The atrocity exhibition (17 page)

Imago Tapes.

In 1966, when I wrote this chapter, the surrealists had not yet achieved critical respectability, but the hidden logic of that decade made complete sense in terms of their work. Readers will have noticed that, by contrast, there are almost no references to literary works. The realist novel still dominant then had exhausted itself.

Lieutenant 70.

During the Apollo flights I half-hoped that one of the spacecraft would return with an extra crew-man on board, wholly accepted by the others, who would shield him from a prying world. Watching the astronauts being interviewed together, one almost senses that they constitute a secret fraternity, and may be guarding some vital insight into the nature of time and space which it would be pointless to reveal to the rest of us. Unless the space programme resumes, the secret may die with them.

Quasars.

Claude Eatherly was the pilot of the reconnaissance B-29 which flew ahead of the Enola Gay during the A-bomb attack on Hiroshima. Eatherly had an unhappy later career, plagued by mental trouble and petty crime, which he attributed to his feelings of guilt. My guess is that he recognized, unconsciously or not, the public’s need in the 1950s for someone who would incarnate their own sense of unease, and deflect their even greater fears of the H-bomb.

Speed-King.

Describing the Bonneville Salt Flats in
America
, Jean Baudrillard remarks that the extreme horizontality of the landscape, flatter than anywhere else on earth, demanded the high-speed record attempts as a means of neutralizing that horizontality.

The Him.

There is a British pop group called
God
. At a recent book signing the lead singer introduced himself and gave me a cassette. I have heard the voice of God.

Vega.

Our galaxy is moving in the direction of the constellation Vega. Given that time dilation occurs, not only when we travel through space, but when we think about space, the rendezvous may be sooner than we expect.

In his dream of Zapruder frame 235

Motion picture studies of four female subjects who have achieved worldwide celebrity (Brigitte Bardot, Jacqueline Kennedy, Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, Princess Margaret), reveal common patterns of posture, facial tonus, pupil and respiratory responses. Leg stance was taken as a significant indicator of sexual arousal. The intra-patellar distance (estimated) varied from a maximum 24.9 cm (Jacqueline Kennedy) to a minimum 2.2 cm (Madame Chiang). Infrared studies reveal conspicuous heat emission from the axillary fossae at rates which tallied with general psychomotor acceleration.

Tallis was increasingly preoccupied

Assassination fantasies in tabes dorsalis (general paralysis of the insane). The choice of victim in these fantasies was taken as the most significant yardstick. All considerations of motive and responsibility were eliminated from the questionnaire. The patients were deliberately restricted in their choice to female victims. Results (percentile of 272 patients): Jacqueline Kennedy 62 percent, Madame Chiang 14 percent, Jeanne Moreau 13 percent, Princess Margaret 11 percent. A montage photograph was constructed on the basis of these replies which showed an ‘optimum’ victim. (Left orbit and zygomatic arch of Mrs Kennedy, exposed nasal septum of Miss Moreau, etc.) This photograph was subsequently shown to disturbed children with positive results. Choice of assassination site varied from Dealey Plaza 49 percent to Isle du Levant 2 percent. The weapon of preference was the Mannlicher-Carcano. A motorcade was selected in the overwhelming majority of cases as the ideal target mode with the Lincoln Continental as the vehicle of preference. On the basis of these studies a model of the most effective assassination-complex was devised. The presence of Madame Chiang in Dealey Plaza was an unresolved element.

by the figure of the President’s wife.

Involuntary orgasms during the cleaning of automobiles. Studies reveal an increasing incidence of sexual climaxes among persons cleaning automobiles. In many cases the subject remained unaware of the discharge of semen across the polished paintwork and complained to his spouse about birds. One isolated case reported to a psychiatric after-care unit involved the first definitive sexual congress with a rear exhaust assembly. It is believed that the act was conscious. Consultations with manufacturers have led to modifications of rear trim and styling, in order to neutralize these erogenous zones, or if possible transfer them to more socially acceptable areas within the passenger compartment. The steering assembly has been selected as a suitable focus for sexual arousal.

The planes of her face, like the

The arousal potential of automobile styling has been widely examined for several decades by the automotive industry. However, in the study under consideration involving 152 subjects, all known to have experienced more than three involuntary orgasms with their automobiles, the car of preference was found to be (1) Buick Riviera, (2) Chrysler Imperial, (3) Chevrolet Impala. However, a small minority (2 subjects) expressed a significant preference for the Lincoln Continental, if possible in the adapted Presidential version (qv conspiracy theories). Both subjects had purchased cars of this make and experienced continuing erotic fantasies in connection with the trunk mouldings. Both preferred the automobile inclined on a downward ramp.

cars of the abandoned motorcade

Cine-films as group therapy. Patients were encouraged to form a film production unit, and were given full freedom as to choice of subject matter, cast and technique. In all cases explicitly pornographic films were made. Two films in particular were examined: (1) A montage sequence using portions of the faces of (a) Madame Ky, (b) Jeanne Moreau, (c) Jacqueline Kennedy (Johnson oath-taking). The use of a concealed stroboscopic device produced a major optical flutter in the audience, culminating in psychomotor disturbances and aggressive attacks directed against the still photographs of the subjects hung from the walls of the theatre. (2) A film of automobile accidents devised as a cinematic version of Nader’s
Unsafe at Any Speed
. By chance it was found that slow-motion sequences of this film had a marked sedative effect, reducing blood pressure, respiration and pulse rates. Hypnagogic images were produced freely by patients. The film was also found to have a marked erotic content.

mediated to him the complete silence

Mouth-parts. In the first study, portions were removed from photographs of three well-known figures: Madame Chiang, Elizabeth Taylor, Jacqueline Kennedy. Patients were asked to fill in the missing areas. Mouth-parts provided a particular focus for aggression, sexual fantasies and retributive fears. In a subsequent test the original portion containing the mouth was replaced and the remainder of the face removed. Again particular attention was focused on the mouth-parts. Images of the mouth-parts of Madame Chiang and Jacqueline Kennedy had a notable hypotensive role. An optimum mouth-image of Madame Chiang and Mrs Kennedy was constructed.

of the plaza, the geometry of a murder.

Sexual behaviour of witnesses in Dealey Plaza. Detailed studies were conducted of the 552 witnesses in Dealey Plaza on November 22nd (Warren Report). Data indicate a significant upswing in (a) frequency of sexual intercourse, (b) incidence of polyperverse behaviour. These results accord with earlier studies of the sexual behaviour of spectators at major automobile accidents (=minimum of one death). Correspondences between the two groups studied indicate that for the majority of the spectators the events in Dealey Plaza were unconsciously perceived as those of a massive multiple-sex auto-disaster, with consequent liberation of aggressive and polymorphously perverse drives. The role of Mrs Kennedy, and of her stained clothing, requires no further analysis.

‘But I won’t cry till it’s all over.’

Plan for the Assassination of Jacqueline Kennedy

The media landscape of the present day is a map in search of a territory. A huge volume of sensational and often toxic imagery inundates our minds, much of it fictional in content. How do we make sense of this ceaseless flow of advertising and publicity, news and entertainment, where presidential campaigns and moon voyages are presented in terms indistinguishable from the launch of a new candy bar or deodorant? What actually happens on the level of our unconscious minds when, within minutes on the same TV screen, a prime minister is assassinated, an actress makes love, an injured child is carried from a car crash? Faced with these charged events, prepackaged emotions already in place, we can only stitch together a set of emergency scenarios, just as our sleeping minds extemporize a narrative from the unrelated memories that veer through the cortical night. In the waking dream that now constitutes everyday reality, images of a blood-spattered widow, the chromium trim of a limousine windshield, the stylized glamour of a motorcade, fuse together to provide a secondary narrative with very different meanings.

‘Plan for the Assassination of Jacqueline Kennedy’ was written in 1967 and published in
Ambit
, the literary magazine edited by Dr Martin Bax. Somehow it came to the attention of Randolph Churchill (son of Winston), a former Member of Parliament and friend of the Kennedys. He denounced the piece, calling it an outrageous slur on the memory of the dead President, and demanded that the Arts Council withdraw its grant.

Soon after we were in trouble again, when
Ambit
launched a competition for the best fiction or poetry written under the influence of drugs. Lord Goodman, an intimate of Prime Minister Harold Wilson, raised the threat of prosecution. In fact, we were equally interested in the effects of legal drugs - tranquillizers, antihistamines, even baby aspirin. The competition, and the 40-pound prize which I offered, was won by the novelist Ann Quin - her drug was the oral contraceptive. She herself was a tragic figure, a beautiful but withdrawn woman who might have strayed from the pages of
The Atrocity Exhibition
. As her schizophrenia deepened she embarked on a series of impulsive journeys all over Europe, analogues perhaps of some mysterious movement within her mind. Eventually she walked into the sea off the south coast of England and drowned herself.

At night, these visions of helicopters and the D.M.Z.

Sexual stimulation by newsreel atrocity films. Studies were conducted to determine the effects of long-term exposure to TV newsreel films depicting the torture of Viet Cong: (a) male combatants, (b) women auxiliaries, (c) children, (d) wounded. In all cases a marked increase in the inten sity of sexual activity was reported, with particular emphasis on perverse oral and ano-genital modes. Maximum arousal was provided by combined torture and execution sequences. Montage newsreels were constructed in which leading public figures associated with the Vietnam war, e.g. President Johnson, General Westmoreland, Marshal Ky, were substituted for both combatants and victims. On the basis of viewers’ preferences an optimum torture and execution sequence was devised involving Governor Reagan, Madame Ky and an unidentifiable eight-year-old Vietnamese girl napalm victim. Paedophiliac fantasies of a strongly sadistic character, i.e. involving repeated genital penetration of perineal wounds, were particularly stimulated by the child victim. Prolonged exposure to the film was found to have notable effects on all psychomotor activity. The film was subsequently shown to both disturbed children and terminal cancer patients with useful results.

fused in Traven’s mind with the spectre

Combat films and the clinically insane. Endless-loop newsreels of Vietnam combat were shown to (a) an audience research panel, (b) psychotic patients (tertiary syphilis). In both cases combat films, as opposed to torture and execution sequences, were found to have a marked hypotensive role, regulating blood pressure, pulse and respiratory rates to acceptable levels. These results accord with the low elements of drama and interest in routine combat newsreels. However, by intercutting this psycho-physiological Muzak with atrocity films it was found that an optimum environment was created in which work-tasks, social relationships and overall motivation reached sustained levels of excellence. Given present socio-economic conditions, the advisability of maintaining the Vietnam war seems self-evident. Substitute military or civil conflicts, e.g. the imminent black -white race war, have proved disappointing in preliminary surveys, and the overall preference is thus for wars of the Vietnam type.

of his daughter’s body. The lantern of her face

Vietnam and sexual polymorphism of individualized relationships of a physical character. The need for more polymorphic roles has been demonstrated by television and news media. Sexual intercourse can no longer be regarded as a personal and isolated activity, but is seen to be a vector in a public complex involving automobile styling, politics and mass communications. The Vietnam war has offered a focus for a wide range of polymorphic sexual impulses, and also a means by which the United States has re-established a positive psychosexual relationship with the external world.

hung among the corridors of sleep.

Tests were carried out to assess the sexual desirability of various national and ethnic groups. Montage photographs were constructed in which various features, e.g. face of Madame Chiang, pudenda of Viet Cong women prisoners, were selected to create the optimum sexual object. In all cases a marked preference was shown for a Vietnamese partner. Disguised elements depicting the faces of wounded children suffering severe facial pain were repeatedly chosen by panels of students, suburban housewives and psychotic patients. Further studies are in progress to construct an optimum sexual module involving mass merchandizing, atrocity newsreels and political figures. The key role of the Vietnam war is positively indicated throughout.