Some of these stories were made into the book True Tales of American Life (First published under the title I Thought My Father Was God, and Other True Tales from NPR’s National Story Project 2001)

The story was originally accepted and then cut at the last minute from the book due to space.

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Paul Auster,

This is a great Experiment. I heard about it on the radio and decided to get this down and send it out.

This is all absolutely true. The pictures included are part of my story.

A while back when I was going through my things and preparing for a move, I came across a drawing that looked as though it had been done when I was four or five years old. The drawing is not dated.

The drawing illustrates a red three story building at an intersection with sidewalks. The building is surrounded by defunct cars, tires, and machine parts. A fence surrounds the lots around the building. There is a traffic light, and a neighboring building across the street where the angle of the intersection is slightly obtuse.

What has intrigued me endlessly about this particular drawing is that it accurately depicts an apartment in Brooklyn in which I would eventually live nearly 16 years later.

The similar real world location is at 14 Bayard Street in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. It is directly across from McCarren Park on the south side, and has not changed a great deal since I lived there a decade ago. The building is a lonely three story building with red asbestos tile. There is a chimney on the right side of the roof exactly like the drawing. The building is surrounded by junked cars, tires and garbage, just as in the drawing. A fence surrounds the lots like the drawing. There is a traffic light out on the corner with sidewalks like the drawing. The angle of the intersection is very similar, and there is another apartment building placed exactly as it is in the drawing. If you take the elements apart they are almost too accurate to be inconsequential.

The only difference I can find is that the door on the building is in the center, while the real 14 Bayard Street, has its doorway on the left side. Interestingly, if you look at the drawing even closer it seems as though I started to draw a structure on the left side, similar to the stoop overhang and which the real building currently has.

It’s so close however, that when I first came across it I recognized the drawing immediately as where I was living. It was also the first apartment I ever had in Brooklyn and was really my first introduction to an “urban” environment.

Now this could have been only a coincidence of course, and a bizarre stretch of the imagination, only it happened a few years later with another place in which I lived.

This time I clearly made the drawing in the late 1980’s while I was actually living on Bayard Street.

The second drawing depicts a suspension bridge stretching away into the distance over a river. The structure of the bridge looks as though it is built in many latticed levels. The aspect ratio of the drawing is easily 2:1, so it almost looks like it is in Cinemascope.

In 1995 I moved  into a unique sublet on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. One dominant feature of the apartment was its marvelous view of the river and the Willaimsburg Bridge. Again, I again came across this drawing after I lived in the space.

One curious aspect of the bridge drawing is that it seems to depict a huge fire, or plume of smoke, emanating out of Brooklyn. I haven’t been able to identify this smoke with any real occurrence. There was a train crash on the bridge one summer close to the spot in the drawing, and once one of the towers caught on fire, but nothing that large and on the distant horizon. The frame of the window is similarly rectangular, although not 2:1, and the element of the latticework of the bridge, makes it resemble the Williamsburg closely. I’ve often thought that this smoke in the picture might illustrate a calamity to come, but fortunately for everyone, I will be moving from this location in less than a month.

I find it very curious that I seem to consistently be making a record of the places I have lived before I have lived in them.

If anything else it encourages me to keep drawing.

Regards,

X. F. Pine

P.S. On a side note (you should hold onto your hat if you are wearing one), one of the very first exterior shots in the movie Smoke shows the Willamsburg Bridge from the Brooklyn side. If you look closely in the back, beyond the bridge, I believe you can see the apartment window where I am currently writing this letter. The building is definitely visible.

So there!

Best,

- XFP

In Tesla’s mind it was also capable of transmitting energy without wires. If you are unfamiliar with Tesla you must read this as a premier to get the whole picture. He conceived AC current, radio controlled robotics, cell phones, and a plethora of influential inventions (+700 patents) which set the foundations of the 20th century mad sciences.

Construction on the extensive laboratory and tower began in 1901 to become a part of Tesla’s Global System with J.P. Morgan as a primary backer. Also in 1901 Marconi successfully transmitted a radio signal across the Atlantic by using patents Tesla had invented although Tesla received no credit until after his death.

According to this In 1904 NY Times article, Tesla received the land for free to help develop a wireless radio resort community and had plans of putting similar towers in population areas. He claimed that the magnifying transmitter would be able to emit a wave complex of 10 million horsepower.

By 1903 the tower stood 187 feet high and was visible from New Haven, Connecticut across the sound. There were accounts that year of the tower briefly being turned on and bolts lighting up the night sky from the top of the tower. People noticed electrical sparks from their feet to the ground when they walked nearby. There are tanks in the main building which were reportedly used as massive batteries.

As the ambitious prototype neared completion Morgan backed out of the funding. Historians speculate that this was due to Tesla’s philosophy of giving electricity away for free and there was no way to “put a meter” on what Tesla had planned.

“Homes, farms, offices, factories, villages, libraries, museums, street lights, etc., could all be powered wireless and produce brilliant white light 24 hours a day. Motor energy for any industrial applications, transportation, tractors, trucks, trains, boats, automobiles, air ships or planes could be powered freely-anywhere on the planet from a single Magnifying Transmitter.”

Without Morgan the entire laboratory was in jeopardy. Tesla secretly mortgaged off the property to the owner of the Waldorf-Astoria to cover debts of $20,000 dollars. By 1917 they had the tower blown up for scrap. The site changed hands a few times over the years.

What remains is very perplexing and mysterious. The site was taken over by AGFA in the 1960s and they proceeded to poison the site with photo chemical toxins. It is now posted as restricted Superfund site although it was supposedly cleaned up by 1993. I also discovered it is currently for sale for $1.65 million dollars “as is”. The complex has 14 buildings on 15 acres. The original low brick building with the ornate smokestack which was designed by Stanford White is partially still there. The site of the huge tower is a strange octagon shape which is fabled to have honeycombs of tunnels and dormant spiral staircases beneath. Depressing rusted barbed wire surrounds everything.

As I walked around the lonely perimeter I was struck by the concept that this is where the 20th century branched off in the wrong direction. We’ve built a superstructure on dwindling commodities that we are fatally dependent upon from food distribution to heating our homes. Telsa’s execution may have been premature, but the concept of free energy transmission is profound given our current global circumstances. To think that this lost dream collapsed over a century ago is disturbing. The deeper you look into it the more you realize that Tesla knew things we still cannot comprehend. To go forward you must look back. The greatest scientific achievements are giant leaps of faith.

-XFP

Man has a clipboard and confronts an old woman.

MAN: Well, If you don’t want to sign the petition, it’s up to you.

OLD WOMAN: That’s right.

MAN: It’s a…

OLD WOMAN: You can’t make ME!!!

MAN: Fine.

OLD WOMAN: I’m not going to sign it!!!

MAN: You don’t have…

OLD WOMAN: That’s dirty money…

MAN: Mammm…

OLD WOMAN: Regan wipes his ass with my money!!!

MAN: I’m not trying to…

OLD WOMAN: He took it from me and he’s wiping his ass with it.

MAN: I’m sorry.

OLD WOMAN: He took it… You RAT-MEN took it!!!

MAN: I…

OLD WOMAN: You RAT-MEN. You stay away from  me!!!

MAN: Just…

OLD WOMAN: You RAT-MEN.  You took my money… RAT-MEN with your cocks!!!

MAN: Be…

OLD WOMAN: RAT-MEN … I want my money back. You can’t take it. You’ll see.

Man with clipboard leaves defeated.

OLD WOMAN: You RAT-MEN can’t get away…

- X.F. Pine

A huge barrel shaped goon with a tiny head hoists a large safe on the arch of his back. The combination has been lost. He puts it down as he tries to organize the derelict lot. You walk past pretending not to notice an old bass violin with no strings leaning against a wall. You are positive there is a rat under the grass at your feet.

You hear another man speaking to the goon while he picks up more junk, “We should have gotten into this business, we’d be rich by now.”

You walk out of the lot.

The express train doors close and the thieves are in the corner of the car. The two drunk men stand in large unkempt suits laughing hysterically. They stumble with the unsteady train as it starts up, and the sound that comes through the broken door is as loud as hell.

The taller one with the mustache violently pulls out a large roll of money. He tries to count it and divide it up. The other small drunker thief in sunglasses waves a dozen thick gold chains in his stubby hand. The lights dim and flash out for a moment as the train hurtles past stations. The thief in the glasses begins laughing again as if he is splitting. The tall thin one loses his grin, as he is mesmerized by the bills.

After a moment of counting, he looks at his friend with alarm. He shoots a paranoid expression over the rest of the train. He becomes serious and begins shouting only it is too loud to hear. It all sounds like nonsense.

You remember a story about a young kid who comes to the big city to be a singer. He sacrifices it all in a number of years and never gets a return. His nights wash into alcoholic angst. His act becomes loud, annoying and disgraceful. He falls into a group of similar people who feed off of fake compliments. They are a party crowd and they keep each other alive until one of them gets in an unmitigated accident, causing the whole group to be offset. The particular young man whose descent we have so wickedly had the honor of tracing finally returns to a trailer home in Florida where he grew up. His only keepsake is a bright red scarf which was worn by one of the ladies of the group.

A young man hands out leaflets about his jewelry business at the foot of an escalator in a busy train station. The fliers have line drawings of the perfect diamonds which he spent days rendering. Everyone thinks collectively of diamonds on their long commute home.

X. F. Pine

I must rip all the bushes and branches from the grotto, with long swoops of a scythe. The bricks from the garden must be removed to make way for the pathway. The trellis is now visible by the entrance. It holds the vines and the brush high above your head as you enter. By the end of the days work, the pathway is cut perfectly to the yard. This will be a place to retreat for he summer. A table and chair are needed.

4-3

The bridge is filled with nameless faces from the past. Persons whose faces you can only remember through a picture. Their names evoke a lost distant place and memory.  Most of us are traveling in one direction. I see JD approaching from the opposite way down the causeway. We barely acknowledge each other in passing. She wears a thick red jacket which is much to heavy for the warming weather. I realize, that upon reaching the center of the bridge I must return to the side which I came from.

4-4

BB and I wait outside the bar for hours. We joke about the performance we are about to see. Inside, I find myself alone at the end of the dark wooden bar. JD is at the far end of the restaurant wearing glasses. RR appears and shows the barmaid a map or drawing he has done. The barmaid is excited by his appearance. He explains the drawing on the bar right in front of me. JD walks over, glances at the piece of artwork, and walks away.

4-9

Deep within the Scum House is where all the low life from the town live. Walking down the long hallway I am trying to get to the hidden door. I need to get to school. I almost stole a bicycle to get there on time. In the hallway I see the police in their riot gear. Their radios are buzzing. There are circular floating lights. The police have just taken some piece of scum out the door. People are stretching and screaming with vengeance. There has been a fight in the small room where I almost trip over an empty beer bottle. The floor is covered in vomit. Everyone is trying to get out the small door. A man walks up to a spigot to fill a bucket with water. The sound it makes sounds exactly like more vomiting. This causes a bum to appear sick right in front of me. His mouth is about to burst with vomit. His expression is extreme. I manage to dodge out of the way and get out the front door. On the great big green front steps is the rich man’s daughter with her scum boyfriend. She looks at all the confusion with wild innocent eyes. She is from a home very much unlike this. She is here because it confronts her rich daddy’s life.  She wears the thinnest silver chain around her neck possible.

4-10

JD and I meet on the street and we both become very coy. I ask for her number. She giggles with delight. I tell her mine on the condition that she doesn’t send any big friends of hers over to beat me up. She laughs more. We are headed in the same direction laughing.

4-11

Sitting at the table, they bring out the new hat design which perfectly resembles a bowling ball cut down the center. It is also bright, furry and friendly. The finger holes rest right above the forehead. The hats look supremely stupid although it is our job to pretend otherwise. We soon discover the practical problem that the wearer cannot hear anything at all while the product is being worn.

4-13

The convention is taking place across a sunny field from the house of science where our team is staying. Within the large space of the hall are exhibitions featuring gas weapons and torture devices in different colored booths. The fascists are involved in this to some degree. Their streamline human statues of the state stand at either end of the hall. The bronze statues hold spears. Suddenly a revolutionary pulls a machine gun from a black bag he has over his shoulder and begins to destroy one particular display related to historic gas masks. The display is riddled to pieces by bullets. It is then that the seemingly solid statues become mechanized and launch their spears towards the dangerous revolutionary. The spears meet their target perfectly and impale him in an ‘X’ fashion. He is dead within moments and everything has grown silent. All of us on the team realize that we are under complete automatic surveillance all the time. The fascists control everything we do. Later as we are headed back across the field to our quarters we see a tremendous Calvary offensive far in the distance. We think it’s a movie it is so perfect. Before reaching the house of science we meet a little black child who wants to play some more football in the field. He pretends his arm is withered and glowing green, and then it turns out he isn’t pretending. It is all bone and he brags about how it glows in the dark. These are the curious effects of our science. It is then years later and I am standing outside of myself as I have become a religious preacher in a pulpit. I am watching myself repeat the same words over and over tying to get my new profession correct. I have traded in my life of science for one in God.

4-19

I leave the Irish vixen with the dimples on the train and return to the city and its white sculptures.

I am lying beside PW in a hotel room bed where I  read a book and watch television simultaneously. I look to tell PW she is beautiful. A group of elegantly dressed ladies appear on television dancing. Their dresses are classical and shimmery. An announcer mentions that they are “voguing” as I notice that they all have tails like animals. PW makes a comment to herself about her bra. She says it’s far too tight. She knows this will excite me.

The bicycle has incredible torque in its gears which make the ascent of hills very easy and its speed impressively fast. I am traveling so fast in fact that I am losing consciousness as I travel down a giant hill. There is no air, or I have been mistakenly drugged. As I see the bottom of the hill my vision becomes blocked. I am unsure if I have shut my eyes. I can only see shadows of trees on the inside of my eyelids. The afternoon summer sunlight is orange and warm. I feel my sense of balance wavering as the speed increases until I blackout.

The department store intercom is telling a story as the elderly sex therapist shuffles in a slow circle. The story is about the ways a man shows his love for a woman. It says that when a man walks astray, he can hold his woman’s hand and lead her or he can forget his love and walk away until he returns, thinking of her all the time.

5-23

All my friends and I are in the back of a pick-up truck where we are instructed to take the first part of the test. We do not know how many parts of the test there are. As the truck drives down a street we are supposed to record everything that passes by our view. Every garbage can, every doorway, every light in every window. The town is a sleepy one, and it is in the after-hours. I find considerable anxiety in writing down what I see because I cannot concentrate. My friends find it easy. My jottings are barely coherent to me, let alone the instructor, who was once a terrible science teacher of mine. After just one pass down the street, we are supposed to have a complete description. I look at my piece of paper to find it blank. I know I am going to fail.

5-26

Connecting the two rooms is a hallway where a tremendous brown horse runs back and forth uncontrollably. It is the largest animal I have ever seen and I am trapped in the hallway with it.

5-30

I am considering a sculpture of the Ninth Circle of Dante’s Hell with a jealous husband. We examine the small model of Satan and the underside of the platform in which it is half submerged. We try to figure the logic involved, after Satan consumes someone.

6-3

A group of us are in a house with white walls. KKR directs us to paintings in the back which are representations of cartoons. As we look at the large black and white paintings, we discover that the Mob is killing all the witnesses involved, and that each one of us must go our separate ways, or risk torture and capture.

I begin my life on the run alone and still free. After disembarking on a trail in the woods, I come upon a split level house high in the hills. Within the cellar of the house is an incredible assortment of caves, and hiding places. The cellar was molded out of blue molten rock formations. Unfortunately for me, the owners of the house have cemented up all the openings. Local teen-age kids, full of rebellion and destructive angst, have spray painted the cement with swears. I know the teen-agers are wise and right somehow. I decide to break out and climb out of the cellar window to get outside, but I am unable to fit through the white window frame, I break it off as I go through.

Outside on the patio, there is a vicious light colored watchdog waiting to attack me. It approaches snarling, and before it bites I throw the old window frame into it’s mouth, and it becomes distracted long enough so that I might escape. However, also on the patio, is the owner of the dog, and the sheriff caretaker of the house. He can only yell, “Mr.” in a sly condescending voice, before I am gone from the scene.

Hours pass and I have dozens of other adventures all ending in escape. I finally end up jumping off a cliff to see if I can land in evergreen treetops.

Years later I am standing outside of myself in a bachelor pad where my cohorts and I listen to various jazz albums. The good old jazz albums with the colorful covers, and the scratchy vinyl sounds. We discuss meanings, and interpretations from our past. We look at the covers as we listen to the selections.

This is from the BBC show Animal Camera. Beautiful Golden Eagle:

The Peregrine Falcon & Gos Hawk flies through the Woods:

What a Lion sees at Night:

History of the Crittercam. Great underwater compilation of Seals. Sharks and Whales. Underwater there is no way to transmit a signal, so they have to record it and eject it to the surface for recovery:

A tree Kangaroo from New Guinea with cool claws:

Finally, a great found photo story with a sea turtle. A camera washed up on a beach in Key West, Florida after being lost six months before in Aruba. This was on it.

There’s a photo pinned to the wall of her father from the 60’s in a bright white t-shirt, almost smiling. Telephone poles stretch out across a plain. A dustbowl of a town. She loves that one the most. The new boy kisses her on the lips twice and once angelically on her forehead, parting her hair gently. He leaves and his smile fades through the crack in the door. The new boy wonders down the stairs and out into the street at night, thinking of traps, and his own old pictures of traps.

X..F. Pine

A theory I’ve heard about over years is the correlations between the constellation of Orion’s Belt and the three main Pyramids at Giza. This is also known as the OCT (Orion Correlation Theory). See this amazing site for a more detailed explanation of the theory.

Recently I have been experimenting with composites and layers in Google Earth and had to attempt this by mapping the constellation to the ground.

Google Earth actually has the structures built into the system so you can see the correlation when the layer is installed.

Here is the .kmz layer file to download.

Here is the most recent version of Google Earth.

If you already have Google Earth installed the file should load up into the “Places” panel on the left automatically. If not try to open the .kmz manually via the Google Earth application.

It’s easier to see the star field if you turn OFF the Panoramio photos checkbox in the “Layers’ panel on the left. Photos show up as blue dots.  Turn ON the checkbox for 3D buildings in  the left “Layers” panel to see the structures.

Notice that the map is slightly off kilter and also there are other smaller stars that seem to map to other structures on the ground nearby south of the main Pyramids.  One must also wonder if there has been some drift in the stars and astronomic angles over 4000 years since the pyramids were built.

Another part of the theory mentions that the Nile itself represents the edge of the Milky Way galaxy and the placement of the Sphinx is connected to the constellation Leo. I would need to find a larger more highly detailed map to test this.

X. F. Pine

X. F. Pine