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The greatest gift my mother gave was this: the courage to be myself at all times. I am sure of myself because of her, sure of my good intentions, secure in the sense of self I've found. She was my greatest champion, the only woman I've ever known who actually believed in me--the only person!, believed in what I could do, what I could be, believed in my dreams.

_____

For those who are interested, I will now be posting my perfume diary exclusively on a separate mailing list (which also goes on the Lord's-Jester blog), [lordsjester]. If you'd like to join that list, please email me.

*Ecuador*

From Ecuador's stupendous constitution from 2008; thanks to my father for this:

"WE, the sovereign people of Ecuador

"RECOGNIZING our millenary roots, wrought by women and men of distinct cultures,

"CELEBRATING nature, the Pacha Mama (Earth Mother), of which we are part and which is vital to our existence,

"INVOKING the name of God and recognizing our diverse forms of religion and spirituality,

"APPEALING to the wisdom of all the cultures that enrich us as a society,

"AS HEIRS to the social struggle for liberation against all the forms of domination and colonialism, and with profound commitment to the present and to the future,

"We have decided to construct

"A new form of coexistent citizenship, in diversity and in harmony with nature, to achieve the good life, the sumak kawsay;

"A society that respects, in all its dimensions, the dignity of individuals and collective groups;

"A democratic country, committed to Latin American integration – the dream of Simón Bolívar and Eloy Alfaro to peace and solidarity with peoples of the earth;

"And, in exercise of our sovereignty, in the city of Alfaro, Montecristi, Manabí Province, we now present:

"THE CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF ECUADOR."

*Poem*

Art

My friend Art was calling they said.

I went to the phone somewhat mystified.

This was my girlfriend's summer house.

"Hey Art," I said.

"I'm at the train station," Art said.

"What, like, here?" I stammered.

"Yes, here! Can someone come pick me up?"

"Well, I guess I could." I paused.

"Well?" Art demanded.

Off I went in my girlfriend's parents' van,

not quite sure what to expect.

Turned out Art had every intention

of staying with us, with them

I should say. Being a little, um,

hazy in those days, I assumed

we'd made some plan I'd promptly

forgot. So stay with us/them Art did.

At dinner that night, gathered around

the table with my girlfriend's parents,

older brother and his girlfriend,

and her two younger brothers,

one of whom was five or six,

we played a charades-type game;

this particular one involved going

around the table saying idioms

as fast as you could.

So we went along, "Pot calling

the kettle black," "Grass is always

greener on the other side,"

"A bird in the hand is worth two

in the bush." We came to Arthur, who

grimaced slightly. Out he came with

words I could never forget:

"Make like a stoner and split this joint?"

I had to stifle howling laughter.

Sometimes there's nothing more to say.

*Music*

One of the records my mother used to play all the time (actual vinyl record album, in the '70s) was Tea for the Tillerman by Cat Stevens. The music on this record is inseparable from the memory of ma. It's quite mature music, and its being featured in Harold and Maude secures its place at the head of the "mature" line; I feel strongly that Harold and Maude deals head-on with that most mature of all topics: the fact we're all hurtling toward our unavoidable deaths. The movie and the record are also inseparable in my mind. There's a scene in the movie I find to be one of the sublimest ever caught on film: Maude who, like Harold, loved to go to funerals for the hell of it, is leaving one such funeral; she is at the head of the line, gleefully accepting the inevitability of her own death, and she dances along with a bright yellow umbrella, defiant against all the somber, black clad people behind her, all set to the dramatic background of the brief but evocative song Tea for the Tillerman.

Lyrics such as the following meant a lot to me as a boy, reinforcing as always the anti-establishmentarian in me, and making a die-hard idealist and romantic:

"You've cracked the sky-

scrapers fill the air.

Will you keep on building higher

till there's no more room up there?

Will you tell us when to laugh,

will you tell us when to cry?

Will you tell us when to live,

will you tell us when to die?

I know we've come a long way;

we're changing day to day.

Tell me:

where do the children play?"

"Lookin' for a hard-headed woman,

one who will take me for myself.

If I find my hard-headed woman

I won't need nobody else."

"Ooh, baby, baby, it's a wild world.

It's hard to get by just upon a smile.

Ooh, baby, baby, it's a wild world.

I'll always remember you like a child...

If you wanna leave, take good care.

Hope you make a lot of nice friends out there,

but just remember

there's a lot of bad everywhere."

"Miles from nowhere, guess I'll take my time,

oh, yeah, to reach there.

Look up at the mountain I have to climb,

oh, yeah, to reach there.

Lord, my body has been a good friend,

but I won't need it when I reach the end."

"I left my happy home

to see what I could find out.

I left my folk and friends

with the aim to clear my mind out.

I hit the rowdy road

and many kinds I met there.

Many stories told me

of the way to get there.

On and on I go;

the seconds tick the time out.

So much left to know

and I'm on the road to find out."

Which of course paved the way for my own global circumnavigation.

*Quotations*

The award of the Nobel Prize to Sinclair Lewis gave me immense pleasure. I can imagine no man whose recognition would be more offensive to the general run of American literary patriots.

--HL Mencken

The historian's business is to follow the track of energy; to find where it comes from and where it went to; its complex course and shifting channels; its values, equivalents, conversions.

--Henry Adams

A good sermon should be like a woman's skirt: short enough to arouse interest but long enough to cover the essentials.

--Ronald Knox

Technically, anyone can do it. But, people who are motivated by profit are destined to create products, whereas people not motivated by profit create art.

--Lance Winters

When people talk about genre, I guess they mention my name first, but without Richard Matheson I wouldn't be around. He is as much my father as Bessie Smith was Elvis Presley's mother.

--Stephen King

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.

--Hunter Thompson

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

--Einstein

Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.

--Orwell

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtaxed.

--Oliver Wendell Holmes

Genius is one of the many forms of insanity.

--Cesare Lombroso

Peace love and ATOM jazz