ANTHONY DAVIS
Cambridge, UK
I hadn’t yet provided myself with a bottle wherewith to furnish the flat I was going to, so when I got into the lift I pushed STREET. The maintenance man and I were the only passengers and I avoided eye contact as we shook and rattled slowly down - I didn’t want to hear any long stories, not even my own. Several times he seemed about to speak but didn’t. When we got out at street level he followed me at a distance for a while, then I lost sight of him. With one hand on the stunner in my pocket I went cautiously... oh no, hang on, this is the quote, isn't it? Sorry mate, I thought this was your account of your 4qation! As you were - Ed.
This, on both sides of 13 sheets of genuine gold A4 from Rymans, is what met the light of dawn on my account, 4th February 2008:
|
Strange is as strange does I hadn’t yet provided myself with a bottle wherewith to furnish the flat I was going to, so when I got into the lift I pushed STREET. The maintenance man and I were the only passengers and I avoided eye contact as we shook and rattled slowly down - I didn’t want to hear any long stories, not even my own. Several times he seemed about to speak but didn’t. When we got out at street level he followed me at a distance for a while, then I lost sight of him. With one hand on the stunner in my pocket I went cautiously through streets glittering with broken glass, islanded with excrement, and odorous with nitrates. There were few people about and those few were all accompanied by large xenophagous-looking dogs, often in pairs. Eventually I saw a man with an introspective-looking Irish wolfhound. When I approached to ask where I could find an off-licence the dog licked my hand and its master offered me his wallet. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘take it - I haven’t got a watch or jewelry or anything like that.’ ‘I don’t want your money,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for an off-licence.’ ‘Down there,’ he said pointing while the dog sniffed my crotch. As I thanked him and walked away he said to the dog, ‘You don’t have to lick everybody’s goddam hand.’ After a while I found a Corporation off-licence and bought a bottle with a label that said WHISKY and nothing else. Being simply a MAN who was going to DRINK in a ROOM I liked that. I went to the thirty-third floor of the crumbling tower block [...]. As I unlocked my door I felt that little rush of despair that always hits me when I walk into a downtime and breathe in the pong of emptiness and the last occupant. It was a classically existential short-stay dwelling - even the dim grey dusk in it seemed to have been used by too many people. Without turning on the lights or looking at anything in the room I switched on the air cleaner, set it to HIGH, went to the viewbubble, sat down, and looked out into the rain and the twilight. I wanted to be very careful with the twilight, I wanted to be deep and silvery in it, wanted to hover quietly in the pinky-purple and the dove-grey of it, wanted to drink the Chopin of it and the yearning. The holes of bright emptiness grew small and twinkled in my vision like distant stars; if I held my head right I could lose them in the lights of Oldtown West 81 below me, its glimmers and its colours that flickered in the rainy dusk. from
Fremder |
I can report the distribution of the remaining dozen 4qations as follows (sadly, lack of time, energy and people to ask prevented them all being made on the appointed day, but I'm really not one to bother about rules, and, in any case, it had been my decision, based on a favouritism that stems from my birth-date, to try to 4qate 13 times):
1. Left in the telephone-box in my village where my other bout of 4qating began. However, unlike then and as was known to me from a visit to the scene of the wreckage (at which I was given to understand that it had been brought about at 4.00 a.m. - no, not 3.00 a.m. - on the Sunday before Russ Day), it no longer stood on its base, its top was separate and broken, and it lay near a partly demolished wall. I left the A4 sheet inside, floating it in from where the top used to be, in the hope that someone might see it.
(I have now learnt, courtesy of one of the local free rags, that the story behind what I saw was the theft of the BT cash-box, carried out using a chain and what was thought to be the power of a pick-up truck - whatever vehicle it was pulled the phone-box off its foundations. Since the phone-box was listed, readers will be glad to know that it appears that it will be replaced 'with one of a similar age and style'.)
2. With Blu-Tack®, displayed at the centre point of a large bookcase at the Leisure Centre at Fulbourn Hospital (see item 8, below).
3. Similarly, on the back of the door of the toilet near the patients' bank and pharmacy. (At one point, I turned it over and stuck it up again with the acknowledgement showing, but someone then put it back...)
4. To the attendant at my local Total® petrol-station who sold me some peppermints.
5. To my friend Robert on meeting him for a drink at The Exhibition in Godmanchester (which is named after The Great Exhibition).
6 and 7. To bar staff on the same occasion (the last of the items distributed on 4 February).
8. To my colleague Paul (on Wednesday 6 February), who then told me - as no one else has - that he had read item 2, above.
9. On the same day and with a drawing-pin, attached to a notice-board near the chaplaincy office (also at Fulbourn).
10. Later, to my bemused neighbour Adam on his doorstep.
11 to 13. Put into the post on Saturday 9 February (without identification, beyond the handwritten address, or explanation) to my friends Nigel and Linda, Jo and Ed, and Piers (in the case of whose 4qation, it was first read by my friend Penny and her brother Rob).
QED,
Anthony
~ ~ ~ ~
Anthony's 2007 4qation
Here, thanks to the processing power of
the mighty Samuel IV, is what was printed on ten sheets of yellow A4 (card)
in the early hours of Russ Day:
Orff we go!
|
`My name is Hermann Orff and you've never heard
of me.'
From The Medusa Frequency, Russell Hoban, Jonathan Cape, London (1987), pp. 87-88. |
No doubt I've broken all the rules, but even the early-morning experience with
the local phone-box (which no one uses, I guess - I checked, and the card was
still there, at any rate, when I drove back from the station yesterday) made
me start to feel that all this leaving 4qations amongst the groceries just
didn't gel with me.
Accordingly, I was glad that, when having an ice-cream with my
ex-sister-in-law en route and showing her the Longrow bottle, a chap at the
next table was interested, and got involved in my explanation to her of my
impending visit to a certain (as of 3.00 a.m. on Sunday, I gather) 82-year-old
of our acquaintance. So what could be more natural than to pass him one of my
9 cards with the Medusa text - I gather that others have disseminated multiple
texts, but heigh-ho! - for him to read.
What, equally, could be more natural than for him to hand it to his lady
partner when she returned, from the loo (I think), and for her to read it, and
be told about the novelist and his gift of whisky - quite reasonably, she read
it, folded it in two, and put it in her bag...
So the scene was inevitably set for the following 8 distributions (of which,
needless to say, there are no photographs - I'm not *that* strange):
1. After a refusal by my neighbour on the Piccadilly Line, to a woman next to
me on the District Line who was reading a book (she asked if I had written the
piece - I said that I hadn't and briefly explained).
2 & 3. To the two female staff on duty at Auntie Anne's cookie outlet at
Fulham Broadway - they wanted one each.
4. To the vendress of nuts and the like under the name of Cranberry who sold
me 50g of cashews.
5. To the saleswoman at Virgin® (where I bought The Rutles for Russ -
he didn't know of it, so I described it as a piss-take of The Beatles).
6 & 7. To the two female bar staff, post distribution, to whom I was
attempting to explain that others clutching Hoban books and/or A4 of a certain
hue might be looking for me.
8. Finally, to the attractive woman with a shawl who was keeping her friend
company on her birthday (yes, 4 February) at a table nearby, who, unlike her
friend (who said that she was too drunk to read it), read the piece and
thought that what she described as Russ' 'punctuation' was odd. (Questioning
revealed that she had (a) not understood the shocked incoherence of Orff in
context when he reports saying "`Luise,' I said, `has mentioned.'", and (b)
that she meant the slashes when Kraken says 'there / not there / there / not
there'...)
Unorthodox, maybe, but for me it was a far more human experience than skulking
amongst the fruit and veg - and I could never do it any other way, whatever
the rules. Sorry to shock you all, but no!
Anthony was the Kraken's 2007 'Birthday Bottle' czar, or the member who volunteered to co-ordinate the purchase and delivery of the group's birthday gift to Russell Hoban. This is his account of said delivery:
I can't guarantee that Russ will have
broached the capsule of what he and I referred to when I handed it over as
'the gurgling stuff' by now and tried it, but he did say that he would look at
the tasting notes first - I provided a copy for him in the presentation-box,
on
yellow A4 [card], of my posting to this group.
I can tell everyone that he also received (in no particular order):
1. The bluebird card as chosen, which contained the £20 Amazon voucher (as
well as an allusion to pp. 71-73 of Gene Brewer's novel K-PAX, where
'the bluebird of happiness' makes its appearance). (Wording of card and
voucher [of which there may be one, if the old film-stock permits] to
follow...)
2. The Rutles on DVD from me, as I had seen it in Fulham Broadway's
Virgin® - whilst I was biding my time - at a knock-down price (along with
Dirty Harry, which, likewise on impulse, I kept for myself).
3. The attendance of a gentleman with a laptop who was doing a MORI poll when
I arrived, but who obligingly allowed Russ to sign Her Name Was Lola
and The Bat Tattoo for me, as well as adding the injunction 'BE
STRANGE!' to my already signed copy of Fremder (on the basis that I
sought words suitable to its impending re-reading). Let it be said that I have
been VERY STRANGE to-day, mostly before I was encouraged to do so, which
turned Russ' words into a sort of blessing or benediction on what happened, as
well as a sanction for future strangenesses...
4. Sundry phone calls from family members who were busily rehearsing their
renditions of the usual birthday song for when he should be free to hear them.
5. A copy (inscribed for him by me) of Italy, My Italy (or Italy!
Italy! Italy!), that well-known compendium compiled by Thomas M. Phear PhD
(with the assistance of Dr Pauline Sentence) - Belston Night Works, 1997 (0
907795 91 9).
I think that the list is properly concluded, save to say that Russ took all
that was offered in good spirits and stead, and wished his best to The Kraken
one and all, leaving me to go on my merry way to The Pelican for (what turned
out to be) a less-than-Hobanesque, yet still SA4QE-oriented, few drinks, soup
and Caesar® salad...
It was, though, a shame only to have the company of Nicole's apologies and
Steve's bid at bi-location - unless there were other Hobanites there whom I
failed to detect (but I don't really think so). Heigh-ho for the SA4QE drink!
(Needless to say, I downed a Laphroaig® for the benefit of and in honour of
the absent (and refused to-day's ever-present offer of the abomination of
ice).)
Anthony