RUDIMENTS, pt. 90
Making Cars
Clarity. I think that's the best word
I can use to try and approximate what
it was I was seeking to achieve. It was
my feeling that most people - those
I knew and had seen and grown up
with - had missed that. They worked
through their lives in a working form
of confusion; it passed muster, yes,
but for most people I ever saw they'd
never brought anything to states of
having been defined, decided upon,
and effected. The rest of their lives
and times just seem ad hoc, by the
moment, reactions. In my life, the
people who have affected me the
most, stunned me, even, have been
those who appeared to me to have
reached 'clarity.' All ages, all varied
sorts of people. It was always good.
I never reacted to fashion, money,
looks, and all that - motorcycles,
artists, workers, teachers, it was this
'clarity' that I always reacted to, and
sought. Running for President? OK.
Show me some clarity first, jerk.
-
You know the way a horse eventually
finds its trot, or its gait; it soon enough
slips into that sweet spot, for horses,
where land and hooves become one,
rider too, I guess, if there is one. That's
clarity, maybe that's even 'horse sense,'
whatever that was supposed to have
signified. But it can get that way for
individuals too, not the same of course,
but symbolically, in terms of trot and
ease and comfort, it's like a oneness
that breaks into the routine. Like the
zen thing with archery - hitting the
target perfectly without even aiming.
It's the aiming that throws everything
off. And I think church people call it
'grace,' as well.
-
Maybe it's also what's behind that
odd 1960's idea of 'charisma' -
although I doubt that one. The two
biggest jerks of that era I can pick
out were John F. Kennedy and, later,
of course, (or 'off course'), from him,
William 'Jefferson' Clinton. It was
more media hype, soon disproved.
The only charisma either of them had
probably ended up where it shouldn't
have been. Involving the 'fairer sex,'
I mean to say. [Can we say that anymore?]
Running through the 1960's, for most
of the time, was an outrageous almost
religious respect for this 'martyred'
President guy. I sure could never abide
it. There was, first off, never any
connection for me between secular,
political junk and religious martyrdom
- which was supposed to involve strange
sanctity, devotion, rolled eyes, and taking
one for the cause, as it were, knowingly
and by choice. Not like Kennedy, whose
accidental head was just a bit too high
in the convertible Lincoln that day. I
never dropped a tear or spent a moment
thinking about loss over that one. Same
with Clinton, whatever that mess was.
He could keel over tomorrow and,
maybe, I'd think about sending a card.
(Or emailing one through a personal
account, just for fun.
-
The whole 1960's thing was in reaction
to an assassination. That's how it seemed
to be - maybe not so much in New York
City, where it was mostly subsumed by
commerce, but lots of other places. I
never undertook or had any 'analysis'
(NYC and Park Ave. was filled with
tons of shrinks too), but if I had I'm
pretty sure that for those next 7 or 8
years that was always high on the list
of things your basic, cheap-visit, shrink
would get started on : how you felt
about that, what were your feelings,
in light of the murdered President,
towards you father and family? There
was, everywhere, compensation going
on for what had been defied as a horrid
and gruesome national crime played
out for days in prime-time primitive
TV formats. Every commentator had
become a form of a national shaman,
and every talking head had become a
healer. Where that left President Johnson,
I could never figure out; but all I saw on
his part was projection and over zealous
compensation to start wars (beginning
with the 1965 invasion of the Dominican
Republic), and then other things. Everything
was in place - kind of like now - to
gin up for war and destruction. It was a
mass-hallucination that was being formed.
Frenzy-induced manipulation to kill and
be killed. Everyone sick just strode to the
front : politicians, music and entertainment
people, scientists, mad bombers, you name
it. They talked. Everyone listened, and it
all went on for years.
-
Seen through the eyes of Art, my particular
perspective then, I guess, even Art trended
that way: it sort of lost self-control over
itself and began trending outward into
movements of this or that - the frenzied
and the vile, the sexy and the outrageous.
The breakdown there too became pretty
complete. One guy had himself nailed
onto a Volkswagen, really, crucified to a
bug. Another guy, Vitto Acconci, had
a platform built, in the gallery, that people
walked over, like a fake floor, underneath
which he, the 'artist,' was. Masturbating.
Another guy, for his 'art,' had himself
publicly shot in the foot for his own
'peformance' art. Too bizarre, but it was
a wartime of its own. God knows what
else was done in the name of 'Art' that
I never knew about.
-
Sometimes, even in the Studio School,
where supposedly 'artists-in-training' were
perfecting their skills and craft : life studies,
drawing, classes in theory, art history, and
the rest, we'd wind up just avoiding each
other's eyes in some weird-warp of too-self-
conscious embarrassment over what 'Art'
was on its way to becoming. I know I've
told this story before, and probably too
many times, but in the studio I had, I
shared some space with a Jewish kid
from Montclair, NJ. He wasn't that
often present, went home a lot. etc., but
when he was there he worked. Since we
shared a big studio room (atop that famed
Youth Hostel I've also written of, kind of
next door, but also underneath) and all
he ever painted, and I mean ever, were
maybe 3 feet by 5 feet painted portraits
of military people. Really. Just like that:
Staring out, standing straight, maybe
on an airfield with a helicopter or
something behind them, with all their
uniform things, service ribbons and badges,
military cap, maybe gloves - all that you'd
think of. It was really strange, especially
for me because sometimes he'd be gone
a few days in a row and I'd be stuck with
Sergeant Dunkirk or whoever the hell it
was, 3/4 complete, staring out at me.
Whew! Talk about clarity!
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