Flies are constantly present in human life. They investigate the baby’s diaper and have to be shooed away from the dying grandmother’s face. They cannot be ignored. Our tenderest and most passionate moments, our deepest intuitions of transcendental intelligence — all are likely to contain the familiar sound of little wings buzzing on glass.
Talks With American Students
There is no division, no separation between the society and ourselves; we are the world and the world is us, and to bring about a radical revolution in society — which is absolutely essential — there must first of all be a radical transformation in ourselves.
Howie got his guitar the day the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, and he named it Elijah. It made a big impression on him: there he was in his living room tuning this new, magic thing, watching the tanks roll into Prague on television. His best friend Alf already had a guitar, a Gibson named Jezebel, and together they started a band called Rock the Tanks. Alf said if you had a guitar with a good name, you could always get laid.
We’re in the check-out line and I’m putting the groceries on the counter. This is the hardest part of shopping with a two-year-old. Jeffrey’s apple, healthful consolation for all the things I have just refused him, is down to the core, and he’s working himself up to a crescendo of desire. “Daddy, I want a . . . a . . . I want a . . . a. . . .”
You know those brilliant blue days in January after a snowstorm. The world is white and sparkling and you feel blessed just to be in the cold. We decide to go for a walk in a gully so steep it has remained untouched by development. There are five of us: my friend, her new lover, her two dogs, and me.
*NOTE: Original copies of this issue are no longer available. Unbound, laser-printed copies will be provided for print orders.
For my entire adult life I’ve been searching for kindred spirits. I’ve spent eight years in various communal living situations, clumsily attempting to weave a family of shared sensibilities, working to slough off my history of isolation and repression. The struggle has been rewarding, but also full of disappointments and disillusion.
“It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.”
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