RUDIMENTS, pt. 920
(sometimes I was just bored)
Philadelphia has always held me
in a better stead than NYC; the
fog of war seems slightly less
onerous there. Gentility has a
factor going for it. This is not
to say that it too is not fearsome.
Along Walnut Street, near the
downtown, 'Center City', or
whatever they call it there, one
always ran across amplified
clusters of black people - still
do - at tables and sidewalks
fearlessly screaming out their
preachments, bible stuff, and
their ideology and anti-white
messages. It always struck me
as military, war-like, and was
sometimes unsettling. The
hand-held megaphone of the
vocal 'leaders,' handing off to
each other, taking turns; the
street music, drums and things,
to go along with the preachments,
and the apparent Biblical basis
for their stance on original tribes,
Black Gods, white interlopers,
etc. It was a bit threatening, and
just by the tone of skin one was
sometimes afraid to pass through
the throng. (Now I knew how they
felt!) - all very interesting, with
turnabout being fair play. This
too was all pre-Internet stuff, so
I'm not sure how those messages
get transmitted these days, (I
understand, on the other hand,
that Trump guys use 'Magaphones'
instead of megaphones. Ha?).
-
If a person needs to date American
time from something, or somewhere,
Philadelphia would be a good enough
place as any from which to do so.
Boston, New York, and such could
lay their own claims to things, but
the torturous and sequential manner
of it is owned by Philadelphia. Well,
that's probably not true, but it's my
stance here, and the Devil take the
hindmost. 'In the air of' Philadelphia
is a smaller-scale less grimy churn
of some old sort of commerce that
involved minds, science, money,
and ideas. And strange, odd, men.
I can't really say 'ladies' for they
are, in this context, just made as
cliches, in the Betsey Ross mode.
Adjuncts with little mention, sadly.
There an old part of the city, called
'Old Town' that still houses the
entire gamut of Constitutional
Convention and early American
Republic stiff - Carpenter's Hall,
where the Articles of Confederation
were hammered out, some old Quaker
Meeting places, halls where debates
and public meetings and things rang
with contentions of the day. Franklin's
grave, old Christ Church, the Liberty
Bell and all that crud now taken over
ingloriously by the Government and
turned into hawking showplaces of
stupid geed and twisted tales of the
early days of America. Principles?
Right down the more modern drains.
Walkways where streams used to be,
the old pangs of rounded rocks, where
once the clip-clop of the horses and
their wagons was steady. No one
today knows anything about water:
and not just in Philadelphia; I mean
anywhere. The American Republic
- when you come right down to it,
was written for and about water - a
land of water, waterways, commerce
on water, canals, flat-bottomed boats
and barges, harbors, settlements
on the banks and docks of those
harbor areas. If it were to be drawn,
in the 1799-1830, it would have
been drawn with water-lines.
Everything was then connectible
by water - the booming of commerce
and canal, inland and overland
travel, hauling, and movement,
mostly adhered to water. It was
only later that the fishnet lines
of roads and paths and trails turned
to pikes and toll rolls. Everything
did, eventually, move towards all
of that - until we have what we have
now. A heave and a shove of traffic
and roads and vehicles, all a'chock
and a'flutter with noise, anxiety,
and no real movement. But behind
all that still are the documents of
another day - done lip-service to,
only, now; all of its precepts and
possibilities long ago done away
with. But we still live within the
same old, dumb, fiction.
-
Well, anyway, sometimes I get tired
of all this and just want to chuck it.
Life is a tick, without the tock. Or,
should you prefer, the tock, with
no tick. That's as useless as I
sometimes feel - always going
on about something with a form
of fruitlessness as its ending. Sterile
cuckoo, my ass! What's the use
of anything? It was, on the other
hand, very difficult to be harsh
in Philadelphia, the place was
just that nice - too nice, I'd
guess. And maybe that was one
of its historic drawbacks. You
somehow never heard a bad
story about the founders there.
No one was ever a scoundrel or
a sell-out or a rat. It was all
portrayed as the silent, communal
brooding of a group of men with
the highest of ordeals and a pure
commitment to the Enlightenment
and all those broad-browed Lockean
ideals. It was all bullshit, and
everyone knew it, even then.
Who brought these guy their food
and meals? Slaves. Who brought
these guys their teas and tobacco?
Slaves. Who took care of their
rooms and hygienes and liveries
and stables? Slaves. Just looking
now at Franklin's grave, with
all those nickels, dimes and
quarters thrown ll over it, you
know something was up back
then, something they weren't
telling you. In that town. In
that nicest, quaintest, most
narrow, Elfreth's Alley of
a place. 'Beware the forgone
conclusion!' I say.
-
Blaise Pascal had it sort of
thusly: "I have often said that
all the troubles of man come
from his not knowing how to
sit still. Mere restlessness
forces action. So passes the
whole of life. We combat
obstacles in order to get
repose, and when got, the
repose is insupportable; for
we think either of the troubles
we have, or of those that
threaten us; and even if we
felt safe on every side, ennui
would of its own accord spring
up from the depths of the
heart where it is rooted by
nature, and would fill the
mind with its venom." Well,
yeah. OK.
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