{"id":182830,"date":"2021-03-09T04:17:28","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T02:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/michael-swigart-1945-2008\/"},"modified":"2021-03-09T04:17:28","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T02:17:28","slug":"michael-swigart-1945-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/michael-swigart-1945-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Swigart 1945-2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Swigart 1945-2008<\/strong>
\n\"Big
\nImage by Michael R. Swigart<\/a><\/i>
\nOur beloved friend Michael Swigart passed away on July 30, 2008. <\/p>\n

Michael Swigart: An Appreciation<\/p>\n

XII \u2013 The River is moving. The blackbird must be flying. (Wallace Stevens)<\/p>\n

I met Michael nearly four years ago when a developer wanted to squeeze 250 houses into my rural neighborhood. I knew nothing about city planning, I\u2019d never used the words \u201cgeneral\u201d and \u201cplan\u201d in the same sentence. I showed up at City Hall angry and afraid that the bucolic, desert retirement I\u2019d envisioned was going to be lost in a sea of tract houses. I expected to come up against an uncomprehending bureaucrat, but instead, there was Michael Swigart. He understood this place and saw a bigger picture, one that was not the obvious \u201cpave it over.\u201d Michael gave me the tools and the knowledge to fight for the integrity of this rare and fragile desert environment, which I continue to do. First Michael was my mentor, than he became my friend.<\/p>\n

When Michael told me that he was going to retire, I knew that while it would be a big loss for the city, he had health issues and wanted to spend the next part of his life writing, traveling and taking photographs. Which is what he did, with complete dedication and gusto. Michael\u2019s edited online photo site contains nearly eight thousand photographs, taken in the last two years. He took six or seven, two and three month long journeys. When he traveled, he didn\u2019t do any luxurious 5 star retiree trips — he did hard travel to places that were sacred to him, most off the beaten path. <\/p>\n

I watched my friend \u2013 an already enlightened and remarkably conscious being — become nearly beatific in his love of life and acceptance of the world around him. He\u2019d told me that his aim in retiring was to \u201cslow time down.\u201d A year in, I\u2019d asked him if he\u2019d been successful at that and he told me he had. I hope with all my heart that Michael managed to turn these last 2 years into the 20 he really wanted and deserved.<\/p>\n

Michael\u2019s poetry was published and his photos were exhibited, he was tickled that people responded so strongly and positively to his work, which by any standards was good. He drank it all in, deeply and with appreciation and gratitude.<\/p>\n

He was acutely interested in the world around him. He could recite huge chunks of Homer, Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens from memory, but he could also talk about how hard he\u2019d laughed while watching the film Napoleon Dynamite. Michael was an old school man\u2019s man \u2013 the kind they, unfortunately, don\u2019t make anymore. He was an adventurer, thinker, philosopher, gentleman, poet & photographer. He was unflaggingly optimistic, I never heard him say anything bad about anyone \u2013 even those who deserved it. He had a wicked sense of humor and a wonderfully deep voice. He was always the most alive person in the room, but in a quiet and meaningful way — it seems absolutely impossible that he is gone. <\/p>\n

Charles Bukowski wrote of life, \u201cIt\u2019s the way you walk through the fire.\u201d My friend Michael walked through the fire with dignity, calm, courage and graciousness, always. I am grateful and richer for having known him.<\/p>\n

Nicole Panter
\nAugust 16, 2008<\/p>\n

In lieu of flowers at his memorial, Michael requested that donations be made to the Twentynine Palms City "Art in Public Places" program c\/o City of Twentynine Palms, City Hall.<\/p>\n

Michael uploaded more than 7700 photos onto this site during the last two years. He had a wonderful show of his work up at the Twentynine Palms City Hall in June and he sold a number of pieces. He asked me to maintain the site for him, which I am honored to do. — Nicole Panter (nicolep7@aol.com)<\/p>\n

This photo was taken by Michael on September 21, 2006 and can be found in two of Michael’s photo sets:<\/p>\n

1. Meteor Crater (where it commemorates astronomer Dr. Eugene Shoemaker-Levy).<\/p>\n

2. On June 24 about a week before he was taken ill, Michael placed this photo in the set labeled "Michael". With the exception of this photo, it is an album of images of Michael from early childhood til the present.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis Big Seven<\/em> image was automatically curated and published with WP Robot<\/a> plugin – CLICK HERE<\/a> to learn more about WP Robot for WordPress<\/a> – a massive time and money saver.<\/p>\n

Visit the MyPE YouTube Channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Swigart 1945-2008 Image by Michael R. Swigart Our beloved friend Michael Swigart passed away on July 30, 2008. Michael Swigart: An Appreciation XII \u2013 The River is moving. The blackbird must be flying. (Wallace Stevens) I met Michael nearly four years ago when a developer wanted to squeeze 250 houses into my rural neighborhood. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9014],"tags":[40645,3037,40644],"class_list":{"0":"post-182830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-images","7":"tag-40645","8":"tag-michael","9":"tag-swigart","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}