RUDIMENTS, pt. 859
(oh yeah, it was catchy)
All, or any, of that buzz
about the seminary never
really got me down. I
learned instead a practiced
nonchalance and a biting
wit that usually carried me
through. Even after the few
corporal punishments I
received, in front of the
others. Yes, it was all that
weird and medieval, or
colonial or whatever. I
fully expected them at
some point to erect stocks
and a stockade at the main
quad. It's a weird feeling,
first off to realize you're
getting whipped; second
that you're getting whipped
in front of others and used as
an example for them to see
what NOT to end up as, and
third, frankly, to realize that
you yourself have chosen to
be there and furthermore that
your parents (or in this case
mostly, your 'church' at home)
was putting up the money to
have you there. The satisfaction
I felt, let me say, was simply
'overwhelming.' And then, only
later, when I saw all the other
crap that went on, I realized
the pudding-head priest who
was doing this to me, each time,
was probably excited by it and
also probably coming in his
pants - or, as they say in the
church, 'ejaculating.' Try to
live any of that shit down,
fellow lifers, and then come
talk to me on the way out.
-
I evaded sadness and melancholy,
mostly by keeping deeply
involved in my search and
study routines, plus all that
Latin language stuff I had to
master. Latin was fairly easy, once
I got the hang of it, but the most
rigorous part of it all, in these
'Catholic' textbooks, was the
stilted language formats they
by which to impart lessons. It
wasn't very real-world at all,
and that was the hardest part.
Roman soldiers, servants,
young household 'girls,' and
the illustrations and all the
other stuff was in old Roman
times. I understood (without
getting melancholy about it,
Ha!) that it was a dead language,
so basing it in old roman Empire
times had a certain sense, but
the portrayal of that era too was
oddly, weirdly, modern. The
shown were always nicely
coiffed, neat looking, even
though the clothing and dress
they were shown in was old;
there were oxen pulling carts,
servants and slaves doing things,
like making pottery, or cooking,
people crossing the old kinds
of brick roads, in what appeared
to be Roman villages. The whole
thing was Twilight Zone-ish,
and often freaked me out, I still
have maybe three of the Latin
textbooks, and I sometimes
slowly page through them to
re-visit all this. 'Cave Canum,'
I guess? Or even 'Caveat Emptor.'
-
Melancholy and regret are the
sorts of things nicely entwined in
'Istanbul,' that book I mentioned
by Orhan Pamuk. He does it really
well, and it's much the same feelings
I've always shared - liking the
crummy old stuff, the ramshackle
and the falling ruins. Reading the
stories backwards, from the
present back to the past. Another
magnificent guy on this is
the Portuguese writer, Fernando
Pesoa, by one name. He runs
a few different names. The book
is called, 'The Book of Disquiet.'
This is some, each of these,
really magnificent and off the
beaten track stuff, well-worth
reading and dipping into. Lives
and the books themselves. No
one in normal 'school' is going
to shovel this material at you.
You have to get it on your own,
clear, and without preconceptions
or the moribund and categorical
opinions of today's world.
-
I never knew what most others
were preoccupied with, and I
never too much cared. Putting
aside that Latin course, we also
had some totally crazy, bizarre
History teacher, some priest
whose name I now totally
forget. Maybe it was 'Father
Malachy,' but I'm not sure. Again
those weird titles sure threw
me, 'Father' this, and 'Brother'
that. I sometimes couldn't
believe I'd been thrown back
in time to a place where such
titles and old medieval crap
were operative. Their professed
'religion' was no different from
that. He talked weird, had a
funny voice, carried himself
unlike anyone I'd seen before,
kind of busy, twisted and crooked
of walk, all at the same time.
Always going on, and their idea
there too, all through ancient
and Euro-History, was always
the Christian Perspective,
Charlemagne, Pepin, Holy
Roman Emperors, all those
Popes and guys bouncing off
each other, the goods and the
bads; it was all diminishing
returns as I saw it, because the
more they got it all into the
'Christian' era, their particular
pride and joy, right up into the
1800's and now, it just got
worse. Using the last century
as an example to slaughter
and un-reason and inhumanity
was beyond belief, and they
still, yet, go one about God
on our side and Christian
principles and cultural bases
bases and all that. Crazy shit,
as we pave over old and
ancient roads and canals,
and just manage to forget
about everything. This
pablum-head is probably,
somewhere, still pouting
all this crap. All this harsh
categorical stuff used to really
trip me up. I couldn't get along
with the sort of thinking that
wrapped everything into eras,
and historic segments, and
factions and all that : fighting
like mad, with no disclaimers,
over the bodies and corpses of
countless other peons making
up millions of the pathetic poor
slaving away on fields and farms
owned by Kings and Masters.
And then it was all changed over
to Lords and Jesus by the same
dim-witted forces who had
previously been secular. Once
it all got religion, it became a
different force-field and that's
where this gung-ho Father
History guy got on. Year after
year he probably said the same
incessant chatter to every class
he taught. He talked fast, almost
as a motormouth, with an oddly
high-pitched voice for someone
of his movement. Oh yeah, it
was catchy.
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