Johnlennons Wake (Joycean synchronicity)
Larry Mudd
Finnegans Wake:
>With his layen loves in meeingseeing, he got the charm of his optical
>life when he found himself (hic sunt lennones!) at pointblank range
>blinking down the barrel of an irregular revolver of the bulldog with a
>purpose pattern, handled by an unknown quarreler who, supposedly,
>had been told off to shade and shoot shy Shem should the shit show
>his shiny shnout.
Since Joyce teasingly suggested that his Work in Progress was to be a
history book that would be unique in that it would not be limited to
*past* history, (it's a poor sort of memory that only works backward,)
the appearance of the words "Revolver" and (Hey) "Bulldog" in a
sentence about an ambush of a wordsmith might have caught my eye even
without the parenthetical reference indicating "Here are Lennons!"
That parenthetical remark may be interpreted as having an extra layer
of relevance, too: It's a pun on "hic sunt leones" ("There are lions
here.") Lennon's assassin had a particular obsession with The Wizard
of Oz, and the day before the shooting, after lurking fruitlessly
outside Lennon's hotel, he went into a bookshop where he bought a
poster of Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, as well as the current issue
of Playboy, which had Lennon on the cover and an interview inside. Was
Chapman "told off" to shoot Lennon? That depends on your point of
view. According to him, he didn't want to, but voices in his head
urged him on to "Do it! Do it!"
Lennon was quite vocal about his appreciation of the Wake, and it's
likely that it had an influence on his lyrics. "I Am the Walrus," in
particular, seems worth having a gander at. Most people would
consider it to be riffing on Lewis Carroll's Alice books, but of
course Finnegans Wake uses elements of Alice as a central motif, with
particular emphasis on Humpty Dumpty, with whom the protoprotaganist
is strongly associated. From the first page:
>The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of
>Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends
>an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes:
"Gone West," of course, is idiom for "died." We are, of course,
talking about metempsychosis here, which is one of my favourite types
of pyschosis.
Alice was vexed by the problem of finding herself at a distance from
other parts of her self, as well. She imagines addressing a Christmas
parcel to:
>ALICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.
>HEARTHRUG,
>NEAR THE FENDER,
>(WITH ALICE'S LOVE).
She remarks that it "shall have to go by carrier." Students of
hermeticism will note that "carrier" has an association with Mercury.
If you feel tempted to consider this association accidental, I will
point out that the Mad Hatter (whose very "madness" comes from his
association with mercury) appears in Through The Looking Glass as
"Hatta." As the King observes: "The other Messenger’s called Hatta.
I must have two, you know--to come and go. Once to come, and one to
go." (The first messenger, of course, is Haigha, who was called the
"March Hare" in his previous incarnation. The reason March Hares are
considered "mad" is a bit indelicate for a Victorian children's book,
but this will become clear as we go on, brings us by a commodius
vicus of recirculation back to James Joyce and Revolver.
Elsewhere in the Wake, Joyce makes a sublime pun on "revolver."
> It would be skarlot shame to jailahim in lockup, as was proposed to him
>by the Seddoms creature what matter what merrytricks went off with his
>**revulverher** in connections with ehim being a norphan and enjoining
>such wicked illth, ehim!
As an aside, from the same paragraph:
>Your hegg he must break himself. See, I crack, so, he sit in the poele, umbedimbt!
Let's get back to vulva, though. What do you suppose John might have
made of this:
> Haltstille, Lucas and Dublinn! Vulva! Vulva! Vulva! Vulva!
> Macdougal, Atlantic City, or his onagrass that is, chuam
>and coughan! I would go near identifying you from your stavro-
>tides, Jong of Maho, and the weslarias round your yokohahat.
>And that O'mulanchonry plucher you have from the worst
>curst of Ireland, Glwlwd of the Mghtwg Grwpp, is no use to
>you either, Johnny my donkeyschott. Number four, fix up your
>spreadeagle and pull your weight!
Hell, what do *you* make of it? It becomes clearer a bit further down
the page:
>That's the point of eschatology our book of kills reaches
>for now in soandso many counterpoint words. What can't be
>coded can be decorded if an ear aye sieze what no eye ere grieved
>for. Now, the doctrine obtains, we have occasioning cause caus-
>ing effects and affects occasionally recausing altereffects. Or I
>will let me take it upon myself to suggest to twist Ihe penman's
>tale posterwise.
Joyce offers some sage advice ("You Earnest Sage," aloud they cried,
"your book you've read enough in! We wish to chop you into bits to
make you into stuffin') which is an economical and entertaining way to
pass the time:
>Chip them, chap them, cut them up allways; Pipe in Dream Cluse.
>Uncovers Pub History. Rinvention of vestiges by which they drugged
>the buddhy.
*******************************
Clear the line, priority call! Sybil! Better that or this? Sybil Head
this end! Better that way? Follow the baby spot. Yes. Very good now.
We are again in the magnetic field.
-- Was it a high white night now?
-- Whitest night mortal ever saw.
-- Lewd's carol! Was there rain by any chance, mistandew?
-- Plenty. If you wend farranoch.
-- What fullpried paulpoison in the spy three castles or which
hatefilled smileyseller?
-- Who can say how many pseudostylic shamiana, how few or how many of
the most venerated public impostures, how very many piously forged
palimpsests slipped in the first place by this morbid process from his
pelagiarist pen?
-- He has novel ideas I know and he's a jarry queer fish betimes, I
grant you, and cantanberous, the poisoner of his word, but lice and
all and semicoloured stainedglasses, I'm enormously full of that
foreigner, I'll say I am! Got by the one goat, suckled by the same
nanna, one twitch, one nature makes us oldworld kin.
-- The diasporation of all pirates and quinconcentrum of a fake like
Basilius O'Cormacan MacArty? To camiflag he turned his shirt.
<B><I>Interferons in the leonnn</I>: Peebles: What have you been doing
for the last five years? Biblous Beadell: I've been baking bread and
looking after the baby. Jesus, don't I get a gold record or knighted
or nothing?</B>
-- Johns is a different butcher's. Next place you are up town pay him
a visit. Or better still, come tobuy. You will enjoy cattlemen's
spring meat. Johns is now quite divorced from baking.
-- I have heard anyone tell it jesterday how one should come on morrow
here but it is never here that one today. Well but remind to think,
you where yestoday Ys Morganas war and that it is always tomorrow in
toth's tother's place. Amen.
-- His troubles may be over but his doubles have still to come.
-- Livpoomark lloyrge hoggs one four tuppsnoying. Big Butter Boost!
Sorry! Thnkyou! Thatll beall for tody. Cal it off. Godnotch, vryboily.
End a muddy crushmess! Abbreciades anew York gustoms. Kyow! Tak.
***************************************************
The "interferons in the leonnn" is from the copy of Playboy that Mark
bought before he did the deed. (By the way, have you seen Yesterday
and Today before it was given its false face?)
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. I am the
eggman, they are the eggmen. I am the walrus, goo goo goosth
Of course, when the sun is shining on the sea, I don't believe any of
this. Not for a dinar! Not for jo!
Mutt.-- Ore you astoneaged, jute you?
Jute.-- Oye am thonthorstrok, thing mud.
--James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
Larry Mudd
(Larry Mudd) made this utterance:
>Many moons ago, I tripped over this seemingly prophetic passage in
>Finnegans Wake:
I overlooked this bit:
>Its pith is full. The way is free. Their lot is cast.
>So, to john for a john, johnajeams, led it be!
--Finnegans Wake, p399
Larry Mudd
>Mutt:
> He was poached on in that eggtentical spot. Here
>where the liveries, Monomark. There where the mis-
>sers moony, Minnikin passe.
>Jute:
> Simply because as Taciturn pretells, our wrongstory-
> shortener, he dumptied the wholeborrow of rubba-
> ges on to soil here.
>Mutt:
>Just how a puddinstone inat the brookcells by a
>riverpool.
(FW Pages 16-17)
Liverpudlian Eggman "poached" by Mark on exiting a limo driven by a
liveried chauffeur, pretold?
Did John know?
Christ, you know ain't easy to speculate along these lines. It's
interesting, though, that one of his songs, in which the protagonist
is shot, could be taken to refer to the Dakota Hotel, outside which
the murder took place:
>Now somewhere in the black mountain hills of Dakota
and also contains a biblical ambiguity which Joyce would have approved
of:
>And I'll be better I'll be better doc as soon as I am able.
From the Wake:
>And not all the king's men nor his horses
>Will resurrect his corpus
>For there's no true spell in Connacht or hell
>That's able to raise a Cain.
It is, one might say,
>oaproariose as ten canons in skelterfugue: the studious omission of year number
>and era name from the date, the one and only time when our copyist seems at
>least to have grasped the beauty of restraint;
If you will excuse me I'm off to look for my Manson wig.
Absolute Nonprophet
> Oh, and this:
>
of course least we forget the song I Am the Walrus also contains the
lyrics
Expert textpert choking smokers,
Don't you think the joker laughs at you?
and was written during a time when the Beatles could have released an
album of throat clearings and it would have gone triple platinum - so
maybe John was being RAWesque and seeing who'd bite?
Damn you Dr Wilson and the uber Thomas like doubt thou hast instilled
in me!!
Nonprophet
"I much prefer the company of people searching for the truth then
those who think they've found it"
Larry Mudd
> of course least we forget the song I Am the Walrus also contains the
> lyrics
>
> Expert textpert choking smokers,
> Don't you think the joker laughs at you?
Sawright-- I play for laughs.
"Boy, you been a naughty girl you let your knickers down."
"Sure you could wright anny pippap passage, Eye bet, as foyne as that
moultylousy Erewhig, yerself, mick! Nock the muddy nickers!"
Johnny Q
the Lennon hit and the shooting of Cagliostro in Schrodinger's Cat?
Larry Mudd
> Speaking of synchronicities, am I the only one who sees a similarity
> between the Lennon hit and the shooting of Cagliostro in Schrodinger's
> Cat?
Erm, that is a bit of a synchronicity. I just reread that passage last
night, shook my head, and went to sleep (Started rereading SC for the
first time in years a couple days ago.)
(It appears on page 333, if anyone wants to know.)
December killing on Central Park West, with a typical ego-inversion,
(Killer is John Disk,) Killer is a religious zealout acting out orders
of voices that had been egging him on. John has a vision of himself
aboard Hagbard's sub, which he recognizes only as "a yellow submarine"
before the killing.
Very nice synchronicity to wake up to. Thanks, Johnny Q.
Larry Mudd
> December killing on Central Park West, with a typical ego-inversion,
> (Killer is John Disk,) Killer is a religious zealout acting out orders
> of voices that had been egging him on. John has a vision of himself
> aboard Hagbard's sub, which he recognizes only as "a yellow submarine"
> before the killing.
Not to overlook the five fatal firings, of course, and whatever mediumistic
role Cagliostro/Hugh Crane/Hagbard Celine/HCE found himself in.
>"These powers, whoever and whatever they are," Crane wrote-in unpublished
>notes which John Disk read years later, weeping- "are determined that I
>abandon all else and become no more than the servant who carries their
>message..." -Robert Anton Wilson, Schrodinger's Cat
>"The wife tells me I’m getting stronger and stronger psychiatric messages.
>She says the spirits are coming to me all the time now and they say that
>I’m an initiate. Isn’t that amazing? We won’t need all those psychics
>anymore because I will get all the messages." -John Lennon, Dakota Days
Jim Shaffer, Jr.
wrote:
"I think the future will be increasingly like a libertarian, pagan, psionic
science-fiction novel -- probably by me." -RAW, Compuserve Paranormal Forum
Larry Mudd
> "I think the future will be increasingly like a libertarian, pagan,
> psionic science-fiction novel -- probably by me." -RAW
Ayuh, can I get an amen?
As I continue to reread Schrödinger's Cat, my sleep-deprived self finds it
harder to keep tongue held firmly in cheek:
>"Get old de la Plume, and tell him I've got a big job for him."
>
>This referred to Mr. Shemus de la Plume, Naval Intelligence's ace
>handwriting forger.
>
>And so, within thirty-six hours, the Washington Post had come into
>possession of a diary, allegedly written by Bonny Benedict. The
>diary only *looked* cryptic at first glance. With a little study,
>anybody could figure out, from the abbreviations and clumsy codes
>used, that Disk had been an employee of the Central Intelligence
>Agency.
In *this* iteration, John D's act of "murder" is a result of hitting
Benedict with a Boston Cream Pie-- as she gets out of her limousine, a
faint (pre)echo of the circumstances of Lennon's murder. Leaving aside the
parallel with the Hollandaise Mystery, the connection to both the Wake and
to Lennon is reinforced by the victim's eggy pun name, and the eggy nature
of the "murder weapon," not to mention the direct reference to "the first
till last alshemist" that "wrote over every square inch of the only fools-
cap available, his own body, till by its corrosive sublimation one
continuous present tense integument slowly unfolded all marry-voising
moodmoulded cyclewheeling history." Nostr-- err, "Maistre Sheames de la
Plume."
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. Yellow matter
custard, dripping from a dead dog’s eye.
I think I'll have a little lie down.