Thursday, December 23, 2004 THINGS TO SEE AND DO AROUND X-MAS -- ‘What?’ ‘Will I have the right attitudes?’ ‘I think so,’ I say. ‘I don’t think that will be any problem at all.’ And so, we ride on and on, down to Ukiah and Hopland, and Cloverdale, down into the wine country. The freeway miles seem so easy now. The engine which has carried us halfway across a continent drones on and on in its continuing oblivion to everything but its own internal forces. We pass through Asti and Santa Rosa, and Petaluma and Novato, on the freeway that grows wider and fuller now, swelling with cars and trucks and buses full of people, and soon by the road are houses and boats and the water of the Bay. Trials never end of course. Unhappiness and misfortune are bound to occur as long as people live, but there is a feeling now, that was not there before, and is not just on the surface of things, but penetrates all the way through: We’ve won it. It’s going to get better now. You can sort of tell these things.’ Epilogue from chapter 32- ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE- by Robert M.Pirsig- Bantam Books -- ‘Finally he was paid off and he came over to San Francisco and had a good meal, a steak dinner at le Boeuf and some good booze, Jack Daniels, and then went out to the Fillmore and picked up a good-looking, young, Negro whore, and he got laid in the Albert Bacon Fall Hotel. The next day he went down to a fancy stationary store on Market Street and bought himself a thirty-dollar fountain pen, one with a gold nib. He showed it to me and said, ‘Write with this, but don’t write hard because this pen has got a gold nib, and a gold nib is very impressionable. After a while it takes on the personality of the writer. Nobody else can write with it. This pen becomes just like a person’s shadow. It’s the only pen to have. But be careful.’ I thought to myself what a lovely nob trout fishing in America would make with a stroke of cool green trees along the river’s shore, wild flowers and dark fins pressed against the paper.’ Epilogue from chapter- Trout Fishing in America Nib- from TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA- by Richard Brautigan- Picador Books -- ‘A merry Christmas, Bob!’ said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. ‘A merrier Christmas, Bob,’ my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another I, Bob Cratchit!’ Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on the globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less Attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!’ Epiloque from- A CHRISTMAS CAROL- By Charles Dickens -- ‘The last word he pronounced was – your name.’ ‘I heard a light sigh and then my heart stood still, stopped dead short by an exulting and terrible cry, by the cry of inconceivable triumph and of unspeakable pain. ‘I knew it-I was sure!’…She knew. She was sure. I heard her weeping; she had hidden her face in her hands. It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head. But nothing happened. The heavens do not fall for such a trifle. Would they have fallen. I wonder, if I had not rendered Kurtz that justice which was his due? Hadn’t he said he wanted only justice? But I couldn’t. I could not tell her. It would have been too dark-too dark altogether…’ Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody moved for a time. ‘We have lost the first of the ebb,’ said the Director, suddenly. I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky-seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.’ Epilogue from- HEART of DARKNESS- By Joseph Conrad- Penguin Books -- ‘I put the dime in. The kid started squeezing his triggers and I started squeezing mine. The kid had made a bad choice. The left arm of his fighter was broken and only reached up halfway. It could never hit the button on my fighter’s chin. All the kid had was a right hand. I decided to take my time. My guy had blue trunks. I moved him in and out, making sudden flurries. The Mexican kid was great, he kept trying. He gave up on the left arm and just squeezed the trigger for the right arm. I rushed blue trunks in for the kill, squeezing both triggers. The kid kept pumping the right arm of red trunks. Suddenly blue trunks dropped. He went down hard, making a clanking sound. ‘I got ya, Mister,’ said the kid. ‘You won,’ I said. The kid was excited. He kept looking at the bleu trunks flat on his ass. ‘You wanna fight again, Mister?’ I paused, I don’t know why. ‘You out of money. Mister?’ ‘Oh, no’ ‘O.K., then, we’ll fight.’ I put in another dime and blue trunks sprang to his feet. The kid started squeezing his one trigger and the right arm of red trunks pumped and pumped. I let blue trunks stand back for a while and contemplate. Then I nodded at the kid. I moved blue trunks in, both arms flailing. I felt I had to win. It seemed very important and I kept thinking, why do I think this is so important?’ And another part of me answered, just because it is. Then blue trunk dropped again, hard, making the same iron clanking sound. I looked at him laying on his back down there on his little green velvet mat. Then I turned around and walked out.’ Epilogue from chapter 35- HAM ON RYE- By Charles Bukovski- Black Sparrow Press -- ‘Opening his eyes, he looked down expecting to see, below him, the magnificent jungle, the heights, Pico de Orizabe, Malinche, Cofre de Perote, like those peaks of his life conquered one after another before this greatest ascent of all had been successfully, if unconventionally, completed. But there was nothing there: no peaks, no life, no climb. Nor was this summit a summit exactly: it had no substance, no firm base. It was crumbling too, whatever it was, collapsing, while he was falling, falling into the volcano, he must have climbed it after all, though now there was this noise of foisting lava in his ears, horribly, it was in eruption, yet no, it wasn’t the volcano, the world itself was bursting, bursting into black spouts of villages catapulted into space, with himself falling through it all, through the inconceivable pandemonium of a million tanks, through the blazing of ten million burning bodies, falling, into a forest, falling- Suddenly he screamed, and irt was as though this scream were being tossed from one tree to naother, as its echoes returned, then, as though the trees themselves were crowding nearer, huddled together, closing over him, pitying… Somebody threw a dead dog after him down the ravine.’ Epilogue from chapter 12- UNDER THE VOLCANO- By Malcolm Lowry- Penguin Modern Classics -- ‘The sun is low in the sky and the sea is calm. Like a mirror as they say. Only it is not like a mirror. The waves which are scarcely waves, for they come and go in many different directions and their rising and falling is barely perceptible, are made up of innumerable tiny surfaces at variegating angles to one another-of these surfaces those which reflect the sunlight straight into one’s eyes, sparkle with a white light during the instant before their r angle, relative to oneself and the sun, shifts and they merge again into the blackish blue of the rest of the sea. Each time the light lasts for no longer than a spark stays bright when out from a fire. But as the sea recedes towards the sun, the number of sparkling surfaces multiplies until the sea indeed looks somewhat like a silver mirror. But unlike a mirror it is not still. Its granular surface is in continual agitation. The further away the ricocheting grains, of which the mass become silver and the visibly distinct majority a dark leaden colour, the greater is their apparent speed. Uninterruptedly receding towards the sun, the transmission of its reflections becoming ever faster, the sea neither requires nor recognizes any limit. The horizon is the straight bottom edge of a curtain arbitrarily and suddenly lowered upon a performance.’ Epilogue from chapter- The Stone Guest- 'G'- By John Berger- Penguin Books -- ‘That evening the swarm of helicopters that came buzzing across the Hog’s Back was a dark cloud ten kilometers long. The description of of last night’s orgy of atonement had been in all the papers. ‘Savage!’ called the first arrivals, as they alighted from their machine. ‘Mr. Savage!’ There was no answer. The door of the lighthouse was ajar. They pushed it open and walked into a shuttered twilight. Through an archway on the further side of the room they could see the bottom of the staircase that led up to the higher floors. Just under the crown of the arch dangled a pair of feet. ‘Mr. Savage!’ Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east…’ Epilogue from chapter XVIII- BRAVE NEW WORLD- By Aldous Huxley- Panther Books -- posted by Walter at 12/23/2004 Tuesday, December 21, 2004 BLUE ZULU -- This is tough-love-cinema the mood: BLUE ZULU The protagonist is breaking the traditions of platitude and shuns bite-sized conversation The ancient world was populated by giant women engaged in a scrum over the earth Their mystical qualities were legion- a colony could only flourish in discretion 50 something- and narrowly coaxed out of Eden- she remains unapologetic: -‘Readers are leaders- ‘Art reigns supreme’- and -‘Hallucinogens and teardrops are alike’- In the economy of the almost grounded- sunglasses become diving goggles The hand that guides you -smooth at the wrist- makes you prefer rant over rhyme. The movement of her arm describes a Jurassic Arc The resulting picture -a plot of the past- is sprayed by a fact-machine No need to ask for directions as you take first steps into the new age. -- (C) Walt 2004 -- posted by Walter at 12/21/2004