by Ron Padgett
WHILE READING THE STAR
I can’t wait to tell you what I saw this afternoon, while reading the Star at the dining room table, right in the middle of this story all about how Suzanne Pleshette and her husband—(who isn’t very cute at all)—were vacationing out on their yacht in the middle of the ocean somewhere—(not that looks are everything, of course)—when suddenly an airplane came swirling down from out of the sky right at them, when suddenly I glanced up from the paper, and there right in front of me, but inches away, were two flies fucking! They didn’t seem to be enjoying it much though. But it was interesting to watch. At least for a while. How they do it (just in case you’re wondering) is rather like how dogs do it: one humping the other from behind. Well—so much for X-rated insect life in Vermont. However—(and just in case you’re wondering what happened to Suzanne Pleshette and her husband)—it was a very close call. The airplane crashed down into the ocean, but yards from the yacht, out of which climbed two pilots in floating devices, who turned out to be dope smugglers (!) and were eventually turned over to the “proper authorities,” much to the relief of Suzanne Pleshette and her husband, who—(I forgot to tell you this part)—were celebrating a much needed second honeymoon.
BIRD LIFE IN VERMONT
A thrilling and tragic thing happened this morning on the front porch, where some sparrows built a nest under the eave, to lay their eggs in, which hatched into babies, that kept getting bigger and bigger, until finally this morning, right in front of my very eyes, they just got up and flew the coop! As though there was nothing to it. (Or as though they’d been sneaking out at night, secretly rehearsing behind our human backs.) And so as though by some prearranged signal—like “One, two, three, go!” —they got up and went. Fanning themselves out, each into a different direction, each into a life of its own. All except for one, that is, who flew right into the side of the house with a tiny “thud” and—alas—is of this particular world no more.
HOW JANE AUSTEN DROPS A BOMB
“ . . . she could not help feeling a small pang of something which could only be described as jealousy.”
TRUE LOVE
It’s the little things that you do . . . like filling up the ice trays: the special way you have of putting the unmade tray on top of the made tray, so that when I go for ice, I spill water all over myself, that really drives me up the wall most fondly, in retrospect.
THE ZUCCHINI PROBLEM
The zucchini problem, if you don’t have a garden, does not exist. And if you have a garden, you know all about zucchini. But still—having brought up the issue, I must say something. Well, the plant itself is certainly impressive, to say nothing of aggressive. As are—too—the vegetables it bears. And you wouldn’t believe how many unusual zucchini recipes are running about, if not amuck, around this time of the year when—(now here’s where we come to the real zucchini problem)—you can’t even give them away!
TODAY
What a beautiful and violent day today is! What with the trees all twisting and tumbling about in the wind. Twirling down to the ground those recent invasions of yellow and orange and red “specks” that sink the heart into the pit of the stomach—all aflutter with butterflies—as though just around the corner is yet another first day of school. Over there is purple in the browns of distant brush. While overhead, big puffy clouds are zooming about, revealing from time to time large patches of the most blue-blue of skies. (As the eventual probability of steel gray and deadly silence simultaneously lurks.) Autumn is in the air. Though it’s only flirting today. It is just the kind of day I can imagine Vlaminck might have painted well, had his color been more particular and pertinent, had his “vision” been less preconceived. (Conceptual?) But then I’m partial—though simply a matter of taste—to artists who “stoop” more to the moment. Because I find the idea of it more exciting, I suppose—(for the risk involved?)—and grander a stance. Though when reduced to a stance, just as predictable as “conceptual,” I suppose. (Do I suppose too much? And why should “predictable” be a dirty word?). . . And so from out of this corner I have written myself into, am I going to conclude (Gulp!) that (No!) it all boils down to the same thing? With apologies (P.S.) to Vlaminck: a painter much too easy to knock, to knock.
MY FRIEND
There’s this one little bug—so tiny really—say an eighth of an inch long, and as thin as a sliver—with a very simple and symmetrical design finely enameled upon the shell of his body in red and green—as sophisticated as a zinnia bud, or an Art Deco cigarette case—that is just so beautiful—so worthy in my enthusiasm of being glorified into a central window of a major European cathedral—that has been living upon a particularly large sunflower leaf for over a week now. I check him out daily. Never really expecting him to still be there, as with each day more so, it does seem to be a lot to expect. But there he still is—(or was this morning)— : my friend. And like a rock by chance encountered, all mine. To microscopically indulge in. To romanticize. (To write about!) Passing on to you, what I find to be so very special—a snapshot—to make life more realistic and rememberable, for me too.
A State of the Flowers Report
(Vermont 1979)
—For him who grew
and grows them—
Well, the apple blossoms are gone of course. No more tulips. No more daffodils. No more dandelions. (Such big ones I’ve never seen before.) Nothing left of them now but random white balls of fuzz, lurking in obscure corners the wind finds hard to get at, evidently. And the forget-me-nots are decidedly on their way out. Though not to be forgotten. As we love them just that much. Some modest lavender irises have just bloomed. Though they fade from mind considering a single new sturdy one—frilly of petals—of the particular color you get when mixing orange and purple together, if the proportions are just right. (A brown so rich it deserves another name, all its own.) And the rose hip bush is beginning to bloom. Just two or three so far, but many buds. Which is going to be awfully pretty, the past informs me, laden with heavy clusters of pink wild roses, of not too many petals, with yellow straggly centers. Which instantly scatter onto a table top, if picked into a bouquet. Stems literally packed with tiny thorns of a relatively harmless nature. (As opposed to those sparser sharp ones that jut out of long-stemmed roses—dark red buds—wrapped up in green waxy tissue, in a long white box, from a city florist, on special and rare occasions, with a card enclosed, or sometimes excitingly not, that more often than not droop their heads before given a chance to open out.) Though most spectacular of all right now are the poppies. Especially the big bright red floppy ones, which “glow” from a hint of inner orange. With petals so deceptively vulnerable to the wind (though not the rain) they so wildly surrender to. Each petal with a dark black velvety spot, that narrows down into a large purple “button,” like an intricately tied and tried—(into a “high art” form)—oriental “knot.” Though the pink and white ones, alas, recall to mind much too vividly those toilet paper flowers stuck into the chicken-wire holes that floats in local parades are made out of for me—personally—to like very much. Like hollyhocks, they seem too artificial to be “of the earth.” And the chives, which are taking over the patio (for lack of a better word) with clover-like flowers the bees like to suck so much, are really going bananas. As are the devil’s paintbrushes, across the way, quite presumptuously heading towards a total takeover of the large expanse of green that edges and defines the woods. A wildflower I only know the name of thanks to Jimmy Schuyler, that grows in clusters of three to five or more blooms to a single tall fuzzy stem, bluish in hue. Each bloom a tiny “sunburst,” inwardly bleeding from bright yellow, out into a burnt-orange so rich you could grit your teeth. And lastly and perhaps leastly—though appropriately enough so—is the old snowball bush by the corner of the house. Quite tacky with dignity, as a real survivor. From out of the earth a mass of naked bare stalks, as gray as brown hair becomes, with here or there a green sprig of a token gesture, branch up and twist around and out, into sudden bouts o
f youthful activity: large white balls composed of simple white flowers, that petrify themselves into beige, remaining intact for early autumn to scatter, as it does, and will.
Jimmy Schuyler: A Portrait
Let me be a painter, and close my eyes. I see brown. (Tweed.) And blue. (Shirt.) And—surprise—yellow socks. The body sits in a chair, a king on a throne, feet glued to floor. The face is hard to picture, until—(click!)—I hear a chuckle. And the voice of distant thunder.
January 13th
Mozart is coming out of the machine—real soft—just for company. Like that of a cat, in a room. A bright red Campari and soda sits off to my right, just within arm’s reach. A moment away from the ashtray: a deep blue enameled disk, inlaid with a sliver of white moon and sprinkled with silver specks of something, to represent the stars. All somewhat obscured by three cigarette butts, snuggled up close together—spoon-style—that each says “TRUE” in tiny blue letters, if you look real close. My left leg, over the arm of the chair, swings back and forth, and back and forth. (Shoes overhead cross room.) Outside my window snow is falling down, against a translucent sky of deep lavender, with a touch of orange, zig-zagged along the bottom into a silhouette of black buildings. (The icebox clicks off, and shudders.) And it’s as simple as this, what I want to tell you about: if perhaps not much, everything. Painting the moment for you tonight.
Interviews
The Joe Brainard Interview
by Tim Dlugos
TD: September 26, 1977 . . .
JB: Oh, I’d better close the window.
TD: . . . on 8 Greene Street in the loft of Joe Brainard. This is an interview.
JB: Are you comfortable? There’s more pillows, too, if you want them . . .
TD: This is fine. I’ll sit straight up in my zen position. All right . . . you were born in Salem, Arkansas. Where’s that?
JB: It’s in Arkansas. (Laughs.) It’s over in the upper right-hand corner, more or less.
TD: So it’s like . . . it’s not the mountains, right, it’s not the Ozarks?
JB: Well, it’s sort of on the edge of the Ozarks.
TD: Why did you go to Tulsa when you were a baby?
JB: I don’t know. My parents moved there, but I don’t remember at all. (Both laugh.)
TD: Tell me about Tulsa. I’ve never been there.
JB: I can only tell you about Tulsa when I was there, but it’s changed a lot, ’cause I haven’t been there since 1960.
TD: That’s what I want to hear about.
JB: It’s very new, and it’s a very sweet city, ’cause everyone’s sort of like the way people are in the Middle West. You know how that is?
TD: I’ve only been to Ohio, that’s the only part of the Middle West . . .
JB: Well, they don’t cause trouble. Everything’s smoothed over, so it’s a very pleasant life. And it’s surprisingly smooth, I mean there’s no drama, it seems to me . . .
TD: So you had no childhood traumas?
JB: No I didn’t. I mean, I had my own traumas, but they didn’t have anything to do with Tulsa.
TD: What were yours?
JB: Well, stuttering was the big one. And just a general inferiority complex, like most artists, probably.
TD: Were you “popular” in school?
JB: No. (Laughs.) Well, I think I was popular when I was a kid, before, like in grade school. I was popular, and it was very nice, and I was a good artist and everything. But then I got to the early teens, and was pretty out of it. I was homely as a board fence, skinny, stuttered, and a total misfit.
TD: How did you meet Ron Padgett and Dick Gallup?
JB: In my high school.
TD: Were they all out of it too?
JB: Yeah, they were out of it in different ways. They were out of it because they thought everyone was very silly and dumb, and they were intellectual. So they were out of it in that way, which was totally not the way that I was out of it. I wanted to be in the social clubs, and everything. But then since I was out of it, I could get together with them. It was strange, it all worked out. We were all in the same position. So we started a magazine. Or, rather, Ron did. I was just the Art Editor really.
TD: What was it called?
JB: The White Dove Review. We published people like Allen Ginsberg . . . and it was all Ron’s doing, he could write . . . e e cummings . . .
TD: e e cummings?
JB: Yeah . . . LeRoi Jones . . .
TD: When was this?
JB: Around 1959. And then Ted . . . we published Ron and Ted and Dick a lot too.
TD: How did Ted [poet Ted Berrigan] fit in, where was he?
JB: He was in college at the same time.
TD: How did you meet him?
JB: I don’t remember. I met him through Ron, but I don’t know how Ron met him. (Pause.) But the first time I met Ted, I was working in a snack bar at a country club, outdoors by the swimming pool. And he had a crush on one of his students—he was teaching English—and he had a crush on this little, like, twelve-year-old girl, whom he happened to be with, I suppose, because she belonged to the country club. So she brought him to the country club, and he tried to get me to give him a free hamburger.
TD: To give you, or to get her?
JB: To give him a free hamburger.
TD: Oh. What did you say?
JB: No. (Both laugh.) I apologized, but I didn’t know . . .
(BREAK FOR TEA)
TD: So how did you become reconciled, after you wouldn’t give him a free hamburger?
JB: Oh, he didn’t take it personally.
TD: Did you guys kind of follow him to New York?
JB: Actually, we came first. Ron and I came to New York in 1960 when we got out of high school. Ron went to Columbia, and I was going to go to the Dayton, Ohio, Art Institute. I got a scholarship to go there. But I didn’t really want to go there. I just wanted to get East. So I used that to get East.
TD: Why did you want to go East, rather than go to, like, California?
JB: I don’t know . . . I just knew what I wanted was in New York. I don’t know if I got that from movies, or what.
TD: So you lived with Ron when you came to New York?
JB: No. It’s sort of a boring story. He went to Columbia, and I came up with him, but then I went back to Dayton, Ohio, and I went there for about a month. And then I told them my father was dying of cancer so I could leave.
TD: He wasn’t?
JB: No. But I just didn’t want to quit; I felt bad about quitting because I had a scholarship. And also they were all very nice, I didn’t want to hurt their feelings, so I just said that . . . then I moved to New York, and I got an apartment on Second Avenue for $23 a month. Second and Sixth. And Ron was living up at the dorms all this time. And then about a year later Ted came to New York, and I lived with him for awhile, in a storefront, on Sixth Street right next to a meat factory.
TD: Did he have a lot of influence on you, on your work, do you think? On your sensibility, your way of looking at life . . .
JB: Yeah, he had an enormous influence. In fact, I don’t think I’d be in New York . . . because he had this thing where—he’s a teacher, that’s the thing, but at the time he was terrific for somebody who was a little weak, in terms of just doing whatever you want to do and fuck what people think. So that was sort of his message, which I’d never learned. I had the instinct for it, but I didn’t really have the guts.
TD: Did your family put up a great protest when you came to New York?
JB: No, they thought it was terrific.
TD: Do you have any brothers and sisters?
JB: Two brothers. I have a brother in New York now. He’s a commercial artist.
TD: Is he younger, or . . .
JB: Younger. He just got out of college.
TD: Are you the oldest?
JB: No, I’ve got another, older one. He teaches art in St. Louis.
TD: Is your father an artist?
JB: He used to be. When he was young, he was an art
ist. Then he got married and had kids, and got a job in an oil company.
TD: So you guys were encouraged, growing up, to . . .
JB: No, not really encouraged . . . but we weren’t discouraged.
TD: But you all turned out to be artists.
JB: Yeah, but we’re doing it all different ways. I’m not sure it makes that much distinction, but . . . it might.
(BREAK FOR A JOINT)
TD: You said that you didn’t have sex until well after school?
JB: I didn’t come out until I came to New York; I mean after I’d been here I’d say three years. I must have been twenty or twenty-one.
TD: How’d that happen?
JB: I just didn’t look anybody in the eye. (Both laugh.) It was that simple. I tried.
TD: You came to New York in ’59? ’60? What was it like? What was your early work like? What did you do when you first came here? May I have a cigarette? (Both laugh.) Thank you.
JB: The first things I did in New York were inspired by being on the Lower East Side. I don’t know if they still have them, but they used to have all these Puerto Rican religious . . . junk . . . and Catholic, because in Tulsa they have very few Catholics, and it was always very exotic to me, like some secret organization . . .
TD: Like the Masons, to us Catholics . . .
JB: Anyway, it was all over the streets in New York, and I got hooked on it. I started making altarpieces. They were three-dimensional, they were made out of objects, and some of them were very big.
TD: When did you meet Frank O’Hara?