September 2023
You adapt to anything. Mostly I ate scraps of meat, eggs, a little chicken. Sometimes you could get things like Chef Boyardee -- stuff that had been dented and sent to Africa. French baguettes. The water was always an issue. I had a rat drown in my water jug. Stuff like that. I lost about fifty pounds and always had loose bowels. It was rough. Around Xmas the first year I went into Ouaga and ate rich foods and ended up fainting. You know, when I hear military guys talk about how rough it is -- and getting shot at is another step up -- but life in that part of Africa was no joke. We didn't have any PX to go to for American products or movies.
I appreciate you reading it. It helps, honestly.
Put this paragraph in somewhere . fainting with the rich food is a great bit. My friend who was in PC ten years before you was in the vietnam generation, escaping the draft, and he was in Tunis. Mostly taught grade school (or middle?) and had good restaurants and all the other stuff of city life in Tunisia in those days. More like pages out of Durrell.
Durrell. I must have tried to read Justine five or six times over the years, could never make it past forty or fifty pages. Finally late this summer tried again and it has finally "taken hold." Slowly, page or two a day. Maybe that is the way to read anything.
Except the Great Work, of course. Our emails will Last! We are the Durrell -- H Miller letter writers of our day!!
——-
to Dave and Cécile —
Five minute chat with Micah yesterday while we waited for orders at Nourish. Are all the McLanes just impossible? He is so smart he's dumb and so dumb he's smart. He jumped around and laughed and said
"I just booked our flights to Thailand. We leave next week. For the first time we're going first with Swiss
Air across Europe. We have never been to South America and we really want to go there." Why didn't
you, you would love it. "You can't get to Australia from South America. They fly you back to the States
first." I find that hard to believe!! "Well you can't get there using your points. I haven't used cash for
flights for years. I have this stack of credit cards, ha ha." Micah you have so much money you don't have to be a slave to the airline points scam. "But I love doing it, I never have to use the cards, I use
only points, I have so many points you can't believe." Yes but that whole system only works for people like you who already have so much money you don't even need it. "True, but it doesn't matter. We think we will hit Singapore some how this time. We biked, before the kids, in Thailand and its great."
Later that day Hannah walking up Rogers street. She said her cat was in our garage a few days ago,
according to Dennis. Your cat?? "Yes, I brought my cat up from Philly with me."
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Pine's Intro to Panic Spring has so much in it. And how Durrell is my man—-poet/writer of the In-Between. Pine: "I think . . . that they seek nothing more or less than the in-between, the limbo between different kinds of reality . . . . " Durrell's books are a spiritual autobiography and life is a perpetual quest. xxiii then Quietism, heresy and deviance.
and Iyer's Weil by page 7 is talking about Bataille !
And Durrell's Heraldic Universe!! yes. wow. if only if only—-and Pessoa
already mentioned too. Should have found Durrell fifty years ago!!!!
Lax 1915, Durrell 1912 on Opposite Sides of the Earth—in every way—and
yet both end up on islands in Greece, both quietist in best ways—
magpie mind heraldic individualism beethoven's 4th piano concerto
Durrellize everything. Heraldize everything. May not get to Iyer's Weil for a while! His piece on the playlist on Quietus today shows me how far apart we are in generations and I can see how he is writing his spiritual autobiography in his books, just as Durrell did, as all writers do. And I guess Weill scares me, scares all of us. All the more to read her or have Iyer tell me about her. But the book on Nietzsche was ok but I felt against its grain or that it was against my grain no matter how good it is in its way.
Durrell more for me. Me for Durrell. See how long this will last. Under the aegis these days of the end of August Blue Moon. Now the 2nd of September. started Panic Spring but am speeding on in Black Book any way just to see how crazy obscene it is or overrated for being so. Imitation Henry Miller. Started their letters too. They are swell. Voices. Two new imaginary friends after my own heart. Be historians for me to boot and
contextualize my own tales.
The photo of Miller and Durrell naked on a beach somewhere on the cover of the Letters, are they in Malibu? I saw that photo on a book so many years ago, was it in Hyde Park? New Directions book, originally in 1962, year of our h s graduation.
A right pile of books now, ready for classes to begin. The air and light beckon, a sprightly breeze even this morning, the Last Holiday of Summer.
3 Durrells and 1 Iyer
Quietism says one need not talk with anyone. Doesn't it? Wouldn't it?
Freya Stark says on twitter today ! that Prospero's Cell is one of the finest books ever written.
Day off yesterday, super muggy hot, read Book Two of Black Book, finished it, sitting in my car in the shade at Centera and going in and out for drinks and small lunch things.
The book measures up to its place in Durrell's history and importance in literature. Wonder if the harvard poet gang didn't read it—-Bly and Hall and esp the poet who took that mode as his main mode. What was his name? Can see why it would be askanced in UK for years, quite an attack once you catch on to what's what. Also Burroughs for sure knew it. One of those books that was no doubt passed around person to person among those who knew or were looking to know. Have to get around to reading Nightwood some time. Must be similar in breakthrough energy. Search for voice, mood, attitude, cool. Jeff Herrick's new book belong in the stream of poetic language word search stream. He's got four allies giving him boost on the back cover. Great to see. Must send a copy to Rupert.
Beautiful photos of the kids all prepped for their first day of school yesterday.
Heat continues. Lolita Lobosco on streaming. Italian so different from French and Spanish.
Finished Black Book at 6:37 this evening. Did I read it? Breathless these last twenty minutes. Is it even possible to read it? How many times could one re-read it and survive?
If you denied and illusioned and displaced for so long over these things, how many other are there that escape your awareness. Consciousness does not guarantee focus.
Sat 9 Sept Phone call at 4 yesterday from Eloy. As I expected. Willow took it harder, but we both lay awake for a few hours after tv. He broke up with us. No, he announced he is ending his rental property maintenance business. He will keep his four houses going but no others. Guessing he and Dave are joint venturers in the La Jolla house, but no matter. At least we're booked for balloon week. I could tell even last year that he was reconsidering, loosing interest, finding that the whole project was shifting in ways he couldn't understand and wasn't interested in working to stay with. Don't blame him, really. Would be so much tedious work. Articles earlier in the press about how airbnb and vrbo etc in decline and various problems and vectors. Mainly the vectors. He noted that Santa Fe has incredible demand (did he not realize that from the start?) and more anomalous is that in spite of the astonishing heat this summer rental demands for Phoenix were at an all time high. Now there is short term vacationing and mid-term rentals —- he put our house on the snowbird website but no activity from there.
So what will we do? Inch forward, mumble on, not mumble but muddle through. See what happens. My flight-fight tilted sharply to flight early in the night—-sell Casa A and move to Javea or hunker down here for the duration, a la George et al. The other option is move there now and forever and be done with it. Either/or, baby. But we'll see what Willow moves toward. And all else. She says we should call Crowley and investigate again moving some stuff, large paintings, first. Do we really want to do that? Do we know what we want? Most likely not.
Remember what Jung says about us Intuitives—-embrace the feeling of emptiness and see it as a path full of abundance not yet revealed.
twitter post from Bukowski up today by someone—-now can't find it—like "keep writing only writing keeps you sane and going forward, or/and there is nothing else to do, etc etc." Look at Joe. Back to LGD and Panic Spring.
Here Panic Fall. Sun out, rain storms back and forthing next two days.
At one point last night, I wanted to sign up and move into Taylor Homes immediately, get cushioned and fortified against all the world. Locked in, locked up. Impregnable. Abandoned and betrayed. Another twitter about a hermit in Maine who when told Thoreau was at Walden for two years replied only "Dilettante."
On the way to Refresh today Virginia said "I do not want to keep living in New Hampshire."
Hooray. Hope that is so. Now, how can we move that along, inch that onward? How will it happen? Losing Eloy as our attending angel has finished. Next Chapter.
"The barrier of her secrecy and silence he could never penetrate." Panic, 137 about Ruminades and Manuela, casting them as Antony and Cleopatra
Sunday Feeling much better about prospects in Abq. Ordered a ton more of Durrell books to celebrate expansive feeling. Piece on why people move to Phoenix by NYU prof from the Atlantic. on apple news site.
Panic Spring much better in many ways than Piper, sure. But still sure glad I read Piper first because it has the young young man feeling of searching for what's next, how do I do this? Panic feels imitatively better, polishing has been advanced, set-piece chapters almost like new yorker profiles of important characters looking for a trajectory. Still glad I went ahead and red Black Book because that is the Explosion and the Arrival, the big catch of Art held securely in one's hands, wriggling to get away as it may. But held onto, mastered. Back in Panic we can see the autobiographical collecting and gathering get amplified and expanded, developed and explored. From the very first, words, language, phrases, play and finesse.
Phaon. And of course Greece, land, landscape, myth and people—-filling out the whole palate, the painter's colors, the architects drafting programs.
Phaon as Sappho's lover, the three young friends walking to the bay. Three
persons in one narrator—-Gordon, Walsh and Marlowe. Lovely opening sentence of that chapter.
Never encountered a writer intent upon setting forth and following a Quietist aesthetic. Unless that's what Lax was also up to? The Center for Contemplation and Action in Albuquerque. Nicholas also follows the need to list his mode under "and action." Is Quietism a big topic in the Miller Letters? Is the Black Book a bursting forth and away from this Quietism or an explosive deepening down into it? Is Jeff Herrick a Quietist? Is jazz?
9/11 Monday [21 years after]
Hi Ed
Sending you two books you might enjoy chewing over with Tommy and then I'll give you
both a quiz when I get there in January!! 70% of your grades!
Jeff Herrick is an old friend who has lived in Japan all of his life since grad school. Unknown
poet, I'm happy Station Hill is publishing him here. I don't know yet if I am able to read him!!!
Lars Iyer writes comic novels about philosophers and I've liked them all. Have not gotten into
this one yet. There are a few videos of him on youtube, younger Brit academic.
Ben and family will be our last guests as airbnb "businesspeople!" Eloy is shutting down his management business. I am hoping this will Nudge Virginia, but after 52 years of marriage I know better than to place any bets 😂😂😂 Preliminary talks with the mover this afternoon, though. Who knows?? Va says she just wants to ship big paintings at this point.
Hope all's well with you. What are you writing, reading, watching? We looked at Mr Ripley
movies and variants on Criterion earlier in the summer. Not much else there, lots of junk on
the other channels. After trying five or six times to read Durrell's Justine I finally got into it this summer. Now savoring through and his volume of Letters with Henry Miller. 30+ year olds at the top of their worlds.
Bob
——
Waiting for Crowley fellow, Eric to arrive. Va says all wall hangings and two big chairs and books. 1:45 now
Strange day today. Waited for the stannah tech guy. Young Aman who built a house for himself and his mother in Kittery. Lost his dad when he was in his teens. Certified for all three main stair lifts, so invaluable, but the new corporate bosses of the Co are wheelchair people and have no clue.
Tracked down right sturdy art boxes to have UPS ship the paintings and not worry with truckers' inland marine policies. Eric didn't seem clued in to that. He's maybe still to new york and new london and trinity bible church and homeschooling five kids. Five, count 'em. Just like Rich and Barb. What is it to want to have five? Like the Ebners here. Willow launched a pizza party for this end of the street. Sunset at Natalie's tomorrow evening if we get sun. Today was so drizzly drippy wet wet wet.
15 Sept
Eloy did us such a great favor by ending his business. Just the clarification we needed.
Last evening at Natalie's. Sun all day, nice sunset picnic on her beach with the crew.
rain Monday morning. Ed didn't much care for attempting to look at Jeff's book. Found it mechanical and pretentious. I just this morning started to read McGann's afterword. He makes sense of it, gives it a fair attempt to figure out and sympathize, enter, empathize, enterpathize. there, see, I'm being Herricked in spite of myself. Will see what Rupert makes of it.
Collect all of Eloy's messages about closing down the business and make them into a poem.
Shifting insurance accounts, paying gas bills. Teeth cleaned with jet water spray at Singh. Partial sun today. No rain. It may not be the house that is cold but you, your body, your metabolism.
Hurricane Lee grayed out coverage quotes on car insurance. Lib Mutual guy in Texas claims this morning. See if Noyes comes back with any different information. Casino always wins. Insurance is a game with cards and chips behind curtains and windows with tiny openings like the old style bureaucrats in Franco's Spain.
Beautiful in Lebanon common yesterday. Good stuff in durrell. Joe has gone quiet. Finding it harder to write about his adult life of marriages and publishing? getting weaker against his disease? John and Phil also quiet.
Quiet season of falling leaves and mellow fruitfulness. The reality of Fall sinking into all of us. Pizza party this Saturday. Empty house across the street. Ready for haunting.
Listened to more of Balthasar on the car while driving. Love it, loving it. Durrell de man.
sent to Jeff under "Make Me an Offer Internet collectors"
tombstone claimers to fame
I own a copy of Valences. inscribed or no Unvaluable, invaluable.
Maybe not. Replace that with a memory of Okonomiyaki. And last week in our
grand central NH Walmart I dropped that word on a tall 16 year old Japanese ski bum and
he smiled back and asked if I had been to Tokyo.
Just Enjoyed Immensely Jerome's Afterword to Almost Thence Sum
one designated NM reader has thrown down his towel and fallen on it
waiting to hear from the Burroughs UK addict, will pass on his blundered wonders
"wild" only word from Dartmouth so far, stay tuned---no link to Pease-Seuss
dare gaze on Tim's wanderplosions
his reply
Dear Bob,
Thanks for the humor. I wish McGann's Afterword were not more
interesting than the poems themselves, but there it is.
Thanks, too, for Tim McFarlane's images, which I find compelling.
I have also, long since, lost contact with Don Pease.
Best regards,
Jeffrey
Going this Friday morning with Braden at Noyes and Progressive. Turns
out Liberty uses SafeCo to get policies auto out to agents. Byzantium we
be you.
After signing Progressive docs Liberty emails and says hey we can bundle you. Double meanings? Insurance peeps, probably not.
Scriveners.
What is your daily cocktail of choice these days? It really is the target moment of the day,
that late afternoon treat wholly justified and longed for, a relaxation into enough slippage of awareness. Note how I am trying but not succeeding in coming up with a phrase equal to the greatness of your latest last line, which is darned good! wind touching grass on a quiet afternoon.
so---this whole chapter 8 easily script for half or three fourths of a fine rom movie--sweet and playful and searching for lives with the tension of the competition between writers who share the dream of being a writer, or of writing, but find themselves to be of extremely different temperaments. And therefore of approaches to all of it that differ considerably.
Almost exactly the storyline of La La Land which we watched again last night. Ryan Gosling and Emily Stone. For a Hollywood musical hit you gotta give it to the writers that they didn't go for the hallmark ending happy kiss. Each eventually gets the career they wanted but not the love. Pretty much happens to all readers who read books, and one is never enough. Lover or book!!
Thanks for Percival Everett, I guess. He's still doing well but I haven't gone back to read any of his recent works. I'm now deeper into the great Durrell. Reading also his letters
back and forth to Henry Miller. A way of doing history of that period without reading history. I can understand about 3/4s of what they chatter on about. They hated Eliot's the wasteland which is fun to hear---why did anyone foist that on us/anyone??
Someone tweeted the greatest writer of the 20thC was Maurice Blanchot. Have heard of him vaguely, wasn't a novelist or poet that I know of. At least they weren't pushing Proust again. That craze is over I hope. Kingmaking is I guess what we need to do. Who is the greatest living boxer, fly fisherman, trampoline diver, bag piper??
I'm steeling myself for some sadness between our writer (oh I did look up to see that Brennan Patrick is available on amazon, you sly fox!!) and Amy, so let it roll, let's see how sad and miserable it has to get to keep the tale moving toward the high point--meeting professor doctor r garlitz in ellen reed house! what was I wearing back then?
Writers get accused of being self-obsorbed but clearly readers are the most so!!!!
24 Sunday
I'm still a scotch man! Actually, I worry a little about cocktails. When I'm alone, one drink quickly becomes three. Scotch is tough on the body. I usually go dry for a couple days each week, but I definitely yearn for a drink around 5.
Thanks for the good feedback. Kind of tragic, really. I'll include a couple pictures, but she was a sweetheart and in many ways was the person I should have married and stayed with. But she divorced me...so I guess that's one arrow of shame I can dodge. I'll include some pictures someone just sent me from my old Vienna contacts.
Blanchot, eh? I don't know him. Did you watch the Durrells in Corfu on PBS? Kind of charming. In any case, our emails will be collected like Durrells letters with Miller. There will be the Vittum-Lord letters, followed by the Blaha-Fried letters, then perhaps the Dubino-Dotty Smarsik letters. Ours will be poor by comparison, but we have always run near the fast lane.
What were you wearing in 1990? Probably pretty much the same thing as today sans the mylar curtains that gave you that dramatic look!
Going to look at a house in Eastport today. Not sure why. I might need a change...give Justin and his girlfriend the house in Warren. Make them pay me a sum every month that I can apply to a mortgage up here. The freaking stock market is not paying me anything, that's for sure.
Okay, I'll send more. Amy and I are heading for a crash, alas. I always thought I would remain with her. She broke my heart.
Always been pretty clear guess that she broke your heart, left you. For another guy
or just for the hell of it, to save her soul from eternal damnation? Hoping it wasn't
Tom Waits or another guy, whoever it be that would kill most, someone too cool to
be league with. Pain. Love. Unending moebius loops there. Those seem to be the
entwined loops of all of the art-lit stuff no matter what people say. I've only blocked
two people on facebook, Wendy's friend Veronica and my oldest and dearest h s
girl friend, Mary Lou! Hated seeing her photos at this late date and her bumpist
opinions from naple fla. Out of touch for eons and then she pops up on facebook
after mom or dad died. One of her scouts came to the furneral home back home
to see how I had fared. Yikes---grade school, high school. Never leave them. Four
of my h s friends meeting for lunch this tuesday in home town. Before the great
Net we would not have known about these things. Why torture ourselves so??
More familiar than the big news stuff which concerns us so litte. You could invite
S King for lunch after you get that Eastport manse.
—-
Lousy pizza last night but our table wall warm and jovial. J & J were in their house 21 years ago which means they bought and moved in the fall
right before our event in February. So that's why we took so long to get to know them and become closer. I recall they had me to dinner some time
when Va was in one of the hospitals. We had nothing to talk about. I
was in shock, same as dinner with the Hinmans on their wuthering heights
castle.
Dave's 45th this week. No success in getting a call in today.
Lou's report on her stay in Paris while the kids were with us in August.
9/25/2023
Dearest Voo,
I've had writing to you since I returned on my mind. Last night was my first night going to bed after daylight and getting up after the sun was already up. Long trips and jet lag are for the stout of heart and it seems the body pays the toll in lack of stamina at the end. That said, I commence...
Arriving at 70 Rue Cambronne, I fiddled with the outside code plate until I connected with the 2nd floor neighbor, M. Doucet, who gave us the keys to David and Cécile's apartment. We got there later than we had planned as we had been rerouted to Chicago to CDG since our ABQ plane to Dallas was so delayed we would have missed the connection. Excitedly, Nathan and I scouted out the neighborhood once we had our land legs. This was a Friday afternoon. We found a bakery, money machine, a few small grocery shops, the Metro stop, and several restaurants. Of course we bought baguette sandwiches for supper and croissants for the next morning. Dante and grandchildren were not arriving until Sunday morning. Saturday AM Nathan and I started walking toward the Eiffel Tower and there it was! We spent a long time admiring it, watching people and exploring the grounds around it. I didn’t remember much from seeing it--or much else--when I was in Paris before with Barbra Reeback (from Chatter) and AA students over twenty years ago. This was a different kind of sight-seeing trip and everything was new again. I think it was the same for Nathan.
9/26
[I didn't get very far yesterday morning, but I'm back. I started a log on the trip, but gave up after the first couple of days.]
On Saturday Nathan and I set out for the Eiffel Tower and it began to rain. No matter, we enjoyed admiring it, watching the people and exploring the grounds. From there we went to the river and had a coffee. It all felt so French. Sunday around noon Dante et al arrived from CDG via the Metro. When we all settled in and they rested, we took an evening stroll in the area. Monday AM we all went to the ET and the Seine. Dante was determined to climb the tower and convinced Nathan to go with him. When they got to the entrance and found out that there was a 2 hr wait for tickets, they caught up with the rest of us for coffee!
I think that evening we went grocery shopping at the Monoprix.
Our M0 was to decide what we might see the following day and then figure out how to get there the next morning. Internet sites were excellent for directions and phone GPS’s plus the laminated area maps worked well to get us where we wanted to be. M. Google reported that there were no online Louvre tickets available until Aug. 19. Great, we were leaving the 18th. We tabled that for the time being and aimed for the Musée d’Orsay instead as we could get online tickets and show up before it opened to avoid long lines. That visit was super. Gemini wanted to see the Impressionists—as we all did. I decided that I like Cezanne better than anyone else. Also,I enjoyed the Greek and Roman statuary on the main floor more than anything. The statue of the Grachi Brothers from Pompeii got my attention and I stood mesmerized in front of -voilã- the statue of Virgil. I thought of Mrs. Miller, our Latin class and how much language learning and teaching has meant to and for me throughout my life. And it began with amo, amas, amat. Ay, ¡Qué la vida!
Before we went to the Orsay, we visited the Jardin du Luxembourg. Such a peaceful and soul fulfilling place. Unfortunately there were no concerts scheduled for when we were there. I was hoping to go back before we left, but didn’t make it.
I really wanted to do a Seine cruise -which we did- and from there we did a forced march (Dante was sure it was just a few blocks…) to the Army Museum and Napoleon’s Tomb. That may have been the night the family decided to do a nighttime visit to the ET. I stayed in for that.
Wanting to go to the Bois de Boulogne, we ended up at the Jardin d’Acclimatation which is in one little corner. It’s a family place with kids’ rides, a puppet theater, some zoo animals and beautiful vistas. A lovely place for children. I’ll text a couple of videos I took there. The family found the main part of the Bois one of the days just before we left. Unfortunately, this was a day I stayed in as well. Some days we walked 4-5 miles and up and down Metro steps. I would need a day of rest when that happened.
Nathan and Dante accompanied me to La Place de Voges in Les Marais to see Victor Hugo’s house. He only lived a few years there on the second floor. He had quite a career taking up politics in his later years. He was a first class humanist.
Our last museum visit was the Cluny. Everything medieval. It was interesting to see the progress from Church architecture, statuary, relics and stained glass in stone, gold and silver, ivory, and wood to the later medieval tapestries with their motifs of daily and romantic life. I didn't quite get the Lady and the Unicorn (La Dame a la Licorne) theme that was the apparently mysterious subject of a series of tapestries. That is something I may follow up on.
By far, I think, our most joyous day all together was our visit to the Centre Pompidou. There was a well done special exhibit on homosexuality called Over the Rainbow. The various floors with contemporary art wowed us all. I took several pictures there. When we were through it all, exhausted and hungry, we found a restaurant called Le Petit Marcel for supper. When we left, we saw that it was right next to a restaurant called Chez LouLou. Too much fun! Le Petit Marcel has a couple of references. One is to a village puppet maker who carried his life sized puppet around from place to place. There was a statue of this fellow in the restaurant. Another reference is to a 70’s movie of a young, fatherless man named Marcel living in a rural area of France trying to find his place in the world. Something like Alfie but a la francesa, maybe.
It turned out that Dante decided that, lines and all, they would go to the Louvre. Unfortunately, Gemini wasn’t feeling well and missed that outing. I didn’t go either. I often slept late as we would play card games or Clue late into the night. Dante and Nathan slept on the pull out sofa and they would get up early and take off until midmorning when the kids and I stirred. They discovered a cemetery in the Montparnasse area and they also took the Metro one morning to Notre Dame. Dante always brought back croissants, pastries and a baguette.
Barbara asked me what was the best thing about the trip and I had to tell her that the family part of being together in that beautiful place filled me with great happiness. We bonded in a way we’ll never forget. It did my heart good to see Nathan so close to his brother. It was a joy to be with my grandchildren and Dante made sure I was safe and supported in all the trekking we did. I appreciated his taking such care of me.
I know your heart must have been full also being with David and family. Their apartment reflects dedicated parents who love and nurture their children’s artistic abilities. I believe I counted at least four guitars and, of course, a set of drums. And each child had their art workspace. I hope they have not found anything amiss from our stay. I truly hope I meet up with Cécile again some day and, however possible, that I can be helpful to her or someone she knows who comes this way by sharing my home.
I think I will text pictures in stacks. That will probably work the best. On another note, I went with Barb on Wednesday to the Watermelon Ranch Adoption Store in Cottonwood Mall and found a little dog! He is a Chihuahua cross with something, 3 yrs old and his name is Boswell. I'll pick him up tomorrow afternoon after Chatter. Barb and I went to PetsMart this morning for food, a crate, doggie dishes and treats. She gave me a leash for him and I have a few toys. This will be a new adventure for me as I haven’t had dogs for at least 25 years. And when I did, I had a big back yard and did not worry about training. I think we just fed them and took them for walks now and then. I’m relying on Barb for advice and instructions. I hope it works out. We’re starting with a three day trial period. Another project in addition to Boswell will be getting started on the piano. All that should be enough to keep me off the streets and out of the bars.
My dearest Voo, I look forward to seeing you in January and I trust your autumn will be spectacularly colorful and enjoyable. Thanks to you and your family, this has been a spectacular year for me and mine. Hugs to you and Bob.
Much love,
Lou
PS Pictures will follow via text.
——-
27 Weds
Yesterday Dennis and I talked for and hour and a half in his house. I enjoyed it tremendously. Enjoyed seeing the house too. And he makes coffee with Aeropress! He quickly finished the MB quiz and announced he is an INTP.
That seems pretty apt so far. We exchanged all sorts of autobiographical
details. I had forgotten his primary trauma, at fourteen seeing his father die when he overturned an all-terrain vehicle in a woodland outing. He must have been drunk, seems he had been declining with drink and depression for two years. Pretty horrible coming of age period for a very sensitive 12-14 year old boy in a hard working Catholic family in Southy. Forgot to ask about siblings, maybe he has a younger sister? He has been to nine ayahuasca Temple retreats over in NY state in the past few months. He had done the Ketamine therapy sessions in town here in the spring. Or was that last spring? He's very keen on Michael Pollan's book How to Change Your Mind which is all about these drug therapies, growing out of Pollan's work on foods and the food industry. He texted this morning that he is sending me a copy. I texted back I'm sending him Jeffrey Kripal's The Flip.
I went to the luncheon at the Country Club, and I enjoyed it much more than the last time. Ed Mullaney and Bill Stakem attended as well as Paul Yockus and Mike Stevens. Also a guy named Frank Rice who I don't remember at all. Once again some women who attended Ursuline and I don't remember. This time there was very little Catholic talk. However I was interested to learn that Bishop Walsh is now preK to 12th grade and replaces all Catholic schools in Cumberland plus St. Michaels in Frostburg. And it aint big. Grades 9 to 12 have only about 120 students. And the school no longer recruits basketball players from around the world. The archdiocese could no longer pay for that so BW just plays in a local league. No more basketball games in the Sanfrancisco area.
I informed everyone that you, john, had a problem with a pacemaker and got a better replacement. A woman who also had a pacemaker wanted to know what brand pumps your heart, and I had to admit I didn't know. Paul also has a pacemaker as well as hearing aids. He also told me that he ran in - and finished - 15 marathons over the years. One odd thing: I remember Paul as a skinny guy, but he now is rather bulky and it seems muscle far more than fat.
Mike Stevens was also there, but seems to have some mental problems. Not debilitating, but it keeps him very quiet, slow moving, and low key. I asked Paul and Mike where their families were from. Paul answered right away: Yugoslavia - in fact Croatia. Mike just told me to ask his son (who wasn't present).
Bill and Ed were in good shape and both involved in volunteering for stuff. for Cumberland or other good causes. Bill also said that his family came from Ireland during the potato famine, but that he is somehow related to Mister Frost of Frostburg.
As for Cumberland, the houses on Washington Street never looked better and well maintained even if houses in some of the poorer areas of town look to be near crumbling. And I stopped at my grandfather's Victorian era house but found only a housekeeper who spoke only spanish. I went across the street to ask some men if the family who lived in the house were all Hispanic. No, it's an American couple who have purchased the legal marijuana business in Cumberland. And the guy who knew this was Tom Finan, who I didn't recognize at first. Tom lives in a lovely big house that is almost directly across from my grandfather's house. Tom's father grew up in that house and Tom bought it some years back. He invited me inside and we spent an hour telling each other what we had done over the past 60 years. Tom apparently bought the Times, sold it, invested again smartly, and seems to be living quite well. I met his wife Mary Kay and heard about his son Patrick who has had quite a successful career at Hopkins and, later, at the U of Virginia.
The town seems to be doing a bit better. Ed says people who are not originally from C'land are retiring to Cumberland. But I don't see any new businesses, and Baltimore Street is totally ripped up as it is now being designed to admit one lane of cars down the middle. And the bridges over the railroad on the west side are still blocked because they're in such terrible shape.
The drive up and back from my house in on interstates all the way and is very pretty and easy. It's 110 miles from my house to downtown C'land.
One bad thing. I stayed overnight in the Marriott motel, and its indoor pool was not heated, and there were many other signs of keeping costs down. I thinkd it's stuggling to stay in business, and other than two restaurants on Beltimore Street, there was only one other business - a drugstore. All the big old businesses are totally empty and unused.
P
Enjoyed your full report. That explains why Paul's look and name did not seem from the scotch-irish mold of most everyone else. Interesting visit with Tom Finan, barely remember him. Mike always seemed very quiet but you guys knew him in grade school. Glad the town seemed to look a wee better.
Virginia's high school boyfriend visited us last month. We had a hard time figuring out if his hearing loss explained his very distant presence and affect or if he was losing more mentally. Still at a loss it seemed from having left the mormon church forty some years ago. His father had been an elder in Albuquerque and that was important.
Younger people. Thought of you John on Tuesday. Did you ever deal with grad students very much or has it mostly been undergrads all your career? I visited with my new next
door neighbor here, young fellow in his early 30s who is going back to university to get a masters and licensure in psychology/therapy. Very bright and interesting but I thought after that 30 year olds are sure different from 20 year olds, who I spent my lifetime trying to engage and figure out.
Heard from this fellow about the newish Temples of Ayahuasca. He has made nine visits to one over in NY State (around Woodstock, of course). Illegal so far as FDA goes and so under the radar. But pricey--$1300. for a 2 night weekend visit. Seemed like recycling Timothy Leary. Important book on all of it by Harvard prof Michael Pollan who seems to have been writing about food and food supply chains most of his career.
Psychotropic micro-dosing is the newest (oldest) edge of psychotherapy it seems.
The StephenKing wing of my multi-divided mind wonders if we welcome as many south american migrants as possible to replace the populations being lost so quietly to fentanyl and other opiods.
‘I try to make poems that listen to themselves’ is an interesting statement.
i see that as exclusionary and veering towards feedback loops.
if he said poems that demand listening to, that would make sense [perhaps]
and using languages many or most of us don’t know adds to that sense of exclusion.
i mean i can’t even read them or pronounce them. is it visual music he wants me to sing? [possibly]
to me it seems tied up with ideas of academia, cleverness, an old type of education, perhaps colonialism.
if they are sound poems then present them on cd or youtube.
why the constant use of archaisms?
the music here is not enough to carry me on despite non-understanding.
why does he chain himself to traditional language/words when there is a whole spectrum of vocal abstraction, improvised speech and song, available. some of which is far more radical and strange but also more entertaining, challenging and original.
and i am suspicious of ‘truth in beauty’. didnt we get rid of truth singular several decades ago now?
is beauty a thing we can guage or gorge or grab?
i dont even find them playful… as sound or language, which i am happy to do [content often eludes me or is irrelevant]
i think ‘word-nerd arcana’ might be a useful term.
R
—-
I suppose Dennis found it as strange as I did that we talked for 90 minutes about all sorts of things as well as trauma and therapy and the ayahuasca Temple he has been going to after his trial of ketamine therapy back in the spring. Who was the therapist and who the client? A gap of almost fifty years rather significant too. Not the same as having a beer or wine in a cafe on the edge of the ocean or petroglyphs. I think here of Prospero's Cell which is so wonderful as not to be believed. Durrell's love of the land and location within which onto which he finds people and their stories to make for a super book. The ancient myths and stories and histories and then the modern stories of Count D. who proves Corfu is the island Shakespeare visited and cast as the leading character in The Tempest.
Mertens called with corrections to what he had tried to say about Wendell Berry's views on neighborliness and love of the land. Why have I never
tried to take to Berry's writing? I guess the farmer part of it has put be off. Exactly what attracts Dick because he was raised on a farm in his early years.
no, i dislike the fact i can’t find a way in to it, not much beyond what i put here…
>
> i know ‘music' can be personal, as others cant hear any music in my poetry, but i dont get it here.
>
> i may persist….
>
> but it’s not just you, no!
>
> see what you think of this excerpt about a paper on tom raworth. i think it’s quite interesting about how we read poetry, or some poetry.
> i feel it’s quite useful.
>
> R
I do like that passage about reading Raworth.
I'm always a sucker for any passage invoking between--
"hover between continuity and disjunction"
Dennis seems not interested much in writing as such. Too early of course to really have much of a friendship be possible. I felt foolish for having gone seeking attention, wanting a listener or audience, wanting at all.
79 can't really be the new 62. smiley face
Ed got the first painting ok, said the box was in good shape. Guess I will go ahead with the other two. Had thought about asking Sarah to use Hundelrut to ship with higher insurance coverage but am guessing that would be a possible tangle she would not welcome. Nor I either really. The issue would not be having more market value "covered" anyway. Yet another fiction created by "insurance."
Trouble getting the living room split to work, three tries so far.
Works best on heat or cool not on Auto mode.
Saturday. I thought it was Sunday. Caved and subscribed to NYT for $1 a week. But they won't get me a year from now!! No siree.
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