How was your weekend?

Tuesday 5/27/25

Sitting outside the Monument the other day and waiting for it to open, I was reading (on Kindle on my phone) Lovecraft's letters to James F. Morton as well as Agatha's Christie's "The Dream." Morton was a member of the NAACP, which didn't stop Lovecraft from putting the pedal to the metal with his racism thing. From this volume:

"I'd like to see Hitler wipe Greater New York clean with poison gas--giving masks to the few remaining people of Aryan ancestry...the place needs fumigation & a fresh start. (If Harlem didn't get any masks, I'd shed no tears & the same goes for the dago slums.)"

You can go days reading Lovecraft's letters and there won't be anything on race, but when there is, it's like he's making up for lost time. No cancellation for Lovecraft, though. But we also see people like David Sedaris saying that the disabled don't deserve to work because that subjects someone like him to their disabilities, and men such as Joshua Boger who defend having this attitude against the disabled.

Of course, if you do this, you have no ethics whatsoever. There isn't anything, no matter how wrong, how evil, you'd find impermissible if it's in line with how you want to feel about yourself and people you deem worthy of being in your circle or who should be touted. There's no real leap from what Lovecraft said above and Boger's beliefs as evidenced in his drunk-with-rage missive to me.

If anything, Lovecraft's a cottage industry that has only gotten bigger as this century goes along. And no, it's not because of MAGA. Those people are much less likely to have ever heard of Lovecraft.

The truth is, people care very little--to not at all--about right or wrong. They care about how they look. And that's it. Caring about right or wrong isn't enough anyway. You have to think about what's right and wrong as a general course, a way of being. That is, you think in terms of right and wrong. You must be introspective.

And people aren't going to think or be introspective. The result is a lot of people who wave a flag for morality, a cause, but they're not invested in whatever is depicted--represented--by that flag. They know, though, that if they stand in this given spot, people will see them waving that flag and will conclude certain things about them.

If those conclusions are drawn, they're also done so sans thought. They're conclusions that happen, rather than conclusions that are logically reached. Delivered conclusions instead of assembled conclusions.

The person who bleats about a cause, about that thing being so important, is in truth usually no different--as per their actual feelings regarding that cause--than someone who states that they think and feel the opposite way.

How Lovecraft has the following he does is almost beyond me--which I say because it's one of those things that is backwards--save that I get it. In addition to things like the above, his writing is so dry and leaden. His fiction is emotionless. But I do know why people "like" him: What passes for twenty-first century community.

Lovecraft made up all of these terms and worlds and words, so for people on the internet, it's like having their own language--a language for their club--and they can "bond"--though it's not really bonding--over recognizing these silly terms, etc.

I don't think they derive much enjoyment from actually reading Lovecraft. He's readable. I've read everything he's written. But he gives you very little that's human. That helps your cause as a human. That facilitates your growth. Or your awareness of yourself, other people, the world.

His letters do a better job of that--when he's not being racist--but his general attitude is appalling. He's not a Zulu warrior, that's for sure. He plays everything in this key of maximum defeatism. Woe, woe, woe, woe, woe, why bother, why bother, why bother, woe, woe, woe, why bother.

In a letter to Morton that I was reading sitting up on that hill in Charlestown, Lovecraft says that there's no point to doing anything at all, because everything leads to oblivion anyway.

Kind of ironic, me being what I am, trying as I try, being where I was to do this singular thing so that I can keep going with everything else, which has a lot to do with the world at large and not just myself, and reading these words.

The Christie story is a locked room mystery. She'll be nothing special for a page or a few pages, then she'll be much better for a bit. The talent isn't always in evidence. In this story, you see it when the dialogue starts between Poirot and the guy who's been having the dream, and also in how Poirot mentally assesses him as primarily performative.

That's the stuff there--the actual human insight. You have to be good to show that in writing. She either couldn't all the way through what she was writing, or wasn't committed to doing so. Almost like a focus and effort issue.

Sunday marked 3234 days, or 462 weeks, without a drink. The Monument, which is usually closed on Mondays, was open yesterday for Memorial Day, so I got a "bonus" day and ran five more circuits of stairs, which was useful because I'm trying to do 400 circuits in four months, as I said, beginning with May 15 and have now done the first sixty towards that goal.

I believe the Monument used to be open seven days a week, pre-COVID. No doubt that information can be found in entries of this journal from years ago. But yesterday made for six days in a row of Monument stair workouts, and that's pretty good. I also walked six miles and did 100 push-ups.

On Sunday I was talking to my mom as I did the stairs. It was a "light" day for me. That is, five circuits at a leisurely pace. The first time I was going up, a woman commented that it was crazy I was trying to talk, not because she thought it was wrong to do so in there, but given that it's so hard and you're out of breath.

It's like most things, though--if you do it often, you get better at it. I was on the phone the whole time and was fine. I'm on the go (not with anything fun--everything in my life--absolutely everything--is for my work and trying to do what I'm trying to do), so I usually multitask and when I do talk to anyone--which is rare--it's while I'm out and moving and getting other things done. Walked five miles and did 100 push-ups on Sunday as well and got to Trader Joe's. Stocked up on strawberries, oranges, and peppers at Haymarket on Saturday.

A common question I get in the Monument: "Are you training for something?" Have been asked this three times recently. I think it's a strange question, but I don't think others would. They'd say, "It's such an uncommon thing for a person to do. People wouldn't work out in an obelisk. They'd go to the gym."

And while that's true, what would one be training for? That person a few months ago asked if I was training for the military. But you wouldn't train for a marathon by going up and down an obelisk and a marathon is the thing people most commonly train for, is it not?

There was that woman--the only other person I've seen work out in the Monument--who did so because she was going hiking in the Alps. Once her trip was over, that was it for the Monument. Well, I assume she's back, if she wasn't lost in the Alps. She definitely treated it as a means to an end. But training to hike the Alps is so specialized that it would never occur to anyone.

I can't give the real answer either, can I? I'm doing this because of the bigots of publishing who discriminate against me so that I can remain strong enough for what I endure to destroy their system and get my work to the world, and be around for a long time after that happens. Which is really why I'm in there. What a thing to train for, right?

To one woman who asked the question, I answered, "Health." I felt like that was a fair answer. It seemed to surprise her.

What follows is a letter from Sunday morning. I could rephrase or rewrite the bulk of its content for the purpose of this record but I will just include it instead.

Well, you're not that far off--it's more like seven editors, the wire, and AI. They have run a number of my op-eds in the past, so it's not that. It's the usual. Incompetence and bigotry. Always the same. When they did run my op-eds (the woman who did so is gone now) they wouldn't even use the full title of Buried on the Beaches; you know, with the subtitle that actually mentions Cape Cod. You can only go as far as the limitations, stupidity, and bigotry of these people--be it at periodical or press--let you go. Unless something else happens.

And discrimination aside: No one is as shortsighted as publishing people. Clueless, visionless, oblivious.

They changed the hours for the Monument yesterday to open at ten, which is better for me. I'm heading over there now. This morning--it's ten of ten--I've worked on no less than ten pieces. Eight film pieces, two short stories.

In the second group: "Just Pants" and "Friendship Bracelet" will be done any day now. The former is 3300 words, the latter 2700. I checked today--I've been working on "Friendship Bracelet" since December 30, 2023. They're both outstanding, important works that no one is going to see right now, if ever. I mean works of real societal consequence, too. The one is concerned with loneliness and the loneliness epidemic; the other is the most heartrending, important anything ever created about bullying.

Look at this prose from "Just Pants." I mean, the quality is ridiculous.

"The plate didn’t break but instead gave brief voice to a strain of clattering echolalia that sounded as it’d been dying to get made and its chance had come at last. The man whose plate it was had been eating a pastry—there were flakes of it on his lips and a broken, vascular smear of what may or may not have been blueberry—but now he held his chest with one hand and the edge of the table with the other.

"He looked like he was modeling a new form of agony that had yet to go to market, or been cast in a bizarre theatrical production that called for an over-emphasis of movement and then he, too, fell to the floor where he became motionless as though some triggered mechanism encoded within the tile had caused everything in him to shut off and the pastry flakes in the corners of his mouth to become suggestive of sawdust."

I wrote an op-ed about the best American war film, 1945's The Story of G.I. Joe and moved it on Sunday. Yesterday, I took what had been a 1000 word piece on Sleepaway Camp and turned it into a 2800 word essay yesterday, and added a further 400 words to it this morning. I still have quite a bit of work to do before it's done. This will work well, though, for Nightmares Be Damned: Writings About Horror Films Worth Staying Up For. Also worked on the title for one of the Grateful Dead books.

Downloaded Jimmie Rodgers' complete RCA Victor recordings, a number of Green River LPs (expanded studio albums, demos, a live disc), the Grateful Dead's Dave's Picks 54, and Misterclaudel's set Lennon/Beatles set of "Real Love"/"Free as a Bird" recordings.

Coming back from Charlestown the other day, there was this little girl--probably five-years-old in a tree. The branches came together near the bottom such that you could stand there if you were small enough. Her mom was taking a photo of her, and as I passed, I heard the girl say, "Can I get down now and play in the sunlight?" So specific and almost poetic!

Less winsome: There was a Harley parked outside Cafe Vittoria on Hanover Street yesterday, as there often is. Two seat covers. One said something about the Church of Donald Trump. The other had Trump's head, with Obama's head below it, and Clinton's head at the bottom. Next to the Trump head it said, "More jobs." Next to Obama's head it said, "No jobs." And next to Clinton's head it said, "Blow Jobs (sic)."

Well, isn't that smart and classy. Do you know Hanover Street? All of the families and little kids on Hanover Street? And you have the blowjob thing for the kids to read? There are so many people to make you think, "It's a shame their father didn't pull out." But nope, he leaned back and fired it all up in there. Then again, if it hadn't been that night, it probably would have happened enough. The world would be a much better place if more seed had been spilled.

Went to a screening of 1950's Winchester '73 at the Brattle yesterday, a film I first watched in eleventh grade. Compelling most of the way through. The idea of the bad guy being the James Stewart character's brother needed to be better handled. Specifically, between Stewart's character and his buddy. Because otherwise it's just not believable. The script should have turned the invented Dutch Henry name into a kind of inside joke between the two friends, where they used that name with a wink, or some sort of sign, nudge, but they use it as if it's always been Dutch Henry's name. The ending is a little flat, too, but not that bad. Not a major work, but an effective one. Solid. I've always had a soft spot for it, and was glad I could see it in a theater. Dan Duryea is electric. Every line he delivers, every move he makes.

Watched an adaptation, too, of Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness that was distributed by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. It's supposed to resemble a film from the 1930s, and I thought this was decently managed.

Additional work this AM on "Just Pants"--the first page. More alterations than I was expecting--I didn't think there would be any. These things are done when they're done. That's just how it is.

Was supposed to take the day off from running stairs today with the Monument closed, but you know what they say: When God closes one set of stairs, he opens another. The stairs at City Hall are always open, of course, but nonetheless I ran a quick 3000 stairs there and did 150 push-ups.

Come to think of it: I'm much more apt to be asked if I'm training for something in the Monument than at the City Hall stairs. The venue and perceived degree of difficulty of running stairs in that venue has to be the reason for the question. People see the Monument stairs as particularly arduous and not what you'd do for a workout.

The realest human there has ever been or will be lives in the phoniest of all eras.