December 16, 2025 • 26 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:37):
Mind Welcome to.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
A half hour of mind Waves short stories from the world.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Of spec in section no.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
This story comes from Fantasy and Science Fiction of February
nineteen sixty two. It's Rebel, written by Ward Moore. Seriously, son,
said Kaludo's father, not quite meeting his eye.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
You aren't a child anymore. Your mother and I naturally
worry someday, when you have a family of your own,
you'll understand.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
You must think we're narrow minded obiguity.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Dear interrupted his mother, gently shifting her position on the couch,
slightly adjusting her silver robe so its folds fell gracefully
from shoulder and hip.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
Remember when your cousin Sistram took up rhyming, and your
poor uncle was so dreadfully upset. But we were the
first to say that the boy would pull out of it.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
And settle there. And he has. He certainly has, Kaludo,
it was just a phase, and we all knew it. Yes,
Tristram has good stuff in him, but no better than you, Kaludo.
No better than you.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
No, No, it's not that we're holding Tristram muck as
a model. If you wanted to, you could easily do
much better that's the whole point.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
As you say, rhyming was just a phase with them.
He actually wants to do the acceptable things.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Well, why don't you recline comfortably instead of perching on
that horrible straight back chair.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I like to sit up straight. I don't like lying
down except when I'm ready to go to sleep.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
The affection in mister Smith's face changed to annoyance, the
familiar annoyance and impatience Kludo increasingly had grown used to
in the past few years.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
That's it, that's it. Never mind what anyone else does.
Think only of what you've decided. You like to sit
up straight, you like to wear that outlandish costume.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
You like your hair that reflexively, he tossed his own
shoulder length curls dyed a pale blue, and match the
wig his wife was wearing, that juvenile way.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
You like them your blood pressure, dear, please please.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
She rested her face, puttly on a smooth skinned arm,
lightly sprinkled with the iridescent powder, so that her silver
painted eyelashes just cleared the flesh.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
These things are only symptoms, not too important in themselves,
but added together, they show, They show.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
That everyone is out of step. By him, just as
your mother says, Krudo, their symptoms, and I blame myself
were not recognizing them sooner. Why when you were only
a little kid, you were outdoors in the pressure from
morning till night, playing games, exercising, trading toys with other
malajusted children, instead of instead of lying around all day
(03:53):
with your nose in a book like a healthy boy.
We only smiled when you prattled of what you wanted
to be when you grew up, instead of realizing we
had a serious problem on our hands. Oh, you were
too soft with you.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
You never want it for anything good?
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Heaven Son, do you want to be a misfit all
your life? Don't you want to become a responsible member
of society. Don't you think you owe other people something? Honestly, Kludo,
I don't understand you.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
What then I'm sorry, truly sorry, if I'm making you
and mom unhappy. If you could only see it from
my side, I can't paint we're skulp or compole.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
You've had every opportunity, Kaludo, the finest teachers, all sorts
of help and encouragement. It seems to me you could
at least make an attempt. It isn't as if we
were asking something outrageous or unheard of? Is it is
all your education to be wasted because you just throw
up your hands and say you can't. Where's your gunction?
(04:55):
How do you know you can't?
Speaker 5 (04:56):
Iss kaludo. We don't expect you to do exactly what
we do in the way we do, not the kind
of people who think we're perfect.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
She looked complacently toward the wall where her husband's son
otter in very yes, use hung in all its splendid color.
But Pluto knew she was thinking of her own novella
for three harpsichords and ninety five kettle drums and f
sharp major. In all fairness, he admitted they had something,
both of them, and he was proud of them in
(05:28):
a way.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
But we don't understand why you don't want to make
something of yourself. Why can't you settle down?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
But ma'am, I do, really, I do, only only watch.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Look. We're not calish or hide bound. We know youth
has to experiment, yes, and even defy convention now and then.
It's all part of growing up.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
This carefully made a face look very smug under the
blue curls. He reached from his couch over to the
low table and us the button which popped the lighted
cigarette between his lips.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
One at least for you, Kludo, No.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Thanks to don't you ever kludo?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Oh no, he doesn't, not even for courtesy's sake, not
even to be sociable. The same with liquor. Why don't
you remember it was his fourteenth or fifteenth birthday, if
we got which one, and all the other boys and
girls were getting pleasant and he wouldn't even touch a drop,
not champagne, not a high ball, not a martini, not
even a little dry wine or a glass of beer.
(06:29):
But Dad, it makes me say, oh, nonsense, it's all
in your mind. Besides, do you think people should do
only what they fancy, never sacrifice their own whims to
the prevailing code? Do you think your mother and I
always do sally what pleases us rather than what's proper
and right of good heavens? Kludo? Do you want anarchy? Chaos? Mostly?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Dad, I'm not advocating that. Let us. I'm not the
wild eye dreamer you seem to think. I know. Most people,
all our family, our friends with whom we come in contact,
are satisfied to be novelists. Poets, sculptors, musicians. I don't
want to change them. I appreciate that they're necessary.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
For my fuck. Please, please, please, I'm sure you don't
want to make your father ill.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
Dear, we love you and we're proud of you, even
though we certainly don't understand your attitude. Don't you truly
want to live a useful life?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Mother? Don't you see? It's all in the definition of
what is useful. I've agreed that for the average person,
for most people working in the arts, is good enough.
I just happened to want something different.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
But do you suppose everyone felt the way you do?
What would happen to the world. I can't imagine everyone
abandoning common sense, But suppose they did, what would you
do for something to read, something to hear, something to
look at? Sure you don't want to be a drone?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
No, Mom, believe me.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Well, then, dear, for what are other.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Things besides the aesthetic? In life? Human beings aren't condemned
only to the prosaic the inevitable. There's a whole realm
beyond the humdrum in the ordinary, in which some can
work happily for a lifetime.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
That sounds quite mystical ding. Can't you be a little
more specific?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
You know what I want to do. I've wanted it
ever since I was eight.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Kids, fancy grow up?
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Honestly, kaludo, You can't steal at twenty two.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Want to be a business man buying and selling, getting
rich an eight year old ambition inside of mature body.
Grow up, khaludo.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, you yourself admire the great businessman. Everyone does when
in school we had hours and hours of tape spot
Morgan and Vanderbilt. Wanna make it?
Speaker 4 (09:05):
Yeah, you're important, Walworth, I'm no hide bound bush wire shown.
I reverence those great man as much as you do,
maybe more. You talk of school, I hate. I never
had anything but straat age and commerce appreciation.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Why in commerce appreciation they give you moldy stuff? I
wonder you think the only great businessmen are dead and
that commerce is finished and done with. Just because it's
possible to live and live comfortably enough, I suppose if
you have no soul without it in our times, but
for some of us it isn't possible. Business means too
(09:39):
much to us, not just antique business or immortals like
Millfield or Astor, but living, experimenting, changing modern business. Don't
you see? It isn't enough to bow before Daniel Drew
or Charles E. Wilson. I want to carry on.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Their traditional you insisted we're totally incentive on hardly a
Sunday goes by that. I don't look over the financial
page of the time. Now. I'm not someone who never
gets to be on the art and theater sections or
the book with you. If you had said you wanted
to be an architect, for example, or anything which could
(10:16):
be considered remotely practical, I would have. I don't say
I would have been happy about it, but I would
have sympathized gludo. But this Dad, anyway, what makes you
think you're a Drewer, a Wilson, or a Carnegie or
a Dheiny. I guess I can throw a famous names
around myself when I want to.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
I don't think I'm a Carnegie or a Daheiny. I
have no hope of anything like that. But just because
I can't be a Rockefeller or a Frick doesn't mean
I won't be satisfied to be the best I can look.
I know it's hard for you to understand.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Oh not as hard as you think, dear, I wanted
to be a mechanic when I was little, and your
father wanted to beat You'll never guess, And.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
For the first time, they were not roadblocks, jailer's enemies,
but human beings, human beings who had felt, no matter
how weakly, his own dominant impulses.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Maybe I came by my queer streak honestly.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Well, perhaps you did. We all have odd ideas, but
don't you get the point, kludo. We outgrew our infantile
silliness before it crystallized into a social behavior and possibly
juvenile delinquency.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
New girl he used to shave mustaches off collages she
had to go to I don't know how many androids, and.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
We became mature, responsible people, kludo fit to be parents.
Perhaps you think I never had a nostalgic thought for
double entry or an adding machine, right, But we recognized
these were the immature day dreams they were and put
them behind us. I don't say the mirage of columns
of figures hasn't been transmitted into a splash of color
(11:59):
here or a bit of graftsmanship there, or that the
movement of pistons and wrispines hasn't entered into your mother's symphonies,
but shall have longings for other solaces we left behind
in childhood or adolescents. We grew up shun we faced
the world. Sometimes it isn't easy, but being an adult
has its rewards. Believe me, I do believe you, Dad.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
My only question is why should commerce be considered not
grown up?
Speaker 7 (12:28):
Well?
Speaker 5 (12:28):
We can't all be wrong, now can we deal?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Pluto struggled against the feeling of falling into warm, soft,
meek acquiescence.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Of course, not only I think. I assure you. I'm
not trying to set myself against your experience or wisdom.
But for some for someone like myself, maybe it is
possible to be adult and the businessman at the same time.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Well maybe it is. Maybe it is, But it's a
law hard struggle kludo. And even if you succeed, what
have you got in existence on the fringes of society?
No position, no security, no solid respect outside of a
circle of quackbots who talk the language no one understands,
and go into ecstasies over what no one else is
(13:17):
interested in. Even putting that aside, how do you justify
yourself from the meantime? How can you face the young
men and women of your own age who are making
names for themselves as dramatists or conductors or muralists. While
while you pursue a financial will of the wisp, maybe
(13:37):
I could get a Gainsborough Gainesborough.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
No book against the fellowship from the John Henry Gainsborough
Memorial Foundations. Thank you esthetic equivalent grants to commercial people a.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Third as carrying water on both shoulders ascetic equivalent grants. Indeed,
how can we hope to pete with the Martians when
our best minds are attempted into romantic pursuits. You don't
think they have fellowships to encourage delettach to you, or
that their young people occupy themselves with trade instead of
(14:11):
the things that count.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
How can you be so sure what counts and what doesn't.
Look at it this way, you say, I'm know Hartford
or Schwab agreed, but with all respect, because you're not
about a Chelli and Mozart doesn't make either of you
stop your.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Work for the first time.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
His parents look shocked.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
Collude, It isn't the same thing. It isn't the same
thing at all. We have our humble place in the world,
but we fit it to the best of our ability.
We don't run away from life, and we don't turn
our back on what is real and vital and important
to pursue grandiose dreams. We do our ordinary, inescapable work.
(14:59):
Oh moving do you think I never never feel an
impulse to shut the piano and tinker with the jet plane.
And we are respectable members of society instead of brilliant eccentrics. Darling,
you can sneer it artists. Oh yes you do, Kludo,
I know you do. You sneered us in your heart.
Speaker 7 (15:17):
I know.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
And you think we're dull and frumpy and outdated because
we wear robes instead of that absurd jacket. And what's
it called trousers? It's the trousers you affect. Or because
we dye our hair and use wigs like normal people
instead of making spectacles of ourselves. Or because we go
to bed at a reasonable hour instead of retiring at
(15:38):
dark and getting up with the sun as you do,
turning night into night. Oh don't think we haven't noticed
and been ashamed lest others would too. Oh what do
you think would happen if everyone thought as you do
or acted the way you want to act?
Speaker 3 (15:56):
I'm not asking them to I find a jacket and
trousers comfortable. It isn't an affectation. I like my hair
cut short and none die.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
It's convenient.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
And I get up early because because you.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Get up because ordinary folk like USh don't anything to
be different.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Dad, that's not it at all. I get up because
there's so much I want to do, and the early
hours are the best.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Kaludo. We just don't speak the same language. Everyone knows
the morning is only fit to sleep through, and no
one can possibly be alive, much less alert before noon.
And if you went to bed at a decent hour,
you couldn't get up before twelve or one.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
But Chris, don't you think there's room in the world
for more than one set of values?
Speaker 4 (16:44):
If there is, kaludo, don't you think it's up to
you to show it. You ought to be willing to
test your values against ours. You ought to do something
better if you really believe in your values, and aren't
just bone lazy in trying to skin out of work
and repeat over and over like a defective child, that
(17:04):
you you want to do this and you like that.
You ought to prove your values are real by mastering hours.
If you really want to be a businessman. You you
ought to show the world you have the discipline to
be an artist. First, serve your Apprenticeshipkludo, paint or write
or do something socially acceptable for five or ten years,
(17:26):
show the results of your work by the appreciation of
critics and reviewers, and then having to quitted yourself honorably
in the real world, it will be time enough to
enter this life of fantasy if you still have the
taste for it. Dad, I know what you're going to say,
cludo that by by then you will have lost your zest,
won't you? And that what you're going to say, that
(17:46):
that proves my.
Speaker 8 (17:47):
Point, Ludo, You know your father is right. No boys
so carefully brought up, so well educated as you could help. Oh,
listen to us who.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Love you, who have watched over you from the moment
you were born, who sat up long hours, And remember
your first tooth, your first step, your first words. Do
what your father says. It's for your own good. Deep
down you must know it. Oh, don't disgrace us, don't
(18:18):
wreck your life, and don't.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Forget karudo is. If you are determined to be a
business man, you will be a better one for your
experience as a poet or a violinist. And if your
your notion persists, remember you you can write or paint
all night and still find an hour or to to
buy and sell in your spare time.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Why, why, now I have.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Come to think of it, I've heard of a number
of quite serious people who go into commerce as a hobby,
weekend entrepreneurs, you know, and don't think they haven't made
good at work while getting the last ounce of recreation
out of their diversion.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
You see, we're not trying to thwart you, Oh kaludo,
I'm sure bockfight even be willing to have a store
or an office though, whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
You'll fright onto us if I see some.
Speaker 9 (19:10):
Real those that when you're tired out after your work
you can relax with your money and your inventories and
your check books or kludo. Please, my darling, we're only
trying to help you, and we won't even insist on
a mistress or or even smoking or drinking except in
company naturally, And.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
You could wear a long wig over that ridiculous haircut.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
No, now, let's not go too far. Now, certainly the
boy can have time to pool around with investments and
such but a respectable appearance. I must insist on no
more than sitting stiffly in chairs as though there were
something wrong with a sacariliac, instead of lounging decently. No
more odd hours disrupting any sensible schedule, and a decorous
(19:57):
toga or robe. And I I think a little, just
a minimum amount of maker. After all, you all or something?
But Dad, Mom, say say no more, Kludo, say no more.
You're a good boy, basically, and well, I'm willing to
humor you to a certain extent. You will outgrow your
(20:18):
commercial nonsense. Do you think you won't? But you will,
And someday you'll look back and be grateful to us.
We're being firm with you. Remember we love you, Kaludo.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
I suppose you do, muttered kaludo, bitterly, foreseeing the long
years of drudgery with molstick or baton, typewriter or paint brush,
until the bright vision of dollars and cents faded away
into resigned acceptance of their drab, hopeless world.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yes, I suppose you do love me? What else would
justify you?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
That was Rebel by Ward Moore, short story that appeared
in fantasy and science fiction February of nineteen sixty two.
(23:27):
We conclude with a brief story by Grendel Bryerton that
appeared in Never in This World, edited by A. Doulapernell Stone.
This short piece is called Through Time and Space with
Ferdinand Fagahout. It was Ferdinand Faghoot who discovered Yip Kwang
(23:48):
and persuaded him to move to the thirty ninth.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Century mester Yep.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
He informed the Time Travelers Club.
Speaker 10 (23:56):
Mister Yep is the greatest natural psychokineticist in all history.
He put every Chinese laundry in Milwaukee nineteen twelve out
of business. He hired no help, he needed no plant
or equipment. He simply sat down before a mountain of dirty,
old laundry and wished it all clean, hired and shorted
(24:17):
and wrapped. He closed his eyes for a moment, and pop.
It was done in no time at all. He'd made
millions of dollars. Old doctor Gropius Volkswakan.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Rose to his feet.
Speaker 7 (24:29):
Then why is he here? Why did he not stay where?
He was so happy and rich?
Speaker 4 (24:35):
He was rich, but not happy.
Speaker 10 (24:38):
His fellow Chinese went at all fond of him. Some
of them snubbed him completely and none of them ever
invited him anywhere.
Speaker 7 (24:48):
There is strange the Chinese worshiped commercial success. Did he
commit some unforgivable crime? Did he violently come preceptive confucious?
Speaker 10 (25:01):
Oh no, no, it was nothing like that. It was
just they found him a little too wishy washy.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I was through Time and Space with Fernman Faygote, a
short story by Grendel Bryerton that appears in Never in
This World, edited by a Doula Prenell Stone. This is
Michael Hanson speaking.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Reading.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Earlier in the program with me were Carol Cowen and
Rick Murphy. Technical production for Mindwebbs by Steve Gordon. Mind
Webbs comes to you from w h A Radio and Madison,
a service of University of Wisconsin Extension
Mind Welcome to.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
A half hour of mind Waves short stories from the world.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Of spec in section no.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
This story comes from Fantasy and Science Fiction of February
nineteen sixty two. It's Rebel, written by Ward Moore. Seriously, son,
said Kaludo's father, not quite meeting his eye.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
You aren't a child anymore. Your mother and I naturally
worry someday, when you have a family of your own,
you'll understand.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
You must think we're narrow minded obiguity.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Dear interrupted his mother, gently shifting her position on the couch,
slightly adjusting her silver robe so its folds fell gracefully
from shoulder and hip.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
Remember when your cousin Sistram took up rhyming, and your
poor uncle was so dreadfully upset. But we were the
first to say that the boy would pull out of it.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
And settle there. And he has. He certainly has, Kaludo,
it was just a phase, and we all knew it. Yes,
Tristram has good stuff in him, but no better than you, Kaludo.
No better than you.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
No, No, it's not that we're holding Tristram muck as
a model. If you wanted to, you could easily do
much better that's the whole point.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
As you say, rhyming was just a phase with them.
He actually wants to do the acceptable things.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Well, why don't you recline comfortably instead of perching on
that horrible straight back chair.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I like to sit up straight. I don't like lying
down except when I'm ready to go to sleep.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
The affection in mister Smith's face changed to annoyance, the
familiar annoyance and impatience Kludo increasingly had grown used to
in the past few years.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
That's it, that's it. Never mind what anyone else does.
Think only of what you've decided. You like to sit
up straight, you like to wear that outlandish costume.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
You like your hair that reflexively, he tossed his own
shoulder length curls dyed a pale blue, and match the
wig his wife was wearing, that juvenile way.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
You like them your blood pressure, dear, please please.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
She rested her face, puttly on a smooth skinned arm,
lightly sprinkled with the iridescent powder, so that her silver
painted eyelashes just cleared the flesh.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
These things are only symptoms, not too important in themselves,
but added together, they show, They show.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
That everyone is out of step. By him, just as
your mother says, Krudo, their symptoms, and I blame myself
were not recognizing them sooner. Why when you were only
a little kid, you were outdoors in the pressure from
morning till night, playing games, exercising, trading toys with other
malajusted children, instead of instead of lying around all day
(03:53):
with your nose in a book like a healthy boy.
We only smiled when you prattled of what you wanted
to be when you grew up, instead of realizing we
had a serious problem on our hands. Oh, you were
too soft with you.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
You never want it for anything good?
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Heaven Son, do you want to be a misfit all
your life? Don't you want to become a responsible member
of society. Don't you think you owe other people something? Honestly, Kludo,
I don't understand you.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
What then I'm sorry, truly sorry, if I'm making you
and mom unhappy. If you could only see it from
my side, I can't paint we're skulp or compole.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
You've had every opportunity, Kaludo, the finest teachers, all sorts
of help and encouragement. It seems to me you could
at least make an attempt. It isn't as if we
were asking something outrageous or unheard of? Is it is
all your education to be wasted because you just throw
up your hands and say you can't. Where's your gunction?
(04:55):
How do you know you can't?
Speaker 5 (04:56):
Iss kaludo. We don't expect you to do exactly what
we do in the way we do, not the kind
of people who think we're perfect.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
She looked complacently toward the wall where her husband's son
otter in very yes, use hung in all its splendid color.
But Pluto knew she was thinking of her own novella
for three harpsichords and ninety five kettle drums and f
sharp major. In all fairness, he admitted they had something,
both of them, and he was proud of them in
(05:28):
a way.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
But we don't understand why you don't want to make
something of yourself. Why can't you settle down?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
But ma'am, I do, really, I do, only only watch.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Look. We're not calish or hide bound. We know youth
has to experiment, yes, and even defy convention now and then.
It's all part of growing up.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
This carefully made a face look very smug under the
blue curls. He reached from his couch over to the
low table and us the button which popped the lighted
cigarette between his lips.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
One at least for you, Kludo, No.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
Thanks to don't you ever kludo?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Oh no, he doesn't, not even for courtesy's sake, not
even to be sociable. The same with liquor. Why don't
you remember it was his fourteenth or fifteenth birthday, if
we got which one, and all the other boys and
girls were getting pleasant and he wouldn't even touch a drop,
not champagne, not a high ball, not a martini, not
even a little dry wine or a glass of beer.
(06:29):
But Dad, it makes me say, oh, nonsense, it's all
in your mind. Besides, do you think people should do
only what they fancy, never sacrifice their own whims to
the prevailing code? Do you think your mother and I
always do sally what pleases us rather than what's proper
and right of good heavens? Kludo? Do you want anarchy? Chaos? Mostly?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Dad, I'm not advocating that. Let us. I'm not the
wild eye dreamer you seem to think. I know. Most people,
all our family, our friends with whom we come in contact,
are satisfied to be novelists. Poets, sculptors, musicians. I don't
want to change them. I appreciate that they're necessary.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
For my fuck. Please, please, please, I'm sure you don't
want to make your father ill.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
Dear, we love you and we're proud of you, even
though we certainly don't understand your attitude. Don't you truly
want to live a useful life?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Mother? Don't you see? It's all in the definition of
what is useful. I've agreed that for the average person,
for most people working in the arts, is good enough.
I just happened to want something different.
Speaker 5 (07:46):
But do you suppose everyone felt the way you do?
What would happen to the world. I can't imagine everyone
abandoning common sense, But suppose they did, what would you
do for something to read, something to hear, something to
look at? Sure you don't want to be a drone?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
No, Mom, believe me.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Well, then, dear, for what are other.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Things besides the aesthetic? In life? Human beings aren't condemned
only to the prosaic the inevitable. There's a whole realm
beyond the humdrum in the ordinary, in which some can
work happily for a lifetime.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
That sounds quite mystical ding. Can't you be a little
more specific?
Speaker 3 (08:31):
You know what I want to do. I've wanted it
ever since I was eight.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Kids, fancy grow up?
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Honestly, kaludo, You can't steal at twenty two.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Want to be a business man buying and selling, getting
rich an eight year old ambition inside of mature body.
Grow up, khaludo.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, you yourself admire the great businessman. Everyone does when
in school we had hours and hours of tape spot
Morgan and Vanderbilt. Wanna make it?
Speaker 4 (09:05):
Yeah, you're important, Walworth, I'm no hide bound bush wire shown.
I reverence those great man as much as you do,
maybe more. You talk of school, I hate. I never
had anything but straat age and commerce appreciation.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Why in commerce appreciation they give you moldy stuff? I
wonder you think the only great businessmen are dead and
that commerce is finished and done with. Just because it's
possible to live and live comfortably enough, I suppose if
you have no soul without it in our times, but
for some of us it isn't possible. Business means too
(09:39):
much to us, not just antique business or immortals like
Millfield or Astor, but living, experimenting, changing modern business. Don't
you see? It isn't enough to bow before Daniel Drew
or Charles E. Wilson. I want to carry on.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Their traditional you insisted we're totally incentive on hardly a
Sunday goes by that. I don't look over the financial
page of the time. Now. I'm not someone who never
gets to be on the art and theater sections or
the book with you. If you had said you wanted
to be an architect, for example, or anything which could
(10:16):
be considered remotely practical, I would have. I don't say
I would have been happy about it, but I would
have sympathized gludo. But this Dad, anyway, what makes you
think you're a Drewer, a Wilson, or a Carnegie or
a Dheiny. I guess I can throw a famous names
around myself when I want to.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
I don't think I'm a Carnegie or a Daheiny. I
have no hope of anything like that. But just because
I can't be a Rockefeller or a Frick doesn't mean
I won't be satisfied to be the best I can look.
I know it's hard for you to understand.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Oh not as hard as you think, dear, I wanted
to be a mechanic when I was little, and your
father wanted to beat You'll never guess, And.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
For the first time, they were not roadblocks, jailer's enemies,
but human beings, human beings who had felt, no matter
how weakly, his own dominant impulses.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Maybe I came by my queer streak honestly.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Well, perhaps you did. We all have odd ideas, but
don't you get the point, kludo. We outgrew our infantile
silliness before it crystallized into a social behavior and possibly
juvenile delinquency.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
New girl he used to shave mustaches off collages she
had to go to I don't know how many androids, and.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
We became mature, responsible people, kludo fit to be parents.
Perhaps you think I never had a nostalgic thought for
double entry or an adding machine, right, But we recognized
these were the immature day dreams they were and put
them behind us. I don't say the mirage of columns
of figures hasn't been transmitted into a splash of color
(11:59):
here or a bit of graftsmanship there, or that the
movement of pistons and wrispines hasn't entered into your mother's symphonies,
but shall have longings for other solaces we left behind
in childhood or adolescents. We grew up shun we faced
the world. Sometimes it isn't easy, but being an adult
has its rewards. Believe me, I do believe you, Dad.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
My only question is why should commerce be considered not
grown up?
Speaker 7 (12:28):
Well?
Speaker 5 (12:28):
We can't all be wrong, now can we deal?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Pluto struggled against the feeling of falling into warm, soft,
meek acquiescence.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Of course, not only I think. I assure you. I'm
not trying to set myself against your experience or wisdom.
But for some for someone like myself, maybe it is
possible to be adult and the businessman at the same time.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Well maybe it is. Maybe it is, But it's a
law hard struggle kludo. And even if you succeed, what
have you got in existence on the fringes of society?
No position, no security, no solid respect outside of a
circle of quackbots who talk the language no one understands,
and go into ecstasies over what no one else is
(13:17):
interested in. Even putting that aside, how do you justify
yourself from the meantime? How can you face the young
men and women of your own age who are making
names for themselves as dramatists or conductors or muralists. While
while you pursue a financial will of the wisp, maybe
(13:37):
I could get a Gainsborough Gainesborough.
Speaker 5 (13:41):
No book against the fellowship from the John Henry Gainsborough
Memorial Foundations. Thank you esthetic equivalent grants to commercial people a.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Third as carrying water on both shoulders ascetic equivalent grants. Indeed,
how can we hope to pete with the Martians when
our best minds are attempted into romantic pursuits. You don't
think they have fellowships to encourage delettach to you, or
that their young people occupy themselves with trade instead of
(14:11):
the things that count.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
How can you be so sure what counts and what doesn't.
Look at it this way, you say, I'm know Hartford
or Schwab agreed, but with all respect, because you're not
about a Chelli and Mozart doesn't make either of you
stop your.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Work for the first time.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
His parents look shocked.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
Collude, It isn't the same thing. It isn't the same
thing at all. We have our humble place in the world,
but we fit it to the best of our ability.
We don't run away from life, and we don't turn
our back on what is real and vital and important
to pursue grandiose dreams. We do our ordinary, inescapable work.
(14:59):
Oh moving do you think I never never feel an
impulse to shut the piano and tinker with the jet plane.
And we are respectable members of society instead of brilliant eccentrics. Darling,
you can sneer it artists. Oh yes you do, Kludo,
I know you do. You sneered us in your heart.
Speaker 7 (15:17):
I know.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
And you think we're dull and frumpy and outdated because
we wear robes instead of that absurd jacket. And what's
it called trousers? It's the trousers you affect. Or because
we dye our hair and use wigs like normal people
instead of making spectacles of ourselves. Or because we go
to bed at a reasonable hour instead of retiring at
(15:38):
dark and getting up with the sun as you do,
turning night into night. Oh don't think we haven't noticed
and been ashamed lest others would too. Oh what do
you think would happen if everyone thought as you do
or acted the way you want to act?
Speaker 3 (15:56):
I'm not asking them to I find a jacket and
trousers comfortable. It isn't an affectation. I like my hair
cut short and none die.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
It's convenient.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
And I get up early because because you.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Get up because ordinary folk like USh don't anything to
be different.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Dad, that's not it at all. I get up because
there's so much I want to do, and the early
hours are the best.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Kaludo. We just don't speak the same language. Everyone knows
the morning is only fit to sleep through, and no
one can possibly be alive, much less alert before noon.
And if you went to bed at a decent hour,
you couldn't get up before twelve or one.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
But Chris, don't you think there's room in the world
for more than one set of values?
Speaker 4 (16:44):
If there is, kaludo, don't you think it's up to
you to show it. You ought to be willing to
test your values against ours. You ought to do something
better if you really believe in your values, and aren't
just bone lazy in trying to skin out of work
and repeat over and over like a defective child, that
(17:04):
you you want to do this and you like that.
You ought to prove your values are real by mastering hours.
If you really want to be a businessman. You you
ought to show the world you have the discipline to
be an artist. First, serve your Apprenticeshipkludo, paint or write
or do something socially acceptable for five or ten years,
(17:26):
show the results of your work by the appreciation of
critics and reviewers, and then having to quitted yourself honorably
in the real world, it will be time enough to
enter this life of fantasy if you still have the
taste for it. Dad, I know what you're going to say,
cludo that by by then you will have lost your zest,
won't you? And that what you're going to say, that
(17:46):
that proves my.
Speaker 8 (17:47):
Point, Ludo, You know your father is right. No boys
so carefully brought up, so well educated as you could help. Oh,
listen to us who.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Love you, who have watched over you from the moment
you were born, who sat up long hours, And remember
your first tooth, your first step, your first words. Do
what your father says. It's for your own good. Deep
down you must know it. Oh, don't disgrace us, don't
(18:18):
wreck your life, and don't.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Forget karudo is. If you are determined to be a
business man, you will be a better one for your
experience as a poet or a violinist. And if your
your notion persists, remember you you can write or paint
all night and still find an hour or to to
buy and sell in your spare time.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Why, why, now I have.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Come to think of it, I've heard of a number
of quite serious people who go into commerce as a hobby,
weekend entrepreneurs, you know, and don't think they haven't made
good at work while getting the last ounce of recreation
out of their diversion.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
You see, we're not trying to thwart you, Oh kaludo,
I'm sure bockfight even be willing to have a store
or an office though, whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
You'll fright onto us if I see some.
Speaker 9 (19:10):
Real those that when you're tired out after your work
you can relax with your money and your inventories and
your check books or kludo. Please, my darling, we're only
trying to help you, and we won't even insist on
a mistress or or even smoking or drinking except in
company naturally, And.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
You could wear a long wig over that ridiculous haircut.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
No, now, let's not go too far. Now, certainly the
boy can have time to pool around with investments and
such but a respectable appearance. I must insist on no
more than sitting stiffly in chairs as though there were
something wrong with a sacariliac, instead of lounging decently. No
more odd hours disrupting any sensible schedule, and a decorous
(19:57):
toga or robe. And I I think a little, just
a minimum amount of maker. After all, you all or something?
But Dad, Mom, say say no more, Kludo, say no more.
You're a good boy, basically, and well, I'm willing to
humor you to a certain extent. You will outgrow your
(20:18):
commercial nonsense. Do you think you won't? But you will,
And someday you'll look back and be grateful to us.
We're being firm with you. Remember we love you, Kaludo.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
I suppose you do, muttered kaludo, bitterly, foreseeing the long
years of drudgery with molstick or baton, typewriter or paint brush,
until the bright vision of dollars and cents faded away
into resigned acceptance of their drab, hopeless world.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yes, I suppose you do love me? What else would
justify you?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
That was Rebel by Ward Moore, short story that appeared
in fantasy and science fiction February of nineteen sixty two.
(23:27):
We conclude with a brief story by Grendel Bryerton that
appeared in Never in This World, edited by A. Doulapernell Stone.
This short piece is called Through Time and Space with
Ferdinand Fagahout. It was Ferdinand Faghoot who discovered Yip Kwang
(23:48):
and persuaded him to move to the thirty ninth.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Century mester Yep.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
He informed the Time Travelers Club.
Speaker 10 (23:56):
Mister Yep is the greatest natural psychokineticist in all history.
He put every Chinese laundry in Milwaukee nineteen twelve out
of business. He hired no help, he needed no plant
or equipment. He simply sat down before a mountain of dirty,
old laundry and wished it all clean, hired and shorted
(24:17):
and wrapped. He closed his eyes for a moment, and pop.
It was done in no time at all. He'd made
millions of dollars. Old doctor Gropius Volkswakan.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Rose to his feet.
Speaker 7 (24:29):
Then why is he here? Why did he not stay where?
He was so happy and rich?
Speaker 4 (24:35):
He was rich, but not happy.
Speaker 10 (24:38):
His fellow Chinese went at all fond of him. Some
of them snubbed him completely and none of them ever
invited him anywhere.
Speaker 7 (24:48):
There is strange the Chinese worshiped commercial success. Did he
commit some unforgivable crime? Did he violently come preceptive confucious?
Speaker 10 (25:01):
Oh no, no, it was nothing like that. It was
just they found him a little too wishy washy.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I was through Time and Space with Fernman Faygote, a
short story by Grendel Bryerton that appears in Never in
This World, edited by a Doula Prenell Stone. This is
Michael Hanson speaking.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Reading.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Earlier in the program with me were Carol Cowen and
Rick Murphy. Technical production for Mindwebbs by Steve Gordon. Mind
Webbs comes to you from w h A Radio and Madison,
a service of University of Wisconsin Extension
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