RUDIMENTS 56.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 56

Making Cars

So there comes a point when the real

mettle of a single person either rises to

the occasion or fails miserably. Like

Leibniz's original monad, we are each

a factor of one. Which is what biography

really is  -  pretty miserable because it's

mostly an acdemic statement made by

someone posing to dig facts and feelings

out of a personality (or persona) who has

made some public name and acclaim,

which then the biography does one of

two things with : either bolsters and

backs up the fame, or in some fashion

finds points and ways to debunk it, or

scandalize it, or ruin, otherwise, that

person's name. Besmirch. The murkier, 

or zanier, oftentimes, the better. After

all, publishers want to sell books. The 

writing craft of Biography-work would

be nothing take note, without individuality.

Memoir and autobiography, on the other

hand don't suffer these fates as much.

But, on the same note, how many one-man

re-tellings of the 'seven years of driving a

taxi' can anyone read? How new and

interesting can it get? That's a drawback

for the mem0irist. Subtext : who cares?

You have to stay with the things, mindful

of these ideas, when paddling along your

way. Man, you've got to hold your reader, 

drawing that reader in, tightly.

-

The point here will be Elmira, New York. When

I got to Elmira, there was already underway a

curious phenomenon  -  a woman near my home

was writing books gathered for her from another

entity, and written for her, through her, as the

mouthpiece. Yep; and they were good, and 

they were right. They weren't the usual sorts

of books or information. These were timeless, 

space, cosmic, ageless, unique, and aware

of a lot. Sure, sure, sounds like erzats anything

but I met the people and it was real;  true. She

held weekly or sometimes twice-weekly classes,

with some ten or twenty plus people attending.

A vanload of guys from NYC would travel once

a week the 250 miles needed to attend. They

would sit around, sometimes a circle, mostly

not, noisy, lots of news and things, and then

this 'entity' would arrive, taking over the main

person's being  -  different voice, completely

different physical mannerisms, not even the

same 'sex', though this timeless being had to

be something, so I guess it arrived male and

plopped into a female (always the way, right?).

No one ever talked about it or cared, and it

was explained that these are non-considerate

matters, all those terms and definitions are

human things, deal with it some other place.

The lady's husband, a local artist, would take

all this discoursing down, in some sort of

personal, magical shorthand, to be later

transcribed, plus he'd often sketch the scene,

that which was coming through  -  past-life

realities and experiences and personalities.

I know it all sounds like BS, but believe me,

I lived it and was there. The best way I can put

it all, let me think, is  like this: You're writing

a sentence. The sentence has a certain length.

The length is running on just a little too much,

I mean by a smidge. (Life). What can you do?

You look for errors in the sentence, and find

a few. Three spots where an 'o' was mis-typd

for an 'i'. You can still understand the message, 

but with the three 'o's, it runs too long, wrongly. 

By changing them to 'i', as they were supposed 

to be, you realize the 'i' takes less space than 

does the 'o' and that little typositing difference 

makes ALL the difference. Yes. It then fits, 

and the message reads too. It's perfect, and

the light goes on.

-

It was said in these sessions that what you were

going to hear there would be astounding, yet

that whether or not you believed one iota of it 

would not change the reality of it at all. The

strong certainty of that statement always stayed

with me  -  to my mind it outclassed even the

Bible in the surety of its profound grasp of its 

own sense and being. At the same time, reeling

that backwards from myself neither did I really

care one way or the other if it was true. Wouldn't

matter to me, because I knew I was on my own 

path, and sticking to it from the realities I was

given and the information, in turn, that was

presented to me. Which kind of was his whole 

point anyway  -  preserve yourself; regard your

own reality, because that's the one you're creating.

Elmira was that and more to me : it represented a

tolling place, truly ringing on its own plane, an

energy level different from the rest of the world.

Paradoxical junctures like that happen often

enough  -  biblical lands, for sure, all that sand

and desolation ringing with the talented force

of God in the bushes. Burning fires, consuming

nothing but burning away. While I was in Elmira,

I witnessed its desolation (Hurricane Agnes) and

its somewhat rebirthing. That same force. The dead

here were different : Mark Twain, for instance, and

all those Confederate prisoners, the dead swindles 

of the years of quaint and brutal riverside living.

The place knew no bounds, and the fury of nature

did eventually eat it up. Weird. I go there now and

all I see are ghosts and dead people. In that order.

I can't even begin here to correctly comment on

the reality that exists there.
-
There are places where the vortex of time happens;
where there really are 'openings' as it were where
the vortices overlap and open up. There were,
in Elmira and Ithaca, and the vicinity in
between, a few of these. Certainly there was
one then at Water and Walnut Streets. I've 
gone back, in fact, and they're not always in
place. They move about : scenario  -  you
can really slip in and out of time/place.
-
You have to be alone. These disappearances 
can only take one person.  You can slip out 
of time, and disappear into other places  -  
schemas and frames. Portals to alternate 
worlds, alternate realities anyway, the places 
which are created constantly as the version of 
your every thought. You can retrieve things, 
come back with material, find memories and 
ultra-beings, source information, and return. 
Different. Refreshed. Completely altered. 
The trick here, too, is, no one else knows 
you've gone. To appearances you are still 
here, in place. Just not seen, but the absence
 is understood; no one comments or notices.
Perhaps a, 'Hey, where is Gary?' But 
it's momentary (like all life).
- 
A few years back I went back to one spot
I remember well. Just above the right side of 
the bottom of Lake Seneca, in Watkins Glen,
there's a convergence of the main road, and 
a dirt road, long and winding, which eventually 
takes you through farmland and horse land
and some dumpy cottages and shacks too, over 
to the SW end of Ithaca. Maybe 12 miles of dirt.
There was, in my day, an opening there, in
Watkins Glen at the lake end as you rise above
it on that hill. It's gone now, apparently closed up.
Yes, I was sorely disappointed, but I quickly,
by next morning, had located another amidst
the Confederate graves at the old Elmira Prison.
I was gone for three days; with people just
thinking I was out touring.
-
If it sounds like a crap story : that does not
change the reality of what I experience,
and still do, one iota.