Eulogy for my late brother, Alexander Bertrand Maslansky

Alex, Winter 2022. Photo by Alice Rijn

I read the following text at the recent memorial service for Alex at Taix French Restaurant in Echo Park on May 4th, 2023. It was one day before what would have been his 44th birthday.

Alex, at heart, was a private person. There were dimensions to his life that he seldom discussed with me, but have been given shape by the dozens of stories and anecdotes I’ve received from his dearest friends and colleagues. What I did know well was his personality, his sense of humor, his loves and hates; and especially his origin story—his childhood and teenage years—which shaped who he was. I will attempt to render them as succinctly as I can from the perspective of being his slightly older brother. Perhaps this will shed some light on Alex’s backstory, which had been hazy to some of you.

In the 80s and early 90s we grew up in a pink, four bedroom, 1920s Spanish-style house in Hollywood, tucked between Hollywood Boulevard and Franklin Avenue, near Runyon Canyon, which was not yet a park, but fenced off land with mysterious ruins. Our house was very special, not only for the way it looked, which was very beautiful, but for the way it felt to live there and visit. Its interior had been described as “shabby chic;” it was warm, worldly, and refined, but without affectation. All the tables were made of worn thick wood; old paintings and vintage photographs dotted the walls; colorful imported rugs, blankets and pillows were everywhere, much of which sprinkled with dog hair. Our mother’s music was always playing on the living room stereo, stuff like Talking Heads, Bryan Ferry, Al Green, the Wings of Desire soundtrack, Gregorian Chants, and Snoop Dogg, depending on the time or mood. Most importantly, the living room offered several extremely comfortable sofas on which we could nap or vegetate; and since the house had three levels including the basement, there were many nooks to daydream in, and rooms in which you could disappear for awhile. 

Our hard-working French mother, founder of a photo agency named Visages, devoted herself to fashioning our environment into a self-contained Eden replete with various species of palms, fruiting trees, and plants; and in a clearing was a large swimming pool in which you could float on your back and watch the sky as it was framed by swaying palm trees and bamboo. The yard and house were a draw for the camera lens: photographers and directors came to shoot their editorials and films with various actors, musicians, and models, events that Alex and I would gawk at in a mixture of awe and indifference. And there were tons of guests, mostly those from the Hollywood entertainment complex, who came for pool parties and dinner parties—for which our mother’s partner Chris would cook amazing meals. But there were many artists, writers, hustlers, druggies, drunks, club kids, and weirdos from LA bohemia who came through as well. Which is to say, a lot of characters were around offering enough drama and gossip to busy anyone’s time and imagination, let alone that of a teenager. Those times were a blur, at least for me, maybe for Alex too. Our mother loved artists and intense personalities; she tacitly encouraged us to be whoever we wanted to be, as long as it wasn’t boring or hurting anyone. Alex and I sponged this up and developed our own mini-scene at home: It was known unofficially as the ‘party house’ to our high school class. Almost every weekend, our core group of friends would sleep over and engage in all things creative, restive, and bacchanalian. Alex frequently hosted multiple friends in his bedroom whose walls were accented with red spray paint scribble and heavy metal and punk posters; ash and records were strewn on the floor. It was the only spot in the house, aside from the basement, where an underager could smoke and drink in peace. We played in a lot of bands together in the basement too, whose names were too ridiculous to say out loud, where we’d jam, write songs, and even record whole albums, most of which mercifully lost to the four winds. But it was there––and in Alex’s bedroom where I used to hear him as a pre-teen practice the opening solo of Metallica’s Fade to Black over and over and over and over again–– that were the birthplaces of his love for playing music. 

In that basement he was also surrounded by hundreds of books that belonged to our father, a  charismatic and brilliant public relations agent, who Alex and I barely knew because he suffered a major stroke when we were small children. Like our father, Alex practically ate books; he extracted their essential lessons and mixed them in with his own home-cooked wisdom, repeating them anew through witticisms and turns of phrase that were beyond his years. He was something of an autodidact; his relationship to institutional schooling was ambivalent at best. He preferred being taught through life experience, which was within walking distance of our home anyway. Hollywood was more sleazy in the 80s and 90s, the perfect setting for self-initiations of all stripes, license to drive be damned. Which is to say, Alex seemed to prefer his own books and experiences beyond the Hollywood machinations playing out at home. While he had little to compare it to, he was anxious to get into another world as soon as he was able. Back then, Los Angeles felt too sedate for him, at least in relation to his interests, which for a long time found their fitting home in the punk scene in Olympia, Washington where he went to Evergreen State college, cutting his teeth working at its book store, writing poetry, and playing in bands. 

On vacations from college or for extended periods after graduating, Alex would return home to Hollywood to center himself or forget himself or find himself, depending on where he was in life. It was a panic room from the world, a sunken place, or a launching pad from which he could regain momentum. Our mother, like all devoted mothers, was his rock. When she started suffering cognitive decline several years ago, Alex struggled, I sensed, with a looming future without her. He delved deeper into poker, winning larger purses, envisioning that money towards a new goal that he hadn’t articulated yet. I will forever wonder what that might have looked like and where his life might have gone after her eventual passing. I had hoped that this would bring us closer together, allowing us to discover aspects of one other that had been overlooked or obscured. I feel lost without Alex, for he was truly my original other half. He had a frighteningly sharp intellect and a benevolent spirit. Like our father, he could see through people to who they were, warts and all, which could be terrifying sometimes, but he did it with love and care. I hope to find Alex over and over again in his music, in pictures or stories about him—and in my dreams, including dreams of anyone who wants to report what they witnessed of him from the other side. I know he still has a lot more wisdom to share if we look and listen for him. I love you Alex, my brother. I will forever miss you.