PKD in Vancouver – BC Time-Slip
Philip Ok. Dick arrived in Canada on February sixteenth, 1972, as visitor of honour for the 2nd Vancouver Science Fiction Conference (VCON-2), an all-expenses-paid invitation, collectively sponsored by the science fiction societies of Simon Frazer College and the College of British Columbia. He was 43 years outdated, the writer of 36 novels, and his life was in a large number. His fourth spouse Nancy had not too long ago left him, alongside together with his second daughter Isa; his bungalow in Santa Venetia had turn out to be a half-way home for avenue youngsters, felons and junkies whom he had invited residence; he had not too long ago fallen in love with a street-smart “Darkish Haired Woman” known as Kathy; he had a critical amphetamine habit; and 4 months earlier than his journey to Canada the protected wherein he saved his most useful papers and collections of sci-fi magazines had been mysteriously “blown up” in what appeared like a botched housebreaking try. Given the deepening dysfunction of his life in California, the invitation arrived like a message from heaven.
Spurred by his love for Kathy and the promise of respectable literary recognition eventually, he dived into writing for the primary time in months. To Mike Bailey, the primary organiser of VCON, Phil contributed a private profile upfront. Written within the third individual, it concluded: “He’s at the moment working day and night time on his new novel merely known as Kathy, named after the woman he’s bringing with him to the Vancouver Science Fiction Conference. He had meant to convey with him somebody representing the youth of America, however Kathy, he feels, represents extra; all youth, all life to come back in later time. The novel actually doesn’t exist as but, besides in his head, however Kathy does, and he hopes the individuals on the conference will welcome her and like her.” However Kathy had different concepts. On the final minute she traded her tickets for money. Phil, dejected as soon as once more, took the airplane to Vancouver alone, sporting an outdated raincoat and carrying solely a battered suitcase and a bible.
The conference, whose earlier visitor of honour had been Phil’s sci-fi colleague and fellow alumna from Berkeley Excessive, Ursula Le Guin, was held on the Biltmore Motor Resort in Mount Nice, Vancouver, residence to the Biltmore Cabaret, which Phil visited shortly after checking in. The subsequent day he attended a prestigious UBC School Membership luncheon in his honour. There he gave the primary presentation of the essay he had been engaged on since receiving his invitation: The Android and the Human: A Distinction Between the Genuine Individual and the Reflex Machine. Having acquired a standing ovation from school and college students at UBC, Phil gave the discuss once more on the conference the next day, which was acquired enthusiastically as soon as extra. By the top of the second day, Phil had made up his thoughts to remain in Vancouver.
On the ultimate day of the conference he met Jamis, a maths pupil from Simon Fraser college who fitted his beloved Darkish Haired Woman archetype completely: younger, emotionally broken, frightened, stuffed with half-crazy concepts and far-out desires. They went out to the strip-clubs and bars in Gastown, dancing to Credence Clearwater Revival songs and chatting passionately about UFO’s, God, philosophy and the esoteric secrets and techniques of the traditional Egyptians. Inevitably, this new Darkish Haired Woman appeared to be the one he had been trying to find all his life. However just a few days after their assembly, fearing Phil’s emotional and amorous depth, Jamis determined to return to her household residence in a logging city on the northern coast of BC. Deserted but once more by a girl he had hoped would convey religious salvation eventually, Phil fell again into his “tomb world” of despair.
On the second day of the conference, having made public his need to stay in Vancouver, Phil had been invited to stick with Michael Walsh, a journalist for the Vancouver Province, and his spouse Susan, at their residence within the metropolis. Michael, who was 26 on the time, had made a reputation for himself popularizing the concepts of Marshall McLuhan. He was satisfied that science fiction was about to be recognised as a critical literary style. Susan was an avid sci-fi fan, who was more than pleased to have such a formidable exponent of the artwork stick with them. Collectively Phil and the Walsh’s took within the Vancouver vacationer sights: English Bay, Stanley Park and the planetarium on the MacMillan Area Centre, the place Phil was captivated by George Norris’s large stainless-steel crab sculpture.
The Walsh’s discovered Phil to be an amicable, bear-like character, who was immensely stimulating to be round intellectually. He was additionally vulnerable to excessive and unpredictable temper swings, usually triggered by perceived insults or sleights. He tended to talk in ideas, a lot as McLuhan did, and just like the media-guru he was consistently sending probes into the psyches of these round him, in search of out their emotional blind-spots and ethical contradictions. One night, anticipating Phil to reply positively, Michael performed him the vinyl recording of McLuhan’s The Medium is the Massage. After 10 minutes Phil begged him to show it off, saying it appeared like the within of his head.
Phil stayed on the Walsh’s sofa for a number of days earlier than discovering his personal rented condominium on Cornwall Avenue at Kits seashore, near the McMillan Area Centre and the enormous crab. Though he continued to go to the Walsh’s and accompany them to dinner events, the primary blush of Vancouver was beginning to fade. The brand new individuals he was assembly have been primarily “govt hippies”, a number of lengthy hair and dope, however untouched by the realities of habit, poverty and the Vietnam Battle, and fortunately elevating households, driving new vehicles and residing comfortably in high-rise flats. Phil’s testing behaviour finally began to put on on the Walsh’s. But it surely was Susan who bore the brunt of his manipulative character. Throughout dinner at a good friend’s home, the host pulled Michael apart and requested if he realised that Phil was hitting on Susan. Sure, he mentioned, however he didn’t thoughts as a result of he knew Susan wasn’t . Susan was nevertheless starting to really feel the consequences of Phil’s fixed consideration and flattery. “You do realise you’re falling in love with me”, he requested her at one other occasion. “Sure, I assume I’m” she replied. Though, like most of Phil’s relationships on the time, the infatuation remained totally Platonic, his affection for Susan finally spilled over into open hostility in direction of Michael who he accused of being a third-rate author and unworthy of such an attractive and clever spouse. It turned clear to the couple that his intention was to interrupt up their relationship. Michael reacted angrily, as did Susan, and so they advised him to go away. This was the final time they might see him.
In a BBC radio interview from 2017 the Walsh’s mirrored on Phil’s behaviour on the time. Susan likened his attention-seeking to that of a two-year outdated youngster who throws one thing to the bottom, watches the grownup choose it up, after which thinks: “Look, I’m controlling them!” She additionally related Phil’s behaviour with the personalities described in Robert Hare’s With out Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopath. Hare’s description of beings who’re unable to really feel empathy resulting from a genetic abnormality fitted Phil’s character disturbingly effectively. Like them, he tended to wreck different individuals’s lives, amplified any hurt performed to himself vastly out of proportion, but was capable of inflict hurt on others with no obvious regret or conscience. His fixed probing and testing of others, she speculated, was based mostly on a profound sense of his personal inauthenticity. If he may pretend being a human so effectively, how did he know that everybody else wasn’t doing the identical? It was an thought Phil himself had represented in a number of of his works, most notably his 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electrical Sheep? which comprises the Voigt-Kampff machine, famously depicted in Blade Runner, which detects the distinction between androids and people based mostly on their autonomic empathy reactions. (One other model is the James Benjamin Proverb Check in We Can Construct You (1969) used to detect for schizophrenia, a situation intently related by Phil with the android and its lack of empathy).
A couple of days after the Walsh’s had thrown Phil out of their residence, Susan acquired a cellphone name from Phil. He advised her that he was going to “prove the lights”. Not recognising the euphemism, and assuming he simply wished to fall asleep, she wished him good night time and hung up. He had actually simply taken an overdose of potassium bromide with the intention of taking his personal life.
