On The Road With Al and Ivy: Blog

Johnson at last, of his own accord, allowed very great merit to the inventory of articles found in the pocket of the Man Mountain, particularly the description of his watch, which it was conjectured was his God; as he consulted it upon all occasions. - James Boswell (Boswell's Life Of Johnson) One of my favorite movies is "Jeramiah Johnson," a film that starred Robert Redford, about a civil war vet who became a famous mountain man. The film has many of the elements that Americans love; the wily old sage and a varied cast of oddball characters whose paths cross throughout the film. Those meetings at various times in Jeremiah's new life become a barometer of his progress as a mountain man. It also illustrates a concept that many Americans love, particularly in the Internet age; the notion that one can become a master with a few choice secrets from an expert that opens the door to mastery. Americans love "experts," who are as exalted as ...

"After you have stepped the mast and spread your white sail, you can sit: the breath of Bórëas will guide your ship. But when you’ve crossed the Ocean, you will see the shore and forests of Perséphonë—the towering poplars and the willow trees whose fruits fall prematurely. Beach your ship on that flat shore which lies on the abyss of Ocean. Make your way on foot to Hades." - Homer (The Odyssey - Alan Mandelbaum translation) I once read that James Joyce decided to write a book about what went through a man's mind over a 24 hour period, and then spent the next few years writing it all down. If dictation software had existed back then, maybe it'd have been a faster process, but probably not. The reason is that Joyce spent those years writing a book, that happened to depict a day's worth of thoughts, but somewhere along the way, it became a "work," and not simple transcription. One of the most famous attempts to capture a stream of consciou...

"I saw as clearly as in a picture what an illusion my former personality had been...I had painted a picture of myself as a person who was in fact nothing more than a most refined and educated specialist in poetry, music and philosophy; and as such I had lived, leaving all the rest of me to be a chaos of potentialities, instincts and impulses which I found an encumbrance and gave the title of Steppenwolf." - Herman Hesse (Steppenwolf 1929) The homeless aren't generally thought of as a cerebral group. Media images often portray them as a drug taking herd of cows migrating to the areas that offer the most free services. The images can range from sympathetic (down and out) to disgusting (drug user, etc), and the standard way to express the negatives is to quote a business or property owner who almost always says he or she was sympathetic at first, but came to Jesus on the issue and wishes that all those lazy asses would just go get a job or just go away, and that t...

“I would that my soul were where I believe the soul of that woman to be.”  - Anatole France (Life Of Joan Of Arc) That thought, if I am right, is the possibility of establishing a sympathetic relation with an animal, a spirit, or other mighty being, with whom a man deposits for safe-keeping his soul or some part of it, and from whom he receives in return a gift of magical powers. - James George Frazier (The Golden Bough, A Study Of Magic And Religion) "...one of these days, when you hear a voice say 'come,' where you going to run to?" - Lyric from Johnny Too Bad (The Slickers, Harder They Come soundtrack) Spirituality and atheism require the same amount of faith out there. I got all butt hurt at God and his great plan that put me in a car on some hot muggy side street, and yet the prayers kept coming, begging for a happy ending. In a Godless landscape, you have to believe that the god of money, and it's doctrine, capitalism, will reward faith in t...

"When a man is asleep, he has in a circle round him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly host. Instinctively, when he awakes, he looks to these, and in an instant reads off his own position on the earth's surface and the amount of time that has elapsed during his slumbers; but this ordered procession is apt to grow confused, and to break its ranks." - Marcel Proust (Swann's Way - Remembrance Of  Things Past, Vol 1 - C.K. Scott Moncrieff translation from the French 1922) I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.  I do not think that they will sing to me.  I have seen them riding seaward on the waves  Combing the white hair of the waves blown back  When the wind blows the water white and black.  We have lingered in the chambers of the sea  By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown. T.S. Eliot In my upcoming book, a key point is that sleep t...

"I wasn't scared, I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost..." - Jack Kerouac (On The Road - The Original Scroll) ...of eternal vigilance... One of the themes that runs through my upcoming book is that being homeless wasn't just some change in lifestyle. It was a profound psychological journey that evolved through several stages starting with denial, but there wasn't an even symmetry or pattern of emotions. I briefly described in the last blog entry that the early 80s poetry manuscript evolved into a story about a fall from grace and redemption and that is my book in a nutshell. It's probably how I'd explain it in an interview to make sure it fit into a neat soundbite or quote, but it's certainly not how it all felt at the time. There were a series of emotional stages or phases, but it came on in a chaotic sequence, and there was no linear narrative. The opening stage was certainly ...