Remembering Steven Bach: Lectures

I never really considered Steven a traditional sort of teacher – it’s hard to look back at his classes and see them as lectures. “Lectures” always seemed like too cold and impersonal a word, one that would put what Steven Bach did on the same level as some monotone community college professor. Learning from him was so much more than that – he was a storyteller, and taught almost by parable at times, never giving an answer right away, and always having this brilliant flash of enthusiasm when he thought anyone in the class might be getting what he was starting to drive at.

It annoyed some of my peers. They always said they came to college to learn, and would ask me why Steven wouldn’t just teach – to which I’d usually respond “why wouldn’t you just listen?” It remains to me a mystery how anyone couldn’t listen to the man, his stories were always so layered, so good [factual? Mostly, though he referenced Fatty Arbuckle fucking that girl to death with a green-glass Coke bottle a couple of times, and we all know that was bullshit… but again, as I said, almost like parable], and he had such a theatrical way of presenting them. Some days you’d come into the class, he’d pop in late [as he did], and everything would be so chill and relaxed, the class lounging in the seats, and Steven making small talk about what movies we’d watched that weekend. And then, slowly, almost so you wouldn’t notice at all, he’s segue into a point or a story, and the next thing you knew you’d be on the edge of your seat, listening to every single word.

And Steven was good – he knew he had you, because once you were on the edge of your seat, his voice would just get progressively lower, and lower, until it was just a raspy whisper, and looking around, the entire room would be leaning forward, hanging on every word. And sometimes when he had us there, he’d slam his arm down on the table top, open-handed, or shout out loudly about his point, and those times happened infrequently. But more often than not, he’d just smile, and lean back in his chair.

It was just as effective as any shout too.

Being in class with Steven Bach made you feel like you were being taught by someone who’d actually been a part of something. And by someone who actually wanted to teach. In fairness, I believe that was true for the rest of the Bennington faculty as well, but in practice, Steven was peerless.