5/9/12
Judith Merril: A Great New York Canadian
Judy Merril: A Great New York Canadian
Spoken by Barry Wellman at the Memorial Service, Sept 20, 1997
Performing Arts Lodge, Toronto, on the occasion of her death, Sept. 12
I've read a number of things about Judy Merril in the past week -- some of them true, some of them reflecting an alternative universe than the
one in which I knew Judy. Judy spanned many communities -- but there was only one Judy and one universe.
Judy and I first met soon after she came up here. I went on a pilgrimage to the Spaced-Out's Library's early home on Palmerston Avenue to
meet the woman who had dominated my boyhood reading. We clicked immediately as fellow pushy Bronxites trying to cope with a town where
people say "Sorry" when you push them. Indeed, our common ancestral homeland forms the organizing framework for my thoughts now.
The Judy I knew was a member of one Canada's most useful and least recognized minorities: New York Canadians. Although Judy had
definitively left New York behind when she came up -- she hated to go back -- she had also brought New York with her. What are the ethnic
characteristics of Judy, the New York Canadian?
Because Judy was a Utopian idealist, she was -- like most New Yorkers -- demanding in the best sense. A realistic Utopian, she dealt with
the world as it is and demanded that it become as it should be. She was a demander of perfection both as an editor red-penning manuscripts and
as a force for righteous behaviour in everyday private and public life. She fearlessly pointed out the moral and practical difficulties of insisting
that writers only give "voice" to people of their own kind. "Who will speak for the aliens?"
Judy was a truth teller. New Yorkers always believe that knowledge and truth will make you free and be good for you. Judy told the truth in
her daily life, as an editor and as a force for righteous civic life. Although some genteel folks thought this made her a pain in the ass, her goal
was to prod folks to live more righteous lives.
Judy cared about nearly everything, just as New Yorkers have always been active supporters of causes. A decade ago, she put on her witch's
outfit, traveled to Ottawa and put the hex on Parliament for supporting the destabilizing American nuclear cruise missile initiative. But she didn't
only focus on the big stuff; she also worked to help individuals, such as getting deserving folks into the Performing Arts Lodge and making
PAL work.
Judy worked hard at life, just as all New Yorkers crowding into subway trains must. But like more extroverted New Yorkers, she talked to
strangers -- a custom that strikes Torontonians with horror -- and she went everywhere she could. She was quick with a quip and a comeback,
and she never let inhibitions get in the way of action. Even when Judy had to use an electric scooter, she got the hotrod model: "Six klicks an
hour," she told me.
Judy worked hard at her craft. She spent hours commenting on my stuff and giving free workshops on how to edit. She was constantly
revising her memoirs. I worked a bit with her on this, although it was certainly much easier to be edited by Judy than to edit her. Judy liked to
say about herself (attributing the insight to an ex-husband): "I'm a bitch when I don't work, and a bitch when I do work, but at least there's some
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5/9/12
Judith Merril: A Great New York Canadian
excuse when I write." But she wasn't a bitch; she just cared intensely -- about everything.
Judy was a democrat and a snob, like most New Yorkers. She didn't respect status, but she did respect hard work, style and integrity. She
talked to everybody, be they Ali in his College St. Shwarama shop or Pierre Berton at the Writers' Union. Once, when she was Writer-inResidence for a year at the University of Toronto, she told me about all the incompetent writers who came to her for help. "Why do you deal
with them?" I innocently asked. "I'd rather work for the people than the princes," she replied. "Serious writers usually have to get money from
the public purse somehow, and I would rather do it working with ordinary people than, as in the Middle Ages, someone nobleman's ass."
Judy was lusty, a most unToronto trait. She'd solved the mind-body problem. The last thing she said to me -- when I went to get her advice
about my sociological study of a Wired Suburb -- was, "Go develop cybersex! Maybe that will solve the problem that 70-year old women have.
We want lovers, but do they want us?" Judy danced all day at Caribana; she loved going to Jamaica where folks accepted their bodies rather
than repressing them. She was a lover of jazz and jazz musicians -- years later they would give us the best seats in the house for their gigs.
Judy was fussy, because like all New Yorkers she would not settle for second best. She didn't believe in Free Love, she was quite picky. And
she took responsibility for her love: Writing her memoirs was delayed by her insistence on getting clearances from her lovers before writing
about them. She loved to dress for effect -- we spent many hours choosing her costume for her Harbourfront gala. But it wasn't all
showmanship. She was an informed, warily respectful consumer of medical care and a fierce opponent of the medical system who won all the
rounds except for the last one. And even then, she battled to a near-draw, going out on her own terms.
Some thought Judy rude, but they confuse the pseudo-form of surface politeness with its deep substance. The Judy I knew had New York
substance and not Toronto surface. She was extra-ordinarily polite in the true sense of the term. She cared about you as a person, went to the
core of problems, and tried to solve them effectively.
Being a demanding, truth-telling, lusty idealist made Judy Merril seem aggressive to some. But this is a New York praise word -- and not that
wimpy Toronto word, "assertive". If you want to make a better world, then you speak truth and you take action until you get it. You give a
damn about the society you live in, and about the individuals you encounter in your daily life. Anything else would be an insult to humanity.
I've always puffed with pride when I've told people, "Judy Merril is my friend." Her memorial stone should simply say, "Judy Merrill gave a
shit!" -- about competency, individuals, and the worlds she lived in and looked forward to.
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