RUDIMENTS pt. 1,244
(general comments on the nature of nothing)
Long about 1960, I went to 7th
grade in a new school, then - one
just erected and ugly as hell. The
fashion for school architecture
at that time - in the best George
Jetson tradition (which is, in its
essence, a foolish contradiction),
was to build schools with 'wings'
for each grade. What that meant
was a sort of satellite-spinner look,
wherein each 'grade' had its own
linear section, or 'wing' which
spread out from the central and
usually 'domed' by the gym,
section housing office, principal
and the administrative offices. It
all was a sort of spanner-reach
to modernity - or even futurism -
and I guess it prevailed for a while.
That foolish-looking school building
still stands (Iselin Jr. High School,
then), and it stands out as nothing
more than the usual in-the-style
institutional-propaganda prison
mill it always was. Except now
it's got almost a comic-relief
sense of total and abstracted
isolation, as if it stood as the
equivalent of the Statue of
Liberty at the end of 'Planet
Of the Apes.'
-
Just the other day, by the way,
I was reading (NY Review of
Books), about Rod Serling
(Twilight Zone). He wrote
the screenplay of that film
and it was his idea, and at
his insistence (against the
initial wishes of the producers,
etc.) to have that closing scene
with the Statue of Liberty.
-
At the school I mentioned, we
had a music teacher - your
basic lady-idiot teacher, but
one by degree a step dumber
than the usual - who in music
class insisted, for whatever
reason, on having us sing, class
after class, and in unison, some
horrid song that went 'Some
say the world is made for fun
and frolic...and so do I!' [I think
it maybe was from one or
another old show tunes or old
Italian songs....something or
other]. In any case, the song
was so blastedly upbeat and
stupid that I truly hated it, and
her, for trying to foist this
bastardized view of reality
upon us. To make it worse,
she would distribute music
class tambourines, triangles
and things, with which some
of us had to 'accompany' the
class as it sang (Perhaps she
was merely weeding out those
of us who had 'terrible' voices
and who would have ruined it
for everyone else). We had, of
course, to sing along too, but
hidden then each behind our
'instruments,' I guess it, along
with the true foolishness of
THAT school and that situation
- the orderly and psychotic
mechanization of time and
learning by bells, beepers,
hallways and discipline, all
amassed to make me into a
true, adolescent, misanthrope
at that point. By 8th grade I
had exiled myself to 'Seminary'
school, just to shake all that
crap from me, I thought. That
transfer, with all its later and
supposed 'religious' connotations,
(a real crock, that too), had me,
at the end of age 12, already
distended into a mad, and
tribal, crazy-man. No matter,
I was able to work it all out
in my own way, yet the dim
glimmer of its shadows yet
trail me - all these years.
-
I sometimes wonder how we
each are affected by the things
we are grown up and hosted
amidst. Did these guys who
went around designing 1960's
era schools have any inkling
into the parameters of influence
by which they influenced others?
I'm sure to them it was all just
a job, a project's inclination
towards an effectiveness that
would meet the demands of the
design-contract their company
or school district clients sought.
To me, as an outsider sucked
into their universe - quite
unwillingly but all done in a
mandatory manner - it reeked
of undue imposition, as in
'What the heck is this?' The
combined efforts of moonscape,
parking lot and pavement,
weirdly colored plastic panels,
an arching-dome effect as
centerpiece - and all the
rest of the nightmarish and
weird aspects presented -
justly bespoke a manner of
communist/centralized thinking
in some other sort of weirdly
processed Sci-Fi gibberish. I
wanted out, and immediately.
I saw absolutely no hope in
any of this; especially not in
distinguishing US from any
East-Euro Communist satellite
country, or the Soviet Union
itself. Everything else was
just bullshit. As much as they
tried to distinguish our forms
of 'Goodness' from the very
active (at that time) and hostile
manners of Communism, there
was NO difference. In addition,
these miserly schools were
manned and staffed by the most
ordinary and maladjusted men
and women - shiny-suited and
matronly-dour as they were, by
people with no smidgeon of
imagination, grace, advanced
thinking, or anything other than
'practical' consciousness. Of the
lawn-mower and edging sort.
It was all pretty pathetic.
-
From that point on I've never
known what in the hell people
were ever talking about, with
their systems and cons, their
misrepresentations and blatant
lies. Everything is out of any
proportion to spiritual and
inner reality - the reality, of
course, by which 'Reality'
itself is formed. Perhaps
people have said this kind
of stuff since time immemorial,
('Ooga, this world's just not
right, since Modou invented
new that 'wheel' of his.'), and
I'll be the first here to take up
the cudgel of leading others
out of the Hellhole that's been
created. I've always sought to
lift this world to another plane.
However, as gracefully as I can
phrase it, today's world and all
its currents and current events
and personalities, ate nothing
but faint, faint, glimmers, and
poorly reflected too, on Plato's
wall. In fact, that cave's most
probably been walled off and
sealed with concrete, by some
manner of young stripling who
knows little and cares less, but
who merely seeks profit.
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