Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
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| Letter: January 21-22, 1963 |
Mon. Mon., 1/21/63
Eng. Class
Tamara
Boredom, nothing to do but listen to this stupid kid reading poems to the class. I’d rather write something, so I write this.
Gacch, I feel rot ten [sic] this morn. So goddam sleepy I could lay my head on my desk and drift off.
Oh! I dreamed a wild dream last night, about Ben, and me and you and Kit—I must tell you about it. Dreams are beautifully senseless.
Dream No. 1
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Dream No. 1 Jan 21, 63
Ben [Catching] and I were on the hill at the sound of his house, only instead of the alpha beta market[1] there was a gigantic grandstand full of high society people, men in tuxedos and women in white hats and jewels. Ben and I came running down the mountain toward the grandstand.
For some reason, they had all of Ben’s records our there in a row. I accidentally ran into them and kicked them loose, and they rolled down to the top of the grandstand. A few people looked around. I began to pick them up, but Ben said, “C’mon, dammit, they’ll have the cops on us, so we ran off down the road, where a bulldozer was running, ran past it, and stopped in front of a log cabin. “Hey,” I said, “you know who lives here?” “Who?” he said.
“Kit Halliburton!” So we knocked on the door and out she came, looking like no one, I can’t explain the way she looked. She looked feverish and sweating and her skin was chapped.
I don’t remember what we talked about.
Wild.
Dream No. 2, Jan 21, ’63
I was going to run away from home, so I took the bus to Yuma, Arizona, which place I despise. Anyway, after walking around in a department store for a while, I went out into the desert and hid in the sand, so the police wouldn’t find me and send me home. I started thinking, though, and finally decided to go back home. I came over the top of the dune and who should appear but Henry Miller[2], driving an old Model T. “Henry Miller!,” said I. “Need a ride?” said he. Said I, “Yeah, all the way to El Cajon, Calif.” “Hop in,” se haid [sic].
Well, I slid down the dune and right into the coils of a waiting rattle snake, who promptly bit me. And I died.
Read other one first! Read other one first!
Dream no. 3 1/22/63
My mother and I went out to Tamara’s house. It turned out to be a big old mansion in the country, but swampland country, not rolling hills, etc. Tamara said she had a gift for me, “A surprize [sic],” which turned out to be some damn junior science kit. Then we were inside listening to Bartok[3] on the stereo, and her little brother came through, holding a portable radio, on which they were playing the theme from “The Young Savages.”[4] And we were now trying to listen to Charlie Byrd[5]. I asked him to shut it off. He refused. I started to talk to Tamara but suddenly found that it was her little brother. So I asked him, “What is your big sister doing tonight?” And he said (although he looked like her saying it), “absolutely nothing.” So then I asked him where she was and he said he didn’t know and I got up and walked out of the room. In the other room I found Kit madly kissing some spectacled “intellectual”a**hole, and, thinking it was Tamara instead of Kit, I grew insanely angry and began to hurl a long torrent of put-downs. I don’t remember what I said but it was a combination of disillusionment, anger, and neurosis finally let out.
[1] Alpha Beta: a chain of U.S. supermarkets founded by Albert and Hugh Gerrard, first operating in Southern California and later expanding into the western United States and beyond. The brand ended in 1995.
[2] Miller, Henry. b. 1891. American author credited with pioneering a semi-autobiographical approach to novel writing that blended philosophy, social criticism, and character study. One of his best known works, Tropic of Cancer (1934), banned in the U.S. for its sexually explicit content until 1961, is considered influential in the revision of U.S. pornography laws.
[3] Bartók, Béla Viktor János. b. 1881. Hungarian composer and pianist considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and regarded as one of Hungary’s greatest composers.
[4] The Young Savages: a 1961 crime drama film characterized as “a thinking man’s movie,” directed by John Frankenheimer, adapted from the novel, Based On Conviction, by Evan Hunter. Starred Burt Lancaster, Shelley Winters, Dina Merrill, and Telly Savalas.
[5] Byrd, Charlie Lee. b. 1925. American guitarist best known for his collaborations with Stan Getz that popularized Brazilian bossa nova music in North American.
Debora Curry
English Dept - Administrative Assistant
Email: debora.curry@gcccd.edu
Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8am to 10am and 2pm to 4pm - email Debora for link for her Zoom Office hours
8800 Grossmont College Drive
El Cajon, California 92020
619-644-7000
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