inside?"
"Right here," said Marvell immediately; "There you go," said Skip, separating his arm from Celia's to allow him entry; "Oh, you're so small!" shouted Roxeanne in evident delight. As Keith craned his puckered mouth up at the seven grinning faces, Roxeanne, supported by Quentin and Andy, craned hers down to kiss it. She never got there: Quentin's foot slipped on the gravel, Roxeanne's right brick was whipped out from beneath her, the human wigwam swayed, wheeled round a quarter circle, tottered, and collapsed to shrieks of mirth on the ground.
Gradually they staggered laughingly to their feet. ". . . Drugs now," said Quentin, still trying to catch his breath, laughing again. "Much drugs."
The Appleseeders' stance on that topic found eloquent recapitulation and support a few minutes later from Marvell Buzhardt, the small, owlish American, postgraduate in psychology, anthropology, and environment at Columbia University, underground journalist, filmmaker, and pop-cultural entrepreneur. Dr. Buzhardt sat rolling joints at the kitchen table with Quentin and Andy, sliding round a bottle of duty-free liquor, while the girls made snacks for the projected picnic. Skip was unloading the Chevrolet, Whitehead running errands to the mini-market. Marvell had, in fact, recently published a short monograph on this theme in conjunction with the Berkeley Alternative University Press, a copy of which he promised to dig up for them before he left.
"What's the book got to say, man?"
"Simplistically, Andy, The Mind Lab has this to say," Marvell began. "For some time now it's been clear to all the genuine people studying this thing that the brain is a mechanical unit and that its aberrations aren't down to environmental, psychological contexts but to purely chemical reactions—that's all, nothing more. This idea has had a lot of trouble getting through because people won't let go of the belief that no part of us is divine. You go crazy, right? It's because you've got shit in your head, lousy chemicals. Anyhow, that's just the lead-in to the main polemic of my book."
At this point the Doctor ceased all activity with grass and cigarette papers in order to clench his hands pensively on his crown—to the secret boredom of Andy, who was less interested in talking about drugs than in getting a lot of them down him in the shortest possible time.
"Okay. So if you go crazy now," Marvell went on, "they give you good chemicals to counteract the bad ones in your head. Or electrics. The only mysterious thing about the brain is its complexity. Nothing cerebral about it, man, just one mother of a terminal of chemicals and nerve ends, and science can keep up with it now. So: why not apply this positively?"
"I don't know," said Andy, in moonish response to Marvell's interrogative, though in fact rhetorical, stare.
"No reason! Look—fuck—we're agreed that life is a rat's ass and that it's no fun being yourself all the time. So why not do with your brain what you do with your body? Fuck all this dead babies about love, understanding, compassion— use drugs to kind of ... cushion the consciousness, guide it, protect it, stimulate it. We have a fantastic range of drugs now, Andy. We have drugs to make you euphoric, sad, horny, violent, lucid, tender. We have drug combinations that will produce any kind of hallucination or sense modification you want. Alternatively, we have drugs that can neutralize these effects instantaneously. Not the old Leary line—no 'religion,' no false promises. We have chemical authority over the psyche—so let's use it, and have a good time."
"Piss," said Diana. "What about brain damage? False memory, street sadness?"
"Well . . ." Marvell rocked his hairy head from side to side. "There's kind of an appendix dealing with—"
"And anyhow, most of that," said Roxeanne, "is media hysteria."
Quentin: "How was the book received, Marvell?”
: "Pig and Smeg Sunday raved. The only straight press things I've seen, of course, tried to
"Right here," said Marvell immediately; "There you go," said Skip, separating his arm from Celia's to allow him entry; "Oh, you're so small!" shouted Roxeanne in evident delight. As Keith craned his puckered mouth up at the seven grinning faces, Roxeanne, supported by Quentin and Andy, craned hers down to kiss it. She never got there: Quentin's foot slipped on the gravel, Roxeanne's right brick was whipped out from beneath her, the human wigwam swayed, wheeled round a quarter circle, tottered, and collapsed to shrieks of mirth on the ground.
Gradually they staggered laughingly to their feet. ". . . Drugs now," said Quentin, still trying to catch his breath, laughing again. "Much drugs."
The Appleseeders' stance on that topic found eloquent recapitulation and support a few minutes later from Marvell Buzhardt, the small, owlish American, postgraduate in psychology, anthropology, and environment at Columbia University, underground journalist, filmmaker, and pop-cultural entrepreneur. Dr. Buzhardt sat rolling joints at the kitchen table with Quentin and Andy, sliding round a bottle of duty-free liquor, while the girls made snacks for the projected picnic. Skip was unloading the Chevrolet, Whitehead running errands to the mini-market. Marvell had, in fact, recently published a short monograph on this theme in conjunction with the Berkeley Alternative University Press, a copy of which he promised to dig up for them before he left.
"What's the book got to say, man?"
"Simplistically, Andy, The Mind Lab has this to say," Marvell began. "For some time now it's been clear to all the genuine people studying this thing that the brain is a mechanical unit and that its aberrations aren't down to environmental, psychological contexts but to purely chemical reactions—that's all, nothing more. This idea has had a lot of trouble getting through because people won't let go of the belief that no part of us is divine. You go crazy, right? It's because you've got shit in your head, lousy chemicals. Anyhow, that's just the lead-in to the main polemic of my book."
At this point the Doctor ceased all activity with grass and cigarette papers in order to clench his hands pensively on his crown—to the secret boredom of Andy, who was less interested in talking about drugs than in getting a lot of them down him in the shortest possible time.
"Okay. So if you go crazy now," Marvell went on, "they give you good chemicals to counteract the bad ones in your head. Or electrics. The only mysterious thing about the brain is its complexity. Nothing cerebral about it, man, just one mother of a terminal of chemicals and nerve ends, and science can keep up with it now. So: why not apply this positively?"
"I don't know," said Andy, in moonish response to Marvell's interrogative, though in fact rhetorical, stare.
"No reason! Look—fuck—we're agreed that life is a rat's ass and that it's no fun being yourself all the time. So why not do with your brain what you do with your body? Fuck all this dead babies about love, understanding, compassion— use drugs to kind of ... cushion the consciousness, guide it, protect it, stimulate it. We have a fantastic range of drugs now, Andy. We have drugs to make you euphoric, sad, horny, violent, lucid, tender. We have drug combinations that will produce any kind of hallucination or sense modification you want. Alternatively, we have drugs that can neutralize these effects instantaneously. Not the old Leary line—no 'religion,' no false promises. We have chemical authority over the psyche—so let's use it, and have a good time."
"Piss," said Diana. "What about brain damage? False memory, street sadness?"
"Well . . ." Marvell rocked his hairy head from side to side. "There's kind of an appendix dealing with—"
"And anyhow, most of that," said Roxeanne, "is media hysteria."
Quentin: "How was the book received, Marvell?”
: "Pig and Smeg Sunday raved. The only straight press things I've seen, of course, tried to
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