Page:Big Sur (1963).djvu/87

RV 79 (BIG SUR79) matter with your liver training?”—“My liver training got involved in kidney work”—(and here again another great gigantic little Oriental friend for me, an eastcoaster who's never known Chinese or Japanese kids, on the west coast it’s quite common but for an eastcoaster like me it’s amazing and what with all my earlier studies in Zen and Chan and Tao)—(And Arthur also being a gentle small softhaired seemingly soft little Oriental goofnik)—And we come to great chanted statements, taking turns, without a pause to think, just one then the other, bing and bang, the beauty of them being that while one guy is yelling like (me):- “Tonight the full apogee August moon will out, early with a jaundiced tint, and pop angels all over my rooftop along with Devas sprinkling flowers” (any kind of nonsense being the rule) the other guy has time not only to figure the next statement but can take off from the subconscious arousement of an idea from “angels all over my rooftop” and so can yell without thinking an answer the stupider or rather the more unexpectedly insaner sillier brighter it is the better “Pilgrims dropping turds and sweet nemacular nameless railroad trains from heaven with omnipotent youths bearing monkey women that will stomp through the stage waiting for the moment when by pinching myself I prove that a thought is like a touch”—But this is only the beginning because now we know the routine and get better and better till at dawn I seem to recall we were so fantastically brilliant (while everyone snored) the skies must have shook to hear it and not just foil: let’s see if I can recreate at least the style of this game:-

ARTHUR: “When are you going to become the Eighth Patriarch?”

ME: “As soon as you give me that old motheaten sweater"—(Much better than that, forget this for now, because I want to talk first about Arthur Ma and try again to duplicate our feat).