Ecotopia (24 page)

Nor do there seem to be big-name architects in Ecotopia. People
themselves design and build structures for their living groups or enterprises with astonishing competence and imagination, often using modularized designs and standard materials that by now have taken on practically the quality of folk architecture. The community governments have design staffs for public buildings (and presumably to check plans before construction) but architecture is not at all the preserve of experts.

Among all the arts, music seems the most important to Ecotopians. Every farm, factory, or extended family has some kind of musical group, and those with professional status usually began in such places. There are several styles of new music being composed. Black bands play a music with roots in the jazz and blues we know from Chicago and New York, and in Caribbean music. Bands from Spanish backgrounds play with an obvious Latin American influence. White bands tend to play music that sounds to me something like Balinese gamelan orchestras—an intricate, cerebral, yet driving jazz, with many homemade drums and gongs prominent in it. (This is said to be derived from earlier rock styles.) There are also groups using classical instrumentation—violins, clarinets, flutes, and so on—who play an unearthly improvised music like nothing I have ever heard, and there are musicians who play instruments of a totally electronic, synthetic-sound type. The one dominant characteristic of all such music styles, however, is a strong dance beat. In fact you seldom see a band playing without some people in the vicinity dancing. Classical music, incidentally, is also heard widely, especially as played by street musicians.

It’s difficult for my ear to catch the words of songs, and people dislike the idea of writing them down for me. Still, I was able to pick up the themes of several currently popular ones. They turned out to be largely romantic lamentations, not terribly different from our hillbilly music—complaints about being deserted, dirges for the unhappy end of true love, expressions of anger or despair. There is a resilient humor to some of these songs, but evidently the Ecotopian revolution, whatever else it may have accomplished, has not touched the basic miseries of the human condition.

The burning musical issue in Ecotopia at present concerns electrification.
At the time of Independence, rock music was entirely electronic, and groups carried around with them a whole truckload of heavy amplifiers. They soon came under attack from “folkies,” musicians who used only traditional instruments such as the recorder, banjo, guitar, piano, and antique types such as the lute or oriental types such as the sitar. Folkies argued that music could not be a truly people’s art, accessible to all, if it depended on high-cost electronics; and they also maintained that music should not depend on the artificial aid of electricity. Their final argument was that amplified music was a biological offense because it damaged eardrums. The development of small, inexpensive amplifiers undermined their first point, and the last didn’t seem to impress young Ecotopian musicians any more than it had our own. And so the debate rages on.

A number of Ecotopian artists have apparently gained some international status, with shows in Paris and Tokyo. However, the main focus of Ecotopian artistic activity is aggressively domestic. In fact one young artist went so far as to refuse even to give me his name, lest it be bruited about the world through my columns. “We’re like the Balinese,” he insisted. “We have no ‘art,’ we just do everything as well as we can.” The effects of this attitude can be seen not only in the high level of beauty attained by craft products—pottery, weaving, jewelry, and so on—but also in the quality of Ecotopian furniture, utensils, and house decorations. Some of these last, like a stunning feather mandala given to me by an Ecotopian friend, are not exactly art and not exactly anything else either. But they certainly add to the aesthetic enjoyment the Ecotopians provide for each other.

(June 13) Must get this down straight before it gets furred over.

Got up yesterday morning and found the Cove all busy and excited about the war games our team was to be in. Tom especially, but
everybody
tuned in with it. Lorna, to my surprise, very militant. Even with me there, making an occasional crack, they had no shame about it, no hesitation—it’s all real and accepted, they simply
like
it. After a bit I stopped saying much: felt like some
nut who would ask, in a hot World Series game, “Why all the fuss? It’s just a little old ball made of leather!”

Breakfast more ceremonious than usual: melons and champagne. But people not too hungry. The excitement was contagious, I had to admit—it even got to me a little. People joking a lot, with a certain bravado. Somebody remarked on the warm weather, and Tom quoted the old plains Indian saying: “It is a good day to die.”

About ten o’clock it was parade time. Some self-consciousness as the men got up, looked at each other. Hugs all around, glances at the door. Nina, Tom’s friend, had come over and cried a little, which embarrassed him: “Don’t cry, we’re going to stomp them,” he said. But she cried all the louder. I was to go along and observe it all. “It’ll make a man of you,” Bert jibed at me. They all picked up their spears and we jostled out the big door and into the street—the fighting band of about 15 men, and maybe 30 of the rest of us. The warriors began to chant as they set out, waving their spears, and the rest fell in behind them. A steamy hot day for San Francisco, humid and with little wind.

It was several miles to the place in a huge, wild park where the encounter was to be held. We headed there bravely, the men singing, the rest of us sometimes coming in on a refrain. People along the way watched us pass—if one of the men gestured with his spear or jumped around, a little, they would cheer and smile. Couldn’t help thinking of the high-school football games of my youth—and the rest of us were like the indulgent parents come to watch the pre-game rally….

Very hot, and the champagne on so little breakfast got to me. Took off my sweater and gave it to one of the women—not sure if it was Brit or Lorna. The chanting grew stronger, and the spirit of the group changed. As we approached the park it was as if the voltage had suddenly been turned up. People were linking arms and looking at each other strangely; the rhythm of the walking was stronger, more like a march, more like a war-dance.

Then suddenly we were off the street and into the park, and there was the ritual cauldron, with barbaric cups hanging from the rim, gleaming in the sun. And off a few hundred yards, on the
other side of a meadow, was the enemy, gathered around
their
cauldron. A thrill went down my back, taking me completely by surprise
—I hated
them! And my pride in our fighters was enormous, as they gathered around our cauldron. How beautiful they were, how courageous! One by one, they stripped off their street clothes and put on their war garments: leather jackets and shorts, decorated in gorgeous designs, some astrological, some totem-animal, some purely arabesque. Cups began passing around (nobody helped himself—you drank only from a cup given you by a brother) and the rest of us crowded in, yelling encouragement.

Can’t recall exactly what happened next. Somebody—I think it was Bert—put a cup in my hand, closed my hand around it, clasped my arm. Yet I can’t remember his face. Do remember feeling weak, as if my hand could not grip the cup, and expecting it to fall to the ground, ignominiously. Don’t remember if I even made an effort to hold it. But I drank somehow, and there was a great shout, and hands were patting me on the back, and a fighting outfit was being pieced together for me, and another cup of the brew was in my hand. Out of the side vision of my eye I spotted a woman who looked like Marissa, and a pang went through me; turned to look, and couldn’t see her anywhere. (My God, I thought, how much I love that woman.) My heart was beating strongly, with a terrible surge of energy, like what we call “second wind” but more so—all my muscles felt strangely powerful.

They banged the gong for the fight to begin. I had watched our men practice in the garden with their spears, but the actual weapon seemed heavy and awkward. I was afraid my inexperience would endanger my brothers. But their eyes flashed companionably and we all rushed onward together, and began with our enemies the fearful dance I had dreaded and dreamed of. Their first charge horrified me. I had never seen such open looks of murderous malice in another man’s eyes, and it was hard not to break and run and cry for mercy. But we rallied, regrouped, pushed back against their advance with a compact front of many spears; and they could see that if they pushed further, one of them would be mortally exposed. Step by step then, not wishing to abandon an opportunity if we should falter, they began to retreat.

At this, or so I seem to recall, I or someone near me uttered a bestial kind of triumphant growl, a truly blood-curdling noise. At any rate, I have never felt anything quite like that moment. The dread of their advance was replaced by an unutterable feeling of strength which we all shared, and knew we shared. Making feints and jabs with our spears, and threatening cries, we spread out and pushed them back, looking for weak spots, occasionally ganging up to single out one of their men and try to cut him off.

On one of these surges I must have gotten carried away by my enthusiasm and misjudged the distance. The balance of movement in these war games is more delicate than it seems, and the other side can seize an advantage in a fraction of a second. At any rate, I must have stepped a pace or two too far, or too much to the left or right. The enemy suddenly counterattacked in a way that isolated me on my left. Jerry, who was there, had to jump back for an instant until Tom leaped forward to give him added strength—and in that moment a spear pierced my side just above the waist.

Must have passed out immediately, though I dimly remember cries and shouting and hands helping me to lie down on bloody grass.

By asking people later, have found that I was then bandaged up by a doctor and taken to the small nearby hospital where I am making this diary entry. It is a messy wound, apparently, but did not affect anything crucial. It aches dully, but I can bear it. They took most of an hour to operate, cleaning up the wound and sewing me back together. I came to again just at dusk, and found I am assigned a rather beautiful nurse named Linda. “You were brave,” she said, after explaining to me that I was emerging from the anesthetic fog. Did she mean the war games or the operation? I was too drowsy to ask. The hospital must be empty—she seems to have little to do except look after me. But this is very welcome, since I tend to hallucinate more fighting when I close my eyes, and I don’t like the idea of going to sleep….

(June 14) Last night after I finished diary entry I told Linda about the hallucinations. Figured she would get me a sleeping pill, but she just asked me to tell her about them. Then she began to
massage my forehead and shoulders, which slowed my mind down very soothingly. After a while she just sat there, with a hand resting on my chest. Calmly, as if she would stay all night if necessary. I must have gone right to sleep, and this morning when I woke up she was sitting in the chair next to the bed. It turned out she
did
stay all night (the couch in the corner of the room was rumpled and slept-in) and that, furthermore, this is standard practice in Ecotopian hospitals.

Her long hair swung as she came over and sat on the bed. “How do you feel?” she asked. It was hard to say. I was tired, as if I could sleep for hours more. Yet the sun was appealing, it made me want to stretch. I became conscious of bandages, and of the fact that moving caused pain. I lay still and looked at her.

“Some of your friends will come visit in a bit,” she said. “But maybe you’d like some breakfast?” “Yes, I’m very hungry.” “The doctor’ll be around in a little while. We can fortify you first. What would you like to eat?”

I thought a minute. “I’d like to have a farmer-style breakfast: steak, eggs, potatoes, pie, tomato juice, coffee, toast—” She smiled. “You
do
want to get well, don’t you? All right, I’ll see what the cook can do for you.” She pointed to a button at the head of the bed. “If you push that, it buzzes me here, no matter where I am or what I’m doing.” She indicated a small radio receiver at her waist.

As she went out, I felt something like you do when a slot machine pays off: you have trusted yourself to the fickle fingers of fate, and instead of the expected loss, you get bounty. I have survived, the sun is shining, and somebody has sent around this marvelous woman to take care of me….

I gorged myself on the breakfast, though I wasn’t quite as hungry as I’d thought. The doctor arrived. Not my favorite image of a physician—long of hair and loose of attire, and took a personal interest in my background and business which verged on prying, but he seemed competent enough. Probed and poked and listened, pronounced me well on the road to recovery. The antibiotics are evidently working: no signs of infection. Tomorrow, he said, I’ll be able to move around. “Today, you’ll have to content yourself with
passive pleasures. I’ll have Linda give you a bath this afternoon. And maybe a little massage for now.”

I had been thinking of asking someone to phone Marissa for me, but Linda rather pointedly said she’d already taken care of it, and to just relax and enjoy the massage—which turned out to be a lovely sensual experience. Linda’s aim seemed to be to make every muscle and nerve in my body warm and conscious of itself. She stroked and kneaded, with a soft, steady rhythm that put me into a dazed, dreamy state. As she worked I couldn’t help sighing repeatedly with sheer joy and amazement, and this must have pleased her; at the end she sat down beside me, covered me up, gave me a hug, and said, “You’re certainly appreciative!”

“Well, I’ve never been treated so well in hospital before. Our hospitals are—. Well, they’re excellent medically of course, but they’re impersonal. The nurses are all business, very overworked, and they’re not so pretty.” “I’m probably not so pretty as you think right now, either.” “It doesn’t matter, does it.” “Not much.” She sat back, and I closed my eyes happily. I must have dozed again. In a while I was wakened by voices, and there in the room was Marissa, full of a sardonic kind of sympathy, with some friends from the Cove. She appraised Linda with steely calm and efficiency; evidently decided she was all right. (But while Marissa was there she didn’t let Linda near me, I noticed; and Linda took this in good grace, evidently feeling the patient would be back in her hands soon enough.) My guests had brought a picnic basket and a good deal of wine, which they proceeded to open. Linda pitched in too, as if such things were the normal way of life in a hospital room. They cranked up my bed so I could see the Bay, half hidden by trees, and opened the window; and before long the room was littered with bottles, little cloths spread out for the food, and laughing people.