12,663. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,002

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,002

(filling spaces with old new things)

I don't think a person should

go along berating themselves

for things done or not done.

After all, retrospective viewpoints

add little to the forefront, it's all

about the rearward view. In

the case here of what I'm writing

about, I had NYC at my fingertips,

in a wide, opening, world, but I

availed myself very little of its

resources or opportunities. My

father, as I recall, had a great

fascination for Bakelite. I think

it was an early forerunner, or

maybe just a heavier, black, 

version of, plastic. It was thick,

often used for radio bodies and

things like that, and then I guess 

they began dying it, for color.

Maybe too it got some automotive

use. I can remember it pretty well,

as it often broke off, in small slabs,

at the corner, so that often a radio

or clock-body would have a chip

or a broken piece at the corner or

end. I suppose it was a brittle

mix, baked hard. Kind of cool.

-

I used to think that was what

experience was like. Broken off

remnants of things done; a person

could horde and treasure the chips,

or just throw them away. In the case

of my father, it was all different,

since probably for his generation it

appeared the same as a wonder-drug or

new and daring concoction. By my kid

days it was already old hat, and then

by 1960, the lighter plastics were

well-established  -  transistor radios,

everything more portable. Even the

old, black, heavy telephones, with

receivers, and ear pieces and mouth

pieces too, were replaced. That must

have appeared as a quickly fleeting,

new but already old, world to him.

-

When I got to NYC, everything was

like that for me. Alterable, in a fairly

stringent mish-mash between old and

new. When I see photos now of the

older, 1967 days, I'm amazed by the

cars and things I see that were still

on the streets of New York. Those

old hump-backed Hudsons and

Buicks, cars of the early 1950's and

1948/49, were really then not

yet 20 years old, still in use, and

fairly prevalent. Pretty amazing. To

understand a modern world correctly,

you have to be living it. Then, like

now, I wasn't living it; the spaces

I was in were still old. Old spaces

have different shapes and depths,

the idea of 'room' is different. If

you've ever walked through a home

or a building from the 19-teens or

before, you'll know what I mean.

Not just ceiling heights and wood

finishes; there are other things too.

Dividers between rooms were different,

hallways and lobbies, the expanse of

glass, windows, everything of that

nature bespeaks a different working

view of the idea of world and space.

Double-glass-doors between rooms,

social area settings, etc. The Studio

School itself was a prime example of

any of this  - a great swirling center 

staircase, rear-glass doors to a center

courtyard, great winding and confined

staircases between the three interlocked

buildings. Railings, corners and edging.

Everything was from somewhere else,

some hazy other-world of time and space.

A Teddy Roosevelt/ Woodrow Wilson

wrestling match of different things. I

was often silent. Speechless; just taking

it all in. Life, in that respect, was good.

I was growing, expanding my own

horizons as I made them up. Filling

spaces with old new things.

-

So, what does one do with any  of this

information flowing through their mind?

I took mine and kept it personal and

kept it small. At the Studio School,

I was living in a basement spot with

a small area where often enough

others came by to sit around. It

was in that space, which  -  by itself  -

was enough to teach me of the old,

as I mingled with the new. There

were lots of differing attitudes

there. Money and ideas which

were just plain different to the

New York crowd, used to a

completely different level of

existence than what I'd ever 

faced off. Mostly these weren't

the green-lawn and bicycles sort

of people. They were more used to

having privileged spaces, vast

interiors, pre-war apartments,

probably doormen and a father

with titles and degrees. Careers

and professionals. As they talked

I could tell the differences that

were so apparent. I have no idea

what I may have looked like to 

them. One guy gave me a

sandwich one day, and then

audaciously remarked on how

quickly I'd consumed it!

Hunger talks, nobody walks.

-

It was probably at the point too

that I realized a lot of this 'Art'

stuff, to them, was just a form

of slumming. Like a scholar reading

'On the Road' and pretending it was

great. ('Scholars' always hate, or

hated, that book, thinking it represent

the classes beneath them, screwing

through life). It was the same way

they all viewed the 1940's NY Art

scene  -  distasteful and rude. 'Cedar

Tavern? How gross; what were

those people thinking.' I could

almost read their thoughts. It
was impossible, or seemed so,
for them to separate status and
rank from anything else. Art, for
them, did not stand alone at all.
It was 'part' of the better-living
ethos, and if it was really good
it could bring you a ton of money
from your old-network connections
of the monied buyers and the
prideful collectors your parents
probably already knew. It seemed
like the table was always already
set for them. In that respect
there was no sense in working 
hard. They were hardly working.
It all had already made sense to 
them. By contrast, my continuing
muddle was my own, without any
real resources except for those
I'd maybe be able to dig up.