DECEMBER 2023
Talked to Tara about the move. She had no clue from Eric. See if he calls later today or Monday.
In Revolt Durrell seems very close to writing diaries under loose fictional masks of Charlock as dystopian scientist, or scientist being seduced into dystopian Overlord The Firm. Would I have used "dystopian" had the back cover blurb not given it to me? He has this loose narrative frame and can needlepoint and knit and crochet into it any damn thing that comes up or down.
"Sex should be like King's drinking, not piglets at teat." 224 Oh, Larry, not another of those lines that give the Nobel committee the opportunity to swerve at last to Steinbeck. Next paragraph Marchant the scientist tells of his fling with a woman butcher. "White little plump mortuary fingers."
2
Hey Bob,
Sorry to have dropped off on responding there, sometimes I can be pretty terrible at following up on things.
How has your fall been? Doing well over here. I'm registered for classes and looking forward to diving into some focused education in January. Though I have to admit I'm not much looking forward to sitting in a classroom with teenagers, it will all be a good practice of patience and humility I suppose.
Since we last spoke I've been trying to answer some pretty big questions about psychedelics, plant medicines, and access for lower-income communities. It started during the week in my class we were talking about MDMA (formerly known as Ecstacy in the 80s/90s) as a highly effective treatment for PTSD. The group that has been pushing MDMA through all of the clinical trials is called MAPS, and they have spent a lot of time focusing on combat vets and how effective it is for their treatment. All well and good, until I learned that they are estimating that 3 sessions (the minimum suggested for treatment) is going to cost $30k, and that a single dose of MDMA will cost $3k. I know that label vs. generic changes the math, but just as a reference, $3k is the street value for 2 oz of pure MDMA, or 660 therapeutic doses. That's $4.50 per therapeutic dose.
The kids coming back with PTSD aren't enlisting in the infantry because they have a bunch of money laying around, they're getting scooped out of vocational high schools and rural areas because they can't see any other prospects. If health insurance ends up covering it, then all we're doing is socializing the cost through private payers to the benefit of the shareholders.
The math is equally disturbing with legal psilocybin therapy, so now I'm all spun around about how performative this whole aboveground movement feels to me, like it's a bunch of overly privileged Westerners congratulating each other on how they plan to help... other privileged people. If and when it's accessible through health insurance, the only reason I see them agreeing to cover it is that there is a somewhat unspoken case for how this helps the economy by getting people up to some level of "normal" enough to get their asses back to work and earning.
For me, plant medicines and psychedelic experiences are fundamentally anti-capitalist, so this subtext is really devastating. The common experiences of universal unity, connection with nature, and the dissolution of the Westernized ego stand in complete opposition to consumption-based capitalism, but, coincidentally, as soon as the tech industry discovered that microdosing LSD and psilocybin led to increased productivity in 2015-2016, the public opinion on psychedelics started to shift. "Well, if it's good for the economy then I guess it's all right with me!" Naively I want to believe these medicines are how we reach a critical mass that rejects this whole thing, not a way to just alleviate the symptoms of living in a broken system just enough to keep the gears turning smoothly.
I'm going to finish this program because I think the clinical education is really important for wherever the road takes me from here, but not because I plan to go into psychedelic therapy, at least not immediately. I'm playing with the idea of shooting for an MS in psychology from a research university on the level of Columbia or UC Berkeley instead of PSU — admissions will ultimately make that decision for me, but I've had a major shift in my enthusiasm about getting a degree in addition to all of the rest of these changes. I have always taken pride in not having a college degree and being able to achieve without it, but I see how childish and egotistical it is. I was always right about not needing an undergrad, but what I didn't realize was that a minimum of an MS is what is going to open the doors I will want to step through, whatever those may be. I've had a few people encourage me to start thinking about a PsyD as well, but that's a long way out.
Well, that was a lot... Haven't gotten much recreational reading done lately, but I did just finish a second read of the Bhagavad Gita. Ever read it? I've been reading some Rumi as well but I'm not sure I "get" it.
Tell Virginia we say hello. If you're up for it we'd love to get together for a dinner soon.
Hi Dennis
So good to hear from you. Wild flashing lights here with the brief mention of Rumi and the Gita. And I would say that there is the key you’re looking for. Of course my biases.
"patience and humility I suppose” the “I suppose” is also key. And "taken pride in not having a college degree and being able to achieve without it, but I see how childish and egotistical it is. I was always right about not needing an undergrad,” another key.
You’ve been living the life of a contemplative for a good while now and I wonder if you should forget the degree worlds after all. The main points are your realizations about pride and humility etc but it does not necessarily follow that doing degree pursuit is what you really want or need. What if your life now is it in the sense that you can keep reading as your spirit guides you and you can look for meaningful ways to act——drive to Manchester twice a week to volunteer with Vets? Homeless shelter work in the region. Etc? Being the devils’ advocate here with my speculations.
Degree and credential yes and for what sort of work within which kinds of systems? NGO foundations? major outfits like Oxfam or Doctors without Borders? etc?
Your analysis critique of the drug trades, low, high, mid as it interfaces with wealth, privilege, social structures is spot on and I’m delighted to see it, however painful is was to come to that point. Sidebar: “broken systems” inadequate rhetoric, misleading metaphor. I really did break my foot about two weeks ago, hobbled around for a while in denial until Va insisted I get an xray. Hairline fracture in second metatarsal. Keep it elevated, wear the boot, extra rest etc etc, not really a big deal and I suspect it happened before. “March fracture” or “stress fracture.” Now my toe will heal but it is not a system that will be fixed. “Fix” isn’t wholistic, the bone will heal and scar. Will it be stronger and/or prone to break further down the line? Depends on too many factors—aging continues, some oseteoporosis may be active already, etc etc etc. So with human structures, systems, always imperfect, always in process (not progress), (sidebar sidebar: bitter funny irony department—look up Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse” .
Maybe you keep searching with online courses, your own readings, own sites for action in various ways. And-or what about an online BA program that allows maximum flexibility
to create reading lists? What about an online or low-res divinity masters—in counseling,
therapy, using Rumi and Gita and Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching etc etc as framework within which you have lots of space to explore and operate. Many atheists in div schools in case that worries you. Ministry/counseling credential might give you more leeway that psych-based studies.
With these types of programs—"MS in psychology from a research university on the level of Columbia or UC Berkeley “ what you want to do is focus on a prof or director, prof, call him up, praise his book and ask for an appointment talk with him next week, go to
Columbia and pick her brain and negotiate saying I’m an adult non-trad person with unique background and skills and search experience and I want talk about what your program can offer me as it matches what I can offer you and your program. I am the kind
of student you are longing to have in your program because I can bring angles and sensibilities you rarely run into with your usual cohort of ivy entitled wastrels.
"he doors I will want to step through, whatever those may be. “ Imagine what those doors are for now, what they might be, and imagine crossing through them with and without programmatic
credentialing. What would an MS in x lead to that pusuing similar questions as an Independent Researcher would not? Look up the books of Gary Lachman——his only credential I believe
(going to check on this immediately to be double sure is that he was bassist for Blondie.) He’s now very much respected for his research, books and podcasts. (Overlook for the moment if you react negatively to the subjects he writes on.) You’ve got the perfect outsider position right now maybe to start writing books about the books and research that the people at Columbia are
doing within their programs and degree-granting structures. The subject of my phd was Kenneth Burke, born 1897. He went to Columbia already reading Latin and Greek. He wrote his dad
back in Ohio after one year and said “they won’t let me take course X until I complete courses P and N and Q first. Give me the money you give them, I will live in NYC and use the money
to read what I want and write the books I want to write.” Did that the rest of his life. Later taught at Berkeley and UChicago and Bennington etc. Made his reputation with the books. Now
of course that was then and a hundred years ago. But now it looks like that 100 year stretch is way over and needs to be “over” in many ways because the academic world got way too
expanded and bloated and costly and powerful beyond genuine usefulness. Like any Imperial overreaching enterprise that people love to set up. From Rome to Versaille to the catholic church to Purdue Pharma or X formerly known as Twitter.
Well, much bashing about of brains!! You do it much better than I do for all sorts of reasons. And may be that your genuine hunger is to do that research that attracts you to it that is being
done in the scientific arenas independent of whether and how they can “help” this or that group of traumatized people. Your dialectic—science, reason, thought, pure thought, in tension
with meaningful influence in the bodily-inner lives of people. Or not “people" but individuals.
Come on over any time with or without food options or dinner plans. I’ve gone round in circles—oh, yes I did see real Rumi whirling dervishes from Turkey in person in their long white robes and tall felt hats, doing their meditation practice whirling. Years before that I had a chance to go to a meditation retreat up in Jackson NH where one could actually wear the costume and learn to whirl-meditate and I still regret not having done so (maybe cash short at the time, don’t recall).
Bob
———
231 Revolt "Life gets more and more mysterious, not less."
4 Monday
Arnold may come Wednesday to box up everything. Snow day today. Nice visit last evening with Dennis and Ashley and Arlo. Snow day, Va at the piano. Took photos of the downstairs, as is, in prep for all the wall things to be taken off. PT and Ray now want to use the house on Dec 10.
Good note from Eloy. Call from Mertens walking his dog in Jackson Park, raving about how great Ke
ats' Ode to Autumn be.
Eloy set Barb and PT up with the house. What an angel he is, continues to be. Even after our breakup as business people. DHL says it will pick up the oversize icelandic sweater. Va and Elizabeth heading to the pool. Movers set for tomorrow morning. Money seems to be holding steady.
Weds 6 Arnold showed at 8:15 not 9:15. steadily boxing all that's on the list. Bright cold day. Sound of taping begin stripped off the roll. Dragonfly
mover also gets its packing stuff from Uline, source of the boxes I used to send the paintings.
John Elkins called last night. He had a lobectomy last fall for lung cancer! All free now, does an annual checkup down in MA somewhere, going there today.
Finished changes to 3rd ed of Adventures, requesting another draft copy. Va worried about me signing the painting we're giving to Elizabeth. What year did I paint it? '95?
Now three movers carting the boxes and paintings out. 11:15 so far.
Cécile sent photo of their tree in their apartment. Looks lovely, reddish lights.
"The cat yawned. It gave me a contemptuous glance and turned back to the fire." 247
Living room now looks bare. Surprise — Aron Oakley, one of the movers, mentioned he saw Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake on the shelf. In awe. Said they were hard to come by. Loves books, both to read and collect. I was delighted to give them to him!! He grew up in Florida, came up with his girl friend. Never tried skiing yet.
Night. Geo told me about the amazing private museum in Rumney on a stage 6 illegal back road. Erector set company stuff, death mask of Bela Lugosi. Some retired engineer.
Taking all the images off the walls as the first step in making a move. Somehow Durrell could use that in a story. Adam Greschler on Facebook says he has bought a new copy of The Black Book.
7 Dec
Music brighter in the living room because the walls are empty!!! Bright Thursday morning. Playing the Apple Sound Bath — sound bowls with metal and crystal percussion. Dennis had mentioned that when they go to NYC next week they want to go to a sound therapy event or concert that one of their friends performs. So quiet makes you realize how disturbing it was to have Arnold and helpers show early and rip tape and wrap things in cardboard and paper and box them off out of the house. Forever!? More than likely. Property taxes now up 1500 this year alone.
Durrell feels out of focus or through a glass or mirror steamed up. It has all the features and energies but somehow not fully synced. Benedicta is no Justine and Felix is not Darley. The dactyls computer idea feels not fully formed, tape recorder gone meta before "meta" came along.
She is counterbalanced by Iolanthe, street prostitute become hollywood goddess. So by 260 we have the celebrity appearance. Book published in 1968!! right on target for all of our meaningful concerns and concerns for meaning and meaningfulness. Charlock too much Shylock, charlatan, Sherlock.
1968 Chicago Bellow born June 10, 1915 Montreal. Lawrence born Jalandhar February 27, 1912. Both very short guys, born on the outer fringes of the Empire. Bellow from Lithuanian Jewish father. Best friend and subject of Ravelstein was Alan Bloom. ! such a tight little world of intellectuals and who knew—-except those inside who did know ! —
In a 2015 reminiscence, Jeet Heer recalls: “While he didn’t publicly announce his sexuality, it was known to his circle of friends.” But the information was concealed from the conservative world.
Bloom’s former student, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, all but outs him in her 1990 she identified as gay studied under Bloom a number of neoconservative scholars and politicians who co-resided in the Telluride House with House Faculty Fellow Allan Bloom in the 1960s. Eve Kosofsky was raised in a Jewish family in Dayton, Ohio, and Bethesda, Maryland.[9] She has two siblings: e wars,[14] using literary criticism to question dominant discourses of sexuality, race, gender, and the boundaries of literary criticism. Sedgwick first presented her particular collection of critical tools and interests in the influential volumes Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire Although married to a man, Sedgwick was a gay- identified woman -- something progressive for her tim
so why not argue that her whole construction is a Jewish American neo-conservative set of analyses and assumptions? What Saves Durrell from all of this is Greece, the Mediterranean, being British, being post- and outside of the Raj etc etc. Such different deep structures. Russian Jewish heritage in the US, making it here, making it queer. Durrell does not need to make it anywhere in the sense that he comes from the peak of the empire, in some sense, and watches it flow away and apart in the oceanic currents of history.
The Mediterranean gives him itself as his home. Expat in search. Sedgwick as an ambitious climber in the ladders of academic power and non-power finds themes and topics to bank. Durrell is saved from academia altogether, a huge matter, a saving freedom these American Jewish intellectuals could not comprehend.
Sounds pretty pretentious perhaps.
10 Dec
The whole thing about Charlock the inventor signing on with the Firm Merlin and then not being able to give away one of his inventions—-straight out of the period, the whole earth catalog, fear of business taking over and controlling everything, even Firms that have bible size vellum books listing the charities they support.
Heavy low pressure system, storm coming up the coast. Call from Mertens about the mill on the floss and tony shalube star of Monk being from Green Bay and a Packers supporter.
11 Dec Monday
George's birthday party week, Wednesday. Rain and wind. John has read one of Beha's books. Beha went to Princeton, grew up on west side of NYC.
Like this one paragraph in an interview: "Beha himself is a prodigious reader: He said that reading great literature is a central part of his day-to-day existence. (His memoir, The Whole Five Feet, is about a project he set himself to read all 51 volumes of the Harvard Classics, known as the Five-Foot Shelf). “A day in which I haven’t spent at least a little time engaged with literature—not just reading something, but reading something that does the things that great literature does—feels like a lost day. It’s a big part of the richness, the fabric of my life. When I’m not reading a book that I feel is engaging me in the way that great literature does, I feel like a less fully human person.” He later called this feeling being “soul sick.”
He wrote about reading the Harvard five foot shelf. Forgot about that, antecedent to the chicago great books list. Silly but then I recall that I read through most of Copleston's history of philosophy, each volume with a final chapter pointing out the errors of the thinkers' positions from the point of view of catholic teaching. ! Not quite the zen approach I would later look for somewhere, somehow. Again, Durrell feels so wonderfully free of any such stench. Would Bellow feel that way? Or is there behind Bellow a metaphysical hunger, remember now how he hints at interests in the beyond by looking into that one Inkling I can't recall right now. Charles someone. No, Owen Barfield!! Bravo memory.
Not sure I would call it that. Sounds too Catholic! But then he's made a career of writing about leaving the church and then returning to the church like all good grads of jesuit high schools. Forgot one of the three musketeers was a jesuit, we started into D'Artagnan last night. beautiful pale gold pallet for the opening hour. Mud and grit. Swash and buckle too.
Great gallic nose on the King!
Anxiously awaiting call from Barbara S to find out what wrinkle she's having with Eloy and Casa A prep. Petie and Ray seem to be set on going there on the 15th I think, driving to CA.
trying to do a low activity no shower stay home day to rest the foot mucho and get it healed.
Saw the kids yesterday. They were doing a rest weekend, put us on to D'Artagnan. Eliot's hair even longer, wild boy musketeer of Cambronne!
coming in to the finale of Tunc. Worried that I should order Monsieur to be sure it is here for the plane ride to Abq.
"The lust of the goat is the bounty of God." Visio doesn't cite who that is from. Blake? Yes, it is!!
Not to be outdone Tudor-Sideri has "I exhausted myself with love in the void." —-Bataille
"But then is not life itself a fairy-tale which we lose the power of apprehending as we grow?" Durrell
Zarathustra says to go back to the body, go into the body, and then everything will be right, for there the greatest intelligence is hidden. —CG Jung
Tuesday 12 Dec
Told Barbara to talk with Eloy, she want to get into the house early to decorate!! Exactly what I suspected.
Orthopedist showed me the new xrays, foot is healing well.
Started into Nunquam. Hooray, Felix has been shunted into a mental hospital, probably by unseen Julian. Satire of all things psycho, freudian, etc. Right up my alley, Eugenia Memorial. Feels familiar, reawakens memories. Crazy 1968-70, Tunc in 68 Nunquam in 70!! zeitgeist fever, zeitgeist blues. Now the book geek wants to find copies of each volume separately.
13
He also wants to find a phrase he though the saw in the passages in which Charlock is in the mental ward, about crawling on his knees on the floor.
But to pay $18 for the kindle version for the search seems too pricey. For now. Because was it in Tunc or in Nunquam? And is the point to see what Durrell says about it or to remember it for what it was for myself. At the peak of my hysteria-breakdown in Elkins Park, one evening in the refectory during evening meal I stood up and got down on my hands and knees on the floor. Why? Was I trying to cry? To behave as though crazy, as a gesture of self-humiliation, as a plea for recognition and help? No memory of why? I was in some sort of fog, some variant of blacking out or freaking out, held in the grip of some state of feeling I had no consciousness of nor comprehension of, no sense of what was being enacted in and through my body-person. I have never told anyone about this. Would a phrase from Durrell really make any difference about it in my memory of it or understanding of it?
Bright party this afternoon for George's 89th. Table all in reds and whites. He brought the fruit cake he had made weeks ago. Decaf in his mr coffee maker. Pattie brought sharp cheese and chocolate cookies. Natalie wore her hat, protected her new crown from nuts and sweets. Carole brought her candied walnuts. Ken showed a photo of their decorated tree. Keith enjoyed his special no walnut loaf George made for him. Everyone in high spirits, happy to be razzing George for announcing he was done with Biden and would vote for Niki Haley. As the afternoon ended snow started outside. Now feels much colder out.
14 Raves pouring in on the success of the party. My foot feels better each morning. Sunny now too.
from Joe's latest section of his book — "The same year that The World As We Know It came out, I also published Finding Somewhere, with Delacorte Press, the YA story of two horse-loving girls (as I mentioned earlier) who steal one of their favorite mounts, Speed, who was slated to be euthanized the next day.
From my standpoint, the book was tight and well-constructed. For the first time in my writing life, I no longer worried about what critics, or even readers on Goodreads, would say about the work. I knew it was good. If a critic or reader didn’t appreciate the novel, then that was on them, not me. I had learned to do my work and the YA novel frame seemed to give me a worthwhile border inside of which to color." about page 180 in the ms ?
Lunch with Helen and Ted coming up tomorrow and Greg called to meet us next week in Meredith. Glad for both calls.
16 Dry and sunny and warm continues. Good visit with H&T yesterday. Sweet photos she sent of Ravenna 7 and Violet 5.
Joe's life and career don't sound like much fun. Some sort of pleasure quotient is missing in his accounting and retrospective mulling over. I guess that is where we are opposites—-his laser focus on what's at hand versus my everything expanding endlessly. Now Durrell suggests that for me, or allows for it. Enjoys it. I can hear Durrell enjoying his writing but I can't hear Joe doing that. Exceptions—it was good to have him put in that one opening he's most proud of, pleased with, a lyrical passage.
Durrell describing madness and life in the crazy wards gives him a big canvas to work with. Gardens of weird delights. Extravagant tales from the far reaches of imagined kingdoms and empires.
Nunquam and Tunc not as brilliant as quartet but somehow I am enjoying them muchly because they are full of wonderful things. Johnson the great lover who falls in love with trees. Surely that should have been in Robichard's new book on Pan.
bought Nunquam on kindle, only 2.99 for some reason, here is the passage I wanted to find —- beginning of the book, we see that Felix is now in the asylum.
“Over the week-end I tested my freedom in tentative fashion by disappearing for the afternoon: no, not into town where I am always followed at a discreet distance by a white ambulance; but into the dangerous ward. Who would ever have thought of looking for one there? I reappeared in my own quarters as mysteriously as a conjurer’s rabbit and simply would not tell them where I had been. Would they have believed me? I doubt it. The thing is that I found I was actually picking up the thought-waves of a schizo on one of my little recording devices. He was knocking on the wall at the end of the corridor and singing a bit. I sneaked to the locked door and passed him a wire with a tiny mike on it. (Of course I myself have lots of tinnitus, which is only static in loony terms.) But we hit it off wonderfully well. He didn’t really want to get out, he said; he was only troubled by speculations as to the nature of freedom—where did it begin and where end? A man after my own heart, as you see. He turned out to be a wife-murderer; higher spiritual type than the rest of us. Our electronic friendship flowered so quickly that I felt it about time to test my set of keys. The second worked like a charm and I was inside the ward with the red light, shaking hands with my friend. He was a huge fellow but kindly, indeed almost diffident about his powers. The padded ward was just like anywhere else; spotless and obviously well conducted—and with a much more refined class of person than one finds in the rest of the place. Yes, I liked it very much, even the corridor with its sickly saint-like smell: smell of sweaty feet in some Byzantine cloister? And then all the pleasant diversified humours of Borborymi. Woof! Woof! There would be no visitors between tea-time and supper, so we were free to play at nursery games—on all fours, for example, barking in concert at a full moon, trying to turn ourselves into wolf-men. You see, anxiety is only a state of deadly heed, just as melancholia is only a pathological sadness. I might have foundered here, I suppose, had she not appeared; foundered out of sheer exhaustion, out of defiance to Julian’s obscure laws. I could have retreated by sheer imitation into a genuine hebephrenia, to follow out the dull spiral of some loony’s talk; under the full sail of madness steered this cargo of white-faced gnomes towards the darkness of catatonia. A Ship of Fools, like the very world itself. My friend speaks of freedom without quite being able to visualise its furtherest reaches; yet he is almost there. Ah! Folie des Gouffres. But cerebral dysrhythmia will respond to a cortical sedative, even in some cases of cryptogenic epilepsy.… You ask Nash! Om. The thing is this: coming round in the operating theatre, under the arcs, surrounded by a ballet of white masks (white niggers, appropriates of a blood sacrifice): bending down to plunge needles into me: I heard, or thought I heard, the quite unmistakable tones of Julian. They spoke, all of them, in quiet relaxed voices, like clubmen over their cigars while I lay there, a roped steer, with wildly rolling eye and flapping ear. I knew that the operation was over by now; I was just waiting to be wheeled away. The figure I mean stood just back from the circle and was obviously neither surgeon nor dresser, though he was masked and gowned like the rest of them. It was this one that said, in the tones of Julian: “I think the X-ray findings followed up by a pneumogram should tell you.…” Talk filled the interstices of his phrases like clods raining down upon a coffin-lid. Explanations proliferated into jargon. I felt perfectly well by now, the pain had gone with the tachycardia,”
— Nunquam (The Revolt of Aphrodite) by Lawrence Durrell
There would be no visitors between tea-time and supper, so we were free to play at nursery games—on all fours, for example, barking in concert at a full moon, trying to turn ourselves into wolf-men. You see, anxiety is only a state of deadly heed, just as melancholia is only a pathological sadness."
well, would I say that at that moment in EP in the refectory at dinner I was trying to bark at the moon and become a wolf-man? Perhaps, perhaps it was a revolt against the imprisoning claustrophobia of the cloister life, the hyper-organized routine that eliminated all private life, gave no space for inner secrets. Garcia Marquez's notion is so helpful here—-everyone has a public life, a private life, and a secret life. Durrell's works demonstrate this in intricate and memorable ways. Do any of Joe's books?
quivering between deadly heed and pathological sadness.
I could have retreated by sheer imitation into a genuine hebephrenia, to follow out the dull spiral of some loony’s talk; under the full sail of madness steered this cargo of white-faced gnomes towards the darkness of catatonia. A Ship of Fools, like the very world itself.
hebephrenia—-a form of insanity incident to the age of puberty!! wow, is that what brother thomas suffered from, is that what I was retreating into by sheer imitation of his manner? he was taken to Eugenia a day or two before I was taken. News of his move helped spark me "to follow out the dull spiral of some loony's talk."
17 Sunday
Vibart is now throwing Felix random quotes and passages of wit. Delightful. So comforting to have a favorite author at last. Props up one's spirits like nothing else.
deciding to not send in survey to Speare about K Foss's orthopedic services. Absurd overEvaluation of American life. Address is South Bend IN too. for
Speare hospital. ?? Dr Joe Ebner's hand there? How strange everything.
Barbara S still worried we will pay something for Ben to use our house. PT there now. Might see her.
Extra $725. in the mail from Rich! Last of the settlement of Dad's estate with the warehouse. Economy Warehouse. Sent $200. to Abq Museum!
Why? who knows. Wishful identification, betting on Futures. I would be a terrible investor. We did short walk at Wallys. Heavy humid storm clouds oppress. Put us to sleep. In Paree it is RockU performance day. We keyed up on Youtube but transmission not as smooth as Dave thinks it will be.
18
Where is the refund from Proper Insurance? did I not push the necessary button on some email or website? Guess I said Dec 31 was the cease business date.
Heavy steady rains grey gray grayer.
Hello James Clawson
I am writing to say I am delighted to find news of your book about Durrell.
I have purchased the kindle version; most likely will get the paper copy as soon
as I get to New Mexico for the winter in early January.
I'm about to be 80 and have discovered Durrell at last and am totally in love with his work. Somehow I "missed" him, deflected by study of Kenneth Burke under Wayne Booth at UChicago and the novels of Saul Bellow etc. Durrell is SO superior to Bellow!!! I have not had a "favorite author" since I was in high school and read Look Homeward Angel twice when I was a junior! Did take one course with Bellow on Ulysses. Last saw him in Boston a few years before Sebald died.
I look forward to reading your book at once, or slowly, because i will finish Revolt of Aphrodite and then Avignon first. I have enjoyed reading D in strictly chronological order.
As an initial query I want to know if anyone has published a study of Aphrodite only? A full "explication" of it in the old style meaning of that word?
What are the other "best" books on Durrell, other than yours? For the future of Durrell's work and study I am so glad you are so young!!!
All best wishes and have a great holiday season,
Bob Garlitz, Plymouth, NH
PS Forgot to ask: is your book your doctoral dissertation? If not, what was that on?
———
19 Dec Tues
Willow fell twice as it turns out. Once on the way out to the car with Elizabeth and then as they got out of the car at wallys. Left had scraped and
bruised.
Met Ken at 6 burners for lunch. Chat about sundry and sundry.
20 Dec Solstice? Hurray. Sun this morning, warm. Now I hope Clawson does not get that stupid email to him. Ken and Joe, lunch with either much different? I assume we will never agains step inside the Heuser's house. Last time, two years ago? I mentioned how dangerous the back stoop is as we asked for help getting up the stairs and into the kitchen. That railing is not that strong and any one of us could topple through and over it into the stairwell down into the basement. He should have Byron build a real wall there but of course it is too late to tell him that now. Oh well, have seen lots of decorated christmas trees in our 80 years on the planet.
Now go shop for the kids lists? Groceries mostly. Hope the volcanic eruptions don't stop or delay their flight on Icelandic. The second sweater came and looks great, see which one or both Dave goes with.
No matter how good Clawson's book is, reading it is not like reading Durrell himself. Why will I never learn? Back to Aphrodite. Back to leading Candice Renoir's life for her.
“Loneliness implies some fuller state of union, but existence offers nothing beyond dissatisfaction.”
— Durrell Re-read: Crossing the Liminal in Lawrence Durrell's Major Novels by James M. Clawson They keep the pagination different in the combined printing! page 99 has "Why Rackstraw?" "He was her lover." "I want to suck him dry." ! This is Julian talking. How Burke would have loved being about to Index a text like crazy with the whole thing being on computer!
Here is Jan Morris in the Guardian in 2012 to mark the centenary of D's birth. "but I think the legendary fascination of the quartet is essentially existential. The work itself is greater than its themes, and casts a spell that is neither precisely emotional nor specifically topographic.
It is actually neither specific nor precise about anything. It was an experimental novel of its day, perhaps related to the work of Durrell's friend Henry Miller, perhaps to Ulysses. It was based on the premise that people and events seem different when considered from different angles and periods, and that they can best be recorded, as Durrell himself put it, stereoscopically."
Call about 4 from Jamie at VMG. Marianne wanted to get into Casa A to decorate, needed code and approval. Some lack of info link between Eloy and Barbara? Assume it got cleared. Now extremely curious to see what decoration they are doing to the house. texted M asking for photos. Wonder if they are putting up a tree?
Call from Anne. She and Basile spent the afternoon going through old stuff, especially difficult to sort through Joseph's things. 15 years ago. Painful. Did he die at this time of year? They got married at Christmas so those memories are part of the warp and weft. Remember that toy loom I had at one point.
D 99 "I badly felt the need to insult him, I loved him so much. Badly."
Felix's hate-love with Julian at the heart of the books.
Greg called about 11:45 saying they were at the Lakehouse expecting to have lunch with us. Thought it was tomorrow. Had not checked the paper calendar with its silly narrow columns for days.!! They waited and we drove over. Sunny and dry. Had a delightful lunch, nice and slow, good talk, no one there so we could hear well. Embarrassing once again.
Julian's country house full of inventors might be prescient foretelling of the whole silicon valley mansion full of whiz creator entrepreneurs. No?
21 Today is solstice day/night !
Va explains how we missed lunch date yesterday. Greg and Gerri graciously waited for us.
DEAR PATSY,THANK YOU FOR THE BOOK ON THE Maya. I am always happy to learn more about them.
I have finished the Morábito book. I am wondering why you would think it was magic realism since there was no magic in the story. For me magic realism means no difference is made between what is considered the real world and the world considered magic. I recommend you read TheUnending story by the "creator" of magic realism, that is Gabriel García Márques or House of the Spirits by his female counterpart Isabel de ALLENDE. They both are a tremendous read and contain all sorts of insights into Latin American history and politics.
On another note, our paper whites are doing really well. Maybe we will send you some pics of the blooms soon. Right now we are getting ready for our kids coming on Dec 23rd to stay until Jan 3. We hope the volcanoes in Iceland won't mess up their plans.since they are flying ICELANDIC which still has the lowest fares just like in the 60s.
One other thing that. happened just today. A friend called to ask us if weren't we we supposed to have lunch together today.WE THOUGHT IT WAS TOMOROW!! Sound familiar?? Bob thinks it happened again because of the "new" way his calendar is arranged. I am afraid that these mixups mean it is great to keep a calendar, but you just have to look at it all the time!! It couldn't be that we are forgetting to check it everyday. Any way just to let you know that we are now reminding each other to to keep checking.
It couldn't mean that we are getting older, right??
un abrazo, PS. Did you get our Christmas letter and videos?If not, we will send it to you again.
Virginia
——
22 Dec
just to make the beds tomorrow, all else set. Beckett died today in 1989, someone posted this " This is the mistake I made . . . to have wanted a story for my self, whereas life alone is enough."
Willow watching Me Before You. We finished season 8 of Candice last night. watched half of Maestro. Cooper is amazing but I can't stop thinking while watching it Cooper is amazing. And his blue eyes remind you this is
docudrama after all.
23 Sat
Arrive tonight.
this from Joe on Thursday —-
Hi, Bob....I can't remember if I wrote back to thank you. But thank you. I'm in Maine and we just came through an intense storm...hardest wind I've ever experienced. 90 mph in Pembroke. Hurricane force. I was without power for two days and sat beside the wood stove shivering. I don't know why I like this stuff, but I do. Strange.
BTW, leaving Simon & Schuster was a purely dumb move. My agents recommended it....and set me adrift. I seem always to get into difficulties when I listen to other people.
Heading home tomorrow for the holidays. Susan reminded me that this will be my 3rd Xmas post diagnosis. I wonder if V counts, somehow, the years, months, etc. since her stroke. I have great sympathy for her. It's strange to be alive when the medical world didn't give one a great chance. Anyway, you're both courageous in my book.
Give me one crisp Christmas memory from the Garlitz memory banks. I can imagine it would be an interesting one.
What else? Rachel's -- Pie's girlfriend -- parents will come over for Xmas dinner. They're nice people, if a little dull. They are UU people out on Fairgrounds Road. The dad is a timber framer and a pretty good musician, I guess. The mom -- step mom -- worked at the Concord Center for the Arts as a bookkeeper. They are long time Plymouthians...DeRaymonds.
This little dog is about killing me, but I suspect it is good that I have her. Today I took her -- well, she runs, I stand there -- for a walk in an old time cemetery up here. She gets me out and makes me wake up in the morning. I would also be embarrassed if anyone ever heard me talking to her...long standing chats about nothing, really. I make up songs and sing them to her. What fools we are about pets, but it probably reveals the best of us.
I read the mystery writer you recommended and liked it a good deal. Kind of soft/hard boiled stuff. I may try another.
Okay, Merry Christmas. Glad David and his crew are arriving for you. Have fun with them. Grandkids...the whole bit is pretty wonderful. And how cool is David for making a life in France?
Saw 7 shooting stars so far...right from my bed. This place has stars like I haven't seen since Africa....
—-
7 shooting stars and 90 mph winds. My guess all of this has corrected your aura, cleaned out all your pipes and hyperoxygenated your blood for at least two months!!
Sounds awesome, you sound more ecstatic than you did in those days when you sluped an ecstasy tab before showing your face in Reed House or Frost House. Ah those were the days, what lives we've led, eh!!!?? yikes as Dave Cummings liked to say. Wise of you to say almost nothing about teaching in your ms. Just impossible to say anything, really. No one really knows what we thought we were doing or what happened.
Kids are on the plane and in flight to here. Layover in Iceland and I assume from the air at least they will have glimpsed the newest lava flows. Pretty spectacular days. They will get here about 9 tonight. Shame there is no snow in the forecast for the whole week.
Guess they might have to go north for a day to find some sledding or skiing. Their standards for skiing are darned high because every Feb they go up into the Alps. In fact we're told the whole French school calendar is arranged so that each sector of the country can have a vacation slot in the alps---for those who can afford it, I guess. But it is not nearly as pricey there as it has become here.
#3 is pretty great! Enjoy. Extra egg nog and chocolate for your whole motley crew and all. Talk with you after the New Year and probably from the starry altitudes of the high desert. We go out there Jan 10. Next summer we'll meet Susan, maybe Pie will throw a wedding celebration for all of us to enjoy! he could throw the party and skip the officiant if he wants to.
Bob
——
25 Christmas Day
Sweet morning of gifts being opened, enjoyed. Dave now working on the feast. A game of Skypjo. More later. Fog and drear outside, wet, gray. Silver soft platinum light.
I open Revolt to my bookmark and here on 136 it is Christmas day at the mansion. "Why hasn't God made me a quietist? Nigaud, va." Osmosis great name for a cat. Marchant says "I am at the Metrofat Hotel in Brighton with a young lady who is all warm breast of Christmas Turkey; greetings of the season to one and all. " Guess these are recorded voices in Abel. Sort of foretelling email, answering machines and internet calling. All swirling around the manufactured dummy of Iolanthe. Emma just said hello, wearing the new smart eyeglasses which make a recording of our chat which she can download onto her iphone or computer later, we think. We'll see.
26 Dec
C not feeling well. Hope not Covid. Day after tranquillities. Dave finishing new album cover. Kids doing stop action and gaming. Took car back early so money back in the bank.
Mon, 25 Dec 2023 at 17:58, Bob
Dear Nicholas
Merry Christmas. You had a cameo appearance in a dream last night. Dave cooking a feast here, kids gamboling around the house on a dreary rainy day.
Where are you now? UK, CH, DE?
love from us,
Bob
Dear Bob,
Ah! Best supporting actor in a dream...
I am in Switzerland, after spending last week in the UK, with Andrei and visiting my mother. Now spending the quiet time preparing for a more permanent move back to the UK in 2024 (taking my job with me helpfully). You do accumulate a lot of stuff in 10 years!
Happily sunny here. Enjoy the grandchildren (or murder them depending on proclivity) :-)
Merry Christmas, Nicholas
———
11:41 Dave finished. Album out in March. "Edifice Wrecks"
see on facebook Nicholas has an article in Temenos and is thrilled to see his name opposite Kathleen and above Wendell B. Should I pay 22 pounds to get it? Suppose so. Excess money for the car rental for this, of course.
27 Wednesday Remember to put out the trash this evening.
Actually a weather advisory for this heavy fog. Rain next day or two, touch of snow possible Saturday, sun Sunday.
Markets giving the portfolios a nice end of year boost. I emailed Bridgette Mayer to see what price they have on the little painting I saw on Tim's feed a week or so ago. Thoughts of buying it but then recalled we must pay more for the Moving. Dave seemed surprised when we had him notice the walls are now pretty much bare. Perhaps we are surprised too.
Onward with Revolt. Viewing at night has been the Mandalorian and reruns of Friends. Neither of much appeal. All of star wars reprise Westerns, the genre, Dave was pointing out. Friends, ok but just never as engaged as say, Frasier, in its day? Yes Revolt has a clunky feel to it in contrast with the Quartet and we hope the Quintet, but somehow that feels ok even right given the Frankenstein motif and the mechanistic notion of making robots in general.
Cold and damp. We should go to Wally's to stretch our legs but I wonder if we will. Just want to curl into a ball in this weather. Which Cécile has been doing, getting over her cold since they arrived.
Walked at Wallys, chatted up by Larry Spencer and in the parking lot Ken and Carole. They won't set forth until mid or late February.
Iolanthe the dummy unites talk abut mummification of flesh and technology with perfection. Perfect project to give to today's new craze for AI.
30 December Saturday night almost 6 pm
Revolt of Aphrodite completed. Uses St Paul's as the final scene for the "monstrous" pair, Iolanthe and Julian, to Fall to their Ends. Felix burns all evidence of The Firm.
It was Like the first impact of falling in love---one paradoxically wants to get away, to be alone, in order to ruminate upon the feeling. 249 Nunquam
sleep . . . that it seemed so innocent as the only fitting form of self-expression.
"She lost optimum temperature control and committed a poem." 212 Nunquam
Poem by Jackie Kay, Scottish poet
Somebody Else
If I was not myself, I would be somebody else.
But actually I am somebody else.
I have been somebody else all my life.
It's no laughing matter going about the place
all the time being somebody else:
people mistake you; you mistake yourself.
—-
reminds me a bit of Stevie Smith's "Not Waving "
Cécile just asked me if we could get the large painting back from Elizabeth. The news that we gave it to her has upset David more than anyone expected it to, also the bare walls with all the photos and paintings gone. She wants me to talk to Elizabeth to see if we can get it back for him. He's more upset than anyone had realized.
Big visit with Mick and family yesterday and over night. Roast beef meal, French toast and sausage breakfast.
Jackie Kay highly awarded poet. Born 1961, Nigerian father, grew up in Glasgow suburb of Bishopbriggs.
—-
Onward now to Monsieur, the Avignon Quintet. Maybe some of the Letters too.
31 December Sunday
"Promised" sunshine by npr earlier but so far no sun. Quiet gray.
Really like the poem found yesterday—-I've been somebody else all my life.
Found this review from 2015 about Tunc-Nunquam and like it===it puts the case as well as can be put. Someone claims it was Durrell's favorite, maybe because he enjoyed throwing himself as far away into somebody else as he had ever done up to that point. Into the inventor techie and he foresaw so very much that troubles us still and on and on into AI's even braver new worlds.
Frederick K Schof, review posted on Amazon on Sept 21, 2015
Amazing that Durrell's mind encompassed the scientific realm so successfully
Durrell wrote a lot of fiction after The Alexandria Quartet. If you are a fan of Durrell, you should read all of it. The Tunc/Nunquam "double-decker novel" is a profound achievement also, truly prophetic about the effects of technology on the individual and society. His character is an inventor, and the science he is involved with in this novel has either come to pass or is entirely credible in the context of the story. Amazing that Durrell's mind encompassed the scientific realm so successfully. It makes these two books even more relevant today, after we've seen the technological progress in the almost 30 years since they were written. The science adds a new dimension to the creativity of Durrell. All the other elements of his writing that have entranced us through the years are here too. These books should be famous too! And after these he went on to write The Avignon Quintet. For all Durrell fans who stopped after the Quartet, I envy you. All these novels are new Durrell novels for you to discover for the first time!!
——
My attention while reading it was weakened by the holiday celebrations so at another go round I might savor it more successfully. I like those readers who say things like "anything he writes is such a delight just keep reading all of it." Interesting and a relief to find out the Revolt title was forced upon him by his American publisher! Everyone agrees it is a dumb title.
Fam playing Skyjo again. They play four or five rounds a day it seems. Eliot crying a bit because he lost a tense round. Was sure he was going to win but last minute upset upset him. Still in his pjs at 12:48.
Sunshine broke out at 12:49.
They go to Jon Wixson's for a party around 4 pm, timed so at 6 they will celebrate midnight in Paris. Until then we're all just hanging out.
Barb said Ben and family loved the house. They flew to Denver, 6+ hr flight and no delta flight to Abq so am staying with our current flight plan. Would rather wander the airport for a few hours than do that after a six hour flight.
Going to try to restore Va's book and then start all over on another edition after she thinks about what more to add.
Dennis says he is now 83 on the list for Philly. Was at 200 two years ago.
Cécile in the jacuzzi, Emma on her screen, Dave and Eliot at the store buying lunch. Just came back.
Maybe to increase the Savor Quotient I will read each paragraph of Monsieur Twice before sliding on.
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