VV(11): There Is a Young Actor

[Dave Monroe]

"There is a young actor down at the Rusty Spoon who claims to be an Irish 
Armenian Jew." (V., Ch. 8, Sec. iii, p. 224)

Again, J. Kerry Grant writes that ...

"It is not clear whether Fergus Mixolydian and Mafia's young actor are one 
in the same." (A Companion to V., p. 112)

And perhaps one can understand this uncertainty given the following ...

"Fergus Mixolydian the Irish Armenian Jew and universal man laid claim to 
being the laziest living being in Nueva York.[...] Fergus got so lazy taht 
his only activity (short of those necessary to sustain life) was once a week 
to fiddle around at the kitchen sink with dry cells, retorts, alembics, salt 
solutions.  What he was doing, he was generating hydrogen; this went to fill 
a sturdy green balloon with a great Z printed on it.  He would tie the 
balloon by a string to the post of the bed whenever he planned to sleep, 
this being the only way for visitors to tell which side of consciousness 
Fergus was on." (V., Ch. 2, Sec. ii, p. 56)

Hm ... FM ("Someone turned on the FM," p. 225) an alchemist of sorts?  But 
note the "sturdy green" hydrogen Z-bomb deterrent as well.  And, again, note 
also the melting-pot ethnic mix(olydian) as well, yr hungry, yr oppressed, 
yr diasporic.   And note that "the rest of the Crew partook of the same 
lethargy" (p. 56).  But to continue ...

"His other amusement was watching the TV.  He'd devised an ingenious 
sleep-switch, receiving its signal from two electrodes placed on the inner 
skin of his forearm.  When Fergus dropped below a certain level of 
awareness, the skin resistance increased over a preset value to operate the 
switch.  Fergus thus became an extension of the TV set." (p. 56)

Hm ...

"That is the whole idea of this machine, you know. Deterrence is the  art of 
producing in the mind of the enemy the fear to attack. And so, because of 
the automated and irrevocable decision making process which rules out human 
meddling, the doomsday machine is terrifying."

Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers), in Dr. Strangelove, or, How I Stopped 
Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1961)

Anyway ... Fergus, FM, may or may not be "young," but he is certainly not an 
"actor" in the sense of one who is active.  However, to return to an earlier 
ellipsis ...

"His creative ventures, all incomplete, ranged from a western in blank verse 
to a wall he'd removed from a stall in the Penn Station's men's room and 
entered in an art exhibition as what the old Dadaists called a 
'ready-made.'" (V., p. 56)

... Fergus, FM, is an "actor" in the sense of performer, performance artist, 
or, at any rate, might well be taken as one by someone not necessarily all 
too hip to the scene.  Like Mafia?  He certainly has an act, at any rate.  
Hadn't marked this on the map, but a productive little side street 
nonetheless, thanks ...
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com