While searching for something this morning in my emails I came across an email "update" I sent to a group of my friends about a year after we'd graduated university, and even after all these years it still gave me a laugh. I edited it slightly for brevity, and to remove some (unecessary?) profanity:

How is everyone doing?

 

I have enjoyed everyone's occasional updates so much, and I would like to encourage more of them. In order to do my part I shall provide you with a wee update of my own.

 

I am living in Jersey City and working in Manhattan. During the day I work for an architectural firm where I sit from 9-6 at a quiet desk, spending most of my time writing long-winded emails to friends about absolutely nothing or daydreaming about Mia Maniscalco. Often, on slower days, I find myself lost in moments of the deepest nostalgia as I remember back on all of those nights when I would get off of work and race to 73 Barnes to join you all in the revelrous creation of happy memories. Friends and faderade: the true ingredients of halcyon days. What more could we have asked for?

 

Right... anyways... since after reading this email you are obviously envious of my life... you should come to visit me! I am only a 10 minute subway ride from lower manhattan and I have a guest room. If during your stay you should cross paths with my landlady who lives in the building: do not be alarmed. Is she as crazy as she looks? Yes! But it's that harmless kind of crazy that one finds so frequently in New York; always cursing out loud for no apparent reason or mumbling insanely to herself about her catastrophically wretched existence. And I should warn you that she doesn't throw anything away. The other night I was in the basement to do my laundry and as I was navigating my way amidst the hoarder's paradise she's created down there I notice an impressive series of large jars, without lids, each chock full of old toothbrushes! USED, toothbrushes, guys! I just stopped and stared, in total disbelief. There must have been 50 or 60 toothbrushes collecting dust. A recent conversation between us went something like this:

 

(Enter Tom, holding a hookah coal with a strange utensil which he has pulled off of some shelf in the kitchen. Lorraine, the landlady, is present but Tom is unaware of this unfortunate fact and he proceeds to light the coal on the gas stove, holding the coal carefully using this awkward kitchen utensil.)

 

Landlady: "What the fuck are you doing!? You're setting things on fire!"

Tom: "Oh, ah, didn't see you there. It's a coal, for, um..."

Landlady: "For what? A joint? There's no smoking!"

Tom (still holding the coal on the flame): "How, what? No. How could this be for a joint? It's a coal for a hookah." 

Landlady (in utter shock and disbelief): "A what? OH my GOD! That's my antique potato masher! YOU'RE PUTTING MY ANTIQUE POTATO MASHER IN THE FIRE!"

Tom (removing it immediately from the flames, now also in disbelief): "This bent fork thingy? With a dirty wooden handle?  Oh come on! This thing has to be worthless! Although it's kind of perfect for holding this coal..."

Landlady: "OH my GOD! You're ruining it! Do you have any idea how rare those are!?"

Tom: "Rare? That's because everyone else threw theirs away! This thing couldn't have cost more than $2 thirty years ago. I bet it's lost value every day since! I'll give it back - I'll give it back -  just hold on - okay?"

 

That spot of dialogue took me about 40 minutes to write... yikes. But you get the idea. I miss you all so much.

 

I hope that we can organize some group trips, or reunions of any sort this winter. Alas, oh great Fortuna. We have been dispersed from coast to coast. I'm being silly now, that is my cue to stop.

Love you all,

 

Your working boy,

 

Daryl

Julian Stanczak

I went to see Julian Stanczak speak about his life and work at RISD, in 2003. Out of all the lectures I saw there, Julian's stuck with me the most.

Julian spent most of the lecture talking about color. He explained briefly about his methods and their origins, how the careful geometry was a result of him having only his left-hand (his entire right arm was permanently paralyzed in a concentration camp at age 10); any precision required tape to create guides before the paint was applied.

He mentioned color so many times, at one point my friend Katie leaned over and said jokingly, "I wonder what his favorite color is." I laughed, partly because it was a good joke but also because Julian was so serious and solemn- he hadn't smiled once or made a single joke the entire talk.

When Julian finished his talk, the audience began asking terrible questions. It was a huge auditorium, with hundreds of people, and after this wonderful lecture, the first question someone asked was "do you drive a green volvo?" Julian squinted at the man who asked the question and didn't even bother to respond. The man clarified, "I thought I saw you earlier driving down such-and-such street" to which Julian quickly replied, "No."

A few more dumb questions, and then silence. It was hard to believe that with an audience filled with artsy people, no one had any decent questions to ask.

Way up near the back, I raised my hand, and Julian pointed to me. "What is your favorite color?" I asked. The audience laughed, another stupid question perhaps, but at least it was a funny one.

But Julian didn't laugh; he didn't even smile. He looked at me for a moment, and then, completely straight-faced, he asked me, "How can you ask that?"

"I love color itself," he continued, "and you can not single out colors on their own- any color will look, feel and act differently depending on the colors which surround it. The way that colors interact with each other, I love that. And there is an infinite spectrum. Someone says 'blue is my favorite color' - what blue? there are an infinite number of colors, all within the spectrum we categorize as blue..."

He continued on this theme for some time, brilliant and mesmerizing, and I'll never forget it.

Julian was born in Poland in 1928. When he was still a young boy his family was taken from their home and forced into concentration camps. He was separated from his family and sent to a labor camp in Siberia where, from starvation and excessive labor, he lost the use of his entire right arm, which he never regained (he was right-handed).

Amazingly, he not only escaped but made it all the way to Persia, where he joined a small resistance army "because they had food." Eventually he made his way to a refugee camp in Uganda, and finally, at age 21, he made it to the USA.

Julian explained that ever since he'd been a boy, he'd wanted to go to America. All the time he spent as a refugee, he built up this idea of the "American Dream" even though he didn't know what it was.

When he finally arrived in New York, this skeletal, handicapped boy named Julian was taken into a shelter where they brought him food, and as he ate, they kept bringing him more soup and bread, and he kept eating it, until finally he couldn't eat anymore. He didn't understand what was happening, because he had never been full before. He had never once in his life had more food than he could eat, and that's when he realized what the American Dream meant to him- this feeling of being full.

Il Profilo Continuo (Testa di Mussolini)

This is a fascinating piece. I took this photo in the Guggenheim (NY), and while there were many interesting pieces on display at the exhibit, this one stuck with me the most. It's from 1933, by Renato Giuseppe Bertelli, and it's a bust of Mussolini.

I think it was intended to represent Mussolini as some sort of omniscient god. And to represent Mussolini's passion for speed, for power and for machines. And it does all of these things.

But it also shows a spinning Mussolini. The opposite of those creepy sculptures with glass eyes that follow you around the room, this sculpture is always looking in some other direction.

I love Italy, and it's upsetting to think that they could end up on the wrong side of WWII, of all wars. To send innocent people off to concentration camps, to invade the islands of Greece... it was a nation confused, spinning out of control.

On top of it all, this sculpture really does look like Mussolini..