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Life at the Lake

a diary of living on a small lowland lake

Lake Ketchum under a newly risen moon

a quote from Thoreau's Journals, 6/16/1840: "I am startled when I consider how little I am actually concerned about the things I write in my journal. . . . Of what consequence whether I stand on London Bridge for the next century, or look into the depths of this bubbling spring which I laid open with my hoe?"

Everything must have a name, and names are arbitrary —at least until they become established, after which they are hard to change. So I began searching for a name for these journals, which I had simply called, "Notebooks," numbering the pages consecutively and putting them into binders in bunches with Acro fasteners, when the volume got too great. I grouped them according to years, naturally. For some reason I cannot pin down, my "years" usually began around the first of July. Thus, they resemble the fiscal years of governments and corporations.

I searched and I searched, but nothing acceptable for a name came to mind. I had to come up with a better name than "Notebooks," one more descriptive, localized, particular. I wanted the title to convey a vital element of the Pacific Northwest, and its particular biological geography—what some call "bioregionalism"—of the country I love so, and away from which I seldom stray.

The image that kept coming to mind was recalcitrant salmonberry thickets; my crabbed manuscript was very much like them. How distinct, how indigenous, the shrub was. It grew everywhere on the Pacific slope of the Cascade Mountains, where it behaved like a weed, a tough, resilient series of growths reaching for the sky and only partly redeeming themselves with luscious berries in the spring.

Each year, my wife and I destroy many square feet of salmonberry thicket; if we don't, it will engulf and eliminate all other flora. In the Pacific Northwest, you dare ignore salmonberry only so long. Eventually, it comes to call at your door. It spreads and becomes dense like crazy, preventing you from walking along a favorite path that only last year was thin scrub.

The ubiquitous salmonberry became my theme and subject, as I wrote about other things. It took a while for me to realize the extent of its intrusion and its dominance. It rises out of an alder copse and takes hold, until it overcomes the landscape. So I tentatively called the journal The Salmonberry Chronicles.

I did not write pointedly about the salmonberry until I began composing the third volume my notebooks, when it seemed to overwhelm me from every direction. For some reason—familiarity, perhaps—I began to do some research on this abundant flora that was nearly a weed in my part of the country. This was 1980, or thereabouts. In my notebooks I discovered page after page of data I had collected from many sources. Looking it over, it seemed too good to hide inside a lengthy text—these notebooks. So I've brought it forward to use as a preface. It seems to fit better here.

I won't say the salmonberry and I have become exactly friends. It's more like we are colleagues along a riverbank. I have a healthy respect for it, especially in how it determinedly blocks my path when I set out for a day's fishing. If I intrude too far, its canes fling me back with a snap and a vengeance. Limp and dead all winter, in spring it is sappy and vigorous. One must come to terms with it, or lose the battle. I have chosen the former. Besides, the salmonberry is good to eat.

This is an extraordinary year for salmonberries. They virtually drip from their canes. There are two varieties, the golden orange and the burgundy. The latter are my favorite. [Years later, I changed my mind.] I can detect only slight differences between the two and it may be my eyes are effecting my sense of taste, for the deep bluish red ones seem the proper color for such a fruit and cause me to group it with its kin, the loganberry, the raspberry, the cascadeberry, and a bit farther away, the Himalayan blackberry that grows so extensively around here, with its tangles of impenetrable vines and fierce, hooked thorns.

The orange salmonberries are of a color that belongs to the citrus fruits, and I come across them in the woods as a surprise, an anomaly. Generally, I shun them, but once in a while find myself in an experimental mood and plop one into my mouth. Is it my imagination, or do I find them firmer, tastier, less seedy? They will do, I think, for most people's fruit-eating purposes. And the price is right. The burgundy ones grow right along with the orange, in a kind of fruity promiscuity of cane thickets, and the burgundy seem to dominate and attract me more, with their color, their lushness, the promise of their sweet taste.

Both are seedy. It is a fact of salmonberry life. And the flavor is, well, shall we say, delicate? It is a bit bland and watery. My wife tells me this is why nobody thinks to make jams and jellies out of them.

"Let's make some jam," I tell her, munching away on the red ones, but her cold eye informs me there is no chance, not unless I do it myself. I put it down on the bottom of a ladder of things I will never get around to doing. So each year, in sweet May, I gather my salmonberries, which means going on picking diversions on my way to fish the river. And because of the late start of the fishing season, I miss the peak of the crop, and must settle for the tag end of their season. Some are already rotting on the cane and are sickly sweet. I have to spit out their foul pulp.

Salmonberry canes grow profusely, given no encouragement. On my property, they are the dominant flora. They are impossible to get rid of permanently. Periodically I have to cut them back, or else be engulfed in them, forevermore. Now, I don't really mind them, but when they begin to steal away by tall inches my view of the river, it's too much, and I am goaded into action and attack. I go after them with machete, ax, and brushhook. All will serve to whack down the canes. Getting the roots up is another matter.

A salmonberry cane is light brown, scaly, dry. Its bark flakes. At its heart is a pulpy beige core, a little bullseye of soft-wood center. A cane has thorns, but they are half-hearted ones, and do a poor job of protecting the bush from human destruction. Thorns are pale, flesh-colored, which makes them hard to find to dig out. Each year I must open up the river trail, the one given over to the walks of neighbors and fishermen who are tired of fighting the current and slippery stones in an advancing season, when the bottom of the river grows coated with algae and slime. Wild rose and salmonberry—distant relatives, in which a family resemblance can be detected in the shared magenta hues of their different blooms—block the river trail. The salmonberry growths I can snap off with my bare hands, and do, but the wild rose will stab my palm, if I try the same trick.

I have confronted a wild rose that barred my progress, and carefully sought to find a fingerhold between its thorns in which to bend its stalk backwards and break it off. I can never find one so wide. The thorns are placed just close enough to prevent this—is it divine placement? I must use my pocketknife for the chore. The salmonberry, though, I can snap back out of the way. A shattered cane forms a spear point, wicked and dangerous. Stumble on one in the dark, and you will suffer a grievous wound.

If you are cutting down canes, it is necessary to leave yourself a handle to lever out the roots later. And you may get tiny transparent thorns in your palm, which remain invisible for days, when they begin to fester and pain you to the touch. They cannot be seen and, to remove them, you must perform exploratory surgery on yourself. It is best to try to catch thorns early, while there is a bit of root protruding from your skin; the use of the teeth is invaluable.

The stalk or stem of the salmonberry is what keeps the fruit in the air and safe, during bearing season. In fall, nature turns off the life juices and announces to the roots that the year is over. It is time to die back. It won't be until March that new shoots push up out of the mulch and put out their shaggy green leaves, tentative at first, then with blatant authority. Quickly, the leaves bear blooms, the blooms new fruits on new canes. Early in the year, canes are easily trespassed on; it is not until after bearing that they become tough and resistant. By fall, the thickets are impenetrable.

What I cut, I must bear out and burn. Some are canes are twelve feet high; this is why it is best to whack them down each year, while they are young. A few I've allowed to go on with their life, untrammeled, for they provide me with a free fence and a barrier between me and my neighbor. Properly cultivated, or rather uncultivated, they will soon form a wall. (Good walls make good neighbors, don't they?) Overhead in spring are small, deep violet flowers, some in clusters, others individually scattered among the green. The sun bursts out, and bees arrive with their suitcases to gather up the pollen.

The salmonberry asks to be left alone. I cooperate. Most of the harvest belongs to the birds and the insects. And the earth becomes richer as a result of what falls and is absorbed. This is my operating principle, until proved wrong. I believe in letting natural processes operate without interruption, or alteration. This is my conservation. I exercise a form of negative land management. The land can do whatever it wants, for the most part. I sit back and watch the advance of seasons and cycles. I strive to blend in. I do not interfere. I fish, I dream.

Berries aside, I am a writer, a role I take seriously, and these are my notebooks, originally intended for my own use. But I think they have some further value. My observations in many ways are typical for their times, while still maintaining, I hope, some degree or originality. But the original notebooks are so voluminous, so repetitious, so tedious even to me, that they require a strong editor. Since none was at hand, I had to perform the task myself. It was a little like doing a root canal on yourself. I've cut and I've culled and I've thrown aside much material, knowing I had it saved in another file: the notebooks themselves. And I've given them a new name—Roughcut—for they have reduced the volume by about forty percent. For me, that's doing pretty good.

All the material on fishing has been removed, unless it represents something more than a day's happy respite from my main activity, writing. But never one to throw anything very far away, I've save it too and put it into a special volume called "Riverscape." It is a thing-unto-itself and does not properly belong here.

"Roughcut" then is drawn from my life as a writer. It is not very different from my life as a man. It interested me as I made my daily entries over twenty years. It interested me still, or again, as I reduced its volume. My great hope is that it will interest others, too. rca

there is too much cyan in the day. Didn't realize it until I took off my amber sunglasses, while driving up to the river

all the unleafed bushes in the country burn wine-dark with sap, there are catkins on the barren alder limbs, and the "pussies" are gone from the willows. All is budded. Skunk cabbage out, crocuses

dandelions all over the fields, some already with puff balls. Vine maples unfurling tented leaves, and up on top of each stem are two pinkish shucks from out of which the leaf emerges. Everything growing with a fury

Henry Thoreau—you remember him, don't you?—would love a tent trailer like mine. But first somebody would have to pull the wheels off so it more resembles a cabin. Then it could no longer "travel widely," as he puts it, even around Concord. It is so efficient, neat, compact, simple—but all of these things in a modern, plastic manner. So maybe he would like only the idea of one

a photoessay or book called "Smoking," showing people in the act of smoking—cigarets (very slow shutter speeds like of Norma inhaling smoke through her nose, the way she does; pipes, grass, cigars, old men and women, even cabins with smoke coming out of their chimneys, leaves burning; the accoutrements of pipesmokers lying on the table, etc. A bit like Andre Kertesz's, Reading

Anthony Burgess, in his introduction to A Shorter Finnegan's Wake, says (p. xix), "being a river is very nearly a full-time job." Amen

the salmonberry asks to be left alone. I cooperate. Most of the harvest belongs to the birds and the insects. And the earth becomes richer as a result of what falls and is absorbed. This is my general operating principle. I exercise a form of negative land management. The land can do whatever it wants. I sit back and watch the advance of seasons and cycles. I fish, I dream

Country Western song, "Snowbird": "The one I love forever is untrue." How succinct, how tragic, how final, how poignant

on seeing restaurant workers picketing the Arlington Turkey House and giving them the sympathetic clenched fist salute; they were totally oblivious to its meaning, their sole concern being to keep me from driving in and eating there. Anybody who claims a bond with the workingclass has had no contact with them. Cf. George Orwell and his professed love of socialism. Yeah

the Keoughs are always losing priests in the woods. They wander off, reading their Bibles. One came up to the river today to say mass for them. Then he disappeared. "Have you seen Father John?" I was asked. "No." "Oh dear, I wonder where he's gone this time?" He wanders away, reading his Bible, then gets lost, and they have to go out and find him and bring him back

finally finished Anthony Burgess's A Shorter Finnegans Wake. Wow, what a chore. Highly unintelligible and behind all that intentional obscurity, a mish-mash. Am now reading Vonnegut, a collections of "opinions" called unmemorably, Wampeters, Forna, and Granfalloons. [A few years later, I read all of Finnegans Wake, and didn't feel this way about it at all. It was "pure music," and I enjoyed it greatly]

am reading Thoreau, as I was a year ago at this time. I ought to purchase his journals, while they're still in print. [Note: I did.] He is such a splendid writer, but I sometimes forget what the subject of his beautiful, long, involved sentences is—the mysterious "it"—and must trace it back, back. My fault, not his

In comparison, John Muir seems coy and obnoxious to the modern sensibility, which cannot tolerate use of the pathetic fallacy and certain other literary abuses

am reading Joseph Wood Krutch's (a wooden crutch?) biography of Thoreau. Thoreau would not like it. A lot of slop, intended for the mushy-minded. No footnotes to indicate where in the Journals the quotes are from. A sign of laziness and thoughtlessness toward the reader on K's part. K plays pretty free and lose with the great man's ideas, too

saw the Great Blue Heron in the backwater, but it spotted me from a couple of hundred feet away and took off, its great wings thumping, its neck crooked in the characteristic drain spout curve. Feet tucked back in flight like the return gas port on the Browning Automatic Rifle. {Ah, former Army days just won't be forgotten]

The other night, just before dark, an otter swam across my pool, thereby ruining the fishing for the rest of the short day. It dives silently, with no slap of its tail, as is the case with the beaver

Krutch's book on Thoreau is better than I thought at first, although a bit professorial

discovered some small frogs today—one not so small and the rest apparently this year's crop—along the beach at our river lot. They were dark brown and less than an inch long. They can change their coloration as necessary; they most resemble the green tree frogs we once hatched out from eggs collected in puddled rainwater at Boulder Creek, when my son was very small. Mosquito larvae were in the same water, and if the tadpoles did not develop enough in time to eat the mosquito larvae before they hatched out, we had to extinguish them before we became their victims

These tads lay in the fetid water along the beach, which is filled with iron compounds and bacteria. The shallow (but clear and moving) water near shore has fry of many kinds and sizes, mostly steelhead, but silver salmon, too. Amazing how sharp and clearly visible the parr-markings are, even on fish an inch long under water. I assume that the fry that flee from my shadow or movement are steelhead. Obviously, they are not tiny suckers

am thinking of doing a review of Richard Blessing's book on Theodore Roethke for UW Alumnus—the massive, brooding, domineering quality of the man, his one-of-the-boys competitiveness with college men (for coeds), his disdain for most colleagues, his open pursuit of undergraduate girls. The day he died, he had four times as many close friends and drinking companions than would own up while he was alive. All the "Ted and I's" I keep hearing

Hemingway, in an article, "Trout Fishing in Europe," says, "Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as somebody looking over your shoulder while your write a letter to your girl." Or maybe making love, in a less than private place?

Roethke taught me that metaphor is the native language of the mind, if not the soul. We must all learn to speak it, or live in an Appalachia of the spirit

today we do not covet our neighbor's wife; we merely covet his house, his car, the success of his children

a book of the seasons, but begin it in some oddball month, such as October, November, or February. [I did this, less than a year later, but in July.] Each month/chapter about 30k words long, but divided into thirds and each on a different subject. One might consist of close observations of nature and the seasons. One on contemporary events, which will fix the narrative in time and place. The third based on the particulars drawn from my small life, reading, daily events, etc.

saw a huge caterpillar that I could duplicate almost exactly at my flytying vice: size 2 hook; butt, black chenille, with three turns of grizzly hackle tied between two turns of more black chenille; body, pale yellow chenille; head, same as butt. I wonder what such a creature "turns into?" Something uglier than most?

went to the zoo Thursday to try out my new Leitz 135mm. lens and was dismayed at what I saw. Poor beasts. Zoos are prisons for dumb animals. What crimes did each of these species commit to be exiled to this prison farm for life? So sad, so dreary. They walk around, filthy, on concrete. What does it mean—that some large mammals will breed in captivity? Does this portend hope for the species? I think not. Some terrible form of desperation. I suppose there are people, too, who are only able to breed in front of their television sets

wrote a 500-word piece for Alumnus on Blessing's book on Roethke. Don't care too much for Roethke's Collected Letters—they're too full of the grubby business of merchandising his exquisite poems and ingratiating himself with those who have already arrived and can do him some good, such as Auden. Ted might not have wanted them published, either. But then he didn't plan on dying early, and had no reason to destroy or protect them by covenant

for years I thought the smell I encountered while driving past Everett was kelp and the sea, tide flats. Today I discovered it was sulfur dioxide from the pulp mills. Harvey Manning told me it was this smell, and hydrogen sulfide is the one that smells like rotten eggs. Both pretty awful

today, while driving down the street, I saw a girl who looked just like John Denver

about half the leaves are down, and on Saturday I cleaned a soggy mass off the porch roof. Later, I spooked the great blue heron on our beach again, and this huge slate-gray critter went swooping off in an upstream course, white dung trailing behind him.

Spotted a brown tree frog just above the hammock, down by the water's edge, and noted the woodpeckers are continuing their destruction of the dead alder snag there. The beach is solidly carpeted with leaves

the clicking sound of relays in a closed room. Like many typists at work on manual typewriters

the two-volume edition of Thoreau's Journals arrived today in the mail (list $50, my cost $36.) What a joy. For instance: this from the first day of journal-keeping, October 22, 1837. "I seek a garret. The spiders must not be disturbed, the floor swept, nor the lumber rearranged." Ah, yes. Sounds like our Oso cabin

the drought continues, though it is raining lightly now. None of the rains so far have brought the river up any. The Fisheries Department has closed many rivers to the taking of salmon by both white and Indian fishers. The coho cannot get up the river because of the low water, and already dog salmon are showing up in the salt chuck off the river mouths

The Alumnus has okayed my plan to do a review of David Wagoner's Sleeping in The Woods. He seems to have evolved quickly into the quintessential Northwest poet, with hemlocks and cedars, herons and loons, peopling his poems. A little like Hugo's Run of Jacks, but more mellow, reflective, philosophical. Of course, he is another transplanted mid-Westerner, like moi

recalling Thoreau's last years, all the rhetoric vanished and he became a precise observer, his style very simple. Possibly we should all progress so. Both Roethke and Wagoner delight in exact descriptions of nature. It is a compelling thing to be able to do successfully. Alas, many try and fail

Thoreau's "That which properly constitutes the life of every man is a profound secret. Yet this is what every one would most like to know, but is himself most backward to impart." Journals, March 14, 1838

the river is teaching me humility, but it is a hard lesson to learn. Besides, the idea isn't really to catch steelhead, but to build character, isn't it? My character must be coming along fine, judging by the general drift of things

am reading Farley Mowat's Never Cry Wolf. Seems that wolves eat field mice and only the weakest of the caribou

had lunch at the river on Sunday, alone, taking the old folding aluminum chair down to the lowest sand bar and eating my sandwich very slowly, watching the high, wild water race by

fishing is basically a religious experience. Others have acknowledged this, such as Norman Maclean. It is not fish we are after, but some inner vision which we are lacking in, or in need of fulfilling. See Moby Dick

a story about an insurance salesman who gets involved in the lives of the prospective clients he calls on, and eventually goes mad, all insurance being based on impending death, and one's awareness of it, and a gamble against the odds

I have kept this journal exactly a year, and its pages number 51. This is a page a week. Not a hell of a lot of output. A little poem to celebrate the occasion, though:

am reading Henry Miller's trilogy, The Rosy Crucifixion. Have finished last vol. first, Nexus, and am now reading the middle volume, Plexus. Doing it exactly backwards. Oh, that's okay. Henry wouldn't mind. His use of present tense. His celebration. Quite a powerful vocabulary—sends me to the dictionary, all the time. God, the words I don't know. Spender comments on his ability to mix aesthetics with prophesy. I agree

Rita Coolidge and Kris Christopherson have 64 visible teeth between them, at any given time

down by the Pocket, I saw the eagle again. It then disappeared up the river valley. It seems to have a fixed circuit. Must learn it precisely.

Kingfisher still by the waterfall, screeching his little heart out. Sounds like a police whistle—the kind with a rattle in it

last week felt so poorly I couldn't see well enough to read. Crabby as hell, too

on Wednesday I saw an otter swim down the Flats behind me. About 80 feet away, as I stood motionless, watching, it spotted me, dove, and vanished. First the head went under, in a duck dive, then the slick back. Finally I guess the expectancy of tail, which was denied me.

There is always a kingfisher flitting back and forth across the Flats, lighting in the big single alder just above the culvert across from MacLeod's. I could discern no nest. Do they winter-over here? Where do they breed? It seems to me I've been seeing this guy all winter

in September I bought some Langendorf cinnamon rolls at the Oso General Store. There were pretty tasteless and must have contained a great deal of preservative for, six months later, they are moist and unspoiled. They look just as they did, when I bought them. Would I dare to eat them? Just looking at them makes my stomach turn over.

All of which leads me to reflect: Were I to die and request to be buried with my sweet rolls, they would probably outlast my corpse. They might be found among my bones in my coffin, centuries later, just as they are today, moist and white and sugary. Would the anthropologist dare to taste them? Probably. And would he not die afterwards, that is, not before his previously allotted time

women probably consider asthmatic men passionate, when they are only trying hard to breathe, which they can't do through their noses, certainly not while kissing, etc.

journal-keeping is a habit, I guess, and I have broken mine. [Not for long, old buddy]

the green dogwood branches are turned to white, the lilacs are coming into full bloom, the tulips are just beginning to fade, and tomorrow I leave for California

the famous Leica poker game: "I'll see your Summicron and raise you—one Summilux." [An in-group joke]

am reading: Kate Millet, Flying; Norman, Stieglitz; The Case Against College; Blessing, Whole Harmonium, Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. Blessing is a nice guy, had coffee with him. He's a professor of English here. [Dick died early of a brain tumor—a great loss]

huckleberries are ripe and although tart delicious. Introduced wife and son to my old Boy Scout delight, huckleberry pancakes. I think they were impressed and this may become a new family tradition each summer

a book of photographs, "People Laughing." Catch them just when they break up helplessly and look so silly

a chipped upper front tooth is sexy in a certain kind of young woman, like Cheryl in the College of Engineering

life is a pencil line upon a page, the moment’s a dot on the line, or else life is a string, with this moment an overhand knot tied in the string

a toothless old man who can swallow his nose. Saw this somewhere, perhaps on TV. In Ireland? Dorset? Good for a free drink in a pub, somewhere. [Thoreau could do this, too, I recall]

ah, the smell of apples. We put a bag of wine saps in the back of the wagon, and I breathed them in deeply, all the way home

man walks into a seafood restaurant. Looks at the menu. "I'll take the seafood plate, s'il vous plait."

"All right," replies the waiter, ” I'm not hard of hearing." And for those who didn't get it, the first time. “You don't have to say it twice. “

for quite some time now I've watched a brown twig-like inch worm tool around a branch. It can move quite rapidly, when it want to, or is not frightened, in a series of tiny gallops. But when it is lost, insecure, its front end gropes around up in the air helplessly, as if sniffing the environment, its hairy feelers testing the air for, I guess, gripping surfaces. This one was about 3/4 of an inch long and dark brown. I've seen green ones, and bigger ones, too

a lot of spiders toiling about. None looks pregnant, but this is their time of the year for egg-laying. The river is very, very low, with no signs of salmon, though Heinz says there are both humpies and steelhead at Fortson, which is like a pond

as I get older I find I can sit peacefully for great lengths of time, doing nothing, or next to nothing. Did not fish today, because there is practically no water

how dependent I am upon my eyes and reading. Of course I knew this for a fact, but not as so telling an experience, until I dropped my glasses in the river, last week, while trying to tie a fly on a leader. When the new glasses were ready on Monday, I read for six straight hours. . . .

I found the new Alex Comfort novel disappointing. Wayne Burns likes him a lot—solely on philosophical grounds, I suspect

actually I have two new pairs of specs. Both are aviator style, and very mod looking. One is for reading, the other for all else—that is, distances and mid-range. Besides being fashionable, I can see again, which is what is important

read that FSF will finally be interred in a Catholic cemetery alongside Zelda. Is this in Switzerland? The U.S.? Whatever, rest in peace, sweet Scott

"teach?" But I don't know anything. At forty-five, teaching seems like one of life's more futile endeavors. Ah, come on now. No, few things are worth the effort. I am thinking primarily of business practices. The literary life—now that's something worth while, and a full life's work

the worst flood in 40 years just came along, with over $50 million damage in Western Washington alone

read Tom Robbins's Another Roadside Attraction, which may well be the best work of fiction to come out of the Pacific Northwest

a woman who behaves in accordance with a man's concept of what women are like would be grotesque. And vice versa

say of somebody, he or she was "a second," as they put it in the clothing business. Or he or she is "slightly irregular"

am reading The Daybooks of Edward Weston, vol. 2, U. California Press, written about 1927. I wasn't born yet. He sure messed around with his models. Three at once, maybe. He had trouble spotting prints, too, and had some bad negatives, etc. Ah, yes. Things don’t change so much

signs seen, "Hot chicken to go." A repeated refrain from a rock song? Also, "We cut our own fries." Does this portend great creativity on the cook's part, or what?

took some pictures (finally) of a certain old barn near Monroe, which will fall down soon. Scattered field of cows and a layered sky

man on the Sky(komish River) happily says, "Santy Claus gave me a fish for Christmas." Well, la-de-da. He gave me several

entries in this Notebook seem to be getting fewer. Sorry; will try harder. But life is to be lived. . . .

am rereading Forester's Passage To India for a book discussion group that meets on Friday night. It was started by a friend, Gwen Lundberg. We first met a month ago and discussed Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. That meeting didn't go any too well. Maybe writers are different from others in how they read and what they notice in a book. But it gets me out of the house and with ordinary people again, which is good

Gore Vidal say, "It doesn't make any difference who is elected President." Meaning, I guess, that nothing much will change. Government is such that no one person can make any difference, not even the President. (Am not sure I believe this)

excerpts from extensive notes on California trip, most of which is deleted here:

Bored teenaged girls traveling with their parents, with wandering eyes, especially in restaurants, that say, "Help. Come, save me."

Middle-aged waitresses in miniskirts and pantyhose, slim, very fast, no-nonsense types, no wedding rings. Kids, probably. Their lust on hold.

at Berkeley I followed for a moment a teenaged girl (no bra) on her way to play tennis, but turned away and resorted to my imagination for how she would look playing the first set

the boardwalk in Santa Cruz is open only weekends, at this time of the year, and it is packed. Was today, as was the beach. Met Leica dude down from Anchorage, who's lived here four months, near the beach. Very hip. Wanted to shake hands and nearly twisted my thumb off, you know how they do it?

story about how the bed was invented. Also sheets, pillows, blanket, etc. People, you see, used to sleep in rope slings. Earlier, they artfully draped themselves over tree limbs. Then they tried sleeping standing up, propped in corners, etc, but their knees would buckle and they'd keep falling down. A joke, you know.

a lot of Chicanos in evidence; also what appear to be Arabs in the motel management business, both here (Santa Cruz) and in Berkeley. Reminder that modern wars are fought in cities, amid skyscrapers, burned-out cars, etc.

drove up to UCSC, with its rolling acres of farmlands, groves of sequoias, and campus buildings that look—from a distance—like barns. Great distances between colleges would keep you in good shape, especially if you ran them

why do I keep a journal? Compulsive trait. So when I dies, there will be this shitpile of old paper to prove that I lived. But who will read it? Surely someone, don't you think? [Who's this “Shirley” I keep referring matters to?]

Most published books go for the most part unread. Many are bought to sit upon shelves and fill out a space to impress people with one's intellectuality. [No such word, I know.] Besides, everybody today is a writer, not a reader. We all have so much to say

confusion of Dylan the poet/songwriter with the Israeli defense minister; also that TV marshal, Mr. Dillon. "He was dylan her"

Hunter Thompson—where did he get his doctorate? In what? Is he a full fraud, or only a partial one?

Fitzgerald wrote in motels, like this one. Remember the Garden of Allah, in L.A. Also Hunter Thompson using SF's Seal Rock Inn; and Truman Capote, many such places. I guess it is a good place, but I am unable to do more than jot in this journal

digging all those women who clean up motels in the morning—all those inviting, unmade beds, with their sheets already nicely rumpled and laid back, etc.

on the beach at Carmel—people, warmly dressed, come and go in steady procession, all day long, most with cameras on their necks—both SLRs and Instamatics—and snap the coastline, which is famous for this, then depart. Few walk the steep decline to the beach and proceed to the water's edge

a bunch of schoolkids have been here for more than an hour—their group leader tells them, "Nobody from Room 6 throw any more sand!" One teacher trilling her police whistle, like Flo in "Man With The Golden Arm," and being steadily ignored. A little girl from another room, evidently, clangs her little bell obediently, but nobody queues up. She must be the monitor, a heady responsibility. Forty minutes later, they are still here, the teachers wandering around, shouting, trying to form a line

watching the boys' hair blowing in the wind—for those who like that sort of thing. A hippie running as hard as he can straight down the steep sand for the surf, and falling on his face, spread-eagled, one-hundred feet short, and laughing insanely

a blackbird that circles me, ten feet off, unafraid. I call it "Nevermore Babe" and talk to it out of pure loneliness, I guess. Children frighten it off, eventually. "Blackbird, goodbye," I say with a sigh. I spot a gull that can hang forty feet in the column of air, seemingly effortlessly, its eyes parsing the sand for tidbits

staying with my parents at Wayside Inn makes me a child again. I feel petulant and angry. A free SF Chronicle is left at our unit's door each morning, which is a nice touch. I plan to buy and cook dinner for them tonight

the one I call Nevermore Babe has acquired a little friend, who I shall call Sometimes Babe

twenty-three years ago a soldier on his first taste of freedom from Fort Ord arrived on this beach, clad in mufti. Today I saw a black solider standing stiffly in uniform at the edge of the sand, gazing fixedly at the ocean. I almost went up to him and said, "It's all right, Brother. Everything will work out. You'll be free of the Army again, some day."

I would tell him my old sad story, but I suspect he wouldn't stand still for it. He'd probably give me a Kung-Fu chop instead, and leave my body for the gulls

guy on beach today throwing a Frisbee into the wind and catching it as it comes back, without moving his feet any

recall my son, while watching "Happy Days" on TV, asking me, "Dad, were you alive in the '50s?" Thought so at the time

aging women who believe themselves sexpots still. Maybe they are, but who's to know or care? Aging men like myself like 'em younger

cooked folks my infamous Veal Parmesan, which they dutifully ate and seemed to enjoy. No bicarb called for, anyway

haven't taken a picture yet in Carmel. Everything seems done to death and a terrible cliché. So be it

gulls are brilliant white with black-tipped wings. [Believe these were actually terns]

if anybody has the idea that there is no real wealth left in the USA, let them drive to Carmel and take the course along Pebble Beach, where golf is being played

talked to a girl on the beach, wearing a Berkeley sweatshirt. Guess I wanted an update about my old school, and just to talk to a girl. But it turned out she had never gone to Berkeley. She just liked the sweatshirt., she said.

We are all frauds of one kind or another. Be a big, pretentious fraud, if you are going to have to be any. She seemed unembarrassed by the gaffe. Maybe I am the one who is wrong

staying in Ocean Lodge, which is 2 or 3 miles from the beach, listening on the radio to Beach Boys' California Suite, which was done 6 or 7 years ago and includes a section from a long poem by Robinson Jeffers. I wonder if they play it regularly down here? Is it prescribed music? Morning fog threatens to burn off by noon and produce another splendid day. I guess this is what California is all about

my motel is managed by dark, toothy Arabs. They imply that I am getting a great bargain on my rental. Everybody is paying a few bucks more. I doubt this. I am finally learning my way around Santa Cruz and not getting seriously lost. Visited Cooperhouse yesterday and the new Catalyst (a tavern and dancefloor), which was fun. [Old one had recently burned down.] Maitre d' told me he'd been busted in Seattle for "malicious mischief." He went hungry into a supermarket and ate a cheese. Got 7 days and served them all

on the beach, lots of girls in their twenties, in pairs, many from S.F., I presume, where all the men are thought to be married or gay. And young couples, too. Not many guys, cruising; maybe they'll come later. Now, me, I've got to lose 7 or 8 pounds, I see. Three girls off my starboard bow are playing Frisbee and shrieking. They're not bad at it. The guys I see playing Frisbee are either very good at it or terrible. Nobody in between. Some of the terrible ones think they are pretty good

swallowed up in "the great American heartland"—a phrase soon to be a cliché, I'd guess. Most hip phrase are

Denny's dinners are better than Sambo's, but Sambo's breakfasts are superior and cheaper, too. Incidentally, Sambo himself is presently a little Arabian dude, of ocher color, with pointy shoes. The tigers still look like tigers, however

it is unnecessary to bathe. The body cleanses itself every night, under the covers. The feet scour themselves on rented sheets, while you sleep. All that is necessary to come out clean is to fall asleep for a few hours

my parents move through life as spectators. They regard everything with vague lack of interest, as though hermetically sealed in a cocoon or space capsule into which nutrients are pumped regularly. Their age has little or nothing to do with their condition. There are old, vital people. Now, Dad's sister, Ruth, and her husband, Wayne, are different. They see life in a more dynamic way. It is a mental attitude, basically.

I observe certain elements of my parents in myself. They are disappointed in me, and in how I live (quitting my job, not working regularly, writing, etc.), but then they are disappointed in most everything else, so this lessens the impact of their disapproval. My ideas and my actions also disappoint them; and my politics. They eat out often, but are invariably dissatisfied with their expensive dinners, and my mother often doesn't finish hers—she who taught me to "clean up my plate" because of all “the starving children in China.” What about them now, Mom?

Hope this doesn't sound sour. Don't mean it that way, nor feel that way about it. Just reporting with, of course, a bias

went to Wildlife Safari and took lots of pictures at high noon, mostly of lions, who were asleep. Got one old guy on his feet, yawning. Tape says they sleep 20 hours out of the day. Good for them—I know just how they must feel

city man sees rolling pasture, thinks it is a golf course. "What are all those cows doing on the fairway?" he cries

left the sun in Oregon, somewhere around Eugene. Now there are many clouds, with sprinkles, the day cooler, the rivers in good shape, sparkling. Home in time to prepare a surprise dinner for Norma. Very tired, but too jagged from travel to go to bed early and sleep

finished Hunter Thompson and am starting Annie Dillard's Pilgrim At Tinker Creek. The reading group is going to use it for discussion next Friday night. Norma is also reading it, but after one chapter doesn't like it. I think it is great

saw a show of prints by George Tice at Foster White Gallery. They go for $75. Wonder if he'd care to trade one?

there is always the danger, of course, that when women say they don't want to be treated as a sex object, men may believe them. (Or the man they care about may)

got paid $35 from The Argus for an article and pix, but after deduction from unemployment compensation, I realized but $12 for it. Also sold a piece to The Weekly, a new magazine, on opening day of the trout season, presumably for $50. [It was.] It comes out today and will be illustrated. They seem to be interested in more stuff and I shall try them on the Herter's article. [This was terrible and they correctly refused it]

today I wrote a story about a homosexual football player named Jay Toupee. [It was awful]

one of those guys who wears no undershirt and a little gold chain around his neck

a woman who wears no bra, and you locate her nipples about four inches below where you expect them to be

read Tom Robbins's Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. Dirty but v. good. Master of the galloping or explosive simile, e.g., (mine) "Dawn rolled across the penultimate hills like a medicine ball wrassled back and forth by a bunch of old men dressed in scarlet and tangerine underwear"

fiction writers don't have sexual fantasies. All that energy gets regularly depleted, unlike semen

some people don't know the difference between writing and typing. They think editing is punctuating and correcting misspellings. Well, maybe it is. But it ought to be more

The Weekly turned down the homo article, justly, but The Argus accepted my article on the University of Washington , and its current problems, with a few cuts

use of the word "goose" or "goosed," as in "Goosed by Roger Downey's fine article on Tom Robbins, I went out and bought the book. . . ."

a number of Stellar's jays have nested in our yard and completely dominate it, screaming at and dive-bombing cats, dogs, squirrels. Our old Siamese cat hides under chairs. Yesterday evening, the jays killed a squirrel—at least we found a dead squirrel at the foot of the great Deodora cedar in our side yard. The jays begin their screaming at daybreak, the same time that the squirrels commence their morning prowl and mischief

The young jays are learning to fly. We have seen them fluttering around the yard, on the ground. They are probably most vulnerable now, and that is why the parent birds are so aggressive and noisy. This makes all the noise understandable.

The younger birds are slender, like young robins, my son says, and are dusty colored. The adult birds are blue-black, almost purple. Soon the fledglings will be gone and peace will reign in the neighborhood for another year

is "being in pain," like "being in Chicago?" Like "being in love?" A place you go to? In your head?

I've been sandbagged by View Northwest. What Editor Bruce Brown did to my article is unbelievable. To him and the magazine, "You're not an editor, you're a butcher. You have no style. Your taste is all in your mouth. If you have any at all!"

read Gore Vidal, Homage To Daniel Fuchs, Hesse, Beneath The Wheel, Scaduto, Mick Jagger

female announcer's Freudian slip on KZAM: instead of saying, Mount Vernon," she says, "Mount Virgin." Yes, let's

a pigeon is flattened on the outside lane of the interstate. All that is left is a grey wad, with three wing feathers, joined at the base, waving gently in the breeze created by passing vehicles

a story about a man who fell in love with a chicken. (A fowl tale?) Poe's Raven has new significance in the form of "Nevermore" as the end of the affair. Miscegenation?

nice letter last week from Lane Morgan, managing editor at The Argus. Bailey (owner, publisher) and M.C. Gray liked my Avedon article. That's Maxine Cushing Gray, editor of some local arts newsletter. Half-apologized for editing my copy so heavily for space reasons. I replied politely. Maybe write some more for them after August 15. [Didn't]

article that begins, "Contrary to what you people say in Manhattan, the Great White Way is not our way, as much as we excel at show business, out here. . . ."

she took up Valium because it wasn't illegal, all you had to do was get a number of different doctors to write you prescriptions

reached page 807 of novel. "Wildfire," or some such name. [Became “North Fork Blues” a novel about the North Fork of the Stilly, where I have fished summers (winters, too0 for years. Send out to Knopf’s Angus Cameron, who sent it to Field and Stream and Esquire’s Arnold Gingrich, where one chapter was published in June 1980. Called “The Last Summer,” but they changed it to “The Holding Water,” which made no sense then, nor now]

narrator. Another name for same: biographer, fabulist, historian, bull shitter, visiting visionary, scam Man, Author, etc.

"Well, I ran into some bad cats. I wasn't too well equipped to handle them. So I taught myself a trick."

"You were going to write a novel about a man in love with a chicken. Whatever happened, Vroman, to your idea?"

a fisher tells me my single, sick rhododendron looks like a stalk of corn. It does

Lane Morgan likes my Tobey/Graves piece, but says it is too long. She may buy a picture, too. She's negative on a piece on David Wagoner, and practically everything else I suggest. How much power editors have

a game V and Carolyn play. He hides in the dark, Cyclops staring at the ceiling, while she backs naked around the room, trying to home in on him. No sounds or visual clues permitted

Glitzy's story: "I came from one of those aristocratic Southern families, you know? We were very classy. We believed that sex was too beautiful an experience to share with strangers. So we kept it in the family." Use of the word, "balling." Glitzy refuses to use the word, incest, because it is "naughty" or bad, even though that is what it was

novel reached page 1000 today. {This was no doubt the novel, “On Common Ground,” which didn’t get published, rather than “Hard Again,” which was short and only exists is longhand, and is about the incestuous family and the boy in love with a chicken]]

The Weekly piece on summer-run steelhead finally came out, cut 1/3, but intelligently so, by Roger Downey, who is also a writer. They paid me next to nothing. I don't believe I will go back for more of this. And Downey doesn't believe the amount The Argus routinely pays me; says when he wrote for them, his top was less. [Turns out he got $35 for what The Argus paid me, which was $50]

The Argus is taking an article on summer trips to streams, and I am to do one on rating the three local TV news teams, which ought to be fun. Would like to do one on the Beach Boys' coming visit, but Lane Morgan says nix. Have queried The Weekly about this. [Also didn't want it]

Country Western song: "I love the way you love the way I love you." Boy! Says a lot

listening to too much Beach Boys turns your mind to (1) lemon custard, (2) suntan lotion. Choose one, but not both

paid by The Argus for two pieces, but they forgot to add something more for the pix. Or did they forget?

Santa Cruz sits on its bay like an oyster on its half-shell— gooey, but ripe for the picking

am reading Aubrey's The Hunting Hypothesis. Terms: alpha male; biological prisoners of cultural advance. Whew. Three-pint brain (versus two), sexual dimorphism

terms: quark, charmed quark. If you are going to be a quark, you might as well strive to be a charmed one

Brompton's mixture is given to terminal cancer patients. It consists of heroin, cocaine, alcohol, syrup, and chloroform water

over the weekend, I viewed 93 Wright Morris prints at the Henry Gallery and wrote a review for The Argus. Will also write one on employment agencies

weather nice, with full moon. Will overnight at the river. Have not been writing fiction, just reading and goofing off. Nice

Country/Western song— "Put your sweetness a little closer to the phone/And tell the man there with you he'll have to go"

brought in the huckleberry crop ths. dy., amounting to 1/3 pint. Took a lengthy while to pick 'em, too. Most were coming on, back in August, but were pink and tart. These are dead ripe. Birds and neighbors got most of them. And they get lost when they ripen and fall off the bushes.[In style of Thoreau]

got check from The Argus and day before drafted employment agency article for them, to run in early October. But I'm about done with this shabby business

roughly speaking, there are two kinds of novels today. The first is wild, visionary, poetic. It uses language evocatively, suggestively, sometimes irresponsibly. The second kind is traditional, reasonable, literal, lineal. It deals in precise meanings and uses the conventional sentence form as a means of conveying information logically and orderly. Of course, a whole lot of novels fall somewhere in between. . . .

southern saying, "We've howdied, but we haven't shook." {Now, it sounds more Western to me]

to live in America, you must have no past. It is easier to say than to arrange. The past is over, truly past. The problem is, you will never believe it. It follows you around like a dog. It nips at your heels. If you try to drive it away gently, it rolls over on its back and waves its feet in the air, cringing. What do you do with a past like that, tickle its tummy? Chuck it under the chin, where the white of age is starting? No, you kick it in the butt and hope it will go away and leave you be. Your past and mine

a funny autumn, with no cold nights and leaves that refuse to turn the brilliant colors as I keep expecting

what are given names, anyway? If we are anything, we are our surnames, and should be called by them

I am a writer, if I am anything. Is it possible I am nothing at all? (Yes, but not likely)

have been asked by Ed Hearn of the slick magazine, View Northwest, to do an article on the Seattle daily newspaper, The P-I. I'd like to do it, but lots of potential problems. Since it is privately owned, VNW publishes no financial statement, and there are rumors of writers not being paid. We are talking more than $200 here. [About $650, actually, but I was wise to be wary, and deservedly so]]

[article start] "Faithful as the family cat, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer awaits you each morning on the front stoop, even before you've plugged your coffee into the wall. . . ."

am reading Saul Bellow's Humboldt's Gift. God, he is good. He says that women want the chance to give you pleasure. Maybe. To them the act is far less important that the occasion of tenderness. Interesting idea, but then most of Bellow’s are

a little girl comes up to me, or to Vroman on the beach, and says, "I got new shoelaces. See?" They are orange. She can tie them by herself, but laboriously. You are not to help her. She has white ones, too, for church. Is this believable? Also, says, "I have a new dolly." About three or four: I, I, I. . . .

from Bellow: "Not to fall asleep is distinguished. Everything else is popcorn." (p. 285, Humboldt.) "When old men put two socks on one foot and pee into the bathtub, I suppose it's the end"

"Faithful as the family cat, the P-I greets you each morning at the front doorstep, arriving usually before the sun performs its routine pyrotechnic.

"If the kid is any good, he will have tossed it within a yard of the door, rolled so tight that you won't be able to get the rubberband off short of breaking it." [This is how it went]

Humboldt, p. 370: "Is it that the number of people who got serious about Art and Thought in the USA is so small that even those who flunked out are unforgettable"

Bellow again: "When I try to guess what you're thinking, I have to try nonsense." P. 458

journalists who don't like to be interviewed about what they do; photographers who don't want their picture taken; these take their places alongside doctors who won't take medications and dentists who fear having their teeth worked on, public relations specialists who jealously guard all but the most favorable information about themselves and their companies, publishers who hide their profits and losses [especially the latter]

Bellow: "And this was the famous Romance of Business? Why it was nothing but pushiness, rapidity, effrontery." Page 419. [Rapidity is not the right word here. What is? Cupidity? rapaciousness? Rapacity. I must have written it down wrong]

employment agency article came out in The Argus, but this will be my last job for them, since Bruce Brown is going to work for them full-time as arts, etc., writer for—get this—$150 per week, and there goes all their free-lance money. [Bruce later married Lane Morgan, so there might be some favoritism evidenced here. They had a child, moved to rural Lynden, and divorced some years later]

turned in P-I story to View Northwest. It came in at 8k words; it'll have to be cut some. And I gave them a bunch of pictures, too

an article on Saul Bellow when he won the Nobel Prize. I'd met him, when he was just starting out, and he read to us from Augie March, c. 1950. “He was a nervy guy, about 35, cocky as they grow them only in Chicago. He was sure of his talent. Wavy hair, that tended to slip into curls.” (Began thusly, roughly.) Am rereading Augie for the article

the noblest aspirations of man should exceed owning a Porsche, which people seem to pronounce as though it were French, not German, omitting the accent on the final e

silver-leafed alders in the wind. No, silver-backed alder leaves. That's much better. They lose their leaves from the bottom up, the top ones remaining on the tree the longest. I guess they put them out in the opposite order, bottoms up? Why is this?

finished the Bellow article for The Argus and turned it in. What a hell of a lot of work for $50. Reread nearly everything he wrote. Not all of it a pleasure, either

my son's way of referring to "W-W Eye-Eye," for that ancient war that won't quite go away

sometimes you find yourself sitting someplace and you wonder not so much how you got there, which you may sharply recall, but why you went there in the first place, which may forever remain a mystery. It is my belief that people rarely know why they do what they do, and may be all the better for it. . . . Of course, at any given time, a body has to be somewhere. It is a law of the universe, and may explain why I was here, when I was. There is no escaping the being some place, wherever it is

am reading Wagoner's Collected Poems, especially the Indian myth portions. It is of course artifice, the work of a wordsman, the feathery fashioning of a sophisticate man-of-letters, not a Natural Man. It is who is recasting the Indian myths in his own terms—inverted, transformed, transfixed, recreated, in some instances mutilated.

In his poems from the last decade, Wagoner has assimilated the Pacific Northwest Experience and made it his own. It is now appearing in his own special fashion. These are bright, artful, artificial, marvelous poems. . . . [Not used because nobody wanted a Wagoner article, a real shame]

The Argus only paid me $25 for the last article. What is going on? On the phone, Lane said, "I'm willing to discuss it, but right now we're trying to get out an edition." On the Bellow article, which has been typeset a month now but not used yet, "It's a good article, but not an Argus article—whatever the hell that is. Will it be used? Who knows? Stay tuned. They agreed to pay more, before I wrote it. Ripped off—that's the term I am looking for. Didn't have to search very far, either

on a temporary job in Olympia: Today I went to the Labor Temple—and prayed! Just kidding, folks. [The temporary job lasted three months and was a fill in for Friend Worth Hedrick, who wanted to finish a biography he was writing of Devi Unsoeld, who died on the mountain she was named for. So far as I know it never got published, which was a shame]

how beautiful Seattle is, approached from the South on the freeway at night. The cluster of lit skyscrapers that appears just over the Kingdome, with the rest of the city a spangle rolling brightly away on all sides

Bellow piece finally came out last week and The Argus paid me $50, though they only gave me $25 for a gallery review. I guess all the money is going to Bruce Brown now

View Northwest only wants to pay me only $450 for the P-I article and pixs, not the $590 we discussed and I billed them for. And it's going to be tough to get that much out of them, for they continue to be in financial straits. (Question, is it better not to be paid $590 than not to be paid $450—are you a better writer, a better person, for the larger sum? Does it make you more professional?)

am reading John Updike's Marry Me! He says, "Listen. I love insomnia. It's proof that I'm alive." Page 30. And, "Maybe our trouble is that we live in the twilight of the old morality, and there's just enough to torment us, and not enough to hold us in." Page 53. Good stuff

one of those dark-hued roadside pagodas whose roof screeches, "Land," every letter in caps

a drive-through of Evergreen State College outside of Olympia, which somehow reminds me of the UC campus at Santa Cruz, at least in its green spaciousness and full bucolic splendor

the Cowichican sweater and Volvo wagon type; the Porsche with ski rack type. The Pinto station wagon with boat rack type. (C'est moi)

Olympia—boy, this world is really something. I have met a number of state legislators in the past week. They are a bunch of characters, some real oddball types. On Saturday, there was a special political action lobbyist meeting in the legislative chambers, which I attended

surely Hunter Thompson didn't get started this way? [Who is Shirley Hunter Thompson?]

an article, beginning, "These are strange creatures, these pols. . . ." [Drafted, but didn't go anywhere]

there is a certain now-famous promotional photograph which shows Kris Christopherson on top of Barbra Streisand

man says, "I know your problems are serious, Frank. They just aren't very interesting"

we went today to the World Premier of Robert Altman’s Welcome To L.A at the Harvard Exit. It's the same place where I played the part of a "crowd" in Cheryl's performance of Sartre's The Respectful Prostitute, about 1953. I even had lines. Who would turn down the chance to say, "I'm looking for the stranger." "What stranger?" "The one who raped the woman on the train, and cut the Senator's nephew with a razor." Then I ducked behind the curtain and made—all alone—crowd noises. A lynching was in the offing. [Not mine, thankfully but perhaps deservedly]

I don't think Sir Robert was in the audience, but his terrific camera man, Alan Rudolph, was, and the film was wonderful. Soon the flick is to move on to—get this—Paris

life had generally failed to provide a drama sufficient to his expectations, so he spent many days wandering around the streets, buoyed up by an excess of emotion seeking an appropriate outlet. . . . [Have no idea what this refers to, but I don't think it was used anywhere]

he had always had a foolish romantic notion about California, believing it to be a place of culture and a mythos (mystique?), good in itself and in no need of improvement, no matter how raw and bleeding life there might turn out to be. . . .

Dave Norton is trying to drink himself to death in a tiny apartment across the street from his parent's house in Tacoma. His wife, Edie, divorced him, going on a year ago. And he quit his job as parole officer in San Jose, worked he loathed. He may well kill himself. [He did, right there, in his not-so-easy chair, with a revolver. Old college friend who was deeply disturbed]

she had curly eyes, long black teeth, and the very whitest of eyelashes. Up in front, her two fronzes stuck out like blicks. And I thought she revealed a plethora of slerve. O, was she ever mammisifent

dusk—use this fine word more, as Salter often does, and as a title for a short story and a collection of same

sprained first finger of writing hand while shooting baskets a few days ago with Garth. Hurts to push on pencil or pen, but is getting better daily. Explains odd handwriting here

have begun third volume of Vroman novel. May type out first three chapters of "North Fork Blues" [formerly Wildfire, and other such hokey titles] and submit them to an agent, if I can find one willing. [Nothing ever came of this]

Ray Mungo says you must have an agent, never submit a whole book, little chapters trickling in to a publisher are tantalizing [and beget contracts.] He never pays income tax

she said her boy friend wore "earth shoes." He wouldn't hold a job. He was, she said, "her negative heel." Or, because his daughter's boy friend held no job and wore earth shoes, he always referred to him as "her negative heel." Better? No

he had had enough of the rich tapestry of life. [Note; this is the first time I had heard the telling phrase, which has since become a massive cliché. Could be used to describe a suicide, like Dave Norton's]

on awakening in Southern California and exclaiming, "There's that damn sun again"

exchange: She: "It's nice out." He: "Yes. I think I'll leave it out." {Allen Auvil told me this joke, years ago, and I still think it is funny]

Jack Kerouac, in The Paris Review, says, "You can't learn these things. . . . You have to be born with tragic fathers." [Title, "Tragic Fathers?" Guess it doesn't work, at least not for me]

finished reading Mungo's Tropical Detective Story. Bought his Famous Long Ago and Return To Sender

title "Dire Straights," about a group of dissident gays who hasten to start a hetero colony

Charles Bronson, in some movie: "I am an opportunist, looking for a circumstance"

wrote the David Wagoner piece for The Alumnus. No pay, but free book. His Collected Poems

sounds up at the river number three: (1) the river itself, (2) the highway that muffles the newly leafed trees, and (3) the wind

am reading the Playboy interview with Gary Gilmore. Fascinating. "Dead's dead. I'm not saying that murder vents rage. Rage is not reason. The murders were without reason. Don't try to understand murder by using reason. Destruction, rage, futility, words like that—try them if you want to understand." April 1977, p. 80.

"The one big advantage I got is that I know when I'm gonna die. That way, I can take care of everything beforehand. So I've made all the arrangements. . . ." Page 81.

Gilmore received over 40,000 letters at Utah State Prison. When you get an execution, you get a death watch—two goons outside [your cell], playing cards.

"I wish I could dissuade you from any troubling thoughts. Actually, I'm very fortunate. I'm lying and I know when." Page 85.

am reading Gael Green's, Blue Skies, No Candy; finished Mungo's Return To Sender

no matter where you go in America, at night there's always Johnny Carson. [Well, there was. Now there is a host of hosts]

wrote View Northwest about a travel article and NYC agent Robert Mills about reading "Riversong." [Nothing happened, and the book changed its name to “North Fork Blues”]

The Argus will take a Carmel article at $50, which will just about pay for the trip [along with the money from View Northwest]. It might start: "The sky is blue, the beach is white, and the Mercedes is generally silver-grey. They are parked along the curb at a rate of about three to the block. They are short blocks, however. This is Carmel-By-The-Sea, as it likes to call itself—unnecessarily, as it turns out, for there is no competition. . . ."

a writer's life is one long preparation for the Big Bang—the ultimate novel or poem that may never arrive on his doorstep

[much of the above led to a long poem after Robinson Jeffers, called various things, but ending up as "Skagit Simulacrum." It was submitted to Boise University Press, which publishes such stuff, but rejected, with kindness. It remains in Ms., unfinished. Could be usefully revised, by somebody with endless time on his hands]

Stravinsky said to Christopher Isherwood that the sequoias they were standing under were "serious"

what is the difference between mugging and acting? The same as between writing and typing, I suppose

Kate Barton called and said they would take a Big Sur travel article, so now I have two sponsors to pay for the trip, and a promise for another article for View Northwest on a commonly agreed on topic "to come." [I liked her, but she was only temporary editor and the magazine soon folded, owing everybody money]

the restaurant was a little hard to find; perhaps it should have been. [Writing here on spec for Cheap Eats Magazine; they used it, and I got a free meal for N and me]

Bill Cosby—a slick black Sam Levinson, mimicking the looks of Groucho and Ernie Kovacs. Mawkishness in excess, in the manner of Red Skelton, groan. Can't stand the guy

soon to California again. View Northwest has shed Ed Hearn [its owner, publisher, and editor], but Kate wants me to keep writing for them and will use my California pictures, which I already have and am holding in reserve. I offered them color slides at $20 each, or 2 for $35, but she balked. She wants to pay less. [Everybody wants to cheat the writer. But they don't respect something-for-nothing, either. Don't respect anything, as a matter of fact]

words indigenous to Big Sur: petrels, murres, limpets, turban snails, purple (sea) anemones, orange seaweed, gray whales, headlands, invertebrates

going to Big Sur (1) not to see Robinson Jeffers, as I didn’t in 1953, or (2) not to visit Henry Miller, as I didn’t in 1957. Perhaps this year, 1977, since there is nobody left not to see, I will see everybody

somebody who chose to work overtime and missed Woodstock and has regretted it, ever since

dropping down out of the Santa Lucia mountains, I experienced one-one-hundredth of what Balboa must have felt, upon first beholding the platter of the broad Pacific—this was the start of one published article

story might begin: "Balboa didn't have Coors on tap waiting for him, at the end of his trek." I did. In Washington state, Coors wasn't available even in bottles yet; to find Coors on tap signified Nirvana to a long-time beer drinker like me]

perhaps wisdom is recognizing what you need, as opposed to what you want. At least Sally says that David is what she needs, though she would like him to be taller, less fat, more intellectual, etc.

Marvin Leger [a character] seduces girls to records of Dylan Thomas's "Fern Hill" and T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland," like I used to do, back in college lit dept.

Marvin says to a woman, "I want to fuck your mind." Tells a guy, "Basketball isn't a team sport. Did you know? It's for individuals to perfect their personal skills. Nobody else is needed to play"

questions to ask a series of people in an interview: are you a good liar? Measure the responses

story—the man who couldn't sleep, and how he passes the late evening/early morning hours—what might he do, if he didn't watch TV or read?

the title, "Men Who Love Rivers," a series of fishing biographies. [These became about a dozen magazine articles over the next decade, but have never been published in a book. But Trey Combs wrote such a book and published in 1975 and it was a good one. I wrote my own two version twenty years later]

Sinner’s lament: Save me, God—but not quite yet. Or did St. Augustine already use this? A title, "Not Quite Yet, Lord." [No]

read Francine du Plessix Gray, Lovers and Tyrants, Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company. Also, earlier, Ann Tyler, Celestial Navigation, Peter Handke, Short Letter, Long Farewell. I seem presently to have a penchant for apposition titles

a story told from a paranoid's [that's when you've got two 'noids,' right?] point of view—everybody he meets dislikes him, is out to get him; to get him away from others, alone, and kill him. Everybody knows each other; in fact, may be members of the same company. Set story in Monterey or Carmel. [Nothing ever came of this, thankfully]

man commits one senseless murder at beginning of story, gets away with it, but is arrested at end and—it is implied — is convicted of another man's murder. This is poetic justice, though unlikely. Maybe he is impotent? Deaf?

“his car is of some obscure make, a sedan, white, with a variety of scrapes and dents and rust spots. Two kinds of scarring has occurred. The first is black, or white, or silvery. The second kind is red or brown, the result of oxidation of the former, heavy and thick. The car comes rumbling in at twilight, its muffler dragging and protesting aft, magnifying, what is happening forward, in the engine compartment. It is one of those immaculate neon-blue evenings on the bay. The artichoke fields of Castroville are moldering, in the wake of a torpid afternoon”

have also read Peter Handke's A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, on the suicide of his mother

Norma and I attended a string concert, while my son taped for me at home Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D, which I like enormously.

Conceit of a violin as a "baby," which grows into a viola, then a cello (as a teenager), then matures as a double bass, which is rotund or matronly, while the college-aged players in the orchestra (such as at the UW, last night) stay the same age, year after year

title, "Real Enemies," as in the phrase, "Even paranoids have real enemies." [Used this later, for a draft of something]

reading Niger Calder's, The Key To The Universe. Page 19: "a one percent net imbalance between positive and negative imbalance in my body would shoot my head right out of the solar system." [Prove it!]

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle—learn what this is. [I did, but have since forgot it]

I drink beer, with a water chaser, these days. [Don’t know what this means, or was meant to mean]

I've never heard of a writer who lived in an expensive home and did good work. [Later: Ann Rule, old college chum and best seller? Did and does]

am reading Jay Martin's, Nathaniel West. Stopped to read West's Dream Life of Basil Snell, which only runs 66 pages

we are up at the river in 82 degree sunshine, devoting this idyllic afternoon to observing the various speeds of caddis larvae on a big, submerged rock near me. The little fuckers can climb at a rate of about 1/3 of an inch per minute, when they really want to. Also, they drop off, or down, and drift hither and yon very frequently. They put their heads out, then haul themselves ahead, dragging their cumbersome cases behind, like a paraplegic. Very laborious. Feisty little guys, though. Keep it up, gang. [Note: more than fifteen years later, this grew into a chapter in Steelhead Water, entitled, "Fry, Parr, and Smolt," with few changes, and without being retrieved from here, or even looked at]

are not hunting and fishing the consolation sports of people who were not much good at other ones? Amazing number of flyfishers who are very short, also

idea for a screen play about the last days of Scott Fitzgerald and Nathaniel West in Hollywood. FSF died December 21, 1940, and West the following day. (Incredible coincidence, when you stop to think of it.) They were interred in the same funeral parlor. Great possibilities, and few know about it

Faulkner's "penchant for longevity," when compared to West and Fitzgerald. My phrase

did a review for The Argus on Photographers Ralph Gibson and Karen Truex. Gallery gave me a nice pix of Truex, taken by herself

Rap Brown said, "Violence is as American as cherry pie." [Glad he didn't say apple, which I like bettere

school—especially college—is a test of how well you can obey. Girls generally do better than boys at this

wrote an article for The Argus on buying bargain books. Asked to be Arts Editor, but don't think they will have one. Free-lancing is demeaning. It's like being a door-to-door salesman. “Spot on hat,” etc. May end it all soon. Only free-lancing, I mean

read Liv Ullmann's Changing—her ability to project more than one emotion at once, or conflicting ones

on photographers—you never see a writer always carrying around a pencil, do you? [Or an artist a brush?]

the painting paints itself (Morris Graves); the poem writes itself. [But not the novel, which requires daily, weekly, monthly, maybe yearly dedication and maintenance]

for some time now, I have been able to look at the faces of young people and see what they will look like, in time. I can see age in their faces, and how they will appear, one day, clear down to the wrinkles. Incipient baldness, girls filling out like their mothers, etc. Perhaps everybody has this knack, and I am just discovering what others already know. Life is a series of revelations, most of them minor, which generally go unnoticed, unrewarded

The Argus wants 900 words on Kenneth Callahan. [A local painter, with national recognition. We got to be friends because he too once was an arts writer]

have both novels, "Hard Again" and "The Man Who Could Fly Sometimes" ready for typing and think I've located two typists who will work cheaply, that is, by the page

why not an autobiography, to jog the memory which seems highly imperfect, right now? Up to age 16—or maybe 26, when I got married [and life stopped? No, but much has changed drastically and greatly evened out]

modern lit is coming out of the large public Western university now, instead of the small private Eastern college. It's about time

the woman who called about doing some typing—English degree from Stanford, says: cool, groovy. No real people do this anymore. Later said, "My lover says the pay isn't enough," and I said, "Funny, but people I know say 'my friend,' which means the same thing but is a little less revealing"

am assigned to do an Imogen Cunningham review, of her book, After Ninety, which includes her work done after reaching that age. Get a free book for it. Begins: "It was a sad day for us all, when the feisty little old lady in the black Leo tights died, at 92. She was everybody's idea of what a swinging granny ought to be, roaming the streets of San Francisco with her old-fashioned twin-lens reflex and charming her way into getting the old and the eccentric to pose for her by window light—the best kind of light there is.

"In recent years, a lot of feminists covered her career as an ancient forerunner of the movement, and she was gracious with them, but gently put them in their places by reminding them that she was a life-long photographer who also happened to be a woman. If she was exceptional, a pioneer women's liberationist, why, that is the way it turned out. To her, the work was what she wished to be judged by.

"Some of that work—recent stuff—is presently before us, even if Imogen no longer is. It is first-rate. . . ." [Appeared just about this way]

novella idea: black numbers dude wins harem from a pimp (and honorable guy) is a high-stakes poker game, but proceeds to lose it through mismanagement. Main lady he falls in love with, and she exploits him by borrowing lots of money, using his credit cards, etc., mainly to buy clothes. She kids him along—sexually, too—in order to "take" him. The other girls, one by one, lose all respect for him, for his unpimplike ways and refuse to hustle for him. He is in way over his head. The only way out is to get the original pimp to take the girls back—please! He does, but . . . .

Maybe he has to give the pimp 10-20 percent off the top of his numbers and dice games. No principals to use drugs, except original Coke and a girl or two on heroin??? A better ending. Twist? [A good short story, and I wrote it, but never submitted to anyone]

title for a fishing book, "The Players," or "North Fork Blues." [The latter chosen, but the former for an article or chapter?]

see above, Cunningham. Take UW Press to task for printing three of her books, but publishing no books by young or unestablished photographers—certainly is low-risk, unimaginative publishing venture. Only consider the "sure thing," that is, a person who already has a following

something "charmingly old-fashioned" about her fine portraits, so different from today's 35mm. portraitists. But my preference is still for Bruce Davidson and others of this ilk. IC looks much like Marianne Moore, the poet

Groucho's "We took pictures of the native girls, but they were not developed." Or my twist, "We took portraits of the girls in primitive countries, but they were never developed." But his is funnier, because there has to be sex to have humor

second volume of "Redwood Traverse," influenced by Miller, esp. section in Black Spring called "Into The Night Life. . . ." [This is the Ms. that began this way, based more on Jeffers, but became "translated," or morphed, into "The Skagit Simulacrum"

most texts of photography books are redundant, but Margaretta Mitchell's is not—lucid, thoughtful, informative

a story, "The Dealer," begun today. Nineteen pages completed. [See above for story idea]

a story, "Houses": "I am the first house they ever lived in . . . ." [Terrible idea]

write my Fitzgerald/West narrative in first-person for LGKW ["Let's Go Kid The Waitress"], beginning it: "Picture this:" and use the word crepuscular early in it. [Nothing ever came of this, but it's still a neat idea, and I may do it yet]

Malcolm Cowley on being a "personal critic"—you form a (personal) link with the book, then in describing your link, you form a link with the reader

[Judith] Rossner: "I haven't had most of the experience I write about." True of all of us, I'm afraid

first-person article about this neighborhood, people around us, routines, schedules, fights, etc. [I did it, and some of it appears in "Country/City: a Book of Days"]

listening to a piece of music with the feeling you are going to die when it ends, so you revel in each note and hear its pure lyric quality and joy—eg., Beethoven's Triple Concerto

NW October—steelhead in the streams, trout in the lakes, wood in the stove, leaves on the ground, ducks on the wing, frost in the air, rain on the roof, etc.

post coitum omne animal triste est. [Recorded here to be able to spell it correctly, if ever I need to use it]

no man can hold women in intellectual contempt who has ever tried to read a knitting diagram

story title, "The Woman Who Liked To Touch Men." Nervous ladies. Cf. D.H. Lawrence's "vista of years." [I wrote this as a short story, but it went nowhere]

opening of above: "The woman who loved to touch men sat at the end of the bar, not touching her drink. . . ." [Used]

guy says, "I don't know whether I'm making love to you or some drug." (Cf. Woody Allen's girl smoking pot before sex [in Annie Hall, I believe], "Why don't you try sodium pentothal? That way, you can sleep through the whole thing." Should be, "So you won't feel a thing"

the woman who loved to touch men touches the bartender, taxi driver, doorman, elevator operator (all on the sleeve, in passing), but shrinks when her husband tries to touch her. About 3-5 pages?

seem to be writing regularly for The Argus, and got bonus for Callahan piece—$10 more

View Northwest went belly up and is in the process of being sold. Whole staff laid off yesterday. Hear John Murray is thinking of buying it. He owns The Argus. [He didn’t]

most people who profess to having a sense of humor, don't. Similarly, ones who do something cruel, then say, "What's the matter, can't you take a joke?" Yes. . . cruelty masquerading as a joke, maybe

orbits—"my man is to me like the sun, yes" [Have no idea what this means or refers to, but include it to show my great range of heavy thought]

a man who is overwhelmingly attracted to his own wife when he sees her all dressed up, in a public situation, hence, inaccessible to him, but when he has her alone, in her at-home clothes, feels no desire for her at all. Or is this most men, and all husbands?

read Burgess's Enderby's End. Now must read Enderby and Anais Nin's Delta of Venus, which is erotica. Difference between erotica and pornography? Erotica uses big words

a woman who asks her lovers what they would like to have, as though she is a waitress in a short-order restaurant, or they are ordering a la carte. The disappointment they experience when they are robbed of finding out by trial-and-error—the chef's surprise. Maybe that's the title? [Actually, there is a porno, Barbara Broadcast, in which such a restaurant exists]

the horror of treating somebody as though you know all about them, all there is to know about that person—how wrong one always is. You tend to interrupt them because you think you know what they are going to say. (But you don’t.) A massive insult

Virginia Wright today refused to give me an interview for The Argus. I think I was set up by Lane Morgan, and Wright would give nobody an interview. [Virginia Wright is Bagley Wright's wife, and they are wealthy art collectors, who donate to museums. They at first thought I was their banker friend, another Robert Arnold, and greeted me warmly, till they found out I was a reporter. Generally all-around fine folks, you see]

"Annie-from-Earth"—am going to do an article on Dillard for The Argus for $75—1800 words. Times won't release their Scully pix of her, so I am submitting some nature abstractions. Dillard article went 2400 words. [You know me, I overwrite when I get excited]

it astonishes me that women look upon writers as romantic characters and want to sleep with them. To be a writer is to be a bore and a drudge, nearly always pompous and tediously self-centered. What is romantic about that? Who would want to sleep with a creep like that? In fact, I've never known why women like to sleep with men—gross, hairy, smelly creatures. [Originally typed "me," instead of "men"—an interesting Freudian slip]

a story which begins, "My friend, Frinski, says to me, "Listen, you shithead, I'm the best friend you will ever have, and don't forget it, so listen up, all the same, at what I'm going to tell you. I've had it up to here, with you and your women. . . ." [Been reading Miller, and am impressed with his use of such idioms]

Carol Smith quit typing for me, but old friend Teresa has started "Vile Book" at page 200, where Carol stopped, perhaps in shock

if women have historically faked the orgasm, who can say if they are not now faking multiple ones? A multiple fake?

a fictional self-help book done tongue-in-cheek, with made-up case histories of couples and their problems—ought to be fun

wrote "King Tut" articles for new View Northwest, now owned by John Murray of The Argus, who is also a State Senator. Paid only $200

story, "Watching Sally Eat," which begins, "Why do we always find ourselves in restaurants?" "Because people always have to eat. Besides, I don't trust myself alone with you." "Aw, shit."

"are you centered—are you free?" Are you happy? Questions most often asked today

another title, "The Stone Agent." This is from Basil Snell, a novel by Nathaniel West

turned in Tut piece, and was asked to do one on "In Search of Great Tavern Towns" for Bruce Brown, who is the new editor of View Northwest. [Damned small world isn't it?] For February?

I do not live in Seattle. I live elsewhere, mostly in my mind. I am a stranger to your planet and this place and time

got two obscene phone calls today, back to back. Flat voice says, "Fuck you," then hangs up. Could be man or woman

"Seattle was a tavern town, long before it evolved into a more complex, interesting city, and much of the old spirit remains (persists?) in small pockets or neighborhoods, like valley fog in autumn. A tavern is by common definition a drinkery, which is allowed to serve only beer and wine. It may additionally serve food, but generally restricts itself to short-order cooking, etc." [Goes on and one, not very well, but was published by the newly owned View Northwest and BB. Research was fun. And I had a small expenses account. Wee, burp]

I know no women who deeply love, and need, music, either classical or rock, but who only see it as a social additive, a condiment, a background for other activities. None feel their religion very deeply, either, or so it seems to me, but participate on a communal level in churches, exercising a social sense mostly

FSF, in 1925, at age 29—"My work is the only thing that makes me happy—except to be a little tight—and for these two indulgences I pay a big price in mental and physical hangovers." (Ltr. to Max Perkins, re post-Christmas depression)

Tut story was okay, and I got the go-ahead for the tavern piece, and $30 expense money. Perhaps, "I was a tavern junky. . . ." [Used]

last night, I boogied with Norma at J.J.'s on Greenwood, for research on tavern piece. Very odd experience for the both of us. Not the usual types to dance like that, or dance at all

"I was a tavern junky. I might as well admit it at the start. Growing up in Seattle twenty-five years ago, there wasn't much to choose from: bottle clubs down in the International Settlement were the only alternative (Washington Social and Educational Club, Sessions Club, the Black and Tan); first Class H license was awarded to Garski's, a mile North of the UW, as I recall, but this was years later.

"Seattle was a tavern town long before it eased into becoming a sophisticated city, and some of that old ambience lingers in pockets, like wisps of valley fog. The neighborhood tavern has long been an institution, but ever since the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, the institution has undergone a renaissance. Dez's 400, across the street from the fairgrounds, was one of the first posh new taverns, very much like a cocktail lounge. This was an early effort to make the old beer joint, with its bowls of hardboiled eggs and jars of sausage and pepperoni, respectable. A flood of attractive places followed, but something essential was lost." [Goes on and on. This is basically what was printed]