11,742. RUDIMENTS, pt. 678

RUDIMENTS, pt. 678

(I often felt a fool, but never a victim)

What was ever the difference

between a bluff and a lie? I

wondered. Sometimes a tactic

is a bluff, and sometimes

the rest is just a lie. It gets

all mixed up. Learning to

maybe distinguish the

differences becomes pretty

important. I always favored

the tactic of the bluff.

-

The word 'grotesque' means

having the qualities of a cave

dweller. It as always funny

to me how the same people

who took such glamorous

pride in the unveiling of

Mankind's origins would

then take exception to

something they found

'grotesque.' I never was

able to figure that out. And,

as I was growing up, I found

certain car designs and other

things to be grotesque, and I

could never, in turn, place

them in any particular right

location. Heck, I find lots of

things grotesque. One time my

friend and I were on an Open

House New York tour day, and

we opted for the Grand Temple

of the Masonics, somewhere

like 19th street maybe; I forget.

I'd say that was grotesque. Lots

of gilt and gold, ritual rooms,

meeting spaces, and even one

or two grand auditorium-type

sitting rooms  - the thing about

it was all the ritual therein that

was prescribed, for being done

in one peculiar, ritualistic, fashion.

All those levels and Grand Exalteds

and stuff. It was crazy. And anyone

who got near to asking a question

about any 'secret' stuff or procedures,

and hidden things, was quickly

steered elsewhere with bland,

flat answers debunking any of that

secret-society and ritual matter; 

answers pooh-pooing the entire order.

I never knew what to believe; the

bluff or the lie. I was never one for

falling for all that; I just thought it

was stupid and wasteful to have a

building like that, for an organization

like that too, squandering all such

money on false-front hidden riches.
Why so? Why fo they do that? I feel
anything that requires secret codes
and levels and handshakes of only
initiated 'elite' is a bunch of bunk. 
My friend there, on the other hand,

bought the entire story-line, lock,

stock, and barrel, thinking it was

the coolest place in the world.

-

Saul Bellow has a book, of essays

I think it is, called 'It All Adds Up.'

That title always got to me, and I

often thought that maybe his editor

or publisher had shortened the title

on him, from 'It All Adds Up To

Nothing.' That always seemed more

apt to me, because I felt that, and

still do, if any if this erstwhile

adventure adds up to anything, it's

nothing we'll ever know about

until later when we're out along

there riding on the Afterlife

Express. Or, maybe, based on

Nietzsche's theory, of eternal

recurrence, (initial caps there,

when used as Theory) his

thoughts came closer to

saying that  -  within the closed

components of our universe  - 

there were only a finite number

of ways any of these things

could recombine, and thus we're

damned or condemned to living

over the same lives, endlessly.

That was one scary piece of

info to know about! Yet, even

if it was wrong, even if I'd gotten

it all wrong, it was a good shaker

for my own foundations about

the Real, and where Faith and

Reality (must) collide. Because

the two can never go together.

- 

We never operate from a closed

book, and Nietzsche's theory 

makes a closed book necessary. 

It is, in fact, a quite sterile, and 

a closed, theory of what might 

occur : Nothing. 'Now in 

darkness world stops turning; 

ashes where  the bodies burning.

Day of judgment, God is calling

...Satan laughing spreads his 

wings.' That's how Ozzie has it. 

War pigs, crawling on their bellies, 

begging for mercy, but getting 

none. The former masters of war 

are ushered into their eternal 

torment. 'I'd hate to be them

on that fateful day...'

-

I've often felt a fool, but never a

victim. Anything I did, I did myself,

or to myself, and every little move I

made was made with forethought

and an end in sight. Conceptually

anyway, that was my perfection.

That was the means by which I was

able to find appreciation of and in

every little thing I saw. In those

early days of design-neon, for

instance, I could walk Chinatown 

just to take in the bustling array

of really bad uses of neon signage

I'd see. It made life worth the

living  -  all through, walking

the Bowery, from e4th on down to

Canal and then Chinatown, it was

that mass-produced pandemonium

again of 'God, out on the street,'

as James Joyce had it. That all

worked for me  -  the performance

of time and being. No bluff there

however  -  all tactic.