Collective History Is What Makes Men Imagine They Are Civilized
Audio = Stream from the bar; download from the dots
06/05/1992
Summary = See below
Condensed News Items = See below
News Item Gallery = jcap 92060-0981
Transcript = None
Key Words =
Summary
#981 Jun 5, 1992 – 1:07
Notes by TK
Kyroot to :25. Talk calms the Primary Level World, excites the Secondary Level World.
Collective history is what makes men imagine they are civilized.
Secondary Level World kings have no progeny. Maturity = no new thinking = death.
Approx. 10 minutes of audio only “additional comments” on separate tape.
The News
Just before they die a lot of people get real serious.
***
People are sensitive about their intelligence since no one really knows how smart they are, except a revolutionist.
***
For some, being unoriginal causes shortness of breath.
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Institutions provide paradigmatic templates the individual can adopt, and through which he can look so as to see as little as is possible and acceptable.
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One guy says he’s sure he’d calm down if they’d just let him be famous.
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One man had a word for everything…except the end of a sentence.
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A revolutionist worried is a person back working for the state.
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Conversation overheard over near the city fountain: “The gift of martyrdom is not given to all.” “Not more than once it’s not.”
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Talk calms the primary while it excites the secondary.
…(Oh yeah, he adds, that was supposed to be a “True Or False” pop quiz question. …[And a man who had already eaten his rutabagas asks, “In what manner are the notion of ‘intention’ and the idea of a ‘question’ related?”])
***
One ole man told the kid, “Throughout history have been men who said, ‘The truth will set you free.’ Because there have periodically been publicly verbose individuals who experienced some original thought — felt better than they ever had in their lives, and figured calling it ‘the truth’ was as good as any other description.”
…..one kid thought, “When I get to be the ole man I wonder what I’ll have to tell myself?!…”
***
Whilst taking a well deserved break in the library’s basement rest room facilities this one man thought to himself, “The collective history of man is what makes him imagine he’s civilized.” …(Sometime later, back upstairs he mused, “How would things be if that were the other way around?…”)
***
The Royal Priest so instructed the young prince, “Fish have no religion for they can fathom of no god beyond the water.”
…(Did not the brain have the skull, it could spill out, being then unable to conceive of its confinement.)
***
One guy now defines irony (and in a sarcastic voice, I might add) as “others doing just about what you’d expect — while for totally unforeseeable circumstances you’re forced to do otherwise.”
…..(Irony says it don’t need no damn “definition”!)
***
Said one city avenue to its offspring street, “Another advantage to hanging around the bus station is that if you don’t know where you’re going you can invite others to join you.”
…(And a viewer says, “That sure does smell suspiciously like religion, and education, and civilization, and everything else I ever heard of!…”)
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An artist on a schedule is like a bus on wheels. …(And one chap upon hearing this started to make a comment — then thought better of it.)
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Okay (said Kyroot), let’s run over-it, through-it or otherwise try-it again: No matter how out of character they may be able to sometimes cavort, when squirrels hear that rat exterminators are headed their way, they’ll either pull a Houdini, or else get super-duper, nutso-defensive. …(Consider the consistency and vigor with which man’s religious, social and political ideas will immediately strike back even before they’re struck… …[Hell! Applied to all man’s thinking!])
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One fellow’s latest theory is as follows: “The whole concept of ‘seriousness’ was invented by historians after the first time they were challenged.”
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Then turning toward the city Kyroot remarked: “One distinct benefit of living by the ordinary mind is that you never know for sure when something is really over.”
…..(Hey, somebody go dig up Mahler and ask him for sure if that was his very last symphony or not?!)
…..then an urban intellectual stepped in to say, “The proof of history’s validity and vitality is the fact that it never ends.”
…(And not resisting the urge, a seditious ole man told his kid, “You can learn from the city and civilian thought just as long as you have no regard for where it came from.”)
***
Then from a plain brown envelope emerged today’s “Query For The Bleary”: What is the difference between a “king gone mad” and a “god on a rampage”? …(By the by: The real answer [as if any of the ordinary cared] is: Who cares! So what! and Who could tell the difference!)
***
A correspondent writes: “Have you noticed — Life can’t apparently talk about itself through man without employing a plethora of adjectives and adverbs.” …(“Okay, any of you rookies wanna try and field that one?…”)
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And an ole-man-mother told the kid, “Those who tell you of the dirty, shameful road they earlier trod before they matured and saw the light — well, you know the stinking odor you smell? It’s from the anachronistic shit still stuck to their shoes.”
…(Parenting update outside the city-state: A child with no memory is a (pick one) — happy — nourished — promising child.)
***
And now another frightening…uh-h-h, exciting episode in the continuing daytime drama, “Life Sometimes Almost Makes Sense”: We join Dr. Prescott as he leaves Mrs. Mulvaney’s room, and says to himself, “Being attractive is one thing, but being attractive and wealthy is two.”
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An artist who relies on the approval and inspiration of others should find a new way to spell “artist.”
***
Two guys were talking and one of them said, “Ahh, as the ancients used to say, ‘Once you’ve seen Rome then you can die.'” And the other one rushed home and ran to the mirror wondering, “Does the fullness of my forehead at all resemble the Colosseum?”
***
Then Kyroot offered more “Proof Without Warning” (a/k/a “Proof Without Proof”): If everyone’s mind is their own “second banana,” then only the revolutionist artist has the slightest idea of what show business is really about.
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Then Kyroot conveyed this “Dialogue Few Would Want To Think About”: “I see no way that one could prepare to be a neural revolutionist or artist.” “Is that why they’re born that way?” “How the hell do you prepare for that!!” …(Yes, that’s right-o-roonie, girls & boils — DON’T think about it.)
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A viewer writes to complain: “I find your special kind of playing-with-words to be too dangerously close to playing-with-my-mind; and when I consider the implications of what I’ve just said I frighten myself even a little more; …(but I still blame it all on you!) Sincerely,” etc.
***
…and then Kyroot made mention of this: There’s this one guy who says: “Every time I see someone do something well — with class — with style — with even a touch of originality, to me, I see behind them — life itself, just a’pickin’ and a’grinnin’.”
***
A younger brain told an older brain, “It’s easy to be smug when you know what you’re doing,” and the older one replied, “Yeah, but when you don’t it’s still possible.” …(And the younger one thought, “Jeeze! Have I got a lot to learn, and Jeeze! Do I hate it!”)
***
Secondary kings have no progeny.
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And then your imaginary playmate, Bubba-K, just in the good natured spirit of fun, told a group of visiting turnip-truck drivers, “Once you’ve figured out ‘what’s going on’ then you can be in a Kyroot. It’ll be the one that says: ‘There was this one man who had his own number.'”
***
To try and scratch their itch, scientists and explorers look without — mystics and philosophers, within; the revolutionist (how-some-ever, ever, ever) takes off his glasses and skips town.
…(Corollary: If you know where a particular artist is — he’s no artist. …[Then a stranger, resembling Kyroot, added: “I feel it my responsibility to note that there is no such thing as a ‘corollary’; only ‘our kind of thinking,’ which should leave a lot out anyway.”])
***
Over in this other reality the elders like to tell this legend to their children: “There was once a man who tried to give others advice — and get this — he was serious!”
***
Then just after the apples & cheese, but just before the brandy, Kyroot served up: Another item from the “Boffo Binary World Of Stuff”: Two lives were fooling around and one said let’s play a question & answer game, and proceeded to ask the other: “Of what can kittens dream, but cream and dogs?!” And the second countered, “But what of lazy naps, good masters, and feline drugs?” To which the first replied, “Shut up, fool! Cats can’t dream!”
***
Kyroot’s “Faraway Fable For The Day”: In this one land, when religion ran out the people began to chew on bark.
…(Fable 2: In another land, when their thinking finally reached the horizon, the people drained the swamps.)
…..Someone purporting themself to be a representative of some “Lamb’s Association” has contacted our show to complain over Mary always receiving top billing. …(Those who don’t know how the mind goes either think it can go “any way it wants to,” or else “no way at all.” …[Is only in healthy city-states that suffocation is exuberation].)
***
In our complex, revolutionist sense, there is no such thing as “bad” originality: but also note that over here, criticism, plagiarism, reactionarism, and whining are not forms of originality. …(And one kid basal-ganglion said, “Wow! ‘Over there’ must be a really neat and different kind of there.”)
***
A certain king, whilst in a certain state, stood off alone and began to think thusly: “If it be so, as I slowly suspect, that if you skin a priest you find a child, and if you skin a child you discover an old man, then what would be left once you stripped an artist?” …(The shudder you just felt was not from the leaves.)
***
…then Doge Kyroot said: Those who think in the city state come to conclusions; and such with charisma or annoying hemorrhoids want you should agree with them. …(“Yeah, yes, verily, and what-not,” said one old dude, “indeed ’tis speculative to search for a cheerful prophet.” …[And just then, suddenly appeared a quite serious and distinguished looking gentleman who informed us: “It is not the responsibility of society’s institutions to smile or otherwise ‘spread joy’…
…What’s gotten into you people anyway?!!” …(Shhh…wait…
I think I just heard a rebel breathe…)])
***
…and Kyroot noted: One guy’s conclusion: “As long as Indexes remain in alphabetical order I will never be at a total intellectual loss.” …(And a city by the sea said, “A valuable aspect of being a Philistine, and unoriginal is that it helps keep one stable, and free from disturbing uncertainties.”
…[The people resident there were much appreciative of their host’s concern… …well, all the normal people!])
***
One resident form of life, upon hearing the honored local adage, “It’s better to wear out than to rust away,” thought, “What a fuckin’ choice!” …(Once upon another time & place a god-cum-king-cum-mortal-thinker looked upon his fellow creatures and thought, “I don’t mind the end being near as long as it stays near to YOU.” …[Sub-Atomic & Sociological Update: The ordinary mind cannot conceive of its own nonexistence…
…(any more than it can of its own otherwise)])
…..the vapor trails of a revolutionist’s mind are not too unlike their source.
…..and a viewer writes: “If you can show me how any two (or more) of any of these ‘Kyroots’ are connected I’ll eat my hat
…or my rutabagas…or send a contribution to your building fund. Yours,” and so forth.
…..Oh, the noise you just heard was the old fax machine churning out this late breaking message from a viewer: “Dear Kyroot: My brother, who has attended one of the tapings of your shows in person, says that you have to give notes to the people reading the ‘Kyroots’ so that even they’ll know which ones are related. (I trust you won’t think I’m ‘out-of-line’ for bringing this up, but if it seems offensive, of course, all you have to do is ignore it and not read it on the air — right?” Signed, “Viewer-With-Fax-And-Alertness (I Hope).” …(And so Kyroot, too, joined in the festivities by noting: “If you drag out most anything long enough — in a certain way — you can finally learn something from it — right?”)
…..”4″ was one guy’s “lucky number”…(he said he’d tried all the others!).
***
A surly looking chap standing in front of the coffee shop told a passerby, “A man who says he’s ‘king-of-himself’ has fools for subjects.” …(A woman inside the restaurant, who identified herself as his mother, says that he does not have any kind of degree in the social sciences.)
***
An artist who is “serious” is like a balloon blessed with no air…or elasticity…or a string…or much of anything…
…(but at least he does have his “seriousness.”)
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“Look at it this way,” said a rebel to a kid, “old age only frightens the old…the young…the middle-aged, and the unoriginal.”
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“Conversation In Lieu Of A Solemn Requiem For The Partially Deceased”: “Everyone does just what they’re told to do.” “Well I don’t!” “Why’d you say that?” “I couldn’t help myself.”
…(Instead of flowers, Captain Obvious sent along this note of condolences: “Well maybe next time we can bypass all this childishness and get right to the heart of dead folks’ difficulties.”
…[A duck, babysitting nearby with some young mice mused, “It’s a good thing that Handel’s not around today for someone to try and get a grip on him in this regard.”])
***
The difference between a king and an artist is that one of them must protect himself.
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As he sat before his keyboard pondering past scores and his previous attempts, he finally said, “No — it is not the ‘lost chord’ I seek, but rather the undiscovered hands that might produce such a sound.”
…..and a man thinks, “How many times will I have to ask myself the distinction between my mind and its thoughts before I’ll ever continually remember the question — much less ever get around to what might be a profitable response?!”
***
What does a real artist have to take a vacation from?!
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…then Kyroot reminded you of some local reality and expectations: Waltzing in city ballrooms and believing you see distant campfires are not incompatible, but it should lead only to lazy dreams and poetic musings — not to actual attempts to leave town.
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Originality is not a product of the primary world; neither does it come from the routine secondary. …(I guess by god [Har-de har har] that THAT narrows down the hints good enough!)
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Those who wonder if they are artists, ain’t.
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A certain father told his son, “Always heed the advice of others.” …(Then to make up for this he added, “By the way, I ain’t really your old man.”)