Last Conversation in January 2006

Quote:
I can see beyond the Universe
but I'm not so sure I understand what it is you
want me to say about it

well sure enough --
sure enough

there is no salvation without compassion for
every other
Being

-- that a question is is enough of a question to question; that a question asks is reason enough to remain silent; that a question is the Object of the Sentence
is reason enough to remember: Memories are made of this--

I live in Gaudy Splendor
a suburb of Your Name and Mine

yet I am not organized
nor am I Organization

nor am I
remembered by those
I remember

this, made of sand, gets us into the Neighbor
territory and there
I'm lost playing a horn on a
mountain top
walking along with a thousand thousand others
unable to count unable to remember
unable to waken to walking
but I walk still

a thousand thousand do you know how
much that is
much that is needed

can you imagine playing with a thousand children
a thousand thousand children of children

?

Unquote

Do I dare
Eat a peach?
sing a song about
eating a
peach?
or tell you
there are
no peaches
in the house.

if I tell you
it's all made of sand
are you somebody who knows what
sand Is or even
thinks in metaphor.

hopeless ain't it.

I took a picture
no you took a photo
I died
no you are still alive

today I found a waiting
waiting and understand this:
you will get lost
I happy to have found you again
It is the great secret.

Breath hands and Hands

I am not a
good
example of
Impartiality

of Being
Impartial

of
Remembering

of remembering
knowing

of you

-- Jeff Wietor

Adam Dreams of Shane

Something within us perceives Venus as
A morning star: a planet rising in
The east over the hills through the hills
Over the clouds through the sky;
In waking and in dream
To have no hope in the future gives
Consistency to the present
Alan Ladd knew that.

We mount the horse and become afraid
Of height afraid of the huge animal
Supporting our fragile weight afraid of the surge of
Potential power afraid of having no
Control over this thing this alive
Beast this natural mode of transportation.
Jean Arthur knew that.

The objects in this world: devoid of consciousness
Ignorant of the eventual backward
Movement of flesh to water of bones to
Earth of mind to air; & the intonation of
The voice (we will miss especially) retreats as
This profound sorrow of decision-making ceases.
Van Heflin knew that.

What he remembers through seeing
What he realizes not knowing
What within us perceives
Becomes what the boy wants
The boy craves.

-- Jeff Wietor

Feeling Convivial Miu Miu Mulls Upon Mason's Stride

Miu Miu Altoids Apple Sours
Seven fingers a whisker a moustache
O you O you My Darling Brad
Where Have You Gone

Today Is: a rosary of roses
Garuda flies North
Thelma, upon her adoption was renamed
Ananda is named Ananda

Ignore narrative if you want the poem
to live longer than you
Phlebas the Phoenician,a fortnight dead,
knew that and how

Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as
you.

When Connie got back from India
the first thing she said was:
"I've had it up to here with Supermind"
then gestured her hand flying
over her head

I sensed in her some creative tension but
shrinking creative tension; I also pictured her
living in a capillary somewhere in a human body.
Not hers.

Let me into your life
I am a wine jar and a drum.
Out of the goat's nose
flows the Ganga.

Slyly I remain
Slowly I go
Time is not a mistake.
You are right on the border.

Today we had darjeeling, Russian
Caravan and in the afternoon:
spinach oolong: a green day
smaller than an insert.

why is it
every word
has a meaning?
don't forget to pay for
any apples you take from the drawer.

he breathes out she reads aloud
she teaches him to read he remembers
hearing the Katzenjammer Kids
read aloud remembers seeing

in the little shop one
summer sat a little parrot
and next to the little parrot
sat a little man: a midget: he screamed

you mean the word five
means ten and ten means turquoise
while there is no word for that word
you cannot think of just now?

ok, these dice are one-inch
cubes (with rounded corners)
I found them in the street
in a fit of confusion

remember to tell Mason
I'm trying to bewitch him
with language; remember to look
in the mirror and see him: narrowly.

remember, Miu Miu, Miu Miu says
to herself reminding herself for fear
of wanting to forget: notice how good
he looks, his famous Crest of Ilium.

-- Jeff Wietor

Miu Miu Wakes Then Sleeps Then Wakes

1

red bottle-brush bloom
but the midday sun's hidden
by this sudden storm



2

a sudden impulse
to phone my mother's mother
gone for 20 years



3

these asparagus stalks
still wet from last night's rain
the first taste of spring



4

the sound-bytes of war
reflected in the TV
you face nothing more



5

effigies of doves
an unsteady staccato
from helicopters



6

long-stem strawberries
in a white ceramic bowl
given by sunlight



7

middle of the night
dripping sounds from the kitchen
water the cactus



8

middle of the night
fog horns from the Pacific
comforting sameness

-- Jeff Wietor

Whit Reads an O'Hara Poem to Mason

A City Winter

1

I understand the boredom of the clerks
fatigue shifting like dunes within their eyes
a frightful nausea gumming up the works
that once was thought aggression in disguise.
Do you remember? then how lightly dead
seemed the moon when over factories
it languid slid like a barrage of lead
above the heart, the fierce inventories
of desire. Now women wander our dreams
carrying money and to our sleep's shame
our hands twitch not for swift blood-sunk triremes
nor languorous white horses nor ill fame,
but clutch the groin that clouds a pallid sky
where tow'rs are sinking in their common eye.

2

My ship is flung upon the gutter's wrist
and cries for help of storm to violate
that flesh your curiosity too late
has flushed. The stem your garter tongue would twist
has sunk upon the waveless bosom's mist,
thigh of the city, apparition, hate,
and the tower whose doves have, delicate,
fled into my blood where they are not kissed.

You have left me to the sewer's meanwhile,
and I have answered the sea's open wish
to love me as a bonfire's watchful hand
guards red the shore and guards the hairy strand,
our most elegant lascivious bile,
my ship sinking beneath the gutter's fish.

3

How can I then, my dearest winter lay,
disgorge the tasty worm that eats me up
falling onto the stem of a highway
whose ardent rainbow is the spoon's flat cup
and in the vilest of blue suited force
enamored of the heated needle's arm
finds the ministrant an own tongue's remorse
so near the blood and still so far from harm,
thus to be eaten up and gobbled down
volcanoes of speedometers, the strike
that heats the iris into flame and flow'rs
the panting chalice so a turning pike:
you are not how the gods refused to die,
and I am scarred forever neath the eye.

4

What are my eyes? if they must feed me, rank
with forgetting, in the jealous forest
of lustrous blows, so luminously blank
through smoke and in the light. All faint, at rest,
yet I am racing towards the fear that kills
them off, friends and lovers, hast'ning through tears
like alcohol high in the throat of hills
and hills of night, alluring! their black cheers
falling upon my ears like nails. And there
the bars grow thick with onanists and camps
and bivouacs of bears with clubs, are fair
with their blows, deal death beneath purple lamps
and to me! I run! closer always move,
crying my name in fields of dead I love.

5

I plunge deep within this frozen lake
whose mirrored fastnesses fill up my heart,
where tears drift from frivolity to art
all white and slobbering, and by mistake
are the sky. I'm no whale to cruise apart
in fields impassive of my stench, my sake,
my sign to crushing seas that fall like fake
pillars to crash! to sow as wake my heart

and don't be niggardly. The snow drifts low
and yet neglects to cover me, and I
dance just ahead to keep my heart in sight.
How like a queen, to seek with jealous eye
the face that flees you, hidden city, white
swan. There's no art to free me, blinded so.

-- Frank O'Hara

Miu Miu Reads a Little St. John Perse

"Drunken, the more drunken, you were saying, for
denying drunkenness. . . ."
One again a man arises in the wind. His word as brief
as the splintering of bone. His foot already angled on its
course. . . .

"Ah, yes, all things torn loose! Let it be told among
the living!
Above all in the lower districts -- this matter is of
importance.
And you, new men, what are you going to do with
the heavy braids unbraided over the brow of the
repudiated hour?
Those who dreamed dreams in their rooms went to
bed last night on the other side of the century, facing
the adverse moons.
Others have drunk the new wine in fountains painted
with red lead. And we were of those. Any may the sadness
that we were be dissolved in the new wine of men,
as in the festivals of the wind!
Ended the dream wherein the Dreamer marvels
throughout his watch.
Our salvation is in the haste and the canceling out.
Impatience is everywhere. And over the Dreamer's
shoulder the indictment of dream and inertia.

Let them bring us from the Marches men of great
power, reduced by inaction to the profession of Enchanter.
Unpredictable men. Men assailed by the god. Men
nourished on the new wine and as though transfixed by
lightning.

-- Saint-John Perse

Miu Miu Looks Around Her Apartment

on the cupboard shelf
last winter's pomegranate
an unasked question

-- Jeff Wietor

Miu Miu Talks Back to Her Photoshop

Tonight seems such a long time ago
even as time passes I wait in public
gritting my teeth hoping to discover
the potentiality of rotating images

To answer complaints rising slowly like
masterpieces of decision I continue to
reject the conceivable for the concept of
continuity wishing for transformation

Baghdad had already been the site of
many book-burnings, mostly of works
deemed heretical. In 923 fourteen sacks of
heretical works, outside the palace gate

To change from the thing into not a thing
seductive whispers slither lightly tickling the
skin, a surge of funk our sole source of shape-
shifting a surge of break beats a divergent guitar

Forever is our grief our wish to know our wish to
be atmospheric and to know is to know time and
knowing know time passes as time passes ambitiously
like a genre of music scalding us with licks and quivers

There remain no images to remind the unknown only
the known and reinvention of the known will succeed
I'll mention a few loose couplings of the known in
order to remind you of what defies knowing:

Baghdad had already been the site of lyrical surges
of heretical break beats like a genre of music shifting
like the mewing of a cat trapped between the whisper
and the rumor and grief tumbling down

To change seductively these whispers producing an impact
a feature a stereoscopic film electrified to soothe or excite
Monsters from the Grave Monsters from Grace Monsters
and their trademarks: pain, loneliness, and operatic death

Thought is not like that and our thought though willing is
unlike the thought of Heidegger or Wittgenstein; we only apply
the nature of perception, and the structure of subjectivity;
known all known through learning through time nothing remains

There remain no images to remind the unknown only
a feature a stereoscopic film electrified to soothe or excite:
It's the fate of Baghdad through time to face sackings
from time our bodies too mewing with rumors and grief.

-- Jeff Wietor

Miu Miu Says Why She's Thinking About Suicide

Not because it's cold and rainy today & I'm in a cozy
office in Oakland; not because I don't understand a Thing!! about
Any of the Tasks at hand; not because the sound of people's voices seem
distant and far away & certainly not because I'm hungry for Mango
flavored ice cream.

What warms my heart my soul and my craving which used to turn itself to
discos, dances, warm flesh & electronic music is this:

just to close my eyes and realize what it means to
rest in peace.

The next time you're asked: what do you envision yourself doing for
work & you say: to be creatively involved with ideas and materials; to
do "good" & communicate with people & you hear in response: no really,
what kind of job do you really want.

consider not being alive as a better answer.
bitter
unconnected
& drowning in despair
because the inability to be specific
is killing you

-- Jeff Wietor

Former Acquaintance

who will take acquaintance of my woes.
why do they always call a ship she.

more than mere recognition
less than familiarity or intimacy

do you like to fly --
make this night a dragon

-- Jeff Wietor

Speaking Acquaintances

I'm inclined not to want to talk to
people on the street wearing surgical masks.
I believe their noses have been chopped off,
prefer to not know the truth and suspect
I may have known them, once, in kindergarten.

-- Jeff Wietor

Still Life of a Conversational Legend w/5 Red Apples

5 4s 6 2s 7 Bs
23 grays 15 blue Cs
521 yellow Zs 4 Rs

29 red electric 228s
a 423 silver E
1 January 20th 2006

15 2s w/yellow green Fs
blue 22s at 71 or 403
78 or 33 or 45 white 7s

Indigo 8 with 19 1001s
14 CDs 15 B52s Ruddy
R128 Lj5s; Mx Blue

There is one way of avoiding
at least partly
the occult appearance of

the process of thinking
& it is
to replace in these processes

any working of the
imagination by acts of
looking at real objects

-- Jeff Wietor

Neither Tom Welling nor Brad Pitt Phoned Today

nor Michael, David or
Sally for that matter --
I did have a dream about

riding on the back of
Nandi listening to Arctic Monkeys
singing

whatever people say I am
that's what I'm not
"I bet you look good on the dancefloor"

Clark isn't doing well
you can see he's bottling up
his sadness

How do engineers determine
the location of the center of gravity
for an aircraft which they are designing?

A symmetrical moniker;
I get all excited and then it passes;
I like hairy boys;

a burst of real fruit juice;
a pink high heel;
a blue blaze of eyes;

for practical purposes
just say your center of gravity
is here --

then point
like the angel of vengence
to your solar plexus

-- Jeff Wietor

Talk of Independence

boys lie
they tell you anything they want
to get you into

a language of their own
consisting entirely of
nouns

what was it I wanted
to remember this morning
that I've now forgotten

listen:
how did I happen to end up
looking like Anthony Hopkins

spending the day
concerned about knowing
knowledge & understanding

being in new ways
new concerns
fresher more alert reasonings

tickled by a cat hair
spinning a gold ring
on my finger

inexperienced in the ways
of making things happen and
forgetting my lines

contemplating the order of need:
pencil paper rock
scissors cat window rhubarb

understudy telephone soup
Korean BBQ dark stuff in your past
I don't know something subtle

you know I'm able to read &
comprehend I'm learning that
you must imagine an expansion to

this language; these, this; the
pointing gesture --
cleaning his ears with a Ticonderoga 2

a new feeling today:
being in the past just like it is
now, that sort of backward experience

or believing you're telling me the
truth only when you lie to me
or being close to "the family"

because you're somehow in command
of position & fear the experience of
feeling because you'll be sunburned

countless elucidations shine
shine like the star you are --
you're Romeo not Hamlet with questions

-- Jeff Wietor

Talk My Loving Lovely Today

all that now
never made sense
to me

it's a scenario
any American
would love

is there an
alternative to
aging?

I'm stuffed up
and so
congested

I have only
ten minutes
to begin again

this: the real
deal; much like
a novel of thank you

what's still
ahead this morning
is still ahead

-- Jeff Wietor

Pillow Talk :: Adam to Whit

Adam:
I am made of magic
maybe & mulberry
root

Whit:
I like licking
like licking and

liking
you

To Himself Adam Talks Tabula Rosa

he stripped then
sprang
Louganis-like
into bed

white as a lilac
eros moved remarkably
through him

sprung

a night breeze
sang
stardust

a pair of socks plus one
lay
balled on the lawn

can you believe
what he's
done to me

suddenly I felt him
spring
in my heart

-- Jeff Wietor

Conversational Interlude Intrudes Adam & Whit

A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi
getting ready for bed; a pair of warm pajamas
Adam reminds me, tease. taunt & tickle me:

"between futile speculation and unconsidered action"
correct me if I'm wrong
"I knew a man once did a girl in"

"have you noticed the cherry blossoms"
"again". "again and again". "again again".
pink clusters starry bursts.

pretty in confidence; casting a spell:
Springtime in the middle of Winter
San Francisco; bedazzled, a source of success

I find it difficult describing my situation
your situation, is it easier to describe?
describe to me your situation.

I forget what it was I was thinking about.
Was I in fact thinking about something?
Perhaps I just had the thought I was thinking.

When Adam says good night to me I say good night
to him; I feel at moments when I say good night
to Adam I have gained the capacity to act directly.

While Adam is preparing for bed I feel him struggling
with inner demons; as if demons have sprouted in him
in the dark of him about to flower

Within Adam is a seed of unplanned acceptance;
Adam is vigilant to his unplans and unknowing.
Adam unknows and unplans and is thus happy.

I am happy with Adam when Adam remembers I am his
brother; sometimes he can't remember which of
us is older; it matters that I don't want to lose him

it's hard for us to tell where my body leaves
off and his begins; we have a capacity to act
directly; we have a place to go with each other

-- Jeff Wietor

Wedded Conversation

Whit's private thoughts
privately thinking
Whit's lopsided traditional wonderments:

I am always disentangling myself from people.
I am compulsive with ideas, often confused,

sometimes vanity eats away at me
eats me
feeds me
clothes me
comforts me:

but not now, not today.

I feel knotted-up today.
Distant, vaguely lumpy, impersonal.
My teeth hurt with a hurt that
fascinates me.

I feel pain on the molecular level.
I feel pain in the smallest part of myself.

When I am in the deepest most hidden
reaches and regions of pain I put on a
body hugging wedding dress and go out to a leather bar.

I sit at the bar drinking beer from a bottle.
I talk to whoever talks to me.
I talk about how much I look like somebody else
and everyone agrees with me.

This is the moment
of my
life

-- Jeff Wietor

Conversation Fandangos

Mason speaking freely:
Miu Miu what do you mean by "poisoned milk".
Miu Miu eagerly:
emotion gone bad.

Like a lioness the sun
Like a hawk the moon.

How will I fuse all these objects into a single object,
Adam says to Whit.

Remember Mason says to Miu Miu: objects are what we know, mean and think.

Miu Miu, her hair capturing sunlight:
and things are what we experience, see and can describe.

Whit insists that the immediate situation is where things happen and sometimes
refuses to believe Adam when Adam says he doesn't understand what states
of affair make him possible or rather makes it possible for him to love Mason.

In many ways these four people (4) are really two (2).
Only in the fabulousness of fully hate do they separate partially.

It's all so common says Miu Miu.

Yes, says Mason but we all live as though we have a secret understanding.

Adam says we need to find a thread out of the world.

Whit feels that which is not expressed through speech but
that by which speech is expressed is the best Club in town.

-- Jeff Wietor

Conversation with the Enemy

I am a living and tragic museum of
separation. You can describe me as
a yes it is hostile and threatening
creature full of shattered . . .

I checked the house. His clothes
were gone.


Two

What's to be done with Miu Miu: what's she wearing; is Mason athletic or not; is Adam forever amiable and understanding and what of his twin Whit who makes too much of everything; what do they look like even if they look like each other differently; are the three of them really four when it comes down to functionality?


Three

Brett Favre is not afraid of a 300 pound lineman.


Four

Let me have the evidence.


Five

Was it dismissed?
Upon looking into a mirror
he senses a deeply intoxicating kind of love


Six

Miu Miu must learn to fuse her ego with her
Self; and object world

Mason must remember to reflect upon his ego,
deny his Self; while fusing with the object world.

Adam and Whit must learn to separate themselves from
their mirror egos, false selves and accept or reject
the object world.

Oneness is not objectless.
What does it mean:
art is a mirror of nature.
is Mother Nautre in symbiosis?
Why is an infant blissfully unaware of a self
but fully in charge of an ego.

Miu Miu has a strangely masculine body.
Mason: a metro-sexual currency.
Adam could pass for some sort of sexually charged distilled water.
Whit a masculine condensation of muscular, equine, energy.

-- Jeff Wietor

Antique Conversation Piece

I agree with the woman who said
Art is a state it doesn't need to be an accomplishment.
Last night an eagle spread it's wings and revealed a sexually charged boy
I heard continuous, even drumming.
Around the boy's thigh, like a bracelet, tattooed:
Aurifica Ego Regina
We were lovers when he moved in.
The eagle said I don't want to wake up or kill you.
I became afraid when the boy flew.
I have filthy dreams of unclean rooms and dirty dishes.
The boy was my best friend --
He, the boy, was a displacement, a poet.
I viewed him as a brother.
A dog had been sleeping.
I had to talk him out of sexual advances.
A wolf penetrating a dog with a shaft of lunar light.
I told him if I went up the stairs I would be a dead man walking.
This was difficult.
He, the boy, pulled a gun on me when I refused to have sex.
He didn't want to wake me.
Pure, and simply, he insisted he had witnessed a celestial penetration.
It was hard for me to move the heavy furniture.
When I opened his chest I was told I was bad.
I sleep continually in a tremble.
These are my final days.
Love is possessive.
These emotions have been purged.
I wish him no animosity.
We were best friends.
Delect me, embrace me.

-- Jeff Wietor

Conversationing on 9th Street; San Francisco

I'm going to the Club tonight.
This is a matter of doing and wanting to do.
If asked I deny I have children.
I am young. Once I was younger.
The first few years of my life were ok.
I always felt I'd be happy with somebody.
I'm trying to remember the first song I ever heard.
I am one of four children.
My first boyfriend had burgundy hair.
Once he threatened to beat me.
I was tired of his never being around.
I never got to go nowhere.
I don't know what made me leave him.
I have no money.
It went down the drain.
I find it easy finding boyfriends.
It's not a matter of rebound.
I often feel things are over.
I never feel happily ever after.
I'm never clear, when questioned, what's going on.
What's going on.
I don't know.
I become quiet.
When I look into the camera I feel alive.
I do not remember ever having a son.
It was a mistake having a girlfriend.
I don't want to see him.
His mother won't let me see him.
I dyed my hair burgundy.
I want my blonde hair back.
My new boyfriend helps me forget unpleasant matters
I feel boxed in again.
I want to join others who care about the future.
I'm going through a crisis right now but I can't describe it.
Who will teach him numbers.
Who will teach him colors.
I don't care he's moved on.
I just feel so bad

I feel that my body is a sycamore leaf.

-- Jeff Wietor

Conversation Lozenges

Mason Loves Miu Miu
Miu Miu Loves Adam
Adam Loves Whit
Whit Loves Mason
Adam Loves Miu Miu

-- Jeff Wietor

Sir, We Had Talk Enough but no Conversation

My skateboard is everything
I am everything
What are you waiting for

-- Jeff Wietor

Small Talk

I miss work a lot.
I spend pre-dawn morning worrying over things.
I don't know what happened: you have such a heart-face.
I can't tell or describe the objects around me.
I'm a good friend to people in expensive situations.
I don't understand what states of affairs involve.
I'd like to not feel I have poor circulation in my legs.
I experience a certain heaviness in my legs when I walk.
Nothing is cheap everything is free.
When I talk with people I get to a point where nobody asks anymore questions.
Alone we come alone we leave.
You probably believe I kiss differently than other people.
When I miss work I like driving around the city.
All morning I dream about not having to park.
Objects surround me yet I feel so out of touch.
How is it possible to be in excess.
Imagine if in this life everything were the same except
Outer space consisted of no things.
Switch places with me.
This is my technique, you can't learn it.
I'm four minutes younger than my brother.
I am not as cagey as my brother.
Nothing is simple to me.
Tomorrow is based on trusting him with no nonsense.
I have no good reason to feel big insurance companies are my friend.
I could describe the London Plane Tree outside the window but not now.
I'm mostly "in it" for the pleasure but recently it's been nothing but pain.
I consider aches to be pain.
I do nothing I love.

-- Jeff Wietor

After Conversation Conversation

I'm in need of cash.
I am not on the road to success.
In eighteen months I will have less than I had 18 months previously.
I have nothing to put up as security.
I have no sense of security and often feel threatened by life.
I would sue but I do not know who to sue or sue who for what.
I do not know the answer to "what do you want".
My relationship compels me to ask tight questions of friends.
I never get anything in writing for fear it will be used against me.
I don't know how much money I owe or need to borrow to repay what I borrowed.
I have considered moving to Phoenix.
I have no idea how I will get to Phoenix.
I don't drive.
I don't have a girl friend.
I don't have a boy friend.
I make new people angry quickly, repeatedly.
I let days go by without wondering how I will repay my loans.
I don't have an option of flight.
Dude, I had all these expenses.
Everything breaks down. I have proof.
I've never been violent before.

A lot of times I feel I've missed the boat.

-- Jeff Wietor

Conversation Stopper

This is the plaintiff.
I'm suing him for defamation of character.
This guy will do anything to get money including lying.
I'm suing him for a Guns & Roses jacket too.

-- Jeff Wietor

Converse: Between Rain Drops

To have a "natural" conversation.
To be part of an "honest" conversation.
To overhear an involved conversation.

To have no conversation with someone.
To have no converse.
Not to have a conversation for many years.

Knowing what not conversing is like.
Knowing the structure of gain.
Not remembering having had conversations.

Grasping at straws to drum up discourse
I can always talk about the terror of the situation --
Call me if you're interested

-- Jeff Wietor

The James Sorcic Puzzle, Song & Hand Book Part One

The adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Jim and Ron -- book: Interabang Bookstore; jim says when it came in : we should write one: Mr. & Mrs. Jeff and Jim. I smiled. he always said the right thing.

my first "big brother" type. protective nature.

I'm jim jim the house he announced one day in spring. a first warm day after a long winter. a clear day. spring in Milwaukee. near the river. he had had a realization that people rested within him, we could take refuge in him, in jim in him in jim the house; he would be our abode our place of safety and he would shelter us. his announcement intrigued and delighted all of us. he was softening into himself the motorcycle bad boy gang member was becoming a father.

ARRIVING in San Francisco he BRINGS three gifts: a Geiger counter, and Ojibwa beaded wampum belt and himself. it only occurred to me later that he was giving me, and all of us, for all I knew, himself: his new found hip sleek short haired sophisticated self; he was wearing a tight black dancer leotard beneath his shirt and jeans. he took his clothes off. the sun was bright-lighting the room. I was surprised at the ease of his gift: his body.

we moved from Diamond Street to the 8th avenue house. originally Marilyn and Peter and Greta and I were to move in and when Jim made the decision to move to SF he was accepted into the new "house" and originally we shared the same room and bed on the second floor.

the last time I saw Jim our relationship had cooled. we had become distant and nothing warmed us to each other. he was sitting, writing in his 1974 Journal-book; intense; he had what seemed to me a speed/cocaine intensity ; slightly arrogant; poised, comfortable in his secret popularity; I don't know really what happened; I never asked he never said anything but it was probably my rabidly wine drunk habits;

but it's not about "confession" its about understanding; and I don't mean forgiveness. I can easily get bogged down in whys and second guessing and conjectures and what-ifs and maybes but it's the slow progressive pull of time; our personal puppet natures; our dancing together and with each other on strings; sometimes the strings tangle but much of the time it's just a dance a passage; a movie with a good soundtrack;

he was sitting at the large dinner table in the dining room over-looking the back yard;;

jim and I stopped sleeping together soon after the night of heavy sex; it could have been a classic case of "don't have sex with your friends" -- I may have been drinking too much too often but I can't help wonder if he was back doing speed or cocaine; he had connected with friends he new in San Francisco and he had no trouble in meeting people;

the stair case in the 8th Ave house intrigues me. the whole house had an old elegance; large rooms, glass doors to the living room, hardwood floors all of which had an elegant squeak of boards, the banister to the upstairs was ornately carved, walk about the stairs to a small "landing" then a turn right and up more stairs to the second floor: Peters room on the right; cozy, it had the best view and feel of the back yard garden; greta's room next to Peters was smaller and always felt sparse if not a bit empty and a little too small but it served her Spartan needs; the bathroom with the thick carpeting was in the center and my room was on the left; a large rectangular room; it was always a little too cool but I remember it being perfect for all my "artistic stuff" - - - - - I remember coming home from Bechtel where I worked as a clerk in the Library ; typically glad to be home, opening the door and there stood jim soric wearing his black leather jacket and nothing else, posed, looking studly naked and I remember looking at his pubic hair and belly button and long lean legs; he was pretending a look of "hard leather" and I just yelped a gleeful sound and we both fell into each others arms laughing and he said to me "I'm just glad it was you who came through the door -- I planned it guickly" -- great moment; great memorable one of kind "ever and forever" moment;

long door length poster of mark spitz was on the door, a matisse blue nude, the antique writing desk on the floor which I used to rest the hermes 3000; used on clipper street; sold at street sale on clayton in 1991.

jim in the 8th avenue house: talks a lot in the kitchen with marilyn; marilyn more or less ruled the kitchen talks; I religiously avoided them; I was becoming increasingly "distant" from "the milwaukee group"; I longed for "something" for something San Francisco, I was too socially shy and distant to adventure to the "bars"; and pretty much avoided socializing except for weekend outings at the new phenomenon of "dance clubs" which seemed to be becoming bigger in size and slowly evolving into what was to become disco but didn't really have a name; Barry White was huge; (other songs?)

in the back of my emotional mind I craved to "have Paul back"; the emotional emptiness and feeling of having been betrayed and endless inner chatter about getting him back went on and on and on and sitting on the grass looking at trees, wondering over and over why why why; trapped in an emotional mode that was barely juvenile; it took or takes years to travel through and accept the realization that I have never really grown-up emotionally; but again that's the analysis it's not the how it is-ness of seeing a life in it's stages

the stages:
birth to early high school; adolescence; high school; collage; spain/france/tangiers/; back in fond du lac; leaving home: love is blue on the high way snow storm; truck hitch hike to milwaukee; madison; job at milwaukee journal; Hippied days;

morgan gibson poetry class, says: talk to jim sorcic about printing a book of poems: Touch of Herons; the growing friendships;

After Dark magazine

eating; grossly overweight; photo taken by jobe soffa head shot; shock; Peter O writing a "confessional" letter saying he as "gay"; the horror;
ask jim and jennie what to do, flippantly jim says you could rape him and I was too stupid to know what that meant thinking it mean just take him and peter accepting the sexual advance; and my inner realization that I was just too gross when it came to knowing what I was doing; ; (later wrote the Most Beautiful Boy they called you the most beautiful boy of Brady Street Poem; on long continuous paper roll;

not eating anything but eggs and bacon and grapefruit juice and the various

acid trips

introduced to speed and the original clarity;

moving in with jim and jennie from the apartment where paul and I lived (meeting Paul and the first time come out acid trip sex bath ocean sounds night)

Paul Felber easy morning: asleep; soft lips soft hair kind eyes golden thighs walking reading sunlight the most beautiful boy of Brady Street they called you home one time once on the beach sea foam the bath the bathing the him of him and you Paul Joseph Felber a piece of velvet blue a vapor a voice a Yearling a story a once a gone going whence always whence

the morning going into jim and jennie's bedroom: morning chat about what's for breakfast; jennie suddenly spontaneously out of the blue throws covers off and shows me jim naked next to her and she fondles him and he get hard and they slowly move into some delightful and delicious sexual moves I'm riveted watching jim lean naturally athletic body move over her and am awed by his graceful sexual entry of jennie and pulsing rhythm and gesticulating motions;

the light of the room

I simply sat on the floor and watched;

the all night layout of the Kaleidoscope Statement of Poetry two page spread collage: geofroy tory images: hyacinth; letter A; sound of the letter A; some e-mc squared images; took us all night a slow silent movement of images we each found;

jennie becoming increasingly more "motherly" the television set was never turned on for political reasons: in fact it was covered with a cloth to hide the fact there even was a television; I don't remember watching television from 1970 to 1976 ---??

jennie's obsessive cleaning; the feeling paul and I were living there but not really "fitting in" -- they went away on a vacation and paul and I found another place to live; didn't talk with them again after moving out of the Cambridge street house --

paul and I on Warren Avenue -- the "going nowhere-ness" of it all -- Jobe Soffa invites me to come out to Berkeley --

1972 May 7th arrive in Oakland station; Berkeley

paul comes out in September? then Peter in October? then Peter finds place on Diamond Street above the Castro -- 1973/1974 --- the marilyn arrives and somehow we're moving into the "new place" "together" -- and I had called Jim in MIlwaukee and we had been writing to each other and then he's suddenly "coming out" --

he arrives at the airport looking sophisticated; his long thin hair cut short and he's looking city-fied and sleek; we get to the diamond street house and after opening some gifts he's wearing a black dancer's leotard and I'm in awe realizing he's giving himself to me. it was the most amazing revelation totally elegant and nothing I can say explains the joy of his body -- he seemed to revel in the joy of sex

there's no better sex than when a narcissist gives himself to you

------------------

last time saw him with any intimacy, cold as we had become, was in the dining room writing; we never said goodbye -- he left for NYC -- I heard he was again "a hit" in the city -- he took to NYC and was working at the MOMA and living in a loft and becoming an accountant and in 1976/1977? I saw him with his new "girl-friend" on a bus; a serendipitous meeting; he was going over to marilyn's who again found a way to wangle into my life and bleed off people I knew; living on Clipper street with Don; I was living with Brad and Sally having the greatest adventure "yet" in SF 1976-1977-78 on Clipper;

jim didn't see me and I didn't have the courage to be friendly but just said something nasty and unkind and frightened and spiteful just glad to be getting off the bus and going up Clipper to meet my own future hell -- James Sorcie

after that I neither asked about nor cared to know about him -- it was by accident in 2000 that I was looking on line and happened to find james martin sorcic's death -- I don't know how or what happened; but he seemed to have died in Florida and married and had an adopted daughter. it's a blank. it's puppets; it's memory I can't keep my eyes off of

as it plays and replays and I keep looking for meaning and recognition and all I see is a delightful journey the joys leading to unhappiness and people tangling together where they once danced

tangled tango

NOTES: see above:

music in the background: 1968 - 1972 ---- Milwaukee
top 40 and the Underground Station! Reitman

d.a. levy had been dead nearly a year before I heard anything about him.
james sorcic received a note: if you don't . . . . (quote)

the magazine: AfterDark.
the "coming out" -- the gunrunner press ----

Interabang Bookstore.
Kaleidoscope.

characters: peter PMO, john kois JK, Jennier Orvino - Sorcic (JO-S)

paul f; later (late)

in no particular order; all at once; beyond the chains of time:
beyond the bounds of time; beyond within the surface of Not Flesh of my Flesh for the Heart: The Adoption of, in Milwaukee, the streets: Farwell Avenue; Brady Street; call down the events name the names: bookstore: Interabang; small press poems the War typewriters revolution street people flower children to be of to not be of to see into to be part of to be not Orvino the woman the women the women of woman politics the sideshow feminist collective it will be so because it will be so because we say it is so we say so we say so now loudly Orvino who was and is or wasn't and will be The East Side, Brady Street, Kaleidoscope, underground newspaper, "Lay-out"; drugs: speed, LSD

Include "the distractions"; while trying to stay "focused" on locating internal memory pieces, what "takes you away from watching the pieces "build" -- composition as Explanation

Composition
as
Explanation

-----------------Novel of Thank You ------------------- GS

THESE WORDS
by James Sorcic
there will come a time
when these words will turn
to weapons
in yr hands/

you will go to bed at nite
& stare into the ruined cities
of yr woman's womb.
& you will fuck this woman
in terror.
i tell you the smell
of all animals
will cover yr hands
as you look abt wildly
in the darkness
& tell yr woman
of what you have found.
& in the darkness
you will know her mouth
beside you, breathing
like the scream
of Falling
trees.

James Sorcic, author of two chapbooks
of poetry -DEATH IS A BAG OF STONES
(Island City) and FIRE IN THE SUN
(Gunrunner), edits the poetry page of
KALEIDOSCOPE (Milwaukee's underground
newspaper) and issues the Gunrunner
Poetry Series.

Contains letter by publisher, Jim Sorcic, announcing d.a.levy's death. 300 copies. Milwaukee, Wisc

not much to say at night
is there. not much verbal
but the visual memories intense-est with him
most intense with him verbals don't hold what
the images contain; to convey with words is not
to intensely experience him his surge as when
upon arriving in San Francisco he gave himself
to me as a gift as if I'd won something special
and warm; he knew it and gave it to me: himself.

that was visual shock enough but when he
invited me to bathe him I was stunned with
wonder wounded with joy dazzled with touch
galore with skin him flesh smooth thighs
dressed in a dancer skin tight black leotard
type outfit; in the tub he stood; water warmly running;
bathing him;

d.a. levy having died; the special Kaleidoscope issue;

soon after that jim and I met

the Polaroid’s b Gibson and jennie took of jim for Ben & Jerry birthday surprise (jim naked with a sweat happy smile enjoyable hardon he said later jennie helped him get it up and keep it up (gay activists)polarokd birthday present; and later in leather smooth smile long glance a joy.

Mason Reflects on Conversational Poise: Remarks

Mason looks out the window. I must find a word that's more dynamic than look he says to himself. Miu Miu will want to know what I'm looking at. Will she want to know how I'm looking.

I want to have a conversation with you. Miu Miu you're really magnificent. Only you would try to express the unutterable utterly.

Some conversations come easier than others: Can you think of an example.

While looking out the window Mason notices there are only three leaves on the branch of the tree.

What kind of tree is this. Where, precisely, is it? A London Plane Tree. A street tree. A street ornamental. We'll return to this.

While looking through the window Mason looks at the window.

As Mason looks at the window-glass he notices his reflection in the glass of the window.

Mason treats Miu Miu like a ladder. Oh, Mason she croons, I wish you'd say something that can't be said. You insist on always saying nothing but what can be said and you say it so rarely.

There is a nudge here: is there anything important involved with observing and/or observation?

Miu Miu notices Mason looking out the window.
"Mason are you looking at yourself again"

"let's go for pancakes"

Does this have anything to do with the Bogart/Bacall movie: The Big Sleep.

Unable to concentrate on the color of his eyes Mason turns to look at Miu Miu as she sits comfortably watching television.

How can I touch your heart she thinks.

I'm Captain Cool on a journey to the stars Mason hears a cartoon character proclaim from the television.

"ok. pancakes and eggs"

Mason loves searching for the twinkle in his eyes which means he feels sincerely the twinkle in his voice. Feels -- he projects sincerely his sincere twinkle

I miss you even when we're in the same room Miu Miu thinks quietly to herself.

A passing thought.

A brief interlude.

even the applause-o-meter is crying Mason hears a character say from the tv.

if I had more energy we could go to a movie.

do you want to see Brokeback Mountain or Hostel?

Are you kidding?

I want to see how Ang Lee makes me cry says Mason.

I'm not about to sit through two hours of having my finger nails ripped off, Miu Miu purrs.

are you hungry yet?

have you noticed how Jerry Bruckheimer's name seems to be everywhere? how about Glory Road? The photography looks good. Wide. artsy basketball.

Michael phoned earlier. He said there was a bomb threat at the Starbucks on Van Ness at Bush. A real bomb. At least it looked like a real bomb. I bet it was an art project.

Did he say who left it. Or how they found it?

It's nice he's staying in touch since the party.

We have plenty of time apart.

Is he still dreaming about writing a best selling porno novel?

Hello I was just talking to you.

I'm tired tonight. Miu Miu makes a goofy face and rubs her stomach indicating hunger.

Do you think anyone will ever ask if we're a happy couple.

Only the metro-sexuals says Miu Miu.

Mason reluctantly looks up from filing his finger nail: I'm aware of my name. I'm aware of your name. I know nothing about how windows are made. I feel limited.

Miu Miu chides: You know what they say about men who carefully file their fingernails, don't you.

I can imagine.

Come on. Let's go for pancakes.

Let's have conversation about signs and symbols.

Think again.

-- Jeff Wietor

Conversations of Miu Miu & Mason

1. The action of living or having one's being in a place or among persons. Also fig. of one's spiritual being. Obs.

a1340 HAMPOLE Psalter xviii. 1 Haly men at has aire conuersacioun in heuen. 1340 Ayenb. 241 ‘Oure conuersacioun’, he zay, ‘is ine heuene’, uor et body is ine e ere, e herte is ine heuen. c1440 Gesta Rom. li. 229 (Harl. M.S.) Where is his conuersacion but in the Empire of hevene? 1551 ROBINSON tr. More's Utop. II. (Arb.) 148 This same belefe of the present conuersation of their forefathers and auncetours among them. 1611 BIBLE Philem. iii. 20 For our conuersation [1881 R.V. citizenship] is in heauen. 1650 FULLER Pisgah III. iii. 322 They [fish] were improper for offerings, living in an element wherein men had no conversation. 1705 STANHOPE Paraphr. III. 409 Their Proneness to Idolatry, which a long Conversation in Egypt had disposed them to.

2. The action of consorting or having dealings with others; living together; commerce, intercourse, society, intimacy. Obs.

c1340 HAMPOLE Prose Tr. 25 And an othir tym he lefte e conuersacion of alle worldely men..and went into disserte vpon the hilles. 1490 CAXTON Eneydos x. 41 Dydo toke grete playsir in his conuersacyon. 1594 PARSONS Confer. Success. I. i. 6 That natural instinct which man hath to live in conversation. 1645 MILTON Colast. (1851) 354 Unfitnes and contrariety frustrates..all the good and peace of wedded conversation. 1727 A. HAMILTON New Acc. E. Ind. I. xxv. 320, I shunn'd their Conversation for the little Time I staid at Calecut. 1770 LANGHORNE Plutarch (1879) I. 152/1 In the course of long sieges there is usually some conversation with the enemy.

3. Sexual intercourse or intimacy.
criminal conversation (abbrev. to crim. con.): adultery.

c1511 1st Eng. Bk. Amer. (Arb.) p. xxvii, The men hath conuersacyon with the wymen, who that they ben or who they fyrst mete. 1594 SHAKES. Rich. III, III. v. 31 His Conuersation with Shores Wife. 1649 BP. HALL Cases Consc. IV. v. 445 After a conjugall conversation. 1697 POTTER Antiq. Greece IV. xii. (1715) 298. 1809 TOMLINS Law Dict. s.v. Adultery, The usual mode of punishing adulterers at present is by action of crim. con. (as it is commonly expressed), to recover damages.

4. fig. Occupation or engagement with things, in the way of business or study; the resulting condition of acquaintance or intimacy with a matter.

a1626 BACON (J.), Out of long experience in business and much conversation in books. 1679 DRYDEN Tr. & Cr. Ep. Ded., There is requir'd..a Conversation with those Authors..who have written with the fewest Faults in Prose and Verse. 1695 WOODWARD Nat. Hist. Earth IV. (1723) 194 By Experience and Conversation with these Bodyes, in any Place or Mine. 1702 Eng. Theophrast. 13 Some scholars, by their constant conversation with Antiquity..know perfectly the sense of the Learned dead. 1721 BRADLEY Wks. Nat. 59 Nor have I had Conversation enough as yet with the Sea to give so ample an Account as I hope to do.

5. Circle of acquaintance, company, society.
1620 SHELTON Quix. IV. xxvii. 210 You may know the Man by the Conversation he keeps. 1647 CLARENDON Hist. Reb. (1702) I. i, 40 His Domestick Conversation and dependents..were all known Papists. 1673 DRYDEN Marr. à la Mode I. i, A Gentleman, Sir, that understands the Grand mond so well, who has haunted the best Conversations. 1712 STEELE Spect. No. 429 That all Conversations in the World have indulged Human Infirmity in this Case.

6. Manner of conducting oneself in the world or in society; behaviour, mode or course of life. arch.

a1340 HAMPOLE Psalter ii. 12 Haldis goed lyf & fayre conuersacioun. 1447 O. BOKENHAM Seyntys (Roxb.) 12 In al hyr conversacyoun bothe pure and clene. 1552 Bk. Com. Prayer, Ordin. Pref., A man of vertuous conuersacion, and wythoute cryme. 1581 MARBECK Bk. of Notes 307 True pietie doth not consist in knowledge & talking, but in the action and conversation. 1611 BIBLE Ps. l. 23 To him that ordereth his conuersation aright. 1678 BUNYAN Pilgr. I. 117 Your Conversation gives this your Mouth-profession, the lye. a1761 LAW Comf. weary Pilgr. (1809) 25 The outward behaviour and visible conversation of Christ while dwelling among men. 1878 MORLEY Carlyle Crit. Misc. 193 The walk and conversation of any commonest person.

7. a. Interchange of thoughts and words; familiar discourse or talk.
1580 SIDNEY Arcadia (J.), She went to Pamela's chamber, meaning to joy her thoughts with the sweet conversation of her sister. 1609 TOURNEUR Fun. Poeme 47 In little time he made such benefit Of Conversation (the commerce of minds). 1647 CLARENDON Hist. Reb. I. (1843) 15/1 Calling the earl of Bristol..to assist them in their conversation, the prince then not speaking any Spanish. 1713 Guardian No. 24 The faculty of interchanging our thoughts with one another, or what we express by the word Conversation. 1752 JOHNSON Rambler No. 194 8 Eagerness to lead the conversation. 1783 in Boswell Mar., No, Sir..we had talk enough, but no conversation; there was nothing discussed. 1871 RUSKIN Munera P. Pref. (1880) 20, I used to sit silently listening to the conversation.
fig. 1851 RUSKIN Stones Ven. (1874) I. ii. 36 There are some [buildings] which are only for covert or defence, and from which we require no conversation [cf. pp. 35 and 208].

b. ‘A particular act of discoursing upon any subject’ (J.); a talk, colloquy.
1694 J. WRIGHT (title) Country Conversations; chiefly of the modern Comedies, of Drinking, etc. 1716-8 LADY M. W. MONTAGUE Lett. I. xviii. 57, I had the honour of a long conversation with him last night. 1824 LANDOR (title) Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen. 1875 JOWETT Plato (ed. 2) IV. 224 The conversation is said to have taken place when Theætetus was a youth.

c. to make conversation: to converse for the sake of conversing; to engage in small talk.

1921 R. HICHENS Spirit of Time v, He simply could not ‘make conversation’ to her.

8. A public conference, discussion, or debate.
1703 ROWE Fair Penit. Ded., Publick Conversations..where there is hardly such a thing as being merry, but at another's Expence. 1713 STEELE Guardian No. 9 18 At a publick conversation of some of the defenders of this Discourse of Freethinking, and others that differed from them.

9. An ‘At Home’; = CONVERSAZIONE 2. Obs.

1740 H. WALPOLE Corr. (1820) I. 71 Lady Pomfret has a charming conversation once a week. 1779 JOHNSON Let. to Mrs. Thrale 11 Oct., I have been invited twice to Mrs. Vesey's conversation. 1783 Ibid. 31 Dec., I never saw her, unless perhaps, without knowing her, at a conversation. 1787 SIR J. HAWKINS Life Johnson 389 It being at a tea-conversation he..went on rhyming thus.

10. (In full conversation piece.) A painting representing a group of figures, esp. members of a family, arranged as if in conversation in their customary surroundings. So conversation painting.
1712 STEELE Spect. No. 474 3 None should be admitted into this green Conversation-Piece, except he had broke his Collar-bone thrice. 1762-71 H. WALPOLE Vertue's Anecd. Paint. (1786) III. 77 He imitated the manner of Terburgh, a Dutch painter of conversations. 1795 Hull Advertiser 8 Aug. 2/2 Small portraits in oil, at one guinea..Conversation Pieces in proportion. 1854 SIR E. HEAD Kugler's Hdbk. Painting I. 289 note, Waagen calls Terburg ‘the creator of conversation-painting,’ meaning that particular branch of genre, which bears the same relation to historical painting on the one side, and to the buffooneries of Jan Steen on the other, that ‘genteel comedy’ bears respectively to tragedy and to farce. 1891 Bookman Oct. 29/2 ‘The Finances of the gods’ is a masterpiece..such an interiorone almost fancies Metsu painting a conversation-piece.

11. attrib. and Comb. conversation card, a card on which is printed or written a sentence (question or answer, etc.) for use in a game; conversation-chair, (a) a type of upright chair on which a person sits facing the back (see quot. 1793); (b) = TÊTE-À-TÊTE n. 2; conversation lozenge, a lozenge with an inscribed motto; conversation painting (see 10); conversation piece, (a) see 10; (b) a subject for conversation; something to talk about; (c) a piece of conversation; a dialogue; (d) (see quot. 1952); conversation stopper, a statement, remark, or the like so astonishing, embarrassing, etc., as to admit of no rejoinder; also conversation-stopping a., that dumbfounds, startling; conversation tube, a tube for enabling conversation to be carried on easily with deaf persons; a speaking-tube for communicating between different parts of a building.

1785 Daily Universal Register 1 Jan. 3/2 Sentimental, or Conversation Cards. 1794 Baltimore Daily Intelligencer 27 Sept. 3/3 A new and elegant Edition of the much admired Conversation Cards: Containing a variety of amusing, entertaining, and innocent Questions & Answers in the art of courtship. Each pack contains 64 cards. 1838 (title) Conversation Cards: a book for the amusement of evening parties. 1853 MRS. GASKELL Cranford viii. 152 Another square Pembroke table..on which there was a kaleidoscope, conversation-cards, puzzle-cards.
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1793 SHERATON Cabinet-Maker & Upholsterer's Drawing-Book App. p. 16 The conversation chairs are used in library or drawing-rooms. The parties who converse with each other sit with their legs across the seat, and rest their arms on the top rail, which..is..stuffed and covered. 1861 Eng. Wom. Dom. Mag. III. 142 She..sat down upon the conversation-chair.
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1755 T. AMORY Mem. (1769) II. 167 To furnish them with chat in their conversation hours.
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1905 Eng. Dial. Dict. Suppl. s.v. conversation, Conversation-lozenge. 1908 FINDLATER Crossriggs vi, [To] confine my speech solely within the limits of the conversation lozenge. 1967 Guardian 9 May 16/5 Terry's of York marked their bicentenary yesterday by selling Victorian ‘conversation lozenges’... Conversation lozenges are stamped with a sentimental proposition: ‘Give me your heart’, ‘I want a wife’.
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1784 R. BAGE Barham Downs II. 314 The contents of Lord Winterbottom's will, and his packet, I did intend for a conversation piece. 1936 Discovery Dec. 398/1 A biography..well leavened with conversation pieces. 1952 GRANVILLE Dict. Theatr. Terms 50 Conversation piece, a dialogue play or play other than one of action and excitement; e.g. the plays of George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. 1958 J. K. GALBRAITH Affluent Soc. xvi. 176 Perhaps the bank rate..derived prestige from its position as a Victorian conversation piece. 1962 House & Garden June 96/3 Conversation-piece beakers..decorated with London characters.
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1959 P. BULL I know Face ii. 41 ‘Do you do a lot of this kind of work?’ I asked. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I was one of the apes in Tarzan.’ This was a real conversation-stopper. 1985 W. SHEED Frank & Maisie 223 ‘That's a synthetic a priori proposition,’ they would say; and to this day I don't know a better conversation-stopper.
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1960 Spectator 15 July 112/3, I read two conversation-stopping headlines over other people's shoulders..‘Fidel Castro raped my teenage daughter’ and..‘Eating places without kitchens spring up’.
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1824 L. M. HAWKINS Mem. I. 270 A man with great conversation-talents.
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1890 Catal. Army & Navy Stores Mar. 580 Conversation Tubes..each 2s. 9d. to 10s. 6d.
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¶12. = CONVERSION. [so also in OF. (see Godefroy).]

1382 WYCLIF Ecclus. xxxviii. 22 Ne forsothe ther is conuersacioun [1388 turning]. 1388 Acts xv. 3 Thei telden the conuersacioun of hethene men [Vulg. conversionem Gentium]. 1485 CAXTON Chas. Gt. 12 Hys merueyllous conuersacyon. 1535 COVERDALE Acts xv. 3 They..declared the Conuersacion of the Heythen. a1570 BECON Compar. Lord's Supp. & Mass (1844) 357 In the conversation of the bread.