We were all in bliss over this brief but pleasant brush with celebrity, and I’m happy to say that F.F. continues to this day to be a dear friend to the DuQuette family. Sadly, his friendship with S.A. would not so long endure.
I feel the need to pause and remind the reader that artists of great genius often possess highly mercurial temperaments. They can be high-strung, unpredictable, and moody. Also, at times the creative energy bubbling inside them cannot be contained within the narrow confines of their artistic medium. Occasionally it just bursts out upon the world—sometimes visiting chaotic and devastating effects upon unsuspecting people around them.
A couple of days after dropping F.F. off at the ferry, S.A. received in the mail an elegantly adorned letter from F.F. He excitedly opened it, expecting to find a thank you note or some other such pleasantry F.F. is known for. Instead, he was stunned to find an eloquently composed poem (penned in fine calligraphy) casting a hideous curse upon him. The reason?
It seems that when F.F. arrived at the hotel in Catalina and unpacked his bags, he discovered that a medicine bottle that should have contained doctor-prescribed tablets important to his health and peace of mind had been emptied of its contents and refilled with ordinary aspirin. Understandably upset, yet completely ignoring the possibility of any other explanation, F.F. became convinced that our dear S.A. was the culprit, and that such larceny must be answered with a magical curse.
Naturally, we were all very shocked and confused by the news. As his host, I felt particularly responsible for anything that might have taken place in my home under my watch. I immediately sent F.F. a check to cover what I estimated would cover the cost of refilling his prescription, along with a note affirming my conviction that S.A. would be the last person on earth who would tamper with his luggage or have any interest in that particular medication, and that I was sure there must be some other explanation. F.F. accepted the check and graciously assured me that he did not in any way blame me. However, he held firm in his belief that S.A. was the culprit and that was that.
S.A., of course, was heartbroken. Later, his sadness turned to anger at being accused of such a thing, especially by someone he idolized and only wished would think well of him. In the days that followed, he fell into a dark depression. Even though he’d done nothing wrong, his resentment and frustration had the effect of the curse actually working on him. He performed the standard banishing rituals and took the usual steps recommended for psychic self-defense, but nothing lifted his spirits. I eventually suggested we try something altogether different to neutralize the curse and help our brother snap out of it.
It was my firm belief that this whole matter could be blamed upon a “demon”—not a demon from the Goetia or the Book of Abramelin—but a spirit of misunderstanding. F.F. was simply not seeing clearly—as if his eyes (in a metaphorical sense) had been bewitched. The magical solution became obvious when I took another look at the stationery upon which the curse had been written.
But before I go into that, and so the details of our little curse-breaking ceremony might make more sense to you, I need to share a little more information about the extraordinary life and magical world of F.F., whose connection to the film industry goes back to the early days of sound pictures. In fact, as a young man he appeared in the cast of Max Reinhardt’s 1935 masterpiece, A Midsummer Night’s Dream,58 the first sound movie of a Shakespeare play ever produced. His participation in this classic production ignited his brilliant imagination and engendered in his young heart a passionate love and fascination for both the art of cinema and themes of magick. The world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream became an abiding magical reality for him, and he would throughout his life personally identify with its magick. Even the curse he cast upon poor S.A. was written on personalized stationery that was festooned with beautiful and whimsical images of the fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The largest image on the parchment sheet was that of Puck, the mischievous aide to Oberon, the king of fairies.
I saw certain haunting parallels between the plot of the play and the events surrounding the misunderstanding that led to the curse. In the play, Oberon wishes to play a trick on Titania, his fairy queen. While she sleeps, he squeezes the juice of a certain plant in her eyes, bewitching her to fall in love with the first creature she gazes on when she awakens. When she does wake up, she casts her eyes upon Bottom, one of the clowns of the play whose head (because of other magical shenanigans) has been magically replaced by that of a donkey. She immediately falls helplessly in love with this monster, which leads to all manner of fun. Confusing matters even further, Puck applies the magick flower juice to the eyes of other characters in the play while they sleep, and they too awake to mistakenly see things incorrectly. Things become hilariously chaotic as misunderstanding piles upon misunderstanding until finally Oberon and Puck apply an antidote (the juice of another kind of plant) to the eyes of the bewitched characters, and everything is set right in the end.
Everyone in our family’s circle of friends during those years was very familiar with this delightful play. Each summer for many years running, the DuQuettes hosted a backyard A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream party. We would meet early in the evening, divvy up roles, hand
