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PARTISAN REVIEW
have armies, adjutants , aides, little demons, their angels , their what have
you, well , when important events occur why wouldn't they be concerned)
Why wouldn't they be present? Why not try to tip the scales? Why
wouldn ' t God and the Devil have their department of dirty tricks? You
know, see them as some sort of sublime extension of the CIA .
Int:
That is why I see the novel as so highly metaphorical. The kinds of
experiences Rojack has, the vision of shooting arrows into Cherry's womb
while she's singing in the night club, for example , seem to me to exist in a
dream allegory but not at the literal level.
Marler:
I would disagree. 1'd had the experience of being in night clubs and
thinking evil thoughts and really barbing them like dares and sending them
to people and seeing them react. At the time I didn ' t know whether I was
profoundly drunk or, you know , was I all alone in the world? But I had to
recognize that there was a psychic reality to it. It wasn't just a fantasy. Since
then , there's been any amount, my God, there's so much material now to
indicate that this is not at all unreasonable. For one thing, we do have
telepathic powers , we talk about the human aura , about the ability to send
hostile vibrations , everybody uses that phrase , but , you know , if you can
send a hostile vibration , which is to say, a hostile wave, why not employ
modern theories of light and say hate appears not only in the form of a wave
but also as a particle? If you can do it with light , you can do it with hate . In
other words , send a damn particle into someone. Why not assume you can
sting someone with a thought so concentrated that they'll turn around and
rub the back of their neck? Now, I invite people who are reading this
interview to try it from time to time. It helps if you're drunk, of course.
Int :
Is chac whac you've been doing
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cape recorders all chese years?
Marler:
Oh, I think there's a good reason why cape recorders bomb out on me.
Why not assume we have electrical powers-we know there are pictures
taken of the human aura in Russia. What is it called , the Kirlian process)
Did you ever notice when you're in a real hurry
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make a phone call , and
you've got one of those button phones where you can dial quickly, that if
you dial too quickly with
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much desire, you never get your number?
Int:
Yes.
Marler:
Then you have to stop and say, " Okay, I don ' t really care if I get the
number or not," and dial more slowly. Then the phone becomes your
servant again . It 's as if there 's an electrical resistance to your electrical
intensity.
Int:
I simply assumed the computer couldn't handle the digits as fast as I
could push them.
Marler:
Well , I notice it with a dial phone, too. The phenomenon is not only
in the speed with which you dial, but the intensity with which you want to
