Hi swede – I got your e-mail the other day concerning what people put on their personal business cards:
I knew this guy in the late 1960’s – Jeffrey Court. He was an incredibly hard drinking, womanizing hustler – big and incredibly strong. When I got back to New York after my time in the Navy I rented a commercial studio on East 10th St. and was walling off a section of the space for a darkroom. I had two friends who had an eye on the place for their marajuana operations. That is another story.
One day Jeff Court came by looking for my two friends while I was on a Ballantine Ale break Actually, it was always an all-day ale schedule, with work breaks fitted in. It was great fun and I was making up for my time in the Navy by trying to live it up New York style twenty four hours a day.
I had been contemplating my latest failure as a carpenter when Jeff Court showed up. I showed him a sixteen penny nail I had mispositioned and half driven into a 2×4 laid on the floor that was to have been the bottom of the darkroom wall. I had tried to pry this nail out but had no pry-bar – only the claw of my steel shafted hammer to get leverage against the stubbornly ensconced spike. Jeff Court took the hammer- put the claw under the head of the nail… and with a mighty heave tried to draw the nail out.. and succeeded in completely bending the steel shaft into a Dali-esque droop, without removing the nail. In Fact, the hammer was now inextricably wedded to that damn nail. I took this new misfortune as a sign from above. So, I handed Jeff Court the bottle of ale and left the twisted hammer in situ behind the sheetrock to be discovered years hence a piece of found art.
Anyway, the point of my writing to you was that Jeff Court had business cards on each of which was printed, simply: JEFFREY COURT SPECIALIST. (no phone#, address, or anything else.)This had really impressed me and soon after I had business cards made for myself which said, simply: JEROME RISLEY – GENERALIST. You see, at that point in my life I wanted to emulate Pico Della Mirandola, whom I considered the perfect renaissance man, an exemplar of many talents (plural) and therefore no “specialist.” And, as his heir, thought myself to be – swordsman, sonneteer, painter of women, lutenist, and lover of beautiful things, etc. A 20th Century jack-of-all arts (except carpentry.)
Anyway Prince, your business card business gave me these happy memories of a pleasing past.
take care.