11,293. RUDIMENTS, pt. 493

RUDIMENTS, pt. 493

Envelope Fish

The belly of the beast,

the dark side, the doors

of Hell, any or all of those

hackneyed phrases could

have fit my time. I don't

remember sleeping,

though I remember

stumbling up  - those

half-lights of morning

when you try to revitalize

your previous state and

get something going.

It's said that New York

City never sleeps  -  it

does, but it does so in

such a topsy-turvy manner

that at any time there are

probably, and always, more

people awake and active

than sleeping and quiet.

Americana? Not there.

Think of a Norman

Rockwell painting in

reverse  -  no one sitting

still, the kid in the barber

chair blurred and squirming

while the barber is searching

for the kid's Adam's Apple

with a  blunted razor, so as
to make it hurt even more.

Everything's a blur.

-

I invented 'envelope fish'

one day in a half-dream.

One of those long drawn-out

moments in the pebbly fog

between waking and sleep,

when you maybe think you're

up but aren't; when the small

merged roads in your brain

haven't yet separated again

to make the differences

needed for real life,

awake and more precise;

when pieces and fragments

of dream still roil the fog

of reality you're trying to

stumble through to get back

in, or out, of whatever this

clammy world is. A shoelace

or a faucet is never a shoelace

or a faucet until it suddenly

reminds you of the shoelace

or faucet you may have just

been dreaming about, where

the shoe was a boat on the

river to Hades, and the faucet

dripped little people who

each knew your name and

were looking for Larry who

just happened to also be you,

but you were tied by that

shoelace to the boat which

was really just a snail clinging

to the side of a bottle from

which you couldn't see out.

-

That's 'envelope fish' for

you : one thing within

another within another;

something like those old

Russian boxes but better

because of the reality of

each fish that you pull up

containing another squirming

fish which contains another,

endlessly and perfectly

sleeved within each. Packed

within each, like something

in an envelope. That's the

sort of stuff, I realized too, 

that artists and writers, and, 

yes, movies and junk, have 

always been trading on. An

alternate reality of things, so 

to speak. You pull up that 

one, uncertain and fighting, 

line, and one reality at a 

time you soon have an 

entire other menagerie 

of universes to deal with,

each somehow containing

another, also endlessly, and

and yet each apart as well. 

Back in 1967, the 'uni' of the

the word 'universe' perplexed

me. Now, physicists say

'multiverses' and that all

makes more sense. Or, as

the phone company used

to say, 'We're all connected?'

I wonder what they were

onto, or on.

-

Back in the seminary days,

they kept having sing-alongs 

and white-boy hootenanies. 

They were held outdoors, on

the Spring-evening quadrant

lawn. No one knew a damned

thing about what they were

singing of  -  old slave and

Negro field songs, spirituals

and chants of the oppressed.

The miseries of a whole other

race, and here were 300 white

boy privileged fools, chasing

for the Lord, thinking they

were doing something good 

by sing-along goofs with

guitars and shout-and- 

response-choruses. In 1964,

believe me, it was the craziest 

thing you'd ever see, but, in 

their earnestness, each of these

bejeweled guys were intent

on 'fishing'   -   throwing

their lines out to 'somewhere'

they didn't even know, and 

pulling it back in with a 

hundred other ideas and 

references to follow up on.
('Throw down your nets and
follow me; I will make you
you fishers of men...').

Nearly four years later, the

end of 1967, there was I,

throwing again another line

out  - into the mysterious

inner darkness of an immigrant

island I'd only (maybe) 

imagined, or visualized.

There weren't even any of

my own words to interject,

except for maybe an 

occasional exclamation 

of whatever raw verbal

persuasion filtered up. 

All things were an equal 

in wonder and awe. I used

to take Eighth Street, almost

religiously, from the Studio 

School east, to cross Fifth

and then Broadway, and then,

passing the old District 65

Headquarters building : burly,

gruff truckers and freight

handlers, heaving and hauling,

with a union hall ethos upstairs

at all times. Sometimes I'd

just stop in place and watch.

It was all awesome to me; no

real connection except from 

the heart. I loved watching

these truck-terminal workers;

noting their attire, how they

stood, how they reacted to

each other, the people passing

by (it was a real crossroads).

East to Astor Place, Cooper 

Union, past the Colonnades. 

All I could ever do was 

visualize the theater riots 

that had taken place there, 

because of some British

actor, not an American,

headlining some Shakespeare

play at Astor; the Draft Riots,

people being burned out, killed,

lynched, the storm and volatility

of an entire other time in our

national life, now so blandly,

distantly forgotten about.

'People were truly idiots,'

I'd think to myself, crossing

over onto St. Marks Place.
Along with seminary Latin,
from Ovid : 'Bene vixit qui
bene latuit.' He lived well
who hid well.
-

('Oh to be, on Sugar Mountain....

with the barkers and the
colored balloons.')...