RUDIMENTS 300.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 300

Making Cars

Long about 1964 I really did

fell  in love with the Russian

dissident movement  -  Samizdat

it was called  -  hand-published

manuscripts and critiques of

the society, hand-copied, or

printed and surreptitiously

distributed. It got lots of people

in trouble. Yuli Daniel, Andrei

Sinyavski are two who come

to mind right off; of course,

along with the biggies,

Alexander Solzhenitsyn and

Andrei Sakharov. I don't know

what I was doing among the  -

a know-nothing American kid

reading the fringes. But they

fascinated me, as did their

movement itself  -  the ways

and means of their distribution,

meeting, exchanging information,

eluding authorities. It was a

quite thrilling world, and one

I was quite caught up into for

a while. I liked the purity of the

ideology, even though, in truth,

I knew little about any of it but

through hearsay. These fellows

went through hell, labor camps,

exile, forced march, Siberia,

deprivation, punishments and

beating too. Still they stayed

with it all. That took guts. All

I saw was a certain kind of

Russian (Soviet) guts  -  enough

to be able to withstand engulfment

and physical horror. The was all

well before the days of any sort

of computerized resources, and

linking to look-ups and the rest.

This was all secret and done

surreptitiously, like the old

networks of revolutionaries

in the 1800's. A typewriter was

really stretching it. There were

odd things about too which I did,

in turn, see in NYC later, including

my friend Paul  -  silent typewriters,

or at least, as in Paul's case, varied

and self-invented ways of silencing

or at least greatly diminishing the

type-cackle of a late-at-night

typewriter. There were ways, as

weird as they sometimes looked :

corrugated boxes, wide enough for

carriage movement yet covered 

with towels and stuffed with 

cotton, to muffle. Paul was an 

inveterate all-night typist, or at 

least until he conked off while 

typing. There were always 

apartment neighbors who were

complaining about it. The pre-war

buildings of the upper west-side

had really thick walls, granted,

but somehow certain things got

through, and not everyone had 

the luxury of a fancy and large 

apartment. My friend Jeff Gordon, 

(deceased now) along with his 

wife Juanita, on w87th Street,

had a beauty of an apartment  -

wide and thin\ck and expansive, 

and grandfather'd in for rent-control, 

at some purely ridiculous, nay 

miraculous monthly price. All 

very old-world, while, by contrast, 

Paul usually ran from one studio 

apartment to the next, rickety, 

cheap, ground-level or one level 

down (we often saw pedestrian 

feet walking by, at head height).

I always figured the below the

ground location would help

alleviate the typewriter noise,

but it never did seem to.

-

Those Russian guys had it 

50 times worse, at least, and 

a good portion of them died 

for it. The best way in and 

out was paper and pencil, 

and probably still remains 

so. That's about as basic as 

you can get, and easiest to 

hide too. Everything past 

that point just gets complicated  

- phones and telegraph and all 

that fails miserably. Memorization 

too was useful. There's a book 

now, from about 1980 or so, 

called 'The Memory Palace 

of Matteo Ricci,' I think it is, 

about a man in extreme 

situations who memorizes

things by keying them to 

visual memories of chairs 

and furnishings and all. 

Fairly complicated, but 

he was able to 'scan' an 

imaginary room he'd 

created in his mind, and 

every item he looked upon 

conjured up, by his 

memorized 'key,' a 

different object or set 

of objects or words 

and phrases, for him. 

was pretty cool, and 

these old Medieval 

and pre-medieval guys 

were really, really good 

at it  -  compensating, 

as they were, for the 

utter primitiveness of 

all other available 

communication. Which

when you think about it is 

pretty down-right amazing,

seeing what  a mess we 

made of even that 

(communications) in

those 1950's days. The

idea than was that all people

were at heart cheery and easy

and comfortable. Which is the

opposite of the way things are,

but that was part of the dumb

illusion of that time. I've never

been a phone person, and don't

use one. I guess I don't ever

for any marketers profiles, of

 anything, except maybe for

jerk pills or 'bad-attitude'

syrup or something. But, that's

another story entirely  -  how

people get me so wrong.

I'm a goofball, basically, a

happy, cheerful guy  -  but

everyone things I'm a dark

block, a true negative. They

should know me  - all I ask 

for comfort is the Truth, and

maybe a toothbrush. Both are

carry-on luggage; real easy.

But, back to the 1950's, the

question had to be 'how are we

going to get people interested in

having phones  -  not just phones,

but more than one phone. Household

phones  - one for Mom in the

kitchen, maybe a Princess phone 

each, upstairs in the bedrooms,

for Dawn and Stella. They even

named them 'Princess Phones.'

how crazy. Never before, by

the way, did people have to pay

for talking. Imagine that! It

was another barrier to figure

out to break. Just more work

for the merchandisers. Phones

later got as weird as society did  - 

20 foot chords, I can recall

mother having, so she could

almost be three rooms away

and still keep that darn call

gong.

-

One last thing on this, (it

started out, remember, about

those brave and mortally

endangered Russian dissident

guys way back). It's that whole

man-up thing : you see when I

see a guy on  a phone, first

thought that crosses my mind 

is, 'hmmm, I wonder he he 

also wears a bra.' Sorry, fellas,

but phones are for girls. Strictly

female  - the first time a guy,

including Alexander Graham 

Bell  -  picked u a telephone, 

and got in that horrible habit 

of babble, that was the end of

the world as I knew it, or 

wanted to. Face it, boys, there's

NO news to relate, and neither

are there any real issues of phone

concern that should be of interest

to you. So, as soon as you're done

with the call, put the phone down,

stand up and walk out of the

manicurist's chair, and quit looking

at boyly magazines that tell you

how to take care of your skin.

(If 'girly' mags, why not 'boyly?').

About as archaic as a dinosauer 

egg. And j-u-s-t  l-i-k-e ME.

Signed, R. Chaic.