‘With life being as loud, hyper saturated, and cloying as it is, there isn’t much space to marshall desperately the bits of body, bile, memory, and spirit, the cute things about you—to tie them together and call them the self. Even when you have found the quote-unquote peace and quiet to reflect on who you are and what you want, life, being ordained (spiritually, cosmically, psychologically, algorithmically, whatever) can make this work feel futile. These anxieties claw at the heart of the newly republished Tripticks (first published in 1971), the fourth and final novel by British sixties experimentalist Ann Quin: in a world that seems overwhelming and overdetermined, how do you get closer to yourself?
‘Tripticks is about a curmudgeonly man pursuing his ex-wife across America. Quin likes stories which begin as quests for one thing and end up being a search for something else (the self). In Berg, her first novel, a son travels to the sea to kill his father. In Passages, a sister looks for her lost brother. Quin is concerned, too, in both of these novels, with life’s predictability. Berg in Berg is nauseous at the “futility of everything,” bored watching someone react “exactly as expected.” The sister’s boyfriend in Passages is annoyed at how he is perceived—at being reminded by his lover that things are following a pattern. “Something to be said for remaining in a place far off, without name, without identity,” he says.
‘Tripticks, then, follows well-clomped material for Quin. Yet this novel feels more panicked, more frenzied. The novel is set in an all-dressed consumerist hellscape version of America. There are TV bras, a President that recites “an ode to the hotdog,” and mail order meditation societies where disciples pray by letter for “noiseless vacuum cleaners” and “mock mental collapse.” Driving, the narrator sees a world full of the melodrama you would expect in an eighties/nineties novel on late capitalism. There are “sheer walls of symmetrical blue grey basaltic columns,” “a sea life housed in 13 large glass tanks with perforated seals and prostate mermaids,” and “an outdoor hippopotamus pool with a 24 hour room Food & Valet service with Guest controlled Built-in Vanity Comfort stations and mercury vapour lamps atop 27 towers overlooking an animated relief map pergolas and spring-fed lily pools.”
‘The main character dwells. He thinks about his relationships, settles into memories, shifting into dreams and returning, occasionally, to the present—where he is, for instance, “[a]fraid to get close to people especially women, he must treat them as objects of his imagination—a role that implies both control and distancing.” He wonders what his ex’s new lover will think of him and decides: “Possibly old and impotent, with a future as narrow as my shoulders, striding along like some sort of sage-brush propelled by winds of unknown origin.”
‘Tripticks is a book to get lost in, to turn back on, to flick the page backward and forward to remember what, exactly, is going on—an act that mirrors the protagonist’s own interiority and quest. It is written in a cut-up style of lists, notes, letters, dreams, and memories. These spheres—dreams, reality, memory—bleed together, lacking all of them the steadiness of verisimilitude. There is very little to remind you of what is what. The flimsiness of reality enhances the feeling that the protagonist lacks control; that he does not have the physical solidity in his life to define it for himself.
‘There are, throughout Tripticks, accompanying comic strip illustrations in black and white that seem not to match the text. In the introduction, Danielle Dutton suggests this may be because an earlier version of Tripticks was printed alongside an unrelated comic strip when it was published in the quarterly Ambit, as the 1968 prize winner for Best Writing While on Drugs (Quin’s story was written under the influence of the contraceptive pill). Hilary White, in an article on the cut up form in Quin’s work, describes the comic strip as “akin to a television set flickering in the background.” It adds to the cacophonous, sprawling entertainment of reading Tripticks.
‘During his quest, our protagonist loses focus. At some point he becomes the one being followed, as he watches his ex-wife and her new lover through the rearview mirror. “Who was chasing who I had forgotten,” he says. He thinks about leaving it all behind and going to the beach, but worries his ex will join a group called Women Against War Toys and build sandcastles of peace on the beach next to him. He considers giving up on the pursuit and returning to normal life, but: “That undersea realm I have visited is exacting its price of admission. Living in the depth. I have become in certain ways a creature of those depths, adapted to their pressures. Now the human environment is temporarily unavailable to me.” He needs more time.
‘The latter part of the novel shifts inwards; the predetermined America has left the narrator feeling empty. He observes with resignation: “But beyond all these gigantic dimensions lies an immeasurable mystery, perhaps for reasons beyond your control, you may find your identity is not building up as fast as you expect it to.” At the end, he feels a scream coming out of “[f]ear for safety and sanity, helplessness, frustration, and a desperate need to break out into a stream of verbal images.” Screaming, like sobbing, is private, personal, a communication of pain which is his alone to feel and understand. And yet, the world has choked even that out of him: “I opened my mouth, but no words. Only the words of others I saw, like ads, texts, psalms, from those who had attempted to persuade me into their systems.”
‘Tripticks is a fascinating novel—and while it lacks the lyrical interiority that I loved about Quin’s earlier work, it offers instead a bold vividness in world building that doesn’t shy away from describing the Big Gulp, Super Soaker pace of life. And in that world, what hope is there? Quin herself looked for refuge in the ocean; in an interview, she described wanting “a tower, facing the sea.” The sea’s space to breathe and enveloping constancy are not afforded to our narrator. For him and for us— still here, without an escape—the only way to turn is inwards. As the narrator says: “In here all you have are instincts.”’ — Thea McLachlan
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Further
Ann Quin @ Wikipedia
‘Who cares about Ann Quin?’
‘Re: Quin: An overdue study of the “experimental” novelist Ann Quin’
The Feminist Novelist Who Turned “On the Road” on Its Head
“Tripticks’ @ Caesura
Why Ann Quin’s Tripticks is a Road Trip Novel for Our Time
A Book to Get Lost In: A Review of Ann Quin’s “Tripticks”
Ahead of her time: Ann Quin’s final novel TRIPTICKS is a wild ride through capitalist America
ANN QUIN AT THE LOST AND FOUND
Ann Quin’s Stalled Talkers
Ann Quin @ And Other Stories
Ann Quin @ goodreads
‘Dried stains on sheets.’
‘THE LOVE AFFAIR(S) OF ANN QUIN’
‘Dead Animals: Uncanny and Abject Imagery in Ann Quin’s Berg’
‘Ann Quin staff record’
‘Passages by Ann Quin’
‘Ann Quin – A member of a group of British avant-garde writers, …’
‘Researching Ann Quin at the Lilly Library’
‘Nonnie Williams Korteling on Ann Quin and ‘Three’’
‘Ann Quin’s Night-time Ink, A Postscript’
”Designing its own shadow’ : reading Ann Quin’
Buy ‘Tripticks’
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Extras
The Speaking Machine
Joseph Darlington: The British Experimental Novelists of the 1960s
TMR 18.10: “Looks Like a Lump of Shit to Me” [Ann Quin]
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Triptick pages
illustrations by Carol Annand
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Berg, the installation
‘To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Ann Quin’s brilliant debut novel, CINECITY and artist/production designer Anna Deamer present a film set installation for an imaginary screen version of Berg. A boarding house in out of season Brighton is the background for this strange, disturbing and darkly comic drama. Published in 1964, Berg – described by writer Lee Rourke as ‘the best novel ever set in Brighton’ – established Ann Quin’s reputation as one of the most original, contemporary British writers. She wrote three further novels but remains one of the best-kept secrets of British literature. She died in 1973, drowned in the sea off Brighton, aged 37.
‘The immersive environment is complemented by music and sound design from Barry Adamson who has created soundtracks for David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Carol Morley’s Dreams of a Life and many others. He is a current member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds having re-joined the band in 2013. The ‘Berg suite’ has been produced in collaboration with Paul Kendall who engineered Barry Adamson’s first solo album, Moss Side Story, the soundtrack to a non-existent film noir.’ — Cinecity
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Correspondence
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Every Cripple Has His Own Way of Walking
by Ann Quin
The house was old. They were older. The sisters. They celebrated Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. Cried at her funeral. At least if they hadn’t actually seen these events they witnessed it all in the newspapers. The house full of newspapers. Paper bags within paper bags. Letters. Photographs. Pieces of brocade. Satin. Ribbons. Lockets. Hair. Broken spectacles. Medicine bottles. Empty. Foreign coins. Trunks. Cases. Cake. Biscuit tins. And mice. The child never knew whether it was the mice or one of her aunts wheezing in the long nights. Or maybe just the wind from the sea. The downs. Whistling in the chimney. Other nights she knew it was Aunt Molly battling with her asthma. Or Aunt Sally sucking tea from a saucer. And the bed creaked in the room below. As grandma turned over. Back again. From the waist up. Did she have legs? The child thought of them. Thought she saw them like sticks under the sheet. About to thrust up. With barnacles and millions of half-dead fish clinging. The old woman’s flesh. Scaly. Her eyes like someone just risen from the ocean bed. But then she was grandma. And all grandmothers must look like that. Confined to an enormous bed. Yet not so enormous. For she filled all parts. At all times. As she filled the house with her demands. Commands. In her little girl’s voice. When not eating. Not sleeping. Whined for the bedpan. Another cup of tea. And if Aunt Sally stopped making kitchen noises then she whined for the bedpan again and accused her younger sister of indulging in forty winks. For the house belonged to grandma. Every item down to the shrimp pink corset and purple dress Aunt Sally wore had been billed to grandma. She after all had been married. And no one now would point out she had stolen Aunt Molly’s intended. That a long time ago. And he who had made the mistake by proposing in a letter from India to the wrong sister had long since departed. They lived as best. The three. In the worst. Through thick and thin. They lived their roles. Respected. Detested. Each other’s virtues. Little vices. Whims. And waited for the day the child’s father would pay a visit. That day would surely be tomorrow. If not tomorrow then the next day. When Nicholas Montague. Monty to them all. Would tread the path. Into the house. Receive their love. And tell them of his travels. Successes. Though Aunt Molly would look past him. As if she recognised in his shadow some remembered dream. Go on sorting out little bundles of letters. Comb her long white hair. Thin. So thin it was more of a veil covering her head. Face of crushed carnation that sprouted from the black bent root of velvet. The child would look past him too. Perhaps. At the portrait. For comparison. While Aunt Sally clucked around him. Teeth clicking. Little bird eyes upon the nephew who could do no wrong. If he did a wrong in others’ eyes then he did it because there was no alternative.
The days grew into each and out of each night. With the habits. Dreams. Tales of days gone by. The horse-drawn buses. Dinner. Tennis parties. Musical evenings. Picnic outings with cousins by the Thames. Sunday strolls in Kew Gardens. And the Crystal Palace. For the child these stories merged with those of The Goose Girl. The Snow Queen. And Cinderella. Each of these she was. Saw her aunts as grown ancient but with a wave of the magic wand they would change into beautiful queens with quick queenly steps. She felt sure her father would have this wand. Transform the old castle on the hill. The old ladies. Herself. Into a magical world where they would all live together happily ever after.
Weeks. Months. Years. Came. Went. After hours of anticipation. The child saw the calendar only in the mirror. She was still not taller than Aunt Sally. She thought the day would never come when she would be. Though she forgot this problem when she didn’t have to bend to peer through the keyhole at Aunt Molly. Whole morning spent on the landing. Watching her aunt go through the never-changing rituals. Always the child hoped that some morning. Some time the white-hair apparition would do something different. Or maybe not do anything at all. Lie motionless in her black velvet. This the child hoped for more than anything. The door then would surely magically open. The room at last hers to explore. There were the corners. Dimensions. She never saw from her one-eyed viewing. Then there were the cupboards. Drawers. These must be filled with all kinds of mysterious things. Boxes her aunt bent over. But never brought out whatever lay there. Her hands shook. Hovered over something. Then the lid closed and her aunt locked the box. Held the box. Nursed it in her lap. Her lips moved. Drawn in. The child tiptoed along the landing where the wind mocked the carpet. Played with the carpet on the stairs. Down into the kitchen the child crept to make Aunt Sally jump in the larder. Oh you wicked child you’ll be the death of me yet here take this into your grandma her tongue’s hanging out for a cup of tea quick now and I’ll give you a piece of bread and butter pudding.
The child took the tray. Tried not to spill the tea into the saucer. If she did before reaching grandma’s door then the lions would eat her up. But they were preferable to the lioness with the little lion’s growl that greeted her offering. So there you are well bring it over here that’s right now care – ach child you’re so clumsy and what’s your Aunt Sally doing taking another nap I suppose well don’t stand there child like an imbecile just like your . . .
Her mouth filled with cake. Tea. Denture coping. Body manoeuvres. Just her eyes. Waterlogged. Stared at the child. Her head moved in time to the munching. Sipping. Swallowing. Plump ringed fingers filled the space between eiderdown. The small hole that presumed to be a mouth. The child held her breath against the smells. Urine. Stale food. And medicines. She counted the flies on the limp strips of sticky yellow near the curtained windows. Listened to cupboards. Drawers being opened. Closed. In the room upstairs. Unable to hold her breath any longer she rushed out. From grandma’s munching. Grinding. Into the kitchen where Aunt Sally hardly bent over the oven. Drew the baking tin out. Blinked in the warmth. Her own warm approval. Pleasure. Ah it looks a good one this time. She tested with a knife. The two of them bent over this treasure of golden brown. With little smiles. Hands of assurance. They ate. Hardly two mouthfuls when the child begged her aunt to sing. Sing anything. But you know all I know is Little Brown Jug. Well sing that then. The child clapped her hands. Licked the sticky remains from around her mouth. And felt even the wind under the back door sounded friendly now. Plants in the outhouse nodded in their full row of participation. Clouds danced lightly on the brow of the hill. Poppies and blue flowers bowed in acknowledgement towards the house. And the child knew if the sea was nearer that too would chuckle in the warm conspiracy. Sing sing Auntie and do that little dance you do. Ah you little devil I haven’t got all day to play with you so get along with you now go and play in the garden. The child laughed. Made to hug her aunt. Made all kinds of promises. Pretended to cry. Tickled her. Until the demanded song burst out and her aunt skipped one. Two. Three oops there now you’ll be the death of me oh my oh dear little brown jug don’t I love theeeee there I’m worn out and there’s your grandma calling. Off she went muttering. Dress dusted the floor. Caught in the door as she wiped the tail ends of pudding from the corners of her moustached upper lip.
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Book
Ann Quin Tripticks
And Other Stories
‘As innovative and abrasive as the very best of William Burroughs, Ann Quin’s Tripticks offers a scattered account of the narrator’s flight across a surreal American landscape, pursued by his “No. 1 X-wife” and her new lover. This masterpiece of pre-punk aesthetics critiques the hypocrisy and consumerism of modern culture while spoofing the “typical” maladjusted family, which in this case includes a father who made his money in ballpoint pens and a mother whose life revolves around her overpampered, all-demanding poodle. Stylistically, this is Quin’s most daring work, prefiguring the formal inventiveness of Kathy Acker.’ — And Other Stories
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Excerpt
I have many names. Many faces. At the moment my No. 1 X-wife and her schoolboy gigolo are following a particularity of flesh attired in a grey suit and button-down Brooks Brothers shirt. Time checked 14.04 hours Central Standard Time. 73 degrees outside. Area 158, 693 square miles, of which 1,890 square miles are water. Natural endowments are included in 20 million acres of public reservations.
All outdoor sports are possible. Deep sea sleeping, and angling for small game are favourite pastimes. The man who doesn’t reckon his pleasures on a silver platter is a fish that walks by night. Batman’s the name, reform’s the game. Farm out the elite, the Ruff-puffs, stinking thinking, temper tantrums, strong winds, captivating experiences, Burn Down Peyton Place, and inhale deeply stretched time with red eyes.
Eyes that fall away to 282 feet below sea level. I am hunted by bear, mountain lion, elk and deer. Duck, pheasant, rabbit, dove and quail. He at first feels a little like George Custer at Little Big Horn. The enemy is all around and awesome. The road ahead is going to be difficult there will be some nervous Nellies and some will become frustrated and bothered and break ranks under the strain, and there will be blood, irony dwarfs and dragons, skyrockets fired to celebrate orgasm’s efficiency. Suicide in a scented Sodom. Soul on acid. Hero angelic, domestic and cosmic on a journey with God on my side and the BrownieTroop.
Meanwhile I eat a toasted cheese hamburger, and dwell on five days of unconfined feasts of roasted pig. A miracle for a man who has nothing to lose. True your family adventures may not match those of ancient Greece, but you’re equipped to make history and why shouldn’t you be, we’ve worked hard to make it that way, we took no short cuts, spared no expense, watched no clock. If you come filled with dreams it may happen that your dream changes about every 15 minutes. The most is yet to come. 3,000 miles of strawberry ice cream. Lips are frenchfries teasing cole slaw fingers. My belly a Golden Poppy and the Motto is I Have Yet To Find It. Or as posted to my 3 X-wives. Ranked according to value vehicles food allied products fabricated metal machinery stone clay glass lumber and apparel.
White gold her hair one of my faces married (I displayed at that time a droopy Stephen Crane moustache and shiny eyes fixed on some wild interior vision). A bevy of stars, many now fallen. Reproductions a gristmill wine press and the reservoir with its undershot waterwheel, a restored chapel and adjoining wing of seven rooms she has taken over with the fourth husband of my No. 2 wife. Under the rough hewn redwood timbers they were lashed together with rawhide. Open during daylight hours an unusual arrangement of garden pools. Hours subject to change in summer. No dogs, with the exception of seeing-eye dogs, are allowed. Cats are permitted to stay overnight provided they are on a leash. A naturalist is on duty. As members of the 89-person party died, those remaining resorted to cannibalism. Only 47 were rescued. Picnicking. Campsites near the original area. Where I waited. Cement sand gravel and a gun. Full of booze and passion for justice he sees himself as a law and ardour candidate. His politics are symbolized by the itchy trigger finger, and his judicial philosophy is summed up in a tidy homily, `You can’t serve papers on a rat’. For months he terrorized the young women, and he was quickly dubbed the `Phantom Rapist’. He left typewritten notes at the scenes of his crimes. A strategy he called `working the system’.
He is layin’ low, like Br’er Rabbit in his briar patch but we know he s in there. Hovering, pale and jittery, like an image that persists for a second after the set has been turned off.
I knew they scrutinized me through a two-way mirror. A matter of impatience between us. Between the sunken gardens, colonnade and the workshop. They set up their own quarantine regulations. Frozen turkeys and yoghourt delivered from the nearest Piggly Wiggly. She played the mechanical organ, he an old horse fiddle, and other games with other interesting relics. Most of their amusements, I soon realized, could be accommodated without my presence. The inertia of distant omniscient perspective. That other side of the goddamn appletree. Intimations of immortality and a need for sincerity and violence become reflections of the reality only. I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death. The attacker may be a sadist who bites slowly and intentionally, leaving well-defined teeth marks. Mainly found on the breast, neck, cheek, top of arm etc. Their degree of viciousness can vary tremendously, from the nipples being completely bitten off to one bite only, a `love nip’.
I fired three times at their flagstone barbecue pit. And emerged from an underground channel through different rock strata. The name is not Gnome. The sensible thing is to kill them off, petrol bombs you know. Napalm your Castle awaits you.
It was when hitting Highway 101 I noticed they were following. I turned off into a winding road. Without campsites rest areas picnicking trailer hookups Naturalist programme.
Their faces, glass faces behind me, twisted into grotesque shapes by the Pacific winds. Surrounded by Himalayan cedars, illuminated with 8,000 coloured Lights. I proceeded with lights extinguished for several miles, and began a journey in an atomic submarine, scientifically authentic, to view mermaids, sea serpents, and the face of my first wife’s father. Pets may be left in a kennel at the main gate, he said. This one happens to be dead, I replied. In that case we’ll arrange a funeral at once. But I didn’t want a burial performed just then. However I told him that eventually a statue in her honour would be appropriate for erection in the town park, where visitors may choose to arrive by helicopters. He seemed genuinely pleased at this idea and showed me around the grounds of his No. 1 home. In addition to the eight-room stone and frame house (a market value of $82,000 when it was appraised six years ago he confidentially told me) there were a grassy helicopter pad, a log-cabin guest house, two boathouses, a kidney-shaped swimming pool, a sauna, a trampoline and a profusion of trees and marigolds. `All this was pasture, plain pasture when we bought it, I planted those pines as little sprouts and look at them now, you have to keep them fertilized and use lots of mulch.’ A recent hailstorm had played havoc with the trees and the roof of the house. He noted aloud `I’ve got to fix that’. He bent over and picked up several broken willow branches and handed them to his chauffeur (who I felt sure secretly belonged to the Panthers). While an electric player piano blared Oklahoma he led me to the garage where there were three autos: a 1926 model T Ford 1930 Model A A new red convertible. `A copy,’ he said proudly, `of the ’29 Ford Phieton.’ He tried to start the Model T, but the motor coughed, spat and died. `Someone’s been tinkering at the choke.’ He hopped out, lifted the hood and tinkered for a minute, explaining that he used to run a bike repair shop and liked doing his own mechanical work. Then his ire was directed at his anti-smog gadget. `The car idles so fast that it automatically leaps to 30 miles an hour when I take my foot off the brake, I’ve got to be careful I don’t kill somebody,’ he said with a rueful smile `just coming out of my drive.’
He led me further into the grounds. Crocodiles, hippopotami, and snakes slipped through murky water. Along the shore, amid live, rare tropical trees, shrubs, and flowers, appeared elephants and other jungle animals. `Visitors you know will find it hard to believe that none of the animals are alive. `I felt convinced one or two were, possibly his wife’s pets. She took her poodle Bu-Bu with her everywhere. `I wish I had been an Edwardlan, `she moaned at dinner on my first visit. `When we give a dinner party as you can see the people who serve wear green jackets and white gloves, but look at the curtains they’re in shreds.’ `That naughty Bu-Bu of yours,’ her husband shouted.
After dinner he showed me the champagne plant, wine cellars and bottling rooms. This was just a hobby, he explained. He was in the ballpen industry, with eighteen plants selling a billion ballpoints a year in 96 countries, `enough to pen a letter stretching from here to Saturn’. I knew the familiar commercials: a ballpoint being buried by a bulldozer, rattled on a flamenco dancer’s boot and shot from a rifle, only to write perfectly again. He claimed that it would soon make the pencil obsolete.
I saw myself in the near future living like a modern pasha. Indulging an insatiable yen for the luxuries a Falcon jet Convair turbo-prop Jet Commander Rolls-Royce Custom Lincoln Caddy Sting Ray a houseboat and a Riva speedboat, and perhaps a thoroughbred racing stable, and two Eliza Doolittles for maids.
A recent afternoon in his life. Man Friday helps him into his Pierre Cardin jacket. The Rolls is waiting. Three lissom girls are already in the back seat. He wanders across the lawn to pet his two tame ocelots. `Tell my wife that I’ll be back tomorrow.’ The Rolls is crunching along the gravel driveway when someone runs from the house and shouts, `Urgent call from New York.’ Twenty minutes later he is finally airborne in his twin engine falcon jet.
I tentatively asked him about his earnings. `Now you’re prying into my personal business,’ was his angry retort. `Just say it’s between 50 cents and 5 million dollars.’ Then he went on about a fund he was creating to provide huge public cocktail parties with free food and drink for anyone who wants to attend. `This would be a real nice way to be remembered,’ he said. There had to be a hitch — the parties would not start till after his death, and he wants to enjoy them too. So, for every party, he has arranged with a local funeral home to have his remains wheeled out in a big silver casket. `They will stay at the party until the last guest has gone.’ As he told me all this he had the strangest gleam in his eyes, it was like he couldn’t wait to die and get on with the fun.
His study was built in the shape of a wine barrel. He showed me photographs of his daughter in graduation drag. Of her as a plump baby, naked on a crocodile skin. And photos of his home town pharmacy ice cream parlour bank drugstore dentist’s office general store an old oil rig early locomotive box-car handcar and caboose hotel saloon and other enterprises.
I became the caricature of the surly inarticulate `man, like I mean’, as I caught sight of his daughter, my first wife to be, chewing gum in the memorial garden of camelias, roses and flowering shrubs. A maze symbolizing the various paths offered in life. At its centre a small stone summerhouse with a highly finished interior signifying the hastiness of judgment on the basis of outward appearances.
`That’s the orchard over there a fine sight to see you know,’ he said, `the Cherry Picking Festival is held in June and the public is invited to pick their own fruit, and over there well we have the Marine Corps Supply Depot — there we go you know my grandmother or was it my great grandfather was Celtic see that fireplace well its modelled after a Scottish war lord’s and this well it’s a miniature Railway an authentic replica you know of an oldtime coal-burning engine and that well that’s a photo of the world’s largest jet-missile rocket test centre and has a 22-mile runway — not open to visitors of course.’
I made the appropriate gestures, remarks, while thinking of his daughter’s petrified face imprinted on fossilized leaves. Vital secrets of her own wondering aloud while shopping by Rolls. I was curious to know if she was a member, like her mother, of the D.R. (Daughters of the Revolution). I doubted it. Her speciality would be wooden heads, tightly leather-wrapped. At the moment, her father reported, she was preoccupied with lizards, which she says `look like man in certain stages’.
Later at a health resort under hot-water geysers we made it for the first time in the mineral springs and mineralized mud baths. My mouth searching for hers by means of siphon pipes. And later that same day I got a strange blow-job in a parking lot, it was 35 degrees outside, by a weird woman, two days later I was still weak at the knees and couldn’t think about it. Now I could try and ease my way out of this by saying I didn’t ask questions, just stated my personality smart, well-educated Lack of respect for authority ambitious lack of spiritual and moral deep concern for social fibre problems lack of responsibility good values, character lack of manners communicate lack of dialogue with elders independent thinker values ill-defined poised personality lack of good study habits vocal, will speak up lack of love for fellow men mature, prepared for lack of self-respect life too impetuous versatile, able too introspective intellectually curious too introspective well-groomed nothing missing care about community
read for pleasure consider myself informed sense of humour is important enjoy discussing ideas my best work is done when I’m not working I am dominant relationship with my family is fucked up I am sophisticated considered attractive interested in marriage liberal regarding sex more of a dove than a hawk my date should be psychologically weaker I am optimistic Pot and pop-pills are morally right I drink regularly
On the other hand I am interested in some of the factors which may, or may not, effect my psychological feelings. For this reason I have hand exercise springs REMEMBER Hold the hand spring in a closed position throughout the `thinking’ period. Place your check mark on the line, not in between lines
THIS NOT THIS X X
_________ _________ ___________ ___________
Do Not Omit any Scales for Any Concept Yesterday Good ________ ________ ________ Bad large large unpleasant pleasant light heavy cold hot active passive rough smooth
My Mood Now
small large passive active hot cold bad good heavy light pleasant unpleasant
Fantasy Profile
Organized Dreamer Athletic Sexy Confident Aggressive Subtle Natural Practical Well-dressed Healthy Introverted Passionate Thrifty Quiet Nervous Funny Warm Paternal Extroverted Serious Impulsive Talkative Trusting Active Intelligent Kind Content Maternal Cheerful Creative Self-controlled Cautious Do-it-yourself Altruistic Emotional Reflective Jealous Obsessive Wholesome
Common Interests
Pets Jazz Psychology Parties Walking Photography Lectures Scientific E.S.P. Medicine journals Stock Market Stereo Movies Antiques equipment Yoga Astrology Acting Humanities Foreign travel Modern lit. Dancing Sugar buns Discotheques Portable lawns Ethics Pop Art and unusual work-it-yourself devices
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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Unfortunately I think even love doesn’t have the power to erase the moral and legal consequences of first degree murder. Although … ha ha. And Hey_iam_Cutie seems to be quite the clever creature as well. Love’s cock taking a short vacation in the most luxurious resort in Central America (for some strange reason), G. ** _Black_Acrylic, I’m guessing there must be people out there whose cosmetic surgery was so high end that you can’t tell, but I’ve never met one of them. I mean even Madonna with all her wealth ended up looking like an outer space creature in an old episode of Star Trek. Maybe your mum would surprise you, ha ha. ** Misanthrope, I didn’t even call my own father daddy. Well, just ‘boi’. It’s beyond common when hunting escorts to come across guys in their 40s and 50s referring to themselves as bois. Who do they think they’re kidding. Maybe the ‘i’ stands for idiot. You might have just changed that lad’s whole life with the Rimbaud prompt. Good on ya. Don’t anticipate, yeah. Just barge into his office with a big shit eating grin on your face and I’m sure it’ll go spectacularly. ** Charalampos, Hi. ryan, if you’re reading this and didn’t see, Charalampos recommends donotsubmit.net. Thanks. I hate not being able to sleep or, rather, the day after. I’m a morning person. I write and work in the morning and afternoon, but by the night I’m usually out of imaginative gas, writing-wise. Being in a house you were in twenty five years ago and still feeling like it’s yesterday is a rare feeling that you can certainly do something with artistically, no? Love from unpleasantly hottening Paris. ** Steve Erickson, Thanks, yes, just when it seems like he has hit bottom, … voila. He gets a giant cut of whatever proceeds. And he gets to use his cred for doing our film to lure in other unsuspecting producer-needing future victims. I know the name Jan Soldat, but I don’t think I know the work unless I’m spacing. I’ll investigate. Sounds very interesting. Bill asked you a question in the comments yesterday if you didn’t see it. ** Bill, It must be your jet lag, ha ha. Although his text was, um, well written. Nah, we’re apparently going to finally get a short burst of actual 2023 summer in the next few days, urgh. Although I’m guessing your current summer could kick what ours amounts to’s ass. ** Cody Goodnight, Hi. I’m … alive. I even bided my time on a plane with ‘Batman vs. Superman’, and that’s easily one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I love Jefferson Airplane. ‘Baxters’ is their masterpiece. ‘Crown of Creation’ is pretty great too. I may have a bead on a way to watch the Syd Barrett documentary, and if so, I’ll watch that today. Musically I fell into a Ramones hole yesterday, and that was nice. Hoping imminent greatness awaits you. ** Darby (for now) 🐈, No problem re: the post, totally understood. I’m more than happy if this place can adequately distract you. Your crush sounds very crush worthy. Nice. May he inspire you and keep you floating til the cows come home. No, no sorry, that pain is real, and I wish it didn’t hurt you. ‘Coraline’ is cool. Laika was interested in making a movie of my novel ‘God Jr.’ They optioned it for a few years. It was going to be their first animation-plus-live action movie, but then decided to stick to animation, alas. I have a very noticeable (but only when you touch it) dent in the top of my head. I’m using all the mental energy I have to help your today be a very good one. ** malcolm, Hi. Oh, I generally pick the escorts that have texts that I really like for whatever reason: clever, weird, sad, scary, hilarious, … etc. Such texts take a lot of searching to find. I do a kind of collaging thing with the photos, locations, etc. to protect them, but the images come in later after I get the texts I like. No thematic or anything except for whatever inadvertent reveal of my own interests, I guess. I’m weird in that I never remember my dreams. Like maybe once every few months, I will, but only briefly. I’ve always been like that. I think I wake up in some wrong way that erases my dreams, but I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Your dream seemed pretty nice, florid, energised, all that good stuff. Thanks, M. ** Okay. I haven’t turned the blog’s spotlight onto the great, great Ann Quin in a long time. Today I light up my favorite of her novels. If you’re not on the Quin path, I do recommend you take her hike. See you tomorrow.
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