11,837. RUDIMENTS, pt 716

RUDIMENTS, pt. 716

(a literary jumble [jungle?])

Along about 17th street at

Gramercy Park, there's an

old tavern called Pete's.

It stakes its own claim as

New York's oldest, etc., and

the claims go back and forth  -

McSorley's, and others, and

the fact of the matter is it

doesn't matter one whit. There

are no 'starting points' for

anything like that and it just

all turns out being stupid, and

mostly publicity for the lame

sake of having publicity and

drawing the rubes in. The only

thing old about it is it's all an

old story, and it reads tiresomely.

Over at Pete's they lay claim

to a New York writer, William

Henry Porter, famous guy, who

made his mark as the writer with

the name O. Henry. (1862-1910).

Their claim is that he wrote many

of his stories right there, sitting

at one of their tables, with drink

in hand. Maybe so. Whatever.

His stories always revolved

around a little twist of irony at

the end  -  they never much held

my interest, but they're there.

I did, on the other hand, a lot of

study and work, at one point, with

Chaucer and 'Canterbury Tales.'

Much digging and reading into

an oftentimes maliciously

unheartening Olde English.

If that's what it was. Anyway,

an amazing cross-over happened

along the way  -  inasmuch as

one day I was working my way

through a Chaucer study, something

by William Frost, and the two

banged heads : O. Henry and

Chaucer; which was cool but

didn't matter. I don't mean,

by the way, that they conflicted

or were in some antagonistic

relationship. Rather, something

that O. Henry said, and it was

then turned towards Chaucer,

seemed a better fit, in my eyes,

for the work I myself was then

a'borning : "In recent times, O.

Henry remarked that the true

technique of narrative was to

catch your reader's interest at

the start, (when he could not

choose but hear) to subject him

to an extended barrage of your

own opinions about irrelevant

subjects before continuing with

the plot.' I always thought that

was pretty cool, and that it was,

in turn, a fairly apt summation

of a process of drawing a reader

in. Perhaps it was more difficult

back then; phrase it as easier. A

lot depended on oral stuff, being'

heard (aural too), and most

people were illiterate. It's still

like that, though people now are

illiterate in completely different

ways, and fashionable about it

too The oral/aural has won out,

rules the days, and people have

oral fixations of every sort now

too, running the gamut of restaurant

oral-dining and blabbing, to the

plain oral crud of junk-talk, like

talking to your yellow-cab tax;

guy,; I don't know anything

about Uber and Lyft. Two of

stupidest business names I've

ever seen (or heard, okay?)...

-

I always had fun with words too  -

like, it says here, 'Chaucer was born

in the early 1340's and died, according

to his tombstone (?) in 1400. His

parents were prosperous wine

merchants in southern England,

and his career and post led to a

position of high civil servant and

a marriage into the ducal household

of  John of Gaunt.' I always wished

to re-write that along the lines of

his parents being preposterous

wine merchants only when in the

south of England, and he being a

member of the household of John

of Gaunt  - which was a household

in which there was very little food.

-

One time in the seminary I noticed

a guy reading early English satirists.

It caught my eye -  I'd never known

about them before. Fielding, and

some others I can only faintly recall

Two guys names were together, like

a writing team. Maybe it'll come to

me, and I'll put it down here. (Not

Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, of

course; but the same sort of feel to

the words)*. I watched with some

fascination, and then when I myself

began reading these things, to see

what was up, they bored me stiff.

(That's kind of a too-active voice

for what I mean to say. In actuality,

'I was bored stiff' is better, since

they had little to do with it, other

than 'having written it....That's

all a curious sidebar). I guess if

you have to call anyone a satirist,

Laurence Sterne comes best to the

fore from that era. Spectacular,

almost crazy  -  for sure the first

'novel,' I'd say. It used to fascinate

me how he took all this jumbled

crap together and made it (sort of)

do something, as a read. There

are blank pages, and black pages,

in the book. It was the first time

anyone had taken words and

ideas, zany and jumbled as they

may have been, and made a

singular narrative of them, and

one headed somewhere and with

discernible, worked over, characters.

As good as it all was, it too was

tedious, but there were lessons in

that to be drawn and examined.

When I carefully first read it,

it was as if I'd walked straight

into a terrible maelstrom. It

actually (almost) angered me

with what seemed to be useless

flights of fancy in the sense

of digression and discursive

flights to nowhere except the

whims of an author intent on

confounding a reader and

being a scoundrel too. But

then I realized enough that the

time and the place of all this

is bettered and made even more

startling by considering the

years in which it was written.

It (the book) was not cohesive,

it fragmented, it was foul, some,

and  -  most certainly and once

and for all  -  it broke that

invisible barrier of linear time

and sequential delivery and the

blase tortures of form and logic

by which its own world had and

was being built. It was a rude, lousy

shout out to the glory of exclusion,

revolt, and subjectivity. None of

them being qualities of the supposed

'Age of Reason' to be sure, and

anyway, around it all the world

really was falling apart. William

Blake and Laurence Sterne could

probably have happily walked in

friendship for a whale of a trek.

-

I would bleat while reading this,

pent up in a hole in some brick

seminary tomb, a logic of reason

and thought erected completely from

another direction, but one spoken of

as never to be challenged or refuted.

Here we had : Virgin birth, angelic

Annunciations, miracles and

transformations, quips and comments

related as confusing parables and

called holy writ, men bonding -

and as  itinerant vagabonds loyal

only to each other, and war with

the powers that be, and the people

of their own ilk, voices, mobs,

secrets, superiorities, levels of

elitists intent on branding all

things their own way  -  in fact,

everything but humor, which, by

contrast, Shandy had in buckets. My

small personal prison was never

more apparent than when I was

looking out through those bars.

-

I'd walk the New York streets

and be thinking about this stuff  -

as I passed the locked gates of

Gramercy Park (only the

adjacent tenants and landowners

are allowed key and entry). It

was very strange to me  - the

wonderful area of the Stuyvesant

park grounds (even if they weren't

that 'wonderful' then  except for

litter, trash, needles and junkies-

who-dozed) trying to put myself

in place there as William Blake or

Laurence Sterne, either one would

do. Right there, along the Gramercy

face, Pete's Tavern at its corner and

all the crazy stories of people and

activity I'd keep hearing of and/or

witness  -  none of it really mattered

but if O. Henry had been in there

writing too, I'd have introduced him

to my 'guests' for sure. At Numbers

3 and 4, Albert Grossman, Bob Dylan,

and some weirded out, endrugged

frenzy bespeaking the 1960's versions

of their worst nightmares. Tristram

Shandy indeed. The shibboleth there

would be, maybe, idiocy.

-

So, what was my blot? Where was I?

I'd transformed myself by then in so

many ways all my mirrors had left

home. There were no mirrors, and

there was no home, but that fact is

inconsequential to the power of

creation, to which all other things

soon become subservient. So, there

was O. Henry. I'd just slipped back

any number of years and I went

right up to him and said : 'Still

working on 'Last Leaf,' are you?

(1907).
-
Take six months, give yourself
plenty of time, and a clear, conscious
head, and read 'The Life and Times
of Tristram Shandy' by Laurence Sterne.

*Addison and Steele; The Tattler?