RUDIMENTS, pt. 882
(light over the moors)
Sometime about 1994, perhaps,
(this is going to be a sidebar
diversion, discursive in its own
way), a fellow named E. Duane
Meyer contacted me. He was
some sort of Professor, with a
trail of achievements, who was
currently (late in his life) a tutor
of sorts at Montclair University,
coaching kids through their PhD.s
or whatever. He had a small
displacement Kawasaki motorcycle,
maybe a 650, tops, and was a
reader of the monthly newspaper
I was producing. Not much else.
He asked for me to meet him,
at his home, for a proposal he
had. It wasn't much of a thing,
but apparently he was again
soon to be updating his computer
system and, in this case, wished
to turn over his system to the
organization I was fronting.
-
All he wished for was for me
to sign off, for him, some form
attesting to his 'donation' and
its tax valuation, which number
was his own reckoning of value.
I said OK, and we arranged to
meet. He lived in West Orange,
in some really fine English Tudor
style house on a small hill. Up
until this point, for maybe 3 or
4 years, tops, I'd been using a
small Apple Mac, the compact,
small, tan box, with like a 10-inch
black and white screen; word
processor more than anything
I guess. At one point about the
year 2000, these things were
all over the curbs, being thrown
out by people who'd upgraded a
few times already by then. Anyway,
I had 2 of them, and for my purposes
they worked fine - 'user-friendly,'
as the term went. It allowed me
to news-compose, display-box,
line and rule, and numerous other,
simple, composition things. No
Internet or any of that, as I recall.
-
This - in case you are wondering -
is going to be a chapter on how and
why I started all this 'Rudiments'
stuff, and other things, in the first
place; what my thinking was, the
approach, etc. It won't be about
silos, but it's just as good. I ask
that you stay with it, if you can.
-
I went to Duane's house (he never
used the initial E. of his name). I
parked on his inclined drive - a
very fine, stone and brick Tudor
set-up, beautiful windows and
frames, along with wonderful
treatments of wood and stucco.
Winding walkway. Small-frame
panels of glass to make up the
windows, Very detailed and nicely
kept, as was the yard. He let me
in; doing so with his wife, Mary.
If Duane was 65, Mary was 64;
by which I mean to say they were
close. Perhaps even 70. Don't know.
Mary was cute and quite petite.
Duane was tallish, balding, glasses.
They both had curiously lined faces,
I thought. In another year or two,
Mary was dead, and 5 years or so
after that, so was Duane.
-
Mary went to the kitchen, busying
herself with small-chores and to
make us tea. We went downstairs;
a cavernous basement, about the
size of 4 of the basements I was
used to seeing, as one. Completely
fixed over, really nice, and vast -
long work tables, a few computers
(all desktop unit and towers; this
was long before laptops and IPADs
and hand-helds, etc). One corner
area was a rather plush bar and
card-table area. There were a few
leather armchairs, and computer
chairs and desks, etc.; a record
collection, and some sort of TV,
though I can't recall what. All
told, kind of a very studious,
men's clubby, feel. From outside,
all of this came off as just another
mansionesque estate-section home
in high, exclusive, West Orange, NJ.
Pretty cool, thought I. We sat down
and began discoursing - and then
it was that I realized the origination
for the curious oddness I'd sensed.
The guy constantly gasped and
choked/coughed as he talked. He
would die, as I said, a few years later,
of the emphysema he admitted too,
with those clear tubes for breathing,
into the nostrils, etc. He admitted,
as I watched, to chain-smoking; 2,
sometimes near 3 packs a day! The
smoked wreath was everywhere,
the odor and the pallor, together
combined. Even funnier, the
Gateway computer set-up I
received, initially a light tan,
was all grimed up with yellow,
as a result of the smoke and tars
in the air, or however that goes.
I took tedious amounts of time,
once back to the office, in cleaning,
dousing, Q-tip swabbing and
generally freshening up all
the units. Incredibly, the pail
water came out as a sick-looking
yellow grime.
-
Anyway, Duane and I and Mary
went over all this - they were
aware of the health issues and the
problems it presented. His doctor,
said Duane, was livid over the
condition; and Duane knew he was
doomed, and admitted to it (while
lighting up yet another). His point
was, the damage was done, the
accumulation was accumulated,
and he could back out of it now,
so his cocktails and cigarettes
continued. I don't know what Mary
died from, but he told me of her
sickness, and decline, and death,
as it occurred. Duane used to come
to visit me, at Barnes & Noble, after
she was gone, and in his own decline,
and we'd sit. Coffee, Discussion,
We went over books, ideas, and
issues. He always, also, brought
packets of snapshots, and we had
to (tediously, again) go through
each one. It was a bit sad. They
were of his and Mary's travels,
worldwide stuff, from the 1950's
up through the 80's - Japan,
Greece, Corsica, Capri, France,
Spain, Africa, pretty much you
name it. It's a sad thing to be
exposed to that - seeing those
you know, in their earlier days,
with joy and cheer and promise;
their adventures and travels. And
then to have to realize decline and
sickness and death, with one party
missing the other, sorely. When I
found out Duane died, it was too
late; a week or two had already
passed, I was surprised at the
outpouring and concern and
affection, and respect too, for
him. College people, alumni
(I forget his big-school connection,
some major university, from back
then. Maybe it was Georgetown;
or Lehigh, or one of those.
Everyone seemed to have a
Duane story or a memory they
wanted to post. I forgot too
mention, too, which memory
this just rang up, Duane kept
buying new Corvettes, replacing
each one, and at the end, in his
photos, he was in proud possession
of a new, shiny-perfect, blue one
-
Once this was all done, I took the
the Gateway set-up and installed
it at the office. Learning experience
too. I retired the little Apples, and
took one home. Which is when the
initial idea hit me - for all these
Rudiments and writings and chapters
and the five or six other books I've
got here. And then, lo and behold!
before I knew it Duane had a second
unit to give me! Same deal; this one
I took home, replaced everything else,
and that's how i got online and set for
this work. my thinking was to do
something I considered different. I
could write paragraphs about my
miserable life - the flubbs, the
missed opportunities, the errors,
the dead-ends, the experiences,
places, people, feelings and the
rest. But anyone could do that;
it's the easiest task to do. I decided
that I could do something along
the lines of 'telling' the stories but
at the same time interspersing them,
heavily, with diversionary references
and discursive rambles bringing in
other 'info' facts, knowledge and
learnings and things to be referenced.
So, thanks to Duane, I'd gotten started
with something that has become a
deep passion - researching, finding,
talking about, things that only touch
on each other, perhaps, incrementally,
but which allow me to tell a story,
relate something, and bring in the
untold side-issues of the outside
knowledges behind things : much
like mentioning Art in a touch
on the Studio School, than having
'Art' led me to a story on the 'circle,'
and shapes and forms and volumes,
which then brings me to the moon.
Lunar passages. shadings and the
stealthy, gauze-net of moonlight
over the New York moors!
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