back to school.

My paying work had evaporated. I had a bank account. I had COBRA. I had an equities account. I had skills. The grant at Fosdic was going to pay an aerodynamicist. I had no dependents. I job hunted hard for about ten months. Not even a nibble. Marla and I looked at my resume. On paper I looked very light. The only thing that even approximated a degree to an H.R. type was an Old Parsons certificate. Know that any school that bears "institute of technology" in its' name graduated students with three year certificates until ~ 1900(?). Qualification creep begins about then. I was still not writing more than absolutely required. My computation skills had not advanced. The original arguments applied. Art School. Where? Parsons was still extant. They did not offer industrial design but did offer product design. I just wanted a degree to show. Close enough. The ten k per semester was a stretch but reachable. Loved it. Aced most of it.

continued. time to go to work.

Parsons under The New School was very different from the organization I had known twenty five years earlier. Design was a poetic practice. There was no attempt to consider whole systems. Logic was ignored. Inductive logic was unheard of. The workload was heavy but the serial all nighters had disappeared. None of the old staff were there. When I signed in with the registrar, her comment was "You're Old Parsons. We don't see you people." I learned that rusty as I was, I could design faster and better than any one there. What they were offering was design flavored liberal education. I quickly shut up and concentrated on passing the courses. This was a joy but relearning the writing of the English language added plenty of sweat.

this is about half done.

editing is a constant. What is here so far is an outline dressed in rags. Details count and loss and recovery happens every day. I am still verbally shaky fifteen years later.

Fosdic hi tec

About a third of the way through Marine Sciences an adjunct, George Fosdic showed up with a model building project.
George is an unrecovered boy soprano, A. I. L. spec. writer, piano salesman and would be inventor. What he wanted was a "pretty" model of a wind turbine he had worked out. I built him a brass model that pleased him for the price he offered. Then came the problem of measuring its' performance as a prime mover. In various forms this went on for twelve years. I did a great deal of free work and learned much about power measurement. I built a series of calibrated brakes, cradles and turbines. Learned something of rigging and tower design. I learned about obsession.
It was not a workable idea.

The Marine Science Research Center

I was there for nine years eleven months. I was a tech. I did some design work. I began to learn DOS. I struggled with Auto cad. In the early releases it was a monster. I finished out my guide boat. I built a paper tape reader for tide gages.
I built an apparatus to measure thermistor time constants. I built a stable micro oxygen sensor and support circuitry. I built several precision incubators. I built remote water samplers to go down with Alvin. I built instrument mooring releases. I built pressure cases. I built centripetal bubble separators. I built a multiple release mechanism to control a sampling net. I designed all of these. I serviced and calibrated the current meter pool. I invented a non spiking salinometer. I fought for development time and lost. I was laid off.

"I am not much into nostalgia." I would like to make a plan.

two year old picture

You have seen me more recently.

Where are your pictures?

If digital photography is a hobby, You must have a file.

Theta Industries

Marla was graduating. I needed a real job and a car. The Volvo had died after being side swiped while parked. I built a wooden rowing boat. I spent weeks searching the classified. I found a job as a bench tech at Theta Industries. It paid seven bucks an hour. When I left that was my rate. Their main business was dilatometers. There had been no change for a decade. I tried to do design. I had some success. Work got a bit better but my rate did not. The Volkswagen Variants' engine mounts rusted away.
Marla told me she would seek other company. I had no car and was depending on trains and buses. I was too haunted and exhausted to object effectively. I was sad but relieved when she asked for her key. There was some cash again. I rediscovered the Adirondacks. I bought an MGB. I went out and visited Tom Wilson at Stony Brook Marine Sciences. We agreed that I could be useful to him in his electronic instruments shop. The owner at Theta decided that I didn't deserve my vacation time. I left. Almost five years passed there.

Marla's half grown girls.

southside trail

student again

I signed up for courses at Stony Brook. I failed the calculus the first semester and knew I would not be a graduate engineer. I had a good time with history and finite math. Took Quantum mechanics. I think I passed. I fell in with the S. F. Forum. I am a long-time fan. The group read. The president flirted with me for a book contribution. I liked that and eventually presented a cubic yard of paperbacks. We formed a steady relationship. About a third of the time for the next three years. We still talk. She has a husband and two half grown girls. That spring I was broke again. I found a job-shop position at BNL on a heat pump project. Learned a lot about refrigeration. Regan was elected and the project was defunded. Out again. I spent more time correcting Edwardian construction.
The S. F. Forum was an eclectic group. There was a perennial grad student who was moving from doing wet chem on eel grass toward running the electronics shop and instrument pool. more on TCW later. Marla graduated and I needed a job.

DEL Mfg.

I went home for Christmas break at the end of 1975 to discover that my father had initiated a solar energy project at Halm . He put me to work on some of the technician work so I could collect some cash for pocket money. I think he knew I was not going back. I did not. The axe fell. He put me on the payroll with the comment "This is fun but it doesn't pay". I paid off my student loan in the grace period. I have been cash only since. We had a good time racing into the front of the field. We were doing patentable work. I ended up with three. There were about eight. I learned to drive and bought an old Triumph Spitfire and rebuilt the engine. I kicked tobacco and have stayed off it. We had a house built as a test platform. I was learning the instrumentation trade. I was good at it and loved the work. Carter founded the DOE. Government funding disappeared. We went on. In November 1978 my father had a fatal heart attack in the night. I was not able to manage the project. I was out a year later. There was minimal insurance. Mother was working the orchids at Planting Fields on a state line. A family friend gave me a pittance to struggle with his Edwardian house in Sea Cliff. Electrical work, Plumbing, some carpentry. I was drifting out to Stony Brook. Initially it was memory leaks and good libraries.

Stevens

I went back to my loft. The contractor had returned with friends. I was getting work again. I took in a pair of room mates and got a phone. It was my intention to commute to Hoboken and keep the place and work as I could. No. The room-mates moved out. The contractor needed someone who could work on his schedule. Joy was not enough to pass math. I did summer semester. Three times. I could not trust my notes and thus did not study. The texts became steadily less readable with my limited progress. I finished about two and a half years work in three and a half years. I sold the loft in the summer of 73 for back rent. I was in debt. I had the concepts but not the skill for their successful manipulation. I had a few good friends.

Spring 1972

at home I ate and slept for about a month. I remember little until the weather broke and the frost came out of the ground in March. I knew what the recent events were but was not looking at them. I had no interest in doing design, art or photography. Life was on hold. Intellectually I was again the fourteen year old I had been. My father took me out into the back yard and pointed out a locust he thought needed to come down. I took it down, cut it into twelve foot lengths and split it into rails. I cut the top into fire wood and burned the brush. In the process I rebuilt myself physically. I was still rail thin but no longer skeletal. Warm weather surprised me. I sank in salt water. About here my isolation began to grind on me. I had forgotten the lessons learned in intermediate algebra and other mathematics courses. I applied to Stevens Institute. Found William Katavolos on fourteenth street for the required letter of recommendation and was admitted as an M E major class of 1976. I did not want N.Y.U. They had closed their engine school in The Bronx. I liked the Breuer building.

N B

The memory block I built in 1971 stood, leaking but intact, to the beginning of 2000. 28years

Spiraling down.

I had a three year lease. Bill Katavolos would come down and look in. We would all go out and eat Italian in little Italy. As the summer advanced into fall, The neighbors showed up. There was just a couple in the small loft one floor up on the other side of the elevator a small contractor married to a Japanese silversmith and a painter and his wife two floors down.
There was a cotton waste business opposite the painter. There was a photo finisher on seven. I was 6W. The contractor saw what I had done and I began to get work. It almost paid the rent. Nancy got strange. She was smoking pot laced with pcp. She began to diet. Not a good idea for her. Her docs had beefed her up to stabilise her moods. In this process I had lost the habit of regular meals. Nancy and I hitched north to visit a friend rusticated in central Quebec. He was having a rough time fighting with his homosexuality. While there I took a walk around the pond and got lost in the woods. No trail and very little grade. I found my way out in about an hour but late fall and a sleety rain made it memorable. We stayed three days and took a bus home. Nancy went out to her parents in Garden City. They caught her taking the washing machine apart and lecturing it. They institutionalised her. Electro-convulsive therapy. I had told her that machines were easy. you just had to "speak their language."
Bill Katavolos showed up with about 16 young adults who wanted to continue under his instruction. September was very exciting. At the end of the month He took them to Ohio where they could graduate from an accredited program. Life was quiet. No work. Nancy came back for a visit and recovered her memory. She sent her father for her clothes.
I hear she is a tenured professor at U Va. I felt abandoned. By my profession. By my friends. By my life. Depression and sleeplessness. Food was not worth the effort. I stopped reading and eating. I dropped thirty to forty pounds . I found I could suppress memories while in that state. I did. I started at that time and dumped everything that led to real pain. All of art school. All of design. All of college The last three years of High School. It was not a complete wipe but I made it all fall out of consciousness. Toward Christmas I was wondering why I existed. I found one bare and distant hope. I was still in love. She was not dead, only married. In time that could change. If it did, she would seek me. I roused out, had a meal and went home for the holiday. I weighed one hundred and twelve pounds and smelled like fresh bread.

After Graduating that time.

At the time of my graduation in 1969, I know now that I was unprepared to work as a designer. I had no non graphical communication skills. I avoided the telephone after some big bills on the family line. The net was not yet a dream though the DARPA net went in about 1960. That was military only. Computers were mainframes. I had some money. I hung in the city for about six weeks helping classmates do portfolio work. I was unable to do that for myself. As that spun down, I locked my door walked down to the Lincoln tunnel and stuck out my thumb. A memorable trip to California the summer after the summer of love. I ended up in the Bay Area. Had an adventure with the street people of Oakland.
Slept on a dorm floor in Berkly. The U.C. Berkly Library held me for a day. I thumbed north. Hot, Dry, Lonely. Turned west and landed in the bed of I think the American river with a manic veggie in a van. Rousted at 2:00 am. Stunned by fatigue, I thumbed north on US1. I saw little. I was mostly dozing. No redwoods that trip. I kept getting rides from cruising gays and other adventurers. I spent a few days at the U. of Oregon, got turned back at the BC border and headed east. I wasn't looking hard but the work I found was drug dealing and petty cons. Nothing I wanted to get involved with. Manufacturing seemed to be shutting down everywhere. I got stranded in the scab lands of central Oregon. A stunned quick trip through the mountains. Standing and sleeping. I walked a few hours by the Green. More mountains in the dark. I crossed into Canada from Minnesota and picked up the Transcanada through Sudbeury. Moonscape with drifting miners. The nickle pits were closing. I zipped through French Canada. Paused at St John New Brunswick to watch the tide in Fundy. The bore came up the river. I pushed on to Halifax. More sleaze. I found a couple of classmates who had gotten jobs at N S C A D. They found a couple of guys who were willing to try founding an office. I flew south and got some cash and kit. I must have looked in at Parsons. I don't remember. Passed on my student apartment and sank into despair. No income. No contacts. Canada is foreign. I survived the winter on dreams. I came home for a visit and spent an hour with Ini. I had nothing positive. I visited Parsons. Antiwar and Green were taking over. I was glad to have missed drop city in my loop. I went back to Canada to try some more. Things just got worse. Beer did not help but pub food was cheap. I moved my pad again. I had been getting robbed. I shared a former school house on the beach that winter. No traffic, no food store, no phone, no radio. I quit in the early spring and traveled south. The ferry from Yarmouth to Bar Harbor. was a joy. I had dozed in the police station waiting for the boat. Boston and my MIT brother. Home.
Visited Ini when I could move. They told me I must move on. I moved on.
I went back to Parsons to see if I could find a way to earn a living. Parsons had been sold to The New School For Social Research. The industrial design department had been ordered closed. All that remained was a trash out and a wind down. Some of us moved William Katavolos and his papers to a studio loft on fourteenth street. I was working.
No income but satisfying work. I Wanted a base in the city. I found a loft on Canal and Broadway and split it with Nancy. Nancy is known to be a diagnosed schizophrenic. She is also the best free hand draftsman I know of. We had a wonderful month cleaning, painting and refinishing the floor. I built an internal structure to hide the beds and walk in closet. No A.I.R. lease. It also provided a corner for the kitchen. One of the two water closets became a shower. It was almost comfortable. The traffic noise was always intense. The light was perfect. The view, stunning. I did not own a camera that worked. My next photographs were twelve years in the future.

It goes on.

Parsons college

I have little to say about Iowa here. The state was full of distant relatives I never met. My explorations in aesthetics continued. There were no museums. The library was very limited and I had not enough sense to look there for something I had not yet found a label for. What I found were Marvel comics and Playboy. Marvel in the mid sixties was graphically adventurous. I found them delightful. Playboy was and perhaps is a designed environment for heterosexual male fantasies. Think Surrealism for exurban America. It was called porn but had about as much relation to that as Darwinism or Dirty Harry. I wish the yogi joy of the campus.

Art school

I went reluctantly. I went with the promise that I could have art and income. No one makes that promise now.
I had been finding my aesthetic "fix" in broadcast radio. This source is played out. My experiments, I now find, replicated "Foundation Year" in the Bauhause curiculum. I did not know. Froebel gets in here in theory and practice. I very much needed to go. I was admitted to Parsons School of Design, The industrial design department. I was immediately lost. Nothing I came with seemed to work. My emotional support resigned. I drowned in work. All according to the schools plan. I learned. Perception: we became photographers. The whole craft. Light, light control, image construction, illusion, composition, content and presentation. The images I shall post here are raw unless otherwise labeled. Mechanical drawing taught space, geometry, process, organization, and the importance of detail. Freehand graphical notation was the central study. There was a continuing rumble of the combinatoric study of Cartesian space. This dominated second year. I spent the first summer learning by doing flat plate geometry in cardboard. Second year also did color and materials. The third year was the business of design. I missed most of third year getting a 1Y draft status.
What I learned was a complete and effective rational design procedure. We had A horrible drop rate. sixty in, twenty out. Suicide was common in the rest of the school. Seven that I knew of. At the end William Katavolos looked at my record and graduated me. He had the power.

catching art

Art bit me early. I know this. I have spent the last twelve years in the company of artists of various flavors. Lots of talent free wannabees as well. I was prepubescent. My aesthetic had no sexual content. I began to investigate and found confusion. The critics were not speaking to me. Most of the museums did not speak to me. Some of the work had "power"most did not. Amateur shows were a bore. Galleries, I found them much later, not worth the travel. I began to experiment randomly. My interest changed from dinosaurs and astronomy to I did not know what. Finding out has dominated my existence.

old silence

Sometime early in 1968 I lost the writing part of the English language. I could letter with difficulty. Written words were not my medium of ideas. It stayed buried for over twenty years.

When I was a child, dyslexia was not a word, much less a diagnosis. I did not learn to read early as my siblings did. I did not learn to read on on schedule like my peers. I was taught to read by a brilliant and determined tutor at age seven to nine by endless drill and small rewards. I still read by word recognition and have never learned to spell. Spellcheck!
As words are not, for me, composed of letters, the keyboard is unmemorable.
The lack has odd effects. I flip letter order and digit order and do not notice. Bad enough in text, disastrous in algebra. I cannot trust my notes.

first post:

I was not an early adopter. I bought a Sinclair, one of the last Osborne 1s and finally learned on a 286. Ten years ago I bought a new machine: A Pentium II equivalent by AMD. By the time I had it a year and a half I was thoroughly disgusted with Microsoft. I found a remaindered copy of Mandrake Linux. I did not get that installed but did install the next but one release. I run dual boot and Linux boxes and a Vista Laptop. The Vista because the Auto cad I depend on insists on Microsoft.
Toasted CD ROMS last twenty years in the cool dark. A hard drive can fail at any time and is usually replaced every five years as I have learned by bitter experience.