daydream nation

or

beauty is a rare thing

a novel (in progress) by charles keatts

this book is for ann carter


part one
immersion

endtroducing

Mirror.  Smoke.  A  match being lit, flaring flame, as if in a movie, as if, not real, not her normal life. Cloudy.  What was she watching?  Someone with flowers, holding up, hands, in black and white, moving behind her…all the blood, all the fluid, sucked out.
    It was an email, John, the director of the art department at Kent State, got it from somewhere in California, maybe.  “Ann Jackson, died at such and such a date in blah blah blah of a drug overdose.”
    That was it.  I had not seen her in months, we knew of some problems, through Bob, her sponsor, meds, depression, relationship.  Now she was dead, apparently, based on just the email, just what I heard, no funeral, nothing, no memorial, I had no idea how much she meant to me.  I did not know what to do, after the time period of realization, of almost mourning, wanting to mourn, wanting to know what happened, no recourse.  Of course, I could write, make art, that’s all, language as conduit, as key, as prison, as virus, image, visuals as freedom, visions.  This is my way of coping.  Of trying to understand, at least that is my best guess, best justification for doing this.  So I began writing, stories, narratives, novels, fragments, notes.  Just writing.  I had never written anything before, I had done some drawings.  I was a reader though, and I managed, and I had a grasp of something, some sliver of the blue nile, of the diamond snake, the steel copper.  It was the end of fireworks and the beginning of monotony.  I have no clear or definite explanation.  
    Hispanic guy across the street reaches under his shirt, scratching the side of his abdomen, as cool kids walk by.  He worked today.  
    First, a story about technology, sci-fi-ish, cyberpunk-ish.  And my life, journal-like, diary-like, memoir-like.  Then the occult, magical story.  Then more sci-fi, and the avante-garde, and something else.

Started so well, then downhill.  Trying to do something, capture a scene, a vision of quiet Berkeley beauty, automatic.  Mark got out of his old VW bus with the homemade lowering dock, out onto the quiet Berkeley street, a sunny morning after a run to the coffee shop for the mocha, now in his cup holder as he wheeled up the driveway, the softly lighted tunnel of old green trees and vines and bushes over broken concrete and gravel with a few small plants growing up in there.  And rolled up the ramp around to the back of the house, worked his way through the clean but cluttered kitchen, and past the bathroom and into the computer room where he came to his laptop docking station.  
So this is the novel I started to write.  The wheelchair, the Berkeley house, the docking station.  I don’t know why but it emerged from her death and maybe a need to do something like…this…meanwhile, my own life goes on.  Overlapping,  of course, with the novel.  No one in their right mind would publish it.  It’s sci fi crap anyway.  And I don’t want to be pigeonholed.  

Daydream 5

that was the voice of reason, of order, tradition, the "novel".  this is the voice of silence, of no-voice, of art and the vanguard and pure prose and fire and steam

This is the voice of reason...

do you still love me?  they will talk together, trees, grass, moss, sound and silence, ripples in the mud

she said over the phone to him before she expired, drug overdose.  Was it accidental or intentional.  Was it what?  He was lost now, saw the edge, moved past it.  Disjointed hallucinatory worlds of past and future, present flashback nonsense paranoia.  Piece by piece.  In pieces.  Un-peacefully.  Artfully.  Postmodern in medias res.

Daydream:   ex-heroin addict, hacker and ecoterrorist jason l. Is dead, but lives on in the matrix-like world that he co-created with his best friend paul n.  Now he wants to use genetics and nanotechnology to dramatically reduce or exterminate humans and save the planet.  Paul(reason) and jason's(chaos) psychotic girlfriend alice(chaos) are the only ones who can stop him.

The gesture of the eyes avoiding desire, moving into fear, the looking away.

Two stories:  my story, and the hi tech eco-terror story.  How are they connected, if at all?  How does this figure into immersion?
Daydream nation...

i moved to berkeley about 2 weeks before 9-11.

She had a psychic connection to tsunamis.  One year she dreamt of tsunamis every night.  When the big one hit in dec 04 she was very upset.

Change cover of immersion:  publisher, take off dn.

another morning ride on the 22 next to english accent across from maybe happy crazy smiling black man who is getting up now gone.  Feeling a bit class conscious with my pda but it's nice to be able to work on the novel or whatnot and hotsynch.  Perfect except for muni nausea.  Cute brit quietly talking on her mobile.  So it goes, it goes on, still.  Shld give first novel to diana.

Well di read it as painful doc of my traumatic childhood.  I'll have to remember that for next time.

1-21-05
the day after the inauguration.  Sitting in the back of the sprint store.  Nice to be able to sit.  Looks like i'll be here for a while.  Some job security.  I seem to be thinking about sex a lot, more than i thought, but i do like L., not just in a physical way?  Or maybe not.  

i can't eat that apple right now.  Need water.  Back to work.

As she read i would fuck her:  various books, once the old testament, the torah, maybe genesis, later chapters.   Said it was like a perfect male fantasy as I licked, fingered, sucked, and fucked.  I felt left out:  she never read aloud.

Waiting to see no exit,  

now in this moment listening to fatboy slim's version of magic carpet ride.   Tall skinny blonde made me a chocolate heart.  Hell is...all you have to write about is your unhappy childhood.   Horrors.  Tomorrow i want to buy glitter and stars, but mainly i want to hang out with miss lenina crowne.  

asian tattood goth goddess.  What can we have and what can we avoid?  I don't really like the christian or jewish bible.   Kerosene.  White chocolate heart of red gold.  I saw her monday night and felt fat.

What are the other characters doing, and why?  Good question.  That will take some researchin'.  Some searchin' for locations and motives.

1.22.05
he was cute, tall, caucasion.  Trendy metal glasses a little too small for his head.  Skinny, probably early thirties, messy morning grey hair, they had the same cute button nose although her died black hair matched her long black coat.  I hated them for being together, comfortable, possibly happy a good chunk of the time.

I forget how beautiful she is, not Jen but D., maybe I haven't had time to memorize her features yet or more likely have the Idea that she is beautiful and/or necessary for my life burned into my soul, whatever that is.  Go back, study, life, words, think.

Dig it a night of bands music blondes and alcohol, bleach and bass and drums, severe insecurity, realizing I am back in this thing with a bloody vengeance:

death, a climbing accident, crippling, wheelchair, experimental films, she filmed his death by virtual heroin overdose, I went back in time through nano-vir, the latest tech we had hacked up while building eris, our big planetary neuronet.  I dug and dug and lost myself.  Alice was there, with me, mainly, I thought.

1-24-05

she is protective of her feelings...i try to be but still put my head on the chopping block.  

she apologized for not swallowing...said part of it was that she didn't want to ingest all the drugs in my system into her.

1-25-05
feeling fucked up on my sunday, day off.  Waiting for mocha to kick in.  It's 1969 ok.  

she said and acted annoyed about the video/short I just made of her.  She was great though.  Obviously a natural.  

what does this have to do with saving the world?  Biding my time maybe?  After my virtual death.   You never know what's real anymore.  

shoes, chalkbag, that's all you need.  I'm still a climber.  Somewhat damaged, yeah.   Karma coma.  Why did/does everything seem so fragmented, broken?  Who is the I that speaks, walks, tells the story?  Why get inside the characters' heads?  Why not just stay in one head?  

jump back and forth between life, writing and film.

Everything we have done and experienced has led upto this moment, the only reality.  All is leading
Daydream 2

leading to this, now.  This is why i was born, quit rotc, moved to california, got married and divorced  to sit in the back of a sprint store, reading and eating lunch.  

in the future, when you take bart under the bay, the tunnel is clear, and you can see the fish.  The express goes too fast of course.  The slow people who don't take it don't always look but it's nice to know they can.

So if I'm writing this in the present, the writer/artist.
Writing about myself in the future, how does that happen?  Am i really in a further future, an alternate reality, a matrix-like virtuality, maybe i can see the future, come back.  After traveled ahead and picked uptapes.   Maybe i am the real architect and programmed the future.  

all they talked about was films:  not in the sense that most of us do, as some focus of conversation or fun way to interact:  they only used film as a way to communicate:   if he was hungry he would say "how many times have we seen babette's feast" etc.

if he wanted to make a film he’d say “what were we doing 8 and a half days ago?”

she would say “that’s pretty bergman” when she couldn’t relate to something or thought it was lame/flat.

language is a virus and a prison from which i am trying to escape.  Is there a cure?  His gay/androgynous appearance mannerisms gestures were totally endearing to a select few

i must ask that girl out, she flirted with me haardcore.  I must relish and adore the thought of the sweet pain of rejection.  And be ecstatic over the thought of acceptance.  

the tyranny, the curse, of language, of words.  Can we be the escape?  Creating the escape from language in a "false" system/language of code...seeking to erase language is the seed of seeking humanity's end...because we identify too much with language?

Call the novel "koan" because zen teaches us not to rely on language, logic too much.

What it is, what it shall be, memories, footfalls, down the hall that time forgot, forgetting, forgotten, soon.  That was what he was like, soon, sooner, soonest.  In the dark room, behind the keyhole, the tired metaphor, magic carpet.  This was the keyhole, this was the key that fit.   Fit, fitted, fitness.  This was the day.  Interested, introspective.

When in doubt, here it goes.  They spoke in films.  He was nervous when he first spoke to her.  "have you seen any good films lately?"

so maybe character writes for magazines about anime and games...

Include lars' quote about games and porn.

There seems to be more than one novel being written here: the sci-fi and the philosophical.  The realist.  The memoir.  The journal.  

Porn porn everywhere not a drop to...whatever.

    Sitting on the stage of the café du nord before show she asked me if I was into games…I said not really…just some xbox snowboarding game.  For a while, in tahoe, tricky.  
    She said that when she used to live in san francisco she mostly knew drag queens on castro st. and now she is meeting all these straight guys who are either into gaming or internet porn.  I laughed and said I was not much into either.  I was addicted to art, to making art.  The reality was yes I was addicted to, still am addicted to, women, relationships, but not porn so much.

Rushing out the door, running for the bus.  Nice lookin blonde punkish gets on, distant look of possible hangover.  Diana comes over tonight.  I made the bus.  Closer to sprint.  Closer to geary.