Wednesday, February 27, 2008

eulogy

Written by Max Black

Delivered to Tim's family and friends during the Connecticut service

02/23/08

So, when I accepted the opportunity to speak today, I did it without a lot of consideration. I think when I did it, I should have realized how wretchedly incompetent I was to make any sense of the fact that Tim has passed away: thinking about what all of you need to hear, and how ill-equipped emotionally and in terms of personality I am to say it, I think it over, and, well, I realize I am not remotely as terrified standing up here today as I probably should be. I am an analytical and somewhat pretentious guy, and I cannot offer the kind of immediacy or directness that other people have offered in remembering Tim. But, I can manage something, so let me try.

Let me start by giving you a sense of how I have been holding up. In the last few days I have tried, in fits and starts, to remember Tim. On the one hand, every time I try, I have to imagine some place, some situation, but I cannot really remember his words or what he looked like at that moment. So I am left with the guilty feeling that I don't really remember him at all: there is just the passing shadow of his face, or his laugh, or his new glasses. Then, I will be thinking about something else entirely, and I realize that what just ran through my mind is some fragment of an unfinished conversation with him, not what I wanted to think, but what he would have said if he were there. I cannot figure out that he is gone, I suppose because I don't what of myself has been taken away with his death, and, I guess, because I don't know what of him is still inside of me.

This is all the more horrible because for the last five or six years, I had been watching-watching it too distantly- watching Tim slowly put his life and his future together. I doubt anyone in their mid-twenties thinks much about the legacy they will leave behind, much less their own funeral. I think if Tim had thought anything about it, he would have thought that it would inevitably come out wrong, like looking at a bad photo of yourself, a pile of stereotyped observations about yourself, expressed with embarrassing sincerity.

Well, Tim, we barely knew you, and that is because you died too young. You should have finished what you started. You had too much in your life: you had a family and friends who loved you, you had a career, you had a sense of what is just and what is ridiculous that taught some of us a great deal. We are not going to forget you, and that is because we are carrying too much of you to begin with. We will remember you, and strain to remember what precisely made you irreplaceable, in whatever way that we can.

So what do I remember of Tim? It occurs to me that the first thing I ever saw of Tim, and what comes up most vividly was his handwriting, on the playlists at the radio station at our college. Now, most of the page would be a list of bands, songs that had been played, and at the top of the playlists, you would have the names of the DJs. So, every other week, the page said 'Tim A." It said this in slightly shaky, slightly feminine letters, a bit long and thin. And since Tim shared his show with another person, the script would pass to another hand and another name: then Tim's handwriting, with its small, careful loops in the ays and crowded double els, would answer back with the names of three or four bands, and the conversation would continue back and forth. And the names of the bands that Tim A. was writing were the names of bands I liked also: I had never imagined that somebody else besides me could possibly like this stuff, but there it was. And so when I met Tim Aher in the flesh, there was something a little bit miraculous and incongruous about it. Here is this slim, athletic guy, with angelic eyes and dirty blond hair, in a t-shirt, cargo pants, and white waffle-knit thermal undershirt. This is Tim. And, so we should become friends. And we do. And I begin to pass time at Tim's apartment.

Let me tell you about this apartment, as it appears to me today. Tim shares this apartment with what seems to be an indeterminate number of fraternity members, and occupies what appears to be a closet with a bathroom attached to it. This room is filled with amazing books, amazing records, a bed and very little else. Because this room is so small, to talk to him I must sit cross-legged on the floor, or if he is feeling low, I sit on the bed with him. We listen to records, or talk about records, or talk about all of you people who are here today. In these conversations, Tim turns out to be the least affected, most deeply innocent person I have ever known, and we become closer friends. We watch TV occasionally, and both find it amusing, fascinating, and terrifying, perhaps because in our innocence we expect something other than cynical crap to come out of it. Whenever I watch TV with Tim, I look at the mistreated spider plant on the windowsill next to it. I worry a little bit about it, and I worry a little bit about how Tim is doing: is he taking care of himself? Will he find a better room? How happy is he? And so the next three or four years blur together in my mind, a period of bad TV, people untangling guitar cables and pulling echoplex pedals out of milk crates, advice and consultation over heavy, fried collegiate food, intractable homework assignments in syntactic linguistics, and walks down Hyde Park streets. And over this period I get into grad school, Tim graduates from college, people come and go, and Tim falls deeply in love.

Now, Tim was lucky enough to fall in love with a gentle and profoundly strong woman, someone who cared deeply for him, body and soul, who knew him well, and who is happily here with us here today. I recall meeting the two of them in Chicago a year or two ago, after most of us had left the city, and being impressed, first of all that Tim was living in an apartment with furniture, but mostly that Tim seemed so settled and content: he was taking care of a housecat, he had a domestic routine, he was domesticated. If I strain my memory, I can remember the details of the place they had together: big windows facing south, with a big set of bookshelves built into the wall there, a narrow staircase leading down to the front door, the paintings on the wall, and a little portable stereo in the kitchen. It may be a trick of memory, but there were houseplants, if I remember correctly, and they were thriving out in a greenhouse space in the back of the apartment.

The last few times I saw Tim, he seemed to be thriving in the same way. He was working through law school, and doing legal aid for people in public housing, a job he found engaging and pleasant. I think I can say today that this is the way that I would like to remember him: both as collected and full of life, somebody with a sense of right and utterly without self-righteousness. Indeed, Tim had many virtues. But in particular, Tim's capacity to fall whole-heartedly, utterly, and selflessly in love had something of God in it. This had to do with what he loved in music. Tim liked music that was cacophonous, raw, and abrasively masculine. But what Tim really saw in the music he loved was that it was free music, performed by amateurs, amateurs who were improvising and creating, who it seemed had forgotten everything and become children again, simply speaking their heart with the instruments they had been given. And in this music, anything could be an instrument, and every sound in the world could express something. And Tim loved this. It was like the peaceable kingdom: this love meant that the world had been created again, every ugly thing and spiteful thing in life had been made good, the lion would lie down with the lamb, and so on. Now Tim was not at all a sentimental or religious person. But someone-I forget who-once said that the only real critical standpoint was to view everything-they meant the modern world-in terms of the possibility of its being redeemed. I am led to think that, perhaps, Tim had a sense of hopefulness of that kind, and it is with that sense that I would like to remember him today.

On Hearing of a Death

(This is a poem I'd thought about reading at the service. What I read will be up soon. For now, I am figuring out the formatting.) 

On Hearing of a Death

We lack all knowledge of this parting. Death 
does not deal with us. We have no reason
to show death admiration, love or hate; 
his mask of feigned tragic lament gives us

a false impression. The world's stage is still
filled with roles which we play. While we worry
that our performance may not please, 
death also performs, although to no applause. 

But as you left us, there broke upon this stage
a glimpse of reality, shown through the slight
opening through which you disappeared: green, 
evergreen, bathed in sunlight, actual woods. 

We keep on playing, anxious, our difficult roles
declaiming, with matching gestures 
as required. But your presence so suddenly 
removed from our midst and from our play, at times 

overcomes us like a sense of that other 
reality: yours, that we are so overwhelmed
and play our actual lives instead of the performance, 
forgetting altogether the applause. 

-Rainer Maria Rilke (trans. Albert Ernest Flemming) 

from a 2002 Reader Piece

Music Notes: whoever makes the most noise wins

Author: Liz Armstrong Date: November 22, 2002
Appeared in Section 1

Growing up in quaint, historic Fairfield County,
Connecticut [Tim Aher says]. "…I spent a lot of
time in my room woodshedding on the guitar and
listening to metal."

In his senior year of high school he found
salvation on IRC, a clunky on-line chat forum
where he met other self-described "lonely teenage
guys," striking up a particularly close
friendship with one named George Moore. They
bonded over music and their mutual hatred of
school and decided to start a band. When Aher
went over to Moore's house for the first time, he
saw a ton of records by groups like Whitehouse
and Acid Mothers Temple--bands he'd never heard
of. Moore told him his uncle Thurston (yes, that
Thurston Moore) turned him on to almost all of
the experimental music in his collection.

Aher and Moore, and later Moore's younger
brother, started rehearsing as the Duvet Cover,
switching off on guitars, electronics, and drums.
They played in basements and coffee shops to
like-minded kids from IRC channels, and felt
triumphant whenever they got kicked out for
making an intolerable racket.

Currently in his third year of linguistics
studies at the University of Chicago, Aher's also
filling in as program director at WHPK, the
school's radio station, for a friend who's in
London for the quarter. He says he was initially
attracted to noise and experimental music because
it alienated unsuspecting passersby in the same
way he'd felt alienated in high school. Once he
moved here, however, he realized there was a
community based around what he loved; he saw
"people having fun and acting silly at the
shows." Now he wants to share his noise
addiction--what he calls a "corporal
pleasure"--with as many people as possible.

Earlier this year he started putting on shows at
the U. of C. "It's good for the university," he
says, "because it makes them look hip, and
they've got a big stake in that, especially right
now, because they're trying to expand the college
and not have everybody be socially inept." But
his idea of the best way to socialize the school,
it seems, is to get everyone involved in some
sort of antisocial activity. A few months ago,
when his "improv psych" band, False Sex, played
at a party, one of his friends threw a garbage
can through the wall and Aher body slammed a band
member onto a couch full of girls. Later, when
someone asked him what his "deal" was, he
replied, "Don't you get it? It's an excuse to act retarded."

Aher's latest project is this weekend's Festival
of Marginalized Subgenres, featuring New York
sheet-metal bangers and body slammers Cock
E.S.P., California whizzbangs Mummers (Eype), and
Ohio superserious darkwavers Burning Star Core,
as well as local acts Panicsville, Behold! The
Living Corpse, Vertonen, Winter Carousel, and
others. At some point in the evening, the music
will stop temporarily and Chris Sienko, director
of WHPK's Radio Dada program, will host a
discussion--ostensibly on identity and the
politics of noise music, but who knows--with
Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core and video artist
Adam Chao. And since, says Aher, "in actual panel
discussions they have dissenting opinions," he's
invited his friend Jonathan Edward
Couperthwait--who doesn't like and doesn't know
much about noise music but "has a really
distinguished-sounding name." The all-ages show
starts at 6 PM on Saturday, November 23, in the
third-floor theater of the University of
Chicago's Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th. It's
free; call 773-702-8289 for more information.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Eulogy for Tim

Written by Nick Kukla
Delivered to Tim's family and friends following the Connecticut service
02/23/08

I wanted to share with all of you my last, real memory of Tim.

A group of us had gathered together at Rockaway beach towards the end of last summer. On a pure and perfect day, we picnicked, sunbathed, swam and talked together.

My clearest memory is of Tim and I swimming and surfing the waves. We would swim out into the Atlantic, wait for the largest waves, surrender our bodies to their force and let them take us into shore. This involved a quick dive the instant the crest of the wave descended upon us, and when we could pull it off, it would propel us all the way back to the beach. Once in the shallows, we would wade out to repeat the game again and again.

After some time, our friends headed in to catch the sun and dry off, while Tim and I stayed out in the ocean. I remember Tim somehow managed to attract a gang of little, belligerent kids. They decided to swim along with us, all the while teasing us about our sunburned, balding heads. Tim and I would wait for each wave, close our eyes and dive, riding them together. More often than not we collided into rocks or the shore bottom, the worn down pilings, sometimes even each other or the kids who kept following us around. It did not take much time to realize that the shimmer of Rockaway beach is mostly a thin carpet of broken glass in the water. It was no matter though, our cuts and bruises did not hold us back. Time stood still for us both and the sun and water held us in their sway. It was a time, among many, when Tim and I had fun.

Tim was someone with whom I could share these moments; he could immerse himself into everything he experienced and he inspired those around him with the extraordinary pleasure he took from exploration. The fascination the world held for him was paralleled only by his ability to interpret and understand it, to find meaning and communicate what he discovered. His confidence in his ideas engendered a voice in him that was at once both enlightening and deafening. I feel lucky to have had conversations with him, and I learned more from him than he was ever aware.

As a man, he was honest and direct, compassionate without pretense, and a person who cared deeply for his family and friends.

Tim and I shared our thoughts, we grew close and trusted one other and relied on each other when we were troubled. We created music together, we learned from each other, we talked of the future and laughed over the past. He was a person I truly loved and will truly miss. Across death, he remains: my bandmate, my brother and my friend.

I never knew his torment first-hand, but I hope now it is quiet, laid to rest in the dark, silent depths far beneath the waves that bore Tim and me. Deep below the tumult, I hope he is still, slow and calm. As he sleeps, I will remain here on these waves, with the comfort of knowing that he is not far from my heart.

So, sink down to rest, my friend. Know that when I am old and tired and ready for slumber, I will dive down to you. Wait for me brother, and I'll meet you then.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Eulogy delived by Manish in London

EULOGY FOR TIMOTHY RYAN AHER
Authored by Greg F. Price, Joshua Rinschler and Manish S. Antani
Delivered by Manish S. Antani
February 20, 2008
University of Notre Dame London Center, London, UK

Tim and I planned on living together next year in South Bend, and it wouldn’t be lying to say he sort of lived with me last year. Two nights before the first Contracts exam, a bunch of us were studying at my apartment until late. Shocking as this may sound, South Bend got some snow…three feet of it in fact. While Tim was the only one to accept my offer to spend the night, I was happy to offer him my floor…and he was happy to take it. In fact, Tim was happy to stay indefinitely.

Soon, he became a household fixture. I woke one morning to find his toothbrush in my bathroom, returned home one day to see he had brought home groceries. Soon we were doing each others laundry and planning supper around one another. I told everyone to sleep over until the weather cleared. Tim took me seriously…he wanted to stay ‘til Spring.

I was happy to have the company, and who better than Tim? Last year it felt like Tim was my hidden gem. Tim was the same wonderful person he was this year—funny, brilliant, at times a bit offbeat — however, while he was loved by everyone he met, few knew him. I reveled in the fact that despite being…well…Tim, he always made time to hang out with me, he always was willing to grab a meal, to share a story, prep for an exam, or watch tv. I feel privileged to have known ND Law’s best kept secret. As I look around the room today, its clear: The secret’s out.

Not only because of the kind of group we have here in London, but also because of the kind of person Tim was, I can say with certainty, he loved every one of us.

Tim, the feeling’s mutual.

After all, what’s not to like? Tim brought a smile to everyone around him. And rightly so, Tim’s smile was infectious. One of Tim’s friends at the University of Chicago spoke with me on the phone about a recent reflection session held by Tim’s undergrad friends: Kareem’s view mirrored our own sentiments, he said, “He was just too awesome! There really is nothing that anyone could find about Tim that was negative.” He thought about it a bit, paused, and I could hear him smile…“Well,” Kareem smirked, “…maybe his laugh was a bit loud…”

Laughing came naturally to Tim, though not always at the most appropriate times. Even so, Tim would never have taken pleasure in making others feel bad. One of Tim’s best qualities was his accepting nature. I felt like I could tell him anything and he would never judge me. He prided himself on being a bridge builder. The fact that today we have a Muslim, a Catholic, an Atheist, and a Hindu speaking in his memory demonstrates just this.

As Father Coughlin mentioned at the campus-wide memorial Tuesday, Tim had such compassion for everyone, even those he never met. Tim worked last winter preventing AIDS victims from being evicted. And spent the summer doing public interest in Connecticut. Tim hoped to help there again this summer and after graduation. Tim was a giver.

And it is for this reason that I am so grateful to be able to give back to Tim in this small way. The greatest privilege of my life is to stand before you, as Tim’s friend.

I met Tim soon after starting at Notre Dame and was glad to find out that we were both vegetarians. Having someone to share meals with helped me during the difficult early stages of law school. However, this often meant I had to eat what Tim wanted to eat. This burden I think was summed up best by Greg when he said, “I’ve only had food poison 4 times in my life…3 of them were with Tim.”

No doubt many here have had similar experiences. Tim was not only always willing to try new things, he was always anxious to share them with friends. And who wasn’t Tim’s friend? Tim transcended trends, cliques, and ideologies. A quote by James Fredericks illustrates Tim’s approach to friendship, “The vitality of a relationship is not in the enjoyment of similarities but in the honoring of differences.”

And, Tim was different.
1.) To say Tim was intellectually superior would be a gross understatement,
2.) To say Tim was a hit with the ladies would be a bit of an overstatement,
3.) And, to say Tim was hygienic…would be a lie.

But none of these characteristics defines Tim’s essence. We will remember Tim for being brilliant, giving, accepting, and good-humored. He was a good person and a good friend, but Tim would want to be remembered for how he made us feel,
- how he brought joy into our lives through his wisdom and his laughter,
- and—perhaps even more importantly—how he has brought awareness to us through his tragic death.

Tim’s attitude towards life was a testament to his concern and love for other people. While Tim displayed an idle sense of whimsy and carefree sprit; he was bravely hiding an internal struggle. Tim was overwhelmed...with anxiety…and sadness—demons he had been fighting for many years.

Tim spent his time here on earth teaching us about Hagel, Norwegian black metal, Neo-Trotsky-ism, and homo sa-cer. In death, he is still teaching us. The lesson this tragedy illustrates is the necessity to love life, live every moment, and be there for one another. Tim was with us as long as he was because 1) he had friends, 2) because we cared, 3) and because he sought help. While Tim’s demons eventually overcame him, our battle is not over. We must take up Tim’s torch in pursuit of a cure, and in the meantime, the care of each other.

Wikipedia defines death as, “the end of the life of a biological organism.” While Tim’s natural life is over, he lives on in everyone in this room:
- Sheryn will smile a little brighter every time she tries to remember Professor Adams’ email address,
- Josh will relish in the study of Wittgenstein
- Lawrence will find rhythm in Noise, and solace in the unknown,
- Tom will laugh spontaneously, without fear of embarrassment,
- And neck beards will be all the rage in London this spring.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

news

really nice danbury news-times article

The Aher family asks that instead of flowers, donations in Tim's memory be made to Connecticut Legal Services Inc., 62 Washington St., Middletown, CT 06457.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Packing and unpacking

Moving makes me feel alone. Tim had a way of showing up then. Over my academic career I've had to make a lot of these tiresome moves, abandoning someplace that left me feeling abandoned as a result. Then Tim might turn up out of the blue, reminding me I wasn't really alone at all. The first time was a move in Chicago that I really didn't want to make. More than the help I was just grateful for his company. Years later I noticed some unfamiliar handwriting on a box. It was one he'd packed for me that had somehow tagged along. The tide of academic moves turned this year when I accepted my first good tenure-track job in Hartford. Of course Tim happened to be working over the summer in CT. He came out to the quiet, woodsy place I'd moved into to help again. He was the first person to hear my stereo make a sound in over two years. I can't remember the first song I played but he thought it sounded amazing. Once I heard him say that, I did too.

-Seth

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

article

here

tim



VALLEY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
21 W WHISCONIER RD
BROOKFIELD, CT 06804

Saturday 23 February 2008
Viewing: 3pm-5:30pm
Services: 5:30pm

Some people are putting together a photo album which will eventually be sent to Tim's family:

http://s261.photobucket.com/albums/ii69/InLovingMemory_Tim/

Email me at milosz (dot) m (at) gmail if you want the username/password to upload pictures. Also if you are coming to town and need a place to stay or have questions.