I had been toying with a dual ring modulator, an apparatus built to combine two sound waves in such a way that the emergent sound is the sum and difference of the two original waves. When a letter came with the request that I dredge my own originals, I was hesitant to comply. To recall original waves on an electronic console one simply taps the sound generators emitting them. I could hardly begin to tap my own. My “sums and differences” were so hopelessly entangled … and the words it would take … the metaphors …

In certain Indian tribes a young male is sent off into the forest alone for a length of time. If he proves himself a hunter and survives, he returns a man. In Los Angeles there was a “forest” too.

Beginning at a point somewhere near Hollywood and Vine, proceed west along Sunset Boulevard exploring along the way the valleys and canyons of its tributaries; continue west in turns and twists until the sea; then north from Santa Monica till Malibu. One could discover there, in that narrow geographic chromosome- like strip, an intellectual and artistic “forest,” the density of which was comparable to a white dwarf or neutron star. It was a labyrinth which needed more than golden twine.

In one area of chromatin along this strip was a collection of shanties formerly the property of a syndicate of prostitutes. A group of venturesome students at UCLA bought this property, cleaned it up and established the Brentwood Co-op. There we lived at the minimal cost and labor sufficient to maintain the property— an experiment in participatory democracy that had its finer moments. We labored over books and scores and often in the evenings were held spellbound by the physical presence and intellectual fireworks of a Dreiser or a Bertrand Russell. We had so many luminaries for neighbors. Hitler had insured this a few years earlier when he had made his debut at the Reichstag following the Nazi blood purge. “The Supreme Court of the German People during these twentyfour hours consisted of myself.”