13,135. SOMETIMES MAN......

SOMETIMES MAN MAKES THINGS,

SOMETIMES NOTHING AT ALL

Mordechai, was that the name? I hear

things: The deep, black sky holds a

moon tonight  -  over the graveyard

and next to lake. In fact, most 

anywhere you'd go.

-

There are no longer the sounds of

Summer in the nighttime sky: The

bugs and birds have changed indeed.

Silence pervades this darkness now;

less an image and more just an

idea to heed.

-

If we can only just let it go and leave

the natural world alone. It seems new

fingerprints now, on everything, pervade

this fulsome world. I want none of it. No.

I want none of it, and will fight to this

extent, of getting a hand off the plow,

and getting a blade off the mower.

The less that is done, the more

there's to show.

13,134. HENRY STRANGE AND BILLY FALSEHOOD

HENRY STRANGE AND BILLY FALSEHOOD

With their angle-irons poised, the two gents

were arguing at the precipice to a gigantic fault,

while the great drop below them gurgled. I saw

that others were watching, yet I could not grasp

the language they spoke. Some horrible smoke

was rising up from the littered abyss. 

-

One of them went first, as I realized I couldn't

tell them apart anyway  -  and just then they were

drowned out, momentarily, by the township street

sweeper, driven by Henry Sparks, a local guy from

down my street.

-

I waved my hand to Henry, who stopped. 'What

gives, and what do you know?' I asked him.

'Confetti,' he replied, 'It's all just confetti and 

noise. A guy down the road stabbed a lady in

neck, and another Tweedle-Dum jumped off

the Driscoll Bridge.' Henry seems always to

know most everything.

-

He's a real gem like that; but those other two

guys, still arguing, had now taken down the

streetlamps and were ripping up the pavement.

'Uh-oh,' said Henry, 'Here it goes again. It
always seems to start as nothing but ends
up a complete and total mess. I've got so
much to do, and my hands are full; I hope

this machine keeps running.'
-
What did he care, really, I thought, these

township guys have it made. If the sweeper
broke town, the town garage would fix it,

in a day or two  -  or just give him another
heap to drive. Six men around metal, like

bees at a hive. 
-
Back at the top, Billy Strange and Henry
Falsehood were still railing at each other.

13,133. I'D WANT TO CALL YOU BACK

 I'D WANT TO CALL YOU BACK

1. Solace: The world is a big wide

place. I walk around  here eating a

piece of cheese. I get lonesome

somehow, sideways, losing friends

and forgetting enemies. I'd want to

call you back, but there's no phone.

-

2. There's a portrait of someone here.

Alicia Calabrese; nicey done, and

in  a fine, wood, frame. Someone

had left it behind the couch, and I

saw it when I moved the chair. No,

nothing else about this can I say.

-

3. Doom rests the soul, in the same

manner that ice cools a drink? I think

that's what I read. Some old peculiar

saying from a hundred years ago, which

gets me thinking : What did they know

about ice, back then, and how'd they 

mean the reference? Cubes?

13,132. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,070

 RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,070

(no escapees here)

Going back is, often enough,

futile. Yet, through feelings

and emotions, it's often enough

attempted. After all, what else

is the greeting card industry, or

even old calendars? I have lots

of a past to horde, though it

doesn't really travel well. I can

remember walking around the

seminary grounds, as a newly

arrived 'kid' (we all were), and

wondering how little was behind

me and how much was ahead:

but the obstacles were already

showing. I could sense, immediately,

that there were 'favorites' among

the people there  -  and of course

I wondered why. 'Boyhood' is a

curious time, especially in the 

12-13 year-old age bracket. We

were corralled and ruled there

by 'men.' Authority figures loomed.

That in itself was difficult, but

the small groups of the connected

were already apparent and I wished

to know how that had happened.

There were walks through the

sandy woods; a long, outdoor

circle, a path really, with stations

of the cross interspersed every

30 or 40 feet. Apparently these

grounds were to be meditatively

walked while reflecting and reciting

the rosary. That was too weird for

me, some small-town nowhere

kid who'd never been exposed to

that before. Maybe the favorite

kids did this? I sure didn't, and in

point of fact.I thought it was a waste

of time and a misdirected way of

viewing the pastoral walkways

and grounds around us. This 'God'

deemed it fit only to keep us

preoccupied with His thoughts,

while yet amidst His nature, which 

we were only to give a sidelong 

glance? What sort of racket was 

that? Everything already seemed

like a gimmick to me.

-

In later years I used to think about

those days. The streets of NYC were

certainly of a different cloth than

any of that  -  bold, audacious, lewd

and dangerous too. What sort of

'bucolic' was that? The God remained

silent, though all of my questions and

plaints were sent out. I remained in

some sort of isolation  -  which suited

me  -  mentally if not physically,

yet the unanswered too was all

around me. I'd never, perhaps,

realized how many different sorts

of people there were. Characters

of different designations: All along

the westside docks, in 1967 still

vibrant and busy, mostly Irish

chieftains and thug types ruled:

Hell's Kitchen skullduggery.

The extremes were undeniable:

A mere few years before, I had

seminary compatriots, Irish sorts

like Peter Flaherty, who were

filled with the piety and the

pre-innocence (naivete) of

Irish sentimental religion (see

James Joyce, 'Portrait of the

Artist As a Young Man'), and

now in NYC those same sorts

had become vile operatives,

often thieves and head-bashers,

ruling fiercely and with an iron,

neighborhood, hand. Rites of

Passage, indeed. Heck, Stations

Of the Cross, indeed! I soon

realized I didn't need THAT

path to follow. I had my own.

-

The Greenwich Village girls were

mostly Italian. Natives to there,

I mean. The influxes going on,

of, first, gays and beats, and later

hippies, caused a steady consternation

among those Village locals, Italian,

and Irish too, who would occasionally

set off to clash with such newcomers.

Bats and axe handles, and sometimes

more, were held by Sullivan Street

Boys, to somehow stop the newer

encroachment. Losing MacDougal

and Bleecker Street to a succession

of sandal and candle shops was one

thing, but stopping it before it bled

to Sullivan Street was another. The

old line butchers and shoe guys and

small grocers they were all under

assault by the new influx, and the

locals meant business. Numerous

times there street brawls and ambushes

in which newcomers were bloodied.

One had to be on guard or, for sure,

have already made the right alliances.

-

Funny how a 'dalliance' is not always

an 'alliance.' I guess.

-

This was all before the real proliferation

of  'malls' in other areas of the metro area.

Their prevalence later became obvious,

but at the same time Bleecker and

MacDougal had in their ways become

forms of outdoor malls. Perhaps it was

something about seeking out the different

and the unpredictable, but hordes of

people walking, strolling, trying on

hats and peasant blouses, and all the

rest, acted as a forerunner, on those

two streets, of much of the outdoor

entertainment that many locales now

thrive on in their central plazas and

towns centers. It was, perhaps, too

genteel, really, and too inquisitive

to be of any value, but it became 

the glimmer or glimpse that many

outside suburbanites, slumming

through the Village streets, based

their ideas of 'bohemia' and urban

living, upon. For better or worse,

it all took hold.

-

Twenty or thirty blocks uptown,

however, along that same westside,

the Italian slowly changed to Irish,

and one would be hard-pressed to

undertake that same sort of leisurely

strolling along. One was more apt to

find trouble, than a trinket. It was a

more harsh and heavy, dockside and

infested, crime scene, basically. 

Hoodlums and thieves and wolfhounds

on the run haunted those tenements 

and local streets  - grog-houses and 

chilleries. (Yes, I made up 'chilleries,'

meaning a low-down dagger of a

bar or tavern where one went to

'chill' while hoping no one caught up

to you for the crime just committed).

It was all of a type, and a legendary

one to boot. No escapees from this

colony.

13,131. RIOT

RIOT

I have no memory and it is all 

a riot of time. My head shakes

to think of things I've done:

streetwalking with broken

bottles in a velvet hand. We 

maim but but we must not

mar. Take these things home.

-

The plants of Autumn, left, 

are finishing their work before

they crumple; dried and brown

and soon forgotten. Yet another

season will have them back with

us. So soon the passage, so soon

the return.

-

I think that sounds religious though

it isn't meant to be. This Life has

its own scruples : Past doctrine and

past category. Ice of Winter, snows

of January? Until April tries to

salvage something? Us?

-

How else could it be, this little effort

headed for its downward slope? In

so many ways, the words evoke:

Silence and regimentation; Blind

Lemon Jefferson and Robert Johnson

too : A heap of ash, in the container

of a distant yesteryear.

13,130. THE KENNEL HELD A HORSE...

THE KENNEL HELD A HORSE, 

AND THE CORRAL HELD A DOG

And nothing made any sense and

what was up was down, and the

full bottles were empty as the

empties were full. 'Welcome to

America, the New,' the clotted

sign read. I had to look twice to

be sure I'd seen something once.

What was this place, I wondered...

and what had become of my home?

13,129. THE LONE MAN IN HIS STUPID BOAT

THE LONE MAN IN 

HIS STUPID BOAT

Well, whatever; that's what it looked 

like anyway. Placing a human category 

like 'stupid' onto a boat is stupid in itself,

but I've always been one to go amiss. Is 

that a hole in the water then, or just a 

displacement depression made by the

craft? And why do I have to wonder

about all these things? Why can't I 

just live? 

-

As it is, I guess he's willing to sit.

Sitting on the water is sort of an

interesting concept, but is it on

or in, really? I don't know. The

fine flotation collar of life allows

us many things. Like water to wine.

See what it brings...

13,128. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,069

 RUDIMENTS, pt. 1.069

(momentary dispensation)

No sooner had I written about

the 'oneness' necessary for a

precise and satisfying dedication

to task, that I ran into this quote

in complete opposition to my 

own conclusion ; "In proportion

as a body is more capable than

others of doing many things at

once or being acted on in many

ways at once, so its mind is

more capable than others of

perceiving many things at

once."

-

Well, there was a slap in

the face, or at least a kick

to the head, one unified and

well delivered. I began to

think about what it takes to

be stunned; or how one

is supposed to react to a 

'thought reversal.' I found

out there weren't too many

alternatives to any of it: 

Just absorb the hit, and

revise, or incorporate it

into, that theory which 

you are theorizing.

-

And, in fact, so little of it

mattered, in the end. There

were a lot of people I knew,

in NYC and later in PA.,

whose lives were in place:

some with more going on

than others yes, but all in

their way determined to 

be dedicated to some sort

of ongoing task; whether

it was the lowliest task -

say, 'Bernadette' at Swift's

Lounge, or some highly

positioned psychologist up

along Park Avenue, with all
that pomp and sobriety. Their

works and efforts rang true.

That being said, I realized,

as well, that they themselves

realized very little of it and

it was more of a philosophical

formulation than anything else.

And, really, what greater rot

could there be?

-

I never had anything against

'philosophy' per se  -  in fact

I always thought it was pretty 

cool  -  but at base it too was

personal, a universe of one.

I found what people insisted

on calling 'philosophy' in the

colloquial sense was not that

at all. It carried more the

burden of defining a social

situation  in the same way that

20th century religion had done.

It became nothing more than a

well-padded and specious vest

for the average person to wear.

I still held, and hold, by the

belief that 'One' is really all

that matters. The pinnacle
of Selfhood must come first.

-

I think that life becomes, by

its end, a constant running of

old memories  -  things caught

between personal disposal and

psychic echoing. I never have

found if it's done TO a person,

by some illogic of a neural

pathway within, or BY a

person; a person caught at

the end with the running-out of

a lifetime of strange experiences

which still linger, to talk in some

strange half-shadow until the old

light runs out. We call it: Dementia?

But isn't everything that anyway?

Why is it that we value, and

applaud a life only when it's

seen as 'good,' when really all

it is is applauding a life because

it knows where the spoons are

kept and in what order the

tools and implements of living

are done; the account-books

kept correctly, the dollars and

cents achieved and intact, while
in all other acts and aspects the
individual in question is but a
complete and roving idiot.To me

that's all inconsequential drivel.

Creativity and Art live somewhere

just on the other side of all that,

and it's a real struggle to keep

straight, especially in such an

unjustifiably haggard world as

this.

-

I have spoken to old men, and

women; those whose eyes seep,

who speak at me with a white

dribble coming forth  -  way past

any sense of age or responsibility.

Art-characters, whom I always

loved. At Chumley' a 92-year old

half-near-famous 1920's and '30's

poet, Ann Adams, would come

down to see me  - through the

intercession of my friend Bobbie

Beddia, who worked there. She

would sit, bedraggled, tired, and

somewhat forlorn, and go on  -

about a flickering past still in her 

inner eyes, rolling back into her

fading life. WWI, as a nurse, her

prized photographs, her books and

editions, stories of another half-life

so long before. Those were moments

of wonder to me, in the 1990's, and

then, soon enough, she was gone.

Like a draft of dust, out an open

window. Leaving me nothing but,

again, my own tragic memories

of all that had passed.

-

Each and all of those old folks

had returned themselves, aware

or not, to the walking memory

banks of their own days : In no

other way but truly, and solitary,

and lone, and within a wonderful

Oneness of selfhood, fleeing, and

fleeting too. I never knew where I

stood, but I was determined NOT

to get distracted as I moved along.

That still goes, but it's getting late,
and the light is dimming.

13,127. INDICATIONS OF IMMORTALITY?

INDICATIONS OF IMMORTALITY?

I know he didn't write that, Wordsworth,

but he could have. 'Intimations?' Who even

knows these days what that means.

-

Natuck Peabody is shoveling coal. It's

back-breaking work but he goes ahead

with it. Time is what he has to work with:

-

He looks up towards the sky, wondering

yet about his father's work: Who had done

the same thing for near 40 years. Maybe,

in the end, it's all the same. Matter and

form: Ideas living long, while only

Men pass away.

13,126. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,068

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,068

('if only we let it')

I'm no longer running in place.

I guess I'm getting somewhere.

Else? How's that again? Else?

I have found, over time and as

I've aged, a key to something:

To be successful, any effort

must be single-minded and

done strongly. That may seem

an easy task, but it's not. Today's

world  -  well, I guess any day's

world : even medievalists were

probably distracted by marbles

or coin  -  offers too many

notable distractions and currents,

same as did the years 1340 or 1430.

-

Hard to fathom, all that. But a

one-minded devotion to matters 

at hand makes all the difference.

I've noticed that, without such, a

cobbler isn't much of a shoemaker,

nor a horse-trainer much of a

horse-trainer. And that's just to

name two random activities. For

the quest or Art or Writing, it

gets even weirder because all of

those 'outside' activities, whatever

they may be, are in essence the

raw material and the fodder for

Creativity and all it brings forth.

I used to be out walking all those

NYCity streets, picking up found

objects, any material useful for

inclusion, and mostly that was my

single-minded devotion - pursuing

the steps of Art. I had one or two

others, yes : Avoiding the maurauding

draft-board agents: avoiding those

hippie crowd-scenes and revels; and

just generally keeping clean of the

debris that sought-out sluggos such

as me. It never was easy.

-

What did any of that teach me?

To stay on task, as it's often called;

but nowadays you never much hear

that. Once-sound advice, now seen

as trite  -  as a phone or an Internet

keep people multi-tasked and busy

at all times with hydra-headed calls

for attention and detail, and they

never think twice, while thinking

they are thinking about thinking.

The ideal world revolved around

the concept of One. Still today, If

a person can hone the skill of doing 

'one' thing at a time, with attention

to detail and crevice, design and

operation, so much more can

come; so much more of that

'wonder,' and the nice surprises 

of 'living,' can be found. They 

come right to the surface as 

the mind is finally focused. Not

just that either  -  every facet of

light, sound, awareness, and the

visual take their rightful place,

and Life becomes Awe.

-

If only we let it.

-

Recently, in one of those 

moments of going through a 

hundred old things for moving 

and re-packaging (a meditative

and singular task in itself), I

came across an old 'child's toy'

from, probably, about 1958 or

1960. It was an early version,

in heavier metal, and real rubber

tires, of what later became known,

I guess, as a 'slot'car  -  a sort of

racing track for small cars that

was a momentary fad of sorts

in the later 1970's. Small cars,

by then micro-relayed and

transistorized or whatever any

of that is called, which clung

to the track layout upon which

they were spun  -  at high rates

of movement, and with some

great banks and curves in the

track design. Most or all of it,

by then, was plastic of one sort

or another. Anyway, this old

version of same almost took my

breath away  -  as I carefully

inspected it. Deep, strong, red

paint, an underbody that was

heavy and hellish, with the

the slot-guide in place, looking

like a shark fin, perhaps. It had

some real heft, a tiny little clear

windshield, not plasticene in any

way. Breathtaking and timeless,

it seemed to me  -  as if that ONE.

deep moment of inspection and

observation had, for me, stopped

all other clocks and movements. 

Deep within it, I peered to see the

tightly wound, coiled brass-colored

wire of the, I guess, electric-motor

generating system. Even if it was,

back then, machine-made and spun,

this small piece of evidence was

like looking at an archaeological 

find which spoke back to me from 

some other place and era, one I'd 

sought or stumbled upon, indeed. 

And I finally for once, I had so little 

to say back  -  except of the wonder and
the satisfaction, with my momentary

oneness   -  of what I'd found and

noticed. l sought, and I listened so.

-
All life ought to be like that:
if only we'd let it.

13,125. LIKE MY CASTAWAY EYES

 LIKE MY CASTAWAY EYES

By Tuesday I'm already dreary;

cinders drip like sweat from eyelids.

The cape-master at the local playhouse

finds he has nothing to do: He does

a crossword puzzle from the domain

of Zero. Three-letter word for pest?

Could be imp. Eleven letters for an

'Aquatic animal out in the cold?'

It can only be weatherseal? But

even he doesn't get it at all.

13,124. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1, 067

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,067
(ex post chango!)

Normally a person doesn't go

around declaiming what a mess 

they are, but in this episode I'm

undertaking a class-action suit

against myself to prove it so. I

think I've lost (some) control,

become un-keeled; whatever

that would exactly mean. If the

entire realm of creation is at all

times underway with some form

of flux  -  beyond the recognition

patterns of our ordinary existence,

then what's the use of anything

and who should care, and why

isn't everything then just some

other sick form of instant-nostalgia?

You can read all the books in China

and the USA and still come away

dumb as a camel's bump. I knew

a girl once, back in the ABATE

office, who would often enough

come downstairs to show me her

latest tattoo, or piercing. As tenants

upstairs to my office, her and her

over-the-road boyfriend, truck-

driving boyfriend, when home,

were very noisy lovers. I heard it

all. And, then when he was away,

I most often got to see it all, as

far as tattoos and, ahem, certain

and varied 'piercings.' Awkward

indeed, but I always kept it to the

'look but don't touch' variety of

unspoken code. Poor girl could

have been a real, free, handful,

but I declined myself each time.

Wondering all the same what her

threshold of reality was and how

and if she was ever in the idea of

the 'constancy' of cosmic change

based upon the ay the universe

was based and functioning

around her. Obviously, she was

not, because everything was the

same. But then I used to think how

much show was missing out on

this life by expecting the 'same.

After all, how many tattoos or

piercings does one need to make

the point being made? Change

is the only constancy, as most

tattoos will tell you in thirty

year's time anyway. Piercings?

I don't know, but I do know

that 'sensitive' lady parts bear

the brunt of that intrusion.

-

Another interesting point to

make, for me to make, want to

state, bring up, etc. (Someone 

told me I'm 'still in mourning 

and yet grieving' for my dig; 

thus the peculiar irrationality. 

I disagree, will not digress).

Those words are awfully close

to each other, no? How is

anyone to know these things 

anyway?...Going back to

John Updike, he once likened

reconstructions of John Kennedy's

assassination to the 'indeterminacy

of subatomic particles.' Pretty

cool  -  each reconstruction bears

the differences of any previous

'reconarution,' which may have

changed or altered the facts or

the overall viewpoint of the

worldview of that assassination  -

a curious one done on the run,

in movement in fact! - which 

assassinatin, before long, and

with all of these so many pilings

on of conjecture and 'supposeds,'

no longer has any 'Reality' at all

and is different from any fixed

telling at any time. 'Calling Mr.

Zapruder!'

-

Much like Claudia's fine body

piercings  -  which were put into

place as fixed determinants but

which, over time, move and sag

stretch the fabric of the skin

into which they are 'set'  -   they

eventually appear very different,

again, in some 40 years: though,

alas, the Claudia here in question

is no longer among the living either.

Thus, my canine AND my human

referents too here are altered and

beyond comprehension within the

changed annals of Time. Where

do I go? Where do I go?

-

An artist named Antony Gormley

once created a series of sculptures

exploring how form takes shape

through randomness, Now there's a

concept, but don't think it too hard,

someone will soon come by and

try to put a 'program' onto that

'randomness' and ruin all the

human joy it may have.

-

In 1928, a British astronomer,

Arthur Eddington, argued that

the indeterminacy of the quantum

universe opened the way for the

reintroduction of the spiritual into

the world, initiating a line of

thinking that associates the

paradoxes of the quantum world

with the mysteries of religion.

Just go ahead, look at the deep

night sky; I dare you. You then

tell me. AND, some years later,

an American physicist named

Arthur H. Compton (something

about that name Arthur?), argued

that the quantum world pointed

to the existence of God; and in

the funky 1970's a group that

called itself the 'Fundamental

Fysiks Group related quantum

mechanics to New Age Eastern

mysticism. Here's sort of where

it all gets too much for me: a 

complete Unity of One being

surely the flip-side of any stupid

American E Pluribus Unum, 

which was paradoxical enough, 

and especially to those feeble 

Rationalists, who kept tripping

over their odd categories at

Carpenters Hall, Philadelphia.

-

Oh hell then, NOTHING works

because NOTHING is all there is:

In the sixth century B.C., there

was Pythagoras claiming, with

his disciples, that everything in

the world could be described by

whole numbers (?) and their

ratios, and more than two

millennia later, Descartes made

a powerful case for a perfectly

rational and mathematically

knowable universe. BUT, each

time, the rigorous schemes fell

victim to the forces of change

and disorder: The Pythagoreans

had their 'quantum moment' 

when they suddenly discovered 

irrational numbers, which proved 

the hopelessness of their quest;

and Descartes followers were

likewise sideswiped by Newton's

discovery of universal gravity.

-

An unruly world, keeping its

deepest mysteries to itself?

All I know is my dog is dead.

Claudia too is dead. And, for

this moment, I am yet alive;

rehearsing my own c'est la vie?

13,123. WELLSPRING

WELLSPRING

Nature in a hat like nothing

ever before: The boys playing

marbles on the dirt-dusty floor;

the cat and the animals running.

-

Here's the light the prism makes:

Watch it flow along the sky.

13,122. NARROWING SOME OPTIONS

 NARROWING SOME OPTIONS

It still goes on. The shape and the

shingle; a housing not worth a swamp.

Three or four chickens running loose

in the yard don't prove a thing to me.

It' just a trailer camp, and a big TV.

13,121. WITH SOME DELIGHT

 WITH SOME DELIGHT

With some delight the old burdens will

be carried; nothing much, not a lot nor

a little. The heave-too of a shoulder

carries much. Here is where the hard

parts beckon : All which came before,

and that which looms ahead. In the center

I stand, calling the present the present;

even now, as it fades away.

13,120. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,066

13,120. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1166

('Quantum?' Lead me thus forward?)

I so often tried. Let me repeat that,

ok? I so often tried making sense

of ordinary things  -  but I was never

able to. Everything seemed moving

and in some flux I could never get.

Using a peculiar and recent example,

the death of my late, beloved dog, it

confirmed for me all I had been

thinking of, and exposed to, all those

years. I would focus on the dog, and

see at the same time that the focus

was on 'Life' itself, which the dog

provided me : the ample view, the

wide and friendly opening ajar to

other realms and stations. Yet, all

the while and at the same time, I

knew that time was fleeting and

the presence of the dog personified

that to me. I sensed 'Time' running

out; constantly. For the dog, it runs

out much quicker than it does for

we mortal bi-peds. Another of

Life's grevious errors.

-

Way back, in September 1927,

the physical world changed. Until

then we lived in a homogeneous,

continuous, Newtonian world in

which all objects moved seamlessly

from the past into the future, governed

by universal mathematical laws. But in

that fateful year, everything changed.
By it, the world today, as we know

it, is different and has varied paths.

Objects now follow different rules

depending on their size, and we can

never be sure where they are or what

they are doing. In fact, we can't say

'what' they are because that depends

on how we observe them. Our Reality

then became one of 'Unpredictable'

gaps, inconsistently warped and

bubbled'  -  to use the words of John

Updike. We still struggle to find

our way in this unfamiliar, but 

mostly glossed over, world. Fact is,

and using my own life experience

as an example, most people  -  and

that's a big 'most' -  don't have a

grasp of the indelible characteristics

of the world about them, the main

one of which is the impermanence

and unreality of any physical

representation of it. People will

react in a hundred ways, formulating

their responses and concluded

assumptions of it, all the while IT

itself is not existent, nor even

'present.' (Hey! Huh? What did 

he just say?')...

-

The 'harmony' of the Newtonian

universe began to fray in 1900,

when Max Planck discovered that

to correctly describe 'black box'

radiation, he had to make a radical

and unwarranted assumption: that

light radiation was not continuous

but came, rather, in 'discrete,' and

and irreducible packets of a fixed

size, or 'quantum.'

-

It was a fraught sensation. Down

on the streets of NYC, deep in the

bowels of the Village, was a place

called The Northern Dispensary.

Way back when, it served the needy

and the infirm  -  freely. It had been

a walk-in, open-source, clinic on

the old early-city and post-colonial

streets. Edgar Allen Poe had famously

been treated there for his pleurisy

or ague, or, more probably, his more

prevalent tuberculin-alcoholic haze.

In my first NYC days, August's start,

1967, I spent a few nights sleeping

there, outside, along the walls of old

brick. I do forget if there, then, was

a piece of grass to sit on, or not, but

whatever is still there today is of

concrete and now rather un-welcomingly

fenced. It's a curiously-situated, triangular

lot, between other streets, and with

the words, carved in stone, above, the

old doorway, reading 'Heal The Sick.'

I doubt that you could do any of that

now without being beheaded.

-

One of the issues there was exactly 

that 'quantum' thing. I was stuck in 

a flat world, trying to live within it, 

yet it was, all around me, and constantly

underway with change and transformation.

Leaving me, where? My own flux was

in play, and I had lost my 'Newton.'

Continuous quantum? The world and

all its time and presence was running

through me like water through an 

animal, and at all times. Where could

I grab? Where would I situate myself?

These 'mysterious energy packets,' the

scientists had since been finding, instead

of fading away, remained active and

showed up in myriads of other places.

(I am tickled now when 'politicians'

do their obescience to what they do not

know, by saying 'I follow the Science.'

If they truly did that they'd be strangely

lost within 'existential' crises which

far surpassed their diseased minds;

minds pathetic enough to stoop to using

their own  children and families as

props). 

-

Einstein had a phenomenon that he

labeled 'Brownian Motion.' Some years

later, Neils Bohr came up with a model

of the atom in which 'electrons moved

between specified 'orbits' when they

absorbed or emitted energy quanta. 

That new interloper was here to stay.

Reality had become fluid; a movement, 

not a thing. (What this, in its long

essence, means to you and me is that

nothing exists; all is on its way to

'having been,' which is a weird concept

indeed, in that all we can ever do is

build a past?). For Newtonian physics,

much worse was yet to come. From

1925 to 1927, quantum mechanics

moved from challenging the contents

of classical physics to undermining

its deepest foundations. Werner

Heisenberg proposed his 'uncertainty'

principle  -  which posited that the

location and momentum of particles

could not be both known with any

certainty at the same time. (How can

you be in two places at once when

you're really nowhere at all?)...While,

almost simultaneously  -  weird word

to use in this context, yes  -  Erwin

Schrodinger proposed his 'psi function',

which describes the probability that

a particle will be found in a given

location in terms of a wave, which,

in turn, then led Bohr to formulate

his complementarity principle. 'An

object can be a wave or a particle

depending on how it is measured.'

The location and momentum of an 

object, and even whether it is a

wave or a particle, was no longer

a free-standing fact of nature. It

depended on the act of observation.

-

So thus we witness Life; we interact

while it passes, and while we ourselves

create its content within that passing. 

('Schrodinger's Cat' is a long-standing

 and somewhat paradoxical notion of

a 'cat' in a box, which can be both

dead, or alive, as is. Sort of depending

on the viewer). What does one make

of a world where particles and

evidences move seemingly as they

please; where a particle can also be

a wave; where measurement can

affect location, momentum, and

even 'what' it is? How does that

change how we see the world?

This was and is a puzzling factor to

be grasped; by any/most humans,

who seem to simply avoid it and

go on instead with their parking

lots, large stores, home goods,

joys and entertainments. All at

the expense of the rather more

'real' and resonant reality we

each walk amidst. Like things

most often, we 'change' them

without really 'changing' a thing.

It's all but motion. 

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(end of Part One)...