From now on, whenever I start to doubt myself as a scholar (which happens on the hour, pretty much), I will think of Steven Bach, and how proud I'd want to make him, even if I run out of pride in myself and my own work. There are still times - and there have been many this semester - when I want to email him to tell him about a movie I just saw, or a particularly opaque theoretical nightmare I just waded through, or just to shoot the breeze. And there's still a pang every time I remember that he's shuffled off this mortal vale of tears.
I know for a fact that, if I hadn't had the incomprehensibly good luck to be paired with him (randomly, mind you) as his student advisee, I wouldn't even have thought to pursue film studies. I probably would have pursued my perfectly nice little high-school idea of becoming an English teacher at some secondary school somewhere - which is an entirely noble and respectable option, but it wasn't ever one that I was honestly passionate about. Now I'm in a surprisingly rigorous cinema studies program, and even though I often feel out of my depth, I'll learn to swim - if for no reason other than wanting to honor his memory.
Anyway, if I'm going to do that, I'd better get back to this stupid essay. It's about musicals. He'd be all over it.
P.S. How thrilled would he have been to end up in the New York Times? So fucking thrilled. I don't believe in ghosts, but I hope he knows about it, somehow.