1988 1 of 3
My journal from 1988 is not as detailed or day-by-day as before; I just want to get the BASIC journal pages on the website. For missing days, I've included LIFELIST at the end of the year to supplement journal entries.
1/9/88: INCREDIBLE embroidery exhibit seen at Fashion Institute through the sheer happenstance of the "Surrealism" exhibit in the same building. Transcendental visions of paintings in jewels, sprays of comet-dust on silk and satin, heraldic trumpetings of dazzle and color in Art Deco and Geometric and Art Nouveau swirls and hues. Historic samples from as long ago as 1880, and up-to-date dazzlers for contemporary costumes by the House of Lesage in Paris. Alice and I were there only for the last twenty minutes of the two-month show, so we couldn't even rave about it to anyone else!
1/10/88: Serendipity continues: phone Joyce to meet her for the last day of the Met's exhibit of Seals and the Bastos Collection from early Mediterranean cultures. Farmer's omelette delicious at the Ideal, then bump into Regina and Tony Coggi on E. 81st St. on their way to the Wagner Society's "Das Rheingold" day. I pay $30 for admission after seeing the exhibits for 40 minutes with Joyce and excusing myself, and take notes on Dr. Bailey's handout on Rheingold: the low Eb primordial buzz at the start created by down-tuming lowest string of double-basses. Wagner composed music for the Wagner tuba, the Bass trumpet, the Bass trombome, and the Bass tuba even before they were manufactured. The Ring motif is a chromatic version of Valhall motif. The descent to Nibelheim mirrors exactly the ascent, and the anvils were sounds NEVER heard on-stage before. Gotterdammerung's prologue and three acts echoes the Ring Cycle's prologue and three operas, just as Rheingold's prologue and three scenes echoes the Ring Cycle. Then Dr. Rather bumbles along, saying that Wagner wanted to UNITE the perfect male and perfect female into a perfect PERSON. Siegfried was originally planned as a figure of Christ, so "Siegfried's Death" is really "Christ's Death." Rothbart motif at the end of "Swan Lake" is VERY LIKE the "unaskable question ("Don't ask me that question")" motif from "Lohengrin." And then the kick of re-meeting Shoshana Shoshan and being told that Andy died three and a half years ago while talking with Regina, whose Marty died two years ago, across from Rob, whose lover died four months ago, having met him with Pope at the Unitarian Church AIDS meetings.
1/11/88: I finish Robbins: Diet for a New America and have these notes: xvii: Act as an agent of world spiritual awakening. p.39: "seems to be injured or distressed even if it costs them their life. When injured or distressed even if it costs them their life. When When infant...WOW! 156: against the of assumptions... 161. ONE years of vegetarianism redeems body. 193: protein reduces bone calcium. 197: almonds and dried raisins form bases--good. 174: chart on 176 is on 177. 199: anti-culvulsant. 276: six WEEKS of lowfat diet helped diabetes! 277: recommends grains, vegetables,and fruit. 283: bones of their PRAY! 286 Psyllium husks, in plenty of water, one hour or more before a meal. 289: cereal grains, dried beans and peas, potatoes and pasta. 291: seven weeks to arthritis cure. 292: high in purines. gout. (!) 311: repeated paragraph 3. Pages 344 and 345 REVERSED! Page 414 has May '87 note 92b, page 17 is summer of '87, Elaine got it 12/9/87; I got it 12/21/87, and finish 1/10. No index, but I'm impressed enough to try a vegetarian diet at home; meat out.
1/12/88: At library I look up Nuclear Physics B239 (1984) 257-276 and find "Quantum State of Universe" by Hawking. The name on the cover is PARTICLE Physics, and the article talks about instantons, gaugino, vierbein, gravitino, and skyrmion which seems to be equivalent to skyrme soliton. I glance through the tables of contents and find articles of interest, but they don't bother to say whether this is just THEORIZING or if there are physical reasons for believing in them. If I had the time to look through them, I feel, I'd be able to understand them, but the mathematics is crushingly involved and detailed, and I find myself quickly flipping through pages to get to summaries and conclusions or predictions of what the next discoveries might be. Dynamite reference available through room 121 at the New York Public Library!
1/25/88: So many things coming to a point all at once. First the increasing pressures of AIDS: Dennis and Jose and John Robertson and Don Maloof and Alice all positive---will ALL these people die in 5-10 years?? Then there's Pope's concern about John Robertson and Don's concern about a friend of his in LA. On the trivial hand, I find myself increasingly able to look at a Mystery, or a "hard-issue series" or even a movie on TV and feel that I'm not interested in it. So my previous interest and concentration that "was worth it" is now "not worth it." I'd thought opera wasn't important, now I don't HAVE to see all the new productions at the Met and the City Center. I'd though ballet was important, now I don't have to see each new production of each company. Even my souvenirs: I can think of sifting through all the bills and receipts and brochures and throwing everything away except the BOOKS that I PAID for: the rest was to assure myself that I'd been there (and maybe to reassure myself that I might go back, and so could use my previous books for planning the future trip). But I'm mostly interested in different COUNTRIES in which I'd never been (Fiji and Nauru and Tahiti and Yugoslavia and Turkey and Antarctica and Australia and New Zealand), or to different CITIES in countries I've grown to love (Rome and Florence and Marseilles and Aachen and Crissier). Then on a totally different hand is my depression over watching the Nature series in which a couple bemoan the slaughter and wasting of animals in BOTSWANNA, for which they'd only needed $6,000 from the National Geographic to work a whole year, and then watching the Nova special on TOP GUN AND BEYOND, where they spend $12 BILLION on one fighter---I even had to step back in wonder when I rhetorically asked Spartacus "You know how many $6,000s there are in $12 BILLION?" And drew myself up short by double-checking the astounding answer: 2,000,000 of them!!! And then Pope tells about the economist who checked that the $4 TRILLION planned for Star Wars would buy a house and car for everyone on the planet---let's say a billion households, that's $4,000---well, a horsecart, anyway. AND the disgust that fighters are for WAR, and have nothing to do OTHER than PROLIFERATION of hunger and poverty and ignorance and disease. Which leads back for the hundredth time to the consideration that it might HELP the world to go through a purging nuclear holocaust to stuff some sense into the military-industrial-government complex that's interested in trade balance and deficits and cattle-raising and militarism rather than food and self-sufficiency and stability and peace. Dennis reported that Camus' "The Plague" is predictive of AIDS today: the government didn't want to admit there was a problem at first, and then people either tried to profit from it or ran away from it; only the barest minority reacted in a POSITIVE way toward the situation. In addition I'm still waiting with suspense for "Indexing Handbook" to be accepted by Prentice-Hall; I have to start working on indexes to get money for the year; the depression resulting from the possible TOTAL loss of my investment in ECD, which I don't want to sell at 10 at a 34% loss but am willing to keep, hoping it will go back up momentarily, but fear it will go bankrupt and lost 100% of the investment. Not to mention the anger at my "friend" Rolf who sold himself short on it before he even mentioned it to me. There's good news that Eileen Robertson is here trying to fix everything up, but bad news that if she gets a loan from the city, the city can put ANYONE into the building, forcing us OUT VOLUNTARILY to escape the drug dealers and screaming kids. Then I'm off protein but my weight isn't going down, and I have to get my levels tested to see how I progress blood-fat-wise. Still haven't caught my movie-list up to date, still haven't gotten to the AIDS HOUSE book, still haven't worked on the plays I'd been enthusiastic about before. Will I go on the Russia-China-South trip? Will I survive my fear of the flight to Bayreuth? Will the computer go downhill, dropping more letters from the printer as it's doing again yesterday? When will I send out this month's bills; when will I find my significant other, how much will I fear my next AIDS test, IS my mind really going because I'm making more typos, WILL there be enough work soon enough to pay for Keoghs and IRAs before April without a loan?
2/4/88: NOTES from 1/30-31/88 HEMI-SYNC weekend. SATURDAY: TAPE 1: 10:50-11:05AM, introduction, surf and hemi-sync. Snores, car-sirens resonating with resonances, crystal tapping on window, horns, Alyssen walking and watching. DISSONANCE is valuable tool to BREAK UP rigidities. TAPE 2: Surf, ER box, RT from 11:22-11:34. I leave rocking chair. TAPE 3: Focus 10, relax "heaviest" from 11:52-12:30. And two encodings---slept in airflight chair. NO ONE heard the encodings. Vangelis "Antarctica" again. Affirmation (an expression of your PURPOSE): Develop your OWN wording and get a SYMBOL for it (with which universe OUTSIDE your body COMMUNICATES with you). TAPE 4: 1) box, 2) RT, 3) affirmation, 4) REBAL, "security blanket", 5) Focus 10---I go back to rocker and it's BETTER; most sleep. Tape goes back to 1, back to 10, back to 1, from 1:32-2:11PM. Encoding: to 10, to 1; "10 in moving circle for Rebal" and I heard this THIS time. I report about "Think, Let, Observe, Experience" and then I think "Leto." LETO: Let, Experience, Think, Observe. Letting is primary. Let the experience. Only THEN can you THINK about it, and you can ONLY observe what you've THOUGHT about??? Not really. To 2:40: HUNGRY!! Lunch 2:40-4:10. TAPE 5: Meta-Music "Nostalgia" 4:50-5:35. Project/Question: Flight OK? goes to Book sell? goes to Opera-trip success? goes to (as music starts) first Russia-China trip. The PREVIOUS trip is left ONLY as nostalgia; FUTURE trip will be ONLY nostalgia after it passes. The point is LIVING: Even if it's going to the Park Avenue Market and the antique shops on the streets between 12th and 15th. Then first detour to travel writing, thinking to CALL Mitch to see IF he can market Bayreuth stories, then SECOND detour to restaurant-writing, and get the HOOK "I'll ask the CHEF what two dishes HE recommends and why, and how they're made, and what HE likes about them. Get AWAY from "lots of trivia, lots of dishes" to the TWO BEST with KNOWLEDGE. Then if you LIKE his best, you can return with KNOWLEDGE to more of his cuisine, but at least you HAVE his BEST to JUDGE from, and not the "Critic's taste" or "what ought to be" but the MAIN PERSON'S taste. Then WRITE this and SEND it to the Brooklyn Paper. Leave trip to NEXT year when I'm CLOSER to "having published" and richer and have more time and SATISFACTION. And maybe a lover, and maybe MIDGE (CALL her) and Polly will come along.
TAPE 6: (Recharge/release, cleansing process, she talked through a meta-music tape) To box, bring problem a) every part of your REALITY has a PURPOSE, even downers. b) Look at what you've AVOIDED: shame, hurt, fear, etc. c) HOLD UP problem; let GO of fear or anger or frustration; see how it FITS IN with US here NOW. This goes 5:58 - 6:30. I look at 1) Significant other: I GOT to put myself out for rejection. Got to TRY it: baths, bars, movies. 2) Mom: I'm SO fearful, like her. HONOR her EVEN in fear. 3) Myself: GOT to love ME before OTHERS can love me. Simple, tried-and-true, but true NONETHELESS! Leave at 6:45, holding hands between Alyssen and limp-handed Japanese.
SUNDAY: All seven people in by 9:20. Talk til 10:30. TAPE 1: Freeflow in Focus 10. Decide on purpose: Remember your purpose and do it now. I have this tape. WAS to be "continue with this," but quick "NO." Just do tape 5 for awhile. THEN project was KEEPING AWAKE: very noddy. 10:32-11:12. Recommendations for "non-controlling" freedom: 1) Breathe continually, don't stop. Flow in-out constantly. 2) Concentrate on breathing OUT: push air OUT and allow it to rush back IN; as EVERYTHING needed can come in AUTOMATICALLY without EFFORT. 3) When breathing, look out at world from above head; seeing world from 3-4 inches above eye-level. Element of relinquishing control obviously---FLY to find LOVER?? TAPE 2: Focus 12 (Focus 15 is Beyond Time and Space; Focus 21 is Other Energies) is good for picking up energies. Awareness PAST physical body. 12:40-1:22. BY means OTHER than physical senses. "You can make up buides and get information from THEM, as vehicles." Leave expectations AND efforting in box. In folding hair, agony to sit. Nothing at all save discomfort. Depressing. Shouts of salespeople outside; cat (Tybalt) made fuss before; I think about leaving NOW or at lunch. UGH! Lunch 1:45-3PM.
TAPE 3: Focus 12: Problem solving: specific question you want ANSWER to. 3:20-4:10: Got FIRST "I'm hungry" and then I slept!! Didn't even HEAR second messages. To far back in ROOM, couldn't HEAR, except for NOISE OUTSIDE. Abigail leaves 4:15. Could have detoxification sickness and nausea. TAPE 4: "Moment of Revelation" tape is available individually. On Mind-Food list. Other woman leave at 4:50. Bit it's not to bring up any expectations. Spiral staircase--up 7 steps--clouds in colors, clouds part---time to do what you want. Down steps. 4:55 - 5:25. "Mainly time with hemi-sync to do what you want." ONLY Image (except anger at passing ambulance JUST as clouds at top of stairs changed from green to blue to purple) was of LONDON BROIL, tired with the I'm hungry of previous tape? TALK about UNKNOWING!! Allysen always gets FOOD images too. Stop at Kevin's Corner for london broil? But I didn't. What a bummer of a weekend, glad I spent "only" $165 as opposed to $215.
2/4/88: Dismissal of 2/3 Lewis Harrison "New-Age Dinners." Mary and Dennis and I pay $20 to Betty and chat with Lewis, who's overweight and balding and not terribly intelligent, putting the negative cap on the evening by saying he'll be giving at talk about 9:15 about "Time Management." Ugh! Then gross Larry comes in, followed by a rabbi and lots of women: Cintra who keeps cruising me, Leah who's outgoing and pleasant, like Norma, from Babylon, and another woman whose name I forget. Then Mark Roberts (?) from Serenity comes in with his crotch (but news of his wife and daughter), with another Mark who's a dentist (Dennis: what do you say to someone who's a dentist?), and another guy who could be cute, except Dennis says that his "brain was so flattened by the terrible people" that he couldn't even think sexy thoughts! We talk about Judaism, diets, and other trivia as Lewis tries to serve "dinner": first unwarmed then partially warmed Italian bread, broiled mushrooms with daubs of cheese in their centers, eggplant parmigian (mixed with potatoes), and spaghetti with "sauce he made himself." Later there's a salad, but we leave at 10PM before we can taste the baked apples which everyone comes in to ask if he's sweetened artificially. I start with the apple-juice and soda punch, then go to the red wine which is really awful, then back to the punch, then end up mixing the two as the least awful. Best was the Ansonia: large halls overlooking a spectacular central well down one windowed wall, large apartments with enormous baths, though the hall was filled with booming baritones, tinkling pianos, and various other instruments, so it could really be awful. Dennis identified the salient point: everyone seemed so WILLING to make it WORK, even though everything that Lewis put into it was just crappy and cheap. Can't imagine anyone returning, as the three "friends" seemed to do, remarking that the cooking was getting better, then leaving before we did at 10PM, before he could get into his obviously-delayed talk on "Time Management." Umm hmmm. It's enough to give a bad name to seeking new things to do. Dennis puts off his decision on going to Bedrock today, but when I phone him, now at 4:15PM, he's at his piano lesson and I have no idea what's coming next. DO have the urge to get to the bottom of the page, but will start with a new section:
2/4/88: WHERE I AM NOW: with all sorts of things to do like clear off the indexing shelves, update the movie list, join the Henry Street Video now that Boro Photo isn't renting tapes anymore (how sad!), and think about how to get some money before I run out. Must send a partial bill to Springer for $1500 so I'll get the check in time to have money for my March checking balance. Still haven't called Mom about borrowing money, still haven't phoned to check the SST for an extended period in Europe, or do I go just two weeks and let the Russia-China trip wait until I have more success? Phone Mitch for Bayreuth articles? About the AIDS-LSD book even before I write it, so that I can get an advance and go to California to research it? Or just phone him to hear what the latest is on Prentice-Hall's response to my book, which should BE here either today or tomorrow---unless delay is good because they're STILL keeping it under consideration? Anyway, got to the bottom of another page!
2/12/88: THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED by M. Scott Peck. Started 1/28, ended 2/12. p11B:No distinction between spiritual and mental growth: silly.
p22M:When we love something it is of value to us, and when something is of value to us we spend time with it, time enjoying it and time taking care of it.
p30:It's delayed gratification NOT to solve problems: unless you LOVE problems!
p63B:NO, LEAST energy is to say NOTHING; NEITHER lie nor tell the truth!
p88:Love as matter of stretching ego boundaries: GREAT!
p90:Love as component of mating behavior...marriage...awry..homosexual: HISS!
p93n:Open marriage only healthy marriage: O'Sheas/Seavers/Southers/Vallishes???
p95:Mystical union: he's saying a LOT without really LOOKING at it!!
p104:Good marriage can exist only between two strong and independent people: much better if he'd said "good RELATIONSIP": too MARRIAGE and HETEROSEXUAL and PSYCHOTHERAPY oriented ENTIRELY.
p116:Whatever we do for someone else we do because it fulfills a need we have: Is that why I so seldom DO FOR and emphasize DOING WITH?
p120:Work of love: real turnoff phrase: like saying "work of orgasm."
p131T:Non-love is laziness: GOOD.
p134T:When we shy away from death, the ever-changing nature of things, we inevitably shy away from life: MY CONSTANT PROBLEM.
p180:All human interactions are opportunities either to learn or to teach (to give or receive therapy): HE sounds like a SHIT; AGAIN making orgasm into WORK! Has he said ONE WORD about FUN or ENJOYMENT or ENTERTAINMENT???
p185:World view=Religion: SILLY misuse of words.
p189:HE THINKS THAT CHRISTIANITY IS MORE OPTIMISTIC THAN HINDUISM???!!!
p191n:MY earliest "memory": soapy-handed Mom holding me after fall downstairs!
p192:THREE blind MICE, but there were SIX blind MEN; he cut elephant in half!!
p193:The learning of something new requires a giving up of the old self and a death of outworn knowledge: GOOD!
p233:"Accurate knowledge of God...accurate belief in God": WHAT could this BE??
p260B:Force originating outside of human consciousness which nurtures the spiritual growth of human beings:he's word-playing to say "unconscious" is IT.
p273:Original sin=laziness: trivial. Much better to say NO original sin; otherwise we just push responsibility off onto original sinners!
p281M:Our unconscious is God: by DEFINITION not conscious; how can he SAY this?
p282:The collective unconscious is God; the conscious is man as individual; and the personal unconscious is the interface between them: he's backpedalling as fast as he can, contradicting the page before, unless he overemphasizes, which he did NOT, the ACTUAL plural of the pronoun rather than the LITERARY plural!
p295M:The fact that mental illness is a family affair, created in one by one's parents and grandparents as the sins of the father are visited upon the children: return of original sin with a vengeance, and REvengeance; first(p282) mental illness is from the CONSCIOUS and now it's from the PARENTS.
p299B:Will to grow: OBVIOUSLY self-love; when will he SAY this?
p300M:Calling grace GOD'S love only DELAYS realization of SELF-love, above.
p305T:If not for God we're alone; but if WE are God, we ARE alone with ourselves: TRULY alone!!
p306T:"I am unable to answer this question": but it OBVIOUSLY self-love!
p308T:This paradox? By realizing it's connected with self-love.
p308M:"Wholly loving...give no thought to God" is SELF-DEFEATING: you can't be WHOLLY loving without thinking of, knowing about, and loving the GOD IN YOU, which is YOU YOURSELF: AGAIN it returns to the obvious self-love. Maybe grace, for him, would be realizing this. He wouldn't be so hung up on himself as a THERAPIST then, but as a HUMAN BEING. Which is what life is: a human---
EXISTing, BEing, and NOT an analyst sorting through Proust's bathwater for "causes in the past." As I JUST MENTIONED to Dennis, survivors after an atomic attack will BEHAVE very differently, and it'll have NOTHING TO DO with "understanding early causal events."
p317T:It is only through community that we can learn to love ourselves: he's CLEARLY running away from HIS INNER GOD to SOME OTHER OUTER to AVOID self-love!
2/27/88: Lots of notes:
2/23: Shamanism at Brooklyn Heights library: at 6:30 we're 13 plus the leader, but two more come in later, one at 7:30, who'd just read about it! Books recommended are "Shamanism" by Mircea Eliade, "Shaman's Drum, a quarterly magazine, and "Way of the Shaman" a $4.95 Bantam pb by Michael Harner. Shamans go into ALTERED states in a journey, unlike priests. Spirits come THRU trance mediums or channelers; shamans go THEMSELVES. You GO for healing hints, empowerment; you go to where we're all RELATED. VISION quest searches are IN "nonordinary reality." If child sees DEAD grandparents, he's seeing "nonordinary reality." Shaman will ASK to confront his own FEAR, including his fear of his own DEATH. Tonight: go into LOWER world to find ANIMAL ally. Drum-sound said to be STRONGER than plant hallucinogens. Shaman goes to UPPER, MIDDLE, and LOWER world. We go to LOWER for animals and to the Earth. Lapps and Siberians go to upper and middle; Australians go to middle world for remote viewing and telepathic communications. Middle world is the most advanced since it involves asking permission from the people contacted. To MOVE to the lower world: 1) find opening in earth to descend---from travels or childhood. Like hot springs, caves, wells, mineshafts, tree roots, crevices (like "Alice," which is a shamanic journey). I take blue hole---LIKE cat's blue eyes I got for ALLY. 2) Tunnel---snakeskin, tree bark, subway/sewer, earth/rock/crystal caves. Maya/Peru ruins: take then downstairs beyond reality. Tonight: Ask journey to be revealed in DREAM. It is usually EXPERIENCED as lucid dream, or watching a movie you're in. Intent: go to LOWER world to explore and find an animal ally. Drumming: ASK for tunnel to APPEAR, or stairs to CONTINUE: I take stairs under Temple of Inscriptions in Palenque. If you get STUCK, restate INTENT. HIGHLY erotic and personal: Going to "bring orgasm to Gods"---God's Orgasm Of Delight (GOOD)---and MY inner body is beautiful to bring gay gods to marvelous orgasm, and then drumbeats become ONANISTIC, cuming without touching through vibrations. Marvelous dog to cat-eyes to cat, back to dog, then to MUSCLE body for my INTEGRATION of sexual, spiritual, circumstantial lives! You can use drumming TAPE to take trips. Sometimes takes TIME to get there. Yvonne: "I described classic shamanic trip" when my dog/wolf went to cat's eyes went back to dog and then elongated into a human body.
2/23: TV program says that 110 Columbia Heights was Roebling's house AND where Hart Crane lived for a couple of years in the 40's. I go there after Joyce calls to say we're NOT going to Wave Hill today, and it's GONE! Pope says he looked for it a couple of years ago; replaced by Witness building!
2/24: Results of my 2/18 blood test: cholesterol holding at 188, triglycerides down to 275, so he says I seem to be treating myself fine! Dr. Chin recommends a salt gargle for my sore throat, saying if I have a FEVER I should see him again. I sort of lied when I said it was only in the morning.
2/25: Called Dorothy Brucalli at McGraw-Hill, hoping for a job, but get told that Sylvia Warren said to call: Helen Ferguson's son committed suicide Sunday 2/21, buried Tuesday 2/23, and I phoned her to find her sunk into guilt and self-punishment, "having" to take her 23-year-old son back into the family, not looking for a job, only gardening and watching over the son. VERY sad! Sherryl said that she'd write her a concilation note; I guess OK?
2/26: Terry Kornak says that Gene Crofts "a couple of weeks ago" was promoted to Operations Research Manager, looking to coordinate activities between all Springer-Verlag departments. So I interview him on indexing NOW!
AFTER I finished the tape (best transcribed below), he said "shut off the tape and let's talk." He's 32, being born to his father who's just about to be 90 when he was 57, and would like nothing better than to lie on a beach in Hawaii, but now he thinks he's just going to live forever, and I say "Wait till you pass the 40th or 50th birthday, you'll think more about the end of your life." He's happy with this job, hoping to move to LA in three years for his own consulting firm when he's finished analyzing Springer-Verlag. He's plumper than before, not quite so attractive, but still damnably mesmerizing for ME!
3/8/88: MORE, MORE, MORE!! SO many things to write about before I DO so many things! Last week was sort of a loss: interested only in watching TV tapes either recorded or prerecorded (rented) and reading. Maybe I was fighting a low-grade infection that my current (second this year, though from Jan 15 to Mar 2 greater than the 2-3 week "not-too-close" period specified by Dr. Chin) penicillin regimen is clearing up. But the mail was left where it fell, the bills continued unpaid (including the $91 IRS bill that's dated 2/10 so it MUST be out by 3/10), and the apartment got messier and messier. Then I managed to keep up with a busy weekend, and then yesterday I finally gathered everything up and left it on a pile "to do." But yesterday I also went shopping with Spartacus and bought 1) shoes for $25, leather uppers; worn while I was wearing my $10 running shoes bought last Thursday at the Albee Mall, 2) two egg-timers for $2 that turned out to be FIVE-minute timers, so I still have to THREE-minute timers to buy for my game-day, 3) a bedroom vaporizor to try to clear up my dry throat non-medicinally, 4) ten plastic posts for binders---for $4, just OUTRAGEOUS, 5) a 30-cassette rack for $1.99 that Spartacus said was a good deal, and I have 8 cassettes OVER that already and need to buy four plastic boxes for "looks", 6) six bars of Bee and Honey soap, just to have it, 7) three kinds of Chelsea butterscotch candies, 8) two shirts at $6 that turn out to be too tight, 9) & 10) two books: My Little Friend--actually Man's Best Friend---about his cock, and the 1987 Maltin VCR-indicated movie book that I spent from midnight to 4AM last night checking off the movies I'd seen (and the alphabetical errors and the pages, 4 so far, that have NO movies I've seen) from A to B. Up at 10:30 this morning DETERMINED to do things, but spend time on the phone with Dennis, Alice, leaving word for Vicki, and then talk to Rolf, who mentions his LATEST interest (after saying that I should sell ECD now that it's up to 11, I may even be foolhardy to keep it hoping it will go up to 15): specifying and constructing a hard-disk handling system that will incorporate 1) tree-formation programs already existing, 2) indexing programs written, 3) keyword programs existing, and other hard-disk clean-up programs to produce a "million seller on the now-standard DOS system" of a global search and index and retrieve utility, and then go to Beijing to pay 50 cents an hour for the programming of it (after deconstruction programs reduce existing programs to machine language so that he can fit bits and pieces together), which leads me to tell him of my meeting with Marie Longyear and going to China to teach. He gets interested, too, saying that he'd been requested to come to China for an optical-memory convention. Mentioning his friend who's buying up "obsolete" 10-year-old factories to send to China in return for manufactured good. Then I flash back on my wanting to write about how my life is CHANGING: I no longer have to SAVE things because I know I HAVE the memories: my ideal would be to get rid of EVERYTHING just before I die, so that my life is REALLY used up. I'm not that interested in ballet, though I tell myself it's only MEDIOCRE ballet that I'm uninterested in. Porno is leaving me increasingly cold, I want to just SIT AND READ, but that might have been my illness. I'm leaving more time between gyms, getting dirtier and smellier and greasier-haired, but I'm keeping up with everything needed, will have enough money coming in to keep things going (but where will my $8500 for Spartacus come from?), still concerned about lack of news about the Indexing Handbook, but at least I'm getting to the bills, getting to the phone calls, getting to the current indexes, while leaving time to enjoy the preternaturally warm weather we're having this week---supposed to be 60 degrees today, maybe the groundhog WAS right and we're having an earlier spring, but there HAS to be more snow coming, and I'd hoped to get to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens today, but I've GOT to get to the gym, and then must coordinate tonight, and why is it taking me so long (over a month now) to phone the SECOND number on the Mandate list, and I want to get back to them to get MORE numbers, so I've got to print out this page now at 1:10 and get on with the rest of my DAY, now that I've gotten down to the bottom of the page like I've done some many times before--and perfectly!
3/30/88: Copy 2/7/88 note: David Frost (of Macmillan, not TV) gives me a quote for all seasons: "You should have everything you want."
3/30/88: Copy 2/8/88 note: Phoned Mitch Rose: he HAD a meeting Thursday, 2/4, at Prentice-Hall, and expects a response this week or early next week. I ask if he's the comedian and he says there are THREE Mitch Roses: he lives on 9th Street in Park Slope, there's another in Brooklyn, and the comedian lives in Manhattan. He agrees to take a proposal letter to me for an article on Bayreuth, which I expand to six articles in the proposal, but he phones and says it should only be one: he'll make notes on the pages and return it to me, but he hasn't by 3/30, so I'll just forget about THAT, too. I ask him what will happen IF Prentice-Hall is interested: he says they'll offer an advance which he guesses to be between $5000 and $10000, saying "they're committed to the book." He estimates the general royalty is about 10% on a $10 book, but that might go up to 12.5% or 15% with additional copies. Paperback royalties are usually 6% - 7.5% - 8%. He takes a 15% cut. I fantasize getting a $10,000 advance, less his $1500, leaving me the $8500 I needed for taxes, but I asked Mom, who said no, and finally borrowed it from Spartacus who just happened to have the cash from a cashed-in CD. I try to put the book out of my mind, but it definitely affects me with "I don't know what's going to happen next, so I can't do much of anything" for the next few months.
4/12/88: Psychotronics meeting: Psychotronics is the GRANDCHILD of parapsychology, which was only the stage of "Does it exist?" This assumes it DOES exist, study it. They aim to 1) amplify psychic circuits, and 2) discuss metaphysics. Budd Hopkins talks from 8:20 to 10:30. Inside intruders: seven intedependent witnesses to Hudson New Jersey UFO and aliens. MISSING TIME idea CAME to HIM. MANY "disappeared pregnancy" mothers SHOWN HYBRID child after 2-3 years. Worked with over 180 abductee people. Low self-esteem from "demeaning" experiences in which they have sexual distrust and unease. Same DISTRUST of people as RAPE victims have. "No QUESTION that they're NOT LYING." Pattern: 1) Person abducted as a child, about one year old. 2) Person re-abducted and probed UP NOSE, extracting or implanting 2 mm ball with wires: a) Visual hookup or b) Controlling device? 3) Adolescent's "give" ova/sperm; five year old girl's abdomen and vagina probed. Later, INCEST touches all buttons early. "They control/have all the cards/give cover story." They communicate telepathically. "They're NOT kind; they're NOT mean; just BLANK." Cases from Westchester, Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, even Manhattan. "Up to tape 490, 90-minute tapes." Earliest 1929, many through the '30s. They MAY be automaton -LIKE, lot's of reports. SOME sound like OBE's, but they're NOT. "We interrupt this dream---" Government OFTEN uses COVERUP and MISINFORMATION to MISDIRECT news of importance (e.g. date of D-Day). "Most of the time it runs through GENERATIONS. December 1987 and January 1988 Gulf Breeze and Pensacola Florida photos of UFOs on tape.
4/25/88: ART AND MYTHOLOGY lectures four Monday evenings in April: #1: April 4: 7:35 (I forgot it started at 7!) to 8PM only! Dim Sum means "with a touch of heart." Four aspects of soul: mental, feeling, emotion, and intuition. He's a POOR reader of text, and his final "I've asked questions, have you any answers?" was a REAL turnoff, James B. Spann. #2: April 11: Starts at 7:07: Arab first heaven is turquoise. Mecca to Jerusalem on Buraq, woman-faced horse: "the best features of each creature." Mohammed always in GREEN, sacred color to Moslems. Half-fire, half-snow Heaven #2: white pearl with a white angel. Heaven #3: Red hyacinth. Heaven #6 of pearl. Emerald tree is source of Nile and Euphrates. Heaven #7: Sphere of light/fire. God first said pray 5000 times a day, then 500 times, then 50 times, finally allowing FIVE times.
Time = great white cock. Dante was in physician's guild in Forence in 1295, using books from Bagdad. Miraj-Nama, in Latin in Vatican and in Paris, done in 1200. Miraj = Heaven, hell, and paradise, but REVERSES from Dante. Visually BACKWARD. Bowl shows apotheosis of Alexander the Great. In Shad-Namah, he's carried aloft on two peacocks. Cloisonn$e on bracket of Palermo Cathedral (not illustrated in my guidebook). Sunday = Sun Day, Monday = Moon Day, Tuesday for Mars, Wednesday for Mercury, Thursday for Jupiter, Friday for Venus, Saturday for Saturn. Giotto shows St. John going into Paradise. 1001 Nights from Hansa of Nizami; Miraj-Nama read by its writer. NO connection with Virgin Mary's assumption. Islamic art only NONFIGURATIVE in areas of RELIGION. Hadith (sayings of Mohammed) is the SECOND (to Koran as first) book in Islam. Mohammed DEPICTED in REVERSING of iconographic destruction/construction. PRESENT-DAY orthodox CAN'T LOOK at representations of Mohammed. Levels are similar in HINDU heaven. Abraham, Moses, Christ and Mohammed are the FOUR prophets of Islam. The lady next to me and I agree that Virgil Bird is slow and boring and possibly drunk. SESSION #3: April 18: Janice Klein is MUCH better, and Ann and I enjoy her a lot. 540AD document of a 500AD battle at Mt. Baden tells of Anglo-Saxons stopped. Arthur not mentioned before 900-1000AD annals. Arthurius was a Roman family name. KIDS names after him Geoffrey of Monmouth made him famous, mentioning Uther Pendragon. Mabinogian "invents" Merlin and dates only to the 13th Century. No ARCHEOLOGICAL evidence of Arthur. Tintagel (pronounced "Tin-Tagile") has Celtic monastery. South Cadbury excavation INDICATED Tristan. Briton tower in Glastonbury is St. Michael's Mount. Briton changed to England LATER than that. Angles and Saxons in 900AD. "Either you believe it or you don't." Rosemary Sutcliffe's "Sword at Sunset," historically pretty good. Arthurian "code of ethics" is FRENCH. There is no evidence of MAGIC. Parsifal is MUCH later, literarily. Round table dates only from 12th Century. Hilltop forts had only DISTANT water supplies. I note my memory of $75 tasting menu from Adrienne: Mushroom truffle soup, lobster linguini, sea bass, chicken, rack of lamb, and three desserts: apple tart, chocolate praline, and strawberries in lime. SESSION #4: April 25: Mount Sumeru is center of world. Kunlun = Sumeru. In 150BC Djong-Djin (as the wonderful Edwin Bernbaum says it, which rings no bell with the transliterated "Hsu%an-tsang" of "Journey to the West" edited by Yu) goes west. Hesse's "Journey to the East" also goes along the silk road. Dun-Huang caves are the LARGEST. Kotcho MAY have been Shambala; they "bury up high" but he doesn't recognize any title to give me for my "Chinese family up mountain, father strides off top into clouds" memory. Mustag-Ata was supposed to have had a paradise on top. Ali (Mohammed's son-in-law and founder of the Shiites) went to the top to paradise. He speaks highly of Sven Hedin's writings. K-2 so named because it's so removed from civilization that it has NO LOCAL NAME. Use of the Silk Road STOPPED in the Han Dynasty, about 1400AD, because it was more easily replaced by SEA ROUTES. Turfan is noted for raising grapes and watermelon. OIL reserves GREATER than those under Saudi Arabia have been found around Urumchi, which has grown to a metropolis of around a million people! This is the first talk past 8:30: he stopped talk at 8:15 and took questions until 8:45. Something confusing: later in my notes I said that HE said that "Schwen-Song" was the name of the monk who traveled to the West with Monkey and Pig-Man, and THAT would be a reasonable pronunciation for the book-spelling of "Hsu%an-tsang".
4/29/88: AGAIN things seem to be changing: got an Indexing Handbook "No" from Prentice-Hall, a short-story refusal from New Yorker, and the Omni issue for May which tells me that I had THREE letters wrong in the November crossword puzzle which was won by 26 people all with the right answer---I'm getting the idea that I'm NOT particularly special in intelligence or talent---even Robin in the Games group is better at games than I am. Is that what maturity is? Realizing that you're NOT special? Is that what makes death acceptable? Knowing that my talents are thoughts aren't particularly noteworthy or preservation-worthy? I manage to get out to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden BEFORE the cherry esplanade and azalea bloom this year, but I'm STILL irritable and depressed through the day. The "DeMilles" index is lousy: Sherryl jokes that I haven't learned my own indexing lesson NOT to take biographies. And I wake this morning with the "revolutionary" thought to get cereal so that I can have BREAKFAST cereal here, LUNCH out, and SUPPER soup of small quantity so that my heaviest meal will not be just before bedtime. That goes with the hope to use the SWIMMING POOL at the gym for exercise that will more benefit my shoulder and body than the Nautilus and Universal machinery I've used solely so far. Then get back to PIGEON complaint: Ms. Robertson called at beginning of February, I got complaint ID # 3D041007 from Bureau of Central Complaints at 280 Broadway on 2/17; I phoned 212-566-5216 3/7 they said later; I phoned 3/22 they said he'll be coming to inspect, we're backlogged; I phoned 4/29 and they gave me INSPECTOR'S number: 212-334-7761; they told me to call "Animal Affairs" then the Commissioner on Complaints at 566-0219, then the Inspector General at 581(6?)-4870 or 581(6?)-8175, but then she said Mr. Smallowitz would call back. HE gave me the Director of Animal Affairs Martin Kurtz at 334-7774, at which number I could also reach the Senior Sanitarian Dr. Howard Levin or the Field Representative Fred Amafar (or Arafar), OR I should call my Community Board and complain for the BEST turnaround: in 10 working days, and in Brooklyn Heights I should call Sal Franco at the Fort Greene Health Department, in charge of my place, at 643-8934, who told me that 643-3767 was Franco's number, who told me that HE will register complaint at 125 Worth Street, he's only HEALTH CLINICS. WHEW! At least I'm trying SOMETHING! Then call Mrs. Robertson at Mrs. Johnson's, and she's been there only since last night! Great timing!
4/30/88: I wake thinking of society: we've taken over our OWN policing, fund- raising for culture and art and even medicine, so why not take over MEDICAL research by STUDYING "Tetracycline treatment of rheumatoid arthritis as an infection" and SURVEYING to find out what CAUSES "Spontaneous" remissions!!
5/11/88: Many influences (Dennis has AIDS 5/5/88; 747 crash-film on TV 5/8/88) depress me, and I start worrying again about flight. But QE2 is $4200 round trip, and I CAN'T see spending 18 days on a freighter when I decide 5/10 that I want to see 8 capitals: Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, Sofia, and Istanbul in something very like the same 18 days. Then I read Hegel's Phenomonology of Mind late last night (p.748-9): "[The best self-consciousness} is the return of everything universal into certainty of self...a complete loss of fear of everything strange and alien (and I note: Oh WOULD that it BE), and complete loss of substantial reality on the part of what is alien and external (and I note: As travel-destinations WERE losing in MY thoughts just BEFORE reading these words at 1:40AM 5/11/88!!). Such certainty is a state of spiritual good health and of self-abandonment thereto, on the part of consciousness, in a way that, outside this kind of comedy, is not to be found anywhere." (And I note YES, IT WOULD BE). I was thinking of the MANY cities in which I stopped, alone, thinking I was afraid and unknowing, but as I got to KNOW the town around my hotel I felt more comfortable and then wanted to move ON. But towns are SO alike, and I ENJOY the city of New York so much (but I quickly try to squelch the thought of phoning Jean-Jacques and giving HIM the tickets to Bayreuth: I HAVE been looking forward to them, I DO want to see the performances, I DO want to see these other capitals, so I might as well start on THEM, and I phoned International Weekends in Boston and found a GOOD connection on August 3 - 18 to the capitals FROM GERMANY, so I phoned Pope to ask him to verify the dates as being good for travel, gave the news to Dennis (who might even consider coming along with me), and left work with Spartacus, and got excited about it, leaving the computer until I HAD to get to the gym at 3:30, so I'm just able to get to the bottom of the page: the uppermost emotion now is ENTHUSIASM, even Dennis's folks will be happy: "We haven't gotten cards from strange places from Bob lately, is anything wrong?" Not any more, I hope!
5/13/88 (notes transcribed 6/17: five weeks!): ASI twentieth anniversary meeting at Sheraton Center. There are about 13 people in each of the 14 rows. Jane Maddocks keeps talking of MACREX as complex and GOOD. Sydney Cohen has six "elves" in-house and twelve "on call." IPS sold about FIFTY IBM systems at $300, so the price will drop to $200 each.
HANS WELLISCH: Current bibliography is MUCH more stringent, far fewer foreign items. Widely-scattered sources means indexing's not recognized as a science, or even as a CRAFT. Byte, July 1987: five rules for indexing by "Fountain"- article author. LISA lags two YEARS behind articles, and has misprints. He describes British, US, Russian, and French clipping services. Most themes:
1) I indexed XYZ on ABC with DEF program, and 2) I, new indexer, found how to index symbols, and 3) Articles trying to make field scientific: linguistics, psychology, statistics, history. Salton and Don Swanson (1988) in JASIS has summary of thirty years. And 4) Automatic Indexing (AI1) and Artificial Intelligence (AI2): Lone/Low 1959 article on AI as KWIC! He gives a formula that the number of AI applications equals 1/(number of authors times the square of the number of publications) times K, an unknown constant, in Chinese. There is large ignorance of 1) current literature: only repeats and rehashes. And 2) everyone thinks that machines will take care of it. Information is created BY humans FOR humans BY language---ALL of which is unpredictable. Cheap and quick desk-top indexing programs drive out GOOD indexes. Machines recognize SYMBOLS; humans recognize MEANINGS.
DOROTHY THOMAS: ASI is mostly freelancers who index up to 50 indexes per year, parttime indexers, teachers, and publishers. "1982: Advent of the word processors." Subject access system = index. We need a "reference publication" ASIS will publish a thesaurus of terms including indexing terms. "ASI needs a self-generated glossary/thesaurus, including Wilson Award criteria." Principles: 1) Needs of users must be served, 2) Index REFLECTS text (no adds or deletes), 3) Alphabetization ACCURATE, 4) Information moves from the GENERAL to the SPECIFIC, 5) Significant items in TEXT must be in INDEX, 6) Cross-refer- ences necessary for old to current names, 7) Page-lists limited to FOUR, 8) Leading prepositions avoided completely. I question using term for us as INDEX WRITERS, which is inventive and creative, versus index COMPILERS, which is extracting and distilling. She answers that we PREFER to be called WRITERS. The Chicago Manual of Style is the "Bible" but it is NOT A GUIDE.
LINDA FETTERS: 75% of indexers in ASI use computers. OVER HALF submit indexes on MODEMS (I don't really BELIEVE this!) ASI will issue Maddocks markup writeups. Programs available: A. Indexer-controlled group: 1) Stand-alone: at least 11 for PC including IPS, Macrex, Compugramma, etc. 2) Embedded in machine-readable text---these are publisher-oriented systems in which you mark text-files, interleafing techincal, publishing, and systems indexes. 3) Hypertext, files versus other files, like Apple Hypercard, IBM Guide, full-text documents connected by PATHS; buttons embedded in files to get to next document. B. Software-controlled group: 1) Database Text retrieval: machine-readable files using Boolean search for words and phrases, some like word-processing global search---these need NO preparation of document. 2) Automatic indexing of machine files, some of which allow cut and paste AMONG files, writeup in December 1987 Database Review. 3) Expert systems, addressed in PM by BRENNER. These reduce time 30-50%. The last two areas are in the process of being merged.
JESSICA MILSTEAD: Database design. When to USE database programs. Database: Store of data of selected topics. Library-book file + borrower file = date due /book out/borrowers' books files. Newspaper file: photo of Bush and Oliver North? Databases "a lot of work." RECORD is information about item (article, story, etc). FILE is set of records; FIELD is topic. 1) HIERARCHICAL system (tree-like): one record has all the information. 2) RELATIONAL system (table- like): items connected by accession number "A lot more work to set up." Subject accessible by author or title: a) Paradox system, b) Crocite, c) Inmagic, d) Authex (Canadian), e) Newsdex. 3) NETWORK system (tree+table) has no significant PC programs. Formatted fields CODIFY: 1 ch.num, 3 ch.alpha,etc.
BARBARA PRESCHEL: Quite a few hundred CD Roms (first in 1985-1986) and thousands of databases, and the majority of ASI members deal with BOTH, she says. NOT including full-text searching. 1) PRINT index which is browseable contextually and locally: the text is NEAR. 2) ELECTRONIC on-line index browseable through a) thesaurus (example: Families, see also Black families, and b) truncation (example: famil will also give you familiar): the text is ABSENT. Here, the set retrieved may be too LARGE. One hopes that the USER establishes port-coordinated terms. 3) Archival CD Rom WILL include index AND text: it's self-contained and limited. The indexer-set already has pre-coordinated heads and subheads. Index terms HOSPITABLE if NEW terms are easily added. On-line databases are COPIED to archival CD Roms.
THOMAS KEMP: President gets LOTS of mail. 670 ballots out, 220 back, Hugh Maddocks now on board. Do we want CWO (Congress of Writers' Organizations) benefits? Software share, through Hugh, of seven diskettes for $20.
WILSON AWARD: Institute of Wildlife Book "Raptor Management Techniques Manual" indexed by Jeanne C. Moody, who charged about $900 for 3200 author lines and 2500 subject lines for a total of 5700 lines, less than 20 cents per line!!!
EVERETT BRENNER: Vocabulary control. Uniterm tried FREER use. Thesaurus controlled synonyms and relationships. "Truncation" and "neighboring" don't save thesauri. Thesaurus maintenance is EXPENSIVE. The AIM is to use NATURAL language in full-text computers. American Petroleum Industry (?)(API) has expert system to post abstract terms to thesauri. 70% of indexing is ROTE, only 30% is INTELLIGENT. "Information Access Systems" is expert system from Boulder. Thesaurus: Alphabetical terms, related, broader, narrower,&see alsos.
JIM ANDERSON: CLASSIFICATIONS = RELATIONAL INDEXES. Alpha indexing versus hierarchical classifications. File organization and file display. Generic posting has broader terms and narrower terms. NEPHIS = Nested Phrase Indexing System, coming in "The Indexer." ALA order: Person, place, thing, then titles.
W. BRUCE CROFT: AI1: "Look at MEANING of text through statistical occurrence of words." Two chains are compared: 1) Information: the problem, its representation, a query, and 2) the document, its representation, indexed documents. The process: 1) identify words, 2) remove "stop" words, 3) group words with same stem, 4) change words to numbers, 5) count number of numbers, 6) use synonym thesaurus to conflate stems, 7) weight terms (in this document versus in ALL documents). "Automatic construction of thesaurus/knowledge base is hard, maybe impossible." Simple Automatic Indexing is equivalent to manual indexing with controlled vocabulary. It's a domain-free method. Result 1: Use ALL methods of indexing. Result 2: MODELS, either vector-space or probabalistic or cluster analysis. These are AS good, but all get DIFFERENT documents. SAME as manual compared with AI methods.
LARRY MEYER: lunch; he's in CHARGE of Donna. He does cards for 100 pages in 3 hours, NOT marking the book! He writes cards in three passes, for chapters, for headings, and text. MANY subentries on ONE card and alpha by numbering.
TEFKO SARACEVIC: Relevance for index USERS: Three newest JASIS articles. Different people ask SAME question. Study results show POOR retrieval of query answers. BEST retrieval is by multiple selections. Inter-index consistency gives SAME KIND of result: agreement hardly ever more than 25-30%. BZ: All the HARD sciences sound like bullshit. Have we left out the idea of UNDERSTANDING?
BEN AMI LIPETZ: Usefulness of indexes. He's a founding member of ASI. NO index is EXHAUSTIVE; it must be useful to A person at A time. FEW U.S. book reviewers EVER mention indexes. Only three mentions of any index in ALL reviews in New York Times in 12 months. R&D Press in California DID cumindexes of fields, but "R fell out with D" and the business stopped. "Indexing is far from an exact science."
BOB ZOLNERZAK: Was glad to re-meet Larry Meyer, re-see Linda Fetters (who later sent letter saying I can't copy her FORMAT), talk with Foxon-Maddocks (though brunch was better the next day), and Dorothy Thomas is ALWAYS friendly, but it didn't really seem to address anything about MY interest in indexing at ALL!!
5/15/88: Talk to Dennis after his 5/4/88 re-diagnosis of AIDS: he thinks it might NOT be AIDS because 1) Doctor said "It's KS" from 3-5 feet away. 2) "I don't feel sick. I don't feel stress." 3) MOTHER has awful immune system. 4) "I don't had AIDS. I'm positive and my body is flirting with it. I'm anemic ANYWAY. He MIGHT have AIDS 1) IF he has KS, even with a NEGATIVE antibody test he would have AIDS since he's NOT a Mediterranean man over the age of 65. And he's tested positive TWICE since his first negative test. 2) His helper T-cells are below the normal level of 800-1000. DS has 406. Danger point is said to be 200, but his friend has a level of 39 and is still lively, at Fire Island on AZT, but he has AST-induced anemia and is about to have his fourth blood transfusion. He's taking Bactrim, which like Pentamidine is prescribed for T-cells between 200-250, but he's "starting early" just to be sure. Obviously this is not the final word on his condition and there's more later.
5/16/88: Lemme reports that I have "arthritis (including an arthritic cyst) in right shoulder" and "early degenerative chcanges in left." He recommends exercise, particularly for range of motion, and two aspirin every four hours.
5/20/88: In desperation I call Mitch Rose about my book. He says the University of Chicago Press wants "one-index indexers" quick-and-dirty handbook. There's a convention in Anaheim next week for the American Booksellers Association, he'll probably see them THERE. Also, he'll return his "Bayreuth" annotations to me (yet by 6/18/88 I haven't gotten them).
6/14/88: YOKAR. Future USPA meetings: September: African "Father of Mysteries" Mr. Ipega. October: Jim Murray: electronic resonance MOTOR. November: Duncan Laurie on Psychotronics and Art. December: Membership meeting&Egypt'sPyramids.
8PM: MICHAEL MORGAN: Yokar reports from spiritworld (= Science's Hyperspace). BZ: I've seen 1) Seth, 2) Shelah, 3) Raphael, 4) Yokar LIVE and 5)taped Ramtha. All (?) don't RECALL what they say in trance. MM: has a BS and an MS degree, was in the Air Force, computers, telekinetic family, Rosecrucians for astral projection, clairvoyant. Yokar: Spiritworld is non-space and non-time. If you HEAR what you're channeling, you might interact to change the INFORMATION coming through. He'll be able to "hear" when he can handle the data better. His own system is disrupted: the "foreign" enters. What he says has THE VALUE THAT YOU PUT ON ITS USE. Channelling COULD be controlled inspiration. AHA-inspiration IS an altered state of consciousness. Spirit-language is SHAPE and FORM, very COMPLEX, like a hologram. Spiritworld is in LIQUID form. City and its machines obstruct and deform spiritual energies. Coffee, alcohol, spices, and strong substances disrupt energies. Problem: body must meet the spirit halfway. Yokar has HIGH vibrational rate---swimming through peanut butter when he comes down to us. WE are alone, in agony, SCREAMING, and against contact. Bioplasmic field (=aura) is extended in communication. Yokar's viewpoint is spherical: all sides simultaneously. MM increases his vibrational rate, by exercise. MM trained to draw information from three books at once. Primary forces understood as essences, god-energy.
QUESTIONS: All depends on vibration-shifts---vibration of WHAT? Changes Density, density in TERMS of what? If no past/future, how does Yokar keep track of "known-shape" versus "unknown-yet-in-time" shape?
Data is designed to expand your mind. Current theories of ENERGY are not SUPPORTIVE. Energy can APPEAR to be created and destroyed. Atomic radiation is STIMULATED matter that won't DIE. 1) His waste processor is "sound operating at right frequencies to recombine chemicals to inertness." Cost is BEST for rare-earth dissociation. Milliwatts of SOUND energy can dissociate MUCH more effectively than LIGHT. Produces PHONONS by firing lasers into quartz. Must be 1015 hertz, highest power now is 1013 hertz. "As harmonics build, it moves from acoustic resonance to quantum resonance, not violating Karnoff laws (Carnot cycle?)" Must move phonons from SHORT distances.
2) "Cycle-ion generation" looks like facing Van de Graaf generators in which rotation air produces electricity. "Create Lorentzian reaction by electrostatics. Unionized air molecules." Nitrogen? Oxygen? Tesla---from Sci Am: earth-energy and tertiary coils. 3) Cure of Alzheimer's "breaks protien (sic) walls around neural areas for chelation. Alzheimers created by breathing aluminum ions. Body will store metals in body by magnetism. Immune system causes metals to cross blood-brain barrier to store metals in neural areas that are walled off by immune system. These are chelated and "dead tissue is excreted by body." Ultrasonic force can chelate protein bonds, heated to 98.6 degree orange juice (fresh-squeezed) chelates. Alzheimer institute used sonicators to break up chains for Petrie solutions. 4) Vortexial harmonizer to relieve stress vortices of energy which attract or repel other energies. Gold/silver/platinum cylinders contain tuning damped to "unwind tension kinks" in body. 4) Diamagnetic platform by rotating disks to create air forces, like on frisbees, to create lift due to low pressures on top. Earth's magnetic field will try to PENETRATE diamagnetic field; but it can't, so it floats, as Atlantean aircrafted used. Break from 9:25 to 9:55, when he goes into trance, nodding down by 10:04PM. "Good evening, I'm Yokar. Technology created quite a time (?) for me on this planet. I am also a priest. Knowledge for knowledge's sake is here again. Technology is pursuit of the ego, separating yourself from the higher, who is better at technology than anyone else is. Not much PLEASURE here----you're DESIGNED for it. There are many levels on which you operate ON. You think nuclear destruction will fracture or dissolve your crystal. You are like the noisy neighbor next door---so you go next door to have a chat. You are dealing with linearized energy---moving it, with little returning. NOW you deal in "boomerang" energies---what you get back will not be pleasant. Your planet is growing into a new form---with or without you---dragging your feet. You resist change, we are here to help you clean up your act---lance the boil on the rump of the universe. You are no jewel. Use technology to expand your consciousness, your compassion and love. You are children, building bigger toys to hurt more. You have it turned around: what you don't see does not exist; what you see is permanent. That's backward. As a child, life was a moment; you didn't count days; you had fun. Life is self-responsibility, not self-limiting. Your culture is like a bad dream. Technology steals your freedom to feel your own power. Television was meant to be a tool to teach you shapes. We have to steer clear of you; you are like a drowning person swinging his arms. It is forbidden to give direct knowledge; you must experience it for yourself. Technology takes away your birthright of wisdom (his posture and accent are consistent). Negative technology is self-limited. Enlightenment will succeed darkness, ring pass not. All will be one. Q&A: The heart distinguises good and evil. Radionics amplifies your own energy. Earth-axis tilt is a possibility. Knowledge is like peanut butter in your mouth: you must deal with it. I ask about interface about Yokar and MM and brain and mind: MM is HOST to Yokar's consciousness. Mind and body are SYMBIOTIC. Look to yourself for the adult AND the child as the adult simultaneously. Mother/daughter/father/son. Bermuda triangle is a HOLE, an out-of-order navigational crystal device. It opens pathways. When underground river waters, that have been running, stop, it is only weeks to a large California earthquake. Lakes will change. Lake Tahoe will have a suddenly lower level. Pat Pavia tells Michael that his aura expanded dramatically when he "received" Yokar; MM seemed sceptical. Talked with his wife, Diana, who said he'd been "professional" since September. Maya said she might come along on Tuesday, to 265 W. 72nd Street, the World Yoga Center, at 8:30PM, or call 724-3614. It will be a question-and-answer session. His channeling went to 11:15, when she felt that his body was getting too hot and he had to come out of it, though usually the sessions last over an hour and a half. I thought it was interesting enough to tell Vicki that John might be interested in it, and we'll be going (2 or 3 of us) together on Tuesday.
6/17/88: I finally call Mitch Rose: he says "No word from Chicago. Editing staff was NOT at the American Booksellers Association convention; only the Marketing people that he didn't talk to." He'll get back when he gets any news.
6/20/88: NOTE from 6/5/88 at Metropolitan Museum "Hermitage Paintings" exhibit: Piskijker as quack looking at an amber-filled flask, with a sign that demurely notes "Kijker" is "Looker." Looking at the Breughel oils on copper, when a daughter raves about the details, the father says "That's art." I say (silently), "No, that's CRAFT."
6/20/88: NOTE from 6/8/88 from Dr. Chin: For rheumatic arthritis: no ointments, no specific acupuncture ("But it can't HURT"), heat helps (warm water good), and aspirin either one three times a day or try just one in AM. He gives me a prescription for Buspar for anti-anxiety for three times a day for a week before the trip. He says to ignore the frequent slightly moist cough.
6/20/88: NOTE from 6/8/88 NY ASI meeting of 22 people, with Betty Jane Third talking about Filing Problems. "Filing = Alphabetizing before 1980." ASCII II orders blank, symbols, 0-9, symbols, A-Z, a-z, symbols. Computer sort could be called a dictionary sort or an ASCII sort, putting Washington, D.C. before Washington, George, rather than the "accepted order of persons, places, things, TITLES. ALA, Wilson, NY Times, PAIS all go with word-by-word. Dictionary and some encyclopedias go letter-by-letter. She SAYS that word-by-word REQUIRES cross-references like Water glass, see Waterglass(!). Hyphen is read as space. Chances of having only one sequence is slim. Chicago's Manual of Style rules are inadequate and dated. Wilson program CODES names = 01 so they come before places = 02. ALA files by MEANING, putting Cookery, Chinese before Cookery (apples) before Cookery as anything. Apostrophes IGNORED. Sir and Lord IGNORED. LC and ALA and telephone books separate out M', Mac, and Mc. ONLY Chicago says that they should be MIXED as MAC. LC and ALA recommend numbers before letters; that $20 ignores the $; that Roman XX filed as Twenty while Chicago says they should be spelled out. LC says "Greek letter pi" is alphabetized as Pi and "infinity sign" is alphabetized as Infinity. ALA says that pi and infinity FOLLOW AFTER the Z's. Saunders ALPHABETIZES sub-entry prepositions.
6/20/88: NOTE from 6/12/88 Flemington NJ Roseanne Healing Circle of 20 of us, 8M and 12 W. Cute Greg started ARK, but his wife is Noelle, the hostess. Don is the guitarist and Jim wears a red shirt, and the much-touted Jim Anderson is the dyed-haired fatty who turns out to give me his card as a computer specialist. We're there just after the 10AM gathering time, but it starts at 11 when we're STILL not all there. First we "gather all threads home," then we're told that healing is a constant flow of miracles that take us back to our source. BZ: Life is an excitement between two tranquilities: the tranquillity of the past, the tranquillity of death. If you don't USE healing energies, they atrophy. Q: What do I remember of healing moments? In highest part of me. Thought first of stopping coughing in concerts, but before THAT I dismissed the idea of saying "I won't be allergenic today" because I didn't have the TRUST that it'd work in this group and I'd make a fool of myself before the group. I don't want to make a mistake---take something AS mine that's not INTENDED for me: a mis-take. Mis-takes of love the saddest: it is a lack: a lack of love being communicated. But I get too tied to WORDS; come from the HEART, from FEELINGS, to communicate above, below, and AROUND words. Like memory, communication is STATE-SPECIFIC: heart-to-heart. Don's Bach went straight to my HEAD---MUSIC is state-specific----another way of saying "on the same wavelength." Center. Speak FROM healing center to YOURSELF. "I am your healing center...This afternoon gives new meaning to the idea "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Vicki & John mad at each other; me mad totally!
6/20/88: NOTE from 6/17/88: from "Ring of Fire": Lorne's Dream:
It's true!
I dreamt I was in a massive tree that stretched from coast to coast of Borneo.
One tree!
In it, all around me, were creatures I should have been afraid of,
and others that should have been afraid of me;
But I saw myself in each of them,
And all of them were parts of me.
6/21/88: YOKAR #2: 24 of us plus Michael and Diane, me knowing Maya and Dr. Ray Brown and Vicki and Elaine Claudio and her mother. We gather in chairs and talk of the heat and he goes into trance about 9:05PM: To A: What you need to change is your NEED for change. To B: Don't spread youself too thin. If you're too extended, you won't feel yourself. To C: TASK: Gather ALL your friends about you and you say to them, for ONE HOUR, ONLY good things about yourself. D: IDIOT-laugher in front row puts me off. To E: You must trust yourself. To F: When a person is DESPERATE, then there may be CHANGE. To G: TASK: Place three candles in a triangle, place three mirrors so that they produce an INFINITE FIELD in reflection, and meditate on that. To H: 72,000 energy points in crystalline form of the spirit. To J: Forming "light body" in abdomen/heart/brow was done by priests in pyramid to communicate with "other cultures." To K: This is a pathway toward world-SERVICE, culminating in ringing of 144,000 bells. The essence of your being will become compassion; in this process, BEWARE your intelligence. To L: You will NOT enjoy prospect of giving up your mind. You will be COMPLETELY comsumed. BZ: HE SURE PUTS LOTS OF PRESSURE ON! To M: To have full control, you must give up control. TO N: You have a crystal to amplify your forces because you are afraid of using YOURSELF as your OWN transmitter. To heal means to be a WINDOW to all energy. If your WINDOW is not clean, there may be dissonance and you may be INJURED. TASK: Visualize the WORST cancer; come to GRIPS with it; then HEAL. To P: Let go your mother, you are trying to preserve her---she should not live beyond her time. ALLOW her to relinquish what has bound her to illusion (I think he's taking a BIG chance here; Vicki says he's saying exactly the right things). Her status has been an obstacle to her spiritual work. Her desire for others to preserve her is bad for her. Allow her to be uncomfortable. She hides her own strength by using the strengths of others. TASK: Observe your mother as a baglady. To two people: Don't use "Herkimer" (crystals from Herkimer County in ---NY?)---there's too much onconsciousness in the use of this tool. He goes to 10:58 in trance. Diane: What I know from Ramtha is... (which I note down as an indication of my disagreement with Ramtha, and therefore my disagreement with Yokar. I characterized the meeting at Psychotronics as more active, less personal, and Maya said she was disappointed with this session, though she'd tuned in ahead of time to find out that her attendance was OK. I said that I didn't figure I'd be going back, even though I was impressed with my first session with him, and noted that VICKI was very impressed in HER first session, so she's willing to see him again in the group. I wasn't interested in the personal-help stuff; if I wanted to handle personal stuff, I'd get a private session, rather than getting pieces from a group session. I kept thinking the guy talking about his mother was thinking as I do: If she spends all her money I will have to support her the rest of her life, so I would want to stop her from spending everything. Mentioned this to Vicki and she implied that maybe I should have been listening for my OWN case, since she seemed to think that he covered many people's cases all at once. Maya probably won't be going back, neither will I, but I'll be interested to hear Vicki's opinions. The next session is on Bloodline Incarnation, which didn't ring any bells for me. The World Yoga Center had a few cute guys attending (the guy with the mother problem being the cutest), a noisy air conditioner that Yokar didn't like, and poor acoustics that had us straining to hear what was said. Interesting;NoMore.
7/2/88: 11:25PM: One of those evenings which are not merely wonderful, but are supernal, incredible, fantastic! With Sherryl and Alice and Dennis to see Barbara Lea at Jan Wallman's, and the feeling of the club is of a Sanctum: only those who know are here; only those who can appreciate it are called to appreciate it. Her set of is Kurt Weill songs that it seems no one has heard before, and even Wes MacAfee is transfigured by his interest in the completion of Barbara's set. Marilyn is across the way talking with a friend from Ohio. Someone in a red-and-white vertical-striped dress who looks like a refugee from a Fellini movie is sitting across form Dick Sudhalter, he of the fleshy lips and sexy torso that begs for a homosexual embrance, but supposedly he's straight. Others across the way look as if they'd become your lover at the drop of a breadknife, which Sherryl does and is replaced by a smiling waiter who said that she has a limit of two. I get a dessert of a boat of pineapple with skewers of strawberry and kiwi with which I order a Cointreau to top off the topping. The songs are wonderful, the audience is wonderful, and we (is this anything like "Cabaret"?) are wonderful. We taxi home, Alice giving me $3, Sherryl giving me $3, and Dennis giving me 25 cents for the rest of the taxi tip of $10.25, then 5 cents so that I don't have to give three dimes to the attendant for the $1.25 Sunday Times, then $2 for his share of the ride, so I've taken in $8.30 for the $10.25 ride, so my share is obviously only $1.95! Then we pass Jack Herbert on the street, and Dennis is too shy to say anything, but HE says "Jack," and I realize that THAT is his name, so I call out "Jack" and he turns and recognizes DENNIS, and he introduces us to Wynn, and we chat about giving food to the homeless, and JACK turns over a HUGE piece of BROWNIE to me, which Dennis doesn't want any of, and I come home with the Times to piss and sit down to type out this page in a frenzy of good-feeling. The peak of the experience was looking across the audience at Jan Wallman's, having enjoyed a delightful dinner of the Chicken Dorsey, almost curried, and a good Sloe Screw on the second time around (after it came back looking like lemonade, and I remarked that they must have been VERY light on the Sloe Gin), and a lot of the carafe of white wine for $11, of which I drink the majority, and then the wonderful songs of Barbara, and my look across the floor to think that THIS is the essence of New York: to be in a place that YOU have chosen, that everyone is enjoying it, and that almost half the people in the place know who the other half of the people in the place are, and THAT man over there might be cruising you, and THAT man over there would come over to your table and make obscene remarks about your terrible attractiveness if you only gave him half a chance, and that WONDERFUL things could happed in the next few moments, and ONLY because you know where this place was (and the VERY cute guy going on the elevator at the Iroquois when I went out to piss), and anything COULLD happen, which is such a delightful feeling that it almost makes up for the fact that nothing DOES happen except that I have a wonderful evening, and I must call Alice in the morning about dining at "Sign of the Dove," which she wants to eat at, and I have a wonderful piece of fudge waiting for me on the kitchen table where I threw it before pissing (there seems to be a lot of pissing in this piece!) and undressing so that I could type this page with some degree of ease, and I've got the Sunday Times waiting for me, and I've eaten a wonderful dinner, and I've had such an amount of booze that I'm swimming in good feelings, and Dennis is aware that Jack Herbert will probably call him tomorrow to chat with him, and and Marge's friend (who makes the dummies whose name I can't remember) has been invited up to Art Ostrin's cottage for the weekend, and they'll probably end up in bed, and I'm aware that my fingers are going all over the place, but I'm also on line 55, and my backspace is still working well, and I'll be able to type and backspace to the end of the page, hoping that I've managed to convey SOME of the magic of the evening and the bliss of the momentary feeling before turning off the machine after I've printed the page, and it HAS been a good day: what with indexing and doing the body-session on Marcia and getting the laundry and taking care of Spartacus's stuff, and END!
7/3/88: 1987 Top Grosses for Films, $Millions, and 1985 Top was Beverly Hills Cop, 1986 was Golden Child, and 1987 is Beverly Hills Cop II at $153!
2. Platoon (which got more in 1986) $130
3. Fatal Attractions ("still going strong") $129
4. Three Men and a Baby (last 40 days of 1987) $84
5. Untouchables $76, 6. Secret of My Success (Michael J Fox) $67, 7. Stakeout (Dreyfus) $65+, 8. Lethal Weapon $65, 9. Witches of Eastwick $63,10.Dragnet $57
7/19/88: 9:30AM and all is well; remarkable since I'll be leaving here about 2:30PM, only five hours from now! (Though at this very momeny my palms begin to SWEAT!!!) Sunday night was the worst yet: bed at 1AM, toss and take ANOTHER tranquillizer, then look at the clock at 2:30AM, again at 4AM, and up at 6, feeling VERY nervous. But working on trip-organization, map-sorting, and page- tearing makes it OK, and lunch with ECB is nerve-free, and the bank occupies me until after 3PM. Then last night I get to bed at 11PM, quite exhausted, and get RIGHT to sleep and wake at 6:15AM! Get up feeling GOOD, and get more things out of the way, including this, and I figure to be all packed neatly in time to take the train-to-the-plane at 2:30 to wait for the 5:30 flight.
EUROPE TWO-MONTH TRIP IN 1988, July 19 - August 29, 1988
TUESDAY, JULY 19: 4:50PM: As I showered I came up with couplet: "I love to fly/ I hate the plane," but then in the car it changed to "I love to fly/I hate to die." Everything clicked along after my AM notebook entry, but as I ate toward 1:30 and washed dishes and showered to 2:10, things fell behind and I recorded my phone message at 2:30, then phoned John and HE came over. Get all squared away---"It's HOT out there," he said. Leave just after 3PM and get downstairs and back up for sunglasses. To A train at 3:12 and DRIP! At 3:30 NO trains and I get up steps as cop says "No A & C service; fire at Canal Street, Train- to-Plane rerouted to F track and I need to get to Jay Street! Sweat to the NEAR car-service and it's $22 to JFK. Get van and cruise Henry Street at 3:40---I should BE there. Will I miss ANOTHER flight?? Up State, to slow Atlantic, good driver, and at 4 he says ride should be 45 minutes. Good time, drops of rain, and after "American West Airlines" mistaken for "American Airlines West Lobby," we go in a circle and I get in lobby at 4:20, just 40 minutes!! In to ticketing and security, then ACROSS OPEN LOBBY to X-rays (films handed around), and I walk to LAST (is it ALWAYS?) Gate 14. In at 4:40, with relief to find I STILL have 35A, and take another tranquillizer (#1 at 8 with breakfast, #2 at 1:30 with lunch, #3 at 4:45, building up). To seat in baby-cry waiting area and write this, ending at 5:01, a BIT tense but mostly OK, listening to fat blonde kid qvetching about flying. Thank God she's in row 22. Bag feels heavy NOW. WARM in waiting room, and baby in red fusses and yells. "Soon-to-board" announcement in English, then German. Here we go! 5:03. Read to boarding announcement at 5:12. On to a syncopated "vroom vroom" that I FEAR to ask about. Warm. Sky is HAZY but UNSTORMY. Plane seems not jammed and seat next to me is empty. Hopeful? Vrooms are conveyer belts packing luggage toward my side below me. NOODGY FLIGHT! Off at 6:07, sun sets at 7:37 but it's light til 8. I try to doze 8:45-9:30 after dinner, but up and work puzzle. Move watch six hours, thereby moving into another day without having slept at all.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20: Light about 5:30 over LIT cities and COAST and FOG-filled German valleys. Nerves shot. HUGE 4-deep Frankfurt airport, missed good photo. Over multi-suburbs, land at 6:27, a 6 hour 20 minute flight! Wait for plane to leave our gate. Plane docks at 6:37! Out to closed bank at 6:45, piss, wait for it to open and get 1.77 DM/$ for $100, and train to Berlin is 111DM, about $70---should have brought my CALCULATOR! Train to Berlin 8AM-4PM. Onto train 7:28 and take off at 8:35. Long hot tedious trip. White butterflies, TALL chimneys, sexy-jeaned smoker in hall of car, two guys talk in front of MY window. Dreary East Germany, passport checker says "Talk to official," I ask "WHAT official?" He says, "THAT'S the problem." SILLY of politicians to FUSS when ALL people want is a lake, a bed of flowers and a hut, the briefest possible bathing suit, and lots of days in the sun! Go to Information Office for Meineke Hotel, then to Railroad Information to find that West German Railways is open til 6, on Jebenstrasse, Visa is to left, in a white house. RR information tells me that 9-day pass is 260DM, 16-day pass is 355DM, that Frankfurt to Bayreuth is 68DM, Bayreuth to Munich is 60DM for 3.5 hours, Munich to border to Vienna is 31DM, so I total figures and get 361DM, making the 16-day pass possible. I try to follow the directress's pointing to Jebenstrasse, but there's no exit there, from that side. Go AROUND and find NOTHING. Back to Hardenbergstrasse and see DM sign and get information about the passes. Tken back to the Information Office to get told "East German visa takes four weeks." Do I believe him? He says to take S-Bahn to East Berlin for Czech visa, and gives 2.40DM (for 2 hour) and 9DM (for 24 hour) ticket information. See ZAPINSKI ECK and think it's good and get GREAT 26DM "dinner menu": tuna and apple salad with herring, chicken breast in curry, and tomatoes, and vanilla ice cream over preserved fruit; 6DM wine not so hot. Back at 8:20 to brush teeth and write this, tired, GETTING dark only at 9PM.
THURSDAY, JULY 21: 2:50AM: Wake at 12:45 and lay, then jerked off, now the idea of "Letting people ONLY do what's helpful" takes REAL root: Let there be OMBUD- SMEN who think this way: if what you're doing HELPS, keep doing it. If not,
STOP. Thus FREEDOM fighters can continue, but POWER brokers should STOP. If THEY can't decide, let the ombudsman decide. Gorbachev, is it useful to YOU to keep troops in Afghanistan---No? Then take them OUT. THAT's helpful. Reagan, is it HELPFUL for you to avoid talking about AIDS? No? Then LOOK into it! Khoumeni, is it HELPFUL to foment anti-EVERYONE feelings? Then STOP! Weapons makers, you are NOT HELPING the world. Bomb engineers, your jobs are NOT HELPFUL. Mass Unemployment? But there are so many things that NEED MANPOWER! Feeding the hungry, nursing the sick, researching the diseases, databasing the information, LOVING and EXPANDING! INDIVIDUALS need a NEW PRAGMATISM!! If it HELPS, continue; if NOT, then STOP! These East German-West German border guards, regulations, energies of exploitation. The PEOPLE are PEOPLE, just let them BE! What does the enormous energy devoted to apartheid actually GAIN? Nothing? Then STOP ALL THAT WASTED ENERGY!! What is ganed from pleasure, fun, joy? Pleasure, fun, and joy! Keep THAT UP---it's helpful to YOURSELF, and THAT'S the BEST help. To 3AM. NOW help ME to SLEEP?? 8:15AM Dream of Joe Easter constantly interrupting me and female director who's telling me how to retype my play for a student production. Also, two photos of two ships in a San Francisco display demonstrating various perspectives, versus a display of cat/kitten, dog/puppy, and Joe says, "Well, I have a cat." And a woman who owns a small hotel like Meineke who casts her eyes down when someone says, "With only one bathroom, you can easily clean 10 rooms in each day." Hotel is VERY quiet and clean. Good buffet for breakfast: cold cuts, cheese, lovely hard-like egg, breads, jam, "chocolate nut" spread, coffee, juices. Ask for sheet and say "stay two more nights." Out to Jebelstrasse and in and wander and ask doorman: "Ausgang 3." I have to see a travel agent! Out for day-ticket, no food, ask in Information Office and get to little side window! Two-hour starts THEN, 24-hour LATER. To Platz and ask BUS for U2. Under-ground to line 2 to Podbielstrasse at 10AM. Each station is "ethnographic," columns, photos, paintings. Graffiti on SEATS and some columns, not on car WOOD paneling. Easy out, new # (47, not 48) on STEPS, and QUICK retyping, I can pick it up tomorrow 9-3, costs 44 DM. Two day visa for three months. Out at 10:23 and JUST MISS train, to change at Fehrtulan for U7 for Charlottenburg, can't go to East Berlin TODAY since I have no PASSPORT. Out at 10:27! Have "Charlottenburg" in mind and next is Wilmersdorf! Ride on to Bissonstrasse and find S3 caught my eye at TRANSFER when I wanted U7 stop, Wilmersdorf! Get off and ride BACK one. No one seems interested in tickets, as in Paris. But no EXIT seems good and I RECHECK map and go other way AGAIN, TWO stops, to Richard Wagner Platz, at place marked U on map. AHA! [Find that I NEVER FILLED IN the middle here! My recollection now, on 10/21, EXACTLY three months ago, is that I asked directions to Egyptian, moved through it in total detail, buying lots of books, then went across to the Antiquities, again moving in detail, sorry that I hadn't brought camera and again buying books, then walked back to subway hoping to find place for lunch at about 4PM, but everything's closed. Stop for a beer, then back to hotel, out to wander Kudamm, dine in a Steakhouse where I argue endlessly about the size of a two hundred-milliliter glass, taking the argument into the hotel about 11PM and getting exhausted to bed.
FRIDAY, JULY 22: Wake and breakfast and decide to go to the FolksMuseum at Dahlem. [Now back to notebook]: 5:15PM 7/22: [Written so as not to forget] my stay at the Dahlem stop expanded from 10:15AM to 5PM! The museum "special" exhibit took five minutes, the rest would take five DAYS. There was Islamica and then Japanese, then sculpture and painting, then more painting and I'm thinking of leaving at 1 and find the Old Netherlands Masters, then wander into Africa, which turns into Oceania with ships and houses! Then old Middle America, then an incredible section on Turfan and Khotan! Then looked at a handsome Burma, and go into East Asian, and downstairs is Nepal and upstairs are enormous casts of walls from Angkor! Then I REALLY decide to do it and hit the "modern" in prints and drawings, then walk up another stairs and there, in the outermost precinct, is MONGOLIA, except that it leads to MODERN China and Japan. So I'm chased out as it closes and I monomaniacally head toward the Lehrtenhoff for the NEXT gallery that's open til 8PM on Friday, and get up to S-bahn for the first time and the Zoo station, and the S-3 alternates on same track to Wannsee and Friedrichstrasse, and I missed one and have to wait for 5:32, having taken a ROLL of slides and buy 3-4 books and lots of slides, STILL going with ONLY a beer for lunch, ALMOST to the "nerve frazzle" point. Stop this at 5:25. Fear for a moment we've CROSSED to East Berlin, but out and get directions to Hundmeyer (?) Banhof and it's a BARN filled with 1) cube sans corner, 2) felt/copper/steel piles, 3) white paint on metal, 3) palisaded five foot by seven foot squares, 4) beeswax house, 5) "Universe has 100 billion galaxies," 6) Two cylinders against a wall, 7) Two columns against each other, 8) rotating cassettes, 9) TV doubling, 10) stairway litter, 11) eight palms, change table, the border through windows, the wall twenty feet outside window; Cy Twonbley's junk, and I write "Shit in any language is still shit." in the book and sign Bob Zolnerzak from Brooklyn Heights. Out at 7 and ride #3 to Wannsee, but it's nothing, so BACK to Kudamm and try Skopje Restaurant and wait ONE hour and drink TWO 500 ml Weisenbeer and salad and WALK OUT. Others ORDERED and ATE and PAID and LEFT since I ordered. Waiter COMES as I leave and SAYS NOTHING. To McDonalds and walk out. To Kraut House and GOOD salty pork and principal (?) kraut and dunkel weisenbeer for 35DM OK. Shower and bed at 11:50! At top of page 13 I list what photographs I want: from Egypt: Nefertiti full-face eye-glint and first necklace (downstairs) and long limb (cock on statue). From Antiquities: TWO erotic j/o satyr plates. Take Caravaggio "Eros with Arrows (?)" and Gentileschi "David with Head of Goliath," and Botticelli "Mary and Child and Singing Angels(?)"
SATURDAY, JULY 23: Dream of restaurant fuss like last night, but too lazy to recall details. Lay from 7-8, SEEM to get sheet-understanding (not HARD "heisse" but HOT, "warrm") and out at 8:45 for East Berlin, hoping to get 8:53 train. Off at 9:05, get in line for WEST Berlin, another line, then to line #13 and get told line #1, short, only 9:12. Woman says I have to get a VISA-PERMIT mailed to me, and get the VISA when I get to the BORDER. Pay 5DM for visa and change 25DM to DDR DM (giving 40 and getting 15 in DM changed ALSO), and decide to WALK to Museum Insel, getting out of station at 9:23, though woman laughs that SHE gets walked through and I have MY bag searched! Little traffic and lots of ruined areas, and there seems to be an ARMY barracks along the river at museum-side. Bode is old building and open at 10. Then I find that ALL are open at 10, since 4/1/88. I enter open door and sit and write til 9:45. 3000BC iningod(?) at Pergamon, and Uruk/Antinuous/Mschotta tower from 700AD. Assurnasipal II's sarcophagus/Assur/857BC. Pergamon Museum 10-11:30, Bode 11:30-1, Alte Museum (for Modern Art) 1-1:30, National Gallery 1:30-2:30, no pictures allowed! Photos: Begas: Mercury and Psyche from 1878, Artur Volkmann: Sitting Man from 1904. Out at 2:30 and in HOT sun toward Alexanderplatz and start B C at A, under to D, over to C, under to D, under to C, FIND place and up to A D counter #3 at 2:55. Lots of people talking and waiting. Finally ask and she says to "wait," and handles Black couple, German trio, and French double, saying "No help" to Islamic-looking pair who want to use their student card in Socialist Countries as they did in Capitalist Countries. She says only Prague can help them: no discounts HERE. I sit at 3:10 and write, pages WET and pen DRY. BUT it CAN be done? At 3:15 she agrees she'll call a "middle-class" hotel in Dresden for night of 8/28! It's two hours to Dresden from border. At 3:20 she says I can wait. Read. At 3:40 I'm told reservation bureau is closed Saturday, return Monday---BUT US tourist says I can get HOTEL in Reissenburo in Frankfurt on Augsburgerstrasse on Monday in WEST Berlin. WHY didn't they tell me?? 4:30 onto tower line, 5:30 up, 5:40 to table. Photo #1: Karl Marx Allee, 2) DOWN to Alexanderplatz, 3) wall visible from INSIDE DDR, 4) ALL museum isle, Brandenburg gate, and tiergarden beyond (and maybe my own reflection?), 5) Angled shot that SURELY has me, 6) White train passing LONG train, 7) VolksTheatre--nicht Deutscher Oper. Out at 6:40, one whole revolution, and I'm PLOTZED on three half-liter beers, 8) ?, and 9) "Marx and Engels Regard Tower." Stoned evening, photos BACK at tower, Unknown Soldier" Mausoleum, US families passing, getting to train, meeting couple on street that I'd left in Plovdiv, telling them that I walked out, and lots of "He's too good for HER" teenage pairs. Buy potato chips at the station, walk, dine at Churrasco, saignant beef and red wine---stoned at 11PM.
SUNDAY, JULY 24: Wake at 5:45, doze, think a lot! (blue AM #1?) and up at 8:45. Ride to Gropius for a long time (9:40-10:20, with four trains and two up/down transfers). Two gay guys meet women with orgy of hand-kissing! "Sword of Tiberius" in BERLIN, silver sheath from Naples, Bronze blade from Bonn, Bronze hilt from MAINZ! Kaiser has JEWISH museum upstairs! Gropius 10:20-11:30, Naturalplan 12-12:45; same-nude guy; painting on right is "ORANGENPFLUCKEN" by Hans von Mariees. Muddy fleamarket! To Sophie Platz by 1:05. Men in LEATHER JACKETS in heat! No umbrella, natch it rains. See BROHAN (art Deco) Orrefors vase "mit Wassermann"; Vicki Lienstrand from 1932. Photo #1: South Italian Gold, Tarentum, 300BC, 2) Herm Pillar Pair, 3) Bottom satyr fun, 4) Front satyr fun, 5) Buckliger mit ubergrossem glied, 6) amphora 470BC "Der Satyr bei die Madchen am Zilhbrunnen. Gypsoformerai is only SMALL, open only Monday. Got to Bergstrasse and Marzin (?). To train (LONG walk) to ZOO! Pay 14DM for zoo and aquarium. Ignore thunder, but at 5:30 RAIN starts, soaking, til 5:45, then dash to station & to Kranzler corner-shop at last for two weissenbier for 10 and 1.5 tip. German troublemakers pass behind, somewhere to right, take photo, then violently almost DEMAND money, then come troopers in blue. I HOPE photo comes out? Terrorizes group and finally leaves to CENTER of street, and an accident with broken glass starts them cheering. Feel rested at 8:25PM, as they shout past tables again. Police show up and telephone for help. OOPS, the guy hit a POLICE truck!!! THERE'S a scene for acting! BMW got CLOBBERED running into rear of police truck. About 8:30 I stroll down to MacDonald's for a Super TS (Tomato and Salat) for 4.45 and fries and a hot chocolate, all homogeneous as in US. Out about 9 and back to get vodka tonic for 8DM & 2DM tip at local bar, & it rains AGAIN. Up to jerk off & bed at 10:20, instant sleep!
MONDAY, JULY 25: Wake at 5:40 and lay til 6:40, then shower and wash hair and repack souvenirs and get ready for day. Breakfast at 8:20 and out to check exchange rates: 1.78, 1.79 at most, and 1.61 is least; the first I saw was empty, now with 8-9 people, and when I pass an hour later it's 1.82 and has 20 people. To German Rail and wait til 9:15 to get 355 DM 16-day pass, AND pay 48DM (though TICKET says 65DM(?!) for trip through EAST Germany that card doesn't PAY for. So my 111DM wasn't not ALL loss, only about 50DM of it, AND 16 is 16 calendar days, so getting one 7/20 would take me through 8/4, and I would have two days travel-less in Frankfurt. So for about $30 I get TWO extra days of TRAVEL. Maybe it's OK. Back to hotel for shit and travel stuff to ENSURE it's 7/28 to Dresden, and Deutsche Reisen gives SHEAF of problems: they may get vouchers only 1 or 2 days before trip so they can't send it to Frankfurt hotel! Not for SURE. Check on Augsburgerstrasse and guy had address wrong, really on Ku'dam. Around to photo Kaiser-Wilhelm Church and "snail" fountain and go IN church to change film (it sure goes FAST) and back to hotel at 10:40 to close bag and piss and drink and sort stuff and out at 11 for LAST time. Bag heavy to start at 11:10, and train draws in at 11:15 and I finish this to 11:32, sitting in non-smoking compartment to myself. Nearly empty train smells of smoke. Finish numbering these notebook pages to 48 and ONE more couple in at 11:35. Off at 11:38 and after Potsdam go south a more EASTERLY way! Yeah! Many uniforms and "work forces" and missiles at Juterberg? Wave to kid at crossing on bridge. Hit 2 km/min, 120 km/hr, 72 mph! #1 Castle on Hill outside Bad Kosen. Beer for lunch at 3:05 and I'm high! and HAPPY! Fantasizing Jim Foght and Ingo Weidinger and Bayreuth lovers! #2 The South wall, I hope, going uphill. 5PM. In at 7, station information and I go to Konstance, WAY off, and tired and hot and MAD! To hotel (Pension) at 8:15, and out at 8:45 to LOUD TRASHY fake-Deutsch Nurnberg. Stop at Goldenes Postillon, but too posh. Dine in Bratwurst-Kuch'n for soup, sausage, and beer for 23DM including tip. Moon nice, LOUD quartet, tourist-LADEN town! Junky tourists and drunked pair singing an AFRICAN song. Bed about 10:30,tired.