Saturday, October 23, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part XXII

Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part XXI



You used to work in the basement of the building, that area of the building now referred to as " the mail room." (Though the basement of the building has many rooms, on many levels, serving several functions, none of which are these days "sorting mail", but whatever.)

You were the boss on the printing presses. Yep, the printing presses. Those were a big deal back then...Back when? Back not so very long ago. You were boss of the printing presses as recently as 1975.

It seems like a lifetime ago--another world. Another, better, more satisfying world.

You were a master typesetter. You were a skilled crafter, valuable for what you knew and what you could do. And you applied your skill with great gusto--it was what you liked to do.

It was an immersion in a soothing stream of time to be working the presses.

You were also responsible for managing other people on the presses--that was nothing to you. It wasn't a problem, it wasn't a challenge. There was no skill involved. No training. In some ways, you weren't even aware you were doing it. There was a slight differential in your paycheck for it,well appreciated but nothing to get excited about. Nothing to swell your ego. It was a small, and certainly misguided, reward, for virtually nothing. You were a better typesetter. The reward would have been justified if that was what it was for, and in retrospect, if the reward had been for that, the world would have taken a better course.

Now, you don't work the printing presses--the presses are long gone. Now, you don't do much of anything. You "manage". That's not a small differential in your paycheck--it's what your entire paycheck is for. What's worse, (and this is something you suffer from--it is a worser which is endured and agonizing), for about the last ten and a half years, you don't do anything which would give content to the function of "managing." You sit in your windowless, stuffy room about two floors above the street level lobby, and you pine away, in solitude, in enclosure, in inactivity, in, yes, passiveness. You blow your cigar smoke out a sheet metal vent, very carefully, the care of which is a debit on the pleasure. You fiddle with the computer fonts, and though it matters to no one, you have used your care about fonting to master computer programming, and a whole lot more. No one knows this.

Friday, October 15, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part XX


Cigar clenched in mouth, you looked both upward and downward, at the past and the present, the nobility and the vulgar.

You had been important once, as you had stood over those who were having the pleasure of working in material and form. They had ink splattered over their torso and their forearm, as had you. You were there beside them, partaking of the par they were taking, and you knew—this little bit that they had to be supplied with—the printing presses down here in the basement were rolling onwards, and on.

You didn’t know hither. You didn’t know whither. You did know that there was something satisfying in giving material form to these ideas, regardless of their provenance, their validity. You had a doubt that messirir Chambers had actually said that all the pholederal had a basis in constitutionality…But it was beautiful, nevertheless. Let the angels sing. You certainly would. Stung humbly by the fireside of a mammoth winged-tip desire of mammals that would traverse white winsome wastelands of … Anything but enclosure.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part XIX


You’d wanted to offer a short, simple description of The Firm’s headquarters, but must have become somewhat sidetracked, because now what’s come to mind again is the condition of the future generations.

You ask the reader to consider your digressions, not undisciplined wanderings, but as guided by the crystalline rectilinear order of the palatial cosmos. Even your digressions are fortified with purpose—straightforward straight lines directly directed in the direction of perfectly ordered order.

The straggling future generations straggle in the front door to take their place in The Firm’s march. At first, so full of sponginess, so needing of fortification. So willing to be fortified. So willing for the helpings of your special plastic filler. So willing, after receiving an allotment of your special plastic filler, to despise those receiving less.

You have created a hierarchy by distributing your special plastic filler. This is how The Firm is governed.

Even more wonderful: to The Firm’s allotted future generations, the hierarchy is perceived to extend beyond The Firm, out into the wider world. The remarkable intricacy of your special plastic filler injections is such that the many out on the streets, out of The Firm, who have received no allotment, are viewed by the allotted future generations of The Firm as being so deprived as to be BELOW hierarchy itself: as outcastes, nondescripts, subhuman, as—-not existing. Not worthy of consideration, care, regard.

The Firm’s coherence depends on this attitude of exclusion. ( What you have here labeled “coherence” is a particular kind of organization of The Firm, of the payroll department, a very special part of The Firm’s, and payroll’s, glorious beauty. There is no dark corner or hidden recess anywhere in The Firm unexposed by the rays of the blazing beauty of this particular kind of organization you know as “coherence.”)

Thursday, October 07, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part XVIII


You don't know much about architecture but you of course know about organization, and as architecture is an organization of space, it must be you know quite a lot.

The building couldn't be founded over a hole any more than an organization could be an organization of nothing at all. Only solidity can found or be organized. The hole can never be present in the founding of a building or an organization. There can't be a hole placed into the solidity of what is to be founded or organized, either. The solidity must not be displaced. The solidity must only be fortified with greater solidity, if necessary. A hole can never fortify.

You have contributed to the building of the building by fortifying it with greater organization. You never once made a hole. You fortified holes. You solidified holes. You injected the holes you encountered in the building with your special filler plastic, if necessary, of words, if necessary.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part XVII


You want to say a few things about the building (building--that thing which houses organization) you've helped to build.

The building was built before you ever got there, but it isn't called a built, it is called a building, and for very good reason--it's an ever-present building (process). You were and are an important part of that process.

First, you will talk about some of the process which processed(NB: you could have said "which occurred", quite inappropriate in this context) before youprocessed into the process.

Beneath the surface of the island upon which the building is built, there is a solid geological substratum--solid rock. All of the basement of the building (that upon which the building is based) is tunneled into this solid substratum. A hole is made. When you speak of basement(that upon which the building is based) you are speaking of this hole. That upon which the building is based is not there--it has been excavated.

What is understood as special (by you)is that this hole doesn't in any way reduce the solid substance of the substratum. Or take away any of its power of foundation (of being that upon which the building is based.)

The linguistic power of "basement" rushes in, like a special plastic filler, to take over whatever material power was excavated when the basement layers of the superstructure were processed. Could this hole upon which all solidly rests be the place where you are in we and we is in the they and they is in the cosmos, that perfectly organized organization?

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part XVI


Coffee hour. Coffee horror.

Monday, October 04, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part XV


The open vistas, limitless expanses, the untrammeled and trackless wildness which stretches before you each time you transcend transcendence—out there in thoughtless, incisive, razor-like motion—this is your beauty.

This was your experience: life as if you were the test pilot of a jet, speeding ahead of any thought before it could form, ahead of any object, objective, or objectivity, before it could congeal, ruthlessly refusing to be captured or incapacitated in any way.

It had been inconceivable to you that, traveling at the speed of light, you could ever look out the window of your cockpit, and see someone next to you, slowed down, with a predatory grimace threatening to nudge and decelerate you “in a way” which would be catastrophic. Out in the big sky, you were, though taking on every risk, free from danger, were you not?

If you were free of details, then you were free of trauma....But this simple little equation(free from detail=free from maiming) would be tested. (Where and how had it formed in your mind, anyway?)