Observations on Form

At a poor man’s medical clinic in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA in 2012 I waited to see a doctor.

Observations on Form.

The Elements: 100 people waiting; staff; five card colors; numbers on each card; the lower status of “walk-ins” (clients without an appointment); ‘walk-in’ circled on the top of the client’s file; the three Stations one has to visit before seeing a doctor.

No logic discernible – no hierarchy discernible (except, perhaps, the ‘walk-ins’). Green card number 90 went before Green 60. I was told, after my visit to Station 2, “you are next” – one hour and 10 clients later, I am called – but I am called by another number (Green 83) from the one I am holding. I say ”but I am Green 79” – and she points to me and nods and says “come, come sir.”

At the clinic, stress and fatigue seem to gather for the very reason that you can’t understand where you are in the Form, in a sequence, in a Time Frame. At an airport if the flight is delayed, generally you are given a status update --- if you stand in a long line the sequence and hierarchy are clear.

Stockhausen wrote: “Europeans lay great stress on transitions—on musical bridges—passages. For a Japanese the typical temporal sequence is a sudden leap from one time layer to the other, and indeed to extreme opposites.”

A friend in Greece said that free improvisation tired her after a short period because there was a lack for her of a discernible Form.

Of course there was a Form at the clinic – an unrecognized Form within chaos.

D.H. Lawrence described Walt Whitman’s poetry; “This is the unrestful, ungraspable poetry of the sheer present.”

There was a client at the clinic that day who was holding his colored number card upside down – orange 19 he thought was actually orange 61. How does one factor that into the Form mix?

I was required to sign a ‘consent Form’ – it was five pages long, a very bad photocopy, completely illegible – a complete blur. I brought this to the attention of the woman signing me in – a Mrs. Strange --- and she said, “well, all it says is that you agree to see a doctor.” Five pages to say that – anyway, I signed.