Fortunate birth let him and his generational segment avoid polio, benefit from the civil rights struggle, as well as let the draft bypass them. On the downside, they also missed coonskin caps and the sole Woodstock that mattered. Yet like those millions whose nascence began with the New Frontier, Abercrombie and his cohort enjoyed a greater enfranchised, less traumatized nurturing. Now entering hi
s sixth decade, Abercrombie maneuvers on a stage where he surveys more than strives. He's neither preoccupied by making sense of life or reconciling past actions. Unburdened by popular mental constipation, Abercrombie is that too rare American. Satisfied. His road isn't always straight and smooth. His conflicts, such as they are, emanate more from being amid the human moil rather than after his own agitation. Paz Duarte, dream to some men, night mare to others, occupies generous swaths of Reveries' and Cool Brass' picaresques as well as good portions of Abercrombie's attention. He esteems Paz. He finds she embodies unfettered womanhood, a distinction which often unnerves the insecure. Perhaps Paz and Abercrombie fulfill one another. Or maybe they're mutually exploitive. A question for third parties to answer. Unseen but stamping Reveries, though forthright and present throughout Cool Brass, the spirit of Marianne Messing inhabits Abercrombie. As Monte and Fili Vargas, a couple with whom Abercrombie, uh, negotiates, might attest, she surely is the woman who pushed him towards the man he became. Paul Knox, a kumpel of Abercrombie's from way back, would concur. While appearing middle-aged men above reproach, a surprise yesterday colors their outward propriety as it brushes either's sense of mortality. Again, Reveries and Cool Brass are frank, amoral and unsentimental. Attributes which shouldn't be read as crass, immoral and callous. Both are candid, uncluttered, each clearly observed and observing.
