Liberation: Diaries:1970-1983

by Christopher Isherwood

  Don and I keep slowly but steadily on with the draft of the screenplay of A Meeting by the River. Fifteen pages to date. It seems pretty solid so far.

  April 26. Am just off to talk to a group at Claremont. This was arranged by a young man named Adrian Turcotte,73 “Butch,” I’ve heard people call him, who comes to Vedanta Place for the readings, etc. Peter Schneider is to drive up with me and we’re to have supper with his mother afterwards.

  At Vedanta Place last night, much talk about the Watergate scandal and Zeffirelli’s Brother Sun, Sister Moon, which the boys seem to like better than the girls—to my surprise. As for Nixon, Swami frankly hopes he’ll be impeached.

  Talking of Swami—at the question period last week, he was asked, “Should one regard the guru as being the same as God?” To which he unhesitatingly answered yes, going on to say that he speaks sometimes to Ramakrishna and sometimes to Maharaj. Some of those present were a bit bothered, wondering did Swami mean that we should regard him as God. He realized this—how often he does realize the inwardness of a question just when I’m worried because I think he hasn’t! He said, “But I’m not that kind of guru.” At which someone asked, “What kind of guru are you, Swami?” Swami answered, “I am the dust of the feet of Maharaj.” A pause. Then he smiled: “There is some holiness even in the dust.”

  On the 21st, I was in Hollywood. Turning off the boulevard, I passed a group of young hustlers. One of them looked exactly like Wayne Sleep, only much taller. The others were going someplace, and this boy said he didn’t want to, “I’ve got to sleep.” Can you call this a synchronicity?

  May 6. Last week, I picketed at MGM, until Thursday, when I got an attack of sciatica (or something similar) and had to quit. My back has been bad since then—despite two treatments of DMSO, recommended by Laura Huxley. (It’s great virtue, in her eyes, is that it is banned in this country, although used in Germany and elsewhere.)

  We keep on steadily with our Meeting by the River script. And I creep on with the reconstruction of my 1949 diary.

  Jim Bridges’ The Paper Chase was sneaked at Goleta, right next to the U.C. Santa Barbara campus, and greatly applauded by a student audience.

  Last Wednesday (the 2nd), when I went to see Swami, I got a very powerful spiritual vibration from him. It began when I asked him what he does all day, now that he can’t read. He said that he feels the Lord’s presence. I asked him if he meditated. He said no, not in the daytime. When he meditates, he meditates on the Guru in the center of the brain and on the Lord in the center of the heart. And then he began to recite the meditation on the Guru, partly in Sanskrit and partly in English. This recitation was broken off by the arrival of Krishna to get Swami dressed to go to the temple for the reading. (This is one of Krishna’s prerogatives, and I know, without Swami’s having told me, that I must never help him, even if Krishna comes in late.) Then Swami took my arm (this is one of my prerogatives) for the walk to the temple. I always try to meditate on the Guru while we’re doing this, but my vanity at being Swami’s attendant and making the entrance with him usually spoils my concentration. This time, just as we were about to enter the temple, Swami suddenly continued his recitation, with the words: “He is calm and he is pleased with you, smiling, gracious. . . .” I don’t know if he said “you” instead of “me” intentionally, but I couldn’t help taking it personally— feeling in fact that the Guru was speaking to me through Swami. It was an extraordinary moment.

  May 7. My back is better but the lump on my left foot is more painful than ever before. We went to the gym but I couldn’t run. Put DMSO on it, and on the lump on my left thumb, which still hasn’t gone away and is maybe even a bit bigger. (This isn’t a moan, just a routine health report.)

  This morning, we went to watch Clinton Kimbrough directing his film at a tiny café on Washington Boulevard in Venice called Rick’s—one of the snuggest places I have ever seen in Los Angeles. Clint seems calm and businesslike, but the film sounds like the most improbable kind of quickie; when he is through[,] it will have taken him three weeks to shoot. It’s about three nurses and one of them (at least) gets murdered. In this bar sequence, Tom Baker74 was playing the barman. There was also a stunningly beautiful black girl and a campily handsome and elegant black man. Clint’s wife Frances is the script girl. Don thinks he has already turned her into his slave.

  Maurice Jarre, who composes music for films and T.V., called to say he had been in England and had seen an hour and a half of “Frankenstein” footage, because Hunt wants him to do the “Frankenstein” music. He said that he had been greatly impressed by what he had seen, but that he didn’t want to do the music if the film is to be only for T.V. This is to be decided within a week. I think Jarre’s real motive for calling me was that he isn’t sure if he can trust Hunt and wants my advice.

  Yesterday afternoon, we drove up Las Tunas Canyon to visit Peter and Clytie Alexander. Their house is now more or less built; that’s to say, a big awkward wooden structure like two packing cases on top of one another has been somewhat insecurely erected on a platform of land cut out of the hillside. Clytie is just loving her life there, she says. She is working on a vegetable garden and gave us homegrown chard and lettuce (delicious, we ate it last night). They want to avoid using the public utilities, except water, and are researching into the relative advantages of solar energy and a generator driven by a windmill. They are also shopping for the best type of filter, so as to be able to make use of all the waste from the shower, washing machine, etc. to irrigate the land. Clytie was anxious to show us how ecology-minded she and Peter are—yet they seem absolutely unable to understand why the building and zoning authorities are giving them trouble; they can’t see any reason against spoiling the appearance of the canyon with this ugly dump they have planted in the midst of the landscape!

  To live as they are living is an absolutely wholetime job, and you have to be quite rich to do it. For example, during the winter, they had appalling windstorms. Clytie said that a pile of heavy lumber being used by one of their neighbors was picked up by the gale and scattered on the hillside “like a pack of cards.” And then the top part of their own house keeled over and had to be rebuilt—which meant that they had to hire a big trailer to live in, until the storms subsided. Don shuddered at the starkness of the interior; the completely public shower which is their only washing facility and the thronelike chemical toilet which is the most exposed place in the house. But Clytie spoke of the joys of lying in bed and looking right down the valley to the ocean and seeing the lights of ships out at sea. She is a truly sweet girl and it’s obvious that she’s thriving on this discipline. Peter looks very gaunt—maybe from too much sniffing and too little eating. I like him too. And I liked large Guy Dill, the young artist, who was helping him dig a hollow which may become a swimming pool or a fishpond.

  One of the reasons why I like Peter is that he’s such a good fan. He and Clytie read our “Frankenstein” script aloud to each other. Yesterday I really loved him when he suddenly asked Don about the paintings of his which used to hang in my room. (Don later took them down in a rage because I let Diebenkorn see them.) Don was really warmed and pleased by Peter’s gratuitous praise.

  May 8. Suddenly it seems as if Don’s show at the Barnsdall gallery may not take place. They have just told Don that they won’t pay more than five hundred dollars of his framing costs, which would mean that he would have to pay about a thousand, maybe more, out of his own pocket. Don is furious and is inclined to cancel the show. But he’s going to ask Irving Blum’s advice first.

  The latest news is that the writers’ strike may soon be over.

  Today I finished Hardy’s Collected Poems. Am now reading Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, Quentin Bell’s life of Virginia Woolf, Mishima’s Runaway Horses, Steegmuller’s Flaubert in Egypt.75

  May 10. The latest news is that the writers’ strike will not soon be over. Mort Lewis,76 who said goodbye to everybody on our picket shift last Friday, now seems to think we�
��ll certainly be seeing each other again on the 21st.

  Don still hasn’t quite made up his mind about his show. Joe Goode advises him to economize by having his drawings “bound” in plastic instead of putting them into frames. The plastic can be thrown away later, whereas frames would have to be stored and would cost hundreds of dollars more. Joe says spend the extra money on the catalogue and the party.

  We try to get up at six every morning and generally succeed in getting up at six-thirty. Our old alarm clock is absurdly capricious; sometimes it makes a noise like a lawn mower, sometimes it doesn’t ring at all but just faintly whirrs. A couple of days ago, I spilled some water while watering the plant which hangs beside the window. Don: “There’s an old Dub for you, starts the day with a splash.”

  Hunt called again today, full of schemes to cut the script radically. Also to rewrite it, making Elizabeth be the one to decide to leave for America. As usual, he was drunk. Don wants me to call him some time when he’s likely to be sober and try to reason with him.

  Today, John Mitchell and Maurice Stans were indicted for conspiracy, obstruction and perjury.77 Also, the House, for the first time in its history, voted to refuse the administration funds to bomb Cambodia. But Nixon will go on bombing Cambodia anyway.

  May 13. This morning I weighed 154 and ¼—all-time high except for my fat period in England in 1970. This was probably due to two cooked dinners at home, yesterday and the day before, with lots of wine. But my fluctuations are remarkable. The day before yesterday, I weighed nearly four pounds less!

  Don’s insides, like mine, are upset as the result of last night. This morning, as we were working on our Meeting by the River filmscript, he farted. “If Kitty had known that it would come to this—lying farting helplessly on an old couch!”

  John Dunne and Joan Didion came to dinner last night, with Irving and Shirley Blum. The talk was mostly about Watergate of course, and the dismissal of the Ellsberg case. John Dunne told us that Anthony Russo had wanted to insist on a jury verdict, but that Ellsberg and their defence attorneys were afraid to risk it. According to journalists who have now interviewed the jurors, the jury would most probably have acquitted them.78

  Don has now decided to go ahead with the show. Irving Blum has written a foreword for his catalogue which I don’t like the tone of; it’s patronizing and it doesn’t mention Don’s previous exhibitions, except for the one at Irving Blum’s gallery. Also, it’s sloppily written. Don is in an awkward position, because it was Irving who volunteered to write this foreword and because Don feels grateful to Irving for his past support. Another awkwardness is that Irving has delegated the job of organizing the opening party to hateful Brook[e Hopper]! I see breakers ahead.

  I forgot to record that Jo Lathwood has recently had a long talk with Ben about Ben’s father, who is now over ninety and getting frail, and who would like to come out and live here. Ben wanted to have his father come and live with him and Dee, but Dee refused. [. . .]

  A recently conducted poll of people in Cleveland suggests that the real lasting result of the Watergate scandals will be greatly increased public cynicism in its view of both parties and all politicians.

  Cukor has suggested that we should work with him on a script of The Aspern Papers, for Katharine Hepburn and Maggie Smith.

  Jon Voight called last night to say that Marcheline and he have a son, born on the 11th.

  And Lamont Johnson called to say goodbye. He’s off to Africa to shoot his other film, without even finding time for a talk about our Black Girl project. All his big talk about taking us on a location hunt in Africa and giving us a chance to view the eclipse of the sun!

  May 24. Watergate hearings on T.V. are a constant temptation to waste the best part of the morning watching; they start at 7 a.m. our time. Most of us are rather charmed by James McCord.79 He is so positive in his replies; he speaks rather ornate, old-world FBI English. He turns his face away from the camera and looks at it with one eye, which is like the bright wily eye of a whale. Don even thinks he’s sexually attractive.

  The most frequently used phrase in the hearings is “at this point in time.” The burglary is referred to as “the Watergate intrusion.”

  The other day, while I was sitting in the steam room at the gym, in burst an absurd wouldbe-macho queen, yelling “Son of a bitch, cunt, mother fucker, fucking asshole—!” I thought for a mad moment that he was speaking to me, but he continued, “Impeach the bastard, he fucked up the stock market!” After which, he spat, three times, on the rocks of the heater—an action which was made ten times more melodramatic than he had intended because, an instant later, the automatic shower turned on, raising clouds of steam.

  Up at Vedanta Place, they have been having a garage sale of unwanted clothing, furniture, kitchen utensils, books etc. which have been donated to the society throughout the years. The boys made a lot of placards to advertise this. One of them was: “Watergate Sale—everyone’s got to go!” But it was vetoed by Asaktananda.

  Swami told me, when I was there yesterday evening, that Dr. Kaplan80 had “gone sex mad” and had even propositioned the nuns. Having also talked to Anandaprana, I do think that he must be having some sort of nervous breakdown. He is now saying he wants to go up to Santa Barbara, presumably because he wants to have a go at the nuns there! But Swami’s real anxiety is not that Joseph Kaplan will be able to seduce anybody but that he is longing to make a speech at our Father’s Day celebration (which, this year, is also the celebration of Swami’s fifty years in the States). Kaplan’s speeches are always intolerably wordy and long and egotistical, and this one will probably be crazy as well.

  Swami now refers to Sarada as “Ruth.”

  Everyone now says that the strike will go on indefinitely. Yesterday we had a mass picket at MGM, over sixty of us. But we don’t picket regularly.

  Don’s show keeps changing its aspect. Billy Bengston now says he will give a party, but this is to be only a small one, for the inner circle. So the question remains, what about Irving’s party? The ill feeling between Billy and Irving complicates matters. Shall there be two parties, or will they merge? And then, again, who is the show for? Don had taken it for granted that it was for celebrity-conscious establishment squares. But now his attitude has been greatly changed by Nick Wilder, who has come out with a most handsome vote of confidence in his work, telling him that he now realizes that the portraits of celebrities are only a small part of Don’s work and that he, Nick, wants to show Don’s work in his gallery—first with other artists, this fall, and then in one or more one-man shows, later. Nick’s encouragement has greatly boosted Don’s morale. He now feels that Nick is really appreciating him as an artist. To be appreciated as an artist, not jollied along as a portrait drawer with interesting social connections, is what Don needs more than anything else. For years he has labored under this terrible defeatist sense of inferiority, wondering if he is really an artist at all, etc. I have been able to do nothing to undermine it, because I can’t speak with authority. Billy Al, Joe Goode, Peter Alexander and some of the other art friends Don has made lately, have already done quite a bit. But Nick has the supremely convincing quality of being able and ready to put his money where his mouth is. Nick says he thinks Don has been poorly handled by Irving, but that he couldn’t make Don an offer until Irving decided to move to New York and thus ceased to be Don’s dealer. Oh, if only Nick likes Don’s paintings as well as his drawings! (Irving never did, and that, too, made Don doubtful about them.) Right now, I’m prepared to love Nick dearly for the rest of my life. As for loving Gregory Evans, that’s no sweat.

  May 28. The party problem is still unsolved, because Don hasn’t had a chance to talk it through with Billy Al. He is afraid that Billy may be tiresome about it, because Billy hates Irving and would love to spite him—even, maybe, if it inconvenienced Don. Billy was talking the other day as if he wants to force Don to choose between the two of them by opting for the one party or the other. Irving has said definitely that he
won’t give a party with Billy and that, if Billy wants to give a party, he must do it earlier, before the show, or later, after it.

  Yesterday afternoon, Irving came to look through the pictures Don had chosen tentatively for exhibition in the show. He firmly nixed all the paintings and said Don shouldn’t consider showing any paintings whatsoever, because he was only just beginning to find a style. He also nixed all the little ink drawings and all the nudes, but this was chiefly because he felt that they didn’t go with the big drawings and that the show should be all of a piece. The only drawing he really seemed to like greatly was the one of Montgomery Clift. He told Don not to show the ones of Katharine Hepburn and Norman Mailer.

  I can’t help feeling that Irving doesn’t really think much of Don’s work in any category—because, Don says, he was so terrific ally surprised that Nick Wilder would want to give Don a show in his gallery. Now, Irving’s even beginning to hint that perhaps he can arrange a New York show for Don! This is all to the good, of course. But it doesn’t endear Irving to me.

  Meanwhile, Nick gets dearer by the minute. Or rather, to my fondness sympathy has been added, because he has just had a horrible shock. The day before yesterday, Gregory Evans took off for London. He was going to stay with David there and then spend the whole summer in Europe. Yesterday, Nick got the news that Gregory had been stopped at London Airport because the immigration officials saw that he was dopey (on Valium) and then found needle marks on his arms (he used to shoot heroin) [. . .] After being questioned, poor Gregory was sent back to the States, where he was again questioned. We saw him last night, after he had gotten back here, very late. He and Nick are determined to appeal and somehow force the British to let him back into the country; but this looks like being a long campaign.