Trees in the Asylum Garden

TREES IN THE ASYLUM GARDEN

“It is like the pollard willows of our Dutch meadows or the oak bushes of our dunes; the rustle of an olive grove has something very secret in it, and immensely old. It is too beautiful for us to dare to paint it or to be able to imagine it.”

*Letter from Vincent Van Gogh, May 1, 1882 (1)

“There was something that lurked in the dark. It could not be imagined. It could not be described.”

*The Monster from Earth’s End (2)

Amid the cabbage plants, mosses and lichens, tussock grass, stunted forest tangled with daisies and buttercups, something else spread across the tundra of Gow Island in 1959. The violence, insanity and horror that steadily took over there appealed to director Michael Hoey who confessed, “Around 1959, I read a book called The Monster from Earth’s End by Murray Leinster. I was very taken with it and thought, ‘Gee, this could be an exciting film.’” (3)

The administrating officer, Drake, tries to remain rational throughout his experience on the small island, “In a real world, everything follows natural laws. Impossible things do not happen. There is an explanation for everything that does happen.” (4) Despite such assurance, Drake begins to slip and admits to himself, “On the other hand, if something sufficiently unlikely occurred, he might disbelieve the evidence of his senses. He might become convinced of his own insanity. He could act on the assumption that he himself had gone mad.” (5) As people, dogs and birds die and fear takes over, it becomes clear that existence is as much a battle for sanity as it is a battle against an unknown terror. Drake insists, “But I’ve been having all the experiences of a madman. I’ve got to be a little bit stern and make him tell his hallucinations. They may not be delusions. Maybe they’re facts. On this island you can’t use the standards of a sane world to decide what’s crazy and what isn’t!” (6) What caused such a collapse and unleashed the hysteria and bloodshed to follow? The sight of trees…

“Its actual appearance in that place was as if some insane artist had traveled thousands of miles to create.”

*The Monster from Earth’s End (7)

“As for me, I tell you as a friend, I feel impotent when confronted with such nature, for my Northern brains were oppressed by a nightmare in those peaceful spots, as I felt that one ought to do better things with the foliage.”

*Letter from Vincent Van Gogh, 1889 (8)

If only Drake and the others trapped on Gow had been aware of a parallel place with an open door to their shadows. Thousands of miles away on the mirror other side of the world lies the North Pole, “that enchanted continent in the sky, land of everlasting mystery.” (9) Long a land of free imagination, this arctic source of myth and legends includes the horror of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In 1818 she set the scene: “I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks…Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight…there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe.” (10)
This vision became part of Admiral Byrd lore when the polar explorer hinted at greater mysteries in 1947, “I’d like to see the land beyond the Pole. That area beyond the Pole is the center of the great unknown.” (11) There are rumors that Byrd found that ‘center of the great unknown’ and even flew inside to explore, landing and finding that both poles have holes leading into the Hollow Earth.
Already revealed in Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, Oz historian L. Frank Baum also used this location for Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, published in 1908. Dorothy says, “We are somewhere in the middle of the earth, and the chances are we’ll reach the other side of it before long. But it’s a big hollow, isn’t it?” (12) She and her traveling companions observe, “On some of the bushes might be seen a bud, a blossom, a baby, a half-grown person and a ripe one.” (13) It doesn’t take long before one of these plant creatures threatens them with a cruel death.
Then in 1951, a long flight from Alaska, “Botanists, physicists, including a pin-up girl” were at war with “Our superior in every way…a being from another world, as different from us as one pole from another.” The Thing from Another World revealed, “an intellectual super-carrot” from the crashed ice remains of a flying saucer. The North Pole base came under attack, dogs were mauled. Presiding Captain Patrick Hendry gathered the forces, arming his fellows with weapons, guns, gasoline and electricity.

In opposition to the vigilante mentality, scientist Dr. Carrington is committed to keeping a sane approach to the escalating violence. It is his goal to study the creature.


He decides “science rather than the army” should lead. Even in the face of death, he is sure, “Knowledge is more important than life.” So it is a pivotal moment when he introduces himself to the Frankenstein-like monster in a dark Quonset hallway with, “You’re wiser than anything on Earth—” only to get clubbed to the slatted floor. Like the night crawling menace of Gow Island, the Thing is also a deadly plant creature that lives on blood.

Inspired by The Thing from Another World, director Michael Hoey bought the rights to The Monster from Earth’s End in 1961 “for a horrendous sum, like around $4,000.” (14) Yet it took until 1966 to be filmed and Hoey sadly confirms the result, “By the time the film was completed, I would have been ashamed to talk to [the author] because of what happened.” (15) In any case…

“When I bought the book, I thought, ‘Monster from Earth’s End’…that’s too exploitative a title. I’d like another title.’ One day I’m driving down the street and I see a sign on some guy’s lawn, NIGHTCRAWLERS FOR SALE. Obviously he was talking about worms, but I thought, ‘Boy, that’s a great title for this project!’ So I called it The Nightcrawlers. But Jack Broder, who was the executive producer, retitled it The Navy vs. the Night Monsters, which is an abominable title. I remember the day when I was rehearsing and Broder walked in and announced what the new title was going to be. The entire cast was ready to walk out—they were furious that he would give it that title. Such an exploitative, dumb title.”

*Michael A. Hoey (16)

“The picture is one of the ugliest I have done…I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green.”

*Letter from Vincent Van Gogh, 1888 (17)

A painted sunset or sunrise appears as an orange and blue canvas backdrop for the words, The Navy vs. the Night Monsters, and actor names. “I have observed that a very simple flat frame in vivid orange lead would produce the desired effect in conjunction with blues of the background and the dark green of trees.” (18) The picture fades in favor of a narration intoned over a bleak collection of stock footage ice, “Antarctica, the frozen continent at the bottom of the world. A continent as mysterious and unknown as the other planets of our solar system. Or a world in deep space a million light years away.” But the movie takes place on a tropical island. Gow Island resembles California or Vietnam.

Like the script of a paperback left out in the rain, the movie follows a warped version of the book. It seems clear that the film is directed more at a teenage Drive-In audience, especially with its mordant jokes about egg salad, balloons and girls. The sitcom atmosphere is quickly shattered though when death arrives whistling like a tea kettle in the night.

Antarctic trees crash land on Gow and begin to stalk. “It was a living fossil, with a basic structure remote from all experience. Its cellulose fibers were extraordinarily long. They were oriented like flax-fibers, from which linen is made.” (19) The sight of it is so terrifying to the people in the movie that their reaction may seem strange. Their horrific tortured nightmare of the psyche comes across in today’s light as a walking, sprouting sleeping bag. This didn’t go unnoticed by the director though. In an interview with Tom Weaver, Michael Hoey describes the film as a battle between his vision and the budget, but more specifically a war with his ham-fisted producer Jack Broder.

Jack Broder had ultimate control over the final cut. After Hoey turned in his reels and went to San Francisco to begin shooting Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, Broder added 12 minutes to the running time to market the film for television. 720 more seconds result in a lot of comic book scenes, Mamie Van Doren’s blueprint dress, a beach full of tree stumps crawling, but the most surreal touch is saved for the closing moments, in the napalmed jungle finale: “The picture ends with a stock shot with the four Blue Angels, with multi-colored streamers going out the back. No combat plane in its life ever did anything like that! It was footage from an air show. The logic that went into it was almost non-existent!” (20)

Hoey had his own artistic logic, “The premise that I functioned under was ‘less is more,’ and if you don’t show it, the audience’s imagination would create a much more vivid monster than we could ever create visually.” (21) The breaking point for him was the sight of the trees. “I wanted the trees to look like the other trees, so that there wouldn’t be the feeling that they stood out like sore thumbs, which is what those stupid things did. Broder hired some guy who did them for $1.98. When they showed up on the set the first day, I refused to film them, I was so upset.” (22) Broder vs. Hoey was a contrast as polar as night and day and it literally came down to that in the filming of the trees. “They brought in one tree where a guy could get inside and wiggle his arms, and two other ‘dummy’ trees which just stood there. Stanley Cortez and I looked at each other and said, ‘How are we gonna shoot this?’, and I said, ‘How ‘bout no lights?’ And he said, ‘Well, that’s probably the only way we can do it.’ So we literally tried to light it so that it was so dark that the only time you would see the trees was when the Molotov cocktails were exploding around them. Well, Broder didn’t like that and he had that scene ‘printed up’ [brightened] so that the trees are vividly lit. But that was never our intention of how we would show ‘em.” (23)

“I can’t imagine a thing which prefers darkness attacking things because they’re light.”

*The Monster from Earth’s End (24)

The imagining of it is where the horror lies. The monster Michael Hoey wanted to see is something that could hide in Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings of poplars, willows, or olive trees.
In fact, it could be one of those trees! The way Van Gogh portrays them fits perfectly:

“The Roots shows some tree roots on sandy ground. Now I tried to put the same sentiment into the landscape as I put into the figure: the convulsive, passionate clinging to the earth, and yet being half torn up by the storm. I wanted to express something of the struggle for life... in the black, gnarled and knotty roots.” (25)

Also, compare the pastels of the Nightcrawlers’ jungle to the Night Café:

“The fact is that the sun has never penetrated us people of the North…a street stretching away under a blue sky spangled with stars…dark blue or violet and there is a green tree. Here you have a night picture without any black in it, done with nothing but beautiful blue and violet and green, and citron-yellow color.” (26)

And the big screen repeats the view out his asylum window:

“These high trees stand out against an evening sky with violet stripes on a yellow ground, which higher up turns into pink, into green…Now the nearest tree is an enormous trunk, struck by lightning and sawed off. But one side branch shoots up very high and lets fall an avalanche of dark green pine needles. This somber giant—like a defeated proud man—contrasts, when considered in the nature of a living creature, with the pale smile of a last rose on the fading bush in front of him. Underneath the trees, empty stone benches, sullen box trees; the sky is mirrored—yellow—in a puddle left by the rain. A sunbeam, the last ray of daylight, raises the somber ocher almost to orange. Here and there small black figures wander around among the tree trunks.” (27)

This is the sight of trees that haunted Gow Island, painted with the vision of one haunted by worse monsters as he went out in his last days:

“A man called Jullian, who in later life went on to be the municipal librarian, recalled with shame how as a youth he had taken part in the baiting: ‘I remember—and I am bitterly ashamed of it now—how I threw cabbage-stalks at him! What do you expect? We were young, and he was odd, going out to paint in the country, his pipe between his teeth, his big body a bit hunched, a mad look in his eye.’” (28)

Footnotes (Stock Footage)

1) Dear Theo, The Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh; Edited by Irving

Stone; Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston; 1937; p. 504

2) The Monster from Earth’s End, by Murray Leinster; Gold Medal Books;

Fawcett Publications Inc. Greenwich Conn. 1959; p. 79

3) I Was a Monster Movie Maker: Conversations with 22 SF and Horror

Filmmakers, by Tom Weaver; McFarland & Co. Inc. Jefferson, NC,

2001; p. 96

4) The Monster from Earth’s End, by Murray Leinster; Gold Medal Books;

Fawcett Publications Inc. Greenwich Conn. 1959; p. 92

5) Ibid., p. 32

6) Ibid., p. 135

7) Ibid., p. 154

8) The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, Volume Three, New York

Graphic Society, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1958; p.232

9) As quoting Admiral Byrd; The Hollow Earth, The Greatest Geographical

Discovery in History, Made by Admiral Richard E. Byrd in the

Mysterious Land Beyond the Poles—The True Origin of the Flying

Saucers; by Dr. Raymond Bernard; Bell Publishing Company; NY;

1969; p.20

In 1947, “Before he left on his seven hour flight from his Arctic base over iceless land beyond the North Pole (leading to the interior of the Earth), Admiral Byrd said: ‘I would like to see that land beyond the Pole. That area beyond the Pole is the center of the Great Unknown.’ Admiral Byrd did not cross over the North Pole and travel 1,700 miles south on its other side. If he did, he would enter icebound territory. Instead he entered a land with a warmer climate, free from ice and snow, consisting of forests, mountains, lakes, green vegetation and animal life. This new unknown land over which he flew for 1, 700 miles, which was not on any map, existed inside the polar opening leading to the hollow interior of the Earth, where it is warmer than on its outside, which is here a land of ice and snow.” (29)

10) Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley; Viking, New York; 1998, p. 11

11) The Hollow Earth, The Greatest Geographical Discovery in History, Made

by Admiral Richard E. Byrd in the Mysterious Land Beyond the

Poles—The True Origin of the Flying Saucers; by Dr. Raymond

Bernard; Bell Publishing Company; NY; 1969; p. 44

12) Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, by L. Frank Baum; Books of Wonder,

Harper Collins Publishing; 1990; p.28

13) Ibid.

14) I Was a Monster Movie Maker: Conversations with 22 SF and Horror

Filmmakers, by Tom Weaver; McFarland & Co. Inc. Jefferson, NC,

2001; p. 98

15) Ibid., p.97

16) Ibid., p.98

17) Stranger on the Earth; a Psychological Biography of Vincent Van Gogh, by

Albert J. Lubin; New York, Holt, Rineheart Winston; 1972; p.142

18) The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, Volume Three, New York

Graphic Society, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1958; p.258.

19) The Monster from Earth’s End, by Murray Leinster; Gold Medal Books;

Fawcett Publications Inc. Greenwich Conn. 1959; p.62

20) I Was a Monster Movie Maker: Conversations with 22 SF and Horror

Filmmakers, by Tom Weaver; p.106

21) Ibid.; p.102

22) Ibid.; p.104

23) Ibid.; p.104

24) The Monster from Earth’s End; p. 49

25) The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, Volume One, New York

Graphic Society, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1958; p.360

26) The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, Volume Three; p.444

27) Ibid.; p. 524

28) Van Gogh, His Life and His Art; David Sweetman; Crown Publishers, Inc.

New York; 1990; p.299

29) The Hollow Earth, The Greatest Geographical Discovery in History, Made

by Admiral Richard E. Byrd in the Mysterious Land Beyond the

Poles—The True Origin of the Flying Saucers; p.24

Featuring Quotes from Films:

The Thing from Another World (1951)

The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966)

“Gow Island. In the past, virtually unknown to the rest of the world. Today, a famous landmark in man’s struggle with the unknown. Another step forward in the march of science.”

Essay by Allen Frost

A Frog and A Pig

A Frog & A Pig

With college almost over, since a job was

what all this learning was leading up to,

the English Department announced a

Career Day and brought in a publisher

from New York City. Having written

two novels already, I felt this was my

chance. There were about ten of us in

the wood paneled room, sun in the windows,

it was warm outside. What did I know?

I was reading Kerouac, I was ready to go.

What the woman from the publishing

metropolis offered was The Muppet Babies

cartoon. She was scouting for writers.

I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t even imagine it

at the time, the squeaky voices, pastels and

treacly jokes would have driven me mad.

But now I wonder how hard it would be to

twist my arm, to take me from my job and

put me in a little blue sailboat with a frog

and a pig and pay me to write the way out.

Annotated Frog and Pig:

Don't get me wrong, I like the Muppets.

I faithfully watched The Muppet Show

and I grew up with Sesame Street.

In fact, these two were my favorites:

Laughing to himself, "Three sticks...
Three sticks..."

The usual stooge walks by.

Still laughing...

"Three sticks where?"

Still laughing...

"Three sticks right HERE!!"

Laughing and fanfare.

Featuring Bob Hope

Rustle has been writing short stories
featuring Bob Hope, as sidekick to
Captain Clean. This is the 2nd one.
I sure like the set-up, a robbery at
a lemonade stand. Pure vaudeville.
I've featured Bob Hope in two of
my books: Another Life and
Home Recordings, so I guess
he's in the air. Also, when Rosa
was born, I wrote to Bob Hope
for an autograph for her, which
he provided below:
Drawing of Captain Clean by Rustle

INDEX

Finally, here's an Index to

the Stories, Essays and Books

appearing on this blog:

The 500 Pound Halo (September 2009)

Air Travel (November 2011)

Animals, Ghosts and Outer Space (February 2011)

Bathysphere Battle (September 2010)

Billie Ritchie in Haunting Birds (January 2010)

Bird Taxi (June 2009)

Burt Ives in Televisions All Over the World (July 2009)

Champion Dreamers of the World (July 2009)

Chan & Callahan (July 2011)

The Charts of the Sea (September 2009)

Clinton Street to Galveston (September 2009)

Crayon Fable (September 2011)

d.a levy in A Certain Strange Memory (February 2011)

Duck McGee Makes the Team (September 2011)

The End of Beryllium (July 2009)

Euphonium (May 2011)

Fly with Umbrella (July 2009)

Fred Again (January 2012)

The Flying Machine of Mr. Green (October 2009)

Ghoststores (November 2011)

Good Deed Rain (June 2009)

The Heaven Antenna (March-April 2011)

A House on Mars (September 2011)

In the Summer Air (June 2009)

Jack Kerouac and Film Noir (October 2009)

The Jimbaroo (July 2010)

The Journal of the Mermaid

Translation (December 2010)

The Journal of the Mermaid

Translation #2 (December 2010)

King Leopold’s Slow Leak (June 2009)

The Last Ohio Morning (May 2009)

Mental Magic (December 2011)

Motor Car Dealer Will Travel

By Balloon (October 2009)

Mr. Evans (September 2011)

The New Book of Endangered Birds (May 2009)

Ohio Time (June 2009)

One Eye Open (July 2009)

The Other Laugh (October 2009)

A Paper Cup (September 2009)

A Parent’s Guide to Raising Piranha (June 2009)

Paying For Water (June 2009)

Poems in Zoos (October 2009)

Populist Poem #7 (July 2009)

Radio (September 2009)

A Reversed Cat (November 2010)

Royalty Toy Company (June 2009)

Sacred Heart Junkyard (June 2009)

Seacow (July 2009)

Seashells and Love Poems (February 2010)

A Shark Cage Smith Adventure (September 2009)

The Shrinkers (October 2009)

Signals (August-September 2011)

Silent Machines in 9 Sizes (September 2009)

Sinking Celestial (February 2010)

Snotty Kid (May 2011)

Speaking of Richard Brautigan (January 2012)

Stick Chart of the Marshall Islands (December 2011)

The Stowaway (July 2009)

Such & Such #1 (September 2009)

Such & Such #2 (October 2009)

The Three Hearted Saint (January 2012)

Time After Time (June 2009)

The Time Has Come to Make All

the Machines Fly (September 2009)

Tree Frog (June 2009)

Trees in the Asylum Garden (February 2012)

Trelawny Cable Car (July 2009)

The W. Lee Wilder From Space (January 2010)

Water Everywhere (June 2009)

Water Ladder (October 2009)

With the Utmost Kindness and Calm (August 2009)

The Yellow Tree (November 2010)

You are 7 Love Poems, or

How to Build a Birdhouse Out of

Love Poems (February 2010)

Your Favorite World (June 2009)

The Three Hearted Saint

The Three Hearted Saint

The Three Hearted Saint from India or Tibet

lived in a yellow house, sitting like a statue

surrounded by chanting and the clicking of

little chimes. If you walked the neighborhood

you could hear it going night and day

until one morning before the dawn bell

the white painted door opened and out he went.

Not wearing bright robes, he walked along

wearing clothes he found in the donation box.

There was no reason to think he was anyone

although his footprints left diamonds of dew

on the pavement. He followed the street

slanting to the sea. All the trees pointed

the way, cars parked by the curb, some

rolling past him, wheels crackling on cement.

He seemed to know where he was going.

When the street turned into a bridge

he stepped off the sidewalk, ducked beneath

the bare branches onto the steep hillside

crumbling cold earth, weeds and trash.

On the sides of his shoes, he slid down

the embankment. The bridge vaulted

overhead making a wide dark slash

across the gray sky. He stopped with

the loose stones and a rolling bottlecap

at the edge of the dirt. There was a

flat stone there, waiting for him.

He sat beside the hurried river,

took a deep breath and shut his eyes.

While The Three Hearted Saint

sat beside the river, a salmon rippled

in the shallows next to him. It stopped

and stayed in place just out of reach

Its body moved slightly, enough to keep

it there, nibbling on the edge of concrete.

The Saint was so used to the sound of cars

overhead, rumble and thump, the salmon

was something new and he opened his eyes.

The fish dallied at the cement, as if

tasting it, testing it to see how many

salmon it would take to tear the city

down, bridge by bridge, filling the streets

with streams. It could all begin with this

one fish. But that didn’t happen.

It gave a quick splash and returned

to the river flow.

When the man at the store asked,

he almost told him his name.

That would have been a mistake

there were people looking for him

maybe the storekeeper was one of them.

So he kept quiet and opened his hand

paying coins for the can of peaches.

The store with its own little temple bell

closed behind him, ringing as he left.

Truthfully, he must have known.

Every day he bought peaches there

he was leaving a trail, one that goes

back along the wet sidewalk to

the river’s edge, under the bridge

where a shrine of empty peach cans

grow.

Writing: Allen Frost
Illustrations: Rustle

"The 3 Hearted Saint" Annotations:
This story was inspired by mention
in John Tarrant's book of a monk
who was discovered under a bridge,
his disguise revealed by his love for
melons. I've since been reading about
that zen monk, whose name is Daito
in the book, Eloquent Zen. Of course,
I modernized the legend, and turned it
into peaches. I may be writing more
adventures of The Three Hearted Saint.

Speaking of Richard Brautigan

On Saturday morning, January 7, 2012,

I went to Seattle to meet John Barber. John is

editor of Richard Brautigan, Essays on the

Writings and Life (2007, McFarland and Co.)

as well as curator of the comprehensive

online site, Richard Brautigan Bibliography

and Archive at: www.brautigan.net.

Down in the boiler room of the Fairmont Hotel

is a narrow crowded café. We found a little table

and he allowed me to record this interview.

I was a little worried that later on I wouldn’t

be able to hear him over the espresso machines

steaming and clunking, cups and plates clattering,

all the forks falling on the checkerboard floor,

a weird pinball sound, conversations all around,

the big band soundtrack CD with a crazy

‘In the Mood’ track skipping in the background,

fading for a while then reappearing.

Setting a copy of An Unfortunate Woman

between us, I asked about page 70, where

Brautigan’s journal suddenly wonders what

happened to time, as it jumps from

San Francisco into a blur. Perhaps that

missing time could be filled in.

John Barber:

That was in the Spring of 1982. He had

actually been contracted to be a visiting

professor in the English department prior to

that and he started in April. During early

March, he was traveling and the English

department at Montana State University

was writing him letter after letter saying,

“Are you coming, we really need to know?”

and he signed the contract on the very

last day that he could and returned it.

He had a ranch in Paradise Valley, just

south of Livingston. He was also given

an apartment in the married student

housing dorm at Montana State University.

It was a high-rise sort of dorm. He also

stayed in a very inexpensive motel in

Bozeman that I showed him. $9.95 cents

a night. He would often phone me and

say, “Come and pick me up and let’s go

to Bozeman and I’ll buy your drinks.”

So I would drive fifty miles to his ranch

to pick him up and then fifty miles back

to Bozeman, and then he insisted on

closing down every bar, every possible

opportunity for drinking. Main Street

Bozeman had a number of them, but he

had two or three favorites. He really

liked the Eagles’ Nest, the VFW bar.

Was he known there?

He was known everywhere. He was,

however, very hard to be around because

he was always drinking and always had

a lot to drink. And people that are always

drinking can be very tiring. He would

frequently just get up and go sit down

at a table with strangers and start talking

to them and ask them really pointed,

embarrassing questions and then argue

with them about their answers to the

point where they broke down or got

really uncomfortable.

So he was fairly obnoxious and people

knew that and some people didn’t like

it so much. Despite that, he would

come and hang out in Bozeman

searching for what he called

“the great American good time,”

and I would provide the transportation

back and forth. One time, I gave him

a ride in a yellow school bus and he

writes about that.

He thanks you in this book. And you

stopped at the grocery store for him too.

What did you get?

I think we got some wine and spaghetti.

I think he mentions he got lots of lettuce.

He wanted to make a salad.

That could be. I don’t remember exactly,

but I remember we got two or three plastic

bags full of groceries. And then we got

back on the bus and I drove him, dropped

him off in front of his house.

Why were you doing driving a school

bus?

My job was working for a tour bus

company based in Bozeman. That was

the way I was putting myself through

school. When working with a local or

smaller group, I would drive a school

bus as opposed to the big tour buses.

There was a girl scout camp up the

Yellowstone River from where

Richard Brautigan lived and I was

going to pick up a group camped there

and bring them back to Bozeman.

I had to drive right by his house to

get to this campground. The night

before my trip he was in town, so

I just said, “Look, I’m going this way

tomorrow and if you don’t have any

problem riding a school bus I can

give you a ride.”

Did he sit right up in the front with you?

Yes, he sat in the front seat of a school bus.

Could you talk about how you found

Richard Brautigan as a teacher?

It was a creative writing class. The very

first thing that he said was, “If you want

to learn to write, I can’t teach you.

That’s something you’re going to have

to do through your own process.”

And although he didn’t talk about it,

it was clear that he had been through

his own process to learn how to write,

which is pretty well documented.

He started with poetry, so he could

learn how to put words together to

make a sentence, and then having felt

success at writing a sentence, he felt

he could take on a novel. So he said,

“Instead of teaching you how to write

I can give you the benefit of my

experience in the publishing world.

I can talk to you about those sorts of

things and I can respond to your

writing and give you some feedback.”

He would stand in front of the classroom,

or lean against the table in front of the

classroom because he had a broken leg

that his doctor had decided not to put

in a cast. He was walking around with

a broken leg using a cane. He was

dressed entirely in blue denim,

blue denim jeans and a blue denim

farm jacket, worn brown cowboy boots

and a black wool felt Elmer Fudd hat,

with flaps that were up and tied

across the top. And of course,

his signature glasses, long

blonde hair and the signature long

droopy moustache. He looked very

much like his photograph on the

front of one of his early novels.

The class met once a week and each

meeting was a workshop where we

shared our writings with each other.

Brautigan responded with encouragement.

At the end of each class he would

provide a writing prompt and we

would go off for a week and work on

this prompt. One of the prompts that

I remember was to go someplace on

the campus that you haven’t been

before and write about what you see

and what you experience there. We

would write about it and then come

back and go around the room, each

of us reading what we had written and

then everyone in the class would

respond. Brautigan’s response was

always, “I like that. That’s very

interesting. Keep writing.” He would

never say something like, “Well

maybe you should shift paragraph

two and three or it seems like

something’s missing where you try

to make a transition between these

two ideas—” He would never say that.

His written comments were always

very short, “this is good, keep writing,”

and then that was the end of it.

There was one assignment where we

could write something longer and I

wrote about the time that I had spent

on steamboat hotels going up and

down the Mississippi River and he

called me to say, “I’m sitting here

with [girlfriend at the time] and we’re

reading your paper and just rolling

on the floor in laughter. I wanted you

to know that this is really great.

When I finish this, if you like, I’m

going to share it with my agent and

see—” and I thought Ohhh!—and

nothing ever came of it. Still, it was

pretty exciting that he called me to

say that he liked what I was doing.

At the end of the very first class

meeting, after everyone had left,

I walked up to him and I said,

“I would like to be friends with

you outside of class.” He looked

at me, he had this long hook-like

nose, and he looked at me down

his nose and I thought he was

thinking, “Well, I’ve been

approached by a lot of groupies

but never by a male”…Just this

kind of long pause…and then he

said, “Let’s go to the Eagles’ Nest

and have a drink and talk about it,

but I think I would like that.” So I

gave him a ride to the Eagles’ Nest

and we had lots of drinks and that

was it. That was the start of the

friendship.

Didn’t he have a white car?

He had a car that had been given to

him by Greg Keeler. It was in his

barn. He also had an abandoned car,

this rusting thing that he would sit on.

It was fabulous. You would sit

on it, leaning up against the

windshield and look at the

Absaroka Mountains. They were

snow covered year round so you

were lying out there in the sun

and looking at these huge soaring

mountains that are, in my experience,

the most magnificent mountains in

the country. The other car was in his

writing barn, just sitting there.

He never drove, he never learned

to drive, I don’t think he ever drove

anything.

He really didn't talk about anything

that had to do with him personally

and I made a point of not pushing
this information. He never talked

about his childhood, he never said

anything about his family, he never

said anything about San Francisco

or Japan.

Would he talk about what he was writing?

He was working on An Unfortunate

Woman while the class was going on.

He told me several times during the

class period that he was working on

the book and that he had written

x-number of chapters and it was very

sad, about a friend who was dying.

He never said anything to me about

it, he just frequently mentioned that

his friend was dying. He never gave

his friend a name, but that was very

typical. Throughout all of his books

there’s a nameless narrator. He never

uses names for anybody. My friend,

or a friend, and I think this is part

of what we can point to, to say that

much of the content in Brautigan’s

books is fictionalized autobiography.

One afternoon he called and
said, “My friend just died,
bring a bottle of whiskey and

come over.” And so I did. I spent

the evening with him and it was

an amazing experience.

The next day I said,

“I wrote about our experience in

my journal,” and he got very upset

I had written about a private

experience that we had shared

together. On one hand, I can

understand that. On the other

hand he was a writer and he kept

a journal and he wrote about things

that happened to him during the day,

so I thought okay, it’s a private thing,

but at the same time he’s hypocritical

being upset with me for doing

something that he would have

done as a writer. He concluded

by saying, “If you ever show that

to anybody before I’m dead,

I will haunt you for the rest of

my life.” And I did and he does.

So I guess that’s fair.

He never showed me anything that

he was working on. The only times

that he talked about his own work,

was the first time I went to his house,

he had just received a box of copies

of So The Wind Won’t Blow It All Away

from his publisher. He gave me a copy

and, he was kind enough to sign it.

So he said something about his book

there. I had other copies of his books

which later I brought to him and he

was gracious enough to sign, but

he never talked about them.

Another time, I told him that I

would really like to get copies of

his earliest books—

Waitress: Did you guys order three

cheese croissants?

JB: No, we didn’t, I’m sorry.

Three, no less.

She’s only holding two…He told me

in response, “Well they’re out of

print. They’re very hard to get, and

they’re very expensive.” I didn’t

know it at the time, but he was

being absolutely truthful with me.

His earliest books ARE out of

print and they ARE hard to get

and they ARE very expensive.

He had a few of his books in

translation that were on the

bookshelf in his living room,

but other than that his house

was very sparsely furnished,

just minimal furniture. Nicely

done though, he had taken this

Montana ranch house, brought

carpenters and redwood lumber

from Bolinas and redone the

inside of his house. It was really

fine, detailed finished carpentry.

And a guesthouse which was an

old smokehouse next to the main

house had been completely redone

with this redwood lumber.

The backyard of his house was

overgrown, the front was mowed.

I don’t know who mowed it, but

the back part of the place was

grown up, the weeds were waist high

and there were deer. Away from the

house was a grove of cottonwood

trees. When they bloomed they

dropped white fluffy seeds that

floated around and collected on

the porch, turning into a giant ball.

The chicken coop was there but

there were no chickens. It didn’t

look like chickens had been there

in quite a while.

Was writing your story about him

really how it ended between you?

That was part of it. We had a

disagreement and he told me to go

away, to never see him again. I saw him

once more after that, on the sidewalk,

in Bozeman. I walked up to him and

he was very surprised. It was as if

he had seen a ghost. I said, “Look,

I don’t want our friendship to end

this way. I’m very sorry. I’m sorry

for my part in the disagreement

and I apologize and I hope that

we can still be friends.” He replied,

“I don’t know. I’ll have to think

about it. I’ll let you know.”

And then I wrote once after that

and again apologized, “I was

thinking of you and I wanted to

apologize again.” I sent the letter

to his Livingston address. It was

forwarded to him in Japan. I got

a letter in reply from Japan.

It was very short. He said,

“Forget the past. It ain’t worth it.

Let’s try to get together when

I’m back in Montana. I would

like that.” And that was the

last thing that I ever heard

from him. He never contacted

me, never got in touch.

I actually had a premonition,

a thought that sometime

I would open the paper and

learn that Richard Brautigan

was dead. Sure enough, I did,

and he was.

Generally speaking when an

author dies, his or her literary

career continues going in the

same direction that it was going

at the time of their death. If it’s

down, that’s the way it goes.

If it’s up, then death just helps

it because now there’s a reason

to republish everything.

Richard Brautigan’s literary

career has been totally the

opposite of this. Despite the

fact that his literary career

was trashed at the time of his

death, he continues to attract

an incredible following of readers.

Everyday somebody discovers

Richard Brautigan for the first

time and claims him as his or

her favorite writer.

As an author, he was extremely

courageous because every book

that he wrote was not a sell-out,

not a cop-out—he did what he

wanted to do. It took him

twenty-something publishers to

get Trout Fishing in America

published, but he did and it

sold over a million copies.

Each of his other books is a

particular vision. I don’t think

that credit is given for that in

a world where we expect

certain packages.

Richard Brautigan very much
enjoyed a public persona and
he created one for himself.
He would look in the windows
of stores and criticize rock stars
posing on the covers of their
albums, yet he would do exactly
the same thing for his own books.
He controlled everything about
his early books, even the
photographer that would take
the picture for the cover and
the typeface and the page
formatting. It was totally unusual
in America at that time for an
author to have complete control
over their books. And he did.

That’s why the first omnibus,
the three volumes have three
different type settings reproduced,
as he says, in the likeness of the
original. That was all part of
what he was controlling.
So he’s criticizing people for
being on the covers of their
record albums, yet he’s posing
like a rock star on the covers
of his books, and always with
a different woman. He was
purposely mysterious about
his background and he was
using that mystery as a way
to market himself, promote
interest in himself, as this
kind of Emily Dickinson-like
character from a parallel
universe that’s speaking in
telegrams, using language
that William Carlos Williams
would approve of. He cultivated
this mystery about himself,
but at the same time he walks
around being a public person
promoting himself and his
books. There is a story that
he saw someone in a bookstore
looking at one of his books
and he said, “Steal that book.
Take it home. That’s my book.

It’s a good one.”Thanks to John Barber
for sharing his memories
of a great & inspiring writer.



Photo of lettuce by Rustle.