12,158. RUDIMENTS, pt. 826

RUDIMENTS, pt. 826

(what's real and what's not, mogambo?)

Primitive Africans first

seeing western movies

(not 'Westerns,' I mean

rather 'movies from the

'civilized, settled, and

literate world) could not

accept various concepts

that are inherent in movie

viewing. It was cultural.

A worldview difference.

'Western' people were

already literate, at least

knowing how to read, and

use, 'sequential' process of

thinking that a 'text' gives.

Africans did not. They

were unable to carry scenes

from one to the next. A

movie assumes the viewer

will now that stuff, and

accept the illusion and fill

in the gaps. This was not

an acceptable practice to

them. When an African

saw somebody disappear

off the side of the film,

they wanted to know what

happened to that person.

A literate audience accepts

that sequence without

protest. I always thought

that was quite funny, and

it didn't take much for me

to 'grasp' or visualize the

entire scene. Which was

the point, I guess. In a

previous chapter, just recent,

about telephones, I forgot

one other thing, which I

just reminded myself of  - 

the whole notion of

'visualizing' the vapidity

of the phone call  -  the

derivation of the very

word, 'phony.' What's

that tell you? It's akin

to a real 'Unilever' moment

of the false,  the imagined,

the unseen. Much like being

in an insane asylum, we're

dealing with imaginings.

'Phony implies that  thing

so qualified has no more

substance than a conversation

with a supposed friend.'

(That, my friends, is from

the New York Evening

Telegraph, 1904. Yes!

1904!)... So, you see how

the world has been turned

over on itself a hundred

times over now, and we're

still  -  somehow  -  here;

BUT after five hundred years

of 'civilization,' and being

literate and organized, we've

brought ourselves right back

to those African tribesman

and the chimerical spirits and

ghosts, images and imaginings.

We're back to being them, and

they've spent 40 solid years

now working on being us!

Ain't no wonder the conflict

and the anguish! No wonder

they go around slicing peoples

faces and cutting off arms, hands,

and limbs. The world's a sure

and sorry place  -  while we

watch. Stuff like that I could

never touch. Mankind doesn't

advance. Mankind's an asshole.

You know the saying: 'The

higher the monkey climbs, the

more you see of its backside.'

-

I never flew a plane, doubt that

I ever will. I did have a friend

once who claimed somehow to

have been given the controls of 

some major piece of aircraft

from some proving ground out

in Northern Nevada, and he

said that he'd been given the

controls of this monstrosity

while high aloft  -  no take-off,

no landing stuff  -  just the

sheer, wild thrill of the open

flight. High aloft. all the way

down to Texas. There was a

regular pilot there, with him, and

whatever else fly-staff there'd be.

I guess. He liked to haunt these

old airplane boneyards, snoop

around, talk to people  -  a

regular sort of Area 51 ,

whatever that is out there,

with the aluminum hats and

dead extra-terrestrials. I don't

know how he swung that whole

flight deal, but I'll take his word.

(Alas, poor fellow's dead now, 

some 12 years or more). The

idea in my head is that the

visual of all that strange flight

has to have been, or would

have been for me, as striking

as any of the things those old

African cultures must have 

faced. I'd have been carting

all my old concepts around,

thinking wide-open space,

and the open borders of the

sky, when  -  really  -  it's

not that at all. It's all my own

imagined wonder. I'm my own

TV and movie act, combined.

Into the great wide-open, as

Tom Petty had it put. I'd be

all wrong, but content in that

wrongness, and I guess at 

bottom that's all this life is.

-

Another thing that came my

way as I struggled along (I

was never a catatonic type,

even though I probably 

resembled that at times,

wandering around NYC

and seemingly dazed or 

lost. But those walkabout

years were my real life and

my real education too. The

unfiltered grimace of a

real-world Willie. But I

never had the willies)....

the the thing was, I

realized, that only the

poor and the wretched,

when you come right down

to it, make interesting culture.

The kind of culture the rich

and the 'upper' class end

up valuing. I guess for

their stupid 'trade' in the

commerce of others' work.

They put a price on all that,

and make it work for them.

They've have long ago ceased

producing an interesting

culture of their own, unless

you value crap like Gloria

Vanderbilt and Hugo Bass

hi-fashion foolishness, the

cars of the rich and wealthy,

the homes and places. It's

all worn down to a sterility

that makes nothing  -  only the

poor and those way beneath

them 'produce' anything.

That sort of bugged me, and

it always made me ready to

excuse the murder and the

mayhem that usually happened

with killings, kidnapping, and

violence against the wealthy.

If they can't cover their own

useless monkey backsides, 

then they deserve what they 

get. The culture of the

organization man, and the

Organization itself, is phony.

What they DO own, however, is

irony and their self-contemptuous

arts and literature. So called.

That's the easy part; it fits

between their cocktails and

their canapes.

-

I'd guess the business of the

writer, or the filmmaker too, is

transfer the reader or viewer

from one world to another, the

one the writer or filmmaker's 

given them, or presented to

them. It happens a lot easier

for us  -  used to already, as

we are, the linear, the verbal,

etc. It's accepted subliminally

and without critical awareness.

[Let me interject here, that

it's not that way for me; I

can't abide movies and can 

never make that acceptance

leap that's needed to accept

the 'movie's' version of the

time and place, objects and

actions presented. Too much 

must be taken for granted,

and accepted, for it to make

any sense at all for me]. It's

easier for us, I was saying,

than for one of these archaic

pre-societal types I was writing

of, who still live (good for

them!) in the strange other

world of the half dark and the

pure spirit  -  without Kleenex,

Handi-Wipes, white bread and

accounting on paper too, I'd

suppose. Now that's living!

-

When you're writing a play, 

it's imperative that if you have,

let's say, 4 people on stage,

in that scene, as writer or

dramatists, you must ceaselessly

motivate or explain their being 

there at all. Try that today  -  

try that in today's world.

See what you get by way

of a viable explanation and

motivation. If you can find

anything to say what's 'real'

and what's not. Let me know

why anyone's here.