In memory of the Byte
Uncategorized November 14th, 2005
An amazing person who I cared for died yesterday. While we pause to mourn his loss, I feel it is right to mention a few of things I found most beautiful and incredible about him.
Kevin “Frostbyte” McCormick (29) was a year head of me at MIT, though he always seemed older than that, because of his confidence and his wit. He was a member of the Xi chapter of Tau Epislon Phi. He loved cheese*, and peanut butter cups**, and electronic music***. He was a consummate host, who was always willing to share whatever he had.
Kevin was a brother, a host, an explorer — and an artist. He was internationally regarded for his experiments with LED art. He built LED walls which projected color all over the desert at Burning Man. He built towers in which the face of the Mona Lisa could be seen staring at you in technicolor. He created domes in which hundreds of tiny stars winked, and pulsed, and breathed, and shone. He fashioned suits and gloves patterned with seas of pin-prick lights, in which the wearer became a wonderous creature from the future, all bright contours and spectral swirls.
Kevin will be sorely missed. While his spirit finds new places to brighten, we who remember him will eagerly anticipate a time when we may feel half so inspired as he was, to create, to dream, and to share.
*When we were undergraduates, Frostbyte joined a cheese-of-the-month club. Predictably, this resulted in him having small bricks of highly unusual cheese in his refrigerator at TEP. He loved his bizarro cheeses; I remember one, pale white in color, with a deep red-brown rind that was cured with potatoes. Frostbyte loved it. He’d invite a score of people over to play cards, or to listen to music, or to look at his latest’s light show — and when critical mass had been achieved, at the first sign of hunger from the crowd, he’d open his fridge and pull out that month’s cheese. Often, his month’s supply would be gone in a few hours, devoured by guests who probably didn’t appreciate it as much as he did…. and Frostbyte loved it. Sharing was one of the things most joyful for him.
**The summer between my junior and senior years at MIT, he seemed to subsist largely on peanut butter cups. They sat in a metal bowl, on his coffeetable, waiting for anyone who was hungry to sample them. The curious thing about Frostbyte is that he could eat like this for weeks on end, but he never grew paunchy, or looked malnourished. Nor did he lose his sense of quality: after four meals in a row of peanut butter cups, he still maintained enough of a sense of good taste to criticize my risotto, which he promptly washed down with Mountain Dew.
***One of the finest evenings I remember sharing with Frostbyte was a July night, six or seven years ago. I was living at TEP that summer. On this uncharacteristically quiet evening, no one else in the house seemed to be in the mood for company. I gradually grew tired of sitting on the roof by myself, so I went downstairs to see what Frostbyte was up to. He turned out to be up to nothing much, but he welcomed me into his room, to join him in his evening of relaxation. We sat in his room, with his newly orchestrated light symphony painting the walls red-green-purple-blue, and listened to Koyaanisqatsi.
That evening was quiet, and calm — just this side of uneventful. It stays in my mind because of the way that Kevin made me feel comfortable and welcome. He allowed me to experience the things that he wholeheartedly loved with him. He taught me a hundred things about music, two hundred about light, and more than I could ever count about love for beauty. Kevin was an aesthete of the rarest variety: he loved beautiful things, his imagination had no bounds, and his spirit compelled him to always share.