Fabric of the everyday

I’m planning an essay on William Carlos Williams and his relationship with the Modernist artists of the early 20th C; I want to compare Duchamp’s ready-mades and Williams’ “Red Wheelbarrow” (from Spring and All) etc. . . . I’ve done a little reading today in the library and I think I can produce a decent piece of work, as it’s very interesting—in fact so much so that I could hardly keep my mind focused on the specific problem long enough and so had to come home, intending to utilise this momentum in a much needed attempt to write something here a bit more worthy than the usual pap.

Instead I got enmeshed in the fabric of the everyday—conversations, extraneous thoughts, the fruitless chat and chaff of humdrum living—and I forgot my resolve.

Sometimes I find living in a communal household fairly difficult, and I’m reduced to a state of edgy irritation and needless ranting. Tonight I was as fractious as ever, and it produced exactly nothing. My natural disposition is towards the solitary and self-contained and I think there’s a lot to look forward to in living alone (as Barry, Lee and I all intend doing after June 30th). We’re going to start looking soon.

Lee faces an assessment on March 14th he says he knew nothing about, and he’s a bit alarmed as he feels he’s done nothing really apart from his photogram box, which he’s now going to build into a full-size room, complete with glass-paneled door. He and I removed one from the vicarage up Albany Mount tonight and struggled with it back to the Art College.

Now Ade is here, waiting vainly for Barry to turn up. Plans for the as yet unnamed band still fly back and forth, with drummers to be contacted, portable recording studios to be booked, tapes to be made etc. Five months has produced nothing but plans, plans and more plans. Barry’s out more evenings than not; potential girl friend Tina has stood him up several times and fobs him off with excuses. He’s also been after a Swedish friend of Inga’s he met recently at the Broadway and, scarce able to conceal his jubilant swagger, announced to Lee and Pete and I that he was spending the night at her place. Turned out he, Inga and the girl slept in the same room on separate mattresses, and her Swedish boyfriend turned up the next morning.