12,140. RUDIMENTS, pt. 820

RUDIMENTS, pt. 820

(is this how it went?)

Whenever I reached a place

where I felt all things were

fraying, I stopped; sensing

I was far enough along and

running towards destruction.

That's a big key, knowing

when and how to recognize

that. 'You can't undo the

moment,' was one of those

catchwords that got stuck

to my mind early on and

never left. In a very basic

sense, it's quite true  -  yet,

in other senses, things actually

can be atoned for, repented

of, etc., so that the 'moment'

actually does get undone.

But that's different too.

-

Just before an aircraft breaks

the speed of sound  -  the

'sound barrier'  -  sound waves

become visible on the wing

of the plane. Now, I don't

know if that's high physics,

basic science, or some mix

of both by conjecture, but 

what I can attest to is that, as

a young kid, at school, in 2nd

grade and beyond, I can recall

that massive momentary stun

when, all of a sudden, along

some mid-day, we'd hear this

massive smack-bang noise

in the sky. Believe me, you

had to be there  -  we'd be

told not to worry, it was yet

another test pilot (1957?), high

overhead in his F-85 fighter

jet or whatever it was, breaking

the sound barrier. It would

make a huge 'bang' in the sky,

almost physical too; something

you could feel and want to

touch. It was that vivid. (As

an adolescent, other things

later caused that same

sensation; but, I digress).

This thing about the sound

waves becoming visible on

the wings of the plane was

just another of those mysteries

of this life I never understood.

"The sudden appearance of

sound just as sound ends is an

apt instance of that great pattern

of being that reveals new and

opposite forms just as the

earlier forms reach their

peak performance." Whew!

Mechanization was never

so vividly fragmented. You

may claim to understand

that. I never did.

-

In any case, that's exactly

what I always felt like, under

the rising shaft of some great

new surge of idea or creativity.

Yes, in those terms I could

clearly understand that same

transformation. Within my

own life, as I understood new

things I ended up understanding

nothing. I felt energies rising,

and suddenly taking shape into

the forms and objects of my

strange imagining. I wrote

somewhere here, just a few

chapters back, of my response

when asked why I paint or

write as I do. My answer

was that, you may recall,

these are all places I want

to be, to visit, to live. My

energies, like those waves

of sounding rippling over jet

wings, take form and shape.

They make things; not just

sound.

-

Two quite sensible ideas rise

up from all of this: First, as

to the old 'is the glass half

full or half empty?' routine,

I eventually realized  -  and

you yourself can scheme

this out  -  that in either case

the glass is twice as large as

it needs to be; and, secondly,

to the 'what came first, the

chicken or the egg?' thing,

it seems instead that the

chicken is the egg's idea

for getting more eggs. Both

of these sound-barrier logics

break the envelope of.......

something. You fill in the

blank, OK.

-

At the Studio School, humming

around at most everything as I

was, I began to think about

what all this art and abstract 

art was. As with those naked

life-models I mentioned in

the last chapter, it never made

any sense to me to have someone

in perfect fidelity, with paint,

brush, pencil, charcoal or

whatever, recreate in art

exactly what they'd seen.

Why? Whatever for? We are

assaulted by the solidity and

the flowing change of the

physical world at each 

moment. I never thought it

 needed another recreating.

Just to prove you have a good 

eye and a steady hand? Bravo

then. But, in the same vein,

try thee a camera. Or watch

ye TV. It all bored the hell

out of me  -  any of that

perfect recreation. I needed

the rip and tear of Cezanne.

Even Van Gogh wasn't good

enough for me. And then

heck, for a while I just stepped

off the cliff and went 'abstract,' 

finding that's where it was 

all at for me, and bringing a

more-perfect satisfaction

about creating. I was sick of

the rest of all that normal crap.

People 'maturing,' and becoming

mutes, having not a say on any

matter, ending up in a home

with a pool and a scheduled

vacation, forever. Think of

Nietzsche and all that Theory

of Eternal Recurrence stuff,

and back off. Boy did I hate

to see guys grow old, with suits

and ties, losing hair, withering,

but compensating for all that

with material goods and calling

it 'Life.' It was no different

than that realistic art stuff,

to me. I called it 'Tree On a

Bridge' painting. A whole

new school of art.

-

The content of writing is

'speech.' What is the content

of speech? An actual process

of thought, which is non-verbal.

(That's from McLuhan). An

abstract way of painting, in

turn, represents the direct 

manifestation of creative

thought processes. Raw and

unfiltered, and without, yet,

a home. As if a scanner or a

computer, say, was reading

the thoughts and forming,

something. An image? A new

field? Is not THAT what Artificial
Intelligence actually is? Another 

world and place? The designs have

psychic and social consequences

which get amplified once they

are thrown into the existing

processes of the everyday 

world. We need do no more

other than produce it, and allow

it space, and walk away. 

Looking back, we may allow

ourselves then to say, 'Is this

how it went?'