… is in the solar yurt, upon the camel motif rug, just sitting. He has been there for at least eight hours, refusing to move or speak, but i and my fellow Kommunards do not cede to panic. We have grown used to such (non) behaviour. He invariably snaps out of this catatonic state, reverting to his hyperactive and mischievous self.
‘He could sit for hours without moving, with his face of absolute stone, not a single muscle stirring. The effect was eerie. Suddenly he would come to life, become ecstatic, gesticulate violently as he spoke, until exhausted and smiling, he then calmed down again.’
Kapuscinski words, not mine.
This is a recurrent problem. Whatever i perceive or experience has been perceived and experienced by others who have expressed it in language superior to mine.
‘That they called Crazy Bill who lived in a hole in the ground at Morning Star. He was supposedly an ex-particle physics major and he supposedly was working on teleportation. He lived in this hole in the ground at Morning Star. He ate nothing but pancake mix with syrup but he didn’t cook pancakes, he ate handfuls of it. He would basically disappear in this hole for months and then he would come out. He never took a shower, he never bathed, he never did anything. When it snowed up there they would lose track of where Bill was because all he had was a trap door going into his hole, until one day the snow would move and Bill would come out of his hole.’
Morgan Morgan, 60s Communes Project interview, Sept. 13, 1996. From Timothy Miller’s ‘The 60s communes – Hippies and Beyond.’
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