RUDIMENTS

RUDIMENTS, pt. 515 (penitential omnipotence) My own ways of processing thought, I think, were always different. I was never one for much of that slap-back happy guy stuff, and I liked to measure progress (and prosperity) by intangibles; things other people would look at me crazily for. (They would also look at me AS IF I was crazy, but that's  a different thought  -  if you  take the time to compare the  two statements, you'll see). Items that would preoccupy me for hours would make other people deliriously  bored. I got away with a lot of that in the seminary, because it could all be easily  concealed as either 'praying' or 'studying.' One great hook in to a million things language wise was the study of Latin. Like the word omnipotent  -   it was most often, in seminary  days, used as the character description for God  -  The Father. These distinctions had to be...

RUDIMENTS pt. 514 (trouble in mind, but I don't mind) I got to NYCity with my integrity intact? I tell myself yes, and, having survived numerous and lengthy, hazardous moments, I look back now with senses of awe and wonder. I always felt I flew like a bird from that bus-stop in Carteret for my first, get-outta-town-Mr. Brown flight from Avenel. And saints be praised. One of the first real problems I had, which was freaky for me, was getting a pick-up proposal  (which I will NOT entirely get into here). I simply was taken by surprise and did not know how to react, nor what was happening to me. This very refined, nattily dressed, and almost 'Oxfordian,' black guy, of middle age to my 18, as I was passing his outdoor dining table, at a village eatery, spoke out to me  -  to come over. He asked if I was hungry, as hungry I appeared. I took his offer, sat down and ate some. He asked me some questi...

RUDIMENTS, pt. 513 (making hay on brennan's farm) Hoping you've all seen the  photo of the Brennan farm at today's 84th Street and Broadway, in the late 1880's, I'll go on : In 1974, there were two books out, recently published, those years, which I devoured. One was titled, 'Will They Ever Finish Bruckner Boulevard?,' and it was by Ada Louise Huxtable, the Architecture Critic for the NY Times. The other was by Lewis Thomas, entitled, 'The Lives Of a Cell.' I was enraptured of both, for two different reasons, I guess. They were both well-written, and exquisite to a fault. The thing about Lewis Thomas' was the way he presented humans as a swarming-organism, getting things done and making things by their united energies and chatter. His clarion call sentence was 'We need more noise!' - said as his refutation of those seeking calm and discreet quiet by which to settle the...