Les lunettes (conte libertin)

"J’avais juré de laisser là les nonnes :
Car que toujours on voie en mes écrits
Même sujet, et semblables personnes,
Cela pourrait fatiguer les esprits.
Ma muse met guimpe sur le tapis:
Et puis quoi ? guimpe; et puis guimpe sans cesse;
Bref toujours guimpe, et guimpe sous la presse.
C'est un peu trop. Je veux que les nonnains
Fassent les tours en amour les plus fins;
Si ne faut-il pour cela qu'on épuise
Tout le sujet; le moyen ? c'est un fait
Par trop fréquent, je n'aurais jamais fait:
II n’est greffier dont la plume y suffise.
Si j y tâchais on pourrait soupçonner
Que quelque cas m’y ferait retourner;
Tant sur ce point mes vers font de rechutes;
Toujours souvient à Robin de ses flûtes.
Or apportons à cela quelque fin.
Je le pretends, cette tâche ici faite.
Jadis s'était introduit un blondin
Chez des nonnains à titre de fillette.
II n'avait pas quinze ans que tout ne fût :
Dont le galant passa pour soeur Colette
Auparavant que la barbe lui crût.
Cet entre-temps ne fut sans fruit; le sire
L’employa bien: Agnès en profita.
Las quel profit ! j eusse mieux fait de dire
Qu'à soeur Agnès malheur en arriva
Il lui fallut élargir sa ceinture
Puis mettre au jour petite créature
Qui ressemblait comme deux gouttes d'eau,
Ce dit l’histoire, à la soeur jouvenceau.
Voilà scandale et bruit dans l'abbaye.
D'où cet enfant est-il plu ? comme a-t-on
Disaient les sœurs en riant, je vous prie
Trouve céans ce petit champignon ?
Si ne s'est-il après tout fait lui-même.
La prieure est en un courroux extrême.
Avoir ainsi souillé cette maison !
Bientôt on mit l'accouchée en prison.
Puis il fallut faire enquête du père.
Comment est-il entré ? comment sorti ?
Les murs sont hauts, antique la tourière,
Double la grille, et le tour très petit.
Serait-ce point quelque garçon en fille ?
Dit la prieure, et parmi nos brebis
N'aurions-nous point sous de trompeurs habits
Un jeune loup ? sus qu'on se déshabille:
Je veux savoir la vérité du cas.
Qui fut bien pris, ce fut la feinte ouaille.
Plus son esprit à songer se travaille,
Moins il espère échapper d'un tel pas.
Nécessite mère de stratagème
Lui fit. . . eh bien ? lui fit en ce moment
Lier. ..: eh quoi ? foin, je suis court moi-même:
Ou prendre un mot qui dise honnêtement
Ce que lia le père de l'enfant ?
Comment trouver un détour suffisant
Pour cet endroit ? vous avez ouï dire
Qu'au temps jadis le genre humain avait
Fenêtre au corps; de sorte qu'on pouvait
Dans le dedans tout à son aise lire;
Chose commode aux médecins d'alors.
Mais si d'avoir une fenêtre au corps
Etait utile, une au cœur au contraire
Ne l'était pas; dans les femmes surtout:
Car le moyen qu'on pût venir à bout
De rien cacher ? notre commune mère
Dame Nature y pourvut sagement
Par deux lacets de pareille mesure.
L'homme et la femme eurent également
De quoi fermer une telle ouverture.
La femme fut lacée un peu trop dru.
Ce fut sa faute, elle-même en fut cause;
N'étant jamais à son gré trop bien close.
L'homme au rebours; et le bout du tissu
Rendit en lui la Nature perplexe.
Bref le lacet à l'un et l'autre sexe
Ne put cadrer, et se trouva, dit-on,
Aux femmes court, aux hommes un peu long.
Il est facile à présent qu'on devine
Ce que lia notre jeune imprudent;
C'est ce surplus, ce reste de machine,
Bout de lacet aux hommes excédant.
D'un brin de fil il l'attacha de sorte
Que tout semblait aussi plat qu'aux nonnains:
Mais fil ou soie, il n’est bride assez forte
Pour contenir ce que bientôt je crains
Qui ne s’échappe; amenez-moi des saints;
Amenez-moi si vous voulez des anges;
Je les tiendrai créatures étranges,
Si vingt nonnains telles qu'on les vit lors
Ne font trouver à leur esprit un corps.
J'entends nonnains ayant tous les trésors
De ces trois sœurs dont la fille de l’onde
Se fait servir; chiches et fiers appas,
Que le soleil ne voit qu'au nouveau monde ,
Car celui-ci ne les lui montre pas.
La prieure a sur son nez des lunettes,
Pour ne juger du cas légèrement.
Tout à l'entour sont debout vingt nonnettes,
En un habit que vraisemblablement
N'avaient pas fait les tailleurs du couvent.
Figurez-vous la question qu'au sire
On donna lors; besoin n'est de le dire.
Touffes de lis, proportion du corps,
Secrets appas, embonpoint, et peau fine,
Fermes tétons, et semblables ressorts
Eurent bientôt fait jouer la machine.
Elle échappa, rompit le fil d'un coup,
Comme un coursier qui romprait son licou,
Et sauta droit au nez de la prieure,
Faisant voler lunettes tout à l’heure
Jusqu'au plancher. II s'en fallut bien peu
Que l'on ne vît tomber la lunetière.

Elle ne prit cet accident en jeu.
L'on tint chapitre, et sur cette matière
Fut raisonné longtemps dans le logis.
Le jeune loup fut aux vieilles brebis
Livre d'abord. Elles vous l’empoignèrent
A certain arbre en leur cour l’attachèrent
Ayant le nez devers l'arbre tourne,
Le dos à l'air avec toute la suite:
Et cependant que la troupe maudite
Songe comment il sera guerdonné,
Que l'une va prendre dans les cuisines
Tous les balais, et que l'autre s'en court
A l'arsenal ou sont les disciplines,
Qu'une troisième enferme à double tour
Les soeurs qui sont jeunes et pitoyables,
Bref que le sort ami du marjolet
Ecarte ainsi toutes les détestables,
Vient un meunier monté sur son mulet
Garçon carré, garçon couru des filles,
Bon compagnon, et beau joueur de quille
Oh oh dit-il, qu'est-ce là que je voi ?
Le plaisant saint ! jeune homme, je te prie,
Qui t'a mis là ? sont-ce ces soeurs, dis-moi.
Avec quelqu'une as-tu fait la folie ?
Te plaisait-elle ? était-elle jolie ?
Car à te voir tu me portes ma foi
(Plus je regarde et mire ta personne)
Tout le minois d'un vrai croqueur de nonne.
L'autre répond: Hélas, c’est le rebours:
Ces nonnes m’ont en vain prié d'amours.
Voilà mon mal; Dieu me doint patience;
Car de commettre une si grande offense,
J'en fais scrupule, et fut-ce pour le Roi;
Me donnât-on aussi gros d'or que moi.
Le meunier rit; et sans autre mystère
Vous le délie, et lui dit: Idiot,
Scrupule toi , qui n'es qu'un pauvre hère !
C'est bien à nous qu'il appartient d'en faire !
Notre curé ne serait pas si sot.
Vite, fuis-t'en, m'ayant mis en ta place:
Car aussi bien tu n'es pas, comme moi,
Franc du collier, et bon pour cet emploi: -
Je n’y veux point de quartier ni de grâce:
Viennent ces soeurs; toutes je te répond,
Verront beau jeu si la corde ne rompt.
L'autre deux fois ne se le fait redire.
Il vous l'attache, et puis lui dit adieu.
Large d’épaule on aurait vu le sire
Attendre nu les nonnains en ce lieu.
L'escadron vient, porte en guise de cierges
Gaules et fouets: procession de verges,
Qui fit la ronde à l'entour du meunier,
Sans lui donner le temps de se montrer,
Sans l'avertir. Tout beau, dit-il, Mesdames:
Vous vous trompez; considérez-moi bien:
Je ne suis pas cet ennemi des femmes,
Ce scrupuleux qui ne vaut rien à rien.
Employez-moi, vous verrez des merveilles.
Si je dis faux, coupez-moi les oreilles.
D'un certain jeu je viendrai bien à bout;
Mais quant au fouet je n’y vaux rien du tout.
Qu’entend ce rustre, et que nous veut-il ire.
S’écria lors une de nos sans-dents.
Quoi tu n'es pas notre faiseur d'enfants ?
Tant pis pour toi, tu payras pour le sire.
Nous n'avons pas telles armes en main,
Pour demeurer en un si beau chemin.
Tiens tiens, voilà l’ébat que l'on désire.
A ce discours fouets de rentrer en jeu,
Verges d'aller, et non pas pour un peu;
Meunier de dire en langue intelligible,
Crainte de n’être assez bien entendu:
Mesdames je... ferai tout mon possible
Pour m'acquitter de ce qui vous est dû.
Plus il leur tient des discours de la sorte,
Plus la fureur de l'antique cohorte
Se fait sentir. Longtemps il s'en souvint.
Pendant qu'on donne au maître l'anguillade,
Le mulet fait sur l'herbette gambade.
Ce qu'à la fin l'un et l'autre devint,
Je ne le sais, ni ne m'en mets en peine.
Suffit d'avoir sauvé le jouvenceau.
Pendant un temps les lecteurs pour douzaine
De ces nonnains au corps gent et si beau
N'auraient voulu, je gage, être en sa peau.

Jean de La Fontaine, Nouveaux Contes (1674)

"Du jeune garçon qui se nomma Thoinette, pour être reçu à une religion de nonnains : et comment elle fit sauter les lunettes de l’abbesse qui la visitait toute nue".

Il y avait un jeune garçon de l’âge de dix-sept à dix-huit ans, lequel étant à un jour de fête entré en un couvent de religieuses en vit quatre ou cinq qui lui semblèrent fort belles ; et dont n’y avait celle pour laquelle il n’eut trop volontiers rompu son jeune ; et les mit si bien en sa fantaisie, qu’il y pensait à toutes heures.

Un jour comme il en parlait à quelque bon compagnon de sa connaissance, ce compagnon lui dit : « Sais-tu que tu feras ? Tu es beau garçon, habille-toi en fille, et te va rendre à l’abbesse ; elle te recevra aisément ; tu n’es point connu en ce pays-ci. » Car il était garçon de métier, et allait et venait par pays.

Il crut assez facilement ce conseil, se pensant qu’en cela n’avait aucun danger qu’il n’évitât bien quand il voudrait. Il s’habille en fille assez pauvrement, et s’avisa de se nommer Thoinette.

Donc de par Dieu s’en va au couvent de ces religieuses, où elle trouva façon de se faire voire à l’abbesse qui était fort vieille, et de bonne aventure n’avait point de chambrière. Thoinette parle à l’abbesse, et lui compta assez bien son cas, disant qu’elle était une pauvre orpheline d’un village de là auprès, qu’elle lui nomma. Et en effet parla si humblement que l’abbesse la trouva à son gré, et par manière d’aumône la voulut retirer, lui disant que pour quelques jours elle était contente de la prendre, et que si elle voulait être bonne fille, qu’elle demeurerait là dedans.

Thoinette fit bien la sage, et suivit la bonne femme d’abbesse, à laquelle elle sut fort bien complaire, et quant et quant se faire aimer à toutes les religieuses. Et même en moins de rien elle apprit à œuvrer de l’aiguille. Car peut-être qu’elle en avait déjà quelque chose, dont l’abbesse fut si contente qu’elle la voulut incontinent faire nonne de là dedans.

Quand elle eut l’habit, ce bien ce qu’elle demandait, et commença à s’approcher fort près de celles qu’elle voyait les plus belles, et de privauté en privauté elle fut mise à coucher avec l’une. Elle n’attendit pas la deuxième nuit que par honnêtes et aimables jeux elle fait connaître à sa compagne qu’elle avait le ventre cornu, lui faisant entendre que c’était par miracle ; et vouloir de Dieu. Pour abréger, elle mit sa cheville au pertuis de sa compagne, et s’en trouvèrent bien, et l’une et l’autre ; laquelle chose en la bonne heure il, dis-je elle, continua assez longuement, et non seulement avec celle-là, mais encore avec trois ou quatre des autres desquelles elle s’accointa.

Et quand une chose est venue à la connaissance de trois ou de quatre personnes, il est aisé que la cinquième le sache, et puis la sixième ; de mode qu’entre ces nonnes, y en ayant quelques-unes de belles et les autres laides auxquelles Thoinette ne faisait pas si grande familiarité qu’aux autres, avec maintes autres conjectures il leur fut facile de penser je ne sais pas quoi.

Et y mirent un tel guet, qu’elles les connurent assez certainement, et commencèrent à en murmurer si avant, que l’abbesse en fut avertie, non pas qu’on lui dît que nommément ce fût sœur Thoinette, car elle l’avait mise là-dedans, et puis elle l’aimait fort, et ne l’eût pas bonnement cru. Mais on lui disait par paroles couvertes qu’elle ne se fiât pas en l’habit, et que toutes celles de léans n’étaient pas si bonnes qu’elle pensait bien, et qu’il y en avait quelqu’une d’entre elles qui faisait deshonneur à la religion, et qui gâtait les religieuses. Mais quand elle demandait qui c’était, elles répondaient que si elle les voulait faire dépouiller, elle le connaîtrait.

L’abbesse ébahie de cette nouvelle en voulut savoir la vérité au premier jour, et pour ce faire, fit venir toutes les religieuses en chapitre. Sœur Thoinette étant avertie par ses mieux aimées de l’intention de l’abbesse, qui était de les visiter toutes nues, attache sa cheville par le bout avec un filet qu’elle tira par derrière, et accoutre si bien son petit cas, qu’elle semblait avoir le ventre fendu comme les autres, à qui n’y eût regardé de bien près, se pensant que l’abbesse qui ne voyait pas la longueur de son nez ne le saurait jamais connaître.

Les nonnes comparurent toutes. L’abbesse leur fit sa remontrance, et leur dit pourquoi elle les avait assemblées, et leur commanda qu’elles eussent à se dépouiller toutes nues. Elle prend ses lunettes pour faire sa revue, et en les visitant les unes après les autres, il vint au reng de sœur Thoinette, laquelle voyant ces nonnes toutes nues, fraîches, blanches, refaites, rebondies, elle ne put être maîtresse de cette cheville qu’il ne se fît mauvais jeu . Car sur le point que l’abbesse avait les yeux le plus près, la corde vint rompre, et en débandant tout à un coup la cheville vint repousser contre les lunettes de l’abbesse, et les fit sauter à deux grands pas loin. Dont la pauvre abbesse fut si surprise, qu’elle s’écria : « Jesus Maria, ah, sans faute, dit-elle, et est-ce vous ? Mais qui l’eût jamais cuidé être ainsi, que vous m’avez abusée? »

Toutefois qu’y eût elle-fait ? sinon qu’il fallut y remédier par patience, car elle n’eut pas voulu scandaliser la religion. Sœur Thoinette eut congé de s’en aller, avec promesse de sauver l’honneur des filles religieuses.

Bonaventure des Périers, Les Nouvelles récréations et joyeux devis. Lyon, 1561.

No Country for the Castrated

 

 

ARREST CONTRE LES CHASTREZ

Avec deffence à eux de contracter Mariage, comme estans trompeurs & affronteurs de filles & de femmes. Accusez selon l’Escriture & les Loix du droict Civil du crime de Stellionnat. Croissez, multipliez, & remplissez la terre. Genes. 16.

A Paris, Iouxte la coppie imprimée à Bourdeaux pour Anthoine Barre, Avec permission. M. DC. XIX..

ARREST CONTRE LES Chastrez, accusez du crime de Stellionnat, qui selon les Sacremens de mariage trompent & abusent les femmes & les filles.

Le Mariage entre les gens de bien au premier degré, c’est la procreation des enfans, Croissez, & multipliez, & remplissez la terre : dit l’Escriture, Genes. 10. Les anciens Patriarches se marioient que pour cela : & lit on que l’Empereur de Constantinople Isaac, comme ne pouvant oncques estre persuadé de connoistre sa femme, après qu’il en eut un fils, combien que les Medecins le luy eussent ordonné pour sa santé, celle des gens de bien au second degré est pour se garantir de peché, Car il vaut mieux se marier que brusler, dit S. Paul I. aux Corinth. 7. & celle du commun, la seule intention d’en avoir au plaisir, & de joüir de la chose aimee. Les deux dernieres causes consiste (sic) en cete joüissance, & ne peut l’on parvenir à la premiere sans ceste-cy, bien que souventefois elle soit sans fruict, & qu’il ayt des mariages parfaits entre des personnes sterilles.

Ce n’est pas une cause legitime de rompre un mariage de ne pouvoir engendrer & concevoir des enfans n’estant la seule cause finale d’iceluy, il y en a d’autres plus prochains & qu’on presume plutost, que celle là, il suffit que l’homme & la femme ayent leurs outils naturels exterieurs preparez pour cet effet, le reste despend de la grace de Dieu, & non pas de l’homme : que si l’on ne peut parvenir à la jouissance par l’inhabilité ou la disproportion desmesuree des membres genitaux, ou si l’homme n’en a point du tout, il n’y peut point avoir de mariage, il sembleroit toutesfois que le contraire fust vray pour ceux qui n’ont seulement perdu que les genitoires, par les presuppositions que j’ay faicte, les Eunuques & Chastrez ausquels l’on à laissé les membres, pouvant joüir des femmes comme l’on dit. Cela n’est pas pourtant ainsi : car combien que telles manieres d’hommes, puissent jouyr des femmes, ils ne leurs peuvent pas rendre la pareille, ce sont des mocqueurs & affronteurs, qui ont commis le crime, de stellionnat, pour avoir supposé de fauces marchandises pour veritable, & avoir commis imposture in necé alterius, dit la 1. Stellionatus accusatio au D. de crimi stelliona.

Ceste fille villageoise, qui fut il n’y a pas longtemps condamnée d’avoir le foüet pour s’estre deguisée en homme, & avoir espousé la fille de son maistre, de laquelle elle estoit devenuë amoureuse, ne meritoit pas mieux ceste peine que ces imposteurs, il y en a qui ont tous leurs membres entiers sans pouvoir executer l’œuvre de nature, à cause de certaines indispositions naturelles qu’ils ont.

Auquel propos l’on dit, qu’il y eut jadis un Duc de Moscovie qui avoit les Femmes en telle horreur, qu’en les voyant il entroit en un mal de cœur, ces personnes ne peuvent pas se marier par le chap. dernier de frigid. & maleficiat.

Tous ces accidens empeschent les causes finales du mariage : & toutesfois s’ils surviennent apres qu’il est contracté, ils " ne le rompent pas, quoy que dit nostre glosse, le consentement de deux parties en est la cause efficiente, je l’advoüe : Mais que le mariage fait par force & sans le consentement de l’homme & de la femme subsiste, je le nie, si le consentement subsequent ne le confirme.

C’est pourquoy Cedrenus escrit, que Eusebia femme de l’Empereur Constancius froid & impuissant, estant encore en la fleur de son aage, & consommée de l’ardeur de sa jeunesse, tomba és cruelles douleurs & tourmens de sa Matramonie & mourut peu à peu tout ethiqué, faute d’avoir senty l’aggreable douceur de la conjonction du mariage.

L’Empereur Pulcheria femme de l’Empereur Marcian, qui pour estre mariée ne perdit point sa virginité, fut non pas sa femme en verité, mais de nom tant seuelement : disoit davantage que si c’est une servitude tres miserable d’avoir un vieil mary, que l’on doit encore estimer d’avantage, que c’est le comble de tout mal-heur un homme chastré, froid, languissant, glacé jusque à la moelle, & qui ne peut rien faire de ce qu’il a promis à sa femme.

Bref dis-je les femmes que toutes les loix des Princes, & de l’Eglise ostent le nom de mari à celuy qui est maigre & sterille de puissance ne pouvant engendrer son semblable, & non seulement le contractement de mariage leur est deffendu, mais aussi par la loy de solon, on avoit action contre ces imposteurs & chastrés, lesquels apres leurs vies Pitagoras disoit estre tourmentez aux Enfers des plus cruels tourments du Monde, & par ces moyens, concluent lesdictes femmes, que tous ceux qui ne peuvent accomplir les devoirs de mariage, & qui ont tellement les femmes en horreur, qu’il n’y a rien de si agreable qu’une couche libre & solitaire, & qui ne craignent point tant la rencontre des hommes que des femmes ne sont point hommes, & ne furent jamais maris, & par consequent ne doivent estre receus en contract de mariage, partant si aucune y en a mariée avec telles personnes, en doivent estre separez par justice.

When William Burroughs met Ziggy Stardust (or what was left of him)

In Memoriam David Robert Jones (1947-2016)
William Seward Burroughs (1914-1997)
and Ziggy Stardust (1972-five years to go before the end of the earth)

Bowie: Nova Express really reminded me of Ziggy Stardust, which I am going to be putting into a theatrical performance. Forty scenes are in it and it would be nice if the characters and actors learned the scenes and we all shuffled them around in a hat the afternoon of the performance and just performed it as the scenes come out. I got this all from you Bill... so it would change every night.

Burroughs: That's a very good idea, visual cut-up in a different sequence.

Bowie: I get bored very quickly and that would give it some new energy. I'm rather kind of old school, thinking that when an artist does his work it's no longer his.... I just see what people make of it. That is why the TV production of Ziggy will have to exceed people's expectations of what they thought Ziggy was.

Burroughs: Could you explain this Ziggy Stardust image of yours? From what I can see it has to do with the world being on the eve of destruction within five years.

Bowie: The time is five years to go before the end of the earth. It has been announced that the world will end because of lack of natural resources. Ziggy is in a position where all the kids have access to things that they thought they wanted. The older people have lost all touch with reality and the kids are left on their own to plunder anything. Ziggy was in a rock-and-roll band and the kids no longer want rock-and-roll. There's no electricity to play it. Ziggy's adviser tells him to collect news and sing it, 'cause there is no news. So Ziggy does this and there is terrible news. 'All the young dudes' is a song about this news. It is no hymn to the youth as people thought. It is completely the opposite.

Burroughs: Where did this Ziggy idea come from, and this five-year idea? Of course, exhaustion of natural resources will not develop the end of the world. It will result in the collapse of civilization. And it will cut down the population by about three-quarters.

Bowie: Exactly. This does not cause the end of the world for Ziggy. The end comes when the infinites arrive. They really are a black hole, but I've made them people because it would be very hard to explain a black hole on stage.

Burroughs: Yes, a black hole on stage would be an incredible expense. And it would be a continuing performance, first eating up Shaftesbury Avenue.

Bowie: Ziggy is advised in a dream by the infinites to write the coming of a starman, so he writes 'Starman', which is the first news of hope that the people have heard. So they latch on to it immediately. The starmen that he is talking about are called the infinites, and they are black-hole jumpers. Ziggy has been talking about this amazing spaceman who will be coming down to save the earth. They arrive somewhere in Greenwich Village. They don't have a care in the world and are of no possible use to us. They just happened to stumble into our universe by black-hole jumping. Their whole life is travelling from universe to universe. In the stage show, one of them resembles Brando, another one is a Black New Yorker. I even have one called Queenie the Infinite Fox.

Now Ziggy starts to believe in all this himself and thinks himself a prophet of the future starman. He takes himself up to incredible spiritual heights and is kept alive by his disciples. When the infinites arrive, they take bits of Ziggy to make themselves real because in their original state they are anti-matter and cannot exist in our world. And they tear him to pieces on stage during the song 'Rock 'n' roll suicide'. As soon as Ziggy dies on stage the infinites take his elements and make themselves visible. It is a science fiction fantasy of today and this is what literally blew my head off when I read Nova Express, which was written in 1961. Maybe we are the Rodgers and Hammerstein of the seventies, Bill!

Burroughs: Yes, I can believe that. The parallels are definitely there, and it sounds good.

Bowie: I must have the total image of a stage show. It has to be total with me. I'm just not content writing songs, I want to make it three-dimensional. Songwriting as an art is a bit archaic now. Just writing a song is not good enough.

Burroughs: It's the whole performance. It's not like somebody sitting down at the piano and just playing a piece.

Bowie: A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle. The rock stars have assimilated all kinds of philosophies, styles, histories, writings, and they throw out what they have gleaned from that.

Burroughs: The revolution will come from ignoring the others out of existence.

Bowie: Really. Now we have people who are making it happen on a level faster than ever. People who are into groups like Alice Cooper, The New York Dolls and Iggy Pop, who are denying totally and irrevocably the existence of people who are into The Stones and The Beatles. The gap has decreased from twenty years to ten years.

Burroughs: The escalating rate of change. The media are really responsible for most of this. Which produces an incalculable effect.

Bowie: Once upon a time, even when I was 13 or 14, for me it was between 14 and 40 that you were old. Basically. But now it is 18-year-olds and 26-year-olds - there can be incredible discrepancies, which is really quite alarming. We are not trying to bring people together, but to wonder how much longer we've got. It would be positively boring if minds were in tune. I'm more interested in whether the planet is going to survive.

Burroughs: Actually, the contrary is happening; people are getting further and further apart.

Bowie: The idea of getting minds together smacks of the flower power period to me. The coming together of people I find obscene as a principle. It is not human. It is not a natural thing as some people would have us believe.

Copetas: What about love?

Burroughs: Ugh.

Bowie: I'm not at ease with the word 'love'.

Burroughs: I'm not either.

Bowie: I was told that it was cool to fall in love, and that period was nothing like that to me. I gave too much of my time and energy to another person and they did the same to me and we started burning out against each other. And that is what is termed love..... that we decide to put all our values on another person. It's like two pedestals, each wanting to be the other pedestal.

Burroughs: I don't think that 'love' is a useful word. It is predicated on a separation of a thing called sex and a thing called love and that they are separate. Like the primitive expressions in the old South when the woman is on a pedestal, and the man worshipped his wife and then went out and fucked a whore. It is primarily a Western concept and then it extended to the whole flower power thing of loving everybody. Well, you can't do that because the interests are not the same.

Bowie: The word is wrong, I'm sure. It is the way you understand love. The love that you see, among people who say, ' we're in love', it's nice to look at.... but wanting not to be alone, wanting to have a person there that they relate to for a few years is not often the love that carries on throughout the lives of those people. There is another word. I'm not sure whether it is a word. Love is every type of relationship that you think of.... I'm sure it means relationship, every type of relationship that you can think of.

Copetas: What of sexuality, where is it going?

Bowie: Sexuality and where it is going is an extraordinary question, for I don't see it going anywhere. It is with me, and that's it. It's not coming out as a new advertising campaign next year. It's just there. Everything that you can think about sexuality is just there. Maybe there are different kinds of sexuality, maybe they'll be brought into play more. Like one time it was impossible to be homosexual as far as the public were concerned. Now it is accepted. Sexuality will never change, for people have been fucking their own particular ways since time began and will continue to do it. Just more of those ways will be coming to light. It might even reach a puritan state.

Burroughs: There are certain indications that it might be going that way in the future, real backlash.

Bowie: Oh yes, look at the rock business. Poor old Clive Davis. He was found to be absconding with money and there were also drug things tied up with it. And that has started a whole clean-up campaign among record companies; they're starting to ditch some of their artists.

I'm regarded quite asexually by a lot of people. And the people that understand me the best are nearer to what I understand about me. Which is not very much, for I'm still searching. I don't know, the people who are coming anywhere close to where I think I'm at regard me more as an erogenous kind of thing. But the people who don't know so much about me regard me more sexually.

But there again, maybe it's the disinterest with sex after a certain age, because the people who do kind of get nearer to me are generally older. And the ones who regard me as more of a sexual thing are generally younger. The younger people get into the lyrics in a different way, there's much more of a tactile understanding, which is the way I prefer it. ' Cause that's the way I get off on writing, especially William's. I can't say that I analyse it all and that's exactly what you're saying, but from a feeling way I got what you meant. It's there, a whole wonder-house of strange shapes and colours, tastes, feelings.

I must confess that up until now I haven't been an avid reader of William's work. I really did not get past Kerouac to be honest. But when I started looking at your work I really couldn't believe it. Especially after reading Nova Express, I really related to that. My ego obviously put me on the 'Pay colour' chapter, then I started dragging out lines from the rest of the book.

Burroughs: Your lyrics are quite perceptive.

Bowie: They're a bit middle-class, but that's alright, 'cause I'm middle-class.

Burroughs: It is rather surprising that such complicated lyrics can go down with a mass audience. The content of most pop lyrics is practically zero, like 'Power to the people'.

Bowie: I'm quite certain that the audience that I've got for my stuff listen to the lyrics.

Burroughs: That's what I'm interested in hearing about.... do they understand them?

Bowie: Well, it comes over more as a media thing and it's only after they sit down and bother to look. On the level they are reading them, they do understand them, because they will send me back their own kind of write-ups of what I'm talking about, which is great for me because sometimes I don't know. There have been times when I've written something and it goes out and it comes back in a letter from some kid as to what they think about it and I've taken their analysis to heart so much that I have taken up his thing. Writing what my audience is telling me to write.

(...)re.

Burroughs: What is your inspiration for writing, is it literary?

Bowie: I don't think so.

Burroughs: Well, I read this 'Eight line poem' of yours and it is very reminiscent of T.S.Eliot.

Bowie: Never read him.

Burroughs: (Laughs) It is very reminiscent of 'The Waste Land'. Do you get any of your ideas from dreams?

Bowie: Frequently.

Burroughs: I get seventy per cent of mine from dreams.

Bowie: There's a thing that, just as you go to sleep, if you keep your elbows elevated you will never go below the dream stage. And I've used that quite a lot and it keeps me dreaming much longer than if I just relaxed.

Burroughs: I dream a great deal, and then because I am a light sleeper, I will wake up and jot down just a few words and they will always bring the whole idea back to me.

Bowie: I keep a tape recorder by the bed and then if anything comes I just say it into the tape recorder. As for my inspiration, I haven't changed my views much since I was about 12 really, I've just got a 12-year-old mentality. When I was in school I had a brother who was into Kerouac and he gave me On The Road to read when I was 12 years old. That's still a big influence.

Copetas: The images that transpire are very graphic, almost comic-booky in nature.

Bowie: Well, yes, I find it easier to write in these little vignettes; if I try to get any more heavy, I find myself out of my league. I couldn't contain myself in what I say. Besides, if you are really heavier there isn't much more time to read that much, or listen to that much. There's not much point in getting any heavier.... there's too many things to read and look at. If people read three hours of what you've done, then they'll analyse it for seven hours and come out with seven hours of their own thinking.... whereas if you give them 30 seconds of your own stuff they usually still come out with seven hours of their own thinking. They take hook images of what you do. And they pontificate on the hooks. The sense of the immediacy of the image. Things have to hit for the moment. That's one of the reasons I'm into video; the image has to hit immediately. I adore video and the whole cutting up of it.

What are your projects at the moment?

Burroughs: At the moment I'm trying to set up an institute of advanced studies somewhere in Scotland. It's aim will be to extend awareness and alter consciousness in the direction of greater range, flexibility and effectiveness at a time when traditional disciplines have failed to come up with viable solutions. You see, the advent of the space age and the possibility of exploring galaxies and contacting alien life forms poses an urgent necessity for radically new solutions. We will be considering only non-chemical methods, with the emphasis placed on combination, synthesis, interaction and rotation of methods now being used in the East and West, together with methods that are not at present being used to extend awareness or increase human potentials.

We know exactly what we intend to do and how to go about doing it. As I said, no drug experiments are planned and no drugs other than alcohol, tobacco and personal medications obtained on prescription will be permitted in the centre. Basically, the experiments we propose are inexpensive and easy to carry out. Things such as yoga-style meditation and exercises, communication, sound, light and film experiments, experiments with sensory deprivation chambers, pyramids, psychotronic generators and Reich's orgone accumulators, experiments with infrasound, experiments with dream and sleep.

Bowie: That sounds fascinating. Are you basically interested in energy forces?

Burroughs: Expansion of awareness, eventually leading to mutations. Did you read Journey Out of the Body ? Not the usual book on astral projection. This American businessman found he was having these experiences of getting out of the body - never used any hallucinogenic drugs. He's now setting up this astral air force. This psychic thing is really a rave in the States now. Did you experience it much when you were there?

Bowie: No, I really hid from it purposely. I was studying Tibetan Buddhism when I was quite young, again influenced by Kerouac. The Tibetan Buddhist Institute was accessible so I trotted down there to have a look. Lo and behold, there's a guy down in the basement who's the head man in setting up a place in Scotland for the refugees, and I got involved purely on a sociological level - because I wanted to get the refugees out of India, for they were having a really shitty time of it down there, dropping like flies due to the change of atmosphere from the Himalayas.

Scotland was a pretty good place to put them, and then more and more I was drawn to their way of thinking, or non-thinking, and for a while got quite heavily involved in it. I got to the point where I wanted to become a novice monk, and about two weeks before I was actually going to take those steps, I broke up and went out on the streets and got drunk and never looked back.

Burroughs: Just like Kerouac.

Bowie: Go to the States much?

Burroughs: Not since ' 71.

Bowie: It has changed, I can tell you, since then.

Burroughs: When were you last back?

Bowie: About a year ago.

Burroughs: Did you see any of the porn films in New York?

Bowie: Yes, quite a few.

Burroughs: When I was last back, I saw about thirty of them. I was going to be a judge at the erotic film festival.

Bowie: The best ones were the German ones; they were really incredible.

Burroughs: I thought that the American ones were still the best. I really like film.... I understand that you may play Valentine Michael Smith in the film version of Stranger in a Strange Land.

Bowie: No, I don't like the book much. In fact, I think it is terrible. It was suggested to me that I make it into a movie, then I got around to reading it. It seemed a bit too flower-powery and that made me a bit wary.

Burroughs: I'm not that happy with the book either. You know, science fiction has not been very successful. It was supposed to start a whole new trend and nothing happened. For the special effects in some of the movies, like 2001, it was great. But it all ended there.

Bowie: I feel the same way. Now I'm doing Orwell's 1984 on television; that's a political thesis and an impression of the way in another country. Something of that nature will have more impact on television. People having to go out to the cinema is really archaic. I'd much rather sit at home.

Burroughs: Do you mean the whole concept of the audience?

Bowie: Yes, it is ancient. No sense of immediacy.

Burroughs: Exactly, it all relates back to image and the way in which it is used.

Bowie: Right. I'd like to start a TV station.

Burroughs: There are hardly any programmes worth anything anymore. The British TV is a little better than American. The best thing the British do is natural history. There was one last week with sea-lions eating penguins, incredible. There is no reason for dull programmes, people get very bored with housing projects and coal strikes.

Bowie: They all have an interest level of about three seconds. Enough time to get into the commentator's next sentence. And that is the premise it works on. I'm going to put together all the bands that I think are of great value in the States and England, then make an hour-long programme about them. Probably a majority of people have never heard of these bands. They are doing and saying things in a way other bands aren't. Things like the Puerto Rican music at the Cheetah Club in New York. I want people to hear musicians like Joe Cuba. He has done things to whole masses of Puerto Rican people. The music is fantastic and important. I also want to start getting Andy Warhol films on TV.

Burroughs: Have you ever met Warhol?

Bowie: Yes, about two years ago I was invited up to The Factory. We got in the lift and went up and when it opened there was a brick wall in front of us. We rapped on the wall and they didn't believe who we were. So we went back down and back up again till finally they opened the wall and everybody was peering around at each other. That was shortly after the gun incident. I met this man who was the living dead. Yellow in complexion, a wig on that was the wrong colour, little glasses. I extended my hand and the guy retired, so I thought, 'The guy doesn't like flesh, obviously he's reptilian.' He produced a camera and took a picture of me. And I tried to make small talk with him, and it wasn't getting anywhere.

But then he saw my shoes. I was wearing a pair of gold-and-yellow shoes, and he says, 'I adore those shoes, tell me where you got those shoes.' He then started a whole rap about shoe design and that broke the ice. My yellow shoes broke the ice with Andy Warhol.

I adore what he was doing. I think his importance was very heavy, it's becoming a big thing to like him now. But Warhol wanted to be clichi, he wanted to be available in Woolworth's, and be talked about in that glib type of manner. I hear he wants to make real films now, which is very sad because the films he was making were the things that should be happening. I left knowing as little about him as a person as when I went in.

Burroughs: I don't think that there is any person there. It's a very alien thing, completely and totally unemotional. He's really a science fiction character. He's got a strange green colour.

Bowie: That's what struck me. He's the wrong colour, this man is the wrong colour to be a human being. Especially under the stark neon lighting in The Factory. Apparently it is a real experience to behold him in the daylight.

Burroughs: I've seen him in all light and still have no idea as to what is going on, except that it is something quite purposeful. It's not energetic, but quite insidious, completely asexual. His films will be the late-night movies of the future.

Bowie: Exactly. Remember Pork? I want to get that on to TV. TV has eaten up everything else, and Warhol films are all that is left, which is fabulous. Pork could become the next I Love Lucy, the great American domestic comedy. It's about how people really live, not like Lucy, who never touched dishwater. It's about people living and hustling to survive.

That's what Pork is all about. A smashing of the spectacle. Although I'd like to do my own version of Sinbad The Sailor. I think that is an all-time classic. But it would have to be done on an extraordinary level. It would be incredibly indulgent and expensive. It would have to utilize lasers and all the things that are going to happen in a true fantasy.

Even the use of holograms. Holograms are important. Videotape is next, then it will be holograms. Holograms will come into use in about seven years. Libraries of video cassettes should be developed to their fullest during the interim. You can't video enough good material from your own TV. I want to have my own choice of programmes. There has to be the necessary software available.

Burroughs: I audio-record everything I can.

Bowie: The media is either our salvation or our death. I'd like to think it's our salvation. My particular thing is discovering what can be done with media and how it can be used. You can't draw people together like one big huge family, people don't want that. They want isolation or a tribal thing. A group of 18 kids would much rather stick together and hate the next 18 kids down the block. You are not going to get two or three blocks joining up and loving each other. There are just too many people.

Burroughs: Too many people. We're in an over-populated situation, but even with fewer people that would not make them any less heterogeneous. They are just not the same. All this talk about a world family is a lot of bunk. It worked with the Chinese because they are very similar.

Bowie: And now one man in four in China has a bicycle, and that is pretty heavy considering what they didn't have before. And that's the miracle as far as they're concerned. It's like all of us having a jet plane over here.

Burroughs: It's because they are the personification of one character that they can live together without any friction. We quite evidently are not.

Bowie: It is why they don't need rock-and-roll. British rock-and-roll stars played in China, played a dirty great field, and they were treated like a sideshow. Old women, young children, some teenagers, you name it, everybody came along, walked past them and looked at them on the stand. It didn't mean a thing. Certain countries don't need rock-and-roll because they were so drawn together as a family unit. China has its mother-father figure - I've never made my mind up which - it fluctuates between the two. For the West, Jagger is most certainly a mother figure and he's a mother hen to the whole thing. He's not a cockadoodledoo; he's much more like a brothel-keeper or a madame.

Burroughs: Oh, very much so.

Bowie: He's incredibly sexy and very virile. I also find him incredibly motherly and maternal clutched into his bosom of ethnic blues. He's a White boy from Dagenham trying his damnedest to be ethnic. You see, trying to tart the rock business up a bit is getting nearer to what the kids themselves are like, because what I find, if you want to talk in the terms of rock, a lot depends on sensationalism and the kids are a lot more sensational than the stars themselves. The rock business is a pale shadow of what the kids' lives are usually like. The admiration comes from the other side. It's all a reversal, especially in recent years. Walk down Christopher Street and then you wonder exactly what went wrong. People are not like James Taylor; they may be moulded on the outside, but inside their heads is something completely different.

Burroughs: Politics of sound.

Bowie: Yes. We have kind of got that now. It has very loosely shaped itself into the politics of sound. The fact that you can now subdivide rock into different categories was something that you couldn't do ten years ago. But now I can reel off at least ten sounds that represent a kind of person rather than a type of music. The critics like being critics, and most of them wish they were rock-and-roll stars. But when they classify they are talking about people not music. It's a whole political thing.

Burroughs: Like infrasound, the sound below the level of hearing. Below 16 MHz. Turned up full blast it can knock down walls for 30 miles. You can walk into the French patent office and buy the patent for 40p. The machine itself can be made very cheaply from things you could find in a junk yard.

Bowie: Like black noise. I wonder if there is a sound that can put things back together? There was a band experimenting with stuff like that; they reckon they could make a whole audience shake.

Burroughs: They have riot-control noise based on these soundwaves now. But you could have music with infrasound, you wouldn't necessarily have to kill the audience.

Bowie: Just maim them.

Burroughs: The weapon of the Wild Boys is a Bowie knife, an 18-inch bowie knife, did you know that?

Bowie: An 18-inch bowie knife.... you don't do things by halves, do you? No, I didn't know that was their weapon. The name Bowie just appealed to me when I was younger. I was into a kind of heavy philosophy thing when I was 16 years old, and I wanted a truism about cutting through the lies and all that.

Burroughs: Well, it cuts both ways, you know, double-edged on the end.

Bowie: I didn't see it cutting both ways till now.

Craig Copetas, "Beat Godfather Meets Glitter Mainman"

Rolling Stone
February 28, 1974

Aliens and Pyramids of 1898

"After that came her story. It was a marvellous narrative. Translated into our tongue it ran as follows:
"The traditions of my fathers, handed down for generations so many that no one can number them, declare that the planet of Mars was not the place of our origin."
"Ages and ages ago our forefathers dwelt on another and distant world that was nearer to the sun than this one is, and enjoyed brighter daylight than we have here."
"They dwelt—as I have often heard the story from my father, who had learned it by heart from his father, and he from his—in a beautiful valley that was surrounded by enormous mountains towering into the clouds and white about their tops with snow that never melted. In the valley were lakes, around which clustered the dwellings of our race."
"It was, the traditions say, a land wonderful for its fertility, filled with all things that the heart could desire, splendid with flowers and rich with luscious fruits."
"It was a land of music, and the people who dwelt in it were very happy."
While the girl was telling this part of her story the Heidelberg Professor became visibly more and more excited. Presently he could keep quiet no longer, and suddenly exclaimed, turning to us who were listening, as the words of the girl were interpreted for us by one of the other linguists:
"Gentlemen, it is the Vale of Cashmere! Has not my great countryman, Adelung, so declared? Has he not said that the Valley of Cashmere was the cradle of the human race already?"
"From the Valley of Cashmere to the planet Mars—what a romance!" exclaimed one of the bystanders.
Colonel Smith appeared to be particularly moved, and I heard him humming under his breath, greatly to my astonishment, for this rough soldier was not much given to poetry or music:
"Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere,
  With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave;
Its temples, its grottoes, its fountains as clear,
  As the love-lighted eyes that hang over the wave."
Mr. Sidney Phillips, standing by, and also catching the murmur of Colonel Smith's words, showed in his handsome countenance some indications of distress, as if he wished he had thought of those lines himself.

Aina Tells Her Story.

The girl resumed her narrative:
"Suddenly there dropped down out of the sky strange gigantic enemies, armed with mysterious weapons, and began to slay and burn and make desolate. Our forefathers could not withstand them. They seemed like demons, who had been sent from the abodes of evil to destroy our race."
"Some of the wise men said that this thing had come upon our people because they had been very wicked, and the gods in Heaven were angry. Some said they came from the moon, and some from the far-away stars. But of these things my forefathers knew nothing for a certainty."
"The destroyers showed no mercy to the inhabitants of the beautiful valley. Not content with making it a desert, they swept over other parts of the earth."
"The tradition says that they carried off from the valley, which was our native land, a large number of our people, taking them first into a strange country, where there were oceans of sand, but where a great river, flowing through the midst of the sands, created a narrow land of fertility. Here, after having slain and driven out the native inhabitants, they remained for many years, keeping our people, whom they had carried into captivity, as slaves."
"And in this Land of Sand, it is said, they did many wonderful works."
"They had been astonished at the sight of the great mountains which surrounded our valley, for on Mars there are no mountains, and after they came into the Land of Sand they built there with huge blocks of stone mountains in imitation of what they had seen, and used them for purposes that our people did not understand."
"Then, too, it is said they left there at the foot of these mountains that they had made a gigantic image of the great chief who led them in their conquest of our world."
At this point in the story the Heidelberg Professor again broke in, fairly trembling with excitement:

The Wonders of the Martians!

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," he cried, "is it that you do not understand? This Land of Sand and of a wonderful fertilizing river—what can it be? Gentlemen, it is Egypt! These mountains of rock that the Martians have erected, what are they? Gentlemen, they are the great mystery of the land of the Nile, the Pyramids. The gigantic statue of their leader that they at the foot of their artificial mountains have set up—gentlemen, what is that? It is the Sphinx!"
The Professor's agitation was so great that he could go no further. And indeed there was not one of us who did not fully share his excitement. To think that we should have come to the planet Mars to solve one of the standing mysteries of the earth, which had puzzled mankind and defied all their efforts at solution for so many centuries! Here, then, was the explanation of how those gigantic blocks that constitute the great Pyramid of Cheops had been swung to their lofty elevation. It was not the work of puny man, as many an engineer had declared that it could not be, but the work of these giants of Mars.

Aina's Wonderful Story.

The Martians' Beautiful Prisoner Recounts Her Marvellous Adventures.

Aina resumed her story.
"At length, our traditions say, a great pestilence broke out in the Land of Sand, and a partial vengeance was granted to us in the destruction of the larger number of our enemies. At last the giants who remained, fleeing before this scourge of the gods, used the mysterious means at their command, and, carrying our ancestors with them, returned to their own world, in which we have ever since lived."
"Then there are more of your people in Mars?" said one of the professors.
"Alas, no," replied Aina, her eyes filling with tears, "I alone am left."
For a few minutes she was unable to speak. Then she continued:

An Ancient Martian Conquest.

"What fury possessed them I do not know, but not long ago an expedition departed from the planet, the purpose of which, as it was noised about over Mars, was the conquest of a distant world. After a time a few survivors of that expedition returned. The story they told caused great excitement among our masters. They had been successful in their battles with the inhabitants of the world they had invaded, but as in the days of our forefathers, in the Land of Sand, a pestilence smote them, and but few survivors escaped."
"Not long after that, you, with your mysterious ships, appeared in the sky of Mars. Our masters studied you with their telescopes, and those who had returned from the unfortunate expedition declared that you were inhabitants of the world which they had invaded, come, doubtless, to take vengeance upon them."
"Some of my people who were permitted to look through the telescopes of the Martians, saw you also, and recognized you as members of their own race. There were several thousand of us, altogether, and we were kept by the Martians to serve them as slaves, and particularly to delight their ears with music, for our people have always been especially skilful in the playing of musical instruments, and in songs, and while the Martians have but little musical skill themselves, they are exceedingly fond of these things."

Waiting a Rescue.
"Although Mars had completed not less than five thousand circuits about the sun since our ancestors were brought as prisoners to its surface, yet the memory of our distant home had never perished from the hearts of our race, and when we recognized you, as we believed, our own brothers, come to rescue us from long imprisonment, there was great rejoicing. The news spread from mouth to mouth, wherever we were in the houses and families of our masters. We seemed to be powerless to aid you or to communicate with you in any manner. Yet our hearts went out to you, as in your ships you hung above the planet, and preparations were secretly made by all the members of our race for your reception when, as we believed, would occur, you should effect a landing upon the planet and destroy our enemies."
"But in some manner the fact that we had recognized you, and were preparing to welcome you, came to the ears of the Martians."
At this point the girl suddenly covered her eyes with her hands, shuddering and falling back in her seat.
"Oh, you do not know them as I do!" at length she exclaimed. "The monsters! Their vengeance was too terrible! Instantly the order went forth that we should all be butchered, and that awful command was executed!"
"How, then, did you escape?" asked the Heidelberg Professor.
Aina seemed unable to speak for a while. Finally mastering her emotion, she replied:

Her Fortunate Escape.

"One of the chief officers of the Martians wished me to remain alive. He, with his aides, carried me to one of the military depot of supplies, where I was found and rescued," and as she said this she turned toward Colonel Smith with a smile that reflected on his ruddy face and made it glow like a Chinese lantern.
"
"By ——!" muttered Colonel Smith, "that was the fellow we blew into nothing! Blast him, he got off too easy!"
The remainder of Aina's story may be briefly told.
When Colonel Smith and I entered the mysterious building which, as it now proved, was not a storehouse belonging to a village, as we had supposed, but one of the military depots of the Martians, the girl, on catching sight of us, immediately recognized us as belonging to the strange squadron in the sky. As such she felt that we must be her friends, and saw in us her only possible hope of escape. For that reason she had instantly thrown herself under our protection. This accounted for the singular confidence which she had manifested in us from the beginning.
Her wonderful story had so captivated our imaginations that for a long time after it was finished we could not recover from the spell. It was told over and over again from mouth to mouth, and repeated from ship to ship, everywhere exciting the utmost astonishment.
Destiny seemed to have sent us on this expedition into space for the purpose of clearing off mysteries that had long puzzled the minds of men..."

Garrett Serviss, Edison´s Conquest of Mars
(New York Evening Journal, 1989)