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Being the words, deeds, images, and riffs of a journeyman on a two and a half month quest across, down, back across, up, and all over the united states (Buick willing).
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Where They Go
Turns out it’s the Klingons who abscond with our lost thoughts, not the Romulans or the Ceylons as was once believed. The first I forgot was the difference between large pebble and small rock, how to tune a harpsichord, what I thought the fireworks sounded like. It is not “abduction,” as such, because in our lapses of mindfulness, we allow thoughts to drift away. The Klingons do not seek them out or in any way compel thoughts to stray from their thinker; they merely harvest what loose cognitions drift their way.
How high in the ether must thoughts rise before fair game? Truth is, once the unguarded thought—be it fact, plan, or reverie--has risen above where even the most ambitious kite may ascend, there is precious little chance of your ever retrieving it. Better it should dissipate into stardust or should live on in some form? Klingons, in fact, refer to such thoughts as “liberated:” released from indentured servitude in the sweatshop of the human brain to find perfected expression in a higher mind.
At least, these are the findings presented by a recent dissertation, based on a ten-year study of six billion chronically forgetful people. I’m impressed with the research, but have nagging questions, like what about when I re-remember something I first forgot twenty years ago and have partially re-remembered every four years since? Maybe fugitive thoughts seek refuge in the clouds and return with the rain. Fireworks fired half a mile down the beach sound like the logy farting of an old man.
Turns out it’s the Klingons who abscond with our lost thoughts, not the Romulans or the Ceylons as was once believed. The first I forgot was the difference between large pebble and small rock, how to tune a harpsichord, what I thought the fireworks sounded like. It is not “abduction,” as such, because in our lapses of mindfulness, we allow thoughts to drift away. The Klingons do not seek them out or in any way compel thoughts to stray from their thinker; they merely harvest what loose cognitions drift their way.
How high in the ether must thoughts rise before fair game? Truth is, once the unguarded thought—be it fact, plan, or reverie--has risen above where even the most ambitious kite may ascend, there is precious little chance of your ever retrieving it. Better it should dissipate into stardust or should live on in some form? Klingons, in fact, refer to such thoughts as “liberated:” released from indentured servitude in the sweatshop of the human brain to find perfected expression in a higher mind.
At least, these are the findings presented by a recent dissertation, based on a ten-year study of six billion chronically forgetful people. I’m impressed with the research, but have nagging questions, like what about when I re-remember something I first forgot twenty years ago and have partially re-remembered every four years since? Maybe fugitive thoughts seek refuge in the clouds and return with the rain. Fireworks fired half a mile down the beach sound like the logy farting of an old man.
Sunday, January 11, 2004
More photos at www.selahshots2@webshots.com
and more buhlahwggage on the way
and more buhlahwggage on the way
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
1/6/04 Philadelphia, PA Od:102,384
Back in my old Philly hood, the last phase of the anti-quest. Soon, the grail will be carefully concealed and under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it, so can’t get saved, as Selah says they mustn’t. Finding it hard to maintain momentum here, sense of being on an extended adventurous outing, when it’s all so familiar. Really, by the time I reached North Carolina, I felt like I was back, the trip was over. Geographically the East Coast varies a great deal from Maine to Florida, but there’s still an essential “East Coastness” about it all. We’ll let that utterly undeveloped assertion lie there for now (or perhaps for all time), and resume.
Rising from night’s slumber back in my loft in Virginny, Sunday morning, I came down and packed up. However, the hurried packer put a few too many items on one chair and I turned to discover the bag containing my groceries had capsized and the gallon container of water had popped its top. By the time I picked it up, two thirds of the gallon had poured out on the floor, stopping just short of where yesterday’s bathroom flood had reached. Yet again, I got to begin my day mopping up a flood with a mop better designed for pushing water than absorbing it. Oh, I’m able to laugh now, but at the time it seemed a soggy and sorrowful omen.
Finally gave up when the water refused to be contained, and went down to the Rappahannock to read on the dock before jetting. Followed, of course, by Goldens. While the younger two swam in the murky water, the older, possibly the mom, laid her head in my lap and looked up adoringly at me while I read. The lonely chronicler was comforted by this gesture of canine affection and was loath to once more make his unholy pact with the road.
However, drive I did. The only thing worth noting was completing “Winesburg, Ohio” and extended reflection on the sad, claustrophobic world simply and strangely rendered there.
The temperature dropped and grayness predominated as soon as I reached Baltimore, and by the time I got to Pennsyltucky, it was all misty and raining, just as it had been when I did during my long drive across the state back in November. Arrived at Sam’s place in Dillsburg with the last light. Spent a great night with the man who really got me on speaking terms with the Bard and that blind poet who glorified satan back when I was long haired lad of twenty. We had a Cajun feast, drank the healing brew named in Sam’s honor, swapped songs, and talked of many things. Before any was the wiser, it had become 2am.
The next day I had a head on with nostalgia when I accompanied Sam back to me alma mater, where I haven’t been since graduation in ’92. Once again, a grey, overcast, cold day. I walked with Sam to Boyer, the monolithic new, swanky building, where his office is. From there, on to all the spots of undergraduate earnestness and folly. Naugle, much the same, but the view of the tracks blocked by new trees. Hess, where I used to climb the gutter up to my window, now joined to Miller and Grantham, a new dorm. The dining commons, the train tracks, the covered bridge. In fact, I even looked under the covered bridge where I hoped to find the only evidence of us, of our time here--that is, of course, where Shawny spray-painted Debaser. Couldn’t find it Goldy; you sure it’s still there?
J term classes didn’t start for another 2 days, so there weren’t too many students around, mainly professors and maintenance folks keeping the grounds pristine. It was strange to see mainly these people, the behind the scenes people who were mainly invisible to me when I was here, yet always there, grooming our little Liberal Arts paradise for us.
So many big and small memories, sensations. As I cut straight across the lawn in front of Eisenhower, I recall Lamar Nisly writing an editorial in the school paper in which he said that when people cut across the lawn instead of using the paths, it “really tested his Mennonite pacifism.” As I walked the path to Hess I remember running with the lads up from Lottie Nelson in naught but our undies on a dare. Trying to sneak onto the roof of Eisenhower. The corners I’d trysted in.
Melancholic in that way you inevitably feel visiting a place that used to be yours, which is now occupied by others, who look at you like you’re an intruder. Even though it had been over ten years, I had managed to preserve everything pretty well in my head—at least the parts that hadn’t changed. This could also be partly due to all the anxiety dreams I often have, most of which involve me not getting all my credits and needing to come back for one more year or semester. Or the ones where I’m working on a paper and go to the bathroom and get lost wandering endless institutional halls and stairways. So memory populates the terrain of the past with ghosts.
Back in my old Philly hood, the last phase of the anti-quest. Soon, the grail will be carefully concealed and under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it, so can’t get saved, as Selah says they mustn’t. Finding it hard to maintain momentum here, sense of being on an extended adventurous outing, when it’s all so familiar. Really, by the time I reached North Carolina, I felt like I was back, the trip was over. Geographically the East Coast varies a great deal from Maine to Florida, but there’s still an essential “East Coastness” about it all. We’ll let that utterly undeveloped assertion lie there for now (or perhaps for all time), and resume.
Rising from night’s slumber back in my loft in Virginny, Sunday morning, I came down and packed up. However, the hurried packer put a few too many items on one chair and I turned to discover the bag containing my groceries had capsized and the gallon container of water had popped its top. By the time I picked it up, two thirds of the gallon had poured out on the floor, stopping just short of where yesterday’s bathroom flood had reached. Yet again, I got to begin my day mopping up a flood with a mop better designed for pushing water than absorbing it. Oh, I’m able to laugh now, but at the time it seemed a soggy and sorrowful omen.
Finally gave up when the water refused to be contained, and went down to the Rappahannock to read on the dock before jetting. Followed, of course, by Goldens. While the younger two swam in the murky water, the older, possibly the mom, laid her head in my lap and looked up adoringly at me while I read. The lonely chronicler was comforted by this gesture of canine affection and was loath to once more make his unholy pact with the road.
However, drive I did. The only thing worth noting was completing “Winesburg, Ohio” and extended reflection on the sad, claustrophobic world simply and strangely rendered there.
The temperature dropped and grayness predominated as soon as I reached Baltimore, and by the time I got to Pennsyltucky, it was all misty and raining, just as it had been when I did during my long drive across the state back in November. Arrived at Sam’s place in Dillsburg with the last light. Spent a great night with the man who really got me on speaking terms with the Bard and that blind poet who glorified satan back when I was long haired lad of twenty. We had a Cajun feast, drank the healing brew named in Sam’s honor, swapped songs, and talked of many things. Before any was the wiser, it had become 2am.
The next day I had a head on with nostalgia when I accompanied Sam back to me alma mater, where I haven’t been since graduation in ’92. Once again, a grey, overcast, cold day. I walked with Sam to Boyer, the monolithic new, swanky building, where his office is. From there, on to all the spots of undergraduate earnestness and folly. Naugle, much the same, but the view of the tracks blocked by new trees. Hess, where I used to climb the gutter up to my window, now joined to Miller and Grantham, a new dorm. The dining commons, the train tracks, the covered bridge. In fact, I even looked under the covered bridge where I hoped to find the only evidence of us, of our time here--that is, of course, where Shawny spray-painted Debaser. Couldn’t find it Goldy; you sure it’s still there?
J term classes didn’t start for another 2 days, so there weren’t too many students around, mainly professors and maintenance folks keeping the grounds pristine. It was strange to see mainly these people, the behind the scenes people who were mainly invisible to me when I was here, yet always there, grooming our little Liberal Arts paradise for us.
So many big and small memories, sensations. As I cut straight across the lawn in front of Eisenhower, I recall Lamar Nisly writing an editorial in the school paper in which he said that when people cut across the lawn instead of using the paths, it “really tested his Mennonite pacifism.” As I walked the path to Hess I remember running with the lads up from Lottie Nelson in naught but our undies on a dare. Trying to sneak onto the roof of Eisenhower. The corners I’d trysted in.
Melancholic in that way you inevitably feel visiting a place that used to be yours, which is now occupied by others, who look at you like you’re an intruder. Even though it had been over ten years, I had managed to preserve everything pretty well in my head—at least the parts that hadn’t changed. This could also be partly due to all the anxiety dreams I often have, most of which involve me not getting all my credits and needing to come back for one more year or semester. Or the ones where I’m working on a paper and go to the bathroom and get lost wandering endless institutional halls and stairways. So memory populates the terrain of the past with ghosts.
Sunday, January 04, 2004
Below, a message from my friend Mr. Coar, who has magically intuited everything I've been doing in the many sizable gaps in my blahwg. Squatzy, I knew you had ESP, but I never before knew the full extent of your skills...
No Blogs, No word. Lost, are you, in the vacuous, smog filled monopoly world of lost angeles? Or in a peyote induced spirit quest in a musky southwest sweat lodge? pehaps smothered on the overly perfumed limbs of a pile of working girls in a multi-themed Nevada brothel? Running with the bison, as if Hemingway in Pamploma, across the great plains wearing nothing but a loincloth cut from a fallen beast with your swiss army knife? On the nod after a week sniffing powder with grizzled cool-jazz catz near the san fran docks? Contemplating lifes twists atop the craggled snow peaked rockies? recording another opus with the memphis horns in a sweaty tobacco stained studio haunted with the ghosts of greats, one hit wonders and never were's? Lost in the swimmingpool eyes of some lovely cornfed american girl as she falls, arms spread as an invitation, into a mountain of hay? Or are you just pulling out of an arbys with a bagful of dinner onto a crowded commercial strip looking for a cheap fleabit motel to crash in. These are things I need to know. Happy New Year my friend. Scot
No Blogs, No word. Lost, are you, in the vacuous, smog filled monopoly world of lost angeles? Or in a peyote induced spirit quest in a musky southwest sweat lodge? pehaps smothered on the overly perfumed limbs of a pile of working girls in a multi-themed Nevada brothel? Running with the bison, as if Hemingway in Pamploma, across the great plains wearing nothing but a loincloth cut from a fallen beast with your swiss army knife? On the nod after a week sniffing powder with grizzled cool-jazz catz near the san fran docks? Contemplating lifes twists atop the craggled snow peaked rockies? recording another opus with the memphis horns in a sweaty tobacco stained studio haunted with the ghosts of greats, one hit wonders and never were's? Lost in the swimmingpool eyes of some lovely cornfed american girl as she falls, arms spread as an invitation, into a mountain of hay? Or are you just pulling out of an arbys with a bagful of dinner onto a crowded commercial strip looking for a cheap fleabit motel to crash in. These are things I need to know. Happy New Year my friend. Scot
1/2-3/04 Wake, Virginia Od: 101,806
Got up before the sun this morning, had toast and coffee with Jess, said goodbye, and we both hit the road: she to pick up Charlie & Sarah from her mom’s house in Charlotte, and me northward. One last stop at the beach to watch the sun begin to rise, then back on the open road.
I felt like shit most of the drive and had to park at a rest stop and close my eyes for an hour, though I don’t think I slept. At first I just attributed my feeling to getting up early after a bad night’s sleep, but six queasy hours later, I had to admit I was sick.
I arrived at the Sangraal By the Sea hostel mid afternoon and was immediately greeted by three golden retrievers who proceeded to follow me everywhere. The owners are away on vacation and all instructions for checking in where provided by a series of old, yellowing, notes. There’s quite a compound here: a huge main house where the owners live, with four guest cottages behind it. 1 and 3 seem to have month to month renters in them. Hostelers stay in 3, where I dropped off my stuff and went for a walk. The hostel is a minute’s walk from an inlet of the Rapahannock River, which I walked down to with a full canine escort. The little cove the path led to was a mostly swampy area, a pier jutting out into the much, the view of the rest of the river blocked by a promontory. I followed a nearby path, but it was too overgrown to get far and I began to feel dizzy. (The path, I later discovered, was impassable due to havoc wreaked by Hurricane Isabel). I settled for heading back to the pier, where I lay down and read Ponge till the sun began to set and I got too chilly. When I got up to leave, I discovered one of the retrievers had been waiting dutifully beside the path for me to return, and it walked me back.
I climbed, shivering and feverish, into my sleeping bag and began reading Pessoa’s “Book of Disquiet,” which is the kind of brutally honest journal, which by comparison, makes this document I’m keeping feel like something that deserves to be called a blog. Then again, I feel too wiped right now to do much more than just try to give a basic account of my day. So I turned pages until Al arrived, my hostel-mate for the night. I descended my ladder to the common area and had my first sustenance since 6 am toast: a Yeungling black and tan, while talking with Al. He’s here from Worcester, MA, of all places, and we talked for quite awhile about dear old Massachusetts and all the places he’d visited today in Virginia. He made me wish I’d stopped in Norfolk or Jamestown on my way up. Then again, the way I’ve been feeling, I was eager to get somewhere I could just rest. Which I why I will sign out now and hopefully feel well enough to say more tomorrow.
* * *
Did feel somewhat better today, at least I did until I climbed down, went to the bathroom and flushed the toilet which proceeded to overflow all over the floor. Not long before Al had discovered all was not well in the cabin’s septic system when the water in his shower refused to go down. So I started the day mopping up water and pee in the bathroom, then I took a shower once all was under control, only to discover, once in the shower, that the water did not smell so good. Ugh, makes my still somewhat unsettled stomach shift to speculate too much.
On to more pleasant matters; drove to Stingray Point and walked along shore of the Chesepeake. It was a gorgeous day: bright sunny and low 70s. I was expecting that Virginia would be the state where I crossed over from the almost-summery weather back into more-or-less-winter, but it was nicer today than any of the days I spent in North Carolina. Yet another gift.
From there I drove down to Jamestown, taking the Colonial Parkway, which is a beautiful, pokey road along the James river with “Historic Spots” ever 2 inches or so. I pulled over often to take in the sights and bird watch. (I’ve done quite a bit of bird watching this trip. I had a great day of it on my birthday, kayaking around Town Lake in Austin, spying on the herons, swans, ducks, and this strange blue headed, pointy beaked critter. Wish my Sibley’s guide hadn’t been destroyed in the flood.)
Got to Jamestown and had a fun time walking around, trying to imagine how it all looked in 1607 based on the rubble, or rather, the reconstructed rubble. Too protect the fragments, they re-buried them and built exact replicas on the ground above. This is the kind of painstaking stuff I never thought about when I used to fantasize about being an archaeologist just like Indiana Jones. There were monuments and plaques everywhere, my favorite being one dedicated to Jamestown’s first pastor, who was praised, among other things “because he endured great privations but was never heard to repine.” I bet he repined plenty when his parishioners weren’t around.
Took the ferry (called the Pocahontas, of course) across the James and back, in the last strong hour of sunlight. My favorite thing about that experience was the way all the gulls floated above and beside the boat, barely flapping, just hanging there, gliding on air currents.
Wish I could hover here, on the brink of winter, two jobs, finding a new apartment. My quest ends soon, too soon.
Saw a billboard yesterday on rte 40 with huge, curved letters advertising what I thought was ANTI QUEST, but without the t at the end. I wondered what the anti quest is. I wondered where the “t” went. Then I realized the sign was for ANTIQUES, which was a bummer. I imagine an Anti Quest would entail something like Percival setting out on a journey with the express purpose of losing the Holy Grail in some godforsaken bog where no other knight may find it.
Got up before the sun this morning, had toast and coffee with Jess, said goodbye, and we both hit the road: she to pick up Charlie & Sarah from her mom’s house in Charlotte, and me northward. One last stop at the beach to watch the sun begin to rise, then back on the open road.
I felt like shit most of the drive and had to park at a rest stop and close my eyes for an hour, though I don’t think I slept. At first I just attributed my feeling to getting up early after a bad night’s sleep, but six queasy hours later, I had to admit I was sick.
I arrived at the Sangraal By the Sea hostel mid afternoon and was immediately greeted by three golden retrievers who proceeded to follow me everywhere. The owners are away on vacation and all instructions for checking in where provided by a series of old, yellowing, notes. There’s quite a compound here: a huge main house where the owners live, with four guest cottages behind it. 1 and 3 seem to have month to month renters in them. Hostelers stay in 3, where I dropped off my stuff and went for a walk. The hostel is a minute’s walk from an inlet of the Rapahannock River, which I walked down to with a full canine escort. The little cove the path led to was a mostly swampy area, a pier jutting out into the much, the view of the rest of the river blocked by a promontory. I followed a nearby path, but it was too overgrown to get far and I began to feel dizzy. (The path, I later discovered, was impassable due to havoc wreaked by Hurricane Isabel). I settled for heading back to the pier, where I lay down and read Ponge till the sun began to set and I got too chilly. When I got up to leave, I discovered one of the retrievers had been waiting dutifully beside the path for me to return, and it walked me back.
I climbed, shivering and feverish, into my sleeping bag and began reading Pessoa’s “Book of Disquiet,” which is the kind of brutally honest journal, which by comparison, makes this document I’m keeping feel like something that deserves to be called a blog. Then again, I feel too wiped right now to do much more than just try to give a basic account of my day. So I turned pages until Al arrived, my hostel-mate for the night. I descended my ladder to the common area and had my first sustenance since 6 am toast: a Yeungling black and tan, while talking with Al. He’s here from Worcester, MA, of all places, and we talked for quite awhile about dear old Massachusetts and all the places he’d visited today in Virginia. He made me wish I’d stopped in Norfolk or Jamestown on my way up. Then again, the way I’ve been feeling, I was eager to get somewhere I could just rest. Which I why I will sign out now and hopefully feel well enough to say more tomorrow.
* * *
Did feel somewhat better today, at least I did until I climbed down, went to the bathroom and flushed the toilet which proceeded to overflow all over the floor. Not long before Al had discovered all was not well in the cabin’s septic system when the water in his shower refused to go down. So I started the day mopping up water and pee in the bathroom, then I took a shower once all was under control, only to discover, once in the shower, that the water did not smell so good. Ugh, makes my still somewhat unsettled stomach shift to speculate too much.
On to more pleasant matters; drove to Stingray Point and walked along shore of the Chesepeake. It was a gorgeous day: bright sunny and low 70s. I was expecting that Virginia would be the state where I crossed over from the almost-summery weather back into more-or-less-winter, but it was nicer today than any of the days I spent in North Carolina. Yet another gift.
From there I drove down to Jamestown, taking the Colonial Parkway, which is a beautiful, pokey road along the James river with “Historic Spots” ever 2 inches or so. I pulled over often to take in the sights and bird watch. (I’ve done quite a bit of bird watching this trip. I had a great day of it on my birthday, kayaking around Town Lake in Austin, spying on the herons, swans, ducks, and this strange blue headed, pointy beaked critter. Wish my Sibley’s guide hadn’t been destroyed in the flood.)
Got to Jamestown and had a fun time walking around, trying to imagine how it all looked in 1607 based on the rubble, or rather, the reconstructed rubble. Too protect the fragments, they re-buried them and built exact replicas on the ground above. This is the kind of painstaking stuff I never thought about when I used to fantasize about being an archaeologist just like Indiana Jones. There were monuments and plaques everywhere, my favorite being one dedicated to Jamestown’s first pastor, who was praised, among other things “because he endured great privations but was never heard to repine.” I bet he repined plenty when his parishioners weren’t around.
Took the ferry (called the Pocahontas, of course) across the James and back, in the last strong hour of sunlight. My favorite thing about that experience was the way all the gulls floated above and beside the boat, barely flapping, just hanging there, gliding on air currents.
Wish I could hover here, on the brink of winter, two jobs, finding a new apartment. My quest ends soon, too soon.
Saw a billboard yesterday on rte 40 with huge, curved letters advertising what I thought was ANTI QUEST, but without the t at the end. I wondered what the anti quest is. I wondered where the “t” went. Then I realized the sign was for ANTIQUES, which was a bummer. I imagine an Anti Quest would entail something like Percival setting out on a journey with the express purpose of losing the Holy Grail in some godforsaken bog where no other knight may find it.
Friday, January 02, 2004
Books on Tape Review:
“Lolita” read by Jeremy Irons
*****
Never saw the Irons as Humbert version of the movie, but hearing him read made me want to. He understands and expresses all of Nabokov’s nuances. No road trip longer than a month is complete without Lolita.
“The Mill On the Floss” George Eliot
****1/2
Only got half way through this book when I had to read it in Nisly’s “English Novel” class back in undergrad. My loss. Awesome.
“Into The Wild”Jon Krakeur
****
I’m still thinking about McCandless a month later. Potent stuff. McCandless’s idealism, naivety, bravery, recklessness, intelligence, stupidity, arrogance, and humility make him a pretty compelling cat.
“E Tu, Babe?”Mark Leynor
****
Makes your gut hurt from laughing. For real. Save this or the longest, least scenic stretch of road.
Short Stories of Philip K. Dick
***
As with much sci fi, the ideas often way more compelling and engrossing than the storytelling, dialogue, character development. And the reader, Keir Dullea: really annoying.
“Life of Pi” Yann Martel
***
Good story, often great writing. A lot gets wasted , though, and some passages were so dumb I found it hard to keep listening. For instance, author spends a long time developing the main dude, Pi, and how he comes to convert to and simultaneously practice Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianty—then completely does nothing with this fascinating paradoxical practice.
“The Wild Blue” Stephen Ambrose
the story itself **** the personal spin Ambrose puts on the story *
Often fascinating accounts of WW2 B24 bomber pilots, in particular, George McGovern and his crew. Lots of patriotic gloss and editorializing by Ambrose. The conditions the crewhad to endure in the course of a typical mission are unbelievable.
“Sin Killer” Larry McMurtry
*1/2 Blech.
I got less than halfway through and couldn’t stand it. Bad historical fiction with no likable characters.
“Six Stories by Louis L’Amour”
**
Better than Sin Killer because Louis sticks with straightforward western clichés and one dimensional characters rather than pretend he’s writing serious literature, like Larry. Plus the authentic country western synthesizers and realistic gun shots give Louis a clear edge.
“Beowulf”
I’m not gonna attempt to star rate the big B, but I will note that I did not find it the best travel tape—that is, if your goal, like mine, was to seriously understand and follow the whole convoluted thing without constantly rewinding.
“Winesburg, Ohio” by Sherwood Anderson
I’m only halfway through, but so far I say that you should believe the hype. The version I got has a different contemporary fiction writer reading each story, which I like, though some are really hard to listen to, like Richard Ford who inserts these maddening, unnecessary pauses everywhere.
Tom Waits bootlegs
Very much like a great book of short short stories, not only because many songs are basically short stores (“Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis”), but also for the stories he tells between songs.
Cracker Barrel stores rent books on the tapes, which you can rent in one store and return at any other. Very cool, but the selection is pretty narrow; because Cracker Barrel orders all its books on tape from one company, I found almost the exact same tapes in Billings, MT that I found in Yuma, or Nashville.
“Lolita” read by Jeremy Irons
*****
Never saw the Irons as Humbert version of the movie, but hearing him read made me want to. He understands and expresses all of Nabokov’s nuances. No road trip longer than a month is complete without Lolita.
“The Mill On the Floss” George Eliot
****1/2
Only got half way through this book when I had to read it in Nisly’s “English Novel” class back in undergrad. My loss. Awesome.
“Into The Wild”Jon Krakeur
****
I’m still thinking about McCandless a month later. Potent stuff. McCandless’s idealism, naivety, bravery, recklessness, intelligence, stupidity, arrogance, and humility make him a pretty compelling cat.
“E Tu, Babe?”Mark Leynor
****
Makes your gut hurt from laughing. For real. Save this or the longest, least scenic stretch of road.
Short Stories of Philip K. Dick
***
As with much sci fi, the ideas often way more compelling and engrossing than the storytelling, dialogue, character development. And the reader, Keir Dullea: really annoying.
“Life of Pi” Yann Martel
***
Good story, often great writing. A lot gets wasted , though, and some passages were so dumb I found it hard to keep listening. For instance, author spends a long time developing the main dude, Pi, and how he comes to convert to and simultaneously practice Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianty—then completely does nothing with this fascinating paradoxical practice.
“The Wild Blue” Stephen Ambrose
the story itself **** the personal spin Ambrose puts on the story *
Often fascinating accounts of WW2 B24 bomber pilots, in particular, George McGovern and his crew. Lots of patriotic gloss and editorializing by Ambrose. The conditions the crewhad to endure in the course of a typical mission are unbelievable.
“Sin Killer” Larry McMurtry
*1/2 Blech.
I got less than halfway through and couldn’t stand it. Bad historical fiction with no likable characters.
“Six Stories by Louis L’Amour”
**
Better than Sin Killer because Louis sticks with straightforward western clichés and one dimensional characters rather than pretend he’s writing serious literature, like Larry. Plus the authentic country western synthesizers and realistic gun shots give Louis a clear edge.
“Beowulf”
I’m not gonna attempt to star rate the big B, but I will note that I did not find it the best travel tape—that is, if your goal, like mine, was to seriously understand and follow the whole convoluted thing without constantly rewinding.
“Winesburg, Ohio” by Sherwood Anderson
I’m only halfway through, but so far I say that you should believe the hype. The version I got has a different contemporary fiction writer reading each story, which I like, though some are really hard to listen to, like Richard Ford who inserts these maddening, unnecessary pauses everywhere.
Tom Waits bootlegs
Very much like a great book of short short stories, not only because many songs are basically short stores (“Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis”), but also for the stories he tells between songs.
Cracker Barrel stores rent books on the tapes, which you can rent in one store and return at any other. Very cool, but the selection is pretty narrow; because Cracker Barrel orders all its books on tape from one company, I found almost the exact same tapes in Billings, MT that I found in Yuma, or Nashville.
Thursday, January 01, 2004
New Year’s Day 2:27 a.m Carolina Beach, NC
Jess and I just got back from the beach where we watched fireworks with glasses and champagne. Looked for hermit crabs. We laughed at the fireworks that seemed to dud, deciding that they were just a little too tired to put out: maybe in their next incarnation. I read Ponge out loud by flashlight, “Mollusks,” because we were shining the flashlight around hoping to catch sight of hermit crabs or other crustaceous critters. I wanted to read her “Oysters” too, because I had a bucket of steamed oysters this afternoon in a beachside lesbian bar (so Jess told me later) called “The Silver Dollar.”We slow danced to Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” We both had our own particular style of twirl: Jess’s very elegant, mine was very whirling dervish, but maybe that was the pointy blue gnome hat I was wearing. Drinking champagne reminded me of when I worked at the Ramada and all the dishwashers and prep chefs would go back by the dumpster and drink the bottles of champagne left over from wedding parties in the function room.
I had hoped to make it down to pier tonight, since this has become my late night ritual. Last night I met a fisherman who was packing it up for the night. His only catches that night had been sand sharks, two or three feet long, all of which he threw back. I would love to see and smell a live, wild shark up close, provided I’m out of biting range.
I could write a whole blog just based on short, more or less random, encounters I’ve had with strangers during my trip. Like the trucker at the rest stop between Sonora and Austin (on that road where I must’ve seen 40 road killed deer). He was keeping his golf arm trim by hitting a ball with his nine iron around the twenty square foot patch of grass in the center of the rest stop.
I wandered up and down the beach today with my Gremlin ukulele and got looks so curious you would’ve thought I was actually carrying a gremlin around, a mogwai, perhaps. Made up silly songs and read. Did not make resolutions, but if I did, they might be:
1. Eat more steamed oysters in 2004.
2. make a strap for my uke using that old Wrangler belt.
3. Invent the personal jet pack.
4. Whenever possible, discourage youngsters from forming Degarmo & Key cover bands.
5. Have more flying dreams, both with and without jetpack.
6. Try to do less stupid stuff, and when I do, don’t publicly blog myself with it.
7. Eat cracklin once more, but only once.
8. Dance like a dervish whenever possible, whether or not it further alienates me from other earthlings.
9. Find an above ground dwelling place.
10. Finish The Man Without Qualities already.
11. Trick George Bush into joining a Peebo Bryson/ Billy Ocean cover band.
12. Continue to feed and deepen my addiction to hot sauce and coffee.
13. Make the Dio “devil’s horns” with my hand less often, and when I do do it, really deeply feel it and mean it.
14. Live in such a way that I cause more portals to open up in the fabric of the lives around me.
15. Remember all my dreams, especially the flying dreams.
16. Kick it with a tasty groove.
Jess and I just got back from the beach where we watched fireworks with glasses and champagne. Looked for hermit crabs. We laughed at the fireworks that seemed to dud, deciding that they were just a little too tired to put out: maybe in their next incarnation. I read Ponge out loud by flashlight, “Mollusks,” because we were shining the flashlight around hoping to catch sight of hermit crabs or other crustaceous critters. I wanted to read her “Oysters” too, because I had a bucket of steamed oysters this afternoon in a beachside lesbian bar (so Jess told me later) called “The Silver Dollar.”We slow danced to Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” We both had our own particular style of twirl: Jess’s very elegant, mine was very whirling dervish, but maybe that was the pointy blue gnome hat I was wearing. Drinking champagne reminded me of when I worked at the Ramada and all the dishwashers and prep chefs would go back by the dumpster and drink the bottles of champagne left over from wedding parties in the function room.
I had hoped to make it down to pier tonight, since this has become my late night ritual. Last night I met a fisherman who was packing it up for the night. His only catches that night had been sand sharks, two or three feet long, all of which he threw back. I would love to see and smell a live, wild shark up close, provided I’m out of biting range.
I could write a whole blog just based on short, more or less random, encounters I’ve had with strangers during my trip. Like the trucker at the rest stop between Sonora and Austin (on that road where I must’ve seen 40 road killed deer). He was keeping his golf arm trim by hitting a ball with his nine iron around the twenty square foot patch of grass in the center of the rest stop.
I wandered up and down the beach today with my Gremlin ukulele and got looks so curious you would’ve thought I was actually carrying a gremlin around, a mogwai, perhaps. Made up silly songs and read. Did not make resolutions, but if I did, they might be:
1. Eat more steamed oysters in 2004.
2. make a strap for my uke using that old Wrangler belt.
3. Invent the personal jet pack.
4. Whenever possible, discourage youngsters from forming Degarmo & Key cover bands.
5. Have more flying dreams, both with and without jetpack.
6. Try to do less stupid stuff, and when I do, don’t publicly blog myself with it.
7. Eat cracklin once more, but only once.
8. Dance like a dervish whenever possible, whether or not it further alienates me from other earthlings.
9. Find an above ground dwelling place.
10. Finish The Man Without Qualities already.
11. Trick George Bush into joining a Peebo Bryson/ Billy Ocean cover band.
12. Continue to feed and deepen my addiction to hot sauce and coffee.
13. Make the Dio “devil’s horns” with my hand less often, and when I do do it, really deeply feel it and mean it.
14. Live in such a way that I cause more portals to open up in the fabric of the lives around me.
15. Remember all my dreams, especially the flying dreams.
16. Kick it with a tasty groove.
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
!2/29, 30/03 late Carolina Beach, NC
A seaside town; prefab condos on stilts. Stylish, seedy, salty, patrolled by pelicans, seagulls. More beautiful for its grit. I love being by the ocean, omniscient, ancient entity, a complex relationship of forces. A constant ferment. Just got back from walking by myself along the beach late, listening to the waves, speaking to an invisible being whose replies I sometimes try to transcribe into poems and songs.
I walked up and down the beach, the boardwalk, the town. I was able to enjoy the delicious solitude that is rarer than I’d like. During this trip, experienced as many kinds of being alone as there are Eskimo words for snow, as there are names for God or Satan. There was the way I felt revisiting my house in Carol Stream, after twenty two years. The vast field I played in paved over, covered with houses. My house, which was my house, and has always been my mental image of what a home looks like, reduced to a nice, attractive, utterly anonymous suburban home, the mulberry tree gone, the garage door painted a more olive shade of green. And there was the 37 pushups in a winter rate, sea side motel (to quote Smog) kind of feeling. And being with new people that you must hide your loneliness from. And the eight hours in the car, alone with the recorded voices of actors reading books or the drug of music—an exacting, but thoroughly inexact alchemy: today I need to listen this tape, but only the first three songs on the first side and the last song on the second side. If I do so, I can count on not feeling lonely, depressed, or—far worse—bored, for a good, oh, another ten minutes or so. At which point a new alchemic remedy must be concocted. But the delicious solitude: I had it tonight, and I’ve been lucky to experience it often during my journey.
Talked about the difference between solitude and loneliness on the phone with Bella tonight, who spent three and a half days alone, beginning Christmas eve, because she had a really serious bout with the flu. The kind of solitude that has none of the noble exalting qualities one associates with the word “solitude,” like “peace,” “repose,” “quietude,” or “stillness,” except in the sense that she was too sick to move much. And yet she reported that one of the outcomes of this enforced solitude was a renewed appreciation for the drive to work, for work itself, even though in her case, work is often very hard and draining.
Obviously, ideal solitude is chosen, not forced upon you, and too much of the wrong kind of loneliness can *make* you sick, can erode your psyche. But worse is the fear of solitude, than the inability to handle being alone for an extended period of time.
Been reading the fantastic, effervescent proems of Francis Ponge today. After reading them for a while, you begin to feel like you can spy on the solitary, sacred lives of things. Time to climb into bed and read more of this poet whose last name I do not know how to pronounce.
A seaside town; prefab condos on stilts. Stylish, seedy, salty, patrolled by pelicans, seagulls. More beautiful for its grit. I love being by the ocean, omniscient, ancient entity, a complex relationship of forces. A constant ferment. Just got back from walking by myself along the beach late, listening to the waves, speaking to an invisible being whose replies I sometimes try to transcribe into poems and songs.
I walked up and down the beach, the boardwalk, the town. I was able to enjoy the delicious solitude that is rarer than I’d like. During this trip, experienced as many kinds of being alone as there are Eskimo words for snow, as there are names for God or Satan. There was the way I felt revisiting my house in Carol Stream, after twenty two years. The vast field I played in paved over, covered with houses. My house, which was my house, and has always been my mental image of what a home looks like, reduced to a nice, attractive, utterly anonymous suburban home, the mulberry tree gone, the garage door painted a more olive shade of green. And there was the 37 pushups in a winter rate, sea side motel (to quote Smog) kind of feeling. And being with new people that you must hide your loneliness from. And the eight hours in the car, alone with the recorded voices of actors reading books or the drug of music—an exacting, but thoroughly inexact alchemy: today I need to listen this tape, but only the first three songs on the first side and the last song on the second side. If I do so, I can count on not feeling lonely, depressed, or—far worse—bored, for a good, oh, another ten minutes or so. At which point a new alchemic remedy must be concocted. But the delicious solitude: I had it tonight, and I’ve been lucky to experience it often during my journey.
Talked about the difference between solitude and loneliness on the phone with Bella tonight, who spent three and a half days alone, beginning Christmas eve, because she had a really serious bout with the flu. The kind of solitude that has none of the noble exalting qualities one associates with the word “solitude,” like “peace,” “repose,” “quietude,” or “stillness,” except in the sense that she was too sick to move much. And yet she reported that one of the outcomes of this enforced solitude was a renewed appreciation for the drive to work, for work itself, even though in her case, work is often very hard and draining.
Obviously, ideal solitude is chosen, not forced upon you, and too much of the wrong kind of loneliness can *make* you sick, can erode your psyche. But worse is the fear of solitude, than the inability to handle being alone for an extended period of time.
Been reading the fantastic, effervescent proems of Francis Ponge today. After reading them for a while, you begin to feel like you can spy on the solitary, sacred lives of things. Time to climb into bed and read more of this poet whose last name I do not know how to pronounce.
