RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,292
(remnants)
One thing I never had a
problem with were the 'two
sides to every issue' idea. I
knew it was bunk. Every
issue had 15 sides, and
could be argued endlessly,
and each of those sides
could then have 15 other
sides arise. 'Face it, Chumley,
we could be here for days.'
-
Life was a developing roll-out,
and things changed and were
altered as they went along. The
Russians were good, then the
Russians were bad; the Germans
were bad, then the Germans were
good. Japanese people made junk,
and then their 'junk' was beating
anything we made to high heavens.
I used to watch the supposed high
and mighty 'intellectuals' in the
Village - they were of a different
breed back then. 1967 and just
after. There were shades of all
manner of things twirling and
tuning like the cigarette smoke
that encircled all these characters.
Thin-hipped babes, in tight black
skirts and some sort of gypsy-like
top, half open to the elements; and
each one of them, no matter their'
intellectual' content, knew they
were playing to the crowd around
them. In a certain way, everybody
was ugly. It was that period of
time, the 1940's to the end of the
1950's, when Europe's unsettled
refugees were still arriving, and
they all bore their own national
looks and characteristics, before
any of it was assimilated. Into
today's garish goulash of the
woebegone sword-carriers for
fashion and intellectual style.
Lips were still thick and cheeks
were heavy; eyes drooped. People
wore hats and men wore suits. By
1967, only the faintest remnant of
that had survived, but all those
flagrant hippie kids from Islip,
Swarthmore, and Westchester -
let along the sluggos from Jersey -
still sometimes bore that odd
first-generation look. Like Joe
Walsh, and Jorma Kaukonen,
or any of those guys in Jefferson
Airplane. Yeah they were 'here,'
but not quite yet physically
assimilated. It would probably
take another round of kids for
that. I saw the same thing in
all those hippie faces, and
occasionally I'd see one that was
quite striking; a throwback, a
martial air to an American face.
-
We all came from somewhere;
I knew that. And the backstories
of so many were not being told.
It was a shame to lose it. Philip
Roth threw out a Portnoy bone
and that worked; salvaging at
least something. And 'Goodbye
Columbus' pretty nicely pulled
together the risk and grime of
ethnic enclaves and their mixing.
Bellow, pretty much the same
thing with a fine, Chicago tone.
I loved all that stuff. In the
beginning, I thought 'Goodbye
Columbus' had something to do
with the departure of Columbus
for his blind, new-world quest. It
did but it didn't, only symbolically.
But it put Ohio on a map too.
-
Those guys are all dead now, and
it's a realm, damn shame that we
lose them - men, women, one
after the other, all those writers
and thinkers and intellects, they
just sink away into their own
dust. I hold that - yes I do -
against life, or whatever this
mess of things is. Everything
else is wasted and squandered
on piles of gross crap, junk, bad
ideas, and poisons, and it's all put
together like a jingle to entice and
kill and enslave dumb people.
All we have left are remnants.
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