Hermosa Beach cont.
z..
in the town of Claremont after looking in at Pomona College I bought in Second Story Books--- a very good second hand bookshop owned by a young man who says he did not go to any college but who from his conversation seemed more literate, more involved with the reality of books than 90% of college and university English professors and who having read all the previous books of Alexander Theroux, especially taken by DARCONVILLE'S CAT--- was pleased to be stocking Theroux's new novel LAURA WARHOLA... which is already in the top three best books of all of 2008--- something you would not know from the stupid second rate review in the NYTimes by a fellow who was many months ahead of time bragging in the basement of the Strand Bookstore in NYC that he had panned the book and who by his conversation revealed that he simply was unaware of AT's work and being possessed of a pedestrian mind was incapable of reviewing such a novel: in fact if he even read the novel is probably a question that might be worth perusing.
The TLS gave AT's novel a full page review and there the reviewer revealed a close understanding of Theroux work and easily grasped the delicious difficulty of the novel and how because of the shadow it casts...
easily distracted by these irritations that sliver from the NYTimes... and like so many other infiltrations from the East--- driving to Pomona College you have to cross Yale and Harvard Streets--- reminding one of the terrible power these colleges have in spite of the fact that they are mere training schools for the most part and to try to imagine them in PAUL GOODMAN'S phrase, as COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS--- you get my point: Pomona seems the ideal size for a college: 900 some students... orange trees growing outside the dorm rooms... a many million volume library...
yes, at SECOND STORY i bought three books: THE CALIFORNIA DESERTS by Edmund C. Jaeger
PARIS PEASANT by Louis Aragon in the Exact Change Press edition ( Aragon's only real book as afterwards he gave himself over to the worship of Stalin)
THE DIAMONDS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA AND OTHER STORIES by Desmond Hogan (to replace an earlier copy that had become water damaged)
y...
before going to Claremont I was at the Nixon Library and Presidential museum... thoughtful people know that Nixon is the only American president of the Twentieth Century who would have interested Shakespeare...
again, i was reminded of how trivial Kennedy seemed when placed side by side with Nixon in those famous debates: the smirking, hair caressing Kennedy was again in evidence on a television screen, complete with that aura of demanding unearned entitlement
but it is what one sees at the end of the tour that interested me: a re-creation of the last study of Nixon's in his residence in New Jersey on April 18, 1994. Books are arranged on his desk that one can only assume--- unless it is all a sad charade--- were being read, looked into, what-have-you: Democracy and Leadership by Irving Babbitt, Flaubert by Henri Troyat, Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche (in the Penguin paperback edition)... on a shelf to the right a book on Carl Schmitt by Paul Gottfried...
BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL
i was reminded: Nixon established the EPA in the face of--- as they say in the street--- fierce Democratic opposition---
i did buy a t-shirt celebrating Nixon's bowling ability...
the Nixon grave site is very close to the actual modest house he was born in midst what was once an orange grove...
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