just-soStory

[PETER A WATTS]

WARNING:
this is one of those self-serving, esoteric posts. If that kind of thing 
really pisses you off, better delete this.
ON THE OTHER HAND:
This is a cool story (which just happens to be written by me) about
Thomas Pynchon and some of his favorite themes (mostly the ambivalence to 
history and culture, the subservience and arrogance towards the art of 
the past . check it out. I'm a struggling writer type and I would really
appreciate criticism (the more incisive and brutal the better), and especially
advice. I hope you'll forgive the imposition of posting this to everyone.
If not, TS; just delete it.
. . .
"JUST SO"
Maybe I've had too much. . .whoa. . .tried to look at the clock; can't
stop it spinning. Definitely had too much DXM. When the world fades
away, looking around, moving is just not an option. Body fades away
into the rythm of "Spanish Key," had too much, no body, just thoughts
and notes sort of congealing, they're my surrogate flesh.
	Thoughts. . .it always comes to something about him. . . maybe
he's my real father. . .maybe he lives near here. . .with all that stuff
about the college built on the coast, on an old military base, all that
stuff about the anonymous cities of SoCal blending. . .maybe in Santa
Barbara. Yeah, I can see him walking through IV, or on the beach late
at night. . .just walking and checking things out.
	He could be my dad, really. I mean, it's more likely than
thinking that fundamentalist Christian, anti-drug, racist, Reagan-
voting. . .I couldn't have got this. . .this me from someone like that. I
bet there's no one in the world who understands his work better than
me. . .its, like, genetic or something, that shit doesn't just happen by
accident.
	Anyway. . .I can just see me meeting him, walking on the
beach. . .hey, Tom. what's up? what are you doing right now? wanna
go have a beer? I've got some stuff to ask you. . .some stuff to tell you.
You're not so young anymore. You need someone to tell stuff to,
someone who really gets it. I wanna keep the flame burning, you
know? But I got some stuff to ask you first.
. . .
They say it gives you this sense. . .of, like powerful deja vu. . .like it
feels like rebirth, like there's a line between before you took it and
everything that comes after. It's like everything has meaning, it's all
just points, bits cork carried along by the flow of time, but it all makes
sense. . .it really fucks with your sense of time, DXM
. . .
	He'd be floored, some dude he's never met just recognizes him,
calls his name. It's like those old Chinese stories of the Taoist 
masters. . . like Yoda and Luke, or something. He'd be floored, but he'd
know who I was, that I was. . .like destiny, like the new blood, the
dude it was all spos'ta get passed on to.
. . .
Its like stuff doesn't happen in a line any more, its all in chunks. . .you
don't hear words, you hear sentences, the meaning of the phrase all at
once, without hearing any of the words or remembering them. You
play pool and you dont see yourself aiming, you 
see. . .like, you see the cue strike and the ball roll, and then into the
pocket all at once, like a flash, like a strobe light. . .all at 
once. . .chunks.
. . .
	It'd be like he must've felt when he read The Recognitions, like
'this fucker scooped me, he just got on the scene before I had a chance
and said it. . .but said it better, more than I could yet. . .cause he was
just there earlier.'
. . .
Chunks, like. . .synchronicity. . .stuff happens in chunks, just groups of
shit that's all gotta happen at the same time. . .zones. . .like zodiacal
signs or something. . .hexagrams. It's like none of this stuff could
happen on its own. . .like, a head, a brain just cant be born with no
body, arms and legs and. . .it's all gotta come out at once.
. . .
Like i felt when I read Consciousness Explained, Tao Te Ching,
"Spring and All," Mumonkoan, Gravity's Rainbow. . .like 'FUCK!, 
what's left to say.' Like, I thought I was all original and stuff, like 
I'm the first one who's figured this shit out.
	Now its like. . .I gotta defer to all these masters, I gotta read
everything they wrote, parse every line, reproduce every movement
and gesture. . . I gotta know what it all means before I can speak a
single word, before I can know what I mean, where my voice fits in,
what chunk we're in now, what wouldn't get said just-so, just this way,
unless I said it. . .
There isn't much. . .
. . .
like, you come down and all of time, all of life is just swelling around
you. You can't really worry about anything, with all this swell of time
holding you up, guiding you. . .every piece has gotta fit, and there's
only one way they can all gotogether. . .
. . .
There isn't much. . .me.



-uwattp00 at mcl.ucsb.edu
"if you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality;
 if you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact.
 now, what do you wish to call this?"
	 	-Zen proverb 
		 meme of the week
		 teachers and students, tell your friends