GIMME A BREAK

Last Saturday I took a break from all the political sparring and had one of those perfect New York days.

I took New Jersey Transit to Penn Station and walked up to the main library on 42nd Street. It was a crisply cool day, more late Fall than Winter.

I remember when I first returned East for good in ’99, I dropped by the 42nd Street library for an exhibit, could it have been of R. B. Kitaj collaborations with poets? It was in a small exhibit room upstairs—books I mostly knew well, under glass.

It made me feel a bit fossilized myself. On my way out after that '99 visit, I couldn’t resist checking the catalogue, for any books of mine they might have, and was delighted to discover they had them all, though several were only in “the rare book” room. Pretty cool. I left with a definite unfossilized spring in my step.

I haven’t checked the catalogue for me since, and don’t intend to. Once is enough for that kind of kick. (And by now they may well have gotten rid of some.) So I headed right for the Jack Kerouac exhibit, which is easy enough to find since it’s right on the first floor as soon as you come in.

I had seen most of it already, but Saturday I had more time and could linger over items I hadn’t been able to before. Like his original mock ups of sports newspaper pages that he had hand written in tiny print, and pasted cut out photos of horses and ballplayers, etc. when he was a boy.

They were like original collages, perfect works of art that I would hang on my wall anytime (and I’m sure some were sold for that purpose to those who could afford them, as the “scroll”—or “roll” as Kerouac referred to it, was).

Some of them were a little too far back in their glass show cases for me to be able to read much of without tearing up from the strain, but still a kick to dig, as was seeing the “scroll” again and the variety of people also there to check out the exhibit, from young student bohos to fairly straight looking older folks, speaking several different languages, including American, a tribute to Kerouac’s belief in the value of his work and its longevity.

I couldn’t help but smile thinking of how he had the last word on his critics. There were things in the exhibit I would have changed, but in the end it not only showed the depth and breadth of his amazing output and dedication to his art and craft, but also what a pack rat he was. There’s something of the relics of saints about the cases harboring his reading glasses and the crutches he used when he broke his leg that time.

I left there feeling happy and headed up Fifth Avenue to the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, where a new exhibition of Jane Freilicher’s paintings was having its opening reception. I had the pleasure of not only seeing old friends I rarely see these days, but also of seeing the latest artwork from a woman who was one of the few successful women painters on the New York scene of the 1950s, the “Jane” of so many of Frank O’Hara’s now famous poems, still going strong after all these years.

There were two or three paintings in the show that I also would happily hang on my walls if I could afford them (like the one above), but at least I got the catalogue, as a gift from the gallery, for which I am very grateful, along with a recent publication of O’Hara’s POEMS FROM THE TIBOR DE NAGY EDITIONS 1952-1966, the three small books the gallery published back then, now in one beautifully done edition.

I left just in time to walk around the corner to the Paris Theater to catch a showing of STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING, a movie that had been highly recommended to me by friends, and they were right. I’ll write more about that in my next post. Just wanted to share the joy so many creative endeavors can bring to me, like these three “showings” which I highly recommend you check out if you live in the New York area, before they’re gone.