Alicia Frantz
Alicia Frantz
Friday, June 3, 2005
Age: 32
Location:
1400 W. Division Ave
Chicago
United States
Alicia's ghost bike has a sign that reads: "She heard everyday sounds as music." Alicia's web site for her recordings is still available at http://aliciafrantz.net/af.html
Alicia Frantz passed away on June 3, 2005, her 32nd
birthday. She lived a wonderful life and was loved by many.
http://aliciafrantz.net/
Alicia Marie Frantz was born in Battle Creek on June 3, 1973. She moved with her family to Temple, Texas, at age 8, and split her adolescence between Texas and Battle Creek, where she lived with her grandmother.
Alicia's grandmother was one of the most important influences in her life, stabilizing her. It always seemed to me that she got much of her core strength from her grandma, and that strength is one of the many things I always admired about her. Strength is one of the many gifts that she has given me, just by knowing her.
I met Alicia through music, which seems fitting. We emailed a little bit through a mailing list of friends that she joined, shortly after she moved to Chicago, and arranged to meet in Detroit when Jeff Mills played at the State theater. We hung out a little that night, and like most people who met her, I was immediately taken with her. When we got back to Chicago I called her, told her she seemed really cool, and that really cool girls are hard to find. Since she had just moved to the city and probably didn't know many people either, I told her we should hang out. We got together for dinner and drinks, and hung out regularly after that. In time, she became my best friend.
One of the best things about Alicia is you could tell her anything, and she would be supportive. She never judged me for the choices I made, and if they caused me grief, she never said "I told you so." Instead, she'd take me out for therapy sushi, and make everything better with her company, listening to me, offering advice when I asked for it, and pouring more sake to cheers to our friendship, because we'd always have that.
Another thing I admired about her is that she always wanted to be a better person. She was always trying to improve herself, the primary means of which was education. She put herself through college in Michigan, and I think the day she graduated was her proudest day.
She continued learning in many other ways, teaching herself web publishing and audio software. We took bookbinding and papermaking classes together at Columbia. The design on front of the funeral cards handed out here is a painting she made some years ago. She asked Jen to teach her how to knit, and was in the process of making her first scarf when she died. Jen, who teaches knitting at Columbia, said she was the fastest learner she'd ever taught. She also wanted to see the world; our trip to Costa Rica last year sparked an urge to directly learn about other cultures, to interact with them.
The personal growth that she emphasized was not contained to herself. She also pushed her friends to become better people, both through overt urging and subtle example. She was the first of our friends to wear wigs out; there was one in particular that she was known for, the Yolanda wig. It was huge and curly, larger than life, much like Alicia herself. Because of her, I and many of our other friends tried new things, talked frankly with each other about love, sex, family, and life.
She led so many of us to become more comfortable with ourselves. For example, I used to never wear anything but jeans, but hanging out with her over the years I began to admire how put together she always looked, and eventually followed her example. When I worked downtown, we'd meet up for two-hour shopping lunches; she'd pick out a dozen things for me every time, all of them perfect, but almost never found anything for herself.
She had very particular, sometimes picky but almost always great taste, and not just in clothes. I think anyone who has ever eaten with her is aware of the aversion she had to anything resembling soggy bread. And she got on kicks with food: for a while, she ran around saying "bao is the new sushi!" Or when she discovered sidecars, she only wanted to go to bars that made good sidecars. These phases, love affairs with food, drinks, music, and film directors, burned intensely before they died out and she moved on to the next thing. You could say she burned intensely for the short time she was with us.
One thing that was never a phase though, was her ongoing obsession with sound. Long before she started her recordings, she was always noticing sounds that other people didn't hear, or that they ignored. For a long time, she couldn't focus if a sound was distracting her; recording and archiving the sounds was one of the ways she dealt with it. She also had a white noise generator that she hated sleeping without. When looking for her last three apartments, she chose her bedroom based on which place could provide the most quiet.
I am so thankful that she made all of those minidisk recordings. Sometimes I was annoyed; you never knew when she might be recording you. But now, I look forward to hearing the minidisks, and I will be so glad for any of our conversations that got saved. Kate Simko is going to go through all of the original minidisks, and because so many of Alicia's friends are musicians, there will be many songs made with her recordings. Which I think is fitting, because she recorded so many of our friends making music, doing creative things; she even recorded me at a poetry reading I gave.
I can still hear her voice in my head. She grew up in several different places, and her voice, dialect, and inflections reflected that. She spoke like on one else I knew, in so many ways. There were certain words she said in her own way, words I used to tease her about but now I would give anything to hear her say again. In particular, I replay the way she emphatically stood up for herself: she was always saying "no-ho-hoooo" and "absolutely not."
She didn't always have the easiest life, but she came so far because she wouldn't give up. She would not be pushed around; for being so small she was one of the strongest people I knew. Ellen always called her the fearless wonder after an incident at our house a couple years ago. One of our parties had been busted, and our house was illegally entered by some police. Everyone just stood there while Alicia, all of her 5'2" in heels, got right up in the cop's face, screaming at him that he couldn't push her around, that she wouldn't let him intimidate her friends. I held my breath, she was only an inch or two for the cop's face. We all thought he was going to hit her, but instead he quietly and quickly turned around and left, taking the rest of the police with him. She had the guts to stand up to Chicago's finest because she didn't want to see her friends bullied.
I still thank her for that, and for showing me how to not take crap from anybody. She fought for everything she had, and I feel like she was just now blossoming. She wanted to change the world, and I was sure she would. She never made it home Friday, but that afternoon the Peace Corps application she had sent for arrived in the mail. It crushes me that she'll never open it.
Friday was her 32nd birthday. The newspaper said it was her 28th, which she would have loved. It was like her last joke on us, because she was always lying about her age, saying she was 26, or 12, or 42. I was with her Thursday night, and Atom, Matt and I cheered her birthday when it turned midnight. This was to be her first birthday in four years when we didn't go out for sushi, though this year we had reservations for a dozen people elsewhere, because so many people wanted to be with her.
I feel like I could go on and on about her. We hung out all the time for five years, and as I sat writing this, I just kept thinking of more and more stories. I keep finding things of hers around my house. I feel like part of me has been gouged out.
She was who I turned to in a crisis. When I needed someone to pick me up after getting my infected wisdom teeth pulled without any painkillers, she was there, let me cry, took care of me. She held my hair back when I had too much to drink at Zach and Joy's wedding, and she came with my family to my grandmother's estate auction because she knew I needed her there. It helped too, that she wanted to record the auctioneer. I know that if she was here, she'd want to be recording this.
She wasn't an overtly religious person, but she had her own path. When she needed peace, she'd go to the lake; I have so many pictures of her sitting calmly by the water. Not many people knew this, but she loved to sing. For a while, she was even looking into joining a choir here, because it made her so happy to sing. I knew her so well, but she could still surprise me.
One thing that didn't surprise me was the amount of love she was capable of. Anyone who has met R-lo, her dog, knows she was more devoted to him than anything else in the world. Dave has been taking care of him, but I know R-lo wonders where she is.
I still wonder where she is. I keep expecting her to walk through the door. After I got off the phone with the police on Friday to verify that it was her in the accident, I looked up and there were a dozen of our friends at my door. Everyone loved her so much. Later that night, there were more of us together at Matt and Jen's, all of her good friends, and I kept thinking, "When is she going to come over? We are all here, where is she?"
I think I am going to be wondering that for a long time. Planning this funeral with Kate and taking care of her estate has been a distraction from just staring at the wall and trying to understand that I'll never see her again. So many of our other friends have called and offered help, which means so much. It amazes me how many lives she touched, except that I remember when I first met her, how much of an impression she left on me, how much I wanted to get to know her. I'm so glad that I did, that I had the opportunity to have her in my life, and can genuinely say that I am so much a better person for knowing her. Alicia, I love you, and I will always miss you.
Jesica Davis
June 8, 2005
http://aliciafrantz.net/eulogy.html
Friday, June 3, 2005
Age: 32
Location:
1400 W. Division Ave
Chicago
United States
Alicia's ghost bike has a sign that reads: "She heard everyday sounds as music." Alicia's web site for her recordings is still available at http://aliciafrantz.net/af.html
Alicia Frantz passed away on June 3, 2005, her 32nd
birthday. She lived a wonderful life and was loved by many.
http://aliciafrantz.net/
Alicia Marie Frantz was born in Battle Creek on June 3, 1973. She moved with her family to Temple, Texas, at age 8, and split her adolescence between Texas and Battle Creek, where she lived with her grandmother.
Alicia's grandmother was one of the most important influences in her life, stabilizing her. It always seemed to me that she got much of her core strength from her grandma, and that strength is one of the many things I always admired about her. Strength is one of the many gifts that she has given me, just by knowing her.
I met Alicia through music, which seems fitting. We emailed a little bit through a mailing list of friends that she joined, shortly after she moved to Chicago, and arranged to meet in Detroit when Jeff Mills played at the State theater. We hung out a little that night, and like most people who met her, I was immediately taken with her. When we got back to Chicago I called her, told her she seemed really cool, and that really cool girls are hard to find. Since she had just moved to the city and probably didn't know many people either, I told her we should hang out. We got together for dinner and drinks, and hung out regularly after that. In time, she became my best friend.
One of the best things about Alicia is you could tell her anything, and she would be supportive. She never judged me for the choices I made, and if they caused me grief, she never said "I told you so." Instead, she'd take me out for therapy sushi, and make everything better with her company, listening to me, offering advice when I asked for it, and pouring more sake to cheers to our friendship, because we'd always have that.
Another thing I admired about her is that she always wanted to be a better person. She was always trying to improve herself, the primary means of which was education. She put herself through college in Michigan, and I think the day she graduated was her proudest day.
She continued learning in many other ways, teaching herself web publishing and audio software. We took bookbinding and papermaking classes together at Columbia. The design on front of the funeral cards handed out here is a painting she made some years ago. She asked Jen to teach her how to knit, and was in the process of making her first scarf when she died. Jen, who teaches knitting at Columbia, said she was the fastest learner she'd ever taught. She also wanted to see the world; our trip to Costa Rica last year sparked an urge to directly learn about other cultures, to interact with them.
The personal growth that she emphasized was not contained to herself. She also pushed her friends to become better people, both through overt urging and subtle example. She was the first of our friends to wear wigs out; there was one in particular that she was known for, the Yolanda wig. It was huge and curly, larger than life, much like Alicia herself. Because of her, I and many of our other friends tried new things, talked frankly with each other about love, sex, family, and life.
She led so many of us to become more comfortable with ourselves. For example, I used to never wear anything but jeans, but hanging out with her over the years I began to admire how put together she always looked, and eventually followed her example. When I worked downtown, we'd meet up for two-hour shopping lunches; she'd pick out a dozen things for me every time, all of them perfect, but almost never found anything for herself.
She had very particular, sometimes picky but almost always great taste, and not just in clothes. I think anyone who has ever eaten with her is aware of the aversion she had to anything resembling soggy bread. And she got on kicks with food: for a while, she ran around saying "bao is the new sushi!" Or when she discovered sidecars, she only wanted to go to bars that made good sidecars. These phases, love affairs with food, drinks, music, and film directors, burned intensely before they died out and she moved on to the next thing. You could say she burned intensely for the short time she was with us.
One thing that was never a phase though, was her ongoing obsession with sound. Long before she started her recordings, she was always noticing sounds that other people didn't hear, or that they ignored. For a long time, she couldn't focus if a sound was distracting her; recording and archiving the sounds was one of the ways she dealt with it. She also had a white noise generator that she hated sleeping without. When looking for her last three apartments, she chose her bedroom based on which place could provide the most quiet.
I am so thankful that she made all of those minidisk recordings. Sometimes I was annoyed; you never knew when she might be recording you. But now, I look forward to hearing the minidisks, and I will be so glad for any of our conversations that got saved. Kate Simko is going to go through all of the original minidisks, and because so many of Alicia's friends are musicians, there will be many songs made with her recordings. Which I think is fitting, because she recorded so many of our friends making music, doing creative things; she even recorded me at a poetry reading I gave.
I can still hear her voice in my head. She grew up in several different places, and her voice, dialect, and inflections reflected that. She spoke like on one else I knew, in so many ways. There were certain words she said in her own way, words I used to tease her about but now I would give anything to hear her say again. In particular, I replay the way she emphatically stood up for herself: she was always saying "no-ho-hoooo" and "absolutely not."
She didn't always have the easiest life, but she came so far because she wouldn't give up. She would not be pushed around; for being so small she was one of the strongest people I knew. Ellen always called her the fearless wonder after an incident at our house a couple years ago. One of our parties had been busted, and our house was illegally entered by some police. Everyone just stood there while Alicia, all of her 5'2" in heels, got right up in the cop's face, screaming at him that he couldn't push her around, that she wouldn't let him intimidate her friends. I held my breath, she was only an inch or two for the cop's face. We all thought he was going to hit her, but instead he quietly and quickly turned around and left, taking the rest of the police with him. She had the guts to stand up to Chicago's finest because she didn't want to see her friends bullied.
I still thank her for that, and for showing me how to not take crap from anybody. She fought for everything she had, and I feel like she was just now blossoming. She wanted to change the world, and I was sure she would. She never made it home Friday, but that afternoon the Peace Corps application she had sent for arrived in the mail. It crushes me that she'll never open it.
Friday was her 32nd birthday. The newspaper said it was her 28th, which she would have loved. It was like her last joke on us, because she was always lying about her age, saying she was 26, or 12, or 42. I was with her Thursday night, and Atom, Matt and I cheered her birthday when it turned midnight. This was to be her first birthday in four years when we didn't go out for sushi, though this year we had reservations for a dozen people elsewhere, because so many people wanted to be with her.
I feel like I could go on and on about her. We hung out all the time for five years, and as I sat writing this, I just kept thinking of more and more stories. I keep finding things of hers around my house. I feel like part of me has been gouged out.
She was who I turned to in a crisis. When I needed someone to pick me up after getting my infected wisdom teeth pulled without any painkillers, she was there, let me cry, took care of me. She held my hair back when I had too much to drink at Zach and Joy's wedding, and she came with my family to my grandmother's estate auction because she knew I needed her there. It helped too, that she wanted to record the auctioneer. I know that if she was here, she'd want to be recording this.
She wasn't an overtly religious person, but she had her own path. When she needed peace, she'd go to the lake; I have so many pictures of her sitting calmly by the water. Not many people knew this, but she loved to sing. For a while, she was even looking into joining a choir here, because it made her so happy to sing. I knew her so well, but she could still surprise me.
One thing that didn't surprise me was the amount of love she was capable of. Anyone who has met R-lo, her dog, knows she was more devoted to him than anything else in the world. Dave has been taking care of him, but I know R-lo wonders where she is.
I still wonder where she is. I keep expecting her to walk through the door. After I got off the phone with the police on Friday to verify that it was her in the accident, I looked up and there were a dozen of our friends at my door. Everyone loved her so much. Later that night, there were more of us together at Matt and Jen's, all of her good friends, and I kept thinking, "When is she going to come over? We are all here, where is she?"
I think I am going to be wondering that for a long time. Planning this funeral with Kate and taking care of her estate has been a distraction from just staring at the wall and trying to understand that I'll never see her again. So many of our other friends have called and offered help, which means so much. It amazes me how many lives she touched, except that I remember when I first met her, how much of an impression she left on me, how much I wanted to get to know her. I'm so glad that I did, that I had the opportunity to have her in my life, and can genuinely say that I am so much a better person for knowing her. Alicia, I love you, and I will always miss you.
Jesica Davis
June 8, 2005
http://aliciafrantz.net/eulogy.html