Shay wrote:
> My wife has never been to this group and has only seen a few of my 
> POV-Ray images. But, when I told her that Steve Paget was dead, she knew 
> exactly whom I was talking about.
> 
> I never got a chance to speak to Steve, but I always assumed that I 
> would. We had long standing plans to meet at "Greasy Sid's" the next 
> time I was in his country. My wife and I would take a bus up to his 
> vowel-less address, Steve would maybe work at reshaping my old scull 
> ring for a few minutes, and then he and I would keep our wives up late 
> bullshitting about scene composition and heavy metal.
> 
> Steve had an artistic sense that was the exact opposite of mine. He was 
> fearless. An anthropomorphized slot machine had bushy eyebrows, a 
> nervous chemist dripped with sweat, ants kicked up dust as they marched 
> -- scale, realism, and consistency be damned. And it's perhaps because 
> of this compelling perspective that, even though we weren't close, Steve 
> was one of the people I talked to when I was talking to myself. He still 
> is.
> 
> I'm very fortunate in that Steve left me with a couple of things. One is 
> the picture attached to this post. Steve mentioned that he'd like one of 
> my images on a shirt. This is Steve in that shirt, and his response to 
> my sending it to him is a great example of the kind of guy he was. Even 
> though we were only "Internet friends", Steve felt no obligation to make 
> some perfunctory offer to pay for the shirt. He had a cool and instantly 
> familiar "way" with people that didn't require such motions.
> 
> The other thing he left me with is this recipe for lamb hotpot: 
> http://www.cookitsimply.com/recipe-0010-0w4847.html
> He sent me the link, but I don't know that he ever followed it himself. 
> This was meant as an example of one of his favorite dishes from his 
> "mum's" kitchen. Nevertheless, this is as close as I'll get to "Greasy 
> Sid's" in Whales. So, I prepared it last night, and my wife and I had 
> our ersatz dinner with Steve. I thought a few here might like to do the 
> same.
> 
>  -Shay
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 

Classy Shay. Classy and cogent.  And very emotional for me.

That picture, haunting.  I stared and stared and finally found myself 
tumbling headlong into the text of the sign, the forming of the letters, 
their personality, the reflexive, encompassing gravity of that simple 
word, 'thanks'

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