The Descent of Winter: 11/6

Natalia Goncharova, Cyclist

   Russia is every country, here he must live, this for that, loss for gain. Dolores Marie Pischak. "New York is a blight on my heart, lost, a street full of lights fading to a bonfire——in order to see their hats of wool on their heads, their lips to open and a word to come out. To open my mouth and a word to come out, my word. Grown like grass, to be like a stone. I pick it. It is poor. It must be so. There are no rich. The richness is everywhere, belongs to everyone and it is hard to get. And loss, loss, loss. Cut off from my kind——if any exist. To get that, everything is lost. So he carries them and gets——himself and has nothing to do with himself. He also gets their lice.

   Romance, decoration, fullness——are lost in touch, sight, a word, to bite an apple. Henry Ford has asked Chas. Sheeler to go to Detroit and photograph everything. Carte blanche. Sheeler! That's rich. Shakespeare had that mean ability to fuse himself with everyone which nobodies have, to be anything at any time, fluid, a nameless fellow whom nobody noticed——much, and that is what made him the great dramatist. Because he was nobody and was fluid and accessible. He took the print and reversed the film, as it went in so it came out. Certainly he never repeated himself since he did nothing but repeat what he heard and nobody ever hears the same words twice. Homekeeping youth had ever homely wit, Sheeler and Shakespeare should be on this Soviet. Mediæval England, Soviet Russia.

   It is a pure literary adjustment. The supremacy of England is purely a matter of style. Officially they are realists, such as the treaty with Italy to divide Abyssinia. Realists——it is the tactical spread of realism that is the Soviets. Imperial Russia was romanticist, strabismic, atavistic. Style. He does not blame the other countries. They fear what he sees. He sees tribes of lawyers tripping each other up entirely off the ground and falling on pillows full of softly jumbled words from goose backs.

   I know a good print when I see it. I know when it is good and why it is good. It is the neck of a man, the nose of a woman. It is the same Shakespeare. It is a photograph by Sheeler. It is. It is the thing where it is. So. That's the mine out of which riches have always been drawn. The kings come and beg for it. But it is too simple. In the complexity, when we try to enrich ourselves——the richness is lost. Loss and gain go hand in hand. And hand in hand means my hand in a hand which is in it: a child's hand soft skinned, small, a little fist to hold gently, a woman's hand, a certain woman's hand, a man's hand. Thus hand in hand means several classes of things. But loss is one thing. It is lost. It is one big thing that is an orchestra playing. Time, that's what it buys. But the gain is scattered. It is everywhere but there is not much in any place. A city is merely a relocation of metals in a certain place.——He feels the richness, but a distressing feeling of loss is close upon it. He knows he must coordinate the villages for effectiveness in a flood, a famine.

   The United States should be, in effect, a Soviet State. It is a Soviet State decayed away in a misconception of richness. The states, counties, cities, are anemic Soviets. As rabbits are cottontailed the officeworkers in cotton running pants get in a hot car, ride in a hot tunnel and confine themselves in a hot office——to sell asphalt, the trade in tanned leather. The trade in everything. Things they've never seen, will never own and can never name. Not even an analogous name do they know. As a carter, knowing the parts of a wagon will know, know, touch, the parts of——a woman. Maybe typists have some special skill. The long legged down east boys make good stage dancers and acrobats. But when most of them are drunk nothing comes off but——"Nevada" had a line of cowboy songs.


(W.C.W.)



[NEXT]