THE CREATIVE WRITERS
A BURLESQUE OF THE IMAGINATION ON TOTALITARIAN THEMES IN THE MANNER OF ÉMILE COHL AND LES ARTS INCOHÉRENTS HARRY EVERETT SMITH, AND HANNA-BARBERA
Galleon Books in Moncton, New Brunswick, will be publishing, later this month or in early September, my novel The Creative Writers. Here are the epigraphs, some pictures pertinent to the action, and the synopses that head each chapter in the text—which will, unfortunately, give you next to no idea what to expect.
“Why does the title ‘Franz Kafka, PhD, Professor of Creative Writing, Charles University, Prague’ raise a smile to our lips?”—J. M. Coetzee, “Eight Ways of Looking at Samuel Beckett”
“Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality.” —Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind
“The static, the finite, and the solid had seen their day.”—Henri Michaux, Major Ordeals of the Mind and Countless Minor Ones
Image from Emile Cohl’s Fantasmagorie (1908), interpreted here as “Big Literature versus Wallace Stevens’s ‘scholar of one candle.’” Here too is Stevens reading the poem, “The Auroras of Autumn”
Yin and Yang: not the symbol of eternal opposition of false binaries but of the ceaseless transformation of all, and the one within the other.
Sojourner Truth plays the part of Super Yin.
Jackie Gleason plays the part of Super Yang.
George Jetson plays the part of George Joutsen.
Fred Flintstone plays the part of Frederick Funston IV.
Images from Harry Everett Smith’s Heaven and Earth Magic, said to be Bob Dylan’s favorite movie.
Clerici vagantes: the mediaeval progenitors of the creative writers.
From Professor George Joutsen’s collection of primeval pornography.
Ike Perlmutter, former chair of the Marvel Entertainment, and Mar-a-Lago grifter who ran The Department of Veterans Affairs, is played by Ike Perlmutter.
The Ghost of Bill Hicks, an influential comedian who died in 1994 at age 32 of pancreatic cancer, is played by Bill Hicks.
The mural outside Fred Funston’s office, by Lucy McKenzie. It’s part of MOMA’s collection.
James Ensor’s depiction of spectators at the infamous bicycle race in which Fred Funston accidentally kills another rider.
Images by Martin Munkasci (1930), featured in Ann Gelacarte’s work in progress, The Central Coast of Being.
A comic book produced by the CIA about a war that comes to haunt George Joutsen.
Neanderthal art, painted circa 64,000 BCE in the cave at La Pasiega in northern Spain, featuring the earliest known depiction of Marvin the Martian, an exact duplicate of which, painted circa 40,000 BCE, is found by George and Ann and family in Sulawesi.
Survivors of the Dakota Uprising of 1862 in southwestern Minnesota. George Joutsen’s great-grandfather is the small boy in the center of the photograph.
A poster designed by George Joutsen’s father when he worked in the US Embassy in Paris, of Charles de Gaulle in 1968.
The head of the jaguar and the Mayan glyph for it: bahlam: the flow of knowledge of what is and language as pictures of ideas about things as they are.
CHAPTER 1
In which our principal argument is introduced, that the Creative Writers are foolish pawns in a cruel game of totalitarian subjugatory Amusement unto Death. George Swan, an adjunct professor of Creative Effort is introduced and physically translated.
CHAPTER 2
In which a video surfaces of tuxedoed cyclists racing from Santa Monica to Hollywood for the Oscars. A fatal accident in that race ties George Swan to Frederick Funston IV, a movie mogul. They become Brothers in Art.
CHAPTER 3
In which movie projects are discussed and some personal history is revealed, suggesting George and Fred were destined to meet by forces beyond human ken. Another video clip adumbrates horror to come.
CHAPTER 4
In which Super Yin and Super Yang, out of costume and manifesting as talent agents, begin to vie for the right to represent George, who has changed his name back to the original Finnish, Joutsen. Personal histories of the Philippines: Fred’s great-grandfather, a general in the Philippine-American War of 1898, and George, a sailor during the Vietnam War.
CHAPTER 5
In which George tells a tale of Olongapo in the hope of making a movie of it. Super Yang reveals he is working for Marvel’s Ike Perlmutter and the Ghost of Ronald Reagan, who hope to run Super Yin out of business.
CHAPTER 6
In which the video of the bike race is more fully explored. Fred speaks of his father, Fred III, who was famous for pooping from a Piper Cub over Reagan’s Orange County. George, who had read Gravity’s Rainbow on the gun-mount of the USS England, is shocked to learn that Fred was the auteur behind the revolutionary and award-winning film of that novel.
CHAPTER 7
In which the link between George Joutsen and Fred Funston becomes clearer. Super Yang entertains Student Z in his office. Unbeknownst to her, Yang has begun to train her in terrorism.
CHAPTER 8
In which George meets the director of Gravity’s Rainbow, Ann Gelacarte. They discuss projects: her Central Coast of Being, and his Heap of Gold. A satchel containing an immense amount of money from Super Yang is handed to George.
CHAPTER 9
In which we glimpse Fred’s family life, and a psychic collapse that nearly kills him.
CHAPTER 10
In which we see the extent of Super Yang’s involvement with the Creative Writers, who have driven their university out of business and taken over the city.
CHAPTER 11
In which a meeting of principals is held in Yang’s office: Yang, George, Ann, an international finance investigator from New York, Andrea Bell, and Harry Mo’bama, who was a Harvard Law School mate of Fred’s. Light is shed on the true nature of A Heap Gold. It has been raining for forty days and nights.
CHAPTER 12
In which, despite the rain, a wildfire consumes much of Los Angeles. George and Ann throw in with Yin and begin a family. Daughter Judy ages quickly. They flee LA for a treehouse in San Luis el Brujo on California’s Central Coast. Ann tells a tale of her family’s work in Guatemala for the CIA.
CHAPTER 13
In which George tells Judy about her grandparents and their connection to California, their divorce, and their subsequent lives in Hong Kong and Paris, and more details about A Heap of Gold.
CHAPTER 14
In which Fred, who has been making his way to San Luis el Brujo in a wheelchair, joins the Yin group. His actions during the Crisis of 2008-2009 are reviewed.
CHAPTER 15
In which the treehouse is bombed by the mysterious Piper Cub of Fred III seen in earlier chapters. Fred IV finds himself in two places at once. The Yin Group travels back in time to 1862 to see George’s great-grandfather. Judy is torn between Andrea’s trip to Manila to investigate Yang’s partners, and the beginning of principal photography for A Heap of Gold in Minnesota.
CHAPTER 16
In which the Yin Group travels to Manila.
CHAPTER 17
In which the Creative Writers solidify and extend their revolutionary control of the southwestern United States, enter into armed conflict with journalists, and host a visit from the 83rd reincarnation of the sublime Rhodo Don Dren.
CHAPTER 18
In which a visit to Olongapo shocks George with economic changes. They travel to Sulawesi. Ann sickens and is unable to fly. They confront the Neanderthal Marvin the Martian.
CHAPTER 19
In which a meeting with the Thunderbird takes place in southwestern Minnesota. Judy has a fateful call with Andrea, who has uncovered metastasizing evil in the funding of Gravity’s Rainbow.
CHAPTER 20
In which a re-enactment of the Dakota War of 1862 opens a door to other realms of being.
CHAPTER 21
In which principal photography for A Heap of Gold begins. Other realms of being interfere with the shooting. Student Z, now known as Super Z, begins a work of terrorism planned by Yang. The Earth of the Mind slips it mooring and reality is overwhelmed.
CHAPTER 22
In which the discoherent real slowly begins to cohere once again, affording George one last talk with his mother and father about the nature of the real and its primal field.
CHAPTER 23
In which the Creative Writers appear, tie George down as the Lilliputians did Gulliver, and threaten to torture the Negative Creativity out of him.
CHAPTER 24
In which a stable reality holds Ann and George in its embrace as they circle the Earth in their satellite home and watch the rushes of A Heap of Gold. Super Yin and Fred commune in silent darkness.
John Candy in an episode of SCTV.