students ever

 Bela wrote about two French movies we loved the other night:  Etudiante and Marguarite's Theorem, even though it was about higher math.  "These films reminded Bob and me of our work on our doctoral dissertations:    Countless hours of work:reading ;researching;discussions with advisors;writing and endless rewriting of texts;  FIniSHING dissertations;defending them and then publishing papers. We wrote on our favorite subjects, Bob on the work of KennethBurke and I on the work of Spanish author; Valle-Inclán.  The reward for all our work has been recognition by scholars in our fields and some published papers .

  Both movies have happy endings in which the characters end up with their true loves. The big difference for us was we did not wait until the end to find our true loves. since they were there all along and our still are while we write the rest of our lives.

va

James makes the reader feel like a student in beyond higher ed.  By 295 how much we have learned we cannot even list.  "... I am fooling myself that I can murder anybody.  I am a faggot, and playing roles is what faggots do.  Eighty percent of the time I've screwed men I wasn't even me."  A book to study over and over because the language hides-reveals continuous looping.  A book you feel you have read before, more than once, and have never read.  

bingo   they just escaped by running through the sewers flowing with shit and water, meet a tall guy in cut off shorts and bathing suit, long rose red hair.  Now I get it---have not had such a reading experience since Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.  The Disappearers  Bingo !!  now I can start writing my review though I'm only on page 325 

Syracuse last night

crowds booed him.  He turned up, yikes, in one of my dreams.  Sat next to me in our circle of friends at someone's house.  I held by body tightly away from him, guarded my gaze from straying toward his area of the room.  Pale golden coiffure and blue suit.  Ugh  

other dreams were better.  Theta wave music so nice about 4 am.  Bright breezy day; heading to see Art and Karen at Gustos.  Sarah says Don has recovered his trip to the er in concord.  Was having trouble breathing.  Somehow he needed to get ride of five plus pounds of water, diarhetic did it.  Is retention part of heart disease?  

On 218 in James  Awfully good.  Curious whether I will look at any Anne Carson later on?  James is so rich with detail.  Can hear discussions of it with so many people from over the years.  Jim, Phil, many others.  

219 "reading books was the first time I could feel something loving me "  

He puts John Rechy in as source and honorable predecessor and theologian with whom he can agree, disagree, debate.  224 "and because only when another man holds your cock does arousal make sense, and because he fucking can, and because he is queer"

big book, sense of encyclopedia?  bringing all into Anglo world from carib depths 

nightmares common to gays the world over---micro macro 

there is no word for the floating

 there is no word for the "floating" gender in which we would all like to rest.  you don't feel neuter you just feel wrong and  wrong vis-a-vis the gender you're supposed to be in and wrong with the other one and so what what are you?  

gender-wise you are "liminal" 

now we have a great Counter statement from someone named Mario Sundar

I respect Anne Carson, who was just given the

for Literature. Her essays on Catullus and Cy Twombly were essential to me when writing about grief. But her praise of the “solitary, hermetic autodidact” and the “desert saints who sit on columns” points to the exact dead end of modern literature, awarding literature’s highest honor to a philologist.

he goes on for longer, check it out, makes a nice argument for dirt and grit vs the mind

her comment about the going to church re-makes his case---she says a kind of thinking takes place in church as in no where else

got the absentee ballots -- only took two drives downtown. I got mine, clerk must mail Va's to her.

jon ossoff the next president

george told me ken and carole got their 90 each from bump

no document from Rick except those two handouts can hear him and claudia laughing on the plane to guatemala with all of our financials and infos in their pockets, on his tablet lenovo brand I'm not familiar with is lenovo equal to apple ?

liminality

that word occurred as Rick talked to us about the field of financial planning.  Idealistic young person called to a vocation in liminality is what "having a vocation" might really be about.  Studying finance the way earlier idealists studied philosophy or theology or religion and literature.  Finally I saw how any study can easily replicate the call.  That is what the rhetoric of religion is all about, of course.  All the religions Burke lists in his great master list of religions will have a body of theory, theology, lives of saints and sinners, rises and falls.  Rick told us about the recent spectacular collapse of young German investment genius Leopold Ashbrenner.  Star among the Columbia business school academics, that third of speculators who have no business being in the market because always blinded by human all too human failings and flaws.  Against whom Rick positions himself as a pessimist for his private portfolio work, which positions himself perfectly in the liminal middle as a pessimist who works optimistically with clients whose lives he wants to save.  He wants to stay with and assist his clients until they die, until their assets are safely passed on to inheritors and the next generation.  It is a vocation to continue the traditions of hope and expectation.  The next coming, a resurrection, an afterlife.  A further life.  And M James is right in there with his small cast of queer youngsters putting on the brutal play of Fortune and Men's Eyes.  Playing a part, moving off and on stage, waiting for applause, all of it is about being in between and waiting for the applause after the final curtain.  

Phil took my bait and told me his largest portfolio is with Schwab.  Good to know he does use such brokerages.  I had no idea how he actually did his market activities.  He also successfully read the depressing book for his ladies book group so he complains about his empty, meaningless days but he's not quite as bad off as he complains he is.  

He's not as bad off as Dick's father-in-law the Macedonian muslim who has of late gotten interested in Christianity and done some searching online about it.  He's taken to dressing up in his best suit and sitting in front of his house in Skopje to wait for the arrival of Jesus and Mary.  One day he drove out to the airport to meet their plane with a bouquet of flowers because he knew they are coming.  His son went out to get him and could not convince him to go back home.  He gets belligerent when people try to show him Jesus and Mary are not going to come to his house.  

Should I send this anecdote to George, Phil, others, all of us who are in this oldster demo?  Or should I keep it to myself for now?  Funny and sad all together.  

Carson on fluidity pretty right on.  

Ann Carson 2

I did read one, or two? books by her years ago.  Which ones?  Love the interview know up where she's in the wind in Iceland and says they're crazy.  Also online explanation of why she lives in Iceland.  North America has too many trees, too much vegetation.  Iceland has lines, rock, water.  

speaking of water, Bela canceled the massage this morning.  Glad.  She would not have enjoyed it reall, as much as she imagined; I visited the place two weeks ago and it just is not inviting or satisfying . . . unless of course you're a golfer.  Maybe try the spa at lake estate if she gets the urge again.  

terrible message from Helen yesterday----they have had terrible luck with Ted's health turn over the summer.  have to look up anaplasmosis but it doesn't sound good 

Hi Bob and Virginia,

We had planned a lunch and visit after your August visit with David and family.  Unfortunately, Ted spent a month in hospitals from late August  till Sept. 23rd. A tick bite gave him anaplasmosis and later he had a small stroke, possibly due to atrial fibrillation. 

He's now been home for 2 weeks; I'm learning what it's like to be a full-time care-giver-- mighty difficult.  His memory, speech, and legs work very well, but hands and fingers are disabled.  He needs help with eating, dressing, and using the bathroom. Right now we have help from a nonprofit visiting nurse, home care aide, occupational and physical therapists.  But there's no clear schedule, nor any certainty about when his nerves in arms and hands will recover, or how independent he can become. So I've been thinking of you often, and wondering how you manage. 

He uses a walker, but can enjoy a car ride, so let's keep open our plans for lunch somewhere.

Amd let us know when you'll be leaving for Albuquerque.

----

still feeling the glow of Rick's visit and just the attention, I guess.  Quite an event in our lives to have someone visit with us for almost two hours.  Ok, so maybe it is a scam, the company alone is worth it!  Easy to joke.  If it is not joke who will be sorry and scared?  

the pueblo blanket ken and carole gave to us came from Carole's grandfather Freidinger who went to NM in the 40s with his Methodist church group to build houses for people there.  Should find something if I look that up   there is a Harry Freidinger from Monticello, IL   that town name rings a bell  

which pueblo?  wonder if the Palms trading post people would have a way to guess?  

 

Ann Carson

 

Thursday

 5:28 pm   Long visit with Rick E.  We signed up to go with his new crew.  Bonded too over zero drop Altra shoes, barefoot shoes, shoes made in Bohempia; his mother's family from Bohemia.  He's 44. Ten or so years he can retire.  Has worked out his approach to market lines.  He loves studying it, reading bios of failed business guys.  Is a committed pessimist.  Three types of market players.  Guys who let their faults get in the way; guys who are super smart but careless; guys who watch the long game.  I'm not wording these the way he did.  Bela said after he left: "he's a mystic."  I said while we talked you're like both a doctor and a priest.  We could add "therapist" too.  Bonded over his admiration of Shantaram, the book.  Bela now watching the video; we told him to look it up.  Claudia came with him and hung out at Marshalls.  We said we wanted to meet her next time.  Connect her and her Guatemala family with Nicholas on his annual trips there.  Rick and Claudia go there for two weeks every year.  His annual medical visit is there.  He will come back next week to continue our start up with boutique financial advising.  We are now part of the chosen one hundred!  (his client list)  He told us about the back structure of TIAA and its problems.  Things not foreseen, no doubt, when it began one hundred years ago.  But now evident, from about ten years back.  

Anne Carson got the Nobel.  Brava!  "Something about a man's backside when it's perfect is almost against nature."  Marlon James

Dick Mertens called just now.  Afrodita's dad, a good muslim, has gotten into christianity over the past few months via internet and expects, knows, that jesus and mary are coming to visit him.  He sits in front of his house in his best suit to wait for them.  A few days ago he drove to the airport with a bouquet of flowers and waited for their arrival.  When his son got there he could not persuade his dad to go back home.  Dick is studying the porches (?) native americans in the south (trail of tears) who now that they are super wealthy from casinos are buying up huge swaths of land and restoring them to grasslands. 

page 78

in Marlon James and, damn, 'dis be da book!  

​Hey Phil  

Cold down there too?  Sunny as heck, though, here and the trees looking better

turning red and gold than they have in years.  Lots of snow and rain in Feb-March

supposed to be best for the fall colorings.  

Trying to think of how to give you a hand with what you're going through and

coming up with not too much at this distance, except for imaginary feelings

of how distressing and upsetting it must be for you.

Can only think of writing things;  keeping an even longer or more detailed daily journal of what is going on for you each day.  Here is my example for this Tuesday so far:  Big event was driving out to walmart.  Parking lot all torn up so they can repave it, could hardly find a place to turn around.  Drove to the upper scale grocery store instead.  Took the heavy jar of ten years worth of coins to the machine that takes them; it printed out a slip saying I had $77.22 cash, take to any checkout.  Roamed the store buying children's zyrtec for Va's allergies, efferdent tablets for her nightly teeth splints, a few frozen dinners, a loaf of pigs fly bread (from Maine), and a box of strawberry flavored frozen Yasso mochis. (Japanese style snack, ice cream nuggets wrapped in rice powder skins). 

Started reading a new novel the NYT reviewed as the greatest thing since Joyce's Ulysses, not that they would ever hype anything.  

Time now to prick and ping the meal prepared just for us by the fuckingly famous british chef,  Chef Ramsay, and toss a few leaves of lettuce in oil and vinegar.  

Virginia's on her second round of antibiotics to clear out the infection in two toes of her right foot.  She insert was pinching it in way we didn't realize; big blister formed, looked nasty.  Same Day Care LPN figured it out three days ago.

Catholic Medical Center called and gave her a date in two weeks to go to Manchester so they can give her chest the cat scan that will tell the cardiologist what exactly is happening with her 7 year old aortic valve that it has become narrowed severely once again.  No symptoms in her (so far, more sleeping and fatigue, but not (yet?) the "trouble breathing" that is the first thing they ask about.  

That's it for the moment.  Hope you're both hanging in there as we all move

. . . onward and further on 

----

yes, the book is good.  Makes Moresco's look like a mummified  marxist euro intelo mulch.

or something   dried, dessicated, pretentious 

Monday 5 October

 Don't know what to say to Phil that would help him.  He sounds scared and upset and who would not be?

from email a day or two ago---guess it was yesterday--"Yes I’ve thought of keeping both for a while, so that if I don’t like the center I could possibly move back.   That would cost me some money but perhaps I could afford it.   On the other hand, my loss of memory makes me fee totally out of control of my life these days, so moving back into my house where I would not be able to get the kind of total  care that I will soon need, I think, scares me.   I don’t like being 82………..P"

we took the bandage off Va's toe.  Not as healed as we had hoped but much better.  Second time around so we know more what is going on.  Antibiotic at work, turquoise pill "for sinusitis."   We decided to not try the pool tomorrow with Rachel.  Big anxiety is getting up early enough on Weds to get to MidState by 9 am to see Philips briefly.  My aim for today is to get rid of my chest phlegm cough once and for all.  No baked goods, sugars, fats.  Had that cheese bowl yesterday which was dumb.  Warmer today, wetter.  Shower a few minutes earlier, skies bright now.  

Phil's fate makes me think I will put more time and energy into writing this journal, just to try to keep days straights, thoughts repeated enough to recognize and remember them.  Bela said sometime in the last day that D & C's problems stem from different lifestyles.  School teacher and rock/jazz musician.  I added that the newest factor in all of this--other than Annie's sudden death---is Dave's involvement with RockU, which gives him an expat, wealthy, music crowd to identify with, speak American (&French) and hang with as a group of friends.  C can readily see this as a real movement "away" from how their lives used to be when it was "all France."  Would I suggest to him that he "give up" working for/with RockU?  Just as easily suggest to C that she learn to embrace/approve of that aspect of his/their lives and involve herself with it as well.  He went "all France" for ten years, her turn to go "all Am/music" for ten years.  

But both streams of thought are superficial in relation to the core of their lives---the beautiful kids, their security, love and future development.  Frank Sinatra singing Love and Marriage actually on FIP right now!  We just heard it yesterday on our apple music stream.  Weird.  

Enjoyed Stasiuk's travel essays around eastern Europe.  Bleak.  Twenty years ago.  Landscape must be severe.  Could look at YouTube videos.  His writing superb; mind, thoughts.  A bit more down than Handke, I'd say.  Even says he wants an imperial power vs democracy; even if that is empty or dreamlike fantasy talk, can see that "turn" that has given us our current imperidiot.  

waiting too to see if CMC gives us the cat scan appointment 

they did!  21st  DHMC also called and offered to take us on.  They would start in early Nov; half day work-up with all their tests one after another, including cat scan.  She agreed that actual procedure would likely be four to eight weeks down the calendar.  Might be similar timeline at cmc; we don't know yet. We agreed pretty easily that staying with what we've started seems best.  More familiar since a Repetition.  

What to say to Phil about his situation?  Commiserate, make no suggestions?  

two opposing opinions today on x contemplator caeli says "gay guys have been divinely granted a unique mystical ability to look upon the world. the whole of philosophy is a history of this fact." while lonelyfag says "Nothing good is downstream from coming out of the closet. One of the biggest lies we are sold. It’s literally nobody’s business and it being private and personal makes it 10X better" in reply to "More and more young queer men are choosing to live closeted and I think we will witness an era where instead of the norm being a closeted older man hooking up with an openly gay younger guy" and the comments keep going on and on "Yes the philosopher must detach enough to observe reality but immerse deeply enough to know it. They operate between the yonic particular and phalic abstract in the androgynous half light . Suspended between the symbolic mother and father their psyches have skewed homosexual" One cited Bataille's Solar Anus book. Did I ever look at that one? Phil surely did. And Scott M.

going to try the notary website Max said it should be safe and a good idea. Max my NM lawyer.

done! After one deflated attempt tried again and this time Proof and Notarize got it done in a few minutes. Young guy in Philly on video walked us through it. Bingo. $35. Saves going to ups store. Bank wouldn't even do it. Nice.

Disappearers arrived (from walmart!). Now we can have a life before TD and after TD!! Big honking tome but nice font and spacing, readable. Emmett Stinson in Aus posted that he just got Moresco. Want to see what he posts about it eventually, if he does. All this hype for Marlon James makes me remember Cavalier and Clay of some years ago. NYC hype. Whatever happened to the great Michael Chabon?

3rd printing beautiful job, paper lovely, page turn beautiful

and how long has it been that a book has a note in the back on the Type?!! Adobe Caslon Pro "renowned for its warmth, elegance, and readability. "historical character with modern refinement, making it especially well suited to extended reading and literary works." wowza

there's nothing more

that I love than being a good boy especially if it's  

by page 463 we are in readable prose, sort of story esque dialogue and movement.  Not enough to make me want to keep reading, let alone enjoy.  Curiosity of course to see what will be what by the last page but irritation enough to revert back to agreeing with Billings---about the work but cannot blame the translator, can we?  Now we can see how Lawton got involved with this.  It is all about the Russian revolution somehow.  Romanovs, Lenin in a wheelchair, Benno?  other clues and references I am missing for sure.  Why do I not just forget it and move on?  Could but only, only, 200 pages to go.  Anastasia. 

p 478  courage to stop now.  enough.  

for only $997. marked down from $2497. I can take a philosophy course online with Mark Millerman

PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto, with subfields in Political Theory and International Relations, and a collaborative degree in Jewish Studies.

Author of Beginning with Heidegger, translator of multiple major works by Alexander Dugin, and founder of Millerman School. The courses are built on close reading of primary texts — the actual books, slowly, with attention to argument, difficulty, and what standard readings often miss.

took his mystic test last night on X and came out 100% Sufi !

he seems to be big on Leo Strauss 

early run to walmart and two chats  one with the guy in white, with the cool, low white car; he looks older, chatted at the car, says he crashed and burned a few years ago with the instant online celebrity thing; now drives a toyota, into ordinary life; wants to travel; lives with his mother still.  No money troubles it still seems.  loner and happy about it.  

second chat out front as I pulled into the drive.  Dennis out looking for his dog.  He says the chickens all have red coxcombs and they have no roosters yet.  He looks much like the carpenter he's become now.  Apprenticing with a guy ten years older in Holderness.  He and Ashley going out to CA for the annual work vacay trip out to Sonos.  He's much happier not to be studying for a masters in sociology.  dead end that was it is clear.  he didn't say that.  my guess.  

time to turn to some travel essays by the Polish writer, Andrzej Stasiuk, On the Road to Babadag, Travels in the Other Europe.  2004 

in a 2007 interview he says "I fear both the Germans and the Russians, I despise them both equally, and I admire them both. Maybe it's the Poles' fate to be constantly meditating on their own fate in Europe and in the world. Being a Pole means to live in perfect isolation. Being a Pole means to be the last human being east of the Rhine. Because for a Pole, the Germans are something like well-constructed machines, robots; while the Russians are already a bit like animals."  

and this sounds like Handke --"Stasiuk admitted that he "always wanted to write a Slavonic On the Road and place it in a quite geographically limited and historically complicated space". Stasiuk's travelogue Jadąc do Babadag ("Travelling to Babadag"), describes a journey from the Baltic Sea down to Albania, and arguably comes close to this ideal. In Stasiuk's own words, "[t]here is no individual, human story in this book [...]. I wanted rather to write about geography, landscape, about the influence of material reality on the mind".^[2] Jadąc do Babadag received the Nike Award for the best Polish book of 2005."

"While Stasiuk often maintains a gritty, down-to-earth perspective rooted in his real-world experiences (including a stint in a communist prison for deserting the army), Handke’s focus is more abstract and postmodern, heavily questioning the limits of language itself."

from Rupert  "

o RML

'I learned that real thinking and writing is more about orchestration of
materials than creativity. Your task, whether as a poet or novelist or
scholar or union researcher or urban planner, is to integrate your own
intelligence with the active intelligence around you to enhance
articulation. You are not here to impose your signature on a set of
materials, raw or cooked, human or inanimate. You are here to discover
both their essential and detailed truth, and to then put both into
action politically and personally.'

Stan Persky & Brian Fawcett, Robin Blaser, Vancouver: New Star Books,
2010, 78.)

binaural beats

 Binaural beats are generally safe, but the "dark side" involves physical and psychological side effects like increased anxiety, headaches, dizziness, and overstimulation when misused

Readers of Moresco's The Beginnings enjoy the narrative variant of binaural beat theta waves.

will that work as my tweet on X today?

blood drawn for the cat scan.  mid-state only does low-dose scans.  appointment for mchr on monday.  warm day but heavy moist air, headache flourishing  

5 pm just noticed that disappearers via abebooks shipped to abq! yuck  probably soaked in the flood waters by now or locked into the mailbox   why does that site always make this mistake?

End of Chapter 16   Now all of a sudden, no, slowly, we are in a story about the empty branch office building, the Lady and her daughters and the man with the tattoo of the hammer and sickle who seems to be raping the woman, or the daughter, our guy has seen them and later speaks to the women about him, the broker works in the back of the little car, snow has covered everything.  

Lunch earlier at La Frontera in Tilton with E and J.  Delightful, really.  He talked about his troubles with gardening this summer.  The three yards of horse manure were to fresh to work well.  It needs more drying and turning over and over in the soil.  He had poor luck with seeds he brought from Columbia so he bought a $3 tomato at the store, ate it, saved the seeds and planted them.  Their plants are now up and doing well, will finish ripening the tomatoes over the next few weeks.  When he cuts the grass of his place and his daughter's next door on his riding mower it takes him two hours.  Deer come to eat all of his garden plants.  E's back still pains her but a new medicine helps her sleep.  And she still walks without pain every day for a few miles.  They will go to Medellin in December and then to an island resort called San Andreas.  Off the coast of Nicaragua.  

G7 releasing 100 million barrels of oil onto world markets   2 October Friday