RUDIMENTS

RUDIMENTS, pt. 878 (places like sheds notwithstanding) It took a lot of years to get nowhere. Sometimes I think like that, and not just about myself either. Old towns and country places, they too, had they a 'personality' to bear, could have the same things said about them. There's this real nowhere place up along New York State, sort of by Unadilla, called 'Sheds.' I got there once, quite by accident, and it was a scary nowhere to be sure. The only thing around was a tavern or two, a highway turnoff convenience area, and a large lot selling, yes, sheds - all sizes and all assortments. The rest of the place was farmland, local roads, farm service stores, and, again, those taverns. One of which I entered to see what the weather inside was like. Not fun. Just got stared down backways a bit. It was a somber bunch, really sorry-looking and down on their luck. I wanted to say 'What's wrong, fella's...

RUDIMENTS, pt. 877 (even I've been there) "Preludium! I sing in a loud voice to no one at all. I did finally get out today, to the ocean, where I stood in the rain. There's nothing better than a storm-tossed sea and those beckoning waves were calling to me. Curling, in fact." That's all the opening to one of these books around here that I've got meticulously piled up in the modern sense, which means not piled at all, just rather amassed in some electronic manner, at the ready, in the fashion, a la mode, of computer storage. Oh, but why. I had a friend once who burned all his writing, he said, in Central Park. I did see him burning something, but I couldn't be sure what it was, if it was not just copies, etc. I didn't much care, certainly not to the extent he did. It was a combination of, as I saw it, vanity, mischief and anger, all rolled up into one. And I could understand that, yes, ...

RUDIMENTS, pt. 876 (interstellar travelers) I may have mentioned all this before, but it stands out to me so vividly yet that I write it again. One night, it was bout 4am, and we'd set out in my Volkswagen Squareback, dark green, wonderful car (bought for 800 bucks over the way other side of Elmira, out where the city withered away and there were car lots of dubious vintage), making trip back to Jersey and NYC (about 5 hours off, comfortably). There was a sudden, silent flash across the sky, and it landed, still in silence, in the far field to our right, which would have  been, at that point, the low, farm country southeastward  of Elmira. Now, yes, that little part of the tale is both plain and probably laughable enough (to the non-believer), but the cinch was, at about the same time as whatever this was landed, maybe a half mile from us, in the  open field, the car lost ALL  power, shut down, no rad...

RUDIMENTS, pt. 875 (I hope by now he's seen the sea) When I first got to Pennsylvania, every so often I'd run into a word or name that was kept privately and locally-secret, pronounced different than I'd ever figure. After a while I'd just learn to go with the flow on such items. There was a nearby place, not a town to speak of, just a very rural 'crossing' named Milan. It had to be pronounced, not like the Italian place, but, rather, as 'MyLin' with all the due imprecision and evasion due it. The same went for another place up along Rt. 14, heading to Elmira. 'Gillette' was the place name, but - unlike the razor company - it was pronounced as 'Jillit,' and stayed so. Same went for Bentley Creek, which was hereabouts spoken of as 'Bentley Crick.' I didn't mind, but it always had me thinking about how to pronounce the people names I'd run across; like 'Lorton,' first name, or ...