Description

McCaffery asks how Disch got involved with “Amnesia” (later called a video game or text adventure). Disch says “It is an art form in itself." He mentions Douglas Adams’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy." McCaffery asks if artists will be moving into using computers, and Disch says there is not enough software yet but speaks about what has “become possible through computer graphics.” McCaffery talks about “New Wave” science fiction, and Disch discusses the culture that engendered pessimism and how new technologies have brought new possibilities, such as computers that are “person to person” rather than “system to system,” adding, “We haven’t seen the downside of the computer technology yet.” They discuss modern writers. Next, McCaffery asks, “Does the phrase “postmodernism” mean anything to you?” and Disch answers “No, it’s simply what’s happening now." They discuss science fiction and editing the interviews for McCaffery’s book, Across the Wounded Galaxies. On the next tape, McCaffery talks about imagination and such legends as that of Faust. Disch mentions the book on which he is working at the time, The M.D.: A Horror Story, on the Faust theme. They discuss Disch’s book Camp Concentration, and Disch considers mental “breakdowns” that were once used to describe why people left “intolerable situations.” McCaffery asks about psychology, Freud, and psychotherapy. Disch discusses the social function of psychotherapy in an industrial society. They consider identity and mention Disch’s short story “Understanding Human Behavior.” They continue into a discussion of various authors, with McCaffery asking about Disch’s “affinity” for Thomas Mann. They talk about Disch’s On Wings of Song. On the second side of tape 3, Disch says he uses “gay characters” when appropriate and mentions his projected novel The Pressure of Time. They discuss the social opprobrium of being gay. Disch says his partner Charles Naylor is his “best reader,” and a writer.