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: 2001-2022
After scanning its face again and again,
I began to scale it, picking my holds
With intense caution. About half-way
To the top, I was suddenly brought to
A dead stop, with arms outspread
Clinging close to the face of the rock
Unable to move hand or foot
Either up or down. My doom
Appeared fixed. I MUST fall.
There would be a moment of
Bewilderment, and then,
A lifeless rumble down the cliff
To the glacier below.
My mind seemed to fill with a
Stifling smoke. This terrible eclipse
Lasted only a moment, when life blazed
Forth again with preternatural clearness.
I seemed suddenly to become possessed
Of a new sense. My trembling muscles
Became firm again, every rift and flaw in
The rock was seen as through a microscope,
My limbs moved with a positiveness and precision
With which I seemed to have
Nothing at all to do.
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
reach my hands and play with pebbles of
destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive
in the universe.
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