1980 1 of 10
My journal from 1980 is not as detailed or day-by-day as before; I just want to get the BASIC journal pages on the website. For missing days, I've included LIFELIST at the end of the year to supplement journal entries.
TUESDAY, 1/1/80: Note about LISTENING AND WATCHING BRUCKNER'S NINTH: Von Karajan is rapt and intense, there's hardly a sound from the audience between movements, and the six cameras manage to be everywhere at once; on Karajan, on the violin strings and a humpy violinist behind, on the bass fingers, on the major horns when used and the woodwinds almost constantly, and a long shot from the back of the hall when the music's so understated that it would annoy concentrating on one instrument. And it takes me back to the LSD sessions when his hyper-romantic music built me up and built me up, so that at the climax I held my breath at each inner-record rotation, expecting some APOTHEOSIS to take place, and the only thing that happened would be that the next record would come on the turntable---and it's no wonder that I got a sensation of repetition! THIS time I think that it should be "choreographed" so that these super-romanticisms should lead up to something like Balinese gamelan or Ravi Shankar, which will noodle around for awhile, by its very structure NOT building up for anything, and when it DOES get to a smashing finale, it STAYS there for awhile until you're quite sure it's gone on long enough, and then you're RELIEVED at the finish, rather then hyped to a new high from which there's no place to go. "Tubular Bells" it seems worked that way, alternating highs and lows so that the record has no ONE high to look forward to, and every high is gently resolved downward. I immediately extrapolated to LIFE: I keep looking FORWARD, with ANTICIPATION, and THIS IS IT!! The Perennial Philosophy isn't coming, it's HERE, doesn't have to be LEARNED, but everything else has to be Unlearned. And it's not even CERTAIN that there's "unity." It just MAY be that, brought to the EDGE OF EXPERIENCE, BEYOND WHICH WE CANNOT GO WITHOUT LITERALLY GOING OUTSIDE OURSELVES, WE "INTUIT" THAT EVERYTHING OUT THERE IS INSIDE. THIS IS NOT NECESSARILY TRUE!!! It could be that we sense merely NOTHINGNESS, and then, in an existential panic (fed by all these reports that the philosophy IS, after all, perennial) we MAKE ourselves see what we "should" see, whereas what we REALLY see outside ourselves is NOTHING---NO afterlife, beforelife, betweenlife, amonglife, all WE have to see is what WE are, unconnected to anything else---THIS WOULD TRULY BE LIVING IN THE MOMENT (since time is outside ourselves), realizing this now and NOW and NOW!!!!.
WEDNESDAY, 1/2/80: Note from NEW YEARS DAY AT THE LEVEY'S: Get there right at 3 so I can see the apartment just getting set: about 3-5 people in the kitchen, punch on the table, cheeses and cookies out already, and I put the coat in the bedroom and there's someone Faye introduces me to that we know we've met, and I (DOING, again, per NOTEBOOK 190) establish that it was at EFA in February, and she sort of sticks with me through the day. Robert someone is VERY sexy in Sassoon jeans on NICE legs over a LARGE crotch, but he's there with a girlfriend or his sister and he's only affable and no more, and why can't I TALK with the fellows behind who are comparing Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens addresses? But I'm surrounded by women: the new one who came unknowing there'd be food, Madelyn and Beegee, Margaret and Marilyn and Susan and Dorothy and the new woman who talks with me, and I take lots of my Greyman Brut but don't get a buzz, eat lots of food which is VERY good, and wish I'd left before the AWFUL performing: Abe Weisman who's too studied to be affecting, though maybe his voice has SOME possibilities; a folk-singing duo neither of whom are much better singers than ME; and a solo pianist-composer who insists everyone sing along about his "Walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death Until You Come Out on the Top of the Mountain and You Can Look Down on the Whole Thing." People talk too loud during it, Beegee turns me off with her stupidity: she LOOKS at the Christmas tree leaning against her chair, and then PULLS it out, allowing the tree to crash to the floor without DOING anything about it. Bruce and Marilyn and Margaret all ask me to the full moon session tonight, but I say "No, but I'm glad you have a crowd," I say, smiling unnervingly down at Bruce, and utter a curt "No" to Margaret when she asks if I want to attend a free lecture on esoteric Egyptianism. Get out at 6, Faye sorry to see me go, Sylvan brushing my arm a few times but we say NOTHING about indexing, and I leave wondering how they got SO MANY PEOPLE (about 60 at least, with most of the food gone) to come every year and make it seem like they LIKE it. Frustrated, also, about not being able to talk to the GUYS I want to talk to (went in pink, too) whereas the GALS surely find it easy enough to come across and talk to ME for long times.
THURSDAY, 1/3/80: PUSHING TOWARD JOY!: Great session this morning, with Subtle Warrior seeming to open up vast areas of good feelings, so that I CAN think of myself as a channel, as a conduit of light, as a person who might be able to feel lots of GOOD feelings lots of the time. I get the idea that THINKING about doing (not for the first time, I fear) isn't worth as much as DOING: desires that are ONLY desires aren't worth ANYTHING: they have to be ACTED upon! I can't WISH to slenderize, I have to EXERCISE. I can't WISH to be published, I have to WRITE and WORK and send things out. I can't WANT people to attack me, I have to make myself attractive and MEET the people. But then there's also joy again available at the thought that I HAVE done: I HAVE money now to spend and invest, with more coming in; I HAVE trained people for indexing and gotten as far as I've gotten with the indexing book; I HAVE the JOYI company name and calling cards and ideas for expansion, so now I should WORK on them; and got in the mail today the retail sales number, which I could have gotten SO easily before and used SO wisely! AND I just acted on the wonderful idea that JEFF is coming over this afternoon to xerox copies of the various stages of the book for me, so I can ALSO get him to xerox the certificate of authorization for PURCHASES with it!! And I DO have a good apartment, good relationships, good STARTS on writing all sorts of things, good background of information and expertise, good prospects for increased prosperity, so all I have to do is DO act on it, GET things done, and be GLAD while doing it. And think: I haven't had ANYONE offended by my pushing too hard for a LONG time: I can act MORE than before, not less! And today I spot the NEXT writer's workshop, right around the corner on College Place yet for only $25 for 4 sessions, and maybe I CAN get out the magnetic and get things coming toward me, now that I've laid the groundwork for it and have the desire to break out of myself: just get out of my WAY, I say to me, and I can go farther ("posterity" and "father" types---TYPOS in one piece is too much)---so there it is, I CAN think about the chances of having a child, even NOW, and THAT'S something to chat with Amy about this evening!
FRIDAY, 1/4/80: Note from NEW YEAR'S EVE AT AVI'S AND CENTRAL PARK: (WONDERED why I got out 4 pieces of paper, and THIS is the fourth page!) There at 7 with my two bottles of Greyman Brut and they've just finished an argument that delayed their buzzing for the door, and I suggest AVI is wrong for putting IN the ballerina in Robin's ad, and ROBIN is wrong for getting so ANGRY about it. They simmer down for serving the sausage-meat sauce for the spaghetti and CANNED peas and garlic bread and salad, and we're finished by 8 in time for Bill to call and say they're lost, so I look at photos that Robin's taken, and he's MUCH handsomer without his beard, and it looks like his BODY might not really be that desirable, but his FACE is still marvelous. And Avi says they have SUCH a good relationship. Then Bill and Jim enter and we're having drinks and settle in for BOGGLE, which is a GREAT game, probably because I win more games than anyone else, and we're so entranced that we play until 11:25 and THEN out to the park to watch the gyrations under the lights at the Bethesda Fountain, hippies making the packaging fly by their gyrations and sticks, the wings funny wrapped, spotlights dimming the BRIGHT clear stars, and then at 11:45 we're around to the island on the lake beyond the Bow Bridge for the fireworks, and when they start I lay down on the lake-edge so they curve up and explode RIGHT above my head, the larger ones JUST PRECISELY filling my range of vision, and some of the green bomblets that last to the surface of the lake have to be watched because they rain down a few feet from me, and during the finale I can hear the patter of junk on the sidewalk behind me and I fantasize there's ash in my face from the sight, but I can almost put the raving drunk who says "That's BORING" between the flashes of light and bangs from the cannonade out of my ears and get caught up in the flashes and explosions that pulse the smoke like little sonic booms in the clear night air that the breeze clears quickly from the fireworks, though we can smell the remnants of the smoke on the wet of the park as we walk over 72nd to see all the PEOPLE messing around and get back to play more Boggle and Avi's falling asleep but wins the last game anyway and we leave about 2:30 and I get a subway fast and get home at 3 and feel that I've enjoyed the holidays and am now glad for a chance to get down to WORK.
FRIDAY, 1/18/80: THOUGHTS WITH SUBTLE WARRIOR:
A. 1. I MAY want children
a) because I'm afraid of death
b) because I want to perpetuate myself
2. I may be AFRAID of "expanding" from men to women
a) because I fear losing MEN
b) because I fear responsibility for someone else
c) because I fear not knowing how to "satisfy" women
d) because I fear "having made the wrong investment"
3. I may WANT to produce a child
a) but I don't want to FATHER it
b) but I don't want a WIFE
c) but I fear being SUCKED IN (morally blackmailed into having to take responsibility for wife and child)
B. Pretending (being willing to say that I know) to know preceded KNOWING
Pretending to feel preceding FEELING
How about PRETENDING to PERCEIVE?
C. Amy---maybe if you and I presented a UNITED FRONT in OV, they'd listen! Phoned her at 10:05, WAKING her, told her, and said to MY amazement, "I just thought I'd put the germ in"!
D. I get a bit of the novelty of Amy's "they're receiving," not from ME, but from THEIR higher, and as I expand my Perceptual Magnetic, it's not NECESSARILY to "the world out there" but COULD be to "my own higher, lighted Perceptual Dynamic!"
E. INTERESTING how I NOW see that the class "reporting" is more for the GROUP than for the teacher---how I could TALK to ALICE before class and tell HER all my breakthroughs, and then ENJOY telling the CLASS, rather than "eliminating repetition for Alice"!
F. I feel as if I've been only TREADING WATER for a LONG time and now I'm SWIMMING!
G. DESIRES AREN'T ANY THING UNLESS THEY DIRECT ME INTO ACTION.
H. INCREDIBLE "game" comes through: first thought of Bruce then of Ken himself: ask him "I have too much EMOTIONAL involvement and need some COOL DISPASSIONATE OBJECTIVE advice, how do I LEAST OFFENSIVELY make my emotional desires known to a MAN?" How's THAT for asking "How do YOU respond to a NAKED WANT?" I respond by closing up and FLIGHT. How can this be AVOIDED? Michael Blackburn! Rolf for sex! Ken! Robin! Jeff! How NOT to be like ARTHUR!?
SATURDAY, 1/19/80: MY DAY ECHOES MY LIFE:
My DAY echoes my LIFE:
NOT eager to leave bed/home,
Then when it gets started I don't want it to STOP,
As it seems to get better and better,
So that,
At the last,
I drift off to sleep VERY reluctantly---
Though, in fact, SOME nights I'm EAGER to get to bed and the ONLY
BEST
Dearest thing IS sleep!
SUNDAY, 1/20//80: DIFFICULTIES WITH THE EASIEST ADJUSTMENTS: Incredible difficulty in "subtracting 4 from numbers over 832" makes me think how CRAZY we must become constantly "adjusting" our world to our eyesight-view! I find myself changing the wrong numbers, subtracting other than 4, or just writing down "4" above the crossed-off number because I'm constantly thinking "4." But our eyes have to focus to make two objects independently seen into one object seen in three dimensions; our brain has to take these upside-down images and reverse everything left-to-right and top-to-bottom, and so it's NO WONDER we're possibly crazy. Begin to see the possibility of Gurdjieff being RIGHT when he says we're balmy, that we have build-in constructions that prevent us from seeing actuality, that we're constantly involved in an effort to transform TRUTH into FALSITY which can be stopped and then reversed only with the most INTENSE effort, and by going against EVERYTHING society says is TRUE and GOOD for us.
ENTERTAINMENT 1
1/20/80
STAR TREK - THE MOVIE
When the special effects got boring I just looked at Stephen Collins, begrudging the costumers for covering up the tighted front that had nice bumpy spots on it at the beginning, marveling at the totally awful reviews I gave him in "The New York Idea" and "The Three Sisters" when he was at BAM, though Arnie said he'd been in a few other movies where he could look his own age. His Robert Redford blondness and clear blue eyes somehow looked more handsome in full-face than they did in profile, where his thin ski-nose looked whiny and peckish rather than handsome, but his back and chest looked full and sexy all the time. That's more than can be said for poor Persis Ghambatta, who must have been flattened for the PG rating, and who couldn't look terribly good with a bald head until the Kundalini-type climax, with white light pouring out and up in a pulsing phallic stream, when the close-ups and the lighting were so intense that all you could see were the pleading eyes and quivering full lips. The waves of light energy sending up his hair, with the haloing circles of animation, were the epitome of sexual-intellectual climax, "creating a new being for the next step in mankind's evolution," with the Actualism-slanted "The Human Story Is Just Beginning" at the final frames. The slow special effects with great music were affecting, even though some elements looked stolen from the monster in "Night on Bald Mountain." True, as the other critics noted, thee wasn't much in the line of acting or close plotting, but the Voyager discovery was pleasant enough, and the special effects of SIZE were gripping, particularly on a SECOND seeing when I could say the cloud was galaxy-size, the "black hole" was still larger than a solar system, the "construction-spaceship" was about the size of a solar system, with a sun-size fluctuating vagina enclosing the earth-size central ship with its diadem of light that became Stonehenge-like at the end, with a severe size-mistake between the bathroom tiles on the floor which made Enterprise look small. The transporter problem that changes people into monsters was cute, the Enterprise impressive, and I'm glad I saw the special effects again, since I WOULD have wanted to see it a second time just for that, and now I don't have to.
MONDAY, 1/21/80: THOUGHTS ON 1/16:
I DO like to be perverse---
against GOOD reviews makes me the center of attraction explaining WHY.
against BAD reviews makes me better and more perceptive than the critics.
I get attention and can express my OWN opinion, rather than just parroting someone else's. I GAVE UP the idea of "understanding" and "understood" that I was understanding more and more.
TUESDAY, 1/22/80: THOUGHTS ON 1/17:
It might be bad to be conned, but it'd be WORSE to spend ALL that time and money and energy on Actualism and NOT be conned by it!
That old image of processing: untying knots. Even after you UNTIE, the rope goes from ??? to ???, so though the KNOT is gone the rope "remembers" the constriction and deviation from straightness. PULLING on the rope straightens it but takes the CONSTANT EFFORT of PULL. So RECOGNIZE that the rope DOES remember, that things WILL come up again, but that the rope IS IN FACT untied and only repetitive pulls will change the MEMORY of the rope as TIED to the KNOWLEDGE of the rope as STRAIGHT.
WEDNESDAY, 1/23/80: THOUGHTS ON 1/19: Tried to give Dennis the reasons I was depressed last night, and it seemed like there were a whole lot of them: watching "The Late Show" at the expense of "Three Men in a Boat" when I'd actually SEEN "The Late Show" 21 months ago with Dennis and hadn't liked it THEN. He liked it, however, and I was vaguely annoyed with his liking it: he LIKED the jargon-bound Lily Tomlin character for her off-the-wallness, liked the originality of the dialogue, while I, linearly oriented, couldn't follow the people and the guilts and the alibis and the covering-up, and really didn't CARE for the people, maybe being annoyed with Dennis because he DID care for them, nonlinearly, nonmentally, despite their foibles and failures. I, on the other hand, was annoyed that they weren't being all they could: Lily a more productive person, Art Carney a less self-destructive already-destroyed person. But there was more to it: I felt an annoyance typing the datebook pages the previous day and that annoyance increased as I filled out the movie list (coincidentally encountering a MISUSE of that very list by not LOOKING TO SEE if I'd seen "The Late Show" before!) and further increased in anticipation of filing away the sheets for 1979, which will be much SIMPLER due to this notebook, but there are still OTHER books to be closed out, and I guess part of my annoyance is having GONE BEYOND the need for those books, yet seeing the need to CLOSE THEM OUT properly with the pages through March 27, yet since I've decided that it's not the way to do it, the old way seems MORE annoying. Yet I'll DO it, so why do I concern myself about it: it'll take a couple of hours and that'll be that! Then there's the physical annoyance: I feel myself increasingly potty and overweight, actually weighing in at 169 when I feel I should be more like 150 or 155 or at MOST 160 (and I just took an hour to check over the somatotypes, and I can be "better" or "worse" by remaining where I am, overweight, or by reducing to various figures between 159# and 151#). Then there are all the things I "want" to do, but though I said I wanted to be OUT of index-training, suddenly Jeff is due over to start from scratch (admittedly with MINIMAL training, to see if it CAN work!) and Andre is seeing if he wants to spend the weekend here getting started on the Pediatric Surgery book! And then there's the still-present idea that I'm NOT working on the indexing book. So I tell Dennis, "Why is it that when I get what I WANT, I want something ELSE?" I wanted money and now I HAVE money, so I don't want to do more indexes yet since I have them I have to do them. I wanted no one new on indexing and suddenly I HAVE them (yet it will take Andre less time to DO the index, even with my tutoring again) than it would take ME to do it. Then I haven't worked on MY indexes, one of which is due on Monday, and I can see myself setting myself up for a crash-rush job on Sunday evening just to get it DONE. But I have to get to that today. Entertainment seems to be doing well enough, yet I have to schedule something for this evening if there's nothing to watch on TV at 3 on 13. Then there's the new things to do: ordered second sheets for $24.80 and now have an address I can write to for FOUR price quotes: for second sheets, white bond for originals, three-ring sheets, and index-strip cards, for 5, 10, and 20 reams of each---and I find there ARE addresses on the white bond and three-ring sheets that I can write for NOW. Then I'm hungry, and want to exercise, and felt guilty because I hadn't done Actualism, but I DID get all the indexers informed of using spelled-out forms rather than abbreviations as directed by Larry Meyer yesterday, and DID get the movie-list up to date, and even entertained the repairmen for the typewriter and got the delivery on second sheets and got Andre started and talked to Jeff. Sexlessness with Dennis is getting increasingly problematic, since we don't seem to DO it: we're drunk and tired getting to bed and eager to get to work getting out of bed. I don't see it as a CURRENT problem, but it may become one, and Dennis may already be toying with the idea of it BEING a problem. Then I have to do dishes and vacuum and use Dennis's spot remover and get the JOYI letters typed up anew, yet I seem to be doing WELL without lists and without the DIARY typing, so things ARE changing, and I'm even catching up with the pages that I've been thinking I've wanted to type.
THURSDAY, 1/24/80: LOOKING AT THE NOTEBOOK: Used the notebook format for almost 10 months, and find that
DREAMS should be separated out, since they're common pages, and debate ENTERTAINMENT for movies and plays and things that I WANT to write about (not EACH one, but each MAIN one).
ACTUALISM should certainly be kept, though I should put more of my Actualism-connected THOUGHTS into that section, then find that
ESSAYS has been used incoherently: for thoughts, dreams, meetings, and talks with people.
LISTS feels good though it's little used, which is OK.
TRAVEL has nothing, but that's merely because I haven't been anywhere.
FICTION has only two pages, but that's what it is, so it's there.
THROWBACK has nothing in it, but since that could be my first writing project, keep it.
INDEXING BOOK has nothing in it, but it's really below the desk, remove it.
JOYI BOOK has nothing, but I'm still thinking of writing a preface, so keep it.
90000 PAGES are used often enough, so their purpose is fulfilled.
FRIDAY, 1/25/80: THIS TIME I LEAVE IT TO DENNIS TO TALK: He keeps saying that he wants ME to surprise HIM and do things for HIM, but I suggested Almontaser last night and dinner for him Monday, and he's been shying away from sex for quite some time now: going to bed late and saying he's tired, getting up early and saying he has to work. It came to a head one night last week when he got into bed about 11:30, I figured for sex, but he lay on his side and didn't come up despite my playing with him, finally saying "We should get to sleep." Then this morning it came to a poorer pass: I woke up about 8, horny, and started playing with myself, and he finally woke about 9 and went to the bathroom and came back and lay down ignoring the fact that I was playing with myself. Finally he looked over at me and I said, "Mind if I play with myself?" and he urged me to go ahead, beating away on himself under the covers. I pulled down the blankets and rubbed my thumb around my wet cockhead and pushed myself back and jerked off wetly, making moans of appreciative excitement, and he said not a word nor uncovered his own cock, and when I moved faster and faster he leaned closer with excitement, but still didn't get into it himself, and I came with a great gout of long-suppressed semen and then kept working over myself and the only comfort he gave me was to ruffle my hair and then get out of bed again after I crawled out and took the last of his toilet paper to wipe myself off. I told him about it, then said I'd be going upstairs. He keeps giving me that quizzical look which tells me that HE wants ME to control the whole thing or say what has to be said, and I've determined to let HIM speak out this time. Too many times in the past I've smoothed the road of the relationship by bringing up something for conversation when it had gone far enough for me and not quite far enough for him, yet he's always said he was about to say something. This time I'll let HIM say that something to open the conversation. I can keep on with his game as long as he likes, but if he wants this to be a shared relationship, he's going to have to take some of the responsibility for maintaining it and not leave all the spadework to me to do. We'll just have to wait and see how long it goes on and how he chooses to broach the subject of something being wrong.
SATURDAY, 1/26/80: AMY TALKS ABOUT HER LIFE: She went to "Mafia High" William Seward High on Grand Street, worse now, and got good grades and a scholarship to Clark in Connecticut where the richies took drugs and were flabby, so she transferred to University of Wisconsin at Madison where she knew all the Jews, was far-out, and loved a Lithuanian whose father appeared to her and said "He's a good boy." She just HAD to get away from her crazy mother and her sister in an asylum and she the only sane point of the household. But she doesn't feel passion toward Adam anymore, feels this "ball of flaming energy" coming toward her THIS year (despite the fact she'd be IN THE MIDDLE of Alexander training, Actualism, and her apartment on Columbia Heights) that might tear her away from Adam, who is just too limp, not willing to take over: "He'd be overwhelmed if I really let go in orgasm, so I just can't do it. And we argue ALL the time when we're on vacation." She talks of Actualism as an image formation somewhat better than others, knowing the teachers have things to process (I don't tell her about Alice's saying that Russell said she laughed all the time to cover up the sadness of her childhood within, which she said was really the truth, but I DID tell her about "dark forces" (see ACTUALISM 44) and she agreed), but thought it might not be "the final solution." She just wouldn't know where to GO: "Can't stay there, can't go home, can't come here," is what she ACTUALLY says, and I think LATER of "Don't leave A before you find B" as possibly meaning "Don't leave Adam before you find Bob," though I look at her wide hips and too-thin face and think of her constant complaining---though she IS fun to be with even during something as awful as checking her glossary entries for 4.5 hours last night, enjoying popcorn then until 1:30 when she leaves for home after Adam called at 12 and she said she's back in a half an hour---but she SORT of wants children now, and she IS a powerful person to have around, but I can't make any decisions EITHER, rather agreeing with her that when it HAPPENS it happens with great strength, and there's not really too much preparing that can be done for it. She says she can only talk to me, and I don't talk about ANYONE else, so our closeness seems to increase.
SUNDAY, 1/27/80: THOUGHTS ON TYPING JOURNAL TITLE-PAGES:
CONTENTS OF THE PAGES: Amazing how many of them deal with loneliness and the effects of that loneliness---and now I feel myself too involved with people and have a reprehensible feeling of sneaky PLEASURE at Dennis having hepatitis, since now I won't have to spend so much time with him, though he and John were certainly responsible for the relief of much loneliness over the past 10 years. Then how many of them deal with writing, at which point it occurs to me, when I'm putting pages into the "published" book, that IN FACT the JOYI material could be said to have been published, and now the indexing procedures could be said to be published, and I should type on the JOYI indications on each of the final writeup pages.
FORMAT OF THE PAGES: It really DOES seem silly, at last, to dismember each book in order to add only one page and one title-line on one title page, taking about 3 minutes to process a sheet that may have taken me less time to TYPE. I can't tell whether the NEW system will help things out, but certainly the PURPOSE of the old system (to make it easier for me to turn my pages into publishable material) didn't work out over time. So my writing has gone from merely being kept in the same place in a file, to being put into a CONSECUTIVE journal, to being divided into a series of volumes of increasingly greater and greater numbers (starting with 12 volumes plus diary volumes listed on February 23, 1974; ending with 55 volumes with 14,377 pages for an average of 261 pages per volume, OR if I include the blue notebook which COINCIDENTALLY with THIS page 202 has EXACTLY 300 pages in it, the TOTAL TO DATE is 56 volumes with 14,677 pages, for 262 pages per volume---Except that I JUST find that NOTEBOOK starts with page 80, and that NOTEBOOK 1-79 was put into the JOURNAL for 1979 already, so my figures are off by 80, which lowers the average to 261 again! And I figure that, just to get started with the new system, I'll type as much as needed of the CONTENTS page for the NOTEBOOK A now, forgetting about meticulously numbering EVERYTHING, since I get into "A, B, C supplements" quickly enough ANYWAY.
ENTERTAINMENT 2
1/27/80
"THE BLACK HOLE"
Terrible disappointment, even in the attractiveness of Timothy Bottoms as the sexy one, looking so all-American that he doesn't even look SEXY, not nearly as much as Stephen Collins is, anyway. Even Dennis solved the basic problem of the film: it wasn't about the Black Hole or the dangers or fascination of it, it was a typical clichéd film about the mad German scientist, played with deceiving beneficence at the start by Maxmillian Schell (and it must have been FUNNY for him to call his ruddy robot by HIS name!), and a wishy-washy "scientist" taken in by him, played very ineptly by Tony Perkins almost in a cameo role. But the effect of Disney was everywhere: in the cutsy V.I.N.C.E.N.T., which wasn't even EXPLAINED, and the Texas-accented "found" computer with the cocked eyes, rakish hat, one peg leg, and other idiosyncrasies too ludicrous to mention, not the least of which was a "carry on without me" death. As for Special Effects, there was SUCH a long wait before the Cygnus (or Sickness, as Schell pronounced it) lit up, and then before it exploded in so many pieces it was hard to keep count---and then one of the BEST sequences could have been the air-loss from the forest if there was ANYTHING made of the difficulty of getting OUT of it, but they just opened to the next hallway without ANY rush of air and were saved!! When it DID get into the black hole with the distorted faces and the barely audible obsessions of the crew (made NOTHING of, except an orgasmic "It's got me, it's got me, it's GOT me"), there was a spectacular hellfire scene stolen from "Dante's Inferno" for NO particular reason, followed by a Mosaic Max Schell being wafted through aluminum-foil crinkly halls before seeing a crystal light expanding that resulted in his amalgamating with his NAMESAKE-ROBOT for seemingly all time. And then when the CREW woke up, in SUNLIGHT, they saw a planet that Dennis guessed was supposed to be the earth (unless they're planning for some elaborate sequel), but without saying ANYTHING about what may have happened to them or why. Even the spooky possibilities of the live-dead crewmen were ignored, and Ernest Borgnine makes NO kind of space-person, Yvette Mimeux is starting to look like everyone else, and the "vaunted" special effects were mostly CHEAP looking, like the inside of a balloon, except for the overwhelming moment of the channel-gutting meteorite that was so puzzling that Dennis had to ask "What WAS that?" Not for the grownups OR for the kids!
SUNDAY, 2/3/80: "APOCALYPSE NOW" VERSUS "HEART OF DARKNESS": Conrad's "Heart of Darkness:" is painted as "a horror" so abysmally black that I wonder why ANYTHING is afterwards talked about as depressing: life in Paris that he denigrates would seem as blinding light compared to "the horror, the horror." If "the horror" is the fruit of looking into one's own heart, into the heart of darkness in one's own heart, then the darkness would lessen as one moved out from that tenebrous core. If the essence is LIFE, well then embrace death as at least not MORE dark than the heart of darkness. If the essence is DEATH, why castigate life: as it stands in contrast to death it MUST stand as the contrast of LIGHT to darkness, even if only as DIMNESS to BLACKNESS. Did Kurtz reach RELEASE as he died, or was he talking not of what he HAD LEARNED but of what he was ABOUT TO LEARN? Hardly did the story seem to be saying that one goes from pitch to tar, so one part must be lighter than the other if only to throw the darkness into the greater murk. As for the movie of "Apocalypse Now," the references to the "Golden Bough" were obvious in the juxtapositions of the sword-slaying of the sacred bull by the villagers with the sword-slaying of the bull-like Brando by Willard. But there was a SECOND book on the table, entitled "From Ritual to Romance," and THAT characterized the movie: taking a solemn and lofty ritual and romanticizing, bowdlerizing, trivializing, glossing and gussying and glitzing it up into a hyper-romantic visualization and simplification of commercial gain. How different from the Heart of Light of the God Child Within that Actualism teaches, and how Slavicly depressing is Conrad's descent into the pitchy maelstrom. Somehow the CRAFT (almost ART) of the film's frames NEGATE the "horror": Willard rising red-eyed into the mists from the polluted water; pyrotechnic fountains as the settlement (and the boat?) are bombed out of existence under the credits; acid-trip sounds and logic (IS there a C.O.? Yes---and that's ALL) and colors at the bridge---this isn't HORROR, this is beauty, this is humor ("We cut them in two with a machine gun and give them a Band-Aid"), this is obfuscation (What does T.S. Eliot have to do with the whole thing?), this is elaboration (the Robert Duvall sequence which seems to lead to panniers skating through helicopter-blown air), so that somehow the horror gets romanticized, prettified, disappeared.
MONDAY, 2/4/80: SOLUTION TO LETHARGY IN EXERCISE?: AGAIN I have everything I want: read "Shikasta" and Eiseley and Omni and mail; go see "Night and Day" and satisfy my desires for plays for a bit; go to Healthworks and Ray's Pizza and the Cantina and Le Plaisir and Hubert's and Amy's and get my fill of restaurants for awhile; see so many movies that they blur together: "Star Trek" and "Black Hole" and "All That Jazz" and "1941" and "Cage aux Folles" and "Apocalypse Now" and "North Dallas Forty" and "Escape from Alcatraz" and "Ten," a movie every other day; and then LOTS of TV: "Dishonored" and "Lathe of Heaven" and "House on 92nd Street" and "The Late Show" and "Charade" (part of 5-3/4 hours two Sundays ago) and "Nicholas Nickleby" and "Beyond Atlantis" and "Missing Are Deadly" and "Strangers on a Train" and "Martian Chronicles" and "Delicate Balance" and "Blonde Venus" and "Scarlet Empress," almost a movie a day including all the OTHER things I watched that WEREN'T movies; and finish "All the Strange Hours" and read "Heart of Darkness" and get IFs and neck sessions and classes and Amy's bodies and my bodies and parties and writing class---AND NOT MUCH INDEXING DONE, WHICH IS TOO BAD, BECAUSE I FEEL GUILTY, and then do a session finally and decide that I'm feeling not so much lazy as PHYSICALLY LETHARGIC, and it occurs to me that I get NO exercise outside of walking between movies, so I get back into the Air Force exercises and promptly unload a pile of diarrhea from too much motion around 6 grams of ascorbic acid, and then Dennis comes up tonight and we watch part of Bob Hope and then have sex from 9-10, and I'd made dinner of spaghetti and corn soufflé and orange juice, having washed dishes before, not vacuumed, but having gotten a haircut and light bulbs and gone through some of the work for income tax, and yet I want to do STILL more, but tempted to read Syndham---yet I CAN do that, and still have time to finish my indexes, and even still manage to keep Andre and Dennis and Barbara and Sherryl and Amy and Allegra and Jeff settled with their indexes, as well as myself, and thinking about finished the book, finishing the "Coal Age" index, throwing out more junk, cleaning out the closet to catch the mouse, and want to get the indexers here for a meeting, want to have Dana and Jody and Avi and Robin for dinner, maybe even Larry and Lauren and Helen and Priscilla (and their spices?) and Amy and Jeff---and SO MANY THINGS, BUT I JUST GOT TO DO THEM, not think about it!
FRIDAY, 2/8/80: NOTES FROM KATHRYN FALK CLASS 1 (2/2):
It can be good to wholesale your OWN book.
Send a query letter to the publishers of YOUR kind of book.
Add to the query letter for the indexing book: make money at HOME.
Add to the JOYI query letter: mention who WANTED it and how many I sold.
For indexing: pin down publisher: get Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal ADS and others for Writers magazines etc.
Books don't need LITERARY agents but PRESS agents: Bob Parillo is the best, for about $2,000 for a few well-placed phone calls; then there's Eileen Prescott and Betsy someone. Press agents get 1200 free copies of the book.
Send a PACKET of information as a press release---DON'T leave it to the publisher. Include (1) Book information and photo of cover and (2) Interview for newspapers and magazines to PUBLISH, in Q&A format, as THEIRS.
They might even PRINT it and not even tell you about it, as she had in Hobbies.
If you get WRITEUPS, demand your name, publisher, price, and mailing address for AD.
How many printed: at least 5000 and maybe 7500. Advances---at least $3,000.
THE LOOK OF THE COVER IS VERY IMPORTANT---ask the psychiatrist about yours.
THE NAME OF THE BOOK IS VERY IMPORTANT---KF knows lots about "selling" titles.
ASK the publisher: "Will I be a leader?" Better to be a leader in a small company than to be 4th or 5th down the list in a BIGGER company.
YOU CAN PRINT YOUR OWN AND HIRE DISTRIBUTORS.
A PACKAGER takes 8% and gives you 7% and gets you a publisher. Like Eleanor Rawson with Athenaeum and her own company, Rawson.
Publishers Weekly "Weekly Exchange" at 764-3362: $3.46/line, minimum $10.38, 25 characters in first line, 36 characters in next two. Special high-frequency rates.
Dennis: Ken Rubin restores jukeboxes, fixes antique coin-operated machines.
Include my indexing book list with MY proposal---SHE will write query letter.
First person manuscripts good only from EXPERIENCED writers.
Clinton Bookshop she's now working in, now open 1-7 pm M-SAT.
She TOOK 9-page proposal, resume FOLDER, initial 44 pages, computer 1-18, Springer-Verlag copy of specs, and MASTER of pages 1-80 of NEW.
SATURDAY, 2/9/80: NOTES ON "SHIKASTA"
P.5: This planet knows nothing of the little scum of life on its surface: the planet has other ideas of itself, as we know; but that is not our concern here.
P.9: He had spent his life AGAIN in self-indulgence and weakness and a falling away into forgetfulness....he could not force himself to line up...for rebirth.
I'm annoyed at all the "others" and all the outside control, and WHO these "overseers" report to, and who controls THEM?
Dislike the degenerative Disease; necessity; dis-asters (from stars), changes of planetary alignment (is there any GOOD influence?), Shammat, Puttiora.
p. 25: Prime objective of galaxy---creation of ever-evolving Sons and Daughters of the Purpose.
p. 38: But that a whole species will drastically change---no, that cannot be taken in, accepted, not without a total revolution of the deepest self. AND THAT TOTAL REVOLUTION IS MINE FOR THE DRASTIC CHANGE IN MY SPECIES THE BOOK POSTULATES.
p. 40: When the Gods err, or whatever else their fates might demand---their subjects may allow themselves---always with respect---the mildest possible grimace of irony....Lords of the Galaxy, moving on their star-waves, on star-time...sigh....The Majesties above us, of whom we are a part as you are of us, only small beings who have to submit, just as you do... THIS IS NOT reasonable.
p. 181: Vampires of Zone Six of a particularly virulent and persistent sort.
p.188: People never believe these things (ESP). Not until they experience them. Then when they experience them they become people other people don't believe.
p. 206-7: sad descriptions of the pretas, the hungry ghosts, yearning for experience.
p. 262: 4 heads of government tell the ABSOLUTE truth: A thought deranged, B had to resign through "lost power," C assassinated, D unstablilzed and died.
p. 288: "old times" people who WERE harmony, ate, wore, thought---through them flowed the lives of stars, through them flowed the substance of the earth to the stars.
p. 290: There is somebody or someone who needs this savagery and blood. The Devil.
p. 322: prediction (?!) Russian colonies: Poland...Cuba, Afghanistan, parts of the Middle East.
Trial: FACT that Indians and Arabs and Chinese and Africans are shitty toward their OWN peoples DOESN'T absolve the WHITES from having been shitty to EVERYONE!
Everyone who SURVIVES at the end is DIFFERENT, with typical ESP and goodness.
But there's such a MASH of Gurdjieff and Montgomery and others that it's not COHERENT enough to really be impressive on its OWN terms. Personal stuff a bore.
SUNDAY, 2/10/80: NOTES ON MICHAEL HARNER: ECOLOGICAL BASIS FOR AZTEC SACRIFICE
American Ethnologist, 1977, 4(1) 117-135.
Pre-Conquest Mexican human sacrifice represents an extreme in known cultural behavior. Sacrifices of 20,000/year, or 15,000 annually of a 2,000,000 population.
Woodrow Borah says 250,000/year, or 1% of population. "Thousands of temples and 1000-3000/temple/year. "Central dish was a stew of tomatoes, peppers, and the limbs of the victim. Torsos fed to animals. 100,000 skulls on racks."
"Flayed their faces, which they afterwards prepared like glove leather, with their beards on, and kept for their drunken festivals." Hearts were "precious eagle-cactus fruit" and men became "eagle men" who were eaten.
"The human body, like that of other organisms perfected under natural selection, is a homeostatic entity that under conditions of nutritional stress naturally seeks out the dietary elements in which it is deficient."
Cannibalism rose as population did (and they needed meat and proteins).
Commoners never ate flesh, only illustrious and noble people. Ratio of victims to consumers of 20/100. Commoner taking three prisoners became "master of the youths" and could eat "imported wild game in Montezuma's palace."
The Aztecs were unique among the world's states in having a cannibal empire.
But maybe ALSO the Teotihuacanos, Toltecs, Mayans, and Olmecs ate flesh.
MONDAY, 2/11/80: GREEK ART OF THE CYCLADES EXHIBITION AT MET: Cycladic Neolithic dated to the 4th millennium BC for item #1, a fat goddess.
Say they're connected to the Baltic examples of the same goddesses.
MALE figure has a topknot and HAIR for a phallic terminus.
Male legs are bulbous but female legs flat, and from the TOP:
#14 had eye shapes VERY dimly reliefed upward. Cycladic I 3200-2700 BC
Cycladic II 2700-2300 BC. Early gold hairpiece from 2200-2100 BC. Minoan men had thin waists and SKINNY legs.
Neck and breast form came from Anatolia, Turkey.
1300 BC sarcophagus drawing has VERY cave-drawing-like animals on it.
This is all a scholarly elucidation of basically UNSPECTACULAR PIECES.
Swastikas have two, six, and eight elements, and only an almost PHONY pot has 4.
Rhodian hare-headed man is a startling sight. Men's nipples with dots of hair drawn in Rhodian art. Totally glazed pottery body only in 650 BC (phony?) (bought in Rome by E. Levy in 1855---swastika 4 HERE and no other??)
Daedalic Cretan statues preceded archaic sixth century marbles of Greece.
LOVELY blue-green patina shadings on Samos bronzes.
Archaic---480 BC---classical art. Then, Greeks win over Persians.
How SILLY to say "The emphasis on the Kouros was from the front---with SUCH asses???
TUESDAY, 2/12/80: BUSINESS / BUSYNESS: As "I'm VERY busy with indexes" went to "I'm very BUSY" went to "I'm doing what I'm doing," suddenly the GUILT from not WORKING left when I want to do what I do INSTEAD of doing something FOR someone.
But I hope the indexing works OUT for Monday and Tuesday, since suddenly I'm going to "Lady from Dubuque" tonight with Dennis and NOT working for the first time on the index that I SHOULD be working on!
WEDNESDAY, 2/13/80: NOTES FROM KATHRYN FALK CLASS 2 (2/9): Add to index query:
To RE-DO author indexes that are no good
I had TOO many jobs, STILL have too many for 10 people.
How to INCREASE SPEED AND INCOME and leave more FREE time.
INDEXING ARTICLE:
How to get jobs in indexing
What PUBLISHERS need to know about GETTING good indexes
Correcting LOUSY indexes
Statistics on existing indexes
Survey of CURRENT indexing handbooks
How CURRENT indexing procedures can be made more EFFICIENT
Unlimited freelance dollars in indexing
Guru-identification in teaching indexing
Psychiatrist: What COLOR should book be---Lonny McDonnell---come at 1:15 on 2/16!
Indexing book: Add DRAWINGS to "easy track" pages, leaving "muddy track" solid. Ok?
INDEXING OPENING: It's easy to do if you just know HOW to do it, step by step.
ASSIGNMENTS:
1) Work on indexing query letter
2) Loose outline of "What is an indexer?" article.
Short story series on Channel 13, Monday, lauded
NEXT WEEK: Bring in JOYI---and maybe even Acid House---OR leave that for LAST class for an excuse of contacting her AFTER the last class!
THURSDAY, 2/14/80: 3:30 AM 2/8 NOTES ON "WHAT MAY BE LOST WITH CIVILIZATION"
1) It really WAS outrageous the way I just CHECKED the two names Dennis had MISSPELLED in the Form index this morning!
I DO KEEP ON DOING THAT SORT OF THING
2) Keep fearing ALL that would be lost at the "ruin of civilization":
a) electric blankets for warmth
b) clothes and shoes for comfort
c) medical services and drugs
d) dental care and repair
e) travel amenities
f) museums and plays and theaters and dance
g) heating and cooling and refrigeration
h) libraries and bookshops and KNOWLEDGE dispersion
i) law and order
j) MORE noise and smoke and crowding and squalor
k) ignorance of world events
FRIDAY, 2/15/80: DRIVE!: Now THIS seems to be the cue-word. If I made a list of all the cue-words, I might find that I eventually go through them ALL, being first one thing then the other than another, maybe even cycling back to the previous ones. But everything now is DRIVE! My mental nature DRIVES: I want to know, understand, assimilate into my own knowledge. When I want to read, I do so; when I check things in EB, when I digest museum exhibits---it's not for pleasure but the DRIVE to KNOW. Then on the emotional nature, I don't like things to be as they are, I DRIVE to make them different: some people I want to know BETTER, some I want to discard, others I want to change in other ways. On the perceptual level I want to INCREASE my perceptions, DRIVE to experience more sensually. Even in my "games" I'm DRIVEN to win, to excel---AS I'm driven to more and more knowledge of WINES rather than just ENJOYING (as EN JOU, in a GAME) wine for ITSELF. When I walk down the street I don't merely TAKE what comes. I JUDGE whether that's good, that's bad, what that looks like, what that reminds me of, what should or shouldn't be done there next, whether it should or shouldn't be kept---even if it's worthy to be thought about, looked at, devoted attention to, rather than that which is next to it. So certainly DRIVE is related to JUDGMENT---I DRIVE toward what I JUDGE to be agreeable: MORE knowledge, MORE experience, rather than to ex-cell---die. So DRIVE is intimately related to MORE, which is HARDLY an old word. But I IMPOSE this MORE on friends: push Dennis to be more productive, push for more indexers, more jobs, more money, more material for the indexing book, rather than just letting it BE. I DRIVE toward a vacation to fill in blanks in my knowledge and feelings and experience, rather than just ENJOYING, soaking it in, letting it BE. But that's the nature of LIFE: if the UNIVERSE didn't DRIVE, there wouldn't be anything other than uniformly dispersed quarks---the DRIVE to EXIST is what I exemplify---though possibly to a TOO-GREAT degree. But when the universe "dissolves" into Nirvana, its quest for MORE will be satisfied with NOTHING, and I still have to Re-Solve this predicament in my OWN life. So now I have MORE writing at the expense of the session I was doing that LED to the ideas of DRIVE and MORE and JUDGE in which direction to DRIVE for MORE!
ESSAYS 26
2/15/80
LES MOUCHES
The three sexy guys looked like neighborhood toughs trying to invade a private party, but ONE of them flashed a silver badge and I heard something about "fire inspection brigade." The doorkeeper at Les Mouches tried to tell them to come another day, whispering conspiratorially with them, but then he told the attendant at the admissions desk to phone upstairs to send down someone to show them around. When their skinny, earringed, leather-pants-wearing guide appeared, the flannel-shirted youngest of the trio whispered "Faggot territory!" to the badge-flashing ringleader. Though the desk attendant had made a telephone call and talking to "Captain" someone, I just couldn't believe they were fire inspectors.
Others arrived as I stood inside the lobby of the institutional ISCI building on Eleventh Avenue between 26th and 27th Streets, and it was hard to conclude what the final crowd would be like. I'd gotten a complimentary short-term membership in the mail, followed by a hot pink invitation slip that read "You are invited to celebrate Valentine's Day and join us for the Star Studded opening night party for "West Side Story" on Thursday, February 14th, 1980 at 10:30 p.m. Members free. Guests $5.00" Since I'd wanted to see the inside of this place ever since the apparently straight IBM salesman had driven us around in his Ferrari, talked about his other cars, and mentioned how he and his girl liked to eat in their black-tie restaurant. Membership, I'd thought, was something like $45/year, and despite their sexily-drawn invitation to membership which featured a shirtless muscular male torso of a spaced-out narcissist in the foreground, I didn't feel like I was THAT curious to see what it was like.
The yellow slip issued to me at the admissions desk---which I got in case they protested that my guest was a male, since most of the early entrants were elderly couples or at most trios with necessarily uneven gender distributions---said that 2 guests were admitted at $10, so my complimentary card entitled me to be a guest, not a member.
A family group of three assorted adults and three variegated children returned to the desk saying they had to eat outside somewhere (they were directed to the nearby Empire Diner on 22nd Street) since their garb didn't qualify for black tie. I wondered if my turtleneck and green velvet pants were sufficient entrée, but then blue-jeaned guys with closely trimmed beards began entering and I hoped there would be no problem unless some sort of appearance code were followed that I had no way of predicting.
The doorkeeper had also whispered that admission on Fridays was $10 and it was $15 on Saturday, and the black security guards grimaced and shook their heads and continued to direct people to the far-left door of the four, three of which were locked. The fire-inspection men seemed not to notice.
Dennis arrived about 10:40 and I beckoned him to the center of three elevators, where a uniformed black waited, and three people demanded that Dennis stop at the desk. I waved my yellow slip and assured them it was for 2 people, but only after they looked at it was I admitted upstairs. I had to sign an address card, as the two women did who entered with knee-length coats over what turned out to be costumes underneath. Since they had to be issued yellow slips I would assume they were guests?
We entered the black lobby to pay our $10 to a red-vested black at a desk, but he must have gone off the job early, since my adventurings later didn't encounter him. A crouching bronze-colored papier-mâché figure of some pinheaded creature with a male's muscles loomed beside a white Empire sphinx with an elegant woman's coiffure and a red ribbon about her neck. In the vestibule a huge vase of flowers that included one ragged Strelitzia and various budding twigs loomed behind a card rack proffering cards from the designer who did the work. Blocky aluminum-framed art hung about the walls, and a plastic-enclosed sheet of paper announced the artist and possibly the prices for the handiwork. Red glitter cushions were dispersed about built-in black benches lined above and below with blood-colored indirect lighting, and the ceilings were low but dark so that their details eluded me. Around another corner and there was the cavernous dance floor with various lighting equipment whirling and flashing above and around it. About six couples were dancing, half of whom were wearing red costumes in various states of undress that I assumed were Mouches-paid escorts to get the fun started. Down a wide black alleyway people filed to pay $1 for the checking of the two coats, though Dennis thought to keep his for a bit, and he offered one of his jacket pockets for my wallet and check placket since my pullover and pants offered not the slightest vestige of a pocket.
We stood at the margins of the dance floor, taking in the two facing mirrored walls, the dim lighting that made it look like the inside of an aircraft carrier with the airplanes buzzing around outside to the noisy but not overwhelming music. I remembered I'd forgotten my earplugs, but while I felt I NEEDED them at 12 West, I soon got used to the noise but not the torture of the continuous sound of the disco. Three-tiered black risers for seating, all carpeted in elegant clean black, sat below the mirrors, the disco balcony faced up, spotlights flanked the doorway, and mirrored columns formed what later turned into an "inner room" that took up about half the area of the dance floor. I noticed bar-like lighting through a doorway to the far left, and walked over to discover the free food and drink array: a fat blond in a black cocktail dress tried both coolers and said something about apple juice; I tried one and found it to be pineapple juice, then the other to agree with her that it seemed to be water, and followed her example by spilling what I didn't want into the baggie-lined trash can below the coolers. It would be a mess when they emptied it later, but I supposed they were used to that. The skimpy décor along the floor included green plastic kitty litter boxes that I thought might be filled with water for ashtrays but later turned into containers for used glasses. The ashtrays were the ceramic canisters in the form of cylinders just less than a foot in diameter and a foot high---no smuggling souvenir ashtrays from this place!
A pyramid of magnificent red and green apples and green pears took center stage, and we healthfully selected huge polished green apples to start our munching, settling down on the banquettes to watch the triple-framed slide show which included the façade of Dennis's favorite movie house: Variety Photoplays on lower Third Avenue. The majority of slides were time-lapse photos of sparklers being used to brighten the outlines of the Public Library lions, parked cars, curbs of slum streets, and sides of featureless walls at public places like Lincoln Center. Others were montages of series of shots of sparklers outlining reproductions of the Poseidon in the United Nations lobby, overarching hallways, running in neon puddles along stairways to various court and municipal buildings, and some imaginatively looped around the Lincoln Center reflecting pool, formed luminous pie wedges on sidewalks, and formed invisibly supported globes of light. Bridges were settings for effective streamers of light, loops of passage, and in one beautifully simple shot, double smoke rings of sparkler light progressing smoothly across the Randall's Island Bridge. The Cannon Shoe Factory lent its façade to window exhibits of surrealistic lighting. Naked women were shown holding shaded lamps that were reproduced into grids and perspectives of various colors. 42nd Street's marquees and Broadway's Fascination lights added to the glitter that changed each second across the three screens. I ate around the apple, which quickly browned at the flesh, then put the chunky core that was larger than most apples into a ceramic container, saying that I didn't need another apple for years. Dennis plunked watermelon seeds into the container, saying he hadn't had his quota for the year, and I enjoyed the sweetness of raisins with the salt of peanuts, fumbled for a handful of mixed stick pretzels and peanuts, and enjoyed the goldfish crackers and potato chips by the handful. Chocolate Oreo cookies were the most elaborate snack aside from the four-inch fruits.
When we tired of the slides, remarking that the paintings didn't change much though we kept expecting them to, we continued around the circle to the bar, impressed by the naked bulk of the muscle builder's chest behind the bar and wondered if his more normal companion didn't suffer from inferiority. As everywhere, black banquettes surrounded the walls, though there tables accommodated the drinks, which we didn't have so I sadly don't even know how much they charged. I couldn't even tell if there were waiter service. We completed the circle back to the dance floor by passing a sculpture noted mainly for chiseled abdominals and a tiny uncircumcised cock. When I pointed the cock out to Dennis he remarked, "Yeah, but they circumcised the head, referring to the shapeless morsel of flesh that indeed looked like the stump of a bitten-off lollipop. Another placard gave the artist's name, and we returned to the dance floor to watch the pudgy fellow in red gym shorts and sneakers boogie-ing past, dancing with a skinny leather-clad fortyish hood in heart-rimmed dark glasses that Dennis said gave him the creeps---the guy, not the glasses. The two women I watched pay to enter took off their zebra-striped coats to reveal flesh-colored tights with a red plush Valentine heart surrounded in vaguely pubic black right on her crotch, and the other wore a pink-red halter-top bathing suit above red spike heels.
Lots of men in black tails formed somber foils for women in various states of glitter and undress---one woman's tits were so tiny they were presented on a tiny corset-shelf with tiny lace doilies over them, and she had to keep stuffing herself back under her doily as her dance partners swung her out and back with a calculated downward motion of the arm as he turned her from side to side.
I had no temptation to dance, though Dennis later said he felt apart from the crowd, and when he wanted to leave after an hour I said I was looking at it as I'd look at Paris or Venice: as a tourist at something I actually WASN'T a part of, just something to occupy my sight for a few hours before going on to something else. A few others observed with us, but most participated in the sweaty dance.
Most were poor: lumpish bodies hopped and jumped and twirled about, executing no set pattern of steps in no discernible rhythm. At one point huge bass amplifiers were turned on that made the entire floor thump in time, like Sensurround, and the dancers would squeal and dance faster and somewhat more in time.
The "fire inspection" trio had been given drinks---free drinks were in opaque plastic glasses, bought drinks were clear glass. They didn't seem to be looking for violations, only for women who would dance with them. The simple-faced handsomeness of the youngest stereotyped him as a boy just in from the suburbs looking for a wild night. More people joined the dancing, white-tied men from the restaurant seemed to come and go, and the light show got more frenzied.
A "Close Encounters" array of lighting equipment spun constantly from a central fixture, spraying out looping spotlights as they twirled and bobbed up and down, green and yellow headlight arrays that rotated, strobe lights that flashed on and off, stationary lights that moved only with the fixture, and reflecting surfaces lined the ceiling recess so that each effect was multiplied. Shadows flicked in movement from the bodies but were multiplied and sliced and jittered as the lighting blinked on and off. Dennis said, "You have to be high on something, even if only yourself, to enjoy the show." I felt high on myself and observation.
Others in red costume seemed to know each other, companionably placing drinks beside each other on the risers as they danced and rested: cowboy in leather chaps and boots and vest over hairy chest, tart with a slit to her waist, tough with zippered openings at random on his black jacket showing flesh, dresses with enormous slits showing most of the back, most of the women with stiletto heels on which they dance with sureness.
Into the center of the dancers whirled a Valentine showgirl, feathers flying from headdress, heart-shaped body twisting, white sequin cape lying. A burst of confetti blurred her outlines and she began slipping on the smooth floor as she spun, and I noted that her heels weren't quite as pointed as most of the others. Her cape went flying, her headdress fell off, her silver-white curls caught the lights, her chest seemed curiously flat, she whipped off her wig to show a shaved head, and I asked Dennis, "Why would they assume that only a MAN would shave his head bald?"
Dennis still wanted to leave; he was bored. "Do you think that's the last show piece of the evening? I want to see how it ends." It was only 12:15, people were still entering. He grumbled and waited.
I was thankful the music didn't increase in loudness, only flamed in rhythms. What seemed to be a drunk in a tuxedo stumbled past, crewcut blond hair framing a pretty-boy face. With a whirl of feet, hands flying about, he executed a choreographed spin and stumbled accurately through the crowd. Either a paid entertainer or a guest with his own thing going.
Huge rotating chrome-covered triangular prisms effected movement in parts of the ceiling. Spotlights were turned on and I moved so that mirrored column prevented them from blinding me, though I'd get reflections from reflections out of the corners of my eyes. We moved back into the refreshment room, seemed to see new slides, found more people in the bar, walked down a red-spotlit corridor to find the men's room. Dennis had enough about 1, and I slipped my wallet into the back of my pants, hoping that 74 was my coat ticket.
I continued to snack: the beautiful fruit was replaced with supermarket fruit, oranges and apples and pears not deli-elegant. Two or three of the original dozen straw panniers of munchies were gone, but the pretzels were still good. Roller skaters appeared, not so skillful that they were steady on their feet at all times, though I didn't notice any collisions. Dancers on the top rank of the tiers were spotlit so that varicolored shadows appeared on opposite walls.
While Dennis was still there the opposite wall, behind the mirrors, erupted into cascades of orange and blue-green color, looking like intricate arrays of LEDs in tic-tac-toe patterns were moving inward and outward, and I marveled at the obvious expense of the array of lighting. He also saw the black window blinds lower to form an inner room within the mirror pillars, though of a transparent glittery material that caught the lighting and reflected back from all directions. Differences of lighting inside and out changed it from a sparkly jewel box to a hidden recess for groping. But there was no overt sexuality, few crotches. Men danced with men, women with women, and lines formed for what used to be the Madison and now seemed to be a vertical leap-frogging motion executed with dancehall steps of choreographed quickness and accuracy. No more confetti explosions made the dance floor slippery.
Guests from the shows appeared, though no one seemed to know who was who except in their appointed groups. And groups there were: the lowest who searched constantly, the middle who had fun, the upper who strained to make it clear they WERE the upper.
The lowest were old men graduated from Roseland who pushed their youthfulness by dancing harder and flailing wider and stretching their legs wider than their children; silver-haired grandmothers in black glitter who jiggled pathetically on varicosed legs; photographers who snapped picture of whoever they could; raunchy men who propositioned every passing woman to dance. A Chinese woman gave me her bag to hold as she danced with an old white man, and when she asked for it back she caressed my knees to let me know she was available.
There was lots of availability: women obviously wanting to be picked up, showgirls talking to as many bachelors as they could, kids with tight sweaters showing off their muscled chests and rounded asses and thick thighs, girls with pushed-out tits and narrow hips and aggressive walks.
The upper class had matchbook-size Les Mouches stickers on lapel or sleeve; maybe they were guests and maybe it got them free drinks. Spotlights picked out couples dancing but I didn't know who they were. Pink, red, blue, white, orange, yellow gels were changed to reflect musical nuances of noise or tempo. Every so often a favorite would come on and there'd be a shout from the bystanders and they'd cascade off the tiers, arms waving, to dance to their pre-set rhythms. The "drunk" tuxedo lurched past without a shirt, and I hoped it might go farther.
I fantasized that this WAS pleasure: the grinning faces, the pleasure at the intricate dance steps, the drinking and smoking and eating and necking and cruising. Not much to spend after entering, everyone out for sheer fun, no one falling-down drunk, no one POOR.
Some people weren't having fun: couples dancing split apart, waving disgustedly at each other, and stopped dancing; women curtly refused to dance with tacky-looking men; dancers collided and some ended on the floor; wistful looks from the fire inspectors showed they weren't getting what they wanted, even though they'd been dancing with 5-6 women through the evening. Fat old women tried looking sexy in draped russet silks and failed; old men sweated more than was seemly; people started leaving.
Fewer of the paid dancers seemed to be around: maybe they'd done their job and were free to leave. Some may have only been guests as they refused to dance as they wished. A chipper young woman pushed a rocking old man onto the center of the floor in a wheelchair and proceeded to lead him through a few slow patterns: he didn't seem to be smiling but he didn't seem unhappy, only slightly out of his milieu. More cruising seemed to be going on: men introducing friends to other men, longing looks at solos with sexy legs and thick chests. I remained invisible.
Men stared across and came over to talk to women; it all seemed very simple. There had been a spotlight trained on one wall and people danced self-consciously there, obviously wanting to be looked at and obviously concerned that they had to dance there in order to be looked at. The young muscle-builder in the tight sweater occasionally looked at men, and some of the tuxedos dancing together made it look like a dignified 12 West. A dancer in a strikingly tailored white tux danced with a woman in a black tux with a red carnation, obviously a choreographed team. Another tuxedoed woman swirled her redlined cape. More shirts came off, torsos sweating and clean, but a tiny woman rebuked her husband and buttoned his shirt over his hairy chest. She just couldn't compete?
I ate more pretzels, cookies, goldfish crackers, peanuts; the floor was getting dirty---no barefoot dancing here. Drinks were spilled, glasses broke, a waiter started and looked at his finger as he picked up a broken glass.
Flocks of people gathered around the bare-chested bartender and I wondered how he kept his flesh warm in the cooling evening as people left about 2 am. The restaurant attendant left but when I wandered back the tables were mainly filled in the black room. More tuxedoed men wandered across the edges of the dance floor; a news vendor came in with packs of tabloids under his arm: this was a theater-opening party, after all, but I later saw Stephen Sondheim behind his graying beard going alone to reclaim his coat: it might not have been a triumph.
Woman in flounced Spanish dresses came in, lifting their legs and twisting their feet in skilled dancing; the man in the tuxedo put his shirt back on; men in pink shorts danced together. No one touched except a straight couple rubbing backsides together: she a beautiful blond, he a tawdry middle-aged man in droopy corduroy pants and scuffed suede shoes.
The Chinese women kept pushing themselves onto different men; a plain black woman seemed to dance a lot with older more desperate men; an elegant black woman in a Thai silk dress danced with grace with a shorter man in leather baggies and a 50's sport jacket. Maybe they were from the play. Older women left more and more, eyes crinkled from makeup, smiles frozen.
A handsome single guy fell asleep on the step below me; a crewcut fellow kept looking at him: cruising. Drunk now, the fire inspectors began horsing around with each other: dancing with women, they'd face each other and grind their hips in a fierce challenge to their masculinity---they didn't seem to be quite sure they wanted the women they'd found.
Others kept looking, kept trying. The photographers who'd lain on the floor to focus upward for crotch-shots of straight and gay couples had left, their pictures taken, though WHO they were of was another question entirely.
More women began dancing together; new patterns of lights appeared, silver reflections multiplied; sirens blared, whistles blew from skaters. Arms flailed about and now dancers were falling, drunk, of their own accord. The cruiser moved closer to the sleeping hunk, asking him to wake up. The Chinese women left, though I couldn't tell if they left with someone. The leader of the fire inspectors advanced on his plainer friend, wiggling his shoulders seductively and bumping with fierce intensity; the other stared and then punched him on the left pectoral.
The cruiser seemed to be massaging the sleeper's wrist; on my left, someone shouted down something to him; I imagined they were all friends. Shadows jumped across the walls from the lightshow, fewer screamed and leapt into dancing at their favorite songs, more left. The sleeper's wristwatch band was now loosened, the lights leaped, and then the watch was gone and the cruiser moved away, looking over his shoulder, to get his coat. Later, another solo sexy friend of the sleeper came over and slapped his face and pushed him into belligerent wakefulness. I left before I saw what his reaction to his missing watch was.
More cruising; more virtuoso dancing in separate corners with their own magic reflected lights, looking like pink and blue kisses scurrying across the floor. All the fruit was gone, now only a few panniers of peanuts and pretzels and goldfish left; the apple container was dry, only water left. Attendants were more visible in the crowd picking up glasses and carting them to the green trays around the walls. People leaving the restaurant carried bags of food and waiters came across with what looked like pizza boxes.
At 2:30 the crowd had diminished but the music retained its fierceness and the blinds isolating the inner room rose and fell, giving opportunity for dramatic sweeps aside of the curtains to enter or leave, or to dance on either side of. Light patterns repeated, though some effects seemed new. Spotlights were manned, then not manned, then left alone entirely. The cold seemed to increase; never any action in the antiseptic men's room that was increasingly littered with wet paper towels. Coat racks began to look bare; the side rooms which once had a smattering of people were now empty. Still, no boozy vomiting drunks, no violence but the stolen watch, no loud arguments. Elegant blond woman in pegged leisure suit struts with suspendered partner who really can't dance; reminding me to the handsome tall slender fellow with a pretty date who seemed SO wrecked with something that he couldn't lift his shoes off the floor when he danced, shambling like his legs were about to collapse.
I thought to leave, but paid a last visit to the bar, where the muscles were making up lists of the day's receipts; to the empty john; to the food, now reduced to one pannier of goldfish; and lines of people waiting for their coats. The restaurant was empty but for some necking couples, but the décor didn't look too different from the dance floor: black and dim. Slow music now permitted people to touch and cling to each other, and the muted lightshow seemed almost poetic by comparison with the early frenzy. More attendants than guests now, but there seemed to be no efforts to make them leave, accepting whoever wanted to dance as long as they wanted to, even to the point of removing their coats on the way out for one last fling. Formally attired man snitching one last bloom from the ravaged flower display as I make my way to the elevator at the end, with about a dozen people left, fewer than the crowd of two dozen there when we entered almost 4 hours earlier.
I figured I got my $5 admission charge worth of food and snacks and experience, wondered if the sleeper would return the next night with a new watch to be taken, wondered how many of the costumes would be changed and the same people returned. It would be fun enough for the first time, and maybe I could fool myself into thinking that the second time was different, but I saw people who had been there and been there, and they weren't enjoying it nearly as much as the effort they put into it would have justified. It's nice to know it's there, but it's also good that one isn't FORCED to go there.
SATURDAY, 2/16/80: INDEXING BOOK
4 INDEXES FOR BOOK:
a) Too-short (1 line/page); NO see also entries; pp. 105-7; by SEQUENTIAL page
b) "Regular" (2.5 lines/page); see also entries; p 105-107; by SEQUENTIAL page
c) EXHAUSTIVE (11 lines/page); BOLD easy-track pages: ITALIC figures; SEQUENTIAL pages
D) TABULAR new-style index; INSIDE FRONT AND BACK COVERS; CODED page-numbers
Do cross-referencing IN text to A-N page format:
TRACK A: K-O
TRACK B: K-1 thru 9
TRACK C: K-10 thru 99
Include GLOSSARY OF TERMS
APPENDIX
THEN WHY NOT THREE TRACKS TO BOOK, PER THREE INDEXES!
A) Quick and dirty indexing 12 pages
(x4)
B) Indexing introduction 48 pages
(x4)
C) Exhaustive for experts 192 pages
250 text pages
BOLDFACE Index A 3 pages (250 lines)
ITALIC Index B 7 pages (676 lines)
ROMAN Index C 28 pages (1771 lines)
290 written pages
30 peripheral pages
320 pages (5 64-page signatures)
(TABLE TOO COMPLEX FOR ORDINARY TYPING)
SUNDAY, 2/17/80: Note from KATHRYN FALK CLASS 3
Questions for psychologist (taking along NOTEBOOK -213)
1. THREE divisions too many? YES
2. "Spacetime" edges too HEAVY and off-putting? YES
3. "Handbook" edges on BOTH sides of page WITH others LISTED? Too complicated.
4. Three indexes confusing?? Have to make it all appear simple.
5. Inside front/back cover stuff too much? Yes
6. A-O; A-1 to A-9; A-11 to A-99 too much WITH 1-250? Yes
7. DRAWINGS for "Easy Track" and solid print for "Hard Track?" Not asked
8. Recommended to put EASY section in front and HARD section in back.
Lonny has had one-to-one, group, community, and with hypnosis.
WRITERS BLOCK stems from FEAR OF LOSING CONTROL based on THREAT from UNKNOWN.
Called"Miscarried repair." Much ENERGY is associated and locked into experience.
CAN get blocks from KNOWN: danger by revealing espionage work, if published; and then KNOWING what it's ABOUT helps you LEARN what blocks are about, and you can CHOOSE. Writer is blocked when he can't put his FEELINGS and THOUGHTS into READABLE form.
1) ACUTE: for limited time, maybe not finishing, for hours or days.
2) CHRONIC: for YEARS.
3) Blocks from ACTUAL EXPERIENCES: a) humiliating teacher in school, b) inhibiting parent at home, c) ridiculing friend, d) may remember experience if you're AWARE of having a block.
Insecurity, uncertainty, self-doubt lead from ENORMOUS emotional PAIN and energy FROM bad experience. "Fascinating young fellow---he's in his 50s now."
Hypnosis (on rationalizing, intellectualizing black): trance, and on EMPTY movie screen, visualize enemy (mother) and you and then GO (Too hard to do it yourself).
GROWING IN TIME with feeling leads to UNDERSTANDING it: WRITING about it gains control OVER it. To INCREASE control---if in midst of fear---take 4-5 DEEP SLOW breaths and leave them out. Signs of anxiety: Cold feet, sweaty palms, beating heart---relax!
Fear of success may stem from unconscious fear of competition with PARENT---can't do MORE than FATHER did.
Can CIRCUMVENT past by holding up DESIRABLE IMAGE: FAVORITE author.
Society's "to do's" inhibit spontaneity---write 10-15 minutes daily WITHOUT concern.
Just WRITE, don't worry about STARTING.
Don't say "This is what I want it to be," just DO it.
If that FAVORITE author is SO good, admit 1) YOUR thoughts are good TOO, 2) NOT grandiose thoughts; keep in YOUR control; don't DAYDREAM of success.
STOP NOT BEING YOU by trying to meet OUTSIDE standards rather than your UNIQUE ones.
AIM of practice is to change, though at ANY time you may have rich and exciting periods when EMOTION connects to words and EVOKES power, and dry periods for STUDY and CHECKING FACTS and RECHARGING.
NOT senior citizens or elderly as term to use, but LONG-LIVERS. Give a sense of ACCOMPLISHMENT: OLDER people in 70's and 80's; 50's and 60's MIDDLE-aged.
Galileo and Columbus had problems with NEW concepts since people HEARING them feared UNKNOWN so FULLY they'd rather kill the CHANGER than CHANGE.
Falk: Most wish they HAD written; go into bookstore and see BOOKS BY THEM; get royalties.
Have to remember WHY you write.
One author's constant sign: ARE YOU TELLING READERS ALL THEY NEED TO KNOW?
Lonny: "Can be blocked by TRYING to write BEFORE your feelings are opened out, research is done, or growth is BEHIND.
Survivors look for lifelines to save themselves. No question in my mind that prophetic dreams WORK. Surely some people are MUCH more perceptive than others.
In writing, rather than FLASHBACKS, use DREAMS for giving information.
Then I asked about the index: it IS too much, everyone agreed, simplify it by deciding what's more important. ACTUALLY TWO BOOKS---with MORE of an audience for EACH of the two then for the ONE: one for BEGINNERS, one for EXPERTS.
Having two levels in the same book DIFFUSES ENERGIES. Amy left before we got into this, and I wondered if who turned into Beatrice MIGHT be the Edith Wallace that Bill talked about as being interested in Gurdjieff.
2/18 on phone: JOYI is too limited as NON-FICTION, but would be good as BACKGROUND for STORY: WHY did I make the survey, what did I LEARN from it? Make EMOTIONAL impact USED. Do this as PLOT advancement, to DISCOVER something. Come UP with plot---USE this to advance PLOT point---something COMPLETELY universal---become THAT OBJECTIVE, like writing about GOLDFISH or STAMP COLLECTION. GET wide group in ways it's USUALLY presented. INDEXING: STILL two books; Dennis KNOWS basics.
MONDAY, 2/18/80: FAUST COMPLEX?: Realizing that I'd probably heard "Mesfistofeles" more often than any other opera, and that second would be "Faust," I wondered why this was SO interesting, and realized that by pitting SATISFACTION against the loss of his soul, he could be portrayed as HAPPY AS the conflict: if he gets TOO happy it's a tragedy, if he stops short of COMPLETE happiness, it's a good ending. Then I think of people who have a Messiah complex as being terribly over-grand, but that the next step might be a FAUST complex in which a person SEEMS TO ACT as if he's sold his soul to the devil: absorbing all the pleasure and entertainment possible, constantly on the move seeking to find satiety, and yet never being satisfied, doing nothing from ENJOYMENT but always looking for MORE enjoyment, and I figured I might actually HAVE this, and wondered whether this was ever defined before, and when I asked Kathryn Falk about it, she suggested that she HAD heard about it, so I was sorry, though I don't exactly TRUST her, so I might try asking someone else!
TUESDAY, 2/19/80: DEVALUATION OF AUTHORS AFTER I FINISH READING ALL THEIR WORK
I finish reading all the books of Loren Eiseley and I find that he repeats: KEEPS talking about the influence of Darwin before and after his book on Darwin, KEEPS referring to his upbringing and dumb mother, talks about his reluctance to make final anthropological decisions and answers AD NAUSEAM. Remembered when I finished all of Heinlein I finally decided that I really didn't LIKE him: he didn't like gays, he didn't like young people much at all, and his conservatism made him more and more of a cantankerous old man. Loved Wyndham at the beginning, but the stuff that they're printing by him now all seems to be OLDER and much less interesting than his book-length stuff. Certainly Clarke is getting worse in his old age: "Imperial Earth" had nothing in the line of a climax, and I'm sure his EARLY stuff will be boring since it's mostly out of date by now, yet I'll be reading it last, and read his BEST works first because they WERE the most famous: "City and the Pillar," "Childhood's End." And his HARD-TO-FIND stuff WOULD be his lesser-known stuff. When I get the final books of Sturgeon and Sheckley, they're mostly rehashes, though Sturgeon came up with new stuff in "Stars Are the Styx," though Sheckley even addressed the troubles of rehashing his stuff in prefaces and introductions and collections. Their being in Omni is rather a kick, though. Suspect that going through ALL of Chardin might get rather super-Christian, since "The Phenomenon of Man" has been the only CLASSIC of his oeuvre. Yet I suppose it's only sensible to read the two Kubler-Ross books together. Will Nabokov pale in his incandescent writing when I read all of him at once, or will the brilliance last and all other writing look pale by contrast? Will the cerebral appeal of Aldous Huxley make my writing impossible as I read him, as it seems to have left ME with super-cerebral characters mouthing myself? And for the biggest, what WILL a full year of Blackwood do to me? Try and see!
WEDNESDAY, 2/20/80: INDEXER'S MEETING AT ANDRE'S: Everyone agrees that they only got about 1-5% of their data from the book and the rest from me, but they all complained that it needed an INDEX, and Dennis reminded me that HE didn't have a writeup when he started at all, that I'd done it BECAUSE of him, not FOR him. Barbara contributes that she still uses the proofreader's marks and the three SAMPLE sheets, which are on TOP now. Everyone seems to agree that it would be ONE book, which they would hope would sell BIG and then I can extract a SMALL one from it that would have a BETTER sale. Sherryl suggests the first THREE chapters simple, the rest advanced. Dennis suggests TWO dust jackets: one saying how SIMPLE it is, the other saying how LITERARY and ADVANCED it is. Not a bad idea??
Andre says he does it mechanically; he doesn't work except at the END. His last index came together and he could see what an index SHOULD be; and had asked another indexer about it. "Index has a STRUCTURE that I SEE." He insists everyone must accurately measure his TIME. Andre FOR 6 pm - 7 am computer. Sherryl speaks of the PRESSURES of ALONENESS---"I want to go out every NIGHT, but I get up LATE, yet I want to socialize." "I think of indexing as undone HOMEWORK." Because of difficulties in book, lots of anxiety when it starts, which feeds the procrastination that troubles her. Have nothing to say at "Guess what I did at work today." Finally starting to READ again on her own. Hard to know how her BILLS are accepted. She loved the pep talk, like speed reading: time yourself, then keep pushing and pushing and increase speeds. Barbara says she loves to "really really work at home, do it in one night or stretch it over 2 weeks, and loves the extra money." Sadly, she left in 30 minutes. Jeff needed more money, told about swimming rather than sinking, left after an hour. Amy gets anxious, doesn't like psychological pressure; hates the thought of pages looming, not knowing WHEN they're coming in, and Dennis told his "worst case." Dennis says "I got so lonely I could scream. Live in your head a lot; FEW strokes from publishers; Obstetrics his worst case. Publishers don't UNDERSTAND process of indexing, which is difficult. NEED more of a sense of communication with publishers. Which might happen without ME. They agreed that one of THEM could "play me" if I had to go on vacation; Andre first choice.
THURSDAY, 2/21/80: FIRST DIP IN TRANQUILITY TANK: Took my shoes off and carted them around; chatted with Todd; signed my agreement, laughed with the girl who came out, then proceeded to make everything TOO BUSY for sensory deprivation: showered, looked at the inside, tested the door, lay back, threw out the flotation pillow until I decided my head was too low. Brought back the flotation pillow and lost it once as I jiggled around. Felt I wanted to adjust the pillow and noticed an electric pulse somewhat faster than my heart (which I didn't hear) when I pointed to my head, which was too bizarre, then decided it depended on the DEPTH of my head, so it was probably the filter pump underneath. Neck constricted; I lay there feeling like Quasimodo with my head hunched on my shoulders and my arms bowed out, hands touching my thighs. Didn't like that touch, so I finally brought up my forearms, which let my fingers fall onto my thumbs, so I flipped over my hands and felt THAT was good, except that now my base was broadened so that I slowly oscillated back and forth between sides and top and bottom---and since I thought I was stable, it SEEMED that IT came up and hit ME rather than ME hitting IT. Investigated what it was like to bend the knees (since my legs were sore from j/o last night) and found the bottom of the tank over-warm where the heating pad was, and didn't want to touch it ANYWAY, but fantasized about a knee-float so it was more like sitting. Plugs in ears worked well; felt concretions of undissolved Epsom salts on the right walls and none on the left, wondered how they solved the drip-from-above problem, wondered how much time was left, and rather quickly chalked up this FIRST experience to "trying everything out," since by the time I just got SETTLED there was a knock on the door and I said "I hear you" and I crawled out at 1:30 (having gotten in at 12:30) and showered, feeling rather light-headed and somewhat hungry, but only later noticed the comment about "becoming a stomach." Felt vaguely like I wanted to urinate, which was poor, and my left tit stung from last night, though I didn't use the Vaseline to protect it. Saw no lights, heard NOTHING, so I was pleased about the isolation from the rest of the building, and signed up for a second session in 2 weeks.
FRIDAY, 2/22/80: JOHN'S REPORT ABOUT FIRST J/O SESSION: John said that HE was the one who originated it, though Owner-John said that MARK had said something to him about it. J's had been open for a few months and they were looking for something new, so John volunteered (both of them) to stand behind the bar as people came in to jerk off. John Vinton said that there was lots of activity around but no one came, and then he climbed up onto the middle of the pool table and came, and everyone else came at the same time. They said there were far more people there the second week, when I was there, so there were only about 15-20 there the first time, and many of them didn't come back, though they said there were some repeaters. I didn't get much more detail, though Dennis enjoyed greatly hearing it from John.