13,281. RUDIMENTS, pt.1,104

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,104

(three degrees? the pointer sisters?)

New York City used to baffle me.

Quite often I'd run headlong into

some weird thing that, from my

clap-trap suburban silly-town,

I'd never before come across.

Each year the NYSubway system

would have a contest. I think it

was just called 'Miss Subway,'

for whichever year it was. Mostly

white girls, until about, maybe,

1969 (guessing) they all looked

geeky and pathetic, but in the

standards of those days no 

one would have noticed. There 

was something they did with 

head-shots in those days that

strained the neck of the person

being photographed  -  it sort

of gave away the stress and

the enforcement they operated 

under, and it was very unbecoming,

even if the girl was some sort of

flabbergasting beauty. They used

to all be displayed on horizontal

posters in subway cars, along with

the usual ads for ointments, creams,

beauty treatments, facial surgery,

psychologists, assistance phone

numbers, dentists and bras. How

anyone was supposed to properly

function in such an environment 

of seedy crapola, and decide on

which one to 'vote' for as Miss 

Subways was beyond me, but in

any case it was all so strange. I

couldn't understand the communal

simplicity which underpinned it.

My idea of NYC, of course, had

been the underside of all that; 

some more dark and doubtful 

underside of life; Thick black

coffee, and berets and Gitanes,

as it were. By contrast, these

Miss Subway things were the

equivalent of a trashy candy-shop

opening its doors for free pickings.

-

At one point, somehow I had heard,

erroneously, that a girl-group named

'Three Degrees' were Subway Girl

contestants (even though negroes),

who had somehow made it to a 

recording contract, and had some

big, crazy, song out called 'When

Will I See You Again?' It was

fascinating to me, even though,

as I mentioned, it was wrong; they 

were Philadelphia girls. I don't

know how the stories got mixed.

But, again, like the Pointer Sisters

as well, it was a cultural osmosis

thing which the USA at that time

(it's slightly different now, with all

the Internet and cellphone instant

personal access stuff) majored in.

No matter where one went, there

was presented a specific wall of

junk matter  -  any person had

to face it. It was, of course, a

massive fraud, ranging from The

Jeffersons to Sanford & Son to

the Strawberry Alarm Clock and

The Monkees. And that was only

the pop culture end. Think of the

same thing underway in intellectual

matters, politics, philosophy and the

social sciences. I was determined

to stand off from all that, and did

so. But, in the back of my head was

my still-stunned observation that

NYC schlock was present and

underway, at all times, in the same

manner as was Avenel and suburban 

schlock. There was no distinction,

and geography mattered not. In

1967 that's how it all got profered:

Vietnam, LBJ, the funk of the

'Great Society' subservience stuff,

General Lewis Hershey, dead guys

in Army boxes coming home

lifeless for one of the worst causes

in the whole, entire world. At TV and

theater, morons glibly playing at

Christmas cheer, family togetherness,

and roundhouse punches to the guy

of any intelligence. Empty, vapid

ghettos were NOT just buildings

and places. They were also people.

-

When I close my eyes (proverbially,

not really) I can still see, taste, touch,

and small the NYC of those days. It

was like nothing in the world, nothing

I'd ever imagined or been led to expect.

Most of it was Winter scenes, which are

still good, to me: I'd have endless walks,

in cold, early mornings, dank with Winter

solid wetness, or ice or slush; any of

that sometimes maddening city-interfering

natural phenomena. I'd learn the streets

and alleys, while seeing them in what was

probably their worst exposures : cold and

snow, frost and ice stuck onto sagging

cars, dank, dead piles of black snow

scarred by traffic. Buses, trucks, and

cars, dripping with road-filth. It was a

world apart from any I'd ever had before;

living in new space, like some alien

creature in a new-found environment.

-

I look now! [see link below]! Miss

Subways is a man????

13,280. THE MILK CRATE WAS A CINDER-BLOCK

THE MILK CRATE 

WAS A CINDER-BLOCK 

'The garden was a museum, and the

schoolhouse doubled as a jail. It all

made sense to me, even though the

language was Braille. Here's to the

Happy Hollow Indoor Pool. This

year's family membership are being

reduced, because of Covid; we need

to get our membership back on track.

We hope to re-open by June.'

13,279. BRINKMANSHIP

BRINKMANSHIP

Davy in the Navy. Something

like Fred on the dreadnaught

Fidelity. Any kind of bother:

Christmas cards from the

bounding main; jollity and

jocularity; and that Santa's

just a fat, old man.

-

Rumcake is better than 

Mincemeat pie. Says who?

Why says I!

13,278. NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN; I'M WAITING FOR THAT CLOUDY DAY

NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN; 

I'M WAITING FOR THAT CLOUDY DAY

Those periwinkle eyes will do it every

time. Hold, hold, this cantankerous hand

of mine. This path dips down like an

open cliff. We can walk it, only if:

-

You remain steadfast on the walkway.

You don't lean over for any extreme.

If you fall, I will not catch you?

13,277. A BOY WAS GASSED BY POWER

 A BOY WAS GASSED BY POWER

It wasn't anything immoral or nothing

to tell. Except it ALL went to his head,

like a bedtime story. One about ghouls

back from the dead.  A far bridge like

that, there's no turning back. Even with

the Christmas morning right there on

the horizon. You may stay up waiting,

for nothing at all. 

13.276. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,103

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,103

(the power and the glory) 

Something like fluorescent lighting, 

which I always hated, needled me

at most all times. If it wasn't that,

it was report cards, or reports

themselves. I couldn't ever

rightly get the connection between

going to school, say, and doing

reports (which were mostly just

bogus collections of facts and

figures gathered from other

sources and tacked together

with some lame commentary

for which one knew one couldn't

really say anything authentic or

even true, because it would

garner an 'F,' which is how most

angry teachers showed their

disapproval of one's stance. Only a

lackey does the best collecting; a 

real learner would have to turn

their back on doing such constant

teacher-drawn, agenda'd drivel)...

I think that was  -  for the most

part  -  how I first took my turn

to the side of 'poetry,' as it was

called. Through the sneaky

entrance of Kenneth Rexroth, 

John Ashbery, and even Robert

Lowell, I found a way to craftily

say what I wanted without some

lump-headed teacher riding herd.

None of them would get the gist;

I could run things right past them.

-

That started me anyway : At age 12 

already, I was on the highway to

my own verbosity, a way of working

with words that seemed to be, for 

me, malleable enough to set things

'between' other things, between

places, as it were, so as to state my

own observation and get away with

it beneath the rubric of curious,

'creative' writing skills. You don't

look back, once that certain speed

is reached.

-

I've always loved  - as I've mentioned

here numerous times  -  the wordplay

inherent in words: Puns, jokes and all the

rest. Like that famed, philosopher/guitarist,

Carlos Santayana. (Ha! made you look).

-

I always found life to be harsh; that 

was then. Now I realize that  -  in most 

every way imaginable  -  all ideas of 

life's harshness have been removed. 

I blame TV and film. No one wants 

to be constantly reminded that harsh 

conditions exist and that, in the end, 

we are all dead. (Of course you'd 

never know it by seeing the endless

death-schlock they churn out. Misery so

deep there is no container for it. But if

couch the tragic in terms of glee and

expected entertainment, it can be done). 

I've seen men, and women, still argue 

over whether the universe if flat, or 

dimensional. Able then to turn back 

upon itself and start us up again right

where we'd already started last time.

Continuously. What do physicists say

that's any different from what I, or any

other writer, CAN say? Event horizons?

Dark Matter? Black Holes? Parallel

Universes? Indeed!

-

'In a universe identified with Absence,

the forbidden territory between man,

woman, and God, has torn love from

the world. Love waits outside, beyond

remembrance or caring.' The masculine

Father demanded obedience without

question? Such domineering demands

for submission, I always learned, were

to be resisted with a something between

'comfort' and 'confidence.'

-

'The hand you stretch me in the Dark,

I put mine in and turn away.' That's

Emily Dickinson; the last person I

ever thought I'd find an attraction to,

but I did. Strange, curious creature,

with a venomous coil, yet entwined

with the Love and the Tender. Hurt

too. My street wander comprised for

me a hundred things she'd never

understand, nor ever even have 

experienced, closeted, strange 

recluse as she'd been. Notwithstanding

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, she

lived a quiet and a lone life. Parameters

always beseeching something, but

'Modern Poetry' had not yet been

invented. It was, by chance, still

merely a Love Craft (though, no, hot

yet either, an H. P.). 'We knew not

that we were to live, nor when we

are to die. Our ignorance is, our

cuirass* is, we wear Mortality.'

13,275. ABYSMAL DERELICTION

ABYSMAL DERELICTION

It was Obi Wan Kenobi and you?

Is that what you said? I thought I'd

heard something like that  -  you

were coming down the stairs of

the third-floor landing and the

guy alongside you was scowling.

I couldn't understand why, nor

whether or not this was some

old-time bar, or a brothel. Where

you worked? How in the world

did that get started? No wonder

I hadn't seen you in 20 years.

-

Once I called you Lilith. The 

Hebrew Bible lists you as Adam's 

first wife! Before Eve, and made 

from the same clay as Adam!

One big handful of something.

-

I'd call it, too, I guess, a form of

predestination. John Calvin can

grow all the horns he wants, but

this beast lurks. Slouching now

towards a Bethlehem, indeed.

13,274. MALIGNING THE INTERIOR

MALIGNING THE INTERIOR

I may have done it again, this sensible

railing about weevils and flies, this

short-order talk about Nature. On the

ice surface, the melting forms circles.

13,273. OVERLOOKING ONLY THE MOST SERIOUS THINGS

OVERLOOKING ONLY THE 

MOST SERIOUS THINGS 

Watching the diner-cook burning the bacon,

in a place out by Mauch Chunk, which is

now called Jim Thorpe, I wondered if the

Indians  -  the American kind, like Jim

Thorpe was  -  put milk in their coffee.

You know, I don't care about all those

stories  - a native American discriminated

against so as not to play football, or not be

recognized for it, or not be in the Olympics;

one of those dumb-ass stories that make no

difference to me, and who cares? There used

to be a Bob's Big Boy, a hamburger joint, out

in Scranton, under some huge highway trestles

far high above it. That was the late 1970's, and

I always tried to mix up the two : Jim Thorpe

at the counter of Bob's Big Boy, having a

burger and shake. Maybe that same bacon

here was for the baconburger then? Anyway,

if it keeps burning like that it will soon be a

Bacos-burger crisp. Maybe they can sell that

to the unwitting for ten dollars a pop. 'Hey,

Pop, want a Bacos burger-crisp? They're good.'

See Jim Thorpe, that's all America gets you,

a cruddy remainder of some burned-out food

and the name of a town changed just for you.

How crazy is that, and that I wrote this all

down just for you too?

13,272. INOFFENSIVE FACELINES

INOFFENSIVE FACELINES

I sacked Vita Sackville-West; just

had to let her go. She'd become too

inoffensive. It goes to show how

hiding in the shadows sometimes

has an ill effect : We wanted more

fun and glory, but she came off

just as a wreck. Silent and pleasing,

though....

-

The bright sunlight of Summer days

seems flown away, and I've never seen

a bluebird in the snow  -  though I did

this morning. More than one, in fact.

Three strange bright spots with a

lower belly white. Pretty and odd

all together. I never know how this

happens : All that bird distance

and flight.

-

There's a red cardinal too; as I write.

13,271. RUDIMENTS, pt.1,102

 RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,102

(the screech and the screch)

I got tired of things being out

of kilter, and I knew the world

wasn't really the one I'd imagined.

(That bizarre statement will get 

a person sent away). In that first

peculiar Winter of 1967 turning

over to 1968, the streets of NYC

were usually wet and icy and cold

and dark. It always reminded

me of Thomas Hobbes' words 

about the life of Man being,

'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, 

and short.' Of course  -  and I

knew  -  he didn't really mean 

that in the same context I did  -

but I made it fit nonetheless, 

since it pretty much did fit my

own conditions of living then.

-

Hobbes' point was the opposite

of mine anyway. I hated organization.

Society and its rigors were distasteful

to me. In Hobbes' view  -  the opposite

of mine  -   'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish

and short' are the words for 'Life' if

man were to go back to Nature and

live outside of Society and all its 

means and systems and programs 

and assumptions. I had a problem

with that, and anyway I could never

really get in line with any of those

Euro-Romantics who somehow

always ended up heralding the

orders and systems of 'Society' and

ignoring the innate qualities of the

'Natural' man and woman, and

belittling their raw state. In fact,

Hobbes was a booster of all that

systemizing and organizing. For

some reason all that crap now has

gotten to be called 'The Age of 

Reason? The Enlightenment?' In

Art, it always reminded me of those

same societal nitwits who draped

private parts, who covered and

averted eyes from paintings and

depictions of the human form, but

who would stand for hours before

huge paintings of perfectly depicted

battle-scenes, portraits of death and

warfare, and the like. No sense at all.

-

I'd be walking along the streets  -  one

porno-palace, peep-show, sex-shop, or

nudie bar after the other  -  and have to

think of the very-weird dichotomy that

seemed to come to bear in Humankind's

head, between propriety and filth. The

bizarre dividing line, I guess, had to do

with closing the door, and with privacy?

Isn't that just as perverse? I tried to fit

in religion, philosophy, good sense, and

morals, but all I could ever figure were

that the dweebs making money off this

were perfectly happy over-flowing any

of these boundaries so they could make

their filthy dollar and go home. On most

any street except the most exclusive,

none of this could be avoided. (On the

exclusive streets, of course, instead of

having to out, a simple phone call

would bring those same 'services' right

to the door, closed or not. Just make

sure you pay the doorman well). The

Age of Reason, I surmised, meant 'I

reason I can get away with this if I

pay properly and keep shut the door.'

Pure foolish twaddle.

-

Not only the operations, but the people

too, were shady. Furtive-looking guys

peering out at the neon-lit, shabby,

front doors, to watch the street, see

the clientele, etc. The 'better' quality

places actually had some beefy

idiot out front as a bouncer or a

guard, whether for inside of outside

I never really knew. I guess if someone

got too frisky inside with his Little

Willy, he'd be called in to 'whack' him.

I hoped not off; out would have to do.

(That's a kind of joke, for the shy).

None of it was quite 'noir'  -  a term

now trendily used for films and movies

about the shady underside of life on

the streets, in crime-infested holes,

and under the sheets. Tacky men,

with tacky top-hats, fedoras, and

suits, pretending to be what they're

not, and involved up to their neck

in dishonesty, sexual or not.

-

Seeing the girls enter or leave, that

was sort of the worst of it  -  most 

often there'd be some sort of back 

or side entry or exit, but many times, 

within the same shameless expose, 

those ladies would have to walk 

right in  -  through the front door, 

as it were, with a nod to whomever 

was at the door. Poor girls; they'd 

be all doo-dadded up, trying to

look successful about something, 

but at heart they always looked 

like a wilted flower on a ship-wrecked 

atoll. This was hard work, and their 

shift was on.

-

Eventually I just threw up my hands;

I tried reconciling all these things, 

but got nowhere. Past the perplexity 

of all that I was viewing, I was still, 

inside, the same me who had dragged, 

and been dragged, through all the 

seasoning and trifles that go into 

personal makeups and attributes. 

There were voices inside my head 

talking at me. I knew very little,

yet I was determined to keep

feeding off those 'instructions' 

which were being directed to me. 

'Hearing voices' is a poor term to 

use, as if I should first wear an 

aluminum-foil headpiece; but that's 

how it went. It was going to be a 

strange and changing trek, but I 

was in it for the long haul.

13,270. LORD CARRINGTON

LORD CARRINGTON

Just another stupid get born on the

fringes of exile already : chomp

at the bit in a Churchillian way,

like a cigar about to happen. What

does the crowd care 'bout that?

We driven all this way? For just

this so very little?

 

13,269. MY LUDICROUS WATCHMAKER

 MY LUDICROUS WATCHMAKER

The one who enabled the universe

on that most curious morning; a new

cartwheel in within a new firmament?

We were made and kept that way?

-

Now the watchman comes : Though

not the Watchmaker I mentioned, still

sharing in part a world? Logos anew?

This new word made flesh?

-

Were I not an enabled Jew, I'd know?

Were I not a slaughtered Christian

within the catacombs of Rome, I'd

know? How is this come to be?

-

The carnival people keep coming;

from village to village, that mob

walks the lanes: foolish and unkempt?

Costumed and loud and anarchic?

A festival of dread in this march

of the dead.

13,268. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,101

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,101

(not the fantasy, just the lies)

I was out yesterday rooting around,

walking cold woods, looking at the

white ground; in a manner of my

speaking I was reviewing my own

story, and I got to thinking how, in

my earlier plans, this whole thing

started with the idea of a long telling

of a life-story, done over and over,

maybe 4 or 5 times. Curious idea.

I've used Rudiments, and I've used

Below the Water Line. I've used

Established Marvel, and I've used

Surreptitious Valparaiso, and I've

even used The Guy Who Killed

the Turtle. Rather bizarre, I grant.

But, then a light came on, way

above my head. The jarring light

amidst the white trees whacked

me, pushing my sensibilities a

bit. I caught myself with a

super-reality of moment, deeper

and more dense than usual  -  that

room again, that cosmic library I

can always enter. It's an overlay,

one put upon this world, screening

it for better purposes and leaving

only what is worthwhile and of

telling import. It's kind of a

scrambled and newer layout, in

more vivid turns, of this world.

-

The thought came to me of the

origin of things; the things we

know, anyway, and the time-scale

we accept to live with. Even the

Gospels are the same story, written 

anew 4 times over. Each with a

slightly different twist. Luke was

a 'Doctor,' it is said, so he writes

with that point of view. I never

quite understood, in any case, what

the word 'Doctor' refers to for the

years here in question. Thanks be

to God, I suppose, that Matthew

didn't race cars -   swift justice to

swift deliverance.

-

So, I've re-written the same coarse

tale, 5 times? I really wouldn't know

that, because each was new to me

as I did it. Judgements like that I

reserve for the pedantic types who

dot i's and cross t's. All I really know

is what I see, or have seen, and taken

off from on that basis. 'It's a dream.

All this life is a dream.' That's a real

quote too  -  when Allen Ginsberg 

asked his aunt, whom he'd taken

to dinner in honor of her 85th

birthday, what lesson she had taken 

from this life ("I asked her what

she had learned by now, what life

was all about,"), she said, "Life

is a dream - it's all a dream."

-

That's the sort of thing I wouldn't

know, or take a stab at anyway. It's

a bit immaterial to me. To live amidst

conjecture is too easy...and demanding

all that certainty just makes me quesy.

-

Maybe I'd rather just say 'Life's a dirty

rag, the kind you find greased up on

the machine shop floor; a mixture of

filings and iron shavings, grime and

blood, the filth of two hundred uses.'

All those high ideals the preachers and

witch doctors prattle on about? They're

all made up along the way, fantasy

thoughts to embody an instant. 

Otherwise life is but an un-nameable

and a passing moment and we all end

up bouncing from Aesop's Fables to 

Alice In Wonderland, which is then all 

contorted anew so we end up near-dead,

 sitting in a chair, watching some 

ridiculous concoction made up as 

The Wizard of Oz, and being

told not to believe the fantasy,

just the lies.

13,267. AND NOW

AND NOW

Crossing the bridge at Robbespar,

the down looked up to me  -  not like

a Hart Crane obligatory when the

granite towers beckon. There were

no scrambled heads of workers, nor

any industrial roar of poor intent.

This was all meadow and a river's

graze: sheep and cows along the

sideways pastures.

-

Every town here has a funny name:

Yulan, which means Laurel in the

Japanese, was named because the

state said no to  naming it Mount

Laurel, or anything close. 'There's

too many Laurels in NY State 

already.' So the town council named

it Yulan, which meant the same but

in Japanese, and I guess Albany's

geniuses never knew the different

crease. Things never matter. Times

never change. I crossed the bridge

to Robbespar, where things were

all the same.

13,266. THE HIGH LIFE

THE HIGH LIFE 

Somehow I got to church on

my knees : nothing between us

but Gloria In Excelsis Deo.

-

Holy Water, Batman! Here

comes the blues again. One

Jesus, high up on the cross.

13,265. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,100

 RUDIMENTS pt. 1,100

(the monster, the colossus, the octopus)

I always wondered why it was

that some people 'clicked' and

others didn't. I don't mean in

romance or friendship; rather

I mean writers and artists. It

was always one of the unchecked

boxes in my 'completed' list. The

idea that, at a certain level, at 

any one time, there are 20 or 100

people pretty much undertaking

the same thing  - why does a

William Faulkner take off, and

a Frank Norris not? It works

that way in any sphere  -  art,

music, writing. etc., and I

never got to the bottom of it.

There are 'gestalt' streams, I

always felt, from which all

these people draw their water,

at one, same, contemporary,

time. But, some make it to high

times, and others flail about. It's

never been a question of quality

or skill. Honestly, there's a

persistent level of adeptness

by which everyone gets by, and

those, in fact, who sometimes 

seem the least adept  -  as far as

drawing, line, color, context  -

are the ones who go the farthest.

Perhaps it's some exemplification 

of an almost daring and child-like

stab into unknown realms? The

premise behind accepted 'quality,'

after all, is consumerism. In this

day and age it goes that anyone 

can be convinced of anything if the

correct media-blast and  acceptance 

level is properly composed  -  witness

movies and television and music,

to name but 3, wherein most any

crap gets pushed hard enough so

that pygmies bearing names like

RapperLG or Dominda Manifusco

(sample nothing names) can braise

their airwaves with their steadied

drivel. Keith Haring, anyone?

-

If you scratch beneath the surface

of whatever it is  -  nowadays called

craft, or artisan, level stuff, and 

'curated' too by beanbags of 

nothingness - you'll find a pretty

even kingdom. I've always liked

'interesting' things  -  I write to

be interesting, to pique peoples'

further interest, stirred on or

made inquisitive themselves by

something I posed or said or

included. That can get fairly

'uneven'  -  so that I myself have

never 'considered' myself to be

part of the evenflow of regular

thought or writing. Thusly, many

of the irregular names my stuff

has been called can probably be

validified to type (a pun?).

-

Way back in my seminary days, 

I ran across a small series of books

by one Vernon Parrington. A very

lovely, three-volume, compact

paperback set (I now have two

sets of them, with the original).

Along with The Education of

Henry Adams, and another book

called, 'The Machine In the Garden,'

these comprised a real majority

of my 'socio/historic' learning

(all self-imposed), in those seminary 

years, when, to be truthful, anything 

of real value was simply NOT 

covered at all. In any case, the

gist of Parrington's review of

American history was a quite

resourceful and smoothly-evolving

process which eased the nation's

way into its 'modernity' phase. To

him, there were none of those

inherent contradictions between

the 'Garden' and the Machine. 

America's easy growth contained

multitudes -  industry, labor, growth

development, takeover of land and

resources, railroads, etc.  -  all the

general paraphernalia of today's

gross world as it was building.

-

I eventually learned it was never 

so. There was always a fierce 

contradiction, in fact a fierce 

struggle, between the coming of 

the new and the curt dismissal

of the founding ethos of the 

nation, with its ideas of small 

farm, rural life, quaint and 

distant  communication, and 

local hegemonies. n some sense,

we never got over it, even though

it's now all buried and forgotten

about. Certainly the mechanistic

end of everything won out.

-

Here's Frank Norris, in a book of

his called 'The Octopus'  -  a sort

of allegory for rational, mechanistic

power and its subsuming of America.

(1901)  -  His main character, a poet,

here named Presley, is waking at

sunset, in a lovely, mild, evening,

with everything still (allegorically,

a pastoral Eden version of America:

"But suddenly there was an 

interruption, and in the advancing

darkness its advancing eye, Cyclopean,

throwing a glare far in advance" comes

thundering down the track and

smashes into a herd of sheep..."The

iron monster had charged full into

the midst, merciless, inexorable. To

the right and left, all the width of

the right of way, the little bodies had

been flung; backs were snapped

against the fence posts; brains

knocked out. Caught in the barbs

of the wire, wedged in, the bodies

hung suspended. Under foot it was

terrible. The black blood, winking

in the starlight, seeped down into

the clinkers between the ties with

a prolonged, sucking murmur." Sick

with horror, Presley turns away. "

The sweetness was gone from the

evening, the sense of peace...stricken

from the landscape, a terror of steel

and steam, the locomotive was a

symbol of a vast power, huge, terrible,

flinging the echo of its thunder over

all the reaches of the valley...the

leviathan with tentacles of steel 

clutching into the soil, the soulless

force, the iron-hearted power, the

monster, the Colossus, the Octopus."

13,264. CHANGE MACHINE

CHANGE MACHINE 

I always did get confused by

that. Everything always remained

the same no matter how much coin

I put it. I wanted the balmy precipice

from which to glide; all I got were

the mountains and hollows of some

Winter's unedifying push. Not that

it put me off, mind you. I'd always

learned to get by and stay up. My

manner survived. But I had, after

all, requested change. Not just

these quarters.

13,263. RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,099

RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,099

(just a bit subterranean)

I always figured the most

straightforward among us

were probably the most

boring too. I had a friend

once who lived in a tightly

squared big house atop

Mount Tabor  - out by 

Morristown, NJ, that is  -

by the golf course that ran

alongside or behind the

house. I forget. They were

British. Every trickle of that

family's body was British:

tea, warmed-over stewed 

tomatoes on toast, for their

breakfast. It was all sort of

England, by way of New

England, and somehow all

transported to Mount Tabor,

atop some strange hill once

ruled by a Methodist religious

community. The meeting

house, assembly/concert hall,

the twisty little streets winding

their way up the inclines, with

sharp and ill-defined twists and

turns. Geographically it was the

most loose-limbed and anarchic

place imaginable, and the most

complete opposite of rigorous

religion-thought that you'd have

imagined. That was striking. It

was the sort of place whereon

you'd think even cars would be

banned. 

-

Banning cars? How unAmerican

could that be? In every other respect

the huffing engine of beastly progress

had by this time, and long before the

1980's, swept its trouncing manner

over every pit and parcel of American

life. The land and hills and farms

had long ago been sacrificed to the

rampant foul of highways. In the same

manner as the 1840's railroads were

slam-introduced into the American

weave, so too did the car get the

granted allowance to take over. Now,

no one even thought about it  -  now

being then. The 'now' that is NOW is

even weirder  -  the general idea is

somehow 'Give your loved one a

car for Christmas.' How that ever

got started is an ad-man's dream.

-

Apparently, the idea is for any

old Mexican family, yes, even

those, the newly-arrived whom we

welcome from the backs of trucks,

as part of their welcome, should 

immediately be saddled with debt.

And debt service  -  but they've got

their Lexus. Wouldn't it be just as

equalizing and fair to, after they

the language-gist down pat, grant

them a set of the Great Books, so

that the new household has the

impetus to get intellectually up

to speed as well? Feeding little 

tykes a common stream of Dora

the Explorer, while Mama and Papa 

read The Snow Chronicles (or

whatever that stuff is), just doesn't

do it. Or, perhaps, that IS now the

American character and it DOES

do it. I gave up, long ago.

-

This Mount Tabor guy, parents

exported from Britain, constantly

walked around with the big, white,

paperback copy, famed back then,

of a book called 'Godel, Escher,

and Bach.' OK, you may say, 'What

the Hell is that? If you don't know,

it won't hurt to go find out. There's

another level of debt  -  to ideas and

concept  -  that perhaps you'd get

introduced to. There was a reason it

took this guy (my friend, who lived

in this house), over 6 months to

carefully read it. It's not the glib,

ride-along, sled of adventure and 

glee the country is otherwise used

to, and any immigrant ought to

know that, immediately. Did you

ever wonder why we allow junk

to slip and slide over our nation's

streets and avenues, and not

quality people instead? So liberal

as to be liable for libel? Would

any slum-gullion even know?

-

Least-common-denominator

culture and politics seemed somehow

to have no place atop Mount Tabor.

It always reminded me, being there,

of the time I spent in Vermont.

Most or it had to do with the earnest

silence, the geography, and the odd

houses. In Vermont you'd see them,

either suddenly, or from afar, as they

were perched amidst trees and on

the little ledges atop the dug-out

roadways beneath. Everything

seemed a bit subterranean, in that

the car-roads we live with now  -  

even the snakiest and most small

one and a half lane, byways  -  had

not started out that way but had

rather been trails and wagon ways

existing in a prime and perfect

silence, all through the 1800's

and before, and only ending up

as widened, dug-out, and paved

byways, with houses purely

secondary, much later on, into

the 1920's. And with Government

approval and funding too. All

that 'employer of last resort' stuff.

Like war, when the only solution

to unemployment is to start a 

war-skirmish somewhere so there's

a place to send the excess and the

idle young men (and now women)

who'd otherwise languish. no

resources? Let's cut and pave the

roads....or better yet, let's start

a war. It's good for the numbers.