Have been off blogging for a few days because my car was stolen (in NYC) and to much going on. The police found it today totally stripped in the Bronx. It was a great little car -- a purple sports car, 1998 Acura Integra. They don't make them anymore like that, and I doubt I'll ever get such a great purple sports car again, but life moves on.
I saw this article in yesterday's New York Times and have to pass it on. So strange yet moving and also upsetting in a way I can't quite explain. See what you think:
Artist's Erotic Oeuvre Is Rescued From the Trash
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
A man goes into the hospital, and friends clean his longtime apartment to prepare for his return. They take it upon themselves to empty the residence of anything that might offend a visiting nurse. So into a big trash bin on Lafayette Street in Greenwich Village went a man's life's work: thousands of chalk drawings and paintings, many of them erotic.
The story could have ended there, but shortly after the trash bin was filled a young artist happened by. He climbed into the bin and dragged much of the art to the sidewalk. Then he searched inside the container until he found papers revealing the identity of the ailing artist, Edward P. Victus, and used yellow acrylic paint to spell that name out on the sidewalk where he displayed the salvaged artworks.
During the next several hours, on Tuesday evening, it was part outdoor gallery and part free-for-all as people strolling past 416 Lafayette Street, between St. Marks Place and West Fourth Street, paused to examine Mr. Victus's work and ruminate on the odd chain of events that resulted in a man's intimate thoughts being strewn about in public.
There were thousands of chalk drawings, most in muted tones that depicted men and women engaged in sex. There were abstract paintings on canvas. There were also issues of Screw, Pleasure, and The Review of Sex, all devoted to sex. Not all items were explicit. There were audiotapes of the sort used in old reel-to-reel machines and there were record albums, including "Polish Melodies" by Frankie Gee and his Orchestra and "Through the Past, Darkly" by the Rolling Stones.
"This is rewarding because I'm bringing something back into the world that would have been lost forever," said Brian Ermanski, 23, a Manhattan painter who climbed into the trash bin and found Mr. Victus's work. "I was astonished that his friends would throw this stuff out," said Mr. Ermanski, who explained that he routinely delved into trash bins, motivated mainly by curiosity. He said that he supported himself by buying vintage clothing at thrift stores, then auctioning them on eBay.
Many passers-by looked at the drawings littering the ground, lingered a bit to chat and then departed with a drawing or two.
"Everybody's interested in sex," said Elizabeth Suman, 20, a student from SoHo, who rolled one of the chalk drawings into a tube. Then she offered a more philosophical explanation for the works' appeal: "People like the idea of preserving part of somebody's life. People are drawn to the idea of immortality."
A few moments later, Josh Kaplan, 30, an actor and lawyer from the East Village, admired the artworks. "It's a very honest portrayal of intimacy," he said. "Everybody in these pictures is smiling." Mr. Kaplan speculated about their inspiration: "I wonder if he actually watched all these people doing this or if this is all from his imagination."
Yesterday morning people were still rooting through the trash bin as a man and a woman who would identify themselves only of friends of Mr. Victus arrived. The man would not discuss Mr. Victus's history other than to say he was "a working stiff." Nor would he talk about Mr. Victus's illness, except to say that he was in a rehabilitation program and would return home in a few weeks. That is part of what prompted the cleanup, the man said, explaining that Mr. Victus might need a nurse to visit him regularly.
"I think it would be beneficial if he had a neater apartment," the man said, adding that Mr. Victus had agreed to the disposal of the art.
Mr. Victus could not be reached for comment. Neighbors described him as a retiring but affable figure, who sometimes smoked a pipe in the building elevator and whose apartment walls had been plastered with his drawings. Public records indicated that he is 75, and that he has lived at 416 Lafayette Street since at least 1966. Some of Mr. Victus's neighbors were still inventorying the trash bin's contents yesterday. Jeffrey Miles, 21, a English student at New York University, said he had saved Mr. Victus's tax returns in case he wanted them back, and had begun shooting segments on Tuesday for a documentary film about Mr. Victus's art.
Among the discards in the container were copies of what appeared to be Mr. Victus's résumé. According to the document, he grew up in Newark and attended Seton Hall University. His first job, it said, was in 1948 as an office manager for the Beauty Brassiere Company in Newark. After that, he served until 1953 in the Air Force. In later years he held office jobs in New York and New Jersey. Tax returns from the mid-1980's showed that Mr. Victus had worked for the Fundamental Minerals and Metals Corporation in Fort Lee, N.J., and for Minor Metals Inc., also in New Jersey.
Nebojsa Seric-Shoba, 36, an artist and neighbor, said he was horrified by the abandonment of the work, but took solace in the fact that many of the drawings and paintings were ending up in people's homes.
"Art is for the people, but these days you have to pay for it," he said. "Last night it was like a communist utopia. You could just walk away with whatever you wanted."
