Thelema

At about teatime, Lee and I finally plucked up the courage to go back down the crypts of the demolished St. Catherine’s in Smith Square. We decided to go to Ian’s first, to ask him if he wanted to come with us, so we three crept back down into that dank, black evil-smelling place to look around.

To read of these simple facts sounds quite macabre, but I was able to distance myself sufficiently from proceedings not to be overcome by revulsion/horror etc. . . (Later Lindsey asked me “why did you do it?” I was lost for an off-pat answer. I don’t really know why. Curiosity perhaps?). Intellectual resolve apart, I still found it difficult to escape totally the conditioned reflexes, the feeling of fear and loathing where death and dead things are concerned.

The spook-stories of ghosts and the dead rising laid a hand upon my mind and put me in a nervous, morbid mood. It’s probably unhealthy to immerse myself in the iconography and feeling of Death and dying to an obsessive degree. There’s much in this world that’s light and carefree, but much too that’s dark and troubling. Death hangs over all of us like a cloud all our lives, and the reality of it happening to us is inconceivable. The mind, even when it does manage those brief glimpses into the Reality of our own End, sends us into a state of blank fear. As a kid I used to experience the sheer, unimaginable horror of contemplating my own nullity, my own non-existence.

It was while we were poking about near Emily Newburgh’s coffin that both Ian and I heard a female voice call out Ian’s name – “Ian Croppy” (‘Croppy’ being his nickname), or was it, “Ian, drop it”? It sounded as if it’d come from outside and at first we thought it was one of his flatmates come to play a prank, but when we re-emerged, there was no-one to be seen. We both heard it quite distinctly, just once. Psycho-suggestion? Coincidence? The rational explanation must lie with one of the latter, but nevertheless, it was quite intriguing. I was more curious than scared, although if I’d thought of it a little thrill of fear would soon have set my heart thudding furiously. Was this my first ‘psychic’ experience?

We went back to Ian's and eventually Lee's friend George turned up. He’s tall and quiet, his voice a humble, almost inaudible whisper. He’d come to discuss with Ian a performance they’ve planned for Tuesday 13th December at the Art College, something musical involving the use of drones  spare piano. John Cage played on a nearby cassette-recorder, beautiful, haunting, unsmiling . . .

George talked about Morton Feldman. His favourite word seemed to be “interesting,” which he used to show his fascination with an idea and its possibilities . . . “Mmmm . . . . That’s very interesting,” this breathed softly, bird-like, as he sat awkwardly on a chair in the middle of the room.

Ian is reading Alesteir Crowley and I looked up said author in the University library, but all the books were out, every one. Fashion . . .

We may have a couple of contacts with people who want to move in. We're going to invite them round on Wednesday evening and spruce the place up sufficiently to deceive them into thinking that this really is a decent place to live.

This morning it was so cold I stayed in bed as long as possible.

A forgettable day

A forgettable day.

Sozialistisches Patienten Kollektiv

I got up late today and this evening Lindsey and I went to see SPK at Watermouth College. There weren’t very many people there, perhaps two hundred, and SPK themselves didn’t come on until after ten o’clock.

They only played for half-an-hour or so and had all the expected industrial paraphernalia of blow-torches, circular saws, lengths of exhaust pipe, metal tubing and chains, plus two oil drums they used for percussion. The lead singer wore a slinky black dress unzipped right to the thigh at each side, and occasionally she would join in with the assorted beating and clatter of metal on metal, inexpertly wielding a length of exhaust and letting it fall onto one of the oil drums in an imperfect rhythm.

Various black and white ‘20s & ‘30s films were projected as a backdrop and these were actually more interesting than the band at times, although I quite enjoyed the show, especially when the flames of the blow-torch were played into the audiences faces and a metal frame was thrown off stage.

After the concert had finished Lindsey tried to climb on stage and filch the heavy chain which the band had been using, but she was stopped by stage-crew. So she slipped backstage and got a piece of exhaust pipe instead which she gave to me as a souvenir.

As I walked home I was punched in the face by a gang of drunks but couldn’t do anything as there were six or seven of them to just one of me. . . .

This has put me in a black mood.

Black label

Evening saw most of us at a party on Marion Place, at the same house as before. This time the place was not so crowded and Lee was there too, doing his anti-social bit, falling into the packed crowds and tripping others up. “What is Lee on?” someone asked. “How much has he drunk?” To both questions I could quite honestly reply, “Nothing.” Lindsey was there too, in a shortish black dress.

A glass pane in the front door was smashed by gatecrashers who were refused entry, and Barry and Pete were cut, so a few of us piled out and did our threatening machismo bit on the street corner, face-to-face with a gang of rockabillies.

We got home at four a.m., stopping by the derelict pub on Meadspike Road on the way. Amazingly, we found loads of booze in the cellars, so we made two trips, Lee and Barry descending into the darkness while Pete and I kept watch. The three or four bags we had with us were handed up full of clanking bottles and we struggled proudly up Windmill Ave. bearing ninety six cans of Carling Black Label and Breaker’s Lager, fifteen bottles of cider, and half a dozen bottles of Guinness and Tennent’s Export, plus three party cans of bitter.

We whooped and jumped about like kids when we got it all inside, making a pile in Pete’s room to admire. Free booze until New Year. We are getting dangerously adept at this sort of thing.

Words abandon us

2:30 a.m. I am at Lee’s now, sitting at the table in his tiny room, preparing to write an essay for Mr. Carwardine on Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, and this time I’m determined to see it through. Lee sleeps, his face expressionless, almost deathly it is so inanimate and unlike his waking, speaking self. All’s quiet save for an occasional car and the noise of late-night revelers returning home.

8:03 a.m. I’ve just now completed and copied up my essay—“Poet as Prometheus: Some Thoughts, with Reference to Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound.” It took me four hours to write, two hours to copy up and is five sides in length. It isn’t very good. Words on a page. I could spend a lifetime studying the works of the Romantic writers. “We are on that verge where words abandon us, and what wonder if we grow dizzy to look down the dark abyss of how little we know” (Shelley, “On Life”).

How little I know, how little I will ever know. A lifetime of bookishness wouldn’t suffice to fill in all those blank areas in my mind, and of course such a life would never do. How much time I waste on the unnecessary routines of life. As I toiled I was lucky enough to witness the brightening of the sky, the moon a thin crescent, its darkened portion glowing faintly with the reflected light of the gibbous earth . . . a bright, unfaltering star (Venus?) a few degrees above. Lee slept and will never see those things I saw. I’m as bright and fresh as if I’d just got up. Not tired at all. A new day awaits and I never fail to feel the promise and potential of such.

Evening: When Lee woke up I set out with him to the Art College. I dumped my things there and wandered round town, slipping slowly into a weary despondency. We had a look at the second hand electrical shop near Maynard Park but the only ciné cameras for sale were two three lens types, one of which had two lenses missing. I bought a belt from New Lycroft Army Surplus shop near the train station and Lee pinched a canvas hold-all outside the door for me while I kept the assistants busy. It would’ve cost £6 to buy so I gave Lee my great-coat in exchange (he'd also pinched £6-worth of doll’s furniture for his photographic emulsion experiments from Bennington’s earlier).

After getting the bag I felt very jumpy and nervous so I made my way to the University and met everyone in the library café. A grim evening in the Cellar, watching Aguirre, Wrath of God and having a dismal drink in the Town & Gown.

I came home to bed, leaving everyone else to travel into Watermouth to the pub.