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GOODMAN

Paul Goodman (1911 - 1972) is probably
best known as an anarchist intellectual,
writing in the fifties and sixties, the
author of non-fiction works like _Growing
Up Absurd_.  He also wrote a considerable                EMPIRE_CITY
amount of fiction, such as the novel _The
Empire City_.

   He was also gay, if that matters (and it
   might: after used books stores, you
   might want to check a "gay" bookstore
   for his books.  I notice that the one on                   (May 28, 2007)
   Castro Street in San Francisco usually
   has quite a few of them).                      Or it used to, before
                                                  it went all slick...


_Five Years_ is a collection of excerpts from
his notebooks over a five year period, loosely
collected into sections on different topics
("Art", "Method", "Psychology", "Florence" etc).

For me, the floating disjointed paragraphs of this
book, each describing some random idea or                 SCALE
experience, has always worked like prose poetry.
On nearly every page there's another a starting                 GODBODY
point that I can take in a number of directions.

     From Paul Goodman's  _Five Years:
     Thoughts During a Useless Time_

     "My social existence is absurd.  In
     God's creation I'm a kind of juvenile
     delinquent, a little Manfred.  But I
     move in a society so devoid of ordinary
     reality that I am continually stopping
     to teach good sense, to give support,
     to help out, as a young gangster might
     help an old lady across the street on
     his way to the stick-up.  So I cut
     quite a respectable figure, though on
     the pious and boring side.  All this
     does nothing for me except to confuse
     me and use up my time.  When the Devil
     quotes Scriptures, it's not, really, to
     deceive but simply that the masses are
     so ignorant of the theology that
     somebody has to teach them the
     elementary texts before he can seduce
     them.  When long ago I threw in my lot
     with Cain and Ishmael because they were
     able to get to talk to God, I little
     realized that I was dooming myself to
     become a pillar of humane culture."



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