Standing around the stove, or sitting in Lela's or squatting on the sidewalk on 6th Avenue, Moondog win talk for hours on almost any subject you suggest, but history and his own brand of religion are his favorites.

The obvious question of why the Viking look starts a long story. When he was 16 and living in Hurley, Missouri, a dynamite cap exploded in his face and permanently blinded him.

"I thought that if the God my father preached about was good, He wouldn't have let it happen to me. And if He was all-powerful, but had been looking the other way and not watching at the time, He would have restored my sight. But He did neither and I lost my faith."

From there, Moondog wandered from Braille school to Braille school, reading, listening, thinking about things, eventually arriving at the Norse gods of the Vikings; Vikings of his own heritage.

There is a little stone monument outside the cabin on the hill outside Candor where he burns half a cigar as incense for the Norse god, Odin, and smokes the other half himself.

"I'm very conscious of my ethnic background," he says, gripping a Viking spear which both proves his point and supplants a red-tipped cane. "And I think everyone else should be.

The appearance, the style are "a personal expression, a rebellion against the bourgeois uniform, as I call it, and a rebellion against my parents, I suppose, in that order."

The not knowing where his mother is, "somewhere in Missouri I think." The brother who's a doctor somewhere who never answered Moondog's last letter three or four years ago. The note from his stepmother saying his father "is dead and buried."

"They didn't invite me to the funeral. Even in death, they wouldn't forget the appearance." Then, with a forced almost-laugh, "But you could say that even in death I wouldn't forget the appearance," spreading his arms to show you what he meant.

Does he belong in the East Village, surrounded by the hundreds of young people with similar backgrounds?

"Young people are often drawn to me," he says, "but I'm not necessarily drawn to them. For example, I want nothing to do with anyone who takes drugs of any kind, even marijuana." People high on grass "are very introspective and very contemplative, which is good," he says, "but all they do is think. They can't conquer mountains because the marijuana has killed the incentive, the drive.

"I can't put up with anyone who doesn't do anything," he says.

People at the Columbia Records watched him out on the streets under their windows for years, Moondog says, and they got to know him, to know that he composes symphonic pieces along with the folk music and the poems.

Six months or so ago, Moondog got together with the Columbia and agreed to cut an album of Moondog music. The record of eight symphonic pieces made it to number 6 on the classical charts before Christmas and then fell off.

"But Lenny (Leonard Bernstein) preceded me down, so that's good," Moondog says, starting into long. personal feud with Bernstein starting 20 years or more ago when Moondog says Bernstein slighted him.

Money from the album sales hasn't come in yet, he says. He got some at the beginning, but royalties are only given out twice a year and it isn't time yet for the first check.

If any is forthcoming, and Moondog is hopeful but not overly optimistic about it, "I think I'd have some electricity put in the shack on the hill.

"Tending the stove is all right, but it's awfully time-consuming when it's really cold and I can't really concentrate on my composing. An electric heater would be nice."

Beyond that, if he really makes it big Ñ "I've got at least ten more albums full of music already written Ñ" Moondog would like to go to Europe. "I've always considered myself a 'European in exile" he says although he's never been to Europe. "I never had the money," a little sadly.

Lela is working now and Marcella, bundled up for the snow, has left the restaurant.

She brings more coffee Ñ two sugar, a little milk Ñ over to the booth. In a minute, the oversize, cumbersome cash register rings up $1.10 for lunch from one of the old timers who hang out there, particularly in the wintertime.

"Hear that?" says Moondog, and his shaggy head cocks to one side. A smile from under the beard again and he says, "you don't see cash registers like that anymore. Doesn't it sound nice?" It's about two feet high and is a dirty brown, isn't it?"

Although he's been sightless for almost 40 years, Moondog still thinks very much in visual terms and he starts talking about the prettiest girl he ever saw, just a few months before the accident Ñblonde hair, grey eyes, a complexion like ivory.

It's about 4:30 and at 4:55 the bus leaves for New York, back to the hustling, the crowds, the sleeping in doorways. And a little money. Maybe word from the Columbia people that the album has taken another upswing for some unexplainable reason. Maybe by next week, Europe will he a little closer.

The right hand dips into another pouch hidden by the tunics and comes out with a quarter. "I think we should leave a little tip," says Moondog and flips the coin onto the table.

The album, entitled Moondog" with a color picture of a gnarled old Viking on the cover is standing on top of the cash register. Lela smiles and tells Moondog that it's there.

He smiles and thanks her and sure, he'll be back pretty soon. It's out into the blowing snow again, a leather sack under one arm, the spear in the other.

Twenty-two steps back up the street, he's talking about the album again. "The only way I would agree to do it was to not let Columbia hear it before it was recorded," Moondog says. "That doesn't happen very much in this day and age."

A few steps of silence, musing.

"Rare is the man who isn't bought," says Moondog. Forty six.

At fifty-two, "It's the next doorway. Just a little shop: sells cigars and candy and like that. But they've got my record. The man who owns the store says he's got in a whole shipment of the album. Look, see if they don't." They do.

Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty. Stop.

"No, don't wait. The bus might be late. It was last time and the roads are getting bad I bet. You'd better he off."

He's standing there, the leather sack on the ground beside him. Ten dollars and twenty cents turned into a one-way ticket from Owego to New York City.

In the swirling snow and soft darkness folding in on him, he waits the spear in his right hand, one end on the ground. An engine rumbles.

"Is that the bus? No, just a truck. Never mind. It'll be along any minute"