More Jack, More Sur

"I realized you can always study the character of a man by the way he chops wood-- Monsanto an old lumberman up in Maine as I say now showed us how he conducted his whole life in fact by the way he took neat little short handled chops from both left and right angles getting his work done in reasonably short time without too much sweat --but his strokes were rapid --Whereas old Fagan pipe-in-mouth slogged away I guess the way he learned in Oregon and in the Northwest fire schools, also getting his job done silently, not a word --But Cody's fantastic fiery character showed in the way he went at the log with horrible force, when he brought down the axe with all his might ...He chopped off his log with the fury of a Greek god --Nevertheless it took him longer and much more sweat than Monsanto --'Used to do this in a workgang in southern Arizony' he said, whopping one down that made the whole tree trunk dance off the ground --But it was like an example of vast but senseless strength, a picture of poor Cody's life and in a sense my own--I too chopped with all my might and got madder and went faster and raked the log but took more time than Monsanto who watched us smiling..."

"...this poor haunted canyon which again gives me the willies as we walk under the bridge and come to those heartless breakers busting in on sand higher than earth and looking like the heartlessness of wisdom --Besides I suddenly notice as if for the first time the awful way the leaves of the canyon that have managed to be blown to the surf are all hesitantly advancing in gusts of wind then finally plunging into the surf, to be dispersed and belted and melted and taken off to sea --I turn around and notice how the wind is just harrying them off trees and into the sea, just hurrying them as it were to death --In my condition they look human trembling to that brink --Hastening, hastening ---In that awful huge roar blast of autumn Sur wind."

"In August a horrible development took place, huge blasts of frightening gale like wind came pouring into the canyon making all the trees roar with a really frightening intensity that sometimes built up to a booming war of trees that shook the cabin and woke you up -- And was in fact one of the things that contributed to my mad fit."

"The blue sky adds "Dont call me eternity, call me God if you like, all of you talkers are in paradise: the leaf is paradise, the tree stump is paradise, the paper bag is paradise, the man is paradise, the fog is paradise" -- Can you imagine a man with mar-velous insights like these can go mad within a month?"

"But I remember seeing a mess of leaves suddenly go skittering in the wind and into the creek, then floating rapidly down the creek toward the sea, making me feel a nameless horror even then of "Oh my God, we're all being swept away to sea no matter what we know or say or do" -- And a bird who was on a crooked branch is suddenly gone without my even hearing him."

"Because a new love affair always gives hope, the irrational mortal loneliness is always crowned, that thing I saw (that horror of snake emptiness) when I took the deep iodine deathbreath on the Big Sur beach is now justified and hosannah'd and raised up like a sacred urn to Heaven in the mere fact of the taking off of clothes and clashing wits and bodies in the inexpressibly nervously sad delight of love..."

"I've been sitting in that chair by that fishbowl for a week drinking and smoking and talking and now the goldfish are dead."  (Oh, Mr. George Willow, how this transports me back to an afternoon.)

"Remember when we were in East St Louis with George, and Jack you said you'd love those beautiful dancing girls if you knew they would live forever as beautiful as they are?"

"…the eyes of hope looking over the glare of the hood into the maw with its white line feeding in straight as an arrow, the lighting of fresh cigarettes, the buckling to lean forward to the next adventure something that's been going on in America ever since the covered wagons clocked the deserts in three months flat."

I want to go back.