Friday, July 7, 2017

9716. RUDIMENTS, pt. 6

RUDIMENTS, pt. 6
Making Cars
So let me start again : Do you know
what a drawing book is? It's like a
diary, but of lines. Yes, you say then,
'big deal.' I can understand that, but
it's senseless to think that way. One
of the ways by which this Life wraps
us around its finger is by dulling us.
Draining us of any feeling for the
real things that come from within,
the stuff we think about but never
act on. Like, say, Lois Lane, if she
had a sketchbook of the unconscious,
all she would ever end up doing is
drawing some hero in a cape and
tight shorts, signifying nothing;
certainly not the reality of her
imagining. I'd have liked to have
had Lois Lane on the couch a few
times, (I can't believe you thought
that !! I was referring to psychiatric
counseling), to find out a little about
what made her tick. Even though she
was just a fictional creation, there's so
much there to ask about. For instance,
in her view of reality did she ever consider
that she had conjured up this imaginary
Superman person from the lame load of
characters she was amidst, her shadow-
players in the world around her? And if so
why did she so need both the heroic 'theatrics'
of the cliff-hanging moment and life-death
crises of all these people in peril that 'her'
conjuring was always able to fix and solve;
and, then, if so, why was she always seen as
the dupe, was she really as dumb as all that,
never putting two and two together in her
quest for a one-on-one with Superman. The
entire bunch of them in fact, were equally
stupid. On the surface of things. Dumb.
That's the sort of 'drawing book' thing
that keeps our world going, filled
with images by which we live. And
we often don't even know it.
-
So it means nothing. Beneath it all is the
human animal, and that's what I'm after.
Trying to explain. Working on some of the
the rudiments of  - 'making cars' once more.
What is this human creature who first baked
a brick, fired a kiln, mucked around with some
clay or mud and straw? What urge was that?
One thing was, the nomadic, on the move
tribes, they never did any of that. To bake
bricks and have kilns, you have first to stay
in place. Remain fixed, and by doing that,
learn the seasons and each season's particular
needs of remaining in place. The bricks build
things  -  to mean something, they go 'into'
something. The nomads, all they had was
animal plops, maybe dried dung and some
sticks, then to move on some more. Right
there is a crossroads, one essential difference
between, or within, Mankind itself. That was
the heart of the Cain and Abel story, that
separation between men  -  the farmers vs.
the builders. Guess who won out, even
biblically. If this is the case, where does
God fit in? Which of these formats was the
initial intention, if such was the case? My
Biblical friends  -  Bob and Carl  -  they'd
have the usual pat answers for this  -  the
kind of stuff you can't argue with because
it just gets too wearisome : 'God intended
that difference, so as to give us the choices
ourselves to make.' OK, really then? Then
why was not the first 'choice' given as well,
to eat of the fruit or not, instead of a flat
forbidding? Why have the tree there in place
at all, if there was such a tree? Rather poor
planning, no? What is the reason for any of
this? And then, of course, the wiser folk of
these selfsame religion-people, their 'other
camp; would say 'No, no. Not at all; it isn't
meant literally, it's all allegorical; as Jesus
spoke in parables, so too are these tales
spoken of as riddles and enigmas merely
to stand for things and advance the thinking
process.' And then I have to agree again?
But not before saying, 'Ok then, but before
you go can you help tidy up this field we are
leaving behind, this battleground of 41,000
dead bodies, the ones who did NOT agree
to our version of the 'allegories' you speak
of. Come, come, let us clean up the field,
and then you can go in peace. Or, of course,
I will kill you. It's your choice.
-
Each person has a separate drawing book.
Maybe you can see what I'm getting at : a
person has to get away from all this, leave
it behind, because it's a fool's game  -  as
much so as those anti-macassars which once
were put on the backs of chair-tops to keep
the head from staining the fabric. Huh?
That's what drawing is, or at least the drawing
mind, once it begins steering itself towards
Art in general. Everything begins to dissolve
and the meanings which are left are left with
enough leeway to become redefined. Once
all the crud is scraped away, there's still a lot
of rudiment there. I keep seeing crowds of
people, but single  - like a loaf of bread, say,
all of  one loaf but forty or fifty different 
slices. Each one of these picks something up.
I guess, for themselves, but I'm not even so
sure of that - sometimes I think the minds 
communicate with each other, in spite of.
I don't know but, somewhere, somehow 
along the line, the idea got started to 
'move' things, to find ways to become
mobil, and, bam! that was pretty much the
end of the old ways forever. Thank you,
Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, and the
guys who worked on engineering roadway 
and ridges, surfaces and pavements, fuels
and battery cells. Monuments to something,
along the way, or to nothing. I don't know.
-
I still know a few people who remain quite
rudimentary. It's a great thing to see. They may
be a little rough and well-worn, coarse and
even 'persnickety' (love that word). But damn,
they are good people. Welding, forging, fixing,
eating, drinking heartily, laughing and calling
 in all the rights notes to the tune of the world
they were given. I got over the fussy part of
living a long, long time ago and just now hope
I can slide it in my own manner right to the 
finish line of my own ways and means.
 In the most rudimentary fashion.



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