I’m about 90% certain I shared a house with this guy in Seattle in 1971. The guy I knew was calling himself Blake (not Dwight) Armstrong & was a good guitar player. He introduced me to some of the old Seattle Wobblies & seemed to know a lot about the Weather Underground, too. (I remember him talking briefly, once, about “self-criticism sessions.” Clearly, he was too much an anarchist to go in for that sort of Maoist groupthink. Liked red wine & marijuana, but then we all did. The photo looks a lot like the person I knew, but I could be wrong. The juice cart / deli detail in the story also makes a connection — my roommate was into health foods long before they became a counter-culture staple. We got along pretty well: played some tennis at the park near the house, hung out a bit, but it was pretty clear he considered me hopelessly bourgeois — loaned me a copy of Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man, still an important book in my view. And I wonder what ever happened to Bruce Altman, a mad musician who also shared that house and later, after I was married, slept on my couch for three weeks before I helped him commit himself to an inpatient psychiatric facility. He’d been picking up secret messages from the radio late at night informing him about the impending revolution. Madness picks up the spirit of the times, I guess. My own madnesses were aesthetic & sexual; in other words, I was hopelessly bourgeois. They were friends of my youth & I miss them.
3 Responses to “Fugitive”
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time and place: the year was ….
the place was ….
now by chance i wrote my drifting orbits
DRIFTING ORBITS
In our town
heartbreaks
are drifting.
We are each
in our own little orbits.
Ordeals pass us
drifting through.
“Hello” we say
again “Hello
sudden oak death.
Hello oak disease.
Hello” passing.
Smart sets
unattentive
on our town’s
other side.
Muddle’s middle.
Birth’s starting
our book
in the middle.
We go back
while passing
forward aging
learning how
we frame
an exit window.
Dreams, feet,
future passing
circumstance,
pomp, rude runt
rough dances
and behind them
Londonderry airs
that go way
back then
forward as Dad
sings Danny Boy.
Ase’s death,
morning-mood,
Anitras dance,
mountain kings.
Fears and hopes
Edward Mycue 28 June 2010
in this place and in this time this may be a right to recall ann stanford’s OUR TOWN poem that was in a maybe may or june 1970 new republic magazine that pulled me up straight on my return to the usa (on my way as i thought then to canada/ vancouver to get landed). ann had studied under yvor winters at stanford while her friend josephine miles was ejected from his class. but it was ann (who in college had once dated young law student richard nixon)who became the most overtly political (her story is truely amazing).
OUR TOWN
This is the village where we grew
Our fathers and their sires in line
The trees they planted shade the view
in this place and in this time this may be a right to recall ann stanford’s “Our Town” poem that was in a maybe may or june 1970 new republic magazine that pulled me up straight on my return to the usa (on my way as i thought then to canada/ vancouver to get landed). it may bring that time back to you joseph. ann had studied under yvor winters at stanford while her friend josephine miles was ejected from his class. but it was ann (who in college had once dated young law student richard nixon)who became the most overtly political (her story is truely amazing). edward
OUR TOWN
This is the village where we grew
Our fathers and their sires in line
The trees they planted shade the view
And the white houses shine.
The families here had come to stay
The preacher was the parson’s son
And if one brother moved away
We kept the solid one.
We tended order in the town
Our lawns were trim, our hedges green
And in the countryside around
The furrows straight and clean.
We went to church, obeyed the laws
And voted on election day.
The peaceful farms surrounded us
The battles always far away.
And when the soldiers come to town
With drums and our flag overhead,
We watched them from the commons lawn
Until they shot us dead.
(this poem of Ann Stanford’s appeared on page 13 in her collection IN MEDITERRANEAN AIR published by viking in 1977.)