Laszlo Attila Toth

Laszlo Toth Obituary

Born: Nov 12, 1970 in Minneapolis, MN

Died: Jan 06, 2010 in Cambridge, MA

Published by Union Leader on Jan. 6, 2010.

Memories and Condolences
for Laszlo Toth

73 Entries

Rashani Rea

January 23, 2010

Tears are too meager now,
give me a song.
A song for a sadness too vast for my heart,
for a rage too wild for my throat.

-Joanna Macy

Beyond living and dreaming
there is something more important:
waking up.

-Antonio Machado

----------------------------------------------------
What does it take to wake up? To see miracles amidst atrocities? Are they not one and the same, simply reflecting the stories we project onto them?

Is it possible to ask such questions without rushing towards an answer? To simply allow the unknown to lead us where we have never been?

Would that I could be present at Laci's memorial service today. It would be such an honor to be with all of you, to pay tribute to Connie and André's son, Ion's stepson and Tatiana's brother, whom I first met in 1978. Laci was my son's closest friend the year after my mother died, in 1982. I can still see those two delightful little boys laughing and playing together.

Laci held an unwavering love for, and an exceptional ability to interact with, the stark reality of what is without needing to fix or change it in order to feel more comfortable. He knew how to live beyond comfort or discomfort and was not frightened by the Dark Goddess, Kali. He had not bought into the patriarchal demonization of "the dark" and intuitively knew that all things of beauty are born of darkness. Laci discovered, from his own experiences, that only that which is not serving the truth can be dismembered and only that which is perishable shall perish.

Somehow, Laci remained immune to the seductive, hollow promises of materialism, in spite of the ever-present lures and snares, knowing that somewhere out beyond ideas of right and wrong there existed a boundless compassion, which illumines all beings.

Laci was a creative, beautiful, bright, caring, sensitive and deeply compassionate human being, for whom life seemed overwhelming at times. He dared to look directly into the heart of suffering yet was so much more than the pain he encountered. He was a gifted artist and musician, a great listener and a loyal brother and friend-each of which, in and of themselves, holds great merit.

Laci was not lured by new age gimmicks and he saw, from a young age, beneath the sugar-coated corruption and prevalent lies which many people never stop to question. He saw through the optical delusions, which stare at us in so many, many forms-the constant distractions that entice us back to sleep day after day, year after year.

Laci, beloved Laci. Fearless and gentle brother, friend and son. Thank you for allowing us to know deathlessness through your dying. Your ineffable essence, born of Truth and Love, resounds like a Tibetan singing bowl through the bird songs and wind and the ocean's endless returning. You taught me, through example, more about unconditioned presence than any Zen master or "spiritual teacher."

Spending a month with you, here in Hawai'i, was an honor. To have shared your inner world was a gift for which I have no words. Your honesty, rawness and courage touched me profoundly. The love and understanding you offered to others, especially to those who caused you pain, was remarkable.

Every few mornings, before dawn, with a headlamp on my forehead, I water the orchard that we planted together two years ago. The trees are rooted deeply now and soon they will be bearing fruit. Your fruits, too, even though you have left the garment of your flesh behind, will be harvested by many.

The Great Mystery brings us unexpected gifts, disguised as tragedies sometimes. How is it that I can experience the perfection in your death? I honestly don't know except that your fearless spirit is very present, bestowing upon me, like petals of prasad, an exquisite sense of equanimity and peace.

You have ventured beyond pain and brokenness and your dance will continue, unshackled by the burden of physicality. As a true bodhisattva, you were not afraid of suffering and human sorrow. You studied it well. So well that you saw it as the husk that it is, a covering of our true nature, which can not be harmed in any way.

Your sudden departure is more than an invitation-for many people. It is a reminder that anything can be transmuted into life-affirming medicine. You have brought some of us haltingly to the edge of silence, where everything is dismantled into grace and where the voiceless dialogues of love continue as joyously as the cardinals' who sing in the flowering plumaria trees.

May Laci's death be our medicine, our lifeline to truth and God and salvation. Let us drink from the cup of truth, together and alone, without shame, as we celebrate a courageous pilgrim whose life was often painfully misunderstood. The destinies of our loved ones are chosen by something far greater than our small egos. Sometimes the collective field uses an individual to assist in healing the whole.

Let us offer all of the hidden shame and guilt to the mystery of this sacred gathering. Let us dare to speak the truth and welcome everyone to the feast of this moment. May we choose to understand by looking deeper, until we see other as self. May this be a memorable day of loving that which we thought we could not love.

With deep-abiding gratitude and love I bow to you and your beautiful family with reverence and a tenderness that is born from breaking open again and again, and again.

I end here with a poem that I wrote in 1991, following the sixth death in my family:

There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.

-Rashani Rea

Tatiana Berindei

March 12, 2010

How do I say farewell to Laci? What would I want him to know about the way in which his life has touched mine? I would say: From the time when you born I sensed that your beautiful qualities held a promise that you had much to share with us. When you were a young child I took you and Connie to the airport in Minneapolis, and, as you both were leaving the United States to join Ion in Rome, I was aware of the richness of the experiences that you were about to have in moving to another country. I also remember the game attitude you showed when I saw you with your backpack about to face the challenges and adventure of life in Rome. Then I think of seeing you, still as a child, back in Minneapolis at Niccolini's coffee house, when Ion, backed up by his fellow musicians, greeted you with a jazz solo in celebration of your birthday. Although all that attention seemed to be overwhelming, you handled it bravely. More recently our paths crossed when you came to Minneapolis with Ion and Connie on a visit. I remember how enthusiastic you were about the Weisman Art Museum designed by Frank Gehry, and how eagerly you documented your experience by creating a photographic record of Gehry's architecture. What a pleasure it was to see you so involved in this process. And now I am told that it was this dedicated exploration of your artistic vision through photography that had been in the forefront of your most recent efforts and ambitions. The spark that animated you had stayed with you up to the last moments of your too short life. Both you and what you might have offered will be missed. Beryl Greenberg

Tatiana Berindei

January 24, 2010

For Laszlo: An Angel in Human Clothing

Born in a rain of
golden petals

you were never of
this world

The light of an angel

is sometimes more
than human hands can hold

A true warrior of the
light

you were fearless in
the face of darkness

for you were the lantern

You danced with death
a thousand times

embracing the world´s
refuse

thrown away out of
ignorance

Nothing need be
wasted;

you knew that well

befriending all
those, like you,

whom life had turned
its back on

You were not afraid

nor to be feared

though many people
mistook your light

for the shadows it
cast -

it seems that you
yourself

often made the same
mistake

And now

My Guardian Angel

whose light was more

than your human hands
could hold

you have been
liberated

from this physical
reality

set free

to take your place
amongst the stars

And now I know that
when I bow

and kiss the sky

I am kissing you
-Tatiana
Berindei

Daniel Hillinger

September 5, 2013

Laci

I recently found an old address book from the 80s and it had your winchester number so I called looking for you and found out this from your sister Tatiana. We haven't seen each other in person since the 90s and I can't believe that would be the last time we hung out. I love you like a brother and you taught me things about art, music and life that noone else could ever do. I miss I will never get to tell you these things now that we are all grownup and old. I wish you were here.

franco palamaro

November 6, 2010

Ciao Laci.
Ho avuto il priviligio di conoscerti da piccolo, ospite di Ion e Connie e ho avuto la possibilita' di salutarti poco prima che volassi via. Non potevo sapere che era l'ultima volta che ti avrei visto in questa vita, e io non sono bravo con le parole.
Percio' posso solo lasciare questo piccolo segno in tuo ricordo. So solo che un giorno potró rincontrarti.
Arrivederci, Laci.

Naldo Martinez

February 11, 2010

Laszlo,
you were a great person, ill never forget how we met at the bus stop and spoke about old bands. we had great times and i will never forget the last words we shared the day of new years, you toled me you wanted me to have a celtic frost patch but it hurts to know your not here to hand it to me bud, ill always remember you man. may you rest in peace! HAILS!
patch, but we never got the chance to meet up. in the end
i will always remember you by

Sarah Noack

February 13, 2010

Dear Laci (because I know, somehow, you still hear...)

Not a day goes by (still) where I don't think of you. (Often). Occasionally, now, a day goes by where I don't cry. Despite the years we sometimes lost touch, I never forgot you. Not for a day, not for a minute. Nor will I ever. You were one of the best friends I've ever had.

You were the first person who ever really understood me. You shared my love of the bizarre, the absurd, the perverted, the painfully beautiful. You always made me laugh. You always stood up for me and respected me so much. I always felt the world was a kind place as long as I knew you were buried in it somewhere, like a pearl. You are free now, Laci, but you left this pearl in my heart now. It is so heavy I don't know what to do with it. I'm still trying to carry its weight.

I needed to see your face one more time, and finally found you here. Thank you Tatiana so much for doing this beautiful page. You, Connie and your family are in my thoughts so much.

To all who have shared memories and anecdotes about Laci, it has comforted me so much to see all the many lives he has touched, and how much he is remembered. I may not know any of you individually, but together, we all were touched by a great soul and share similar memories. This alone is a comfort to me now, somehow.

I am sharing a poem I wrote for Laci last week. It's sad, but such is the nature of the beast. (I'm sure Laci would have made a joke about that, probably involving cheesy 80's metal lyrics. But anyway).

Love,
Sarah

____

archaeos

for Laci

if you read between the lines
that striate my iris,

you'll find a hidden reservoir of blue
with a name written on the other side
in invisible ink-

a poem written so long ago
and with such a young and heavy hand
that pen trespassed paper and broke into sky,

until I cried because no page could contain
the words that could describe him-

a many-volumed encyclopedia was required
just to codify each moment in his presence:
innocent Minoan friezes of memory:
a lost cult of beauty
that in its fragility,
was forgotten in the utility of Rome

and whenever I remember birds,
I think of him
and each petaled, faded detail
I somehow buried
because I felt unworthy
of such tenderness

and the way he stayed so high
but always returned to my finger
to tell me of the strangeness of heaven

and in dreams, I chase a whisper
through stone cloisters and attics,
and despite dust swirls indicating a recent presence,

all exits are locked
and the fire escape too
and there is no way to reclaim this mystery of wings

no way to enter this room
that somehow I thought I could always come home to-

and how I've looked and looked for his pale blue smile
until the homesickness makes me dry heave
but the power's gone out
and I've lost the map
and he's gone and swallowed the skeleton key-

and sometimes I wonder if I light a match,
if the night will release him to me
like a sphinx moth
with a report from the other side,
but then I remember this glass separating us,
invisibly
but so palpably-

there's no comfort in archaeology,
in this unearthing and sorting of relics:
stripped of their contexts,
tagged and bagged
with reports on history and cause,
shipped to safe havens of conservation
with relevant fragments on public display
but even technology won't save them
from this monsoon
that keeps me under lock and key

and there's no solace at all
in these rains that fall endlessly,
awakening pastel trees of memory
when each flower only serves to adorn the dead.

- Sarah Noack

Tom and Andrea Scheidler

January 25, 2010

Remembering Laci

What is it to re-member someone you loved who you know you will never see again this side of heaven? To remember is to "put them back together" in your mind´s eye. In remembering you try to comprehend what has been lost, and seek to recapture it somehow. You try to retrace the familiar contours of your relationship with your friend, your loved one, and to bridge the unfamiliar space that separates you from them now. This is difficult to do unless you share your thoughts with others, because each one of us is like one of the six blind men who tried to explain what an elephant was by touching it. One held the tail and said the elephant was like a rope, another held a leg and said the elephant was like a tree, another touched the ear and said it was like a leaf, the one who held the trunk said it was like snake, and so on...The blind men ended up arguing endlessly about who was right. Somewhere they are arguing still. There is no record of the six blind men ever marveling that the huge "something" they each only touched upon, was alive!

It is important when you re-member someone, when you describe your experience of them, that you take time to marvel at their very existence. And (to move to the next step) that in every moment you are not only touching life, but life is touching you and feeling you in every moment... and therefore anything can happen.

We are all trying to get our minds around the idea that Laci is not going to be with us anymore. We knew him for so many years. He touched hearts and minds. We shared with him and argued with him and now we can not share anymore, laugh together or argue with him anymore. What happens when we reach out our hands and our hands touch...nothing?

When this happens the only solution is to discover other senses. What if instead of reaching out to touch what we wish or want, we spread our arms wide so our hearts are open and our hands can touch? Reaching wide we touch each other´s hands and create a circle of life where the being of Laci is larger than any one person´s idea of him. In this circle there can be only one intention: that we want to inform each other about something hugely alive, wonderful, dangerous, inquisitive and unique, that we can only partly ever understand and can never contain. Laci was, as we all are, alive and free. We can never, could never, any one of us, own or explain him.

The circle we make here today is not empty like a fenced in place, but is full of all the memories of times we walked with Laci in sun and in rain, full of all our conversations, our wild times, our quiet moments, our music and also our grief. None of us can tell everything about his life. He was a man on his own and a friend to many. He was a son and a brother and a seeker. We can only describe what we feel, how touched we are by him, and comfort each other and his family at the loss of his companionship.

We remember Laci with stories and love. We remember him with the best we have of our memories. His powerful struggle and his beautiful spirit touches us and moves us. May he rest in peace.

Sebastien Trives

January 25, 2010

Because of time and distance, in the last years I did not know Laszlo as well as those living closer to him: what he struggled with, his fears, his hopes and his pains. But I was still sufficiently close to feel that, while he struggled with many demons, his intelligence and fundamental understanding of and yearning for the world´s magnificence was always there, shining as a beacon of hope under pessimism and self doubt.

On this most difficult day, I am profoundly sorry for not being able to be here with all of you to say goodbye to Laszlo in person and support you in your distress.

To you Laci, who traveled on a such a difficult path after our young days, I cannot but feel great sadness and shame that I did not manage to be a better, more caring and dedicated friend, and perhaps help you overcome your fears and translate your great potential into the fulfillment of some of your dreams, and thereby also the dreams of those who loved you. I ask for your forgiveness as I bid you farewell, my eyes full of tears and my heart heavy with regrets.

To Connie, Tania and Andre, I offer my most sincere and heartfelt regrets for the loss of a son and brother.

On this somber day, although there is little that can calm our sorrow, I can take some comfort in the fact that, having travelled the world and met thousands since the days when we were young men on the Hill, I know that there are very few souls as worthy of friendship and love as Laszlo´s, and that in this way, although his life was all too short and his destiny unfulfilled, he will live on within my thoughts and in my heart, as well as those of his friends, not only in memories but also for having contributed much to what we are today.

Jason Volk

January 25, 2010

Laci is a very important person in my life. Indeed we have been closest friends for many years. The whole idea of letting go this past week is strange to me, because I still feel his influence in my life very closely, and I see his face everywhere, in places I go and things I hear people say. There´s a chorus of Laci everywhere I go. And sometimes at inappropriate times. For instance the idea speaking in the front of a room to a group about his life only makes me think of his voice whispering in my ear mischievous twists to diffuse the seriousness of the energy in the room, or at least to me as the listener. Except now it´s me the speaker, and I´m speaking about him - coming here today I could say "I hardly had any preparation for this", and Laci would say, "except Preparation H" (I have an audio tape of Laci saying this to me).

Laci on my shoulder, angel or demon. When I think about our long friendship, and all the time we spent together, we basically just laughed, and laughed at everything. We were laughing, is what we were doing. We just found so many things to laugh at, and he was a master at extracting the ridiculous from the serious or the sublime. You could call him an iconoclast, but Laci might make fun of me for using that word, so I won´t. Going around a subject, be it a politician, a teacher or popular musician endowed with gravity and something serious to say he would go straight for the chink in the armor and pull out the absurd for those who were there to see. His brilliant wit in this way so often reduced me to tears of joy. Days were spent this way, whether we were playing music, walking from his house on Warner St. to Davis Square and going to the Golden Light Chinese restaurant, going to see metal bands at the Channel or Green Street station, going to see the Fringe play at Ball Square, listening to records over and over, going to record stores, walking around Harvard Square. And later in Vermont, when he lived in Brattleboro and spent some months at my parents´ house, we continued on. More than one evening together was spent having dinner, going to a bar for drinks after dinner having one or two beers, talking and laughing so much that the barkeep would become so unnerved by how much fun we were having that they thought something was wrong with us, and they would cut us off, and ask us to leave! It was ridiculous, become manifest.

Laci is a genius. He was an uncompromising creative spirit, first and foremost. The truly remarkable thing about him, is that while he had somewhat dark sensibilities and interests in dark subject matter, he was not a dark person. His inner spirit was light and free and whenever I saw him for the first time after a long separation, it was the most beautiful moment. I will miss those moments of seeing him. But I will not miss all of him, because he is with me, in my life, every day.

Katarina (Kati) Mitchell

January 24, 2010

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

from Dream Work (1986) by Mary Oliver

To say Laci was a striking man is to state the obvious. His tresses of dark curls, recently tinged with grey, his expressive blue-green eyes, his long fingers gesticulating as he spoke, his ready laugh and beaming smile. I loved him from the moment I set eyes on him in 1988.
Laci had a quirky sense of humor and could maintain a deadpan countenance while referring to the silliest of things. "The Lazlo Toth I knew was a real comic genius", writes Chris Bickford who recalls Laci saying, "The Bee Gees were the true punks, people don't realize that. You can really mosh to that shit" Kelly Martel writes, "My last memory of Laci was at a class reunion... People were sitting having coffee, a bit groggy at an outside table and the widows on the second story of the house burst open and Laci's handsome head...popped out, his arms holding open both the shutters, `Guten Morgan Meine Damen und Herrer!´ he said in classic Laci style, as if he were some German king addressing his people". He relished pulling a good one over on friends and I remember at least once, he had me believing a totally fictitious and unbelievable story for a number of days. It was all in his delivery.
Laci possessed the ability to "reason, think and understand" qualities that are present in an intellectual mind. He delved into texts for pleasure that most of us slogged through as academic literary requirements. He was interested in global politics, history and culture and we often debated the affairs of the world. He spoke beautiful French. Laci appreciated art in all its varied forms and engaged in creating his own, expressing himself primarily through photography, film, writing and music. He recently started working with digital imagery and was excited by what he was creating, had enrolled in a class and shared some beautiful emailed images with me.
Laci valued relationships and worked to maintain them. He often expressed to me a deep desire to be truly "known" and to have a partnership. He was a romantic and at age18, carried a rose from the family garden in Hungry all the way home to me in the states. Throughout the years we have had times of more or less contact, although we did communicate in most of the places he lived. Over time we developed a ritual of reviewing news about our common connections from our shared past. This was clearly very important to him, serving a need he had to feel connected and illustrating the importance of his friendships from that time in his life.
Laci also had a deep sorrow, an untended "leaden thorn". Our connection often existed in a fragile balance between love and compassion and self-preservation. Like us all, he was vulnerable and human and I have exercised my capacities of compassion and empathy in gaining an understanding of his struggles.
Laci you gave me the dissonant harmonies of Bartok, the beat poets Ferlinghetti and Ginsburg, the passion of Ingmar Bergman and the harsh reality of photographer Diane Arbus. You nurtured our relationship. Laci you were forever worthy of my deepest sentiments and my relationship with you was one of the most formative in my biography. You were many things to me: you were my high school sweetheart, lover and most importantly, you were my friend. You will live forever in my memory and I wish you peace.

Shoshana Alexander

January 23, 2010

Dear Laci,

When I first held you, your little baby body-
still counting in months your time here-
a soft radiance encircled us,
catching me up in a sudden and unfamiliar happiness,
like the presence of an angel.
We sank into each other
and you were "my baby."
I think you were letting me know, like a promise,
that one day surely my lap would be filled with a son,
as indeed it has been.
Maybe you opened the gates of heaven to admit that dream,
for in those moments you changed my life.

By the time we spoke-you now with words-
you were counting your time in years, in decades.
And still we instantly remembered.
You´d seen the photo
yet I believe you knew
in the cells of your body
that we had spoken before.
You´d become a big gorgeous young man,
a body bold and broad enough
to hold your great and beautiful heart.
Like an angel, you were kind,
and innocent. You wanted so much,
still unsure how to dance with density.

We walked one night through the warm streets of Ashland,
across a university campus crowded with the shadows
of future dreams and visions.
On the street yellow pools of light
Were weak against the darkness.
Still we moved from lamp to lamp
as dreams of your own were rising,
beating upward against the pull.
Despite the edge of pain you hovered on,
you were reaching,
toward your music, your art, your friends,
reaching for a window, a language, a sound
that would fit you into the world,
that could make the world reach through
to know as you knew.

You showed us what you saw,
in photographs where light rammed into darkness,
what you heard
in music that shouted into the void,
sounds heavy enough to hold you down,
boundaries that defined and defended,
holding what perhaps we were unable to hold.

Walking there with you that night,
the soft radiance still encircled us.
You were kind. And innocent.
You were a visitation.
Like the passing of an angel,
your spirit still opens a light in my heart.
Fly free now.
Thank you Laci.