"I of my own knowledge…"

So there’s this book of essays by Michael Ventura, with photos by Butch Hancock, called If I Was a Highway, published by Texas Tech University Press (ttup@ttu.edu, or www.ttupress.org). It’s a hardcover,  7.5 x 9.5 inches, 236 pages, $30 but you can get it at Amazon for $22.

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Back in the 1980s, while reviewing books for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, I came across Shadow Dancing in the USA by this guy I’d never heard of. I read it enthralled, and gave it a good review which unfortunately didn’t see the light of day for nearly a year, thus doing the publisher no good at all) and from that moment added Michael Ventura to my look-for list. Of course, that was back before the days of internet searches, and Amazon and Alibris and Powell’s online and so forth.

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Computers are time machines. We write emails and other things, put them out there in cyberspace, then when we’re least expecting it, we stumble upon them like messages in a bottle from ourselves to ourselves. Case in point, my March, 2011, monthly column for The Meta Arts magazine (http://www.themetaarts.com/pages/frankdemarco.html). Because the columns have to be submitted three or four weeks ahead of publication, by the time they appear I am usually in another mental space and they are fresh again. Here, for what it’s worth to you:

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So here I am in what might be described as Day 21 of the Unpacking  Hostage Crisis.

Well, okay, not that bad.  With the extensive and artistic help of my friend Nancy, I have managed to bring my new lodgings into not only livable, but actually quite pleasing, shape. And in record time, too. The initial phase that seemed like it was taking forever actually took less than a week. Everything after that has been a matter of refinement:  sorting 13 bookcases of books into alphabetical order by author within subject, for instance. Try that on a day when you have nothing better to do.

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I find myself in a funny position, in that I don’t necessarily pay a lot of attention to channeled material, much of it seeming to me to be contaminated and ego-driven. But this by Tom Kenyon on behalf of those he calls the Hathors rings true, and not only rings true, it echoes stuff I’ve gotten from the guys upstairs.

Like Kenyon, I feel impelled to spread this particular message, and I suggest that you do the same and ask members of your lists to do the same in turn.

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Thursday, February 10, 2011

6:45 AM. A little bit of snow on the ground.

Well, I am a little tired this morning, a little out of tune. But if you can stand it, Papa, I guess I can.

Now that you have gotten your books mostly packed, you should look around and be sure you aren’t overlooking other things that need to be done and can’t be left until after you move into your new place.

Yes, I suppose so. I’ll make a list. So what do we talk about today?

Gateway.

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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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