About a year ago, I read an intriguing notice, in Patrick Miller’s Presumptions: A Letter at Large, about a little magazine called Now and Then, which Miller described as “an occasionally-published, whimsically philosophical chronicle of the adventures of one Carlos Anne Phelps.”
“Phelps,” Miller went on, “is a white-haired, quasi-mythical fellow with enough substance to enable him to write books, make tapes of his stories and appear at various cultural and theatrical events in Los Angeles, but he appears to be largely the creation of Robert W. Zentis. Zentis/Phelps fills Now and Then with Hollywood advertisements, a ‘Cupid’s Column’ (‘in the interest of bringing Romance back into our way of life’), and quirky, tongue-in-cheek inspirational matter.”
Of course, I’m a Now and Then regular now. I’m hard-pressed to say what I like most about this odd little journal; that would be like trying to figure out which ingredient in a mouthful of sweet, crunchy granola tastes best. In addition to the above-mentioned features, there’s “Adventures with Slippers, The Wonder Bitch,” in which Zentis writes about his dog with more compassion and humor than most people write about people. “Scenic Desserts — Selected From Mr. Phelps’ Personal Recipe File” is always intriguing: “The Ruins of Pompeii” calls for placing two stuffed manicotti “in the attitude of fallen columns. Partially bury them with pudding lava flow. Sprinkle on powdered sugar. Garnish with licorice jelly-beans. Serve unexpectedly.” Then there are the incomparable musings of Phelps himself — the ruminations on turning 108; on Adam and Eve’s big mistake in letting God bully them into wearing fig leaves; on science; on art; on Phelps’ favorite subject — life itself.
Like Miller, I assume that Phelps is the creation of Zentis, though it might be the other way around. The important thing, as Zentis says, is that “Now and Then is the only publication in the United States to publish, on a regular basis, the stories and essays of Carlos Anne Phelps” — not to mention making available such Phelps-O’Belia as tapes, photographs, even a Carlos Anne Phelps cap, silkscreened with the letters C.A.P., “which are Mr. Phelps’ initials and also stand for his philosophy of life: Capable of Affording Pleasure.”
Our thanks to Zentis/Phelps for permission to reprint these selections.
— Ed.
After Eden
It has never been my policy to hold a grudge. Yet, I must confess that I have never been able to forgive Adam and Eve.
The Garden of Eden was a suburb of Heaven. To get yourself banished to the front porch of the other place was a consequence not to be taken lightly. Yet, they did it.
There must have been a million and one tribulations suddenly spliced into their genes when Adam and Eve bit into that prehistoric apple and kissed goodbye to Easy Street: dandruff, hangnails, cellulite, paranoia, cancer, vindictiveness — to say nothing of stress and indigestion. Those things really don’t bother me. I’ve learned to live with cockroaches and having to work for a living.
What really irks me is that as they made their way through the thicket at the edge of Eden and stepped into the brambles of Terra Firma, God gave them one last gift: the fig leaf.
That was the one that did it! You’ve got to hand it to God. In one masterstroke He created guilt and perversity and the need for designer jeans. In an instant He created envy, jealousy and pornography!
“Now, look what you have made Me do,” said The Almighty. “Well, it’s too late now. Since it is impossible for Me to make a mistake, you’re just going to have to live with it.”
I can’t figure out why Adam and Eve stood for it. If they had enough gumption to question the menu, you’d think they would have said, “Now, just a minute, God. Cool down. Let’s not overreact.”
Certainly as they looked around they saw magnificence. They saw plants and creatures perfectly suited for the time and place. They saw rivers and mountains at least as beautiful as those on any Sierra Club calendar. When Adam looked at Eve and Eve looked at Adam they must have realized how beautiful they were. To be given the magnificent gift of the human body and then denied the right to celebrate in it the achievement of The Almighty is punishment indeed.
Of course, we have come a long way since fig leaves were passed out. Every day, I hear about the amazing things we human beings have achieved — video games, Cream of Wheat, automatic right margin justification. We’ve shaped marble into the Venus de Milo; and we’ve found ways to take dirt and invisible energies and put them together to bring Kelley Lange into our homes every afternoon. We have rid ourselves of smallpox, and we’ve just about licked tooth decay. One by one, we are coming to little agreements with God; the minor punishments are being negotiated away.
I expect that one of these days, we’ll get around to the real nitty gritty and say, “Enough is enough. Let’s get it out into the open. We are beautiful. We are perfect. And we’ve had enough of shame.” And we will realize that a creator is defined by his creations and that in ourselves is evidence of Glory. We will step back into Eden. We will throw down our fig leaves and rejoice.
I don’t imagine that that is going to happen before the end of the year. There are all kinds of people who insist that my “privates” are too ugly to be seen on the street; or, if not too ugly, certainly so irresistible that they would inspire chaos and wild abandon. They are convinced that if Suzanne Somers were to walk down Sunset Boulevard in her birthday suit she would lead us all to Hell.
Perhaps they are right. Our relationship with God, however we see Him, is a one-on-one affair. And things being what they are, I guess the only thing we can do is thank Him for the special joy of illicit trysts, the bliss of secret surrenders. The private fantasies that smile us to sleep are precious gifts that should be acknowledged.
It will be difficult, at best, to negotiate these things away when the fig leaf finally gets put onto the agenda. But it will probably come down to that. You can’t have everything. It doesn’t work that way.
I guess I’ve been a little hard on Adam and Eve. They didn’t use their heads. But then, if they had, I probably wouldn’t have had some of the most pleasant experiences of my life. Praise The Lord!
In high school they teach you what you need to survive and multiply. But they leave out the good parts. You’ve got to question the quality of an educational system that leaves out how to fix your car and how to handle your erection. The basics.
Let’s Do It
Alberto Terragon died of old age in 1926. He was thirty-five years old at the time. During his life he was the most serious person in East Hadfield. He was a peculiar person. He couldn’t see most of the things he believed in. And he couldn’t believe most of what he saw.
Every morning he would look into the mirror and not believe in himself. Every night he would drift off to sleep, confident that he had made himself miserable enough during that day to deserve some blessed relief. The relief of sleep was only a taste of the rewards he expected.
One day I said to Alberto, “Alberto, you survived the night. Isn’t that wonderful!”
“Life is amazing,” he said. “It keeps on going.” He seemed resigned to the fact. I did, however, detect a lack of patience. “Let’s get on with eternity,” he seemed to be saying. He died that evening. I hope he found his relief. His wife and children certainly did.
Well, life is amazing! Things that are alive seem to function with one end in mind: to keep life going as long as possible. If life is, by nature, that important, I think that it deserves to be enjoyed. And that’s what I’ve been doing, and what I’m going to continue to do.
What gives me joy is to share this celebration with my friends, and to participate in the festivities of their lives. What sweet times we have together! How much smaller our lives would be without one another!
If I could say just two things to everyone in the world (a little whisper in the ear), they would be: “Let’s do it,” and “Let’s do it again.”
On The Facts Of Life
Life is either a rather ordinary fiction or an extraordinary fact. We all share the experience of life in its fullest expression, yet we never seem to be able to figure it out. We never seem to realize that we are both the fiction and the fact.
The quest for the facts of life consumes us. Even those who are farthest from scientific pursuit listen with fascinated curiosity to reports of researchers. It is easy to forget that no scientist has ever altered reality. They have only helped us to perceive what reality is all about. Once perceived, reality must be acknowledged and put to use. The only thing worse than misusing the facts of life is ignoring them.
I must admit that most of what I’ve learned about life I either learned too late or forgot too soon. Sometimes the most obvious things are the hardest to learn and the easiest to forget. I remember the shock of realizing that life, as I know it, exists within a rather narrow crossing of situations: a small range of temperatures, a few pounds of pressure, at certain balances of acids and energy vibrations. And the most pleasant life (which is what we all seem to desire) is even more specifically fixed in its location within the possibilities.
We seem to be driven to locating that special spot. Scientists’ observations of the facts of life have led to aspirin and Melmac, Pampers and synthetic sound. We say that our standard of living has improved. We have taken hold of the facts of life and stepped closer to joy.
Of course, like angels dancing on the head of a pin, we each have our own special spot: some near the domed center, some clinging to the edges. On the head of the pin there aren’t any bad neighborhoods. The concept of prestige is a human error that has nothing to do with the facts of life. Of course that fact can be proved only by someone who understands and believes it. And you have to respect someone like that!
I learned early in life that the human condition has definite limitations. My muscles are only so strong, my senses only capable of so much. And even extraordinary effort on my part to extend those limitations would only produce limited results. I learned that the most restricted muscle was my brain. Though capable of understanding enough to keep me going, it eventually (sooner, rather than later) would come to a point beyond which existed the incomprehensible. Only God could know it all. One of the first things I was taught was that I certainly wasn’t God. I couldn’t even get onto the head of a pin.
Of course, once I realized that I wasn’t God, it seemed important to know who I was. Since I was confused, I knew that I had to be alive.
The facts of life. There seem to be more of them every day. I am convinced that the more we know about life, the closer we will come to finding out who we are. The closer we come to knowing everything, the closer we come to realizing our kinship with the All-knowing.
Since, with all our scientific effort, we can only perceive reality and not change it, we might be tempted — in our drive toward self-discovery — to skip to the obvious conclusion: life is a participation in simple divinity. The facts of life seem to leave little room for doubt.
I don’t know how many times I’ve come to some new awareness and said to myself, “Of course! I knew that all the time!” There seems to be an underlying body of knowledge that flows beneath the surface of our consciousness — an accumulation of all the facts of life that have ever been or will ever be humanly perceived. We float upon this tide, supported by it. It gives us what we need to carry on. It gives us hope and faith.
We sometimes find a way to splash down into that stream of reality and bring up an understanding. These moments of “creativity” confirm our place within the facts of life and give us the courage it takes to admit that we are a part of it all and that our limitations do not diminish that fact.
Perhaps the truth is that if what understanding any one of us has was withdrawn from the fabric of human understanding, the hole would be so large that God would fall through. Mystery must be a difficult concept for the All-knowing.
Could that be why we are so fascinated by Mystery, and terrified by it?
And so, we move along, nourished by discoveries — each discovery extending our knowledge that mystery has to do with our perception and has nothing to do with the facts of life. The fact is: we’re IT, whether we know it or not. Might as well enjoy it!
I hear about “good sex” and “bad sex.” I can’t imagine it to be bad. To me sex has always been “perfect” or “not enough.”
Reflections On Being 108
When people ask my age (and they seem to do that a lot, since I’m too old anyway — past the age of doing anything but bragging about it), I usually remind them that it isn’t how old you are that matters; it’s how old you feel. I feel 108.
“And what does that feel like?” you might ask me. Five out of ten people do. I generally respond with a laugh like those Garnetta DuBois used to laugh when she taunted me with a sensuous secret, and I say, “Just you wait and see!” I wink conspiratorially and we are friends forever.
But if I have learned anything it is a belief in words. Through words we cling to reality. Through words we understand life. Through words we stay in love. “Write it down,” Portia Livingstone Beale said to me. (If by words alone one could rule, Portia would have been Supreme Empress. She had the largest vocabulary in Plop Glen, and probably the world.) “Write it down, so that you’ll understand it. Put it into words.”
So, since there is a fifty percent chance you might have asked (and that when I looked in your eyes, you sincerely wanted to know), I’ll try to write it down.
First of all, it feels like being more than twice fifty-four. But then, if I remember being fifty-four, I felt that twenty-seven had been more than half a life ago. Portia might have said that life is geometric. (Honestly, she was sometimes so precise in her definition of a thing that she became unintelligible.)
To be truthful, I’ve not decided if my attitude about the passing of time (and its tendency to move past us faster and faster) is influenced more by the loss of wisdom or by the loss of fun at the end of it all. I’ve been told again and again that all glory is in the Hereafter. I’ve seen wars fought by men who in their rush toward that glory seek to stack the deck by making this life as miserable as possible. But when you’re this old and you see the days rushing past like an arpeggio, they are each glorious. I’ll take my glory here, thank you. I’m for putting a trill at the end of my arpeggio.
The other thing people generally want to know about is sex. I don’t think I’ve ever had an erection that I didn’t know about. Whether spontaneous or self-induced, it always commanded my attention. It could not be overlooked.
As I look back over them all (and I do not claim to remember them all — I never took notes), I have to admit that, though I always had a pleasant temperament, I always felt better with an erection than without one. Any discomfort that I can remember had to do with what I was thinking rather than what I was feeling. “Life,” Garnetta DuBois used to say. “Don’t think about it. Just feel it!” Garnetta was never bored. You’ll have to give her that.
I’ve found that it is difficult to have an erection and be bored at the same time. It somehow gets the juices flowing. Ideas start brewing and suddenly you’re spending some of the time of your life creatively tuned into a flow of energy that springs from and invents life. If you believe that everything has a reason, you’ve got to admit that that is what sex is for. Having good ideas.
Of course, that is one of those things you’ve got to learn for yourself. They don’t teach it in high school. In high school they teach you what you need to survive and multiply. (We’ve done spectacularly well at that — knock on wood and ban the bomb.) But they leave out the good parts. You’ve got to question the quality of an educational system that leaves out how to fix your car and how to handle your erection. The basics.
Of course, we have “the media” to show us what to do when we come face to face with the unmentionable. (Isn’t it amazing how many churches structure their believers’ lives on a prohibition against talking about sex? Sex becomes a mysterious villain that dwells within. Guilt becomes a primal virtue. It keeps us in their power. It seems to me that the only way to line up the forces of Nature in your favor is to be God-cheering, not God-fearing. I must have heard that on TV.) But even on TV they fade out when it gets to a part where the joys of sex might be shown. They get us erect for those commercials. And we buy their soap.
I hear about “good sex” and “bad sex.” I can’t imagine it to be bad. To me sex has always been “perfect” or “not enough.” Sex is like searching for the headwaters of the Mississippi: an exploration of the sensations in search of the source. It is no wonder that Lewis and Clark seem so sexy. I don’t think they could have put up with what they did if sexual energies were not behind it, somewhere. Too bad we don’t see sex like that on television. Too bad they don’t teach it in high school. If you can fix your car and tap your sexual energy, you’ve got it made.
Garnetta DuBois and I once set out together to search for the headwaters of the Mississippi. It was quite a trip, full of moments to be remembered. When we finally got there, out of breath and filled with the joys of cooperative accomplishment, we were soaked in a sudden thunder-shower. Garnetta looked up at the churning clouds and felt the raindrops roll down her neck. “Now where did that come from?” she asked.
When people ask me about sex, what they really want to know is whether I base my remarks on long-term or short-term memory. “Are you getting any?” a few of the bold ones have asked. “How is it — ‘perfect’ or ‘not enough’?”
Garnetta DuBois once laughed one of those laughs of hers and said, “When you finally realize that you don’t have to depend upon anybody else, it is always perfect.”
Just you wait and see.
In The Corner Of A Dream
Dr. Urbano Tucci automatically looked into all the corners of any room he entered. He liked it when they were uncluttered so that he could sweep his eyes from ceiling to floor along the line where wall met wall. Furniture wedged into corners distressed him. He was annoyed by hosts who had succumbed to fashion by placing potted palms on pedestals to disguise perimeters. The knowledge that the walls were there, and of where those walls ended, provided him with the security of containment and the understanding of how big a space he would be called upon to fill. This made him feel at home. In control. An elemental necessity in the character of a good hypnotist.
When he strode confidently into Sophia Tangborn’s parlor it appeared to be empty. He had distinctly heard the invitation from the hall: “Come right in, Maestro Tucci.” Yet the room was empty. He turned and looked through the door he had just entered and looked down the deserted hall to the ruby glass-paned window at the end. His eyes swept around the room — across lavender morning glories stenciled on the walls; past portraits in oils of aunts two generations gone; over six lace-draped windows whose shades were drawn against morning sun, midday sun, and sunsets plain or gloried. The room was round. Cornerless. When he’d made a complete turn and again faced the hall, he glanced up to see his own face reflected in the mirror that hung above the door. It made him realize how uneasy he felt.
“So nice of you to come.” The voice came from behind him. He spun around, aware that he was not usually startled. Sophia was seated on a chaise in front of one of the windows. Her pale lace dress seemed to make her a part of the curtains. He saw her smile as she reached back to raise the shade on the window behind her. The bright light haloed her and he lost her face in shadow.
“So gracious of you to extend the invitation,” he said, secretly wondering if he meant it.
“I saw your demonstration in the park.”
Urbano Tucci was relieved that she had not used the word “performance.” That she had said “demonstration” indicated that she believed what she had seen. That belief was important. Without it, he could not expect a properly outrageous fee. He hated to have to overcome the resistance of the skeptic. The older he got the more he enjoyed the easy dollar. He smiled and responded as if she had said that she had enjoyed what she had seen.
“The human mind is a fascinating thing. My work is to help realize its untapped potential.”
“You would have us be scholars?”
“We know more than we know.”
“And poets?”
“An idea must be expressed before it can be understood. Unlock the poetry within yourself and you will talk to poets and understand what they predict.”
“And you would have us be seers?”
Urbano Tucci suddenly felt as though this had all happened before. Or perhaps it was only now apparent that he had always expected to be facing this old woman or another like her — a woman he could look at and not really see; a woman to whom you told the truth because you had no choice; a woman who spoke in questions and expected wisdom. He smiled an acknowledgement. “Tell me about yesterday. Tell me about tomorrow.”
“Tell me about now,” the old woman said quietly. He took it to be a command, a challenge. He didn’t, know where to begin.
“Tell me,” the old woman said. “Tell me what I am dreaming.” It was a question that needed no question mark. “And how to stop the dream.”
Urbano Tucci knew enough about dreams to take them seriously. His clients who believed themselves to be in sleep often spoke of ecstasy and horror they did not know awake. Before closing his eyes each night he would center his thoughts on the void in hopes that he would fall so deep within Morpheus’s sea that he could avoid the failures past and future shames that floated just below the surface of his bravado. In this he was usually successful. If he dreamed at all, the dreams occurred like whirlpools of sand lifted momentarily by bottom currents. They settled again in drifts to await another turbulence. They were not to be remembered.
There were nights, however — and more of them of late, it seemed — when Urbano Tucci would have The Dream. The next morning he would awaken in a sweat, trembling, his muscles sore and his skin covered with an itching rash that faded as his vision cleared and he shook himself free from fear.
The dream was always the same: “Come right in, Maestro Tucci.” The voice was sweet and gracious. He would find himself striding, willingly, into a room whose only door closed firmly behind him — a room too small to escape and too large to explore. A room with no corners to be filled with regrets and no vistas for relief. He would feel entombed. Each time he dreamed the dream his hopelessness and sense of doom increased. Each time he gathered all his strength to pull himself into consciousness. Each time, it was more difficult to put the dream away and return to the dampness of his bed. This morning he doubted that he could do it again.
Urbano Tucci stood peering at the old woman. He felt a cold wind and heard the door slam behind him.
The shadowed figure smiled.
“So nice of you to come.”
Subscriptions to Now and Then (at $10 for six issues) are available from The Carlos Anne Phelps Foundation, P.O. Box 38353, Los Angeles, California 90038.
