Pop Culture (Garbo Recalls)

Well yeah, he was eccentric. From a big pharmaceutical dynasty. With a Swiss /English snobbery and Oxford pedigree came a sense of entitlement that kept him aloof from most. He played ‘dignity’ well. Who knows what lurked within?

I got on with his kind, old money connoisseurs. They admired my respect for the tradition they claimed as theirs. Them from high, me from low. We met somewhere in passing and paused long enough to get a bit from each other.

His taste…erudite. Concocted from a melding of Goethe and Wilde . Mine… a bud waiting for rain.

He quoted Collingwood, Shakespeare and Bertrand Russell when hemmed in. I loved to hear him spit out a Quatrain or an epigram from these.

My good professor knew his art history and enticed me with his tales of weeks at the Uffizi or Luxor. I would get there in time but then, enraptured by the very thought of The Prado could only drink the wine and long for it.

On Sundays we met at his beach cliff cottage in Hope Ranch. At sundown. He cooked the most terrific meals. Goofy things, Tongue, Mussels, Sweetbreads.

Wine with, Sherry before ,Port after.

On those Sunday evenings when well lubricated, Doctor Langerhans often took issue with his major irritant. What he called Pop Culture vs. High Art.

For him Perry Como was pop culture, Giuseppe Di Stefano was High Art. Both were singers but one was more famous and made more money. A product of Pop appealed to wider audience and was easier to grasp. It was a matter of complexity he said. He quoted Clement Greenburg: “ High Art resumes everything that precedes it, otherwise it is less than high”. (Later he would disavow Greenburg for encouraging Pollock ET all)

“He’s a traitor”.

Sargent was, he said, a culmination of all painting, distilled into an elegance not equaled since. When I first asked him what he meant by the word elegant. He said he used the word as it pertains to its common usage in Physics and Chess: Refining a difficult procedure into a move or a formula that is astonishing in its simple beauty and grace. Books he said were written about the greatest grand master chess matches, where any number of chess masters could see ‘mate’ in six but someone like Capablanca or a Bobby Fischer mated in one. The move was considered ‘elegant’.

“The World Wars blew everything up. Leaving rubble, death to millions and overriding disgust with the conditions and institutions that allowed for it to happen. Swept up was respect for tradition in the arts.” Viet Nam, Watergate and the assassinations were ahead… to finish the job. Italics mine.

Even then Art Departments of major Universities were falling into step with iconoclasts views. Students read the Art Magazines where Painting was said to no longer be relevant. I attended a Langerhans lecture on this very topic and in the Q&A; a student asked him what he thought of a very famous painter who said, “I’m painting as if no one ever painted before”. To which Langerhans replied with confidence, “When he gets to Giotto, let me know.”

Nuance notwithstanding the Professor was a fearless provocateur and an excellent host.

Nadine (1962)

He met me at the dock in Genoa and I barely recognized him. The moustache and the long hair made him look European. Thinner too. I hoped he would meet me. The letter I sent must have got to him in Rome just a week at the most before I was to dock. The mail was so slow in those days. But I was in need of something to feel sheltered by and his confidence always made me feel better, made me less vulnerable. Had he not been there at the dock, I don’t know what I would have done. Somehow I knew he would be there. Garbo always had to play the hero.

My Garbo, I don’t think we were ever in love. But we made each other feel better about ourselves and isn’t that what people mistake for love nowadays? He, the wonder child of the art department. Janos does this, Janos got that, Janos is the favorite of this professor and that professor. And when I met him, what a pushover. All I had to say was that I had taken a year in Perugia while my father was on sabbatical. All I had to do was put my hand on his shoulder while we walked back to my dorm. Not that I didn’t like him. There was simplicity to the guy that bordered on simpleton, but he got by with a terrific sense of humor and his capacity for mimicry. Play a tune, he could duplicate it on any number of instruments. Give him a movie star, he could imitate him. Show him an image , he could replicate it. I always wondered if he could ever be his own artist. But always an energy that was attractive and an easy guy to be with.

Our breakup was not kind; I had run off with a graduate teaching assistant in the English Department. Tall and blonde and a real sweet talker, this guy spoke poetry, described my lips as worthy of a Shakespeare sonnet. ‘Yes I said, I will yes’. The weekend we spent together began well and ended awkwardly. I felt insecure and inferior. I could see he tired of me rather quickly. And so, back in Santa Barbara I confessed to Garbo and hoped to rekindle that old thing we had. I could have chosen a better moment to admit to my tryst. He had been drinking and smashed a glass of wine against the wall and stormed out of the party where I found him. Next thing I knew he had taken up with a blonde of his own. A blue eyed surfer girl ,all tanned and “golly gee”.

Then it was summer and I went back home and later heard that Garbo somehow got out of the draft and went to Italy.

Professor Peter langerhans (1958)

Professor Peter Langerhans (1958)

Yes, it’s true…. Garbo was a student in my art history classes at the University. It is also true that he became a willing companion to me at various art exhibitions as well as dinner parties I threw for his benefit to (shall we say) expose him to elements of Santa Barbara Society. I felt these people ,the Kelloggs, the Pillsburys the Wright Ludgingtons could benefit his career. And it is true that some sort of laceration to his thigh occurred due to a temporary loss of muscular control on my part. But the wound was not due to any vicious attack or anger… a knife was not involved nor a blade of any kind. But let me begin at the well-worn and oft used beginning:

Long story short: Garbo, was introduced to me before he ever arrived as a student. An old friend who taught math at his high school brought him up to show him the campus, and afterward brought him over to my house. Apparently Garbo had intimated an interest in art. Of course Garbo’s idea of art at that time was Walt Disney and Mad Comics. But I played along and pretended it was all the same since I liked the lad and what would it hurt to tell him that if he came to UCSB I would be happy to be his faculty advisor and show him the ropes so to speak.

Well for two years he and I became quite close (so I thought) but I found out that he and I had different interpretations of our ‘relationship’. Who knows the workings of a young mind that is being tempted by things and manners to which he is not accustomed. I thought he valued my philosophy and the stories of my travels to the great art capitols of the world. Sipping my good sherry on Sundays, sometimes passing out, while I cooed to the tune of Fra Fillipo Lippi or Ghirlandio after serving a radiant meal of poached tongue or a succulent rack of lamb.

It seems that our Mr. Garbo was simply filling his gullet and swigging glass after glass of Mazanilla Papirusa, always curling the pinky of his long tapered fingers. Yes his hands were the hands of a pianist. Softer than one could imagine on a strapping young athlete. Indeed Janos told me of losing a decathlon to Rafer Johnson at the 1955 Pasadena Games.

But now, or I should say, on that fateful night he said he was off to Europe with some old high school buddy and all because his fucking drawing teacher told him he would be an artist and that he should go see the great masters.

Goodbye said he and thanks for the good times. That was it? Thanks for the good times! Okay, I was cool … not going to let the little fucker get the best of me. Ease out I said to myself, don’t make a scene. Play it as if you’re glad. Oh said I, let me give you my address and be sure to send me a postcard after you’ve seen the Giottos. I reached for my Montblank and unscrewed the top, whereupon I must have lost coordination or some sort of ataxia came upon me, and the next thing I know there is a gaping wound in his thigh.

Caravaggio

My Teacher

I don’t know why or how I remembered what he said. At the time it sounded like a lot of romance about the past and how Art was a noble act become corrupt. But I did remember later when his words became steppingstones into a world I wanted to belong.

He spoke of cavemen painting with their fingers. He spoke of first things, first reasons, first thoughts, first desires. Then somehow those first ideas were passed on to children, and then on… and wound up as fantastic images and sculpture of Egyptians. He spoke of that as tradition and compared that with Native Americans who speak with reverence of the “old ways”. Mr. Kadoc said that was culture… that is how we use the wisdom of the past to help us define the present. A history of graphic ideas.

I remember thinking what the fuck is this? Somehow it stayed with me even though I didn’t know what many of the words meant.

Throughout the term Mr. Howard paid compliments and heaped praise on students whose drawing managed to rise to a certain quality. My work never seemed to get his attention. Not that term anyway.

I began to phonetically jot down the words that I did not know. An English major who lived down the hall in my dorm helped decipher and translate his ‘big’ words into terms I understood. The mystery of it and the passion in his voice began to push me (or better) pull me into a kind of religion or belief system that I never imagined.

Toward the end of that first semester, I wandered into an Art Department bungalow that served as his upper division painting class. The entire floor was segmented into individual mini-studios occupied by a single student. Only one student was working that evening and I cautiously asked her about the class. What remains in my mind was the phrase, “He combines Art and Philosophy, and he is a god on campus”.

Curiously I asked what she was working on and she pointed to a book on the table near her easel and said she was making a study. The reproduction was that of a huge horse seen from three quarter rear view. The right front leg lifted seeming to prevent injury to a man lying on his back underneath.

Szaja Kadoc (1956-57)

Szaja Kadoc (1956-57)

He was not so bright, not unusually talented and I must say for reasons that stay unclear, he remained during the term, obscure in my minds eye as opposed to his classmates who came forward from time to time and into focus. I must have passed him since he showed up for the second term. Right off he seemed more buoyant and eager, lets say earnest. He seemed to have brought himself round to comprehend the language.

I was a bit surprised with his request for a moment with me after class wherein he asked for (his word) ‘homework’. I replied, as I had from time to time from similar requests, by stating that: when I was a student at the Arts Student League, my teacher, Eugene Berman, told me to copy from the masters two hours each night. Raphael, Michelangelo, Del Sarto, preferably since they were clear in both underlying structure and grace.

It soon became clear to me that Garbo attended to these suggestions with zeal and enthusiasm, bringing to class a dozen carefully rendered studies every week. Then one day while peeking around behind the student’s drawing board, I beheld a real ‘breakthrough’ and as I told him later: its like boring a hole through a wall, you hear the drill so you know it is making headway but you don’t know how thick is the wall or the density of the material. I held his drawing up for the class to see and praised the effort.

Well… after Garbo’s ‘breakthrough’ a new confidence could be seen in both his demeanor and capability. And by the end of the term I saw him, as one of the more promising underclassmen.

And so it was that after the summer vacation I saw his name on the roll in my upper division painting class. You must understand that this was a class of 6 students who had been working with me for three years in both painting and drawing. I wondered how he managed to obtain permission from the registrar to be admitted to a class without passing its pre-requisites. If there were room for another I would let him in.

Garbo's greatest day

Garbo’s greatest day

As a student Garbo found alcohol to be a far more interesting stimulant than pedantic professors, one of whom told Garbo that he continuously confused his ontological postulates with his teleological predicates. AHH so!

Yes, yes he wanted to be a great painter, but that was off somewhere in the far beyond.

So one Saturday morning awaking to a crunching hangover he took to the beach from his off campus bungalow to calm down anxiety and guilt by bathing in the great mother sea. The waves were generous and the feeling of his body crusing along on the side of gravity and momentum gave him that glint of oneness that one feels when one finds yielding to nature an overwhelming affermation.

Washed up and reborn anew…. Like a clam or a fine mollusk seeking a respite from murky shallows, Garbo felt alive and fresh, buoyant and purposeful. To what end?

He clamored onto some huge rocks near the water and stretched out to enjoy the warmth of the now baking sun as his body welcomed a salty embrace.

Dozing, he awoke to a face as simple and lovely as a perfect cloud or leaf. A face so absolute in its simplicity that it was the most beautiful face Garbo had ever seen. She, blushing tan and green eyed … Irish red hair tawny and long... shading his own face from the sun. A perfect coverlet.

She bent over him and protected him from the sun and all intercessors.

“Are you okay? Or shall I administer first rites? “

Garbo fell ,in that instant, into the will of that being , succumbing to what ever she would have of him. Succubus---- done!

He rose up to see the whole of her… the leggy, tan beautiful creature that postured over him and seemed to awaken a confidence he was not used to.

Still a bit woozy from last nights Stregga, Garbo said “I love you”

She laughed to find a willing participant in a game of passion.

Feeling that he had given away too much, Garbo took the inituiave. “Want to check out the LAUGHING ROCK”?

Now she was taken aback.

Recovering: “Yeah show me”

And Garbo brought her to a huge stone he had visited many times before. He sat her and next to her he sat and … they waited.

Three or four waves later they were drenched and as she giggled he said, “you see.”

As they wordless smiled and spoke to each other in gestures, Garbo drove up the coast to a cove, a little past Reffugio where they pulled off by the highway and following his lead they clamored down the cliff, to the crystal white sand and pristine beach…Garbo’s favorite spot.

Not a soul within miles they were nude in the water, warm at peace, in love for that moment,yielding every defense to the immediacy of the touch which said I am yours. And as to affirm this covenant, they were given this blessing, ….. Emerging from the depths, not ten yards away:

Dolphins, two.. Mimicking Garbo and the beautiful lady. Playfully attending to each other in a most unforgettetable apassionata as if to say “ There is no love but love”.

They would play, Garbo , his friend ,and the Dolphins sometimes brushing sides (yes that close) until the Dolpphins swam away. Toward sundown Garbo and the girl climbed up the cliff to his car. Now closer to sundown the two friends listened to Creadence as they approached Santa Barbara.

Night, they, now hungry, scavenged a market close to Garbo’s trailer.

Each chose for themselves. For her : two jars of baby food : LAMB and PEAR…. for him: Pork steak and a potato. It took all their money so there was not enough for wine or beer. But that was not an issue.

In the tiny trailer the two made a comfortable meal and afterward fell onto the bed. Licking salt from the warm skin of each other. As Garbo first penetrated her she said “ please don’t think I’m bad”

And Garbo said “ how could I? “

They slept as if they would never part but when he woke she was gone.

Never to be seen again. Not a dream ! Once loved but no more.

and now for the news:

And now for the news:

Many people died today because of differences of opinion. Some died in anger and some accidentally. The number of births far exceeded the number of deaths but hunger played a more prevalent role than in years past. Pharmaceuticals promised cures for disease in an ever-increasing rate but recent tests have shown scientists not funded by corporate money question optimistic findings.

On Capitol Hill spokesmen for ‘Health reform’ debated whether the President’s proposal would cost taxpayers more than the reform that it promised. Heated words were exchanged and rose to vigorous challenges on both sides of the isle. But both parties agreed to explore a common goal. Later the combatants retired to a fashionable Georgetown restaurant to re-examine the issues.

A large amount of forest was cut down today by peasants hoping to sustain their families through farming. The youth of these regions have migrated to the capitols to explore a meager living through the exploitation of excess labor.

Multi-national corporations extended their hold on world governments by controlling monetary resources, bribery or intimidation. Laws are being passed to allow liaise-fare to predominate the option regarding graft.

Lobbyists prevailed in ongoing complaints by people who decry a lack of government regulation vis-à-vis the lethal contamination of food, water, and radiation. Politicians have vowed to look into the issue after November’s election.

Non-nuclear countries have issued a decree that justifies renewed production of fissionable material despite the threat of boycotts by the UN Security Council. Many annalists see a global arms race as idiotic and not in the interest of anyone. However hundreds of thousands massed in Zagreb today in support of “The Why Not Us” congress, which met to re assure the world of its peaceful intent.

NASA is bewildered by the failure of its last six missions due to collisions by “Space Junk” (nuts, bolts and other debris that now comprise a veritable ring around the Earth) Traveling at 7.78kms, a mere fleck of paint can disable a space station. However NASA warns of unsubstantiated fears concerning future missions.

Wall Street ended on a positive note today amid speculation that a merger was eminent whereby General Electric, Exxon Mobile and Bank of America will join forces in a consolidated effort to promote their interest.

The dollar fell as many countries besmirched the petro-dollar in favor of the Yen.

“One Slimy Shit” toped box-office traffic this weekend and reality show “One Fuck too many” won the Neilson Rating despite a close second by cooking favorite “ My Cake is Bigger than Yours.”

In sports today: Cricketer, Nelson Gibbsley pleaded ‘not guilty’ to alleged performance enhancing violations. “My wickets ain’t tainted, “ pleads the Bloomsbury Center Cupper.

Variable clouds persist in the north while seasonal averages elsewhere tend to follow the norm.