The brushstrokes of a troubled mind
in the shadow world of fantasy
She was a girl of another kind
In her blue and purple ecstasies
Jump into my skin
Join the others within
I will show you the other side
Of a mind that reached for heaven
The yellow dress of her sunny side
A dweller among the leaves
The canvases covered in Boston
A world for people to get lost in.
I will show you the other side
Of the long legged girl from Whapeton
From the palette of a troubled mind
Textured pigments for you to stop in.
The roundness of her breast
In the comfort of her nest
Make yourself at home
She will listen and understand
You may set the tone
But the magic is in her hand
Drink the wine of her perception
Learn what people are really like
No false pride or deception

Eat the fruits of her reality
See the shapes of her creation
She was a girl of another kind
in her lavender tinged elation.

    New York Notes

        By Eugene V. Solot
 

The policeman patrolling the park in front of the New York Public
Library looked like a T.V. parody of a big city cop with his
black brush moustache, his authoritative swagger and a concerned
serious frown. A young black youth with his fly unzipped tucks in
his shirt sleeves showing off in front of his friends. The roar
from the traffic from the Avenue of the Americas can be heard at
a distance. A fat old woman passes talking to herself as a young
Chicano girl looks up and smiles after her. The base of the
statue of William Cullens Bryant in front of the library is
covered with graffiti. Two youths sit on the edge of the circular
fountain drinking wine from a bottle hidden in a paper bag. The
cop glances at them and walks away.

In the Macabeean Kosher Restaurant on forty seventh street a
youth standing over a tray of food says, "If you guys would learn
how to cook falafel it might sell better."
"Why don't you make it if you know so much?"
"I don't have any time. Can't you see I have enough to do
already?"
"Leave him alone, Moish, He doesn't have the time."
Some types who could be from anywhere in the Midwest play country
music on the corner. One plays steel guitar and another plays
guitar and sings. The look timeless and bored. A few people
gather to listen. The are fewer street musicians this year than
last. Perhaps the quarters don't add up fast enough.

Pigeons look the same anywhere, in Philadelphia, New York, or
Macomb Illinois. Some people feed them, others shoot them, and
the French even eat them. They do not seem to concerned as they
peck at crumbs and dodge pedestrians. A sparrow hops between them
seemingly satisfied with smaller crumbs. A man in a grey suit and
ultramarine turban walks among them.

In the Macabeean Restaurant a hefty middle aged man wearing a
yamaka asks for more onions on his chopped herring sandwich. He
also asks, "How much is the beer?"
The clouds have now won the battle with the sun. A portable radio
announces it will rain all day tomorrow. The smell of pot wafts
through the park. A number of people are eating their lunches as
it is now noon. Another couple consisting of a black woman and a
white man passes by. She is wearing a raincoat and swinging a
cream colored pocket book. her hair is frizzy and thick. his
wearing a blue pin striped suit with a vest. The other couple was
on the subway last night carrying a bunch of baby things, a
walker, a highª chair, and other things stuffed in a yellow
plastic trash bag.

An oriental girl with a brush haircut passes by. She has long
black strokes of eye makeup swooping upwards from the corner of
each eye. She walks with a pretty red headed girl. They sit down
on a bench to eat their fast food lunch. It consists of hoagy
sandwiches and cans of pop. The red headed girl is wearing jeans,
a white blouse and a tweed jacket. The Oriental has a bright aqua
blouse. Someone in a turned down sailor hat passes by eating
orange spitting the seed with great force.

A group is playing five minute chess on a shaded bench. The one
with the cap and checked shirt points out that the other's flag
has fallen. A fire engine passes by. Another red head with a cute
ass is more interesting than the fire engine. It is now in the
middle of the lunch hour and the park becomes crowded with
working people eating their lunches. Some are dressed in suits
and carry brief cases while others are dressed casually and speak
coarsely of how stupid their friends are. The ones with the brief
cases swagger importantly measuring each step as if they were
making great decisions. The sun has chosen to come out again,
warming the bare shoulders of the girl in the blue denim dress
with her straps hanging down at her sides. The bleached blond
wearing sunglasses atop her head interrupts her conversation long
enough to put a cigarette in her mouth. One of the business types
carries his navy blue jacket over his shoulder. he stops to take
a swig from his coke, and watch the pickªup soccer game now in
progress. he continues on out of sight into the shadows of trees.
His companion also wears navy blue only he is more formal and
keeps his jacket on.

William Earle Dodge leaning on two heavy volumes placed atop a
fluted pedestal watches over all. his green patina has brown
stains. The steps leading up to the library are crowded with
people eating their lunches. There is only one narrow passage for
people entering and leaving the library.

"Do you have fifty cents for a subway token?", asks the pretty
dark haired girl who looks Jewish.
"I have lots of change. Could you use change for a dollar?:
"I only have a ten, I think. Couldn't you use a subway token?"
"Oh I suppose I will use the subway soon."
"If not you could fence it. Oh you're a doll. hello mother,
mother is that you? I saved you some money; all the phones are
out of order."

The sign says you must use library books to enter this area since
this area is os crowded you cannot use it for your own studying
with your own books. You must leave your own books with the
guard. They will be returned.

A fat youth sits reading about a boy who clung to a sinking boat,
and watched his father drown. The youth has red hair in the form
of an Afro and chokes as he puffs on a joint. The park at
Broadway and twenty fourth has more trees than the other. The
headlines tell of more dead in the Miami riots. the toll has now
reached nineteen. the collage inside the grate contains thousands
of cigarette butts, pop tabs, bits of paper, and unnameable other
items formed into an exciting array of colors, more interesting
than the art at the Whitney Decade Show. An old black man
carrying a shopping bag announces cigarette lighters two for a
dollar, no tax. Another three piece navy blue suit with red
lining and a continental cut jacket. An old man walks with hishands clasped behind his back. The joint has been replaced by a
chocolate covered strawberry popsicle. The ever present pigeons
come boldly forward to search out pieces of nuts and popcorn. One
of them asserts his authority by pecking the back of the neck of
the light brown and white one. Even pigeons have bullies.

"Anything was Eddy's as long as he could get near it."
"You know how you get rid of a tatoo?":
"No, how do you get rid of it?":
"You tattoo over it with flesh color. I had this tattoo,
`U.S.M.C.R.', and wanted to get rid of it."
"No kiddin',you had a tattoo?"
"Right up here on my arm," said the man at the end of the bar
with a red face, and white walrus moustache. Someone from the
last century.
"That ain't' the way you get rid of a tattoo. The way you get rid
of a tattoo is to inject each pore with milk."
"No you tattoo over it with flesh color. That's how he did it."

"All I ever hear from you is sex."
"I'm sorry."
"The way I'll know you're sorry is if I never hear it again."

On the corner of W. 47th and Avenue of the Americas a young man
in filthy rags sits sorting pieces of hashish from amid some
pebbles and other debris. His dark hair is tangled and his shoes
are separating into many disconnected layers. he is placing the
little pieces of hash atop a plastic bag containing a coke can
and wadded pieces of newspaper. This rests on a ragged paper bag.
On a bench near the London Majesty a very pretty chunky girl in a
pink blouse kisses a paunchy young man with light blue denims and
a suede jacket. he has wire rimmed glasses. She points to a spot
on her left cheek and speaks words which merge with the traffic.
On the bench across, two grey haired gentlemen speak Italian.
Kaplan's and Sampson buy diamonds. Tuxedos are for rent above a
GroceryªDeli. The girl in the pink opens her mouth for a more
serious kiss. Then she turns away. Next to them an old man sits
hunched staring out at the traffic. There is an ugly stainless
steel sculpture sitting on a marble pedestal. It consists of
sterile curves spiraling and ending in a comma. It turns its back
on the Chase Manhattan Bank. This miniªpark has modern benches of
flat tasteful slabs that refuse to conform to the shape of your
ass os you must feel their structural impressions. A crowd of
little black children play amid the bushes planted by the Irving
Trust Company. A pretty white girl, her hair flying in the
freshening breeze directs them with a pointed finger. A young nun
grabs one of them. The predictions of rain seems soon to be
fulfilled. The young couple feeling the chill decide to leave.
People in New York are sophisticated; they smoke their dope
sitting alone as they stare at the passing crowds.
Audrey Hepburn and Ben Gazzara are making a movie on E. 53rd. ST.
and 5th Avenue.
"Please don't stare;keep moving."
He is wearing a blue raincoat and she has blue tinted glasses.She looks older but he looks the same. She is wearing jeans and a
blue jacket with a red blouse. Her hair is curly and she is very
skinny. She strides by surely on her high heels holding the hand
of a little boy. A man is stopped from making a home movie. The
girl with the walkieªtalkie and yellow raincoat stops people from
staring. A policeman begins to direct traffic. The people
crossing the street are to to keep moving and not stare. Ben
Gazzara runs across 5th Avenue in front of a city bus. The
equipment is quickly broken down. The scene has finally been
shot. The corner resumes its normal look.

A group of hard-hatted workmen sit on the edge of a pool in front
of Ferragamo's eating their lunches. One flagpole has a flag
moving in the light breeze. A fire engine stands idly by with its
red light turning. Men with hand trucks carry huge loads of
cases. Umbrella covered carts sell barbecued beef, ice cream and
hot dogs. Young business men talk impressively of deals while the
young girl in the white pants bounces her tits beneath her blue
blouse as she passes the corner of 5th Avenue and 56 street. A
young man with curly black hair sells lit up compacts glowing
inside a corrugated aluminum passageway. A painted jeweled
collage of the Mona Lisa by Laurence Lacina stands behind
shattered layers of glass. "To whom it may concern. This window
is made of alternate laminations of glass with plastic. It cannot
be broken through, only the surface can be scarred. The first
blow, however, sets off the alarm and a police squad car will
receive the signal in seconds."

"Holy spirit Excitement Orethics?" Dr.Read Preaching.
The fat woman sits on the steps of the Madison Avenue
Presbyterian Church surrounded by shopping bags at her feet, a
red knit cap on her head and a red shirt. The woman in purple
talking to her picks up a black poodle. A man parks his  Seville,
fuel injection, next to the corner and leaves hurriedly in his
grey shark skin suit. Four chickens slowly turn on a fat skewer
in the window of Oscar's Prime Meats.
 

                  In Bemelman's Bar

"Oh I went to art school fifty years ago. I wouldn't know the
same people as you did. I know Zerbe though, but I never heard of
that other guy." Her face had once been pretty, but many years
and lots of booze have put lines of dissipation  upon it. The
real art of the city is all around in the streets. If you
understand that you do not need the museums or galleries.

"The cancer was not only in his stomach, but in his liver, around
his aorta and in his bones. The cancer takes on the property of
stomach cells even if it enters the bone. Cancer doesn't kill
somebody; it just overtakes the function. So he probably really
died of a heart attack."

                      45th Street Bar

"I never cared for Dean Martin except for one song, `Memories are
Made of This.'"
"Yeah, well Dean Martin never sang; he just crooned."
"Right, do you like Nat Cole?"
"Yeah, I like him."
"What about Edie Gormey?"
"She's a little sicky."
"Oh yeah, I think she's one of the great female singers."
"Do it to me one more time," echoes from the juke box with its
alternating lights of blue, purple, and magenta through green in
the fashion of a rainbow. The mirrored back of the small bar is
covered with money from many lands. The bar is a small place on
45th. st. near Broadway.
"If you don't pay attention you wouldn't know it was raining at
all."
"Yup, just a fine mist."
A Spanish style tune comes on and the barmaid, a Mexican woman in
her fifties begins clapping her hands in the style of the Gypsies
who dance and sing in the Caves of Granada.
"Who's that guy that had everything going for him and jumped out
of a window?"
"Danny Hathaway, and now one knew why he jumped."
"They did an autopsy and found he was loaded with drugs. Why do
they do those drugs?"
"Keeps them going I guess, don't they all take them to keep
going?"
"Yeah, but they ain't' going anymore after they's dead is they?"
"I guess not. I don't know why they take them. They all take
them. This song I like."
"Its jazz; do you like jazz?""
"I like this tune."

The music was a slicked up low key jazz piece with a commercial
beat. The white haired man in his sixties returned to the booth
he had occupied and began to doze off again. A popular disco tune
began to play now as a siren screamed outside. Next Page