Designer’s Brew
This distillery mind of mine is active again,
taking grains of things seen, heard and felt,
brewing something new, some new spirit substance
ample in head, bitter to the tongue,
placing it on the bar to be sampled by
God-knows-who, “Not my taste,”
some say, rejecting out of hand that
which rose from fiery logs, curled through
narrow tubes, settling in the collecting vat
of experience, was then bottled, capped, distributed,
stocked openly, my name on it. Some shrug,
desiring something with vintage attached,
unwilling to drink my less subtle
harsher ale. Some prefer lighter sustenance.
But there are those who will smack their lips,
nod appreciatively consuming my designer’s brew.
Those discerning, exuberant connoisseurs
are the audience I ferment for.
Outlook (November 5, 1957)
No Panacea–But, an Opportunity
The official birth of a literary magazine on campus was heralded in the DBK on Thursday. The actual birth of this magazine came about at the end of last semester, when a mimeographed group of pages was stapled together and placed in stacks outside the English department office and in the Student Union building. The copies didn’t stay put long, so I must assume taht there was an interest in this publication.
To the average student on campus, this magazine may not have any, or may have limited, appeal. There are no cartoons, no jokes, no college humor, the only thing that is to be found within the cover of this mag is a group of highly screened short stories, poems, etc.
Judging from the dubious success of the Old Line last year when it tried to go high-hat, the future looks dark for this sheet. The only difference that I can see, and it is a significant one, is the Expression is being born as a serious publication, and makes no claims of college, or for that matter, the bathroom humor that the students on this campus regard as college humor. This is the job of other publications.
The conservative attitude concerning this magazine was mirored by the hesitance of the SGA to appropriate funds for its publication. There will be a meeting shortly concerning this appropriation, and I certainly hope that it is allotted. Appearance of this mag on campus may help to life the cloud of anti-intellectualism that has become so much a part of our beautiful campus.
This is not to say that a panacea for the ills of the campus is being offered. This will not, or at least I seriously doubt that it will, foster a movement by the students to make this university anything but a week-day deal except on football weekends. It will still be too convenient for all of us to wend our way home to a mother-cooked meal after an appalling week of dining hall fare. It isn’t going to solve the parking problem, or any of the multitude of things that need straightening out.
Actually, all these other problems are mild compared to the need of the student body to expose themselves to actual mental work, and an ability to intelligently criticize what we encounter in our daily lives.
The staff of the issue that was put out last year should be rightly proud of their selectivity and discretion. One of the stories that appeared in that issue, and this should point up the calibre of material that will be utilized, recieved fifth prize in a writer’s digest contest. The talent that we have on our campus can bear up admirably to that of any campus in the U. S., and it is nice to know that now they will have the chance to do so.
In an above paragraph, I mentioned that money has not as yet been allotted for Expression. On November 12 the SGA will meet at the SU building in order to decide whether or not this money will be forthcoming.
Anyone who is interested in seeing this magazine become a solvent part of our campus instead of merely having the knowledge that the campus is “in favor of its existence,” as has been stated in the original resolution might attend this meeting.
Sonofabitch
…a modern day gothic.
Three months ago,
the man next door had a
hernia operation.
His wife disagreed with the doctor
as to the length of his
convalescence.
The doctor lost.
Five weeks ago,
the man next door had a
strangulated hernia operation.
Eleven days ago,
he returned home, paralyzed
from the waist down.
Four and a half hours ago,
(promptly at eight a.m.)
the man next door began
the sing-song chanting that
has made life interesting
the past ten days.
You can hear him now,
through the open window of his livingroom,
where he sits,
rocking back and forth in his
new rocking chair.
“Goddam sonofabitch, sonofabitch, sonofabitch.
Goddam sonofabitch, sonofabitch,
Goddam sonofabitch,
Sonofa, sonofa, sonofa, sonofa, sonofaBIIIITTCCCHHHHH!”
He varies the score;
Today, it’s some operetta by Gilbert & Sullivan,
Yesterday it was Oklahoma.
He hasn’t repeated himself yet.
The wife of the man next door
Isn’t home to hear his latest serenade.
She left this morning
(promptly at eight a.m.)
to take care of their hardware store.
It’s her first day. (She thinks
the man who’s running it’s been stealing.)
Some of my friends think the man next door
is off his rocker.
Most of us just think he’s angry.
He’s always been a hell of a nice guy.
It’s hard to think the worst
of a guy like that.
Something else we can’t agree on
is which of them is goign to kill
the other.
And when.
We’ve got a pool going.
I’ve got him doing her in
Between the first and the fifteenth of September.
I stand to make fifteen bucks on the deal.
Aside from that,
it’s been a pretty boring summer.
p.s.
I didn’t win the pool.
Nobody did.
It only went up to Thanksgiving.
She killed him Christmas Eve.
Baked him a cake with marzipan icing.
Cyanide in the marzipan.
Sonofabitch.
Friday, December 5, 1969
Today, I have to write an ad selling sulfa drugs in bulk because the company client has a large stockpile of sulfas and has heard that the government may be about to pull them off the market. I’m supposed to help sell the stuff to a bunch of other drug companies to prevent our client from taking the loss. Spread it out, let the other companies take the loss. Then again, maybe they won’t have to take a loss, maybe they’ll be allowed to sell their stock out before the product is banned. Maybe it’ll only be the people who will have to suffer by taking a drug that is being banned, probably for reasons of sufficient danger to health. Doesn’t that shit?
Outlook (October 22, 1957)
Backstage: Pride in Their Achievement
“Teahouse of the August Moon” is being presented for seven performances, beginning Friday evening. I have been to no rehearsals, but I can guarantee that the show will be a good one. The participants have been rehearsing since the beginning of the semester. Lately, they have been rehearsing from 7 p.m. until near midnight every night. Merely rehearsal, however, will not produce a good show; it takes more than that. But whatever it takes, this group has it.
The director, Rudy Pugliese is, in my opinion, amazing when it comes to casting. Last year, he directed two shows, and both were excellent. “The Crucible” was received so well, that Rudy was asked to present it in Baltimore for some other universities. “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” broke all attendance records at the university. Rudy is not afraid to take chances, so you will find that quite a few roles, not excluding the lead, are frequently played by newcomers. These newcomers always seem to do a good job. This show is no exception. It is going to be an exceptional show.
I have mentioned the director and the performers in the show, but there is more to a show than this. These things are the apparent things, the things that you see, but the show would be an impossibility without these people who make sets, those who take care of the costumes, the make-up crew, the lighting crew, and others. The desire of these people to put on a good show, and their pride in achievement goes a long way.
Saturday afternoon, while 43,000 fans were madly cheering a well-won football game, five industrious memberts of U.T. were working in the small, cramped, poorly-lighted space that the University provides for dramatic functions. Only one of the quintet has any lines in the play. One was an instructor, but you wouldn’t have known it from the spirit in which they worked. They will receive no glory from the work they were doing, all they were doing was building and painting the sets. Mary Chambers, LeClair Powers, Sue and Sarah Irwin, and instructor Alice Peet were working to produce a good show.
When you see the show, all that you will see are the performers. You will not see the director, or the others that have contributed greatly to the show. You will enjoy the job done by the actors, and will give them credit for it if it is a good job. They will deserve this credit. If the show is a good one, the others will have all the credit that they wanted.
A comment on purpose
Dear readers,
I ask your indulgence as I skip around the times in my father’s life, as I explore his writings, and record them here. Perhaps many of you have enjoyed the poetry from his 30s during the 1970s, yet may find much of the writing from his 20s droll or uninspiring. When I set out to copy down his words, whatever I could find in the remains of his belongings, from across the span of his life, I didn’t imagine they would gain a loyal following. But I see, from reading the blog and feed stats, that at least 15 or 20 readers a day stop by to see what I recount here.
My father was a man. His humanity was his greatest strength, a value for which (humanity qua humanity) I have absorbed as a principal measure of worth. I wonder at a lifetime. I have books on my shelves that contain the collected works of this or that historical figure (Plato, Edgar Allan Poe, Keats & Shelley, Rembrandt’s etchings, Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks). Spare books, some more burgeoned with items than others, gathering dust or dusting the air as I open their pages. Do they contain the person’s life? Surely not.
But they remain a tangible record of their lives, just as the leavings of my father’s writing, the tidbits of what remain. I believe much of his words have been lost to time and circumstance, basement floodings, random accidents of moving, willful destruction or abandonment. And some of them exist in duplicate and triplicate, multiple reworkings across decades of time, new titles assigned, old titles rejected.
This blog is meant, for me, as a place to organize these writings, without having to organize a plan before. Perhaps I will seek to publish these some day. Likely I will seek to edit them, selecting some, putting others aside. This is a journey for me, to better understand his life, the motions of his ideas and regrets, his errors and his triumphs.
I am a man of 38, two boys, a wife, and a firm appreciation for the trials he went through, as I go through many myself. I have a PhD, having completed the dissertation just months after my father passed, having worked on it daily during those final months of his life. Page iv of that document reads simply: This dissertation is lovingly dedicated to the memory of my father, Norman Arnold Pearl (July 8, 1935 – November 9, 2004), who should have lived to see it done. My second son, Edison Norman, was born a month after my father died, the fruit of yet another labor I wished that he had seen.
But, the living go on living, and the dead remain to be unveiled, uncovered, reviled, revealed, discovered, adored, contemplated, romanticized, despised, and sometimes simply remembered. They can not defend themselves, nor praise themselves. It is for the living to take them apart and rebuild them anew, and hopefully in that process learn much about themselves, and how to continue living their lives. And that is what this blog is all about.
Outlook (October 15, 1957)
What’s What With ‘Sputnik’
To make a short story long, I am going to talk about something that is on all of our minds. It is so much on our minds that you might even say that it is getting on our nerves. The Satellite (Russia built one, you know).
There are many unverified rumors concerning the satellite. It seems that, on the second day up, a message came over the wire that is translated literally as meaning, “Hello, Earth people.” No matter where you go, there’s one in every crowd.
Actually, I can’t place too much credence on the above statement, but there are others. It seems, also, that a letter, bearing no return address was sent to Messrs. Bulganin, Kruzhchev, and Zhukov. the letter read:
Dear Comrades;
You may have a point, but that club up there is a pretty exclusive place. I doubt that Pete is going to allow you to crash the gate.
Sympathetically,
The Three Moscow-tears,
Karl, Nick, and Joe.
If you think this a little incredible, consider the news article coming from someplace in the midwest. A very enlighted man from said area of the U.S. is protesting Russian’s poaching. It seems that he filed a space grant a few years back, and holds exclusive rights to the solar system. He says that he would be glad to allow America permission to look the area over, but he doesn’t trust Russia. Anyway, they didn’t have the decency to ask.
A new album has been put out by Comrade Haley and His Artificial Comets containing such favorites as the old Vaughn Monroe melody, Racing for The Moon; Kate Smith’s new theme song, When The Sputnik Comes Over The Mountain; Les Paul and Mary Ford’s How High The Man-made Moon; and New Moon Over My Shoulder.
Then, there’s the problem of what the U.S. will call their space gadget, if they ever get one up there. Satellite bears a bad shot of a connotation. Selections have come in for Captain Video and Tom Corbett, but one wonders if tehre is really any sense in sending up a universe-wide advertisement. We do need backing, though.
An unrest has come over Tin Pan Alley recently. Prior to this time, it has been rather easy to rhyme moon and June, but what the devil can you possibly rhyme with Sputnik?
Outlook (October 8, 1957)
Ruled out: Large Economy Size Problems
Well, you are reading it again, I see. Like, there will be a change in the format this day. This is not as there was a lack of material on which to write, since mucho letters were receieved from femmes on campus demonstrating that there is not a lack of problems. But, upon research, I discovered that all of the problems referred to in the letters that I perused were of the large economy size.
One rule that I must follow for safety’s sake in writing this column is that no male problem over the height of 5′2-1/4″ and weighing over 103-1/2 lbs. will be commented on.
As you call all see and sympathize with I then have a problem, so today shall be my day for blowing off steam and giving advice of a different nature. But first–Joe, we seem to agree on all but two points–my talent and your comprehension.
In response to one of our budding young scientists on campus: progress is find; but when one proposes to put a wart on the face of the man in the moon, hasn’t science gone too far? Like? Anyway, it looks as if Russia has a head start in the new colonization program.
If you listen carefully on your favorite radio (what’s that?) you will be able to discern a sort of a “bleep” every hour and thirty-five minutes attesting to this fact. (184 pounds — that’s about Bulganin’s size, isn’t it?)
Following on the heels of a distinguished member of the campus infirmary’s remark that the Flu vaccine is only 50 per cent effective. I see a statement by the Baltimore Health Commision attesting to an 85 per cent effectiveness. From whence cometh these statistics? I don’t guess that one can expect anything more than advice for a paltry five bucks, though.
Lest you forget, there are but 3 more days remaining in which to drop an individual course. To those deep in despair, allow me to remind you that a 60 per cent refund is still available. This is not to be construed as a hint, but you have my permission.
To a hung-up pick-up
When you start something you don’t always know how you’re going to feel later.
