Der Sohn von Albert Camus möchte nicht, daß sein Vater ins Pantheon kommt. Er fürchtet die politische Vereinnahmung. Die Camus scheuen das sarkozyanische Pantheon wie die Pest. Was für eine Naivität. Man pantheonisiert immer aus schlechten Gründen: die Pantheonisation ist immer Mißbrauch des Genies für die (zeitweiligen) Bedürfnisse der Republik. pardon: des Präsidenten der Republik.  …

Nie wird man den Marquis de Sade dort erblicken, nie Céline. Man wird weder Rimbaud noch Lautréamont einlassen, und es ist gut, daß Péguy nicht drin ist. Jean Genet kommt nicht hinein. Und wenn Proust hineinkommt, dann aus unguten Gründen. Vielleicht kommt Sartre hinein, denn er tut keinem mehr weh, aber immerhin hat er vielen wehgetan. Doch hat man viel zuviel Angst, daß sich sein Leichnam weigern wird. / Yann Moix, La règle du jeu 21.11.

If there is something that I might find
Look around corners
Try to find peace of mind I say
Where would you go if you were me
Try to keep a straight course not easy
Somebody special looking at me
A certain reaction we find
What should it try to be I mean
If there are many
Meaning the same
Be specific just a game

I would do anything for you
I would climb mountains
I would swim all the oceans blue
I would walk a thousand miles
Reveal my secrets
More than enough for me to share
I would put roses round our door
Sit in the garden
Growing potatoes by the score

Shake your hair girl with your ponytail
Takes me right back (when you were young)
Throw your precious gifts into the air
Watch them fall down (when you were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
You used to walk upon (when you were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
The hills were higher (when we were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
The trees were taller (when you were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
The grass was greener (when you were young)
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
You used to walk upon (when you were young)

…até que enfim assisti flashbacks of a fool.. assisti na hora certa.
nunca um filme falou tão direto comigo .

. nem sempre o que a gente busca esta fora , é só olhar pra dentro e conseguir ver .

minha juventude esta se esvaindo.

thanks roxy music thanks david bowie

An exhibition at Bucharest’s Center for contemporary art & culture Pavilion Unicredit until November 22 asks the crucial questions that can help us understand the reasons why it is so often that regimes and governments turn against their own citizens. Through paintings, photographs and installations by Romanian and international artists, curator Răzvan Ion assisted by Silvia Vasilescu make the key equation: Repression manages poverty. Poverty depresses wages. Low wages increase the rate of exploitation and create profit. Which is the main purpose of the state.
more…

oradaydım.. midemi bulandırmıştınız!

yalnızca tanrılara izafe edilebilecek hastalıkta bir kibir içinde, kendi algı dünyasının yeknesak açılamalarıyla moment alarak, hemcinsinlerini kendi fikrince gütme gayreti gösteren, hep kendi gölgesine sücut halinde bulduğumuz; insanı tanımayan, kendini bilmezliğinden yüz bulan bir aymazlıkla, insanı salt bir insan olarak göremeyen, anlayamayan, içindeki binlerce yıllık kunt kalıntılardan dirilen o kırık tanrıyla meselesini, o kırık atalarla yüzleşme işini, binlerce kuşak boyunca gelmeye devam edecek olan nesebine bırakmaya fena halde meyyal; kendi yakasında yorulmamış elleriyle, kendi göğsünde denenmemiş yumruklarıyla, kuvvetle, hırsla, iştiyakla, başkalarının yakasını toplayan, başkalarının göğsünü yumruklayan; 50-60 yıllık sikindirik hayatının evreni kuşatmak iddiasındaki projeksiyonuyla o adam bu adam diyerek yapıştırdığı yaftalarının keyfini, anlatarak, yazarak, sızlanarak, inleyerek, bıkmadan, usanmadan, utanmadan, ürpertici bir istikrar üzere sürebilen; otoriteyle kuvvet bulmuş, hız almış doxalarını, şifaya muhtaç gördüklerinin kulaklarına, beyinlerine, yetinmeyip kemiklerine, kaburgalarına, omurgalarına, bağırarak, olmazsa zerk ederek, yemezse dağlayarak, tutmazsa yok ederek, işlemeye çalışmaktan geri durmayan; kendi nam-ı hesabına, kendi ihtiyaçları kadar, ayalinin emniyetini tesise yetecek kadar ve elbette daima pozisyon icabı insan olabilen insanların dünyasında, diğerleri yalnızca demirbaş, yalnızca dekor. gereklisi var gereksizi var. ulan ama, allah var?

sikeyim cetvellerinizi, terazilerinizi ve nihayet bütün sartre’larınızı…

Je sais, on va me dire que je fais du paradoxe facile mais je crois bien que la vérité en Histoire a d’autres figures que les étiquettes où on range les évènements.
C’était quoi Vichy, sinon le règne du Père de la Horde, une perversion intégrale des rites du serment et de l’idée de Service, l’assomption des voyous de la Milice, avec un flux permanent de jouissances inentravées.

D’abord Pétain, le vieillard libidineux qui montait dans les ascenseurs avec ses petites secrétaires pour qu’elles lui astiquent le manche avec ardeur, le vainqueur de Verdun qui envoyait les poilus à la mort en devisant sur un coin de table avec sa maîtresse du moment, genre « en ce moment je pense à tes cuisses chaudes et à ta bouche fardée qui aspire mon gland, l’offensive va commencer, j’aimerai bien perforer ton anse mais le devoir m’appelle ». Cet homme qui exigeait le serment des fonctionnaires, ce vieux rite féodo-vassalique qui comprend l’hommage, le baiser et la remise du fief. Le Maréchal avait bien sûr réduit le serment à l’hommage, donc à une sorte de vœu monastique ordonné à une seule règle, suivre en tout point le caprice de Philippe Pétain, nous Maréchal de France.

Idem pour l’idéologie du service ordonnée au Bien commun, à la fonction protectrice de l’Etat et que Vichy raccorde au culte des chefs, ce qui en détruit totalement l’efficace puisqu’il n’y a plus de service qu’ordonné à la volonté et à la jouissance de tous les chefs définis par Vichy, en premier lieu les fonctionnaires d’autorité et les chefs d’entreprise, un néo-libéralisme en acte donc badigeonné du mot de corporatisme.
Le naufrage de l’Eglise de France commence là, quand elle obtient pour son soutien à l’entreprise la plus crapuleuse, la plus libidinale qu’ait connu ce pays, le sauvetage financier de son réseau scolaire. Une affiche résume Vichy, on y voit un Père, une Mère, un Enfant, on y lit dans un premier temps l’exaltation de la famille. Quand on fouille on découvre que le père est homosexuel, la mère, une lesbienne déclarée, l’enfant, un pauvre hère qu’on a sorti de l’orphelinat. Vichy dit ce qu’il est du mauvais théâtre de Boulevard, un décor en trompe l’œil ce que Truffaut appellera le cinéma qualité France.

Quant à la Milice, c’est encore le Jean Genet de Pompes funèbres qui en parle le mieux. Un collecteur de vieilles tantes vengeresses, de jeunes hommes apeurés qui attendent qu’un beau viking les encule en utilisant le ceinturon et le costard Waffen-SS rutilant, un masochisme permanent qui éclate en de brusques embardées sadiques et dans une cupidité sans frein.
En face, les résistants, les antifascistes. Des types pas drôles qui croient à la morale, qui vont à la mort presque sereinement ne sachant pas d’où viendront les balles et les tortures qui les achèveront, des catholiques qui glissent au communisme parce qu’ils y voient la seule Eglise encore debout, une alliance étrange entre ceux qui pissaient sur le drapeau et la Gueuse avant guerre et ceux qui vivaient drapés dans une rigueur tempérée d’un humour un peu vache, les voici les troupes de l’antifascisme, une virilité qui oscillait entre Humphrey Bogart et Albert Camus.
La simple vérité consiste à dire que ce sont ces hommes qui furent écartés dans l’après-guerre au profit des vieux chevaux de retour du vichysme réel, néo-libéraux devenus pro-américains, anciens collabos érigés en éminences grises (Jean Jardin, Georges Albertini), cadres du régime vichyssois transformés en rhéteurs et en écrivains (Pinay, Mitterrand, Boutemy, Jacques Laurent etc.). Sartre se chargea de fournir les tranquillisants à la clique progressiste qui avait commencé à résister le 9 mai 1945 avant qu’elle ne découvre les joies de la sociologie, du structuralisme et de l’administration des choses et des hommes.

68 arriva, les jeunes gens en rupture de bourgeoisie, se dirent les nouveaux partisans, ils avaient des drapeaux rouges, ils s’imaginaient une nouvelle Commune insurgée, ils causaient marxistes, il n’ y avait pas de sang dans les rues, pas de camps d’internement, pas de réel extrémisme existentiel, on brandissait les pancartes, Jouir sans entraves, il est interdit d’interdire, nous sommes tous des juifs allemands. A la réserve près sur le dernier slogan, Paul Morand qui savait de quoi il parlait avait reconnu les fils de Vichy, il en aurait pleuré.
Jouir sans entraves était une injonction, elle allait définir le cercle des maîtres, on voit qu’elle ne sortait pas des frontières de la bourgeoisie. On ne s’interdisait aucun objet, on déroulait un espace anomal et illimité où changer à tout moment les règles du jeu.
Il est interdit d’interdire. Cela voulait dire, toute autorité est abolie, seule la force prime, puisque seule une force arrête une force.
Nous sommes tous des juifs allemands. On sait que Marchais avait stigmatisé l’anarchiste allemand aussi comment le signifiant juif s’est-il donc glissé là, quand, dans un même temps, un colloque des sciences politiques organisé par le bon René Rémond, sorte d’archevêque caricatural du XIIIème siècle projeté dans le XXème, évoquait le régime de Vichy sans un mot sur la législation antisémite du régime et sa collusion avec la solution finale du problème juif telle qu’énoncée par la conférence de Wannsee.
Il me semble que la chose pourrait se traduire ainsi. Nous tous, totalité universelle indéfinie (en fait je soupçonne qu’ils parlaient de la jeunesse étudiante insurgée), n’avons rien à voir avec Vichy, nous sommes les victimes de l’ordre moral antifasciste qui opprime notre jouissance, please libérez nous, la chienlit c’est lui, de Gaulle.

Nombre d’acteurs de la Résistance et d’intellectuels contemporains des évènements n’ont pas vu ou pas voulu voir cet aspect de 68, ils ont cru à une insurrection morale (Maurice Clavel, Maurice Blanchot) ou ils se sont arrangés avec cette idée (Gilles Deleuze), ou ils n’ont découvert que fort tard et dans l’après-coup ce qu’était une véritable insurrection morale (Michel Foucault), ils ont brouillé par cette distorsion le chemin qui relie en droite ligne Vichy et Sarkozy, non le transcendental pétainisme de Badiou mais la perversion systématique des injonctions éthiques, le double langage de VRP libidinal, le règne réel des marlous de tout acabit, agencement mâtiné de cette idéologie victimaire née de 68 et qui a les juifs pour obsession et fonds de commerce.

Eduardo Ruiz é um homão. Alto, largo, ombrão, bração, e um coração também enorme. Durante muitos anos ele capitaneou um dos mais famosos e lotados bares de São Paulo,  e do alto de seu metro e muito ele sempre impunha ordem e garantia uma ótima noite para todos nós. O que nem todos sabiam é que ele também era e é um grande dramaturgo, capaz de, com 5 minutos de prosa no bar, escanear tua pessoa e te compreender melhor que você e teu analista juntos. Ruiz foi uma figura legendária da noite paulistana, e faria muita falta se não tivesse finalmente migrado para outro cenário, este realmente à sua altura, o teatro, onde suas criações ganham vida, e seus personagens surgem no palco em situações às vezes assustadoras, às vezes lindas.

Foto de Lenise Pinheiro

No universo do Ruiz dramaturgo, as famílias mais normais são puro Tennesse Williams, daquelas que você demora para entender o que ha de errado, e então vê o mundo desabar, e aí vai querer beber junto com os personagens, ou até mais do que eles.  Novela das oito não chega nem perto. Se ele trouxer para o palco os malditos, ladrões, putas e afins, Jean Genet virará no túmulo de alegria. Edu mostra o lado carinhoso da mãe psicótica, a lógica das irmãs que se odeiam, e cobre de porrada o mais fraco sem pudor algum.

Em “Chorávamos Terra Ontem a Noite”, que ele escreveu e na qual também atua, ele vive um homem rude, brutal, que relembra o Kowalski de Marlon Brando, na montagem de “Um Bonde Chamado Desejo” em 1947. Dá até medo, mas se Gustavo Sol, de olhos lindos e que contracena maravilhosamente com ele, apanha, resiste e não foge, fique você quietinho em seu lugar. É tudo teatro, teatro em estado puro, dramaturgia de um requinte e sofisticação que poucos atores e diretores jamais serão capazes de atingir. Leitores queridos, não percam. Está no TUSP, Rua Maria Antonia 294, sábados às 21 horas, e domingos às 20h.

BARES PARA O SEU FINAL DE SEMANA

Meus Caros, tenho andado feliz ao notar um fenômeno em São Paulo, a bem da verdade nem tão recente assim, mas que vale a pena dividir com nosso amigos héteros, e mesmo com as bibas menos informadas: a volta dos bons bares noturnos. Chamo de “bons bares” aqueles lugares onde você não vai para comer e matar a fome, pois já jantou ou nem pensa nisso, e também não vai para dançar até o dia raiar. Para a comunidade gay estava em falta este lugar onde você se aquece antes da balada, toma seu drink, vê gente bonita, joga conversa fora, e pode até achar uma cara-metade e nem vai para a balada depois. Pois então Deus, ou sua equipe, isso não vem ao caso, finalmente ouviu nossas preces e nos abriu a Baixa Augusta, exatamente o que todos achávamos ser a boca do inferno. Estamos falando do quadrilátero entre a Frei Caneca (inteira), Consolação, Paulista e Caio Prado. Grande? Nem tanto.

Bar Sonique

Pois nessa região você vai encontrar bares de primeira, com música e bebida incontestáveis e, fundamental, gente bonita, gente gay e gente hétero misturados. Bons bares são procurados e cultuados por todo mundo, não importa a orientação sexual. Estou falando de lugares que, graças a Deus (olha ele aí de novo) não botam a bandeira do arco-íris na porta, não são bares gays, lá o que importa é o ambiente bacana e divertido. Com tantos atributos, e sem preconceitos por parte dos próprios bares, lógico que não é só o povo do sindicato, mas sim todo mundo que frequenta. E na Baixa Augusta, outrora boca do inferno e agora moderníssima e  descolada, os gays são mais bem recebidos, isto é uma verdade incontestável. Portanto, lá  você encontra um público gay e hétero realmente misturado. O que isso significa na prática? Que se você for um homem hétero interessante você pode ser cantado por um gay, e, se for, basta dizer não, obrigado, que está tudo resolvido, não dê coió que é o ó. Não tenha medo das bibas. Você também pode ver dois homens se beijando. Na boca. Se isso te escandalizar, saia do bar, pois você é que está no lugar errado.

Dicas de lugares? Pois aí vai: Sonique (Bela Cintra, 461); Volt (Haddock Lobo, 40); Vegas – que se torna uma boa balada depois de certa hora (Rua Augusta, 765); Z Carniceria (Rua Augusta, 934);  Studio SP – uma bela casa de show, com música de vanguarda e público totalmente mix (Rua Augusta, 591). Se joguem e bom divertimento

1ª PARTE

1.

Recuerdo con el mejor agrado

“La Tarde de un escritor”, de Peter Handke.

Una soberbia obra maestra, deliciosa, breve e intensa, como deben ser las obras maestras menores.

No así

(y no juzgo su calidad) el libro “El Paseo” de Robert Walser.

Y no por nada, simplemente porque Handke sabe sacar de la cotidianidad una poesía excelsa que, en el caso de Walser, se traduce en sordidez y amargura.

Yo soy más de Handke, es una opción personal.

Del mismo modo que soy más de Thoreau, de la desobediencia activa.

Walser es más del modo Kafka, más afligido que indolente, más pesaroso, inconexo e indeliberado que celebratorio.

Handke, por contra, festeja la belleza escondida en las cosas menudas, así como dijera Marguerite Duras que la literatura está en el vuelo mínimo, confuso y efímero de una mosca en el rincón del cuarto.

Pues así.

Walser, por contra, reniega de sus convecinos, pierde el tiempo en su denuedo, malgasta la fuerza en refunfuñar,

pierde el vigor de su prosa desbaratándola en la injuria y la abominación.

Concedo, si acaso, que se trata de resistencia pasiva, ok.

Pero, en cualquier caso, es una opción.

Está bien.

No obstante, ya saben que yo estoy con los Escritores del Sí.

Un Sí total a la ebriedad de la vida.

Y a Peter Handke.

2.

Como sucede que llevo varios días encerrado en casa,

apenas saliendo para suplirme de lo necesario, esta tarde me calcé las náuticas rojas y los pantalones blancos y me eché a la calle.

Pues, la literatura, viene siempre del camino.

No hay literatura (ni vida) estática.

Mi paseo comienza en la Rambla del Raval y termina en un bar de la calle Riera Alta

y ha durado entre las 20:15 horas y las 22:40 horas del 08-Julio-2009.

(lo tienen enlazado al Street View de Google Maps)

***todas las fotos han sido tomadas con una Blackberry 8100
y no han sufrido ningún tipo de retoque digital***

3.

El Paseo:

PAUSA

(Unas tapas y un vino en EUSKAL ETXEA Plaçeta Montcada,1-3, zona Born-aquí-)

2ª PARTE

<<Bola Extra>>:

Detalles de la Barcelona Literaria:

1.

En la parte izquierda de la Avenida Drassanes

2.

Al final de la Avenida Drassanes

3.

Gran Vía (enfrente de la Facultad de Matemáticas de la Universidad de Barcelona)

Actualización (13-Julio-2009)

4.

Rambla Catalunya esquina Diputación

Actualización 22-Julio-2009

5.

Plaça del Pes de la Palla (esquina Ronda Sant Antoni)

Actualización 4-Agosto-2009

6.

7.

Calle Sant Antonio Abad

8.

Ronda Sant Antoni (enfrente de "Els tres tombs")

Joven pareja usando un traje
dos en uno, en el Bal de la Montagne,
Sainte-Geneviève, 1931

 ”La noche sugiere, no enseña.
La noche nos encuentra y nos sorprende por su extrañeza; ella libera en nosotros las fuerzas que, durante el día, son dominadas por la razón…”

Brassaï

Foto y texto  extraído de El Ángel Caído

A roupa dos forçados tem listras rosas e brancas. Se, comandado pelo meu coração, universo que é o meu deleite, eu a elegi, tenho pelo menos o poder de descobrir nela os numerosos sentidos que desejo: existe, pois, uma estreita relação entre as flores e os forçados. A fragilidade, a delicadeza das primeiras são da mesma natureza que a brutal insensibilidade dos outros. Se eu tiver de representar um forçado – ou um criminoso -, irei enfeitá-lo com tantas flores que ele mesmo, desaparecendo debaixo delas, há de parecer uma outra, gigantesca, nova. Na direção do que se chama o mal, eu vivi por amor uma aventura que me levou à prisão. Embora nem sempre sejam belos, os homens votados ao mal possuem as virtudes da virilidade. Por si mesmos, ou pela escolha feita para eles de um acidente, eles se afundam com lucidez e sem queixas num elemento reprovador, ignominioso, igual àquele, se for profundo, em que o amor precipita os homens. Os jogos eróticos desvendam um mundo inominável que a linguagem noturna dos amantes revela. Essa linguagem não se escreve. Cochicha-se de noite, ao ouvido, com voz rouca. De madrugada está esquecida.

. . . Normance is a full-throttle grotesquery. The prose rears up at the reader like an exploding grenade, pumping shards of hate and disgust into the air, the pages littered with the fallout of sentences and word shrapnel. The novel lacerates linear narrative, leaving grammatical scars and the broken bones of syntax. What plot there is is lost in invective and fire-and-brimstone prose. Louis/Ferdinand – the novel’s narrator – trapped in a Paris apartment block, under siege during an air-raid by Allied forces during April 21-22 1944, dodges bombs, falling masonry, spastic dancing furniture, occasionally giving a slap to his girlfriend Arlette/Lili, while all the time aiming his own verbal volleys at Jules the hunchback, pervert sculptor he believes is directing the aerial assault and who has fingered Louis/Ferdinand as “a Kraut, a spy! A traitor!” Huddled under a table or squeezed into the concierge’s office, the inhabitants of the apartment block do anything to survive. The characterization of the narrator, the thug Ottavio, and the monstrous and eponymous Normance force the reader to question how far humanity will go – and how low individuals will stoop – to stay alive. The apartment block is an apocalyptic version of Georges Perec’s building in Life: A User’s Manual, but whereas Perec’s building had its rooms exposed to view, as if the façade had been carefully taken down by the author, Céline’s apartment block has had its floors and ceilings ripped out by Allied ordnance; indeed, Normance could be subtitled Death: A User’s Manual. Normance resists categorization, resists the history of the novel. 

. . . Exclamation marks mirror the bombs’ detonations, used together with Céline’s trademark use of ellipses … which pepper the paragraphs and act like punctuative landmines, these explosive points !!!!! – even before he became politically ostracized – placed Céline beyond the confines of French literature, beyond even his near-contemporary and un-familiar Jean Genet. This anti-academic approach made  Céline a hero to a new generation of American writers such as Jack Kerouac (the prose velocity), William Burroughs (use of the ellipsis and view of humanity), and Tom Wolfe who – in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – took Céline’s experimentation in punctuation to the limits of English grammar: 

Sandy hasn’t slept in days::::::how many::::::like total insomnia and everything is bending in curvy curdling lines. 

—Cassady—twenty feet away across the beach road has suddenly wheeled and fired the four-pound sledge hammer end-over-end like a bolo and smashed the brick on top of the fence into obliteration, fifteen feet from the Mexican. 

Compare to Céline’s:

I can hear him!… ‘grrumph!…hraah!’ there’s a rattle in his throat…he’s got a bit of a cold…see, I’m being precise… you don’t care about the little details? well, tough luck!… I’m not going for artistic effect, that “almost-like-life” stuff! I was there, and while there I saw the following sights! that’s my motto!

Other writers, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, Philip Roth, and Ken Kesey, have also claimed Céline as an influence. But try to place Céline in a school of writing and your task becomes near impossible. The closest I can get is some awful hybrid writer/monster: Henry Miller + William Burroughs + Pierre Guyotat but that would be without Miller’s ego and Burroughs’ archness. If Zola is an obvious forerunner, then Pierre Guyotat – albeit from a reverse political pole – is the heir to Céline’s incendiary prose and explosive style. We can even see Céline’s influence on contemporary writers: Dan Fante’s A Gin-Pissing-Raw-Meat-Dual-Carburetor-V8-Son-Of-A-Bitch from Los Angeles is straight Céline “stinking ammoniac piss-sodden tippling snitching thieving spying abominable agitator” filtered through Bukowski. Céline defies and denies the canon, is resistant to history and political correctness.

. . . Is Céline a racist? An anti-Semite? A Nazi sympathizer and apologist? A collaborator? A misanthrope? Is he a novelist? A pamphleteer? And do these questions really matter when his prose is still shocking and fresh and a whole new generation of readers will have access to the phantasmagoric Normance? What Céline offers the reader is a fresh yet ugly take on human weakness, violence, and suffering – far from accusing the good doctor of  treason, we should applaud him for his honesty. Céline doesn’t blink when faced with human excess and pride – his prose may be rebarbative but it is necessary. Like William Burroughs, Céline preferred felines to human beings (the narratorof Normance worries more about the whereabouts and fate of his pet cat Bébert than he does the suffering of his neighbours). Ultimately, both Burroughs and Céline were moralists, their experimental styles and inflammatory prose became their means to deal with the 20th century’s absurd terrors. Despite the dodgy politics, Céline is an unflinching chronicler of humanity’s ethical depravity and moral relativism.

…they talk about love, in verse, prose, or songs, they can’t help themselves! the nerve! and always procreating! unloading fresh Hell-spawn on the world! and then speechifying! and their endless promises! … constantly swollen with pride! drooling and strutting around! only when they’re prostrate, dying, or sick do they lose a little of their human vileness and become poor beasts again, and then you can stand do go near them… 

—from Steve Finbow, “Roaring Up from the Depths”

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/roaring-up-from-the-depths/

Ferdinand versus Jules “the jerk-off artist”:

– Hey, Jules! Hey, Jules!

He could at least answer!

– You try calling him!

He gestures to us to leave him alone… he’s sulking… brooding…

– Leave me the fuck alone!

I can hear him clearly… between two tremendous bombs… a moment of calm… he wants a drink! Ah, a drink?… he’s outta luck!

The whole garden is flaming, all the shrubs…

It’s amazing that he doesn’t catch on fire, and his gondola and platform with him! considering the waves of sparks!

– Hey bozo, in the cart! jump! weirdo!

He called me a Kraut, a spy! a traitor! I can talk trash as well! all the names in the book!

– Faggot! hey, faggot!

– Please, Ferdinand! Take it easy!…

Always trying to calm me down! me, so tolerant and fair!… me, who he’d offended horribly! and publicly! and intentionally!…

– I hope your Jules roasts, the pig! the sub-pig! you were in on it together? tell me you were! admit it!

– No, Louis, calm down! Of course not!

– I hope that bozo of yours roasts! your fondler! I’d like to see him glazed in the flames all right! he’s poised for it! right into the pot!

Vrrouum! vrroum!

You’re probably finding me monotonous… I’m imitating the ruckus… what can I do? that’s how it is, period!… twenty squads fly over us, seething…

Ah! the windmill is leaning! and us! our whole building!… a powerful puff of air!… up above, Jules pitches against the rail, I think he’s going to crash through… no! he slams into it and ricochets off to the other side… he was thirsty, the gondolier now it must be a bit worse! he must have no tongue left!… it’s a dry wind from Levallois! even in our room, we’re baking in this heat!… especially our eyes! our eyes! our eyelids won’t close!… I’m not making it up!… the people who were there will tell you: an eruption! fifty… a hundred bomb craters spurting into the sky!… and not just in the sky, all around! and the windmill still isn’t burning! you want proof: Jules in all his glory on his skates! look how he maneuvers! and pivots! swerves! but he doesn’t break the barrier!… no! no!…

– Nut-job! Lunatic!

I howl at him!

He’s really taking a ride! his little platform is swaying, pitching, rolling and he’s still riding it in his gondola! from one railing to the other!… and in a hell of a wind! it’s blowing in from the Renault factory! from the west, a real oven! tornado after tornado! I’m not making any of this up! all the outskirts are an eruption… not just one little neighborhood!… the factories are torching!… the clown in his crate catches it all… right in the face! he’s a lot more exposed to the wind than we are… the whole windmill is leaning into the wind!… the whole frame… and the big strut and the ladder!… him up there, he rolls with the swells, pitching, then he shoots off again! if the platform really tips, that joker’s going to take a dive! in the lilacs! in the fire-and-phosphorous lilacs! jeez , he catches the railing! pivots! and off again! ah, he’s the acrobat of the elements! if he were overcome with rage, he’d fling himself off!… all the same I’m insulting him good and plenty! he tacks straight up against the swell… seems to me… I think… really!… they played a trick on him bringing him up there… or did he ask his pals to bring him? isn’t that the question?… there are strange forces at work, frequency waves, and more!… nothing would surprise me seeing how Jules behaves! the way he hangs onto his traffic light… acrobat artiste!

– Jump, you vampire!

There’s a little lull… the windmill straightens up… but the wind starts up again from the other side, towards Dufayel… a terrible aftershock!… this quake, I think this is it!

Sail, ship’s pup

The wind is up

I sing to him… he doesn’t give a fuck!… he throws himself against the other rail! his torso, face and nose are lit up… he’s all you see above Paris… naturally, being so high in the air! take a look at all the sparks hitting him! gust after gust!… even for us in our room, what swarms pouring in the window! crackling over us! we should have caught on fire too! we’re as lucky as Jules!

– I’m thirsty, Lili!… aren’t you thirsty?

She doesn’t answer… I shake her… I pick her up in my arms…

Aren’t you thirsty, Lili?

All she’s watching is Jules!… her eyes are glued to him! Jules up there, doing acrobatics with the bombs! I yell at him!

– Go on, chickie! dive!

It’s true, he’s stalling, the jerkoff artist!… I’m spurring him on!… he takes off at a zigzag, starts over! what a scene!… he’s never gonna break the rail!… and it’s flimsy too…

– Hey, gutless!

I shout at him.

– Shit!

He answers.

That’s a personal insult!… I’m filled with rage! my blood’s up!

– I’m gonna get him!

I warn Lili.

– You’re gong to get him? you’re going to pick a fight?

My mind’s made up!

I surprise her.

– You? You?

– No ‘you? you? about it!’ Yes, me, I’m going! Once and for all!

Just then, Barrroom!… straight ahead! an explosion! right there below… I was going to give him a piece of my mind… it takes my breath away!… I have to grab onto the balcony… I was giving out!… I was going to faint!… absolutely!… oh, but I didn’t want Lili to cross over!… to go get set ablaze for that dirty pig!… ah, so he’s dying for a drink? he’s blistering! his gullet all ablister?

– Thirsty, is he?

What nerve!

Of course he was thirsty, the hoodlum! And she’s still trying to defend him!

– Jump off, pisspot! artiste!

I get my breath back…

– Pimp! coward!

I can be rude! and through one hell of a tornado!…

He’s sucking his thumb, like a bottle!… he wants to toast!… he shows us!

– You see, he’s thirsty!

– I’m thirsty, too, missie! there’s still nothing to drink!…

She couldn’t care less that I’m thirsty!

– Jules! Jules!

She’s calling him…

Wretches!… baboomm! blam! it doesn’t let up!… the building starts leaning again!… one of the shutters rips out of the wall!… not just the floor! the walls! the ceiling! everything’s warping!… Jules isn’t the only one sailing!… let him be thirsty… as if we’re not!

– You don’t want to die, pig?

I yell to him.

He doesn’t want to die at all! he’s swirling in his crate…

Thirsty!… sucking his thumb!

He’s in the same blistering wind as we are! and we have no more to drink than he does!

– Jump, dirty groper! Hey, chicken!…

He’s chicken, that’s his problem! chicken! he had more swagger at home, in his den!… they gave him a sweet nest up there!… no more gaslight for him! he’s in the oven! his mug bright red!… let him sail from one end to the other!… looking for a cool spot! he’s got it good there on his little deck!… ten square feet all to himself! but Christ, what he can see from there! all of Paris is incandescent! all of Paris is an sea of flames! he’s got some skyline!

It wasn’t beer he was guzzling, it was gusts of torrid wind!

– I’m going over there!

– No! You’re not going!

We’re arguing.

– The flames can roast his mug, his lungs, his spleen, you’re not going! and so much the better!

Now, I’m really pissed off, seriously! all the jibes come back to me, the terrible affronts I’d endured from this hunchback! that fucking stump of a crook up there, goddamn stump of a traitor with his airplanes! it’s all his fault! cataclysms and God’s thunder! it doesn’t matter a bit to Lili!… it’s Jules, he’s thirsty, so she feels bad!… worries about Jules!… can you imagine?… anything for Jules! Jeez, the windmill reels under a West wind… a tornado from around Levallois that makes the whole upper section bend, dip… you’d think it’s going to tip over, the windmill! that the deck all the way at the top is skimming the ground, and Jules with it!… without letting go! and gets a grip again! prodigious! that’s him all right!… and he’s the cause of it all!… yes! him! the windmill straightens up again… it’s hard to believe but true… Jules is back to his gestures!… he’s playing the orchestra conductor! he’s directing with his cane… a gust… brkooom!… there!… then another one!… he gathers a whole cluster of airplanes… a whole cyclone!… from out past Passy! I’d say at least fifty airplanes! they fly in, rumbling, screeching, furious…

– Swindler, pervert! killer!

He deserves it all! he’s playing more than he’s responsible! no! he’s in on the scheme! the whole convulsion of the elements! the fury from beyond the sky! now he’s trying to play us the violin! begging us for a drink! Chump! I tell him! that’s why he’s in the gondola! to unleash the elements! spinning! balancing! ah, parched old Jules!

– Arlette!…

He’s calling her…

She’s not going!

– Lili! tweet! tweet!

See, that’s how he calls to her!

‘What a total outrage,’ you’re probably thinking! absolutely! I agree completely! there’s the truth! I told you: I won’t make up anything… supernatural events are beyond you, it’s that simple! some unscrupulous chroniclers may minimize, explain, and trivialize the facts! your humble servant, never! all reverence for splendor!… I see Jules start scooting around again… at the same time as he’s addressing the clouds! with gestures! with orchestra! I’m telling you… with two canes, now!… directing… would Lili have to cross the flames to bring him a drink?… what to drink? he should just drink fire! it’s pouring from the sky! at that moment a huge airplane wing comes up over Caulaincourt valley… right away the beams dart after it… in pursuit… ten, twenty searchlights!… and a volley of machine guns!… Brrrz! Brrrz!… like a carnival in the sky! cymbals!… like a carnival, only upside-down!… upside-down and higher than the Eiffel Tower!… look, the plane!… one of its wings smashes, at the end!… it’s banking, falling… he’s not going any further!… drops back into Caulaincourt valley!… what a rumbling and barking from the valley! at least two anti-aircraft batteries… Whoof! Whoof!… I’m counting the explosions… it’s extraordinary, all the payloads and cannon fire! from such short range, too, without it all going up in smoke! I mean the windmill and us… it’s spilling down over the fog, giant veils of smoke, clusters of phosphorous torches, and you’re wondering if it’s really real… illusion or not? a real spree of magnesium, bombs, picrates and rockets to make it brighter than day! they can annihilate us, no problem!

Thirst or no thirst, I’m watching up there! he’s thumbing his nose at me, for Christ’s sake! Bozo-in-a-box! thumbing his nose! see what catastrophes do! shameless scumbag! not an atom of remorse! thumbing his nose! see? typical! and still conducting the orchestra! this time it’s flagrant! he’s directing it! even a hundred years from now, he’d come trying to tell me: it wasn’t me! — Excuse me! I’d tell him: it was your fault! all your fault the gasworks exploded! I saw you at work in your gondola! you were directing it all!

They can hold trials all day! me, I won’t get confused about the culprits! They wear special lenses to minimize the circumstances! don’t want to see the big picture! scared, that’s all! they’re scared! me, I’m watching Jules, I’m telling you everything as it happens… He’s leaning with the whole windmill… the deck! his crate! and he doesn’t tip off!… he’ll never fall!… if that’s not magical… enchantment… is there something keeping him up in the sky?… catching him at the edge of the platform?… some kind of magnet in there! there’s gotta be a magnet! baboom! there are plenty of bombs, too!

[pp 25ff]

El niño criminal. En una edición pequeñaja pero bonita, y en una colección que se siente -y será- minoritaria, pero interesante: “La mujer cíclope”. Ya está casi terminado. Mi primer acercamiento a Jean Genet, que tenía conocido por oídas, pero que había que leer, más tarde o más temprano. No me ha decepcionado. Al contrario. Poco a poco se va cerrando el círculo: Hölderlin, Nietzsche, Klossowski, Bataille, Artaud… Genet.

Alberto Giacometti, La mano 1947

La solitude, comme je l’entends,
ne signifie pas condition misérable
mais plutot royauté secrète,
incommunicabilité profonde mais
connaissance plus ou moins obscure
d’une inattaquable singularité.

Jean Genet

La solitudine, secondo me,
non significa condizione miserabile
ma piuttosto dignità segreta,
incomunicabilità profonda ma
conoscenza più o meno oscura
di una inoppugnabile originalità.

Sliboval jsem více Geneta, tady je náš Genet – filmový, nesmlouvavý a provokativní.

Un Chant d\’Amour

Poison (1991)

Dir. Todd Haynes

Poison has for some time been something of a holy grail to me, but despite its importance in the New Queer Cinema canon, it has remained largely unavailable to Region 1 audiences.  I’m not going to lie, I have studiously scoured through countless used DVD and VHS collections in search of it.  And here I am, reviewing the film.  Thank you torrent community.  I don’t intend to drone on about the availability of the film, but it seems a tad peculiar considering Todd Haynes’ clout in the film community.  (But ok, I’ll concede, it really isn’t that strange that a film that can be described as “important in the New Queer Cinema canon” is out of print, when you consider The African Queen has still yet to have a DVD release in any shape or form.  No matter who the director is.)  Enough about that though.

Poison marks the first feature-length film from Todd Haynes, who at the time was still fresh off the bourgeoning cult success of his short film, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story.  Superstar is still one of those special cult oddities, a film that was banned from any official release (to this day actually) because of its liberal use of unlicensed Carpenters songs.  That’s not what makes a cult oddity though; it could’ve been that he staged Karen Carpenter’s downfall into anorexia and diet pills with Barbie dolls.  What’s vastly more interesting to that film, however, is really how serious he treats the form, as if challenging the viewer to not see these characters as dolls.  It begins perhaps as a cinematic prank of some sort, but Haynes practically demands the viewers to leave their kitsch leanings at the door, and really probe into society’s ills with him.  He has many questions as to why this sort of self-image overcomes young women, and even incorporates real interviews with women probing into this further.

Superstar, in one fell swoop, essentially defined Haynes’ sensibilities; he is a semiotician, and he re-appropriates many forms of media and art into what can be defined as cinematic essays to some extent.  And, by god, some people just hate him for this.  His films do indeed congratulate its viewers for acknowledging the cinematic and literary allusions sprinkled throughout (See: Far From Heaven), some even depend on that knowledge to get the point across (See: I’m Not There).  He is routinely accused of being that most horrible of cinematic demons: The Intellectual.  One who is cold and calculating, who uses his characters as merely a device to get on his collegiate soap box.  This is sometimes true with Haynes’ work, but somehow, almost miraculously, he manages to use this tactic to bring out an emotional core that has been treading quietly beneath.

Perhaps there is no better example of this than Poison.  If Superstar existed as Haynes’ first draft, Poison is the first crack at his thesis.  This one, like so many other entries in the New Queer Cinema canon, acts as a treatise on AIDS, albeit a vague one at times.  Haynes takes three different cinematic forms, the talking-head news documentary, the prison film, and perhaps most immediately fascinating, the campy ‘50s B-horror film.  Each acts as a variation on a theme of isolation in society, whether it be the misunderstood suburban kid who shot his father on impulse to protect his mother, the prisoner who finds himself emotionally drawn to a fellow inmate he once saw sexually humiliated in a reformatory school, or a scientist who isolated the human sex drive, only to accidently drink it, and have society judge him on the grotesque effects it finds itself wreaking on his body.  Oh, and it’s loosely based off the literary works of Jean Genet.  Hurrah for semiotics!

The film is structured in these three acts, Hero, Homo and Horror, and shifts between them seamlessly throughout the film, often at the climax of any particular scene.  It plays like an anthology film put on shuffle, but always manages to maintain a logical pattern.

Hero, the news segment, is similar to the interview segments in I’m Not There (the ones with Julianne Moore playing a Joan Baez-type folk figure), but instead of completely being enveloped in camp like those, this one strikes a bit more disturbing note.  It is certainly not without its very satirical tendencies (like the expository voice-over narration over footage of the mother driving around the neighborhood and doing other ordinary things), but by the end, it is very emotionally involving, and even the cheesy news-style dramatizations start gelling into something very personal, despite the guise of manipulative early-90s video effects.

Homo, the prisoner segment, is in fact segmented even within itself (confused yet?).  This film is broken into two time periods; the present of the prison and the past of the reformatory school.  The prison sequences are darkly lit, and the actors remain cloaked in shadows, and play the roles as emotionally distant as possible.  This is of course to highlight the homoerotic tendencies of male prison films, and bring them squarely to the forefront.  While beginning as a lingering beefcake spectacle in the old muscle film fashion, it becomes increasingly taboo-breaking, featuring an extended sequence of “heavy petting” as well as a disturbing sequence of rape.  This sequence brought Poison its greatest press, as ‘ol Jesse Helms, that lovable homophobe, sought to destroy the film, and was particularly distraught over the fact that it had been financed by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.  The past sequences are much more striking, however, in that they are brightly-lit, to an incredible degree actually.  They call to mind the images in Fassbinder’s final film Querelle (itself an adaptation of the works of Jean Genet, neat coincidence) and even the films of Ken Russell.  They are beautifully nostalgic, even while the imagery depicted is immensely disturbing.  Why, Mr. Helms, whatever could have possibly offended you about this film?

The “final” segment, Horror, is as previously stated, the most immediately striking of these sequences, and certainly the most memorable and accomplished.  Given the low-budget nature of this film, and compared to his NQC peers at the time, this sequence is just remarkable in its meticulous recreation of the ‘50s B-Horror films popularized by such figures as Roger Corman, but even throwing in some of the cinematographic flourishes of James Whale.  This segment is certainly the most blatantly critical of the AIDS epidemic, specifically the public’s reaction to it.  The protagonist, Dr. Tom Graves, finds himself the subject of his own experiment after he mistakenly ingests a liquid form of the human sex drive, and as he begins to mutate and grow disgusting lumps all over his body, he begins to spread this “disease” to others around him, including his lady love, Dr. Nancy Olsen.  The public around begins to see him as a deviant, even pegging him as “The Leper Murderer” when it spreads even further.  Here, Haynes is re-contextualizing the Killer Queer stereotype that has plagued film history, while also highlighting the ridiculous nature of the witch hunt the AIDS epidemic caused for the gay community.  It is a heavily loaded sequence for sure, full of hammy acting and broad speeches about alienation, but using this film style to discuss these large issues is brilliantly in tune with the tradition of B-horror.  It always was about making broad social statements in the most approachable style possible.  Besides, really, how can you not just smile your way through a sequence like this:

In the end, Poison is a very assured debut from Haynes, who I believe, clearly, is one of the greatest living filmmakers.  It is not without its problems, but certainly stands on its own in the New Queer Cinema movement.  Other filmmakers such as Gus Van Sant and Gregg Araki were making very incendiary and provoking films at the time Poison was released, but Poison’s scholarly tendencies give it, dare I say, a bit more relevancy now that New Queer Cinema is no longer a force in independent filmmaking (sadly).  It still captures a time and a feeling that most have forgotten, but the issues themselves have hardly subsided; they’ve just been pushed back beneath the surface.  Poison cannot be spoken of without acknowledging the presence of producer Christine Vachon, who has never broken from the halcyon days of early 90s American independent filmmaking, and continues to cultivate unique artists’ visions.  There’s certainly not a force like her still around, and if independent cinema has a prayer of re-emerging as a vital voice in American filmmaking, she’s probably going to be involved somehow.

Poison can be found on torrent sites as a crummy VHS rip (vertor.com, just saying).  Or you can pay exorbitant amounts on ebay for the long OOP DVD.  OR, you can say: CRITERION, PLEEEEEEEEASE?!?!?!?

Bonus!  Here’s Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, in its entirety on Youtube.

Following yesterday’s interview with Jamie Byng, Jay Benedict takes a detailed look at Pimp: The Story of My Life, recently republished by Canongate.

Unsurprisingly, in view of its subject, the review contains some fairly graphic language and imagery in places.

—o—

The first hurdle to get over with this book is the God awful cover. If I hadn’t known better I would never have  picked it up. It sports a black male model complete with gabardine, polo neck, dark glasses, checked trousers and high heels, oh – and a brolly and a fedora.  The ultimate bad taste 70s look.  You know – the decade that fashion forgot?

Someone forgot to tell the cover designer that the book starts in the 1920s and really concentrates on the 30s, 40s and 50s. The author wrote the novel in the 1960s, so where the 70s look comes into it I’m not quite sure. The model on the cover’s not the Author, because he appears on the inside back  cover – and he’s one Robert Beck aka Iceberg Slim. So, who’s the dude on the front? If this guy was paid to sell this book- he doesn’t. Wrong decade, wrong character, wrong look.  The title is printed in bold black underneath the aforementioned model and is enough to make you want to run a mile.  There’s nothing on the cover that says READ ME!

Right.   Having got over that, let’s get on with the Introduction.

It’s written by Irvine Welsh, the man who brought us Trainspotting and Glue, and he immediately tells us that Iceberg Slim did for the pimp what Jean Genet did for the homosexual and William Burroughs did for the junkie – and that he is probably now as essential reading as William Shakespeare. The only difference being that Slim was black. Okay Irvine, so how come he’s not on any school syllabus?

Welsh begs us to get beyond his life as a pimp and accept him as one of the most influential writers of our age …

Well, just how good a writer was he?  Is  PIMP literature, fiction, biography or biographical fiction? It’s certainly written from a hell none of us have known. It’s not the voice of the newspaper expose or the smug prison psychologist.  Stylistically, his novels are a treat (so we’re told) and his eye for the psychology of a character sharper than just about anyone you’ll ever read. His prose style is that adjective-rich mix, constantly looking out for the telling phrase, so often favoured by many self taught writers. Nothing pejorative from Irvine  Welsh there, then.

So far, so good.  Now, I’ll try to explain what this book is all about  . . .

Prior to being known as Iceberg Slim, (or Robert Beck as he later became known), he was born Robert Lee Maupin in Chicago on the 4th August 1918. No relation, I’m sure, to Armistead Maupin – the homosexual writer who wrote Tales from the City set in San Francisco – but we are back with  the classic identity crisis, like Magill, who called herself Lil,  but everyone knew her as Nancy;  or Dusty who was really Mary;  or Ziggy who was really David Jones but is also known as Bowie.  Exhausting, isn’t it? The mystery inside a riddle inside an enigma syndrome, I call it.

Much of his childhood was spent in Milwaukee’s poor North side and the industrial town of Rockford, Illinois – one of America’s most depressed cities – before returning to Chicago as a teenager. Abandoned by his Father, his Mama supported the family by working as a domestic and operating a beauty shop. Robert says his Mother prepared him for the pimp lifestyle by pampering him during his childhood. As a teenager he briefly attended the Tuskegee Institute in the mid 30s but he was like a fox in a chicken coop.  Within ninety days he’d slit the maidenhead on half a dozen curvy co-eds and was told to leave.

Robert was a tall, lithe youth and despite his fondness for cocaine, heroin and whiskey, his gift of the gab turned on a particular type of woman. He started pimping at 18 and plied his trade until he was 42, adopting the ‘moniker’ Iceberg Slim along the way – reputedly through standing at a bar  unflappably drinking whiskey as a shoot-out raged around  him. The greater likelihood is of him simply being slim, cold and ruthless.

Iceberg, so we’re told, has probably shaped the archetype of every blaxploitation movie pimp/hustler from Huggy Bear to Snoop Dogg in the remake of Starsky and Hutch.

He operated on Chicago’s unforgiving streets in a segregated black and white world where pimping was tied up with notions of upward mobility. This was way before the Black Panthers would have referred to this attitude as part of the problem and not the solution. His chosen route was the escape hatch for the economically degraded working class black man – to seize control, in a brutal and direct fashion, of the reproductive organs of the female to make money in order to generate status for himself.  The Author  beat women with wire coat hangers till they were black and blue, sold their bodies, stuck needles in their veins,  and generally robbed people blind – and that was before breakfast.

Pimping, as explained by the author, both simulated and replicated chattel slavery, or the owning of bodies for the purposes of generating wealth.  It was the plantation in motion – a direct by-product of slavery. This theory does have a certain validity, with the white man being able to gain forcible access to the ’stable’ of black women, while enslaved black males were treated basically like stud animals.  ‘I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours’ is another way of explaining it …

After a particularly long spell in solitary confinement at Cook County House of Correction Slim was motivated to give up his life of crime and attempt to write about his experiences, from pimp to artist, instead. He psychologically reconfigured himself and moved to California in the 1960s, where he settled down to a wife, two daughters and redemption. His later years were bookish and  contented and he passed away in 1992 at the age of 73.

The Author starts out by apologizing for his brutality and cunning  as a pimp and hopes the level of revulsion other people feel in reading about  his experiences will propel them into good and enlightened living.

It starts in 1921, when he’s being taken advantage of sexually at the age of three.  Maude, the baby sitter, has her hands locked around his head in a vice like grip, his tiny head wedged between her ebony thighs, with the Author unable to catch his breath – resulting in years of neck and tongue problems.  Frankly, I don’t remember that far back, but imagine your tiny face being smothered in the nasty smelling genitalia of an adult body, and you pretty much get the root of his problem. The smells of the sexually mature adult suffocating you at an age when you can’t even communicate through the spoken word properly, must leave you with an unspoken rage for the rest of your life.  Early childhood sexual abuse is what it was, and it’s probably why Iceberg spent his life exacting a murderous toll on all women.

We soon learn that his Father was a white-spats-wearing, good for nothing bum, with a penchant for high yellow whores with their big asses and bitch dog sexual antics. His Father hurls him against the wall in disgust one day  and walks out on the family. Robert and Mama  move to Rockford, Illinois to move in with one Henry Upshaw, the only Negro business in town, who becomes Step-Daddy and, for a while at least, life seems to be running pretty smoothly. Henry’s religious and good and kind and all three of them are going to church.  Mama opens a beauty shop. Unfortunately,  the clientele for the most part are hookers, pimps and hustlers from the sprawling red light district in Rockford and the inevitable happens when a snake called Steve turns up and Mama runs off with him to Chicago, leaving poor old Henry to die of a broken heart. In Chicago, Dad turns up, and Mama organizes with Steve to burgle his house and wipe him out, which they do. Little Robert begins to see his Mama in a different light and starts losing respect for them all. In exchange all the men begin to  hate him too, so he takes to the streets and starts his long greasy slide into the grim pit round about the age of 14.

Not unlike Pinocchio, who hooks up with the Fox and the Cat for an actor’s life – “Hey, fiddle-dee-dee …” – so our hero comes across Party Time – a  petty hustler, who teaches him the art of ‘Murphying’, which is a con game played on suckers looking for whores. Real Murphy players, we learn, use great finesse to separate a ‘mark’ from his ’scratch’.

I should add in haste at this point that in order to continue with this book there is a glossary of terms in the back (Iceberg Slim’s original) which you must become familiar with. In fact it’s best you visit the glossary first before reading the book. Memorize it, and then proceed.  ‘Mark’, for instance,  is a victim and ‘Scratch’ is money. A ‘Hard Leg’ is an older, street-hardened, used up whore, and a ‘Swipe’ is well, you know, the  male member … and so it goes on. The vernacular is pure street, and 1930’s slang, as made up by Iceberg himself. It’s black Damon Runyon turned 180 degrees south. You have to get your head round it in order to get through this book and keep cross referencing in case you get lost, otherwise you don’t stand a chance.This book is full of sucker jaspers (lesbians)  and flat backers  (whores who get paid for straight sexual intercourse) etc, etc … It’s also full of Black people calling each other the “N—-r” word -  you know – the one white people are no longer able to use, let alone write?

We are plunged into a pre-politically correct world where Blacks would call themselves  ‘Colored’  or ‘Negroes’ or ‘N—–s’, long before we got into ‘Afro-American’, or ‘First Nation’  or ‘Latinos’.  When you enter into this world you have to forget everything you’ve ever been taught.

Continuing with our story, Robert then stumbles upon Diamond Tooth Jimmy, a broken down ex-pimp and murderer from the 1920s. He takes to  hanging out at his gambling joint and begins a life of procurement. It starts to go horribly wrong when he starts sleeping with a 15 year old, who happens to be the daughter of the resident bandleader, and puts her on the game. Her first client, a friend of the bandleader’s, immediately tells on Robert, and the bandleader informs the Police, who in turn come to arrest him.  Robert is about to spend his first stint in a correctional institution – a recidivist activity which continues through the book.

When he gets out,  he hooks up with a whore  called Pepper who teaches him how to snort cocaine through alabaster horns, and had she lived in the biblical city of Sodom, the citizens would have certainly  stoned her to death.  We then  enter into a world of  characters called Weeping Shorty, Glass Top and Pretty Preston – a former Dandy and so called on account of the diamonds winking and sparkling brightly on his fingers and shirt cuffs. Preston tells Robert about Sweet Jones, the top spade pimp in the country, who’s slick and cold blooded.  Robert befriends him. After a dodgy start,  Sweet Jones takes a shine to him, grooming him into the No1 pimp on the planet and teaching him the pimp code. The equivalent would be like going to Sunday School for us. He tells him to stop grinning, teaches him to be ice cold, not to stick his swipe in his own whores  and to treat them mean, in order to  keep ‘em keen.  We start living a world of Hogs (Cadillacs to you and me) Billy Eckstein and Nat King Cole, speedballs and slum hustlers … and so it  goes on.  I don’t want to ruin your pleasure.

This is the story of a man’s life as he claimed to have lived it in that ‘Guys and Dolls’  theatrical hyper-real world.   He can’t really get out of the ghetto on account of the white man, who he’s constantly paying off in bribes. He’s like the proverbial rat in a trap, caught in a vicious circle of exploiting women and depending  on drugs, somehow thinking  it will lift him to a better place – to that high-walled forbidden white world.

Contrary to the nature of this book I really enjoyed reading it. I entered into an anachronistic world of juke joints and gambling houses and diamond studded geezers. Yes, all rotten to the core, but all with a staggering gift of the gab, especially Iceberg Slim himself who could charm the pants off you, literally. His writing is honest and sincere and at no point does he try to justify himself and his life,  which makes his conversion at the end all the more poignant. He does make an avowal of love in the final pages of his book, which he  considers to be his greatest  triumph, and so do I.  A great read.

Canongate.  2009. Paperback.   ISBN: 978-1847-673329.  320pp.

“No tribunal. O juiz: _ Por que roubou aquele cobre?
O detento: _ É a miséria, meretíssimo.
O juiz: _ Isso não é desculpa.”