would have a demonstration tournament at Camp Darby and play 8 people blind folded and beat them all. Little did I know the next day would be his last.
This was one of the old friends we had seen again after so many years in Italy this past June and in fact he had just returned from a chess tournament in Elba when we saw him again at his villa on Monte Nero, Antignano. He and his wife Sylvia had in fact hosted a party for a whole group of us who had come from thousands of miles away for the final graduation ceremony of the Livorno American High School which was closing after 50 years.
He was an old family friend of ours whom we had known since the 1950's in Athens, Greece. He had been the systems analyst for the US Army Corps of Engineers at Piazza Grande in Livorno and he had married an Italian and had stayed on in Italy for another 36 years after his retirement from the US Army Corps of Engineers.
I had always admired Stuart as a free thinker who had had the courage to be an agnostic back in the days when that was rare.
I remember once when I was living in Siena 36 years ago that he and Sylvia had come to visit me and we had taken lunch together at Guido's restaurant.
Stuart was a kind and tolerant person with a lot of grace, style and intellect and I admire his choice to live out his life in Italy which is something I have only aspired to do.
The other death took place Sunday November 11th. In some ways this one was even more tragic in that this friend was only 44 years old. Peter Noble was a great Italophile from Oakland, California whose Italian was near fluent both verbal and written. His father had been a physicist who spent much time in Italy collaborating with Italian physicists as Peter was growing up. In fact each summer, his father, himself and his brother would go hiking in the Piedmont. Peter and his partner Michael Webb were both Italophiles. In fact when Michael and his Nisse Japanese American fiance told me that they wanted to get married in Siena even though they knew nobody there just because they loved it so much, I attempted to arrange a wedding reception at the Spa di Buddha for them with my Senese friends...
Peter and Michael built an art gallery in front of their architectural office and supported local Bay Area artists by letting them have exhibits of their work there. In fact they invited me to display my paintings from 36 years ago that I had made in Siena but I never managed to get them framed...they also volunteered to host a book signing party there for my friend Dario Castagno for his upcoming book signing tour of the US for his new book "Too Much Tuscan Wine."
I remember once Peter and I escaped a boring corporate function and went across the street to a liquor store in North Beach and he bought me an $80 bottle of Nonino, which was the best Grappa I had ever tasted and we proceeded to drink the whole thing. Peter was not austentacious. He had a quiet dignity and he was a kind person who was easy to get along with and physically beautiful to look at. He had a face that could have belonged to one of the Three Muskateers. He had a real talent for design as well, particularly lighting design.
Wednesday, Nov 7th, I was calling on him at his office with two manufacturers and the last thing I remember talking about with him was how he had spent a week in Istanbul this past summer and how much he had liked it. We were talking about the Turkish Nat'l Archeology Museum and the ceramic tile museum there...the summer before last he and a friend had climbed Mount Athos and Mount Olympus and I had told him to be sure to give my regards to Zeus...
In the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle's e edition there were about 30 blogger commentators who didn't know him, remarking upon the wisdom of climbing up a mountain in Yosemite in the winter and planning to come down after dark...I had to write a eulogy on his behalf...
A man who had such a love for Italy and the Italian language is a great loss to us all and his name Nobile is a fitting one. As far as mountain climbing goes, he is not the first person to have lost his life on a mountain but I think it is a tribute to his love for life and for adventure and a fitting end...
one friend died in his prime without suffering the ravages of age and one friend died at 88 with skin as smooth and free of wrinkles as an infant's because he had lived a good life...as my mother often says and she is 90: "The best revenge is living well!"
God Bless,
Brian H. Appleton
an exceptional person died Friday,Nov 23rd, the day after Thanksgiving...
although death is a part of the human condition and is not unexpected in someone of such an advanced age, this was a great mind and a great Italophile...and his passing is not without sadness. His name was Stuart Wagman and he was an International Grand Chess Master.
The day of Thanksgiving, I was playing bridge with some relatives and friends and I mentioned about Stuart and how once a year he would have a demonstration tournament at Camp Darby and play 8 people blind folded and beat them all. Little did I know the next day would be his last.
This was one of the old friends we had seen again after so many years in Italy this past June and in fact he had just returned from a chess tournament in Elba when we saw him again at his villa on Monte Nero, Antignano. He and his wife Sylvia had in fact hosted a party for a whole group of us who had come from thousands of miles away for the final graduation ceremony of the Livorno American High School which was closing after 50 years.
He was an old family friend of ours whom we had known since the 1950's in Athens, Greece. He had been the systems analyst for the US Army Corps of Engineers at Piazza Grande in Livorno and he had married an Italian and had stayed on in Italy for another 36 years after his retirement from the US Army Corps of Engineers.
I had always admired Stuart as a free thinker who had had the courage to be an agnostic back in the days when that was rare.
I remember once when I was living in Siena 36 years ago that he and Sylvia had come to visit me and we had taken lunch together at Guido's restaurant.
Stuart was a kind and tolerant person with a lot of grace, style and intellect and I admire his choice to live out his life in Italy which is something I have only aspired to do.
The other death took place Sunday November 11th. In some ways this one was even more tragic in that this friend was only 44 years old. Peter Noble was a great Italophile from Oakland, California whose Italian was near fluent both verbal and written. His father had been a physicist who spent much time in Italy collaborating with Italian physicists as Peter was growing up. In fact each summer, his father, himself and his brother would go hiking in the Piedmont. Peter and his partner Michael Webb were both Italophiles. In fact when Michael and his Nisse Japanese American fiance told me that they wanted to get married in Siena even though they knew nobody there just because they loved it so much, I attempted to arrange a wedding reception at the Spa di Buddha for them with my Senese friends...
Peter and Michael built an art gallery in front of their architectural office and supported local Bay Area artists by letting them have exhibits of their work there. In fact they invited me to display my paintings from 36 years ago that I had made in Siena but I never managed to get them framed...they also volunteered to host a book signing party there for my friend Dario Castagno for his upcoming book signing tour of the US for his new book "Too Much Tuscan Wine."
I remember once Peter and I escaped a boring corporate function and went across the street to a liquor store in North Beach and he bought me an $80 bottle of Nonino, which was the best Grappa I had ever tasted and we proceeded to drink the whole thing. Peter was not austentacious. He had a quiet dignity and he was a kind person who was easy to get along with and physically beautiful to look at. He had a face that could have belonged to one of the Three Muskateers. He had a real talent for design as well, particularly lighting design.
Wednesday, Nov 7th, I was calling on him at his office with two manufacturers and the last thing I remember talking about with him was how he had spent a week in Istanbul this past summer and how much he had liked it. We were talking about the Turkish Nat'l Archeology Museum and the ceramic tile museum there...the summer before last he and a friend had climbed Mount Athos and Mount Olympus and I had told him to be sure to give my regards to Zeus...
In the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle's e edition there were about 30 blogger commentators who didn't know him, remarking upon the wisdom of climbing up a mountain in Yosemite in the winter and planning to come down after dark...I had to write a eulogy on his behalf...
A man who had such a love for Italy and the Italian language is a great loss to us all and his name Nobile is a fitting one. As far as mountain climbing goes, he is not the first person to have lost his life on a mountain but I think it is a tribute to his love for life and for adventure and a fitting end...
one friend died in his prime without suffering the ravages of age and one friend died at 88 with skin as smooth and free of wrinkles as an infant's because he had lived a good life...as my mother often says and she is 90: "The best revenge is living well!"
God Bless,
Brian H. Appleton