—–
Interview of Baker B. by Willie [omit last name] (Charleston, SC December 2000)
BEGINNING OF SIDE THREE:
Willie: Okay, we’re rolling. Obviously I decided to come back and continue the interview here with Mr. Baker B. We had a good chat this morning while strolling around the beautiful side streets of historic Charleston, and it just seemed that if I departed now, things would be left hanging. I mean, we’re here now, baker has graciously invited me up here to Charleston–with him doing the majority of the driving to get here. We may never have this chance again, and so I’m going to let baker have his say. Besides, we haven’t really gotten to the meat of the subject have we baker?
Baker: Perhaps not, but even if you decided to leave I still think it’s a good interview as it stands. We have a chance to make it better, though, by pressing on–I agree with you. The main thing to see is that we’re going to have two different opinions on some things and not get upset if we don’t see eye to eye on everything. This actually comes up in the story as well, this symbolism of not seeing eye to eye I mean.
Willie: You’re talking about the corruptions I take it. Well, we decided in our morning talk that that was something which could be fruitfully explored more. Something that would be left hanging, so to speak. Let’s not review what was said yesterday but simply begin where we left off. You’ve explain why Cage was on stage playing Satie’s “Vexations,” and why the Hungry Tiger of Oz and the Cowardly Lion of Oz are on stage with him. The whole paper, scissors, rock thing again. Now when Cage continues to play ‘Vexations,” it acts as a cutting device, splitting the Tiger and Lion in two. And, as you explained this morning, this symbolically creates Oz, and divides fantasy from reality. Tell us about this more, and let’s keep it more in line with the actual material of the posts if you don’t mind, just for some type of control over the information.
Baker: Sure thing. I’ll try at least (laughs). You’re right, the paper is cut by Cage’s playing of “Vexations,” but I think in order to proceed further in this interview, I must explain that the site of Cage’s playing, which is Black Mountain, North Carolina–even though this is not named specifically in the story–has importance beyond our perceived little game of rhoshambo.
Willie: Roshambo being rocks, paper, scissors. Another word for it.
Baker: Yes, sorry. Anyway, I envisioned Black Mountain, long ago, perhaps 20 years ago at this point, as the seed for my own personal mythology, centered around the imaginary planet brought up at the first of this interview called Mythos. Mythos represents imagination or mythology, as opposed to Logos or logic. It’s the old Apollo vs. Dionysus idea, or solar intellect or rationalization vs. lunar intuition. But now I see Mythos as overlapped with Oz; the two make, in my mind, a kind of synthesis now, an intertwining…like two snakes wrapped around each other.
Willie: Well, already we seem to be getting off the subject of “Jordan’s Rule,” the text I mean. But you’re talking about that imaginary science fiction planet that you wrote notebooks about in the early 1980s, if my memory serves me from the reading of our interview so far earlier this morning. Let’s get back to the posts themselves though, and I think all this will tie in together when we work our way through it. Black Mountain. You mentioned this morning that Brad Daugherty, the former basketball center from the University of North Carolina Tar Heels basketball program, figures into this somehow.
Baker: Daugherty is originally from Black Mountain. This morning I agreed to share in this interview, as a bargaining chip actually (laughs), a story about him and how it connects with “Jordan’s Rule.” In the 1986 N.B.A. professional basketball draft, Daugherty was the first pick. However, three players from the Atlantic Coast Conference, the conference UNC was, and is, a part of, were the top three picks in the draft. Daugherty was first, followed by Len Bias of (the University of) Maryland, and then Chris Washburn, another 6’11” center like Daugherty, from North Carolina State.
Willie: You said the odd thing about this draft was that two of these three were from very near your hometown of Morganton: Daugherty from Black Mountain, about 40 miles west, and Washburn from Hickory about 20 miles east. And this has to do with the Catawba River, whose source is very near Black Mountain and which then runs past your home town, Morganton, and also past Hickory on its way to South Carolina and the Atlantic Ocean. This is also connected with Len Bias, who, as those who know anything about sports remember, died in a tragic overdose incident just after being selected second in the ‘86 draft. Relate all of these elements together as you did this morning please if you can.
Baker: Brad Daugherty and Black Mountain represent the original perfection, the uncorrupted game of rock, paper, scissors which remains in stasis. When Cage begins to play “Vexations,” revealing himself as the scissors element of our tripartine dichotomy–if that makes sense, perhaps it doesn’t–but he is, at any length, allowed to cut the Hip paper which is to be laid on top of Satie in your in initial Jordan-Hip experiment. In this way, he creates the Catawba River–the river can even be seen as running from his piano if you will. It is described as the “Vexations” River in the 1st post of “Jordan’s Rule,” but it is the same as the Catawba River. Then, in this same post, it is mentioned that Point Dougherty–Dougherty with an “o” this time instead of an “a” in the 1st syllable, but pronounced the same–is the beginning point of the river, or implied in this role anyway. The beginning or source thus represents a point, the point as an original perfection. The manifestation of the river, however, implies a corruption, since the flow of the river involves time. The river adds the temporary linear process to the original urobourous, the zero symbol or the snake swallowing himself. This is the point, the mathematical symbol that is, the zero-dimension. The river automatically goes beyond this point by creating a line running away from it. And this is the original corruption.
Willie: I’m looking at my notes now, and it says here you combined the image of Brad Daugherty, or the essence of Daugherty I guess you could call it, with a teammate on the UNC squad that won the ‘82 national championship, the N.C.A.A. championship I mean. And this other Dougherty was Matt Doherty, but his name is actually spelled (spells out name).
Baker: It’s pronounced the same though.
Willie: Yes. And you describe these two Doughertys as joined at the hip, like the Tiger and Lion. They are a part of this original perfection, this so-called zero point, or Point Dougherty. Is that correct?
Baker: Yes, but it’s important to know that this point was fixed in time-space by the later appointment of Matt Doherty, the teammate of Brad Daugherty on that ‘82 championship team, as the coach of the same UNC team–this would be in the spring of this year in fact. No, the summer. The appointment represents a point or a source. The subsequent wins are associated with the 840 repetitions of the “Vexations” cycle Cage is playing at Black Mountain. It is predicted in the post that Doherty will win 840 games, but this is actually connected with the ‘Vexations” repetitions. The 840 games or repetitions are actually the linear path of the Catawba River from Black Mountain to Hickory.
Willie: Okay, fair enough. Tell me how the other two guys, Washburn and Bias, fit into this.
Baker: Washburn would represent the hypothetical end of the Catawba River, and, in terms of corruptions, would represent the third and final corruption, which automatically reverts to the original corruption. This is described in this first post as the progression of point to line to plane to cube, with cube again reverting to the point. It is also important to know that these two points are represented as the colors blue and red, according to the colors of the center’s uniforms.
Willie: You mean their college or pro uniform?
Baker: The color of UNC uniforms is blue, and the color of State’s, Washburn’s team, is red. Blue and red are important, their opposition I mean, in all of my new fiction, including, also, “The Booker T. Archive.”
Willie: In what way? I mean, to me they’re just part of the spectrum of colors that also include orange, yellow, green, etc. If there is an opposite to these colors, it seems it would be the opposite color in the spectrum, which, if I remember correctly, would be magenta actually for…no, orange for blue, and blue-green or cyan for red. Do you mean then cyan and red perhaps?
Baker: These perceived opposites of red and blue have a long history in my fiction and art. It’s just something that I feel is truth–their opposition I mean. It has a lot to do with them being on the opposite ends of the spectrum.
Willie: I think that would be red and violet then. Isn’t violet on one side of the visible spectrum and red on the other?
Baker: Blue and violet are a complex matter, but yes, in a way you’re right. And I’d have to make a detailed study to actually discuss this in any depth, but let’s just say that red and blue are opposites right now and leave it at that. The idea comes from–or, should I say, resonates–with those of philosopher Walter Russell, who wrote several books about the idea, including one called *The Secret of Light.*
Willie: Are your ideas then based upon this book? These are not original then?
Baker: I resonated with them independently of this book, but I was glad to run across it, and some of the images within it, with a blue woman and a red man framing an abstractly portrayed and self repeating cycle of some sort, were definitely inspirations for creating similar art with a framing Daugherty and Washburn.
Willie: You’ve then used these images in your art?
Baker: In a collage style way, yes. As well as the median Bias images.
Willie: We seem to be, as usual, circling around a central idea instead of alighting directly upon it. Very briefly, the central idea of the framing Washburn and Daugherty, as directly related to “Jordan’s Rule.”
Baker: Blue is the original perfection symbolized in Daugherty/Black Mountain, Red is the corruptions of this perfection referenced by Washburn and Hickory. In-between you have, in this frame, two counties, McDowell and Burke, which represent the path of the Catawba River between these two extremes. These extremes are referred to in “Jordan’s Rule” as the pitcher–Washburn, and catcher–Daugherty. While the river seemingly flows forward in time, a linear progression, the true spiritual nature is atemporal and flows backwards from mouth, or perceived mouth–Washburn/Hickory–to source–Black Mountain/Daugherty. At the exact center of what we can called this pitched ball, the ball can leave the game. This is the Bias point, which represents the median between Daugherty and Washburn by being the second pick of the N.B.A. draft in question, lying between picks one and three. The symbol of Bias is represented by a specific geographic location in fact, more specific, much more specific than either Daugherty or Washburn. It is the perceived center, and “Jordan’s Rule” cannot fully be understood until this center is exposed and illuminated, I guess you could call it.
Willie: Okay, alright. The center. We’ve come to the center baker. *Briefly,* what is this center? What is this geographic location and how is it the center of “Jordan’s Rule?”
Baker: It represents a choice, all choices perhaps. Between life and death, between black and white. It is not only Bias but his counterpart Larry Bird, who he would have worked together side by side if he would have lived. Larry Bird and Lenny Bias as twins–the same initials, even then same number of letters in each word if written out in the above way. Bias and Bird are the two choices, the black and the while, but not merely of race or color, but of a harmonious alterations of yin and yang, primal Oriental energies that revolve around each other to make each other whole.
Willie: Larry Bird?
Baker: Yes, if Bias would have lived, he and Bird would have made the greatest forward tandem ever. I think the association is justified. And then you have that quote where Bird said that the death of Bias, right after his draft, was the cruelest thing he’d ever heard–I believe that quote was the title of the *Sports Illustrated* edition which covered the tragedy.
Willie: Well, I asked for it I guess. Bird and Bias. And they’re at the heart of “Jordan’s Rule?”
Baker: They represent the second corruption in the story, and manifest, actually, as the giant Tinman that Darwin and the character baker ride to the moon on, in his hand I mean. The giant, whose actual name is Casey, is the symbol of the blended energies of Bird and Bias. It is also the symbol of Mythos, the imaginary planet. Yes, this is the center, as Mythos is the center. Many unexplained and seemingly nonsensical things about “Jordan’s Rule” can be explained by knowledge from this center.
Willie: Well, I don’t know how to proceed. It seems too deep a subject to go into here. We’re getting away from “Jordan’s Rules” it seems, but you’re saying we’re approaching the center. Perhaps this center, Mythos, is what I don’t want to deal with. A structure, perhaps, lying at the center of your fantasy that seems unimportant, a waste of time, in comparison, let’s say, to the logos that can be seen to exist all around it. It seems isolated in this way, stuck at the center of your creation. A false center, a small fire when bigger, much bigger fires are burning outside and all around it. This is just hypothetically speaking of course.
Baker: What do you want me to say to that? Do you want me to justify the existence of Mythos, and my time spent there?
Willie: I’m not sure what that means. Did you *live* on Mythos for a time baker?
Baker: As Mythos is a symbol for the self, the rotundum as Jung calls it, yes, you could say I still live there. It is the center as I said before.
Willie: Perhaps this would be a good point for a break. Do you think so baker? Let’s take a break then, and see if we can straighten out the next way to go. Do you want another cappuccino. I know you say you usually have one in the morning, while you’re on vacation. Do you think we should change locations for the rest of the interview?
Baker: This is fine here. A break seems in order though. I think we can progress. I will say now, though, Willie, that you have your *own* Mythos. Everyone has their own Mythos, their own small fires burning inside. Why should this be separate from the greater fire? Where are our personal fires kindled from if not the greater one? There must be an unseen connection.
Willie: Are we all then gods of some sort? That seems to be what you’re saying.
Baker: Perhaps yes. But I think we are both god, singular, and gods, plural. Although this seems to be a dichotomy, there really is none. Why are you so scared of this idea?
Willie: I don’t know. I mean I can quote scriptures to that effect, but the central idea is certainly scaring me at this point, and I’m not sure why.
Baker: When your character Willie stared in the pool in the X Cave, he was also scared. He saw too deep, so deep that he split in two, falling into the pool while also standing above it. The thing he saw in the pool that he didn’t like was the giant robot, which I’ve just described as being the same as Mythos. Willie didn’t like seeing Mythos in the pool. If the interview is the pool–is my views projected through the mirror of the interview–then the central self image is what you don’t want to get at. And this ties in directly with the other lines of the stories, the brown reality, the not wanting to deal with the Tim-man in the Willie storyline. The Tim-man, described as a dream hermit in “Jordan’s Rule,” is the same as the giant robot. It is a vertical addition to the story, where the linear progression of the Catawba River between Daugherty and Washburn is left behind. It is the escape from the Line, the 1st Corruption. It is a fundamental division between the two parts of the story. Yes, it is the center.
Willie: Okay, let’s stop.
END OF SIDE THREE.
BEGINNING OF SIDE FOUR.
Sunklands 