RUDIMENTS, pt. 169
Making Cars
When I got to New York and
began studying things, a few
items jumped out at me. Really
stupendous, gateway things that
drew me in. Up at 81st, thereabouts,
behind the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, is what's called 'Cleopatra's
Needle.' It's weirdly set on a small
rise, with carvings and messages
and things on its base; metal tablets
and inscriptions and all. The column
itself, just stretching unadorned
and straight up, is covered with
now-weathered carvings and
hieroglyphics that were always
there. There's a matching one
of these in London - they both
once graced the entryway of
something in Pharonaic Egypt,
way back when, 6,000 years
ago, or 1600, I forget. The
messages are translated, on
signposts, and some other essential
information and history is given.
I always found it funny to use the
word 'history' as these signboards
try to tell it, for something this
ancient and telling. New Yorkers
blow it all off. They jog right past
it, bicycle or stroll by it. Mostly
it's foreigners who come by to
gawk or talk Polish or Russian
around it. The whole thing is
plunder. In today's world, stolen
artifacts, and they'd probably be
forced to give them back. In the
heyday of all those Victorian
explorers, Layard and those guys,
taking things like this from the
desert sands was nothing.
-
To me, Cleopatra's Needle was
another thing entire. First off,
I was certain it was the oldest
thing I'd ever seen. I'd try to think
about what else could have been
close, and never found anything.
Maybe a tree or two, or some
old buildings. but even they were
but three or four hundred years old.
This was a whole other game. It
was magical, but you had to dig for
the magic because, at its other level,
it was just bureaucratic, statist crap
too. Translated, the inscriptions were
just a bunch of gooey military praise
for victories won and enemies
vanquished and Gods served and all
that. It was like an early Egyptian
version of some obelisk praising
General Grant or something, but
that all had to be overlooked to find
the strange ancient-Egypt Ahknaten
and Helios and Isis stuff it also
somehow exuded. That was imagined
mostly, of course, and very spiritual
as well. For me the best times for
Cleopatra's Needle were cold, clear,
Wintry nights, dark, in the park, and
with a full moon. I'd sit there from a
little distance, and with my positioning
and eyes, set it up so that the full, round
moon was pierced by the pointed top
of that ancient obelisk, or set upon it.
It had something to do with power and
energy, and force-fields. I'd shudder.
(I was probably just cold).
-
Another one of these nose-on-your-face
wonders for me (and again the average
New Yorker or worker in the city seemed
just not to care) was the New York Public
Library. The current building itself was
oddly discreet, ponderous and mysterious,
redolent to me of ancient Greece. A big
silence. But before the Astors and Tildens
and any of those wealthy families donated
their books and monies to set up the
library (I guess they could have just sold
it all to Argosy Books instead), this had
been the location of a large NYCity
Reservoir - making up an entire city
block at Fifth and 42nd, just like the
Library. It was perhaps six stories in
height, and just a huge collecting pool
of water being stored for downtown use,
which water had come in from the
Croton Reservoir system or something.
Like the Great Wall of China, at its
top was a broad, stone promenade atop
and along which wealthier (or any)
1870's and 1880's New Yorkers would
take their Sunday strolls, in their finery,
or in their rags. It was a pretty amazing
thing - and, as amazing as the Library
itself was to me, this ghostly idea in front
of it all still rang its bells for me within.
It was eerie and it was strange. I was
somehow able to transport myself,
or be transported, in either of these
places, to the ancient sands of Egypt
to to the windy walkway atop this
reservoir, in a time of completely
different worldways and manipulations.
Different 'meanings' too, and different
in each place. Words evolve to take
the form of the worlds we inhabit.
I was very fluid.
-
And the last of these, for now. I was
always intrigued by the New York
story of how the Statue of Liberty
arrived here. The French gave it to
us, yes, but they didn't give us
anything else. It was up to the
United States to raise funds and
erect the pedestal and transport
and siting for all this. The head,
I may forget now, or the hand and
torch, or some part of it was put on
display, erected as a very public
fund-raising place, along the avenue
here somewhere, or at Union Square,
somewhere, while donations and money
collections from the thousands of
people going to the cause. Whatever
any of this was, to me, as I came across
it, each bit and morsel of these sorts
of information, amazed and caught
me up into some sort of real, urban,
NY, cultural excitation.
No comments:
Post a Comment