25th Anniversary/Vineland

[rich]

Hi all

This week will mark the 25th anniversary that I've been on this list.
Pretty much half my life.
I discovered Pynchon in 1991-1992. I went to Northern California during a
cross-country train trip in May-June 1994 from the east coast, specifically
to get to Eureka, Arcata, and thereabouts for no other reason than
Vineland. Soon after, the following year, I washed up on this list.
1994 was a special year. I happened to be deep in love with the woman who
got me into Pynchon. Much of what makes her special to me still revolves
around the fact that I can't usually separate thinking about Vineland and
Pynchon in general from her. I gave her a copy of Vineland for her birthday
one year (hers was beat up) adding a quote from Zoyd's memory of his
wedding to Frenesi.
She disappeared from my life a few years later which was devastating as
those things usually are. We lost touch, she moved away. Only later did I
find out she passed in 2009 of cancer. We had our time together.
My life is different now but I wouldnt be here after all this time if it
wasn't for her. I may have posted this already but the anniversary brings
all these memories back.
Sure, if I ever met Pynchon I could bore him with how he's changed my life
but I think I would just mention that it was through him I met a bunch of
interesting, crazy mad people. I would hope he would appreciate that more
than anything.

cheers
rich

On the Trail of Zoyd Wheeler

(Eureka CA, June 1 1994)

Leaving Redding at first light

thinking of your warmth

forget the darkness, you said

only the need to be loved

my mind filled with coyotes, libraries and thoth

hunting cougars, the local wine

Plato in my backpocket, a bag of mushrooms

ice cold Coronas and triple bean sauces

writer of my own half-baked stories

my failed poet-making a mockery

of other people’s wondrous madness

she was there to encourage

a glimpse of her promised land:

coherence:

the wood wall Arcata apartment out back

orange carpet, soft 70s on the radio

built by exiled German communists

shelves at attention with righteous soldiering

the stove in silence in the opposite corner

heat weeping from the invisible pages...

Sleeping with the ants

the school next door, bells

ringing the morning, young and beautiful voices

the family plot filled with green life

I dreaming of William Stafford, marijuana soil exercises

the devils losing to time’s myriad enigmas

riding to work by bike

pondered by bears, the trees

‘laying down in the tall grass

lettin me do my stuff’...

warm bodies

ex-hippie trash shops, giggling changing socks

plans for future Dead shows

day-glo orange china cat sunflowers on VW bugs

farts, lost souls on the wharves

smiling lesbians and new agers

town fathers drinking bitter coffee


writing postcards about the Victorians, the streets

built by out of time mill workers

family fishermen in Is and 3s, ghost miners, loggers all

knew what floated the local economy:

the Pacific

out of nowhere

a sound constant yet so silent

directionless, lonely approach

straight down the waterfront horizon

hungry mistresses

awaiting with outstretched embraces

harbors of blood and bone cast aside

you here now walking between the thousands of these spread pages

waking the silence

ready for recovery, writing

bourbon in hand

one jean pant leg rolled up

a man 50 turning 30

(Long Island City, June 1 2014)