Brice and/or Bruce it was who fetched me that blow that day; the same who — surely — planted Water Message #2 for my discovery yesterday; and they have intimated that Bray may make his “final appearance” at the Tower of Truth dedication ceremonies this Friday: the Ascension sequence, in which, I begin to think, I too must play a role.
Brother: thy will be done.
C = the crescent tumescent: creation, call, crossing, coincidentia oppositorum, catharsis, cataclysm.
Cancer of the Muse: if I am dying of it, it is living of me.
Castine (this reader of G’s collected letters suspects) may be, or at some point may have become, a chimera: three decades, years, days ago?
Conflict: last-ditch provincial Modernist wishes neither to repeat nor to repudiate career thus far; wants the century under his belt but not on his back. Complication: he becomes infatuated with, enamored of, obsessed by a fancied embodiment (among her other, more human, qualities and characteristics) of the Great Tradition and puts her — and himself — through sundry more or less degrading trials, which she suffers with imperfect love and patience, she being a far from passive lady, until he loses his cynicism and his heart to her spirited dignity and, at the climax, endeavors desperately, hopefully, perhaps vainly, to get her one final time with child: his, hers, theirs, (cc: Author)
Cook IV’s Ampersand Letter and the rest were supposedly written and posted after his alleged death in 1814; Cook VI’s “Francis Scott Key Letter”—so Prinz had Bruce say to me (Voice Over) at Fort McHenry — would “no doubt wash up in a bottle somewhere”; Coast Guard won’t say what they saw aboard Baratarian; what is this new water message the key to?
Cornerstone in round tower: letters to future, letter-bomb to present?
Cycle II must not reenact its predecessor: echo, yes; repeat, no.
D = departure, dark descent through door of dreams and domain of dragons to deep sleep and dissolution.
Dates (of letters) should also “count”: alphabetics + calendrics + serial scansion through seven several correspondents = a form that spells itself while spelling out much more and (one hopes) spellbinding along the way, as language is always also but seldom simply about itself; and the narrative, like an icebreaker, like spawning salmon, incoming tide, or wandering hero, springs forward, falls back, gathers strength, springs farther forward, falls less far back, and at length arrives — but does not remain at — its high-water mark (making this note made me late arriving at Bloodsworth Island last Tuesday and possibly thereby saved my life).
Day of Atonement: Forgive me, Germaine; forgive me, son or daughter who may or may not exist in my wife’s womb, and Angie who exists imperfectly upstairs as I write this in the Menschhaus basement, and God whose image we have but darkly glimpsed in camera obscura and Easter egg; forgive me what wrongs I’ve done since, say, last year’s Kol Nidre, and others I may be about to do.
Dedication ceremony scheduled for 10 A.M. Friday; Sunrise at our meridian — I reckon from my almanac — approximately 0654 EDST. Daylight begins to dawn.
Design for LETTERS attached (see P.S.), courtesy of Ambrose M.: Doctor(er) of Letters, honoris causa.
Dramaturgy = the incremental perturbation of an unstable homeostatic system and its catastrophic restoration to a complexified equilibrium. Dénouement: not the issue of G’s appointment with Dr. Rosen tomorrow, or of her pregnancy, or of the dawn’s early light 9/26/69, or of the puzzles of Barataria and Baratarian; all those locks, and whatever lies beyond them, may be diversions: the real treasure (and our story’s resolution) may be the key itself: illumination, not solution, of the Scheme of Things.
Drew Mack: then Andrews is likely to be there too; even to get there first, as at McHenry and Barataria…
E = Eros, erection, ejaculation, egg, embryo, ego escape, epiphany, elixir theft, etc.
“Easter-Egg Vision,” Item 7: see G: g, below. Echo, yes; repeat, no.
Entropy may be where it’s all headed, but it isn’t where it is; dramaturgy (see above) is negentropic, as are the stories of our lives.
Envoi: Go, first such letter from yours truly, to whom these presents may concern, restoppered in your faithful craft along with whatever that brown stuff is: past cape and cove, black can, red nun, out of river, out of bay, into the ocean of story.
Epistles + alphabetical characters + literature (“That mildly interesting historical phenomenon, of no present importance”—R. Prinz [dec’d]) = LETTERS.
Escalation of echoing cycles into ascending spirals = estellation: the apotheosis of stories into stars.
Exposition: Once upon a time an author was invited, by a middle-aged English gentlewoman and scholar in reduced circumstances, to accept an honorary Litt.D. from Marshyhope State University; he politely declined; lengthy one-way correspondence ensued, narrating aforementioned Conflict, Complication, Climax, and Dénouement.
F = fire and femaleness, fertilization and fetal life, fall from favor and father atonement.
Family firm finished; family infirmity to be continued.
Farewell to formalism.
Father unknown; father unknowing: Oh, Angela!
Fire + algebra = art. Failing the algebra, heartfelt ineptitude; failing the fire, heartless virtuosity.
Friday, September 26, 1969: 7:00 A.M., Redmans Neck.
Futura praeteritis fecundant, too; and fall, too, begins tomorrow.
G = the self-existent.
g. (Item 7, Easter-Egg Vision, supra) my 7th and surely terminal love affair, surely to come (may it, like this itching bee-mark on my temple, take its time), of which this 7th Stage with G is surely the foreshadow; surely with a woman I shall love to distraction and in vain, as a woman once loved me, whom I have thrice loved otherwise.
Genesis foreshadows Revelations; gynecology echoes epistemology: we now know what Angie knew, that she has been had carnal knowledge of, though we do not yet know who knew her; tomorrow we shall learn from Dr. Rosen, re G, what we know we know; and if by Friday I shall have learned from Angie what I fear, someone in the Tower of Truth shall have an unexpected sunrise set-to with yours truly.
Germaine, Germaine: je t’aime, je t’aime!
Glad to’ve received your letter and your alphabetical wedding blessing, friend (to which there is no N; ditto, I pray, our love!); have been reflecting since upon your project; don’t know what you have by now in hand or in mind for your several correspondents, or what your book’s to be about; there occurs however to this former formalist a design (see below), which of course you are to alter to your purposes. The late Arthur Morton King would’ve published the design instead of the novel; the new Ambrose Mensch might prefer the novel without the design. But he was he; you are you; I shall be I.
Goals: grace, Grail, Götterdämmerung.
Good-bye,
A.
P.S.:
A: The Author to Germaine Pitt and Ambrose Mensch. An alphabetical wedding toast.
Chautauqua, New York
September 7, 1969
From Ye Hornbooke of Weddyng Greetynge (Anonymous, 16th Century?):
Alle
Blessynges
Content that Cheereth ye
Darkest Days No
Enemy but many
Friendes
Good luck & Good
Health to
Inspire
Joye Bee happy as a
Kynge through a
Longe lyfe
May Mirthe
Open a
Path of Peace & never
Quit you but give you
Rest &
Sunneshine In
Trial may you bee
Unceasynglie
Victorious & attaine