8421. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, #121

121. FLUIDICS

You know all that 'Papa was

a Rolling Stone, wherever he

laid his hat was his home' stuff, 
(some crummy old 1969 or '70 maybe,

maybe, pop song)   -  well that sort

of thing has always had the

cultural significance, in this

country anyway, of setting

the tone for things. And, in

that same same fashion, and

as evidence, in Princeton

there's a Class of '69 or

one of those years, memorial

stone placed in a little sitting

garden near the 'Theater Intime'

(Princeton University's Drama

Team), that has the words of

Joni Mitchell (yes, Joni Mitchell)

inscribed on it  -  that 'we are

stardust, we are golden' tidbit

from 'Woodstock'. Trite but

right, I guess. Or sublime to

the ridiculous maybe too  -

just across the grass some

from it is the super-sacred

memorial ground, with the

Japanese Peace Bell/Gong

too (which before this event

really had no 'specific' event

attached to it. They adapted

it to the dead of the World

Trade Center after the fact).

I guess it was always all about

'fluidity'. Even in New York

City, everything was always

underway with change, and

there was always a certain

duplicity between what was

being said and what actually

was being done. When I was

in Elmira, New York, at

Whitehall Printing on e. 1st

Street, one of the customers

was Corning Glass, for certain

departmental printings and

science spec-sheets and all.

One that we always had printing

was a specialty department,

with their newsletters and

laboratory-results and reports

ad spec-sheets, and such. It

was called 'Fluidics'  - the

department and the science

category too  -  about how

solids would flow as liquids,

the transformational aspects

of glass and molten materials.

It was always very interesting

to me, and I'd await each new

job with great expectation.

At Corning Glass Works

itself you could go into the

arena, of the glass-blowers

and glass molders and all  -

very pretty ornamental

pottery and other items  -

and watch these people

all in action  -  the fire-pits,

the heat-ovens and kilns,

bellows, and the guys blowing

and forming glass from the

ends of the long blow-pipes

they blow into. It was

pretty amazing  -  liquid

glass. Sometimes, and even

now, I'd wonder about the

origins of things  -  the sorts

of things that make you think

about aliens and life-forms

and Gods (by whatever name)

seeding the planet, here, in

person  -  like, the first

person who ate a tomato, not

knowing the result? Or raising

corn  -  that very odd yet

life-sustaining plant. And

liquefying and fluidics,

glass-blowing, fires, heat,

and flames. Who thought

of all this? Seemed always

pretty obvious to me that

some entity must have

come down here, taken a

group of weird land-apes,

and instructed them on

things like food and

cooking, heat and killing,

animal husbandry and the

ideas of harvesting and

conservation too. Whatever;

as it were then I just figured 

I was witnessing some 

massive cosmic interaction 

within time.

-

It was the same way with the

Peace Bell and the Joni Mitchell 

thing in Princeton  -  all very fluid,

seamlessly moving from one 

frame to the other. I'd imagine,

in linear thought one of those

things has to be considered more 

noble and higher in aspiration than

the other  -  but I wouldn't know.

I don't do linear. If you remember,

about two months back I did write

that I thought Bob Dylan, as a

for-instance, should be executed.

Yeah, said that right here. And my

reasoning, IF you can recall  -  if 

not, go find it in the number 70's

chapters, maybe  -  I said it would

be because I thought that the fathers

should have to pay for the sins of 

their sons  -  meaning that, no 

matter what the validity or value 

or worth, or not, of any of his 

work turns out to be, what came

because of him, what followed, 

what he'd started  -  that whole, 

disgusting and endless series

of snide and rampaging

low-ballers raging and then

producing what they called 

'music', and leaving behind them

nothing but disgusting cultural

ruins  -  he should be made to

pay for that. Paying for, as his

was, the 'Fluidics' which had

started because of him. Pretty

weird concept, yeah, but I stick

with it and I like it. It was like

that  -  is still like that  -  right

there on the Princeton campus.

On hundred some yards away

from each other, one as a 'sublime'

and the other as 'dross.' The 

enduring life-lesson there would be

in 'which one' you chose. Pearls

before swine, or grace before guts.
-
You can be sure any of those guys
working as glass-blowers in Corning 
wouldn't have a reflection of this nature. 
Or I wouldn't think so anyway. But just 
imagine, for a second, if  -  through some 
strange and endless psychic echoing 
down through the hallways of humanity -
they awoke in the middle of the night
with that strange, thudding sound in
their brain, some voice, some feeling,
telling them how timeless and connected
to all other things, Mankind's entire
narrative, their work was, and
was bringing them, and was
being carried on. Maybe that's
what's meant when people 
say they are 'doing God's work.'
No different than Joni Mitchell's
'we are stardust,' or the peace
and goodness of that
Peace Bell.
-
I was always conflicted, let's put it
that way  -  I never knew how to be
 settled. I'd get all lost in the new morning
each day, a million ideas about things,
writing stuff down and the rest, and
then before too long, yet again, it would 
get all trashed having to worry about all
the hundred things of a daily grind :
light-bulbs to fashion to logistics to
the garbage going out and the dumpster
getting emptied. The Rolling Stones  -
going back to that again  -  may have
wailed on their 1969 sympathy for the
Devil, but I always ended up with 
empathy for the rebel. I long ago
realized none of this was me. And
that was the rub. Blown glass, in
the wrong shape, filling up with
hot air and overdone energy.
It's no wonder I failed
everyone around me.
My fluids didn't fit
my solids,
no way.