10,165. RUDIMENTS, pt. 132

RUDIMENTS, pt. 131

Making Cars

I walked the streets of New York

City as of part of a swarm. In the

NYC of today, actually, I seldom

see the sorts of everyday crowds

I used to see then  -  sometimes

looking up Fifth Avenue, in the

low 50's or high 40's, the only

thing a person could see was the

mass-swarm of heads, moving

along, a slight sway and an up

and down movement on them. It

oftentimes just looked organic,

like something flowing in a

bloodstream, or a virus or a

bacteria, virulently spreading.

In today's variant of that, a person

at least gets some 'space' around

them although everyone is looking

down and no one watches where

they're going. 'Uptown', as that

area was referred to, was a mystery.

Upper Fifth Avenue, in that area,

(it's not really 'upper' because Fifth

Avenue continues ALL the way

up the east side, well after 110th

street, right up to 143rd). In the

upper 40's, right up though the

50's, Fifth Ave. was expensive

shops, showrooms and anchor-stores

for the large, luxury stores of name,

legend, and wealth  -  Bergdoff's,

Tiffany, Saks Fifth Avenue, etc.,

etc. The list goes on. A glass of

water at one of their lunch counters

(some actually had them), was like

$9 on a good day. 'After all, think

where you are.' I never got any of

that, and the message was lost

and garbled to me. Whatever fantasy

lives people live with themselves, it

always appeared that  Fifth Avenue

was the Main Street for it  -  and it

still is. The crowds start winding up

a bit before Thanksgiving, and once

the Christmas orgasming begins the

entire place is a mad nuthouse of

gawkers, eyes, arms and hands,

everywhere. Lines. Christmas

gadgetry, lights, displays, and -

almost offensively  -  the unending

spectacle of low-grade visitors from

Passaic, New Brunswick, Center Reach,

Nyack, or Ronkonkoma barrel in and

make a complete lie of any claim to

exclusivity, wealth, and taste, by their

unending drooling and cheap habits.

The French say ' mauvais gout' (bad

taste), and if you believe that, Stendahl

put it even better : 'Le mauvais gout mene

aux crimes'  -  (Bad taste leads to crime).

I add 'disenchantment,' and 'artificial

pearls before real swine.'

-

Once you untangle the falsity of things

from their actual reality, a lot changes  -

Like the whole crock about Fifth Avenue.

Outside of the self-created, prime real

estate and concomitant rents  - which

in turn are mostly the reason for the

high prices  -  the actual aura of the

street is all fake. It's all the same

high-named leather and belt stuff

you can get anywhere, just made in

other places and with name-tags and

branding effects, etc.. The panache

comes from the exclusive wielding

of the idea of prestige, which is really

the product. The trouble is, all these

hordes are let in, with their popcorn

and hamburgers, to destroy the entire

mystique, while consuming it. Really

bad husbandry of the product, I'd say.

It's funny, because if your product is

'prestige', and then you begin peddling

that to lunkheads, you end up destroying 
what you're trying to sell  -  like Groucho
Marx not wishing to be a member of any
club that would have him.

-

Mostly, I just did what I wanted

to do, without any of the whichevers

and whatevers that usually go with it.

It was a goldmine, my streets, places, 

the Studio School, and all the other

live resources that NYCity offered 

me, freely. Back then you were able

to stroll in anywhere and partake. 

No one scanned you or your bag,

no one asked for ID, and played

'20 questions' with you. I used to

just stroll in wherever I liked, and

that included schools and stuff, like

NYU, quite nearby, and way uptown,

Columbia too. There was so much

turmoil anyway that everything was

topsy--turvy. I often just sat in, and

wherever I pleased. I used to think

of myself as a 'craft' atop some

grand sea, and anywhere I chose

to pull in was my 'landing party'.

The best of it was the NY Public 

Library, in the most complete, old

sense of magnificent, a true
transcendental resource.

-

I did a lot of studying, and of two

subjects in particular that always

intrigued me : the history of religion,

as it were, and belief; and 'clasical'

literature. I paced my own little

curriculum, went about all this in

my own ways, and it was always

good enough for me. There were

times when I just walked out 
stunned. (One time, in the 80's, 
funny as it was, there was miserable 
Dylan album attempt that came out, 
entitled, 'Knocked Out, Loaded.' 
And I immediately understood that, 
and knew exactly what he was trying 
to say with that phrase, using my own 
personal, past references of this time 
for him. It was exactly how I felt: 
Knocked out. Loaded). I would be

thinking through what I'd just been 

working on, keeping little notebooks,

etc. None of it, ever, was the world

that had been explained to me.

Nowhere were the reference points 

the same. I'd try and figure out what

was going on, and  -  really  -  the

only sensible thing I'd ever come up 

with was that places like Avenel, say,

for me, and a million other little

quirky pieces of real estate out of 

which people had come, had escaped, 

so to speak, to New York City, were 

nothing more than locked-door 

insane asylums where people bought 

into and propagated all those lies. 

All across America, that's what it 

was. The American Dream image 

thing was a complete, consumerist 

lie. Again I think back to Avenel 

and to the manner by which it,

the attempt, was made to raise me. 

Fundamental to that was obedience,

school, home and church being the

primary three. They each assumed,

without saying so, a unified and

coherent viewpoint over life. The

whole sleepy place, it seemed, 

depended on one quietude of a 

comforting and secure belief in 

'God.' The one God explained and

proffered there in the accepted

manner, through the assortment of 

small churches and establishments 

around. Comfortable, passive, and

able to be explained away as charitable

and helpful to others. Supposedly.

Yet, in early history, the world had

been a turmoil; local places, established,

under the tutelage of local spirit Gods,

urges and influences. Nothing was ever

settled or secure. The 'Narrative' had

not yet been put together to be spread

and universalized. All religion was

local. Same Gods, in different places,

perhaps the idea of anyway, but no

communication between places existed. 

Rites and beliefs, it appeared sprang up

spontaneously and locally, and in some

cases along the routes of trade and 

migration. From one place to another, 

curiously similar practices arose. Everyone 

had a 'sky' God(s), sometimes with similar

names place to place, slight variations.

As if, travelling through Italy, one

place had salami, another 'salametti,

with still another calling it 'salmetto.'

There were grand overlaps of creation

myths, each postulating something,

quite often just a different version of 

a local superiority. It all 'existed' 

while it was being built (a strange 

concurrence with a 'God' idea too),

who existed both while and outside 

of its time of constructing. Sky Gods

were always 'from the sky.' So was

the spacecraft visitor guy of Moses,

that burning but not burning, radiation-

spewing, bush of a craft which so 

scarred him and from which others 

were kept away. Ezekial, Enoch, all

those guys. This was all real stuff, and

to trace the development and local

variants of it all was to be able to see

the growth of Mankind. Why, I couldn't

figure out, did church and Bible people

only believe the church and bible when it

it went their way and was convenient. The

evidence was overwhelming that this was

all alien visitation sky-stuff, a force far

superior to us, due to return, and who

oftentimes, when their crafts were near,

came down to visit and re-visit, to advance

mankind by teaching agriculture, and

metallurgy (those big, unexplained leaps

in our sequences that scientist just continue

to call 'unexplainable'). Those spacecraft,

in our time frame, take huge, 6,000 year

arcs through the Heavens. My children,

they'll be back. They want to see

that swarm again.