The Smiley Smile Message Board

Been saying that this book is SMiLE's raison d'etre, well at least vis a vis Brian's religious experiences, since the end of April.

You can access the book here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/35292595/Arthur-Koestler-The-Act-of-Creation

Doubters might find page 29 of interest, page 610 as well.

One thing is for certain. If SMiLE was indeed modeled on The Act Of Creation, then there must be a second layer of meaning at work in SMiLE.

My guess has long been that this second layer of meaning has to do with Brian's spiritual LSD experiences (which matches Brian's comments to Tom Nolan as far as the basis for his new 'spiritual music') & strangely enough the closest anyone is likely to get at the contents of those experiences is from passages in his condemned bio.

Anyway, maybe some of you may imagine yourselves in Brian's shoes in 1966-- competing with the Beatles & vying for the #1 worldwide spot at a time calling for a pop album to reflect the positive possibilities of LSD.

When Brian says "we got a little over our heads" this book helps show what he was up to.

Of course this is all conjecture & theory.

Also, speaking of the Beatles; Brian said he felt like he was in competition with The Beatles during that time. The Beatles were making songs like 'Tomorrow Never Knows' 'She Said She Said' 'Here There And Everywhere'  - it would only make sense he would seek out a spiritual avenue to help intellectualize his records.

It is interesting that possibly Brian was reading up on Zen, Astrology, etc only to beat the Beatles at their own game.

Could you possibly copy and paste page 29 onto a post here (unless it's too long)? My computer won't load the last 75% of the page for some reason.

Sorry, I can't copy & paste that page but I will tell you that it connects laughter to the smile. Page 610 has the da-da reference.

This has been posted before, but for the uninitiated:

http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/music/pop/12377/

Just one more thing....in order to make such a project work, you do not reveal the secret to the consumer. That would be like explaining the joke to the audience...it loses all it's magic that way.

Couldn't get it to copy; isn't there a place to download the entire document for free?

Assuming there IS a secret...


I read The Act of Creation in its entirety a couple of years ago and, quite frankly, I don't think it's strongly linked to Smile. Sure, an important part of the book deals with laughter and humour, and we all know Brian was particularly interested in those subjects at the time, but he could also have been interested in them before reading the book. Saying Smile is based on The Act of Creation is... A bit far-fetched.

SloopJohnB said:


It's as much a secret as the contents & whereabouts of Brian Wilson's ultimate spiritual LSD trip. Face it, that's a secret that has been kept secret for decades.

Off the top of my head....The Act Of Creation starts out with the logic of laughter which includes the requirement of energy, or adrenaline, as a requirement for successful laughter. This physical requirement of energy can be related to Brian's "health is an important ingredient in spiritual enlightenment" quote as well as the vegetable & fitness "obsessions."

Laughter is discussed to the point of going through the dynamics of the smile & the 15 muscles related to the smile. The Latin word for smile & laughter are the same word!

The simplest for of the logic of laughter is the pun, which we all know Van Dyke Parks employed for SMiLE.

The visual pun is also discussed & we know Frank Holmes used this technique for SMiLE.

People doing animals & visa versa is discussed.

The juxtaposition of child & adult is another topic.

The dream state is also a big part of the book & SMilE suggests a dream throughout.

Ego transcendence & the 'oceanic' feeling of oneness with the universe is possible through such processes (in other words: it's spiritual enlightenment). This is how the child views the world & "da-da" is an expression of this (spiritually enlightened) world view.

The example of riding a bicycle is used to illustrate that the unconscious is largely at work in our daily lives more than we know.

Chess pieces & the chess board help illustrate the logic of laughter (& these images are used in SMiLE).

These are a few examples of the book's contents that seem to have some SMiLE connection.

The point is that if Brian was trying to promote epiphanies via SMiLE (as Michael Vosse's claims suggest) the book suggests that such things could be done through laughter, scientific discovery, or art itself: through laughter or tears (see "Surf's Up") or intellect. 

Koestler coins the term "bisociation" in The Act Of Creation. Many of the techniques mentioned in my previous post are "bisociative." Bisociation is essentially a vibration. When things bisociate they vibrate.

So in the Beautiful Dreamer DVD when Brian says because of "Good Vibrations" he was going to take things further in the same direction: you can see where The Act Of Creation fits into the scheme of things.

You are a master at quoting strings of thought to take them in the direction you want the tale to go.

Quote from bgas:

You are correct. It's going to seem like that is the case.

What your quote illustrates, in Arthur Koestler talk, is that we're on two different matrices. What I'm suggesting is that SMiLE is supposed to have those two matrices.

Glad that's cleared up then.

Bing Crosby's reflection said:

Well actually my comment is meant to inspire curiosity & participation in the topic at hand. But I'll be clearer.

SMiLE is presented on more than one level of understanding.

We all pretty much know the obvious level because people have been telling us what it is all our lives....you know, it's the Americana thing with Brian's obsessions thrown in the stew as well.

The other level is that the album metaphorically documents Brian's spiritually enlightened religious drug experience(s). I cannot prove this beyond a doubt as such information has been kept secret....but by using carefully selected parts of Brian's bio likely scenarios seem to paint the picture.

So, for instance, Brian's bio notes regarding Brian's 1st LSD trip that, "there was a sacredness to it all--from the way we said hello...." which seems to correspond with the "Cabinessence" lyric "timely hello." The bio's dating of Brian's 2nd trip has him enduring an ego death in 1965. This corresponds to the H&V lyric "at 3 score & 5 I'm very much alive."

There are loads of similar examples I could bring up but I'd likely be scolded for being irrational for using a discredited source (Brian's bio).

But even if we simply treat these selected passages from the bio as possibility or a hypothetical exercise.....a second layer of meaning can be gathered from SMiLE.

This is exactly what Arthur Koestler's The Act Of Creation suggests be present in works of art to enable the desired result which Koestler calls an 'oceanic' experience but Brian Wilson calls 'spiritual enlightenment.'

So when Brian tells Michael Vosse that when people laugh at something they are more open to what's making them laugh then at any other time, we can apply this idea to this second level of meaning in SMiLE. If the hidden layer of meaning has to do with spiritual enlightenment then perhaps the discovery of such a level of experience could inspire a similar level of experience in the consumer of the art.

I would really like to get hold of some of the weed that Bill has clearly been smoking a lot of... :smokin

I asked my friend Pete (who actually lived through the sixties) if anyone would conspire to make an album that possibly could inspire a spiritual experience comparable to the LSD experience. Pete responded right off, "Oh yeah, Grace Slick wanted to turn everybody on" (or something to that effect).

Paulos has a good point through his drug reference. In the sixties this sort of thing (the positive effects of drugs) was considered "cutting edge" as far as the ultimate potential of  human possibilities.

But who would guess that Brian Wilson was on the forefront of such ideas? Apparently not many Beach Boys fans.

A few posts back:

Actually my post should be more complete than it is. If one looks across the full spectrum of Koestler's contentions then secrecy is important for Humor as well as for Science or Discovery (which produces the "eureka" event) and Art (which produces the self-transcendent event). In all cases the value is in the individual consumer's picking up on the hidden meaning or truth for themselves.

One thing that's completely mind-blowing is that the hidden layer of meaning in SMiLE is so hidden that most listeners aren't likely to find it.

Arthur Koestler addresses this by pointing out that the greater the distance between the obvious & the hidden meaning: the greater the act of creation involved in accessing the meaning.

So when Brian Wilson's comments from the sixties indicate that he wanted to promote spiritual enlightenment: such a project vis a vis The Act Of Creation would likely employ an incredible distance between the obvious & the hidden, the farther out the idea the farther out the connection. Use of Koestler's principles to promote such a thing would likely suggest that Brian attempted the near impossible (the idea that a record album could promote spiritual enlightenment....you might pray to such an album).

To take this even further....the idea that the idea of God or a similar realization is an act of creation has a tie with Brian's Landy era comments about his solo album & "Rio Grande." Brian says something to the effect that "we cannot concieve of God so we put him up in the sky" (or something to that effect). This would suggest a creation: which I would suggest expresses truth on a number of levels. Some of the "out of the wild & what into you can conceive you'll achieve" from BWPS seem to be on this level.

Wow, it's as if SMiLE really was on the level Brian was outlining in 1966.

Ok, so I'm a bit slow. with this last message, I finally figured out what you're doing. 

While you'd be happy if people here believe what you're saying, that's not your main thrust; you're trying to convince yourself that everything you've been saying is true!  And it looks like you might be winning your arguments with yourself. 
Not with anyone else, yet,  but at least You are coming around

bgas said:

That's not true. What I'm doing is showing that everything Brian Wilson said in the mid sixties as well as all of the strange surrounding events surrounding SMiLE make total sense. What I'm doing is exposing that SMiLE was everything it was originally supposed to be, if not more.

What we've been brought up on regarding this project has always been based upon folks observing this thing from the outside. Ever see The Act Of Creation connected to SMiLE? I haven't either. Guess it's been a secret. The logic behind the creative process explained in The Act Of Creation only works if it's a secret.

In the Beautiful Dreamer film Van Dyke Parks says that Brian wanted to present something without explanation. It all works out.

SMiLE was meant to promote spiritual enlightenment by use of the mystery. "It really is a mystery" indeed.

Hey Bill,

i do think you're on to something with your theories, however we might also consider that perhaps these things were not specifically planned out by Brian, but rather cosmic coincidences.  Or perhaps Brian was connected to some of these things naturally ... He is a very intuitive person and was obviously quite sensitive and aware during the SMILE period.

Unconscious thought plays a big part in Koestler's way of thinking as it is truly creative.

Our conscious way of thinking works on a single plane or code of thought. But unconscious thinking breaks these rules and therefore presents opportunities for creative associations.

This free associative unconscious process can be found in the lyrics of SMiLE. "Bicycle rider see see what you've done done to the church of the American Indian" is a fine lyric to illustrate the point.

"Bicycle rider" forms a thought pattern in our minds. "See see" breaks that mold by suggesting C. C. Rider. And ending with the Church of the American Indian parts with the established though/directions even more.

By employing such techniques SMiLE suggests the unconscious mind.

Koestler explains that presenting opposites together suggests the same. So the phrase "heroes and villains" would likely work in the same manner, as would "boys and girls" (which one finds hidden in the H&V backing vocals).

Repetition also suggests this "primitive" mid-set. So when "heroes and villains" is repeated over & over it would appear that the goal is to achieve something on the level of the unconscious.

Frank Holmes' comment regarding the SMiLE Shop picture being "not accessible in conscious reality" also suggests that the unconscious is where we need to go to understand SMiLE.

As Van Dyke Parks would say, "don't awaken me."

Excuse me, why you call them The Peedles?

That one I CAN answer - this board's text filter currently knobbles any attempt to write the full name of the famous pop quartet from Liverpool who had their first number one with Please Please Me in 1963 and split up in 1970 after releasing Let It Be. That's why I've not written their name here, because it will just be altered to the Hamburg slang name for them again, whether I like it or not!

Similarly, the name of their founder (whose surname rhymes with 'Glennon') is always replaced here automatically with his alter-ego from the Eric Idle film The Rutles (Ron Nasty), and the name of his bass-playing chief songwriting associate (whose name resembles the US senator that persecuted communists in the 1950s) is always mangled to Rutles sidekick Dirk McQuickly.

My sides just can't take the humour. Nurse, make with the side-reseaming equipment already...

MattB

Indeed. Juvenile doesn't even cover it.

Juvenile is a word to describe this board's tactic of censoring all form of "naughty words" which only incites members to find ways around the filter. Yes, I will admit to being the guy who did the Beatles/Peedles/Rutles thing - it was meant simply as humor. Juvenile humor, yes. As of now you're the only two people to take any kind of offense to it. They've been removed.

More likely, lots of people didn't like it, but couldn't do anything about it and just didn't bother with it. Or typed around it.

The filters? Or the people taking offense? ;D

I didn't take offense to it, but I found it annoying after a while...it did made me laugh the first few times I saw it though :-D

I hate the Beatles to begin with...if it had been up to me I'd have changed the word filter to either New Kids on the Block or Destiny's Child. :lol

The filters. If I removed everyone who ever took offense to something on here I'd dare say the board would be devoid of a membership!

Not all the filters were removed, and that's a good thing, I thought some of them were funny.

Try typing "E­dit:" (don't forget the colon) and see what happens  ;D

The filters were funny and made reading about the beatles really interesting. :)

Guys, you're getting way off topic here! This thread is supposed to be for Bill Tobleman to send endless posts to himself about how Smile was all about "The Act of Creation". Please leave the entertaining posts to the other threads where they belong.

Edit:

:lol

Ok, thanks for the clarification :)

A few quotes from The Act Of Creation (pages 168 & 169):

"....pictorial thinking is a more primitive form of mentation than conceptual thinking, which it precedes in the mental evolution of the individual and the species."

"Thus the poet who reverts to the pictorial mode of thought is regressing to an older and lower level of mental hierarchy--as we do every night when we dream...."

"Similar considerations apply...to rhythm, metre, alliteration, assonance, rhyme. The rhythmic beat, ecoing the shamen's tom-tom, awakens archaic resonances and 'lulls the mind into a waking trance' (Yeats). The rhyme appeals to the tendency to vocal repetition in the language of primitives and children (kala-kala, ma-ma), and to the equally deep-rooted tendency to associate by sound--punning."

"Those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that science knows that almost every step therein has been made by...the invention of a hypothesis which, though verifiable, often had little foundation to start with...."

T.H. Huxley quoted in The Act Of Creation

"Originally the ego includes everything, later it detaches from itself the external world. The ego-feeling we are aware of now is thus only a shrunken vestige of a far more extensive feeling--a feeling which embraced the universe and expressed an inseparable connection of the ego with the external world. If we may suppose that this primary ego-feeling has been preserved in the minds of many people, to a greater or lesser extent, it would co-exist like a sort of counterpart with the narrower and more sharply outlined ego-feeling of maturity, and the ideational content belonging to it would precisely the notion of limitless extension and oneness with the universe."

Sigmund Freud quoted in The Act Of Creation

I guess the main question is did Brian and VDP set out consciously to have spiritual enlightenment as a central theme or can it simply be interpreted that way?

When Brian worked with Tony he said that they would spend a lot of time talking and exploring a theme before they worked on a song. Often talking for hours. It makes sense Brian would have continued this with VDP.

We know Brian was into a lot of New Age stuff and psychedelics, as was popular among the more "hip" circles and during a time when people like Alan Watts were talking extensively on Eastern philosophy. It was part of the atmosphere at the time and these ideas and concepts were mirrored in lots of popular and underground music.

Brian mentioned in 1976 that he had heard drugs were the new messiah back in the 60s, and he agreed to a certain extent (if it wasn't for his own personal troubles with them). So you can surmise that Brian was very much caught up in all of this, and the idea that drug use can induce religious experiences, and the spiritual and so on. I would guess that having actually experienced a spiritual trip himself, certainly would have been all he needed to confirm his beliefs. We know he's taken LSD a few times, and if any of you have ever tried it you'll be aware of the great positive effects it can have on someone in the long-term, on your perspective, attitude and feelings.

As an artist, Brian's interests are going to inform his work, and like we saw with Pet Sounds, he was looking inward and attempting to explore subjects that resonated with him emotionally. On his path to form his personal philosophies and grow as an artist and a person there is no doubt these things made its way into his music.

I can disagree with Bill's interpretations of lyrics and interview segments, but that doesn't detract from the main argument.

And so, the idea that Brian and VDP consciously set out to capture/induce/inform spiritual enlightenment really doesn't seem far-fetched to me at all.

That's a great post!

Hey Bill,

I tried to find your site the other day and had no such luck. I tried finding it again today and the link to the site (from wikipedia) doesn't work.

Just curious if you have a new web address or something?

http://www.smileriddle.com/

The Out Of Sight! SMiLE Site page is back. The older stuff (with all its warts) is to follow. Someday an Act Of Creation page may follow that would basically compile all that has been presented here already in some sort of vaguely cohesive form.

Thanks to 18thofMay for the link.

Indeed! Looking forward to the updates Bill!

Bill have you read anything from Alfred Korzybski?

Your site is cool I remember first seeing it - really opened my mind to where Brian was at then. I don't get hung up in the details but it's more or less gospel truth to me that Smile was a lysergic musical koan & trip.

 [for anyone familiar with Korzybski, what I am of course saying is that "I" as this nervous system am making a set of interesting abstractions representing various perceptual perspectives on the Smile music that appeal to ghost2011].

The edits in the music and song writing Brian employed on Smile interests me more than the other stuff though. Think of Barnyard - it wasn't supposed to be a square dance, it was supposed to be a speedy lsd cartoon consciousness song. LET'S HEAR THE ANIMALS!

Pet Sounds. Barnyard. What a transition!

Never read Korzybski but he seems like an original thinker much like Koestler.

Here's yet another from The Act Of Creation:

""Without the hard little bits of marble which are called "facts" one cannot compose a mosaic; what matters, however, are not so much the individual bits, but the successive patterns into which you arrange them, then break them up and rearrange them. "We shall find"' wrote Butterfield on the opening page of his history of the Scientific Revolution, 'that in both celestial and terrestrial physics--which hold the strategic place in the whole movement--change is brought about, not by new observations or additional evidence in the first instance, but by transpositions that were taking place inside the scientists themselves....Of all forms of mental activity, the most difficult to induce even in the minds if the young, who may be presumed not to have lost their flexibility, is the art of handling the same bundle of data as before, but placing them in a new system of relations with one another by giving them a different framework, of all which virtually means putting on a different kind of thinking-cap for the moment. It is easy to teach anybody a new fact about Richelieu, but it needs light from heaven to enable a teacher to break the old framework in which the student has been accustomed to seeing his Richelieu.'"

Sorry about this one intolerant folks but since I said that The Act Of Creation & the Zen thing were parallel paths last week here's some support for the claim.

"Zen philosophy, in the form in which it is taught by its contemporary propounders (foremost among them Prof. D.T.Suzuki and his Western disciples), is a welter of confusions, derived from the failure to discriminate between automated skills and creative originality--between the 'downward' and the 'upward' traffic to and from the unconscious. The former results in getting the 'knack' of a skill; the latter in the sudden flash of a new insight (the 'It'). The practitioner of the various applied Zen arts was trained to act 'spontaneously, unthinkingly'--and this led to the added confusion between the pseudo-spontaneity displayed by the responses of a well-oiled auotoman, and the genuine spontaneity of original inspiration."

Koestler's above endnote basically relates Zen's Enlightenment to The Act Of Creation's creative act. This gives a degree of credence to Brian's discredited bio's idea that "hallucinations were comparable to Zen riddles" as they both, according to Koestler, yield similar results.