RUDIMENTS, pt. 281
Making Cars
I used to think I was too
big for the world; well,
heck, I guess I still do.
It was constraining,
presenting nothing to
me but limitations and
things 'not' to do. It was
as if everyone else's minds
had shut down, or been so
wired as to shut down at
the first suggestion of
anything new. I got really
sick of authority - those
hideous priests in cassocks,
haunting hallways with
their little prayer books
and robes and beads. How
could any adult be so stupid?
Parents and school presented
the same thing, just in a
different guise. And this
was when I was twelve, for
goodness sake. Just think of
all my future years! Just think
of now! I was total expansion,
compared to all that crimped
junk I'd see. 'Blessed are the
poor in spirit, for they shall
inherit the Earth.' OK. And
you know what, they can
have it too.
-
I saw all this same stuff, over
and over, everywhere I went.
I knew there wasn't any stopping
it, it was just the manner of
the world : even visiting old,
preserved places only found
them all compromised and
mucked up. For a while I knew
some big-time Jewish girl in
New Brunswick - Anna
Ashkenes was the name then -
and at the time she was an up
and coming County worker,
on the Middlesex County Arts
Commission. It was all such
pure bullshit but, since they
were my printing account, I
had to go along with it all, or
at least not make faces as they
talked. That was, of course,
another thing that bugged me
about the whole picture of
my future - evidently I was
supposed to just go along with
all this crap I personally hated
and not upset any apple-cart
or anything by piping up a
reasoned alternative or
counter-opinion. No wonder
Thoreau said most men lead
lives of quiet desperation!
Why wouldn't they?
-
A Cultural and Arts Commission
is anything but that. In this case,
Miss Snooty herself was working
on what later became some sort of
nearly completely bogus recreation
of waterfront and art-in-place
material. In and of itself, I guess,
that wouldn't be such a negative,
but the way the entire thing was
gone about was wrong : liberal
use of money to very selectively
go about an agenda of only the
proper reflections of 'local'
history-by-commission, and
icing it with the nose-in-the-air
finery of art and elitism. As it
turned out, what they ended up
with was a salvaged, recreation
of a group of houses which
the local development projects
had deemed in the way and
useless. They took them all and
circled them about a re-built
and make-believe false old-village,
called Olde-Town New Brunswick
or something, and wove a story
around it all to go with it. In
addition, a big old mansion
facing the old Raritan Landing,
along the river and canal, from
the early 1800's - owned and
prospered by a slaveowner and
called Metlar House (his name)
at the Landing Lane Bridge, that
too was all juiced up with the
proto-typical laugh lines of
civic history as provided by
powers in place, and kept
completely inoffensive. I
know, I know, 'the way of the
world, that's what people do.'
By the way, I later found out
all this was once on sacred lands
to the local Raritans, Lenni Lenape
Native Americans, complete
with burial mounds, etc., which
were ignored and disrespected so
that we could have a harness track
and Olde Village recreation.
-
I started out saying I always
felt too big for this world. Yes.
This, by contrast, always seemed
to me to be the sorts of things
done by people who feel the
world is much bigger than they
are. They need to make and find
a place in which to fit themselves.
Like these. The temperings of
versions of history into which
they then comfortably fit
themselves. A lost cause.
Passive vs. active, almost.
-
And then, just today, in Princeton,
I find myself talking with some guy
who's strikingly frank viewpoint
brooked no opposition. He said
that he was sick and tired of the
way we've thrown everything away.
That the old Europeans settlers who
once populated these early lands
had a sense of decorum and order,
a wisdom and deliberateness that is
now long, long gone, and that all
we can do now is try and celebrate
it as a lost-legacy while the same
country is turned over to slobs and
misfits from other lands. People who
barricade garage doorways with
plywood instead of trying to fix
them. People who think nothing
of taking the remnants of a fine old
American house and filling it with
occupants and families eight times
the number which was supposed
to be within. Painting houses orange
and red, and thinking nothing of it,
right next to a row of fine old brick
buildings which they then paint
green and clutter the yard with
debris. All order and symmetry
gone. Fine old homes now cheaply
stucco'd over in a mish-mash of
tints and shades. This guy was
pretty angry. And then it hit me;
in trying to talk to him, respond
back, reply - he had missed the
major point : All of that old legacy
stuff is long gone. That was the
small world which once people
could contain and corral. Big
people. This was now, by contrast,
a world of small people, indigenous
to other places, with no real ideas.
All they want, in coming here, is
that same small place, like the
Olde Town people, into which to
fit and get swallowed up.
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That's difference between then
and now. I used to walk amongst
people - artist-friends and nut
cases too - who felt they were
all (I surmised) way bigger than
the world which was always
trying to contain them. The
sorts who used to 'jaywalk.' Now
everyone, by contrast, it seems,
wants to view the world as much
larger than them, and wants to
wait for the 'walk-don't walk'
signs - and, incredibly, now
superseding that, require
pedestrian right-of-way so
as not to be crushed by that
'much-larger' world they've
agreed to.
-
....Nothing to lose but your
chains...., and all that.
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