1981 2 of 5
WEDNESDAY, 4/15/81: NEGATIVITY: Fill out my income-tax returns, rehearsing what I'll say to an auditor: "Fine me whatever you want; I'm not going to disrupt my life and my records for your job. If you want to hold me in contempt of the tax system, you may do so; I feel nothing but contempt for the tax system. I have nothing against you personally, but I have no intention of making your job easier. I do a good job myself, I expect you to do a good job." I sit and stare off and wonder why I'm so easily disgruntled. Impatient is a good word, so there's anger there somewhere. Anger at what? At the country going to hell; at the city getting there faster; at Actualism interfering with my life. I decide to write a page about it, get out the paper, and it dawns on me that I should do an Actual session. But I want to write the page anyway, while the anger is at the surface. Get 1/3 through and the doorbell rings for about the fifth time today (John to leave a painting, Mrs. Johnson for the rent, Marge for cards, the painter for John's apartment, the mailman---so it's the SIXTH time today!), and it's Dennis, wanting to borrow a (actually HIS) 6-cup pot for a soufflé, his first! He's bouncy and cheery and by the time he leaves my anger has evaporated. HOW CAN I STAY ANGRY IF THE WORLD CONSPIRES TO DEFUSE IT?!
ESSAYS 55
4/29/81
ASIS MEETING ON MICROCOMPUTERS 4/28
I had three glasses of wine, three hunks of cheese, and loneliness from 5:35-6:10.
Meeting with 240 people from 6:29-7:17 with Haas of Apple's Computer Era Corp.
Mainframe computers sell for $100,000 and up; minis, which started in 1965, from $50,000-$200,000 for multi-terminal systems, while Micros, which started in 1975 with the MITS Altair, go from $3,000-$20,000, with $6-8,000 for the usual business computer. There are three types of programs:
1) Planning and progression programs, like Execuplan and Visicalc, each for $150, which do budgeting and financial operations.
2) Text-Word Processing like Memorite on Vector Graphic, printing letter-quality printing at about one page per minute; you can do book publishing with it, telephone interface possible.
3) Database management and inventory, with selective mailing lists, and publishers use it with sorting for indexes of information on certain articles, which sounds interesting to me.
4) Custom programming, simple on both machines.
APPLE is built piece-by-piece, 40 character/line MAXIMUM (really?)---NO, not with Don's letter of THIS MORNING!! ALL uppercase on screen, but uppercase /lowercase on printer. 143K/diskette.
VECTOR GRAPHIC has built-in units, 80 character/line; 315K/diskette SIDE, or 630K for BOTH diskette sides, 12,600 lines of 50-character lines. 5,000K storage for $8,000.
7:18-7:35: Intner bought a micro (Apple) for when MINI/(LIBX-100, supported by CLSI, went down) which crashed for 10 days, then for a week. CTI (where she got the Apple from) trains program users, using Apple II+. Hardware, 2 mini-disks and TV and 5 floppy diskettes and master and backup and Apple-soft manuals. Calls for help at toll free number gives MOST cheerful help. She told me that the Apple was down MUCH less than the LIBS-100, but then it's only USED 1/5 the time. Don says paddle-maintenance was all his needed, for the kids' use. CTI is in Provo, Utah, and documentation is POOR. Light-pen unit available. 16% LIBS-100 downtime! Left before demonstration to see "The Hand" with Dennis and eat dinner at Les Sans-Culottes until cabbing home.
ESSAYS 56
5/3/81
ASI MEETING 1981
About 90 people in the room, 79 on list, about 20 men; only 52 people at end.
Helen Ferguson waves me to Delight Ainsley, saying she's won prize with "Cosmos" index.
Martha Cornog (10:30-11:10) on indexing industry development. NFAIS is National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing SERVICES (companies); 44 member services, producing chemical abstracts, engineering index, petroleum inst., philosopher's index, religion index, etc. Working on database AVAILABILITY. She studied biosciences, Franklin Research Center, and RILM (music) abstracts. HW Wilson does social work abstracts and science and industrial indexes. From manual to computer-entry input. Pre-chapter "chapeaux" ARE indexes. She found 8th Century example of KWIC index in Indexer, Volume 8 #4, Oct, 73, in the Sacra Parellela by John of Damascus (p. 196). Early indexer looked for Eve. Where did she find her? UNDER Adam! HW Wilson Co invented method of mechanical interfiling of printed lines for cumulative indexes. History: edge-notched cards; uniterms (coordinate indexing, post-coordinate system); pre-coordinated (Sears list; indexing by assignment; LC terms); and thesaurus.
3 subject sources: subject heading list; pre-selected keywords, thesaurus.
3 types of index easy by computer: KWIC, permuted-entry, and citations (under book, list of books THAT CITE THAT BOOK).
1972: DIALOG system was PUBLIC version of Lockheed's NASA database. Today, Lockheed has 140 databases. Biological abstracts: 1) indexer assigns topic from 500-word thesaurus to all articles from titles, 2) enriches index by names of drugs, organisms, and topics not mentioned in title. Produces concept index and KWIC list on title. MESH is thesaurus (10,000 entries) used by Franklin Research for cancer database. Online indexing system has MESH online and responds, saying try entering ANOTHER term, when wrong.
LAWRENCE BUCKLAND (11:10-1:20) CRT-text editing in 1963. Database composition system in 1966; Inforonics text-processing service (TPS, FORTRAN program for text) in 1970. Used by hundreds of publishers. Text-ENCODING is more trouble than text-SEARCHING. Author-Indexer-Library-Librarian-Searcher (via Access Vocabulary)
MORE searches being now done from TEXT and TITLE, not from pre-prepared indexes. Searching involves word matching (roots, words, phrases). Computers BEST at INSTANT feedback and REFINEMENT of search. Need LEXICAL TOOLS built by subject indexers for masses of text. not item-by-item. "Perfect" tool would take ANY sentence and REWRITE it in ALL WAYS THAT MEAN THE SAME THING. He proposes FEW Lexical Reference Sources (for EACH database generated): holds 1) controlled index words, 2) uncontrolled index words, 3) all words in titles, 4) all "natural language" words, 5) local organizational jargon, 6) scope notes and definitions, 7) synonyms, antonyms, hierarchical relations, 8) alternate words and common misspellings (less controlled systems are cheaper to us, better for terminology changes, need good description data), 9) etymologies, 10) verbal-output messages for communication with user. Users: 1) Searchers (look at 1c-HEADINGS, not index ENTRIES, for service). 2) search programs (looking for synonyms). Theory: LONGEST word in paper gives clue of TOPIC. 3) Indexes (analyzing word usage in text, holding books in computer-text form, and developing programs to "grok" text from words). TPS CAN process text records: author-assigned keywords, abstracts, titles, authors. TPS makes KWIC index of keywords. DIALOGUE and ORBIT HAVE lexical assists. TPS has 1) data validation system (no author listed), 2) sort keys "to sort out indexes (u filed as us), 3) "sorts and merges to make indexes," 4) format biblios and indexes and typesets them, 5) standard tty interface with computer linkups, 6) IBM-compatibility programs, 7) online random accessing of files, 8) "resorting indexes" in batch. Floor: You don't want a vendor to walk away after he cashes your check." TEXTERM on DEC PDP-11 with VT-100 CRT and RT-11 opsys. TPS runs with TWO PROGRAMMERS and is expensive. It's an assembly-language program on time-shared DEC-10. "No readily available TPS text package." "Unix" developed by Bell Labs for minis: $30-$40,000 machines. UNIX-LIKE programs BEING written for micros. Problem: apply linguistic engineering to test processing. No such THING as a good spelling-correction program. Had THOUGHT to write to Inforonics, 550 Newtown Road, Littleton, Mass 01460 to REQUEST TP3 brochure and application notes 18 and 20, but it's too big for me to consider.
Mauro Pittaro (2:15-3): of 80-90 people, 14 freelancers, 19 work with abstracting and indexing services, 6 on BOTH. Since 1884, Engineering Index has done two million abstracts: print, tape (from 1969), available on DIALOGUE and ORBIT. Special indexes on energy and bioengineering. 3000 primary sources. 80 full-time employees; 15 in-house abstractors and indexers, 12 freelancers (1 in Vermont, 4 previous employees, 3 ASI members), for 100,000 articles/year. NFAIS membership directory and Information Industry Association directory (Information Sources) for A&I services and JOBS.
Pay about $4.50/piece, about 4000 pieces for 15 in-house = 60,000 @ $16,000; 3000 pieces for 12 freelance = 36,000 @ $13,500.
Boring talker, and HE'S the ASIS president, no wonder it's such a bore.
Anne Conway Fernald (3-3:45) Ballinger, an H&R subsidiary. H&R as an "electronic publisher" 1) uses computers to help PUBLISH books (2) telecommunications in distribution of information in databases. Computer-generated author and titles indexes long done. Publishers SEARCHING for online databases. Helps in UPDATING data quickly. Spring 1980, first HARFAX INDUSTRY DATABASE. Learned: never start from SCRATCH, go from PRINTED sources and UPDATE.
HARFAX will probably sell through Lockheed. 650 statistical data descriptions: housing starts, imports, earnings, net income, etc. 2500 US and Canada business publishers. 16,000 records compiled to date. 18.5 descriptors/record average; 12 statistical data descriptors/record. 23 regularly employed A&I. Pay: hourly $6-$10, based on experience and background. Expert does 4 records/hour. OR they pay $2 record. They DON'T want to supply SO MUCH information that you DON'T want the document. CREDITCAST is ANOTHER database.
In general, thought the meeting was vaguely interesting, but rather boring, though Stephen Van Houton, who lives and works near Columbia, is rather cute, involved in programming related to indexing, thinks it'll be a LONG time before indexing is done on micros, but is vaguely interested in it (and in me), so I said we should keep in touch so that we could tell each other what's happening. Hope to see him again. Left without the AWFUL feeling of "waste of time" of before, but it wasn't the most exciting afternoon of my life.
MONDAY, 5/4/81: WHERE AM I NOW?: Having cleared away almost everything I "have to do," the days seem to pass effortlessly with mingled "business" (writing letters, distributing indexes, answering questions, Actualism, entertainment absorption, paying bills, reading the mail, talking with Joe, sort of preparing for my mother's visit today for the week) and pleasure (finishing "Unlimited Dream Company" yesterday, then talking with Amy for an hour when she comes over for a box of cards, showing the Mexico slides to Joe, watching TV, eating), yet the "main job" during this time (the Prokaryotes index) doesn't seem to be substantially touched. True, I'm looking forward to having "something to do" to work during the day when Mom's here, keeping away from the need to be with her DOING something every hour of her week here, AND Larry's not been in the office to answer my questions, and the Bergey's Manual hasn't arrived yet. But there's still not a sense of having ENOUGH time: I'd like MORE listening to music, MORE reading, MORE work, and I can't even say LESS of what ELSE: I'm not spending much time with Dennis (except for "The Hand" and Sans-Culottes, and for the "Postman" duo and four restaurants on Friday night), I'm spending VERY little time on the journals (both the last Dream and Notebook pages were dated April 15, almost three weeks ago, though I added three pages in Essays for the ASI meeting that took all day Saturday), and I'm not really spending lots of time on sex (though I jerked off yesterday after Joe's departure and before Mom's arrival). But the apartment remains clean, somewhat of an effort; the gym stays maintained; and whatever WANTS to get written, like this, gets written. But, because there's not much WORK done, I have very little sense of HAVING DONE ANYTHING, so when "Beyond and Back" last night asks "And what did you do with your life?" to one of the "dyers," I wonder what I'VE done with MY life recently. This childlessness of mine is emphasized with the NUMBER of children friends seem to be having: Edgardo, Rita, writing to 5-childed Seavers and O'Sheas, my dentist, Larry Meyer, finding that Joan Pankosky IS married with kids. But the day goes along, effortlessly, now 10:10 am, plants watered, page typed, yet to phone Larry and go to the gym and eat breakfast and wash dishes and meet Mom about 2:30 (not AGAIN no time for the index!) and life continues.
WEDNESDAY, 5/13/81: Note of TALK WITH DENNIS ABOUT MOM - 5/7/81: "I don't like her" is how I start. He takes that very seriously and I crawl into bed with him to talk about it. He admits that she IS difficult, but seems to say, like Richard, that maybe there's something in me that takes her too hard. I can't think what it is. I KNOW there's hatred there somewhere, but no matter how much I try to avoid getting mad at her, just to let her have her way, there's no way it seems I can stop getting angry with her when she asks the same question the third time, lies, exaggerates outrageously, or asks me for help in some way that I don't think she should avoid finding out about herself. I can feel emotions below the surface, and from the way he hugs me and looks dolorously at me and overwhelms me with sadness, I think he's trying to get me to relieve myself in tears, but I'm interested in a SOLUTION to the problem, not just temporary relief. I say that I'm debating not talking to her ANY more, as I'd done before, but I didn't want the burden of NOT talking to her to last through the years after her death when I might condemn myself for cutting off relations with her. So it's a price I have to pay for not feeling guilty about her. I say that "If I could only live more moment to moment, I wouldn't remember that she's just asked that question, that I'd told her the answer three times already, that I hadn't asked her not to interrupt me, but I keep bringing in the PAST. Sure she's OK for 10 or 15 minutes, or even for an hour or so under prime conditions, but when you're with her for hours and days and she goes AT it and AT it and AT it and AT it, there's a point when I just want to SHOUT at her, but I know I can't do that, it just makes it worse, so I keep as calm as I can and count the meals till she's leaving. He sympathizes with me, talks some about his brother's cruelties to his parents, says some of the irritating things about his father (ALWAYS has to go to the john before leaving the house late, among other things), and I thank him for his patience and kindness in listening to me, and when I look at my watch (we'd started about 1:15, I'm amazed to find that it's 2:40 am and Dennis has been looking VERY tired but insisting he wasn't just so I could finish talking it out with him.
FICTION 3
5/20/81
FANTASIES FROM ACTUALISM SESSION
1) An enormous giant, sprawling naked and erect, pulling a tiny figure of a human by the legs down onto his cock as a gigantic sheath for an even more gigantic cock, with the orgasm pouring out the almost pulled-off head of the human sheath as inspired words of the gods.
2) A cartoon of a man jerking off RIGHT into the mouth, so that an electrical circuit of pure sexual energy is set up CONTINUOUSLY from his cock to the come arcing to his mouth, through his body back to the cock, setting up an echoing circuit in his BRAIN that gives him insight into the sexual secrets of the universe.
3) Another similar cartoon of a man jerking off into his EYE, with the pinpoint vision I described earlier, so that he can SEE the semen, see his own DNA patterns, see "down into them" to himself, looking at himself, and coming to ultimate realization through this most self-centered vision.
ENTERTAINMENT 22
7/2/81
AMY'S BOOK "WE ARE THE EARTHQUAKE GENERATION"
p. 22: Vesuvius OR Pelee, then ANOTHER THREE MONTHS, then southern California, and areas between Salt Lake and South Nevada GO.
p. 31: Minor in 1980-90; major 1990-2000.
p. 37: 1990-2000: India hit first.
p. 44: LA and SF BEFORE NYC
P. 46: Australia fairly stable
p. 48: MOST of South America OK (except for south tip)
p. 156: "78 56' north, slightly more than 9 from pole" Typical arithmetic, or typo?
p. 174: Christmas, 1982, evil planetary alignment
p. 177: May 5, 2000, eviler planetary alignment
THIS is ENTERTAINMENT?
THURSDAY, 7/2/81: NOTES FOR SHELAH: I'd kept and taken and listed topics, but now I'll type them in one place:
A: PERSONAL TOPICS
1. How can I best IMPACT mankind?
2. Look at map of Mexico/Guatemala.
3. Regina's bone chip and Alexander work?
4. More about RACES.
5. Talk about MY filters?
6. Continue typing and PUBLISH readings, misunderstood or damaging?
7. Wagner manuscripts---Wagner to Ludwig to Wittolsbachs to Hitler?
8. Lost BOY? Etan Patz.
9. WHY Amy's blood-fear of Mexico, who WAS she?
10. Do you NEED to be invited to baths or Mineshaft---can I channel LIGHT there?
11. Particular TRANSLATION of Confucius good?
12. Who ALL do you have ACCESS to, as for Actualism question---who did you speak to for THAT?
13. What KIND of accent do you have? (2-17)
14. Can I go where YOU are after this body dies?
15. What BOOKS could I read for "field equation info" for higher frequencies (from SMART: Problems of Space and Time, p. 287)
16. You speak of PHYSICAL, SPIRIT (less physical---human?), ASTRAL (human?) bodies. Are there others (field?), and WHERE do they fit in order on the frequency spectrum?
17. Frequency is WHAT: times/sec; times/inch; times/unit-time??
18. Healing around me---FROM where?
B. GROUP TOPICS
1. Speak of Atlantis? Colonies? Ruins?
2. You had only 3-4 earth-lives and are not committed to earth-level: what level ARE you committed to? What is it like where you are?
3. How far can Russia be trusted?
4. Earthquakes soon, or impending changes?
5. ACTUAL nature to reality and time-space?
6. Do you move AS easily in space AS in time?
7. Different frequency: a) atoms/non-atoms? b) higher-orders of KNOWN equations? (and JUST TODAY I type the note "h is a constant; is h2 the "higher-frequency" constant of "second generation" matter---actually pieces of HUMAN? And h3, h4, and MORE??
8. Christ through PRESENT churches or ASIDE from churches?
9. WRITINGS that sum up the ASPECTS of Christ you want to magnify?
10. Love-Desire to Serve, or love Desire-to-Serve?
11. Creative use of time.
12. Speak of GROUP energy-braiding.
13. Recap Laws of Manifestation?
14. Speak of our deeper, soul names. "Robert, less flippant than Bob."
15. More about Iran and Shah. "WATAM (Watt-ame"
16. Ask about mantrams---Man looking for mirror in order to know himself.
17. "Speak of group through third eye."
18. DO: Swallow name and ??? meditate? Lincoln sensate 1(?) Center shirt(?)
DO: Add Faith, and see connectedness and centeredness. My parent-stone: fire opal.
20. Dennis vs. dog-body; Robert vs. female-body; Amy and Dana versus???
21. Political question---next President? Kennedy or Brown, NEITHER!
SECOND GROUP:
1. Future (and help of) Actualism
2. Earthpoint?
3. Catastrophe-futures?
4. Dentists of future?
5. YOU willing to be TESTED? A) What did I get in the mail? B) Take ON Randi's $10,000 ESP challenge? Send shapes and colors---record times on pad---include Dana---error messages. Dana: stare at water. Tacher's MANTLE is BASIS (?)
Call MICHAEL for Comfort and Joy!
WHEN DOES THE SOUL JOIN THE BODY??
a. Egg-cell in mother? (about 300 manufactured)
b. Sperm-cell in father? (billions wasted)
c. At sperm-fertilization of egg?
d. During embryo-fetus development?
e. At the moment of birth?
THINGS FOR ME TO DO (FROM sheLAH'S TAPES)
1. Wine in MODERATION (1-2)
2. Lots of liquids (water and fruit juices) (1-2)
3. Sofa laying with warm towel over eyes to relax (1-3)
4. Ask digestive system its feelings (1-5)
5. Earth-Point letter (1-7)
6. Mung sprout ingestion (1-8)
7. Emotional content of co-workers (1-11)
8. From squares to rounded TUNNELS of thought (1-12)
9. Carry my body in bright colors (1-17)
10. Daily brisk walk (2-1)
11. Lay off amyl (2-4)
12. Sleep 2-5 hours twice a day (2-6)
13. (mistaken entry) (Particular translation of Confucius good, it said)
14. Color and movement and light in apartment (2-6)
15. Garlic in kitchen (2-7) (no grass) (red geranium)
16. Follow natural rhythms of creative impulse (2-8)
17. Select a new book (2-10)
MY LIFE SEEMS FALLING APART: (this was OVER a year ago---here's ANSWERS!)
1. Dennis and me drifting apart. Truer yet
2. Teeth and gums worsening. Now fixed
3. Leave NYC---but to where? Heidelberg
4. Doing less; enjoying that LESS less. More
5. Dark Night of the Soul? Maybe
6. Less "Progress" in Actualism---left back? (was); DO I have to believe it? (Yes); WHEN will I sense it? (in NSH, NOW!); SENSITIVE to mass-mind? I don't know.
7. Getting OLDER---is THIS male menopause? If so, it's somewhat better now!
FRIDAY, 7/3/81: Notes from EYECLASSES (May 15, 16, 17): Obviously says something that I haven't transcribed the notes from the first class (or even took down the second class) since MAY. We write down suggestions:
1. No glasses except for driving (until Sunday night).
2. No nonprescription drugs, including wine (vitamins OK) & MONITOR cigarettes & caffeine.
3. Punctuality and presence.
4. Participation.
5. Confidentiality (not talking ABOUT it DURING weekend).
6. Follow-up letter two weeks after Sunday, letter to office: final act of completing class. Notepad tomorrow and Sunday, 2-hour meal break Sat and Sun. Reviewing class is $50, starts at 10 am Sat and Sun, ends 8:30-10 Sat, 7-9 Sun.
7. Communicate with Eye-witness partner ONCE a week for SIX weeks.
8. Follow instructions.
Our teacher is Martin Sussman (a student of John Roger), and his partner, the cutie in the photographs, is Thomas Boyer, DBA (Doctor of Business Administration?). For Friday, we REGISTER at 6:00, gather, starts 7 pm. There are 10 of us, counterclockwise from Marty: Don, Werner, Leslie, Ed, Solveg, Cynthia (Mrs. Story), B, Nancy, Sheila, and Roger (5M, 5W).
Marty tells of Tom Boyer, "we" and mental, emotional and physical tie-ins with sight. Write Suggestions. Sharing 1: with Nancy, alternate repeating "I can see." Sharing 2: Cynthia, alternate repeating "Your eyes are good." Sharing 3: Sheila, what I hope to get from this, realistically. Then group sharing. Letters telling who's where, clearer on "CLEARLY" (I don't know what this means.) Lights out: close eyes, introduce ourselves and our histories of wearing eyeglasses. Story: senses opened: touch if 6-8', taste is 3", smell is 2 miles, hearing is 100 miles; sight, to infinity. Look at candle. Sharing 4: complete sentence: I like wearing glasses because ... with Ed. Sharing 5, with Roger, I see the way I do because ...
Group: "I'm here because I want to SEE" and applause (3x). Break. Talk of tomorrow and "staying on." Lights out: Tape of Boyer putting red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white from front left eye, muscles, optic nerve to center of head, back to left occipet, spill to right occipit, forward to enter back of right eye, overflow to front of left eye. MUSIC, then GREEN music, WATER music, MOUNTAIN music. "You CAN see." Leave at 10:55.
SATURDAY
Start at 10 with news that Nancy's mother's died---so we sent her support and think "to help her mother through this transition." Leslie comes in about 10:30, Roger about 11, so we're grinding our pelvis back and forth in stretching and relaxing exercises. We started with sharing of the previous evening, and I mention that Marty's been saying a LOT so far about JUDGING (giving us a rubber band to snap when we come from our "reactive" mind that says "This should be like THAT," or "This IS like that WAS.") He talks of the STAGES of seeing: 1) Letting the light come into the eyes---perfectly passive. 2) The visual system that brings the signals to the brain. 3) I forget. Exercises: 1) Fingertips to shoulders, dip DOWN grunting exhale, sweep back UP inhaling, back DOWN voicing exhale. 2) Swinging back and forth, letting eyes go FREE, so that it looks like the ROOM is moving, not that the EYES are FIXING and moving. Strangely, when I CLOSE my eyes and THEN open, they FIX VERY QUICKLY. Tire of this and feel vaguely dizzy after. 3) Rub hands together and palm eyes. The "I SEE" reaction is shouted when we sit in front of the eye charts and squinch up our eyes VERY hard then look, BREATHING hard all the while. I just CAN'T believe that 1/3 our oxygen use is in the VISUAL. Eye exercises: Sitting, turn head to left and right, then LOOKING (eyes closed) FARTHER left and then FARTHER right. Then looking up and down, up and down, THEN in a circle on a clock, first counterclockwise, then clockwise. We sit in chair so we can JUST see two last letters of I LOVE TO SEE. Farsighted have to look at tiny sheet up CLOSE that they focus on top two lines are in focus and bottom two not). Then move chair BACK as we can see more clearly. FIRST (for unknown reason, but I DO it) we paint a black band at eye level with a paintbrush on our nose by turning our head from side to side. (Also forgot we shoot heads vigorously and shouted "NO," then nodded vigorously and shouted "YES.") AND we traced FIGURES on chart with our nose, eyes closed, then opened, to surprised "I see's." But eyes are SORE and TIRED after a bit, vision even blurring, and we stopped, mercifully. Vision string fun: string to nose and concentrate on where strings "cross" at alternative red and black beads. I tend to focus FAR OUT and strain to see CLOSER. Can't make a Vee at MY nose (REAL muscle strain, but Marty tells of "200 times stronger muscles: the "marines coming out and blinding us when we say "I don't want to look at that," or "That hurts me to watch.") but it's OK out FAR, now. ALSO at chart, looking at fingertip 6" from nose and focusing near (seeing two charts, HARD) and far (seeing two fingers, easy). I start FORCING one eye, and "near" slides too far, with strain to keep "smooth." Then I BREATHED for with two near fingers and it works BETTER (not forcing EITHER eye). Then we partner (with our eye-witness partner, who turns out to be Don!) and to "Trust walk" for 15 minutes each, tapping head to "take pictures." Partner Leslie in "Above all else, I want to see," and it goes on a LONG time, but I get that I COMPLICATE, EVADE, get BORED, want to see MY way, but DO want to SEE. Trust walk is 1:40-2:25. Then out to lunch 3:30-5:30, to Brownie's and GREAT talk with Don on travel: me around the world, he to Indian lands. Back to long BORING lecture by Marty, falling asleep. Ends with "An early memory I have is ..." with Solveg, alternating similar memories for us two, and then INTERESTING process of sitting in dark and taking memory back to today, yesterday, last Sunday, Sunday before, Christmas, Christmas before, THEN to "Year before I wore glasses," and walk to door of house, into living room, to bedroom, to room, to bed, to YOU in bed, wake gently, eye contact, ask him to SAY something, then respond as OTHER person. Touching. I write letter and cry. The music (some tacky, some nice) and feel blissed out. Stay to end at 9 and Don says it's marvelous. Cynthia and 2 leave together. Nice feeling. Reminded VERY strongly of "Want some ONE," to make my "joy complete" on the mountain-water-green place! Also, thinking something DIFFERENT from FEELING (lack of attunement) is KILLING.
HOMEWORK: 1) Write NOTES on entire day, transcribed previously.
2) For 10 (?) minutes, write "Above all else, I want to see," then RESPONSE.
I got bored, but DID it, and to the RIGHT of "Above all else, I want to see," comes: I want to see, but I'm not sure it's above all else.
I always put things BETWEEN (like glasses) me and DOING something.
I DO want to see, and I'm taking steps that will lead me to seeing better.
I keep coming back to the QUALITY of seeing, but quality is JUDGING (snap).
But I DO want CLEAR vision---to me SEEING MEANS SEEING CLEARLY.
Seeing is the main way to get information about people, places, and things.
Now comes the resistance, I'm tired of writing ALREADY.
More additions: look at clock, THINK about doing, rather than DOING.
Then why am I writing THIS? Because that's PART of wanting to SEE.
And fill this sheet with scribblings, so I can prove I did the homework.
Doesn't make any difference what I write, only I will know about it.
But I'm only ripping myself off. Is THAT the way I want it?
No, I WANT to see.
Above ALL else.
Thank goodness I'm going faster than I would have thought.
Let's be CLEARER about this.
I'm important, rebellious, want to do it MY way and no OTHER way will work.
Good intentions go by the board so quickly.
Deadlines take over---I aim for the END and not the GETTING to the end.
Resistant bastard!
But be GOOD to myself, treat myself with LOVE.
Writing slower helps!
RELAX into it.
Why do I usually write "elso" (for Above all elso)?
Am I finished, completed, or just at the end of the page?
So I look MORE at what's TO do or what's DONE, but not the DOING.
SUNDAY (from memory from almost two months ago):
OH, from notebook I find that we wrote LAST NIGHT:
Younger Bob to Older Bob: "I want to get out of here." (home and Mom)
Helen to both of us (someone else told to enter): "It's for your own good."
OB to YB: "It'll be better later on." (I'm probably weeping by now.)
Debate between WHO comes in: Mom, Dad, or Helen. I WANT Dad, but feel he won't come.
I DON'T want Mom. Helen is all too willing to enter. (THIS IS GOOD!!)
Younger Bob is puzzled, but pleased. OB is confused---rather like Dad might have been.
Probably the message from all to all: "It'll all be OK. We all try the best we can---even though it might not look like it. Nothing's done with malice."
SO, we gather after 10, Solveg met me downstairs and announced she'd be leaving at 5. He asked for reports: we started: I said I kept coming back to NOT wanting class to end with our being SATISFIED with the POOR way we saw. He clowned blindness, saying "I'm perfectly content with my vision," and said, "we're not aiming for that." OK. Then Solveg brought up her leaving and there was a LONG (after signing sympathy card that Cynthia got for Nancy, and Solveg got Ed's and my name and address) discussion, her NOT understanding that her saying "My body in clearing my vision" instead of "My body COOPERATES in clearing my vision" is what she's doing NOW: insisting that SHE is right and NOT listening to the other person. He gives her a choice: leave NOW or when ALL leave at 7. She insists on leaving at 5. She blurts that she has to visit a sick friend (which doesn't sound that important, though she says she's a healer) in a hospital and can't go sooner or later or another day. Marty justly says he doesn't care, but seems to be too unfeeling in the way he handles it. Finally, after much trivia and trial, she leaves about 12 (and I get up and hug her and say for her to CALL me---she sends me a postcard after she leaves for Norway in the summer), and then Cynthia finishes her sharing. We get into more exercises with the fusion string and the charts, more relaxations, at times go outside to swing and focus on distant objects (passersby looking with amused interest), and have lunch from 4:30-5:45, but we're there at 6 since we ate slowest, talking about all KINDS of things, and I can't decide if he's gay or not, despite his talk about his girlfriend. Fantastic that HE quit a great PR job to write a book on Lincoln, as I quit IBM to write a book on LSD. Then we get into POWERFUL exercises, but I don't feel QUITE safe in the space, so I don't REALLY get carried away. He asks us to come up with an affirmation. I futz around and come up with "I would like to see myself reveal my innermost self to others without fear." Marty looks over my shoulder and says it should start with "Something I'm ready to see ..." but it gets too long. Marty tampers and tugs, and I get more and more deep and, incidentally, embarrassed (yes, suppressed joy about having to SAY I want to reveal myself). Finally I write "I'm ready to share myself with you," and someone changes it to "I'm willing to share myself with you." Say it for a good long time and really weep. Don comes up with something like "I'm willing to admit that I'm a good person." Then Marty floors all of us by saying that we go to "An Eyeclasses Cocktail Party," and mingle with EVERYONE chatting---YOUR AFFIRMATION!! DYNAMITE!!! Werner turns me WAY off by having his bright blue eyes NARROW TO TINY BLACK DOTS even rimmed with WHITE, and I take it as HATRED for me, as ASP-like COLD snaky HATRED. Really FEAR him, and my reaction to him. Chilling! Then we write our GOAL: I see without glasses clearly enough 1) to focus a camera, and 2) to recognize a face at 20 years (HA, what a typo---YARDS). It's OK for me to change my goals. It's OK for me to exceed my goals. What steps could/WILL I take? Turn the page and write down the DATE for the goal, and I write "July 14, 1981." Trip. That's all there is in the notebook until the last page: Don Kemp/400 E. 56 St. Apt. 24A, NYC, NY 10022/832-1273. (I phone him through the week, he's not there. Get him after 10 days, Wednesday, and he talks of having MET Werner, TALKED with Roger, and I met Nancy at Benjamin Crème's event, and I went to Cynthia's concert and LOVED it.) There's also the "cheering section" when you announce YOUR affirmation three times to the crowd, who cheers and applauds you. There were other exercises, which I don't recall. More laying around the floor and going to the distant clear-sighted place. I looked through the other books, didn't get anything, enjoyed the tape for the 18th, which I did in the morning of the 19th, then 19th, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 (on 17th), 27, 28, 39, 30 a day late, caught up on the 31st, then June 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and stop on June 7, noting the following: if three weeks shows NO (not quite true, clarity WAS there, sometimes for two seconds!) progress and Marty is STILL trying to pass a driver's test without glasses after FOUR YEARS, I've had enough. If "catastrophe" occurs, and I survive and HAVE to do without glasses, I can practice THEN. Anyway, don't eyes USUALLY settle for more distance in AGE? So that's the end of the notes, and I leave this place to add anything more I recall from Sunday. Don and I ate ALONE in Fruit and Nuts, or wherever, while the others ate together. He said he'd call ME the second time, but he didn't. I wrote the letter to them only a FEW days after May 31 due date, just before I QUIT. Sunday ended rather early, about 7 or 7:15, everyone feeling warm toward each other, but aside from holding hands in a circle we didn't really HUG each other. I think Marty would have been against it. He seemed not EXACTLY to be able to handle the group---or give me the CONFIDENCE I needed to ACT as if he could. Hearing other people through the thin walls most of the time didn't help with a sense of privacy, either. Ended as Saturday with us lying on the floor listening to peaceful music, blissed out, not really wanting to go, except for those who WENT AS SOON AS THEY COULD. I got a BAD COLD on Sunday, which lasted about 8 days, I theorized from the tears awakened and unshed in the unsafe space. OH, ANOTHER dynamite process: in a circle, someone steps in front of the next person and SAYS SOMETHING to him (emphasis on positive). I started quickly SAYING, which was hard ("Warner, you're a real GAS."), but TAKING things like "You're a really wonderful person, Bob," and "You're a beautiful person, Bob," one after another after another was heart-wrenchingly rough. I think maybe Marty should have been in on that, too, since he seemed distant and manipulative (and a little wistfully lost) at the end. No one offered to drive him to the airport, either. He had an "assistant" (black man from previous class) who wanted to sit in. Glass-less.
SUNDAY, 7/5/81: WHERE AM I NOW?: I'm certainly aware that I'm typing fewer and fewer pages: none for January or February or June at ALL in here! Had THOUGHT to keep SOMEWHAT abreast of where I am! But then there was the huge (10,000 lines ISN'T that HUGE) Prokaryotes index for $7800 + $6250 = $14,050 for me and Allegra (and others) and now's my TRIP---I'll be in the air for Britain in less than 22 hours. Things seem to be changing THROUGH Actualism, though I don't know if I've actually RECORDED (as I didn't on ACTUALISM 167) that there have been MARVELOUS EXPANDED VISTAS of time in which the CURRENT LOCAL DETAILS don't matter so much, ever since getting the Atomic and Subatomic levels. I feel positively TRANQUIL next to someone like Bruce and Susan Lieber, and even next to Dennis. But then THIS week (particularly last night, between going to bed at 3 am and waking at 6:30 and lying and tossing until about 9:30) I got back into the old habits of not thinking abut the JOYS of the TRIP but of what could go wrong and the possible TERRORS of the initial PLANE FLIGHT. Crystal helps lots with talk of the Golden Javelins, and of course it's all INNER, anyway, so whatever SHE can tell me that'll help me is GREAT. It was ALSO nice having the TIME to do it NICELY: could have finished the index a WEEK early, so that when Allegra CRAPPED on everything on the Wednesday before the Monday due-date, I could handle it (correction: I could get Marge to handle it). It went VERY well, both getting in by noon. Then I had my lists of things to do before the trip, and they all got down to Monday, and I even have time for pages like this. Can think of almost INFINITE things to take along on this FOURTH LONGEST trip (RTW (1) 130 days; USA (2) 99 days; Eur/Mor (3) 85 days; this (4) 60 days EXACTLY): tiny screwdriver/scotch tape/knife with bottle opener/sewing kit with three threads, 3 buttons, scissors, razor blades/Band-Aids/LOTS of pills (Comtrex, Meprobamate, gas, cough, Ampicillin, aspirin, mosquito-bite (which I serendipitously find while filling drawers for Bunny Greco, serendipitously found while getting tinctures for Hansjorg and Christel recommended by Amy at Perelandra where I saw her ad for an apartment) / suntan lotion/etc.etc.etc. Rather a pain that Great Britain folders closed at 3:30 when I got there at 4:25, but we're planning on
"Superman" and folders IN tomorrow's last packing and banking and HOPEFULLY pill-getting and checking-account squaring. If not, then pill BUYING and check-SENDING anyway. Bed littered with stuff to be packed, though the paper-pile has been reduced considerably. Rehearsing angry arguments with Russians who want to take my Atlas-excised maps. BUT I have to remember that ANGER will get nowhere, but LOVE will work better. Hope I can remember it. Hope 18 rolls of film is enough. Writing the letter to Dennis's folks tonight it's NICE to know that I really don't know HOW the trip will end up: relaxed and rushed through all the North Pacific islands or exhausted and just skipping to Manila and Guam and Hawaii and San Diego WITHOUT Yap and Koror and Ponape (maybe Saipan??). But I ALWAYS find out more about a place when I'm THERE that I couldn't have ANTICIPATED. And I might want to go BACK, too! So it's 9:40, pity Dennis isn't home (I called him, he called me, I called him, I finally left a note for him, he hasn't called yet) (even more a pity that we seem UNINTERESTED in having sex; I'm even losing patience with him when he doesn't WANT to get something like Yahtzee (not the greatest game in the world anyway), but it leaves me open to move on to something BETTER---as John was better than Joe Easter, Dennis better than John, so X will be better than Dennis! Crystal seemed happy with the trip, will be getting into II's on my return in September (so she can do 10 (sep/oct/nov/dec/jan/feb/mar/apr/may/jun) on me before she leaves in July, and THEN there'll be the Autonomic Nervous System, and then something after THAT, no doubt. So there it all is, and here I am, and let's get on to something ELSE!
WEDNESDAY, 9/16/81: BRUCE LIEBER'S PROBLEMS: He was fired from his job before I left, had been getting increasingly depressed and "closed down," and it had gotten to catastrophic stages by the time I returned from the trip: he'd moved out of his apartment back in with his parents because he wasn't feeding or taking care of himself or his apartment. He'd begun not sleeping, describing sleepless nights "writhing in agony and fear and tension," so that he'd phone Crystal, who was finally losing patience with him and saying that he might have to drop out of Actualism, or Richard, who seemed to be losing patience when he told him he'd be in this phase of elimination and processing for the next three to five weeks (so don't bother me before the end of that, seemed to be the message I got from it), and even his mother, who was "furious" with him when he woke her one night for comforting. He said he kept spacing out on subways, which made him fearful about RIDING on the subways for the danger of getting lost or going completely off the beam somewhere. He didn't want to visit because he would feel like vomiting. Finally he asked, on Saturday night, if there was anything I could have him DO so that he could begin structuring him and his time, and I suggested he could help me look for an indexing computer. He actually seemed to get interested in that, saying it'd help him find out if he could hold down a job by concentrating for any length of time, though I didn't care for it when he asked if he might be PAID for his work for me. So he phoned again Monday evening and asked if he couldn't start on Tuesday, so I said he should phone me after 9:30 and come over about 11:30. So he phoned at 9:30 and came over about 12, when I was eating, and he had some juice with me and talked with me while I did the dishes, but then rather than my doing the floor he demanded eye contact. So into the living room we went and I started "probing." HE led to most of the questions Dennis thought to ask: "What are you GETTING out of this?" and he didn't want to be led into saying he got ATTENTION, even though I asked him point-blank "What would you talk about if you DIDN'T talk about what was wrong with you?" He'd pretty well decided it was guilt, that he was trying to punish himself, that he hated himself, and he at last got to the point he REALIZED that he had to take responsibility for closing down ON HIMSELF, so that it was in like manner HIS RESPONSIBILITY FOR OPENING BACK UP AGAIN. He kept looking into the FAR future and I kept telling him to be concerned "about the next few hours, maybe tomorrow, and possibly a LITTLE bit of the next day, but it's nonsense to worry about what's going to happen over the next few years or for the rest of your life." He just DIDN'T want menial work of ANY kind, not even rising to the bait about scrubbing floors by asking whether it was TOO GOOD for him or NOT BAD ENOUGH for him---if he wants punishment, he got himself INTO this fix, so maybe washing floors IS not awful enough for him. I kept saying that BEING a waiter for a week would do FAR more good FAR more quickly than THINKING about being a waiter for a month or so. Then I hit on the idea that MOST of his symptoms (which he began calling "schizophrenia" from some data he was reading about orthomolecular medicine in a Rodale book) were probably due to lack of SLEEP, urging him to get a library book about what happens to the body when it isn't permitted to sleep. This afternoon, on the phone with him, I got him to thinking that, rather than being a failure, he's been a GREAT success in WHAT HE WANTED TO DO: GET AWAY FROM EVERYTHING and everybody---that's JUST what he did, so he HAS the power to do what he wants, now he has to direct the power in the POSITIVE way and build up MORE inches above the muck that he'd started building yesterday when he went through some of the computer stuff, said most of it could be thrown away, and seemed to get interested in it, then went to the Kenton movies (ignoring, I presume, the parallels between HIS sapheadedness and Keaton's "Saphead"), and he even said that he was sociable after the Tai Chi session, saying that I was the right person at the right time as far as turning him around was concerned. I said he should start thinking about what some of the positive steps might be: find some goodies for himself, don't let himself SINK into the spaced-out places where he doesn't know where he is or what he's going to do next. I sort of got him to agree that thinking of orthomolecular medicine, psychiatry, or even a hospital as becoming MORE passive, letting OTHER people do it, where the crux was that he had to become ACTIVE, DOING for himself, rather than thinking that OTHERS could MAKE him get well. I even talked about suicide, but he seemed pretty clear that Crystal insisted that suicide would be the worst thing: on the DOWNSLIDE he'd slip even FARTHER down in the next incarnation and have even MORE to deal with. He plays Crystal's advice off on Richard's advice, having heard them say they're only human and can make mistakes too, yet he hangs onto Richard's "Three weeks without thinking of work," as if it's the gospel truth. I suggested it would be good to see people, think of how he could ease his getting back into his apartment (he admits that life at his folks' house isn't the greatest: his father's very withdrawn and sits in front of TV most of the time without nothing to say---but then he's 70, so why should he be required to solve his son's problem, says Bruce) and into a job, and what EASY steps he could take, like coming back here to work more on the computer application, going to the library, seeing Margaret Meschio, and taking POSITIVE points of view rather than his consistent NEGATIVE point of view. He keeps saying that things "are getting better BUT," and then piles on more negatives than is good for him. I say he should stick to the positive, not resulting in HIDING the negative, but just building it up a bit more and making the positive stronger. He thanks me a few times, says that even though I'm rough with him he can sense the caring I have for him, and we can even begin to joke with what I call Dennis and my "Psychology joke," I have so little patience with anything wrong that if someone came to me with a problem I'd just tell them to go away and fix it up! He says my energy is extraordinary, he even said he wanted to come stay with me, but I said that I had so much to do after the trip that I was feeling THAT pressure, hoping he'd be better before he'd think of asking again. He's forbidden the healing group's company, they just feed off their illnesses. I guess he IS in serious trouble, but I can't see that he DOESN'T have the power to pull himself OFF it, if he only figured out what he really WANTED.
THURSDAY, 9/17/81: WHERE AM I NOW?: Still not finished coming back from the trip (correspondence pile large, apartment filthy, black hair dye still remaining, movies to catch up with, various doorways and small things to clean up, then the LARGE task of typing the trip notes, sorting out the slides, and doing the two smaller indexes I have from Raven and McGraw-Hill before starting on the biggies from ACC and Garland. Already talked to Michael about going to Italy December 9-January 6, so THAT feels like the next trip, though $800 for APEX fare sounds very HIGH to Milan. Lying in bed one morning thoughts of WRITING came back, and I looked back on the successful pages of dialogue I'd written for the play, of the many more ideas I got for "Throwback" while watching a spectacular "Tannhauser" on TV on Sunday, and I could get into hassles about THAT again. Then there's all the STAMPS to be put away, lists to be brought up to date, and notes to take, though they don't seem nearly as important now. Souvenirs don't have any room on the shelves, so throwing away more books seems appealing, though I have no idea where to start. But that'll all be over soon enough and I'll be having people looking at the slides and planning for the trip to Italy, though I have to find out from Crystal when they leave for Christmas this year. Carol Ann's coming seems to have activated me, but I look forward to being astounded as I was the LAST time she was here. Mom seems to be still sick, but eventually she'll get the operation and be well until the next illness hits. I'm depressed about Heidelberg since every time I heard the German tongue on the trip I was impressed by how much I HATED THE SOUND OF IT. What a pity Springer-Verlag doesn't have a branch---THEY DO HAVE A BRANCH IN PARIS!---though the MAIN branches are in Berlin, Heidelberg, and New York, they ARE in Munich, London, New Delhi, Paris, Rio (!), Sydney (!), and Tokyo (!). Maybe I should TALK to someone about working for them---maybe starting OUT in Heidelberg but then MOVING IN TURN to Paris, Rio, Sydney, and Tokyo---talk about stuff of fantasies!! Now that I've hit THAT, I can hardly think of anything else, so it's a good thing that I'm down to the bottom of the page and ready to watch TV!
TUESDAY, 9/29/81: "TARZAN" VERSUS THE CRITICS: The movie's pretty awful, but having READ the reviews, I'm amused to find that some of them are just plain WRONG: David Denby in New York Magazine ends his review with "Trying to climb on top of Bo in the end titles sequence, he's pulled off the nude and willing lady by a frisky orangutan, who then climbs onto her himself." Well, in MY end-titles sequence (Arnie DID say that four minutes were cut from the film to soften the sexuality) she was only nude from the WAIST UP, and the final freeze-frame was of the orang pulling Tarzan OFF, but without any credits or screen-motion LEFT to climb on himself. Both mention the slow-motion fight with the boa constrictor disparagingly: Denby: "the scene has all the overpowering excitement of a pair of overalls turning around in a Maytag," and Vincent Canby in the New York Times: "the quite amazingly silly encounter of Jane and Tarzan with the rubber tube that's supposed to be a snake." From MY point of view, in the close-ups of Bo with the same snake, the skin is SO convincing that I am positive it was a real snake, and during the water-thrashing scene (which I saw twice) there were times when I'm SURE the head of the snake moved about in the camera range, so I think the reason they shot it in slow-motion was to ensure the audience saw that it WAS a real snake they were using, though it certainly wasn't moving very fast, as a snake that large would hardly be prone to. But the "fausse naiveté" and "Little Bo Peep" comments by Canby are unfortunately true, there's just TOO MUCH of Jane, and since one always regards Miles O'Keeffe's TITS rather than his FACE (quite a bit smaller than either) I'm not even quite sure what he LOOKS like, though when he's smiling at the end he appears somewhat more human than he does when he's dour at the start. It's also true, sadly, that Richard Harris's performance is just plain awful, and there's NOTHING characteristic of EITHER the Seychelles (though the beach is admittedly lovely) or Sri Lanka, though it LOOKED as if some of the cliffs may have been photographed at Sigiriya, to make it worth seeing as a TRAVELOGUE, though the tree for the campfire was a real find---but how many DISEASES did they get from being in all that dirty WATER in these germ-infested places? Haven't they heard about Hepburn's eye disease from falling into the much more civilized waters of VENICE?
ENTERTAINMENT 23
10/2/81
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY ON 9/30
THIS HAS TO BE ONE OF THE GREATEST THEATRICAL EVENTS OF THE DECADE!! Most impressed with the bustling set, constructions up the proscenium arch and around the front of the balcony; $100 seats, though the last (worst) few rows of the orchestra were empty, great for the standees, though there were some at the end, but I don't know the reason; and two supreme moments of sheer acting: Nicholas catching the swooning Miss Squeers, leaning back off-balance, casting a frightened look down, then at the audience aghast, and THEN falling on his back; and Smike taking a drink of brandy, gasping, screwing up his face, looking goggle-eyed, wringing his lips, and then holding out the glass for another shot! Reading the plot in Masterplots shows some differences: MP says that the siblings thought their lovers loved EACH OTHER and not them while the play says they "nobly" refrained from marrying money; but all the major characters seemed retained, though someone in front of Arnie said that lines and situations had been added from OTHER Dickens works. But the HUGE number of set pieces: the card party, the school, the various cities, the elaborate climax of "Romeo and Juliet" climaxed with the patriotic finale, and the RAGE (as noted in the article) on Nickleby's face when he picks up the downcast child while the rest of the cast enjoys the apotheosis of "Happy endings," and the VERY touching moments of Smike's death, and the CHEERS and applause that greeted Nickleby's beating Squeers, Hawk, and various other villains (which I can't think is TOTALLY good, but it sure made the AUDIENCE feel good!), all were MORE than I expected, and even Arnie toned down from his comparison of the first half of the first part as less than "Oliver" so many years ago. Will look forward to the TV production in February, 1983, and have told everyone I can to be SURE to see it, as it's GREAT and not to be missed. The audience rising as one (and none LEAVING, either) to applaud and cheer at the end was heart-warming, too. Fabulous production, richness, with NO thought (except a FEW moments during the last half) of the 8 hours of the total running time, a new record for live theater, and one REALLY worth $30, or even $100, if one has to pay it.
SATURDAY, 10/3/81: TALK WITH SUSAN: She comes over for a body session at 7:30 and we end up talking until 11, when we break for her to see my slides. She starts by saying how DULL Bruce seems since he's started taking the Stelazine on Tuesday, as if there's no more energy or control left to him; he just keeps nodding out. He's got an appointment to see Dr. Schmertz (pain!) Saturday at 3 pm, and will return to the drug-doctor for his weekly appointment on Tuesday. She doesn't want to be taken over by him completely, but she loves him and wants to help him, thinking it might be good if he takes the est training again, which she'd asked Actualism about once before, and Richard gave some enigmatic answer about "three obvious reasons" why he shouldn't do it, and all she could come up with was the heavy field factors there. I said she should try AGAIN, now that they've "washed their hands of him." And now her MOTHER is breaking under the strain, and she proceeds to fill me in on the family history of hospitalization and depression: her grandmother, Kate's mother, worked until late in life, but after an accident had to move in with them and when she stopped working settled into a dreadful depression that lasted until her death. Then Kate's sister Sylvia went in and out of mental hospitals for schizophrenia (I remarked about Bruce's eagerness to embrace a diagnosis of schizophrenia after reading a Rodale book about it), and is now living alone and sometimes very fat and sometimes very thin, but nevertheless managing to survive. And then Susan told me her OWN story: how she got more and more depressed, couldn't sleep, started drinking up to a fifth of liquor every day and not even getting HIGH enough to sleep, finally getting it into her mind that it was either Janov Primal Therapy or suicide, so she asked her folks for $6000: her mother said "No" (she said her mother feels guilty because she couldn't do enough to help her mother and her sister out of THEIR depressions---and didn't do much good for SUSAN, either, so now she's panicking when it looks like Bruce is going in the same direction), but "My Dad looked at me and said 'Take it,'" so HE saw she had to have it. But when she flew the next day to San Francisco and took a bus to Daly City and walked across two parking lots and a dump to get to the Janov center, she burst into tears through the entire interview and said she couldn't stand to be here either, so the interviewer rather coldly said "We'll let you know by mail." She knew THAT was the end, went to about 15 bars to get very drunk, ended up on a cross-country bus so that she could think, ended up next to a black who bought her a bottle at every stop and finally offered her some barbiturates which she took, fell asleep under, and woke with her clothes disheveled and lots of her money gone. So she got off the bus and called Schmertz from Nebraska, phoning again and again as she made plane connections on the way back, and taxied from the airport to his office, where she AGAIN cried through the whole thing, getting out no better than she went in, and on the street, at the BOTTOM of her despair, she snapped out of it completely and said "How BEAUTIFUL the buildings are" and immediately noticed that she was hungry, something she hadn't felt for a month, so she ordered a steak in a restaurant, went back to her apartment, and got a call from Sonny who said "I guess you don't need me anymore." She detoured into the tale of Sonny: a pimp and hustler from the neighborhood whom she encountered and they'd have sex once a month or so, and she discovered he'd show up when she was at her WORST and pull her out of it, but she didn't want to have anything to do with him on a permanent basis even though he vowed to go straight for her. Then finally they had a showdown, she said she didn't want to marry him, he went off to fuck someone's wife, and that someone returned and shot him dead. I didn't bother to ask her if she felt guilt about THAT. She said "Brucie's really thinking about suicide," and I said that everyone could ALWAYS feel guilty about that for "what they hadn't done," including devoting the rest of their life to be with them every second so they COULDN'T commit suicide, which was obviously impossible. I described the relationship between my mother and me on that, distant but caring, and reviewed my relationship with Dr. Hammer so that she might steer Bruce back to him, since he seems to have made no move in his direction since I suggested it, as he hadn't made a move to look into what deprivation of REM sleep will do to the body and mind, NOR did he try a simple sleeping pill, though she said when he was sleeping over at his place that his FIELD was so sticky that SHE couldn't sleep, so she's not amazed that HE can't sleep. So that "miracle" on the street turned her around, and she'd still been wanting to thank Schmertz for her recovery, and now maybe Bruce's illness would give her the opportunity. She talked of the time she'd been thinking of dropping out of Actualism, when she kept asking for a meeting and Stan would tell her to blaze up and process, and finally Crystal called and Susan sarcastically said it was a bit late. But she saw her and Crystal gave the standard talk about the "rules being changed" a year ago Thanksgiving, so that "the dark-force channels would be weeded out," so that now she thinks Bruce just might be in the process of being weeded out, though the MOTHER is thinking of dropping out too, though Susan seems back into it. She started the evening talking about ROGER and the dark forces she felt coming through HIM, particularly when he'd go into his "moonie trance" and someone else would speak through him. Actualism had given her mechanisms (going up in frequency and saying "THIS is what you'll have to contend with, even though some of my unenlightened identities might be sucked in by you") to fight that influence, and she spoke of the evening that Pat Mandino and Dorothy Kent came over to help the both of them when it was clear their session had been taken over by paranoid voices saying "Play it close to your chest; you can't trust anyone." She also mentioned, about that time, that Arthur did the most remarkable hand session on her back, getting her to realize that one part of her back had "They're gonna do it to you," right next to "Watch out, watch out!" connected with it. She talked of Crystal's freeing her left arm (it was Roger's RIGHT arm that had had polio, but she said she was aware of the correspondences) with lightworker awareness which had been COMPLETELY cut off from the light, and now it feels better. I just sat and listened, aware that she was pleased to be talking this all out with someone, and remembering how at one point I wanted more excitement in my life, and I could hardly deny THIS was more incredible than any soap opera I could see, and it was being told for MY benefit ALONE. Susan also talked about her crazy relationship with Bill Solomon (who's been working with great DP jobs and sleeping out of his CAR, company furnished, and washing up in exclusive gyms that he belonged to), their best time coming when he was seeing HER on the side before marrying his second wife (first marriage of 9 years produced his two children, and he still sometimes hangs around that woman) back in May, though he doesn't like it because she blackmailed him into faithfulness by seeing other MEN. In the course of the conversation she exclaimed, "Why am I always the one who's raped?" She kept tugging on her hair, and I said it reminded me of Bruce, and she said they were VERY similar, though her motions were meant to be CURLING her hair, while he TUGGED on HIS. She sort of stopped later in the conversation. I found that she was very "up" during her talk with me, even when she was wiping her eyes with the emotions brought up by her last conversation with Schmertz and her "conversion" on the street in Brooklyn. SHE got Bruce the job in the factory in Manhattan where he's working, thinking it might be good for his orientation to be AWAY from the Island, which is now negatively loaded for him, and Schmertz is in Manhattan, too. Kate had an X-out about Bruce this evening, so it was a good thing Bruce was going to HIS place, rather than back to Elmont. Her birthday came up strongly, too, saying that the family ALWAYS tried to make a party out of it, but it always ended up strained and "trying," so this time she treated herself to a movie "Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears," which she'd tried to get me to see with her, but I was glad she didn't because she said after she refused to go to the party she had a GOOD day, and returned ON her birthday (Monday) to find a cat-cartoon-cup gift from Bruce that shows he THOUGHT about her, $600 from her parents to buy a dynamite new cowgirl costume for fashion-wearing, and even interesting things from Roger, who still sticks around, though he's now disconnected from Moonies and into Actualism. I listened and hoped I could do VAGUE justice to the evening in these notes.
SUNDAY, 10/4/81: WILLIE STARK: This Carlisle Floyd opera, based loosely on "All the King's Men" (based loosely on the life of Huey Long?), impressed me with its thoughtfulness and staging. The judge wasn't totally white (loving father, good rich man) or totally black (accepting bribes, forbidding his son to support Stark), Willie wasn't totally good (everything to all men) or totally bad (using everyone for his own ends), and the motivations seemed real (the secretary that loved Stark, the jilted lover killing Stark at the end). But as I sat watching the opera, my life came into question: like Willie Start, I didn't seem to devote time to anything PERSONAL, only business and things that DROVE me. Life was handling one emergency after another, playing a game of chess with activities without ENJOYING those activities AS a game, and then sitting with head in hands wondering where time, love, and affection had gone---or when there would have been a chance for it. After that program came a program on May Sarton, gay author and poet, lover of many, writer of many books, now living in countrysides and planting flowers and enjoying the change of seasons, the tides of the ocean and of life, and having the luxury to relax, work when wanted, not when driven; watch the sky and enjoy the weather and LIFE ITSELF. I wanted to drive my car somewhere, spend more time on my writing, and perversely to turn off the television set to do some of the things that only WATCHING the television set would have put me in mind of. Thought of yesterday: had planned to start on an index, but saw that this was the last weekend of a display of Blake's art at the Morgan and called Susan to see it, though I didn't meet her until 2 and didn't leave her until 11:30, but the day which included eating in a nice new restaurant, wandering a new section of town, showing them my slides, seemed a WASTE from what I WANTED to do; record the trip journal, do the index, keep up with lightwork. Again the pressures of TIME: if I DO return to gymwork, lightwork, indexwork, tripwork, there won't be any time left for anything ELSE. Have to stop seeing so many movies and TV shows, I think. Then wonder where to put THIS page, and the page of thoughts that would COME
MONDAY, 10/5/81: THOUGHTS ON ORGANIZING LIFE: AFTER the opera, and knew that I couldn't put "Willie Stark" in the entertainment section, because it was so intimately connected with THESE thoughts, meant for the notebook. I've spent less time on the DETAILS of writing, yet that still hasn't freed enough time for me. TRIPS certainly take a long time: planning for them, doing them, catching up from them, caring for the journals and slides resulting from them---though trips are a part of the purpose of my life. Getting a body session this afternoon from Arthur, and that's what the bell rings for NOW! Tell HIM that I don't think I use the city well enough, and he's flabbergasted, saying that whenever he thinks of someone who DOES use the city in all its aspects, he thinks of me, and I get philosophically involved with the idea that "the more you have the more you want," and it's part of my DEVELOPMENT that I think I'll have to work harder and faster to more or less stay in the same place of advancement. He gives a good combo, and that sort of defuses anything that I'd thought to say on here, except that it's now 5:30, I'm preparing to eat, thinking of watching TV from 8-10, and STILL haven't started on the index, though I figure I'll get to it as soon as I take this page out of the typewriter. Still feel the feeling of "everything's OK" that I felt after the first II, which was a good session, and the second one is coming up in a few weeks, which Susan said was very activating. Arthur talks about all KINDS of things, saying that when he was with Bruce twice a week or more, Bruce would be VERY seductive toward him, feeling his ass, coming to lie next to him in bed, wanting to be hugged and kissed by him, EVEN THOUGH there was always lots of repressed anger in what Bruce would be doing: when Arthur would ask "Don't you feel like crying now?" Bruce would answer with vehemence, "Tears don't seem to be called for now." I make a simplistic connection that Bruce might be so depressed because he's finally had to FACE his "gay identities," and when I mention to Arthur that Bruce told me about them, he says that Bruce never discussed them with him, but that he seemed to be waiting for Arthur to make the wrong move and then HURT him, either before or during or after any sex act which may take place. He said he's found that Bruce WOULD come to his place in OTHER bodies, either the human or the emotional (since they were both male) and have sex at night, and sometimes Arthur would acquiesce, and sometimes say "Not now, Bruce." I asked if he even came to MY place, and he said that Winston had put a ban on that long ago, saying that he shouldn't visit Actualism students, but that he could visit people he'd been to bed with before, since it was agreed on. He mentioned (for the second time?) that Alice once told him, "It's OK to come to teachers in the night, but be sure to UNIFY with them and ask their PERMISSION," and he said he remembered a few evenings before that he'd been FUCKING Alice in another body. I was flabbergasted, and then he told me of the "experience" he had of being in a bodyroom with Linda and Winston, and Winston smiling as he closed the door and Linda climbing onto the body table, directing him to brush down her leg to gain contact, and then arched her pelvis up so that he could look and see what she had and what she did with it and how she was happy with her female genitalia. He also mentioned the time he was taking a bath, in daytime, and MOST of the female Actualism students and teachers appeared before him, naked, one by one, saying "This is my body, my genitals, this is how we can relate and exchange generative energies WITHOUT having sex," wordlessly, and how they embraced from a distance and he could feel what THEIR genitalia would do with HIS genitalia as "a handshake" without any stimulation at all, and he could feel various differences and gifts of love from each of them in specific individual ways, even though he didn't know some of the names of the women in Basic who were members of the group. I thought of my dreams of sex with Bruce and Ken, and my desires for Bruce Swearer, and he said that he was careful now what he did with his eyes, because even if the other person's BODY eyes weren't looking, who knew what the other bodies on other levels might not be doing, and I had to admit that Arthur was always FULL of the most interesting incidents to make me think that I wasn't getting ANYWHERE in Actualism. How Bruce's FIELD would MOTIVATE dogs into barking so that Arthur would have to move in and QUIET them down again.
ESSAYS 59
10/26/81
ASI NEW YORK CHAPTER MEETING 10/20
Thirty people, including three male speakers for only 11 males, including Peter Rooney who just that day saw my name in the Harbrace English Handbook index, and the yearly meeting is probably December 4, Friday PM, in Philly. Speakers will be a lawyer on freelance laws, while December 11 will be a meeting about a local ASI freelance seminar. R.R. Bowker Company speakers today. Gary Ink (Book Division; Reference Division does 5 market place directories: Literary, Magazine Industry, Information Industry, Audio-visual, and Library Resources). Has computer assisted machine-readable master files, done BY outside service bureau.
Three types of indexes: listings of companies; classified activity or subject areas (79 in LMP) and geographic index; names and numbers of companies and individuals (keyed to information section).
Entrant receives and updates computer-generated entries.
SIMPLE system: no interactive terminals.
Sweet's Directory employee speaks of two master files and 90,000 entries NOT online.
Aiming for going from 5 files to ONE file containing "Which MP code; easier maintenance."
Frank Zirpolo (Masters in Creative Writing!) All Ulrich's are fully automated single-database PERIODICALS listing: 96,000 titles, 10,600 publishers in 180 countries. FIXED fields, coded, SUBJECT order (402 subjects) + ISSN index and title, LibCong assigned.
ISSNs handled internationally by International Data Systems in Paris.
(((I MUST REMEMBER THAT THE SOCIAL COMPONENT OF THESE MEETINGS IS NIL!!!)))
(((THIS MEETING, LIKE MOST I ATTEND, IS REALLY A MISTAKE)))
Books in Print, Ulrich's, and Men and Women in Science available through information retrieval services. Plan: Internally online by mid-1982.
Books in Print updated every 2-3 weeks. In online method, asking for John W. Smith will give you J. Smith, J.W. Smith, etc. NOW they give names EXACTLY as publisher gives them (and Steve Calvert comes over and tells me personally about the $99 book by Bowker which is an ERROR list of the name problem I ask about).
Two fields for titles: 1) Actual: "Report of Commmm" and 2) Our: "Commmm, report of" How do you find new titles? "We read want ads," and companies have forms to send. They DON'T think online service will reduce requests for HARD copy, but they DON'T KNOW. ALSO exploring microfiche editions. $500-$600 for multivolume "Men and Women in Science" MAY be replaced by online services. "WE ALL KNOW THAT ONLINE WILL GROW AND HARD COPY WILL REDUCE DURING THE NEXT DECADE."
ENTERTAINMENT 24
10/26/81
DISASTER FILMS AT BMA 10/21
I enter just after 6 pm to a TV Dynamation anthology, grainy, till 6:15.
1929: "Noah's Ark" star George O'Brien said MANY extras drowned in the FLOOD!
1935: "Last Days of Pompeii" with Preston Foster (no mention of 1928 Italian one).
1936: "San Francisco" (earthquake/MGM) used lots of miniatures.
1937: "Hurricane" John Ford, sets later used in 1943 "Isle of Forgotten Sins."
1938: "In Old Chicago" (fire)
1933: "Deluge" (RKO---lost) NYC demolished by tidal waves: Ned Mann---miniature constructs: Empire State Building 12 feet high; flood scenes in Republics 1939 "SOS Tidal Wave" and two serials: 1941 "Dick Tracy versus Crime Incorporated" and 1949 "King of Rocketmen" that I saw.
1926: "Metropolis" Fritz Lang and extensive flooding
Flash Gordon serials used stock shots of natural disasters from newsreel libraries.
1936: storms, floods, hurricanes, and 1938 sequel "Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars" 15 episodes reduced to 70-minute feature "Mars Attacks the World."
1938: Halloween "War of the Worlds" by Orson Welles" Mercury Theater---"Scriptwriter Howard Koch, who wrote the script" ... station-switchers from Edgar Bergen's "Chase and Sanborn Hour" when he put on a boring SINGER turned to CBS and PANIC. "Chase and Sanborn Hour" had a 36 rating against Mercury's usual 3.7.
Republic's "Purple Monster" footage used in 1952 "Radar Man" and other serials.
1952: Leonard Nimoy in "Zombies from Outer Space."
Republic's Special Effects by Howard and Theodore Lydecker, brothers.
1951: "The Thing from another World" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (based on John Campbell's "Who Goes There?")
Arch Obler's "Five" filmed around Obler's Frank Lloyd Wright HOUSE.
"When Worlds Collide" got a Paramount Oscar for special effects.
1953: "War of the Worlds," posthumous award to Gordon Jennings for effects.
"Earth Versus Flying Saucers" Harryhausen---aliens conquered by SOUND vibrations. DC ruined.
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and its lukewarm 1978 remake.
1959: "On the Beach" and "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil"
1964: "Fail-Safe" and "Doctor Strangelove"
1965: "The War Game": Oscar for best foreign film (ROUGHEST film) per him.
1968: "Planet of the Apes"
1970: "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" Cobalt bomb destroys earth entirely.
TV: Rod Serling "Twilight Zone:" Escape Clause---Two families on ship.
Time Enough at Last---Burgess Meredith as last man (and breaks glasses)
Shelter---People fighting
1963: James Coburn---The Old Man of the Cave
Probe Seven---Two survivors of two planets
1961: Voyage to Bottom of Sea (Irwin Allen's tidal waves)
1970s Dystopic post-catastrophe films: Zardoz, Logan's Run, Omega Man, Rollerball.
1970: Roger Korman "Gasssss" kills everyone over 25.
Film: Twilight Zone "Where Is Everybody" Bernard Hermann music
Twilight Zone 1959-1964---Film STARTS at 7:15, he doesn't REMEMBER end.
Next week: Undead, showing complete "White Zombie" of 1932 with Bela Lugosi.
ENTERTAINMENT 26
10/26/81
JOFFREY GALA OF 10/21
Arnold and Mark and Arnie pay $115 for second balcony; Dennis gets free $75 first balcony from Paul Bosten.
PART ONE: the early years: NARRATED BY Salley Brayley Bliss and Gerald Arpino
THE PALACE, movie from Kirov from 1963 with Lone Isakssen, GREAT history.
VIVA VIVALDI, film into live of Glenn Dufford with GREAT leap and Luis Fuente with age, others not really up to snuff, but GREAT music and choreography.
SCENES FROM THE CLASSROOM seemed to go by without really looking at it.
PAS DES DEESSES has a slimmer Francesca Corkle and a do-nothing Kevin McKenzie.
FEAST OF ASHES movie either lost or they didn't do it at all.
GAMELON on film, great close-ups of Lisa Bradley.
INCUBUS has more close-ups, these more frantic than effective, of Lisa Bradley.
OLYMPICS brought tears to my eyes to see Luis Fuente again as Torchbearer.
MOVES was pretty bad even in a little bit, but the musiclessness didn't get on nerves.
OPUS 65 on film seemed very dated, but they didn't do much of it.
THE CLOWNS didn't do much onstage, and ALL of the grim effects weren't there.
ASTARTE brought more tears with films of Maximiliano Zomosa in his glory.
CAKEWALK again brought tears, fabulous to see Gary Chryst meeting his match with Beatriz Rodriguez, and Christian Holder back in his glory.
PART TWO: HERITAGE: Petrouchka danced for the first time I've seen with Gary Chryst.
PULCINELLA has lots of kids, but I'm surprised (didn't remember) it had SINGING.
THREE-CORNERED HAT danced by Luis Perez, RATHER a look-alike for Luis Fuente.
PARADE revived the brilliant feet and face and particularly eyes of Gary Chryst
THE GREEN TABLE again had a film of the super-humpy dancer Zomosa, and fright-faces
ILLUMINATIONS had a tenor with Patricia Miller being manipulated around the stage.
TCHAIKOVSKY PAS DE DEUX was highly abbreviated, but Jay Jolley had a FABULOUS face.
RODEO a good climax, Beatriz Rodriguez fought over by Gregory Huffman and Jerel Hilding
PART THREE: BALLETS CREATED: Deuce Coupe II, music almost PLEASANT at a distance
REMEMBRANCES had Corkle doing nothing, but I watched BEAUTIFUL Gregory Huffman always.
NIGHT had repetitive music and dancing by Laura Dean, loud and nowhere-going.
RANDOM DANCES used a very wimpy looking Ron Reagan, and he CAN'T dance very well.
POSTCARDS had lovely Joffrey "Dances at a Gathering" choreography for swooping couples.
FORMER JOFFREY MEMBERS introduced from audience, not stage, quite a turn-off.
TRINITY was lively and tear-bringing: Chryst, Holder, Huffman, and bright Rebecca Wright.
JOFFREY came out only for final curtain call, earlier than thought at 11:15. Good Eve.
27 ballet bits plus Mrs. Ronald Reagan and Mrs. Carey in $100/seat audience.
ENTERTAINMENT 27
10/27/81
GREAT ADVENTURE DAY 10/24
Check back to see I've been 6 times in 8 years of operation, two earlier recorded:
1. Vol 17B: Places 67&68: 8/6/74 12:50-10:10, with Ron, ONLY on Runaway Train, Sky Ride, Ferris Wheel, Octopus, and Flying Wave: he didn't like rides.
2. Travel F, 289: 5/22/76, with Don and Dennis, on Octopus, Runaway Train, Flume, Ferris Wheel, Train, and Enterprise twice, but Don didn't like rides.
3. 6/8/79 (making up for 1977), with Dennis, his second and last time, 11-10 pm, on Carousel, Ferris Wheel, Wild Mouse, Enterprise, Moon Flume, Flyin' Loops, Sky Ride, Rolling Thunder 3x, Flume, Runaway Train, Skyride, Ferris Wheel, Flying loops, Rolling Thunder, not much line waiting-time, Dennis tired.
4. 7/12/79 (making up for 1978), with Don and Ernie after parachuting, got there for the end of the Safari and only in park about 6-10, few rides.
5. 8/23/79, with Edgardo and Sandra and Marina, 1:15-1:45, in my car, but I didn't keep track of what we did, except they enjoyed everything immensely.
6. 10/24/81, with Bruce and Susan and me, and it was EXPENSIVE, mainly because I ran out of gas from 10:45-11:30 and THEY walked for 2 gallons for $4 and the TRUCK came called by NJ Highway patrol for $16.65, and then I filled up for $15, spent $1 for bridge, $2 at end for "account squaring" for tolls, and then food: 1.45 hot dog, 1.00 French fries, 1.00 French fries, 75 cider, 3.00 roast beef, 2.00 beer, 50 potato pancake share, 75 apricot-almond strudel, for a total of $45.10, almost as much as I had with me. But we spent about 12:15-2:45 in the safari, watching lions lick, kudus puddle-bathe, baboons eat apples, Bruce get fidgety, truck chasing rhino, differentiate between entrance rheas, larger ostriches, and Australian-area emus. Into park at 3 pm for Ferris Wheel with Bruce, Lightnin' Loops with Bruce, Roarin' Rapids, new and fun, with both, Splash Down (old Moon Flume) with Bruce, Sky Ride with both, Large Flume INSTANTLY alone, Runaway Train in 15 minutes with both, Rolling Thunder with them and alone, Giant Sidewinder TAME alone, Pat a Pet to find goat's horns HOT, Buccaneer alone, Flight 747 alone and with them, Dolphin Show for 15 minutes, and Octoberfesthalle for food, lots of dancing, wandering the paths in the park, and talk to the people. Leave as the park closes on its penultimate day of the season at 8 pm, a relief from its previously announced 6 pm, too short for rides getting there only at 3 pm!