9084. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, Pt. 300

300. 'KNOCKED 

OUT LOADED'

As many things

as captivated me

also kept me

engrossed and

quite busy. I was

like a sponge and

it was all coming

in fast and strong.

At every turn it

seemed to me as

if NYCity was

nothing else if

not just a massive,

wide-open school.

Fascinating. The

huge library took

me in, all the

galleries up along

57th, and at the

Fuller Building,

everything I

could handle,

wherever it

was. I learned

things  -  which

were often funny

to me. Things such

as  -  that, in

reading the

words of

someone else

in the writing

of another,

the item, if

there was

something

incorrect within

it, like a mis-spelling

or something, it was

labelled, in brackets,

with a '[sic]',

which essentially

meant to say

'his mistake, not

mine.' I found

that hilarious  -

some academic

twerp so caught

up in his or her

self that they

couldn't even

fix or excuse

some other

person's local

error, but had to

'point it out,

gratuitously' as

if to say  -  'look,

this is this idiot's

mistake, not mine.

I know better than

this craphead ever

did.' - I just wanted

someday to get

a hold of one

these jerks and

really let them

have it. It might

not seem like

much to any

of you reading

this, but to me

it stank of a

scandalous

whiff of

pompous

self-centeredness,

which pretty

much was

indicative of

the uselessness

too of the

information

this jerk was

about to impart

to you as reader.

Voracious, I

was. I covered

every corner

and each angle

of New York

City I could,

and found plenty

of amazing and

cool things to

satisfy my own

wicked hunger.

Tidbits. The

docks and

waterfronts :

even the word

'longshoreman',

which in our

day pretty much

covered a wharf

or a dock worker,

actually, in the

1840's and then,

was the word

'alongshoreman'

-  read the following

and you'll see that,

and a '[sic]' too  -

 "Irishmen took

over the New York

City docks as

well. 'Along the

wharves,where the

colored man once

done [sic] the whole

business of shipping

and unshipping,' noted

one African-American

newspaper, 'there are

substituted foreigners

or white Americans.'

On any given day

five or six thousand

of these 'alongshoremen'

moved mountains

of cargo off ships

and around the

port, roaming from

pier to pier..."

So...see what I

mean. The use

here of some

colloquial, old

black guy's language

format has to be

pounced on,

highlighted  -

for no effect. I'm

pretty sure any

one of us as

reader would

know what was

was going on with

that use of the

word 'done.' But

this jackel-boy just

has to point it out,

even though it's 

already in quotes.

It was a funny

world. Another
one I found, while
reading some old 
stuff, was that the 
sports word, 'fan,' 
had nothing to do
with 'fanatic,'  -  a 
shortened form, as
I had thought. It was,
instead, in early 
class-conscious and
quite separated, New 
York negative slang given
to the new, high 'elite' 
of lawyers, brokers, 
editors, doctors and 
professional-clerk
sorts, who attended these
events, and were able 
to pay the entry fees;
and then 'followed' the
sports in print. These
gentry enthusiasts were 
known as 'the fancy',
later short to 'fan.'
-

There's a very 

interesting cemetery, 

down by First avenue 

and 1st street  -  

something often 

called 1st and 1st,

which, yes,  can 

get confusing. It's

under lock and key 

now and not that 

often opened  -  

only on special 

days, tours, open 

houses, etc. (an 

open house at a 

graveyard; pretty 

novel idea). There 

was a time, in 

the 1950's and 

60's, when a few 

famous guys not 

then quite famous, 

all lived there  -  

people like Allen 

Ginsberg and 

some of those 

guys  -  and they 

often have references, 

in their memoirs 

and things, to 

the view or what 

they remember 

the most of their 

arrival at whomever's 

apartment for a 

party or a reading 

or something. Crazy 

guys, artists, writers, 

dopers, singers. The 

graveyard itself goes 

way back to earliest 

NYC history -   all 

those early and founding 

rich family names. 

Just like this one, 

there are one or two 

others like it, pretty 

much hidden in 

those lower confines 

of old NYC, when 

this wooded and 

marshy area of 

the old east side 

was still coarsely 

inhabited and 

considered more 

of a useless and

 junk-land area. 

I loved these 

places  -  each 

monument, the 

ones you can still 

read, have stories 

and are, or seem, 

just aching to let 

you in on them. 

a famous, old 

New York name, 

(Hamilton Fish, 

probably the most 

recent of the lot) 

is represented in 

here by its 

pre-eminent and 

founding name, 

a guy named 

'Preserved Fish.' 

You can look 

that up. It's 

perservered [sic].

-

Plenty of fanfare, 

and all the time. 

It seemed as if 

there was a parade 

at every moment 

for one thing or 

another -  canyon'd 

streets, confetti and 

ticker-tape, marching 

bands and open cars. 

Astronauts, ball teams, 

ethnic confabs, 

you name it, it was 

there. Just a background 

noise to everything. 

I used to go down 

to the old Federal Hall, 

where there's a statue 

of George Washington, 

right by the stock 

exchange building, 

at the spot where 

supposedly he took 

the oath of office as 

President  -  when 

the previous, original 

and old Federal Hall 

was there. Now it's 

all ponderous and 

marble and columned 

and granite and all. 

Religiously displaying 

placards and statues 

and recreations in 

story-line of all 

sorts of things. 

Guides and docents. 

All for stuff that's 

pretty much just a

made-up narrative

to fit the present 

day. I'd just sit there 

and watch the 

world around me  -  

masses of people 

engaged. Business. 

Stocks and bonds. 

Trading. Banking. 

Right across the 

way is some other 

bank or something 

building where in 

the 1920's or so 

some carriage-bomb 

went off, killing 

and maiming and 

leaving shrapnel 

holes still visible 

and left as they 

were in the side 

and face areas of 

the building where 

it went off. In front 

of it. It was nothing, 

in the present day, 

but always added 

to the deepened 

mystery and 

presence of the 

ghostly past that 

I always felt all 

around NYC. 

Just another 

instance of 

same. Yet, part 

of that whole 'game'

  -  about the ghostly

past  -  was that 

it was all on you. 

The guides and the

pictures and all, 

they'll present to 

you an accepted

narrative of the 

way things 

'supposedly' were,

they say, but it's 

all on YOU to

see it. Each person

envisions and imagines

what they 'think' they

see differently. It's

the same with 

everything else.

There's no 'there'

there, or anyway.

-

Elmira never had 

anything like that. 

Right in the center 

of town sat this 

really grand post 

office; an entire 

Elmira block taken 

up. It's empty now, 

and they've built a 

new and real 

ticky-tacky postal 

facility across the 

street, sharing the 

space of the old 

bus station, which 

too has been 

destroyed and 

remade into a 

child's puzzle kind

of place where

now people just

sit around, idly

waiting for buses 

and things but

demanding, while

they wait, to be 

amused and not 

have to think about

things. That's the

kind of world we 

have now. They'd 

be most happy if 

the bus came in

being driven by

Mickey Mouse or 

some idiot move

character. God

forbid someone

had to think.

This gigantic old 

post office building 

is for sale. I passed 

it not so long ago. 

The whole place 

is vacant  -  I 

don't know 

what sort of 

shape it is inside, 

but it would be 

a project and a 

half to buy that 

place and find 

a reason to make 

it be something 

again. All right 

in the center of 

town there, just 

off a little, there's 

also an understated 

Civil War era 

graveyard. Not 

like the others, 

at the far end 

of town  -  there 

are graveyards 

there too, (Mark 

Twain), with an 

entire Civil War 

section, but they 

make a big stink 

about it because 

it sits at the foot 

of the Elmira 

Penitentiary, 

which in the 

Civil War days 

was an actual 

prisoner of war 

camp for Confederate 

soldiers  -  they were 

hauled up there, 

half dead and 

wounded anyway, 

and kept in real 

miserable, cold 

conditions (like 

Andersonville 

Prison, in Georgia, 

for the union guys, 

but at least there it 

wasn't ever 12 below). 

These soldiers dropped

dead like flies, and

just got buried by

number, in rows.

This other civil war 

graveyard, downtown, 

is just a big block 

of dead people and 

their stones. not 

bragging about 

anything, certainly 

not themselves or 

their place. Neighbors 

and friends, just 

ordinary Elmira 

people, who went 

south, and fought, 

and died and came 

back to be buried 

among family, kin, 

all oddly shared and 

abutting, then, a Sears 

parking lot strewn 

with a bunch of dead 

'69 Chevies and 

Fords and stuff. 

But the houses 

all around it, 

they were big, 

old, and grand 

structures all 

from that era, and

still are  -  rambling 

housefronts, multi-decked 

porches and gables 

and dormers and 

all that really nice 

old stuff. But they 

were in disarray 

and all tattered 

and falling apart 

some too. Everything 

just always seemed 

tired and wrecked, 

even before the 

flood, and then 

after the flood it 

was like a knock-out 

in a really bloody 

boxing ring. It was  -   

finally here saying 

something good 

about Elmira  -  always 

peaceful and restful 

and quiet there  :  

probably because 

it was all on life-support 

and just hanging in. 

Except for the McDonald's, 

and the local Pudgie's 

Pizza stores, Elmira 

was comatose and 

long, long gone. 

But I must say  -  

I liked it, like 

that, and probably 

for that reason.