RUDIMENTS, pt. 218
Making Cars
It was never the making
or the breaking of any of
this that mattered. I'd
already been broken -
home and school and
seminary too. I was a
good riding horse. It was
more just the array, in the
days of my time, of all the
new things I had to deal
with. I often just went out
and took off on any whim,
walking endlessly, different
directions, to see what was
all around me. I'd never
really dealt with people
before either - mostly it
had just been the accidental
kids of school and home. Here
was different. At first it was
awkward, but then I got into
it some and it came easy -
all sorts of different levels of
life; intelligence and money too.
Status by status, I never knew
who I was with. It had never
been like that before - I'd
grown up mostly amongt peers,
income level and societal. Now
there were these huge gaps to
be bridged. People with famous
fathers, or mothers. People half
famous already on their own.
Monied people, used to
three-state living, country cabins,
and grand vacation travels. They
talked distinctly, knew about
things I'd hardly heard of.
-
At every turn, something new :
any schooling I'd had was at the
basic level of imparting only basic
information. The fact that now I
was in another realm had not
dawned on me, at first. Then I
saw it as clear as day. This was to
be more than just the usual silly
personalities and words. At the
same time, trying to juggle all
of this, nothing in the seminary
either had prepared me for this.
It seemed that there, whether it
was the stance of the church, or
not, no opposition was brooked.
There were no other views to be
expressed. Here it was all different.
Everything was in a constant flux;
no solid meanings, no fixed categories.
Plus, being in 'Art' made it all the
more pronounced as every thought
and item got churned through the
creative process of madness. Truly.
-
The madder the better sometimes,;
flaming grease. Charlotte Moorman,
famous nude cellist, a real pip, she
was. It was all part of the very
generous dollop of something
which had been flung my way.
On a Wednesday night I'd sit
listening to an endless Morton
Feldman lecture, and by Friday
there would be art-nudity, dangling
balloons and ice, a frozen cello
(music). It was all light years
away from (Avenel's) homey
try at frozen jello - very daring
for the day! Try telling that to Peter
Serkin, son of Rudolph Serkin, and
now famous on his own. Try telling
that to Wendy Spinner, momentary
girl of my dreams, but his mate now.
A few times we all slept together -
but just like dead people sleeping,
nothing sexual, just exhaustion -
on the floor of the little front room
by the night-desk I sometimes sat at.
In our street clothes. Not my usual
library floor sleep-perch, not my
little apartment in the basement.
This was just misery - and an
after-lecture night, Feldman still
ringing in our heads.
-
There had never been any exposure
in my house to 'art.' I don't know
where I got it. I had an Uncle, Joe,
who'd' gone to the Buffalo School
of Art, or whatever it was called
in the 40's, on the GI Bill. But it
was for commercial art, advertising
and sketching. We never talked about
it and I never even really ever knew
if that was his line of work. He
worked somewhere; that was all
I knew. He'd done a rough painting
once, of Niagara Falls - lots of
blue with white, frothy water rolling
over the falls, and - for some reason -
he'd included Superman carrying me
while flying over the falls. The 'Me'
in the painting was an actual little
photo of my face/head/body, being
held aloft in a flying Superman's
hands. Yeah, it had to be weird, right?
Maybe it became some massive,
unsettling, subliminal drive that
later altered my life. Like being
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
or something, on the very tip of
God's grand, creational figure.
Anyway, that was me.
-
I used to look at that painting as
a child. It hung over the TV on the
back room. At first ti just always
surprised me; I'd not get the import
of it, just somehow wonder how I
got placed there. Why? Superman?
I'd stare at the blue of the painting -
a little two much blue, I thought.
And I look at the mist, as it was
painted, sort of swirling up from the
falls, in a different green. That I
liked. I'd try to figure out where
the light was coming from, what
the different angles of rock showed,
and the rest. Kind of clinical
detachment in viewing a simple
painting. Honestly, I never really
dwelt much on the 'me' figure - I
didn't like that little me anymore,
maybe 2 years old, with like a
dumb, portrait-studio smile and
too much fluffy hair. Just think,
an identity crisis already, at 4
years old. Years later, one time
when I got to Niagara Falls (we
drove, non-stop, breakneck, in
one long drive) I stood there,
mesmerized, determining every
aspect of the Falls before me as
it compared in my mind to that
stupid, painted, memory. But,
no Superman, and no me.
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