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. 

From the 'Where Am I Now?" File

The last six months have witnessed a number of staggering changes in my life. As many of you know, I was "exited" from San Francisco State University at the end of last year. A perfect storm of declining enrollments, administrative greed and incompetence, and the elimination of a required lower division writing class (see previous list item), all conspired to relieve me of the job I've held for the last seventeen years. 

The whole thing really sucked. The good news is that I put up a good fight, plastering the campus with "Missing" posters featuring myself and my other exited colleagues, disrupting the College of Liberal Arts Christmas party with some pointed "Ho, Ho, Ho-ing," and some quality protests.

Here's a short documentary movie made by a student in SFSU's journalism department about my fight: 

Eventually I landed on my feet. 

The crazy thing is that it was THIS BLOG that saved me. A post about Phil's time in Point Reyes Station drew the attention of a local resident and tech entrepreneur named Chris Hulls who is interested in preserving the town of Point Reyes Station along with the weirdness of West Marin county. 

Together we created an independent non-profit, the Point Reyes Reality Investigation Center or PRRIC. Here's a video introducing the Center, shot and edited by Paul Shelton, a Dick-Head I was fortunate to meet at last summer's Colorado Dick-Fest. 

So what does PRRIC do exactly? That's a good question. We're interviewing and photographing residents of Point Reyes Station; we are looking to fund serious scientific research involving consciousness, psychology, neuroscience, and psychedelics; and we're hoping to create a Esalen-style retreat in the area. 

Photo courtesy of The Philip K. Dick Bookshelf

Last week I moved into my new office above The Old Western Saloon on Highway 1 in Point Reyes Station. The building is more than 100 years old and it's haunted. It's also featured in Dick's Confession of a Crap Artist: "Then he caught sight of the Western Bar..."

So I know there a lot of people convinced that we're living in a Philip K. Dick novel, but only a lucky few of us have offices in one. 

Check out PRRIC's Substack, where I will be writing about reality, technology, science fiction, Point Reyes Station, and more... 

Here's A Contest! PKD and the Beauty of Nature

Currently vacationing in Kauai with the family. Of course it's lush and beautiful here, and it reminds me of an observation of Erik Davis: Dick does not describe natural beauty in his books. So, since I'm on vacation I will turn it over to you gentle readers... Find me an example of a vivid description of nature, and you may win a plastic dark-haired hula girl for your car's dashboard. I suggest you look in Confessions of a Crap Artist. Leave your best quoted description in the comments section. A-LOOOOOO-HA!

Update: Some great entries. Currently in first place is a quote from the beginning of "Upon the Dull Earth." But there's still time. I think we can do better.