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Christopher Isherwood: He is a Camera

Chris-to-pher Ish-er-wood chris-to-pher ish-er-wood christopher isherwood christopherisherwood christopherisherwood, cetera cetera, i am a camera, i am a camera. We chug along through the landscape. One path. One straight line from here to there. What your camera sees is just this is just this is just this: is bushes embankment forest and trees embankment a field with a horse a manure pile a shed a warehouse and trucks parked old pallets and dumpsters a flag and some tires a dirt heap blackberry brambles a station and bushes embankment a field full of seagulls.

(Original article: “Christopher Isherwood: He is a Camera,” Anne Taylor Fleming, L.A., 1972)

New Frontiers in Conception

Well like yeah
no I couldn’t really
so like yeah like
I don’t know
yeah
like i can never get past the yeah
yeah I was yeah
so I don’t
yeah
yeah if only yeah
but yeah
no listen yeah yeah seriously
yeah
no but I mean yeah
yeah
no

_________

(original article: Fleming. Anne. “New Frontiers in Conception.” New York Times Magazine. July 20. 1980)

I signed up on academia.edu with a vague notion that it would be a good thing to do. For, you know, publicity. But publicity not being my strong point, I only put up my name and workplace and maybe one article. More than a year later, I got a message with 99 articles that could possibly be by me. They are beautiful. They are all by Anne Fleming. But not me. Until now.

Special publicity and enforcement of California’s belt use law

Belts must be worn!

This is California.

There’s a reason they put those loops on waistbands.

For belts!

William S. Burroughs and Edgar Rice Burroughs

Hunter S. Thompson anda William S. Burroughs

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Sarah Jessica Parker

Greta Garbo and Betty Grable

William Lyon Mackenzie and William Lyon Mackenzie King

FDR and LBJ

Alice’s Restaurant and Go Ask Alice

Frankie Valley and Frankie Avalon

Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka

Neil Diamond and Neil Sedaka

In one of the stories in Gay Dwarves of America, “Thorn-blossoms,” the main character’s mother, a journalist, has Alzheimer’s. My grandmother had Alzheimer’s, and other relatives have had different kinds of dementia, and I drew on those memories, but I also did a little bit of research on Alzheimer’s. There is a remarkable photo of Auguste D., the patient whose case Alois Alzheimer wrote up (on page 2 of the link below). I found myself haunted by that photo and by her answers to Alzheimer’s questions. There is a great and terrible poetry in them.

Nov 26, 1901

She sits on the bed with a helpless expression. What is your

name? Auguste. Last name? Auguste. What is your husband’s

name? Auguste, I think. Your husband? Ah, my husband. She

looks as if she didn’t understand the question. Are you married?

To Auguste. Mrs D? Yes, yes, Auguste D. How long have you been

here? She seems to be trying to remember. Three weeks. What is

this? I show her a pencil. A pen. A purse and key, diary, cigar are

identified correctly. At lunch she eats cauliflower and pork.

Asked what she is eating she answers spinach.

http://alzheimer.neurology.ucla.edu/pubs/alzheimerLancet.pdf

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