“As I’ve often told Ginsberg,” he began, “you can’t blame the President for the state of the country, it’s always the poets’ fault. You can’t expect politicians to come up with a vision, they don’t have it in them. Poets have to come up with the vision and they have to turn it on so it sparks and catches hold.”
Ken Kesey

“Come spesso ho detto a Ginsberg”, iniziava, “non puoi criticare il presidente per lo stato in cui versa un paese, è sempre da addebitare ai poeti. Non puoi aspettare una visione venire fuori dai politici, non l’hanno in se. Poeti devono proporre la visione e la devono accendere che scintilli e afferra.”

Questa la cruda osservazione di uno stato di fatto.

In aggiunta c’è un altro fatto che mi sembra di osservare:

Piero Marrazzo

Il maschio, partendo da una società arcaica nella quale aveva un ruolo di procreatore, di protettore, di procacciatore di proteine, per cui doveva trovare soluzioni pratiche, avere coraggio, essere in azione, mettersi in prima linea, mente e corpo focalizzato alla preda, ai pericoli costituiti da animali feroci, umani feroci, incidenti, malattie, morte, nascita, corteggiamento, fuoco…
..questo maschio è stato depauperato della sua essenza nelle decadi ultimi.

Lo sport come fenomeno da guardare, non più da esercitare, ha sostituito l’individuo delegando azione, forza, ingegno, allenamento, capacità di esecuzione, sofferenza, perdità e riuscita, carica ormonale, esperienza del proprio corpo, delle sostanze sprigionate (endorfine..) dopo uno sforzo estremo con esito positivo… a terzi.
Son convinta che la maggior parte dei maschi odierni non sappia di cosa parlo, semplicemente non ha avuto l’occasione di sperimentarsi nei suoi più elementari bisogni.
Lo “spersonalizzato” pensa che il goal fatto dal suo prediletto del momento gli dia un’immensa emozione, perché vede gl’altri nello stadio esultare, di cui tribalmente discorrere per tutta la settimana (gazzetta dello sport alla mano… quale la tiratura di questo giornale in relazione ad altri giornali??) fino alla prossima “caccia”, ovviamente seduti ed osservando il prode eroe. Quelle caratteristiche per cui in milioni di anni di evoluzione il fisico e la mente si sono adattate per meglio sopravvivere vengono ridotti, lasciandoli alla fame, in lillipuziani pseudo istinti. In breve: UN ESSERE FRUSTRATO, disatteso nei bisogni più basilari – spesso o quasi sempre – totalmente inconsapevole del proprio stato.

Il divertimento delegato ai media (tv, cinema, radio, affissioni pubblicitarie, immagini dappertutto..non ci credete ma il mio parrucchiere ha messo uno screen in bottega dove corre mtv e altra inevitabile invasione mentale non scelta, e manifestazioni..sempre di massa).

Il ragionamento delegato ai media, ad alcuni personaggi.

Il gusto per la femmina delegato dacché quel che è lo sport per lui è diventato il dettame di moda ed canoni estetici per lei:
Un assurdo evidenziare di marcatori sessuali (seni, sedere, bocca, capelli, magrezze). Esigenze pratiche e pragmatice totalmente eluse. Tutto portato all’esagerazione all’iper – stimolazione di un maschio sedentario passivo – o perverso (pratiche sessuali delle più contorti quando non denigranti, quando consumate esclusivamente a mezzo telematico)

Accettazione da parte della femmina di stili di vita lontani da quelle che sono conformi e salutari una madre, donna menstruata, educatrice di valore.

Le qualità per cui la cooperazione fra sessi risulta soddisfacenti sono messe in disparte, ignorate e taciute.
La cooperazione umana resa strumento in servizio di quel lavaggio del cervello che avviene sulla pubblica piazza senza opposizione.

Un Piero Marrazzo emblema per una moltitudine di maschi in politica, in economia, nella gestione del sapere, oramai privati di un senso di se e inconsapevoli di non essere più.

Il privato delegato, liberamente fatto gestire da pochi che ne traggono profitto in danaro e potere,
in una giostra denigrante la crescita e la valorizzazione dell’individuo.

Tempo e ritmi adulterati le reali necessità di un’essenza umana.

Questo MASCHIO privato della sua essenza non può che smarrirsi fra pratiche sessuali deviate, insoddisfazione della propria persona- fisica come mentale – da compensare con alcool, stupefacenti, abusi di potere, assunzione di cibo in eccedenza.
Ha perso completamente la relazione con il suo corpo con un’essenza autentica.
Ha delegato ed è dominato.

Leggete, le cose più differenti.
….. é cosi che mi piace.

Αφού δεν είμαι ούτε συγγραφέας, ούτε φωτογράφος, ας γυρίσω σε αυτό που ξεκίνησα  να κάνω σε αυτό το ιστολόγιο.

Ας γυρίσουμε, λοιπόν, πίσω στον Ken Kesey (Κίζι;) και στη Φωλιά του Κούκου.Αυτός ήταν άλλωστε ο τίτλος του πρώτου βιβλίου του.

Το 1964 εκδόθηκε το δεύτερο βιβλίο του Kesey (Sometimes a Great Notion). Ο Kesey έπρεπε να πάει στη Νέα Υόρκη για την παρουσίαση του βιβλίου. Νοίκιασε, λοιπόν ένα σχολικό λεωφορείο, το μετέτρεψε και ξεκίνησε από την Καλιφόρνια με προορισμό τη Νέα Υόρκη.

Στο τιμόνι του λεωφορείου, το οποίο ονομάστηκε Further, ήταν ο Neil Cassady. Συνταξιδιώτες του, μια ομάδα φίλων του Kesey(ανάμεσα τους και ο Allen Ginsberg), οι επονομαζόμενοι και Merry Pranksters. Το παρθενικό ταξίδι του Further ( το οποίο αργότερα συμμετείχε σε συλλαλητήρια ενάντια στον πόλεμο του Βιετνάμ και έφτασε μέχρι το Woodstock) καταγράφηκε σε φιλμ, αλλά και στο βιβλίο του Tom Wolfe The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Στην ουσία οι Merry Pranksters(ή «φτιαγμένοι» φαρσέρ) , ήταν μια ομάδα ανθρώπων, μια κίνηση που προωθούσε την χρήση ψυχεδελικών ναρκωτικών (μαριχουάνα, αμφεταμίνες, LSD). Θεωρούσαν ότι έτσι κάποιος διευρύνει τους ορίζοντες του και αντιλαμβάνεται διαφορετικά την πραγματικότητα(«ταξιδεύει» σε πιο μακρινούς προορισμούς-εξού και Further) . Έτσι, κατά τη διάρκεια του ταξιδιού τους οι Pranksters «προσυλήτισαν» αρκετό κόσμο στη χρήση αυτών των ουσιών και διέσχισαν τις ΗΠΑ δίνοντας χωρίς φειδώ LSD (του οποίου η χρήση ήταν νόμιμη) σε όποιον ήταν πρόθυμος να δοκιμάσει. Δεν είναι τυχαίο που το ταξίδι αυτό ονομάστηκε The Magic Bus Trip και ας είχε για προορισμό τη Νέα Υόρκη και όχι το Λονδίνο, το Άμστερνταμ ή το Βερολίνο…

Mr. O'brien

I’m in the mood for ambitious fiction. Earlier this year I was blessed with a run of incredible reads,  topped off by Yvegeny Zamiatin’s masterpiece, We.

Mr. Zamiatin

Since then I’ve taken on more projects that inevitably have eaten into my reading time, and I am becoming more zealous in my quest for inspired reads. Ambition is the only flavor my literary palate wants to taste right now. I’m hungry for books that make me break out the booksdarts and re-read for pure pleasure. I want prose and plots that cause reactions, page turners that remind me how lucky I am to know how to read.

I’m compiling a list (in no particular order) of ambitiously written books and additions are requested in the comments section! I’d love suggestions for a 2010 reading list…

Mr. Baldwin

The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

The Inferno by Dante

Morvagine by Blaise Cendrars

Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller

Candide by Voltaire

The Electric Koolaid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

Black Boy by Richard Wright

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf? by Edward Albee

Bowl of Cherries by Milliard Kauffman

The Whapshot Chronicle by John Cheever (as well as many of his shorter works)

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

The Iliad by Homer

If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

Her by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

The Twits by Roald Dahl

Lolita by Vladamir Nabakov

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Monkeywrench Gang by Edward Abbey

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Peanuts by Charles Schultz

Mr. Abbey

more:

Bluebeard/Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

The Aeneid by Virgil

The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

His Dark Materials Series by Phillip Pullman

At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’brien

White Noise by Don Delillo

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

The Watchmen by Alan Moore

More..?

Cool black night thru redwoods
cars parked outside in shade
behind the gate, stars dim above
the ravine, a fire burning by the side
porch and a few tired souls hunched over
in black leather jackets. In the huge
wooden house, a yellow chandelier
at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers
hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles
Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths
dancing to the vibration thru the floor,
a little weed in the bathroom, girls in scarlet
tights, one muscular smooth skinned man
sweating dancing for hours, beer cans
bent littering the yard, a hanged man
sculpture dangling from a high creek branch,
children sleeping softly in their bedroom bunks.
And 4 police cars parked outside the painted
gate, red lights revolving in the leaves.

Το ποιήμα αυτό τιτλοφορείται First Party At Ken Kesey’s With Hell’s Angels και γράφτηκε από τον Allen Ginsberg το Δεκέμβριο του 1965.

Ο Ken Kesey οργάνωνε συχνά πάρτυ τα οποία ονόμαζε «Acid Tests». Πάρτυ, με μουσική (κυρίως με το αγαπημένο του συγκρότημα, The Warlocks, οι οποίοι γίνανε αργότερα διάσημοι ως Grateful Dead), ψυχεδελικά εφέ(black lights κ.α.) και, φυσικά, LSD. Ο Kesey φημολογείται ότι πειραματίστηκε με το LSD παρέα με το Ringo Star, προετοιμάζοντας το έδαφος για τις εμφανίσεις του στη Βρετανία με τους Beatles.

Ο Kesey γνώρισε τα ναρκώτικά στο Stanford, όπου συμμετείχε εθελοντικά σε μια έρευνα της CIA για την επίδραση της λήψης ψυχοδραστικών ουσιών όπως LSD, μεσκαλίνη, κοκαΐνη κ.α. Έπειτα συνέχισε να πειραματίζεται μόνος του…

Ο Kesey στα τέλη της δεκαετίας του ’50 δούλευε νυχτερινή βάρδια σε ένα νοσοκομείο βετεράνων. Εκεί συζητούσε με τους ασθενείς, συχνά υπό την επήρεια παραισθησιογόνων. Ο Kesey δεν θεωρούσε πως οι τρόφιμοι ήταν τρελοί, αλλά ότι μπήκαν στο περιθώριο επειδή δεν συμπεριφέρονταν σύμφωνα με τα συμβατικά κοινωνικά στερεότυπα.

Έτσι,μια μέρα του 1959, υπό την επήρεια οκτώ φυτών peyote, όπως ο ίδιος ισχυριζόταν, έγραψε τις τρεις πρώτες σελίδες του βιβλίου που τον έκανε ευρύτερα γνωστό…

Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn;
Wire, briar, limber lock,
Three geese in a flock.
One flew east,
And one flew west,
And one flew over the cuckoo’s nest

Από τον τελευταίο στίχο αυτού του παιδικού ποιήματος πήρε τον τίτλο του το βιβλίο του Ken Kesey One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (στο οποίο βασίστηκε η ομώνυμη ταινία).

Szalonym szlakiem podąża człowiek
“będzie co będzie” wiatrowi powie
wolność opłaci, resztę przeliczy
wysokiej fali słucha zwodniczej

Ken Kesey “Pieśń Żeglarzy”

SCRIBEFIREyNwMcr5uSCRIBEFIRE

By Cara Nicoletti

Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion is a sprawling epic chronicling the lives of a logging family in Wakonda, Oregon. Complete with deep-seated brotherly hatred, savage revenge plots, repressed silences and Oedipal lust, there is hardly a bleaker, more raw look into family dysfunction and hard-headed stubbornness. The only moments of relief from the stream of heartache and cold, beating rain come when the Stamper family is gathered around the table.

The Stamper men wake up in the morning to “piles of steaming pancakes.” To the logging mill they take paper sacs filled with “sharp vinegar and mustard scented” deviled eggs, meaty olives and “creamy brown candy filled with roasted filberts.” At dinnertime they are “elbows and ears over a checkered table-cloth” covered with “deer liver and heart fried in onions, and gravy made from the drippings…boiled potatoes and fresh green beans and homemade bread.” In Kesey’s narrative, abundant food fuels the Stamper family’s stubborn prowess, allowing them the will to “Never Give an Inch!” The dish that makes the biggest impact on Leland Stamper is Viv’s baked apples, the comforting scent of which is so overpowering it has him looking to the moon and wondering, “what happened to my childhood?”

For dessert baked apples were waiting. Viv had prepared the apples by coring them and filling the holes with brown sugar and cinnamon Red Hots, then topping each apple with a slide of butter before she put them in to bake. During the meal the kitchen had been filled with the spicy smell of their cooking and all the kids had squealed delightedly when she brought the square pyrex dish from the oven. “Hot, now, watch it.” The apples sizzled in thick caramel-colored syrup.

There is absolutely no better time for making baked apples than Fall, when the classic fruit is at its freshest and most abundant. Rather than using brown sugar and Red Hots candy, I like to fill the apple cores with chunks of butter and real maple syrup. This creates a toffee-like sauce that when heated spreads throughout the meat of the apple. Top it with homemade candied pecans and you’ll be howling at the moon just like Leland Stamper.

MAPLE-BUTTER BAKED APPLES WITH CANDIED PECANS
Serves 4 people

INGREDIENTS:
CANDIED PECANS

• 1 pound halved, shelled pecans
• 1 egg white
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

APPLES

• 4 large baking apples (Rome Beauty, Gala, Fuji, Jonagold or any firm, sturdy, slightly tart apple)
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 cup GOOD maple syrup (sorry kids, Aunt Jemima won’t do here)
• 3/4 cup boiling water
• Vanilla ice cream or fresh cream (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
PECANS (These take longer than the apples, so you’ll want to make them first.)

1. Grease a baking sheet and preheat your oven to 250 degrees.
2. In a small bowl mix cinnamon, salt and sugar together.
3. In a separate bowl whip egg-white and water together until it is foamy.
4. Add pecans to the egg mixture and mix them until coated, then stir them in the sugar mixture.

When covered, transfer them to the greased baking sheet and bake for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.  This will make a lot more pecans than you’ll need for the apples, but they are delicious and you’ll want some to have left over.

APPLES

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Wash and core the apples but don’t cut the hole all the way through the bottom. If you can, just dig the center out but leave the bottom intact.  This holds the ingredients inside the apple and keeps them from seeping out into the dish. Holes should be about an inch wide.
3. Break 1 tablesppon butter up and stuff inside apple.  Don’t be shy about digging it into the meat of the apple.
4. Fill the core with maple syrup.  (It should be about 1/4 cup per apple.) Fill to top.
5. Place apples in a baking pan and add the boiling water. Bake 30-40 minutes until apples are tender.

When they’re ready, give the maple-butter a quick stir since it will separate in the oven. Cover apples with a generous helping of candied pecans and serve with vanilla ice cream or fresh cream.

My favorite quotation comes from Ken Kesey as quoted by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test:

“I’d rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.”

Now I don’t plan on initiating a Prankster revival but, as an aspiring writer, I find inspiration in Kesey’s words. I don’t believe personal success is measured by anything other than experience. Individual experience is of paramount significance to the big picture, even when it doesn’t usher in happiness, and that can be difficult to remember. When there’s so much out there to observe and record, you have to take time to seize the world for yourself. Be there for the moment and remember it when it’s gone. Hopefully that consciousness will be an effective stratagem against the monotony of life. That’s where I’m putting my eggs anyway. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for the reminder, Ken.

Danielle, Leah, and I headed downtown on a lovely Sunday afternoon. When we made plans to meet up on Thursday the forecast called for rain all week long. How wrong they were. I’d hate to be a weatherman in the northwest.  The partly sunny day made for a nice relaxed stroll through downtown.  As we walked we all quickly came to a realization. Our neighborhood rocks. There is practially a story around every street corner. 

Danielle and Leah listen intently to Kesey.

A man waits for the bus.

A youth downtown hangs out with her kitten, Cody.

A day in the life of the city library could also be a great story. I will definitely spend some time talking to people in there to see if I can find anything worth writing about.

It's mine? Get out of my library. Just joking.

Downtown also has a number of resteraunts like Sixth Street Bar and Grill, the Electric Station, Key Stone Cafe, Sushi Station, and many more. It also has a number of popular bars including Davis’s, John Henry’s, Jameson’s,  and the Horsehead. There are also retail businesses including Mckenzie Outfitters, Down to Earth, Buffalo Exchange, Shoetini, Freudian Slips, and Lazar’s Bazar. Each one of these business could offer potential stories. One story I’d be interested in is the burger and brew offered by Sixth Street Bar and Grill. For a long time the burger and brew at Sixth Street was 6 dollars for a burger, fries, and pint of micro brewed beer. Now it’s seven dollars. I know first hand, that many people were not excited at this one dollar change. Story there? Perhaps. First hand research required? Definitely.

Other possible story interests of mine sparked from walking around today with my news team include parking ticket fees, bicycle thefts, bicycle transport infrastructure, train hoppers, or a profile on the owner of the Crux, an indoor rock gym. I’m glad to be covering the downtown area. Even though there weren’t many people around today we still have found a lot of story possibilities.

I saw the….well…..if there was light, I would have seen it.

Yesterday I just upgraded my eyes from rabbit ears to high def. Doc had to shift me to gas permiable contact lenses because my corneas were no longer roundish. Thus…. no more glasses, just sanded off hockey pucks that require a miniature plunger to remove – vision unplugged.

I think the  prescription might be a little strong…..my laptop is taking on Dali-esque properties (of course, that could be driven by my continued allegiance to Ken Kesey). I’ve now moved from Apple 2E to the hyper-real……and amazingly am still a sarcastic nihilist (can’t decide whether to go with sarcilist of nihilcastic).

Ok, so visual clarity has some yin and yang…..for example, some new observations:

• That’s what my eyes look like? My glasses actually made my eyes look less buggy – sort of a reverse SuperMan effect. Now my creepiness is on full display.  Of course being creepy didn’t hurt David Letterman’s chances with da ladies….and…..um…..ok, sorry just threw up a little in my mouth.
• A dork, without glasses, is still a dork.You can take the boy out of dungeons and dragons, but you can’t take dungeons and dragons out of the boy.
• Indiana clear is just as boring as Indiana blurry – before it was just boring, now its vividly boring.
• My wife is hot – ok I already knew this but I just like to rub it in.
• That ball was clearly fair. I mean I was pretty sure it was fair when mostly blind, now I’m really sure. Stevie Wonder knew that one was fair. Should they really let Yankee fans umpire games?

Of course, like Proust said, the times you struggle through trying circumstances are the times that you grow the most. While not being able to read street signs was difficult I was able to discover my inner essence – which basically an unbearable darkness, that if ever unleashed would envelope the world with sarcastic indifference and a touch of whimsy.

On second hand, maybe it would be better to ignore my inner essence. Finally, I am seeing clearly.

“Mister McMurphy, this ward is a democratic community run by the patients and their votes, so you should feel at ease in your new surroundings to the extent you can freely discuss emotional problems in front of the patients and staff. However, the cardinal rule, and I must emphasize this: Everyone keeps their seat during the meeting!“
- Miss Ratched

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Written by: Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman,
based on the novel by Ken Kesey.

This is a beat by beat analysis of a group meeting scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest using Frank Daniel’s method of 8 sequences (with 3-6 given in two sequences rather than four). I’ll be looking at hierarchy between the characters and how McMurphy tries to bring change into the rigid system of the psychiatric ward.

Summary of the scene: Miss Ratched is conducting another group meeting when McMurphy wants to have a vote on creating a new game room and changing the next day’s schedule in order to watch the World Series. The first vote is successful and McMurphy gets his way (although with a trial period) but the vote on watching the ballgame is lost. As in the rest of the story, McMurphy tries to challenge and change the system but success is unlikely.

On hierarchy

McMurphy is in a mental hospital trying to avoid prison. By this point in the film he has not yet realised what he is up against – the rigid system, the nature of authority, and where his place is in that system. Throughout the film as McMurphy learns about the rules and restrictions, he keeps testing the boundaries and trying to bring change into it according to his own needs and desires. The main conflict in the story takes place between a system and an individual and the whole plot is composed around hierarchy: like in the story as a whole, in each individual scene there’s some sort of hierarchy between the characters. This is common in most films but expressed with particular clarity in this one as it is part of the main theme. In the ward, Big Nurse (Miss Ratched) is in control and before McMurphy’s arrival her authority has not been challenged. Not by staff, not by patients. McMurphy is an outsider who enters a world alien to him; he upsets the natural balance of the psychiatric ward by bringing his own will and desire for freedom into the equation, trying to change it to match his lifestyle. His goal is not to throw Miss Ratched off the top of the hierarchy but to simply have his own way. He doesn’t mind the system but he doesn’t want to be controlled. The other characters – the patients and the staff – are not fighting for a higher place in the hierarchy but take sides with either Big Nurse or McMurphy with the patients remaining in lower ranks throughout (they either have no will to rebel in the name of individualism or have joined the system voluntarily). Big Nurse and McMurphy are equal enemies as they both have a right to fight for what they want (McMurphy probably less so as his wants are not appropriate for the setting which is an excellent type of combination for a dramatic story as is the balance between the two opposing forces): McMurphy has a right to have a free will and Miss Ratched has a right to protect the status quo of the ward.

McMurphy’s rebellion has a natural development throughout the story: first, as he is brought in, he is oblivious of the system (he knows it’s a closed institution but doesn’t know about the strict routine and the tools for implementing the rules (pills, shots, Electro-Shock Therapy)) and he thinks this is his escape from prison; he then becomes acquainted with the system as he’s taken through the daily routines and he and the audience can see how the system works; when McMurphy first tries to change something he fails because he has no supporters and the routine is so deep-seated he’s powerless; bit by bit he wins the other patients to his side and manages several small wins that culminate with an escape and a boat trip – McMurphy has broken out of the system but it’s a false resolution because everyone goes back to the hospital and the routine continues more firmly than before. The more he rebels, the higher the stakes get, the more impossible the obstacles, until he causes his own irreversible demise not only as a patient but as a human being.

The scene analysed takes place just as McMurphy is beginning to realise where he is and just before he learns how long he will have to stay there. It’s the second group meeting scene in the script and by comparing it to the first one we can see how the plot has been set up. The first group meeting scene sets up the rules: everyone must obey or there will be consequences, no one is allowed to leave their seat and the whole process is tightly controlled by Miss Ratched who claims it’s a democratic ward. The scene at hand is about the attempt to change the rules. McMurphy wants to have a vote – to change the schedule, so that they can watch baseball. McMurphy doesn’t attack the system but plays by the book which contributes to his character: he’s clever and tries to use the rules to his own benefit. In the previous group meeting scene he was told that the ward is democratic and change can only happen when the patients vote on it, so that’s what he does in order to get what he wants. (Note: this scene is handled differently in the film, and we’ll look at how it has benefited from the changes later). The dramatic question of the scene is: will McMurphy bring about change, or more precisely: will McMurphy have the schedule changed for the ballgame? (The latter is more obvious in the film version of the scene.) His antagonist is Miss Ratched whose job it is to keep order in the ward and have everyone follow the rules to the letter.

The Scene

I The Routine

1. A group meeting is in progress but Cheswick is not sitting. Big Nurse tells him to sit. Cheswick refuses.
   Comment: We know from the earlier group meeting scene that everyone has to sit and take part or they will be ‘handled’ by nurses.
2. Cheswick demands to have his cigarettes and looks to Mack (McMurphy) for help. McMurphy doesn’t respond.
   Comment: Every man for himself. Cheswick is not as strong as McMurphy and can’t persuade the authority figures by himself. The problem is also too trivial for McMurphy to step in. Cheswick doesn’t have what it takes to fight the system and Big Nurse stays at the top of hierarchy.
3. a) Big Nurse tells Cheswick to sit down. Cheswick sits.b) Big Nurse tells him he should’ve thought of that before he gambled the cigarettes away. Cheswick sulks.
   c) Big Nurse wants to know if Cheswick understands. He does.
   Comment: Cheswick does everything he’s told and agrees with everything that Big Nurse says. Big Nurse makes Cheswick feel guilty, responsible for his own problem and Cheswick’s silence means he agrees or is powerless to argue.  As in the earlier group meeting scene, Cheswick is shown his place by Big Nurse just as Bancini was at the end of the scene (Bancini became distressed and received a shot from the nurses to calm him down).  The audience and the characters know that there will be consequences if someone breaks the rules. So Cheswick obeys without making a big fuss.
   
   II Confrontation
4. Big Nurse starts talking about Mr. Harding’s problem with his wife to continue the discussion from the previous meeting. McMurphy puts his hand up and asks permission to get something off his chest. Big Nurse gives him permission.
   Comment: turning point as McMurphy won’t let Miss Ratched get back to the meeting. After the introduction it will become clear that the scene is between McMurphy and Big Nurse. The dramatic question will be raised during this part of the scene.
5. a) McMurphy reminds Big Nurse of the democratic “something” that was mentioned earlier and wants to get something off his chest. Big Nurse gives him permission.
   b) McMurphy gets out a paper (he’s prepared). He first says it would be wonderful if the music was turned up louder. Dr. Spivey nods, Big Nurse remains stoic, and some patients are bewildered.
   Comment: Big Nurse is the only person who doesn’t respond. It is part of her character to be calculating, patient and in control at all times. McMurphy is playing with Big Nurse – he’s being very polite which is not like him, so it’s just a way of approaching the authority figures in order to persuade them.
6. McMurphy then says the music is already too loud for having a conversation. The patients agree. Big Nurse waits.
7. McMurphy proposes a solution – to have a new separate game room for the ‘young fellows’. Dr. Spivey agrees.
   Comment: the dramatic question of the scene has been raised – will McMurphy change the routine?
   III Rising action
   
8. Dr. Spivey asks Big Nurse what she thinks. Big Nurse asks whether there are personnel for a second day room. Dr. Spivey thinks it can be managed.
9. Dr. Spivey asks the patients what they think. They agree. Big Nurse agrees but only with a trial period.
   Comment: There’s a difference between when Big Nurse asks the patients’ opinion and when Dr. Spivey does so. Miss Ratched’s questions seem intimidating, forcing the patients talk about things that are difficult or they don’t want to talk about. When Dr. Spivey asks their opinion, it’s about something that they want. Dr. Spivey seems to come down to the same level with the patients whereas Miss Ratched always looks down upon them. She’s in charge and nothing will change just because it will make someone happy.
   These beats lead McMurphy closer to what he wants. His proposition goes through (almost) and his reach for the top of the hierarchy is only undermined by Miss Ratched’s agreement to a trial period. She is still in control. 
   
10. Big Nurse takes the conversation back to Mr. Harding’s problem when McMurphy raises his hand again – he’s not finished.
    Comment: Another turning point as McMurphy won’t let Miss Ratched get back to the group discussion. McMurphy’s interruptions begin to look like a passive-aggressive attack.
    
11. McMurphy suggests a vote to shift the next day’s meeting to a later time, so that they could watch the World Series on TV. Big Nurse disagrees – the daily routine can’t be changed.
    Comment: McMurphy takes his demands further. The first request was a break-through, now he wants more. This is met by an absolute refusal by Big Nurse. She doesn’t want to let him causes any more changes. This is the midpoint of the scene.  
    
    IV Falling Action
12. McMurphy doesn’t care about the schedule, they can go back to it right after the game has finished; he wants a vote. Cheswick supports him. Big Nurse agrees.
    Comment: Falling Action implies that the obstacles get bigger than the character can handle. McMurphy stands his ground. As a little turning point the Big Nurse seems to give in by agreeing to have a vote. But it seems too easy and it feels like there’s something behind her reason to agree (which we’ll see in a minute).
13. They vote. Only two hands go up. Big Nurse points out that that’s not enough to change the ward policy.
    Comment: McMurphy has failed. Despite having his way and having a vote, he’s still powerless because he doesn’t have support from other patients.

    
    
    V Climax
    

14. Big Nurse asks McMurphy whether there’s anything else he wants to discuss. He says no.
    Comment: Big Nurse wants to seem generous by trying to appear concerned and helpful. McMurphy has lost and he’s given in. The character decides to take no further action and therefore the resolution for McMurphy in this scene is that he’s accepted Miss Ratched’s control (this is where the scene in the film changes direction.)VI Resolution
    
15. Big Nurse wants to go back to Mr. Harding’s problem and asks if anyone wants to begin. No one does.
    Comment: During the whole scene, the main event is having a group meeting and discussing Mr. Harding’s problem. The constants interruptions have helped to create tension as one character wants to do something but the action is continuously put back. Now that Miss Ratched finally gets to proceed, she is ignored by patients.
16. Mr. Harding starts talking about his problem, going into an incoherent monologue about the function of the relationship and his existence. Martini interrupts with a question about buying hotels (from the game of Monopoly earlier).
    Comment: Mr. Harding shares his problem with the group. The complete indifference by the group is illustrated by the one question asked which has nothing to do with him. The status quo of the ward has not been changed.

____________________________________________________________

Script vs. Film

The scene in the film (directed by Milos Forman) takes a different turn. First, the vote for the separate game room is left out and they go right to the problem of watching the game. Secondly, McMurphy is taken very close to his objective by giving him nearly half the votes – they have a tie. This creates tension as first he has to urge others in the group to raise their hand and he (and the audience) believes he’s won, but he hasn’t taken into account the other patients in the ward – and they have a tie. So, instead of having the character near his goal with a different question (will he get the new game room?), the goal applies to the whole scene and the near-win is part of that same goal (to watch the ballgame). McMurphy needs just one more vote and he starts going around the ward to fish for that one decisive vote. There has been a series of reversals as McMurphy experiences near-wins and set-backs. Finally, he goes to Chief Bromden and after a lot of jumping and shouting manages to get him to raise his hand but by that time the meeting has adjourned – another reversal brings the confrontation to an end and McMurphy seems to have lost (the ‘false resolution’). He goes to sit in front of the TV set and suddenly starts yelling at it like there’s a game on. Other patients are first confused but then join in. This is a more active resolution to the scene and illustrates a development in McMurphy’s attitude – he hasn’t given in. So despite not getting the permission to watch the ballgame, his actions expresses a kind of imaginary victory over Miss Ratched (which also echoes the end of the film where McMurphy has failed but his goal is achieved by another character). In the scene from the screenplay, McMurphy gives up too easily and he’s not even part of the resolution of the scene, and Miss Ratched’s tight grip of power remains unaltered. In order for the plot to develop further, the main character needs to have a series of wins and set-backs during the events that lead to more substantial success or complete failure; otherwise the story is standing still. In addition, Dr. Spivey seems to disappear in the scene which is probably the reason he’s left out of the scene in the film.

I recently read “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” by Tom Wolfe. This book is about a group of people back in the 60’s who used LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and wanted to share the experience with the whole world. A friend who knew about my daydream of living in a school bus as I travel the country recommended I read it. She said she wasn’t suggesting it for the drug part but the living in the bus part. Well, what I am about to write is not a commentary on drug laws or the wisdom, or lack thereof, of using substances that alter one’s state of consciousness for whatever reasons. When I started the book I was reading for the adventure of the bus, but after just a few pages I wanted to get inside the heads of these heads so I could try to understand the whole scene. Translated – I wanted to understand what the folks who used LSD were thinking. How did this particular group of people start using LSD? Why did they continue? Why did they want other people to use it? What was the philosophy behind their beliefs? As I found answers to some of these questions I noticed a few other things. Group dynamics, their attitudes toward cops, race relations, idiomatic phrases, influence on fashion, music, and art; all these things are in this book. Some have said it is a very accurate picture of what the hippie life was like at this time. If you are looking for a source of info on the drug culture’s views and influence on any of these subjects, this is probably a good one.

So, back to the first question. How did this particular group get into LSD? It started with Ken Kesey, the author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. In 1959-60 he was a paid volunteer (only the government, right? -”paid volunteer”) for some experiments at the Veteran’s Hospital in Menlo Park,  California. He was paid $75 a day to take whatever pill the guys in the white coats gave him to swallow. As it turns out the whole thing was put on by the CIA. They were doing research into drugs they thought might be used for mind control purposes as well as truth serum during interrogations. So, this is why John Lennon said we could thank the CIA for LSD. Anyway, Kesey figured out which was which among the substances he was ingesting and he managed to take some home and share with the neighbors. Eventually, in the name of ‘progress’ the neighborhood was bulldozed so new houses could be built and Kesey moved to a few acres in a redwood forest. Some of the friends from the old neighborhood came around but there were other folks who were just sort of showing up from here and there as well. One group who didn’t just show up, but came by invitation, was the Hell’s Angels. Eventually, the inside group – you know how that goes – every group has a real inner circle – became known as the Merry Pranksters.

From their perspective they were becoming one in some cosmic sense as they used LSD. Where Timothy Leary went into his own religious vein with it, these guys – these Merry Pranksters  – didn’t want to do it that way. They thought the whole world could do this with them and we could all be these creative peaceful people all happily coexisting with one another. Basically, Ego and Non-Ego would merge and all would become part of the Cosmic Mind. If two people happened to have the same thought at the same time they said they were “in synch” and the merge was happening. This anticipated merge of all things into one was also their explanation for such things as the ability to smell colors when they were high. The way to spread this experience was with big parties they called “acid tests”. LSD was not illegal at this time, by the way; that didn’t happen in California till October 6, 1966. So, they could have these acid tests, with music (usually supplied by the Grateful Dead) and strobe lights and LSD in the Kool-Aid, and not be breaking any laws.

Some folks didn’t understand why this generation was unhappy with the world as it was. After all, they had not suffered through the economic hardship of the Depression and had not lived through WWII. The Cold War sounded like just a lot of talk to some of them. The parents of these youngsters thought they had been given everything and they were going to waste their golden opportunity to have a suit-and-tie good life. The parents who held this view appeared to their deep-thinking children to be living a one-dimensional life. They wanted more than a job, house, car and 2.5 children. They had a spiritual yearning, a desire for meaning, that wasn’t satisfied. And a lot of them couldn’t get answers to their questions about life from their parents. Seems some parents couldn’t even explain why they held their own moral and/or religious beliefs. Since the parents had lived through the difficult times, it seemed a reasonable goal to them to just have a peaceful and quiet life along with nice material possessions. They thought a sense of security was a wonderful thing and their offspring thought it was boring and totally lacking in purpose. This group of Pranksters did not want to be a nameless, faceless cog in the machine. They sought an alternate way of living, but not by spiritual means. I really wanted to put a label on this and call it Existentialism, but I’m not so sure that fits. They were creating their own reality and meaning inside their own heads but they also wanted to merge with something outside themselves. Nietzsche, the Bible, the I Ching…all are mentioned in the book but like Tom Wolfe says, everything centers on the experience of using LSD. In that sense, maybe LSD was the religion; during the early 60’s drugs were used in an attempt to find meaning. (Francis Schaeffer wrote about this in “How Should We Then Live”. It’s been about 30 years since I’ve read this book and I probably need to read it again.) In the end though Kesey said they were only going through the same door over and over and he wanted to find the thing beyond this acid thing.

Gotta’ tell you about this bus. It was a 1939 International Harvester school bus that Ken Kesey bought under the name “Intrepid Trips, Inc.” The Pranksters painted it in bright, beautiful, wild psychedelic colors and named it “Furthur”. There was an opening in the top where the Pranksters could climb out and ride on top and play the flute in such a way that the music matched the expressions on the faces of the folks on the street who tried to take in this site. Reactions were mixed.  The US wasn’t real big on bright colors back then. Houses were mostly white or pastel colors with lots of brown and gray roofs, and cars were the same type of tame colors, so this bus was a shocker. So were the passengers with their faces painted with Day-Glo paint and wearing clothing that could really only be called costumes. They drove across the south and then up to New York in a failed attempt to visit with Timothy Leary, then back to California by a northern route. All along the way they gave out LSD to people who had never heard of it before.

I am amazed they made the trip from California to New York and back all in one piece. Oh, this bus adventure happened in the summer of 1964. If I had been on the freeway at the right time I would have seen them pass through where I lived. Back to the “all in one piece” comment. These folks’ heads were so messed up. They had to leave a young lady passenger in Houston who ended up in a psych ward. The driver was coming unglued but they were so freaked out on LSD and other things besides, that just like with the lady, they didn’t realize what was happening to the poor guy at first. When they figured it out they just tried to show him some love and make him all better.  That didn’t work. So, they were really only “in one piece” physically. Mentally, it was a bit different for a couple of them. If you look up race relations in 1964 you will understand the danger they were in when they decided to jump in and swim at a segregated beach at Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans. The cops rescued them from that predicament. And of course, anyone who is driving while totally freaked out and doesn’t kill anyone who’s on the road with them is a bit more than “intrepid” – that person is traveling under Divine Protection.

This was one of the most interesting books I’ve read. I learned that you can’t lump the drug users of the early 60’s in with the ones of the late 60’s. In the early 60’s, drug use was tied in with ideology but, by the end of the decade hope was lost as it seemed that society was unraveling at the seams and drug use became a means of escape from life. I’ve run across some of the people who are part of this story in a book, “The Sixties Chronicles”. I remember quite a lot considering how young I was at the time, but reading “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” has made me want to read more about this incredible and tumultuous decade.

A Hollywood joke of what might be called the “Manson period”: You’re in Hollywood, you’re walking the streets, you’ve eaten nothing but bananas (what else?) for four days. As you droop at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, a long black limousine pulls up beside you. The door opens: a fat man with short arms emerges. He’s wearing a beret and jodhpurs and there’s a cigarette holder between his lips. He’s definitely in the movies. He’s holding a sandwich and he says, “Hey, kid.”

Your attention is arrested. The sandwich is a very tasty-looking California sandwich, full of good things, like avocado and watercress. And you know somehow that it’s not just nourishment, but maybe…a career!

“You want this?” asks the Hollywood man. “It’s yours!”

One day everything changed. One afternoon Janice and I were smoking dope with a couple of actors, a married couple, around our age. They were friends of John Wayne’s and often appeared in his westerns, and they observed that he would not have approved of their smoking gage. 

The wife had been to the beach, where she said she had seen two animals fighting. 

“What kind of animals?” I asked her, picturing, I suppose, Kodiak bears or elephant seals.

“I think…I think,” ventured the stoned lovely, “I think they were winkles.”

Everyone watched in leaden-eyed tolerance while I rolled around the fuzzy rug, convulsed. It was the funniest line I had ever heard in my life. Forty minutes later, when I had suppressed my last yak, we went outside to look over BenedictCanyon. It was the kind of Los Angeles summer day that Nathanael West could describe with such exquisitely turned admiration and loathing. Sumptuous, sensual, euphorbia-scented. Hummingbirds sipped nectar.

“That’s the house,” the young woman who had seen the animals said.

The four of us stood and looked down at an attractive greenswarded property on Cielo Drive in Bel-Air. I had stopped laughing. For quite a while we stood and looked at it. Everyone had to have a look.

I was walking into the coffee shop of the Beverly Hills Hotel the next day, and a couple of women who worked in the gift shop were in close converse. One listened open-mouthed and pale. The other, the speaker, said her husband was a deputy and had been to the house. He had seen awful things there and had been unable not to tell her.

“He said it looked like a fag murder,” the deputy’s wife said.

I filed the line away, never to use it, but her story sort of spoiled my day. I went back to the Chateau to do a joint with Janice.

“Where did you get the dope?” she asked. “Did you buy some?”

It was Jay Sebring’s dope, and he had given it to me at a party. Jay Sebring, who had named himself after the Florida seaside raceway, was now dead, a victim of the Mansonites. He had been a hairdresser from New Jersey, had reinvented himself in the Hollywood style, a nice man. He was a friend of Abigail Folger, a woman I knew a little. Abigail was born to ride in pursuit of those boars up in the CarmelValley, as beautiful a flower of California as grew. Her wealth came from coffee. She was intelligent and kind and as classy as could be. She spent a lot of time volunteering with children in Watts. Many people say they will never forget what she was like, what her smile was like, until the young nonconformists eviscerated her to write misunderstood Beatles lyrics in blood on the wall of the house on Cielo Drive.

It was saturnalia time in Hollywood, a very grim feast of the meaningless. The youngsters disappeared from the boulevard as though the bad father of the feast had eaten them. For some time Manson went uncaught and the police put out false leads. Before his capture, the most extraordinary speculations as to motive and perpetrator went around. The most unsettling involved the number of people who suspected one another of having a hand in the murders. This included famous people who used not to do such things.

Then the Manson Family went down, and the theorizing and the interpretation exfoliated. Nixon had done it. Why? To embarrass the antiwar movement. A well-known person offered a theory that naval intelligence had killed the victims, which I personally resented. A droll speculation, that one, because it involved the CNO, old Mormon Admiral Moorer, reviving the Phineas Priesthood and sending forth the assassins, all in the name of victory in Vietnam.

Fear appeared in a handful of dust. When the bearded trolls and their consorts were run out of town, fear remained. People hired bodyguards. At one house (I swear) the protection would follow a swimmer doing laps up and down the length of the swimming pool, admittedly a very long one. One movie person claimed she had fired her security when the man asked if he could come inside and play the piano.

“I’d just as soon…you know.” Indeed.

Something over five years after the John F. Kennedy assassination, and the event had something of the same resounding emptiness. Hollywood is a self-referential place and then as now it was full of rise and fall and blighted hopes, anger, disappointment, dope, and toadying and jealousy. Everything except maybe good sex. Suddenly something happens that makes everything even less sensible and significant than before, the total nothingness at the heart of thingness explodes in front of you. Not everyone’s a philosopher. Never did the lights go on so fast and the glitz come off the columns and the glass balls shatter as in the wake of a couple of murders.

Things could not be made to be the same. There was an earthquake, really–a small one, but we felt it at Oblath’s.

A number of people who were friends or acquaintances of Kesey passed through town. Kesey’s credo was that nothing human was alien to him, and most folks were close enough. Ken’s friends, a wandering band known as the Hog Farm, had coalesced around a cultural figure who called himself Wavy Gravy. Wavy had once been a cafe poet in New York and had followed the sixties trail to California, where some transcendent experience had provided him with a renewed identity and new name. One of the stories current about him was that he had been cashiered from the comedy troupe the Committee for appearing for a show in a tweed jacket with salami arm patches. The Hog Farmers were fine young people for all I ever knew, but it was bruited about that they spent some time out at the Spahn Movie Ranch with the Mansonites. Me, I was a friend of Kesey’s, too, a friend of a friend of Richard Baba Ram Dass Alpert, who had bum-tripped me back when. Alpert was the ex-colleague of Timothy Leary, who knew everyone and had connections with the Brotherhood of Eternal Life, who were considered heavy. And connections proliferated. Leary’s “archivist” was my NYU and Paris pal Michael, the man who would go on to become the father of a beautiful movie star, although this was naturally unknown at the time. We were smoking Jay Sebring’s dope, and so on and so on.

As the summer of 1969 lengthened, there was a whole lot of shaving going on in

We decided to go back to England. Life was sane, sort of, and relatively predictable. Before setting out for London we went to what might be called a farewell party. Nitrous oxide was currently big on the scene. In the nineteenth century, many will know, it played a role in American scientific and intellectual history. At Harvard, the very place Ram Dass and Leary were experimenting with LSD and turning students on to William James, the author of The Varieties of Religious Experience and brother of Henry, the brother of the master novelist had conducted his own experiment with nitrous oxide, some eighty-odd years earlier. Nitrous oxide was used early as an anesthetic in dentistry, and Harvard students had taken to frolicking with the stuff. So joyous were the cries of delighted insight that Professor James heard echoing through the Yard that the liberal-minded and adventurous scholar thought he might try some.

One evening the savant set a tank by his bed, connected to a pipe. As the chimes sounded across the gables, Professor James passed into a profound reverie. Suddenly he came to consciousness, his intellection ablaze with discovery. He had happened, with the aid of this wonderful elixir, on the very meaning–but the very meaning!–of life. Pen and ink were at hand. No sooner had he time to write than a second drowsy numbness passed over him. In the morning he awakened to the merry bells. Leaping from his stern scholar’s bed, he seized the sheet of paper upon which he had inscribed life’s meaning.

How true! And even the obvious must be reexperienced down the generations. That this wisdom not perish but be found by each age in its time may have been the reason for the sudden very-late-sixties popularity of nitrous oxide.

Another joke of the era:

“Man, can you fix me with a doctor that writes?”

“No, man. But I can put you with a hip dentist.”

Anyway, nitrous oxide and its discontents. The party we were attending was indeed a farewell party, since we were bound back to England, now home. But it was, further, a farewell party for the late owner of the nitrous oxide, a graduate student who had delighted in taking his gas while relaxing in a hot bath. While asoak, the luckless man passed out. While he was out, his head slipped beneath the water to rise…never.

Farewell, as Poe observes, the very word is like a bell, and Poe and this graduate student I’m certain would have liked each other.

There was a lot of gas left over, which was good because there were a lot of us there. Here I steel myself for confession. Few readers will fail to experience outrage at what I now feel bound to disclose. But if there is a God in heaven–William James would have known it.

All right, our kids were with us. Everybody’s kids were with them. So we were doing gas with balloons, and you know how kids are with balloons. I mean you had to be there. It was a beautiful day. The kids were having such fun! There was so much gas. And it was hardly as though the late owner of the gas were lying there drowned in a bathtub; he had passed on, and he certainly didn’t require any more gas.

And the kids so liked the balloons, and of course they liked the gas too, taking the gas from the balloons. How this happened, what happened next, nobody is sure because everybody was ripped and fighting greedily over the gas, and the children were fighting greedily over the gas too. So to square it, even-steven it, we declared, we the adult authority, come on, kids, just one balloon’s worth to a kid.

When, would you believe, this one little tyke made this snarky face right at me and said ha ha or hee hee or some shit, “These aren’t balloons! They’re condoms!” And by the spirit of William James, they were condoms. We’d been getting loaded watching small innocent children sucking gas from condoms.

So if the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children had finally caught up with me there, would not the cry have been: Exterminate the brutes!

So we left for London.

—from Robert Stone’s memoir Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest author Ken Kesey and I speak at a 1979 writers’ conference but I resist linking his drug use to my drinking.

I admire two men so much recently.  They are Oscar Wilde and Chuck Palahniuk.  Now, in the back of Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, he is called “a worthy successor to Ken Kesey” or something along those lines by some magazine.  I can’t really remember.  However, this makes me regret not reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as thoroughly and devotedly as I could have.

I found this list – people are posting them all over the web and conveniently crossing off the ones they’ve read, and I thought I’d do the same. I don’t read anywhere near as much as I’d like to, though, so don’t hold it against me until I have actual time on my hands (read: in approximately two and a half years).

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George’s Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O’Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. LawrenceLife of Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

Well, it’s settled. I’ve read sixty nine of the BBC’s top two hundred – which means I’ve only one hundred and thirty one to go (and to be fair, many of them are on my to read list). It does help that the list is so heavy on Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Wilson, because those are two authors who I’ve grown up with (Wilson came first, before I was old enough to know about political satire).

Not a bad effort, though, considering it’s estimated that the average person will have read less than ten.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Number 90 on The Modern Library’s Reader List

The novel looks at how one man, Randall Patrick McMurphy, exposes the manipulative tactics used in a Northwest Psych Ward to make the patients subservient to the over-bearing Nurse Ratched. The narrator is Chief Broden. He pretends to be deaf and dumb and lacks confidence. McMurphy reminds the patients in the ward what it’s like to live and have confidence in themselves; he gives them confidence so they can stand up to the forces that govern their every day life to break free from oppression.

Kesey drew inspiration for the novel after working as the night orderly at a mental health facility. During this time he talked with the patients and witnessed how they interacted with the other people in the facility and those working at the facility. Kesey was also involved in Project MK-ULTRA, a CIA research program looking into mind-control and chemical interrogation, during which time he took LSD and peyote.

Nurse Ratched is one of the most insidious villains because of her ability to manipulate those in her ward without them realizing they are being controlled. “Chief” also refers to the lager picture of society as “The Combine” because he views it as a mechanized entity. The book also minutely deals with how women can either be a maculating or emasculating force in a man’s life.

I read this one before I read Sometimes A Great Notion. I would suggest reading this one before reading Sometimes A Great Notion to get used to Kesey’s writing style before embarking on his longer novel.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, along with many other shows, did a parody of the plot the book.

Sometimes A Great Notion: Number 93 on The Modern Library’s Reader List

The book follows the Stamper family in the midst of a strike. The logging union goes on strike and the Stampers, owning a non-union family business, decide to keep working to supply the regional mill with not only what they would normally produce, but match the number of logs had the union not gone on strike. It also examines the family dynamic between the members of the family: the stubborn patriarch, Henry, his son Hank, the eldest, Leland, Hank’s half-brother and the black-sheep of the family due to his intellectual nature, and Viv, Hank’s wife. Leland returns to Wakonda, Oregon from the East Coast under the guise of helping his family with cutting logs. His underlying motives for the return to his hated home focus on his mother: Leland blames Hank and Henry for ruining his mother’s life.

Kesey’s writing style is very different from that which he uses in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He uses first person narration, but gives each of the characters a chance to narrate. He switches characters with little or no warning. It takes time to get used to, but allows the reader an omnipotent view of the minds of each of the characters. The readers knows what each is thinking and feeling and doing, but the reader is allowed to become involved in the lack of communication that goes on with individual relationships, the family, and even between the town of Wakonda and the Stamper family.

When I first started reading this book, I found the writing style so difficult. I would have to reread paragraphs to figure out exactly which character I was listening to. After I got used to it and to paying attention to the details that clued you into which character was speaking, I really enjoyed it. I quickly became frustrated with the lack of communication between the characters. Viv would be thinking about the things that Hank does that begin to make her love for him break and all I could think was “If you would just talk about it, maybe you could fix it.” I really felt like I was reading an epic tragedy because the novel set up a sense of foreboding for all of the characters because of their beliefs, actions, and shortcomings. A lot of the reviews that I’ve read consider Sometimes a Great Notion Kesey’s magnum opus and I have to agree.

Sometimes I live in the country
Sometimes I live in the town
Sometimes I get a great notion
To jump into the river an’ drown

Quoi de mieux qu’une petite nuance scientifique pour commencer un article? Le tapir et le Aardvark sont deux animaux très différents même si leur apparence physique peut porter à confusion. Je suis tombé dans le piège récemment. Le Aardvark est en fait le nom anglais qu’on donne à l’Orycteropus afer. En français, on dit oryctérope ou encore cochon de terre. C’est un mammifère fourmilier d’Afrique. Donc, si vous être en Amérique centrale et que vous vous questionner à savoir si la bestiole en avant de vous est un tapir ou un oryctérope, par déduction, ce serait un tapir. En effet, des espèces de ce dernier se retrouvent en Asie, en Amérique centrale et du Sud. Donc, un oryctérope en Amérique, ça serait probablement arrangé avec le gars des vues. Une autre différence fondamentale est du côté de l’alimentation : le Tapir est herbivore et l’oryctérope se nourrit essentiellement de termites. Donc, à moins de vous trouver face à face avec un tapir psychotique avec des troubles alimentaires, vous ne le verrez pas se goinfrer de fourmis.

Le tapir est à gauche et l’oryctérope à droite.

Ç’a me fait penser à un de mes groupes fétiches lorsque j’étais ado : Groovy Aardvark.

Je m’amuse donc à constater qu’un des albums de Groovy Aardvark porte le même nom que celui du groupe. On observe l’utilisation d’une figure de style, le pléonasme. En effet,  l’album « Oryctérope » est lancé en 1998 et on doit notamment à celui-ci les morceaux Amphibiens et Ingurgitus. Inutile de dire que ce dernier, qui parle de consommation d’alcool sans limites, est très populaire auprès du « crowd » québécois.

Je me rappelle particulièrement du show aux Francofolies où le chanteur et bassiste (Vince Peake) était peinturé en bleu et avait son complet/cravate sur le dos! Autre souvenir relatif à ça : pétage de gueule dans le trash à cause du trottoir en plein milieu de la foule (mes félicitations au(x) responsable(s) de cette situation! Bien que je suis sarcastique si vous vous posez la question!).

Une autre chose me revient à l’esprit aussi : le fameux show que le groupe avait donné dans le sous-sol de l’église de Ferme-Neuve (un village se situant à quelques dizaines de kilomètres de Mont-Laurier). J’étais au primaire dans l’temps et je n’étais pas encore rendu à être présent à ce genre d’événement. Malgré mon absence à ce spectacle, j’en connais les détails. Les gars étaient à poils et peinturés en bleu. Les seules choses qui cachaient leurs parties intimes étaient leur instrument. Il y aussi le mythe qui veut qu’il y eût distribution de boissons d’avril concoctées avec amour par des gens du style de Tom Wolfe et/ou Ken Kesey qui avaient eu la bonne idée d’ajouter de l’acide dans celles-ci… imaginez un peu l’ambiance qui devait y régner. Évidemment, le groupe a été banni à vie de l’endroit et cette légende est racontée encore par les commères des Hautes-Laurentides! Mythe ou réalité?

« Groovy » (ellipse très utilisée pour parler de Groovy Aardvark) est donc un de ces groupes qui ont forgé mon adolescence et qui veut veut pas, m’a aidé d’une certaine façon à devenir qui je suis. Suite(s) à venir concernant les autres groupes qui ont joué un rôle similaire…

P.-S. Mes salutations à mon ami Daniel qui est dans le fin fond de la jungle et qui m’a donné l’inspiration pour faire cet article. N’ayant pas de livres de référence adéquats sous la main, j’ai dû utiliser internet. J’ai particulièrement eu recours à Wikipédia… Plusieurs personnes (dont M. Dorion, directeur des études classiques à l’UdM) en seraient outrées et j’en suis bien conscient. J’y ai été avec les moyens du bord et j’apporterai les corrections nécessaires éventuellement si je suis dans l’erreur.

By PAT HARTMAN
News Editor

What does a scaler of Everest have in common with a guy sitting on a piece of driftwood on the Oregon shore who hasn’t climbed ten feet above sea level for years? They’re both extreme travelers.

For a lot of people, “extreme” doesn’t necessarily mean going to a remote place, or performing impressive physical deeds, or even seeking a particular kind of thrill. For some, travel is not an occasional luxury, or even a periodic obligation, but a way of life. The “extreme” part is the unending duration of it, and the danger that isn’t sought but that comes anyway.

America has its share of eternally restless wanderers who make their homes in old buses, vans, and even cars. Sooner or later, most of them pass through Venice, California. This piece looks at a few of them, who were featured in Rubber Tramps, a documentary directed by Max Koetter and produced by Kenny Rosen. The film crew started in Venice and worked its way up the California coastline to Oregon, interviewing and immortalizing a fascinating array of road folks such as these:

Ceramic artist Patty has run afoul of the rules governing sales on the boardwalk…During the filming of Rubber Tramps, Patty’s home on wheels was destroyed by fire, and the filmmakers gave her one of their buses. RomTom has spent plenty of time in Venice during his travels, and wrote a good portion of his book Comporting Roadwise in a local cafe.

For a fuller look at the “cast,” the film’s MySpace page shows the whole spectrum: the Vietnam veteran and his son; the Deadhead; the schizophrenic; the Greyhound employee; the aging black bluesman; the various troubadours and philosophers whose words and lives make this such an inspiring chronicle of alternative lifestyles. The film is stitched together with segments of a Ken Kesey interview, as the grand old man tromps around his Oregon farm. It was the last major film project of Kesey’s life. There’s even some antique footage of beat icon Neal Cassady driving the Merry Pranksters’ bus, Furthur.

The ability to be at home anywhere is, nowadays, an extreme life skill. But it used to be the only game in town, back when there was no town. Our roaming hunter-gatherer ancestors knew how to make the whole world their comfort zone. It’s genetic, mostly dormant, but still active in the true Gypsies. The Romany people have been persecuted for centuries, forced into urban ghettos to put an end to their roving, and then persecuted some more. In Europe and the United Kingdom they’re marginalized, and even tolerant Canada is undergoing a wave of Romophobia. In the Czech Republic alone, there have been at least 35 racially motivated murders of Gypsies in the past 20 years. In The Star, Rosie Dimanno, who writes prolifically about the world political scene, provides a summary of the current situation.

At the end of July, 150 Romanian gypsies showed up in Prague because a 17-year-old said to be the “prince” was in the hospital and not expected to live. (It should be noted that one of the gypsy secrets, revealed by a trustworthy source, is that there’s no such thing as Gypsy royalty, it’s just public relations BS to fool the gajos.) They camped someplace, and there were no problems. Then, the public health officials got involved, because to cook out in the open is unsanitary. The Gypsies camped someplace else, but got kicked out of there because it’s a natural heritage site. Then they camped somewhere else…

Well, the young man died. The Gypsies didn’t have enough money to transport the body back to Romania. Not even a third of it. So they hit up the Prague city fathers and the Romanian embassy, which said it would let them know in a couple of weeks. At another campground, the city declined to provide the Gypsies with portable toilets or tanks of drinking water. They might like it too much and decide to stay. They are the archetypal NIMBY triggers. (Somewhat like halfway houses, recycling plants, and various other things that are recognized as good, but to which the average urban dweller is likely to object, saying “not in my back yard.”) Civilized people think the Rom should just get over themselves and settle down. But in some other back yard.

photo courtesy of Dennis Wong , used under this Creative Commons license

Via the Chronicle, in San Francisco where some of the best acid was made in the Bay Area:

Nearly 40 years after widespread fear over recreational abuse of LSD and other hallucinogens forced dozens of scientists to abandon their work, researchers at a handful of major institutions – including UCSF and Harvard University – are reigniting studies. Scientists started looking at less controversial drugs, like ecstasy and magic mushrooms, in the late 1990s, but LSD studies only began about a year ago and are still rare.

The study at UCSF, which is being run by a UC Berkeley graduate student, is looking into the mechanisms of LSD and how it works in the brain. The hope is that such research might support further studies into medical applications of LSD – for chronic headaches, for example – or psychiatric uses.

Know what? I think there was a short window of time when drugs were fun. I am remember reading about when the late Jerry Garcia of the Dead and few more guys tried their first marijuana up in LaHonda (above Palo Alto, California) or Dolores Park in San Francisco or something…and it was pretty hilarious. They were laughing, and falling all over each other, and getting out of breath. And they were young dudes.

But then, drugs got weird because more people got into it who weren’t supposed to be into it. You’d think some people could have consulted some recovering jazz musicians in Harlem, L.A., or Chicago straight out what stuff did to them. Or even Brother Ray. Or read some biographies. For Boomers and Joneses, they continued to experiment with other panaceas or went back to repeat the high of one particular taste. For some people, it did temporarily enhance their creativity; for others, it got them hooked when they needed to be free of the shyt. Drugs weren’t freedom, but it was certainly a snare for some. That’s why George Harrison got religion to strengthen his inner self because it wasn’t enough. A former college lover killed himself, I believe, for reasons stemming from both mental illness and drugs. And Jerry Garcia died on the eve of my going to Southern California to attend graduate school.

I already know what brownies can do to me. They lay me out flat and make me have munchies. I don’t like smoking anything. All I know is that liquor is quicker–it takes only one glass to get high and come down. That’s enough. I have been curious about LSD, but I would have to be with people who would not take advantage of me, and I can’t give myself over like that. I’ve always been one who wants to stay in control of myself. And then, as George Harrison said in the documentary film, It Was Twenty Years Ago Today, it would take about “1000 years” before it wore off. Seriously, he had lots of free time to get over the flashbacks and weirdness. I don’t.

I hope that they can make something helpful out of LSD. I think that was the whole idea in the first place, but then it got snuck out of the laboratory, thanks to Leary and Kesey and the Pranksters, and possibly the CIA to an extent, and as a result, all those bad acid trips and aborted flights out of windows froze serious research and discussion. Not necessarily the expanded consciousnesses: they’re grist for the mill.

Review, courtesy of Amazon: It has been said often enough that baby boomers are a television generation, but the very funny novel High Fidelity reminds that in a way they are the record-album generation as well. This funny novel is obsessed with music; Hornby’s narrator is an early-thirtysomething English guy who runs a London record store. He sells albums recorded the old-fashioned way–on vinyl–and is having a tough time making other transitions as well, specifically adulthood. The book is in one sense a love story, both sweet and interesting; most entertaining, though, are the hilarious arguments over arcane matters of pop music.

I love Nick Hornby’s books, and so, it seems, does everyone else, as they tend to be made into movies. This is another of my Penguin Classics, which, if you’ve not heard of them, are fantastic books, handpicked for their general awesomeness (On the Road is also one, and I also have The Beach and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). They’re sold cheap, at $12.95 in New Zealand, but I’ve become sneaky and with my 10% student discount I can pick one up for $11.70 at University Books.

But yes. Nick Hornby also did About A Boy and Fever Bitch – About A Boy being the one that was made into a  [great] movie starring Hugh Grant and the kid from Skins. Now that I google it, Fever Pitch was also made into a movie, and so was High Fidelity. Must watch that. Before I read the book? After? I can never decide which order it’s best to do it in.

I’ve started to dread weekends.

Recently they’ve turned into a total waste of time for some reason. Totally unproductive. Nothing but a form of limbo. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on, although today I started entertaining the idea that I might be in a rut.

They started going downhill right after Dia went back to work the beginning of this month. She’d been off two months after she was diagnosed with a nervous breakdown and what they think is bipolar type II. It was a fairly serious breakdown, severe enough to warrant five days in the hospital. Even after she was released it was rather difficult for both of us.

Things started to ease up after she started seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist. Dia’s stay in the hospital accelerated her getting in to see them. The psych doubled the dosage of her anti-depressant, the trazadone and the atavan. She started stabilizing about a week after that. I liked that. Her psych considered her a prime candidate for what they nowadays nicely call electro-convulsive therapy. Used to be called electro-shock in the old days. She responded well enough to meds where he didn’t have to resort to ECT as an option, which is great because if I did lose my mind and approve that for Dia, I’d never be able to watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest again. Probably because our youngest daughter, Amanda, would have gouged my eyes out to get down my throat and rip off my testicles, but that’s a different story.

Dia’s therapist worked on her with cognitive therapy. So far, so good with the two courses of treatment, and Dia has stayed away from any alcohol intake, which was aggravating the problem with the bipolar.

When her shit hit the fan, one of the things she’d do was sit with her head in her hands. Just sit like that. No television or radio on, sometimes not even a light. She’d just sit like that. I’d get up in the morning, make a cup of coffee. Then I’d shower or what-not. Then I’d make myself another cup of coffee and one for Dia. I’d lay out her pharmacy, and then coax and cajole her out of bed into the kitchen. After she got half-way through her coffee I’d watch her take her meds.

I won’t get into the conversation we had at that point because I still don’t like to recall it. It was pretty much like getting up every morning and slamming my head into the same crap-covered brick wall for an hour before I’d leave for work.

It wasn’t any better for Dia. Actually, it was worse. I just had to work logistics and provide support; she was the one who had to get better.

About a month into things she started with “I want to go back to work.” Her primary initially gave her 30 days medical leave, and her psychiatrist extended that to the end of October. We managed to get her short-term disability going (have I mentioned lately how much I absolutely loathe insurance companies?) and I was hunkered down for the long haul. But she stayed with the meds, worked with her therapist and psychiatrist. Mid-August her psych released her to go back to work.

Then she decided to get nervous. We eventually worked through that.

She was off four or five months back in ‘06 after going through extreme organ failure– kidneys & liver mainly, but her lungs and heart were incredibly strained, plus there was a clot due to an enlarged aorta and ridiculous volumes of edema. She was in BJC for about a month, mostly in the ICU, and then off work for three or four months after that. She didn’t have any problem going back to work then. This was different for some yet-unknown reason.

It didn’t help that about a week before she was scheduled to go back was when I got my confirming diagnosis. And it probably didn’t help that on her first day back she found out that her company was changing insurance carriers at the end of the year.

To quote Joyce, when I makes water I makes water, and when I makes tea I makes tea.

But weekends changed after Dia went back to work. We didn’t do anything. Grocery shopping, yeah, and laundry. Dia would help with my ironing. Even with absolutely gorgeous weather we’d stay in the apartment for the most part. Even going out to the yard for some low-level garden work was a huge challenge. We’d sit or stumble around all weekend trying to figure out what to do, what had to be done, what we wanted to eat. We’d be in bed by 6:30 or 7:00. Dia would sit around with her head in her hands again. Occasionally she’d have a crying jag. That’s when I wanted to leave, a) because I can not handle women crying, and b) when Dia cries, due to her Celtic heritage she turns into a goddamned snot factory. Her, her sisters, and the girls: when they start crying it’s like they have hoses hooked up to mucous hydrants attached to the inside of their nostrils.

I can’t handle that shit. I always dealt with the broken bones and blood when the girls were young, but that stuff…

But I couldn’t leave because… because… hell, I don’t know why I couldn’t leave. Let’s let it lay there. Things were all immensely complicated and overwhelming. And it gotten worse weekend-to-weekend.

The week is fine. Dia was eager– though reluctant– to go back to work. She likes her job, enjoys what she does. Heck, my rabbit is absolutely fantastic, the second-best job I’ve ever had. They keep me busy and jumping around like Jack Flash. I don’t have time to think about anything outside of work. The time flies. Quitting time starts to roll up and I get bummed. There have been a couple days I had to stay late and didn’t complain, didn’t think of complaining. A couple times people would walk past and comment, aren’t you supposed to be gone?

Shit, I don’t want to go home. The weekend will be here soon enough.

I decided that this past weekend we were going to go out and do something. I didn’t care what, just something. We had no plan since trying to figure out what to do was too damned overwhelming. We started off by going to Penzey’s Spices in Maplewood. I needed some dried lavender to whup up a witch hazel infusion as my aftershave. Yeah, we have about a half-dozen lavender plants in the back yard, but harvesting the blooms this year went out the window with other gatherings of roses whilst we didn’t.

After Penzey’s we went to the farmers’ market in Kirkwood. We had absolutely no idea what we were going to fix food-wise for the coming week. We’ve been to the point where we eat because we have to, not because we enjoy it or want to. For me, the concept of food has become a bit disgusting of late. We wandered around stalls of fruit and vegetables, jams and breads, and kept saying to the other, what do you want? What looks good to you? Any ideas?

We didn’t buy anything, but it killed a couple of hours.

I did pick up a couple of plants– another prairie blazing star and a crested iris. New plants always perk me up, plus Friday I spent some time gathering up seed for next year.

So things are a bit strange, a tad strained. Even writing this is a chore for whatever reason. It’s almost like I’m waiting for the words to tell me what’s going on, what the next step is, what the resolution might be.

So far, they haven’t done that.