429> incoping the notion of California + how rivel banks mbrace everee river charged opposite for postcreation |
|
> 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) > 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 > 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 > 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) > 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 $) > 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 > 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 |
> 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:
> 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 | |
[ (ɔ)om.Posted 2015 derek
white | calamari press ] |