Saturday, October 26, 2019

12,229. RUDIMENTS, pt. 849

RUDIMENTS, pt. 849
(the carryover rings of Mars)
It wasn't curiosity that killed
the cat, but a simple lack of
follow-up that did it in...When
I used to visit my friend Jeff,
at w87th street, I most often
also stopped in this little place
called The Mysterious Book
Shop. It was just a hole in
the wall really, but famed
and prestigious too  -  all the
sorts of things I'd never have
thought about for mystery
books. I never even liked,
and seldom read, mysteries.
They were too foolish for me,
carrying no real content except
for the miserly 'squirm-factor'
which those sorts of readers
sought. We used to joke that
every other person who went in
there was probably a murderer
slinking about, or a person who
knew how to evade capture; a
real 'mystery' person. I think
the place is still around, at
some other location. They
made a few moves over the
years. As I recall, the logo
for this one was a very simple,
black, silhouette of a pistol.
Our conversations would always
drift into the concept subject
of mystery books, who read
them, where and why. The usual
stuff. I myself got them all
mixed up  -  always  -  Agatha
Christie, Miss Marple, Dorothy
Sayer, Lord Peter Wimsey, Dashiel
Hammett, Inspector Clouseau,
it was all the same for me, and
mostly a non-entity. I had no
clue what I was even talking
about, but that had never
stopped me before, and as
it went with that category,
'Mystery,' who even knew
what it was? The whole thing
was so 1940's.
-
As I recall the story, Jeff's father
had made a bunch of money after
he introduced a concept of store
called 'Paperback Exchange'  -
something whereby people joined,
turned in their book when they'd
completed the read (cheap and
pulpy stuff, a la mysteries then),
and got another book for it. It went
on and on  -  I don't know how any
money was made, except by joining
fees (?) because the rental for
space had to be enormous, and
there's really only a small and
finite number of people who would
even deign to care about this. But,
he did it and it apparently worked.
I was told. Jeff had that sort of head
too, a wise-man way of figuring out
how to turn a quarter. I never had
that at all. The thing about books
for me, and it was always a problem
and still is (no, I don't do e-books,
because I annotate and scribble in
margins, and don't have the e-quipment
anyway), the kinds of books I read,
I never, ever wanted to give them up.
I never considered them 'disposable.'
This whole exchange-book racket
seemed to rotate around the idea of
disposing of books.
-
It need be said here that wherever I
went, in any of this, I was way behind
the others. I suspected numerous of
the Studio School kids were just
otherwise wealthy and privileged, out
slumming, at 'artist' for maybe a year
or two. They had and kept uptown
addresses, their 'homes'  -  and others
often went to Connecticut or Vermont.
The fact  was seen by how often it
was necessary for me to say, in
response to something and past the
point when I could no longer hide
it, that 'No, I've never been to The
Prado,'...or to the Tate or to the Louvre,
have never seen Versailles, nor
anything by Gaudi either, in Barcelona.
All that stuff keeps you way behind
the proverbial eight-ball, and travel
that's a basic currency  for others
remained un-doable for me. I
guess that's why I stuck to the basic,
brawling, Jackson Pollock type of
wild-men instead  -  Jim Tomberg
sorts. They'd just as soon knock
you down than have to defend the
lack of those experiences and places
I mentioned. Ed Rudolph too. I always
considered them the more real
and the stronger. 'Pretentious' went
right out the window and the Devil
be damned. Somehow, over the years,
art  -  like poetry too  -  had been
given over to the 'precious' faction,
considered almost sissified, aloof
and austere. I don't know how that
all started  - there was a time when
to be an artist meant work and meant
strength : mixing one's own pigments,
preparing surfaces and canvases, the
building and stretching, carrying
and hauling paints and easels, all
those hours outdoors, watching and
painting the harbor, the ships as
they rolled in, etc. In so many more
ways it was 'mans work' morseso
than not. Funny, as I type that, I
am reminded that the first 'female'
artist I was ever taken by for her
work, was Berthe Morisot, about
1865 and from that time. Very
splendid work.
-
By contrast, at the Studio School
there were females all over. And I
loved that too  -  they were spirited,
strange, sometimes vivacious, and
sometimes morose. The dark, foreboding
types, and the cheerful, pleasant types.
I found myself delighting in that array,
having favorites and keeping others
aloof; though I loved seeing them all
and watching their ways and manners;
how they talked and gestured, how they
carried themselves. It was fascinating.
And fascinating too to see them work,
and to see their work. Much more
deliberate and pointed at it all, they
were way into the careful aspects
of art; whereas men were more
slapdash and bold about it all. At 18, 
to see a female(s) in the late-20's
operating already to her fullest,
was a wondrous, splendid, thing.
I realized I'd grown way too used
to mothers, pushing shopping
carts while babies wailed.
-
At this point, my mind was the
broadest thing on the planet. I
was living in far-off space, and it
was all still expanding and billowing
out. Un-staked territory, with still
undefined borders and conclusions.
The rings of Saturn? Pshaw on them.
I had the carryover rings of Mars.
That's how far away I was from the
basic plane of reality that most
others followed. I went around
like some cat-burglar in a mystery
title, sliding between windows. alleys.
doorways and rooms. I can still do that,
sometimes, but to little avail. All that
I see now is far worse than what used
to be, which was, in its turn then,
far worse than what used to be.
Maybe, within the concept of
diminishing returns,, one past the 
next, those imagined Martian rings
too diminish into nothing, one after
the other, less, and the less again.
Until we're in another realm entirely.




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