RUDIMENTS, pt. 193
Making Cars
A few things I've never liked:
kite-flying, and actually even
the people who fly kites. Just
annoying. And also, going back,
a long time, there used to be
these dark red, plastic water
rocket things. I never quite
understood them, nor what was
up, but they had some sort of a
pump mechanism that would
pressurize the water and then
you'd release it and this plastic
missile type thing went sky-high,
straight up or at whichever angle
you put it. And then it arc'd back
down and landed, or crash-landed.
That was it. I never enjoyed that;
watching it - for I never did it.
Other kids would use the rear
area, by my house and by the
tracks, and shoot them up over
the prison-farm area. They got
some sort of thrill. It never
worked for me; first off, I
didn't like the attendant silence,
and, while I enjoyed the arc,
and, with my mind, scaled the
mathematics of the throw-position
and the landing, the whole thing
was anti-climax. Like watching
a clown, maybe, taking off his
make-up. The same went for
kite-flying, but that was a
different scene entire - kids
and fathers, all goofy and polite,
making kite tails and discussing
weight and tail-length and
balance, and then fighting the
wind, or hoping for the wind,
running, etc. It all seemed like
just fake fun, a programmed
adventure of something fathers
were supposed to do with their
kids. Then the kite, if and
when it got aloft, just hovered,
stayed there, wiggled a bit,
while everyone ooh'd with
craned neck to watch. To
watch nothing much at all.
The physics and the dynamics
were lost on them, and there
was no Ben Franklin, and his
silver key, around. All that, for
nothing. Not very electrifying.
-
It all seemed to me to always
be the 'same' moment; these
kids with their Dads and kites,
ice-skating in Winter, or going
to ball games. They were all
doing that, quite in comfort too,
but all they were getting was the
same moment, over and over.
And I guess that was enough
to satisfy them. For myself, I
always, by contrast, wanted
a 'new' moment. I hadn't come
all this way, to live on this
stupid street, divorced from
anything real, to re-live the
same constant over and over:
school-bells, the fire-whistle
at 7pm, the sounds of ambulance
and police car. There's a philosopher
somewhere, Husserl, I think was
his last name, who had some
sort of theory about moments :
when we're about to enter a new
moment the body takes in all it
has, all it knows, of all the old
moments previous, and puts all
that experience into play to then
enter and go into whatever the
new experience is or may be.
It's like the courage of a boxer,
going into the ring, or a mountain
fire-fighter entering into those
high-pine-woods, intensely
blazing, to brave those elements
and try and stop the flames.
We never walk better than when
we walk alone and untested into
something new. 'Before I encounter
the new moment, I begin with a
sense of my whole experiential
situation.'
-
In most other respects, life seemed
mostly probable to just be a big bore.
I remember one time sitting in some
tiny little hot dog joint by the train
station in Woodbridge - this dumpy
little place was there for years and
years though it's gone now. They had
a counter and some few chairs and a
table or two. I was in there one day,
just sitting there, and there were a few
other people around inside, and the TV
was on, and it was something about
Sirhan Sirhan, the guy who'd shot
and killed Robert Kennedy some
time recent. Something to do with his
apprehension or trial or something.
The people inside (and this all
pretty much reminded me of the
kite-flyers, etc., had this middling
interest in what was being shown
and what they were hearing, but
you could tell they understood
nothing of it, it was just another
same old 'moment' again for
them being undertaken as the
world and time worked its way
past them. All they wanted was
that 'same' again, over and over,
probably just like the hot dogs
and soda they ordered, for
the hundredth time. And the
one thing that perked them
up, brought them to life, got
their attention, was that this
guy had two names, both the
same. Palestinian. Called
Sirhan Sirhan. Bot that got
them going. 'We don't call
nobody here Bob Bob, or
Tony Tony. What's with
that name?' I thought it was
pretty funny, how all that
little quirk was enough to
get their attention.
-
So, I found this local life,
although good enough, to
be not for me. It all came
across, again to me, as in that
book-play by Dylan Thomas,
the Welsh or Irish poet - a
NYC drunk death, out by the
White Horse on Hudson Street,
about 1956. He had this book,
entitled 'Under Milk Wood.'
It fascinated me, for a while
- it was about this totally
nowhere place, clothes and
laundry hanging on a line, all
the little houses and chore- ladies
and wives doing their business,
the quiet lonely mornings, the
everyday tasks, and all that
gossip, the house-to- house
messages and tales. At the
time it came it, it was pretty
new, as a concept - a written
piece about an ordinary and
everyday place where nothing
much happened and ordinary
country-people lived. At first
I really hated that book, couldn't
hardly read it to finish. Then,
after a while, I somehow caught
on to what it was doing and
what was the premise, and it
sat real well with me from
that point on. Nothing new,
I suppose, just the same, old,
eternal now, floating like
a kite, in the air above.
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