Confessions of a Crap Artist Reading Resources Part 1-- St. Isidore of Seville

We're just a week away from my community read of Confessions of a Crap Artist in Point Reyes Station. To say I'm excited would be an understatement. 

So, to get my wiggles out (as my mom used to call it), I thought I'd provide some resources for readers of the novel, whether they be Point Reyes Stationians or internet bound. 

First off, readers may have noticed that some of the novel's geography doesn't quite work.

Chapter two begins: "Seville, California has a good public library. But the best thing about living in Seville is that in only a twenty-minute drive you're over into Santa Cruz where the beach is and the amusement park is. And it's four lanes all the way."

Google's driving directions don't lie (except when they do): Seville California is just a bit more than three hours from Santa Cruz. 

So what's Dick up to here? 

Anne Dick recalls in her memoir: 

“One afternoon not long after the discussion about Phil's career, we were lying on the bed in the study, our arms around each other. We had just made love and I was feeling happy and relaxed. Phil started laughing and laughing. He said, "I have a great idea for a novel. It's about this guy, Jack Isidore. I'm naming him after an early encyclopedist, Isidore of Seville, who collected weird bits of knowledge. The novel will be in the first person. The opening line Jack Isidore says is, 'Let me tell you about myself. The first thing is: I'm a pathological liar." (In the published version it is, "I am made out of water.") And Phil laughed and laughed some more. For some unknown reason I felt a little chill of unease, but nevertheless I smiled encouragingly. Phil began working on this novel, Confessions of a Crap Artist, during the honeymoon period of our relationship.”

So, the name Isidore, when combined with the location of Seville, becomes a reference to St Isidore of Seville, who Wikipedia tells us,

“At a time of disintegration of classical culture, aristocratic violence and widespread illiteracy, Isidore was involved in the conversion of the Arian Visigothic kings to Catholicism, both assisting his brother Leander of Seville and continuing after his brother’s death. He was influential in the inner circle of Sisebut, Visigothic king of Hispania. Like Leander, he played a prominent role in the Councils of Toledo and Seville.

His fame after his death was based on his Etymologiae, an etymological encyclopedia that assembled extracts of many books from classical antiquity that would have otherwise been lost. This work also helped standardize the use of the period (full stop), comma, and colon.”

Next, you gotta see the French adaptation of the film, "Confessions d'un Barjo" (available for free on YouTube):

I'll discuss the film version in my next post. 

Confessions of a Crap Artist Community Read in Point Reyes Station

I never met Philip K. Dick. He died when I was ten. Over the course of the quarter century I've been studying his life and work, there have only been a few times I've felt him spinning in his grave. Mostly when I was hanging out with his ex-wives. But there have also been a handful of times when I sensed his excitement from the cold storage of half-life: hanging out at various Dick-fests, footnoting The Exegesis for publication, discussing his life and work at Harvard University. 

But I think Phil is really excited about this: on January 17th, I'll be leading a community discussion of his literary novel Confessions of a Crap Artist in Point Reyes Station, where the novel is set, and where Dick lived, off and on, between 1959-1964. 

For those of you living under a rock, I have spent the last nine months as the "Chief Troublemaker" at the Point Reyes Reality Investigation Center, or PRRIC!

As part of my PRRIC-ular duties, I have been getting to know the locals in the tiny town of just under 850 people. I spend a couple days a week inhabiting Dick's slow-paced pastorale landscape: walking by Cheda's Garage, shopping at The Palace Market, and working in my office above The Old Western Saloon. The experience has enriched my reading of Confessions of a Crap Artist, which is about Dick's time in Point Reyes Station, as well as his marriage to Anne, who I knew pretty well. 

So for an expert, which Henry Kissinger famously said is someone who knows more and more about less and less, it doesn't get much better than this. I will post some study materials for those of you interested in reading the novel along with us. Until then, enjoy these pictures of locations from the novel courtesy of Henri Wintz and The Philip K. Dick Bookshelf. 

If you're in the Bay Area, GET YOUR ASS TO POINT REYES, on January 17th. 

Phil's 97th Birthday in New Orleans

I've just returned from the future, and it's New Orleans, people. A whirlwind week in The Big Easy with

incredible music (I reconnected with a saxophonist I played in a band with 30 years ago), interesting sights (for instance an outlet mall's foodcourt on the Mighty Mississipp), all culminating with an absolutely incredible art show titled Reflex Machines at local gallery Chemical 14, curated by Dick-Head artist extraordinaire Brent Houzenga! 

Just look at this picture of Brent and me with Phil's birthday cake, burning with the fire of a thousand suns and 97 candles. Now there are a couple of guys happy to be Dicking it up. 

Below are some photos from the gallery. The exhibit will be up until early January, so if you're in the area, do not miss this. Highlights included, stylized wardrobe inspired by Blade Runner's Pris, the "Dissbot" which takes a picture of you before hurling an insult your way, the ridable Isomorph bug which growled and gurgled malevolently as people clung to its bucking thorax, PRRIC's own Reverse Psychic, an exploded and neon-gutted wall-mounted dolphin, and so much more... Oh and I gave a thought-provoking lecture replete with PowerPoint slides. 

Dick--Heads to Invade SF in SF November 23rd

Sunday November 23rd, I'll be joined by Dick-Head Podcast host David Agranoff, cyberpunk legend Rudy Rucker, and Tachyon publisher Jacob Weisman at the San Francisco Public Library to talk about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, "Blade Runner," Dick's novel writing formula, as well as his influence on the science fiction genre. 

Here's what they say on their website: 

"Join SF in SF with experts David Gill, David Agranoff, and author Rudy Rucker, along with publisher Jacob Weisman, in a discussion on PKD and Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?  David Gill, the authoritative expert on PKD, will tie Dick’s life and writing process with David  Agranoff’s expertise as the co-host of the PKDickheads podcast, and discuss the larger religious and philosophical questions the PKD’s work explores. Author Rudy Rucker, and Jacob Weisman, publisher of The Search for Philip K. Dick, by Anne Dick will join in as well.

Event is from 3:00PM until 5:00PM"

More info here. 

Erik Davis on 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'

 

Big news from The Alembic, where last year Erik Davis gave a multi-week course on The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Well, the author of High Weirdness is back, this time offering a five-week course on Dick's most carefully constructed novel: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. 

The course is every Monday evening, starting November 3rd. 

Get your tickets here. 

PRRIC Blogging on Substack

Talk about fantastic post titles! There's something equally great and terrible about specialized language. While most of you know what those words mean, there are some (like my 87-year-old mother) who would be stymied by everything but the preposition. 

Anyway, this is just a highly specialized way of advertising my new Substack, which I'm writing as part of my job at the Point Reyes Reality Investigation Center (the PRRIC in the title, obvs). 

Lots of good PKD-adjacent stuff over there so check it out...

And peep our new logo (and find us @theprric on Instagram and TikTok): 

Interview with RU Sirius at Mindplex

One of the cool things that happened during the recent Philip K Dick Bay Area Tour Weekend was that RU Sirius, the publisher of Mondo 2000 and a legend in the cyberpunk community, came to a party at my house (thanks to long time friend and reader Ted Hand for the introduction).

Art by Tesfu Assefa

In the aftermath of this great meeting of the minds, RU conducted an email interview with me regarding all things Dick. I cover Dick-Heads, the value of touring PKD's landmarks, his take on movies, some common myths and misinformation, even Dick and "The Singularity." 

Check out the whole article (see if you can beat the 17 minute estimate) over at Mindplex! 

I like this bit, a response to the question "What are Dick-Heads like?":

"I think the single defining characteristic of the really serious Philip K. Dick fan is that they have felt some kind of alienation in their life. That is to say, that they have been made to feel fundamentally different from those around them— whether in their home, or at school, or in the wider world.

Dick talked about how when he worked at a record store as a teen, the blue collar guys he worked with couldn't believe he was living with a couple of gay, beatnik poets—and the gay beatnik poets couldn't believe he was reading pulp sci-fi, and that his mother disapproved of all of it. No port in the storm. When I was a grad student at San Francisco State University and looking for an advisor twenty years ago, I had a professor ask incredulously [of my intention to write my thesis on Dick]: "Isn't he just a science fiction writer?" 

So, Dick's life and work are like this little treasure for us, and it's absolutely imperative that not everybody get it, and that he's kinda looked down upon. Everywhere you look in Dick's life, you can see this profound alienation. He not only endured financial, emotional, romantic, and artistic struggles, but he transformed that suffering into the centerpiece of his fiction, the abyss about which his characters and plots revolve. So DickHeads, as a clan, have this special bond—fellow fish, swimming against the stream. It's also mostly guys."