267. ART
A few things always
remained influential
to me. I was just a
kid, in the respect
of age and place along
'life's' journey, and
I pretty much stayed
cognizant of all that.
It was easy - the idea
was to just not think
you knew it all, or
anything at all, and
stay as much as
possible in the
background, so as
not to be the one
conspicuous and
standing out. One
thing I never could
stand was a precocious
kid. So, I just did
the equivalent of
standing still or
hiding. I had read
somewhere that - (and
this conceptual image
always frightened me
senseless, egads! the
trouble to be caused) -
that EVERY thought
becomes a reality
somewhere. A complete
interactive mesh of
alternate realities,
produced by each of
us, constantly, as part
of Life's unendingly
creative expansion.
We make reality, and
unwittingly. Every thought,
even the most idle ones,
produce a stream of reality
which then populates the
realms of universal
habitation - like the
uncountable stars and
planets, each alive with
some factor of ourselves,
dotting this vast universe.
In some sense, I took it
as the same thing as having
someone read my thoughts.
'Man, that can't be good,'
I'd think. Kind of like
they have now, in Physics,
these ideas of multiple
universes of which we
are all a part. Same deal,
different spin.
-
In addition to that was
the idea of time. Time
went forward, from
some 'fixed' present.
The fixed present
never seemed fixed
to us, but that was
part of the deal, the
illusion. I used to
get gladdened by the
fact - an opposite
of sorts to that other
concept just mentioned
And 'we' were making
the future. But that
wasn't the case, and I
was glad for that. In
this manner: I'd see
someone getting out
of a car; the door opens
on the traffic side and
they step out, my mind
goes forward thinking
I must observe this in
order to see that that
person does not get hit
by an oncoming vehicle
as he exits the car. He,
or she, exits; safely.
Now, had my thought
actually conjured an
effect that did happen,
that person would be
smushed, or injured,
or dead, somewhere?
By that, I'd control a
future, some randomly
acquired occurrence,
in someone else's life?
That did not seem right,
and the idea of probables
did not seem to fit reality.
From all this, I had to
move on.
-
I also sometimes had a
problem distinguishing
between things that were
'clear' and things that were
'white.' Strangest thing ever.
When something, a liquid,
was clear, was it then 'white'
as well? Strange how long
it took me to realize
transparency. Down at
the Rt. One end of Inman
Avenue, in the cruddy
woods which ran there,
a creek or stream ran
through. The water was
often a varied version of
clear - more like 1950's
gray, smoke white, some
odd shade of pollution-clear.
The version everyone
agreed on was that the
'water' was clear. Maybe
that's where I got the
confusion initially.
Darn assumptions. I
always felt there should
be house on Inman
Avenue, down by the
Mulligans or Shipleys,
with a signpost that read,
'the Assumptions live here.'
Yeah, you know, the
Assumptions - they were
always suffering from a
rash. Rash judgment.
-
Things used to scare the
bejeezus out of me, after
I'd find them out. It was if
the entire world was some
vast and configured plot,
one where everything was
set up for a reason, and
nothing had a face value.
Evil and dastardly things
were everywhere. Even the
cartoons which were foisted
on us as kids, by that big
cartoon industry of all those
fat and nasty entertainment
Jewish-guy moguls; they
were having a go at us. My
later religious studies
showed me that Magilla
the Gorilla actually had
its roots in the Jewish
cabalistic name/concept
of Megillah (the scroll read
at Purim, having to do
with the Book of Esther),
with the Book of Esther),
and denoting a long,
convoluted and
drawn-out story; and
that Marmaduke, in
reality, was a long, long
ago, Pre-Christian,
even Pre-Judaic figure
called Marduk (a
late-generation,
Mesopotamian God,
of water and vegetation,
associated with a snake
that followed him around).
If this sort of nonsense
was underway at the
silliest levels of
child-upbringing, this
conflated form of
propaganda and
ridicule, what in
the world were the
rest of things
backed up by?
I was afraid
to look.
-
I never had anything
against Jewish people; it
was just that they seemed
the most annoying bunch of
self-esteeming pests I'd ever
run into. And that couldn't
be avoided, which is one
of the reasons they were
so annoying. They seemed
everywhere - coarse and
brittle, and with their hands
out, always trying to make
a penny here and a penny
there, insidious as greedy
little scavengers. Nothing
wrong with that, in its way,
but then stop pretending to
be so all high and righteous
and chosen and all that.
For this, you sleep with
cash registers? Always
made me wonder. Once
I got to New York, most of
the art world was Jewish;
and already Jewish when
they started. They'd get all
high and mighty about that
too. All that Mark Rothko
stuff, dripping with holy
and fully self-important
pretentiousness with
not a laughable moment
within. I never got it, at
all - a seven-hundred
dollar painting, maybe,
going for seven thousand,
then seventy thousand, and
then seven million and more.
The guy killed himself. That,
in addition to all that usual
holy-high-minded high-Jewish
reach for the Gods, made it
imperative that - yes,
you guessed - it had to
become part of the world-view
of the monied - all those people
endlessly bidding this stuff up
were - yes, you guessed it -
them. 'For the goys, we
build Disneylands.'
-
All the Christians, and Catholics,
on the other hand, that I'd ever
met or had dealings with, had
all the coarse attributes of the
brute-sense of people who, dull
as they seemed, deserved nothing
more than this toying around with.
Their ideas of art seemed to be
the calendar junk of those
big-eyed painted girls you'd see,
cats and fruits and flowers.
Conceptually, they all lived in
Dead City when it came to art.
So I began think, between the
two, could there be some
softer and more easy
middle-ground?
I never had anything
against Jewish people; it
was just that they seemed
the most annoying bunch of
self-esteeming pests I'd ever
run into. And that couldn't
be avoided, which is one
of the reasons they were
so annoying. They seemed
everywhere - coarse and
brittle, and with their hands
out, always trying to make
a penny here and a penny
there, insidious as greedy
little scavengers. Nothing
wrong with that, in its way,
but then stop pretending to
be so all high and righteous
and chosen and all that.
For this, you sleep with
cash registers? Always
made me wonder. Once
I got to New York, most of
the art world was Jewish;
and already Jewish when
they started. They'd get all
high and mighty about that
too. All that Mark Rothko
stuff, dripping with holy
and fully self-important
pretentiousness with
not a laughable moment
within. I never got it, at
all - a seven-hundred
dollar painting, maybe,
going for seven thousand,
then seventy thousand, and
then seven million and more.
The guy killed himself. That,
in addition to all that usual
holy-high-minded high-Jewish
reach for the Gods, made it
imperative that - yes,
you guessed - it had to
become part of the world-view
of the monied - all those people
endlessly bidding this stuff up
were - yes, you guessed it -
them. 'For the goys, we
build Disneylands.'
-
All the Christians, and Catholics,
on the other hand, that I'd ever
met or had dealings with, had
all the coarse attributes of the
brute-sense of people who, dull
as they seemed, deserved nothing
more than this toying around with.
Their ideas of art seemed to be
the calendar junk of those
big-eyed painted girls you'd see,
cats and fruits and flowers.
Conceptually, they all lived in
Dead City when it came to art.
So I began think, between the
two, could there be some
softer and more easy
middle-ground?
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