Wilfrid
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Posts posted by Wilfrid
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I did get 8/8, but certainly on some of them I was just picking what looked like a British insult.
Spoilers below if you're doing the quiz.
I've never heard of a "melter" or a "dinlo." But you know "whippetcracker," for example, is made up.
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Jeremy Prynne at 89, the remarkable poet and teacher. Almost comically productive in his last years, I have four of his most recent chapbooks on the way to me in the mail now. He has been a constant presence in my reading for around 25 years.
From 2024:
QuoteI was very lucky to be able to buy John Ashbery’s poetry collections, as they were published, and while he was still with us and writing. I have been doing the same with new volumes from the great British poet Jeremy Prynne.
Here’s the difference. Ashbery published with mainstream publishers like FSG and his new books were always in Barnes & Noble. Prynne has long worked with small publishers, no promotion or bookshop sales, and often in very limited editions (150 copies).
Through fascination, attention and speed (and getting to know the publishers) I have managed to collect everything he has published since 1997 (and it’s a lot).
This month I have found myself going back and hunting for the earlier work and honestly spending quite a lot to acquire it. I have no doubt the investment is superbly sound. My daughter will thank me one day.
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Thank you.
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Did not know there was a Beat specialist out there.
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My fault, oblivious.
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Braised goat (pictured), then because I was still working through a vast serving of pernil (pictured) the next supper was pernil shredded into the leftover goat broth (forgot to picture).
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28. Jones, Mosquito
29. Joyce, Ulysses
30. Kazantzakis, Zorba
31. Kerouac, On the Road (done)
Jumped ahead a bit. Ulysses next and I find it intimidating because I know my first reading of it was perfunctory. I came to it too young. I think I'll take Mosquito on an upcoming trip.
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On a positive note, I was just reflecting on what a gateway it was to other writers and very memorable experiences. I bought the beaten up book below when I was 20. It contained an excerpt from Junkie and "Howl," probably my first experiences with Burroughs and Ginsberg. Of course, one of the characters in "Howl" ("who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened...") was Tuli Kupferberg, later of The Fugs. About 20 years after I bought the book, I was reporting on Tuli's posthumous 87th birthday party at The Living Theater, where Ed Sanders shared memories with me.
Long before that, in my first year of college, I saw Slim Gaillard play and was able to meet him after his set. I think he's the only character in On the Road who appears under his real name.
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On April 9 and too young, 68. I did not see any news coverage.
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This kind of crap just ruins stories for me:
"...had vampires been part of British popular culture."
Where was Bram Stoker from and where was Dracula written and was it somewhat popular?
The writer, Rebecca Mead, is British. Which makes it worse.
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Well, On the Road hasn't aged well. No surprise I guess. I did remember Dean being somewhat annoying, but his behavior now seems far from cool or hip, not least his misogyny.
Something I am sure I missed years ago: random characters are referred to as "fairy," "fag" or "effeminate." But not the characters based on Ginsberg or Burroughs and you'd never guess the original of Sal Paradise was bisexual.
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St Louis trip is on. Booked Olive + Oak, Robin, Brasserie by Niche and Planter's House. Plus my airbnb is about a five minute walk from Pappy's Smokehouse.
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Thank you!
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In member previews, open to the public Sunday.
This is a vast exhibit, heavily reliant on the Duchamp collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. One thing you still need to visit Philly to see is "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even" as it would presumably be unwise to chuck a huge glass scupture in the back of a truck and tour it around. But there is a full-size replica here by Richard Hamilton.
Otherwise, there's all the Duchamp you could possibly want. The early and relatively conventional paintings are better than I had remembered, and I had not known he was also a very funny cartoonist for the French press.
Then you get the Cubist-ish turn putting "Nude Descending a Staircase" into context. Then the readymades. Apparently, Duchamp retreated from his original position that the readymades were unique objects and permitted reproductions. Which means you get to see more urinals than you expected and rather too many reproductions of the Mona Lisa with a little graffiti mustache. The late stages of this show are repetitive.
Finally, the boxes, containing yet more (miniature) reproductions of his work. It would be fun to sit down with a box and unpack it, but I never thought they worked so well laid out in vitrines. If you want to look at these works carefully, allow a lot of time.
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I know almost nothing about Soggy Kookie.
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Switching from James to Kerouac is like switching from Morton Feldman to The Ramones.
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I hope this old paperback survives being re-read. 1961 vintage; I guess I bought it around 1978 or so.
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That was much weirder than I remembered. Such a static, event-free story until the last few chapters with their cluster of revelations -- and then an ending I find utterly ambiguous. James's notes, reproduced at the end of the Penguin edition, show he was fully aware of all this.
Gayl Jones' wonderful Mosquito is next on my list, but there is no cheap Kindle edition and it's a big brick of a book to carry around. I might save it for next time I travel. Having heard David Amram talk about Kerouac at the Grolier Club a few days ago and seen the associated exhibit, it's probably time for On the Road. This will be a third reading.
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I remember Ouest fondly.
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And (spoilers) everything with the suitor goes badly wrong after the marriage. One thing I didn't like, and had not remembered, is the time it takes for James to get around to exploring what went wrong. Osmond is so manifestly unlikeable, it's not clear why Isabel goes for him in the first place. We finally get to explore her mind in chapter 42 (out of 55 chapters).
Dorothea's marriage to Casaubon was equally disastrous, but at least I felt there were clear motivations for the marriage.
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And again. Give us an F give us a U...
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I just bought more Cabricharme, love it.
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I have not sung this one I admit.
Reasons to be Cheerful
in What's that got to do with anything?
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My scaphoid is not fractured (small wrist bone where fractures are hard to detect).
Two rounds of x-rays over two weeks and a lot of time in a brace -- and looks like it's just sore. Good, didn't want a pin in it.