RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,221
('never good at nothing')
When I was youngster, in
our new house along Inman
Avenue, I can remember.
while looking out from the
upstairs front window, which
was my sister's room, seeing
what I swore was a spaceship
that had landed on the rooftop
of a neighbor's house about 8
houses down the street, on the
opposite side. They had a pole
in front of their house with a
red, fire-call box. It always
had a blue light on, on it. My
momentary panic subsided
when, after some of my own
due deliberation, I realized it
was an illusion of depth and
foreshortening (always an
artist). What I was seeing was
the heavy light fixture atop
a telephone pole closer to us
that seemingly posed atop that
(Clifford family) house. The
perspective and the peculiar
angle of vision looked really
convincing. At least I'd gone
and convinced myself. These
sorts of illusionary ticks have
always played a large part in
my visuals.
-
I was never a good liar, at all;
and as for truth-telling, I've tried
always to adhere to that - which
oddly enough is like a anti-trend
when writing. The 'writer' has
the opportunity to ramble all
over and with any 'fact' he or
she claims. The onus of the
writing then becomes whether
or not the writer in question
has been able to convincingly
pull off the truth. It's always
moving, the truth is, and the
good writer has to get it to
stop. Wrestling words to the
ground. The lesser the writer
is, as I see it, the more and
more characters and scenes
are brought in. It becomes
confusing and obfuscating,
and the idea of the writer
doing it is because that
writer has to make up for
a flaw, and the way it's
done is to confound. Have
you not ever read on of those
fiction writers who run allover
with names and places, so
crowded as to be, after 30
pages, just plain confusing
and a jumble of 'too much'
for a reader to keep straight.
That's all the lie of the truth
trying to be squared away. All
those 'modern' breakthrough
writers, with actually very
little to say, are guilty of it.
Too much 'stuff' jammed in
between two flimsy covers.
A good writer is more like a
jeweler, and good, solid writing
is like a jewel itself; or a gem,
or one of those geode things
that, within themselves, once
broken open, show startling
'other' embedded layers of
color and depth and fragmented
brilliance all splattered and
pushed around. But sparingly,
done with finesse and a sort
of grand earthen-science
befitting the cosmos. It leaves
one speechless, as if looking
into the deep, dark, night sky.
The other stuff? It just leaves
you sputtering, or mad, or
confused. When you're in the
high Alps, you want to breath
Alpine air, not the dire miasma
of the fens.
-
All in all, what gets you in the
end is fidelity : a fidelity to
one's own self; for if that's not
there, and there's no 'work'
involved within your character
then there is nothing really. (I
do mean 'work.' Not the crap
that passes for employment in
the rabid society - people trying
to pump others up so as to get
them to buy 'product,' trade
money for garbage, and buy
into some stupid dream of
quality and tact. That part of
this world got screwed up a
long time ago. Truly, when
did you last see 'quality,' or
someone authentically pushing
it? What's the attempt called
these days? Artisanal craft-fair
manufacture? Pasta grown
with organic process? It's
all made up hype trying to
plug a false feature.
-
Work is about seeking 'Quality.'
Quality is the only thing that
gives goodness to a life.
Employment is not work;
that's a job. If the end goal
of a life is to achieve a form
of philosophical 'Happiness,'
than 'Quality' needs to be a
large part of that. This world
has been drained of quality,
and the results of that can be
seen everywhere.
-
This may be all lies that I
made up, but it's my variant
of truth as well. The experiences
of a lifetime are on a constant
arc of expectation formed by
the development of one's
consciousness working through
matter. Back when I lived in
Columbia Crossroads, PA, I
drove a schoolbus for a while,
maybe a year and a half, for
something pitiable like 9 bucks
a day. The current word then (the
prevailing 'Truth') was that I or
anyone was NOT to go to this
guy Jennings' property to pick
up his kids (three or four kids,
varied ages, like 14 or so down
to 6). He was a wild man, maybe
40 years old, with some acreage
and a small house atop a hill. It
had a large tree out front, around
which was a circular drive/turn.
Something like a cul de sac, but
it wasn't. Rather it was a trail for
tires, through trees, with a rough
turnaround at the top. Jennings
and his wife didn't really want
their kids in school. They were
renegade Appalachian types.
I was told to pick the kids up,
if any were there, down on the
roadway, without waiting for
them, without beeping, or any
of that. Somedays one or two
of the kids were there, very
infrequently all of them. Word
was, if I drove up to the house
he's shoot at the bus. I was NOT
under any circumstances to let
him ever step INTO the bus....
etc. A real load of chicken-shit
scaredy-cat crap. Needless to say,
I eventually disregarded that 'truth'
and replaced it with my own. Truth
or Lie. He never shot. He came out,
hemming and hawing about 'how
the fuck you gonna' get this bus
out of here? You'll never make this
turnout.' I made it. Over time, and
repeated encounters, I became
friendly with the kids and, better
yet, with Jennings and his crazy
wife. We visited each other, the
ladies got on fine, traded recipes,
cooked and drank together. We
made deals, traded objects, even
swapped a beat-up, dented '61
Plymouth I had for a pistol and
a bunch of ammunition. At our
house, meager as it was, they
reveled at the washer/dryer, the
new stove, etc. It was pretty funny.
Our 'Hillbilly Acres' probably
looked like Paradise against their
deeper version of 'Hillbilly Acres,'
which included kids without
schooling, running stream water
at the rear door, a crazy-twist
road up to the shack, etc. The fact
was, up against the accepted form
of 'Truth' that had for all this time
manufactured tales and stories of
the wild Jennings place, the real
truth turned out to be that it had
all been accepted lies. It was the
current version, then, of social
bullshit. I'd made friends. That
there was my Happiness. Now I
simply needed to work on Quality.
I was getting better at something!
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