RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,290
(don't go away, I have lots more to say)
There was another guy in
Prince I knew, Oliver Morris.
He talked way too much, Oliver did,
and seemed to be always way
too self-absorbed; bordering on
annoying, and wove tales about
himself, impossible to trach down.
I think, but I just don't know.
Robert Capra he wasn't, but he
called himself a famed combat
photographer. His father WAS
some famous photographer,
yes. And Oliver himself had
pages of website stuff that
looked like photos, childhood
stories and memories as a young
boy, amidst his father's large
Euro-crowd. Paris. Amsterdam,
and he had plenty of them to tell.
I just listened, carefully, and I
never challenged. In fact, I
could never tell what he
was doing. He haunted, all
the while as he talked - you
couldn't talk back or reply,
because he was still talking.
In a somewhat mumbly voice.
I really do hate people who
monopolize. At that point -
don't they ever realize - it's
NOT a conversation by any
means, just a prolonged
infatuation, on their part,
about self. Which pretty
much does sum up Princeton,
so I guess it works. But with
him it just got boring. He'd
go on and on about Paris and
the cafes, and New York and
whatever 'cafes' it had that
were always a poor second
to Paris or Berlin or, for that
matter, Budapest. What are
you supposed say back to that?
'Yes, you're right.' - a stupid
and feigned knowledge of
something you know nothing
about. He was always so
damn worldly. I'd be sitting
there, captive, sweating the
fact that I'd just dropped four
bucks for a cup of coffee,
for pity's sake, and he'd still
be running on about 'the
comparative value of the
Parisian pastry he last had
as compared to the
trans-national value of the
old dinar or Turkish money
he used to much prefer when
traveling. Damn, me too.
He'd roll these horrible
cigarettes of his own,
really poorly, and they'd be
flaming out the side while
still stuck in his talking mouth
with an ash eleven feet long.
You're thinking, 'ah...should
I say something about this,
or is that French way for
famous combat photographers
to smoke their, perhaps, final
cigarette before the generals
get them?' He'd pretend to
not even notice, like until
his nose hairs got singed
anyway. He was Boring
to me - that's a capital B,
yet always unavoidable too.
Henri Cartier Bresson this,
Robert Frank that, and he
probably had tea with Diane
Arbus too. And then he'd
just disappear again, for yet
another 4 months. Quintessence,
then, and a sporty pretense too.
To tell you the God's honest
truth, I go by women. And
he never had one with him.
-
Over time, I basically just
had had it up to here with
bookstores. It's nice now to
be able to just punch in a book,
have it come up cheap, not have
to squirm and deal with any of
that salesmanship and leading
you on to a next purchase, and
join this or that, hocus-pocus.
Five days later, it's in your mailbox.
Bookstores all like to play it high
and mighty, but they're not. The
Barnes & Noble store #2946, Clark
NJ, with its unenviable streetside
approach to sales, acted no
different, believe you me, than
did the groveling and twirling
put on by the retail wing of a
'University' class bookstore.
They all try to act quaint and
severe, quiet and busy, all
that gibberish at the same
time. All they really are are
cash-register dragons with
mouths agape. Waiting.
Incredibly now, the Princeton
store is actually stooping -
boy, that must have hurt. They
probably finally realized that
the only 'growth' area left to
them is the ridiculous dead-end
of 'teen' books. What they peddle
now as 'Young Adult.' What a
bunch of crap that is - beyond
all bounds, and a desperate ploy
for money and a betrayal of any
proclaimed ethos. Can you say
'Harry Potter' - yes, again.
Zombie Dress Up Lit Night?
There's a certain strain of drivel
that suddenly starts getting a
capital 'D', and it makes it right.
Jeepers, lock the front door and
go home. I'm afraid the Harry
Potter blight will be with us a
while yet, and others will follow -
because it's a market and there's
money to be made. And it will get
better and better explained, as time
goes on, about its 'importance', 'value'
and groaning symbolism. Yet
another 'academic' sideshow and
scholarly industry to beat us
with. That's what passes for
learning today. These last few
years, I've noticed, Labyrinth has
some Kids' Book podcast thing
they've been doing. I've watched it
any number of times, but it's so frothy
and so perfectly correct - about
everything - that I can't stay with it.
It's very Labyrinthian.
-
Princeton is indivisible, in its
attitudes. The toy store, 'Shazaams'
or something - since it too peddles
books - will be sharing the new
secular saint day for the latest
Harry Potter rollout with both
the library AND (alas!) Labyrinth
Books. You do be there! Kids'
Books, toys, monster crafts. Color
crafts, sleds, model cars and planes,
and dolls too! etc. These are monied
people, and with the already
privileged two year olds in their
two-thousand dollar strollers, they're
set to roll from dollar-day One!!
-
I guess there's a line where 'worth'
crosses 'self' importance' and the
resultant angle or hypotenuse, or
whatever dribble that is, is called
'image.' Which is funny because
that's the root of 'imagination' also,
so it all ties in. It's a good word, but
it also just disproves the reality of
any basis for the 'real' of reality,
with is another mirror word. I
used to think a lot about all this
stuff - just bizarre and crazy
thoughts. There's really neither
a value nor a non-value in such
musings, because they all just
wind up expanding the mind.
Think of that John Lennon song,
Imagine' - what was that, 1973,
maybe '74. I was way tucked in
that Summer for a while up
in Vermont - Hubbardton,
Rutland, Lake Bomoseen,
Proctor. All those weird and
hilly places. Still hiding out.
The Watergate hearings were
on everywhere, John Dean,
Chuck Colson, all those
marvelous, useless
rectal-pinprick creeps.
In fact, the name they'd
given their filthy little illegal
committee itself was 'CREEP',
back in '72, with the break ins
and the lies and the enemies
list and all that: 'Committee To
Re-Elect the President.' Yeah,
that's where they got CREEP
from. I thought that was all
pretty snazzy. Anyway, 'Imagine'
was out about then too - calling
for a re-imagined world beyond
all possibility of the one(s) we
knew. You had to 'image' it, and
bring it forth. Image-ination.
Just like Princeton turned out
later to be. Same deal. A thought
bubble, a particular fantasy and
a made-up persona all my very
own. No one ever knew me,
and I knew, really, no one back.
Just the way I liked it.
-
Two things about Princeton, from
my lower-than-usual, ground angle,
perspective that always amazed, were
these: 1. Oliver Morris, and 2. Fame. Like
David Bowie and John Lennon, who had
worked together as friends on a 'tune'
of it, called 'Fame' (I'll cover #2, Fame,
first), there were peripheral ways of
seeing famous people, all about. John
Nash, until he died. He was always
on the train, to or from the University.
He was already old, had a bodyguard-
helper guy, and sometimes his 35 year
old son too. The son was a raving
troublemaker at times. Back when there
was a Burger King, on Nassau Street, by
the Kiosk, near Palmer Square, he'd sit
in there all day, with a coffee and maybe
a hamburger, but mostly harassing people.
They finally banned him, from the store.
And then, amazingly too, Princeton Boro
made Burger King itself shut down and
leave the town! They said it didn't have
the right panache for the town's image,
and had a constant, too big, sidewalk
spread of grease and unkept-after debris.
It then became just another, expensive and
well-kept, sidewalk/Greek fancied-up diner.
-
Can you imagine a town getting rid of a
Burger King, for 'standards?' I guess they
just look the other way for sub-standards,
or early-morning bussed-in Mexicans slaving
beneath the restaurant fronts and sidewalks.
-
Put aside Burger King, as it's really of
no importance, but Princeton did have
numerous eminences, and I got to know
and sit around with any number of them.
I had a whole other 'secret' life, hidden
into The Physics Department, the Art
Museum and the Art Department, and
even the Faculty Dining over at Prospect
House, was opened to me though my
friend Alan, of the Physics Dept. Some
days, whether early or late, I crept around
campus like I owned it. The famed, broke,
scavenger myself, who fit in everywhere.
-
One last thing on 'eminences' here : a
guy named Matthew Bruccoli. He was,
when we first met, already a famed author
and scholar, with books to his credit, studies
of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Hemingway and
others. When I met him, it was on the Princeton
train, and he sat next to me as I was reading
some obit stuff about John Updike, who had
just died. He picked up on that right, and
from that point just went on about Updike,
current American fiction. how sad it was
that he'd died so early, and from there it
just went on. More on this next chapter.
Don't go away. I have lots more to say.
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