IL CAPO: “Watch the hands. They tell a story.”
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WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf an’ blind, tolling for the mute
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an’ cheated by pursuit
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
— Bob Dylan
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
and counter-storms of general destruction; killing
of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or
less intentional, of children and women;
Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice,
the innocent air
Perverted into assassin and poisoner.
The sword: that is: treachery and cowardice, incredible
baseness, incredible courage, loyalties, insanities.
The sword: weeping and despair, mass-enslavement,
mass-torture, frustration of all hopes
That starred man’s forehead. Tyranny for freedom, horror for
happiness, famine for bread, carrion for children.
Reason will not decide at last, the sword will decide.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
Comments on this entry are closed.
Seems like some classical music would go well with the conducting.
Also, the missing fingertips tell a story of the hands not quite getting out of the way of something heavy.
Always interesting to see someone doing a real job with finesse borne of experience.
I keep seeing a big block of feta cheese.
Every “progressive” who wants to see men feminized should watch this video. This is an extraordinary example of men doing men’s work.
I find myself hoping for another Michelangelo (whose hands were roughened and disfigured too) to free some larger-than-life statues from the marble that Il Capo is quarrying. The beauty of the stone itself is as much a character in the video as is the maestro directing the machinery.
Put some of those Seattle Sissies on that job site for a year and video the transformation.
The best part was the orchestration between the 2 Track-Hoes.
Line the left one up, then lock it in place with a fist, then ease the right one into it’s place.
Excellent.
The guys running those track hoes seem to know what they are doing, too!
Many years ago I went to a butcher shop to get some barbecue makings. There was a man behind the counter cutting chops using a band saw. Since the meat was frozen he had heavy rubber gloves on. Being a wise ass I commented “how many fingers are you missing under those gloves?” He responded by taking a glove off and show three fingers cut off at various knuckles. I shut up.
Speaking of bandsaws. I took woodshop in 7th grade (and every grade thereafter) and the instructor was emphasizing to us students how wrong it was to try to cut a round piece of wood (like a dowel) on the bandsaw and he held up the remains of his left index finger. Because the bandsaw blade travels from top to bottom it forces the stock against the table and if that stock happens to be round it will try to rotate and pull the fingers holding it right into that powerful blade.
Quite frankly my bandsaw is so powerful, as well as the tablesaw, that when I turn them on the sound of the motor and blades terrifies me so that my blood pressure goes straight through the moon. Drillpress, lathe, jointer, etc., no problem, the fingers are well back from the blades. But the band and table saws require direct 100% visual and mental attention, no exceptions ever.
Having said that, I built a sled for both the band and table saws that I can lock down round wood on them and cut it safely. After working with dangerous woodworking tools for more than 40 years I still have all my fingers but I have no escaped entirely unscathed. The scars show your dedication to the craft., and sometimes your lack of attention and carelessness.
Yep, that is some sweet teamwork there. Now I have in the past myself signaled for many a heavy and quite a few very damned tight lifts, up to say 120 tons (the 2240 lb ones, so about the same metric or imperial), and thought I was pretty good, but the Chief seems to be operating on a “whole ‘nother” level.
Of course, this being blue collar-ish work, all of it will have to be hidden away from the sensitive eyes of modern western urbanites, lest the toxicity of the masculine behaviors shown poison their very souls, assuming, of course, that they possess any.
Fascinating. Thanks.
That’s pretty spectacular ‘conducting’! There is really nothing much more satisfying that watching men at work doing what they’ve perfected. A number of years ago I started work at an art museum about the time they commenced adding a complicated, partly-underground, addition. During my break times I could go outside where there was a good viewing site overlooking the ‘dig’ into a very thick rock layer. It was captivating to watch one monstrous machine (like those on this video) with large toothed extensions carefully pry huge rock just as one might use a forefinger to lift out a piece of gravel from a garden. It was huge, but so very delicate, and the operator obviously knew exactly how to remove just the right amount at the right time. It was quite a show! Thanks for sharing this.
I’m still slackjawed at the pit itself. A pit of marble, for Chrissake!! The pit itself is a work of art; looks like a marble statue of a pit