The Adding Machine: Selected Essays Read online

  Immediately the story of a horrible Mexican weekend came back to me, as related by Kells Elvins. Kells, his wife, and the Thing had been invited to the country house of a rich Mexican, and looking forward to swimming pools, luxury, good food and drinks, they inadvisedly accepted They arrived at a barren stone castle with hardly a stick of furniture, where drunken-machos — muy macho much man, also much son-of-bitch — were blasting at terrified cats with pearl-handled. 45’s while the cats ran around and around trying to escape, which they couldn’t do because the doors were locked — bullets ricocheting all over the castle. Much more dangerous to the human spectators than to the cats, who were smaller and moving much fasten That, 45 is one of the most inaccurate handguns in circulation, and the machos were crazy drunk, so of course Kells and his wife and the Thing were in favor of an immediate withdrawal, but found they were locked in like the cats. The machos — five foot six in elevator shoes — hated the Thing because he was taller. So they held him at gunpoint and took turns spitting drinks in his face.

  This scene and many others from Mexico — 1950 Mexico City College — flashed through my mind like a film; some pictures dim and grainy, others in technicolor — all triggered by the amphibious yellow jeep.

  And I was reminded of a description I read of the old Tong Wars in New York’s Chinatown, where the Chinese gunmen would squat down in the Bloody Angle of Doyers Street in front of the Chinese Light Lutheran Church with their Colt. 45 revolvers, shut both eyes tight, and blast away until the gun was empty. So those old bullets were whistling all up and down the street.

  ‘Light Lutherans — for an instant I’m at the door of the Baptist Church on St John’s Island in the West Indies. White paint buckles and peels from the walls. I smell the fruit and the sugar and the heat, then a long tight funnel of New York wind sucks me back to today.’ (This is a quote from a student in my 1974 writing class at C.C.N.Y.) When you take these walks you are literally travelling in time along association lines.

  So late the next afternoon I took a walk in Chinatown, and here is what I saw... a whitish wash of winter sunlight afternoon pale through a slot in the buildings blood splotched on his white shirt and overalls he appears not to connect with the ground or anything else ... he shifts his eyes right and then left and suspicious yellow rays emanate from his too-old interior... cold and windy outside as I enter through the turnstile another guy exits his hair and jowly face a medium gray la via del tren subterraneo esta peligrosa obey the police I haven’t been in New York long don’t touch that cat you’ll catch something hey honey want to ditch your wife guess Chinese do like pork look at feet only a good way to travel he holds the images of sterility and puts himself outside of what he wants with a sharp knowing glance and surreptitious eyeballs — I can push him onto the tracks flirting around the homy bastard keeps staring at my face or hair or crotch diamonds are still a girl’s best friend can I have a quarter? the film had too much violence stand clear of the moving platform oh yes there’s so much to learn in Chinese kitchen next door last gravy running out look they died years ago the coats and people a blur the wind is slamming signs around clattering debris in an empty lot of dusty window pants for sale piss in a black puddle against a stone corner I was embarrassed what if someone sees me blue jeans leering at me intimately you wonder how I can know how you feel perhaps there are no complete strangers ...

  The word is a virus.

  It Belongs to the Cucumbers

  It seems that tape recordings made with no apparent input have turned up unexplained voices on the tape. ‘Voice phenomena are done with a tape recorder and microphones set up in the usual way and using factory-fresh tapes. No sounds are heard or emitted during the recording, but on replay faint voices of unknown origin appear to have been recorded.’ (The Handbook of Psychic Discoveries, Ostrander & Schroeder 1975.) Visible speech diagrams and voiceprints have confirmed that these actually are recorded voices. The most complete source book is Breakthrough, by Konstantin Raudive (Taplinger Publishing Co., 1971).

  These voices seem an appropriate topic to take up at the Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Before discussing the experiments carried out by Raudive, I will describe experiments performed with Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville twelve years before Breakthrough was published and in fact before it was written. These experiments started not on tape recorders but on paper. In 1959 Brion Gysin said ‘Writing is fifty years behind painting’ and applied the montage technique to words on a page. These cut-up experiments appeared in Minutes To Go, in 1959.

  Subsequently we cut up the Bible, Shakespeare, Rimbaud, our own writing, anything in sight. We made thousands of cut-ups. When you cut and rearrange words on a page, new words emerge. And words change meaning. The word ‘drafted’, as into the Army, moved into a context of blueprints or contracts, gives an altered meaning. New words and altered meanings are implicit in the process of cutting up, and could have been anticipated. Other results were not expected. When you experiment with cut-ups over a period of time, some of the cut and rearranged texts seem to refer to future events. I cut up an article written by John Paul Getty and got: ‘It is a bad thing to sue your own father.’ And a year later one of his sons did sue him. In 1964 I made a cut-up and got what seemed at the time a totally inexplicable phrase: ‘And here is a horrid air conditioner.’ in 1974 I moved into a loft with a broken air conditioner which was removed to put in a new unit. And there was three hundred pounds of broken air conditioner on my floor — a horrid disposal problem, heavy and solid, emerged from a cut-up ten years ago.

  The next step was cut-ups on the tape recorder. Brion was the first to take this obvious step. The first tape recorder cut-ups were a simple extension of cut-ups on paper. You record, say, ten minutes on the recorder. Then you spin the reel backwards or forwards without recording. Stop at random and cut in a phrase. How random is random? We know so much that we don’t consciously know we know, that perhaps the cut-in was not random. Of course this procedure on the tape recorder produces new words by altered juxtaposition just as new words are produced by cut-ups on paper.

  We went on to exploit the potentials of the tape-recorder: cut up, slow down, speed up, run backwards, inch the tape, play several tracks at once, cut back and forth between two recorders. As soon as you start experimenting with slowdowns, speedups, overlays, etc., you will get new words that were not on the original recordings. There are then many ways of producing words and voices on tape that did not get there by the usual recording procedure, words and voices that are quite definitely and clearly recognizable by a consensus of listeners. I have gotten words and voices from barking dogs. No doubt one could do much better with dolphins. And words will emerge from recordings of dripping faucets. In fact, almost any sound that is not too uniform may produce words. ‘Every little breeze seems to whisper Louise . . . The very tree branches brushing against her window seemed to mutter murder murder murder.’ Well, the branches may have muttered just that, and you could hear it back with a recorder. Everything you hear and see is there for you to hear and see it.

  Some time ago a young man came to see me and said he was going mad. Street signs, overheard conversations, radio broadcasts, seemed to refer to him in some way. I told him ‘Of course they refer to you. You see and hear them.’ Years ago, Ian Sommerville, Stewart Gordon, and your reporter had turned into the rue des Vignes, just off the Place de France in Tangier. Walking ahead of us was a middle-aged Arab couple, obviously poor country people down from the mountains. And one turned to the other and said: ‘WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?’

  We all heard it. Perhaps the Arab words just happened to sound like that. Perhaps it was a case of consensual scanning. I had a friend who went ‘mad’ in Tangier. He was scanning out personal messages from Arab broadcasts. This is the more subjective phenomenon of personal scanning patterns. I say ‘more’ rather than pose the either/or subjective/objective alternative, since all phenomena are both subjective and objective. He was, after all, listening to radio b
roadcasts.

  Now to consider Raudive’s experimental procedure. The experiments were carried out in a soundproof studio. A new blank tape was turned on and allowed to record. Then the tape was played back, the experimenter listening through headphones, and quite recognizable voices and words were found to be recorded on the tape. Raudive has recorded 100,000 phrases of these voices. The speech is almost double the usual speed, and the sound is pulsed in rhythms like poetry or chanting. These voices are in a number of accents and languages, often quite ungrammatical... ‘You I friends. Where stay?’ sounds like a Tangier hustler. Reading through the sample voices in Breakthrough, I was struck by many instances of a distinctive style reminiscent of schizophrenic speech, certain dream utterances, some of the cut-ups and delirium voices like the last words of Dutch Schultz. Many of the voices allegedly come from the dead. Hitler, Nietzsche, Goethe, Jesus Christ, anybody who is anybody is there, many of them having undergone a marked deterioration of their mental and artistic faculties. Goethe isn’t what he used to be. Hitler had a bigger and better mouth when he was alive. On one level the recorded voices procedure is a form of sophisticated electronic table-tapping, and table-tapping is one aspect of the cut-up experiments I have described. What better way to contact someone than to cut and rearrange his actual words? Certainly an improvement on the usual scene where Shakespeare is announced, to be followed by some excruciatingly bad poetry. Whether there is actual contact with the dead is an academic question so long as there is no way to prove or disprove it.

  I have pointed out a stylistic similarity between the voices recorded by Raudive, dream speech, schizophrenic speech, words spoken in delirium, and cut-ups. This does not apply to all the material in these categories, much of which may be quite banal and undistinguished. For example, a frequently recurring phrase in Raudive’s book is ‘Heat the bathroom, company is coming.’ This is no esoteric code, but simply refers to a Latvian custom. When they are expecting guests, someone goes into the bathroom and lights the stove. It is a question of selecting material which is stylistically interesting, or which may contain references of personal or prophetic significance. Here are some examples of dream speech: from my own dream diaries:

  ‘We can come out when shadows cover the cracks. You need black money here. We still don’t have the nouns. Do you like to get lost or patrol cars? The symbol of the skull and the symbol of soap turn on the same axis. Can’t you keep any ice? The Inspectorate of Canada is banging on the door. I suppose you think Missouri is a lump. You have an airforce appetite. The lair of the bear is in Chicago. The unconscious imitated by cheesecake. A tin of tomato soup in Arizona. Where naked troubadours shoot snotty baboons. Green is a man to fill is a boy. I can take the hut set anywhere. A book called Advanced Outrage. An astronaut named Platt. First American shot on Mrs. Life is a flickering shadow with violence before and after it. A good loser always gives up control for what the situation would be if control wasn’t there to look around in it.’

  And here are two examples of dream slang: an ounce of heroin is a ‘beach’. ‘To camel’ is dream slang for ‘fuck’ Unfortunately I do not have at hand any examples of schizophrenic speech. I remember only two: ‘Doctorhood is being made with me.’ Stylistically similar to the Inspectorate of Canada. And: ‘Radius radius .. it is enough.’

  Here are some phrases from Raudive’s book. I have taken these phrases out of what might be called minimal context for purposes of illustration: ‘Cheers here are the nondead. Here are the cunning ones. We are here because of you. We are all longing to go home. Politics, here is death. Take the grave with you. It snows horribly. We see Tibet with the binoculars of the people. Give reinforcement. Diminish the stopper. Sometimes only the native country loves. I am expensive. We are coordinated, the guard is manifold. You belong probably to the cucumbers. Telephone with restraint comrade. It is difficult in Train A. Covering fire. Send orders. Are you without jewelry? A lecture is taking place here. We have become accustomed to our sick ones. Get out of the defensive position. Speed is required. Leave it in full gear. Have done with the seemingly apparent Please to use studio postulated to you. Faustus, good morning. I demand our authorities. This is the aunt’s language. Identity card. It is permitted. A pistol is our man. This is operational. Even the wolves do not stay here. Into battle. The long life flees. We ignite. It is bad here. Here the birds burn. It smells of the operational death. Knowledgeable Goth, the deed of the future. Believe. Separated. Here is eternity. The far away exists. You are the contract. Are in salt? We have been looking all over the place for human beings. Ah good the sea. Professor of non-existence, the body is evidence of the spirit. The natural key. We are the language here. The doctor is on the market. Good evening our chap, are you making mummies to standard? It is enough. Reason submitted. Called at a bad time. This is operational even in the middle. With binoculars at the border, you have nevertheless to fetch our clothes. Prepare trousers in the bathroom. Why are you a German? Clean out the earth. The new Germany. Hitler is a good animal-infesting louse. Have you stolen horses with him? Yo siento. Man pricks. Buena cosa man. Draw the spirit to the plata. Hurry to make the flutes. Facts see us. I am practically here. A good crossing. The earth disintegrated.

  Commentary: ‘We see Tibet with the binoculars of the people.’ In 1970, about the time that these recordings were made, I wrote a story about a Chinese patrol which finds a Tibetan monastery taken over by the CIA to test a radioactive virus... ‘Yen Lee studied the village through his field glasses.. .’

  ‘You belong probably to the cucumbers.’ I don’t know how many of you are familiar with a term used to designate the CIA: ‘the pickle factory.’ ‘He works for the pickle factory’ means he is a CIA man. I think this designation was mentioned in TIME or NEWSWEEK. Well, pickles are made from cucumbers, so it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to postulate that ‘cucumbers’ refers to the CIA.

  ‘Telephone with restraint comrade.’ Watch what you say over the phone — the cucumbers are listening in.

  ‘Are you without jewelry?’ May refer to lasers, which are made with jewels.

  ‘Bind death — Obey death.’ Compare to Dutch Schultz’s last words, ‘I don’t want harmony. I want harmony.’

  ‘Are you in salt? We have been looking all over the place for human beings.’ Salt could refer to any basic commodity. In this case, since the voices are discarnate, the reference is probably to human bodies. Your blood as you know has the saline content of sea water, — ‘Ah good the sea.’ Now, to say ‘Are you in blood?’ would blow the vampiric cover.

  ‘Have you stolen horses with him?’ Is a German proverb meaning ‘Can you trust him?’

  ‘Draw the spirit to the plata.’ Raudive considers this utterance inexplicable. Apparently he did not know that plata is a general Spanish slang term for money.

  ‘A good crossing. The earth disintegrated.’ Some years ago scientists drew up a plan for a space ship to be propelled by atomic blasts behind it. Well, that would be a motive for blowing up the earth: propulsion to healthier areas.

  The publication of Breakthrough in England caused quite a stir. One of the editors, Peter Bander, later published a book entitled Voices From the Tapes, describing the reactions in England. There were articles in the press, radio and television programs, much discussion pro and con. Some people protested that if these are voices from the dead, they seem to be living not in celestial realms but in a cosmic hell. In consequence the voices may be misleading, interested, even downright ill-intentioned. Well, what did they expect? A chorus of angels with tips on the stock market? Others protested that contact with these voices is dangerous, citing the use of black magic and the invocation of lower astral entities by Nazi leaders. An article written by a psychic researcher, Gordon Turner, typifies the ‘dangerous for the uninitiated’ line. Turner’s article was written in answer to an article by someone named Cass, in which Cass said: ‘If a door has been opened between this world and the next, then the masses, armed with their cheap trans
istor sets and five-pound Hong Kong recorders, will participate despite Gordon Turner, the Pope, and the Government.’

  Here is Turner: ‘I believe Breakthrough should not have been published. Does (Cass) think it is safe for anyone and everyone to open themselves to this kind of influence? Has he the slightest conception of how dangerous this might be?’ Dangerous to whom exactly? When people start talking about the danger posed by making psychic knowledge available to the masses, they are generally trying to monopolize this knowledge for themselves. In my opinion, the best safeguard against the abuse of such knowledge is widespread dissemination. The more people that know about it, the better.

  Raudive considers three theories to account for the voices: 1) They are somehow imprinted on the tape by electromagnetic energy generated by the unconscious minds of the researchers or people connected with them. 2) The voices are of extraterrestrial origin. 3) The voices come from the dead. He then crosses out Number 1, the imprint theory, because it is ‘technically impossible.’ It seems to me that we are operating in an area where technical impossibilities, in terms of what we know about magnetic tape and the way in which sounds and voices are imprinted by the usual means, no longer apply.

  Remember that your memory bank contains tapes of everything you have ever heard, including of course your own words. Press a certain button, and a news broadcast you heard ten years ago plays back. Under hypnosis, people have remembered in detail conversations and events that took place many years ago, and this has been confirmed by witnesses. Hypnotic subjects have been able to recall exactly what doctors and nurses said during an operation, and such recall, particularly if it has a menacing or derogatory content, can be extremely disturbing...