​Think of Wouter van Twiller!
… director-governor of the Dutch West India Company from 1633 to 1638, first documented owner of the hundred acres that included what would become Washington Square Van Twiller-Twiller whose farmhouse stood about a block from what was now the northwest corner of the park Wouter-Wouter who grew tobacco in the fertile soil of the area and who was more interested in his per­sonal gain than that of his employer see footnote 17 on page 312 see Figure 8 in Appendix 3 Twiller-Twiller-Twiller but footnotes didn’t help now oh Twiller­man have I not always been there for you in my papers and footnotes where are you now that concrete is entombing me I know your bones are down here somewhere along with the bones of twenty thousand others including I hope I think I sense I know those of the American Adam or Eve all I need is something big or just a splinter it was concrete of the green, slimy, mucus-y type concrete made of Portland cement water and sand footnote!? usually too much sand what percentage? Harry would have known everything in New York built with greed on corpses everything cracking all the time every constrictor-constructor a cheap lying bastard but deconstructors are demolition artists isn’t that what Emilio called his father, the Lord of destruction? productive destruction every man a con man crack artists landlords so much greed on such a small island imagine it all gone dear landlord please don’t put a price on my soul and Tara had bought her last cup of coffee ooo-wee ooo-wee are we gonna fly down in the easy chair from footnote! What was it? The Basement Tapes of course You Ain’t Going Nowhere it was recorded with The Hawks later The Band minus Levon Helm at Big Pink in West Saugerties New York summer 1967 whoo-eee ride me high--
 
***
 
“What am I doing here?” Kurt was dangling in his easy chair attached to four ropes, slowly descending into a bottomless abyss, bumping into the slimy con­crete walls surrounding him. There was rarely more than a finger’s width of space between the metal of his chair and the concrete of the manhole chimney. How long had he been sinking already? Minutes, eons? The deeper he sunk, the more time seemed to be slipping away.
He could simply pull the ropes, signaling he was unable to reach the bottom of the manhole, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned the flashlight off, and there were no more slimy concrete walls, no more down, no more up, only darkness, eve­rybody’s old friend. Was he about to die? The thought wasn’t unsettling, and that unsettled Kurt. More useless information was coming his way, this time courtesy of his sessions of watching manly movies with his buddy Geoff. “You can die of dehydration, disorientation, claustrophobia, panic attacks, paranoid hallucinations, visual and aural deterioration.” That was from the modern hor­ror classic The Descent. At this point in the movie, the group of young women, ready to face their demons and stuff, hadn’t even entered the cave with the really-really creepy things in it yet. Slimy eyeless albino things, hungry and as sharp-toothed as fear. Not helpful now. Was fear a hungry thing? It always started in the stomach. That sinking feeling.
Not helpful now.
​           from River-Madness or The Miracle of Tara. An American Dreaming

         Michael C. Rockefeller in Papua New Guinea                        Sengai (1750-1837), Meditating Frog                                   Édouard Riou, Vue idéale de la terre
                                                                                                                                                                                                           pendant la période du Lias, 1863