Leonard Pitt - My Brain on Fire: Paris and Other Obsessions

Copyright 2016 Leonard Pitt

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is Available

Cover design by Kelly Winton

Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

Soft Skull Press

An Imprint of Counterpoint

2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318

Berkeley, CA 94710

www.softskull.com

Distributed by Publishers Group West

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

e-book ISBN 978-1-61902-767-1

For my nieces and nephews, Erin, Jeffrey, Jesse, and Joanna; my grandnieces and grandnephews, Asher, Isaac, Ariella, Julius, Annalise, Jemma, Elia, and Micah; my grandson Miles; and my son Stephen.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

MANY YEARS AGO WHEN MY BROTHERS began having children, I thought, My nieces and nephews will grow up and never know anything about the interesting life Ive had. So with them in mind, I began writing.

Those nieces and nephews have grown up, married, and now have children of their own. Lifes unexpected turns have made me a father and a grandfather. My younger brother has passed away. And undeniably, I have entered my later years. Id better finish this tale soon.

The subjects here range far and wide. Life is big, and Im easily distracted. Because I never went to college or followed any formal academic education after high school, I never learned about boundaries or the discipline that keeps one on track.

Thats why Ive never been a fan of the five-year plan. Too limiting. Theres something to be said for those who become fixated by an idea or a passion and doggedly follow it throughout their life. But thats not me. Instead of the straight line, Im the zigzag. I believe in the Great Meander. Every experience no matter how small has the potential to be a door into an interesting world.

While my zigs and zags appear to have no connection, to the contrary, there is a through line. Hopefully this will reveal itself here as I navigate through fields as diverse as the history of dance, the pre-Socratic philosophers, the European witch hunts, the birth of modern science, the origins of modern architecture, the birth of rock and roll, and much more. It all relates.

Anyone who reads this book from beginning to end deserves a medal. I expect most readers to skip over parts, and thats fine. Each of the fields Ive studied and write about here has seized me and carried me away as Ive tried to understand human nature and the body: how we think, feel, and conceive of our bodies, and how we understand this within the totality of who we are. This varies from person to person and culture to culture and changes through time. All of this comes together to make the world we have created and is part of the vast drama of humans trying to live on this earth in a commodious fashion. On the whole, we have not done well.

Unschooled as I am, this study has not been easy. Working in my favor is a curiosity that wont give up. Im a highly motivated autodidact. In a classroom, I always fell asleep. On my own, I dont stop. This is my brain on fire. I get to work by 7 AM and dont stop till near midnight. The word vacation is not in my vocabulary. Getting away? Where? To do what? Call me the joyful workaholic. My motto: find your inner maniac. All the fun goes to the obsessed.

The principal people I write about here are all people I knew. In some instances, Ive changed names or put words in their mouths to make a point, but everything they say is true to character. No one is misrepresented. There is, however, a dose of fiction in these pages. I allow myself a fantasy with my Paris landlady Madame Ragout. Sex! Years after I left Paris, it dawned on me one day that Damn, she was coming on to me! She was youngonly a few years older than meattractive, and lonely. I too was young, studying with a master, and wasnt bad looking. In my naivet, though, I missed the situation completely. How slow can I be? Pretty slow. It would have been perfect. Or rather, it would have been a disaster not unlike the fantasy played out in these pages.

If Ive learned anything it is that we must work to create a condition where the marvelous can happen, for the marvelous can happen in the most unexpected ways. Doing little, or nothing, guarantees little or nothing. Partake in the world, and much is possible.

NOTE: The number of photos accompanying this book is too great to include. The reader is, therefore, invited to www.leonardpitt.com where they can be viewed in chapter order, each with an explanation related to the text.

When I was a little boy I thought that my shoes were alive. Every night before going to bed, I would bend them back and forth to make them feel better after a hard days work.

When I was a little boy I thought that God had given everyone only so many words to speak in a lifetime, and that if I wasnt careful and spoke too much, I would use up all of my words too soon and die young.

IT WAS A WEEKEND NIGHT IN 1946, in my hometown, Detroit. I was five. We were driving along in the family car. My father was behind the wheel with my mother at his side. I was in the backseat with my brother Murray on my left. He was seven. I sat on the edge of the seat holding onto the rope handle that cars had on the backs of the front seats in those days. We were dressed up. I wore a cap. I remember this in such detail because of what happened next.

Well, boys, my father said, your mothers going to have a baby. I was stunned. A baby! Who needs a baby? Were fine the way we are. A baby will only bust things up! Bust things up. That was my very thought.

My father was hoping for a girl. When he learned that it was another boy, he exclaimed, Oh, shit! But I saw it differently. Now I had a little brother! This put everything in a new light. I loved Barry. We played at fighting all the time. We called it tussling. Standing at the top of the stairs, wed play at hitting and pounding each otherBang! Pow! Ooh!and then tumble down to the bottom, groaning all the way.

We shared a bedroom, but because he was younger, he went to bed earlier than me. Every night before I went to sleep, I would kneel at his bedside and whisper into his ear, Barry, I love you.

I received my formal sex education at age six or seven. By formal I mean an adult telling me something concrete about sex. It was brief. I was walking in a park with my mother and aunt. I asked how babies were made. They put a pill in your cup of coffee, my aunt said, with a nervous laugh.