Steve Arndt
My Tribute from Last Night's Steve Arndt Coffee & Grief Reading
Last Night I was invited to read at Coffee & Griefโs first in person reading.
Hereโs the piece that I read:
Steve Arndt was a car who kept bumping into me, on purpose.
Those black spectacles, his patient eyes waited for the good to come out of you, because he knew the good would come out of you at some point.
After the Bond days, after the drinks with the boys after work days. After that, Steve lived for rivers,words, water and connection.
He lived for that spontaneous moment when he could sprawl out on couch on the side of the road with a free sign on it, or whip his tie behind to pretend it got set in a door.
Letters, syllables, and the breath of before and after.
After Bonds, his mission was to bear witness to us, attentive, eyes on you, like they had been all along, no rush, no hurry, grace and a smile, To go to the writers picnic was to witness Steve running the numbers as to who should meet whom, to go to the Portland Book Festival was to Steve in the center of his hand-woven network of yarn that was spread all over the city to writers and readers, with threads passing through all of us here tonight. To be at Powellโs to be at Annie Bloomโs, to be at Salon Rouge, to be at Tom Spanbauerโs Table and Joanna Roseโs table, Or just being aware of all the differences in tone and hue words had. He could listen to words read by anyone. Heโd find that thing that made writing special.
He didnโt just show up, heโd track down the writer afterwards, and compliment.
Your language
Your words
Your authority
So many times Iโd see it.
First time reader, to hear that, and see the writer in them build their world out from that compliment, a new room of possibility opened up by one man, one heart.
ArndtHeart.
Steve would and could bring up a specific thing about your writing, or maybe it was how you quit booze and you got to tell Steve and you were let in to his club, of non drinkers, of AA work.
The world got a little more woo woo when he was around. He wasnโt a woo woo guy, but he sure attracted the woo woo, in me, in us, in everyone.Because for Steve, things like magic and love were all in abundance on this planet. The right frequency was always playing, Steve thought, one just had to tune oneโs ear to hear the hidden music of the universe.
Steve, . If you didnโt understand him the first time you met him, you would eventually, he would see to it that he met everyone, would take them in, stop and listen to what they had to say. I was cynical and expected people to dish out harmful things with their words, I lived for fight or flight, so to see that all of the histrionics were from a man with a soft soul.
There was the macho side of him, but he did that gracefully if there was ever a word that he would accept on his own, surely that would be it. Adverbs.
Purple
Third Person
Step back and step up
You say that with such authority. Steveโd raise his left hand to make a point, Steve black framed classes in side profile.
โYouโre a Spanbaurian. โ
One of the last things he told me โAdam, Iโd say you are a pretty extraordinary personโ
We were in the hospital, his voice burned around the edges
Burned, like a tongue.
His Tongue, a talker
โShe writes words like two kangaroos in a burlap sack
Your so pure adam, like a saint you are.
You make me feel soiled.
Oh the writer youโve become and heโd go off, on a skip reverie, a performance of compliments, a bushel full, so much praise for so many people. Such was the delicate friend dance with Steve.
What he said and didnโt say.
What youโve become.
What heโs become.
A way to be in the world.
Open, smiling, a tear and a word, the power always,
To listen
To the broken heart behind the words
in the way that only he could.
Steve, and who he was, the lil podnah to us all.




What a gorgeous capture of our extraordinary friend. ๐