RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,329
(too many things)
Sometimes I like to think I've
come a long way. But I haven't.
Not that I'm boasting, mind you
because there's little to boast of.
Like a left turn in a cabin cruiser,
I maybe have veered out of the
boat-lanes now and then, but it
was all still open waters around
me. There aren't really that many
ways to go very wrong. The only
wake-up is hitting another sea-craft,
or maybe a buoy.
-
Things I've noticed, and experienced?
I could go on, but it's boring and gets
tedious. The preponderance of sloppy
Jewish living, for instance, and for
one thing, in Lakewood NJ. When
I first got there and began noticing
it, the striking contrast between that
and the resounding beauties of high
Spring and Summer at Georgian Court
College, also in Lakewood was stunning.
One portion, the college, is laid out
perfectly, in an almost Roman Empire
manner of space, plantings and beauty,
while - right nearly around the corner -
the rest of the town's shabby presence
begin. Communal homes and apartments,
raggy yards, bare ground, worn or a
frazzle and made barren by endless
footsteps - the overweening of religious
dress, prayer shawls, hats and toppers,
cars, and a general shabbiness that hurts.
Nothing seems cared for, nor tended.
I wondered 'why is that?' For all their
weird, old iron-age religious observances
and preponderant assumptions over
modern life, they run a wreck of a place.
'Husbanding' God's world - it seems to
me - instead of just pretending about
all that High Holy Days stuff and the
forgiving of debts (yeah, right) and
repenting and remorse, they maybe
should face up to the earthly and more
real responsibilities towards the very
Earth they propound over. It's not,
after all, as if there aren't Jewish
developers and bankers and money
lenders to exceed these religious
points. Just a point, OK?
-
Another point of interest: I have
found a closeness (to the eyes)
between the words 'theoretical'
and 'theatrical'. Isn't that strange
enough? Theoretical points are
sometimes presented theatrically
(and sometimes later proved wrong),
- as in those University announcements
or the printed conclusions about varied
theories in university presses and medical
or scientific journals, as if the 'more' the
theatricality is presented the less is the
validity of the 'theory.' In the same way,
there's a weird closeness between the
ordinary use of 'discipline' and 'disciple.'
It's obvious on its face how they both
would be very close together, as the
'disciple' activates the discipline
inherent in the following of either
a someone or a some-movement. I
hardly even know why I make
mention of these items, but they
were on the plate today as I started.,
and I pay attention to that.
-
Once I got to NYC, as I've mentioned,
it was Summer '67. About a year
before that, I'd read 'Under Milkwood'
a sort of voice-play or whatever, by
Dylan Thomas. (The Welsh poet, not
the other one somehow using that
name as a new last name). Under
Milkwood was a 'voice play' made
for radio. I read it a few times, in
the more 'bucolic' realms of my
parent's home in Avenel. Not NYC.
It seemed better able, there, in
retrospect, to fit into my own tendencies,
as it mentioned things like clotheslines,
housewives, and 'country' things - even
though Avenel itself was little of that.
I found. however, that through that
little radio-play, I was able to conjure
up, or evoke anyway, the described
pastures and country lanes described.
Right there, in my backyard - the
trees, the old railroad, the old prison,
some pheasants, and a few wild fields.
All undergoing transformation at that
time, yes, but workable nonetheless.
The imagination is a powerful thing.
-
There's a whale of a difference between
'suburbia' and country. The varied ways
or pretension by which suburbanites
like to dress up their environs with all
those milk-can ornaments and country
mailboxes and such get laughable. The
same goes for 'thought'. I'd never expect
a suburbanite to live in the same thought
field by which a rural person goes about
daily business; as little as I'd expect to
see an elephant in a tiger cage. The two
do not mix. Certain basic definitions
are incorrect and the two poles do not -
by their very distances and differences -
mesh or interact. Let's just say one is
theoretical, and the other is purely
theatrical! The 'theory' of rural living
has as its practicality the ideas of both
free and loose; while any ideas of that
in suburbia run up against the usual
perfidy - laws and edicts about hedge
height, lawns, trees, decorations, parking,
vehicles, garages, and what you can and
cannot do. A country person would
simply slap you down first.
-
Oddly enough, in that respect, the old
denizens of Lakewood - with whom I
started this piece - better personify the
raw and rugged power of the personal
that do any of the committee-speak
folks of a simple, 'lawn-abiding' (ha!),
suburbanite. We are at the crossroads
here, where Theory crosses with
Theater none being the better for it.
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