10,985. RUDIMENTS, pt. 379

RUDIMENTS, pt. 379

(dooley's toys, in woodbridge)

Here's one problem, or maybe

two, that I've had to contend

with most of my life : Dinosaurs,

and the globe. (I'll get to that in

a minute). I've never believed

in that whole dinosaur, geological

pre-time unit of our supposed

historical experience. And I still

don't. That scenario just never

happened. And, no, I'm not

saying it was made up by

advertisers just so they could

sell Fruity Pebbles, and make

Flintstone movies; nothing

like that. It simply does not

fit the pattern of the rest of

human experience. I rather

think that Science and its

membership, over much

time, somehow developed a

narrative about the way things

were and found ways to run

with it. One pile-on after the

other  -  and  -  before you

know it there's an entire

school of thought with its

own sub-sets and variations,

university off-shoots and

adherents, lecturers, explainers

and R&D departments to make

all this Victorian-geology arcana

fly. No one ever just 'debunks,'

except maybe for Erich von

Danikan and Immanuel Velikovsky.

Either way, everyone always

portrayed those two as kooks,

but only because they themselves

were indeterminate blockheads

more in favor of subscribing to

myth than truth. Things have

always happened, all along the

ages, in those dark crevices of

the information blackouts that

Authority always puts on everything

that doesn't suit their terms. I'll

step in and claim for them, if either

of them are still alive. Dinosaurs

never existed and the whole 

period of time is a made-up

myth. Now, before you go soiling

your bloomers, yes, I've seen

supposed dinosaur bones, the big

sabre-teeth of the Sabre-Toothed

tiger. Even made friends at La Brea.

It's all rot. The cross-up is that

'Nature never wastes.' The depth

of the failure here is too vast, 

the gap too large, and our cavalier 

use of the dark areas of non-info

as spaces to be filled with our

own narratives just makes Nature

laugh. 'Roll me that volcano,' I can

can hear her say. After all, this is

a world where people would 

rather see of photos of Justin Beiber

pooping than talk seriously about

consciousness and being.

-

The scene here will now be this :

6th grade, Avenel portables. Jolly

Mr. Ziccardi dishing it all out 

again. His newest info was John 

Glenn, but this goes back to

way back when (John Glenn was

one of the 1960, first group of

Mercury Seven 'astronauts'; so

early on that they never really 

'left' Earth orbit or none of that 

stuff. Just got rocketed up, spun

around for a few hours, and 

landed  on water. It was all 

new and different then). So,

he'd fill us all in on that dope. 

We'd listen on radios, in the

portables' courtyard. It was

cool, and then old Joe would roll

right into the ancient stuff :

Mesopotama, Assyria, and the

dinosaurs and Bible stuff too.

It all fit his pre-arranged pattern

of information and picture. I liked

it all, but bought little of it. Joe

Ziccardi had no depth; he was 

a mainstream, one-dimensional

character, and there was no

arguing with either his conclusions

or suppositions. So I just let it roll.

He'd just adopted, with his wife,

two boys at that time, as well, so

I figured he and his 'conclusions'

about the world would soon enough

be their problem, not mine. Avenel

had its rules and strictures, no

different in kind or quality or

quantity than many other places.

What was I to do? Start refuting

everything, going around saying 

Adam and Eve never existed 

either, and that mostly those

the Sun-worshipping ancient 

Egyptians had it all more right 

than wrong? (Isn't that where

'Ra, Ra, Ra' came from anyway)?

I'd have been hung up on the 

school-lawn from the yardarm 

of 'Truth, Justice, and the 

American way'  -  BUT -Yes,

you can buy this washer and 

dryer set, $169 a month, for

three years. How about that 

for a deal! Remember, it's our

Dinosaur Deal Days, and our

prices can't be beat, and this is

a real Tyrannosaurus Rex of a

deal, our very best!'......

-

Hell no, dinosaurs never existed.

The 'story' calls for them, of course,

so in that respect they did. But it's

all a fiction. And the same with the

'round' Earth globe stuff. I don't care

what you say, or what water runs

in the gutters at School 4&5 where

they still early-on engrain this stuff

into kids' heads, but the Earth and

all reality is a flat plain of linear

expectation, according to the ghouls

in charge, one thing flatly following

the other in sequential patterns and

thought-through in time-paced and

regular segments. That's all as flat

and dictatorial as can be. There's 

no roundness in anything at all.

There can't be; a circle is perfection,

completion. This is a fallen world,

where neither of those things exist.

Our concepts all run straight out,

endless to nowhere. We lack the

perfection of bringing it all back to

where we started. That is not for us.

-

Try to explain to any shirt and tie

sixth grade, or tenth grade teacher, 

or any normal college grad dweeb 

headed for Morgan Stanley and

their largest concerns are about

salary, pension, and retirement. 

They don't really give no other

damn about the rest of any of it.

It's an act, the 'edu-act' that gets

people by. If Mankind had to

operate solely on the 'philosophic'

plane that this sort of thing entails,

I'm afraid not much human 'progress'

would get done  -  but I'd think

that would be good, if 'progress'

was just stopped; dumb misnomer

that it is. But the intact idea of

linearity is just that  -  progressing

ahead, even if it means adopting 

the two operative fictions of 

dinosaurs and a round globe.

I believe in neither.

-

I need to get back, from the

previous chapter, onto that antiques

track. There was a guy in Woodbridge,

last name Dooley. When I was a kid,

about 7 or 8, he and my father were

friends of a sort. Dooley was a little

of a half-crazy kind of guy, always

fired up about something, ran for

Mayor once or twice, almost as a

protest laughing-stock  - probably

got 140 votes each time. Token 

protest stuff about the usual 

Woodbridge BS. He had an older,

run-down kind of house, set way

back from the roadway of Amboy

Avenue, right about where the

Woodbridge Library and the

Health Center are now, at what's

called George Frederick Plaza.

The little front of the house had

been built out into a retail or a

store area, and Dooley's Toys

and Games was there. All out

on the long yard and grass were

set-up samples of swing-sets,

teeter-totters, sliding boards, 

roundabouts, and other yard toys

and installations. Plus, he sold

bicycles and backyard pool stuff,

supplies, floats, etc. right next

to his property  -  whether it had

bee his land or not I never knew,

in about 1962 they'd completed

the then new Woodbridge High 

School, now a veritable cakewalk 

dump. In old Woodbridge, and 

Avenel, Dooley probably represented

the closest you'd get to something

that maybe resembled an antique

store, mainly because it was a lot

of junk-rubble stuff as well. No 

one ever knew what to do, it 

seemed, nor how to handle a 

guy like Dooley. They don't 

make 'em like that anymore.

He always reminded me of 

Andy Devine. You probably

don't know who that is, but

Andy Devine, in the 1950's was

like a cowboy character actor, 

with a neat, gravelly voice and a

sort of uncertain manner, though

not near as uncertain as Walter

Brennan, who was another of

those sorts of actors  -  also always

reminding me of Mr. Dooley. He

always seemed to be fighting for

everything Woodbridge no longer

wanted to be  -  things out on the

lawn, cool stuff just thrown about,

a devil-may-care and in-your-face

attitude about do-it-yourself living

that you can't do anymore. Like

if your wife, say, was a shadow

overweight, he'd not think twice

about just calling her fat. Imagine

something like that running a 

council meeting. He was a regular

no-deposit-no-return kind of guy,

a true dinosaur among men, a

voyager, sailing right out, over

the line at that edge of the world,

right over there. The only thing

round about him was the loop on

a dollar sign, and his belly too.
-
Here's a perfect closing portrayal
of the 'linear'world we live in  - not a
round one at all : 'In the Middle Ages,
painters used triptychs to sum up the
state of the world  -  On the left panel,
one might see our origins; in the 
Garden of Eden. In the Center, ordinary,
terrestrial, life. On the right, the
torments of Hell. Above it all, Christ
floats in Heaven, surrounded by
angels  -  our redemptive future.
One longs for the modern
equivalent, one equal to the
contradictions of the human
situation.'