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Tuesday, June 25, 2019

RJP/RIP





 My father was eighty years old when he died of a heart attack. It was early morning, Oct. 7, 1981, he was sitting by the side of his bed, having just woke up, he was dressed, with one shoe on and one shoe off, when he fell over into his bed. All that week I had been in Manhattan,  staying at my sister's apartment, working for a friend on the renovation of an Upper East Side town house. At 5:am I woke up suddenly as if jolted by an electric shock, and sat bolt upright in bed. Without a thought in my head, I got up, walked to a window that looked south on 78th St. from the fifth floor and watched as across the street on the same floor a young attractive brunette woman stood in front of her bathroom mirror, her robe open, breasts exposed, and washed her face. 
After she dried her face with a towel she began, slowly, with the concentration of an artist working on a canvas, to put on her makeup. She rubbed a cream into her face with upward strokes and strained across the sink to look closely at herself. She could have been in her mid thirties or early forties. Carefully, she worked on her eyes, brushing her brows, drawing in eye liner and adding mascara. She sponged on a base and patted on powder, and lined her lips with a lip liner; then she filled in the drawn space with lipstick. She looked at herself with what could have been a seductive look and disappeared into the faded yellow background of the rest of her apartment. I went back to sleep.  

When the phone rang, at seven, it was my mother. "Hi, I'm not sure, I think Dad is dead," she said. She had had the presence of mind to call the police. A cop got on the line. "Hi Tony, It's officer Segelkin, your mother's a little confused. I'm sorry. Your father is dead. It looks like he's been dead for a couple of hours. I'm just waiting for the coroner." I knew, immediately, that I had been awakened by my father. I felt, before I had a chance to think about it, that the woman across the street had been involved with us in some kind of synchronicity. It was a comfort.

Still, I was in somewhat stunned state as I walked to the crosstown bus to be with my sister who was staying with her soon-to-be husband. She had unnerved me on the phone, going straight into a bawling fit of grief. I however remained numb and cool. Between Madison and Fifth I saw in slow motion a cinder lofting toward me on a breeze. It landed like a meteor on the globe of my eye. The pain kept me focused until my future brother-in-law could extract it with a Q-tip. My sister, hysterical when I got there, was distracted by my eye problem and began to rearrange furniture in anticipation of moving in.
Helping her move an antique high-boy in the hallway, I felt my back go out as I lifted my end. It felt like ripping flesh but didn't become paralyzing pain until my days chores were done; driving my sister out to the East End, and comforting her and my mother. 
                                                                                  


I was home alone when the Funeral Director called to say my father's ashes were ready; mother and sister were out shopping for groceries. I became too anxious to wait, and dragged my still spasming back off the couch, walked down the gravel driveway through the scrub oak woods to the highway and started walking into town. I was picked up by a guy I went to High School with, a stocky, bristle-cutted carpenter, who I'd never really gotten to know real well, and who turned out to be a soft spoken, nicely sympathetic man. I explained my mission, he dropped me off in front of the Funeral Home, and I was welcomed into the office of Mr. Yardley, the owner of the business, and given a small cardboard box, the size of a pet rock, the old man's ashes, and his Bulova watch, a new model, thin, with a blond leather strap. For a second, I felt lucky, like it was unexpectedly Christmas.  A watch.  I'd inherited something.  
   
Just to the South of Montauk light, at a fishing spot he loved called Caswell's, while my mother and sister stood on the shore weeping and throwing wild rose petals into the air, I stood in pain, on a slippery rock, and shook the old man's ashes from the little box into a tidal pool. The energy it took to cope with the pain in my back worked better than the strongest mental straight-jacket tranquilizer to keep me from feeling much emotion. I could only focus on my task at hand, and guess at what my feelings might be. I felt like a soldier. I felt like I was doing something heroic just being there.
    
The old man had been born in a seaside hamlet in Yugoslavia, to a Roman Catholic Croat father and an Orthodox mother. Though not religious, he considered himself a spiritual man who had been blessed with certain special dispensations because of his being an artist.
When I had gone off to college in my late teens, my mother called to say she had talked the old man into getting married in the church. (Catholic.) I was surprised by this sudden concern with religion, I expected it came mostly from my mother, who had intermitant bouts of religiosity, and I was doubtful that he would go through with it.
  
He did, but when the priest told him he would have to attend Confession and Communion, he said matter-of-factly that he had no sins, and the priest accepted his proclamation. He charmed his way straight to Communion and a quick ceremony and was back in his studio in a couple of hours.

From:  Hold Still, a memoir in progress, by me. 

Friday, June 21, 2019

Annual Report, 6/21/2019



For the record:  I'm six months into my 76th year.  My sister, who is three years younger than me, broke her little toe last week. She plans to travel to London in a few days so I hope her toe will be alright. My significant other, Martha, continues to divest herself. This is slightly unnerving to me.

On a lighter note, we have a nice selection of birds in our yard; that is our yard we share with other condominium residents. We have Muscovys, Herons of various types, Egyptian Geese, Black Ducks, Whistling Ducks, Mud Hens, a nesting Thrush family, an Osprey, and other's I can't think of. Also, looking out the window I can see the Riding Stable where until recently I was half-leasing a Missouri Foxtrotter named Spirit. It's gotten too hot, so I've taken a sabbatical, after which I'll ride one half-hour a week just to keep my seat so that I can go to a week-end "Horse-camp", on the way up North Labor Day Weekend.
The reading list is as follows; still reading, very slowly, a bio of DeKooning, titled DeKooning*, which puts me into a state of fascination with the Bill centered life the pleasure of which I can only stand for short bursts. DeK. was something in the way of a combination Rock Star and stuffed animal, mixed with a stand-up act. He was the center of gravity in the world that I, as a mostly silent observer, lived in from pre-adolescence into middle age. I'll probably still be picking at it all through this hot Florida Summer.

My excuse for stopping the horse lease had to do with wanting to build up some energy toward doing some writing. We'll have to see where that goes.


I'm reading what used to be known as a dirty book. Mandingo. It's about slavery. In the mid-sixties, while living in Manhattan, it seemed to be what everyone was reading on the subway and on buses. I probably would have been ashamed to read it at the time, it having to do with what seemed to me to be a taboo subject, but its appeal back then seemed to be mostly prurient. I wasn't in to prurient at the time, being focused on romantic drinking. Now I'm reading it to see what I missed. I'm sure confessing to reading it brands me a racist. Luckily, it doesn't matter because I'm not famous. And I'm not rascist. And if you still have doubts, then I'll say I'm a Lacanian.
    I'm still reading The Portable Chris Langan, re-reading Patriarchy and Incest from Shakespeare to Joyce, a fascinating book, first-reading Robert D. Kaplan's In Europe's Shadow, his book about Romania; I'm picking through Balzac's Droll Stories, Picking at Sizek's The Parallax View, quite difficult going, re-reading John Petrovic's Physics of the Non Physical, wonderful book, just finished Ingo Swann's Penetration, (loved it), am now half way through his book Reality Boxes, which finds me sort of hooked on the late Mr. Swann, and that's about it.

In the car, while doing errands, I listen to Legends Radio, out of Palm Beach, and I'm hooked on that, the American Songbook, because I love Keeley, and Ella, and Tony Bennett, (though not his painting), and Louis Prima and a cast of thousands.

I also spend a few minutes each day watching old clips of Rodeo footage on something called The Cowboy Channel, which I don't know why Comcast gives me, but for which I'm grateful.That's about it; right now I'm watching the Royal Ascot with the sound off. On behalf of Equines everywhere, I should say God Bless the Queen.

*7/23/2019  Finished reading the de Kooning book. I very much enjoyed it, and think it's one of the better artist's biographies I've read. During all his days living in East Hampton his charisma as well as the power and beauty of his work were a key ingredient of the Zietgiest that was Springs in those days. I knew many of the people in his circle and had a knowledge of his earlier life that I learned both through reading and by listening to various artists and art-world people including my parents. Of the women in his life that I knew I especially liked Elaine and Susan Brockman. I had coffee and/or breakfast on many occasions with Elaine at Eddies Luncheonette in East Hampton Village. I knew Susan through a small group of friends that often gathered at the home of Dick Schuste. The group included Carlos Anduze, Carlo Grossman, Dick's daughter Toby, and Neil Noland, and perhaps one or two others that I can't recall. It was around that time that Dick became ill with lung cancer and died.    

   

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