White Happiness written white and happiness on white paper - EP Polimev

User talk:Jana Nandha - Wikipedia

Windward Road is an homage to On The Road, a novel by Jack Kerouac. It is Equestrian's first complete short story. I took the Amtrack, on advice from my uncle, a professor of Cosmology and Physics, from Chicago to Emeryville in San Francisco, a three-day journey, through the Colorado River. I presented it to my fiction workshop in my first semester of a three-year MFA, it eventually got "honorable mention" at Glimmer Train, a magazine in Oregon --> Fiction Open Honorable Mentions. My thesis advisor, Professor Wasserman had been interviewed there as well. I did a whole lot of research on Google Maps, as well, and told a story of the continental drift of the United States, the terracotta. the terrestrial land, the territory covered. The protagonist is a character named Augustin, in the image of "Arturo" from John Fante, or Jack London's "The Road to LA", a hilariously funny story. He is a road trip after being "dishonorably discharged" from New York City, from a "career." My entire thesis is called Regalia and Short Stories.

WINDWARD ROAD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

A MODICUM OF PATHOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

REGALIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .................................34

Reglia is 60 pages, a Novella.

“…It’s like here I am a flying nocturnal animal when I was made to work with my hands.”

4

Windward Road

The Packard Clipper ran at one hundred miles an hour, the sun bore down on the

horizon, and for hours now, a shapely meadow had interrupted the desert. Lorenzo’s

head lay against the window, his shoulder on the door; the brim of a Stetson hat fell along

his nose. He gurgled a dreamsound, and a bubble popped. Augustin lifted a bottle from

between them, twisted the top off and took a swig, swishing the warm water along his

gums. Somewhere when Interstate 80 became Interstate 76, in Julesburg, Colorado, a

northern cloud had stretched south and followed, as if a sheet of ice. Augustin swallowed

the remnants as he squared the rear-view mirror, arrested by the churning shears of

charcoal.

The evening before, Augustin veered south of New Chicago, Indiana and parked

on a street at the end of a line of evergreens. He walked up the driveway, around a

Norway spruce, along a white fence and entered the lobby of the Pioneer Inn. There was

an unbuttoned rug, two couches and a large bear in a glass case. He stepped over a

carpeted egg yolk and a palmetto frond and looked up as an innkeeper at a mahogany

desk welcomed him.

“Helga Bergson,” he said, pointing to a placard.

“At your service,” she said.

“I’m Augustin,” he said, taking a seat. “What are you reading?”

“The Midwestern Amble.”

“Splendid.”

5

The light bounced off a shelf of books and magazines and found a tendril of her

hair over shoulder. “Where are you coming from?” she asked.

The heat of exhaustion clamored up his throat, ear to ear. “New York City,” he

said.

Helga smiled and turned slightly, a freckle showed at her sideburn. “Can I help

you?”

“A room for the night.”

She checkered on the keyboard, her rosy eyelids closed. “The Brandywine Room

is available.”

“How much?”

She resumed until the cash register flung open. “One hundred-and-seven dollars.”

Augustin reached for his wallet and retrieved his ATM card. “Great,” she said, running

the card and leaving a receipt.

Augustin went to sign but leaned on his elbow and furrowed his brow—trapped

by the pen. “Yes, right, Augustin,” he murmured. But his hand had risen for his scalp

had warmed, the pen scratched, and specks of dandruff landed on the desk. He sighed at

Helga’s lapsed smile as he signed and then took a copy, sliding it along with his debit

card in his back pocket.

“It’s upstairs,” she said. “The second room on the left.”

He walked up the short, fat steps and shouldered along the oak-heath wallpaper,

stopping at peculiar stenciled portraits. He twisted the knob and pushed on the door and

surveyed a Dayton chair, an orchid-colored bedcover and an light blue, demilune cabinet.

It was a dusty room, not quite discrete but rather upright—orange sunlight entered from a

6

lone window as the sun set over Lake Gary. Augustin dropped the key on the pine desk

and flicked the switch of a lamp. He brought his fingertip to the bridge of his nose and a

corner shadow flitted. His finger dragged along his jaw and a skein unraveled. Shapes

eloped from the furniture, colors betrayed the ceiling and floor and an apple rolled off the

bedside table. He took a seat on the mattress, slipped off his loafers, dragged down his

socks and shoved his socks inside; he tambourined on the bed’s iron foot until he

succumbed to the moon’s glow, undressed, and hung his clothes on the window head

hook.

In the bathroom, as the shower ran, Augustin accounted for himself in the mirror:

a receding hairline, sun-dried teeth, swirls of chest hair, an alien torso. He hung a towel

around his nape, sat on the toilet seat and reclined, resting his head on the tank. In front

on the wall, a black-ink road swerved on a snow-white canvas. Slowly, the frame

steamed over, and Ben Fontaine’s laugh rang out from the canvas. Augustin and Ben

played basketball together at Old Dominion University, and they both got jobs on Swing

Street after school. Augustin saw the steam rise from the sewers three blocks south of the

City Arms in October, the cab screeching through the scaffolding. Augustin had knelt in

silence and held Ben’s hand as blood trickled over the curb, the cab driver standing over

them.

He put on a bathrobe, took his phone and made his way downstairs. Helga had

tossed the newspaper in the trash bin and now read a tall-and-thin hardcover book over a

wooden bowl of soup.

“I have a request,” Augustin said.

She placed the book on its prickly skin. “Is there a problem?”

7

“Can I have a razor?” he said.

“We don’t have any. It’s a liability,” she said. Augustin chuckled. He looked

down at the callus on his toe. “You do look hungry, though,” she said and slurped a

spoonful.

“It’s been a while.”

“Since when?”

“I’ve been hungry.”

She stood up and reached another bowl, walked to kitchen and brought back the

simmering pot. “How come?” she said, filling the bowl.

“My sister says I watch too much television.”

“I’ve never been accused of being nosy.”

Augustin lifted a spoonful and blew over the broth.

“I’ll tell you, though, the soups hearty, swells and calms.”

He emptied the spoon under his tongue and the broth turned to starch. He

coughed as Helga watched, and his phone vibrated in his pocket.

“Sorry,” he said and left to his room. He hastily lay down, overcome by a

slumber. He strolled along the dotted yellow line, scooping up the lemons on Penny

Lane and rain began to fall as he picked elderberries and gooseberries from a traffic light.

He entered Rigby Café and walked around the SEAT YOURSELF sign and between the

bar and a column of booths: a father opened ketchup packets for his daughter, she poked

at her sunny-side up; a large man in overalls lowered a softcover book from his face, he

puffed his cheeks and blew out air. Augustin sat down and asked the waiter for a wine

spritzer. Rain began to fall, and thunder roamed and swelled until it boomed, and

8

lightning flashed. Augustin used the knife and fork to cut the berries and lemons into

pieces, then he detached the pear bulb overhead, carving it as well. When the waiter

returned, Augustin added the fruit to the wine spritzer. His head sunk under a pillow. He

drank a rainlight smoothie.

He awoke in the morning, dressed, took his key and brought it to Helga.

“Morning,” he said, his tongue swabbing the tart wax along his mouth, “Looks

like I’ll be on—”

“Hey,” she said, spitting out a black seed from a watermelon slice. “Come and

watch the sunrise.”

“Sure,” he said with a raised eyebrow. They went outside through a swing door

and down steps onto a graveled path with potted hydrangeas that ended at a lighthouse

on the lake. Something in Augustin ached at the arch of golden light over the cat’s

paws. Helga slowed under a northern catalpa and took a sip from her mug. He turned

from Lake Gary, his heart begging to ask, her smile already an answer. The daylight

was quiet everywhere, except for a belted kingfisher making landfall. Augustin feigned

a look to the lighthouse lattice where it had perched, closed his eyes and shot his mouth.

As the sun settled high at noon, Augustin sped along a straightaway on Interstate

80. The gulf stream off the Great Lakes wrestled the Mississippi River gales. The white

pines conducted an April symphony. Truck containers swayed from rumble strip to

dividing line, the rattling windows of U-Hauls woke parents beside their children, brake

lights flared, exit ramps were clogged with turn signals, the occasional Camaro or Harley

Davidson tailed him. Soon the white pines ceded to an arrangement of oak-hickory and

9

bush-honeysuckle. His knuckles blanched white as the blades of an Ethan Allen wind

farm whirled. Interstate-80 became Interstate-280, where small waterways and trees

unburdened by blossom whipped on either side until a blue tied-arch crossed over the

Mississippi River.

Along a sinuous bend, a black man treaded in a field of meadow foxtail. He wore

baggy trousers, an argyle V-neck sweater and a Stetson hat. Augustin slowed as their

eyes met. The man gripped the strap around his shoulder, and Augustin pulled off the

road. He parked, reached across and rolled down the passenger window.

“How long have you been out there?” Augustin said.

“Since noon,” the man said, smiling with both rows of teeth.

“Are you looking for a ride?” Augustin said.

“I guess it depends,” the man said, closing his mouth but keeping his grin.

A blue truck and a slew of cars whizzed by and a few warblers whispered above

an underpass.

“On what?”

“Well, sir, are you coming or going?”

“I suppose I’m going,” Augustin said, chuckling as he opened the door. The man

sat down and placed his duffel bag in the back and put his hat in his lap.

“Like a seat at the beach,” he said as he closed the door and rolled up the window

“What’s that?”

“Names Lorenzo Herz, sir.”

“I’m Augustin Crane.”

10

The ignition coughed, clanked and hummed and Augustin savored the scent of

grass and the forty-five-degree air. “And the million-dollar answer is,” he said,

accelerating onto the highway, “California.”

After an hour, the traffic subsided, the wind ceased and the trees in the foreground

gave to soybean and corn farms in the background. Lorenzo cracked his window and

watched a vulture see-sawing along the sun’s rays.

“What is it to you?” he said.

“What?” Augustin said.

“California.”

“California?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I can’t be entirely sure. In World War II, we had more ships on the Pacific than

in Normandy.”

“You don’t say.”

“There are three kinds of Albatross on the Pacific.”

“You said you were going.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Turns out, you’re running away.”

“I was a journalist. I reported on the schools, the banks, the people. Then the

banks killed my newspaper; the people didn’t care.”

“You know,” Lorenzo said, picking up his hat and looking through the brim. “I

reckon they got sharks and skin cancer out there.”

11

Augustin let go of the pedal and the wheel and placed his arm along the

windowsill. “You don’t have a dog in this fight.”

“Sure, I do,” he said. “I worked my way up to plant operator for a coal plant in

Romeoville, adding our incidence logs on a computer system. Little did I know a lawsuit

against our coal would wipe us off the map.”

“Who brought the lawsuit?”

“The PTA.”

“There’s no future in coal?”

“Not exactly,” Lorenzo said. “There is one coal plant in California.”

Augustin smiled while a guffaw punched his intestines, shot up his chest and left

from the back of his throat. Lorenzo chuckled himself. Augustin shifted in his seat,

gathering his phone, flipped it open and saw it was his mother who had called the prior

evening.

Margaret Crane was a stocky and Polish woman. Their square house in New

Hope, Pennsylvania had blue window shutters and a red door and stood on block where

the only thing abundant was land. It was always wake up and one-hundred pushups

before pancakes and hash browns, then wind sprints, ball exercises and shooting drills.

Snowstorm after ice thaw, the backboard rusted, the nets wearied, cracks formed but the

rim stayed straight. Margaret kept the same expression if Augustin scored or missed, but

a glint of suspicion lit when he began discussing college. The day he told her he had

signed to play at Old Dominion was the last he had heard from her. He assumed his

sister must have given her his telephone number, and though he worried something might

have happened, he knew she would not call if that were the case.

12

“Do you have family out west?” Augustin said as regained his speed, opened his

window and tossed the phone.

“I had. Down south,” he said.

“What happened?” Augustin asked.

“It’s a long story,” he replied.

Augustin looked at Lorenzo and realized Lorenzo was younger than he’d thought

at first. “Take your time then.”

“It was my little sister, Hazel. I worked for a freight company near the

Wilmington River. We lived on Whitemarsh Island in a one floor house our uncle left us.

Hazel was always showing off, spinning around, a big smile, bigger teeth.”

“What does she do now?”

“She loved being a park ranger on the preserve. Shooting a gun. She loved

buttering her toast in the morning. When I came home from, she’d be in high heels and a

fancy dress and she’d come home with Spanish moss around her ears.

“Does she know you’re heading out west?”

“I don’t have any idea,” Lorenzo said. “She usually swung from a tire swung

when the sun set. She’d point and say, ‘It’s falling down. Can’t nobody do a thing about

it.’ I came home late one Thursday,” he said, pausing to laugh. “Hazel was out there

chirping at a sandpiper. The bird’s demeanor was, you know, hilarious and Hazel looked

up with her big brown eyes and each had a purple wobble.” Lorenzo turned to the

window and wiped the tears off his cheeks. He kept looking out the window. “She

didn’t come home that night. A boatman and his son fishing found her two days later in

the marsh.”

13

The first time he saw Junell, she was hanging upside down from a pole at the City

Arms. The Ballad of Red Buckets crooned from the speaker cabinets, Augustin and Ben

Fontaine ditched the buffet for a scotch and soda at the bar. When the same lanky, green

eyed blonde approached, Ben handed her a twenty-dollar bill and asked for a dance. First

thing, she admitted she smelled a little funny. Ben never minded, though. The day of his

accident, Junell couldn’t stop talking about the marijuana economy in the Northwest, how

it had more upside than alcohol. She had done her research and told them about a liquor

shop in Astoria and a laundry mat in Rockaway Beach as two opportunities.

“It’s the best minds of our generation,” Junell said. “You can have your

spaceship to Mars, but I’m gonna get a seat with the handlers and cultivators.”

“That’s not a bad pitch, Junell. But, we’re not residents.” Benny said.

“I have to wait six months after I move. You can be anywhere in the good-old

United States. The only question is, are you going to pony up?”

“You don’t know what a man is worth,” he sang, “Until you ask a favor.”

On New Year’s Eve in Eden Village, Augustin entered the Standard Duck and

spotted Ben Fontain’s sister Merle Haven in the back. Merle sat alone at the end of the

bar, her hands languishing over a gin and tonic. She wore a lavender suit-jacket with

yellow shoulder pads; a broach curled a stripe of grey hair around her ear. In October,

her husband Pliny Haven had sued the Parks Authority on behalf of the Food Workers

Union. Pliny had made headlines after the judge certified the case, then he made partner

at Brown and Guerra after the Parks Commissioner refused to testify. By Thanksgiving,

the governor decided the toll on Hecho bridge from Fairmont to Manhattan and the

parking fees levied in Fairmont were extravagant, thus unnecessary, and overturned the

14

legislation. Pliny had rented out the entire restaurant in celebration. It was ten o’clock

and there were a lot of people and there was a lot of coming and going, but it was mostly

subdued. The employees of the restaurant stuck out more than any of Pliny’s guests.

Augustin tapped Merle on the shoulder and patted her on the back.

“Told you I’d come,” he said.

“Still busy out there?” she asked, taking a sip from the straw.

“Pretty much,” he said.

“Snowing?” she asked, looking up.

“Barely,” he said. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Whenever I’m not sure, you know what I do?”

“What is that you do?”

“I ask myself where I’ll be eating for dinner in four months.”

“In four months, Pliny and I will be eating goat cheese and pork belly.”

Merle described the progress of her bakery uptown: a new key-lime pie, fudge

backorders, a new tutoring center next door, and a warehouse she had acquired. While

she was asking for another drink, Augustin recognized a boy, bent at the waist, fingers

pressed against a fish tank. Merle began again about her employees: a crop of British

girls that came to America to dampen their painterly instincts; she couldn’t help but admit

their combination of homeliness and cheeriness was ironic, but Merle found the

graduation gowns, flippers and elf hats too much. Augustin kissed her cheek goodbye,

cut between a table and a couch, slapped the boy’s back and shook his limp hand. Arturo

Haven was Pliny Haven’s little brother by twenty years. They had met at a barbecue at

15

the Havens’ estate in Babylon Cove, New York, where Augustin observed thirteen-year

old Arturo had a speech pattern affixed by peculiar prosody.

Augustin poured a cup of Berry Blue, grabbed a handful of yellowtail sushi and

poured one more cup, offering it to Arturo. Arturo had grown a scruffy beard; his frayed

red hair and prominent freckles came together as if a dandelion. He poked at the ice and

some punch spilled as he licked his finger, then he chugged the entire solo-cup, clucking

at the back of his throat and spinning on one toe.

“Hey Augustin,” he said, dropping the cup on the rug. “Did you know schiff

volume has been demonishing?”

“Interesting,” Augustin said. “Because of overfishing or global warming?”

“Not their poplaration,” Arturo said, sucking his teeth. “The sounds of schiff been

fading,”

“Are you sure?” Augustin asked.

“I wouldn’t fold the house,” Arturo said.

Augustin turned and saw Pliny’s arm around Merle, a glass of stout beer in his

hand. The waitress beside them took a jar from the bartender and sauntered toward them

in knee-high socks. She brushed against Arturo’s shoulder and poured the contents in the

tank, tapping the heel of her sneaker. They moved to watch as a blue-flame submerged

and a cloud of orange, red and brown angelfish and zebrafish circled. At the bottom, a

toadfish seemed enamored by wrought.

“His name is Earl,” the waitress said.

Arturo scraped his beard, tucked his arms around his back, stuck his hands in his

armpits and leaned toward a prostrate remora at the top.

16

“The schiff’s rotating a new denizen,” he said.

“How do you mean?” she said.

“The stage evening is determined by a wave’s length,” Arturo said.

“What stage are we in, Arturo?” Augustin asked.

“The measure of the bowfish of the Eugene suspects a type of handshake."

On the other side, Pliny shot the cue ball too hard and a resounding crack shot

through the bar, visibly jolting Arturo. The eight-ball clopped under a couch and rolled

in the cup that Arturo had dropped. He lifted the cup, raised it in the air and shook it

above the fish tank. Augustin felt a sharp prick along his torso as the ball splashed and

moved his hand akimbo.

“Watch this!” Arturo shrieked.

The remora oared its tail and spun its disc-fin against the glass.

By midnight, Arturo was French kissing the waitress, Merle and Pliny were slow

dancing and Augustin was outside throwing up in the Hudson River. It was the

beginning of a flu that cratered Augustin’s ability to stay awake. He slept in a black,

dreamless sleep until the fever turned bleak and his sleeping conscious became marked

by somnolent intimations. First as a vessel in a distant sea, then as a bony fragment in a

luminescent bay, finally the breath of a saber-toothed cat woke him from an arctic tundra.

By Mid-March, Calamy Crane, Augustin’s older sister, a doctor from Auburn,

came to visit his stoop on twenty-first street. She found copies of the Untitled piled on

the doormat, envelope stacks, stamps and glue sticks in the kitchen, and loose-leaf paper

and a TI-84 in the tub. Augustin confessed he had been poisoned by a waitress at the

Standard Duck. That a handful of sushi had defeated him. He would die. Calamy

17

cleaned and kept him hydrated and drew his blood and took it to Scarborough Hospital.

Tests revealed a filel infection, easily managed by a Flagel regiment. By the time he got

better, he was out of work and out of rent money, so Augustin decided to spend his

savings on a car to leave the city.

At the Autotown dealership in Weehawken, New Jersey, Junell’s jean skirt went

down to where her thighs still touched, she wore a tank-top and flip-flops. She had a

half-eaten apple in one hand and smoked a cigarette from the other.

“Hey Junell,” he said.

“Get outta here, “she said, her eyes bulging, “Auggie Crane?”

“Just a simple man looking for a free bird,” he said.

“You leaving for good?” she said.

“I’m going to get that fresh start everyone talks about.”

“What’s that you got there under your arm?”

“It’s my sole possession, you see.”

“You can’t know lady luck,” Junell sang,”until you have to seize her.” She spit

out a piece of apple skin and flicked her cigarette butt. “I actually have just the car,” she

said.

They walked passed a couple columns of trucks and SUVs, price signs on the

windshield, and came to a grass lot with a crop of vintage cars. She kicked the front tire

of a rusted-orange, bathtub sedan with an ox-yoke grill.

“She’s a nineteen forty-eight Packard Clipper.”

“How’s she run, Junell?”

“How the hell should I know? You want to go for a ride?”

18

“Sure, babe.”

She flipped him the keys, but before he could turn on the car, she slid over and

saddled him. She kissed his neck, untucked the back of his shirt and unbuckled his belt.

“She’s a push button selector box, cut plush carpets.”

Augustin peeled at her straps and buried his face in her breasts.

“Bench seats, an electric engine.”

Junell arched her back over the steering wheel and dragged down her underwear.

“A teakwood steering wheel,” she said, yanking at his zipper.

“I’m sold,” he said, and tugged down his pants, his buttocks scraping on the satin

cloth. He put his wrists over her shoulders and kept his thumb on a strawberry mark as

they rocked back and forth.

Junell waved goodbye a check for fifty-eight hundred dollars and Augustin drove

through a metal swampland, between barrens and along canyons, past factories and

beyond broad-roofed parishes. And along the plains of Nebraska, Augustin had admired

a vast checkerboard, the corn silos and tractors, the cows and horses, roosters and crows.

A thud thumped, the bottle went flying and the windshield splintered. Augustin

jerked the wheel one way and the other. He slammed on the brake and his head banged

on the wheel as the car skidded to a stop. A deer flung to the ground on broken

haunches, a popped blister on the road. A slight mist released and a hiss escaped from

beneath the Packard’s hood. Lorenzo untangled himself, scrambled over the pieces of an

antler crown and pulled Augustin out by his shoulders. He looked south and saw a crow-

black, high-cropped ponytail and blue heron feathers.

19

“Wake up, Augustin,” he called, “an Indian is coming.”

Augustin heard cobwebs of grey noise as he sat up and flexed his jaw. The man

stood cross-armed, his mouth straight and narrow, his eyes gelid.

“We’ve had an accident,” Lorenzo said.

“It is my burden,” the man said.

He walked over to the deer, pulled out a three fifty-seven magnum, put in an

empty bullet, aimed between the eyes and pulled the trigger. He slung the carcass around

his shoulders and descended the bluff, leaving a trickle of blood and Augustin and

Lorenzo watched with their hands on their hips.

Augustin got back in the Packard and tried the engine and the battery died. They

waited in silence as the sun set like a candle’s last flicker and the stars salted the night

sky. Then a faint, crepuscular adagio glazed over them; they exchanged glances,

Augustin got back out and Lorenzo stuck his fists into his sides.

“Hey Lorenzo, come look,” Augustin said.

Lorenzo followed Augustin to the back of the car and he unlocked the K trunk

and pulled out a painting. The brushstrokes were long and broken, and they depicted in a

blue wave with a copper wire at its crest. A guitar folded under the wave, although the

headstock made it through the other end. Augustin turned on flashlight and pointed it at

each corner and followed the neck before it died.

“What’s it called? Lorenzo said.

“I don’t know,” Augustin said.

“Who’s the painter?” Lorenzo said.

“It’s anonymous.” Augustin said.

20

The adagio’s tone took a muscular turn and Lorenzo kneeled and surveyed with

his hand on his forehead. He could make out a fire and beyond the fire, the horizon was

crumbling. He hopped, took a few steps forward and skipped like a squirrel from one

tree top to another onto the dirt.

“What are you doing?” Augustin said.

“Come look,” Lorenzo said.

They plodded over a chalky trail marked by sagebrush and cherry dogwood and

came upon a white-steel trellis and a seated audience facing a stage. A pretty young rose

instantly rose from her seat.

“I am Hosanna,” she said, both hands held out with the contrast of silk and

tortoise shell. She had large bangs and elegant eyelashes. “What’s that your holding?”

“It’s a painting from New York City,” Augustin said.

“Oh my,” Hosanna said as she held it up. “Quite à suite.”

“You can keep it,” he said.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said.

“Ma’am,” Lorenzo interjected. “What is this place?”

“It’s a Shopakora in Fort Collins, Colorado,” she said. “Join us.” She offered the

painting back to Augustin.

“I insist,” he said, touching her shoulder. “Consider it a donation. Tax-

deductible.”

“You’re too kind,” she said, “What’re your names?”

“I’m Augustin, he’s Lorenzo.”

“Come enjoy the show,” she said. “There are no interlopers here.”

21

They followed her down an aisle leading to a stage backlit by a campfire.

Augustin scanned clockwise from nine o’clock: a bearded guitarist leaned against a

boulder, strumming and chewing jimsonweed; three maidens lay playing Chinese

checkers over cross-hatched blankets—two of them wore kohl eyeshadow behind rimless

spectacles—they both waved at Lorenzo. He looked past them at an area where a coyote

might have been. A play being performed on a threadbare rug was now visible. The

couple moved barefoot in a swath of silhouettes, the actress behind a laundry clothesline,

the actor on a wicker chair, a typewriter in his lap.

“That’s Cheyenne and Denver,” Hosanna said, “Aren’t they wonderful?”

“I really couldn’t say,” Augustin said.

He looked to a kind of troupe basking in the night’s lore. A tall gentleman in a

nightcap bent his forefinger around a glass of madeira. On his sides, there were two

violinists, both adorning a crimson handkerchief, both under a slicked-back coiffure,

together, they harmonized a platonic scale. At either end, two elderly ladies sat behind a

cloth-napkin swan. And, standing like a lawn ornament, a short fellow in a bomber

jacket and scoffed loafers took a breath from his French horn and began toggling his

fingers rapidly as he started anew.

Cheyenne broke from a stilted waltz and gave her hand to Denver and lifted him

from his seat. She leaped toward a palo Verde, landed on one leg and swept the other en

passent. She held firm and steadily reached out her arm and slowly unfurled her fist.

Denver lifted his right leg and stomped and swiveled his heel. The light licked across his

face and captioned a misspoken smile, rheumy eyes, a chevron mustache. He reached

22

behind his neck and tossed his hat high up into the night. The top landed on his

outstretch palm, and Cheyenne flicked it into the fire.

Hosanna turned to Augustin. “Look up,” she said.

The violins galloped, the guitarist straightened his tempo, the French horn

dizzied; the night sky brimmed, and the stars sank behind a whorl of trichomes. Those

not playing instruments approached the stage, arms around one another.

“I can make out the dew in the Milky Way,” he said.

The women skipped and kicked, and Lorenzo pranced, and the gentleman in the

nightcap twirled Hosanna, and Denver and Cheyenne threw up their arms, then all of

them stumbled and the cancan ended.

The Indian advanced from the fire, and as he placed a pot upon the bench,

Augustin’s gastric juices coiled, the pull of hunger cleft his tongue.

Abstract Art

Abstract art starts with time, observing the time of abstraction, then follows with the idea of special relativity. Abstraction is when the solid framing of the object of your art is rendered differently, perhaps with subtle utility, or representative shaping, then the literal direct object. Similarily in writing, the author chooses to hide, and create at times even an "unreliable narrator." In writing it has to do with "truth." Not "form." An equals sign as a highway for instance is abstract. What happens is the direct object becomes abstracted, suspended, develops over time for the viewer, in "their" own imagination. Abstraction thus requires engineering.

German Minimalism: 

German minimalism is a theory of real-time value, computing and storage in the creation of art. Parallel structure, for instance, is a novel, and its movie; or a film, and the novel. For me, it's the creation of the Eulogy, and especially the paradox of thrift; on how to apply resources. Christopher McCandless' Into the Wild (2007) is a film based on the book by Jon Krakaeur, which since I went to Emory, holds a third, tertiary, deep impact. Mary Christ explains it as not about grace, but instead about painting; many of her surviving works are hung in places like Museums, Coffee Shops, and Diners. Nighthawk is a great film with Jake Gyllenhal. Nighthawks is a great painting by Edward Hopper.

Other dualist constructs

Wiseblood (Dean Acheson, Flannery O'Connor)

The Dead (James Joyce, Cary Grant)

Robert Penn Warren who is Robert Redford, of the notable film, Spy Game, and a major influence during the Noam Chomsky and Leo McGarry debate, being a Green Beret at the time, he could not participate publicly. The German Minimalist book structure is typically a very long but like a train engine steaming and steamy book based on Architecture. German Minimalist buildings include the Chrysler Tower and the Empire State Building.

All The King's Men

Robert Penn Warren

Pg. 293

"...Hey, bud, you want it?" For this was the edge of the crib section, and some of these houses were cribs. but at this reason, at night, whatever kinds of life, were in these houses--the good life and the bad life--were still withdrawn deep inside the old husks of damp, crumbling brick or flaking wood. A month from now, in early April, at the same when far away, outside the city, the water hyacinths would be covering every inch of bayou, lagoon, creek, and backwater with a spiritual-mauve to obscene-purple, violent, vulgar, fleshy, solid, heartbreaking, misty green, like girlhood dreams, on the old cypresses would have settled down to be leaf and not da damned, and the art-thick, mud-colored, slime-slick moccasins would heave out of a swamp and try to cross the highway and your front tire hitting one would give a slight bump and make a sound like "kerwhush..."

In German, there are two types of knowledge, or Kennen & Wissen. Kennen, conjugated as Ich Kenne, Ich Kennst, er/sie/es Kenne, wir (we) kennen, Sie (polite form they) kennen. That is for people. One knows people in a certain way, perhaps like film and cinema, movies and television. Wissen is for knowledge of "things," most notably the thing itself, Das Ding an Sich. The direct translation is..."The thing 'itself.""

The subjunctive in German is sehr interessant. All languages also have a future tense.

Sein and Wurden are usually left out in the teaching of subjunctive in German. Sein is to be, basic 101. Ich bin. Du bist. I am, you are. Er sie es, ist. It is. There is one sein. In other languages it might be two, like possibly in Spanish. Ich war, is "I was." Thus Sein, and Wurden which means in the future are =. Werden means to become but it really means:

Ich würde am Dienstag einen Apfel essen.

English translation: "I [will] eat an apple on Tuesday."

In Spanish, there are two "is, sein or "to be." The main reason is because Spanish is typically, like Brazilian Portuguese incredibly conversational. German, incredibly, not conversational. Duolingo is proof of this.

• Yo soy = I am (essential trait, identity, or origin). These are permanent.
• Yo estoy = I am (current mood, health state, or physical location). These are temporary, like a mood, or like being in a classroom, for a certain amount of time.

Yo estoy en casa. I am at home.

Yo soy americano en paris. I am an American in Paris.

In Brazilian portuguese, E aí? or Que voce? means, "How's it going." Tudo bem, means, "All good!" Beliza Total, means Everything is All Good! "Obrigado/a" means thank you. Then you can order lunch in English, perhaps.

Pronoun (English) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]SER (Permanent/Who/What)ESTAR (Temporary/Where)Yo (I)soyestoy

Ich moechte, means I would like to. Ich koennte is the best way of explaining the subjunctive. It pleases me that I can. Ich (moechte≈). Things like that.

You can replace F [Ich wuerde] with the other verbs. Verbs and verb conjugations are tough. In German, you'll note that "essen" is at the end. Which is why you can replace the subjunctive or reverse engineer the sentence form for "sein."

Ich {ess} conjugate it, for I, Ich esse einen Apfel.

In Poetry it leads to Sanskrit feelings of Moksha; Self-Realization: The realization of the true nature of the self (Atman) and its unity with the ultimate reality (Brahman). Moksha is the ultimate goal of spiritual liberation, freedom, and salvation in Indian philosophy. It is a core concept across several major Eastern religions, representing the end of the cycle of rebirth

Robert Redford on R^2 in Multivariable Calculus:

At Keane's Steakhouse, the composite character and the Jealous goof; they stand under and orange sky.

"Dan in real life," the character says.

"I think no," the goof replies, a snivel.

Another snivel.

The solstice of good, the goodness of solstice. And Good with a capital G.

Calculus: two variables are X+Y= R^2. y=mx+B is single variable calculus, b is the constant; there are two variables, and they calculated by a slope. Which is interdependent on the two variables, plotted on a graph.

X+Y=R^2 for instance, is interested in how X and Y effect the other, if they are effective together, or efficient together, or even probabilistic together.

Page 328

Now, I, windwardroad, counted the R's, and got 17r.

"Fo(r) example. But I cannot give you an example [yet]. It was not so much any one example. It was not so much any one example, any one event, which I (r)ecollected which was impo(r)tant, but the flow, the textu(r)e of the events, fo(r) the meaning is neve(r) in the event but in the motion th(r)ough event. Othe(r)wise, we could isolate an instant in the event and say that this is the event itself. The meaning. But we cannot do that. Fo(r) it is the motion which is impo(r)tant. And I was moving. I was moving West at seventy-five miles an hou(r), th(r)ough a blu(r) of million-dolla(r) landscape and he(r)oic histo(r)y, and I was moving back th(r)ough time into my memo(r)y.

Now we count. 17. In-fact there are 4 R^2 alone in the last sentence.

On Israeli Zionism and Palestinian Democracy

Background: At Emory University, I studied Economics, minored in history. But I took a graduate seminar on the Palestine Mandate and wrote a thesis.

Dear Mr. Chomsky,

I'm writing to ask whether you confess mistakes (-spotmarks).  My thought is that a METHOD to HUMILITY requires, morally, an obligation to admit defeat -- however defined.  And then, to perpetrate this upon others -- Ibid.  I'd like us to be others for 80 days.

My best, and Etc.

All the time, but mistakes are not defeats and they are not confessed

Dear Mr. Chomsky,

Mistakes are not defeats, however I wonder, if they are not communicated tha-en what becomes?

They are forgotten.  A sweet sound of truth becomes instead the death of silence.  

Cognitive dissonance.  Is there a moral responsibility that lies in the diagnosis of illness?

Best,

Anooj

Sent from my iPhone

We should tell the truth and expose lies.  

Perverted ambition is the stuff of happiness.  Courageous struggle is a maker of cheerfulness.

Would you care to meet in person to discuss?

Sent from my iPhone

Between Zionism and Jewish Nationalism: Brith Shalom

Anooj Pakvasa

Emory Undergraduate Research Journal --> (joking)

The history of the Palestine Mandate recounts the story of modern man. The main protagonists—Great Britain, the Zionists, the Palestinians as well as lesser characters— are comprised of the essential ingredients that have affected the adaptation, evolution, and progression of society into its present nature. The great isms developed from the social philosophers of the 19^th century were tried and tested in the world wars of the 21^st century. What is clear is that the tangled mess that the war for self-determinism, capitalism, socialism, and eventually Zionism cannot be described with simple details or clear visions. In-fact, it is the narration and distillation of these constituents that is the commission for the historian. While this study understands that the great difficulty is for this antiquarian—who is interested in finding out the precise account of what the thinking was—it also seeks, given this panoptic era, to gain value from that thinking. It is through this process that while “History cannot give us a program for the future,” as Robert Warren said “it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future."

Given these ambitions, it might seem odd to write about a group of intellectuals who had, essentially, no tangible consequences on the conflict. That is to say, the political goals of the Brith Shalom Society were never seriously considered let alone achieved by either the Zionists or the Palestinians. An introduction into the society of Brith Shalom tells of a radical circle of academics who aspired for a peaceful order between Arabs and Jews, through the renunciation of the Balfour Declaration. It goes on to describe the faction as supporters for the establishment of a bi-national state under the British Mandate and as a result, were accused of treason by other Zionists. What is often left out, however, in a cursory description of Brith Shalom, is their very guiding principal—their Zionism. The members of the circle were all dedicated and passionate Zionists, many of whom, in-fact, had prominent roles in early Zionist conventions. Thus, there arises this dilemma of on one hand, a group of self proclaimed dedicated Zionists, consisting of prominent educators of Hebrew University, classical economists, and philosophers who are still widely read, and on the other, a history of marginalization and even vilification by the Zionist consensus. What is clear, is that in describing Brith Shalom, a political depiction proves unable to reconcile this ostensible contradiction. It is in understanding why that the context of both the group and its time will become significant. A more essential grasp of Brith Shalom, then, will not only give meaning to Brith Shalom’s Zionist conception, but as a consequence, also illuminate the general complexities, hopes, and ramifications of Zionism.

The very nature of the group--its diversity, its debate, and its dialogue--makes it difficult to find a monolithic ideology that lends itself to a political line. Some of its members contributed because they believed in their goals. Others enlisted as a matter of principle. And still others saw their activity in only social and political meaning. In order to render a discerning depiction of the Brith Shalom, therefore, it must begin from the inside out. That is, the members and the membership must be first defined.

There were two main groups comprising the society that upon inspection become very distinct. The first, the Anshei ha Yishuv, including such men as Arthur Ruppin and Ya'aov Tahon, consisted mostly of Eastern European immigrants. They were prominent in the first years of the society, and as practical and political Zionists, they were content to research and study the situation. The second group, who study will focus on, was comprised of intellectuals from Central Europe, many of who were affiliated with Hebrew University. It wasn't until this group came to the forefront, five years after inception, that there began a transformation of Brith Shalom from an organization focused on study, thus primarily academic, to a political organ. These two groups represent two political criterion existent within the society, what has been called Maximalists Zionists and Radical Minimalists. The former, to whom the Eastern European men belonged, saw the bi-national idea as perspective while the Western European intellectuals, classified as radical minimalists, saw the bi-national idea as the only solution worthy in itself and as most suitable solution for the realities of Palestine.¹

In 1925, these two groups joined in the creation of the Brith Shalom Society that according to one if its members, M. Meir, held to only one principle, a principle that most Zionists did not disagree with, “that realizing Zionism is not possible without achieving a political agreement with the Arabs of the country.”² Their goals were to “find a proper juridical arrangement for relations between Jews and Arabs; to serve as a vehicle for clarifying the immediate issues that were likely to feature in the long term, such as the issue of cooperation between Jews and Arabs in legislation, administration, taxation, and the like; to strive to find a Jewish Arab understanding that would respond both to the moral requirements of its founders and to the demands of the Arabs.”³ Upon founding, then, two points should become clear. First, the explicit goal of the organization was not to restrict or injure the Zionist cause, rather from the perspective of the coterie, it was the very realization of Zionism. Secondly, as war and occupation are not political solutions, it appears that their founding principle was either incorrect, or Zionism has not yet been achieved. Either way, what becomes clear is that it is not the political nature of the society that should primarily distinguish them, though it came to, but more importantly, their conception of Zionism.

While the contingent from Eastern Europe might not fall under this categorization, what the radical group from Central Europe and the legacy, if any, of Brith Shalom came to represent has been called cultural Zionism. This consideration of Jewish nationalism held by the more radical members of Brith Shalom can be understood in the context of their inspiration and their time. That is, for the men from Germany, the Habsburg Empire, and Bohemia, their conception of Zionism was shaped foremost by the influence of the essential creators of cultural Zionism, Ahad Ha’am and Martin Buber as well as the unique social context from which their perception of the world came from.⁴

1 Shalom Ratzabi, Between Zionism and Judaism (Boston, 2002), p. xv.

Added 6/1

Shalom Ratzabi, Ph.D. (1994) in Jewish History, Tel Aviv University, is lecturer of History at Tel Aviv University and the editor of Zionism. He has published extensively on Spiritual Zionism and on the Orthodox and New Orthodox trends in modern Judaism.

2 Ibid., p. xi.

3 Ibid., p. xv.

4 Laurence Silberstein, “Martin Buber: The Social Paradigm in Modern Jewish Thought,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol.49, No.2. (June., 1981), p. 222.

This is an analysis by Mahathma Gandhi in 1913 of the above work.

The epithet “builder of bridges”, which Buber received from Ernst Simon, is particularly precise in this regard: “This apt metaphor conveys the image of someone who dedicated his life and thought to crossing the chiasms that separate the domains of thought and culture from one another, to healing broken relationships between individuals as well as between groups, to re storing unity and wholeness in people’s lives. Through his life, Buber dedicated himself to overcoming the estrangement that divides people from people, the person from God, the person from his social and cultural world, the Jew from Judaism, the Jew from the Christian, the Jew from the Arab, and the nations from the nations. In fact, Buber’s writ ings can appropriately be read as one of the most significant attempts in modern times to combat the alienating conditions of modern life, to help man in general and the Jew in particular recover a sense of meaningfulness, rootedness, holiness, and wholeness in his own life” (Silberstein 1981, 211). Within Buber’s dialogical framework, human beings enter in relationship with the to tally Other, in such a way that the totally Other is the totally Present too. The encounter with the Divine was always lived and interpreted by Buber within a tradition, that of Judaism, but through the creative freedom of “religiosity”, and not in the observance of a “religion” (Ferrari 2014 color(Silberstein 1981, 211). Within Buber’s dialogical framework, human beings enter in relationship with the to tally Other, in such a way that the totally Other is the totally Present too. The encounter with the Divine was always lived and interpreted by Buber within a tradition, that of Judaism, but through the creative freedom of “religiosity”, and not in the observance of a “religion” (Ferrari 2014).

Christopher McCandless' in Into the Wild (2007).