Political images are shaped and managed with the utmost precision and at great expense. Everything is "spun" (like yarns, tales, and fictions) to achieve whatever qualities are thought to be of desire to the target audience. The psychology and style of this long-standing approach was developed by Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew. To get a sense of the relevance of Bernays' work one need be aware of just this snippet from his 1947 paper, "The Engineering of Consent."

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society ... Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country ... In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons ... who understand the mental processes and social pattern of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Here Bernays lays bare the importance of the psychological understanding of mental processes and social patterns as a means to manipulate the masses. He brought into the awareness of the small number of persons in control, the central principles of Freud's psychology. Bernays is no fringe figure, but almost invisible to public awareness. He is the father of public relations, the progenitor of seductive and subliminal advertising, the figure most influential in forming the CIA, and many other such "mechanisms" of "those who pull the wires." Puppets do not see their puppeteers.

Keep in mind Bernays' emphasis on "an invisible government as the true ruling power of this country."

There is no reason to doubt that what "Bernays-as-insider" wrote, remains in place and fully operational. Couple this with Walt Disney's influential conviction that the only way to control the masses was through "entertainment" in all its dimensions. Couple this with the necessity to "distract" the masses from "the truth," and you begin to see what is at work on the present "stage."

While I may seem to have wandered away from my topic, what I have described above is essential to understanding my topic in any “deep way.” So, I ask again: What is it we are witnessing?

At the depth of the financial crisis in 2008, Goldman Sachs warned its wealthiest clients that the major threat to their wealth was from the one man/one vote rule. The message was a barely disguised action plan to use wealth to eliminate the threat. In January 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are individuals and that money is speech. Money thus falls under the provisions of the First Amendment and cannot be abridged and therefore corporations are free, without limit, to contribute (not to candidate's campaigns) but to entities that could contribute to candidate's campaigns directly (subsequently referred to as political action committees, PACs, and "super" PACs.) The tortured logic of this decision has shaped politics ever since. Elections can be bought and those elected can be bought and wealth then becomes free to increase itself without being limited by political power.

One might ask, isn't this "business as usual." And the answer, of course, is yes. Yet, it is also the case that "something" is different. What is it we are witnessing?

Previous campaigns for the presidency of the US have been pale affairs compared with the current campaign. I believe this is because prior campaigns have been consciously orchestrated by the various power brokers and for this reason are all "typical." I believe that something unexpected, unpredicted, unknown, and likely uncontrollable has entered into the present campaign.

To put this into context, I must go again in what seems to be far afield, but is not. I need to examine collapse and extremity. There have been several periods in the earth's history in which collapse has reached what is called an extinction event. There have been five previous extinction periods in which the great bulk of all life on earth became extinct. All scientific evidence now points to the sixth extinction that has begun and is progressing rapidly. More and more of the earth's bio-systems are undergoing collapse. A general feature of collapse in any system is the resulting extremity. In extremity, the usual boundaries are broken and the subsequent events become unpredictable. What is so astonishing at the present time is how little humans are dealing with the consequences of systemic collapse. All humans should be working together to deal with this. One form of extremity in this case is the extremity of denial.

Collapse of large systems is not instantaneous. The undeniable symptoms are slow to emerge but then expand exponentially. The slow progression of collapse makes denial possible, but ultimately pointless. As collapse progresses, extremity begins to appear in many dimensions.

I think it is obvious that world order is in a process of collapse, whether one looks at nation states, economies, cultural traditions and institutions, social relations, and every other department of the human enterprise. Extremity is beginning to appear everywhere. Denial is beginning to break up.

Now I don't think for a minute that all of this collapse is the work of "those who pull the wires." Indeed, I see evidence that the wires themselves are becoming frayed, not so easily manipulated, and in many cases, breaking down altogether. The usual systems of power, control and money themselves are subject to the process of collapse.

The connection of Freud's psychology via Bernays to the operation of power structures is based on a personalistic view of the unconscious: the fears, desires, and darkness hidden away in the personal unconscious, but made so much use of by those pulling the wires. But what Freud's psychology has no grasp of whatever is the impersonal collective unconscious. And those pulling the wires have no understanding of this at all. I believe that collapse is bringing forth something "other" from the collective unconscious that humans are unprepared for. Jung called it the Coming Guest, but I think before the Coming Guest arrives, we will see collapse and extremity in major degree.

It is clear that in complex systems being "energized" by archetypal processes (and not just the typical human power processes), attractors are formed. These attractors draw energies to themselves and when the "density" of this energy increases to a certain degree, it will be triggered in such a way as to transform the whole system into something that could not be predicted from what was known about the system before collapse.

What also needs to be kept in mind is that archetypal processes are fractal. This means that the process is "self-similar" at all scales. Thus, what we might see in the consulting room in dealing with an archetypal process on an individual level in one human being, can also be seen at work on a group basis, large social segment basis, nation basis, world basis and cosmic basis. This is not easy to comprehend but it is nonetheless one of the major insights of Jung's psychological work with the collective unconscious.

To return now to our topic of "Trump."

There is some unknown archetypal energy afoot and it is being carried by Mr. Trump more so than by any other figure. He has become an attractor of energies in a way that no one else has. It does not matter whether the energy is positive or negative, sensible or senseless, true or false. This is an attractor within a larger process of collapse and for this reason extremity, more than any other quality, is characterizing the events as they unfold. Attractors when moving toward their triggering expressions will begin to exert qualities of "inevitability" as well as a plethora of “unintended consequences.”

In my next post, I'll be looking into this more deeply.

The earliest use in English of the word "trump" is in reference to one who blows the trumpet, and "calls forth" (circa 1297). The use of "trump" in card games, in the sense of the most powerful card, is recorded from 1529. It is a coined word , developed from the word triumph, by leaving out the i, and the h. It is the trump card that triumphs. There are many expressions using the word "trump," with most of these now obsolete and unheard.  For example, to refer to an obstruction in one's way, there is the old expression, "to cast a trump in one's way." As the word developed it became a common form of commendation as in synonymic phrases such as "a first-rate person,"  "a person of surpassing excellence," "a person of undoubted authority." But as early as 1552, as the words started to take on it's quality of opposite inherent in the original meanings (often the fate of words), it was used as a term for "breaking wind," as in the rhyme "She who doth Trump/Through defect in her rump." As reference to deceiving and cheating, this antonymic quality was common from the sixteenth century and in the sense of "to trump up" (by deception, fraud, untruth) from the seventeenth century. In the modern period, the word's more positive meanings prevail.  [Note. The word "trumpery," which has become a social media meme in relation to Mr. Trump, has a different word origin. The negative meanings of the word are being applied to the candidate.]

But in the current political climate, the word's full history seems to characterize the atmosphere surrounding presidential candidate Donald Trump. [Mr. Romney just called Trump a “phony” and a “fraud,” with both meanings adhering to the word “trump.” In addition, Mr. Romney says that things Mr. Trump says are “…a twisted example of evil trumping good.” This is fascinating.]

I have been aware of presidential elections since 1948. I have never experienced any of these elections coming anywhere close to the present political scene. Power brokers are beside themselves, usually insightful political commentators can't figure it out, the candidates themselves are wringing out the last vestiges of utility from the "politics as usual" power plays--except for one: Donald Trump. What most seem to agree on is that "The Donald" is not "playing by the book." The more he is attacked, the more he advances. The more he expresses political incorrectness, the more he advances. The GOP elite are said to be scared to death and their fright is now calling upon extremity. The Democratic party is publicly gloating, but privately is frightened as well.

What is it we are witnessing?

In my book in progress entitled, The Commodification of Desire, I argue that the structure and dynamics of "money" have become the primary engine driving the culture in all areas: economics, politics, social relations, region, art, and everyday life, that is, in all departments of the human enterprise. Further, I argue that in all areas, there are serious and fatal deficiencies of awareness of what is at risk when "one-sidedness" becomes ubiquitous. For example, consider something "simple." Current economic theory has achieved near-complete hegemony. The three pillars of this economic world view are that economics in all its aspects (production, consumption, finance, and markets) are a function of rational expectation, efficient markets, and rational behavior. In spite of mountains of contrary data, this view holds sway at all levels of economic "understanding." Those holding to this view, constantly fail to predict with any reliability any functions of the economy; constantly fail to develop adequate policy, constantly fail to anticipate dysfunctions, inequities, and wealth destructive crashes.

Something is "missing."  Although there are precursors, it was John Maynard Keynes, in 1936, who coined the phrase "animal spirits," to refer to the "instincts, proclivities, and emotions that influence and guide human behavior." In their provocative book, Animals Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism, George Akerlof and Robert Shiller use a quadrate method to illustrate the problem. By quadrate, I mean the opposing of two polarities. In this example the polarities are rational/irrational and economic/non-economic. This sets up a "box" with four cells. It is clear from this that current economic theory is constrained to only one of the four boxes and therefore cannot account for much of human behavior that effects economic realities. Similarly, the current state of politics cannot be understood without factoring in the many aspects of "animal spirits." Thus, psychology must be factored into an understanding of economics and politics (and much more) and their interconnections.

Tomorrow, after the GOP debate tonight, I'll approach the question of "What is it we are witnessing," from a depth psychological perspective.

ART FROM THE STREETS

Yesterday, I watched Layton Blaylock's documentary Art from the Streets. This award winning film, released in 2006, by Inferno Films, documents the work of the Arts From The Streets (AFTS) organization in Austin, Texas. Part of the larger ongoing effort in Austin to provide opportunities for the homeless, the AFTS project, which began in 1991, provides open studio space and supplies twice a week for homeless people to express themselves in art. Once a year, an art show and sale occur, where the homeless display and sell their art, with all proceeds going to the homeless artists.

In Jung's 1960 letter to Sir Herbert Read, Jung overcame his negativity toward art--particularly "modern" art--and proclaimed that the "Coming Guest" speaks through the artist as mouthpiece. [See my Dreams as Angels for further discussion: http://ralockhart.com/WP/dreamsasangels.pdf ]We know that much of the contemporary art world has been "captured" by the ubiquitous dynamics of money. All the "news" iin the art world is about money and essentially an avoidance of "content." Can we "read" art for the content relating to the "Coming Guest"? [See my Fictive Purpose of Dreams for further discussion:
http://ralockhart.com/WP/fictivepurposeofdreams.pdf ] Even in the documentary, there was little focus on the content of the art. The focus was on how the sale of the art was helping the homeless to better themselves. There is no gainsaying the obvious value and benefits of this. Nonetheless, the content becomes "invisible."

As you may know, for many years I have made it a habit to encounter "street" people: the homeless, the crazies, the drugged and all the other unpeople we see ever more present in larger numbers. I have taken to using the expression "unpeople" after reflecting on how street people are treated very much the same as the unconscious and its manifestations. [Paco and I are talking about this in Dreams, Bones, & the Future: Queries & Provocations. Watch for occassional excerpts from this here.] In my encounters, when I am asked for money, I ask for dreams. I always try and offer back not only money but some comment. In my work with this very rich material I will record these encounters in diminutive vignettes or poems. Always I am trying to "hear" the message of the Coming Guest in these encounters.

Here is an example from my book in progress, Dreams from the Street. What do you think the Coming Guest is saying here via the dream?

Buffalo Bill and the Slithering Sidewalk

Sporting a Buffalo Bill mustache, a goatee, cascading hair
topped by a weathered leather hat of much the same breed,
one expects a handsome vest and matching chaps with fancy
boots to complete the ensemble, not a tattered blue sweatshirt
over a frayed red tee, old patched corduroys hugging ground,
broken tennies that weren’t a match; a left leg limping to boot.
But this was not a fashion ramp; it’s a newly surfaced market
parking lot and he was asking me, with hand out, and pleading
eyes, and rasping voice, if I could spare a couple of bucks.

He was new to the lot and didn’t know what I do when asked.
No, I say, I cannot spare, but I am in the market for dreams.
You have a dream you can tell me, sell me for a couple of bucks?
Taking a step back, he says, You serious? Dead serious, I answer.
OK, then. I’ll tell you the dream I remember when Jango shook
me awake this morning. Jango? Yeah, I slept with her last night
and woke her up moaning and groaning something awful, she
said. That’s her over there in the black tights. Did you tell her?
Yep. What did she say? She said I better get off all the junk.

You sure you’re gonna give me?Yes, I interrupt. OK, then.
What I saw in my dream was the sidewalk, and it was moving
like something was under the sidewalk, long like a snake or
something, something slithering along, but still under and not
coming out nowhere’s I could see. The sidewalk was moving
as far as I could see. It was creepy and I guess it got me scared
or something to make me moan and  groan and waking up Jango
and all. That’s all there was. Pretty silly dream, I’d say. You think
it’s worth two dollars? Not silly at all. I handed him two dollars.

He stood there looking at me, standing perfectly still, staring.
Jango’s man asked, almost whispering, What’s it mean?

Ah, now that, I charge for. But for free I’ll tell you that’s not
the question. The question is:

What are you going to do now, now that the snake is moving?

Shortly after finishing and publishing Dreams, Bones & the Future: A Dialogue (available at http://tinyurl.com/mskbp4w), Paco and I immersed ourselves in a follow-up volume, Dreams, Bones & the Future: Queries & Provocations.

Provocations. An audacious title, hopefully in the sense of spirited and original, and not in the sense of reckless abandon of propriety--both meanings carried in that word. It comes from avid, and I like the idea embedded there of keen interest and enthusiasm. So those are the lines we are treading and we look forward to being able to offer up some samples soon.

In the interim, I found myself writing this line: “The hegemony of conscious intentionality is extreme.” I was in a rant about how our conscious intentionality in relation to dreams remains dominated by seeking interpretations, searching for meaning, yearning for understanding. The problem with this is all this effort always moves toward serving ego’s desires and needs. Little credence is given to the notion that dreams may have their own desires, desires unmet when the dominant attitude prevails.

As I wrote that line above, I received an email about how David Bowie would write his songs. Now, I am sure, Bowie was capable of writing a song with full conscious intentionality. So why did he do “something else”? What he did was this. He’d have a general idea in mind about a new song (e.g., a song about the state of the world). Then he would go into a kind of reverie state and write down the words that would come to him “randomly” or “by chance.” No agenda, no filters, no censoring (a la Freud’s “free association”). Then, he would cut out the words and mix them all into a pile. From this pile he would select 10 words without seeing them—a random set of 10 words. Then he would take each of these words in turn, and again in a meditative state begin to write a phrase or sentence prompted by the word. He did this in sequence. By the end, he had given chance a chance to produce a “frame” for this song.

This method is one I’ve used in relation to working with dreams. Instead of falling immediately into that mode of interpreting, understanding, and meaning, take your dream and create a “log line.” A log line is a one-sentence description of a script, film, movie, book, etc. A log line for The Wizard of Oz might be this: “After a twister transports a lonely Kansas farm girl to a magical land, she sets out on a dangerous journey to find a wizard with the power to send her home.”

Now with your log line finished, go into that reverie state and wait for words to come and write them down. Then cut them up, turn them face down. And shuffle the pile and pick 10 (I actually prefer 13, but that’s me). Then from each of those ten words, in order from 1 through 10, go into reverie again and get a sentence or phrase that will come when you focus on the word.

Pay attention to what you are experiencing in addition to the task. What’s going on in your body? What strange ideas are coming to you? (Write them down). What’s your mood? Work the ten phrases/sentences into a song, or a poem. What’s your sense of the dream now, having done this “chance” work?

It would be interesting to gather a few examples of such work from anyone willing to send them in. I can post them anonymously so you need not be concerned about exposure.

Let me end with a quote from David Bowie about dreams:

"I suspect that dreams are an integral part of existence, with far more use for us than we’ve made of them, really. I’m quite Jungian about that. The dream state is a strong, active, potent force in our lives…the fine line between the dream state and reality is at times, for me, quite grey. Combining the two, the place where the two worlds come together, has been important in some of the things I’ve written, yes.”

This is a pre-paperback edition in pdf format and is intended to circulate freely as a complimentary copy. Please feel free to share with friends, family and others who might be interested in the final interlude, advancing age, and life's end. This book is presented by two senior Jungian analysts, Lee Roloff (who died shortly after completing the text) and Russell Lockhart. The latter welcomes your comments and inquiries at ral@ralockhart.com. I may ask your permission to post your feedback on my blog at http://ralockhart.com/WP.

To Download: http://ralockhart.com/WP/finalinterlude.pdf

Back in the early 70’s, I taught a seminar entitled something like, “The Value of Pop Culture for Depth Psychology.” What I tried to examine was the question of what depth psychology could learn from Pop Culture. This I contrasted with the idea of interpreting and explaining and otherwise understanding Pop Culture using depth psychological methods.

My main idea stemmed from my valuing the creative arts as sources of new and developing mythologies that would become new dominants in the contemporary culture.

At the time, I focused on three figures: David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and Laurie Anderson. Each was early in their career. Each seemed to me to have tap-roots in the deeper regions of the psyche and were each in their own way story tellers of what they found there.

It’s now 40 years later, and each of these figures have been icons in their genres for decades. On Sunday, January 10th, David Bowie died at 69.

It set me to remembering how in that early seminar we worked with his first major album: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. It was the story of the end of the world because it had run out of natural resources and how aliens were coming who were “black hole” jumpers from universe to universe. It was a musical version of welcoming the Coming Guest that Jung described in his 1960 letter to Herbert Read.

I talked about this story as a “new” myth. I talked about how the mythic potential of the psyche did not stop with Greek myths, but is always creating the stories of new myths both in our individual psyche and in the collective psyche.

As I listened again to Ziggy, I felt the deep loss of David Bowie and eager to get his last album released on his birthday, just two days before his death: Blackstar.

I’ve recently had a “dream within a dream” that has become very compelling to me.

The phenomenon of a dream within a dream has been reported since antiquity and is typically afforded great respect in those traditional societies where dreams play a central cultural function. In the modern period and particularly in the West, dreams are quite marginalized and given little value. Except for traditions of psychological and psychoanalytical therapies, dreams are rarely heard and outside these domains are given scant attention if not devalued completely.

In my more than 50 years of tending to dreams of mine and others, I have probably seen or heard upwards of 100,000 dreams. Very few people have such a “database” of experience to draw on. In this range of experience, I find the phenomenon of a dream within a dream uncommon. The typical dream within a dream has three components: there is the interior dream, followed by what Freud called “false awakening,” in which the dreamer “wakes up” from the interior dream, but is still in the dream state, which is then followed by waking up as usual. A much less common dream within a dream is the type I had. In this dream, the interior dream is one in which I am being told to look at the first page of the Congressional Record. As I am contemplating this in the interior dream, I wake up in the dream, yet continue to experience the interior dream and my contemplating it. Still in my dream state, I begin to reflect on my reflections of the continuing interior dream experience, so I have a kind of double consciousness at the same time. Then I wake up as usual while still experiencing each component, a kind of triple consciousness at the same time. Extraordinary! I have never experienced this degree of simultaneity before.

Aside from the phenomenology of this triple consciousness, there is of course the “instruction” of the interior dream: “Look at the first page of the Congressional Record.” I do not recall ever having looked at the Congressional Record. I know there is such a thing, but I have no experience of it. I was intrigued by the idea of looking at the first page. Why the first page? I was able to find the first page via Internet searching and when I saw what was there I was stunned. There was nothing on the first page that stood out to me except the date: 1873. But from my long study of the history of financial markets, I was immediately filled with images from the Great Panic of 1873. This was the first “global” financial meltdown and one of the chief results was the breakdown of the hegemony of the British Empire (to be gradually replaced by the United States). It was the beginning of what ultimately led to the formation of the Federal Reserve bank and the final dissolution of gold- and silver-backed money. There are many crashes and panics and meltdowns and they are all both similar and have distinctive features.

I took being led to the Panic of 1873, as forming a task to work out the historic parallels to our present global financial condition. We are already seeing the collapse of many global markets in relation to all financial categories: equities, debt, commodities, and currencies. The question is: Is this the time point from which the hegemony of US power begins its decline, similar to what befell the British Empire?

In a future post, I may go into what my personal response to this question is.

For now, I use this experience to illustrate the dream as punctum and how it can lead one far afield from conscious intentionality but closer to what may be crucial to attend to.

Happy New Year all! I greeted the New Year accompanied by a nasty flu bug that had its way with me for several days. Ordinarily, I would not think this would be worth a tweet let alone a blog post. Yet, during this period I had a chance once again to reflect on why it is that I have taken to “befriending” illness.

Sickness, illness, accidents and other untoward events belong to a category of experiences I call puncta—a term I borrow from Roland Barthes use of it in relation to photography. I use this word in reference to anything that punctures the ordinary flow of conscious intentionality. In this regard, dreams, visions, synchronistic events and numinous experiences are also puncta. Puncta of various kinds have different effects but all share certain things in common. One of the first things to notice is that puncta disrupt the smooth flow of time. To use my flu as an example, time disruption was initially related to having to cancel clients, change schedules, do all sorts of rearranging of plans all leading to a kind of “time out.” But as the flu deepened, my very consciousness of time was changed. I went in and out of fog-like states, not knowing what time it was, or even the day; or whether it was night. A second thing to notice is that all aspects of conscious intention are disrupted. I was not “up” and about my business, I was “down” with the flu. A third thing to notice is that the barrier between consciousness and the unconscious becomes more porous. One begins to experience all manner of strange things. Odd body sensations. Hallucination-like experience of things seen, heard, felt. Odd qualities to dreams and a strange “expansion” of the space between conscious and unconscious.

In my experience, puncta are important because they often are messengers of or pathways to something “new.” This new also relates to the future, in the sense that the new acts similar to a seed that, if planted, becomes something that grows. So, as I argue that all dreams have to do with the future (in Dreams, Bones & the Future), illness as punctum is similarly related to the future. Of course, always carried along at the lower frequency of an illness or any sickness is the presence of death-as-future. This is why sickness and illness always has the capacity to deepen one’s experience in unexpected and unanimated and, in particular, in unintended ways.

I befriend illness because I now tend to befriend puncta of all kinds as I experience in the seedbed of these unintended experiences something I didn’t know, something new I can make manifest and something of importance to my future. Like a dream unattended, one simply goes on one’s intentional way, and this may be ego-satisfying, but ultimately it does not lead one to one’s deeper purpose. The purpose of this post was just to hint at the possibilities when one turns a friendly face to difficulties presented by sickness, illness and other such puncta.

One other point. A recent study of US Patents revealed that almost 50% of patents are for “serendipitous” discoveries, inventions, methods, etc. Serendipity is another characterization of puncta that break through conscious intention and, if attended to, lead to something extraordinary. It’s that “if attended to” that is so crucial and what is so important about befriending puncta of all sorts.

In a previous post, I illustrated how the word spark ”moiling” led to word work that in turn led to a dream with words that rhymed with moiling but were not “real” words. I then showed how I sometimes work with a dream in using the dream itself as a “spark” to enter into fictive space and see what would be presented there. That led to a Lewis Carroll-like piece entitled, “Goiling.” When Paco responded with a continuation called, “Mr. Differently Has A Class to Teach,” I was not surprised because we have been engaged in a number of projects using alternative authorial narrative.

In the spirit of this alternating, I responded with a piece entitled, “Differently Phones Lockhart,” and Paco, in turn, sends me “Lockhart Phones Bertie.” Now this will likely be the last post on this back and forth. Whether it becomes another serious project (in spite of its whimsical character), I do not know. We never really “decided” in the usual sense to carry on these narratives, but simply responded back and forth until they grew into quite sizeable stories.

I hope these pieces will give you a sense of both the serious nature of what we are up to as well as the fun we are having. When being scribe to what presents itself in fictive space, it is not so much “our” narratives that emerge, but the narratives of something “other” responding to the warmth of our attention. This perhaps gives one an understanding of why the fictive content can weave into itself various realities.

Your comments are always welcome, wither on the blog itself or via email.

Differently Phones Lockhart (RL)

“Lockhart here. Who’s calling?”

The old Scot sat himself in his black office chair, leaned back and set his feet atop the old cedarwood desk.

“Ah, Differently, good to hear ye me good man. But how is it your a callin? I don’t recall putting phone lines in Nonamesville.What’s that you say? Things arrive of there own accord? But Differntly, wha’ about authorial control and all that jazz?

Lockhart, took his feet off the desk and leaned forward in his chair, rubbin’ at his beard, something he did when he was thinkin’ hard.

“Chalk? You need chalk? Yes, I know teachers use chalk when they teach. You think I'm a dimwit? What happened to the chalk? Pretty sure there was plenty. Blackboyd? Who the bloody moon stone is Blackboyd? No, that wasn’t me. That’s not an idea I would have, or even want to have, even after nippin’ some old Macallans.”

Lockhart stood up, reached across his desk and picked up a scratch pad. There was still some room after all the morning’s doodling.

“Differently, I think I know what’s happened. Hang up and answer the phone when it rings. By the by, what’s your number there? What do you mean you don’t care much for numbers? They won’t behave? Ok, forget the phone. There’s other ways to deal with this.”

Lockhart dialed a number.

Lockhart Phones Bertie (PM)

Buzzz. Buzzzz. Buzzzzzz.

“Come on, dammit, answer the phone, will ye?” Lockhart was about to extend this line of invective when suddenly the connection was made and a hoarse female voice, approximating an old gray mare with bronchitis, spoke on the other end:

“Who the hell is it, botherin’ me at this ungodly hour?”

Lockhart, stunned, had no ready quip with which to reply. The phone line lay flaccid, bereft of vibratory energy, filled with nothing but “dead air.”

“Well, fuck off then, if yer gonna be like that about it,” shouted Bertie—or rasped, rather—into the receiver, and was about to slam the device down in its old fashioned cradle when Lockhart recognized the raspy old voice.

“Bertie? Is that you?”

“What do you mean is it me? ‘Course it’s me. Who else can I be? Wait a minute. Is that you, Lockhart?”

“Yes, Bertie, it’s me, Lockhart, your old author, if, that is, you remember.”

“Remember? How the hell could I forget? You burned down my store, you bugger!”

“I’m sorry, Bertie, but I didn’t really do that. It had to be the nefarious agents of certain big shots in Rome. The Vatican, to be precise.”

“Well, you can be as precise as you want, Lockhart, but I still say it’s a crock a shit yer deliverin’ to this old lady. And after I brung ya the proofs, all the way to Seattle.”

“Yes, I admit, Bertie, you’re right about that. And I apologize about the fire. But, you know, authorial authority and all.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard it all, Lockhart. But now that you’ve got me all riled up, why the hell did you call in the first place?”

“I’m trying to reach Differently. Do you know his number?”

“Number? He don’t do numbers. Says they ‘don’t behave.’”

“Yes, he told me.”

“You mean you talked to him?”

“Yes.”

“Well, just call him back then.”

“I’m afraid that’s easier said than done.”

“But what about all your ‘authorial authority’ bull shit? Can’t you just dial 911 and tell ‘em you need to talk to Mr. Differently ASAP?”

“Uh, Bertie . . . “

“Oh, I see. It don’t work that way where Differently lives, right? He lives in La-La Land.”

“Something like that. But, yes, you’re correct, Bertie.”

“Well, you’re a hell of an author, you are, Mister Lockhart. But maybe I can help you out anyway—though I don’t know why I should.”

“You mean you have an idea, Bertie?”

“Of course I got an idea. I got lots of ideas, all the time. Here it is: Just call Anyone.”

“Anyone?”

“Sure. What the hell’s the difference, anyway? You’re bound to get Differently sooner or later.”

“That’s actually a good idea, Bertie. I’ll just start dialing Anyone, and sooner or later I’ll reach Differently. But there’s one more thing.”

“Yeah? Now what?”

“Differently needs some chalk.”

“Oh boy. What did I get messed up in? Just tell him to go down to the dime store and buy a box of chalk.”

“Uh, Bertie, they don’t have dime stores any more, especially where Differently is concerned.”

“Jesus, Joseph and Mary, Lockhart. Are you sure you’re writin’ this crap, or is it writin’ you?”

Bertie was losing patience and began tapping on the cradle with her fingernail.

There was a long silence, apart from the tapping.

“Lockhart? Still there?”

“You want the truth, Bertie?”

“Course I want the truth!”

“I don’t know if I’m here—or there.”

“Well, then it don’t make any difference, does it?”

And with that Bertie hung up on Lockhart, who quickly poured himself another shot of Macallan and took his cat’s cradle string out of his desk drawer, weaving it through his fingers, in hopes of calming his nerves before dialing Anyone.

[Bertie is a main character is Russ’ novel--not in alternating form--entitled, Dreams: The Final Heresy.]

In a previous post I described how Paco and I have been engaged in what I clumsily call "alternating authorial narrative." Examples of such narratives will be published in the future (Fex & Coo, Deathling Crown Lottery and The Museum of Indifference are in the works). A fresh example of this is Paco's response to my blog post entitled "Groiling." His piece is entitled, "Mr. Differently Has A Class to Teach."

Mr. Differently Has A Class to Teach

Mr. Differently was thrashing back and forth through the piles of thrash, searching for . . . searching for . . .

"Damme now, what was it?" said Differently, annoyed. "I've got a class to teach!"

"Boyp!" The sound came once from the thrash pile, then again: "Boyp! Boyp!"

Differently stopped his thrashing and listened for . . . listened for . . . oh yes, the Thrash Pile Voice. Finally, it came:

"That you, Boss, thrashin' again? Soychin' for?" came a reptilian-amphibian voice in reply, followed by another boyp.

"Yes, I'm Differently. I do things my way. Who are you?"

"Aw, Boss, you knows who I am. I'm always sittin' in your thrash pile, boypin' an' choypin' and eatin' doyty woyms. I'm Mr. Blackboyd, like the one you's always chalkin' on when you's teachin'."

"Excuse me?"

"Alright, yer 'scuzed," said Mr. Blackboyd, who, charmed by his own humor, finished with a prolonged, stuttering snort, "A-hunh, a-hunh, a-hunh!"

"If you please!" said Mr. Differently, almost shouting now.

"I 'spose you wanna go Goilin' today, with all them others," said the Thrash Pile Voice.

"No, I teach Koiling. That's my specialty. Koiling—get it? ing, ing, ing, not in' in' in'. And where's my chalk? Have you been eating my chalk again?"

"Chawk? You mean that white stuff?"

"Yes, the chawk—I mean, the chalk."

"Oh, yeah, maybe I did. Keeps me from boypin' so much. You know what it's like, eatin' all them doyty woyms all day. Didja need it or somethin'?"

"I just told you, I have a class to teach!"

"What time's yer klass?" said Mr. Blackboyd, unpertoybed, eyeing a doyty woym just emerging from the muck under the Thrash Pile.

"It starts when I get there!" said Differently, enunciating slowly and clearly, while clearly and slowly losing his temper. "So if you would be so kind as to evacuate my thrash pile, I'll get on with my search."

"Sorry, Boss. Won't do no good. I ate the chawk. You can thrash all day and you won't find it. Too late."

"Well, don't you have some hidden away? Some little stash in a grubby little hole somewhere? How else will I teach my class?" This was going differently from how Mr. Differently had planned his big Goiling Day Koiling Teaching Day.

"Got me, Boss. How many students ya got?"

"Well, how should I know? It depends on how many show up, don't it—I mean, doesn't it? Yes, Class Count goes differently on different Teaching Days," said Mr. Differently. "After all, it can't always be the same, not here anyway."

"Can't help ya, Boss. All I know is, I ate all the chawk, so it's gone. Poof. Poop. Oops. Just like that."

"This is an outrage!" Mr. Differently trembled as he spoke. "Well"—he paused, his breathing nearly convulsed—"it's the very last thing I want to do,"—tremble, tremble—"but I suppose I have no choice. I'm going to have to call in Lockhart. He'll have some cockamamie idea about what to do. After all, we're both teachers."

"Sounds like a plan, Boss, an' the only plan ya got."

"Mmmm," replied Mr. Differently, though bitterly begrudging his assent.

"Boyp!" replied Mr. Blackboyd, as a way of signing out, and with that he burrowed back into the thrash pile, where, we suppose, he intended to take his daily nap, leaving Mr. Differently to get Lockhart on the line.