Tuesday, July 10, 2018

10,964. RUDIMENTS, pt. 371

RUDIMENTS, pt. 371
(wolfe place avenel)
This is probably going
to be a little different. In
some ways a writer is
a bus  -  get on the bus,
sit down, and I'll get you
there. I'm far-reaches
from my home, even
though it's the same
place I grew up. Thomas
Wolfe said, or dared to
say, that 'you can't go
home again.' He's a pretty
good example of how you
can be wrong and right at
the very same time. What's
not the same is the 'you' of
you, and that's the key. So
in the end it doesn't matter.
This life is a constantly
changing continuum; little
flashes of light like in those
old kinetoscopes. Yeah,
things move.
-
Once I get rolling, there's
usually no stopping me. I try
to stay specific, but the sort
of artsy writer I am most often
breeds in me an abstraction
that bursts forth. I'm sure you
know what I mean. It's not hard
to stay with, but it demands a bit
more of your attention. You can
spare it.
-
One time, back working at St.
George Press, I had an account
named 'Wall Trends.' You may
remember how I mentioned about
that job, how when I began it, they
gave me 8 or 10 of the more lame
accounts that were real pains in
the neck to them  -  to see if I
could make them work out
better, finally get some business
flow, etc. Sometimes that's all
it takes, a new face, a different
approach. Or at least a show of
interest. That's how I got, for
instance, those Gypsy accounts
I mentioned. You just need to
talk a little, bring people out. Lots
of people are really interesting;
ones you'd never think. Anyway.
Wall Trends was just off of Roosevelt
Avenue, heading towards Carteret,
but before you really got there,
making a right turn just after
the prison, it was along there,
just a little ways past what used
to be a 'Stewart's. A roadside place
for root beer and hamburgers and
trucker lunches and all that. You'd
never know it now but Roosevelt
Avenue back then was pretty much
an unpaved, gravel road that ran
right into Rahway Avenue and,
in the other direction eventually,
to the Turnpike and the rest of
Carteret, sort of from behind. More
on all that in a bit. This Wall Trends
place was a wallpaper design studio,
and they manufactured a million
different kinds of patterns and
finishes of wallpaper  -  art and
design, textures, wet-look, all that.
I printed their new-product spec.
sheets, catalogue pages, billheads,
all that usual junk. For the most
part it could have been boring as
all get out, but I made it fun. First
off, I liked it there  -  the road and
the area was still old and primitive
enough. And, of course, in each
direction you looked there was
either a scrap yard, junk yard,
truck lot or oil storage tanks. Now
they get all fancy about wanting
to all of a sudden spruce everything
up and build 'presentable' kinds of
Potemkin Village false-fronts, but
back then it was just raw function.
No one cared abut that illusionary
stuff. There was also a camera
company there I did work for, and
another place called Chelco Sound,
which manufactured speakers and
speaker systems, for major stereo
and stage stuff. But they were just
businesses. Wall Trends was fun.
-
They had this really cool little
artist lady there, from Tennessee.
She was southern through and
through, with this massive drawl
and all those cool southern ways
and traits. And she had this odd,
really old-style French family
name. Forgotten now, but it was
deep. I just ate it all up, it was
so neat. She was tiny too, only
maybe five feet, about 40, and
very cool looking. Like hip
before there was 'Hip' as a style
and category. I ran across her
once in NYC too; she was just
walking around like any loose
bohemian artsy type. It was
great. It's always weird when
you meet someone in NYC by
accident  -  someone who know,
from home or where you live.
You'd figure something like
that would never happen in a
place as big as that, but actually
that probably improves the
odds really. It's not big for no
reason; that's where people go.
And it was fun seeing her out
of context too. Like her seeing
me, which she thought was
really cool and all. She was
still by herself, and maybe
some lightning could have
started, but we were both
somehow too wary of that
and, I guess, of each other.
I suppose if I had the guts to,
I could have; but that's always
been my deal : no real guts.
The guy who owned the place
was an Israeli named Amnon
Zaflika. Spelling is close
anyway  -  I'd always thought
he was Lebanese or something,
heavily accented but what did
I know, and then one day I
met his family. Two boys, looking
like they just came off a kibbutz,
and his wife was one of those
pioneering Jewish-lady kind of
original settler kibbutzniks. It
was very exotic to me. And
they had an entire assortment
of Jewish things too  -   on
their car, hanging from the
mirror inside, around their necks.
All that 6,000 years of chosen
people stuff, prayers and G-d and
heritage and all that, it was enough
to knock me over  -  and I'd never
had exposure to that extreme stuff
ever. The few Jews I knew from
Avenel were just otherwise regular
people except for the Temple visits.
But otherwise, you'd never really
notice unless you knew. I guess.
Maybe I just didn't notice. New
York City, before this, was full
of Jewish people; they made the
place run, for pity's sake. In fact,
in the Art and Culture world, it was
most usual that you were either
Jewish or gay; a large factor of
it anyhow. Here, in the mid 1980's
I'd never thought about it being
present. Over along Avenel
Street too, as I was growing up,
there was this place called
Stanziola's Coat factory. My
baseball friend's family owned
it. His name was Frank. Right
across from the Security Steel
plant entryway. They made
'carcoats' and jackets and things,
in like a small factory-mill.
A lot of locals worked there  -
well not a lot, maybe 10 or so.
Women cutting and sewing. A
small-scale local businessman
venture. Women cutting and
sewing. Garment District stuff,
had it been in NYC. But, by
the 80's they were gone (the
building houses a nursery school
and day care place now, all
ugly and orange). By the time
I got there, with an account, it
was a place even cooler that
than Wall Trends. It was called
Werfel Studios. It was run by
an artist guy, from NYC, who,
with his wife, lived in Colonia.
Sanford and Rita Werfel. He was
an old-style Jewish artist who'd
originally sold bibles and Jewish
religious articles and scripture
books and stuff all over the lower
east side. As he developed
into a commercial artist, he did
some nice, illustrative-type stuff.
He was very meticulous about
lettering, script styles, space on
a page, placement of words, etc.
Everything had to fit. He'd opened
his studio, employing 4 people,
and sold memorial find-raising
brass and metal leaves and trees
for hospital walls, schools, etc.,
on the corner of 'Wolfe Place.'
The kind of stuff you see in
lobbies where each leaf on the
'Tree of Life' has someone's
name inscribed, memorialized
in that way, after the donor
forks over money for the leaf.
He had the idea, and then the
market cornered, for a while.
Now there are copiers and
imitators everywhere. That's
how that goes. I used to go
there and just sit around a
little too. The talk was always
cool, except on tense days.
You could feel it as soon as
you walked in  -  old-line
Jewish people like to argue
a lot  -  just like their rabbis
and Torah studies people
and the rest  -  intense, futile
arguments over like the 'shape'
of G-d or the divine orders
of Moses  -  any of that stuff.
If the rest of the world ever
went on like that, nothing much
would ever get done. So, on
those days, I'd walk in there
(with some laborious printing
matter to go over  -  revisions,
errors, new decisions about this
or that illustration)  - and you 
could feel the ice and fire in
the air. Sometimes they'd stop,
and then other times (mostly
between him and his wife Rita,
who also worked there, doing
the payments and bookkeeping
and stuff), in the middle of a
sentence about something else
an idea would hit and he'd go
back arguing with her. Pretty
weird, but now I see how that
happens, about most anything.
It's kind of how the religious
mind works, always stewing on
about fractions of divinity and
light and reasons for being. Once
that gets rolling, you can't stop
it People get committed about
their stuff. Eventually they all
moved out, to a larger studio
kind of building out along Rt.
130 in North Brunswick. I'd 
still go there. Now they're in
Jamesburg or somewhere, and,
retired and old now too. Their
'assistant' from back than has
taken over running the same
old business as ever. Sandy and
Rita live in Monroe or someplace
near there. For a long time along
that Avenel corridor, there
was some fun stuff. More 
stories to come. 

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