Collected Essays (87 page)

Speaking of first names that begin with an “X,” Terence told a story about going into the Amazon and taking a weird drug with some short brown natives, and how after about an hour, he’s looking at them, at their eyes that were “black and glittering like a cockroach’s” (Terence’s quote from William Burroughs), and starts wondering if his new friend Xlotl is going to kill him. Xanana and Xlotl. “How do you spell Xanana?” “Like banana with an x.” Xanana and Xlotl are going into my new book
Freeware
for sure as surfer limpware moldies; flickercladding dudes infested by psychedelic camote fungus.

Then we drove to Edgar’s studio and had lunch in a dive next to it. I had two whole grilled fish, quite good, though dangerously bony. If I’d eaten them as fast as I normally like to eat, I would have choked to death.

Inside Edgar’s studio was the “Time Lab,” an amazing set with lots of clocks going at all different speeds, and a smoke machine, and colored lights, and dials and meters and big weird gears to roll back and forth and make strange shadows. The set was in the shape of a cylinder, so that standing inside it, the cameraman could pan, and never pass a wall-corner, giving the effect of the lab’s being huge, even though it was only about twenty or thirty feet across.

Edgar would frequently argue with Michael the cameraman about how to do a shot; Michael was quite knowledgeable about how to shoot a scene—it’s like the cameraman gets the picture, and it’s more the director’s job to put the pieces of picture together. There was some conflict because, as Edgar later told me, he likes to not be like a dictator, he feels that if he lets situations evolve spontaneously, people do better work for him. And Michael, feeling the power-vacuum, kept trying to start bossing, but Edgar—when push came to shove—wouldn’t let him. Michael felt that the movie was being shot too slowly, while Edgar felt that it was better to wait until everything was right before shooting a scene.

So we waited about four or five hours until everything was right, and then shot our last scene in the Time Lab. I cranked up my adrenaline by singing some songs for the actors—they videoed me doing my Dead Pigs version of “Duke of Earl.” Bob had a tantrum just before this scene about his clothes—they made him take off his camel’s hair coat and white T-shirt again, so as to match his other scenes—and he kind of did his best to spoil the scene by complaining about his clothes in the scene instead of talking about time; so this scene didn’t make it into the movie either. And then Bob had a tantrum about getting our checks from Catarina. A difficult man, but a genius, able to quote page after page of Pound, Joyce, Shakespeare, the last words of Dutch Shultz, you name it. But egomaniacal much more than me. I had some fun in the scene anyway by waving around a giant wrench and starting a mad scientist laughing jag which Durte got into.

By now it was eight, and Edgar had invited us to his house for supper at ten, so I killed an hour or so walking around the neighborhood of his studio. This was the Alfama neighborhood, the old Moorish part of town. It was one of the most amazing experiences. Built all of tiles and cobblestones and stucco on a steep hill, the district has alleys and staircases leading every which way. It reminded me of Escher’s engravings of Maltese hill towns, or of his pictures of cities with ambiguous perspectives. To make it the more completely Escher-like, many of the buildings are entirely covered with tiles that are patterned in arabesques, or in
trompe l’oeiul
designs. It was one of the most exciting strolls I’ve ever taken, and the more enjoyable after a day of being cooped up with all the film crew’s (and especially Bob’s) personalities.

When I got back from my marvelous walk, they were through shooting, and I rode over to Edgar’s house with him. It was me, Edgar, Marguerite, Edgar’s friend Pedro and his wife Lourdes, Durte, Carlos, then Catarina and her production higher-up Marie-Juana (loved the name!), also Terence and Bob. Dinner was served at—get this—11:15 PM. And nobody thought this was particularly late! It’s sure not Louisville, Kentucky.

Before dinner, Edgar said something to me in his sincere way that really made me happy. “Everybody loves you. All of us on the movie.” That felt so good. He was very satisfied with my work for his film. I’d made a point of mentioning his plot line several times during the filming, which will be a help in trying to make the movie feel like a coherent whole.

Dinner was pot-roast with a nice pureed carrot sauce. During dessert, one of the guests passed around tobacco and hash jays. It was like the ‘70s again—nicely dressed lively young people having some civilized tokes together after a fancy dinner at home. I haven’t seen anything like that in the U.S. for 20 years. Maybe I travel in the wrong circles—or is it that Americans really have gotten more puritanical? Or maybe it’s that my friends and I are all middle-aged.

After dinner, we watched some rushes on Edgar’s TV—mostly of Terence, as the rushes lag two days behind. There were some really funny scenes with Terence; he has a golden tongue. “You are such a great talker,” I exclaimed to Terence, and he answered, “It’s the only skill I have. If it weren’t for that ability, I’d be sleeping under a bridge.” Another time I heard him introduce himself to someone saying, “I’m a criminal and a bullshit artist.” Not a pretentious guy. I hope some of my scenes come out well—the one with the eyestalks looked promising, and there ought to be more. And I hope there’s some good ones of Bob, too. After watching all the rushes of Terence we were both wishing there was more of us.

Some of the movie is shot in speeded-up time, like there’s a love scene in a factory. The love scene was a panic, it was like Chaplin in
Modern Times
.

With any luck,
The Manual of Evasion
might be a psychotronic classic of cinema. Or at least a highly respected work of surrealist film. It’s supposed to be about 55 minutes long. Edgar’s trick was to have some of the action take place in front of landmarks of Lisbon, so that the City of Lisbon will be satisfied that the movie is “about” the city—even though it is science fiction. Terence came up with a rant how all great cities are transtemporal and transspatial, and that Lisbon has a bridge like San Francisco’s. And in my one of my scenes, I made the point that if you go across the Golden Gate bridge and look at San Francisco, the ocean is on your right, but if you go across the April 25 bridge and look at Lisbon, the ocean is on your left, implying that Lisbon is a mirror-image of San Francisco…

I liked acting. It was a big adrenaline rush; you’d know when your scene was coming, and you’d get ready for it, trying to think of what you’d say and what mood you’d project, and then it comes, and it’s over in a flash. Once the company applauded after I did a scene ranting about time, chaos and temperature (as per request), and it felt wonderful. You get this big ego boost right back; it’s addictive, a true fix. After their scenes everyone is trembly and smoking cigarettes. Another great thing was to be working in a group instead of working all alone, as I do when I write.

This was really a terrific trip. I did something interesting and creative, managed to party without ending up feeling like I made a fool of myself, and forgot completely about my usual life. I can’t believe I’m going to have to go back to work.

Note on “The Manual of Evasion”

Written Spring, 1980.

Appeared as “Zip.5 The Manual of Evasion” in
bOING bOING
. #13, Spring, 1994.

One of the few concrete benefits of being an underground cult writer is that every now and then you get strange and interesting offers for trips. This jaunt to be in a Portuguese movie with Terence McKenna was one of the best.

I actually went back to Lisbon with my wife in 2011, and we spent some time with Edgar Pêra and his new wife. Lisbon is such a great city—one of the things about it that I like best is that so many of buildings are covered with shiny, patterened tiles.

In Search of Bruegel

September 4, 1998. Train From Geneva To Paris.

My wife Sylvia and I are both on sabbatical this fall, so we’ve decided to go on a big trip to Europe. Wander around for six weeks, like just-out-of-college kids sometimes get to do.

This is our N
^th
honeymoon. I married Sylvia in Geneva some thirty-one years ago. I was bursting to leave Geneva again today—we made it! Yee-haw.

She’s next to me in this fast, comfortable train, happily writing out a $/Franc conversion table. Her stepmother packed us a good lunch: cheese, tomatoes, radishes, chocolate, grapes. And we bought a peasant-bread.

The other day we took a ride on a lake boat from Nyon to Geneva. When the lake boat passed under the Lake Geneva
jet d’eau
I saw such interesting shapes. The sun was behind this giant fountain, and I saw shadows where the water was thicker, the water coming down in big drapes.

The boat took us past the Eaux Vives park where we had our wedding lunch. Talk about spectral visions. I think more than half of the people who were at that lunch are dead now. Time for our kids to supply some fresh weddings.

When I was young I saw myself as the unique protagonist of a hero-epic. Time goes by, and I see life as something like a long chain of links, a rolling wheel of human seasons, with the old trees falling and the saplings coming up. This line of thought relates to the image of a single person’s life as being like a year of four seasons—your life is a cycle of spring, summer, fall and winter—progressing from green, muddy March towards cold, gray February. In the middle ages, the calendar year started around Easter, in March. I’m fifty-five right now, which puts my current “life year” date as August 15. A fruitful season. Early harvest.

I talked to Sylvia about the optimistic notion that as you age, your worldview gets broader.

“And then it narrows back down,” she reminded me. Yes, for all four of our parents, when they got old, the scope seemed to close down to the most immediate needs of their bodies.

In Geneva, we went to see an exhibit of nineteenth-century Swiss painting at the Musée Rath, a cute little shrine of a Beaux-Arts building on Place Neuve between the opera and the park that includes the University. One artist in particular: Robert Zünd 1827-1909. He did these huge canvases of woodlands, with seemingly every leaf in place. He works down to a much lower level of detail than most painters. Yet, like any other painter, even Zünd hits a bottom level where its just little crusts of paint.

The trick that painters use is, at some level or other, to replace the fractality of nature by the physical fractality of paint and canvas. The “As Above So Below” of painting. By practice, a painter perhaps learns to approximate a certain desired fractal dimension of nature with paint that’s manipulated in a certain way. Scumbling. Dabs for leaves. A clever artist can do this at a relatively high level and not bother with very much mimetic detail—and even so capture the impression of the scene. Impressionism vs. photorealism.

September 6, 1998. Grand Guignol, Brancusi.

Yesterday we went to see a puppet show at Rond Point on Champs Elysées. Such a pitifully small theatre—so humble next to the nineteenth-century Opéra De Paris. The little puppet theater was called a “
guignolet
”, and was size of a child’s playhouse. The little puppet-theatre box has the date “1818” on it, and a proprietor’s name, “M. P. Guentleur.”=

Sylvia and I sat on four benches upon the park sand in attendance with some ten children and their mothers. The only man was an employee of the enterprise who sat on the back bench to help initiate the correct shouted responses.

The chief puppeteer was an attractive, somewhat roughskinned young woman wearing a bowler hat at an angle. She had a loose pullover that was askew, baring one shoulder and a black silk bra-strap. Ah Paris!

Before the show, this woman walked out to the little knee-high entrance-gate ringing a hand-bell, to admit the mothers, children, my wife & me, 16 francs apiece, there was one baby in a carriage who I think got in free. We sat on the little benches, she welcomed us, then disappeared into the little playhouse with its faded red velvet curtains. She told us to call for “Guignol” to make him come out. Wonderful.

I never knew that “Grand Guignol” puppetry was
about
a puppet named Guignol. The man on the back bench called “Guignol” a few times and the children took it up. Eventually, Guignol came out—he wasn’t hook-nosed like Punch, as I’d expected, he was a fairly ordinary-looking man in a green frock coat. His wife was Madelon. She had a wonderfully high, squeaky puppet voice—and his son was Guillaume. Eventually Guignol got down to the basics of hitting a policeman puppet with a stout, freshly cut stick. A cudgel.

Sign in the subway: “TOUT ABUS SERA PUNI”. All abuse will be punished. Referring to some things you aren’t supposed to do in the subway. Four four-letter words. The grid sticks in my mind and a few weeks later, when I’m bored or desperate or something, I do the mental trick of stacking the words and getting the perpendicular words out of the columns. “TASP OBEU UURN TSAI”.

Brancusi’s studio is in a building by the Centre Pompidou, “just as he left it”, except the walls are glass. We walk around looking into the four rooms. The floors are bare, there’s nothing present except one or two hundred of his sculptures, he kept the studio this way, he
lived
somewhere else, used the studio to show his work to guests and customers, like a gallery. Reminded me of how Greg Gibson and I fixed up our room Senior year, with a hanging prism, and a spotlight on the floor, and big cardboard rug-rolling tubes that stretched from floor to ceiling. Like an art installation. We called it The Enchanted Forest. And I was the Magic Pig.

Imagine if Brancusi’s studio had an artificial Brancusi in it, that is an android, oblivious to the viewers, arranging things, working a little, maybe fabricating yet another
Bird In Flight
. The android Brancusi would of course eventually get out of control, break loose, wander off into Paris and meet a woman. Story title: “My Brancusi,” told from the woman’s point of view.