Dead Doll Humility

Kathy Acker

     IN ANY SOCIETY BASED ON CLASS, HUMILIATION IS A

     POLITICAL REALITY.  HUMILIATION IS ONE METHOD BY WHICH

     POLITICAL POWER IS TRANSFORMED INTO SOCIAL OR PERSONAL

     RELATIONSHIPS.  THE PERSONAL INTERIORIZATION OF THE

     PRACTICE OF HUMILIATION IS CALLED HUMILITY.

     CAPITOL IS AN ARTIST WHO MAKES DOLLS.  MAKES, DAMAGES,

     TRANSFORMS, SMASHES.  ONE OF HER DOLLS IS A WRITER

     DOLL.  THE WRITER DOLL ISN'T VERY LARGE AND IS ALL

     HAIR, HORSE MANE HAIR, RAT FUR, DIRTY HUMAN HAIR,

     PUSSY.

          ONE NIGHT CAPITOL GAVE THE FOLLOWING SCENARIO TO

     HER WRITER DOLL:

     As a child in sixth grade in a North American school,

     won first prize in a poetry contest.

          In late teens and early twenties, entered New York

     City poetry world.  Prominent Black Mountain poets,

     mainly male, taught or attempted to teach her that a

     writer becomes a writer when and only when he finds his

     own voice.

     CAPITOL DIDN'T MAKE ANY AVANT-GARDE POET DOLLS.

     Since wanted to be a writer, tried hard to find her own

     voice.  Couldn't.  But still loved to write.  Loved to

     play with language.  Language was material like clay or

     paint.  Loved to play with verbal material, build up

     slums and mansions, demolish banks and half-rotten

     buildings, even buildings which she herself had

     constructed, into never-before-seen, even unseeable

     jewels.

          To her, every word wasn't only material in itself,

     but also sent out like beacons, other words.  Blue

     sent out heaven and The Virgin.  Material is rich.

     I didn't create language, writer thought.  Later she

     would think about ownership and copyright.  I'm

     constantly being given language.  Since this language-

     world is rich and always changing, flowing, when I

     write, I enter a world which has complex relations and

     is, perhaps, illimitable.  This world both represents

     and is human history, public memories and private

     memories turned public, the records and actualizations

     of human intentions.  This world is more than life and

     death, for here life and death conjoin.  I can't make

     language, but in this world, I can play and be played.

          So where is 'my voice'?

          Wanted to be a writer.

          Since couldn't find 'her voice', decided she'd

     first have to learn what a Black Mountain poet meant by

     'his voice'.  What did he do when he wrote?

          A writer who had found his own voice presented a

     viewpoint.  Created meaning.  The writer took a certain

     amount of language, verbal material, forced that

     language to stop radiating in multiple, even

     unnumerable directions, to radiate in only one

     direction so there could be his meaning.

          The writer's voice wasn't exactly this meaning.

     The writer's voice was a process, how he had forced the

     language to obey him, his will.  The writer's voice is

     the voice of the writer-as-God.

          Writer thought, Don't want to be God; have never

     wanted to be God.  All these male poets want to be the

     top poet, as if, since they can't be a dictator in the

     political realm, can be dictator of this world.

          Want to play.  Be left alone to play.  Want to be

     a sailor who journeys at every edge and even into the

     unknown.  See strange sights, see.  If I can't keep on

     seeing wonders, I'm in prison.  Claustrophobia's sister

     to my worst nightmare: lobotomy, the total loss of

     perceptual power, of seeing new.  If had to force

     language to be uni-directional, I'd be helping my own

     prison to be constructed.

          There are enough prisons outside, outside

     language.

          Decided, no.  Decided that to find her own voice

     would be negotiating against her joy.  That's what the

     culture seemed to be trying to tell her to do.

          Wanted only to write.  Was writing.  Would keep on

     writing without finding 'her own voice'.  To hell with

     the Black Mountain poets even though they had taught

     her a lot.

          Decided that since what she wanted to do was just

     to write, not to find her own voice, could and would

     write by using anyone's voice, anyone's text, whatever

     materials she wanted to use.

          Had a dream while waking that was running with

     animals.  Wild horses, leopards, red fox, kangaroos,

     mountain lions, wild dogs.  Running over rolling hills.

     Was able to keep up with the animals and they accepted

     her.

          Wildness was writing and writing was wildness.

          Decision not to find this own voice but to use and

     be other, multiple, even innumerable, voices led to two

     other decisions.

          There were two kinds of writing in her culture:

     good literature and schlock.  Novels which won literary

     prizes were good literature; science fiction and horror

     novels, pornography were schlock.  Good literature

     concerned important issues, had a high moral content,

     and, most important, was written according to well-

     established rules of taste, elegance, and conservatism.

     Schlock's content was sex horror violence and other

     aspects of human existence abhorrent to all but the

     lowest of the low, the socially and morally

     unacceptable.  This trash was made as quickly as

     possible, either with no regard for the regulations of

     politeness or else with regard to the crudest, most

     vulgar techniques possible.  Well-educated,

     intelligent, and concerned people read good literature.

     Perhaps because the masses were gaining political

     therefore economic and social control, not only of

     literary production, good literature was read by an

     elite diminishing in size and cultural strength.

          Decided to use or to write both good literature

     and schlock.  To mix them up in terms of content and

     formally, offended everyone.

          Writing in which all kinds of writing mingled

     seemed, not immoral, but amoral, even to the masses.

     Played in every playground she found; no one can do

     that in a class or hierarchichal society.

          (In literature classes in university, had learned

     that anyone can say or write anything about anything if

     he or she does so cleverly enough.  That cleverness,

     one of the formal rules of good literature, can be a

     method of social and political manipulation.  Decided

     to use language stupidly.)  In order to use and be

     other voices as stupidly as possible, decided to copy

     down simply other texts.

          Copy them down while, maybe, mashing them up

     because wasn't going to stop playing in any playground.

     Because loved wildness.

          Having fun with texts is having fun with

     everything and everyone.  Since didn't have one point

     of view or centralized perspective, was free to find

     out how texts she used and was worked.  In their

     contexts which were (parts of) culture.

          Liked best of all mushing up texts.

          Began constructing her first story by placing

     mashed-up texts by and about Henry Kissinger next to

     'True Romance' texts.  What was the true romance of

     America?  Changed these 'True Romance' texts only by

     heightening the sexual crudity of their style.  Into

     this mush, placed four pages out of Harold Robbins',

     one of her heroes', newest hottest bestsellers.  Had

     first made Jacqueline Onassis the star of Robbins'

     text.

          Twenty years later, a feminist publishing house

     republished the last third of the novel in which this

     mash occurred.

     CAPITOL MADE A FEMINIST PUBLISHER DOLL EVEN THOUGH,

     BECAUSE SHE WASN'T STUPID, SHE KNEW THAT THE FEMINIST

     PUBLISHING HOUSE WAS ACTUALLY A LOT OF DOLLS.  THE

     FEMINIST PUBLISHER DOLL WAS A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN A ST.

     LAURENT DRESS.  CAPITOL, PERHAPS OUT OF PERVERSITY,

     REFRAINED FROM USING HER USUAL CHEWED UP CHEWING GUM,

     HALF-DRIED FLECKS OF NAIL POLISH, AND BITS OF HER OWN

     BODY THAT HAD SOMEHOW FALLEN AWAY.

     Republished the text containing the Harold Robbins'

     mush next to a text she had written only seventeen

     years ago.  In this second text, the only one had ever

     written without glopping up hacking into and rewriting

     other texts (appropriating), had tried to destroy

     literature or what she as a writer was supposed to

     write by making characters and a story that were so

     stupid as to be almost non-existent.  Ostensibly, the

     second text was a porn book.  The pornography was

     almost as stupid as the story.  The female character

     had her own name.

          Thought just after had finished writing this, here

     is a conventional novel.  Perhaps, here is 'my voice'.

     Now I'll never again have to make up a bourgeois novel.

          Didn't.

          The feminist publisher informed her that this

     second text was her most important because here she had

     written a treatise on female sexuality.

          Since didn't believe in arguing with people, wrote

     an introduction to both books in which stated that her

     only interest in writing was in copying down other

     people's texts.  Didn't say liked messing them up

     because was trying to be polite.  Like the English.

     Did say had no interest in sexuality or in any other

     content.

     CAPITOL MADE A DOLL WHO WAS A JOURNALIST.  CAPITOL

     LOVED MAKING DOLLS WHO WERE JOURNALISTS.  SOMETIMES SHE

     MADE THEM OUT OF THE NEWSPAPERS FOUND IN TRASHCANS ON

     THE STREETS.  SHE KNEW THAT LOTS OF CATS INHABITED

     TRASH CANS.  THE PAPERS SAID RATS CARRY DISEASES.  SHE

     MADE THIS JOURNALIST OUT OF THE FINGERNAILS SHE

     OBTAINED BY HANGING AROUND THE TRASHCANS IN THE BACK

     LOTS OF LONDON HOSPITALS.  HAD PENETRATED THESE BACK

     LOTS WITH THE HOPE OF MEETING MEAN OLDER MEN BIKERS.

     FOUND LOTS OF OTHER THINGS THERE.  SINCE, TO MAKE THE

     JOURNALIST, SHE MOLDED THE FINGERNAILS TOGETHER WITH

     SUPER GLUE AND, BEING A SLOB, LOTS OF OTHER THINGS

     STUCK TO THIS SUPER GLUE, THE JOURNALIST DIDN'T LOOK

     ANYTHING LIKE A HUMAN BEING.

     A journalist who worked on a trade publishing magazine,

     so the story went, no one could remember whose story,

     was informed by another woman in her office that there

     was a resemblance between a section of the writer's

     book and Harold Robbins' work.  Most of the literati of

     the country in which the writer was currently living

     were upper-middle class and detested the writer and her

     writing.

     CAPITOL THOUGHT ABOUT MAKING A DOLL OF THIS COUNTRY,

     BUT DECIDED NOT TO.

     Journalist decided she had found a scoop.  Phoned up

     the feminist publisher to enquire about plagiarism;

     perhaps feminist publisher said something wrong because

     then phoned up Harold Robbins' publisher.

          "Surely all art is the result of one's having been

     in danger, of having gone through an experience all the

     way to the end, where no one can go any further.  The

     further one goes, the more private, the more personal,

     the more singular an experience becomes, and the thing

     one is making is finally, the necessary, irrepressible,

     and, as nearly as possible, definitive utterance of

     this singularity . . . Therein lies the enormous aid

     the work of art brings to the life of the one who must

     make it . . .

          "So we are most definitely called upon to test and

     try ourselves against the utmost, but probably we are

     also bound to keep silence regarding this utmost, to

     beware of sharing it, of parting with it in

     communication so long as we have not entered the work

     of art: for the utmost represents nothing other than

     that singularity in us which no one would or even

     should understand, and which must enter into the work

     as such . . . "  Rilke to Cezanne.

     CAPITOL MADE A PUBLISHER LOOK LIKE SAM PECKINPAH.

     THOUGH SHE HAD NO IDEA WHAT SAM PECKINPAH LOOKED LIKE.

     HAD LOOKED LIKE?  SHE TOOK A HOWDY DOODY DOLL AND AN

     ALFRED E. NEUMAN DOLL AND MASHED THEM TOGETHER, THEN

     MADE THIS CONGLOMERATE INTO AN AMERICAN OFFICER IN THE

     MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR.  ACTUALLY SEWED, SHE HATED

     SEWING, OR WHEN SHE BECAME TIRED OF SEWING, GLUED

     TOGETHER WITH HER OWN TWO HANDS, JUST AS THE EARLY

     AMERICAN PATRIOT WIVES USED TO DO FOR THEIR PATRIOT

     HUSBANDS, A FROGGED AND BRAIDED CAVALRY JACKET, STAINED

     WITH THE BLOOD FROM SOME FORMER OWNERS.  THEN FASHIONED

     A STOVEPIPE HAT OUT OF ONE SHE HAD STOLEN FROM A BUM IN

     AN ECSTASY OF ART.  THE HAT WAS A BIT BIG.  FOR THE

     PUBLISHER.  INSIDE A GOLD HEART, THERE SHOULD BE A

     PICTURE OF A WOMAN.  SINCE CAPITOL DIDN'T HAVE A

     PICTURE OF A WOMAN, SHE PUT IN ONE OF HER MOTHER.

     SINCE SAM PECKINPAH OR HER PUBLISHER HAD SEEN TRAGEDY,

     AN ARROW HANGING OUT OF THE WHITE BREAST OF A SOLDIER

     NO OLDER THAN A CHILD, HORSES GONE MAD WALLEYED MOUTHS

     FROTHING AMID DUST THICKER THAN THE SMOKE OF GUNS.  SHE

     MADE HIS FACE FULL OF FOLDS, AN EYEPATCH OVER ONE EYE.

     Harold Robbins' publisher phoned up the man who ran the

     company who owned the feminist publishing company.

     From now on, known as 'The Boss'.  The Boss told Harold

     Robbins' publisher that they have a plagiarist in their

     midst.

     CAPITOL NO LONGER WANTED TO MAKE DOLLS.  IN THE UNITED

     STATES, UPON SEEING THE WORK OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER ROBERT

     MAPPLETHORPE, SENATOR JESSE HELMS PROPOSED AN AMENDMENT

     TO THE FISCAL YEAR 1990 INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES

     BILL FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROHIBITING "THE USE OF

     APPROPRIATED FUNDS FOR THE DISSEMINATION, PROMOTION, OR

     PRODUCTION OF OBSCENE OR INDECENT MATERIALS OR

     MATERIALS DENIGRATING A PARTICULAR RELIGION."  THREE

     SPECIFIC CATEGORIES OF UNACCEPTABLE MATERIAL FOLLOWED:

     "(1) OBSCENE OR INDECENT MATERIALS, INCLUDING BUT NOT

     LIMITED TO DEPICTIONS OF SADOMASOCHISM [ALWAYS GET THAT

     ONE IN FIRST], HOMO-EROTICISM, THE EXPLOITATION OF

     CHILDREN, OR INDIVIDUALS ENGAGED IN SEX ACTS; OR (2)

     MATERIAL WHICH DENIGRATES THE OBJECTS OR BELIEFS OF THE

     ADHERENTS OF A PARTICULAR RELIGION OR NON-RELIGION; OR

     (3) MATERIAL WHICH DENIGRATES, DEBASES, OR REVILES A

     PERSON, GROUP, OR CLASS OF CITIZENS ON THE BASIS OF

     RACE, CREED, SEX, HANDICAP, AGE, OR NATIONAL ORIGIN."

     IN HONOR OF JESSE HELMS, CAPITOL MADE, AS PILLOWS, A

     CROSS AND A VAGINA.  SO THE POOR COULD HAVE SOMEWHERE

     TO SLEEP.  SINCE SHE NO LONGER HAD TO MAKE DOLLS OR

     ART, BECAUSE ART IS DEAD IN THIS CULTURE, SHE SLOPPED

     THE PILLOWS TOGETHER WITH DEAD FLIES, WHITE FLOUR

     MOISTENED BY THE BLOOD SHE DREW OUT OF HER SMALLEST

     FINGER WITH A PIN, AND OTHER TYPES OF GARBAGE.

     Disintegration.

          Feminist publisher then informed writer that the

     Boss and Harold Robbins' publisher had decided, due to

     her plagiarism, to withdraw the book from publication

     and to have her sign an apology to Harold Robbins which

     they had written.  This apology would then be published

     in two major publishing magazines.

          Ordinarily impolite, told feminist publisher they

     could do what they wanted with their edition of her

     books but she wasn't going to apologize to anyone for

     anything, much less for twenty years of work.

          Didn't have to think to herself because every

     square inch of her knew.  For freedom.  Writing must be

     for and must be freedom.

          Feminist publisher replied that she knew writer

     was actually a nice sweet girl.

          Asked if should tell her agent or try talking

     directly to Harold Robbins.

          Feminist publisher replied she'd take care of

     everything.  Writer shouldn't contact Harold Robbins

     because that would make everything worse.

          Would, the feminist publisher asked, the writer

     please compose a statement for the Boss why the writer

     used other texts when she wrote so that the Boss

     wouldn't believe that she was a plagiarist.

     CAPITOL MADE A DOLL WHO LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE HERSELF.

     IF YOU PRESSED A BUTTON ON ONE OF THE DOLL'S CUNT LIPS

     THE DOLL SAID, "I AM A GOOD GIRL AND DO EXACTLY AS I AM

     TOLD TO DO."

     Wrote:

          Nobody save buzzards.  Lots of buzzards here.  In

          the distance, lay flies and piles of shit.  Herds

          of animals move against the skyline like black

          caravans in an unknown east.  Sheeps and goats.

          Another place, a horse is lapping the water of a

          pool.  Lavendar and grey trees behind this black

          water are leafless and spineless.  As the day

          ends, the sun in the east flushes out pale

          lavendars and pinks, then turns blood red as it

          turns on itself, becoming a more definitive shape,

          the more definitive, the bloodier.  Until it sits,

          totally unaware of the rest of the universe,

          waiting at the edge of a sky that doesn't yet know

          what colors it wants to be, a hawk waiting for the

          inevitable onset of human slaughter.  The light is

          fleeing.

          Instead, sent a letter to feminist publisher in

     which said that she composed her texts out of 'real'

     conversations, anything written down, other texts,

     somewhat in the ways the Cubists had worked.  (Not

     quite true.  But thought this statement

     understandable.)  Cited, as example, her use of 'True

     Confessions' stories.  Such stories whose content seemed

     purely and narrowly sexual, composed simply for

     purposes of sexual titillation and economic profit, if

     deconstructed, viewed in terms of context and genre,

     became signs of political and social realities.  So if

     the writer or critic (deconstructionist) didn't work

     with the actual language of these texts, the writer or

     critic wouldn't be able to uncover the political and

     social realities involved.  For instance, both genre

     and the habitual nature of perception hide the violence

     of the content of many newspaper stories.

          To uncover this violence is to run the risk of

     being accused of loving violence or all kinds of

     pornography.  (As if the writer gives a damn about what

     anyone considers risks.)

          Wrote, living art rather than dead art has some

     connection with passion.  Deconstructions of newspaper

     stories become the living art in a culture that demands

     that any artistic representation of life be non-violent

     and non-sexual, misrepresent.

          To copy down, to appropriate, to deconstruct other

     texts is to break down those perceptual habits the

     culture doesn't want to be broken.

          Deconstruction demands not so much plagiarism as

     breaking into the copyright law.

          In the Harold Robbins' text which had used, a rich

     white woman walks into a disco, picks up a black boy,

     has sex with him.  In the Robbins' text, this scene is

     soft-core porn, has as its purpose mild sexual

     titillation and pleasure.

          [When Robbins' book had been published years ago,

     the writer's mother had said that Robbins had used

     Jacqueline Onassis as the model for the rich white

     woman.]  Wrote, had made apparent that bit of politics

     while amplifying the pulp quality of the style in order

     to see what would happen when the underlying

     presuppositions or meanings of Robbins' writing became

     clear.  Robbins as emblematic of a certain part of

     American culture.  What happened was that the sterility

     of that part of American culture revealed itself.  The

     real pornography.  Cliches, especially sexual cliches,

     are always signs of power or political relationships.

     BECAUSE SHE HAD JUST GOTTEN HER PERIOD, CAPITOL MADE A

     HUGE RED SATIN PILLOW CROSS THEN SMEARED HER BLOOD ALL

     OVER IT.

     Her editor at the feminist publisher said that the Boss

     had found her explanation "literary."  Later would be

     informed that this was a legal, not a literary, matter.

     "HERE IT ALL STINKS," CAPITOL THOUGHT.  "ART IS MAKING

     ACCORDING TO THE IMAGINATION.  BUT HERE, BUYING AND

     SELLING ARE THE RULES; THE RULES OF COMMODITY HAVE

     DESTROYED THE IMAGINATION.  HERE, THE ONLY ART ALLOWED

     IS MADE BY POST-CAPITALIST RULES; ART ISN'T MADE

     ACCORDING TO RULES."  ANGER MAKES YOU WANT TO SUICIDE.

     Journalist who broke the 'Harold Robbins story' had

     been phoning and leaving messages on writer's answering

     machine for days.  Had stopped answering her phone.  By

     chance picked it up; journalist asked her if anything

     to say.

          "You mean about Harold Robbins?"

          Silence.

          "I've just given my publisher a statement.

     Perhaps you could read that."

          "Do you have anything to add to it?"  As if she

     was a criminal.

          A few days later writer's agent over the phone

     informed writer what was happening was simply horrible.

     CAPITOL DIDN'T WANT TO MAKE ANY DOLLS.

     How could the writer be plagiarizing Harold Robbins?

          Writer didn't know.

          Agent told writer if writer had phoned her

     immediately, agent could have straightened out

     everything because she was good friends with Harold

     Robbins' publisher.  But now it was too late.

          Writer asked agent if she could do anything.

          Agent answered that she'd phone Harold Robbins'

     publisher and that the worst that could happen is that

     she'd have to pay a nominal quotation rights fee.

          So a few days later was surprised when feminist

     publisher informed her that if she didn't sign the

     apology to Harold Robbins which they had written for

     her, feminist publishing company would go down a drain

     because Harold Robins or harold Robbins' publisher

     would slap a half-a-million [dollar? pound?] lawsuit on

     the feminist publishing house.

          Decided she had to take notice of this stupid

     affair, though her whole life wanted to notice only

     writing and sex.

     "WHAT IS IT" CAPITOL WROTE, "TO BE AN ARTIST?  WHERE IS

     THE VALUE THAT WILL KEEP THIS LIFE IN HELL GOING?"

     For one of the first times in her life, was deeply

     scared.  Was usually as wild as they come.  Doing

     anything if it felt good.  So when succumbed to fear,

     succumbed to reasonless, almost bottomless fear.

          Panicked only because she might be forced to

     apologize, not to Harold Robbins, that didn't matter,

     but to anyone for her writing, for what seemed to be

     her life.  Book had already been withdrawn from print.

     Wasn't that enough?  Panicked, phoned her agent without

     waiting for her agent to phone her.

          Agent asked writer if she knew how she stood

     legally.

          Writer replied that as far as knew Harold Robbins

     had made no written charge.  Feminist publisher

     sometime in beginning had told her they had spoken to a

     solicitor who had said neither she nor they "had a leg

     to stand on."  Since didn't know with what she was

     being charged, she didn't know what that meant.

          Agent replied, "Perhaps we should talk to a

     solicitor. Do you know a solicitor?"

          Knew the name of a tax solicitor.

          Since had no money, asked her American publisher

     what to do, if he knew a lawyer.

     WOULD MAKE NO MORE DOLLS.

     American publisher informed her couldn't ask anyone's

     advice until she knew the charges against her, saw them

     in writing.

          Asked the feminist publisher to send the charges

     against her and whatever else was in writing to her.

          Received two copies of the 'Harold Robbins' text

     she had written twenty years ago, one copy of the

     apology she was supposed to sign, and a letter from

     Harold Robbins' publisher to the head of the feminist

     publishing company.  Letter said they were not seeking

     damages beyond withdrawal of the book from publication

     [which had already taken place] and the apology.

          Didn't know of what she was guilty.

          Later would receive a copy of the letter sent to

     her feminist publisher from the solicitor whom the

     feminist publisher and then her agent had consulted.

     Letter stated: According to the various documents and

     texts which the feminist publisher had supplied, the

     writer should apologize to Mr. Harold Robbins.  First,

     because in her text she has used a substantial number

     of Mr. Robbins' words.  Second, because she did not use

     any texts other than Mr. Robbins' so there could be no

     literary theory or praxis responsible for her

     plagiarism.  Third, because the contract between the

     writer and the feminist publisher states that the

     writer had not infringed upon any existing copyright.

          When the writer wrote, not wrote back, to the

     solicitor that most of the novel in question had been

     appropriated from other texts, that most of these texts

     had been in the public domain, that the writers of

     texts not in the public domain were either writers of

     'True Confessions' stories (anonymous) or writers who

     knew she had reworked their texts and felt honored,

     except for Mr. Robbins, that she had never

     misrepresented nor hidden her usages of other texts,

     her methods of composition, that there was already a

     body of literary criticism on her and others' methods

     of appropriation, and furthermore [this was to become

     the major point of contention], that she would not

     sign the apology because she could not since there was

     no assurance that all possible litigation and

     harassment would end with the signature of guilt,

     guilt which anyway she didn't feel: the solicitor did

     not reply.

          Not knowing of what she was guilty, feeling

     isolated, and pressured to finish her new novel, writer

     became paranoid.  Would do anything to stop the

     pressure from the feminist publisher and simultaneously

     would never apologize for her work.

          Considered her American publisher her father.

     Told her that the 'Harold Robbins affair' was a joke,

     she should take the phone off the hook, go to Paris for

     a few days.

          Finish your book.  That's what's important.

     WOULD MAKE NO MORE DOLLS.

     Paris is a beautiful city.

          In Paris decided that it's stupid to live in fear.

     Didn't yet know what to do about isolation.  All that

     matters is work and work must be created in and can't

     be created in isolation.  (Remembered a conversation

     she had had with her feminist publisher.  Still trying

     to explain, writer said, in order to deconstruct, the

     deconstructionist needs to use the actual other texts.

     Editor had said she understood.  For instance, she was

     sure, Peter Carey in Oscar and Lucinda had used other

     people's writings in his dialogue, but he would never

     admit it.  This writer did what every other writer did,

     but she is the only one who admits it.  "It's not a

     matter of not being able to write," the writer replied.

     It's a matter of a certain theory which is also a

     literary theory.  Theory and belief."  Then shut up

     because knew that when you have to explain and explain,

     nothing is understood.  Language is dead.)

     SINCE THERE WERE NO MORE DOLLS, CAPITOL STARTED WRITING

     LANGUAGE.

     Decided that it's stupid living in fear of being forced

     to be guilty without knowing why you're guilty and,

     more important, it's stupid caring about what has

     nothing to do with art.  It doesn't really matter

     whether or not you sign the fucking apology.

          Over the phone asked the American publisher

     whether or not it mattered to her past work whether or

     not signed the apology.

          Answered that the sole matter was her work.

          Thought alike.

          Wanted to ensure that there was no more sloppiness

     in her work or life, that from now on all her actions

     served only her writing.  Upon returning to England,

     consulted a friend who consulted a solicitor who was

     his friend about her case.  This solicitor advised that

     since she wasn't guilty of plagiarism and since the law

     was unclear, grey, about whether or not she had

     breached Harold Robbins' copyright, it could be a legal

     precedent, he couldn't advise whether or not she should

     sign the apology.  But must not sign unless, upon

     signing, received full and final settlement.

          Informed her agent that would sign if and only if

     received full and final settlement upon signing.

          Over the phone, feminist publisher asked her who

     had told her about full and final settlement.

               A literary solicitor.

          Could they, the feminist publishing house, have

     his name and his statement in writing?

          "This is my decision," writer said.  "That's all

     you need to know."

     WROTE DOWN "PRAY FOR US THE DEAD," THE FIRST LINE IN

     THE FIRST POEM BY CHARLES OLSON SHE HAD EVER READ WHEN

     SHE WAS A TEENAGER.  ALL THE DOLLS WERE DEAD.  DEAD

     HAIR.  WHEN SHE LOOKED UP THIS POEM, ITS FIRST LINE

     WAS, "WHAT DOES NOT CHANGE/ IS THE WILL TO CHANGE."

          WENT TO A NEARBY CEMETERY AND WITH STICK DOWN IN

     SAND WROTE THE WORDS "PRAY FOR US THE DEAD."  THOUGHT,

     WHO IS DEAD?  THE DEAD TREES?  WHO IS DEAD?  WE LIVE IN

     SERVICE OF THE SPIRIT.  MADE MASS WITH TREES DEAD AND

     DIRT AND UNDERNEATH HUMANS AS DEAD OR LIVING AS ANY

     STONE OR WOOD.

     I WON'T BURY MY DEAD DOLLS, THOUGHT.  I'LL STEP ON THEM

     AND MASH THEM UP.

     For two weeks didn't hear from either her agent or

     feminist publisher.  Could return to finishing her

     novel.

          Thought that threats had died.

          In two weeks received a letter from her agent

     which read something like:

          On your express instructions that your publisher

     communicate to you through me, your publisher has

     informed me that they have communicated to Harold

     Robbins your decision that you will sign the apology

     which his publisher drew up only if you have his

     assurance that there will be no further harassment or

     litigation.  Because you have requested such assurance,

     predictably, Harold Robbins is now requiring damages to

     be paid.

          Your publisher now intends to sign and publish the

     apology to Harold Robbins as soon as possible whether

     or not you sign it.

          In view of what I have discovered about the nature

     of your various telephone communications to me, please

     contact me only in writing from now on.

          Signature.

          Understood that she had lost.  Lost more than a

     struggle about the appropriation of four pages, about

     the definition of appropriation.  Lost her belief

     that there can be art in this culture.  Lost spirit.

     All humans have to die, but they don't have to fail.

     Fail in all that matters.

          It turned out that the whole affair was nothing.

     CAPITOL REALIZED THAT SHE HAD FORGOTTEN TO BURY THE

     WRITER DOLL.  SINCE THE SMELL OF DEATH STUNK, RETURNED

     TO THE CEMETERY TO BURY HER.  SHE KICKED OVER A ROCK

     AND THREW THE DOLL INTO THE HOLE WHICH THE ROCK HAD

     MADE.  CHANTED, "YOU'RE NOT SELLING ENOUGH BOOKS IN

     CALIFORNIA.  YOU'D BETTER GO THERE IMMEDIATELY.  TRY TO

     GET INTO READING IN ANY BENEFIT YOU CAN SO FIVE MORE

     BOOKS WILL BE SOLD.  YOU HAVE BAGS UNDER YOUR EYES."

          CAPITOL THOUGHT, DEAD DOLL.

          SINCE CAPITOL WAS A ROMANTIC, SHE BELIEVED DEATH

     IS PREFERABLE TO A DEAD LIFE, A LIFE NOT LIVED

     ACCORDING TO THE DICTATES OF THE SPIRIT.

          SINCE SHE WAS THE ONE WHO HAD POWER IN THE DOLL-

     HUMAN RELATIONSHIP, HER DOLLS WERE ROMANTICS TOO.

     Toward the end of paranoia, had told her story to a

     friend who was secretary to a famous writer.

          Informed her that famous writer's first lawyer

     used to work with Harold Robbins' present lawyer.

     First lawyer was friends with her American publisher.

          Her American publisher asked the lawyer who was

     his friend to speak privately to Harold Robbins'

     lawyer.

          Later the lawyer told the American publisher that

     Harold Robbins' lawyer advised to let the matter die

     quietly.  This lawyer himself advised that under no

     circumstances should the writer sign anything.

          It turned out that the whole affair was nothing.

          Despite these lawyer's advice, Harold Robbins'

     publisher and the feminist publisher kept pressing the

     writer to sign the apology and eventually, as

     everything becomes nothing, she had to.

          Knew that none of the above has anything to do

     with what matters, writing.  Except for the failure of

     the spirit.

     THEY'RE ALL DEAD, CAPITOL THOUGHT.  THEIR DOLLS' FLESH

     IS NOW BECOMING PART OF THE DIRT.

          CAPITOL THOUGHT, IS MATTER MOVING THROUGH FORMS

     DEAD OR ALIVE?

          CAPITOL THOUGHT, THEY CAN'T KILL THE SPIRIT.