tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63913772024-03-07T20:45:17.493-06:00Entropy and me"Entropy and me" is concerned with
poetry, music, and various other matters
depending on whim and wind directionHalvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.comBlogger246125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-22586777134255703202015-12-27T12:46:00.002-06:002015-12-27T13:30:13.488-06:00Works in Progress, 58<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 18px;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />1.</span></h3>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">subsidizing extraction industries</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">helping women victimized by male violence</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">supporting the troops while doubting the war</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /><br />2.<br />rewriting the country's labor laws<br />seeing a psychic map of our obsessions<br />building electoral coalitions that will win<br />emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent<br /><br />3.<br />cleaning up after Gustav, Hanna, Ike<br />cleaning up after Bush, after Cheney<br />rewriting the history of consciousness<br />blurring the possibilities<br /><br />4.<br />supporting any effort to reunionize<br />failing to generate meaningful responses<br />becoming one with the centipede in oneself<br />getting some good poems out of it<br /><br />5.<br />slumbering well until after nightfall<br />setting this brain of mine afire<br />reaching irritably after fact & reason<br />shunning easy consolations<br /><br />6.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">getting in touch with the cable guys</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">swinging the birches</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">testing the waters</span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">pushing radical music agendas</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /><br />7.<br />counting the dead<br />waiting for them to break silence<br />descending the steeps of the soughing twilight<br />assimilating foreign cultures<br /><br />8.<br />demilitarizing outer space<br />completing the application and mailing it back<br />reviewing our few remaining options<br />showing off poetry's "extreme generosity"<br /><br />9.<br />maneuvering pothole-sized cars around<br />designing more effective marketing campaigns<br />speaking solely in terms of racial justice<br />examining burial pits and naked skulls<br /><br />10.<br />getting out the vote<br />fetching water from the well<br />educating the masses<br />confessing to our personal demons<br /><br />11.<br />clearing minefields from past wars<br />laying them for wars yet to come<br />staying executions, pardoning the innocent<br />blurring the boundaries, the borders<br /><br />12.<br />reading maps in the dark with the top light off<br />folding them all back up rightly<br />cramming them into the glove compartment<br />getting moving again in the right direction<br /><br />13.<br />cooling our wardheelers<br />voting early and often<br />keeping our fingers crossed<br />paying full-price for our journey<br /><br />14.<br />assembling a glossary of oft-used phrases<br />keeping silent while the tea is poured<br />maintaining an inventory of our beliefs and unbeliefs<br />finding time to clean up around the house<br /><br />15.<br />making the world safe for gerontocracy<br />clearing the minefields and cow pastures<br />converting analog files to digital<br />rereading <span style="font-style: italic;">An Anatomy of Melancholy</span><br /><br />16.<br />fighting the high cost of prescription meditations<br />comparing the works of Proust, Gide, and Sartre<br />putting something aside for a rainy day<br />asking for another user's name and password<br /><br />17.<br />scanning the shelves for news<br />cleaning up after the latest tsunami<br />trying not to think about elephants<br />looking forward to end-of-life decisions<br /><br />18.<br />reassessing works already completed<br />exterminating the brutes<br />chipping ice from the windshield of the car<br />rebuilding the old road from Fredrikstad to Skjeberg<br /><br />19.<br />getting more bang for the buck<br />setting something aside for that rainy day<br />worry about what to really worry about<br />getting back to the Bang, the Big One<br /><br />20.<br />teaching the Chinese how to speak English<br />learning about Putin, reading his soul<br />cashing in on Homeland Security<br />making that list of things to make lists of<br /><br />21.<br />deciding whether or not to escape to Canada<br />enhancing revenue without raising taxes<br />learning more about hematology--its life, its times<br />mapping talk-free zones in public parks<br /><br />22.<br />making the punishment fit the criminal<br />recovering our census-takers<br />fitting the glove to the velvet hand<br />dialing for (four) dollars<br /><br />23.<br />laying mines at the Prose/Poetry border<br />celebrating the rebirth of death<br />transferring funds to overshore accounts<br />counting the years from start to finish<br /><br />24.<br />unpacking after the last long/short journey<br />saying goodbye to the undead<br />finding trusty pocket tools for indoor use<br />pleasing others in letters<br /><br />25.<br />recouping ancient losses<br />moving data from there to over here<br />scanning the text as rapidly as possible<br />keeping Kandinsky in mind<br /><br />26.<br />replacing old maps with new ones<br />preparing the cat for summer camp<br />paying the bills in advance<br />brushing up on our Spanish<br /><br />27.<br />stealing stones from the temple<br />building a nearby church<br />stealing stones from the church<br />building a nearby bank<br /><br />28.<br />filling the sandbags<br />repairing the levee<br />spreading plutocracy around the world<br />counting and bagging the dead<br /><br />29.<br />cleaning up after Rita, Katrina<br />remembering we must pay our bills<br />washing windows of opportunity<br />trying to find the snows of yesteryear<br /><br />30.<br />covering up the latest cover-up<br />rereading all we've reread as of now<br />reviewing the plays of Pinter, their silences<br />uncovering the cover-up of the cover-up<br /><br />31.<br />comparing apples to orangutans<br />criminalizing conservative politics<br />finding new ways to profit from disasters<br />rescuing painting from the dead end of Pop Art<br /><br />32.<br />robbing Peter and Paul to pay Mark and Luke<br />waking up to a brand-new day<br />forgetting that old Underwood we once loved<br />overcoming inertia and ignorance<br /><br />33.<br />freeing the slaves<br />admonishing those who do evil<br />stamping out political brushfires<br />democratizing the US<br /><br />34.<br />closing the books on the old year<br />balancing the checkbook (first time ever)<br />remembering to reshape my face (yet again)<br />changing course (as always)<br /><br />35.<br />securing the seaports<br />transfiguring the night of the prom<br />seeking an audience with His Holiness, the President<br />bombing the Middle East into freedom and democracy<br /><br />36.<br />telling civil war from your garden-variety insurgency<br />recognizing our deepest needs, wants, and wishes<br />finally getting that poodle to the groomer<br />learning to live on self-serve island<br /><br />37.<br />keeping an eye on the military-industrial complex<br />reseeding the lawn for the nth and final time<br />staking out claims on the future<br />moving the party toward a more radical center<br /><br />38.<br />restoring the Gulf to its pre-US condition<br />administering flu shots to every chicken in every pot<br />studying studies on the results of previous studies<br />reducing the pulse of alien shadows<br /><br />39.<br />reducing light pollution in our major cities<br />rescuing the castaways<br />creating unwanted database gaps<br />accommodating carbon dating to Biblical truth<br /><br />40.<br />bombing our way to an "endurable" peace<br />retelling the tales of bygone wars<br />seeing what might be learned there<br />measuring the manatee<br /><br />41.<br />returning that defective broadband router<br />speaking kindly of those we no longer respect<br />giving up keeping up as a modus vivendi<br />putting our thoughts into action<br /><br />42.<br />sticking to issues that directly affect us<br />bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes<br />co-opting the arguments of their opposition<br />welcoming Latino immigrants at the border<br /><br />43.<br />throwing our hats in the ring<br />translating our actions into thought<br />seeing that Anna Nicole Smith achieves sainthood<br />rehanging Saddam and getting it right<br /><br />44.<br />paying off our debts, incurring new ones<br />getting the MS of the new book out into the mail<br />preparing ourselves for our press conference<br />seeking an end to cross-pollination<br /><br />45.<br />hammering out justice, all over this land<br />disturbing the neighbors by night, by day<br />enjoying privacy at our place in the country<br />transmuting dross into gold<br /><br />46.<br />pronouncing the names of the dead<br />bringing Elian back to his Miami relatives<br />rejuvenating all those pre-aged youngsters out there<br />throwing our hats in the ring<br /><br />47.<br />finding our way to the next whiskey bar<br />extending that fence to both east and west coasts<br />revising our previously revised revisions<br />building the ark to end arks<br /><br />48.<br />preventing its dividing itself up<br />realizing our potential potential<br />spending more time with the family<br />waking up to unreality<br /><br />49.<br />finding the photos of the old house<br />rowing the boat ashore<br />thinking things through again<br />keeping the guard up<br /><br />50.<br />parsing the genome<br />flinging sweets down the staircase<br />exhaling only when necessary<br />tearing myself away<br /><br />51.<br />parsing the genome<br />fleshing out the diagram<br />refilling the lungs, yet again<br />reacquainting ourselves<br /><br />52.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">getting the genie back</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">refreshing the screen</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">barking the dog</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">crying over spilled beans</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">53.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">making up our minds</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">testing the waters</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">arousing the base</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">exchanging dollars</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black;">54.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">stealing rain from the clouds</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">reexamining the x</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">recounting the votes again</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">building a foetus from scratch</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">55. </span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">sequestering the sequesterators</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">getting Syrian about seriosity</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">dancing for rain . . . again</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">redefining ingenuity</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">56.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">spuyten the duyvil</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">lowering expectations</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">responding to alacrity</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">turing down the voltage</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">57.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">connecting the dots</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">multiplying the multiverses</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">remapping the sea beds</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">napping away the afternoon</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">58.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">expunging voters from the rolls</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">bringing up father and mother</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">rereading the maps of time</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">ceasing and fulminating</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">59.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 18px; orphans: auto; position: relative; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; width: 786px; word-spacing: 0px;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-52265993747418971312015-12-27T11:49:00.000-06:002015-12-27T11:49:35.873-06:00Notations<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">1. </span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">[Relax. Take a deep breath, and read this one</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">as slowly as possible. Go back to the beginning</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">and read it again even more slowly, but, this time,</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">without a sound, without moving your lips,</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">listening only to the sounds in your inner ear,</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">your head if you have one. Done? Go back </span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">to the beginning, reading even more</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">slowly, more silently, more prayerfully</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">if you care to go that route. Turn down the volume</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">in your head, in your inner ears. Listen, if you
can,</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">to only the silences there, the silences among,</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">between the words, the words you almost can now
hear.]</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">2.</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">[Go back to the beginning. Breathe slowly, deeply.</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The sounds in your head have something to say. Some</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">thing of value to no one but you. Pray (or prey) if
you</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">care to. Turn down the volume a tad. Breathe in</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">through your nose, out through your ears. Take your</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">time now. Listen, if you can, as slowly as
possible.</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The words, the words--they are always with us,</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">like poor folks. Back at the beginning, you never
thought</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">you'd even get this far. Live now more silently</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">than ever, more slowly. Turn your head down until</span><span style="font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">your chin hits your chest. Take your time gently.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: .1pt; mso-para-margin-top: .01gd;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Begin reading, begin reading again--and again.]</span></div>
Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-76832276805159726142015-09-29T12:31:00.000-05:002015-12-27T11:52:59.027-06:00The Sound of Somewhere<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />An American, entirely clear in spirit,<br />scattering paradigms as he went,<br />discussed the future as though it had<br />already happened, and perhaps it had.<br /><br />Famous caricatures, not in addition to<br />but instead of a nation’s long (but not<br />too long) history, leaping ahead to what<br />had not at that time been imagined.<br /><br />Speaking of “subthreshold neural flutters”<br />as he was, brought shivers to the spine,<br />and yet some thought his way with<br />adjectives far from sublime.<br /><br />[Incorporating phrases by Shinsei and Sven Birkerts]</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />--HJ</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
<br />
</span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-63274569877934153432014-09-02T12:03:00.003-05:002014-09-02T12:03:51.444-05:00North American Journeys, 13<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>As You Leave the Room</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i>You speak: You say: </i>Today's character is not</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">A skeleton out of its cabinet. Nor am I.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">That poem about the pineapple, the one</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">About the mind as never satisfied,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The one about the credible hero, the one</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">About summer, are not what skeletons think about.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I wonder, have I lived a skeleton's life,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As a disbeliever in reality,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">A countryman of all the bones in the world?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Now, here, the snow I had forgotten becomes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Part of a major reality, part of</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">An appreciation of a reality</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And thus an elevation, as if I left</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">With something I could touch, touch every way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And yet nothing has changed except what is</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Unreal, as if nothing had been changed at all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--Wallace Stevens</span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-47787084436206643232014-06-01T06:00:00.000-05:002014-06-01T06:00:05.293-05:00North American Journeys, 12<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"The wagon mounts the hill toward her. She passed it about a mile back down the road. It was standing beside the road, the mules asleep in the traces and their heads pointed in the direction in which she walked. She saw it and she saw the two men squatting beside a barn beyond the fence. She looked at the wagon and the men once: a single glance allembracing, swift, innocent and profound. She did not stop; very likely the men beyond the fence had not seen her even look at the wagon nor at them. Neither did she look back. She went on out of sight, walking slowly, the shoes unlaced about her ankles, until she reached the top of the hill a mile beyond. Then she sat down on the ditch bank, with her feet in the shallow ditch, and removed the shoes. After a while she began to hear the wagon. She heard it for some time. Then it came into sight, mounting the hill.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"The sharp and brittle crack and clatter of its weathered and ungreased wood and metal is slow and terrific: a series of dry sluggish reports carrying for a half mile across the hot still pinewiney silence of the August afternoon. Though the mules plod in a steady and unflagging hypnosis, the vehicle does not seem to progress. It seems to hang suspended in the middle distance forever and forever, so infinitesimal is its progress, like a shabby bead upon the mild red string of road. So much so is this that in the watching of it the eye loses it as sight and sense drowsily merge and blend, like the road itself, with all the peaceful and monotonous changes between darkness and day, like already measured thread being rewound onto a spool. So that at last, as though out of some trivial and unimportant region beyond even distance, the sound of it seems to come slow and terrific and without meaning, as though it were a ghost travelling a half mile ahead of its own shape. 'That far within my hearing before my seeing,' Lena thinks. She thinks of herself as already moving, riding again, thinking <i>Then it will be as if I were riding for a half mile before I even got into the wagon even got to where I was waiting, and that when the wagon is empty of me again it will go on for a half mile with me still in it </i>She waits, not even watching the wagon now, while thinking goes idle and swift and smooth, filled with nameless kind faces and voices: <i>Lucas Burch? You say you tried in Pocahontas? This road? It goes to Springvale. You wait here. There will be a wagon passing soon that will take you as far as it goes </i>Thinking, 'And if he is going all the way to Jefferson, I will be riding with the hearing of Lucas Burch before his seeing. He will hear the wagon, but he wont know. So there will be one within his hearing before his seeing. And then he will see me and he will be excited. And so there will be two within his seeing before his remembering.'"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--Wm. Faulkner, <i>Light in August</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-26713185016541850802014-05-21T11:24:00.000-05:002014-05-21T11:24:09.703-05:00North American Journeys, 11<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Jesús and his wife wintered every year in their hometown in Michoacán. Like thousands of other couples drawn north by conditions of soil and climate, then south by family ties, they drove the very same three thousand miles, valley by valley, twice a year. Jesús simply pointed the pick-up like a TV remote control and, <i>zas</i>, a century and a half of history came and went across their windshield.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"They went back to a ranchito, an antique way of life, a scrap of the nineteenth century held in place by stubbornness and poverty. Cobblestones, tile roof, it was picturesque as hell. Nopal cactus ten feet tall, stone fences, it made for an isolation so dense that cowboys still enlivened a pail of fresh milk with Swiss Miss and grain alcohol in the morning, and flat-footed the thing, and rode off to work all day. But what <i>did</i> they call that beverage? Jesús had to think. Nowadays people called it a <i>toro prieto</i>. Though Jesús could remember his grandfather saying that, back in the 1890s, people called it a <i>palomillo</i>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"It was in the time of Jesús's grandfather that Mexican Central Plateau life underwent a trauma. Everybody in Michoacán agreed with that. Historically, it resembled the trauma Yakima County underwent when the Northern Pacific arrived, providing an outlet for Columbia Plateau wheat. The twentieth century caught up with Michoacán when private interests bought miles of swampland and drained it. Out of nowhere appeared guys who talked like books. They cleared their throats, reached in a paper bag that had writing on it, and extracted the twentieth century in the form of a new kind of seed corn. When they stuck that stuff in the ground, it yielded fat, heavy kernels that right away became what people wanted.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"With so much acreage in corn, with tractors eliminating the need for labor, country boys like Jesús's grandfather wandered off to the United States to work in railroad construction. The migrant flow kept swelling during the twenties, only to shrink with massive deportations during the Great Depression. But it was the Bracero Program, during the 1940s, which truly began the modern era of mexicano life in the U.S. Northwest. Whole trainloads of men journeyed up from Mexico City to harvest crops.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"And yet, despite the high wages, mexicanos never really trusted life in the north. From one of the early bracero trains--legend has it--half the passengers emptied out in Irapuato because of a rumor: the gringos meant to get them across the border, and then send them off to the front in World War II. After the war millions of young men rode trains north without even paying. Traveling fly-style they called it. The famous comedian Cantinflas--according to another legend--wanted to give the Mexican government two million pesos to let those poor people along."</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--Philip Garrison</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">fr. <i>Because I Don't Have Wings: Stories of Mexican Immigrant Life </i>(Tucson: Univ. of Arizona Press, 2006)</span></div>
Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-86890997131784981872014-04-03T10:43:00.001-06:002014-04-03T11:44:47.429-06:00North American Journeys, 10<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Once when I was crossing the American continent, years and years ago and we were caught in the prairies without an engine to take us anywhere, the news-agent who sold things on the train came and offered us ten bananas for ten cents and then added, when a news-agent offers you ten bananas for ten cents you know there is something wrong."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--Gertrude Stein, <i>Paris France </i>(1940)</span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-11065566558494239992013-11-09T13:32:00.001-06:002014-09-02T11:56:34.202-05:00Instability<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"The prosperous middle classes, who ruled the nineteenth century, placed an excessive value upon placidity of existence. They refused to face the necessities for social reform imposed by the new industrial system, and they are now refusing to face the necessities for intellectual reform imposed by the new knowledge. The middle-class pessimism over the future of the world comes from a confusion between civilization and security. In the immediate future there will be less security than in the immediate past, less stability. It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages."</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--Alfred North Whitehead, <i>Science and the Modern World </i>(1925)</span></div>
Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-34391079422295254742013-05-12T11:21:00.000-05:002013-05-12T11:21:04.040-05:00North American Journeys, 9<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I see we are at the left turn onto US 12 and John has pulled up for gas. I pull up beside him.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> The thermometer by the door of the station reads 92 degrees. "Going to be another rough one today," I say.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> When the tanks are filled, we head across the street into a restaurant for coffee. Chris, of course, is hungry.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> I tell him I've been waiting for that. I tell him he eats with the rest of us or not at all. Not angrily. Just matter-of-factly. He's reproachful but sees how it's going to be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> I catch a fleeting look of relief from Sylvia. Evidently she thought this was going to be a continuous problem.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> When we have finished the coffee and are outside again the heat is so ferocious we move off on the cycles as fact as possible. Again there is that momentary coolness, but it disappears. The sun makes the burned grass and sand so bright I have to squint to cut down glare. This US 12 is an old, bad highway. The broken concrete is tar-patched and bumpy. Road signs indicate detours ahead. On either side of the road are occasional work sheds and shacks and roadside stands that have accumulated through the years. The traffic is heavy now. I'm just as happy to be thinking about the rational, analytical, classical world of Phaedrus.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> His kind of rationality has been used since antiquity to remove oneself from the tedium and depression of one's immediate surroundings. What makes it hard to see is that where once it was used to get away from it all, the escape has been so successful that now it is the "it all" that the romantics are trying to escape. What makes his world so hard to see clearly is not its strangeness but its usualness. Familiarity can blind you too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--Robert M. Pirsig, <i>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance</i></span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-11316048634228126292013-05-11T12:17:00.000-05:002013-05-11T12:17:21.077-05:00North American Journeys (Thailand Division), 8<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">A few Sundays later I agreed to go with Brooks and our friends to Ayudhaya. The idea of a Sunday outing is so repellent to me that deciding to take part in this one was to a certain extent a compulsive act. Ayudhaya lies less than fifty miles up the Chao Phraya from Bangkok. For historians and art collectors it is more than just a provincial town; it is a period and a style--having been the Thai capital for more than four centuries. Very likely it still would be, had the Burmese not laid it waste in the eighteenth century.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> Brooks came early to fetch me. Downstairs in the street stood the three bhikkus with their book bags and parasols. They hailed a cab, and without any previous price arrangements (the ordinary citizen tries to fix a sum beforehand) we got in and drove for twenty minutes or a half-hour, until we got to a bus terminal on the northern outskirts of the city.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> It was a nice, old-fashioned open bus. Every part of it rattled, and the air from the rice fields blew across us as we pieced together our bits of synthetic conversation. Brooks, in high spirits, kept calling across to me: "Look! Water buffaloes!" As we went further away from Bangkok there were more of the beasts, and his cries became more frequent. Yamyong, sitting next to me, whispered: "Professor Brooks is fond of buffaloes?" I laughed and said I didn't think so.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> "Then?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> I said that in American there were no buffaloes in the fields, and that was why Brooks was interested in seeing them. There were no temples in the landscape, either, I told him, and added, perhaps unwisely: "He looks at buffaloes. I look at temples." This struck Yamyong as hilarious, and he made allusions to it now and then all during the day.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--Paul Bowles, "You Have Left Your Lotus Pods on the Bus"</span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-32178595451147613342013-05-09T17:07:00.000-05:002013-05-09T17:07:11.408-05:00North American Journeys (Italy Division), 7<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The car, which was a big Renault, a tourer, slowed down and pulled off the <i>autostrada</i> with Brenda asleep in back, her mouth a bit open and the daylight streaming off her cheekbones. It was near Como, they had just crossed, the border police had glanced in at her.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> "Come on, Bren, wake up," they said, "we're stopping for coffee."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> She came back from the ladies' room with her hair combed and fresh lipstick on. The boy in the white jacket behind the counter was rinsing spoons.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> "Hey, Brenda, I forget. Is it <i>espresso</i> or <i>expresso</i>?" Frank asked her.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> "<i>Espresso</i>," she said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> "How do you know?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> "I'm from New York," she said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> "That's right," he remembered. "The Italians don't have an <i>x</i>, do they?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> "They don't have a <i>j</i> either," Alan said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> "Why is that?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> "They're such careless people," Brenda said. "They just lost them."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--James Salter, "American Express"</span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-57977013526285105882013-05-06T02:00:00.000-05:002013-05-06T02:00:06.658-05:00North American Journeys, 6<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">By the evening of Wednesday, August 11, all save for Captain Pollard were safely aboard the <i>Essex</i>. Anchored beside her, just off the Nantucket Bar, was another whaleship, the <i>Chili</i>. Commanded by Absalom Coffin, the <i>Chili </i>was also to leave the following day. It was an opportunity for what whalemen referred to as a "gam"--a visit between two ships' crews. Without the captains to inhibit the revelry (and with the Bar between them and town), they may have seized this chance for a final uproarious fling before the grinding discipline of shipboard life took control of their lives.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> At some point that evening, Thomas Nickerson made his way down to his bunk and its mattress full of mildewed corn husks. As he faded off to sleep on the gently rocking ship, he surely felt what one young whaleman described as a great, almost overwhelming "pride in my floating home."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> That night he was probably unaware of the latest bit of gossip circulating through town--of the strange goings-on out on the Commons. Swarms of grasshoppers had begun to appear in the turnip fields. "[T]he whole face of the earth has been spotted with them . . . ," Obed Macy would write. "[N]o person living ever knew them so numerous." A comet in July and now a plague of locusts?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> As it turned out, things would end up badly for the two ships anchored off the Nantucket Bar on the evening of August 11, 1819. The <i>Chili </i>would not return for another three and a half years, and then with only five hundred barrels of sperm oil, about a quarter of what was needed to fill a ship her size. For Captain Coffin and his men, it would be a disastrous voyage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> But nothing could compare to what fate had in store for the twenty-one men of the <i>Essex.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Nathaniel Philbrick, <i>In the Heart of the Sea</i></span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-5342668988026888212013-05-03T02:00:00.000-05:002013-05-03T02:00:15.057-05:00North American Journeys, 5<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Between Terlingua and Lajitas, the road continues to cross various limestone units of Cretaceous age. After passing white, thick beds of steeply-dipping Cretaceous limestone of the Pen formation in roadcuts about four miles west of Terlingua, you will see the roadside topography open out into a broad valley where huge alluvial fans slope toward the river. Intrusive volcanic rocks are seen to the north as odd-shaped hills and mesas, whereas Mesa de Anguila and its battlement walls of solid Cretaceous limestone fortify the sky to the south. Imposing flatirons of tilted Cretaceous limestone are also seen along this stretch, where they border the south flank of a large fold called the Terlingua monocline.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Tilted sections of flaggy-bedded, yellow-tan Boquillas limestone still you around the town of Lajitas, located at the base of Lajitas Mesa, where Comanche Creek joins the Rio Grande.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Lajitas is developing as a small tourist resort, and the new museum and desert garden east of town is a pleasant stop. Across the Rio Grande at Lajitas notice how the large mesa surface curves downward toward the river giving the distinct impression that rocks can bend, fracture, and break, if pressure is applied slowly, rather than quickly, in the earth's crust.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Darwin Spearing, <i>Roadside Geology of Texas</i></span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-21068283114535051422013-05-02T10:59:00.000-05:002014-09-02T12:08:46.658-05:00Works in Progress, 55<br />
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-6124563044273267477" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"></span>
<br />
<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; position: relative;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 18px;">1.</span></h3>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">getting in touch with the cable guys<br />swinging the birches<br />testing the waters<br />pushing radical music agendas<br /><br />2.<br />rewriting the country's labor laws<br />seeing a psychic map of our obsessions<br />building electoral coalitions that will win<br />emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent<br /><br />3.<br />cleaning up after Gustav, Hanna, Ike<br />cleaning up after Bush, after Cheney<br />rewriting the history of consciousness<br />blurring the possibilities<br /><br />4.<br />supporting any effort to reunionize<br />failing to generate meaningful responses<br />becoming one with the centipede in oneself<br />getting some good poems out of it<br /><br />5.<br />slumbering well until after nightfall<br />setting this brain of mine afire<br />reaching irritably after fact & reason<br />shunning easy consolations<br /><br />6.<br />subsidizing extraction industries<br />helping women victimized by male violence<br />doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers<br />supporting the troops while doubting the war<br /><br />7.<br />counting the dead<br />waiting for them to break silence<br />descending the steeps of the soughing twilight<br />assimilating foreign cultures<br /><br />8.<br />demilitarizing outer space<br />completing the application and mailing it back<br />reviewing our few remaining options<br />showing off poetry's "extreme generosity"<br /><br />9.<br />maneuvering pothole-sized cars around<br />designing more effective marketing campaigns<br />speaking solely in terms of racial justice<br />examining burial pits and naked skulls<br /><br />10.<br />getting out the vote<br />fetching water from the well<br />educating the masses<br />confessing to our personal demons<br /><br />11.<br />clearing minefields from past wars<br />laying them for wars yet to come<br />staying executions, pardoning the innocent<br />blurring the boundaries, the borders<br /><br />12.<br />reading maps in the dark with the top light off<br />folding them all back up rightly<br />cramming them into the glove compartment<br />getting moving again in the right direction<br /><br />13.<br />cooling our wardheelers<br />voting early and often<br />keeping our fingers crossed<br />paying full-price for our journey<br /><br />14.<br />assembling a glossary of oft-used phrases<br />keeping silent while the tea is poured<br />maintaining an inventory of our beliefs and unbeliefs<br />finding time to clean up around the house<br /><br />15.<br />making the world safe for gerontocracy<br />clearing the minefields and cow pastures<br />converting analog files to digital<br />rereading <span style="font-style: italic;">An Anatomy of Melancholy</span><br /><br />16.<br />fighting the high cost of prescription meditations<br />comparing the works of Proust, Gide, and Sartre<br />putting something aside for a rainy day<br />asking for another user's name and password<br /><br />17.<br />scanning the shelves for news<br />cleaning up after the latest tsunami<br />trying not to think about elephants<br />looking forward to end-of-life decisions<br /><br />18.<br />reassessing works already completed<br />exterminating the brutes<br />chipping ice from the windshield of the car<br />rebuilding the old road from Fredrikstad to Skjeberg<br /><br />19.<br />getting more bang for the buck<br />setting something aside for that rainy day<br />worry about what to really worry about<br />getting back to the Bang, the Big One<br /><br />20.<br />teaching the Chinese how to speak English<br />learning about Putin, reading his soul<br />cashing in on Homeland Security<br />making that list of things to make lists of<br /><br />21.<br />deciding whether or not to escape to Canada<br />enhancing revenue without raising taxes<br />learning more about hematology--its life, its times<br />mapping talk-free zones in public parks<br /><br />22.<br />making the punishment fit the criminal<br />recovering our census-takers<br />fitting the glove to the velvet hand<br />dialing for (four) dollars<br /><br />23.<br />laying mines at the Prose/Poetry border<br />celebrating the rebirth of death<br />transferring funds to overshore accounts<br />counting the years from start to finish<br /><br />24.<br />unpacking after the last long/short journey<br />saying goodbye to the undead<br />finding trusty pocket tools for indoor use<br />pleasing others in letters<br /><br />25.<br />recouping ancient losses<br />moving data from there to over here<br />scanning the text as rapidly as possible<br />keeping Kandinsky in mind<br /><br />26.<br />replacing old maps with new ones<br />preparing the cat for summer camp<br />paying the bills in advance<br />brushing up on our Spanish<br /><br />27.<br />stealing stones from the temple<br />building a nearby church<br />stealing stones from the church<br />building a nearby bank<br /><br />28.<br />filling the sandbags<br />repairing the levee<br />spreading plutocracy around the world<br />counting and bagging the dead<br /><br />29.<br />cleaning up after Rita, Katrina<br />remembering we must pay our bills<br />washing windows of opportunity<br />trying to find the snows of yesteryear<br /><br />30.<br />covering up the latest cover-up<br />rereading all we've reread as of now<br />reviewing the plays of Pinter, their silences<br />uncovering the cover-up of the cover-up<br /><br />31.<br />comparing apples to orangutans<br />criminalizing conservative politics<br />finding new ways to profit from disasters<br />rescuing painting from the dead end of Pop Art<br /><br />32.<br />robbing Peter and Paul to pay Mark and Luke<br />waking up to a brand-new day<br />forgetting that old Underwood we once loved<br />overcoming inertia and ignorance<br /><br />33.<br />freeing the slaves<br />admonishing those who do evil<br />stamping out political brushfires<br />democratizing the US<br /><br />34.<br />closing the books on the old year<br />balancing the checkbook (first time ever)<br />remembering to reshape my face (yet again)<br />changing course (as always)<br /><br />35.<br />securing the seaports<br />transfiguring the night of the prom<br />seeking an audience with His Holiness, the President<br />bombing the Middle East into freedom and democracy<br /><br />36.<br />telling civil war from your garden-variety insurgency<br />recognizing our deepest needs, wants, and wishes<br />finally getting that poodle to the groomer<br />learning to live on self-serve island<br /><br />37.<br />keeping an eye on the military-industrial complex<br />reseeding the lawn for the nth and final time<br />staking out claims on the future<br />moving the party toward a more radical center<br /><br />38.<br />restoring the Gulf to its pre-US condition<br />administering flu shots to every chicken in every pot<br />studying studies on the results of previous studies<br />reducing the pulse of alien shadows<br /><br />39.<br />reducing light pollution in our major cities<br />rescuing the castaways<br />creating unwanted database gaps<br />accommodating carbon dating to Biblical truth<br /><br />40.<br />bombing our way to an "endurable" peace<br />retelling the tales of bygone wars<br />seeing what might be learned there<br />measuring the manatee<br /><br />41.<br />returning that defective broadband router<br />speaking kindly of those we no longer respect<br />giving up keeping up as a modus vivendi<br />putting our thoughts into action<br /><br />42.<br />sticking to issues that directly affect us<br />bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes<br />co-opting the arguments of their opposition<br />welcoming Latino immigrants at the border<br /><br />43.<br />throwing our hats in the ring<br />translating our actions into thought<br />seeing that Anna Nicole Smith achieves sainthood<br />rehanging Saddam and getting it right<br /><br />44.<br />paying off our debts, incurring new ones<br />getting the MS of the new book out into the mail<br />preparing ourselves for our press conference<br />seeking an end to cross-pollination<br /><br />45.<br />hammering out justice, all over this land<br />disturbing the neighbors by night, by day<br />enjoying privacy at our place in the country<br />transmuting dross into gold<br /><br />46.<br />pronouncing the names of the dead<br />bringing Elian back to his Miami relatives<br />rejuvenating all those pre-aged youngsters out there<br />throwing our hats in the ring<br /><br />47.<br />finding our way to the next whiskey bar<br />extending that fence to both east and west coasts<br />revising our previously revised revisions<br />building the ark to end arks<br /><br />48.<br />preventing its dividing itself up<br />realizing our potential potential<br />spending more time with the family<br />waking up to unreality<br /><br />49.<br />finding the photos of the old house<br />rowing the boat ashore<br />thinking things through again<br />keeping the guard up<br /><br />50.<br />parsing the genome<br />flinging sweets down the staircase<br />exhaling only when necessary<br />tearing myself away<br /><br />51.<br />parsing the genome<br />fleshing out the diagram<br />refilling the lungs, yet again<br />reacquainting ourselves<br /><br />52.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">getting the genie back</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">refreshing the screen</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">barking the dog</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">crying over spilled beans</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">53.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">making up our minds</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">testing the waters</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">arousing the base</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">exchanging dollars</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black;">54.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">stealing rain from the clouds</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">reexamining the x</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">recounting the votes again</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">building a foetus from scratch</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">55. </span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">sequestering the sequesterators</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">getting Syrian about seriosity</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">dancing for rain . . . again</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">redefining ingenuity</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">56.</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-85765662309141428312013-05-01T10:03:00.000-05:002013-05-01T10:03:23.940-05:00North American Journeys, 4<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> Friday June 7th. 1805,--</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> It continued to rain almost without intermission last night and as I expected we had a most disagreable and wrestless night. our camp possessing no allurements, we left our watery beads at an early hour and continued our rout down the river. it still continues to rain the wind hard from N. E. and could. the grownd remarkably slipry, where we had passed as we ascended the river. notwithstanding the rain that has now fallen the earth of these bluffs is not wet to a greater depth than 2 inches; in it's present state it is precisely like walking over frozan grownd which is thawed to small debth and slips equally as bad. this clay not only appears to require more water to saturate it as I before observed than ny earth I ever observed but when saturated it appears on the other hand to yeald it's moisture with equal difficulty.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> In passing along the face of one of these bluffs today I sliped at a narrow pass of about 30 yards in length and but for a quick and fortunate recovery by means of my espontoon I should been precipitated into the river down a craggy pricipice of about ninety feet. I had scarcely reached a place on which I could stand with tolerable safety even with the assistance of my espontoon before I hear a voice behind me cry out god god Capt. what shall I do on turning about I found it was Windsor who had sliped and fallen ab[o]ut the center of this narrow pass and was lying prostrate on his belley, with his wright hand arm and leg over the precipice while he was holding on with the left arm and foot as well as he could which appeared to be with much difficulty. I discovered his dinger and the trepedation which he was in gave me still further concern for I expected every instant to see him loose his strength and slip off; altho' much allarmed at his situation I disguised my feelings and spoke very calmly to him and assured him that he was in no kind of danger, to take the knife out of his belt behind him with his wright hand and dig a hole with it in the face of the bank to receive his wright foot which he did and then raised himself to his knees; I then directed him to take off his mockersons and to come forward on his hands and knees holding the knife in one hand and the gun in the other this he happily effected and escaped.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> those who were some little distance b[e]hind returned by my orders and waded the river at the foot of the bluff where the water was breast deep. it was useless we knew to attempt the plains on this part of the river in consequence of the numerous steep ravines which intersected and which were quite as bad as the river bluffs. we therefore continued our rout down the river sometimes in the mud and water of the bottom lands, at others in the river to our breasts and when the water become so deep that we could not wade we cut footsteps in the face of the steep bluffs with our knives and proceded. we continued our disagreeable march th[r]ough the rain mud and water untill late in the evening having traveled only about 18 Miles, and encamped in an old Indian stick lodge which afforded us a dry and comfortable shelter. during the day we had killed six deer some of them in very good order altho' none of them had yet entirely discarded their winter coats. we had reserved and brought with us a good supply of the best peices; we roasted and eat a hearty supper of our venison not having taisted a mo[r]sel before during the day; I now laid myself down on some willow boughs to a comfortable nights rest, and felt indeed as if I was fully repaid for the toil and pain of the day, so much will a good shelter, a dry bed, and comfortable supper revive the sperits of the w[e]aryed, wet and hungry traveler.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--<i>The Journals of Lewis and Clark</i></span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-6654509461584936852013-04-30T10:48:00.000-05:002013-04-30T10:48:16.285-05:00Paragraphs from Stein, 16<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The room was soon very very full and who were they all. Groups of hungarian painters and writers, it happened that some hungarian had once been brought and the word had spread from him throughout all Hungary, any village where there was a young man who had ambitions heard of 27 reu de Fleurus and then he lived but to get there and a great many did get there. They were always there, all sizes and shapes, all degrees of wealth and poverty, some very charming, some simply rough and every now and then a very beautiful young peasant. Then there were quantities of germans, not too popular because they tended always to want to see anything that was put away and they tended to break things and Gertrude Stein has a weakness for breakable objects, she has a horror of people who collect only the unbreakable. Then there was a fair sprinkling of americans, Mildred Aldrich would bring a group or Sayen, the electrician, or some painter and occasionally an architectural student would accidentally get there and then there were the habitués, among them Miss Mars and Miss Squires whom Gertrude Stein afterwards immortalised in her story of Miss Furr and Miss Skeene. On that first night Miss Mars and I talked of a subject then entirely new, how to make up your face. She was interested in types, she knew that there were femme décorative, femme d'intérieur and femme intrigante; there was no doubt that Fernande Picasso was a femme décorative, but what was Madame Matisse, femme d'intérieur, I said, and she was very pleased. From time to time one heard the high spanish whinnying laugh of Picasso the gay contralto of Gertrude Stein, people came and went, in and out. Miss Stein told me to sit with Fernande. Fernande was always beautiful but heavy in hand. I sat, it was my first sitting with a wife of a genius.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--<i>Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas</i></span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-43373808571985387222013-04-29T12:56:00.000-05:002013-04-29T12:56:50.729-05:00North American Journeys, 3<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Dezi drove her to his apartment on Northside Drive. He drove a tan Celica, and the whole ride he talked on a cellular phone in the deep voice of a midnight deejay. He mostly talked about some ball game, but sometimes he would just say, "Yeah," in a way that seemed shorthand for things he didn't want her to hear.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The staid stores of Virginia Avenue gave way to grillwork-caged liquor stores with names like Max's or The Place, and more to the point, Liquor Here. Some businesses gave no indication as to what they might be selling, their signposts were signless, their neon neonless.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The only spots of color were the billboards and the prostitutes. The billboards all advertised Kools or Newports, and against the green backdrops, beautiful black people wore toy-colored clothes. They were shown sledding, or skiing, or some other activity involving snow, all of them somehow managing to hold on to their cigarettes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--ZZ Packer, <i>Drinking Coffee Elsewhere</i></span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-46898860215256833752013-04-27T12:12:00.001-05:002013-04-29T08:22:23.677-05:00North American Journeys, 2<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">They among Englishmen who best love and most admire the United States, have felt themselves tempted to use the strongest language in denouncing the sins of Americans.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Who can but love their personal generosity, their active hatred of ignorance, the general convictions in the minds of all of them that a man should be enabled to walk upright, fearing no one and conscious that he is responsible for his own actions? In what country have grander efforts been made by private munificence to relieve the sufferings of humanity? Where can the English traveller find any more anxious to assist him than the normal American, when once the American shall have found the Englishman to be neither sullen nor fastidious? Who, lastly, is so much an object of heart-felt admiration of the American man and the American woman as the well-mannered Englishwoman or Englishman? These are the ideas which I say spring uppermost in the minds of the unprejudiced English traveller as he makes acquaintance with these near relatives. Then he becomes cognisant of their official doings, of their politics, of their municipal scandals, of their great ring-robberies, of their lobbyings and briberies, and the infinite baseness of their public life. There at the top of everything he finds the very men who are the least fit to occupy high places. American public dishonesty is so glaring that the very friends he has made in the country are not slow to acknowledge it--speaking of public life as a thing apart from their own existence, as a state of dirt in which it would be an insult to suppose that they were concerned! In the midst of it all the stranger, who sees so much that he hates and so much that he loves, hardly knows how to express himself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> "It is not enough that you are personally clean," he says, with what energy and courage he can command,--"not enough though the clean outnumber the foul as greatly as those gifted with sight outnumber the blind, if you that can see allow the blind to lead you. It is not by the private lives of the millions that the outside world will judge you, but by the public career of those units whose venality is allowed to debase the name of your country. There never was plainer proof given than is given here, that it is the duty of every honest citizen to look after the honour of his State."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--Anthony Trollope, <i>An Autobiography </i>(1883)</span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-14084772771685590782013-04-23T17:36:00.000-05:002013-04-23T17:36:38.581-05:0013 Sentences by John Cage<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">John Cage's "On Robert Rauschenberg, Artist, and His Work" includes, in no particular order, the following sentences:</span><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">1. </span><i style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;"> A canvas is never empty.</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">2. The icicles all go down.</span><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;"><i style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;"></i></span><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">3. Would we have preferred a pig with an apple in its mouth?</span><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">4. He is like that butcher whose knife never became dull simply because he cut with it in such a way that it never encountered an obstacle.</span><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">5. Shortly the stranger leaves, leaving the door open.</span><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">6. Setting out one day for a birthday party, I noticed the streets were full of presents.</span><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">7. Does his head have a bed in it?</span><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">8. He is not saying; he is painting.</span><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">9. I know he put the paint on the tires.</span><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">10. Ideas are not necessary.</span><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">11. As the lady said, "Well, if it isn't art, then I like it."</span><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">12. What do images do?</span><br style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">13. </span><i style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;">I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I am doing.</i><span style="line-height: 19.488636016845703px;"> </span></span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-42003229952330548902013-04-04T13:00:00.000-06:002013-04-04T13:10:43.877-06:00North American Journeys, 1<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">One summer day, Merce Cunningham and I took eight children to Bear Mountain Park. The paths through the zoo were crowded. Some of the children ran ahead, while others fell behind. Every now and then we stopped, gathered all the children together, and counted them to make sure none had been lost. Since it was very hot and the children were getting difficult, we decided to buy them ice cream cones. This was done in shifts. While I stayed with some, Merce Cunningham took others, got them cones, and brought them back. I took the ones with cones. He took those without. Eventually all the children were supplied with ice cream. However, they got it all over their faces. So we went to a water fountain where people were lined up to get a drink, put the children in line, tried to keep them there, and waited our turn. Finally, I knelt beside the fountain. Merce Cunningham turned it on. Then I proceeded one by one to wash the children's faces. While I was doing this, a man behind us in line said rather loudly, "There's a washroom over there." I looked up at him quickly and said, "Where? And how did you know I was interested in mushrooms?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">--John Cage, <i>Silence</i></span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-8030217759508846932013-03-18T12:54:00.000-06:002013-03-18T12:54:30.860-06:00Jack Spicer<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Sporting Life</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The trouble with comparing a poet with a radio is that radios don't</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> develop scar tissue. The tubes burn out, or with a transistor, which</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> most souls are, the battery or diagram burns out replaceable or</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> not replaceable, but not like that punchdrunk fighter in the bar.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> The poet</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Takes too many messages. The right to the ear that floored him in</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> New Jersey. The right to say that he stood six rounds with a </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> champion.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Then they sell beer or go on sporting commissions, or, if the scar</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> tissue is too heavy, demonstrate in a bar where the invisible</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> champions might not have hit him. Too many of them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The poet is a radio. The poet is a liar. The poet is a counterpunching</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> radio.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And those messages (God would not damn them) do not even know</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> they are champions.</span>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-62284455654367679762012-11-08T22:52:00.001-06:002012-11-08T22:52:40.413-06:00<br />
<pre style="white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> "We know that an idea, a novel or a poem, may begin
at some point or germ, grow, finding its being and necessary
form, rhythm and life as the germ evolves in relation to its
environment of language and experience in life. This is an art
that rises from a deep belief in the universe as a medium of
forms, in man's quest as a spiritual evolution.
"In contrast, conventional art, with its conviction that
form means adherence to an imposed order where metric
and rime are means of conformation, rises from a belief that
man by artifice must win his forms (as models, reproductions
or paradigms) against his nature, areas of control in a universe
that is a matter of chaos."
--Robert Duncan
fr. <i>The Day Book</i> as excerpted in <i>The Gist of Origin:
1951-1971</i> [New York: Grossman/Viking Press, 1975]
</span></pre>
<div>
<br /></div>
Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-61245630442732674772012-06-11T15:58:00.002-05:002013-03-18T13:02:21.010-06:00Works in Progress, 54<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; margin: 0px; position: relative;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 18px;">1.</span></h3>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">getting in touch with the cable guys<br />swinging the birches<br />testing the waters<br />pushing radical music agendas<br /><br />2.<br />rewriting the country's labor laws<br />seeing a psychic map of our obsessions<br />building electoral coalitions that will win<br />emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent<br /><br />3.<br />cleaning up after Gustav, Hanna, Ike<br />cleaning up after Bush, after Cheney<br />rewriting the history of consciousness<br />blurring the possibilities<br /><br />4.<br />supporting any effort to reunionize<br />failing to generate meaningful responses<br />becoming one with the centipede in oneself<br />getting some good poems out of it<br /><br />5.<br />slumbering well until after nightfall<br />setting this brain of mine afire<br />reaching irritably after fact & reason<br />shunning easy consolations<br /><br />6.<br />subsidizing extraction industries<br />helping women victimized by male violence<br />doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers<br />supporting the troops while doubting the war<br /><br />7.<br />counting the dead<br />waiting for them to break silence<br />descending the steeps of the soughing twilight<br />assimilating foreign cultures<br /><br />8.<br />demilitarizing outer space<br />completing the application and mailing it back<br />reviewing our few remaining options<br />showing off poetry's "extreme generosity"<br /><br />9.<br />maneuvering pothole-sized cars around<br />designing more effective marketing campaigns<br />speaking solely in terms of racial justice<br />examining burial pits and naked skulls<br /><br />10.<br />getting out the vote<br />fetching water from the well<br />educating the masses<br />confessing to our personal demons<br /><br />11.<br />clearing minefields from past wars<br />laying them for wars yet to come<br />staying executions, pardoning the innocent<br />blurring the boundaries, the borders<br /><br />12.<br />reading maps in the dark with the top light off<br />folding them all back up rightly<br />cramming them into the glove compartment<br />getting moving again in the right direction<br /><br />13.<br />cooling our wardheelers<br />voting early and often<br />keeping our fingers crossed<br />paying full-price for our journey<br /><br />14.<br />assembling a glossary of oft-used phrases<br />keeping silent while the tea is poured<br />maintaining an inventory of our beliefs and unbeliefs<br />finding time to clean up around the house<br /><br />15.<br />making the world safe for gerontocracy<br />clearing the minefields and cow pastures<br />converting analog files to digital<br />rereading <span style="font-style: italic;">An Anatomy of Melancholy</span><br /><br />16.<br />fighting the high cost of prescription meditations<br />comparing the works of Proust, Gide, and Sartre<br />putting something aside for a rainy day<br />asking for another user's name and password<br /><br />17.<br />scanning the shelves for news<br />cleaning up after the latest tsunami<br />trying not to think about elephants<br />looking forward to end-of-life decisions<br /><br />18.<br />reassessing works already completed<br />exterminating the brutes<br />chipping ice from the windshield of the car<br />rebuilding the old road from Fredrikstad to Skjeberg<br /><br />19.<br />getting more bang for the buck<br />setting something aside for that rainy day<br />worry about what to really worry about<br />getting back to the Bang, the Big One<br /><br />20.<br />teaching the Chinese how to speak English<br />learning about Putin, reading his soul<br />cashing in on Homeland Security<br />making that list of things to make lists of<br /><br />21.<br />deciding whether or not to escape to Canada<br />enhancing revenue without raising taxes<br />learning more about hematology--its life, its times<br />mapping talk-free zones in public parks<br /><br />22.<br />making the punishment fit the criminal<br />recovering our census-takers<br />fitting the glove to the velvet hand<br />dialing for (four) dollars<br /><br />23.<br />laying mines at the Prose/Poetry border<br />celebrating the rebirth of death<br />transferring funds to overshore accounts<br />counting the years from start to finish<br /><br />24.<br />unpacking after the last long/short journey<br />saying goodbye to the undead<br />finding trusty pocket tools for indoor use<br />pleasing others in letters<br /><br />25.<br />recouping ancient losses<br />moving data from there to over here<br />scanning the text as rapidly as possible<br />keeping Kandinsky in mind<br /><br />26.<br />replacing old maps with new ones<br />preparing the cat for summer camp<br />paying the bills in advance<br />brushing up on our Spanish<br /><br />27.<br />stealing stones from the temple<br />building a nearby church<br />stealing stones from the church<br />building a nearby bank<br /><br />28.<br />filling the sandbags<br />repairing the levee<br />spreading plutocracy around the world<br />counting and bagging the dead<br /><br />29.<br />cleaning up after Rita, Katrina<br />remembering we must pay our bills<br />washing windows of opportunity<br />trying to find the snows of yesteryear<br /><br />30.<br />covering up the latest cover-up<br />rereading all we've reread as of now<br />reviewing the plays of Pinter, their silences<br />uncovering the cover-up of the cover-up<br /><br />31.<br />comparing apples to orangutans<br />criminalizing conservative politics<br />finding new ways to profit from disasters<br />rescuing painting from the dead end of Pop Art<br /><br />32.<br />robbing Peter and Paul to pay Mark and Luke<br />waking up to a brand-new day<br />forgetting that old Underwood we once loved<br />overcoming inertia and ignorance<br /><br />33.<br />freeing the slaves<br />admonishing those who do evil<br />stamping out political brushfires<br />democratizing the US<br /><br />34.<br />closing the books on the old year<br />balancing the checkbook (first time ever)<br />remembering to reshape my face (yet again)<br />changing course (as always)<br /><br />35.<br />securing the seaports<br />transfiguring the night of the prom<br />seeking an audience with His Holiness, the President<br />bombing the Middle East into freedom and democracy<br /><br />36.<br />telling civil war from your garden-variety insurgency<br />recognizing our deepest needs, wants, and wishes<br />finally getting that poodle to the groomer<br />learning to live on self-serve island<br /><br />37.<br />keeping an eye on the military-industrial complex<br />reseeding the lawn for the nth and final time<br />staking out claims on the future<br />moving the party toward a more radical center<br /><br />38.<br />restoring the Gulf to its pre-US condition<br />administering flu shots to every chicken in every pot<br />studying studies on the results of previous studies<br />reducing the pulse of alien shadows<br /><br />39.<br />reducing light pollution in our major cities<br />rescuing the castaways<br />creating unwanted database gaps<br />accommodating carbon dating to Biblical truth<br /><br />40.<br />bombing our way to an "endurable" peace<br />retelling the tales of bygone wars<br />seeing what might be learned there<br />measuring the manatee<br /><br />41.<br />returning that defective broadband router<br />speaking kindly of those we no longer respect<br />giving up keeping up as a modus vivendi<br />putting our thoughts into action<br /><br />42.<br />sticking to issues that directly affect us<br />bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes<br />co-opting the arguments of their opposition<br />welcoming Latino immigrants at the border<br /><br />43.<br />throwing our hats in the ring<br />translating our actions into thought<br />seeing that Anna Nicole Smith achieves sainthood<br />rehanging Saddam and getting it right<br /><br />44.<br />paying off our debts, incurring new ones<br />getting the MS of the new book out into the mail<br />preparing ourselves for our press conference<br />seeking an end to cross-pollination<br /><br />45.<br />hammering out justice, all over this land<br />disturbing the neighbors by night, by day<br />enjoying privacy at our place in the country<br />transmuting dross into gold<br /><br />46.<br />pronouncing the names of the dead<br />bringing Elian back to his Miami relatives<br />rejuvenating all those pre-aged youngsters out there<br />throwing our hats in the ring<br /><br />47.<br />finding our way to the next whiskey bar<br />extending that fence to both east and west coasts<br />revising our previously revised revisions<br />building the ark to end arks<br /><br />48.<br />preventing its dividing itself up<br />realizing our potential potential<br />spending more time with the family<br />waking up to unreality<br /><br />49.<br />finding the photos of the old house<br />rowing the boat ashore<br />thinking things through again<br />keeping the guard up<br /><br />50.<br />parsing the genome<br />flinging sweets down the staircase<br />exhaling only when necessary<br />tearing myself away<br /><br />51.<br />parsing the genome<br />fleshing out the diagram<br />refilling the lungs, yet again<br />reacquainting ourselves<br /><br />52.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">getting the genie back</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">refreshing the screen</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">barking the dog</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">crying over spilled beans</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">53.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">making up our minds</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">testing the waters</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">arousing the base</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">exchanging dollars</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black;">54.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">stealing rain from the clouds</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">reexamining the x</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">recounting the votes again</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">building a foetus from scratch</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">55.</span></div>
<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-2333458597394693351" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; line-height: 18px; position: relative; width: 786px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: black;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="post-footer" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 1.5em 0px 0px;">
</div>
Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-17091983645403518812012-06-10T16:34:00.000-05:002012-06-10T16:34:03.255-05:00John and John and Harry and Me<br /><br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody>
<tr><td style="padding: 0in; width: 6in;" valign="top" width="576"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 517px;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="padding: 0in;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: black; font-size: 18px;"><b><span style="color: white;">[Headnote: Some years ago, I came upon an interview that John Ash made with Harry Mathews. Heavy with food, I found, all of a sudden, that John Ash had morphed into John Ashbery, and that Harry Mathews had become for at least part of the time . . . well, me. So having said all that, I leave the results to you. There may still be some shards of truth there, if they haven't been abandoned altogether. Enjoyable reading? Well, that's for you to say, or maybe someone else.]</span></b></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">An Interview with Halvard Johnson</span></b></div>
<div align="center" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">By "John Ashbery"</span></b></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
<i><br /></i><br />John Ashbery: One is supposed to ask questions about a writer's work, but I thought I would ask you about your life, which I know very little about. As so often with one's nearest and dearests, their biographies have enormous lacunae in them. I don't know, for instance, very much about why you went to Harvard when you did, or why you left it. I don't know why you studied music. I don't know why you went to Majorca. If I knew, I've forgotten all these things.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
Halvard Johnson: I think it's very kind of you to assume that I did any of these things. I didn’t go to Harvard because I spent four years at Ohio Wesleyan University, where I got cheaper tuition because my father was a Methodist minister. Mind you, I might very well have gone to Harvard if the thought had ever occurred to me and if my parents and I had been able to afford it. Apart from the usual breaks and vacations, though, I only left school when I had finally obtained my sheepskin. I did my four-year course in exactly four years. And I finished college because I thought how much it would upset my parents if I didn't. It was a last gesture to--</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I see, I didn't even know that you'd finished college, I thought you'd left.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I graduated from Ohio Wesleyan in 1958.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I guess I knew that you did two years at Harvard. Why did you leave Princeton?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I disliked Princeton for the reasons many people dislike it--its genteel charm, which seemed snobbish and anti-intellectual, but I never left it. Aren’t you listening? I never even went there.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: You certainly don't get that at Harvard.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Don’t get <i>what </i>at Harvard? I regret not having been at Harvard at that time, in the sense that if I'd had a different attitude and somewhat more money I think I would have learned a lot more there. At OWU I felt that I was just going through the motions. Fortunately I did learn a lot about music, because I reviewed concerts one or two years for the <i>Register, </i>and took piano for one term. Most of the courses I took were in English or philosophy though--where you had to hand in assignments once or twice a week or fail. But what seemed to me attractive about OWU, especially in retrospect, was the intellectual (ha!) life of the students, "among" the students. I was unmarried and living off campus so I missed most of that, except for my mealtimes at Bun’s, which I liked very much, especially when I started making tips.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Yes--boiled beef, cold potatoes . . .</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I didn't mean the "food"! What was the name of the man who ran that restaurant--Bun?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I think it was, yes . . .</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Bun was avuncular and stuffy, but very kind--</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: . . . the Mrs. Danvers of Bun’s.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I had very little money at the time. He allowed me to simply eat my meals without having to pay for them, or something like that. So I was able to keep up this one link with the--</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: It must have set you back a good forty-five cents each time you had lunch.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Yes, not even that, those were the pre-everything days.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: What led you to study music?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Well, I had this little notion--I started playing and listening to music when I was eleven. I was passionately addicted to it; it was my great refuge through adolescence. I felt it was so valuable to me that I didn't want that passion to be sullied by exposure to academic treatments of it. In fact neither at Princeton nor at Harvard did I take a single music course, except for that one semester of piano and the required music appreciation course..</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Very wise of you.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I felt that way at the time. I have some regrets now, although not too many. Mainly because my touch is so uneven. My reading was uneven also, despite my having majored in English. Too much late-night Ping-Pong, I guess. Too much cutting class.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: You're unevenly read in a way that no one else is.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I've never read Spenser, or Heaney. Thomas Mann--or hardly any.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: You didn't have to read Giles and Phineas Fletcher or Roger Ascham.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: "Gammer Gurton's Needle"?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Oh--did you or didn't you?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I didn't, no.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Actually it's very delightful.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Music had been my first love among the arts, and I was fascinated by it, as I still am. And although that wasn't my intention, I think it was very useful not to have studied it much. I gather you feel the same way about it.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Yes, but I haven't studied it.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: You do have a very fine--a "nice" ear.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I feel it's too beautiful for me to want to know anything about it.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Just the way I felt about music.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Exactly.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: There's a big difference, though, because no matter how much you learn about music, it doesn't "tell" you anything about it. You study it through words--you approach it through a different medium.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: As a youth, you said, you took refuge in piano playing and music. Refuge from what? The gilded life in a Methodist parsonage?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Please cut that! It's true, I had an extremely delicious life, but that was my life at home, and perhaps because I was only a child, or for whatever reasons, I found the company of others, especially other boys, quite terrifying and upsetting. I was poor at athletics. I didn't know how to get along on their terms in any way I knew about. I probably wasn't as bad as I thought, but anyway I felt socially unhappy. I became very nasty, too. And when I started writing--not when I started, but when I was twelve or thirteen or fourteen, something like that—music was a great inner (I don't mean that in any "significant" way), a secret, a private place to go to, as was reading Chekhov, and reading in general. My dream, I remember, when I went to college, was to have a study all my own, a little nook someplace where nobody could get at me--nobody, like the football coach, or any of those others.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Yes. I felt the same way. By the way, when did your parents get this apartment?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: This is <i>your </i>apartment, you fool, not my parents’. The only apartment I was brought up in was on Seventh Avenue between 13<sup>th</sup> and 14<sup>th</sup> Streets, and that was only from when I was two or so until when I was seven. My grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins all lived in the Middle West, in Milwaukee mostly. I was brought up in Hudson Valley towns like Carmel and Middletown and Kingston, and went to public high school in Yonkers, just outside New York City.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: When was that?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: In 1954. That’s when I passed the Regents and graduated.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Anyway, when did you meet Niki?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Niki? Never knew any Niki, John. My first wife was Dorothy—or Dotty. Met her in college, where we dated for a year or so. Got together with her again in New York, where we were both working after graduating from college.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Jean.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: No, the second one was Barbie. Met her in El Paso shortly after the divorce from Dorothy. Barbie and I lived in Puerto Rico for four years and then traveled Europe for a while, until she left me to have babies with some librarian at an army post in what was then West Germany. Then one day in this extraordinary beautiful young woman walked by and turned and smiled at me. That was that.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: It was Niki?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: No, that was Susan. And I immediately set out in pursuit of her. She didn't dislike this . . .</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Since you were on a train, you must have had an easy time.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: No, actually we were at a dinner. She started playing footsie with me under the table, and it wasn’t long before we were first traveling and then living together. We taught for a while in Germany and then went briefly to Turkey, then back to Germany, and then to Japan, where we actually got married because it was the only way we could live together on base.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Where were you stationed?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: For a while, in Okinawa, then South Korea, briefly, and then for a few years at an airbase just outside Tokyo.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Then you went to college?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: No, this was <i>long </i>after either of us had been in college. I was in my late 30s by then, and Susan . . . well, she was about ten years younger. In the mid-80s, we came back to the US. Susan hated the guy she was working for and wanted to return.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: You went first to Majorca?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: No, never been there. We went to Washington, D.C., where we lived for a year just off Wisconsin Avenue, and then we bought a big old house in upper Montgomery County, closest I’ve ever come to living in the country. But three years later we divorced and I got involved and later married to Lynda Schor, my present wife. We’ve both be married four times, and have now been married to each other for nearly eleven years. Well, it will be eleven years in September this year (2001). Lynda raised three kids in New York City, and now, after a few years living in Baltimore, with Lynda commuting to teach in New York, we’ve settled down in her New York apartment.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I hear the Duluth Symphony is looking for a principal guest conductor.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: It may well be, but that’s neither here nor there to me. Every couple years I get to a New York Philharmonic concert, but usually I’m staying at home, writing and listening to my CDs. Lynda’s come to like new music a lot, and in the city we can find plenty of those, during the course of the season. Long ago, Lynda switched from painting and print-making to writing. She had a hip replacement last year and now she’s walking better than ever, so we spend a lot of time out walking around the city. She almost gave up on her promising writing career, but now she’s taking more interest in it again. She’s thinking of taking up with Elaine Markson, a former agent. The idea came to her because of the uselessness of her current agent and because of a chance meeting at nearby bookstore with Elaine’s estranged husband David Markson..</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I always confuse him with Marcel Arland.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: But they're different.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I know, the other one edits volumes of La Pleiade. I knew about the Bresson.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: It was the same role that was offered to our daughter and that she did years later. I forgot to say that after college this great passion for writing poetry started to collapse. To this day I don't really know why, but it was definitely associated with both the colleges I went to. By the beginning of my sophomore year I'd virtually stopped writing, and within a year of leaving Harvard I'd started again. When Niki decided to become a painter, I told myself how wonderful, I want to do something like that. I'd also realized by that time that the chances of me having a musical career that would really interest me were practically nil because my ear training had been so neglected. It's hard to make up at twenty-one what you can learn easily at ten. And I really wanted to write again, and so I started writing, first poetry and then prose.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: How long did you stay in Paris then?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: We were in Paris and Nice for a little more than a year, and then we went to Majorca, where you could then live for next to nothing. Majorca was much less resorty than it is now. There were quite a few foreigners, but they could be numbered by the dozens perhaps, and there wasn't the great summer influx that there is now.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Is that what made you move back?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: No. We lived in this place called Deya, where Robert Graves lived, a beautiful village. There was this artists and writers colony there. It was our first and last experience of an artists colony, and we both found living in such a situation extremely nasty after awhile, although we made very good friends there, one of whom introduced me to you.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Walter Auerbach.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Walter Auerbach, who was living in Barcelona and whom I persuaded to come live in Deya, told me about you and introduced us, I think in the early summer of 1956.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Yes. How did you meet Walter Auerbach?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I met him on a trip to Barcelona. I may have met him in Majorca. I got to know him in Barcelona. In those days you used to go to Barcelona on the overnight boat from Majorca if you wanted to live the life of a real city and a change of scene. We had friends in common. I went to a party at his place and then saw him rather regularly. I can't remember who the friends were, perhaps Jimmy and Tommie Metcalf, artists living in Deya at this time, perhaps Alastair Reid, more likely the Metcalfs. Walter stayed on. He died in Majorca, he lived the rest of his life there.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Yes. We were at his house together. I was in Chicago a couple months ago where there was a show of Moholy-Nagy photographs and one of them was of Pitt Auerbach.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: That was Walter's first wife. And how did you meet him?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Actually it was through Rudy Burckhardt. Jane Freilicher once said to me--I hadn't met Rudy yet and she explained about him and said that he was making a movie using people like us in it. "Not only that, but Walter Auerbach is going to be in it. It's like having G.W. Pabst on set." So I met him through making the movie. The only thing I remember about it was the day we finished making it we went to, I think, Sheepshead Bay to have lunch at a sort of fish restaurant, and Walter Auerbach emphatically ordered a fillet of sole sandwich.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Was that cheaper than the other dishes.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: They were all cheap; it was that he knew exactly what he wanted.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Because he was a genius at living on small amounts of money. He lived on fifty-five dollars and later sixty-five dollars a month for years and years, in what seemed to be great comfort, both in Barcelona and Majorca.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I remember the lunch he served us was something like a brochette of lungs, lights, beef heart. It was rather good. Anyway, I suppose we should talk about your work as well as your life.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I think it's very interesting to talk about--I mean I'm very willing to talk about my work, but I think people feel that they should ask questions about the work and they're really interested in one's life. So it's nice of you to ask those questions.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: No. When I met you in '56, I think you'd just moved back to Paris.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: We'd just bought the apartment--our first apartment, at the Porte de Vanves.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Yes, I remember it well.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Well, are there any things that remain mysterious to you after that?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Outside of the mystery that you've always deliberately cultivated, I can't think of anything.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Yes, I always thought that the principle of my life was to be leaving for someplace else wherever I was and no matter where I was living.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: And to arrive at an unspecified date.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Yes.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: When I first met you, you were fascinated by Raymond Roussel, whom I introduced you to, I believe.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: That's right.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: We must credit Kenneth Koch, however, for the original American discovery.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Yes. I always credit him.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I seldom do. That's why I was doing so now. And since then you've been involved in the Oulipo--and it seems as though the discovery of Roussel's processes and writing must have been one of the things, perhaps the most important one, that occurred at that time since you've evolved more and more towards works that are somehow schematic.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: This is something that had appealed to me in poetry; obviously all poets who write in traditional forms are involved in this, and I'd also invented ways of doing it in poetry myself. For instance, I wrote a long poem in sonata form. That seemed to be a thing you could do in poetry or at least try out in poetry. I was dying to write prose, but I didn't know any way of going about doing this in prose. Then Roussel showed me that you can generate prose works with the same kind of arbitrariness that you use in verse. One extraordinary thing about poetry is that, say, if you're writing couplets, every five feet you have to have a word that sounds like another word, whether that makes any sense or not. You have arbitrary, illogical demands that you have to make on yourself. Roussel showed how this can be done in prose and so for me opened up the whole possibility of writing fiction, which I'd tried before without ever getting any place. I'd always thought that to write fiction you had to write more or less autobiographical stories, or stories of things that you'd observed in the world. It's terribly hard to do that; at least it was terribly hard for me- to make it sing and glow. I think that's why Roussel excited me so.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I was very attracted to him when I first read him but probably more the effects that his processes produced almost gratuitously. I've never really used very formal devices, although I don't disapprove of them; but it seems as though by using them you can get a realism, a sort of casual, unbuttoned quality.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I think that's true. The traditional short story or novel comes out very unlike the way things really happen, as though it were a kind of translation of the world. In Roussel, and in Oulipian work, you're forced to do things you wouldn't do otherwise, and this brings a great deal of freshness to them. One thing that I was inspired by in Roussel, most obviously in "The Conversation," is that incredible voice, that very neutral, apparently indifferent tone in which the most insane things are said. This is one of those effects which is so potent.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: The fact that he wrote with a very severe attention to writing with as few words as possible, so that he sometimes wrestled four or five hours with a single word, that produced what Michel Leiris has called prose such as that which is taught in manuals of lycees. He also says it allowed effects of extraordinary limpidity, which I think is a very good word for it. It's an experience that one can get nowhere else.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Who was it that said to Pasternak--was it Scriabin or somebody playing Scriabin?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Yes, that he should simplify--</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: No, he said that he had finally achieved utter simplicity in his last works, which were of an absolutely mind-boggling complexity.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I once quoted that passage to somebody interviewing me who wanted some justification for my complexity, somebody not very sympathetic. She said: "Sobering thought."</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: It's a very hard point to get across to a lot of people, that a work is much harder to get if it's diluted, whereas if you have it exactly the way it should be, it looks very thorny or cranky but in fact it just fits the space it's taking up. I'm obsessed with getting rid of words, too. Sometimes it seems to me that so much scraping takes place that words end up doing rather interesting things. Perec said when he translated me that I was very hard to translate because I used words "juste a cote leur sens"--just alongside their meaning. Since they were very ordinary words one didn't really notice this as it took place.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Like what?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I have to turn off this tape recorder. I never can remember when people ask me for examples like that.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: No. You were just saying you wished you could understand how your work, hard as it may appear, is really easy to follow.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I think that what matters in writing, as in music, is what's going on between the words (and between the notes); the movement is what matters, rather than whatever is being said. I like very much what the English composer Birtwhistle--is that his name?--said about his pieces. He said you could change all the notes in it and it would still be the same piece. That really rang a bell when I read it because it could be said about not only my own work but written work in general. What matters is the process and not the substance that the process is using. I think that's very true of your poems.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Yes, I thought so.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I think that's what's hard to . . . Readers get worried about reading something right or wrong, they don't trust themselves in the act of reading, and so they don't let that process work for them. They try to piece together a sense by taking out the elements that are used in . . .</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: That's certainly particularly true of poetry, where people will go to any lengths rather than actually read the poem, such as read a thick book about it.<br />What's the position of Oulipo in France? How's it regarded by writers in general?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I went to see Michael Leiris, whom you just mentioned a few moments ago. He said," I'm very interested in what Oulipo does, but don't you think it's results are rather mechanical?" You know, he's very sly. And of course he does his whole--the "Glossaries" he makes up are very Oulipian. I think people who know it from a distance look on it with some suspicion, which is a good thing. I mean, it still has a certain ability to provoke. The position that it claims for itself is slightly suspect. We say that we invent forms (or rediscover old forms) that are very hard to use, very demanding, so that these will be available to other writers, a kind of contribution made to the potentiality . . .</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Very thoughtful of you.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Exactly. It's very thoughtful of us and never really happens. But I think its true activity, which is to experiment in forms rather than in writing, "is" interesting. And if it has to be justified, it's justified by the writing of Calvino and Perec, people like that.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Don't be so modest.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Well, nevertheless Calvino is in a class apart.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: So are you. What is your standard of a form being sufficiently constricting?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: What I say is: a form that makes you write something that you wouldn't normally say, or in a way that you would never have said it. The form is so demanding that you can't get around it.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: But that's true of almost any form.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Not really. The sonnet was once difficult, but it's not difficult any more.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: But you would be saying that you could conceivably say something in a sonnet that would not have occurred to you otherwise.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: That's true. I think any form can be "suggestive." The constrictive part "makes" you --the sonnet wouldn't necessarily make you write in a way you wouldn't otherwise, or say something you wouldn't otherwise. I think the best example is the lipogram and Georges Perec's book "La Disparition", which is written without the letter "e." If you write without the letter "e," you can say an amazing amount of things, but you use a vocabulary that is so radically different than the one you normally use that you "have" to think about it. You have to be conscious of what you're doing all the time. I've been only able to solve that problem by putting a upturned thumbtack on the e-key of my typewriter. It's very hard no matter how diligent you are to keep them out--to keep an "e" from slipping in.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I suppose every time you went to use a "le" or "je" you're forced to rethink the entire language.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Yes, you have to get around that someway, so you find yourself using modes of expression that are unnatural. On the other hand, practice can make you fluent in it; I translated several pages of "La Disparition" without all that much trouble.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: You had to use "e's," though, didn't you?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: No, without using any "e's."</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Really?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: That's kind of a double constraint, because you have the constraint of the translation "and" the other.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: May we take a break for a while?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Yes, I think it's time for our dinner.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
(Dinner)</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: People always ask me what influence my years in France had on my work. Of course I'm capable of answering, but I've often felt that there really wasn't much influence, except that it's very nice to live in a beautiful, cultured city with very good food--surely this played as important part in it. But I never felt that French "poetry," with a few exceptions--Roussel, Rimbaud, Lautreamont, etc. . . .</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Reverdy, no?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Reverdy, yes, of course--were very influential. In fact, I'm not sure how influential any of them were. I admire them; they are very great writers. But except for a few fortuitous resemblances to Reverdy or Roussel, they don't seem to have influenced me directly. It's almost as though French and English don't quite mix in a fruitful way. I heard somewhere that Stravinsky wrote his work for violin and piano--a sonata, I guess--because he always felt that the sounds of the two instruments were absolutely incompatible and wanted to see if he could address this problem.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: That's quite true, they go very badly together, despite the literature.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: It's as though French were like a violin and English, or American, were like a piano.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: So what is the question?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Do you feel that your work would have been different, or do you feel that living in France has had a direct forming influence on your work?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I think living away from one's country gives you a difficult privilege. You're not under the pressure of people publicly succeeding better than you at what you're interested in; you're away from that and there's a relief in that sense. And also you have to be conscious of your own language. You're forced to be conscious of your language and your writing and your attitude toward writing. As for the Frenchness of that position, I guess really- that Mallarme as an idea was always very potent for me. It wasn't that Mallarme's present-day disciples seemed like ones to emulate, but I was living in a country--</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: The six-words-to-a-page school?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Yes, there's that, and the "I'm not saying what I seem to be saying" attitude towards writing poetry. I felt that I was surrounded by language to which Mallarme had a weird relationship. Mallarme wrote like nobody else; even his letters to his friends are very hermetic and hard to read and don't sound like the language of his contemporaries or his successors or his predecessors. So that reading Mallarme or Roussel, for whom these comments are true also, in France is inspiring, and in the fact that he has become the father or grandfather of modern poetry there is something that I could look to for inspiration. I think that would have been harder to do if I'd stayed here. For the personal reasons we talked about earlier--we didn't talk about them so much--those reasons why I didn't want to come back to the United States: since I'd taken refuge in France the way I'd taken refuge in poetry earlier in my life, it seemed appropriate that there was this utterly committed writer, someone who had gone to an extreme that no writer I know in English had ever done--towards formality, a kind of abstraction.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I always felt that what you say about Mallarme was true of surrealism--that idea of it was actually more important than the works it resulted in. I don't know whether you were saying that about Mallarme.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: No, I love Mallarme's poetry. And I agree with you about surrealism. Maybe you're thinking more of what has been made out of Mallarme than what he actually . . .</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: No, I was putting words in your mouth. I thought that's what you were saying.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I don't know that I'd ever actually like to write like Mallarme.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: No.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: But I think it's wonderful that somebody did. He seems to have gone much farther than the surrealists, getting to the bottom of the French verse and the French sentence. I think poems like "Le Don du poeme" are extremely moving and irremediably--if that's the word--mysterious.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Well, what other questions would you like me to ask?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I don't know. Some more questions that aren't usually asked in interviews. It's so nice not being asked, How do I write?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA:Yes, they always want the recipe.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Perhaps I could say a few words about why I did run away from the United States.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Yes, I've never actually known.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: In 1952 I ran away from America. Which was not America: it was the milieu in which I'd been raised, and I thought that's what America was, that is to say, an upper-middle-class Eastern WASP environment, which I read as being extremely hostile to the poetic and artistic enthusiasms that I felt were most important at the time.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I'm not sure that you misread it.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Maybe.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: That was sort of a low point in America.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: It was a very bad moment.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Which we seem to be outdoing in the present time.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Except there hasn't been anything like McCarthyism. There are a lot of things that are awful . . .</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: The New Right?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Yes, that's true. But then the values of what is now the New Right were standard. You remember Chaplin being kicked out of the America on the grounds of moral turpitude? Anyway, I've never felt that I was anything but an American, even though I'm an American-living-abroad, which I think is an interesting form of the species that can contribute to what's happening here as much as anyone else. I never have thought of myself as "existing" anyplace else, although I am very happy to have a place in France, you know, to be known to French writers, to have another life. That is very agreeing and sustainable. Although I don't think that the readier reception by many people in France of what I do means that they understand it any better than people who resist it here.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: They probably think that you're neglected here, as they believe about Faulkner, and therefore they're going to take you to their hearts, along with Jerry Lewis.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Right. Is there any kind of final thing I could tell you about myself that has been mysterious to you through all these years?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Well . . .</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: It's been a very long friendship.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Don't speak as though it were over, please. One of the minor mysteries of your activities is how you decide how long you're going to spend in one of your three places.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I sort of schedule it knowing that after a certain time, after a few weeks, I'll grow attached to the place, so that I always manage to leave when I'm longing to stay a little more. But I'm never sorry to get to the place that I move on to.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: That makes sense.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: It does?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Well, I could ask you about your future plans, now that you've finished your novel and it's actually being published.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Going to be published. I do have plans for another book, one shorter than "Cigarettes," which will have the name "Domestic Tranquility," no, I'm sorry, "Domestic Contentment." There's this marvelous old servant woman whom I've known for years. I can't remember--Arielle is her name--</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Dombasle?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I believe it's Arielle Matthis. I'm going to transcribe and edit her memoirs, which she has told me orally.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Is she in Lans?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I don't think it's really fair for me to say. I'm sure you'll like her tales of her life, which are rather para-oulipian, that is to say, all the dramas of which she's been a witness as a serving woman in the various households in which she's worked have been resolved by her skill in household tasks.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Does this woman actually exist or is she another creation of your fertile brain?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: That's a distinction I think I won't make.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Actually that's the way the--I was again starting "La Vie de Marianne" of Marivaux.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Is that one of his novels?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Yes, it is--a masterpiece.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: He's supposed to be a wonderful novelist, another one I've been meaning to read.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: He is. And at the beginning the author is speaking and says he's recently rented a chateau in Brittany, and while rearranging the furniture he came upon a candle box of letters in the cabinet . . .</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I see.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: . . . which I found curious enough to perhaps merit the interest of the reader.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Do you think this inspired "The Manuscript Found at Saragossa"?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: It was kind of a convention of the time.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I see. Yes, it was a pretext for fiction, wasn't it? Novels were presented as being papers or an account of something discovered by the author in some surprising backwoods.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Did you go and see the Saragossa movie?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: No, I only saw it years ago in France. I haven't seen it here. But if we start talking about movies, we're never going to stop.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Oh, I thought we'd finished the interview.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: No!</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I thought it was all over and I could go home.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I can stop it whenever you want. But I was hoping you'd ask a concluding question.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I thought I'd asked several already.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: You have, but why don't you do one more, so that--</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: Um. (Long pause.)</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: The tape is still on.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I know.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to it.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: I was talking to it, too.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Do you think it likes us both, equally? I mean, what are machines for, if not for that?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: User friendly?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: Impartial love finally realized. (Pause.) Well, let's leave it at that.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: At "what"?</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
HJ: At nothing more than that.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
JA: OK.</div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
[Footnote: <span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: right;">--From the <i>Review of Contemporary Fiction</i>, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: right;">Fall 1987, Volume 7.3; once online somewhere, but currently lost to me.]</span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in;">
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 18.75pt;"><td style="height: 18.75pt; padding: 0in; width: 6in;" width="576"><div class="MsoNormal" style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<img border="0" height="1" id="_x0000_i1026" src="..\media\line_black.gif" width="576" /><o:p></o:p></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>Halvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6391377.post-84439251887980889522012-05-15T17:11:00.000-05:002012-05-15T17:11:51.717-05:00Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #51an age that has defiled<br />
everything that once<br />
was sacredHalvard Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01464580122014170701noreply@blogger.com0