the sleeper sleeps
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal
This will be my last posting on this blog, for a bit. I have some matters to attend to outside of the blogosphere.
My next post, barring a major life event that forces me back to the blog before then, or a major life event that disables or disposes of me, will be posted by noon, EST, November 1, 2008. Those of you who know me best, understand.
Be of good cheer. I will do my damndest to return,
Amomancer will continue, I have post-dated a stack of poems for the interim.
exhaustion
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal
A lot of people have expressed concern as to my absence from regular blogging and posting and updating of my website at williamfdevault.com .
I am okay, just exhausted, depleted, burned out and burned down. If you know me at all, you know I come back, more fiercely than ever.
I am still writing, but it is in fragments, like I am trying to pull it all together in a focused effort. The absence of a substantial, unifying muse is always a difficult time for me (which is why, I am sure, I have manufactured diamonds out of coal on more than one occasion in the past, trying to get it pulled together).
demystifying the obvious
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal
I have had several occasions where individuals have become confused over some of the names I used in my recent posting ( you are what you read )about characters that have had some influence in my development. Sigh. But having come to grips with the fact that a large portion of the world at large, my country as a whole and, yes, West Virginia, even, have portions of their populations that have not read all books, I must put to rest some of the confusation.
- Arthur Peabody Goodpasture: Main character in the novel Don Quixote USA by Richard Powell. If someone gave me money to make a movie, tomorrow, I would make an adaptation of this book, starring (most likely) Brad Pitt, as he would be perfect as the wimpish New England Peace Corps volunteer who ends up leading a ragtag revolution in the Caribbean
- Vlad Tepes: The basis for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. A Wallachian Prince known for his ferocity in battle and his cruelty to his enemies. I reject his violence, but see in him how a man is shaped (and judged) by the times and environment he lives in.
- Viscount de Valmont: I’ve already dealt with this character.
- Elliot Garfield: Neil Simon’s hyperactive actor hero from The Goodbye Girl, one of my favourite romantic comedies, and a film that, at times in my life, I think I have been trapped in. I prefer the Richard Dreyfus version. The Panther once told me that the playground she played on in elementary school appears in a brief scene of the movie.
- Keyser Soze: The Usual Suspects master criminal. A man who understands that power is for the taking for those who are willing to forswear all other allegiances. Another character who showed me where not to go, from whose mistakes in ethics and morality I learned without having to make the same mistakes.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero: Roman orator, senator, lawyer. Matyred for his attacks on Marc Antony. Eloquence personified.
- Tom Sawyer: Mark Twain’s penultimate young man,w ho was either going to end up President of the United States, or hung. I was never the scoundrel he could be, but I saw in him the notion that even the most seemingly mischievous has a soul and perhaps a reason for their behaviour.
- Ellen Ripley: The Aliens‘ films heroine. Resourceful, gutsy and lives the notion that you do what frightens you, then you get the courage later.
- Penrod Schofield: Booth Tarkington’s early 20th century version of Tom Sawyer. "The Worst Kid in Town". But actually, when you look at the world from his angle, a very decent kid.
- Jesus Christ: Duh.
- Jeremiah: The prophet from the Old Testament, not a bullfrog. He was known as the "weeping prophet" as he lamented the fate of those around him. There have been times in my life when I focused too much on the darkness that is inevitable and not enough on the light of the moment.
- Ulysses: Clever, resourceful, determined. The kind of man I’d like to be more, at times.
- Jerry Cornelius: Michael Moorcock’s time and dimension spanning ultimate champion, and quite possibly the soul behind Arioch. Too amoral for my tastes, but I am intrigued by his cunning.
- Professor Ransom: The hero of C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra trilogy. Two of my children are named for these books, and I would hope that, were I called to serve, I would serve with the humility and faith Ransom did.
- Macaulay Connor: Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story. A man of style and charm, but immovable decency. I learned many of my more amusing gallantries from him.
- Job: Old Testament patriarch. Suffered but never lost faith. I’ll never have his faith or patience, but he is as good a role model as one is likely to find.
- Charity Hope Valentine: Sweet Charity as devised by Bob Fosse. The romantic "fallen woman" who lived "hopefully ever after".
- Edgar Allan Poe: Write love as dark, avoid laudanum and small, rabid animals.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley: His Ozymandias still brings chills.
- Jed Bartlet: martin Sheen’s President from the TV series The West Wing. As written by Aaron Sorkin and interpreted by Sheen, a complicated man, always treading the razor wire between morality and expediency.
- Edmund Dantes: The Count of Monte Cristo. I do not believe I would have been as vengeful in his shoes, but here is a wronged man who rises from his ashes with grit and style.
- Jean Valjean: Les Miserables‘ petty thief who finds his redemption in the second chance life offers him.
- Robin Hood: Oh, some on, you’ve heard of this guy.
- Robinson Crusoe: I told my sons the new TV series Crusoe is based on this book and they said "Huh?". So much for the public schools in Virginia.
- Michael Corleone: The fallen son of Don Vito Corleone, who is corrupted by the power he inherits and the prssures of his ascendency. It, in the end, costs him everything he loves.
- Steve Rogers: Captain America, in Marvel comics. It’s nice to have a frame of belief that drives you, a sense of order and principal. A flag to wrap yourself in, if you will.
- Scott Summers: Cyclops, of the X-Men, in Marvel comics. Ignore the movie version. Scott has my tendency to get too gravely serious and take on too much. In him, it marks him for leadership. For me, it just means stress.
- Screwtape: From C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast. I do not wish to be anything like this elder devil, this master tempter. But in his letters to his nephew, he reveals things about the mediocrity of evil that transformed my worldview.
- Hercule Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac: He lived. He was a poet, a warrior and a cynic. After my first wife denied me naming a son for him (how does "Hercule Savinien Arthur DeVault" sound to you?) I at least gave my son Dante the middle name of "Christian", his romantic rival.
- Henry McCoy: Again with the comics. But the avatar for those whose exterior does not easily explain the interior. A genius with a brutish covering.
- George Gordon, Lord Byron: As a young man, I despised his libertine ways, but as I got to know the man, I see a figure more complex than that, and a hell of a great writer.
- Abel: Not from the Bible, but from Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson.
- Barton: Anyone here aside from me read the Cage a Man books by F. M. Busby?
- Will Graham: Manhunter, the movie (based on the book Red Dragon by Thomas Harris) taught me that even our darkest impulses can be channeled for good.
- Gowan McGland: The poet, portrayed by Tom Conti, at the heart of the move Reuben, Reuben. It made me realize that not all poets are preening college professors.
- Patient V: The title character of the graphic novel and movie V. Anarchy with purpose and style points.
- Tyler Durden: If I have to explain this one to any of you, you should be ashamed of yourself and go away.
- Henry Plantagenet: Henry II, the first real King of England (even though, one could argue, that he was French). A mess of a man, but he tried to make sense of the world and to find a balance, not always successfully.
- T.E. Lawrence: Lawrence of Arabia. Aside from also, like Plantagenet, having been portrayed in film by Peter O’Toole, Lawrence showed us a complicated hero, one who didn’t really want to be extraordinary. Anyone who accuses me of a messiah complex is as insightful and clever as a box of rocks.
- Joe Gideon: Bob Fosse’s avatar in All That Jazz. I have been accused sometimes of being like him or of trying to be like him, which is bullshit. I don’t drink, do drugs, screw around on an epic scale or wear leg warmers. I do recognize the self-destructive artist impulse, where one draws creativity from pain and confounds it.
- Jack Celliers: David Bowie’s character in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. A shell of dichotomies, driven by guilt he cannot express, but that empowers him.
- Ramon Guerola: Raul Julia’s character in the Penitente. If you haven’t seen the film, I cannot explain. If you have seen the film, I do not have to.
- Quasimodo: I am forever wracked by doubts as to my value as a person, as a man, feeling malformed, not so much on the outside as on the inside. I see in this character the ultimate outsider, who int he end gives everything for love. A far more romantic character than any dashing soap star.
- Teddy Roosevelt: Larger than life, built of his own will. The classic American icon, to me.
- Theophilus North: From the Thornton Wilder novel of the same name. A character worthy of emulating, who finds the right thing to do, int he face of the criticism of others and the madness of mediocrity and prejudice.
- Johnny Quest: From childhood, I always wanted to seek out adventures.
- Inspector Juvet: Les Miserables. A negative influence here, as he taught me the folly of judgment and single-mindness. Although many of the people I have given second and third chances to have disappointed me, some have not and it is to my realization of what a twisted soul the Inspector was that gave me the strength to continue to give those chances to those who had disappointed me.
- Rocky Balboa: Criticize Stallone for many things, but the character he wrote and breathed life into represents the will to succeed, even on one’s own terms.
- TS Garp: The film mesmerized me, as I saw so much of the sideways view of life I possess in the eyes of this character, portrayed by Robin Williams.
- Inspector Dauphin: The original detective story detective, brought to life by Poe. I wish I had his powers of observation and deduction.
- Froggy: From the Little Rascals. When I was very small, I loved this colourful character and actually wanted my voice to go hoarse and to get glasses. I got the glasses, at least.
- Sir Galahad: To quest for something perfect and pure. To be worthy of questing for something perfect and pure.
- Auguste Rodin: Sculptor. The best of the best. Mad, driven, given to his appetites, but so brilliant that stone seemed to come to life to his touch.
- D’artagnan: The rustic dirt fell off and under it all was the heart of a noble Musketeer.
- Comte de le Fère: Alas, closer to my own sphere than I might like. Athos, of the Musketeers. Brutally self-destructive, his heart broken, he never fully recovered. I look to him not only as a tragic figure, but one whose lesson is to avoid self-pity.
So, there it is, in a nutshell, a tour of the battlefield with a bit more viscera for those who have been too busy playing Warcraft to read a book or watch a movie older than 2003.
in the seemingly darkened tower above the lab
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Humour, Journal
Just because you do not hear the sounds, it does not mean they are not being made. Just because you do not feel the wind, it does not mean it isn’t blowing. Just because you cannot see the light, that does not mean it is not there.
I am at work, on so many things at once I feel like my head will explode. Moving from half-finished golem to half-finished golem like a hummingbird on crank. I remember in the novel Logan’s Run, the drug called "muscle" would work fine on a young person, giving them unbelievable strength and speed, but on an adult would rip them apart, as their bodies could not contain and control the energy it produced. There are moments where I feel like that in my head.
I am fine, having fun, basking in the radiance of creation (it is a joy unto itself), trying to find the path amid the chaos. It is there, the seam between the cell membrane walls that slip along each other and imprison me (or so they think).
A friend of mine who has been celibate of late informed me she got a date for Saturday night, a guy she likes whom she knows she can have if she wants him (I didn’t want to explain to her that most men are pretty easy, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings). I gave her a list of things to do and to avoid to make the date (date? no, I think that is over-romanticizing what her plans are) successful:
- Wear clothes, to avoid appearing over-anxious or desperate (although many guys would just consider this a simplification, lacking the opposable thumb awareness necessary to unhook a bra with one hand (I could write a book on that topic and it would outsell all my poetry books combined)).
- Avoid licking his tonsils on the first kiss. Some guys are turned off by too-aggressive females. Wait until later in the date.
- If he gets so drunk he forgets you name, that’s a bad sign. If he gets so drunk he forgets his own name, that’s a really bad sign. If you get so drunk you forget his name, your name and where you are, he won’t probably care, although he may ask you not to throw up on him so much.
- Wear protection, even if you are damn sure of his health condition. Kevlar, preferred. Little metal spikes enhance the effect.
- Screaming my name during climax might rattle him a bit, so try to avoid it. If you don’t recall his name, just scream loudly enough to permanently traumatize the cat. He’ll think he’s a God. Or, just moan "Oh God"…he doesn’t have to know that’s my old nickname from college (Tom Peters gave it to me, it stands for "Good Old DeVault").
- Up to a point, giving parts of the body pet names is cute. Up to a point. Names to avoid for his body parts: Pee Wee, Tiny, Dangler and the name of any former boyfriend he knows about. Of course, if you wait until he’s drunk, he won’t notice.
- Note any prison tattoos he might be sporting. These could be a warning sign, or a turn on. Or a way to identify him later in a lineup.
- If he keeps calling you "Baby" he may have forgotten your name. Or he may be an extreme pedophile.
- Repeat after me: Clean underwear. Clean underwear. Clean underwear.
- We do not need to know the details. Besides, stopping in mid-act to blog about it might rattle his confidence and ruin his rhythm.
These apply to everyone, I would assume.
a strange reverie
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal
I’m standing on my parent’s front porch. I’m in Morgantown, West Virginia, along with my sons, visiting them and my 97 year old grandmother, when I get a text message.
"Call me"
Not the sort of message one expects too often from a female friend one had some brief dalliance with in the not-too-distant past.
I called (I am a pretty obedient boy, you know).
She had that tone to her of someone who is beating around the bush, but you can tell where they are heading.
"Am I hot?" she asked, flirtatiously. She has to know she is. A crazy gorgeous Amazon of exotic looks and a temperament that can run to the randy when it suits her, bright and intense. I can’t speak for the entirety of the straight male population…but I think she is. Very hot, the kind of woman who you think about sometimes when you wake up in the middle of the night and curse yourself for having not seized opportunities that presented themselves in the past.
"You know you are," I purred. Immediately regretting the reflexive purr.
"Then how come you don’t try to get with me and make a baby?" she demanded, pouting into her cellphone.
"Maybe I am trying, but I am being patient," I suggested. I was a bit off balance, not sure where to hide.
"Well, you know we’d make beautiful babies, really smart and beautiful ones," she cooed. I was beginning to suspect that either a) She had been taken over by alien pod creatures intent on colonizing Earth or b) She had been drinking or c) the connection was bad and she thought I was someone else. I think it was "b" as she used an old pet name (which I will NOT reveal here).
Discretion forbids me communicating her next suggestion to the general audience. Let’s just say she wanted to explain to me the mechanics by which I would have the best sex of my life and bring a new life into being all in one glorious act of inhuman ecstasy. Not that the idea was anything of a turnoff. I admit I have fantasized more than once about those impossibly long legs, that full set of lips, and everything the vicinity of both and between them. And, I agree, we would make an interesting experiment in selective breeding.
"I’ll did not say I was opposed to the idea," I said, trying to keep sanity alive and my hormones in check.
"Well, you better want to do it with me," she growled. "I want you to go blog about this phone call as soon as I get off so I can read about it tomorrow and know you want to do it with me." Then she hung up.
As I said, I am an obedient boy.
What was told to me by the Chinese plate
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal
If you can figure out this clue, you understand what I now do.
If not and you would break the code, you merely must adjust your mode.
Extrapolate what I relate, to choose of you the Western Gate,
where sun has fallen once or twice, and by the river lays the dice.
For this is not the end of war, the end of life, forevermore.
But respite for a measured spell, until the fires catch and swell.
And you shall find me in the sky, where dragonnes go to live, and die.
William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.
The Barbara Holmes Interview: Call Him William
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under interview
Barbara Holmes, known to the crew who used to populate the legendary Writers Club hangout on America Online (named by Wired Magazine as one of the best places for cybersex) was ringmaster, interviewer and host for various online chats and rooms within that hallowed space that sheltered and embraced such authors as Margaret Moseley, Harlan Coben, Tom Clancy and John Gilstrap. She was the editor of my Top Ten Lists that were archived there (over 500 of them) and interviewed me more than once for online chats, along with many, many other authors (some of whom I just mentioned). This is not her first interview for publication with me, and I hope it won’t be her last.
The interview was conducted over the past two weeks, online.
Call Him, William
By Barbara Holmes (TwisterB/Twist) with William F. DeVault (WFDV)
We met in an old AOL Writers Club chat room back in the late 1990’s. Amidst the groups collective sat me, a fledgling interviewer and humor writer, he a poet and writer of fiery wit and personality. I dare say neither were surprised at our first offline meeting. We were what we were, exactly as presented online, honest and forthright. Screen names and nicknames, yes, but no phony personas, no make believe life stories. In one word: Real.
Eight years ago I asked “But why poetry…?” He answered “Poetry is not a decision, it is a disease.” As the poet has grown, so has his abundance of work. Still one of the most prolific poets on the internet, if not “the most”, William F. DeVault continues to captivate us with an absorbing anthology of words. The result is a personal Everest, a legacy. One which, I no doubt, in our first interview he only fantasized. So, how long will he be able to maintain this frenzied pursuit; one can only chance a guess. For our sakes, if the fates rain kindly on this ever-growing garden, we will indeed be blessed.
Long live the disease of poetry.
Barbara: You’ve recently made an enormous change to your website, integrating your original website with your blog. Why?
William: It was actually on the advice of my ex (Aubergine), who was very high on the power of WordPress. She had converted her blog to it, and suggested converting my blog to it and raising its profile, its visibility, somewhere along the way it became the front-end to my site.
One of the reasons for the emergence of www.williamfdevault.com. It is going to take over the heavy lifting of displayed poetry, the City of Legends blog will remain a blog.
B: Has it changed the way you relate with your fanbase?
W: It has not seemed to have a major change, except it is easier for fans to leave comments. Which they rarely do…as they are disused to the idea. Most often my comments are hellos from old friends or hatchet jobs from someone with an axe to grind and bad information.
B: You’re a poet, what axes would there be to grind?
W: Good question. Actually, over the years I have made more than one less-than-admirer for my stance on the status of poetry as an art form, my opinions expressed (sociologically, theologically or politically) and the gravity of my romantic works. I will give you an illustration: In high school I was once administered a beating by a young man whose girlfriend had a crush on me because of my works (I didn’t even know her). I have gotten in the face of more than one other writer or editor in my life, and I have a sharp tongue. I have had ex-girlfriends call me and tell me that their new boyfriends/husbands know nothing of me and please to keep it that way, or confess they lied to me about their relationship status, when we were involved, to me and that their boyfriend/husband has just found out and is not happy with me. I can’t go into more details without breaking confidences, but I am far less evil than gullible. Which I guess, in its own way, is a harder confession to make about oneself.
B: Between the years of 1995 and 1997 your writing exploded with the Goldenheart Cycles, the Panther Cycles, the Great Cycle to the Goddess of Fire and Poetry and hundreds of other works. How do you think this compares to the more recent upsurge in your works?
W: I have actually been thinking about this. I view it as one of three distinct "explosions" of work (the Panther-Goldenheart era). The first was the early-mid seventies, with a lot of those works filtered now by time so that only the cream survives. The Second Era (the Panther-Goldenheart era) has just started getting the filtration, but in large part because of my insistence of the retention of the integrity of the cycles, there has been little elimination of lesser works. The most recent era was kicked off by the podcasting and recording I began around 2006, but also as part of a delayed healing process from my second divorce. It reached a fever pitch during the Aubergine courtship, then the death spiral of that relationship played out in poetics, which had integrity, but is interesting now to go back and read.
B: It’s been 13 years since the writing of the first Panther Cycle. Where do these poems fit into your legacy?
W: The Panther Cycles are a monolith. They are a block of work that does not cap, but cornerstones a whole section of my works. There are some extraordinary works in amongst those 600 and some odd works, including my first work with villanelles.
B: How can they be compared to your present works? Or can they?
W: I think the Panther Cycles are a little less sophisticated, structurally, than the more recent works, but there are certainly some moments in there that are as good as anything I have or ever will do. The recent works are more evolved, more thoughtful, more earnest, but neither era can claim primacy in my catalog.
B: Do you ever have the urge to add to any of these previous Cycles? Situations or settings that trigger a memory…
W: Not really the Panther Cycles, although I did write a few poems over the years as a follow up when situations demanded it, like when the Panther broke a promise to me. I am far from perfect and have made more than my share of blunders, but I have never held much with people who live for each re-invention with a disdain for what made them who they are and brought them to their change. I believe in the human capacity for growth and change, but not at the cost of the truth. There have been a few works, but not enough to tamper with the framework that is the ‘Cycles.
B: The bond you had with your daughter, Peri, developed numerous fractures which began during the Panther era. Why was this particular cycle of work so crucial in the relationship’s demise?
W: I think the evidence of my involvement serves as sort of a slap in the face to her mother, upon whom the dissolution of my marriage to her the affair rested, and that leaves a festering wound, for both of us. The funny thing is, she now manages a bookstore in Los Angeles. I have not sought, nor will I seek, to have my books sold through her chain, for the very reason I don’t want that aggravation in her face every day.
B: Yes, the Panther Cycles would be bit of an irritation but why not your other works? Don’t you think she would be proud to show off her father’s work?
W: Ours has always been a complex relationship and reality. I believe she sees me in a less sterling light than perhaps she did when she was younger. Even I am not aware of all the perspectives and perceptions that have gone into our dissembling relationship. I am hopeful we shall patch it up, but I know that there are some wounds that, no matter how skillful the surgeon, there will still be a scar and a memory. You also must recall she had to endure my second wife, who was very jealous of her and did her own share of hand-grenade lobbing into the chaos.
B: Did it affect your sons as well or just Peri?
W: Yes, to a much lesser extent. Elric and Dante did not have the pre-existing depth of relationship with me when the divorce and exile to LA came. There was no real sense of losing their best friend, not on the scale of Peri and I, who were best friends for many years. In some ways I think what really hammered the issues between Peri and I were not the Panther events, but the events in my second marriage. My second wife was very jealous of how close I was with Peri and on more than one occasion I was forced to publicly give Peri the back seat. That hurt, I know, and I wish there was a way to make it up to her.
B: We’ve spoken for years of your need to return to Los Angeles. Do you see yourself there in the near future?
W: I had hoped to return to stay later this year, but it is now looking more like sometime next year.
B: What necessitates this desire for LA?
W: It feels like home to me. It is where I want to live out my life, where I want to die.
B: Why do you feel such a strong urge to go back?
W: It’s funny, I almost feel like a salmon, justifying his need to swim upstream at spawning time. It is a primal thing, I am only aware of it as a drive within me. I am at peace there, and peace eludes me.
B: I know you’ve not been feeling 100% in the past few months. Has anything else reared its ugly head to stall your departure?
W: Well, aside from nearly dying of food poisoning and having my heart brutally plucked from my chest, no, all is as it should be. Ha!
The food poisoning I acquired while visiting my daughter in Los Angeles left me hampered to a degree I would not have predicted, the side effects were staggering (and, no longer being a teenager, my powers of recovery are not as potent as they once were).
And, as you as well as anyone knows, I am driven by the champion vector of my personality. Losing Aubergine as a focal point for my energies stripped me of my vector, I became depressed and bored and boring, a laser beam became a series of small, smouldering brush fires that had no purpose or path. It has taken all I have, all the coping mechanisms and techniques for my own emotional and intellectual self-manipulation I have developed and learned over the last several decades just to rise to my feet. My energy levels were and are depleted. I am in recovery, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually.
And, as with all such actions, reality plays its role. The logistics of the move, my sons, my aging parents, my grandmother (who just turned 97 and is fading) all play into the timing. As much as I like to tell myself I am immune to the fates, the truth is I am always at their whim.
B: You and I have had stimulating discussions on the subject of Muses, and your oft times dependence on them to write. Who was your most recent Muse?
W: In the absence of a dominating muse, such as the Panther or Aubergine, I am reacting to moments and minutes, so there are many muses in the sky at this time. I foreswore the use of the totems, last winter, and am now evaluating going back to them. I don’t honestly know what is next or who is next or where my soul is at this time.
B: What work did they inspire you to write?
W: Readers should look at the last two or three months of Amomancer (http://amomancer.blogspot.com) for some of the new inspirations and works.
B: Who would be perceived as your greatest Muse?
W: Wow. The natural, safe answer would be the Panther, but you have to realize that she makes up only a tiny percentage of my works, and not the best works. If I died tomorrow, Aubergine would end up with the crown, owing to the recency of her regency. "More than Gods can comprehend", "Aubergine", “ the entirety of the book "As such…" and the works that frame the end of that age of grace, all are so powerful. Who knows what happens tomorrow?
B: Who is “Aubergine” that she deserves this lofty state of regency?
W: Remind me to set boundaries next time. (Scowl) She was a friend, a writer, whom I had a crush on for some time, mostly because of the power of her writing, there was an earnest, raw energy to it, and I admired her greatly. I can’t go much more into that without dragging her fully into the fray. The relationship evolved unexpectedly, intensified at a speed and on a curve that would astound a hurricane forecaster, then fell apart under its own intensity mere days after my last book came out (some cynic pointed out that women tend to wait to leave me until after their book comes out, but the Panther was 9 years gone from my bed when "The Compleat Panther Cycles" came out!) [Note: The interviewer is not the aforementioned “cynic.”]
In four years, she was the first person to say and do the right things to get around the walls I had put up. I had not really given myself in some time (by the way, celibacy is a bitch) and I threw myself into the relationship with the blind emotional vigor of a teenager.
B: What caused this fall from grace?
W: I have my own theories, and have had many (some who have no knowledge of what transpired or was said within the relationship) present theirs. In the end, even if there were sworn testimony of a thousand angels, I would probably still not know all, and I was privy to most things.
I think it was the old Rita Hayworth trap. She once said that men "go to bed with Gilda" (perhaps her most famous role) but wake up with her. Over the years a lot of women have fallen in love with the poetry, ironically enough it is often works written to another, but then can’t find room for the third dimension when I am off the page and in their lives. No shame to them. I am not an easy person to love, in the real world. I am mercurial, literal, intense, sexual and can be slow on the uptake (dropping clues on me is usually wasted, use anvils and shout a lot, that works better). I shoulder my failures.
B: In recent years you’ve become more politically active, with such works as "Darfur (Jesus Wept)" and "An American Father". Is this an evolution in your conscience or just a side ultimately being revealed?
W: I have always been politically active, but have kept that largely out of my poetry. I am a liberal pacifist feminist Democrat. Tom Clancy calls me an anarchist.
B: You’ve graduated from exclusively written prose to recording your work. Why now, why do you feel your work needs a voice?
W: It adds a dimension, and it records how I perceive a work should be read. I fell into it, after reading an article on podcasting. Now we have five CDs and a 24/7 internet radio station at Live365.com
B: You have also stated these recording take an enormous toll on you so why not another voice, why yours?
W: It would be disingenuous to give the job to someone else. These are my words, my thoughts, my soul. No one else can speak for me, I wouldn’t want them to.
B: Undoubtedly, you’ve heard other people read your work. Weren’t you satisfied with their readings or do you just feel you give a better presentation?
W: Better? Not so much, but more accurate to my intention. As an example, there’s a band in North Carolina named "johnnydirtyshoes" that did a reading of my poem "Darfur" at a fundraiser for "Doctors Without Borders". You can see it on YouTube. The reading is technically fine, but the nuance isn’t my nuance. Writers write for several reasons, but part of my motive is to be understood.
B: You’ve spoken a few times of the CDs’ “band”. It has a synthesized ring to it so who or what is this band?
W: Mostly it’s just me, with Garage Band on my Mac. I have had a few quest musicians and vocalists contribute, notably Alan MacDonald, Kevin Bond and The Selke. I manufactured a second face for the band’s lead guitarist, Izzy Durden, when Izzy is me on the synthesizer, indulging my love of the film "Fight Club" and the notion that no one would imagine me as a wild-man guitarist. "Is he (Tyler) Durden?"
B: The "Evangelist" is your fifth CD in three years. How does this differ from the others and what is the symbolism behind the name and cover?
W: It has some cuts from the previous CDs. Aubergine had suggested a "Greatest Hits" compilation, so I met her halfway. The cover is a woodcut of Paul on the road to Damascus, struck blind by his confrontation with Jesus. I added the blood effects to intensify the look and contrast. The symbolism is that the "Damascus Road" moments we have, when we think we have been transformed by our finding love, are real, but only within a frame of reference. It took me months to recover from the break-up with Aubergine, and the CD kept changing form…finally I realized I needed to make a testament to love itself.
B: Which of your books are you the most proud of, so far?
W: Pride is a tough emotion for me, they are all flawed. I have to admit a certain awe for "The Compleat Panther Cycles" though.
B: Which of your CDs?
W: "Evangelist". It is honest, earnest and true, and it brings together a spectrum of my works and styles.
B: Which do you feel exemplifies your work?
W: Books? "Ronin in the Temple of Aphrodite". CDs? "Evangelist".
B: Which process satisfies the real Amomancer? The writing? The readings? The recordings?
W: None of it. The writings are necessary as my adaptive mechanism for life. The readings became a tool for interfacing with my public, meeting new people and selling books (plus, when I press for it, I can make more money on a single night’s reading than in a month of book sales, plus sell some books and CDs). The recordings? Damn, I don’t know why I am doing that except that I can. People seem to like it and I have some fun doing it.
I am not satisfied with anything. I sometimes wonder if it is possible for me to be satisfied. Hell, I sometimes wonder if it is possible for me to be in love, that maybe this whole tapestry has been an illusion, played to random chance or otherworldly amusement.
B: An interesting personage you noted on your “who influenced me” blog list was “Dangerous Liaisons”, Viscount Valmont. This character was exceedingly egotistical, a tremendous womanizer not to mention emotionally abusive. How and why do you feel this type of personality influences the growth of your own moral fiber?
W: Valmont discovered his conscience through love and did the right thing in the end. I have never been the kind of man he was in the beginning of the story, although I have seen that beneath the surface. When he saw the monster he was, he gave himself up, and gave others the power to see the truth. I’ve spent too much of my life working with people who have been abused, trying to help them get their lives together. If I ever thought I was Valmont, the monster, I would have to take myself out. I lack his ego, his skill with women and his hollowness, ethically.
B: The list also contained many individuals who could be classified as “Heroes”. Do you see yourself in this light?
W: I have my moments. I want to do the right thing, which is sometimes clouded by the arrogance of life and the nature of the world. I think if I was truly free to speak all truths I know, the world would see me in a gentler light, for sure. I have a certain stripe of the heroic bent, the sort of kid who burns himself pulling moths away from the fire.
B: You had the chance to “speak the truths” in your book. Why haven’t you finished it?
W: Many times I am constrained by the "Dragnet" clause. "Names have been changed to protect the innocent". There are things I cannot say because they would hurt others, but at the same time there is the compulsion to speak the truth, so I let myself come as close as possible, sometimes even destroying works before they are published, as I find they will reveal something that hurts another. Sometimes I don’t realize I have crossed a line until after I have crossed it (I said I can be dense). Those are moments of great moral conflict and true horror.
I presume by "your book" you are speaking of the body of my works? Or of my discarded memoir? The memoir was discarded as I realized it would destroy so many sandcastles out there, and I am trying not to reveal myself at the expense of others, especially those who may be criticized or attacked merely for human failings.
You know, of all the people who have wounded me in this life, Aubergine was the only one who apologized in or after the act of my evisceration. Perhaps that is part of her special place in my memory and tapestry. She demonstrated that she has a soul.
But to the question: Truth is never complete, where humans are concerned.
B: If you died today, what happens to the hundreds, even thousands, of works you claim to have never released previously?
W: My children gain control of them. My brother has the master password to unlock the virtual vault I keep them in. What happens to them after that is of no concern to me.
B: What would you like your legacy to be?
W: He wrote well and championed the couer rage to love.
B: On your headstone, help me etch the testament: "William F. DeVault ….
W: "We don’t know where his body lies, but let this be where those who would curse or praise his memory come to express what they perceive as true. May love free us all from madness."
My thanks to Barbara Holmes for this interview.
