Richard Brautigan: Stories in His Style ... by William Hammett: April 2015

Thursday, April 30, 2015

The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan

The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster was Richard Brautigan's seventh poetry collection. The collection contained ninety-eight poems, including thirty-eight that had not been previously collected. The rest of the poems were taken from Brautigan's five previous poetry collections. Fifty hardcover editions were released with the paperback copy of the book.

The title alludes to the loss of life and potential created by the birth control pill and the Spring Hill mine disaster. Brautigan wrote "When you take your pill/it's like a mine disaster./I think of all the people/lost inside you." (The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, Four Seasons Foundation, 1968)

The Spring Hill mine disaster occurred in Springhill, Nova Scotia in 1958 and was immortalized in song by Pete Seeger and the Weavers.

~William Hammett

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The Galilee Hitch-Hiker by Richard Brautigan

The Galilee Hitch-Hiker was Richard Brautigan's second collection of poetry and was published by White Rabbit Press in 1958. The 200 hand-sewn editions were sold by Brautigan directly to pedestrians on the street and by City Lights Bookstore (run by City Lights Press, founded by beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti). The collection was reissued by Cranium Press, with a print run of 700 in 1966. Brautigan signed sixteen copies of the re-released book.

The book consists of one poem divided into nine subtitled sections. The Galilee Hitch-Hiker was reprinted in Brautigan's The Pill Versus the Springhill Mining Disaster.

~William Hammett

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The Poetry of Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan wrote a great many poems during his literary career. His first book of poetry was The Return of the Rivers, published in 1957, and was a single poem. The Galilee Hitch-Hiker and Lay the Marble Tea followed in 1958 and 1959 respectively.

Brautigan wrote short pieces in the form of broadsides published by the Communication Company. In the late 1960s, he wrote twenty-three short pieces for Rolling Stone. He also recorded his work for an album for the Beatles' Zapple label. The recording was never released because the Beatles' manager, Allen Klein, terminated the label. It was released later under the title of Listening to Richard Brautigan on the Harvest Records label.

Cowell Press published seven of Brautigan's broadside poems in book format in 1974 under the title Seven Watermelon Suns, an allusion to the plot of Brautigan's novel In Watermelon Sugar.

Many of Brautigan's poems were never included in his collections of poetry, although many were published individually in various small journals. Several more were never published but were found among his papers at the time of his death and are curated by Brautigan's estate.

The following collections of poetry were published by novelist, poet, and short story writer Richard Brautigan.

The Return of the Rivers -- 1958

The Galilee Hitch-Hiker -- 1958

Lay the Marble Tea -- 1959

The Octopus Frontier -- 1960

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace -- 1967

Please Plant This Book -- 1968

The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster -- 1969

Rommel Drives on Deep into the Desert -- 1970

Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork -- 1971

June 30, June 30 -- 1978

Most of the above collections use poems previously printed in various journals.

~William Hammett

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A Confederate General from Big Sur by Richard Brautigan

A Confederate General from Big Sur was Richard Brautigan's first novel, written in 1961 and published in 1964 by Grove Press. The novel did not sell well and went out of print quickly. It was later republished after Brautigan became a cult figure thanks to the success of his novel Trout Fishing in America.

Brautigan and his first wife Virginia went to Big Sur to visit with a friend, Price Dunn, in 1957. many of events of their trip found their way into the pages of the novel, such as counting punctuation in the Gideon Bible. Dunn became the character of Lee Melon in the book. Dunn and Brautigan were both students of the Civil War.

The novel also derived inspiration from Henry Miller's 1957 memoir Big Sur as well as the anticipated Kerouac book Big Sur.

The plot can briefly be summarized as follows. In 1957, main character Lee Mellon believes that he is descended from a Confederate general haling from Big Sur, California. Oddly, there is no historical record of the general, although Mellon meets a drifter in the Pacific Northwest who claims to have heard of the Confederate from Big Sur. Given the questionable nature of the general's existence, Mellon struggles to find the truth about his possible ancestor. His metaphysical battle against modern-day America mirrors the battle of the United States against the Confederacy. The novel's general theme, therefore, is personal perception versus reality as exemplified by Mellon's search. The theme of imagination versus reality would dominate all of Brautigan's subsequent novels.

~William Hammett

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Sombrero Fallout by Richard Brautigan

Sombrero Fallout: A Japanese Novel by Richard Brautigan was written in 1975 and published in 1976. The novel intertwines two plot threads. A San Francisco writer and humorist dreams about his Japanese ex-lover as he copes with losing her. Simultaneously, the writer begins a story about a sombrero falling from the sky, although he becomes dissatisfied with it. The latter thread features Norman Mailer in a cameo appearance.

The novel was first published by Simon and Schuster in 1976 and reprinted in 1978. It was also published by Macmillan in 1978, Arena/Arrow in 1987, Rebel Inc. in 1998, Rebel Inc UK in 2001, and Canongate UK in 2012.

~William Hammett

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The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan

The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western is a novel by Richard Braitigan. It was published in September of 1974.

The story takes place in 1902 Oregon. The two main characters are Cameron and Greer, both gunmen. The book does have a definite plot, but the story almost defies summary because of its surrealistic nature. The gunmen travel from Hawaii to a house on the western plains of America at the request of Magic Child, a twin sister of Miss Hawkline, who lives in the western house. A monster is created by Miss Hawkline's father, a Harvard scientist, who has been working on a project called The Chemicals. The father mysteriously disappears. The Chemicals produce lights that fly around the house: the monster, which also robs the gunmen of their memories. Cameron pours whiskey on The Chemicals, destroying the monster, the house, and returning the father to a human being. (He had been changed by The Chemicals into an umbrella basket.)

Filmmaker Hal Ashby wished to make the book into a movie and considered Jack Nicholson, Harry Dean Stanton, and Jeff Bridges for leading roles. Brautigan wrote a screenplay that Ashby rejected. Later, director Tim Burton wanted to adapt the novel for the screen, with Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson in starring roles. When Eastwood and Nicholson abandoned the project, Burton quit as well.

~William Hammett

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Revenge of the Lawn by Richard Brautigan

The Revenge of the Lawn is a collection of stories by Richard Brautigan. Its complete title is Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970. As the name implies, the collection of stories was written between 1962 and 1970, with most stories having been previously published in various literary journals and magazines, many of which were small and avant-garde. The collection also contains two chapters originally intended for inclusion in Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America. These are "Rembrandt Creek" and "Carthage Sink." Like most of Brautigan's writings (e.g., the chapters in his novels), the stories are short, surrealistic, and satirical.

Some of the stories are as follows:

Revenge of the Lawn
1692 Cotton Mather Newsreel
Elmira
Coffee
The Scarlatti Tilt
The Weather in San Francisco
Ernest Hemingway's Typist
The Old Bus
The Ghost Children of Tacoma
Talk Show
Blackberry Motorist
Thoreau Rubber Band
Lint
One Afternoon in 1939
Banners of My Own Choosing
Atlantisburg
The Betrayed Kingdom
Greyhound Tragedy
Crazy Old Women Are Riding the Buses of Today
Holiday in Germany
World War I Los Angeles Aeroplane
A Study of California Flowers
Women When They Put Their Clothes on in the Morning
A Complete History of Germany and Japan
Getting to Know Each Other
The Post Office of Eastern Oregon
Corporal
Lint
Pale Marble Movie
A Short History of Oregon

The collection remains a classic among Brautigan fans, and many tributes using Brautigan's quirky economical style have been written since his death, including thirteen vignettes in the New Yorker.

~William Hammett

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Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan

Trout Fishing in America is a novel (some label it a novella) by Richard Brautigan. It was written before A Confederate General from Big Sur, but published after it, in 1967.

The book is abstract in nature and has no conventional plot, although main characters reappear in the surrealistic vignettes. The short chapters take place in three locations: the Pacific Northwest; San Francisco; and Idaho, with the author camping with his wife and daughter. Objects such as a statue of Benjamin Franklin and a mayonnaise jar also reappear in various chapters.

The phrase "trout fishing in America" is enigmatic. It is a character in the novel, a hotel, and the act of fishing. According to most scholars, the theme of the book, inasmuch as it has one, centers around a humorous satire of American society and its values.

The book has resonated in popular culture. Apollo astronaut Jack Schmitt named a moon crater "Shorty," a character in the novel. Author W. P. Kinsella said that the novel was an important influence on his 1985 book, The Alligator Report. There is also a rock band named Trout Fishing in America.

~William Hammett

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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

The Court of Public Opinion

Frustrated, Oliver Bloom quit his job at a prestigious New York investment firm. He was tired of trading in pork futures and managing hedge funds, which enabled clients to bet against their own investments in case of a market downturn. Oliver felt that all was not right between himself and God. He gave all his money to the poor.

Not wishing to be a burden on anyone, he pocketed a few seed packets from a local plant nursery on Long Island, fully intending to return the two dollars and ninety-eight cents as soon as possible. He wanted to find a small parcel of public land and grow vegetables so as not to be a burden on taxpaying citizens. Unfortunately, the clerk caught Oliver shoplifting the seeds and called the local police.

Oliver was arrested and stood before a local judge the next day. The judge wasn't sure what to do with the defendant standing before him. Oliver was a well-intentioned man who was trying to live an honest life. The judge had lost a lot of money in pork futures and admired Oliver's mindset and rugged individualism. He decided that he couldn't render a verdict. He turned the case over to the Court of Public Opinion.

It took a couple of weeks to get the attention of people across the world, but thanks to social media, the earth's seven billion people focused on the Town of Nassau vs. Oliver Bloom. The verdict was unanimous, which was remarkable given that the jury was comprised of seven billion people. It was decided that Oliver had indeed committed a crime, but not a really bad one. He was sentenced to plant several acres of vegetables for poor people.

The Supreme Court of the United States tried to overturn the verdict, claiming that Wall Street had been made to look bad during the proceedings of the trial. Most of the justices had investments in hedge funds. The Court of Popular Opinion overturned the Supreme Court, however, and the justices were sentenced to planting vegetables for poor people.

by William Hammett

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Yellow Number Two Computer

Wally was thrown out of his suburban home by his wife, who thought he was too opinionated. In Wally's defense, it should be noted that she was addicted to amphetamines and was usually on edge. He'd also lost his job as a developer of food additives, a job that had been outsourced to China.

Wally retreated to the woods and decided to write his memoir. He lived in a shed and ate wild onions, berries, and dandelion greens. He felt great. He wrote most of the day and used a number two yellow pencil. His life was therefore rendered in graphite on a yellow legal pad.

At peace with his humble surroundings and duties, he realized that he had the best computer in the world: his pencil. It didn't need updates and was immune to viruses and hackers. Mistakes were corrected with an eraser at the end of the pencil. And it required no maintenance other than an occasional sharpening. Best of all, it was compact and cheap. He was able to buy a new one whenever one of his yellow number twos got too short.

That's when Wally had a brainstorm. He sold his yellow pencils on a TV shopping channel, advertising them as the most efficient computers in the world. He made twenty million dollars in six months. It was more than a novelty item. It worked.

Wally is now working on his next big product rollout, which is the finest toy ever made: a cardboard box. Not a kid in the world can resist crawling into a large cardboard box and claiming himself, like Hamlet, to be king of infinite space. The boxes are safe, inexpensive, and foster the imaginations of young children. He has advance orders for fifty million units.

Wally still lives in the woods, where there are no distractions. He claims that his modest lifestyle gives him a competitive entrepreneurial edge. For Wally, life is grand. Now a successful businessman, Wally sold his memoir for a five-million-dollar advance. As for his wife, she married a tractor salesman with no opinions.

by William Hammett

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Perfect Recall

Warren Boyle III read voraciously. By the time he had graduated from Regina Falls High School in Regina Falls, Montana, he had committed his family's entire sixteen-volume set of encyclopedias to memory. He could quote any entry on command. The local doctor didn't think Warren was a savant since he didn't have any kind of mental disability that usually went with savant territory. "Maybe he's your run-of-the-mill prodigy," the doctor proclaimed. "Or just has a real good memory." The doctor was plainspoken.

Sam enlisted in the Army, and his superiors noticed that he could recite anything he read, from magazines to training manuals. The shrink at the Army base thought that awareness of Warren's gift should be passed up the chain of command. It was.

A year later, Sam was working for the CIA in the bowels of Langley, Virginia. He did nothing but read everything put before him, although he was allowed to read for pleasure when he was off-duty. He liked the mysteries of Mickey Spillane. Ten years later, he'd read much of the material in the National Archives in Washington, and he'd done a pretty good job working his way through the Library of Congress. In case of hackers or cyber attack by foreign governments, the United States had the ultimate backup disk: Warren Boyle III.

~William Hammett

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Einstein's Merry-Go-Round

Sam Palmer was seventy-six and lived on a fixed income. He worked the merry-go-round at the local amusement park in the suburbs of Kansas City to bring in a little extra income. He was a pleasant fellow despite having a few melancholy days on occasion. Life had passed by so quickly. His wife had died ten years earlier, and his two children had moved away decades ago. In the time it took to blink, his entire life had whizzed by in a blur like the carousel he spun five days a week.

Sam liked to read books, from detective stories to weighty tomes on quantum physics. It helped pass the time and kept his mind sharp. He was sitting in his straight-back wooden chair one Saturday morning, having pulled the large wooden lever to set the merry-go-round in motion yet again, when he recalled Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Einstein's famous treatise stated that people theoretically aged more slowly as they approached the speed of light. The faster one went, the slower one aged. In the early days of the space race, astronauts returned to earth a few seconds younger than they normally would have been if they'd stayed on terra firma.

Sam smiled and let the carousel whirl a few extra times before he slowed the great machine by easing back on the wooden handle. By God, he still had a mission in life. The carousel didn't move as fast as rocket ships, but move they did. A child seated on a painted horse was going faster than he would go if just walking or running. Unknowingly, Sam had been helping his young patrons slow the aging process if only by a nanosecond or two. Maybe that's all they'd need to get a leg-up in life. Every moment, or fraction thereof, was precious.

Sam began giving out free rides when his boss wasn't looking. And he continued to allow the carousel a few extra spins each time he set the colorful machine in motion. Decades after he was buried, the children wouldn't look back and think that life had passed them by. Sam would have given them a few extra blinks of the eye.

~William Hammett

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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Bikers for God

There are twenty bikers in all. They dress in black leather jackets and wear aviator sunglasses, as you would expect them to. Beneath their World War I helmets, most have long hair pulled into ponytails that whip in the wind as they round sharp turns while riding in precise formation across America. They utter very few words given the gravity of their mission, which is to clear streets and roads in preparation of the Apocalypse.

They ride through cities and countryside, picking up trash and tending to the homeless. They escort widows and orphans to shelters and pass out bottled water and blankets to the thirsty and the naked. They occasionally call numbers at Knights of Columbus bingo halls and try to keep order at outdoor rock concerts.

Mostly, they move abandoned cars off streets, roads, and highways so that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will have a straight shot when they're ready to ride as thrones and dominions peel back the sky like the lid of a sardine can.

When not on their Harleys, the bikers can usually be seen staring at the sky, waiting.

~William Hammett

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Trailer Park Lookout

It's his fulltime job. Chief Henry Crow sits in an aluminum lawn chair at the edge of the trailer park, his gaze fixed on the horizon. He wears a headband, blue jeans, and a double-breasted gray pinstripe coat from Brooks Brothers. He is sixty-seven years old according to the Gregorian calendar.

Behind him, doublewide trailers crouch in neat rows, trusting in their motionless guardian. They know he possesses magical powers to unwind storms, to twirl his index finger in a direction counter to the swirling vortex of a tornado while chanting sacred words. It works every time. The skill was taught to him by his father, who claimed that all weather is composed of spirits, many of which are open to peaceful negotiation.

The children in the park play tag while their fathers barbecue hamburgers. Their mothers are hanging laundry to dry or creating internet companies on computers inside their doublewide homes. The sky in the distance is an ominous gray, but no one is worried. Henry Crow has their backs.

~William Hammett

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Contact William Hammett through the following email address:

Contact: wmhammett@aol.com

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Welcome to RICHARD BRAUTIGAN: STORIES IN HIS STYLE. The site contains several stories written by author William Hammett, all rendered in the style of novelist, poet, and short story writer Richard Brautigan, counterculture icon from the 1970s. While it would be impossible to duplicate the genius of Richard Brautigan, the stories are the author's homage to the highly original style of Brautigan's many short stories and novels. The stories employ the humor, satire, and economy that were the hallmarks of Brautigan's novels and short stories.

New stories will be added on a regular basis as they become available. For a full listing of all stories included on this site, please click on the Sitemap or the Index of Stories, the links for which are provided below each short story and in the right sidebar.

The reader will also find a wealth of information about the life and works of Richard Brautigan, including his novels, short stories, and poetry (collected, uncollected, and unpublished). Additionally, there is information on books about Brautigan, his prose style, and the chronological events of his life. There are also several links to research sites and archives dedicated to the work of Richard Brautigan

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the stories!

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About

RICHARD BRAUTIGAN: STORIES IN HIS STYLE is a site containing short stories by author William Hammett. They are written with the irony, economy, humor, and satire of Brautigan's own short stories and novels.

The stories on this site are vignettes that are sometimes totally outrageous, while others are simply brief moments of life highly magnified to show how the seemingly insignificant is more important than we realize.

The brevity of the stories would normally qualify them as flash fiction, and perhaps they are, but the term was not in general use when Brautigan was writing from the 1950s to the 1980s. The stories are just what the name implies: short. It was Brautigan's gift and genius to encapsulate a moment or an entire theme in just a few short words.

The site will eventually have an eclectic mix of numerous stories using the general style of Richard Brautigan. Information on Brautigan's life and work may be found in the right sidebar.

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William Hammett

William Hammett is the author of numerous poems, short stories, and novels. His poetry has been featured in literary journals such as American Poets & Poetry, Rockford Review, Poem, Black Buzzard Review, Parnassus Literary Journal, Pegasus, Twilight Ending, Mojo Risin', Lynx, Poets at Work, Angelflesh, The Lyric, Ship of Fools, Offerings, Creative Juices, Shattered Wig Review, and many more. His short story, "Orphans," was published in the Rose and Thorn Journal.

Hammett is also the author of ten novels, including Street Magic, The Ghost of Richard Brautigan, Rimsky Rises (young adult), and Circling Goes the Wind (middle reader). John Lennon and the Mercy Street Café is a work of magical realism by Hammett and has been described as a rock and roll Field of Dreams. It was taught in universities in courses on magical realism. Several more novels by Hammett, representing out-of-print work or new fiction, will be published by Word Wrangler Press in 2015.

Hammett taught literature and writing for twenty-two years at colleges and universities. For the past sixteen years, he has worked as a freelance writer and editor.

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The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
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Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. He was born on January 30, 1935 and died on September 16, 1984. He married Virginia Alder on June 8, 1957, and the couple had one daughter, Ianthe Brautigan. Brautigan and Alder divorced in 1970. For much of his life, Brautigan suffered from alcoholism and depression. He is best known for his 1967 novel Trout Fishing in America.

Brautigan's novels include A Confederate General from Big Sur, Trout Fishing in America, In Watermelon Sugar, The Hawkline Monster, Willard and His Bowling Trophies, Sombrero Fallout, Dreaming of Babylon, The Tokyo-Montana Express, So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away, and An Unfortunate Woman.

Brautigan's poetry collections include The Return of the Rivers, The Galilee Hitch-hiker, Lay the Marble Tea, The Octopus Frontier, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, Please Plant this Book, The Pill Versus the Springhill Mining Disaster, Rommel Drives on Deep into Egypt, and Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork.

Brautigan's short story collection is titled Revenge of the Lawn. His first novel, The God of the Martians, remains unpublished.

Brautigan envisioned The Library for Unpublished Works, which eventually was housed in The Brautigan Library until 1995, when it was moved to the Fletcher Free Library. The collection, as well as The Brautigan Library, was moved to the Clark County Historical Museum in Vancouver, Washington in 2010.

W. P. Kinsella, author of Shoeless Joe, cited Brautigan as his greatest literary influence. Brautigan's daughter, Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan, published You can't Catch Death in 2000.

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Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
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Monday, April 27, 2015

Index of Short Stories by William Hammett

INDEX OF SHORT STORIES

The following short stories by William Hammett are written in the general style of Richard Brautigan. Hammett is also the author of poetry, short stories, and novels, including The Ghost of Richard Brautigan. Further information on William Hammett and The Ghost of Richard Brautigan is provided on other pages of this site.

Bikers for God
The Buddha's Tour Dates
The Court of Public Opinion
Einstein's Merry-Go-Round
The Five-Dollar Apocalypse
The Flying Carpet Underground
Fall Lineup
Forty Thousand Days
The Hitchhiker
It Doesn't Have to Rain at Funerals
The Laundromat at the Center of the Universe
The Lords of Harlem
The Lost Souls Foundation
A Memoir by 1957
Midwest Carnival
Park Lufkin, Country Singer
Penance at Wrigley Field
Perfect Recall
The Permanent Record of Jude Wells
Picasso Graffiti
A Prescription from the Heavens
Rearview Mirror
The Rickshaw Mystery
A Sad but Poetic Cliché
Schrodinger's Cat
Shakespeare's Lost Play
The Soldier Who Forgot to Die
The Story Has Already Arrived
Tombstone-Speak
Trailer Park Lookout
The Unified Field Theory
Writers in Tibet
Yellow Number Two Computer

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact