"For a few dollars, I'll go to sleep and dream your dreams..."
Movies move mind and soul, as if they're messages from God. They're
food when no other food is available. They carry the viewer into
oblivion where many captivating events are underway. Movies are astral
locations manufactured here on Earth. Why pay attention
to any of the thousands of trivialities of the days and nights, when
you can watch, from the past, a dimpled witty star engage in repartee
with a beautiful woman dressed in furs who speaks as quickly and smartly
as polished high heels clicking on a concrete
walkway?
As for my own movie, I was born with two hungers---one for love, and two
for recognition. In my little crib I conjured storms. I was already
tasting a bitter fate of unknown origin. Then later, on the basis of
curiosity alone, I found a sparkling necklace
in a drawer and vowed to become a jewel thief. By the time I was four,
this developed into a plan. I would hide the jewels in a mountain
cave, where they would grow together with the stone and spread into
veins of clear diamond. At ten, I was reading theories
of economics. I decided I would leave the discovery of the treasure to
another person of the future, who would upset and destroy the world
money system with his lopsided wealth. At twelve, I met a girl with
yellow hair and abandoned all my schemes. What
was her name? Where did she come from?
At thirteen, I sat in the dark, on the floor at the back of a candy
store and read comic books. I searched to find the power to launch
bullets of lightning and snap off a magic exclamation that would coat me
in a new identity...a painted figure by Caravaggio.
I read A Voyage to Arcturus. This was my first experience
inside multiple dimensions. I was suited to believe in all of them. I
was a buyer of the Astral. If I didn't favor one Island at the moment, I
could lazily sidestroke to another.
His Honorable and Sacred Hayakawa L. Schwartzbaum, Magistrate of Federal
Dispensations, on loan from The CIA-Harvard University, sat behind his
table. He was an expert in the history of history.
In shackles, an artist was led into the room by three federal policemen
wearing the gray high-buttoned uniforms of the Motherland Department of
Internal Security and Distribution of Goods and Services for the Benefit
of All.
One of the policemen rolled in a large object covered by a shroud.
Judge Schwarzbaum looked down at a file and rapped his gavel on a plaque
displaying the universal symbol of the hermaphrodite eagle.
"Order," he declared.
The prisoner, in a tattered red jumpsuit, stood before him.
"Well," the Judge said, "uncontrolled display...no license to practice
art. No prior approval for a work. No plan submitted to the State. No
established source of funding. No declaration of philosophic
position. Status: potential precursor to terrorist
activity. How do you plead?"
The artist nodded.
"Your Honor, I would like to submit one item of evidence. The work itself."
The Judge said, "Since I am bound by law, submission approved."
The guard who had rolled in the shrouded object uncovered it.
It was a brass sculpture standing six feet tall. It was a series of twisted interlocking shapes.
"Yes," the Judge said. "Incomprehensible. Who in his right mind could fathom the sense of this?"
"Look a little closer, Your Honor," the artist said. "If you would."
The Judge put on a pair of glasses and stared at the object.
"Meaningless," he said. "That's the last time I'll deign to acknowledge it."
"Meaningless? Then what is the problem? What harm could it cause?" the artist asked.
The Judge smiled.
"We must have meaning," he said. "Because then we can judge its
quality. Otherwise, we lose control of the situation. We must know,
and be able to assess, the significance of the work. This piece of
nonsense does not rise to that level."
"The piece has meaning for me," the artist said.
"Perhaps, given your state of mind, that is true. But art is public.
It is a social undertaking. It gives something to the All."
"Your Honor," the artist replied, "I believe you're missing an
opportunity here. If, as you say, my work is meaningless, consider its
effect on the public, were it to be installed in a heavily-trafficked
venue. People would be confused and bewildered. Isn't
the induction of such a state of mind a forerunner to mind control?"
The Judge rubbed his chin and stared at the ceiling.
"Are you suggesting," he said, "that you could go to work for us?"
The artist nodded.
"Yes, sir. I could execute many sculptures of this kind. I want
exposure. You want MKULTRA. We're on the same side, in a strange way."
"Amusing, possibly interesting," the Judge said.
"You see," the artist said, "there are two ways to look at mind
control. On the one hand, you attack aggressively, to plant specific
messages. But on the other hand, you prepare consciousness by placing
it in a state of extreme puzzlement."
perfect as rain and the night I fell in love...trees and buildings on an
avenue in Chicago as I was heading out of the city toward a highway
that led to 66 on my way to Amarillo and cows standing in faded yellow
dawn rolling up like a fancy poster for milk
and war, my memory now Amarillo is a city geared a center a radiating
pulse broadcasting the little diner the motel the city hall olive trucks
and soldiers 40 years ago passing by as I was standing with my thumb
out on 66 I was rooted to one spot across from
the motel the whole day and no one stopped and the night snapped down
like a shade and I reached up toward the yellow margarine moon in the
middle of a cloud I was remembering songs dozens of songs I listened to
on the radio in the make believe ballroom everyone
knew Sinatra was the god but in the yearly poll they would bring in
someone else eddie fisher or johnny ray crying like a lost kid on the
railroad tracks his mind torn up you're on a cement playground and a kid
starts crying what are you going to do he just
breaks down and ten years later he's on the front lines of a new war
with his gear we heard he was a junkie disappeared and then a tall rangy
guy stopped his car and I jumped in he took me all the way to
Albuquerque middle of the afternoon February warm I
told him about the kid he said it wasn't right the father and mother
should have looked after him he shook his head he was a retired oil man
couldn't have been more than 40 said he just drove around the country
visiting his family he gave me a new pair of
pants and a shirt out of his trunk
There was a memory. Mother reading the story of Babel Tower, and the Tower crashing, and new clean rivers flowing...
When he went out all the way, that memory collapsed, and he swept through reefs of reflecting data in an ocean of surveillance.
He felt velvet hands and sucking fingers slide along him, and he grew cold in submarine depths.
What did the Design want with him?
He luxuriated in a dark baronial calm, uterine perfection, summer childhood bedroom closet.
He was suddenly in the cabin of a private jet. On a small table he saw a
team of glass archangels; an ashtray worn yellow from a thousand
cigarettes; a framed photo of Al Capone sitting on the toilet in his
Palm Springs suite.
The lights of an enormous city loomed up under him, pulling him toward liquor stores, newspaper racks, dark alleys, hotel rooms.
Now a quiet snowstorm in a deserted wood, falling, falling, falling...
He was back in the cabin of the jet. Burnished lights set high in the cabin walls.
A flight attendant entered with a drink.
She was six feet tall and blonde. That made her a target.
Wealthy and powerful men would seek her out.
Her body was sleek. He examined her left leg from wizardly articulated
ankle to narrow thigh, through the slit of her sheath skirt. She strode
in heels, one foot placed precisely in front of the other.
She set down the drink on the arm of his chair and looked at her watch.
"We can't have sex now," she said. "We're east of the Rockies."
"I didn't realize they had a law," he said.
"Two hours from now," she said, "we can negotiate a price." |
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