RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,241
(building fires in the snow)
I always had my epiphanies,
when younger, as certain things
occurred. There were happenings
and observations that would set
me rolling. I never was able to
understand what was happening,
and it was often weird. As a for
instance, or two, the paintings of
Albert Pinkham Ryder and the
paintings of Caspar David
Friedrich were always enough
to send me away - into a sort
of psychic swoon about reality
and the life I wished to lead :
Intolerable without definition,
I'd go anywhere I could to find
a painting or gallery/museum
show that included or featured
anything by them. The same
went for works by Joseph
Cornell - there was a place
on the corner of 57th street
and Madison Ave. (still there,
now a landmarked building)
called The Fuller Building. It
had been built and dedicated,
for the 1920's when much of
57th street was dedicated to
the arts, style and fashion [some
blocks west, along 57th, to the
Art Students League building
still proudly stands, along with
an apartment house or two, of
great luxury and panache, which
were built to house artists, the
art crowd, and their studios].
Within The Fuller Building
right through the 1980's and
probably still today, though
maybe diminished, were some
15 or 20 art galleries, exclusive
and for the wealthy too, that
displayed art and artists of
name and reputation - so that
at any time within these changing
exhibits it could be possible to
stumble upon something by any
one of the artists I mentioned;
just randomly displayed - an
entire serving, often, of pure
luck. Things could range from
Andre Derain to Toulouse
Lautrec. It was that random.
-
In any case, I'd scout the building
and visit the changing exhibits as
often as I could. Going 'uptown'
like that was a big deal to me, on a
sort of 'Studio School' art-student
trek. I'd study all sorts of art, in
the Fuller Building as well as the
other galleries and places liberally
sprinkled around that area. It could,
and most often was, an entire day
out by subway and foot, or just
walking. Everything was wide
open, and - as I said - the
odd and recurring moments of
clarity were always treasured by
the young me. Banked, in fact,
to be held for future use.
-
It's a pinnacle of achievement, in
its way. Achieving those moments
felt heroic and brave - like going
outside a building a fire in the snow,
as if I was at Washington's Crossing
or someplace - cold, desolate, but
in place and able to be withstood
because of strength and forbearance.
A 'right' vibration that rang on all
the bells and frequencies. I compare
all that now to the means and manner
of 'America' today, and I realize that
that sort of energy and emotion is
all gone. This nation is now, by
contrast, flaccid, beat, wasted, and
gone - no aspirational moments
left. Nothing that rings any bells.
-
We are adrift now in a country where
the only growth industries are the
medical professions and Big Pharma.
We make nothing of value; all that
the daily energies of endeavor and
work go towards are for convincing
people they are ill or sick, with
something duly advertised with the
usual media overkill, pandering, and
over-reach. Any entertainments that
are made shoot for the most-common
variety of foul-grossness, portraying
disasters, gross people, faulty values
and designations. All other values have
been turned inside out, and no one
cares or even notices. If I had had
to live in those days (my) at the
Fuller Building and the Studio School
within an atmosphere and environment
of the sort that is prevalent today, I
don't think I could have. I'd have
rather jumped from a building. The
world I saw there - from the lowliest
coal-fired horse-stable guys with whom
I also spent time, to the fire-barrel
cast-off guys, with their broken and
sorrowful lives of loss and regret -
was a curious late 1960's / 1970's
world of such - by comparison -
still quickly diminishing, standards
of older values and meaning. There
was still some solidity around.
People knew how to be quiet. The
funny thing was how, at that time,
my inclinations were to fight
against them too. It was a strange
time, and it's been said that all
youth soon enough changes into
the elders it once despised. Maybe
all that's true after all.
-
I had little strength, and no money.
Those two things, combined, can
either make one very angry and
destitute, or it can act as a check.
I guess for me it all acted as a
check, in a negative way, since -
over a short amount of time, all
of my remaining ideas of worth
and value were also gone. Though
I was living freely, and unfettered,
I was scarred, and a wreck. Dropping
an 'r,' I may also have been scared.
I realized I was becoming passive;
observing things, but not doing things.
Everything I lifted my hand to was
an opposition - to something: the
freaky anti-warriors around me,
screaming foul on Vietnam, or
their antagonists, the gung-ho
fight and kill bunch intent on,
apparently, destroying another
country while at the same time
'preserving' their own by decimating
and completely rattling their own.
Fair is fair and foul has always
been foul, but I did see a lot of
real bastards go down in my way.
By the time of that 11th street
bomb-making brownstone
explosion - the dead and the
missing, and those who fled -
I was neck-deep into troubles
I never wanted.
-
So, I mentioned the idea of building
fires in the snow. That's good, yes,
as long as you can stay with 5 or 6
feet of the fire. Once you step away,
it's all as cold as ever and as cold as
it was before that 'fire' arrived.
No comments:
Post a Comment