10,779. WIDE-ANGLE LENS

WIDE-ANGLE LENS

The way this looks to me is 

that there's too much stuffed

into one picture frame. A life

oughtn't ever be that crowded.

Things fall out, run over the edges.

-

A viewer almost doesn't know 

where to look  -  like a large order 

of popcorn, in a movie-theater 

darkness, there are things falling 

everywhere. In such a darkness, 

you don't even know it and just 

keep gobbling what you have,

never knowing what you've lost.

10,778. YOU HAVE THE MAKINGS OF A GOOD SALAD

YOU HAVE THE MAKINGS 

OF A GOOD SALAD

I like the way your hips just

glide underneath that skirt. That's

very forward of me, but, sorry. Might

as well be truthful before this fruitless

bunch. Like bananas at a rocket launch,

or the heavily-laden bowl in a still-life

of some Renaissance artist, I get voracious

just looking. Or hungry, I guess I mean.

-

Whew! That's a tough one to put into words.

Probably I'm not even supposed to talk like

that these days. The way people are now.

Burning fat for for the charcoal fire

beneath the eyes? Man! That's a very

convoluted means of saying things.

-

Have we come very far? Have we now

garnered anything at all. Maybe I just

should have stayed in that goldmine

Sutter's Mill settlement, panning the

waters for whatever gold I could find.

But that was back in 1849.

10,777. MR. IGNOLIO, I GET DULY DEPRESSED

MR. IGNOLIO, I GET 
DULY DEPRESSED

I've been working in your pawnshop for 11 years

now, and it's brought me not much charm and

no good luck at all. Therefore, I wish to speak

privately with you  -  and I shall bring along

my rare, 17th century chainmail restraint, just

so, in your obviously delirious interest in its

worth or value, you'll not be upset if I tie you

in it, should we not come to terms.

-

I am at the most-disgusted ends of my own

service to you; sick of it all, and you too. I

watch what you do. I try to understand the

reasons you give for things you do, but it

never works. I still go home each night,

annoyed by you, and irritated. I can hardly

take any more of this meted-out enticment

to drivel and decay. The means by which

you live, I mean to say.

-

Here's my consolation : you will give me

one-tenth more of this business ownership

than you were thinking, and shall increase

my weekly take by two-hundred dollars

every six-months. Don't like that, you

say? (Crack!  a sound ensues of someone

being beaten). You may sit up, once again,

and listen. I do not come here armed for

force, just my own pale justice. This billy

club will not hurt you again. That once

was enough, daresay? 

-

Now, this leaves me another spot to point

out : I will henceforth control the register

and the clerking of the books. Why? (Slap!

the sound of a face being punched ensues).

Why? Because I no longer trust your double

entry. I no longer will turn aside, (did I say

neither?) while you alter the take from every

transaction. (Thud! A man his hit with a

crowbar. $28.95, payable, 3 installments).

-

Now, Mr. Ignolio, please get up again. Oh

dear, he seems not moving. Would that be 

blood I see that trickles forth for where I

last hit? Overdid it again, my little bit.

Mr. Ignolio, I am truly distressed.

10,776. BETTER MAN FOR THE JOURNEY

BETTER MAN FOR 

THE JOURNEY

Than me. There must be. 

I can't swim and play cards

at the same time. But then

again. Who can?

10,775. RUDIMENTS, pt. 301

RUDIMENTS, pt. 301

Making Cars

There are thoughts that you

debate with others, and there

are thoughts you debate with

yourself. For me, it was always,

with myself, 'How could I be

such a jerk?' Like the day that

my mother tearfully told me

that Robert Kennedy had been

killed (which of course I already

knew about, and wasn't current,

breaking, news; I forget how it

came up), I turned on her, in her

distress, and just said, 'Good;

maybe it'll teach him to keep

his mouth shut.' Looking back

now, that is about the most brazen

and stupid comment anyone could

make, let alone into the face of

their own sad mother  -  sad at

the occurrence  -  and not

deserving the snide swipe

I'd thrown at her. (I noticed,

however, she'd not been sad 

in the same way at all, just

previous, when Martin Luther 

King went down. I probably 

could have used that same 

dumb comment then too). 

Perfect idiot stuff. And, in 

addition, the comment itself 

makes no sense. He's dead. 

What's it going to 'teach' him, 

this 'keeping his mouth shut.' 

What an idiot human I was. 

So, once realizing that, what

was I then supposed to do?

I never really knew, and when

you're young enough for that

sort of illogic, all options are

presented to you as equally

maladroit. I didn't wish to 'go'

anywhere, after any of them.

There are a few years, when one

is growing up, that life presents

itself to you as nothing but a

string of stupidities and foolishness.

Pranks, bomb scares, crazy riffs

to get attention, squirming in

front of others to be sure you're

noticed. I guess that's what

'college' is supposed to collect

for you in one big place; all that

foolish stupidity, acted out, with

ideas of self-importance enough

to think any of it matters. The

'Keys Of the Kingdom' indeed.

(That was a 1941 book by A. J.

Cronin). It was still a big enough

Catholic deal in 1956 to be among

part of my mothers 'vast' library

(I'm joking) of Reader's Digest

Condensed Books.

-

Those things were crazy   - 

monthly, by subscription,

faux-important books

truncated and cut down

to size, (I guess because

they were considered so

important and ponderous

that even non-readers

should get a cut-rate

version of them for their

bulging bookshelves. (Joke

again). I used to look at them,

hold them in my hand (usually

there were 4 or 5 'grouped'

together in one monthly

volume), and think of the

poor author  -  who'd been

evading and fighting with

his pre-publication editor for

months over what to cut

or not to cut, for publication 

-  and then these Pleasantville,

NY, Reader's Digest people

buy the condensing rights

to the book from your

publisher/agent, and attack 

it with a cleaver and, as author, 

you get about a dollar and 

twenty-seven cents from your 

'publisher' for the privilege of 

expanding your (deep) audience.

By the end of the 1950's there

were a number of these high

Catholic books about reverential 

church things, such as this Pope

and 'Keys Of the Kingdom' stuff.

It wasn't until maybe 10 years

later after it had all collapsed, that

the reverence was gone and people

would just begin to laugh at all

that. Irreverence, instead, became

the catchword of the day. That's

how much things would have 

changed. One time, much later,

we went up to Chappaqua, New 

York, Millwood, Thornwood,

all these places. I turned a corner

and right before me, there was the

Reader's Digest Company's

Pleasantville Headquarters (it's

all gone now, and turned into 

office and other facility commercial 

uses), but back when this occurred

it was still in use as their space  - a

large, almost important looking, 

sprawling campus  -  greenery,

space, landscaped nicely, parking

areas, and a high, fine-looking 

building. At that point the only other

commercial place like this I'd seen

was the campus-like headquarters

of Merck, in Rahway. That too was

fascinating to me -   as it was much 

like a college campus for some 

mid-level organization of learning.

Which it was, but instead this sprawl

couldn't have cared less about the

old Greek philosophers or classical

thinking and learning, books, and

Shakespeare and all that. They made

medicine and drugs. That was their

research, and they made them for

profit, but within the campus there,

like Pleasantville, you'd never know 

that.

-

That's where I always got tripped up.

I never understood business. I never

understood why people's drive for money 
led them to do the so-many-dumb

things most people did all day long.

For money. Make bombs and hope

for larger defense contracts. Which

would mean, of course, the bombs

had gotten used up and more were 

needed, and the planes to deliver 

them with, to their kill-the-people

locations. Or defoliants. Or poisons

and gases. To take home a paycheck

on Friday? How could anyone be 

so low? It's not like you're doing

anything good. Working for 

Monsanto, making Agent Orange

in the 1960's must have been a real

blast. But that's just the way it was.

Maybe they should have just made

that stuff in 'Pleasantville' and told

Reader's Digest to go stuff themselves

and leave: 'We have better uses for

this nice location.'

-

These sorts of things were my own

debates with my own self. I never

talked much about any of this with

others  - my mind usually was off

running on some tangent somewhere

and I often ended up manufacturing

my own facts and figures for the

purpose of the tale. That's called

'controlling the narrative,' and of

course that's something writers 

do all the time because that's pretty 

much what writing is. Nowadays,

political types call it all 'fake news,'

but they do the same thing constantly.

In order to keep people under your 

wing, you MUST control the narrative  

-  thus censorship, authoritarianism, 

and controls. Remember, only the

victors write History. If Native

Americans had triumphed, their

version of what had occurred 

would be totally different than

what we'd ever been exposed to

before. They would, let's say, no

longer have to keep their damned

mouths shut.

10,774. RUDIMENTS, pt. 300

RUDIMENTS, pt. 300

Making Cars

Long about 1964 I really did

fell  in love with the Russian

dissident movement  -  Samizdat

it was called  -  hand-published

manuscripts and critiques of

the society, hand-copied, or

printed and surreptitiously

distributed. It got lots of people

in trouble. Yuli Daniel, Andrei

Sinyavski are two who come

to mind right off; of course,

along with the biggies,

Alexander Solzhenitsyn and

Andrei Sakharov. I don't know

what I was doing among the  -

a know-nothing American kid

reading the fringes. But they

fascinated me, as did their

movement itself  -  the ways

and means of their distribution,

meeting, exchanging information,

eluding authorities. It was a

quite thrilling world, and one

I was quite caught up into for

a while. I liked the purity of the

ideology, even though, in truth,

I knew little about any of it but

through hearsay. These fellows

went through hell, labor camps,

exile, forced march, Siberia,

deprivation, punishments and

beating too. Still they stayed

with it all. That took guts. All

I saw was a certain kind of

Russian (Soviet) guts  -  enough

to be able to withstand engulfment

and physical horror. The was all

well before the days of any sort

of computerized resources, and

linking to look-ups and the rest.

This was all secret and done

surreptitiously, like the old

networks of revolutionaries

in the 1800's. A typewriter was

really stretching it. There were

odd things about too which I did,

in turn, see in NYC later, including

my friend Paul  -  silent typewriters,

or at least, as in Paul's case, varied

and self-invented ways of silencing

or at least greatly diminishing the

type-cackle of a late-at-night

typewriter. There were ways, as

weird as they sometimes looked :

corrugated boxes, wide enough for

carriage movement yet covered 

with towels and stuffed with 

cotton, to muffle. Paul was an 

inveterate all-night typist, or at 

least until he conked off while 

typing. There were always 

apartment neighbors who were

complaining about it. The pre-war

buildings of the upper west-side

had really thick walls, granted,

but somehow certain things got

through, and not everyone had 

the luxury of a fancy and large 

apartment. My friend Jeff Gordon, 

(deceased now) along with his 

wife Juanita, on w87th Street,

had a beauty of an apartment  -

wide and thin\ck and expansive, 

and grandfather'd in for rent-control, 

at some purely ridiculous, nay 

miraculous monthly price. All 

very old-world, while, by contrast, 

Paul usually ran from one studio 

apartment to the next, rickety, 

cheap, ground-level or one level 

down (we often saw pedestrian 

feet walking by, at head height).

I always figured the below the

ground location would help

alleviate the typewriter noise,

but it never did seem to.

-

Those Russian guys had it 

50 times worse, at least, and 

a good portion of them died 

for it. The best way in and 

out was paper and pencil, 

and probably still remains 

so. That's about as basic as 

you can get, and easiest to 

hide too. Everything past 

that point just gets complicated  

- phones and telegraph and all 

that fails miserably. Memorization 

too was useful. There's a book 

now, from about 1980 or so, 

called 'The Memory Palace 

of Matteo Ricci,' I think it is, 

about a man in extreme 

situations who memorizes

things by keying them to 

visual memories of chairs 

and furnishings and all. 

Fairly complicated, but 

he was able to 'scan' an 

imaginary room he'd 

created in his mind, and 

every item he looked upon 

conjured up, by his 

memorized 'key,' a 

different object or set 

of objects or words 

and phrases, for him. 

was pretty cool, and 

these old Medieval 

and pre-medieval guys 

were really, really good 

at it  -  compensating, 

as they were, for the 

utter primitiveness of 

all other available 

communication. Which

when you think about it is 

pretty down-right amazing,

seeing what  a mess we 

made of even that 

(communications) in

those 1950's days. The

idea than was that all people

were at heart cheery and easy

and comfortable. Which is the

opposite of the way things are,

but that was part of the dumb

illusion of that time. I've never

been a phone person, and don't

use one. I guess I don't ever

for any marketers profiles, of

 anything, except maybe for

jerk pills or 'bad-attitude'

syrup or something. But, that's

another story entirely  -  how

people get me so wrong.

I'm a goofball, basically, a

happy, cheerful guy  -  but

everyone things I'm a dark

block, a true negative. They

should know me  - all I ask 

for comfort is the Truth, and

maybe a toothbrush. Both are

carry-on luggage; real easy.

But, back to the 1950's, the

question had to be 'how are we

going to get people interested in

having phones  -  not just phones,

but more than one phone. Household

phones  - one for Mom in the

kitchen, maybe a Princess phone 

each, upstairs in the bedrooms,

for Dawn and Stella. They even

named them 'Princess Phones.'

how crazy. Never before, by

the way, did people have to pay

for talking. Imagine that! It

was another barrier to figure

out to break. Just more work

for the merchandisers. Phones

later got as weird as society did  - 

20 foot chords, I can recall

mother having, so she could

almost be three rooms away

and still keep that darn call

gong.

-

One last thing on this, (it

started out, remember, about

those brave and mortally

endangered Russian dissident

guys way back). It's that whole

man-up thing : you see when I

see a guy on  a phone, first

thought that crosses my mind 

is, 'hmmm, I wonder he he 

also wears a bra.' Sorry, fellas,

but phones are for girls. Strictly

female  - the first time a guy,

including Alexander Graham 

Bell  -  picked u a telephone, 

and got in that horrible habit 

of babble, that was the end of

the world as I knew it, or 

wanted to. Face it, boys, there's

NO news to relate, and neither

are there any real issues of phone

concern that should be of interest

to you. So, as soon as you're done

with the call, put the phone down,

stand up and walk out of the

manicurist's chair, and quit looking

at boyly magazines that tell you

how to take care of your skin.

(If 'girly' mags, why not 'boyly?').

About as archaic as a dinosauer 

egg. And j-u-s-t  l-i-k-e ME.

Signed, R. Chaic.

10,773. MALADROIT

MALADROIT

Drop the ditch and run; your fine 

acclaim makes little matter now.

The way they've laid these explosives

down, this whole place can blow in

a minute. Let's not be in it.

10,772. RUDIMENTS, pt. 299

RUDIMENTS, pt. 299

Making Cars
The thing about life is that most
people never see the half of it.
My mother, for instance, was always
worried about what things would
look like to others. As if, for goodness
sake, they were even watching, or
cared. I grant you, the kind of folks
we lived amongst were a cheap and
a nosy bunch, and it's still like that
around here  -  judging from what
I see  -  but no one really cared, and
when you came right down to it, no
actually noticed. Everyone had their
own stream of quirks and problems.
It was a basket case of addled people.
Old Jim Yacullo, with his big Buicks
and his Betty Boop wife. I remember
she always always looked hot and
we just used to figure they screwed
like crazy people every night. For a
living. For a way to make anything
have any sense. She had a pink and
cream '55 Chevy all her own. She 
cradled that car like it was a dead
Jesus and she was the Virgin Mary.
Yeah, right. The thing about cars,
and people too, I guess, is that after
about ten years or so they both 
begin looking like crap. Chrome
fades, and bumpers sag. At least
back then  -  now the bumpers are
plastic and are integrated into the
car design and thus cannot sag.
Who'd have thought?
-
I used to always think there'd 
be a way for me to find a real
meaning in life and end up doing
just that one meaningful task, to
my own liking, all the time. Like

a true dedication of purpose that
would just become all-consuming.
It never turned out that way, no.
My life mostly has been spent - or

had been spent up until five years
or so back - doing the bidding  of 
others. The way you have to, for

money, as a job, to stay alive and

remain in place. I've never had a

knack for anything - some guys 

I've known, they could spin a 

dime instantly from a thought 

or a dream. Some women could

do that too. Whether it was a sense

of power, a forceful personality, 

or an ease and a complacency 

about being glib, they'd never

look back, and were usually on

their way to the bank. Anything

I ever got from them was the 

shavings of what they'd leave 

behind. Wages. Boring, old, 

deadening work. I hated it but 

always just stayed with it. I even

reached the point where I got to 

telling other people to 'stick with 

it.' I'd go on about how what 

counts, over time, is the longevity

of what they were doing; no matter

how miserable it seemed, it would

be better for them to not be jumping

around from job to job and instead

show themselves as steady and 

dependable. I have no idea what I

was thinking - reflecting my own

stupidities, I guess. My average job

time was maybe 12 years, maybe 

15, on a job. I once knew a girl,

she's in Tucson now for many years,

who held strictly to the 'seven-years

and out' rule. Mary Kay would leave

a job in the seventh year, no matter

what - she said past that point it 

was all tiresome, and there was 

nothing more to invigorate her 

or keep her there, money included. 

She stuck to her guns on that too.

-

Mary Kay lived in Elmira with us, 

on the other end of town. Having 

grown up there - her father was 

a tool and die maker, had been, 

in Elmira's postwar industrial 

heydays - she stayed. She

was a cool kid, my age, very 

opinionated, militaristic 

'feminist' in those 1971 early 

days of the women's movement.

She lived with a girl she called 

'Kiki'. At first they living in a
place  called Bentley Creek. That
was in  Pennsylvania, about ten
miles below Elmira. That was  my
first experience there with girls living
together in some 1970's way of 'girl's
solidarity' or whatever was going on
then. They may have been lovers too;
I didn't know nor care. And then every
so often Mary would get hooked up 

again with some guy or another, 

for short periods of time, and 

then it would crumble and 

she'd be back. More militant 

than ever. I remember being 

glad it was never me on the

receiving end of her venom -

though, to be frank, I would 

have never minded that one. I

always was gainfully enough

attracted to her. One time she 

moved to Syracuse, taking up 

with some surprisingly boring,

divorced guy with two kids. That

didn't work, maybe two months,

and she was back again. She wasn't
the family kind, not the care-giver
kind either. I figured she would
have known that. Guess not. Her

and Kiki (I used to hate that name),
then moved to Corning, and for a

while they a nice apartment in a big 

old house that had been broken up

into apartments. She had a new 1972

Datsun B210, I think it was called - 

the original Datsun import car, the

one that made their name here (now 

they are no longer 'Datsun', and use

'Nissan' instead). She drove that car

to death and she drove it forever. 

Over their bed, in Corning, or her 

bed, or whatever, she kept a calorie 

chart. I guess it was some sort of 

woman's movement, or MS Magazine 

joke - a large poster that illustrated 

about 20 varied sexual positions, 

and the calorie count for calorie 

burn-off, of each sexual position. 

Then, the rest were listed, with 

numbers, instead of being illustrated. 

Big whoop. Every time we'd visit 

there, she had Elton John blaring

on the stereo, the album 'Tumbleweed

Connection,' I think it was, and 

the cut 'Burn Down the Mission,' 

because she said it always reminded 

her of me. Big whoop #2, I guess. 

(zero calories). Funny thing was,
Kiki was chubby. Mary was thin.
If they were lovers, one of them
was, apparently, doing all the work..

-

Living in Elmira was like living in a 

grim, sad, mining town, after the 

mines had closed, the seams had been

exhausted, and people walked around

thinking they had memories about 

something that once was good times, 

but they can't quite fully recall. It

always seemed to get dark early 

there; I guess the little hills around 

it shut the sun out early. Maybe. 

Even when it was light though, it 

was lonely, like you knew you were 

far away from anything useful or

that mattered or was 'alive.' A dot 

on Rt. 17 somewhere, that's where 

you were. Funny thing was, we 

were always told - as if it had 

some real self-importance - that 

because of the big IBM plant over

in Waverly, about 12 miles east, 

the entire area was on the list of 

first places the Soviets would send 

their nuclear-tipped missiles to take 

out (IBM had some defense and 

tracking systems headquartered there 

in Waverly). No one ever really found 

out what was true and what wasn't, 

but I wouldn't put it past anyone - 

the dumb corporate and defense 

bastards would not have cared 

less about what places or people 

they'd get obliterated. 'Collateral 

Damage' that's called today. A

guy I worked with, Rod Reynolds,

of Waverly, his father worked at 

that IBM location, in some mid-level

capacity, and it was Rod who first

told me about it. Rod was a real quiet,

sedate guy, always praying. I mean

that literally. We worked at Whitehall 

Printing, on e.1st Street, downtown

Elmira, and whenever we were on

break, or at lunch, or whatever, he'd 

start praying. Saying grace, reciting

prayers, the whole bit. I never knew

what that was about, but I just always

kept away from it, and no one else

ever said anything - just made fun

of him when he wasn't around. One 

day, he left at lunch, and came back 

about 2 hours later saying his wife 

had just had a baby, his 2nd or 3rd, 

I forget, at home, at lunchtime. She'd 

called, and he'd gone home to assist 

at the birth. And then he just came 

back. Didn't talk much. I guess he

had midwifery and all that, almost

like Amish stuff. We went to visit 

him one evening when he'd invited 

us to a quick cook-out. It was his 

father's big house, and they all lived 

there too. It was OK, we ate some, 

and then the 'boys' (Rod's two younger 

brothers and Rod and myself) had to 

go out on the adjoining field, and play 

catch for like a half-hour, baseball-stuff, 

just throwing back and forth, before 

we could leave. Pretty weird Summer

night. Rod drove a pretty nice, V-8 '67

Chevelle. Not hot-rodded or anything,

just a nicely kept, large engined, probably

fast and furious, car. I wasn't even ever

sure if he knew what he had.

-

I never much judged - I mean others 

or people and their ways. It never much 

mattered to me the fabric of the lives of 

others. Anyway, I'd had enough of all

that living with my father in his house

all those years. I kind of knew what I 

was and wanted, and how greatly it 

differed from other people's wants 

and desires, so I just kept quiet. My

wife was enough like that too. We

knew each other's general themes. 

Other people would start talking 

about money or trips or vacations 

or their fancy dining and stuff and 

we - used enough as we were to 

poverty-line stuff and none of that -

just pretended to listen well, feign

interest, or show concern. None of

that was ever for us. Their dollars 

were our dimes. But we got on. I

always figured to be dedicated to

my work and my craft, and the rest be

damned, as it were - I know I had no 

time for niceties, and, besides, I was

always ready for the big changes to 

come. That never came, but whatever.

I guess, when you came right down to

it, Mary Kay Hickey (her full name) had

me pegged rightly - a real 'Burn Down

the Mission' kind of guy.