Letters to a Prospector (& other notes)

[mnaz]

March 12:
"It's strange: the less there is of you, the more you experience the sublime"-- Joseph Campbell. It flows through great power or space, enough to swallow ego and estimation, enough to confound fences on boundless. At Kyoto, fences shelter a temple garden from the elements until you pass the last post and a vista consumes you-- the reason Buddhist temples are built atop hills, according to the late Joseph, and he made it to quite a few.

I've been to lesser temples on lesser hills. I can't take hills too seriously, stuck on a vista. From Red's camp, hills rise in no hurry-- a cache of compound curves, in flux-- only streaks of sage and greasewood lend faint texture at noon, but those curves improvise as the next storm puffs up, blots out light, transmits charcoal waves through folds-- seep, migrate, inflate, evaporate-- inexhaustible permutations, by chance, immune to my projections of scale. And these hills are common here. If my ass were sufficiently kicked by an esthetic of no certain practical value....

Perhaps if I put a number to the curves and folds-- a number of no particular value. I start counting-- nineteen, twenty, twenty-one.... But an extraordinary vision pierces my circular philosophical fog. The old Sportsman lumbers into camp, possibly an oil-burning sign of the apolcalypse. Jerry urges it on, to an open patch beside Red's cabin. The old Dodge seems indestructible, but lets out a sigh when Jerry turns it off-- a resting place, at last-- we can't pry loose or turn the key. The Sportsman is nothing to tout. Its side panels bulge, the roof sags, and the inside is caked with mild filth. In short, I'm home. Jerry and I level the ancient rig on jack stands and wrap chicken wire around to keep out the rats. Fat chance.

March 13:
"What was it that held Red here for so long?", I ask. "Maybe you should look through his cabin for clues", Jerry offers. "Seriously?" "Sure. Everyone talks about it, but no one actually does it".... Possibility.... I might even find Red's own writing-- his canyon, in his own words.

Contents of an abandoned miner's cabin:
Rusted 14-ounce metal container of Premium saltines, half-consumed.... enamel cook pans hung from nails.... clouded 5 lb. jars of Polish sausage and mayonnaise.... box of yahtzee scorecards, all filled in.... eight decks of Bicycle playing cards in progressive states of decay.... "The U.F.O. Experience", in hardback, by G. Allen Hynek.... Civil Defense pamphlet, dated 1960-- "an H-bomb explosion blankets an area many miles downwind with dangerous radioactive fallout. Essential supplies for your shelter: water, in jugs or bottles, matches, fuel, cooking utensils, can-opener, tableware, portable radio, flashlight, the Bible. Optional supplies: tobacco, candy....".... "Tim Calhown's Rapid Harmonica Course, with Sliding Note Finder".... "Organic Gardening Magazine", April, 1961.... Five classic AM/FM radios.... box of flashlights and two hardhats.... "Archaeological Survey-- Annual Report, 1963, U.C.L.A. Dept. of Anthropology".... "N.A.S.A. Technical Memorandum No. 74345".... stacks of Bureau of Mines reports.... achromatic coated lens telescope.... "Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine", April, 1977.... "Science and Survival", in paperback, by Barry Commoner-- how science might avoid its utimate blunder: annihilation of its pursuers....

Letters to a prospector:
Correspondence abounds in the cabin-- boxes of incoming letters, stacked high. They tell of a man who was loved and respected, who lived a solitary life, never disconnected. I read some letters from the bottom box.... "Thank you for your hospitality. Jill loves to show off the 5-cent nuggets we found. Your mastery with old car parts, etc., has inspired me to finish up some old projects" (April, 1959).... "We won't make it up there this weekend. We want to watch the Miracle Mets in the World Series" (October, 1969).... "Could you send me some of that powder you get from the talc mine?" (May, 1958).... "Yesterday I had my first minerology class. You could do a better job than the professor. His head is full of silt" (October, 1963).... One letter enclosed a copy of the "Psalm of Nixon"-- "Nixon is my shepherd, I shall not want. He leadeth me beside the still factories. I do not fear evil, for he is against me"....

March 15:
Eleven straight days of atmospheric rage-- nothing personal, though. Twenty degrees below normal. But what is normal in a land of extremes? Why should I put stock in it? The storm is perpetual-- cells queue up in Pacific rotation, cycle down arctic air from Alaska, keep "normal" and its weak sympathizers under siege. Skies atop the west mesa offer little relief-- a stream of gales and ice bullets brings on hunker-down. I left the hill today, for a day, maybe two-- to thaw out for a spell. Nothing personal....

March 19:
First calm sunset in two weeks.... Will quiet live up to its name? Problem is, quiet is impractical, even disquieting. You can't run a proper economy on quiet-- noise turns a profit. I'm in luck. Rodents start to run, tumble through a wonderland of rust and bleached lumber, on the cusp of dusk. They dart between piles, agendas, under the Sportsman.... background noise. How could one capture passage from light to dark? The brightest stars break through, pierce dimness of a shade which can't be named because it can't rightly be painted or photographed. I see lumber and sheet metal, angles and lines, ashen light and fade to black. But a fat moon trumps black, lights up the hillside folds again....

The camp: I pictured myself on a long slope over a long vista-- me, the rotting machinery, and the rats, living in peace. In reality, I'm tucked in an alcove on the side of a wide canyon-- for wind shelter, I suppose. But nothing hides from Mojave wind. It rakes every last recess of this place, though generally with more chap than chill. And it starts up again, as the moon gets up. The campfire leans, embers fly....

[stilltrucking]

I must have run through Mojave a hundred times. But I never saw it until now.

thanks

except the sky, especialy at night. such an oceanic feeling to see all those stars

[mnaz]

Thanks Truckin'....

Yeah, there's something about it-- from the Mojave on up into the Great Basin.... beats the Arizona scene, in my book....

Sorry for posting so much all at once.... a lot to "wade through", I suppose....

Anyways.... I'm off again.... (I've always been a little off....)

[mousey1]

mnaz...post to your heart's content, the reading is good, much enjoyable. Keep painting that scene.