GEORGE SEGAL
FRED MCDARRAH
Jill really hates to have
plaster put on her. The last time.
she posed, she was straddling a
mattress on the floor, encased in
white armor from neck to
vagina, belling schoolgirlishly
Mainst the You Must Sit Still
Dearie-It's Good For Your Soul
injunction. She had had only a
few drinks, eyes shut, head back.
pinned hair straggling, sustained
potes, sentimental Scoteh and
English songs, gray wall. I
thought she looked like a
paralytic, drunken Dame Edith
in a BBC TV studio causing a
scandal
upright decent thing, like making
a whole issue on Jill. That's
really sumthing. I know how
you must have felt calling me
about her and then having to call
her other friends (and enemies)
and the others like David and
Merce and Jasper and Robert.
and Polly and even Diane. We all
know now after this it's gonna
be hard to put her down
anymore and now that it's
finally come to this I guess we
all feel a little rotten inside. I ask
you Les did you really treat her
right. Gives you second thoughts
doesn't it pal. We all could have
had more respect for her and
The first time she posed was
at The Dinner Table, years back.
The figure of Kaprow was
already there and she'd been
feuding with him. She absolutely
refused to sit next to him, sat
maybe praised her more at that
damned panel when everybody
was pickin on her. (And what
did you say about her in
Philadelphia Les). And all those
strangers chopping up her
beautiful words. Well, now
they're sorry. And that damn
Ray all the time with his evil
mysterious correspondence and
never even a return address. I'll
opposite, and resolutely averted
ber face from the cross legged
plaster man.
When Jill comes to our house
to visit, she is regarded as a
patural force that erupts and
ebbs, to be feared, coaxed,
contained, jousted with,
enjoyed, never ignored. Normal
human passions, like
disappointment in love, trigger
in her a response of electrical
intensity. with words anjdeas
tumbling in a torrent of
notecards, spiral bound
notebooks, poetic harangue. Al
the books and ideas she ever read
that have to do with wondering Helea and George Segal
about yourself and the world she
takes personally. So personally
that, in a time of electric
excitement, she worked out a
bet he's sorry too. I guess we're
all thinking back now and
recalling fondly the first time we
met Jill and cherishing all those
beautiful thoughts. I know damn
well I am. I mean how else
should a guy feel at a time like
this. I just don't have any more
dirty thoughts about Jill. (ITl
bet that lousy Willoughby does
though, and you know how he is
Les. I still don't know why he
took off his pants at the panel).
CERAMICS CLASSESIlike to remember Jill from the
good old days. Remember in 63
at Jusdon when she did her
weird thing with Sally and
George and Red and that nutty
REGISTERING NOW
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complex family tree proving
Einstein, Freud and Brown
related to her, with Appolonaire
as her real father. Absolutely
sensible when disembodied ideas
and spirit are moving and
palpable, and your body doesn't
wanl to do what you tell it to
and sometimes you hate it
green dinosaur on the ladder and
the whole place from end to end
tied up in longshoremans rope.
Wow! That sure was an evening.
for BEGINNERS
And remember the time in 64
when Andy gave that quiet little
party and Jill showed up stoned
and climbed up the wall in her
black velvet maxi-dress and just
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Spirit and cosmos involves
ego and her last visit here had
something to do with that
Arrival: 9 pm. Slid into Old
Testament talk: Lot and
Abraham, human sacrifice,
Kierkegarde, Fear and Tumbling
images, einema, stream of
conseiousness, Dionysus,
Manichaean light and dark..
Helen got sleepy went to bed.
1:30 am Jill and I screaming at
each other about the sculpture I
made of her and Polly. She
eonsidered the work a three way
colaboration and if she suggested
achange in gesture and
relationship. I should do it. Me
roaring that relationships are one
thing, when I was putting those
pieces together. I was alone and
had to do it my own way, she
she wrote her column, she could
srite whateyer she damn well
anted Helen came stumbling
out and ordered eservbody to
eep Then it dawned on me
that all this talk about the
Disintegration of Jill Johnston,
As A Critie is realls about the
transformation of Jill Johnston
into an artist
Watercolor
like a monkey hung upside down
on the ceiling water pipe all
covered with aluminum foil.
& Acrylic Classes
beginners & intermediates
tought by professlonal artist
In Village shudlo
saturday classes
Poor Andy and Claes and Roy
and Tom and James just stood
below staring and looking aghast
that she should fall and bust her
moreings 9:3042:30 er
afternoons 130-4:30
$50 fer 4 month course
starts: FEB. 14th
430
nutty head. I guess at a time like
this Les a guy kind of
remembers all the good things.
But how can I extract those
KARL KURTH
313 Ave o Americes
certain memories of Jill and say
that that was the real Jill. 1
could go on and on but you
Dear Les. When you called
me the other day with the news
about Jill Johnson I can't tell
know what the others will say.
And I don't want to get into
that because this is a time for
you how surprised I was. You
said this was it and that you
were devoting a whole issue of
Culture Hero to her. You can be
sure that I felt very proud ofwith a certain pride. Yes dammit
you Les for doing such a swellhere should be poetry and
thing like that. What really getsmusic and dancing as each word
me is how people are always.
puttin you down because you're
on the TV tube or you get your ump in your throat Les to think
reverence that we put aside and
a time when we can all be filled
goes down here, for isn't that
the real Jill. And doesn't it put a
name in the papers and the
magazines afe always running a
picture or you're in some bigfor you. Kind of gives a guy
museum shw and always with
the same plastic stuff too, And doesn't it Yours truly, Fred W
now here you are doing such anMeDarran.
that when vour turn comes that
maybe we'll do the same thing
something to look forward to,
