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diff --git a/age_of_oil.otx b/age_of_oil.otx index c74dcfc..334d444 100644 --- a/age_of_oil.otx +++ b/age_of_oil.otx @@ -138,7 +138,7 @@ With Poky gone, I eventually resorted to a pet slug called \dq{Flash.} (We calle Slugs were by no means my sole obsession. My childhood friends shared the interest. Tim, our friend Matt and I invented a realm called \dq{Slugonia} populated by slug-inspired cartoon creatures. They didn't have any antennae or slime or radulas and they resembled humans in their weaker moments. These cartoon slugs were very self-indulgent, priding themselves on ravenous appetites or excessive TV watching. We drew comics about the central slug characters. Some of their names were Harvey (a trickster), Hobart (the dictator of Slugonia), Feedor (a TV addict), Garfo (a slug who has a sign on his back reading \dq{Beat Me}), Cheerful (a compulsively happy slug) and Flash (again, a voracious cater, like my former pet, with a super-fast tongue). Matt was the most ingenious and prolific in creating fictional situations concerning these slugs. He also originated their image and invented most of the characters and their names. Tim and I contributed a great deal, either in our own ideas or just laughter over Matt's talks on the idea of Slugonia. Tim and I even made a Super-8 animation film about Slugonia. Matt and I went so far as to suggest a \dq{Slug Patrol} to our Boy Scout Troop. The scoutmaster was charmed by the idea but had to refuse the title (he was a stupid man) since there were so many other names of animals that we could use besides that of \dq{slug.} We knew it was a poor reason, and besides, we were already resigned to his disapproval. Beforehand Matt had composed a flag with somersaulting or \dq{flipping} slugs (our slugs could flip in mid-air). The flag's slugs were also wearing bandanas and hats, vestiges of our uniforms. We even invented a handshake which consisted of contact with cither palm only to have squishing sounds meet the other person. Another one was contact but rapid drawing away---\dq{Yeech!}---as if the palm were slimy. -Around this time (11 to 14 years of age, I cannot recall specifically) 1 had bought the most comprehensive book on the subject, Pilsbury's \booktitle{Land Mollusca of North America North of Mexico}. (The actual title might be longer.) The book was a four-volume monograph solely on land snails and slugs. When it arrived I noticed the pages were uncut, and after plying them apart with a large kitchen knife, I was able to marvel at the hundreds of illustrations of my favorite animal. Now I could say that such-and-such was \term{Arion Ater}, \term{Vespercola latinbrum}, and \term{Helix pomata}. Every species had a technical description of their reproductive, digestive and respiratory systems. The classification into family, genus and species was based upon the organization of their respiratory tracts. The book had very strange accounts on certain species. One species was predatory-cannibalistic. It would attack by swaying its head and trunk back and forth in front of the victim and then lunge very quickly for the other snail's main artery running up the center of the spiral. +Around this time (11 to 14 years of age, I cannot recall specifically) I had bought the most comprehensive book on the subject, Pilsbury's \booktitle{Land Mollusca of North America North of Mexico}. (The actual title might be longer.) The book was a four-volume monograph solely on land snails and slugs. When it arrived I noticed the pages were uncut, and after plying them apart with a large kitchen knife, I was able to marvel at the hundreds of illustrations of my favorite animal. Now I could say that such-and-such was \term{Arion Ater}, \term{Vespercola latinbrum}, and \term{Helix pomata}. Every species had a technical description of their reproductive, digestive and respiratory systems. The classification into family, genus and species was based upon the organization of their respiratory tracts. The book had very strange accounts on certain species. One species was predatory-cannibalistic. It would attack by swaying its head and trunk back and forth in front of the victim and then lunge very quickly for the other snail's main artery running up the center of the spiral. During a summer camp vacation I requested a friend of my parents to bring the book with her since she was going to visit some counselors. The area had a number of snails I didn't know the names of. When she arrived she made a wisecrack as to the weight of the books. Many of the counselors held academic positions and one of them was a biologist. He was struck by my interest in these creatures, even though at moments during our talks on the matter I felt as if his interest was too attentive and too obsessional. It frightened me into thinking I was also strange for devoting so much time to finding snails and classifying them. The bulging volumes on snails helped me somewhat when much of it was done in an effort to impress my peers that I was a scholarly type. @@ -150,7 +150,7 @@ During that vacation, my mother and a good friend of hers, the mother of the acc A year after the boat trip, I wrote a long paper on the Dutch painter Jan Vermeer. His attention to pearls must have contributed to my excitement over his work. Besides, the duo of mother and her friend thought me quite sensitive to have selected Vermeer as a subject for a research paper. (I was 14 years old and a freshman in high school.) Mom even told me that Vermeer was considered to have ground real pearls into his oils, contributing to the soft, milky pallor of his mostly female subjects. I grew to appreciate the painting entitled \dq{Woman Weighing Pearls} as his most exquisite effort. Vermeer's contemporary, DeHooch, depicted a woman weighing gold coins. Similarly attired (though not with the satin and ermine jacket) and positioned before the window of streaming daylight, it failed simply because she was measuring gold, a vulgarity in its failure to understand the resonating significance of pearls. Some critics even thought Vermeer's woman was weighing gold, but my paper endorsed Lawrence Gowing's point, how could anyone think she was weighing something besides these jewels from oyster beds? -Another painting, Botticelli's \e{Birth of Venus}, features her rising from the legendary seashell. I thought it to be a most beautiful picture. In it her hair coils in spirals while Zephyr fitfully blows his gentle breath, which, if you don't mind the free-association, was something 1 often did to snails: I blew on their antennae to see if they were truly that sensitive, and very often they were, as they recoiled their tender filaments. This delicacy sent me in smiles, prompting more assertive measures such as touching the stalks, only to have them recoil more rapidly, hence longer to emerge again and face the human adversary, myself. +Another painting, Botticelli's \e{Birth of Venus}, features her rising from the legendary seashell. I thought it to be a most beautiful picture. In it her hair coils in spirals while Zephyr fitfully blows his gentle breath, which, if you don't mind the free-association, was something I often did to snails: I blew on their antennae to see if they were truly that sensitive, and very often they were, as they recoiled their tender filaments. This delicacy sent me in smiles, prompting more assertive measures such as touching the stalks, only to have them recoil more rapidly, hence longer to emerge again and face the human adversary, myself. \dinkus @@ -158,11 +158,11 @@ A garden's bright flowers and glistening leaves has a rapacious predator, the sn The biting snail, like the leeches that had fascinated me in fifth grade, could also draw blood from my face as a freshly extracted whitehead always would. My mother, true to her nursing education degree, would wipe off the oil from her finger\e{nails}\slash finger\e{snail} onto her dress or apron. The attack was always on, whether it was combing my hair or wiping off dirt from any part of my body. A compulsively neat person, a product of Lutheran upbringing, is still inspiring me to wash and shave everyday, cleansing a perpetually dirty, shit-ridden envelope of flesh. This \e{Blasen}, or bubble of skin, is what the snail-headed man, Freud, had designated the physical metaphor of the ego. -Being brought up in a social apparatus that exults in a streamlined passion for assimilating ego-ideals has further transformed the past of purifying dirt on the skin into a militant occupation. I have succumbed to the advertising visage of greater potency, wishing that the photos and commercials I see will be present in my life as a result of buying the product. Then reality will congrue with my hallucination, and 1 shall be airbrush perfect like all the beauties who could get into Studio 54 without waiting. And yet the few mildly acned and handsome men who were admitted inside have sent me into shivers, propelling my eyes to fix on their human radulas that could bite the very pimples I possessed that evening. +Being brought up in a social apparatus that exults in a streamlined passion for assimilating ego-ideals has further transformed the past of purifying dirt on the skin into a militant occupation. I have succumbed to the advertising visage of greater potency, wishing that the photos and commercials I see will be present in my life as a result of buying the product. Then reality will congrue with my hallucination, and I shall be airbrush perfect like all the beauties who could get into Studio 54 without waiting. And yet the few mildly acned and handsome men who were admitted inside have sent me into shivers, propelling my eyes to fix on their human radulas that could bite the very pimples I possessed that evening. Although I am not identical to the Wolf-Man pacing hysterically to and fro in a dermatologist's office with mirror and face powder in hand, I have encrypted undying fantasies and their corresponding pleasure-words. His pleasure-word, a word in his nose-language, \e{tieret}, the Russian term for scraping and rubbing, seems similar to my verbarium: \e{snail}, \e{slug}, \e{pick}, or \e{picky}, \e{acne}, and \e{zits}. -Snail rhymes with ail. I am the one who ails from acne. Her finger\e{nails} were the very instrument of my repetition: \e{snail}. With \e{nails}, Jesus Christ's hands and feet were bloodied, an incident known in every Christian home. Before my grandfather's death his hands were also wounded by improper protection from X-rays that he gave to his patients. He was a pediatrician like my father is now. Why did I like to have Poky crawl over my fingers? I am also supposed to be \dq{genetically identical} to my grandfather, so my father says, and 1 bear his first name as my middle one. My hands have been called \dq{attractive} by those close to me, but a girlfriend I once knew had an exquisite pair, compensating for her very blemished face. Her name was identical to my mother's, forcing me to think of a mother ravaged by what I had, a hopeless revenge. It also helped me endure whatever paroxysms my complexion went through. With bad skin being my grandfather's doom, so have I felt it too to be mine. The letters in \e{skin}, through anagrammatization and lexigraphic contiguity, are related to those in \e{snail}, the \e{s}, \e{i} and \e{n}. Place an \e{l} for the \e{k}, and you obtain \e{slin}, then go on to \e{snail}. The \e{s} and \e{l} are crucial: both parents possess them in their original names. Also there are lines\slash lains (snail) on the skin\slash slin (snail). +Snail rhymes with ail. I am the one who ails from acne. Her finger\e{nails} were the very instrument of my repetition: \e{snail}. With \e{nails}, Jesus Christ's hands and feet were bloodied, an incident known in every Christian home. Before my grandfather's death his hands were also wounded by improper protection from X-rays that he gave to his patients. He was a pediatrician like my father is now. Why did I like to have Poky crawl over my fingers? I am also supposed to be \dq{genetically identical} to my grandfather, so my father says, and I bear his first name as my middle one. My hands have been called \dq{attractive} by those close to me, but a girlfriend I once knew had an exquisite pair, compensating for her very blemished face. Her name was identical to my mother's, forcing me to think of a mother ravaged by what I had, a hopeless revenge. It also helped me endure whatever paroxysms my complexion went through. With bad skin being my grandfather's doom, so have I felt it too to be mine. The letters in \e{skin}, through anagrammatization and lexigraphic contiguity, are related to those in \e{snail}, the \e{s}, \e{i} and \e{n}. Place an \e{l} for the \e{k}, and you obtain \e{slin}, then go on to \e{snail}. The \e{s} and \e{l} are crucial: both parents possess them in their original names. Also there are lines\slash lains (snail) on the skin\slash slin (snail). Furthermore with \e{slug} eliminate the \e{s} and witness \e{lug}, better yet, \e{ulg}, or as is clear, \e{ulg}(y). \dq{Slugs are so ugly} say the common lot. Slugs make ugly, as Flash did with its cage, or as it did to my finger by its biting, a biting, uglifying slug, scraping at my skin. My mother's name, Julie, anasemically relates to \e{gul}(s), similar to dad's endearment, \dq{\e{Jules},} sounding much like \e{jewels}. An ugly jewel is the slug that could render the child-jewel of Julie ugly as well. @@ -200,7 +200,7 @@ But how can we think that he was ever present, alive, fully here? I never saw hi Today when I ate turkey, I didn't vomit it up at all. I could have, thinking of how much I love the man, how much he could have eaten me up, like the parent he was, besides, don't all parents say, "I could eat you up!"? No, I didn't vomit, but then when you eat too much you feel like vomiting. Yes, I felt like vomiting, but only for a moment and when that moment occurred I realized that I would hate the taste of the regurgitation. So I pushed it back inside of me, deep inside, just so that it would stay there and not come up and out of me. -Why is John F. Kennedy on all the matchbooks, the Kenmore Stamp Company matchbooks? The Kenmore Company is reinforcing its product with the usual illustrious and dead public figures, for stamps commemorate the American dead. But why an ad bearing a duplication of JFK's stamp and why are they so common? Why the conjunction of matches, JFK stamp and a name that cryptically rings with Kennedy, Kenmore? Anyway, I light my cigarette bearing in mind that I must close the package before 1 strike the match. And when I close the package there's the man, John F. Kennedy. The flame is lit and will stay lit until I put it out. By that time my cigarette is burning while the match is out. Even when my cigarette is out, someone else will have theirs lit. The fire goes on, like the \dq{eternal torch} in the National Cemetery over the graves of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. +Why is John F. Kennedy on all the matchbooks, the Kenmore Stamp Company matchbooks? The Kenmore Company is reinforcing its product with the usual illustrious and dead public figures, for stamps commemorate the American dead. But why an ad bearing a duplication of JFK's stamp and why are they so common? Why the conjunction of matches, JFK stamp and a name that cryptically rings with Kennedy, Kenmore? Anyway, I light my cigarette bearing in mind that I must close the package before I strike the match. And when I close the package there's the man, John F. Kennedy. The flame is lit and will stay lit until I put it out. By that time my cigarette is burning while the match is out. Even when my cigarette is out, someone else will have theirs lit. The fire goes on, like the \dq{eternal torch} in the National Cemetery over the graves of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. John F. Kennedy is alive at the tip of my cigarette and 5o is Jim Morrison, a dead singer. When the jukebox plays, \dq{Come on, baby, light my fire,} we might be more willing to light someone's cigarette and move closer to another vault with our funeral pyres alight in the darknesses of bars, music halls, theaters. @@ -393,7 +393,7 @@ When cars goe or drive on tar, they drive over the asphalt on such roads. Withou The stylus that plays the record is the car that drives along the road. A record's turning motion allows the stylus to move. The turntable is powered by electricity, often a transformation of energy from oil. A stylus, besides being a writing instrument, is also related to a ship's prow, the edge that cuts through water. Every car has a hood, a \dq{prow} of sorts. Ships travel as do cars, one on water, the other on land. Both are called \dq{she.} The car\slash ship has a stylus, podium, prow that cuts along a path, and thus its mark or trail is made. The wake of churned-up water is the ship's path as the drippings of oil is the car's path. The oil drippings of cars are the indicia of a car's path (not to mention its tire marks). The record's sound from an LP is the index of a stylus' path. Sound travels on tar\slash oil\slash vinyl records as cars travel on tar\slash oil\slash asphalt. Thus a stylus traveling down a record groove is an allegory of a car traveling down a road. -In another vein, without oil there would be no art. In \e{art|, there's the word \e{tar}, an anagram. Tar is derived from oil. Painters, of course, use oil to make their art. There are many kinds of oil, or many tars: vinyl, records, acrylic, etc. Artists need tar. Artist-musicians need tar\slash oil, the same kind of tar that's involved in the manufacture of records. Painters and musicians employ different art forms or they use different tar forms. Some of them can become a star after becoming successful with their art made of tar, such tar allowing them to goe far. The anagrams arts\slash tars\slash star are crucial to the symbols that determine an identification in our culture. +In another vein, without oil there would be no art. In \e{art}, there's the word \e{tar}, an anagram. Tar is derived from oil. Painters, of course, use oil to make their art. There are many kinds of oil, or many tars: vinyl, records, acrylic, etc. Artists need tar. Artist-musicians need tar\slash oil, the same kind of tar that's involved in the manufacture of records. Painters and musicians employ different art forms or they use different tar forms. Some of them can become a star after becoming successful with their art made of tar, such tar allowing them to goe far. The anagrams arts\slash tars\slash star are crucial to the symbols that determine an identification in our culture. With stars on tars doing arts, the lack of oil threatens their activity too. No oil means no arts, not a single star because of the lack of tars. Again without art or tars or star(s), what will that do to star(ing), what will happen to our sight, since no arts\slash star(s) will be able to be looked at? What films will we see and what car windows will we look through? As well, no ear wax\slash oil\slash tars\slash arts\slash star(s) over the car's radio also means an imminent crisis for our hearing. No records played or burned, no RCA and no car, means no sound heard as it means no oil for cars to drive on. Not being able to see and hear, taken in their sense as drives, is also a lack of the energy or oil to keep those drives goeing. The other drives, the oral and anal, also derive from this collapse of culturally shared images, pleasurewords, mythologies and \e{lois}. Thus an ego will then not goe without being driven by the four-wheeled drives of the apertures of our bodies, our bodies that have energy or oil along with the rims or sources from which to discharge that energy: the ears, the eyes, the mouth and the anus. Egos go(es) to drive with oil and aim at oil. Oil drives us from one state of oil to another state\slash taste of oil. @@ -598,716 +598,115 @@ We see sound by seeing the diamond photo or we hear sight by hearing the diamond \chap On Wit -With every champagne bottle a cork is used to prevent the -froth from spilling over. The strength of the cork is attested by the ability to shake the bottle vigorously so that the -pressure inside can be contained. Once opened, the loud -"pop!" and the ensuing foam signal the absence of the -cork. The cork has left, just as much as the mysterious -froth of letters lets cork cease its sequence for that of rock, -as anagram. Cork and rock are then another example of -"wit as the anagram of nature" in the words of the famous -German writer, Jean-Paul. - -The containing of a wild foam, a mass of liquid, once -shaken, bursts out of its confinement, bursts from under -the cork/rock, the cork that is placed over any confinement, cither the confinement of letters in their stipulated -sequences or the confinement of liquid, here champagne. -Every bottle of champagne (and every bottle of wine or -beer for that matter) has this cork/rock, but what is the ultimate import of the cork, this rock, that seals something -that would inevitably gush and explode from its imprisonment? - -Standing on the floor of the very place where the corkrock is opened is also a cork/rock of sorts. The floor of the - -101 -THE AGE OF OIL +With every champagne bottle a cork is used to prevent the froth from spilling over. The strength of the cork is attested by the ability to shake the bottle vigorously so that the pressure inside can be contained. Once opened, the loud "pop!" and the ensuing foam signal the absence of the cork. The cork has left, just as much as the mysterious froth of letters lets \e{cork} cease its sequence for that of \e{rock}, as anagram. \e{Cork} and \e{rock} are then another example of "wit as the anagram of nature" in the words of the famous German writer, Jean-Paul. + +The containing of a wild foam, a mass of liquid, once shaken, bursts out of its confinement, bursts from under the cork/rock, the cork that is placed over any confinement, cither the confinement of letters in their stipulated sequences or the confinement of liquid, here champagne. Every bottle of champagne (and every bottle of wine or beer for that matter) has this cork/rock, but what is the ultimate import of the cork, this rock, that seals something that would inevitably gush and explode from its imprisonment? + +Standing on the floor of the very place where the cork-rock is opened is also a cork/rock of sorts. The floor of the bar locale is also the cork/rock that has been opened, about to explode with a "pop" and its ensuing fizzle. What shakes and froths below the floor/rock as the champagne bottle froths with its liquid about to gush? -bar locale is also the cork/rock that has been opened, -about to explode with a "pop™ and its ensuing fizzle. What -shakes and froths below the floor/rock as the champagne -bottle froths with its liquid about to gush? - -Every floor is the ground we stand on, the layer of -carth that covers the hot brewing mass of lava found closer -and closer to the center of the earth. A ground too is implicated in the idea of language as Holderlin's Patmos gives -expression: . . . und furchtlos gehn/Die Sohne der Alpen -iber den Abgrund weg/Auf leichtgebauten Briicken (. . . -and fearless over/The chasm walk the sons of the Alps/On -bridges lightly-built). The "lightly-built" character of a -bridge is a floor, truly a flimsy, breakable, collapsible -thing. And the floor we stand on is always about to break -asurider, this cork/rock that goes "pop" as this floor/rock -"pop" in some volcanic conflagration. To open a -champagne bottle reproduces what happens in nature, a -voleanic eruption, an abyss of super-hot matter, hotter -than any piece of selfsufficient substance once it is subject -to the temperatures that make it molten lava, about to -burst through the crust/cork/rock of the earth/champagne -bottle. - -Alcohol, in its pure state, burns with the contact of -fire, just as oil does with any combustion. And oil, as anyone knows, lies beneath the earth's surface, and like lava, it -is about to burst, gush and soak us in its ooze as it did to -James Dean in Giant. Being coated in oil, crude oil, is simi -could go - -lar to being coated with alcohol, the champagne gushing +Every floor is the ground we stand on, the layer of carth that covers the hot brewing mass of lava found closer and closer to the center of the earth. A ground too is implicated in the idea of language as Holderlin's Patmos gives expression: \ld\ \e{und furchtlos gehn/Die S\"ohne der Alpen \"uber den Abgrund weg/Auf leichtgebauten Br\"ucken} (\ld and fearless over/The chasm walk the sons of the Alps/On bridges lightly-built). The "lightly-built" character of a bridge is a floor, truly a flimsy, breakable, collapsible thing. And the floor we stand on is always about to break asunder, this cork/rock that goes "pop" as this floor/rock could go "pop" in some volcanic conflagration. To open a champagne bottle reproduces what happens in nature, a voleanic eruption, an abyss of super-hot matter, hotter than any piece of selfsufficient substance once it is subject to the temperatures that make it molten lava, about to burst through the crust/cork/rock of the earth/champagne bottle. + +Alcohol, in its pure state, burns with the contact of fire, just as oil does with any combustion. And oil, as anyone knows, lies beneath the earth's surface, and like lava, it is about to burst, gush and soak us in its ooze as it did to James Dean in \filmtitle{Giant}. Being coated in oil, crude oil, is similar to being coated with alcohol, the champagne gushing over the rock-opener's hands and body once the "inside's" pressure is relieved. -To lift the cork from rock, the uncovering of rock -from cork, the uncovering of rock in its proper sequence - -102 -On Wit - -of letters, shows what froth letters, taken in the broad -sense of wit or the German Witz uncovers as well. Wit, the -joke, the unexpected discovery of a relation, is a "dissolution of spiritual substances which consequently, before the -sudden separation, must have been most intimately intermingled." The quote is from Friedrich Schlegel, the man -who said he wrote in fragments because he thought himself -a fragment. This pervasiveness of wit could take place in -milieus where champagne bottles are uncorked in all the -possible refractions that the fragment "cork" allows. Again -Schlegel writes, "Good definitions cannot be made offhand, but ought to occur to us spontancously. A definition, which is not witty is worth nothing, and for every individual there is an infinite number of real defintions." -("Eine Definition, die nicht witzig ist, taugt nichts.") To -define experience needs wit, or rather Wissen needs Witz, -where knowledge and wit are practically puns in the German. The correlation has wit as its more perfect expression, -since a play at the level of the letter is involved, or more -broadly, since the form of an idea is under play, a form -that makes for a new idea, at best a truer idea, a new definition. - -For every form there's a foam, upsetting the form just -as the form is about to restrain a heterogencous foam. -Champagne, lava, oil, the unconscious are all sheathed by -something that prevents the spillover: a cork/rock, a mantel of earth, a rind, the ego. Chaos is found in a bottle, but -the manuscript never ceases foaming. To joke is to let spill -the foam when in every joke we spell everything differently. I'll spill the proper spelling just as I'll form the foam -when 1 decide to unrock the champagne bottle. As Schlegel observes, "Imagination must first be filled to the point - -103 -THE AGE OF OIL +To lift the \e{cork} from \e{rock}, the uncovering of \e{rock} from \e{cork}, the uncovering of \e{rock} in its proper sequence of letters, shows what froth letters, taken in the broad sense of wit or the German \e{Witz} uncovers as well. Wit, the joke, the unexpected discovery of a relation, is a "dissolution of spiritual substances which consequently, before the sudden separation, must have been most intimately intermingled." The quote is from Friedrich Schlegel, the man who said he wrote in fragments because he thought himself a fragment. This pervasiveness of wit could take place in milieus where champagne bottles are uncorked in all the possible refractions that the fragment "cork" allows. Again Schlegel writes, "Good definitions cannot be made offhand, but ought to occur to us spontancously. A definition, which is not witty is worth nothing, and for every individual there is an infinite number of real defintions." ("\e{Eine Definition, die nicht witzig ist, taugt nichts.}") To define experience needs wit, or rather \e{Wissen} needs \e{Witz}, where knowledge and wit are practically puns in the German. The correlation has wit as its more perfect expression, since a play at the level of the letter is involved, or more broadly, since the form of an idea is under play, a form that makes for a new idea, at best a truer idea, a new definition. -of saturation with life of every kind before the moment arrives when the friction of free sociability electrifies it to -such an extent that the most gentle stimulus of friendly or -hostile contact elicits from it lightning sparks, luminous -flashes, or shattering blows." - -And if the unpopping of a cork into that of rock elicits -laughter, that laughter only confirms the very foam that is -released after such an unpopping, uncorking, unrocking. -Freud, in his Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, -discussed laughter that issues from the joke or witticism -(Witz). He states "the discharge of an inhibitory cathexis is -similarly increased by the height of the damming up." -Laughter can only be the result of a discharge of an energetic barrier, the inhibitory cathexis or, in this instance, -the socially maintained restriction against allowing cork to -be rock, a repression of recombining letters which would -introduce an unwanted chaos in social discourse. Wit relieves us of rational constraints while laughter signals that -relief, its discharge being made from ideas and associations -formerly held under, again, by the cork that resists the -foaming over into that of rock. - -104 -Reflections on Rhetoric in Bars - -While I was explaining to a friend the difference between -sign and referent at the closing time of a bar, a portly gentleman, the bar's bouncer, was telling everyone to leave the -premises. | continued to claborate that all language is -bound to an extralinguistic event, a thing, a referent, despite the fat man's edict. The man persisted, "Gentlemen, -please leave this area."" My friend gradually became aware -of language always aligned to a referent. He made a joke, -"Jike a referee." At that point the bouncer loomed ominously over us. We immediately broke out laughing. Of -course the bouncer was the referee, his command meant -precisely what we were supposed to do, just as language -with its signs are bound to referents, "referents" a pun on -"reference." A referent, by our wit at that moment, became -the "referec" of language. "Gentleman, you have to go." -We resisted when someone exclaimed "reverend." When we -did leave, fulfilling the referent of his command, our convulsions grew in intensity. Any further wordplay on our -parts had to cease since the bar was about to close. We had -to "leave," we had to obey the referent of leaving just as -we had to obey the referee. To make "referent" into "referee" meant we were releasing "referent" from its standard, - -105 -THE AGE OF OIL +For every form there's a foam, upsetting the form just as the form is about to restrain a heterogencous foam. Champagne, lava, oil, the unconscious are all sheathed by something that prevents the spillover: a cork/rock, a mantel of earth, a rind, the ego. Chaos is found in a bottle, but the manuscript never ceases foaming. To joke is to let spill the foam when in every joke we spell everything differently. I'll spill the proper spelling just as I'll form the foam when I decide to unrock the champagne bottle. As Schlegel observes, "Imagination must first be filled to the point of saturation with life of every kind before the moment arrives when the friction of free sociability electrifies it to such an extent that the most gentle stimulus of friendly or hostile contact elicits from it lightning sparks, luminous flashes, or shattering blows." -denotative value. But again the empirical reality of the -bouncer, the referee, still referred us to the exit. With our -wordplay at an end, my friend at least knew the inescapable unity of sign and referent despite the dream that -language could take flight into better wit once freed -from the edicts of referces and referents, impossible and -futile as that hope may sound. The answer to all this constriction was to hang out at an after hours bar. - -The bar we decided to visit had lots of dancing going -on. I recalled those famous lines of Yeats: "O body -swayed to music, O brightening glance,/How can we know -the dancer from the dance?" Part of the last line has become a title to a "gay" novel by Andrew Holleran. Just as -I was demonstrated earlier by the incident with the referee, -the poem, too, asserts, "How can we know the difference -between a sign and a referent?" While dancing at this gay -club, 1 asked my friend whether we can know the dancers -from Dancer from the Dance. How can we make a distinction between the men who are dancing and the men who -embody the "dancers" described within Dancer from the -Dance? - -Gay people are implicated in this rhetorical play. They -might call themselves "gay " but by so doing they fall prey -to referential, denotative straightjacketing. Gay culture -prides itself on its irony, its exuberant "lying," hence making the designation -a rhetorical play, an ironic figure. To make homosexuality - -gay" or "homosexual" a possible lie, - -into a referent, as does "gay liberation," seems false in -terms of the idea of a "gay sensibility" with its ironic and -aesthetic trademarks. - -Yet gay people, despite their irony, are always implicated in the referent, quite obviously by virtue of what "gay" - -106 -Reflections on Rhetoric in Bars - -refers to, a sexual object choice. Gay liberationists know -that homosexuals still resist the designation simply because -when it comes to getting a job or entering a foreign country such "lying" is necessary. Gay people will never be able -to surmount the problem of what "gay" means, its referentiality always made abyssal by the possibility that an -individual can say "I'm gay" and "I'm not gay." The first -step into gay oppression is to attribute reference to something that can always resist that reference. But for those -who feel that they are always "gay." the question of -reference is a simple and transparent thing, confirmed no -doubt by those who feel the referent of "straight™ or -"heterosexual" as simple and transparent. - -Docs gay liberation now mean that gays can no longer -lie about their sexuality? Does it mean that language henceforth will entirely consist of referents adequate to their -signs, intentions to their expressions, thoughts to their utterances? Does it mean the death of lie? No matter what - -happens, access to language is contingent on our capacity -to lie. Inasmuch as gay liberation desires gays to have the -courage to speak the truth, it will not be able to control -those situations where a lie will preserve life and livelihood. -Why should one be a referee of one's sexuality if there's -the possibility that honesty could cause onc's death? As -long at there is oppression and adverse legislation, gays will -be forced to lic. From the referent "gay" to the figure, lic -or ironic posture of "straightness" is the oscillation a "gay" -still endures. - -Someone came up to me and said, "Let's dance." I -hesitated, but eventually gave up thinking about whether -to or not. Dancing made any deliberation stupid and worthless. - -107 -THE AGE OF OIL +And if the unpopping of a cork into that of rock elicits laughter, that laughter only confirms the very foam that is released after such an unpopping, uncorking, unrocking. Freud, in his \booktitle{Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious}, discussed laughter that issues from the joke or witticism (\e{Witz}). He states "the discharge of an inhibitory cathexis is similarly increased by the height of the damming up." Laughter can only be the result of a discharge of an energetic barrier, the inhibitory cathexis or, in this instance, the socially maintained restriction against allowing cork to be rock, a repression of recombining letters which would introduce an unwanted chaos in social discourse. Wit relieves us of rational constraints while laughter signals that relief, its discharge being made from ideas and associations formerly held under, again, by the cork that resists the foaming over into that of rock. -Either you dance or you don't. When you dance you -resolve the tension in the statement, by this time a performative, since the words convey an action about to take -place. Not to dance, "No thank you," resolves another -tension, since no one has to do what others feel compelled -to do. In other words, "Let's dance™ is an utterance that -eventually becomes an action, the dancing. "Let's dance" -is explicitly performative while its uttering is often just a -statement and not necessarily implicated in its realization. - -Yet to dance, after such deliberation, resolves the impasse created by the statement considered as mere statement. The performative eventually gains the upper hand -since such deliberation is by now busy with what else to -do besides dancing, the "no thank you preoccupied with -the question of entertaining oneself with another drink, a -conversation, etc. Deliberation is just as much an activity -as dancing, dancing the metaphor for action, an action that -embodies all action. Deliberation, hesitating, fretting, and -so forth, are all actions, a "dance" despite its relative mo -tionlessness and interior reflection. - -To dance is to confess to the usclessness of thinking -about acting at all. Dancing resolves any thinking of performing something that is not dancing, that nondancing -action still a performance, a dancing. The only thing to do -is to dance since a nondancing dance will take place elsewhere. Why perform a nonperformance since the nonperformance is still a performance, still a dance in its nondance? The ccstatic moment in dancing is the release felt -in understanding this paradox, an affirmation of the failure -to do anything else since it embraces these moments attributed to be motionless, inactive, nonperformative, dancing -the discovery that nothing is exempt from dancing. - -108 -Reflections on Rhetoric in Bars - -Dancing next to one who has asked your hand will -take place, eventually, after seconds or longer intervals, -simply because to do or to dance is always at the heart of -to be or not to dance. Dance, please, otherwise vou will affirm the error that there is no dancing taking place, a falsehood. Yet without the * -request, there would be no dance. One can perform a "No -thank you" and let that be the "dance." On more abstract -terms, there is no idea without its act, just as there cannot -be an act without the idea that allows the act to take place. -Words can never be a substitute for actions nor can actions -substitute for words since activity is always intermeshed -with language. - -To say, "Let's dance' is a lic since a nondancing dancing is always taking place. "But I'm already dancing, even -though I'm just standing and not moving." Yet it is not the -commonplace idea of dancing. So you shall dance, shall do -something, but that doing is shaped by an idea of what -that doing should be. Should I dance expressively, touch -my partner, raise my arms, or move very little? Thus this -doing becomes embellished by the figure one cuts, dancing -now embodying its own expressive, rhetorical figures. -From initial statement (figure) to activity (performative) -to statement (figure) again: the dancer's "statcment" a figure of their dancing, their expressiveness. - -Dancing condenses the aporia between figure and performance. It celebrates the failure of the two achieving unity. "Let's dance" could sill be taken at the level of a mere -turn of speech, a "igure, while at once revealing the nhrase's -failure to re .ain as mere utterance, the speech that "turns' -or "ct . a figure." Once dancing, as it alway. does, one is -not just dancing, one is dancing in any number of styles, - -stationary" partner making the - -109 -THE AGE OF OIL +\chap Reflections on Rhetoric in Bars -gestures, positions, the embellishments upon the action of -dancing, reproducing the action with its "turns" or "figures." - -The person who asked me to dance had an interest in -myself, but I had no desire for an amorous affiliation with -him. I still felt that he was attractive and courteous and -that maybe a good conversation would convince me to -spend further time with him. Yet I dared not make any -avowal of affection that would give him a false impression -of my feelings at that moment. His reticence attracted me -since he wasn't overtly sexual or too demanding of my -companionship. He was above all friendly and, like myself, -intent on forgetting the vulgarity of our sexual passion at -the expense of some knowledge as to what we both believed in, thought about, and so forth. - -I, by this point, grew anxious at the prospect of spending the evening with him. Certainly he was pleasant and attractive, but I was not in the mood for his companionship, -no matter how agreeable he was. I thought that I was being -terribly cold and insensitive to his gentleness, even his sin -cere passion. I have turned away far too many people who -could be emotionally rewarding. I was attracted to more -impossible desires that evening. - -By this point 1 thought over the nature of love. I -thought that love could happen at any time, right now, here -in this club with this sincere man. I thought how wonderful -it would be if only I made a reciprocating gesture, if only I -acted on what I really wanted. But I did not. I did not act. -I could have danced longer with him, looked into his eyes -more, touched him more, but I did none of that. Not that -he was offended, he probably knew that my feelings were -elsewhere, or that I was really cold and impregnable. - -110 -Reflections on Rhetoric in Bars - -By this time I realized that love between two people is -based on deciding that person is their love. With love the -more prominent idea, since it is essentially a summa of figures, the beloved becomes the one to whom these figures -can be given their performance. The figure of love, the -fantasy, is now disfigured by the counterpart. To love is -to perform its figure, an endless task since the figure palls -before the action when "love" performs itself. Loving -someone is terrifying when up againt the vaster illusion of -love. Love performs its avowal by saying "I love you," the -sentiment an irrevocable event by utterance of those fateful words. - -How often I have wanted to avow my love to someone -but was too cowardly to say so. How often have I had my -chance, how often have 1 failed to gesture. Yet love, despite its illusionary character, cannot happen without the -performance of its illusion. If the illusion exceeds the performance, then another performance will contest the illusion. Love as illusionary figure always disfigures its idea in - -the trials of enacting its figure. At any moment "love'" can -be performed, so why not now? Yet at any moment -"love" can be understood for its illusion, since the counterpart cannot completely embody the illusion. - -Surely one encounters companions who do embody -one's illusion, but there is always an element that coerces -(*"Reality") and thus cannot support a hallucination (*"Fantasy"). Facing solitude as opposed to companionship is a -hard alternative, but one cannot relinquish the illusion or -the figure since it is the only basis from which one can love. -"Give it a try" does not work because the counterpart will -not quite affirm the illusion in the first place. However, -the illusion is only proved when one has "given it a try," - -111 -THE AGE OF OIL +While I was explaining to a friend the difference between sign and referent at the closing time of a bar, a portly gentleman, the bar's bouncer, was telling everyone to leave the premises. I continued to elaborate that all language is bound to an extralinguistic event, a thing, a referent, despite the fat man's edict. The man persisted, "Gentlemen, please leave this area." My friend gradually became aware of language always aligned to a referent. He made a joke, "Jike a referee." At that point the bouncer loomed ominously over us. We immediately broke out laughing. Of course the bouncer was the referee, his command meant precisely what we were supposed to do, just as language with its signs are bound to referents, "referents" a pun on "reference." A referent, by our wit at that moment, became the "referee" of language. "Gentleman, you have to go." We resisted when someone exclaimed "reverend." When we did leave, fulfilling the referent of his command, our convulsions grew in intensity. Any further wordplay on our parts had to cease since the bar was about to close. We had to "leave," we had to obey the referent of leaving just as we had to obey the referee. To make "referent" into "referee" meant we were releasing "referent" from its standard, denotative value. But again the empirical reality of the bouncer, the referee, still referred us to the exit. With our wordplay at an end, my friend at least knew the inescapable unity of sign and referent despite the dream that language could take flight into better wit once freed from the edicts of referces and referents, impossible and futile as that hope may sound. The answer to all this constriction was to hang out at an after hours bar. -something I did not do that evening, much to my bemused -regret. - -I took a taxi home, cheered by my refusal to disfigure -my illusion but unsettled by my failure to act. My refusal, -though, was an action, such an action never giving me the -chance to find out how worthwhile is my illusion. If only I -had a referent for the figure of my illusion! All I can do is -read the signs along the way. The moment when two eyes -meet their field of vision, before tremendous distances, testifies to pages unfolded, doors slammed shut. Who else -now reads my love? -Calling All Cars +The bar we decided to visit had lots of dancing going on. I recalled those famous lines of Yeats: "O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,/How can we know the dancer from the dance?" Part of the last line has become a title to a "gay" novel by Andrew Holleran. Just as I was demonstrated earlier by the incident with the referee, the poem, too, asserts, "How can we know the difference between a sign and a referent?" While dancing at this gay club, I asked my friend whether we can know the dancers from \booktitle{Dancer from the Dance}. How can we make a distinction between the men who are dancing and the men who embody the "dancers" described within \booktitle{Dancer from the Dance}? -You clinking, clanking, clattering -collection of caliginous junk ! ---- The Wizard of Oz - -No one living nowadays can avoid the pervasiveness of the -car. No one can qualify their existence as independent of -its influence or control. No one can exist without a car in -certain parts of the world. No young adult in public -schools can avoid some sort of driver education. Questioning the automobile is tantamount to ablasphemy. I probably owe this discussion to my failure to obtain a Driver's License. All that's left are the reveries of someone confined -to the back seat. - -Before | begin the discussion, I must ask the simple -question, what is a car? Certainly we have seen one, been -driven in one or drove one, but where is it and what does it -do? I have a definite mental image of one: large, metallic, -equipped with tires, windows, doors, fenders, headlights, -ctc. | have been driven in one, sat in its seats, closed its -doors, buckled seatbelts, looked out its windows, and for -the few occasions when I actually drove the car, I placed -foot upon gas and brake pedal, turned the steering wheel, -and attempted parking. In sum I have had the usual repertoire of experiences associated with the literal nature of -the car, its concrete, physical aspect. But something tells -me that this description is not enough, that there is more - -113 -THE AGE OF OIL +Gay people are implicated in this rhetorical play. They might call themselves "gay " but by so doing they fall prey to referential, denotative \e{straight}jacketing. Gay culture prides itself on its irony, its exuberant "lying," hence making the designation a rhetorical play, an ironic figure. To make homosexuality gay" or "homosexual" a possible lie, into a referent, as does "gay liberation," seems false in terms of the idea of a "gay sensibility" with its ironic and aesthetic trademarks. -in the nature of the car that begs discussion, - -The car is not an object, it is nowhere because it is -everywhere. Its pervasiveness is such that one cannot delimit a car into the simple referent of a physical object outside the margins of this text. While writing this I hear them -outside my window. I may have taken a taxi to my apartment the evening before and am now in the position to -compose this essay on the automobile. My electric typewriter resembles the dashboard of a car. While I sit 1 operate a steering wheel or keyboard and the tire or element -moves across the road or page. Am 1 saying that typing is -simply a variant of driving? Can the pervasiveness of the -car allow me to identify a seemingly incompatible experience with this act of writing when to write always already -embeds tire within it? Wricing is driving, and both have a -path upon which they burn their rubber, their ink, as does -consciousness with its neuronal incisions or Bahnungen (in -Freud's language) when they impress a path or Bahn within the Book that receives everything. "Everything exists to -end in a book," so said Mallarme', for even the car is a simple variant of that mysterious stylus that includes all of life -into its operation. So where is the CAR now, where can we -say exists the CAR, all its letters by now worthy of the allegorical majescule that perpetually burns, brands, incises, -frays, skids, writes into our Twenticth Century brains? - -The celebration of the CAR takes place with the magical invocation of its name, an invocation sung day-to-day, -year by year by every citizen of the country that has the -CAR embedded in its name, America, Americas love their -cars once we notice how similar the French verb aimer (to -love) is to Aimerica. We could then yield the anagram -Aimer ¢a, translated as to love it. To love the car? To love - -114 -Calling All Cars +Yet gay people, despite their irony, are always implicated in the referent, quite obviously by virtue of what "gay" refers to, a sexual object choice. Gay liberationists know that homosexuals still resist the designation simply because when it comes to getting a job or entering a foreign country such "lying" is necessary. Gay people will never be able to surmount the problem of what "gay" means, its referentiality always made abyssal by the possibility that an individual can say "I'm gay" and "I'm not gay." The first step into gay oppression is to attribute reference to something that can always resist that reference. But for those who feel that they are always "gay." the question of reference is a simple and transparent thing, confirmed no doubt by those who feel the referent of "straight" or "heterosexual" as simple and transparent. -the car appears to be what America loves the most, unless -something else is loved. The French use it or ¢a for the Id -or Unconscious whereas Americans have been using car for -its Unconscious. "It" always drives away from the very -CAR it was ignited from, perhaps down "The American -Road," the address of the Ford Motor Company. - -We love the CAR and that "it" whose letters drive into -the constellation of The Eye, The Road and The Door. -Its C speaks See. Its A speaks Road whose disappearance -into the horizon resembles A's pointed tip. And its R -speaks Door whose diagonal stroke mimics the caR dooR -when it opens, at that point diagonal to the caR. The CAR -does all of this, for its driving implicates 1) seeing, 2) the -road upon which it travels and 3) the door that facilitates -entrance. The Eye, the Road and the Door are the buried -figures within the interiors of any CAR, those letters a -locked and secret trunk the CAR has up to now concealed. -But other bodies are buried in the CAR, bodies that are -merely letters, for the C can always become a CH, G, J, K, -Qu and X. A can always become another vowel, as in the -paradigm A, E, I, O, U and occasionally Y. R can become -L, since the two are "liquids," consonants that behave almost like vowels. Anything that partakes of this respelling, -this anagrammatic reshuffling, utters the CAR, however far -it has driven from its source. The buried respelling of CAR -within words is called the anagrammatic cryptophor. Now -and then an italicization will serve as reminder of its insidious effractions.* - -The human body is never composed of metal, but the -love of cars in our culture stipulates that flesh be as - -*See "PERMUTATIONS" at the end of this essay. - -115 -THE AGE OF OIL +Docs gay liberation now mean that gays can no longer lie about their sexuality? Does it mean that language henceforth will entirely consist of referents adequate to their signs, intentions to their expressions, thoughts to their utterances? Does it mean the death of lie? No matter what happens, access to language is contingent on our capacity to lie. Inasmuch as gay liberation desires gays to have the courage to speak the truth, it will not be able to control those situations where a lie will preserve life and livelihood. Why should one be a referee of one's sexuality if there's the possibility that honesty could cause one's death? As long at there is oppression and adverse legislation, gays will be forced to lie. From the referent "gay" to the figure, lie or ironic posture of "straightness" is the oscillation a "gay" still endures. -efficient as its metalled counterpart, the CAR. The Latin -caro for flesh opposes the English car for metal. Our self, -our autos, has the auto as its standard or ideal, along with -the CAR-spelling as a determination of our ego in its perfection of carhood. America proves the desire for carhood -when it respells into i am e car. When our names echo the -CAR, as in the names Carol, Cary, Carlos, Carleton, Cara, -Oscar, Carmen, Carl, Carveth, Carlo, Caren, and so forth, -we may find ourselves behaving in ways that suit the properties of the cars we may or may not drive. Our autos or -self may like to work hard, go far, excel, persist, drive hard -bargains, and even if we don't evidence such behavior, the -car-ideal will prove the most amazing mimcries or commit -us to its sleight of hand. - -_Carol or Caren are not the only ones who evidence the -CAR buried within the name, but Richard, George, Celia, -Marcel, Spencer, Michael, Charlotte, Charles, Craig, Rachel, -Corey, Cheryl as well. (George, Marcel, Craig and Rachel -have another repetition of CAR in their names as italicized -on other letters.) The CAR drives its tires everywhere and -leaves the most indelible tracks behind. But who are those -who have those names and what do they do that would -directly attribute the characteristics of CAR within their -careers? - -Billy Wilder's masterpiece, Sunset Boulevard, has Max, -the chauffeur, say to Joe Gillis, Norma Desmond's lover, -"It's not Madame they want. It's her car they want to -rent."" He says this when "Madame" is visiting Paramount -studios with the hope of starring in a "return" to the -cinema under the aegis of Cecil B. DeMille. She erroneously supposes that the calls from Paramount Studios were for -her, but they were for her Isotta Fraschini, her antique - -116 -Calling All Cars +Someone came up to me and said, "Let's dance." I hesitated, but eventually gave up thinking about whether to or not. Dancing made any deliberation stupid and worthless. -handmade automobile that cost her $28,000. It is the -car, not Norma Desmond that the studio wanted. - -This film then states that movie stars are cars and if -they no longer are young, beautiful, box office potential, -the car will thus assume its ideal up against the disfigured -star, the car whose smooth running and impeccably shiny -surface prove to be more dependable than a corruptable, -ageing human being, a Norma Desmond. Thus the movie -star has to be a car, the movie star has to be as smooth and -shiny as the car they often act in. When they get older, -they may get surgery to crase the indicia of time, just as -cars, when they get older, may get custom work done to -erase the dents they're subject to. The star/human being -grows scars, while cars grow more delapidated too. - -And what do stars or cars travel down? They drive -down films or roads, the title Sunset Boulevard equivalent -to the road Sunset Boulevard. The allegory is now complete: Stars are Cars that Act or Drive down Films or -Roads. - -At this moment the CAR drives into the picture. Every -star, now subject to the metaphoric transfer into that of -car (the driving into car), must in some way or another -mimic the very thing they are inexorably compared with, a -car, and that mimicry, springing from letters incised by invisible tires, speaks the CAR, the magical invocation of Hollywood publicity departments when they, like automatic -writing, concoct pseudonyms. Certainly if the emerging -star has a Carol or Charles in their original names, then the -studio producer won't be so worried, but if their names -veer too far from the CAR combination and all its bypaths, -a suitable name will have to emerge. The simplest series, the -original order for CAR, has produced the following star/ - -117 -THE AGE OF OIL +Either you dance or you don't. When you dance you resolve the tension in the statement, by this time a performative, since the words convey an action about to take place. Not to dance, "No thank you," resolves another tension, since no one has to do what others feel compelled to do. In other words, "Let's dance" is an utterance that eventually becomes an action, the dancing. "Let's dance" is explicitly performative while its uttering is often just a statement and not necessarily implicated in its realization. -cars: Carroll Baker, Claudia Cardinale, Kitty Carlisle, Art -Carney, Leslie Caron, Leo G. Carroll, Johnny Carson, Carolyn Jones, Ricardo Montalban, Carl Reiner, Brenda Vaccaro, Carol Burnett, George Carlin, Keith Carradine, Carl -Betz, Linda Carter, and so forth. (Carroll Baker, Claudia -Cardinale and George Carlin all have another echo of CAR.) -The series can angulate into GAR as with the following: -Greta Garbo (a cryptophor for "car beau" or "beautiful -car"), Ann-Margaret, Dirk Bogarde, Humphrey Bogart, -Gary Cooper, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland, Greer Garson, -Margaret Hamilton, Gary Merrill, Art Garfunkel, Garrett -Morris, Gary Lockwood, Samantha Eggar, Edgar Bergen, -etc. (Greta Garbo, Ann-Margaret, Dirk Bogarde, Greer -Garson, Gary Lockwood and Edgar Bergen embed other -echoes of CAR.) The ever-permuting series, as unpredictable as Alban Berg's discovery of tonal relationships in the -course of composing twelve-tone rows, stammers KER: -Carroll Baker, Deborah Kerr (pronounced "car"), Forrest -Tucker, Robert Walker (this transfer does not permit him -to "walk," but only to "'drive") Keir Dullea (diphthongs -are permissible), Dan Blocker, Bob Barker, etc. Less obvious permutations are possible, as is the case with KLE: -Henry Winkler, Art Linkletter, Don Rickles, Schnecklegruber, Hal Buckley. (Schnecklegruber has another echo.) -Even the combination LUG produces some surprises: Bela -Lugosi and Jack Klugman (also Klugman). QUEL gives us: -Jacqueline Bisset, Raquel Welch (also Welch), Jacqueline -Susanne (Valley of the Dolls), and if this person isn't a celebrity, Jacqueline Kennedy/Jackie Onassis, what are all the -others then? John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Richard Nixon, -Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan all support my argument for the CAR as America's supreme - -118 -Calling All Cars +Yet to dance, after such deliberation, resolves the impasse created by the statement considered as mere statement. The performative eventually gains the upper hand since such deliberation is by now busy with what else to do besides dancing, the "no thank you" preoccupied with the question of entertaining oneself with another drink, a conversation, etc. Deliberation is just as much an activity as dancing, dancing the metaphor for action, an action that embodies all action. Deliberation, hesitating, fretting, and so forth, are all actions, a "dance" despite its relative mo tionlessness and interior reflection. -pleasure-word. - -This argument for a relation between name and thing -goes back to Plato's Cratylus where Cratylus asserts to -Hermogenes that there is a "natural fitness of names." -(Socrates actually said this, but it's Cratylus's argument.) -Hermogenes's name would not be naturally his since he -only believes in convention and its arbitrary character yet -Hermogenes evokes Hermes, the god who deals with -speech, that messenger, thief, liar or bargainer, the interpreter (hermeneus). The CAR in a star's name (its thyme with -star another example of the motivation) asserts this ancient -debate between the name and the thing it embraces. If -stars are to behave like cars as they act or drive down films -or roads, then that CAR ineluctably enters into the construction of their names, an activity that is also found in -the denomination of cars: Cougar, Mercury (also Mercury, -like the god that drives his messages everywhere), Chrysler, -Mercedes, Volkswagen, Cadillac, Toyota Corolla, Rolls -Royce, Lynx (a perfect name for a car, simply because the -condensation is so economical, only four letters, three of -which are echoes of CAR: I/r, y/a, x/c). - -The offramps of a highway are also the places where -the -CAR can drive its letters, or rather, there are metonyms of the car that enter into stars' names, objects that -are contiguous with the car. There are also variant names -of the car (wagon, van, Ford, Olds). The car's brand name -may not necessarily have to have CAR buried within it, -but it is sufficiently recognizable to give us the following -series: Joan Crawford, Glenn Ford, Peter Lawford, Mary -Pickford, Ann Rutherford, Harrison Ford, as well as the -Fondas, whose n can be truncated and produce the following: Henry Forda, Jane Forda, Peter Forda. Another auto - -119 -THE AGE OF OIL +To dance is to confess to the usclessness of thinking about acting at all. Dancing resolves any thinking of performing something that is not dancing, that nondancing action still a performance, a dancing. The only thing to do is to dance since a nondancing dance will take place elsewhere. Why perform a nonperformance since the nonperformance is still a performance, still a dance in its nondance? The ecstatic moment in dancing is the release felt in understanding this paradox, an affirmation of the failure to do anything else since it embraces these moments attributed to be motionless, inactive, nonperformative, dancing the discovery that nothing is exempt from dancing. -company, General Motors, bears the "body by Fisher" emblem. Was it responsible for the careers of Eddie Fisher or -Carrie Fisher? An "Olds" abbreviates Oldsmobile and thus -yields: Burt Reynolds, Debbie Reynolds or Marjorie Reynolds. Other brand names register Chevy Chase (Chevrolet -or Chevy), Royce Wallace (Rolls Royce), while types of -vehicles register Martin Landau, Peter Lorre (for lorry), -Burt Convy (for convoy) and then there's also parts of the -car that register Richard Gere (gear) or Patricia Brake. Rex -Harrison starred in commercials for the car Volare. What's -odd is that Rex is a homonym for wrecks, something no -star or car should be subject to. The car's motions (to drive, -to park, to turn) yield the following: Robert Drivas, Burt -Parks, Michael Parks, Fess Parker and Lana Turner. The -van or wagon gives further credence to Cratylus's argument: -Lindsay Wagner, Robert Wagner, Lyle Waggoner, Porter -Wagoner, Jo Van Fleet (the Fleet visualizing a fleet of vans), -Van Johnson, Dick Van Dyke, Van Heflin, Dick Van Patten, Jo Van Ark (her Ark a perfect permutation of CAR), -Billy Van, Vivian Vance, and on and on. Those ramps, -exits, streets, roads, ways, paths, the general surface upon -which the "literal" tire writes itself (notice the tire in literal), writes out 1) lane: Burt Lancaster, Priscilla Lane, Hope -Lange, Angela Lansbury, Shirley MacLaine, Sara Lane, -Charles Lane; 2) road: Barbara Rhoades, Harry Rhodes, -Michael Road, Rhodes Reason; 3) rue (Fr. road): Jack La -Rue, Cash La Rue; 4) strada (It. street): Erik Estrada; 5) -street: Sidney Greenstreet; 6) way: Faye Dunaway, John -Wayne, Jeff Conway, Gary Conway, Wayne Conway, Mae -West/IWae West/IWay West (the M is inverted); and 6) miles: -Sarah Miles, Ray Milland, Ann Miller. Even the tire findsits -tracks in John Maclntire, Jaime Tirelli, or Macintyre Dixon - -120 -Calling All Cars +Dancing next to one who has asked your hand will take place, eventually, after seconds or longer intervals, simply because \e{to do} or \e{to dance} is always at the heart of \e{to be} or \e{not to dance}. Dance, please, otherwise vou will affirm the error that there is no dancing taking place, a falsehood. Yet without the "stationary" partner making the request, there would be no dance. One can perform a "No thank you" and let that be the "dance." On more abstract terms, there is no idea without its act, just as there cannot be an act without the idea that allows the act to take place. Words can never be a substitute for actions nor can actions substitute for words since activity is always intermeshed with language. -while its anagrammatization seeps into Fred Astaire, Marlene Dietrich Thelma Ritter, Barbra Streisand (for someone -as addicted to producing "tire tracks" or *"'grooves," such a -name seems perfect with the "natural fitness of names"), -Shelley Winters, John Ritter, and tire's extensions into: -Patricia Wheel, Mark Wheeler, Eddie Firestone and the improbable conjunction of the Ernie Flatt Dancers. Every car -has to burn oil and so do stars, as do George Burns, Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, Mike Burns, Gene Rayburn, Carol Burnett, whereas the bur in burn is echoed in -Billie Burke, Ellen Burstyn, Richard Burton and the burning of a pyre in Richard Pryor/Pyror. Oil helps that burning -and so its anagrams help the careers of the following celebrities (there's a Chevrolet model called the "'Celebrity™): -Louis Armstrong, Louise Brooks, Gloria De Haven, Gloria -Swanson (Gloria is an anagram for oil rag), Olivia De Haviland (via oil for Olivia), Goldie Hawn, Laurence Olivier. -These tires carve the strangest incisions and skid down all -sorts of detours and out-of-the-way trails. - -Perusing my Great American Movie Book, which lists -over 1,500 performers, I found many names of drivers, -chauffeurs and the like with the CAR embedded in their -names. These people are the true actors since they fulfill -the allegorical function so well, they act and drive down -films or roads. The drivers are as follows: Francis Ford (In -Old Chicago), Jerry Lewis (a "'mad driver" in [t's a Mad, -Mad, Mad, Mad World). Billy Curtis (My Gal Sal, a midget -driver), Sol Gorss and Charles Sullivan (They Drive by -Night), Max Wagner (echoing wagon, again They Drive by -Night), Ford Dunhill (Viva Las Vegas), John Pikard (Wake -of the Red Witch). The taxi drivers, more numerous, have -not had the privilege of Robert de Niro, and unlike him - -121 -THE AGE OF OIL +To say, "Let's dance" is a lie since a nondancing dancing is always taking place. "But I'm already dancing, even though I'm just standing and not moving." Yet it is not the commonplace idea of dancing. So you shall dance, shall do something, but that doing is shaped by an idea of what that doing should be. Should I dance expressively, touch my partner, raise my arms, or move very little? Thus this doing becomes embellished by the figure one cuts, dancing now embodying its own expressive, rhetorical figures. From initial statement (figure) to activity (performative) to statement (figure) again: the dancer's "statement" a figure of their dancing, their expressiveness. -oftentimes cryptically embed CAR in their names: Dick -Crockett (Breakfast at Tiffany's), Donald Kerr (Detective -Story), George Davis (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), Kit -Guard (Here Come the Waves), Peter Falk and Leo Gorey -(It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World), Jack Carr (The More -the Merrier), Lloyd Ingraham (Mr. Lucky), Arch Johnson -(Niagara), Mushy Callahan (The Nutty Professor), George -Davis (One Hour With You), George Chandler (Since You -Went Away), Charles Hall (Swing Time), Connie Gilchrist -(Thousands Cheer, two cryptophors, Gil and chri), Pedro -Regas (Waikiki Wedding, not to mention the gas at the end -of Regas), Garry Owen (Watch on the Rhine). Not as numerous as cab drivers, the chauffeurs go as follows: Reginald Farmer (Car Wash), Billy Wayne (Dangerous, the way -is significant), Bud Geary (Dead End, Gear is also identical -with the gearshift), Morgan Wallace (Grand Hotel), James -Cromwell (Murder by Death and his name was Marcel), -Charles La Torre (Three Coins in the Fountain), Creighton -Hale (Watch on the Rhine). There are several truck drivers: -Fred Graham (The Asphalt Jungle), Max Wagner (Black -Legion, echoing wagon), Charles Sullivan (Easy to Wed, -notice the van), Bobby McGriff (The Last Picture Show), -Boyd (Red) Morgan (Pillow Talk), Clegg Hoyt (That -Touch of Mink), Wayne Hazelhurst (Up in Smoke). Stage -drivers, so frequent in Westerns, still permute CAR even -though they drive more antique vehicles: CIiff Clark (Fort -Apache, also Clark), Bud McClure (Destry Rides Again), -Poodles Hanneford (San Antonio), Jennings Miles (how -many miles did he travel in Winchester '737). Motorcycle -cops, aptly eulogized in the TV series Chips, evoke CAR -despite their cycles being miniature versions of the former: -Tom Greenway (the echo of CAR and the crucial way in - -122 -Calling All Cars +Dancing condenses the aporia between figure and performance. It celebrates the failure of the two achieving unity. "Let's dance" could still be taken at the level of a mere turn of speech, a figure, while at once revealing the phrase's failure to remain as mere utterance, the speech that "turns" or "cuts a figure." Once dancing, as it always does, one is not just dancing, one is dancing in any number of styles, gestures, positions, the embellishments upon the action of dancing, reproducing the action with its "turns" or "figures." -How to Marry a Millionaire), Garry Owen (Notorious). -One bus driver, Charles Jordan (Cat People), and one ambulance driver, Fred Graham (No Way Out), are the only -other drivers in a vast repertoire of actors who must have -had to acquire drivers licenses to act in all those films or -roads. Incidentally, Erich von Stroheim, the chauffeur in -Sunset Boulevard, did not know how to drive, "which humiliated him" (Swanson on Swanson), so the Isotta Fraschini was pulled by "ropes the whole while." - -At times the Cratylitic limits traverse into the oddest -of conjunctions. Garret Morris stars as "Wheels™ in a TV -show called Roll Out, his acting a mimicry of his names? -In Cool Hand Luke, where the Cool and Luke both echo -the CAR, Clifton James is named "Carr."" The perfect -name for a star, according to this method of the anagrammatic cryptophor of CAR, is Clu Gallagher, since the Clu -echoes CAR, as well as Gal, as well as lag, as well as gher, -a repetition of CAR made four times within the entire sequence of letters of this proper name. Tea and Sympathy -stars Deborah Kerr and John Kerr. The one piece of visual -information 1 have from this film is both Kerr's in a tender -embrace. James Dean, a "car" if ever there was one (he was -fond of racing and died in a car crash), starred in East of -Eden and was called "Cal," a perfect respelling of CAR, | -being r's substitute. The drama was set in the state of California, land no doubt of many cars and stars. Jayne Mansfield's decapitation in a car accident represents a perfect allegory of cinema, all those "cropped" heads within the -frames of cameras had their grisly equivalent in her spectacular death, when always already CAR inhabits the -camera. - -Not wanting to swerve too far from our subject, the - -123 -THE AGE OF OIL +The person who asked me to dance had an interest in myself, but I had no desire for an amorous affiliation with him. I still felt that he was attractive and courteous and that maybe a good conversation would convince me to spend further time with him. Yet I dared not make any avowal of affection that would give him a false impression of my feelings at that moment. His reticence attracted me since he wasn't overtly sexual or too demanding of my companionship. He was above all friendly and, like myself, intent on forgetting the vulgarity of our sexual passion at the expense of some knowledge as to what we both believed in, thought about, and so forth. + +I, by this point, grew anxious at the prospect of spending the evening with him. Certainly he was pleasant and attractive, but I was not in the mood for his companionship, no matter how agreeable he was. I thought that I was being terribly cold and insensitive to his gentleness, even his sin cere passion. I have turned away far too many people who could be emotionally rewarding. I was attracted to more impossible desires that evening. + +By this point I thought over the nature of love. I thought that love could happen at any time, right now, here in this club with this sincere man. I thought how wonderful it would be if only I made a reciprocating gesture, if only I acted on what I really wanted. But I did not. I did not act. I could have danced longer with him, looked into his eyes more, touched him more, but I did none of that. Not that he was offended, he probably knew that my feelings were elsewhere, or that I was really cold and impregnable. + +By this time I realized that love between two people is based on deciding that person is their love. With love the more prominent idea, since it is essentially a summa of figures, the beloved becomes the one to whom these figures can be given their performance. The figure of love, the fantasy, is now disfigured by the counterpart. To love is to perform its figure, an endless task since the figure palls before the action when "love" performs itself. Loving someone is terrifying when up againt the vaster illusion of love. Love performs its avowal by saying "I love you," the sentiment an irrevocable event by utterance of those fateful words. + +How often I have wanted to avow my love to someone but was too cowardly to say so. How often have I had my chance, how often have I failed to gesture. Yet love, despite its illusionary character, cannot happen without the performance of its illusion. If the illusion exceeds the performance, then another performance will contest the illusion. Love as illusionary figure always disfigures its idea in the trials of enacting its figure. At any moment "love" can be performed, so why not now? Yet at any moment "love" can be understood for its illusion, since the counterpart cannot completely embody the illusion. + +Surely one encounters companions who do embody one's illusion, but there is always an element that coerces ("Reality") and thus cannot support a hallucination ("Fantasy"). Facing solitude as opposed to companionship is a hard alternative, but one cannot relinquish the illusion or the figure since it is the only basis from which one can love. "Give it a try" does not work because the counterpart will not quite affirm the illusion in the first place. However, the illusion is only proved when one has "given it a try," something I did not do that evening, much to my bemused regret. + +I took a taxi home, cheered by my refusal to disfigure my illusion but unsettled by my failure to act. My refusal, though, was an action, such an action never giving me the chance to find out how worthwhile is my illusion. If only I had a referent for the figure of my illusion! All I can do is read the signs along the way. The moment when two eyes meet their field of vision, before tremendous distances, testifies to pages unfolded, doors slammed shut. Who else now reads my love? + +\chap Calling All Cars + +{\typosize[9/] +{\it\noindent\hfil You clinking, clanking, clattering\hfil\nl +\hfil collection of caliginous junk!\hfil\nl} + +{\rightskip=0.2in \hfil --- The Wizard of Oz\par}} + +\vskip 1em + +No one living nowadays can avoid the pervasiveness of the car. No one can qualify their existence as independent of its influence or control. No one can exist without a car in certain parts of the world. No young adult in public schools can avoid some sort of driver education. Questioning the automobile is tantamount to ablasphemy. I probably owe this discussion to my failure to obtain a Driver's License. All that's left are the reveries of someone confined to the back seat. + +Before I begin the discussion, I must ask the simple question, what is a car? Certainly we have seen one, been driven in one or drove one, but where is it and what does it do? I have a definite mental image of one: large, metallic, equipped with tires, windows, doors, fenders, headlights, ctc. I have been driven in one, sat in its seats, closed its doors, buckled seatbelts, looked out its windows, and for the few occasions when I actually drove the car, I placed foot upon gas and brake pedal, turned the steering wheel, and attempted parking. In sum I have had the usual repertoire of experiences associated with the literal nature of the car, its concrete, physical aspect. But something tells me that this description is not enough, that there is more in the nature of the car that begs discussion, + +The car is not an object, it is nowhere because it is everywhere. Its pervasiveness is such that one cannot delimit a car into the simple referent of a physical object outside the margins of this text. While writing this I hear them outside my window. I may have taken a taxi to my apartment the evening before and am now in the position to compose this essay on the automobile. My electric typewriter resembles the dashboard of a car. While I sit I operate a steering wheel or keyboard and the tire or element moves across the road or page. Am I saying that typing is simply a variant of driving? Can the pervasiveness of the car allow me to identify a seemingly incompatible experience with this act of writing when to \e{write} always already embeds \e{tire} within it? Writing is driving, and both have a path upon which they burn their rubber, their ink, as does consciousness with its neuronal incisions or \e{Bahnungen} (in Freud's language) when they impress a path or \e{Bahn} within the Book that receives everything. "Everything exists to end in a book," so said Mallarm\'e, for even the car is a simple variant of that mysterious stylus that includes all of life into its operation. So where is the CAR now, where can we say exists the CAR, all its letters by now worthy of the allegorical majescule that perpetually burns, brands, incises, frays, skids, writes into our Twentieth Century brains? + +The celebration of the CAR takes place with the magical invocation of its name, an invocation sung day-to-day, year by year by every citizen of the country that has the CAR embedded in its name, America, Americas love their cars once we notice how similar the French verb \e{aimer} (to love) is to \e{Aimerica}. We could then yield the anagram \e{Aimer \c ca}, translated as to love it. To love the \e{car}? To love the car appears to be what America loves the most, unless something else is loved. The French use it or \c ca for the Id or Unconscious whereas Americans have been using car for its Unconscious. "It" always drives away from the very CAR it was ignited from, perhaps down "The American Road," the address of the Ford Motor Company. + +We love the CAR and that "it" whose letters drive into the constellation of \e{The Eye}, \e{The Road} and \e{The Door}. Its \e{C} speaks See. Its \e{A} speaks Road whose disappearance into the horizon resembles A's pointed tip. And its \e{R} speaks Door whose diagonal stroke mimics the caR dooR when it opens, at that point diagonal to the caR. The CAR does all of this, for its driving implicates 1) seeing, 2) the road upon which it travels and 3) the door that facilitates entrance. The Eye, the Road and the Door are the buried figures within the interiors of any CAR, those letters a locked and secret trunk the CAR has up to now concealed. But other bodies are buried in the CAR, bodies that are merely letters, for the C can always become a CH, G, J, K, Qu and X. A can always become another vowel, as in the paradigm A, E, I, O, U and occasionally Y. R can become L, since the two are "liquids," consonants that behave almost like vowels. Anything that partakes of this respelling, this anagrammatic reshuffling, utters the CAR, however far it has driven from its source. The buried respelling of CAR within words is called the anagrammatic cryptophor. Now and then an italicization will serve as reminder of its insidious eff\e{rac}tions.\fnote{See \sectiontitle{Permutations} at the end of this essay.} + +The human body is never composed of metal, but the love of cars in our \e{cul}ture stipulates that flesh be as efficient as its metalled counterpart, the CAR. The Latin \e{caro} for flesh opposes the English \e{car} for metal. Our self, our \e{autos}, has the auto as its standard or ideal, along with the CAR-spelling as a determination of our ego in its perfection of carhood. \e{America} proves the desire for carhood when it respells into \e{i am e car}. When our names echo the CAR, as in the names \e{Car}ol, \e{Car}y, \e{Car}los, \e{Car}leton, \e{Car}a, Os\e{car}, \e{Car}men, \e{Car}l, \e{Car}veth, \e{Car}lo, \e{Car}en, and so forth, we may find ourselves behaving in ways that suit the properties of the cars we may or may not drive. Our \e{autos} or self may like to work hard, go far, excel, persist, drive hard bargains, and even if we don't evidence such behavior, the car-ideal will prove the most amazing mimcries or commit us to its sleight of hand. + +\e{Car}ol or \e{Car}en are not the only ones who evidence the CAR buried within the name, but Ri\{char}d, \e{Geor}ge, \e{Cel}ia, Mar\e{cel}, Spen\e{cer}, Mi\e{chael}, \e{Char}lotte, \e{Char}les, \e{Cra}ig, \e{Rac}hel, \e{Cor}ey, \e{Cher}yl as well. (Ge\e{org}e, M\e{arc}el, C\e{raig} and Ra\e{chel} have another repetition of CAR in their names as italicized on other letters.) The CAR drives its tires everywhere and leaves the most indelible t\{rac}ks behind. But who are those who have those names and what do they do that would directly attribute the \e{char}acteristics of CAR within their \e{car}eers? + +Billy Wilder's masterpiece, \filmtitle{Sunset Boulevard}, has Max, the chauffeur, say to Joe Gillis, Norma Desmond's lover, "It's not Madame they want. It's her car they want to rent." He says this when "Madame" is visiting Paramount studios with the hope of starring in a "return" to the cinema under the aegis of Cecil B. DeMille. She erroneously supposes that the calls from Paramount Studios were for her, but they were for her Isotta Fraschini, her antique handmade automobile that cost her \$28,000. It is the car, not Norma Desmond that the studio wanted. + +This film then states that movie stars are cars and if they no longer are young, beautiful, box office potential, the car will thus assume its ideal up against the disfigured star, the car whose smooth running and impeccably shiny surface prove to be more dependable than a corruptable, ageing human being, a Norma Desmond. Thus the movie star has to be a car, the movie star has to be as smooth and shiny as the car they often act in. When they get older, they may get sur\e{ger}y to crase the indicia of time, just as cars, when they get older, may get custom work done to erase the dents they're subject to. The star/human being grows s\e{cars}, while \e{cars} grow more delapidated too. + +And what do stars or cars travel down? They drive down films or roads, the title \filmtitle{Sunset Boulevard} equivalent to the road Sunset Boulevard. The allegory is now complete: Stars are Cars that Act or Drive down Films or Roads. + +At this moment the CAR drives into the picture. Every star, now subject to the metaphoric transfer into that of car (the \e{driving} into car), must in some way or another mimic the very thing they are inexorably compared with, a car, and that mimi\e{cry}, springing from letters incised by invisible tires, speaks the CAR, the magical invocation of Hollywood publicity departments when they, like automatic writing, concoct pseudonyms. Certainly if the emerging star has a \e{Car}ol or \e{Char}les in their original names, then the studio produ\e{cer} won't be so worried, but if their names veer too far from the CAR combination and all its bypaths, a suitable name will have to em\e{erge}. The simplest series, the o\e{rig}inal order for CAR, has produced the following star/cars: \e{Car}roll Baker, Claudia \e{Car}dinale, Kitty \e{Car}lisle, Art \e{Car}ney, Leslie \e{Car}on, Leo G. \e{Car}roll, Johnny \e{Car}son, \e{Car}olyn Jones, Ri\e{car}do Montalban, \e{Car}l Reiner, Brenda Vac\e{car}o, \e{Car}ol Burnett, George \e{Car}lin, Keith \e{Car}radine, \e{Car}l Betz, Linda \e{Car}ter, and so forth. (Carroll Ba\e{ker}, \e{Cla}udia Cardinale and \e{Geor}ge Carlin all have another echo of CAR.) The series can angulate into GAR as with the following: Greta \e{Gar}bo (a cryptophor for "car \e{beau}" or "beautiful car"), Ann-Mar\e{gar}et, Dirk Bo\e{gar}de, Humphrey Bo\e{gar}t, \e{Gar}y Cooper, Ava \e{Gar}dner, Judy \e{Gar}land, Greer \e{Gar}son, Mar\e{gar}et Hamilton, \e{Gar}y Merrill, Art \e{Gar}funkel, \e{Gar}rett Morris, \e{Gar}y Lockwood, Samantha Eg\e{gar}, Ed\e{gar} Bergen, etc. (\e{Gre}ta Garbo, Ann-M\e{arg}aret, D\e{irk} Bogarde, \e{Gre}er Garson, Gary \e{Loc}kwood and Edgar B\e{erg}en embed other echoes of CAR.) The ever-permuting series, as unpredictable as Alban Berg's\fnote{i itch to italicize} discovery of tonal relationships in the course of composing twelve-tone rows, stammers KER: Carroll Ba\e{ker}, Deborah \e{Ker}r (pronounced "car"), Forrest Tuc\e{ker}, Robert Wal\e{ker} (this transfer does not permit him to "walk," but only to "'drive") \e{Keir} Dullea (diphthongs are permissible), Dan Bloc\e{ker}, Bob Bar\e{ker}, etc. Less obvious permutations are possible, as is the case with KLE: Henry Win\e{kle}r, Art Lin\e{kle}tter, Don Ric\e{kle}s, Schnec\e{kle}gruber, Hal Buc\e{kle}y. (Schneckle\e{gru}ber has another echo.) Even the combination LUG produces some surprises: Bela \e{Lug}osi and Jack K\e{lug}man (also \e{Klu}gman). QUEL gives us: Jac\e{quel}ine Bisset, Ra\e{quel} Welch (also W\e{elch}), Jac\e{quel}ine Susanne (\filmtitle{Valley of the Dolls}), and if this person isn't a \e{cel}ebrity, Jac\e{quel}ine Kennedy/Jackie Onassis, what are all the others then? John Fitz\e{ger}ald Kennedy, Ri\e{char}d Nixon, \e{Ger}ald \e{Ford}, Jimmy \e{Car}ter and Ronald \e{Reag}an all support my argument for the CAR as America's supreme pleasure-word. + +This argument for a relation between name and thing goes back to Plato's \booktitle{Cratylus} where \e{Cra}tylus asserts to Hermogenes that there is a "natural fitness of names." (So\e{cra}tes actually said this, but it's Cratylus's argument.) Hermogenes's name would not be naturally his since he only believes in convention and its arbitrary character yet \e{Herm}ogenes evokes \e{Herm}es, the god who deals with speech, that messenger, thief, liar or bargainer, the interpreter (\e{hermeneus}). The CAR in a star's name (its rhyme with \e{star} another example of the motivation) asserts this ancient debate between the name and the thing it embraces. If stars are to behave like cars as they act or drive down films or roads, then that CAR ineluctably enters into the construction of their names, an activity that is also found in the denomination of cars: Cou\e{gar}, Mer\e{cur}y (also M\e{erc}ury, like the god that drives his messages everywhere), C\e{hry}sler, M\w{erc}edes, V\e{olk}swagen, Cadil\e{lac}, Toyota \e{Cor}olla, Rolls \e{Royc}e, \e{Ly}n\e{x}\fnote{?} (a perfect name for a car, simply because the condensation is so economical, only four letters, three of which are echoes of CAR: l/r, y/a, x/c). + +The offramps of a highway are also the p\e{lac}es where the CAR can drive its letters, or rather, there are metonyms of the car that enter into stars' names, objects that are contiguous with the car. There are also variant names of the car (wagon, van, Ford, Olds). The car's brand name may not necessarily have to have CAR buried within it, but it is sufficiently recognizable to give us the following series: Joan Craw\e{ford}, Glenn \e{Ford}, Peter Law\e{ford}, Mary Pick\e{ford}, Ann Ruther\e{ford}, Harrison \e{Ford}, as well as the Fondas, whose \e{n} can be truncated and produce the following: Henry \e{Ford}a, Jane \e{Ford}a, Peter \e{Ford}a. Another auto company, General Motors, bears the "body by Fisher" emblem. Was it responsible for the careers of Eddie \e{Fisher} or Carrie \e{Fisher}? An "Olds" abbreviates Oldsmobile and thus yields: Burt Reyn\e{olds}, Debbie Reyn\e{olds} or Marjorie Reyn\e{olds}. Other brand names register \e{Chevy} Chase (Chevrolet or Chevy), \e{Royce} Wallace (Rolls Royce), while types of vehicles register Martin \e{Landau}, Peter \e{Lorre} (for lorry), Burt \e{Convy} (for convoy) and then there's also parts of the car that register Richard \e{Gere} (gear) or Patricia \e{Brake}. Rex Harrison starred in commercials for the car Volare. What's odd is that \e{Rex} is a homonym for \e{wrecks}, something no star or car should be subject to. The car's motions (to drive, to park, to turn) yield the following: Robert \e{Driv}as, Burt \e{Parks}, Michael \e{Parks}, Fess \e{Parker} and Lana \e{Turner}. The van or wagon gives further credence to Cratylus's argument: Lindsay \e{Wagner}, Robert \e{Wagner}, Lyle \e{Waggon}er, Porter \e{Wagon}er, Jo \e{Van} Fleet (the \e{Fleet} visualizing a fleet of vans), \e{Van} Johnson, Dick \e{Van} Dyke, \e{Van} Heflin, Dick \e{Van} Patten, Jo \e{Van} Ark (her \e{Ark} a perfect permutation of CAR), Billy \e{Van}, Vivian \e{Van}ce, and on and on. Those ramps, exits, streets, roads, ways, paths, the general surface upon which the "literal" tire writes itself (notice the \e{tire} in l\e{iter}al), writes out +\begitems\style N +* lane: Burt \e{Lan}caster, Priscilla \e{Lane}, Hope \e{Lange}, Angela \e{Lan}sbury, Shirley Mac\e{Laine}, Sara \e{Lane}, Charles \e{Lane}; +* road: Barbara \r{Rhoad}es, Harry \e{Rhod}es, Michael \e{Road}, \e{Rhodes} Reason; +* \e{rue} (Fr. road): Jack La \e{Rue}, Cash La \e{Rue}; +* \e{strada} (It. street): Erik E\e{strada}; +* street: Sidney Green\e{street}; +* way: Faye Duna\e{way}, John \e{Way}ne, Jeff Con\e{way}, Gary Con\e{way}, \e{Way}ne Con\e{way}, \e{Mae} West/\e{Wae} West/\e{Way} West (the M is inverted); and +* miles: Sarah \e{Miles}, Ray \e{Mil}land, Ann \e{Mil}ler. +\enditems +\noindent Even the \e{tire} finds its tracks in John MacIn\e{tire}, Jaime \e{Tire}lli, or Macin\e{tyre} Dixon while its anagrammatization seeps into Fred As\e{t}a\e{ire}, Marlene D\e{ietr}ich Thelma R\e{it}t\e{er}, Barbra S\e{trei}sand (for someone as addicted to producing "tire tracks" or "grooves," such a name seems perfect with the "natural fitness of names"), Shelley W\e{i}n\{ter}s, John \e{Rit}t\e{e}r, and \e{tire}'s extensions into: Patricia \e{Wheel}, Mark \e{Wheel}er, Eddie \e{Firestone} and the improbable conjunction of the Ernie \e{Flatt} Dancers. Every car has to \e{burn} oil and so do stars, as do George \e{Burns}, Audrey Hep\e{burn}, Katharine Hep\e{burn}, Mike \e{Burns}, Gene Ray\e{burn}, Carol \e{Burn}ett, whereas the \e{bu}r in \e{burn} is echoed in Billie \e{Bur}ke, Ellen \e{Bur}styn, Richard \e{Bur}ton and the burning of a \e{pyre} in Richard \e{Pry}or/\e{Pyr}or. Oil helps that burning and so its anagrams help the careers of the following celebrities (there's a Chevrolet model called the "\e{Cel}ebrity™): \e{Lo}u\e{i}s Armstrong, \e{Lo}u\e{i}se Brooks, G\e{lo}r\e{i}a De Haven, G\e{lo}r\e{i}a Swanson (\e{Gloria} is an anagram for \e{oil rag}), \e{Oli}via De Haviland (\e{via oil} for \e{Olivia}), G\e{ol}d\e{i}e Hawn, Laurence \e{Oli}vier. These tires \e{car}ve the strangest incisions and skid down all sorts of detours and out-of-the-way trails. + +Perusing my \booktitle{Great American Movie Book}, which lists over 1,500 performers, I found many names of drivers, chauffeurs and the like with the CAR embedded in their names. These people are the \e{true} actors since they fulfill the allegorical function so well, they act \e{and} drive down films \e{or} roads. The drivers are as follows: Francis \e{Ford} (In \filmtitle{Old Chicago}), \e{Jer}ry Lewis (a "mad driver" in \filmtitle{It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World}). Billy \e{Cur}tis (\filmtitle{My Gal Sal}, a midget driver), Sol \e{Gor}ss and \e{Char}les Sullivan (\filmtitle{They Drive by Night}), Max \e{Wagner} (echoing \e{wagon}, again \filmtitle{They Drive by Night}), \e{Ford} Dunhill (\filmtitle{Viva Las Vegas}), John Pi\e{kar}d (\filmtitle{Wake of the Red Witch}). The taxi drivers, more numerous, have not had the privilege of Robert de Niro, and unlike him oftentimes cryptically embed CAR in their names: Dick \e{Cro}ckett (\ft{Breakfast at Tiffany's}), Donald \e{Kerr} (\ft{Detective Story}), \{Geor}ge Davis (\ft{Gentlemen Prefer Blondes}), Kit \e{Guar}d (\ft{Here Come the Waves}), Peter F\e{alk} and Leo \e{Gor}cy (\ft{It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World}), Jack \e{Car}r (\ft{The More the Merrier}), Lloyd In\e{gra}ham (\ft{Mr. Lucky}), \e{Arch} Johnson (\ft{Niagara}), Mushy \{Cal}lahan (\dt{The Nutty Professor}), \e{Geor}ge Davis (\ft{One Hour With You}), \e{Geor}ge Chandler (\ft{Since You Went Away}), \e{Charl}es Hall (\ft{Swing Time}), Connie \e{Gilchri}st (\ft{Thousands Cheer}, two cryptophors, \e{Gil} and \e{chri}), Pedro \e{Reg}as (\filmtitle{Waikiki Wedding}, not to mention the \e{gas} at the end of Re\e{gas}), \e{Gar}ry Owen (\ft{Watch on the Rhine}). Not as numerous as cab drivers, the chauffeurs go as follows: \e{Reg}inald Farmer (\ft{Car Wash}), Billy \e{Way}ne (\ft{Dangerous}, the \e{way} is significant), Bud \{Gear}y (\ft{Dead End}, \e{Gear} is also identical with the \e{gear}shift), M\e{org}an Wallace (\ft{Grand Hotel}), James \e{Cro}mwell (\ft{Murder by Death} and his name was Mar\{cel}), \e{Char}les La Torre (\ft{Three Coins in the Fountain}), \e{Cre}ighton Hale (\ft{Watch on the Rhine}). There are several truck drivers: Fred \e{Gra}ham (\ft{The Asphalt Jungle}), Max \e{Wagner} (\ft{Black Legion}, echoing \e{wagon}), \e{Char}les Sullivan (\ft{Easy to Wed}, notice the \e{van}), Bobby Mc\e{Gri}ff (\ft{The Last Picture Show}), Boyd (Red) M\e{org}an (\ft{Pillow Talk}), \e{Cle}gg Hoyt (\ft{That Touch of Mink}), \e{Way}ne Hazelhurst (\ft{Up in Smoke}). Stage drivers, so frequent in Westerns, still permute CAR even though they drive more antique vehicles: \e{Cli}ff \e{Cla}rk (\ft{Fort Apache}, also \ft{Clark}), Bud Mc\e{Clu}re (\ft{Destry Rides Again}), Poodles Hanne\e{ford} (\ft{San Antonio}), Jennings \e{Miles} (how many miles did he travel in \ft{Winchester '73}?). Motorcycle cops, aptly eulogized in the TV series \tvtitle{Chips}, evoke CAR despite their cy\e{cles} being miniature versions of the former: Tom \e{Gre}en\e{way} (the echo of CAR and the crucial \e{way} in \ft{How to Marry a Millionaire}), \e{Gar}ry Owen (\ft{Notorious}). One bus driver, \e{Char}les \e{Jor}dan (\ft{Cat People}), and one ambulance driver, Fred \e{Gra}ham (\ft{No Way Out}), are the only other drivers in a vast repertoire of actors who must have had to acquire drivers licenses to act in all those films or roads. Incidentally, E\e{ric}h von Stroheim, the chauffeur in \f{Sunset Boulevard}, did not know how to drive, "which humiliated him" (\fb{Swanson on Swanson}), so the Isotta Fraschini was pulled by "ropes the whole while." + +At times the Cratylitic limits traverse into the oddest of conjunctions. \e{Gar}ret Morris stars as \e{"Wheels"} in a TV show called \tvtitle{Roll Out}, his acting a mimicry of his names? In \filmtitle{Cool Hand Luke}, where the \e{Cool} and \e{Luke} both echo the CAR, \e{Cli}fton James is named "\e{Car}r." The perfect name for a star, according to this method of the anagrammatic cryptophor of CAR, is \e{Clu Gallagher}, since the \e{Clu} echoes CAR, as well as \e{Gal}, as well as \e{lag}, as well as \{gher}, a repetition of CAR made four times within the entire sequence of letters of this proper name. \ft{Tea and Sympathy} stars Deborah \e{Kerr} and John \e{Kerr}. The one piece of visual information I have from this film is both Kerr's in a tender emb\e{race}. James Dean, a "car" if ever there was one (he was fond of racing and died in a car crash), starred in \ft{East of Eden} and was called "Cal," a perfect respelling of CAR, \e{l} being \e{r}'s substitute. The drama was set in the state of \e{Cal}ifornia, land no doubt of many cars and stars. Jayne Mansfield's decapitation in a car accident represents a perfect al\e{legor}y of cinema, all those "\e{cro}pped" heads within the frames of cameras had their \e{gri}sly equivalent in her specta\e{cul}ar death, when always already CAR inhabits the \e{ca}me\e{r}a. -CAR and all its permutations, the names of stars are also -based in part on the mimicry of the word AMERICA. -America, besides containing CAR, also contains the crucial -words ARM, MAR, RAM, etc. The proliferation of Norma, -Mary, Roman, La Mar, Morgan, Mark, Norman, Marilyn -mimic the first four letters of America. A psychoanalysis -of Hollywood must begin with the letters of America within the letters of a star's name. After all, stars are only letters: what else are empty spaces filled up with? Letters/ -letster/letstar. Picking a star's name is a precise ritual that -follows from several sources: 1) mimicry of CAR; 2) mimicry of synonyms/metonyms of ROADS; 3) mimicry of -AMERica; 4) mimicry of STAR; 5) mimcry of synonyms/ -metonyms of EYES and EARS (the two drives involved in -the perception of films): 6) mimicry of I or JE; In the -1937 version of A Star is Born, Esther Blodgett becomes -Vicki Lester, a repetition of STAR. +Not wanting to swerve too far from our subject, the CAR and all its permutations, the names of stars are also based in part on the mimicry of the word AMERICA. America, besides containing CAR, also contains the crucial words ARM, MAR, RAM, etc. The proliferation of Norma, Mary, Roman, La Mar, Morgan, Mark, Norman, Marilyn mimic the first four letters of \e{Amer}ica. A psychoanalysis of Hollywood must begin with the letters of America within the letters of a star's name. After all, stars are only letters: what else are empty spaces filled up with? Letters/ letster/letstar. Picking a star's name is a precise ritual that follows from several sources: 1) mimicry of CAR; 2) mimicry of synonyms/metonyms of ROADS; 3) mimicry of AMERica; 4) mimicry of STAR; 5) mimcry of synonyms/ metonyms of EYES and EARS (the two drives involved in the perception of films): 6) mimicry of I or JE; In the 1937 version of \fr{A Star is Born}, Esther Blodgett becomes Vicki Le\e{ster}, a repetition of STAR. The common myth of stardom is that one attains ultimate recognition on all levels: artistic, emotional, sexual, financial, the entire prism of colors that shine from that as @@ -1368,7 +767,7 @@ Hamilton endorsed tar-evocative Maxwell House coffee, the "good to the last drop" substance. Another one of its commercials featured a carpool of executives (worried over the high prices of oil), cautiously drinking a rapidly diminishing cup of that coffee. Coffee, so similar to oil by virtue of its darkness and the "energy" of the caffeine, finds itself composed of wax after we invert the M in -Maxwell House: Waxwell House/Oil well House. When | +Maxwell House: Waxwell House/Oil well House. When I worked for an oil company, my boss, a Mr. Moore (intent on mining more and more oil), fetched all the fellow workers coffee in the morning. Throughout the country of Mexico, Pepsi signs are placed beside gasoline stations. The @@ -1629,7 +1028,7 @@ from which issues the sound of tires grating down the pavement. Nearly everyone possesses a radio from which issues the sound of a stylus grating down those grooves. Notice in radio a repetition of road, radio, an anagram for -I road. 1 rode down the road of the radio. Listening, too, +I road. I rode down the road of the radio. Listening, too, 134 Calling All Cars @@ -1805,7 +1204,7 @@ Surgery: The Surgical Practice of the Future, says that the body is "of infintiely greater subtlety." Already medical technicians have invented "extracorporality machines" that take over the functions of the heart, lungs and kidneys, but not the liver and intestines for they're ""far beyond our skills."" The heart-lung machine, an aid for the -surgeon performing open-heart surgery, perfects the identity between man and machine, but such surgery is not without its dangers: "Some years ago | compared the surgeon's +surgeon performing open-heart surgery, perfects the identity between man and machine, but such surgery is not without its dangers: "Some years ago I compared the surgeon's task in attempting to repair a defective heart with the job of repairing a defective engine in a singleengined aircraft halfway over the Atlantic on a stormy night." Along the @@ -2058,7 +1457,7 @@ be." " Art that what art art? R -Do | know? No, I do not know. Know and no are identical in sound, but radically divergent in meaning. This semantic divergence eventually points to an identity. +Do I know? No, I do not know. Know and no are identical in sound, but radically divergent in meaning. This semantic divergence eventually points to an identity. 148 The Homonym Hymn @@ -2213,8 +1612,8 @@ Le Pitre Chati¢ When the time comes to leave those places where we hope to meet a person who might be able to bring joy into our lives, when we renounce ourselves to rest and solitude -from loud music and fervent stares, we begin to ask ourselves why did 1 go out? why did I stay up so late? why -was | so foolish? Indeed if there comes a time when we +from loud music and fervent stares, we begin to ask ourselves why did I go out? why did I stay up so late? why +was I so foolish? Indeed if there comes a time when we meet someone who just might answer the question "why?", the jubilant ride home and the ensuing embraces appear to compensate for all our past sorrows of rejection and desolation. This stranger is the reason why I have been so foolish because he might be the one who will answer all my @@ -2545,7 +1944,7 @@ stick." Add five and one, six results. The Latin word for six is sex, identical to the English "'sex." Homosexuality always -already embeds 5 + 1 within it, sex. Sex always seems to +already embeds $5+1$ within it, sex. Sex always seems to happen at six anyway, since after five one is on fire. 165 @@ -2689,7 +2088,7 @@ spoken, retranscribed into living speech. The "lightening' THE AGE OF OIL of oil and its refined state reproduces the "lightening" of -letters into their spoken state. As secretary, | earn a wage +letters into their spoken state. As secretary, I earn a wage based on my ability to transform speech into letters. Occasionally the transcription is inaccurate, a "letter" is missing and so the entire missive, a "letter" again, must be typed over. What does a secretary type, letters or letters? When my boss says, "I wish to dictate a letter," the double @@ -2705,7 +2104,7 @@ transposable to that realm. As well, given the secret secret to secretary, my obsession with its disclosure could have been predetermined by the title of my occupation. Yet the secrets that secretaries are occasionally privy to, the private lives of their bosses or the confidential nature of their -documents, were not as secret as the secrets | was writing +documents, were not as secret as the secrets I was writing enclose," @@ -2770,7 +2169,7 @@ acne spelled its letters on my cheeks went by the name of ""Erase."" Correcting typos and correcting blemishes somehow ultimately confirms my conviction that letters are tar since blemishes are oil. -It was only when I read Marx's Capital that 1 understood capital letters. Capital perpetuates the letter's dictator to be emblazoned in capitals but the transcriber in +It was only when I read Marx's Capital that I understood capital letters. Capital perpetuates the letter's dictator to be emblazoned in capitals but the transcriber in lowercase whenever the initials of boss and secretary settle on the page's lower left corner. Men who usually regulate |