Gridville's Gears May 03, 2008
The Gears of Gridville are heating up and slipping as May dawns......Thoughts for a forced imagination: What am I listening to ? Sonny Rollins Bluenote BST81542 Decision. And what am I watching ? The Thing (from another World) B &W 1950. Reading ? (actually re-read) Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 and thinking ? The lyrics from Brian Eno's Lay may love from Wrong way up 1990. All included below. BTW....look out below....or from above...or sideways....
Lay My Love (Eno)
I am the crow of desperation
I need no fact or validation
I span relentless variation
I scramble in the dust of a failing nation
I was concealed
Now I am stirring
And I have waited for this time.
I am the termite of temptation
I multiply and find my population
I am the wheel I am the turning
And I will lay my love around you.
I am the sea of permutation
I live beyond interpretation
I scramble all the names and the
combinations
I penetrate the walls of explanation
I am the will
I am the burning
And I will lay my love around you.
I am the will
I am the yearning
And I will lay my love around you.
Catch 22 Excerpt (Joseph Heller)
I'm talking about flagellation," Lieutenant Engle retorted. "Who gives a damn about parades?"
Actually, no one but Lieutenant Scheisskopf really gave a damn about the parades, least of all the bloated colonel with the big fat mustache, who was chairman of the Action Board and began bellowing at Clevinger the moment Clevinger stepped gingerly into the room to plead innocent to the charges Lieutenant Scheisskopf had lodged against him. The colonel beat his fist down upon the table and hurt his hand and became so further enraged with Clevinger that he beat his fist down upon the table even harder and hurt his hand some more. Lieutenant Scheisskopf glared at Clevinger with tight lips, mortified by the poor impression Clevinger was making.
"In sixty days you'll be fighting Billy Petrolle," the colonel with the big fat mustache roared. "And you think it's a big fat joke."
"I don't think it's a joke, sir," Clevinger replied.
"Don't interrupt."
"Yes, sir."
"And say 'sir' when you do," ordered Major Metcalf.
"Yes, sir."
"Weren't you just ordered not to interrupt?" Major Metcalf inquired coldly.
"But I didn't interrupt, sir," Clevinger protested.
"No. And you didn't say 'sir,' either. Add that to the charges against him," Major Metcalf directed the corporal who could take shorthand. "Failure to say 'sir' to superior officers when not interrupting them."
"Metcalf," said the colonel, "you're a goddam fool. Do you know that?"
Major Metcalf swallowed with difficulty. "Yes, Sir."
"Then keep your goddam mouth shut. You don't make sense."
There were three members of the Action Board, the bloated colonel with the big fat mustache, Lieutenant Scheisskopf and Major Metcalf, who was trying to develop a steely gaze. As a member of the Action Board, Lieutenant Scheisskopf was one of the judges who would weigh the merits of the case against Clevinger as presented by the prosecutor. Lieutenant Scheisskopf was also the prosecutor. Clevinger had an officer defending him. The officer defending him was Lieutenant Scheisskopf.
It was all very confusing to Clevinger, who began vibrating in terror as the colonel surged to his feet like a gigantic belch and threatened to rip his stinking, cowardly body apart limb from limb. One day he had stumbled while marching to class; the next day he was formally charged with "breaking ranks while in formation, felonious assault, indiscriminate behavior, mopery, high treason, provoking, being a smart guy, listening to classical music and so on". In short, they threw the book at him, and there he was, standing in dread before the bloated colonel, who roared once more that in sixty days he would be fighting Billy Petrolle and demanded to know how the hell he would like being washed out and shipped to the Solomon Islands to bury bodies. Clevinger replied with courtesy that he would not like it; he was a dope who would rather be a corpse than bury one. The colonel sat down and settled back, calm and cagey suddenly, and ingratiatingly polite.
"What did you mean," he inquired slowly, "when you said we couldn't punish you?"
"When, sir?"
"I'm asking the questions. You're answering them."
"Yes, sir. I-"
"Did you think we brought you here to ask questions and for me to answer them?"
"No, sir. I-"
"What did we bring you here for?"
"To answer questions."
"You're goddam right," roared the colonel. "Now suppose you start answering some before I break your goddam head. Just what the hell did you mean, you bastard, when you said we couldn't punish you?"
"I don't think I ever made that statement, sir."
"Will you speak up, please? I couldn't hear you."
"Yes, sir. I-"
"Will you speak up, please? He couldn't hear you."
"Yes, sir. I-"
"Metcalf."
"Sir?"
"Didn't I tell you to keep your stupid mouth shut?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then keep your stupid mouth shut when I tell you to keep your stupid mouth shut. Do you understand? Will you speak up, please? I couldn't hear you."
"Yes, sir. I-"
"Metcalf, is that your foot I'm stepping on?"
"No, sir. It must be Lieutenant Scheisskopf's foot."
"It isn't my foot," said Lieutenant Scheisskopf.
"Then maybe it is my foot after all," said Major Metcalf.
"Move it."
"Yes, sir. You'll have to move your foot first, colonel. It's on top of mine."
"Are you telling me to move my foot?"
"No, sir. Oh, no, sir."
"Then move your foot and keep your stupid mouth shut. Will you speak up, please? I still couldn't hear you."
"Yes, sir. I said that I didn't say that you couldn't punish me."
"Just what the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm answering your question, sir."
"What question?"
"'Just what the hell did you mean, you bastard, when you said we couldn't punish you?'" said the corporal who could take shorthand, reading from his steno pad.
"All right," said the colonel. "Just what the hell did you mean?"
"I didn't say you couldn't punish me, sir."
"When?" asked the colonel.
"When what, sir?"
"Now you're asking me questions again."
"I'm sorry, sir. I'm afraid I don't understand your question."
"When didn't you say we couldn't punish you? Don't you understand my question?"
"No, sir. I don't understand."
"You've just told us that. Now suppose you answer my question."
"But how can I answer it?"
"That's another question you're asking me."
"I'm sorry, sir. But I don't know how to answer it. I never said you couldn't punish me."
"Now you're telling us when you did say it. I'm asking you to tell us when you didn't say it."
Clevinger took a deep breath. "I always didn't say you couldn't punish me, sir."
"That's much better, Mr. Clevinger, even though it is a barefaced lie. Last night in the latrine. Didn't you whisper that we couldn't punish you to that other dirty son of a bitch we don't like? What's his name?"
"Yossarian, sir," Lieutenant Scheisskopf said.
"Yes, Yossarian. That's right. Yossarian. Yossarian? Is that his name? Yossarian? What the hell kind of a name is Yossarian?"
Lieutenant Scheisskopf had the facts at his fingertips. "It's Yossarian's name, sir," he explained.
"Yes, I suppose it is. Didn't you whisper to Yossarian that we couldn't punish you?"
"Oh, no, sir. I whispered to him that you couldn't find me guilty-"
"I may be stupid," interrupted the colonel, "but the distinction escapes me. I guess I am pretty stupid, because the distinction escapes me."
"W-"
"You're a windy son of a bitch, aren't you? Nobody asked you for clarification and you're giving me clarification. I was making a statement, not asking for clarification. You are a windy son of a bitch, aren't you?"
"No, Sir."
"No, sir? Are you calling me a goddam liar?"
"Oh, no, sir."
"Then you're a windy son of a bitch, aren't you?"
"No, sir."
"Are you a windy son of a bitch?"
"No, sir."
"Goddammit, you are trying to pick a fight with me. For two stinking cents I'd jump over this big fat table and rip your stinking, cowardly body apart limb from limb."
"Do it! Do it!" cried Major Metcalf
"Metcalf, you stinking son of a bitch. Didn't I tell you to keep your stinking, cowardly, stupid mouth shut?"
"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir."
"Then suppose you do it."
"I was only trying to learn, sir. The only way a person can learn is by trying."
"Who says so?"
"Everybody says so, sir. Even Lieutenant Scheisskopf says so."
"Do you say so?"
"Yes, sir," said Lieutenant Scheisskopf. "But everybody says so."
"Well, Metcalf, suppose you try keeping that stupid mouth of yours shut, and maybe that's the way you'll learn how. Now, where were we? Read me back the last line."
"'Read me back the last line,'" read back the corporal who could take shorthand.
"Not my last line, stupid!" the colonel shouted. "Somebody else's."
"'Read me back the last line,'" read back the corporal.
"That's my last line again!" shrieked the colonel, turning purple with anger.
"Oh, no, sir," corrected the corporal. "That's my last line. I read it to you just a moment ago. Don't you remember, sir? It was only a moment ago."
"Oh, my God! Read me back his last line, stupid. Say, what the hell's your name, anyway?"
"Popinjay, sir."
"Well, you're next, Popinjay. As soon as his trial ends, your trial begins. Get it?"
"Yes, sir. What will I be charged with?"
"What the hell difference does that make? Did you hear what he asked me? You're going to learn, Popinjay-the minute we finish with Clevinger you're going to learn. Cadet Clevinger, what did-You are Cadet Clevinger, aren't you, and not Popinjay?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. What did-"
"I'm Popinjay, sir."
"Popinjay, is your father a millionaire, or a member of the Senate?"
"No, sir."
"Then you're up shit creek, Popinjay, without a paddle. He's not a general or a high-ranking member of the Administration, is he?"
"No, sir."
"That's good. What does your father do?"
"He's dead, sir."
"That's very good. You really are up the creek, Popinjay. Is Popinjay really your name? Just what the hell kind of a name is Popinjay anyway? I don't like it."
"It's Popinjay's name, sir," Lieutenant Scheisskopf explained.
"Well, I don't like it, Popinjay, and I just can't wait to rip your stinking, cowardly body apart limb from limb. Cadet Clevinger, will you please repeat what the hell it was you did or didn't whisper to Yossarian late last night in the latrine?"
"Yes, sir. I said that you couldn't find me guilty-"
"We'll take it from there. Precisely what did you mean, Cadet Clevinger, when you said we couldn't find you guilty?"
"I didn't say you couldn't find me guilty, sir."
"When?"
"When what, sir?"
"Goddammit, are you going to start pumping me again?"
"No, sir. I'm sorry, sir."
"Then answer the question. When didn't you say we couldn't find you guilty?"
"Late last night in the latrine, sir."
"Is that the only time you didn't say it?"
"No, sir. I always didn't say you couldn't find me guilty, sir. What I did say to Yossarian was-"
"Nobody asked you what you did say to Yossarian. We asked you what you didn't say to him. We're not at all interested in what you did say to Yossarian. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then we'll go on. What did you say to Yossarian?"
"I said to him, sir, that you couldn't find me guilty of the offense with which I am charged and still be faithful to the cause of..."
"Of what? You're mumbling."
"Stop mumbling."
"Yes, sir."
"And mumble 'sir' when you do."
"Metcalf, you bastard!"
"Yes, sir," mumbled Clevinger. "Of justice, sir. That you couldn't find-"
"Justice?" The colonel was astounded. "What is justice?"
"Justice, sir-"
"That's not what justice is," the colonel jeered, and began pounding the table again with his big fat hand. "That's what Karl Marx is. I'll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning. Garroting. That's what justice is when we've all got to be tough enough and rough enough to fight Billy Petrolle. From the hip. Get it?"
"No, sir."
"Don't sir me!"
"Yes, sir."
...... The latest book ( Nov 07) is called CyberStein. What's it about ? WTF Knows ? But ......Bored and cold in 1816, which was known as “The Year without a Summer”, Percy & Mary Shelly were on chilly holiday with their good friend the poet Byron. Remanded to the indoors, huddling around the fire, they challenged each other to write the scariest ghost story to pass the time. Mary Shelly composed a strange visionary cautionary tale based impart upon the Prometheus legend where in the hero steals Zeus’s fire from the center of the Sun. Now this is a big deal. The acquisition of fire allowed for the development of weapons and tools. Elevated and separated the human from the animals and maybe just a step closer to the gods. Vincent Quatroche’s latest collection of Poetry/Prose and Short Stories takes another look at both the ramifications and implications of the Prometheus legend and an emerging contemporary mutation of Mary Shelly’ dark vision of a menacing creation brought to life by science and technology. Primarily metaphorical in content and form, Quatroche’s voice evokes the individual experience as a shattered mirror reflecting back the shards of daily fragmentation and offers narratives reflecting upon the emergence of a new experimental byproduct of our technological age; Cyberstein; an entity neither dead nor alive in a human sense of the reality, but a lurking "ghost in the machine” force to reckoned with that is aggressively transforming the human experience in life with society, personal life, relationships and perhaps ultimately with fate itself. CyberStein is Poet Vincent Quatroche’s latest addition to the Rubber Eden. Unleashed and allowed free range in your Attitude House. It could be argued that your life will certainly be changed forever. There will be no locking the doors in Gridville to try and keep CyberStein out. In fact most of you have all ready allowed CyberStein in with open arms. You have become dependent upon systems you no longer understand, control or perhaps could live without. CyberStein is everywhere, all the time. CyberStien does not sleep. Vincent Quatroche, a career adult educator presently residing in Western NY has discovered of late, that he has a new pupil or perhaps more accurately, a new teacher. The latest lesson plan de jour seems to indicate that everyone, even himself, is going to have learn something very new, real and undeniably true about these modern times. The hard way. Here in the Terrible Now. Ordering information in the Cold Miller's section.
The 2006 Fall release CD collection of 18 spoken word/audio soundscape entitled In Dreamthink is now available directly through this website in and other usual internet venues, i.e. CDBaby, Amazon, Tower Records. Ordering directly through the "contact section" of this site will be cheaper & faster. The Significant, talented and generous contributions are from NYC based Jazz Pianist Matt Clark and Buffalo Guitarist & Sonic Artist/Composer Mark Hiestand with the steady ear/hand of Adirondack Folk Artist/Sleeping Giant Producer Dan Berggren at the controls.
In Dreamthink is an audio artifact of the sonic subconscious of the dreams and nightmares that prowl the nocturnal landscape of the urban citizens of Gridville. Intended to be a random sample or sub-section of the individual?s emotional terrain In Dreamthink slices away the daylight hours of daily routine and negotiation with an increasing complex and perplexing system. It is in those small hours of the night that we see each other as we really are; drifters in the temporary confinement of the flesh, awaiting the release from corporeal reality to a more certain implied fate that in sleep we get to taste a small dollop of infinity.
In Dreamthink you will hear the stories that only the night can release. While these vignettes offer little direction or answers to either the destination or final resolution to our brief existence in Gridville, In Dreamthink offers perhaps the only true gift, after love, one human being can hope to give to another; Escape.
Gridville is located here in the Rubber Eden just on the outskirts of any major post-modern population center. The time is in the "The Terrible Now". While the relative palatal atmosphere of the more affluent suburbs or the bucolic expanse of the rural countryside may escape some of the more intense effects of this microchip concentration; increasingly the "threads" of Gridville permeate most aspects of a system dependent infer-structure. The lifeblood of Gridville of course is energy. Produced by mega sized corporations who provide this "commodity" of a shrinking fossil fuel pool which is located in one of the most dangerous, highly contested areas on the face of Rubber Eden, supplies will continue to dwindle, become increasingly more difficult to procure and of course, more expensive. Service interruptions are to expected and the population at large will have this reality to face more and more on a daily basis.
Greetings from Gridville is chronicle of one consumer/citizen's account of life from a highly subjective basis. These perspectives are shaped and rendered in the "newspeak" of the individual. The ability of the connection or value of the poems and stories to the reader will be in direct relation to their economic status, position or role in society and perhaps most importantly the nature and disposition of current and/or past life experience. Collectively and increasingly the "hive" grows more complex, perplexing and fragmented. We live on the zenith of a cyber/fiber optic "house of cards." Each passing day we add to the precarious balance of this fragile edifice just by the mere act of living.
All essential systems of life sustaining distribution of goods and services in virtually every aspect of existence have grown more and more entangled, entwined and inbred. The example of an incredibly immense ball of twine thread throughout virtually all aspects of this edition of contemporary existence is as apropos as it is chilling. We don't understand it. We are addicted to it. And those who provide, maintain and oversee it doesn't care. Except when we fail to pay for it.
As of this writing there are two new fundamental commandments that consumer citizens must be aware of and abide by: Thou shall not run a foul the legal system and thou shall not have a catastrophic illness. Translation: don't go to jail or get sick in Gridville.
Now at this point, you might be asking yourself, why would I want to read anything written by someone with such a negative message coming from such a depressing place called Gridville ? And of course I see your point. And there's only one problem with using that rational as an "out" or point of dismissal; that is, we are all in the same boat. The good ship "I've got mine" as suddenly sprung a leak. There is no getting off the "grid." It's been tried. Many, many different ways. Alternative lifestyles, communities, communes, dogma, dope, booze and compulsive binge and purge shopping.
There is no escape. The exit doors have been bolted shut. And I'm afraid as Captain Beefheart once wailed, "There ain't no Santa Clause on the evening stage."
I have no way of knowing what the future holds for all the Gridvilles spread across the Rubber Eden. But I do sense a couple of things about our current situation. There is no way to return to what life was life in our country a mere hundred years ago. The future dawns every day and we are not leaving so much as breadcrumbs to ever find our way back to somewhat saner, simpler times. Yet each Attitude House of Gridville still contains humanity at its best and worst, humble and self-important. Just people. Fragile. Vibrant... Newly born or those near time to depart. As it has always been here in the Rubber Eden since before all the rubber and merely the Eden.
I think it's time to get to know your fellow citizens here in the Rubber Eden. The nature of their day to day dreams, joys, loves and fears. Greeting from Gridville contains the voices of husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, lost lovers and current mistresses. Turn off the "Reality TV" with its' debasing vanity iris and read the poetry, the stories, memories and secret hidden sub consciousness of the great collective "nobody" from "nowhere" who dares still to express "anything" to "anyone" just because they the desire to express and still can.
You might find more of yourself or someone you know in Gridville than you bargained for. Greetings from Gridville is an extended series of postcard like word-picture images in which enigmatic prose narratives appear on the reverse side in an archaic language scrawled in a difficult font sent from a country that either no longer exists or has declined to such a degree that not only do the citizens fail to recognize their national identity any longer; they seem to be embracing their cultural vacuity with open arms. Meanwhile the rest of the world regards their nation as a menace or some sort of surreal punch line to a bad cosmic joke delivered in the poorest of taste. In Gridville mind numbing complex systems struggle to regulate and maintain order in a cyber-optic spider web where lust and greed are lynchpins for celebrity obsessed, creature comfort driven, image conscious consumers. Dreams of power and nightmares of paranoia permeate the major urban population centers; while in the vast empty spaces of the heartland the core of the countries populace regard themselves as the "chosen elite" spiritual gatekeepers and moral jury masters of the collective soul. For those who come of age and fall in love in Gridville, the William Butler Yeats quote from the "Second Coming" can truly be appreciated, "...The ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all convictions, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
Vincent Quatroche's Greetings from Gridville is his third book of prose, poetry and stories. Pervious collections include Another Rubber Eden (1997) and Attitude House (2002). For ordering info visit the "Cold Millers" section on this website
Vincent Quatroche persists still in writing, publishing, recording and performing his rather askew worldview. The rational mind would think after thirty some odd years he might have gotten the message that not only does the literary world not even consider him a after thought and that perhaps if he insists upon annoying the general population of Gridville with his creative efforts that a knock at the door from the proper authorities wishing to interview him and ask a few questions regarding his personal political views and nationalistic loyalties is the best he might hope for. Vincent still resides on the outskirts of domestic strangulation in Western New York, with his wife and children, who with the passage of time have come to the ultimate realization that that their beloved father and husband is no doubt a couple of baloney slices short of a complete sandwich and who will not cease or desist insisting he hears the Sirens of Titan until it's time for that long dirt nap in the wooden kimono. At press time collaborating comments from his students at nearby correctional facilities and local colleges were unavailable for legal reasons.
