FUTURISTS IN CAMBRIA
(the Walking Purchase)
I. In lockstep with the external world:
'Remaking the noggin' and The Fuhrer of Reputation.
It was Arnold Schoenberg and his 12-tone scale
that really did me in. No partita of Bach-elegance this.
It sang industrial harshness, it sang brute force.
Broken edges and the sundered sutures of a wartime's
burning flame. The flame that never went out.
I'm not really very happy; a death-bred slob.
Who in my condition would be?
Who in my situation would even try?
-
II. The Walking Purchase - we showed them a river
that wasn't there - or at least not where we said
it was. That was their starting point...and we
said: 'as far as you can walk in a day will be yours,
from this pointed river towards that.' But, the river
not being there, we already had them securely in
our hats. They were doomed from the start; and
anyway, had not a clue of what we were talking.
It was, really, a holiday for all of us involved -
and probably our very first one in this new land.
All Fool's Day, I should think, sums it up nicely.
-
III. Those ecstatic nuns of old, and all their garments.
Fuck 'em all, I say. Visions are the cheapest
versions of reality to be found.
-
IV. Felix Canada said: 'as people start dying,
they get mean, not nice'. I was there when
he said it, and that quote's quite verbatim.
-
V. 'Really well done; but the girls never like me.'
So I'm reading some slave woman's account of
when she was young, as a girl, and newly liberated;
'freed' in 1865. The first thing she wound up doing
was being a whore - that's what her new Freedom
gave her. The words were like from some old
N'Orleans street back when the levees yet held.
'If'n you'se ain't still movin', 'den 'jes mebbe'
you'se movin' still - either ways, don't make
no nevah to me.' She smoked cigarettes while she
talked 'lighting one after the other as if the fire had
to be continuous or the flame eternal.' Like any
other monument, some people liked it, while others
just didn't. Freedom brings so much to learn.
-
VI. 'I been fuckin f'om befo' I kin remembuh!
Shit yes! Wit' my old man, wit' my brothers,
wit' d'kids in da street. I done it fo' pennies.
I done it fo' nothin'...An' you know whut,
Mistuh? I got a quatah fo' sucking off a
ol' niggah yestiddy!'*
(the Walking Purchase)
I. In lockstep with the external world:
'Remaking the noggin' and The Fuhrer of Reputation.
It was Arnold Schoenberg and his 12-tone scale
that really did me in. No partita of Bach-elegance this.
It sang industrial harshness, it sang brute force.
Broken edges and the sundered sutures of a wartime's
burning flame. The flame that never went out.
I'm not really very happy; a death-bred slob.
Who in my condition would be?
Who in my situation would even try?
-
II. The Walking Purchase - we showed them a river
that wasn't there - or at least not where we said
it was. That was their starting point...and we
said: 'as far as you can walk in a day will be yours,
from this pointed river towards that.' But, the river
not being there, we already had them securely in
our hats. They were doomed from the start; and
anyway, had not a clue of what we were talking.
It was, really, a holiday for all of us involved -
and probably our very first one in this new land.
All Fool's Day, I should think, sums it up nicely.
-
III. Those ecstatic nuns of old, and all their garments.
Fuck 'em all, I say. Visions are the cheapest
versions of reality to be found.
-
IV. Felix Canada said: 'as people start dying,
they get mean, not nice'. I was there when
he said it, and that quote's quite verbatim.
-
V. 'Really well done; but the girls never like me.'
So I'm reading some slave woman's account of
when she was young, as a girl, and newly liberated;
'freed' in 1865. The first thing she wound up doing
was being a whore - that's what her new Freedom
gave her. The words were like from some old
N'Orleans street back when the levees yet held.
'If'n you'se ain't still movin', 'den 'jes mebbe'
you'se movin' still - either ways, don't make
no nevah to me.' She smoked cigarettes while she
talked 'lighting one after the other as if the fire had
to be continuous or the flame eternal.' Like any
other monument, some people liked it, while others
just didn't. Freedom brings so much to learn.
-
VI. 'I been fuckin f'om befo' I kin remembuh!
Shit yes! Wit' my old man, wit' my brothers,
wit' d'kids in da street. I done it fo' pennies.
I done it fo' nothin'...An' you know whut,
Mistuh? I got a quatah fo' sucking off a
ol' niggah yestiddy!'*
*Natasha Trethewey, 2002
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