RUDIMENTS, pt. 738
(...in a fast, silent, row)
Seems like what you want
you never get, and what you
get you never want. To me,
anyway, that's a fair and
decent appraisal of 'Life.'
It covers all those aspects,
running from disease to
money. Once you near the
finish line, all the definite
objects you were used to
begin to get hazy, losing
definition. That's when
cooler things than normal
begin to prevail. No one of
the geek-kingdom knows
what to call it or what it's
about, so they throw up
screens : Alzheimer's.
Dementia. Those are both
really lame objectifications
of a life-entry alteration that
their dumb heads can't yet
wrap around. Hello life!
Goodbye, Columbus!
-
That was an odd phrase used
a lot in the late 1960's, I think
it was. Philip Roth had written
a book, 'Goodbye, Columbus.'
In reality, it was pretty simple,
to mean Columbus, Ohio, in
the plot. It's part of a song
sung by the graduates of the
University of Ohio, (I'd
guess) about going into the
big, real, world, and leaving
humble Columbus, OH. Fine.
BUT, at the time, I never knew
that and that, conceptually, it
was some vast, over-arching
idea about Christopher Columbus
and leaving the ideas and designs
he embodied. When I finally
did read the book - it's actually
a collection of short stories
and this Columbus one is
about some college guy meeting
and trying to get on with his
Jewish girlfriend and her
family. Nothing special,
ordinary assimilation stuff.
I was a bit disappointed and
liked my metaphysical concept
much better. 'Stretching the
terms of discovery' as it were,
and voiding the sort of linear
progression (and 'possession')
that Columbus embodied. You
can't discover new 'lands' by
handling old plans. So, I did
like it better as if just saying -
Goodbye, Columbus.
-
Which leads me to Nimbus,
and Cumulus. (Tricky). I
love clouds - love to watch
them pass, bubble up into
shapes and forms, roll along
and drift by. Can't say why;
nothing I can put my finger
on. I've only flown twice in
my entire life - to and from
San Francisco, in 1976. I
can't say I remember anything
much about it, except the cool
ground speed at take-offs, but
the cliche is that you're always
supposed to be awed and humbled
by the sights of being above the
clouds and looking down on
them or flying through them;
so, going with the program,
'Yeah, I remember all that.'
If a cloud is anything at all
though, it's transience. It's a
total dynamism of 'something'
constantly underway with
change, even as you watch
it. You don't really ever see
'it' - you see its process.
-
There's a bar, always has
been as long as I can
remember it, along the
west 50's somewhere
with a pig statue out front.
627 Ninth Ave. Rudy's.
Nothing real special about
it, and even the pig thing
is just gimmicky. It's one
of those New York places
that trade on the mystique -
they want you to really think
it's special, and land-mark,
and that lots of the famous
go there, but it's all for show.
I went in there once and some
guy at the bar, who was already
pie-eyed and on his way, calls
me over just to say - 'You
know, everybody wants to
get to Heaven, but nobody
wants to die!' I figured, right
off, 'Oh boy, gonna' be one
of THOSE nights!' So I said,
'Yeah. What's the point, and
so what?' He says, 'See! That's
the trouble with the country!
I try to talk to you, and you
can't even be civil to me! How
come nobody ever wants to
listen anymore - God-damned
low-level riff-raff from anywhere
else, every time....' He was on
his way to losing it, when some
Jewish guy comes over. Young.
Wearing a yarmulke, dressed
in that sort of dark and serious
Jewish clothing, like real ones,
from Brooklyn. I look up, my
wife's over the other end of
the bar, with four more of
them, watching. She was
already a little tuned up,
and this one says he came
over to get me, to go over
with them and keep me
from this badgering guy.
I'm sitting there meantime,
confused as ever, thinking
why would 5 serious Jewish
guys be in a bar with a pig
out front, and swishing down
beers at the bar too! So, we go
over there. I'm still confused,
but I should have known. My
wife had been filling these guys'
heads up with the idea that I was
a Kaballah Master, and they'd
somehow fallen for it all. Talk
about a twist of evil in your
bar-room drink. This was
getting serious. Fact of the
matter was (sometimes a little
knowledge is a dangerous thing)
I had been studying Kaballah, and
my wife, only getting tidbits, had
expanded the entire idea into
some weird line of doubtful
ruckus, into which I was about
to descend. Or be descended into.
Thanks to her. And the tiny, little
bits of things she'd heard.
-
Mysticism is a serious and dangerous
thing, and if it isn't flowing just
right, into and through a person, it
can be quite damaging. It transforms
meanings, while at the same time it
transforms NOT, things. They all
remain the same, but their contexts
and attractions change. I have found
many astounding things in my day,
things that eventually turn into Truth.
It's nothing you can argue about.
It just is. Like time travel, and
space travel (not the earthly
astronaut kind, that's not really
space travel; it's just travel).
The thing is, when you get to
this serious level, the 'travel-size'
doesn't matter. People think,
for instance, that what they call
'aliens' have to travel all that
great distance, in these large craft,
with all their needs and supplies
and effects, huge spaceships,
dragging through space (there's
really no 'drag' - but it's just
a phrase to use). The 'Reality'
(to use a useless and terrible
word that gets nothing across,
really), that all of this can be
done at the size of a pinpoint.
Once the 'travel' ceases, everything
then comes up to size, whatever
size is needed. The actual 'travel
size' never matters. Much like a
cloud, again, changing shape along
its way to manifesting. It's different
size' never matters. Much like a
cloud, again, changing shape along
its way to manifesting. It's different
everywhere. People can't normally
thing like that. Everything is
fungible. They just don't know
it. All those people jogging
and running and struggling
with their place and size and
weight, they're so lost, and so
far from the point.
-
I think she was just being
impish. 'Tell them your favorite
kabbalistic number. Tell them
your favorite word.' Etc. Etc.
They were beginning to sweat,
I could tell. I was getting way
closer to something that was
spooking them. They began
saying, 'No, no, you can't
know that, you can't say that...'
I said '22'. I said, 'Nunn' Or
maybe it was Ninn, I forget
already. They broke, in an
almost horror, looking at me
as if all Hell was about to
break and was under my
command. It was v-e-r-y
weird. They put down their
mugs, almost as one, gathered
up their jackets and shawls
and all that, and walked out
of there in a fast, silent row,
as if I'd just killed their
favorite family member.
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