RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,197
(when the mirror-ball dropped)
Once ensconced in Elmira, as
I've noted, I got involved more
and more in my own Mark Twain
web, finding crosscurrents and
paths of his thought and viewpoints
in lots of places. It was a bit odd, but
I dealt with it and carried it along.
The Clemens/Twain family burial
site was fairly easy to return to,
and I did so often. There's a large,
though not too tall, sort of obelisk
marker at the head of the site, on
which are large medallions of Mark
Twain (Sam Clemens) and Ossip
Gabrilowicz. I always felt a bit
off over that shared-glory thing:
Gabrilowicz was a Polish pianist
concert master who had married
Clara (one of the daughters) rather
late in life. The rest of the (large)
family assortment (sounds like
advertising!) is spread out in two
rows. About 6 or 8 years ago
someone stole the large medallion
of Mark Twain's head, and it was
gone for a while, maybe ransomed,
but eventually, yes, located and
returned to its spot. Whoever the
vandals were, they didn't want
the matching Gabrilowicz head.
The location (Woodlawn) is a
large cemetery, with rolling hills
and a number of interesting and
unique grave-sites. I always said
that they had prepared already
for the future; if they stopped
mowing it they could call it
Weedlawn). Hal Roach, the
early Hollywood comedy and
cartoon guy is also in Woodlawn,
as are some important slave people
and other local personages of note.
There's a small directory with
arrows and signs for all this. A
nice place to walk. Mark Twain's
life was littered with family sadness
and moments of tragedy, so seeing
all these family members buried
like that in two rows is a very raw,
telling reminder. Memento Mori.
-
The specific sort of social-criticism
comedy that Mark Twain rendered
was something I studied carefully.
It was an early form of criticism
couched in a twisted humor with
some bitterness entwined. Think,
perhaps, Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce,
and George Carlin all together.
In Mark Twain's day there were,
as today, any number of hot-button
issues (slavery, the war, the south,
emancipation, Reconstruction,
temperance and voting rights,
and women's sufferance too). He
most often (though not always; he
was often in hot water, even in
those pre-media days when the
newspaper lead-times often led
to a few weeks before the 'verbal
bomb' got fully publicized. He
was was often a walking scandal
waiting for the other shoe to drop,
and playing a pre-emptive defense
to head off what he knew was
coming. His comedy was of the
same nature, now, as of me saying
'Isn't it funny how America thinks
it has solved its race problem by
putting, now, black people in the
leads of most commercials?' Or,
say, 'What do you think of Bill
O'Connor's new funeral home?'
With the answer as, 'Oh, I'm
don't know; remains to be seen.'
-
Of course, I just made those
two joke-quotes up because I
don't really know what Clemens,
as Twain, would have made of
this modern day today. (He was
able to keep the Twain and the
Clemens aspects quite separate,
the way today's entertainers and
such manage to do - false names
with loyalties then to the false
characters that result, like two
sides of one of those medallions.
Dylan to Zimmerman to Twain
to Clemens. The list goes on.
-
Nothing of this every bothered
me because, in Elmira I was in
the center somehow of something
quite a bit larger than me. Call
it Destiny, or Fate. My life has
been like that, always. Places
and deeds of monumental import
which, as I followed them, were
good for my own enlightenment
and advancement, but which
otherwise brought me nothing.
As I've stated, numerous times,
I was not 'business,' nor was I
'money' oriented. Quarry Farm
was the residence where the
Clemens' family summered.
The local few plaques (at Elmira
College, to where his 'writing'
shed had been moved) that made
mention of this, in the 1970's,
were quiet and unassuming
about it, simply stating that,
as he 'Summered' here he
worked Huck Finn and other
things. I always changed it,
in the re-telling, to 'Mark Twain
suffered here.')... Anyway, the
entire idea of Quarry Farm as
a tourist destination, in the
1970's did not exist. This
maybe all sounds penny-ante
now, for you to read, but in
my time there I was really
caught up. There was something
of a vortex drawing me in, and
in a mysterious way, to all of this
Clemens/Twain and Langdon
material - things I'd never
known about NOR intended for
in the NYC or Columbia Crossroad
years just before it - more as if
I was following some invisible
smoke-screen of clues and traits
that were drawing me to other
aspects of life. I enjoyed the
Twain atmosphere, the graves,
the touching of the very wood
where he'd dwelt and written.
It was kind of all I needed; some
tactile connection to an open
casket of the past - strong and
solidified and present. I was
learning to 'be' of another time.
My soul and writerly spirit were
leading me, and I was following
it, sure as hell on the way to some
other destination. All around me,
and connected somehow with all
of this, were currents and forces
of creativity and power that I
had suddenly learned to tap into.
Gandy Brody, the artist-in-residence
at Elmira College, with whom I
became friends, was my plug into
the artworld of the 1940's and
50's, the Cedar Tavern, and all
those mad, fomenting beats and
outside-the-academy artists of
Brody's day. along with Brody
came the poet Kenneth Koch.
He too became a taproot. At
the other end of town was Jane
Roberts, for me, other worldy
but more of my world than the
regular world ever could be.
-
So hard it is, now, to place the
right finger on any of this and
say what it was. It's all spectral
as I look back, both for myself,
and for Twain. It was a very
weird world - the way I figure
it now, Mark Twain came out of
the Civil War years (from which
he'd fled, by essentially deserting
his little soldier-militia contingent
after one skirmish, and heading
out to the far west - where no
such war actually existed -
and beginning his writer-life
with Nevada and California
newspapers), and he roiled
'life' as it was lived in those days
in much the same way as, after
WWII, the boomer kids who
became the beats and hippies
altercators of the 1960's did
to their parents and society -
parents who were also still
their fears and imaginings of
WWII in those post-war years
(instead of post-Civil War years),
of the deep and dark 1950's -
kids, tract homes, toasters,
car fins and modernity. Smack
dab right back into the middle
of the same maelstrom, except
this time instead of one Mark
Twain, there were a thousand
Lenny Bruces, Mort Sahls,
and the rest. That where I was
standing when the mirror-ball
finally dropped!
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