Reading: John Fowles, The Magus. I am 300+ pages in and I have no idea who is mad--hm, despite the wackedness of one or two or three or four, if there are four, of the main characters, it still doesn't remind me of Lolita--and who is not, and where Fowles is going.

I thought he wrapped up A Maggot really conveniently with some handy dei ex machina, and I'll be disappointed if he uses the same shtick here. But I doubt he does, and I feel what an analytical, critical reader I am not in my inability to discern his motive.

Moving: 15' NT 1.5 miles

Listening: workout disc.

Watching: "Sopranos"

Garden: Called utilities about underground stuff. Attended class.

5 March 2001: Underworld

Clearly I remember/ picking on the boy/ seemed a harmless little fuck...
King Jeremy the wicked rules his world
Jeremy spoke in class today
--Pearl Jam, "Jeremy," Ten, 1991

*****

Everywhere he goes is news
Today is different
Today is not the same
Today I make the action
...
I've been waiting for this
...
Peak-time viewing blown in a flash
as I burn into your memory cells
'Cause I, I'm alive
...
I want to be somebody
--Peter Gabriel, "Family Snapshot," untitled, 1980

******

He knew he would need them for his conversation
If it went as he planned he might need them all
Listen you people I've got a question
You won't pay attention but I'll ask anyhow
I've found a way that'll get me an answer
Been waiting to ask you till now--right now
How do I know I exist?
...
Are you listening to me?
Am I?
Thirty-seven people got his message so far
--Harry Chapin, "Sniper," Sniper and Other Love Songs, 1972

*****

It's the special skill of an adolescent to imagine the end of the world as an adjunct to his own discontent.
--Don DeLillo, Underworld

---

What I like about each of the three songs is that in them the violence is an attempt to communicate what verbal means have failed to convey. The DeLillo is just a good line.

-----

I listened to Pearl Jam as I worked out, watching the muted the Newshour with Jim Lehrer and reading the captioned comments of Sandee High School students. At least one reason people grow up without respect for human life is that they have not learned it by example, have not been respected, have grown up without a sense of self. It's not been nurtured in them, and whatever inborn part of it has survived without nurturing is cut down by society. At what point is an individual not responsible for his becoming a sociopath? Is there one?