The Magic Shop Take Two

 

The Magic Shop:  Take Two

Casting the ERB Glamour

by

R.E. Prindle

for George T. McWhorter

 

Do you believe in the magic of a young girl’s heart…

Do you believe in magic?

--John Sebastian

 

So there I was sitting in front of my word processor with a beer in hand waiting for inspiration.  Godot was right on time compared to inspiration.  I’ve sat that way for weeks at a stretch with nothing in sight.  Still, a writer is nothing without patience.

So, it wasn’t exactly inspiration that came my way but after staring out the window for only a second or two watching a squirrel trying to bury a nut while I took a couple pulls from my beer I turned back to my word processor and darned if there wasn’t something typed on that previously blank sheet of paper.  It wasn’t inspiration, just the single word LOUISVILLE exactly centered.

Well, I knew there were a bunch of Louies over in France.  For some reason they had a rule that they had to name their sovereigns Louis hence they all had numbers in Roman numerals like the Super Bowl although if I remember rightly for the kings they didn’t go that high.  I guess the Super Bowl has had more time to add up the numbers.  As a mnemonic trick they dropped the numbers sometimes giving them nicknames like Louis the Inept, Louis the Cheap, Louis the Crapshooter and so on.  So I thought there was maybe a Louis cemetery over in France around which they built a town called Louisville from the graves.  I was ready to leave right away.  Just to make sure I got out my atlas to look it up in the back where they list all the towns in the world.

Know what?  Louisville wasn’t even in France at all although it sounds just like it should be.  Know something else?  Louisville is right here in the United States.  Kentucky to be exact.  The way its situated on the map you might even think it was the gateway to the South.

I was musing over that puzzler when I looked  back at the sheet in the WP and the word Louisville had been disappeared being replaced by the word GO.  I pulled another pull on my beer looking away with my jaw dropped and tongue sticking out pondering mightily.  I looked back and the GO had disappeared replaced by the word NOW.  That was sort of a species of inspiration, I thought, while certainly an invitation to further procrastination.  No more procrastination for me. I took it.  One might say I leaped at it.

My first thought to get there was to shinny up a superstring and bend it to my will sliding down the apex into Louisville.  It was a good idea and would have been a cheap way to go but superstrings are hard to find when you want one in this universe.  Ever tried to signal taxi when you wanted one?  Superstrings are even harder.

That failing, my next thought was a good worm hole that might shorten the distance to like, a walk across the street.  If you think superstrings are hard to find, try worm holes.

I had to settle for a commercial airline and the loss of a few hundred dollars and a further loss of self-respect and dignity getting through what they’re pleased to call security at the airport but that 737-800 dropped me right down at the Louisville International Airport in the heartland, fly-over America, and there I was right where I was supposed to be, where fate wanted me, although I had had no further communications from the Great Beyond and didn’t know what to do next.

I approached an official looking sort and stumblingly began, ‘You, uh, Louisville…’  He interrupted quickly saying:  ‘Yes, the University of Louisville.  Right down on Third Street.  Keep your eyes open, you can’t miss it.’

I thought I had read some rule somewhere that said no body can remain inert for very long and as I had received no further communications I thought this might be the one so I found my way down to this University of Louisville which was right where this official type said it should be.

By this time a sense of eeriness is building in me, what the Irish call the Glamour, so I began to develop this irreal feeling.  As I usually do when I’m mystified I put my hands in my pockets to show my defenselessness to Fate and looked around.  Being a writer I like books and I knew from experience that libraries are full of books or at least ought and used to be.  Nowadays though, things changing so fast as they  do, you can’t never tell.  It was cold outside there in the Gateway to the South so I decided not to procrastinate further.  I went inside.

I was right.  Things were changing.  No books In sight.  The first thing I saw was some kind of automat but it didn’t have any pie slots.  I wanted pie.  I had to go without because while I was walking around this thing I spotted six doors, free standing in the middle of a large area looking something like this automat I mentioned.  By now the glamour was all over me.  I was beginning to think…I don’t know…let’s be fair and balanced and you decide.

I walked over to these strange six doors that looked like avenues to destiny and bingo! Door number three popped open.  I walked over to investigate this seeming invitation to partake in an adventure stepping through into what was this little tiny cubicle.  I turned to step back out when, as so often happens to the unwary, the door closed on me trapping me inside.  I was beginning to think I was a character in a Tarzan novel.   I scratched my chin which I often found productive of results.  As I did so the floor began to fall away from me taking me down with it.  I was apparently being lowered into the infernal regions.  I wasn’t far from wrong.

After a little while the floor came back up to me and it was like I was standing on solid ground again but I didn’t trust it.  Just then the door popped back open, a demon of some sort rushed in so I hopped out.  I don’t think that was a mistake but at the same time it wasn’t a wise move.

Immediately facing me were six horses. Why, of course, I though they were the flesh eating mares of Greek mythology come to life.  Who wouldn’t think that?  I fumbled in my pocket for a weapon but as the airline had confiscated my letter opener as a dangerous weapon of hi-jackers I had only my trusty plastic ball point, no less formidable, however, as a weapon.  It was pointed,  It was a good gell writer that had cost me a dollar twenty-five at the dozen rate, you see, as a writer I need a stash of pens, so I was using it to devastating effect slashing away at the rearing noses of those man eating mares when this centurion or something who later turned out to be an old codger calling himself, Janitor, asked me what I was doing

‘Think I’m doing?  What, are you blind?’  I cried, ‘I’m defending myself against these man-eating mares.’

‘Why, you fool.’  He replied with unnecessary acerbity and widely distended nostril resembling those of the mares, ‘Those ain’t man-eating mares, those are fifteenth century Ming Dynasty ceramic horses.  Those were given us by the Barren Estate and now you’ve ruined one of them, those ink stains will never come off.’

‘Sure they will.’  I said defiantly.  Then as a diversionary tactic I questioned his century, asserting that they were most certainly sixteenth century hoping he might be wrong, or that failing, perhaps he didn’t know anymore about the matter than I did.

I did look at these man eating mares more closely.  When I looked back at the Centurion I realized that he was some sort of a shape changer and he was not an old codger who looked just like a janitor he was one.  When I looked back at the mares I saw that he had changed them to these life sized Ming Dynasty, of whatever century, ceramic horses.  My defensive maneuvers had indeed been converted into ink stains.  I was steady as a rock though.  I reached up with my sleeve to polish the nose.  A lot of the ink came off too.  While I was doing this, I looked to the right, which is the direction of truth, when I was almost blinded by the sight.

There standing in the doorway of a room over which the legend ‘Department Of Rare Books’ had appeared was the most dazzling apparition I had ever seen.  It was the Princess Delinda. She must have been the sister of Ozma she was so beautiful.

So, there were books in this library.  But they were rare there or they wouldn’t have claimed to be.  Books took second place in my thoughts now that the Princess Delinda was before me.

She spoke.  She said:  ‘The Wizard has been expecting you.’

‘The Wizard?’

‘Yes. Follow me.’

That was easy to do.  I wasn’t going to refuse that invitation so I fell in behind.  She led me to a cubicle not much larger than the one I had descended in to confront the man-eating horses.  I wasn’t about to be caught in the same trap twice in a row so rather than going in I waited for this Wizard type to come out.  He did.

As Wizards go he was representative of the type.  Shortish and roundish although not so much as his counterpart in OZ.  He was apparently in charge of the same sort of apparatus as that wizard however because from that little cubicle I found he directed the worldwide operations of a clandestine group called the Burroughs Bibliophiles.  Whether they were related the Rosicrucian’s, Theosophists or groups of that stripe I never did find out.

The Princess Delinda cast a sweet glance at me disappearing into another cubicle as she did so.  This left me facing this crusty old buzzard alone.  As he had been expecting me this Wizard as he called himself had refreshments already made.  I don’t know what it was exactly, he gave it a strange name, but it was liquid.

‘I have the ingredients shipped in from the mysterious East.’  He smiled no less mysteriously.

I looked at the can the stuff had come from and it said New York City which was mysterious and East enough for me so I nodded my head knowingly.  ‘It’s good.’  I intoned.

‘You finally came.’  He said.  ‘You can call me George T. when you get tired of calling me Wizard.’  He politely remarked.  ‘So, you know something about Edgar Rice Burroughs?’  The Wizard George T. smiled.

‘What luck!’  I thought to myself, I stumbled into the right Secret Society. I do know something about Edgar Rice Burroughs.’  ‘Yes, I do.’  I hastily replied trying to insinuate myself into his good graces.  ‘Yes, I came here looking for inspiration where I was advised I could find it.  I thought that was as good an answer as any and besides I had been looking for inspiration for several weeks.  I thought he might be flattered because I thought I could find some here in Louisville, unlikely place but, you know, strange things happen.

‘Well, you came to the right place.’  George T. smiled.  ‘We have the largest collection of Edgar Rice Burroughs material anywhere on the planet, in the solar system, in this universe or any of the millions of parallel universes in existence.  Does that surprise you?’

Well, I had several parallel universes inside me filled with multiple personalities so that I already was living several lives simultaneously,  ‘Not me.’  I snorted with just a touch of arrogance.  ‘I’ve been everywhere, man, I’ve been everywhere.  I’ve been places in parallel universes you can’t even imagine.’  I gave him such a knowing leer he fairly melted beneath it or at least he appeared glazed.

Apparently used to such extravagances he gave me a pleasant smile while I looked around for another glimpse of the Princess Delinda.  ‘Step in.’  He said indicating his cubicle.  I hesitated, began to think up some explanation about descending floors but then in a fit of bravado I threw caution to the winds deciding to just take my chances, cast my fate to the winds.  Adventures to the adventurous I thought.  I came off astute because nothing happened.

We chatted for a while.  Talked over Edgar Rice Burroughs pretty thoroughly.  I thought I knew somewhat about Burroughs having been a Tarzan fan in youth and actually I had read up on Burroughs just recently but George T. was something to behold.  He holds out this book and says to me:  ‘I wrote this.’  It was a thick book.  As a writer I’m not jealous of other people’s success so I admired his volume wholeheartedly, if not even fulsomely, to show my good will.

‘Say, you know, George T.’  I said to show I knew what writing was all about.  ‘I’ve written a little myself.  To be on the level with you I’ve even written a few essays on Burroughs.  I’ve even had a couple published by the Burroughs Bulletin.’

When I said this the Wizard looked a little puzzled.  He reached behind him picking up a manuscript pushing it toward me.  I must have slipped through some sort of space warp.  Damned if it wasn’t one of mine.  May have been that stuff he gave me to drink.

‘Perhaps you wrote this in another incarnation.’  He smiled.

I had, sort of.  I had written it under the name of Dugald Warbaby.  Let me say right now that name is not pronounced Doo-gald as everybody does.  It’s pronounce Dug-ald.  Consider Ronald, Donald, Gerald, Fernald, Harald and many others.  Same ending, ald, but you don’t say Row-nald, Doo-nald or Gee-rald.  You say Ron-ald, Don-ald and Jer-ald.  Simple.  Same principle with Dugald.  Dug not Doo.  Still I’ve had people want to argue with me about it.  Don’t.  It is Dug-ald.  Call me Doug when I’m in that incarnation.

Now that George T. had called Doug up I slipped into that facet of my personality.  Doug speaks with a back country accent so I changed from my normal movie style bland pronunciation into the hick accent which some of my hillbilly ancestors used.  I mean, I grew up with this stuff.  I can cornpone it with the best or them or, at least, Warbaby can.  It embarrasses me to talk that way, although this was Kentucky not that far from Bowling Green from which my people came.

Anyway, George T. had somehow acquired copies of my essays.  He knew about all of us.  The Prindles, Warbaby and Dr. Anton  because we’d all written essays, sometimes in collaboration.  But, I could explain this and I did.

The Wizard led me into it.  ‘The range of knowledge you display is quite remarkable.’  He said, looking at me sharply now as Warbaby answered with that remarkable accent. ‘You must have a remarkable memory.’

‘My natural memory has always been good.’  I replied through Warbaby’s nose.  ‘But I have had to resort to an artificial memory system to manage information as my learning has expanded.’

‘How’s that?’  The Wizard asked with heightened interest.

I decided to fan my entire deck out before him.  If he really wanted to know this I was really going to tell him.

‘Well, my volume of memory information has to be organized for recall.  I once knew a man who said he didn’t want any new memories because he liked the ones he had.  He didn’t want to lose them by which I suppose he meant their immediacy.  Memories certainly lose their prominence as others are added.  I laughed at him at the time but as I soon learned without a system to manage them and method of recall there isn’t room in the mind for infinite information.  New memories do shove old ones aside.

My first attempt to overcome this effect was compartmentalization which was effective but not thorough.  I read Homer’s Iliad on a fairly regular basis in an attempt to penetrate his meaning.  I am fascinated in his personification of Zeus as the Mind of Infinite Power.  A handy mind to have.

I had been working on a system that displaced information from the inside of the mind, so to speak, to a putative external apparatus when I read this book by Frances Yates called ‘The Art Of Memory.’

I don’t know whether I would have stumbled on the solution on my own, I like to think I would, being of the vain sort, but Yates ran thorugh memory systems from the time of Simonedes who is supposed to have invented the concept c. something BC but anyone who had read Homer must be astonished by the volume of material he has organized so consummately well.  Perhaps I derived my system from Homer and his Mind of almost absolute power.  His is certainly as astonishing in its power as any I have encountered.

Anyway the story of Simonedes, a professional poet and praise singer, is that he was employed by a Roman grandee to sing his praises at a banquet.  As was the custom Simonides cast the praise within the context of the gods, in this case Castor and Polydeukes, the Gemini.  After his presentation at the banquet his employer would only give him half pay as the man said that because he had paid for a full eulogy half had been given to the Gemini.

Well, Simonides took his place at the table of fifty-four, suffering in silence as, indeed, he had little choice.  Mid-dinner the steward advised him that there were two gentlemen without the building who wished his attendance.  Not unwillingly Simonides left the banquet to meet the gentlemen outside who were in fact the Gemini in human disguise.

While Simonides was outside talking to the Gemini the roof of the building collapsed killing and crushing beyond recognition all the diners.  Simonides was able to recall each diner because in his memory system he had attached a name to each chair.  Hence Simonedes is imagined to be the inventor of the memory system but I am sure such systems existed before Simonides.

Unfortunately, memory systems with items attached to objects burdens the memory with an irrelevant scene.  I thought futilely.  However I had been working with the Astrological religion which is built around the Zodiac and the Constellations.

This seemed perfect as I could construct an imaginary Zodiac a foot or two from my head, surrounding it.  Thus, I could displace memories outside my skull, as it were, freeing up cerebral space for new memory formation and projection onto the Zodiac.  An illusion perhaps, but effective.  The heavens thus formed a gigantic cap for me.

Now, a circle has three hundred sixty degrees of which each sign occupies thirty degrees.  Each sign is further divided into three decans for greater convenience.  Each degree within a decan is further divided into sixty minutes, each minute, sixty seconds.  Each decan can be divided horizontally into latitudes of ten or as many as you like.  Therefore as you can see one already has almost infinite memory but the seven layers of heaven and all the constellations are left over.

Now, to manage this memory one man alone is not adequate so I projected five identities, Dugald Warbaby, R.E. and Ronald E., the Prindles or Gemini, and Dr. Anton Polarion.  Anton, a wonderful person in his own right, is the psychologist of the group, psychology being of the essence of the intellect.  R.E. Prindle handles the literary aspects, Ronald E. the scientific side while Warbaby as his name implies is a rough and tumble sort of coordinator in charge of cross referencing.  I am, of course, if not a Mind of Absolute Power, the facilitator who keeps everything in order while creating capacity.

All five men face the 360/1 degree divisor and unfier, True North, if you will.  Ouroboros and all that.

When reading there is constant comparison and cross referencing which is the most difficult part.

‘That’s interesting but it almost sounds, how shall I say…’

‘Crazy or looney?  Not if you really understand psychology.  Actually the whole Judaeo-Christian religion is founded on just such a projection which is what taking it to the Lord in prayer means.  If you read St. Augustine’s Confessions properly one would have to say the guy was insane.  The whole book is a conversation with his imagined god who he believes is talking back to him.  Now, that’s crazy.  I don’t have to believe in the persons of my memory system to make work and work it does.

If I may give an example of a man with a brilliant memory who because mankind is unable to accept the full range of its possibilities, has been rendered odious and taboo, I will illustrate my point by a feat performed by the infamous Adolf Hitler.  From my own point of view it is ridiculous to exclude any person or aspect of human nature from examination or consideration.  There is no one worse than a child molester in my estimation yet we study the type to understand it.  I find it very difficult to imagine Hitler any more odious  than that or, say, the Catholic inquisition which brings us to the point of my illustration.

Himmler, a Catholic and founder of the Order of the SS had compiled a map showing the area from which the SS were primarily recruited and the area of the SA.  Hitler was shown the map by Himmler.  I’ve seen a similar map before, Hitler remarked.  Himmler replied that it was impossible as the map had just been completed.

Not the content, Hitler replied, Ah, I have it now.  In gymnasium I saw this line as showing the divisions between the Lutherans and Catholics.

So, that by remembering the contours of the earlier map, being able to compare the content of both in his mind, and being able to identify the reason for the composition of the SS and SA.  In fact, the SS was primarily recruited from Catholics while the SA were primarily Lutherans.  Further conclusions can also be drawn through analysis depending on which facts having been catalogued in a memory system can be recalled and cross referenced.

While quite brilliant intellectually Hitler was lacking an integrated personality thus in control of the waters of the subconscious which led him to commit unconscionable errors for irrational reasons.  In other words, his acts couldn’t produce the results he desired.

His main objective was to defeat Communism, in which he was indirectly successful.  At the time the Communists were within a hair of success.  Popular Front governments which were Communist in fact existed everywhere including the Roosevelt administration of the United States.  Italy and Spain were the sole exceptions.  During the war the resistance in the United States was able to organize itself against Roosevelt and the Reds surfacing after the war as the dominant political influence in the US.  They then spread their anti-Communist or pro-American influence, as you will, around the world not controlled by the Communists.  They thus inherited the anti-Communist attitude of Hitler which was recognized by the Reds who immediately labeled the United States as Fascist.  A little distorted projection, but one having some merit as being opposed to their interests.  Thus Hitler aborted what was a seeming victory for the Reds.  Reagan’s defeat of Communism forty years later was actually a consequence of Hitler’s beginning.  Of course, one is forbidden in academic circles and, indeed, in society in general from any such objective analysis of Hitler’s influence.  You will forget immediately that I brought it up.  The world suffers a lack of integrity as a result.

But, as far as considering Hitler outside the pale of humanity, I don’t.  As John Donne said:  Send not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

Look at this caricature of society around us created by quite common place minds and tell me which is more evil.’

The Wizard eyed me intently.  I had broached a forbidden topic and discussed it in a forbidden manner.  My fate hung in the balance.  As a free American and the son of the Greatest Generation which had taken arms to defend Liberty from tyrants I waited breathlessly.  Well, there was a star spangled banner waving somewhere over the land of the free and the home of the brave. The Wizard, George T. eyed me intently then said airily:  ‘I can’t follow non sequiturs.’  Dismissing the issue.

I breathed more easily.  The old duck must have all his marbles in the right place.

‘You mentioned Homer.’  He continued.  ‘We have a writer who believes that Homer and Burroughs are quite related in manner.  He thinks Burroughs based his style on Homer.’

I paused for a moment.  I hadn’t taken my thought quite in that direction although a relationship had occurred to me.  I mused for a moment then said.  ‘Well, I don’t think it’s impossible but I’d have to consider his arguments.  I think Burroughs does organize like Homer.’

The Wizard’s face broke into a broad smile:  ‘Why don’t I show you the collection?  He said.

I tried not to show relief but enthusiasm.  I must have passed some kind of test.

When George T.  began to show the collection he remarked that he found my essays interesting.  ‘My essays interesting,’  I thought,  how could he know about them?’

Then the Glamour began to dissolve.  I couldn’t imagine how I could have been so befuddled.  It was like a dream cap had fallen over my head now being removed.

Of course, this was the Burroughs collection at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky.  I wrote essays for the Burroughs bulletin which this chubby guy accepted and published.  This guy wasn’t any wizard, this guy was George T. McWhorter.  He was a librarian for gosh sakes.  But, still, not only had he gathered together the most phenomenal collection of Burroughs stuff but he had found a way to perpetuate his interest by incorporating it into the rare book collection of a university.

He had single handedly organized the Burroughs corpus into an ongoing entity.  But, now, get this.  I don’t only write about Burroughs but I incorporate literary relationships with H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley and others.  Listen, he had me covered in every direction I went.  No one, for instance, had associated Burroughs with Wells but he had all the first editions of Wells.  Absolutely no one but me had associated Huxley with both Wells and Burroughs yet there were Huxley’s first editions too.

I was astounded.  This was too spooky, too eerie.  George had shown me item after item and he was going back for more.  Henry Herbert Knibbs wasn’t too out of line for Burroughs Bibliophiles but George just stood there grinning with this stuff in his hands.

I mean, I knew, or thought I did, that he couldn’t have made the associations that I had but I had been anticipated at every hard won thought.  Nonsense, I said to myself and just as I had failed to recognize where I was or who George was, this can’t be true.

I still don’t think it was but there you have it, I’m telling it just like it could have happened.

Thank god it was getting late so I had a reason to excuse myself and get out of there.  George pressed a couple welome copies of old Burroughs Bulletins on me as a friendly gesture smiling that enigmatic smile of his.  As I backed toward the door I tripped over a bookend he’d placed in my way as another test of some kind, I guess.

I didn’t miss a beat though.  I just picked it up, put it on the table and said:  Geez, George, you oughta be more careful.

The glamour of ERB was off.  I realized how foolish I had been in thinking I was anywhere but in the basement of a college library when after saying goodbye again, checking the floor for any other obstacles he may have placed there George gave me a smile and said:  You did the right thing in answering the CALL.

I was still apprehensive as I approached those ceramic Ming horses that, how can I explain it, I thought were flesh eating mares.  As I looked around now I saw that the basement was filled with donations from avid collectors, well to do or not, who hoped to buy a little bit of immortality in University collections rather than returning the stuff to circulation to be hidden away in private collections before surfacing again decades later.

Some of this stuff looked like it had sitting there decades waiting to be catalogued then stuffed away in storage to be unseen for more decades.

I thought the glamour was off but then that most beautiful Princess Delinda swept by, trailing, I swear, clouds of stardust.  She didn’t even give me a glance.  Ah well, neither did Ozma when I visited that Wizard.

Door three popped open which I now realized was only an elevator. I went up to floor one, whisked through the metal detectors as uniformed guards with automatic weapons glared at me.   Maybe Orwell was right but it wasn’t because we had to fear Big Brother it was because of all the obnoxious little brothers.

Well, it’s their job to glare but it’s not the America I grew up in.

When I stepped out into the chill Louisville winter my brain cleared a bit further.  I remembered that George had said that it was good that I had answered the CALL.  What could he know about that?  Besides I was now sure that I had hallucinated the words LOUISVILLE, GO, and NOW on that blank piece of paper.  Or had I?

Was that guy just George T. McWhorter, the simple librarian of the Department of Rare Books or was that the Wizard George T., controlling world wide operations from his little cubicle?  I’m a rational guy and I knew the answer, or, did I?  Maybe I was a man of destiny after all.  Maybe, just maybe, I was Starbegotten too.

Oh well, not to worry, I was leaving Kentucky and going back home.