from speedboat

“Sometimes I miss, or lose, the point. Late-sleeping utopians, especially, persist like mercury. I am a fanatic myself, although not a woman of temperament. I get nervous at scenes. I stole a washcloth once from a motel in Angkor Wat. The bellboy was incensed. I had to give it back. To promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity—I believe all that. I go to parties whenever I am asked. I think a high tone of moral indignation, used too often, is an ugly thing. I get up at eight. Quite often now I have a drink before eleven. In some ways, I have overshot my mark in life in spades." --Renata Adler

It's weird, I never really wondered whether I'm 'your type.'But maybe action's all that really matters now. What people do together overshadows Who They Are. If I can't make you fall in love with me for who I am, maybe I can interest you with what I understand. So instead of wondering 'Would he like me?' I wonder 'Is he game?'

--Chris Kraus, I Love Dick

Cross-Legged,
the Spider and the Web

with this body worship her
if necessary arrange
to sit before her parts
and if she object as she might
ask her for your sake to cover
her head but stare to blindness
better than the sun look until
you know look look keep looking until
you do know you do know

Charles Olson

green mountain: draft

THE DIARY OF MISS LARA STEIN

Rain. Red mud gushed up, glutting the windshield. To see at all, I must lean forward, grip the wheel. Perched atop a steep hill, the Inn is only accessible via a single-lane dirt road. I drive no faster than thirty, round each curve with the care of a delivery room doctor—still I spin out. Ease the car from the ditch, fix the tire, then record the entire incident in my journal. Up up up the hills, down a gravel driveway. The Inn: shrouded by seven pines, four waxy shrubs; yard otherwise cleared off save an unpainted wooden fence, smattering of pigs, three cows, a lone chicken wailing. No sooner have I parked the car than William, one of the Inn's owners, taps on the driver's window wonderful weather, eh?

A suitcase in each hand, we walk across the sagging porch steps. With a bow, William opens the door, scurries inside. Crusted oriental rugs line the lobby, which is really an over-sized living room. Vaguely floral wallpaper, a plush red davenport; silk hyacinths shoved into mason jars, jars scattered across the mantle, couch-side tables. William introduces me to his twin brother Horatio who extends his hand we own the Inn with our sister Mary. Horatio gestures towards a woman seated behind an engraved desk. The sibling's resemblance is startling. Sliding my room key across the desk, Mary smiles most of our other guests are still asleep. Dinner will be served at eleven pm. I ask eleven? Mary nods eleven. Smoothing down my skirt, I ignore the oddness of the dinner hour, Mary’s expressionless face. I sign the guest book using the alias assigned to me by the paper: Billie Lassiter, age 27, Houston, TX, 10/15/1939. From his perch at the top of the stairs, Horatio stares down at me. Stares with persistence: I'll show you to your room. Located at the far end of the second story, my room has but one window, overlooking the pig pen. Horatio apologizes about the weather, his attire we don't normally dress like this. It’s just the pigs been getting...we'll see you at dinner, eh? I say yes then shut the door.

Although I am alone in the room, I cannot shake the feeling of Horatio's gaze. It creeps across my face, slopes down my back and legs. I snap the blinds shut, close the curtains. The only light in the room comes from the crack beneath the door. Two hours pass. I sit on the bed in silence. Worn from the drive, will take all my might to attend dinner. Intestines ache at the mere thought of digestion. Head swarms at the first sounds of the other guests waking, staggering down the hall towards the communal bathroom. 9:43 pm. Countless flushes, insistent knocks, water from the tap, a woman sighing it’s so early, far too early. In my notebook, I record all that I hear and smell—what little I can see through the crack at the bottom of the door. Write even about Horatio's “gaze” knowing Mr. Hammonds, my boss at the paper, will twist his face aww shit how many times have I told you. Someone knocks on the door. Without my consent my whole body stiffens, refuses to soften even as I answer the voice what is it? A man says dinner in five minutes.

Before I even reach the dining room, voices. Whirring chatter. Although my body has loosened, it now shakes visibly. Of what I am afraid: I cannot say. In the foyer I stop to rest, lean my head against a massive flower pot. Several minutes pass. My breathing slows. I walk down a small set of carpeted steps into the dining room. As the door swings open, the guests fall silent. William grabs my hand come, honey, take a seat already. I sit next to a woman named Caroline and her husband Harold. They’re drinking gin fizzes, grinning through the liquor we’re from Cali-forn-ia. William pours me a glass of wine is this alright? We toast. Twenty guests total. Most from far-away, out West or the Plains. I gulp down my wine, ask Caroline what brings you to the area? Aside from the Inn, there are no attractions of any sort for at least fifty miles. No views, hiking trails, gasps of nature. The only reason for booking a room: seclusion. Horatio emerges from the kitchen with a 16lb smoked ham; the table sags beneath its weight. Some guests eat famishly while others dawdle, lingering over the broccoli. At the precise moment I realize I can eat no more, Mary sweeps my plate, and only my plate, from the table in a single, effortless gesture—almost unperceivable. I stare slack-jawed. William eyes Mary briefly, then noticing me eyeing him, turns the opposite direction.
Dismissed from dinner, I return to my room. Although it’s apparent by the noise downstairs that there is a gathering, I am not invited. I note this fact in my journal. I note all “facts.” Study the room, as if my life depended on it, and in a way, yes.

Mr. Hammonds is famous in Houston, only Houston. Famous by trade: tabloids. He owns several more reputable print outlets but none have garnered the public affection and rage as The Houston Bullet. I once worked for his most prestigious paper The Houston Post; however, a single incorrect fact landed me in the over-stuffed leather chair opposite Mr. Hammonds’s desk. Ten, twenty minutes he stared me down, informed me that never, not even once, had The Post printed a retraction. He paced the room: but with you, that’s what we had to do. He sat down behind his desk I’ve got your new assignment. For The Bullet. You know, The Bullet? Of course, I knew: I was being punished, exiled. Mr. Hammonds continued: it’s not that you made a mistake but that you made a willful mistake. Sympathizing with your subjects won't get you anywhere. I uncrossed my legs, sat back straight in the chair: the Bullet, really?
Prior to his role as print tycoon, Mr. Hammonds worked as a hustler in San Antonio, and although he tried, he never lost the look. Clad in his swagger-suit, he rubbed his paunch with the palm of his hand then lit his pipe aw you’re a tough girl, Lara. You’ve done worse assignments before. Inhaling hard, he coughed—look, I’ve heard a lot of shit about this Inn up in Vermont. Write your piece on whatever you see. Or think you see. Standing from my chair, hands on my hips: Vermont, really? Hesitating none, he motioned for me to sit, did not even pause before adding under normal circumstances we would never send a woman on this sort of story. 1,689 miles. the drive will be good for your head. clear out all the riff-raff. Without waiting to hear my answer, he handed me a big blue envelope of research, a set of keys, and said call when you get there.

Using the bedside telephone, I dial Mr. Hammonds number. No answer. More noise from downstairs. Noise straight-on till four am, then, silence. No, not silence: an almost quiet. A stirring. I tip-toe from my room, crouch by the stairs, and peer into the lobby, which is empty. From my spot I can see down the hall, past the kitchen, bathroom, and dining hall. All looks still, quiet. I descend the stairs, holding my breath, my entire body close. Two steps down the hall, I am stopped by William ah Mrs. Lassiter we thought you were asleep. I stutter helplessly sleeping pills, I’ve taken and can’t find the kitchen. Something about water, yes water. William says there’s a cooler upstairs, outside the bathroom. His hand on my shoulder, he leads me back upstairs goodnight Mrs. Lassiter.

-------------------------------

THE DIARY OF MISS LARA STEIN
10/17/1939

no breakfast. no lunch. no food at all till sunset. at dawn, i am the only one awake save horatio. six am: he feeds the pigs, fills two red troughs with two buckets of slop. chickens. they peck at his boots for corn, straw, stray twigs, or simply just to peck. although i cannot place why, i feel a great sense of calm as i watch horatio latch the gate, walk across the lawn. the entire inn dead quiet. the kind of silence that makes all thoughts possible.

do the twins know i am a reporter? from the moment i parked my car, yes. they seem to care none that i am here to expose them. in fact, it’s as if william and horatio take specific pleasure in upholding the charade; a wide grin, wink, and wave as they say my name with ridiculous emphasis o yes ms. BILLIE o yes we have lived here our entire life anything else ms. BILLIE. i no longer bother asking the other guests questions of any sort, much less what happens downstairs, after hours. standing in-line for the bathroom, the woman from detroit blinks nothing. her husband: nothing. the guests in room 108, 116, 210: nothing. at dinner the singer from NYC studies her reflection in the silver slit of a butter knife; i ask with all the lovely places to stay, why green mountain? she cradles the knife of the edge of her plate: the sleep, the silence. (which, sure, plausible enough: why should such a simple act as watching horatio feed the pigs soothe me so? why do i wake later and later every morning?) if the inn's activities are not mystical in nature then certainly something illicit: gun running? gambling? liquor sales?

what i cannot quite admit: since arriving at the inn, i find it increasingly difficult to differentiate between what i hear and see and what i merely think. no matter how many nights i spend sprawled on the carpet, ear pressed to the floor, listening listening for some sort of clue, i never get any closer.

----------------------------------
dear mr. hammonds, 10/19/1939

i have written this letter without premeditation or revision. for if i were to meditate, i would say nothing at all.

unstable? insane? is that what you will think? when i say that yes, some “strange stuff” has happened at the inn, which is not an “inn” at all. from the second i set foot on the front porch i knew. although it was nearly seven pm when i checked-in, the other guests were “still asleep.” dinner was not served till almost midnight, and no earlier, every night.

while odd, these facts alone implicated nothing save the quaint quirkiness of the inn’s owners, which, at first glance: bumpkins. the siblings wore matching overalls, encrusted muck-boots. my room was commonplace: double-bed, cracked nightstand, lamp with green shade, a single window, lace curtains, thick grey carpeting. sure, the innkeepers seemed always to be watching, studying my every gesture—so what? by the fourth day, had convinced myself that i was “crazy” or, to use your exact phrase, “unstable.” you ignored—no, mocked—my report of the bizarre activities i witnessed downstairs my first night after the other guests thought i was asleep. “out of my mind,” you said, “this is your last chance.”

last chance: i have, in one way or another, stumbled upon “the story.” the most immaculate narrative arc. the “dirt”? twin mystics. no, twin psychics. levitation, hand-less healing, all the BS minus snake handling. what’s more—the “proof” is in order. notes, interviews, and pictures, all legit, sealed-n-shipped. if you would like the exclusive scoop, i expect “grovel” and “beg.”

sleeplessly yrs,
billie

------------------------------

THE DIARY OF MISS LARA STEIN
10/19/1939

the guests had barely finished their soup when i slipped out of dinner. the rug at the head of the hall was bunched up, & although i kicked it twice, it budged none. the wallpaper had the opposite effect: it looked as if it would at any moment melt off the wall. throughout the afternoon, & especially dinner, i had felt that if i did not get in touch with mr. hammonds soon, i would lose it forever even if i was unsure what that “it” might be.

all thoughts circled back: since arriving at the inn, i slept. no matter that i am a ruthless, life-long insomniac. and not just any sleep: out. eight, nine hours a night. dead to the world. even more unsettling: the cloying tenderness i felt towards the inn or had begun to feel or. i tried to focus on the facts, write in my journal, yet not matter how detailed my descriptions, the number of times i recounted, nothing made sense. this both soothed & bewildered, at various intervals. although i had already decided to leave the next morning, i wanted the reassurance of mr. hammond’s yes, come.

the hallway was narrow, too narrow to accommodate more than one body at a time unless single file. towards the end of the hall, there was a small closet. inside the closet, the phone. no sooner had i dialed mr. hammond’s number, horatio appeared. his body filled the doorframe: busy tonight, eh? i hung up the phone, started to speak. he interrupted join us downstairs tonight if you wish but, right now, go to your room and sleep. i’ll wake you when its time. for the past five nights, i had tried to go downstairs after hours without success. what had changed? i sat in the very center of the bed and scoured the details. at some point, fell asleep. how long passed? horatio knocked on the door, said billie billie bille. he knocked again & again billie.i opened my eyes, slipped on my shoes, and followed him downstairs, towards a door at the end of the hallway that i had never noticed before. touching the door with his fingertips, and just the tips, it opened.
the room was dim-lit, somehow red, like the inside of an eyelid. horatio instructed me to sit on one of three cracked wooden benches. in the left corner, a thumping. i was unable to place the source of the thumping, & within seconds, the thumping was accompanied by the sound of a man panting. there was no man, or rather, no visible man. although it was still spring outside, the room sweltered. there were fifteen other guests. the inpentratable stench of sweat. every face slicked. the room was small. i felt close to each and every person in the room, impossible not to. we were joined by our stench, insufferable suspense. a purple light flashed. a bodiless voice began to speak in portuguese, & although i know no language but my own, i knew. all the guests understood what the voice had said as the voice did not speak so much as convey. we listened, obedient. the purple light flashed again, shone bright, then burned out. more and more bodiless voices rose up. voices like bees wearing coats. the room fell dark. the impossible heat of fifteen, sixteen bodies. a total annihilation of the senses. i could not distinguish between surfaces: the bench, wall, air. the first spirit i witnessed sidled close to me. i could not see it, but somehow i could feel it all around my body. i said you do not exist. i breathed deep, sniffed the air around me to make sure i was still in the room, not alone: i do not believe that you exist. the spirit replied that is of no concern to me.

did i believe? no question: the spirit was real. that is of no concern to me. its very self-assurance had convinced me. it seemed to know me as i knew it: completely. it was as if my body, my very skull, had been emptied out. the spirit stayed at my side. six hours passed. i thought nothing. six hours? it felt like NO TIME. who what when where: i could not, can still not, answer any of these questions. i sat on the bench, staring straight ahead.

still in my soaked shirt and skirt, i unlocked the door to my room, collapsed onto my bed, every limb tingling. i slept. as if never before. i returned the next day. & the next.

-------------------------

Dearest Lara,
send the article ASAP or R.I.P

Yours Truly,
grovel AND beg

10/23/1939
------------------------

POSTMARKED: 10/27/1939

THE UNREPORTED HISTORY OF THE GABBLE BROTHERS: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT
By Lara Stein

Two boys born twelve minutes after midnight. A Harvest Moon. Sky otherwise cleared off—stars? The boys did not scream, not even a single cry, as they slipped out, covered in blood and mucous. Their mother Julia asked are they dead? The doctor laughed as he wrapped the wiggling babies in matching blue blankets. Zep, their father, stared out the only window in the room: I thought they were supposed to cry.
Two boys: Horatio and William. As grown men 6’6 and thick—not fat—big. Big to the extent their bodies generated their own heat. They “occupied” a room. To stand next to them is to sweat. To meet them is to feel them always. As toddlers, though, they dominated no space. Small, silent things—eyes glazed, faces slicked with dew; as if in a “trance”...but a literal trance. For hours at a time, with no premeditation or control, Horatio and William dropped out. An almost holy silence.

Shortly after the twins birth, strange poundings began shaking the walls of the single-story shanty in which the Gabble’s lived. Disembodied voices could be heard in empty rooms, and occasionally, the children even vanished from their cribs only to be found anywhere and everywhere, even outside, perched high in a tree. As the boys grew older, their unexplained powers strengthened. “Unexplained”: Julia knew. A descendant of a long line of psychics, Julia’s great great great grandmother was killed in the1692 Salem witch trials. More recently, grandfather Petty, gifted with “second sight,” was mortally beaten on his farm late-one-night for “the devil’s doings.” Known for her “astonishingly accurate” predictions and visions, Julia had long hidden her talents ever since Zep cornered her on the sidewalk in broad daylight: devil! devil! In her diary from the time, Julia wrote: he never apologized. Discovering herself to be “with child,” the couple cooed I Do. Packed what little they owned into Zep’s burned-out wagon and headed north to New Hampshire.

Located on the fringes of a barren apple farm, the Gabble’s clapboard overlooked nothing. In the winter, monstrous snow. Zep’s temper peaked. After bruising his hand during William’s last beating, he ordered both boys, who were in a trance, to stand outside without shoes. Julia wrote: to freeze the silence out. In school, the situation was as hopeless. Invisible hands threw books, levitated desks, sent rulers, pencils, and slates flying through the room. At this stage the boys—still so very small, their black hair more like fuzz—had little to no control of their powers or the loose spirits that accompanied their presence. Zep did everything he could dream to stop the boy’s disturbances. After seeking the guidance of a Good-Christian-Friend, Zep sold the twins to a traveling showman. 50.00 Each. For the next 14 years, Horatio and William were beaten, stoned, shot at, spit upon and worse all over America, Canada, and Europe. The spectacle of difference.
When their father finally died, the contract with the showman was nulled. The boys returned to New England to live with their spinster-sister Mary on her farm in Green Mountain, Vermont.

Nestled atop a steep hill, The Green Tavern is accessible only via a single-lane dirt road. Owned and operated by Horatio, William, and Mary, The Green Tavern is known nation-wide for one thing alone: “spooky stuff.”

Located in the back corner of the house, is a circular room outfitted with nothing save ten cracked wooden benches and a small cabinet. The room, affectionately called “séance space,” is small and unventilated. The only way in or out is the front door. After conducting a thorough search, no secret closets, panels, latches, trap-doors, or any other sort of “trickery” was found. Likewise, I arrived at The Green Tavern without any reason to “believe.” I left in a state of “unbelief” but one in which believing or unbelieving is wholly irrelevant. To try to know a thing, understand its every element, is to kill it.

Every night of the week except Sunday, the guests gathered downstairs in the foyer to prepare themselves for the séance. Preparations were limited. Before entering the room, guests were asked to remove our shoes and “suspend judgment.” In the center of the room, a platform was lit by a single kerosene lamp, recessed in a barrel. William, who acted as the primary medium, mounted the platform and entered the cabinet. Voices began to whisper, first at a distance, then coming closer and closer. Often, singing, accompanied by spectral music. Disembodied hands appeared, caressed the guest’s heads and neck. Odd lights, unexplained noises. The first spirit emerged from the cabinet. One cannot always see the Spirit but one feels it. The Spirit may or may not speak, but the Spirit always touches. A tingling at the top of the spine, spidering out to every extremity. Over the course of an evening, twenty or thirty spirits, solitary or in groups, might appear. Some completely visible, others almost transparent. Ranging in size from over six feet to only three, the Spirits ranged in nationality and spoke many different languages. The spirits often performed, sang, and became ‘intimate’ with the guests. I only stared. A spirit approached me, shyly at first, floating around the periphery of my body, then closer and closer. The spirit informed me that in my last life I had been a magnifying glass with a slick, black handle. Being a spirit, he spoke six different languages all at once, and his words would make little sense to anyone not transfixed, at that moment, by his radiance. Nothing but bliss the second I stepped into the room. As if reality itself had dissolved. No push, no pull, no worry at all. All consequences gutted. The startling conclusion: this body, my body, was mine only insofar as I chose to inhabit it.

During my stay I witnessed nearly every type of supernatural phenomena: rappings, moving physical objects, spirit paintings, automatic writing, prophecy, speaking in tongues, healings, unseen voices, levitation, remote visions, teleportation and more. The range of activities and diversity of spirits would have required an entire company of actors and several closets of costumes and props. I found no indication whatsoever of foul play.

-------------------------

Lara,

This has gone entirely too far.

The paper sent you to Vermont as a joke. Of course the twins are a hoax. You expect us to publish that horseshit you sent? “Disembodied hands appeared, caressed the guest’s heads and neck.” Aw, Billie, you’re going soft.“No push, no pull, no worry at all.” It’s really too much.

Look, you don’t have to write the article. Never did. Remember it was yourmistake that landed you at The Bullet. We had to print a retraction. I hired you straight out the gate. No experience. You did not know how to ask a single decent question, much less elicit a confession, or even, a hard fact. I taught you everything I know. We put you on the front page. We had an understanding. Or so I thought.

I admit it was unkind to send you on assignment for The Bullet. And I admit that your last six letters were especially disturbing and so prompted this response. I do apologize for sending you to the Inn, and I assume some guilt, but NO, you cannot extend your assignment. NO I will not increase your travel funds. There will be no front page spread. In fact, if you so much as set foot in the state of Vermont, you will lose your position, and Lara, we have offered you a very good position. Your own office, lackey, coffee in the morning. Twice as good as your old gig. As you know, the paper (and yours truly) were very patient the last time something of this sort occurred; we gave you space, we gave you PAID vacation to ‘clear your head.’ We are willing to do the same in this case. No hard feelings, honest. Just come back.

Best,
R. J. Hammonds
11/2/1939

----------------------

THE DIARY OF MS. LARA STEIN:
11/4/1939

back in the city, i do not sleep, walk fifty-six blocks trying to feel tired again. i do not feel tired. instead, sit on the stoop all afternoon. sweat-stink, sweat stuck on the second step. smog along the horizon thick as a nail clipping. my assignments from the paper pile up untouched on my desk. dishes heaped in the sink; the sink itself clogged with tea leaves. traffic in blitzes. traffic, always. can it be said i miss the inn? "the silence, the sleep"? how there is no concept of time at green mountain. no need to DO or "make use,” certainly not "think through."

when horatio told me the story of his and william’s childhood, something in me shifted. seated beneath the only shade tree, we split a fig, slicing it down the center, a single swift cut. he said it happened like this--. showed no emotion, affected little to no tone, as if he knew that his was a hurt so resolute, the story needed nothing but the blunt facts to render whatever listener sympathetic. i listened without speaking, head bent forward in attention. although i assumed mr. hammonds would believe not a single word, i felt it my duty to report. naively thought: if i could just write-it-out then i could make my readers believe, and if not believe, at least entertain the possibility that such powers, such miraculous beings, could exist.

no matter my pleadings, mr. hammonds refuses to believe, to even consider. barks at me through the telephone girl, grow up. you've been tricked. don't push me on this. but mr. hammonds misses the point: if the twins' powers, the restorative effects of the inn itself, proved false, a life-long elaborate hoax, so what? is anything pursued with such sincerity a swindle? could any lie lived for forty or more years still be considered a lie? say i dreamed up the entire thing. say i believed, and believed desperately: then it is so. and it is. but such thoughts would not matter at all if i were at the inn: i would simply be.

-------------------------

THE DIARY OF MISS LARA STEIN
11/19/1939

not related to this writing, but not unrelated either: i am still here. in the same room. sleeping through the afternoon. awake most of the night. i left, tried to publish my “story,” spent two weeks stumbling round the city, which is no longer my city. two weeks! could not stand the houston-heat. dizzy at my desk whenever i tried to write or research new assignments. all thoughts burned back to “it.” every window in my apartment flung open, still. i struggled to breathe. could not stand the distance, miles buzzing between two points—my body &. drove the 1,869 miles towards green mountain. up, up, up the hills, down the gravel driveway. as i rounded the last curve, horatio ran out into front yard, waved down the car, opened the door, hugged me hard & quick. how i have missed him. william & mary. horatio grabbed my suitcase & slung it over his shoulder. william opened the front door with a bow, ushered me up to my usual room. dusk blooming behind the plantation blinds. the bed, which loomed large in the room, was exactly as i had remembered it. i collapsed onto the mattress, body sinking further and further into the down feathers. i closed my eyes in preparation for the night. i slept, dead to the world. i slept for the first time in fourteen days.

sacramento

visited cunt-fox jlynn wakefield this past weekend. more pics here.

san francisco, ca

the entire left wall of the living room is glass, pushed back by a mammoth spanish oak. open the window: manic green floods the carpet, flypapers the walls, which are still bare, save the green, the stuff of summer in decline. tell me, please, if there's a way to revert back to rage; degrade this silence into such a state of incoherency, violence is possible. true violence can only occur in broad daylight. i want to be watched. if after twilight—is only terror, the basest form, all reverberation. i seek the purity of present-tense. and fail. the formality of my silence, of “healing”—smoothing my skirt as i sit; the sun, skin light with it. mom calls: in january, the rose bowl. do you know where they keep the floats? my sister: i tried sixteen different wedding dresses; they all made me look fat. the formality, even, of despair. i sweat without producing a scent or any identifiable moisture. i wait every day for the sun to reach high noon: a drunk and stumbling yellow

in the computer lab PK walks over, leans close, almost touching but not: want to get stoned? we drive twelve miles up I-5 to his apartment nestled atop a steep incline. idling in the driveway, he says stay here. three minutes later, emerges with a small tupperware square. one hit: he’s blitzed, mutters a prophecy or two about aliens, impending doom, then sorry haven’t smoked in months. dusk pushes up against the windshield. i lean back, close my eyes, and touch his leg don’t worry. i already like you. he cracks the window; smoke swirls up, dissolves in the moonlight. when i pass the pipe, he shakes his head no then asks how old are you? i ignore the question. how old? he quite literally places a hand on my shoulder: yr only twenty-three don’t you think you oughta slow it down? his voice like wheat being cut. i light my last cigarette: slow it down from what?

when i leave i drive around the city, letting the strung-out breeze fill the car. T calls and says come watch the magnolias drop. sprawled on the hood of his car, we split a burrito the size of my head, drink kamikazes, sweat through our jeans. with our mouths full of salt and grease, we talk about john wieners. left me here/3 AM/no Sign. T rolls a cigarette, paper sticking to his fingertips, lips. awww shit. dawn. T drops me off on sidewalk outside my duplex. the sunlight all but swarms.

honey, ca

(still haven't unpacked)

8/15/09-8/19/09

ten am, swamped in sweat, we left for california. car packed to its outer limits; every window blocked, mirrors visible only if squinting. the first day we drove 800 miles through mississippi’s rotted maw into shreveport, louisiana. checked-in at the hotel; the clerk cleared his throat: you know yr late you know yr really really late. on the sidewalk, we passed two frat boys named chet and kenny who offered us a puff off their blunt. located on the second floor, our room overlooked the pool, which was occupied 24/7 by co-eds. after snuggling down in bed, we realized we forgot to pack the cat’s litter box. yelling balcony to balcony, i asked chet directions to wal-mart? he tripped on an empty bottle of abita take a left out the parking lot, stay straight, first right. on our drive, we passed six prostitutes huddled outside a chevron. at the hotel, useless sleeping pills. woke before dawn. slipped into my clothes, damp from the humidity. the sun rose. we crossed into texas. at a love’s fueling station, i bought a “don’t mess with” post-card for my sister. two coffees later, we saw signs for dallas but not the city itself. at rush hour we rolled through austin. my tires did not complete a single full rotation till at least sixteen miles outside the city, and even then, stop-n-go all the way to san antionio.

san antionio: psychotic heat, concrete bleached past any recognizable shade of white. when we arrived at tom’s house, his dad stood from his lawn chair, waved, then resumed his seat beneath what appeared to be a palm tree. a tortoise crawled out, blinked. when i parked my car on the curb, tom rushed over no no no neighborhood patrol. i moved my car. tom’s dad handed me a spaten: yeah, the neighborhood's nothing if not up my ass about parking and shoes on the stoop. i finished my beer. single swig. removed my shoes and placed them on the stoop next to the tangle of leather loafers, burned-out tevas. inside: the most pristine carpet, hard-wood. tom’s dad handed me another spaten: sorry i don’t have anything harder. out back--tom gave us a tour of his turtles, tortoises, and snakes; his knowledge of each species, as well as reptiles in general, impressed. while i watched the red-footed tortoise sleep, tom fired the grill. filet mignon. wine spilt across a tartan table cloth. after cutting his steak into three equally proportioned pieces, tom’s dad recounted his days in southern california. mostly, the drugs. after dinner we drove to j’s house. the sign on the corner read no playing in the street. tom pointed out each house. two different cars in four months crashed into the same duplex. j. answered the door with a handshake and pack of marlboro lights. i blazed through my first two cigarettes as well as the joint j. rolled. don’t smoke this shit with just anyone. on the radio, doug sahm sang did a lot of cocaine did a lot of rhythm and blues. around midnight the boys brought out the amps, alternated between wonky arthur lee covers and just plain wanking. at some point j. unplugged his bass, stood up, and pulled the blinds shut: i can’t tell if that’s a P.E. instructor or a cop. tom said one last round then we’re out.

when the dew burned off the grass, we drove to lubbock. on four hours of sleep. my sole salvation: two trips to dairy queen, a pack of cigarettes. too exhausted to bother with "touring the town," we walked to the wal-mart across the street from our hotel, bought a large pizza and case of lone star beer. bellies full, tv blaring: fucked twice before passing out with all the lights on.

the drive to flagstaff passed without incident. earth carved up, crazed red, etc. i snapped splotchy pictures through the windshield, did not speed. smoked cigarettes through my teeth. after the last night in the last hotel, we left for LA starry-eyed and laughing. thirty miles from the border, i received the most inane, over-priced, totally illegal traffic ticket of my life. at the fruits and agriculture check-point, a man in tethered twills confiscated my prunes. three hours later, we arrived at our new apartment, unloaded the car, split a speedway stout, burned out.

san antonio, tx

big wheels keep on turning / proud mary keep on burning

“But there are cramps of an entirely other order, when even hardened doctors—knowing it is not important, only temporary—reach for the Demerol and the needle. It must be so in every lonely degrading thing from which one comes back having learned nothing whatever. There are no conclusions to be drawn from it. Lonely people see double entendres everywhere.”

--Renata Adler, Speedboat

lawrence on hawthorne

In the first place, Adam knew Eve as a wild animal knows its mate, momentaneously, but vitally, in blood-knowledge. Blood-knowledge, not mind-knowledge. Blood-knowledge, that seems utterly to forget, but doesn't. Blood-knowledge, instinct, intuition, all the vast vital flux of knowing that goes on in the dark, antecedent to the mind.

Then came that beastly apple, and the other sort of know- ledge started.

Adam began to look at himself. 'My hat!' he said. 'What's this ? My Lord ! What the deuce ! - And Eve ! I wonder about Eve.'

Thus starts KNOWING. Which shortly runs to UNDERSTANDING, when the devil gets his own.

When Adam went and took Eve, after the apple, he didn't do any more than he had done many a time before, in act. But in consciousness he did something very different. So did Eve. Each of them kept an eye on what they were doing, they watched what was happening to them. They wanted to KNOW. And that was the birth of sin. Not doing it, but KNOWING about it. Before the apple, they had shut their eyes and their minds had gone dark. Now, they peeped and pried and imagined. They watched themselves. And they felt uncomfortable after. They felt self-conscious. So they said, 'The act is sin. Let's hide. We've sinned.'

No wonder the Lord kicked them out of the Garden. Dirty hypocrites.

The sin was the self-watching, self-consciousness. The sin, and the doom. Dirty understanding.

--from Studies in Classic American Literature, Chapter 7 Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter by D.H. Lawrence (1923)

holed up in the back bedroom, windows flung open, tongue salt-swollen. i sweat through my jeans, sweat my way into a deep deep sleep. ten hours later, wake: cat pawing my face, phone ringing off the hook. hello? my sister with news of her engagement. you forgot to say congratulations. the phone rings and rings. i stagger down the hall to stand, half-naked, before the box fan, which sputters to a stop five minutes after i click on. out the window: a hunter’s moon. without harvest. even the insects exhausted. lawn still, a silence so great all hopelessness is shamed.

moby dick, 2

"As the strongest literary force Shakespeare caused Melville to approach tragedy in terms of drama. As the strongest social force America caused him to approach tragedy in terms of democracy.

It was not difficult for Melville to reconcile the two. Because of his perception of America: Ahab.

It has to do with size and how you value it. You can approach BIG America and spread yourself like a pancake, sing her stretch as Whitman did, be puffed up as we are over PRODUCTION. It’s easy. THE AMERICAN WAY. Soft. Turns out paper cups, lies flat on the brush. N.G.

Or recognize that our power is simply QUANTITY. Without considering purpose. Easy too. That is so long as we continue to be INGENIOUS about machines, and have the resources.

Or you can take an attitude, the creative vantage. See her as OBJECT in MOTION, something to be shaped for use. It involves a first act of physics. You can observe POTENTIAL and VELOCITY separately, have to, to measure THE THING. You get approximate results. They are useable enough if you include the Uncertainty Principal, Heisenberg’s law that you learn the speed at the cost of exact knowledge of the energy and the energy at the loss of exact knowledge of the speed.

Melville did his job. He calculated, and cast Ahab. BIG, first of all. ENERGY, next. PURPOSE: lordship over nature. SPEED: of the brain. DIRECTION: vengeance. COST: the people, the crew.

Ahab is the FACT, the Crew the IDEA. The Crew is where what America stands for got into Moby-Dick. They’re Melville’s addition to tragedy as he took it from Shakespeare."

--Charles Olson, Call Me Ishmael

"It takes 1028 human bodies to build a star."

--Lorine Niedecker, Switchboard Girl

Gershon Legman: Notes

Notes on Gershon Legman:

1. Holed-up in a bed with a smashed ankle, Gershon Legman took to paper folding. In 1940 few Westerners knew of the intricate art of origami. A most fascinating practice, a kind of alchemy: through a series of tiny and precise folds, a single sheet of paper could morph into an almost infinite number of distinct forms. Legman was introduced to folding as a child after discovering an illustrated rendition of The Lover’s Knot in a magic book. Propped up in bed, Legman folded and unfolded and refolded the knot. In the same year, he published his first book Oragenitalism: Oral Techniques in Genital Excitation for Gentlemen. What unfolds in the slim, sixty-seven page volume is a beautiful and thoroughgoing testament to clit-licking.

2. Better known as a folklorist and dirty joke virtuoso, Gershon Legman also pedaled Anais Nin’s dollar a page erotica. Anais Nin’s biographer, Noel Riley Fitch claims that, at the age of twenty-three, Legman could be heard saying “I have devoted my life to the clitoris.”

3. Legman’s first brush with erotica: seated on the floor of his mothers closet, among a forest of dresses and panties, thumbing through volumes of Havelock Ellis which his mother kept with all their “forbidden books” in her closet.

4. When Legman published Oragenitalism (1940), cunnilingus was still illegal in most US states. One of the most popular marriage manuals at the time—Theodore van de Velde’s Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique—detailed foreplay, including brief mentions of the clitoris, nipples, and mouth as well as described the “ten sexual positions.” According to Van de Velde, oral sex was OK for foreplay but orgasming from that method was as “pathological” as homosexuality, masturbation, or fucking from behind. In this cultural climate, under French pseudonym, Legman wrote his meticulous guide to cunnilingus, devoting passages to nearly every aspect, including even the styles of facial hair best suited for the act: “The Beard and the mustache have in common a tendency to sop up the vaginal secretions and, if grey or white, be stained by them. The stain will not show in the dark—nor—being amber in color—in blond hair.”

5. Oragenitalism did not sell many copies so the publisher offered it as part of a package deal that included a volume of Norman Douglas’ erotic limericks and an underground version of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. In the same year of its publication, almost every copy of Oragenitalism was burned when police raided the publisher’s headquarters on obscenity charges.

6. A ruthless pursuer of minutia, Legman would more accurately be described as having devoted his life to exposing the West’s forbidden history. In the 1940’s no American scholar’s knowledge surpassed Legman’s in regard to rare and impossible to find erotic texts as well as a dirty jokes, limericks, lewd graffiti, and celebrity and political sex gossip. No matter his subject his research method remained the same: find everything. Except for a brief stint in the 1960’s, he operated entirely outside academia, leaving the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor his first semester under auspice unspecified scandal. Instead, Legman camped out every day for nearly a year at the New York Public library reading up and through history. It was during this time that he developed his research aesthetic: the considered reintegration of seemingly unrelated details, scraps of forgotten or suppressed information, and placing them within their proper political, social, and psychological context.

7. At train stations across New York, Legman could be found sitting on a bench, folding and refolding a piece of paper, listening to some stranger tell raunchy joke. Listening to ordinary people share their stories was integral to his approach. He often used origami as a way of getting people to open up. He was not only interested in the jokes themselves, but also why people told them. Legman felt that people used jokes as a way of navigating otherwise dangerous or disturbing sexual information.

8. Legman’s magnum opus, The Rationale of a Dirt Joke: An Analysis of Sexual Humor (1968) is 811 pages long and contains material collected in the United States over the course of forty years. Like all his writings, in Rational Legman eschewed the footnote, loathing the very premise. He sought to exhaust the subject within the text itself

9. In 1943 Kinsey hired Legman as the Institute of Sex Research’s first official bibliographer. The pair met through Legman’s former employer, Robert Latou Dickinson, a pioneering gynecologist and birth control advocate who contributed largely to the modernization of sex. Although Dickinson was eighty-two at the time, he was proud of the fact he could still orgasm two or three times a year.

10. Dickinson remained a priceless resource for Kinsey and their friendship continued to deepen. In 1949 Dickinson wrote letter to Kinsey about a town in deep Kansas where all the women were reputed to have orgasms very easily and almost always. When Kinsey visited the town, he discovered that parents soothed their female babies by massaging the genital area which often led to a quieting orgasm. Kinsey felt that their orgasm habits were a learnt reaction carried through adulthood.

spring, please?

"i just want to feel good all the time"

I Found a Love, The Falcons (featuring Wilson Pickett)

"I think that if a woman is gifted and she’s attractive she’s going to have a great time on earth. Why would she want to be anything else? I don’t think of myself as a strong woman. I never even heard that word about me until recently. I always thought that bluntly I was a glamorous goddamn exciting woman. I didn’t want to be strong at anything. I wanted to have a ball on earth. But I wanted it through the channels that I want.”

--Louise Nevelson, Dawns and Dusks: Tapped Conversations

an entire week dissolved. windows open, curtains shuddering. spring almost. a held breath, skirt tucked between my legs. endless stream of interviews. we’ll give you a call next monday. my phone line dead. balancing & rebalancing the checkbook. class on the weekends: frustration in every direction. i raise my hand. i hee & haw. two women say i admire yr passion! tho i thought my delivery was dead-pan. a blank face, even better, head. i drop dead. i swim in my own skin. try to concentrate on bright spots, slashes of sun through the slotted blinds. blinds slapping, curtains still shuddering, splitting open, exposing all that they contain. exposing only my naked body moving as if a held breath, undetectable unless placed before a mirror.

"He was not shooting dirty pictures. He believed sex appeal was 'human appeal.' He also believed 'the true nude gives a version of beauty, both physical and spiritual -- two great needs of humanity. Allen was a seer who thought his photos would inspire a kind of paradoxical chaste lust and reveal the potential of all naked women to become icons."

--David Bowman on Albert Arthur Allen

today i learned that there is no word for clitoris in ancient Greek, and the first time the word kleitoris appears it is as an anatomical term in Rufus of Ephesus texts. Rufus of Ephesus, writing around the first and second century AD, lists the word kleitoris alongside three other synonyms only two still used during his times: numoe, a metaphor whose sense is “the veiled” and murton, “myrtle berry,” based on the appearance of that berry.

“I am blind and so in some things I will not be as good as my father, while in others I will be better. I cannot read some of the books he could, but I have women read them to me.”

--Frank Stanford
(from A Son’s Tale)

&&&

Fifteen terms existed in Latin for clitoris, and the ancient Romans had medical knowledge of the clitoris, and their native word for it was landīca. This appears to have been one of the most obscene words in the entire Latin lexicon. It is alluded to, but does not appear, in literary sources, except in the Priapeia 79, which calls it misella landica, the “poor little clitoris.” It does, however, appear in graffiti.

new year’s eve. a house carved into a hill, yard littered with beer cans. not a “party” but a “get together.” we arrive late, after spilled drinks, ashtrays too. soot on every surface. in the living room, twenty people sit or stand or lean their heads against the wall. as far as furniture, nothing but bodies breathing. i slip my coat off—scarf, sweater, undershirt. still i sweat. m. & i touch each other through a layer of condensation. the introductions begin—hi hello, this is, no, this is. where are you from? have you lived here long? the owners of the house—two couples—are of some vague age i can’t place. late thirties, early forties. details are shared, though, i’m having trouble hearing. the girl in the kitchen—yes, that girl—snapped her heel in half, lays up turned on the floor. although she’s had enough—the only single girl in miles—she is offered yet another. we raise our hands, tilt our heads. present are two boys from work & one guy i recognize from that snowy night at whitney’s house. i remember him at all: goddman kind smile, voice like closed eyelids. later when he sees the girl—teetering now in bare feet—he pulls her into a hug & asks do you want to step outside for a cigarette? watching from her perch on the kitchen counter, whitney says do they know each other? i mean, have they met before? one of the hosts shrugs not that i’m aware of.

as midnight approaches, the stragglers filter into the living room. whoever cannot sit, stands shoulder to shoulder. the drunk red-head kicks the edge of the couch then knocks over the ottoman. whitney seals the seam of her joint. where’s the lighter. the countdown begins. we all kiss. on the porch, the girl is throwing up over the banister; behind her, the guy sits, hands wrapped round her hips.

we drive home very slow.