Finally, I was really settling into a journal … some verse, some encounters, some intellectual speculation.
Recognition that I had been conflating Todd and Andy, housemates. They do form one character in my fading memory.
~*~
Skye’s sister Laura was up, Saturday night, with all the male competition for her attention wound up landing with Willow in my bed. She was another non-swimmer, as I learned Monday at Empire Lake.
As I later learned, B.L got her pregnant, with an abortion, and then she was out to prove herself a slut; 16 guys since September, one at a time; guess she was with Andy. A trip with here to the ashram was a bummer for her. It became exit for me.
When I broke up with Willow, Gannett purchased the Sun-Bulletin and moved everything into the Press newsroom. So much junk.
Skye was enticing in a white gauze India blouse.
Me, remembering Fay, parked along a dirt road beside Little Miami River covered bridge in humid summer moonlight her eyes glistening, teeth glistening, face glowing.
Another Tuesday I was off, unlike the usual Wednesday, had to go to the office to get my paycheck, though; got stopped for doing 41 in a 30 zone, let off with a warning.
D-Man, remarking on how much a company spends on advertising a product that’s bad, but who spends that much un-advertising it?
Phoned Kara, thought she’d dig blueberry pie; she was too busy sewing. Has seen the movie Bananas. Then said I was grossing her out, “swimming with nothing on,” stuff like that. She’s so afraid of herself. When I tried explaining yoga, she couldn’t understand.
When you’re off-center, meditation is difficult.
~*~
A few of my early journals.
The joy of keeping a journal: I thought the task would give me insight into my depression, but last night in reading a volume found it is better as a record of my ups and stimulates once again the highs that make me happy.
Molly: Everybody can tell you their problems, like what they dislike, but few can tell you what makes them happy.
Keep a journal of both but read only one.
~*~
From Spiralbound Hippies, with commentary from now.
In my moves across the northern U.S., I’ve always lived in places that would get icicles in winter – some places more impressively than others. I never planned it that way, but in some locales they could grow down past floor-length windows, creating a threat to anything below. When those fell, their crash would shake the house, sometimes waking us from deep sleep. These, on the second floor at the Cobscook Quaker meetinghouse in Whiting, Maine, are modest in comparison.
As I post these journals gleanings, they’re appearing in chronological order. But as they accumulate, they will also be read in reverse order. How curious.
Excerpting from the next volume of Spiralbound Hippies, with commentary from now.
~*~
FIRE: the great connecting link between all symbols. Joining mind and matter, vice and virtue, etc. “The most conflicting elements [values?] in a single image.” Double-meaning, destruction and creation [the phoenix].
Saint Anthony fire: he was more feared than worshiped. Pagan superstitions carried into Xristian mosaic.
A partial return to a Jewish sense of Satan as instrument of G-d. Pandemonium under thrall of Satan. Laws of nature have collapsed, obliterated distinctions between Truth and lies.
Life, in Bosch, midway between good and evil.
The paradoxical becomes possible.
The triumph of the strawberry!
$2.30 taxi fee to work today. [Nearly an hour’s pay.]
Polly: “I’m no materialist but I am learning from living with Ajax that money is very important at times.” Security breakdown: food and rent worries.
She said I look more like a painter than a writer.
Her parents found out about her situation with Ajax. Best wishes for his Bayville journey tonight.
Parts for my car finally arrived, Spring Valley station.
Did I make a trip to Dayton in here? Take some of my goods back, perchance? [Had already resolved to move to the ashram in late fall: felt, rightly, I had much unfinished business to attend to first.]
~*~
Girls? “Oh, you know, typical bitch,” sez Tom.
“Lost in that red meat of Rembrandt” – sez Pound.
Rainbow got an abortion. Thus, the tension with Speedo.
Fryyr up!
My earliest memory, age 2: people in yellow raincoats and some gray in the mist or fog on the boat at bottom of Niagara Falls. So why didn’t I record the falling water or roar?
Their adolescent neighbor believes her mother is a whore: “I knew it when I saw her walking down the street arm-in-arm with a Black man.” [Let’s be honest about the racial stereotyping.]
Luna, angrily, “Am I your wife or just your fukkin’ lay?”
Moose, laughing, “What’s the difference?”
Blueberry farm: Meeker, like Hub! Water cannon booming.
Donald Barthelme is right: art in our time is collage: television, a collage of ads and story: museum a collage of paintings or other artifacts, exhibits: libraries, a collage of books and magazines: we are a collage of consuming.
Incas built without mortar: each stone complete harmony/union within wall.
Swimming into sleep.
Pd car insurance $170.
Shifted into brown ink.
Economics dilemma: what happens when there’s free energy? [Solar, wind, tides?]
A novel is a private experience, requiring each reader to create own vision of characters, settings, etc. Film is public, shared – a group creation, just look at credits, Yet a novel is much longer, including reader time commitment: it is created in solitude, reflection.
From Sci Am: “For many cultures of ancient times, springs were sacred places, perhaps because the phenomenon of water issuing from the earth without any apparent source seemed magical.”
From Fay I learned to raise my eyebrows, opening my eyes wider: a movement to say hello … seems some acquaintances now know me this way.
Quick trip to Arrowhead after work on Saturday early shift … great time on the raft … what was happening at the camp?
Skye used to play cello. Her younger sister has a $25,000 Galluci or some such. [Four years’ pay by my measure.]
~*~
~*~
Long list of meanings for PICK, too.
Stanton, addicted to working Saturday mornings, Midwestern heritage: work hard! No interference on Saturdays, creative joy.
“It blows my mind that you open yourself so totally to me. You don’t tell me anything about your job, your family, your home. You just show me your power. If I never see you again, you will always be close to me. I never knew contacts between people could be so joyful.”
So was this something someone told me or rather something from Be Here Now or another ideal?
Am surprised I fill this volume in within a single month.
Another Saturday begins a journal, as noted midway down second page.
Pages of teletype snafus, many becoming my Sun Spots series of concrete poems.
An intermediate stage in the creation of my Sun Spots series of concrete poems.
~*~
Harpur [College] music room closed: open mon-fri 9-12, 1-4. Am assuming this was the record listening room and I used it.
NY Native tribal lines: no more than 70 to 80 Iroquois villages in New York State at any one time. [I imagine that figure has undergone major revision.]
And then details on Jack Hus (1373-1415), Wycliffe, and Calvin.
Surprised to see Hus read and translated Wycliffe … was excommunicated with 200 companions by Pope Alexander V in 1409 … the archbishop burned 200 volumes of Wycliffe … this was pre-Guttenberg typesetting!
New pope or antipope, John XXIII [not to be confused with John XXIII of 20th century], renewed ban in 1411, placing Prague under edict … issued safe conduct pass in treachery.
More typographical poems, as well as drivel.
Wyclif: sin is the negation of being. Property is the result of sin (Jesus and the apostles had none) … he is the founder of English prose writing.
Again, early notes of Quakers – summer of ’71. [Still, I had no idea what was ahead.]
At this point, Carlos Williams, not Snyder, my measure of excellence.
Met Stephanie, late June. Much of this used in my novel Pit-a-Pat High Jinks. She was a non-swimmer. Of note now, the big men’s loafers in the bedroom left 2½ weeks earlier. Disappeared, in a later detail. Zippo, whatever his name, the dealer, dropped in, bad vibes: “Guess he gave her the motorcycle leg burn” that was still purple this day, her first without the bandage
Todd and Gwen were also at Empire Lake that day.
Later, swimming in another mountain lake, “the highest in Pennsylvania,” Quaker or Arrowhead, I presume.
Continuing reflections on Bosch and theology, Christian and Tibetan.
A bookstore spree: Carlos Williams, Bly, Joyce, Creeley: $5.99, total.
Joy of possession: inscribing my name on the opening page.
Ponderous clouds of lead and fire.
~*~
Stopped at Jennifer’s, she wasn’t home. Then Stephanie’s: she was spacy, no sleep, as noted in novel. Did get some details on her ex, a philosophy major.
Trip to Stephanie’s at Bear Mtn and then Polly’s for the 4th on Long Island … Grannie Mully’s for steak, beer, and surf. “What! Another nature freak!,” as one of Polly’s cousins sniped.
This was the 4th when my Buick broke down on Thruway. Sequence of hitchhiking experiences home. I stayed at Tom and Ajax’s the following week, 9 Doubleday Street. Sounds like a novel only one publisher would touch.
Polly was 50 pages from the end of Sot-Weed Factor when the puppy ate them.
Ezra Pound’s later cantos an intensely personal collection/collage of whatever was on his mind at the moment: artist vs audience, spirit or craft? So here we are.
~*~
Rusty was from Old Westbury. Skye, from Roslyn Heights. They were, however peripheral, special housemates during this time.
~*~
View from the road, more mountains.
No entries since Sunday.
~*~
Tom, home from a faculty party: They once hired a veterinarian to sit with their gerbil all night, giving it injections every half-hour. Imagine the two of them, sitting up with the vet sitting up with the gerbil. He kept saying, I don’t know it this will work. They told him, Don’t worry, just do it, you’re getting paid. And everybody was talking about everybody’s affairs, like Peyton Place. Who the college president’s sleeping with now …
Ajax’s new job: can labeler. Never before knew “labeler” was a category. This morning he’s snoring like a hand-pushed lawnmower.
~*~
From Spiralbound Hippies, with commentary from now.
They’re not always ones you might expect. On the top ten list you won’t find Boston’s Logan, New York’s Newark, San Francisco’s SFO, or Seattle-Tacoma, for instance. Globally, Paris, Amsterdam, Seoul, and Beijing miss the list.
For this Tendrils, we’ll look closest at the USA. I started out basing the measure by what the industry calls scheduled seats but have switched to passenger volume, not that I know the difference other than it alters the ranking slightly, notably with Chicago dropping from No. 2 to No. 8. Do note these rankings can be confusing, and may shift around a bit if we look closer.
Should you be curious, English is the international language of aviation when it comes to pilots’ and air traffic controllers’ communicating. In contrast, French takes too long to convey essential information.
That says, here goes, however tentatively.
Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta: ATL is king of the skies, both as the busiest airport in the U.S. — and the world. Its dominance arises in being Delta Air Lines’ largest hub, making it the primary gateway to nearly every U.S. city, but especially Florida and the South. Despite having relatively limited international traffic, its massive domestic network keeps it soaring.
Dallas/Fort Worth: DFW’s sheer size – at 26,8 square miles, larger than Manhattan, and set midway between the two cities – allows its domestic connectivity, a result of being home to American Airlines, to support the cliché claim that everything’s bigger in Texas, boosted in part by the state’s population boom and heavy air freight action. DFW winds up as the eighth busiest airport internationally, too. Measured by aircraft movements, DFW ranks as the third-busiest airport in the world; by passenger traffic, it’s the world’s second-busiest. As I was saying about those definitions?
Denver International: DEN is built on a 53-square-mile campus, giving it more room to grow than any other airport in the U.S. It does have a 16,000-foot runway, the longest public use one in America, is the biggest hub for Frontier and Southwest airlines, and has 27 airlines providing nonstop service to 230 destinations throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia, making it the sixth busiest internationally. Ride ‘em, cowboy?
Chicago O’Hare: Traditionally the nation’s second-busiest airport, ORD has been eclipsed by Dallas and Denver. Located 17 miles from the Windy City’s downtown, ORD’s strategic location in the Midwest still makes it one of the busiest transit points in North America, driven by United Airlines and American Airlines hubs. Last July 20, it set an all-time record for daily Transportation Security Administration screenings, 115,962 passengers. That was part of the busiest month ever for U.S. air travel, when TSA agents screened 85 million passengers. Globally, ORD ranks eighth
Los Angeles: LAX remains the top West Coast gateway, especially with heavy traffic from Asia. Internationally, it’s 11th. The airport is getting a massive facelift in preparation for the city’s upcoming 2028 Olympics.
John F. Kennedy: With its international long-haul flights, especially across the Atlantic, driving growth, New York’s JFK also ranks 19th The crown jewel of a historic massive redevelopment is a public-private partnership is the new Terminal 6 with JetBlue and Vantage, with the first gates expected this year and full completion in 2028.
Charlotte Douglas: Bet this one flew under your radar, but CLT is a crucial hub for American Airlines. Major expansion includes a $1 billion Fourth Parallel Runway scheduled to open in 2027. Repeated, this North Carolina operation has earned recognition as North America’s most financially efficient airport.
Harry Reid: Las Vegas continues to shine as a leisure travel powerhouse, but there’s more to the metropolis than gambling and conventions. The fact that LAS is a central airline connection to much of the Southwest was the reason I placed Cassia in my novel What’s Left there during her years as a financial field representative. Globally, the airport ranks 24th.
Orlando: Taking over from McCoy Air Force Base after its closure in 1975, MCO does much more than welcoming tourists to Walt Disney World. Its location between sunny coasts has made it a hub for a cluster of flights serving Florida. MCO ranks 25th Welcome to the sunshine, you snowbirds.
Miami-Dade: As the busiest gateway to Central and South America and the Caribbean, MIA conveys major cargo traffic in addition to international travelers. For American Airlines, it’s the third-busiest hub. Globally, MIA comes in 27th.
As for those world rankings, Dubai International comes in third. Not surprising, since the modern city was premised on the international airport’s luxury terminals, duty-free shopping, and emerging strategic global connector. Tokyo Haneda ranks fourth. London’s Heathrow, fifth. Istanbul comes in seventh. Indira Gandhi, ninth. And China’s Shanghai Pudong International Airport, tenth.
Continuing my Spiralbound Hippies, journals excerpts, with commentary from now.
Got home from work: sunbathing in back meadow: my chance to develop lifeguard bronze: indulge in luxury, nudity [was thinking about the kids at Oak-Day pool when I was 10 or 11 or 12 or later, mostly on the outside of the fence, couldn’t afford the admission. The lustful yearnings of adolescence.]
Then heard Andy call me. I walked back to the barn. “Wanna go swimming?” After sweating in 83-degree humid sun, I expected cold spring water. “Um, OK, I can dig it. Let me get my gear.” (Books, blanket from field: nose plugs, upstairs.)
“Hey, can we take your car?”
“OK, fine with me.”
[Matter of trespassing, be a good boy, keep a clean nose, keep out of danger.]
Camp Arrowhead, atop a mountain: lake hidden back from the road; private cabins around half of the shore. [Quaker Lake, larger, was a mile or two further.}
Speedo led the way on his white Indian.
His girlfriend, Rainbow, braless as usual, wet white top revealing black tits: “Mean old bitches over on the other side chased us off.”
I dived in, not too cold, invigorating. Swam to the other side. Later swam underwater. As for Todd or Rusty further?
Luna, skinnier than me, afraid. “I don’t know how to swim. Don’t go in there, it’s too slow.”
Treading, I realized cold water is tiring.
Way home, told Luna she’d have to clean up the backseat after the dirty dogs (footprints all over the car). She did, swearing and dirty looks, everybody smoking cigarettes.
My own skin is so alive.
Thunder, it rains near lakes, they’re cooler than here though only a mile away. Scattered showers in the mountains, says Rusty.
So much easier to do and not worry than not do and worry.
With Rainbow, a shared appreciation of Bosch.
And R. Crumb?
From a treasured T-shirt, much later.
~*~
Got my vacation check – three checks, actually, and felt rich …
Left car at station for repairs and hitched to the ranch ….
~*~
[Arrowhead Bible Camp is still in operation: no denomination mentioned ]
Rusty and I swam across the lake, a long, cold way, and back again.
Looking down into green murky depths: monsters below?
[Like Quaker Lake, these were in Silver Lake Township, Susquehanna County, Pa. Edge of the Endless Mountains}
“You’re all born in sin, you’ve got to repent and accept Jesus,” as the camp counselor went on quoting Scripture like a jukebox
Rusty: “Acid really clears up your head and clears away your ego.”
Shayna lives in a L-shape room.
Polly used to knock my laughter. And now?
A.Z., at office, used to study under noted poet David Ingatow.
Thor, bored, missing Sharon, came out to the farm and we walked forever … he says all the aspiring writers he’s known are weird … I replied that they can never be totally engaged in the event, though they try to capture it and analyze it …
Jennifer, blonde, 22, Baldwin Street in Jackson City, English major, boyfriend graduates next fall … looks 16 … a good kisser, has my sleeping bag … her expression is always so open, willing, expectant …
On meeting me, saw me as a writer. Her friend Claudia, the art major, saw me as a painter.
~*~
First trip to big lake … Jennifer saw me but was with another woman and two guys; they were leaving as we arrived.
A day later, took her to Morey’s for dinner … and saw the Andromeda Strain … told me she had laryngitis last week. I shouldn’t have kissed her goodnight so much but then I already had a sore throat. She was raised Baptist on a big farm.
Guess I was with Esperanza … had left my wallet at her place …
A white plaster sky.
Snyder: long hair a return to nature, short hair a sacrifice to the goddess
~*~
A year ago, you asked where I thought I’d be now. I didn’t expect on a rundown farm in the mountains with wild strawberries, meditating, still employed on this copydesk: yoga and no woman.
Peru, maybe, or Boston Globe. The Cummins p.r. job held faint promise yet …
Two years ago I couldn’t foresee the long hair. Binghamton and New York in general had just entered my life, and we had parted, desiring each other. I could not foresee your journey, either.
Now, paying $5 fine for bald tires. Austere waiting room, everyone jumpy. Mother, to me after everyone else had left: “That’s not fair, just not fair,” while her daughter was crying in the justice’s chamber and the father was pleading the case of an unregistered car. Suspended sentence.
Zazlenski, born Andre in France – en-dray, en-dry …
Eliot telling Danny to aum for calmness. A dead, um. “Hey, that really helps!”
Sounds like a guppy?
Fern: The Beatles crippled more girls. They couldn’t go out with American guys for years. There was always one Beatle, the one of their choice, tells much about herself: the ideal for others to fall short of.
My sister’s was Paul: as a fan, shy, retiring, flower in hand.
~*~
So, seven volumes to cover my first year after college?
When I see this phenomenon where I’m now living, I’m reminded of an ice floe stampede one Sunday afternoon on the Susquehanna River back in the winter of ‘71. For two hours or so after an ice jam upstream had been dynamited, the river was a racetrack of large jagged white wedges three or four feet thick crashing down the riverway. Viewing it was terrifying, mystifying and unforgettable. Slabs of the ice that had been thrust into shrubs along the riverbanks remained visible until nearly May.
Hobart Stream at Cobscook Bay, Edmunds Township, Maine.
Jnana's Red Barn 