§87 “The question is how to get the 2 books done.”
The 2 books, in V.W.’s case are her Common Reader, her book of essays, and Mrs. Dalloway. She’ll get them done (I’m sure) … but will I … get my 2 books done? In my case it’s my next Nova Letter (???) & The Film Diaries 2. But it’s never that simple with me. I’m always writing more books at once than I should. 2 should be the limit. / When I was working on Von Neumann’s Elephant, I already had been gathering material for Journeys To/From… since July (the same month I started The Film Diaries 2) inspired by … when I (by chance!) discovered the dancer, choreographer, filmmaker Yvonne Rainer & had to respond to her work in some way ,, & I was also working on Cloud Theory and A Small Part of the Big Picture Bonanza. Instead of allowing the work to overflow and flood the creative plain, like Hercules struggling with Achelous, I erect dikes, dams, earthworks, levees … this paragraph goes here, this one over there ,, keep it all neat and orderly and straight … all this counterbalanced perhaps by my procedures (while in practice are methodical but…) which produce a boiling chaos of words, a tempest of twisty passages, a writhing snakes nest of coiled sentences … if I let go for one second, it will all fly apart.
[1.xii.24.a : dimanche] Alice & I are back in Rosendale, a different house this time, about a mile west of the Trestle on Lawrenceville Road. The old house (at least a hundred years old & drafty) backs up to the river. It’s a two storey house. We’ve rented the lower level. A young couple is above us. I introduced myself to the young man when I was unloading the car. “If you need anything, just let me know!”
Alice cleaned while I unpacked. We’d stopped at two grocery stores on the way to pick up locally grown items, locally brewed beer, a bottle of wine from an upstate winery, a bottle of corn whiskey made from water taken from the Widow Jane mine, which is across the road from this house where we’re staying.
While Alice warmed up our dinner on the stove (Thanksgiving leftovers), I sat on the couch in the front room sipping a pilsner and reading Horace Gregory’s translation of The Metamorphoses by Ovid.
Evidence suggests that the owners of this house actually make use of it themselves :: books about art: portraits by Andy Warhol, Art Nouveau, Gustav Kilmt, and a giant coffee-table book, The Rise of David Bowie. Two photos of David Bowie on the walls. A German theme: Jugendstil, the German manifestation of Art Nouveau, 1895-1910. Alice told me that this house had been used as an art studio. Most of these rentals, the ones that are only rental properties, are merely decorated (for minimal functionality) and have no books at all, or if they do, they are books about the region, suggestions for what to do if you’re a tourist. There is a copy of The Caucasian Chalk Circle on the shelf here … so the books are not just a decoration.
A couple of weeks ago, I ran off ten copies each of my first two Nova Letters: The Asphyxiation Artist and Von Neumann’s Elephant. Yesterday, before leaving our house in Long Neck, I hastily stapled and folded four copies of each to bring along on the trip to deposit (after the fashion of Johnny Appleseed) my gift of literature to the wide world. Given the photos of Bowie, the coffee-table book, and another book: All the Lyrics by Bob Dylan ,, this house deserves a copy of The Asphyxiation Artist which makes reference to both Bowie and Dylan.
Across from where I’m typing this is a long, floor to ceiling poster of Sarah Bernhardt as Medea … MEDEE, Theatre de la Renaissance. Behind me, Marlene Deitrich seductively sucks a cancer stick (she’s in a wide-brimmed black hat, black lace, and black dress with a descending neckline … she is Mistress Death, a Siren of Destruction). To my left, through the window, I have a view of the side yard. If it wasn’t below freezing, I’d be sitting out there enjoying the view of the river and keeping an eye out for the eagles. When we were here two months ago (at the end of September) staying in a little place behind Postmark Books, I saw an eagle fishing in the river. The water level was the lowest I’ve ever seen it. Judging from the water running past this house, this part of the state has enjoyed some rain also. After nearly three months of drought, we finally had a spell of rain on Long Island. On Thanksgiving morning, I was out in the yard wearing my wide-brimmed Tilley and long blue Air-Force issue raincoat (that belonged to my father) working in the rain : collecting the wet leaves from the road that had been crushed under the tires of passing cars, these crushed leaves make excellent mulch for the yard (or so I’d imagine). We’ll see how this gardening experiment goes. Ten days ago, Alice & I watched a documentary called Common Ground about how regenerating the Earth’s soil might be a way of mitigating global warming … of course (obviously) regenerating the soil alone won’t help unless carbon emissions are simultaneously reduced to zero. The documentary was silent on this point, leaving the impression that we could carry on with “business as usual” if we “green the earth”. In any case, I decided that I would try, do my best, to regenerate the soil in my own yard. And, as I am wont to do, I’m documenting this yard project, incorporating soil regeneration into my Poetry Project, the practical part of paying attention to Nature.
The side yard here at this house on Lawrenceville Road resembles a moonscape, hard-baked bare dirt cut with a few runoff rivulets and a narrow wedge of lawn running along the fence. The trees are bare and brush has turned brown. Across the river are a half dozen pine trees greening the leaf-strewn slopes.