Wednesday, February 28, 2018

10,585. THE PEACH PIT GOES TO HELL

THE PEACH PIT GOES TO HELL
Like any authoritative document balancing
on the plebisite of nothing, those who don't
know and those who don't know they don't 
know what it is they don't know are seen as
quite different from those who know. Or,
at least know that they know what they know.
(All this is so difficult too say, to put into 
words). Each word after all must mean
something. I'm waving my handkerchief,
yes, but not doing my best Peter Handke.
Now, isn't that a dainty dish to put
before the King?

10,584. RUDIMENTS, pt. 240

RUDIMENTS, pt. 240
Making Cars
I learned to juggle valuations.
That sounds like a trendy thing
to do, now, but back in 1963,
it wasn't done  -  especially, I
guess I should say, in the bowels
of a boy's seminary. Catholic
doctrine proclaimed things to
be one way, and that's that. No
deviation. It soon became
apparent to me that they were
wrong; very wrong, in their
dead-reckoning by stars that
no longer existed. Like starlight,
all those ancient and tribal
meanings and lines of thought
were still in thrall to light that
was far off and old, and had
originated many, many, years
before. It probably reached us
a little bit off-course, and, for
sure, out of breath and out of
meaning. If time bends things,
as it surely does, than the merits
of each unknowing moment 
which came to us was being 
misinterpreted and misunderstand.
And passed on to us, in that
erroneous state, as doctrine, and
belief and reality. Those are the
things I saw and noticed, and the
ones that really irked. I hated error.
-
This became most apparent to me
one night  -  as part of the seminary
crew of whatever  -  cleaner-uppers,
gatherers, scavengers  -  we'd ended up
with a truckload (1952 Chevy pick-up
truck, driven by some black-guy,
round-faced priest) of scrap metal
and debris. It was determined that
the next evening we'd be taking this
truckload of scrap into Camden, to
a scrap yard, salvage-yard, for
weighing, dispersal, and payment.
That was cool; I'd never before 
known that they even did that 
stuff. So, there was the driver, 
myself, and three other kids, and
this truckload of junk. I forget the
exact arrangements, but myself and
two others ended up riding in the
open truck bed with all this junk.
We were supposed to find a way to
be sure nothing rolled out, or got 
blown around, and, it was hoped, 
we'd find a way to somehow sit
or make ourselves otherwise
comfortable. I remember it being
dark out quickly, maybe a November,
or a late February. It was chilly 
but not terribly cold. Nor am I 
sure exactly how far off Camden 
was, 25 miles maybe : I knew 
nothing of it, what roads existed, 
nor how long it took.
-
We made our way to Camden as
darkness entered in. It got dark
quick, I recall, and the lights of that
small city were already on, everywhere.
It was quite a site; an exposure in
fact, for me  -  still a young kid, in
a large-by-comparison city. I was
taken. We my have talked a bit
among ourselves, but I can't
recall. Our route took us actually 
'around' Camden more than right
into it. All the scrap heaps and
junkyards  -  and there were many  -  
were on the outlying areas. The 
place we were headed, I'd been 
told, was an old scrap dealer with 
whom they'd dealt for years, Max 
Weiskopf, [or Weissman, I forget; 
nor do I really know the spelling],
Scrap Metal. He was a short, 
brusque, cigar-chomping, 
no-nonsense guy. He took the 
order slip or weigh-station thing, 
whatever it was, looked the load 
over, grunted, looked over the 
truck, and us, said 'get out' 
and had the truck driven off 
about 100 feet or so over to 
some sort of scale. I think they 
weighed it laden, and then 
un-laden, after being emptied. 
I don't know what metal it was, 
iron scrap steel, or blends or 
aluminum, or any of that. 
We didn't have to handle 
anything  -  there were people 
there for all that. We boys 
just stood around, looking 
things over, sort of reveling 
in our free time, unleashed 
and untethered, to take in 
the sights and sounds of 
something else, anything 
else. I myself was watching 
very carefully, and noting. 
In the seminary a certain 
whiteness prevailed. Students
there were white. Not much was
ever said at all about race; we 
never had to face that off, in 
those race-years, '62-'66. The 
driver of our truck on this trip 
was black, an oddity in itself. 
(I remember this priest fellow,
as black only because I used 
to get fascinated, as he spoke, 
by the thick pinkness of his 
tongue. It was quite noticeable). 
The workers in these junkyards 
were all black. In fact, I realized, 
driving out, Camden itself was 
a huge, black enclave. As we 
slowly passed, in and out, 
along the deeply jutted and
rough dirt roads and lanes which
led to these junkyard areas, there
were rambling old houses, down 
on their luck but inhabited still, 
as well as shacks, sheds, and
other marginal domiciles, along
with dogs, wrecked cars, debris,
old furniture, and piles of junk.
On each of the houses that had
a porch (most all of the large
ones did), there were people.
They were just hanging around, 
hanging out, as if Summer was
neigh and they were standing
or slouching around waiting for
ice cream. The truck slowly plodded
through, with us, maybe a little
uncertain and nervous, in the back
in the half-light of lamps and 
porches and occasional streetlights.
The people simply stared, endlessly
staring; gaping at us. It was, except
for the lack of any 'real' heat, like
driving through some part of the 
wilds of Alabama. I realized, in 
a flicker, and by design, a strange 
and secret relationship between 
things that I'd not realized before. 
Unspoken codes, secret meanings.
Our driver was black. All these
people were black. (Of course, 
we boys were all white). Was our
driver chosen because he was
black, to deal with these workers,
and locations, more easily? Was
this Weisskoff guy one of those
literal, old-world, Jewish guys
relegated only to this dark 
underworld of junk, scrap-heaps,
ghetto areas, and black people?
Anyway, all those ideas jumped
out at me that night. Unspoken
codes, secret meanings.
I had a lot to learn.





10,583. REASON

REASON
I gave all my happiness away, when 
it was still in buckets. Now I'm just 
a grump. Delicious ovations and all
that, but, still, a grump. I think, when
they bring out the poison gas, then you
have a real reason to fight. Before that,
it's all just noise and quarrel.
-
When you are consciously in it, you
have a reason to fight, and can fight.
When you're unconsciously in it, you
are simply a victim of something you
don't realize, not having established 
a theme or a reason. Innocent ways
of falling are many.

10,582. CARRIERE

CARRIERE
'You're a strange man, Carriere,
and I can't quite figure you out.
You think you are Lewis and Clarke,
together. I can't pay you for your deeds,
but they are always good, I've noticed.
And there must be something for that. 
I knew a woman once, long ago. who
kept a skeleton in her front sitting room
to scare suitors off. It's something like
that, I think, what you do  - to others.
Their reactions are ordinary, but their
reasons are not. You scare them off.

10,581. CAPTIVE

CAPTIVE
I capped the pasture so the sunlight
couldn't leave. I enameled all the
trees so the leaves would never leave.
The rest, I suppose, I leave to you.
-
Here's is my stitched hand, worn to
near death from paddleball burns
Why I ever got started, I do not know. 


10,580. THE MAN ON MARIGOLD STREET

THE MAN ON 
MARIGOLD STREET
Living as cornered just doesn't work.
You've got to break out of that one.
(Like the Kenilworth bus burning
out on the Boulevard, it's not worth
a thing if it doesn't run). Stravinsky?
Walking an alley in Venice? Where'd
I get that, I wonder? OK, right, these
are not brainy people, but people wth
enormous feelings. And that's OK.
-
14 dogs and a treasure hunt in Echo
Lake Park. Like jewels, the faceted
arrivals of women reflect light, and
the dogs are yet barking. (The author,
you feel, is pushing you around)?
-
Big things always have 
little things around them 

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

10,579. RUDIMENTS, pt. 239

RUDIMENTS, pt. 239
Making Cars
How many layers deep is a normal
life? I often wondered about that too.
I couldn't use myself as a guide, I
figured, because I never felt myself
normal. First off, and technically, I'd
been deemed dead and came back,
when hit by that train. So I had a
bias towards the other-side, having
had a glimpse (It's really nothing
more than roomfuls of different-aged
people doing endless crossword 
puzzles from these enormous books 
and each puzzle being done is made
up of clues from that individual's 
own life, and some of the answers
are apparent while others aren't. There
are some really startled expressions
going on when these spirit/people,
as in a big, boring library, find some
shock or surprise over what a clue
is getting at for an answer. It was
pretty cool. The other thing that was
weird was, in all these rooms, there 
were no rest-rooms and no sort of
dining areas or foods available. But,
at least no one needed glasses). So,
looking to others I sought to see
what sort of layers there were -  
I found that lots of people had a
lot of layers, some not so many.
-
I early on developed an interest in
drama; read a lot of plays and all.
but they just ended up bugging me.
Drama and plays are OK when you're
acting them out and they're becoming 
a production, But there's little use, 
really, in actually just 'reading' them.
How much can you take of all those
stage directions, lighting instructions,
descriptions of candles and their
light, sounds, cups and saucers, looks
on faces, emotions, 'sounds in the 
distance,' etc. Egads it's enough to 
drive you mad, and it's not very 
manly either. Yes, that sounds
really crude and old-fashioned for 
me to put here, but it's how I feel and
always felt. These playwright guys
were always suspect to me, though
I loved reading about them  - Eugene
O'Neil, Tennessee Williams, Bertolt 
Brecht, Max Frisch, there were a
bunch. I ate those stories up ('he
sits beneath a dangling lightbulb, in
a sparsely furnished room. The sink
is dripping water, a noise to which 
he shows no reaction; drinking 
endless cups of tea, while cigarettes  
-  unfinished  -   burn in two different 
swan-shaped ashtrays nears his sister's 
collection of toy stuffed koalas and 
a couch-pillow that reads, 'Acapulco.')
...But, reading those plays, dryly and 
in isolation is not much better than
the endless lists of names and begats
in some 10-inch thick bible. You have
to wonder though about all the overly
'precious' stuff that's portrayed. It's
bit too much for me; I mean how
could a guy write all that. It's tedious
and almost psychologically raw. 
-
I never liked romantic stuff, or emotive
stuff, or second-guessing, adventurous
stuff. It's all just words and they're 
each predictive and worked out ahead
of time by the playwright for effect and
so as to 'elicit' the desired result. It's
all fake. Why can't they just get over
Mama and all that precious-memory 
stuff and just jot down their material
leaving out all the overwrought and
tense portrayal stuff? On the other
hand (and here's the problem) actors
love all that. That's their careers,
embodying all that fakery, pretension,
and smarmy stuff. There are entire
schools of acting means and methods.
There are 5o people per square inch
around these stages and schools and
acting classes, and in those spaces 
each crowded little person is sure
they've found the way to best burst
out with all their personal histories 
in dramatic form. Embody the 
intention. Read the character. Act
not just the instant, but that instant's
past as well. Pull in all that's led up
to it. Mine the angst! 
-
Glutton for punishment, I guess. I
loved all that. In 1935 (I learned all
this later, once in NYC, burrowing 
down into  a million tons of information
which was flowing everywhere.
The New York Public Library was
like a new wall of heaven, ever
outwardly expanding, and you
could just hang there, like a pigeon
perched on whatever, and coo to your
heart's delight) [Is that image too
precious?] Clifford Odets wrote a
play called 'Waiting For Lefty.' In
the context of its days, it embodied
something we'd now call 'Agit-Prop'  -
short for agitation-propaganda; kind
of like Depression-era propaganda
for what were considered 'leftist' 
politics. It's mostly about activism
for organizing, union-activities, 
rallies and speechmaking, a decrepit
and disappointed home life, a 
low-quality doctor who causes a 
death by incompetency, but his 
appointment being based on local
politics (he was someone's, nephew),
thus bouncing the competent doctor,
who becomes embittered and hostile.
The play, in the language of theater,
does manage to pull in lots of issues 
and topical occurrences. At least
it 'addresses' something, unlike a
cartoon or a western of the same 
movie era, which just filled people's 
heads with fluff and kept them
FROM revolting. This play had
different aims. I used to walk the
streets of New York seeing people
and imagining each of them as
embodied in a role in this play.
And then I realized how little 
people knew or cared about 
anything anyway. They'd rather
have a car. 
I was a million things (layers,
I guess), all wrapped up in 
one myself : I thrived on the 
adventure and excitement of 
the dramas wrought. I was 
writing, I was doing art, if not
BEING an artist fully, I was 
experiencing all sorts of things. 
I did not yet have a camera, but
oh if I did, and how I now wish
I'd had one. I was broke, penniless,
I was stealing, scrounging, sure
of nothing, involved in activities
which only invited trouble, running
from the draft, helping run a 
safe-house for draft evaders,
getting people off to Canada, 
there were drugs and drug money,
my 11th street apartment had 
become a mental ward, there were
two dead hippies, at least, that I
knew of, sourced out of a place
rented in my name. I won't go
on. My entire operation was a
needle-shot to the brain, a
dramatist's paradise. The whole
idea, by the way, of 'Waiting
For Lefty' is that Lefty never
shows. He is killed, somewhere
way off-stage and out-of-script,
organizing, or trying to maintain
the organizing of, a taximen's 
unionization effort. Taxi drivers
are debating a strike. One man, is
against it (Harry Fatt), the others
turn on him, a debate and rally
ensues. Fatt brings in a goon,
violence bubbles, coming close.
There are flashbacks, there are
'Where's Lefty?', their elected
leader, moments; other subplots are
the Dr. Benner episode; the home
life of a guy named Joe; Florrie,
Clayton, dances and socials. At 
the end, a worker rushes in with
the news that Lefty has been shot 
to death. Ready to make a new 
world, the workers in unison yell
'Strike!' 
-
This was all big stuff through the 
30's and 40's, and it was being
re-staged often, right through the 
60's in various hotbed playhouses
around it. Reading it now, everything
fits, it's so put together as to seem
pandering,; it's predictable and
makes one feel uncomfortable. It's
just not 'modern,' or up to (this)
date. But there's so much within
it that it's worth studying just to see
how it was composed. The workers 
all talk a little funny; poorly, stilted.
'All we workers got a good man
behind us now!'  -  sloganeering,
odd phrases. They want to destroy
order, saying that they are being
'trapped by the government and we
can't get out.' All that, by itself,
would be tendentious and boring.
So there's a romance angle thrown
in, tensions in a home life, poverty
markers, competitions, with a 
brother and a sister feuding...
I know I can't keep rattling all 
this off, because I become as 
boring as what I'm trying to 
explain. Most of us never get 
the opportunity to go on  -  
complaining. All the stuff we
ever get, through school and the
rest, is always 'uplift,' on some
weird trajectory  -  happy, stupid
things. We never get the good 
roles, the dark and meaty stuff 
with which to portray a truer, 
more solid reality; the dense 
matter of life  - which is, after 
all, what should really be taught 
and portrayed. It stays fresher, 
and dates better, then fluff. Maybe 
someone should write a play, titled, 
'I'm Sick Of Your Happiness.' Of 
course then, some spunkhead 
like me would probably come 
along, criticizing it to death.









10,578. FACING ANKOR WAT

FACING ANKOR WAT
I am a poor man again and I beseech you:
please talk to me. I was blessed-twice born
into this world with ears and sight, and a
mouth. With these great tools I considered
all things. Having reached a most personal
conclusion, I shattered my lanes with a
silence. Now I need to know, from within,
which of those it is to be : sound or silence? 
How will I alter my world?

10,577. TABLE-SERVICE

TABLE SERVICE
And I see you're hoarding the
gravy-boat again, even before 
the move to Tuesday. If that
clock strikes forever before 
we're done, I volunteer to kill 
it and tell you later. However, 
having killed time, I would
have maybe negated 'later' 
as well. So don't wait 
around, waiter.

10,576. I'LL CALL IT ART

I'LL CALL IT ART
The tangential frequencies are all of what I
see, thank you. And. I'll Call. It. Art. 
Thank you just the same  -  for stepping
back a few feet to see better; for not
commenting on an errant line; for keeping
quiet even if your stomach grumbles.
-
Yes, there are two other rooms of this,
and a history behind it all too. Brooklyn
Museum this isn't, but then again neither
is it Elmira's 'Arnot Art Museum.' Boy, 
did I have trouble with that one, while 
living there. They'd never show my
work, unless it was for some short,
cottage-cheese event. Always a cause.
-
Their stupid name too  -  are these things
art or not? Are not Art, Museum. Who
thought that up? Well, anyway, what
do you gravitate too? Floral art or the
heavy conceptual stuff : where they tell
you what's there even though nothing is and
you need to imagine it first, and then they
paint the wall some bad shade of teal
and throw a bullet-proof sackcloth at it
that sticks onto velcro-held patterns.
-
Believe me, if you give them the right
wine and cheese, they'll applaud by the 
end of the night  -  even with a strolling
violin trio with a stand-up bass thrown in.

Monday, February 26, 2018

10,575, RUDIMENTS, pt. 238

RUDIMENTS, pt. 238
Making Cars
I wanted to be a philosopher too;
not much of a category  -  Philosophy.
And certainly a strange line of work.
Without real application, outwardly,
except for publication and academics.
In Elmira College my philosophy guy
was John McLaughlin. There was
also a jazz-guitarist name of large
renown then, with his 'Mahavishnu
Orchestra,' but no connection. It
was just funny to see the overlap of
names. McLaughlin held philosophy
classes and really not much ever
got done except endless talk. In
thinking about it, what else could
be, really, and what else was
'Philosophy' about?  Talk. History
of Philosophy, that was one thing;
there's a whole medley of historic
personages and schools of theory
and all, to go through. But this wasn't
exactly that. This was more just long
talk. We'd skirmish and try to rattle
one other, pirouetting around without
disclaimers, and land-bombing whatever
ideas we could find. The entire class
was crazy people. Well, two types, either
crazy or mute. The mute ones, I did
find out later, were mute from fear.
In fact, they approached their entire
life in a state of fear   -   which I'd
grown out of, seeing it as pretty
useless. The others were, at best,
often outlandish. But a good
outlandish, not the rubbish stuff
you often run into. Yet the fearful
ones had led themselves into a
dead-end. The cultural time of
life that this was  - you need to
remember  - was still the smoking
aftermath of the resultant hippies
and commune craze that had
descended upon enclaves around
New York State and overstayed or
never left, until much later. Ithaca,
for instance, just a bit up the road,
and Cornell University, were still
hotbeds of community-living,
group homes, and militants. The
countryside all around was still
set up with old farms and places
which had become communes,
experimental communities of 'bakers'
and artisans, and artists too. Bread
was baked and paints were mixed.
There was some drugs, and some
'mothers' who'd conceive and then
willingly turn their child over,
as parentless, to the commune  -
group-raised, nonmaternal and
non-paternal too. I often wonder
now what became of those kids,
these years later. Most of the
communes had a way of becoming
disaffected communes, with the
usual factions and breakaways,
quarrels, spoils and problems.
When they eventually all broke up,
who went where was an unknown.
Communal living, for kids, anyway.
was more in line with the way you'd
treat a dog  -  group ownership,
throw it some food, it runs freely,
answers to none. For people, not
so cool. Many of the 'Commune
Leader' types anyway were your
basic one-step-off lechers  -  in it
for power and sex, allegiance and
vengeance too (which is the Lord's,
by the way, not really theirs, to claim).
-
John McLaughlin's big issue all that
time was to teach John Rawls and
Rawls' book 'A Theory of Justice.' It
had been published in 1971, and thus
was a 'new' book, relative to things.
It bore the characteristics of a new
and reworked 'Social Contract,' John
Locke, equitable distribution, society,
fairness, justice and all that. None
of that was really anything I much
cared about, but I had to hear it for
probably six months straight. I was
more interested in theoretical aspects
of things, conjecture, daring statements,
etc. Worrying about the distribution
of goods and services within the fixed
concept of Society' as we 'practiced' it,
wasn't of much concern to me, though  - 
because I had to  -  I played the game.
I wrote my papers and did my researches.
Nonetheless, it became very dreary
to have to face up against the rigors
of linear philosophy such as Rawls'
when, in my own turn, I'd made
Philosophy represent all that I could
against that. Social policy and equitabe
distribution, viewed within a quotable
'theory of justice,' well perhaps it
all was fine, Jeffersonian, and the
rest. But for me it still smacked of
the Enlightenment and all those
really square, be-wigged, guys.
-
Nowadays, years on as it is, again it's
all different. Just as the communes 
have closed up and all those fragrant
girls are now elderly women, with 
maybe just distant memories of their 
own free, no-undergarments, days,
so too has philosophy forgot about
itself and plowed onwards. Habermas
and Sloterdijk, and all the others. I
can hardly keep up, though I try,
and  -  as I said before  -  it's really 
a small academic industry now, of 
philosophers writing, spouting,
publishing, and claiming a 'school'
of their own philosophy as a 
movement. Narrow as all get out, 
but vital as an undercurrent. The
lines are no longer so precise. A
philosopher type can cross boundaries 
and say things, about 'things,' and
have it go at that : "The car is like
a uterus on wheels. It has the 
advantage over its biological model
for being linked to independant
movement and a feeling of autonomy,
The car also has phallic and anal
components  -  the primitice-aggressive 
competitive behavior, and the
revving-up and overtaking, which
turns the other, slower, person into
an expelled turd." (Sloterdijk).
-
You can't really pivot away from that 
stuff  -  as, in its own way, it's no
longer 'high' philosophy in that old
way of the essential thinkers. now it's
glib, and streamlined, flip and hip,
takes in all things and categories, and
swipes broadly in all manners of a
pastiche, an almost-willing rape of
society. Philosophy (again, I missed
out), has become not so much a cerebral
thought-circle as an active sport, a 
blood-splatter and a squeeze frenzy
out on some play-court of the half-
drunk world, out in the open and
visible for all to see. Like those
hippie girls again. How crazy has
everything become!
-
Sloterdijk, for example, runs as a
blast furnace of heated ideas :  He
has his own unique coinages too  - 
anthropotechnics; negative gynecology;
coimmunism. He has an established
career-rebellion against pieties of
liberal democracy, which has grown
tired, flaccid, fey and foolish. One of
his points is of the persistent nature
of ancient urges in supposedly advanced
societies. He's made mention of, as a
for instance, the contemporary revolt
against globalization as a misguided
expression of 'noble sentiments' which
rather than being curbed should be 
redirected in ways that left-liberals
cannot imagine. That's sort of what
I was getting at when I mentioned,
some chapters back my whole
annoyance at the 'moral superiority'
air which so many people put on 
when taking up lefty or snooty
causes. He's also written this, of
the choice between, in 2016, Donald 
Trump  and Hillary Clinton as: "a choice
between two helplessly gesticulating
 models of normality, one of which 
appeared to be delegitimized, the
other unproven." I think he's a good
example of what I was saying about
bringing philosophy out a bit more to
the normal, offensive daylight of
life. (Missed out on that one too).
He keeps a comfort with social
rupture. "The problem with
Sloterdjink is that you're always
eight thousand  pages behind."
-
None of this makes or breaks an
everyday life, don't get me wrong. But
for me, what it does is vitalize something
otherwise pretty dead. The hulking
cadaver of the life that most people
lead is a pretty humdrum affair  - because
of its routine of exaggerated efforts
and claims  -  and it's being willingly
mixed up into  -  the production of a
national product which only then 
benefits others. Power-beings, fakers, 
and other top-dog bedevillers of the
rest of the commonfolk. It's too bad.
Most men leads lives of quiet desperation;
a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of
little minds  -  Thoreau and Emerson,
respectively. Have you ever seen any 
of those humdrum lives? Take a look 
sometime, in any suburban, or urban,
(there's no longer much difference) 
mall parking lot or large store lot. 
It's pretty amazing the levels of 
paralytic consistency you'll see : 
really nasty people; engrained
bad habits and poor presentation, 
and not a care in the world over 
any of it; just a need for 'more.'
I'd always wanted to be the sort of
philosopher who's slap people in their
faces a bit, to unsettle them; or at
least to wake them up and to revolt.
-
There comes a point at which you have to
reach 'becoming  - when the concept and
the potential meet up and conjoin, and
are somehow actualized into the reality
we know. Take the monkey  -  the poor
monkey, really  -  locked in a cage for
experimentation purposes, just so humans
can determine whether or not that newly
developed eye-shadow or lipstick causes
cancer. I ask you, is that any way to prosper?
On the backs of other creatures; dead,
as food; or alive, as compatriots.
(And certainly a strange kind of work).