1975
How other to express it than in symbolic
characters, words returning away
from representations into abstract
forms untranslateable figures thrown
out of the mind like formless masses
of spatial design, suggestive perhaps
of the mind's language before words,
the cacaphony and squawks of
feeling- of anger and laughter
delight and fear, terror and awe.
But the mind does not want ambiguity.
The mind wants words that illustrate.
These are the words that get things
done, the words that partake of solid
space. These words, the heavy ones have
little to do with the lighter hued
words that the mind can fashion
to *reflect* the sexy feeling of light
clothing over the body. Words have
visual pleasure and the pleasure
they evoke as objects in their own right.
Sculptural, gigantic, massive letters
that amaze the mind's eye because
they are stone but they represent
sound. The life of their value is
unlike the history of the fashioning of
materials to satisfy man's physical
needs although they are used for
that. Words have an aesthetic value of
their own which, on the sensual level,
is represented by the sounds of voices,
the meanings coveyed by these
vocal articulations as they relate to the
awareness as it attempts to organize
experience and respond to it.
At every moment words are spoken
in the mind. The flow of thought, the
continual attempt to correlate these
thoughts to external experience and
thus "reason out our actions." the
experience of "wishing things would
happen" is the natural reaction of minds
that often experience this after reasoning
out a decision in language, that what
we think will happen is spelled out in
language during that thought. The idea
that this language is an unimportant
by-product of thinking is
surprising considering the imporantance
allotted to the spoken word. The magic
word is a spoken word, not the
words of thought. This must be one of the bases
for the ideas of incantations, mantras,
the religious base of theatre and
the dramatic importance ascribed to every
day behavior. Words as amusement.
Now fear brings the transparent.
As far as the jet-age goes.
Synchronous with diversity, the
paper factories are producing paper,
language appearing as luminous. [illegible]
sound of amusements, language has
no multiple place if [it] is unlearned
from just comprehension to the peelable
surface words, added to the top of the
stream of chaotic squawks of thought to
make them appear familiar. Thought,
like everything is always unfamiliar.
It is also identical from mind to
mind. But the sequences are infinitely
varied rhythms.
Lovin' isn't one of the best talents I have
I just seem to have to leave people's minds
alone somtimes
I go drifting inside my own
Just wondering, just wondering
Just wandering, just wandering
1) A friend who's somewhat dull. His
mechanical gestures- smile, language,
habits. Liking him anyway.
2) Reading your own self-image by
thinking about what somebody else
might think about you.
3) Using not the "first" word but the
word most comfortable- the
plainest word for what you mean.
4) Type of quotes from poetry process
book and Andy Warhol.
5) "The futility" of distinctions- (P.S.) - specifically
what pleases others and pleases yourself.
6) "The idea of performance"- E.F.
7) Mysterious, private, secret-
privacy & lying- "fiction" "narrative"
8) As if existence were not naked
enough, every nerve exposed to the eye,
we repeat it in writing- a double
exposure- it's like picking at a sore
9) Fear of laugter
10) Why "so what?" makes
certain situations more interesting (sort of Zen?)
11) Are you afraid? Or are you
afraid to be afraid?
13) "Ow" as a title, the sound of
something as a title.
What's a "fragment" of something.
Right up against the whole thing.
Margaret Drabble-
Tillie Olson-
92 & B'way xxWest Bway
June-Wednesday Sept 24- 12:00 on
Breton-biography- Anna Balakian
Oxford Univ. Press - *Strand*
