12,274. RUDIMENTS pt 864

RUDIMENTS, pt. 864

(I'm looking through you)

One time I was in the NY

Public Library  -  this was

the same day that a lady

came up to me and said

she often sees me there

and did I know that each

time she saw me I was in

the same spot at which,

for a few years, Luigi

Barzini sat at as he worked

on what became his book

'The Italians?'  Which I,

of course, did not know

- would not now, nor even

have a reason TO know  -

but anyway she was real

pleasant and told me how

nice she thought it was to

so often see me sitting

there, busy at work, and

how much it reminded her

of those wonderful days

ten years ago or so. I'd

heard of Mario Puzo, who'd

written the Godfather book,

but this Barzini guy was

on another plane  -  not

so much a pulp writer as

more of a studied author

of deeply researched books,

more non-fiction in all

respects, and telling a story

in a different way. These

ethnic guys, it seemed, were

always scribbling away to write

for others all about their origins.

The McCourt Brothers too,

they did the same thing for

the Irish  -  Malachy and

Frank  -  with their books.

Over time I read them all.

I enjoyed it, but  -  yes  -  the

Barzini book was a lot more

with the heft and facts. Leave

all the sentimentality and

emotion at the door, please.

I guessed it took a certain

form of ritual pride to be

writing about your own

lineage and stuff like that,

with an emphasis on 'national'

roots; everyone seemed to be

doing it  -  all that Kunta Kinte

stuff, speaking of Roots  -

and it all degenerates just

as quickly and poorly as its

quality  -  shrivels down to

'Mandigo,' even though that

makes no sense. The Italians

never had, nor did the Irish

sagas either, any of those

'prized Manhood' kinds of

guys with which to underscore

the degenerative qualities of

the story. But, I couldn't have

told her this stuff, she wouldn't

have gotten it. A lot of those

library ladies are just stone,

cold, repressed sometimes.

She looked it   -  always

wearing lady-suits, nice blouse

and usually some little flower

thing in a jacket lapel. Never

did much  for me, but I guess

at some level even she found

her own fun. Libraries can be

curious places, especially the

big-city ones : the rich come

through, jewels and jangles,

all sure about their fund-raising

and taxable donations, looking

for the next gala (good title for

a book 'The Next Gala,' and

then they could find it on the

shelves); the bums come in,

from the other end, sliding

along the well-waxed floors

all buzzed and confused,

looking for a seat and some

warmth. And, in between,

you get the regular types

and the folks from Walztville,

Kentucky, who just want to

what the  big place looks like.

It's weird, or a weird feeling

anyway, to be sitting in a

library and have touristy

clumps of people going on

by you gawking on their

own personal tour. Like

a mouse, staring at an

elephant. (That's a cool

image, because it works

both ways : 'them' staring

at the large building, and

'me' staring at them).

-

Any of that 'ethnicity' stuff,

I steered clear of; as it was

it was all opening up to me

anyway. I had come out of

a fairly ratty environment

of Italian-first stuff that was

mostly a sot of racial bluster

in disguise. My Father had

been sure-to-swat on anything

that came near a challenge to

his Italia-ness. My Mother,

not so much at all. The claim

of origin for my Father was

Bari  -  a sea-faring town or

port, whatever, maybe even

city ? across from Tirana, in

Albania, at the coast, Skodra

Durress, etc. It could have 

been as I always said (drove

him crazy) he was more 

Albanian seafaring than

Italian  -  all those maritime

guys gunning back and forth

across that little sea, girlfriends,

lovers, on either coast. I

made it all up as I went 

along, based on his blue 

eyes and wiry, black, Greek 

hair. He looked more like any 

one of those peasants you'd 

see on an Albanian map showing 

indigenous people than any 

Italian stock. Like I said, it

drove him nuts. We did the

same, a lot, for my mother's 

mother  -  who was the only

one ever left  -  that she had

black blue  -  any of that

harsh, dense, purity of North

Africa, again, by waterway

just a quick jump from the 

trading ports at the bottom 

of Italy. My Grandmother 

had a lot of those features, 

we built it up even more. in

her playful moods, she'd play

along with the story and start

talking about the 'guy' in

question. She had a cool story

she'd say about when she was

accosted on an elevator in NYC,

by some who got, let's say, way

aggressive. Her rejoinder to

him, as she put it, was, 'Yeah,

yeah, and I know, you probably

need a derrick to get it up, right.'

We used to laugh, but I never

really knew what was funny

about it as a kid. I don't even

know why she told us. 

-

Crazy Italians, walking the

streets of Little Italy  -  all the

time with processions : 500 and

more people all crammed in these

miserable, lousy streets, with

candles and song and prayer.

People hanging out the windows 

above as some noisy and slow

parade drools by with some guys

in suits and a big, fancy priests

guy too, sprinkling holy water

around (filthy streets, needed

cleaning anyway) and behind 

them, the parish church guys,

looking all solemn and in their

finest Eye-talian suits, support

this crazy statue of a huge saint

or something, with a board or

something behind it loaded with

money tacked on  -  people in

Little Italy thought nothing of 

like throwing up a ten or a twenty 

to, what they thought, would buy 

them, and from God, no less, 

what it was that they wanted  -  

I never knew what it could be. 

Nothing seemed right  - a new

car? Not in NYC, needing parking,

and there's nowhere to go anyway

that you couldn't walk to faster;

another home somewhere (these

weren't the kinds of people that

would easily just up and leave);

a new plastic-covered couch maybe,

or a refrigerator; or a promise from

God that your husband would stop

beating you, the kids would survive,

be successful, get out of school OK?

Maybe it was just plain old devotion.

For Eternal life and the soul and

forgiveness and indulgences to

help things alone. It was, really,

even for 1967, the craziest thing

in the world to see. And it seemed

to last forever too  -  they sure

didn't walk fast.

-

Funny too, those were the kinds of

times the mobsters did their business.

Having all those people pre-occupied,

and with all that noise and clamor,

you could kill or beat some Johnny

Ringoletti guy and no one would

ever know. 'Oh, that there? Yeah, 

yeah, the poor bastard, he got to 

close to edge, fell right off the

building. Musta' been drinkin'.

We weren't watching.'

-

Tradition was always a hang-up,

and at the Studio School, with

the art and stuff, I always felt

that we were, at out very least,

underway, with Art, busting up

tradition. Art was like that, then.

It was on a almost anti-social

trajectory to mess with the staid

annals of the old, and of society

itself. It was like you 'learned'

all that old stuff, but just to

destroy it, or avoid it, or to

never do it yourself. Two

parallel worlds, on the same

slope, but veering way off 

from watch other. The Rolling 

Stones, I remember, had a 

song, early on, called, 'Who 

Wants Yesterday's Paper?' 

It was pretty brutal, a take

down of some old girlfriend 

now detested, a really almost

misogynist song of the kind

that those early guys, Stones,

Dylan, Beatles, were so 'good' 

at, then. It's all trite crap now,

no one listens to it and a person

probably couldn't get way 

with it now either. But, for

one brief, shining, moment

(John Paul Vann, about Vietnam),

that phrase about 'yesterday's

paper' seemed to sum up the

way the modern, art world

was treating its own past.

-

One last point here, about

those days. As I've said, I

was in trouble with the draft,

hadn't registered, they were

trying to locate me, we were 

running a safe-house for the

Canadian-bound AWOLS we'd

take in on heir way up from

the base in Virginia. Vietnam

bad shit was everywhere; grimy

people were active, anxious, and

furious. The 11th street bomb

factory, SDS, taking thee streets 

back...all that crap. Crime. I always

remember, for my personal fury-torch

lighting, the quote I read by some

old Secretary of War or something,

back in the Harry Truman days,

1947 or maybe '50. It always

got me rolling in anger : "In a

Capitalist country, if you're going

to go to war, you have to let

business make money out of

the process, or the business

won't work.' It just seemed

that everything was always

coming to a head, and here it

went that this library lady had 

me pegged, from sitting in the 

same damn seat every time she 

saw me. Take that, Luigi Barzini! 

Take that, Henry Stimson,

Secretary of War!