...And the rain sounds like a round of applause."
-tom waits

This morning the coffee tasted like this: there are trees that grow along sloping Thunder Creek on a small mountainside in Cotati. Sometimes in a still gesture the branches and leaves make a kaleidoscope of their canopy in the sun. With patient enthusiasm the creekwater slowly stirs the stillness and the soil listens to this ongoing story. That is what it tasted like.

In varying states of wakefulness and energy levels, everything can turn into sets of thematic particularity. Now a sense of relief.

I'm about to go meet friends in North Beach, then later with one of them, perhaps seek out the canyon in this city, and maybe go dancing tonight.

I was not raised on blue corn, soy grits and flaxseed. Despite this, I may be spending two or so months in Paris this fall, in a cozy flat in order to write. Here are some of the spoken things I noticed upon returning to a country where I can understand the language (in nyc):

"Well, if you want to look cool..."
"There's a new one here. Why don't you check it out?"
"Honestly? This is the 6th day I've been hung over and I just feel like going home."
"How, how, how should I do it?"
"So the next morning he calls me up starts fuckin' screamin' at me. I didn't even know who it was I said, 'Who's this?' he said, 'Robert,' I said, ' Robert who? hahahaha'."

Some character has eyes. They became Woody Allenesque. This has nothing to do with the broken glass on the sidewalk, the good music I'm hearing, or the properties of rolling tobacco.

Oh, yeahh! My friend just walked in here and handed me all the cd's I've been without for two weeks.

"...but is that true wisdom which can comprehend that there is a might-have-been which is more true than truth, from which the dreamer, waking, says not 'Did I but dream?' but rather says, indicts high heaven's very self with: 'Why did I wake since waking I shall never sleep again?'... "



"You see, I was that sun, or thought I was who did believe there was that spark, that crumb in madness which is divine,..."

Went up to Cotati and Sebastopol Friday night, to visit friends and see another friend's band. I love love love all the scents in the air in Sonoma County, the Eucaplyptus-and-sun perfume, the deep dank of the earth and the fields, breathing it in. A huge sky with so many stars of so many colors, and an enormous peace accentuated by various bird and animal sounds. Perfect, to get out of the city for a little time and be in another world completely. On to Santa Cruz Saturday by bus, another bus, train, bus, and then Boulder Creek and the city once again. To come back, to love both.

A random thought, "They always went to the psychic dentist..." and another; Monsieur Propre, it just sounds funnier in French.

Last night went to a film screening at Artists' Television Access. Living Dangerously: Coming Out in the Third World. I was going to use the topic for conversation in my esl class this morning but today there was only one student as there is a field trip to Great America going on. So we talked about the differences of east coast and west coast people. I have had this conversation many times, last night too in fact, the main difference being the genuineness of east coast people, and the surfaceness of west coast. no offense intended. But, living in Japan, I experienced again the situation of follow-through being the norm. Of course, exceptions abound, and I love it here.

Photos coming soon to this blog I hope!

Last Christmas I got two gift certificates for amazon...I sent about fifteen items to my brother's, so now when I go there I bring a few back with me to open, a time released Christmas. One of them is a book of speeches by Abraham Lincoln, one a cd of speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr. Also a book of photos of Frida Kahlo, and Faulkner's Light in August.

I just noticed that this post page has not the usual options for italics, color of font, etc.

Listening to a speech, I noticed that King's use of the word "freedom" specifically included the warning not to let such an idea include greed or hatred. Not merely to dole back whatever ill treatment one has received but to enact a moral responsibility when flexing one's freedom.

A book store on Valencia has in its front window little cards with illustrations and information about literary people who have died within the past year, while I was away from the states. Two of them are authors I love; Janet Frame and Gloria Anzaldua. I have been somewhat more inspired by Frame because of what she suffered in her life: a misdiagnosis of schizophrenia (back when almost nothing was known about it) and subsequent years of being held in rather primitive mental institutions in New Zealand. It turned out she had no actual mental illness. What is inspiring is that she was able to publish novels throughout and finally free herself from her trappings. These from her writings:

The day is early with birds beginning and the wren in a cloud piping like the child in the poem, drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe. ..

See those black stripes alternating with yellow?
They are bars of actual darkness not perceived by the naked eye.

To undeceive the sight a detached instrument like a mirror is necessary.
The human senses never speak the truth if they can get away with an easy lie.

(Here the font color would change, or I would have put those excerpts in block form, indicating that I am now again the speaker). Happy to find out that three of my friends from Japan will visit me in September. Knowing that the evening sun will turn the top half of the buildings orange, having forgotten what waits in the remaining packages I sent myself.

-LC

I recently read that adult Americans watch on average five hours of television per day. Since I don't watch tv, this seems incredible. How do they have the time? I also read that when a person watches the screen for that long, s/he slips into alpha mode, which creates a situation in which information is not filtered by the discerning mind, it is automatically accepted. I guess that explains a lot.

After having gone to more than ten major cities all over the world, I noticed nowhere but in America (specifically NY and SF) had that many of the dispossessed, many times of their minds as well as their things. People just wandering about with their basic perception-ability severely hampered. I imagine travelers here must feel shocked a la Twilight Zone.

A memory--vast vast green of shaggy grass ascending and dropping and scattered with drab old government-looking edifices you think house no one and nothing until you see colorful clothing drying on a windowsill or three people on a motorbike angling up a dirt slope.

In other notes...the eye of wisdom, which upon opening destroys the universe, causing the whole of creation to happen. The open eye sees what is being destroyed, is not turning away and hiding. It takes a lot of courage to keep that eye open.

why are the cafes silent but teeming
why are the dancers deaf in their bliss
no one grabs the merchant, screaming
why are we both a party to this?

In less than one month, 2046 should arrive on the shores of this city...I cannot say how pleased I am of this.

I'm very looking forward to being able to post at my leisure, which I will be able to do perhaps within a month. With my new job, I am now a commuter. I've got to sort out the organization of time...and the procuring of a computer.