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Lawrence Krauser's novel, Lemon, was recently published by McSweeney's Books. (An interview between Mr. Krauser and one John Hodgman, about this novel and many other things, can be read here.) Lawrence Krauser is illustrating, with his own hand, each and every one of the 10,000 book jackets for the novel's initial print run. Throughout this undertaking, he will keep a record of his progress, which we are proud to share with you here. This page will be updated regularly with new entries. And now: - - - - SEPTEMBER 4, 2001 Denial's a quick endorphin, with a mighty half-life. Last time I posted here was a shell-shocked occasion, the wake of a hit-and-run encounter of a very nice car and the passing catalog copy for the first six pages of the unwritten Cliff Notes to my novel. Knocked out TCFW, I glibly posted the worst review-blurbs I could find for that book. So it goes. I would like to on this blinkawake occasion post some happy Lemon links and note with glee that, thanks to a fine book tour encounter one day in Dallas, my play HORRIBLE CHILD will live again this month, in DALLAS (September 8), TULSA (September 12), and IRVING, TX (September 15): HORRIBLE CHILD at The Broke Theatre Company: http://www.broketheater.com/horrible.htm
HAPPY LEMON LINKS http://www.weepmag.com/archive.asp?y=2001&m=02&d=21 http://mindjack.com/books/lemon.html http://www.keplers.com/staffrecommends.htm http://www.nowculture.com/LiteraryArts/summerreading.htm http://greenapplebooks.com/index.cgi/64165.html?id=LyDZAuzs (with link to KFOG radio review) http://www.thestranger.com/2001-03-22/books.html http://www.bookpeople.com/infobook.html?isbn=lemoncover#jump http://www.timeoutny.com/books/273/273.books.opener.html http://www.nulnul.nl/vassa/a-mcsweeneys.htm http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/18/bib/010318.rv140303.html http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/2001-05-25/shorttakes.html http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2001-02-09/book_reviews.html http://homepage.mac.com/aandeee/recommend.html - - - - MAY 28, 2001 I. IN THE HALLOWED VEIN, IN HOPE MY PUBLISHER WILL NOT TAKE TOO MUCH EXCEPTION TO THIS POSTING OF HORRIBLE PRESS, IN WHICH LIE MANY DELECTABLES, A SAMPLING OF SOME OF THE WORST REVIEWS OF "LEMON" (ALSO HEY, WHEN DOUBLEDAY PUBLISHED ELIZABETH WURTZEL WE HAD GREAT UNDAMAGING FUN WITH THE HARSHEST BLURBS, THOUGH OF COURSE I REALIZE "LEMON" IS A DIFFERENT ANIMAL). (THERE HAVE BEEN GOOD REVIEWS TOO, AND ELUSIVE MUSINGS, I RECOMMEND PUBLISHING A BOOK TO ANYONE WHO NEEDS THEIR FAITH IN ABSOLUTE VALUE SQUEEZED AND SHAKEN TO ITS ROOTS) "Oh please, spare us... try-hard... pointless, unilluminating... reeks..." —Chez Smartygirl "Patently ridiculous... trivial." —The New York Times "Awful." —The New York Times (upon reconsideration) "Een voorproefje van een aantal omslagen van Lemon van Lawrence Krauser." —Uitgeverij Vassallucci
"Tedious... as if the author has become as fascinated with his own words as the protagonist has with his fruit." —A Reader (amazon.com review) "Wankery." —SignalStation.com (one-word review) II. A COMPOSITE ACCOUNT OF A BOOK READING, CONSISTING OF 3 E-MAILS SCRAMBLED, LIGHTLY PUNCTUATED, NO WORDS OMITTED BETWEEN THE FIRST AND LAST TAKEN FROM EACH ACCOUNT, DON'T THINK ANY WERE DROPPED, MAYBE ONE PREPOSITION AND A PROPER NOUN, OF LIKELY INTEREST ONLY TO A VERY FEW PHOOLISTS AND INSATIABLE ASTRONOMERS OF LITERARY CUBISM (CUBISM: "THE ANATOMY OF OUR [20th] CENTURY" —JOHN BERGER), PERHAPS FANS OF RAYMOND ROUSSEL, ET AL., POSTED WITH GRATITUDE AND A PLEA FOR PARDON TO BRANDY HARTLEY, MELISSA, AND JONATHAN MAY Dear Lawrence. Here is a story from the night I saw you speak on your national lemon tour. I was a little more than half way through your book when I recently attended your late-night reading. At about 5:30 or so Lawrence Krauser showed up. He had parked somewhat far away. Stage right there was a pile of papers cohabiting with a trumpet. Suddenly I felt very silly to be possibly reading the book of the man who was possibly sipping espresso a few tables over from me. The bookstore people asked him if he had books. He said "Yeah, there's a box in my car" (I have to say that I would think seeing someone reading my book in a café would produce an even sillier feeling, but I wouldn't know), "I'll get them after the reading," while in front of stage left, there lived a table. On the cover, a blur of action: "If anybody wants them," the word "emon" as stamp traveled drunkenly across paper. The bookstore ppl said ppl did (I had already requested) so he went back to his car which was quite a ways away, apparently. And so the silly feeling grew stronger and stronger (my own ink blot test), until I found myself casually putting your book down and doing a crossword instead. On this table there were piles of lemons. And through this pile, with discerning eye, I searched and searched until I found it, my lemon. And what do I see? Sometimes there is the presence of a Flash-Gordon-style rocketship. Unfortunately this was the crossword I had already attempted numerous times during the day, so but many other things are best kept between me and my lemon. It was snowing heavily. During the course of the evening, four short poems of varying lengths were read, songs were sung a capella and otherwise, stories were told, scenes from plays—including one involving a honeymoon and Dealey Plaza—were performed by talented and funny people, and all the while my lemon in my lap, quiescent. There really wasn't too many more spaces I could fill, which was annoying because it was only Tuesday, Oh, Krauser had his wife with him, who was from some other country—and I thought I had done enough New York Times crosswords to at least get half of Tuesdays. The cover of this month's Gourmet magazine... Something European? But this was an exceptionally hard Tuesday crossword. So now my silly feeling from reading a book which was possibly written by someone in the same room as me, and of course I thought I was completely obvious, changed to an even sillier feeling of trying to do a crossword filled with ridiculous clues like "slender blades" and the tagline "Why We Love Lemons" and " the rah rah," which would appear to be some kind of color yellow cheer; the word "lemon," the shape, all is appearing everywhere but only four letters long and possibly starts with an "E" (since fated meeting at stage left table), which makes no sense to me whatsoever. Anyway, Krauser came back staring blankly at a crossword while the book rested beside it on the table. We all sat in the back, we chatted for a bit. III. THE COVERS I WAS GOING TO DRAW THAT ONE WEEKEND, TRUE STORY Read with poets at the Brookline Booksmith. Fraternized. Went to crash at T's with a thousand covers in two boxes, hauled them into the house, fraternized, set to work. At midnight T and his roommate go to bed, I continue to do covers. Stepped outside around 1:30, savored the air, and tried to reenter the house but the front door had locked behind me. I walked around the house, looking for a window, tried the couple I could reach. No luck. I was in my socks. It was quite chilly, my breath was visible, I had on one light flannel shirt. I tapped lightly on the front door and window panes. I tried different tempos, intensities, rhythms; T is a percussionist, I thought to wake him with some enticing esoteric pattern, then by ineptness, no luck. I do have my car keys in my shirt pocket. I walk quickly the half-block to where I'm parked, get in and turn on the heat. I'm shivering. I have no covers with me. Chet Baker on the radio, cool. I grow warm, I recline the seat, consider napping, then wonder about being visibly unconscious in this car on this street in this neighborhood. Residential Jamaica, quite pleasant, but at this hour on a Saturday night not entirely quiet. I upright the seat and drive down the block and make a left into a less-well-lit sidestreet. I park. I think, if T and his roommate fell asleep within twenty minutes of turning in, then in an hour their sleep cycles might bring them up near the surface where they might be more receptive to tapping; maybe I can catch a short nap till then. I do not know how to keep the heat on in this vehicle without having the headlights also be on, which might draw attention from houses and passersby, so the whole car's off while I sleep, it cools dramatically; my own shivers wake me up in time to try my new strategy. I swing out of the car into a puddle and run the two blocks back to T's, passing a lively party that I would love to crash and would try to—if only I had shoes on or dry socks. My lack of gall galls me. Back on the porch of T's house, I tap again, different taps, same luck. The doorbell. I press and hold, hear its sweet electronic tone echo through the house, release the bell and hear the second tone, lower, sound in the house and fade in a lingering chorus of aftertones on T's amazing collection of percussion instruments: cymbals, drums, bells and zithery things, Oriental, Indian, African. I think: the doorbell tones reflected and refracted through those instruments is so beautiful in the stillness of the house in the night, surely T with his marvelous ears will leap from sleep in ecstatic revelation and let me in, but no. I trot back to my car. It's really cold now. I consider finding a phone and calling, I think maybe a hotel or a friend across town. I spend the rest of the night in the parked car, alternately heating it with the headlights on and sleeping as it cools to cold, until about 9:30 a.m. when instead of my usual shivers a crisp tapping on the windshield wakes me, and a mother with two children, one in her arms and one in tow, all purposefully dressed for some Sunday outing, are watching me twist from sleep and remember where I am and figure out how to get the car to roll down the window so I can groggily, sun-blindedly explain myself, to which the woman responds "Well it's morning now, I think maybe your friend might be up." My only move is to agree, and indeed she turns out to be right, T spots me through the window and opens the door and welcomes me heartily. It's warm in the house. All my covers are undone. Breakfast is good. - - - - APRIL 2, 2001 Many people I've met in the last few weeks who have read these cover letters, and this makes me feel very warm. The torrent of goodness that's come my way on this book tour, thank y'all. I have thought a good deal lately about what I might write during and about my trip, it's been a wonderful thing, and would seem An Endless Source of Material. The stories I could tell. Hm. You publish and then people think things, and you yourself think things, and think about what others think. ("You." Had a brief exchange last night about that word, how it distorts anecdote.) I've been writing for eight years in relative obscurity, and now see in retrospect that the conjunct solitude was great catalyst for inflow. Novel by default. Lately, the last thing I wanna do is write. New sprout on an old tree: went to Dealey Plaza. Yeah I think maybe because this is 90 percent old obsession I can, I want (having difficulty even talking about talking about XYZ, etc.)— I'd been immersed deeply, and gradually less deeply, in Assassination Mythology from 1986 to 1997, writing a play about it, a one-act that turned full when I learned I had O Jacqueline for a coworker. You'd think after all that time with Scripture I'd have been able to easily find my way to plunking right down into Dealey Plaza upon driving into Dallas, in minimal nighttime traffic, and not have to circle obliviously through it three times—Elm, yes...Commerce, good, I'm right here, Industrial, where am I?—Camelot, Krauser, not Brigadoon—before asking someone who points me catty corner and asks me for a dollar and there I am: Hello, Depository. It's squat. No it's not, how could it be. Stop that, you're not my childhood bedroom. I go back the next day to verify that Everything in Dealey Plaza Is Tiny. Compared to what imagination held—it even looks bigger in the Warren Commission Scale Model in the Sixth Floor Museum, familiarated by arrows and markers and notes behind glass and gawked and the whole thing Second Hand. Oswald's Window is also behind glass, it's the Corner Office, stacked with boxes and the window fixed open to exactly mimic a compromise of conflicted extrapolations about How Exactly It Was at Air Zero. (The boxes were moved by officials Before Anyone Thought Not To.) You can kneel at The Window Next to His Window, Partition shimmering to the left. I'm writing now in Insomnia, a late-night coffee shop that kindly last-minute hosted my reading tonight in Albuquerque. (Oops: now typing in a Kinko's in Boulder from Insomnia notes.) Two people just left, I never got their names. (I'm aware of not meticulously assimilating data, in general. [I've met Neal Pollack, and I'm no Neal Pollack. (Neal, however is very much himself, a consummate entertainer, and writes good poetry in spite of Neal. The man does things right. He hesitates before getting into my rentacar, which resembles Oldenberg Chinese food inside.)]) Camelot Complex noun (1998): from "Camelot," the site of King Arthur's court, icon of noble and idyllic happiness. A psychological condition in which existential anxiety is sublimated into exaggerated involvement with public figures and events, blurring the boundary between the personal and communal arenas to the point of dysfunction; symptoms include overidentification with famous persons; compulsive pursuit of information without assimilation, causing uncontrolled proliferation of mass-media memes; sanctification of spectacle coupled with moral disinterest; attention deficit disorder; excessive channel-flipping; and anonyphobia. Increasingly prevalent in late-20th-century North America following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, whose administration (1960-63) was popularly regarded as a modern Camelot. The New York Times did palpitate me Amazon ranking. Was a curious and indifferent review, and I'm pleased it exists. To be totally blasted by the Times at my career coordinates would not have been too bad either, maybe better. I enjoyed the illustration of a lemon and a hand and the phrase "like a [Leonardo] on a ping-pong ball," and was cheered to be rafted with Lethem and with him cheek an honest elseminded wave. Oops, took a liberty there—trick of the cover trade, hey—but after all, I'm in the midst of creating, albeit in mosaic, one of the largest drawings in the history of the world. (Of course, I'm the sole, uh, viewer, and that in temporal piecemeal.) I read it and shaved. And donned a bandanna in Austin. An accouterment best honored in the doff. Which I did for a while; I've worn them all my life for various reasons, I love bandannas, but upon my novel's publication ceased wearing them publicly. Right? But, freed of charges by the Times, heck I can wear a bandanna! And prowl pianos. All this time people asking me "What's your book about?" and me saying "A lemon" and thinking "heh-heh." Hey, I'm proofed. And entering a flood of memory that— You know and there's also this: writing in a relative void about anonymous persons is very different from writing about people you've met, for a readership in part composed of those people. I feel the allure but I see that it's a very special set of circumstances, which pauses me. If anyone out there would like to post here an account of an evening on my tour, please send it to me, click on my beige name for the e-dress. Might hold an interesting future for these cover letters— Oh yes, I suppose accounts should touch on that theme, maybe, sometimes? Apropos: a link to Chicago: http://www.weepmag.com/February/week0219/0221w.htm I watch three teenagers reenact the assassination for thirty others on the sidewalk along the road, aided and abetted by a once-red painted X marking the Shot We All Agree On(?). Is it possible to know that X is Y without having X'd? TRUST ME AND FOLLOW YOUR REASON. Here, why not use a clone X for an investigative proxy, substitute "cX'd" for "X'd" in the above, execute and call it ritual? Does X+/-/x(etc.)Z always = Y? Or is Y seasonal, orbitted, blinking? In this post-Proustian Era, we consult only doctors who have had the illness we have. Reserve capital punishment for those who beg it for themselves? Well, then again— I knew that the world reacts to any given entity in a variety of ways, and knew this to be very true of books; in fact— COLUMN BE NOT ABOUT TEXT STOP COLUMN BE ABOUT COVERS It's just that word: IS. Alone the mother word, Gaya of Grammar, the only word, the first word. Alas, given our given tongue, when combined with other words: incestuous, yielding confusion; as a think-mixer for homo sapiens not deft, pater of reductive perception, yah. As long as I'm in the neighborhood, I ask my good host whether there is a firing range anywhere nearby. Yes indeed. He gives me directions and I go there and have my book assassinated by a nice man with a Glock 21. "Where you want it?" he asks; I put my hand on the front cover. "No," he says, "where there?" "Little off-center OK?" A row of target-practicers, backs to the gunshop in which I stand, runs behind a glass window that runs behind the long retail counter I'm at. He takes the book away with him, telling me it'll be about ten minutes. The journalist in me stirs: "Lawrence: While that man and thus you wait for a lull in the firing so that he can pause the relative few sharpshooters who remain so that he may safely enter the target plane to position your book for shooting, Acquire Gun Knowledge; vocab, esoterica, etc." "So," I say to a friendly face facing me (everyone there was friendly, the vibe was very good), "what's he gonna—" "Did you write that book?" "Yeah." "How long it take you?" "Five years." "Oh. Maybe I'm not such an idiot." Unarmed, I choose not to change the subject. "You writing a book?" "Detective fiction." This tickles a vocational zone. "You're well poised. Publishers would be interested in a person with your expertise as an author of such stuff." We talk books. Then mine comes out—I was distracted, didn't see the shot, I think it came from just ahead to my right—shot. We look. Maybe six of us huddling around the book. Those of us who know about such things marvel at the damage. Forty-five caliber hydrashot, came in real clean through the jacket and cloth and cardboard and copyright and all front matter and first few chapters, effecting a conical destruction of subsequent chapters in incrementally increrasing radii. Throughout the book, some still in ghostly position, are perfect disks of pages that made way for the bullet without being burned by its passage. Very little burn evidence anywhere—a bit of toast around the small neat entrance wound; the effect is of pure force tearing through the book; even the large baroque exit wound, smack in the frontal lobe of the profiled portrait painted by L. on the back cover, looks more earthquake than volcano. Diameter bigger by 276 to 673 percent than entrance. I do hope that guy writes and sends his stuff to me. FOR SALE: LEMON by Lawrence Krauser (McSweeney's Books, 2001), hardcover 1st ed., signed by the author. Condition: shot, otherwise fine, as unread. Text 83% legible. Proceeds to go toward making of film version. A dowry for a producer. I've been asked many times on tour about what's next for me, and usually hem and haw, yes. Pith it. Is is an incestuous presence in a sentence? At a Boulder bar now, watching pool players. (Rats: I mean back in New York at my office desk.) Bearded fellow my age and a half in a stovetop passes by, says: "Makes me think that the Secret of the Dragon—maybe it is like: a cloud." "You mean like the space you're in, it's vague and amorphy?" "Like the shape. Like the shape is irrelevant. Do you know what I mean? Like with a blade of grass or a person or a cloud. Shape becomes irrelevant. Cheers." We clink bottles and he walks away. Ettiquette from the Italian American Etta as in I etta iota, quette from the I Owe as in Farewell Debt; "'I Owe'—Tah!" Oh hello. Cato, Catterpillar, Impossible When language and nature— Like saying "An octopus has three hearts." What does "heart" mean if there are three in an octopus? If there were four, than at least an integral ratio with arms Do you regret having undertaken 10,000 book covers? Hm. My "heart," such as it is, never knew cause and effect. Do you repeat yourself? Do I repeat myself? Faces, do a lot of those. I recognize almost every cover I re-encounter, and those I don't intrigue me. Still have about 3000 left to do... Boston-bound this weekend, try to nail maybe 600. - - - - FEBRUARY 5, 2001 This Actually Happened: L. phoned from Paris. She was at the Pompidou Center, looking at a still-life with lemons by Matisse, one she'd not seen before, when she noticed two young men nearby, also looking at the painting, one of them carrying a lemon. She did a doubletake, then, intrigued, began to follow them through the gallery. There was something—self-conscious—about them. She approached. "Excuse me," said L. in English, pointing at the lemon. "What are you doing with that thing?" "This is my friend." "You carry it around with you?" "Yes." "Really." "Yes." Eerie resemblance to the plot of her husband's novel; she says: "The same one every day." "No. New lemon every day." "Oh, I see. How long have you been doing this?" "Two days." NOTE: Above dialogue is a polished extrapolation of a phoned-in report of a conversation in extremely strained English, the closest thing to a common tongue among the speakers. One of the Frenchmen spoke no English at all. He ran off somewhere and returned a moment later with a digital video camera. "We're making a documentary. We walk around with a lemon. We meet people." L.'s astoundment doubles when she learns there is apparently a Web site set up to report the progress of their research. The address was written down and given to her, along with a note they wrote to me, in French, in response to L's describing to the them the subject of my novel; "They thought I was out of my minds," she told me. L. has mailed these items to me; when I receive them, I will post them. 432 covers in a weekend at the house of good friends. 468 more were out in the car but there was lots of happy distraction and I seem to be spending more time per jacket now, yikes. Did walk into a bar for takeout dinner in time to hear from the TV Ray Charles singing "America the Beautiful" for the Super Bowl pre-thing, see a Stealth bomber tip its wing in bluesy time to the lyric. I have ridden in a taxi whose driver, hearing the subject of my novel, told me of a song—"not the Mexican Sinatra, there's a Mexican Sinatra and a Spanish Sinatra, this is by the Spanish Sinatra"—then sang it to me, a song that, had I heard it while still writing, would have made continuing moot. I have participated in a conversation in which the impossible sentence "Hitler was a mensch" was formulated perhaps for the first time in history, later amended by its speaker into: "There are 3 types of mensch. There's the mensch's mench, there's the misunderstood mensch, and there's the anti-mensch." I have found unposted notes from long ago, oh on two months now, another life. I meet the son of a physicist and a woman friend playfully begging him to walk her home; they know one another, are friendly, relaxed. He is speaking to me with intense emotion about the Singularity, describes the point in Space/Time when everything falls apart, physics as we know it loses its grip. Says: Some things even a father who is a physicist cannot discuss with his son. He leaves for the bathroom. His friend says to me, "Can I ask you a question, are you gay or straight?" "Straight," I say. She says: "Did you get the feeling he was hitting on you?" "No," I said, "it seemed natural open neutral curiosity." The son of the physicist returns from the bathroom, gets into an argument with the woman, then they each buy my book from me. I say: "Since I gave you such a phenomenal discount, you have to tell me what to put on the covers." She asks me to write something she dictates, I get as much as I can down on the cover. He asks me to draw a childhood memory of my own. He talks about childhood and the qualities of memories, while she, behind him, mouths at me over his shoulder a steady stream of insight into his nature. - - - - JANUARY 11, 2001 Very gratifying turnout last night at the KGB reading—thank you, all who were there and also (especially) those who couldn't fit in the place (latter group includes a fellow who was going to juggle some lemons, and at least one musician I'd invited to perform; must plan better.) I had stage fright and was adrenalinically manic and hopefully did not scare anybody, but I'm a vet now and should be hitherfrom cool. We're talking of another NYC LEMON reading at a more spacious venue, with more theatre and also some music. A number of people asked me about "Horrible Child," the play we (myself, Colleen Werthmann, and Dee Hanbury) read from last night. This play exists in published form and can actually be purchased. It was printed in conjunction with a 1998 production in Seattle at the Printer's Devil Theatre. I believe it costs less than ten dollars. If you're looking for a copy, you can contact Rain City Projects at: rcp@raincityprojects.org OK, then. Four thousand covers to go. Will continue to chart progress, if that's the right word. - - - - DECEMBER 29, 2000 At the France/Belgium border just after midnight we pull over voluntarily to locate our passports and offer them for review. We are on our way to Holland with two dozen of L.'s paintings in a rented Eurovan that's bound to be noted. Our passports are looked at, then we are looked at. I am in scruffy shape, and L. looks like the opposite type of terrorist. We are asked out of the van. I speak very little European, but more than L. does, but a little knowledge is a cumbersome thing and it's L. who communicates better with the border guard, who does not, he says, speak English. The fellow takes our passports ten feet away to a car with flashing lights, and passes them through the driver's window to the guard within. They confer. We speculate that our guard does in fact speak English and is waiting for us to say self-incriminating things. We say such things. No comeuppance. Other cars cross into Belgium without slowing down or being waved over. It's snowing big wet flakes. The border guard returns and asks us to open the back of our truck. We do. We explain the large number of paintings inside, and he seems to accept our explanation but asks to see inside our luggage, gestures us to open the bags. He squeezes the contents, respectfully, efficiently, then encounters some LEMON covers and lingers. Looks up at us, quizzical. We butcher several languages to express one "writer." His face becomes more complex. "Wait!" L. says. From another bag she produces a copy of TIME OUT magazine with an article on LEMON, opens to it and points at my picture and then to me (slight resemblance) and back and forth. She is doing this mainly to be humorous and friendly, but he quickly seizes the magazine and points to the article headline in big bold type: PULP FICTION. "Pulp Fiction?" says the border guard, wary. "Yes!" says L. "Pulp Fiction!" She points at me again, at my picture. I nod. Within five seconds the guy has begun to smile with recognition and is asking over and over "Pulp Fiction? Pulp Fiction?" while L. repeats "Pulp Fiction! Pulp Fiction!" until the guard, beaming, exclaims "Pulp Fiction! Pulp Fiction!" and takes the magazine back to the other guard, who has stepped out of the car and is approaching. Soon they are both looking at the article and at each other and at me saying "Pulp Fiction! Pulp Fiction!" and we're all standing there nodding and pointing, chanting "Pulp Fiction! Pulp Fiction!" and everything's loose and wonderful until the guards in inexplicable sudden unison snap back to original dignity—but they shake our hands and let us go right on our way. - - - - DECEMBER 17, 2000 Back from Chicago, nearly reconstituted. I was snowed in twice and returned to New York Thursday night. Still I dream I am drawing covers. And while awake—I've done 6000 so far, in total; the remaining 4000 are still in Chicago—I feel without purpose. At bars I am restless—until I realize—cocktail napkins! I'll slip them into books. I've found my methadone. Thank you very much, all you bright and gracious folk who called offering assistance with the various tasks associated with what I'd thought would be a simple enterprise. Alas, on both of the days on which your help would have been cherished, it snowed like crazy (I've been saying "Chicago" but "Waukegan" is more actual, 45 minutes north in good weather with no traffic). But the storms were good for my covers. Kept me mostly in my motel room. I flew in on Thursday night by the skin of somebody's teeth, that's another story, and because it turned out that no one would be in The Mailing House over the weekend (two of my four planned days there), I spent Friday taking covers off of books to take with me, and then, when efficiency dictated, moving cartons of books from the House to my motel room, which soon was an all but impenetrable forest of boxes. I did get out, twice, into Chicago, saw one of two friends I'd wanted to see, and joined Brian, who works at the shipping house and who I see within thirty seconds of meeting is one of the more alert and agile-minded humans I've met, who traverses the vast floor of The Mailing House on a silver scooter looking like a 6'4" Snoopy, and whose theory of evolution of mind and ability has been thoroughly translated into a practical program complete with animated characters who serve as guides through the stormy oceans of human possibility, and his mate, Mary, for an evening at a very Irish pub and then a bar with a marvelous tenor singing and playing a piano circumferenced by a zealous crowd of regulars. I draw covers everywhere. Two minutes into my first conversation with Brian, after establishing who each of us is, why we are here, he tells me: "I used to run an isolation tank in Palo Alto. I kept a running log the entire time of people's time-space distortion ratio, we all have it, I would ask them how long they felt like they'd been in the tank. Not how long they THOUGHT, some people you can see start calculating, I say No no, how long did it FEEL you were in there? And most people have about a 3 to 1 distortion ratio. Not me: I can usually, I've gotten so I'm pretty much right on, but you, you're about 100 to 1." This he has gleaned from my intention to draw four thousand covers in four days. As it turns out, after negotiating the boxes and then the books in and out of boxes, which takes about a day from my plan, and being snowed in for three days longer than I'd planned, I do 3000. (Which means that Brian may actually have a 2:1 space-time distortion ratio.) I've not, by my reckoning, done an extraordinary number of truly crazy things in my life, but I have done a few, and this cover deal, especially considering that it was premeditated and planned—I purchased plane tickets in advance, etc., the covers were indeed printed blank— I don't, I can't even talk about it, I don't want to remember it. I can't wait to go back for more. Somewhere in there I'm on the phone with my wife, who's been living in France, near Arles, she's a painter in residence there. She is the person who finally convinced me, with my publisher's encouragement, to do all these covers. But at the time of our conversation I am in some transport of doodly bliss, I'm a werewolf but don't know it, there's a full moon and I have no mind to remember it's she who's made me this way, and I say: "Is it true for you, no matter how many times you've seen a human face, you see people all the time, no matter how often you've drawn them or painted them, it's amazing how gratifying it is to draw one while you're actually looking at an actual person—it just feels so good—is that true for you?" "Of course," she says. "Because it's the life behind a face that's interesting. Otherwise it's just two eyes, a nose, a mouth—nothing there." This sentence, which I've now lived with for a week, has changed my life. I visit Brian and Mary and three younger persons (who happily kindly let me draw their faces on a box of covers) at their home, and I ask Brian: "Do most people overestimate or underestimate how long they've been in the tank?" "Oh, they underestimate. Except for a few, some people they go crazy without a measure of time, they count, they tap, sing, can't wait to get out of there." It snows. I buy socks. The Florida counties do their thing, I do my covers. On 12/10 I stop dating them, it's time-consuming and anyway gratuitous. I lose the socks among my Carlsbad of boxes and mushrooming piles of books. The Supreme Court does its thing, I do my covers, there's a lull in the snow, I go out for rations and more socks. My car skids but my reflexes are in great shape from constant doodling, and I return to the motel intact, and on the night of the "winner"'s and "loser"'s speeches I am saddened more than anything by Gore. The moment was aching for greatness, it had all the charged potency of great historical climaxes, so many ears were open, will be open, to what a person might say now—what an opportunity for all kinds of good!—and to see him face us and speak as if drugged with a gun at his back, speaking like a child to other children, rote effings in front of the blackboard—and then be applauded by citizens and commentators on every TV channel I can find for connecting the dots on some syntactical map through a diplomatic minefield—AGAHGAHGAH!!!! Bush had the better script that night—but who cares? Are we all deaf? What the hell is happening? I tell my nothing news to the covers in blackest ink. - - - - DECEMBER 7, 2000 I have a doppelganger My doppelganger's doppelganger Will the real doppelganger please stand up? I tell Fritz about the Sidneyan restaurateur cum art-collecting Surrealist. Fritz is a frequenter of the bar I frequent most, and a painter very vocally in the thrall of Dali; Fritz's own work pays consistent homage to the Spaniard. Fritz is from Haiti. When I ask him if Dali is indeed the Father of Surrealism, he exclaims: "I have a Dali!" "No kidding, that's great." "It's not done by Dali, but it's signed by Dali." "Cool. One of those things he did toward the end, when he was just sitting in bed signing blank sheets by the billion?" "It's beautiful, man. Whoever painted it, he got it." "What's the deal with that, was that Gala making him do that? 'Sign, Sally, sign! Do it for the children!'" "No, that was the mafia made him do it." "Wow, I didn't know that." "You know the elephants with the long legs? It's one of those, done beautiful, man." His mentioning elephants makes me happy, for what with Bush on the wax and the recent publication of the book "When Elephants Paint," my mind has been on elephants, and elephants have been on my book covers. Fritz reminds me of his upcoming exhibition and opening reception this weekend (Saturday, 12/9, 11 AM - 10 PM; reception 5 - 7; 790 Riverside Drive at 157th St., apt. 8G, NYC, RSVP: 212 501-8253). Alas and alarum, I will be in Chicago. In order for my book to be distributed per schedule in January, it is necessary that I go to the shipping house in Waukegan and draw four thousand covers in four days. My doppelganger for a clone! - - - - DECEMBER 6, 2000 "Interesting that you would choose your soul, instead of your born name, to represent your true self in the world." I don't understand everything the woman seated next to me is saying, but she seems to possess such balance and focus that I trust-something-even though I think I disagree with her. She's talking about my name on the spine of my book cover. I explain that the name on the spine is in fact my real name. "Did you know," she continues, "there is a soft drink named Hoochie, and Hoochie is a lemon? And it comes from London, and it's REAL." "You mean there's a picture on the label of a lemon?" "Yes. And I remember my girlfriend told me about it in the early nineties and I couldn't believe it was legal. But then, yesterday, I was in Gristedes and there it was." "Why would it be illegal?" "You know what a hoochie is. Tell me you know what a hoochie is" "Tell me what a hoochie is." I have begun to write down what she is saying on my book covers. Fleetingly I think this constitutes obnoxious self-fetishization, but the truth is I cannot, mustn't stop doing covers, I have a stern quota. She watches me write down what she is saying, me trusting she cannot read my scratches in the low light—but she knows exactly what I'm doing. And elegantly ignores it: "A hoochie is a woman who knows what she's about, who knows an itch when she scratches it, and scratches as a favor to her man." "That's fantastic." "Oh yes. Oh yes it is fantastic." We sit in silence for a minute or so. "Now Rembrandt," she says, "his family PAID him to stay away." Rembrandt. Painter. OK. I say, "You don't mean Van Gogh?" I say this because I think her fun fact more likely true of Vincent, though I don't think it actually is true. "I'm TALKING about Van Gogh. How do you think he learned to paint? And he was brilliant." I tell her about the Australian who asked me to guess the Father of Surrealism, and ask her who she would guess. "There was no FATHER. There was only the SON." "First I guessed Duchamp." She says, "I would have asked him first: Before 1940 or after?" "That would have been smart, given what it turned out he was thinking, but—" "I would have asked him to define Surrealism." "Wasn't Surrealism as an independent movement pretty much over by 1940?" "It was NOT. If I were here I would have boggled his mind. Do you understand?" "I think so." "And then I would have zeroed in on his butt." "Dali, was his answer." "Well. Salvador Dali was in his own realm and besides that he was associated with O'Keefe. How do you think Michelangelo remained passionate into his seventies? Because he kept as his apprentices not only men, but women, and there is not a woman living anywhere at any time who is not in a lunar state. Where with a man it is continuous. You people think of sex every three to five seconds- There! I saw that." "Not true." "Three to five times a second. Because. Homo sapiens do not have seasons. Animals have seasons, but God meant for some reason to have man dominate the earth, and to make procreation in regard to the manifestation of human beings." "Amen." PS: In a recent interview with a former professional literary agent, I described two separate persons telling me I have a doppelganger who plays mandolin. The second person to tell me this was a stranger to me who mistook me for an acquaintance named Olivier. This evening I saw the first person to tell me this, and I said, "I've learned the name of my mandolin-playing doppelganger! His name is Olivier." "No it isn't, she said. "I know your doppelganger, I've heard him play more than once, his name is John." - - - - DECEMBER 5, 2000 A pithily dressed man—camel's hair overcoat with Deaned collar, red silk scarf—is watching me doodle. We've been chatting; he's Australian, primary residence in Sydney, a restaurateur in town to close the property deal on his new steak & seafood place in midtown. Out celebrating, which his wife is not at peace with. He says, "You know, I'm an art collector." "I didn't know." "I collect the Surrealists." "I like art too, but I have no room." "I collect the Father of Surrealism. Do you know who I collect?" "Father of Surrealism, hmmm." "If you guess who I collect, I will be very impressed. I'll give you a present." "Duchamp." "I'll give you two guesses." "That's my guess. Duchamp. That's my opinion." "That's a very good guess. A VERY good guess. Right up there, in that circle. Good guess. But think: The Father." "So, earlier?" "Think: The sixties." "The sixties?" I think: Surrealism 50 years an Exquisite Corpse. "Think—" "You don't collect Dali, do you?" He tautens. He looks serious. "What did you say?" "Dali?" "Salvador Dali? That's your guess?" I've let him down. He is trying to control emotion, he is quivering. "I was thinking Ernst but only I think because lately I've been thinking about Ernst, then I thought maybe Man Ray—" "Dali is your answer, your final answer?" "Yes." I am full of regret. "What is your name again?" "Lawrence." "Lawrence, you have just won yourself a signed Dali lithograph." Am I hearing right? "I don't believe you." "I have some Dalis that are unsigned, but you're getting a signed one." "Well wow." We shake hands. "That's fantastic news, if true." "You don't understand." "Even if it isn't true." "I'm a Surrealist, Lawrence. I live: Surrealistically." "I tend to think of Dali more as the Usurping King." "You and I each came in here this evening, we met, we had a conversation, I proposed a game, you won the game, you now own a Dali. Congratulations. If I were another type of person I would invite you back to my townhouse right now [3 a.m.] and show you my collection and you would choose your lithograph, but I have a wife asleep in bed, I hope she is but I know her and she isn't, she has not taken kindly to my expeditions this evening and is preparing a speech and would not take kindly to a domestic gallery showing at this hour. But—your pen. Thank you. Here are my numbers. Work, cell, home, e-mail. Please do me a favor and if you call me at home please try to sound businesslike, all right?" "Of course." We shake hands again and talk some more. He speaks knowledgeably and at length about the Dali controversy, the chaos of frauds and signatures, relates conversations and correspondence with top verificationists. He buys me a Frangelica. The next day I e-mail him: SURREALISM IS ALIVE & WELL & OPENING RESTAURANTS ALL OVER TOWN, and he responds with a polite, even warm, Dali-free greeting. - - - - DECEMBER 3, 2000 "[The] Lemon is no Stranger [to literature]."
When asked what my book is about, which happens at least once a night when I'm out drawing covers, I invariably fumble my answer. I've tried every kind of response—offered plot details, quoted dialogue, proffered Grand Abstractions—always managing to choose the wrong tune. I'll point at the title on the spine; 28 percent of the time my inquisitor will say: "Is it about a used car?" "Ha ha ha," I'll reply, in earnest or dismay, depending on various factors; "Yes or "No," I might add, and expound. Fruitlessly. But here, in this online space, I may recollect in tranquillity, and share with McSweeney's readers some information that may shed light, or soften it, on the matter of my book, which is nothing if not thoroughly researched. Precedent is everything, as we all know and learn better every day. The following are all true: "There's a lemon in the locker. —O, damn you and your Paris fads!" (James Joyce, Ulysses) "The fact is that poor l'Estorade is turning as yellow as a lemon." (Balzac, The Deputy of Arcisby) "In a single month, she purchased fourteen francs' worth of lemons to clean her nails." (Flaubert, Madame Bovary) "I'll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon." (Sir Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer) "We've nothing in the house "A lemon or two and a jug of boiling water were placed upon the table." (Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh) "My living in Yorkshire was so out of the way, that it was actually twelve miles from a lemon." (Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir) "Here's a cigar, and the doctor has a prescription containing hot water and a lemon, which is good medicine on a night like this. It must be something important which has brought you out in such a gale." (Sherlock Holmes, in A. C. Doyle's "The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez") "I would like a medium vodka dry martini—and a slice of lemon peel." (Ian Fleming's Dr. No) "At this point Mr. Golyadkin frowned, as though he had taken a bite out of a lemon." (Dostoevsky, The Double) "'You don't use lemon in your business, do you?' asked Wegg, sniffing again." (Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend) "Oh, there's a swell bunch of Lizzie boys and lemon-suckers." (Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt) "Thus, magpie, lemon, himself, are lawful words." (Lewis Carroll, "Rules for Mischmash") "I remember a slice of lemon, and a bitten macaroon." (T. S. Eliot, Prufrock and Other Observations) "The hail now grew to the size of big lemons. I began to sing a Miserere." (Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini) "Then these are the embraces of our souls. The lemons nod assent. The swan pushes from the bank and floats dreaming into midstream." (Virginia Woolf, Monday or Tuesday) "Knowest thou the land where the lemon trees bloom?" (Goethe, Wilhem Meister's Apprenticeship) That's it for now. Must doodle. Good night. - - - - NOVEMBER 28, 2000 A dedicated West Sider, finding himself on the East Side and knowing a bar is in his near future, thinks "Ah! I'll go somewhere in this neighborhood—for a change!" and ducks into the first bar he passes; sits, orders a beer; looks up and recognizes the unmistakable logo of his regular West Side haunt: he is in its East Side sister. I stay for fifty beers—fifty COVERS, I mean. Probably will north 2000 by tomorrow. Doing about 100 between 12 and 3 every night. Leisurely pace, time for chatting, being a patron. This half-shift I get through in complete peace. There are people here to draw from, but no one speaks to me. Decor is generous with candles and dark wood at all angles. Because I don't understand Japanese, I am able to transpose the conversation to my left into useful running commentary on my doodles. I try out my new "LEMON" rubber title-stamp, with red ink. BAM! Fun, though a bit theatrically kinetic for the room vibe. People turn, thinking someone is making a point. I miss conversation and so head for the West Side office. Last night I met a Secret Service agent here [no joke; I know that reads fictionally, perhaps with a fumbled dollop of noir, but everything in this cover letter is true unless noted otherwise —LK]. Nine years in the service, this guy, the last two protecting the President very up close. "You would protect any President? No matter who's in office? What if—" "The Seat. We protect the Seat. When the Seat is not secure, there's chaos. If you've noticed." I hesitate, for Chaos is my mistress, or has been since I began drawing these covers. Even now I seem to be doing my best to draw unintelligibly. Who are you? You don't look like a lemon. "You have a gift," he said. BAM! Title-stamp. Hm, upside down. I explain to the Secret Serviceman the difference between gifts and compulsions. I ask: "You place your life at a lower value than—" "Absolutely. That's the first thing they ask you in your final exam: Would you lay down your life for the Seat? Lotta people drop out at that point." "But everyone must know they're going to be asked that—" I'm confused. Maybe he said "application form," or meant to. The title-stamp is almost functional as a drawing tool, if you really ink it and bear down. Accuracy minimal. "I used to do standup comedy," he says. "Still do. Do a lot of open mikes in D.C. I win prizes! Don't know what that means. I'll do a bit, they give me a prize." "Will you do something at my book-tour reading when I'm in Washington?" "Sure, if I'm in town." He writes his number on a napkin. "Cool, thanks." "What's your book about?" I freeze. (TO BE CONTINUED)
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