Summary
This episode is also available as a blog post: https://observationsonthenatureofperception.com/2022/01/06/memories-of-herta/
“Memories of Herta”
January 7, 2022“Memories of Herta”
January 7, 2022Summary
This episode is also available as a blog post: https://observationsonthenatureofperception.com/2022/01/06/memories-of-herta/
Transcription
“Altercations of Pity”
January 7, 2022
Summary
This episode is also available as a blog post: https://observationsonthenatureofperception.com/2008/06/01/altercations-of-pity-by-ricardo-morin/
Transcription
“Memories of Herta”
January 6, 2022*
In the summer of 1975 I took a painting-studio workshop under Herta’s instruction at the University at Buffalo: from that time evolved the bonds of our friendship. Herta’s wisdom came from her own vibrancy; her curiosity seemed boundless. She would explore various new subjects, from computer art to Japanese calligraphy. All this enhanced her as an artist. As a teacher dealing with students, she had little patience, and many of them felt intimidated by her demands. Most memorably, she taught me that an artist had to evoke the meaning lurking behind every image. Art was not a progressive evolution; nothing was new: everything had already been done; the imperative was to make something of significance.
Herta identified with the stories I shared about my family, and especially about my mother. She also told me stories about her own parents, particularly about how much she admired her father. Through the years, Herta’s loyalty was constant. She was as nurturing as a mother. Being 26 years older than I, she wondered why I wanted to spend so much time with her. I responded people of my age bored me.
The last semester of my junior year, Herta invited me to lunch with her husband Ernest, a cardiologist at the Veteran Administration Hospital next to the university. That morning, some students had set a fire outside my door. I called the university police but I accused no one. Later I told Herta what had happened. She and her husband assured me every thing would be fine. That afternoon we listened to the music of Handel and Brahms, talked about the poetry of mathematics, and discussed the polemics of anthropology of art. That night I did not return to my dormitory room, but stayed with a Polish graduate student of architecture: Jurek Pystrak invited me to stay with him until things were sorted out. Little did I know how significant Herta and Jurek were to become.
While studying for finals, someone I didn’t know introduced himself to me. It seemed he had been my bodyguard since the time of the fire in the dorm. I never found out why he was surveilling me. Later Herta commented: “… the university must have taken stock of how lax its security system was.”
After I went off to Yale for graduate studies and Jurek had moved to Berlin, Herta and I stayed in touch. Sometimes we met in Manhattan and would go to museums and galleries. After having finished my studies at Yale, I worked as a stage designer in Manhattan. In 1988 I visited Herta in Buffalo. Her husband Ernest had died two years prior. Herta and I went to the opening performance of Abingdon Square by María Irene Fornés (1930-2018) at the Studio Arena Theater. That night Herta and I had the opportunity to speak with her (I had executed stage-designs for three of her plays, which had premiered in New York City). Again in 1989, I visited Herta in Buffalo; there we attended a retrospective by the painter Seymour Drumlevitch, who had been both of ours academic advisor, artistic mentor, and friend.
In 1992, Herta came to my first one-man show of paintings in Manhattan. Though I did not see her then, we kept in touch by phone. Jurek’s partner Karl in Berlin told Herta that Jurek had died of AIDS in 1984. This came to both of us as a shock; it explained why we had not heard from Jurek for eight years. Herta was instrumental in connecting us to Jurek’s past. Karl then visited my painting studio in Tribeca. Afterwards, he invited Herta to a river cruise for a night on the Rhine to commemorate his impending death (he had dismissed my optimism about antiretroviral treatments as a missionary sentimentality). I had told Herta his outlook was totally fatalistic.
When I first met Herta, I intuited that she was struggling with depression. I learned later much of her search for affection had been uncorresponded. Her husband was also battling depression, having attempted suicide had it not been for his wife. Herta then looked after him through a long period of illness. After his death her circle of friends shrank. She thought herself unwelcome by other couples. In those years Herta was alone and riddled with guilt. Bewildered, she would knock at my door late at night, long past midnight, asking for support. Now in the 1990’s our roles were reversed: she was coming to my aid. Herta fed my optimism and helped me recover from the suicide of my partner of three years.
Then, in the spring of 2005, Herta met David, my partner of five years. As I walked to the avenue to help her catch a taxi, she told me that she only wished she had met some one like David for herself. Her statement did not surprise me, though we were touching each other’s past just on the edges. I understood that David reminded her of her desire to have met, during her lifetime, someone as sensitive as he.
In May 2008 David and I attended Herta’s 80th birthday party in Philadelphia. We met the entire family, including her grandchildren. Prior to that, Herta had often confided to me her insecurities about being a grandmother. She doubted how her grandchildren and son-in-law perceived her; whether she was accepted by them. She was self-conscious of her German accent, though she would glorify it as an appealing distinction. Although, these were significant years for Herta, the burden of a new life weighted heavily on her mind.
In 2011 my mother died from Alzheimer’s at age 84. During the preceding years I had mentioned to Herta that I used to call my mother in Venezuela to read to her “Don Quixote.” From time to time my mother would react with guttural sounds, which I took for affirmations of laughter. During these conversations, I began to become aware of Herta’s own difficulties in her perception of reality. She became easily agitated. She often felt misunderstood. She repeated past events, as if they were taking place now. I listened quietly, hoping she could regain her calm. I tried to interest her in other matters. Was this why she told me that it was important for us to be in contact? Thereafter I tried to call her until it was no longer feasible. After what seemed to be a long period of silence, her daughter Vivien called to let me know that Herta needed 24-hour a day care. David and I drove from Manhattan to visit her in Pennsylvania. In 2016 she was still able to talk. I thought she remembered me until our parting, when she said how nice it had been to meet me.
During our visit, Herta appeared alert. After we had shown her pictures of our place in Fort Lauderdale, she had made several whimsical remarks. Brashly, she criticized cushions that looked like doughnuts, and were completely out of place. Her wit was as sharp as ever. She even recounted her recommendations for graduate school, in which—to my horror—she had called me of the caliber of Leonardo da Vinci. The point is she relished being controversial.
The summer before her death, Herta was much more limited in movement and speech; she seemed listless, though she smiled often in what appeared to be simple resignation. In our banter with each other, she scowled and rolled her eyes mischievously glancing at everyone. We grinned at each other and she gasped with glee. Following this, Herta gestured, her hands around her mouth, as if asking why did I need a mustache. Then I showed her one of my geometric paintings. She looked at it, raised her brows, opening her eyes wide, and said “GOOD!" I was moved by her approval. She looked to be in command. As she continued savoring vanilla ice cream, she played aimlessly with her spoon, but she refused to let anyone help. When we said good-bye, we mentioned we would return in the spring, and she vouchsafed with the same facial expression, “GOOD!"
Memories about the loss of a loved one are painful, precisely because we have loved them. Accepting their past with humility is the one and only choice for their loss. It is an absolute; we embrace our existence through their memories. Grief is the time to endure suffering with forbearance.
Written by Ricardo Morin and edited by Billy Bussell Thompson
“Herta Lager Kane”
December 29, 2021Introduction
***
Edited by Billy Bussell Thompson
*
Herta Lager Kane (1928-2021) was born in Vienna. With her family, she came to New York City in 1941–via Switzerland–fleeing Nazi persecution.
Herta began her education at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, School of Art and Architecture, before obtaining a B.F.A. in Graphic Design and an M.F.A. in Painting from the University at Buffalo.
Herta began her career as an adjunct professor of Painting in the University at Buffalo, and then spent most of her life as an associate professor of graphic design in the State University College at Buffalo. Herta’s paintings on the plasticity of geometric abstractions as well as her refined constructivist drawings have been exhibited at Buffalo’s Albright Knox Art Gallery, the Burchfield Penney Art Center, the Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, and various alternative local cooperatives dedicated to video research and development for theater and television.
In her work Herta searched for a new direction in the depiction of pictorial space, resulting from the great legacy of our mentor Seymour Drumlevitch. In her own words, Herta aspired to arrive at the power “… of a mystical ambiguity and elusiveness.”
________________________________________
***
An Elegy
*
Herta always had a generous warmth for and a profound insight into humanity. Even when we were most fragile, in our moments of trouble, we did not have to say much to assure each other that everything would be fine; even in silence, we supported one another with a sense of wonderment, at times even with great humor. From the time when I first met Herta in 1975, as a painting instructor in the University at Buffalo, she shared her wealth of knowledge and always provided encouragement. She looked after my well-being until she was no longer able. Our friendship attested to the fact that no one has control over his destiny, though our love persisted beyond such boundaries. Herta’s confidence—in the labors of becoming a visual artist and surviving the myriad uncertainties of a professional career—enabled my finding answers to managing whatever fate provided. Her humanity, dignity, and intelligence were a fountain of inspiration for all of us, who had the good fortune of knowing her. More than a mentor Herta became a loving and loyal friend. No one else could fill her place in my heart. Herta and I had strong bonds. I owe her my standing, not only emotional maturity but also my intellectual development. Without her, I would be different; to her I owe the inspiration of authenticity and thoughtfulness.
R.F.M.
*
___________________________________________
*
In Memoriam Herta Lager Kane
***
Destiny
*
Fate and chance drew out of our tears a smile
and brought solace to our failures;
then we looked up after we'd sunk
with the confidence
of climbing back.
In loneliness
we found for ourselves company,
and in helping others, we were helped.
In our pursuit of the impossible good,
we came to know our failures.
In the brevity of each moment,
nothing seemed to fit for being possessed;
when we marveled at the great arc of time,
this never died,
even in the absence of hope.
The ups and downs from the goddesses, the three Moirai and Tyche,
in their dispensation of favors and troubles,
couldn’t keep us from moving on,
even if we met each other and were
hopelessly aware of our imperfections.
***
Ricardo F Morin, December 29, 2021, coauthored by Billy Bussell Thompson
*
__________________________________________
***
Herta’s Art
*
*
*
*
“Wislawa Szymborska”
December 19, 2021The Liminality of Language:
Words are symbols not necessarily truthful. We endow them with meaning in order to appease our bewilderment before aspects of reality we cannot fully comprehend. Perhaps writing is found in an effort for our conscience to overcome its fragility.
Anonymous
Wisława Szymborska was born July 2, 1923 in Bnin [now part of Kórnik], Poland; died February 1, 2012 in Krakow. She was a poet, whose intelligent and empathetic explorations of philosophical, moral, and ethical questions earned her the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996. https://press.princeton.edu/our-authors/szymborska-wislawa
In memoriam Herta Lager Kane.
A Few Words About The Soul 1
We have a soul from time to time. Nobody has her all the time, nor possesses her forever. Day after day, year after year, may go by without her. Sometimes she nests in us for a while, in the fears and raptures of childhood, and sometimes at our surprise of being old. Rarely does she lend us a hand with routine tasks, moving furniture, or baggage, or walking miles in shoes that don't fit. She runs away when meat is to be ground, and hopes are to be met. Out of every thousand talks she'll take part in one, if at that. She likes silence. When one’s entrails go from dull to intense pain she gives up. She is choosy: she doesn't like us in crowds. Our desires to get ahead and hustling for advantage make her sick. For her, joy and sorrow are not opposites. She is within us in the union of both. We count on her when we're sure of nothing and curious about everything. The things she likes are mirrored clocks with pendulums working all the while, even when no one looks at them. She doesn't say whence she comes nor when she'll leave again, even tough she is waiting for these questions. For some reason we need her, and she needs us just as well.
Footnote:
1: Poem written by Wislawa Szymborska: published July 1, 2000, original translation from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Claire Cavanagh in 2006, transposed into Spanish and English by Ricardo Morin and Billy Bussell Thompson, December 2021.
“Book of Changes”
June 22, 2021*
*
Ricardo Federico Morin Tortolero
*
Editor Billy Bussell Thompson
*
*
__________________________________________________
*
In memoriam Eva Lowenberger
*
__________________________________________________
The allure of one’s success,
Organizes truth in haze,
To lead one to make a mess.
Ricardo F Morin – April 2021
__________________________________________________
*
Acknowledgment
Book of Changes is a new departure from my life as a visual artist into a recent collaboration with Billy Bussell Thompson, who is a Ph.D. in Linguistics, Professor Emeritus at Hofstra University. Our relation is unlike that of an independent author and an editor. As friends with a shared history of experiences and distinctly different influences, our relation defines us beyond simply one providing feedback and constructive advice to the other.
I see myself without any pretense of wanting to become a professional writer, or of emulating a particular literary style, just as I have never considered myself a professional artist of any particular tendency. Yet I am a life long inquirer of these two distinctly different disciplines. As I have mentioned it to Billy, “I come to be who I am in writing because of him”: in learning how to order my perceptions into concrete events, which is a difficult task for a visual artist without a full ownership of the English language. Billy’s specialty and his particular knowledge of Romance languages enable him to bridge the differences between their semantic fields. Without presumption, I believe our relation defines us both in unique ways, not possible if we were fully independent of one another. I am as much a work in progress for him, as I am for myself.
As with any given artistic expression, the process itself of Book of Changes arose from exorcizing a variety of memories in the act of writing. The writing process informed the direction and nature of the story as an object of artistic pursuit.
Real memories as well as random, and chance events were combined, including the daily changes of every emerging moment. The effort that Billy and I made was to find unity in all these events, despite their multiple possibilities. All of it was brought to bear in a complex collage, stripped away of superficiality, and into its own realism.
Inauthenticity was as easily dismissed, just as excessive information had to be eliminated, and in the process we discovered how the story had to be directed. Yet, I am aware of the absence of what was cancelled, which left an indelible mark on the nature of the story.
For me, it was the same as creating an abstract painting, except that in working together, Billy and I channeled each other to arrive at the piece itself. The process felt different from the ways in which a painting takes place in the intimacy of one’s studio, constructing and deconstructing, building and rebuilding, what may have turned into a fluid geometric abstraction. In our story, every word, as a brushstroke or a line in a painting, became essential to the harmony of the narrative: as the illusive depth of spatial relations in visual art, language and feeling, undifferentiated and congruent, came about like the regenerative portrayal of an abstract painting.
Book of Changes strives to formulate my memories and the changes in perception, which occur from time to time. The nuances of this particular book of histories attempt to illustrate the character of personal truth, of what is imponderable and evanescent in one’s sense of humanity. Though the story is based on real life experiences, the personal and particular, however, do not constitute the principal objective, rather it is the constantly evolving character of one’s truth.
Ricardo F Morin
__________________________________________________
*
Chapter 1
Ignis Fatuus: the whole world could collapse; to live we need false hopes.
Chapter 2
Your paternal grandfather hardly ever spoke; lying next to him, you suffered his snores. One Sunday morning you sat quietly on the bench with him; he was playing the organ at the Church of Bella Vista in Caracas. One Sunday afternoon, he took you to feed pigeons at the “plaza mayor” in Puerto La Guaira. One early Monday, he sat at a carved desk and sipped hot coffee from a demitasse’s saucer. For a time, he twiddled his thumbs and whistled a tune. Suddenly he chased you from the house in belief that you had broken something of his. Fearfully you ran across the street and were almost hit by a car. You joined older eight-year-olds playing marbles.
Chapter 3
There is so much that we ignore that humility becomes a necessity, not a choice. Nothing can be conclusive at any time.
Chapter 4
Your maternal grandmother never engaged in small talk. To dissuade you from sucking your thumb, before bedtime, she applied hot sauce to your left hand. You simply switched to your right thumb.
Chapter 5
Man does not control who he is, nor how he thinks, or even how he perceives himself. You do not control who you are, how you think, or how you perceive yourself. Asking why one exists or observing how one changes from time to time, only appears to suggest lack of control.
Chapter 6
In his cell, Father Manuel, the math teacher, talked to himself. His murmurs were barely audible. Often he chastised us on the differences between a big man and the little man. The principal Father Lisandro replied there’s no explanation for evil in the world.
Chapter 7
One cannot debunk fears about the existence of God and the devil. It is a wild goose chase. Culture, similar to tradition and belief, comes from the imagination.
Chapter 8
As a friend, Rogelio was considerate and attentive. Your mother heeded not to grow too close to him: he was poor, black. Angrily you countered: poverty was not shameful and, besides, your father’s skin was only slightly lighter.
Chapter 9
Do you find meaning in imaginative worlds and daydreams?
Chapter 10
During lunch, Uncle Calixto sat across at the end of the table. Casually he announced the suicide of a couple he’d introduced you to, only a month before. Your consternation was obvious; Uncle Calixto insisted you were to inquire no further. Years later, with the same tone of anger he accused you of evil thoughts: you have the devil in you, for being gay.
Chapter 11
You asked how moral can a person be: someone who believes in the devil, hell, and eternal damnation! For you this morality was defective. For you, religion is no different from astrology.
Chapter 12
Fifteen years ago Francis died of cancer. His brother grieved as if a limb had been amputated. He set his home ablaze before drinking antifreeze. The family was not surprised. Neighbors blamed you for not having expunged his pain. The building’s manager called the next day alarmed that you had exposed 45 stories to conflagration.
Chapter 13
Suicide is no different from murder. Killing yourself is no less moral than killing another. Both are cowardly. Consciousness pertains just to the living. Killing oneself is to defile one’s nature. Accounting for madness cannot absolve agony. Memory of love is the only consolation.
Chapter 14
Just before first Communion, your father brought up death. You replied it was inevitable. Later you heard him telling your mother that your answer was quite unexpected. At Christmas time, you announced to your father you knew all about Santa. He answered “what do you plan to do about it?” You just shrugged your shoulders and asked for his blessings before going off to bed.
Chapter 15
Are you suffering for not being an innocent?
Chapter 16
The grocer said he knew your family, so you asked him for a ride home on the back of his pick-up. Arriving there you found your father in a state of panic. You had disappeared to him, and you thought he had forgotten you. Thereafter, you did not go to your art classes for ten years. Then, as a teenager, you wandered around your neighborhood. One day, in the early evening you found an older boy studying. He was memorizing something when you interrupted him. He asked why you were offering him candy, and you said: “why not? Aren’t we neighbors?” When you got home late, your parents were leaving to report you missing.
Chapter 17
Can anyone measure consciousness?
Chapter 18
Each time you came through the gate to your friend’s house, his German Shepard would lurch forward until he recognized your voice and scent. Your friend had stayed out of school that day, not feeling well. Without preamble, he volunteered he was being sent off to military school. Then he said he was terribly upset and had to get rid off his stress. You sat quietly at the foot of his bed. The two of you exchanged monosyllables, while he masturbated beneath the blanket. He told you he had to beat and to come. These words were meaningless to you. With a friendly glance you left, never to see him again.
Chapter 19
You did not ward off fears, so much as you needed to reckon with their fleeting existence, just like when waking up from a dream.
Chapter 20
Vacationing with a classmate, your attentions were on his older brother Francisco. Each time your bodies touched you trembled. You feared becoming overwhelmed. Long after his death, his appeal rushes after you.
Chapter 21
From early childhood innocence had already been lost to ache. You had long been fair game.
Chapter 22
At 18 years you met Ennio Lombana, after having crossed to the neighbors’ house. You became his sexual victim. Perhaps this explains going to university four thousand miles away.
Chapter 23
You tried never to think of fear, yet it became an obsession.
Charter 24
Your father and your art tutor both encouraged education in North America, yet fearing its implications. Their memories stand in silence.
Chapter 25
Ignorance is the essential condition of our existence, despite one’s arrogance to aspire knowledge or its authority. For you that is the real obstruction preventing a clear perception of anxiety, the pain of loneliness, fear, and lack of love. You cannot achieve rationality in your life with the rigidity of belief or the absurdity of dogma. In vain you may try to reject doubt, fearing uncertainty and thus denying the very depth of your ignorance.
Chapter 26
La Nena Pérez was a golden rebel for José Luis. Her beauty bewitched all who saw her. For his wife Antonieta, however, she was an interloper. Decades later, a letter of his arrived from Andalucía. In it Antonieta was praised as toda una señora. Self deprecatingly, he lauded your father. You had mentioned that La Nena did not recognize you at a chance encounter in Caracas. He was beside himself learning your voice was no longer familiar to her. Seemingly, she had forgotten canoeing across the Tucacas Bay.
Chapter 27
How can there be love, if one is empty? Ennui uncovers it. Self importance aspires to enlightenment just as yearning does to sanctity and humility. It is luck to find pure love.
Chapter 28
Before entering the university you enrolled in a course in English as a second language. The professor made learning exciting. His patience disarmed you. At mealtime, you spoke on and on, forgetting to eat, and he would smile tenderly.
Chapter 29
Desperation cannot assuage sufferance.
Chapter 30
Three Marys flew from South America to Niagara Falls for a visit. They rode the Ferris Wheel at the amusement park on the shores of Lake Ontario. Their visit was a complete mystery, except they believed they were in contact with extraterrestrials. One of them realized she wasn’t the object of Ennio Lombana’s affections. Your mother’s resulting breakdown was immediate.
Chapter 31
In 1977, hungry and destitute, you came close to dying. You distracted yourself in discos. You met Donald Bossak and Paul Barret: the former insecure and the latter suicidal. You moved into the university dorms to face a group of rioters, who had been egged on by a room-mate. Away with the foreigner, they shouted, setting fire to your door. At graduation you found out the university had assigned you a bodyguard. By then you had come to know a student. This Polish dissident, Jurek Pystrak comforted your misery. The summer before graduation you studied together in Austria, and after graduation he went on to continue his studies at the University of Pennsylvania and you went on to Yale for the MFA. Jurek died in the mid 80’s in Berlin. Only later did you hear it was AIDS.
Chapter 32
Technology has extended our lives into preconceived worlds. Algorithmic archetypes impose an order over bias, by which it controls, sells, and manipulates you.
Chapter 33
Every weekend, you and Jurek traveled between New Haven and Philadelphia. Before taking his Fulbright, he suggested it was okay dating another during his absence. You took this to be a lack of loyalty. From Berlin he wrote he had met a film historian. After Jurek’s death, Karl visited your art studio. He found your geometrical canvases oddly formal. Was his conversation an echo of his own influence on Jurek and, of his own vision of the freedom of artistic expression? He later wrote from Berlin he was dying. In his letter he said your quests regarding treatments were futile missionary pretenses.
Chapter 34
But it was not a mission, it was compassion for him as it could have been for Jurek. Karl was filled with his own memories; you begged him to keep up hope.
Chapter 35
Never have you cried for someone as when you did when Benjamin Ivry left to work in Paris in 1984. After he left, your old friend Carol Magar helped you negotiate the pass to the American Citizenship. Eighteen years later, she died of cervical cancer, and five years earlier, Benjamin had returned from France. Was it his stance of irony that broke you apart as friends? You last spoke to him at a bookstore on Park Avenue and 57th Street. There, on the occasion of promoting his book “Maurice Ravel: His Life,” you introduced him to your husband David. Benjamin excused himself and left abruptly to meet his agent. Later that year, Benjamin moved to Thailand. He became a biographer and translator of well-known 20th-century figures in the arts. Only thanks to the World Wide Web can you see his image, and his prose continues to provide you with his particular métier. He remains your provocateur.
Chapter 36
In 1987 you were diagnosed with AIDS. Before the diagnosis you came to know an Episcopal clergyman and a TV-soap’s actor. Both fought for your attention. For years one disapproved of the other. The actor was ironic and the clergyman was a libertine. The clergyman died of a heart attack in 2008. The actor is in his late 80’s. His husband derided you.
Chapter 37
During the years of AIDS’s hysteria, your friends Philip Jung and Tom Bunny were not scared of death. You comforted them when they lay quietly on your lap.
Chapter 38
Nearly blind, Lyda saw herself as a patron of Latino culture in the United States. She enjoyed curating art shows in Midtown Manhattan. A provincial teacher, turned diplomat, enforced the idea in her they had the opportunity to open up the American art establishment. Then a pseudo progressive revolution strengthened them as potential populists.
Chapter 39
You listened to grand stories. Their aspirations, akin to religious fervor, never materialized. They seemed like grafters unable to give up their desires to dominate.
Chapter 40
Painting kept you sane, said a friend, who had come to your loft. Your paintings were developing an abstract vocabulary. You painted at night and worked as a commercial designer during the day. When your health failed you renounced everything and chose refuge with your family in South America.
Chapter 41
One learns to live with fear.
Chapter 42
You became a seesaw in your native land. You ran into repugnance both from the medical establishment as well as from family.
Chapter 43
In 1994 the Venezuelan medical institutions were collapsing. A few doctors and several thousand businesses asked you to write a mission statement for Fundación Metaguardia. It had been registered as a program for people with terminal diseases, The proposal went to the Venezuelan commissions of Health, Education and Culture, and to the United Nations. It failed. The Venezuelan Ministry of the Family tried to turn the program into activities for the feebleminded. Nothing happened.
Chapter 44
In November 1995, you flew from Caracas to Los Angeles. You had been nominated for an Emmy for your work on In Search of Dr. Seuss. The morning after you awoke to a fever of 108 degrees, from a hospital bed, you hallucinated making love to an angel descending upon you. To your nurse, you explained that death was an illusion. In your mind you spoke of Egyptian gods and goddesses, of Germans meandering inside your room, of Zapata fighting for Mexico’s freedom, and even of an intergalactic journey on a spaceship hovering over the hospital. A nurse asked you to open your eyes. Your body had begun to slow down; your eyesight had become magnified. Pulling the intravenous line out of your arm, you wanted to flee. You could not walk but somehow, you danced to music played by the nurses’ radio. You felt yourself in a different time. You saw your home in Venezuela as you crawled on its floor. The grouts were like rivers. Then you opened your eyes to an ocean. Your heart pulsated. You climbed to your home’s roof and stared at the cloudless sky. Fractals of light pulsated like thousands of rainbows. Now you were awake; your ankles were weak. You stood up. You turned to the doctor and said: “What does dignity mean to you? Are you a human being?”
Chapter 45
Nine months later, you were in your mother’s house. Your father came every week to visit. As you become stronger, he says you should return to the U.S.
Chapter 46
In November 1996, you fly from Caracas to New York. Your nine months stay in Venezuela violated your residence’s status. “I believe I was dying and unable to return” you answered. Sir, you may proceed“, the agent finally said.
Chapter 47
Some weeks later, your father falls at home and suffers a concoction. After surgery, he dies in the hospital. Your stepmother had locked him away as if he were a wild beast. In grief you paint again. With no more success than before, rejections from galleries continued to abound. With your mother you traveled to Europe. She talks incessantly and then nine years later she loses her voice to Alzheimer’s. Without parents, you had no bridge to your brothers and sisters. Throughout the years of Chavez and Maduro you have helped the family.
Chapter 48
In 2012, you stopped painting at your art-studio in Jersey City, only to return to art through digital technologies … By chance you have regained your confidence.
Chapter 49
In 1997 you met Nelson. Together you hiked the Amazonian Rainforest all the way to Angel Falls. You swam together in Los Roques. With you he showed himself vulnerable. Was his suicide the venting of his dejection over his brother’s death?
Chapter 50
In August of 1999, you confessed to a Nicaraguan priest in the Vatican. He tells you to measure your responsibilities. You sobbed inconsolably over Nelson’s death. The priest’s response, ” this is not the place.” From the Vatican you returned to the hotel, where you locked yourself up. Upon returning to the United states you seek therapy. There you discussed a relationship with a married English teacher with children, who tells you, “you have killed me as well.” Then you fell into a relationship with an alcoholic. It too was unsuccessful.
Chapter 51
Therapy became a crutch and strangled freedom. Leaving it, the therapist was disappointed. He had become accustomed to directing your thinking and actions. It was his empowerment and, much to his chagrin, you left him.
Chapter 52
When you and David meet, he fills a void in you and you in him. Respite in an imperfect world is found.
Chapter 53
He awoke to an itching jaw with stubble. You rubbed your cheeks carelessly against his face and musky scent. His eyes had the expression of a loving child.
Chapter 54
His glowing eyes evince a timid sense of wonder.
Chapter 55
Together you have traveled the world: the Atlantic, the Pacific, the South China Sea, the Mediterranean, and the North Sea.
Chapter 56
On December 27, 2000, police reported that a 39-year-old man apparently jumped to his death from a Manhattan apartment building on Sunday morning. The suspected suicide leap occurred in Hell’s Kitchen, a short distance away from your home. He was your primary doctor, who had plummeted from the sixth floor. The week before, you had explained to him that the medication he last prescribed had caused you to be sleep deprived for eight consecutive days.
Chapter 57
A few friends from my childhood remain in touch today. At 94, Herta is my oldest friend. I have known her for 46 years. She was my mentor and Platonic friend since college. She lost her memories to Alzheimer’s. From Yale graduate school, there is Angiolina Melchiori , who is now an Italian News Director at RAI TV in Rome; Ariel Fernández, who is an American-Argentinian physical chemist and pharmaceutical researcher; and Maider Dravasa, who is a French Basque with Ph.D. in Linguistics living in Paris. All three have been my friends for the past forty years. As with all of my friends, we have traversed life’s forests through thicket and thin. Then there is my good friend Billy Bussell Thompson, who has a Ph.D. in Linguistics, Professor Emeritus at Hofstra University. I believe Billy has suffered what Job did not. I have known Billy for 34 years since 1987. My true education began when I met him. Over the years, we have coauthored in many occasions, and nearly in every one of my WordPress blogs. When I wrote other short stories in Spanish, Italian, or French, Billy was there to guide me ordering my thoughts into the Romance languages. Book of Changes evolved from a collage of reflections coming from memoirs, my interest and aversion to social sciences, my love of history, an interest in meter, its rise and fall in American poetry, suicide prevention, and self healing. Billy brings to my prose a desire to be precise and to unburden those nagging, vague, and scattered allusions of mine, and overcoming my limitations of fluency as a bilingual writer. Most importantly, there is my husband of over 20 years: David Lowenberger, who has exerted perhaps the most significant influence over who I am. His friends and relatives have also been major contributors. Much to my good fortune, his mother, my mother-in-law, Eva, gifted me 20 years of memorable friendship. Dignified in every respect, she was an inspiration as a mother and a friend. She recently died nearly five weeks before turning 98. I dedicate these short stories in her memory.
“Fern Forest”
March 21, 2021
Cotton clouds zipping by
Along the baby blue sky
Point And Shoot, P.A.S.
Put your hat on, and stick your gut out
The whipping sound of dragonflies
Crossing our walking trails
You amuse me. You are my muse
As spiraling branches with new leaves
No more a dream of a lion about to pounce
You now can move and breathe
White Toadstools popped like plastic toys
Lizards scurry and scamper across our trails
Rushing briskly over mangled trunks
Blackened with age, still brown
Tomorrow Spring starts, 20th of March
The Vernal Equinox arrives
A clearance brightened by the sun, no longer under shade
A hammer in the distance: thump, thump, thump
A young family walks ahead of our way
A fluttering swallowtail dances over the moistened soil
Flapping wings in black and yellow stripes
It stays in one place among mud and grey stones
Fed by minerals, feeed byyyy miii-neee-rals
It splays its wings and stays in one place
A yellow necklace across its black planes
A giant dragonfly also feeds off the mud
Its wings shimmering light
As no diamond ever could
Its body looks like a reptile
With big eyes
A giant dragonfly
A Chihuahua passed us by
Left or right? Left …
For bigger fish to fry
Surface skimmers surf and linger on the water
These two look as if they are skating or fighting
It’s funny
A banded water snake skims over the water
And a young turtle turns round and round
Iridescent small fish with long tales
Look, look, look, look
The turtle swims slowly away
See, see, see
Another serpent undulates as well
Between water lilies
Lying over the mirrored surface
Through reflections it bastes fronds made into lace.
Point And Shoot. P.A.S.
“In Tenebris”
December 11, 2020Coauthored by Billy Bussell Thompson
—————————————————————
In memoriam José Galdino: my father.
_________________________________________________
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I share with the reader my utmost sincere gratitude to Billy Bussell Thompson, PhD in Linguistics, Professor Emeritus at Hofstra University, who has been a lifelong mentor, editor, and closest friend. I also express my deep appreciation for the nuance of sensitive and perceptive editing contributed by both, my perspicacious sister Bonnie Morín, playwright, producer and director of the Madrid Method Workshop in Spain (https://www.metodomadrid.es/), and by her daughter, the talented niece Natalia Velarde (@nix.conbotas), graphic artist and author. I also give thanks for a much awaited reunion with her other daughter, the unequaled niece Camila Velarde, Lic. in philosophy and choreography. Last, I thank my dear husband David Lowenberger, whom I consider to be the most influential in every aspect of my life. Their perception and wisdom served as inspiration and guide for the realization of this short story.
Ricardo F. Morin T., 21 February 2021
_________________________________________________
PREFACE:
Choking On One’s Own Saliva
My father once said how dismal his life would be were his identity lost to the orthodoxy of religion. It was no coincidence that, in reaction to the pieties of five generations, my father was to become a criminologist. For most of his life, he thought that the traditional stories about complementary retribution, binary belief in reward and condemnation, were fantasies, harmless until they became radicalized as replacements for inquiry. As a young man he based his own doctoral dissertation on such principles. Unfortunately, those convictions he deemed delusional were ultimately his own at the end of his life.
I think that, except for the instigation of violence through the search for meaning and its attachment to fiction, whether the violence arises from retribution or self-preservation, a person has no reason to become fearful or destructive. The only remedy to violence is knowing the difference between fantasy and reality.
As I reflected on my own father’s contradictions, I remembered what he had told me when I was a child, that lying was a survival skill. It enabled a person to hide himself in secrecy, not necessarily out of moral incompetence. It arose either from charity or from the fear of being judged. For him lying was part of becoming a competent adult. It was a way to hide imperfections and vulnerabilities. However, if sincerity or honesty were to threaten my father’s survival, it would be because he wanted rather to invent a story instead of looking into his ignorance and diminished understanding of his own importance. Was it natural for him to hide behind lies, or was it his own hubris? Perhaps he was choking on his own saliva during his entire life. He suffered from the delusion that he could avoid truth, or that he could control not facing up to it. Was this a fear of loosing control? Was that a reason why he could not find self-understanding? The mystery was centered not in his self-questioning, but in his fictionalizing his own life, no differently from our forebears.
__________________________
Gangs of West Harlem
1
The Process
For the third time I was serving on jury duty. As on previous occasions, I introduced myself as a visual artist during the voir dire. This time the defense lawyer inquired if I was a portraitist. I reasoned to myself the question was intended to probe the degrees of observation a painter aspired to. I replied that my interest as a visual artist was in the conceptual processes of abstract art, no different from that of a portraitist or any other representational painter, seeking to observe and interpret the essence of a subject. What I chose to represent through abstraction or conception was just as concrete as that of a sitter for a portraitist.
2
The Rules
The trial concerned the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy, and I was selected juror number 12. Previously, I served on civil cases. In civil cases, the preponderance of the evidence is the determining principle. In a criminal trial, the ruling principle is the measure of reasonable doubt. The rules were cautionary and aimed to avoid bias on the part of the jury. In their deliberations jurors were to concentrate on the evidence presented and not on background. Also jurors were not to share information with other people outside of their own forum. I did not know how my participation in a murder trial would affect me. The day after the trial began, juror number 11 was replaced by an alternate.
Testimony lasted 17 days. During that time our electronic devices, cell phones, laptops, and tablets were allowed. On the 18th day, when jury’s deliberations started, these devices were taken away from us. Before this, we had been permitted to speak on matters not related to the trial. We were a diverse group and had very little in common. During court hearings, we had been allowed to take notes while we sat in the jury box. After the days’ proceedings, our note pads were left on our respective seats. When deliberations began, we could take our pads back and forth between the jury box and the jury room. Only then, were we able to study our notes and refer to our observations. Only then, could we begin to talk about the case with each other.
3
The Jurors
The foreman of the jury was an office manager, who felt comfortable in his role as moderator. His communication skills were excellent; even when he disagreed, his manner never expressed condescension. Some jurors were reticent and never voiced a judgment one way or the other. The youngest member of the jury did not find the witness of the crime unreliable. Other jurors were open minded. A teacher remained calm throughout; she listened to others before expressing her own views. Another juror was impatient about the length of the trial. She complained that she had a toddler to care for at home. Aside from myself, there were two other retirees, one of whom was a corporate lawyer, who reminded us of the distinction between civil and criminal cases. Reasonable doubt existed in varying degrees for every member of the jury, save for the youngest one.
4
The Defendant: In dubio pro reo
The defense lawyer had her client plead the fifth amendment. The accused gazed solicitously, with a kind of clawing eagerness. He looked seven years younger in his freshly starched white shirt and tie. His hair was a cropped Afro, and he had across his upper lip a straight mustache. His dress was conceived obviously to attest to his wholesomeness. Since the time of the murder, he has been a detainee at Rikers Island. Sitting barely 30 feet away from the jury, the accused bore a grin across his face whenever he looked towards the jurors. Some members of the jury interpreted his countenance as gloating. Others saw his expression as self pity or abjection, even an attempt at winning us over. His grin, a kind of twisted grimace, was unflappable and even disturbing to us. By the end, however, we dismissed our apprehensions. It was impossible to know whether the accused was remorseful or just trying to beguile us. More important, was the question of consistency. If doubt was to play a part in the case, it had to arise from the evidence. Key was whether the accused was a lone assailant or whether there might have been others involved. Certainty had to come from the assessment of facts, and not be based on appearances.
5
The Prosecution
The prosecution charged the defendant with “first degree” murder. This implied premeditation with malice aforethought. The prosecution added two other charges: murder in the “second degree,” suggesting lack of premeditation. The third charge was for felony murder: death caused during the commission of a felony using an illegal weapon and with extreme indifference to human life. Rendering judgment on these charges rested on intent. Each member of the jury would have to reach an approximation of the truth, and no other reasonable explanation could explain the evidence presented at the trial. The verdict, of course, would have to be unanimous. Proof of the direct involvement of the accused was paramount. The evidence had to show the accused had committed the crime. Was the victim’s death the result of self-defense or was it deliberate? The question before the jury was whether there were circumstances outside the control of the accused. How did his instincts and fears come into play with his own actions. Could the jurors differentiate all of these aspects?
6
Testimonies
I
July’s weather was overbearingly hot. The air conditioning in the jury room was old and as inefficient as it was in the court room; the jury room was even more stifling than the courtroom, particularly between the long intervals of each day’s proceedings. The room was barely large enough for the long table and its 12 uncomfortable chairs. In this tight space it was almost impossible for the jurors to walk around, to go to the water-fountain, or even to the single restroom available. Lunch breaks were much appreciated. On the few days when there was a breeze, we could open the windows, but had to put up with street noise. In the court room, no such liberties were permitted
II
By the third week of the proceedings, the judge began standing with his arms folded against his hips. With a baffled face, he would turn around and stand behind his chair, his black robe half unfurled, and his necktie loosened. At times, he assumed what seemed to be a meditative expression with both arms folded over the back of the chair. Other times, he supported himself with one of his elbows over the back of the chair. One of his hands was placed against his chin, giving him a certain look of abandon. For me, this informality broke up the monotony of the case, as if it were helping him stay awake, and mollified the stultifying heat.
III
The aspects of this case had been under investigation for seven years. We, the jurors, were astonished at the lack of cohesion to the accusations. The statements by the witnesses in no way corresponded to the arguments made by the prosecutor. In fact, the prosecution’s case was stale. One wondered if there was any justification for this trial. The only merit to the case seemingly was using the authority of a jury trial to render a verdict, either for exoneration or conviction.
IV
According to testimony given by the police, the crime resulted from two rival gangs. The gang members’ ages ranged from 12 to 40. The defendant’s lawyer provided their pictures to the jury. The pictures showed them in expensive clothing. Both groups seemed to be showing off, as if they were the source of the neighborhood’s pride. Each group had its own hand signs as mottoes. According to the police, on the night of the murder the two gangs fought over their territory for the peddling of drugs. The defendant became the prime suspect two years into the investigation. According to one of the detectives, the defendant sought to intimidate younger members of the opposing gang, as a means of establishing his own authority over them. The defendant’s motive was said to be an attempt to sooth his own anger for being “dissed.” The jury found these to be speculative. For us the only facts credible were those of the struggle between them.
V
The first eyewitness, aged 13 years at the time of the murder, was the centerpin of the prosecution’s defense. He had been a close friend of the victim, and his proximity to the deed made him valuable. During the course of several days of testimony, two officers escorted him in dressed in an orange jumpsuit, both hands and ankles shackled. They removed only his handcuffs when he sat down on the stand. From the defendant’s attorney, we learned that he had been in custody for two years on a different murder charge. The defendant’s attorney asked him: Are you here today in exchange for lenience for the indictment you face? He thrust his arms and shoulders forward. His answers seemed evasive while the prosecution objected. The question was withdrawn, but the jury would not forget it. His hand partly covered his face, especially his eyes and nose. His head shifted from side to side. He pointed to the defendant, rubbed his chin, and accused him of being the killer. Yet, his deportment was indiscernible and seemed manipulative. Obviously he had not seen from where the bullet had come. His allegations sounded implausible, as if they had been rehearsed. He had an air of entitlement, exuding hatred. During the prosecution’s examination, he revealed his conversion to Islam, and stated he had become a better person by the teachings of the Prophet. For the jury, however, his demeanor was that of an unrepentant malefactor. His lack of doubt hinted at a life of crime, without a sense of any morality.
VI
The prosecutor’s second witness spoke softly, yet his testimony seemed tentative. By his own account, he had been at the edges of the riotous horde. A circle had formed around the hooded individual and the victim. When questioned by the defense, he hesitated before admitting having seeing another armed buddy. But at the end, he relented. He recalled that other gang members had shot into the sky. He acknowledged that other guns had been used, thus accounting for multiple shells found by the police. The bullet, however, that pierced the victim’s heart was a mystery. The jury was at a loss as to what had gone on. Was it retaliation? Was it the shooter egging on accomplices? No answer was forthcoming, neither from this witness nor from the previous one.
VII
Even though, the defense attorney tried to unravel the credibility of the prosecutor’s two eyewitnesses, she tripped over her own words. Not unnoticed was her assertion that the gunman might have carried a gun inside the pocket of his hoodie. Since no one had yet claimed to having seen him draw a gun, her attention to this matter seemed out of place. Was she trying to negate the hooded man’s innocence, while at the same time admitting to her client’s involvement? Jurors never understood her purpose, since the identity of the person in the hood had never been made clear. For the defendant her digression was inconsequential. But not for the jury because it augmented our doubts. Nevertheless, the defense attorney rebutted the evidence gathered by the police.
VIII
On the night of the murder, a pedestrian called the neighborhood foot patrol’s attention to a commotion on the street. The patrol did nothing until the police arrived in their cars and found the body of some one killed. The crowd around the victim had already dispersed and none of the neighbors willingly spoke of what they had seen. The jury was dismayed that the arrest warrant was issued two years after the event. The defense lawyer emphasized that, in the course of those two years, any witnesses’ recollection surely must have faded. She argued: “… just to be pointing a finger at an alleged culprit, out of a desire to seek closure, should not be deemed evidentiary in and of itself.”
7
The Evidence
We asked to see the video evidence before and after the shooting. Witnesses had stated that the defendant on the night of the murder had gone to a tenement looking for a gun, which was shared by all members of his gang. There were two cameras, both of which had restrictive angles of vision. The video was grainy: the product of low resolution security cameras. There was no sound and the imagery was choppy. The lobby camera showed someone descending the stairs to exit, wearing a baseball cap underneath a hoodie. Only his lips and chin were visible. The jury’s dilemma was how to identify the person. The woman with the child at home emphasized “…those features could have been any member of either gang.”
The crime took placed at midnight. There was no traffic and the street was poorly lighted. For a second time, we examined the tape from the outside camera. We concentrated on the footage just before the shooting. It was murky and it showed the person in the hoodie stepping outside the building. The victim’s back was visible and his friend was behind him. There were several flashes of gun fire with one of them coming from next to the victim. A person in the hoodie faced the camera wielding a gun.
Ballistic evidence showed that the trajectory of the bullet came from a short distance before it entered the body of the victim. Maybe the shot came from the position of the hooded man but this was only a guess. More importantly, no guns were ever recovered and we still did not know who the gunman was. In summary, the testimonies, the analysis, and the written accounts were all useless to us.
8
The Community
Jurors were in agreement that the accounts given by the two gangs and the community were not to be trusted. The two gangs lived in two adjacent blocks. Drug infested, the community had become their victim. Solidarity showed itself as hostility. Assault not only on the street but at home was rife. Mothers, brothers and, sisters commonly were attacked. The death rate was high, which in and of itself was evidence that this community was sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Teenagers commonly stole and murdered. Only the rare adolescent was exempt. No social program could help. We, as jurors, were we only agents of retribution?
9
Blindness
From the first days of deliberation, the jurors were uncertain if the accused had taken any part at all. On our fourth day, the young woman who had been most adamant about the guilt of the accused began to waver. Most jurors still thought him to be innocent, but four remained unconvinced. The more jurors accepted their own limitations, the more difficult it became to form an opinion. The phrase blind justice turned piercingly poignant.
10
Unanimity
The majority argued with the four hold outs. Tensions rose with the thermometer. The heat of the midday, the humidity, and the noise from the street became increasingly unbearable. With the windows closed, we turned on the anemic air conditioner and became more fearful than ever of not measuring up to the task. Our disagreements put us on edge and were nerve racking. Slowly we moved towards common ground. One by one, concessions were made. By the time of the third vote, the foreman hesitantly voted against conviction. There were still three jurors holding strongly for conviction. We gave ourselves a minute of silence before voting again. The decision was unanimous innocent. Surprisingly, had we presented a wrongful conviction, or had we derailed the case?
11
Announcing the Verdict
Jurors summoned the guard and handed him a yellow manila envelope with the verdict. After we had returned to the court room, the judge polled us individually. Indelibly imprinted on us was the murdered child’s mother’s face. From the start she had sat alone on the back left corner of the court room. Her sorrow contrasted sharply with the defendant’s family. I felt wary of these families’ reactions. I was deflated, even felt inadequate, indeed insignificant. Knowledge here was slippery.
An uproar reigned in the courtroom. The cries of the murdered child’s mother collided with the joy of the defendant’s family. Repeatedly, the judge admonished the room to be silent. He closed by thanking the jurors for their service, who were in a state of shock. Were we right or were we wrong?, I asked myself.
12
The Randomness of Truth
Chance dominated the jury’s participation. I recalled with fear my father’s imperative about hiding behind fiction as an instrument of self reliance.
The jury broke up. The judge stared at us with a smile as we climbed down to the exit. We walked to where we had deliberated and collected our belongings. We moved to an elevator at the opposite end of the court house. Below, the family of the acquitted man awaited us and, as we approached, they shouted their deafening thanks. The corruption was now complete.
________________________________________________
Epilogue
Ended the theater of misalliance, jurors, the lawyers, and witnesses became actors in the absurd. Our verdict was uncertain: Lost of life and life was foremost. Society seems predetermined: Advantage and disadvantage are in confrontation. What a role do abandonment and darkness play in the human condition?, I pondered. It just seems as if indifference inflicts itself onto destiny.
Ricardo F Morín T and Billy Bussell Thompson
“Metaphors of Silence”
November 24, 2010*
Medium: Oil On Linen
Size: 14 by 18 by 3/4 inches
2009
*
An artist’s Manifesto by Ricardo Morin: Viewing of his Jersey City art-studio where he engages with his paintings [2005-10]; some artworks are in progress and some are part of a recently finished hanging scroll series, entitled Metaphors of Silence. http://www.ricardomorin.com/
Observations On Perception 