↑ Vantage pt for Jay Levine at tippity top of crow's nest before he jumped.
Das Boot: the first and perhaps most profound of the Dreamscape categories in that it describes not only the day-to-day adventures of a Caribbean escape, but also a moment that was much of a fulcrum or a rubicon for everyone involved, both a gathering and a dispersal. They were all twenty-four or twenty-five years old, an age where everything in the past seems like prologue and the next turned page is where the story really begins. There was a lot of debate about what comes next: plans hatched, destinies reconsidered. And soon after: Sebastian heading for Brazil, Christoph to Argentina, Helene to New Zealand, our pal Jayson and Natalie both to New York City. And the more we studied these pages, the stronger the urge became to apply allegory and deeper significance to everything that was written. And although 'reality' strongly resists such neat and tidy structuring, nonetheless here it is.
-- Eds
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Das Boot (16/33)
December 16, 1990
Choose a different dreamscape
We sit in fairyland; postcard locale. Along with, say, 17 other boats similar to our own filled with their own unique brand of personal drama. All floating capsules of life+death intrigue. Concerns much like (or maybe vastly different from) our own. Who knows? Reportedly the Aliasés once anchored next to a boat that housed a potential (and, in fact, self-actualizing) suicide case. Hung himself in the night.
(Sloshing. Gurgling. Tapping. Breathing.)
… found the next day by the Aliasés themselves: hung… by the neck until dead. What a drama!
Something I much touch upon, briefly: Tangled Motives. Worked quite hard on that baby. 5 months, 2 hrs per day. The last month = 3 hours per day. That is when I really pushed at it. Over 2k words per day on occasion. But the facts remain. Blank has refused to admit me to their blank blankity blank and the piece I submitted: Tangled Motives. A section I believed to be solid.
(Rustling. Rattling Tapping. Swallowing.)
A strong section too! Every bit of which received an “A” (okay, fine, “A-“) in my grade book. But didn’t slice the tunafish in theirs. As far as the admissions crew were concerned. So “dats dat!” as the GoodFellas might say. But I believe! Not so much in this particular piece (which is longer and more textured(?) than others, but in myself, in my ability, with more practice, practice practice. Problems w/this piece remain too obvious to explore in our current tropical paradise. Suffice to say (it’s true) that I didn’t know squat what I was writing about. Next time! Already I look (and assume) to next time.
Anywayz… Today was not as light and airy as I may have implied in the log book. Everything held that metallic flavor of difficult hardship leading toward eventual, inevitable failure. I don’t know. If today I were looking for a waiter job, every restaurant would have directed me to fill out an app (to be tossed in a pile of others). No manager would have greeted me with so much as a smile.
Sail from Bequia was tainted with stomach quease although I did, for an inordinate period, stare through binoculars at a fascinating 5-masted Club Med, yacht-type luxury liner. Now we sit in a tropical paradise. Water so clear it clearly reveals the white sand 30 feet below us. But my shirt! The tragic failure foreshadowed by the previous: my new Salvation Army shirt which Annette sewed by hand is gone! Apparently sucked or blown overboard by the dastardly drafts. And with it, so many memories and good intentions; and hopes. She only wanted for me to have a nice shirt to wear and enjoy in the tropics. And it was! I loved that shirt… now gone! Like her ornament, a let down. Broken dreams. Lost. Sooooooo sad. Every “o” a teardrop. Perhaps, perchance, I’ll find it tomorrow…
Nite.