3.
In the fall of ’74 Victor called me.
He was living not far from me with his wife Debbie
in a nice graduate student apartment building atDenver University
Debbie was working on a math Masters there.
Victor was in a psychology program atBoulder
When I came over to see him, everything in his apartment impressed me —
the few books in the bookcase,
including A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy
translated and compiled by Wing-Tsit Chan,
which I later bought.
It turned out, Victor and Debbie were devotees
of the Guru Maraj Ji.
A master (not the Guru himself but an advanced adept)
had touched their eyes and they had beheld
the life-rectifying Divine Light.
Victor was also a devotee
of cocaine powder which he showed me how to snort
through a rolled-up one hundred dollar bill
(though I never thought I felt much of a buzz).
Victor’s money came from a research fellowship.
He spent it liberally on coke, marijuana, wine, and seafood restaurants.
He built complex, impressive-looking models
with orange balls on sticks for studying shape perception.
Subjects were shown a shape and
then tested to see if they recognized a rotated version of it.
I was sure that I would not have performed well at the task.
I think he wrote a big paper on the project in the spring of 1975.
He was living not far from me with his wife Debbie
in a nice graduate student apartment building at
Debbie was working on a math Masters there.
Victor was in a psychology program at
When I came over to see him, everything in his apartment impressed me —
the few books in the bookcase,
including A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy
translated and compiled by Wing-Tsit Chan,
which I later bought.
It turned out, Victor and Debbie were devotees
of the Guru Maraj Ji.
A master (not the Guru himself but an advanced adept)
had touched their eyes and they had beheld
the life-rectifying Divine Light.
Victor was also a devotee
of cocaine powder which he showed me how to snort
through a rolled-up one hundred dollar bill
(though I never thought I felt much of a buzz).
Victor’s money came from a research fellowship.
He spent it liberally on coke, marijuana, wine, and seafood restaurants.
He built complex, impressive-looking models
with orange balls on sticks for studying shape perception.
Subjects were shown a shape and
then tested to see if they recognized a rotated version of it.
I was sure that I would not have performed well at the task.
I think he wrote a big paper on the project in the spring of 1975.
…
We played music together.
In junior high school he had got an old fiberglass guitar from me.
My father had used it as a stage prop
and brought it home, but I hadn’t done anything with it.
Victor learned it right away,
so to play with him I bought a cheap steel-stringed guitar
and figured out how to strum chords with my fingers.
We were a sensation in the 7th-grade talent show
playing “In the Land of Oden” by Peter and Gordon
and “No Tears for Johnny” byChad
When we reconnected in Denver 10 years later
Victor was interested in country music,
so we learned Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker songs,
also the song covered by The Who,
Meher Baba’s favorite song (next to Begin the Beguine),
the song in waltz rhythm that goes —
In junior high school he had got an old fiberglass guitar from me.
My father had used it as a stage prop
and brought it home, but I hadn’t done anything with it.
Victor learned it right away,
so to play with him I bought a cheap steel-stringed guitar
and figured out how to strum chords with my fingers.
We were a sensation in the 7th-grade talent show
playing “In the Land of Oden” by Peter and Gordon
and “No Tears for Johnny” by
When we reconnected in Denver 10 years later
Victor was interested in country music,
so we learned Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker songs,
also the song covered by The Who,
Meher Baba’s favorite song (next to Begin the Beguine),
the song in waltz rhythm that goes —
Sometimes they ask me if I’m really happy
now
I say, Sure, I never loved her anyhow.
But inside I long for you and the way it used to be
I look around and there’s a heartache following me.
I say, Sure, I never loved her anyhow.
But inside I long for you and the way it used to be
I look around and there’s a heartache following me.
…
That summer he was interested in
organicist approaches
to philosophy of science.
I was reading Whitehead,
he Paul Weiss and some other writers.
We never really talked philosophy, which was his major in college,
but we felt an intellectual bond going back to our adolescent days.
One afternoon, after driving around in Victor’s car smoking tai stick,
Victor suggested that we go to theDenver
Art Museum
an abstract expressionist show.
I remember the Rauschenberg white paintings in particular,
but in virtually all of those works
it seemed that the technique was not to create images
but to provide a medium in which the eye could glimpse
the vanishing geometry with which it
organizes everything.
Victor seemed mightily defeated by this insight.
What kind of Houdini magic would it take
to escape this mirror world
where all we can see are our own visual processes,
with no path through the web —
the only conceivable way out some kind of Daedalean vertical ascent?
…
to philosophy of science.
I was reading Whitehead,
he Paul Weiss and some other writers.
We never really talked philosophy, which was his major in college,
but we felt an intellectual bond going back to our adolescent days.
One afternoon, after driving around in Victor’s car smoking tai stick,
Victor suggested that we go to the
an abstract expressionist show.
I remember the Rauschenberg white paintings in particular,
but in virtually all of those works
it seemed that the technique was not to create images
but to provide a medium in which the eye could glimpse
the vanishing geometry with which it
organizes everything.
Victor seemed mightily defeated by this insight.
What kind of Houdini magic would it take
to escape this mirror world
where all we can see are our own visual processes,
with no path through the web —
the only conceivable way out some kind of Daedalean vertical ascent?
…
Then I went to Minnesota
When I came back toDenver the next summer,
Victor and Debbie were living in an apartment inWestminster
a northwestern suburb where I’d worked
at a gas station 5 years before.
Debbie was no longer at DU but was working for an insurance firm,
going through the testing process to get certification as an insurance actuary.
Victor wasn’t at CU anymore either,
but was trying to make money in sales.
First he tried to sell some kind of fire alarm product.
He came to my parents’ house and gave a presentation
designed to show how likely it was that the television
or refrigerator would set the house on fire.
My mother listened politely,
but didn’t buy anything.
Next Victor joined a firm
that sold a product called Rainbow Air Purifiers.
My mother didn’t buy one of those either, and anyway
Victor was soon diversifying into frozen food and appliances.
My parents did buy a freezer from him.
The way it seemed to happen was,
he and his associates got some freezers to sell,
sold one to my mother,
and then decided to go into the frozen food business.
The freezer wasn’t delivered for about a month,
and it only worked for a few days. My parents
had to pay someone else to haul it away and replace it.
When I came back to
Victor and Debbie were living in an apartment in
a northwestern suburb where I’d worked
at a gas station 5 years before.
Debbie was no longer at DU but was working for an insurance firm,
going through the testing process to get certification as an insurance actuary.
Victor wasn’t at CU anymore either,
but was trying to make money in sales.
First he tried to sell some kind of fire alarm product.
He came to my parents’ house and gave a presentation
designed to show how likely it was that the television
or refrigerator would set the house on fire.
My mother listened politely,
but didn’t buy anything.
Next Victor joined a firm
that sold a product called Rainbow Air Purifiers.
My mother didn’t buy one of those either, and anyway
Victor was soon diversifying into frozen food and appliances.
My parents did buy a freezer from him.
The way it seemed to happen was,
he and his associates got some freezers to sell,
sold one to my mother,
and then decided to go into the frozen food business.
The freezer wasn’t delivered for about a month,
and it only worked for a few days. My parents
had to pay someone else to haul it away and replace it.
…
The Denver Broncos went to the Super Bowl
in the winter of that year.
I never paid attention to them when I lived inColorado ,
but inMinnesota
When I went home for the Winter break,
I found that Victor and his partners had hatched up
a souvenir scheme for the AFC Championship game against the Oakland Raiders.
They collected hundreds of small stones,
and had boxes made with clear plastic tops, inscribed,
I never paid attention to them when I lived in
but in
When I went home for the Winter break,
I found that Victor and his partners had hatched up
a souvenir scheme for the AFC Championship game against the Oakland Raiders.
They collected hundreds of small stones,
and had boxes made with clear plastic tops, inscribed,
1977 AFC Champion
SUPERBOULDER
They put together a regular factory
staff
to paint the stones orange and put them in the boxes.
Then on game day Victor and I and his older sister’s husband, Caswell,
and quite a few other people,
tried to sell the SUPERBOULDERs for 5 dollars apiece
to members of the crowd as they arrived for the game.
“Send the Broncos to the Superbowl with a
SUPERBOULDER!” we shouted.
Victor paid us 10 dollars an hour for the work.
Unfortunately, people had quite a bit of pent up resentment
going back to the old Pet Rock phenomenon,
and were ready to take it out on the SUPERBOULDERs.
“What kind of ridiculous scam is it this time?” they said.
We only sold 4 or 5 to the crowd going in,
then listened to the game on the radio for 3 hours in the cold.
(Actually, Victor ran into an acquaintance with a spare ticket,
so he got to go in and watch the game.)
The departing crowd, although delirious with victory,
if not actually stumbling drunk,
still weren’t inclined to shell out for a boulder.
Victor must have been disappointed, but later told me
he’d sold the boulders to a department store and made a good profit.
to paint the stones orange and put them in the boxes.
Then on game day Victor and I and his older sister’s husband, Caswell,
and quite a few other people,
tried to sell the SUPERBOULDERs for 5 dollars apiece
to members of the crowd as they arrived for the game.
“Send the Broncos to the Superbowl with a
SUPERBOULDER!” we shouted.
Victor paid us 10 dollars an hour for the work.
Unfortunately, people had quite a bit of pent up resentment
going back to the old Pet Rock phenomenon,
and were ready to take it out on the SUPERBOULDERs.
“What kind of ridiculous scam is it this time?” they said.
We only sold 4 or 5 to the crowd going in,
then listened to the game on the radio for 3 hours in the cold.
(Actually, Victor ran into an acquaintance with a spare ticket,
so he got to go in and watch the game.)
The departing crowd, although delirious with victory,
if not actually stumbling drunk,
still weren’t inclined to shell out for a boulder.
Victor must have been disappointed, but later told me
he’d sold the boulders to a department store and made a good profit.
…
I didn’t see Victor much after that.
It must have been the Spring vacation of that year
I went to the dog races with him.
He said you could make a pretty good living
by betting on the dogs if you were smart.
I watched him lose a hundred dollars that afternoon.
He had one legitimate hunch.
The dog won, but he leveraged his bet
by selecting some kind of trifecta package that lost.
He made me promise not to tell Debbie about it.
It must have been the Spring vacation of that year
I went to the dog races with him.
He said you could make a pretty good living
by betting on the dogs if you were smart.
I watched him lose a hundred dollars that afternoon.
He had one legitimate hunch.
The dog won, but he leveraged his bet
by selecting some kind of trifecta package that lost.
He made me promise not to tell Debbie about it.
