.¡
Volume twelve, number three
the new journal, April 1979
lheNewjournal ---------------cona~ent------------------Volume twelve, number three
Aaron Betsky Editor Jim Clark Publisher Mark Sheehan De:uxner Karen Sideman Graphics Editor Eva Saks Managing Editor Jamie Romm Assistant Editor
Business Staff: Ed Bennett, Carolyn Mitchell Editorial Staff" Dick Pershan, Julie Peters, Peter Pokalsky, Fred Kelly
One of these objects murdered Kennedy.
room reeled and I would have to turn on the light or walk around in the My room was sma ll and after a few space between the bed and the closet weeks it had become like a ship's until I could try to sleep again. cabin. At night the leaves on the t ree It was the beginning of the Fall and in the yard threw shadows on the the shadows on my ceiling were Copyright e 1977 by The New Journal at ceiling that moved lazily when there growing t hinner. In the cafes a nd on Yale, Inc., a non-profit organizatiop. Letters was little wind and quickly when the the Boulevards thin overdressed and unsolicited manuscripts w~lcome. 3432 Yale Station, New Haven, Conn. 0652C wind was stronger. When it rained the painters talked to their long-legged Phono.432~39 or 436-8650 leaves trembled a nd I lay in bed and models about war. We knew the war was coming, but we didn't worry watched them a nd listened to them, and knew I wouldn't sleep. Some about it. Gabriele talked most about _ _ _c o n t e n t S - - - - - - m-·g·h-ts_a_f.te_r_t_o_o_m_ a n_y_Pe r_n_o_d_s _th_ e_ _ the war. She was an Etudiante en Philosophie but all she liked was novels and sex, in that order, and she liked our Ernest Hemingway and Verbal Pretense in the Nineteen-Seventies talked about the commencement of hostilities. I thought that since her 2 comment English wasn't good and Hemingway Staff in French sounds ghastly she should 4 Loved Her Hated Him Sidntty Wilson , be, say, Saint-Exupery instead. We didn't know why Hemingway and 4 Return from Tokyo to Kyoto Margaret Coh en Saint-Ex hadn't been friends and thought we could make up for it. 4 From an old Dialogue Martha Hollander Each one had probably thought the other was a phoney. Hemingway's 6 desser ts is just stressed backwards ttlizabttth new jersey idea of a French phoney was 8 Sea biscuit Malraux, and he probably was right. I Pods nap :ion't suppose Malraux ever thought 10 Who's the Biggest Semi-God and Friend to Mark S h eehan m~h about Hemingway, but if he did You and Me he probably called him a phoney. Anyway after one evening it was clear 11 Fashion Forecast of '79 Woolsey Grove that Gabriele as Saint-Ex was a bit weak, while as Harry Morgan or Ole 12 One Day in the Surreal Jam ie Romm A ndresen she was inaccurate although inspired. After that we let her be who 13 September Dick P ttrshan she wanted. It seemed better that way, 14 Celebration since they were all dead. Patricia Nelson I had left my room about half-an15 Ask Eva! hour before and now I was sitting ~talf inside the Flore, reading the newspaper. The Flore had once been a fine illustration Credits cafe but like all the ones on SaintCover by Juan ita ChamP.ion, p. 2 Staff. p. 3, Alexandra Kahn, Germain it had ceased to be a cafe pp. 4 and 5 Karen Sideman, p. 10 Margot Sheehan, long ago in order that it might become more of a cafe for the sake of p. 12, Haengesen and Sht"ehan , p . 13 Staff, p. 14 Alexandra Kahn
Graphics staff: Peter Pokalsky, Catherine Wehrli, Paul De Vries, Mike Radcliffe, Alexandra Kahn
Homage in Season
my compatriots, and I no longer patronized it much. Since it was the Fall I was thinking that perhaps we could start planning to go to Schruns for the winter. Maybe it was later in the Fall that you started to think about Schruns, but I wasn't sure. Then Catherine saw me through the window as she walked by t he cafe and she came over to my table and sat down without saying hello. - Hello, I said . - Darling, how are you? What are you drinking? - Pernod. - Will you order me one? I called the garcon and gave her order and he nodded and scribbled it on his pad the way Sartre had said. I asked Catherine about Schruns. - No, it's too early, she said. And in Schruns you have to be tired and happy in the evenings and you can't do that on schoolwork. A nd besides, I don't want to have to lose your manuscripts. I agreed. - We can stay here then and pretend about Schruns. - That will be grand. And we can go to Gstaad at Christmas and stay at the Rossli and that will a lready be something. That was true, and I knew Gstaad was good and I must be thankful I had it. We finished the pernods and Catherine wanted another. This time she called the waiter herself. She ordered and when he left she said: "And t here might be the war. You forgot about the war." If there was the war then we couldn't go to Gstaad. But there were many other places we could go to fight, and it was just a matter of choice. War had the same sadness and mud and dead eighteen-year-olds no matter where you went, y se acabo. Point final. E basta. ••That's it," I thought. Pernod was good for languages and good for soldiers and students who were cold and frightened. It was awfully easy to be Hemingway about everything when you were sober, but with the pernods it was another thing.
BATES!
a "true-to-life" story The Musee Provencale de Skullduggaire in St. Tropez is a vaulted cathedral-like building nestled between the Cafe Bof and an eatery called La Tour Blanc on a side street some two short blocks from the beach. Bobby Bright, Yale undergraduate, regarded the Musee with a wistful glance and sighed. "That is a beautiful building," he said, not quite to himself. "Cest magnifique! Toujours belle!" said a miniature tramp at his side. "Oh, go away!" said Bobby Bright. .. No money here. Pas d'argent! Go 'way! Shoo!" The tramp hurried off and Bobby's
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the new journal, April 1979
thoughts returned to the building before him. He had looked at it at least four, maybe five times a day since he first arrived in St. Tropez. That was four - maybe five - weeks ago. Time was running on. Some day he would pay the Musee a visit. "Visite, .. he thought to himself. Right now, however, he was headed for Ia plage. That meant beach, Bobby knew. His roommate had given him a crash course in French the ., week before the last semester ended. Mter all, Bobby was going to France, and it might help if he knew a word or two of the local argot. And it was only fitting that Bobby should make some kind of token effort to justify the trip. Just think $1200 given him, Scot-free, by the Bates Fellowships back at Yale. Oh, he was supposed to study old Provencal manuscripts dealing with the wars between Louis the Insane and Michael the Saracen or somesuch but nobody was really going to check up on him. And anyway, no one could. Nobody in the entire world knew a damned thing about Louis the Insane's dealings with Michael the Saracen for the very good reason that
3
Bobby had made Michael the Saracen up. That would be okay, he knew; the Bates people. never checked. Now, at long last, the money was running out. Yesterday Bobby had had to dip into his own savings, and it looked as though he might end by wiring home for his plane fare. He slowly counted the bills in the pocket of his beach costume. One- twothree- four- five ... enough for dinner tonight .. . and then what? He would have to leave Monday. Yes, that was it. Monday. Bobby Bright again looked at the Musee before him. His curiosity grew. It might be very pretty inside. He might even ¡be able to see a medieval manuscript or two. Should he . . . ? Would he ... ? Cautiously Bobby approached the front door of the building. He read the sign on the old oaken door. It was closed this week, Bobby translated to himself. It was closed for the coming month. Bobby shed a tear and heaved a sigh of relief. Fingering the bills lightly in his pocket, Bobby made his way toward the beach.
..;17 5 ~-
l
The New Journal will be there ....
the new journal. April 1979 v
III
Loved Her Hated Hi01 The Harald Hardrada Quartet. I
Notice, gentlemen, the young lady in the far corner. Let us call her exhibit A . She is the object of my desire. Exhibit A's brother, Harald Hardrada, is my roommate. You may see him, this very moment if that is where you are - on York Street, striding past the Yale Dramat; the red scarf carelessly knotted around his neck, one length hanging down his stomach, the other flapping over his shoulder in this crisp Northerly. We shall call this red scarf exhibit B. It symbolizes my passion for its owner's sibling. Exhibit C is the above-mentioned Northerly. Gentlemen, my burden is heavy. I love this lady with all the weak knees, the pitted stomachs, all the trembling fmgers and heaving tenderness in Christendom. I alternate - in hideous suffering between the loftiest aspirations and the most somber designs; yet it makes no difference, no matter how I put it. I cannot reach her. She scorns, spurns, rebuffs, and excludes me. My roommate, Hardrada, a personable fellow in all respects, I loathe. I suspect him of laughing at my plight. Of course I have not told him. He merely surmises; but rightly. Just yesterday evening he accused me of being overly celibate; but then, he makes up for it. He keeps the room's average up; he fucks anything that moves. He discards his j ockstrap on the living-room floor, and fucks it, and maybe, even, he fucks his sister. Oh, gentlemen! I will now introduce D . D is our room, a threeroom double in Branford College; soon all elements will be assembled there. Hardrada and his scarf are fumbling with their gate-key and will presently ascend the spiral staircase and enter. My Hard Lady of Yale is about to open the window in
Sidnev Wilson
order that the Northerly might dispel the smoke from my chain of nervous and strained cigarettes. I implore you, gentlemen, and you, bitch, to prevent the conjoining of these circumstances. Their imminent combination already fills me with despair. II
I swear it's true, and now I will tell you about it. Last year, I went to Norway. Norway, as you all know, lies next to Sweden, in the North, up and a little to the left or the right of Europe. My roommate, Harald Hardrada, comes from Norway, but I didn't yet know him when I went there. I only met Hardrada last month, and though I like Norwegians, Lord I hate Hardrada. He has a cute sister and I'd like to crawl all over her, but this is taking us away from our subject, which is Norway and my trip there last year, a true story mind you, even though Thulii Vemsl,l Hardrada is not only a ripe one, but also a Norwegian . Many of you have heard of Norway. It is a country, not an island or a continent. lngmar and Ingrid Bergman. and Liv Ullmann, too, are not Norwegian but Swedish, like Bjorn Borg; and they are all very proud of it. Knut Hamsun might have been Norwegian, and Malcolm Lowry displayed a marked fondnes:: for a character called Sigbjll!lm Wilderness, who was apparently quite as N orwegian as Nordahl Grieg, a famous one. Lapps, Finns, Danes, Siberian Huskies, Spitzbergen, Greenlanders, Icelandics and Eskimo, none of them are from Norway. Jack London, as his name indicates, was not, in any way that I can tell, or have heard of, connected with the place. You should not go there either. It is a thoroughly poisonous land.
Back in Norway Hardrada had a snowmobile all his own, color canary, called Ski-doo. He used it to run away from moose, who galloped by the herd in the opposite direction, crashing toward the forest, terrified by the sound of the motor. Now exiled from his native tundra, Harald Hardrada slumbers in a suite in Branford College. Visions assail him. The moose. The Ski-doo now; the engine is his alarm-clock. Hardrada splutters, coughs, heaves himself across the bed and yanks the cord out of the wall. He swears, in English: Ah Shitfuck, he says, and groans: the clockface reads 2 A.M. Br~ther, f~rget iit, he thinks. He pulls his clothes off, slides into a warm hollow beneath the covers. Soon the moose embrace him. In the morning, Hardrada will report to student medicine, there to procure proof of illness for the peace of mind of Tea cher's Asst. Peteter Boylens, a blond-haired red-head grad student with piercing eagle's eyes behind inch-thick convex lenses, whose sphere of influence stretches halfway round Linsley-Chit 101 twice a week, two fifty-minute intervals of existence spicing the eternity of selfnihilatio~ that he is _within the P.-lii Sz. Dpt. "Peteter," HH will then say, " I hev got iip lass ntit 2EM to writ groinsweat pepper, but mental blC~k. I em hexile, sick, ill, doying far Hawaii from hpme." Peteter flashes his eyes and nods forgiveness. "Next time, Harald, next time. Next week. Don't worry about it." Next week: "Peteter, tings moch bedder. All vik tings gud, den lass nut gorlfriend she gotta go captn futtbol fuck. I kennot schlip, I kennut dink, I kennit writ pepper." The excuses will stretch wearily through the remainder of the semester, grinding down Peteter's defenses like an endless rain; his outstretched hand retreats weekly further into his body, until, by reading period, it is no more than a helplessly quavering thalidomide flipper affixed to narrow academic shoulder, barely strong enough to receive the four by six-inch sheet of paper that Hardrada delivers with the death-blow: "Peteter, vi vet tu longg. Pepper kennat be writ. Here I hev Dinsexkus." And that is how Hardrada takes care of his work: administratively. I, his roommate, look on in horror...Harald," I say, "write the paper. Write anything, or they'll flunk you." ..Fuck off, shift head," he answers. "Go grind away, you wimp, leave me alone. Go buttwarm black vinyl in CCL, asshole, spill ersatz catpiss coffee on machine city formica and your polyestersmegma linoleum Coop shirt. Let me sleep, Jerk." And Hardrada, an exile, goes corpselike on his bed. Peteter calls on the telephone, and HH is incensed by the ringing, he turns blue and bites through his pillow, spreading down all over the room, while I explain that Harald is not well, Peteter, not well at all; in fact, I am about to call Mental Hygiene, yes, that bad. It's the pressure, and he misses his home, Peteter, think of him home in the snow zipping over frozen solitude on tiny yellow Ski-doo; above him unfolds Aurora Borealis, you know, Peteter, up in Norway on a clear day you can even see the curvature of the Earth. IV In the years after leaving the University I travelled four of the five continents and five of the seven seas in the shadow of Harald and Thuli Vemsl~ H. Harald was my roommate through our last year as undergraduates, at one of the influential Ivied phrontisteries of the North-eastern United States. I believe he was - as a writer once put it - one of those who appear to have been sent only to tell you something about your life; yet the years have not divulged his message. It hovered around my travels, peripherally, slightly out of reach, for a very long time - but no longer; I think of him ever less often. What remains now of our acquaintance is a Husky bitch I acquired three winters ago, out of vague and somewhat embarrassed curiosity, because it so closely
.the new journal, April 1979
s
From an Old Dialogue In memory of C. P. Cavafy The Greek poet, licking a lone Finger to smooth his eyebrow, said: " Fate is the ha nd that separates Us, cleaving between with all the Force of tempests." He lived amid Brilliant cities of the present, Where the streets gleam more clearly Than any god's flame - languid voice Breaking, head turning for a quick Glance at the receding proflle Of a young loved one. Someone had Just left the parlor quietly. Now I asked him: "Then what binds us? This fate is our only mother, The arm bending all around us To ease the tender quantity Of infant two into grown one. She flings the passion of surprise From her hand." But I saw his eyes Buried like layers of kingdoms, Gone down below to early things, And knew that no answer slept there.
~
resembled the one be kept in our dormitory room. It maintained the freshness of our pillows by biting through them as soon as they began to tire and deflate, no longer in any way ominous to a puppy's imagination. And I have named it after his: Bogart. Of Hardrada himself there is little to say; the ambiguity of meaning that slipped behind our singularly formal relations was not a function of our college years, but of the following period of disorientation which retroactively qualifies any prolonged but now terminated residence within an institution; at the time, I was fascinated solely by his sister, Thull Vems~. By an irony which seemed designed specifically to please me - for I disliked Hardrada - she was his physical antithesis: while he was very blond and pale, so much so that on first meeting him his faded blue eyes struck me as a denial of albinism, Thuli's hair was jet-black, very straight at shoulder-length, and her skin of an extraordinary peach quality. Her eyes, the iris framed by a narrow black circle, which lent it a sort of autonomy from the rest of her face, were also blue, but of a darker, richer shade. She was very tall, taller than Harald, almost as tall as I am; she wore blue-jeans - something of a uniform in those days - better than anyone I had ever seen, or have seen since. Until I met her, I could only think of her as primarily elusive. Before I shared rooms with Hardrada I could glimpse her no more than once every two or three months, in the post-office, on the steps in front of the library, in the university store; and once, late on a Saturday night, when fmally I had become convinced that she had left for what we called, somewhat self-consciously, a "leave of absence," I saw her in the oversize parking-lot of a roadside movie-house a few miles down the coast from the campus, where I had driven with two friends to see the season's success. It was Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and I remember it only because, upon exiting and stepping down into the lot, I saw her very far away, instantly recognizable, wandering noiselessly across the beam of a spotlight illuminating a comer of
asphalt through an exceptionally warm April . night. A car door slammed shut, and she vanished for five months; I leaned on my window-sill, having just finished unpacking, as a small French car, its sun-roof open, pulled to a stop across the street. B9th doors opened, the left one yielding Hardrada, the right one the girl; I didn't yet know they were brother and sister. And I was foiled from the start: she didn't help him carry his bags to the room. - My name is Hardrada, he said. - Hello, Harald. - I was in Calhoun last year. I hope this'll be better. Calhoun, another college on the campus mine, now his, was Branford, after a neighboring town - was to my knowledge no better or worse than any other; I told him that I wished him luck; he grunted, and thus began the last year of my education.
This pale Alexandrian, sick With the look of a photograp~ Speaks more slowly through the tarnish Of Mterlife (brittle city of followers, critics, lovers). The power of once errant lips, Eyes, fingers and wits trembles inside His lost face - and I remember Even his own venturing through Fate's loom and sharp, knotted spindle. On a journey speeded by the Grace of song and the promises In new lustre, I still find him - And I am right - on Fortune's rack. Wasted by weak autumnal fires, The poet in his silk cravat. -
Martha Hollander
Return from Tokyo to Kyoto Trajectory implicit in a rhyme Betrays the band that seeks an and as mine Already past this issue spelling time One lines up squares and calls the boxes lines Distraught recalls the promise of a ruse Now newly offering the lure of can Constraint of symbols borrowed to confuse Which make one fmd a beggar in began The concrete melts and masks its own disguise And what seemed easy shines as broken glass One peels away the foil from opaque glass Demands a light and quickly shades one's eyes To sigh if only one would not ask still And flee the will of what, this why of will Margaret Cohen
TH~ CHlfRIOT.
the new journal, April 1979
6
desserts is just stressed backwards Cromwell Berlin. elizabeth new jersey on the road out of town exit 21 Cromwell Berlin if one's to the east and one's to the west, or if one's first, but the other is best, and i suppose one's got more than the other's little bit less but i can't tell you the sign tho, it's green drab envious green green forego dollar bilious green yes we're building more and it's all coming up green flamed green and oily bric-a-brac-ob/ scream turd garish green ooze Black Magic! senseless no point i agree sometimes when yr getting lost it gets outta hand i can but tell you what i saw and if there's a message it's simple: no comma no or no and Cromwell Berlin down the street a dog was barking. i could hear his call but the window afforded only a limited glimpse of the street below. perhaps i could have opened the window but the cool morning air would have woke her. besides it would have been too obvious. how could i explain the attraction of a stray's bark. besides the cool morning air would have woke her. sleeping dogs, lettem lie and as usual she lay sleeping she played no part no longer huddled beneath the blanket like a timorous child on her side on the side of the bed her body and the covers converged in a comer around which she peeked i spied her lookin lookin at me her sneaky eyes closed the fox i sought to go her a round but she played no part no longer fuck it fuck her why w 1stand put up or shut up no choice i went to the bed i slammed my hand the butt in the mouth teeth outlined in blood crack back her neck it snapped dagger down the spine mine quick of breath sharp short sections across the hairline down the chest ripslasb tear tearing her skin away leaving her bared bared red and raw the irritant scab exposed for the scar it was a mere fantasy i realize it was fantastic drew back the blanket i did incited yessir i was excited she excited me the old in/ out and i was ready to make my exit didn't want nothing to do w I her nossir know that type - in/ excite exhale. counter joust pa.r ry thrust jet-propelled tight rope it in slice it down right along the competitive edge time to pick up the rapier and sharpen it, tickle the ribs let's count the spaces there's that one and there - is that bone or skin? only one way to find out ooo assert it in exhale. breathe in slide back to square zero and skip out again time to sharpen my erasure suspend marginal misprint give and take no cramped quarter, banging on the fucking radio, fucking, getting up, fucking again in silence fuck fuck come silence up and out where and when, waiting for the money to run out and routine to descend. the words had long since run out that coal new year's nite. get me a glass of water she said don't get pissed at yourself. i went to the bathroom, finding and lighting a cigarette without bothering to hit any switches. and just as i stepped in short i stopped transftxed by the intruding cigarette's refle~on, a stare poking thru the mirror's curtained dark. i pulled that cigarette from my mouth i exhaled quick with force i blew it out but even wf eyes closed wf eyes averted no escaping the switch's masturbatory explosion, light splattering and sticking, thrown pasted, violence on the tiles
glass fllled, glazed eyes throbbing i watched them drops cling linger a moment before slip slip stealing away snapping snare slaps crisp pylon loud mining the silence in the tempo of resolution's serenade. i thought she said i thought you were going to quit smoking. cig in band at the hilt i stepped back. what does it take and bow much one morning you wake up addicted the next day the mirror's telling ya to quit was that the first straw baby or is it the last she's past i mean y'know sometimes it lasts all nite and sometimes it takes all day but her, she just lasted one quick take Take I, an 8 X 10 glossy for the lawyer soon to be salaried and then a few quick shots for the doctor to come and then will, wrap it up clean sheets for her a clean slate for me no, not a lurid episode pornographic, well to a degree equally obscene for us both the both of us ooo ooo baby BANANA/ S as then i look out a window out at the windows a hundred mirrors in the building over there i look out a window now and then does she lie yet asleep, tight in bed? she left me impotent i left her to go masturbate below the perfect sink drop me in the water i'll take a dive smooth muzzle/ d subfab sabotage dear cain if i came or what if i went, rot-rootered up the ass and down the drain, dear brother cain, yr dogs they'd lick it up the dogs n'est-ce pas? in Cromwell reside important personages swell little dwellings i counted 14 churches in Cromwell shrub symmetry inflects cursive frown brow furrow shop and stop stiff
in Cromwell bouncing full blue belly wave pink plump UNI-formed dead-serious still-born in Cromwell hang down head down knock all nose to the knee slosh down Stodge St. rinse it clean the lowest common DEEnom raised to the hup hut Moses pedigree in Cromwell Big Daddy Saltshaker and his queen the late Ms. Van Botwell Opener took their brand new spoon dog, The Relaxor, out for a spin a ride in the sewn sonic Scissorlimo sports car, did it go far! a portly narrow wit a match in his spout unlit Big Daddy bad never been known no one had ever seenim go full speed or at all all-out fallout reserve fair share sheltered ever and always Lookout! wary wit weary fear foul weather impends Beware! stock up stocks down stock water in cases in case of drout in Cromwell Big Daddy's bad little dog back barks i wanna be your dog roll over fetch under no ¡ smog in Cromwell armed salvation inspects Watch it! if y en rd this yr wall's too thin, yr dr's opin, bitter off lock it, yes in Cromwell Municipal Park it never gets dark no one's ever scenit but on a nice sunday morning its real nice of course you couldn't call it paradise but you will cause if you doan lickit here head someplace else Iemme tell ya iz equally bad so doan ya spic in filthy tongues doan ya bad-mouth wheeze all's equals here in Cromwell w I out a doubt snaps nothing true or is it all's confirmed false? for the self-conscious person third the pursuit of blank knowledge begins possessed of a proud, passionate love and ends consumed in utter hatred - that he has attained his goal rests proven by contempt.
the pure products of plato do all go hyperphrenic, for if the Socratic dictum "know thyself" be thy doctrine, the indifferent mirror bows in the dim light before the altar ego. her rouged and distant mystery lifts the hemlid of a seductive dawn. but the puzzle/ d satisfied, the looking glass curses the luke fluid dusk of these all top too curtained desires. and empty'd between the day flames hell translucid. and the gazer whose faith would have him dwell in hell's heaven, for him who would twist each whisp of the spectrum inside out, for him for whom the choice is not hard and soft-written in black on white, for him for whom real be but one pole, the pale end where fake becomes false and false fiction and the faith that would deny heaven a hell, that would the base rejoice and best detest, the faith that would all less all unless, the faith that would peer to the shiny pearl-handed reflecting pistol, the faith that would suck the smoke and breathe a blessure scrupulous and blessed can such a mountainous faith be that and still be damned bad? then i will thrust my wriggling tongues in my posscats and keep them there with my dirty fingers i/ 11 jump and wiggle white-enrapt to a mad straight-jacket beat my feet twitch my ears delete what would you die for? a contradiction in terms? lose yr sanity? and for a guaranteed annual income would you choose lobotomy, or castration? idle chatter of the impressionable who so pursued the all in tiny tip-toed ad/ ventures faith in the garden so kiss the will that would allow the kite-span to fall and the leaves with wings endow allure unmeasured holds out an infinite until but let go drops sifting hints of the tip at the end of the nose behold hints insusceptible beyond pain beneath pleasure blank leisure - domain of the white stained page-white listless and listening as the leaves dead and dying twist to cry and flake from the trees in swept decadent breeze clattering aloud and underfoot the lights split my shadow threw three one tall one fading back the one up ahead outta reach her the near quick one .can never overtake never meet sifting hints slipping urban above floating charcoal smoked evening orange pressed in air extinguished or embittered alight that one telling moment, pain or delight who could reply ' these bony stragglers we see do they take wing or track in abandoned shadows the vacant lot does the cruel warbling return i must know who could testify it's cold and i sense snow who could testify walking in sleep another nite another nite no safe sleep all my dreams broken and closed who could testify the red jacket vacuum cleaner who disturbed my feet the manhole's sudden gush beneath the blue cop club who rapped my chair to sleep who could testify walkin south where broadway hits on ftfth plummeting above the deco windows went aqua splashing the low thin light lying low like for on the marne waterfall splashing spindly treef d there in flat-iron square who could testify walkin west to east down 14th the light blue above cradling a crescent neon false too brite the deep sea blue true at my back the dawn about to break who could testify the flattened bags the forgotten flyers swirling discarded outta luck in the curb by the street the fresh cut twine from the early bird edition i heard the wind whine and wheeze the road closed right angles all my dreams weary of sleep who could testify the spastic his hand twisted tense and turned up at the wrist resting hip on his
the new journal, April 1979
holster his nose kept inches from the shop street glass did he see me hugging myself shaking beneath a burned-out lampost under the snow of nite i met him by he stumbled bundled up tight stingy-rapt, a refugee pace by proud pace he plowed his path he had closed his eyes and deserted he would die with the wind in his face to fate, face to the west in wild abandon retreat into the desert aspiring dehydrated orphan leg amputated game leg limping drunken he had lavished the sand with a rough scarred tongue stuck clutch spit's sweat he ran the rail a long split picket fencefd he spat to spit and sought the winter shore of the burned bright sand assured i put my arm about him said come quiver together into the new day i came close to comfort whispering of the promised farmhouse bam down the road down south the home we'd both missed the lonely home where faith oft a quarter and takes bed in a humble prayer the forgotten home where a kind gesture is given and understood in kind, not loaned by the weak, not thought weak at all i reached to brush back his hair i asked him could he speak
a f brusqut thumb slowly moving down a neck. fingers toy with an ear, squeeze the lobe, trace the jaw, and stretch the tenderest skin. again the thumb down the neck slides the hand slips to joiri it. fingers and thumb together they clasp, straining to collide. click, shut her. alabastard secure. crossed ivory white. thigh tite. leading up upd ringd rosey heights. knifed at rape-point. blood red the bed some folks can't help wishin - that kind's better off dead. better off dead than disguised - like Ensign Gary Redletter thin-lipped equipped encountered Rouge S. and her twin sister's twin, the late Alibi Alibi asked for a five figure G he said glory she said gooey, green, jolly and giant "you're a goner" he said going she said when, however then of course the question was wide of the mark right off the bat a miserable start's ill-conceived end there always a neck-tie said Gary lost Alibi's not found again there must be a way out i know it she cried we could come down clean i've seen it it can't be denied ~
quick magic hand breadth of a sleeve whispd pillow promise sleep not grieve slipknot dangling she can't breathe hush hush meek Alibi, thou shalt believe sis she scenit she quit town her sister you touched her now she ain't around sis you seen her yes i'm sure she the one combin her hair in yr husband's eyes she on her knees, Mr. Washington, tweaxtz yr senator's thighs sis you watched her she'd pay to win "Sis Rouge, why - haven't you heard, she moved to Berlin" in Berlin out of on the town time Rouge met. this here true hard to come by murican man he came off the pipeline, for the Fest, y'unnerstan. ravaged face and bloody passport he'd pay'd his tolls not muscatel, yacudteU, stained clothes, y'know and when they met, (that cultural occasion), it took a touch Sis on the ol whic-knic fnoc-knack specially since she asked she asked after she was after himandhis landmark. (demands delicacy, ya'gree) and when they met (it being a cultural occasion), they had to go about a bout - their exchanging Troy Donahue, the autograph a smile a laughf ter always awkward the laughter after words. as for me i admit it i too emitted right there i introduced them i picked them i took a pic its right here by m.y old fake i.d. Hear, y'see from the wallet, a plea
me fickle pric.k salute relucant. at whim - if and when and sometimes not at all. she was insulted however, no my limp flounde.r ing seemed to her quite incomprehensible. comic and absurd. tho' such insubordination was without precedent she did not consider it an affront to her vanity - how could she, such thoughts did not occur. au contraire, it tickled her little randy fancy it did. i too laughed. in such predicaments one must muster. yes boys when not the prick stiffen the upper lip and of course propriety demands no tiresome apologies. ·and dear ladies, should your lover fmd himself in this unfortunate predicament, do not think the pathetic fallacy the deluded's foolish solace. no it ain't a lame lie, this etiquette of impotence to be true love the little sub scout does have a will of his own you know it and i know it and we both know what he means to say and it is uh-uh thanks but no thanks yet when i think back to consider what i had presumed an unpardonable offense, i must admit her reaction was quite congenial, "sympathique" is the word, is it not my dear?
i tell ya girl they switched it cast is cheap stuff it creep dingy dim-wit ill-lit but o baby back once upon a time lost in everpresent non-niscient rhythm back inconceivable dark ages ago-go back before that there might have been a might have been there might have been a paradise where desire bloomed need's dream. then came desire mourn the fall believe in nothing or nothing at all fuck that what snake admits a fall fuck that he can make you crawl on your hands and knees come to me baby you either want it or you don't make up your mind or make up the bed o my love my love may gently slap you i would caress you with roses with the roses i brought you, with kisses tap you and suck your very soul my love that worthless gift so few can give you you could give· me too my love my love may gentle first tho' i slap you wake up go ahead gimme head spin me like a top you'll warble for joy, in turn, i'm bored; my turn, o boy, let's go at it girl, a cheap de-meaning toy in the tub o how can i say, unsuited, ill-mannered, my hesitant way, but it's the highest compliment 'a good lay' (what can i afford) i can pay
whatever word what but not fear how could you snigger see me fear fear's no option no option knows no fear that word came to your mind not mine won't admit it fear's yr ticket it gyps you every time.
shall i say she represents the past? ought i say she personified it? she's long gone downed-out beyond whisper and reach what more can i say Redletter's up the river and Rouge plies her livin in Berlin
what's this make - SX in a row, missed again, why i don't really know deep down inside was he my lover or just after my dough strange i can't tell, impotent yet a gigolo?
this one then for fortune, my friends ted and ken, and that master exhibitionist henry miller whose name doth not matter in 471 well-thumbed book pages:
coarse not fool the european son is a prodigal not a problem child don't talk to me of fear o dear ladies you know i've already met million of 'em you can see it in my eyes less the shit make no ·sense it's a gyp not worth the price of your fear o so birddog doan get down on me if you won't go down we're both in it for the suck suckle so . extend your talons reach for the sky reach for it lickit liket do like ya do my drag's last cig. run your hands from collar to hip count my ribs spread my chest suck my adam's apple all that and the rest too o yes dear ladies now we want for your body not your asshole mind we're sweaty and dirty and sex pulses under our finger nails in deep down and under we want you writhing, wiggling, under our thumbs we want you all over magazines gums and shoelaces we want you every one by one we wanna couple, times three a menagerie of rings about each for every fmger we don't want you song we wanna swing with the singer we want you in the kitchen on top or under the table we want you for breakfast hot steady flavored Maypo maple we want you for dinner sup sup cheer up grand luncheons are fabled we want you in scarfs in knots we want you from top to sweet bum bottom we want you so bad warm smokes the gun we want you here and now no matter what when in any whether we want you in our pants in warm woolly socks we want you in our nostrils this itch never ever stops
we wanna seduce you we wanna recruit you we wanna oppress, suppress and even beat you and once we get to know you then we wanna meet you so help me keep my happy c'mon momma this ain't no con you're too cool to fool let's turn it on it ain't warm enough let's get hot electronic plug it in right there in the socket the lights will sputter shake and shout sparks will fly we'll count their bounce the light will buzz and bulb spizzle spout and we won't fiZZle but fry with an errie ow wow bang blackout whew baby let's explode and fall out
hassle blue blonde yes they tell me 0 Wally Mr. Stevens he showed up and the office every day and commuted to scribble at nite i hear henry miller fucked and wrote his life can that be beat? yes they tell me black is black 0 Wally yellow seem tometo halve/ d, pinned you down: atonal. incurable complexion lack. (that's color #12 in yr pnt by #'s dream box) yes they tell me bad is bad 0 Wally i hear cadence the question tone and degree it's all luck how you take yours as for me bad luck deserves honor runs hot and cold bad luck comes in colors not silver not gold bad luck in red yet known unsaid bad luck in white a whispered i might bad luck in blonde tomorrow's yesterday, all gone bad luck in grey a hey hey hey he's marchin down the street just wait'll ya meet BAD Luck all dressed up in black yea he once had promise/ d no lack. caugh coff 'n open up your poison deadly secretej e it logic crucified truth rambolt-it ream de alias redeem it ally all ugly undeniable fiction from highest smart to the dirty low-down shit-pure gossip column bend over for facts? be/ have or be/ lie matters not at the dead end be/ leave it she said go see the road signs, read them not ya ho ta ho for sybil from ..zinc song splat hits the pagement" elizabeth new jersey
the new journal, April 1979
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Who's the Biggest Senti-God and Friend to You and Me? Spiro. Matsos, Pizzamaker to the Stars
S: Making pizza is one of the loveliest occupations that anybody can be in. The people that you meet! I mean the song people, the dance people, the people people... Of course, that is, if you like people. Because I know some very grouchy pizza people, and some of them run the leading pizza places in New Haven. . . ¡ Yale has to admit that it is very lucky that I'm here, one of the definite semi-gods of the pizza.
S: Someday I am going to do a musical based on the Bulldog. I will have a small part myself on stage, of course. M: Will you make pizza on stage? S: Oh, definitely. 111 wear my apron and do a dance. S: We were on national television last year, a gentleman from the CBS Morning News, he said that a "Barker" calls the Bulldog and barks every night for a whole year and he is going to be barking until he graduates from Yale... And on Christmas Day he even called from Los Angeles and barked at the Bulldog... And then another fine young man called one time and he wanted to be the Bulldog Meower... But I don't know. I don't think the Bulldog can have a Meower. But he is a good customer. S: The first pizza I made, it was in 1963, was a great success. I couldn't believe it. People lift me up in their hands, there was clapping, they tour me around town, the band of the city was playing. . . . M: How old were you when you made your first pizza? S: Oh, uh, I don't know, that would give ¡away my age... M: You don't have to give away your age. S: I was . Now I'm going to start crying. Memories - all these memories! And then we used to go up to the lake and drink beer and eat pizza... M: This was in Greece? S: No, no! This was here! In central Connecticut! And then my second pizza was my biggest, biggest, yet. People were applauding and ever since I know that I would definitely be a semi-god if I would live two thousand years ago. But, that is, if I would have Eukleides to invent a pizza dough for me.
S: If I had a fifteen-store chain of pizzerias without knowing anybody I would be very unhappy. Now I'm going to do this one day, but I'll definitely have one little store that I would be working like I always have since 1963. Of course I might just take a little break in between and record another album, another long-playing record like¡ I done in 1973 - singing some of my favorite songs with one of the leading ladies of the Greek recording business ... M : Who's that? S: Oh, well of course her name is not familiar on the American market, but she is a very great lady, a very talented young lady - Jet me see now, we have two pastrami, two - oh, I see, we have three tunas - that's correct, I'm sorry about that. .. Have to make these for the Campaign for Yale. Sometimes I call them the Champagne for Yale. Every time I deliver the pizzas there they are drinking wine and champagne...
S: Mrs. Mary Jane Taft, she is the second leading (pizza buyer) of all time. Fifty-five pizzas have gone to her. Entertaining the New York ballet company. M: The New York City Ballet? When was this? S: A few months back. M: How did you make fifty-five pizzas at once? S: Oh, come on, when you've been making pizzas since 1963, you can make M: But, l mean, you don't have the facilities ... S: Yes, yes, you make it with one oven and a little bit of love. Don't forget that I would be a semigod if I lived two thousand years ago. S: Just like I was saying before, gentlemen, the Bulldog in downtown Tel Aviv, it might upset some of the Greeks in that area, but it's going to be very successful: Matsos Pizza - in downtown Tel Aviv. Making pizzas for the Iranian king and the head of the old Greek military coup. We're going to have Bulldog copters to do the delivery on the war lines on the Suez Canal. We're going to have B-52's make aerial bombardments with pizza to the troops.
S: We are famous this year, gentlemen. We are going to appear in the Yale yearbook. In person, the Bulldog is going - are you graduating this year? M: Yes. S: You are, so you can take the yearbook back home and point to the Bulldog and tell your mother, Mother, she (the Bulldog) fed me away from home. That's beautiful. How lucky can you get?
Spiro Matsos with Mark Sheehan
the new journal, April 1979
11
Fashion Forecast '79 Beltloop groin grabbers.
On the left side: How smart are you? Let everyone know by wearing your GPA. One key means your GPA is one, two your GPA is two, three it's three, and four you're probably a liar. For day-wear, end that embarrassing "what'ja get" syndrome by wearing aU four keys to class and removing the appropriate amount (if necessary) after you get back your paper or exam. On the right side: What year are you? Stop wasting everybody's time. Let them know before you dance with them. One key if you're a freshman, up to four keys if you're a senior. Grad students should not be going to undergraduate mixers. Of course, hankies and key rings can be worn in combinations, but usually these are predictable. For instance, a guy with four keys hanging on the left, or one key on the right, will usually sport a red hankie in the right pocket. "I've never been with a woman before in my life, and I'm so desperate I don't mind messy sex. I don' t even mind getting a 8 on my midterm on Monday." Other things besides keys lend themselves to beltloop wear and your special message. Attach them to your beltloop with a piece of leather rawhide. We particularly like the following:
by Woolsey Grove Why wear your heart on your sleeve, when you can hang your soul from your beltloop? Communication is the key. When you're dancing with that new-found friend, there are just so many questions you'd like answered. (Is he a freshman? Does she give head? Will he wear my soiled panties?) But the music is too loud, and besides, those questions are just so hard to ask. And in today's quick-dancing, quick-food, quicksex society, no one wants to waste their time barking down the wrong alley. So let them know. Visually. Learn the code and fly your colors. Every top designer will be featuring these beltloop accessories in their spring collections. These fashions originated in (were stolen from) the gay communities of New York and San Francisco, where horny honchos hung colored hankies from back pockets and key rings from beltloops to signal sexual desires and deviances. This eliminated the need for the verbal communication which aU too often led only to disappointment and frustration. Now you too can enjoy the ease and impact of visual communication by "shooting from the hip." Try out these Ivy-League adaptations at your next mixer (Ladies, you'll have to wear pants again.) Just make sure you' re wearing them on the correct side. Remember: on the left is what you' ve got to offer; on the right is what you' re looking for.
Hankies: Different colors mean different things in different places. At intercollegiate social affairs, fly your school colors in your left pocket. If you want to sample the offerings of other colleges, wear their colors in your right pocket. A Yale woman with a red hankie in her right pocket is looking for a Harvard man. A Yale man with an orange hankie in the right pocket is looking for a Princeton woman. A Yale woman with a green hankie in her right pocket is looking for a black. eye. At Yale affairs the hankies have nothing to do with school colors, but instead adhere to the following code:
Red In the left pocket: "rm having my period, so stay out of my pants, but let's talk and maybe you can get into my head." In the right pocket: "Frankly, I'm desperate, so I don't mind messy sex." Blue (seen mostly at alumni affairs, worn by either sex, and usually in the right pocket): "I am looking for a position as a domestic in the home of a wealthy Old Blue whom I will furnish with sexual favors in return for vast amounts of money and lots of free time to finish my novel." Yellow In the right pocket: "The only reason I come to these fraternity parties is because I like to watch fat sweaty jocks drink gallons of beer and piss it out in garbage cans. I want to follow you into the bathroom, watch you urinate in the sink, and let you take me on the slimy tile floor." In the left pocket: "The only reason I joined this fraternity is because I like to watch fat sweaty jocks drink gallons of beer and piss it out in garbage cans. After you girls go home, us guys who are left over go into the bathroom, piss in the sink, and take each o ther on the slimy tile floor." Green (as in money) In the left pocket: "The only reason I came to this mixer is because the Fence Club is being repainted, and I can't tell you which is worse the smell of the paint or the smell of the painters." In the right pocket: "I'm a music student from the Bronx on a full scholarship. My father is a baker. I'm looking for a rich preppie who plays hockey whom I can humiliate and eventually marry before I die o f leukemia." KEY RINGS: Even the gays couldn't figure out what the key rings meant. Maybe left was dominant and right was passive, but nobody knew what the keys meant. We offer the following suggestions for Yale College: (Key rings are to be worn outside of the pants barging from the right or left belt loop.)
Hood ornaments: What kind of car do you drive? What kind of car would you like to ride in? What kind of car would you like to fuck in? Steal a hood ornament from the appropriate car and wear it on the appropriate side. Left if you've got the car, right if you're looking for a ride. A Swingline Stapler: "I just got my senior essay back from Tyco. It still has to be collated and stapled. This is a delicious moment for me and I would like to intensify it by having you sit under the desk and suck my cock/ eat my pussy while I do it." A cork screw: "Yve got a bottle of wine in my room. The good kind that you have to open with a corkscrew. Let's go up and drink it and when you're good and fried ru drill your skull." A can opener: "I belong to a fraternity and I have a case of beer in the car. Let's go out and drink it and then piss on the tires." A Dildo: "I'm a feminist. If you want to fuck me, you have to let me fuck. you first." A Skate K~y: On the left: "I want to take you back to the room and skate up and down your s pine." On the right: "Only if you wear ice skates." A nail clipper: On the right: "Yve rented a Yale refrigerator for four years just to keep the butter from melting, and rve never had a chance to use it. After we dance this tango, will you come up to my room with me? Just don't tell me your name." A calculator (worn with polyster pants) On the right side: "rm a nerd. You don't want anything to do with me." On the left side: "I am a lefthanded nerd, and you don't want anything to do with me, either." So there they are folks, somethina for everyone. If your favorite bobby or fantasy has been left out, invent your own beltloop bangle. Yalies are great at interpreting symbols, especially English, Psychology, and History of Art majors, and they're the only ones worth going to bed with anyway. Happy hunting . . .
the new journal, April 197~
12
One Day in the Surreal
by Jamie Romm (As the curtain rises, a man is alone onstage, pacing back and forth in an agitated manner. The scenery is vague.)
MAN: (looking impatiently at his wrist, which yields no watch) Jesus, where is be? Well, I've had it! I can't wait around like this forever. I still have the capacity to act! I'm going to call him up and fmd out what's taking him so goddamn long. (Goes to a pay phone at the side of the stage, inserts coin, dials.) Hello? Information? Yes, I'd like the number of a Godot, G-0-D-0-T. Thank you. (Pause) No, operator, I don't have a fi.I'St name. No, I don't have an address either. (pause) What's that? You can't? Well bow many of them can there be? I see. Yes. Thanks anyway, operator. (Hangs up.) Damn those information operators! They always want you to know everything flrst names, addresses, social security numbers .... Don't they realize that our existence is dark and shadowy and obscured by nameless phantoms? We can't be expected to know anything! But try explaining that to an information operator and she'll laugh in your ear. If only I were Samuel Beckett - then I could tell those information operators a thing or two. (Looks impatiently at his wrist, throws up his hands) Jesus, where is he? (Begins pacing again. A 2nd MAN enters, comes up quickly behind him, and tries to lift his head off.) MAN: Hey! What tb2nd MAN: Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were a mannequin. MAN: Get out of here, you fag! 2nd MAN: I am not! (exits) MAN: Goddamn arrogant queen! (Begins pacing again. A 3rd MAN enters. MAN stops him as be crosses.) MAN: Excuse me, do you have the time? 3rd MAN: Ex post facto, my dear boy! Cogito ergo sum! MAN: Er .. . how do you mean? 3rd MAN: Just look at the bank clock, friend! (points) It's that simple! In medias res! MAN: Yes, but are you sure that's the right time? 3rd MAN: Why of course, of course! It's the profit motive, can't you see. If the bank clock reads the wrong time, the bank becomes mistrusted, and people take their business somewhere else. Time is money, money time it's that simple! Qu od erat demonstrandum, boy - that's the spirit. MAN: I see. Thank you very much. 3rd MAN: Not at all, my friend . (Exits. A 4th MAN walks on, calling ..Hot dogs! Hot dogs! He carries a wooden ashtray on his bead.) MAN: Hey! You there! You haven't got any hot dogs! 4th MAN: So what? Neither do you. MAN: Yes, but I'm not walking around shouting "hot dogs." 4th MAN: rm not stopping you. MAN: (Annoyed) Well why the hell would you want to walk around shouting '"hot dogs" without any bot dogs? 4th MAN: I was quoting. (Whips out a book, opens it) See? Act 3, Scene 2, line 5. "Hot dogs, hot dogs, hot dogs." It's right here in the text. MAN: Sounds like a pretty stupid play to me. 4th MAN: It's better than the one you're in. MAN: (Ignoring this) What's that you've got on your head? 4th MAN: A wooden ashtray that ~urns, yei is no(consumed . . MAN: (Interested) Is that right"! (.t'eers at ltJ now ..aucn you want for 1t? 4th MAN: Eh, this ashtray's not for sale. It's priceless. It was once used by Jean-Paul Sartre. By the way, do you know the time? MAN: Just look at the bank clock. 4th MAN: The bank clock? But that's the wrong time. (laughs hideously, exits) MAN: (pacing again) The wrong time! But that's impossible! What about the profit motive, and all that? Still - if it were wrong - even by a little bit - that could throw everything off. That would explain why he's not here yet! Oh Jesus, where IS he? (pause) Why didn't I wear a watch? I never wear a watch. I don't even own a watch. I remember when I first learned about daylight savings, I decided to stop using watches - if a group of legislators in Washington can change the time whenever they feel like it, then a watch is just a waste of money. Why, if a tyrant were to seize power, he could change the time at will to suit his own purposes ... Of course, then all the clocks and watches would have to be confiscated .... Everyone would wander around all day asking ..What time do you think it is?" u1 don't
8:04
know, what do you think?" ..Think it's lunchtime yet?" "I don't know, I can't tell" ... (suddenly realizes he bas been wandering, becomes angry). Oh God, when is he going to get here? (pause) Footsteps. That's all there are anymore, just one foot after another. Left, right, up, down, as we keep pondering it all, it all, it all, it all - (5th MAN suddenly enters, interrupts MAN) 5th MAN: Excuse me, but were you just repeating the words "it all"? MAN: Yes, I guess I was. 5th MAN: I see. My name is ... Mr. Zimbalist. MAN: (looking over 5th MAN's shoulder) My God, did you see that? 5th MAN: See what? MAN: That bank clock! It just jumped from 8:03 to 8:05!â&#x20AC;˘1 swear I saw it! 5th MAN: I don't see any bank clock. MAN: You're looking in the wrong direction, jerk! 5th MAN: What do you mean? Which one is the right one? MAN: (excited) This one here! This is the right direction! 5th MAN: Don't you think you're being a bit arbitrary? MAN: No, dammit! This is the right direction! 5th MAN: (staring elsewhere) I like this one just fme. MAN: (recognizing something familiar) Say, who are you? Who sent you here? 5th MAN: Sorry, but I must go. Toodles! (Skips off). MAN: (staring at bank clock) I swear I saw that thing jump from 8:03 to 8:05! It's the damnedest thing. You can't just skip a whole minute like that! The clock must be wrong. Still - what if it was right? What if that whole minute had just vanished? Would everything be different? Would everyone move ahead one minute, or stay the same? (Looks down at himself) I'm still in the same place.... but then I might have been standing here for that whole minute! What about a guy who was supposed to shoot himself exactly at 8:04- is he still alive, or did he just die a minute later? (6th MAN walks on; MAN stops him) MAN (pointing to clock) Excuse me, is that the time? 6th MAN: Yes. MAN: (Doubting) The right time? 6th MAN: I don't know what you mean. MAN: (emphatically) Is that the right time or not? 6th MAN: That's the time! It's the only clock in town, and everyone goes by it! There's no question of right or wrong. MAN: You mean everyone goes by that time, and nothing else? 6th MAN: Of course! And it's a damned good thing that Godot opened that bank, because MAN: Godot owns that bank? 6th MAN: (suspiciously) Yes ... why do you ask? MAN: Just - just curious. 6th MAN: You're not from around here, are you? MAN: No. 6th MAN: Well it might be best not to ask so many questions.... You've just made me miss the 8:04. Excuse me. (exits). (Pause as MAN watches him leave. Then, a 7th MAN enters, unlike the others, from the shadow at the back of the stage.) 7th MAN: Excuse me, but are you the man being referred to here as " MAN"? MAN: Yes, are you Godot? 7th MAN: No. He sent me. MAN: Well where the Hell is he? I've been waiting here for hours! 7th MAN: He was here. He said he couldn't fmd you so be left. MAN: When was he here? 7th MAN: 8:04. MAN: Ob God! 7th MAN: Don't worry. He'll be back soon. He asked you to wait for him. MAN: Christ, I've already been here half a day! What am I supposed to do till he gets here? 7th MAN: Here, read this. (Hands him a book, then steps silently back into the shadow.) MAN: (Opens book, reads aloud.) "Act One. Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both hands, panting. He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again. Enter Vladimir. ESTRAGON: Nothing to be done.... " (Fade to black. Curtain.)
C7
the new journal, April 1979
13
Food is good for you Drinks wash it down
Attention Preppies
¡w e have both.
i\dult size'> s.m.l,xl children's ~izt>~ 8-20
$6.95 indudes pnstag~ and handling
mail to:
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September This is a blue stopping view A church mitre with a thin metal cross Crossing a land strip countless distances Above a cold September yawn of lake Wind-riffled, blue and eloquent To the right is a single spot sailboat Inspired to sail no doubt yet photo stopped A stopped triangle The cross puts the landscape in focus Puts it in indisputable reference With respect to the one metal axis So all may be located and plotted The stopped triangle of the sailboat Being simply to the right The fmger strip of land simply above The church axiomatically below On the banks of the shore climbing away From the church at a loping right angle Are flower gardens white green and rust red Each color picked for some special reason Each plant regulated in row and kind By some perfect squaring monk who one day Inspired by the cross atop the church Saw Christ and laid angles on the world R. H . Pershan
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the new journal, April 1979
Celebration By Pat.rici a Nelson
A student knocks at the door. "C~>Uld you please be quiet?" he says. "We're trymg to study next door." " We're sorry," we say...We were just having a class." I am talking with another graduate student. " I caught« a glimpse of your class the other day , " h e says. You must have been having your end-ofthe-term party." We weren't.
Lo~g before I took the clown workshop, my teachmg style was developed and functioning. What I got from the clowns was the vision and faith to back it up.
Clowns. A bunch of clowns. Well, Mummers, to be exact. Mummer: One who mums. Mum: To play in a dumb show mask or disguise; specif. Eng., to go about' in disguise at Christmastide making merry.
• • • •
• • • •
A W~nesday Night Mummers' Club Warm-Up. Ingredtents: Hammered dulcimer music. Ten to twenty people. The Assignment: Keep moving.
• • • • The fact is, I'm terrible at parties. My mind goes blan~. I try to remember what other people do at parttes to have fun. I wonder which people in the room dislike me. I wonder how long it will be till I do or say something stupid. So when my classes started being mistaken for parties, I was as perplexed as a nyone. I was also embarrassed. I reflected on this a lot: Why were they mistaken for parties? Because they were often loud and animated. Why were they loud and animated? Because lots of people participated. Why did lots of people participate? Because I did everything I could to arrange the right atmosphere for open, natural, but purposeful discussions. And therefore I had no reason to be embarrassed. But I still was.
• • • • When the students next door asked us to be quiet, we were summing up the major issues of the course. Issue summation is often done in this form: Teacher: What were the major issues of the course? OR Teacher: The major issues of the course were these: ... We were doing it a little differently. We were having an election for the most significant Western American personal narrative. Thoreau's "Walking" was winning over Twain's Roughing It. If Thoreau won, it meant that intellectual Westernness might be more significant than geographical Westernness. The discussion was, I guess, loud. It was also educational, and more fun than 99% of the parties I've been to. I am not an educational anarchist. I am devoted to books. I think they should be read carefully, and responded to carefully. I also think they provide incomparable common ground for celebration. Celebration? In classes?
• • • • I am in church in New Britain, Ct., with a group of After I have led a few games, a woman m the congregation says to me: " How do you get the ideas for games like that?" .. It's actually an occupational skill," J say. " I teach." "Oh the children must love those games," she says. Children? At Yale? Mummers? In church? ~ummers.
• • • • You know that gold building at Wall and Church? You know across the street from that, the Trinity Parish House, where the National Humanities Institute used to be, where professors from all over the country spent three years designing new and innovating courses to reinvigorate the teaching of the humanities? Well, you know what's in the basement of the Trinity Parish House, at the foundation, so to speak, of the National Humanities Institute?
In April 1977 two great classes ended. The students prepared to go home for the summer. I prepared to wait until they came back. In a last ditch stand against four months of social atrophy, I got a New Haven Advocate and vowed to do three things I found in it. I went to a Senior Citizens' Old-Fashioned Ba nd Concert in Edgewood Park. I went to an Open Psychodrama Session at the Center for Human Relations. I went to the basement of the Trinity Parish House and took a clown workshop. Nothing much came of the first two tries. The third may have changed my life.
• • • • In the Mummers' Club we do all we can to revive what, in modern urban-industrial times, are recessive traits: trust, spontaneity, festivity. The Midway Project (Midway between what you can imagine and what you can do) works with the strategy of inviting people to choose a name, metaphor, costume, activity: a clown persona. On Wednesday nights, I am Professor Chatterton, Chatty among intimates. My intimates are Chance, Time, Gusto, Solow, Aladden, Pjat, Futurity, Circh, Morna, Ping Pong, Irving, Alto, Pockets, Half and Half, Kiwi, Glow, Skye. With maybe a few exceptions, we have all seen psychiatrists, with individual problems ranging from writer's block (Professor Chatterton here) to fairly severe disabilities. (Not that writer's block, to a Ph.D. candidate, can't fall under the latter category.) An objective observer, looking at this group, would not say that the prospects for common ground were very great. This evaluation would say a lot about the limits of objective observing.
If you are lucky enough to be trained in the latest disco steps, and if you can figure out how to adapt them to the music, you are free to follow in Travolta's footsteps. You are also free to: Hop up and down. Jig. Skip. Run in place. Resurrect remembered dances of the golden junior high school years (the Jerk?). Swing your partner (any one of the I0-20 people can be considered your partner). Play mirror games. Join hands and go round the mulberry bush. You are also free to try any of these in combination. What it comes down to is that you are just that: free. In the midst of this, if you have any sort of addiction to introspection, you can think to yourself: I am having a wonderful time - at no expense, with no artificial stimulants, with no ecological damage. And it's good exercise.
• • • •
Bein~ a Mu.mmer~ in the Midway style, is a way of keepmg ethtcally m shape. Events with Mummers develop moral facu lties that might otherwise atrophy for lack of exercise. Each activity carries implicitly, this assignment: ' Respect the sacredness of human life. Find a way to value each individual. If you have talents, use them as communal resources. Learn to recognize miracles when you see them. If this sound religious, it is. One definition of celebrate: to observe or perform a religious ceremony. Midway Mummers celebrate life. Professors and students celebrate learning (i.e., life) . And that, l"ve finally figured out, is why my classes seemed like celebrations.
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the new journal, April 1979
ts·
Ask [va ..
Dear Eva, There's this real cute guy who studies near me in C.C.L., but he's in Pork and Snake and I hear he's a real male chauvinist pig. You know, the kind who insists on bringing home the bacon and calling all his girlfriends Charlotte. Will he turn up his snout at me if I introduce myself? (And is it true that they have live pigs in the basement?) - Fern Dear Fern, I bet what he'd really like is a buttermilk bath. As you sow. . . .
• • • • Dear Eva, Where can a person get some privacy these days? - K. Tut Dear K., As Katharine Hepburn said in The Philadelphia Story, "Only in bed, mother, and sometimes not even there." Talk to your Dean about living off-campus. See you at the Studio!
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Dear Eva, I want you should help me but you'll never believe this mishegas. My father-in-law, he should live to be a hundred, is keeping a wild duck in the attic. There ought to be a law. - G. Ekdal Dear G. Ek, Didn't you learn anything from Born Free? Ducks are too wild and crazy even for SoHo, let alone Christiania. Why not fmd yourself a nice, housebroken Nco-Rationalist? They are loyal, tame, and make super pets. (However, they can occasionally be quite frumious.)
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Dear Eloise, In 1727, playwright John Gay found himself in a similar position no fellowship, no Phi Beta Kappa key, not even a yearbook picture. · Alexander Pope, however, kept his sunny side up and wrote Mr. Gay the following letter: "I could fmd in my heart to congratulate you on this happy dismission from all Court dependence. I dare say I shall find you the better and honester man for it years hence. . . Princes. indeed. and Peers (the lackeys of Princes) and Ladies (the fools ot .t'eers) wu1 smile on you the less; but men of worth and real friends will look on you the better. There is a thing, the only thing which Kings and Queens cannot give you, for they have it not to give liberty."
Dear Eva, If you were the footloose and fancy-free Shah of an unspecified mid-Eastern nation with several billion dollars to spend on an extended vacation, what would you do? - Mohammed Riza P.
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Dear Evita, rm so depressed I don't know left from wing. I didn't get the Fellowship! Frankly speaking, what can I hope to accomplish in the so-called 'real world' without a patron? - Eloise The Plaza
Dear Brain Washer, Your guess is as good as mine (Maybe). Try raising a litter of premeds in a culture-free environment. If they come out looking like the Sex Pistols, raise more.
We are beginning to admit reluctantly that this publication actually does manage to get read by a good number of Yalies. We also deduce that a good number of future "Old Blues" cannot (as yet) afford to avoid the bourgeois habit of coupon clipping. Therefore we will once again spring for another quarter page ad in our favorite Yale publication and thank you for your year-long patronage. Happy Summer!!
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Dear Ms., . The New Journal may be offensive, but at least it's better than The Yale Petard. - Christine Crawford Hugh Hefner Presidents, Wampus Baby Stars
Dear Eva, Nature, or nurture, or what? - D. U.H. Mental Hygienist, Name Withheld
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Dear Mo, Money can't buy happiness. It's even getting hard to find a decent pair of 1967 red fishnets these days. I suggest you take some courses at the New School and find yourself. And if you're tortured by homesickness for the old patria, visit a few Chilean jails.
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