Just a small journal with a couple of poems, a few doodles, some dreams. I was so busy during this one I hardly had time to write more than a few lines a day, but I like the cover and this doodle I did in September. I don’t doodle as much because I don’t work for Head Start, not so many long only slightly helpful trainings to keep myself engaged in.
And they also tell the story
of Papadiabolous the Devil and his company, and of two of the hidden lives of Finnegan; and how it is not always serious to die, the first time it happens.
Here is one man who was buried twice and now lies still (but uneasy of mind) in his two separate graves. Here is another man who died twice—not at all the same thing. And here are several who are disinclined to stay dead: they don’t like it, they won’t accept it.
Given here, for the first time anywhere, are the bearings and correct location of the Terrestrial Paradise down to the last second of longitude. You may follow them. You may go there.
Here also will be found the full account of where the Devil himself is buried, and the surprising name that is on his tombstone boldly spelled out. And much else.
We will not lie to you. This is a do-it –yourself thriller or nightmare. Its present order is only the way it comes in the box. Arrange it as you will.
Set off the devils and the monsters, the wonderful beauties and the foul murderers, the ships and the oceans of middle space, the corpses and the revenants, set them off in whatever apposition you wish. Glance quickly to discover whether you have not the mark on your own left wrist, barely under the skin. Build with these colored blocks your own dramas of love and death and degradation. Learn the true topography: the monstrous and wonderful archetypes are not inside you, not in your own unconsciousness; you are inside them, trapped and howling to get out.
Build things with this as with an old structo set. Here is the Devil Himself with his several faces. Here is an ogress, and a mermaid, both of them passing as ordinary women to the sightless. Here is a body which you yourself may bury in the sand. Here is the mark of the false octopus that has either seven or nine tentacles. Here is the shock when the very dead man that you helped bury continues on his way as a very live man, and looks at you as though he knows something that you do not. Here is a suitcase with 36,000 pieces of very special paper in it. Here is Mr. X, and a left-footed killer who follows and follows. Here are those of a different flesh; and may you yourself not be of that different flesh?
Put the nightmare together. If you do not wake up screaming, you have not put it together well.
Old Burton urged his subscribers to keep their copies of the Nights under lock and key. There are such precipices here! Take it in full health and do not look down as you go. If you look down you will fall and be lost forever.
Is that not an odd introduction? I don’t understand it at all.
This is the introduction to R. A. Lafferty‘s The Devil is Dead, and it just gets stranger as it goes along.
I read this when I was in high school. I am appreciating his high flying prose even more now that I have read Pynchon and Barth. Lafferty’s love of language and oral and common storytelling traditions shines throughout this odd little novel. It is like he is sitting across a campfire telling you a wild tale of the night.
Cover via Amazon
“Two worlds touch here. You think men have power to call forth what they will? Evoke a world, awake or sleeping? Make it breathe and then set out upon it figures which a glass gives back or which the sun acknowledges? Quicken those figures with one’s own joy and despair? Can a man be so hid from himself?
You call forth the world God has formed and that world only. Nor is this life of yours by which you set such store your doing. However you may choose to tell it.
Our decisions do not have some alternative. We may contemplate a choice, but we pursue one path only.”
Cormac McCarthy speaking through the Mexican drifter at the end of “Cities of the Plain“
He is speaking of dreams, but also about the creative process behind writing fiction, or is he talking about being a fictional character. Or are we all just a minor players in God’s great novel. It is a well written book, but the story of the dream as told by the Mexican drifter to the aging main character at the end of the book was difficult to follow, and I am sure meant as a commentary on the connection between fiction and life, dreams and life, all human endeavor. I will have to go back and read it again, maybe in a month or two to see if I can pull more out of it. It is quite packed with juicy ideas.
Of the three books in the border trilogy I liked the second, “The Crossing“, the best. It was consistently compelling throughout. I felt as if I was well within the skin the main character, and at the end I sat alone in the rain and cried. At the end of this one I was left with a big question mark. I think something important was there, but I am still not sure.
As always McCarthy’s crisp and literate prose is a joy to read. Whenever I read one of his books, I feel like I know more about the English language and how to use it to it’s best advantage.
This is what I aspire to in art and music, my ideal. She lived her life like a work of art. Her art is so visceral, a naked wire connecting her to the world and whoever views her work back to her life. She is the epitome of a truly artistic soul.
A true pioneer thinks about what could exist, and what is in the world that is waiting to be found. He was a difficult and often contentious person, but his music was always and still is a step in a direction nobody else has taken. I listen to Live/Evil and Bitches Brew now and it still seems fresh and raw that it could bleed. His 50’s and early 6o’s work with Coltrane, Monk and Hancock are amazingly fresh. Someone said that what made Louis Armstrong great was the notes he didn’t play, his choice of notes along with the power and passion he put into the notes he did play, but Miles took it into a new place so cool. Louis Armstrong made jazz a path; Miles followed that path into a cool new country where all directions are possible. Jazz is still there.
This quote seems more true today than at any other time in human history. I am not sure which Carlyle said or wrote this (there are several to choose from) but it was too good to pass up on account of that. If anybody knows or finds out, please leave a comment.
Emmylou was the first one wake, her mind full of the events that seemed more a dream than what had just faded from her mind as she came awake. She stretched cautiously and crossed to the window looking out on the flattened Porsche. It looked like a bug hit with a fly swatter, juices leaking in dark stains amid the puddles and debris.
That really happened, she thought and then thought of Larry. She threw a robe on and walked quickly to the room across the hall and, opening the door just wide enough to peer in with one eye, she was relieved to see him sleeping deeply with a healthy color to his face. She went quietly down the stairs. Maddie lay sprawled on her back, arms spread and snoring loudly. Jered was slumped in the ancient overstuffed arm chair of an undeterminable color. His face held the look of someone without regrets, like a child who has spent all of his energy in frantic and curious games, finally stops and falls instantly asleep. She moved into the kitchen thinking, I don’t know these people. Even Random has changed so much that I have no idea who he is now.
She bustled about starting water for coffee and tea. Then a thought floated into her mind like a black bird in a brilliant blue sky. Essie will have to come and live with me. She needs to be here. The thought pleased her, imagining sharing the house with someone she didn’t know, little by little filling in the blanks. I wonder what will come next?
Random woke from the feeling of being a world into the world of his body that was next to Essie’s body. He drew her close and put his face in her dark thick hair. What next? He thought as she made little sounds of contentment. He looked at the wall where the snake mouth tunnel had been and saw a wall. He looked at the blue sky of morning through the window in the opposite wall. What next?
When everyone was awake, they all sat around the table in the kitchen. Emmylou stood cooking the last of the bacon. Larry sat with his leg propped as Essie examined the wounds.
“Eet don’ look too bad,” She swabbed the clean holes with antibiotic. “I wonder eef dream wolves have dream germs.”
“I just don’t ever want to have any beasts teeth in me dream type or real world they feel about the same I’m thinkin’.”
“I’m just glad they weren’t trying to kill you,” Emmylou said without turning.
“Not more than I am.”
Emmy picked the last of bacon out of the pan, plopped it on the paper towel covered plate amongst the other gnarled pieces, and carried it to the table. She stopped across from Essie and said matter of factly, “You know you have to come here to live with me now.”
Essie drew back her face into a question.
“Somehow I’m supposed to just lose the end of this story. I need to know how our story turns out.”
“I would love to leev here,” she glanced hopefully at Random.
“I still have to work, but I could keep my apartment and only commute a few days a week.”
“You mean, you would be up here helpin’ Emmy with the ranch an’ I could come on the weekends and be the little sister you never had.”
“That would be nice,” Essie said smiling and touching Maddie’s arm.
“Well, I am glad things are working out. I for one have had enough of all this interference from the beyond,“ Jered added.
“I guess you’ll be needing a lift into town.” Emmylou said in as casual a manner as she could manage.
“Yeah, that car out there isn’t gonna get me very far.”
“I think my ride is shot, too.” Random said looking down at his plate. “Dream snakes are hell on cars.”
“I’ll need a ride to school, if it isn’t too much trouble.”
“Everyone will fit in the van. We need to go get Essie’s things and check her out of the motel.”
Later they all got in the van and headed into another story. Life goes on that way.
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