When Inspiration hits ty Cecil J. Brooks Harvey today sits on a Tux- ido sofa in his 1(200,000. con leminium home gazing through he glass wall down on Florida’s r Sola Coast, glittering in the subtropical sun. His eyes rest, »ut do not focus, on his sixty oot yawl swinging gracefully it its mooring in the yacht tasin. He sips disconsolately on lis Pinch and Perrier, his mind :ar off on dreams of what might lave been if 0n1y... It was a cold, wet January n Paris. The hour was late and he wind was high. Harve looked around numbly. He re alized that he could not remem- ter the past hour or more, lunger does that sometimes. ?he street was a narrow, crow led jumble of old buildings. A narket street, squalid and vib ■ant with Humanity and inhu nanity. The Cafe des Amateurs itood close at hand. Harve shivered, not from cold, and smiled: he was not reduced to Irinking. And even the stinking live, catering to hard-core lipsos, was beyond his means. A whirl of wind threw rain n his face, and a yellow card :ame skittering down the rue douffetard. Harve ignored it, >ut the card was determined; iiiiiiiuiiiimiiHitiiMiniiiHniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii M N £ g * fifi < fifi H Staff members needed Tarnhelm, the Capitol Cam pus literary magazine, is seek ing new members for its 1979-80 staff. Students interested in po etry, literature, photography or publishing are urged to meet with the editors May 8 at 1:45 p.m. in the Tarnhelm office, Wl3B. Staff members assist edit ors in evaluating contributions submitted to the magazine, coordinating promotional cam paigns advertising Tarnhelm, and laying out the publication. Fall and winter terms are usually light work periods for the Tarnhelm staff, with the bulk of the chores concentrated Genius occaisonally needed some help from the Muse. The yellow card swirled around as if in some supernatural control and flew up into the air towards Harve. He snatched it from the hand of Inspiration-could he do otherwise?-and read the name on it: Francoise Cellerier. Francoise Cellerier. The name meant nothing to him. Why should it have? Harve had never had to pay for it' in his life, “...never had to pay for it in my life.” The phrase ran through his mind and he smiled at the banality of it. He was twenty-three, arrogant, hungry and free. He looked at the card again. The name still meant nothing. Suddenly, he laughed. A poivrotte, staggering out of an apartment house, scowled at him. “Of course!” he said aloud. “Naturellement. Quelle inspir ation!” The drunken woman stared at the mad American. When he kissed the registra tion card, she sniggered. He did not care. He strode on toward the Place Contrescarpe, plot ting feverishly. Charles would find Nicole’s yellow card among her things after the funeral, and would realize what his wife had been before he met her. He would suddenly understand the sig nificance of what Jacques had in March, April and May prior to publication near the end of the spring term. Persons interested in join ing the staff but who cannot attend the Tuesday meeting can contact the editors through the Tarnhelm mailbox in the student government offices. so slyly said at the wedding reception. The wedding scene would have to be entirely re- written, but everything else would dovetail neatly. Of cou rse! This was what Harve had been working towards all along, only he had not understood what his subconscious had known from the beginning. Ni cole’s strange moods, her de testation of Paris, the unex plained money, it all fit. The money! Had Nicole still been walking the streets after her marriage? Yes, Harve de cided, and once again he was awed by the wonderful and terrifying power of his creative genius. Cold and hunger could not touch the soul of an artist. The volume of Hemingway slides off Harvey’s lap ana hits his foot, shocking him back into the real world. The Atlantic Ocean is still a painfully bright blue, dancing with sun flecks. He shivers in the refrigerated air, glances at his platinum watch, and sighs. Another bor ing party at the yacht club in an hour. A couple of Du Ponts, one Rockefeller, a Vanderbilt or two, maybe the Senator. God! His wife will be nagging him to get into his white dinner jacket and black tie in a mo ment. The idea of wearing ieans and sneakers flits through his mind, but he won’t, he won’t. Get Yoan Copies of the 1979 campus literary magazine, Tarnhelm, will be distributed free-of-cha rge June 5 during areceptionin the Gallery Lounge beginning at 1 p.m.. Refreshments will be ser ved and 400 magazines will be given to students, faculty and staff on a first come first serve basis. The magazine is comprised of poems, short stories and photographs submitted throu ghout the year by campus members. Printing costs are paid by funds from the Student Gov ernment Association. ne is not twenty-three any more. Twenty-three. Harvey gulps down his whiskey an< regrets. When Harvey was twenty three, he was a student at the Capitol Campus of Penn State. He was studying business ad ministration to please his par ents, but he had a few short stories and anotebook of poems in a drawer at home, and ne had a Dream. He had never shown his work to anyone, and had never told his Dream except to that willowy blond in the po etry class he had taken as an elective. She urged him to submit something to Tarnhelm the campus literary magazine. He had said that he would, but he never did. Was he afraid? Was he lazy? It did not matter. He never took that first step. He did not submit to tarnhelm, and his Dream died. Now Harvey is thirty, or forty, or fifty, or whatever. It does not matter now. He is a success. A multimillionaire. Respected. Influential. And iniuuiiiiimnMHiiiM And very, very unhappy. He Dreamed once, but now ne only dreams of what might have been if... “Aren’t you ready for the party yet: Are you dreaming ol a garret in Paris again? My Goa! A grown man and all you ever do is make money and read those books and sigh. Hurry up!” fllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllKllllliVllKllllllllllllßllllHllltflHltlllllllV' •Photography •Poetry •Fiction H > a a H t* 3
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers