Soulard's Online Notebook 2003
july 14, 2003
9:50 p.m.
plainville, connecticut
as usual, second half of year brings second page of this year's online notebook...added section xxiv, "manifesto," of 6 x 36 nocturnes, #36, lasting...i wrote this some weeks ago but been troubling over a word or two, and i think more than that...but that was the visible symptom of almost a month of no updates to this site...for awhile to come, i think, june/july will hurt a little more than they ever have, for the past two junes/julys were when the last girl i loved, the last girl i thought i'd ever love, came into my life and disappeared...this june/july i've been dealing with aftermath...mov ing along, and seeing some signs that i am still around in a real way, and can make a viable world for myself, and help others too...
also added the Entheogen Library to the psychedelic links page...it's run by a friend of mine known through the Spiritplants online community...his name there is scribbles, his site is a great one, and i learned the other night, listening to SPF Radio, that he is something a a find DJ too...SPF Radio is run by people at Spiritplants, i'll post a link to it when it is fully going...
i've been hired part-time temporary as copy editor for the hartford advocate, a central connecticut arts/news weekly... www.hartfordadvocate.com ...i start on Friday, taking the place of the regular person who is going out on sick leave...it is the first decent job of any length i've had in a long long time...and i hope to do good at it and build on the work i do there...the stress of being interviewed, the waiting, and the aftermath of waiting as a criminal background check was done on me, fell me a few days...all is well...now i can go to burning man 2003, my fifth year going, and bring my bookstore of chapbooks and whatnot...
it's been now well over a month since i started climbing out of the deep hole i was in for two years...began with a ecstatic moment in a moviehouse, a good sacred shit afterward, that was june 1, and it had not stopped for very long since...there have been some moments, days even, when i thought i'd fall down easily again and stay down but, no, here is 44 days along this revived path, and here i am...going...
july 30, 2003
11:09 a.m.
plainville, connecticut
hmm, been some days since last added to site...working hard at hartford advocate, and readying for burning man 2003...fifth year going...excited, but the expense and the stress and yada yada...hoping to purge some darkness into the powerful body of the desert and the dancing hands of the fire...
added section xxv, "[untitled]," of 6 x 36 nocturnes, #36, lasting...tripping hard and regarding my own shining excrement and in the moment after this purge of poisons felt weightless and joyful...
also changed my name as listed on front page from ray to raymond since i now like the longer version for formal projects...
other things going on too...still in shadows...for now...hope & confidence are yet building...
and the little king seems more and more the pathetic bully many always knew he was...now the many has swelled...now other ways of statesmanship emerge again...is Dr. Howard Dean really a possible alternative? smart, feisty, intelligent...not a thuggish asshole puppeted by criminals behind locked doors...i am thinking yes....maybe...hope, yes, maybe...
august 2, 2003
7:51 a.m.
plainville, connecticut
added section xxvi, "prelude," of 6 x 36 nocturnes, #36, lasting...now all the nocturnes so far written are posted on this site...had fallen behind in that...ten remain to be written, and not there hasn't been a new one in two weeks...a long one that gestated from a dream remains notes and notions...in a way a break is good because i'd been cranking them out one a week for months...any such regularity cannot maintain though is righteous while it does...
the truth is that a run of some four months or so has given way to other things...lisa's important in my life has diminished from that of a vital person to that of a persistent ache...i've gotten legitimate work, if only part-time and of no length guaranteed...i've come to accept both that my term back in connecticut will last awhile and that it will end...and there are others whose importance ever raises...so in a way i must again invent new nocturnes to confront what is and what persists as they are changing, have changed...
working at the hartford advocate has been a good thing, i hope it goes on after i get back from burning man 2003, but i don't plan on that happening...hope stays as it will...simple...they'll keep me or no by way of decisions i cannot ultimately sway toward or away me...and i'll have to deal with it...i don't tell anyone there the hard straits i've been in, i just do the fucking work friendly and as well as i can...their choice to reward this effort beyond a paycheck, or not reward it...it's a progressive weekly, left-leaning, modestly but in a brutal selfish climate such as pervades the american psychical landscape currently, their content is pretty brave...i've toyed with writing for them, the effort to convince that i am as least as good as the writers i edit, but right now burning man dominates my deepest energies...when i return, if they retain me, i'll think it over more...
burning man 2003, yes yes...my bookstore project is bringing 36 titles this year, 24 copies each...i've been at my photocopier every day for the last five, and it will go on right up to or near aug 20th when i get on greyhound to go to seattle...my friend sean is there, he and i will drive down together as we have last couple of years...a printer is coming my way courtesy of my friends brannon and mcloughlin...i've got an idea to bring a copy of my nocturnes just for burning...i've also got an idea how high this year's event will be for me...a lot of hurt inside to be purged...
august 10, 2003
12:23 p.m.
plainville, connecticut
added MoveOn.org to the list of alternative news links...MoveOn sponsored former VP Al Gore's major speech skewering Bush* this past week...tide turning the way of hope? fuck, i hope so, society seems so hopeless & crouched for more pain...brutal vibes ride the air...
no new nocturnes to add, it's been several weeks no poems and no journeys...in that time i've labored at the Advocate and worked on my burning man project...bringing 24 copies each of a total of 37 titles this year to gift out at my artists of the beautiful free bookstore...finishing will be damned tight but i'm at it with my collaborator Barbara like every year for the past several...
and i sleep alone and uncertain, like so many, and am tired of this, like so many...hope seems to come and go in pretty singing forms...i wish one would set down her burden and hope and stay...
this will be i think the last entry before i leave for seattle and thereafter Black Rock City, Nevada...dunno what all is coming in the next few weeks, but my time, five months, of being caged in Connecticut is near its end...i'm grateful i was taken in here when i was so ruined in march, but it's time to get the next thing from plan to happening...
september 17, 2003
11:49 p.m.
plainville, connecticut
added section xxvii, "bare," of 6 x 36 nocturnes, #36, lasting...this one came over the three days it took to get by greyhound bus from hartford to seattle in late august...i wrote it out again and again, til the night before i arrived it was done...the trip out to the west was long in many ways, going back to a place of humiliation & defeat...i'd gone to seattle last year so hopeful & left so trashed...stuck in connecticut since for nearly six months hadn't helped me feel good either, though at least i'd earned my way to go on my trip back west & then to burning man...more on this trip next entry...
my guestbook here was overrun with spam, & then in ridding them i lost a whole lot of real posts...fuck spam...
right now i'm just trying to not totally fucking despair being back here...life isn't all stupid right now but in my heart i'm feeling lost & chained...
i need to make a break in things though, it won't come cuz i sit here bitching...i'm not sure how it will, but the hunt is on....
september 24, 2003
11:54 a.m.
plainville, connecticut
added section xxviii, "ardor," of 6 x 36 nocturnes, #36, lasting...i wrote this one at burning man 2003, on the night of the burn, deep into an entheogenic trip, been trying to write it all that week...i was at the center camp, alone, and my time for getting it written there was at hand...so i took my notes, and ideas, and whatnot and i just dove the fuck in...and as usual hoped for the best...
today i go do laundry, and get groceries with the last of my food stamp money, and i hope apply for local shit jobs better than none...i'm struggling like fuck right now to be hopeful...last weekend i tried a new trip candy and embraced Eternity, or tried, since i grew too terrified and stumbling to do it well...
the only thing i can think to do is to work, that's all...write and pursue publishing and get whatever shit job this area will offer me...but try...become sick with hope than doubt, since both seem cancerous...
i read sophocles' 'oedipus the king' last night, about a man unwilling to ask for help, and i think ok universe i'm feeling roughed up a lot these days, FUCKING HELP ME...or at least let my own efforts have some good effect...something....
september 24, 2003
8:41 a.m.
plainville, connecticut
added section xxix, "trans," of 6 x 36 nocturnes, #36, lasting...this one completed the trio of cross-country poems, being written on my way back from seattle to hartford...and pushing the series incrementally closer to its finish...
perhaps my yawped prayer in last entry was heard because on monday morning i am bound for new haven, ct to try out as copyeditor/proofreader of the new haven advocate, sister paper to the hartford one i worked on this summer...the hartford editor gave my name in recommendation to the new haven editor when the position recently became open...
it would be the break i've wanted, the new thing, the renewed anticipation, living in ct a time but not in the corpsey hartford area...instead, living near new york city, and employed again in an ongoing and meaningful way...if they offer me the job, and if i can afford to take it by the pay it brings...
but i have to confess the gratefulness of a person not very grateful of late...i've been bitter living in this area, and the memories that raises up often unwanted, and the frustration with how the job market is...more than anything else right now to go down to new haven and show my stuff and get hired, know by when i get on the amtrak train to return that i have made it work...i'm intimidated a bit by the idea of moving, by how little money i have to do this, yet fuck it man, this is what i wanted, something new, and hopeful...and it seems upon me...so yes please let it happen, universe, i will get myself down there and try my best to win the part, and i ask please help me secure this position, and finally leave behind some pretty bad days of pain and their ensuing selfishness in healing...please and thank you...
today i'm bound for journeying and seeing a movie and writing and perhaps even getting to the wadsworth atheneum as i've longed for all summer, a return to my hometown's museum where i first viewed art in person...i think today will be the last of my saturdays here again for a time...money and time both allow this one more...so i am going to try and make it a good one...
october 4, 2003
11:59 a.m.
plainville, connecticut
added section xxx, "moan," of 6 x 36 nocturnes, #36, lasting...it was a couple weeks in emerging...then a conversation with a friend about spiritual matters, the struggle and joy of such things, pushed it all the way...6 poems remain now in nocturnes series, 354 of 360 done...gosh...
a week of going down to the new haven advocate to do copyediting/proofreading work, and then last night a housing situation down there seemed to solidify...nothing sure yet but nearing...
somewhat finding a new path finally...and seeing how much work it will demand...and from the places i've been in recent years, humbling and sometimes humiliating, though occasionally wordless beautiful, i want to be more than enough to do what needs...hope emerging...
october 16, 2003
10:22 a.m.
plainville, connecticut
added truthout.org to the alternative news links page, it has been two months since that page has been updated, and that's too long...sometimes i sit in front of the computer and if asked afterward would not be able to say what i spent so much time doing...hm...
last friday was officially made copy editor of the new haven advocate, a part-time job for now, perhaps full-time after the new year...the work is rewarding...progressive weeklies in the country often do what daily newspapers are too conservative and cowardly to do...criticize the establishment, call bullshit on people in power...just added new mass media to alternative list too...that's the company that owns the five advocate newspapers in connecticut...might as well fatten it up while it's on my mind...heh...
i work fridays and mondays...long trip from plainville to new haven, involves getting up at 5 in the morning to get ready, two buses and the amtrak train, and a long walk, to arrive at 9...but i was really empty on luck before this position happened for me so i am very grateful for it...now i just want to work harder because i have some stability...
her name is kassi...she's pretty special...
october 26, 2003
5:35 p.m.
plainville, connecticut
i didn't make an intended trip to washington dc to an anti-iraq occupation mass demonstration...i decided at departure time friday night that the issue is not as simple as withdrawing troops...it was a hard decision though it was the right one, or the best one anyway...
it brought up to me, however, the issue of where i cross with social responsibility...i do not wish to be simply a spectator at life's bigger events as so many are...so i drew up rough plans for revamping this site pretty drastically, adding much more content, making it easier to navigate, and more worth the time to do so...
toward that end, added hemingway's story "clean, well-lighted place" to online library...another dozen or so more texts will be following in short order...
it's not an easy thing to figure all of this out, but i find myself trying more and more of late...something hope in that...
october 30, 2003
2:25 a.m.
plainville, connecticut
did a lotta work on this site today...slowly readying the main page for a whole new face...takes time just to clearly conceive the visual idea...
in the meantime added ts eliot's poem "love song of j alfred prufrock, an old friend of mine...perhaps doesnt matter as once as it did...but some will like it now and here on...
added section xxxi, "frail," of 6 x 36 nocturnes, #36, lasting...fought it for weeks to make it work...
tired...but my mac is 100 gigs strong now, and things in general are ok...work, home, romance, all stable...hoping for some time of it like this...please...
november 26, 2003
1:29 p.m.
new haven advocate offices
new haven, connecticut
this the first post in a free moment from my current place of employment, a good progressive newspaper, at times a pretty special periodical , i am its copy editor/proofreader...part-time hours...it goes well so far...
added SpiritPlants Radio to psychedelic links page...my radio show, "within's within: scenes from the psychedelic revolution," is back on the air, webcasting worldwide saturdays 11 pm-2 am, and re-broadcast sundays 11 am-2 pm...first show last weekend, back on air after a year and a half, shouted out phish, aphex twin, jayhawks, future sound of london, infected mushroom, lee & shlain's book "acid dreams," & some crazzy po'try...fun :)
things are going well, always the struggle against blue moods, but keeping in the effort, on the beam as my old friend amante would say...
long commute thrice a week, hoping full-time hours come in the new year and i can move down to new haven, and then find my wiggly way back to west coast, this time to stay...perhaps i'll even be out there with kassi, she seems in my life for awhile to come, we meet near winter solstice in person first time :) here's hoping!
december 14, 2003
8:51 p.m.
plainville, connecticut
took a few days but finally added section xxxii, "abide," of 6 x 36 nocturnes, #36, lasting...it was necessary to divide the lasting poem into two pages as it is so long...
i leave for nebraska wednesday night...pretty ready to go, even some new clothes...will be a good thing not to be in connecticut for some days, i haven't been out of here in months...
website still pends its big makeover but that will indeed come...
december 25, 2003
12:33 p.m.
plainville, connecticut
this morning a major accomplishment, the long-overdue new issue of The Cenacle, 47 | December 2002, has been uploaded to this site...with free adobe reader, anyone can download and read these files...it is a great thing to have finally accomplished this...also archived previous years' Soulard's notebooks, about time...but still available for the nutty curious...heh...
my visit with Kassi was equally fantastic, riding around omaha, journeying whilst seeing "lord of the rings: return of the king," kissing many wheres...very nice, reward for simply keeping moving and cupping what faith was about...
so though i am not a christian, i nonetheless am grateful and happy today for things beyond myself...thank you, universe, and please protect those i've known and not known in this life...peace, love, unity, respect, Art, ice cream...heh...
december 25, 2003
12:33 p.m.
plainville, connecticut
I was having this problem with people getting the files for cenacle 47…yahoo has a severe file transfer limit for their non-paying member sites…talked talked to my friend Andy in Ireland who runs Yage.net and he offered some server space, and after some effort the cenacle files are now stored there, and no transfer problems anymore…I could see moving whole site to yage sooner or later…
As promised adding Yage.net to list of psychedelic links…actually replacing a now-defunct hosted site, pkeffect.yage.net, with main site link...also updated burning man title to 2004 from 2002, heh, same site...and updated title for cybervisionquest 2003, a spiritplants.com project that i run, first one this year, third in project's history...
likely last entry of this year...what a ride...hehe...2004 looks even way bigger!!
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