RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,076
(random standard bearer)
Some people have two different
color eyes. I've know a few. One
of my elementary school teachers
had that condition. I never was
able to figure out how that occurred.
Early on, you see, things baffled me.
If you're creating something, or
making a car, say, you're sure to
be sure that the headlights match,
or the fenders. It always struck me
as well that, in the human condition,
the least you could expect would
be matching eyes. It just symbolized
too much - if ONE thing, like that,
can be so random, whatever other
things are as well? It was scary.
I guessed that was how the real
aberrations arise - wicked, cruel
dictators, mass murderers, etc. A
random mutation of sensibility. One
bad day, maybe at birth, that then
lasts forever. How does something
like that impart any value or
confidence, to life itself?
-
I remember seeing all those Thalidimide
kids, whenever that was, 1959/1960,
being born with flippers and not arms,
small twisted limbs, mis-shapen body
parts, etc. It became a big deal for a
while, with all the tabloid newspapers
always showing these horrible babies.
And then I think Life Magazine, or
maybe Look, did a big picture spread.
and it all had to do with some bad or
errant drug in Britain - parents, or
mothers anyway, unwittingly taking
something in which eventually
deformed their kids. Another item I
just could not understand. Everyone
in my life always looked pretty normal,
though I'd see, in school, some polio
kids, with the steel braces and metal
crutches and twisted hips and all.
By the way, back then was a time
when most every household got their
'Life' Magazine on Saturday. Others
maybe got 'Look' magazine, another
one of the very same format, just a]
wee lesser quality. Their specialty was
large photos, 'exposing' new things
and trends in American life. Beatles.
Little Leagues. Girls' dolls. Modern
architecture. A new dam or big
desert construction project. Or even
the mundane stuff, like James Dean's
mangled death-crash car, along with
an admonishment and short picto-bio
of him and how he went wrong.
Movies. Directors. Starlets. It was
some crazy stuff, and by it the very
boring and quite placid 'tastes' of
1950's American society was set.
People ate it up. A photo-essay
showing how wonderful all those
Kennedy kin were, rich and good
looking, throwing a football around
on the grounds of their Hyannis
family mansion - all, of course,
sown in opposition to that miserable
creature that Richard Nixon was. All
this probably helped greatly in
squeaking the 1960 election Kennedy's
way. All that glamour that everyone
wanted and, it was shown, no one
had, except that glorious Kennedys
and their Camelot clan.
-
Everything was artificial, and no
different that any Hostess Twinkie.
The whole country was a sucker-punch.
When I got to New York, I made sure
I gave myself time and energy to take
in everything, and re-evaluate my entire
life situation, and I did. I can still close
my eyes and remember the sensations,
in those first days, of all that heat, and
the odd smells. Everyplace along
Second Ave. in the single digit streets,
had those basement openings. But
down there, they were more like caves
or strange, dank basement storage areas
from 200 years ago. In some of them,
rocks showed and the stairs were
perilous - but every supply and
re-supply had to be brought in; there'd
be pallets on the street, of goods to be
sold, and everywhere were young
Puerto Ricans, it seemed, lugging
and straining. Because of the heat,
every smell wafted up - the old and
pungent smells of mops and cleansers,
the dank, rat-infested chill air of those
cellars and basement storage areas
each exuded an old, ancient, chill
air. It was unplaceable, in this world,
but I swear it reeked of Thom Paine
and Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman
themselves. The identity of what I'd
step into was unmistakable and I
was eating it up. It was 'History.'
-
So much of everything was new to me.
Everyone else seem like veterans in
that world, and I, in my naivete, was
all new. People talked fast, and it
went right past me. I'd landed in the
area of poor people, with tinny, stupid
radios playing everywhere. WABC and
all that hits crap; Maybe WMCA was
still around too. I forget. But to have to
hear that crap, as if it was any suburban
backyard in Avenel, bugged me. Those
around me seemed not to care; the heat,
the closeness, and all the noise, had no
effect on them. It was pretty crazy.
I'd return to the Studio School to
decompress. That's how nuts is was.
My friend there, Jim Tomberg always
stayed roiled about something, and
I'd begin telling him a tale of what
I witnessed or heard, and then we'd
riff together on it, making it into some
other episode entirely. Jim was always
making sculpture, blazing away, welding,
forming something. That was all a
harsh world I could never get into
or share, or even understand. The
mechanical aspects of it all escaped
me, and bored me too. I was usually
interested in mechanical stuff, cars
and engines, but welding sculpture
just never worked for me. The shapes
and the forms were nothing, and it was
all too much work. These guys, like
Jim, were all into David Smith and
these heavy-metal-formed pieces.
Supposedly light and lyrical too,
even though what they were was
either Corbin Steel or aluminum
maybe. I know you can't even
'weld' aluminum, so I guess they
bolted things. Whatever, civic
sculpture or monumental field
pieces, it cause in me the blahs.
It still does. John Chamberlain.
Richard Serra. And numerous
others. It all needs some 'splainin.'
-
Basically, I was a random standard
bearer for nothing at all. No one
noticed. And none, but me, cared.
And I wasn't so sure I did anyhow.
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