RUDIMENTS, pt. 474
(like shoveling ice home)
So then, let's go one step
further : Yeah, that small
town named 'Sheds' - it
was a gas station a bar,
and a large lot selling,
yep, sheds. Maybe 20 or
so, constructed and ready
to go. All different sorts
of sheds - barn-looks,
utility, farm, garden, etc.
I never figured what you
do the get your locale
named after the largest
business presence in it.
Like, from here, in
Hamburger, NJ? 'Life
is a carnival....believe
it or not.' I wouldn't have
stopped there for the life
of me, and even if the
beer was free. There's
something weird about
those country towns wherein
each little house hugs the
street with a ground-level
porch almost too dangerous
to sit on because of the
traffic whizzing by. I've
seen the same thing all
along Pennsylvania, and
south Jersey places too.
The world sure has changed.
-
There used to be a Zen
place, just out of Ithaca, to
which we often went - it
was a strangely combined
sort of Buddhist place,
rehab center, food kitchen,
crafts shop and dormitory.
A lot of the wash-out and
burn-out cases of those few
previous years, with or
without their kids, ended
up there. Nobody was
catatonic, exactly, but a
few came close. (I'm
going to interject here
some notes of the modern
day, about where I live
now. Where people truly
ARE catatonic). In 1972,
let's say, the turmoil of
the world, or the domestic
fabric here anyway (USA),
had recently been torn up;
Ithaca was part shambles,
still, from it. Black Power
edicts, takeovers, Nixon
crap, Vietnam, John and
Martha Mitchell, Spiro
Agnew, it could all just
go on and on. Everything
was askew, and some of it,
like those people I just
mentioned, had barely hung
together and was trying
to get back in their groove.
'Reality' was itself in a bad
groove. These zen-shelter
kids were part of that - the
back to the land movement
was a fade of dust, no one
had the energy or the means
to be militant, and it mostly
was 'rollover time' for a
while. That was the quality
to the air. But, by contrast,
all that I see today, around
here, are vapid no-brains and
the apologists for them. It's
all quite idiotic. I can't really
believe we've allowed our
world to flip in the manner
it has. All definitions have
been turned upside down,
that much is certain -
schools are not schools;
truths are no longer truths,
and information is no
longer information. As
I see it, and always have
seen it, when the biggest
gift you can give a child
is a high-school sports
rah-rah, what is your
value as a parent anyway?
I used to give this town
half a chance. Now, I give
it nothing.
-
Over in Sheds, the littlest
personage there probably,
had more spunk and gumption
back in 1972, in the midst
of all that dissolution, than
does any one of today's
phone-dweeb zombies.
And we get 'em, a'plenty.
I used to think the nadir of
modern culture was Frank
Sinatra, pithy jerk that he
was ('Come fly with me,
come fly, let's fly away!').
Now, without any irony,
that lame-brain was a
singing Sophocles.
-
The word 'Sheds' is about as
simple as all that - naming
a place-location after it just
makes it cool. Imagine the
thinking that must have
gone into that chore. Do
you think, somewhere up
in old Albany, anyone
scratched their head over
that request? What was the
place called before that?
Wagon Wheel, New York?
Which is actually very funny,
because right next to Elmira
were two odd town names,
not quite, however, as
divorced from any real
occurrence as 'Sheds.' Both
of these place names, by
lore anyway, had references
to early Native-American
and settlers days. 'Painted
Post,' was named for - just
that - Indian marker posts
along the trails and pathways.
Today, you really can 'live'
in Painted Post, NY. And the
same goes for 'Horseheads.'
Settlers found a field of just
that; some horse skulls;
perhaps an Indian death-field
for horses. They named their
settlement after that.
-
That's one way to look at this
anyway - home-town drivel
notwithstanding, these ideas
of simplicity and origination
used to stay with me and
make me think. I had my
own ideas about all this, but
in some respects they just
scared me off, with all the
crazy stuff I'd gotten used
to hearing - as I said,
leftover crazies and irritating
people. Then I got to studying
physics - theoretical physics,
a bit, not the real hard-science
stuff. In the mid-70's, the
theoretical end of things was
really taking off; it was a
more philosophical aspect
to Physics, per se, than it
was anything else. Charmed
quarks, quantum stuff,
presences, any of a hundred
almost weird re-interpretations
of what had been concluded
as 'Life' for 500 years was
just then being altered again,
and new states entered.
Of being, and place.
Representations. Horse
heads and painted posts
would bear nothing but
the heaviest and most
dead resemblances. Thus
names, like 'Sheds' too, I
guessed, were the heavy,
rational forces of what was
observed demanding an
identification. What I was
getting at was the myriad
ways then opening up to
show how Life and
Consciousness was
an ever-changing
dynamic that held few
fast or steady meanings.
It all became very hard
to explain - not worth a
damn in the midst of a
know-nothing horde of
blockheads. How do
you tell someone of the
fabric of their existence?
The idea of consciousness-
fighting-reality is a concept
not to be grasped by the
builders and joiners of the
rows of sheetrock and
tile getting thrown up
everywhere - that's the
most coarse and vulgar
way of treating reality
there is. No class, no
grace - and both of
those things are what
what are needed. (I'm
sorry, but you can't go
around being Bob the
Builder, and expect
enlightenment).
-
The amazing thing is
there ARE other worlds,
and they ARE concurrent
and active within ours,
both influencing things
and altering things too.
The complexity of it is
that the rational mind,
the average dull guy, will
always be on the lookout,
only for the process -
'how did it get here,
where did it come from,
aren't we able to track
it coming in?' No, silly,
dull human. It's a fabric,
a rent, a tear; it will all
just materialize in the
space, right before you,
that your eyes see. You'll
be shocked, when you see,
for certain, all those other
worlds, just materializing
and engulfing all that you've
known. A different shape
than you've ever seen
before, a space, a form,
a presence, unknown.
Call it Sheds if you dare,
but it won't mean a thing.
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