Selections From

The Salmonberry Chronicles

ROUGH CUT,

Book Two

middle distance—painters and photographers are concerned with rendering this

the nun's tail—a porno?

if something is not understandable, that is, un-understandable, would it not then be "standable"?

one man's music is another man's noise

as I grow older I shall enjoy reading William Faulkner more than in the past, I suspect, especially books like Soldier's Pay and The Wild Palms. Am presently reading volume two of Blotner's great, long, definitive biography, volume one being unavailable at Seattle Public Library. [Later I bought it, when it was remaindered]

preparing for my fiftieth birthday. What hard work!

title, "Private Factotum"—a pun there, but a little hard to find

am writing like crazy, up here at the river, being steadily attacked by manure flies, alternating with clouds of mosquitoes

title, "Slapping Flies and Applauding Mosquitoes." Cf. the sound of one hand clapping? With mosquitoes, one hand won't do the job

it becomes increasingly unclear to me, each passing year, where to draw the line between fiction (the first love of my younger days) and that type of autobiography which makes use of fictional devices but is of such alarming first-hand importance and prevalence that I must disguise the extent to which it is "real" and the new love of my middle years, namely, to tell all, whether it hurts (me) or not. I am, after all, fairly indestructible, at least in a moral-social, societal sense

the heart of the lettuce is bitter and hard

wild sweet peas do not grow very high off the ground and consequently often are trampled underfoot when somebody walks through the tall mid-summer grasses. They cover the pink end of the spectrum and are shaped like individual Japanese fans, very small and asymmetrical, in the way that kidney beans are. Pale and pretty, in a greatly understated way, they are easily missed, as they never reach more than a foot or so from the tangle of waist-high grasses in which they grow

. . . where my car crouched waiting for me in the halflight, like some great slumbering prehistoric beast. I felt lucky when it decided not to turn on me. Such was the mood of being trapped out of time that the evening had left me with. The crackle of the car's radio was what, finally, returned me to the ubiquitous civilization of the Twentieth Century. > unescapable reality of the ever-present Twentieth Century, and I felt all the worse for it

otters in the river, a family, all playing where I wanted to fish and emitting communal noises. They were well aware of me

Tacoma reminds me of Stockton, California, what with its pall of low-hanging smoke and the heavy heat. Similarity between the small truck gardens of Puyallup and the vast irrigated oasis of the San Joaquin Valley is one of scale. The sky, the sun, the relentless la belle dame san merci. Tacoma proves its age and squalor with petty industry, and in contrast Seattle is indeed "most liveable," as the national magazines now proclaim it. Tacoma reminds me of Illinois, Indiana, S. Michigan. Never forget to be grateful for where you live

would you believe it, 98 degrees? One point short of the all-time record for hereabouts. It is reported to have hit 100 at Sea-Tac [airport] and 99 some places in the city. Our poor old cat, Solly, a Siamese, is stretched out full length on the tepid linoleum, seeking coolness. He mews his wan lament, "Make it cooler." Would that I could. Even to write these words is some sort of agony

temperature dropped to 96 degrees, then to 91. Today promises to be cooler—mid 80s

title, "Barns I Have Known." Sounds like a grade-school essay, I know. I have grown aware that a number of old barns I have enjoyed seeing are no longer with us. They have toppled over. I have photographed the Stillaguamish Valley in my amateurish way for ten years now. Lately, I have found myself staring at some weathered old boards on the edge of collapse, or just having collapsed. There must be something more than the compulsion to record decay, to freeze sagging barns on a cheap frame of film as their angles and curves grow more sloping, prior to complete failure. They are architecturally visually exciting objects. They fill the frame of the solemn negative in original ways, as they defy gravity, albeit briefly. Just as soon as the building becomes really interesting, down it goes. Then it is meaningless kindling. You come upon the heap and know you have missed your opportunity.

Once I stopped at Cicero in between showers on a stormy twilight and took pictures of an old silo leaning like Pisa beside a weathered barn. Both soon toppled over. What remained was burned to get rid of it. The camera and lens that took the picture I've traded away. The negative remains'; it is a bit thin and hard to print. The over-exposed backlighting requires many minutes of exposure called "burning in" to obtain detail. And the foreground has a tendency to go to black and lose its details. Both barn and silo are forgotten by nearly everyone but me. Yet they live on my photographer's negative. The photographer sees only what he wants to see. He is oblivious to everything else—which may include the heart of the matter. It passes him by.

Another pair of old buildings I photographed at Hazel in a storm of wet snow, one December. They too have disappeared. They leaned forward and their angle grew progressively more acute. Then one day, like an old friendship, they collapsed. Perhaps the weight of the snow brought them down. In spring, with the snow gone, they revealed themselves as a nameless pile of boards, pressed flat. I have eight good frames immortalizing them.

All the above reflections brought on by my discovering yet another collapsed barn that I failed to capture while I could

though my book, "Country/City: A Book of Days," was completed a month ago, the adventures that inspired it haven't ended. They go on, as does the compulsion to record them. Or is it more that old threads continue to unwind, their loose ends twisting?

the goldfish children are dead, perhaps murdered. One morning we found the pool torn up, the vegetation uprooted. Well, in the past dogs have entered the yard early in the morning and had themselves a swim, leaving behind a murky pool, the water lilies all torn up. The goldfish disappeared, but showed up after a few days, blithely swimming around, after the muddy water settled and cleared.

This time the destruction was thorough. The lilies, which had just begun to unfold their gentle white blossoms, were broken and shredded. When the water cleared, all five goldfish were gone. Where have they gone? Were they eaten? We are left with a sense of outrage—along with pain, bewilderment, loss. Even though they were dumb, cold-blooded creatures, they mattered to us. We bought them, fed them, watched them grow. They are children, innocent. We had overseen their welfare for years. We had been careful not let them become too tame, for fear that somebody's children or cats might snatch them up. But in spite of our vigilance, they got got.

Who committed this dastardly, early-morning crime? A heron? We don't have them, here in the city. A fish-eating duck that pursued them right to the bottom? Perhaps raccoons? Garth thinks so, and I bet he's right

work continues on the book-length poem, "The Redwood Traverse," which nears its end, but goes very slowly at this point, which is the intensely lyrical (and somewhat directionless) fifth and final section

hot. All days about 85 degrees, beneath a relentless sun. Have fished but three hours in the past three weeks. The month goes out in a blaze

"The River Anodyne"—new title for "Country/City?" [Think not]

the worst thing a man can grow into is a pompous, humorless, old fool

no, the worst thing is to become a religious person. Selfish, a terrible snob, cruelty to others, etc.

Faulkner, talking to Blotner upon the birth of F.'s second grandchild, a boy, says, paraphrasing and perhaps improving on Herodotus: "Those who decide to have children give hostages to fortune." Am not sure I understand the meaning of this, but perhaps it is one of those things that, over the years, clarifies itself from experience. Or perhaps it doesn't. [It doesn't. It may be intentionally obtuse. Faulkner well might do this]

from across the street comes the sound of baseball being played on TV. A few clouds remain low on the horizon, resting on the Olympics. My study remains in the low 70s until around two in the afternoon, at which time the air begins to tighten, the temperature to climb hourly. In the evening, everybody is as lightly dressed as he or she can get away with, in that person's scheme of himself. As soon as the sun lowers, the temperature begins to sink. The houses remain badly over-heated, especially those with Western or Southwestern exposures. Some wear supplementary blinds outside their windows. At eleven, the temperature is till in the 70s outside, worse within, and moths are battering at the porchlights and windows with undrawn shades. By morning the interiors will have cooled slightly and the heating-up process begins again

August first, and we can now carefully pick our way a third of the distance across the river from gravel beach to gravel shoal. Downstream, salmon are splashing in the heads of the few pools that are left, and most fishers have gone over to the dryfly—in wild hopes of getting a steelhead to take, when nothing else works

I think it was children who got the goldfish. Norma believes it was a rat, ugh. Garth continues to hold to the raccoon theory. Our usual consensus

Neil Young, "I waited for you/All winter long./It's all illusion, anyway."

". . . On the lake/The deep forbidden lake/The old folks go gliding by." What is the significance of the lake? Students?

some of the bunchberry at Cicero is already showing its scarlet accent. In the city, another kind of dogwood shrub is flowering for the second time this year. Along the bough are large clusters of white berries. To me, they look very much like waxberries. Can bunchberry do so much, all at one time? Apparently so

my wife, the librarian, found me volume one of Blotner's Faulkner, so I can read about his early years, those up through the mid-1930s

a beautiful day, up at the river, the temperature in the low 70s. Spent more than an hour pleasantly dryfly fishing with Jack Whitesel, age 71, and Ken McLeod, soon to be 81. Me, the kid of the lot—not yet 50. No rises, except for a salmon or two, plus one humpy splash a yard or so below my floating fly.

Ken reports seeing an albino swallow. It was pure white and not a dove. In the evening, he says, it flits around the Flats, picking up insects. I must keep my eye peeled for it

there are two types of men—liars and dreamers

mosquitoes—up at the river and in town, too. The trick in catching one is to wait for it to sink its proboscis into your skin and, at the precise moment it becomes impaled, helpless, its barbels engaged, the creature cannot easily resume flight and you can crush it with a slap. But you are bitten. That is the bloody tradeoff.

And in town we have so many now because of the missing goldfish children, who used to gorge on the larvae. Now we become part of the foodchain, where it used to end below us

my father has simplified life to the point where it barely exists to any degree of richness or complexity

a fly swung at and missed becomes more feisty. It circles once, tightly, then rushes in anew, ever ready, however, to take evasive flight again. Similarly, a gray squirrel, when you stamp your foot at it, feigns a charge and sometimes executes it, rather than runs away. This behavior, in both instances, must be lodged in the genes

a high light mackerel sky, like stretch marks on a woman's abdomen

steelhead fry flee from the approach of a shadow. They sense it, or else see it with acute rearward vision, and dart out to new, safer locations. This means swifter, more broken, more streamy water, with a greater number of small stones scattered beneath

poetry revision is the mastery of applied suggestion, serendipity, accident, "openness." Grateful to Richard Hugo's The Triggering Town for these ideas

Faulkner's "It takes you 200 rejections before you get up to zero." c.1921, or so

does it take a sharp pencil to draw a fine distinction?

merganser flying upriver with a voice like that of a rusty hinge

on why women like R remain with the men who on occasion "push them around" or else irregularly beat them—it is a highly personalized form of attention. This is preferred to no attention at all. Thus, what she and the others can't stand is the form of neglect that comes from being ignored

terrific thunderstorm yesterday morning at 8, with bowling reverberations up and down the river valley, which awoke my wife and me. We couldn't go back to sleep, so we lay abed, listening to the crashes. We could see the flashes through our clenched eyelids. She counted them and said they were four to five miles away. They seemed much closer

leaving the Island Crossing yesterday, a quick rain shower hit the hot, dry fields, leaving in the air the smell of an elephant pen

a calico sky

a books of photos on hands, all their dramatic possibilities. Use of backgrounds—trees, breasts, jewelry, etc., highlight sources

am reading a new novel by V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in The River, in which he says, drily, on page 18, "Rich people never forget they are rich."

And from page 27: "You felt like a ghost, not from the past, but from the future. You felt that your life and ambition had already been lived out for you and you were looking at the relics of that life. You were in a place where the future had come and gone." Page 29: "the solitude of my evening was like an ache"

he was in a mood of animated dread

am reading WF's The Wild Palms, 1939, but in an old pocketbook edition, without the Old Man in alternating sections. He is superb, and time does not diminish him

up at the river, rain falling, listening to Mozart on FM, with good reception because of the heavy cloud cover. I should fish, but . . . what the hell

last night there was a terrible headon accident on Highway 530, just opposite us, where the powerlines cross the road, with one fatality, perhaps more. The little foreign car was totally crumpled, beyond recognition (as to manufacture and style)

the salmon-clotted pools

one of those guys who tucks his necktie into the front of his pants

title, "The Man Who Knew What's What"

watched out my river window as a spider trapped a crane fly in its web, then killed and ate it, settling in comfortably to the task and starting with the head. It was all I could do to continue reading my Dickens

I awake in the red dawn knowing precisely where I am and hating it. The main thing wrong with L.A. is that people are compelled to live here for money. It would make a fine wasteland, a site for nuclear waste disposal. . . ."

God isn't dead, he's comatose

I would have sold out long ago, but there weren't any buyers

Pome

"In the morning, you bring me water,

"At noon, a cup of beer.

"Nighttime, pale dry sherry,

"When the twilight thunder's near.

"In turn I give up my organs.

"My liver's first to go.

"Kidneys, spleen, bitter bladder,

"The heart is last, you know.

"I gave you my winter rose.

"You brought me sweet violets,

"Then hammered me with tulips.

"Sighing, I accepted those.

"The heart thuds into silence,

"The soul leaps out of bounds.

"Mind lives in small places,

"Hearing the sound of no-sound.

"All is ether, heaviness,

"No flowers brave the air.

"Birds are baked on branches

"Where flames have left them there.

"God's thrown into prison,

"If he's not lynched tonight,

"He's on the gallows at dawn.

"His face's a terrible sight.

"Yes, it's a terrible thing,

"To see a face so sad.

"God, Joseph, and Mary

"Trying not to be bad.

"The owl moans at midnight,

"The mouse is warm in loam,

"Because of the Magic Fingers,

"The traveler dreams of home.

"Where's the pleasure, where the pain?

"Life begins at morning,

"Over and over.

"It's all done by evening.

"Water, beer, wine

"Organs given, borrowed sleep.

"My love for you is deep.

"Sleep, and all will be fine."

I rather like some of the above

he was so fat, even his shoes felt tight

women must really be dumb to pay any attention to what men tell them

visiting one's enemies (or some unliked relatives) in the hospital—triumphing over their adversity, one's comparative good health, which produces a kind of easy victory over them, undeserved, unworthy

the caddis. One sees them beginning in spring, like bits of twig on the stones, living under water. They grow fast, throughout the summer, and soon become large. Then, all at once, they are gone. I never see the live adults. Where do they go? [I've since found their shucks on rocks and, after having gotten a bug light, I've spotted large orangish adults in large numbers the same month. These are the famed October Caddis that steelhead flytyers imitate and that are so deadly on some rivers, but not here, where there is no abundance

about so many things, I have no answers, only more questions

each year at about this time we have atmospheric inversions, which bring in fog and trap warm air near the ground, producing a soft, diffused, warm twilight, and the famous bloody sunsets of October

our three birches out in front, in town, are copiously dropping their golden leaves

days shortening down noticeably now, with sunset around 6:30, and full dark shortly afterwards, if the skies are cloudy and the light does not linger. But the present inversion continues making flaming sunsets, which make it appear that the end of the world is here

the first rain in 36 days, but not much, just enough to make the roads slippery

we cut firewood all yesterday afternoon, and have filled two large covered woodpiles with alder, one up at the river, the other in our sideyard in the city. We have an additional large alder downed by my son, trimmed and stacked, too green for this winter, but usable for the year to come. It is covered with plastic and waiting by the new road and to be lugged back to town and burned, when the first is gone. Alder that has lain on the ground for even a short length of time—less than a year—will be found to have rotted and be next to useless for burning in the fireplace

an alder will grow from sapling to useable size in about ten years. I've heard that a tree may live for one-hundred years. But around here they get cut down much faster than this. I have the idea that I could manage my land for sustainable production of firewood for my family, even though my land comprises only a half-acre. Yet we must kill a tree in order to have a fire to warm ourselves.

The cutting down of a tree is a holy act, and should not be done wantonly, without good purpose. The bark of the alder is paper-like, resembling that of birches, and this tree must be a distant relative—figuratively, if not biologically. I think of it as the Western Birch. Its leaves say it is not related, however. The shape is different. The bark of the alder is often covered with club moss and lichens. A lichen is an alga and a fungus living together—everybody is doing it, these days—in symbiotic relationship. It is probably the moss and lichen that, when dried and burned, cause my allergy problem. And even handling the green wood will bring on an attack. Funny that I am allergic to one of my favorite trees. The dead leaves produce an excellent mulch. And the wood burns reasonably hot, if it is not too dry. Alder is straight-grained and splits like a dream, usually not too knotty. Here, it grows like a weed, and is considered to be just that, by many of the locals. Yet it is what they burn in their stoves and fireplaces. They should be respectful and grateful to the alder

Americans love to make lists and perform inventories, do they not? Such is the prevalent notion, anyway. The Book of Lists is high on the best-seller "list" and has been for many months. And there have been imitators—some satiric—and spinoffs.

American novels have compulsively included lists, some very long, and often comprise uninteresting assemblages of what in the art world is called "found objects." Writers who do this and come quickly to mind include Faulkner, especially in The Bear; Melville; Fitzgerald, most notably in Jay Gatsby's famous boyhood list of ways to improve himself, and—if I remember correctly—there are lists in Styron, Roth, and Shelby Foote, who was first of all a novelist, before he became entirely a historian

down by the river is a pile of what appears to be apple peelings and pulpy cores, not quite digested, and apparently quickly voided. My first guess was bears

first snow in the mountains, which will doubtlessly melt away and flood the rivers, as it does each year

V.S. Naipaul has two first names generally not known, and, if known, are never pronounced. They are Vidiadhar Surajprasad. Isn't that nice to know?

heavy snow in the mountains about 4k feet. Family and I are snug in the city, a fire in my study this morning and, tonight, another one in the new Preway stove in the livingroom. A knotty piece of five-year old cedar is crackling and exploding as we read. We are coming down with colds. Storms here contain only rain

watching Olivier's production of Chekhov's "Three Sisters" on TV last night and seeing a winter birch forest, with its carpet of leaves much like my alders, I felt right at home, even though in Russia. How alike are my trunks to those faraway birches, which slanting slightly away, their bark smooth and silvery, graceful as dancers. . . .

pnly last summer or spring, I sat outdoors reading Henry James in front of our river place, when a car came down the hill and turned in the direction of the Crabtrees, who were not at home. It then backed up, proceeded slowly down the road, and stopped at my drive. The engine shut off and the occupants remained inside, conferring. All this I noted from over my book.

Two women emerged and slowly bore down on me. I watched them approach, from over my reading glasses. "What's this?" I wondered. Wary, but not hostile, I knew myself able to reach a hostile state in an instant.

A middle-aged woman introduced herself and her daughter. I kept my name to myself, but pretended to rise politely—a lean forward, followed by a settling back in my original position, as though remembering something, then deciding not to do it. The older woman asked if I lived "In this pretty place, year round?" She snuck a sideways glance at my 16-foot Aristocrat travel trailer. I should have said, "Yes," but replied that I lived "year round" in Seattle. I just came up here for a day or two at a time. She asked if they might talk to me for a minute.

I asked if the subject was religion?

They said it was.

I said I would decline.

The middle-aged woman asked if she might ask why.

I replied, "No."

She held out a pamphlet, saying, "I have a booklet here entitled, "Whatever happened to love?"

I said, "No, thank you." I guess I don't care about what happened to the love they are referring to.

They walked away. The car started up. It drove off slowly, in the wont of all cars on this rough road, up the long steep hill, dodging chuckholes, the only way the hill can be driven except by the criminally insane.

I began to wonder, what really did happen to love? The pamphlet was The Watchtower, the publication of The Jehovah's Witnesses. I should have known. They pass it out on streetcorners in the city and wherever else the law didn't forbid, such as out here in the country, where for practical purposes there is no law, and a mile or more often stretches between neighbors. This country is fair hunting for the Godly

title, "Silence and Shadow," from Swann's Way, page 97

odd lines, reproduced in free-association: an uncertain sky/ a sky flecked with crows/ charred crows, wildly sailing/storm-tossed sky, ever changing/ the sky tossing and scrambling its crows/ crows hurling down curses/ a cursed sky, or curse-ed sky/ unreflecting crows mirrored below

aliens in hard hats are tearing down the Whitman bridge. This is to make way for a new open cement bridge, with a wide approach to accommodate logging trucks, prior to the biggest local clearcutting effort in history. Gave them my country-friendly wave; they returned it with hard eyes

the alders do nothing special in the fall. Their leaves, I mean. they just release and fall, with no great colors

ah, the coyote has a hard life. Nobody likes him, and he must range far to find food. He eats a lot of mice, moles, rabbits, but when he finds some chickens, out come the shotguns, poor guy. He is a clever and dexterous animal, a real survivor. Farmers soon give up on guns and resort to poison baits

This is often a harsh and cruel world. My old fishing friend, Bill Tolle, had a small tractor tip over on him, November 28, a year ago. His hip was shattered, his knee badly injured. Today, nearly a year later and nine operations afterwards, he walks slowly, with a metal crutch. He is 39 years old. His hip and leg are fifty percent recovered, he figures.

He is scheduled for another operation, December 3. And yet another in February. More stretch out into the future. Even so, his disability will remain at about fifty percent, he says, but he will some day be able to give up the crutch, perhaps using a cane or, with great good luck, nothing at all.

An independent cuss, and a businessman, he has drawn social security for much of the past year. This is a considerable indignity and an insult to his pride. He is in constant pain. This is hard for the rest of us to imagine. He has developed the personality of the invalid, complete with the injured's paranoia. He says people have changed their attitude towards him, and reminds me of the concept of the survival of the fittest, which he thinks may lie behind their attitude. Animals, he adds, will turn against an injured member of their species and kill it. He believes people may want to do the same thing to him. I cannot sensibly argue against this, but doubt it.

He was a graphic artist, a landscape gardener, a lot of things, for he got easily bored with his different occupations and was constantly seeking new ones, moving on. He is from Oregon—his car still bears an Oregon license plate. I saw it parked at Fortson, when his wife came from Everett to pick him up at dark. Earlier, she had dropped him off for some fishing. His driver's license was suspended after his injury, and he is dependent upon her and others for what he easily and thoughtless did for himself, not long ago. He talks about going back to Oregon and starting up a Chevrolet franchise. Among the myriad things he did in the past was operate a new car business.

Tonight I left him leaning on his crutch, in the dark, in the rain, way off in the woods. His wife would soon arrive, he assured me. I felt guilty, driving away and leaving him alone in the dark and the rain. I wish Bill well. Right now he is walking a fine line between self-pity and being the old independent cuss I enjoyed. I respect his ambition and his pride. Also, his love of fishing, which parallels my own. I hope time will heal his mind, along with his body, but I fear it won't. [He recovered remarkably, and I know a lot of hard, painful work was involved. His limp is scarcely noticeable, twelve years later]

what a joy, being alone up at the river, last night, and again this morning, a splendid day, with a strong sun and sparkling blue skies. The only trouble was, last night the Crabtrees left their two dogs at home and went away, and the black Lab barked at the wind and moving shadows cast by the trees. He is quite a stupid dog, unlike his mother, the shepherd, and it is impossible to see her genes or influence in him. I think maybe Crabtree was putting me on

The bitch shepherd I am slowly seducing. She has promise. She holds back. The first time I approached her, it was with some leftover beef stew on a paper plate. After she ate it, she tried to carry the plate away, and I had to chase after her until she dropped it. [I'm not quite sure why I did this, unless it was to keep Crabtree from discovering that I was feeding his dog for nefarious purposes.]

This morning I gave the dog the egg smear from my breakfast plate. I held the plate in my hand, all the while, and when she closed her small front teeth over it, after most the yoke was gone, and tried to make off with it, I hung on, whispering firmly, "No, no."

Afterwards, out in the no-mans-land of the community road, where I brought my aluminum lawnchair to read in the sun, she cosied over and sat down, while I read Proust and drank the last of my coffee. From time to time I scratched her ears and finally totally corrupted her by tickling her stomach, and causing her to roll over on her back.

Now she is mine.

spotted a grasshopper in the road, this late in the year, perhaps brought back to life by the strong rays, and tried to "show" it to the shepherd, whose name is Sheba. Either the dog (1) couldn't see the grasshopper, motionless in the dust, or else, (2) saw it and wasn't interested. I think the former.

The thought crossed my mind that perhaps I can train her. But, no, she is middle-aged, and has lived with the Crabtrees's personal notions of unbridled conduct for so long her case is hopeless. Can you imagine a German shepherd who, for instance, doesn't know how to shake hands? Or come when she's called? And she doesn't seem to want to learn. But by my having corrupted her by a few degrees through the use of food (in the future, dog yummies?) perhaps I can proceed a step farther. [I soon gave up trying. A lost cause]

while river watching saw three of this year's crop of common mergansers sporting round in the shallow water. Then a gust caused many curled dry alder leaves to drop into the river. They began to sail around at odd intervals like tiny boats trapped in the eddy, turning tight circles until caught by the current and whisked downstream. There they fanned out and disappeared around the bend. No more wind, no more leaves, and the river cleared. Some time the mergansers left

what single characteristic describes the Irish, and how they are always so glad to see you? Insincerity?

anybody out there in Musicland see a similarity between Schubert's Unfinished Symphony and Brahms? Connections are often made between Schubert's quartets and Beethoven's, I know. If it wasn't for that overly-familiar melodic line that identifies it, I might guess the Schubert was a Brahms's symphony

on David Wagoner and Richard Hugo reading poetry together at Kane Hall and complimenting each other—two fat cats toasting each other with chocolate-covered mice

it froze last night up at the river, and there was ice still on the mud puddles this morning in Arlington, and heavy frost on the traditional shadowed hillside at Cicero. Skim ice lingering on the bogs and beaver ponds. We hauled in the last of the alder logs Tancretti gave us. Each was too big for me to handle alone, but not at all bad for two. Work is often like this, I've noticed. I am much stronger than my wife, I learned, after years of believing otherwise. But she is such an indefatigable worker. And my son has what might be called "quick strength," but I think I can outlast him in most endeavors, though I am much older and heavier by forty pounds

I am not quite the lazy slob I conceived of myself as being, most of the time. And I learn, I learn. For instance, as the temperature dips, I become younger—amazingly so. It is 5:30 P.M., and already freezing. My energy level has gone up greatly, and my accumulation of years has decreased. At 32 degrees F., I am about 35 years of age, instead of nearly 50; at 22 degrees, I am probably 25 years old; at 12 degrees, 18 years perhaps. Any colder than that, I stay at the same energized level—18 years old, which is my son's age. Were he here today (he's in his student's room, down with a bad cold), I would match him, foot-pound for foot-pound

today I learned something that I suspected for years, but did not know for a fact, namely, that I have no depth vision. From a practical standpoint, it is zero. This goes back to my high-forceps delivery at birth, which produced badly crossed eyes and necessitated two eye operations. They did not totally correct the problem. This is necessary to understand what it is like not to have any depth vision, an unusual condition, and the problems that have issued from it.

Now bi-focals further complicate my problems at gauging visual distances. I am always hitting my head on low boughs, when walking through the woods. Have I mentioned how I once broke a hickory sledge handle, after about ten minutes of use? I was probably too ashamed of my bad aim to write it down. I broke it off, and Garth had the devil of a time boring out the remaining hardwood from the iron head so a new handle could be bought and fitted on. Finally we found one in a hardware store for $6.50—expensive now and then. It was a good fit, however, and ought to last for years, if I don't use it.

This week I taught myself how to split stovewood and never—well, nearly ever—miss. In the past, the stovewood was a bit too close a distance for my poor swing, and I couldn't see it well enough to hit it cleanly. But I learned how to measure the distance to the chopping block with a smooth, sighting stroke that doesn't land in order to measure the distance more accurately, since I can't see the log, like normal people do. Then, repeating the sighting stroke with a cutting one, I repeat the swing with force, faster, harder, and strike the wood in the same place every time. About one time in twenty I'm off, but only by a little.

How satisfying it is to be so efficient, and how proud I am of myself, for once. On Thursday night I carried into the house a load of perfectly split millends and alder sticks. Today, up at the river, I applied the same technique with the sledge and splitting wedge, and it worked perfectly

you have to pierce the circle, break in, to enter any place in a cycle in order to begin. This could happen at a solstice point, or at an equinox. Each place is a puncture of the holy circle and a forcible point-of-entry.

Cycles are inviolate. No more can summer succeed winter than fall can follow spring. The rhythm is fixed and constant. And from year to year, the same things happen in the same sequence, but there are minor variations, and they are worth noting. [If not, all life is a waste.] The small variations in the cycles, within the circle of the year, within the linked, continuous circles (which are like Palmer exercises in handwriting), minutely change from year to year, and when enough of them accumulate in a person's lifetime, he is old and he dies. The long-ago "broken circle entry" of our birth is completed by the circle-exit of our death. And so the world goes on without us, till its end

I am continuing my seduction of the bitch shepherd down the road, and bought some dog biscuits for this purpose. They are doing the job

am reading Edwin Way Teal's The American Seasons, which may have given rise to the long section preceding. This book is gleaned from four earlier "seasonal" books of his, which is a publishing gimmick. It starts out badly—dull and pedestrian—but soon improves, or so I think, for I have only dipped ahead. Annie Dillard considers Teale a great nature writer, and a favorite, so I must give him a fair shake

each night the trailer freezes. When I enter it, after an absence, it seems antiseptic, barren, but shortly afterwards it starts to warm up from my electric heater, and comes back to life. The stray insects inside become active, thinking it is summer again. Soon they begin to flutter around me. They crash into the overhead light and batter themselves against it until they are stunned stupid, or are killed. When I leave, all turns cold and dark again. The bugs grow dormant.

When I return I start the process all over. Today I awakened a housefly, a crane fly, a fruit fly, and a couple of slumbering mosquitoes

last night we watched a fine TV remake of Eric Maria Remarque's classic All Quiet On The Western Front, probably the prototype of all Twentieth Century war movies. One can say no more. The plotline would easily translate to World War II, the Korean War, the fighting in Viet Nam, and probably will be unconsciously copied by novels in the future, as it has been in the past. It is a very bitter denunciation, and it was only the first in a succession of devastating wars in this century.

I began reflecting, during the movie, that war impacts men's lives strongly in much the same way as childbirth and child-raising effects the lives of women. This is both obvious, profound, and nonsensical. A man may avoid military service, just as a woman might not get pregnant or not carry a pregnancy to term; both sexes are strongly effected by their roles. R and G, for instance, may never become mothers, but they are conditioned by our society to see themselves in the roles of mothers. and therefore have a strong response to children and child-bearing topics. The behavior of maiden aunts, for instance, with all their fawning over other people's children, should be seen in this context.

A man's interest in sports, war, and warfare is similar, but goes in an opposite direction. My brother and two brothers-in-law had limited military experience, which consisted of a small amount of time spent in the reserve or national guard, the in-laws in the Marine Corps, with its macho posturing and imprinting process that is never escaped from. Both men get excited on the subjects of war and combat. And my brother, who went briefly in the Air Force Reserve, used to wear my army uniforms, as a teenager. He loved the dressing up.

If I am right in my surmise, it is a terrible thing that is happening to both sexes, and we are unable to become our true selves, that is, our selves without such conditioning. But if we know and understand the process—how it is done to us, over so many years—there is hope that we might escape it, or at the least lessen its destructive impact on our lives

100

I have heard about Aldo Leopold for many years, but have never read any of his writing until last night, when I started Round River.

I am appalled by the amount of killing he has done. At the start of the book, he is traveling in Colorado and Utah on a fall hunting trip, and he and his companions bang away with guns at whatever moves. And at some that doesn't. Listen to this: (Page 12.) "At daylight I killed a huge mallard drake . . . three widgeon flushed. Carl got them all . . . a very large coyote was drinking . . . we nearly got a shot at him. (Page 15.) Carl put a .32 bullet behind her ear [a female coyote] and we found the fur was loose. So we had to content ourselves with the bush. . . . As we were eating breakfast I knocked down a big mallard and Carl two widgeon.

(Page 16.) "A coyote got away with our trap—pulled the stake. (Page 19) Posted Alex for a pass shot while we went around and flushed (quail). He hit two but both got away. (Page 21.) Got two, and half a dozen doves. I fished and caught many small catfish but not big enough to clean. Set a coon trap baited with a live catfish in a wet cowtrack, also quail cleanings. . . ."

And so it goes, the killing, wounding, missing, trapping, maiming. I hope Leopold gets better soon or I'll quit him. I realize it was a different time, with a different attitude toward nature and its creatures, but this is wantonly terrible. He sounds like just another hunter, one who loves to pull the trigger.

Each year I become more opposed to hunting and hunters—what is called "the hunting mystique." The subject brings to mind the scathing parody of an army recruiting poster that made the rounds during the Viet Nam war. It went something like this: "Join the Army. Travel to romantic, far-off places. Meet people different from you. Kill them."

Which reminds me in turn of the boy, a teenager, with his rifle at the edge of the woods, as I drove up to the river, Sunday last. The FTA [Fuck The Army] slogan might be modified to read: "What could be more pleasurable in the cool, crisp days of autumn than going for a leisurely walk in the woods, amid God's small furry and feathered creatures, and trying to shoot as many of them as you can?"

101

title, "Water Running"

102

a couple of days ago an Esquire Magazine editor returned my story, "The Last Summer," (38 pages), but said they might be interested if I would cut it down to 20 pages. This is encouraging, but they remain uncommitted, of course. It's not a contract, and I must do the work entirely on "spec" [More, but omitted here]

103

beginning at about nine in the morning, the classical music station is working its way through Schubert's string quartets. He was another one of those boy geniuses, and the canon was completed before his seventeenth birthday. It is amazing the degree to which composers influenced each other, and one detects the imprint of Haydn on Beethoven, who studied composition under him, and reportedly failed the subject. And the mark of Beethoven on Brahms, Schubert, and practically everybody who followed him is enormous.

This week (today is Monday) was Quartet Number 11; tomorrow the Quarttesatz (what's that, literally—tiny little quartet?), lasting but seven minutes; Wednesday, D.804, which must be Quartet Number 13; and Thursday, "Death and The Maiden," No. 14; with the conclusion the long (46 minutes) Quartet No. 15, on Friday, a minute too long to fit on one side of a 90-minute audio tape. [If only he'd known about tapes, he might have written it a minute shorter. Naw.] I don't know how I'll handle this, since I'm recording it on my little Pioneer tapedeck for my "later listening pleasure," as it is called

104

Janos Starker is playing a concert at Meany Hall on Wednesday. He is probably the best cellist since Cassals. The cello is the instrument I would play, if I had any talent. It has a somber, beautiful tone.

Classical music has been dominated for so long by The Three Bs that I am beginning to appreciate Schubert, Vivaldi, Telemann, and others. Dvorak, especially. I am looking forward to understanding the new Schubert canons, plus the individual pieces that make them up

105

a wet Thanksgiving, with the temperature at 48 degrees, and the bird roasting away in the oven. Garth and my parents are coming over at dark to help us eat turkey, and we shall afterwards sit in front of the fire I just laid

106

about Leopold's Round River, I have mixed feelings. He is a hunter, through and through, and taught his three sons to shoot and kill. Most of the book is a diary of their hunting trips, with carnage proudly set down. A lot of missing and crippling goes on; I suppose it always does, and maybe its just Leopold who is honest enough to admit it. Later in life he went over to bow and arrow for deer, a more difficult pursuit, and recounts the horror story of a buck, shoulder-shot near dark, that was unsuccessfully tracked and given up on at dusk. Many of the deer he and his brothers and sons shot weighed 60-80 pounds, dressed out. Not exactly big game. I've owned mature German shepherds no bigger.

Yet Leopold is most moving in some of his essays. In the first, "A Man's Leisure Time," he writes that "a satisfactory" hobby must be in a large degree useless, inefficient, laborious, or irrelevant." (Page 4.) This remark began to endear him to me. And on page 5, the random phrase is found, "I know a bank president who adventured in roses." That one unusual word does much. A.L. can write like a poet. He, however, goes on to weaken what is a good thing with wheel manufacturers who "adventure" in tomatoes, a taxi driver who "romances" in sweet corn.

And then comes page after page of more killing. A.L. could not see an animal or a bird without wanting to shoot it dead. It is paradoxical, but typical of the hunting breed. He does not see killing as wracking havoc on the environment, and effecting the food chain he writes so tellingly about. I wonder why not? [Much more exists in the Notebooks, but is mercifully deleted here because it was research for an article]

107

a possible title, "Drought and Freshet"

108

raked up today a year's supply of maple leaves and carted them to the garden for mulch

109

in Edwin Way Teal's The American Seasons, page 238, there is some fascinating data: "A sluggish current, moving no more than a quarter of a mile an hour, is sufficient to support the flakes of clay (1/25,000 of an inch across). At a third of a mile an hour, a stream will carry fine sand (1/25 inch). At one mile an hour it will transport gravel the size of a pea; at three miles an hour it will move along stones as big as hen's eggs. . . . The minimum gradient that will keep a river flowing is a drop of six inches to the mile. If the descent becomes shallower than that all progress ceases, the water spreads out, flow and direction are lost."

And, I ask, what will a river carry or tumble along at velocities of 4 and 5 and 6 mph, which are what I often encounter?

110

the cedar nurse log on Lot 13; remember it? Describe

111

the leaf lady, in Seattle. This is a woman who comes along at night and picks up in her child's wagon all the leaves we have gathered up and not disposed of. I caught her in the act and asked her why. She uses them for mulch, too. She steals people's leaves. I told her to take ours, since we had all the mulch we wanted. In the morning they were all gone, the parkingstrip neat as a pin

112

a Western red alder may live to be 100 years old and grow 100 feet high

113

what are the colors of a November day? Pewter, silver, gunmetal, Dresden blue, battleship, lead. Clouds with white edges, smokey grey. The sunlight pours into a valley, with wisps of cloud and blue-tinged woodsmoke rising, some of it in a straight line, while the rest of the smoke fans out and is obscured by dips in the hills. No, it is swallowed by the dips

whitefish are spawning and have become pugnacious. They strike my fly and become impaled on the hook. They remind me of grayling, but of course without the big purple dorsal fin

114

my birthday. I am forty-nine. After writing today, I ran two miles, just to prove I could do, I suspect, in forty-degree temperatures, the coldest in which I've ever tried it, which hurt my lungs. But not very badly

115

Mrs. Solinski, our old next door neighbor, sits all day in the living room of her daughter's house, a springer spaniel for company. She sees nothing, her mind is gone. Her husband died a couple of years ago and without him to look after she lost her hold on reality. The dog roams the house, going from window to window, barking furiously at passersby, at leaves blowing along the sidewalk, at cars turning the corner. How sad.

The old lady must be fed by hand. She sits in her rocker and looks much like "Whistler's Mother"—quietly, in that classic pose. Perhaps her mind is back in Poland, during pleasanter days, when she was just starting out in life, having babies, looking forward to a long and productive life. She raised a brood, and many of them came to America after World War II. They live nearby. Their children take care of them, when they become old and feeble. That time is now

116

in three week's time the days will start getting longer again, though always imperceptibly at first. That is the true meaning of the Christmas season. Just think—ever since June 21; so long a time—they have been shrinking, and now it is dark before 4:30 in the afternoon. How joyous to find the light returning.

Isn't it the Swedes who at Christmas time elect a Lucia Bride, the wife of light? Wise people. In northern climes the loss and the regaining of light are more vital than here. But how odd it is to find there is a three-week wait yet for true winter, and the days still seem as short and as dark

117

phrases from Edwin Way Teale's anthology of his own writing: the allegory of winter (seems opaque to me, now], the rounded year (not much better)

118

and this neat quote, attributed by Teale to the Paiute Indians of Death Valley: "The edge of the sky is home of the river." (Page 329.) Two great titles buried in there, but not very deeply

119

what is the life's purpose of the skunk? Why, to throw himself under the wheels of a car and to leave his stench on as many tires as he can, in memory of himself

120

spotting raccoons off to the side of the road, looking back over their shoulders, by the reflection of the car's headlights in their eyes

121

on reading a "freshened" beach, after a flood, much as one read's prints in snow

122

Leopold's "we grieve only for what we know," from page 48 of Sand County Almanac

123

the ecosystem of the old, naturally-seeded clearcut on the hill above us. [Actually, this was hand-planted, I've since learned]

124

the contrary forces at work in each of us while we read, write, watch television, etc., that are always urging us to do something quite different—eat, drink, go for a walk, etc.

125

the uses of silence. On hearing silence, for one like me, who plays his musical tapes all the time, even while up in the woods, but is learning how to listen to silence and the real sounds of the woods, the river, even residential city life, and enjoy them

126

Leopold wrote the food-chain, conservation sections of his book, Sand Country Almanac, when I was a college freshman studying journalism. Then the woods were rapidly being used up, but nobody could formulate his outrage, make a coherent statement of conservation, or see how one part relates to the whole and contributes to its sum. Leopold was way ahead of everybody else.

When A.L. killed a wolf with its brood, he grieved for the loss of the "green fire" he saw in its eyes. Boy, he sure could shoot ducks, though

127

the phrase quoted by Leopold on page 175 in SCA, in his essay "Conservation Esthetics," that "ontogeny repeats phylogeny," which means that the development of each individual repeats the evolutionary history of the race

128

"the rudimentary grades of outdoor recreation consume their resource base: the higher grades, at least to a degree. create their own satisfactions with little or no attrition of land or life." (Same essay as above, page 176)

129

write an essay on the process by which soil is manufactured from leaves moldering and mulching on my land, over the gravels of the roadbed, how grass seed is blown in, and how willow gets started after floods

130

finished Sand County Almanac, and found the serious essays at the back profound for his time, 1949, and for ours. His remarks on A-B cleavage among foresters (A=harvester, B=biotic relator), the biotic pyramid, and the land ethic very knowing

131

all the Western Washington rivers are in floodstage today, with heights 2-4 feet over their former crests. The Bogachiel bridge on the Olympic Peninsula had one of its supports washed away, with a couple of cars and a logging truck dropping 30 feet into the newly created hole and the edge of the river before the road, Highway 101, was blockaded, early yesterday morning. One fatality.

The man in charge of the Bogachiel hatchery and rearing ponds, a Mr. Miller, says he spotted a steelhead swimming in his garage, two more in his garden

132

after a flood, we go up to the river and count trees. Some day the big alder sweeper at the start of the new property will be gone, taken by the river

133

the winter solstice, at last. When shall we detect the days lengthening? Well, it had better be soon, for I've just about had enough—do you hear me?—of this long darkness. Also the rain, which is setting a record for this month, with practically no fishing to be had. The temperatures remain in the 50-degree range—I really ought to go over to the Celsius scale, like all good scientists. Meanwhile, the rivers are dropping from their floodcrest, but have a long ways to go yet

134

every person has what might be termed "an inherent age." This is when he or she feels most at home in the world, the age towards which they biologically aspire and at which they believe they will be the most complete and happy. Some people, while in their teens, have an inherent ago of thirty or thirty-five, and behave or act as they think a person should at that age. They will do this even when much younger or much older. If the discrepancy is too great between one's inherent and biologic ages, the person's behavior will be deemed foolish, inconsistent, immature

My own IA? About where I am today. Norma is ageless, or of an IA that I have never been able to determine. My son's IA is quite advanced—40 or so, I'd say. And so it goes.

Use this idea for the development of characters in a novel, say, when the narrator describes himself as having an i.a. in great variance to his biological age

135

my hearing is gone in the upper register and has been for a long while. I am, for instance, unable to hear the tea kettle asking to be taken off the stove, which infuriates my family, for they think I have no sense of responsibility and am neglecting what the stove is telling me. Similarly, I play the stereo and TV way too loud, though I tend to turn it down out of consideration for others, and thereby miss another 20 percent of what is going on. What do you mean, irresponsible?

Trouble goes back to the Army firing range, at Ft. Ord, California, 1953, and the rifle of the guy next to me, not my own. Now, everybody who fired a gun wears protective earmuffs. Further loss has been going on for decades. At Boeing, I worked out in the factory, though doing management work. The noise confounded my problem.

The above remarks occasioned by coming back to find a hot, dry teakettle, while lost its whistle while I was making revises to something I've written

136

done with my own fiction for a while, I feel free to read others without fear of being unduly influenced by them, and am now starting John Cheever's Collected Short Stories, which my parents gave me for my birthday a month ago

137

among young people in the city, party night isn't Saturday but Friday. You can't get into most movie houses or bars and taverns then, but on Saturday night there is all the room in the world. Saturday is a slow night in the University District, along with Monday and Wednesday. I suspect the other weekday nights are not much livelier. I wonder if it is like this in other parts of the country, other parts of the world?

138

the riprap at the Salmon Hole collapsed from effects of the flood and dumped 900 feet of railroad tracks into the river. Also, 600 feet of the Deer Creek Road were wiped out, the road terminated. All this according to Phil O'Lone, who lives on the river.

At our place, my tarp camp got invaded by water, and my foam mattress got washed away, but not my box springs

139

Steve Martin, interviewed in Playboy Magazine, January 1980: "I don't feel funny until I hit the stage and get my first laugh. In fact, I only feel funny on stage. A person's work and who he is are two different things." (Page 243)

140

a finger nearly frozen from contact with my reel in very cold weather. How I warmed my hands on the belly of O'Lone's big yellow Lab

141

behind the Albertson's market, where I ran today, the pussy willows are thickly budded. Isn't it early for them? Between me and the boughs is a high cyclone fence—an ugly thing—but it serves to keep them from being picked for winter bouquets

142

marriage—shared hypocrisy?

143

paranoia of not being able to find Esquire in any store, and my fear, based upon experience with regional magazines, that it may have folded. But I think it is merely between issues

144

a title, "Torn Headlands"

145

my actor character feels guilty and ashamed because he is successful, and a bit famous

146

switchback might be triggered by hearing Beethoven's Third Rasoumovsky Quartet

147

title, or first line: "The man who dreamed Chicago/Sat in his motorcar, breathing smoke/And when he awoke,/Went ahead and dreamed L.A"

148

title, "Exit, Laughing"

149

I once wore a LaCosta tee-shirt, but the little alligator bit me on the left nipple, and I've never put the damn thing on again

150

title, "Cold Coffee"

151

Vance Bourjaily writes on page 6 of Country Matters [great title, by the way; wish it were mine; well, steal it, you big dope] "first-person nonfiction, with the author as a character in the experience he is reporting, has replaced the short story for now—at least commercially. . . . It has given novelists who have the need and the ability to handle it an opportunity to do a certain kind of short work between books, and a longer form more used now than formerly, to work with if they choose." An example of "that longer form," he says is his The Unnatural Enemy. [Don't remember reading it]

152

write on!

153

all novels should begin in the spring. It is a time of great optimism, which gives the work an added bounce and a much better chance of proceeding advantageously

154

don't worry about style. If you have a good enough story, style simply comes

155

you know me—prolific as a guppy

156

the look of opulent, corpulent physicians as painted in portraits in hospital lobbies, all of them dead now

157

on airplane flight—a nun that hangs on tightly

158

my wife says I am so much more cheerful and pleasant to be around when I am writing. Something long, I presume she means. Happy to oblige

159

she could do some interesting things with her lips, but talking wasn't one of them

160

he studied at UCLA, where he majored in power forward

161

God is simply the name we give to our fears

162

is it possible today to have truly unequivocal feelings about anything? Was it ever? Clear back in the sugar days, before 1941, that is, before they had invented the bomb that could permanently stop the clock. . . .

163

I saw the great gray city spread out below me, the seven Romanesque hills stretching above Puget Sound, the thick sprinkling of houses and clustered commercial developments that ran along the waterfront, almost as though a handful of sand had been flung across a rumpled army blanket. (Not quite right; try again)

164

a short story about a father and son playing Horse, with a basketball. How the old man hates to lose, and will do anything to win

165

two possible titles: "Black Jesus," or "A Face Full of Rain"

166

we shook hands the old-fashioned way, with no twists and turns of our thumbs

167

Rust Hills from Esquire called long distance this afternoon from Florida and we went over "The Last Summer" short story nearly line by line, restoring one whole section from the previous draft, at my insistence, and making many deletions and changes. It took two hours. What the bill must have been for them, but who can better afford it? I remember one change he wanted, and I didn't, in which the narrator refers to somebody's "case," (as if "get off my case"), which I thought a terrible "in" phrase, well on its way to becoming a cliche. It would have been okay, I guess, and I suspect I alienated Rust with my adamant rejection of it

168

phoned (collect) Lisa Bain, my editor, about restoring final three paragraphs of "Last Summer," but she charmingly talked me out of it. Seems Rust Hills phoned changes into Marilyn Johnson, Lisa's editorial boss, and it took them a long time and a lot of work, and was final. When Lisa read the story for about the twelfth time, she cried again, because "it was so beautiful." I told her I cried too when I wrote it. (How hokey this all seems.)

She says life at Esquire is "one big picnic."

I described her to herself, from what I had perceived. Age, 23-26; short, dark hair; short in stature. It turned out she is 23, has short red hair, is 5'2". "I would have gone 5'4-1/2 inches," I said. She replied that was her height in heels.

How nice they all have been to me. [When my father died of cancer, over a year later, Marilyn Johnson had phoned me at 7 A.M., much later their time, about something else, and I had received the bad news at 3 A.M., and had just managed to fall back asleep. I told Marilyn, "I can't talk now, my father just died," and hung up. A long letter followed from them, telling me to phone when I felt better. Since the short story was about the death of a man's father from cancer, it was sort of foreshadowed. No more work assignments came out of this experience. I guess they thought me an anomaly, an unknown writer they published to prove that all their stories and articles didn't have to be done by the already famous. They were "open to new talent." Oh, yeah

169

my father, in the restaurant, when they bring the check; how nobody in the world could get it away from him, short of using a meat cleaver

170

a prince—even a demi-prince—finds it difficult to adapt to wide-spread democratic practices in America, such as. . . .

171

we all went to public schools, and were proud of it

172

an Ellen Fair from Esquire called in order to check a few facts—she is a professional fact checker. Place names and the quote about "shake-mill," having to do with usage. She's never heard of shakes and shake-makers, either, and it's not in her reference books

173

"tragedy isn't Top Forty"—from the movie, "King of Marvin Gardens," starring Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern

174

the questions we never dare ask ourselves—did Mommy ever go down on Daddy? Did anybody ever think of your Mommy as a juicy piece of ass?

175

galley proofs dated March 20 arrived at 10 A.M. today, by special messenger from Esquire, with a note from Lisa requesting changes back by Monday P.M., via telephone, but I think I'll call them in today, since there aren't many. Emery Express is fast

176

had a nice chat with Lisa, over the phone. She was a music major at Manhattan College in Upstate New York and plays piano—classical, I guess. At 2 P.M., Marilyn Johnson phoned and said the editor-in-chief wants to change the title to "The Holding Waters." I argued against it, saying that in fisherman's parlance it was meaningless. Now, "holding water" meant something. They also want to say "but I wasn't inside his case," before the caddis fly image in the last paragraph. I said it makes no sense and jars. They said she and Rust like the jarring effect. I said it dampens the ending—artistically. [Up on my high horse?] They are still bothered by the word "shakemakers," even though once again I explained the morphology. She will call me Monday at 9 A.M. and we will go over it again. The illustration is to be 1-1/3 pages and in full color

177

Marilyn Johnson phoned and we went over the galleys again, and reached agreement. It didn't take long and was quite pleasant, though I suspect they now hate me and don't want to do any more business with recalcitrant old me. She says she can smell spring in the canyon air, where there are located strategic trees. (Those odd words are, of course me, the writer, speaking.) She says she will phone back later for my bio. [Should be shorter yet.] My 9 A.M. is their lunchtime

178

at 12:30 Ellen Fair, the checker, called about the quote from the mill, and I quoted Norma's research on shakemaker, among the morning changes. Takes facts to impress a facts person

179

my advice to young writers? Always buy expensive shoes

180

Ellen Fair called [again] to check facts on my bio. [Jesus, don't these people ever sleep?] It will read, "This is Robert C. Arnold's first published short story, though back in the '60s he corresponded about fishing with Arnold Gingrich, Esquire's founder and first editor. He lives in Seattle and is working on his first novel" Or some such crap. "First novel," my ass

I argued again with Marilyn about this wording, but she was adamant, and said this would lead to publisher's inquiries, O. Henry and Best American Short Story awards, anthologies, etc. They like to be known as discoverers of brilliant young writers who then go on to make something of themselves. God, what jive. And am I too cynical? [Yes, but rightly so.]

Then they gave me back to Ellen in Research to check on the accuracy of all these [bio] facts. They were lies, I told her, and lightly laughing she went on to make sure the lies were "accurate." What can you do? It goes to press today, they lied, with advanced copies to me about May 1, and newsstand copies about May 15

181

Loren Eisley in The Star Thrower, on page 234, writing about Thoreau, says, in the winter days, the years "came fast as snowflakes"

182

Thoreau's "There has been nothing but the sun and eye from the beginning." He grew "like the corn in the night"

183

nature is "the other civilization"

184

people who are all alcoholics. Our disease, or the disease of our generation

185

it must be nice to be a dead composer, and every year on your birthday the FM stations of the world play your music, throughout the day

186

am reading William Arnold's Shadowland, about Moviestar Frances Farmer, and her days of madness at Steilacoom (1948), insulin shock, electroshock, hydrotherapy, experimental drugs, prefrontal lobotomy induced with an icepick through the eyeball

187

a scene where he is tying fishing flies. "What's that?" she asks, pointing at the table. "That's my vice." She says, "Don't do it too often, and it won't be"

188

phrase, a manic twist

189

what it's like to penetrate a virgin? Pushing a carrot through a wall? A stalk of celery? Cooked celery?

190

spring comes to Oso—choke cherries, overpowering stench of different manures in the fields. Road crews visibly not working

191

the pink rhododendron is the first to come out—each year I forget the order

192

last year's dogwoods have survived, but show little leaf

193

a man who is "dentist to the stars"; his loss of faith—the dentist manque—perhaps encountered on the airplane trip?

194

an old Seth Thomas wall clock, with pendulum—use this

195

dilatory, as in a tactic or practice

196

a character speculates on stains, etc., found in public library book—where they come from, what they signify caused them, what was happening when they took place

197

why is it the quotes in the dictionary, illustrating word usages, are never from anybody you've every heard of?

198

she kissed him at the door. The kiss seemed to say, "Congratulations. You are the man in my life. Welcome to Nirvana"

199

hyacinth—a woman's name

200

the animus in Anna—use this tag

201

a short story: An old man travels East to England, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, all very symbolic and imagistic, getting progressively younger, and smaller, the farther he goes, until he dies in Russia, becomes a seed, and a bird flies off with him in its beak to a woodsy nest

202

a minister who loses his faith and becomes happy

203

an article, "Opting Out," about middle-aged men quitting their jobs, etc., and developing more satisfying and sustaining lifestyles—furniture refinishing, freelance photography, etc. Find about six or eight such persons and interview them— maybe on tape, for extreme accuracy

204

words (from Jim Harrison's novel, Farmer): feral (dog, pig, etc.), scats, blackberry swale (low wet area), vetch, brake (marshy land, overgrown with one kind of plant), angiosperms (flowering plant)

205

Loren Eisley writes, on page 68, "Creatures without a high metabolic rate are slaves to weather. Insects in the first frosts of autumn all run down like little clocks. Yet if you pick one up and breathe warmly upon it, it will begin to move around once more." How true

206

Poem, after Williams

The curl of the leaf --

Just that—no more.

Cloud of lilac scent.

Rain descending from

A broken raingutter.

Tchaikovsky thunder

Booming on the stereo.

Spring night arriving.

207

title, "Memoirs of An Atavistic Clown"

208

Eisley—"the onrushing, nonexistent future" (page 292); "the planet, with its strange freight of life" (page 291)

209

perhaps a letter to Esquire about Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, all "sitting on their cloud." Refers to when an unknown gets published in E, he feels like he's accomplished a good piece of work. But H, F, F may believe they are being traded on, one more time, for the magazine's crass, pecuniary purposes. Similarly, Capote and Williams in same company. [Wisely never writ]

210

title, "The Urban Savage." Note, this is not "urbane," which somebody else has already used

211

The poet dies

To commemorate the poem.

Underneath the green sod,

The nurse log sprouts

A galaxy of bright shoots

Aimed at the low heavens.

An astonishment of stars.

212

by daily rising earlier and earlier, can I swoop up time in my net, like a stunned quail

213

in Hungary, the Magyars (these are the people)

214

foul, old maidenly breath, above

215

those of us for whom the Tocatta and Fugue in D minor is not Bach's greatest work

216

peas, untimely ripped from their pods

217

one of those goofy, middle-aged men with earphones and metal detector found combing the beach for landmines, I guess, and lost Timexes, or delving in among the clover of the nation's parklands

218

today cunnilingus has replaced communion as the prevailing popular act of piety and deep spiritual commitment. Like religion it leads to personal joy and growth

219

a minister who is able to function successfully, effectively, popularly, while he is a disbeliever. But as he begins to believe, he becomes ugly and his "failure to communicate" comes to the fore. His parishioners turn against him viciously, and his wife, his peers in the church, his children. He is seen as a trouble maker, a radical, and is drummed out. Does he then become the pariah he's always secretly wanted to be?

220

beaujolais is an old wine that travels not well

221

the title that intrigues me, "Sudden Sally," is from Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Brook":

"I came from haunts of coot and hern,

"I make a sudden sally,

"And sparkle out among the ferns

"To bicker down a valley."

222

am reading Hal Borland's Book of Days, another Knopf title. It is, in shape, very much like my "Country/City"

223

everything I write must be written three times. I never dreamed writing would be like this, or I would have gone into drywall construction [Try seven times]

224

a title, "The Urban Savage." Keep working on this idea

225

returned home groggy from the dentist at mid-morning to find three copies of Esquire waiting for me, plus a note from Marilyn Johnson, full of warmth, BS, and a kindly rejection of my proposal for an article on the crisis in engineering education. [I must have been mad. A crisis? Ever? My desperation to write for them something more—solid, factual.]

I settled down in my rocker with a cup of coffee and turned to page 72, where I encountered an unbelievable color illustration. The fish looks like a cross between a carp and a brown trout, in full spawning dress. The leader is slack, but the rod is bowed. How is it done? The rod is disguised but looks to have a closed-face spinning reel attached to the handle. As for the story, it seems all choppy, and I just can't read the fucking thing. I'm sorry, but I much prefer the 25 page version, with the original ending of the men's annual return to the fire circle.

They're wrong. I know best.

Is this great sadness . . . post coital? Why do I feel like —for $900—I've been fucked? Well, on to the next meager triumph

226

up at the river, I gave my grass its first cutting of the year, and beside the old, rotten cedar nurselog, a shoot of bunchberry seems to have gotten started somehow

227

my wife says rhododendrons can be moved while in bloom, but not afterwards. How odd, but I believe her

228

TV commercials are the poetry of the common man; everybody knows and can recite them, line for line

229

[Esquire story still working on my tired psyche, I guess.] I picture a man. He is very much like myself, middle-aged, about my size and build, graying, but probably without my beard, for they are not broadly allowed in the workaday world. He's stuck in a dead-end job, possibly the civil service, with one more small promotion to go, if he's lucky, before he's sent out to pasture, twelve or fifteen years down the pike.

He's an intelligent guy, and with regular raises mandated to keep up with inflation, makes fairly good money. In spite of numerous subordinates to review and approve, he's lost his sense of hope and his capacity for expectation. It's an important thing to have misplaced, just from simple venality. His wife left him a few years back, taking the kids. She has a live-in lover, very modern, while he has a sometimes lady. (Sometimes she will, but sometimes she won't. In this sense, she's much like his wife.)

It is an evening in mid-May, like this one, with a clean sweep of pink clouds before sunset. This man—whatever his name—wanders into his neighborhood supermarket to buy a couple of chops for dinner. He pauses at the magazine rack. There is a copy of Esquire on the stand. He wonders if it is still the bawdy rag of his youth, replete with Varga and Petty girls? For old time's sake mostly, he purchases it. A buck and a half? Outrageous. That evening he settles down with it and reads it, front to back, like the straight-forward hombre he is.

When he comes to the monthly fiction, towards the back [way back], he is captured by the leaping fish illustration in four color print. He reads the story about the dying father and his son, about Uncle Matt and the dentist friend they fish with, and how they now put back all their fish, save one, that last summer. [Great title there, by the way. Pity we didn't use it.] When he comes to the place where the son and the father, semi-high in the woods on shared weed, have their last serious conversation, the aging lonely civil servant silently begins to cry. In fact, all over America, at this exact moment, many grown men begin to cry.

It is precisely the place where the writer cried when he wrote the story, and where his twenty-three-year-old female assistant editor cried, when she read it. All over America, for the price of $1.50, men and women are weeping copious tears together, a nation afloat on eye moisture, all of it shed at the same place on the same wet page.

Is this not power, thinks the writer? Is it not art, or at least artistry? It is more than artifice, surely. Such accomplishment rarely arrives as the result of hard work. It has an independent existence. The writer can be grateful when it happens to him. If it happens to him. He can take no credit for it, though, only for working hard. It is pure accident. He is made happy by the thought of so many people weeping, and having caused it. The thought—the prospect of it happening—makes him weep again, this time with pious self-gratification, and mawkish narcissism

230

this day, Mt. St. Helens blew. It had been threatening to do so, and finally did it. Spirit Lake disappeared, the South Fork of the Toutle—a beautiful wild river—flooded with a 25-foot crest, then the North Fork went nearly as bad, taking a Weyerhaeuser logging yard away with it. Highway 5 closed at the bridge, which was still shaking at midnight. All of Eastern Washington covered by a dark, night-like cloud and bathed in ash four to six inches deep

231

Jim Harrison, in "The Man Who Gave Up His Name," page 125, writes: "I've never put much stock in religion, believing that prayer is trying to make a special case for yourself"

232

lust brought on by death, as in a hospital, and the anguish of family. Rutting with strangers as a diversion

233

today the July Esquire arrived in the mail, with long fiction by Tom Robbins—an excerpt from his new novel to be published in the fall. [Was this Cowgirls?] I am passè. Fini.

234

on the publication in Esquire of my fiction: there I was, sandwiched in between Tennessee Williams and Tom Robbins, like a piece of cheese

235

a title, "Prisoner of The Freeway"

236

phrase, steeped resonances

237

to my son: Dylan will be your Guy Lombardo

238

inside every married man is a wild-eyed lecher hammering on the sides of his eggshell prison

239

a thousand green and scarlet coronets sway. Hush, it is only wind in the vine maples, there by the water's edge

240

John Fowles's phrase, "the river between," page 508 of Daniel Martin

241

a woman who could not wait to be old, so that she would be respected. Of course, when the time comes, she finds herself "only old," not respected, for she has done nothing, become nothing, to merit respect. It was then her time to become bitter. Bitter, she becomes in people's eyes a fit subject for respect, because they think some great tragedy has befallen her. And perhaps it has. In that proud sadness she now seems, at first glance, a fit subject for veneration. Who else have they seen so bitter, so proud, so haughty, so alone? And isn't that just what tragedy is? Self-induced waste?

242

am reading Paul Theroux's Picture Palace. "The furious meat"—pornographic photos of Kenny and Doris described on page 147

243

success is lonelier than failure. (Paul Theroux, paraphrased)

244

a cross between Jesus and a cowboy; deep watery eyes—girls's eyes. Hair a rich brown, also beard, with the lips invisible

245

she lived alone, in a house with a cat. Describe the cat

246

title, "Common Ground," or "Uncommon Ground," or "On Common Ground"—all sound much the same

247

name, Burl. Works in the woods. (Too obvious?)

248

B. talks about books. He has read everything. Pynchon, Lawrence, Durrell, Miller, Grass. Styron, Naipaul, Theroux. Names she's never heard of

249

A Poem, On Seeing a Certain

Magazine Ad

It's the turkey that's wild,

Not the whiskey.

A fact worth remembering,

Austin Nichols

250

he slept with her exactly twice. The first time was to see what it was like. It was awful. He couldn't believe it. (It was so bad that he afterwards characterized it as the second worst piece of ass in his life, though he couldn't really remember one worse, and didn't want to give it the distinction that could come from admitting it was that bad.) And they slept together once more, if only to prove to each other the sex couldn't help but improve. It did, but immeasurably, and it was still terrible. They looked at each other in shocked dismay. Neither wanted to try for a third time. At best, it would prove a big bore. Neither could stand much more disappointment with each other. Yet they could not be friends, either. Too much had passed between them. Whenever they saw each other in social situations, the first to do so looked quickly away. The second pretended not to observe this tactic, but was secretly relieved. They never spoke again. Feeling mutually guilty, each championed the other, and said only the kindest of things. Both strived to put a gentle edge on their rancor

251

a cheesy smell (sexual)

252

a woman who purchases turn-of-the-century photographs in thrift shops—wild old men with beards; buxom old ladies, with hair in a bun—then hangs them in her home and tells visitors they are relatives and makes up elaborate stories about each of them. They are her ancestors