RUDIMENTS, pt. 147
Making Cars
A large part of life is ritual;
people get comfortable with
their own certain formalities,
and proceed that way. I don't
mean things like tying one's
necktie, or what is done for
the usual holidays and festivities.
I mean more the purely symbolic
rituals we each undertake to
'convince' ourselves of having
done something that acts as a
marker. I once had a family
member, in the 1980's, who had
purchased a house in a collection
of normal, all different, houses
on a regular street, with each
house about 50-60 years old.
All things were fine. New
neighbors moved in, South
Asians, from India, and one
day - as they stated was both
their custom, and a religious
tradition as well - they had
a group of people come by, the
house was completely opened up,
all the windows, doors etc., and for
a number of hours a series of rituals
and a procession through the house,
heavily laden with incense and
muttered prayers, took place. It
was followed by some sort of ritual
food sequence too. It was said, later,
that the entire process was to rid the
house of negative influences, bad
and lingering spirits, etc. In fact,
they added, in their culture for the
most part buying 'used' homes, or
places previously occupied by others
is frowned upon. They much prefer,
and usually undertake, new homes
only. I could see that in the area
right around here, because most
of the new construction, and the
tear-downs of previously-existing
homes - of the sort and the size
which have nicely accommodated
Americans for two centuries, are
built and inhabited by people of
that same nature and belief system,
and the garish houses are quite,
and ostentatiously large -
unnecessarily so, and are most
often pastel-shaded stucco, turreted,
high-cornered, etc., in an architectural
style and texture more befitting
New Delhi or perhaps Rangoon.
Something. Personally, I take this
all as an affront - not that I care
about what they do with their spirits
and ghosts and all that, but how they have
begun trampling over the more or less
steadied ways 'old' America has always
operated. If everyone in the country
demanded a 'new' house so as to avoid
goblins, we'd really have nothing left.
In addition, their style preferences stink.
-
In Chinatown, NYC, there's a lot of
that too - there are Buddhist temples
of all sorts of layouts and sizes, and
preferences are given to that religion
and lines of thought, incenses burned,
oranges and fruits brought in and piled
up for favors with the 'Gods', etc. That's
not much different from a 'church' anywhere;
it's all more or less degrees of interpretation
that differ. They don't tear things down, they
happily reuse the oldest city-junk places
they can get, and they're quite joyous. I
had never seen the likes of that suburban
house deal before. Hindu, Muslim,
Buddhist, I guess they all differ in
those ways. Neither do I ever
understand (and I'll state this frankly)
the idea of spirits and ghosts or spectres
or spooks hanging around here for
their after-death environment. I'm not
refuting that maybe they do exist, but
this seems to be the last place anyone
would need or want to return to. And,
anyway, they never do really ever seem
to make a point. Why just linger?
-
A lot of it is just about the archaic nature
of so much of our cultural lineages. Like
the Hasids in Williamsburg, or Lakewood
too, the entire old world is still bursting
through an overlay of modern trapping.
The old and the new, in that fashion,
never mix very well, because the trappings
of the two - so different - keep popping
though. No matter how you try to have
it colored as 'correct,' it's still ancient
stuff, and why bother? It's like those
schoolbus loads of orthodox Jewish
people, side-locked and all, that you
see busing from Brooklyn to midtown,
the 'diamond' district along 47th Street.
Evidently, the more 'archaic' you are,
the more you are also enticed by the
worldly glamour of shilling diamonds
and charging huge sums for resale or
new. I never got that either. Logic
was never in the Pentateuch.
-
The idea of 'ritual' runs into lots of
things; what I've always called
'ritual cleansing' is used as a
means for a person to take
ownership of house or place.
I saw it just today yet again.
A new person take possession
of a local home, after the previous
owners are gone, after 30 or 40
years living there. The yard
and house are nicely grown
into each other, limbs and shrubs,
etc. And then, the new ownership
takes it, and simply - for no
real purpose except asserting
ownership - they sweep through
the yard and slice off, for no
effect or real reason, here and
there, a few lower limbs of trees
that had been threatening no one
or no thing, hack up some walkway
shrubberies, etc. Inconsequential
stuff, but it gives them the assertive
power of saying 'this is mine,' as
it were. Back when I worked at
St. George Press, there was a
body-shop (for cars) that turned
over from the old owner, retiring,
to one of the guys who'd worked
there for years and had bought it.
One of the first things he did, for
no reason other than what I just
described, was take a day or two
and go around the entire foundation
of the garage building and yard, and
with clippers and knife, take out
every stitch of growth that was to
be found - little patches of weeds
along the foundation, small shrubs
and trees growing happily along the
fence and gate. It was just a ritual
cleansing - I bet not much different
than smoking out all the ghosts
and spirits in the old house. Back
when I first got my house and acreage
in Pennsylvania, I did much the same
thing (which is from where I've picked
this experience of ritual cleansing I
relate to). I remember walking the
fields, the barn area, the work-shed,
back driveway and rear borderline,
saw in hand, and cutting off every
dead limb and branch I came across,
and cutting down the one or two
young dead trees I saw. (It was
Winter, yes, but you can tell a dead
limb, even then, by the visible
appearance - no sprouted young
twigs, buds, or branchings, and a
general dead dryness apparent).
There's absolutely nothing wrong,
especially in a country-property-line
setting, with dead branches or limbs.
Birds and bugs use them, and they
serve other purposes too. But, in
my head, this was a ritual cleansing
of the large property, a way of
making it mine.' Stupid, but true.
No comments:
Post a Comment