In A Kansas Cemetery, 1974

In September 1974, I was slowly wending my way on a solo cross-country road trip with my faithful Land Rover, purposely avoiding interstate highways so as to discover off-the-beaten track photographic opportunities and lessen the frustration of driving a vehicle that maxxed out at 60 mph. Stopping to see old acquaintances in cities like Denver and Kansas City and Omaha, it was a childhood friend settled in small-town Kansas who told me about the Davis Memorial in a cemetery outside nearby Hiawatha, a village of about two or three thousand residents.

After the death of his wife, Sarah, in the 1930s a wealthy farmer named John Milburn Davis commissioned an Italian marble tomb in her memory, taking several years and something like $100,000-200,000 of his Depression-era fortune to complete. Ten or twelve statues of the couple depict different stages of their lives, with the final representing Davis seated beside “The Vacant Chair” after her passing. Following are some of the photographs from that session (strictly speaking, not all of these images are newly-(re)discovered, as I did publish two in an art journal in the mid-seventies and one was included in a Los Angeles gallery exhibit). Following that are some links and videos with more information on this strange and haunting edifice.

And some found information, just tonight unearthed from the Internet …

More: http://www.kansastravel.org/davismemorial.htm

Discoveries Upon Existential Meanderings

at-the-existentialist-cafe-uk-coverMy favorite current read — likely the best book I’ve read for a couple of years — is Sarah Bakewell’s “At The Existentialist Cafe“.  However, for me, the thing has quite tiny print, even as a hardback, that rather quickly exhausts my aging eyesight.  So I have considered buying a Kindle version (resizable text), but upon visiting Bakewell’s website, I found that the BBC has published audio readings of the thing.  Alas, the BBC readings seem to be time-limited, and have now expired (however, I made a mental note and a bookmark to pay attention to the BBC Book of the Week site for future reference for other readings of other books).  And then there is the Audible site where you can find and hear a three or four minute sample.  Finally, I came upon John Hockenberry’s interview with Bakewell in April of this year.  Check ’em all out.

After I mentioned our library visit last week, Herman tells me that he recently read this book as well.  But he didn’t make any further comment, except to say that he had once visited Sartre and de Beauvoir’s graves in the Montparnasse cemetery near his apartment at the time … And it was probably about the time when I first met Herman in 1960s college that I read, like many other students of that era, Sartre’s “Nausea”.  Just reminiscing … never mind.