RUDIMENTS, pt. 447
(lightning pierce my side, please)
There's a statue of a
nearly life-sized Benjamin
Franklin, at the south side
of Cherry Street, at 22nd,
in Philadelphia. In a regular,
small neighborhood of old
row homes. Nothing big
or grandiose. It's nothing
special, he's holding a kite
close in, metal, feet slightly
apart. The whole idea has
something to do with the
field once there, and his
kite experiment. Mostly
meaningless now, if true
at all. There's a kids'
playground behind it,
the usual panoply of
brightly-colored kiddie
junk, though I've only
seldom seen anyone there.
Maybe some young mothers,
with stroller-tots and a dog
or two. Yet, I return to it when
I can; it's nice, quaint, quiet,
and brings forth thought.
Philadelphia has plenty of
statues, memorials, and
murals too. Tacky stuff,
and neighborhood stuff,
mixed a little bit with
history and art. I used to
know a woman in Metuchen
who was big-up in the civic art
commission there. She'd ride the
same train; I'd get off for the
Princeton stop, and she'd keep
going to the Philadelphia
connection to SEPTA, into
town, from Trenton's end
of the NJ line. (SEPTA is like
the acronym for 'southeast
Philadelphia transit authority,'
close on anyway). She'd
always talk about the art,
the placement the quarrels
- the mural people disliked
the art people, the municipal
memorial people disliked
the rabble, who wanted
murals of black heroes and
idols, etc. It was all tedious,
and she wore it heavy. Myself,
I was always suspicious of the
mural people. It irked me, in
some fashion of it being almost
Stalinesque, or Mao-like, for
the civic authorities to allow
the downgrading of a mostly
otherwise decent enough form
of outdoor art. But they used
it to directly address black
people, in the hopes of keeping
them in place and quiet, by
parading large murals of their
'heroes' of music, sports, and
'politics' - which always
confused me - seeing gloried
versions of Black-power
symbols up in front of the
people you'd least want to be
seeing that, and brought to
them by the people who'd
most strenuously object to
their civic actions based on
the images they saw. So,
confused, I wondered. I
used to sit there and watch
her, an otherwise intriguing
and interesting person, as she
presented herself, basically,
as a nervous wreck and
someone who was being
staked in the heart by the
onerous duties of her job.
It was too bad, and there
was a lot involved - trains
had to mesh, she needed to
be aware of the timetable,
what was running late, or
not at all. She'd call ahead,
notifying conductors and
agents to try and hold the
train for her a minute or
more, as the train she was
on was a bit late, etc. That
sort of layman power always
did surprise me, but I saw it
in action. It was a long, daily
trip, she had two kids, her
husband worked in NYC
(same travel for him but
opposite direction). I asked
her, for the stress involved,
'Why didn't you just move
to Philadelphia?' and she
replied they'd selected
Metuchen precisely because
it was right in the middle of
the two. A travel compromise.
-
The Franklin statue, with its
lightly labored connecting of
Science and thought (the other
part of Franklin was the literary
Franklin), held some fruitful
mysteries to me. Benjamin
Franklin is also buried in
Philadelphia, at a really great
spot way downtown by the
waterfront, a place called
'Christ Church' - which is a
wonderful, original and old,
place of early worship, with
two connected graveyards of
some real merit. His grave
flanks a corner, ever so
slightly on a rise, with a
stone, monument, marker,
all that stuff - and is usually
covered with coins. You know
how people are - give a bum
fifty cents, no; but throw
money flat-out away on a
dead guy's grave, that's good.
The usual revisionists are
at work, of course, these
days proving that Franklin
was half of what it's said
he was - now he's a thief,
a cheat, and a fornicator,
a wise-ass, and who
knows what else. They'll
state their case and then
go ahead proving it. Big
deal. I so hate the self-serving
smug types who must, always,
do that sort of thing. I think
you're always better off just
starting out being presented
as a rotter and a bastard -
then people are already
happy with you and leave
it be. God forbid a man
should go about his work.
-
It was difficult for me to mesh
the two opposites, inasmuch as
I'd figured the creative aspects
of writing and fancy to have been
disruptive of whatever sort of
scientific 'Logic' whey worked
with back then. I don't know
how a Franklin could really
have done both, and the
story was that he quit one
and began the other (Science)
only because he'd gotten worn
down and beleaguered by all
the quarrelsome aspects of
the usual tribal-reptilian types
always trying to do him in.
A real surprising turn of events,
in my opinion. I'd never make
that switch - and I still detest
logic, and science too. It's a
fakery. It's a very heavy jacket
needlessly worn in Summertime
weathers. It's a really dull boat in
heady seas. You can't think when
you're like that, and who'd want
you to anyway.
-
Presenting any art is a funny
thing; but presenting public art
is totalitarian. Period. No other
stories need come from that, it
just is what it is - heavy-handed
message making for plebeians
and serfs. We're up to our necks
in that stuff - let alone the media
crackpots who present all that
they present - without saying -
in the guise of blatant and
mindless propaganda. Take a
look, next time, at the painted
police car you may be passing.
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