July 1st Friday
They were distracted and upset by news that Greg's younger brother (by 11 years!) had fallen and taken ill in Keene, waiting for news of when he was transferred to DMH. Not a pleasant lunch. Lakehouse grill now off the list. Pretty poor food, impossible to hear in the echoey room. Gerri mentioned that she had gone through a heavy drinking period way back some time. Her daughter, now 42, just did and went to AA. In the family. Daughter
now happily married and working in social work. Is her name Annabelle
or something else Anna—-? Greg very withdrawn and concerned, made little conversation.
piece from the Edward Carpenter essay that glosses Galassi's novel so perfectly.
"“And yet, as we have indicated, the thing, whatever it is, is certainly by no means insubstantial and unreal. Nothing seems indeed more certain than that in this strange revolution in the relations of two people to each other—called “falling in love”—and behind all the illusions connected with it, something is happening, something very real, very important. The falling-in-love may be reciprocal, or it may be onesided; it may be successful, or it may be unsuccessful; it may be only a surface indication of other and very different events; but anyhow, deep down in the sub-conscious world, something is happening. It may be that two unseen and only dimly suspected existences are becoming really and permanently united; it may be that for a certain period, or (what perhaps comes to the same thing) that to a certain depth, they are transfusing and profoundly modifying each other; it may be that the mingling of elements and the transformation is taking place almost entirely in one person, and only to a slight degree or hardly at all in the other; yet in all these cases—beneath the illusions, the misapprehensions, the mirage and the maya, the surface satisfactions and the internal disappointments—something very real is happening, an important growth and evolution is taking place.”
— The Drama of Love and Death: A Study of Human Evolution and Transfiguration by Edward Carpenter
“How strange is this matter of the glamour, and its decisiveness in awakening love by its presence, or leaving it cold by absence! Here is a story of a woman who, dreadfully disfigured in countenance by an accident in the hunting-field, called her fiancé to her, and nobly offered him his freedom; and he ... accepted it! Accepted it, because, quite really and truly, the destruction of her physical beauty had for him shattered the Vision and the divinity. And here is another similar story where, contrariwise, the man immediately confirmed his love and devotion—because for him the glory around her was more illumined by her nobility of feeling than it could be darkened by her bodily defect.”
Carpenter's essay continues to be full of essential ideas. Wonder how a contemporary biologist might gloss and tweak his initial reading of cellular transactions, but not matter. He has as Blakean a vision as Blake himself who had no 19th C science to help him out.
two cringe-worthy lines in Galassi's poems: "it is what it is" unforgiveable!
and "I am tufa to your travertine" Really? yuck!!
piano music this morning, Va and Colin. chain saw buzz across the street going wild, taking down the big tree limb by limb. cool and resplendent morning
Today's submission: Dawn's Late Breakfast. Acrylics on Bristol Board. Cristol Coard is my favorite paper to work on. Solid and takes wets applications well.This is using acrylics are watercolors with some texturing.
Are you heading to year round in ABQ yet? I would if I was you. I am anxious for Philly myself. Despite the weekend shooting. People around here tell me Philly is violent & I shouldn't move there as people around here strap guns to their belts because of the recent Supreme Court idiot ruling. Especially women with their delicate little pistols.
When do the kids arrive? Are you excited? I know Virginia is. The older I get, the more I want to shut most people out. Not all. That's why I call myself a social recluse. The 4th is over. This town celebrates for 7 days and I am exhausted ducking the gun toting, patriot spouting whites only patriots. The next holiday is Labor Day. That one's ignored.
I'm reading Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep which I'm enjoting immensely. I thought I'd hate it. Of the pulp writers of the 30s, I still enjoy James M. Cain the best, although the death by shark ending of Double Indemnity is still dumb. The movie had a much better ending. Dashiell Hammett Pinkerton Agent attention to detail gets tirimg. I've never made it through his Maltese Falcon.
Hope all is well. Give Virginia my best.
Love
————-
major discovery: new Lems shoes felt perfect within the first three minutes. All set to blame the Altras for the side foot pain point. But a
night with an advil at the start I wake up and both shoes feel great and the side sore spot feels gone. It is an inflammation point. Or it is arthritis or
rheumatism. What is the difference??
Hi John,
I'm still curious about whether you retain any connection to Catholicism these days. As I mentioned in an earlier email, I do not. and have no belief in religion or "spiritual matters: at all. Neither does John Miller. Bob told me that when he was in the serminary he found the Christian Brothers to be just as obsessed with worldly power as any politician, and I think that caused him to reject Catholicism, but he perhaps retained some interest in religious issues. So let me hear from you. Phil
PS I hope you were able to enjoy the long weekend without being shot at by young disgruntled males.
Hi again, Phil.
I "left the Church" somewhere during freshman year of college. I'd describe myself as an agnostic, mainly because contemporary physics seems so weird to me that I leave the door open to Something that might at some point challenge my otherwise throughgoing philosophical materialism.
Being at ND was interesting because it involved being around many very intelligent Catholics. But I still came away scratching my head. Interesting politically, too, since Catholics range from very liberal (our friends there) to so-called "conservative."
Bill Maher's Religulous is often simplistic, but it's also often good & funny. He learned a lot from George Carlin.
—John
——
a week or so ago Anthony @timesflow on twitter, British book reader, posted a photo of the cover of Goytisolo's The Virtues of the Solitary Bird.
Reminded me instantly of the down and out depressive days in Rosario,
Argentina in 1998 when I had that book and tried to read it. I was stymied then by the way it started on page 11 as though the opening pages had been lost or mistakenly the book had been produced and bound without them. Anthony found that the Spanish original is that way, on purpose. I found the book here in the house easily and now it sits on the table waiting to be read, at last.
we were on our best trip, we just agreed. Longest and most varied. Started in Spain, few months there and then flight to Miami. We slept there on the floor of the terminal waiting for Brazilian airlines to board us for the flight to Sao Paolo.
"Light as the marrow of elder twigs it rested in his own, and remained lying there even after the kiss." 886 Musil
Last night we heard Charles perform Beethoven's Violin Concerto on a 1784 Joseph & Antonio Gagliano violin.
Salvatore Scibona has shown up!! Essay on Haldor Laxness in this week's New Yorker. He had been and maybe is still a director of center inside the New York Public Library. His essay on Laxness is wonderful and I suspect it will serve as the introduction to a new edition of Salka Valka, maybe from Archipelago Books.
11 July Kids all set to fly, Emma can use her French passport if the US one does not arrive in time.
George and Darlene got Covid on their visit to the Cape to see Eric and their kids. Geo says they are doing fine.
from Salvatore:
Why thank you! He is such a wonderful writer.
How are you? /Where/ are you?
Good! We bought a house in Albuquerque last year and now snowbird it
between there and NH for six months in each. When we're here in NH we have a manager there to rent it via airbnb and such places. Our grandchildren are due for a month's visit in a few days, along with their parents! from Paris. Emma 11,
Eliot 8.
I managed to get my name into André Aciman's Acknowledgements at the end of his book of essays, Homo Irrealis!!! He had never heard of Proust until he met me!!!! (He gave a reading at Dartmouth and I shook his hand after falling in love with his books and writing him a gushing fanboy email.) Just read Galassi's School Days. He was your editor, right? Semi-devoted to Robert Musil these days. Ever heard of Claude Houghton? British friend helping to revive interest in him.
Are you staying as Director of the Cullman Center? part-time at Wesleyan?
new novel in a few months, years? Hope so. Looking forward to it.
——
have to say I was pleased he answered, and right away too! 18 years ago. I met him for a final "interview with a young writer" in New Bedford in 2003, Virginia in New London awaiting the final brain surgery. At that motel
I blacked out and woke to find I had no idea where I was. I called David
and he talked me back into remembering (did we have mobile phones then?) (iphone started in 2007) where I was and what was happening.
Salvatore met me to help me get on the road, we canceled our interview,
I think. Or did we have it the night before and it was that night and the next morning that I talked to him on the phone also?
kids in flight now, C said they had many delays earlier—-text—on what's app— 13 July today
nice reply from Salvatore. Listened to this novel in the car yesterday. Excellent reader. Got through the Vietnam section more easily than I'd thought. Quite good.
"Lovely to hear you have a place in New Mexico, the best smelling state in the union. Someday we'd like that too, maybe up north. Dreams. "We" being my wife of three years and our baby in waiting (wife is due next month with our first). I'm on leave for two from the Cullman Center on a two year award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, so a lot of time to bring the missus her oats and blueberries and scribble. Glad to hear your family seems to be thriving!
11:40 text from Cécile—they are in their bnb condo in Holliston, with lovely pool
12:25 kids just boarded the plane in Dublin
17 July Sunday
text from kids, arriving here in an hour. Now 3:57. Have rejected request for chocolate chip cookies. Bringing only grape and cheerios.
Va watching the second movie of Persuasion. We finished the new netflix
that we had started last night. Terrible. Now on the one from ten or so years ago, very BBC.
Realization: [is this the period for Realizations—when you are just shy of being 80?] my reading span for anything is derived from my occupational psychosis—-the 500 word student essay. I can focus on 500 words, pause, and then pick up another, from whatever writer who happens to be within reach.
20 July early morning Va's left leg not supporting here on bathroom run. Had to call and wake-up David to come help us. Used the porta-potty later.
Managed to get her into the shower and then dressed and downstairs. Used the transporter to go to the table. After breakfast she walked to the bathroom but now we're being careful and staying in the den. Yesterday was fine we but we didn't walk enough. Good hour on the swing with the fountain while the kids went to Mc's beach and I did a fifteen minute run to the dump. Also farms stands to get tomatoes for first gazpacho of the summer. Not really ripe yet so today we'll let them rest and return to tortellini as a lunch menu. Noon now and kids are off to the beach again. Perfect weather, hot but not too muggy. Rain coming tomorrow.
21 July Thursday
Willow's leg working again. Heavy rains just now, 4-5 pm. He leg slowly returned to working ok late yesterday afternoon. Took a short walk at hannford early afternoon. So what was with Va's legs? tiredness, nerves?,
summer cold, effect of the covid booster delayed?
Pleasantly surprised to find a good tweetable passage in Salvatore's novel:
““It is because my vocation demands that I espouse a love of truth that no one believes I’m telling it. We live in an era of disenchanted irony. We say we can’t believe, when we have not even tried to believe.””
— The Volunteer: A Novel by Salvatore Scibona
Emma and Eliot had a great time making stop-action videos on her ipad.
Two short films that dramatized a murder mystery. Not yet solved. They
plan to add sound tracks. Delightful to hear them giggling for hours as they worked on them. Earlier Colin came and gave them together an introductory piano lesson. Seemed to go very well. Now they are packing up for their trek south. Cécile got the scoop on our new neighbors from Rachel McLane. He is a ghost writer. She works from home in some capacity as online advertising manger for some high-ed high fi equipment, like maybe Bose or some such.
evening of July 22
Great relief to not go to the concert tonight! Kids pulled out this morning for Philly around 10 am. Just as Dave Lockwood parked in the Nielson's drive with his grand piano on a wagon behind his truck. I went over to listen to a few songs. Later in the day took two or three naps. So much more tired—exhausted—-than I/we had realized. Dump run followed by walking at Wally's. Lunch here, naps, soap opera, session on the swing for Va and my first nap. Water running now in the washing machine. Our
residential burbling brook. Va leafing through old photo albums.
Salvatore's book has kept me with it. Pulled out big chunks about the hippie commune and the birth of the character named Elroy. (the king).
He creates a virgin birth and paradise and Fall. Not sure why . . . yet.
Am sure he did lots of research for the book. The battle of Khe Sahn,
communes in New Mexico, and on. He's created a style, styles and voices
that are very true and believable, have the correct ring and rhythms.
——
“Nevertheless, Elroy never fully lost his first understanding: that he had come from everyone and that there was a place—somehow smelling of the ranch—where everyone living and dead had their home. Everyone rightly abiding together now and across the centuries past and future. To dwell in it was to be in heaven, to be kept out was to be in hell.”
““Say it.” “I’m saying you look around like the whole world is complete and it works, and there’s only one thing the matter with it. And that’s you. And you could make the world perfect if you only took yourself out of it. Like disappeared.” Tilly didn’t say anything, and Louisa said, “What.” “I’m trying to decide whether I understand what you’re talking about.” She made her low slide-whistle noise that meant she would wait. • • •”
“Louisa cleaned houses in Las Cruces. She liked to work while the wife was home and to hear what the doctor had had to say about little Peggy’s croup. These were mining executive families. Copper and lead. Rocket propulsion families. It interested her to learn how people cultivated the peace of their homes. The philodendrons and lime trees should be placed in the windows by the piano—not there, just to the right. Yes, there. Meantime think of the anguish these people had to carry. The earth-murder, the orgies of human killing that made possible the peace where they slept. She envied the strength it took to ignore such things.”
“The world had required that the boy have a name. The law required a name. They called him Heflin, not after Bobby but after the place to which three generations of Heflins before Bobby had lent their name and which they had left him according to the world’s law. And it was beautiful, to a lot of them, most of the time anyway, that nobody, really nobody, could have said for sure which of the guys was Elroy’s father. They were all the same pinkish color more or less. And the puppy piles of screwing, everybody screwing everybody else, God, it was paradise. They were making something. They had chosen love. Right here in this short life, not waiting for the next one, which was how they’d all come to agree that what they were doing wasn’t really about Jesus, as at first it had seemed. Even the guys could screw among themselves. That took a long time for the guys to get used to. Was it clean? Was it only a confusion of the beast? Maybe. But the way to treat our beast is with mercy. They were all practical. They weren’t about drugs. If a drug helped loosen something overtight, that was okay. But you couldn’t carry water from the acequia for the garden all morning if you were on acid. What would happen was you would spill the water. She told Tilly all this some weeks on, while they were ferrying water from the old rain barrels for the bath they shared. The hand pump on the kitchen sink was too cumbersome for so much water as a bath. The boy followed them dragging a mesquite branch for a pile he was building behind the house. The sun fell all over their bodies and everything else while they hauled the water, and she asked how Tilly kept his balance missing the toes. Practice, he guessed. And she asked if it was his only injury from the war. And before he could tell her that his foot had been injured after he’d returned to the States, but the divot in his back, where she sometimes put the pad of her middle finger as she held him while they screwed, had come from an NVA slug still holed up in his flesh somewhere, he decided to let Louisa make a new past for him. Yes, he said, that was the only one. Some of the guys had left some of their clothes, and she gave them to Tilly to wear. They had all seven, women and guys, been in their prime. And they could screw and screw even in the middle of the day outside if the wind was low. Then one of the others would come by and say, “May I come in?” That was the language they agreed on. And the most proprietary thing anybody ever said, if the moment wasn’t right, was “Hold on a minute, baby.” Mostly they said, “Yes.” Or they said, “And how.” Or they said, “Oh please, yes.” They were lean and strong. And you know, she’d learned something, that vanity only corrupted you when you hoarded it. Because when you were vain of your family, like she had been vain of Lucy’s white feet and their painted nails, and Conrad’s strong hamstrings, it felt like unstingy love spreading itself out from you to the others and the others to you. If it was wrong to find herself pretty, then it was wrong to find Lucy pretty, or Katerina.”
“They were all seven of them practical and they tried to be forgiving of the beast we all are in addition to the soul. Everybody knew without saying so that you had to have more women than guys. They had an attitude of, Why pretend? We see how the bulls behave. We have it so good, and we know this is precious and precarious. And we know it’ll end. So let’s keep it and respect it and love each other and forgive the men for sparks of jealousy, or when he rolls over and decides to screw Lucy instead of me. I have a beast too. I have a gun I want to point, to keep something for myself by killing it. I say to myself, This hurts my pride, okay. And also, Lucy has beautiful breasts. Just beautiful, for now. Her glossy flawless skin like a paint in which she’d just come from swimming. And Conrad’s naked ribs, the fresh dense animal hair on his arms and legs. Their limbs working, the ends of the bones showing through the flesh, the muscles doing what they were made for, twisting, gripping. And I get to lie here and watch them. Isn’t that some kind of grace? The togetherness they had. You couldn’t have reckoned it unless you were in it. They were practical. They knew we each die severally and alone. But there was love in the meantime. Love to make, you know? Not to wait for. But to build up.”
— The Volunteer: A Novel by Salvatore Scibona
—
Dear Patsy, Our kids have just left for Philly where they have gigs and friends. They will be back here for 2 weeks before going home. They are not planning on coming here for Christmas, so we are working on having them for Christmas in ABQ during their February vaca.
Anyway Bob and I are exhausted and didn't even go to music festival last night in favor of sleeping.
I am trying to work up to telling you that Bob feels like Randolph is too far,so we will have to be happy with just seeing you and Doug here for lunch or dinner at the Bistro when possible. So sorry that my "ride" is conking out, but am so glad that he has lasted. so long.
yours, va
Sunday 24 July
Watching Milsos Forman's movie about Goya. Nauseous heat still here. Kabob from Nourish. Waiting for it on the field on Rumney road around noon there was a strong breeze but it felt hotter than the still air surrounding it. 3 pm now—-stronger wind shaking the trees in the back yard.
Salvatore's novel keeps surprising! About a hundred pages to go.
Virginia surprised me earlier by saying out of the blue "we should get it touch with the fellow we met on the cruise to Bali, the one who offered to share his taxi to go see Borabodor and told us about Tours By Locals. Glenn something I said, I think his name was Glenn and he was a sculptor at a state university in someplace like Arkansas.
26th finished Scibona's book. Scanned some reviews. Yes, it became a page-turner of sorts, and yes, echoes of Cormac McCarthy and other such, Delillo, et al. On goodreads liked this phrase by one Jonathanrwilson on June 14, 2019—-after giving it four stars—-"This book is stunning in many ways -- the quality of the writing and the sweep of the story that it tells are astounding. Scibona writes perfect sentences, and is also able to create some truly memorable characters. I want to give this book 5 stars (the writing is that good, and the ambition is enormous), but in the end for me there was a certain lack of humanity in several of the protagonists that kept me from being able to emotionally connect with the story. I realize, of course, that part of the point of the book is what a lack of human connection can do to a person, but I still feel like Scibona could have done more. Still, this book will break your heart and leave you thinking."
"a certain lack of humanity in several of the protagonists that kept me from being able to emotionally connect with the story." Yes, that puts its finger on a crucial point. Builder of complex structures (legos, bridges, internet
webs, techno-wizardry,) primarily a sensibility of thought-architecture—
as in the fascinating segment where crucial dialogue interleaves with the master moves in a consummate game of bridge.
Yesterday I scanned all the reviews of S's novel on goodreads. A number of people voiced all the responses I had been mulling over. Lack of emotional engagement with the characters, loose and baggy monster of a book, episodes intense and at times brilliant in themselves just not successfully cobbled on to each other, confusing timelines, confusing links among the characters, pretentiousness, excessive material, etc etc. Salvatore seems to be making the young writer's errors, unable to cut out work that seems so good. I wonder if the whole creative writing workshop process creates writers who become great workshopists—-stars who can produce pieces that stun the workshop into admiration but who cannot go on to craft
really convincing larger works. Also still have that other sense that S is
at heart a researcher, an historian-essayist rather than a real novelist. Many readers mention the clear influence of his idols as a younger aspirant—-Cormac, DeLillo, who else? Foster Wallace even? or just a similar massive ambition. Is it ambition that creates such a huge attempt or is it a form of despair, not enough material to fill the void, not enough characters, not enough story to make a Big story? Trying to encompass the whole of the human comedy, the social fabric. And I was not alone in finding the ending of the book to be very confusing. Would have to read it again, the final 20-50 pages and by now I'm not really willing to do that because it should not have been so unclear in the first place.
Looked at flights for January. I think I will wait until September to look again. Let the summer travel hysteria die down within the industry. Looks like Atlanta is still the best route for us to take.
Now Nicholas has announced he wants to have his 60th birthday party in Paris in April. Will we go? At this point I doubt it. Don't know how to break that news to him. Or to us. Take a day or two to ponder.
sometimes the passage I wanted to lift out on one day feels much flatter
a day or two later—-why did I note this one? "“Louisa cleaned houses in Las Cruces. She liked to work while the wife was home and to hear what the doctor had had to say about little Peggy’s croup. These were mining executive families. Copper and lead. Rocket propulsion families. It interested her to learn how people cultivated the peace of their homes. The philodendrons and lime trees should be placed in the windows by the piano—not there, just to the right. Yes, there. Meantime think of the anguish these people had to carry. The earth-murder, the orgies of human killing that made possible the peace where they slept. She envied the strength it took to ignore such things.” And now in hindsight it is much more clear that the whole section on the hippie love commune is right out of someone's book or received hearsay, oral tradition (in Santa Fe, at St Johns). Not to mention porn sites. And it is the technician in Salvo who needs to specify details—-"Everybody knew without saying so that you had to have more women than guys. They had an attitude of, Why pretend? We see how the bulls behave. We have it so good, and we know this is precious and precarious. And we know it’ll end. "
Colin here for piano earlier. Weather still lovely.
Hi Jessica
Good visit with the kids here for a full week. Now they are down in Philly and NYC for two weeks and then they come back here for two more weeks.
How are you doing? Any clearing of symptoms or diagnoses?
I was in the Hanover Co-op yesterday and it sort of felt like a ghost village?!
Did lots of people die in the whole Hanover region during covid? Shortage
of work-help at the store, ? Times changing everything.
Welcome improvement in the weather---drier and sunny is how I like it.
seems as if your summer (again) is fully family booked! Happy for you.
Lots of worker shortage - not sure why - except people don't seem to want to work any more......
Friday big dr day - am putting a lot of hope into this - keep your fingers (and toes) crossed for me. For good outcome!
Am lying low, taking it easy when not working and being content at home. Solitude can be a wonderful thing.
——
short walk at Basket before lunch. Long afternoon, we both read for hours and hours. Suddenly there is a lot of money in the bank. Where did it come from? Looked at flights on Delta for January and May.
the long, still quiet center of summertime read Ed's poem about movies—-it is pretty delightful and I can hear the play of his various voices back
and forth, in and out, up and down and all around. he got himself a very
cool stanza pattern to work with. Big use of all CAPS and quotation marks and punctuations and the closing choral comment in [ ] parentheses.
very niftily done! In Corville even more spare, no rhythms or patterns,
at first glance —
31 July
I seem to be backing out of the colonoscopy. end of August. Most google searches say not needed after age 75. New article in WaPo says better prep
pill now available. See what Casey replies to both on the Portal site.
Ray Monk bio of Wittgenstein arrived. Bigger than I'd thought. But great match with Pessoa. Another view of the 20th Century through another special lens.
