The Williams College Tennis Court

In early 1967, on one of my first trips to the estate to visit people I knew who'd moved in there, I heard stories of how those theatrical types had just entertained themselves by recreating a famous scene from the Antonioni film "Blow Up" on the estate's tennis court. Peter Cohon, Ronnie, Darryl, maybe Sandy ... I don't know for sure who was on the court that day.


I'd just seen "Blow Up" over in Albany, as had half of the East Bay. All I remembered thinking was those mimes sure were noisy, weren't they?

There was a small cornet hanging from a braided cord on the wall of the cottage that Sandy and Ronnie were handing over to Darryl and his friend. And Ed Leddy by all reports had given a trumpet lesson or two to one of the residents of the cottage recently.



(Photo of Ronnie Davis and trumpet
"Vietnam veteran R.G. Davis, one of the founders of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, rides his bicycle to an Iraq war protest in San Francisco while playing "Reveille" on his bugle. Chronicle photo by Deanne Fitzmaurice"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2003/03/22/BA125137.DTL
Retrieved: 7.28.11

Ed Leddy: Jazz Trumpeter

Darryl's cottage was quite large, an unpainted wooden structure with steeply pitched roof covered in forest green tarpaper. The great room boasted an ancient gas furnace which was never that I recall used, as that would have been futile because the room was wrapped around with windows. The floor of was covered with an equally ancient huge single piece of linoleum of indeterminate well-worn design, nailed in place around the edges and peeling away from the walls. That was layered with large braided woolen rugs or rugs with floral borders acquired on various thrift store outings. Furnished with couches, upholstered side chairs, occasional tables, and bookshelves with books and papers falling into each other.

The outside door led directly to the great room. A hard right turn from the entry door carried visitors into the kitchen, which was large enough to hold an ample kitchen table and three wooden table chairs all set beneath the window which afforded a view of the shrubbery outside. And a 1930's gas stove with a sink next to it set into a short wooden counter with shelving underneath for pots and pans, an area that was covered with thin curtains held in place by small brass curtain rods. There was a small gas wall heater in the wall of the kitchen that adjoined the bedroom, which was farther to the right through a door. That was at a different level because of the natural geography of the estate, built as it was on a hill, so you had to step up a stair or two into a small hallway and two steps carried you past the shower and bathroom facilities and on into a bedroom expansive enough to hold a bed, looking glass in a standing frame, two dressers, large woven baskets with lids containing clothes. That room, too, was wrapped on two sides with windows, under which on one side had built-in large cupboards and shelving.

Another cottage, set almost directly across the estate on the southern edge of the grounds, was much, much smaller and more primitive. This structure truly was ramshackle in appearance, and despite framed windows and a small step up porch under a small covered porch roof looked to be a building that had originally been erected to hold gardening tools, but which over the course of time had been improved and expanded upon. This small unpainted wooden cottage, no bigger than ten foot square, with a door once painted blue was the rental residence of a mysterious resident who was seldom seen on the estate. Squeezed inside was a bed, an easy chair with reading lamp, a small dining table with one chair, a stove for cooking and heating. There was a kitchen sink and towards the back, though I never saw this area, was the bathroom and shower. The tenant who was seldom seen was Ed Leddy. Ed lived on the estate for some undetermined number of years, certainly from 1966 to 1971, who knows how many other years on either side of that span.

Darryl Henriques: Comedian in Residence 1966-1969

So Ronnie and Sandy relinquished use of the desirable cottage and the Mime Troupe went on tour. Darryl Henriques the next season portrayed Borracho in "Olive Pits", a play which opened the tour in Delano and eventually won the troupe an Obie that year.

Although history remembers and often mentions Peter Cohon's (he wasn't Peter Coyote just yet) role as writer and actor, as I recall, Darryl was the only performer whose image was pictured on the poster, his face beamed out from the middle of a large blue star. That poster is missing from the San Francisco Mime Troupe official site, and to my knowledge the only place on earth you can view it is the lobby of Dell Arte International, 615 H Street, in Blue Lake, California.

While in residence at Williams College, Darryl Henriques stayed busy with the Mime Troupe throughout the year and especially during performance seasons. As a Mime Trouper, Darryl handled the crankies and made paper movies of his own. He was also an actor in the early plays about the parking meters and the telephone credit cards which the Mime Troupe performed at Provo Park in Berkeley among a number of other locations.

Darryl founded the East Bay Sharks, a Musical Theater Group, which also performed in parks throughout the Bay Area, including the park in San Francisco's China Town. The East Bay Sharks also performed onstage at the Freight and Salvage Coffee House and Mandrake's, both popular Berkeley venues of the time.

Sometime during this period, Darryl traveled to Mono Lake to be in a movie called "Shoot the Whale", which is still offered for viewing at places like Pacific Film Archives.

The cinematographer for "Shoot the Whale" was Philip Makanna, who'd recently aired a short cinematic piece on local PBS television station KQED (see San Francisco Cinematheque below).

Darryl moved from the estate sometime before close of 1969. Before he did, one of his visitors was an old college friend, Barry Leichtling who had run a rock palace in San Diego called the Hippodrome briefly in 1968 and who'd gone on to co-write a script and appear in a film, which had been released briefly to popular acclaim before being withdrawn for decades, now regarded as a cult classic, called "Captain Milkshake."

Darryl moved from the estate in 1969, but many of the scripts and ideas he'd been working on there found realization within the next short period of time.

In early March of 1971, the East Bay Sharks shared a bill with Commander Cody at Mandrake's where Darryl likely ran into film student Bill Farley when Bill was tending bar at the club. Eventually Farley made a documentary (2006) about Darryl, called: "Darryl Henriques Is In Show Business" and Peter (Cohon) Coyote found his way into that film.

And to conclude, Darryl Henriques is in show business.



http://www.cfiwest.org/sos/archives/newsletter/about.htm
Retrieved: 7.18.11
From Darryl's resume:

About Darryl Henriques

Member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. 1967 Park Season and National Tour of Obie winning L'Amam Militaire.
Founder of East Bay Sharks Musical Theater Group in San Francisco Bay area. Appearing in parks, schools, and nightclubs. 1972-76.
Writer and performer on Scoop's Last News Show on KSAN FM in San Francisco Bay area '76-'86. Voice of The Swami from Miami, Joe Carcinogenni, Jacques Kissmatoe, Rev. Clyde Fingerdip.
As a stand-up comedian has performed at benefits for such groups as the Rainforest Action Network, the Sea Shepherd Society, the Alliance for Survival, the Abalone Alliance, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Various Waldorf Schools, Fair, Media Alliance, etc.
Author of 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Pave The Earth, Ulysses Press.
Darryl played Nanglus, the Romulan Ambassador to the Federation in Star Trek VI, the Undiscovered Country.



Darryl Henriques, partial filmography
http://www.blockbuster.com/browse/catalog/personDetails/28066
Retrieved: 7.28.11

Darryl Henriques, partial filmography
http://www.moviezen.com/celebrity/darryl-henriques/filmography
Retrieved: 7.28.11

Darryl Henriques, partial filmography
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Darryl_Henriques
Retrieved: 7.28.11

"Olive Pits is an adaptation of Lope de Ruede's sixteenth-century farce, El paso de las olivas. The original is a short skit about a husband and wife who begin counting the profits from their olives the day they plant the olive tree. Olive Pits was banned at California State College at Fullerton. The Jack London Society had invited the troupe to perform it on their campus in February 1968. However, after learning from administrators about the troupe's use of obscene language in A Minstrel Show, the Faculty Council voted to forbid the performance. Four hundred students and faculty attended an anti-censorship rally on campus, then walked off to an orange grove where the show was performed."

The San Francisco Mime Troupe Reader
by Susan Vaneta Mason
(University of Michigan Press, 2005)
pp 57-58

San Francisco Cinematheque

"Originally aired on KQED TV (PBS) in San Francisco in 1969, the Dilexi Series represents a pioneering effort to present works created by artists specifically for broadcast. The 12-part weekly series was conceived and commissioned by the Dilexi Foundation, an off-shoot of the influential San Francisco art gallery founded by James Newman. Newman, who operated the Dilexi Gallery from 1958 until 1970, saw this innovative series as an opportunity to extend the influence of the contemporary arts far beyond the closeted environment of the commercial gallery.

"Formal agreement was reached with KQED in 1968 with the station's own John Coney designated as series producer. No restrictions regarding length, form or content were imposed upon the works, except for Newman's stipulation that they be aired weekly within the same time slot in order to gather an audience.

"Of the 12 artists invited to participate in the Dilexi series (Julian Beck, Walter De Maria. Kenneth Dewey, Robert Frank, Ann Halprin, Philip Makanna, Robert Nelson, Yvonne Rainier, Terry Riley, Edwin Schlossberg, Andy Warhol and Frank Zappa), ten of them completed new works, and two, Andy Warhol and Frank Zappa, submitted extant works. The tapes and films are far-reaching in their approaches to the medium and the circumstance of the broadcast series.

"'If the 60s meant anything as a unifying principle or idea, it meant a lack of caution that I don't see around much anymore. Certainly, there is nothing like the KQED of the 60s. You could barely get past the reception lobby today at Channel 9 with a proposal for a Dilexi type series. It was wide open: all the facilities, color quad studio cameras, location film equipment, whatever, were available at what was calculated to be their cost, an amount not to exceed $1,000 per production. The artists were commissioned for $500 each. It seemed daring at the time, perhaps it was. Anyway, we just went ahead and did it and, to a degree, it worked.'"

Makanna's piece was "The Empire of Things", an experimental narrative, using a text by H.L. Mountzoures which describes a post-apocalyptic culture.

San Francisco Cinematheque
1991 Program Notes
THE DILEXI SERIES
Curated and presented by Steve Seid

http://www.archive.org/stream/sanfranciscocine91sanfrich/sanfranciscocine91sanfrich_djvu.txt
Retrieved: 7.18.11

Sandy Archer and Ronnie Davis: Cottage Residents to 1966

Bay Area theater people had close ties with Williams College during the 1960s at least.

One of the cottages, in fact the one which journalist Phil Small had rented previously, had a steady line of theater people in residence for the better part of a decade.

Until 1966, R.G. Davis and Sandy Archer rented and used the cottage. Each of their names are legendary to this day in theater circles.

Sandy Archer is well loved and remembered for her contributions as an actress, teacher, and overall inspiration to theater throughout Northern California. R.G. Davis (or Ronnie as he was known to people closer to him) is the founder of what has become the San Francisco Mime Troupe. Trained as a dancer and in pantomime, "after studying with French mime master Etienne Decroux, R.G. Davis founded the Troupe in 1959" as an experimental project of the Actor's Workshop, "creating pieces, some silent, some with words, that were considered avant-garde. Today it would be called performance art. So, in fact, the first year of our long history we did perform pantomime." In their earlier performances the troupe was named the R.G. Davis Mime Troupe.

In fact, it was R.G. Davis's arrest mid-performance that "thrust the Troupe onto the stage of the Bay Area arts community" on August 7, 1965. "The Mime Troupe's performance of Peter Berg's adaptation of "Il Candelaio" by Giordano Bruno was stopped in mid-performance by San Francisco police on orders of the Recreation and Park Department. The Mime Troupe's permit had been revoked on grounds of obscenity. After the police arrest Director R.G. Davis, subsequent organizing efforts thrust the Troupe onto the stage of the Bay Area arts community." The subsequent benefit either to raise bail bail or pay for court costs attracted the attention of promoter Bill Graham, and so began a long relationship between the SF Mime Troupe and Graham. The Mime Troupe won the lawsuit, establishing the right of artists to perform uncensored in city parks.

Unlike most theater companies around the world, the Mime Troupe took its politics seriously. Even in the 1960s, Mime Troupe shows were not just busted for “indecency” and “obscenity.” The performances most often harassed were the most controversial like the devastating civil rights parody that was A Minstrel Show and the biting anti-war farce L’Amant Militaire, which a Des Moines, Iowa critic slammed as “shocking”, “unpatriotic”, “blasphemous”, before confessing “I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed an evening of theater more.”

(From Mission Local
The S.F. Mime Troupe Turns 50
by Mark Rabine
December 10, 2009)
http://www.sfmt.org/company/archives/50anniversary/articles/missionlocal12_10_09.html
Retrieved: 7.26.11

In early 1966, the SFMT was taking the show on the road. Sandy and R.G. also had another place to live in across the Bay and had been maintaining the keys to this cottage for occasional use. A fellow Mime Troupe actor, Darryl Henriques, knew of this pleasant, quaint, infrequently occupied, and most desirable Berkeley cottage and suggested that Ronnie and Sandy turn it over to a friend of his who was moving into the area and needed a place to live, which they did do. Darryl's compelling argument to convince Ronnie and Sandy was their having use of two houses was "bourgeois".

Another visitor to the estate during this same period was Julian Beck, founder of The Living Theater. I recall seeing the Living Theater present "Frankenstein" in Berkeley. But long before that performance, I was shown a black and white photograph of Ronnie and Julian standing together in conversation on the great patio near the mansion.

It's probably because I associated with some of these people back in the mid-sixties and being steeped in moving through the same times that I find myself relishing these memories.




http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sandy-Archer/134897503226235
Retrieved: 7.18.11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Mime_Troupe
Retrieved: 7.18.11

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/21/obituaries/etienne-decroux-is-dead-at-92-master-of-modern-french-mime.html
Retrieved: 7.18.11


Audioclip of Ron Davis in 1998 in the interview by Celine Deransart and Alice Gaillard for the film "Les Diggers de San Francisco".
Contains actual footage of Mime Troupe Bust in San Francisco
http://www.diggers.org/mime_troupe_bust.htm
Retrieved: 7.18.11
http://www.sfmt.org/company/archives/minstrel/minstrel.php
Retrieved: 7.18.11

Staging the Revolution: Guerrilla Theater as a Countercultural Practice, 1965-1968
By Michael William Doyle
[First published in Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and '70s, New York: Routledge, 2002]
http://www.diggers.org/guerrilla_theater.htm
Retrieved: 7.18.11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Beck
Retrieved: 7.18.11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_theater
Retrieved 7.16.11

The purpose behind the Mime Troupe, according to founder R.G. Davis:

"The radical stuff we did in the '60s was a combination of avant-garde and rejection of bourgeois theatrical stuff. Anyone, especially Joan Holden, who talks about the Mime Troupe talks about it as if it was a political entity and not an art entity. And we were art people, avant-garde people. We did events and happenings and I performed with other artists who were also breaking rules, Tape Music Center and dancers and young painters from the Art Institute. I then got political, but that was because I thought that political people were more interesting. People joined us because we were ready to open up to ideas, anything that was subversive, radical, disruptive, entertaining and freewheeling. Then I left the Actors' Workshop and decided to play to audiences that seemed to be volatile, people who were active. I would say that's the definition of a radical theatre group. Otherwise you're playing to the bourgeoisie and telling them that they're stupid, or what the Mime Troupe does now, tells the middle class that they're really sharp and that the stupid people are in government."

(Encore: R.G. Davis
by Sam Hurwitt)

Ronnie Davis when discussing agit-prop:

"When the Mime Troupe first went to the streets to do short skits, crankies (paper movies a la Pete Schumann), and puppet plays, we didn't try to insult or assault people; we decided to teach something useful. We began by teaching general city-folk how to stuff parking meters with tab-tops, using a simple puppet-and-actor skit to inform them of the.free use of parking meters. Another skit in this vein, telephone credit cards, was also designed to teach people something useful."

R.G. Davis, "1971: Rethinking Guerilla Theater", in Performance (1), Vol. 1, No. 1, December 1971

The New Radical Theatre Notebook
by Arthur Sainer
1975 p. 50

The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company: Visitors 1968-1969

Realtors trying to sell Williams College or what is called John Hopkins Spring Mansion or just "The Spring Mansion" these days are challenged in the current housing market, and the current owners have reduced the asking price from something like $6.5 million.

The realtors confide publicly to the press that "there were a lot of wild parties there in the sixties." Maybe there were. Dr. Schoenfeld mentioned to me he'd hosted some large parties at Farley Hall, but I don't think that's the kind of party the realtors are winking at. And certainly the occasional campfire sit-a-round where we barbecued corn on the cob to celebrate a birthday wouldn't qualify as winkable, not in anybody's book. Nor would those late Sunday afternoons the residents spent at a small line of weber cookers on the great patio. Could basting and turning or even admiring the stately Washingtonia palms ever really be regarded as winkable in any way?

I suspect when merchants are signaling to the press about "wild parties there in the sixties", in an attempt to spice up a property description, such historic gossip might actually be a cultural memory handed down to posterity about the times when the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company rehearsed at Williams College.

That makes sense, because theater troupes and dance groups all knew of Williams College as a place in Berkeley that offered rehearsal and dance space.

This theater troupe, The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, because of sheer numbers really needed a large performance space. The company attracted a multitude of members, maybe 20 or 30 or even more if counting the musicians, all of whom drifted on and off the estate, joining together for an evening of long rehearsal that went on far into the night. There was dancing, and music. So I guess that could qualify as a party.

The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, under the helm of Daniel Moore, began creating what he called a poetic sacred folk theater. From 1966 to 1969, the troupe alternated presentation of two plays: "The Walls Are Running Blood" and "Bliss Apocalypse". In each, there was a lot of pageantry and ritual, costumes and masks and painted bodies, flags, props, planetary imagery, prayer scrolls, thunder, lightning, gongs, horns, cymbals, more combinations than can be outlined in a single sentence. The performances were powered by music, and, according to Moore, "the music cut through to the other world, domain of all possibility."

"The intention underlying both of the productions was the transformation of evil and dark energies, such as were driving the Vietnam War, into positive and light energies, through a cathartic initiation, which the central hero had to undergo."

"The impetus and inspiration for the theater company was manifold: Zen Buddhism, which Moore and others of the company were studying at the time, primarily with Zen Master Shrunryu Suzuki in San Francisco, the very vivid and public poetry of the time, by such luminaries as Allen Ginsberg, and its application to open-air ritual theater, as theorized by Antonin Artaud, the music and dance of folk theater, such as Balinese Gamelan rituals, Tibetan monastery rituals of evocation and exorcism, Kathakali of India, etc. and the general wild imagination of the era. Initial poetic "scripts" were written by Moore, with changes, inclusions or deletions, as the members of the Opera Company began rehearsing, trying different things in the kaleidoscope of states we were in at the time,though the final arbiter of changes (usually negotiable) was always left to Moore."

The plays, with singing and chanting, shouting and undulating, like ancient drama went on for hours. At one of their first performances at Live Oak Park in Berkeley, the whole event was closed down by the parks director.

"Just before the 10 p.m. crack down Sunday, the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company completed its ceremony-drama, the 'Quest for the Inner Eye of Truth'. Costumes, gestures, music and words woven by the Floating Lotus led a procession of spectators into a spontaneous dance."

Because one of the residents of the estate shared that she had been drafted to dance on a picnic table at a park with the troupe, one can guess the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company had rehearsed at Williams College at least from September 1968 until sometime in June 1969.

Dr. Hopkins liked the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company and he attended some of their performances at nearby Hinkle Amphitheater.

When the troupe rehearsed at Williams College, afterwards many of the actors and dancers availed themselves of the shower in the rental home that used to house the peacocks. The man living there was pleasant enough about it, and didn't seem to mind the comings and goings.

On the other hand, the neighbors, or to be more precise one neighbor, seemed to mind the comings and goings of the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company. Under the aegis of the San Antonio Road Neighborhood Association, a barrage of complaints were launched to the city containing reports of noise, parking issues, great numbers of people swarming about the estate, blue jeans caught drying in the sun on a balustrade, and, what seemed the greatest cause of alarm, one which caused the highest level of outrage, an automobile. As it turned out, this vehicle was not owned and operated by any of the tenants on the estate but rather by one of the visiting actors. The automobile was noticed as it was driven up San Antonio Road and then as it had been parked on the estate premises for many hours while the actor was in prolonged rehearsal. The automobile which excited the inexplicable high state of offense and outrage was a large out of date convertible, something like an early '60s Pontiac, as big as a whale, and covered entirely in feathers.

As it turned out, there was no one left to possibly complain about and have evicted. The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company were already in the process of leaving the estate because they'd been offered living and rehearsal space at an abandoned lumber camp near Santa Rosa and the group moved out of Berkeley entirely.

But as a result of the neighborhood association's noted complaints, the city thus beckoned to duty by upstanding citizens responded, and city building inspectors were assigned to visit and examine all the rental structures, inquire about numbers living in each dwelling, count electrical outlets in each building, advise tenants against the use of extension cords, and so on. So the residents of Williams College had to continue dealing for a time with the administrative aftermath that had erupted as one person's response to feathers glued to a convertible.

So the moral of this story is, if you weren't there, at least try to be accurate about it when recounting history, even if you're trying to make a sale in hard economic times. In the meantime, read the entire "Bliss Apocalypse" and use all the powers of your imagination and pretend you were there.


http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2010/08/05/bignsturdy_cement_palace_in_berkeley_now_15m_less.php
Retrieved 7.26.11


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_Lotus_Magic_Opera_Company
Retrieved 7.26.11

http://www.danielmoorepoetry.com/theaterNote.html
Retrieved: 7.26.11

September 28-29, 1968 Live Oak Park, Berkeley
"Love and Peace Fest Bummed by Fuzz"
From the Berkeley Barb, Issue 163
http://berkeleyfolk.blogspot.com/2010/12/love-and-peace-weekend-part-ii.html
Retrieved: 7.26.11

I believe Dr. Hopkins had a number of models he'd periodically rotate on table display. I remembered the one above on the table when I stopped up once to the manor house, as I had made note of the strange hieroglyphs. There was a little man inside the cockpit, but the plastic bubble covering the cockpit was a bit opaque and hazy. This was likely the original model from 1954, manufactured by the Lindburgh Company.

Usually, the illuminated model was in steady use in the John Hopkins Spring mansion, and the saucer was lit up every evening it was there.

(Image courtesy Kimberly A. King, of Altamont, TN, Amazon Customer)

The Beacon

Beginning in 1966, the first year I first began visiting the estate on an infrequent and irregular basis, I was made aware that Dr. John W. Hopkins had installed a small beacon in the manor house.

This beacon was visible, through the windows of a great room that looked out towards the porte cochier. Resting on the top of a mahogany occasional table was a small plastic model of a flying saucer. Though always in view, the saucer was more noticable at night at night when it was plugged in and lit.


Dr. Hopkins never explained to any I know why he put the model there nor why he lit it at night when he was on the grounds. I thought it was a unique personal touch, and I was always strangely reassured by seeing the saucer illuminated at night when I walked past the great house on my way home. Just seeing that little bright saucer made me feel like a wayfayer seeing the porchlight welcoming me home, and that was all was well with the world.

The saucer may not have been exactly the same as the image above, which is the Adamski model. I recall Dr. Hopkins's model being a solid white plastic, which when glowed from within when lit like a nightlight and which had a small red bulb atop encased in a plastic bubble.

Here is a link to download the complete book by George Adamski, Inside the Space Ships.

http://www.universe-people.com/english/svetelna_knihovna/htm/en/en_kniha_inside_the_space_ships.htm
Retrieved: 7.25.11

Inside the model kit:
http://obskuristan.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/adamkitinside.jpg
Retrieved: 7.25.11

History of flying saucer model kits:
http://www.strangemag.com/scalemodelenigmas.html

Dr. Schoenfeld's Visitors to Williams College: Timothy Leary 1969

If realtors now marketing the estate want to enliven their spiels about Williams College with colorful figures drawn from history to pass along interesting tales about those days of yore, they might mention Dr. Timothy Leary in quick passing.

He walked around the grounds once.

You can play prospective buyers Country Joe's 45 on a little turntable and sing along with the intro before you tell them the whole story:

"Have you heard the tale of Dr. Hip?
(He's a pip!)
Though the common cold might rule you
And the whooping cough might fool you
These are nothing for the famous Dr. Hip
(Doctor Hip!)


Dr. Schoenfeld at the time he was in residence at Farley Hall was also the Timothy Leary family's physician. When Dr. Leary came to the East Bay to run for governor of California which developed into a prolonged speaking engagement, the series now known as the Berkeley lectures 1969, Gene invited him up to Williams College. Gene recalled to me (7.14.11) that when he gave Timothy and Rosemary a tour of the grounds, they said the estate "reminded them of Millbrook."

That's what I mean about mentioning Tim Leary in passing. That's all there is about Tim Leary and Williams College because everything else having to do with him happened elsewhere.

Although in 1969, Dr. Schoenfeld served as a consulting editor for The Psychedelic Review and may have read the publication at his residence. I must remind the current reader that although Gene knew Dr. Leary, early on Dr. Schoenfeld found himself at growing odds with Leary's prosylitizing.

And as for the colorful anecdotes, try to work in this one. Paul Krassner recounted one of his typical big fuzzy tales from the era that he pinned to Dr. Schoenfeld, though that particular event occurred after Gene moved from Williams College, it can show that Gene was influenced by his proximity to theater people while on the estate:


"speaking of Gene Schoenfeld's pranks, when Tim Leary was in prison and supposedly revealing secrets, a press conference was held in Berkeley to denounce him; Gene came dressed in a kangaroo suit (it being a kangaroo court, y'see) and a cream pie he hoped to smush in Jerry Rubin's face, only it had Saran Wrap on it and with his kangaroo mittens he couldn't remove it and his plot was foiled (but if he had
used ALUMINUM foil...)"

For a real-life account of why Dr. Schoenfeld disguised himself in a kangaroo suit and boxing gloves, by all means read Harvard Psychedelic Club by Don Lattin (Harper-Collins, 2011), pp. 200-201.

Just try to imagine Dr. Hip in motion with a cream pie. But you don't have to imagine what the podium looked like, because here it is, with Leary's associates discussing their doubts about his credibility.


(from inkwell.vue.168 : Paul Krassner: Investigative satirist
permalink #158 of 301: Paul Krassner (paulkrassner) Thu 12 Dec 02 11:00
http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/168/Paul-Krassner-Investigative-sati-page07.html#post158
Retrieved 7.15.11



http://books.google.com/books?id=yNylsx9HD28C&printsec=frontcover&dq=harvard+club&hl=en&ei=xDcuTvOMNZCgsQP2tIgT&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAjgU#v=onepage&q=gene%20schoenfeld&f=false
Retrieved 7.15.11

Dr. Schoenfeld's Visitors to Williams College: Rhena Schweitzer, 1966-1971

Gene Schoenfeld was a busy man during his residence at Williams College, but I would encounter him now and again on the estate. One time, he lit one of the pathways for me by flicking on his motorcycle headlamp, twisting the handlebars as if he were aiming a flashlight, and so I was able to make my way down the slope in the dark of night.

One of Dr. Schoenfeld's more notable and surprising guests during that era was Rhena Schweitzer, the daughter of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who another resident on the estate remembered meeting at Gene's home at Farley Hall; she still regards this encounter as one of the genuine privileges of her lifetime. She recalled Rhena to be a sophisticated older woman whose very European bearing was memorably elegant and her conversation or observations quite intelligent and sophisticated. When Albert Schweitzer died in 1965, Rhena assumed the duties of running the hospital her father had founded.

Dr. Albert Schweitzer's sweeping worldwide celebrity during his lifetime is most difficult to explain now. He rarely appeared on the radio or television, and he became immensely well known only through his books and articles published about him or his works. The name Albert Schweitzer became synonymous with good deeds.


(Photo of Rhena Schweitzer from The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship
Antje Lemke (far right) with Albert Schweitzer’s granddaughter, Christiane Engel, and daughter, Rhena Schweitzer Miller at Chapman University)
http://www.schweitzerfellowship.org/features/giving/endowed_abl.aspx

Retrieved 7.25.11)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhena_Schweitzer_Miller)
Retrieved 7.24.11

(Photo of Rhena Schweitzer and Dr. Albert Schweitzer
by Erica Anderson/Syracuse University’s Schweitzer Collection, via Associated Press, 1963 from NY Times Obituary 2.28.09)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/world/africa/01miller.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1311639014-OPAjGuJbYCHjRUU1J86+xw
Retrieved 7.24.11

Physician Takes a Lease on Farley Hall 1966-1971

In 1966, Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld saw a newspaper ad for a place to rent in a Berkeley newspaper, dialed the phone number for his initial inquiry, and eventually rented Farley Hall on the campus of Williams College. Farley Hall was a building once used to house the English department at Williams College, and Gene remained in residence there from 1966-1971. Dr. John W. Hopkins was Gene Schoenfeld's landlord during that period.

Dr. Schoenfeld is an iconic figure from the sixties who continues his work and publishes to this day. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley, Schoenfeld early in his career worked with Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Gabon, Africa in 1960, served as a Ship's Surgeon for the American Lines in 1964, after which he settled in the Bay Area to continue his practice. He remains a highly respected and much beloved figure certainly for Bay Area residents.

Dr. Schoenfeld's column on health matters was first published in the Berkeley Barb c.1967, and his Dr. HIP Pocrates column soon appeared regularly in the San Francisco Chronicle, before being nationally syndicated. Schoenfeld's column remained in print steadily from 1967-1973 and was revitalized 1978-1979.

As an early claim to radio fame, Dr. Schoenfeld appeared first on the hip underground radio station KMPX (Jive-95) founded by Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue c. 1967. Dr. Schoenfeld was one of the first, if not the first, doctors to answer call-in questions live on the air. Gene continued with his broadcasts when the radio station moved up the dial to become KSAN, and soon he was broadcasting weekly (1971-1972). Everyone, but everyone, in the Bay Area and beyond knew Gene Schoenfeld as "Dr. Hip".

(Eugene Schoenfeld, M.D. Resume
http://www.eugeneschoenfeld.com/resume.html
Retrieved: 7.15.11

On March 7, 1969, Dr. Hip was featured in Time magazine in which he outlined his concerns:

"Why does he write his ill-paying column? Someone, he feels, should minister to the barricade brigade's medical ignorance, and "the best approach to any serious problem must be education." Now Grove Press has published a collection of his columns called Dear Doctor HIPpocrates — Advice Your Family Doctor Never Gave You. Yet Schoenfeld, at 33, has no desire to rise above the underground, 'where I don't have to censor my material.' Instead, from his ramshackle little bachelor home in the Berkeley hills, he continues his public-health work and the column for the sense of fulfillment it brings."

(Note to Time: Farley Hall was hardly a "ramshackle little bachelor home in the Berkeley Hills", but I guess that's how you preferred to write about anything to do with "hippies" or "the underground" at the time.)

(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,839789,00.html
Retrieved 7.24.11

Here is a recent online television interview, where Gene talks about the golden years of the '60s and working with Dr. Schweitzer at his famed leper hospital in Lambaréné.

I remember that Dr. Schoenfeld always had a large photograph of Albert Schweitzer, obviously clipped from a newspaper, tacked on his bulletin board at Farley Hall.

The memory of Albert Schweitzer continues to inspire and be held dear, as this one statement about him best shows: "Schweitzer, however, considered his ethic of Reverence for Life, not his Hospital, his most important legacy, saying that his Lambaréné Hospital was just 'my own improvisation on the theme of Reverence for Life. Everyone can have their own Lambaréné.'" 1]

1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer
Retrieved: 7.24.11

http://www.archive.org/details/JonHammondDr.Hippocrates_EugeneSchoenfeld_akaDr.HiponHammondCastKYOURADIO
Retrieved: 7.24.11


(Photo of Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld by Alvan Meyerowitz, 2009)
(Photo of Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné, Gabon, Africa, 1960 by Marilyn Silverstone)
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Catalogue/Marilyn-Silverstone/1960/GABON-Dr-Albert-SCHWEITZER-NN132056.html
Retrieved 7.24.11

Jerzy Kosinski, Professor of Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences (1955-57) Dines at Williams College

In compiling a list of the illustrious people who visited Williams College in the sixties, or who found themselves strolling about the grounds in some way, in just glancing at the names I sometimes puff myself up with self importance and allow myself to boast to myself about all those many famous people I've encountered in my life, or at least back in a time when the social lines were wavier and there was a bit more freedom of social movement.

What follows is drawn from a series of recollections that I put together in 1999 in the hopes that some theme would emerge to allow me to make a point about something, and the incident I am describing occurred nearly thirty years prior. Remember, this is a small incident in a small city that had massive political protests nearly every day then and much thumping of heads with nightsticks and all the real violence was meted out as punishment and handed down by the authority figures nearly every day.

That's pretty much what was going on down near the University every day at the time I met Jerzy Kosinski.

Perhaps partly as the result of such recent external stressers and the prolonged effects of tear gas on my system, as an unfortunate though temporary consequence I was moving into a state of anti-social behavior at that time, which presented itself as not knowing what to say in conversations I'd listened to over recent meals, and whatever might have happened in the way of political or social upheaval at the University campus was soon followed by a dinner party at the estate.

This gathering assembled downstairs in the building which in more ancient times had been used to house the estate's peacocks in inclement weather. I had been seated next to Jerzy Kosinski, who was in the area for some polo or dressage competition across the Bay. Dressage, if I need to explain is a very elite and expensive form of equestrian competition, far more demanding back then than now. The young hostess dedicated herself to that exacting and, I again remind you very, very expensive discipline, a form of training steeped in history and ritualized competition of specialized movements, which she devoted herself to wholeheartedly and it was nothing to be sniffed at.

So Jerzy was there. Jerzy was garbed in a tan, nearly military-looking outfit, with epaulets and high banded collar. The cut of his jacket was a bit stiff in appearance. Though utilitarian tan in color, the cloth had a luxurious expensive sheen, and was from an expensive imported and polished cotton or a gabardine.

Although I was seated next to him at the table, there was little conversation between us. I know where I was at, I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. But he did not have a lot to say to any of us at the table. Either he was moody or we were obviously too "alternative" or "poor" or some of us "Berkeley" for his tastes. That’s why I have to tell you what he was wearing.

At that time, I had read a few things by him, and though "The Painted Bird" was the most famous of his achievements, I wasn’t about to talk to him about that.

I had several years prior read his semi-autobiographical novel, "The Painted Bird", a book which brought the everyday realities of war to light in such sheer creepy savagery that I could not for the life of me bring up that topic at the dinner table.
I remembered the cover of that edition being a painting taken from Hieronymous Bosch, as if to hint at the unimaginable hell held between the covers, so Hieronymous was off topic for me, too.

That evening, Jerzy was a bit difficult for any to engage in conversation over dinner. He gave off weird vibes, I thought. He didn't want to connect with anyone, it seemed to me. He kind of gave me the creeps, I recall that impression distinctly but I assumed that was because of where I was at.

In learning more about him since, he kind of survived by moving through life insulating himself by staying mostly in the company of the immensely wealthy. He may have been disappointed that he'd been invited to an opulent and expansive estate and was forced to dine with people who weren't his real kind of people, and the home cooked meal although a perfectly roasted beef and potatoes was served at a kitchen table in a side building. This gathering had nothing whatsoever to do with Williams College as a school, and I mention this encounter only because I am name-dropping famous visitors to the estate, the artists and creatives and the literati, especially those during the sixties when I was in residence who'd I'd actually broken bread with if not shared a few words with.

Up to this time, Williams College only claim to real literary fame was carried on the shoulders of Irving Wallace who had attended the writing school at Williams Institute back in the '30s. While enrolled there he had an imaginary interview with a thoroughbred racehorse and sold his first story to Horse and Jockey for five bucks. His book "The Chapman Report" had been given another life on the big screen as a popular movie of the '50s. Irving Wallace. No comment from me that evening, not on Irving.

I am the first to admit that Kosinski did not so much put pen to paper at the dinner party at Williams College. But his presence there, which was unknown to me until I'd arrived for dinner seating, can with a bit of imagination fall in to the realm of odd coincidence. I was as I said in an anti-social mood, also in part because I had recently eavesdropped on a late-night conversation in Buddy's Cafe, at the corner of 10th and University. Buddy's was close in vicinity to the local racetrack, and offered a Racetrack Special (a breakfast for 99 cents) designed to appeal to the habitues of the ponies. Even though I knew from reading beatnik histories and could offer up a colorful remark on Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady hitting the track at Golden Gate Fields, I could find no opening to allow me to extemporize on this theme. And the fact that another resident of the estate actually snagged a part-time job as a cold walker in the very early mornings at that very racetrack off I-80. So I didn't talk horses.

Anyway, I was in an anti-social mood because it seemed theworld was falling asunder all around me. There was all that crap going on around the campus, which I had to go to every day for classes. Then while having a cup of coffee on a workbreak late one evening, I'd quite recently overheard John Fahey at Buddy's Cafe telling ED and Gloria Denson something about how people in the Manson family had come up to Berkeley and had visited the offices of his record company. I couldn't hear all he'd said, but as I was seated at the counter, hearing a bit about this, even the name Manson, my blood began running cold. I remember turning around to see who was recounting this story, just as the narrator pronounced, "And everybody caught the clap" and I vividly recall the angry expression flashing across Gloria's face.

The coincidence is that Jerzy Kosinski himself had narrowly avoided what would have been a much deadlier encounter with this group, and that story was just beginning to circulate as well. So I couldn't in any way bring that up as a topic of conversation at the dinner table, either. I just didn't know what to say to Jerzy.

All of this followed directly on the heels of an ill-timed comment I had made at work one evening. A remark which was made in a humorous way and tossed out casually in public. My comment, as I was joking around with another waitress as we'd been asking each other the typical introductory question of the time we each heard dozens of times each evening, "Hey, what's your sign?" In so doing, we determined we were both air signs or had some astrological connection or similarity, which was followed by a playful observation on my part, "Wow, we're sisters of the zodiac". A person overheard this comment about "The Zodiac". Likely being a person who was influenced by the newspaper headlines of the day, the eavesdropper left the premises and summoned the police. The following evening as I reported to work, my boss was obliged to direct the detectives to me to listen to my explanation.
And as this was a fresh experience, the significance of which I was still digesting, I couldn't work it into dinner table conversation, either.

I should have called this post "Dasein" as that would have been a nifty literary allusion to the working title of one of Jerzy's more famous works. But also because "Dasein" basically is used to describe a person’s current state and time of existence and I have been trying to describe where I was at that particular moment in history.



http://www.johnfahey.com/Blood.htm
Retrieved 7.8.11

What's with Cora Williams's Math: We're Going into the Fourth Dimension

I have just experienced several hours of what I can only describe as "Missing Time." It all started innocently enough this morning by taking an innocent peek at Cora Williams's book "Creative Involution", which segued wildly into skimming through a PhD dissertation that in a cursory reference (although that by-the-way was presented in the highglossed academic prose and specialized vocabularies invented for graduate students to use when communicating with their dissertation committees) just skated at high speed through Cora Williams's assumed influence on Ezra Pound. So it seems Cora Williams because of a theoretical assertion weilded a distant influence from afar, sparking alive a pulse of shared insight which might underlay the poet's own "metaphysical/artistic/mathematical" role in the invention of the Vortograph.

I confess my energy has been seriously depleted from reviewing many pages of minute, disparate, and disconnected elements all of which were written about either in a dated arcane prose or a frustrating specialized language.

Before I collapse from mental exhaustion, and being unable at this moment to muster the intellectual vigor necessary to generate a display of conspicuous cognition or even to prepare a long winded summation, I will provide the broad stokes below.

Before I do, I will remind the reader that "Creative Involution", as an innocent looking brittle half-century-old book, was retained on the shelves at the Williams College library. I am confidant that Dr. John W. Hopkins had examined the contents of this slim volume there, as indeed I had done though later in 1969 when I was seated at one of the long tables in the reading section of the library.

"Creative Involution" has long since fallen from print, and is available rarely and then only from the hands of rare book sellers. You may, however, if you wish, read a digital version of "Creative Involution", in fact the original 1916 edition which Cora Williams and her own Williams Institute published.

(You can have your choice of reading formats here, "Creative Involution")

Also in 1916, a major publisher, Knopf released the book to a larger public. Maintaining the original title "Creative Involution", the author was Cora Williams (self-described in the fronts piece in a bordered box as a "Sometime Instructor of Mathematics University of California"). In her opening paragraphs, Miss Williams explained she had selected the topic and the title not so much as a challenge, but as a response to Bergson's "Creative Evolution (pub. 1911). When the Knopf edition of her book was published in 1916, the asking price was $1.50 (The publishers weekly, Volume 90, Part 1, pg. 1038).

Who else read it, aside from me and probably Dr. John W. Hopkins? Ezra Pound read "Creative Involution" soon after publication, and in 1916 gave his broken shaving mirror to a photographer and fellow metaphysical and artistic traveler named Alvin Coburn who assembled the shards into a new camera and took a "Vortograph" of the poet.

"Pound's own influence for using fourth-dimensional images has been established within Canto 49, written in 1937, where he calls "the fourth; the dimension of stillness ..."

"Pound was aware of the fourth dimension through other sources, such as H.G. Wells, Poincaré and Fenollosa, who were also influenced by Charles H. Hinton's ideas on the fourth dimension. Ian Bell links the fourth-dimension within Pound's works to the images of the atom, the molecule, and crystals, noting Pound's desire for clarity and transcendence led to readings of Charles Hinton's The Fourth Dimension, James Huneker's interpretations of Gourmont's materialism, Gourmont's Chemin des velours (1902), where "the physics of thought" led to a conclusion of the concrete image, and Cora Williams' Creative Involution, whose mathematical thesis explained "the conduct of certain crystals and molecules ... as a fourth-dimensional activity" (I Bell, Critic as Scientist 221)."

(The Scientist in Modernist Literature: Degeneration, Dynamics, and Demons by Shari Jill Clark, B.A. M.A., a dissertation in English submitted to Texas Tech University for completion of PhD in May, 2001. pg 198)
http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-06272008-31295017306118/unrestricted/31295017306118.pdf
retreived 7.23.11

cited: Ian F. A. Bell, Critic as Scientist: The Modernist Poetics of Ezra Pound (London and New York: Methuen, 1981.) Pp. 221.

All you really need to remember is that "Coburn's 1916 vortograph shows the prizmatic effect of using crystals in
photography gave a material basis for Pound's vision." And remember that after taking that photograph of Pound, Alvin Coburn almost immediately threw his camera and photography aside for the rest of his life, destroyed almost 15,000 photographic plates, nearly his entire life's output, and spent the remainder of his years studying metaphysics.

All this just proves is that you can never tell how people will receive knowledge and what they will do with it.

Dr. John W. Hopkins and Cal Tech

College Pres Speaks Saucer

Dr. John Hopkins, Ph.D., a college president and a leading researcher on flying saucers, unidentified flying objects and life on other planets, will give a lecture on the subjects in Pasadena Thursday evening, January 14. The lecture is open to the public.

President of Williams College, founded in Berkeley, Calif., in 1918, Hopkins will speak on "Exploration Research Into Interplanetary Understanding," at 8 p.m. in Odd Fellows Hall, 175 N. Los Robles Ave., Pasadena.

The result of data gathered from all corners of the globe, the lecture will deal particularly with the educational and religious aspects of the flying saucer field.

Dr. Hopkins is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, honorary scholastic fraternity, and Phi Sigma Iota, honorary romance language fraternity. He also is Northern California Vice-President of Understanding, an international organization devoted to better understanding between people of this earth and those who are not of this earth.

Additional offices held by the speaker include the managership of Rocklyn Farms and the posts of vice-president and secretary of Hopkins Properties.

Dr. Hopkins became interested in flying saucers in 1953 and since that time has studied the field intensely. His college at Berkeley, while still a four-year liberal arts institution, has of late entered the field of metaphysical teachings, offering instruction in many of the advanced concepts of the flying saucer and occult fields.

(Article appeared in the The California Cal Tech, the newspaper of the Associated Students of the California Institute for Technology, Pasadena, California, Vol XLI, no. 13, January 14, 1960, pg 3. Over 1,000 copies of this special Student's Day issue were to be handed out the following Saturday to high school science students and science teachers visiting Cal Tech that day).

(retrieved 7.20.11 caltechcampuspubs.library.caltech.edu/550/1/1960_01_14_61_13.pdf

Leviathan

The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company were in the process of moving out from the estate.

I would miss seeing Leviathan, the bus they'd used.

I was a poor, struggling student at UC Berkeley in 1969. I was working my way through school wiping spilled beer off the tables in a tough blues club. I was so lucky to land a job. I was lucky to even find a place to lay my head at night, as in Berkeley rentals were hard to come by with only a 1% turnover in vacancies. And if you found a place, the rent would be steep. So I was lucky to find a little place to rent.

Don't think so? Take a look at this show of the John Hopkins Spring Mansion.


See that skylight at the top of the thirty foot high atrium?


That's where the saucers first descended for Dr. Hopkins.

Charles, the Handyman

John Lithgow's old enough now to play Charles effectively. Do you think we can get him?

Dr Emiliano Lizardo and Williams College: John Lithgow Visits the Estate

Most of the "parties" I went to were more like "happenings" and those were the parties I enjoyed most. I admit I have been invited to a few, very few what I would call "Hollywood" parties and by friends who were well intentioned and thought I could fit in, but I never felt comfortable at "celebrity events". I could tell you about those few, and how I tip-toed around trying to avoid looking at or talking to anyone I might happen to recognize as a "famous person". If I were to sing songs, or engage in pleasantries, or try to be amusing, I would just embarrass myself. I simply cringe and shrink in such circumstances, and if the room is full of more than three people as it usually is at such gatherings I become tongue tied and just want to disappear into the wallpaper. So even if I had an invitation, which I did albeit very few, I usually wouldn't go to these things.

I'm just used to being around a different kind of person. The absolute most fun I had at a gathering where someone was going to become famous was in the Berkeley hills, where I was living at the time, and it was around Halloween in 1969. It had to have been Halloween, because some costumes were involved. I'd been enticed into walking up the hill to the party because someone had just returned from England, and I thought it might be an actor I knew. But it turned out to be a completely different actor just back from England. He seemed quite proper, you see. Dressed in a harris tweed sport coat and white Van Heusen shirt.

And he, a brother of someone on an extended visit there, was quite well educated I'd heard, from an unnamed Eastern school (as no one would admit to going to Harvard in Berkeley then, not after Timothy Leary and few would admit to Yale after those weird Milgram experiments had been published and written about again recently). So he'd attended some unidentified yet prestigious institution of higher learning, but I figured it was one of those two.

And one guy, who might have been part of the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, because the party was in their old rehearsal area, showed up with some real deer antlers roped to his belt and he was in conversation with this very proper brother of one of the people visiting there.

My lasting image, shot by the video camera of my memory, is this: The two men standing there, with drinks in their hands: one with antlers roped to his belt as a belt buckle of some kind and the other dressed in a Harris tweed sportscoat casually standing and chatting to him. And sometimes the guy with antlers leaned a little close, to speak over the music, and the guy in the sportscoat would put his hand on the antlers just to protect his abdomen. Once for a prolonged moment he actually held a small prong between his fingers as if to better anticipate a sudden move.

And then the music got a little better and everybody began dancing, including the guy with antlers on his belt and the guy in the sportcoat pranced a bit with someone else on the floor. So others of us start making antlers with our fingers to our heads and spinning.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Now that was a fun party, you see. No pretensions and everyone had fun.

Only later did I learn the guy in the sportscoat was becoming a famous actor on Broadway, and only years later did I finally see him in a film in which he played Dr. Emiliano Lizardo. And that was just beyond perfect, you see, given the location at the time I first met John Lithgow, which had a landlord who communed regularly with space beings by going into a trance and singing to them.

That was the strangest place I'd ever lived anywhere 'til then. Every one and every thing nearly every day was always a bit strange there. But that strangeness soon became an everyday thing. I think I'll concentrate on a wonderful movie yet to be made about the estate. John Lithgow can play Charles, the handyman found somewhere in the Arizona desert, who also communed with space beings between fixing plumbing problems on the estate, who would as he wrapped a pipe with teflon tape tell how he'd invented a carburetor for automobiles that reduced gasoline consumption to nil but that invention was stolen away from him by some secret government agency in collusion with an insidious industry. (The same one that controls the timing on traffic lights to make us use more petrol when we drive about? I would ask. He tilted his head absorbing what I had said, and I suspected he thought so.) And that movie, every single bit of it, would be drawn from real life.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_lithgow
Retrieved 7.1.11

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across Eight Dimensions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckaroo_Banzai
Retrieved 7.1.11

At the estate, Mr. Hopkins, the land lord, made every important decision by consulting a mustard seed. I would see him in his office, holding a chain containing the glass ball that held his mustard seed high up, over the important documents he was considering. A contract. A bill that was asking for money. A letter from someone.

He made his decision on how to act by the directions the mustard seed gave him. Sometimes it made a cross. Sometimes it revolved in a big circle all on its own going left, other times right. Sometimes just back and forth. But he always knew what the oracle was saying to him and made his decisions accordingly.

Unexplained and Unusual Happenings

Sometimes, the mustard seed pendant just spun wildly on the chain seemingly of its own accord. In these instances, there would be no movement of the crystal from side to side. There would be no movement at all at first. The chain was straight and the crystal unmoving, just a quick refraction of a beam of light caught from the drawing room window, then the crystal began vibrating a bit as if having been given a nudge, then rotating slightly all the way to the left soon spinning around and around and around, going faster and faster, picking up speed as it went, twisting the chain into itself, then the chain unraveled as the crystal began revolving in the other direction. And many times it took awhile for the crystal to completely stop all movement which meant the question had really been answered and for the crystal to be tucked away in a pocket with a small "Ummm" uttered or sometimes merely a silent nod of understanding, but always done with a willingness to accept the oracle's directions. Sometimes the "ummm" had the slightest upswing at the beginning of the sound, to denote pleasure like the oracle's pronouncement had promised a really good outcome.

The first time I saw this happen, Charles was perched on the edge of a velvety wingchair in the office as Mr. Hopkins held the chain aloft. Sometimes, because of the manner in which Mr. Hopkins made decisions, it took a long time for him to make a decision to act and spectators or those awaiting a simple order could grow weary. When the crystal paused as if poised immobile for a moment, as if making up its cosmic mind, then began revolving in the opposite direction, Charles shot me a quick glance as if to say, "I told you so" or "I was right about that", as if the crystal was giving us all understandable verification of that cosmic truth that he also knew how to read and he seemed to assume that I might even know what the question was that had been asked: Charles should go repair that faucet now or Mr. Hopkins was free, let's say, to proceed on his errand to town.

Personally, I came to have experiences with other even stranger occurrences at the estate.

One early morning, I was walking quickly up the hills through the estate to make my way to the small private road at the top for a quick stroll among the eucalyptus so I might better invigorate myself for the coming day. I had rounded a corner at the mansion and paused momentarily to regain my breath. I glanced towards the coach house, which was in a direct line of sight through the drive that was covered by the porte-cochier.

There was a large rock in front of the coach house doors. This is the truth, now. The rock was larger than Mr. Hopkins's old black Cadillac that he parked next to another car for every day use in the old coach house. The rock, actually, was larger than those two vehicles as it nearly covered the entire span of the coach house doors. Well, I didn't know about that, you see. I was fairly certain I hadn't seen it there the previous sunset, or I would have easily noticed it then. How did it get there? What was its purpose? What's the meaning of this apparition?

I wanted to find out about this, and I approached the small side door to the mansion which led into the kitchen. I had just stepped up onto the doorstep and was prepared to knock and I was thinking of what I would say to Mr. Hopkins about this ("Oh, Good morning, Mr. Hopkins. Say ... there's a big boulder in front of the garage door") when Mr. Hopkins himself pulled the door open. He was wearing his striped bathrobe over his trousers and shoes, and already was wearing a white shirt and I could see the top edge of a knotted tie. His sudden appearance surprised me. I actually said, "Oh, Good morning, Mr. Hopkins" and then the words just froze in my throat and I just inexplicably stopped. He just looked at me for what seemed a long strange moment and did not say a word. I did not say a word. Then he pulled himself back inside and closed the door. I stared at the door for a moment.

What? I said to myself. After I finished staring at the door, my eye followed the bell rope up to the top as if were throwing my eyes to the heavens and begging for an answer of some kind. At that time on the estate, there was still a bell and rope next to the kitchen door, a remainder from an older era when housemaids might need to be summoned from the massive expanse of the interior to greet a deliveryman. Who needs it, I said to myself.

And I went back to the edge of the drive to where I had first seen the boulder through the porte cochier, and looking through again, I even bent a bit to gain a clearer line on the edge of the outlines, and, yes, the boulder was still there. So I was wondering about these events, and put my hands in my pocket, and walked back and forth a bit kicking small clumps of grass at the edge of the drive, deep in contemplation. I admit I felt a bit nervous about this event.

When I saw the small door open again and who should step out but Mr. Hopkins himself, who was now wearing his suit jacket. In an event of this magnitude, and everything about this seemed momentous, I was certain Mr. Hopkins would have summoned Charles to assist in some way, but I was quite wrong.

Mr. Hopkins walked straight out from the small door and veered to the right and took two long strides. As he walked, and the object came into his full view, he raised his arms slightly to his sides as struck by disbelief.

Mr. Hopkins was a slightly rotund man who stretched the fabric of his suitcoat; even the back of his jacket was a bit taut, but held small imperfect wrinkles as if he'd sat in the seat of the Cadillac too long on one of those many drives into the far away desert. He stood there staring at the bolder with his own eyes. His arms were still lifted slightly at his side. He shook his own head in disbelief, or in small annoyance at what to him may have been a small harmless prank, I couldn't tell. Then he gave his head another more vigorous shake as if he were ridding the back of his neck of some small drop of water that had remained on his nape hair from the morning shower. He dropped his arms to his side and began walking towards the coach house, this time his was a more casual stride like, "you little devils". Then he stopped and stood stock still for the longest time.

Well, I was frankly tired of watching this display because I'd watched him with the mustard seed and knew it sometimes could be tedious, taking Mr. Hopkins a long time to make a decision and then to act, and I was going to be late for the bus that carried me to school.

So I left, and went to classes for a few hours and returned home into the hills on the old number 7 bus that propelled itself up through the steep grades of the Berkeley Hills, after making a harrowing spin at the round about traffic circle. I hopped off the bus slightly north of the estate at the bus stop as I always did, and made my way back to the stairs for the entrance which on Arlington was still marked with a brass placquard announcing entry to Williams College. I had been gone four, maybe five hours counting the bus trip.

I walked again up the hills in the estate, with a purposeful stride, determined to find out the truth of the matter. When I encountered my friend coming down the hill who always parked her small volkswagen at the edge of the drive where I had been located when I saw the bolder that morning. And I was sure she must have seen it, so I picked up my conversation with her nearly where I had left off with Mr. Hopkins earlier in the day, "Say ... what do you make of that boulder in front of the coach house?"

And she said, "What boulder?"

What the .... ? Was she kidding me?

What boulder, I nearly laughed in derision. We'll see what boulder.

"Well, we'll just have to ask Mr. Hopkins or Charles about this when we see them," I tried not to be snide. "Let's go!" "Come on, it's just a little walk," I tried to be encouraging though I was getting a little miffed when I remembered what she'd just said, 'What boulder?' What boulder indeed, and I would walk a little faster and more determinedly.

We made our way back up the hill, and I was not about to explain an iota about the morning's activities. She tried to make idle chit chat as we journeyed up the hill and I grew impatient and just ignored her. I let her conversation turn into a monologue. She was prattling on and I paid no attention whatsoever to what she was saying. I was going to let her see for herself, and with luck hear for herself what Mr. Hopkins had to say about it all.

When we reached the top, looking down the drive again to the coach house through the port-cochier, things were back almost to as they had once been. The boulder, the immense boulder that would have taken a crane and a flatbed truck to remove, was gone. But not only was the boulder gone. The doors to the coach house were open, and both the Cadillac and the every-day automobile were missing, which meant likely so were Mr. Hopkins and Charles and likely for days. But even this was unusual, as Charles always closed and locked the coach house doors. It was obvious they were gone, and that they had left in a hurry.

And my friend said, "I guess they left."

Now I had a new question, "Where'd they go?"