RUDIMENTS, pt. 204
Making Cars
Sometime around my being 16 or 17,
in the midst of all the other crap I
was subjecting myself too, I read a
book called 'The Secret Oral Teachings
in Tibetan Buddhist Sects,' by
one Alexandra Neal. (Alexandra
David-Neel and her friend, the
Tibetan lama Aphur Yongden).
The edition I had (have) was
of a plain, tan, cover with brown
ink. I see now that later editions
of it have gone to far brighter,
rainbow-hue'd versions though
with the same illustrated person
on the cover. It was a mind-bender
for me, and it underscored many of
the things I'd been thinking about.
The nuts and bolts of it all I do not
know; I never delved that deeply
into the 'organized' aspects of
Buddhist thought, always having
thought of it as, sui generis, and
a'priori, non-organizational matter.
In any case, it was filled with text
and material perfect for me. I, for
one thing, have never cared for
food, in any way, disliking it
preparations, odors, aromas,
sounds and, often, ingredients.
I see meat as murder. I take no joy
in dining, nor do I find any of the
'prestige' that people give to their
'elevated' dining - gourmet junk,
the endless lists of prized restaurants,
etc. Just all balderdash. This book,
fortunately, among other ideals of
non-attachment to the illusionary
moments of this world, knocks
everything down, in the most
extreme ways, as to portray them
as dire human, useless, ephemeral
pursuits. Using that extreme portrayal,
the book attempts, by mention and
not by doctrine, to drain human
activity of anything 'good.' The
worst food and the best food
eventually come out the other
end as shit. (Or, as I used to
tell myself, 'no longer a frontal
assault, now a rear-guard action).
It's a good thing to think about
next time your over-dining). All
of your aspirations in that department
are nothing except more energy for
the vast feces-machine your paltry
body is. The moment of delight is
fleeting and passing and - dare I say -
'not worth shit.' The same with sex.
Essentially the portrayals are the
same, and we'll leave it there.
-
Death and transfiguration enter into
this only as transfiguration can be
used to mean rot and decay. Try,
I ask you, putting this through the
mind-sieve of a forming-on-the-cuff
17-year old with a hundred differing
and sometimes conflicting, aspirations.
Raw memories yet of a train-wreck, a
near-dead body, an extended hospital
black-out, and then further misery in
the collected years of seminary blasphemy,
ages 12, 13, 14, etc. I was nowhere, but
I was reawakened. Incredibly enough,
(snort, snort) I married, as a next step
down the line, someone who loves
food, from a family of foodies, and
whose open-end life-form revolves
around food, cooking, and the varied
adventures of eating. She is the last
remaining of her family line, so the
ascetic angle that I now push at her
meets with little opposition. Chocolate,
and well-prepared meals - both things
I abhor, are now pale vices I live with,
for her sake. For myself, I'm just not
there - complicated food for me is
a simple hard-boiled egg. Which is
a good treat, by the way. Saltines too.
-
Funny how up there, in the first
section, I used 'sui generis' AND 'a
priori' together. But speaking of things
that are a priori, have you ever seen
any of those cook-shows on your TV?
I've over the years been subjected to
a few of those things and let me tell
you that if they are any indication of
the piggishness of thought that goes
into the salivating over food and its
preparation, I pray for the soul of
anyone who's ever partaken. Another
funny thing is, right here, the
preponderance of people who post
food pictures, shots of their meal,
or even shots of their cooking and
preparation. Alexandra David-Neel
surely would blush. The lama guy,
well, he could probably deny that
it was happening, and just laugh it
off. That was always one of the
cool things about what I found in
these extreme Buddhist people :
their fine sense of humor. The usual
ideologue about anything at all
loses 'humor' immediately - they
can laugh at nothing, and only subject
things to the rules and rigors of their
ideological base : revolution, anarchy,
communism, or, of course, either of
our own two fine, grossly indecent
political parties. Showboats for
ribaldry them : in the name of
politics here, not dining, we
manage to touch and abuse
everyone and everything, and
then put them back on the shelf
where we can ridicule or lie about
them. Of course, they then write
their own self-serving books, make a
million, and get to defend themselves.
BUT, nowhere is there humor. I know
Hillary's book has a few, lame-lady
stabs at humor, but none I'd ever have
in my house, built on solid rock or not.
-
It's all part of a ten-penny revolution
of time, which I've lived through.
When I got to Pennsylvania, I was
done, and that's d-o-n-e, but you can
spell it anyway you'd like. A fistful
of criminology was trailing me,
probably some smelly detective
searching a murder, three in fact,
and a ream of agitator paperwork
set to set me strumming. I got to
that house and I hunkered down, so
far down that I became unrecognizable.
Jeez, I'm proud of that moment. One
time local kids came over - it was
small-game season; that's a hunting
time out there you can shoot and kill
small ground animals, or anything
with four legs that moves, really,
under the excuse of 'small-game
season.' It was a late-Fall, wet and
dreary November day, and they
brought over a rifle too, knocked
on my door, presented my with a
'30-ought-six' for the day, and hauled
me out to go a'hunting. My house,
that year, was amidst corn stalks and
corn rubble, and rife with ground
animals, for whom it was basically
a 24-hour restaurant. Poor things.
A 30-ought-six' is a large bore rifle,
at least in small-game terms; enough
firepower to shred a squirrel into
27 pieces to Sunday, so to speak. It's
more apt to be used in deer hunting
than critters and varmint hunting. The
day itself was wet and chilly, deep with
damp and fog hanging over everything.
I was ill-dressed and to me any of this
- be it local 'ritual' or not - was a
complete unknown. Traipsing with
five local late-teen boys, with their
rifle, seemed to me odd. I was either
being set up for being killed ('accidental'
hunting accident' or 'the gun went
off in is face while the dumb
sonofabitch was loading it'), or this
was some form of hazing or initiation
to see if I had balls. Either way, it was
not cool. I fully expected one of the
local, unclothed females to be hiding
in the corn and to come out to prove me
at that too. Country bumpkins are
pretty weird dudes. The day moved
along; I was dreary, soaked and tired
by 4pm. I'd shot the rifle maybe 4 or 5
times, not 'getting' anything ('getting'
was a weird word; like asking a deer
hunter if he caught anything - 'Yeah,
this here dead buck'). The thrust-back
from the rifle, and the retort, had just
about torn off my shoulder and ruined
my hearing. I was sore too. All told,
we had about 11 or 12 dead animals
- a groundhog, (or woodchuck, your
choice), a couple of rabbits, two or
three squirrels, and some pheasants
or field birds of some sort. Believe
me, there were no rules, and they
would just as gladly have shot a dog.
-
The next big idea was to bring all
this to my house, and have a skinning
and cleaning party for all this fresh
meat, and give it to my goodly wife
to prepare. (I kid you not, this is
all true). I suppose I could have said
'No' to any of this, but I didn't. She
was, at first, aghast, but went with it
too. Somehow she managed the
cooking, seasoning, and proper
flavoring of these ground animals
and weird meats, and everyone
ended up quite satisfied. Let me
say, these boys were all good shots,
mostly always got what they shot at,
and knew the craft of de-furring,
skinning and butchering, or whatever
all that is called, very well - even
to the point of cutting the little
legs and things into the properly
edible sections and chunks. I guess
all was well; I'd passed a certain
sort of muster, if not mustard too.
I gave them their rifle back, said
thanks and 'it was fun.' At which
point, which I thought was really
funny, they said next time I should
get my own gun, because 'The only
thing that size gun would have
gotten you was chopped meat.'
Thinking of the Secret Oral Teachings
again, I wanted to say back, 'Some
shit, huh,' but they wouldn't
have gotten the joke.
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