1987 2 of 3
THURSDAY 4/9: Up at 7:45 to shower in warm water. Breakfast with Ron (visitor) and Harold. To hall at 9 and sing to 9:45. EKR: Symbolic language. Dying children are best teachers. Brain-damaged: the more brain-damaged, the more perfect. NEED TOUCH in first year and LAST year of life. Any damage is reparable; oldest in training was 104 years old, died in two weeks, perfect. 92% of workshoppers have enlarged spiritual quadrant. NEVER give answers you THINK to be true; children will DISTRUST you for THAT. "Will I meet my dog?" "I don't know, but you GET what you NEED, so start to NEED it." "The earlier and MORE you suffer, the MORE you earn WISDOM." If you PROTECT from hardship, they become PLAIN. "In next fifteen years you will see more changes in Mother Earth than you can imagine." To select a STAFF for brain-damaged children, WATCH who they GO to, and that's it. "Spiritual quadrant is a particle of God, given at birth, that has ALL KNOWLEDGE." Just get your shit out of the way. You don't need to be a saint, just be what you ARE. Don't take people for what you WANT them to be; but for what they ARE. When you're NOT sure, when you DON'T know, go SLOW! The GONDER your head-trip is, the worse you get. Your HEAD is a RESCUER. Bah! We MUST become simple again; LIFE is simple; YOU make it complicated. Patients TELL you, if you LISTEN. "How can I help you with 1/10 of an inch.? Do NOT impose YOUR needs on patients. Physicians: KNOW that your patients know MORE than you. Pictures: #1, as we did. #2, your DISEASE. #3, your THERAPY results. Wholistic health considers the emotional quadrant, treats the physical quadrant, INCLUDING knowledge from the spiritual quadrant. If you HELP a person die, you BREAK a universal law: Thou shalt not kill. HOME is usually the best place to die. NEVER play God as to WHEN patient dies. No one KNOWS what lessons STILL to be learned. DISTANCE to nightmares is REQUIRED. Be open to receiving, as WELL as giving. "Death is not the enemy, inhumanity is." Must ASK for MST. Alzheimer's patients you must treat as a two-year-old, and NOT as an old-soul two-year-old. CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH: COMMUNICATE!! As many Americans who DIED in Vietnam, but now MORE THAN TWICE AS MANY have committed suicide. To get peace in WORLD, find peace IN YOURSELF. American medical establishment is based on FEARS. Choices based on FEAR are HORRIBLE diseases. In accident, tell parents of patients: "I'm glad you got here in TIME." Closed-caskets AWFUL: must touch body; do NOT give Valium or tranquillizers: send them to soundproof room with hose and telephone books and a "compassionate friend" (parent who's been THROUGH it) or "Parents of murdered children." Make sure they see the child NOW (as cleaned as possible). 1/10 grief-time this way. Do JUST SAME Thing with deformed child (covering greatest deformities), PREVENTS parents' partial-denial. In a coma: no pain, but TOTAL AWARENESS, even of THOUGHTS. This work was started in Maidenek, after WW II, with BUTTERFLIES scratched on walls. Your BODY is a TEMPORARY house ONLY. "Peege" is her favorite new movie. OBE's VERIFIED beyond shadow of doubt (Alpine accident victim SEEING praying woman's licence place and THANKING her AS he lives to DO so). The dying "change CONTEXT" of hope, from "miracle drugs" to "Dying in (?????)," better term than "dying in dignity." If you KNOW (in your HEART) that death is a BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE to be TREASURED, you cannot FEAR it!!! Lunch, back and blow up balloons and buy raffle ticket and talk Janice into brushing me down for brushing her down. Back to songs (and new one in back) at 3. 3:40 start. NOTHING is hidden on the other side. There is NOTHING about you not known. Depression MAY be fatal; give LITHIUM. You PICK when, handicaps, lessons, parents, ALL of it. This serves purpose of learning a lesson, so complete that you can go home and stay home. AT transition: a) guides show up, b) bridge/tunnel, c) white light of love from God, d) 5NDE's (in class) see POINT of light. We BREED fear and death, not love. Non-Catholic child NOT met by MARY. You NEVER EVER die alone. Biggest crime: removing free choice. The blind see COLORS. As a skeptical scientist, she must PROVE this is true. AT accident: the AWARENESS of the cocoon, which is PERFECT again, CREATED by psychic energy, outside physical body, ABSOLUTELY VERIFYABLE. You get INSTANT travel: "Real, but not (earthly) reality." The COCOON is physical, brain, and consciousness. Short-lived INFANTS primarily TEACHERS: they teach compassion and unconditional love. You CAN photograph SEVERING of cord connecting butterfly from cocoon. Light/life/God at end, rid of shit; you know all and love all. There, YOU review your own life. You ALSO know why you CHOSE this life. Institutions/ countries/nations go through denial, too. Vietnam pulled USA "through" to ANGER, then bargaining (on college campuses), then promiscuity with EVERYBODY, then drugs---symptoms of the generation of depression---no children WANTED. Then Kent State (most important date in century), moratorium night (30 years ago) opened our eyes. We are in RESIGNATION or ACCEPTANCE. EKR: AIDS patients (including babies) as DRASTIC measures to PREPARE people for DRASTIC changes to come. If you base your choices in FEAR, you will NOT survive. You are SURROUNDED by an ARMY of helpers to RID you of HEAVY stuff, to be lighter. Main questions: how much love did you give and receive, and how much did you HELP people. "Angel of forgetfulness draws lip-line down center of mouth, for you to forget your life-choice." NO negativity: negativity ONLY SURVIVES with negativity. AIDS is to raise consciousness of world when it is most needed. Poster: Do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. [Mark Liss has FAB body; and I finally hug BILL.] PURPOSE of life is to do what you CHOOSE to do. HUGE number in class do what they LOVE to do! Consistent discipline IS important. EKR's 61. Guides/spooks: she's VERY straight. "There are 59 Christian religions; it's unchristian. Bemoans medical-legal suing establishment. EKR "converted" by woman's NDE. 20,000 NDE's recorded by EKR. Shanti Nilaya--- Home of Peace," as stated by female guide her first time. "I know she was here, and "On Death and Dying" was typed in three weeks, NOT by HER. "How can we see?" "You get what you need." "Thy time, not MY time." Guides have HUMOR. Life is created to be VERY simple and very JOYFUL. EKR has three phases: 1) Death and Dying, 2) Death Does Not Exist (Life-Death Transition, 3) On 3/23 or 3/29 she got her "last assignment" which she won't tell us about. In ten years, planet earth is being polluted beyond repair. If you're heavy, you won't survive because of your fears. Choose based on love. Wheat will be separated from chaff as in bible. She plays "Moonriders" from "Up with People." She TEASES: INTERNAL spring-cleaning. "The Quiet Mind" recommended.
CAN'T talk about 3/23-29; this is first group she's told about it. 15 years will affect ALL life, plants, animals, and Gaia. Choose on LOVE! 15 years + 61 = 76 years she said her mother lived, which will be 2001!!! Party and bed at 1:40 after everyone talks in my room.
4/24/87: Now two weeks since the end, and I've still not really THOUGHT ABOUT the week. Just keep going from day to day: waiting for indexing pages, watching TV tapes, going to restaurants and doctors and periodontists. Typing the last half the notes brings back lots of memories I'd actually forgotten, though whether I've covered them up to bury them or really ASSIMILATE them I don't know yet. Haven't thought much about death yet, except from the relief of getting the news that I was HTLV-negative ONE week ago. It's been a busy time, with the lymph-unloadings M-F #1 on front (with Orange), #2 on arms (with Red), #3 on nape and back (with Joyous Warrior: Lilac), #4 on legs (with Joy of Living: Deep Sea Blue), #5 on face (with Joy of Being in Form: Aquamarine) with Erik Lauer for $200. Lots of money gone, none coming in, and everything from moment to moment looking pretty good, including this to bottom of page at last.
4/28/87: Lying in bed this morning going over arguments about how Gene Crofts can "genteelly tell Lois DeBakey off" and maybe I should have sent him a memo with all the points spelled out---that leads me to think how MUCH recently I'm thinking of HOW I'D DO THINGS BETTER: 1) Like shouting "There should be more than one window open" in exasperation at the Post Office at 6PM yesterday (and in fact getting another window open); 2) Like thinking that poor Larry Kramer is STILL trying to attract flies (Koch) with vinegar (anger at his being invited to address the AIDS walk) rather than honey (praising Koch for BEING at the AIDS walk and THEN asking if he couldn't help the city's trauma out more); 3) Like telling Sherryl and Dennis and Joe what to do with their lives (which STARTED as LIES and ENDED as LIVERS, to make the point funnier). And now I have to take off into the day with Dietician at 11AM, cash to get from the bank for checks and cash for bourbon for Mack and Betsy coming at 3PM, and I STILL (at 10:40AM) haven't gotten a call from Gene Crofts so I CAN tell him off!
5/2/87: Could this at last be IT for writing?? Here's what's happened NOW:
5/1/87, 12:30PM, I find I have 5/19-6/25, or 38 days for a vacation between Actualism classes. Should I take a big trip to Australia and New Zealand, possibly via Angel Falls? Or rent a car and drive EVERYWHERE across the country, possibly throwing in two weeks in Eastern Europe via International Weekends? Or get a Eurail Pass and go to ALL the places I want to go across the continent of Europe? I lay in bed from 12:15-1:35AM on Saturday 1) worrying about flights, 2) trying to decide WHICH combination of trips and flights I MOST WANT, REGARDLESS of cost or time or connecting flights. Finally, after pissing, decide it's NOW undecidable, and since with indexing pages I'm not really POSITIVE I'll be free (though with such a long ADVANCE NOTICE, I think I can SURELY shift indexes or give up indexes to MAKE the time free), so I'll just go to sleep and think it over more at some LATER time. Let things come as they may.
5/2/87, 7:45AM, wake to think MORE about the situation, and think that I can stay at HOME during that lovely time and computerize the texts of:
1) Change ACID House to AIDS house (AIDS + LSD for EKR dying and ALL-LIVING!) & 2) Indexing, Producing, computerized for SELF-publication AT LEAST, and
3) Plays for PRODUCTION, in fact, ANYTHING to get my FIRST love, WRITING on the road so that I can travel IN STYLE (and maybe on interviews!) via SST for the longer trips AND have enough money and fame to PAY for lovers, since THAT seems the most obvious avenue for getting someone to love me NOW. And then the IDEAS for AIDS HOUSE really take off: send inquiry letters to various publishers, or maybe better, send a chapter and synopsis to Scott Meredith and let THEM recommend a style and a publishing house-auction to get the best and most EXPERT coverage for what could be a SMASH: and I put notes on the NEXT page in DOUBLE space so that I can take a sheet to work on during the ASI meeting today! [5/12: single-space "NEXT page" and put it ALL on the bottom of this:
The explosive today-topic: AIDS
plus the buried explosion from the past: LSD!
After an Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Life Death Transition Workshop, Dr A decides to make the last days of PWAs fruitful by reviving his experiments with LSD.
Characters come to live, to die, to find love, to live without love.
Is it possible that the proper THOUGHTS can ACTUALLY control virus levels?
IS AIDS single-factorial or multiple-factorial?
What happens when the "person who discovers they can live without love/sex" meets the "person for whom love/sex is always the most important thing"?
Orgasms unlimited with orgies of PWAs enjoying what may be their last orgasms.
Huxley-like peace at the end with LSD.
Intuitive breakthroughs into the etiology and epidemiology of AIDS.
Fact or fiction, only tomorrow's headlines will tell you for sure.
The most explosive combination since Samson and Delilah.
The book of the 60's brought into the 80's for the New Millenium.
[Notes added to the bottom of "NOTEBOOK 418" during the day on 5/2:]
8:58: FORMAT: Postmodern OVERALL: Undigested hunks
DIFFERENT formats: play, sci-fi, poems, philosophy, fiction,
and FACT (LSD-production from Laird; AIDS from research), and
time-jumps forward and back.
Traditional PIECES: GREAT play
STIRRING emotions--- (9:09:) PAIN, AGONY, DESPAIR, JOY, LOVE,
RELIEF, TRANSCENDENCE!
SYMPATHETIC characters
Overall PURPOSE: LIVE!!
9:08: STYLES: "Mine"
"Super-explosive, flashy, data-dense, NEW, jazzy, FASHIONABLE,
with-it, quick, witty!"
"Ploddingly exhaustively list-making and anal-compulsive"
9:12: "New-age, spacy, Actualism, far-out, create-reality, 2001+"
[Notes put on "NOTEBOOK 419" during the day on 5/2:]
IF I went by: what would I do with that 38 days if I had ONLY 38 DAYS TO LIVE, the priority would DEFINITELY be: GET the WRITING OUT to be PUBLISHED, and the FIRST step to that is "get it on the COMPUTER!" And "AIDS House" being the NEWEST and HOTTEST---not to mention affording a FRAME for "Acid House" and "Dreams" and "All/One computer story: Ultimate Mandate" and "Travels" and "Playwriter"---is what should go FIRST NOW. This leads, AT LAST, to FAME AND MONEY, which will get me COMPANIONS in TRAVEL. 9:02AM: I find myself FLOWING from "NOTEBOOK 418-419-420" with ease, AND keeping track of subway: NEW freedom/impulse/do-it-NOW mode! 9:05: DOES seem decided-for-now: no trip, but 38-day WRITE! Get "Will I ever publish?" ou tof the way at LAST. If YES, FABULOUS!!! If NO, then ENJOY rest of life WITHOUT writing! ASI meeting sufficiently engrossing to put WRITING out of my mind til 4PM and I wait for #1 at 4:11 and write this, having rescued token from INOPERABLE slot---NO USE to TRY them. #1 comes. 4:15 waiting for express.
[Notes put on "NOTEBOOK 420" during the day on 5/2: ASI meeting:] About 50 people from MANY STATES, including California, Florida, and North Dakota! Note to myself at 9:03: GET NAMES of 8"TRS diskette to IBM PC 3 1/2" format convert!
NOTE: MYC ASI meeting before lunch. What do they do next?
10:10AM start (after eating many bagels and rolls; they DID have breakfast!) of business meeting. 5NN down to 300 members as DISASTER in 1986. Back to 5NN in 1987. 1987 budget surplus of $7,000, versus 1986 deficit of $5,000. 1987 Register of Indexers not yet done, maybe by August.
195 returned ballots from 400 elegible for elections, and bylaws voted in.
Officers are widely distributed by state: Directors-at-large: Nancy Mulvaney, Dorothy Thomas, David Billik. Secretary Trina King, Treasurer Elliot Linzer (who can't take it), President Thomas Kemp (fat from Conn.), President-Elect Bella Haus Weinberg.
NOTE: to Shupak: "Send OLD company/person file to about 20 current freelancers and let them edit it."
10:35: Cynthia Weber: "Getting the first job" Market is changing: a) time of desktop publishers who do 1/2 books/year, b) indexing corporate histories, c) database indexing, d) corporation publications, e) small-house publishers.
KEMP: Place ASI AD in Publisher's Weekly, etc: send for Register of Indexers! and it's even OK if you add a "Freelance-ad fee supplement to freelancers."
Even if you GET a computer, do MANUAL indexes to develop your style to help you choose program that does what you want.
USDA indexing course is good, listed in ASI guide. NYU COURSE for $250.
11:08: Elliot Linzer: Business of indexing. Some book packagers are AWFUL to work with. "Having a word processor doesn't make you a writer; index packages don't make you an INDEXER." "DON'T rush out and buy the new IBM systems---they don't EXIST yet." "Look for nontraditional sources of work." Dorothy Thomas: Indexers are the only people who READ nowadays! Only 6 of about 60 attendees ever SENT INDEXES electronically, either by modem or by diskette. "Do your OWN indexes and market them YOURSELF."
11:36: NO Wilson award (first was in 1979) to books published in previous year. Committee is President and 4 members, only 16 entries this year.
11:41: Linda Cooper: Bidding. For GOVERNMENT agencies, ask for bidding guidelines and needs-assessment report. GIVE: $labor, $expenses, $high, $low. Hourly rates INCLUDE overhead and profit. Break project into complete list of tasks and steps. 10-50% "rush" markups. "Two-hours changes if needed, more at $10/hour." Markups of 20-25% added to out-of-pocket expenses. Examine client- supplied materials. This goes to 12:20. Lunch to 2:20.
NEW YORK ASI meeting: Set for June 24 or 25, at AICPA, 48th and 6th, 1211 6th Avenue, meeting-room free. Dick Luxner treasurer.
Lunch conversation with Arlington VA fellow: read Marilyn Bohl's "Information Processing and Retrieval" (4th Ed) 1984, for voice-recognition machines. Kurzweil rentals in NYC area for typed-pages-to-computer-diskette?
2:20 Deborah Harmer: Newspaper indexing. One BILLION newspaper pages preserved at University Microfilming Incorporated, who just had their 4000-term thesaurus merged with Bell and Howell's thesaurus. One person does indexing and abstracting at IBM terminal. Currently index 18 newspapers. They have historical files of 7000 newspapers, including English version of Pravda. They do 20 annotated headlines per hour, or 12 abstracts per hour. Average 28-30 days print turnaround; weekly turnaround for online. Newspaper article gives average of four subjects/article, range 3-6. 5000 records/newspaper/month.
$10-11/hr for freelancers, $26,000 for 15-year experience (+25% for fringe benefits = $32,500 in ANN ARBOR, about $17/hour. Use C-compiler program on PC.
3:07: Peter Lennie, eye doctor: Microcomputer choice. I ask question and only 4-5 people in hall DON'T use computers!!! "I'm preaching to the converted." Computers about $2000 and ONLY for PC-compatibles. Timing for 962-entry index:
PC (floppy) PC (hard) PC-AT (hard)
FIND entry 2 seconds less than .5 less than .3
SORT 388 189 59
Scan for phrase 75 65 22
Verify cross-refs
Correct orphaned subs 152 57 19
Maximum entries about 3000 both as many as needed.
NO evidence of miscarriages by computer-operators; NO preference for screen color, NO eye damage or cataracts, NO preference for white on black versus black on white.
NEW IBM enhanced keyboard is THIRD try, after PC and PC-AT, and is GOOD.
DEC RAINBOW keyboard is the best-ever keyboard.
LASER and ink-jet printers fast and quiet and improved dot-matrix is good, and don't get daisy-wheel at ALL.
LASER: fastest, quietest, most expensive---about 8 pages per minute, $2500 now.
HP now $1800 for Laser Jet II. BUT it costs about 10 cents per sheet and is VERY expensive on supplies. Need to buy a $100 cartridge for each 3000 sheets! Ink-jet silent, not many of them, not many fonts, requires special PAPER, $500.
COMMEND dot-matrix printers: most recent CONSUMER REPORTS, 24 pins/head.
"IBM computers WORTH a look: good displays, good keyboards. Model 30 is about $2500, which is twice capability of PC-XT. Moder 50 is about $4000, faster than an IBM AT. No MACINTOSH indexing program because it's hard to program.
Jessica Harris: "Radioactive phosphorus from CPU screens damage red blood cells." This goes to 4PM. Typed notes on 5/12, really debating if I'll EVER look at them again, since there's enthusiasm ONLY at meeting, and then, after leaving it, it all settles into "Wait for someone else to do it; I don't want to take the trouble" of finding out how to get MY diskettes into a UNIVERSAL system for future saving of my writings."
5/12/87: Typing of 4/29/87 EFA meeting notes: Computers and freelancing.
Patrick Godfrey has personal database afterward. Computer group meets Thursday 5/7 at 6PM in EFA offices. Later find that Elliott Linzer goes to all these!
EFA newsletter printed on Macintosh with Apple Laserwriter. "Clones are better than IBM." NEC lap-top BETTER than Tandy 2000. IN lap-top he uses DISPOSABLE batteries. Xenocopy goes TRS to IBM. "Author NEVER gets disk back; send HARD COPY for changes." Microsoft/Word is most compatible with Laserwriter.
Multimate/Advantage takes ASCII charcters. Wordstar DOESN'T handle ASCII. Jason: 3 1/2" diskette will become STANDARD. Voice-input is coming. IBM and Apple are the two giants.
5/22/87: Notes from Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit of Correggio and the Carraccis.: Almost wrote a note about a FIG with an erect CLITORIS in "The Happy Company." Again about FABULOUS male bodies in ceiling-frescos in the Farnese Palace in Rome. AND of sexy inalian-stud guards. BUT when I come to the ORIGINAL of Guercino's "Et in Arcadia Ego" from Galleria Corsini in Rome, IN NYC, for exhibit (translation "referring to the presence of Death even in Arcadia") I'm STUNNED. Poussin painted the theme, too. Inscribed in lower left under skull with fly, and skull's teeth being nibbled by MOUSE. One wonders how many of these "recently rediscovered" masterpieces were painted in THIS century, AND Samuel Halpert's "Flatiron Building" when I'm due for a meeting there in JUST ONE HOUR.
6/11/87: Reading Omni: WE move through space at 1,000,000 miles per hour! So
1) IMAGINE our not FEELING this, and
2) Imagine how BIG the universe is: moving through a room at 4 miles per hour the scene changes, on the road at 50 miles per hour the scene changes, but the relative positions of the stars do NOT change in CENTURIES of our space-race!
6/14/87: Hockney film GLITCHES: 1) Uninteresting DRAGGY talk, 2) Lousy bodies nude, 3) Indecision and boredom, 4) CUTTING OFF "Nissen Dormir," BEFORE final note, 5) TALKING of "white on sea" and not SHOWING THE PAINTING, 6) Gives BAD name to faggotry, 7) Two UNIDENTIED people having sex, 8) NONSENSICAL dates that seem to be given on PURPOSE.
6/16/87: Lengthy conversation between me and Dennis about his "wicked foot:"
DS: I'm NOT DOING it TO bother you---so "This bothers me" is FINE from me.
BZ: I don't LIKE it is really: NOT "I don't like YOU DOING it," but "I don't like ME being BOTHERED by it."
DS: He says "He's hypersensitive and shouldn't BE here." and I'm NOT going as often. DS: You said my foot had been HAUNTING you. There is appropriate information that was NEEDED. DS: I think you have a controlling personality, you like to take CHARGE in a situation, and this can work FOR you. DS: I don't have time to play this game TWICE; I did it MYSELF (be a victim), I DON'T want to do it for YOU (Jose). DS> I love that person and living with them would be this and this, and I don't WANT that. DS: You are not interested in controlling a PERSON, just in controlling your ENVIRONMENT. DS:I have to try to take control over that foot, to find a point of stillness and calm do I won't do that.
BZ: DS's recommendations that I say: Is this a good time to talk about something? I find it difficult to talk about this. I think you are becoming even more mature. BZ: No stumbling blocks will read their ugly heads. What you expect from them must have some parallel with who they are. BZ: Let's look at my foot in the mouth. Shall I come down? BZ: How do you accept your friend's farting? DS: Manners---socialization---whatever, is not for them. I don't LIKE it. If you want to go to the bathroom, GO. Like Bunuel's "Phantom of Liberty," you EAT in private, and shit in public. DS: I HATE Michael's (his piano teacher) blowing his nose in his napkin and putting it on the table. Nice people DON'T DO that.
DS: Smoking---now you ask: May I smoke? There's still a minor level of COURTESY. DS: Sticking your hand in your mouth is a PERSONAL issue; it should be done in PRIVATE.
BZ: What would you KNOW when Marge was silent? DS: She never WAS!!
BZ: I would say to Marge: Write faster. DS: I have to pee. BZ: I do too. DS: Goodbye. BZ: HOLD it [if you pee, you HAVE to].
DS: My dad at the urinal in public: Doesn't that feel good? Where does that go---foreskin up or foreskin down.
BZ: Let's go back to my finger in my mouth. Sucking teeth in private, FORGET it. DS: SUCK! SUCK! SUCK! NEW territory: NAPKIN before finger taking food or gristle out of mouth. Point of manners: comfort of persons around you.
BZ: I LEARNED you want me to put my napkin up to remove FOOD.
DS: GOOD! We're getting somewhere. BZ: Add to your title-list: Farting at Lutece. DS: It's kind of like safe sex: sucking is OK, but don't do it til it comes. BA: How DO I say? DS: Is this a good time to talk about something"? BZ: You say YES. Have the TIME? DS: "I find it difficult to talk about this, but it REALLY BOTHERS me."
BZ: Let me throw this [idea] out [thinking of Koren critter] "Throw this OUT."
Let me put THIS [idea] in---first OUT, now IN! LATER: Let me bring THIS [idea] up: out/in/up. I'll write it down. De-negatized comments: how to handle negative information. DS: You OBFUSCATE it. BZ: How am I wrong; you don't TAKE negative; I don't GIVE negative. I OBFUSCATE. DS: I want CLEAR message: if it's negative, I want to have negative. I connect his self-consciousness with "sensitive enough." I know you don't like Jazz/Ballet. Stein: This is ME! DS: You created a PROGRAM with your response---rattling program "back" at program-letter. DS: "My foot judged in YOUR place" BZ: "But where BETTER than in MY place, since the foot AGITATES in my EYE-space.
BZ: Your summary is "I don't like to hear negative/ You must SAY negative."
DS: Everyone HAS this problem. Supervisors negating teachers. Negativity must be given OBJECTIVELY. BZ: Objective: It distracts me. DS: Is that good or bad? BZ: That's OBJECTIVE. DS: You have to TELL me. BZ: I KNOW that I'm HYPERSENSITIVE. DS: This is great: underline it [I did ALREADY], keep it.
DS: Smoking has now CHANGED; people TALK about it. There's no LAW about wicked feet! BZ: Just you WAIT!! DS: I'd rather some natural body-odors; cologne is a turn-off. As long as you're a member of the human race, you have to be TOLERANT. I don't like your FINGER in your mouth in RESTAURANTS, but you do it. DS: Jose asks, "Can I fart now?" I say, "NO, go into the BATHROOM. My dad FARTS; he can't help it; I love him; if I'm going to be around him, I ACCEPT it. 7/5: GAD these notes are CRAPPY!!
6/26/87: Poem: This is the way the world ends/ This is the way the world ends/
This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang, but a Gipper.
6/28/87: Data on the Atlantic Tunnel: Opened in 1844, closed in 1861, it was 2517 feet long. Now 1500 feet, from Court to Hicks. Top of brickwork is 5 to 17 feet UNDER the road.
7/18/87: Gaiety Strippers: Got there at 9:05 and the soundless movie went off at 9:20 and the strippers came on, and I applied the mnemonic system to help remember them: 1) A was the athletic adolescent acrobat who ended up one of the prettiest of the evening, but his long dangle never got the slightest bit hard. 2) B was ballsy, dark-skinned with a long cock that he loved to simulate jerking off with his fist pushed into his pubis ABOVE his cock. 3) C had calves, and thighs to go above them, but he really didn't show much energy. 4) D was Deutsche-like and when he came out after the first-song break with the largest erection do far, I added Dick---if he hadn't cruised the women fairly assiduously in the second half, I would have said he was the sexiest. 5) E was the muscle-builder of the evening, so I called him Expanded, and he even had a large-enough dick, under a pussy-like chevron of black (obviously trimmed at the sides) hair. 6) F was fat and then flat, new and energyless. 7) G was gymnastic, standing on his hands and then LOWERING himself, and a rather nice dancer too---he seemed to be one of the few ENJOYING himself. 8) H was ?????
9) I was interesting (thin and long-haired) and then when he was thinner and more feminine than the two women who joined the audience about now, he became idiotic. 10) J was Juan Junk, and it was difficult for me to pronounce the Hwan Hwunk properly in my mind. 11) was difficult, since it was 1) and 4) together, so it was either the twelfth "person" dancing, the 11th "act" or still back on the 10th person. I tentatively gave them the letters K and L. 12) M was a "new" person with a large white jacket and terrible stage-presence, except that he face looked VERY like Chris Thompson's, and his BODY was quite nice too, so I fantasized it was HIM trying to "take a vacation" from filmdom, or maybe REHEARSING For a film, but he was so awkward that I dropped the fantasy. 13) N had Nice skiN, a cute young blond with a truly flawless waxen- textured torso and arms. 14) was Charley, so I named him Charley O, but he wasn't very good either. 15) was the last dancer, so there WERE 14 dancers in all, but he was the skinny Spanish one with a large CROTCH that turned into teeny-tiny meat underneath. Then "act 16" was all of them on stage taking turns trying to beef up their meat, and some didn't do at all badly, except for those who didn't try at ALL. I GORGED myself on punch (which must have been lightly spiked, since I was STONED by the time I got home at 3AM and made a mess of my cock with rubber-bands, bidis, and drink in front of my tapes until 4:20AM) and pretzels and potato chips after moving to a CENTER front seat and getting the old chap on my left to save it for me. This was after I moved in one when the "german tourist" sitting next to me was "picked up" by an old man on his left. I was asked if I wanted to see a "free show" but I just watched the VERY awkward "fun" with the old men and the young pretty men, and then went back to re-watch the first few acts, and E came on third, then D, then they were rather mixed up, except that M didn't appear to DANCE was WAS onstage at the final "Stiff-off." Waited around to see that NOTHING was really happening afterwards (oh, there was a guy WAY in the back jerking off [watched by someone peering over the tall railing] during the acts, but that was the only explicit sex I saw), though the movies were still being rolled, and I left to take a subway home and jerk off as abovementioned. Another way to spend an evening!
7/21/87: Notes from "Fat" program: 15.4% fat is GOOD for 50ish Jim Hartz. Mild-medium 40-45 minute exercise 3-4 times per week metabolism-change can last for only a few hours. Obesity EPIDEMIC in young; cause: 24 hours of TV/week! Height-weight table on screen and transcribed for MALES:
Hgt Small frame Medium frame Large frame
5'10" 144-154 151-163 158-180
5'11" 146-157 154-166 161-184
6' 149-160 157-170 164-188
7/24/87: Watching "Mona Lisa" on Tuesday, I get a VERY ugly picture of people just interested in porno as an OBJECT, rather than as stimulation. Then "Heartbreak Ridge" on Thursday is DREADFUL pro-war propaganda glorifying the idiotic 24-year veteran Marine who brutalizes men while making homophobic remarks while ordering them to strip off tee-shirts and portray a homosexual's fantasy of a movie of male muscles. Clit (HA!) Clint Eastwood is right up there in disgustingness with Ollie North and Admira(b)l(e) Poindexter (or, as Robin McNeil says it so often, "Poindertex"). "Sid 'n' Nancy" is more conventionally ugly, more able to be taken as an example of what NOT to do, as opposed to the "Military" solutions of constant war and killing being romanticized and glorified, making those young men who haven't had a chance to kill someone feel "out of it" and prime them for subway crime or a life of frustration that makes them rotten without any hope of redemption.
8/9/87: I keep telling myself that I have to WRITE DOWN the weekend with George from 7/31 - 8/2, since it so affected me. I described it as a roller coaster: it was NICE when George beeped to catch Vicki going the wrong way at 10:30. I was pleased to hear he liked her and wanted to invite her out some afternoon for dinner. It was pleasant to be asked along with him for three weeks to Maine and Canada. It was flattering to be asked to spend a year with him touring and living in India. His meals were considerate and well-planned, even to the smoked eel he got when I said I liked it, and the chocolate rum-ring he made for me. But then there were the troughs: like when he beat his fists on the steering wheel and literally wept out the words "You have everything I want," by which he meant that I had all the characteristics he was looking for in a lover, yet I didn't want to BE his lover. When I asked him what Fascism WAS, he frowned and shouted "You're impossible to talk to," and wouldn't even pick up the topic when I looked in Larousse and mentioned I'd never heard of "corporatism." Then when I talked of my former lovers, he frowned and said that if I ever seduced him into a relationship and then walked out on him, he'd kill me---and I think he MEANT it!! It was hardly an up to be "given a dispensation" for the afternoon we spent in Fire Island so that I could look at the attractive male bodies after I had been directed NEVER to look at anyone more attractive than him when I was with him, or when I was in any relation with him. Obviously, I told everyone I told this tale to, he wanted ME to look at HIM in that way ("Leaping his bones," he said with glee for the fifth time, just as I was beginning to hate the phrase, and he said "Oh, I like the way that sounds.") and couldn't take it when I didn't. Of course it was perfectly OK for him to strike up a conversation with the two attractive Germans at the table when we were enjoying the $5 drinks that he paid for. Then he was also sad, I suppose, when he gave me wine during the day and drinks at night and I still never got drunk enough to "do what he wanted me to do" when we got back from Fire Island. Yes, he would apologize and "hoped not to ruin the weekend," and I remained sociable and tried to be pleasant, but finally the silences on Sunday evening (after I asked "Why couldn't you just take me to the Patchogue [which he disgusted me by continuing to call Hog-Patch] station Monday morning [so that I could watch "The Children of Theatre Street" which I was so happy to have found in the library] rather than Sunday night?" and he responded, "Because Kathy is coming at 8AM Monday morning," as if I should know who Kathy was and why she was coming) became too frozen, so that when he shook hands as he put me on the train and then said "Don't change your plans, I'll go alone," it was only Monday morning that I realized he was talking about my checking on my two indexes that might change my plans to spend three weeks in August in the north with him. Better to find out about him in this, only our fifth meeting (and he even said he didn't think he'd hear from me after the catastrophe of the fourth, and I couldn't even think what he meant: we BOTH didn't care for "Coastal Disturbances" the food at Pierre au Tunnel wasn't THAT bad, and he DID reconfirm that he HAD to get back as the reason for not sleeping over for the third evening), than away for three weeks in the north. Then also there was his TOTALLY childish tantrum: "It's too crowded, it's too noisy, we'll be seasick, it smells" when we didn't get on the whale-watch ship (for which I'd cancelled what turned out to be a super-brunch on Sunday noon) and I wanted to wait to see if we could get cancelled seats. He WAS willing to pay (saying it would be nice if we'd eat one evening in Donatello's), but I wasn't willing to sell my soul to him. So as I said to everyone, I'm certainly not going to be calling him in the future, and I'll be very surprised to hear from HIM again. He even got into the "Why didn't you call me?" when I had called him BOTH for the play AND for the weekend, even trying for the weekend a SECOND time when he turned down my FIRST offer to visit him for an extended weekend back in July. What a pity that he did't work out, with his $70,000/year income, though he didn't want more money, though he didn't like the fuss of owning houses, though he wouldn't sell them because he wanted to earn more money for his investments.
8/10/87: WHERE AM I NOW? It's been AGES since I've done a page like this!! Aside from the immediacies of a poison ivy that won't go away (though Mr. Lemme says he'll give me a Benadryl shot if I see him at HIP at 2PM) and the Indexing Handbook which has been put off much too long (not only since 1980, but since June 4 when Mitchell Rose expressed interest in it) and---but let's consider the "lover situation", perhaps better called the "intimate relationship situation", a little MORE than an immediacy!---
Aside from that, things superficially look PERFECT!! I've earned enough money so far this year to allow only 30 hours of work per month, which at $66 per hour will give me $2000 to spend each month, which is pretty squeaky, since I spend about $1500 EASILY each month. But I managed to send off $1000 to Keogh today (with complaints about inaccuracies in the Schwab account), so I can probably squeak by to the end of the year with minimal work. I'm pretty much "caught up" with things (though the TV list still rather haunts me: I DO want to get to the Jefferson Market Library and to J&R to see if they have any of the long-term residents on my want-list)(and I want to spend a few days on the "Tree-Trails of Central Park) so that I can FOCUS on my two MAIN AIMS OF THE SUMMER:getting something PUBLISHED & getting into an intimate RELATIONSHIP!
But that's just what I'm NOT doing, which is probably the purpose of this page: to SHOW me that so I can GET to it. Other "details" are going fine: the "excursion group" has been getting me to the "far" restaurants on my list, and my own endeavors have been keeping up with the "near" restaurants, and I have the encouragement that I'll be FINISHED with the "backlog" by the end of 1988! And then I can just keep a "current" list of ones that would be nice to select from, just as I now do with books. Though books SOMETIMES get a grip on me, as when I just HAD to sit down and finish "Cosmic Anthropic Principle" just to get THROUGH it, though at 677 pages it WAS almost twice as big (and since I've read over 100 pages of "On Glory's Course", it's OVER twice as big as anything left) as anything left.
So I've caught up on TV to watch, even to the point of having looked at some of what I've already TAPED; caught up on books, though I want to go shopping more; even went to the strippers (though I haven't gone to ANY of the movie-houses that have blossomed since the last time I went); and discarded many of the names from Comquest---though I'm almost HALFWAY through my membership and have YET to contact 2 or 3 people, and am WAITING for others to contact me.
In Actualism I'm almost finished with the basic tapes, though there are still the additional courses of two or three of teacher-training to come after the two tapes remaining, and the Men's Seminar is again being demanding, so I won't really get DOWN to one coordinating and one meeting per month QUITE yet. Even got to DO some of the sessions before I got TIRED OF BEING GOOD.
THAT'S the crux of my problem: when I GO to the gym and DO my sessions and WORK during the day, I feel like I want to GET OUT OF THE RUT, so I read or go out or masturbate or catch up on my lists until I'm SO FAR BEHIND in getting INTO the rut that it's weeks before I feel comfortable in the gym or at the Actualism sessions. Then I get INTO the rut, and then I get OUT of the rut.
At least THAT rut isn't interrupted with "the rut" of travel. Now that I've DETERMINED to publish something and get into a relationship BEFORE I travel, it's easy to keep away from it (caused primarily by fear of flying!).
But when I HAVE time I DON'T work on the Indexing Handbook. THAT'S the purpose of this page, to CLARIFY that I SHOULD (though I don't like the word, the pressure---ha---should still be applied) work on the Handbook, and stop jerking off, watching TV tapes, reading, and doing UNNECESSARY things that will be MUCH BETTER DONE WHEN I'M RICH FROM HAVING BEEN PUBLISHED. That's really the BOTTOM line: work now to enjoy the benefits of my work into the future.
And now I have to shower at 1:15 so that I can get to the injection so that my feet can heal so that I can wear shoes and go OUT to give excuses for not working on the Indexing Handbook!
8/27/87: Woke 1) with the INCREDIBLE dream-fragments of DREAM PAGES 217; 2) a note to do stamps?; 3) the idea for the Indexing Handbook to INTERVIEW Helen Ferguson, (and then I write down Ute Bujard's name, and then I cross it off and write down and UNDERLINE:) Gene Crofts, and David Frost: "What indexers might not know about how index-supervisors WORK and WANT and deal with a) publishers and b) authors and c) bookkeeping and d) rate assignments and e) etc.; and 4) the most INCREDIBLE tables of contents for the Indexing Handbook, see INDEXING HANDBOOK 2.1 - 2.8!
8/28/87: DEPRESSION---and reasonably good CAUSE for it, too! Showers of leakage around the light-fixture last night at 11:30, no response from Druck, no answer from Robertson, which situation extended into today when Carroll wasn't at McCurdy, Robertson still didn't answer, and Fethi STILL didn't show up by 4PM when he said he'd look at the ceiling. Then Vicki calls to cancel Dominick's tonight, and Joe says it's raining and not worth doing anything, and Bob Geiger hasn't bothered to call so he's not interested in doing anything tonight either. Even depressed about Dennis and Arnold being gone and no one to complain to. Think to work on the Indexing Handbook, and don't feel terribly interested in that. Think to read, but can't get excited about that. Think to watch a TV movie, but that's not interesting, so I decide that I'm depressed and should sit down a write something about it. Well, I guess what it does is gives me enough to print out a page so that I can take out the copy of the letter than I sent Certified/Return requested to Robertson, Druck, Rent Code Enforcement, and Carroll; then put the apartment-hassle AWAY and clear the decks to get back to looking at the new table of contents for the Indexing Handbook in order to COMPLETE it and send it to Murray Rose before I go overboard on making it "A Guide to Living" rather than just to indexing. So anyway this bit of typing served the purpose: I'm no longer thinking of moaning to Susan by calling for the name of her Real-Estate lawyer; I'm no longer thinking of phoning Pope for ANOTHER evening (after two games on Tuesday) of Scrabble this evening; I'm not reading or watching TV, which can come later when it's darker and more like going-to-bed activity-time.
9/17/87: Wake at 7AM after getting to bed at 1AM after hassling "Quality Control" index (is there some irony there?), mind filling with data. At 7:30 I can't take it anymore and get up and start this page for CONTENTS:
110) NOTEBOOK page on what's going through my mind (this page);
111) INDEXING HANDBOOK expansion page: what to add to make it sell more;
112) PEOPLE page: those to interview, and why, to make IH bigger and better;
113) QUESTIONS page: what to ask those interviewed, based on QC index.
Then the desk-light goes out, taking my attention away at 7:40, then I continue with the ceiling-light on. Type only four points on 111, fill up 112 with 30 people, and put ten points on 113, then called Helen Ferguson at 8:30 and she'll get back to me if she has time for a lunch interview. I check out my Walkman with batteries, and it works fine, and I finish this at 8:50, feeling that I've "completed" what I had in my head.
9/19/87: Wake with an idea for a NEW YORKER one-page, Really Offensive. The b---- word: the only person I'm b----ed about is a b----! How can CONTEXT make a perfectly GOOD word EVIL? BORK YOU! You can't say that! I just DID. It'll never be published. So much the worse for the EDITOR. Can you imagine a kid wondering if d--- means dope or drip or drat or drop or dorp? He KNOWS it means d---!! Well, the editor can CUT " " and just leave " "?
SURE! That I write at 4:30AM. Then I add a postscript: ^^^: Either one person with a supernumerary eyebrow, three people in coolie hats, or a caravan of ant-camels. I'd really wanted to type that up and SUBMIT it to the New Yorker, but today (9/21) was spent ONLY in catching up with things, and NOT doing any of the sample pages for Joan Weiss, and Mom's coming on THURSDAY; so not NOW!!
9/29/87: MOM'S VISIT: Talking to Dennis on the phone after she left, I tell myself I MUST write down some of the things that happened---starting with my introductory comment to Dennis when he said "Hello?": "Hey, big boy, how's the water in your toilet?" He said "What can you say to someone who greets you with 'This is my last visit to New York'?" I told him about her stepping down the non-steps at Nirvana (after saying that "Well, we'll go to Nirvana" after finding The View full at 6PM akin to saying "OK, we'll settle for Heaven" after some favorite restaurant closes) and making this crashing sound behind me (he laughs and dubs her "the female Peter Sellers, tripping over everything"). I'm sorry (at this moment) that I can't recapture the wacky feeling our conversation about my mother had, except that I kept saying "You haven't been with her LONG ENOUGH to know how crazy she is." And now, at 5PM, I'm totally OUT of this, so I'll stop. 9/30 CONTINUATION: So many memories to recapture: talking on the phone with Dennis and laughing, and her voice comes from the bedroom: "Oh, don't laugh so loud; it can't be THAT funny." Obviously she hurts because I laugh so SELDOM with her when she's around. Her annoyance when the Dalai Lama has the NERVE to appropriate the POPE's title of "Your Holiness," which she LITERALLY sneers at, and then she moves to another place in the church, just to be perverse, comes back to take a photo of John Patterson and Pope and me, then when introduced to John wrinkles her nose and points her thumb down when asked how she liked the evening. Then the progression of her "appreciation" of the food at Fon Yuen: "Oh, these scallops are wonderful (though many too many; too much to eat; just a waste of food; why do they have to serve so much---but then where are the vegetables, though I TELL her that if you WANT vegetables you have to ORDER vegetables---just as when she complains that there's no milk for coffee, I tell her "But I ASKED you to come shopping with me to GET what you wanted, and you didn't GET milk, nor will you GO for milk now that you want it----just as she kept shouting at me from the kitchen "You should stir the stuff in the microwave" but wasn't willing to touch it HERSELF, even though she has one); they're so tender; they cook them just a little bit; they're raw; these scallops aren't cooked at ALL, they're AWFUL." Then the contretemps about my ordering the only two dishes at Nirvana that AREN'T marked for spices: "Why didn't you let ME pick what I wanted?" "Because I know you don't like spicy food and these were the only two dishes without spices." "But I don't like BARBECUED food---it's no good for you; don't you KNOW that??" And then the likes the food anyway, but it's too much for her, so she has them pack it into a doggy bag, is looking forward to eating it, lugs it up to the theater, into the LOBBY at intermission of "Rosa" (is she afraid someone will take it?), and then onto the corner of 45th and Broadway as we try with dozens of others to get a cab ("We should go where we can get a cab;" "But you don't want to WALK anywhere." "I'm going to faint, get me a cab." "What do you want me to DO?" I finally ask in desperation, and at least THAT manages to quiet her down a bit.), when I finally decide to go to Sixth Avenue to get an UPTOWN-moving cab (when she asks "Which direction are we going," and I point downtown in exasperation; and can only muster my patience by answering her "What are we doing here?" by saying "Getting a TAXI."), she slings the bag into the gutter saying "I'm tired of carrying this junk." Her dozens of asking "Where are we now?" finally resolves NOT to "Soho or Chelsea or Greenwich Village or Lower West Side," but to "Manhattan or Brooklyn," when she asks for the tenth time "What bridge is this?" for the Brooklyn Bridge, and saying "Manhattan?" whenever I give her the precise location neighborhood-wise! It's ALWAYS too hot, too cold, too much food, no vegetables. She's freezing and touches me with her icy hands but refuses to put on a sweater. If she doesn't sleep she complains, but "If I sleep too much I get a headache." And then always talking about money and her pains, then complaining when "Rita complains that I only talk about money." Then her anger that I don't recognize my relatives in my will is another whole topic; threatening to cut me out of her will, saying she'll be dying in May, 1988, going to spend all her money.
10/2/87: Wake at 5:30 with dream, which I put on page 223, and then think to get out 3 years' tax-forms to xerox at Actualism tonight AND type sheet of "problems and aims." THEN think of phoning Shelley Hooe for measure of Science square to TYPE "Scientific all-is-one" sheet for tonight's posting. THEN up at 5:50 to FINISH and BILL index, waiting for bill and pages to be picked up Monday. Now it's 8:50 and I'm reasonably alert, surprisingly hungry, and ready for a shortish day.
10/12/87: INTERVIEW WITH HELEN FERGUSON: "I'm Supervisor of Indexing at McGraw- Hill. At one time I would have said that McGraw-Hill's list was the largest in the industry, but I'm not sure about that now. I report to Sylvia Warren who's the Editing Manager. She also manages the Editing Supervisors in the Professional and Reference Division, College Division, Gregg Division, Health Professionals Division, and General Books Division, who deal with the authors. I have various functions. Because of the economics of book publishing, authors are encouraged to make their own indexes. I have to edit those when they're received. Out of McGraw-Hill's total of about 260 books per year, about half are in the College Department. 70% of College Department authors furnish their own indexes. When they're poor, I either keep them in-house and do them myself or I send them out to people who know how to edit indexes. When I have to go outside and commission an index, I try to pick people who are knowledgeable in the subject. I don't use a lot of new people if I can help it, because they usually don't work out. So I tend to use the same people over and over. I use about 30 indexers, specialists in different subjects. I've turned down FILES full of new indexer-applicants. I wouldn't hire someone with no experience, because if the indexer didn't produce a good index, there isn't time enough to work it over with them. I don't deal too much with authors. Sometimes authors furnish lists of terms they require in the index. In the company we refer to the books by author names, and when the same authors come back I try to assign the same indexers to them. I keep a file of books done by each indexer, keeping track of a ballpark estimate of what the index will cost. I very roughly estimate it on the high side, about $2.50 per book page, up to $5 per book page for a very complicated medical book. I never try to give a line-count estimate. Unfortunately I haven't as yet cross-filed it by author. I keep track of indexers' pay scales depending on their quality. My range is now about $12/hour to $14/hour. I'm now under pressure to get more business indexers. The best indexers do a good job, get it in on time, and don't overcharge for it; and then we're all happy. I rather think when we're computerized all the indexes will look alike; you'll no longer be able to distinguish among company styles. Gregg has removed the stand-alone colon: they have very strong personalities there; one of the sponsors changed their style. Some Sponsoring Editors are as much Developmental Editors as Sponsors. I would think the Sponsor, employed by the company, would recommend when a new edition of a book is needed. General Books Division has about eight Sponsors. They know the field and keep up with what's required. There are seasons; I'm never busy from the beginning of February to the beginning or middle of March. It's always busy around Decoration Day, and now it continues til Christmas. Summers are worst now. Christmas-New Years isn't as busy as it had been in the past. I do give an indexing text; I don't think anybody gets by without taking it. Librarians are masters of cross-references; they'll send you everywhere. Then there are the categorizors: they put anything to do with Physics, for example, as subentries under a main entry Physics. To be accepted, their test must be good and they must have done a large number of books. Does Dorothy MacDonald still train people? [CHECK THIS] McGraw-Hill no longer gives out the Author's Book (re-published 1968). Chicago is definitely the standard for indexing style. I saved Webster's Second International because it has all the rules. Then I use various technical reference works in specific areas. [She finishes by GIVING me copies of various index-rule McGraw-Hill standards.]
10/13/87: Letter to Geis
Robert Zolnerzak
167 Hicks Street
Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201
October 13, 1987
Floyd Geis
Wright and Geis CPAs, Inc.
1420 Kettner Blvd. Suite 621
San Diego, CA 92101
Dear Floyd,
Here are my TAX-RELATED PROBLEMS AND OBJECTIVES.
Not truly reflected on 1984-1986 forms (enclosed) are the various stocks I've (unhappily) invested my Keogh, IRA, and regular-account money (very roughly $20,000 now, in total---representing my total "cushion"---not much--- oh, I'm 51---though I intend to continue working "forever") in. In the past my bracket was NOT such that I needed to look at tax-exempt bonds of any kind, though you might recommend them as a consideration for the future. "When the stocks go back up" (HA!) I'm thinking of selling them (getting tired of speculating on friends' off-the-wall suggestions) and going into something risk-free like CDs or government bonds.
IN GENERAL my "history" has been about 10% of gross income paid in taxes. When I went up to $35-$40,000 a number of years back, I found myself paying about 20-25% in taxes and didn't like that at all. But I WOULD like to be able to DOUBLE my income (I'm a freelancer with total control of my time and work: I could easily double [or more] my income if I chose to) and STILL not pay above about 10% of gross in taxes.
My mother's been trying to coax me into buying a lot in Florida from her for about $8,000, and I've been wondering if I could buy it and use THAT in some sort of tax-constructive way.
I'm hoping to get a book published in the next year or so; that might produce income that I'd like to "shelter."
My computer-depreciation is now OVER and I'm wondering whether I should buy a new one EVEN THOUGH I'M PERFECTLY CONTENT WITH MY PRESENT SYSTEM, just to "keep depreciation figures going."
I think I've actually been OVERDOING deductions (like I don't REALLY use that much of my apartment for work-purposes [burn this letter!]) but I think I can wave my hands adequately if I'm ever audited (which I've not been).
"I'm writing a book about Actualism" is the theory behind my writing off Actualism as Research. Would that I could deduct travel expenses because I'm writing about travel, but I've never SOLD any travel articles, so that seems a bit risky---or restaurant expenses because I write about food.
Can't think of ways to "excuse" my gym expenses as deductions.
My mother is 76 and ailing, and MAY have to be supported by me (or my sister) in the future, but she has SOME savings that free me for some years, anyway.
Can't think of anything else helpful (or to be questioned) at the moment.
Very truly yours,
Bob Zolnerzak
10/14/87: SCIENTIFIC AND ENERGY
From The Anthropic Cosmological Principle by John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler (1986, Oxford University Press): "It is possible, by exerting relatively small forces at just the right series of instants on a truly global scale, for intelligent life to force a generic Bianchi type IX closed universe into having an omega point by systematically eliminating the horizons in sequence in all directions an infinite number of times. This will be possible, that is, if intelligent life has expanded to encompass the entire universe, and if the properties of matter will allow the necessary forces."
(p.673) "Thus ultimately life exists in order to prevent the Universe from destroying itself." (p.674) "The time is reached when life has encompassed the entire Universe and regulated all matter contained therein." (p.675) "At the instant the Omega Point is reached, life will have gained control of all matter and forces not only in a single universe, but in all universes whose existence is logically possible; life will have spread into all spatial regions in all universes which could logically exist, and will have stored an infinite amount of information, including all bits of knowledge which it is logically possible to know." (p.677) "The totality of life at the Omega Point is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient." (p.682)
From Time's Arrows: Scientific Attitudes Toward Time by Richard Morris (1985, Simon and Schuster): "Is Guth [Alan H. Guth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] suggesting that the universe may have been created out of nothing? The answer to that question must be yes and no. It is possible that the universe grew from a piece of space-time that was devoid of matter. But that isn't quite "nothing." According to the general theory of relativity, the curvature of space-time can itself be a source of energy, and changes in the curvature should cause the creation of matter. In Einstein's theory, space-time can have quasi-material properties." (p.201)
From Masks of the Universe by Edward Harrison (1985, Macmillan): "Spacetime is constructed in such a way that the distance traveled by light rays is always zero. Light rays from distant stars hurry at great speed for long periods of time across wide gulfs of space and yet travel no distance whatever in spacetime. In the world of spacetime we are in contact with the stars." (p.150) "The created universe is complete in every detail throughout all of space and time. Subsequent acts of creation meddle with what is already created, implying the possibility that the Creator actually exists in physical space and time, and to this extent is therefore a physical and not a spiritual being." (p.230)
From various issues of Scientific American:
"Even as they are swept apart by the expanding fabric of space, the Milky Way and a host of other galaxies show motion of their own; the speed and direction of motion indicate that the galaxies are caught in the sway of a Great Attractor, a distant concentration of mass that appears to be larger than any proposed by existing cosmologies." (Sep 1987 p.2)
"Chaos provides a mechanism that allows for free will within a world governed by deterministic laws." (Dec 1986 p.57)
"Axions...photinos...and cosmic strings." (Dec 1986 p.67)
"Such 'fundamental' particles as quarks and leptons are really composite structures made from still smaller particles." (Nov 1986 p.84)
"Superstring theory combines string theory with a mathematical structure called supersymmetry. The strings postulated by their theory are about...100000000000000000000 times smaller than the diameter of the proton. Gravity is defined in a world expanded to nine spatial dimensions and time, making 10 dimensions in all. The six extra dimensions must be curled up to form a structure so small that it cannot directly be seen." (Sep 1986 p.48-49)
"Techniquarks...selectrons...squarks...photinos...gluinos... Higgsinos." (Mar 1986 p.73)
"The region that was to become the current observable universe must have been the size of a softball, embedded in an unimaginably greater universe that has ever since continued to expand beyond our horizon of cause and effect." (Feb 1983 p.76)
"The observer is as essential to the creation of the universe as the universe is to the creation of the observer." (Dec 1981 p.171)
"At a range of 1/100000000000000000000000000000 centimeter the world may be a simple place, with just one kind of elementary particle and one important force." (Apr 1981 p.48)
"The anthropic cosmological principle overcomes the traditional barrier between the observer and the observed. It makes the observer an indispensable part of the macrophysical world." (Apr 1980 p.128)
"All objects constitute an indivisible whole." (Nov 1979 p.181)
SUBATOMIC LEVEL
1. "Traditional" subatomic level: Leptons and Hadrons
LEPTONS (pointlike down to 10-16 cm) HADRONS (comprised of quarks)
Electron (only lepton in "ordinary" matter) Protons
Electron-type neutrino Neutrons
Muon (weighing 200 electron-masses) Pions
Muon-type neutrino many heavier mesons
Tau (weighing 3500 electron-masses) many hyperons
Tau-type neutrino over 100 other particles
2. "Current" subatomic level: Quarks (in some theories, impossible to isolate)
Quarks are described in terms of "color" (not optical): Red, Green, Blue, and in terms of "flavor": Up, Down, Strange, Charm, Bottom, Top
All matter in "Generation 1" can be theoretically constructed of 8 particles:
Red-Up,Green-Up,Blue-Up,Red-Down,Green-Down,Blue-Down,Electron,ElectronNeutrino
All matter in "Generation 2" are "colors" of Strange and Charm + 2 Muon Leptons
All matter in "Generation 3" are "colors" of Bottom and Top + 2 Tau Leptons
There may be any number of additional Generations identical save for mass
3. "Theoretical" subatomic level: Rishons (called in other theories Prequarks, Preons, Subquarks, Maons, Alphons, Quinks) named by Haim Harari from Israel from Hebrew for "first" or "primary" and called T and V, from Genesis 1: "Tohu va-Vohu" or "without form and void." Since every particle described so far has an antiparticle, there are two antirishons: T and V
Quarks in "Generation 1" (normal matter) are comprised of three rishons:
RISHONS ANTIRISHONS
TTT = positron (electron antiparticle) electron
TTV
TVT = 3 colors of down antiquark 3 up antiquarks
VTT
TVV
VTV = 3 colors of up quark 3 down quarks
VVT
VVV = electron-type neutrino electron-type antineutrino
Higher generations are only excited states of rishons, like excitation states of atoms. This theory also uniquely produces the result that the quantity of matter in the universe equals the quantity of antimatter in the universe.
4. "Special case" subatomic level: there was only one kind of matter and one force in 10-33 cm., operating at 10-40 seconds after the "Big Bang."
5. "Geometrodynamic" subatomic level: about 1060 "wormholes" in 10-12 cm.
Mass and electricity can be fashioned out of curved empty space. There is a "basic" quantity of time: 5.10-44 sec. Then the density of mass-energy in "empty space" is 5.1093 g/cm3, so what we see as matter is only a tiny change downward in the mass-energy of the universe itself. Low frequency??