12,420. RUDIMENTS, pt. 915

RUDIMENTS, pt. 915

('I figured that to find out')

One thing that fascinates me,

even if it bears no repeating

and is fairly meaningless, is 

how, upon reflection, I see that

the Civil War was fought before

the world had any inkling of the

Theory of Evolution, Darwin,

etc., none of which really 'broke'

until 1867. You make what you

will of a fact like that, but to me

it speaks importantly of the idea

of Humanity and placement.

-

A complete slaughter, of a

million boys and men, fields

covered with carnage, much of

it comprised of indeterminate

battles and ends. Was it fought

over mercantile issues? Human

issues? Slavery? Equality? 

Regionalisms? States' Rights?

Where to go with any of this  -

men fighting and killing like...

like apes! Crazed monkeys!

Barbarians clubbing each other

to death. And then just a few

years later, the theory of Evolution

if published and spread  -  and

all of the concepts we'd once 

know become of arguable

cause.

-

I just wondered what was in a

guy's head  -  in a before and after

sense. Those who survived it all,

what did they think of all that?

One hears a lot of things about

primitive, old, American life,

but nothing really addresses

how it all was in terms of violence

or the readiness to do violence

over concepts, or assumed

infractions of some code. 

Satirically, I guess, Mark Twain

played it off well in his tale

of the Grangerfords and the 

Sheperdsons. Its basis is

feud and violence, and in those

22 pages (Chapter 17 and 18)

he covers it pretty darn well. I

just wonder the prevalence of

that sort of thought. I bet old

America was a rough and ready

place, of the sort you've not

seen. And the referents to all

of that 'American' spirit stuff

we supposedly live by were

or are all of that long ago era.

They actually bear little or

no connection to what we 

live today. I first noticed that

when I moved to New York

City. I began frequenting a

lot of the locations I'd be

reading about, and I quickly

realized  -  that's all gone.

From Five Points and the 

Collect Pond, to St. John's

Woods, to Richmond Hill,

to old Minetta, and the

Potter's Field and burials

at what is now Washington

Square Park. All that's left

is trace, myth, and history.

But, infused in all of that,

with pigs running freely

through the muddied streets,

occasional hangings, set-fires,

murders and intrigues, are the
Declaration, the Constitution, 

the points, ideals and freedoms

written into 'America.' That

all died in those Jay Gould,

President Grant, post Civil

War decades of cornered

gold markets, Erie Railroad

scandals, banking and species

crises. It's all no wonder it

all went to hell.

-

How can you have a carry-over

culture that pays lip service to

old precepts but betrays them,

nay, discards them, at every

step along the way? Just alone,

philosophically, it's a tedious 

dead-end, a romp of idiot people

seeking essences  -  the thematic

matter of 'style.' The themed

restaurants and playlands that

abound. People judging cultures

and worldviews by the corporate,

poisoned, drivel they're fed at

fake Italian, fake Chinese, and

fake Spanish, restaurants  -  to

just pick three. The seats of

which get filled by ignoramuses

with no allegiance to any higher

purpose except the burp and fart

of filling up on trash and then

paying for it. For this men and

boys died, and were gored and

pierced and shredded, in rural,

bucolic fields, left in pools of 

red, running blood draining

from bloated, broken corpses

for who knows why? So Chef

Papakadouri can serve you

re-heated, frozen entries 

trucked in from corporate, 

on trucks over roadways 

where these fields used to be?

None of this can possibly

be worth it.

-

Last chapter, you may recall,

I told that Hungarian girl I wasn't

her catcher in the rye. Her reply?

Before leaving, one of the things

she had said, oddly, was: 'Until

now, no, yes, I never have any

experience of glamorous sex. I

figured that to find out. I came

out to be a sample of what it

was all about.' That about sums

up, for me, this whole stance :

a world of unending surprise,

yet one, at every turn filled

with an almost ritualistic sadness

for me  -  lost glory, lost hurts,

lost opportunities, and only a

long, lingering, 'overdue-at-the

library-return-desk' feeling in 

my soul. I never want to go.

But I do too, just as much.
Maybe I just should have
been a monkey.