Nicola Tesla, black hole of fiction

Recently finished "The Fantastic Inventions of Nicola Tesla by Nicola Tesla". Any book called "the fantastic inventions of me by the author" can't be too ortho. Though it holds some interesting information, toward the back of the book it leads into the description of Tesla in Atlantis. That can't be good.

I've also been reading "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy" by Nicola Tesla (note quotation re-location). More challenging than the former, it flits from one good idea to another. Well, one seemingly good idea to another. The level of understated hyperbole is tiring--one thing that made Fantastic easier to swallow.

Tesla. Marconi. Flying saucers from the Andes. It was all okay until they said Atlantis. Why? Why is Atlantis a deal killer? I could pretend I never heard it. But I did. Why are flying saucers okay and why is Atlantis crazy? I don't know.

There was something I read earlier that talked about Tesla in his last hotel room. It talked about his pigeons. "The only friends he had left." There's something so much better about that than ATLANTIS.

Okay, back to Atlantis. It comes down to this. I can pull off the subterranean city. I can't pull off Atlantis. That's the gist. I can't suspend anyone's disbelief that far. "Ariel, The Water Princess" or whatever that Disney mess was called. That is the sort of thing that takes place in Atlantis, not this novel. I don't want anything to do with Atlantis right now.

I read today about the idea of Tunguska being attributed to Tesla. Now that is a conspiracy of a different flavor. For those of you who didn't read the recent Nat'l Geographic on comets destroying the earth, Tunguska is a region in Siberia that was flattened by a comet that burned up in the atmosphere before reaching the earth. Or that's what the folks who write Nat'l Geographic articles for the CIA say. Hundreds of reindeer, herders, hundreds of acres of forest incinerated. The article by Oliver xxx claims that Tesla was in a bad way in 1908. Creditors, lawyers, former employees suing the pants off him. His lab in Colorado Springs leveled and sold for scrap (philistines!). And Marconi, that Marconi, getting credit left and right for things that were old hat to the T Man.

Oliver says that Tunguska was leveled by Tesla's Death Ray. He proposes that, in a fit of hunger for fame and glory, Tesla fired the ray at the north pole, just as Admiral Perry was just about to become the first American to land. Think of it: "Tesla beats Perry to the North Pole!" The world would be his oyster! Tesla was in a weakened mental state, so perhaps poor judgment would have allowed this flailing grasp. Who knows. Certainly no one has owned up to it. Oh, Tunguska is in the same great circle as Long Island. Long Island, of course, is where the iconic, JP Morgan-funded, Waldenclyffe Tower stood from where he would have sent the charge.

Could all those early Superman animated shorts have been wrong about the mad scientist?

Tesla's ardent pacifism is one other point to consider. The underground city in the Andes (Venezuela, as stated in the former book) was supposed to have been Marconi's idea. Others have guessed (during red zinger breaks at the Atlantis Lives! Meet Up) Tesla was drawn to the utopian city, urged to fake his own death (like Marconi) and ride Marconi's design for anti-gravitic flight over the Equator. Let's think on it. Marconi was taking orders from Mussolini. The Pope (Jorge Luis XI) had Mussolini yank Marconi's leash when the Italian Death Ray was shown off. Other accounts of la Ciudad Subteranea describe U-boats with German scientists heading for the coast of South America. The notes that latin american journalists wake up with in their hands give one, unequivocal message. No war. Who has co-opted whom? It's all so sloshed together now. That's food for fiction.

I was going to say, good for fiction.

Wrap-up for Week

There are a lot of things going through my mind as I write this.

My mom came out from Indiana for a short visit. I haven't seen her for a long time. And now after two short days of visiting, it's over. She leaves tomorrow while I'm at work.

My Western Union job is going away in November. I believe I've mentioned this earlier, but the topic keeps coming up in conversation, in passing, in sleep. I want to take back some of the time I'll have during the severance package period, but the weight of the truth of our lives means that every moment I take off--although it's over a half a year away from the date on which I'll no longer be paid--will be pressurized. The job is in a very slow period. Projects keep falling off the shelf and they flutter by on their way to splat on the floor.

My research into Tesla information is turning up interesting items, especially in the death ray zone. I'm reading "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy", an article in Century Illustrated Magazine, June 1900. The article is an interesting rant from Tesla on the metaphorical increase of human energy--improvement, increasing knowledge, maximizing energy output by human methods, etc. I am focusing on the 20th Century idealism the article revels in. The world is definitely getting fixed if Tesla has his way. I like the idea of the Spook taking these same premisses and trying to make them into realities. The death ray will come of this. And nothing good can come of the Death Ray, no matter the ideals that brought it forth.

Running out of energy myself. 4% on the macbook. Caffeine still high level. Am going to read through more of Jane Smiley's 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel before I knock off.

TEXT: somewhere in section 01 (El Patroncito Takes the Boy Away)

He was tired, but the newness kept him awake. As they passed things in the old car he recalled the names el Patroncito gave them. Milpas were little backyard cornfields where people could get food. He could see them through the thinning jungle as the old man wound around the dizzy roads. Altares, though it sounded like the name of a star, were roadside collections of things with crosses and dolls. A regalito was the word for a thing. It was a general word. The old man called anything he gave to the Boy un regalito. It meant he could keep it. Everything was either a regalito or a mio, and after a short time living with the old man he could tell one from the other without asking or being told.

The newness he felt now made all other new things pitiful and trashy.

The old car had white leather seats and deep within its seams held the smell of the old man. Below the radio in the ashtray he kept a pack of Juicy Fruit. Sweet and yellow. Probably the car had air conditioning, but el Patroncito liked to ride in the wind as if he were riding a horse at 70 MPH. There were times that in a tight turn he heard the old man urge the car uphill with a "Hup" and a jab to the accelerator. The tires bit into the rough speckled asphalt and the Detroit engine grunted "Hum hum hump hummp" like a horse would.

In the twilight, the old man asked, "Are you hungry? We have hours more."

"No, sir."

"What a good boy you are."

He felt sick inside. He knew he wasn't a good boy. He moved his head toward the window for air. People could throw up when riding in a car. Something about riding around in a circle up a mountain and then down a mountain, over and over, never in a straight line, always curving, leaning, pushing against the force of the car, something made people sick. Did he feel sick or was it the badness coming up in his throat?

When they got in the car at the house in San Cristobál, they both pretended that they were just going for a ride. The muchacha pretended too as she quietly packed his things and put them into the gaping trunk and just as quietly closed the trunk. All three of them pretended that they were going to see each other in the morning like always. They would be at the table in the morning. But then Rosalia lied. She said tomorrow she would make him enchiladas with mole rojo and a fried egg on top. She said he would have chocolate and el Patroncito would drink his jugo de toronja perfectado. Tasajo, Rosalia would grill tasajo on the charcoal of the comal. She knew he loved meat that tasted like bacon. Rosalia smiled weakly at el Patroncito who laughed at her as he pulled away.

By now both he and el Patroncito knew that the ride had gone much further than a ride would go. They were on a trip and all the more reason for Rosalia to have shut his things up in the trunk. El Patroncito called him a good boy like someone calls to a growling dog "good dog, easy boy". While all the time in your head you are thinking, "Don't bite me, excrement. Keep your teeth out of my flesh. Stop trying to threaten me. Go all the way to Hell."

Sunlight reflected in the disk of sky above them as they swirled around the mountains below like they were in a toilet about to be flushed. The old car's weak orange headlights poured out on the road ahead of them, but el Patroncito seemed to know the road better than the lights did, swerving before they lit the tight curve of a turn.

He settled into sleep. Nothing new about darkness. He dreamt of a woman with long black hair that fell in gently twisted strands across her face, barely moving as she danced slightly in front of a wall. The most exaggerated movement came from her chin that she swung questioningly back and forth like a clock's pendulum as she kept her eyes fixed on him. She wore a white bra with narrow black straps under her thin robe. She looked at him as she danced and she broke into a laugh once she no longer could keep her seriousness. She laughed at him, but it was kind. She made him feel mean, but she was kind. She made him want to scream. He breathed hot on himself. His neck felt heavy; it was hard to hold up his head. His eyes ached from looking up from his downturned face. But he wanted to keep his eyes on her. She danced slowly as if concerned her wrap would fall. His breath was warm and her dances had a glitch in them as if her movements weren't animated well. Her plastic curves bounced in overemphatic jumps. She was indeed poorly drawn. Like something he had hatched when no one could be watching him. The detail given to her woman places made him cringe. While there was little attention given to her back or her knees, her inner thighs bowed and made a tight "y" around her pubic bone.


(note for much later. When he sees Arara, he says es mio. Just like el Paroncito would have.)

TEXT: deleted scene (Waking up in DF)

What can one find beneath a park bench in Mexico City, el Distrito Federal?

Under this bench was a wet bag of popcorn, remnants of a burst eight foot tubular Scooby Do balloon, two nearly empty water bottles (one with its lid, one accordianed unevenly holding coffee ground brown liquid and matches), a flattened deep blue Jumex box (sabor: jugo de piña), a disintegrated condom mass melted and open like the sun's areoli encircling a kernel of corn, dark tar brown mud ramped up against the rear base of the bench by the perfect trowel of running water and time, broken glass (green and brown), seven tamale corn husks, a paper cup lined with globuled yellow mayonnaise and red chile flakes, the bones of a small chicken coated with ants, and agitated adult earwigs curving and rolling in sublime asphyxiation. The earwigs had found dried salty blood in the creases of the cold neck of the only other thing that lay beneath the park bench: a man known as "Elespía".

If he had had his eyes open, he would have said he had seen worse than this.

A heavy mist spat down from the DF sky and collected in the gritty leaves above the bench. As the moisture gathered, the mist became a rain and the sloppy overflow from the leaves beat down on the man's exposed pants. The rain kept the ants from finding him.

Paletaaaaaas.
Poe-pey-yey.

Paletas Popeye.

A black glove lined in waterlogged nylon fur grabbed him with a pop just above the ankle and walked his left leg toward the dry fountain in front of the bench.

The blood rushed past his eardrums from the inside and for the first time he heard it. It was as if he had wind in him, a trapped wind that had been awakened by the drug.

Ice Cream Truck

It all relates to an experience I had in film school. A woman came to show her latest audio technology breakthrough. It was a little set that produced subsonic audio waves to treat patients. The therapist listened to the patient and determined what frequencies the patient was missing, based on the group's knowledge of the normal tones of a healthy human body. Then, with the set, the therapist would provide tones to the patient that made up for the missing ones. From cancer treatment to depression, the sound machine was used for many things, but it wasn't until one of the classes TAs dialed in the atomic weight of an illicit substance he had once created that the real power of the machine hit home. A friend of mine was waiting for the next show with his "chemist" friend. The guy dialed in the drug's atomic weight--corresponding to an audio frequency--and put the headset on my friend. He was completely unable to move. Incapacitated, as if hit with a massive dose of the drug the guy had dialed in. They took the headphones off--the effect went away immediately. No after effects.

I haven't heard another word about the woman and her project (Kathy? can't remember more of her name), but the concept that a simply audio machine could have such a profound effect on the human brain has stuck with me to this day.

So what is Ice Cream Truck? The concept goes something like this. A plaintive sound, a sound that outwardly recalls the tinny, sad tunes of ice cream trucks, cuts into the motor functions of individuals. Each person reacts differently, but many are completely overtaken by the sound. They move because of the sound, but they don't know why--or to where they should move. When finished, the subjects are deeply affected. Shamed. Horrified. Guilty. There is much more happening under the surface, but I need to create those details specifically for each character who hears the sound. Thankfully for all concerned (even me) few people in the book (as in the script) hear the sound. I may have to describe it only three times.

ICT is later used during the Invasion of Panama (Operation Just Cause). LSPA is lead to believe that the military wants to test ICT on subjects during the hostilities. "To minimize casualties," he believes. It's obvious this must be the reason. In fact, ICT is used to draw out a subject on whom to test the Death Ray. ICT affects children most of all. A little boy--soon to become el Cliquero--hears the sound and is completely transfixed. He loses his ability to resist. He wanders out into the center of his housing project. He dances a spindly, straight-armed dance in the midst of the helicopters and bullets flying. His mother cannot leave him there. She races to him and is melted by the Death Ray. In front of him.

Whereas the Death Ray was the conscious project of the Spook and his funded team, ICT was a pit into which LSPA fell. ICT was an accidental project. How the hell could it be an accident?

He didn't invent the underlying technology and he didn't intend to create what ICT had become in its end state. He was riffing on the technology of others. Like his jokes, his musings, his projects of the past, no unique germination points among them. He was just the repositioning of the world's puzzle pieces, an awareness of patterns, and a sense of application.

There is much more to say about both these weapons. It will have to be later.

Can't put it off any longer

I've been writing about LSPA and el Cliquero all day. The time has come to peer deep into the potentially embarrassing and messy relationship of LSPA to el Cliq. What are they? How are they related? Does either one of them exist only through the other?

Just write what is in your head and work it into something. Remember, you knew that this blogging process could be embarrassing. Put up or shut up.

I have the feeling that el Cliquero actually died (Owl Creek Bridge) at the site where the Death Ray and ICT were tested. Has LSPA's guilt kept el Cliq alive in LSPA's head for all these years?

But el Cliq somehow has had an effect outside of LSPA's head. How?

The effects--those of his once fully physical character--see Lucky Dog script.

• Assassin
• Protector of the Boy (poor)
• Prodigious eater
• Traveler (purpose?)
• Countdown to personal Armageddon
• Fugitive from MX military (similar to EZLN)
• Falsely accused of murdering the Boy
• Hunter of LSPA
• Secret lover of Adara, protected by Adara
• Judge of LSPA
• Finisher of countdown
  

El Cliq can't simply be a figment of LSPA's mind. Is he a Batesian char, subsumed by LSPA, who due to the strength of his will or LSPA's guilt arises to overtake LSPA's mind or body? Is this a Jekyll and Hyde of guilt? Guilt may not be a very interesting jekylloid drug. Something more psycho, more somatic? Less boring!

That's where I get during the day. By the time I get to leave the office it's hot. I'm on BART. Put the narration discussion on the shelf. I try reviewing the notes on Part Three.02. How poorly the details of the section fit. I can't find a seat. And then I achieve focus. I write this:

Aah! (a scream) Or, is the reader (O! Reader) el Cliquero? How must el Cliq be framed so that only the reader's consciousness could possibly be responsible for el Cliquero?

I am not looking for a gimmick. I'm looking for an answer. I think this is it. Looking at Part Three.02 I see reference to el Cliquero. "There is a moment of elCliquero's immeasurable wrath. Let him have his moment, then make it a fantasy." This statement has meant a lot to me ever since I wrote it. It's funny, I knew what I meant, but I hadn't connected el Cliq to the audience yet.

You see, it's incorrect to say "Let him have his moment..." I must say, "Let them have their moment..." This is the audience's first taste of blood. When they get the taste from el Cliquero's mouth--when they get the taste from him they are isolated from the experience and yet can participate fully in his fury.

This cracked it open for me. Excuse me, Jackson Pollock.

I started to hear the narration of the book. I stood there with my hand on the chrome BART hand rail, staring into the blurring streets and tuneles as they passed (I assume). I could see el Cliquero's role in the book. I could hear the narration--some of it. A lot of it.

Narration thoughts

I hadn't thought of the novel as a treatise, but it is isn't it? The narrator is creating a logical argument, perhaps in the disguise of fictitious persons, but fictional narrators must be as coherent as their non-fictional counterparts. And as clear.

Lucky Dog thesis: the thesis is only specific to the point of view of the narrator. Is the narration omniscient, 1st person, or the oxymoronic partially omniscient? Both omniscient and 1st person could more easily develop a clear, organized thesis. The partial omniscience poses a problem. Multiple partially omniscient narrators? In the LD script I developed three screenplay narration styles to correspond with the Boy, LSPA, and el Cliquero.

Is this sustainable or workable in the LD novel? It might create a more believable atmosphere for el Cliquero. Separate might imply equal in terms of narration's relation to character. It could be more fun, too.

Remember, it was el Cliquero's narration in the script that led me to water. The white noise of his hearing aid is the sound of rushing water (Panama Canal water?) to him.

The Death Ray

This is the Spook's narrative link to Tesla and spurs his desire to conclude his efforts and make his connection.

Tesla is the clear inspiration for the Spook's Death Ray. Marconi, too, of course. What does the Spook believe was Tesla's inspiration? End All Wars? Not the likely thought of the Spook.

The Spook went into the Strategic Defense Initiative following Panama. Deterrent? Detergent? What's the difference to the Spook?

Why test it in Panama? Are the people lab rats to him? Proximity to la Ciudad subteraneo? When are we going to get any further south? the Spook thinks.

Why does the Spook want the messages sent? Is he trying to contact Tesla or the remnants of his utopia? Why doesn't he just travel to the location--if known--or at least broadcast from Peru(boo)? He isn't allowed to, or he would be tracked. He doesn't want to look stupid.

(station break: REMEMBER: don't write boring! Okay, back to regular programing.)

SDI? I don't know anything about it. {okay, I know a little more now about SDI & x-ray lasers for SDI } Satellites? How does the helicopter-mounted version mimic the greater space-based initiative?

Designed to assassinate? Was it, too, just a diversion? One more diversion. What was being covered up? In Panama, one is always close to transportation. El Chorillo was a diversion. What does that make ICT?

At the same time, the Death Ray needed to be tested and its results were documented and classified and uncovered and covered up and mythologized and slowly bled into science fiction cliche. {Just now it starts to bite like a mystery.}

What sort of project was it? Started by the Spook, or picked up in progress? If picked up, was it an in-house development group or outside? It was the Spook's project. So he will feel the sting of having been merely a diversion, too. Not like the sting of el Cliquero.

Okay, that's what it's not. What is it? Remember, you can start over.

It must be a directional weapon, able to be focused on a target. Was the target really the mother? Was it the boy? Was this what is meant by el escogido? The Chosen One?

The weapon (weapon, right?) was still in a highly volatile experimental state. Clearly it malfunctioned in the helicopter (I'll bring readers up to speed later on the details I'm referring to from the script.) Did it succeed in its mission? Enough to make it to the next round of funding?

Ice Cream Truck v. The Death Ray

Looking over the dramatic arc I realize that mention of Ice Cream Truck (ICT) or the Death Ray is fairly rare. The opposition may represent the primary theme in the book. For a moment I considered calling it Ice Cream Truck v. The Death Ray. It gets a couple of primary ideas across in short order, sets up the opposition, etc. Perhaps in too short an order.

Looking at the two together is important to the success of the highest and lowest planes of the work.

High
Each weapon's association with its main character.
The morphing of purpose of these images from weapon to symbol.

Low
The interest of audiences in weapons, horror, control and domination.

Arc Dramatica (07 jul 2008)

PART ONE
The Boy is driven to San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico. (El Patron delivers him. Open: conversation with Boy. Set expectation for temporary stay.) Labuelitalafuente, a sickly, but plucky grandmother, had been volunteered to take care of the Boy. She is a mystical sort of grandma, caring--as no one else in Mexico does--for dogs, the dogs of Chamula, and for their Talking Cross.

The Boy learns the rules of Labuelita's house. He meets LSPA (late 40s) living and lurking in her home.

Swims in the quarry reservoir with gravel bottom. LSPA backslides to some point further back. [flashback for LSPA (a portion of this): lost in solipsism of drugged photographic memory. Here only outward symptoms.] LSPA nearly drowns in the water.

His wait is through. LSPA is taken to a shaman and his assistant, the stutterer, elEjecutibo--the phrase is emblazoned in the sunshade of his taxi. They teach LSPA about the Chamula church martyrs.

Later the stutterer tells him about the rules of the mayan ballgame.

The Boy becomes more comfortable with granny. She tells him of the Talking Cross. What Labuelita tells the Boy will help LSPA. Bisabuelo.

The Talking Cross brings forth La Mescalina, in the form of Adara, at a feria. LSPA experiences the heat y los jovenes; it awakens something in him. [what role do the martires play?] Building the rel of the Boy and LSPA. Mezcal and Peyote. Later, Peyote Agua Fresca. At the Cross, the Boy. At the feria, LSPA.

The Spook returns to tell LSPA what he is supposed to do: his new job. LSPA will run a decoy numbers broadcasting station for the CIA. Cryptography. "Just make up your own numbers," is the Spook's response to LSPA's request for an OTP (one time pad). . The Spook tells him about US Marshalls, the witch-hunting Panama War Crimes trials, and his family. None is true.

Hiring Dream. He hires Adara. (Is this the Boy's dream?)

LSPA backslide. He finds the Talking Cross on his own. "Find the OTP," it says. [flashback for LSPA (a portion of this): lost amongst his thoughts of the Glacierization, a glacial battle of the states of water with an ancient river named "Teays", a petrified honeycomb, easels in green meadows, his childhood in Indiana.]

The origin of the Spook. Then he is gone. Adara is gone.

What is behind the work the Spook has LSPA do? LSPA decides to find out. [THIS IS BIG] "Find the OTP," says the Talking Cross. "But there isn't one. I make up the numbers myself." The Boy bicycles with the numbers. (Does LSPA use them? Chamulans want the numbers to play la Loteria.)

At the foot of the Cross, a pistol. With it, Arsenio, the Boy, hunts the sacred dogs of Chamula. He loves Adara.


PART TWO
ElPatroncito drives the Boy back to SC--he tells the Boy he is connected with the Spook. The Boy moves into San Cristobal de las Casas to live with el Patroncito. Or was it to follow LSPA when he left? [don't lose LSPA's transition to SC!!] Or was it to find Adara? Why is the Boy finished with Chamula?

In the gutters of San Cristobal, elPatron has seen the body of a man {who, why? The man is dead in the gutter.} he has wanted dead. He makes a hit request to elCliquero. The Boy is there. ElCliquero immediately fulfills the contract. Is he a golem? Is elPatron elBisabuelo, the Boy wonders? [this is a very non-standard way to cover a mystery--is it?] Does El Patron mistake the Boy for el Cliquero?

Introduction (by elPatroncito(?) to visions of versions) of elCliquero. [how are these stories related? Spread these out?]
• HK Hitman
• Golem + Bisabuelo
• Actual hit in San Cristobal de las Casas (where we are...)

LSPA is flooded with his photographic memories of Panama. The Chosen One: elEscogido. Is the Spook the Chosen One? Is the Boy? What triggers them?

[He was, in fact, in DF, Mexico, Chapultepec Park, in the shade of el Castillo.]

Introduction to LSPA in San Cristobal de las Casas. The history of electricity coming to Chiapas and San Cristobal. LSPA now lives in San Cristobal, studies the broadcasts of "La Otra". He has set up a transmitter that can cover 1000s of miles. He searches for the OTP source, but still makes up the numbers himself. {this search will spread out across other sections.}

ElPatroncito y elCliquero establishment. The story of the Zapatista Cafe in which elPatron first meets elCliquero. {see Zapatista Cafe} Ends with elPatron's allusion to Subcom Marcos. This must be Marcos's purpose verdad. ElPatron is telling the story to Arsenio. NOTE: shift Marcos to a nameless, faceless un-famous EZLN comandante.

Did killing the dogs create el Cliquero? Does elPatroncito know the Boy is killing dogs?

How is elPatron related to Labuelitalafuente? Arsenio wants to know. ElPatron answers. Part of the strange story of elBisabuelo and his golem, and laMuchachaIndia.

He insists LSPA continue with the broadcasts. Still LSPA questions the effects. He develops methods to ensure the numbers are random. ElPatron tightens their ties. LSPA is on a March to the Monterias. {How?}

{elPatroncito takes the place of the script's Arsenio for this scene} In the neck of a dying dog, at the parque, the boy finds the OTP for which LSPA is looking. {see BoyFindsOTP} [why is the Boy looking?]


PART THREE
The Spook has arrived in San Cristobal. LSPA spots him in a crowd. Later, the Spook finds him. He is here to introduce LSPA to his next new work: better transmissions. Further than 1000s. He gives LSPA old documents, info to increase the range. [Tesla]{Why is the Spook using this method to contact Tesla + la ciudad subteraneo?}

LSPA manufactures another backslide. Why does he hide in the drugs? It must be real, but he can control it. The drugs are the Spook's leash. LSPA is subverting the leash by wearing it. What does he get from it? Is it like Vinge's focus? Is it a reaction to the monterias?

In his head he has created his own plan, A Plan from Panama to Pueblo (PPP otro). This is elCliquero's plan, too. {el Castillo and the Creek}

The Boy is killed in front of el Cliquero. It appears that this is part of LSPA's PPP. El Cliquero, what can he do to stop it? What does the Boy see of elCliquero?

CODE: "molojov" Looking at LSPA's fatigues from Panama. The PSYOP shoulder patch. Adara-laMescalina-MamadePanama is wearing the jacket. Making out like the young ones, on a bench in the evening shadow of the church. This covers the passing of the OTP. He realizes it in the late churchyard. Does he mind? Was it Adara's coMOLOsJOVenes coctele? This message interrupts the believed randomness of messages. How does el Patron know?

LSPA follows the coded message back to Chamula; it's delivered by bicycle. The bicycle leaves from one part of the town, circles the hill, and pulls back into town. Delivers the coded message. LaFuente or elPatron is generating the messages? Or was it the Boy? Adara? {see BoyFindsOTP opening} [This was the Boy's path. MYSTERE?] Is this story just the container for a mystery that isn't supposed to happen?

The entire dog population of Chamula, all of labuelita's dogs, is dead. More than one of them has been torn open like the hit and run dog that had the OTP in its neck. LSPA finds Labuelitalafuente. Her hands are blistered. She is dying. She helps LSPA find the Boy's things. The OTP. LSPA finds a mound of tortillas in the dump. Poisoned. Deadly to dogs. {see abuelitaGivesLSPAtheOTP}

Reeling, he finds the Talking Cross who tells him to "Slam arc on it, E." [acqui esta]

Los autogyros federales hover in the sky above Chamula. It reminds him of the confusion in the sky over Panama. He remembers el Chorillo. He remembers it. Slam Arc On IT! E! E? Why always "E"? Why was the Spook's code name always "E"? Why did he always sign everything "E"? {see }

[This section comes to him in 5 letter coded message.] The message says that the Spook and elPatroncito have traded laFuente for "some names". [I don't know what la Fuente is worth to others at this moment. I don't know why some names would want her or her property. What is laFuente's worth?] what is "some names"?


PART THREE.02
The military searches for elCliquero. We think they want to make him pay for the death of the Boy. Adara finds him. She is from the EZLN, she says. She gives him the "World must end through you" speech combined with elPatroncito's Panama speech. {see elCliquero-SCMarket}

ElCliquero learns the Spook's role in Panama. [does he learn or does the reader learn? Once the reader learns then elCliquero moves.] He learns of LSPA's role. LSPA wears the same PSYOP image as was on the fatigues of the yeoman who died with the crashing helicopter in el Chorillo during the invasion. Begin with the image on LSPA and end with the image of the Yeoman. In the middle, we are treated to the Origin of El Cliquero. {see elCliquero-origin}

There is a moment of elCliquero's immeasurable wrath. Let him have his moment, then make it a fantasy.

There is extreme confusion in San Cristobal. A new day dawns on the end of the world. LSPA holds the true OTP. While circling in the widening gyre, the rotors tell LSPA the meaning of "Slam arc on it. E." Spinning, strobing. Finally, it all begins with T. Tesla. Marconi. Tesla. SlaMarconiTeslamarconit.E

ElCliquero now tracks the doomed LSPA. But just a moment. The Spook is dead. [how do we know the Spook is dead?] [flashback for LSPA: A manifestation of the Spook, his former CIA contact during the Invasion of Panama (Operation Just 'Cause), leads him out--and to safety from extradition--in southern Mexico. The Weapon. The Chosen One.]

001 on elCliquero's counter. LSPA is followed in a queer, Mexican NASCAR-type car chase. ElEjecutibo drives LSPA. Comforts him as best he can. Takes a bullet for him. {see}

LSPA is caught returning to his studio, to Adara, by elCliquero. In the sights. The Clicker reads 000. Freeze. LSPA's sermon. Adara is the foil the situation is wrapped in.


PART FOUR
Slam arc on it. E. LSPA has created another message with his OTP. He broadcasts it. It has a dual meaning. One for the MX government. One a beacon spreading out to the Andes to reach Slam arc on it. E in the Ciudad Subteraneo. One for the Boy.

LSPA readies for his journey. He considers the water.

A boy's 3rd person omniscience

Funny, it was during the process of choosing voice for the script Lucky Dog that I began to realize my disappointment with the script form. You screenwriters can tell from the last sentence that I was in big trouble writing Lucky Dog. "What do you mean, choosing voice? It's a script."

I came to a writers group meeting run by a friend of mine to talk about the differences between writing scripts and writing fiction. Actually, I'm not sure why he asked me to come. I was so lost. Perhaps he didn't realize until I started in. But I remember having this moment when one of the members of the group started talking about choosing voice (sic) for a work and I thought, "Crap. Voice. That's like who's talking and shit." (Now that I think about it, I may just end up using the adjutative voice for this one.) I waded through the rest of the conversation and went home.

When I wrote Lucky Dog I developed three different forms of 3rd person narration, still trying to stay within the script's formal constraints. One for the Spy (LSPA or el Espia), one for the Boy and one for el Cliquero. Each section was dominated by one character, though there were transition sections where dominance would pass from one to another (see the death of the Boy). The 3rd person narration influenced by the deaf, nearly mute el Cliquero was the most fun. Stripped it to bare essentials of a man who had been frozen at 8 years old--when his mother had been killed in front of him and his hearing ripped from him. His face melted. All that. The narration took a very simple view of the world and called upon a variety of senses for description. He still heard things, but usually he interpreted the sounds he received from the world as sounds relating to water.

LSPA, the Spy, el Espia. This was the most clear narration. The closest to clear. Baseline for the script.

The Boy. Precocious. Inexperienced. Closed. At least he was for the script. He won't be quite so anti-social for the novel; his thirst is more complex than it could have been in the script.

Just what will it be in the novel? That's where this evening began. Before the downloading. The surfing. The social networking. The memories of cool, humid college nights in the truck, aching.

I hear all three of these characters in the narration for this book. Does it need to be any different--aside from the mechanical pieces that I can't use? The CUT TO: bracket, the EXT. HOUSE -- DAY hammer, and the FADE TO: window shade. I worry about reprising William Gibson-y rhythms of character rotation. I want to claw a path in another direction.

The next steps for me: evolve these narrative voices. The el Cliquero-related narration? I haven't reconciled the mercurial nature of el Cliquero's narrative purposes. Perhaps the only thing mercurial about it is the fact that it's not yet solid in my mind.

Char_details: lAbuelitalafuente

The natural tonal quality of this word (four into one) brought me to another level with respect to names, titles and noun articles. It represents the first instance of my word-language blurring. Kids in MX (&elsewhere) learn article+noun as one word. "What is the word for EYES?" "losojos" The more I wrote the more I heard the words and the more they--certain ones--called out to be blurred.

[BART train misunderstanding the driver]
"What's happening? {actually saying 'West Oakland'} Richmond bound train."

l'abuelita. Whose?

la fuente--the font, the source, the fountain from which life springs. The Wellspring of Life.

Dog Lady? Creating a humane spot, respectful of the dogs. Why? Lamuchachaindia's soul was eaten by a dog. Was it passed down or did it die with that dog? Is her mother's soul now in each dog in the town of Chamula? By caring for the dogs she cares for her mother.

How old is labuelita? Older than dirt. Old enough that it must seem impossible forher mother to live still. She is 97. [Helen's age. Woman who lived in a house not far from us on Dubois Rd. Ithaca, NY]

year 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 08
age 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 97

that is one long timeframe.

Porfirio Diaz, the family compound. The niece. The compound in Oaxaca keeps coming back to me.

Stature? Short, no doubt. Pot belly. Steely long braids. She colors her eyebrows. Groucho Marx.

She is gruff, but always with a smile or laugh just below the surface. It wouldn't take much to make her laugh, but you wouldn't want to get caught trying.

What was she like in middle age? As a youth? Map against MX timeline.

Char_details: Adara

La Mescalina

She arises from the Talking Cross first. (in current arc dramatica) A la feria.

Mezcal and Peyote.

She is a referent of Don Juan's el Mescalito.

She is the covalent bond between LSPA and the Boy.

Adara or La Mescalina? How does she relate to los Martires?

Hiring dream. Why is it a dream? Jose Catepetal hires Adara in the cyclical dream. Why is it a dream? Is it the Boy's dream? LSPA's? Adara's? El Cliquero's?

Peyote agua fresca.

Adara leaves coincident to the Spook. LSPA or the Boy believes they left together.

Hiring for what? For what-why?

The Boy hunts dogs in Chamula. And this relates to Adara. For his love of Adara.

Where has she gone? She has borrowed the pistol. Or has she just now returned it? If the Boy now hunts dogs, she must have just returned it. Though the Boy thinks that the Talking Cross has provided him with the pistol, it was Adara returning it to LSPA.

Which is in search of Adara in SC? LSPA or the Boy? Is she in SC yet?

She creates a vacuum in her wake.

How does she relate to el Patron?

How does she meet el Cliquero? The Boy attracts her with his story of el Cliquero.

La escogida She has been chosen. But what has she done? Active. Activa (prune yogurt).

How does she relate to labuelitalafuente?

How does she relate to the woman who was el Cliquero's mother? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Where does she live? How grounding this question is! Where? She must stay in SC. But she comes to Chamula regularly. Why?

What did she study? Where? Music? She says MATH in the script. Audio-related. Music is one more element at arm's length. Perhaps no one wants to talk about their specializations? She studied rock and roll. I envision her playing air guitar in front of the Alpine motherfucker ride.

The Boy dies. Diesmal. What does el Cliquero see?

Where is Adara? She even wears LSPA's clothes! Where is she?

Molojov coctele.

Was she generating the messages?

Was she truly hired? Yes. But she is not steady. Or is she? She is in fact the most prompt Mexicana in history. She is so tired in the mornings, but she's on time.

Where did her soul go? It's gone. Eaten.

Has she begun to create actual messages to transmit? To benefit the EZLN? and the faceless Comandante?

She rescues el Cliquero in el mercado. She reveals herself to el Cliquero as an office of the EZLN. "The world must end through you." Connected to el Patron's opening Panama speech.

How does she know anything about el Cliquero? Adara betrays LSPA to el Cliquero. Let's think about this for a moment.

There is no el Cliquero.
El Cliquero kills the Spook.
Adara betrays LSPA to el Cliquero.

Is LSPA el Cliquero? No and Yes! What does it mean to betray someone to themselves? Betray someone to himself.

Momenta

The momentum of more than one object. Many things in motion now. The char_detail documents are working well, especially when paired with the Arc Dramatica (AD). I'll put up a few of the recent ones today. Upcoming topics for mediation: the house of Labuelitalafuente, section by section review of the AD, the Talking Cross, Water, etc.

Read through some of DeLillo's Underworld yesterday. How to describe the style? For the first time I could see it as writing. Style. It has been difficult for me to separate navigation from style--much easier in filmmaking. For the most part I see films as things that make meaning. Books are not as far removed from me.