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Show BROADWAY AND MAIN STREET Art Is Long but Life Is Short, Full of Lumps and Black Eyes By BILLY ROSE ' "If you can come quick," my Aunt Frieda said over the phone, "come quick. Your Uncle Charlie is in trouble." Half an hour later I was in the flat on the lower East Side where Frieda has been keeping house and hearth for my uncle for the past 30 years. "What's up?" I asked. "Charlie is hiding in Brooklyn. with his brother," said Frieda. "Hiding from what?" "From Herman Schloomp, the butcher, who is telling how he is going to knock out your uncle's eye." "What did Charlie do to Schloomp?" "What didn't he do!" said Frieda. "But better I should tell it to you in sequins. . . . "So happens last summer your uncle and me, we are one after noon taking the air on Delancey Street. On the sidewalk, like always, al-ways, is all kinds chalk-marks chalk-marks and scratch - ups from children, which your uncle has been seeing y,.i,n .I ii Up f your uncle has done, he begins ! making noises like busting. On Charlie's drawing board is a picture of a thumbnail sitting on top a big pencil. " This is a class in drawing, not manicuring' says the teacher, Take your business someplace else,1 "When Charlie comes home mad, I tell him, 'Let sleeping dogs stay sleeping.' But you know your uncle next day he is going uptown to the Museum from Modern Art, and when he gets back he is all agog-gle. agog-gle. "'Frieda,' he says, 'to be a paintner, a man don't need perspective. per-spective. What he needs is guitars. gui-tars. A' picture can be a piece fruit or a chair with one leg makes no difference so long as in the corner is a guitar.' "So, for the next week he is painting guitars Moon Over Stanton Stan-ton Street with Guitars, Baby on Pushcart with Guitars, and even a picture, Guitar with Guitars. "THEN", A FEW WEEKS later as the crow flies, is opening in the Metropolitan for 50 cents a show from a Frenchman Van Glick, Van Goldberg, something " "Van Gogh?" I suggested. "What's the difference so long as you're healthy," said Aunt Frieda. "When Charlie is coming from the museum he is saying, 'Today I all his life. BiUy KoSe "'Is very touching,' says Charlie. 'Is here on the sidewalks the soul of the East Side trying for some kind expression. expres-sion. Some day should be a real paintner to draw up the neighborhood.' neighbor-hood.' " "WELL, LIKE YOTJ KNOW, with Charlie to think is to do something crazy. The next night he is going to the settlement house and joining a art class. And in the room is sitting a fat girl in a kimona on a platform, and the scholars are holding hold-ing out their thumbs and squinting with the eyes. " 'Draw exactly what you see,' says the teacher. "Half hour later, when the teacher teach-er comes for a to-look-see what find out something absolutely hair-racing. hair-racing. This Van Cook is all his life selling one picture for few measly dollars, but now when he's dead and can't eat, his paintings is worth 30 million. No wonder he is cutting off his ear and they got to drag him to a asylum.' "Your uncle mills and mulls for a few days and then he is making a decision. 'Frieda,' he says, 'it doesn't pay a man should be like this Van Cook. Supposing I sell, maybe, one picture for five dollars during my lifetime entire, and then when I'm dead and gone the pictures pic-tures is worth 30 million. By the time I am dead and gone, you will be likewise dead and gone, so who gets the 30 million? My brother. Why should that loafer get my 30 million? Let him go out and make his own 30 million. From now on, I am strictly a old-stylish realist and making pictures with cash value like Grandma Moses. Which I am signing Grandma Moishe.' "Next day Charlie is going to see our butcher. 'I'm going to paint a muriel on your wall,' he says, 'a whole panorama all kinds succulent meats. Will be good for the cash register.' "Schloomp says, 'What I got to lose,' and so Charlie paints him a muriel which he calls by name, the Spirit of Meat. When it is finished, Schloomp is saying when he sees your uncle he knocks out his eye." "Was it that bad?" I asked. "A man could go , bankrupt from such a picture," said my Aunt Frieda. "In Herman's strictly Kosher Kosh-er store, your uncle is painting on the wall nice cuts Rinderbrust, chuck steaks, first-class plucked chickens. But in the middle is the Spirit of Meat holding a 15-pound you should excuse the expression Virginia ham." |