They look down at the ground, missing...

[IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu]

In response to Dan Parmenter's posting:

First, it will be understood by now that this whole Houdini name
business was a misunderstanding prompted by IED's inadvertant omission
of the title "Mrs." from a posting the other day. Mark Kat(e)souros's
earlier posting had included a line which seemed to imply that
Houdini's wife's name was Kate, and IED was expressing surprise. Sorry
for the error.

> The Cloudbuster equipment really was a bunch of tubes attached to a
> revolving platform, as depicted in the "Cloudbusting" video.  The
> tubes supposedly drew negative orgones from the clouds into the
> machine, and from the machine into a nearby stream.  I am *not*
> making this up.  Kate herself seems to believe this madman, as she
> alludes to the veracity of his claims when questioned on the topic
> on the picture-disc interview.  Orgones, for the unaware, are a type
> of energy produced during orgasm, spake Reich.  Blue in color, their
> presence makes the sky blue.

> Willhelm Reich is generally believed to be a deranged psychotic who
> although he made significant contributions to Freudian theory, spent
> his latter days believing that Airplanes were being sent over his
> house to watch him.  This isn't to cast any aspersions on Kate of
> course, it's a wonderful song, with a delightful video about a
> character who might be Reich -- as he should have been.

> -- Dan Parmenter

What you say, Dan, is at best partially correct.  There is always a
risk of getting incomplete information when a judgment is based on a
tidy digest of someone else's making -- especially one which was
designed with the sole aim of "poking fun" at "esoteric beliefs", as
was Mr. Sladek's book.  The chances of getting a balanced and complete
reading of the facts from such a book are pretty slim.  The problem
experienced in gleaning information from Sladek's text is that the
force and eloquence of the original is completely lost, leaving only
the cynical, axe-grinding voice of the "interpreter".

Next, it should be pointed out that Kate has NEVER said or in any way
implied that she "believed" in the theories of Wilhelm Reich. NEVER.
That is absurd.  In fact, she has gone out of her way to avoid taking
a public stand one way or the other. This is partly because she is an
extremely diplomatic and polite person who doesn't like to stir up
antagonism between people who may have conflicting beliefs; partly
because she almost certainly is quite aware of the likelihood that a
quick summary of ideas as unusual and complex as Reich's would only
result in misunderstanding; and partly because her main interest has
always been in the memoir of Reich's son Peter, not in Wilhelm Reich
himself.  Kate has said that she found "A Book of Dreams" quite by
chance while browsing through a bookshop. It "called out" to her to be
read, so she read it. She has said that, at the time, she had no idea
of the reputation(s) of the author's father, but was simply captivated
by the power of Peter's book. In every single interview she has given,
she has referred to the cloudbuster as a "rain-making" device, and
avoided a description of its more fundamental purported function (as
an attractor, transporter and repellant of orgone energy). This is
because she has consistently described the story of Peter and his
father in the same terms that the little boy used.

If you are truly interested in getting both a full understanding of
the facts and an idea of the beauty of Reich's own ideas and writings,
as well as the remarkable and unique form which Reich's paranoia took
in his later life, IED strongly recommends that you give Reich's own
work a try, especially the later papers, published in the late 1940s
and early 1950s by the Orgonon Press. And "A Book of Dreams" is
another book well worth reading.

As for Kate's "esoteric beliefs", they are only esoteric to those who
don't take the trouble to find out about them. Kate has identified
many of her philosophical and artistic influences over the years, both
through explicit references and through the specialized vocabulary she
often uses in her interviews. None of these influences is particularly
esoteric.

-- Andrew