THE BEACH REPORT, February 4th, '17

High temperature returns and the little beach becomes the most popular strip on the Bay --well, not the most, that being St Kilda & all along the watch-tower, Port Melbourne, South Melbourne, Albert Park, Middle Park & further, oh yes, further --Brighton, Sandringham, Black Rock --one end's big by dint of punter volume, the other by head of wealth, --but Elwood resembles these bigger brothers on such a day as this. Find a space to drop sandals, bag, towel, then straight into the clear sea, shallow for yards tho' discover raised shelf suddenly runs out & midriff's depth leaps to armpits. Hot sun, cool water & clearest sea yet yours truly's blind to a submerged slab of rock, --like the ditched trunk of one fallen on the proverbial hard times, everything he could hock done so including --if this were my story, say Melbourne in Winter,'66 --the wristwatch given me by my Aunt, the charcoal-grey John Collier suit, souvenir of my work voyage on the Fairstar, good now I thought for white-collar job-interviews in Oz, & the best black shoes to match --inevitably tripped & stumbled in avoidance of the barnacled rock and concerned not to fall, trying to maintain balance, smashed my heels into the end of it --heftier bash to left heel than right. Hauled grazes & bruises up the sand --hardly an accident compared to the cut feet & knees swimming "off the rocks" years ago, the beginning times, remembered but borne by hardly changing shoreline --is that true?-- the land-fill further submerged below the hardly new Marina, through which one'd walk, --strange landscape, spongy, compost-warm, broken down waste, broken up building materials. If nothing else the walking-path & the Marina have reconfigured the landscape, but the context, the sight & sound of it, the feel of it, is eternal --each intersection, each trajectory, eternal too. 

I sound like Kerouac or how Kerouac might sound to the uninitiated, as tho' Little Golden Book religiosity or --only talking about it on the bus this day, Loretta's Aunty Laurie, on our wedding day for Heaven's sake, April '68, describing new book she'd been reading, The Dharma Bums! --much she could endorse, she said, funny word? reveals quite another attitude, but said she was disappointed by the characters' apoliticism --well of course, Loretta says (--is Laurie short for Loretta? & Loretta named after her aunt? --hasnt this come up before? --growing up within the figure of the aunt & not the mother? --not on account of the name but the apparent personality or character, --as i wondered then although a stranger to the family, but encouraged too by the girlfriend's declarations about her relatives --phew!) --politics, the correct politics, the Party's line, "politics" was everything! --in the understanding of which, i interpolate, everything else is missed! Whatever K said later or in contradistinction to Gary Snyder/Japhy Ryder's "ruck-sack revolution", the prophecy of thousands, millions, of said 'revolutionaries', the young --young men in Kerouac's mind --but of course young women, understood though not yet written (--Of the Beautiful Young, poem i'm writing in 1971, "neither Men nor Women", "who cannot tell yachts from tears", "my beautiful young cannot sail or cry / they are magnificent in their captivity / they drown tearlessly almost i think fearlessly / whilst we walk dry bottom / full of the knowing / of yachts & tears / the years of the beautiful young") --within the enormous suggestivity of the conflation, and i guess ambiguity could retrospectively be claimed, that is author distinguishing between self & character even though the genre being conjured overrides the conventional literary theorem, -- Kerouac's being acclaimed by my time's envoy, Ed Sanders, on telly, on Mr Buckley's show, on behalf of our Hippy generation, "we come to praise you Mr K…", which Jack brushes off peremptorily, no time for hippies since even the shine of his beats had long dissolved, --but hey! the damage was done! --i mean, the history a done deal, all around & everywhere to be seen, --but fancy Aunty Laurie reading The Dharma Bums, evidently containing sufficient pieces of her own life's jig-saw, not least the encounter with nature, ancient Taoist/Buddhist accented appreciation of trails & peaks, eternal corollary ancient or modern, --Laurie at the helm, as she believed, of the modern, Communism's fail-safe schema, to which every particle of existing & potential being was subservient… I wrote about this in 1968, still going on about it! --but the times repeat, similar dynamic excite similar psychologies, and who remembers anything anyway (Santayana)?

*

Back on the sand, towel around shoulders looking like a Bedouin, surveying the beach & the tribe thereon, sunbathers & tanners of the cliche one thought surpassed, --casually return to the water's edge, the shells there glinting like coins, ingots, treasures from the deep, & the seaweed, the green & brown, the stars & urchins, -- not a prospector now but Doc Ricketts found to have migrated from Canary Row & Sweet Thursday to his own book, The Log from the Sea of Cortez, --brother Bernard's book, recall his Steinbeck collection of paperbacks, read or not i don't know --I'd handled & sampled & taken away with me in my imagination to Australia in '66 --recognised on every beach in every rock-pool thereafter…

*

OF STEINBECK'S DOC

It begins with Ed Ricketts' death --Steinbeck's straightforward prose protects the event from sentimentality; it owns no greater tragedy than its matter-of-course, its dailiness. The writer celebrates his friend, brings him back to the world, --the world in memorium for every lived, loved & gone day; each lived, loved & gone person & place. For sure, the Doc doesn't die every day, but every day any one of us might. And not going out into the world is the kind of death one's loathe to contemplate. Such is the adventure of  each day set against the everyday's incremental dulling. The Doc's surely not a dull man but a daily one, given over to the day's exigencies, as defined by these as by his eccentricities & prejudices which his friend details without the judgements informing them. Steinbeck's Doc is an unruffled man about a small town, except when he isn't. And he & his is the form i now adopt looking into a rock pool, hat on pate, looking & seeing despite, whatismore, his own understanding of the world, especially in its immediacy, as much further & deeper than the 'particular segment' in view --thus ecology, myth, genetics, poetry & philosophy, Ancient & Modern of East & West. Now he is bending to his work, poking through the water, lifting shell or seaweed. He is poking & peering as in the painting of him on the cover of the Corgi paperback, collecting bucket in hand, backpack of implements over his shoulder. First sun or last, sun up or sun down, unambiguously there, as we are here, eternal antidote to the drear & the fear. Clear.

[4-8/2/17]

  

THE BEACH REPORT, 12/14-1-17

At this level of reality (or do i mean perception?) --Malcolm Lowry's, mine, even Dad's (his rhetorical question regarding the overwhelmingly attractive thought that a journey might continue infinitely, --to keep walking to wherever & as long as the path or landscape, the amplified energies, led one on), & if Dad's then, with all due respect, anyone's, everyone's --the journey isn't particular though abounding in particularities. No, it's the ultimate generality whose idea suffuses one from even before the outset, aggregating every step, minute, mile, --filling, fulfilling, fuelling expectation --the promise inherent in Journey…

*

Freighters in the Bay, near horizon. The first one with green flanks carrying red containers; the second, smaller, rust-brown painted. Clear blue sky. White-caps on the shoreline, & gulls sitting in the sand, nestled, nesting. Even from a distance see a large man in long grey shirt, brown trousers, sock & shoeless, curled beside the gulls, his head supported with right hand, left hand on upjutting left hip. Canary Row i'm thinking : fellow stumbles out of alley, first light of day, shuffles to the beach, follows gulls' example, snuggles into nest of sand. Falls into sudden deep sleep, Rock Candy Mountain sheer relief. Awoken by sea's soughing & feels the spears of sun warming one or other side of face. On the street dosser can be moved-on but not i suspect on the beach. Darkness benevolent in that respect, daylight a dobber. In 2016 this is how it is in a novel because, apparently, city by-laws no longer apply to pavement sitting or sleeping --corollary of which, no contemporary bum distinguished by epithets of nobility including freedom, or rather, no erstwhile bum today would associate with the misfits on the city's streets since, motivated by self-respect (unless also banned by Health & Safety cum Human Rights regimen?), sufficient to cobble together minimum dollars for a room or accept the Salvo's dormitory rather than lay-about in sorry stupor or sometimes belligerent bravado beneath the necessarily purposeful feet of the citizenry.

Now, where's his shoes? But rolls over, then's sitting facing the sea and i realise she's no more derelict than i am, has a mobile-phone as well in which she's more interested than the tidal oscillation a hop & a jump ahead of her. It's a gardener's hat pulled down her face, the beach must be bottom of the old suburban block, this her daily constitutional. Stands up, collects sandals & is on her way. Trudge.


*

Couple of years ago wholesale change of staff at the kiosque. --the mix of English & Spanish replaced next season by the current local boy & girl. Even so recognition's still champion. Third season's hello ("How's the family?" "All well, the kids are at home driving tier mother mad!") bestows consummate belongingness. Come to think of it, never see the old parents now. Passed on? But old cant be older than me!


*                                         

Seagull gives me the stare. Surely toasted sandwich crumbs not as good for you as plankton? Go on! Get out of here…


[12-14/01/2017]

THE DORSET JOURNEY, 2011 : LAO LEG

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
[Top, K H at Wattay International Airport, Vientiane; April 8th, '11; second, KH perusing Rasi's photographs at French Centre, Vientiane; third, KH at the Living Museum, Vientiane. Snaps by Cathy O'Brien.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------


PROEM


April 7,'11
Approaching departure. The aisle seat chosen at STA this morning has mysteriously become a window seat. This is OK as long as no one takes the middle of the 3 seats. (I'm praying!)
Neatly attired businessman (from the look of his newspaper, Vietnamese) installed in my aisle seat. Stiff neck installed like a javelin down my right shoulder. I've struggled with it for two weeks and though i enjoyed my sessions with the osteo, it's distressingly present.

*

The flight begins. Suddenly remember i was writing The ABC Book [prose pieces] back in '75, to & fro London. Day-time flight window-seat view revealing plains of cloud -- frozen seas -- glaciers -- fantastic. Discover head-phones. Select 'Western Classical' : Chopin, Mazurka in C Sharp Minor, Op 63 # 3. No such facility 36 years ago. Allowed to be a 29 year old 'student' one enjoyed the modest service -- sometimes, for example, when menu didnt facilitate, cheese sandwiches etc brought by hostess angels.
Can i revive one of the characters of my book back then? Minovlar Ed? -- my hommage to John Riley (he was alive then).

*
Dinner is served! Potato salad thank you! Perceptively the hot meat dish is removed by the hostess. Wine sir? I'd like a red wine too (like my neighbour, the Vietnamese businessman, who fell asleep as he read his newspaper -- would that that was a dream! -- i mean, what sleep wld follow Ho Chi Minh City stock-exchange?) -- Ed says, I never had kids myself but... He's moved --not "to tears" but an absolutely sympathetic amusement. The baby (he's a toddler, son of Indian couple) has the widest brown eyes -- Ed wld talk to him with extended blinks & smiles, on the edge of telepathy -- but the toddler has other thoughts -- I wanted to call him Sachim -- a compliment, madame -- no, thought as much, wldnt know Tendulkar from Boycott -- But, not so fast Ed, --Tendulkar is a national hero, more than --& i loved him too --our Geoffrey, -- especially as a commentator let alone man in boater in South of France, notorious romance? -- someone (Melbourne poet Nick Whittock perhaps) will know.

*
Steal another red wine. Present the G & T plastic cup wch is twice as big as the little glass the first one came in. Chopin's Largo in C Minor through the headphones. Ed says i'm walking on those pompety-poms -- left leg, right leg. But now it's Trois Ecoissaises # 2, G M Op 72 # 4 -- Ah, trippity, trippity. Listen up : he was never a hippy. Who we talkin abaat? (is that Eliot enough for you?) Ed or meself, Christy?

*
Dark -- lights out -- I can see by the light of the tiny screen -- Ah, Fantasie Impromptu in C -- all my life -- whenever i hear it, "all my life" --
Anthony Bourdain's in me now. I want cognac! The perfect nightcap -- & cheese & biscuits -- NOW!

*
What's the difference? Nocturne in E Flat very similar to which track?
Ed's been to the galley -- brandy? -- cognac? -- Cheeky hostess asks wld you like them mixed together? --
Last time i fly so high, Ed thinks whilst smiling enigmatically --

*
Oooh he's got a nerve -- he can hold a note -- Nocturne in C, Op Posthume -- an insult to say 'trill'? --
Thin arms hidden in big jacket -- fingers with long nails poking out of sleeves --
Chopin for a day & a night --

*
But where are we now? Which jet-liner captain's porthole of the Earth?

*
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik -- we've changed (Karajan : Romance) -- The concert's only in my ears -- You can la-la-la to Eine Kleine, but... An adamant Ed : Whatabout Thais? Sacrilege! --

*
Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok

What else but Thai massage -- head & shoulders, 400 baht or $US18. Not the severe work-out of 2009 but recalcitrant muscles required some punishment. Foot massage beside me was in dreamland as the masseuse stroked & kneaded his feet & calves. Clients three times as many women as men, & only one male masseur.

*
Hmong woman in turban-hat & something like a dreadlock marks out her territory, walks around like a rooster or the vainest sentry -- walks in & out of other people's conversations, participates in their hilarity but finally sits by herself, laughing at a joke that's on the rest of the world.
Years pass. Little whore in zebra-stripe one piece, silver heels, lies across two chairs, thighs parted, & the unsuspecting Frenchman, content to watch BBC World News, is suddenly aware of the gesture meant for whomever is sitting where he does. He turns away, drinks from water-bottle. The little whore sits up, looks around, lies down again, peekaboo -- perhaps catch a fallang in Bangkok, albeit at the airport. A touch of Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday in the apparent naturalness of this theatre. She's doin what she's doin & everyone's just getting on with it...

*
WW2. The propellors of Lao Air are giving the blitzed Englanders another shiver. Third World patch-up is the rare contradiction to contemporary western-style slick. The propellors are like hornets at the edge of my eye, window-side. Plane taxis forever around immense Suvarnabhuni. The little plane shudders like a bomber. Ho Chi Minh trail here we come.
Canals? Paddies? Wonderful waterlogged segmented farmland. Above the clouds. City's radial design. The Infinite City.

*

Vientiane notes

Friday, 8th April, '11
At I:Cat Gallery. Five oclock pm. Cat excuses herself to ride bike to pharmacy 10 minutes away. I'm left 'in charge' of the Gallery. I will take my job very seriously. When we arrived here by taxi from the airport around midday (--wonderful to be met : Catherine waving from upper level window as i looked up instinctively, on my stroll from runway to airport building --i waved, continued walking with red backpack & brown shoulder-bag, suddenly normal as off the train from Melbourne to Bendigo) --fatigued as i was from the flight & the frustrations in transit at Bangkok & again at Vientiane, couldnt resist inspecting everything she had up on the walls not to mention the tables & shelves of publications (books, cards including Bernard [Hemensley]'s Stingy Artist ephemera) --"Somerset Maugham, eat yr heart out!" i exclaimed --perhaps Mr Patrick not Somerset Maugham -- : an art gallery wch has its own integrity (well, art & literature's), but situated here in up-market (?) area of quintessential ex-colony --bustling & post-colonial but not sufficient to alter the basic vibe. Even now, with the home-time traffic --mostly motorbikes, old cars, small trucks-- one's able to take it easy --the warm temperature, the country-town atmosphere.

*

Saturday, 9th April, '11

*
C O'B : The temptation of a breeze... but then it withdrew...
K H : The Church of Latter Day Somerset Maughams...
[Late morning drink at the French bar whose reputation is for dinner but not lunch, tho' the young manager wearing Ramones t-shirt, offered us 'le snack' of crab sandwiches. We declined, explaining that for us snack would be bowl of peanuts to accompany the beer. He was somewhat miffed which we attempted to mollify by enthusing about his non-stop playing of The Doors in the bar!]

*
2pm. At I:Cat. Already a busy day. First stop, the French doctor --but the famous physio, Max, renowned for his sore-spot patches, wasnt there. In Thailand for the weekend. When he returns i'll be in the air again! The very nice Lao doctor gave me her opinion (muscular rather than malignant) but stressed she wasnt a physio. She offered a steroid which i superstitiously declined. She didnt charge me a fee though i offered. Conclusion : suffer until England (and it is pinging!) & consult doctor there.
Visited the "Living Museum"/ temple. Cathy tells me that a colleague recently claimed the normal temple protocols didnt apply, but she contradicted her : this museum still facilitates worship, it's a living museum. When the official at gift table roared at visitors one of whom was flashing her camera, scaring them out of the prayer area beside the magnificent buddha (where i'd awkwardly followed Cathy in her oblations, stiff legged, sore backed, even dropping my candle at the alter), the point was proven!
The only exhibition we saw today was by Lao photographer Rasi, at the French Centre. I thought the images were aerial shots --motorway, landscape, at night from aeroplane window. But Cathy laughed at me : they are lotus plants, without flower, modelled on Monet's water-lillies! Hmmm --of course!

*
Sunday, 10th April, '11

Sitting up in bed within the mosquito net pyramid (remembered from my '09 stay). Two comfortable nights so far except last night for maybe an hour, awoken by the loud drone & roar of --what? --low flying aeroplane? trucks? I imagined army trucks racing through Si Meung, which is Cathy's district, to the airport or the border --a war or coup or crack-down! --perhaps inspired by conversation with Cathy's German friend, writer & photographer Martina Sylvia Khamphasith, about the world political situation and her estimation of Laos "open hand" strategy --taking something from everybody so that nobody takes precedence thus keeping them all at bay.
Not long after we'd returned from morning walk, yesterday, in search of galleries, none of which were open just like '09, including what used to be Mr Patrick's gallery, now even more of a joke than it was becoming then (says Cath) --we'd sat down at I:Cat for a little peck of bread, olives, fetta, the large pot of Vegemite i'd brought her from Melbourne, & the inevitable pot of tea, when we had a visitor. Second of the day --Cath's gallery is open between 4 & 6 this weekend, as it was on Friday --(first visitor was Kate who'd picked book up from Collected Works for Cathy a year ago) -- Martina, who stayed for the rest of the day.
They had their photos (haiku-photos for postcards) to discuss, and Cat showed her the new phone recently purchased in Bangkok. Martina wanted our photo then modeled Cat's blue sun hat -- G & T, snack, photos & laughter.
We decided on Martina's recommendation to eat at French place she knew well. Lao & S.E. Asian has been her daily fare for twenty years so European at every other opportunity! Villa-style --veranda, where we sat, + inside restaurant. Pleasant if not sensual humidity; sandles, t-shirt, three-quarter pants; palms, bamboo, cigars : introduction to the Indo-Chinese novella... Cathy & Martina ordered pumpkin & cheese souffle respectively; i had mushroom & garlic pasta. We shared 2 tall bottles of Beer Lao. Gregarious & voluble French, British, Indian, Lao diners around us. Teachers, families, NGOs. Beautiful service from local kids learning the haute-cuisine restaurant ropes.
On long walk back to Si Meung --more or less in straight line with the French consulate dominating the streetscape, Cathy darting in & out of illumination & darkness with her camera like a rudder or persicope while Martina & i walked slowly beneath the rain trees. I asked Martina if she thought she'd ever return to Europe. She described the same dilemma as i've experienced : one could never afford such a lifestyle back home, not in Europe, not in England. Although Oz far dearer than S E Asia, it's also cheaper than Northern Europe. And Cathy confirms it for Laos vis-a-vis Australia : on less pay than a beginner Australian teacher she can afford her palatial apartment-gallery in Vientiane which would be impossible in Melbourne. Are we fortunate or doomed?!

*
Monday, 11th April, '11

Cat & i had recouperative day yesterday on eve of journey to Europe. One outing & that was to Qung's around the corner for a late lunch (declined invitation for breakfast there with Mai & friends, whom i first met here in '09 & saw last night at the French restaurant). Cathy's well known there of course. The old owner, "J.B.", Vietnamese, sat with us, told us his life story & also a prophecy perhaps from our lady of Lourdes --the Earth will almost be destroyed by another planet in 2013. Other elements of the prophecy have already ensued, e.g. catastrophes, wars, diseases. A complex man tho' perhaps similar contradictions are the rule here. In '09, Cathy showed me the free school he had for local kids, at the back of the laneway cafe, which he's given up now. He hasnt been well --heart did he say? Worked for the Americans, & the British (& the French?), speaks five languages in addition to ("my native tongue") Vietnamese. Invaluable.
Superb food. I had noodles & veg; Cathy, the sticky-rice she adores & veg. Shared. Another tall bottle of Beer Lao, two glasses. Changed places around little table --J.B. brought us special chairs --Cat didnt want the full blast of air from fan but no worries for me! In fact, the temp. around 30C throughout my stay has been perfect. I experienced the heat once, the day of the visit to the Living Museum/Temple (Wat Phrokeo) --the sudden sting after hours of exposure. But next day i didnt show any sign of burning, though yesterday i had less energy (pun : burnt out). Dragged myself around. Content to be in the I:Cat gallery most of the day.
*

Bangkok

Pleasant flight in the little plane from Vientiane. Apparently Australian Embassy would once advise against travelling on Air Lao. But it's OK now, Cathy adds. Hostess forgot my breakfast box & obviously didnt hear or rejected my request for cup of tea. Very Lao.
We werent confident of finding a tuk-tuk so early in the morning but there they were --walked around the corner from I:Cat, past the temple (the first Cathy took me to in June '09). Brief exchange with workers she knew then a tuk tuk found us. Cat bargains dramatically --the fare is agreed. A long drive to the Airport. Early morning Vientiane --many people walking, exercising --unheard of a few years ago Cat says --health-conscious Western model (or Chinese?) amusing to us obviously in need of same!
No one in the airport concourse --graciously received & ushered through the immigration & embarkation controls --kop jai & Happy New Year! --Pi Mi Lao has begun --everyone in good mood. Before we left I:Cat the monks walked past on their alms trail. Auspicious.

*
Here at Suvarnabhum went straightaway to Thai International desk --got our boarding passes and then Cathy had her return flight times (Heathrow to Bangkok) changed. No fuss. She has a certain way & the luck goes with her! The later flight means we have all of next Saturday to get to London from Weymouth-on-the-Nod!
Last night Cath insisted we go to the temple to have the buddha we bought for Bernard [Hemensley] blessed. Initially thought we'd missed the opportunity for a blessing --the temple proper had closed --but then we saw the old monk (large man, abbot-like) sitting in his pavilion to the side of the temple in the forecourt. Cathy knows exactly what to do --exemplary courageous!
She steps up into the small pavilion facing the decorated or covered Buddhas alongside the temple wall. Drops to her knees, bows head, gives the sleeping buddha statue, which we bought at the Living Museum/Temple previous day, to the monk, an old Buddha himself. She makes her request or it is implicit in her actions. He examines the statue, turns it over, then launches into talking/singing chant. Halfway through the ceremony a Lao family joins her, --they pray, make their offering to the monk. He takes their gift, continues chanting over the buddha statue. Cathy comes away happy at task acquitted. She's scrupulous about custom/tradition. Lao convention that artefacts must be blessed to retain significance. My understanding is that the statue is an icon, a reflection of God, a palpable connection to the divine. We feel blessed too for our journey to England. Actually, the wish or prayer I made at the Living Museum (Cathy prompted me) was that our visit to Bernard in his house would be a happy one.

ART & ABOUT IN VIENTIANE

For Kris Hemensley : remembering John Steinbeck

The memory
of reading
John Steinbeck
is the feeling of a Wright Morris
photograph...
shred of dusty lace
suspended...
shadow drapes across
the muted glass...
peeling flaking paint dresser
strewn
bundled cutlery wrapped
in motley cloth
rusty old tobacco tin
lies
lid slightly ajar
weathered tracery disintegrating...

Light and shade sepia
Beyond the open doorway
A hope and despair...


[Wright Morris in Laos]

*
(February, 2007)
-----------------------------------------------

Dear Kris,
After I said the opening lines to you, on the phone, I did sit down and try and make a poem, which is something I seldom do...I find it difficult to catch the sentence...eluding me like a fleeting brushstroke across my thoughts...(or a reflection of the moon, rippling, in the sake, in the bowl, held in the hand of a wandering poet, sitting out on a frosty night, of a full moon, drinking from a fine porcelain bowl...) then it's gone...later I found Cannery Row in Isabel's bookshop in Luang Prabung (L'etranger) and reading the introduction I thought I did remember John Steinbeck...after all, I could have made up what I remembered...and I had taken out the word "splintered" !!! I write this to you, for your birthday, listening to Issan music falling glass through my ears with the split on split sound of the rain on the tin roof outside my window...the rainy season prelude...

Cannery Row, Introduction
"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood....."

Why write when you can gather these wonderful pieces of text from here and there...

Catherine O'Brien
(April, 2007)

ON THE DHARMA BUM(S) WITH THE HEMENSLEY BROTHERS, #6

Melbourne
7-12th, March,2007

Dear Bernard, A delight to have your January/February letter. The late Summer humidity knocked me around --couldnt really write in a concentrated manner. I'd made a couple of notes waiting for yours, though, which I'll include here. Since our last communication I've been reading John Steinbeck whom I always regarded as a precursor for the Beats, at least in Cannery Row. Describing its characters recently to an acquaintance I ineptly used the term "disenfranchised". He yelped disdain and quoted Scott Fitzgerald's contempt for Steinbeck. I hate the disenfranchised, he laughed. I corrected myself : they're not disenfranchised; they're just not bourgeoise! And that's the crux. Steinbeck's characters arent properly working-class either although the fishing-town of Monterey accomodates the bums, the lost & down & out, the whores, the eccentric loner marine-scientist-ecologist. The whole place seems fuelled by alcohol but the marvellous mess of their lives isnt a footnote to alcoholism --it's the real thing; life completely outside of the Protestant work-ethic & the bourgeoise ideal. No sense of respectability or upward mobility, which was the model threatening us when we were young.
Time for me then, this Summer, to revisit Doc (Ed Ricketts) & the bums after a year hobnobbing about Steinbeck with his greatest fan around here, short-story & haiku friend Michael de Valle. Of course I remember you as a reader of Steinbeck in the'60s. I still remember the smell of those new paperbacks --not only the Steinbecks but your other love, H.E.Bates (whom I quickly collared as our time's successor to my master, DHL). This isnt purely nostalgia : we luxuriated in the pleasure of purchasing, collecting, reading these books, apprentice seekers & writers connecting to the wider world! You shocked me, though, when you recently told me Dad turfed out most of your books, including the Steinbecks, when you moved out for your first away-from-home jobs. I'm still shocked.
(14/2/07) My Steinbeck binge is full on : three-quarters through Cannery Row, a third into Travels with Charley, begun The Log From the Sea of Cortez and today Retta gives me Sweet Thursday for St Valentine's Day! Realizing Sweet Thursday was Cannery Row's companion volume I've been searching in Melbourne's second-handers. Rett found it at the book market in Federation Square on Saturday at a stall I'd twice approached earlier only to be told by the bookseller that he was still unpacking his boxes, nowhere near his esses! I complained to Michael, who's been running his own stall for a few weeks, bravely trying to move his own titles. He also promised to keep an eye open for me!
(18/2/07) On page 50 of Travels With Charley, Steinbeck's describing "the strangeness of Deer Isle" --the "sheltered darkling water seems to suck up light , but I've seen that before." I'm thinking somewhere else in America during a life of travels, but then he mentions Dartmoor. And then the coup de grace : about Stonington, "Deer Isle's chief town", he announces "it very closely resembles Lyme Regis on the coast of Dorset, and I would willingly bet that its founding settlers came from Dorset or Somerset or Cornwall. Maine speech is very like that in West Country England..." and so on until, almost inevitably, the similarity proceeds to Avalon! I knew I should be reading this book today after our good phone-call (our constant recapitulation feeding ever-present pasts into the future) abruptly ended : quickly got my things together for Retta's early-morning excursion to the beach.
Something meant-to-be about that also : for there was Dimitris Tsaloumas standing at the water's edge. Havent sen him for a few years --you know, he spends Melbourne Winter on Leros, returns here for Summer. I told him we had his new collection (Helen of Troy, UQP). He said it contained 4 typos! I said I hadnt read it except for the haiku series. He laughed sardonically. He said he hadnt thought there were any poems left in him, and he was ill with a mysterious dry-skin condition, but then the haiku came. I said it was only when I counted the syllables that I realized the poems more than simply resembled haiku! He sucked in breath, pursed thin lips and said that only me with my close reading would expose the truth that one of his tanka wasnt syllabically (he said metrically) accurate! He laughed, one arm around my shoulder. Haiku? Shrugged, laughed. Haiku!
(19/2/07) Actually, I think it's one of the haiku that's "wrong" --six syllables in 3rd line of IX ("now sunset fires gold / of autumn in your soft hair. / Birds riot in the plane.") --But the two series of tanka (57557) are impeccable. And yet, elegant poems though they are they lack the immediacy of, say, Kerouac, Welch & Saijo's Trip Trap. Hardly any of the Trip Trap poems fit the formal scheme but most have the haiku spirit. Like all beat writing, conventional literary values & imperatives are called into question. As for me, I'm probably more likely to emulate Dimitris than Trip Trap although I have played with the instant mode forever --from Kerouac to New York & Bolinas --wherever the Buddha sits!
How do you characterize your own haiku or the kind of thing in the American mag you publish with, Hummingbird [ed Phyllis Walsh, PO Box 96, Richland Center, WI 53581]?

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I note you make the same point about haiku vis-a-vis great literature and extend the thought in your conclusion about ordinariness & enlightenment. At the same time, realization remains crucial --that is, it isnt the mere doing but the quality achieved --without sacrificing the purity of the act or the art. I suppose that conundrum is where the Zen comes in!
You have your Chafey's & Radipole-lake pathways as I have my Elwood/Point Ormond coastal walk to St Kilda or even the daily crossing of the bridge on High Street overlooking the blessed Merri Creek. Our dreams of the big treks is definitely linked to these. Travels With Charley relates to this too --"once a bum always a bum" he jokes, but at age 58, on the cusp of older age, he surrenders to the innate restlessness, to be on his way and on the way. He wants to rediscover "this monster land", the wild sociologist, one truck, one dog.
For myself I care less about the sociology than for the "monster" within, whom one reintegrates into the world, especially the world beyond human saturation --a pathway or a mountain provide the same opportunities.
We've talked about Taoism recently in the context of your second thoughts about the value of emersing yourself in the complexity of Buddhist philosophy. Your abbreviation of the whole thing was Buddhism deals with Mind whereas the Tao is concerned with man in Nature. I know that's a cartoon but I like it. The Dharma Bums is somewhere in that frame.
Rereading Arthur Waley's Han Shan translations (my 40 yearold paperback of Chinese Poems), in acknowledgement of Han Shan as the figurehead of Kerouac's book, I'm inclined to fabricate the ancient mountain poet as skirting one (Buddhism), escorting the other (Taoism). Han Shan in the mountain country, the mountain's daily visitor whose witness is of mind, pincered by sight & seeing, poet of the bafflement of what-is. More or less what Ray Smith is in TDB.
Japhy spins the Buddhist lore all day & night, wherever he goes. He's in Buddhist heaven! I must reread Snyder's Cold Mountain translation, but in my head is the thought that the reflection of Han Shan in TDB, in Smith's ultimately ambivalent excursion, is true of a poet for whom neither parable nor analogy banishes existential trepidation. No Zen in this song, Han Shan wrote --wistful & brave.

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I'll end on that note but must slip in a new title which came my way recently --Iain Sinclair's Edge of the Orison (Penguin, 2006), sent to me by jazz musician & literature fan Scot Walker in Sydney. The subtitle, "In the traces of John Clare's Journey Out of Essex" says it all. I hope you can track it down in the wilderness you sometimes imply of provincial England's bookshops. I've begun Sinclair's latest adventure and have to say it achieves the tone I strive for in my topographical writing. Simple difference : Sinclair is a walker, practices what he preaches. The job's all before us, bro'; we'd better get cracking!

Love, Kris


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Weymouth
April 2007

Dear Kris, If I still had the Steinbecks I'd get them out and share your delight and enthusiasms. I've looked out for him in second-hand bookshops, hoping to dip in again. Didn't want to buy new paperbacks. In collector mode I fancied 1st editions... but I'll never afford that. By the way, a 1st British edition of Kerouac's Vanity of Duluoz was L120-. It's still, needless to say,sitting in the shop I saw it in, in Dorchester. It's been there some time.
Talking of the 'lost' Steinbecks, I also don't know where my H.E.Bates and French classics are. Oh, well. At least my record collection is mainly intact. I have too many books anyway. I must slim down. Make the library more manageable. Especially if I have to, or need to, or want to move at some point in the future. So difficult, I've already found, to part with any. I'm a collector. I really must get Anthony Bourdain into my collection. If his writing is as good as his narratives on his t.v. programmes he'll be indispensable. Not that I eat his sort of food. I look to John McDougall, M.D., for that. I have a pretty regular dose of him every day. He espouses a low-fat vegan diet that I follow almost to the letter. 99%. It's an unprocessed, starch-based diet (e.g. rice, millet, potatoes, beans, corn, breads) with the addition of fruits and vegetables. He does allow occasional use of nuts, seeds and soya products (e.g. miso, tofu, spya milk) but not T.V.P. etc. And no oils.
McDougall is a very straight guy. But radical in his field. It was great fun to see him have a beer on his latest DVD --"McDougall Made Easy"! He's trying to appeal to everyone --ordinary people. He's telling us he's a regular guy. Anyway, I love him. And I love Bourdain. Who you follow will decide which way your weight, blood-pressure and cholesterol go! Tough choice for me. But I am decidedly vegan at the moment. With whom to have fun becomes an awkward equation. Does one want to have fun? Uchiyama Roshi in Refining Your Life : From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment" says something interesting -- "...somehow, the word 'fun' is not exactly the way I would describe my activities... Anyway I suddenly recalled one thing I do which you might call fun, and that is sipping three small shots of whiskey after the day's work is done. ....Personally, I do not care much for alcohol and cannot stand sitting around drinking with a bunch of people. The reason I drink is because even after I have been in bed for some time my feet never seem to get warm.... The life we lead here at Antai-ji, however, is far from the kind that allows the sipping of hot sake and the nibbling of snacks with it. I drink with the express purpose of warming my feet, and I have grown accustomed to taking the whiskey straight to maximise its effect.... Now if the word 'fun' could be applied to this situation,then this is the time I have 'fun'."
I remember Ted Enslin's lines in a poem from The Country of Our Consciousness --"I tend to congratulate a life, that lived, is harder than it need be." Enslin would congratulate Uchiyama Roshi. McDougall would understand. But Bourdain wouldn't see the point. Not sure where I stand. I know I'd like to be out in the world with Bourdain on his t.v. trips in my fantasy life --but I'd also be at Artai-ji doing 14 hours a day of zazen at sesshins. I think Ray Smith and Japhy Ryder would be a mixture too. But can't see Ray Smith on food for health. You never can tell what people will do though. Even Bukowski took to health foods, vitamins and supplements towards the end of his life because ill health forced his hand. There's no knowing what people will do when the elephant stands on your chest.
Presently, I'm reading in The Dharma Bums where Ray Smith goes home. It struck a chord with me --being home, meditating, trying to explain myself to the neighbours. I don't mention Buddhism to them. If only I had a trip planned to the West Coast, like Ray. I sometimes dream of living in the south of France and maybe being near Plum Village and Thich Nhat Hanh. And, of course, sometimes the dream is to be with you in Oz. I'd have to go back many years when I felt free enough to just take-off somewhere tho'. Too many! But there is still in me a seed for adventure. Ray is heading for his fire lookout job for the U.S. Forest Service on Desolation Peak. That great book, Poets on the Peaks by John Suiter (Counterpoint, 2002), gives a thorough account. No, I'm not suggesting anything like that for myself. But the spirit is there.

Love, Bernard