Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute and Weekly Webzine Site Since 1996 ~ Over 15,000 Web Pages in Archive Presents Volume 1356 The Burroughs Biblio-Pro-Phile Series Ronald E. Prindle |
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Official Edgar Rice Burroughs Tribute and Weekly Webzine Site Since 1996 ~ Over 15,000 Web Pages in Archive Presents Volume 1356 The Burroughs Biblio-Pro-Phile Series Ronald E. Prindle |
TRAVELLING DOWN THE ERB HIGHWAY
with
R. E. PRINDLE
e-Mail: dugwarbaby@yahoo.com
Introduction and Navigation
Chart
Themes And Variations
The Novels Of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Minidoka
Tarzan Jr.
Synthetic Men of Mars
#19 Tarzan's Quest
Tarzan and Forbidden City
Mad King
Efficiency Expert
Girl From Farris's
Bridge & the Kid
Marica & Mucker
Tarzan and the Golden Lion
Tarzan and the Ant Men
Tarzan the Invincible
Tarzan and the Leopard Men
Tarzan and the Lion Man
Tarzan Triumphant Review
Tarzan and the City of Gold
Cave Girl
Tarzan the Untamed Analysis
Tarzan the Untamed Review
The Master Mind of Mars Article
Chessmen of Mars
Thuvia, Maid of Mars
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar
Tarzan and the Madman
Beyond Farthest Star
Jungle Girl
* DOB: 5/26/38 (Confidential, do not disclose.) ~ POB: Saginaw, Michigan ~ TOB: 11:16 PM
Mother: Yes. ~ Father: Briefly.* Sister Catherine of St. Luke's Hospital acknowledges, according to questionable documentation, that REP was born at their institution. REP was a healthy baby weighing in at 11/3.
* Contrary to appearances REP is not nor ever has been affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. Maybe the doctor was Catholic. Mr. Prindle's religious training was Congregational, Presbyterian and Methodist. He has since renounced all religious affiliations being of the Scientific Consciousness.
* He attended the following grammar schools - Emerson, Adams (uncertain as to which Adams), Emerson again, Longfellow, Fuerbringer.
* 7th to 9th: North Intermediate School ~ 10th to 12th: Arthur Hill High School
* Some people complain about their schools, especially high school, claiming they received useless information. Prindle doesn't. Some of the information was irrelevant but he feels that if he had absorbed the 98% he didn't while at the same time taking a number of useful courses that he failed to do, that he very likely would have been much better off than he was with a meager 2% absorption rate. Still, and this is amazing, he believes he left high school intellectually ahead of 98% of his fellow graduates.
* The above astonishing fact has never been noted by Mr. Ripley but it might well be included in his compendium.
* Prindle attended the following colleges: Oakland City College, Merritt Campus, Marin Community College, Chabot Community College (all in the Bay Area of California).
* California State College at Hayward (since having undergone numerous name changes. At last report it may have been named California State University-East Bay. Might I suggest UC-Berkeley South?)
* Prindle obtained a BA in History from the above vari-named institution.
* Graduate studies were undertaken at UC-Berkeley North and the University of Oregon at Eugene. No advanced degrees resulted rather Mr. Prindle was asked to leave the University Of Oregon on the grounds that 'he wasn't the academic type.' This may possibly have been true but if true, Mr. Prindle believes it was irrelevant.
* NB: Unlike high school where Prindle believes a lack of application resulted in an under utilization of both his and the school's facilities he believes that with the exception of his summer at UC Berkeley his college years were wasted time and effort, at the least unproductive. However the vagaries of space and time are such that one thing leads to another.
* In the interim between high school and college Mr. Prindle did time in the US Navy for no sins of his own commission. The less said about the this period the better. Experience is said to be a hard school and the Navy was one of the hardest. While the experience Mr. Prindle obtained was of value he feels that the price was overvalued. He hasn't been able but help notice that those without the valuable experience suffered no adverse effects in life. But as a wise old commentator noted about a famous American card game: You plays 'em like you finds 'em. These were momentous times of great excitement. Being one of the elect 2% Mr. Prindle took his chances and prospered.
* From the time he left his collegiate studies, such as they were, behind in 1969 he never looked back.
Mr. Prindle is not clear on what the last sentence actually means but he has seen it used so often is similar situations that he thought it might apply. Your comments are welcome. Not appreciated but welcome.
To those addicted to sequential reporting Mr. Prindle apologizes for reporting the Navy period out of sequence. He disliked the experience so much there is a good chance he would have left a blank spot in the record instead. Take what you can get.
The next fifteen years of the Prindle 'Odyssey' were spent in the phonograph record business. Vinyl. First in Eugene then in Portland a hundred miles up I5.
As the saying goes: If you're not doing one thing you're doing another. The period was both lucrative and instructive. Whatever you put in the bag is in the bag. As Bob Seger once said, or sang: I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.' Mr. Prindle feels there is a certain amount of wisdom in this statement. However what is done is done. There is no going back.
As Mr. Prindle was in the phonograph record business actually having listened to thousands of records many a hundred or more times he naturally picked up many pearls of wisdom from the grooves as per Mr. Seger's sage comment.
Mr. Prindle and Mr. Paul Simon came to the same conclusion at the same time but rather than start a fight Mr. Prindle wishes to allow Mr. Simon priority. Suffice it to say that each woke up one morning something along about 1978 and said to himself: I don't think this stuff is funny anymore.
No, the range of possibilities had been exhausted. Tedium alone loomed ahead. Perhaps a lifetime of inanity. That's insanity without the S. Enough was enough, perhaps, too much.
A famous group once sang: Change is now. Well, they knew whereof they spake. The record industry cooperated by collapsing. Just kind of went away. Prindle did not consider this a tragedy; he picked up his marbles and went home.
Had he seen all that life had to offer? Quite frankly, yes, and if it had more of the same he didn't want to see it.
Prindle retired to his books and studies. Having amassed a huge pile of psychological detritus he wanted to sift through the mass for the flecks of gold. This notion is a very romantic approach to life which seems on the surface as though it would be productive.
As above, so below. As it seemed it was.
If anyone has read Prindle's 'stuff' they can piece the rest together. He has studied and written. His interests are included in his writing.
As of 7/31/05 his health is as good as it was on the day he was born. If he can never go home again that is no loss, it wasn't that good the first time. Let the dead bury their dead. (Another obscure saying that requires some thinking out.) Home is where you're happy and Mr. Prindle would be happy wherever he was.
The above is copyright 2005 by Mr. Prindle. Any unauthorized use will be will be visited by divine punishment pronto! Just a word to the wise.
ERBzine: I recently had what some might call the pleasure of interviewing a frequent contributor to our pages. Mr. R.E. Prindle. Without further ado I present the results of that interview.
THE INTERVIEWHow do you do, Mr. Prindle. Er, it is Mr. Prindle isn't it?
REP: Could be. Why do you ask?
ERBzine: Well, I just meant it as an introductory pleasantry. Nothing personal. Where shall we start? Oh, I know, what is your real, er, uh, full name?
REP: That's between me and my god.
ERBzine: Sure it is. Well, I see that you use a number of different names in your articles.
REP: Essays. Yes, I do. The umbrella name for the group is Ronald E. Prindle, that was the name I was registered under with the government but I use mainly R.E. Prindle, Dr. Anton Polarion and Dugald Warbaby. Anton is my favorite but he doesn't appear that frequently. Such is life.
ERBzine: Registered with the government...?
REP: Yes, certainly, birth certificate, Social Security, you know, an official identity, something that will go on an identity card. You have a birth certificate don't you?
ERBzine: I never looked at it...Yes. of course. Were you born...pardon me, where were you born?
REP: That's disputed. Some say that like Stewball I blew down in a storm but St. Luke's Hospital in Saginaw, Michigan perversely registered me there so there is some dispute about the actual event. They claim that they can produce a birth certificate stating that I was born there but as I haven't seen the certificate from St. Luke's I am reluctant to take their word for it.
ERBzine: I'm betting on St. Luke's but we'll let that pass. May I ask who or what Stewball is?
REP: You're the interviewer. Stewball was a famous racehorse from out in California. Some say Stewball was born but some say she blew down in a storm. If you bet on Stewball you might win.
ERBzine: Sounds like a song.
REB: It is.
ERBzine: Was there a particular date when you...uh...blew down in a storm?
REP: That's an easy one. Remember it well. 5/26/38. I look 67 but I feel ageless, one with the universe like John Carter. Haven't figured out how to look thirty yet, though.
ERBzine: I think we may be getting somewhere.
REP: My advice is stay away from the difficult questions.
ERBzine: That's a tightrope act. I see you quote a number of musicians in your art...uh, essays, any favorite music?
REP: Fa.
ERBzine: Fa?
REP: Yes. Fa is my favorite note. I am a one note man. I sometimes practice it for ten minutes or so in the shower. Much more satisfying than Om which isn't even a note. All my favorite songs make frequent use of Fa.
ERBzine: In that case you should have a large number of favorite songs. Could you share some of those with us?
REP: I'll tell ya. I like Wild Thing by the Pretty Things OK. Written by Chick Taylor.
ERBzine: Chip.
REP: Chip what?
ERBzine: Chip Taylor. His name is Chip not Chick.
REP: How do you know? You say Chip, I say Chick, but for the sake of harmony let's agree on Chip. Feel better? And then I like a variety of things. Driftwood On The River by Ernest Tubb, Redwing, Somewhere My Love, Poor People Of Paris, some things like that. Webb Pierce, Hank Snow, Jesse Winchester, my folks were hillbillies before the coal companies tore the hills down. Now they live on the flats. Flatbillies. I have a strong streak of schmaltz too. Tommy Collins, Roy Acuff, Mac Wiseman, people like that. I'm more interested in a sound than specific songs, but there are especially good songs. Ever hear 'There Ain't No More Can On This Brazos?' Ask me again and I'll give you a different list. Same tunes, different words. Ha. Ha.
ERBzine; no. This might not be as bad as I feared. Do you have a favorite color?
REP: Not anything you can see. But, yes. More than one. Depends on the time of the day for the visible spectrum. Of course, sometimes I get hung up and stay with a color for up to 36 hours but mostly I'd have to say my favorites are off the visible spectrum.
ERBzine: Off the visible spectrum?
REP: Oh yeah. I have an affinity for the shortest and most active waves ever since I learned about magnetars.
ERBzine: I'm afraid the term magnetar isn't familiar to me yet. Can you explain or are you making this up?
REP: Answering your question in reverse order: No and possibly. A magnetar is some sort of collapsed star which periodically burps out these massive clouds of gamma rays which then careen around the universe. The earth passed through a gamma cloud last December which was so strong it lit up the atmosphere and also lit up the moon. There very likely would have been mass extinctions, including you and me if it had gotten through the atmosphere. I prefer gamma clouds or some such sort of thing to account for various mass extinctions in the past to the silly notions that comets were that destructive. Everytime some of these so called scientists want to explain something they lay it off on comets. I'm tired of the comet routine. They don't explain anything.
ERBzine: Do I understand you to mean that you would like to cause mass extinctions.
REP: Oh absolutely, I want peace in the world. Nothing would give me greater pleasure. The misunderstood Roman emperor Nero is one of my heroes.
ERBzine: Nero? He's generally thought of as being insane isn't he?
REP: That's what his enemies say but what else would they say? The term insanity is not to be tossed about lightly. True insanity is very rare; there are crazies, and nutcakes and the like but the line between insanity and genius is so close that I wouldn't go around calling people insane unless I had a firm grip on the meaning of the term.
I really think of Nero as one faced with insuperable challenges, for his personality and intelligence of course, who responded to his own subconscious needs when the going got rough. Life isn't all that easy. All the mythological heroes have periods of madness as they try to adjust inner wishes with external realities. The stresses on Nero were much more than he or anyone else could bear. Besides people got used to zany emperors as witness Heliogabalus. No one ever calls him insane. Still I like Nero's responses to events..
ERBzine: Which were?
REP: Well, he once said he wished all Romans had the same neck so he could strangle them all at the same time. If he could have transformed himself into a gamma cloud he probably would have been overjoyed. And then when he died he said something to the effect that the world was losing a great artist and would never see his like again.
ERBzine: You consider yourself a great artist then?
REP: Not being an emperor modesty forbids my saying so but if I were to be remembered I would wish to be remembered as an artist, a good artist, if possible a great artist. Yes. But great artists are very rare.
ERBzine: Might I ask who you consider to be great artists?
REP: Yes.
ERBzine: Well...OK...Who do you consider great artists?
REP: Salvador Dali.
ERBzine: That's it? Anyone else?
REP: No. there are picture painters and writers and whatever but only Dali had all the attributes of the great artist. You mentioned the term insane a minute ago. By 'insane' I understand someone on the other side of the boundary of sanity. Someone who has hopped the fence so to speak. I equate sanity with conventionality. Nutty or mad are usually fairly conventional states, no imagination, if you know what I mean.
Therefore I consider Dali to have been insane. He's really looking at the world from the other side of the fence. The very antithesis of Picasso who was at best conventionally unconventional. The guy was a bourgeois whereas Dali viewed life from the other side but he was not maniacal which is to say insane and irrational. It's not always easy to tell whether such a person is irrational or a genius. Nor, will everyone recognize the difference but it can be demonstrated that Dali was supremely rational.
ERBzine: Hm. No one else?
REP: No. Mozart maybe. A couple writers come close. Dumas pere has moments when he has moved over into a parallel universe as does his countryman Eugene Sue but the state of mind is difficult to maintain, especially in literature. Scott and Balzac operate on the edge but they didn't have what it took to hop the fence. Balzac may be a special case as was, now that I think of it, E.T.A. Hoffman.
ERBzine: OK. Do you have a favorite breakfast cereal?
REP: Cheerios. And I favor raw whole milk. No pasteurization. Although the enemies of mankind's enjoyment are doing their best to completely outlaw it. I would hope they couldn't succeed but prohibition is in that type's blood and they always do.
ERBzine: I suppose, I know, you're right. One wonders where these nobodies get their power. Before I ask you questions about your work on the ERBzine which is getting extensive would you say that if you had your life to vie over you would change anything?
REP: Very fair question. Yes. I'd change everything. First thing I'd do is eliminate 90% of the world's population, move everybody I didn't like to the Bight of Benin and leave the rest of the world to me and my friends...
ERBzine: Mr. Prindle no. No, Mr. Prindle what I mean is would you live your very own life over the same way.
REP: I see you're looking for a conventional answer. Well, Son, as a question that doesn't merit an answer. What is done is done and can't be undone. Remember that . Things are just the way they were and that's it. Suffice it to say that I have gone through some very difficult times that I would have avoided if I had had the sense and means. I had a bad attitude but the attitude was given me by others before I had a chance to put up the proper defences.
Nevertheless, I have been blessed with a very active and intelligent mind. By standing on the shoulders of giants, as the saying goes, Freud not least who despite himself gave something of value to the world, no artist though, I have been able to integrate my personality, reconcile my Anima and rectify my Animus. As you can see I am a healthy animal, what has gone awry science has corrected. I didn't wait around hoping for Allah to do anything for me. The only thing that counts is 'now' and now life couldn't be better; if things take a turn for the worse which in this Time Of Troubles is very possible I have the psychological means to deal with things.
I have gone from bad to better and from better to good which is if not a miracle a rare exception. Since I can't change the past I have learned to understand it. I am at peace as much, I think, as any man can be. I have an active mind, I have interests, I get up every morning with zest. I like my house, like myself, I like my wife. Convert those into psychological symbols and see what you get. OK? Now, kid, did I answer your question?
ERBzine: OK. Maybe you're not insane after all.
REP: I may be, I may not be. The point is, how would you know? Besides by my definition of insane, I'm not even close either as a genius or a lunatic.
ERBzine: I didn't mean anything by it. Now, about your essays. What are you trying to say? I mean, other than the obvious?
REP: My writing? What am I doing? 1. I'm an historian. I try to get beneath the surface of the facts to see how the facts became the facts, then interpret the facts according to the intent of the participants along with the unintended consequences. What we think we're doing is irrelevant it is what we're actually doing that counts, the unintended consequences you see.
2. I also consider myself a student of the history of the development of human consciousness hence my interest in psychology. I mainly follow Freud for his organization of personal psychology but I am also aware of the contributions of the Jungian school. Works such as Eric Neumann's The History Of The Development Of Human Consciousness.ERBzine: Um, I know you're going to be sensitive about this but...uh...you know, Mr. Hillman at the ERBzine has gotten letters and phone calls complaining that you're...um...well, you know, very prejudiced against certain uh...groups. How do you answer that?
REP: By groups I suppose you mean religious groups. Well, I'm not surprised. They complain every time you mutter the word evolution. But, you know, to include yourself in one religious group is to exclude all others which is the nature of an ideological or religious stance. So for a religious person to call anyone else a bigot is like the pot calling the kettle black. Forget ecumenism, the word's an oxymoron. I thought I had to get oxymoron in at least once, it's kind of a mark of something. One can't be of a religious mind without thinking all other religions or understandings are in error. That's what religion is, can't be any other way. If anyone says it can they're looking you in the eye and lying or so ignorant they aren't worth talking to. A religion is an exclusive point of view, hence the very bigotry they decry in others . Bigotry, that's the word you meant to use, wasn't it?
ERBzine: Well, yes. The ERBzine has had some complaints.
REP: Once again, I'm sure. I can only say that if I were a bigot Mr. Hillman would have shut me down since bigotry certainly doesn't befit the image of his magazine.
However, I can say that I have no more feeling for or against one religious group than another and that feeling is not 'hatred.' I have compassion for them as one would for a little child. When one combines the states of human consciousness with Freud's ideas of group psychology both of which have scientific validity, then it becomes clear that with the mental development of, at least, a portion of mankind to a scientific consciousness that moves thought from opinion to fact. Science in its own way is an exclusive approach to knowledge but that knowledge is based on objective truth which make religion irrelevant and obsolete hence the charges of bigotry. People can believe anything they want but one isn't required to respect those beliefs no matter how many laws are passed requiring you to. Shovel sand against the tide! Leave me alone.
One can't be scientific and religious at the same time. If Einstein said one could, that proves Einstein was religious and not a scientist. In other words, the evolution of Homo Sapiens has evolved past the religious types whatever sect they may be. Garbage is garbage, it doesn't matter how you pronounce it. There is nothing supernatural, and that is the basis of religion. Do you see?
ERBzine: You don't mean that science, the scientific consciousness is better than religion, do you?
REP: Why sure. That's the reason for the complaints. Is Homo Sapiens superior to the ape? Of course. The difference between the scientific and the religious is not so obvious but it is no less real. That is largely my message and what they object to. It has nothing to do with bigotry, however it is necessary to reject religious claims for consideration on a scientific basis. And then what I am saying is also revolutionary. It overturns the belief system that the religious consciousness has insidiously imposed on the scientific consciousness in reaction to it since, say, 1893.
The scientific consciousness simply cannot let itself be imposed on. The result would be the planet of the apes, you see?
The conflict is largely between the Semitic concept that a supernatural being created the world six thousand years ago in the exact form in which we find it. The evolutionary concept which really begins in astronomy seeks to integrate mankind into this cosmic reality. So you say some religious people have complained and I should take them seriously. I can't, no one can, but that isn't bigotry. Nonsense is nonsense and they are going to have to face themselves. The ape in the mirror so to speak.
ERBzine: It sounds reasonable the way you explain it. I certainly don't believe the earth was created six thousand years ago.
REP: Exactly. So, welcome to the scientific consciousness. If you hadn't before you now have no choice but the accept the concept of evolution.
Now that we've got that settled we are at one with ERB.
So, the foundation of what I mean to say is the three books of Something Of Value which Mr. Hillman has been gracious enough to publish. Revolutionary stuff.
ERBzine: I only know of two books.
REP: The third is on the way. The two books you have read, I assume you have, are both a defense of the scientific consciousness which seemed necessary in light of the religious bigotry that resulted in 9/11 and an offensive against that religious bigotry. Whether I have succeeded or not I have attempted to give we scientifics a defense and offense for ourselves.
If it has been necessary to criticize the policy or agenda of specific religions then that is because the aggression against the scientific consciousness is coming most strongly from those quarters. I must defend my own belief system and that is not bigotry so that is my answer to the complaints. I hope it is adequate.
ERBzine: Alright. Fine. I can accept that but we've also had complaints, and I think this is legitimate that your beliefs don't have anything to do with Edgar Rice Burroughs and this is an ERB site. What do you say to that?
REP: How do I answer that? This might not be so easy. Let's go back to the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition. Everything I have just been discussing was laid like a feast at ERB's feet at the Fair. Mr. Hillman, coming from a completely different angle from mine, I don't mean to implicate him in any way in what is my understanding, and I have realized the importance of the Expo on Young Burroughs. I certainly didn't and I presume Mr. Hillman didn't realize the breadth and depth of the experience of the Fair.
The doings not only took place on the fair grounds but throughout the city as with the Parliament Of Religions which has been discovered by we scholars at the ERBzine.
So that Burroughs was presented with scientific and technological wonders as well as sociological, anthropological, psychological, historical, agricultural and even religious wonders in a huge mass at one time. Further he had a whole summer at the Fair to have his senses bombarded. It appears to have come into his mind as a lump which he only slowly began to differentiate and which found its way into his writing in bits and pieces strewn throughout his work. Even if one considers his farming activities at Tarzana. It is quite possible that the vision of all those fruits and vegetables on display at the Fair may have resulted in his planting every conceivable type of fruit or vegetable plant at Tarzana. The Fair literally blew him away.
So, the things I discuss in Something Of Value can be and are related to the formative forces on ERB. I have the advantage of seeing the same things in a more evolved state so that I can read them back into what ERB understood or what I understand him to have understood. You see? So that having organized these beliefs into a whole I can then apply them to specific works of ERB in my current series of essays. You dig?
The ERBzine published the list of books in ERB's library. The man noted the date he finished reading Edward Gibbon's Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. The book made a huge impact on him as it should have. I have read that work also so I potentially know what ERB knew. The same with other books in his library. When I read du Chaillou and his book on West African gorillas I am sure I will have a key to the first four Tarzan novels which appear to be based on that book.
So you see it all builds toward the goal of how Burroughs' thought and reasoned. Of course, the readers may think I have failed in the attempt but, you know, it's like the old folks say, C'est la vie.ERBzine: Yes, but how can you be sure you're right.
REP: I can't be sure I'm totally right but my contribution so far as it goes is reasonably accurate. If you read my Men Like Gods it attempts to relate ERB's fascination with the body builders of his time, which no one else has attempted, with his mythological knowledge of the man-god Heracles. At some future time I will have to trace the concept of the man-god in Burroughs' work. I have the background, that's all I can say, I have developed the background to see these things and now I can apply them to Burroughs' career.
I'm tired now, can we continue this tomorrow or the next day?
ERBzine: Sure, Mr. Prindle. Maybe Wednesday? We at the ERBzine appreciate your taking the time to explain this stuff. Eleven AM Wednesday, then?
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