Ralph Helfer

            On Tuesday morning I hardly slept at all from when I went to bed at 0:15 until I got up at 5:00. I know I slept some because I remember a dream in which I told somebody that I was once hitchhiking in California when a couple picked me up and drove me all the way to Passaic, New Jersey for a ménage a trois. I've never been to California or New Jersey. 

            I cut my song practice short so I could do research and make notes for the test I'd be taking at noon. 

            I weighed 83.8 kilos before breakfast. When I went online at noon to take the test, there was only the place to submit it but no instructions. I checked my email and Professor Jaffe had sent a link to the test download that way. We had to write one essay on three novels with a choice of three questions. It's lucky that I made notes beforehand. It was a little jumbled but Here's what I did: 

            Question 2. Discuss the idea of the future in relation to the idea of “no future” in three texts. How does it—the future and/or its absence—matter: to plot, to character, to the idea of identity?

            The fear of growing up is prevalent among certain primary characters in the three novels, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie, and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. There are striking similarities between Dora Spenlow-Copperfield and Peter Pan in that they both see growing up as a kind of figurative death and resist adulthood by living in a world of fantasy. The situation for the characters of Kath, Ruth and Tommy in Never Let Me Go is different from that of Dora and Peter because they are in literal mortal danger and death for them upon becoming adults is inevitable. And yet Kath, Ruth and Tommy nonetheless also depend upon imagination to slow and anesthetize their doom. 

            Imagination is a form of self defence against growing up. Dora refuses to be anything more than a child wife psychologically while Peter is able to physically resist growing up by a type of magic. Kath, Ruth and Tommy are only able to use their imaginations to window shop freedom, meaning they can view but not touch a future life. 

            There is a legitimate reason for Peter and Dora to fear adulthood because growing up is a kind of death. There is an entire lifetime of existing in the imagination that must end when someone becomes an adult. 

            David Copperfield is someone who has been robbed of his childhood by being forced to work by his stepfather Mr. Murdstone at the age of ten when he should still be playing as children do. Years later, when David meets Dora Spenlow, part of his attraction to her is a vicarious return to the fantasy life that he was robbed of in childhood. Dora "was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don't know what she was - anything that no one ever saw and everything that everybody ever wanted." David is drawn to the otherworldliness of Dora just as Wendy is captivated by that same quality in Peter. Dora is for David "a fairy", while Peter is attractive to Wendy because he lives in a world of fairies, propelling himself through the air with the help of fairy dust. David imagines himself in Fairyland with Dora in the Greenhouse, while Wendy travels to Neverland with Peter. Dora is above all in the stars while Peter is literally above in the stars and even converses with them. David lives partially in fantasy at the beginning of his being enamoured with Dora. Of the birthday picnic location, "Perhaps an Arabian-night magician, opened up the place for the day, and then shut it forever when we came away". "I don't want ever to be a man" Peter says with passion. "I want always to be a boy and to have fun. So I ran away". 

            There is something to fear about growing up. Dora begs David, "Please don't be practical. It frightens me". Peter says, "a little scared, It is only make believe, isn't it; that I am their father?" Dora does not care about time and Peter has no sense of time. These are both elements of childhood and defence mechanisms for those trying to cling to it. The future is the enemy of the perpetual child. 

            For David, Dora's small size adds to the effect of her being childlike. David has fallen in love with a child so he can relive his childhood through her. Peter has all his baby teeth and Wendy's mother Mrs. Darling has a secret kiss only for him. 

            Dora is not inclined to be confidential to Miss Murdstone because that stern adult has murdered her own childhood, just as she and her brother effectively killed David's proper enjoyment of his early youth. Miss Murdstone is like the adults that Peter resents. She is David's Hook and as Hook is to "form", she and her brother are to being "firm". When Peter sees that Mrs. Darling is a grownup he gnashes the little pearls of his teeth at her. 

            The Clones are window shopping freedom. Looking for possibles in porn magazines and office windows. Yet when Kath is looking for her clone model in a porn magazine she is really looking for family. Her Possible's parents are technically Kath's parents because they are the source of her DNA. For the Clones looking for a past, for a history is a more valid freedom than their futures will allow. 

            The Clones follow the chimera of a reprieve through art rather than simply escaping. Their visit to the grounded boat is a metaphor for their own lives made unnatural by society. On the way to the boat Ruth and Tommy, who are now donors are waiting like children to be told which way to go. They have been rendered to a pre-adolescent state of helpless infancy. They are not only denied the right to live but also to live on through having children. The boat is out of its natural element as they are. Not realizing that the society that wants to kill them is their enemy, not one of them voices even the remotest fantasy of sailing away on it. Nor does Ruth speak of a wish to be on the plane that she sees flying overhead. To get to the boat they go under the fence and not over it because they are not on top of their lives and their limitations. A boat usually represents freedom and yet for them it represents hopelessness. They are stuck like this boat whose sailing days are over, just as their youth is dying as two of them are already being harvested for their organs. The island of England is their prison. They will not be going to America they are told by Miss Lucy. Tommy compares Hailsham to the beached boat because it no longer carries the clone children. But Hailsham itself offered false freedom and merely another reprieve. Ruth speaks of having chosen being a Donor after a period of Caring. She asks , "Isn't that what we're supposed to do?" and makes it sound like it is an act of charity to be called a donor. 

            The Clones are stuck in a life as if following a program while half heartedly wishing for something more. Kath lives longer than the rest because she remembers more. She lives the longest and is angry with her friends when they forget almost as if they are throwing their lives away by forgetting. Tommy remembers a little more and lives longer than Ruth. Ruth forgets the most and dies first. Dora dies as if her childlike state cannot be contained by the reality of growing up. Wendy Darling's childhood dies in forgetting but Peter's childhood survives through constant forgetting. 

            I uploaded my test with one minute to spare. 

            I weighed 83.2 kilos before a late lunch at 14:15. I made guacamole with avocadoes, cucumber, cilantro, and the last of the barbecue sunflower seeds 

            I took a siesta from 15:00 to 16:30. When I got up it was too late for a bike ride but I was out of toilet paper and so I got ready to ride to Freshco. I tried to hold out on a bowel movement until I came back but I had to go before leaving and so I wiped myself with paper towel. At Freshco I also got a pack of strawberries. 

            I weighed 83.4 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:19. 

            I was finally able to transcribe the lyrics for the song "I Am the Boy That Can Enjoy Invisibility" from listening to the only three videos of the song that seem to be online, all on James Joyce sites: 

            I'm sure it would be nice

            to be able to vanish from sight

            to be able to stop in the whiskey shop

            till after eleven at night 

            To consult an attorney 

            and disappear when he speaks of fees 

            to travel in mail unlimited rail 

            and vanish at tickets please 

            Invisibility you see 

            is just the thing for me 

            I am the boy that can enjoy invisibility 

            Should I happen to break the law 

            as the best of us often do 

            I'd wait till the bobby was out of the lobby 

            and then disappear from view 

            Should the weather become too hot 

            for clothing however small 

            it would be a treat to walk in the street 

            without any clothes at all 

            Invisibility you see 

            is just the thing for me 

            I am the boy that can enjoy invisibility 

            I'm sure it would be fine 

            should your landlord call for rent 

            to disappear and never to hear 

            what the deuce it was he meant 

            or to vanish at the end of the month 

            should the gas collector call 

            with his three month's bill though your cash is nil 

            and do nothing at all at all 

            Invisibility you see 

            is just the thing for me 

            I am the boy that can enjoy invisibility 

            Invisibility you see 

            is just the thing for me 

            I am the boy that can enjoy invisibility 

            

            All I have left to finish for school to be over is my essay, which is due next Tuesday at midnight. I've got a solid eight and a half pages but I need at least ten. I only had time to make one small change to it this evening. 

            I heated super fries in the oven and had them with chili on top while watching season 6, episode 19 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            Jed thinks it's time to set up Jethro in business and he asks him what he wants to do. He says he wants to open a restaurant. Mr. Drysdale finds him a horribly run down diner. The Clampetts fix it up and leave Jethro to run it on his own. Four hours go by with no customers until a woman comes in and asks to use his phone. He says she has to order something first and so he tries to make her a burger. But when he climbs up to get the onions he puts his foot on the hot grill and knocks down the shelf. He says she can use the phone but she'll have to go to the truck so he can drive her to his uncle's house because he doesn't have a phone. She storms away and slams the door, breaking all the windows. Jed, Granny and Elly show up and Granny says she'll cook for him. He gives her a big hug. Some of the animals on the show, like Bessie the chimp, were trained and handled by Ralph Helfer. When he was 11 his parents moved to an apartment building in Hollywood where he became friends with Carol Burnett, who also lived there. They continue their friendship to the present day. He began working as a stunt double but after being mauled by a cruelly trained lion he was determined to change how animals were handled. He developed "Affection Training". He acquired a 1.5 thousand acre piece of land which he called Nature's Haven. One of his prize animals was the gentle Zamba the lion. Ralph was also best friends with Betty White and he provided animals for her show The Pet Set. Zamba became the star of the movie The Lion. Ralph's success led to him buying a 600 acre ranch which he called Africa USA. It became the largest animal rental company in the world. Two more of his animal stars were Clarence the Cross Eyed Lion, who starred on Daktari and Bruno the Bear, the star of Gentle Ben. He wrote and produced the movie Savage Harvest. 

 

            It's now been thirty-two days since I've found a bedbug.