10,805. RUDIMENTS, pt. 309

RUDIMENTS, pt. 309

Making Cars

Complicated matters have

always ringed my life. Probably

my own doing, but nonetheless

rife. It may be that way for

everyone  -  each of us, I guess,

has things that seem of utmost

importance, but aren't : Like, 'Is

the Maserati clean?' or  'Have

you stored the diamonds and

closed then the safe?' Just two

examples, but, by them, you

get the point. One part of me

that kept outside of all that was

the study of art. Not just any art,

because I was fairly selective

and specific. I hated sentiment,

mawkish, decorative, or homiletic

stuff. I hated that distorted sort

of painting that twists and spins

things. One thing I did like was

painting by Cezanne. I could never

say why; it was more just that his

painting made objects solid, as

if the existed for themselves and

his interpretation. Nothing else

is between. You were able to

simply 'connect' with his apples

or mountains or sitting people

without any interference. It

caught my attention. Someone

once said his apples were

'succulent cannonballs.'

-

I always had  -  and still do,

and I'll admit to it  -  trouble

with what's called 'reality,' or

the idea that things actually

truly do exist. D. H. Lawrence

had it that Cezanne established

like no other artist a 'recognition

that matter actually exists.' And

as in one of those little stories

you hear about weird and

eccentric painter-types, it was

said this 'awkward man with

turbulent, half-strangled,

emotions, was known to pause

for twenty minutes between one

brushstroke and the next...'

That sort of thing never happens

anymore, or at least is never

remarked upon, because  -  as I

see it  -  we live in a different

concept of 'Time.' That makes

things a lot more difficult, as

all things are running at speed  -

with much less time to ingest or

interpret, and, over a period

now, all it's done really is hollow

things out and make them fairly

vapid. I knew that, and sensed it,

and to balance it all out, stayed

with Cezanne. My friend Jane

Roberts, later, in Elmira, wrote

a book called 'The Worldview

of Paul Cezanne,' supposedly

his wherever-he-is-now presence

speaking back to her with the

reflections of his painterly time

and space in that 1860's 1906

era of his life, and what he had

been trying to do through his

art. That sounds pretty crummy,

but it was a lot more than that

and really interesting too. All

the stuff she ever did, except

for her poetry and early sci-fi

stuff  -  which I found lame  -

always had my attention. She

was pretty much way out there.

-

Cezanne wanted to make things

solid; he even wished to make

Impressionism solid, and lasting,

'like the art in museums.' This

entailed him wedding 'sight to

touch.' Solidity in rocks and

buildings, apples and heads. 'As,

bit by bit, stroke by stroke, with

hope but no compromise with

respect to overall coherence  -

they met his gaze. Each daub

can seem to record a discrete

look, at a moment isolated in

time. Sometimes the eyes in a

portrait peer in different directions,

evidence of the discontinuous

process.....visual reality fragmented

in fealty to how our eyes take it

in before our brains compose the

illusion of having seen it whole.'

-

And then over time I simply

realized none of that had any 

place any longer in our current

world. To me it just seemed that

all thoughtfulness was gone. Maybe

it was electronics that did it. I

saw how people, through television

and stereos and popular music and

all that, had just turned to bullshit.

Everywhere. It was at the point

where storylines themselves

could no longer be kept straight.

The entire world had changed all

its assumptions  -  all things had

been turned over to roadways and

cars and that had, in and of itself,

taken over. No one was really

themselves. Pop stars were all

manufactured, tales and identities

made up, names changed, false

fronts erected. Songs and music were

terrible. Any legacy connection to

the past was gone : harmonics and

real, categorical, music fallen to the

wayside. People picking up whatever

banner they selected, to be whatever

they said they were or wanted to be.

It guessed that mainly it was because

authenticity was gone. Obliterated as

if it had been hit by any one of those

beautiful bombs that nations now

made, instead off making and helping

people. Everywhere I looked, a bastard

was running things  -  one or another

self-appointed blowhard aligned

with evil powers. Blacks in the south

were getting smashed like atoms  -

bullwhips, raging dogs, fire-hoses,

even murders and, still lynchings.

All from concocted stories. The

deadly swagger and drooling, foul

sinister aspects of all these southern

white authority guys with guns and

rifles, holing dog-leashes with a

cur at the end, it all just made me

pretty sick. It seemed the worse a

person was, the higher the possible

attainments loomed for them.

Where was Jesus, and where was

peace now? Everything I'd ever

been taught or had presented to

me seemed now like a stinking

lie. Maybe that's OK when you're

40, but when you're 12 or 14, that's

pretty nasty stuff. I'm still paying

the price. Psychic wounds never

heal. Eventually I even got sick of

Cezanne's apples. They all reeked

of some old, ivory-tower, painter's

fantasy of shape and the search for

beauty. I wanted none of that.

-

I found that most wounds were

self-inflicted. The more I delved

into my own thoughts and character, 

the more raw it all got and the more

I saw, once again, that I was doing

it to myself. I'd left home riding a

fully-armed bomb, and it hadn't

gone off yet. I kept waiting. Was

it just going to fizzle? A dud?

Someone had left a firing mechanism

out? That's what it felt like as I

grew  -  I began realizing that my

constitution wasn't foul at all and

that basically I really wasn't man

enough to kill or damage or harm.

Not military, I mean personal.

My fury was containable, whereas 

there had been a time when I'd 

considered just gong firebrand, 

letting it out, destroying things,

harming others  -  all the criminal

traits one would need  -  but none

of that was really there. I guessed

that was mostly the resignation of

the everyday, ordinary person too  -

giving it all up, going to work, after

finding a job, fooling themselves

into all that career crap, lusting,

playing, setting up house and

then settling in. That junk was

everywhere. The postcards say,

'Greetings From Asbury Park?'

as the torrid likes of the Jersey

Shore beckon. I figured it was

just better to 'get out now while

the getting's good.' That was how
I felt anyway, and how I decided to
operate. I was an exile in my own,
as yet unadopted, world.