The 2CV In Love

The first 18 years of the 2CV’s life were rather uneventful: a series of owners at two-or three-year intervals. Hers was the usual story of a Paris car, five months with a hairdresser, then two years with a high school teacher. She had rather fond memories of seven years spent in the countryside at a vineyard where she only had to go into town once a week.

The defining event of her life happened only two years ago when she was 18, and was for sale at a used car lot in the 20th Arrondissement. “Nani” was purchased by an American college student who was studying Fashion Design at the Sorbonne. From that day her life was completely transformed. She had a garage to herself for the first time in her life, and the American student was completely infatuated with her. The owner, Sarah Meyers, felt that the car was as French as it was possible to be, and being a Francophile, she loved the vehicle to distraction.

If Sarah met anyone, the first thing they were subjected to was a ride in the countryside in her old 2CV, and on these rides Nani heard herself described in the most glowing and adoring terms. Sarah would even pick up hitchhikers on the road to share with them her purely American love for the car, a love not easily understood by the French, for whom the car is not a curiosity.

Sarah decided to do all the routine maintenance to Nani herself, and as a start she purchased the repair manual and read it from cover to cover. Sarah was not too mechanical, but she tried to picture to herself removing the transmission and taking it apart. First of all the oil had to be changed, and after that she would learn about a tune up, and how it is done. She read the passage about changing the oil and discovered there was also an oil filter to be removed and replaced. The directions were not clear to her however, and it took long time trying to find the filter in the engine compartment.

One Saturday morning, Ms. Myers put on some overalls, opened the bonnet of her 2CV, and attempted to remove the oil filter. Never having worked on a car in her life she made three mistakes: first, she did not remove the drain plug at the bottom of the engine; second she tried to remove it by hand; and third, she did not wait for the engine to cool off. This was not a disaster however. She removed her hands from the filter the very instant she felt its heat. She shut the bonnet, went into her apartment, and put Vaseline on her fingertips.

The tragic thing about this little event was that Nani saw it coming. She understood that her new owner was going to do the service herself and she was moved to the depths of her transmission gears with anticipation. She had dreamed of what it would be like and now, instead of the sublime experience she was anticipating, she had injured her owner instead. She was devastated.

On the following Saturday Nani was delighted to find that Sarah returned to her garage for another attempt at her maintenance. The oil change was put off at first and instead a much simpler operation was attempted, the cleaning of the battery terminals. This also resulted in instant failure because as she unscrewed the bolt holding the clamp of the battery cable, she accidentally let the wrench touch both polls of the battery. The wrench produced a huge spark and flew out of her hands onto the garage floor. This, like burning her fingers on the oil filter, was completely unanticipated, but Nani saw it coming also and now considered the situation hopeless.

But Sarah overcame her fears, completed the cleaning of the battery, and by the end of her Saturday session with her car had changed the oil and the filter according to more detailed instructions obtained from the boy at the service station where she bought gasoline. According to her manual the thing she had to do next was a mystery to her. She had to check the level of oil in the transmission. There were no details given in her manual and she couldn't figure out how to go about it. Not knowing what to do she drove down to the service station and, accosting the manager's son asked, "Can you show me what part of my car is the transmission and can you tell me how its oil level gets checked?"

The mechanic pointed out the transmission to her and wiped the dirt from the filler screw. He said, "Unscrew this and put your finger in there, the oil should be just below the opening."  Sarah ignored the very suggestive leer the boy gave her as he explained this very mechanical operation to her but Nani, who was listening to all this, did not. The suggestive looks of the auto mechanic produced in Nani her first experience of jealous rage, and as a result Sarah had great difficulty in getting her started later that morning. These feelings of jealousy were new to the 2CV, and were to persist and cause problems in the future.

What was going on, is that our 2CV, back just two years ago, was falling in love with her owner. This is not an unheard of occurrence, although it is rare. The 2CV was simply responding in kind to the affection her owner was showing her. This business of constantly checking the oil and looking to see if the transmission oil is topped up has a sexual aspect to it and there was no way that this sort of constant automotive petting could not have led to serious sexual responses in the 2CV, and so, at the end of a few months of this treatment Nani was a car hopelessly and passionately in love with her owner. And you have to keep in mind that this passionate involvement was taking place in Paris, a city that exacerbates and inflames passionate feelings. There were late night drives, picnics in the countryside, and cool evenings driving down the Champs-Elysees with the canvas top rolled back.

And then you should consider that Nani was in love with an American girl, a foreigner, whose odd way of speaking French, her accent and mispronunciations gave to the relationship a color, depth, and novelty you only see in movies.

You probably do not believe that a car can be in love and have sexual reactions. People believe that they, and only they have an exclusive monopoly on consciousness, sensation, thought and feeling. This is the reason they are so disconnected from the universe and their life experience is so pathetically limited compared say, to the average squirrel. It never crosses your mind that a mountain knows it is a mountain, the sun knows it is the sun, a car knows it is a car, and that all of these things have rich emotional lives you can never grasp, or even imagine. This truth looks you right in the eye out of the face of any dog, touches you in the caress of any breeze, but it is all lost on you poor people who are the least feeling of all sentient objects in the universe.

The romance ended tragically for Nani, and what made it even worse was the fact that Sarah was never for a moment even aware of the terrible damage she was inflicting on her beloved car. The relationship between Sarah Meyers and the 2CV lasted exactly 18 months, because that is how long Sarah was in France, completing the last year and a half of her time at Vassar.  At no time did she imagine that her ownership of the car would last longer than her stay in France.

For Nani it was a completely different story. In her imagination she saw herself being the only vehicle Sarah would own for the rest of her life. She had planned that they would move to a little cottage in the south of France when her coursework was finished: a cottage including a garage complete with a lift. Nothing spoiled this daydream of the 2CV during this time.  If there were problems in the relationship it arose from Nani's intense jealousy if Sarah should even look at another car. Tremendous mechanical problems arose if a passing comment were made in admiration of a Renault or another model of Citroen, but she was most aggravated by the fact that Sarah had occasional crushes on the Fiat 500, and even stopped to admire a Topolino one day.

During the last month of Sarah's stay in Paris very strange and ominous situations arose that the 2CV was at a loss to figure out. Why, for example was she parked for several hours in front of a travel agency, and why, when Sarah came out, was she so distracted and preoccupied. Why did she have to go for three weeks without her oil being checked? And what were three suitcases doing in the back seat all the time? Finally the situation was explained to her. Sarah gave a classmate a ride home after school, and in the conversation Nani found out that Sarah was moving back to America at the end of June.

That Sarah was leaving France actually did not upset the 2CV at first, because it never crossed her mind that she would be left behind. She was aware that Americans sometimes abandoned a dog or a cat, but she was a car, not a useless animal. Nani's confidence in Sarah's devotion to her was absolute. Her owner practically knew the repair manual by heart. Just a week ago the transmission would not shift into reverse. The garage said a new transmission was needed but Sarah knew it was just the linkage that needed to be tightened. Owners like that do not abandon a car like her; they might abandon a Renault on occasion but never a 2CV.

No, Nani did not anticipate abandonment, but she was worried about what life was going to be like in America?  She had never heard a single good thing about the place and its huge arrogant, pushy, vain, idiotically designed, automobiles. Nani was very prejudiced against America and its cars.  A Mustang for example, what would she do if she found herself parked near one.

Nani began feverishly to seek out information about America, and what life was like there for a 2CV. This was extremely difficult.  She had an uncle and an aunt that had immigrated to Canada, but Nani was only three at the time. There was only one source of information, she had to ask the other cars during the long Paris nights when the parked cars talked about everything under the sun, everything except America that is.

Talking to the other cars was very difficult. Cars have tremendous amounts of knowledge but most often it was of the “savant” type. Even the most expensive cars were entirely self-educated, and their information, for the most part, was concocted from the overheard conversation of their owners. 

One BMW, knew all about the stock market, was an expert in pork futures, and short selling, but would have to ask what a word like “peanut” meant.  There was a Peugeot who knew about the French revolution and was a direct descendant of one the tumbrels used to transport Marie Antoinette to the guillotine. This Peugeot was a socialist even though her owner was a conservative deputy. She longed for the days of the barricades, and hated that she lived in such politically placid times.

Some cars did have knowledge of America, but it was so mixed, confusing and contradictory it was of no use to her. Did the cars in New York City really have to have mattresses attached to their bumpers? Was life expectancy only twelve months? Some said that 2CVs were not legal in America, and that an oil change had to be done in a hermetically sealed garage to prevent pollution. But it was all just rumor compounded with speculation. Only one thing was certain, they all knew for a fact that Nani was going to be left behind, that she would never see America. They knew it but did not have the heart to tell her.

They had seen it all before. 2CVs were especially vulnerable to this catastrophe because they were not sold in America and so were more exotic looking creatures. Recently an almost-new 2CV plunged herself into the Seine after she was abandoned by an actor when the film he was working in was completed.  He didn't even bother to put her up for sale, just left her in the street. She was left in neutral, and the emergency brake was not engaged. The papers said it was an accident, but every car in the neighborhood knew it was a suicide.

Finally one of the old Paris prostitute cars, a taxi, decided she would break the news to her.  She had been in Rome and Milan, as well as Copenhagen and Berlin, and had seen the world. She had been abandoned by an art student in Sicily 30 years ago, and sold into taxi prostitution by the Mafia. What the taxi prostitute said to Nani is pretty much what you or I would have said if we found ourselves in a similar situation, forced to give unwanted advice that will break someone's heart.  She started with a blunt declaration of the truth, saying, "Little sister, you are not going to America, put that right out of your little head. People, especially Americans, are not like cars. Their love is shallow and not lasting. Their hearts can change with each new model year."

The taxi prostitute did not pull any punches. In her crass way she made no attempt to soften the blow. "Your precious Sarah will forget all about you the instant she is buckled into her seat in the plane. All the dear things she said to you will never even cross her mind, as she notes down in some notebook all the exciting things she will plan to do back in America."

The 2CV had no reaction to the things the taxi was telling her. All along she had known in her heart that it was over. Dreaming of America was just a smoke screen to divert her thoughts from the terrible reality of being put back on the used car market, something she thought she would never have to face again.

"Don't you see, you are going to be sold down the river? You may never even see Paris again. Teenagers will make you into a dune-buggy and drive you up and down huge piles of rocks all day long," the taxi said.  "Just be glad you had a few good years, perhaps you will be sold into taxi prostitution like me, that is what everyone fears, but take it from me, it is not so bad. Once you know true love is not a possibility, you take each day as it comes, and even in the midst of the fast food wrappers and vomit in your back seat. Life is still worth living in its own pointless way, you will see."

The old taxi prostitute knew she was right. For a car to have a devoted owner has its advantages. It was nice to be taken to be vacuumed on Saturday morning at ten o'clock every week, and that sort of thing.  On the other hand, consider the excitement of never knowing whom you would pick up next, Americans from Texas in the morning, drug runners at lunch, and movie stars in the evening. But there was no point telling this to Nani, she was in no state to hear it.

But the taxi wanted to soften the blow, and so she said. "Your Sarah will come back you know, they all do. She will come looking for you again in 20 years with a tour bus full of Americans on holiday. Back home she will be married with grown-up kids. Her Paris days will be a distant memory. But one day she will drive out to Walmart to buy more lawn furniture because of a big summer get together at her house, and in the parking lot she will come across an old 2CV, parked way in the distance where the fussy owner hopes to avoid dents and scratches. It will be a well-kept car, belonging to some old professor of literature at the local community college; he drives it only in the summer.

She will come across that car, and she will stare into its windows. Her past will rise up in her, and she will remember a time when she was 18 and thought, “I will throw some things in the back seat this morning and go see what Bulgaria looks like,” free as a bird, like a gypsy. Returning to his car, that old professor will not disturb her when he sees her, because he will know what her tears are all about, having seen this before.

From: “No Cure For The Medieval Mind”, by Richard Britell  

Stendhal's Syndrome

Giuseppe Arcimboldo circa 1550

I so much wanted to write about the Quadriennale in Rome. It is a huge show which claims to survey all the important work going on in Italy at this time, and other related movements elsewhere in the world. It is an important international exhibition. I was unable to do so, however, to the extent that I desired due to the return of a malady I've had for several years now. This illness I have is a variation of Stendhal's syndrome, that condition he described when he became delirious from looking at too much art in Florence.

I still recall the day I was exposed to this illness and the appearance of its first symptoms after a short incubation. It was ten years ago and I was assisting with the installation of a show in a gallery. A young girl came in, about ten years old; it was her habit to stop by the gallery on the way home from school. She was acquainted with every one in the gallery since she was the daughter of a well known painter. Although young, she was nevertheless very familiar with the ways of galleries and often entertained us with her art knowledgeable banter.

I was standing next to a long wooden extension ladder that was lying flat on the floor when she came up to me and asked very matter- of-factly, "Whose piece is this?" She was asking about the ladder on the floor and it immediately struck me that it was very much like a work of art in every way. It lay on the floor at just the right angle to the walls, but even more, it expressed in metaphor, my feelings about my life at that time.
She was not serious of course. She did not really think that the ladder was a piece in a show, but children of artists have a remarkable amount of disrespect for art. Sometimes they have no interest in art at all. I think it aggravates them, but they are drawn into it none the less. Who can resist such banter? She continued, "It's like something I've seen by Kounellis." I was thinking of some way to reply but she went off to talk to some one else.

This then was the beginning of my illness, a confusion of perception. It expressed itself at first as an inability to distinguish what is and what is not art: an inability to separate the art from its immediate surroundings, and everything becomes elevated to the same exact degree of importance.Rome, Lateran Basilica

The presence of my symptoms of Stendhal's Syndrome existed in me in a state of incubation for some time, and would only surface when I had been looking at art for too long -- for example, after spending an entire day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One day, toward closing time in a museum, I don't recall which one, I found myself stopping exactly half- way between the paintings which were hung on a long expanse of gray velvet-covered wall. I would look at a small section of the velvet, skip past the next painting, and then proceed to another section of velvet between two other paintings. The paintings were those huge black ones in which all you can see is darkness, glare from the lights, and occasionally an elbow or knee emerging from shadows.

After looking at so many large black paintings, even the frames of which were hard work to look at, it was kind of a pleasure to look at the gray velvet. This kind of viewing was upsetting, however, to the guards who immediately became suspicious and asked politely if they could "help" me. When I replied that I didn't need any help, they would continue to eye me strangely and were only happy when I went on to another room.

At another time I could not tear myself away from watching a safe being moved by a tall crane when I was supposed to be going to the Museum of Modern Art to see an important exhibition everyone was talking about. By the time the safe was securely in place and all the people watching had satisfied themselves about which building it was intended for, the museum was closed and I was forced to return home without seeing the show.

I do not think, however, that this illness is at all unique to me. Who, for example can remember the scenes from movies we saw as children? On the contrary we remember the theatre very well but the movies hardly at all. I can't even remember the movies or the theaters. Instead I remember the sensation of emerging from the theatre and finding out that it was already completely dark outside where as when I went in it was still bright day. I would be disconcerted by the darkness. Walking home, I would be upset by disquieting thoughts. What might have happened out here during the day while I was beguiled and in a trance? Perhaps while I was watching some actor being stabbed on the screen, someone I knew and loved was dying in real life. And I would practically run home to assure myself that nothing had changed, that everything was all right.

When I arrived in Rome everything was already so strange. They have phones, but they are a different shape and color. There are taxis, subways, streetlights, and sidewalks, but all configured in such a different manner that everything seemed to be rushing toward me with a strange intensity. In many instances, I was unable to enter churches and museums because what was transpiring in front of these establishments was just too arresting. In short, there were simply too many safes being moved from one place to another for me to bring myself to enter. For example, I came across an especially large and impressive church, the Lateran Basilica, and on the steps was a person addressing a throng of people. He was talking about how the foundations of that church dated from Roman times and that it had been continuously revised and rebuilt. He explained in detail how a certain architect was asked to submit plans to the Pope for a reconstruction and that his plans were rejected. But the architect was undaunted; he so believed in his plans that he argued with the Pope. He had the audacity to argue with the Pope! He won the argument and the Pope accepted his plans.

How marvellous. I was transfixed listening to the story. I understood something important. We must all go and argue with the Pope, and we must win our argument!

I could not bring myself to enter the church; I didn't want to disturb that feeling. I walked away saying to myself, "I want to have an argument with the Pope, right away."Basquiat, "Man From Naples" 1982

But later that same day I felt that I really had to go and see the Sistine Chapel. For this there was a long line. I had to wait for two hours. In front of me in line was a great crowd of Japanese tourists all talking at once, and behind me another group of Germans talking a little louder.

I don't know what I thought about while standing in line. I thought about the second world war. I thought about how everyone is going to see the Sistine Ceiling, and Disney world. When it came time to buy my ticket, I got out of line and went away instead. I didn't see the ceiling, but lately I have been lying about it and telling people I went to see it.

I did, however, go to see both sections of the Quadriennale. One part was at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, and the other part at the Stazione Termini, which is the train station. I went to the Palazzo building first and once safely inside I turned all my attention to looking at the works of art. At the entrance, I was distracted for a moment by a homeless man who was making up a bed for himself in the porch of the Palazzo. I forced myself to ignore him and went directly into the exhibition without stopping.

I began looking at the paintings one at a time, spending about a minute on each work, going along in a pattern so that I wouldn't miss anything, but I soon began to encounter difficulties because the paintings were not hung on the walls but on strange monstrous portable walls that had been placed in the rooms in a very helter-skelter fashion. In some rooms, as many as six of these huge walls were crowded in at strange angles and there were very few works of art on the actual walls of the Palazzo.

I am a very traditional person and I like to go through a museum one room at a time and one wall at a time, and--like a mouse that runs along a wall and only changes direction when he gets to a corner--go through the space like I am sweeping it up in an orderly way. My intention of looking at everything carefully, therefore collapsed and I found myself looking at the blank walls instead of the art work. But the walls did not disappoint me. On the contrary, I have to state that I found the empty walls to hold my interest much more than the portable walls with their various paintings, but before I attempt to describe the walls I want to say something about the paintings on the portable walls.

You have already seen this kind of painting many times before. There were many large works of brooding textures and colors kind of smeared together over which some cryptic shape had been drawn in black by someone who must have gotten his or her arm broken. Also, in many paintings were unfinished words and phrases which had been smudged out in the style of fake illiteracy so familiar to us from Basquiat. There were many works which were large vague photographs of obscure subject matter, sometimes almost erotic, to which something had been done to to make them into art. Then there were an equal number of paintings in a traditional style in which some aspect of the image is meant to remind you that this is not 1496. There were unabashed attempts to do traditional Renaissance painting and sculpture that failed in all the various ways that paintings and drawings can fail, and finally there was a gondola.

The gondola spoke for itself, but the artist found it necessary to add a message to it in blue neon, but I confess that I didn't really look at these things very carefully and am probably not doing justice to them. I stood for a long time looking at the gondola, pretending to look at it because two firemen were also looking at it and were discussing something in Italian. I knew they were firemen because they were dressed up as firemen. I stood looking at the gondola because I was hoping to find out what Italian firemen think about modern art, but I was disappointed. They were discussing mushrooms, either how to find them or how to cook them, I don't know which.
The walls of the Palazzo are painted a flat white and are equipped with a great many electrical outlet plugs of all different types which are very interesting. The old buildings are solid masonry and so it has been necessary to run a lot of the wiring on the surface of the walls. Assortments of various sorts of plugs in large flat boxes affixed to the walls were connected to each other by wiring that ran on the surface of the wall, in narrow white rectangular conduit connected along the floor mouldings. Here and there in the middle of walls at about eye-level were plastic emergency phones whose wiring entered the same type of tubing. Rome is a city absolutely full of unfinished electrical and plumbing projects. If one looks carefully at these things and also at the infinite number of masonry projects inside and outside of every building in Rome where plumbing is being worked on, one begins to understand why it has been so difficult for Italy truly to enter the 20th century, even now when it is almost over.

The finest elements of the works on the walls were fire hoses with copper nozzles in glass vitrines, looking for all the world like ancient reliquaries. Above each vitrine of a hose there was a red metal plaque with a white image of a hose. On each plaque there was a number indicating which hose one was looking at. The first hose I came across was number 24, and I began to retrace my steps in an attempt to locate all 24 of them. I was frustrated, however, in my attempt to locate them all because the search led into places which were restricted to use by the museum staff and I soon found that I was being asked in Italian if I needed any "help." But rather than attempt to explain what I was doing I said I was lost, and the guards kindly escorted me back to the exhibition space.

Just before leaving the Palazzo, I discovered there was another floor where the exhibition continued. I went down a broad flight of stairs and at the bottom encountered many more rooms full of works of art. Here also I found emergency phones, strange electric plugs, fire extinguishers and more firemen. Now I began to understand that the firemen were not there by coincidence. It was obvious by the way they were seated, sprawled out and bored, that they had been assigned to that floor and spent their entire days there. Along with the fire hoses they were, to me, the most interesting thing in the Palazzo. Looking at them and listening to their conversation, realizing to what lengths everyone was going to prevent a fire, I suddenly felt that next to me stood Nero with his violin saying, "Yes, there must never be a fire like that one again." It was as if he was standing right there, but he disappeared before I was able to ask him a question I have always wanted to ask, "Were there violins back then?"

However by now it was time to go to Termini, that famous building of ill repute, immense and repulsive, but full of life like one of the huge whores in a Fellini film. Stranger things awaited me there.

I have never seen a space quite like the third floor of the Termini building, where the exhibition was. The proportions of everything were huge. The construction was done under Mussolini and the style of the furnishings remind one of a Marks brothers film, in that they are as modern as things could be in the forties. There were endless corridors, dusty and quiet, in which one found enormous bathrooms, small libraries, and waiting rooms obviously no longer in use. These places force one to imagine important dignitaries from foreign countries coming on state visits. Yes, here they would have freshened up, and there in the paneled library they may have read a journal while they waited. A fascist daydream completely realized in stone. And so, being in the grip of my malady, I was unable to look at the art but just staggered around looking at door casings, heat vents, ashtrays, countertops and also out of windows, where one could see a panorama of yet another wing of Termini filling up the entire skyline.

I soon found myself outside the exhibition hall walking down a long corridor, but no one stopped me or turned me back. Along the corridor ran an outside covered portico. I went out on to it and found that it was a great porch of travertine marble stretching into the distance as far as I could see. I walked along this porch for a while and then I came across a man having a caffe' at a little table. It was Benito Mussolini.
As soon as I saw him sitting there I knew that it was an aberration of my illness, just a hallucination, but he seemed so real, not like an apparition at all, and his manner was so hypnotic and compelling that I walked up to him and said, "Buon giorno."
"Have you been looking at the art?" he asked me.
"Yes," I replied.
"And what did you think," he inquired.
"Well, I thought there were a few good things in the Palazzo and..." He cut me off abruptly by raising his hand up as if he did not have time to listen to half-hearted praise.
"You're from New York aren't you? Sit down and have some coffee."
The Italians always know if you are from New York. I don't know why. A chair appeared and also a cup of coffee, or perhaps they had been there all along, I don't know.

I sat down, sipped my coffee and after a moment he launched into a bit of a dissertation, which I thought he might. He said, "You New Yorkers are always disappointed by the modern art that you see here in Rome. And I know why. We have good artists; I'm sure that you can see that. But here in Rome, there is no section of the city devoted to the important art of contemporary life. We have a gallery in this part, and a gallery in that part, but it is impossible to go from one to another and "see" shows as you say.

We have no SoHo here in Rome as you do in New York. So we have no pot to cook our art in. I was pleased when they chose my Termini building for this exhibit. This building is a city in itself and you could put ten SoHo's in it with room to spare. If I were still alive it would only be a short while and then by decree you would see something really important happening here in Termini. This is what Rome needs; Rome needs a SoHo more than anything."
Here he stopped and looked at me as if he wondered what I thought of his idea, and when I didn't respond he continued.
" You know, I've heard that SoHo is becoming just shops and boutiques now, like our Spanish Steps. You think that nothing will happen here, that we Italians cannot get anything done, It takes a dictator....." all of a sudden he stopped again and looked away into the distance.

"Ah," he exclaimed, "To have been like Franco and to have just gotten through that wretched time."
"And why is it so important to you that Rome have a SoHo?" I asked. "Everyone here seems too busy to look at art."
"Because we need a Joseph Beuys, and we need an Anselm Keiffer and we have neither. Modern art in Rome is used only as the frivolous backdrop of aristocratic society events, and we have to understand that it is an activity that is capable of redeeming the soul of a nation."

"But Beuys and Keiffer did not come out of SoHo," I said.

A confused, troubled look spread across his face, but then the preposterousness of the idea that Mussolini would have such thoughts caused his image to fade gradually into nothingness. I am quite sure that if he thinks about anything, it is about mushrooms, just like the firemen. I continued sitting at the table sipping my coffee, but then a policeman came out and asked me if I needed any help. After that he escorted me back to the exhibition hall. As I was leaving, I noticed that there were a lot of those little rooms in the exhibit with the black curtains over the doors behind which you find video installations. I can never get myself to draw back those curtains. What I usually see in those little rooms is always so much less than what I imagine I am going to see. Whenever I see one of those little black curtains, I just imagine something that might be behind it, and then walk by without disturbing it.

Richard Britell, Rome, late November, 1996

Sand And Rice

I drove up to Mass MoCA in North Adams to see the pile of rice. I knew about it because of the billboard that they put up just outside of Great Barrington. The billboard said, "A Mind Blowing Experience." Actually I sort of resent being told in advance that something is going to be a "Mind Blowing experience", as I feel that such experiences are much more profound and effective when they are unannounced and happen unexpectedly. But, I had several questions in my mind about the rice, so I drove up there to take a look at it.

I drove up Route 8 through the town of Adams . In Adams there is a quarry where they process sand. From the road you can see a huge pile of sand in the distance; it is a cone shape, very similar in fact, to pictures I have seen of the rice. I decided to stop and look at the pile of sand and while there, I asked it a few questions.

I said, "Pile of sand, there is a pile of rice in North Adams and they say that it is so big that the total number of grains of rice is about equal to the number of human beings inhabiting the earth. If the pile of rice represents that, what do you represent?"

The pile of sand replied, "That's nothing. First of all I am much larger than that pile and each of my grains is much smaller than a piece of rice. Therefore I represent a much greater number than the pile of rice, even though I occupy an extremely similar shape. The total number of my grains of sand happens to be exactly equal to the number of people who have ever lived on the earth. Therefore, if the installation at Mass MoCA is a mind blowing experience, as the billboard claims, then what am I? I would have to be compared to a cosmic epiphany that occurs to a great genius once in one hundred years. But for some reason, though I am all of that, no one even slows down to have a look at me as they drive by here. They are all on their way to see that little pile of rice; actually I don't see what all the fuss is about."

But I want to stick to the point and tell you about the pile of rice, especially if you are someone who won't get a chance to see it. I arrived at the museum at about 11:00 in the morning after stopping at the Pittsfield Library to pick up a free pass to Mass MoCA. Despite the fact that I had made the trip however, and even though it would cost me nothing to get into the museum, upon my arrival I very nearly decided not to go inside. Something I saw at the entrance got me so upset that it very nearly ruined my trip. I discovered that outside the museum, quite close to the front door, they have set up a large torture chamber made exclusively for trees. And there, for some absolutely unknown reason, they are torturing six trees to death. The trees are hung upside down in barrels by their legs. Apparently they must have committed some absolutely horrible crime to be subjected to such a punishment and apparently, this has been going on for a few years as can be determined by the pathetic way those poor trees are bending their branches upside down in a fruitless effort to get their leaves into the light. I don't know what they did and perhaps they deserve their fate, but I must say that as I stood looking at them, I wept. Perhaps they are actually innocent trees who never committed any crime. Well then, I can only hope that whoever is responsible for this travesty gets a similar treatment in the next life. And oddly enough, this has occurred in the Berkshires, where I have always assumed that people loved and cared about trees.

I entered the museum in a rather frightful state of mind I’m afraid after bearing witness to such dreadfulness, and perhaps, as a consequence, I had some negative feelings about the rice installation but, I proceeded nonetheless as I had important questions to ask the pile of rice. To describe the scene, the rice is in a very large room. At once it makes you think of the Pyramids of Gisa or at the least, those pictures of the pyramid and one cannot help but be struck by the absolute silence. Although silence is an attribute of most art exhibits, this particular silence was especially noticeable, as if there were some hidden secret or mystery about the rice, something magical possibly having to do with occult rites with magic letters and numbers. This was somewhat intimidating I must admit, but nevertheless, I walked right up to it and said, "I would like to know which one of you is supposed to be ‘Paris Hilton.’”

I received no answer and in thinking about it, I suppose that the pile of rice may not have known which one was Paris Hilton. After all, if you consider her face, it is rather like a plain piece of white rice. I accepted the fact that I got no answer but I also wanted to know which two of the rice grains, were Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. I assumed this would be a much easier question to answer given how easy it would be to spot Angelina’s lips and of course, Brad would be right next to her.

This pile of rice however, exhibited all the snobbery that you would expect to find in a big city art establishment and I could not engage it in conversation – something which was no problem with the pile of sand.

When I think back on the experience, I wonder if my questions may not have been sort of critical and accusatory perhaps, which may explain why I received no answers. For example, I wanted to know which of the rice represented black people and following that, how did that rice representing black people feel about appearing as white rice. And furthermore, what about the Asians? I felt that there was something inherently racist about using white rice for everyone. If this was going to be a “mind blowing experience,” why not have only white rice for white people, black rice for black people and yellow rice for the Asians. Now I think that would be an interesting installation, especially for the white people.

And which rice represented homosexuals; I wanted to know that also.

Despite my curiosity however, I came away with nothing. The most interesting thing about the exhibit in fact were those grains of rice that had rolled away from the huge pile and could be found grouped loosely together in little sections out on the floor. Here and there were little rice families set apart from the mass and every now and again one could find a single piece that had been kicked far away to the other side of the room – one single grain of rice, all by itself, over in a corner of the room. I found that it was those individual grains with whom I identified the most and that the big pile meant almost nothing to me.

On the way home I stopped to talk to the pile of sand again. I said, "Pile of sand, I respect your integrity as a work of art and I know just how you feel. You’re an important installation and you make a profound statement, yet nobody takes any notice of you. That's because you’re just local art and not something for which someone paid thousands of dollars to transport from Denmark or something. I have been ignored in the very same way. Why, would you believe that I have precisely the same number of hairs on my head as the population of Pittsfield – the very same number and all of them white? And what is more, several years ago, my hair was equal to the population of Philadelphia . That’s right; Philadelphia ! And at that time, all of them Black!

Richard Britell
Housatonic 2007

Homoeroticism in the Paintings of Norman Rockwell

When Freud wrote his psychosexual study of Leonardo DaVinci, he stated in his first paragraph that it was not his intention to attack him, nor to drag his name into the mire as he presumed many would think, but rather to further the understanding of DaVinci's works. I too must begin my article with a similar disclaimer: I am no Freud and Norman Rockwell was no DaVinci, but nevertheless I intend to point out obvious but long overlooked aspects of Rockwell's paintings and in so doing, to further the understanding of his works. That said, because it is their sexual content about which I intend to speak, I feel it necessary to preface this essay by saying that neither is it my intent to drag Rockwell's reputation into the mud. In fact, it is quite the contrary. To my way of thinking it is curious that our society holds Rockwell on such a pedestal, yet it is sort of a little pink pedestal, that is, not in the least threatening or of any real consequence. It is my opinion however that his works are full of complex ideas and suggestiveness, which for some reason, are never noticed or commented upon. It is just these aspects of his work that I feel should lead to a reappraisal of this artist and a realization that his work is much more complicated and insightful than formerly thought.

To begin with I would like to clarify what I mean by homoeroticism in general, and in Rockwell's work in particular. First I would suggest that there are three types of homoerotic art. The first is that found in videos and photographs of the XXX variety; in the art world the photos of Mapplethorpe spring to mind. In such works we assume the creators take sexual pleasure and invite the viewer to share in the experience. Then there is another category, usually described as soft-porn, in which the obvious sexual content is thinly veiled. In films and photographs figures are placed suggestively, even sexually, but the effect is blunted by the addition of clothing and especially softened by the context or situation, which justifies the partial nakedness of the subject matter. Helmut Lang's photos of men come to mind in this context.

And finally, there is the third category, which is the most widespread and yet, the hardest to define. It consists of images where the sexual content is entirely obscured and overwhelmed by the obviously non-sexual or even highly moral content of the subject matter. With such works one frequently has to wonder whether the artist was aware of the sexual aspect of the image to begin with. To further this ambiguity, when such content is pointed to, it is often denied. Consider many religious images, a crucifix for example. Many crucifixes are clearly homoerotic, but the primary message is so important that the nakedness and sensuous nature of the pose are almost never even noticed. It is into this murky category that Norman Rockwell's paintings fall. That is, the homoeroticism is veiled and even justified by the apparent necessity of the pictures' story telling content.

To demonstrate this idea however requires illustration but that is an easy task as Rockwell's homoerotic images are not in the least hard to come by - in fact, if I were to mention them all it would become redundant, so I focus on his Post covers, beginning with the earliest. The homoerotic aspect of his work is immediately apparent in these early covers and continues throughout his long career. Consider eight covers done in succession from June 14 1919 until January 17, 1920 during the first year of his work for the magazine. Of these eight images, seven feature men or boys in either suggestive or revealing poses. Featured in the June 14, 1919 cover, a young man, obviously confused about something, scratches his head and stands awkwardly with one toe on the other and a flower in his lapel. He has pulled back his jacket to reveal his crotch with his anatomy nicely suggested by the folds of his trousers.
Now clearly this is not some obscure detail, as the crotch in question is in the center of the painting. Why does the boy seated in the background laugh at him and the girl tilt her head in a questioning look? Notice that once the original meaning of this image is lost, the real content begins to emerge.

The following week's cover presents a painting of a boy leapfrogging over another boy's back. This is the first example of the male, spread legged pose, which will be repeated over and over again in the next fifty years.
The boy's crotch is here again highlighted by the trousers being dark and the shirt sleeves being white so that the crotch is given its own little sub frame inside of the larger picture. Like the previous example, the figure is pictured centrally, again with the crotch in the center of the painting.

In the following illustration, which was portrayed the week of August 9, 1919, a young boy has lost his clothing and a dog is running off with his pants. He runs after the dog and the figure is depicted with its legs spread apart and once more, the crotch is in the center of the picture.
As a matter of fact you could say that in this series, the crotch of young boys is the subject of the art. The painting for the issue of September 6, 1919 shows a young boy resting from his labors against a tree trunk. Although his crotch would be in the center of the picture, the pose is such that it conceals that part of his anatomy. Our attention is drawn to his genitals nonetheless, by the placement of a hoe's handle right where an erection would be. His face with eyes closed and mouth open further brings the sexual aspect of the pose to mind.


Indeed, the placement of the hoe where the penis would be is an example of phallic symbolism seen here for the first time in Rockwell's Post covers, but one that will be oft repeated and even become a favorite device of the artist. We see it again the following week in fact, with a rather benign image overall of a business man locking up his office to go play golf. Note however the self satisfied smile on his lips; the key which locks the door and the thumb and fingers that hold it are effectively placed in the man's crotch acting as the required phallic symbol.

And why do I say "required"? For such benign images of apparent cliches to work and become ideographs of a lasting nature there would have to be sexual content, narrative and symbolism. Otherwise, image, like life itself, would be lacking in salt.

A boy walking on stilts is seen on the October 4, 1919 cover. He is shown frontally with his legs spread and his crotch - per usual - in the center of the picture.
When looked at in this way, it is amazing how many images clearly have an erotic aspect about them, especially when one considers that it has never been noticed. One cover stands out in my mind as particularly noteworthy however and I sometimes wonder how it came to be published in the first place.

The Post cover for June 4, 1921 features three boys all in a state of semi-nudity. They are running full tilt to the left. The larger central boy is entirely nude; his spread legs fall right in the center of the picture space as always. While his nudity is concealed by his shirt and pants clutched in his hand, the breeze from his running pulls back the edge of his shirt so that as much of his naked upper legs are shown that would be legal. This center child is depicted as a large enough image so that Rockwell is able to dwell on and develop the more subtle details of the nubile flesh. One can readily see the transparent blue tint in skin that has not been exposed to the sun contrasted with a crimson flush of suntan on the back of the arms. There are freckles across the shoulders and last, but not least, a classic sidelong glance with lips in a pucker and topped off with wet hair. Behind the boys there is a faded, "No Swimming" sign, which offers the explanation for the entire image. Take away the sign and one might consider that the painting was done simply to admire the boy's flesh and caress it with the brush. Or, in a much simpler sense, just to set up the scene, put the naked boys in motion, and take photographs.

Many artists have had a signature pose for their figures, immediately recognizable as their creation. For DaVinci it was a figure with an arm extended and a finger pointing to heaven. In that large coffee table book on DaVinci, the one with the sepia tone reproductions, several pages are devoted to a discussion of that pose because it was so "Leonardoesque" that it was often employed in forgeries. With Michelangelo it is the contrapposto, or twisting pose of the male figure, abundantly bestowed with muscles. His poses were so characteristic that they could easily be described as "looking like a twisted bag of walnuts." Rockwell also has a trademark pose, unusual because only he ever used it. He poses a model so that we are looking at the back view. The figure is rather symmetrically set with the butt prominently placed in the center of the composition. If the butt is not in the exact center, at least it is presented as the center of interest in the painting. We might call these works "the butt portrait series." One example should suffice to illustrate just how unique this pose is, but I would like to mention several, given that it is a trademark, Rockwell icon.

First, consider his self portrait for the February 13, 1960 Post cover.
In this illustration we have Norman Rockwell's rear end very carefully and exactly painted in the visual, if not the geometric center of the painting. His rump is placed on a red cushion, and this is no coincidence. Indeed, the red cushion or red upholstery is often employed in the butt portraits. This particular one has several other enigmatic characteristics. Four pictures of other portraits are tacked up on the canvas: self portraits by Rembrandt, Durer, Picasso, and Van Gogh. On the canvas itself, Rockwell's face emerges in gray under painting without glasses. In the mirror however, he wears his glasses and the light glints from the glass so that no detail of the eyes can be seen. There appears to be a sort of hopeless search for the self in the painting, yet only absurdities emerge. What could he have in common with those other artists, or with a Roman war helmet that sits on the top of the easel?

The September 20, 1958 Post cover, which is called "The Runaway" displays a policeman's butt, which is contrasted very interestingly with the young boys'. I can think of no better painting of the male buttocks in the entire history of art than this policeman's posterior. His figure just borders on being fat, but it is that kind of fat that can so easily pass for muscle. His body strains against the fabric and fills it up in a perfectly convex way. The ornaments call our attention back to this centerpiece, if our eye should happen to stray to other details of the painting such as the glossy highlights on the leather strap and belt and the ribbon that runs along the side of the leg.

Now consider the way the fabric of the shirt is pulled so taught against the bulge of muscle in his broad shoulders. The fabric has darts coming up from the waist and down from the shoulders to accommodate his rather natural massiveness. This is a lovingly drawn figure and reminds one of those portraits of horses that young girls are so fond of drawing. I would never suggest that every time Rockwell poses a figure in this way that the image has erotic undertones. As a matter of fact, the sensuous policeman sits next to a young boy who - although posed similarly - presents an image completely devoid of anything erotic or physical. The boy looks up trustingly, but perhaps questioningly at his protector and one feels almost uneasy about the way the man twists toward the child, seeming to loom over him.

Ironically, one of Rockwell's most interesting rectal images does not give the butt central play in the picture. Rather, in the center of the picture is the now-familiar groin image, replete with legs spread but, the butt appears off to the lower left, rather than taking center stage. It is a rear end so perfectly painted however, suggestive of such interesting ideas, that I feel I must include it in this discussion of the butt pictures.

The perfectly-painted butt of which I speak is seen in the May 18, 1940 Post cover illustration titled, "The Full Treatment", A middle aged man with legs spread sits in a barber chair. His groin is in the exact geometric center of the painting, but covered by the barber's cloth. Circling around this central groin, like the planets rotate around the sun, is an assortment of "pleasures" . . .
A Vargas looking female with the requisite cone shaped breasts of that period is preparing to do his nails so he dips his fingers in her little red bowl. In his other hand is a cigar. The barber will cut his hair but first seems to be gently caressing his ears. A black "shoe shine boy" polishes his shoes and here is where we finally see the butt of the picture. A symmetrical butt, which is thrust toward the viewer because he has to be "bent over" to shine the shoes, is seemingly a pose of necessity. That is, the activity seems to require that the butt be portrayed in this suggestive way. So to be quite specific with this piece, the take-away message is that this man will get to enjoy every type of sexual pleasure. He will put his fingers in the woman, the red bowl suggesting her vagina. He will have at his beck and call the black man's rectum and he will be stroked to pleasure by the boy as indicated by the motions of the shoe brush. Lastly, consider the face, which expresses his anticipatory pleasure in these expectations of delight.

But I must stop at this point and address my critics who I can hear in my mind's ear, becoming angrier and angrier. "Those are not groins and rectums we see in these paintings but simply articles of clothing, which would be impossible to leave out in a painting. There is no sex, no homoeroticism in these pictures; it is all just a sick projection of a sick mind! Every word of this travesty suggests that the writer is just some mentally ill person."

I will not come to my own defense; I would rather defend Rockwell himself. My critics assume that Rockwell did not understand the obvious and repeated content and symbolism of his own paintings, that he was some kind of innocent who did not fathom the psychological power in the leitmotifs of his own images. The idea that this artist, one of the most careful observers of the content of human body language that ever lived was not conversant with sexual symbolism, would be like suggesting that Ernest Hemmingway did not know the alphabet. Inundating the viewer with sexual symbolism and the like is the backbone of contemporary media art, image and advertising, of which Rockwell is a founding father; it is one of the ABC's of contemporary media communication. That there are naive people who deny that it exists really just makes it all the more powerful

For the March 4, 1944 Post cover, Rockwell painted "The Tattooist" who sits with his back to us, and as has become commonplace, his butt is in the center of the picture and in fact, is the largest object in the painting. Like the shoe shine boy, he has assumed a pose of necessity as his craft requires him to sit in such a way as to thrust his rear-end out towards us in a slightly bent-over position. Note that the butt in this illustration is elaborated with a circle of adornments. There is the handle of a pair of scissors peaking out of one of the tattooist's pockets and a little book looking out of the other. A towel on either side isolates the portrait and frames it. The belt at the top and the blue cushion at the bottom complete the framing. These added details completely encircle the man's ass and make it into a separate little painting within a painting - much like that same separation seen in his self portrait.

Surprisingly, the most important painting in the butt portrait series does not conform to the usual format. The rear end is not in the center of the picture and instead is pictured in profile. It is a painting of a young boy bending over, taking down his pants so that his naked posterior is exposed. How, you might ask, could Rockwell have painted such a subject? Here is the genius of Rockwell because again, it is a pose of necessity. The boy must take down his paints because he is in the doctors office and he is about to receive a shot, which we see the doctor preparing in the back of the picture space. The picture is titled "Before The Shot" and was painted for the March 15, 1958 cover of Post.
The behavior of the boy in this picture is extraordinarily touching and endearing. He is examining the framed diploma that the doctor has hung on his wall, perhaps wondering if this man is "qualified" to do what he is about to do. Or to put another way, one might say that the boy wants to know if this man has the right to do something to his ass.

In this analysis of Rockwell's work, I have not ventured to speculate on Rockwell's sexuality, and I would never presume to do so. This is not a study of Rockwell's personality or sexuality or physicality, but a study only regarding particular aspects of the content of his paintings. If I were called upon to speculate about his biography however, I would suggest that this great painting may be some sort of a self portrait, in which we glimpse, in metaphor, an indication of something that happened to him as a child, some invasion of his childhood chastity by an adult male, perhaps a Doctor, or a character like the Policeman in the runaway. Whatever the case, I believe that Rockwell may have been violated in some way by someone in authority, and that, like the boy who received the shot, he did not accept the experience and began examining the world in which he lived, looking for clues, leaving no rock unturned in a search of explanations. Such experiences create great artists; Norman Rockwell was one.

Richarde Britell August 12, 2007 Housatonic, MA

Princess Diana in Paradise

Princess Diana in Paradise

I like to drive down to Hudson and go into all of the antique stores there. I tend to be very methodical about my Hudson trips. I start at the beginning of Warren Street , up by the park, and proceed to go into every single shop on the south side. Often I will continue walking until I get to First Street, which is at the very end of Warren, just because I don’t want to miss any new venue that might have opened up down towards the poorest end of the street. There, the gentrification process is so palpable, you could shoot a movie about the process by setting up a camera on a street corner and letting it run for a few days.

When I reach the end of Warren , I cross over to the other side and then I go into all of the shops on that side of the street. I do not discriminate among the shops and consider them all to be equally interesting.

Ironically, I have never purchased any antiques, even though I have been making this trip to Hudson over and over again for fifteen years. Well, that may be an exaggeration; I think that once about five years ago I bought some spoons in one of the shops. Actually, my trips to the Hudson antique shops have nothing to do with antiques as such, rather they are undertaken in the same spirit and with the same attitude that I have when I go to New York and visit all of the galleries in Chelsea . I am not shopping for an Anthony Cara sculpture for my back yard if I happen to go into the Gagosian Gallery, and I am not shopping for a sideboard if I go into Vincent Mulford. The entire event is just an historical, artistic and aesthetic experience for me. I see no difference between my New York trips in which I visit galleries and my Hudson trips in which I visit antique shops. In fact, there is no difference except that Hudson ’s stores are about a thousand times more interesting than New York ’s galleries.


I know that visiting galleries in New York is a sacred contemporary experience, but, to tell the truth, I sometimes feel that the galleries are not doing their jobs very well. If I told you that I went to New York and saw a large room with tiles that had been laid out at equal intervals on the floor, you would believe me because you yourself have gone to New York and looked at tiles. If I said that I had seen huge brown and black paintings over which a text was scrawled by someone who perhaps had a broken arm and that the words were misspelled with backward letters, you would believe that too. In New York , we are always being asked to appreciate fake illiteracy.

Those poor gallery owners labor under such tight restrictions and established expectations of what shows should look like, it is amazing that anyone ever sees something like a Lucian Freud exhibit once in a while.

In Hudson however, it is nothing like that. There is no magnifying glass of critical opinion poised to burn one’s personal expression to cinders. Hudson ’s antique stores are a sort of living installation art that changes constantly, with no pretense or the emasculation of contemporary art usage.

At Gray Fish, which is located at 602 Warren Street , I came across some large scrims hung on the walls. I asked what they were.

“These scrims were created for the Sotheby’s auction of the contents of the home of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor ”, was the answer.

“Did they fall on hard times and have to sell their furniture to pay off their debts?” I asked.

The furniture, it turned out, belonged to the father of Dodi Fayed, who was the boyfriend of Princess Diana. Fayed sold all of this furniture after Diana’s death. Apparently he had no further need of it – as he has plenty of money.

So here then, was perhaps an image of the rooms with the furniture in which Princess Diana might have lived if she had married Dodi. Certainly it was grand enough, but so excessively serious and formal. I imagine that to reside in such a setting would be like living in a very stiff tuxedo – so stiff in fact that a group of servants would have to wheel you around with a hand truck from place to place, and then set you up like a mannequin.

In any event, the scrim was very otherworldly and magical and, set in the antique store the way it was, created a very unusual visual effect. In the foreground, as you can see from my photograph, were the usual antique store objects: the back of a couch, an ottoman, an Asian planter and a stand, a little marble obelisk, a silver tray, a plaster dog, art books and a wine carafe, all the indispensable items of a contemporary home. These various objects were lit by a soft light which flowed in through the windows of the shop, and lit up all of the objects in that caressing way for which light is so famous.

What is more, the image you see is somewhat mysterious: the furniture of the scrim is also lit by a soft light, which also flows into the picture from the right, more or less at the same angle. It is an instance where it appears to the eye, or more to the imagination, that this is the boundary between the real world and the heavenly realm of the next life. As if you could step across the room and enter another world. You seem to be peeking right into Princess Diana’s apartment in Heaven.

Now, to my mind, this experience of going into this shop and looking into Princess Diana’s apartment in heaven meets all of my expectations regarding installation art. Granted there is no docent around to put any particular spin on it. I cannot rent earphones, as if in a museum, in order to listen to an explanation of its significance. It didn’t take eighty people six months to create it with fax instructions from Europe . Nevertheless, installation art it is, and like all good installations, it took up a place in my mind for the rest of the day as a riddle to be pondered, and for me, as part of a larger riddle of the city of Hudson itself.

For I must admit that it is not just the antique stores that draw me to Hudson , but there is something else, some powerful magnet that pulls me there; the scrim simply set me to thinking about what that could be. My pondering took the following form.

The living room of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor is like all of those sumptuous, monstrous and expensive rooms that you might look at in the pages of Architectural Digest. Perhaps stage sets created to be back drops for the lives being lead by some high society couple. Is the setting so expensive because the performance is so fascinating, or, is it just the reverse?

Certainly, everyone has a macquette in their mind of the rooms and the furniture that might constitute the appropriate set in which to act out the chapters in their personal stories. Very recently, Paris Hilton was reading that part of her life where she gets to go to jail. The jail was the stage set. She wanted that scene to be cut out but everyone agrees that so far it is the most interesting one.

And what about newly weds? Don’t they invariably have notions of a love nest? Even if they have no money, their scene can be fleshed out for them at a local rent-to-own store. Domestic environment presumptions and expectations are practically innate. That is why movies can deliver absurd set-ups that our minds accept instantly. A waitress wants to be an actor in the city; she struggles to get along on her tips and wages, but nevertheless goes home to a five million dollar loft space. No one objects to this for everyone assumes that life is supposed to look like that, except perhaps for their own.

I too have had visions of the settings for marital bliss; I have had many such notions and I can remember very clearly my first. I was in love with a blonde girl named Cynthia. Blonde is the best description I can give because I never saw her close up. She sat in a seat the farthest from me: diagonally across the room in kindergarten.

Once, at a great distance, I followed her home, but not all the way to her door. After getting several blocks away from my usual path home I began to feel a rising panic and gave it up, but then, I was only five.

That same night I had a vivid dream about my new love. I dreamt that we were married and that we lived in a tree fort in the back yard of my house. When I awoke it was with a distinctly absurd feeling of stupidity and I wondered to myself, “How could I think that people could be married and live in a tree fort?” I felt that the dream indicated a certain level of stupidity on my part. But the blissful feeling of contented marital bliss, as I now know it is called, would not leave me. As a matter of fact, when I recall that dream I still can feel that delicious feeling of being in love with someone who I really do not yet know – set apart in some wild and strange place. We were like shipwrecked survivors on a deserted tropical island, for whom courtship, inquiry, fascination and consummation take place without the least possibility of interruption or competition and where even memory and fantasy are silent.

The very next morning I set about building a tree fort, with the restricted means of a five year old. Our backyard however presented a dismal prospect: a piece of dirt perhaps thirty feet square with a few strands of crab grass here and there. It was bordered with cinder block walls on three sides. One of these walls was the back part of a funeral parlor which had one window, its curtain always closed. Another wall was the back of an establishment that rented tuxedos. In the corner of this yard grew a lone sumac tree about seven feet tall with spindly branches and those long leaves that look like the remaining unkempt hair of some balding old man.

I spent a long time trying to nail a two-by-four into a branch in that sumac tree but with no success. I remember being stupefied by the problem of how to hold the hammer, the nail and the wood up in the air all at once and still, be able to strike with the hammer. Each time I would try the nails would fly off into the dirt of the yard someplace and I would have to hunt around for them. Finally, in desperation I resorted to rope. I tied several two-by-fours to the branches of the tree with the rope, and then, standing on a chair, I jumped upon them like mounting a startled horse by surprise. The various branches of the sumac tree all broke at once and everything ended up on the ground. I had murdered the sumac tree even though I had not meant it any harm. I was just like Lenny, in Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”.

My crime did not go unnoticed. Later that day my mother confronted me and asked, “Dicky, why did you break down the sumac tree?”

I explained, “I was trying to build a tree fort.”

“But why would you try to build a tree fort in a sumac tree?”

This second question she said more to herself than to me and did not really expect me to answer. Actually, to me, it sounded more like, “Dicky, why are you such a stupid little boy?” I couldn’t even face her apron but stared down at my shoes, the laces I still had not learned to tie.

Late in the afternoon I occupied myself with throwing stones at the mortuary wall until, as luck would have it, I broke their only window. After that I went inside, told my mother about it and said I would be in my room until the police came to take me away.

I am sure you are wondering at this point what all this could possibly have to do with Hudson and its antique stores, which this article seemed to be about at the start. It has everything to do with what, for me, is the purpose of the Hudson antique market. Personal archeological research, the digging up of my past.

My childhood was spent in a city just like Hudson . The backyard and the sumac tree were exactly like the backyards and sumac trees in those neighborhoods that press up against Warren Street from all sides. Many parts of Hudson ’s downtown seem unchanged for eighty years and for me, to walk around the city is like a trip in a time machine to Utica , New York , circa 1955.

If one’s life were like an aircraft, that at six hundred miles an hour had exploded into a million pieces, perhaps every one of those pieces could be found. In the corners, shelves and walls of Hudson ’s antique shops one is constantly stumbling across various lost fragments of ones’ life. They can never be reassembled, but it is very interesting to look at them again.

Richard Britell Housatonic, Ma