The-Myrkin-Papers-Lorenzo-Milam

Lorenzo W. Milam's brilliant first novel, Under A Bed of Poses, has received countless rejection slips from some of the finest publishing houses in New York. "Some novelists claim their works are like chil dren," he said recently, in an interview, "and that the act of writing is much like bringing a child into the world. I prefer the concept of Sherwood Ander son. He said that writing is like giving birth to a litter of pigs. If such is the case, considering all the essays, poems, and nov els I have burned, I should have a powerful lot of bacon by now." Milam likes to say that he was born with a silver foot in his mouth. When not writing (two hours a week), he spends most of his time with a small cadre of select friends playing Existential Monopoly and read ing out loud from The Book of Changes. Milam founded KRAB-FM (Seattle), KBOO (Portland). KDNA (St. Louis). and is part owner of KTAO (Los Gatos. California). He is exceedingly droll and a very bad speller. He was educated at Haverford Col lege and the University of Cali fornia at Berkeley long before student movements and even work were popular. He lives in Seattle within spitting distance of the Freeway, and drinks in ordinate quantities of beer. we MYRKIN PAPERS I \ flOe MYRKIN PAPERS by LORENZO W. MILAM DUCK PR ESS Bellevue, Washington COPYRIGHT 1969 by DUCK PRESS Box 355, Bellevue, Washington This book is set in Century Schoolbook, a type face designed by L. B. Benton in 1915 and derived from one cast in the 1890's especially for The Century Magazine. It is a clear, fine letter having traditional characteristics, its legibility making it popular with schoolbook publishers. The titles are set in Garamond. a classic type face based on letter forms first cast in the 16th century in France by Claude Garamond. The Myrkin Papers was designed by Duck Press. Bellevue. Washington. and composed, printed and bound at L & H Printing Company. Seattle. Washington. fJlie MYRKIN PAPERS NOTE Many of the essays heTe were printed earlier in a slightly niceT form in the SEATl'LE POST-INTELLIGENCER, THE WASH INGTON TEAMSTER, and the KRAB PROGRAM GUIDE. A few appeared in PUGET SoUNDINGS, THE NORTH CENTRAL OUT LOOK, and the VANCOUVER SUN. None, however, appeared i" the HuMPTULIPS DAILY ExPuss. None at all. " THE MYRKIN PAPERS INTRODUCTION GOT A FUNNY FEELING about the power of I radio once-a thousand years ago in another country. I was on a journey, one of those cycla paedic journeys kids dream up in order to torture their parents, or themselves, or their American-ness. I was looking for something: and I am damned if I can remember what it was. It started in Frankfurt, where I got a nice new shiny Blaupunkt radio installed in my car. It was a beautiful radio, with lots of nice buttons, and a single shiny red eye that lit up to let me know that the world was crowding my dial. There was AM for static, FM for white noise, and the Long Wave band for cryptic messages from the BBC. I went into a dark cornerFrankfurt bar to celebrate my new radio and my new car. I remember (vaguely) drinking an inordinate amount of icy clear schnapps intermixed with draughts of warm dark beer. I re- 7 8 member a foggy mind and a foggy night through the dark windows. I remember an old man with a potato face huddled in the corner of the bar. I remember him mumbling, and I thought he was talking to me. I turned my head, smiled, said something in lousy German. Hands across the sea. "]uden," he said. He said a great number of other things, other words, but "]uden" he said most of all. He didn't smile. "]uden," he said. I knew it was time to leave Germany, even though it was 1961 and there was nothing to fear. 'There's nothing to fear," I told myself, and drove south and west. Running from Frankfurt to Neun kirchen, from there to the burning valley of the Saar, the hot black n�man's land that still-Common Market or no-gashes between France and Germany. 'There is nothing to fear," I said, as I raced south from Saarbrucken, down through Macon and Lyon and Avignon-down towards the sun and light. It was a time of great, aggravating isolation-and my sole riding companion showed a single red eye, and spoke to me in many languages and many musics. I began to warm, to feel warmer and safer, when, in Dijon, I heard the voice of Radio Diffusion Fran caise. The voice was feminine and husky-and spoke to me at seven in the morning, when the mustard colored sun grew up over the streets of Dijon. "Beethoven," she said: and I heard a trio by Beeth� 9 ven. "Rameau," she said: and the harpsichord. music played around my ear. "Handel," she whispered: and a cantata of Handel sped me towards Nimes. Mter the Pyranees, I passed into the broadcasting garbage heap of Spain. "Buy," screamed the radio in garish (and incredibly low fidelity) Spanish. "Now," screamed the accents of Barcelona, Alicante, Gra nada. "Cheap, buy now," screamed the voice as I raced toward the pillars of Hercules, ran to the strange territory of North Mrica. I want to tell you something funny about radio about one of the evenings of my life which is frozen in my head. Like Wordsworth, I close my eyes and see it all painted on the inside of my eyelid. Five of us were gathered in Casablanca for the trip across the Atlantic, back to the bang-and-whim per we call America. Our ship, or purported ship, was operated by the Yugoslav government as a cheap freighter, with just room enough for twelve passen gers. It was mid-winter, so there were but five of us, and the liner had sunk somewhere into the maw of the Mediterranean. '1t will tardy two weeks," said the ticket agent. The five of us took the car into the mysteries of North Mrica. I have no end of stories to tell you about Meknes and Fez, about Marrakech and Tan gier. Stories about French colonial culture beginning to decay (but not quite), and Arabic culture begin- 10 ning to reaffinn itself (but not quite), and the dark twisty streets of the medinas. I have a great deal to tell you ... .. but not yet.What I really want to tell you about is one afternoon.When I got the feeling for com munication, and the culture gap, and history, and the gape of time, and all that sort of stuff. We are heading west from Fez. The five of us suspended at eighty miles an hour on that straight and true asphalt highway. The French colons had left behind a great number of dams and power sta tions and highways.Highways only beginning to fall apart under the forces of self-determination. The sun is setting.I have the sun visor down. The sun-turned fat and red-stains my face, the faces of all of us.On both sides of the road, the culture of Morocco barely moves. Shepherds in their djellabahs stand at the side of the road. One of them may be holding a rope to a burro. One of them may stand beside a hunched and veiled wife, with a giant load of sticks on her back. They don't move. The sun stains them and the land crimson, and they don't move. It is Ramadan. The ninth month of the Islamic calendar. Fasting, abstinence, appeals to Whoever it is who is brooding over Islam.From the radio pours the voice of a man chanting; a single voice moving slowly, randomly, through a strange scale, singing 11 to some strange eye watching the crimson land, the crimson peasants, a crimson car racing along a black strip of magic over an ancient land. The voice was to continue for nine days. But what I remember most is the five of us, whirring past the moveless figures, hooded figuresbrooding at the road side with the sad song of a man and his god filling our ears. Suspended in time, suspended from any land, any culture: we, along with the melancholy culture of that melancholy country. Streaking west with the moveless sound of prayers pouring out of the single red eye, trying to tell us something we can only barely comprehend, only barely know. A BRIEF EXPLANATION OF PERSONA We put KRAB (FM) on the air somewhere bGck in the dark dismal days of winter 1962. There was Gary Margascm, and Jeremy Lansman, and me, and a wheezing old CoUins transmitter which was, in age, if not experience, barely OUT / junior. I remember no end of technical problems endemic to a new broadcast station-and I remember most especiaUy the wet mist of Seattle beating the back of my neck with appalling regularity. We put out a program guide which was typed up on an t old Royal. It was printed up in the back room of our house boat. I can remember, all too often, waking up before dawn, listening to the thrum and bump of our two hundred doUar Multilith. I could see Gary leaned over that awful machine or rather, I could see his shadow, for hung on the end of the printing machine was a single naked lightbulb which cast him giant against the wall of the houseboat.

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