#Tabula rasa full
#Tabula rasa series

My job was not actually inside the InstituteвЂ™s one completed building, but outside, in the back, where two smaller and bilaterally symmetrical buildings were under construction. All kinds of people assumed that the Institute was part of Princeton University, which it wasnвЂ™t and isnвЂ™t. In June, 1948, when I graduated from Princeton High School, I already had a job, as a night watchman at the Institute for Advanced Study, on the far side of town. And again Abbey fell silent, for an even longer time, and then he said, вЂњNot to that rabbit.вЂќ NIGHT WATCHMAN Finally, Abbey said, вЂњI wonвЂ™t do it again.вЂќ Muted laughter rippled here and there. There was a long silence-Abbey silent, everyone in the room silent.

#Tabula rasa full

Sitting back in the armchair with his legs at full stretch, one boot across the other, he seemed to be aiming through a kind of gun sight formed by his toes. The woman in Princeton said to him, вЂњHow could you do that? How could you be so cruel? How could youВ .В .В . He picked up a rock, fired it at the rabbit, and brained it on the spot. She brought up an вЂњexperimentвЂќ he describes in the book-conducted outside his house trailer in Utah-when he вЂњvolunteeredвЂќ a passing rabbit as the experimentee. Most of the questions asked by the crowd in Stevenson Hall of course had to do with вЂњDesert Solitaire,вЂќ including one from a woman who appeared to be at least AbbeyвЂ™s age, which was forty-five. But that memorable walk is not the most memorable item that has lingered from AbbeyвЂ™s visit. Loose, lanky, in his Western hat and boots, emitting that quiet humor, he was one likable guy. For several hours, we walked all over the campus and through PrincetonвЂ™s gradational neighborhoods. He accepted readily, and in the morning I turned up at the universityвЂ™s guesthouse, and off we went. Afterward, I volunteered to show him around Princeton, it being my home town. The Center for Environmental Studies had entitled his appearance вЂњThe Modern Battle of the Wilderness,вЂќ and nearly all of what he said was in thoughtful response to questions from the floor. He had come a long way from Home, Pennsylvania, where he grew up. In a desert location still unknown, friends who buried him set a rock by the grave and scratched on it AbbeyвЂ™s last words: вЂњNo comment.вЂќДЄt the Princeton colloquium, in Stevenson Hall, Abbey sat in a large upholstered armchair, his long legs stretched out, his look dark and handsome, his cowboy boots showing wear. This was a writer who wrote his own last words long before the day came when he might have said them. The book is full of anarchism and vitriol with regard to land use, not to mention AbbeyвЂ™s signature bluntness and wry, dry humor. These events were among the harbingers of environmentalism in an academic curriculum, of what evolved some years later into PrincetonвЂ™s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.ДЇour years earlier, Abbey had published вЂњDesert Solitaire,вЂќ a nonfiction rumination about his time as a seasonal ranger at Arches National Monument, in Utah. The colloquia were open to the public, and the public came-townspeople, tennis shoes-crowding a large living room also occupied by some interested students and faculty.

#Tabula rasa series

Abbey came to Princeton as a guest speaker in a colloquium series called вЂњOn Wilderness,вЂќ organized by two young physicists, Rob Socolow and Hal Feiveson, who described themselves and a number of their colleagues as the Center for Environmental Studies. In 1972, I came close to acting on that fact, but in the ensuing years never got to it, as with all the other story ideas in this reminiscent montage. NOT THAT ONEД®dward Abbey was a walking Profile subject. This is the third article in the вЂњTabula RasaвЂќ series.

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.