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GOODMAN

    
Paul Goodman 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
amount of fiction, such as the novel _The Empire         EMPIRE_CITY
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 Castro Street in San Francisco
usually has quite a few of them).
   
_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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