I celebrate the Earth, my home, my mother, my grave, and as long as men are Man they must, if they would preserve the integrated being, do the same—[and preserve] with it the body—this rank casual hungry smelly sweaty lusting transitory body, my oozy pulpy liquid-bag-swollen body, bones, blood, hair, glands, my bejeweled sex; I love and celebrate it all. Never to let men forget that they are animals as much as gods—that is one thing I shall say.

From the above, certain theorems naturally derive: If the earth and the animal are valuable, then every earthborn man and woman, every animal, has an inherent right to a portion of this earth, to its produce, to its free air, its seas, sands, mountains, deserts and sunrises—this means some kind of socialism, social justice, economic democracy, decentralized, voluntary, cooperative; and a spacious commonwealth, with lots of room for all (birth control) in the Green Utopia. Here is something to fight for that will never desert me in my lifetime.

The free man I sing, the anti-authoritarian, the libertine; material for several volumes in this theme.

The common man, too, the everyday ordinary hardworking family man—someone someday must write a book about him. Mine, perhaps, the small southwestern rancher with his starved cows, pickup, kids, windmill.

PASSION: passion-light must be brought back into Literature. If no one else can or will do it, I must.

FOR THE TRAVEL BOOK on Europe (Rolled Over on Europe?):

France. France is that country which must be traversed by any traveler going from Britain to Germany, Switzerland, Italy or Spain, or by any traveler going from one of those countries to Britain. (If you can afford it, take an airplane.)

Paris. Paris is the capital of France.

England. After a few months in England, one finds that one likes the Scotch very much.

I’VE DECIDED to be a regional writer. My region will be the U.S.A., Mexico. Guatemala, Easter Island, Spain, Isle of Skye, Persia, Kenya, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania. Area posted. Squatters are warned. Prosecution. Fine.

Art of the Novel: Maximizing order in maximum chaos—complex symmetry as opposed to simple symmetry—simultaneity—counterpoint and contrary motion—the novel should appeal primarily to the intellect; for the emotions there is music, for the senses, color and form.

SIBELIUS, the First [symphony]—the lean prelude and then the lightning’s flash, the thunder’s roll, the strike and strike again! Then later, quiet interludes, tho always present the sense of tension, of something coming, something straining to be free, to…how the distant music plays upon, pulls at, turns over and echoes thru the listening heart—the incredible wistful dim dreaming distant impossible promise—how sure and certain that here, for once, the music speaks of something more than itself, of something beyond itself, not a place, not an idea, not a story, but something, some kind of deep aesthetic intuition—a memory? An anticipation? A vision? A symbol of emotion?

But what kind of sentimental gush is all this? Am I taking a cue from the music and drifting down into pretty fantasy? Possibly—oh, but why should I not? There is too much simple loveliness here to be scorned, too much meaning and truth to be ignored. I’ll not be the one to try to back down the old man—let him stand. Love him. And listen. Listen. Awake, sleepers, dogmatic slumberers…listen here to the voice of innocence, the song…