RUDIMENTS, pt. 667
(denial from day one)
Sometimes I got tired of the
whole mess too - don't get
me wrong. It wasn't all just
fun and roses. I can say the
things that never did happen
were things like 'homesickness,'
wishing it all back, etc. No
matter where I was, I was
happy to be there; the seminary
was the easiest one, mainly
because I'd been prepared,
everyone around me liked the
idea, it was sort of communal
living, etc. None of that ever
bothered me. The world was
all different then anyway - no
modern stuff, no computers or
any of that virtual and connected
stuff either. Phones had dials,
and were large and black. A
kid's biggest needs were pens
and pencils. I used to use what
were called 'cartridge pens' - a
real early 1960's thing that looked
like a fountain pen, with a nib for
the writing tip, etc., but instead
of that little metal thing on the
side - to draw up the liquid ink
from the inkwell (yeah, some desks
still had them, up in the top left
or top right corner) - there'd be
a way of opening the pen and just
replacing this little cartridge of ink.
It all sounds like nothing now, but
it was a cool and big deal, for me
while there. And then came those
clear Bic pens, ballpoint - and that
was that. Fountain pens now have
some retro elan to them, but they
were a pan in the butt - often
enough times leaving a blob of
ink on the paper, or tearing up the
paper as you pulled along. If there's
any panache to them now, it just
from people who don't know any
better, or people who, certainly,
don't write much. Like the guys
who buy old-style, expensive
shirts. 'Retro-chic sheet.' Say
that three times.
-
The 1960's in this early period,
like '63-64 and before, were
oddball times. In architecture,
it's immediately identifiable by
that International style of structures
they went crazy building. The
Pan Am Building. Lever Brothers.
Seagram's. Huntington Hartford
(A&P fortune). The buildings went
flying up everywhere, and then,
with them, the color and decoration
that went with the period. Styles
and fashions that were impossible
to sustain. And then it all went
flooey anyway - Rudi Greinrich,
topless bathing suits, mini's and
weird A-Line dresses and skirts,
men's clothing with wispy-thin
lapels and ties, 'continental' (it
was called, beltless pants (slacks).
I can go on, from sharkskin to
iridescent, but it was all so
blunderingly stupid as to be a
bad dream. Something Truman
Capote would lisp about.
-
I don't know what first put me at
odds with things, but this was all
the start of it; the way people were
just pushed into supposed-to-be
liking this stuff and going with the
program. It was like some blaring
top-40 radio station, or one of those
stupid big-named retro shows on
WNEW AM. Milkman's Matinee.
William B. Williams (who had
nothing whatsoever [thank God]
to do with William Carlos Williams,
the writer, who would have been
William C. Williams on the radio).
None of it belonged anywhere,
not in my life, but there it was, and
constantly being pushed. It made
me pretty foul. As a for instance,
that first week I arrived in NYC,
every place I went into, little
commercial spots along Second
Ave., and that area, each of these
little dumps had the radio playing.
I mean junk radio, AM crap,
WMCA, WABC, the worst crap
you could think of, 'Love Is
Strange,' Peaches and Herb, Isley
Brothers, it just went on, and it
was babbling. I used to hear
radio commercials, for pity's
sake, in NYC, for Palisades
Park in New Jersey! I'd think
'What in the Hell is wrong with
these people. I just left there,
the state sucks.' It was like
finally arriving in what you
thought was Paradise and all the
people there wishing to be back
in the Hell you just left. I just
wanted to shake people, and
say 'Wake the heck up!'
-
A pitiful accrual - that's a
cool way of putting what I
think the world is - all this
crud piles up (accrues) and
that's what you're left with.
To redeem for yourself, or to
just let it accrue. Whatever
you do, it's up to you!
-
So, anyway, my main purpose
was to study Art. And I did,
even if I ended up doing it
much of my own way and in
a very roundabout fashion, and
with lots of distractions - but
they only added to it all. William
Blake said something like 'I must
make up a system of my own, or
be enslaved by those of others.'
Something like that and it's close
enough to get the gist. I was mostly
busy making up my own systems.
I found everything I wanted, and
anywhere I looked : 'A good
painting or piece of artwork
focuses our attention in a matter
of seconds - what is sometimes
called 'Wall Power' - and it
also holds our gaze over time. It
repays prolonged looking. A good
painting appeals to both the eye
and the mind, the one refreshing
the other. There is no one thing
or set of things that a painting
must do. A good painting can
look like anything at all, or like
nothing we've seen before.' That
seemed good enough. I'd always
been trying to find a way around
'representation' anyway, and this
hit it pretty well. Whenever I
thought back of the past, it was
always about proper representation.
My uncle who was my father's
brother, right after WWII took
his GI Bill money and went to
the Art Institute of Buffalo, for
commercial art instruction, and
as he came into my life later
it was all about 'proper'
representation. A thing should
only look like the thing it is, no
interior life, no psychological
underpinnings within the art,
nothing dark or mysterious,
certainly no ambiguity. Which
was odd because in one of
the first things he did that I can
remember, he painted Superman
flying over Niagara Falls - yes,
all well represented, but bizarre,
and then to make it worse, he'd
put me, as maybe a two-year old, in
the grip of Superman's outstretched,
flying arms. I daresay the 'proper'
representation of whatever that was
probably set me back a few years:
in cases of something like that, YOU
were supposed to be the Superman,
to begin with, and here he already
had me totally dependent and in
the clutches of another Superman,
outside of 'MY' inner Superman,
upon whose decisions as portrayed,
my life and limb depended. Uh, a
little help here, OK? What was
I supposed to make of that, or
didn't any of these 1950's people
think at all? He might as well
have shown me nailed to a
fourth cross on Golgotha for
all the psycho-good any of
this did me. I was maimed
before I got started, and it
was only me that saw it. If a
'thing' should only look like
the thing portrayed, this bode
nothing well for me. Not my
idea of where I was going,
even if I did have a two-year
old's happy smile going.
-
I guess I was a steadfast
refusenik from about the time
that painting from Buffalo was
thrust onto me. It hung on our
'TV' room wall for a long time.
My eyes and mind saw it, but
no part of me accepted or
recognized it. Carrying the
logic of it all out to its very
end, I was in denial from
day one; and I ain't talking
Egypt here.
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