(Recorded 11 December 2011)
JP: So you’ve been in Deia for thirty years now
Patrick: I moved into this house in ’78 – I met Stephanie in 1976 bought the house in Gallilea in 1970
JP: ’78 is 33 years
Patrick: In this house
JP: In this house
Patrick: Yeah, that’s when we started the festival, the same year.
JP: So, you’ve obviously seen a lot of changes in Deia
Patrick: Not locally, but up and down, yeah. Not too much changed down here but the size of my studio
Patrick: and the number of bathrooms in the house – and that was from the job in Granada
JP: Granada
Patrick: Seven million pesetas in two years. It made it possible to make the apartments. Yeah, is that 33 years?
JP: ’78, ’80 to 2000 is 20, 2010 is 30 plus 1 for ’11 and 2 for the ‘8 that’s 33.
Patrick: That’s when Jesus died.
JP: Yep, and Mary.
Patrick: Mary?
JP: Gretchen’s best friend.
Patrick: She was 33?
JP: Yeah, she was 33. I think she was 33.
Patrick: Well….
JP: Yep.
Patrick: The pianist Michael here, he committed suicide when he was 29 and, uh … yeah … it seemed like around that age for people really, if they’re going do it they do it. And then maybe later like another Claire with the plastic bag on her head
Patrick: Like what’s … he wrote … [clap]: never mind.
JP: Not Sylvia Plath?
Patrick: No … a Polish writer. [clap] You remember the gardener who became a vested …
JP: Oh Chance, Chance, Ja “Being There” was the book
Patrick: “Being There” is the book
JP: But I was thinking it was Nabokov?
Patrick: Kosinski
JP: Okay Oskar Kowalski
Patrick: Kosinkski. Anyway, that guy also, he sat on the toilet in west side New York and put a plastic bag on his head. I don’t know how you can do that and not tear it off.
Patrick: You really have to want to do it. Or you put handcuffs on behind your back. But even then you could scrape it off on the faucet. Not a good way to end a conversation! What else is there?
JP: I’m going to do another … I’m going to kick off the next one here!
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(Later I looked up Jerzy Kozinski. His suicide note read: “I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity.”)
Patrick Meadows 1934 – 2017.