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429> incoping the notion of California + how rivel banks mbrace everee river charged opposite for postcreation

destynation du jour

> 24 April 2015 > Σumwhere over Greenland > awoke 04:30 am in our attico Vaticano > to Fiumicino > Brit Air over the ALPs (just discovered if u scramble + combine H.C.E. + A.L.P. (the progenitors in Finnegans Wake) u can spell CHAPEL) > obviously we still riding in The Wake > rereading ± rather listening while simul-reading the dbook + at the mism time reading Campbell's Skeleton Key | took a break to watch Inherent Vice (OK > liked the feel of it + got us in the mood for California but not much else to take away from it) > also watched Lucy (overambitiously dumb)

our last nite in Rome

> 25 April > Pacifica, CA > 2:06 AM > if u aware u dreaming then no longer can u = dreaming > awake u become > just like they sey if u die in a dream then u die for reals | this just occurred to us laying here awake > jetlagged | arrived SFO around 2 PM > long day flying east to west > across 9 or so time zones | time xpanding > not dialating like it does flying west to east > weird to fly to California from Europe w/o stopping off in NYC (short layover at Heathrow then Virgin direct) | also weird to drive > got a car + drove to Pacifica > not so far > to a place rite on the beach | walked on some bluffs > the smells + feel all coming back to us > the bay area the place we «came of age» or just post-so | driftwood + piles of those weird jellyfish skeleton things > iceplants + cypress trees | surfers w/ wetsuits pulled down around waists | not xactly the Inherent Vice vibe but an evolved norcal version w/ a geeky silicon valley makeover | Peruvian for dinner > ceviche + oysters + roasted chicken > good stuff | California no relation or bearing at all to Finnegans Wake ± so far not to our own Raft Manifest | before the age of 15 we lived between Oregon + Mexico but never in Cal > tho we summered in California usually | summering sumwhere = like dreaming not really living > not «schooled» in California until 10° grade in high school | gonna go back to (± at least try to) sleep now ± at least horizontal lucid dreaming

surfers at Pacifica beach

> cant sleep | The Becoming + A Raft Manifest = books 1 + 2 of the West of Kingdom Come teratology > called that cuz the main theme running thru-out = this fucked noshun of westword xpansion + manifest destiny > the new world as Joyce thinks of it as but when u born in it the new becomes old in 1 generashun > searching for another new | our peeps both in Oregon + California come from ppl who harbored this ingrained drive to push west for whatever reason + displace the natives | if u from these parts this legachit comes baked into your genes > sumthin we've spent at least the 1st quarter of life coming to grips with | maybe why we felt inclined to revert back east to NYC + even further to Europe (if we had our druthers) | tho now feel a slight pull to return back west > again if we had our druthers > specially our better-½ | California definitely a beautiful place no denying that > «the west = the best» as Lizard King said > mostly just the associations we have w/ it that keep us from it > that + just feels like unsustainable lalaland out of tune w/ rest of world (not necessarily a bad thing)

> our room has a built-in jacuzzi but seems decadent considering the drought | funny growing up here peeple wd visit from the East coast + comment how Californians all sit around in hot tubs > reputation they/we had > spose sort of true > + unabashed about it

> when u a kid u dont have druthers > u born + raised wherever the druthers uv your parents take u ± if they didn't have druthers to live in that place they became sentenced to that place for whatever reason + pass this sentencing onto u | every1 thinks Joyce loved Ireland (Ireland sure seems to use him to promote it) when in reality he had a distaste for Ireland + lived in exile uv it | in this way us writing about «The West» > a place we've exiled ourselves from becomes our way of coping w/ this fucked legacy handed down to us just like the main thread in Joyce's work seems to = coping w/ the legacy of Irish catholic guilt

> did we ever mention here we hate cauliflower? 1 of 3 things we absolutely wont eat | probly dont help that cauliflower sounds like it comes from California | once our stepmother in Oregun made us eat our soggy cauliflower (when we kids we hated most all frozen or canned vegetables) + we threw up the cauliflower + then she made us eat our throw up | then later 1 time (in jr high) in Mexico stayed over at a friends house + his mom made cauliflower in velveeta cheese sauce + we had to eat it out of politeness but then after we snuck out + drank a bunch of vodka + OJ + what we member most about throwing up = the taste of cauliflower

> this just in > earthquake in Nepal an hour ago > sad > where just we visited earlier this year > thinking then not the kind of place to ride out an earthquake > shitty infrastructure + rickety buildings > like Haiti most of the death + hardship mostly likely soon to come in the aftermath | we had no fear of earthquakes til the Loma Prieta quake of 1989 > big reason we left California | sucks u cant take solid ground for granted | we used to have a knack for getting stuck in natural disasters > now they happen right in our wake > recent eruption of Calbuco near Puetro Montt where also we passed thru recently near where our brother lives

Año Nuevo

> 26 April > Carmel > continued south along the coast > thru Half Moon Bay > stopped at Año Nuevo to see the elephant seals > tis the season of «catastrophic molting» > when they come to shore to all shed their fur all at once | sort of drizzly + cool so not many people + the seals get activ (unlike when sunny + they just lay there like tubs of lard (like how weave seen them b4)) > milling about + making all sorts of weird noises (heard them way b4 we saw them) > low guttural growls + squawks > the males sparring (not full blown fighting which happens in mating season)

elephant seals at Año Nuevo

 

beach master posturing

 

2 males sparring

> pushed on down the coast > took a detour up thru Boony Dun where we lived for a year when at UCSC > then past the campus + thru Santa Cruz | had lunch at Tortilla Flats (named for Steinbeck) which we member bean good but now sucked so either mgmt changed in the last 25 yrs or our taste buds did | then down thru Monterrey > along the 17 mile drive thru Pebble Beach where we spent a miserable year in high school (at Robert Louis Stevenson—where rich preppy kids go whose parents cant deal w/ them (in our case we didnt want to live in Mexico anymore so went there on scholarship for a year before switching to a public h.s. in Mtn view a.k.a. Googleville > the center of the known universe dear Inurnet)) > staying in Carmel which we have a certain fondness for despite its elite debonair air | sides that year at RLS when we'd go to Carmel beach to surf + hang out > we spent a summer of our childhood here > something about the cypress trees + white white sand + smells > definitely a magical place (if u got $)

Pacific Grave in pink bloom

 

seal rock Pebble Beach

 

Carmel

 

sunset Carmel

 

> 26 April > San Jose > woke up early Carmel > headed inland > Steinbeck territory > past Laguna Seca > thru Salinas > major agriculture > stopped at San Juan Bautista to check out the mission > breakfast in Gilroy (so-called garlic capitol of the world) > so disgusted by all the fat people we lost our appetite before breakfast even came

irrigation continues during severe drought

 

mission SJ Bautista (minus the belltower which Hitchcock added to meet the needs of Vertigo)

 

mission + Camino Real bell

> onward to San Jose > thought to go to Winchester Mystery House but it cost $35 just to go in > dont member ever paying more than $5 > like most things these days u better off just checking it out online | staying at some randumb place in San Jose near the airport + the freeway (the bloody bayshore) > or maybe not random but typical | but they got a pool + fitness center (+ yes a hot tub of course) > ate sushi > again the food not nearly as good here as we member > maybe back then we didn't know any better > now spoiled by NYC | + ironically (dear Inurnet) we in heart of Silicon valley but the connectivity in this hotel worse than developing countries (+ u have to pay xtra for it) + u got to pay for valet parking tho u in the middle of nowhere surrounded by freeways + parking lots

> general theme xpressed in the kids play (back to book 2 of The Wake) = that the new world feeds on the old | also this theme of marriage > a honeymoon boat circled by gulls (the 4 old men i.e. the 4 direxions> mostly about Joyce's ever-morphing + resplicing lexicon > heliotropism + «holytroopers» + «holiodrops» > a puck on the plexus > the «human chain extends» | what Joyce calls «broken heavantalk» > the paradoxical + metaphorical ½-statements which point tward rather than define a problema | why the book never finishes but keeps xpanding > no closure cuz more + more doors keep opening |

«The tasks above are as the flasks below, saith the emerald canticle of Hermes and all's loth and pleasestir, are we told, on excellent inkbottle authority, solarsystemised, seriol-cosmically, in a more and more almightily expanding universe under one, there is rhyme-less reason to believe, original sun. Securely judges orb terrestrial. Haud certo ergo. But O felicitous culpability, sweet bad cess to you for an archetypt!»

> also this theme of individual vs. inherited pursuit ± «precreate determinism» vs. «postcreate determinism» = another of the prevailing threads running thru the book | in particular a passage under the heading CENOGENETIC DICHOTOMY THROUGH DIAGNOSTIC CONCILLIANCE TO DYNASTIC CONTINUITY that Campbell summarizes in plainer english as:

«There are processes in the development of the individual which do not strictly recapitulate the development of the race. Through these an element of novelty is introduced into the great picture. But the resultant dichotomy of individual vs. species is resolved through the formation of a new species capable of procreation, or—if the individual variation only be a slight one—through the formation of a new family or variety.»

> we can only hope (w/Finnegans Wake as our current fathering text) that our postcreating (A Raft Manifest) becomes more than just a slight variation but can take on new life of its own

> then we get to this sexion where the 2 bros (now maned Dolph + Kev) engage in a polemic + illicit debate on the geometry of the secrets of mother (based in the triangle delta of course) + how «every river is embraced by rival banks» or as Giordano Bruno (the dude who got burned at the stake in Campo d'Fiori) put it: «Everything can come to a knowledge of itself only thru contrasts with its opposite»

> but not everything needs motion ± to flow > elsewhere Joyce says «Abnegation is Adaptation» > then by chapter 3 (still in book 2) Joyce gets all quantum physical > the buzz in the tavern becomes a bubble chamber of particles (sum (+) sum (–)) bumping + colliding to form new particles in a series of rounds (in the drinking sense but also feels like rounds in a boxing match) > yet still «heliotropical» > the «televisioning» (now thru the brotherly duelers Tuff + Batt) becomes «The Charge of the Light Brigade» leading to the annihilation of the atom (or Adam > the original progenitor) > at least as we see it | a full-on barroom brawl ensues + then the tavern strangely turns into a schooner (right?)

> the last chapter (4) of book 2 takes place in the dreaming mind of the drunk inn-keeper passed out on the floor of the tavern after every 1 leaves | the opening line «Three quarks for Muster Mark!» = where famously the quark gets its name | + the schooner becomes like a honeymoon boat w/ the gulls circling which already we mentioned above

> 27 April > Dunsmuir CA > drove solo up north > east bay to 880 > gassed up at Nut Tree (have a Prius but forgot to switch to ECO mode) > up thru central valley on I-5 > route weave taken many times b4 | stopped at Castle Crag to run/walk up > forgot to bring camera but took pics b4 a few years ago > tho that time the sky = really hazy from fires in Oregon + this time = clearer + more snow on Mt Shasta > looking at Crag dome wondering if climbable when we see 2 people ½-way up so scrambled up (3rd class bordering on 4th in climbing terms) > got to a sketchy xposed pt where we didn't feel comfortable w/o climbing shoes (ppl in front of us had abandoned their hiking boots at the base presumably for climbing shoes + they also had a rope (tho not using it—another nice to have just in case u need to rappel)) > seemed easy enough to climb w/ big holds but downclimbing = whole diffrent story (specially in running shoes) > in our climbing days we might've but priorities shift when u got a significant other | then to our mother's who we haven't seen in a while | made dinner + now laying on a bare mattress out in the garage but worth it cuz our bed's like 20 feet from a rushing river (headwaters of the Sacramento) > shd make for good sleeping (xcept for the occassional freight train loud enough to shake the ground)

 428 <( )> 430 > a hardened Huck Finn again trespassing in Saint Barbaric to find purchase


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[  (ɔ)om.Posted 2015  derek white  |  calamari press   ]