072510

The MS totally destroyed my marriage. It started out one way, and by the end she was totally fed up. I can't take too much blame though; she didn't know total disability was around the corner. That's the way it goes when you've got tremendous MS. I still miss her (it's been seven years) but things work out the way they should. No contact with me since she left. That was on the west coast, long ago and far away.

--Adam on Facebook

_____

I don't think anyone realizes how desperate I am: I can't go anywhere without my wheelchair--do you know how hard it is to get women to pay attention to you when you're in a wheelchair? No, I'm fucked. Can't do any bills, can't see straight, can't walk, etc. The only people I ever get to see are my assistants. I am totally screwed.

*Hong-Kong*

Once, when I was in Hong Kong for my visa trip, I met a couple of Americans, one a b-boy and the other a woman of Japanese descent. I made their acquaintance slowly. I think on my first visit, they were checking to see whether or not I had some kind of staying power; on my next visit I found them to be quite hospitable. See, we were all basically white, and so we had to make use of the trails which had been blazed before us. In some cases, that means accepting what had come before; in other areas, one was free to make it up as one went along.

One area the three of us got into was late-night music clubs. B-boy you see (cannot for the life of me remember his name) was a graffiti artist; that's how he met his woman, in those circles. Needless to say, the lot of them have a much dirtier, nastier reputation; as far as I can tell, the vast majority of graffiti come from wealthy backgrounds. B-boy made like he was from Southie, a tough suburb of Boston; I'm sure he was indeed from a suburb of Boston, just not that particular one.

Among other things, he taught me to dance. Very much on a hip-hop sort of a tip; we did some nasty dancing too! He taught me one move I remember clearly: when standing square, pull your back leg up to meet the front one; then spin in place to face the other way. Got a lot of mileage out of that spin move. We got up to no good; I'm sure I was flirting with his Asian woman. On a few trips to Hong Kong (we were in the lowly Kowloon), he hooked us up with some mad digs.

One time, in Kowloon, he was walking along in front of our guesthouse; as there is a bunch of Indian clothes stores in the neighborhood, B-boy was accosted by a salesman, probably wanting to sell him a suit of some kind. There he walked, and he felt a light tap on the shoulder. He swung around and clocked whoever it was that was tapping. He made like he was mortified, but the Indians had an unspoken rule: to engage in a sale, one must never touch the mark. I think B-boy was pretending to be broken up.

*Top-Five*

5. The garbage here is out of control--somehow it all gets cleaned up. This is, of course, the original garbage landscape.

4. Museums and galleries are just waiting.

3. Broadway shows

2. The best music in the world

1. The streets

*Perfume*

From the Mystery and Lure of Perfume by CJS Thompson (1927):

"It is a well-known fact that the sense of smell varies considerably in individuals and is much more acute in some than in others. This depends on the sensitiveness of the olfactory nerves, the human organ of smell, which are situated at the upper part of the nasal cavities. They were first recognized by Theophilus Protospameaus, a Greek monk in the eighth century. The organ is essentially formed by the filaments of the olfactory nerves, which are distributed in minute arrangement in a limited portion of the mucous membrane of the nose.

"The sense of smell is therefore derived exclusively through those parts of the nasal cavities in which these nerves are distributed. If the nasal cavities be filled with rose-water, no smell is perceived. It is a curious fact that some persons whose sense of smell is quite normal cannot distinguish certain odors. When a perfume is placed under the nose, there is no sensation of smell so long as the breath is held, or breathing is carried on through the mouth.

"It is common knowledge that there is an intimate relation between the senses of smell and of taste and the same substance which excites the sensation of smell in the olfactory nerves may cause peculiar sensation through the nerves of taste, and may produce an irritating effect on the nerves of touch, but the sensation of odor is yet separate from them.

"Man uses the sense of smell in combination with taste much more during mastication and deglutition than during the act of putting food into his mouth, the chief importance of smell in association with taste being to perceive the quality of foods, to influence their selection, and to excite appetite. Although the susceptibility of man to odors is more extended, he is inferior to animals of both classes in the sense of smell. The distance at which a dog can track his master is extraordinary."

*Quotations*

The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.

--Wendell Berry

Needless to say, one more time, deconstruction, if there is such a thing, takes place as the experience of the impossible.

--Jacques Derrida

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

--Benjamin Disraeli

Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace, and wit, reminders of order, calm, and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still, and absorbed.

--Germaine Greer

Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn't take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness.

--Elizabeth Gilbert

I don't think you ever stop giving. I really don't. I think it's an on-going process. And it's not just about being able to write a check. It's being able to touch somebody's life.

--Oprah Winfrey

The moment the slave resolves that he will no longer be a slave, his fetters fall. Freedom and slavery are mental states.

--Gandhi

I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

--Einstein

Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish play.

--Friedrich Schiller

Maybe I am slightly inhuman. All I ever wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.

--Edward Hopper

Peace love and ATOM jazz

071810

I have always sensed that I am somehow different. Then about 30, the diagnosis came, and I was like, "Well, that makes sense." It explained a lot of what I'd been through. Ten years later, I still feel that this is what life intended for me. It's hard, but sometimes I can't picture any other way to live. It's secondary progressive in me, so the past ten years have been hell, with me just getting worse from the get-go. I can't write by hand, can't type (left handed works), I can't walk further than about half a block, speech is very difficult, I'm dizzy, etc etc.

--Adam on Facebook

*Engineering*

Having studied engineering in college, I can tell you one important way to generate electricity: install natural-gas collectors on dairy farms. Natural gas is actually 60% methane; all it takes to render it useful is to clean it up. Many villages generate electricity straight from the piles of dung. But the real aspect is _most of the world_ uses natural-gas collectors. We've got this huge source of energy just waiting to be tapped. I know from experience in college that most Americans are hard-pressed to think about generating electricity from a pile of crap. But this is _the only way out of this mess_. We've got untold amounts of electricity to generate, but most Americans couldn't imagine generating power from piles of waste. We've got to get over this hang-up. The hang-up is just that: it's a hang-up, and we've got to move past it.

*Japan*

I learned about bossa-nova in Tokyo. I was staying at this other guest house, different from the one I'd stayed at from the start. This was a huge Japanese-style abode, with tatami mats, sliding wooden doors on the outside, the whole deal. The group of guests was similar but different. As many nationalities were represented as the other, and there was a similar laid-back atmosphere. What the other one lacked in the way of ambiance was more than made up for in the sense of place, of space, of carving your own name out in the Japanese landscape.

Oddly, in the underbelly of the guest house, I met a few like-minded souls. I think in those back rooms we were doing heroin. That's a vague memory. Through some cassette exchanges (this was back before the advent of CDs) I ended up with one tape in particular that I listened to so much I plumb wore it out. I memorized every lick, vocal bit, and solo on the tape. It was a no-brainer when years later, in the middle of an intense jazz-listening decade or so, I came across a CD in a used-CD shop.

On that disc, I recognized a few titles; this was Jazz Samba Encore. I went to give the CD a listen and sure enough this was the same recording I'd heard in Tokyo. How worldly is that: learning about a latin-American art through jazz veins in a guesthouse in Tokyo. I've kept this a secret, except for writing about it in this newsletter. It's always struck me as trenchant, that I should learn about the far-flung corners of the world in the single city of Tokyo. We live in doubly concentrated times.

*Quotations*

The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.

--Wole Soyinka

Plenty sits still; hunger is a wanderer.

--Zulu proverb

Hungry bellies have no ears.

--Polish proverb

Hunger is the best sauce.

--Danish proverb

Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled. And sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled.

--Dean Koontz

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

--Gandhi

In the end, we will remember ot the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.

--MLK Jr

The future is always beginning now.

--Mark Strand

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.

--Lincoln

I like men who have a future and women who have a past.

--Oscar Wilde

*Music*

1. Who Says, John Mayer

2. Closer (live), Corrine Bailey Rae

3. Saving Grace, Everlast

4. Some Surprise, Paul Noonan & Lisa Hannigan

5. (I Keep on) Rising Up, Mike Doughty

6. Letter from a Flying Machine, Peter Mulvey

7. Thirty One Today, Aimee Mann

8. All That Time You Missed, Erin McKeown

9. The Devil Raises His Own, Freedy Johnston

10. From the Morning, Nick Drake

11. Fugitive (live), David Gray

12. ...Plus the Many Inevitable Fragments, Peter Mulvey

13. Pleasure on Credit, Mike Doughty

14. Unplayed Piano, Damien Rice & Lisa Hannigan

15. Borrowing Time, Aimee Mann

16. New Heights, A Fine Frenzy

17. Crossroads (Johnson), John Mayer

18. Central Station, Freedy Johnston

19. Vlad the Astrophysicist, Peter Mulvey

20. Three is a Magic Number (Dorough), Mike Doughty

21. I Don't Know (live), Lisa Hannigan

_____

Rain on the City, Freedy Johnston. This is fine music from Mr Johnston. There are moments when it feels Johnston is finally sinking into the music he was meant to make. From soaring vocals, to strings, to his basic attitude, the man always hits the mark. Highly recommended.

Peace love and ATOM jazz

071110

"It's not like you're dying," said my ex-wife to me. I can't tell you how everyday I wonder why I just keep pushing on. Pretty soon, I won't even be able to feed myself!

--Adam on Facebook

*OPP*

If You Forget Me

by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look

at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.

*Quotations*

If we don’t teach our children peace, someone else will teach them violence.

--Colman McCarthy

The life that awaits you is not that of the happy couples you see strolling along before you in Westerland, no lighthearted chatter arm in arm, but a monastic life at the side of a man who is peevish, miserable, silent, discontented, and sickly.

--Franz Kafka

I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil.

--Walt Whitman

If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace. This allows us to discover that, "There is no way to happiness--happiness is the way."

--Thich Nhat Hanh

To laugh often, to win the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of fake friends, to appreicate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch. To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

--Emerson

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

--Eleanor Roosevelt

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness.

--Gandhi

There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternally new now that builds and creates itself out of the Best as the past withdraws.

--Goethe

Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations.

--Einstein

The life and love we create is the life and love we live.

--Leo Buscaglia

*Poem*

The Storm

The biggest storm in 40 years hit Hualien

and the two-story apartment I had just

rented near the river was drowned

in water so deep it reached well above

the second floor. I'd just moved in

and every last one of my possessions

on earth was lying on the first floor. I

waited as long as I could. When the river

got close to the back door, huge roaches

started invading; I tried madly to

stop them with a hammer before realizing

it was pointless and that I needed to head

for higher ground to save my life. Being

that there were only a handful of white

people in town at that time, during

the storm, I fled to my friend Andrew's,

dodging tree branches and falling

telephone poles on my small motor bike.

The day after the storm was a hot day.

A couple from New Zealand, Carole

and Peter (she was born in Holland

actually) had also come to flee the storm.

All of us tinkered around the house all

day, sweating and waiting for news

about the town being cleaned up and

back to normal. So hot and humid

we could hardly breathe. A tank top

and shorts felt like a three-piece suit.

Carole's husband left the house for a

while, to get some groceries. I checked

on the river at some point, and my

apartment house still drowning in it.

I remember nothing very remarkable

about that day. I do remember

Carole telling me that she'd married

when she was 18 and had never

been with a man other than Peter.

"That's very sweet," I'd said, biting

my tongue about my pity. But,

the following day, when I returned to

find my life of papers and photos and

cassettes and clothes had become so

much trash in a matter of minutes, I

got a phone call. Andrew was

calling to warn me frantically that

I needed to leave town as quickly

as I could. "What are you talking

about?" I demanded. "Well, it's

about, ah...you and Carole."

"Me and Carole? What about me

and Carole?" "She told her husband

about you two." "What two? What

the hell did she say?" "She said you two,

you know, had a thing. And Peter is

so pissed he said if he sees you he'll

shoot you." "We had a what? I have

never even so much as glanced

sideways at that woman." "She seems

to think you all had a few moments

yesterday while Peter was away." I

thought for a moment. "Oh my God."

"Oh my God what?" "I was so hot

I took off my shirt and I was walking

around in my boxers." "So?" "So

she said something, you know,

kind of off color for a married woman

to say. I didn't think anything of it;

I didn't even quite hear what she said."

"She said, 'If you don't put your clothes

back on my husband is going to know

about us.'" "About us? What the fuck?

And how would you know what she

said?" "She told her husband that she

said you should put your clothes on."

"And because I didn't, that means I

was coming on to the woman? Peter

didn't even bat an eye when he got

home." "He didn't care until Carole

talked to him later. Said you were

coming on to her and she didn't mind."

"And now Peter wants to shoot me?"

"You know as well as I do how crazy

some of those Kiwis are. If I were you,

I'd catch the next train out." "Well,

we'll just see about fucking that. But

thanks for the heads up." "He knows

where you live. I wouldn't stay."

I hung up the phone and looked

around me, at my muddy clothes, my

ancient journals stuck together with

brackish water, my pile of photos which

had become a pile of glue. I realized

that if the cosmos were ever trying to give

me a sign, this must be it. Even if

Peter doesn't shoot me, I'm leaving,

I thought. I carefully picked through

what little I could salvage from my

sodden, soaking life. Still wearing the same

t-shirt and shorts as three days before,

no sign of a shave in sight, no particular

long-term destination in mind, I hurried

to the train station and managed just barely

to catch the 6:00 train headed for Taipei.

I watched the coastline roll by, as we

scurried along the tracks, so dangerously

close to the Pacific it was like the engineers

wanted to tempt fate. I wondered what would

happen if we fell in, just as I had wondered

dozens of times before on this same trip.

Decades later, I still wonder what

will happen when I finally let myself

fall in, re-appear suddenly in the middle

of my own life, like The Man Who Fell

to Earth. What will happen if I wake up

one day and find I've fallen in love with

everything? I'm pretty sure I already have,

actually. I mean, everything makes me

cry, everything makes me want to be

a better person, everything makes me

want to lay down and fuck off all day

instead and anyway, everything makes

me want to wait out the storm just

to see if I'm still standing. Isn't that love?

Peace love and ATOM jazz

070410

Work can only be universal if it is rooted in a part of its creator which is most privately and particularly himself.

--Tyrone Guthrie

*New-York*

In case I haven't mentioned of late, it's totally stellar living in New York. Knowing at any given moment the best of the best is outside my door is sublime. We're talking about the best from every walk of life:

Politics and the UN

Broadway and off-Broadway

Best museums on the globe, the Met, MoMa, Whitney, etc.

Must-see music from every genre

David Letterman

Best cuisine in the entire world

In addition to pizza, falafel, shawarma, etc.

Opera and the Philharmonic

Clubs

Spoken word

etc.

All this and much more is just waiting for me to enjoy.

*Lord's-Jester*

A woman who's enjoyed my stuff in the past recently got a bottle of my perfume Selene. First of all she said that watching the evolution of Anthea was amazing for her to witness; secondly, she added that Selene would be giving Anthea a run for her money. I think these two are my strongest perfumes. It makes me very happy to know that there are people actually wearing my perfume. People love wearing my perfume, from Portland to Phoenix to Tampa, to Europe and Australia, and soon to Japan. I know that it's my particular style that gets people going.

One blogger, from Grain de Musc, wrote me about Dionysus; she was not able to get a handle on what's in there. I responded that it must be the ambergris or Africa stone--and to that she responded in the affirmative. Here's what she wrote on her blog:

"I can barely type these words. My 2-year-old spayed Siamese girl Jicky is weaving figure-eight circuits around my keyboard, trying to catch, lick and devour my left wrist. I’ve sprayed it with Adam Gottschalk’s Dionysus for Lord’s Jester, his submission for the Mystery of Musk operation, a celebration of the Natural Perfumers Guild’s fourth anniversary. Jicky is now twisting on her back, mewing and purring like a truck. I first noticed the effect when I caught her mauling the blotter on which I’d sprayed Dionysus--have you ever tried evaluating a fragrance soaked in cat spit?"

Lisa A said:

"Dionysus opens with a strong spicy wine note (allspice or clove? cognac?) that starts to dissipate almost as fast as it appeared, leaving behind an earthy, wet, smoky (hay?), musky, animalic (hyraceum?) aroma. The initial spiciness was an olfactory jolt but Dionysus moves seamlessly into a smooth, sexy, sweaty, animalic extension of my own body scent. The hyraceum (?) jumps out and dips back into hiding again and again. There is nothing timid about this perfume. It is fleshy & raw and develops into something sweet & balsamic (peru balsam?), yet still very primal. There's something floral but I can't pinpoint what it is. Dionysus gave me at least 2.5 hrs of its time and the spiciness lasted the duration, albeit on a softer scale. This perfume is pure heat.

One word: sex."

*China*

Once, when I was traveling in mainland China, I kind of messed up: knowing what I knew about foreigners staying in hostels/hotels, I ended up staying at an underground sort of a guesthouse; it wasn't fancy, but had just the right equipment for travelers, hot water, noodle stands out front, etc. No, the owner came to me after I'd checked in, foreigners were not allowed to stay there. He was sincerely apologetic--he wanted my money terribly badly! It was not meant to be. The guest-house owner offered to pay me back; I chose not to do that--the amount he'd charged me only amounted to a few cents!

When I left, he was extremely apologetic, especially knowing the monstrosity where I was about to show my face. He saw me off, which didn't amount to much, being that my assigned hotel was only a hop-skip-and-a-jump from my erstwhile place of habitation. Hotel manager was pleased I didn't take his money, beaming as he was from ear to ear. I don't think he had any idea what I was in for: this new hotel was the worst of the worst, totally mainstream, single-family dwellings, classic dry-wall style. Yuck!

This place, however, was accustomed to foreigners, and had the right answer when I asked how much it was going to cost me (about three to four times as much as the first place I'd tried). Totally bunk. At least a half hour's walk to any noodle stands; I guess they assumed foreigners (being rich) would hire a cab. I made one attempt to get myself out of there, but it was no use: I'd be leaving again in the morning, and there just wasn't any time to be spending at least an hour getting to dinner. I went to sleep early that night.

*Quotations*

Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.

--Eugene Ionesco

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.

--W H Auden

We find the pure, simple, childlike people of paradise. But we ourselves are different; we are alien here and without any rights of citizenship; we lost our paradise long ago, and the new one that we wish to build is not to be found along the equator and on the warm seas of the East. It lies within us and in our own northern future.

--Herman Hesse

I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger than reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.

--Anais Nin

Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean.

--Christopher Reeve

To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life.

--Czeslaw Milosz

Give me golf clubs, fresh air and a beautiful partner, and you can keep

the clubs and the fresh air.

--Jack Benny

Work can only be universal if it is rooted in a part of its creator which is most privately and particularly himself.

--Tyrone Guthrie

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history, for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

--Aristotle

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

*Music*

Run Wolves Run, Sean Hayes. This is a very lo-fi affair. While it retains some of the rootsy stuff Hayes is known for, I think this might be his best record yet. While Lunar Lust, Alabama Chicken, Big Black Hole and the Little Baby Star and Flowering Spade might contain his formative work, rockers like When We Fall In, Powerful Stuff, and Gunnin from this album go down in the history books.

Letters from a Flying Machine, Peter Mulvey. First of all, let me say that Mulvey performs four letter-poems as a part of this recording; letter-poems are just about my absolute favorite forms of poetry, so he's got a big fan here. These are letters he wrote to various family members, all younger than he; that's where we get "letters from a flying machine." In addition, here are presented in-the-pocket renditions of a number of originals, including Some People, Dynamite Bill, and Mailman. A really nice journey from Mulvey.

Peace love and ATOM jazz