January 19, 1999
Winter habit took the stray dog.
A friend got taken as well.
**
Photo:
Dr. Richard Rozen, my dentist since about 1975. A girl friend of my ex-wife
we were not even married then recommended him. My wife was a painter.
Dr. Rozen, she was told, was also painter, so, her logic went, he must be an
³OK guy.² That was true then, and itıs also true now. In fact today, he
says, ³Iıve been painting up a storm.² Indeed, the framed canvases that
surround me while leaning back in the dental chair are filled with
Diebenkornıs California golds and yellows which fill and juggle de Kooning
style shapes - ones that my eye cannot help but compare to molars. Itıs as
if Dr. Rozen, the painter, is in the middle of a late, mid-life
break-through. Whatıs been held back is bursting forth. Heıs also been in a
good mood. Some years I felt itıs been a struggle to keep his chin up. Three
kids, now all grown. One worked in Washington, DC for US Senator Boxer and
now works in public policy for Kaiser Hospital. Another one, his son, is an
actor who does plays locally, but makes his money in industrial
documentaries. I donıt know what the other daughter does. In fact, itıs
nice- or somehow right- not to know the family whereabouts of everybody, to
imagine someone as a mystery, who represents something possibly estranged,
especially, perhaps, if the father is a dentist.
Today, when Dr. Rozen is finished with my teeth, I ask him if I can take his
photograph and, if he will, stand behind his tool tray and in front of this
big new painting. I joke with him about the shapes that look like molars.
³I hadnıt even thought of that,² he says. ³Only you. Only a poet.²
Spontaneously he picks up his drill and holds it up like a miniature
pitchfork. He grins, I suspect, humored by the idea of a dentist, instead of
a farmer, acting out his own version of Grant Woodıs ³American Gothic.²
Poets. Dr.Rozen over the years he has told me is also the dentist for
Jack Gilbert, Carl Rakosi, Lawrence Fixell, and Jack Marshall, among others.
What a world view!
(This is a "day" from Crossing the Millennium, a 1999 journal day book and
photography project that I am currently reproducing on my blog. The photos
are yet to go up.)
Stephen Vincent
Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
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