August 8, 2026
Rob the handyman– who plays upright bass and in his 20's rehearsed with a combo somewhere on this street–came to fix the fascia under my roof. He claims to be mystified by the cause of the problem, but fixed it “for the moment.” Whenever I hear “for the moment” I take comfort, thinking, “How long can I live? It’ll be somebody else’s problem.” My attention drawn to the western wall, I saw how overgrown it had become with noxious vines (not noxious in the abstract, but noxious there) and went into an orgy of weeding. The damp ground provided satisfaction as whole giant root systems came up without much resistance.
My little aerator makes a glittering umbrella of drops over the waterlilies. In that I am happy.
Can’t get my mind off the AVLGMV debacle. This is usually the sign that I’ve left unfinished business, but I’m not sure what. It’s only a debacle for me, I imagine; for the rest it’s relief from a weekly annoyance. Opposing Penis Head over Humanities I was absolutely on the side of right, fighting the Long Decline. Two years later the program was dead. Could I have saved it? Maybe not, but at least its end would have been lamentable, as it was not the way things turned out. With the chorus I think it’s more a change of generation. I’m sorry that the genius of this generation involves the apotheosis of one’s own trauma over all other matters, but there you are. I’d be fighting with people I like, who, I think, are genuinely astonished by my vehemence over matters that in their circles are never mentioned. So be it. But something keeps me gnawing at it, like a puppy with the corner of a rug. Have I left something out? Have I been reasonable in my explanations? Is my duty to oppose or support the second-rate thing, rejoicing that it is not worse? If I’d finished my task, would it not vacate my thoughts?
One observes of the Corporate Mind that it wants to install its plan regardless of the benefit to the organization. Better the business die than not have my mark on it. The Corporate mind confuses second and first causes, confuses the adverb for the verb. Efficiency becomes the goal, leaving behind consideration of the process that one was meant to be efficient at. Bottom line becomes the goal, forgetting that the whole ledger was meant to support some actual cause. That is what destroys universities and theaters. The goal is forgotten. The operation of administration wholly replaces the thing administered.
Congress has just voted the stupidest man in America– and one corrupt to the limits stupidity allows–as our Attorney General.
Evening: Rob the Handyman needs to come back tomorrow to finish. I said I’d pay him now in case I was gone tomorrow. He figured for a moment and then said, “That will be $40.” I said. “That’s ridiculous. Carrying that stupid ladder was worth $40.” I gave him $100.
I prepared a memoir of my time with his father for Taliesin. I stopped by the Sav-Mor several times to give it to him, but he was not working. But I was filled with a need to go tonight so intense I might call it supernatural. I went, and there he was. He had to go on break, had to go home for dinner, so there was no time to talk. He was very flustered. He took the pages out and returned the brown paper envelope, saying “I’m returning this. These things are very expensive.” I’ve never minded being a cog in someone else’s machine, a contributor to someone else’s story. Rejoice in it, in fact, when I recognize it’s happening.
