Get out of the big city?
Got that done many years ago.
ghostsniperSeptember 16, 2021, 12:15 PM
I have just never understood why anyone would want to live in a city. I was reminded of this the other night when I heard a siren several miles away, a rarity around here. I have been in cities at night time (but not for a long time) and the white noise would drive me insane. Maybe that why city slickers ARE insane?
gwbnycSeptember 16, 2021, 2:03 PM
70-80-early 90’s when nyc was broke and broken it absolutely would not let you have a bad time.
Mike AustinSeptember 16, 2021, 12:27 PM
I live in Oklahoma, the freest State in the union. Here we have cattle, pigs, oil, natural gas, corn, wheat, poultry, tens of thousands of veterans with combat training—and lots of guns. When the “spicy times” arrive, we are already well-placed to survive, even to thrive. How many of these things does New York City have? Detroit? Chicago? Baltimore? Washington DC? Can any of these urban cesspools feed themselves? Defend themselves?
All those who have ears to hear and eyes to see have already left big cities. And for those who remain? What can we say that has not already been said? I wish them many good lucks.
Casey KlahnSeptember 16, 2021, 1:08 PM
What began as a pandemic, morphed into an I.Q. test.
Boat GuySeptember 17, 2021, 9:03 AM
Casey,
Spot on. I’m gonna use that – with attribution
Casey KlahnSeptember 17, 2021, 5:59 PM
Boat Guy, I saw it on a t shirt at the gun show. It abides
Here in the Small City, skyscrapers are the exception, not the rule. My workplace is a four-story building, and my new daily (2 days a week) work workout is taking the stairs. I was never a fan of elevator blabbermouths. Big city life is my idea of Hell.
LagmanSeptember 16, 2021, 2:31 PM
Okay. The state of the USA today is because of “manifest destiny” which through various sleights of hand and political slogans and spending programs became (after “westward ho”) the “highly mobile society”, which became let’s move to “office parks” (which if you still have your eyes closed are “plantations”); off-shoring followed, and now (easily 40 + yrs) we have automation and 10s of millions of illegals and now (25+ yrs) the 6th Century and religiously intolerant refugees being planted in rural America. …
The Emma Lazarus poem plays on the generosity of the human spirit and (perhaps without knowing) a Judaeo-Christian value relating to the goodness in all humanity. But it was and remains a utopian ideal; and past waves of immigration (late 19th / early 20th century) were followed by turmoil (violence) and long periods of assimilation (which 7-15 generations later is not complete).
It is true Lot and his wife left cities; but when she looked back she turned into a pillar of salt (no life; still connected).
All who run from the cities are fooling themselves and have bought into a political lie; ultimately it is selfish. And, if you objectively analyze the economics you find that most of the communities of expatriates are dependent on the cities / states they left and government workers (and the businesses that employ them) – What happens when those businesses cease to exist or move ? When the federal tax dollars and pension monies from the demonrat states stop ? …
And, what form of currency are you going to use when your electronic and paper money has no value ?
Should the economy / government fail you are not in a life sustaining environment; unless you are truly isolated and able to live without creature comforts (and then for how long ?). Yet, if one is in a major metropolitan area life for most while not desirable will be sustainable; if only because there will be the center of political turmoil and the sustained / renewed genesis of voluntary servitude.
Of course if all fails, it simply is going to be horrific and only those who are in a tribe that can focus on perpetuating “life itself” even to the point of their own demise will in the end succeed.
But, if you do not want to consider the above argument, how about: demonrats are segregationists – every thing they have been doing since the founding and early 1800s is about division. And, every comment above emphasizes division and separation. … Who’s winning ?
ghostsniperSeptember 16, 2021, 6:25 PM
“And, what form of currency are you going to use when your electronic and paper money has no value ?”
=========
Brain and muscle will be the primary tools of production, and voices will be the means of conveyance.
In other words, collaboration for barter or exchange. Eliminating the 3rd party means of exchange (money) lessens the methods of thievery. I strive for a simpler life.
EX-Californian PeteSeptember 17, 2021, 11:50 AM
Lagman- when electronic and paper currency become worthless, it will revert back to the “replacement currencies” being potable water, food, and most importantly (and most versatile) – weaponry and ammo. Coincidentally, the same 3 things that are “drying up” in Commiefornia.
“All who run from the cities are fooling themselves and have bought into a political lie; ultimately it is selfish.”
I see no reasoning at all in that statement. You’re recommending to STAY in a place where the conditions are the worst and self-sustenance is way more difficult, and with way more people fighting over waning resources? Remain in a place where you’re surrounded by crime and danger?
In other words, stay on the deck of a sinking ship?
No thanks, I’ll swim instead.
Maybe that might make me “selfish,” but who cares?
Of course, I now live in what you call a “life sustaining environment.” And I don’t care if Democrats/Liberals/Socialists want “division and separation”- those are the people whom I’ve separated myself far away from.
They’ve been replaced by the fine people in the “tribe” I’m now part of.
VanderleunSeptember 16, 2021, 2:50 PM
Winning is determined after the game is played.
“The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.”
― Mao Tsé-Tung
In the meantime, valid plays are to retreat and prepare…
And provide provide…
Provide, Provide by Robert Frost
The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the beauty Abishag,
The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.
Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.
Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.
Some have relied on what they knew;
Others on simply being true.
What worked for them might work for you.
No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard,
Or keeps the end from being hard.
Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!
Just came inside from working on my forge house (Ain’t making it big enough to call a blacksmith shop.).
Up to now hot metal bigger than a Bowie knife or a machete has been a summer job, coal fired forge and railroad track anvil on a 15 inch steel I beam have been set up outside, not too handy at -40° with a few feet of snow so…
roofing and siding a space when I can pound and shape white hot metal when it’s as cold as -20° at least.
And provide, provide…, I’ll be right, might have to consider getting a trip hammer after I turn ninety or so though.
Better to go down sweatin’ hard
Drinking Irish with a pard
And done it all.
Provide, provide.
ghostsniperSeptember 17, 2021, 4:44 AM
Andy Dufresne sed: “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.”, we can see what choice Jim has chosen.
Boat GuySeptember 17, 2021, 9:05 AM
Aspiring Smith here. I have produced useful things but am still very much n the apprentice stage.
Richard G.September 18, 2021, 10:34 PM
You may enjoy this video interview with Francis Whitaker, artist blacksmith extraordinaire. I had the privilege of knowing him when I was young. (Bear with the poor audio). He died with his hammer in his hand.
James O’Neil:
Holy cow, that sounds like fun! I’ve watched people do old school blacksmithing. It’s another of civilization’s primal art forms. That sort of labor feeds the soul.
JWM
Boat GuySeptember 17, 2021, 9:06 AM
Truly it does. Highly recommended.
ghostsniperSeptember 17, 2021, 10:13 AM
Look up the TV show named “Forged in Fire” on the DEFY over the air channel.
They do an all day marathon once a week.
Boat GuySeptember 17, 2021, 7:59 PM
I am privileged to learn from and work with several “Forged in Fire” contestants including one champion.
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
– – WH Auden
from “1054 AD”
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
“Where to? what next?”
— Carl Sandberg
Camouflage
Sourdough Mountain Lookout
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.
I cannot remember things I once read
A few friends, but they are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.
BY GARY SNYDER
Chimes of Freedom
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
“From a student radical/hippie/leftist of the Free Speech Movement/Vietnam Day Commitee era and a full-on Democratic Liberal in the decades after, I think I’ve evolved a politics that is neither right nor left but is, in its elemental nature, draconian. In the last 20 years, I’ve taken apart my beliefs with a sledgehammer. Now I’ve got to put the surviving parts back together with tweezers and other ‘shabby equipment, always deteriorating’.”
Byzantium
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
– – W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939
De Breanski
VAN GOGH
Hillegas
To the Stonecutters
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
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
from “1054 AD”
Sometimes it seems I had a dream, and, as a dreamer woke immersed in mineral baths closed within a cool, dark chamber fed by streams flowing in from the center of nowhere.
Hanging from the granite ceiling a kerosene lantern cast shards of light through the pale steam rising from the surface of the pools.
Ripples radiated outwards from the edges of my body and tapping faintly on the rock revealed the edges of the chamber.
Outside I could hear the wind slide across the spine of the mountains, speaking in a language that I remembered but could no longer understand.
Steam filled my nostrils and heat penetrated my bones until, after a time, I had no body, only a sense of silence and distance and calm.
Two employees of Boston Properties demonstrated proper safe distancing in an elevator at the Prudential Center in Boston. Going Up? Not So Fast: Strict New Rules to Govern Elevator Culture – The New York Times![That Was the Whopper Weekend That Was [Illustrated]](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/welcometohell-150x150.jpg "That Was the Whopper Weekend That Was [Illustrated]")
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Comments on this entry are closed.
Get out of the big city?
Got that done many years ago.
I have just never understood why anyone would want to live in a city. I was reminded of this the other night when I heard a siren several miles away, a rarity around here. I have been in cities at night time (but not for a long time) and the white noise would drive me insane. Maybe that why city slickers ARE insane?
70-80-early 90’s when nyc was broke and broken it absolutely would not let you have a bad time.
I live in Oklahoma, the freest State in the union. Here we have cattle, pigs, oil, natural gas, corn, wheat, poultry, tens of thousands of veterans with combat training—and lots of guns. When the “spicy times” arrive, we are already well-placed to survive, even to thrive. How many of these things does New York City have? Detroit? Chicago? Baltimore? Washington DC? Can any of these urban cesspools feed themselves? Defend themselves?
All those who have ears to hear and eyes to see have already left big cities. And for those who remain? What can we say that has not already been said? I wish them many good lucks.
What began as a pandemic, morphed into an I.Q. test.
Casey,
Spot on. I’m gonna use that – with attribution
Boat Guy, I saw it on a t shirt at the gun show. It abides
Here in the Small City, skyscrapers are the exception, not the rule. My workplace is a four-story building, and my new daily (2 days a week) work workout is taking the stairs. I was never a fan of elevator blabbermouths. Big city life is my idea of Hell.
Okay. The state of the USA today is because of “manifest destiny” which through various sleights of hand and political slogans and spending programs became (after “westward ho”) the “highly mobile society”, which became let’s move to “office parks” (which if you still have your eyes closed are “plantations”); off-shoring followed, and now (easily 40 + yrs) we have automation and 10s of millions of illegals and now (25+ yrs) the 6th Century and religiously intolerant refugees being planted in rural America. …
The Emma Lazarus poem plays on the generosity of the human spirit and (perhaps without knowing) a Judaeo-Christian value relating to the goodness in all humanity. But it was and remains a utopian ideal; and past waves of immigration (late 19th / early 20th century) were followed by turmoil (violence) and long periods of assimilation (which 7-15 generations later is not complete).
It is true Lot and his wife left cities; but when she looked back she turned into a pillar of salt (no life; still connected).
All who run from the cities are fooling themselves and have bought into a political lie; ultimately it is selfish. And, if you objectively analyze the economics you find that most of the communities of expatriates are dependent on the cities / states they left and government workers (and the businesses that employ them) – What happens when those businesses cease to exist or move ? When the federal tax dollars and pension monies from the demonrat states stop ? …
And, what form of currency are you going to use when your electronic and paper money has no value ?
Should the economy / government fail you are not in a life sustaining environment; unless you are truly isolated and able to live without creature comforts (and then for how long ?). Yet, if one is in a major metropolitan area life for most while not desirable will be sustainable; if only because there will be the center of political turmoil and the sustained / renewed genesis of voluntary servitude.
Of course if all fails, it simply is going to be horrific and only those who are in a tribe that can focus on perpetuating “life itself” even to the point of their own demise will in the end succeed.
But, if you do not want to consider the above argument, how about: demonrats are segregationists – every thing they have been doing since the founding and early 1800s is about division. And, every comment above emphasizes division and separation. … Who’s winning ?
“And, what form of currency are you going to use when your electronic and paper money has no value ?”
=========
Brain and muscle will be the primary tools of production, and voices will be the means of conveyance.
In other words, collaboration for barter or exchange. Eliminating the 3rd party means of exchange (money) lessens the methods of thievery. I strive for a simpler life.
Lagman- when electronic and paper currency become worthless, it will revert back to the “replacement currencies” being potable water, food, and most importantly (and most versatile) – weaponry and ammo. Coincidentally, the same 3 things that are “drying up” in Commiefornia.
“All who run from the cities are fooling themselves and have bought into a political lie; ultimately it is selfish.”
I see no reasoning at all in that statement. You’re recommending to STAY in a place where the conditions are the worst and self-sustenance is way more difficult, and with way more people fighting over waning resources? Remain in a place where you’re surrounded by crime and danger?
In other words, stay on the deck of a sinking ship?
No thanks, I’ll swim instead.
Maybe that might make me “selfish,” but who cares?
Of course, I now live in what you call a “life sustaining environment.” And I don’t care if Democrats/Liberals/Socialists want “division and separation”- those are the people whom I’ve separated myself far away from.
They’ve been replaced by the fine people in the “tribe” I’m now part of.
Winning is determined after the game is played.
“The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.”
― Mao Tsé-Tung
In the meantime, valid plays are to retreat and prepare…
And provide provide…
Provide, Provide by Robert Frost
The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the beauty Abishag,
The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.
Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.
Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.
Some have relied on what they knew;
Others on simply being true.
What worked for them might work for you.
No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard,
Or keeps the end from being hard.
Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!
Just came inside from working on my forge house (Ain’t making it big enough to call a blacksmith shop.).
Up to now hot metal bigger than a Bowie knife or a machete has been a summer job, coal fired forge and railroad track anvil on a 15 inch steel I beam have been set up outside, not too handy at -40° with a few feet of snow so…
roofing and siding a space when I can pound and shape white hot metal when it’s as cold as -20° at least.
And provide, provide…, I’ll be right, might have to consider getting a trip hammer after I turn ninety or so though.
Better to go down sweatin’ hard
Drinking Irish with a pard
And done it all.
Provide, provide.
Andy Dufresne sed: “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.”, we can see what choice Jim has chosen.
Aspiring Smith here. I have produced useful things but am still very much n the apprentice stage.
You may enjoy this video interview with Francis Whitaker, artist blacksmith extraordinaire. I had the privilege of knowing him when I was young. (Bear with the poor audio). He died with his hammer in his hand.
https://youtu.be/U_hya1ENCt4
Great sense of enthusiasm, O’Neil.
Life is for the living!
James O’Neil:
Holy cow, that sounds like fun! I’ve watched people do old school blacksmithing. It’s another of civilization’s primal art forms. That sort of labor feeds the soul.
JWM
Truly it does. Highly recommended.
Look up the TV show named “Forged in Fire” on the DEFY over the air channel.
They do an all day marathon once a week.
I am privileged to learn from and work with several “Forged in Fire” contestants including one champion.
A vintage film of Sam Yellin in his smithy shop fabricating grill work.
https://youtu.be/SZsBfVxsnmg
Iron working looks to become a newly lost art in these days of nihilism.
How quickly civilization can be cast aside by ignorati.