I apologize to the readers; things got busy, than existential, than depressing. I'm sitting down and writing this, although I don't have a ton to say, going on the principle of something is better than nothing. So, here goes:
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| The real Sput Sputnik |
The Sex Magicians Chapter Three: Who will guard the guardians? p. 23-33
This chapter's quote-title is famously from Juvenal and received more ubiquity after being the inspiration for Watchmen's title. I personally believe that the title must refer to Tarantella Serpentine's ministrations to the beleagured Dr. Prong that occur in this chapter. Having Tarantella make her debut in the most explicitly pornographic chapter of our slim volume so far is appropriate since the scene that introduces her in Illuminatus! is likewise explicitly pornographic. Her routine with Dr. Prong can be seen as a repurposing of her scene with George Dorn. These scenes seem to be something along the lines of Wilson's ideal of a sexual scenario designed for the purpose of male titillation and pleasure.
Note that Wilson's sex scenes are almost always drawn out in ways that the atmosphere can be heightened before the moment of climax. This is not only decent advice for regular sexual activity, but is one of the most fundamental principles of sex magic. Energized enthusiasm and all that shit. Wilson also seemed to have predicted live sex cams as he often incorporates women masturbating in front of men as a way to increase pleasure, as in this scene, or as a way of torture- as happens to the captive Sigismundo in The Widow's Son.
Other Wilsonian tricks we see in this chapter include his interplay of political beliefs between two characters that he doesn't seem to endorse entirely. The younger, liberal-minded Foxx seems naive and unserious while the more conservative, older Dr. Heyman is a square who banks on the accomplishments of his youth. (Or positioning of his youth since Prong notes he simply worked with Kinsey.) We have bits of self-reference where Wilson denigrates his own plotting and incorporates a quotation from one of his own essays. I had suggested to Rasa that the essay be included in this book, but he probably decided it wasn't relevant enough. It would probably fit better into a collection of essays by Wilson on general culture and entertainment. (Also, if anyone can enlighten me to the meaning of the aufgehoben of the Freudian Id, I'd greatly appreciate it. Everything I found had to do with Hegel, and I find Hegel quite impenetrable.)
I guess this is as good as time as any to review Fernando Poo; I appreciate the fact that information is so much more readily available today, as I imagine many readers probably weren't sure if Fernando Poo existed when the first book came out. Fernando Poo was actually known as Fernando Po for much of its pre-modern and modern history, named after the Portuguese explorer who was the first European to "discover" the island. It is actually only rendered as "Fernando Poo" in Spanish. Fernao do Po named the island Formosa Flora and it has been known as Bioko since 1979.
The Sex Magicians Chapter Four: Why is a duck? p. 34-39
As far as I can tell, the chapter's title is derived from the famous Marx Brothers routine, but that is more properly "Why a duck?" and I can't tell exactly what it would pertain to in this chapter.
However, what I can observe is that in this chapter we have a character that closely resembles one of Wilson's "real life" personas in Josh Dill and we can probably glean some of his actual opinions of working at Playboy as well as his opinion of Hugh Hefner. Just like Sput Sputnik, Wilson has said that Hefner tried, and sometimes succeeded, in being something of a legendary figure in the Playboy offices- however, Sput's ridiculousness might hint at how well Wilson thought that worked for him.
The list of interview subjects shows some of the mercurial contempt that Hefner had a habit of uttering and therefore nixing ideas that Wilson found compelling. Spiro Agnew is too controversial, Ezra Pound uninteresting because he's a poet and of course there are his hilarious invectives against the imagined Attorney General. I have a feeling that the Attorney General in mind while Wilson wrote this scene was Watergate crook John Mitchell, although by the time of publication the AG was the short-tenured Elliot Richardson. Two scenes in this chapter were extraordinarily striking to me when I first read the novel years ago: the hypothetical effects of hashish and a scene that brought tears of laughter to my eyes. I still love the orgasmic repetition of Dr. Spock's name and the punchline that I've made the title of this week's (and last week's, and the one for the week before...) post and think it is one of Wilson's best fictional vignettes.
- A.C.
