12,220. RUDIMENTS, pt. 846

RUDIMENTS, pt. 846

(just another brief corridor)

Everywhere was a vestige 

of somewhere else. It took

me a long time to figure that

out. Nothing exists alone. All

the things I was seeing each

had something attached to 

them  -  by way of a history 

or an explanation, and I was

in the midst of it all. None of

it was anything I could explain

to anyone because they were

all in their own, same, situation.

I suppose, at one reach, it's a

solipsism to the 'nth degree,

but that's not it really. The 

way it came to me was that 

we formed physical matter,

and not the other way around.

All things are always forming,

buzzing around, idea and ethos

in the air together and certain

people can catch that air, and

read the moment. Everyone's

different, but it's not for nothing

that things happen in clutches.

It's that 'moment' of introduction

into our reality. It's no coincidence

that about 3 guys all invented

the telephone and about the 

same time; or illumination, 

electric light, and all that  - 

even autocars. It's a grouped

energy field, and certain people

grab it. I do it myself, but with

words. For any of those inventor

guys, it just came down to who

got there the fastest  -  the race for

the patent office, the most-clear 

result, the best-explained 

experiments. Tesla, Bell, Fulton,

Edison, Whitney, all those

things  -  cotton mills, steam

boats, canals, and the rest. 

-

Once all this began its filtering

into me, I knew I was ready to 

hum. My world was unfolding

right around me; taking shape,

and I was just the gatekeeper.

- 

Uptown, at like 110th street, the

Riverside Church had this grand

bell tower. I don't know the deal

now, with security and terror and

all that crap, but it used to be

that anyone could just walk up

there  -  internal stairway, up the

tower, gridwork, internals. All

along the way up you'd see more

and more of the gridwork for the

bells  -  huge, crazy, gigantic

steel supports, arc'd glider steel,

for the bells to swing on, and these

monstrous bells, various-sized.

I went up there lots of times,

and took others too. (I always

wished to take my father up there;

he would have loved it  -  but it

never worked out, and then he

was dead). It was dark and shady,

yes, but there were lookouts and

vistas, and places for light to come

in. Neither was it really 'ancient'

looking at all  -  nothing like those

Gothic or Rococo or brutally

grandiose cathedrals of Europe.

I'd climb, basking in all that,

and at the appointed times the

bells would begin. A person

could just stand there, maybe 

60 feet off, and watch the

mechanism, hear the sounds.

It was almost as if you could

also watch the sounds and hear

the mechanism, for that was how

vivid the entirety of it was. Peals

and clangs, the strain of the metal,

the resonating, echoing, double

sounds. I really loved it and could

never figure out why there weren't 

crowds; but having this to myself

was awesome too.

-

I used to stand there and wonder

about it all  -  whoever first came

up with this density of rotating

bells and clangers, let along the

timers and amplification and

mechanics  -  how and even why

did it all occur? Reverence for

something unseen. Or just, like

so many of these other things,

an unseen hand, the unseen push,

the forced anxiety that brought

all this forth. 'The object is the

thought materialized'? Well, 

maybe, though that's a hard 

stone to just wildly throw. 'The

entity is the basic self, immortal

and non-physical'? Getting

closer. Some things arise in

another realm and occur there, 

where there are  rules covering

it  -  like resurrection or rebirth  -

and because that's all outside

of the rules of this reality, they

originate there, tun into the

realized thought here, and

emerge into History as an idea,
never actually 'happening' here.

An occurrence; something that 

didn't really happen, but did 

too. All of that human duality

within one overlapping life  -  

it all just spins around. Face 

it, no one knows how this 

'bell' thing got started, ever, 

anywhere, even in the most

feudal times, village centers 

and central squares  -  born

and borne as Faith, Belief,

and Morality. Life's just too

weird, really, and complacency

kills.

-

So, all I ended up doing is

inconsequential human things.

I've listed lots of this before,

but it all involved translating

what I saw into something

useful. Because much of what

was around me, I realized soon 

enough, was useless. Everything

had other meanings. All things,

to the uninitiate, were hidden.

It was like a secret cabal, of

hidden languages and what are

called 'shibboleths.' (Why they're

called that I never know). My

jazz-loft friends had their own

reality, and it all made perfect

sense to them, while to me, I

had to read it very hard. the

art-people I spent my time with

at the Studio School, they all

had a real good grasp of the 

previous, of all that went before,

about Art, and could talk their

way out of a flaming fire with 

it. They had a different feel than

I did  -  I'd probably, by contrast,

get badly burned. A lot of things

I knew about were gone. I knew

their locations, and spaces, and

places, and what replaced them.

And I built off of that  -  the

Cedar Bar, the old Stewart's

Department Store, Pfaff's, 

the Whitneys and Vanderbilts.
The Northern Dispensary.

Hundreds of other things too. 

It all still existed, somewhere,

and I was fresh and able to

tap into it, and bring it back  -

some pervading echoes 

anyway, things and hunches 

that made sense to me but

weren't really there. St. Paul,

we're told, said something

like 'I am in the world, but 

not of it.' I could walk down

the 1967 street and say 'I am

on this street, but not of it,'

in much the same way. My 

portals and passages were

making weird lefts and rights,

all around me. Everything was

happening on another realm.

-

People sometimes say to me 

now, 'what are you about? 

Why do you look the way 

you look? Why are you 

doing all this?' I don't really

have a reply  -  as if I cared  -

but to me it's all testifying.

I'm manifesting, and testifying

by that, for where I really life,

and for the things I really believe.

This is just kind of my journal.

One day it hits me one way, and

another day it hits me a different

way, gives me different things to 

say, walks me through and down

and into, yet another brief corridor. 

'I go, though the way be wild,'
was the way, I think, Linus
used to put it. Charlie Brown
never caught on.