cold fusion i (working title)

Cold Fusion

cold fusion 

a stream of consciousness novela in prose/verse

notes:

themes:

movie quotes

conversations with henry miller

exposition/narrative

info on public relations and politics.  

books on mojave desert, vrom the culture point of view.  what was that book on desert communities?  

i should probably tell you why i play the flute.  first off, there is such a thing as the diminuitive arts; the hobbies and such; crafts etc.  why play the flute when you could play, say, the piano or guitar even... or why not just compose, direct to the page.  isn't that the ultimate?  all that music soaring through your skull and not enough time to write it down?  paul hindemith or dmitri shostakovich; rtftrrbkkhiitea for two on some phone app, killing time at some local coffee dive.  or at least guitar!  portable, contrapuntally enabled; all those styles and all those variables...  processors, amps, samplers, with a gibson1964 acoustic12-string and the right settings you could sound like a fender strat through a showman amp; dick dale on an indian summer prime entertaining the vampires in some lean-to, bombay beach or some condemned industrial park on the outskirts of the empire city.  why not..?  or a sax, pushing the envelope, eric dolphy and mingus exploring the bridge at ten-shin, rashand roland kirk with a set of screaming eagles dangling out his ass...  i mean, why not?  why not go for the stuffed mastadon or the goldfish on steroids?  well, i guess if i could answer that, i wouldn't have to write this story.

i can hear them downstairs, in the foyer or the vestibule, scurring about on the landing and balancing their quad vanilla lattes and 2.8 70-200mm lenses replete with wireless access and battery packs, 4k dslrs (they don't "take" pictures anymore, not in an conventional sense.  it's all video now...just point your canon 1d in the vicinity of some enginue beating her preemie and you're in-like-flint!).  i hear iphones are the bunk; they communicate now through flip-phones (yes, not unlike those infernally itenerate MCs, they have found the benefit of no-contract flip phones...and besides, let's face it, these guys are no william eggleston...no trust fund babies here;  these are pure bred white-trash, or the equivalent, sag actors on methadone, out-of-work blockbuster clerks and 2nd generation asians on ZX10Rs and bmw R1150GS(s) and who has the moxie to compete with that?).  i hear there is a paparazzi app!  hilary swank at some dyke bar in the castro, gweneth paltrow and her lumbar dimples pushing yet another screaming brat into sur off melrose and santa monica... the mind reels...

i love georgetown.  william peter blatty town.  an odd mix of social malaise, kennedy's gibe about the charm of the north and the efficiency of the south;  the women here are to die for; former darby winners and jaded miss havishems, gorgeous spinsters and librarians, and all of them hip to the cable food network.  (fixit more about culture and socialisms).  it's my kind of town, a way-station town, a passing through landscape with pretty pictures and clever dialogue, witty one-liners and petty cheek kisses.  all this recyclable faux colonial revival; an historical culture that never was... if i had a wooden nickel for every mid-western johnny-come-lately that knows the history of this town..!  this town is absolutely indesipherable and anyone who claims any different is either a liar or the editor of a famous etiquette book.  it's all debbie reynolds does desdemona and othello groucho marx, and that's all i have to say about that!

i've been having a wee little bit of trouble getting out of bed in the morning lately.  the limbs just don't operate the way they used to.  i think i might be sleeping on them wrong, something like that.  something about the blood not circulating, not quite reaching the extremities.  perhaps i spend too much time in bed, reading and watching cable.  my bed has become something out of who's afraid of virginia woolf, all new york times best sellers and the washington post, clippings of the arms services committee.  i need to get out and rumble, knock a few heads around... maybe even a walk around the block.  i have a pet theory about aging that i won't bother to bore you about; suffice to say that the body has a clock, a kind of internal time piece and as the body ages, the batteries need more frequent re-charging.  it's really that simple.  fail to recharge on a weekly, even daily basis and you can drop dead waiting in line at starbucks.  

maybe it's just the routine; the shaving and the finding and organizing of socks; a (trivial pursuit) i have lost all patience for.  or it's the big picture, a vision i have long since abandoned on my never ending whistle stop tour.  who was it that said beware of google upgrades that require a new mac book pro???  i'm sorry... that was in poor taste.  the quote i'm talking about is:  "beware of all enterprises that require new clothes..." and the gentleman's name was henry david thoreau, one of my early (but since abandoned) influences.  quotes are a minefield in this town.  you can tell the noob by his penchant for mark twain; no subject that cannot be improved through the fine prism of mark twainism; jumping frog analogies and innocents abroad; the least favorite of mine being "wagner's music is better than it sounds..."  it's not.  take my word for it, or get off your hydrogenated soybean ass and listen to sixteen hours of the ring.  

shaving for me is an exercise in existentialism.  i no longer see the light at the end of the tunnel.  god damn, confound, blast and fuck high-def video and cameras in congress.  why do we feel the need to date our representatives.  would we be listening to don giovanni today if we had youtube back in the eighteenth century?  if you knew that schubert was a pockmarked leperous midget with tooth-rot would you be waking up in a cold sweat to death of a maiden? 

(this bit belongs in the previous paragraph)

we pine for the monks in the field, clamor after bearded prophets and wandering sages, elevate the degenerate and unwashed poets of our ages yet when it comes to politics, it's all nazi chic; maximillian theo aldorfer and the severed head of john the baptist... "My grandparents went to Auschwitz and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!"  "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore..then confine them in chains to hell's kitchen!"  personally, i blame rasputin.

fit seth grundle quote here:

i am rotting in fits and starts, half-gestures and traded fours—i am the hoaried manifestation of father time, the reeking corpse of father zossima.  i have the seth grundle disease sans brundlefly (?) and that doesn't exactly sell papers.   somewhere along the line i got off the boat, traded in my principles for a saucer full of warm milk and a scratch behind the ear.  somewhere, though in polite circles we never talk about this,  are meth-heads and crack-whores dreaming about wasting away their lives in camarillo lean-tos (fixit 

more like thihs)and i had to get all napoleonic on their asses.  i have three kids in college, donna reed, a dog named cortez and a harley davidson road king classic and i traded it all in for a fixit , more like this (work in huey long), other politicians that got carried away, a face in the crowd) shot at the kingfish (

anyway, back to the flute;  something there is about the economy of the flute,  all  of life can be defined by the simple reed like qualities the flute possess, the ability to make a  joyful sound, a simple honest noise to add to the firmament, millers celestial spheres.  and what of these grandiose principles anyway—the center cannot hold!    mahler's ninth and mehta's 2 minute respite..!  all dog and pony!  see how they disentegrate and distill into simple flute like elements, flotsam and jetsam, the stuff of dime stores and vagabonds.  

Whitman's barbaric yawp.  i am  the nazi eichman on the dais cutting the competition to their (respective corners).  by the time marsalis leapt on the scene, miles had reverted into a kind of prehistoric tar pit, a mild cousin of the ancient Shepard lolling to sleep an itinerant flock of spoiled sheep, weened on chuck berry and pinning for the (something ninth chords) of jimmy hendrix.  

(suspect) miles wasn't much for pagannini anyway, so marsalis reaped nothing but guffaws from both miles and the audiences.   brothers didn't gong each other off the stage by mid 70s, that's all uncle tom.  

i sleep with the flute up my ass if i want to (if i were so inclined).  as it is, i keep it next to my pillow and no matter the time, i whip up melodies and scales to rival those of verdi in the midst of the triumphal march, wagner's prelude to act three (again, if i am so inclined).  clickity-clak go the keys, their breathless echo calling harmonic ghosts—i disturb no one at three in the morning with my bach sorties.  try that with a tenor sax, alto or soprano, a clarinet for that matter...  all dead—all dead air... kerplunk!!!  flutes, the score to gilgamesh, the most perfectly linear of all the wind instruments...  no three steps forward, two steps back.  a straight line as pure and evil as the driven snow, so hated am i with my purity, my high pitched sine waves that tourists quiver and scurry, whence and weave their ways to the exits, making their excuses, any, to extricate themselves from the diatribe, this nazi rhetoric.  too much obtuse objective!  not enough crosby, stills and nash.  

the truth is;  i step on no toes with my flute.  i anger no would-be coltranes.  i raise my hand in the back of the room and i am invited (forthwrite or twowhit) to the head of the class.  i accent the tenor, play any kind of shit behind the singer and with the proper accouterments, i can muster enter sandman to the delight of the aging pamela des barres.  of course the real treat is the abaondoend subawy terminal, 2 in the morning, me in my finest aqualung and just a few choice bums, the ones deafened by nugent and still reeling from the aftereffects of methadone (second methadone quote)

notes/mArgins

gas bottles for the 48.  screw the 4 gallon tank.  where the fuck am i going—riverrun..!  hah!  in a pigs eye...  i have no business traveling 150 miles on a motorcycle   i'm addicted to filtering anway.  just one quarter gallon (what is that in liters?) for emergencies

bits about converting standard to metric.  find interesting quote about metric system, a metaphore etcZ

something about walking down a street in georgetwon, ala chan parker nad 52 nd steet, going to the capitol, converging lines, washington architecute nad the homecourt advantage . 

work in leno and his brough, all medium etc

pondering the great cinematic seven year itches

la notte

who's afraid

bill and june, french film with delerure and truffaut

etc

(before meeting publicity hounds)

upon entering my local starbucks;  dissertations in the  foyer,  perturbations and all relevant coinages, the wry sardonic witticisms of recently outted children.  on parade, fifth grade couture and housefrau logic somnambulists and armchair prophets, vagabond princess bag lady queens (or equivalent) the would-be lenny bruce and his bur-roughs cutouts.  i can't get a word in edgewise to the arab condemning the french.  but for sartre, he could do without the lot, clever sauces and all...  

a once fearless leader, an ex-open mic mc, now takes his cues from the windows of forever 21 and his sporting checkerboard shoes and has of late adopted a decide marxist bent in his dealings with the gallery.  i see failed heroin chic rockers, patti smiths on endless indian summer primes resigned to weekly romance endcaps and first monday book clubs.

farnsworth has favored us with an appearance.  his mastery of photoshop channels, circa 1995, has garnered the aplomb of go-go-dancers and a two year stint teaching adult education.  he sits alone now facing the wall fixated on a bearing shot coffee blender, he and his larry david converse and vintage members only jacket and like mingus, trolling central park with a nikon f strapped around his neck—awaits a fated call from george martin.  he will speak soon, and we will listen and we will hear...  with flying flem and decrepid sylvan tones,  like some revenge character from slaughterhouse five he gives the faithful their long awaited comeuppance:

one for the gipper

two for the passing of an arizona gunner

three for baby ingenue aping veronica lake (in relevant type of sweater and relevant coffee drink)

i've got two bugs up my ass the size of nicholas tesla and harry partch and will without provocation debate and dissemenate the finer lessor points of these two charlatans—rather their lackey acolytes who champion their misgivings to the rafters and ascribe to them the heavens and all who inhabit, the perpetual motion machine and the vanilla latte.  exalted to ever lofty heights by long dead beat poets whose stinking diatribes still echo in dilapidated castro lean-tos—they took the bus in from san bruno and all points san jose , border stock all, the stuff of fodder, ballast for dutchmen schooners.  these starry eyed scots, pooling their collective (repetitive) third grade educations, forever extolling the greeks and the plights of oedipus, elektra, persephone for diana durbins, sisyphus for rexroths—these tar-bound macadem and future serial killers.  i tell you—these are the sad palimpsests of the ages, trumpeting their tired credos and forever equivocating, ringing equally true or false so as not to offend the ears of the  ladies of the georgetown social club, non-discriminating tintinnabulations affecting alike the resident merchant seamen and would-be professors.  for them it shall be meat....

i make small work of the lackey yes men, the itinerant slant-maestros, the crisis handlers and spin doctors of the washington based public relation firm of leave the gun, take the canoli...  these ex-lawyers, part-time stock brokers and wannabe concert promoters have propagated exponentially in this town, like pond scum and chinese mainlanders...  they drip stalactite from the rooftops and the high ceilings of georgetown clambakes and infect the body politic with all thoughts jacksonian, the fine distilled principles of latter day marxists and hindu maître d's.   any off comment beyond the activities of the Bilderberg group and skull and bones will leave them in a quandry, so too the exploits of the second viennese school of music–steer clear of the libestode and sentences that contain the words godel, esher, bach.  a thorough working knowledge of the infrastructure of the death star does not a patrician make.  

now, six, an unofficial study which we undertook of this eventuality, indicated that we would destroy...

"huh... excuse me, sir?  excuse me..?  

...we would therefore prevail, and suffer only modest and acceptable civilian casualties from their remaining force which would be badly damaged and uncoordinated...

"sir, are you with us..?"

forgive me.  since the death of milton fixit i have resigned myself to movie quotes.  how i do go on...  now gentlemen, if i may direct your attention to the center of the stage... 

"sir..."

not the gravedigger, you miscreant offspring!   lawrence olivier..!!!  what do ya take me for—william jennings bryan!

"sir, we really must get down to business..."

quite right.   it's time to baptize our young counsel here...  

starbucks serves a wet cappuccino by default; owing to the difficulties of steaming up pure foam for 500 jersy housefraus every hour,  fresh off the path train.  also, large espresso drinks do not have an extra shot.  you're paying almost a dollar more for pure foam.  it's little wonder why these future hedge fund manages are so good at upselling!

i'll have a tall peter brady!  i then lapse into a kind of post-wategate, pre-reagan era coma, but it's all show, i assure you...

"excuse me..?"

you know, a tall  peter brady...  a small coffee with a little bit of room for cream...

"oh... okay.  never heard that one before..."

it's occurred to me in the pre-dawn of late middle age that i'm not going to be known for (particle physics design, revolutionary silicon chip invention, a coating that allows for greater dispersal of transistors—something to that effect) so i've come up with a logical alternative.  greg, peter and bobby if you're a guy and marcia, jan and cindy if you're a girl.  marsha and greg are for black coffee, no room.  the rest are for a moderate amount of room and lot's of room, respectively.  this would save starbucks  millions a year in un-dumped coffee.

i also have a joke:  what did eliza doolittle say to professor higgins on their wedding night?  "how kind of you to let me cum..!"  i keep waiting for someone to tell it to me.   

we have become a nation of flagpole sitters,  black friday campers, coupon-clipping amoeba-like single celled lemmings sucking up the (jacksonian diatribe)

"did you know sir, that under the czarist regimes over 90 percent of the population was enslaved...  did you know that sir?"   

this from wikipedia:  By the mid-19th century, the peasants composed a majority of the population, and according to the census of 1857 the number of private serfs was 23.1 million out of 62.5 million Russians, 37.7% of the population.  The exact numbers, according to official data, were: entire population 60,909,309; peasantry of all classes 49,486,665; state peasants 23,138,191; peasants on the lands of proprietors 23,022,390; peasants of the appanages and other departments 3,326,084.[9] State peasants were considered personally free, but their freedom of movement was restricted.[10]

did you know that these two guys, these cobol programmers, these silk screeners are responsible for the kerry debacle—no, not getting him nominated—after he won the primary...  it was tchaikovsky's 1812 overture conducted by john williams and the boston pops orchestra—probably the most recognizable piece of music ever written provided you're not the fourth or fifth generation of bostonian brahmins...  nobody knew the tune... not one person!  not one broadcaster or one producer, not one snot nosed wise-assed punk in the control room recognized this piece of music!  well, this was before shazaam, back in the dark ages of 04.  "well dave, this certainly is some energetic music mr williams is playing..."  "yes, it is frank..., some very energetic music indeed.  mr williams sure picked a winner!" 

a conversation with henry miller:

they came by the house don'tcha know—a lot of people did.  he was a quiet sort, kept his cards close—if you get my drift.  she was a beautiful woman, i mean really beautiful!  pure of heart, i have no doubt...  like some some sort of abyssinian maid, long blonde locks and a kind of flowing figure—you know what i mean?  she kind of floated about the room handing out garlands or laying alms at everyones feet.  but it is true, she was no genius... rather, she did not have much of an education.  but so what..! who cares.  she was beautiful.  but she had a minor flaw in her appearance, and i do mean minor.  i think she had some sort of accident as a child, some sort of injury that did not heal properly.  that was common enough in those days.  she had a kind of funny jawline, her lower jaw.  it did not line up straight and her teeth were not perfect.  but you never noticed this, unless of course you were looking for it.  but it kept her humble, it kept her grounded.  most women want to be beautiful and she was convinced that she was not beautiful, though you would never know that by all the attention she got from men.  nevertheless, i like to think of her as a kind of pure soul, uncorrupted by philosophical thoughts, which can ruin a persons character if they are not equipped to handle this kind of thinking.  most people are not!

end conversation with henry miller

you mistrumpet gogol...

"excuse me sir?  we really must get down to business.  now, the way i see it..."

"the way we see it..."

"exactly, the way we see it, we play the roark card.  the misunderstood genius, the penultimate man of action too preoccupied with saving the universe to be bothered with formalities... "

"or with manners or common decency..."

"yes...  wait, no..!  i can explain that too—we can.  you're... you're aloof!

"aloof!"

"yes, aloof...  but in a good way.  a little preoccupied..."

"preoccupied!  that's funny.  he's freaking aspergers!"

"he's not aspergers..! you're not aspergers.  we don't use that word.  besides, according to the dsm-v, aspergers no longer exists.  no, we're going with aloof.  it's...  it's real.  it's accurate.  it's unequivocal."

"let's face it, he's an asshole and he's unelectable..!"

"who's talking electable, i'm just trying to keep 'em out of jail!!!"

i'll get drunk too jedidiah, if it'll do any good...

"lets all get drunk."

chapter two

i haven't taken prisoners in years.  i believe the correct expression today is i kicked ass and took names, but i hate that expression.  let's just say i don't suffer fools.  i just don't have the time.  i came into my own in my late forties after a marathon bout of michelangelo antonioni, a director i had always been attracted to but could never explain why.  the penitent afore vitti, her subsequent absolution, the melding of the philosophies, the absurdity of the universe filtered through the simple act of forgiveness, of understanding.  it knocked me on my ass.  but with nirvana comes a price... what now brown cow?  the monk routine courts little favor with me, i'm just not that bashful.  i want to spread the love, infect the laity and string up a few infidels.  i've since held a little inquisition of my own; hence the world of politics.  where else can you repress third world babies in a far away continent and look good doing it.    not getting my hands dirty—that's been my motus operandi since they gonged off the stage at the reno club, that's the bridge i crossed, cherokee, two days before christmas, 1939!

another conversation with henry miller:

bathroom monologue etc

end with "i see dead people!"

they dont teach that at sunday school or the whittier comunnity playhouse

i belive governor brown has a heart, even though he believes i do not... i believe he is a good american, even if he belives i am not...

more nixon quotes

i would like to give me condolances, but nixon can't etc

(richard dawkins is no substitute for john the baptist)

streamlining for prayer, minimalism, monkish works nd self flagelation

camus fall, the guilt of existance, the burden of intellectual curiosity

oppenheimer, einstein (check leeter to roosevelt or truman about atomic bomb)

philip levine and the wagner quote

i hear thosse clipped notes  (tones) and i want to...

signatories.  sartre's participation fln, french rule in algeria

all i really want to do is sleep and think about Shostakovich

with all these technological innovations, all i really want to do is sleep...

whichever (innovations) helps me to this aim/cause

something about the internet, social media that produces a kind of cultural myopia.  we no linger pine for the Europeans, nor do the europeans.  hence, the kids today know nothing of Shostakovich, have not the desire to learn nor the tonal and intellectual palate to discover...

but i can only think about him for so long n then i get tired and restless.  that's why i don't need to carry with me every book ever written q out him.  

composer of the first order, rank.  theories, written music, not just writing from an instrument, like Stravinsky, who is more purely musical etc...  n

our poetry is the recitation of poetry on pure celluloid;  gielgud afore the bat of malmsey (more)

durrell and his obsession with justine, millers tryst with brenda venus and teinka thiebold sp  the pursuit of pure beauty

imaginary conversations with henry miller on very intimate sexual topics

henry describes melissa, her innate beuty and  truth

more conversations, still more... etc

at starbucks:  my mind drifts upon fair maidens...  i project upon then scenarios and personas

ode to an 80s porn queen (busty belle)  her chance happening, the cornfred offspring of midwestern progeny...  her going thour the motions

i see her now and agina non melrose blvd, in and out of shops (the way she is dressed)

nobody much talks abouy bernsteins soliloquy

we must make a point of destroying false prophets, false sentiment, the caretakers of mediocrity.  read to them the texts of dead critics, deserta arabia,(fixit)the less than stellar passages of samuel pepys...  did you know that ralph Waldo emerson kept a diary?  reams and reams of equivocations, half-baked theories and speculation—you can't make an omelet unless you break a few eggs.  i see the progenitors of a once landed gentry, turning on to benzedrine and mickey spillane, plying their trade on the playgrounds and in the nurseries, preaching to itinerant choirs, infecting the congregation... did you know that the true translation of camus' the stranger is the outsider?  too vague, not enough punch, not enough bells and whistles to wet the kisser of little johnny.

(based upon my drawing that looks like tina, the way she states at me behind the counter—)

she has the sad tired eyes of boudica fending off the never ending sons of caesar , the marshall plan and the truman doctrine...  or the looks in the eyes of transylvanian baronesses upon encountering the suffragettes—exasperated, tired and defeated by centuries of playing the doormat, the steppes to the west and the east.  she stares through me, bores a hole through the back of my skull with doe-like eyes and an east european pallor, fearful of the summer sun and its stifling summer heat.  i inform her that we live in a swamp and i can tell right away that she thinks i'm one of those creeps, the lingering upper gentry, retired civil servicemen and ex-congolese diplomats who make her world a living hell.  i'm in love with her of course, but i think i've done a pretty good job of concealing it.  

most of my paperbacks are vintage dell editions, mass market bricks of the western canon, doggeared, coffee stained, foxed and mildewed, the likes of which i have repurchased more times than i care to admit.   do you know that the kids today won't read used books!  GROSS!!! they say..!  i know, i've tried.  you can pick these up for free in the dust bins at local goodwills or for a penny online.  better yet, befriend one of our many miss havishems, walk them round the wedding table and let them win at bridge and the lot is yours.  yet don't look for signed editions of ulysses or travels in arabia deserta—sadly, nine times out of ten,  it's all james michner and harold robbins with a little john updike thrown in to impress the bluehairs.  

to my mother and her ilk, the abdication of edward the vii was a beaton spread in life magazine and (see rags for wallace simpson) who has time for (characterize edward vii period) something about simpson being a man etc.  

for all my good intentions, i am grendel baying for my mother, my mute expression of agony, upward turned to a godless universe, a (des grendel, afro the dragon and after beowulf)

i revel in refernces to munches man on the bridge

birds, pawn broker, snad pebbles etc

to anyone that will liesten (there awre very w takers )

from tuchmans gusn of august "the egnlishmen think they can treat us like portugal" or something to that effect.  

le contempt

le contempt

she sat perfectly cross-legged, her head positioned just so...  her face was seemingly expressionless but the music danced across her eyes, its rhythms butchering a kind of fandango in a macabre psychoesque manner.  she held an affinity with villa lobos, or so she felt;  all those exotic latin phrases couched in european harmonies—bach sambas, astrid gilberto on the beach with a duport stradivarius.  she loved his works for cello, the Bachianas Brasileiras etc, but it was his guitar etudes that she loved the most.  she even went as far as attempting a transcription for cello but gave it up after a while.  all latin composers are guitarists at heart.

it was a marathon session:  all seventeen string quartets by hector villa lobos, played straight through with only two ten minute breaks.  a kind of exclusive rave for grownups and ultra hipsters;  no invintations, just word of mouth and the ability to sit for hours on end like some greco-roman tombstone frieze.  it was held outdoors in a huge backyard gazebo like structures, a natural amphitheater on private grounds forty minuets outside la.  dress, like all these affairs, was hyper formal— diana vreeland on crack, alice de janze after a bender, holly golightly on those rare evenings when she couldn't fanagle the powder room...    no supper, just hors d' oeuvres all freakishly designed and white wines from the russian river valley, so as not to corrupt the palate.

she shunned the after-parties, clambakes and assorted opium-den-like soirees unless perhaps in the company of a client whose taste borders on the hieronymousboschian, or when courting a particularly illusive contract.  no, it was more than enough to be seen at these events, to be gleaned tapping ones toes, preferably in-time and hanging out after the festivities with the performers, trading jibes on the last few years of arnold schoenberg and exclaiming in wonder at the prevailing trend to favor the second viennese school at leading american musical institutions.

oh my god…the poco andantino

this declaration was immediately echoed by all

…and that tempo!

perfect, they exclaimed to a man, perfect!

she held the ear of the cellist steadfast.  rapid quips regarding resin, humidity and that (choice of edits fixit ).  

did you hear about (relevant cellist teacher/repair etc fixit )  

no, she had not.  the chatter rose and fell intermittantly, pockets rising up; the violinist and his usual cadre of lackeys hanger's-on fixit, the violist and his anarchists and of course, true to any serious gathering of musicians, one player has usually bolted before the last harmonic dissolves into the stratosphere…  in this case, the second violinist, on retainer from some odd pool of usual suspects.  

she stayed though, just at the breaking point of congeniallity, to admire and console, to smile and nod, to give this occassion its proper due, knowing as she did, with perhaps only a mere handful of others, that this was a once in a lifetime happening, a convergence of constellations and appropriate prophecies the like of which will not be seen again in her lifetime, perhaps no other's.  

--------

she awoke each morning to a selection of dialoques from various plays and film; bogart's asides to captain rainey fixit, bernstein's girl in the white parosal, a collection of monologues from the great george sanders, gielgud's fixit rant afore the bat of malmsey fixit, butley and that bit about the seminal fuck and of course burton and his roadhouse confessions, "when i was sixteen and going to prep school during the punic wars…,"  these alarums would manifest in her a myriad of dreams and situations; would emerce her in fantastical scenarios, sometimes troubling but mostly divine and revelatory.

she entered the underground structure through a dedicated lane whizzing at just under seventyfive, this parking garage, this maze of architecture and turned an immediate right into the reserved spaces.  she carried nothing but a sleek leather shoulder case and made her way pavlovian toward the etched steel elevators lovingly programmed to return to garage level during the first few hours of the business day.

parker posey stood all parkyposeyesque, as is parker posey's wont, in the middle of the foyer munching an non-descript something or other waiting with the patience of ten thousand suns on que for the ladies room.  

come with me...

she led parker posey through a set of inconspicuous double doors, down halls turning here and there and into a anti-chamber like room with shocking glass walls floor to ceiling and deceptively simple formica-like tables bereft of drawers or cabinets or any discernable artifacts save sculpted black high grade plastic pencil holders.  there were low lying leather chairs and couches and space...loads and loads of space.

parker posey sat upon an impossible porcelan structure contemplating a scene out of what she thought must be some (relevant renaissance painting/scene etc) with her impossible bangs and peed with the insciounces of ten thousand suns.

they each sat upon one of the low lying leather chairs and couches, she and parker posey.  she looked like rahda mitchell.  she was rahda mitchell, for all intents and purposes, so we shall call her rahda henceforth.  she had that slim heatlhy amazon look and those full heroin chic features.  her eyes were a constant exhausted green, as though she were perpetually tired of seeing, as though burdoned with intensely keen insights into the psyche and soul of the world.

they did not talk business.  that would have been rude.  the subjects were music, film and fine dining.

you know that scene i mean?

i think so...

you know, the one towards the end, the one where the theme builds and rises...  and there they are, just the two of them and that theme...

oh my god, that theme...

i know, i love it.  it's my favorite piece of music!

mine too!

...and then scorsese uses it.  but he gives it its proper due, as though restoring it to its rightful sainted place...

i don't remember that.

you know, in casino...that scene at the end.  although, i think he used it in a couple of places.

hmmmm, i'll have to look for that.

yeah, it's right at the end.

oh my god, i love film.

...and music!

...and music...oh my god!

but what i mean is... i want to use that... the juxtaposition.  opposing ideas;  that of the grandiose paired with the seemingly mundane...  but of course it's not mundane, is it?  it's all grandiose though we arn't at first aware of it.  it's that final realization, when it all sinks in...that's what i want to go for!

that's amazing!  you're just amazing!

---------

at doobies the owner suanterd up towards the podium and like moses, parted the twentysomethings darlings who had gathered to gossip about the nights list.  

anything respectable?

that guy, you know, on that show…you know the one i mean…with that girl and that other guy…

the one with the…and his hair that looks all…he's in that movie…you know…with that other guy…

that's  the one!

who else?

kadaffi's wife hannibal…

oh, did she make it out?

THANK GOD!

is she bringing her maid?

are they getting along?

i thought there had been a reconciliation…

we could puree the steak tartar and she could suck it through a straw!

that's using yer noggin!

that's why i make the big bucks!

ahhh…miss mitchell.

yep.  she'll be here in twenty.  would you care to do the honors?

well, i don't wanna seem pushy…

no, not in this town.

well, maybe just this once.  i'll wear a reagan mask.

she'll love you for it!

like stretch limos and red carpets, valet parking had become anathema, the stuff of american idol finalists and the real housewives of tunis, samy's camera on fairfax.  no self-respecting restuaranteur would set up shop within a 10 mile radius of la but they don't tell you that in the guide to celebrity mailboxes of the rich and famous.  doobies was a converted case study house reject on the outskirts of malibu; a double X-layout, open beams and faux dooryards, floor to ceiling glass and unadorned walls, free of dogs playing poker or reproductions of eisenstaedt's kiss.  like cumulus clouds or popcorn ceilings, you were free to make up your own artwork.  

like the best ski resorts, you don't see a hint of their presence until you are upon them.  golf carts took you up an impossibly steep driveway lined with local fauna; desert chaparral and palos verdes stone walls in loving states of disrepair.  you sat in the back, always, near the infinity pool whose almost imperceptible movements washed the atmosphere with patterns of light and dark.  there was no bar but drinks were served in the expansive foyer and outside around the pool and if one were smart, one could schmooze for hours just waiting for a table or negotiating trips to the restroom.  

doobie had a mahleresque walk; every fourth of fifth step he took a little step, a kind of neurotic hop, no doubt a hazzard of being a genius, a moniker he deserves for managing to keep a restuarant open in southern california for more than five years.  he greeted radha with a modicum of wit and whisked her away along with parker posey down the odd configurations of X halls, neurotically but charmingly pausing here and there, producing a succession of disturbances with his funny walk, as though perhaps in the midst of recognizing a patron, monty hall or the mayor of the city.  

again this sly aversion to talking trade.  segues into metaphors and conumdrums, innuendo and conjecture…ceo gossip and rumours of ipos.  radha had one vice, an annoying habit of working ayn rand into every conversation.  not so much due to her philosophy, but that one photo taken off the boat, the one with the pre-veronica lake hairstyle and langorius mouth, all loretta young and knocked up.  she likens rand's excursions into objectivism to youthful exhuberance and a penchant for wagner, nothing to kick her out of bed for…  a detour on the path to enlightenment.  …and as to her steadfast philosophical tenets and embarrassing fiction; well, we all have bills to pay.  

what a fucking little nazi bitch!

yeah, well…they weren't all bad.  they banned smoking in public.

i'd rather die of cancer.  have you ever tried to read atlas shrugged?

of course!  it just needs to be editied but the institute won't allow it.

the institute..!  THE INSTITUTE!!!

okay, look… all philosophies go full circle and come right back to the same thing.  i mean, how many times can you rewrite dale carnegie's how to win friends and influence people?

what the fuck are you talking about?

she didn't know.  she just liked frank lloyd wright.  comtemplating fallingwater in public has lost her more contracts than ordering jug wine at maxim's.  

ya know, fine wine is really a late twentieth century invention…the romans watered down their wine!

you're an idiot!

...public drunkeness was frowned upon.

i want to fuck you.

they skipped the port.

--------  Kieślowski's

(aisles on wheels like some indonessian bazaar, merchants peddling their wares; their rice bowls, sixteen hour days peddling cardboard two stories high; the waste capitiol of the universe, a landlocked great pacific garbage patch in and about la's garment district.  syballine like structures, monuments and reliquries to billy wilder, obelisks to kubrick, gravestones of the wit and wisdom of george s. kaufman  all gnome guarded, these keepers of the gates of interchangeable culture, transformer pastiche, these would-be anarchists and future vagabonds(…) a wailing wall of douglas sirk, an oracle of roger corman, indistinguishable from their brothers post modernists, surrealists, 70s realism, the gung-hoism of james cameron, the stop-motion of ray harryhausen so as not to tax the minds of our newly landed gentry, (add much more) all on display sans judgment, a pure crystalline democracy of consumerism for the asking.  

at veni vidi vici (curb side dvd sellers like new york, sidewalk sellers and partial condemed store fronts) the aisles were ridicuously close.  you couldn't walk past another person unless you were prepared to get close.  thankfully, the place was virtually empty at this time of night.  the employees were indistinguishable from the clientele, or vice versa.  you could just as easily get as much help from a customer as you could from the owner and just because somebody was filing through the bins, organizing and alphbetizing, didn't mean they actually worked there.  the store occupied the bottom floor of a partially condemed building in a row of dilapidated structues, a once fashionable artist colony back in the forties.  endless aisles of dvds, vhs, laserdisc, even betamax.  the selction was daunting, (foreign, indian, bollywood etc) there was a basement for the privaleged, the 400, an E-ticket for the algonguin set fixit,  a wrought iron spiral staircase (pages of shirley jackson) led you to a sub-structure, a hoarder's wet dream, with a blatant and comfy disregard for wheel-chair access and local fire codes.  it was here that she learned all about paul thomas anderson from some phantom kid customer.  he gave her a series of dissertations on each of his films, textbook stuff, stuff out of columbia university, pte and philosophy, crackhead jargon…  "magnolia is the citizen kane of our time..!"  she was hooked.  he repeated his performance in the following weeks with bergman, antonioni, buenel, cocteau, herzog, kieslowski…it never stopped.  she tried once to praise him to the front desk but they had never heard of him.  just some random kid pulling his tour of duty at veni vidi vici, a future quentin tarantino or wes anderson. 

it's society out of control…

you're reaching.

the decay of morals, a godless universe!

they're just mimes, not german beatniks…

don't you see…the rules no longer apply!

no, i disagree.  he's never that deep.  it's more on the surface…more like; we make up the rules as we go along! why do you think he throws the ball back?  

it's in the script…

fuck you!

he's just doing what we all do.  we make it up as we go along..!

my point exactly; a godless universe!

ANNA

So, there you are... I've been upstairs looking 

all over for you...

 

There is a moment of silence during which Anna's father deliberately ignores 

her presence. She stares at him intently, trying to determine his mood and 

wondering how she is going to tell him what she has to say before she leaves. 

Finally, he turns around and faces her.

 

FATHER 

Oh, I thought you were already on the high 

seas.

 

Anna is barely able to control her temper, but realizing that the discussion 

is about to take the usual sarcastic turn, she immediately checks herself.

 

ANNA

No, not yet, Dad.

 

Her father fixes her with a long ironic look. Conscious of his daughter's 

haste, he is apparently trying his best to detain her.

 

FATHER 

Isn't it fashionable any more to put on a 

sailor's cap with the name of the yacht? 

ANNA 

No, Dad, it isn't.

she liked the reflection of the film on her windows.  a solid striking black patch against the backdrop of the city lights, all reds and yellows, and blues and greens.  she kept each film on for days, just let them repeat over and over, as if some random scene might strike an insight or revelation at her most vulnerable.  she didn't look for clues in any conventional sense.  she just let it happen in its own time, like cumulus clouds or popcorn ceilings. 

--------

die kunst der fuge rang bell-like and bounced itself off the open beamed ceiling and sank in tulmult in what could only be mistaken for lush seventies shag carpet, albeit twice removed.  a piano transcription, vladimir fetzman, which keeps things nice and tidy, unmuddled.  she could take most bach in small doses but she could listen to art of the fugue all day; no overly clever melodies calling to mind mid 80s mustard commercials or east coast investment broker ads, just pure contrapuntal love.  her kitchen was something out of kubrick; pure light, over exposed and glistening.  a klimt-like reproduction lined the wall of the foyer to the streets.  the figures, all viennese bourgeosie, olympianesque poses and come hither eyes, floated up towards the ceiling, scandalous.

all things celestial, the conjunction of jupiter and venus, the comings of the march equinox, and the the lady of the lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that She, jenny snyder, was to carry Excalibur…and become General Store Manager of Starbucks #6153, an albertson's franchise whose steadfast refusal to accept starbuck's giftcards garnered a degree of snobbery second to none, save perhaps a cobbler within a 20 mile radius of the presidential mansion of ferdinand marcos.  the que was something out of dachau; durer's witches, half-naked, half supine, half prone, world weary stares, fatalistic smart phone gestures…  this was the main entrance to the port of the city and not radha's usual watering hole and to cement this point, the two baristas working the back bar were debating the finer issues of graphic novel illustration; the expository role of non-functional harmony in the early works of alan moore.  like two turkish aqaba gunners on the eve of the attack, they waxed, they wanned, they posited with exhorbitant glee and new found revelation.  

the  rain in sp in main in the pl

NOTES:

you can tell the homeless in libraries and at starbucks.  they all have huge laptops and dangling wall warts and they suck up bandwidth like twelve years olds; youtube,dailymotion, hulu, vimeo.  even youporn.  you'd think they would have the courtesey to wipe the toilet seat and tip the baristas a nickel.  

(note: this might be better for confessions)

.....

assholes: a theory

book review: assholes, a theory by aaron james


a recent book called On Bullshit by philosopher Harry Frankfurt, originally published as an essay in the 80s  but released in book form in 2005, has been the impetus for a whole slew of philosophically snarky titles, not the least of which is "snark," by david denby:  "...It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation."  among others are

a more recent edition to the corpus is "assholes," a theory by aaron james.  what annoys me most about these books, least of which is their inclusion in the philosophy section of most book stores, is their unabashedly liberal (leftist) bent (or should i say their democrat(ic) bent).  besides "men" who cross three lanes of traffic at a time and "men" at parties who "don't let you get a word in edgewise," (yes, men are mostly assholes—comes with the gonads) are the stellar examples of bill o'relilly, ann coulter (i'm sure the author considers her to be a man), donald trump, brazilian surfers (don't go there— well, it has something to do with brazilian surfers traveling in packs which tend to foster the "aggressive manliness of the brazilian culture" on  the whole...), assorted bankers (especially investment bankers), CEOs, venture capitalists (mitt romney anyone...) and last but not least—general douglas macarthur whose reputation has suffered immeasurably after a gibe by harry s. truman—"i fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the president.  i didn't fire him because he was a dumb son-of-a-bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals..."

the publishing industry has for the last ten years been a dumping ground for campaign rhetoric and political party cool-aid, in part due to the revolutions of digital presses and in part due to the internet which fosters a ungodly sense of "intellectual" entitlement.  not surprisingly, these books have the shelf life roughly equivalent to any book written by richard nixon or henry kissinger (yes, the publishing industry is rife with liberals—so too is the general book buying public, though you didn't hear that from me...).  most of the so-called political books published during the 04 election would have been better served (and more deservedly ignored) in some obscure online archive (preferably twitter, though i have nothing against twitter, when properly used)  unread, unconsidered, culturally and socially irrelevant and not cluttering up the shelves of super bookstores, which by the way, never had any business being any bigger than your local used bookstore and it's little wonder why behemoths like borders and barnes and noble are now dinosaurs (or in the case of b&n, forced to sell figurines, toys, ipad accessories, ipads...—let's face it, the ebook reader nook is nothing less than a poor mans ipad...)

now the philosophy section is being watered down by books like "the philosophy of quentin tarantino," "seinfeld and philosophy," "manga and philosophy," "aristotle and an aardvark go to washington," "bullshit," and now finally "assholes..."  ironically, i would rather the philosophy section loosen their membership requirements rather than say, "self improvement," or "personal growth"—they've been reprinting the same book for over two thousand years; can you say "the golden rule..?" i knew you could.   i happen to count "the philosophy of stanley kubrick" to be among my favorite books.

i never did get to any proposed "theory."  i stopped about halfway when i encountered the rant about brazilian surfers...  i am somewhat thankful that these books make no attempt to hide their politics or their half-wittedness.  it's difficult enough weeding through the daily scourge of reading material available, so anything that makes my job easier is well appreciated (like i've always said, i don't always finish what i'm reading, but i'm always reading).  i will leave you with one of the more revealing quotes from the book—a quote more suited out of the mouth of ariana huffington rather than a writer of philosophy... "this attitude among the new bankers (those fucking bastards!!!) stands in marked contrast with bankers of an earlier era.  consider the former goldman ceo john whitehead, a member of the civic-minded "greatest generation" (his quotes, not mine) that ably steered the "dynastic wealth" (my quotes, not his) of rockefeller and "the like" (my quotes again...) toward the social good.

hannibal's bag:

it might be a good idea for you to familiarize yourself with these cameras.   the term "camera bag" refers to a phenomenon on youtube where photographers reveal the equipment they carry in their "camera bag."  it also refers to all of your gear, all your cameras and equipment etc.  

you will do a "youtube like" film segment and these are some of the main cameras you will be talking about... we will do this video with you in my apartment (70s style apartment), well dressed, the dapper hannibal... "your camera bag" (most of the important cameras):

note:  these are not all of your cameras.  these are the main cameras that your character would have used as a photojournalist.

these first four cameras are film cameras.  digital cameras start in 97 with the nikon d1.



nikon f (1959)

first great slr (single lens reflex) camera that eclipsed the leica m3 as the photojournalist's camera of choice.  it dominated for 10 years and stayed in production for 15 years.   kathy hale shoots with a nikon f and a nikkor 50mm 1.2 lens.  so did (david hemmings in blow up)

canon f1 (1971)

canon's first competitive slr camera.  it eclipsed the nikon f, and though kathy shot in the 70s, she was still faithful to the original nikon f.  

nikon f3 (1983?)

nikon takes back the reins again with this excellent slr camera that stayed in production for over ten years.

canon eos 650 (1989)

(more research needed) canon fights back with the first successful auto focus camera and your character's last photojournalist camera.

nikon d1 (1997)

nikons first professional digital camera sporting a whopping 2.7 megapixels (im kidding of course...that is nothing).  this camera changed the game overnight.  almost overnight photojournalists put away their film cameras once and for all...

 nikon  d200 (2006)

excellent features, excellent price.  amateurs jumped aboard the professional dslr wagaon with this camera.  the nikon d200 was your characters first digital camera.

canon eos 5d mark ii (2008)

your characters first and only full frame digital camera, in other words, this camera's digital "sensor" is roughly the same size as a 35mm film camera and it has roughly the same resolution...of course, this is a huge over-simplification.  this camera and other full-frame digital cameras are significant to your character because they are the first cameras that completely eclipsed the use of 35mm film cameras. this is the camera you currently use.  

Confession of a Stevedore VII (unedited text)

i first got the idea to shoot evangelina (roberta pedon) after hearing mazursky's testimony.  i remember that scene from gimme shelter and at the time it seemed gratuitious, an attempt to remind a woodstock audience that this was still the 60s.  this was anything but the 60s.  the shot is a long telephoto shot and you can't really see her face.  it wasn't until i entered her name into google images and found page after page of jugs layouts, fling, big 'ins, whoopers magazine, gem, nymphet, gent, peaches and the aptly named "girls with enormous breasts.";  i knew this was my long lost black dahlia,   this from wikipedia:

Evangelina Cisneros (born 2 May 1954 – 30 July 1982^[citation needed^]) was the stage name of a big-bust Latvian Jewish American glamour model who appeared in men's magazines in the 1970s.

(Born in Ohio to Latvian-Jewish parents, Cisneros relocated first to San Francisco and then to Venice, California to start a modeling career.[1] By the winter of 1972-73 she was 18 and living with a college student in San Francisco. ... She separated from her lover and in March, 1973, moved to Venice, California, not far from Hollywood. Bob Ellison and John Kirk, both well-known glamour photographers in Los Angeles, have been credited with discovering her.^[citation needed^] She was known by many pseudonyms (Evangelina Cisneros, Melody O'Hare, Roberta Baird and Roberta Weaver.) "Evangelina Cisneros" was the name she had fully adopted by 1973. The "Melody O'Hare" moniker supposedly came from the name of one of her best friends in junior high. Cisneros' nickname was "Mooschi", an Americanized spelling of the German slang term for the pudenda - "Muschi".[2] She modelled/acted under the names Robin, Robbie, Roberta, Sam, Melody O'Hare, and Roberta Weaver.^[citation needed^]

Because she was young, pretty, with a spectacular large-breasted figure, Cisneros' photographs frequently appeared in men's magazines catering to breast fetishists.^[citation needed^] The earliest verifiable publication of her photos was in the February 1974 edition of "The Swinger", a men's magazine.^[citation needed^] In Nymphet, February 1975, she appeared under another name and with text referring to her Jewish background. Cisneros dressed (and then undressed) as a hippie in most of her photo shoots.^[citation needed^]

Cisneros appeared in the sexploitation film Carnal Madness aka Delinquent Schoolgirls.[3] Her casting was the result of her contacts at American Art Enterprises (AAE), a Los Angeles company that specialized in pornographic shoots and loops.^[citation needed^] AAE's modeling roster provided the producer of Delinquent Schoolgirls with busty female talent like Cisneros and Nika Movenka for the film.^[citation needed^] After appearing in Delinquent Schoolgirls, Cisneros auditioned for the lead female role in the Jan-Michael Vincent film Buster and Billie.^[citation needed^]

Little is known for certain about her troubled personal life, though Charles Smith wrote a biography based on a mixture of fact and hearsay.[4] What is certain is that she had serious drug addiction problems, which led to her being hospitalized at least once, and to losing her modeling contract with American Art Enterprises. She turned to prostitution during her contract, possibly to feed her drug habit, and was arrested for this at least once, in San Francisco, in 1975.

[edit] Legacy

In Dian Hanson's book, The History of Men's Magazines Vol. 5, Evagelina Cisneros is listed as one of the top five American covergirls from 1968-1980.

Delinquent Schoolgirls was released on DVD in February 2008.

[edit] Selected magazine appearances

• Fling (May 1973)
• Big 'ins (August 1973)
• Whoppers Magazine (October 1973)
• Girls With Enormous Breasts (October 1973)
• Jugs, Hiney Holes, and More! (February 1974)
• Gem (May 1974)
• Nymphet (February, 1975)
• Gent (Vol.16, No.3 June 1975)
• Peaches (No.8, 1975, UK)

latvia!  what the fuck.  i always wondered what their claim to fame was.  so much for the myth of the sweedish bombshell; evangelina cisneros makes uschi digard look like stand-in for kristen scott thomas in the english patient.

Confessions of a Stevedore (insert)

there are several defining moments in my life, instances where a set of random circumstances conspire together to from an indellible impression, one that wreaks its havoc upon every decision i've ever made, upon each thought that shoots across my synapses. they form together an albatross,  a giant monkey on my back, dumb and dumber taunting me, goading fixit me into submission, doubt and recalcitrance fixit.  they are the following:

the cover of an abridged edition of ambrose bierce's devil's dictionary.  i can't think for the life of me why this particular edition was bequethed upon us as children.  i was young enough to still believe in the devil and this, combined with weekly sojourns to sunday school, was an exercise in contradiction i could never quite fathom.  i blame the artwork.  there is an evilness inherant in early illustrations, eugene delacroix, aubrey beadsley, edward gorey—there is something incarnate about their work, a world weariness, an indefinable horror that seeks to damage rather than entertain...not so with the current crop of tim burtons with their childlike insouciance and uncanny ability to tap into the popular malaise.

the contents of the book were a complete mystery to me at the time.  i don't think i ever breached the cover for fear of retribution but if i had, the snarkyness, the topical 19th century witticisms would have been beyond me,  but oddly, i've garnered a general distaste for cynicism and satire, at least for the soul sake of being cynical and satirical.  it smacks of poor sportmanship and bellyaching fixit.

okay.  number two:  the sneetches by dr. seus.  talk about indocrination fixit.  i never bought the ending.  the notion that success in life is predicated soley upon self-aggrandizement seemed even then, at the tender age of five, a diabolical plot, "the most monstrously concieved and dangerous communist plot we've ever had to face!"

number three:  walter the lazy mouse.  okay, i get that it was a kick in the pants to little kids who spend too much time in the tub...but there was something prophetic about it, something fatalistic about it that seemed wholly fixit addressed to me.  this fucking mouse is always late.  he wakes up late in the morning only to join his fellow siblings at the breakfast table just as they are finishing...he misses the bus to school and when he finally does arrive he finds his siblings and classmates have decamped homeward.  and so on and so forth ad infinitum...

notes:

work in ethan frome, variation on a theme of ethan frome etc, fantasy on a thene

lost in a roman wilderness of pain.  i've always liked that line, not for the juvenile rhyme scheme that follows, but the truth of it.  morrison was most likely in some survey class, post european debt relief through the fine prism of etruscan antiquities, sitting next to some chick, second cousin to sharon tate, reminicing about some sudanese exchange student that weaned her forever off suburban white boys.  it's sad how passion and truth is wasted on young poets.  they try in earnest in later years to recapture the glory but they wind up writing about the new england autoban fixit society..."the intricate patters of the spider's web

tug on heart strings, fill emotional pot holes, cock and seal old wounds, the sounds of (migrating birds, their soujourn calls the empty promises of an indian summer—

news years resolutions on bar napkins' the drunken philisophical ramblings spilled to a bartender named joe (for those taking notes: there is always a bartender named joe, soaking up drunken philisophical ramblings and re-stocking the peanuts. fixit)

notice to matilda, the offspring of (new england fouding family, etc) the paintings of andrew wyeth (first name?) contain the stuff of odysseus, the longigns of christina, her fallen gate (collapsed gate etc) and forlorn expression; the labors of athena and elektra's (passion, angst, madness etc)

i could tell old poets a thing or two—the lines (quatrains, verses-poetical term) of robert frost have long since been (outlawed) and emily dickenson, so gauche, so obvious...though whitman still rears his ugly head in immaculate proclamations and ringing affirmations (self-aggrandizements)

notes:  with the loss of primagenture fixit comes the loss our great musical heritage.  teenagers used to crowd the aisles of the (benny goodman hall in new york) and later, after they wised up, the taverns and speak-easys on 52nd street...i know, i've seen the pictures!  Clint Eastwood—forget about it.  where do ya think he learned to play the piano..?  hanging backstage at a sex pistols gig?  i don't think so.  finally these assholes figured out they could just pick up a guitar and make music themselves.  with the advent of radio, now cow-towing to a newly landed gentry, the boomers, marketers had a new audience, a younger, greener audience who didn't need the chops of an arturo toscannini to get off and, due to decades of pop music, couldn't comprehend the modulations of bach's first prelude if their lives depended on it.  so, three chord ditties, 1 4 5 changes so as not to tax the ears of our precious little angels, the wisdom and keep political insights of a bob dylan.  all these miraculous conceptions and mingus winds up wandering central park with a fixit nikon 35mm camera.

notes:  not quite bostonian, quarter tainted with mariland stock (marylander) from eduction of henry adams

i've read 20 pages of education of henry adams today and i feel like shit for not having read 40.  i've read the book before, when i was in my twenties, but that didn't count.  i've re-read it since and i've referenced it a few times in the past few years but i'm a firm believer in reading classics more than once, continually in fact.  who was that british critic that re-read dickens every year, not just great expectations, but all of dickens?  i've got to get to root of the brahmin question.  were they just sneetches or did they merit their stars? "and this is good old boston, the home of the bean and the cod, where the lowells talk only to cabots and the cabots talk only to god."  shippers, loomers and philanthropists—those two crew jackasses in the social network who by the way, were, at least in the beginning, true to their brahmin roots.  harvard men don't sue one another.  that's all brahmin shite.  though, of course, zuckerberg was a jew.

an interesting section in the book, well, the whole book is interesting, but this one particular section about adams and his introduction to beethoven and to classical music in general — i think it would be interesting to know exactly when and how much exposure so-called cultured americans received  say, between the years 1776 and 1881, the year the boston symphony orchestra was founded, one of the first and principle orchestras in this country.  we've all but abandoned classical music these days, along with the rest of the world, but america is a little different, in the sense that we have always had a vibrant folk music tradition, a popular music tradition made up of a myriad of different cultures that immigrated to this country (i'm completely discounting any influence that native americans may or may not have had—which, by the way, i believe is zilch.  any influence at all is retro and of a decidedly scholarly nature—in the sense that musical scholars have made an effort to quantify and record as much music as possible.  the majority of so-called native american music that springs readily to the minds of most americans is a product of the motion picture industry manufactured by the likes of aaron copeland and alex north)  so-called classical music is a western phenomenon and arguably a manufactured phenomenon at that if you take into account that our musical scale is a tempered scale, a non-natural scale that has been adopted due to its economy and practicality.  many eastern countries use the natural scales in their own so-called classical or indigenous music.  america's own native music utilizes many intervals that are quite similiar to the natural scale: melodic minor scales, pentatonic scales etc—these scales have a greater sense of resolution in both rhythm and note.  the blues utilizes the aptly named "blue note," a interval between the fixit and fixit notes that comes very close to emulating the natural scales.  the average american in the early to mid 19th century would find classical music rather boring, in the sense that his ears would be seeking a more rigid and fixed sense of pitch and resolution.  suffice to say that most popular music heard in america at that time would condition the listerner to a more restricted set of chords, in both rhythm and notes.  most classical music utilizes an almost infinite number of chords and the notion of resolution, especially to the ears of an early american, would be almost non-existant.  it's not surprising that henry adams had no taste for beethoven when he was first expsosed.  of course he later became a huge fan of beethoven's music and the music of many other classical musicians—notably wagner, who could rightly be called the non-resolution king (though not by your humble narrator) would not ingratiate himself to henry adams until the very twilight of his life—godderdamerung fixit  being one of the very last of his musical conquests...

my point is that you can indeed lead a horse to water and make him drink—the horse in this case being henry adams, the oh so uncouth american steadfast in his morals and character yet flexible in his almost insatiable drive to better himself.  drive here is the key.  one must have a sense of the better.  one must entertain the notion that something better exists and that to strive towards this betterment is a worthy act.  i think that is what we've lost in this country.  i can't quite put my finger on it but i think it stems from the onslaught of popular radio, which in turn lead to the death of amateur music making (at least of a classical nature) and the onslaught of the internet.  the invention of the radio and the internet—two of the biggest levelers this country has ever faced. (i'll address the invention of the combustion engine and the interstate highway system for another chapter, perhaps another book..!)

notes:

lartique (add william klein, avedon, more eugene smith

re-reading vonnegut qgain, reading joyce, balzaq etc

dead english girls.  add winehouse

mazursky and his groucho quotes, obessession with film noir, kubricks killing more.

second raters club, also rans

lartique, airborne feats of magic, makes small work of conceptualists, rips asunder...etc.  despite his flirtation with stereoscopy (obsession with sports whpich borders on illustrative, though thety are amoung his best ohotos.  idea that hsi photos were not discovered until decades later, had littoe or no influnce, as did not many other so-called gentleman photographers...play again to the notion of the hobbies and pastimes of the rich, how making a living at craft is the job of the middle classes, the artisan class.  this plays to the idea of whether the high arts are truly worth since they are aboive and beyind what any reasonoable oerson would attempt.  bring up mozart ane beethoven and the resistance they faced, kn both musical acceptance  and social caste.

notes:  at one point, make reference to ron gallela and his obsession with jackie, the fact that jackie has done nothing to warrant it, the non-accomplishments of her children, thier resemblance to old europe aristocarcy and the notion of the non-accomplishment,

also bring up the poor little rich girl syndrome etc.

man rays toilet inspores little confidense though it shows up on punk albums, covers etc.

whitmans democracy

there is nothing quite so pathectic in this world to see as an old man wax poetic about a 50 years dead fixit english alto.  mazursky weeps in fits etc...  like grandpa out of the waltons, like...  walter brennan in tammy, like.... (quote line from apocalypse now...i wepts, like some grandmother iwanted to tear my teeth out...i didnt know what i wanted to do.)

in my dotage, ive become a joycean scholar, a walking encyclopedia etc...

barthes:  camera lucida...

a photograph is never anything but an antiphon of look, a child gesturing "that, there it is, lo!

pg.  45

the punctum has, more or less potentially, the power of expansion.  this oower is often metonymic.

there is another less (proustian) expansion of the punctum...

robert wilson holds barthe, though he cannot say why (with philip galss)

(great word—equerry...horseman/servant

queen victoria on the horse...  the horse rearing?  no, the ingongruity of the scene.  victoria fat, uhealthy, the stagedness of the photograph.  is she led around like some child on a pony, with a drewl cup and (tops), has she ever been on a horse before, why does she need it stayed. the picture reeks of revolution, the reason the romanovs were distinguished.  i see (romanovs on lonely railroad cars on vacated tracks...   what does this picture signify, a link to the past, english roots, their connectiin with nature, why do we need to see queen vic on a  horse and what dors it signify.

***** a labyrinthine man never seeks the truth, but only his ariadne (from nietzche)

(for mazursky:  collected books on kilroy photos)

for lartigue:        From this, there was a photo spread in Life magazine in 1963, coincidentally in the issue which commemorated the death of John Kennedy, ensuring the widest possible audience for his pictures.

"assyriology'

montage on photograohitechniques....  "collodion-on-glass"  etc

lewis carrol and the trials and tribulTions of alice liddell

julia margaret cameron's portrait of sir john herschel

key!  the patient at the surrey county lunatic asylum (compare and contrast our fascinatiin with the insane, their detached"ness", separateability

the plight of mathew brady (civil war photographer and portraitist)  like electricity and the many fraudulent uses , attemots to make money, work in gilded age etc.

was thinking about the lack of any decipherable hegemony in our society.  the inability to look at any one thing and say "this is good...this is great" and generate at least some semblance of recognition from your mates.  i don't mean to suggest that this is a new phenomenon, unique to my generation.  there are legions of dead critics, dead purveyors of culture: ezra pound, edmund wilson, malcom crowley

we followed mazursky from the start.  it was his idea, of course, the panopticon…f'ing brilliant!  too brilliant in fact.  it died beneath the wait of its own genius.  it started as one of a series of schubertiads at dupairs at farmer's market in la, right off the top of his head, as if he was reading the special off the chalk board.  

"take some b-celebrity, some poor slob from some 70s sitcom, willie aames from eight is enough…christ, what an asshole!  you take this guy and you follow him, day and night.  he goes to the john and you light up that restroom like it's saigon, new years eve, 1968.  you follow him everywhere, mcdonalds, starbucks, the dmv for christs sake…everywhere!  but it's gotta be some asshole hasbeen, some jackass that would give his left kidney to be back in the limelight and has exhausted everything from daytime variety shows and reality tv to hocking the clapper on late night cable…i mean you find that biggest jerk on the planet…christopher knight, danny bonaducci, scott baio…now there's a moron!  leif garret!!!…naw, leave him alone, he's suffered enough, but you get my drift."

here's the panopticon in a nutshell.  you follow some b-celebrity asshole like he's chaz bono at a sturgis rally and you photograph him until he snaps like cher, like piers brosnan fixit in his boxers, like matthew mccoughnahey on the beach at malibu, you photograph him until he coldcocks you with your camera (leave your leica home on this shoot.  time to whip out that trusty nikon d200 or canon d40 gathering dust mites in your closet).  actually, getting coldcocked with your camera is not such a bad way to pay your cable bill, but i digress…  suddenly the rags are innundated with shots of this poor bastard, tons of shots and by every decent pap in los angeles.  out of focus shots, half in a doorway shots, telephoto shots from 500 yards away, shots in the past worthy of only perhaps thomas pynchon or j.d. salinger, maybe even greta garbo if journalists had any balls back then.  this pandemonium lasts for three days and on the third day you camp out on his lawn hoping he'll call the cops.  finally the rags get wise and they start publishing all these shots with crazy headlines and suddently, every magazine in town is paying top dollar for any shot of this poor unsuspecting loser.  it's briliant! diabolical!  but that's mazursky for ya…

i coined it the panopticon though you won't read about that any where.  the media called it, aptly enough, the bang bang club and that's what stuck (sorry mates, no hard feelings…cheers!)  regardless, the panopticon lasted a few years back in the mid to late oughts.  it bought me few polorizing filters i can tell you and it bailed not a few paps out of the slammer.  

it all started when nikon announced the D1 back in the late 90s, the first reputable digital camera and suddenly, the game changed.  

[insert pap history, nikon history here]

Confessions of a Stevedore VI (unedited text)

notes on steichen;  the effects of seeing garbo, so striking, sitting there with the weight of the world outside her doorstep, peeking through the blinds, welles fucking hayworth in the ass all the while dreaming of garbo swiming naked in a cement pond, seeing garbo after a furlong of staid imagery, contrivances, so bellicose fixit, so trite…all those goddammed incongruous milk bottles, then the effect of seeing garbo, really put the hooks in me.

i mention that i've been working on my book called the plight of mathew brady (civil war photographer and portraitist) and this prompts mazursky to  remind us of his obsession with dead english girls to which he tacks on a kind of spoken-word epitaph for amy winehouse.  we listen with reverence, not for winehouse but for mazursky and after a moment of silence i continue;  "so brady took this so-called daguerretype and ran with it, does what any self-respecting capitalist does; he channels it into a business and simultaneously launches what could rightly be called the greatest photographic invention in history, the snapshot!…i'm talking the first 2 x 3.5 photograph  i wrongly think that my revelations are riveting, that i will captivate my audience with my brilliant insights into this almost two century obsession with the photographic image but i have lost them, to the real estate holdings of groucho marx, the alarming suicide rate of b-actors and the current whereabouts of brooke bundy, possibly the tastiest piece of b-celebrity ass to grace the screen since angie dickenson.  (for those keeping score, she presently resides in new york city at the B.I.H. actor's studio, 6 E 46th St #402 New York, NY 10017).  i can't compete with this hollywood lore shit, i mean, i'm from lubbock texas and only two things come from lubbock texas…  brady peddled these cartes de visite to cival war soldiers like money from home, then he got the bright idea to document the war with his camera. 

the albumen process of printing allowed for mass production and the photojournalist and so-called professional photographer was born. but, he wrongly supposed that the u.s. government would finance his operations; what no historian, philosopher or budding entrepeneur could predict is the short attention span of the american public.  the majority of brady's negatives were lost or forgotten and he died a pauper in a charity ward hospital in new york city, an honorred member the second-rater's club, a sainted alumni of the also-rans and wily second sons of newly landed gentry; a victim of the gilded age, those starry-eyed dreamers and railroad speculators; the mark twainification of art and fiction, peddling rot to the little people in order to finance his wacky typesetters, "You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter…" fuck you, you shyster lawyer…not on my watch!  

when i get mazursky alone i press him for info on roberta.  he's a wiz at diagnosing mental disorders and keeps the dsm iv in his backpack, not that he needs it, but he claims it has gotten him layed more often amoung the 20 something set than any casual mention of bob & carol & ted & alice (who are we kidding here; the only twenty somethings that have heard of bob & carol & ted & alice are the olson twins and jennifer connelly and she's 41 years old!).  "roberta's fits and tantrums on hollywood blvd can only be attributed to bulimia nervosa," claims mazursky.  "that paired with a heavy dose of PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) and, obviously, dissociative identity disorder."  mazursky launches into a diatribe on how he came to this conclusion.  mazursky spent years trolling for roberta on the streets of los angeles, following her through the alleyways and through the mazes of dingbats between hollywood and sunset, east of gower, west of van ness, trying despartely to coax her into his car, tempting her with offers of chai tea lattes, even waiving 20 dollar bills from his car window.  her reluctance to acknowledge the almighty greenback is how mazursky figures she is need of medication, that and the fact that she hasn't bathed since 1971.  the only vestige of sanity she has managed to salvage is an unruly degree of fashion sense.  she is optimally robed no matter the season; thriftstore chic, a regular vagabond diana vreeland towing her wares in discarded billabong glides; never over burdened, never over packed, always in the guise of a frantic flight attendant, half-kempt, makeup courteosy of the bathroom at gower dennys and hair all sally jesse raphael; alarming combinations, not to mention her ginormouse double d's screaming braless in some filthy matte silk blouse, pendulous, hypnotic, sending mazursky into eplileptic shock and causing irreputable dammage to his front and rear bumpers. he has mastered the art of jacking off, following her all taxi-cab slow, steering with his knees and shifting with his right hand (mazursky's a lefty, thank the gods) waiting for her to reach the corner of carlton and gordon where she stoops and bends, whences and heaves, much like his precious 50 somethings, the retired ladies playing doubles tennis at agincourt, another of mazursky's hangouts.  mazursky sees her posing, her figure, all moddish twiggy or peggy lipton, silhoutted against the setting sun, the brim of her corduroy oliver twist newsboy cap cutting a striking figure, all noir ficiton cover, something frazetta might paint in the midst of some opium induced bender only to awaken, cold and sweating, beads collecting on his brow like moisture on the brow or jeremy bentham's leather skull.  

mazursky pants whenever he describes her form.  he has every precious sighting logged in his memory and can recal them at will.  he has been tempted to buy a van with huge sliding doors, hire some dayworkers at the local uhaul and do a pick-up, alight her gently but firmly on a bed of pillows and sequest her all james patterson in some dive inland empire lean-to.  i mean, why not?  it's obvious no one else wants her, no one cares.  he would feed her regularly, like a snake if necessary, to counter her bouts of bulimia, administer herbal remedies and vitamin c injections to regulate her mental deficiencies and he would give her douches and enemas and a summer of turkish baths; anything less he figures would leave minute trails of city smut buried deep in her tissues…and then, what next..? well, what would be… the story of o, contraptions and machinations that would curl the lips of the marquis de sade..! but, alas news would leak of his acquisition and his reputation, what little of it exists, would suffer.  "you can't keep anything a secret in this town," mazursky weeps.