Putting Holes In Your Head...

[Nigel E. Richardson]

This sounds like it's taken almost verbatum from John Michell's ECCENTRIC
LIVES & PECULIAR NOTIONS (Thames & Hudson, 1984), a wonderful sourcebook 
for Pynchonoids. It lists books by both trepanists (trepanees?): Joseph 
Mellen's BORE HOLES (1975) and Amanda Feilding's BLOOD AND CONSCIOUSNESS
(1978). 

Those of a nervous disposition should skip the next three paragraphs...

I'm afraid to say that an electric drill was used.... apparantly the first
time Mellen tried it the drill shorted out after half an hour's drilling -
and he had to get it repaired so he could try again the next day.

There was also a film by Feilding, HEARTBEAT IN THE BRAIN, which includes
footage of her self-trepanning. Michell writes:

"The film shows her carefully at work, dressed in a blood-splattered
white robe. She shaves her hair, makes an incision in her head with a
scapel and calmly starts drilling. Blood spurts as she penetrates the
skull. She lays aside the drill and with a triumphant smile advances
towards Joey and the camera." (p. 152)

Michell's book also has a chapter on Geoffry Nathaniel Pyke who sounds 
very much like a "White Visitations" character - he was part of Combined 
Operations during WW2 and proposed some incredibly weird schemes. Like 
destroying Romanian oil fields by first bombing them and then parachuting
commandos dressed as Romanian firemen into the area so that they could 
cause even more damage while pretending to help. Other plans included 
battleships built from a mixture of ice and wood pulp, and a weapon that 
spayed supercooled water that would freeze up any mechanical device it was 
used on. Pyke had Mountbatten's blessing, but the Americans weren't too 
keen on him because they found his personal appearance "disgusting". A 
prototype ice battleship was built on a lake in Canada. When all his 
best ideas were rejected, he OD'd on sleeping pills - but only after shaving off 
his beard....  

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Nigel E. Richardson has a rather lovely home page, boys
and girls.  So get thee to SLUBBERDEGULLION ONLINE at
http://metro.turnpike.net/N/ner/ and bide a wee. Okay?
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