Nuance and Memory

Lost temporarily in the production of an art piece is the impetus for it. Now that plans for SIS’s completion are coming together, the fingerprints of nuance are all that’s present, but they linger.

In an earlier post, I wrote about those long autumn nights in Cologne. There are long nights coming up as I tape sound and assemble everything. Plenty of time to think of what was, no longer is and how one impacts the other.

How to remember something? Someone? Their face through a fog of events? Or just the replay of everyday life drifting like sand through a sieve? Often I see images of Alex when he was little, as I saw him from the living room window. He was playing in the street back in Queens where we grew up. I remember the striped shirt perfectly. Oddly enough, it’s an image replayed long before he was gone; I always saw him as a child, which isn’t fair, I guess, but that’s how I’ll remember him.

In this week’s Rolling Stone, I read excerpts from Gregg Allman’s memoirs, released 1 May. In it, he talks about losing Duane and how he was angry at him for dying. I can identify with that feeling, although I see Alex being gone as something that could have been avoided.

What did strike me was Allman's memory that, due to circumstances, the last thing he said to his brother was a lie after an altercation. The last time I saw Alex, we too, left acrimoniously.

Duane and Gregg Allman. This classic photo came from the web, of course. It's credited to Country Darlin', I don't know who shot it.