Consciousness, Hemingway, and war wounds

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Now that I am settled into my new place in Charlottesville, I am hoping for a new series of conversations such as I enjoyed last year. This came yesterday.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

4:20 AM. All right, gentlemen, I hereby call this meeting to order, after a good long time. I haven’t sat down to chat on a regular basis since — when? December? November, maybe? First came getting the book into shape, then came a genuine hiatus in Florida with Charles, then a fast search for a new place in town, a month spent preparing to move, and a week and a little unpacking and arranging. But since yesterday Nancy brought me most of the houseplants she had protected from the move by keeping at her house, and since she helped me put up more pictures, I’m about ready to declare myself more or less resettled. And now it’s time to begin new habits, I think. So –?

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Hemingway: Different ways to connect

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

In December, I finished writing The Cosmic Internet, presenting a logical explanation of what I’ve gotten from the guys upstairs on how the world works and what our place in it is. Upon completing the task, I had a sense that I should do something out of my ordinary routine, so I decided to take a vacation. At my friend Michael Langevin’s suggestion, I went with my old friend Charles to the Florida Keys. (Because of the generosity of two other friends who are letting us stay as guests in their house on one of the keys, I am spending more on books about Hemingway than on lodging.) The first full day in the keys, we went to see the Hemingway house and museum on Key West. The next morning, I had a talk with Papa — my first in what seems a long while.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Seems odd to realize that yesterday was our first full day in the Keys. Now we have nearly 2 weeks ahead of us with nothing planned and nothing we need to do. And I have several books, of varying quality.

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Conversations June 24, 2010

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Thursday, June 24, 2010

5 AM. I stopped at Barnes and Noble and bought five Fitzgeralds. Re-reading The Great Gatsby first, because it is an old friend, and perhaps will ease me into reading him as his short stories definitely did not. Also, the next volume of Nevins’ history of the Civil War arrived in yesterday’s mail. Quite a plethora of books to read; I’m a little bit overwhelmed.

Good morning, friends. Anything special on your minds today?

No? Then I guess it’s up to me. All right, Papa, let’s talk about F. Scott Fitzgerald and me. Yesterday I was moved to buy five of his books, after having been unable to read the book of his short stories that I had borrowed. Other than “The Lost Decade,” they seemed so shallow and even silly — just an impression from titles, and reading the first few pages of “A Diamond As Big As The Ritz” and “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” — that I returned the book and thought I was finished with. But then I return with Tender Is The Night, The Beautiful And Damned, This Side Of Paradise and Gatsby. I’m wondering: why.

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Conversations June 21, 2010

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Monday, June 21, 2010

5:30 AM. Solstice today.

So, to work. Yesterday produced a couple of things I didn’t expect, not least that Carl Jung rather than Ernest Hemingway should start off. Perhaps someone could explain to me why it is that after I have written, and orally transcribed, and proofread, and sent out on the computer, and printed and put into a looseleaf binder the day’s take, I can remember none or sometimes almost none of what was said.

It’s just as well. It is in this way that you are kept with the mind empty of expectations that provides the least interference with what is offered.

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Conversations June 20, 2010

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Sunday, June 20, 2010

4:45 AM. So, Papa, let me pose the question this way. I am more and more inclined to see your essence as a model — not the only model, but one model — of a complete man, intellectually, physically vigorous. Yet there is the negative evidence, your mental problems, for example. Your inability to get beyond certain fixed ideas — “my mother is a bitch; my father was a coward” — regardless of the facts. I can’t quite phrase my question because I can’t quite grasp it. I’m hoping you can take it and run with it. For all I know, you — or someone but probably you — are suggesting it, in the first place.

No, not Ernest, not at this moment.

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Conversations June 19, 2010

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Saturday, June 19, 2010

6:50 AM. All right, Papa — or anyone with business for the morning.

Your life is changing — everyone’s life is changing — more so than usually. More so both in the sense of “faster” and in the sense of “more extensive.” This is what you wanted, or why come into a life in these times? But that doesn’t mean that you’re automatically ready for the changes, or again what’s the point of living in these times? If you already know — already live — everything there is to know or to live — what tedium! Instead, what interest, what drama!

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Conversations, June 18, 2010

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Friday, June 18, 2010

Nearly 6 AM. [I have been doing some informal counseling for friends, and Thursday night’s session provided an example of how we can get trapped in ways of seeing things that prevent us from seeing straight. Since I work from the assumption that anyone on the other side that we are connected to knows what is in our mind — including our memories — I thought I’d see if Papa Hemingway had learned something, seeing his own tendencies from outside, so to speak.]

What do you think, Papa? Looking for my eyes, can you see the mental processes that progressively distorted your life?

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