RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,127
(it's only gotten a lot worse)
As in so many other things,
I was often of two worlds,
even though I'd go around
saying you couldn't be in
two; choice and selection
was a necessary part of
experience. One had to
'choose' one way or the
other. As it turned out that
was all just semantic or
scholastic rigamarole; like
preaching to the choir and
only with what you already
knew they wanted to hear.
A person, in reality, had
no bounds, nor any limits.
Anyone could be whatever
they damned well pleased
to be, and if it meant any
overlapping or conflicting
moments, so be it. Purity
was not gold; nor could it
be assayed as such. It's at
this point too that rigidity
becomes a factor - all
that old-school stuff about
never changing minds, that
the factualities of the old
ways and old world were
the best and only. By that
token we'd still be walking
the desert fields looking for
last night's manna.
-
Think of everything you've
ever known - and be ready to
heave it all in the trash when
the new days come. Or try to
un-think it, if that's in any way
possible. Before the word and
movement now called 'deconstruct'
and deconstructionism, for the
programmatic types among us,
I used to watch buildings being
torn down. It was happening at
all times, somewhere, as the NYC
path to its own version of the
new and the modern tore through
the old platforms of space and
location. As much as I would
have liked to try, there was no
stopping it, in the same way as
now - still with no stop to it.
Plans and deals and horizons
for these sorts of large projects
often run 7, even 10, years
ahead of the doing of the
project itself, and no matter
what sort of hearings and
testimonies one gets, the plans
are implemented. There are
more ways around obstacles
than you could think of in a
week, power and money
being fine bed-mates, and
stablemates. Which is probably
more where they belong, (the
stable). But as I watched, seeing
everything coming down, only
to be replaced, I thought a lot
about the process, that same
process, in thought and mental
terms and I figured we too, each
individual, should at all times
also be ready to break down
and deconstruct-to-reformulate
their own lives and ideas. Even
though it's near impossible to do?
Yes, that too. Just consider those
two military veterans in my
art-studio, from the previous
chapter. How difficult it must
have been - and it must have -
to shake all that sort of rigorous
and methodical thinking from
the core of their re-trained beings.
They both most definitely needed
some demolition, metal demolition,
and their gaping mouths in front
of those portraits, I'd say, was
evidence that they were each at
about that point of realization.
Rather than be stuck, I hope they '
both worked out of it. (Mike soon
disappeared; stopped returning.
And Brian, last I had it, had
moved out to Taos, New Mexico,
still on some art-search from
inside. Georgia O'Keefe, maybe?
Someone? Anyone?
-
Nancy? Ah Nancy. She got a job
at an advertising agency way down
in the financial district. As their
corporate librarian. I thought that
was weird, but ad agencies, the
big once, and this was, they keep
reference libraries going, and hire
librarians too, for referral and
research. For the weirdest things.
Say, for instance, (she told me this
one day, over lunch; as I unknowingly
was getting a $75 traffic ticket, which
becomes another story I'll be getting
to, just as odd and just as true), the
new client is a soap company, or
even Proctor & Gamble (they too
probably keep their own corporate
library facilities). Well, in order to both
KNOW the product, and strategize
an approach for the ad campaign or
new slogan, new jingle, new product
or new approach, there needs to be,
first, a thorough search of the history
of the product(s), that industry, a
line-item backstory for previous ad
campaigns and approaches, what the
competition has done, etc., etc. And
I mean everything, even down to
old spokespersons and the rest. This
also needs to cover liabilities, in case
of error or flop, and the entire social
climates, of each advertising era for
that or those products. She told me
that's what she did (1974 anyway);
entire profiles and dossiers had to be
compiled and presented at meetings
and proposal-sessions. She said it
kept her so busy she actually little
thought of Brian, even in Arizona,
which actually interested her but
not enough for a follow-up or new
profile.
-
Sometimes, watching all that urban
destruction, I felt like a vagrant. All
I'd ever known, even as it was all new
enough to me, was getting destroyed.
What covered the basis of a crappy
NYC for me was (I've mentioned this
before too) how the past there, the
many, many layers of it, was still alive
for me and was as real or more real,
probably, than was any of the foul
present-day's refusal to face the
Truth of being, other than for the
pursuit of lucre. It was a cruel and
unsound thing to see. My corridors
of History were getting lessened
constantly, narrowing, or trying to,
my own entry points and perspective.
There was nothing I could do except
to keep my realization of all this alive.
Poe, Whitman, all the writers and
artists, and drunks and creative
reprobates that ever had passed their
time there, I had to know each of their
places, best I could, and keep it all
live. It became my power-line, for
re-charge and for new energy. It was
a moment when everything was
coming down; and it's only gotten
a lot worse.
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