Rare PKD Photo of the Day

Photo by Anne Dick

Here's another rare shot of PKD. This one was taken in the backyard of the Point Reyes house near the end of his marriage to Anne Dick. Like this other picture I posted earlier, Anne says that this photo was taken around the time that PKD was writing The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

Actually, you can see this picture featured in the short PKD documentary packaged with the five DVD box set of Blade Runner. While light on details, the documentary does a pretty good job of painting a basic picture of PKD's life. There's nothing new in it for us initiates. Rumor is there's a much longer and more detailed Argentinian documentary about PKD in existence somewhere. Don't even get me started on The Gospel According to Philip K Dick - too much typing!

I always suspected PKD wore combat boots.

Here's Anne's backyard a few months ago:

Rare PKD Photo of the Day

Photo by Anne Dick

I've been up to visit Anne Dick (PKD's third wife) in Point Reyes three or four times now. On my last trip up Anne was kind enough to give me some scans of a few rare PKD pictures. More about my visits with Anne in a forthcoming post, but for now check out the picture.

I thought this was a great picture, perhaps taken in 1960 or 1961. I've heard from a number of sources that PKD hated having his picture taken, but in this shot he seems to be doing more than simply tolerating a photograph being taken of him. His smile doesn't seem like a mask and his stare is good-natured, not quite as standoffish as he sometimes appears.

I sent my impressions of the photo to Anne. She responded:

"This picture was taken toward the very end of our marriage and my perception is that Phil looks terrible as if he were deteriorating from within. I've never liked this picture. I've gone back and studied it just now to see if I can understand why it makes me feel this way. I think it is because of the difference between the expression of the lower part of his face, a smile, seemingly pleasant, and dead eyes. Contrast that expression and the look in his eyes with the picture with me in front of the fireplace or other pictures taken early in our marriage."

You can see that photo here.

I wrote back:

I have gone back and looked at the photo of the two of you and can see what you're saying. If it was late in the marriage perhaps he was writing The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch?

Anne:

"You’ve hit upon something! I think that smile is Palmer Eldritch's smile; the eyes of my Phil are dead. He probably was writing Stigmata at that time, the very end of our marriage. He finished that book after he had begun to leave. (He came back and forth a number of times.) Have you noted that the character of Palmer Eldritch changes at the end? He becomes not such a bad guy after all.

Yes, those two pictures were both taken at the end of everything and I think they are both very sad."

Maybe I just like this picture because I've stood in that corner of that living room:

Thank You Anne!

My Afternoon with Kleo Mini

Yesterday I had the immense pleasure of hanging out with PKD's second wife Kleo Mini. Here we are in front of San Francisco's legendary Beatnik hangout Caffe Trieste, one of their old haunts. After she and I drove around looking for a parking place for about thirty minutes, we walked around North Beach, a famous neighborhood in San Francisco she and PKD used to frequent via the cross-bay train that traveled on the lower level of Bay Bridge.

Kleo is an incredibly smart, funny, and together lady and we laughed a lot. She told me some great stories, one about three incompetent FBI agents who were a little too obvious when they set down their soft leather briefcase on the ground - clearly intending to tape their meeting with Kleo and PKD - and were quite embarrassed when the couple noticed the rather conspicuous attempt.

Kleo had a lot of insight into PKD's early writing and we discussed at length what they were into during their marriage. Kleo recommended I read Styron's Lie Down In Darkness, and reaffirmed for me that both she and PKD loved Nathaniel West's novels (if you want to read another writer who blends surrealism, humor, and a bleak world view West is second in my view only to PKD).

Kleo and I spoke at length about PKD's relationship with his mother, whom she described as harsh, stern, unaffectionate, and distant. Of course other family members remember PKD's mother Dorothy as a caring and loving figure. It's clear to me that PKD's relationship with his mother requires a lot more study, and perhaps, like most everything else PKD-related, the conflicted views of her nature may never be resolved.

Kleo and I ended up at a nice Italian restaurant where we sat at a table on the sidewalk eating bruschetta and artichokes, taking in some prime people watching. Kleo would stop talking at times, straining to hear the opera music being played, commenting on the singer's tone. She and PKD originally bonded over music.

I was blown away by Kleo's humor, charm, and stunning intelligence (remember PKD described her as a "professional student" and she spent most of their marriage taking all sorts of classes at Cal Berkeley). Kleo is a very impressive lady and further proof that Philip K Dick had a group of absolutely wonderful people in his life.