Letters
Page 98
On Tuesday 8/5 we duly invited Regina de Nominatrix a.k.a. Bibi etc. via LILYVAC & Marsha Blank to Comalot for 1 shining RESET On 8/13 Sharon Tate et alii buried she came i.e. Marsha fetched her here per program Dialogue Just Honey-Dust me 1st is all I ask Rexy-boy Bea murmured We did Me too Jer said Marsha you ever promised me a RESET We did Good night sweet ladies Time to fly now We did & did & did & did & did & did & RESET Done! PUNKT!
As meteors sprayed from Perseus like pollen or golden marks of punctuation, near midnight Th 8/14 Krafft-Ebing 1840 we completed the innumeration of Regina de Nominatrix, and at LILYVAC’s suggestion, for we were spent, and sore, and weary, we took a hit of Honey Dust ourself. Happy birthday sexy Rexy, Marsha mumbled; sorry about old Giles. O fie, said we, O phi, and then the hit hit: eureka, mirabile dictu, etc.!
The Post-Perseid Illuminations! That coincidence (of the mezzo del cammin de nostra vita and the Phi-point both of Year 1969 and of our original 5-Year Plan) was no coincidence! That fiasco that was NOT (i.e. the 1st ⅗ths of NOTES) was not! Achtung, Ma, Da! Inasmuch as that aforesaid conjunction of mid- and Phi-points was the turning point of notre vie and of LILYVAC’s program, could it be, aha, that the Golden Age originally projected to arrive in Spring 1971 (i.e. end of Year S, 5th of NOTES) would not actually commence till the Phi-point of our vita i.e. age 44.64 i.e. .618 etc. of my 3-score years and 12 i.e. 4/5/77? Hum!
What say, folks? we asked you. No reply! We began to RESET LILYVAC then vouchsafed 2 seminal suggestions by dawn’s early Licht. A (1) That perhaps a new plan was called for, evolving from NOTES like the Adult from the Pupil and commencing at the latter’s Phi-point i.e. A.S.A.P.; this to be not a 5- but a 7-Yearer culminating 7/4/76, on which fit date the 2nd Revolution would commence, to be followed per schedule by the New Golden Age. And a (2) That LILYVAC therefore needed entire reprogramming with 7’s in place of 5’s, even as foreshadowed by Merope/Margana last Passover 4/3 i.e. the eve of the eve of 4/5/69 or 7 years exactly ere the eve of the dawn of the N.G.A. When we did all those 7’s? See our lettre of 5/13 to Comrade Mack in LILYVAC’s memory bank if you have the key we’ll see! I.e., exactly the reprogramming scheduled for the upcoming Year E of NOTES (which see too in my letter to Todd Andrews of 7/4/67) but necessarily there unspecified. Ergo, Ma; also, Da: all has proceeded on schedule, but on a schedule only now coming clear! ¿No? Nicht wahr? R.S.V.P. instanter!
Queen B. then securely stashed and Dusted and Mating Season done, we returned Agent Blank to Canada and celebrated there our 36th by (disguised) participation in der Mensch-Prinz son-et-lumière memorial to the fallen American & Canadian Soldiers at Old Fort Erie. Wherein, as our voice sprach also from the rising cloud of the Great Magazine Explosion and we showered the scene with numbers like meteors spraying out like RESET We came to our final Post-Perseid Illumination: that nous-mème need not nor would not bring to its climax and dénouement that toilsome new 7-Year Plan! That having so scored this Mating Season, there remained for us only to complete LILYVAC’s reprogramming, whereafter LIL itself—with but the most routine attendance by some trusted agent like our dear Merope of old (who shares Bea’s precious erstwhile amber name)—could correct e refine its own program and accomplish both this 2nd plan and the 2nd Revolution!
Where did that leave us? R.S.V.P.!
On 8/18 St. Helena’s Day notre semblable our (foster) frère M.C. good as his mot stopped by for a few shining moments en route from Backwater Refuge to Casteenes 100 and re-presented his credentials. Son and agent of our (foster) parents! Coordinator of Reenactment for 2nd Revolution! Wonderer like Yours Truly whatever happened to our true parents Gerald Bray Jr. a.k.a. Gadflew III & Betsy Bonaparte Bray i.e. vous 2 who for all he knew set us both adrift at birth in the bulrushes and buzzed off. R.S.V.P.!
With our permission he inspected LILYVAC, très interesting indeed, um hum, and firmly affirmed our P.-P. Illuminations, in particular the 7-Year Plan, which by no coincidence coincided precisely with his own. Had we considered that our destiny might be the triumphal reenactment of our ancestor Harold Bray’s apotheosis at the end of the Heroic Cycle, i.e. some mystical ascension whereof the Fort Erie Magazine Explosion was the dark prefigurement? Nein. Had we considered what considerable new funding our 7-Year Plan would require? Nyet. Hum. But sans doubt we had considered the possibility of increased production and underground distribution of Honey Dust as a means of financing the 2nd Revolution? Nay.
Well! We would consider all that! He suggested further that if all went per plan we might even hope for substantial new funding from the Tidewater Foundation. Might he examine Regina de Nominatrix, whom he understood to have given herself to our cause? We consulted LILYVAC: oui. Très très interesting! He affirmed the importance of our keeping her Dusted and stashed until she comes to term; also the usefulness of an experienced keeper like prelapsarian Comrade Merope. We would be interested to know that that once-dear faithless friend—having forsworn us as it were 1st with Rodriguez from CCNY, then with himself our (foster) brother, and then with R. Prinz—had like Peter at cockcrow so to speak recognized and begun to repent of her triple erreur: he M.C. had reason to believe she was about to abandon Prinz and petition us to let her come again to Comalot!
Ah so? Indeed, it was his opinion that Margana’s apostasy was loyalty camouflaged, a necessary cover for her infiltration of the Remobilization Farm and the Prinz-Mensch operation, both of which could be expected to have their share of counterrevolutionary anti-Bonapartists mimicking friends of la Deuxième R. N’est-ce pas? A word to the wise? In any case he knew that we knew that apparent allies may be obstacles if not actual enemies, e.g. Todd Andrews of the Tidewater Foundation, who might have to be removed as the Doctor hélas had had to be from the Remobilization Farm, a base of operations no longer necessary to us, and whose pro tem director, Morgan, had failed to develop as Casteene had hoped when he tapped him for our cause. Got all that, Ma, Da? He was beginning to have his doubts even about young Comrade Mack, who after all had never replied to ours of 5/13 see RESET And surely the reverse was equally true: none knew better than he the painful apparent treasons people in his profession must commit in the name of loyalty and vice versa viz. his relations with his son now lost and peut-être our (true) parents’ with us.
Whereof we spoke with the full confidentiality of (foster) brothers in arms. He would combine, he vowed, his search for his missing son with a search for news of you; mais he bid us consider, as we were (foster) siblings, the lamentable pattern of his line, wherein each generation made allies with its grandparents against its parents. Not to suggest et cet. but we had after all a common grandmother in Princess Kyuhaha Bray of the Tuscaroras, wife of Andrew Burlingame Cook V in the paleface record books and consort of Charles Joseph Bonaparte in the eyes of God and the Iroquois during that gentleman’s RESET Only a suggestion, Rex. He invited us to fly down to Bloodsworth Island the following week to observe and advise upon certain rehearsals for the 2nd Revolution in its military-media aspect to be carried out down there under pretext of filming sequences for the Prinz-Mensch project. We would confer further and have another look at Merope/Margana, non? By way of auf Wiedersehen he chipped in a few 7’s for LILYVAC Days of week Liberal arts Ages of man (Shakespeare) Tones of diatonic scale Orifices of (male human) body Colors of rainbow Seas. Muchas gracias (foster) frère! Happy St. Helena’s Day!
Hum! Hum! We spent the week hard at it with LILYVAC Months of Apollo’s gestation & of Leto’s flight from Hera’s Python Letters exchanged between Abelard & Héloïse not counting “Calamities of Abelard” Years of 3rd phase of War of Austrian Succession 1756-63 Weeks of Austro-Prussian War 1866 Gasterocheires Consonants of Hawaiian alphabet. We also considered what he’d bid us consider, monitored Regina de Nominatrix so far so good she was able now to do chores between Dustings, and reflected upon Elba & St. Helena, 1st & 2nd Exiles & Returns. For he had also invoked, our (f.) frère, another link between us, which he promised to illumine further on Bloodsworth Island: the heroical effort
s of one of his ancestors on behalf of the noblest of ours on the island named for the saint on whose day we conversed. Ought we, we wondered, to consider a 2nd Exile of our own, once LIL was reprogrammed, to re-return at the Phi-point 6 et cet. for the Golden Age?
R.S.V.P.! No reply. Ma! Da!
The events of 8/24 & 25 confirm this prospect. M. le Baron C. assures us that he is more and more confident of funding for our 7-Year Plan, as yet unnamed. We are considering the neutralization of both Todd Andrews and Drew Mack, and preparing Merope for return to Comalot. By way of an exercise in turning our adversaries’ strengths to our RESET He arranged a U.S. Navy aerial target practice against “D.C.,” pointing out to us that we could as readily have used it to eliminate e.g. T.A. & D.M., and might in future. In the same exercise we took advantage of Merope’s disillusionment with obsolescent media and their representatives to approach her confidentially re the prospect of recoming to Comalot as Chief Programmer no sex no housework Bea G. to do all that between Honey-Dustings, and we were pleased to hear in her scream something tentative, a camouflaged Maybe. Finally, at our ( ) brother’s suggestion we took the opportunity to re-rehearse the apotheosis foreshadowed by the Great Magazine Explosion: an entire success. From Merope we proceeded alone into the marsh during the aforementioned night-firing exercise, made a practice lift-off in the Prohibited Area that our ancestor would be proud of, eluded without difficulty the navy search party by mimicking 1 of its members, and surprised M. Casteene himself by appearing in his study next noon i.e. yesterday M 8/25 ☽ in perigee Swallows leave North country Kopechne exhumation doubtful as he was himself in mid-metamorphosis ha ha! Dialogue. Ha ha, he ejaculated, caught me there, didn’t you, mon semblable mon RESET Well well things are moving très swiftly indeed Do you think you can wind up LILYVAC’s reprogramming by the autumnal equinox Here are a few more I just thought of Continents Hills of Rome Sleepers of Ephesus Wonders of world Lamps of architecture (Ruskin) Voyages of Sinbad Snow White’s dwarfs. How in the world did you ever et cet. & can you possibly make it to our final rehearsal at Fort McHenry Baltimore Harbor 9/13 sharp. Narrative. His own intention he declared was to issue between now and then an ultimatum to his son: Appear as my ally or be regarded as mein enemy! Perhaps we should do likewise with our parents and, faute de reply, look beyond them for our (true) derivation, as he perhaps would be obliged to look past his son to his (unborn) grandchildren as the (true) heirs of the unfinished business of the 2nd Revolution Au revoir &: don’t forget to provide him with a full report on our ascension and evasion tactics out there in the marsh quite a trick et cet. In return he would see to Merope’s recoming at least for a few (trial) shining RESET But keep her off the Honey Dust and Bea on it, d’accord?
Done. Bea/Regina reports that 1 of T.A.‘s operatives came snooping about in my absence but she was between Dustings and able to handle him, no sweat. LILYVAC confirms. Hum! Urge you send Margana soonest so that we can Dust & stash Queen B. till term, complete repair of language circuits, finish reprogramming by equinox.
Last call, Ma, Da!AF*ØAppear as our ally or RESET Your loving son 10 2 a.k.a. Rex Numerator cc:MC
H: Ambrose Mensch to Yours Truly. His final such letter: the plan of his abandoned Perseus story, conformed to the plan of his own life.
Lord Amherst Motor Hotel
5000 Main Street
Buffalo, New York 14226
Monday 8/4/69
TO:
Yours Truly
FROM:
The Once & Future Ambrose Mensch, lately “Arthur Morton King,” Whom It Ceases to Concern
RE:
Your letter to me of May 12, 1940
Y:
Hello and good-bye. Inasmuch as in the course of
I. My life’s First Cycle
A. On Carl Jung’s 94th birthday (6/26/69) our friend Magda Giulianova underwent uterine surgery. By her own account, a hysterectomy.
B. Fitzroy Richard Somerset, 4th Baron Raglan, mythologist and descendant of the Crimean War field marshal after whom the raglan sleeve, analyzed the biography of the typical mythic hero into 22 several events or features, to wit:
1. The hero’s mother is a royal virgin;
2. His father is a king, and
3. Often a near relative of his mother, but
4. The circumstances of his conception are unusual, and
5. He is also reputed to be the son of a god.
6. At birth an attempt is made, usually by his father or his maternal grandfather, to kill him, but
7. He is spirited away, and
8. Reared by foster parents in a far country.
9. We are told nothing of his childhood, but
10. On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future kingdom.
11. After a victory over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild beast,
12. He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor, and
13. Becomes king.
14. For a time he reigns uneventfully, and
15. Prescribes laws, but
16. Later he loses favor with the gods and/or his subjects, and
17. Is driven from the throne and the city, after which
18. He meets with a mysterious death,
19. Often at the top of a hill.
20. His children, if any, do not succeed him.
21. His body is not buried, but nevertheless
22. He has one or more holy sepulchers.*
C. Joseph Campbell, mythologist and comparative religionist, drawing upon Lord Raglan’s analysis and the theories of Carl Jung, arranged these events into a cycle of 9 (or 23) several events or features, thus: †
D. I, whom these matters have long and obsessively concerned, find such divisions, while illuminating, as finally arguable as the measurement of an irregular coastline (Bertrand Russell’s example). Is the perimeter of Bloodsworth Island 10 miles? 100 miles? 1,000 miles? The answer depends upon how much particularity one ignores: the larger and smaller coves (Okahanikan, Tigs, Pone); the larger and smaller creeks (Long, Muddy, Fin); the bights and bends; the several points and spits that grow and shrink with the tide; the individual tussocks, hummocks, and fingers of each of these; the separate spartina stalks, oyster shells, and sand grains that comprise them, themselves irregular down past their molecules to the limits of definition. The coastline of Bloodsworth Island is infinite!
Likewise the itemization of, say, Perseus’s career, which I can as reasonably divide into 2, 8, 28, or 49 coordinate parts as into Campbell’s 9 or Raglan’s 22. Many of the 49, even, in my tidy 7x7 diagram thereof (which never mind), could be separated further or combined with their neighbors. Ought its items C5, C6, and C7, for example (Espial of Andromeda on Cliff at Joppa, Slaying of Sea Monster, Marriage to Andromeda), to be a single item (Rescue and Marriage)? Or ought its C7 to be divided into Rivalry with Phineus, Wedding Feast, Battle in the Banquet Hall, etc.?
All which considerations are but homely reminders of what mystics and logicians know (and mythic heroes at the Axis Mundi): that our concepts, categories, and classifications are ours, not the World’s, and are as finally arbitrary as they are provisionally useful. Including, to be sure, the distinction between ours and the World’s.
E. If therefore, for formal elegance, I divide the story of Perseus the Golden Destroyer first into 2 “cycles” (e.g., I: The official myth; II: My projected fiction about his later adventures: his midlife crisis and its resolution); and if I further divide each of those cycles into, say, 7 parts or stages, of which the 6th in each case is the climax; and if I still further divide each of those climactic 6th stages into 7 parts, of which ditto, my division will be about as defensible as those of Lord R. & Co.
F. Such an analysis might give us, for example,
1. In the First Cycle, like scenes in a mural,
I. The official myth
A. Perseus’s conception in Argos upon virgin Danaë in the brass contraceptive tower, by Zeus in the form of a shower of gold.
&nbs
p; B. His rescue, with Mother Danaë, from the brassbound box in which his maternal grandfather has set them adrift in order to escape the usual oracle: grand-infanticide or grand-parricide.
C. After an otherwise eventless childhood-in-exile on the island of Seriphos, his advisement by Athena on ways & means to accomplish the task laid on him by King Polydectes (i.e., the slaying of Medusa the Gorgon), who wants Perseus dead so that he can have Danaë. Athena’s further equipping him with Hermes’s curved sword and her own mirror-bright shield.
D. His outwitting of the 3 Gray Ladies, who alone know where the Styx-Nymphs live, who alone can give him the other equipment he needs to kill Medusa. His theft of the Graeae’s single eye as surety, and subsequent loss of it into Lake Triton.
E. His acquisition from the odorous Styx-Nymphs of Hermes’s winged sandals, Hades’s helmet of invisibility, and the petrifactionproof sack to carry the Gorgon’s head in.
F. 1. His successful decapitation of sleeping Medusa and escape from her sister Gorgons.
2. His petrifaction, with Medusa’s head, of inhospitable Atlas into an African mountain, as he tries to navigate his way back onto the map.
3. His espial of Andromeda chained to the Joppan cliff, and his rescue of her from the sea-beast Cetus.
4. His marriage to her despite the protests of his rival Phineus, and his recitation to the wedding guests of his story thus far.
5. The battle in the banquet hall when Phineus &” Co. disrupt his recitation; their petrifaction by Medusa’s head.