January 2
I needed a COM-POZ today but did yoga instead. Some days I really feel like disappearing (poof). Now that the house thing is off my shoulders there's this rent strike thing & 11 people in the coop are striking (inc. us) to protest abolition of rent control. I don't wanna get evited now that the house is in my control. All people were here for coop & rent meeting. I have names of strikers on my list.
January 7
Nasty letter from landlord can be ignored. . . Li'l Mike came over & sat. He didn't know Joe's leaving and Kitty left too. He needs somethig to do so badly. Just comes over looking for dope. Tried for a flik but The Last Picture Show was sold out. Weird sleeping here alone. CRA is taking over building w/ free rent & based on need. Weird.
January 11
Old hippie me w/ long skirt at work. Hard to bicycle with that & my rotten machine. Girl came from CRA today - Joe & Dave talked to her. Paid 1/2 of rent to Lubart so's we don't get arrested. Rent control passed too. Horrah. Sue here - neat. Dave Deihl is reported to have told Nana bout me cohabiting, etc. Wot a turd.
February 3
MIND EXPANDING EXERCISE:
Poliics: change things, resist evil people, materialistic
Religion: Go with the flow, they [difficult people] are your karma, permanent, unchanging, spiritual
Both: Common Humanity
Politics: work for oppressed brothers & sisters, human like you so you wouldn't like being oppressed.
Spirituality: All part of cosmic soul, all equally entitled, wish no bad to anyone
BOTH: No ego involvement, anti-intellectualism, common cause identity
[tying to work out/combine my two obsessions]
February 6
It's the fern! [Fen?] People uprooted in mind & spirit. Little Mike been missing for 5 days, dogs been picked up., J & P U B & E at odds, me as usual up in the air with no real Cambridge roots, S. with no job, my parents getting more destitute. Ma had to quit her job because of whiplash & Dad still unemployed. . . Food coop meeting--grape pickets. I must acquire a notebook & study Dolmetch music history. At least I put an Angela Davis poster on Lefkowitz's [BU music history professor] board.
March 17
This may be a bearable weekend--wot with party & coop dinner here (hostess Cancer Marcia) & finally decided to drop out of Ananda Marga & into CTOC or Sci. for the People. Within a few years I too can be a frustrated Cambridge intellectual radical like Harry Winner et al. at Jeannie's house. My horroscope basket & etc. are pushing me into it--service as a radical, lasting service, not bandaid social work. Al asked me to be on the editorial collective of SFP & boy I'd dig it. Typed Peter Pan [home production for party] all morn did stuff. Org. meeting all afternooon. They're frustrated but I want to get it together against overlords at BU.
March 27
Big stinko at BU with cops bashing kids who were protesting Marine recruitment. Emotionalism. Tom and Rita were there & reported back shaking. So I must side with the rads & not let intellectualism weigh me down. D and I wrote leaflet for SFAA (relieved guilt?). Astrology is therapy making me look at life positively but political insight voids it as intelletual cop-out. Stoned cousins demanded Motown concert & I gave it.
March 31
Xeroxed wedding music and practiced a bit on BU organs, then to concerned BU turds meeting. Heavy psychooogical trip for me. I kept saying things which nobody responded to & didn't know anyone. 'Cept Jeff Levy & we talked about all the radical chic professors doing their professional thing. Attacking David Rubin for holding classes--if he's thinking, what would I do? I think they got pissed at what I said about intellectuals. Wipe out.
April 4
Workshop in lobby at DGE with RYM & PLP & YS vs. Roy Wates, Trustees, Mirak--all striking for different reasons. What's wrong with conscience, Al? Where is the one voice in the radical movement as intellectual researching the screwing mechanisms of the power structure? Being nice questioners? Is it enough to challenge your own bosses ally with the poor? Or should your only reasons be that the powers are screwing the poor out of a sense of conscience? I s'pose one should only hate the government which opposes all. Paul the Anarchist with big smile . . Evening for harpsichord work & watching Bogart & Mung in circles [dog & cat].
April 7
Having some real mind changing thoughts about guilt & solidarity & revolution & classes lately. It doesn't do good to be guguilty cause you'll try as soon as you can to get rid of it by performing one act congratulating yourself. Instead one should realize the ongoing need tor commitment to challenging the system (capitalist), building for a humane (art-preserving, spirituality preserving) socialism. I can no longer hate artists, Woodstock hoppies, but they need a clearer picture of how they fit in. Life is too easy for pigs but they must be confronted. They will react & tighten their grip, being human. And they're people too, but one can't be too nice & never raise waves.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
BIZARRE SONG PARTY . . . B'DAY TOO, August 9, 2 p.m.
PLEASE COME TO MY BIZARRE SONG/B'DAY PARTY
"Because you can love the sixties TWICE" . . .
Please come help me celebrate my July b'day with the 9th MD Bizarre Song Party. Bring a bizarre song, yourself, no presents necessary. We'll face mortality with a song!
SUNDAY AUGUST 9, 2009
OUTPOST (www.zeitgeist-outpost.org)
2 p.m.
FREEEEEE
Featuring "From the Indes to the Andes in His Undies," "Send in the Clams" and more. Prizes for all who enter.
Bring something to eat or drink . . . no gifts necessary
Monday, June 22, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
PETE SEEGER's 90th BIRTHDAY! Party in Cambridge
A time to heal, a time to PARTAY!! Sing along with me in honor of Pete Seeger!
Yes folks, it's Cambridge, MA, not NYC. where The Boss and Pete will be holding forth at Madison Square Garden.
But we'll sing and tell Pete stories around the old campfire, uh, air conditioner, All INVITED:
SUNDAY MAY 3
3 - 5 P.M.
Home of:
Emily Baily and John Winslow
105 Lexington Ave.
Cambridge, MA
Contact: Rena Lieb 617-354-4390 or email: rena@englishchick.com
Yes folks, it's Cambridge, MA, not NYC. where The Boss and Pete will be holding forth at Madison Square Garden.
But we'll sing and tell Pete stories around the old campfire, uh, air conditioner, All INVITED:
SUNDAY MAY 3
3 - 5 P.M.
Home of:
Emily Baily and John Winslow
105 Lexington Ave.
Cambridge, MA
Contact: Rena Lieb 617-354-4390 or email: rena@englishchick.com
Friday, April 3, 2009
GENETIC PREDISPOSITION TO WRITING LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
THE DEMAND FOR DRUGS
Filling addicts' spiritual void
April 2, 2009
Filling addicts' spiritual void
KARL MARX once said that religion was the opiate of the people. In his March 30 op-ed, Roland Merullo is saying that drugs are the opiate of the people.
Perhaps what people seek in drugs is relief from the fact that they are missing the essential facets of human self-actualization. People look for work that is creative and useful, human dignity, a cultural heritage that is inclusive and not exclusive, a sense of community, values that are not all materially based, empathy instead of shame and blame toward others, and emotionally healthy self-expression.
Since neither capitalism nor communism has been able to support these values, Americans still do drugs. Many find a healthy alternative in houses of worship, which can substitute Spirit for spirits. For nonchurchgoers, where is the hope? I have experienced these things both in faith communities and in social justice communities, in artistic circles, and in face-to-face gatherings such as writing groups and book clubs. Whatever connects us as humans can help to address that lonely spot that drives people to various addictions.
Marcia Deihl
Cambridge
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Filling addicts' spiritual void
April 2, 2009
Filling addicts' spiritual void
KARL MARX once said that religion was the opiate of the people. In his March 30 op-ed, Roland Merullo is saying that drugs are the opiate of the people.
Perhaps what people seek in drugs is relief from the fact that they are missing the essential facets of human self-actualization. People look for work that is creative and useful, human dignity, a cultural heritage that is inclusive and not exclusive, a sense of community, values that are not all materially based, empathy instead of shame and blame toward others, and emotionally healthy self-expression.
Since neither capitalism nor communism has been able to support these values, Americans still do drugs. Many find a healthy alternative in houses of worship, which can substitute Spirit for spirits. For nonchurchgoers, where is the hope? I have experienced these things both in faith communities and in social justice communities, in artistic circles, and in face-to-face gatherings such as writing groups and book clubs. Whatever connects us as humans can help to address that lonely spot that drives people to various addictions.
Marcia Deihl
Cambridge
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Harvard Review, Book review of "Owls Head" by Rosamond Purcell
Owls Head by Rosamond Purcell, Quantuck Lane Press, 2003, $25.00 cloth, ISBN 0971454868.
Form imitates subject in this story of William Buckminster, a Maine scrapyard dealer, and the friendship he shares with the author, Rosamond Purcell, an internationally-acclaimed writer and photographer. Bits of buried treasure are well worth the digging out of the seemingly unrelated chapters that zig and zag the story along. "Infiltration" tells of the author's first sighting of the dealer's domain; "Rag and Bone Shop" is an index of some of the objects she finds ("head of a broom like an army brush cut"); "Transgression" describes her long-awaited entry into his home. Purcell's structure mirrors not only his random collection but also her mind's surprising leaps. We begin with a profile of this rural eccentric and his kingdom of decaying objects, but we hit pay dirt with an exploration of how Purcell pursues her tendency to "fall in love . . . with the way things look."
William Buckminster, now nearing eighty, presides over (and is in mortal danger of being buried by) eleven acres of stuff-two centuries' worth of family antiques, decaying books, mountains of copper, rotting doll heads, and desiccated miscellany. Purcell, a sculptor and photographer, as well as a collaborator with Stephen J. Gould on three books and a column about art and science, is enchanted by the siren song of these piles. Her photos and essays have long been known for their precise composition of decaying books and objects. She finds mysterious lessons in the messages created by termites' random erasure of certain words on a book's page, the juxtaposition of animal and human images, and the way her rotting assemblages evoke a story. When she sees Buckminster's rubbish heap, she has found her Holy Grail.
They meet in 1981 when a photography class she is teaching in Rockport, Maine, goes on the road in search of subjects. "On the road to Owl's Head lighthouse . . . we saw it . . . It was mysterious in its excess. It was as if a magnet had dragged several hotels, a waterfront, and a whole town up or down the coast to this spot." She keeps returning, sometimes with a friend or a tape recorder, to snatch up more hood ornaments, hat blocks, gas caps, and ancient golf balls. Over time, she mines the owner's history as well as his property. But she refrains from mere clinical labels to explain his obsessions, for she feels a kinship with him. The mutual affection and respect between this "city girl" and the quiet but highly-opinionated widower is made clear in the conversation they have in the chapter called "Transcription." After twenty years of one-way visits, Purcell finally shows Buckminster around her Boston studio, and he pronounces it "absolutely amazing."
Purcell writes in the first chapter: "It will take the length of this book to explain the ways in which this love manifests itself." The author's artistic vision began at a young age, perhaps as a reaction to an academic father who always addressed his children with the question "Where is your book?" When she showed him her termite-eaten book piece, he tried to extract factual meaning from the remaining text. She, on the other hand, had stuffed the holes with butterfly wings, inspired by the theme of regeneration inherent in three of the remaining words, pere et fils.
Purcell's prose is as precise as her vision. She addresses potentially heavy subjects like aesthetic theory with a lightness of style, and her synapse-hops of delight in intuitive connection are contagious. After meditating on a piece displaying "the nature of Cat," she begins with a porous stone cat. She eventually positions a worm-bored shell, a piece of worm-eaten bread from World War I, and a bit of accordion next to it. Why? "The differences between wood and stone, bread, shell, and cat melt away because they are now together as Things that have Holes."
At five by eight inches, the book is too small to do justice to the photo reproductions in the lengthy but important "Notes" section. Still, it is a must for found-object fetishists, connoisseurs of surreal roadside discoveries, and family humanists of all generations.
Marcia Deihl
Copyright Harvard Review, Volume 26
Form imitates subject in this story of William Buckminster, a Maine scrapyard dealer, and the friendship he shares with the author, Rosamond Purcell, an internationally-acclaimed writer and photographer. Bits of buried treasure are well worth the digging out of the seemingly unrelated chapters that zig and zag the story along. "Infiltration" tells of the author's first sighting of the dealer's domain; "Rag and Bone Shop" is an index of some of the objects she finds ("head of a broom like an army brush cut"); "Transgression" describes her long-awaited entry into his home. Purcell's structure mirrors not only his random collection but also her mind's surprising leaps. We begin with a profile of this rural eccentric and his kingdom of decaying objects, but we hit pay dirt with an exploration of how Purcell pursues her tendency to "fall in love . . . with the way things look."
William Buckminster, now nearing eighty, presides over (and is in mortal danger of being buried by) eleven acres of stuff-two centuries' worth of family antiques, decaying books, mountains of copper, rotting doll heads, and desiccated miscellany. Purcell, a sculptor and photographer, as well as a collaborator with Stephen J. Gould on three books and a column about art and science, is enchanted by the siren song of these piles. Her photos and essays have long been known for their precise composition of decaying books and objects. She finds mysterious lessons in the messages created by termites' random erasure of certain words on a book's page, the juxtaposition of animal and human images, and the way her rotting assemblages evoke a story. When she sees Buckminster's rubbish heap, she has found her Holy Grail.
They meet in 1981 when a photography class she is teaching in Rockport, Maine, goes on the road in search of subjects. "On the road to Owl's Head lighthouse . . . we saw it . . . It was mysterious in its excess. It was as if a magnet had dragged several hotels, a waterfront, and a whole town up or down the coast to this spot." She keeps returning, sometimes with a friend or a tape recorder, to snatch up more hood ornaments, hat blocks, gas caps, and ancient golf balls. Over time, she mines the owner's history as well as his property. But she refrains from mere clinical labels to explain his obsessions, for she feels a kinship with him. The mutual affection and respect between this "city girl" and the quiet but highly-opinionated widower is made clear in the conversation they have in the chapter called "Transcription." After twenty years of one-way visits, Purcell finally shows Buckminster around her Boston studio, and he pronounces it "absolutely amazing."
Purcell writes in the first chapter: "It will take the length of this book to explain the ways in which this love manifests itself." The author's artistic vision began at a young age, perhaps as a reaction to an academic father who always addressed his children with the question "Where is your book?" When she showed him her termite-eaten book piece, he tried to extract factual meaning from the remaining text. She, on the other hand, had stuffed the holes with butterfly wings, inspired by the theme of regeneration inherent in three of the remaining words, pere et fils.
Purcell's prose is as precise as her vision. She addresses potentially heavy subjects like aesthetic theory with a lightness of style, and her synapse-hops of delight in intuitive connection are contagious. After meditating on a piece displaying "the nature of Cat," she begins with a porous stone cat. She eventually positions a worm-bored shell, a piece of worm-eaten bread from World War I, and a bit of accordion next to it. Why? "The differences between wood and stone, bread, shell, and cat melt away because they are now together as Things that have Holes."
At five by eight inches, the book is too small to do justice to the photo reproductions in the lengthy but important "Notes" section. Still, it is a must for found-object fetishists, connoisseurs of surreal roadside discoveries, and family humanists of all generations.
Marcia Deihl
Copyright Harvard Review, Volume 26
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Book Review , Nadine Gordimer's "Loot"
Loot and Other Stories
Nadine Gordimer
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
New York
ISBN 0374190909, $23.00 US (hardcover).
Marcia Deihl
Reviewer
As new readers discover the Nobel-prize-winning expatriate South African writer J. M. Coetzee, another South African writer may catch some of this reflected light. Nadine Gordimer's new book of ten short stories, "Loot," deserves it.
Although she is known as a "political" writer, Gordimer delights in more metaphysical matters here. Reincarnation and myth address human powerlessness (over death) just as stories about injustice address our ultimate limitations (in life). In Part 1 of the last story, "Karma," bad things happen to good families, black and white, when they buy a cunning little Dutch gabled house. This five-part story follows several "returns" of one spirit in different bodies and different lives. In one section the narrator is an unborn twin; in another, a white child is found in a toilet in a black township, brought up by black parents, and moves to the city. When she falls in love with a white man, all the questions of identity, home, race, and law are thrown into conflict. At first, deep in love, she sees no problem as she prepared to meet his nice middle class parents: " . . love is in the present, it's her hand slipping beneath his shirt to his chest, it's reading together descriptions of the places in the world maybe they'll save up to see. She did not say: they know I'm white. As if he heard the thought:--I know . . But that you grew up there, school and home, people who are like--your parents, to you--" Their advocate, a Jewish lawyer (stand in for Gordimer herself?), has a fine appreciation for racial injustice, and she battles to prove that this white woman is indeed white. But in a country where blacks often try to pass for white, a hastily drawn up birth certificate ("Race: Colored"--no white parents known) dooms the couple. A few years later, post- apartheid, there would have been no problem, and the formless narrator wonders how an arbitrary law could shift a couple's world so completely. Everyone loses when the literal color of one's skin calls forth decades of complex cultural histories. And South Africa is more complex than the United States, since it has a majority black culture and eleven separate languages are spoken, besides the colonizer's Afrikaans.
The first story, which some have called a naive fable, is the most challenging. Double reversals, mirror images, and the giant toggle switch of fate all enter into play. A giant wave floods away a town, leaving the ocean floor full of a former regime's riches. The poor forage for treasure, amidst the bodies of their murdered compatriots, but a rich man wants only one thing, a mirror. When he finds it, he looks in, and suddenly a second wave washes him away, along with all the others. Before his demise, he had slept with a print of "The Great Wave" by Hokusai, behind his bed. But he never gazed on it, since it was behind him. Did he not see the overthrow of apartheid coming? And when he looked in the mirror, did he see himself? With remorse or revulsion? Did he see the print, or the real wave? And was that second wave a metaphor for his own inner demons, or the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, finally catching up with him? Gordimer leaves these crystal facets of interpretation up to the reader. This first story intrigued me more than conventional stories like the aging parent/younger woman plot in "Generation Gap," the interracial love affair in "Mission," or the loss of sexual innocence in "The Diamond Mine." It offered a different sort of "return"a constant revisiting of its possible meaning.
Gordimer has often claimed that she will never write autobiography. But the themes of her inner world are clear in her work: the senseless damnation of whole races of people by outdated law and custom, the triumph of sensuality and love across racial barriers, and the painfully slow changes in power in post-apartheid South Africa.
James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129
phone: 1-608-835-7937
e-mail: mbr@execpc.com
e-mail: mwbookrevw@aol.com
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Copyright ©2001
Nadine Gordimer
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
New York
ISBN 0374190909, $23.00 US (hardcover).
Marcia Deihl
Reviewer
As new readers discover the Nobel-prize-winning expatriate South African writer J. M. Coetzee, another South African writer may catch some of this reflected light. Nadine Gordimer's new book of ten short stories, "Loot," deserves it.
Although she is known as a "political" writer, Gordimer delights in more metaphysical matters here. Reincarnation and myth address human powerlessness (over death) just as stories about injustice address our ultimate limitations (in life). In Part 1 of the last story, "Karma," bad things happen to good families, black and white, when they buy a cunning little Dutch gabled house. This five-part story follows several "returns" of one spirit in different bodies and different lives. In one section the narrator is an unborn twin; in another, a white child is found in a toilet in a black township, brought up by black parents, and moves to the city. When she falls in love with a white man, all the questions of identity, home, race, and law are thrown into conflict. At first, deep in love, she sees no problem as she prepared to meet his nice middle class parents: " . . love is in the present, it's her hand slipping beneath his shirt to his chest, it's reading together descriptions of the places in the world maybe they'll save up to see. She did not say: they know I'm white. As if he heard the thought:--I know . . But that you grew up there, school and home, people who are like--your parents, to you--" Their advocate, a Jewish lawyer (stand in for Gordimer herself?), has a fine appreciation for racial injustice, and she battles to prove that this white woman is indeed white. But in a country where blacks often try to pass for white, a hastily drawn up birth certificate ("Race: Colored"--no white parents known) dooms the couple. A few years later, post- apartheid, there would have been no problem, and the formless narrator wonders how an arbitrary law could shift a couple's world so completely. Everyone loses when the literal color of one's skin calls forth decades of complex cultural histories. And South Africa is more complex than the United States, since it has a majority black culture and eleven separate languages are spoken, besides the colonizer's Afrikaans.
The first story, which some have called a naive fable, is the most challenging. Double reversals, mirror images, and the giant toggle switch of fate all enter into play. A giant wave floods away a town, leaving the ocean floor full of a former regime's riches. The poor forage for treasure, amidst the bodies of their murdered compatriots, but a rich man wants only one thing, a mirror. When he finds it, he looks in, and suddenly a second wave washes him away, along with all the others. Before his demise, he had slept with a print of "The Great Wave" by Hokusai, behind his bed. But he never gazed on it, since it was behind him. Did he not see the overthrow of apartheid coming? And when he looked in the mirror, did he see himself? With remorse or revulsion? Did he see the print, or the real wave? And was that second wave a metaphor for his own inner demons, or the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, finally catching up with him? Gordimer leaves these crystal facets of interpretation up to the reader. This first story intrigued me more than conventional stories like the aging parent/younger woman plot in "Generation Gap," the interracial love affair in "Mission," or the loss of sexual innocence in "The Diamond Mine." It offered a different sort of "return"a constant revisiting of its possible meaning.
Gordimer has often claimed that she will never write autobiography. But the themes of her inner world are clear in her work: the senseless damnation of whole races of people by outdated law and custom, the triumph of sensuality and love across racial barriers, and the painfully slow changes in power in post-apartheid South Africa.
James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive
Oregon, WI 53575-1129
phone: 1-608-835-7937
e-mail: mbr@execpc.com
e-mail: mwbookrevw@aol.com
http://www.midwestbookreview.com
Copyright ©2001
Monday, March 9, 2009
UPCOMING GIG - Women Take Over Harvard!
Celebrate the 1971 Takeover (I was on the march) of a Harvard Building by women's liberation forces!
The Cambridge Women's Center still stands today as a result! I will be leading sing along songs from that wild time.
Monday March 16
6:30 p.m.
Cambridge City Hall Annex
Sponsored by Cambridge Historical Commission and Cambridge Women's Commission
See below:
http://www.cambridgema.gov/deptann.cfm?story_id=2042
The Cambridge Women's Center still stands today as a result! I will be leading sing along songs from that wild time.
Monday March 16
6:30 p.m.
Cambridge City Hall Annex
Sponsored by Cambridge Historical Commission and Cambridge Women's Commission
See below:
http://www.cambridgema.gov/deptann.cfm?story_id=2042
Saturday, January 3, 2009
1971 Revisited
Diary Excerpts:
January 9: Thayer comes over to take us to auction in Seabrook, NH. Greg & Warren and Carol and Madeleine and Dave & I got a community of the 3rd floor. Neato auction - we got $4 worth of costumes - a BARGAIN! I've passed the cycle of hating auctions and clothes and loving communism. What good did I do then? What good do radicals do? I dunno. Bourgeoise adopting of one kid does more from the kid's point of view than revolution.
January 17: "Howard Zinn vs. Ray Mungo" [They] are having a battle of wits inside my head. Ray says: any military is bad - leave the scene in the city - the blacks don't want you for help - don't do anything out of need that breaks your ethics - go to a farm. Zinn says also military is bad but DON'T GO TO A FARM - stay and help where there is trouble. Third world militants don't want you to remain a smug, middle class white; they don't want you to try to help them smugly and return to their good life at night; they don't want you to join them and pretend to be one of them. They are composites of opinion but I can serve those that ask - children don't care. If they already have shitty teachers, I might be a bit better [reparing to teach music in schools as a senior at BU].
January 25: Weathermen said they were sorry about da bombs and it was bad tactic. Now only the Panthers can look down their noses in this country. When with radicals, I do what the radicals do, and when with music ed straights, I do what music ed straights do. Am I strong? I dunno. Mary at work is incredibly ugly and dumb and lives at home. She cannot justify her life except to be in a book plot.
March 6: Went to Women's Day at Common and marched with the rads - so many thoughts and conclusions - esp. communism and slogans aren't were it's at. Def. needs aesthetic dimension. We "seized" a building (walked in) & I left. I guess they stayed. I didn't feel close enough to anyone to stay. I'm a coward. Home at 4 & nervously passed away time till bedtime. Can't live with D. or without him.
March 7: Women still occupying building. I deserted my sisters but it is a pretty dumb move. They'll get kicked out. Also none of them have to go to job or school, I'm a terrible radical. I am so free I can do anything & choose nothing. Ate too much cookies too.
June 9: [Visiting Woodstock for the summer] Rained last night & air clear & light & cool w/ mountain & streams. My room as W's golden record for "Na Na Hey Hey" & a huge comix shelf. Allus something to read, watch, knit or play (or bake or hoe or eat). S. had to learn to relax and do nothin' & I'm gettin there No luck at Oatmeal Stream [for a job] mebbee in 1 week, Went to Family and will do shift on Monday. Hotline, general Woodstock service center. Nice people - guessed my sign. I'm young in comparison and light soft (drugs).
June 10: S. says I should've said yes to the old ex-puppeteer who thought I had a spiritual face and wanted me to stay with him. Wrote to D. with the rent deposit - $40 his share. She kept $60 but we wrecked the couch and wall enough for that.
June 12: Nyoos: D.'s draft evading and may stay in Nova Iorke. [My] parents have no money. Eating too well these days with peanut butter sundaes every day.
June 22: Good noots! (My own noots are giving me a headache). Got jb w mo pa ($1.50/hr) typing for Woodstock Aquarian. Hot dog Money and new people. What shall I wear? What shall I say? What is my philosophy of life? What do I think about drugs? Good situation to shove myself into - I will have to answer for myself. The hammock guy is selling my stuff - gave me $3 & wants mo' purses so I goes to Kingston to get more string.
June 24: It's turribal the way I fit in nowhere. With SFA musicians I feel they're too straight, w/ woodstock hippies I feel they're too hippy-dippy & with politicos I feel intellectual and artistic. How stupid, huh?
June 29: Sore troat. Urg. Where do I get off karmically deserving such a summer? Had good day with A., boss at Aquarian. Can't help but identify with Magister Ludi introduction which states that in Siddhartha & Demian Hesse was not yet evolved to social consciousness, i.e., New Paltz revolutionary consciousness is better than Woodstock but I can't tell A that. I feel like I will never again be hassled by anything even though I know I will. W is printing up a copy of "Stay on the Farm" for the Aquarian.
July 6: S. keeps referring to my obesity and stupidity & losing her temper over everything but other than that, she's the best friend a girl could have. But it makes me ill to watch the women scramble around all over their men & smooch. Probably I'm just jealous. I'll work and cook & bake and recycle envelopes & be happy till I'm 30 at which time I'll be famous & rich but still politically conscious.
July 7: Ate too much s'getti & beebleberry pie. Oh to get back to 150 and then 140 & then 130, my ever goal, I could do it I guess - just at less when I'm ravished [famished] and less of starch & sweet. But why am I allus talking about diet? As if this mortal coil is worth much. Heh heh, my mortal coil is a bit much. A. liked my paraphrasing of Land & How to Shit Good article and said if the paper makes good I'll have a permanent job.
July 12: Sometimes I get a strange feeling that things are going to turn out so well - I will sing and play or something for people & become together enough to talk and say what I think. Erstwise I will get killed at an early age but that would be a drag. New lady has joined the band [Organ Grinders back]. What kind of person would be so loose & free to pick up with gypsies?
July 15: Mail from VISTA & teacher drop out [center]. I could teach if I just picked one song or one show to do & did it instead of wondering which ones to do and making a big deal out of it. They sold my purse for $5 only so I made 3 to pay the doc with. Took over 7 - 10 shift at Family.
July 16: Got my period I was actually a bit scared. My mention of the Sigmund Freud movie in the hotel room [sound engineer with Buddy Guy at BU, Howard Johnson's in Kendall Square] with Warren set off some strange energies. Of course S. isn't jealous; W. turned red. We're so amazingly immature and staid. Hysterical naked lady was brought into Family while we were at the free store. Everyone watched and a little girl said she didn't like all the yelling. S. goes about drinking sage tea to quell her desires. I keep wishing B would come back, I should renew pills. Of course if B cared at all he'd have been back already. [I had made out with and played with--literally--a member of a traveling band called the Organ Grinders, who had crashed with us in June.]
September 4: Discovery of $180 4BR apartment two doors down from J. Fantastic rooms but full of junk & a neighborhood hangout for kiddies and drunks. Man from real estate end of the phone: "You can't find any 4 BR apartments! You can't live in a coop! You can't live in a group! It's illegal without a boardinghouse license." Turd. To Durgin Park with J & N & J & J & B & E at 11p.,. Don't think I'd like to live with J & N - he's too cool and into dope more than us. I still not into smoking & feel out of it but be social and take 1 or 2 tokes.
September 6: Prof. B. hates pants on girls as he saw me entering my office with a frown [got a job at BU as a biology department secretary]. Here is nice homey atmosphere of wooden floors, Cambridge slums, etc. Hub visits & takes us to New Community Projects meeting - met Newlywed Game couple & no one else much. Hub is funny; can't figure if he's cool or no, Got his handwriting analyzed & discussed orgies with us ex-participants.
September 23: Oh, getting ripped off, etc. Poor K., half of her clothes were taken by a thief who no doubt wore a black mask and was fat & bald and had a red and white striped T-shirt on. I hope we get along with them [couple sharing apartment with D. and me]. K. talks incessantly & says negroes are afraid of large dogs & she didn't really mind getting raped. I must be completely blank personality to her because I never show true colors when I'm so far away from another's thought.
October 2: What to do when some jock calls you a pig hippie & kicks garbage all over you? B. yells Yay B.! Blue kitchen is class. Lock on door, shower curtain up, all's well & spent $10.
October 17: Day of rip-off discovery leading to political discussion with Marxist Marcia & Anarchist J. & Pacifist K. & Idealistic D. Get to know your roommates. K. does drink the wine a lot but big deal. Just makes her a bit verbose. J's comin' through better; "I'm searchin' for that urchin" [his song about the rip-off]. If there were 48 days in a month, a calendar would look like the United States of America.
October 19: L. said there was a job in music therapy at Newton part time. USE MY DEGREE! Be creative! Help people! But J. begged me to stay ween tho' everyone else says take it. Ate fruit all day only but ate huge dinner of Cambridge Community High School people. I'll teach piano if the kid calls e. Gonna go to Yoga Thurs. Nite & Astrology on Mon. Nite. Lots of good folks here. Talk w/ N. over accepting both pacifism & violent revolution at same time. Ho hassle for me--I don't take either seriously.
October 21: Told G. [boss] that I didn't earn my brains - was born into the right economic class, etc. I eat compulsively and have gained 10 lb. Urg.
October 27: All the rads took their titles off their doors & left only first names--they're too much. They must have some ego that they hide. Cool people are alone cause they are picky (me and J.)
October 31: I ain't no sexist pig but D. is totally hopeless. Skips last 2 possible sleeping together nights & plans to go to PL meeting in NYC with his little buddies from the band. I have a right to feel the way I do (outcast, unloved, and unsatisfied!) Understanding talk won't help. Seriously, I think it would be good to get away from this kid altogether. (I cry.) I've learned at least not to repress these things; rode to SFAA with arguments & we had a big scene in the glass booth. Wiz of Oz play fantastic (people think I'm beautiful when a witch) & got real high during & real down after play. Dave stayed over.
November 11: Angela Davis committee. Hoo hoo, I get to go & be big keed. Is this all I'm doing for politics? Soon I will be so sick that I will get into NDAG, etc. Really want a women's group. Yeah - gotta visit a center & get ego up so I can say what I think around all J's MCP friends and persuade all the women to leave their awful asshole men wards. Black keeds trying to "donate" to the yoga can of money. No shame in saying blacks steal around here. They need it the most, They are they too.
November 13: Diet remains unbroken and 8 pounds gone off. As much as smudge [the cat, eventual mother of Mung]. Such big ugly deals going on [J the roommate turns out to be a dope dealer]. D. says they're politically cool w/ dope, it's radicalizing, but I basically think it's a waste of money to do it so much & disintegrates vibes. Went to BU circus farce (all DGE kids) & fell asleep before saying g'nite to D. Woodstock alone conditioned me.
December 1: I'm not as together as I think. Came home to a telegram saying I've been placed in Philadelphia - forgot about VISTA. Identity crisis: could I just pack up & leave all the little joys of this life & D. & astrology & Yoga, etc? I'm much too detached. Even tho I won't go it made me feel untogether to get so upset. 100 secretaries fired by BU & they want me to strike (A. does). Whoo boy. D's a schmuck cause he said he'd go to VISTA & is too busy to sleep w me Y is weird and tense. I don't know what's left.
December 29: Rindge Tech building rent control farce carnival w/ shouting hippies & cops throwing people about (women mostly) & organizing. We'll withhold I spose but I'm so scared to go against authority. Still, it would be nice to be evicted.
January 9: Thayer comes over to take us to auction in Seabrook, NH. Greg & Warren and Carol and Madeleine and Dave & I got a community of the 3rd floor. Neato auction - we got $4 worth of costumes - a BARGAIN! I've passed the cycle of hating auctions and clothes and loving communism. What good did I do then? What good do radicals do? I dunno. Bourgeoise adopting of one kid does more from the kid's point of view than revolution.
January 17: "Howard Zinn vs. Ray Mungo" [They] are having a battle of wits inside my head. Ray says: any military is bad - leave the scene in the city - the blacks don't want you for help - don't do anything out of need that breaks your ethics - go to a farm. Zinn says also military is bad but DON'T GO TO A FARM - stay and help where there is trouble. Third world militants don't want you to remain a smug, middle class white; they don't want you to try to help them smugly and return to their good life at night; they don't want you to join them and pretend to be one of them. They are composites of opinion but I can serve those that ask - children don't care. If they already have shitty teachers, I might be a bit better [reparing to teach music in schools as a senior at BU].
January 25: Weathermen said they were sorry about da bombs and it was bad tactic. Now only the Panthers can look down their noses in this country. When with radicals, I do what the radicals do, and when with music ed straights, I do what music ed straights do. Am I strong? I dunno. Mary at work is incredibly ugly and dumb and lives at home. She cannot justify her life except to be in a book plot.
March 6: Went to Women's Day at Common and marched with the rads - so many thoughts and conclusions - esp. communism and slogans aren't were it's at. Def. needs aesthetic dimension. We "seized" a building (walked in) & I left. I guess they stayed. I didn't feel close enough to anyone to stay. I'm a coward. Home at 4 & nervously passed away time till bedtime. Can't live with D. or without him.
March 7: Women still occupying building. I deserted my sisters but it is a pretty dumb move. They'll get kicked out. Also none of them have to go to job or school, I'm a terrible radical. I am so free I can do anything & choose nothing. Ate too much cookies too.
June 9: [Visiting Woodstock for the summer] Rained last night & air clear & light & cool w/ mountain & streams. My room as W's golden record for "Na Na Hey Hey" & a huge comix shelf. Allus something to read, watch, knit or play (or bake or hoe or eat). S. had to learn to relax and do nothin' & I'm gettin there No luck at Oatmeal Stream [for a job] mebbee in 1 week, Went to Family and will do shift on Monday. Hotline, general Woodstock service center. Nice people - guessed my sign. I'm young in comparison and light soft (drugs).
June 10: S. says I should've said yes to the old ex-puppeteer who thought I had a spiritual face and wanted me to stay with him. Wrote to D. with the rent deposit - $40 his share. She kept $60 but we wrecked the couch and wall enough for that.
June 12: Nyoos: D.'s draft evading and may stay in Nova Iorke. [My] parents have no money. Eating too well these days with peanut butter sundaes every day.
June 22: Good noots! (My own noots are giving me a headache). Got jb w mo pa ($1.50/hr) typing for Woodstock Aquarian. Hot dog Money and new people. What shall I wear? What shall I say? What is my philosophy of life? What do I think about drugs? Good situation to shove myself into - I will have to answer for myself. The hammock guy is selling my stuff - gave me $3 & wants mo' purses so I goes to Kingston to get more string.
June 24: It's turribal the way I fit in nowhere. With SFA musicians I feel they're too straight, w/ woodstock hippies I feel they're too hippy-dippy & with politicos I feel intellectual and artistic. How stupid, huh?
June 29: Sore troat. Urg. Where do I get off karmically deserving such a summer? Had good day with A., boss at Aquarian. Can't help but identify with Magister Ludi introduction which states that in Siddhartha & Demian Hesse was not yet evolved to social consciousness, i.e., New Paltz revolutionary consciousness is better than Woodstock but I can't tell A that. I feel like I will never again be hassled by anything even though I know I will. W is printing up a copy of "Stay on the Farm" for the Aquarian.
July 6: S. keeps referring to my obesity and stupidity & losing her temper over everything but other than that, she's the best friend a girl could have. But it makes me ill to watch the women scramble around all over their men & smooch. Probably I'm just jealous. I'll work and cook & bake and recycle envelopes & be happy till I'm 30 at which time I'll be famous & rich but still politically conscious.
July 7: Ate too much s'getti & beebleberry pie. Oh to get back to 150 and then 140 & then 130, my ever goal, I could do it I guess - just at less when I'm ravished [famished] and less of starch & sweet. But why am I allus talking about diet? As if this mortal coil is worth much. Heh heh, my mortal coil is a bit much. A. liked my paraphrasing of Land & How to Shit Good article and said if the paper makes good I'll have a permanent job.
July 12: Sometimes I get a strange feeling that things are going to turn out so well - I will sing and play or something for people & become together enough to talk and say what I think. Erstwise I will get killed at an early age but that would be a drag. New lady has joined the band [Organ Grinders back]. What kind of person would be so loose & free to pick up with gypsies?
July 15: Mail from VISTA & teacher drop out [center]. I could teach if I just picked one song or one show to do & did it instead of wondering which ones to do and making a big deal out of it. They sold my purse for $5 only so I made 3 to pay the doc with. Took over 7 - 10 shift at Family.
July 16: Got my period I was actually a bit scared. My mention of the Sigmund Freud movie in the hotel room [sound engineer with Buddy Guy at BU, Howard Johnson's in Kendall Square] with Warren set off some strange energies. Of course S. isn't jealous; W. turned red. We're so amazingly immature and staid. Hysterical naked lady was brought into Family while we were at the free store. Everyone watched and a little girl said she didn't like all the yelling. S. goes about drinking sage tea to quell her desires. I keep wishing B would come back, I should renew pills. Of course if B cared at all he'd have been back already. [I had made out with and played with--literally--a member of a traveling band called the Organ Grinders, who had crashed with us in June.]
September 4: Discovery of $180 4BR apartment two doors down from J. Fantastic rooms but full of junk & a neighborhood hangout for kiddies and drunks. Man from real estate end of the phone: "You can't find any 4 BR apartments! You can't live in a coop! You can't live in a group! It's illegal without a boardinghouse license." Turd. To Durgin Park with J & N & J & J & B & E at 11p.,. Don't think I'd like to live with J & N - he's too cool and into dope more than us. I still not into smoking & feel out of it but be social and take 1 or 2 tokes.
September 6: Prof. B. hates pants on girls as he saw me entering my office with a frown [got a job at BU as a biology department secretary]. Here is nice homey atmosphere of wooden floors, Cambridge slums, etc. Hub visits & takes us to New Community Projects meeting - met Newlywed Game couple & no one else much. Hub is funny; can't figure if he's cool or no, Got his handwriting analyzed & discussed orgies with us ex-participants.
September 23: Oh, getting ripped off, etc. Poor K., half of her clothes were taken by a thief who no doubt wore a black mask and was fat & bald and had a red and white striped T-shirt on. I hope we get along with them [couple sharing apartment with D. and me]. K. talks incessantly & says negroes are afraid of large dogs & she didn't really mind getting raped. I must be completely blank personality to her because I never show true colors when I'm so far away from another's thought.
October 2: What to do when some jock calls you a pig hippie & kicks garbage all over you? B. yells Yay B.! Blue kitchen is class. Lock on door, shower curtain up, all's well & spent $10.
October 17: Day of rip-off discovery leading to political discussion with Marxist Marcia & Anarchist J. & Pacifist K. & Idealistic D. Get to know your roommates. K. does drink the wine a lot but big deal. Just makes her a bit verbose. J's comin' through better; "I'm searchin' for that urchin" [his song about the rip-off]. If there were 48 days in a month, a calendar would look like the United States of America.
October 19: L. said there was a job in music therapy at Newton part time. USE MY DEGREE! Be creative! Help people! But J. begged me to stay ween tho' everyone else says take it. Ate fruit all day only but ate huge dinner of Cambridge Community High School people. I'll teach piano if the kid calls e. Gonna go to Yoga Thurs. Nite & Astrology on Mon. Nite. Lots of good folks here. Talk w/ N. over accepting both pacifism & violent revolution at same time. Ho hassle for me--I don't take either seriously.
October 21: Told G. [boss] that I didn't earn my brains - was born into the right economic class, etc. I eat compulsively and have gained 10 lb. Urg.
October 27: All the rads took their titles off their doors & left only first names--they're too much. They must have some ego that they hide. Cool people are alone cause they are picky (me and J.)
October 31: I ain't no sexist pig but D. is totally hopeless. Skips last 2 possible sleeping together nights & plans to go to PL meeting in NYC with his little buddies from the band. I have a right to feel the way I do (outcast, unloved, and unsatisfied!) Understanding talk won't help. Seriously, I think it would be good to get away from this kid altogether. (I cry.) I've learned at least not to repress these things; rode to SFAA with arguments & we had a big scene in the glass booth. Wiz of Oz play fantastic (people think I'm beautiful when a witch) & got real high during & real down after play. Dave stayed over.
November 11: Angela Davis committee. Hoo hoo, I get to go & be big keed. Is this all I'm doing for politics? Soon I will be so sick that I will get into NDAG, etc. Really want a women's group. Yeah - gotta visit a center & get ego up so I can say what I think around all J's MCP friends and persuade all the women to leave their awful asshole men wards. Black keeds trying to "donate" to the yoga can of money. No shame in saying blacks steal around here. They need it the most, They are they too.
November 13: Diet remains unbroken and 8 pounds gone off. As much as smudge [the cat, eventual mother of Mung]. Such big ugly deals going on [J the roommate turns out to be a dope dealer]. D. says they're politically cool w/ dope, it's radicalizing, but I basically think it's a waste of money to do it so much & disintegrates vibes. Went to BU circus farce (all DGE kids) & fell asleep before saying g'nite to D. Woodstock alone conditioned me.
December 1: I'm not as together as I think. Came home to a telegram saying I've been placed in Philadelphia - forgot about VISTA. Identity crisis: could I just pack up & leave all the little joys of this life & D. & astrology & Yoga, etc? I'm much too detached. Even tho I won't go it made me feel untogether to get so upset. 100 secretaries fired by BU & they want me to strike (A. does). Whoo boy. D's a schmuck cause he said he'd go to VISTA & is too busy to sleep w me Y is weird and tense. I don't know what's left.
December 29: Rindge Tech building rent control farce carnival w/ shouting hippies & cops throwing people about (women mostly) & organizing. We'll withhold I spose but I'm so scared to go against authority. Still, it would be nice to be evicted.
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