Pinball by Jerzy Kosinski Read Free Book Online Page A

music. Look at a song like ‘Out of Rock.’ What other pop star would sing words by William Butler Yeats?
Out of rock
Out of a desolate source
Love haps upon its course.
     
    Or how about ‘A World Ends? Imagine anybody else setting a magnificent poem by Archibald MacLeish to music!” With fervor he began to recite:
“A
world ends when its metaphor has died.
An age becomes an age, all else beside,
When sensuous poets in their pride invent
Emblems for the soul’s consent
That speak the meanings men will never know
But man-imagined images can show:
It perishes when those images, though seen,
No longer mean… .
     
    And that’s the single that sold millions! That’s hard to beat, don’t you think?” Nash asked.
    “Maybe so,” said Domostroy, “but what about a song like ‘Acne Lady’? All the cute wordplay on pharmaceuticals: Blondit, Nudit, Moisture Whip, Lush Lips. Or that other one—‘Pornutopia Is Utopia’—where he says, ‘Procreation is creation, contraception true deception, masturbation—sex probation.’ You don’t think that’s pretty silly?”
    “If it is, so is the culture that daily promotes all that stuff,” said Nash. “Goddard is obviously making fun of it, Domostroy! What’s more, that’s the stuff his young fans understand. You may not like it, but that’s probably because of your age. Keep it in mind—”
    “I mind keeping it,” said Domostroy. “Childish jingles on TV and in all the jukeboxes don’t make growing old any easier for me.”
    “Be fair, Domostroy. Musically and in terms of lyrics, Goddard is the culmination of all his rock ‘n’ roll predecessors—Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen—as well as of what’s best in funk, soul, reggae—and, of course, the influence of such master saloon singers as Nat King Cole and Tony Bennett. In Goddard’s music you can hear the whole vocabulary ofKarlheinz Stockhausen and electronic gizmos—from the Sound City To’anna and Pianomate through the Hammond, the Moog, the Buchla, all the way to the ARP, the Putney, the Synthi, and the Gershwin. You name it, he’s played it!”
    Domostroy listened carefully. After a pause he said, “I still can’t believe that in this free-wheeling media-crazy society, no one can find out the identity of our most popular music star!”
    “Everybody is free to try to find out,” said Nash, “and believe me, almost everybody has tried. Do you remember when all the fan magazines were offering rewards to anyone who could name Goddard or produce a verifiable photograph of him? When hundreds of guys came forward, each one claiming to be Goddard—and some even singing like him? When, after the real Goddard failed to show up to accept his first Grammy Award—the first of three he’s won so far—the news and wire services all went after him. And so did every Dick Tracy, every disc jockey, every sleuth and gumshoe of the Record Industry Association of America, every frustrated music critic, song writer and rumor-monger—and everybody else on Tin Pan Alley—the central coterie of songwriters, music pluggers, and record companies! And what did they uncover? Nothing, apart from all the usual red herring and guesswork: that he stays out of sight because he’s crippled; that his face was destroyed in a car accident; that he has Saint Vitus’ dance; that he had a premonition early on that if he ever came out of hiding he would get a bullet—instead of flowers and kisses—from one of his fans or envious enemies. Others, who claimed to have fucked him or supposedly helped him to write his music or lyrics or both, say that he’s heavy into smack—a heroin addict who doesn’t want to be cured; or get this, that he’s a wireheading freak, with wire implants in his brain that give him hallucinogenic jolts and let him and his wireheaded lovers trip for hours on electrosex! Still others say that his invisibility is nothing but clever record company hype—the