Visiting the Dali Museum

Yesterday evening we spent at the new Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. The new building is impressive and Leif would have loved it, as well as Dali's art. The first time we went to the Dali Museum, it was the old museum, on one of our trips to Florida before we moved here. Leif was with us, and he was fascinated and impressed. He had an appreciative eye for art but particularly liked art that was surreal or fantastic (in the sense of fantasy). He also liked Dali because of his interesting eccentricity, a quality Leif always liked in people. I remember how much he enjoyed that visit, and I always wanted to take him back again.

This new museum has the added attraction of unusual and beautiful architecture. That was something else Leif liked a great deal. Buildings with style attracted him and they were one of his favorite photographic subjects, along with sports cars and cats. He would have loved this new building and its setting right by the bay.

We were not allowed to take photos of any of the art in the galleries, only of the building itself and the gift shop, so I'm posting a photo of the side of the museum that faces the bay.

I did my best to doubly enjoy the museum, for me, and for Leif.

Leif's Sense of Beauty and Aesthetics

Leif would sometimes maintain that he didn't "understand" jewelry, or things that people acquired simply as decor. He insisted that he loved the beauty of well-designed functional things, whether a gorgeous car, a snazzy motorcycle, a beautifully designed computer, a "cool" cell phone, or anything else of that kind. Furniture he could find both comfy and beautiful, and he had a great sense of style in clothing when he was younger and slimmer, and cared. He also could have made a fine art student if he'd had the interest to develop his talent, but it wasn't his burning interest.

However, I used to like to argue with him about his assertions concerning decor, jewelry and the like, because when he found something that truly "spoke" to him, he went for it. For instance, he picked out one of the most beautiful diamond ring sets I've ever seen when he wanted to propose to J. He wore jewelry on occasion; earrings and necklaces when he was young, and still wore the Greek double battle axe necklace I brought him from Greece up until he died. He loved stylish, fancy watches, too. And he decorated his walls with swords and a print he bought that he very much liked.

So, in a way, his assertions were contradicted by his behavior and his taste, but in another, they weren't. He liked to purchase things he could USE, and those he wanted to be the best and not just functional but aesthetically pleasing. His fine taste was one of the things that helped to put him in debt, as he apparently couldn't resist expensive things he could not afford if they fit into his scheme of desire-functionality-design.

These photos were taken when we were living at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, I think, when he was in ninth grade in the spring of 1990, age 15. He was just beginning to let his hair grow longer. His ears weren't pierced yet, but it's surprising to me that he is wearing a cross. He was never religious, never a believer. I wish I knew the story of why he wore it.

Leif's CyberPunk Gun & Bullet Drawings -1998

Here are three pages of gun and bullet drawings Leif made, probably in 1998, for his CyberPunk games. They are thoroughly labeled.

The top, single gun is a "Mark V."

The page of smaller drawings includes from top to bottom, the "Hand of God" rifle, the "Sledge Hammer .410x4" handgun, the "Annihilator .500 Ultra" handgun, the "Buzz Saw .22 mag caseless," the "Meat Grinder 10mm caseless," and the "Shredder 10mm caseless."

The page of bullets includes caliber designations for each bullet and some have additional names.

Leif was deeply interested in weaponry and weapon design just about all of his life, particularly beginning in the second half of elementary school. Like any subject that interested him, he went about making himself an expert on it and could discourse for hours about it. That interest translated later into his training as an armorer for the army infantry, to working on weapons design for gaming (as in CyberPunk and ZAON), owning guns, and in the case of ZAON, constructing wooden models of the guns he was designing. He must have drawn them before he cut them out and shaped them, but I never found those drawings.

It is a terribly sad irony that in the end, he turned his prized new handgun on himself. He was the only person he ever shot.

Leif's CyberPunk Space Ship Drawings - Group 3

The top drawing has the most complete labeling of the nine space ship drawings in this series. It is the "S.S. Sorchalynn Fulcrum Class Corvette" commanded by "Captain Cailus Brietei. It is 90 meters long, 65 meters wide, 20 meters high and the cargo capacity is specified. It carries a crew of 30 and has 2 ion cannons, 2 laser cannons, 6 double laser cannons, 6 medium laser cannons, 1 tractor beam projector, and 2 proton torpedo launcher.

The middle and bottom ships are of a very different design than any of his other ones, following a curved motif. The middle one is the "S.S. Soriano, a Tomahawk Class Destroyer," and the bottom one is a "Barbier Class Scout," showing side and back views as well as the view looking down on the top of it.

Last night we saw the new Star Trek movie. We all (Peter Anthony and Darren were with us) commented on how Leif would have enjoyed it, wished we had his opinion of it, and I was also thinking about how his space ships corresponded to those we saw in the movie.

Leif's CyberPunk Space Ship Drawings - Group Two

Here are three more of Leif's CyberPunk space ships. The top one has three decks and features top, side and rear views. It is labeled with functions and crews quarters.

The middle one is called the "Stiletto" corvette blockade runner.

The bottom one is the "Painkiller" MedEvac ship.

Leif was meticulous about details and scale. He wanted his ships to be "playable" in the scenarios he created as gamemaster, and he carried those kinds of specifications over into his later association with ZAON and his desires for the development of that game.

Leif's CyberPunk Space Ship Drawings - Group One

I found nine drawings Leif made of space ships for his CyberPunk games. Each was designated with a name and attributes. He drew them in pencil on notebook paper and they are quite precisely drawn. It's interesting to me to compare them to drawings he made when he was in kindergarten. I think these are quite elegant designs.

The top one is designated as a "Raven Class Long Range Heavy Bomber." There is a small figure of a man at the bottom with the legend "= 6 feet" in order to indicate size.

The middle drawing is the "Night Hawk Heavy Fighter," and the lower one is a "Sparrow Class Fighter." I am amused by that name, as it makes me think that it is a small, light, and not very deadly "bird."

I think he did these drawings in 1998 but I can't be sure of that.

Leif's CyberPunk Drawings of People - 1998 - Age 23

This is the only adult drawing of Leif's I ever found that was in color. This one was done lightly in colored pencil and obviously illustrates a scene in a story or some part of the game play story. I wish I knew what that story was. Two men appear to be out on a long, deserted highway in a desert with mountains in the background. There is what looks like a downed motorcycle and one man is standing over another who he is holding up by the collar of his jacket as though he is limp. The limp man has blood trickling down from the left side of his head. The standing man has a gun in his hand but it isn't pointed at anything. I don't know whether the standing man is supposed to have shot the man he is holding up or whether the man had an accident on his cycle. I think a gunshot is more likely. There is a yellowish brown smudge on top of the cycle. At the top of the drawing Leif has written "Kaine #1." He liked shooter games and his CyberPunk games featured plots with plenty of action and violence.

Leif clearly understood one point perspective and a pretty good sense of human proportions and anatomy. I wish he had done more drawings of people, but these are all I have.

Leif's CyberPunk Drawings of People - 1998 - Age 23

The musclebound male character in the top drawing is rather like an superhero (and four-armed) version of Leif, carrying a keg of Corona Extra beer (he labeled it, but I don't know if you can read it with the drawing reduced to this size) and a boom box labeled Mr. Sony Mega Bass. Of course he's wearing cool sunglasses and a chain and has an earring, which Leif did also when he was making these drawings. I think he did them in 1998 when he had hair, so it's a bit ironic that he drew this colossus (the 8-foot tall one) bald, as he would be when he started to shave his receding hair off. The woman also has a lot of his "ideal woman" characteristics, super slim and big busted. Looks like they were heading for the beach.

GIven that Leif so rarely drew anything living, and we have so few of his drawings of people, it seems that he still had quite a talent for drawing. I think if he had really pursued it, he could have become quite good. However, like many of Leif's talents, it wasn't one he had the "fire in the belly" to pursue. He was much more interested in the gaming, and the drawings were primarily to get his concepts across.

Leif's CyberPunk Drawings of People - 1998 - Age 23

Leif loved playing CyberPunk. It was like living inside a movie or novel he was creating with his friends. He spent hours preparing for games, loved being a game master and thinking up wild scenarios. He was totally engrossed and could not only spend many hours preparing and playing, he loved to talk about the games. He talked to me about them and tried to get me to play. I probably would have enjoyed it but I had no time for such pursuits. I was working overtime and couldn't keep up with everything.

Here are two more of the drawings he made of characters in the game. You can see the same four-armed giant. On the second one he has put height markers on the left. The big guy is eight feet tall. The top drawing I found a little hard to "get" at first, until I realized that he had used some of that talent he showed in kindergarten. The middle man's hand holding a gun is thrust straight out at the viewer and you are looking at the end of the gun barrel.

In the games Leif played, he liked to develop both male and female characters and would play one or the other, perhaps both, in any particular game.

Thoughts from a Friend - Melissa's Memories - A CyberPunk Drawing From Leif

In April, I invited Leif's friends and relatives to contribute to this blog, thoughts, memories, photos, whatever they wished. I was disappointed that only Melissa Palenske replied. I know everyone who knew and cared about Leif has memories, but I also know that most are not writers like me. Writing something like that requires some introspection, some effort, and perhaps, since Leif is dead, some pain. I know that for me, memories of Leif can bring a smile or they can bring tears. My request and the response reminds me of when I was doing family history research and asked my uncle and older cousins if they had any information. They would invariably say they didn't, unless I asked specific questions, and then the memories would begin to flow. Perhaps if I had the change to "interview" those who knew Leif and I was the one writing the memories down, they would flow. And perhaps, some of those memories are cherished private ones people don't want to share.

Here are Melissa's comments:

My best memories are when Alex and I were just talking one on one. I always thought you never saw the real Alex unless you were one on one with him. He was so much different to talk to, he would show his vulnerable and sensitive side. There was always such a gentle tenderness to him. I loved those talks and that time with him. He did give great hugs and was a wonderful shoulder to cry on. I wish things had been different and we could have been there for him more.

My other memories are silly little things spanning back from the first time Jason took me to the apartment on Stag Hill to meet Alex and Nikko. The very first time I played an RPG was Cyberpunk with Alex, Nikko and Jason. I left honestly thinking they were all insane and needed to get a grip on reality. LOL It took Jason a while to convince me to try and play again, I didn't play with Alex again until he came back from the Army. By that time I had been playing for a few years and had a clue. I know at times I would frustrate the boys because I wasn't as serious about it as they were but I also made them laugh at the crap I would come up with. We had alot of fun gaming sessions.

Those gaming sessions meant a great deal to Leif. They were a challenging creative outlet for him. He appreciated Melissa's friendship, too.

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As far as I know, Leif had done little if any drawing after he lived in Hawaii, until he was eleven years old. His interests turned to radio controlled model cars, computers, other things. He started drawing again when he was playing CyberPunk and wanted to show his ideas. I think he found it hard as when he was younger, he never drew people, always things like space ships, guns, and other objects that didn't require faces and anatomy. Even with CyberPunk he primarily drew space ships and weaponry, but he did attempt a few humanoid characters. I remember him talking to me about this one an the anatomy it would require. He showed me this drawing. What I can't remember was whether he drew this during his first stint in college, in which case this probably was done around 1998, or after he came back from the army, in which case it would have been between 2001 and 2005. I tend to think it was the latter, or he might not have still had it among his possessions.

More of Leif's Childhood Art

Leif was far more interested in drawing weapons and space ships than people or animals as a child, and I can't recall that he ever drew or painted anything that one might have called a landscape or a still like. He didn't photograph them, either.

However, in his Kindergarten Art Portfolio, he did have three "animal" drawings. The top one here is a spotted dog, and it is much more like what other children his age might have drawn, with little idea of anatomy or real shape. However, the second one of the Dachshund is quite sophisticated and impressed the art teacher. His ability to define the dog's shape with the vertical lines and make it look as though it weren't stiff like the first one but active was remarkable for his age. I don't think he ever did anything like it again, though.

The third crayon drawing is an owl with a graduation cap. I believe he got the idea for this drawing from the "Little Professor" math teaching electronic "game" he had. He never drew anything remotely like this again, either.

I don't think I have any drawings or art creations of Leif's between kindergarten and junior high. The top photo is of a soft sculpture he made in one of his junior high art classes. It is Zaphod Beeblebrox from Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," a science fiction book he read on his brother's recommendation. He loved it, did a book report about it, and read the rest of the "trilogy" that had four books (absurd, as the books also were). I think his sculpture of Zaphod was quite good and I still have it.

Leif's Kindergarten Art - Spring 1981 - Age 6

Leif had a lot of art talent, but he didn't pursue it. As I've written before, as a child he was immensely frustrated when he couldn't make his drawings look like they did in his head, or build models perfectly. He did a lot of drawing in elementary school, but less and less of it as he got into the later years of elementary school and junior high school. He started drawing again when he was in college and after the army while working on developing cyberpunk games with his friend Jason but other than that, he didn't spend time sketching or drawing.

When he was in kindergarten, his teacher and the art teacher thought he had a great deal of ability in art. Not only could he draw much better than most kindergarteners, he could portray motion and action, something extremely rare in young children's art, which is generally quite static. His kindergarten teacher at Sagamihara Elementary School, Mrs. Snell, collected about a dozen of his drawings for a portfolio which was displayed at a school open house. I kept it all these years until we were moving to Florida. It was done on large sheets of coarse manila paper which had begun to oxidize badly. Leif seemed to have no interest in it. I had thought I'd save it for him and for his children, but it wasn't going to last a lot longer and there wasn't anyone to give it to, so I scanned the drawings and very reluctantly discarded them. I'm so glad I have the scans.

In one of my posts in June 2008 I posted one of the drawings, of the Spaceship Enterprise from Star Trek. If you want to see it, look for the "drawings" keyword in the list at the bottom right.

These drawings had captions on them which Leif dictated to Mrs. Snell. I think they are too small to read here, but I'll put a list of them in order below. They are quite sophisticated for a six-year-old.

1. A secret gun I designed. You can click on a part and make it a laser. The view finder is really a finder, but push a button under the trigger and the finder shoots. The locking button is another trigger to shoot. The gun is now being charged with lasers!
2. Colonial Vipers (green) are exploding Cylons (black). Ion cannon shooting.
3. My own designs after the USA Enterprise space shuttles.
4. Some ships are disintegrated. Red lines are explosions.
5. A space cruiser and armed scout ships. The cruiser has a magnetic field.
6. Space cruiser (blue) exploding another space cruiser (red/black) and two asteroids.
7. Space shuttle -- my own ship. Smaller than the Enterprise. The cockpit holds nine people. It has three rockets but the big storage tank for fuel is smaller.
8. UFO

Leif at Work a Year Ago - Age 32

Last December 20, 2007, Leif took this photo of himself at work. I found it on his computer after his death, yet another photo he had not shared with us. He rarely emailed photos to us. He was a telephone customer service agent for Medicare Part D and spent his workdays logged in on a computer and phone system accepting calls. Leif was good at his job and prided himself on his ability to explain things to people thoroughly and compassionately, but he came to abhor the US health care system because of its unfairness, with some people unable to get care without insurance and enormous amounts of money. Leif had health insurance because he was a military retiree and had VA benefits as well as health insurance from his job, and he was adamant about the need for universal health insurance. He felt terrible about having to explain to those who did have health insurance why something that was critical to their care wasn't covered.

I remember when Leif first came home from the army and wasn't yet permanently medically retired so the possibility of him losing his military benefits and health insurance was real. Even though he had asthma, he had the youthful expectation of good health and couldn't see why he should be concerned about finding a job with health insurance and benefits. Later, as his health deteriorated, his medications grew more expensive, and when he had to have the collarbone operation in July 2007, it became very important that he had health insurance. The bills for his operation alone totalled over $50,000, though they were greatly reduced by the limits the insurance had negotiated. Even so, he had out of pocket expenses that ruined his budget.

It's hard to believe Leif took this photo just under a year ago, and now he's gone. We never saw his workplace. After he died, we picked up the few belongings he had there in a box brought to our car by his team leader. There weren't many, but the box was heavy, mostly with the big jug of pennies that he had used to build the copper penny space ship in his cubicle. I posted a photo of that before. There was also the headset he's using in this photo, certificates of training, a one-year service award and commendation certificates, pens, pencils, and that's about all. You can see one of the commendation award certificates in the photo.

It would have been healthier for Leif to be in a job where he interacted directly with people. He was too isolated, both at work and at home. It might not have made a difference, but I think he would have been happier if he had had a job dealing with people and ideas and more activities with friends outside of work.

Leif - Enterprise Drawing - Kindergarten

Unlike some kids, Leif's interests were remarkably consistent throughout his life, although he didn't always express or pursue them in the same ways. One of his enduring passions was space ships, which of course went along with his passion for science fiction. He was a young child when the Star Wars and Star Trek movies were coming out, and they affected both him and his brother deeply.

Leif had a great deal of artistic talent and mightily impressed his kindergarten teacher with a series of drawings of space ships in motion and in battles and space guns firing. She had him make a portfolio of them for display.

His talent was particularly noteworthy because most children at the age of 5 or 6 are drawing very simple figures, often stick figures, and don't have any idea how to show motion or draw complex objects.

This drawing is one he made of the Space Ship Enterprise, and he drew it from memory when he was only five years old, which is even more impressive. We were living in Japan at that time and he was also influenced by the Japanese children's shows on TV, which were not broadcast in English, so he had to pay close attention to the graphics. He loved playing with his Japanese toys, which were incredible sci fi toys that transformed from robots into everything from planes to trucks.

Leif drew often, expressing ideas about space ships and space weapons, until he was in about six grade when he became more or less obsessed with radio controlled cars and also got very interested in music and playing electric guitars. He pretty much dropped drawing until he was in college and playing CyberPunk with his friends.

He took an art course in college to fulfill an arts requirement for his liberal arts degree and again showed some remarkable talent with the things he produced for the class, but didn't have the interest to pursue it further.

I treasure these drawings and will post a few more . . . the antecedents of the copper penny space ship I posted yesterday.