Koan: the sound of one reader's hand clapping
citycabn (citycabn@gateway.net)
Fri, 15 Jan 1999 20:51:00 -0800
CAMILLE, WILL, MATTIS, AND YES, YOU TOO, DEAR SONNY!
Okay, have you all read my post of Friday, January 15, 1999, 4:15 PM.
AND CHECK DIGEST 570 AGAINST, YES THE SECOND PAGE OF TEXT OF *my*, yes, I'll
gladly type it all out ,now: THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, PAGE 4. Yes, "Sonny"
it was *my* mother who gave me *your* book to read. The very first time it
sailed over my head at oh 15. But then, under exteme stress, moving to
California in the summer of 68--I turned to it. AND LATER CAME TO REALIZE,
WITH THE HELP OF SOM P. RANCHAN, AND HIS DEAR FAMILY, I WILL NAME THEM:
INDU, RAHULL, RENEE AND DEEPAK the *actual* reality of the Glasses, that
Literature, is , can be a fourth dimension if only readers would put their
hearts and souls and precious eyesight into it. Ah, yes, the eyes: portal
to the soul, avenue to behold this strange, mysterious ununderstandable
planet we happen to be on this very second.
Greetings to you from the Golden Gate.
CAMILLE, have you had the time and chance to check my solution to the
riddle, yet?
Mattis, dear Mattis, who wrote me the email that started it all this very
morning?
Okay, will, lower case , as you prefer: WHAT DO YOU SAY. Am I NUTS or
just a good close reader, and lucky to boot!
I am very tired and my wife, now I can say it, Joan, thinks I'm way over
into the deep end. It's hard, or damn neigh, impossible to convince someone
of this IF they haven't lived with these oh so remarkable texts; perhaps the
finest flowering of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda mission. How a line rings
in my head--ok, not like the Angel's to Rilke at Duino in January of
1912--no, probably THAT will never happen again. Mr. Salinger, thank you
form the bottom of my heart for including that reference to Rainer Maria
Rilke in your wondrous work. Shall I call you the Groucho Marx of the most
incredible Literary Puzzle yet? And thank you, dearest Camille. I never
really thought Joe Jackson existed, but I dimly recall years ago seeing a
photo of him in a book, I *think*. Davega bicycles, Australia, the most
incredible singing voice, and old vaudeville. An incredible achievement.
Okay, I'm way too tired for all this--it isnt like *I've* had *my * Muzot.
BUT:
yes, it calls for a new paragraph of its own--
remember, all of you poets, or would be poets, how incredibly hard it is to
get the Muse to speak in poetry. Rilke did it like breathing. Two years
ago, I ran into a woman from Palo Alto at the Legion of Honor, an Austrian.
She was copying a painting in the museum in the Legion of Honor,which I
glimpse from my front window. Ilse , dont know last name, from palo alto.
Originally from Vienna, dear old Vienna, yes. *She* had just returned, IF
you can believe it from Raron, where RMR is buried. Gave me two photos, one
of the tombstone, one of the church. Mr. Salinger, have YOU visited Raron?
I hope to one day, when I get the money. Money, bit of a problem. My old
law firm, Brobeck Phleger and Harrison (and *I* wont forget that all
important LLP which they cunningly added to *their* august name; probably if
they had not eliminated the proofreadind department, 7 mid-age , oh, lets
just call them misfits of todays reeved up society that's so intent on
zooming up to the moon.
NOTE WELL: On February lst, the last, I say, very last February of this
millienium begins. OKAY, gang of bananfishers, recall my Rilke post, the
second, not the first, where I was all but shouting for pure joy, as if
indeed the Muse atop that mountain in the first RMR rant--Everest, deigned
to visit me for just a moment.
YES, FEBRUARY OF 1922 WHEN ORPHEUS LAST APPEARED IN THIS MADDENING
HEARTBREAKING CENTURY THAT , thank god, is almost OVER.
IF ONE CAN VENTURE A QUIICK GUESS, *that* WILL BE THE TRUE REASON TO
CELEBRATE THE END OF THIS YEAR AS IT SLOWLY DRAINS OUT AMIDST AMERICAN
CONFETTI AND DRUNKENNESS, AMERICA OF THE LATE LATE LATE 2ND MILLENIUM HAS
FAILED TO REMEMBER AT LEAST 75% OF ITS CITIZENS. Hate to say, calming down
now, but alas it does seem the dream once nourished and so bravely fought
for in WWII, and yet also can touch the feet of those , who like Robert
Lowell, were COs. Enough, Joan is hear telling me it is time to sign off.
I look forward to some, shall we say, more than interesting emails in my
inbasket soon, or should I say, Soon.
(an aside: why NOT fix the typo, in the paperback editon of Raise High and
Seymour an Intro, in that chant of a passage, that litany of litanies, that
*my* heart thrilled to, like the heart of the curlew sandpiper, was it.
*YOU*, "Sonny" know the passage I mean:
Surely, he was all *real* things to us: our blue-striped unicorn, our
double-lensed burning glass, our consultant genius, our portable conscience,
our supercargo, and our one full poet.... WHY allow the typo to mar it in
the Bantam paperback editions, one of the "our"s missed by a proofreader,
missed by you yourself as you read proofs. Didnt you receive in Cornish my
note and the photocopy of the text in the paperback bantam and cloth Little
Brown. Isnt, if IF I am not mistaken, STILL in the paperback in bookstores
NOW.
Okay, this has been a really incredible ten days. Sort of like solving some
mystery out of one of your favorite authors from the reading list YOU snunck
into Hapworth. (Yes, Sir Conan who actually lived awhile here in S.F., I
would ride by the placque and wave. ) As a reward to the readers who truly
read your work, and care not a whit what is going on in today's English
literature classes, why not, in celebration of the new millenium--what a
treat for all amateur readers and readers who just read and run: to get at
least another story, to add to the mosaic of your incredible Glass Saga.
Again, many thanks from the bottom of my heart.
Hapworth 15, 1999 and on to 2000, please.
My wife tells me I MUST stop now or she is going to call my shrink. Is she
right, and , or am, that all is quite calm at the moment. It's just a
little satori and life goes on and feet become holy to touch because all we
really do is go from one little piece of holy ground to the next.
PS: Seymour was my guru. Initiated me in a dream I had in 1971, if you
*really* want to hear about it.
Okay, to please my wife Joan I am stopping now. Yes: Now!