{"id":14620,"date":"2013-09-20T11:28:42","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T15:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=14620"},"modified":"2013-09-20T13:05:53","modified_gmt":"2013-09-20T17:05:53","slug":"the-unmaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/the-unmaking\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unmaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Demolition<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: interior walls of the former\u00a0Youth Study Center<\/a> juvenile-detention facility in Philadelphia during its demolition in 2009. (Click to enlarge.) I believe the blue floors — perhaps like the one behind the upper doors here? — were for boys, and pink for girls. Photo by Andrew Evans (user werdsnave) on Flickr<\/a>. As of 2012, the site is now the new location of the Barnes Foundation art museum<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

The very mind that wants to control things is the mind that’s caught up to begin with. When you’re caught up, you have fewer possibilities. Your mind can manifest in more ways if you keep it from taking form. Do you understand what it means to not let your mind take form? When you allow the mind to harden itself into a shape, a feeling, an intensity, technique, or strategies rather than allowing that clear, mirror like perception to arise, that is allowing the mind to take form.<\/p>\n

If you let your mind take form, it becomes localized. When you feel that happen, return to a formless state. The more that you can do that, the more you’ll be your own person. The less you can do that, the more circumstances will dictate to you who you are at every moment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Takuan Soho [source unknown, although it’s quoted<\/a> many<\/a> places<\/a> online]<\/em>)<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Crossroads<\/strong><\/p>\n

The second half of my life will be black
\nto the white rind of the old and fading moon.
\nThe second half of my life will be water
\nover the cracked floor of these desert years.
\nI will land on my feet this time,
\nknowing at least two languages and who
\nmy friends are. I will dress for the
\noccasion, and my hair shall be
\nwhatever color I please.
\nEveryone will go on celebrating the old
\nbirthday, counting the years as usual,
\nbut I will count myself new from this
\ninception, this imprint of my own desire.<\/p>\n

The second half of my life will be swift,
\npast leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder,
\nasphalt tickets, the beckon of open road.
\nThe second half of my life will be wide-eyed,
\nfingers shifting through fine sands,
\narms loose at my sides, wandering feet.
\nThere will be new dreams every night,
\nand the drapes will never be closed.
\nI will toss my string of keys into a deep
\nwell and old letters into the grate.<\/p>\n

The second half of my life will be ice
\nbreaking up on the river, rain
\nsoaking the fields, a hand
\nheld out, a fire,
\nand smoke going
\nupward, always up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Joyce Sutphen [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river:<\/p>\n

The Face<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is there a single thing in nature
\nthat can approach in mystery
\nthe absolute uniqueness of any human face, first, then
\nits transformation from childhood to old age—<\/p>\n

We are surrounded at every instant
\nby sights that ought to strike the sane
\nunbenumbed person tongue-tied, mute
\nwith gratitude and terror. However,<\/p>\n

there may be three sane people on earth
\nat any given time: and if
\nyou got the chance to ask them how they do it,
\nthey would not understand.<\/p>\n

I think they might just stare at you
\nwith the embarrassment of pity. Maybe smile
\nthe way you do when children suddenly reveal a secret
\npreoccupation with their origins, careful not to cause them shame,<\/p>\n

on the contrary, to evince the great congratulating pleasure
\none feels in the presence of a superior talent and intelligence;
\nor simply as one smiles to greet a friend who\u2019s waking up,
\nto prove no harm awaits him, you’ve dealt with and banished all harm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Franz Wright [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Attention! Master Rinzai asked the administrator monk, “Where have you been?” The monk said, “I have come back from selling brown rice in the province.” Rinzai asked, “Is it all sold?” The monk replied, “It is all sold.” Rinzai, drawing a line with his staff, said, “Did you sell this?” Thereupon the monk shouted. At that, Rinzai hit him. Next, the head cook, the tenzo<\/em>, came and Rinzai told him about the previous incident. The head cook remarked, “The Administrator Monk did not understand your intent, Osho<\/span>.” Rinzai retorted, “How about you?” The tenzo bowed low. Rinzai hit him, too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Gerry Shishin Wick [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Not many people I know carry their end of the conversation when I want to talk about water deliveries, even when I stress that these deliveries affect their lives, indirectly, every day. “Indirectly” is not quite enough for most people I know. This morning, however, several people I know were affected not “indirectly” but “directly” by the way the water moves. They had been in New Mexico shooting a picture, one sequence of which required a river deep enough to sink a truck, the kind with a cab and a trailer and fifty or sixty wheels. It so happened that no river near the New Mexico location was running deep this year. The production was therefore moved today to Needles, California, where the Colorado River normally runs, depending upon releases from Davis Dam, eighteen to twenty-five feet deep. Now. Follow this closely: yesterday we had a freak tropical storm in Southern California, two inches of rain in a normally dry month, and because this rain flooded the fields and provided more irrigation than any grower could possibly want for several days, no water was ordered from Davis Dam.<\/p>\n

No orders, no releases.<\/p>\n

Supply and demand.<\/p>\n

As a result the Colorado was running only seven feet deep past Needles today, Sam Peckinpah’s desire for eighteen feet of water in which to sink a truck not being the kind of demand anyone at Davis Dam is geared to meet. The production closed down for the weekend. Shooting will resume Tuesday, providing some grower orders water and the agencies controlling the Colorado release it. Meanwhile many gaffers, best boys, cameramen, assistant directors, script supervisors, stunt drivers and maybe even Sam Peckinpah are waiting out the weekend in Needles, where it is often 110 degrees at five P.M. and hard to get dinner after eight. This is a California parable, but a true one.*<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Joan Didion [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

________________________<\/p>\n

* (addendum) I’ve never seen the movie, but I assume the one which Didion wrote about was 1978’s\u00a0Convoy<\/em> (Peckinpah’s next-to-last film). Wikipedia says<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The famous scene where the tanker truck goes off a bridge and explodes was filmed in Needles, California, on a one-way bridge over the Colorado River between Arizona and Needles. The Needles City Fire Department provided fire protection during this scene. The bridge was soon thereafter removed as a new span connected the two sides of the river.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nothing about crazy water-control policies!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: interior walls of the former\u00a0Youth Study Center juvenile-detention facility in Philadelphia during its demolition in 2009. (Click to enlarge.) I believe the blue floors — perhaps like the one behind the upper doors here? — were for boys, and pink for girls. Photo by Andrew Evans (user werdsnave) on Flickr. As of 2012, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,5,251],"tags":[1514,2457,2631,3337,3615,3616],"class_list":{"0":"post-14620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-06_writing","10":"category-poetry-writing_cat","11":"tag-joan-didion","12":"tag-takuan-soho","13":"tag-joyce-sutphen","14":"tag-architecture","15":"tag-franz-wright","16":"tag-gerry-shishin-wick","17":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-3NO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14620"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14656,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14620\/revisions\/14656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}