Friday, December 9, 1994 email from Chris: I've been enjoying your recent flurry of FH diary entries--you know I get a much much stronger sense of YOU then I did from reading CC '76. Not sure if this is because I have 8 BIG years experience under my belt since then or because your FH writing deals much more with your own inner workings than CC '76 and more recent writings where you were perhaps not so insecure and were more able to focus on others, exterior events. No, maybe it's not so much that as that in FH you seem to be really struggling to keep up with density of events, mostly on your heels, reacting whereas in CC '76, even though relationship with Simone etc. was wild, YOU the narrator seemed more in control than all the other characters. So, what's going on now? You communicate less about the present that at any other time since I've known you. Is that because it's less vital for you just now? My theatre here is in transition, which places me in transition, and the nature of this transition is one of waiting rather than one where components are stirred up. I want to make that change, and yet affection for people around me here keeps me waiting, hoping that change will come to me without my having to leave to create it. - chris -- "Wonder could you ever know me, Know the reason why I live? Is there nothing you can show me? Life seems so little to give." - Richard Manuel, "In a Station" to which Richard says: What you say about the density of FH is true. Never have I had so dense, such a dense, experience. On the other hand, one never ever really got behind. I mean, you might feel that from time to time. But the real life there was formed in a way that almost made the modern malaise/affliction of being perpetually behind, late, late, late... impossible. The behind/late thing was simply reformed into the present. Peculiar and almost a paradox on thinking about it now. You refer to CC '76 - don't you mean '86? It was summer of 1986 when we met in Harvard Square. You and Tiffany are my best memories of that time. You ask what is going on. Uh, geez, I still haven't the slightest idea. I get older. I have some new ideas, more sophisticated, built on the old ideas. Money is the same old problem. An interesting experience a week ago. Friday afternoon. I visit Liz at her office at MIT. She wanted to see my recent pictures. There were a few of her at Edwin's Oct 1 party. She's invited me to a Dec 18 Christmas party at the lab. I'll be taking pictures of the kids of students, staff, profs. Polaroids probably, so they have something to show and tell. Next is a visit will Bill K. A friend from way back. MIT Upward bound in the middle to late 60's. I often visited him, wife, kids at their apartment on Memorial Drive when Cheyenne was an infant. He is now separated or divorced from Rosemary. His son now works for BBN. He liked the pictures and asked for three of them - two copies each and paid right then and there with real money. $6. About a 60 cent profit for me. I also left him a copy of the FH writing. Then, as I was about to leave, he invited me to dinner with him and two friends living, temporarily, in the same building. But I'd forgotten my coat when Liz and I sat at Au Bon Pain in Kendall Square. I gave him the photo book and went for my coat. It was a nice dinner with interesting people. 8th floor. Windows all around. Looking out on the Charles River Basin and Boston. Very beautiful. Sort of like a scene in Blade Runner. They agreed. I asked to have the curtains shut on the floor to celing glass doors to a balconey. Extreme vertigo, I explained. Bill described that as being the first weak point he ever knew me to have. Four kinds of alcoholic beverages were available. I'm ashamed to say all four were tried by me. First was champaigne. Followed by the only beer in the place. Then numerous glasses of wine. Not full glasses of wine for me, you understand, as I can only really enjoy it mixed with fruitjuice - orangejuice, in this case. Then, for dessert, pumpkin pie and rum raisin ice cream - onto which I managed to pour something by the name of... Cointreau? I think. Maybe the ice cream makes it 5. So who was there? Me, of course, and Bill. Then the lovely Elizabeth, recently escounced main squeeze of Bill M, a best selling author. E is a prof at BU. They met at a reception of some sort. He forgot her. She didn't forget him. Time passed. They met again. You are Bill M, she said. It was true. So they began. Bill is having a conversation with E about a guru who was recently defrocked, so to speak. A man known for preaching celibacy. And what was he caught doing, you ask. One guess only. And yes, you guessed correctly. The guru has not repented, it seems, seeing his failure of the flesh as being the pervasive influence of "America", as though it were some sort of onrushing train, a disease from which non escape, perhaps. To this I give my 4 billion years of evolution explanation. Bill, I say, look at it like this: by getting all the men to be celibate, and all the women to have sex with him, he improves his chances of passing his genes on to the next generation. This strategy gives him a biological advantage. Deceptive, yes, in the frame of reference of our current lives, these modern times. But a perfectly natural and normal thing to do. Golly, in the same situation I'd do the same thing. Bill said he thinks of himself as being sexually addicted. Perhaps this is because he sees himself as a failure in a traditional relationship. It is also one of the latest fad ideas on the guru and self-help circuit. To me it often looks like any other group type animal where alpha males attempt to do all the mating so their qualities get passed on to all that groups offspring. Some months ago a black writer for the Boston Globe described a phenomenon called something like the 20/20 club. He got this from young black males. The idea is to father 20 children by the time you are 20 years old. These guys are part of a community under extreme stress. It is a form of compensation where the next generation of children will be fathered by the slickest, meanest, toughest guys in the community. And those children will be tougher to handle the time they live in. Many of these young black males expected to be dead by the time they were 20+. They compensated with this behavior to insure their biological legacy. One could say that a similar, but more sophisticated story is being told in the white community. Particularly the affluent, well educated part. So a guy manages to convince a bunch of other well-educated white males to become celibate because their urge for sex is an addiction. So they give up the real thing for faux fucking. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the convincer is out back bangin the broads. But I digress. Eventually we sat down to dinner - but not after spending considerable time going over my picture book. Bill M is, seemingly, startled that I don't throw out any of my pictures. And no cropping. Every picture is there. He is interested in my philosophy of snapshots. Which is to say, how do I, with my cheap point-and-shoot camera, take all those interesting pictures. He asks if I've got any pictures of places between women's legs. He used a much simpler, more primitive word to describe the place he wanted to see pictures of. Well, I've got a few, but they aren't in my public picture book! He thinks a publisher he knows might want to do a book of my photos. But he wants me to write something about how I decide to take a picture. I'm working on it. Do you think you're a genius, he asks. Why, yes, of course. But currently unrecognized. I can think it for free. Why not. Surely my numerous readers think me a genius for the way my words march across the page painting pictures of the rise and fall of great empires and the loves and hates of othere genius's within said empires? But let me get on to the meal. Chicken, squash, and something else. There was bread. A long loaf. A light golden brown on the outside, crunchy. And soft white inside. Good with butter. But what was the other thing on our plates? There is a space with something in it, but no thing there! How frustrating to be stopped by an empty place in my mind. Oh, forget it for now. Bill M has an interesting past. Besides being a best-selling author, he was a Rhodes Scholar two years ahead of Mr Clinton. He has a mysterious blank spot in his early to middle 20's past involving a jail in a foreign country, if I understood the barely revealed bones of the story. Three years ago he discovered himself to be the father of a 22 year old daughter. She is now 25 and can be seen on advertising pages of the New York Times Magazine and The Boston Globe Magazine. The delightful consequence of a single event the night after the day of the wedding of a friend. The female in question was also a guest at said wedding. They didn't know each other till the day of that event and never had contact again... until 22 years and 9 months later when a letter arrived in his mailbox. Dear DAD... They met on his farm (which is apparently no longer his farm) in Ireland. She had very short hair and looked to be a bit more meaty than the gal in the ad. Anyway, they are now in regular correspondence. Which brought me to the story of my own daughter. He was surprised at my not rushing out to embrace Cheyenne. But then he didn't know the story of Adele. A woman very unlike the mother of his daughter. I tried to explain the 20+ years of hatred for me Adele carries around. But there is no understanding that until you press up against it. On the other hand, E did have some appreciation for the problem. He is a go-ahead sort of guy not used to resistance from the world. Very competitive, very aggressive. And from other adventures you have this picture of him quite well enforced. Why don't you jump on a plane and go out there, he asks. Well, not enough money to get out of Boston, for one. Then there is my no imposition policy. I told him of my court case and how one day it came to me that I, a draft and war resistor, was at war with my own family! And that was the end of that approach for me. So any contact between me and Cheyenne will have to wait for mutual approval. Well, eventually it ended, the dinner, that is. And it was necessary for me to stagger home. It was a cool night. The walk up the stairs at the Porter Square T station cleared my brain a bit. And then I was home, but alone. CC was in Atlanta for the annual American Anthropological Association meeting. She got back late Sunday afternoon. Ugh! It is 4:40:10am and time to send this and go to sleep. Goodnight. Sunday, December 11, 1994 email from Chris: No, I was contrasting FH Chronicles with Cambridge Chronicles from what I believe was '76 when you were living with Simone, your largest one-year volume of writing from Cambridge, wasn't it? Maybe it was '82? I forget now and don't have it handy. Maybe my copy's in Florida at the moment. Anyway, I chose it to contrast with FH writing because that period with Simone seemed to be the most difficult; your time from '86 to present seems much quieter to me in comparison. Now '82 does seem more right to me since I recall that it often referred to past events on FH.... to which Richard says: You were about 6 years old in 1976, weren't you? 16 in 1986? 1981 was about 250 pages. 1982 was about 500 pages. Then it got a little bigger some years and a little small than 500 in other subsequent years. Yes, "The Simone Years", not much more than a year, really, were very difficult years. Your pal "h" and another woman unsubscribed from the list recently. Too much for them, either volume or content. Speaking of content, I was just thinking how showing you my writing from those years could have gotten me in trouble because of your age then. But then you would have had to initiate something, as would Tiffany. Phew! Potential close call for me. Apparently I made two good choices as nobody has come to arrest me these last few years! On the other hand, what if both of you become devote Christians, or members of some other religion? You might want to protect other children who would be corrupted by me. What are the chances for you? And Tiffany is living out in the West Coast Cyberhell. She could plummet to the bottom and decide she wanted to be saved at any time. Funny thing on a bus ride from Harvard Square to Watertown Square on Friday night. Three teenaged girls sitting behind me. A serious discussion of American history around 1776. It was interspersed with talk about how this girl or that one was showing off what she knew in class but, by and large, they kept to the topic for the whole ride of about 20+ minutes. I don't remember ever hearing a similar, concentrated discussion from a group of highschool kids. Should I say especially girls? Nah. I was almost tempted to say something to them about how astounded they left me. But then I'd have to explain it all to the police... A long talk with Georg K (an Austrian living in this country with wife and child) at his place of work in Harvard Square. He's an artist who does odd jobs. I asked about ArtKammer. Out of business. An Austrian friend of his. I remember it as a place full of new faces. People I'd not seen in any other scene. A number of interesting things happened when I would site down, take out my notebook, and begin to write. People would look. A few would suddenly decide it was worthwhile striking up a conversation with me - until they learned the writing was only art, and not a review of the work. Georg knows about Friedrichshof. I remarked on writing my memoirs and he wanted to read them. He had studied with an Actionist artist, but a minor one. Otto being one of the four major Actionists. There is a party Sunday afternoon. Bob T sent me a notice in the mail. A very peculiar, whacky group last year. A real crosscut of people in Cambridge/Somerville. I've made up a copy of Various... for the hostess, a friend of Bob's with a bigger apartment. Have I told you the Art & Cultural Events List and The Art DEADLINES List are now available on the Web? Here are the URL's: http://cs.wpi.edu/~ptbast/aacel.html http://cs.wpi.edu/~ptbast/adl.html respectively. You can acces them with Mosaic (although there are no pictures yes), or Lynx - which works with a simple terminal or vt100 type interface, text only. To try either of them: telnet sunsite.unc.edu then respond with: lynx tell the system TERM type question you are a: vt100 Now you can go to one of the above URL's with: g http://cs.wpi.edu/~ptbast/adl.html for example. Let me know if it works. Monday, December 12, 1994 Yes, another strange crowd at Bob's party. Like a crosscut of Cambridge and Somerville. At one point during a long conversation with yet another person I'd never met, he asks, isn't this the strangest set of people you've ever met at a party. Indeed, but not unenjoyable. Cynthia wore her new all black powersuit. I wore my bluejeans and green sweater. Nobody knew we were together. A good disguise will do that. She met someone from MIT, or used to be from MIT, and who knew her husband. They were macho hunting buddies. He didn't know Pete was dead. And a local Truman Capote, Blues Brothers look-alike, who is well known for his slant on the world, tried to explain to her that it was those MIT guys who kept shooting electronic rays into his head. She had to go somewhere else immediately. Some of my oldest and favorite enemies also showed up and didn't talk to me. Beth and Carol. The latter invites me to a Christmas party but informs me it will be professionally oriented so it will be necessary for me to dress up. And already you know the answer to the question of whether or not I went. Carol also asked me to create a home page for her on the Web. Of course she NEVER offers anything. But she always remembers to ask for something. Six years or so ago I suggested she go see a film, SWEET MOVIE, which includes some of the people who lived on FH in 1972. She says it disturbs her to this day. Two guys who were classmates 20 years ago met for the first time since those days. One of them was with a woman named Dee Dee. Not THE Dee Dee, I asked. Dee Dee Meyers. She ignored me for the remainder of the party. An attractive woman, but clearly outside my socio-economic cast. A woman from Harvard Business School, who gave me her email address, is sure CD-ROM's are only a bridge/interim technology. Her opinion is that the Web will put that format out of business. Probably, eventually. But not soon, in my opinion. She just happens to be at a place that supports the Web. Lloyd came with one of his little pals. He takes care of a lot of kids at odd hours and times for parents who can't get day care. His charge today was a young girl, about 6 years old, who I know from around Harvard. But she didn't seem to remember me. That was odd because I tell kids that age they can call me anything they want - as long as they don't call me Late For Dinner. And they seldom forget that. Cynthia and I agreed that she was not that well cared for. No father around. A very stressed mother. But she obviously likes Lloyd. He is a very old acquaintance. 15 or more years? I always describe Lloyd to Cynthia as the guy who was sure he had a pair of gills somewhere inside his chest cavity. So he spent a lot of time during the 70's trying to learn to breath underwater. One doesn't hear much about it from him now. Perhaps he got it to work or gave up on trying. And then there was Ann. This was the second party where she has been pleasant to me - even saying hello. Direct eye contact. Not bad after 12 years of silence and ignoring me. Well, there was this incident with this other woman... but that's another story. Cynthia always has to say something about Ann. She has this gray hair, a bit of a mustache, sloppy look about her. But then she was with a different, and younger guy, at each of the parties. Cynthia, on the way home, describes her as a sexual tiger. She doesn't know this about Ann, but decides that is the operative term after my previous descriptions of what always transpired in bed with the two of us - me and Ann. Well, obviously, with the younger guys following her around, she doesn't seem to have lost her, shall we say, touch? Cynthia is amazed at the disparity in how she seems, to Cynthia, in person, and my salivating descriptions. Anybody who knows Cynthia knows there is no such contradiction with her. She is a live wire everywhere and all the time. Of course, Ann's new attitude towards me gets me to thinking of the old days. And I can't help but imagine that some things might happen in the future like what happened in the past. And to find out you will just have to stay tuned. Tuesday, December 13, 1994 email from Tim: Subject: you are not alone. Date: Tue, 13 Dec 94 15:54:44 -0500 * Among the specialized, small-market magazines recently appearing in Japan is Combustible Garbage [Moeru Gomi], by artist Tetsuo Ogawa, 22, consisting merely of a vinyl bag of garbage from his and his friends' apartments. He solicits people to let him clean their rooms and periodically "publishes" the results. [Mainichi Daily News, 7-24-94] Linda called last night. She is about three months pregnant. A sperm bank got her started. Took three tries. I've got to ask her how much it cost. Cynthia wants to know also. She answered the phone. I could tell after about two minutes who was on the other end of the line. The father is anonymous - although the child has the option, at 18, of contacting the father. The father then has the option of contacting the child. "He" is about 6 feet tall, blond, athletic, working on a PhD in the classics at a California university. She doesn't know what the father looks like except for the above description. The case worker at the bank looked at the picture and described him to her but didn't let her see the picture. He is not Jewish - she wanted to short-circuit the madness. There is a bit of craziness in her family. Her father has been institutionalized a number of times over the last 30 years. He's (the donor) also from the midwest. About two years ago she got pregnant with a man she couldn't stand a week after it happened. The pregnancy in that case failed to go to term. She seems quite happy. Cynthia was enthusiastic about supporting her doing it. What about me giving you a hand, I asked. I still don't have enough money, probably. Or something to do with jealousy - you and Cynthia are like two peas in a pod, Linda says. She gave a lecture on Otto, Friedrichshof, and the Viennese Actionists recently, at the school where she studies art. We will get to hear the tape on her January visit. Thursday, December 15, 1994 email from seth: Date: Mon, 12 Dec 94 01:23:16 -0500 Subject: Junkie requests fix... Dear Richard, I'm a friend of Larry's who's met you a few times: I've driven you into the heart of Welles Angels territory, and my (now) wife photographed your penis at a 141 -------- Ave. party when I lived there. I remember that you used to have a running calendar of art events in the city. Do you still accumulate that information? Do you disseminate it online? Also, Larry's told me about your Friedrichshof Chronicles and sent me a sample entry. How does it feel to be dredging this stuff up after 15 years? I find that when I enter my old journals, it's best to leave my well-oiled weapons like judgement at the front cover. If you can find space on your disk quota, would you add me to your mailing list? Thanks, Seth To: seth Subject: photos,art,etc Date: Mon, 12 Dec 94 13:27:12 EST That penis photo party was about 1991, wasn't it? I've still got those Polaroids. Larry told me I was banned from that house after that and a number of incidents. Clearly one of my more successful art events/happenings. Does your wife really remember taking a pricture of my pick? I thought there was only the threat of doing so. But that's what too much to drink will do to the brain. And thanks for that/those rides to Welles Av. I don't live there any more. Long story. I do indeed have an arts calendar. In fact, two calendars. Here's some info: I have two other lists, The Cambridge Chronicles and the Friedrichshof Chronicles. Larry sent you a sample of the latter. You can subscribe to that list also. Just let me know and you can get the back issues. Regarding my state of mind at going over 15 year old stuff, it is not unlike going over something written a day or two ago: I am usually embarrassed and ashamed. How could I have written anything so stupid? Then I go on and write something brilliant! On the other hand, FH was NOT a normal or garden-variety experience. So it also does some funny things to me on reading over them. I've got some videotapes of myself in SD's there and will probably do something to make that available in the near future, i.e., in less than 15 years. May I add your message to me to a future issue of The Cambridge Chronicles? I can make you anonymous and your old address a ***. Do you happen to work on the 4th floor of 545 Tech Square? I visit there often. I'm not sure, at this point, exactly which mailing lists you want to be added to, so... Here's a list of my current Internet projects. You can get some of this stuff once by asking. You can get on a mailing list for email from jon: Subject: Re: The Cambridge Chronicles Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 05:06:17 -0800 (PST) it just occured to me today what always gives me a headache about your writing (as if my slaughter-verse doesnt do the same, but in a malicious fashion) -- it is the same kinda thing that gets the gears turning so much with all of "those" authors, like r.a.wilson and that one guy who they keep making bad movies out of (cowgirls get the blues). it is that you set up a situation, with some appetizing details, and then jump right to some shocking conclusion, leaving us [me?] to bob in the sea of questions and confusions that fill in the gap. ....... keep up the good work!!! also, i am glad even at gatherings you attend, everyone is abuzz with saying the word "web". i think next time someone says it to me i will snap and kill them, unless they happen to use it correctly (which is highly doubtful), in which case i will just maim them. is that how you spell maim? well, that is how i do. so yes, i am just glad i wasnt around the old chinese parties when everyone was saying "oh, blah blah blah PAPER!!!" or drinking beer with the germans having to deal with people drawing pictures of printing presses on the napkins. doesnt-deal-with-transition-well, -jon email from Chris: Subject: teens and sex Date: Fri, 16 Dec 1994 00:36:13 -0600 (CST) Yesterday at school (work), Heather, 16, who has never spoken to me, started a conversation with me at my ticket window. I was already talking with her friend Amy, 15, who I talk to every day. It is exam week for them. Heather told me she was dreading her chem exam. I think I asked her if she liked her teachers. She said she had a really cool English teacher but that he was leaving. He talked to them about the difference between fucking and making love and got in trouble, but that was not the reason why he was leaving. She goes to a Catholic school but is not Catholic herself at all, very different than my friend Claire, 15, who attends that school and does take Catholicism seriously. Pretty bold on Heather's part, I think. One day a couple of weeks ago I recall watching Heather and Amy going over a dance routine for awhile. Maybe that gave her the confidence to be so aggressive with me. None of the other girls at school have displayed overt sexuality with me before. Fun fun fun. Today Amy's mom bought me two silk shirts for helping Amy with her computer homework (which I've done for all of 5 or 10 minutes this semester.) Had BBQ with Johnny and Diane ------ today. We looks at proposed plans for new indoor/outdoor theatre sight in City Park just blocks from where I'm living. Very promising. Major question marks at this point include dangers of vandalism and gang violence in the area, guaranteeing enthusiastic support and cooperation of the city. If I don't get cast in _As You Like It_ (audition Sunday), I may do _Legend of the Bluebonnets_ and a juicy cameo in _Tartuffe_ at CATS where I work. So, suddenly I would say that I am leaning toward staying in Ft. Worth awhile longer. Still problems of unsatisfactory social life/income, lack of growth to consider though. Saturday, December 17, 1994 Perhaps it was the dozen chocolate covered cherries, or the champaigne, or the wine and orangejuice combination, or the pastries, or the chips, or the fancy roasted nuts soaked in oil and salt, or the Jalapeno and Cheddar cheese dip, or the nut flake covered cheese ball, or the M & M's. In any case, last night's dreams stand out for their numbers and content. The boiling black clouds that would dip down to the surface of the Earth, pick things up and scatter them. What looked like several square blocks of city park flying through the air, with a clearing behind it looking out at blue sky while everything else was black. It would dip and swoop and swirl and then disappear high in the sky. A stripped down fishing boat maybe 20 feet long. I'm in it and nearly flying along in a narrow stream that turns into a tunnel. Faster and faster. Narrower and narrower. Thought of suddenly running into a grating or the blades of a turbin. Then... SPLOOT! Shooting out a huge pipe into what looks like a sewage storage area. Yuck! On Beach Hill in Boston. A bright sunny day. Walking along I spot Rise. Dressed in a power lawyer outfit. Possibly talking with a client. She spots me. Some sort of secret signal passes between us. Then we are in another place. Not so bad. Alone. Naked. There is a Jocelyn Elders Memorial Service moment between us. And more. We watch the black boiling clouds in the distance. Another sequence where I see Mr Spock, Leonard Nimoy, naked. He and I hold another Jocelyn Elders Memorial Service. My first recollection ever of a homosexual contact with someone. But then is it really a homosexual contact if he (?) is an alien? And so it went. More passionate moments with Rise as well as respect for the memory of Jocelyn Elders. Chris sends mail about his adventures with teenage girls. It seems his friends criticize him for this and somehow imagine it will all lead to sex. Even if it does, so what? May I suggest informing yourself about the local age of consent? For his friends I suggest a book, "The Stoneage Present", about how we came to be what we are in a time very unlike what present day humans experience. In another 15 years I will suggest his friends read "Lolita". At 40 they will likely begin to experience the Lolita Syndrome. They will be at the height of their earning powers and influence in the world. They will be dissatisfied with their current life. They will look for cute young things to make them feel better. Chris: query about 20 or so of your friends about the ages of their parents. Compute the average for the father and mother and let me know. Sunday, December 25, 1994 A Christmas card from Cynthia who sends it from Florida where she is visiting her parents: An elongated Scrooge on the front. Humbug! Humbug! Humbug! he is saying. Inside: There! that oughta hold you for another year. She writes: Icky, Kah-kah Pooh-Pooh Christmas to you-- Until New Years C.C. --- P.S. my Parents still hate you - they are like elephants - they don't forgive & don't forget - Love me and a postcard of a long-legged, long-beaked bird at river's edge taken in the Florida Everglades from Cynthia: Dear R.G. Dec. 21st Maybe I've been here too long already - Rush Limbaugh is beginning to sound rational to me. (He's listened to religiously in this household.) - I ride my mom's bike miles every day. Had a nice boat ride in the Everglades! Love, Me Explanation of picture on the other side: GREAT WHITE HERON. This magnificent wading bird is a voracious eater, feeding on fish, shrimp, crabs, snails and the young of other birds. photo by Michael H. Francis Ron B. sent me a postcard, but I can't find it now. Fantastic sunset at the Porter Square parking lot. I must have stood there for half an hour taking pictures of the changing sunset. Maybe 20 pictures. Send me a SASE and I'll send you one. Latest URL: http://cs.wpi.edu/~ptbast/der/homepage.html