It's not a snowy Christmas, but it is a
beautiful day...hope all you loyal
and new *fait accompli* readers have
a very happy holiday...Chanukah, or
the Winter Solstice (my choice) or
whatever guise you celebrate the
season.

I can't begin to thank you enough for
your links, your comments, your visits
and your daily presence!

"I shall have to stop priding myself on being unable to
find pleasure in the things ordinary men enjoy- high days and
holidays; the fun of being one in a crowd; family affection
and so on. What I am really incapable of is enjoying out-of-
the-ordinary pleasures- solitude and a sense of mastery, and
if I am not very good at sharing the sentiments of the average
man it is because my artless assumption that I was capable of
something better has rusted my natural reactions, which used
to be perfectly normal. In general we feel rather pleased with
ourselves when we do not enjoy common pleasures, believing
this means that we are "capable of better things." But in-
capacity in the one case does not presuppose capacity in the
other. A man who is incapable of writing nonsense may be
equally incapable of writing something pleasing.

We hate the thing we fear, the thing we know may be
true and may have a certain affinity with ourselves, for each
man hates himself. The most interesting, the most fertile qualities
in every man are those he most hates in himself and in others,
for hatred includes every other feeling- love, envy, ignorance,
mystery, the urge to know and to possess. It is hate that causes
suffering. To overcome hatred is to take a step towards self-
knowledge, self-mastery, self-justification, and consequently
towards an end of suffering. When we suffer, it is always our
own fault."

Cesare Pavese
29th September, 1938
*The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950*
Walker and Company, 1961

Pity Party on the Misery Train

Loss has its circuit, its regular travels
here it comes now chugging by
warm white smoke coming out of its stack
just in time it is chugging back
whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo
its got awful news for you
clickety-clack, clickety-clack
lament and sorrow right on track
there is the whistle of the 8:13
just how miserable have you been?
not enough torture and do not know why?
train can promise a fair supply
buy your ticket, find your seat
tap your foot to the hellish beat
whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo
tons of bad news just for you
clickety-clack, clickety-clack
get your whole life on the rack
warm white smoke coming out its stack
listen up it is coming back
whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo
jump right on you will feel so blue
clickety-clack, clickety-clack
if lament and sorrow is what you lack

I accept comparison and laughter, love and diatribe, doubt
and fecundity as my daily diet. I can't reject the bitter
taste of disappointment either. To avoid this compulsively
may lead to paralysis. What we remember best is what
we sensed was the actuality of the situation. But this doesn't
nullify the other thoughts and soundings. There were
innumerable small venturings that led to the knock on
the door. There were moments of strangeness too before
the smile of recognition. This happened so many times it
became like breathing. But the first few times seemed
infinitely long. Once your mind has segmented the leap
into human strides the abyss has measure if still as
daunting. Even chaos may get less forbidding as its
features (ever changing) start announcing themselves
as provoking a recognizable feeling or constellation of
reactions. The giddy dizziness will finally relent and the
familiar landscape will once again reveal itself. Only one
or more elements have been added with this sighting.
Each round of lostness and foundness leaves its own
set of markings on the map we make inside and constantly
consult. Like any map, the more it's shared with others
the more useful it becomes. If they ignore it, don't let
that stop you from proceeding on your quest. After all,
it's just a map.


from; *Writing and Persevering*
published in *The Boundary of Blur*
(Roof, 1993)

The Tao of Reading, continued

Every once in awhile you see a movie or read a book
you find yourself thinking about much longer than usual.
*Cloud 8* by Grant Bailie is that kind of book.
I know I will reread it very soon; I need a little
time before reading it again, so I can soak up
all the metaphysical and experiential nuances that
keep occuring to me since reading it the first time,
a few days ago. I read it breathlessly, greedily,
anxiously, joyfully in one night and one
morning

James Broadhurst wakes up after a fatal
car accident to find himself in an afterlife
just as tedious, boring and uninspiring,
if not more so, than his life had been. He
is assigned a boring roommate, is drafted into
a boring job and disovers his boss to be a spoiled
hypocrite. His escapes consist of alcohol and television, but
television in the aferlife consists of watching
all the endlessly tedious details of the daily
lives of all the people he loved and who, from
one degree or another, cared about him. Chief
among these is his father, who he disovers
was a much more caring person than he ever
realized during his actual life.

The most incredible thing about this book is
the way Grant Bailie forces, or beguiles the reader into
confronting the experiential evidence that the most fascinating
thing about life is the way we think about
it, is our thoughts and interpretations themselves. Everything
"out there" to learn from is right at hand; your
noisy upstairs neighbor might be an angel
in disguise; the guy sitting next to you on
a barstool might rescue you from an eternity
of terror for a night; "whatever gets you through
the night is alright," as John Lennon put it.

This book deserves to be a movie; it has exactly
the same attributes to offer us, potentially, as Bill
Murray's hilarious, haunting
and achingly profound, *Groundhog Day."
Another resonant precedent (you youngsters
may not have seen this one)
It's A Wonderful Life
{click here}.

Listen up, producers: We need this movie!

Here's an interview with Grant Bailie; scroll
down to find a link to one of his stories:
Smoking with Grant Bailie {click here}

from Jukka-Pekka Kervinen's nonlinear poetry {click here} December 19, 2004

from *Twenties * by Jackson Mac Low
(Roof, 1991)

from #38
"Flatulent ridicule zero degree
fledgeling fled/rinse mode marker
tea Lorca mobile float/region misuse
tenor penitent/lemon parameter"

from #39
"Billikins tragedian/light-year falsification
dilatory swagger/penal meter partner
link phalanstery brevity encompassment
tango sweetmeat petal tingle"

The Tao of Reading

I won't go into all the tedious details, but
our new abode has brought along with it
a plethora of challenges, let us say, in the
current parlance. One of them you might be
able to help us with (by signing a web-based
petition at
stop the expansion {click here}). Poly Prep,
a local private school, wants to build a 4
story building,next to and marring the time-travel
effect of, the gorgous Landmarked 19th Century
mansion it is housed in, one
of the key reasons why we moved here
(you don't have to live in Park Slope,
or Brooklyn, to sign the petition- the idea
is to safeguard the landmarked status of
the neighborhood).

Anyway, despite some of the drawbacks of the
apartment, which nonetheless
has some very nice qualities,
I still love Park Slope. Prospect
Park, across the street, is much more
rural in feeling than manicured Central
Park, and best of all, the main branch,
at Grand Army Plaza, of the Brooklyn Public
Library, is about a 5 minute walk away.
I've taken to endlessly browsing the fiction section.
My previous visit's booty- which was included in
a list published here not long ago,
netted a page turner titled *Mooch*
by Dan Fante. Yesterday's expedition
led to (among others I might get to by and by)
a nifty excellent read titled *Cloud 8* by Grant Bailie.
Of course, even though it was published
by*ig pubishing* in Brooklyn, because it's good
there are lots of reviews online; I just
love the fact that the mainstream media
is not the place to look for opinions on
anything anymore- New York Times
is no longer "over if you want it"- it
is now "over, in case you haven't noticed."

Here's a review of the wonderful *Cloud 8*

Flavah reviewers {click here}...
Hmm... I wonder if anybody's bought the
film rights yet- it would make
a fun movie- especially without any
"stars"- except for, of course,
Parker Posey {click here},
and, even though the book opens up with the main character dying
in a car accident at age 35,
Wally Shawn {click here}
who should narrate the whole film in a voice-over.
******************************************************
Missing Tom Beckett already?
Try to console yourself with this
interview from
Jacket 25 {click here}

Coming to a Theatre Near You



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