Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
>>Was Phil staying at your house?
No.  I had written to Phil, and so had two other women, Joanne and
Sue.  They offered him a place to stay.

That didn't work out for long, though.  Phil had to sleep on the
couch for one thing.

Tim can correct me if I'm wrong about this chain of events, but I
seem to recall that Phil was invited to speak to McNelly's science
fiction class.  He complained about his living situation, and one of
the students, Joel Stein, piped up and said he had an extra bedroom,
and Phil became his roommate.

At this point it's important to mention Quartz Lane.  Phil moved in
with Joel, who lived on Quartz Lane.  I moved to Quartz Lane, I
think before Phil, with my roommate Alice when our other two
roommates moved out of our previous apartment, and then Tim moved
there.  I will let him tell the story of how that happened.  I like
to compare it to a shoebox filled with a few loose peanuts that all
ended up in one corner.
  

    
I have so many questions but I have a feel for how this is
unfolding, don't want to skip ahead, and will wait for the answers
to be revealed.
  

    
As <jonl> said in the introduction to this topic:
"...few knew the private side [of Phil], often the darker
side, the side that only the women he was in love with encountered;
the side that Linda knew. 

The letter in which Phil effusively declared his love for me, was
dated April 21. It didn't take long for the dark side to emerge.

My journal entry, dated April 28, [seven days llater!] starts "I am
still shaking," and continues for another seven pages, detailing a
shocking event that occurred with Phil.

We were going somewhere, and as usual, I was driving.  I think that
what triggered this even was that I mentioned I had an upcoming date
with Norman Spinrad.

Phil reacted in a way I had never seen anyone do before:  he curled
up into himself as if retreating and then became what I can only
describe as catatonic. It scared me.

Then, he erupted.

Here's some of what I wrote:

"The ordeal has been terrifying.  I know I can't sleep...I had to be
deaf and dumb.  I had to think of myself.  I said I was evaluating
my morals; I did and my decision was to be selfish, if you can say
that not hearing and not speaking are being selfish.

"But I couldn't help but hear...the words are burned on a portion of
my brain...not so much the words but the tone that terrified me...oh
my God but what I heard.  The man only not a man, a mere shell of
what was formerly a man and that shell crumbled so loudly, deafening
my ears to my resolution, tying my stomach in knots from the fear
but still I would not speak.  I had to hear it.

"My eyes were glazed to the freeway, my gaze ironing it out flat
before me...my eyes did not waver as I held my decision clenched
between my teeth.  I didn't want to turn my head because I didn't
want to wince when the blow struck.  I didn't want to see it coming.

"He started talking.  small talk, casual...I didn't answer or
respond.  Nothing needed to be said, no answer was required...

"He left me alone at first, figuring I would get over it.

"He tried again.  He became angry, I knew it would be there...why in
the world would the sole lack of response lead to such a reaction
unless the man is no longer a man but decayed inside and afraid that
the sound of his own voice would crumble the ruins of what was
inside unless a responding voice answered?

[...]

"I guess the silence became insufferable because it would no longer
do to use a normal tone of voice.  He had to shout.  He terrified me
by the noise.  I heard so many things behind it.  I thought that he
would jump out of the car.  I thought he would hit me.

"I knew you didn't love me.  I knew, too, that you were only
dependent on me.  Almost like the man who lives along but keeps a
cat so there is something in the world that needs him...only I
didn't need you and oh how you tried to make me.  The fantastic
flattery you tried to get me addicted to so I wouldn't be satisfied
with any one else.  Your game of famous people you had to introduce
me to.  I wasn't impressed.  

[...]

"Through the anger, the frustration, the final intense hatred, I
heard the truth.  Coldly, starkly.  You are no one if no one
responds.  And you are all you think about.  Your pain, your
heartaches, your disabilities, your self sorrow.  And in my hearing
them they became my burden but damn, I was so sick of your
dependence on me.  I won't let you make it my responsibility to pull
you out of your depression.  I am not an object of adoration...and I
became smothered by the identity you tried to lay on me...I heard
the epithets and the unbelievable things you called me*...I heard
insanity crying out...you said you'd hit me, and I believe you."

He didn't hit me.  That time.

*Lower than a worm's ass was one of them.
  

    
Wow.  Thank you for taking notes.  I wish I had/would.

I have a somewhat oddball question, based on dating someone in the
mid-90s who is ten years older than me and who grew up somewhere in LA
in the 60s and 70s.

Her parents were some sort of literati and had authors over for dinner
on a regular basis when she was younger, before high school.  Many of
them were SF authors, including L. Ron Hubbard, so this might have been
related to LASFS.  Of course here we are 30 years later and I didn't
take notes, but I think Tom Disch was also at one of the dinners.  I
asked if PK Dick was ever there and she asked me, "what did he look
like?"

I had no idea.

So I'm wondering what his interactions were with LASFS, Hubbard
(pre-Dianetics), and the rest of the LA writing crowd.
  

    
I don't think he ever had any interaction with LASFS (Los Angeles
Science Fantasy Society, with a history back to the '40s), and I'm
sure he never met Hubbard, who had left the SF field by the time
Phil arrived. I don't recall him meeting any of the LA writers
except for Spinrad and Ellison. Right at first he was keeping a low
profile in the SF world, though on July 1st he and I drove to the
Westercon in Long Beach -- and even then, he had the woman at the
registration table type on his name badge the name of an old SF
writer -- S. P. Meek or Nat Schachner or one of those. It was at
this Westercon that he met Ginger Smith, soon to play a significant
role in his story.
  

    
Thanks!  I'm digging through my old email looking for more "notes".

Also, outside of this topic, thanks to <tpowers> for coming to
Armadillocon in Austin in the late 80s and early 90s.  I was one of
the skate punks who brought beer to panels for guests who wanted a
bottle of Shiner Bock.  Can't remember if you had one, but I remember
one improved either Tom Maddox;s or Bill Gibson's afternoon. :-)
  

    
I'm sure I had one of your beers, thanks!

    And I think we're all catching our breaths after Linda's
harrowing post. I'll shortly answer her earlier question about how
everybody wound up living in apartments on Quartz Lane in Fullerton.
  

    
I recall Gibson et al. being massively hung over in a panel one year
at Armadillocon. (I should mention that Armadillocon still lives:
<https://armadillocon.org/d46/>.)
  

    
Okay, here's a map, which Linda can add to. Some time between April
and June of '72, Linda and her roommate Alice moved to an apartment
on Quartz Lane in Fullerton. Some time after than but before the end
of June, Phil Dick spoke at a class of Will McNelly's, and he
mentioned that he needed to find a place to live. (As we've already
mentioned, Joanne and Sue could only offer him a couch to sleep on.)


     A young man in the class, Joel Stein, about twenty-six years
old, had recently been divorced and had a spare room at his
apartment -- which happened to be on Quartz Lane.  After class, Joel
told Phil that he was welcome to move in and split the rent, and
Phil (once again) agreed to move in immediately with somebody he
didn't know.

    This time it worked out. Joel was easy-going, humorous and
well-read, and the three of us spent many evenings sitting around
and chatting. Phil of course had no car, and Joel and I had only
motorcycles, but I was able to borrow my parents' car when stuff
needed to be moved.

     And there was Linda, on the other side of the street. Linda,
how did things proceed from there?
  

    
Responding to #39 by <jonl> where he advised me to just take a deep
breath as I read this fascinating back and forth..so I have (taken a
deep breath)and am infinitely more calm and am able to approach the
content with detachment or at least, I think I can
All in all, just an enjoyable and informative convo here
Carry on and Keep Calm
  

    
Just saying hello. Thanks Linda and Time for doing this, and
inviting me in to be part.
  

    
Linda, in PKD's eruption in the car you describe in post 53, you
said "I had to be deaf and dumb." You didn't feel a need to defend
yourself somehow? I wonder when you realized that his mental illness
relieved you of any responsibility to fulfill his needs. Did his
fame have anything to do with your feelings about his neediness for
you?
  

    
"Linda and Tim" ahem
  

    
Oh!  Jonathan and Frako slipped in!  Jonathan, glad you could join
us.

Frako, I think I may have answered at least part of your question in
this post about his fame.  Don't forget, I was young and didn't know
from neediness, how to defend myself, or even that doing so was
possible, having been raised to be a passive people-pleaser.  When I
tried to tell someone about what was happening, they said,
dismissively, "Oh, that can't possibly be true.  He's famous!"

Tim, you left out the part where you came to live on Quartz Lane.

I hate that I feel like I have to apologize for telling you what I
experienced with Phil because nobody likes to think about someone
they hold in high esteem having a dark side, much less hearing about
it.

Don't forget that I had never read anything Phil wrote.  I only knew
that he was someone that my friends were very excited about having
in our midst, and it was a bonus that he seemed to be taken with me.

Remember, too, that my last post was was a journal entry, and I
never expressed any of that to Phil.  I had forgotten all about that
entry until Professor Gill asked me to be a guest speaker at his
class at San Francisco State.  I sat in on the class to hear the
other speakers and listened to the biography of Phil that Professor
Gill had been working on for the last 20 years. I started rummaging
through memories and papers and whatnot to prepare for my talk, and
that's when I found it.

Then I started talking to Tim who started rummaging around and he
had also kept a journal and had a lot more details of the time that
I had either not known or forgotten.  And the more we talked about
it, the more we remembered, and that's how this discussion came
about.

It's built around a combination of the talk I gave and the letters
that Phil wrote me.  There are a lot of them and we've only covered
one so far, so sit back and Keep Calm as we Carry On.
  

    
The next letter is dated May 15, 1972.

Before I get into it, let me set the scene a little bit.  In the
next few paragraphs, Phil mentions "Bratstrom."  That was Bayard
Brattstrom, a professor of biology at Cal State Fullerton.  I
haven't thought about him in 50 years; when I Googled him I found
that he's 94 and still among us.  The Google results describe his
accomplishments and the books he's written, including one called
"Words of Wisdom From an Old Professor Sitting on a Hill" that I
want to read.

Why is this important, you ask.  (I'm going to sound a lot like
grandma reminiscing about what things were like back then, but...)

In the early 70's, at least on the campus of Cal State Fullerton,
there was a movement toward self discovery in which people
participated in encounter groups.  I'll let Google describe it:

"What were encounter groups in the 1970s?
"For those who may have arrived in Southern California later,
encounter groups were generally weekend or week-long unstructured
group meetings of eight to 12 people plus a leader/facilitator with
the alleged intent of increasing emotional expressiveness and
communication, and promoting personal growth."

Some professors embraced the idea wholeheartedly.  I had a math
teacher who had us arrange our desks in a circle and talk about our
feelings.  In Brattstrom's case, he decided to try his hand at being
a facilitator, a de facto therapist, and offered counseling
sessions.

I forget how we ended up with Brattstrom, but I had told Phil that I
thought he needed professional help.  He said that he had never
needed psychological help until he met me.  [Years later, in one of
the biographies, I discovered that the first time Phil had seen a
psychiatrist he was six.]  Phil said he would go to see a
professional, but only if I went with him.

[Again, years later, reading Divine Invasions, the biography written
by Laurence Sutin, I read that Phil and I were in couples
counseling.  Ha!  It is to laugh, nay it is to snort derisively.]  
  

    
Back to the letter.  I can't post the whole thing here due to
copyright, but I can quote from it.

It's typewritten, as nearly every communication with Phil was, and
he made a carbon copy of nearly everything.

It starts "Dear Kathy,"  but Kathy is crossed out and "Linda" is
handwritten in.

"No, Katherine; it's not you I'm writing to:  It's Linda, once
again.  Today, Wednesday, I woke up feeling the most intense
loneliness for you, Linda, as if I had not seen you in a terribly
long time.  I sensed you as so real.  An absolute reality, outside
myself, but far off.  I was aware of you -- not as a pretty foxy
chick, pleasant to look at on the outside, from the outside -- but I
sensed you in yourself, as you are (or I experienced you as being)
inside yourself.  I saw you as a slowly spinning globe, like a
volvox, made out of ice and fire in layers, in various degrees that
changed from time to time, as you changed.  You turned very slowly. 
Slowed down almost to a halt.  And mostly ice -- that was how you
you seemed to me to be on Monday when you phoned me from
Brattstrom's office.  Such a dense and heavy globe, and so cooled
off, so weighed down: down inside dark red fires burned dully, but
only down inside; the ice had covered almost everything and you had
almost stopped turning.  Old, a thousand years old.  Pitted, from
blows on the outside, a corroded globe split open here and there,
chinks in the ice covered over by more and more ice.  And still you
turned, but slower and slower still.  Like an ancient, damaged
planet, cooling off far away from its sun."
  

    
More later...
  

    
Hello, Jonathan! Glad you're with us.

     Linda, I didn't move in to Quartz Lane until Phil moved out of
Joel's apartment and, with Tess, into the apartment across the
landing -- August, September? of '72. Previously it had been
occupied by Mary Wilson, Merry-Lou Malone and Cyndi Stanlow. I moved
into Joel's newly vacant spare room.

     And a lot of stuff happened before I moved in. Clockwork
Orange, etc. 
  

    
It's hard for me to imagine that anyone read Phil's work and did not
expect that he had a dark side. All of his work is about the
interaction of good and evil versions of reality, and from VALIS
onward it's explicitly about duality in his own being.
  

    
> It starts "Dear Kathy,"  but Kathy is crossed out and "Linda" is
handwritten in.

Giant, exhausted sigh.
  

    
<mazz> - I'm curious to know more about your reaction to the line
you quoted.  What are your thoughts?

Yes, Chuck, but here's the thing:  even if you suspect that someone
has a dark side based on their work, it's one thing to surmise, and
another to be faced with the fact of it.

You will notice that the subject of that fraught evening has not
been discussed and we are continuing as if nothing happened.

More from that letter...

[...]

"And what struck me then, and again today on the phone, was your
bewilderment.  Why? you always seem to ask.  You do not understand. 
When you ask me questions I think, "She's hasstling (sic) me."  But
actually you are trying to understand what  you do not understand. 
One of the most overwhelming experiences I've ever had was on Sunday
night when I made you cry.  Both times I've made you cry you've sat
perfectly still, with your face really expressionless, with tears
the only quality in motion about you, the unmoving body, the
impassive but unhappy face, and the running tears.  It pierces me to
the heart, Linda.  Such dignity.  Actually, Linda such nobility. 
Crying as if you know there is no way to protest, no point in
thrashing about.  Oh Linda!  You always seem so grownup when you
cry.  A dreadful way to find maturity, through grief."

Actually, <mazz>, now that I read this again, some 50 years later,
I'm realizing how it could sound through your ears.  
  

    
Maybe I was sensitized by my years of bipolar disorder, seen looking
back through sensibilities mediated by  psychedelics. Starting in
about 1964 his novels were much deeper emotionally and
psychologically than his earlier work. It was also clear to me that
the books had a lot of him in them, and that he wasn't tightly
buttoned down. All of which is why I loved them.
  

    
When I put together the collection of letters, I titled it "Letters
from the heart, the spleen, and the funny bone," because Phil could
wax romantic, he could be vitriolic (which we will see soon enough),
and he could be so funny.

<craig1st> has read the Application for Personal Immortality.  Want
to say anything about that? 

<mcb> has The Fan Letter.  Observations, comments, chuckles?

Even though I've showed you some of the dark side, it would be doing
him a disservice if I didn't mention how charming, entertaining, and
funny he could be.  I sometimes took him to class with me.  He would
sit there like any other student, and at some appropriate point he'd
raise his hand to ask a question, and the professor would make the
mistake of calling on him, at which point he would hold forth,
keeping everyone, including the professor, in thrall for the rest of
the class.  I don't think anyone knew who he was, other than a guest
of mine.

And there were other times when the paranoia shone through.  

I posted the following on USENET in the sf-lovers group, in 1989,
relating the story of the fumigation.  It starts out talking about
The Break-In.  No story about Phil would be complete without
mentioning The Break-In.  We will get to that.  For now, though...

Date: 24 Feb 89 22:38:54 GMT
From: llt@peregrine.peregrine.com (Taylor)
Subject: Re: PKD and the events of 1974/1975

I don't yet know how to quote from an article, but to respond to
Jonathan Chandross and Jeremy Crampton and your postings regarding
the break-in at Phil's house and the introduction to the Dark-Haired
Girl (of which I am one -- can we just call me Linda, please?):

First of all, the dates here are somewhat wrong. When I met Phil in
1972,the break-in was (and continued to be for years) a major topic
of
conversation. It came up often. Some details were consistent, others
were mentioned only once or twice. The missing checks were in the
first category -- in the second was the subject of grapes. I can't
remember whether they took grapes or left grapes but something about
grapes and the break-in wigged Phil out a lot.  Also, since I missed
the original posting that triggered this discussion, I don't know
where the original poster heard about this.  The break-in had taken
place before I met him; my impression was late sixties. I'm feeling
like "If I'd known there was gonna be a test I would have listened
better."

[Later, I would learn that the break-in occurred not too long before
Phil went to Vancouver, so, within a few months of when he came to
Fullerton.]

My impression at the time was that something clearly happened. But
how much of this story has been embellished over time is not clear.

But I do have some personal experience of Phil taking something that
had the potential to be major and blowing it entirely out of
proportion.

For example, in 1972 I lived down the street from Phil. We all had
apartments close to Cal State Fullerton. (When I say "we all" I
refer to Phil and Tim Powers and others you will know if you read
The Dark- Haired Girl; Jim Blaylock and K.W. Jeter were friends of
Tim's and later, Phil's, although they did not live in our area.

One day I received notification from my landlord that the place was
going to be fumigated, we should remove everything from the
cupboards, pull drawers and their contents out and cover everything
up. Then, we were to vacate the premises for several hours.

I went over to Phil's and hung out; at the appointed hour I returned
to my apartment. When I got there, I saw that, much to my horror,
they had also pulled the drawers out of my dresser, and the top one,
placed front and center on my bed had a "lid*" in it. I figured I
was busted for sure, and called Phil, looking for reassurance and
possibly help. I think that, in reality, I wasn't too scared, but,
since Phil thrived on crisis, those of us who were able to deliver
crises were richly rewarded. This time was no exception.

[*"lid" = stash, weed, marijuana, etc.]

In no time at all, Phil had created a plan to thwart the narcs and
confound the police. It had to do with going to nearly every Carl's
Junior in Orange County and buying something, the end purpose was to
have Carl's Junior bags from so many locations that tracing the
original purchaser would be nearly impossible.  Then, we would put a
little bit of the marijuana in each bag. Then, we would all take as
many cars as possible, each containing Carl's Junior bags with
little stashes in them and fan out, depositing Carl's Junior bags in
Dumpsters and trash cans all over Orange County. 

I loved this plan, I thought it was hilarious.  Phil, however, was
dead serious. He wanted to put this plan into action. He couldn't
let go of it. He analyzed it and analyzed it and came close to
convincing me, at least, that this was only a step away from our own
break-ins; almost certainly we were now under surveillance. Phil
would look out the window and point out the "undercover" cars that
were out there, only minutes away from breaking through the door.

Yes, please do read the introduction to The Dark-Haired Girl, and
believe Paul when he says that Phil is an unreliable narrator. I do
not mean to give the impression of belittling Phil and his
enormously important contributions. I was then, and am now, in
complete awe of his genius. I have yet to have an experience that
comes close to discussions (about anything) that took place with
Phil, whether it was just the two of us or a roomful of people. 
But, yes, for Phil, reality was distorted. I'm sorry, but that's the
way it was.

I've written a response to the material that appeared about me in
The Dark Haired Girl at Paul Williams' invitation. In it, I explore
my experience of this subject in more depth, and relate more events.
As of this writing, Paul was considering publishing it in the PKDS
newsletter. In his words, he feels that it will be a breakthrough
for people to read about this side of Phil.  Specifically, what
triggered my response was Paul's comment in the introduction to TDHG
that Phil was mad as a hatter, with apologies to Tim. Tim remains a
staunch defender of Phil (or should I say to his image of Phil).
But, enough of that for now.  Read the newsletter.

By the way, Jonathan, where did you hear that "PKD had turned his
house into a haven for drug users?*" I'm not denying this, because I
don't know, it's just that I keep learning more and more, and bits
and pieces get filled in here and there; I don't want to accept all
information indiscriminately without checking it out first.

[*it was true.  Tim covered that in an earlier post when he talked
about what happened just before Phil went to Vancouver.]

And anyway, to paraphrase Jeremy, "...let's not lose sight of what's
really important: his brilliant writing."

* * * * * * * 

Phil had a gift for convincing you of the veracity of whatever wild
tale he was telling.  Tim, don't you have a story about something
that he convinced you of?

[I have to thank <ubikcan>, Jeremy Crampton, for sending me this
post that he downloaded from USENET in 1989.] 
  

    
<karish> slipped.  

>>It was also clear to me that
the books had a lot of him in them, and that he wasn't tightly
buttoned down. All of which is why I loved them.

That kind of sums things up, doesn't it?  If he had been tightly
buttoned down he would have been someone else and we wouldn't be
having this conversation.
  

    
I think this is where the age of the reader of PKD's books makes a
huge difference.

I was born in 1967 and didn't read a PKD book until high school.  I
suspect it was _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep_ because of "Blade
Runner", a movie I wouldn't see until it was released on laser disc in
the late 80s.  I think I read _The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich"
in college after reading K. W. Jeter's _Dr. Adder_ after seeing a talk
with him at ArmadilloCon.

_Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich_  <https://amzn.to/4c55Bxo>
_Dr. Adder_ <https://amzn.to/3yOf2mC>

Is there any way we can get K. W. Jeter invited to this discussion?
His presentations at cons really changed how I thought about science
fiction, fantasy, and reality.  Also part of the reason I now work in
experimental interaction design.