"A burnt child dreads the fire." - Proverb

You know what's very weird? My wife was just reorganizing the office and--in the process of moving books to another room--found the uncut shooting script of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Contained within were many comic book trading cards, for some DC Comics series. I don't understand why; the fellow who gave me that script wasn't into trading cards. Eerie happenings are afoot, indeed!

Other than that I have also found the third installment of the journal of a poet, a poet of absolutely no reknown, a poet whose journal was forwarded to me by that diabolic, forlorn figure risen from the very depths of hellish intrigue: "J." Scott Malby.

So read on dear internet bravehearts, and fortify your souls for yet another spirit-crushing session with Paolo Honorificas.

Cordially cadaverous,

John Lawson, editor

Journal entry #3

All right! I finished an interview. What is it you might ask? If you have to ask that question it means you haven't read my last journal entry (Go back and read it). Now for a title. I put some scrabble letters in a paper bag and started drawing them out one at a time. I got a "B", "L", "K" and "E". Hmmm. Bill Kike? Blake Edwards? Bill Blake? Eureka! What I had written was obviously an interview with Bill Blake. I was so pleased with my providential handiwork that I decided to actually read it. In the odd event that someone might in the future be looking over my shoulder, you can read it with me.

Poet Bill Blake Speaks His Mind!

Interviewed by Paolo Honorificas

At 68 Blake is finally receiving the acclaim he deserves. His career has had its ups and downs. He is no stranger to controversy. For the last six years he has lived in a two room flat in the city with his wife Catherine. She met me at the door and ushered me into a space filled with printing paraphernalia where she and her husband edit and produce chapbooks. Through a window I could see a fine view of the city and moving water. It was a hot August day. Blake came out to welcome me. True to his reputation for eccentricity, he was observed to be wearing nothing but a tan. The fact that he didn't have a stitch on didn't seem to bother him in the least. We shook hands and sat down. Blake adjusted his genitals into a more comfortable position.

He appeared to be preoccupied with an almost invisible piece of fluff floating in space. As he talked to me he would often raise his hand suddenly in an attempt to capture the floating particle. The motion of his arm and hand created wind that continually moved the offending "fluff" just out of reach. His ability to carry on a conversation and wage a loosing battle with a space particle at the same time testifies to his ambidextrous ability to balance numerous projects in the air at the same time.

Blake: Damn it!

Paolo: What's wrong?

Blake: I think I'm seeing things. Maybe it's a vision. Do you see it?

Paolo: I think I do. What is it?

Blake: Crap or a piece of angel wing for all I know. Came in through the window. I can't get rid of it. Can't tell its nature. Looks kinda like a shadow and part of the visionary world as well.

Paolo: Shadow?

Blake: The depressive world of 99% of the human population. They eat and sleep. Their heads are made out of concrete. Visions escape them. We would all be much better off if we learned to use our eyes to see through things rather then just at them. That's what imagination is for.

Paolo: Whatever it is, it seems to flow with the wind. Why not ignore it?

Blake: Ignore what we can't explain? Is that it? The true method of knowledge is experiment. I prefer to sing about what I see but, in this case, I need to get a better look at it first.

Paolo: Your reputation seems to be on the upswing. Are you pleased with that?

Blake: What is now proved was once only imagined. Its made me a less angry man I suppose. Don't you think so Cathy?

Cathy: (answering from the other room) What ever you say Dear.

Paolo: It appears you are finding your most passionate admirers among the young artists of today.

Blake: What else is new? He who suffers you to impose on them, knows you. John Linnell and Varley have been of great help lately. I call them my "spiritual visitants". They recognize that if a fool persists in his folly he would become wise. Maybe it's a ghost of a flea?

Paolo: What? Oh, your airborne guest. Don't know. I read a recent review in the New Yorker where one of your new admirers described you as "The Interpreter". Is that how you would describe yourself?

Blake: I've been called worse by fools. I've even been called insane. Whatever I'm called it doesn't matter as long as it doesn't interfere with my work. Some people have accused me of going over the top but you never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

Paolo: What are you working on now?

Blake: Some watercolors. Pastorals mostly. I'm also in the process of a new translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Paolo: It wasn't far from here that you finished your illuminated book "Jerusalem".

Blake: You like the title? That's right. I used to live on South Moulton Street. Had to move from there. No one brought me any work. I rented the house on impulse. Fell in love with its size and space. I was thinking with my heart and not my pocket book. They say Jesus acted from impulse and not from rules too.

Paolo: Paying commercial work has always been rather elusive for you. Is that right?

Blake: I've never been as lucky as Andy Warhol in that regard if that's what you mean. The man who pretends to be a modest enquirer into the truth of a self evident thing is a knave. It seems the only people coming to me for my genius are modest enquirers.

Paolo: You're known as a water-colorist, engraver and a poet. Which do you enjoy doing more?

Blake: I think it's the combination of poetry and engraving that intrigues me. Exuberance is beauty. When I was 43 I moved to the country for a few years. I was delighted by the natural beauty but found myself wasting my talent on boring commissions. It's only in the city that I can carry on my visionary studies. You know see visions, dream dreams sort of thing. Country life has its charms though.

Paolo: Is that where you got into your infamous confrontation with the military?

Blake: Not only the military but the political establishment as well.

Paolo: Civil liberties are important to you?

Blake: Personal liberties are. A person should be able to paint and talk about what he sees, what he feels. It's rather scary to find military people wandering around your backyard. Puts a damper on intellectual exploration if you know what I mean. What were they looking for? Bomb making ingredients? Seditious literature?

Paolo: Was that the time of the Viet Nam War?

Blake: Earlier. Much earlier. But with all the paranoia floating about it was the same sort of thing. Spies were accused of being everywhere. It didn' t help that I was known for my anti-government pronouncements. People wondered why I was so paranoid. Maybe I had reason to be.

Paolo: Tell me about your large scale paintings?

Blake: They were really a natural outgrowth of the printing business that Catherine and I started. We had begun producing my own works and hawking them around.

Paolo: Are you speaking about "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"?

Blake: Yes and "The Visions of the Daughters of Albion". I was interested in the idea of combining epics with proverbs. Also the fine line between history and myth fascinated me. Always has. You see I had to take matters into my own hands. I was away from the city at the time. Rural life does not make for a highly stimulating or intellectual environment. We sold things out of our home.

Paolo: Were you successful?

Blake: Not very. But this was the most productive period of my life. Very fertile. I loved. If a thing loves, it is infinite.

Paolo: How old did you say you were you?

Blake: Around 34 or 37.

Paolo: One of your biographers. Gilchrist I think, said of that period that you and your wife did everything but manufacture the paper.

Blake: Right! You see my younger brother had died. His spirit departed by flying through the ceiling. On his way to he was kind enough to pause and give me the idea of combining poem with image on a single engraving plate.

Paolo: It was nice of him to take time out from a very busy schedule to do that.

Blake: I'll say. My press has never been that good but I've always had good luck with spirits. (Blake knocks on wood)

Paolo: You came from a fairly prosperous family didn't you?

Blake: Middle class. My father was in the sock business. He had enough money to feed us but not enough to send me to a good school.

Paolo: Nevertheless, you did manage to go to a painting academy.

Blake: True. It was one of the best, but my teachers didn't like my work. I was drawn to artists like Raphael and Michelangelo. That was around the time I married Cathy. I was 25 or so and still living in my father's house. I paid my way through art school by selling engravings for novels and catalogs. I might have sold a little pornography on the side to tourists, nothing too unusual. My only live commissions were corpses and they were pretty stiff.

Paolo: Don't suppose they paid very well.

Blake: No but their relatives did.

Paolo: Who were some of your influences at that time?

Blake: Like I said, Durer, Michelangelo and Raphael. I also liked Johnson, Shakespeare and Spenser. Oh, and the Gothic, always been interested in that. The Elizabethans were a strong influence. I was considered an unruly sort of child so my parents educated me at home. When I was ten I read a great deal of Milton. Always had a book in my hand. I remember being so absorbed in reading as I was walking that I hit my head on a tree.

Paolo: Is that when your visions started?

Blake: Around the time I met the tree, yes. When I looked up its limbs were filled with laughing angels.

Paolo: What were they laughing at?

Blake: Me.

Paolo: What would you like on your tombstone?

Blake: I don't know. Maybe, "Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained," something like that.

Paolo: What about: "Drive your cart and plow over the bones of the dead."

Blake: I like it. Who said it?

Paolo: You did.

Blake: Oh, says something about religion doesn't it. My relationship with God isn't too good at the moment. I said to him the other day, "If you've formed a Circle to go into, go into it yourself and see how you do."

Paolo: What did He say to that?

Blake: Don't know yet. He hasn't contacted me back but he will. He usually does in one form or another.

Look for The Journal of Paolo Honorificas to continue in the next issue of The Dream People!