(March 1998)

Where does this begin? The Friday, finishing work and heading down to London? Six months before with the tremendous energy and loss of Burroughs' death? Before that with the writing of Naked Lunch and the creation of Interzone, or even earlier with the Ismaelians and the Old Man of the Mountain who lived in heaven and was feared more than hell? Interzone has aims and objectives created by each of its members in an alliance of purpose beyond politics, beyond art or other trappings of Control. It is about the Johnsons. About human beings searching for something.
Date time places this event at March 20th 1998 CE. The end of a century and a millennium is approaching and the world is turning in on itself. Confusion and false gods and profits roam picking out the weak and vulnerable in the name of Control and Order.
I've been communicating since a time soon after Uncle Bill's death, along with many others, via the Internet and e-mail. The exchange of ideas has been extremely important to me personally after two barren years of block. It is also my first real experience of using the internet in this way - that is as a means of communication rather than a waste of time - as I believe it is for many of the people involved. We have become bound together in ways that transcend normal communication and normal friendship without even meeting. Until now.
I was able to take some time off work. After a couple of months of wanting to visit Iz and promising to go we (my girlfriend Tanya and I) finally have both the time and the money. Well, not really the money, but this is more important. I'm nervous about it, not helped by problems at work and other things. I'm not worried about meeting Iz as such, in fact I confident about it in my usual paranoid off-hand way, but I'm concerned about what it is. It seems like a big thing. Not just because because of myself, but for the group. On a personal level this is about the existence of Interzone and that concerns everybody. I'm worried that, despite all we've shared, that we might not like each other. This is physical. And I'm worried about trains and connections and stuff.
After a night stop-over at a friends in London we are finally on the train and on our way by 8:50. Then it's just a long train journey until we reach our destination, watching the flat French countryside roll by.
We get off the train, and wander through the station. Up the steps to the entrance and looking out for Izzy's red hair. I see her. She looks at me suspiciously. The guy next to her must be Jean-Louis I reason. I smile and say hello. Recognition dawns and relief sweeps over me. I give her a hug and shake Bauds hand. We wander out and they ask if we'd like to go for a beer before heading back as it's another half hour ride out to the house. The break from moving would be nice so we agree and head over the square into a little bar, all brass and wood. We go in and Iz orders a drink for us all. I get my cigarettes out and light one up. Iz and Baud do the same.
"So, this is the first meeting of Interzone" Baud says. Iz looks at me, she is an intense person, full of unkempt energy that expresses itself through her eyes and the tight rapid motions of her body. She's grinning. Baud is tall, with a very relaxed manner. They both share an inquisitiveness towards life that expresses itself through their motions and mannerisms and are both very polite, for the whole weekend they do their utmost to put us at ease. That's not easy for me, I have to confess, being tired after all the travel my nerves are fried and it takes the whole weekend to unwind me. I haven't slept properly for what seems like an awfully long time.
We drink our beer and talk a little about stuff like travelling, I've been to Tibet and China, Baud and Iz to India and Afghanistan, Tanya to everywhere else. Beer finished we head off. I know now that I like them, and so the tension eases.
We stop off on the way back for some food. I want to get some fags, but bizarrely in France you can only buy them at special shops with the tabac sign. I should have known from all those years ago at school, but there you go.
In the car we talk about Interzone and stuff, Iz says she has so much to show us and here is the main problem with the weekend. In a way we already know each other so well and have so much to share, but there is so little we have already done. The main project is yet to be completed and has only just begun. Yet our time there is to be so brief, simply a day is not long enough. I'm almost afraid to talk for fear of running out of time.
We arrive at the house via a narrow road. The house is in the middle of the countryside with a little cluster of houses. The garden is big, full of flowers and plants and well cared for. Baud moans that it's all hard work (they also have a couple of bits of land next to the house) but I see in his eyes that it is a burden that he enjoys. We are introduced to one of the cats, who is not well and gets into fights. The house is big, the ground floor consisting of three large rooms, the kitchen, the study and the sitting room, all in a line. Outside is a small river, and when I look out I am struck by a sense of deja vu. It feels like somewhere I've been before, recently, and it feels safe.
I am suddenly unable to conjure up any thought, a common problem throughout the weekend. That evening we have some food and Izzy answers her mail after preparing the new common report. Meanwhile we are shown images and books in French and English on all the topics we discuss and more. I feel ashamed that I cannot add more, have nothing to show them, and act like a sponge for the weekend, soaking up the ideas and their lifestyle.
Iz asks me at one point what do I see Interzone as being, where is it going to go. Se has an idea of a worldwide network of hotels for people to stay in, of a global community of johnsons. I haven't thought that far ahead, though I approve of the idea, and mutter something about it's importance as a means of communication, of exchanging ideas. It's difficult to come up with what I really think as I haven't really thought about it and my usual glibness and ability to chat has deserted me. Up till then Interzone existed more as a concept, as an idea. If there is a reason why Iz is the crux to it it's because she has the ability to see it for what it could be, and that is both a precious gift for her to use, and something she gave to me then. Hotels and trade unions and local groups might seem a long way off but they can happen.
We talk about how few people we know who read and like Burroughs. For Iz and Baud it is the same for me, they don't know anyone else who is as captivated by these ideas, which is what has attracted us to interzone. The time is coming when we must take this from the electronic and into the physical not only with personal experiments and readings and actions, but with other people, with our friends and those we meet. If only i wasn't so shy...
Baud puts on some music, which i think is from Morocco. I recognise it immediately as being sampled extensively on a techno tape I have (one of my favourite). Iz shows us the t-shirts and copies of Rubout (a magazine produced occasionally by Andrew Shachat, an American Interzone member and artist.)
We go to bed, in a room with a wall full of Baud's comics. I spend some time looking through them......
The next day, Sunday, the weather is beautiful, the sun is shining, the air warm. We take time over breakfast (though Iz has already been up for some time dedicated to the mail). Chat about sci-fi and the Old man. Iz asks if I had any dreams, I know that I did but can't remember them, but I know that one of them was about "war" I say. Before long we're gone again and head out for a walk through the countryside for a walk.
After a dark winter the green and beauty of the day is infectious and cheering, this is really my first day of spring. Across the river and around the outskirts of a village where they buy eggs, wander down a path with butterflies and bees. Ahhh. Stop and have a smoke in the gently warm quietude before we reach the next village and then circle back, after a looking at the old church there.
We spend the afternoon outside in the garden, have a beer and some Chinese tea we brought. Talk some more about travelling. As it starts to get a little colder we move inside. Tanya goes for a rest upstairs. Before we eat Baud tells us about his dream experiences. He has experimented with lucid dreaming, of being awake when asleep and therefore having control. I have little experience of this, Baud shows us a book he has on it.
"It's like" he says "you are in a dream, but you know about it. If you want to fly then you can fly. You can control your dreams."
"So you can decide what you see?" Iz asks
"Yes, you can do anything you want."
"I don't know if I'd like that. I like not knowing what my dreams are going to be." says Iz.
"I think it'd be good." I say
"Yes, but it's very difficult. You have to train for it. Even when you are awake you have to ask yourself 'Is this a dream?' so that you know to ask it when you are asleep. I haven't had any for a long time now."
"Yeah."
We go on the internet for a short time, I show them the fortean times site, and try to show them a couple of others but can't reach them. The internet can be quite a dull and uninteresting place on the whole, more of a personal experience than one that can be shared in the style of TV or radio. It's like browsing through a library, admittedly one that is full of crap. We decide to sack it and go to sit in comfort.
On goes the dream machine. In the front room, under the stairs is the classic dream machine, casting out it's strobe effect. Iz and baud have a go. They put on music and I get up to go for it. Both Tanya and I are very impressed and resolve to build one (currently searching for a 78 though I now definitely now how to make an electronic version (probably for under £10) I don't think it would be as impressive. I wonder it you changed the size and position of the holes if you could use a 45rpm deck?). It's effect is pleasant, though I'm a little self-conscious and drunk to stay at it too long. Iz and Baud flip and change the music through differing things, including the full version of last words of HIS and various other bits and pieces such as a record with three grooves to choose from (I forget what that was). How i wish I had brought more things to show them, to give them what they where giving us in demonstrations and ideas and images and music and sounds, but we have brought nothing. They are offering us so much, their generosity is overwhelming and very gratefully received.
Tanya tired heads off to bed. We are all tired, and Izzy resolves to go to. The weekend is nearly over and we have to be gone so early the next day (to get the 9:45 train). It seems like so much could have happened and didn't, and yet so much was actually accomplished. More on this later.
Before I go upstairs, though, Jean-Louis gets the port out. 150 years old, passed down the generations in Izzy's family, and gives me a glass. It is without doubt the oldest thing I have ever drunk, but more important is the symbol of what it meant, the bond of kindness and friendship that this gesture carried for me. I am resolved to come back from the first meeting, to come back and have more time and have more to give. It's been like a meeting between diplomats of two countries who have newly discovered each other, laying the groundwork for lasting allegiance.
The morning should be a rush, it should be a scramble to get everything together, my presents, the t-shirt and copies of rubout for the hungry masses back home, but it isn't. We take too long, we linger, trying to draw out the beginning of our physical friendship, not willing to commit to departure. o for just one more day. My anxieties have melted away in the face of reality and now all there is to go and return to normality in England. Without realising it until we are well on our way we are late. Baud drives furiously as we are running late and can't afford to miss the train. "When we were in Afghanistan the buses used to have races along the straight roads like this. They were terrifying, but everyone else on the bus would be shouting. "Allah protects us," they'd tell us.We get to the station with only a minute to go and Iz runs with us through to the platform We see a train pull in and head under to where we need to go, but the train isn't there. It looks like we're on the wrong platform. Iz asks someone quickly, we are on the right platform but the train hasn't arrived yet, the confusion is that there are two trains leaving at the same time. I look along the track and there it is, approaching. I look at Iz. "Allah protects us" I say as we laugh with relief. A last hug and we are on the long ride back to Leeds. Two changes, arriving home 9 hrs later.....