RUDIMENTS, pt.1,289
(the underside of the great place)
Where any of this left me was anybody's
guess. My years in Princeton were a long
time, and they were constantly filled -
and I'll gladly admit - with innumerable
off-bookstore friendships and experiences.
Milton Babbitt, when he was still alive, had
a celebratory concert of some sort. I got an
invite, from a Princeton U. radio personality
I'd become friendly with (The Laughing
Cavalier). Wonderful fellow who then
lived in NYC, now, long retired too, is up
in Westchester County rural. He (Babbitt)
was accompanied, in voice, by Judith Bettina.
He taught at the University, and she was
a long-standing Princeton resident.
The recital was great, and I realized I'd
seen Judith a number of times before in
the downstairs book areas of Labyrinth.
I was astounded by how she, or anyone,
could find a way to sing vocally to that
tone of music. Next time I saw her in
the store, I simply walked up to her and
introduced myself, saying I'd been at the
recent concert/recital and thought it was
magnificent. She was thankful; and then
I asked 'How do you do that? How hard
is it to keep up with all that while singing,
life? She smiled, and simply said, 'Oh, it's
nothing really; it's just what I DO! so I'm
always at the ready and prepared.' I so
loved those interactions. Another one, in
much the same way, occurred when Joyce
Carol Oates made one of her talk/appearances.
She too lived in town and was a regular.
Others? Imiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones). And
Ralph Nader too - a total nut case. For
his signing and book-appearance, he had
to be situated precisely at a particular sight-
line to the staircase, and have a ready-access
to it, for escape or emergency, and he gave
me, after rejecting our usual Pen-Tel markers
for signing, the particular marker he wanted,
and what nib-point, and how many to buy!!!
I forgot to mention, too, that when Imiri
Baraka was there - a cool guy, with whom
I got along well - his son, Raz Baraka, now
the Mayor of Newark, for numerous years,
came in about 10 minutes into the talk, with
his small band of posse-like intimidators
and they staked out the corners of the room.
It was pretty weird.
-
There were, as well, a few weirdos always
snaking around in Princeton, downtown. It's
a curious place, with its own eccentric pockets
and - although much of that is gone now -
it had its share of human-strange wealth. Like
the old, catacomb-like antique bookstore that
used to be up by the top end of town, on the
main strip. The guy who ran it was a total
Tweed-guy, bookish, pipe-smoking, musty
and dark. Endless ancient books clung to the
catacomb-like walls with their cubicles and
shelves. As I recall, it was a church-like
side-entrance, into a cramped and bricked
old underground, and then he, getting old,
had a liquidation sale, and another one
took his place, down a few steps under
the Nassau Street area. They were both
beyond compare, though about a year
and a half after Labyrinth opened, it
too was gone. There were always the
troublesome sorts too. For all the fancy
restaurants and high-status places in
Princeton, there was one dirty little
secret that was never mentioned, and
it involved an almost secondary level of
menial labor, seldom seen. Each morning,
beginning at 7am, the busses would begin
rolling in from New Brunswick and from
Trenton (two opposite directions, with
Princeton at the middle). Right by Bank
America and the kiosk, the doors would
open and probably, all told, 65-70 mostly
Mexican, workers would disembark and
silently trudge past Small World along
Witherspoon Street, and enter any of the
downstairs steps to any of the restaurants,
where they set right to work, cleaning,
washing, unloading the early AM deliveries
and preparing the food trays and kitchens.
There were, easily, 15 or 20 such establishments,
and it always amazed how, though so necessary,
none of this servile labor was recognized. The
constant servitude, enhanced by both silence
and invisibility, always amazed. And yes, I
did wonder, were these folks exploited?
Happy? Were they illegals, falling just under
the shades of presence and accounting? Did
Princeton Boro, in all other respects so stern
and proper, know of this?
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