Post by B on Jul 22, 2012 10:11:03 GMT -5
from his post at facebook today
www.facebook.com/#!/michaelnesmith
"As a young man – thirteen or fourteen -- I managed to come into possession of a little motor scooter. It was cheap, only a few dollars, because it was broken; essentially un-ride-able. The chain would fall off after only a one or two runs up and down the street in front of the house my mother and I lived in.
I was happy -- and worried. It was a project, a type of kinetic sculpture, although I had... no understanding to use to describe it that way, but it I remembered the feeling until I could describe it, and kinetic sculpture is certainly part of what it was.
Working in the “medium” I could sense there was an effort that brought reward. I had no idea how it would be expressed, only a certainty that something good would come from it even though it was hidden to me. I was also worried every time the chain fell off that I had made a mistake and I had wasted the money. The scooter was useless.
Wasting the money was a terrible specter. My mother was hard at work as a commercial artist and secretary, hatching the idea for a typing correction fluid, Liquid Paper, and we had almost no money, living day to day, hand to mouth. We both had a shoulder to the wheel, but as much to keep it from rolling over us than to move it forward or use it for transportation.
I didn’t know then but I know now that the problem with the scooter was a slight misalignment of the rear wheel sprocket with the drive shaft from the engine. All I knew then was that the chain fell off insistently. I thought long and hard about the problem and in a quiet moment the idea popped into my mind to convert the drive train to a belt instead of a chain, since a belt would flex. It was a crude fix in the scheme of things, but it worked.
The fix was reassuring and it taught me trust. Not blind faith, or even a reasonable faith, but a type of trust in a process of intelligence that was moving toward harmony that I was a part of, and was a part of who we all are. I did not think of myself as a talented artist, or a skilled engineer. As I delightedly rode up and down the street over and over all I could see was that I had not sung the song, the song sang me.
I knew my mother was panicked about money, though she did not yield to the panic. I was not fully aware that as a single mother in Texas in the Fifties she had almost no chance to advance, but I knew she was terribly afraid even as she pressed on. I was able to sell the scooter for many times what I paid for it just as we ran out of money for food that week, and presented the cash to my mother, who burst into tears of gratitude – a moving cinematic end to the little chapter -- but it was real life.
I will never forget it. What a joy it was to watch an idea appear in thought and trust it to develop my meager expression of intelligence; to bring me to water and teach me to drink."
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Michael Nesmith - Beyond The Blue Horizon
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_e1yMZLkII
www.facebook.com/#!/michaelnesmith
"As a young man – thirteen or fourteen -- I managed to come into possession of a little motor scooter. It was cheap, only a few dollars, because it was broken; essentially un-ride-able. The chain would fall off after only a one or two runs up and down the street in front of the house my mother and I lived in.
I was happy -- and worried. It was a project, a type of kinetic sculpture, although I had... no understanding to use to describe it that way, but it I remembered the feeling until I could describe it, and kinetic sculpture is certainly part of what it was.
Working in the “medium” I could sense there was an effort that brought reward. I had no idea how it would be expressed, only a certainty that something good would come from it even though it was hidden to me. I was also worried every time the chain fell off that I had made a mistake and I had wasted the money. The scooter was useless.
Wasting the money was a terrible specter. My mother was hard at work as a commercial artist and secretary, hatching the idea for a typing correction fluid, Liquid Paper, and we had almost no money, living day to day, hand to mouth. We both had a shoulder to the wheel, but as much to keep it from rolling over us than to move it forward or use it for transportation.
I didn’t know then but I know now that the problem with the scooter was a slight misalignment of the rear wheel sprocket with the drive shaft from the engine. All I knew then was that the chain fell off insistently. I thought long and hard about the problem and in a quiet moment the idea popped into my mind to convert the drive train to a belt instead of a chain, since a belt would flex. It was a crude fix in the scheme of things, but it worked.
The fix was reassuring and it taught me trust. Not blind faith, or even a reasonable faith, but a type of trust in a process of intelligence that was moving toward harmony that I was a part of, and was a part of who we all are. I did not think of myself as a talented artist, or a skilled engineer. As I delightedly rode up and down the street over and over all I could see was that I had not sung the song, the song sang me.
I knew my mother was panicked about money, though she did not yield to the panic. I was not fully aware that as a single mother in Texas in the Fifties she had almost no chance to advance, but I knew she was terribly afraid even as she pressed on. I was able to sell the scooter for many times what I paid for it just as we ran out of money for food that week, and presented the cash to my mother, who burst into tears of gratitude – a moving cinematic end to the little chapter -- but it was real life.
I will never forget it. What a joy it was to watch an idea appear in thought and trust it to develop my meager expression of intelligence; to bring me to water and teach me to drink."
------------------
Michael Nesmith - Beyond The Blue Horizon
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_e1yMZLkII