The Firecracker vs. The Bomb

My desire is to set forth my thoughts, reflections, ruminations and recriminations in disjointed fashion. I don't want to set the world on fire, as a popular ditty once ran. I don't believe there is any one man or any one group of men who can set things straight. From a very high point of view, nothing needs to be set straight. The tantric man can say, as did Céline, "I piss on it all from a considerable height." The saddik and the guru remain undisturbed. The ecstatic ones (the Hasidim) will continue to sing and dance even while the world sinks into nothingness. The holy ones will still enjoy a good fuck, a holy fuck, because they are immune, incorruptible and beyond melancholy and despair. (Why did the Church make melancholia a grave sin? Along with acedia [spiritual sloth]? Think on it!)

Why the firecracker? Because it represents the pleasure principle. Perhaps the firecracker was also used (by the Chinese) to drive away demons but never to kill other human beings or even animals. There is a book by Eric Gutkind (a forgotten prophet) called Choose Life--the title taken from the Old Testament. We have the choice, apparently, between life and death. And we have chosen death--or, better yet, total annihilation. We can do it now from beneath the sea or from outer space. We are the "death eaters."

Nearly all the well-known writers of the 19th Century, from William Blake to Rimbaud, Blavatsky and Nietzsche, as well as many of the 20th Century writers such as Gurdjieff, spelled out doom for civilized man. The very term civilized came into question. To be civilized was to kill, to poison oneself with alcohol and drugs, to foster prostitution, to create enormous divisions of wealth. Ironically, America, the land of plenty, has an enormous population of poverty-stricken individuals, many of whom are obliged to live on dog and cat food.

What I am saying is nothing new, I realize. I repeat these well-known facts in the vain hope that it is still not too late, that we--and by we I mean the entire civilized world--may open our eyes and halt our self-destructive course. For centuries now, (continued on page 190) Firecracker (continued from page 127) man has been swimming in his own shit and vomit, with some sour horse piss thrown in. Today, even that one spiritual people, the Hindus, have elected for the nuclear bomb. They say for peaceful projects, but who can believe them? The two superpowers, on the other hand, Russia and the United States, make no bones about their accumulation of weaponry or the sale of it to other nations. One waits breathlessly to see what the Chinese will do, now that they, too, have the bomb.

The simplest definition I can think of for this so-called civilized behavior is--insanity. Not long ago, through the recommendation of my friend Lawrence Durrell, I read an extraordinary book by Jacques Lacarriére called Les Gnostiques. In it, I discovered that long before the advent of Christ, and persisting to this day in certain obscure parts of the world, there was and is a group or sect whose primary belief is that this planet Earth is a cosmic error. I am amazed, in view of all the monstrosities and atrocities that occur daily, that there has been no revival of this sect. No matter from which angle I view man's activities, I am obliged to confess that they smack of sheer insanity. It would be refreshing and stimulating for the youth of today, who know not where to turn, to read this book. To be sure, it is an utterly subversive work that advocates all manner of unsocial, amoral, obscene, irreligious practices. (Ish Kabibble!)

Coming back to the grave disproportion of wealth, the fear of famine and overpopulation, one wonders why someone has not proposed to make better use of the human fetuses that are now burned. In Jonathan Swift's day, he recommended eating babies. (One didn't dare mention fetuses in a literary work.) But how much more tender and palatable, we imagine, would fetuses be! As for the immoral aspect of it, which the Church would be sure to raise, is eating them (in order to survive) worse than burning them because one doesn't know how to get rid of the blasted things? Perhaps if a kindhearted priest or rabbi or whatever were to bless the food first (or sprinkle it with holy water) the idea might become more acceptable.

Something drastic of this nature is demanded or we shall soon be eating one another. And if cannibals survive on such fare, why not we also? Is it not amazing, by the way, that primitive peoples (deprived of all that our science provides) can perform better than we and survive quite as well? I think particularly of those brown men in the Kalahari Desert (possibly the oldest inhabitants of Africa) about whom Laurens Van Der Post has written so eloquently. Here is a people herded into a reservation that offers a bare minimum of subsistence. To live, they must hunt. Often they merely wound the animal instead of killing it. Whereupon they begin a chase that may last for 25 miles. After killing their prey, they build a fire and roast it. Then they eat till their bellies are full; and after that, they sing and dance for the rest of the night. They know nothing of vitamins, calories, cholesterol, cancer and such things. They possess nothing. They are perpetually on the move. And they are usually happy! Think on it, you vaunted civilized ones. Show me your happy, carefree faces! Their big enemy is starvation, not germs. The enemies we fear and that kill us off are invisible, intangible sometimes and nameless, too. Civilized man has immunized himself against everything but his own destructive, murderous impulses.

When we sent the astronauts to the moon to bring back a few invaluable rocks, we never thought (as Ponce de León did in his search for the Fountain of Youth) of bringing back some touchstone that would ensure us peace, joy, health and vitality. (We are forever trying to make progress but oblivious of the cost.) Was it high poetry or imbecilic behavior when one of our astronauts whacked a golf ball across the surface of the moon?

If one has read of the marvelous adventures of Cabeza de Vaca, one would be at a loss to find in our archives a "Letter to His Majesty" such as Cabeza de Vaca wrote to the king of Spain. (This book by Haniel Long I cannot refrain from recommending with all my heart. Certainly, the adventures, as they are called, have no counterpart in anything I have ever read. Even in this woeful era of madness and corruption, they can gladden the heart and inspire even the most unfortunate among us.)

Between the roasting of edible fetuses for India, Appalachia and parts unknown and the miraculous adventures of Cabeza de Vaca, I am reminded of that revolting and extraordinary scene in Fellini Satyricon where the wealthy man leaves his fortune to his friends on condition that they devour his corpse, which they proceed to do with gusto and alacrity as soon as they are informed of the terms of the will.

I am sure they would have responded with equal alacrity had they been required to down a few buckets of swill or eat their own shit. Poverty and corruption did not begin with the Watergate drama. If one reads The Lives of the Popes, one will stumble on every manner of vice, corruption, torture and immorality--practiced by the Holy Fathers themselves.

Which reminds me that when first seized with a desire to air my thoughts, I said to myself--how nice if The New York Times would publish my piece! But The New York Times would not only balk at any scurrilous reference to the Popes, The New York Times will not even print such words as cunt, fuck and horny. Why? Because it is a family newspaper (sic). Confronted with a few unsavory words, the world's greatest newspaper suddenly shrinks to a "family newspaper"!

At that, it is no worse man the respectable British literary magazines and papers that would not dare to print cunt or its equivalents--twat, quim, crack, hole. Recently, in reviewing a popular book (here) by Erica Jong, called Fear of Flying, a book I have taken it upon myself to promote in any and every possible way, the reviewer accused her of possessing "mammoth pudenda." The pudenda (a choice Latin word for private shameful parts) is so typically British. I know this book well, and its author. Only in Great Britain can I imagine such things being said about the author. Myself, I doubt that I ever had a favorable review from a British critic, whether the book in question was about cunt, liberation or astrology. I have come to think of the typical British critic as a "transvestite from outer space."

And now, by way of relief, let me quote a line from Knut Hamsun's Mysteries--"Good morning, Miss Kielland! ... Would you like me to pinch your puff?"

Or let me suggest that we reread the passage wherein Rabelais speaks of plastering the walls of Paris with cunts--cheesy, smelly cunts that draw flies and stink to high heaven! Or spend a few minutes pondering why today's reader prefers Harold Robbins to Dostoievsky and Doris Lessing to Lady Murasaki (The Tale of Genji). Or consider the difference in sports--the football hero a cripple at 30 versus the gladiator who fought (man or beast) to kill or be killed. Or why kids (from eight years of age up) enjoy killing old people and cripples for a few cents--or just for kicks.

Or another query: How did it come about that the most passionate novel in the English language (Wuthering Heights) had to be written by one of the Bronte virgins?

Or how did censorship come about? A strange story. Only about 100 years or so ago. a drunken British lord was caught pissing into the street below from his balcony. He was not only subjected to a good fine but also a law was passed making such behavior a misdemeanor and making the printing of obscene language punishable by fine and imprisonment!

(Time out for commercials.)

When I saw Fellini Satyricon, I thought I had seen the ultimate in films. But then I saw Steppenwolf. Steppenwolf, based on Hermann Hesse's novel, goes beyond the Satyricon, in my opinion. At the end, Steppenwolf is condemned to eternal life--presumably here on this crazy planet. What a punishment! During this period, he is supposed to learn to laugh, not to take himself or anything so seriously. "For all your ills I give you laughter!" (Rabelais). Steppenwolf will even be encouraged to enjoy a few lusty tantric practices. There is no pornography or obscenity in the film. It is pure cinema.

There is a soul--intangible, invisible and imperishable--but we no longer refer to it. Yet it dominates our lives. Thank God it is still acknowledged by blacks, chicanos and primitive peoples everywhere. The clergy talk of it but know not whereof they speak. "Fais ce que vouldras!" These were the words that Rabelais put over his Abbaye Théléme. "Do what you like!" He should have added--"Admission free!"