Long
after: (LaFarge,1999) One word has been substituted.
Madison Avenue: I
was the Assistant Traffic Manager at Monroe Greenthal Advertising.
Accounts included movie companies (Universal, United Artists, et al.),
theaters, along with real estate interests. A few years after I resigned
Monroe died on the golf course.
sick of
the city: (Skilling, 1983)
Provincetown: "Provincetown
is a tolerant and fatalistic town, that over the years has been pummeled
by all the furies---storms, foreign invasions, and sandy avalanches.
Time and again it has been discovered anew, manly because it is geographically
remote. It reaches twenty-five miles into the Atlantic Ocean,situated
on the land's end of Cape Cod---as well as Massachusetts. 'Hard to
get to and get out of,' wrote (Eugene) O'Neill in 1917 from his Provincetown
home." (Egan,1994)
stoned eyes: J.
Weishaus. From, "Fourteen Brooklyn Poems." Written during
three-month stay in New York City.
God's Eye Theater: The
God's Eye Theater was located on Frederick, near Stanyon, Street. The
was owned by Michael Hamburger.
to his final: (Liebert,
1983)
This same: See,
D.H. Rosen, "Suicide Survivors: A Follow-up Study of Persons Who
Survived Jumping from the Golden Gate and San Francisco-Oakland Bay
Bridges." Western Journal of Medicine. April 1975. Also, "Suicide
Survivors: Psychotherapeutic Implications of Egocide." Paper
presented at the 8th International Congress on Suicide Prevention.
Jerusalem, October 21, 1976.
Sam Rivers: "In
the fall of 1956, I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I decided
to go to Miami. Billie Holliday was there...After work everyone would
go to the Sir John Motel to jam until 8 or 9 in the morning. I played
next to Billie...Then I had an attack, broke out in cold sweat, felt
faint. Billie noticed and told me to go outside...When I came back
she was singing Detour Ahead. (H. Ellis, L. Carter, J. Frigo.
Billie Holiday recorded Detour Ahead for Aladdin Records in
New York City, April 29, 1951.) I listened to the anguish in her voice and the
lyrics seemed to be about my own problems. I started to cry,"
(Hentoff,1976) Sam Rivers went on to play with such notables as Miles Davis,
and became one of the most inventive musicians of our time.
stares: Géza Róheim "explains
that (Athena) is the inventor of a type of flute used in war and said
to imitate the hissing of the serpents produced when Perseus severs
Medusa's head." (Siebers, 1983)
Yes, my brother: W.
Whitman. From, "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking."
a doorway: Prem
Das. In, J. Halifax, Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives.
New York, 1979. "Another footnote from Eliade's book (Shamanism):
'The motif of doors that open for the initiated and remain open only
a short time is quite frequent in shamanic and other legends...' An
image of stargates in the brain?" (Murphy, 1977)
at the end of August: I
had to report for six months of active duty with the Army Reserve,
Combat Engineers. The young man who owned the hearse, a student at
Princeton University, said, "Why do you want to go into the Army?" I
didn't.
met her in Provincetown: J.
Weishaus. "Of Her Dreaming."
Vasulka's: Woody
Vasulka (Bohuslav Peter) was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, 1937. In
1965, he and his wife, Steina, moved to New York City, where they became
pioneers in analogue Video Art. The Vasulkas presently reside in Santa
Fe, NM.
Phil Whalen: Born
in Portland, Oregon, October 20, 1923, At Reed College, Whalen roomed
with poets Gary Snyder and Lew Welch. The most "postmodern" of
the Beats, he is presently a Zen Monk, living in San Francisco.
a beautiful little place: (Boyd,1978).
Boyd continues, "Rolling thunder 'recognized' this place. He knew
that in the old days medicine men would come have to find herbal medicines
with special powers that grew nowhere else. This was one of the 'energy
centers' of the body of the earth."
Bolinas
home: John Doss
was a San Francisco physician. After taking LSD, for the next
year his practice consisted of walking the beach. When asked
what he was doing, Dr. Doss said, "I'm rearranging my molecules." Margot
Patterson Doss was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
She published several books on walking tours of the Bay Area.
Their house in Bolinas was a center for visits by the Beat Poets,
politicians, physicians, and assorted interesting people.
I am still alive: P.
Whalen. From, "Plum, Metaphysics, An Investigation, A Visit, and
A Short Funeral Ode."
circumambulation: "Walking
meditation, circumambulation, pradakshina, is one of the most ancient
human spiritual exercises. On such walks one stops at notable spots
to sing a song, or to chant invocations and praises, such as mantras,
songs, or little sutras." (Snyder, 1996)
Mt. Tamalpais: Just
north of San Francisco, CA., in Marin Co., the mountain is sacred to
the Miwok tribe.
in ancient Israel: M.
Perniola, "Between Clothing and Nudity." (Feher, 1989).
Frances
Yates' book: (Yates, 1966.)
After this exhibition, Woody began using "The Art of Memory" as
the title of his video.
after entering: (Dogen,
1985).
"The writing of the scriptures requires the concealment
of the writers, as if to write
were in the first place to go into hiding, hence perhaps the long association
of writing
and exile, as against speech and public life." Gerald L. Bruns, Inventions:
Writing,
Textuality, and Understanding in Literary History. New Haven, 1982. p.26.
charismatic: "Charisma
in classical antiquity meant exactly what it does in the pagan mass
media: glamour, a Scottish word signifying, as Kenneth Burke points
out, a magic 'haze in the air.' around persons or things." (Paglia,
1990)
modern
man: M.
Foucault.
his whole career: Said
to me during a dinner at the Gary and Masa's Snyders' temporary home
on a parcel of private land on Mt. Tamalpais, before they moved to
Kitkitdizze, near Nevada City, CA. The house was furnished Japanese
style. The windows had a device that made it look like it was raining
outside. Snyder said that the owner, an architect, had designed it
to persuade his women guests to spend the night.
Ettawa Springs: Located
in Lake Co., CA., about 100 miles north of San Francisco, ten miles
out of Middletown, on a back road. The cabin and its 160 acres of Oak
and Pine was owned by Dr. & Mrs. O.W. Hills of San Mateo, CA.
O I am happy: A.
Ginsberg. From, "Today."
holes in a fish net: J.
Weishaus, "Earth: A Basket." Written in Lake Co., CA., home
of the Pomo Indians, noted for their superb basket making.
I wrote to Bob Callahan (30 Oct 74), who was publishing
Jaime de Angulo's
"Old Time Stories," adaptations of Lake County and Miwok myths. Callahan
referred me to Henry Maudlin, an independent scholar living in Lakeport.
In reply to my inquiry Mr. Mauldin wrote, "At my home is 7,000 pages of
typed
history of Lake County, much of it to do with the subjects (local Indian Culture)
you mentioned above. To find one's way around these pages of typed material
there is 16,000 index cards which make it easy to find what one wants..."
non-hierarchical: Bogue,1989).
a constant dialogue: Boyd,
1974).
gray
Jewish: J.
Weishaus, "Sam the Sufi."
tumbling: J.
Weishaus. From, "Four Block Poems."
I see: M. McClure.
From, "THE BLOSSOM, or Billy the Kid."
buried in an abyss: D.
Hoffman,"Chronicles of Cartaphilus, the Wandering Jew." (1853).
In, Gaer, 1961.
skeletons: "in
certain Central Asian meditations that are Buddhistic and tantric in
origin, or at least in structure, reduction to the skeleton condition
has, rather, an ascetic and metaphysical value anticipating the work
of time, reducing life by thought to what it really is, an ephemeral
illusion in perpetual transformation." (Eliade, 1963).
Sweetwater's: A
thriving business that served the north side of the University of New
Mexico, and where I would have coffee several mornings a week. Rather
than renew its lease, the university leveled it to make a parking lot.
roughly: (Hartley,
1989).
Straight Theater: Located
on Haight St., near Golden Gate Park, a former movie house, along with
the Fillmore Auditorium it hosted some of the first plugged-in Rock & Roll
bands in San Francisco.
I wandered: (Rheingold,
1988).
Joyce
was dictating: (Bork, 1967).
Whether or not: (Leonard,
1975). Morhei Uyeshiba, O-Sensei (Honorable Teacher), was the founder
of Aikido.
the only thing: (Browne,
1993)
There are times: C.G.
Jung told a story about visiting the Baptistry of the Orthodox in Ravenna,
with Toni Wolff. The Baptistry "was filled with a bluish light,
though there was no artificial lighting." Then they saw "beautiful
mosaics" on all sides, of about 12X16 ft, each depicting a baptism
scene.Soon after they had returned home, "C.A. Meier was going
to Italy and C.G. told him to be sure to visit Ravenna and see these
mosaics...When Dr. Meier returned from Italy he told C.G. that he had
gone to the Baptistry in Ravenna but that there were no mosaics there
of the kind he had described. Here was an experience which two people
had, yet how to explain it quite defeated him--he had no suggestion
to offer." (Bennet, 1985).
More ordinary: "(Henri)
Michaux does not search in the abnormal as an end in itself, but exploits
it in order to discover the normal. He adds: 'I would like to reveal
the "normal," the unknown, the unsuspected, the incredible,
the enormous normal...'" (Kuhn)
instead of simply: (Deleuze,1988).
Perhaps in the future: (Heisenberg,
1958).
while in his study: (McKenna,
1992).
If you live: (Eiseley,
1970). Eiseley died shortly before the comet's return.
which catapults: (Owens,
1979).
A feathered head: J.
Weishaus, "Untitled."
You sing in me: J.
Weishaus, "You Sing In Me."
certain animals: (Serres,
1992)
day of encountering: (Clark,
1990).
existential bewilderment: (Stephanson,1987).
is made of scrapes: (Hillman,
1979).
recyclable: "The
world is like a revolving die, and everything turns over, and man changes
to angel and angel to man, and the head to the foot and the foot to
the head. So all things turn over and revolve and are changed, this
into that and that into this, what is above to what is beneath and
what is beneath to what is above. For in the root all is one, and in
the transformation and return of things redemption is enclosed." Rabbi
Nachman of Bratzlav. (Buber, 1991).
one might think: (Derrida,
1989).
David
Rosen: David H. Rosen, M.D.,
presently holds an endowed chair in Jungian psychology, at Texas
A&M University, College Station, TX. He is also Professor
of Humanities in Medicine, and the author of several books, including Transforming
Depression (New York, 1992), and The Tao of Jung (New
York, 1996).
Place: "little
is known as yet about what we earlier called the 'sense of place' in
man. Its secrets are still locked from us in our inadequate knowledge
of nervous systems. Someday, when the study of our nervous systems
has advanced sufficiently, a startling and perhaps revolutionary new
import may reach geographical study in a full descriptive analysis
of the sense of place."
"The Science of Geography." In, Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on
Geography, National Academy of Science National Research Council, Washington
D.C. 1965.
at the extreme: (Bersani,1977).
familiar
shores: "According
to quantum physics, all things, including our bodies, persist
as they appear because they evoke a repetitive pattern of self-consciousness.
We get used to seeing things this way and not any other. Observation
seems the affect probabilities in a direct way." (Wolf,
1992).
Those who ask: G.
Mallasz, Talking with Angels. Einsiedln, Switzerland, 1992.
p.35
Seung Sahn: Zen
Master Seung Sahn (born Duk-In Lee, 1927) had moved to the U.S. in
1971, first to L.A., then to Providence, RI, where, while making his
living repairing washing machines, he founded a temple, which later
opened a branch in Cambridge. Seung Sahn took traditional training
in Korea, where he made a 100-day retreat, eating only pine needles,
dried and beaten into a powder, from which he temporarily turned a
light shade of green. An Eco-Zen Master.
leopards break: F.
Kafka (Goodman, 1947)
Alcibiades: (Benton,
1975)
slashes and curves: (Atwater,
1990).
what
he calls: (Dickson,
1990).
our
sacred sites: (Watson,1991).
one has no conception: R.
Motherwell. (E. De Antonio & M. Tuchman, 1984).
she don't paw at: J.
Weishaus, "Helen's Cat."
What sneaks past: J.
Weishaus, "In Passing"