Beth Arnold

Letter From Paris: In Honor of Brent

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On the 20th of November it will be 20 years since my brother Brent died, and my heart cracked open and bled away.  The life leaked out of me as he took his last breath.  It was after a few hours during which Brent struggled to live--or was it to let himself go?--that the rattle of death surged through him.  I begged him to stay on this earth.  But Brent was as elegant in his last moments as he had been his entire life. 

My brother was handsome, brilliant, and charming, fantastic fun for anyone who followed him--he was a Pied Piper of lost and lonely souls, as well as for all others.  He was clever, generous, and kind, lapping up life as if he were a fine Cheshire cat drinking Triple Cream.  Life was a wonderland of adventure for Brent, and that didn't stop until the air seeped out of him forever. 

Letter From Paris: Patti Smith and Just Kids

Cover of Just Kids

My friend, J, recently lent me her copy of Patti Smith's Just Kids, her memoir of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe--the story of their love and life as artists and of finding their way through the fringes and upper echelons of New York City together. 

Dear Patti,

I'm not being a bad patron of the arts and the artists who create so diligently with fever and pitch, love, hate, and remorse, joy and vitality.  These bringers of an enriched reality who soak themselves through with blood, sweat, and tears to do the work they are compelled to do for themselves and for us, this throb of creation that they long for the world to see. 

Don't worry, Patti.  Not only am I ordering my own copy of Just Kids today, but I'm also sending one to each of my daughters.  It's important for them to read this record of your and Robert's life as artists growing up together and of this transforming crack of time in New York when young women and men came to our greatest American city and soared like eagles in the sky before flying too close to the sun, burning their wings, and falling to the earth dying or dead.  A generation of genius lost...not forgotten.

Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe (from Just Kids)

HOME FOR THANKSGIVING

Image by Trodel via Flickr

Crossposted at HuffPost.com. Comments not included here.

GROWING UP IN Arkansas, we relished our Thanksgiving turkeys. Mother roasted them until the skin was crispy brown, and even the white meat was juicy. She admonished me and my brothers, Blair and Brent, not to pick at her beautiful birds while they were still being carved. But where was the fun in that?

I know Mother wanted us to understand proper etiquette and manners. I know her desire was to civilize us in the decorum of dinners and luncheons. But in her heart she must have loved it that her birds were good enough for us to want to pick, expert pickers that we were.

Brent, in fact, could turn a giant turkey carcass into a little mound of bones. My husband, Jim, and I used to say we should leave a good turkey carcass for Brent on his grave. He would appreciate that a lot more than flowers.

*

TWO YEARS AGO in this space I wrote about my brother Brent, whose death at Thanksgiving 1990 in New York has forever colored this holiday for me. And so it is again this year. It's not a happy memory, certainly--but as the years have passed it's not totally unhappy, either. After all, it's a memory of Brent. He was my soulmate, and Thanksgiving was his favorite holiday.

I had been in New York for three weeks, from mid-October to early November of that year, and Brent had become increasingly ill: cancer, a by-product of his AIDS. Steroids were puffing him up, and he was experiencing considerable pain. His beautiful dark wavy hair was gone, and when he was able to leave his loft, he walked with a cane to steady himself.

Letter From Paris: The Building That Grew Up Around The Tree (and other stories)

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Parisians have been enjoying a glorious fall.  Leaves are turning into golden airplanes that sail to the ground on wisps of wind blowing through town.  The sun has graced those hungry for its shining rays, though the temperature has dropped and many of us have been fettered with colds. 

French farmers have taken advantage of this good weather by setting bales of hay on fire to protest their growing debt and slumping grain prices, most notably on the busy Champs-Elysees.  If only I'd seen this!  The good fall weather has also been used to great advantage by alleged double-murderer Jean-Pierre Treiber, who escaped from prison last month hidden in a cardboard box and is cavorting around France unhindered, to the dismay of the authorities.  The accomplished woodsman has placed himself in something of a "Robin Hood: The Reality Show" niche, and he has reportedly sent letters to his girlfriend and media organizations extolling the joys of living in the wood:

"...At the moment I am in a very beautiful forest, I think all the different species of trees are here and it's really very lovely," Treiber wrote to his girlfriend. "It is nice with the mist and the deer and the boar."

                                                              ---The Guardian

He signed them "Jean Jean of the woods." 

Back at new chez moi, which I must name, the news of the day is that I'm trying to pull the decor of our new home together.  I'd like to report a successful trip to the puce--the flea market--at the Porte de Vanves.  I met up with American friend Mario, Swedish friend Andreas, and new British friend Paul, and we jumped on the Metro and climbed up the stairs to a perfect fall day.  Unbelievably, the market wasn't even crowded. 

Dog on Cards at Porte de Vanves

Thanksgiving Days

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This column first appeared at HuffingtonPost.com. Comments omitted here.

By Beth Arnold

"He was the talent of his generation," author David Halberstam said to my older brother Blair on the telephone. Mr. Halberstam was speaking of our younger brother, Brent, about whose death he had called to express sympathy.

Brent died of AIDS two days before Thanksgiving 17 years ago -- November 20, 1990 -- when he was 34 years old. Actually, Burkitts Lymphoma is what killed him, but he'd been infected with HIV for 4½ years, at least as far as we knew. Before this lethal cancer, he had been zapped by energy-draining and stress-inducing illnesses of this and that -- conditions or problems that meant he never felt completely well. The various maladies sent him to doctors who scheduled tests, gave him sacks of medicines, and wore him out -- but provided no answers or solace. There were none to give, though Brent's medical bills were ever soaring. The physicians wanted to help but knew little to nothing about AIDS.

Sustenance

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This column first appeared on HuffintonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

By Beth Arnold

IF THERE'S ONE thing I'm good at, it's picking meat off the bones of any steak, chop, roast, or joint of beef, pork, or lamb--but best of all a bird--that happens to be sitting on a plate or carving board in front of me. I can't take all the credit for my acquired skill. I inherited being a good picker as an Arnold family trait. In my nuclear group, I wasn't even the best one. That honor goes to my younger brother, Brent, who honed his talent to an art, even though my older brother Blair and I were avidly pursuing, and not unremarkably, our own picking gifts.

Our mother, Bobbye, was not necessarily pleased by this particular motor skill though we tried to follow her picking rules. With Mother's waste-not want-not mindset, it wasn't that she minded us going for every scrap we could bite off, but there were limits to where and how we could do it. We could nibble any meat to its frame in the sanctity of our own home, but in polite society, we had to contain ourselves--except for pork ribs and fried chicken, which in any sophisticated life is a mortal sin not to pick up, since there is no other proper way to eat them.