Partytime

In an idle moment, I recently punched in the power button on my television set.

Something curious happened.

I feared I had blown the system as a loud crack of electricity crashed through the five speakers scattered about the room. There was no flash of electrical light, though I sensed something strange was about to happen. I stepped back from the screen, stumbled against the couch, and hastened toward the other end of the room.

The screen was illuminated with a fuzzy black and white image. It didn’t look like anything that would appear on AMC or TCM or IFC. In fact, it didn’t look at all like a modern television broadcast.

As I stood behind the couch, the picture came into sharper focus and color bloomed over the images.

In a final concession to modernity, the screen overflowed into three dimensions.

Stereophonic sound bounced through the room. Festive music flowed from all five speakers.

It wasn’t the kind of music you hear nowadays; rather it seemed to be a kind of English folk music, the sort of stuff that Ralph Vaughn-Williams explored in the early years of the last century. Hints of jazz mingled with it. That added to the mystery.

A lot of people on the screen were dancing and getting larger and larger within the confines of the television set.

A voice shouted out of the front left speaker: “No, we’re not to make money. We must make art.” The voice was flat with an intonation not much different from the sounds I grew up with in Oklahoma. The left speaker’s voice moved into the center of the screen. A man emerged with a shock of gray and brown hair and a matching, boisterous beard.

The cheap thrill of a shiver coursed down my spine. The man seemed familiar, maybe reminiscent of Walt Whitman, but skinnier, and probably about the age of Walt Whitman when he gave us the first edition of that great book of American literature, Leaves of Grass.

Suddenly. Oh, yes, palpably suddenly, the tousled head grew to life size. An arm was thrust beyond the screen’s perimeters, and the man danced out from the television set. I ducked behind the couch as a strange glow, flooded the room.

In a brighter flash of recognition as fierce as a Hudson Valley electrical storm, I identified the man.

Generally considered to be long dead, Hervey White was dancing in my media room.

Hervey was probably the first hippie. I had recently read Anita Smith’s Woodstock History and Hearsay and recalled the chapter on Hervey and his aid in establishing Woodstock as an arts center in the early twentieth century. We know him only through black and white photographs and dull color portraits. Now, Hervey was ablaze with color in his electronically-generated yellow shirt, purple scarf, and cobalt trousers. He was barefoot.

Miraculously, he leaned over and turned up the sound on the receiver. How could he have known to do so? Most of his activities were from the earliest times of radio broadcasts.

A sly grin erupted.
He saw me behind the couch.
I ducked.

He bounced across the room, grabbed my right arm, and pulled me away.
He also righted himself and stood on tiptoes. Putting his arms around me, he kissed my forehead as if I were a baby. He was definitely from another time.

Yes, I wished he used Dial today. I sort of understood why his wife and sons had abandoned him. It wasn't about sex; it was about stench.

With his hand on my shoulder, he propelled me beyond the television and out the back door to my over-sized deck, where he embraced me again and guided me through his dance.

Meanwhile, a stream of bizarrely dressed people had begun to pour from the television screen, cavorting through the room and out to the deck.

My deck had been host to parties of a few dozen locals, but never had it held the hundreds who apparently had been hiding in my television set.

The sound now seemed to be coming out of the trees, overlooking three sides of the deck. Children and pets tumbled out of my room. It was like the Halloween Parade held annually in Woodstock, but there was no nylon or spandex or polyester; it was all natural--probably truly organic.

Hervey took me over to a bench on the deck and we sat down together.
He looked directly into my face and put a dirty hand on my knee.
His eyes glowed.

Whose eyes wouldn’t glow, if they were made of electronic bits? He said breathily, “This is art.” His breath was hot. Listerine wouldn’t have hurt.

The music grew louder as the sun rose and even louder hours later as the sun set. The drums accompanying our dancing blended in with the drums often heard two miles away on the Village Green.

I escaped the dancing throng and retired indoors to the couch to eat an electronically-generated cupcake. There was a sudden movement in front of the television set: two children, apparently more interested in future technology than ancient dances and airs, crouched at its controls.

It could have been an accident or a childish prank, but one of them apparently hit the power button.

The cupcake fell from my hand and remained suspended in mid-air.

I looked through the door to the deck.
All the dancers had frozen.
Conversation was halted.
Music ceased.

I looked at a dancer's eyes and touched her cheek. It could have been made of native bluestone: cold, hard, and unyielding. She was neither dead nor alive.

What the hell was I going to do with a frozen, early twentieth century Woodstock festival on my back deck? Open an amusement park? A freak show?

It was difficult moving through the crowd. Even the rustic costumes were as hardened as their bodies. The sharp edge of a flowing skirt could slash and wound. I wondered if the frozen process would make the bodies heavier? They felt heavy to the touch.

How do I get into these fixes? They seemed to be happening more frequently. I guess I was getting older. Oh, shit, oh shit, shit, shit.

Then it occurred to me that there was something worth attempting. I went to the television set and lifted one of the leaden children away from the power button. The other child was shoved aside.

I pressed the button.

The first evidence of the return to our normal state was the music issuing from the speakers, then echoing moments later from outside. The child blinked and smiled naughtily as I stood and rose to return to the deck, where the guests mingled again.

Hervey stood up from the bench, and said in an uncommonly loud voice, “This is life, as well as art.”
He waved his arm, signaling the partygoers to return to their electronic home.

The old-timers bade me farewell:

"Thank you. I've never seen a place like this."
"Do you have a doggie?"
"Have you ever heard of jazz?"
"Maybe you will give us cookies next time."
"You must come and see our Model-T. It goes really fast."

When the last person went through the door, entered the television set fading to gray, and flattened out into the screen, Hervey kissed me on the lips. “Thank you; make love, not war.”

I had a different thought. If not Listerine, how about Lavoris?

© Robert B. Wyatt 2017

In an idle moment, I recently punched in the power button on my television set.

Something curious happened.

I feared I had blown the system as a loud crack of electricity crashed through the five speakers scattered about the room. There was no flash of electrical light, though I sensed something strange was about to happen. I stepped back from the screen, stumbled against the couch, and hastened toward the other end of the room.

The screen was illuminated with a fuzzy black and white image. It didn’t look like anything that would appear on AMC or TCM or IFC. In fact, it didn’t look at all like a modern television broadcast.

As I stood behind the couch, the picture came into sharper focus and color bloomed over the images.

In a final concession to modernity, the screen overflowed into three dimensions.

Stereophonic sound bounced through the room. Festive music flowed from all five speakers.

It wasn’t the kind of music you hear nowadays; rather it seemed to be a kind of English folk music, the sort of stuff that Ralph Vaughn-Williams explored in the early years of the last century. Hints of jazz mingled with it. That added to the mystery.

A lot of people on the screen were dancing and getting larger and larger within the confines of the television set.

A voice shouted out of the front left speaker: “No, we’re not to make money. We must make art.” The voice was flat with an intonation not much different from the sounds I grew up with in Oklahoma. The left speaker’s voice moved into the center of the screen. A man emerged with a shock of gray and brown hair and a matching, boisterous beard.

The cheap thrill of a shiver coursed down my spine. The man seemed familiar, maybe reminiscent of Walt Whitman, but skinnier, and probably about the age of Walt Whitman when he gave us the first edition of that great book of American literature, Leaves of Grass.

Suddenly. Oh, yes, palpably suddenly, the tousled head grew to life size. An arm was thrust beyond the screen’s perimeters, and the man danced out from the television set. I ducked behind the couch as a strange glow, flooded the room.

In a brighter flash of recognition as fierce as a Hudson Valley electrical storm, I identified the man.

Generally considered to be long dead, Hervey White was dancing in my media room.

Hervey was probably the first hippie. I had recently read Anita Smith’s Woodstock History and Hearsay and recalled the chapter on Hervey and his aid in establishing Woodstock as an arts center in the early twentieth century. We know him only through black and white photographs and dull color portraits. Now, Hervey was ablaze with color in his electronically-generated yellow shirt, purple scarf, and cobalt trousers. He was barefoot.

Miraculously, he leaned over and turned up the sound on the receiver. How could he have known to do so? Most of his activities were from the earliest times of radio broadcasts.

A sly grin erupted.
He saw me behind the couch.
I ducked.

He bounced across the room, grabbed my right arm, and pulled me away.
He also righted himself and stood on tiptoes. Putting his arms around me, he kissed my forehead as if I were a baby. He was definitely from another time.

Yes, I wished he used Dial today. I sort of understood why his wife and sons had abandoned him. It wasn't about sex; it was about stench.

With his hand on my shoulder, he propelled me beyond the television and out the back door to my over-sized deck, where he embraced me again and guided me through his dance.

Meanwhile, a stream of bizarrely dressed people had begun to pour from the television screen, cavorting through the room and out to the deck.

My deck had been host to parties of a few dozen locals, but never had it held the hundreds who apparently had been hiding in my television set.

The sound now seemed to be coming out of the trees, overlooking three sides of the deck. Children and pets tumbled out of my room. It was like the Halloween Parade held annually in Woodstock, but there was no nylon or spandex or polyester; it was all natural--probably truly organic.

Hervey took me over to a bench on the deck and we sat down together.
He looked directly into my face and put a dirty hand on my knee.
His eyes glowed.

Whose eyes wouldn’t glow, if they were made of electronic bits? He said breathily, “This is art.” His breath was hot. Listerine wouldn’t have hurt.

The music grew louder as the sun rose and even louder hours later as the sun set. The drums accompanying our dancing blended in with the drums often heard two miles away on the Village Green.

I escaped the dancing throng and retired indoors to the couch to eat an electronically-generated cupcake. There was a sudden movement in front of the television set: two children, apparently more interested in future technology than ancient dances and airs, crouched at its controls.

It could have been an accident or a childish prank, but one of them apparently hit the power button.

The cupcake fell from my hand and remained suspended in mid-air.

I looked through the door to the deck.
All the dancers had frozen.
Conversation was halted.
Music ceased.

I looked at a dancer's eyes and touched her cheek. It could have been made of native bluestone: cold, hard, and unyielding. She was neither dead nor alive.

What the hell was I going to do with a frozen, early twentieth century Woodstock festival on my back deck? Open an amusement park? A freak show?

It was difficult moving through the crowd. Even the rustic costumes were as hardened as their bodies. The sharp edge of a flowing skirt could slash and wound. I wondered if the frozen process would make the bodies heavier? They felt heavy to the touch.

How do I get into these fixes? They seemed to be happening more frequently. I guess I was getting older. Oh, shit, oh shit, shit, shit.

Then it occurred to me that there was something worth attempting. I went to the television set and lifted one of the leaden children away from the power button. The other child was shoved aside.

I pressed the button.

The first evidence of the return to our normal state was the music issuing from the speakers, then echoing moments later from outside. The child blinked and smiled naughtily as I stood and rose to return to the deck, where the guests mingled again.

Hervey stood up from the bench, and said in an uncommonly loud voice, “This is life, as well as art.”
He waved his arm, signaling the partygoers to return to their electronic home.

The old-timers bade me farewell:

"Thank you. I've never seen a place like this."
"Do you have a doggie?"
"Have you ever heard of jazz?"
"Maybe you will give us cookies next time."
"You must come and see our Model-T. It goes really fast."

When the last person went through the door, entered the television set fading to gray, and flattened out into the screen, Hervey kissed me on the lips. “Thank you; make love, not war.”

I had a different thought. If not Listerine, how about Lavoris?

© Robert B. Wyatt 2017

Narrated by Robert B. Wyatt.

POST RECITAL

TALK

BR: Hi Robert. Or is it Bob?

BW: Call me Bob.

TN: So, welcome to The Palace of Materialized Dreams, otherwise known as our studio. I understand your home has a name as well.

BW: Yes there is a name for it. It's up on California Quarry Road and it's called “House with Bear on Deck”.

TN: And does this bear have a name?

BW: Oh yes indeed. His name is Amanuensis.

BR: Ah, amanuensis is one of my favourite words ever.

TN: Hmm. I'm quite fond of “palimpsest”. What about you Bob? Do you have a favourite word?

BW: Sure. “Wyatt”.

TN: Is it a noun or a verb?

BW: I was born with it.

BR: Well that's a pretty good reason.

BW: Yeah. Maybe a word or two more about Amanuensis though, because he's such an important story of my life. He's about eight feet tall. He's made of tulip wood, one of those chainsaw-carved bears, and he is also a writer but he's also, being an amanuensis or secretary, he is my socialist secretary. And he does a lot of correspondence for me on the internet and he also criticizes my work, and I criticize his and edit it. His current work is: The Collected Occasional Writings of Amanuensis A. Bear.

BR: All right. Then he must have helped with your story.

BW: Well this is the complicated part. And it's kind of hurtful. Mr. White entered the story late. This was originally a story about bears. I was the only human being in the story. And it's very hard to work with a whole team of bears. And the bears were based on a painting by William Holbrook Beard, which is in The New York Historical Society – the painting is. It's also on my shower curtain upstairs at House with Bear on Deck. But I told the story of those bears in that famous painting The Bear Dance, and they are what marched out of the television set and out to the back deck, and eventually returned to the television set. Hervey White was but a dream.

BR: Wow, so it went through quite a transformation there.

BW: Yes.

BR: Well an interesting thing about your story being chosen for The Strange Recital is it's really the most local of any of the stories we've featured here and it really does refer to the actual history of our town of Woodstock.

TN: And history goes around in circles. Where we're sitting right now was part of the original Byrdcliffe artist colony, which was started by Ralph Whitehead, an Englishman, over a hundred years ago - an arts and crafts community with a utopian vision influenced by William Morris. Hervey White was one of the early leaders. So when you wrote the story, did you know you'd be recording it here?

BW: No way.

BR: Yeah, I've always liked old Hervey White – the fact that he split from the Byrdcliffe colony because it was too authoritarian for his taste and started the Maverick colony, over across the valley and then he began those annual festivals. I think 1915 was when he started those. Pictures from those festivals are really amazingly contemporary – music, costumes, people with flowers in their hair and they grew to like six thousand people, they got so wild they had to be shut down.

BW: Yeah well I think there are two things at play here. I'm pretty sure that Hervey White forced himself upon me. He was a very forceful critter as you know. But something about me reaching a certain age, being older, that I've discovered, and especially living in Woodstock which is.... the rivers run with history here, and as we get older I think we're increasingly interested in history and we try to bring it back, and that's what I did with Hervey and the party-goers of that time.

TN: I saw a documentary about Woodstock. Maybe it was in the film festival a few years ago, I can't remember what it was called. In it there were some old ladies talking about all the fun and free love they'd had back at those parties of Hervey's in the teens or twenties. Quite powerful.

BR: Yes so really he was the direct ancestor of the Woodstock festival of 1969. At least the way I see it, his spirit lingers here even in our electronic age. So, you know, maybe your story is actually true.

TN: I gather you split your time between New York City and Woodstock. Was it the fact that you have a house up here that led to your interest in Hervey White?

BW: No, I think it's just that whole thing about history. History is in the bloodstream and I guess I want to bring some of it back one way or the other.

TN: Does history follow you around?

BW: Well it follows all of us around.

TN: Do you find it different writing in the city or writing up here? I think Brent likes to know those kind of things.

BW: No. It's hard in both places.

BR: Now I understand that this story Partytime is an excerpt from a longer work, a book that you've described as autobiography but I've read, or I've heard you read a couple of those other stories and I'd say they're not exactly like most work that's called memoir. So what does autobiography mean to you?

BW: Well that's kind of a joke. But I was at a party here several years ago and somebody said: “Bob, look out that window. Behind every tree someone is writing a memoir.” That was back in the days when we called things 'a memoir'. Now, as sophisticates say: “I'm writing memoir.” I don't quite get that but I come from another time.

BR: It has become a genre of its own.

BW: Autobiography is a joke because, well...... the title of this work which I hope will appear in many formats, not necessarily a hard cover book, in fact that would be at the bottom of the list. It is: Adventures of a House and its Books, and the characters in it are either authors, some I've worked with over the years in publishing, or authors of books – they're all American and they're all dead, except for the fact that they live, and they live forever as being written down in a book. There's a poster on my wall, at House with Bear on Deck, that says: “The world exists to end in a book.” Stéphane Mallarmé. But the book opens with – this is from long ago and of course it's Rip Van Winkle.

BR: Of course.

BW: From the Hudson... you know he came from not too far away from Woodstock. And he comes and he sort of electrifies the house in a strange way and after that all kinds of things happen. I find an orange crate on the front step when I come down the stairs one morning and there's a baby in it and I rear him till he's a teenager, his name is.... I give him the name of Samuel, until at one point he says “Father, I can't be here anymore. I've got to head out for the Territory. “Sam, why? Why is this?” “Father, and you can't call me Sam.” “What would I call you?” And I hear this way from out of the distance: “ Mark One, Mark Two, Mark Twain!” And the bus goes away west. So it's those kinds of stories that leap out of the.... off the bookshelves and I have many thousands of books. Right now there are only twenty stories in Adventures of a House and its Books. It's flexible and that brings to mind something else. We have to find new ways of issuing books. I've been very bothered by the history of some events in books, like Alexandria Library being burned down, Hitler's burning of books. And books can be made in various ways and I heartily support all electronic uses, or creation and preservation of books. And books also should be mutable texts. They don't have to be written in stone. We can change them thanks to the ways we can make books now. And we all have to be flexible within that book society.

BR: Well that's part of what we're doing on The Strange Recital – is exploring a new way of publishing.

BW: Yep, yep. And I certainly salute it.

BR: Great.

TN: Brent, just one thing. Are you telling the truth?

BR: Well I'm rather uncomfortable with that concept. I'd prefer to say that imagination is where I reside rather than truth. I think it's equally as valuable at least. What do you think?

TN: Yeah.

BW: Check out the books in my house. The walls are covered with books. Now, the thing is almost all of the walls are stories of imagination. They are mostly novels. The primary non-fiction is hidden away up in the attic. I somehow feel that we can find greater truths in our imagination and fantasy. When we stick to straight reporting, we're so busy trying to do that, that we lose a sense of humanity in it.

BR: Hi Robert. Or is it Bob?

BW: Call me Bob.

TN: So, welcome to The Palace of Materialized Dreams, otherwise known as our studio. I understand your home has a name as well.

BW: Yes there is a name for it. It's up on California Quarry Road and it's called “House with Bear on Deck”.

TN: And does this bear have a name?

BW: Oh yes indeed. His name is Amanuensis.

BR: Ah, amanuensis is one of my favourite words ever.

TN: Hmm. I'm quite fond of “palimpsest”. What about you Bob? Do you have a favourite word?

BW: Sure. “Wyatt”.

TN: Is it a noun or a verb?

BW: I was born with it.

BR: Well that's a pretty good reason.

BW: Yeah. Maybe a word or two more about Amanuensis though, because he's such an important story of my life. He's about eight feet tall. He's made of tulip wood, one of those chainsaw-carved bears, and he is also a writer but he's also, being an amanuensis or secretary, he is my socialist secretary. And he does a lot of correspondence for me on the internet and he also criticizes my work, and I criticize his and edit it. His current work is: The Collected Occasional Writings of Amanuensis A. Bear.

BR: All right. Then he must have helped with your story.

BW: Well this is the complicated part. And it's kind of hurtful. Mr. White entered the story late. This was originally a story about bears. I was the only human being in the story. And it's very hard to work with a whole team of bears. And the bears were based on a painting by William Holbrook Beard, which is in The New York Historical Society – the painting is. It's also on my shower curtain upstairs at House with Bear on Deck. But I told the story of those bears in that famous painting The Bear Dance, and they are what marched out of the television set and out to the back deck, and eventually returned to the television set. Hervey White was but a dream.

BR: Wow, so it went through quite a transformation there.

BW: Yes.

BR: Well an interesting thing about your story being chosen for The Strange Recital is it's really the most local of any of the stories we've featured here and it really does refer to the actual history of our town of Woodstock.

TN: And history goes around in circles. Where we're sitting right now was part of the original Byrdcliffe artist colony, which was started by Ralph Whitehead, an Englishman, over a hundred years ago - an arts and crafts community with a utopian vision influenced by William Morris. Hervey White was one of the early leaders. So when you wrote the story, did you know you'd be recording it here?

BW: No way.

BR: Yeah, I've always liked old Hervey White – the fact that he split from the Byrdcliffe colony because it was too authoritarian for his taste and started the Maverick colony, over across the valley and then he began those annual festivals. I think 1915 was when he started those. Pictures from those festivals are really amazingly contemporary – music, costumes, people with flowers in their hair and they grew to like six thousand people, they got so wild they had to be shut down.

BW: Yeah well I think there are two things at play here. I'm pretty sure that Hervey White forced himself upon me. He was a very forceful critter as you know. But something about me reaching a certain age, being older, that I've discovered, and especially living in Woodstock which is.... the rivers run with history here, and as we get older I think we're increasingly interested in history and we try to bring it back, and that's what I did with Hervey and the party-goers of that time.

TN: I saw a documentary about Woodstock. Maybe it was in the film festival a few years ago, I can't remember what it was called. In it there were some old ladies talking about all the fun and free love they'd had back at those parties of Hervey's in the teens or twenties. Quite powerful.

BR: Yes so really he was the direct ancestor of the Woodstock festival of 1969. At least the way I see it, his spirit lingers here even in our electronic age. So, you know, maybe your story is actually true.

TN: I gather you split your time between New York City and Woodstock. Was it the fact thatyou have a house up here that led to your interest in Hervey White?

BW: No, I think it's just that whole thing about history. History is in the bloodstream and I guess I want to bring some of it back one way or the other.

TN: Does history follow you around?

BW: Well it follows all of us around.

TN: Do you find it different writing in the city or writing up here? I think Brent likes to know those kind of things.

BW: No. It's hard in both places.

BR: Now I understand that this story Partytime is an excerpt from a longer work, a book that you've described as autobiography but I've read, or I've heard you read a couple of those other stories and I'd say they're not exactly like most work that's called memoir. So what does autobiography mean to you?

BW: Well that's kind of a joke. But I was at a party here several years ago and somebody said: “Bob, look out that window. Behind every tree someone is writing a memoir.” That was back in the days when we called things 'a memoir'. Now, as sophisticates say: “I'm writing memoir.” I don't quite get that but I come from another time.

BR: It has become a genre of its own.

BW: Autobiography is a joke because, well...... the title of this work which I hope will appear in many formats, not necessarily a hard cover book, in fact that would be at the bottom of the list. It is: Adventures of a House and its Books, and the characters in it are either authors, some I've worked with over the years in publishing, or authors of books – they're all American and they're all dead, except for the fact that they live, and they live forever as being written down in a book. There's a poster on my wall, at House with Bear on Deck, that says: “The world exists to end in a book.” Stéphane Mallarmé. But the book opens with – this is from long ago and of course it's Rip Van Winkle.

BR: Of course.

BW: From the Hudson... you know he came from not too far away from Woodstock. And he comes and he sort of electrifies the house in a strange way and after that all kinds of things happen. I find an orange crate on the front step when I come down the stairs one morning and there's a baby in it and I rear him till he's a teenager, his name is.... I give him the name of Samuel, until at one point he says “Father, I can't be here anymore. I've got to head out for the Territory. “Sam, why? Why is this?” “Father, and you can't call me Sam.” “What would I call you?” And I hear this way from out of the distance: “ Mark One, Mark Two, Mark Twain!” And the bus goes away west. So it's those kinds of stories that leap out of the.... off the bookshelves and I have many thousands of books. Right now there are only twenty stories in Adventures of a House and its Books. It's flexible and that brings to mind something else. We have to find new ways of issuing books. I've been very bothered by the history of some events in books, like Alexandria Library being burned down, Hitler's burning of books. And books can be made in various ways and I heartily support all electronic uses, or creation and preservation of books. And books also should be mutable texts. They don't have to be written in stone. We can change them thanks to the ways we can make books now. And we all have to be flexible within that book society.

BR: Well that's part of what we're doing on The Strange Recital – is exploring a new way of publishing.

BW: Yep, yep. And I certainly salute it.

BR: Great.

TN: Brent, just one thing. Are you telling the truth?

BR: Well I'm rather uncomfortable with that concept. I'd prefer to say that imagination is where I reside rather than truth. I think it's equally as valuable at least. What do you think?

TN: Yeah.

BW: Check out the books in my house. The walls are covered with books. Now, the thing is almost all of the walls are stories of imagination. They are mostly novels. The primary non-fiction is hidden away up in the attic. I somehow feel that we can find greater truths in our imagination and fantasy. When we stick to straight reporting, we're so busy trying to do that, that we lose a sense of humanity in it.