Do Androids Dream in Berkeley, Part
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Do Androids Dream in Berkeley Part 2 - Contining the Story of Philip K. Dick’s Life in Berkeley By Maureen Foster UC Berkeley - briefly In 1948 Philip K. Dick married Jeanette Marlin, a customer he met at the Winter 2009 music store, but the union was short-lived and, according to biographer Volume 27, Number 1 Lawrence Sutin, Phil rarely mentioned her. Phil moved to an attic apart- COPYRIGHT 2009 ment at 1931 Dwight Way in 1949 and, in the fall, enrolled at UC Berkeley, where he planned to major in philosophy, taking classes in zoology and IN THIS ISSUE history as well. But his college career lasted only two months. Participation Phillip Dick in Berkeley ............... 1 in ROTC was mandatory at the time, and this posed a problem for Phil. Oral History News ..................... 1 Letter from the Presidents .......... 2 His third wife Tessa Busby recalled, “they had to march with their M-1’s. But Thank You ................................ 2 he would march with a broom because he didn’t want to carry a gun In Memoriam ............................ 2 and they told him he couldn’t do that. Well, the following week, they were Berkeley Police Bike Patrol .......... 4 learning how to take the M-1 apart and put it back together, but some- Photo Contest ........................... 6 Events at the Center .................. 8 how, accidentally, Phil dropped the firing pin into the wrong place and the Calendar of Events .................... 8 gun was useless and could never be fired again. So he marched with the broken gun, but he got an F in ROTC, or they kicked him out…he never told the story the same way twice.” Phil fictionalized the episode in his novel Radio Free Albemuth. Various sources offer differing interpretations of Phil’s departure from the UC and the circumstances that led to it, probably because, as Tessa recalled, he varied the stories himself. He also teased his readers into a game of separating his fic- tion from his autobiography, which yet again varied from “some of the lies he presents as his life, and he’s very care- ful to obscure the difference,” commented science fiction author Thomas M. Disch. “He wants to make this a riddle,” said Disch; he was a “con artist…who expected his audience to appreci- ate his performances.” Biographer Emmanuel Carrere’s take on Phil’s UC episode is that “several days after after he had signed up for a course on Sturm und Drang and the philosophy of David Hume, a severe panic attack put an end to his academic career.” But, in a recent interview, Paul Williams, editor of the Philip K. Dick Society Newsletter and longtime friend of the author, said that Phil’s problems at UC Berkeley “were clearly both school and ROTC related.” Symptoms of vertigo and agoraphobia in the classroom continued to plague him during this period, but Phil’s own A Distinguished psyche may have played the big- Mentor gest role. Williams’s 1986 book Only Apparently Real expands upon While Kleo worked and attended UC lengthy interviews he conducted Berkeley, Phil, with her financial, edito- with Phil for Rolling Stone. “I began rial, and moral support, began writing to get terribly frightened and anx- in earnest. “He was too reclusive to ious and I didn’t know why,” join a critique group,” Kleo’s daugh- ter Anne Mini English comments, Phil told Williams in 1974. “Fortu- “so she routinely took his early short The History Center is located in the nately I listened to my unconscious Veterans Memorial Building stories (and hers) to a well-known 1931 Center St., Berkeley, CA 94701 because it was too strong to be writers’ group in Berkeley, jotted down Mailing Address: PO Box 1190 denied…It drove me out of the the feedback, and carried it back to Berkeley, CA 94701 510 848 0181 cloistered realms where I would Philip so he could revise.” Margot Lind have been cut off from the broad- NEWSletter Editor er, truer world, and drove me into The process of submitting the stories Dale Smith the real world. It drove me into a was a team effort that was both DESIGN AND PRODUCTION job, and marriage, and a career in streamlined and economical. “They writing.” But he also admitted, “I am stuffed each of these short stories Board of Directors very defensive about all of this still, into a grey Manila envelope with a Margot Lind Carl Wikander because I didn’t finish college.” second envelope folded up inside CO-PRESident CO-PRESident as an SASE, and sent them off to In the winter of 1949 Phil was divid- Carole Bennett- Judy Kennedy any magazine that had evinced Simmons Secretary ing his work between Herb Hollis’s even the remotest interest in sci- VICE PRESident two music stores in Berkeley, and it ence fiction or fantasy.” was at Art Music [2328 Telegraph Phil Gale John Aronovici TREASURER AnaLuisa Coplan Avenue] that he met Kleo Apos- A vast volume of submissions PAST CO-PRESident tolides. He spotted her browsing insured an avalanche of rejections, through Italian opera, an interest with Kleo’s recollection of the seven- Ken Cardwell Greta Olsen Tom Edwards Dale Smith she had in common with Phil. Steven Finacom stefen In June 1950, at Oakland Ed Herny Allen Stross City Hall, they were married. They moved into the house at 1126 Francisco Street that Phil had recently bought. “The roof leaked and the paint was peeling off the walls,” writes Carrere. “When- Thank ever it rained, they had to Eunice Childs for her contribution to the put pans everywhere…the L.L. Stein Endowment You Fund difficulties didn’t seem to faze them, though…Kleo Thornwall Properties, Inc., Hank Abra- ham, Bruce Foidman and Allen Kropp was determined to resist any- for their Business Membership of $100 thing resembling a bourgeois lifestyle. A stalwart foot sol- Howard & Estelle Bern for their $75 dier of local radicalism, Kleo membership wore jeans and horn-rimmed Daniella Thompson, Annelise Armstrong, glasses, and sang the songs Steve Greenberg & Liz Vainhager, Jeremy of the Spanish Civil War that Knight & Barbara Adair, Richard C. Otter the members of the Abra- and Fred & Judy Porta for their Contrib- ham Lincoln Brigade had sung as uting Memberships of $50. teen manuscripts spilling out of the they marched on Madrid.” mailbox onto the front porch. But the young couple was tenacious. The stories they’d sent, as Anne describes it, “landed once again in 2 Berkeley Historical Society Newsletter Winter 2009 Chronicle and other major newspa- Beyond Lies the Wub tells the tale pers, he was, commented William F. of a spaceship visiting Mars and a Nolan, “recognized as the nation’s crewmember named Peterson, who foremost authority on crime fiction, purchases from a Martian an over- without question the most influential, sized and shaggy creature known as as well as the most popular, mystery a Wub. On the ship’s journey Peterson critic of his period.” discovers the Wub’s surprising intel- ligence as the pair embark on long Fortunately for Phil, Tony Boucher conversations about the journeys was also the co-founder/editor (with of Odysseus. Unfortunately another J. Francis McComas) of The Maga- crew member, Franco, is more inter- zine Fantasy & Science Fiction, and ested in the Wub’s cuilinary potential, a dedicated mentor, coach, and and cooks and eats it. After that, inspiration for new writers. It was the Franco continues the conversation informal writers’ group he held in his that, unbeknownst to him, the Wub house at 2643 Dana Street where had been having with Peterson. Kleo came to seek feedback and editorial guidance that she then re- Of his tale of anthropocentrism layed to Phil. The sessions were also Phil wrote, “the idea I wanted to attended by Phil’s mother Dorothy, get down on paper had to do their mailbox with the accuracy of a who was also writing fiction. Phil told with the definition of ‘human.’ The well-flung boomerang,” and would interviewer Joe Vitale, “My mother dramatic way I trapped the idea be promptly submitted elsewhere. was an editor…but her ambition was to present ourselves, the literal “To minimize retyping, they would was to write and sell stories and humans, and then an alien life iron pages that had gotten bent in novels. It was from her that I got the form that exhibits the deeper traits the mail, slip the manuscript into a idea that writing was a very impor- that I associate with humanity…an fresh envelope, and send it to the tant thing.” organism that is human in terms of next prospective publisher.” its soul.” He also commented, “Jack Beyond Lies the O’Sullivan, an editor of Planet, wrote Yet Phil’s first sale was to come not Wub to tell me that in his opinion it was a from one of hundreds of unsolicited very fine little story – whereupon he submissions, but from a customer In November 1951 Boucher and paid me something like fifteen dol- he met at Art Music. Berkeley resi- McComas bought Phil’s story Roog lars. It was my introduction to pulp dent Anthony Boucher was a fel- for publication in Fantasy and payment rates.” low opera enthusiast, collector, Science Fiction. In June Phil sent them three more stories as possible and host of an opera program on More stories appeared throughout “alternatives.” Roog was to have radio station KPFK. He was also an the 1950s and 60s in magazines the distinction of being his very eclectic literary figure both locally with spectacular, bizarre covers and first sale, but as it happened, the and nationally.