11,520. RUDIMENTS, pt. 587

RUDIMENTS, pt. 587
(rebuilding / the devil's music)
It's never been right for

me to say anything about

myself. If I was right; or

if I was wrong  -  about

anything. If my head was

screwed on correctly or not.

I just always went at it and

did what I was after  - for 

the most part without either

judgment or qualification.

That was for landlubbers, so

to speak. I was way farther

out, drifting at sea.

-

Behind breaths, as a sort of

breather, Elmira existed for me,

in some now shaded and half

darkened memory  -  all that

was there, and then as it all

was churned over and, I guess,

'destroyed.' Maybe others saw

it as progress; I never did. They

came and put a highway (though 

seldom used in its 'highway 

capacity') Right through the

just-off-center of town and  -

yep  -  had the stupidity to call

it the Mark Twain Expressway.

Complete civic assholes, like

anywhere else. They put up

a few acres of parking  -  parking!

in the middle of a  city center, 

and laid in, as well, the 'Samuel 

Clemens Performing Arts 

Center'! Just another asshole

idea  -  like here  -  by people

who ought to be shot. The base

project-point any of this, with

all the civic hands out once 

again to 'take' what they could 

take, was a flush of government

funding for rebuilding and 

post-flood projects. Anybody

with a half-cockamamie idea

could have probably gotten

$750,000 for the Becky Thatcher

Bagel Shoppe, or maybe $900,000

for the 'Aunt Polly Meets the

Hungerfords Fashion Emporium.'

it was all that stupid. Throw in

a few references to anything

Mark Twain, and you got it.

-

That storm and flood affected

everyone, in some way, even if

they didn't know it. The local

Baptists got stronger and wilder

in their preachments because 

they'd been spared. Those 

Baptists who'd gotten hit with

some water and ruination, they

praised anyway, in new strength,

for having been 'blessed' by

survival. Everyone someone

validified what had occurred and

their own passage through it by

using whatever personal lens of

creed and practice they held to.

Believe me, there were few 

negatives, except maybe from 

the dead. (How many? 28 deaths,

I'm guesstimating, and that's

without the bulldozer scraping

the ground for more).

-

The waters that came roaring 

down on the lands above Elmira,

which built force and speed as

they coursed downward (the

usually interesting and yet 

sedately behaved waters 

through the rocks and falls 

of Montour  Falls and Watkins 

Glen , also located above 

Elmira, had taken on vicious 

and devilish proportions,

dislodging boulders and 

rocks which had been in

place  -  we are told  -  for 

ages, just kept on coming, 

even after skies had cleared

and June rounded to July.

Everything was off its center.

Some people couldn't cope  - 

I don't know the frequency of 

crack-ups or psychological

tragedies, but they must have

been numerous. Sometimes,

three, four, or five days later,

things would snap, and you'd

hear a collapse, as something

gave way and another building

went down. Right in the town

center of the small city had

always been the Mark Twain

Hotel (yes, that name again!),

in place probably since the 

1800's, having updated itself

once or twice along the way.

It was flooded, lower portions, 

but managed to survive, have

itself gutted and rebuilt, only

to go out of business a few

years later  -  we attended their

'liquidation sale,' as did many

others. Years  and years worth 

of Mark Twain Hotel items  - 

from cutlery to bedding, 

cabinets to mirrors, coffee

urns to dishes, TV's and 

phones, shot glasses and bar

items, all sold as tag-sale

numbers. We got, as I recall,

two creamers for seven dollars.

Each had the logo and portrait

of Mark Twain on them, as

did most everything. Also

sometimes after the flood,

the big arterial highway 

running east/west and (of

course) west/east, previously

known as Rt. 17, somehow 

became the 'Southern Tier

Expressway.' Out on the

flats, between hills, not too

near any river, it just kept

rolling. There were Army 

trucks, National Guard

people, and emergency

workers everywhere. The

complexion, within 6-months

had changed and the city had

become a sort of barricaded 

entrenchment intent on sorting 

itself out and getting itself to

something of itself; back

together, soon enough. The

nicely centered and slowly

winding down life that had 

been there before had been

whip-sawed and blistered.

I always figured, within the

two hospitals in town (St.

Joseph's, the 'Catholic' 

hospital, and  -  of course  -

the Arnot-Ogden Medical 

Center hospital, there were

probably 10 kids whose

birthdate fatefully reads

June 22, 1972. Born right

on the crest of a world

of changes.

-

I was thinking of trying to

tie all this together with the

previous chapter's mention of

monks and their chanting and

chorale music. That idea

didn't work and it never jelled

for use, but all the hive-like

activity that Elmira undertook

after the flooding  -  for its

survival and resuscitation,

which in most respects was a

necessity, where else would

the 20,000 or so beleaguered

people of the town go if not 

back to where they were

and had been  -  reminded me

a bit of that chanting and 

music. All those voices, all

that vocal busyness, hard at

work for the one aim of unified

delivery. In that case, musical.

In Elmira's case, Human. And
then I came across this quote : 
"Choral directors make unlikely 
revolutionaries. Their repertoire
is rooted in church music, in which
every interval can have meaning
and in which harmony was once
a matter for papal intervention.
Christian monks sang in unison
for nearly a thousand years
before they allowed themselves
a second vocal line, and then only
in lockstep with the melody. 
Three-part harmony had to wait
another three centuries, when
English and French clergymen
added a third or a sixth to the
chord. And what we think of
as classical harmony, with major
and minor keys and chords that
follow the bass line, didn't emerge
until the Renaissance. As late as
the 1700's the tri-tone  - a
dissonant interval of two notes,
three whole steps apart  -  was
reviled as 'diabolus in musica' -
the devil in music."