10,957. RUDIMENTS, pt. 369

RUDIMENTS, pt. 369

(avenel music hall)

'There is no final solution

to paradox. that is why art

exists.' I read that somewhere,

a long time ago, and it really

hit home for me. It was like

a self-propelled home run

hit way out of the park.

(Now that I think about it,

it can be argued all day  - 

aren't all home runs self

propelled? What do they

call that on the high, arc'ing

way out? Even though,

actually they were 'hit'

and initiated by someone

else. What is self-propelled

anyway?)...No real matter.

It always irked me when

people set to trying to give

meaning and definition to

art or poetry or writing.

Really; face it, only an

idiot needs 'definitions' of

every little thing, especially

for 'Art' of which he or she

apparently knows nothing

at all. Like when Wordsworth

said Poetry is 'Emotion recollected

in tranquility,' and then he said

it was the 'spontaneous overflow

of powerful feelings.' What

the holy heck was all that 

supposed  to be about? And

compounded no less, as it

was, by him then writing a

paragraph (prose) about what

he meant. Whew! That's some

crazy stuff. Someone else,

much later, also said, 'A poem

should not mean, just be.' Huh?

These things were always baffling

to me and  -  like I said  -  to my

mind it was apparent that the

person saying or writing these

things didn't have a clue. In the

case of Wordsworth, and this

other one too, they were assumed

to have big clues just because of

who they were, but that boat, sorry,

missed the docking pier by about

a thousand feet. Let's try these

instead : A poem should not melt,

just freeze? A poem should not 

run, just dance in place; A poem

should not prove, just suggest.

(Maybe that last one isn't so bad).

-

If I had to pick one, though, I'd

like this one  -  by a German guy,

Hermann Wehl, and, actually, he

was writing about modern music, but

who cares : "Rational subjugation

of the unbounded." Whatever it

all means, that one's a beaut.

-

Art is a crucial and dangerous

operation we perform on ourselves.

Unless we take a chance, we die

in art. If an artist turned out, over

and over, the same paintings in

the style of Norman Rockwell  -  

you know what? They'd make 

him President of his University 

Art  Department, or have him 

appointed, as Director of his 

local art or music hall. Ha.

-

When we first moved to Avenel,

and the first use of the new church

was underway (I guess about 1957),

they threw one or two seasons of 

minstrel and musical shows. Weird

stuff, like 'Oklahoma' or 'The 
Rainmaker', one one of those, 
and others. Happy, sing-song
sorts of musicals with that older
optimistic All-America feel that
people were somehow still holding
onto for another 10 years or so.

There was a little stage area

downstairs, and a lot of room. 

It was a big improvement  -  for 

that kind of thing  -  over the 

more cramped confines that had 

been the old church. (Full disclosure:

I liked the old space much better.

For one thing, it was much less

secular than this useless by degree,

new-design, church. And the old

church at least was on the street,

facing and within the heart of 

town, even though it had been

debased, defaced, and tortured).

All these new church-people,

and (our) young parents, 

mingled and got to know one 

another by this process. It was

pretty strange  -  my mother had

a role or two in these, and took

it all very seriously. A lot of these

young marrieds exhibited traits

of an arrested hope of acting.

I watched, but I didn't much

care. What interested me far

more than that was how a few

of us boys found that if we

removed the mesh grating from

one of the 'storage' bins concealed

beneath the stage, it led us (on all

fours; it was very confining) to

all sorts of passageways beneath

the stage and church basement.

Never knowing what any of that

was, it was all very cool, very

interesting. Probably now it

would be seen as nothing, a 

dug hole to nowhere, but to 

7 years old kids it was a glorious 

sub-set to the real world's first-run 

realities. No one even ever knew 

we were beneath them.

-

Which all of course led me to

keep a mind open for what it

was exactly that 'church' was

trying to do. In Avenel, but

everywhere else too. It always

seemed bogus to me. For all

this amounted to it was 

surreptitious play-acting for

adults, a sort of psycho-physical

miming of sexual attraction.

And then further, in a few

years, the same silly church

began holding 'heavily chaperoned'

dances for the new children of

this sexual congress  -  boys and

girls of teen years with their

new music. But no touching,

no close-dancing, no squeezing,

and  -  most certainly  -  no 

leaving the church basement 

or premises, to go 'elsewhere.'

What any of it had to do with

professing religion was beyond

me, and it just made me again

realize how adults never faced up

to what they were actually up to.

Nor did the stupid church, with

all its ringlets and curls of rules,

do's and don'ts (mostly don'ts)

and promised punishment for

any infractions  -  punishments

not just here and now, but also 

in the long, extended afterlife

due you. Oh boy, what a Pandora's

box. (No pun).

-

At the end of our street was a

lumber yard. It ended our street 

and also faced the tracks. Which 

meant total and easy access, from

those tracks. I used the tracks

often enough as my own roadway,

and it was (and still isn't) anything

really to walk them. The trains 

along here are slow and able to 

be seen a long way off. They 

are either just entering or just

leaving the station, and this at a

crawl, or, if by-passing the station,

still only doing maybe 30mph and

ringing a bell as they passed; easy

to spot and prepare for. Only at

the farther end of the other

direction, from Rahway, was

there a curve in the tracks that

took some extra watching. But,

in any case, no Amtraks or Acelas

ran thorough here, so no high-speed,

inter-city express things going on.

A cinch. There were, next to the

lumber yard, also two cabinet

companies. With a rail-siding for

box-car deliveries, and often there,

sometimes for weeks. The box cars

were always accessible, never locked,

and made a great place for, let's say,

'meeting' girls. Enough said.

-

One time there was a pile of plastic

doll heads, just a pile of them at

the siding; no rhyme or reason.

It was weird. Another time, there

was about 20 classical music LP's

just left on the siding. Nothing new

or nothing unopened either, but 

from them, selectively, began my

collection of and appreciation for,

classical music. The best piece I

got from there was a really nice

performance of Berlioz' 'Fantastic

Symphony (Symphonie Fantastique,

with its great 'Dance of the Witch's 

Sabbath' within the symphony.

That was how simple things used 

to be  -  like that 'If God gives 

you lemons, make lemonade' 

thing that was often bandied

about. It never said much, but

one got the point easy enough.

From that it was a quick jump 

to my actual 'study' of classical

music, instruction, and  -  voila! -

next thing I knew there I was

listening to lectures by Morton

Feldman in the middle of NYC.

What a world! Thanks, Avenel.