Page 38 - David Bermant Foundation

entry. I passed through a garden of waist high, square, metal flowers whose thousand lights moved rhythmically. Curiosity forced me to touch a bloom. The plant quivered, sucked the mechanical bloom into its stalk and disappeared down under the flowerbed. Gone. Other mechanical flowers followedlike lemmings. The robotic flowers were not shy, they were chicken.The large mirror to the right of the Castle entry inverted my image, not only top to bottom, not only left to right, but inside out—my nose looked like it was in back of my head, behind my face. My reflected imagery was tiny and made me feel puny and upside-down and all inverted. I stood there in this Twilight Zone. It was a zone not of fear, but of comical chicanery. I was in an otherworldly location—yet one so close to the City.“Stick your head in the mirror,” said The Voice. I looked around but saw no one. I didn’t know what to do. “Stick your head in the mirror,” said The Voice.I moved my face toward the middle of the large, round mirror. Sure enough, it seemed to open, and I could advance my face beyond the perimeter and into a kind of chromium cave. I blinked. The reflection of my face was now reversed, no longer upside down or inside out. More impressively, I was huge. My head looked spherical and ten feet in diameter.“Okay, you mensch! You passed the test!” said The Voice. “The draw bridge is lowered. You may enter through the wooden door to the left. Welcome to my world.”The man who whipped open the medieval door was thin like Mahatma Gandhi and naked like Mahatma Gandhi and had a wide smile like the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. Behind him, in the Castle, were flashes of mechanical spirits and sundry miracles of joy.Q & a With James ossi:Q: What do you think it was about your art that brought David so much pleasure?A: My work is really Mother Nature’s jewelry. I’m pretty sure one of Dave’s mistresses was Mother Nature.Q: What did you most appreciate about David?A: His joy. He brought it everywhere and spread it around freely.Q: What do you think was David’s greatest strength?A: Again: His joy. And his jokes and drive to spread joy to all. He was one of the Great Gods of Joy. I’m a lucky guy to have known him.“David had fabulous birthday parties on the vast acreage behind the Castle. These parties were always well populated by lots and lots of colorful artists. Some were wacky, some actually thought they were profound—these were the really insane ones.”—James Ossi37