Walter wants us to all walk around with radio telescope sombreros and GPS transponders so that we can form a massive telescope array. That, I told him, would meant that I would always know where he was and I didn’t think I was prepared for that type of familiarity. He says, No problem. I don’t go far. That’s not it, I say. I don’t think I’m prepared to deal with the specific knowledge of your 24-7 activity.
I am going to stay here and she is going to the ATM. We have been figuring how much money we have and we don’t have enough for cigarettes. I will stay here, he repeats. Me: “So you are going to serve as a hostage?” The bartender: “You might be doing dishes later. Hostage: “I’m your bar bitch.”
She says that Andy Warhol had told her that she was more masculine than any of his boyfriends. That’s why he liked me, she said. It’s the older woman two thirds of the way down the bar.
The NCAA tournament is on all the of TVs. Three different games are currently being shown on three different monitors. Every one has their money on a game. It’s on the line and they want to follow their money. They act more like stockbrokers than sports fans. They need frequent updates on the background of their team and its players. Some one in the room always knows what someone else is enquiring about. Real sports fans know and are proud to demonstrate. Stockbrokers and gamblers are manipulative, they are out to get better odds or to fix the game. The odds on favorite…calculating risk, placing money on the table …is this amateur sports or is it professional gaming?
Andy Warhol Lady: “We are not putting sports on only are we?” There is an immediate round of uhs from the crowd. Sacrilege! No one pays her any attention especially that who has control of the remote. She pouts. Sitting with her elbows on the bar and her face in her hands.
The Warhol Lady: I am seventy one years old” And I would have been willing to bet that she was younger than me. The lady sitting next to me doesn’t believe her. The Andy Warhol Lady gets out her divers license and hands it to her. “1933” says the other woman. Andy Warhol Lady: That’s right I am seventy one years old.” Nah says the other woman incredulously. She’s holding her Guinness in her right hand but occasionally puts it on the bar so as to that make some flourish with her hand to emphasize a point in her conversation.
And as the sun sets the frogs
Begin their nightly crocking
It is possible to distinguish at least four
Calls in the night
I put my things away including this
Notebook – it may rain
In the night or the temperature falls
Below the dew point
I listen to the sounds of the night
It is for fear that one builds a campfire
More than it is for heat
Fear of what can’t be seen
The woman who had left the hostage in order to cash in at the ATM and I are discussing fame and success and whether they are of any benefit to the holder or just to the beholder. Do celebrities sacrifice their lives for our sake? Are they searching for cruxification? Is it a form of religious experience? There are always a few, she says, for whom the process is a life style and not a sacrifice. Ronald Regan and Bob Hope come to my mind. I was trying to explain the role of sketching in my field notes and was explaining the black velvet painting “Destiny’s Road” at Hungary Joe’s. I was explaining to a women with a big “Red Bull Wings” tattoo on her back about Marylyn and her flaring chiffon dress and Jimmy’s silver spyder. Together we review the itinerary of James Dean’s last ride - our culture’s ultimate prosthetic memory.
She knows someone (everyone knows someone) who also had (or has, I don’t recall her exact phrasing) a silver Spyder. She and her boyfriend and her brother (they had just moved to the neighborhood a month ago) prepare to play darts. The bartender gives them a cloth to cover that portion of the bar below and around the dart board. I volunteer to move out of their way. “This man has graciously agreed to move,” she is telling her friend. “I am not be gracious,”, I tell her, “I making a tactical withdrawal for my own safety.” I take the seat that she had just vacated. She had earlier been talking about a big white dog that had stood up on its hind legs and scratched her back. “And it was sitting on this stool,” I asked? “No, it was located near where you are sitting. I was hollering” she said, “and the owner just kept saying that he would not bite.” “Yeah,” said the bartender, “that is one dumb dog.” “And,” he added, “the owner is even dumber.” The owner of the dog, I assumed. They lets the customers bring their dogs in here.
Except for the skeptics and whores among us, all flounder in falsehood because they fail to divine the equivalence, in nullity, of triumphs and truths – E M Cioran – A Short History of Decay, 1975 p42
I have been hired to work at an ice cream stand in the park. It is a busy place. It is like a large food stand at a street fair – there are two connected booths. The customers scramble to get served. There are more than can be readily accommodated. New fancy ice cream concoctions are being constantly invented by the staff and dished up. At first there is nothing for me to do but watch. She (the owner) tells me to tell Bob that I need to learn to make shakes. She also tells me to be very liberal in what I do. It is alright if you lose as much as $1,600. I tell her that I can be liberal. Good, she says and send me on my way. Bob is on break. I talk with the assistant manager. She’s a bitch. I told her that I would wait for Bob and observe. Bob knows that I am probably a spy for the owner and is leery of me. I don’t tell him that the owner has told be to be ‘liberal’ with the customers’ orders. I’m not quite sure what ‘being liberal’ really means – to undercharge them for their ice cream concoctions, build their concoctions from the most expensive ingredients, take credit on products even when I know that the chit will never be paid? I suspect that this is some kind of test.
Because memory and its intrusive nostalgias / lie down with us, / it helps to say we love each other, // each declaration a small erasure, the path / for a while reduced to a trace / the heart’s palimpest to a murmur – Stephen Dunn – What Goes On: selected and new poems, 2009 p129
When once you’ve gotten
Your pile
What have you learned
But how to build a pile
And then it’s more of the same
And then you die
The fear keeps on growing
And growing
You can never get enough
But that don’t mean you
Won’t try
Nearly without exception, economies are growth-based, presuming that the future will always bail out the present, thereby making up any deficits accumulated in the past. The basis of borrowing money – as fundamentally to modern economics as one can get – is that money itself, properly employed, can be counted upon to repay the loan, with interest – David P Barash – The Chronicle of Higher Education (Sept 4, 2009)
Just then his revolver fell to the ground when he shifted his weight. It had been resting under his tight as he sat next to the fire. Varmints, he said. No, he’d never use it on people. Rats he claimed had eaten the electrical insulation on the wire of his new truck. Find out what you can about old country houses with two front doors. He had found two explanations, he said. Neither seem plausible to me. One it was for soldiers returning from World War I and second it gave circuit riding preachers some privacy when they stayed over. Both explanations were too complicated and idiosyncratic. I’ll bet it is an outgrowth of the breezeway of a log cabin and maybe the process of building the house a piece at a time over a number of years.
Philosophy… is the recourse of all who would delude the corrupting exuberance of life, almost all the philosophers come to a ‘good end’: this is the supreme argument against philosophy – E M Cioran – A Short History of Decay, 1975 p47
The sun has dropped below the shading tree and now glares off of this white paper making me squint. My pen forms a deep shadow at a 45-degree angle pointing downward to the right. I find myself distracted by this shadow as I write this. The bright light gives my face and hands a glowing sensation and I feel joy at it touch – the joy of having survived the winter. It is not the heat but the energy that I am soaking up. The UV stimulates than discomforts. If I look away from the page and then back at it, I have to squint until eyes have adjusted to this brightness. So excited with the return of the sunshine am I that I went off and forgot my jacket. It was an hour later before I discovered my omission and when I returned the bus boy knew exactly what I wanted and I tipped him two dollars. Now it is residing on the back of my stool at the Thirsty Bear, while I imbibe in a pint of Black Bear. I had thought that I was getting a half pint of cask conditioned but no this is the seasonal beer and its defiantly a pint. Yes said the barmaid the sign is confusing,
Everyone has gone to bed
I’m the only one up
I’m keeping watch
On the universe
Wine
And the night
And the stars
And the fire
And the honking of geese
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