On September 2, 1974 Philip K. Dick sent the following letter to the FBI:
I am enclosing the letterhead of Professor Darko Suvin, to go with information and enclosures which I have sent you previously. This is the first contact I have had with Professor Suvin. Listed with him are three Marxists whom I sent you information about before, based on personal dealings with them: Peter Fitting, Fredric Jameson, and Franz Rottensteiner who is Stanislaw Lem’s official Western agent. The text of the letter indicates the extensive influence of this publication, SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES.
What is involved here is not that these persons are Marxists per se or even that Fitting, Rottensteiner and Suvin are foreign-based but that all of them without exception represent dedicated outlets in a chain of command from Stanislaw Lem in Krakow, Poland, himself a total Party functionary (I know this from his published writing and personal letters to me and to other people). For an Iron Curtain Party group – Lem is probably a composite committee rather than an individual, since he writes in several styles and sometimes reads foreign, to him, languages and sometimes does not – to gain monopoly positions of power from which they can control opinion through criticism and pedagogic essays is a threat to our whole field of science fiction and its free exchange of views and ideas. Peter Fitting has in addition begun to review books for the magazines Locus and Galaxy. The Party operates (a U..S.] publishing house which does a great deal of Party-controlled science fiction. And in earlier material which I sent to you I indicated their evident penetration of the crucial publications of our professional organization SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA.
Their main successes would appear to be in the fields of academic articles, book reviews and possibly through our organization the control in the future of the awarding of honors and titles. I think, though, at this time, that their campaign to establish Lem himself as a major novelist and critic is losing ground; it has begun to encounter serious opposition: Lem’s creative abilities now appear to have been overrated and Lem’s crude, insulting and downright ignorant attacks on American science fiction and American science fiction writers went too far too fast and alienated everyone but the Party faithful (I am one of those highly alienated).
It is a grim development for our field and its hopes to find much of our criticism and academic theses and publications completely controlled by a faceless group in Krakow, Poland. What can be done, though, I do not know.
Who are you?
I am Nathan Baudy. I am a filmmaker, noise musician, poet, and writer.
What am I watching here?
You are watching a short film entitled “Ray’s Tattoo Party.” It is a film that depicts the conversations and events that took place during a tattoo party.
When + where was this filmed?
This was filmed in Pullman, WA in JAN 2015.
Can you describe the creative process?
The creative process was purely spontaneous. My friend Ray and I agreed to “get together and make art or something” so I went over to their place and they put an Olympus camera in my hand and I started filming. As I was filming I started doing in-camera cutting and thinking about what I was filming so that I could frame it around a central idea. The idea ended up becoming a film about millennial artists getting together and tattooing themselves and talking about america, pornography, art, and telling jokes.
Do you script in any form?
Sometimes. Not for this film.
Who directed this?
Nathan Baudy.
Is there a collaborative process involved?
Of course. Nearly everything I do is collaborative. The film is a collaboration between myself and all the performers in the film (who are just being themselves). Ray let me use their camera too. The film is kind of about artistic collaboration. It’s about sharing opinions, letting people tattoo you in your kitchen, and letting yourself be filmed and displayed for the world.
Describe your relationship with the internet and making stuff?
I mostly use it for marketing. In my past I almost exclusively created content for internet consumption, but I find it more rewarding to meet people in person and make intimate films like these. I don’t really care who sees my films. I put them online because I am saving them for myself and I make them public to attract more like-minded artists in attempts to continue making collaborative art with new people.
What other stuff have you been working on lately?
I’m writing an experimental novel. I’m curating noise/experimental music for a series I created called “Contemporary Experimental Music/Noise Anthology Series” where I release one album per month. Every track on it is by a different musician from across the United States. I’m making my own drone/noise compositions. I journal everyday.
You can submit noise/experimental tracks to me via facebook or here:
https://contemporaryexperimentalmusicnoiseanthologyseries.bandcamp.com/releases
Inspirations / Influnences? It reminds me of ‘Wavelength’ by Michael Snow.
Warhol, obviously. Harmony Korine, Lars Von Trier, Hollis Frampton, Stan Brakhage, Michael Snow, Jonas Mekas, Richard Linklater. My friends inspire me. I film them because I am inspired by them. I want people to see them.
Why did you send it to me?
I thought you would like it.
Nathan Baudy
The year was 2005. Michael stood in the doorway. It was after midday. Tammy told talking about doctor shopping. Tammy would go to different doctors and get numerous prescriptions for the same drug, so she’d eventually have 20 prescriptions for the same drug. Tammy said the police were making this difficult to do now. Tammy is enterprising enough. She’ll work it out. Her girlfriend is a beauty. Her name is Erin. They’re in the hospital together. They admit themselves regularly.
It was March. There was no meaning, nothing deciphered, only ill sense developing. It was late afternoon. Jumping around Tammy felt her hand go through the plate glass behind her. She’d been messing around, bouncing and speaking with her hands. The whole window crashed around Tammy and Michael. Erin wasn’t around. The smashing of the window was harshness. Chaos continued when a nurse ran in. An orderly pulled Tammy away from the glass on the floor. Tammy didn’t know why her hand had gone through the window. Tammy didn’t know what was wrong. Tammy didn’t know why she was upset.
I like the poetry of Henri Chopin.
His work is a united expression, sensory disorientation, self-inflicted, the roughness of living, horrific, extremely effective, it lives inside lip-serving spoors, examples of sleep deprivation, and the great phrase of known adrenaline.
“La Digestion” was first recorded in 1972 at the author’s studio in Ingatestone.
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