SUNDAY NIGHT. Another low key day without progress on writing, though I did play banjo briefly ... really do need to get back on track with project and music.

But no pressure, so it happens when it happens. I do brood about it all - and on the radio today, I heard Sweet Georgia Brown and my mind immediately was going through Django's jazz chords for it. Cool.

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My friend in the hospital looked a fright: purple legs, purple blotches everywhere, very deflating but he took it well, better than I would. He was in a lot of pain, requested morphine while I was there. And yet his mind was sharp -- slow, he said, but he normally could be so hyper, a slow mind was fine by me. He said his family -- 8 siblings -- visit this weekend ... and he expected to be moved to a hospice soon. He also said, if he can write and read and be without pain, he wouldn't mind living another few months. But if he does want the pill, he has to start the paper work. They don't make it very convenient, from what I understand.

Beginning to wonder if brooding about this new novel is all I'll do -- the Zen notion of writing, the mode of thought in the mind of the poet. A ton of work to make it "material" ... and I question the value of it, of course, in this new days of little faith in literature. At the same time, seeing a chapter in a book devoted to my work reminds me that what feels like neglect and even oblivion may not be at all, I've never been in the popular genres, after all, and my perks come from other intellectual high art sorts who discover my work ... and especially in hyperdrama, where I am considered a pioneer by the very few who give a rat's ass about such things, I have a solid history of contributing to the "scholiast", to use an old professor's favorite term. I've made my mark, in other words ... so why do more? The actor who almost embarrassed me with praise a few months ago when I hestitated at his question, Any new plays?, quickly followed with, Of course, you can rest on your laurels. I actually never thought of it that way.

The thing is, I just don't like feeling, which grew with old age, that my career has been a waste of time. Intellectually I know it hasn't -- in fact I am far "better off" than other writers of talent I know ... but I don't like FEELING this has all been a solitary trip, intellectual maturbation, a waste of time. I want a sense of community, even if miniscule and elitist. Maybe especially if miniscule and elitist ha ha! In the 1980s, here, I very much felt a sense of "belonging" to the local theater and arts communities -- and was treated with the respect honoring and embracing this. But all this ended in the 1990s, largely due to my obsession with hyperdrama.

Well, writing this, it all sounds so vain and meaningless. Who gives a shit?
My career is pretty much exactly what I set out to do by choice. And my rewards should be enough.

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Need to hose off the patio after several days of grilling. Time to do that.

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I think my fluctuations re work come from the fact that American pop culture has more control over the arts than when I began in the 1960s. Elitism in the arts was more honorable just as elitism in the sciences should be! In other words, talent and knowledge are not democratic. Today we don't have knowledge, we have opinions. We don't have craft, we have expression. I think the pendulum swings between extremes in these areas, and I've lived long enough to see the full cycle.

As I've said before, I learned more about the arts by serving as a judge than by any other activity, especially if I was a judge on a committee of judges. Revealing, saddening, even ridiculous.

What would the culture be like if literature actually MATTERED?

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I waste too much energy brooding about bullshit like this.

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Sitting out here on the deck feels like a vacation. It's the best thing about our house.

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I need an afternoon goal. Maybe to record the banjo song. Onward.

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