13,444. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,147

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,147

(inklings)

I never had an  idea of what 

that may have been  -  a name

for baby octopus? I was dizzy

and amazed at the same time,

mostly by everything. People

came and people went. The

fervor of NYC was different

than most anything. My own

predilections, whatever they

may have been, were always

in turmoil - historical turmoil.

I'd go to places where grand, old

items of history had happened,

and find only remnants, or the

ghosts and 'inklings' of the past,

but nothing real. Like most any

other place, New York City was

dishonest about itself. As dishonest

as any other small town or suburb

would be about itself. The supposed

historic societies, the recreated

period-rooms, the cutlery and

place settings, fabrics, damask

and silk, the shoe-irons and the

dressing gowns, urns, pitchers,

utensils, and old tools. Each

proudly shown with their stories

of that which once once, supposedly

was. No smells or odors. No stains or

leaks, no blood and death. It was

all  made nice and settled  peaceably

and presentable as a harmony of the

whole. The regularity of farmfield

and homestead, of course, had been

all but obliterated in all of these

places by the forward progress of

the march of time's destructive 

earnings, but that was all ignored. 

New York City was no different  -  

in fact its own leading-edge of 

denial presented a reality that 

never was.

-

I'd always guessed that, in isolation,

anything was quaint, or could be

made so. It was easy to romanticize 

a false past by looking at it in some

misrepresented version of false

concentration  -  like looking at an 

evil strain of bacteria under a

microscope and saying how 

beautiful the squiggles look, as

they squirm and swarm about. At

least they have movement. The

presented versions of a false, frozen, 

past have that not! Manufactured 

as a past, they can do nothing.

It was interesting, in this vein,

to visit Trinity Church and Chapel,

a few blocks apart from each other,

and to see, amidst the perfect and

neat interior, the Presidential pew in

which George and Martha Washington,

it was said, made their weekly trek

on white horseback to worship in the

reserved, 'Presidential' pew. At that

time, very early on in the American

Republic, he and she lived in a house

offered to them on Cherry Street. The

'Presidential Residence,' as it were.

It all seemed so orderly and preserved.

Things never mentioned were   -  that

house is now long gone, as is most of

Cherry Street, all having become the

embankment, supports, and pilings

now for the Brooklyn Bridge; no 

respect given, if you please. Just as

there is NEVER any respect given

to things while they exist, but only

after they and their times are gone

do the purloined stories and tales

made pleasurable take over. In

the words of Voltaire: "History is

lies agreed upon."

-

It used to irk me how or why George

Washington, as a for instance, would take

a seat in one of the proudest and most

powerful New York City institutions,

and a bastion of the very-powerful

Anglican Church of Britain, after so

decidedly having just spent 8 years of

toil and warfare destroying them and

extricating them from the new lands.

That was but one item never addressed,

and it always remained curious to me.

'By the Autumn of 1784, the issues

were shifting from retribution to 

reconstruction. Most especially, the

popular party sought to reform the

old elite's institutions. Trinity Church,

the immensely wealthy Anglican

congregation in New York City, came

under attack. So did the city's chamber

of commerce and King's College, later

re-named Columbia.... I'm sorry but

outside of any of the manufactured

historical fictions erected everywhere,

and in this case NYC, I didn't especially

figure to be seeing George and Martha

graciously taking their place in the pew.

Of course, however, once the false

narrative is in place, it then all fits,

or has already been made to fit

-

Pleasing narratives and calendar-photo-

like perfect portrayals of a bucolic and

reverent past are fine, I suppose, as

far as parlor-living and sentimental

claptrap goes, but where real life and

all of its incidentals intrudes, it ought

be stopped or at least warned against.

The tourist hordes who come to see

Mrs. Higginbotham's tea-serving sets

should first be read a disclaimer, of

the sort the old movies and stories used

to have: 'This is a work of fiction; any

similarity to names, persons, or places,

is purely coincidental.