Bing McGilvray Seen, Narrative & Images
Bing McGilvray, reclusive artist, ascetic and poet, had a colorful career in the arts before settling in Gloucester.
I Am A HueMan Being Being Bing
wrote that 40 years ago beyond that I still don’t know but I think about it increasingly and as I grow; I get closer to an understanding now approaching poetry.
2021 will be 10 years here for me. Physically. Also like the spirits at the Old Fishermen’s Home on the slope of Duncan Street; I live with the souls of those who came before and linger on. Joe Garland gave me a crash course in Cape Ann history, not long after I arrived, when I catalogued his papers at the Cape Ann Museum. Going to spend more time in Gloucester and less on my DumPhone.
———
life is one long non-sequitur. Ancient as Olson’s Cape Ann. That’s where you’ll find me these days. If you’re looking. I’m too old now to care about being known. I will leave that to the influencers. They ain’t fooling me.
Cosmos + Polis > Cosmopolitan
not politician
One finds many angels here. I mean the locals, a celestial multitude. They number among my friends, a few neighbors, and those who have returned to their heavenly realms: Peter Anastas, Fred Buck, Gerrit Lansing, Kim Estes... just a few. Their aura pulses in the raw awesome beauty around us.
Love Life ... easier to do that here.
———
Earliest memory of Gloucester > Ten years old and we took the family Chevy to see Cardinal Cushing Live! The Blessing of the Fleet! Diamond Dick wasn’t that impressive from my vantage point but The Harbor! Jam packed with boats decked out with flags, water cannons, horns.
Jubilation! Forever imprinted in my mind.
Now I live directly across from a house Edward Hopper painted in 1934, a poster of which hung in my bedroom in 1964. Circular in a cubist way. Beware the Ides of March. Sure was true last year. Tests the limits of solitude but it’s proved to be enlightening, as all experience is. Love and Understanding... I rely on it. Being alone has become comfortable and stranger than ever. I amuse myself and after all, without me - I am nobody.
In summation, who am I?
Why —
I am Spartacus!
———
Gloucester is a Cosmos; we are all aliens in an artist’s eye. That’s how I see it. Banishing vanishing points with MultiVision. I can be in Virginia Lee Burton’s childhood world or Marsden Hartley’s surreal Dogtown, Emile Gruppé’s down home Fishtown, Bearskin and Rocky Neck, Annisquam, Magnolia, Eastern Point Light, and the Breakwater; everywhere are seascapes, portraits, architecture, artifacts, literature, sculpture, music, and true magic combining in the mind defining how we view where we are.
Art does that.
———
did you know that Greta Garbo once came to Hammond Castle? Getting more Garbo, I want to be alone. Who’s Greta Garbo? Queen Christina Mata Hari Ninotchka … few remember. Doesn’t matter.
Time will tell but no one will be listening.
Solitude now being mandatory, Cape Ann offers sensory spirituality in its sacred spaces; The Fort and Stage Fort, Wingaersheek and Good Harbor, Bass Rocks and Ravenswood, Lanesville Quarries, Folly Cove, Halibut Point, Niles Pond, 7 Seas Wharf, the State Pier, the Maritime Center, Schooner Adventure, even FV Bing Bing ... and many gems best kept secret.
Always spectacular, solid as granite. Old souls find solace here. Catch a Saint Joe’s at Virgilio’s. Where else would I want to be locked down?
