Meet the 'Real' Crispin Glover

Crispin Glover's father is an actor. His mother is a dancer. Crispin's first acting job was as one of the Von Trapp children in The Sound of Music. This was at the Music Center, in Los Angeles, and Florence Henderson played Maria. At the time, Crispin was attending the Mirman School for Gifted Children in Los Angeles. "I loved going there. My best years of education were grades on through nine. I'm still friends with my writing teacher, Mr. Biegel. I remember one of the assignments he gave us. We had to write a story entitled 'Chocolate Covered Mornings, Medieval Afternoons and Nickel Plated Evenings.' I think the things that you like when you're eight or nine years old are the things you continue to like throughout your life. When I was eight, my father gave me two art books-one on Salvador Dali and another on Hieronymus Bosch. They're still my favorite painters."

Crispin went to public high schools for two years, and then he started acting regularly. All the while he continued to write short stories, and then one day, he discovered a recondite art form that so seized his imagination that he's been practicing it ever since. "I was browsing through a gallery/bookstore on La Brea, and I picked up a 100-year-old book. When I opened it, I discovered that someone had glued pictures into it." Crispin took this one step further. He not only added pictures, he added and deleted text. Then he put his name on the cover. "You could call me a plagiarist in a way but if you took all my books and read them, they'd seem more like each other than any of them would seem like the originals."

Crispin doctored his first book seven years ago. He's done 20 since. "Let me read you one," he says. He goes to the bookshelf and pulls down a book called Rat Catching. The book was originally published in London, in 1896. Crispin's version, a beautifully bound edition published by his own company, Volcanic Eruptions, was put out in 1988. The title page had not been tampered with. Indeed, Crispin selects his originals because of their odd titles. The rest of the book, however, was filled with inked out words, inked in words, spooky squiggles, drawings of rats, pictures of rats and pictures of diseased people who, supposedly, had been bitten by rats. Crispin begins to read. "Chapter One. In the following elementary treatise for the use of public schools, I propose following elementary treatise for the use of public schools, I propose following exactly the same plan as my parson (a good fellow not afraid of a ferret or a ferret or a rat) does with his sermons-that is divide it into different heads, and then jumble up all the heads with the body, till it becomes as difficult to follow as a rat's hole in a soft bank..."

Crispin reads to me the way a parent might read to a child-with lots of expression, varying his voice when a new character appears, pausing to show me the pictures. I pay attention and try to follow the story, but alas, its internal logic eludes me. All I can say, when Crispin finishes, is, "Your technique seems influenced by collage." This is not the response he was hoping for. He gets a tad testy and defends his writing style. "I think structure is very important. A good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. It has a protagonist and an antagonist." It's become apparent the Crispin thinks Rat Catching meets these criteria. I decide we must be living in parallel worlds.

If you, the reader, would like to see whose world you're living in, you can order a copy of Rat Catching, by calling 213-464-5053.

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