RUDIMENTS 882.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 882

(light over the moors)

Sometime about 1994, perhaps,

(this is going to be a sidebar

diversion, discursive in its own

way), a fellow named E. Duane

Meyer contacted me. He was

some sort of Professor, with a

trail of achievements, who was

currently (late in his life) a tutor

of sorts at Montclair University,

coaching kids through their PhD.s

or whatever. He had a small

displacement Kawasaki motorcycle,

maybe a 650, tops, and was a

reader of the monthly newspaper

I was producing. Not much else.

He asked for me to meet him,

at his home, for a proposal he

had. It wasn't much of a thing,

but apparently he was again

soon to be updating his computer

system and, in this case, wished

to turn over his system to the

organization I was fronting.

-

All he wished for was for me

to sign off, for him, some form

attesting to his 'donation' and

its tax valuation, which number

was his own reckoning of value.

I said OK, and we arranged to

meet. He lived in West Orange,

in some really fine English Tudor

style house on a small hill. Up

until this point, for maybe 3 or

4 years, tops, I'd been using a

small Apple Mac, the compact,

small, tan box, with like a 10-inch

black and white screen; word

processor more than anything

I guess. At one point about the

year 2000, these things were

all over the curbs, being thrown

out by people who'd upgraded a

few times already by then. Anyway,

I had 2 of them, and for my purposes

they worked fine - 'user-friendly,'

as the term went. It allowed me

to news-compose, display-box,

line and rule, and numerous other,

simple, composition things. No

Internet or any of that, as I recall.

-

This - in case you are wondering -

is going to be a chapter on how and

why I started all this 'Rudiments'

stuff, and other things, in the first

place; what my thinking was, the

approach, etc. It won't be about

silos, but it's just as good. I ask

that you stay with it, if you can.

-

I went to Duane's house (he never

used the initial E. of his name). I

parked on his inclined drive - a

very fine, stone and brick Tudor

set-up, beautiful windows and

frames, along with wonderful

treatments of wood and stucco.

Winding walkway. Small-frame

panels of glass to make up the

windows, Very detailed and nicely

kept, as was the yard. He let me

in; doing so with his wife, Mary.

If Duane was 65, Mary was 64;

by which I mean to say they were

close. Perhaps even 70. Don't know.

Mary was cute and quite petite.

Duane was tallish, balding, glasses.

They both had curiously lined faces,

I thought. In another year or two,

Mary was dead, and 5 years or so

after that, so was Duane.

-

Mary went to the kitchen, busying

herself with small-chores and to

make us tea. We went downstairs;

a cavernous basement, about the

size of 4 of the basements I was

used to seeing, as one. Completely

fixed over, really nice, and vast -

long work tables, a few computers

(all desktop unit and towers; this

was long before laptops and IPADs

and hand-helds, etc). One corner

area was a rather plush bar and

card-table area. There were a few

leather armchairs, and computer

chairs and desks, etc.; a record

collection, and some sort of TV,

though I can't recall what. All

told, kind of a very studious,

men's clubby, feel. From outside,

all of this came off as just another

mansionesque estate-section home

in high, exclusive, West Orange, NJ.

Pretty cool, thought I. We sat down

and began discoursing - and then

it was that I realized the origination

for the curious oddness I'd sensed.

The guy constantly gasped and

choked/coughed as he talked. He

would die, as I said, a few years later,

of the emphysema he admitted too,

with those clear tubes for breathing,

into the nostrils, etc. He admitted,

as I watched, to chain-smoking; 2,

sometimes near 3 packs a day! The

smoked wreath was everywhere,

the odor and the pallor, together

combined. Even funnier, the

Gateway computer set-up I

received, initially a light tan,

was all grimed up with yellow,

as a result of the smoke and tars

in the air, or however that goes.

I took tedious amounts of time,

once back to the office, in cleaning,

dousing, Q-tip swabbing and

generally freshening up all

the units. Incredibly, the pail

water came out as a sick-looking

yellow grime.

-

Anyway, Duane and I and Mary

went over all this - they were

aware of the health issues and the

problems it presented. His doctor,

said Duane, was livid over the

condition; and Duane knew he was

doomed, and admitted to it (while

lighting up yet another). His point

was, the damage was done, the

accumulation was accumulated,

and he couldn't back out of it now,

so his cocktails and cigarettes

continued. I don't know what Mary

died from, but he told me of her

sickness, and decline, and death,

as it occurred. Duane used to come

to visit me, at Barnes & Noble, after

she was gone, and in his own decline,

and we'd sit. Coffee, Discussion,

We went over books, ideas, and

issues. He always, also, brought

packets of snapshots, and we had

to (tediously, again) go through

each one. It was a bit sad. They

were of his and Mary's travels,

worldwide stuff, from the 1950's

up through the 80's - Japan,

Greece, Corsica, Capri, France,

Spain, Africa, pretty much you

name it. It's a sad thing to be

exposed to that - seeing those

you know, in their earlier days,

with joy and cheer and promise;

their adventures and travels. And

then to have to realize decline and

sickness and death, with one party

missing the other, sorely. When I

found out Duane died, it was too

late; a week or two had already

passed, I was surprised at the

outpouring and concern and

affection, and respect too, for

him. College people, alumni

(I forget his big-school connection,

some major university, from back

then. Maybe it was Georgetown;

or Lehigh, or one of those.

Everyone seemed to have a

Duane story or a memory they

wanted to post. I forgot too

mention, too, which memory

this just rang up, Duane kept

buying new Corvettes, replacing

each one, and at the end, in his

photos, he was in proud possession

of a new, shiny-perfect, blue one

-

Once this was all done, I took the

the Gateway set-up and installed

it at the office. Learning experience

too. I retired the little Apples, and

took one home. Which is when the

initial idea hit me - for all these

Rudiments and writings and chapters

and the five or six other books I've

got here. And then, lo and behold!

before I knew it Duane had a second

unit to give me! Same deal; this one

I took home, replaced everything else,

and that's how I got online and set for

this work. My thinking was to do

something I considered different. I

could write paragraphs about my

miserable life - the flubbs, the

missed opportunities, the errors,

the dead-ends, the experiences,

places, people, feelings and the

rest. But anyone could do that;

it's the easiest task to do. I decided

that I could do something along

the lines of 'telling' the stories but

at the same time interspersing them,

heavily, with diversionary references

and discursive rambles bringing in

other 'info' facts, knowledge and

learnings and things to be referenced.

So, thanks to Duane, I'd gotten started

with something that has become a

deep passion - researching, finding,

talking about, things that only touch

on each other, perhaps, incrementally,

but which allow me to tell a story,

relate something, and bring in the

untold side-issues of the outside

knowledges behind things : much

like mentioning Art in a touch

on the Studio School, than having

'Art' lead me to a story on the 'circle,'

and shapes and forms and volumes,

which then brings me to the moon.

Lunar passages. shadings and the

stealthy, gauze-net of moonlight

over the New York moors!