RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,196
(rational, scheming, enticer?) - elmira pt.2
It's been a long time now,
since I've been living, and
there are certain things I still
can't do. Properly undertake
'business,' for one thing. I can
make change in my head, flip
numbers and do all that quick
calculation stuff, as fast as I
can talk, but I still have trouble
making a dime off of others. It's
always just been something past
my reach; and I've known any
number of others who would
be able to make a profit from
successfully selling horse manure
as automobile polish. They have
no qualms about misrepresenting,
or spinning tall-tales in the name
of profit (which they'd then defend
as a concept like some military
crooner on Iwo Jima grabbing a
flagpole). But, no matter, because
over time the way this world works
things is that the natural tendencies
inherent within each person do take
over, and come to the fore. The ship
gets steered, so to speak. The less
one fights all those tendencies, the
more harmonic the individual
in balance becomes, which leads
to satisfaction, well-being, and a
longer life, or at least one not
chewed up and tattered apart by
any of the usual psychologically
crippling side-shows we see in
politics or entertainment, mass
murderers, sex-change adulterers
or other societal monsters. (Of
which, I admit, I hold myself
part of). I'm not claiming any
innate superiority here; and if
I could it would be vacuous at
best. Creative types can make
the worst bedfellows. Or friends.
-
Once I was in Elmira, it all
became, quickly enough, Mark
Twain centered for me. The town
played on him some, yes, but not
overtly, as they do now. After the
Agnes flood era, the Army Corp.
of Engineers, of course, came in
and their own peculiar claims of
legitimacy, re-did pretty much the
entire 'downtown,' river-facing
flood-plain area. To no one's
betterment but their own self-
aggrandizement. It took probably
two full years. There were endless
and constant overnights of flood-lit
riversides with dredging machines
and 6 or more pile-drivers, slamming
metal against metal and stone, at all
hours, so as to rebuilt and reposition
the three bridges that crossed over
the Chemung River; re-routing cars,
cutting off the already-poor southside
for well on a year. It got so I was
sick of the noise. It was pretty sad
and gruesome, and arguments could
have been made, I guess, for either
side, though I was already installed
as chief critic against the Army Corps
and all their 'urban' betterment bullshit.
No one could buck them, they got their
way, and whatever they 'stated' - as
erroneous or not as it may have been,
they claimed as truth. Backed by the
same bullshit government, of course,
that was 'winding down' with Nixon,
the untold carnage of the same sort
of 'engineering work' that had 'saved'
Vietnam? It seemed everywhere I
looked, all my lessons from the past
few years were to be seen gently
falling into place; if I could only
read them; as if a voice were saying
'Heed everything; let nothing pass
you by without notice.'
-
Eventually, all that re-sorting of
Elmira was completed. Walnut
Street got its new bridge; Jane
Roberts had moved out and to
higher ground outside of town,
and even my Elmira College
German Lit. teacher had moved
higher up. Woodland, or Upland
Street. On the other end of town,
my Geology teacher, who had been
in a nice, comfortable though small
house, just outside the gates of the
Woodlawn Cemetery where all the
Clemens and Langdon family people
were interred, left the old city entirely,
re-locating family, etc., to Austin,
Texas. Just then an up-and-coming
new city on the precipice of its own
Texas hipness.
-
The two once-biggest families in
Elmira, and hundred years before,
perhaps, had been the Langdon
and the Arnot families. There were
any assortment of things named
Arnot or Langdon around. Pathetic
things - the once-amazing homesite
of the Langdon family, once right
in the center of town, next to Thomas
Beecher's huge church and lecture
hall (cousin or brother to Henry Ward
Beecher, and to Harriet Beecher Stowe
too). That old home was torn down and
had been replaced by a horrid strip
mall, set at an angle to the very center
of town, and stupidly re-named as
Langdon Plaza, A small plaque denoted
what it all once had been; now home
to pizza, shoes, groceries, and a few
other things like hairdresser or dress
shop. The great noise that mighty
things make, I saw, turned out to be
nothing but a whimper. And in a
simple year, people forget all about
it. You could probably take every
lesson I learned in Elmira and pack
them up for moving, yes - but it
would take 5 moving vans, believe
you me.
-
If much of Elmira was about Mark
Twain to me, just as much probably
wasn't. Stupid to say, that, but it's
probably my Libran tendency to
balance and equalize things at work.
Fatuous, again, maybe. When I
got there, understand, I knew
nothing about him except the
usual crapola school and kid
stuff by which they try to foist
some joyous Americana crap
onto the stories that otherwise
bear no real relation to any of
that, In fact, probably the
opposite. As perplexing and
sometimes downright dumb as
Clemens (Twain) gets, he is, at
heart, an undercurrent of the
subversive - an early-style
subversive - weaving his way
through the usual fabric of the
1883 version of where and how
America finally did go wrong.
Gilded Age riches, industrialism,
railroads, mining and chemistry,
organized education, kids taken
from homes, daily, and regimented
into indoctrination-schools; the
entire fabric of village and hamlet
America transformed. No one will
ever tell you about this, or 'learn'
it to you, because they can't. It's
not at all a part of the American
doctrinaire, crazy-headed and
beef-broth'd version of itself.
The absolute schizoid personality
of America is living proof of the
grand gulf that is present. Even
the two-parts of Huck Finn on
either side of, say, Chapter 16,
shows the living cut between, what
I'll here call 'Huckism' and the
otherwise disgusting other version
of same presented by Tom Sawyer;
that fool, rational, scheming,
manipulative enticer of and
abuser of, others. You can say
whatever you'd wish to about
any of this, and I wouldn't care.
Because I've already said mine,
and I've lived in that Twain air.
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