RUDIMENTS, pt. 121
Making Cars
It's pretty weird right now, in my
later life, to still be doing all this
crazy writing. I would really never
had thought this would be going
on, had you asked me in 1968, or
any other year from anytime back
then. By the time I got through
the 1990's I was pretty burnt,
unsettled, and almost numbed,
and that slows you down a lot
in your writing-reactions to things.
In order to really 'write' while
looking back along the way to
reflect and make anything sensible
out of both the urges and the messages
that come through, one has first to
have had developed a one-step-back
sort of detachment. I'd think, anyway.
It's a very odd concept I'm working
with here - let me put it another
way. In old landscape paintings,
right up until Cezanne, when you
viewed the landscape there was
always a 'way in.' There was always
a spot the eye was led to, to walk
into, to enter, to be brought into,
this landscape of the painting. It
wasn't until Cezanne that the full,
flat, frontal presentation of the
'landscape,' (it was still called that),
no longer really presented a way
in at all. It had been 'abstracted
out,' let's say. I think of course
that's sometimes what people
begrudge abstract art for - no
way in. It's no longer 'nice' to
them, it doesn't welcome them
in. It's no longer like a calendar
picture. Well, what I'm saying is
it's like that with writing too.
Cezanne wasn't abstract at all,
but he was the very beginning
of that breakaway fashion of
presentation that segmented
into planes and blocks and jagged
fields, what it is that we see and
call the 'world.' I once had a long,
tedious discussion with some
flubhead who claimed there had
never been the equivalent of
abstract-expressionist art in
writing. I begged to differ, and
went right at it. He remained
unconvinced. (He's gone now,
so no matter). 'Hell yeah there
has...' was my starting point.
-
Maybe to the uninitiated, or the
non-writer, it's not seen, and just
comes off as something too difficult
to read, to scattered and dense, as
in 'Huh?' - it happens, yes. On the
other hand, in reading 'poetry' and
any of that 'sensitive' heart and
soul crap writing that comes
through today, most of THAT
is unreadable. Everyone's got
a damn heart, and broken heart,
and longings, and remorse, and
wishes and tenderness and baby
emotions and yearnings and
starlight and moon and distant
skies and beaches and turtles
and beautiful birds and designs
in the sand. And, really, who
the hell cares? I certainly don't.
That's all literal, soppy writing.
Not 'abstract' in that sense, and
goes absolutely nowhere. They
can't writ with knowledge of the
language they're using, nor can
they parry and thrust with the
words and ideas at their disposal.
It's all the same, usual rubbish. It's
all like a ladies club for mourners,
or some guy's club for the effete
and the gourmet-sensitive twerp
who probably drives a New Beetle
with a plastic flower in the dashboard
cup. Either that, or everybody calls
their rhyming couplets, rock and
rap lyrics, poetry - and they give
freaking Nobel Prizes now to the
doers of such drivel. Hard to take.
-
I lived and breathed, in those days
- as I do now, but differently - the
ideas and the rolling solace of Art
and Writing. They were my own
twin goalposts and to Hell with any
other sort of football. I recently
wrote a piece entitled, 'I Ran Into'
which pretty well embodies my
own personal sort of writing now,
in the form I mean. You may say
it allows no way in, runs amok,
drives in ten different directions;
but I would not say that. To me,
it's a Cezanne. It's post-abstract
landscape painting. That's a true
piece of writing as abstract-expressionist
as can be. Completely defensible. It
doesn't 'have' a way in - like Cezanne,
doing away with any church-guided
tours of the soul, this is the real soul
of what we live.
-
Th old world view of things - politics,
religion, and the rest of the social state
which was early civilization, could
best be summed up by the church.
Everyone was in the dark, confused.
Like an old-style landscape painting
the church presented people with the
way in, the entry-point was clear, as
was the path - you do this, listen to
this and to Him, imbibe the Dogma,
and that righteous path will bring you
to 'where' we say it will. In his way,
Paul Cezanne did away with all that,
almost Luther-Like - just throwing all
that stuff right out to you, 'here' catch'
and allowing you to find your own way
into your own manner of understanding
your own world. Matter-of-factly, he
may has well have been speaking for
REM - 'It's the End of the World As
We Know It....' As for myself, in the
same vein, I was set-free to roam and
think all this through. All the old entries
and doorways I'd ever known were gone,
by my own doing, and I had to find my
own, new ones. I never knew what
hara-kiri was, until about 1970 or
whatever it was, that Japanese writer
named Yukio Mishima, did it to himself.
It's a ritual form of suicide, very formal,
with procedure, ritual steps, fabrics,
moves and motions, a swords. It's like
a staged even, in protest, in front of
others. Ritual disembowelment. After
a final speech, outlining the point of
view, and the personal beef, and the
rest, the individual very carefully takes
a well-honed sword or saber, whatever
it is, and with complete deliberation,
gores himself, drives in into his abdomen,
with twists and turns, and disembowels
himself, and dies. It's totally massive,
and a monstrous death. Mishima did it,
in front of his followers. it was a huge,
and scandalous, event in Japan, back then,
literary circles and more. I felt I had done
the same to myself, all my past beliefs and
thoughts. That was all dead. It was a new
world, with all new entry points.
No comments:
Post a Comment