13,262. SCRAMBLED AT THE OASIS

SCRAMBLED AT THE OASIS 

I think we live under light -

not the kind above us but the

kind within. Keeping thus a 

tendency to mix things up, we

scramble our oases : painting

fences to look like barriers

when they should be guides;

though no one really knows 

the way out.

-

I can talk like this, only because

my guard is gone and I've let

down my inhibitions toward

speaking my truth. I am as

fanciful now as the darting ram,

a'jump and running across the 

distant field.

-

Let me leave you with this one

morsel, a tidbit of something to

chew on : We can never be our

possibilities without us first

overcoming our liabilities.

13,261. I CAN'T GO

I CAN'T GO

There's a town near here called

Autumn Leaves. Never been there,

but it's always Fall I'm told. The

few streets there are are four feet

deep in colored leaves; they swoosh

and crinkle as people walk. It's a very

noisy place. If it's called Autumn

Leaves, I guess that actually means 

Autumn never leaves!

13,260. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,098

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,098

(an hour, not just a moment)

There are nights when I still

get the most detailed dreams

of New York City streets which

no longer exist  -  the old and

the bedraggled corners with the

worn granite facings and broken

down signs, the short-cuts and

alleys between places, the truck

ramps and the overheads, lanes

and turns, out-of-the-way corner

cuts and rumpled, ancient storefronts.

I knew all that by heart, and it

somehow  -  though long gone 

now  - still exists through a

corridor of dream, still peopled

with forms and faces of living

people. 'The names have been

changed to protect the innocent,'

as they used to put it. 

-

I awake in two worlds. Ten minutes

of a pure befuddlement, lost between

the glare of a mirror of no time, and

the 'reality' of right now. I think to

myself, 'Should I put my today-feet

forward and step back into it, or  -

and a part of me wishes for this  -  

should I just stay here so as to find

that great stride backward, and

remain lost in my soup of 'then?''

Somehow, I always get up and 

re-enter this plane of being : the

smell of coffee, the need to pee.

I guess other realms have other

needs and other prompts yet

unknown to me.

-

If I could suddenly appear at the

breakfront of time, for my re-entry,

I'd fit right into the niche made

custom for me  -  as if I was born

and bred to wear that more-miserable

suit of cloth comprising 250 years

ago and its evidences : horse lanes,

smithy shops, the bangings and fires

of hammer-to-metal, wrapped with

aromas and words, crowd scenes

and refuse heaps, piles of ash and

the run-off of tanneries and blight.

One simple footfall before the

other would bring me through the

progress lanes of heat and fire,

horse-stalls and blankets, amidst

the grease and fittings of wagon

wheels, primitive bearings and

springs, dusty travel and freight,

and then, yes, the strange, frightful,

coming of rails and railyards.

-

I can only wonder what my words

would sound like. I certainly would

be unable to retain today's phraseology

or curt manners of reference and name.

Descriptions and explanations would

need to be slower, darker, plodding

and dense. Any sense of immediacy

or 'communication' would have to 

wait, and all things would take their

own time. Slowly, and again, that

next layer of 'change' would be

underway around me  -  rail sheds,

storage yards, piles of trains and

engines, fires for steam and burning.

Wreckages. Overflow. Down

to the harbor, and up from the

harbor  -  that sense would have

it precedence. What didn't run down

would drain away  -  right back to

those very riverfronts I mention.

The cares and concerns would be

different. A population of the

un-sensed, the vivid and real, those

for whom 'Reality' was an hour,

not just a moment.

-

Not just the outside either  -  the

interiors are spot-on perfect, and

seem somehow updated too with

today's sorts of things inside  -  

plastic, light switches, faucets,

but the interior, running, scenes

get eerie  -  with the dead involved

in them, old issues and scenes, and

the raggedy involvements of  old

ideas and once-stereotypical

attitudes and occurrences. On

the whole, broadly, the scenes 

are evocative of entanglements

and mash-up more than anything

else. So strange. So alien.

Yet, so warming too.

13,259. ONLY MAYHEM

ONLY MAYHEM

That unsheathed dagger that

you carry will make little

difference in the end. Last

moments are last moments; 

the same, for all. I'd rather

visit the grave of an ancient

king. Guidebooks may wail,

I continue to sail.

-

Only mayhem carries me 

forward : I am the man with

the gun; the thug with the club;

the marauder stalking the alley.

13,258. THE SORROW AND THE PITY?

THE SORROW AND THE PITY? 

I am Ahab's whale? Hell no, I'm

Ahab himself. I skim with the mad,

I dive deep the salty waters. Infused

with my dire venom, the evil sea

retreats. Before I start, I'm done.

-

Listen to me clearly: the sound you

here are the fish of the sea. The deep

diving mad ones, the crazy ones, see.

-

I might even be Queequeg in your

better dreams : drumming up the

deck-chairs with a stomp; making

secret of the public things. All

my tattooed hide, a message

to be read. Even the calamitous

ocean wants to know me; yet

I forestall that fish from that

great encumbrance.

13,257. ONE TOO MANY DETAILS

ONE TOO MANY DETAILS 

I guess I know what a shirt-size

is; those Christmasy things returned.

Growing up as I did, nothing was ever

right. 'It's too big, but I bought it big.

He'll grow into it.' Like a coffin.

-

These are shadow memories now,

all this matter that's fallen between

crevices. No one ever asked me,

'How confused are you?' Rather,

they just went on, as if I understood.

Meatballs and spaghetti on a

two o'clock Sunday table.

13,256. RUDMENTS, pt. 1,097

 RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,097

(tripping another world)

To take everything in all at

once is just too much. After

all, a scan with the eyes

always leaves out as much

as it takes it  -  one must study

and delve, first, the view or

the scene. Maybe, I used to

think, a 'dream' while sleeping

is not a psychic rehash of

what has already occurred, 

but somehow a glimpse to the

raw material of a future. No

way of knowing...but the

thoughts were flowing.

-

The lofts and workshops of

NYC were enchanting as much

as they were bedeviled. The

prognosis generally was 'head

down, stay at your task,' which

was an OK idea for the 1940's

perhaps, but which had lost any

real relevance by the later 1960's.

Batman TV had taken over. Pow!

Wham! Bash! It had become hard

to see clearly. At every corner

was some sort of scourge : drugs

rampant; loud, raw, lifestyles,

music blaring; the youth movement

was setting in, like an iron-fisted

presence demanding its due. There

was division everywhere : burly

construction guys wielding anger

and some form of 'leave it alone'

conservatism which rapped head to

head against the layers of the loud

and the riotous then marching in

the streets. It's hard to get across

now, how  -  at least in NYC  - the

Vietnam War was a cataclysm;

a breaking issue on which everyone

fell to one side or the other. From 

Joe Pyne to Dick Cavett, to Bill

Buckley, the lines were drawn 

and the TV talk-shows always

driveled on as if people's minds

were still malleable. But they 

weren't. They were closed, and as

solidly shut, one way or the other,

as Fort Knox.

-

I always tried to give everyone

their due, but the majority of folks

were tendentiously whacked out  -

ideas and opinions found wanting.

It was pretty much hopeless. My

Studio School people seemed one

step off that mark  -  except for the

Mike guy from Montclair, who

painted only that, the Vietnam issue

seemed totally off the table. Which

was actually OK because who in

their right mind would want to mix

that in? The idea of Art, and the

Studio School itself, as that moment,

was to provide an enclave, a refuge,

dedicated to the more intense

proposition of Art and its history:

Like a machinist's loft anywhere

along the west side, except that

the mechanics therein were of

Art. Head down. Stay at task.

Other than a few people, there

was, as far as I knew, no social life

or affiliated activities, going on - 

Jim Tomberg notwithstanding;

but that was good. I liked Jim.

-

Alcohol was new to me, about as

new as bars, clubs, organized 'Art'

and any of the rest of the NYC scene

I was thrown into. Charles Cantore,

an at one-remove rich guy I mingled

with, exemplified every NYC virtue

I had never been exposed to at all.

He was at least a decade and a half,

or two, older than I was; tall; swanky;

wealthy. This 'art' thing was something

he was doing to encompass his time.

He ate seriously too  -  massive heaps

of fanciful food, he'd bring with him.

(He's the guy who threw me the

sandwich I've written about before,

and then, after I'd eagerly consumed

it, commented that he'd 'Never seen

anyone eat a sandwich as quickly as

that.'). Little know ideas of hunger

and need evidently did not reach to the

higher confines of the upper east-side.

We were sitting in my little half basement

level kitchen-type area, my free apartment

for being there, in the basement of the

Studio School as the 'night-watchman,' of

sorts. I had a table there, seating maybe 5

or 6, and often people would gather  - 

there was also a cast-off record player,

on which all sorts of different music 

was played  -  jazz to classical to the

then-latest Bob Dylan. (John Wesley

Harding, mostly). We all wanted out,

it seemed, and, that year, whenever it

was, wanted 'Country' throwback

rural realism, a la the Band and the

whole rest of the 'back-to-the-land'

hippie movement. This music was the

closest we got. 'Sweetheart of the

Rodeo,' and the Flying Burrito

Brothers, maybe bookended with

'Music from Big Pink.' Charles would

have little of that. He was way into

 'high jazz' - which I mostly found to

be unlistenable or boring and erratic,

or he liked classical   -  he seemed to

detest what we were beginning, by

these musics, to represent. Someone

once foolishly said that he thought

that  Gaugin would have loved

the Velvets ('Warhol's 'The Velvet

Underground'). That was one step

too far for old Charles, who blanched

and began extolling the colors of

Scriabin  -  some theory of his that

Scriabin had written his symphonic

music to represent and exemplify

colors. (Which I did kind of later

find out was true, or close enough).

-

That basement area I've mentioned

had once been the servants' or the

Kitchen-quarters for the household

staff, back when those three buildings

had been separate brownstone, vertical,

mansions  -  to the Whitneys, and the

Vanderbilts, and all that crap, before

three of them were unified into one,

at the behest of Gertrude Vanderbilt

Whitney, about maybe 1925, whose

art-hobby instilled in her a sort of

longing  -  post the 1913 Armory Show,

etc.  -  to have a place for 'American'

Art to be displayed, shown, exhibited,

studied, and discussed. Thus, the

first Whitney Museum, which in 

1967 had become, instead, the 

NYStudio School. Voila! Me!

-

In the beginning, pre-1967, the school

had been in a nearby Broadway loft,

up some floors. The school made the 

move, (I believe it was over the Fall

of '66. My first visits to the school

were to that loft space, then undergoing

the move, and my initial interviews

and showings were there too).  In

working from memory, as I am, I

recall that someone named Claudia

Stone had died in a car crash. She'd 

been a student there, and in her memory

her wealthy father/family had given a

ton of money to the school through that

memory, which money facilitated the

new location  -  which I'd imagine

must have been very costly. In any

case, it got done, and in about a 

year or so an odd little sculpture,

also in her memory, with a narrative 

plaque which told the story, was

installed in the stairway lobby at

the 8th Street entryway. It's still

there, last I saw. That was my only

knowledge of the Claudia Stone 

thing. I always appreciated the story

and the resultant effects, sad as they

were, of her untimely death, and

this Cantore fellow embodied, for

me, as well, the upper east-side

monied cachet of that illustrious

crowd. Whenever I thought of her

I ate very slowly. Just in case.

13,255. IT'S OK TO BE...

IT'S OK TO BE A PACIFIST, 

BUT I BELIEVE IN 

INTELLECTUAL WARFARE

Maybe just me  -  old, crotchety, perverse  -

but you can take your anorexic issues-list

and shove it. I believe in pushing back.

See the cimarron lightning in the western

corner  - the sky retains its heat. Here is

where the rocket ships are landing.

-

Hold the lantern, and come with me.

I'll guarantee you something new. You

may wish to roll over, but I'm set to 

go. I fight back no mention with all

my intentions. My hands will hit 

back if you hit first. 

-

Blue waters the ripples roar; all

this is noise, fury without meaning,

nothing to satisfy at all.

13,254. SOME I KNEW

SOME I NEW

Some I knew yes and others not :

in rows like this it didn't matter.

-

Words are the noodles in a broth

of time, dropped in slowly and

after the fact. Changing the

composition of that which was.

-

Some of them I knew;

others were new to me.

13,253. SLEEPING

SLEEPING

Terribly trenchant twos, that rat

kid is finally sleeping. I couldn't

take much more of that. Stuff his

head in a pillow case, I was finally

thinking. They make card games

for times like these. 

-

Olga Makeshift came in, smoking

a cigarette that dangled from the

lips of her mouth. She had all

the style of an old lamp.

-

Remember those things they used

to put on the head-backs of chairs?

Anti-Macassars? What the hell

was wrong with people then? It

went more than that too:

-

Remember 'Close the drapes, the

sunlight will fade the chair's fabric.'

13,252. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,096

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,096

(jack kerouac comes home)

When I lived in Columbia Crossroads

it would sometimes snow for days. 

The white-out factor was always 

pretty cool  -  I'd know there was 

a field there, or a barn there, in

whichever direction I may have been

looking, but they were not always

visible in the long view. You had

to get up 'close' to things to see

them. I found it was much like

that with everything else too. The

vapid conjecture that was the world

demanded close-ups for clarity.

Even atlases and maps had what

they called 'insets'  -  which were

magnified and detailed squares that

highlighted one particular aspect of

the area. A lens/scope always had a

'close-up' setting. The world was,

otherwise, pretty much a generalized

blur into which categories, terms, ideas,

and conclusions were thrown.

-

Consider any street in NYC, back then.

The sameness that pervades things now

has ruined all that  -  everything now has

those curved fabric/plastic awnings with

their business names on them. The old

streetscape has been obliterated; that of

small shops and single signs, often done

in unique and eccentric styles, for the

particular business. A person could scan

a street, and, as an 'inset,' concentrate

often on the most miraculous and singular

sights. Now...it's a mere bubble-blur of

awkwardly colored, curved tops  -  mass

produced commercial signage announcing

nothing so much as the dearth of anything.

-

Worlds pass and things dissolve. Often,

after dropping in to one or another spot

for coffee  -  or The Villager, say, to visit

with the people there  -  I'd sit at the

counter and watch the passing parade,

like a sniper, in waiting. There was a

movie place across the street  -  to watch

the film-snobs enter and leave was fun.

It made Woody Allen, in character, seem

like one of the characters I'd see  -  low

to the ground schlebs (Yiddish has 

three great root words that were

always current in NYC usage: schleb,

schlep, and schlab, each of which

I willfully misuse), going on about

plot, camera angels, lighting, sound, or

expounding on some crass remnant of

what they knew about an actor or actress.

They'd take a table in the diner and, behind

me, at the counter, continue all that talk

while wolfing down game-bags of food.

Most movie-talk is gossip anyway, and

I'd have my fill of it. A white-out of

words and information, all useless, and

all about as developed as an embryo.

Yet, the student-class  -  all those NYU

and New School forms of life  -  seemed

to thrive on it. Talk, talk, opinion,

opinion. By the 1980's it all got totally

worse, as VCR and video-tape rentals

and the rest took over most every

street-corner, leftover edifice, each

offering what they called 'Lifetime'

membership in their rental club, which

'lifetime' was usually gone in about

six months. In such places you'd

really get the cream of the movie crop;

those take-home types who'd endlessly

watch The Seventh Seal or Hester Street

so as to minutely dissect, and tell about,

each scene, view, angle and line. It

was their 'business,' even if it lasted

but three weeks.

-

I never enjoyed any of that, though I

enjoyed, certainly, my non-enjoyment.

All of that life (around me) seemed

somehow to be my inset, my own

close-up into the affairs of men. It was

a funny thing; the strange detachment

needed to observe, as a writer or artist,

kept me always five steps back from 

what it was I was 'seeing.' Had I been

a deaf-mute, it would have been much

the same; though, I'm told, my 'senses'

would have been advanced. Hmmm.

How anyone knows that, I never know.

-

It has been said of Jack Kerouac (who

is certainly, now, one of the literary

world's lesser and most twisted-by- 

interpretation characters), that he

was 'always' conservative and that

his views never changed, but that

'people' interpreted him as they saw

him envisioned in their own ideas

of his writings they read. 'He was

always the same. It was sort of a

double-think. In one way he was

a Buddhist with this expansionist

viewpoint, and on the other hand

he always had the most conservative

political opinions.' [Wm. Burroughs].

Much like 'living in an inset,' Kerouac

got smashed by his own white-out.

He certainly embodied what I'd seen

as that 'world' of hi-tones around me;

and I kept away from that. Art-world

schemers, flatulent flatterers, and the

usual fake-publicity hounds making

things up about themselves. Jack

Kerouac acknowledged, in fact, his

'dual mind' as early as 1943! He was

torn, he wrote, between his 'normal'

and 'schizoid' sides, the intellectual

friends versus the 'rowdies' he'd

drink and carouse with. On one side,

he said, he had the 'Raskolnikov' side,

the bent and brooding figure sneering

at a world of mediocrities, complacent

of ignorance and bigotry; the introverted,

scholarly side. The alien side, And on 

the 'other' side, he said, was the social

Kerouac counterpart : 'the football

halfback-whoremaster-alemate-scullion-

jitterbug-jazz critic side, the side in me

which recommends a broad, rugged,

America.'

-

His white-out, I guess, was his being

mixed up with his 'characters'  -  which

was all people chose to see; the made-up,

mostly fictionalized, ideas which were

piled up and amassed to make a 'person' 

who, in most respects, was not that at all.

Like someone sitting home now, tinkering

with links and references, to make themselves

out to be grandiose achievers of the most

mundane. Kerouac said: "I decided I am

not one of the hipsters, and therefore I am

free and objective thinking about them and

writing their story. Nor am I Red Moultrie,

so I can stand back and scan 'him.' I am

not even Smitty; I'm none of them. I am

only describing evidential phenomena

for the sake of my own personal salvation

in works and the salvation and treasuring

of human life according to my own

intentions. What else can there truly be?"

-

I searched high and I searched low: Bakeries,

cauldrons, kilns, leather and hide tanners,

car mechanics, wagon-workers, horse and

buggy ride tenders, machinists, fabric and

garment workers, metal-men, carpenters,

sailors, seamen, laborers, addicts, drunks,

and servile servers too. All I found was my

own white-out. All I ever concentrated on

was my own sets of insets.

13,251. I MIGHT MINGLE

I MIGHT MINGLE

This world is a circle, and we

go 'round. Not the only world,

nor the only circle either, I have

found. Descriptions defy their

describing  -  all things one

may not find.

-

There is a ghost and a remnant

of the great All that is : was :

will be. These are but objects

that glimmer by illusion; events

take the shape of mass thought.

-

Keep that mellow weaver to her

task; mind the cobbler, keep him

to the bench. Tie down his facts

of living, and all of her dreams 

too. The human mind diversifies

unstoppably.

13,250. THE LANGUAGE OF YES

THE LANGUAGE OF YES

Languedoc. Once the ship got

to France, we had to begin: All

those funny ports and places. 

Marseilles. Le Havre. Isn't that

how it goes? I'd met your pere

on another trip; it had all gone

well and we discussed this

returning. Now. Here. Present.

-

These houses looked so different 

to me  -  as we walked the lane,

talking of small events. Food 

and a place to stay. The noise

was like a hum, in a patter of

small language; the French and

nasal rub.

-

All I really learned was, in

American it's 'we know.' Yet

somehow in French they all

managed saying, 'Oui, no?'

13,249. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,095

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,095 

(this machine that rides the horse, pt.2)

I never played dice, nor ever

understood it  -  any of those

tile games always baffled me,

and they appeared exotic or

even 'Oriental,' as the word

used to go, back then. I'm told

one doesn't say that anymore;

now it's Asian. Like saying

Burma instead of Siam? But

they are swell to use it for the

saying of 'Asian Flu,' when

that used to run through the

schools. Mah Jong or Ma &

Pa Kettle, who but a swami

in old Calcutta really cares?

Your Peking Duck is now

Peiping Duck served piping

hot! I don't know who started

all this correctness crap, but

they can suck my wang-doodle.

-

So, as I wasn't saying, last chapter

I worked myself into such a corner

that at the last moment I just

stopped it short, called it 'part 1'

and moved on. Which was fine,

but now I need to do a part 2.

As they say in Rangoon, 'Shiva

my timbers! I've got some work

to do.

-

America, at its founding, was

already late into its own game.

By the time of the Constitutional

Convention, and those aspects of

the regulatory state that were being

put into place, it was already too 

late. From the point of view, as I 

mentioned previously, of the idea

of a new Eden or a pastoral and

new in all aspects redemptive

land had already been overrun by

profit-motives, land-grubbing,

intimidations and state-sanctioned

land and power grabs. Sure, they 

squabbled over the incidentals

and the shapes of the cage, but it

was done. Even slavery, in and

of itself totally stupid, had been

instituted for money  -  by blacks.

Coastal Africans in Africa chasing

down and capturing their own

inlanders, to drag them out and

have them sold at the dock-slave

round-ups and shipped off. Dahomey,

anyone. (I always thought that to

be funny. Dahomey is a country;

yet a black person will call his 

friend 'da homey.' There's humor

everywhere!)....Anyway, every

issue from early America now is

just a story-line made to fit an

agenda. 

-

What may have started out as a

newly-trod (by Europeans, in their

concepts of the known world) pastoral

paradise, attuned to the wiles of the

descriptions by Thomas Jefferson (no

machinery, no manufacture), but sunk 

by the likes of Hamilton into factories,

sweat-shops, cities and mass and

enforced child-labor practices, had,

by the post WWII years, emerged as

the country with half the world's

wealth and nearly two-thirds of its

machines, and with destructive

capacities unmatched in history. 'It

was creating suburbs, television,

organization men, nuclear families,

the car culture, Brando, McCarthy,

and rock and roll.' People had to

navigate, yes, but unlike the earlier

explorers who brought all this to be,

they had to navigate through the worlds

of sex, work, money, friendship, story

telling, improvisation, hourly wages,

burdens toil, labor and more. 

-

'You're not really writing a book until

you begin to take liberties with it.' Jack

Kerouac said that. 'I've begun to do this

with On The Road now.' I immediately

understood what he meant, but the older

world of 1957 hadn't a clue. Back then

people insisted on saying the Jack was

Sal, and Dean was Neal; all mixed up.

But they were only characters, and had

no match for the attributes they'd been

given; not 100% anyway. The USA

wasn't ready for that switchover of

literary consciousness  -  this was a

new breed of something. It was the 

same with America  -  you're not

really building a country until you

begin to take liberties with it. (From

it too?). Before I move on, I want

to add another Kerouac quote - for

you to think about: "My writing is

teaching. One of the greatest incentives

of the writer is the long business of 

getting his teachings out and accepted. 

Even if the readers don't get it at first.'

-

The entirety of any American

experiment got booted to the sidelines

early on. You can see, in the previous

chapter, how the dichotomies were

set up; reading Jefferson's words up

against the later intentions of those

on the other side of that divide. Going

back to Thomas Carlyle, we can see how

the alignments were shifted. I can well

recall the NYC streets of that era of 1967

into the 70's, when most often along any

west, or east, downtown street one would

pass the open lofts of machine shops,

foundries, factory lofts, seamstress and

dressmaker operations, carts lining the

street, piles of fabric, metal, raw material,

hides, and lumber, being ferried and pushed

everywhere. The laborers, plodding along

the crowded streets were Puerto Ricans

or blacks; happy for a job, seemingly

immersed in it, their heads spinning 

with songs, adventures, ideas. What

happened to it all? It became enfolded

and cancelled, as it was slowly wrapped

into the newer fabric of today's world.

By the year 2000, no one could plausibly

describe all that had fallen away  -  nor

did anyone care. America had turned

tail on itself. Pastoral be damned!

-

Looking at all this, Thomas Carlyle, in

'Signs Of the Times,' speaks of the new,

'mechanical' aspects of life as the means

by which the dynamism of natural life

was to be replaced with the subjugation

by which men were to be subjugated,

and the 'dynamics' replaced by purely

mechanical, droning, aspects. The

post-Freudian version of alienation. 

in fact, much later, and into our own

times, Herbert Marcuse stated it like

this: "the state of psychic powerlessness

is to be attributed to the increasing

repression of instinctual drives made

necessary by the more and more 

complicated technological order. 

To satisfy the imperatives of the

mechanized society, men are called

upon to endure an intolerable curbing

of their spontaneous, erotic, and

passional selves."

-

Two further things here, before I

close this chapter out: In his book

from 1833-34, 'Sartor Resartus,'

Thomas Carlyle makes an attempt

at describing what we would today

call 'Alienation'; of the despair caused

by the mechanical, droning, world

at work dulling and berating the

psyches of Humankind. As he puts

in, in the words here of the character

Teufelsdrockh's depression about

his modern world: "To me the

universe was all void of Life, of

Purpose, of Volition, even of

Hostility. It was one huge, dead,

immeasurable steam-engine,

rolling on, in its dead indifference,

to grind me limb from limb."

In his turn, Karl Marx had it

this way  - "Within capitalist

relations of production, accompanying

the division of labor and mass

manufacturing, the working man's

product may well become his

enemy. The more he produces,

the more danger there is that the

'market' will be glutted and he

will lose his job.' Hence, as Marx

had it, machine technology is

instrumental in creating 'alienated

labor. 'Morally neutral, perhaps.

the 'machine' in such a setting helps

only to transform the worker into a

commodity for sale on the labor

market, his work taking on a 

mechanical and meaningless 

character bearing little or no

relation to is own purposes. 

In the further words of Erich

Fromm, 'the alienated man

experiences the world and

himself passively, receptively,

as the subject separated from

the object.'

-

It used to be THAT was why we

had people in the streets, protesting

and yelling  -  over real conditions

and issues. Now, by contrast, and

along those very NYC streets I

once trod and here describe, we

get spoiled, biscuit-eating hulks

going on and on and over and 

anon about nothing they 

understand at all.