RUDIMENTS, pt. 664
('it hurts me too')
It never took much to
('it hurts me too')
It never took much to
deflate me. That's a big
problem, since once you
lose momentum it's often
difficult to get it back. That
being so, I always tried to
do most of my work at
night, but of course to
work a day-world job
one is pretty much then
squashed on that account.
Reveille comes too soon.
I used to - mostly just for
the sake of the quiet time
afforded - take a 5:07am
train to Princeton for
what was essentially an
8:30 job. The two friendly
lady conductors would
never take my ticket, which
afforded me as well free
travel too. Every so often I'd
buy them some day-old
Entenmann's and they'd
be very thankful. The
supposed 'crash' of 2008,
(financial, not train), had
many of the other people
I'd cross each day in their
own little panics - bankers
and such, a few right through
to Philadelphia. I cruised
right through that era, not
even caring to listen to the
woes they were always
blabbing about. The Devil's
got his own Kingdom, and
these folk were, obviously,
deep into it. And getting what
they deserved, I thought. It
always pains me deeply to be
told here that my taking off
after local political types,
when I (sometimes) do it,
bothers them. That deflates
me, and that then throws
me off. I cannot understand
why anyone would accept the
'No Accountability' premise
- these people never have to
answer to a thing. I recently
had a short run-in with one
of the female local-emerita
political gatherers who
herself squirmed out of
taking responsibility for
anything, and my answer to
her too was, quite succinctly,
'why doesn't anyone in this
town take responsibility for
anything?' She simply
retreated.
-
Ok then, so you'd say I'm wrong.
On the other hand, I say they are,
and to Hell with them too. One
of the modern day's problems is
a total lack of accountability.
-
Cooper Union, in New York City,
by St. Marks, was supposed to
be free. I used to stand there, just
looking. I never wanted to go,
free or not, because the basis
of its curricula, engineering for
the most part, didn't interest
me. Lincoln had addressed
the throng there, before he was
President, as I recall reading,
not AS President. People laughed
at candidate Lincoln, right there.
He was considered ugly, and had
a high voice that people made
fun of. He was a ruffian, a
rail-splitter, and was hardly
'Presidential' material. Whenever
I stood there I tried imagining
that day. At the rear of Cooper
Union is Cooper Square, a big
crossing and a plaza. It's not
really the 'front' of Cooper Union,
though it looks like it in a way and,
if you go to the front, the room for
a 'throng' is much less. So I ended
up never sure of which way Lincoln
was even facing at that point. Astor
Place is also nearby, and the old
theater section of the Colonnades
and all that, where, at about the
same time, era, years, a great riot
broke out - massive and deadly,
over some British actor who was
acting a Shakespeare role there
instead of an American actor;
the Nativists around went wild,
and it all got connected up with
other matters of race and class
and the rest. The streets were
bloodied with rioting, much
like the Draft Riots, much of
which were also situated here
and then greatly spread uptown,
where the draft lotteries were
being pulled. I walked right
into the clamor and the mass of
people and torches and all that.
It was all I lived for, and I go
back there now - though it's
all tended to far better now
and some of it is rebuilt and
repopulated too - and I just
sit, and stare, and think, and
dissolve away. So many old
memories from my day, and
from way before, and it's all as
vivid and real now as a squall.
Resistance and push-back have
always been part of the American
soul and spirit and ethos. We
resisted everything. That idea
of resistance died a long time
back; people now just acquiesce,
nod, go along. Which is where
I differ, I guess. For me, the
originals are all that matter.
-
My friend lived on the Bowery.
He was also an actor in a
production or two at the
Colonnades, when it was the
Astor Place theater, or whatever
name it had. Across from it are
still a few beautiful old large
buildings; one is the Public
Theater, which went through
a massive growth surge in the
days of Joe Papp. Near to it
was and is still a building
which once house a massive,
early-morning newspaper and
truck distribution terminal;
in the dark, or at dawn, there'd
be box-trucks, filled with papers,
strapped and bundled, for that
day's distribution all through the
city : the drivers would drive and,
at each stop, newsstand, small
store, corner grocer, whatever,
the requisite bundle or two would
come heaving out the open side
of the truck - guys inside with
the route map, as the driver had
too, wending trough all the streets
and making all these deliveries.
It was anything but spontaneous,
yet, that's always exactly what it
seemed to be - a moment's
breakout of some bizarre anarchy
of mad men heaving papers out
of trucks, leaving them where
they landed, curbside or storefront
bundles of already-dead news.
Sports. Finance. Society. Deaths.
And all the rest of the crud that
went into a city-day. Resistance,
and opposition to things, creeping
in at every crack and fissure of the
sidewalk, right into the paper itself,
to get the inside dope on what had
occurred, and what had to be fought
over and bested, before anyone
else got it, before dawn, before the
sunlight, before the manipulators
took the floor again. In Princeton,
at that hour, you'd be able to hear
a pin drop or see food trucks
loading up the fancy restaurant
with a day's industrial vittles.
In New York City, all you'd
hear, by contrast, were the
riotous factions, in already
heady conflict, armed, and
ready to have a go.
-
Somewhere, as a people,
we've lost, both our hearts
and our souls.
-
Somewhere, as a people,
we've lost, both our hearts
and our souls.
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