"Blue Baby"

"Blue baby, of the first generationwhose hole in the heart could be closed in an operating theatrewhere the show must and did go on, you thought yourself lucky as a sicklychild, who got to spend whole days reading long books in bed.An early obsession with Louis Seize and the costume drama of Versaillesmade you the director you were, blocking actors in your head.Or so we believed; you told good stories."

"Long after you stopped dyeing your hairand even your beard blood-red and began to look your partas a gray-no, a silver-eminence who signed off e-mails "with MANLY lovefrom your SILVERY D," nevertheless you remained the boyslipping out from flamboyance, dressed every day in animal prints-zebra tie, leopard sneakers, tiger blazer, ocelot ascot. Notjust one, and often all at once. Now it's one of your nephews whodirects us to a pew in the chapel,"

A man born with a congenital heart defect survived early surgery and grew into a theatrical, costume-obsessed director shaped by Versailles and Louis Seize. He cultivated flamboyant personal style—dyed hair, later silvered hair and beard, signed e-mails with extravagant phrases—and daily wore layered animal prints. Despite outward bravado he retained a boyish streak that resurfaced in private. At his funeral a nephew and a beloved friend named Caleb lead the service, and mourners stand in a snowy churchyard grappling with the sudden absence and a metaphorical hole in the earth's heart.

Read at The New Yorker