Excerpt from The
Meadowsweet Logs:
(Lucia:)
8 August, 1987 - Saturday -
We arrived Monday afternoon, just in time to unload & head back to
E'town for the Possible Dreams auction. Walter Cronkite bid $3500
to watch Commander U.S.A with us.
Actually, we brought no TV with us. I
swear, we brought no TV. Well, almost no TV. We have a
watchman, which is like watching through the wrong end of a telescope.
I staked a claim in the garret. Laid a
bed platform across two chairs, and set up the new Epson.
Fortunately, I don't stand up to write or "I have a hunch"
would take on a whole new meaning.
Tomorrow, a full moon & o-sashami on
"the rock", at the former Daffodil's.
(Brian)
It's not easy to say "I love Meadow Sweet" in some new,
inventive way - but there it is.* (*Or at least, the desire to say
it...)
More than anything, in leafing through this
log, I'm overwhelmed by Ken's industry & competence. I lie in
the hammock, fantasizing about being 1/2 so capable. A typical
entry would be:
6/1: - Built small
thermonuclear power plant near E. end of Meadow.
P.M. - Won M. Vineyard marathon.
6/2: Environmental Impact Statement for proposed Meadow Sweet
Observatory passed with standing ovation by U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers; Quahog Indians volunteer en masse to serve as
hod-carriers, w/out pay.
P.M.: Refereed Strategic Weapons ban between
US & USSR; weather continues fair...
Well: weather does
continue
fair. We listen to NPR's "All Things Considered" in the
Hammock in the evening; have the tape deck plugged into the deck outlet
right now (Sunday, 8:15 A.M.) w/ Some Mozart (Jupiter Symphony) wailin'.
Yeah!
Play me dat riff,
Wolfie! Y'all be bad, my man!
Bruce Springsteen is, of course, reserved for
drive-time. We New Jerseyians are obligated by law to listen to
the Boss whenever we're in an automotive vehicle. I'm pretty sure
there's something to that effect in some kinda codicil to the U.S.
Constitution, No, really...
(Much Later)
Nobody needs fear the extinction of the
Daddy-long-legs; the species is thriving, at least here. The
little perverts keep trying to crawl into bed w/ us, but Lucia & I are
rather conservative in certain senses, & I'm obliged to eject the uninvited
arachnids w/ the alacrity of a Hard Rock Café bouncer.
My sister Myra, her husband & children
& another couple & their children were up for a week or
so, renting a (huge) house out on the North Road by Tea Lane. It
looked like a transplanted Gstaad ski-job- a bit unsettling, really; a
relief to get back to Meadow Sweet & the wide-open spaces, where
men're Men & Women're nervous...
The much-vaunted Harmonic Convergence (Aug. 16-17) seems to have come
& gone w/out kicking up much of a fuss on M.V.; too bad, because I
was hoping Certain Elected Officials would vanish frm. the face of our
planet. So much for easy solutions: I guess we're gonna have to do
it ourselves.
But not this August. Summer here's too
pretty for revolution.
Just heard the WMVY, astrological Forecast.
Jupiter is in Retrograde & Gemini is in the House of Mercury ~ no
doubt while Mr. Mercury is off at work. These are perilous
times we live in. Still, the sky doesn't appear to be falling
(albeit it's yet early in the day) & I'm content.
Where wuz I? Oh yeah: we barbequed the
other night, policed up faithfully but the foil-covered grill was left
to the mercy of the much-feared Meadow Sweet Night-Marauding Creatures!!
They apparently devoured the tin-foil. The Scene of the Crime
resembles some sorta weird Raccoon-Frat Party aftermath. I hope
none of them tries to get thru an airport metal-detector any time
soon...
Guard: Hey, you!
Ya made my machine light up!
Raccoon: What? Uh, uh, what 're ya pickin' on Me
for? It's because I'm a Raccoon, isn't that
it?
... ... & etc.
Lucia attests that Vineyard August is here in earnest; it's no longer
necessary to lick envelopes, since they seal by themselves.
Usually w/out letters in them.
Given a certain lassitude towards writing,
that's just as well.
A recommended self indulgence is: lying in the
hammock & tuning the portable radio to 89.7FM Boston, at 5:00PM
for "All Things Considered." Comfort & civilized
news ~ what could be better? I mean, that you can do with you
clothes on? Sorta? (Also: Prairie Home Companion, Sat., 6PM
~ 89.7FM)
(Later (by a week or
so) ~
Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg keeps cruising by
the nude beach at Philbin to check out my tan. She writes," I
dig Science Fiction writers !!" in the sand with her toe when she
thinks I'm not looking. Lucia insists she's just suffering frm.
sunstroke & so'm I.
Anyway, Lucia's unperturbed. She's
starting a knockout new novel about medieval Japan* & knows I like
to be with a winner. Now if that goddam Christopher Reeve would
just stop looking at her... (* L's note: This rave review based
on a quick scan of the first page - )
There's news of teachers' strikes; can a
one-way ferry ride into exile ~ the mainland ~ be far behind?
(Lucia)
I'm unperturbed
because I know what Caroline is really writing - "Get the riff-raff
off the beach."
Speaking of riff-raff... we went up to the
Lighthouse for the obligatory sundown, & there was a skunk policing
the grounds. He didn't bother anyone, & I can assure you, no
one bothered him.
We've gotten a lot of work done. No -
really. we have. The secret is to leave the TV & not to
leave a forwarding phone number. About the only phone calls we get
are for Aunt Gladys. I can answer, with a clear conscience, that
I'm not Aunt Gladys.
Without Brian's Buick, however, we've lost a
little caché as Gayhead residents. - My brother, Bud said hitchhikers
put their thumbs down when they saw the big, green Jersey bomb top the
rise.
(Brian's
note:)
With reference to the previous passage, I might make so bold as to point out that when I drove
that 10,000 lb., rusty torpedo around up here, the locals understood
that the radiator cap could be used as a sort of aiming device, &
demonstrated courtesy in keeping with that fact.
We now return you to our normally scheduled Lucia.
|
... Well, no; we don't, after all.
She's too busy touching up her new novel, which
is about the vengeful Samurai vendetta of Cat on the Tokaido Road.
I've read the first 70 pages & am now sure I'll be provided for, by
a literary superstar, in my fast-approaching old age.
We're not as sequestered as we thought up here;
two whitebread Jehovah's Witnesses showed up in a Blazer. This, at
time (Sept. 8th, the Day after Labor Day) when you
couldn't get a paramedic to make a housecall here anymore.
Lucia was upstairs writing & I was reading
on the deck but, unfortunately for the obvious comedic possibilities,
had my pants on. They were caucasoid, 30-ish male & female,
dressed politely in clothing that was stylish early in the Carter
administration.
They explained how they'd come to bring me the
comfort of the Revealed Word. It would've been too involved to
explain to them how Words, some Revealed but most of 'em Not, are
what've been giving me a headache lately, & that's why my Epson's
switched off & I'm reading "Doonesbury!"
And simply mooning them didn't seem quite appropriate, tempting though
it was.
So, I told them that a covey of Shiite mullahs
had taken up residence in the next meadow over & that I'd heard them
crying out in the dusk that they could out-quote scripture against, and
refute, the most Knowledgeable of Infidels. The two missionaries
left skid-marks; spinnin' that 4-wheel end-for-end & headin'
off to do battle w/ Allah. Mecca, watch you tushie...
On a happier note, Virginia & The Great Marvini, who've taken over Daffodils (Gay Head Cliffs) run a "Full
Moon Sushi Nite" during the height of the lunar cycle.
Marvini is Marvin Jones, Cajun & Sushi chef supreme & part-time
Super hero ; Virginia is Virginia, & many of you reading this already
know what I mean. World's Champ Free Spirit.
These intermittent oink-outs are great, as long
as you're agile enough to dodge people fainting w/ delight.
Sad note: we saw a car returning frm.
Gay Head, going toward Chilmark, w/ a deer lashed across the hood ~
victim of a road accident, I guess. Apparently there is a hunting
season on the Vineyard, which is in glaring contrast to our experience
here.
National & International news seesaws,
& it makes no difference on Meadow Sweet that I've been able to
measure. The idea of shotputting the radio into a dumpster &
boycotting newspapers sounds better & better. But to be candid,
that wouldn't make much difference to this little knoll in the woods
& its real residents either, would it? The year~rounders ~ who
serenade by day & forage by night ~ don't notice.
There're
High Paradigms of right & wrong, & this place is 'way over on
the plus side. Sometimes, at night, I wake up thinking I'm
somewhere else & realize , to my great comfort, that I'm here.
Other times, other places, I wake up thinking I'm at Meadow Sweet ~ to
my profound disappointment, when I realize it's a dream.
Sept. 19, 7:40
AM
Written in haste - rushing to make a ferry.
Another Sweet Summer -
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