The Philip José Farmer novel A Feast Unknown debuted in 1969, published by Essex House. I’ve told the story before of how I encountered it four years later, in 1973 at age fifteen. At that time I was living in the beach town of Ocean City, Maryland. Strictly speaking, my family was actually homeless, squatting in closed-down hotels in the winter, and shifting a little south to the wild island of Assateague to live in tents in more temperate months. I was no longer going to public school, and wanted, more than anything, to become a writer. I read incessantly…a mixture of classic literature and pulp fiction. I haunted any establishment in Ocean City that had books in it.
One of those places was a head shop called The Rainbow Tree. Headshops were holdovers from the 60’s…places to buy smoking paraphernalia, incense, and best of all, badass literature. I was too young to actually be allowed in there, but at that age I could raise a thin mustache that made me look older, and so I slipped inside their beaded curtain to what felt thrillingly like a forbidden world.
Of course I went straight for their “book section”, a motley collection of underground comics, revolutionary pamphlets, sex magazines, and outlaw lit. I had been an avid fan of the Bantam paperback Doc Savage books, but needless to say I was not looking to expand that collection at The Rainbow Tree. Nevertheless, I did a double take to see the cover of the Essex House edition of A Feast Unknown, with its cover clearly depicting a nude Doc Savage (who I would quickly learn had been renamed Doc Caliban) wrestling an equally unclothed Tarzan (named Lord Grandrith).
My copy of A Feast Unknown (with mysterious red stains on the cover)
I was intrigued, in fact fascinated. But as I opened the book and scanned randomly through the pages, I was, quite frankly, shocked. Used to the sanitized world of the Doc paperbacks, I was unprepared for what was obviously a hammering narrative of nonstop sex and violence.
I almost put it back and walked away. Not because I didn’t want to read it…but because I felt somehow naked myself. Pulp heroes were innocent…the adventures of their protagonists violent, yes, but never mixed with intense sexuality. To see those idealistic heroes in the context of brutal eroticism was jarring, unsettling. My own interest in sex (adolescent male, hormones raging) was intense, but I was shy around girls, and the social separation and isolation caused by homelessness only increased that shyness. Forbidden books and magazines were where I turned to explore, gingerly, that exciting, mysterious, superheated world. But it was a quest filled with stolen glances and secret thoughts. To be seen wanting that book, would surely be like wearing a scarlet letter on my forehead.
But I couldn’t walk away. Used paperbacks were cheap at The Rainbow Tree — even though I counted every penny in those days, I could afford it easily. So I nerved myself up and brought it up to the counter, my heart pounding, fully expecting the checkout guy to look at the nude Doc and Tarzan on the cover, raise his eyes to look at fifteen-year-old me attempting to appear calm and cool and at least eighteen, and shake his head with an admonition to go home and read the Sunday funnies, kid.
However, he didn’t bat an eye. I paid, fled back out through the beaded curtain, got on my bike, and rode to the nearby beach. With my back propped against a sand dune, I started reading.
I was conceived and born in 1888. Jack the Ripper was my father…
Anyone who reads the 1939 Doc Savage novel World’s Fair Goblin will come away with a vivid pulp snapshot of a special time and place in history. In the wonderful book 1939: The Lost World of the Fair by David Gelernter (The Free Press, 1995), there is this opening description about the impact of the World’s Fair:
Fairgoers at the most popular exhibit on the grounds, the Futurama, were addressed from “the future” by a deep, portentous narrator’s voice: “Man has forged ahead. New and better things have sprung from his industry and genius.” Fairgoers on the whole credited the voice to be speaking truth, and they were pleased with what it had to say.
Over the course of the April, 1939 Doc Savage novel, we will see idealism, adventure, superlative skill, terror, camaraderie. We will walk inside of the Hall of Medicine, the Perisphere, and all across the magical grounds themselves. So too, I hope, will readers come away from the journey of a somewhat different, but also much the same Doc in the novel Towers, feeling a degree of wonder at the amazing place and time the Fair was.
To close out this visit back to that time, a gallery from Towers of Iason Ragnar Bellerophon’s paintings and collages of the Fair, which include the Trylon and Perisphere, the Dali Dream of Venus, the International Pavilions of the USSR and Poland, the statue of the Astronomer at the foot of the great Helicline causeway, and much, much more. The Fair was a great statement of hope and wonder. As the pin so many fairgoers wore states with courage and optimism, “I have seen the future”.
There was certainly huge anticipation for the opening day of the World’s Fair on April 30, 1939. An interesting note about the Doc Savage novel World’s Fair Goblin, was that in order to have it also appear in April 1939 (to take marketing advantage of Fair mania), the novel was written before the Fair itself opened. Its depiction of the crowds, bustle and excitement was speculation, based on pre-opening visits to the fairgrounds, and the immense amount of promotional materials everywhere in New York at that time.
But Opening Day itself was something special. General Admission tickets were 75 cents…a not inconsiderable sum for that time (you could buy seven pulp magazines for that amount, and still have a nickel left over).
World’s Fair Ticket
The President, Franklin Roosevelt, would give the official opening day speech.
Ticket to attend Franklin Roosevelt’s Opening Day speech
Newspapers were filled with ads about how to get to the Fair.
Newspaper ad for the Fair
For the Doc Talos novel Towers, I wanted to capture a little of that excitement and anticipation. So the beginning of the book is a series of preludes, in which the characters look ahead on the eve of Opening Day. In one of them, Rickie Talos, Andy (Kong) Kingman, and Theo Jacob (my versions of Pat, Monk and Ham), share a midnight dinner before the Fair opens. For a long time before writing it, I pondered about what each of them would be doing at the Fair. Rickie, with her salon and her passion for flying, would certainly visit the Cosmetics Pavilion and the Aviation Building. Andy, eminent chemist, would probably have had some sort of contact with DuPont, but would be more interested in the Amusement area. I thought it likely Theo would have been involved in the legal side of the Freedom Pavilion (a project promoting free societies, and a repudiation of war which was then actively brewing in Europe). Though the Freedom Pavilion never did come to fruition, there was a constant stream of legal work in assisting people in their efforts to escape countries deeply shadowed by war and oppression…an important mission for the most astute lawyer Harvard ever turned out. And Doc, well, the brain tumor operation on an underprivileged child was fine for the pulp World’s Fair Goblin, but taking a more realistic tack, I thought perhaps a speech in the Hall of Medicine on the treatment of brain tumors.
Here are Rickie, Andy and Theo, in an excerpt from the novel, chatting about the day to come.
April 30, 1939 12:15 AM, Anatole’s Restaurant, New York City
Rickie couldn’t keep her eyes from straying to Theo’s hair. Perfect cut of course, neat, masculine and professional. But since Andy had whispered to her the apparently momentous secret that it was dyed, she’d been trying to spot some evidence of the coloring job. No…it was perfect. She wanted to know what he used. It would be fabulously popular in her salon. Still, how did one approach asking a question like that?
Andy had obviously put the question in her head in order to prompt her to an indiscreet inquiry that would profoundly embarrass Theo..what a devil he was. She shifted her gaze over to him, polishing off the rare steak he had drowned in sauce. “Hey Andy,” she said, “I just have to ask. You’re an Okie, right? How in hell did you end up with hair the color of an Irish pimp’s?”
Andy gagged on his bite of steak. Theo chuckled. Rickie did her very best to suppress a grin.
“Well,” Andy recovered himself enough to supply a much more gigantic grin than she ever could have managed, “Mom got around, you know? Catholics had to have been more fun than the local Presbyterian stiffs.”
“Uh huh.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
She rested back in her chair. Anatole’s was a nice place. She enjoyed putting on the ritz to come out for late dinner, and had been delighted when Theo and Andy had invited her. With the Fair opening tomorrow – today, actually – they were ready, as always, to start partying early.
“So what are you boys going to be checking out?”
“I thought I might have me a look at Rosita Royce at the Crystal Palace.”
“A girlie show,” Theo sniffed. “Why doesn’t this surprise me?”
“According to their leaflet, she’s gonna do the Dance of the Six Doves, shyster. Finest exhibition of graceful movement since Salome did her veil thing. And don’t get on your high horse with me. When we were watching them set up all the shows in the Amusement Area, I saw you taking in the babe over the spread legs of that Venus funhouse.”
“That’s a reproduction from Botticelli…”
“Yeah, she’s really demure. Arm positioned sort of strategically over her bazooms and all.”
Theo sighed. “Shall we move on? What are you planning on seeing, Rickie?”
“They look to have some interesting stuff for the salon at the Cosmetics Pavilion. But I plan on being in and out of there pretty fast. Then I’ll be making a beeline for the Aviation Building. It’s been great that security’s been letting us in before the Fair opens…I got a sneak peek at some of the planes they’ll be hanging from the rafters. Some sweet chariots.”
“Our little aviatrix,” Theo smiled.
“You call me that again Attorney Jacob, and I’ll personally fly a prop plane up your ass.”
“Speaking of things being flown into private places,” Andy put in, “any truth to the tale that Hughes asked you to go with him on that Fair stunt flight? You two were seeing quite a bit of each other a little while back.”
“Nice conversational segue. And not a chance.”
“He’s a cad, from what I hear,” Theo pronounced.
“The counselor is addicted to gossip,” Andy laughed. “So, is he at least a good ride while on the ground, Ricks?”
“Screw you.”
“I really cherish these gentle conversations…”
“Look, there was no way he was going to include me on that little spin. He wanted the around the world speed record to be in all the papers, not talk about his latest conquest.”
“Aha. And is that what you are?”
“All the cad stuff aside, he’s pretty charming.”
“So you’re still an item?”
“Will you lay off about Howard? The only romance he’s really interested in is the one he’s got going with his mirror.” Rickie took a sip of her wine. “My focus at the Fair is going to be on cosmetics and planes. But you’re going to be the star among us tomorrow, Theo.”
“Nothing of the sort,” he waved away the thought.
“All that legal work you’ve been doing for the countries stomped on by der fuhrer? I’m going to be proud to be in the audience listening to you speak at the opening of the Polish Pavilion.”
“Well, it’s bittersweet. Most of that work has been clearing obstacles from the path of Poles and Czechs trying to get out of their own countries. And all the work we put into making a statement through the Freedom Pavilion came to nothing.”
“I say you did good,” Rickie raised her glass to him.
“It’s relative, I suppose. What constitutes achievement. My father used to threaten he would put me under his own teachers at the University of Warsaw when I complained about Harvard. Fair as angels, tough as bats out of hell. His favorite phrase was pravo musi byc odwazne, ‘the law must be brave’.”
“Pretty decent words to live by.”
Andy raised his last forkful in a salute similar to Rickie’s. “You were brave enough at Verdun.”
Rickie looked at the two old friends. It always touched her when they set aside their playful squabbles in moments of simple respect. Of course then they found themselves tongue-tied. She reached over to ruffle Andy’s bristly hair, bringing them back to easier ground.
“Why didn’t you hook up with any of the exhibitions, Andy?”
“Aw, those fuckers at Du Pont…”
“…stiffed him,” Theo finished.
“Look, it’s real simple with those guys. You’re on staff and anything you come up with belongs to them, or you’re persona non grata. They got ungodly profits to look out for. That’s a real look at the World of Tomorrow.”
“Poor baby,” Rickie transferred her touch to lay her hand open-palmed on his forehead. “Getting all hot and bothered. And I’m guessing you’re broke again.”
“Hey, I’m eating here, aren’t I?”
They ate quietly for a while. She thought about Doc, probably up in his eyrie right now polishing his lecture for tomorrow. On the treatment of brain tumors. Sexy as all hell.
She knew very well that the Fair had approached Doc to be no less than the figurehead of the whole shebang…the “man of tomorrow” moniker they’d given him in the pulps being tailor-made for their promo. Of course he’d modestly declined.
Someday she’d have to twist his arm to step out and take some of the accolades he deserved. Pipe dream, of course. He’d just be embarrassed. And yeah, she loved him for that.
I had, since first encountering the Doc Savage novel World’s Fair Goblin, daydreamed vividly about going to the Fair. A place of wonders…the World of Tomorrow.
As a lover of literature, I was quite moved to see that the site of the Fair was the same place F. Scott Fitzgerald had written of with such haunting grace in The Great Gatsby.
About half-way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is the valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.
In essence, a massive dump of cinder and ash…a place resembling a scene from Dante’s Inferno. For the Fair it was all cleaned and cleared away, and in that space was reared a testament to human aspiration.
But it was not a place made to exist for very long, outside of memory and imagination. Almost everything, except for a few buildings, was intended to be demolished in at most a few years. When the Fair had run its course, it would be razed, and a public park left on its old footprint. The buildings were constructed so as to be easily demolished — the statues were mostly plaster. Even the iconic Perisphere, which along with its soaring companion spike the Trylon was the ubiquitous symbol of the Fair (featured prominently in the James Bama cover art for the Doc Savage novel), was made largely of gypsum tiles over a metal framework…a skin which would become brittle and easily broken. Essentially a futuristic house of cards to ultimately be knocked over.
So, in my dreams of visiting the Fair, I could physically go to the site if I wished, but most of the 1939 glories had long vanished. There is a unique monument there…the Unisphere from the 1964 World’s Fair, which was held at the same site. But that world of the 60’s had been one vastly different from its predecessor of 25 years before.
However, films from the 1939 Fair abound. Everything from the official newsreels to home movies made by visitors can be viewed at any time, and many of them are literally walks through the amazing landscape of the World of Tomorrow. I confess I became quite addicted to them, and watched dozens of hours of amazing film.
Maps, guidebooks, memorabilia, pavilion brochures…all can be acquired with relative ease for a diligent and enthusiastic researcher. Not just retrospectives, but originals from 1939. In my quest to be able to write the Doc Talos novel Towers with a feeling of veracity as if I myself had walked and wandered the boulevards of the Fair (and taking the reader with me), I acquired an original Fair Guidebook, which was filled with maps, advertisements, and guides to the dizzying array of attractions which could be visited.
1939 Official Fair Guidebook
One of the locations featured prominently in the Doc Savage novel was the Hall of Medicine (where Doc, as a surgeon, performed a unique operation to vastly improve the life of a boy from the slums of New York). Here is the description from World’s Fair Goblin, Chapter Two (Hidden Trail).
Running north and east of the Theme Center of the Fair — the spot where the Perisphere and Trylon were located — were broad avenues and malls branching out like the spokes of a wheel. The Hall of Medicine was on one of those spokes. It was a long, yellow-colored structure just north of the circular walk bordering the mammoth Perisphere. Inside was the operating amphitheater, built like a small theater; with circular tiers of seats forming an observer’s balcony. Seated there and silent, white masks over their faces, visiting medical men watched in awe. They were seeing one of the most amazing things in their lives.
They were seeing Doc Savage remove a brain tumor from the impoverished boy. Doc was doing good, in a manner as dramatic as his adventures against evil.
I was able to acquire a small hardcover book that was on sale in the Hall of Medicine itself in 1939, which described it both physically and philosophically, and was filled with remarkable pictures, like this one, of the great mural inside of the Hall…which with its positive message about the beauty and wonder of the human body, and the large, welcoming central figure, seemed distinctly Doc-like. I could picture him there.
I was born in 1958, so I missed my chance to hang out at the 1939 New York World’s Fair by a couple of decades. I didn’t even know it had existed, until in the midst of obsessively collecting and reading the Bantam Doc Savage paperbacks, I encountered, to my amazement and delight, World’s Fair Goblin. I thought it had the best Bama cover I had ever seen. It had Pat Savage in it (and even as a kid, the novels with Pat were always my favorites). And best of all, I began to realize as I read my way along that the World’s Fair was something that had really happened.
Not the events of the novel of course…the mysterious goblin, Maximus, and all the rest of the wild plot. But the Fair had been real!
As a teenager, long before the arrival of the internet, ebay, and the sources of old literary treasure available today, I longed to own an actual Doc Savage pulp magazine. The paperbacks were great, but the idea of actually holding an original pulp in my hands became something of a holy grail. I haunted used bookstores, flea markets, antique stores, Goodwill stores, garage sales…dreaming of the day when amid a pile of someone’s old National Geographic or Life magazines, I would find that ultimate treasure: a Doc pulp. I never did find one.
But when I was old enough to have a job, and possessed income to indulge such dreams, I determined to get a Doc pulp by mail order. Various dealers advertised in the pages of the 1970’s comics I read, and one, a dealer named Howard Rogofsky, had those glorious words in his ad: Doc Savage pulps. I sent him fifty cents for his catalog, and when it came I devoured the listings. He did indeed have Doc pulps for sale! And among them, the April 1939 issue.It wasn’t as easy as it is today to confirm something by googling it, and there were no pictures in the Rogofsky catalog. In addition, he did not list the story titles. Was it the issue?
I went to the copyright page of my Bantam paperback, looked at the printing history, and yes, the original copyright date was April 1939. So I coughed up $15 plus shipping for it, mailed the postal money order to Rogofsky, and began my vigil.
When it arrived, I literally ripped the package to shreds to get at it. And there it was, my holy grail, my first pulp magazine…World’s Fair Goblin.
Doc Savage Magazine, April 1939
Of course I had read the story (multiple times) already in paperback, but there was something magical about holding that fragile magazine in my hands and turning the yellowed pages with infinite care. This magazine had been on newsstands the same month the Fair had opened! And there were illustrations! Somehow, in my 1960’s paperback mindset, I had not realized the original pulps had been illustrated. Those grainy black and white drawings beckoned to a world of wonder.
Interior Illustration, Doc Savage Magazine, April 1939
That excitement and wonder, amazingly, never dimmed. Almost forty years later, I would, with incredible anticipation, return to the World’s Fair through the writing of the Doc Talos novel Towers.
In working to portray or extrapolate on an iconic character, one of the most powerful tools is visual presentation. Written descriptions have great power, but a superb visual can have profound impact.
If one considers core Doc Savage canon to be the run of pulp magazines from 1933-1949, the visual presentation of Doc is that of the Walter Baumhofer pulp covers. That visual was essentially replaced during the course of the Bantam paperback re-issue of the same stories which began in 1964, featuring the cover art of James Bama. The depictions are vastly different, and each became emblematic to readers of the stories from different generations.
The Bama Doc Savage is the visual that still embodies the character today. But many notable fans of Doc disliked it…among them author Harlan Ellison (who grew up with the Baumhofer pulps), and even Philip José Farmer, who by his own account did not want a version of the Bama Doc on the first edition of his book DocSavage: His Apocalyptic Life…instead choosing a Baumhofer.
Farmer clearly had less influence with the publishers of his Doc Savage pastiche, Doc Caliban. More often than not, artists have portrayed Caliban using the Bama model.
Over a generation later, Iason Bellerophon and I undertook the vast labor of love to create another Doc pastiche…Doc Talos. Both of us grew up with the Bama Doc, so there was little hesitation in choosing that portrayal as the starting point. But the hope was to do more than just recycle an iconic character design. The goal of the series was to bring fresh literary depth to Doc, and from the artistic side, to embody the man using techniques of modern fine art to capture the “soul” of the character in any given scene.
Bama’s Doc (whose poses were done by model Steve Holland) was photorealistic, but did not feel emotionally real — it would be difficult, for instance, to picture Bama’s Doc doing something as prosaic as drinking a cup of coffee. But we wanted images that could portray both the quiet and intense moments that constitute “real life”…to somehow pull off the alchemy of a character being both a superman and an everyman (which, I believe, is the core in his characterization that has made Doc such a beloved character for almost a century).
So Iason prepared hundreds of sketches…like this one — drawn right into one of the preliminary manuscripts he used to guide him along through the saga — which does indeed show Doc Talos drinking a cup of coffee.
Doc Talos drinking coffee, by Iason Ragnar Bellerophon
For the final book, the image evolved into this painting.
Doc Talos drinking coffee 2, by Iason Ragnar Bellerophon
The dynamic technique of force lines in motion around the figure of Doc present a rich impression of his physical power, even in so quietly contemplative a pose.
The same technique informs and enhances the character in scenes of life and death violence, as shown in this painting:
Doc Talos – Violent Power by Iason Ragnar Bellerophon
The figure is still immediately recognizable as Doc, but color, dynamism and abstraction create an intense transformation of the man quietly drinking coffee in the first image. He becomes terrifying…as violence always is. Multiply this visual experience by hundreds of paintings, and we have a phenomenon as powerful as that of the Bama Doc, but with an almost visceral panorama of emotion that brings the character deeper under the skin.
Everyman and superman…and all of the nuances in between.
In today’s world, perhaps the most unlikely image of a writer is someone with a pen in hand. Fast and responsive computer keyboards, voice activated software…the tech world of Doc Savage (and beyond) is everywhere these days.
But there are a few throwbacks — true anachronisms — who still write everything in longhand first. Yes, I am one of those madmen.
In a previous post I referred to the use of a pen and paper as “The Lovecraft Method”. HPL, certainly one of the greatest of all pulp writers, was notorious for crafting all of his stories in longhand, and then only grudgingly, with much angst about the agony and hell of typing, copying them using a typewriter. He loved pens that had smooth, free-flowing ink, and loathed the dreaded clacking keys.
While not sharing his hatred of typing, I do find there is something primal and satisfying about scrawling down narratives by hand. When creating that way, I find I am more inspired, more likely to push out onto the edge. So the 400,000 or so words of the Talos saga (so far) have all been scribbled first.
Of course should my papers ever merit cataloguing after I have succumbed to the dust that is death, I have genuine pity for anyone tasked with deciphering the damn things. Here, for those with sharp eyes, nimble brains (and perhaps a bit of the masochist in them), are samples of Lovecraft’s handwritten first page of the classic The Case of Charles Dexter Ward…and below it, a longhand page from the Doc Talos story Violent Night.
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Nudging the characters from the Doc Savage canon toward the “real world” can be great fun, offering the opportunity to create historical moments that really ought to be true.
For instance…before the 70’s film version of Doc Savage tanked at the box office, there was quite a bit of expectation that a second film would follow — Doc Savage: Archenemy of Evil, with a less campy screenplay by Phil Farmer — and in addition to Doc and his aides, this one would also feature Pat Savage. No actress had been announced for the role before the project was abandoned, but what could be more natural than for producer/director George Pal to screen test the actual woman the pulp Pat was based on for the role?
That was the plot of “Rickie Goes To Hollywood”, a short tale with no villains, no plot to speak of…just a slice of life in Tinseltown, where Rickie meets Pal and none other than Ron Ely.
Back in 2013 the small independent studio PT Films, in conjunction with Mad Eyes Productions, did an explicit film of Rickie’s erotic revenge fantasy against Maria the Saint, and it featured adult film star Sienna Day as Rickie (hundreds of screen captures from the film are in the second hardcover collection, Doc). Sienna also did a pictorial, in the style of Playboy, which will appear in the third collection, Apocalyptic. Rickie Goes To Hollywood is a gentler tale, and here is how it begins…
Rickie Goes To Hollywood
Actor Ron Ely in 1975
Hollywood, 1975
Rickie wondered why she’d never been to Hollywood. Surprisingly, Hughes had never taken her here when they’d dated, and subsequently she’d discovered that both Doc and John held this patch of garish geography in quiet contempt. She remembered a quote she’d heard somewhere about LA and environs being like a baby with a shotgun: gleeful about what appeared to be a toy, with no clue about how dangerous it was
Really, that was her kind of place.
She and Ron were similar in height, so as they walked to the spot where he had parked his car, the occasional glances they swapped were pretty much eye to eye.
“So when does the star chauffeur a nobody to a screen test in this town?:”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re hardly a nobody.”
“Screen credits, zero.”
“You’re the real thing, Cousin Pat.”
She smiled. Disarmingly handsome bastard…no, not bastard. Of all things, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy.
“I’m sorry Dr. Talos decided not to come,” he continued. “Of course he might have ended up stealing my job.”
“A seventy-four year old man taking your place?” Her smile grew broader. “Not a chance, even if he does look good. Besides, Doc would no sooner appear in a movie than cuss out a nun. The writer ought to be happy he agreed to the interview.”
“I like Paul,” Ron said. “His script’s a lot better than the first one.”
“No offense, but that really wouldn’t take much. I mean, the whole camp thing…”
“I would have much preferred to play it straight myself. George just couldn’t get his head around today’s audiences buying all the pulp malarkey without a wink. Between you and me Patricia, everything we do today might end up being moot. The critics have been pretty rough on the first one, and if it tanks…”
“Call me Rickie. And I’m going to bet that people are getting tired of all the antiheroes good old Hollyweird keeps pumping out these days.”
“Well, that’s the hope. I hope you didn’t mind me teasing you with the ‘cousin Pat’ thing.”
“That’s okay. I’m not quite as deadly serious as cousin-once-removed James is. Mom used to tweak his poker face too.”
“I’ve read about your mother. An aviator…she set some records, didn’t she?”
“I guess they don’t say aviatrix any more. Here’s to equality coming to the world. Yeah, she was a pistol.”
“Here we go,” he gestured toward a car parked at the curb.
“Chevy Caprice,” she nodded. “Fun car. What, no Mercedes?”
He shrugged in a very charming way. “I’m not a Mercedes kind of guy.”
“Well, that’s very becoming modesty. Appropriate for the man who plays Doc Savage, if I may say so.”
He smiled and held open the passenger door for her.
She settled in, adjusting her sunglasses to block the pervasive glare while he got behind the wheel and started up the car.
“Of course,” she said, “you’ve played Tarzan too. Did you channel anything from one role to the other?”
“A little, I guess. Tarzan’s a wild thing balancing the jungle and civilization, Doc is a scientist with a wild side.”
“Pretty good encapsulation,” she nodded.
As they rolled out into traffic, Rickie leaned her head back against the seat. “So tell me about Pal,” she said.
“One of the good guys,” he said. “I guess it’s safe to say both he and I have made decent livings doing kid stuff…but he doesn’t really see it as kid stuff. He actually loves adventure. I think he wishes he could run off and have some himself.”
“Well, I can relate.”
“A lot of producers, well…when you come down to it, they’re pretty soulless. George is more of a middle aged man with a young heart and an old soul.”
Rickie tipped down her glasses to look at him. “Takes one to know one, I’m guessing?”
He smiled slightly. Damn, it really resembled a Doc smile, only Ron displayed it more than once every couple of years. “Maybe,” he said. “So tell me about Rickie. You live in New York…do you like it there?”
“Sure. It’s a great town. No end of mayhem.”
“I take it you don’t long for a calm and quiet existence?”
“Deliver me. I…inherited Mom’s business, and it does pretty well, but mostly I delegate. More to life than running a salon and gymnasium.”
“Like that Africa trip you mentioned?”
“Oh shit, well, that whole thing was pretty much off the rails. You ever been? I mean for real, Mr. Tarzan?”
He shook his head. “Back lots and filming in the Laguna Hills.”
“Maybe someday, huh? It’s a pretty breathtaking place, actually. Of course a lot of messed-up stuff…politically, you know. But I guess that’s true everywhere.”
“That it is.”
They continued to chat comfortably and amiably for the half hour or so that it took to reach the studio lot. The gate-guard waved them through after one glance at Ron. The studio buildings themselves all had a warehouse-ish look. Big plain shells on the outside, with visions of every shape crafted and dismantled constantly inside.
Ron parked outside of a building that was indistinguishable from the others around it except for a big number on a placard. Inside, they checked in at a little reception kiosk.
“Mr. Pal upstairs?” Ron asked.
“Yessir Mr. Ely.”
He offered Rickie his arm. They went up one floor in a very nuts-and-bolts practical elevator with an open cage front. A small suite of offices was upstairs. Ron knocked lightly on the first door.
“Come in, come in!” called a cheerful voice from inside.
Pal rose from behind his desk as they entered. A relatively little guy with white hair…far from a rakish master of adventure, he looked more like a taxi driver, or a grocer.
“Wow,” he said, extending his hand to Rickie. “Miss Talos, welcome to Hollywood.”
“The pleasure’s all mine,” she beamed.
He flat-out stared, then realized it and turned, a little sheepish, toward Ron. “Good God R., she might have stepped right out of a pulp magazine.”
“George Pal,” Ron courteously recalled there had been no introduction. “May I introduce Patricia Talos.”
“Rickie,” she said.
“Please, have a seat. Can I get you anything?”
“I’m fine,” she said, dropping into a comfortable chair by the desk.
Pal leaned back against the desk-edge. “I’m glad you didn’t think I was a nut case, writing to you and sending that copy of the script. When I saw that spread in the New Yorker about your salon, and they wrote about your family history…well, lights went off.”
“I was flattered.”
“Well, with most of Archenemy already cast, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Pat.”
“Ron tells me there’s some doubt now about the status of the picture?”
“There’s always doubt in this town. But yes, to be perfectly honest, the studio is doing what they do…assessing. Man of Bronze had, well, some issues. Mostly my fault. Certainly not Ron’s…he played Doc with incredible dignity.”
“I agree,” Rickie sent a warm glance Ron’s way.
“You’ve read the script. Still fun, still with infectious spirit the magazine had, but with more of a straight face.”
“That’s a good direction,” she nodded.
“You like Pat’s part?”
“Yeah, I do. Though the writer put me in a nightgown that I wear from my first lines to my last, getting more tattered as it goes.”
“I know, I know…but aside from that, we really want to show how smart you are, how feisty and brave. Listen to me, I’m saying ‘you’ instead of ‘her’.”
“I think I just did the same thing,” she smiled.
“Well, let’s not mess around,” he straightened and held out his hand to her again, this time to help her up from the chair she had just sat down in. “Shall we go play with cameras and mikes a while?”
Ron was right, he really was like a big kid. She liked him immediately. As they left the office, she leaned down a little and whispered in his ear, “Don’t worry about the nightgown. I’m a born exhibitionist.”
“Whispering together already?” Ron, just ahead of them, looked back over his shoulder.
“I told him that he needs to stick to the script. When I get put into shoes, they better be killer heels.”
They went down to one of the smaller soundstages, The simplest of sets, with a small fake room, flanked with white walls. Just outside of the set a gigantic motherfucker of a camera pointed at it. From beside the camera, Pal pulled out a bound manuscript with – cute touch – a bronze cover.
“Need to read it a bit before we go?”
Rickie shook her head. “Memorized it on the plane. Want to do the last bit, where I make the crack about hoping I get kidnapped again?”
“Well I’ll be,” Pal smiled broadly. “Sure, let’s do that first, then go back to the beginning, where you give some choice sass to Monk Mayfair. How about you do all the other parts, R.?”
Ron came over and took the script. “I’m not as well prepared as our Rickie here,” he said.
He joined her on the stage, while Pal looked through the camera viewfinder and made some adjustments.
“Mr. Anderson going to direct again?” Rickie asked while he worked.
“That would be great, but he’s tied up on another thing right now. A sci-fi flick where society kills everyone who gets to the age of thirty.”
“Hmm,” Rickie raised an eyebrow. “Tough on those of us who plan on living forever.”
Pal chuckled, then raised his thumb in a high sign and then bent over the camera. “I’m toying with the notion of directing it myself. You see, I love Doc. I really do. I’ve been wanting to do these films for a long, long time. Good Lord, you two look amazing together. Kind of makes me wish we were doing a love story instead.”
Ron actually blushed…just as Rickie was sure Doc would have done had he been standing there. This was getting freaking surreal.
“Okay,” Pal said. “Action.”
Actress Sienna Day, who played the role of Rickie Talos in an independent film production
The Tetragrammatron Archive, (2011- 2012) a series of 6 exhibits taking place in the Thomas Robertello Gallery’s project space, over a year long period in conjunction with the exhibit schedule of the larger space. Thomas Robertello Gallery, Chicago, IL
Installment 6, The Robert Joseph Bell Institute for the Advancement of the Future,(Jan – Feb 2012)
2011
The Tetragrammatron Archive, (2011- 2012) a series of 6 exhibits taking place in the Thomas Robertello Gallery’s project space, over a year long period in conjunction with the exhibit schedule of the larger space. Thomas Robertello Gallery, Chicago, IL
Installment 2, Zero Paintings,(May 27 – August 14, 2011)
Installment 1, The Bergdorf Goodman Beaver Catalog,(April 1 – May 21, 2011)
Colorific, Postmasters Gallery, New York, NY (July 15 – August 19, 2011)
MASTERMIND, one hour video/performance experiment, The Brick Theater, Brooklyn, NY (June 10 -July. 14, 2011)
2010
No Customs, (Nov. 40-28, 2010)Abu Dhabi. curated by Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Turtlecove, the Game of Tomorrow, TODAY! – outdoor installation with Marni Kotak, Center for Comtempary Outdoor Art : WET, all day art event McCarren Park (Aug. 28, 2010)organized by Elliot Lessing
Double Face Fantasy video project with Marni Kotak, Thomas Robertello Gallery, Chicago, IL (July 31 – September 6, 2010) solo show
About Face, Thomas Robertello Gallery, Chicago, IL (June 11 – July 31, 2010)gallery group show
Man With The Empire State Building, New York, NY (May 27- June 2nd, 2010) seven day performance piece
Escape from New York, Paterson, NJ (May 15 – June 19, 2010)gallery group show
Spontaneous Metaphysical Portraits- Postmasters Gallery, New York, NY (May 8, 2010)all day solo performance
Mirror, Mirror : a show of portraits, Postmasters Gallery, New York, NY (April 2 – May 8, 2010)gallery group show
You Can’t Do That on Television, Brooklyn Fireproof Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (Mar, 6-7, 2010) with Marni Kotak. gallery group show
2009
19th Nervous Breakdown, Norte Maar, Brooklyn, NY (Dec. 12- 13, 2009) curated and organized by Elliot Lessing
Hhorrrautica 4: (Crypto), Parsons Hall Project Space, Holyoke,MA (Oct. 10 -18, 2009) Curated by Torsten Zenas Burns
Rat Bastards (Tutti Stronzi) – Dixon Place Theater (June 3-7, 2009) New York, NY, theater video projection artist, assistant to Philip Pearlstein
Trav SD presents the Caveman Robot Radio Adventure Hour – 92YTribeca Performance Space (Mar 25, 2009)live play with video projection
Trav SD presents the Caveman Robot Radio Adventure Hour – WFMU The Acousmatic Theater Hour (Mar 22, 2009)audio play.
Gravity Buffs, Thomas Robertello Gallery, Chicago, IL (Feb 27 – April 11, 2009)gallery group show
Love, Istvan & HIs Imaginary Band, Artwork by Chris Uphues, and Animation/Coloring by Jason Robert Bell (Feb 14, 2009)
The Unreasoning Mask, Thomas Robertello Gallery, Chicago, IL (Jan 9 – Feb 21, 2009)one-person show
2008
Aqua Wynwood Fair, Thomas Robertello Gallery, Miami, FL ( Dec. 2nd-7th, 2008)art fair
Revenge of the Masters, Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn, NY ( Nov.18th- Dec. 16th, 2008)gallery group show
Exquisitude, Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA (Aug. 2-30, 2008)gallery group show
Videos of Fictional Immortals , Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn, NY ( May 17, 2008), one-person hour long Outdoor Video Screening.
Dramatis Personae
Dramatis Personae
2007
Aqua Art Miami, Thomas Robertello Gallery, Miami, FL ( Dec. 5th-9th, 2007)art fair
Return of the Masters, Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn, NY ( Nov.17- Dec. 16th, 2007)gallery group show
Dramatis Personae, Alcove, New York, NY ( Nov.1- Jan. 5th, 2007/8)one-person show
Twilight Kingdom, Open Skies COCA, Esprit Park, San Franicisco, CA ( Oct.19- 21, 2007)one-person show
Bad Spock Drawings Project, creator, curator and contributor, (ongoing 2007)website
2007 Bridge Art Fair Chicago, Thomas Robertello Gallery, Chicago, IL (April 26 – 30, 2007)art fair
Tetragrammatron: Jason Robert Bell, 10 years of Art, The John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT (Dec. 9, 2006 – Jan.21 , 2007) one-person show
10 Years of Art
10 Years of Art
2006
Welcome the Masters, Secret Project Robot, Brooklyn, NY ( Nov.18 – Dec. 16th, 2006)gallery group show
Tetragrammatron: Jason Robert Bell, 10 years of Art, Newspace Gallery, Manchester, CT (Oct. 26 – Dec.1, 2006)one-person show
Newark Between Us, Newark Arts Council, Newark, NJ (Oct. 22 – Dec 17, 2006)gallery group show
The Kala Series, Thomas Robertello Gallery, Chicago, IL (Oct. 20 – Nov. 25, 2006)one-person show
Caveman Robot at Comic-con 2006, San Diego, CA (July 19- 23, 2006)four day performance
The Brick Bellistic Billyburg Battle of the Bands for A Billion Bucks! The Brick Theater, Brooklyn, NY (June 11th, 2006)one night performance
COMA 3 , California Occidental Museum of Art, Chicago, IL (April 29, 2006)gallery group show
Nova Art Fair, City Suites Hotel, Chicago, IL (April 27 – 30, 2006)art fair
Introductions, Thomas Robertello Gallery, Chicago, IL (April 27 – June 10, 2006)gallery group show
Adventures of Caveman Robot: The Musical, The Brick Theater, Brooklyn, NY (April 8- May 13, 2006)six week long performance and video projection project.
Caveman Robot
2005
Facing Newark Installation Exhibition , Newark Arts Council , Newark, NJ (Oct.16 – Nov. 13, 2005)gallery group show
Circus Punks Rule NYC Show, Toy Tokyo’s The Showroom, New York, NY (Oct.1 – 31, 2005)gallery group show
GO FIGURE!, Jet Artworks – Washington DC (Aug. 31- Oct 8,2005)gallery group show
Caveman Robot at Comic-con 2005, San Diego, CA (July 13- 17, 2005)four day performance.
Trashsure 32 Mercury at the Crossroads Jet Artworks – Abandoned July 1st, 2005 – 2108 R street nw, Washington DC, gallery group show
A Feast Unknown! a Multi-Media/Experimental Film cycle adapted from the book by Philip Jose Farmer, The Brick Theater, Brooklyn, NY (June 6 – July 3, 2005)6 30 minute projections, with audio recordings.
First Annual Huron Pier Invitational Boat Launch & Bar-B-Q, Brooklyn, NY (May 21, 2005)outdoor group art event
Tout-Fait: The Marcel Duchamp Studies Online Journal (March 2005) The Trashures Project, essay on my Trashures and Duchamp
Nova Young Art Fair, Bridge Magazine. Chicago, IL. (April 28- May1, 2005)art fair
Divine Feminine Principle, Fahrenheit Gallery. Kansas City, Missouri (April 8-29, 2005) gallery group show
2004
Suitable Gallery, Chicago
Suitable Gallery, Chicago
Untamed Beauty: Kala Versus the World of Man, Suitable. Chicago, IL. (Nov. 20- Dec. 18, 2004)solo show
Object Endowment, Newspace Gallery, Manchester, CT (November 11 – Dec 9, 2004)gallery group show
LUCIFER IS JESUS or HOLY FRANKENSTEIN! A History of God, Hell, and Other Gnostic Flaptrap. a multi-media lecture of infernology and Gnosticism, The Brick Theater, Brooklyn, NY (July 31 – Aug. 21, 2004)
Caveman Robot at Comic-con 2004, San Diego, CA (July 13- 17, 2004)four day performance
2004 CAC Juried Exhibition, Contemporary Artist Center. North Adams, MA. (May 1 – May 31, 2004)gallery group show
Moravian College Art Faculty Show, Payne Gallery. Bethlehem, PA. (March 18 – April 11, 2004)gallery group show
The Armory Show 2004, Kenny Schachter ConTEMPory. New York, NY. (March 12 – March 15, 2004)art fair
scopeNew York 2004, Cristine Wang Gallery. New York, NY. (March 12 – March 15, 2004)art fair
The God Show, Newspace Gallery, Manchester, CT (February 26 – March 26, 2004)gallery group show
The Skull Show, HaNNa Gallery, 4th floor HPGRP, 6-9-16 Ginza Chuo-Ku, Tokyo Japan, (March 7 to May 9, 2004)gallery group show
The God Show
2003
La Superette, Deitch Projects, (Dec.14, 2003) and Participant Inc (Dec. 20th, 2003) New York, NY. gallery group show
Holiday Spectacular, curated by Tom Sachs, Printed Matter, Inc. New York, NY. (Nov. 22 – Dec. 23, 2003)gallery group show
Bell/Young: Over and Beyond, The Pond, Chicago, IL. (March 28 – May 3, 2003) collaborative two person show
2002
Bad Touch , Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago, IL. (Dec. 12- Jan. 5, 2002-3)gallery group show
Trashsures, New York, NY (Summer 2002-2005)outdoor installation project
Garden, with Doug Young, John Connelly Presents, Brookly Front Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (May 18th- June 14th)collaborative two person show
Twilight/Journey,Mario Diacono Gallery, Boston, MA (Apr. 5-26, 2002)- one person show
2001
Everyone, Everywhere, Everything, and other drawings, Norfolk School of Art, Norfolk, CT (June 9- June 22, 2001) – one person show
New Plasma. Folin/Riva Gallery, New York, NY. (Dec.29th-Jan.31, 2001) gallery group show
2000
CAA New York Area MFA Exhibition. Hunter College Art Gallery, New York, NY. (Feb. 1-Mar. 11, 2000) gallery group show
MFA Thesis Show. Yale School of Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. (Jan. 30 – Feb. 12, 2000) gallery group show
1999
MFA Show. Yale School of Art at Norfolk, Norfolk, CT. (May 28 – Jun. 20, 1999) gallery group show
1998
First Year Show. Yale School of Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. (Dec. 2 – Dec. 15, 1998) gallery group show
1995
Encyclopedia. Jason Bell and David Wells. Contemporary Art Workshop, Chicago, IL. (Sep 29 – Oct. 31, 1995)two person show
Unknown Chicago. Gallery 312, Chicago, IL. (June 23 – Aug. 5, 1995) gallery group show
BFA show. S.A.I.C. White Tower Building, Chicago, IL. (May 6 – May 21, 1995)gallery group show
Cheap Art. Betty Rymer Gallery, Chicago, IL. (Feb. 10 – March 29, 1995)gallery group show
1993
The Artwork of Jason Bell and Doug Young. The Neo-Futurarium, Chicago, IL. (Nov. 1 – Dec. 4, 1993)two person show
Doc Talos 