Phenomena

Great-enough both accepts and subdues; the great frame takes all creatures;
From the greatness of their element they all take beauty.
Gulls; and the dingy freightship lurching south in the eye of a rain-wind;
The air-plane dipping over the hill; hawks hovering
The white grass of the headland; cormorants roosting upon the gauno-
Whitened skerries; pelicans awind; sea-slime
Shining at night in the wave-stir like drowned men's lanterns; smugglers signaling
A cargo to land; or the old Point Pinos lighthouse
Lawfully winking over dark water; the flight of the twilight herons,
Lonely wings and a cry; or with motor-vibrations
That hum in the rock like a new storm-tone of the oceans'
to turn eyes westward
The navy's new-bought Zeppelin going by in the twilight,
Far out seaward; relative only to the evening star and the ocean
It slides into a cloud over Point Lobos.
-jeffers

Books I'm reading or recently read

1.The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford: This is light reading. I basically read about 1/4 of each page. It is not great and lasting literature, but it held my interest.
2.Daniel Deronda by George Eliot. This is her last book. Eliot's style is complicated and rewarding. She can get deep into the mind and attitudes of her characters. The main character is kind of a shallow person, but despite that I still feel that there is a lot to it. Not done with it yet.
3.A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul. Naipaul is an Indian from Africa who lives in Trinidad. The book is about an Indian in Africa in the seventies, and the writing is good.
4.War and Peace. I quit after 500 pages. Tolstoi's high and mighty pronouncements were starting to get to me. Plus all the women just seem to wait around at soirees until somebody makes them an "offer." In other words, the attitude of Tolstoi toward women was also bothering me.

florida sunset

 

bread

 

Middlemarch and War and Peace

Middlemarch was a tough book to read. Eliot is an amazing writer, as far as getting into the minds of the characters with complex and beautiful phrasing and intricate and philosophical conjectures, but it is not easy to comprehend her sentences without concentration. The ending was a bit too much of a "happy ever after" type of ending, but I would rate George Eliot as being one of the very best writers ever, next to all the other greats.

War and Peace, after reading the first 400 pages, is turning out to be great. It is easy to see how much easier life is for people today, given the level of medical care and so forth. The battle descriptions are cool and the characters are complicated and not cliches.

So far my resolution to watch no tv or movies is going well. I have the time to read heavy literature.

saxophonist

today was a'cold

the owl, for all its feathers, was a'shiverin'
and silent was the flock in wooly fold
I however was protected
because in Fred's was detected
a set of warm long underwear
purchased to protect me from the freezing air

brilliant disguise

Notes from the Overfed

(After reading Dostoyevsky and "Weight Watchers" on the same plane trip)

I am fat. I am disgustingly fat. I am the fattest human I know. I have nothing but excess poundage all over my body. My fingers are fat. My wrists are fat. My eyes are fat. (Can you imagine fat eyes?) I am hundreds of pounds overweight. Flesh drips from me like hot fudge off a sundae. My girth has been an object of disbelief to everyone who's seen me. There is no question about it, I'm a regular fatty. Now, the reader may ask, are there advantages or disadvantages to being built like a planet? I do not mean to be facetious or speak in paradoxes, but I must answer that fat in itself is above bourgeois morality. It is simply fat. That fat could have a value of its own, that fat could be, say, evil or pitying, is, or course, a joke. Absurd! For what is fat after all but an accumulation of pounds?

-woody allen

rubin and cherise recorded over the phone

Cherise was brushing her long hair gently down
It was the afternoon of carnival as she brushes it gently down
Rubin was strumming his painted mandolin
It was inlaid with a pretty face in jade played in the carnival parade

Cherise was dressing as Pirouette in white
When a fatal vision gripped her tight Cherise beware tonight
Rubin, Rubin tell me truly true
I feel afraid and I don't know why I do, Is there another girl for you?

If you could see my heart you would know it's true
There's none Cherise, except for you, except for you
I'd swear to it on my very soul, If I lie, say I fall down cold

When Rubin played on his painted mandolin
The breeze would pause to listen in before going on its way again
Masquerade began when nightfall finally woke
Like waves against the bandstand, dancers broke to the painted mandolin

Looking out to the crowd who is standing there
Sweet Ruby Claire at Rubin stared, at Rubin stared
She was dressed as Pirouette in red
And her hair hung gently down

The crowd pressed round, Ruby stood as though alone
Rubin's song took on a different tone and he played it just for her
The song he played was the carnival parade
Each note cut a thread of Cherise's fate it cut through like a blade

Rubin was playing his painted mandolin
When Ruby froze and turned to stone for the strings played all alone
The voice of Cherise from the face of the mandolin
Singing Rubin, Rubin tell me true for I have no one but you

If you could see my heart you would know it true
There's none Cherise, except for you, except for you
I'd swear to it on my very soul, If I lie, say I fall down cold

The truth of love an unsung song must tell
The course of love must follow blind without a look behind
Rubin walked the streets of New Orleans till dawn
Cherise so lightly in his arms and her hair hung gently down


Thank you Robert Hunter for your amazing and mutifaceted poetry.

Aeolian music

-There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still. There was never yet such a storm but it was Aeolian music to a healthy and innocent ear. Nothing can rightly compel a simple and brave man to a vulgar sadness. I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me.

-In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us.
-from Thoreau's journals.


There was a great seminar this weekend in Corvallis by two exceptional and high-ranking Shotokan instructors, Bob Graves and Jerry Fitzpatrick. The subject was kumite (sparring) and much fun was had with no exceptional bruises.

spring tour 78 peggy-o's

They were all good.

the spring tour peggy-o's
were all good

I wish I had seen this concert. I saw Jerry with

this group once, the keyboard guy and backup singers.

the Eternal

Only the Eternal is always appropriate, and always present, is always true. Only the Eternal applies to each human being, whatever his age may be. The changeable exists, and when its time has passed it is changed. Therefore any statement about it is subject to change. That which may be wisdom when spoken by an old man about past events may be folly in the mouth of a youth or of a grown man when spoken of the present. The youth would not be able to understand it and the grown man would not want to understand it....
-Kierkegaard

There is a large and diverse world out there, and yet I remain in my safe little bubble, doing much of the same things every day. That's the way it goes. It's hard to travel with no money. The good news is I am learning a new skill that may very possibly lead to some decent paying work. I certainly hope so anyway. I would say what I am studying, but that would be giving away too much information about myself. Lets just say that I am studying Machine Tool technology and leave it at that. I would say what school I am going to, but that also might be revealing too much. Okay, here's a hint. It's either OSU or LBCC, and it's not OSU.

The New Yorker iz lame

That's right. It has got so many ads for luxury items that I may as well be reading some yachting magazine. Recently each issue has a theme. Any issue with a theme means all the writing in that issue will be bad. Seriously, what's the deal? Has Remnick (the editor) lost his mind, or maybe he just sleeps all day. What happened to quality writing? Also, the New Yorker, is so full of itself that it is really starting to get to me. The editors wouldn't know a good poem if it came up to them and hit them in the head. Wallace Stevens could send in a poem and they wouldn't print it. Seriously, time to get your act together, people. I don't love you because you are trendy and fashionable and think you are really cool. It used to be, fairly recently, a great magazine. What happened?

dickinson

I dreaded that first Robin, so,
But He is mastered, now,
I'm some accustomed to Him grown,
He hurts a little, though-

I thought if I could only live
Till that first Shout got by-
Not all Pianos in the Woods
Had power to mangle me-

I dared not meet the Daffodils-
For fear their Yellow Gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own-

I wished the Grass would hurry-
So-when 'twas time to see-
He'd be too tall, the tallest one
Could stretch-to look at me-

I could not bear the Bees should come
...etc.

-emily Dickinson

So the days pass on, the sun rolls around, shining from its central position.

John Donne's Devotions (Gutenburg, 1543) is an interesting book. I haven't got into his poems too much, but this book reminds me a lot of Kierkegaard's Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing.

anyone lived in a pretty how town

and walked around
drank a few coffees
here and there
found a salamander on the moss
in the rain

pome penyeach

Sonnets to Orpheus I,1

a tree ascended there. Oh pure transcendence!
Oh Orpheus sings! O tall tree and an ant!
All grew hushed. But in that very silence
a new beginning, sign and change appeared.

Quiet creatures gathered from the clear.
unhurried forest, out of lair and nest;
so it must have been, their stealthiness..
was not born out of cunning or fear.

But just from hearing. Bellow, cry, and roar.
Seemed tiny in their hearts. And where before
There barely stood a hut to take this in...

a harvest of deepest darkest yens
and with entryway whose doorposts trembled
you built for them an auditory temple.

I,3

A God can do it. How do you expect
A man to squeeze through the lyre and follow?
His mind is torn. Where heartways intersect
You won't find any temple to Apollo

Paul Potts

Paul Potts has a new album named "One Chance". I thought he was occupied with the Khmer Rouge and the atrocities in Cambodia. I guess he has free time now for other interests.

the maker

This is a song by Daniel Lanois, done by EmmyLou Harris, Jerry Garcia, and others. And now me. Here's Jerry Garcia doing the song.

top songs

Top Four Neil Diamond songs
1.Dry Your Eyes
2.Shiloh
3.Girl, You'll be A Woman Soon
4.And the Grass Won't Pay no Mind

Top Three Neil Young Songs
1.Sugar Mountain
2.Cortez the Killer
3.Powderfinger

Top Four Grateful Dead Songs
1.Althea
2.Wharf Rat
3.Fire on the Mountain
4.Row Jimmy

Top Three Jerry Garcia Band Songs
1.After Midnight
2.The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down
3.Tore up Over You.

202

This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond-
Invisible, as Music-
But positive, as Sound-
It beckons, and it baffles-
Philosophy-don't know-
And through a Riddle, at the last-
Sagacity, must go-
To guess it, puzzles scholars-
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown-
Faith slips-and laughs, and rallies-
Blushes, if any see-
Plucks at a twig of Evidence-
And asks a Vane, the way-
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit-
Strong Hallelujahs roll-
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul-
-Emily Dickinson


I love that "narcotics cannot still the tooth...that nibbles at the soul." To me that says that there is a longing out there, for transcendence, or maybe merely for happiness.

Jamba styrofoam

The Jamba chain came to Corvallis, so I went in there, perused the menu, and ordered something. They seem to be really trying to sell you on how healthy everything is. I believe a lot of their stuff is fairly healthy.
Everything they sell, they put in a styrofoam cup. Styrofoam is totally nonbiodegradable and completely environmentally unfriendly.
Just another chain.

long hair and lined face

Sometimes people make a strange impression on you and you have no idea why.



Guy with hands over head.





The above looks somewhat like the Kanji for "hand" but isn't.



Person looking at book.



Books I have read recently:

Dead Season, by some writer, published by some publisher, some number of pages, and all that other bibliographic crap which I won't bother to give you because I have no illusions about the worthless hot air that makes up 99% of liberal arts academics. This book was about corruption and the terrible conditions of the Philippines in the 1990's. I don't think things are much better now. Corruption-o-rama.

Raymond Chandler, by Tom Hiney. This is a very well written book about the life of Chandler, who wrote hard-boiled crime fiction with literary qualities. Chandler was a recluse and a drunk. He worked hard at his writing. Some of the techniques he used were interesting. He would go around with a notebook, writing down the details of people's clothing, being very detail oriented in his descriptions. He would also type on small notecards, so if a scene wasn't turning out, he could easily rewrite the whole thing, rather than having to retype a whole page. He also wanted to have something of interest in every notecard, so that affected the style of his novels. The descriptions of early L.A. are also kind of neat. The cops were all bought out by the mafia back then.

Leaving Dirty Jersey, by some Joe. A true memoir of a year spend doing methamphetamine. The author doesn't come off looking too good, although he is clean and sober now. It is a shock what that stuff does to you, compared to, say, marijuana.

Legacy of Ashes. All about the CIA's failures over the years.

Moses and Monotheism by Freud. I haven't read this yet. Apparently, although Freud was an atheist, in this, his last book, he starts to appreciate the positive qualities of the Jewish ability to live for a completely abstract entity, and how he thought this contributed to their cornucopia of intellectual endeavors.

Schopenhauer. Also on the need-to-read list. He influenced Neitzsche and others, so I should check it out.

Tearoom Trade. This was a study done in the 50's about how men went about having sex in the bathrooms. Their signals and methods. Sounds fascinating. It has been in the news recently with that Craig thing.

sheaves of grass

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,
and the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oevre for the highest,
and the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
and the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
and the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue
and a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
-whitman