RUDIMENTS 121.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 121

Making Cars

It's pretty weird right now, in my

later life, to still be doing all this

crazy writing. I would really never

had thought this would be going

on, had you asked me in 1968, or

any other year from anytime back

then.  By the time I got through 

the 1990's I was pretty burnt, 

unsettled, and almost numbed, 

and that slows you down a lot 

in your writing-reactions to things. 

In order to really 'write' while 

looking back along the way to 

reflect and make anything sensible 

out of both the urges and the messages 

that come through, one has first to 

have had developed a one-step-back 

sort of detachment. I'd think, anyway. 

It's a very odd concept I'm working 

with here  -  let me put it another 

way. In old landscape paintings, 

right up until Cezanne, when you 

viewed the landscape there was 

always a 'way in.' There was always 

a spot the eye was led to, to walk 

into, to enter, to be brought into, 

this landscape of the painting. It 

wasn't until Cezanne that the full, 

flat, frontal presentation of the 

'landscape,' (it was still called that), 

no longer really presented a way 

in at all. It had been 'abstracted 

out,' let's say. I think of course 

that's sometimes what people 

begrudge abstract art for  -  no 

way in. It's no longer 'nice' to 

them, it doesn't welcome them 

in. It's no longer like a calendar 

picture. Well, what I'm saying is 

it's like that with writing too. 

Cezanne wasn't abstract at all, 

but he was the very beginning 

of that breakaway fashion of 

presentation that segmented 

into planes and blocks and jagged 

fields, what it is that we see and 

call the 'world.' I once had a long, 

tedious discussion with some 

flubhead who claimed there had 

never been the equivalent of 

abstract-expressionist art in 

writing. I begged to differ, and 

went right at it. He remained 

unconvinced. (He's gone now, 

so no matter). 'Hell yeah there 

has...' was my starting point.

-

Maybe to the uninitiated, or the 

non-writer, it's not seen, and just 

comes off as something too difficult 

to read, to scattered and dense, as 

in 'Huh?'  -  it happens, yes. On the 

other hand, in reading 'poetry' and 

any of that 'sensitive' heart and 

soul crap writing that comes 

through today, most of THAT 

is unreadable. Everyone's got 

a damn heart, and broken heart, 

and longings, and remorse, and 

wishes and tenderness and baby

 emotions and yearnings and 

starlight and moon and distant 

skies and beaches and turtles 

and beautiful birds and designs 

in the sand. And, really, who 

the hell cares? I certainly don't. 

That's all literal, soppy writing. 

Not 'abstract' in that sense, and 

goes absolutely nowhere. They

can't writ with knowledge of the

language they're using, nor can 

they parry and thrust with the 

words and ideas at their disposal. 

It's all the same, usual rubbish. It's

all like a ladies club for mourners, 

or some guy's club for the effete 

and the gourmet-sensitive twerp 

who probably drives a New Beetle 

with a plastic flower in the dashboard 

cup. Either that, or everybody calls 

their rhyming couplets, rock and 

rap lyrics, poetry  -  and they give 

freaking Nobel Prizes now to the 

doers of such drivel. Hard to take.

-

I lived and breathed, in those days  

-  as I do now, but differently  -  the 

ideas and the rolling solace of Art 

and Writing. They were my own 

twin goalposts and to Hell with any 

other sort of football. I recently 

wrote a piece entitled, 'I Ran Into' 

which pretty well embodies my 

own personal sort of writing now, 

in the form I mean. You may say 

it allows no way in, runs amok, 

drives in ten different directions; 

but I would not say that. To me, 

it's a Cezanne. It's post-abstract 

landscape painting. That's a true

piece of writing as abstract-expressionist

as can be. Completely defensible. It 

doesn't 'have' a way in  -  like Cezanne, 

doing away with any church-guided 

tours of the soul, this is the real soul 

of what we live.

-

Th old world view of things  - politics, 

religion, and the rest of the social state 

which was early civilization, could 

best be summed up by the church. 

Everyone was in the dark, confused. 

Like an old-style landscape painting 

the church presented people with the 

way in, the entry-point was clear, as 

was the path  -  you do this, listen to 

this and to Him, imbibe the Dogma, 

and that righteous path will bring you

to 'where' we say it will. In his way, 

Paul Cezanne did away with all that,

almost Luther-Like  -  just throwing all

that stuff right out to you, 'here' catch'

and allowing you to find your own way

into your own manner of understanding

your own world. Matter-of-factly, he

may has well have been speaking for

REM  -  'It's the End of the World As 

We Know It....' As for myself, in the

same vein, I was set-free to roam and

think all this through. All the old entries

and doorways I'd ever known were gone,

by my own doing, and I had to find my 

own, new ones. I never knew what 

hara-kiri was, until about 1970 or 

whatever it was, that Japanese writer

named Yukio Mishima, did it to himself.

It's a ritual form of suicide, very formal,

with procedure, ritual steps, fabrics,

moves and motions, a swords. It's like

a staged even, in protest, in front of 

others. Ritual disembowelment. After 

a final speech, outlining the point of 

view, and the personal beef, and the 

rest, the individual very carefully takes

a well-honed sword or saber, whatever 

it is, and with complete deliberation, 

gores himself, drives in into his abdomen, 

with twists and turns, and disembowels 

himself, and dies. It's totally massive, 

and a monstrous death. Mishima did it, 

in front of his followers. it was a huge,

and scandalous, event in Japan, back then, 

literary circles and more. I felt I had done

the same to myself, all my past beliefs and

thoughts. That was all dead. It was a new

world, with all new entry points.