25th Anniversary/Vineland

[Keith Davis]

Beautiful, man.

Www.keithdavismusic.com

> On May 15, 2020, at 5:06 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Rich,
> 
> Moving. The personal that matters even here (instead of just privately).
> 
> I suggest thinking of sending TRP word as to how he change your life.
> 
> Mark
> 
>> On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 7:00 PM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 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)
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> 
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l