Monday, November 5, 2018

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.')...










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