* (restored)
—-

The Roland TB-303

Welcome to a day devoted to acid house. The best acid house music can best be understood as a very pure and intense form of psychedelia, one that conjures up an army of brain-bending phantasms simply by twisting the knobs on a little silver box. This post will explain some of the genre’s history and provides you with a few examples of significant acid records. There are some who would have it that all the good acid came out of Chicago in 1988, but maybe this post will persuade you otherwise. Acid spans cultures, continents and eras. See what you think, and don’t be afraid to jack your body…

*

p.s. Hey. ** Joe, Hey, Joe! The Metcalf was in the issue (#9) guest-edited by Gerard Malanga, so he brought it in. My only direct contact with Metcalf was because Little Caesar was a one person operation made back when you had to use typesetting machines and so on to make a issue, extremely labor intensive, and ‘WotP’ was very complicated, format-wise, to replicate, and I wrote to him to ask if the formatting had to be exactly as it was in the mss., hoping he’d say there was a little leeway, and he wrote back to say that, yes, the formatting had to be exactly as in the mss. Urgh. It was tough going get it right, but it was such an honor. Traveling, nice. I read ‘The Recognitions’, yes, a long time ago when I still had the patience to read giant novels. I remember thinking it was really great. Worth the time, as I recall. Weirdly, or I guess not weirdly, my favorite Gaddis is his shortest one, ‘A Carpenters Gothic’. ** Misanthrope, Whoa. I guess I figured you guys already were bfs. The big time. You know I’m wishing  you all the luck with that. Congrats to you both! Alcohol just makes me feel sluggish and sleepy. Which is why I only really drank when I did drink to take the edge off the coke or speed. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey! First, there it is up there, restored and repaired, as promised. Thank you from the future, pal. I loved the latest PT. So many total goodies I’d never heard before. I quite especially liked the Dollkraut and The Scary of Sixty and, I think, — it’s hard to match the sounds with the names sometimes — TE/DIS tracks. Nice John Maus pick too. But it was divine sailing the whole route. Thank you, thank you for the head revision. How was Jerry Sadowitz? ** Harper, Hi, Harper. Welcome! I agree with every single word you typed. Beautifully put. Truly, I’m always asking myself ‘how the fuck are doing that’ when I’m reading him. Which is the ultimate fiction effect for me. Thank you. How are you? What do you do and what are you up to, if you care to say. ** Steve, Eek. I get that impetus in a kind of Rimdaudian sense, but the evil involved is problematic supreme. No, on Chrisman’s DOZAGE, but I’m going to try to get that today. Thanks, it sounds like what I sorely need. Continued luck for Sunday. It sounds like you’ll be at the ready when the time comes. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Awwww. The issue continues to unfold majestically. I’ll give you a full feedback style take when I finish it, but it’s nonstop thrills. I’m trying to imagine what shit food is. Like fast food burgers or something? Says the guy who was wandering in the shit food aisle at the supermarket yesterday and trying to restrain myself. Although I have to say most French shit food would qualify as cuisine in the US. Love disappearing Kanye West and maybe his wife too, G. ** Growl, Hi. I like spring too, but its early arrival feels very eerie. Cyprus, nice. What’s that like? I’m thinking it’s maybe sort of like Greece? I don’t know. Hm, hard to say if that was flirtation. Wouldn’t put it past him. When is Easter? I don’t even know. Sunday, I guess? No, in other words. I might check to see if any of the patisseries have any Easter-specific edibles of note. No, Firbank isn’t too camp for me at all. I don’t even think of him as camp. It seems transcendent of that. Lovely trip! ** Justin, So, what did you do to your hair to cause such wide eyed reactions? Lopped a bunch off, I assume? Being surprising is the ultimate state, I think, so … cool. Enjoy it while it lasts. My week has been relatively lowkey because we’re in a short no film work phase. Mostly writing, making plans, buying tickets to upcoming things. Yours, other than looking brand new? ** Robert, Hi, Robert. It’s good to meet you. Well, it’d be easier to talk about your situation maybe. We could phone or Zoom if you want. My email is: [email protected]. For now, yes, it sounds familiar. I certainly don’t think it’s any reason to consider stopping writing. I go through months and longer when I can’t work on my writing, where that kind of direct route from my imagination and impulse just isn’t working or hooked up. Maybe especially if you’ve been intently concentrated on your writing for a long period. My guess is your main goal is to stop worrying that the break in focus is damaging or that it means more than that you’re just at an impasse and need to be refreshed. It could be a positive thing, which may sound weird, but I personally have found that taking a complete break from my writing has only pushed me forward. Maybe let yourself enjoy and study forms other than writing for a while: films, art, music, … I do that a lot. Sometimes just looking to other writers for ways forward can be claustrophobic or something. I don’t know. I guess I’m saying that, based on what you wrote, I don’t think it sounds like some kind of major break or turning point. Like I said, if talking it out would help, let me know, and we can sort out a tete-a-tete. Try not to worry. Easy to say, but, … ** Darb😏, Ah, the good kind of business. Sure, I love Tim Buckley. I have a big fondness for that song ‘Pleasant Street’. And lots of others. I really like his ‘weird’ period, like ‘Lorca’. Do you like that too? I haven’t had a cassette player or boombox in so long that I don’t remember what ones I had. Film: yum. Trusting you got your permit and I can celebrate. Store go-to? You mean what store? The health food store I go to here is called Naturalia. It’s pretty good. If you mean what item, lately it’s microwaveable mashed potatoes. ** Uday, Hi there. Favorite Firbank … that’s tough. I think maybe ‘The Flower Beneath the Foot’. Oh, I’m A-okay with alcohol itself, and, you know, a bunch of my closest friends indulge. Boring reason: my mom was extremely horrible, abusive alcoholic, and that really tinged me. That is really heartbreaking about Morrisroe. God, I didn’t know that part. Jeez. You good? ** Cap’m, Hi! Well, I definitely made myself up, and you’re all just things I have around me, so maybe you are just things wiggling in my web? No need for butterflies with me. I’m so chill, I’m easy, easy like a Sunday morning (if that’s the right quote). Anyway, you’re very kind, thank you. You seem pretty ace yourself, and not because I made you up, because I’m pretty sure I didn’t. I want to eat a pie out of my lap! I’m going to do that today, if I can. Pies are not common things here in France. Can you believe that? ** Okay. Some years ago, the maestro of the sonic Mr. _Black_Acrylic, currently host of the divine podcast Play Therapy, put together a post about … well, you see about what. And it had gotten a little technically rusty with time, so I’ve righted its ship and relaunched it for the good of all. Thanks, _B_A. See you tomorrow.

‘English novelist Ronald Firbank, was born in 1886. Had he been younger, his wit and thirst would probably have swept him into the frantic frippery of the Bright Young Things and we may have been denied the subversive brilliance of the dozen or so books that he left. Howard himself called Firbank’s Caprice “the wittiest book ever written”.

‘Firbank, it seems, was born blushing; his associates never fail to mention his social awkwardness, particularly the incessant fluttering of hands (or compulsive washing of same) and the hysterical laughter which would periodically erupt, leaving him incapable of completing an anecdote. Attempting to embolden himself with drink merely exacerbated the problem.

‘The key to Firbank’s life as well as his art is a sense of never quite belonging. He was born into wealth but it was only two generations old and thus socially suspect. His delicate health led him to constantly seek out more sympathetic climes, and his friends knew of his comings and goings largely from notices in The Times. He was also a Catholic convert, like Waugh in the following generation and Frederick Rolfe in the previous. In fact he was accepted into the Church by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, who enjoyed a short-lived friendship with Rolfe and Firbank was, like Rolfe, rejected from the priesthood and ever after maintained a strange, Oedipal love-hate relationship with Catholicism.

‘All of these things, as well as his homosexuality, gave Firbank a privileged vantage point to observe the rituals of his circle as well as its hostility to outsiders, but the barbs in his writing are sometimes so subtle that they only become visible on a second reading. While his plots and dialogue can occasionally seem as precious and overstuffed as a Victorian salon, Firbank was also remarkably forward-looking, such as in the impressionistic passages in Valmouth which record fragments of conversation, out of context, or his regular deployment of characters who were gay or lesbian or otherwise alienated.

‘There are numerous accounts of Firbank’s personal eccentricity, such as presenting the Marchesa Casati with a bunch of lilies and suggesting that they embark immediately for America, sending his cab driver to smooth the way before his first meeting with Augustus John, or his unlikely participation in sports. While at Cambridge, Oscar Wilde’s son Vyvyan Holland recalls seeing the effete Firbank incongruously dressed “in the costume of sport”. Confounded, Holland enquired what he had been doing, and learning that he had apparently been playing football, further enquired whether it was rugby or soccer. “Oh,” replied Firbank, “I don’t remember”.

‘Firbank’s persistent ill-health and self-destructive drinking finally caught up with him in Rome where, in 1926, he died alone in a hotel room. The only person who knew him there was Lord Berners, who hastily arranged a funeral ceremony with a Reverend Ragg (who, to complete this chain of coincidence, had been an associate of Frederick Rolfe’s in Venice). Firbank was an outsider to the last; Berners, having no inkling of his conversion, had him buried in the Protestant Cemetery (he was later reinterred).’ — James J. Conway

‘Firbank is not an author who lends himself to facile literary judgments: he cannot be fitted into any of the normal categories, and to dissect his novels as one might, say, those of George Eliot, is, as E. M. Forster has wisely said, equivalent to breaking a butterfly upon a wheel (Essay on Firbank in ‘Abinger Harvest’). In any case, one must first catch one’s butterfly, and Firbank, more than most writers, eludes pursuit, and refuses to be pinned down. Any judgement upon him is bound to be highly personal: either one enjoys his work or one does not, and it is all but impossible to explain its merits to those who dislike it.

‘Firbank has been compared, in an earlier passage of this essay, with James Joyce, and though no two writers seem, on the face of it, more dissimilar, the comparison could be extended. Neither Joyce nor Firbank, in their earliest work, appeared to possess more than the slenderest of talents: Odette can be paralleled by the vapid and derivative poems in Chamber Music. Both, however, were gifted with great literary virtuosity and a talent for pastiche, and were thus enabled to produce works totally different in quality and scope from anything which could have been predicted from their juvenilia. But whereas Joyce was tempted to work on a vast scale (and thereby, as some may think, to dissipate much of his natural talent), Firbank was content to recognise his own limitations, and to write in the manner which he found easiest and most pleasing to himself.

‘Firbank is without doubt a minor writer (whether Joyce, for all his present ‘reclame’, is a major one, is a question which can only be settled by posterity), but one who, for the most part, achieved precisely what he set out to do. Sometimes his inspiration flags, he can be irritating and downright silly; yet he is one of those artists who, as Cyril Connolly has said, ‘attempt, with a purity and a kind of dewy elegance, to portray the beauty of the moment, the gaiety and sadness, the fugitive distress of hedonism (The Condemned Playground.). Such artists are not, perhaps, very fashionable today; yet among them can be numbered (as Mr. Connolly goes on to say) such names as Horace, Watteau and Mozart. Firbank, of course, is not their peer, but he is a citizen, so to speak, of the same country; though not a great artist, he is that rare phenomenon in English literature, a pure artist, and as such he deserves our respect.’ — Jocelyn Brooke

____
Further

Ronald Firbank @ Wikipedia
Ronald Firbank: An Inventory of His Collection at the Harry Ransom Center
‘The Novels of Ronald Firbank’, by Jocelyn Brooke
RF @ goodreads
‘Vainglory: with Inclinations and Caprice by Ronald Firbank’
Ronald Firbank @ New Directions
The Lectern: ‘Five Novels by Ronald Firbank’
‘Method in Madness: Ronald Firbank’s The Flower Beneath the Foot’
‘Prancing Back into Print’
‘I Often Laugh When I’m Alone: The Novels of Ronald Firbank’
‘Criticism of Society in the English Novel Between the Wars: Ronald Firbank’
Ronald Firbank Fansite
‘From “Odette, A Fairy Tale for Weary People” by Ronald Firbank’
‘Ronald Firbank and the Powers of Frivolity’
‘The Parrotic Voice of the Frivolous’
‘Ronald Firbank’s Radical Pastorals’
‘Pilgrimage to Ronald Firbank’
‘Firbank as poet’, by Douglas Messerli
‘ROBUST BODY AND SOCIAL SOULS: REASSESSING RONALD FIRBANK’S EFFEMINATE QUEER MEN’
Video: ‘Gleefully Shameful. The Camp Fictions of Ronald Firbank’

___
Extras

Ronald Firbank

Sir Monkey channels Ronald Firbank

Ronald Firbank Quotes

Jerzy CHODOR – Księżniczka Słoneczników (Ronald Firbank)

____________
10 uses of the term Firbankian

1.
Guide to the Richard Blake Brown Letters, 1933-1962
COLLECTION DESCRIPTION: Correspondence by Richard Blake Brown, Anglican priest and sub-Firbankian gay novelist to Marcus Oliver. Written from various places on a variety of letterheads and on a variety of subjects, including fashion and costume designer Norman Hartnell; novelist Denton Welch; Brown’s meeting with Queen Mary; gay life in and out of the British Navy; and World War II in England. In addition to the letters are a photograph of Brown, a 4-page publicity leaflet regarding Brown’s novels, an item regarding an Anglo Latin-American costume exhibit, a magazine clipping of two nude boys wrestling, and a card from a hairdresser.

2.
nudism or firbankian moments on the beach

summer holiday 1999, a boy perhaps a fiend: for a few years I have been going to the nudist beach whenever the Dutch climate would allow a day in the sun, at first I thought it strange but it didn’t took long for me to realise that it was absolutely normal, I did not miss anything I mean.

But only last year on another nudist day at Hook of Holland I went for a walk with some friends along the coast line; I think they put something on because we did not know how far we would walk, but I was rather ignorant at the moment that something could be wrong, when suddenly out of the blue there was this little boy, almost seven or eight years old in a shiny striped speedo with the emblem of a crying octopussy loosely stitched on the front (was it still…wet?) waving with a large butterfly-net at me, while he raved violently: “All willies must go away…dirty willies go away!”

I was horrified, did i already walk too far? I could have only just crossed the border where nudist recreation was no longer alowed and I did not yet see the signboard. And then already this angry young lad attacking me with his hard wooden stick! — erik, Tuesday, June 4, 2002, ilx.wh3rd.net

3.
From the lavender rust, to the Firbankian frisson, to the poofing incense, and baron Corvo incognito, this litany of homophobic codes has been marshaled to bear witness to what Kroll later characterizes as Rauschenberg’s “Capotean” indulgence. From Kroll’s perspective, we have indeed gotten “too close to the artist in the wrong sense,” having uncovered his secrets: the expression of his ostensibly hidden homosexual life. What Kroll sneeringly refers to as the space “between the sanctum of private reference and the littered tundra of commemorative decay” is precisely the territory I want to navigate in my attempt to get “close to the artist.” It is in this space between authoritative usage and “private reference” that the emergence of “other” meanings – seductive implications both “public” and “private” – emerge into discursive promise. — from LOVERS AND DIVERS: INTERPICTORIAL DIALOG IN THE WORK OF JASPER JOHNS AND JASPER JOHNS by Jonathan Katz

4.
I love those European Scientology celebrities, who are unique among celebrities in that nobody has ever heard of them. For some reason most of their names also sound like they’ve been made up. At one point, Scientology in the Netherlands trotted out a ‘celebrity’ spokesperson called Kiki Oostindiën, a self-described singer and model. One wouldn’t dare to make it up. “Polish cellist Baroness Soujata de Varis” is a wonderful find, it sounds so splendidly Firbankian — are they sure she exists for real and isn’t just a character from a Firbank novel? — Piltdown Man, from a discussion on Scientology at alt.religion.scientology

5.
Authorial Adjectives: If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then to have been imitated enough to warrant having your name turned into an adjective must be an embarrassment of riches. I came across an article this evening, “Adjectives and the Work of Modernism in an Age of Celebrity” (Project Muse) by Aaron Jaffe, which contains a partial list of authors whose names have been adjectivified, and entered popular use. Goodness, Ibsenite could be some dim, carbon-like mineral, I imagine. A Firbankian is obviously a resident of Firbanks, AK. Brontëan reminds me of some extinct race of malformed giants. Lawrentian: the name of some unplumbed undersea abyss. — from the blog Reeding Lessons

6.
… my highly evolved if not Firbankian sense of camp. Thus I eschew the ubiquitous Frida K; ditto anything with Day of the Dead skeletons on it. I avert my eyes from a stamp showing Georgia O’Keeffe in her jaunty gaucho hat. But somehow I end up with … — from James Wolcott’s blog

7.
Jean Rouch at 86 had lost some of his youthful energy but none of his wit and enthusiasm. With another great film-maker still not subdued by the constraints of old age, the veteran Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira (a Firbankian nonagenarian), he made a film in Oporto centred on that city’s Pont Eiffel, based on a poem d’Oliveira had written as a script. — from an obituary of director Jean Rouch by James Kirkup

8.
James Broughton’s Mother’s Day is a comic anti-tribute to Mother that envisions Father as mostly a face in a frame, staring dourly, and the children as childlike adults, mindlessly engaging in such rituals as playing hopscotch and shooting squirt guns. Broughton’s attack on the family is wrapped in Firbankian whimsy: “Mother was the loveliest woman in the world,” reads a title in the film, “And Mother wanted everything to be lovely.” — from an appreciation o James Broughton at qlbtq.com

9.
The novelty of the plays, which feature ordinary suburban couples speaking gibberish with absolute complacency, is gone, of course, and they seem more mildly charming than explosive. But they do have their moments, with epigrammatic non sequiturs of Firbankian flair and a delightfully inane religious service broadcast on the radio. — from Ben Brantley’s review of a production of N.F. Simpson’s short plays in the NY Times

10.
The obituaries recently published for Anthony Powell are infused with elegy, as though marking the end of a tradition. Here was the last man left with the confidence to write as he pleased. The room he occupied in the house of English literature was distinct, somewhere on a staircase nobody else climbed. Before the last war, he had published several Firbankian novels so light and comic that they are almost disembodied. — from a remembrance of Anthony Powell by David Pryce-Jones from The Paris Review

___
Book

Ronald Firbank Caprice
New Directions

‘With Caprice Firbank’s art may be said to have achieved maturity. It is a lightweight affair, with none of the baroque elaboration of Vainglory; but here Firbank has his material more fully under control, the dialogue is more pointed, and the characters more sharply focused. Structurally it is one of his best books, and the narration, though typically oblique, is perfectly lucid. Its theme is that of the ‘innocent abroad’, which will recur in several of the later books: the stage-struck daughter of a clergyman, having purloined the family jewels, escapes to London determined to try her luck upon the boards; she rents a theatre and appears as Juliet, but on the morning after the first performance (having slept in the greenroom), she falls into a well beneath the stage. It is the first (but not the last) of Firbank’s novels to have a ‘tragic’ ending.’ — Jocelyn Brooke

____
Excerpt

The clangour of bells grew insistent. In uncontrollable hilarity pealed S. Mary, contrasting clearly with the subdued carillon of S. Mark. From all sides, seldom in unison, resounded bells. S. Elizabeth and S. Sebastian, in Flower Street, seemed in loud dispute, while S. Ann “on the Hill,” all hollow, cracked, consumptive, fretful, did nothing but complain. Near by S. Nicaise, half-paralysed, and impotent, feebly shook. Then, triumphant, in a hurricane of sound, S. Irene hushed them all.
—It was Sunday again.
—Up and up, and still up, the winding ways of the city the straggling townsfolk toiled.
—Now and again a pilgrim perhaps would pause in the narrow lane behind the Deanery to rest.
—Opening a black lacquer fan and setting the window of her bedroom wide, Miss Sarah Sinquier peered out.
—The lane, very frequently, would prove interesting of an afternoon.
—Across it, the Cathedral rose up before her with wizardry against the evening sky.
—Miss Sinquier raised her eyes towards the twin grey spires, threw up her arms, and yawned.
—From a pinnacle a devil with limbs entwined about some struggling crowned-coiffed prey, grimaced.

“For I yearn for those kisses you gave me once
On the steps by Bakerloo!”
Miss Sinquier crooned caressingly, craning further out.

—Under the little old lime trees by the Cathedral door lounged Lady Caroline Dempsey’s Catholic footman.
—Miss Sinquier considered him.
—In her mind’s eye she saw the impression her own conversion would make in the parochial world.
—“Canon Sinquier’s only daughter has gone over to Rome….” Or, “Canon Sinquier’s daughter has taken the veil.” Or, “Miss Sinquier, having suffered untold persecution at 11the hands of her family, has been received into the Convent of the Holy Dove.”
—Her eyes strayed leisurely from the powdered head and weeping shoulder-knots of Lady Caroline Dempsey’s Catholic footman. The lack of movement was oppressive.
—Why was not Miss Worrall in her customary collapse being borne senseless to her Gate in the Sacristan’s arms? And why to-night were they not chaunting the Psalms?
—Darting out her tongue, Miss Sinquier withdrew her head and resumed her book.
—“Pouf!”
—She shook her fan.
—The room would soon be dark.
—From the grey-toned walls, scriptural, a Sasso Sassi frowned.
—“In all these fruitful years,” she read, “the only instance he is recorded to have smiled was at a great rat running in and out among some statues…. He was the Ideal Hamlet. Morose of countenance, and cynical by nature, his outbursts, at times, would completely freeze the company.”
—Miss Sinquier passed her finger-tips lightly across her hair.
—“Somehow it makes no difference,” she 12murmured, turning towards a glass. To feign Ophelia—no matter what!
—She pulled about her a lace Manilla shawl.
—It was as though it were Andalusia whenever she wrapped it on.

“Dona Rosarda!”
“Fernan Perez? What do you want?”
“Ravishing Rosarda, I need you.”
“I am the wife of Don José Cuchillo—the Moor.”
“Dona Rosarda Castilda Cuchillo, I love you.”
“Sh——! My husband will be back directly.”
Stretched at ease before a pier-glass, Miss Sinquier grew enthralled.

—An hour sped by.
—The room was almost dark.
—Don José would wish his revenge.
—“Rosarda.”
—“Fernando?”
—“Ah-h!”
—Miss Sinquier got up.
—She must compose herself for dinner—wash off the blood.
—Poor Fernan!
—She glanced about her, a trifle Spanish still.
—From a clothes-peg something hanging seemed to implore.
—“To see me? Why, bless you. Yes!”
—With an impetuous, pretty gesture she flung it upon a couch.
—“How do I like America?”
—“I adore it…. You see … I’ve lost my heart here—! Tell them so—oh! especially to the men…. Whereabouts was I born? In Westmorland; yes. In England, Sir! Inquisitive? Why not at all: I was born in the sleepy peaceful town of Applethorp (three p’s), in the inmost heart—right in the very middle,” Miss Sinquier murmured, tucking a few field flowers under her chin, “of the Close.”

II

“SALLY,” her father said, “I could not make out where you sat at Vespers, child, to-night.”
—In the old-world Deanery drawing room, coffee and liqueurs—a Sunday indulgence—had been brought in.
—Miss Sinquier set down her cup.
—Behind her, through the open windows, a riot of light leaves and creepers was swaying restively to and fro.
—“I imagine the Font hid me,” she answered with a little laugh.
—Canon Sinquier considered with an absent air an abundant-looking moon, then turned towards his wife.
—“To-morrow, Mary,” he said, “there’s poor Mrs. Cushman again.”
—At her cylinder-desk, between two flickering candles, Mrs. Sinquier, while her coffee grew cold, was opening her heart to a friend.
—“Do, Mike, keep still,” she begged.
—“Still?”
—“Don’t fidget. Don’t talk.”
—“Or dare to breathe,” her daughter added, taking up a Sunday journal and approaching nearer the light.
—“‘At the Olive Theatre,’” she read, “‘Mrs. Starcross will produce a new comedy, in the coming autumn, which promises to be of the highest interest.’”
—Her eyes kindled.
—“Oh God!”
—“‘At the Kehama, Yvonde Yalta will be seen shortly in a Japanese piece, with singing mandarins, geishas, and old samurai—’”
—“Dear Lord!”
—“‘Mr. and Mrs. Mary are said to be contemplating Management again.’”
—“Heavens above!”
—“‘For the revival of She Stoops to——’”
—Crescendo, across the mist-clad Close broke a sorrowful, sated voice.
—“You can fasten the window, Sarah,” Canon Sinquier said.
—“It’s Miss Biggs!”
—“Who could have taught her? How?” the Canon wondered.
—Mrs. Sinquier laid down her pen.
—“I dread her intimate dinner!” she said.
—“Is it to be intimate?”
—“Isn’t she always? ‘Come round and see me soon, Miss Sarah, there’s a dear, and let’s be intimate!’”
—“Really, Sally!”
—“Sally can take off anyone.”
—“It’s vulgar, dear, to mimic.”
—“Vulgar?”
—“It isn’t nice.”
—“Many people do.”
—“Only mountebanks.”
—“I’d bear a good deal to be on the stage.”
—Canon Sinquier closed his eyes.
—“Recite, dear, something; soothe me,” he said.
—“Of course, if you wish it.”
—“Soothe me, Sally!”
—“Something to obliterate the sermon?”
—Miss Sinquier looked down at her feet. She had on black babouches all over little pearls with filigree butterflies that trembled above her toes.

“Since first I beheld you, Adele,
While dancing the celinda,
I have remained faithful to the thought of you;
My freedom has departed from me,
17I care no longer for all other negresses;
I have no heart left for them;—
You have such grace and cunning;—
You are like the Congo serpent.”
Miss Sinquier paused.

“You need the proper movements….” she explained. “One ought really to shake one’s shanks!”

“Being a Day-of-rest, my dear, we will dispense with it.”

“I love you too much, my beautiful one—
I am not able to help it.
My heart has become just like a grasshopper,—
It does nothing but leap.
I have never met any woman
Who has so beautiful a form as yours.
Your eyes flash flame;
Your body has enchained me captive.

Ah, you are like the rattlesnake
Who knows how to charm the little bird,
And who has a mouth ever ready for it
To serve it for a tomb.
I have never known any negress
Who could walk with such grace as you can.
Or who could make such beautiful gestures;
Your body is a beautiful doll.

When I cannot see you, Adele,
I feel myself ready to die;
My life becomes like a candle
Which has almost burned itself out.
I cannot then find anything in the world
Which is able to give me pleasure:
I could well go down to the river
And throw myself in so that I might cease to suffer.

Tell me if you have a man,
And I will make an ouanga charm for him;
I will make him turn into a phantom,
If you will only take me for your husband.
I will not go to see you when you are cross:
Other women are mere trash to me;
I will make you very happy
And I will give you a beautiful Madras handkerchief.”
“Thank you, thank you, Sally.”

—“It is from Ozias Midwinter.”
—Mrs. Sinquier shuddered.
—“Those scandalous topsies that entrap our missionaries!” she said.
—“In Oshkosh—”
—“Don’t, Mike. The horrors that go on in 19certain places, I’m sure no one would believe.”
—Miss Sinquier caressed lightly the Canon’s cheek.
—“Soothed?” she asked.
—“… Fairly.”
—“When I think of those coloured coons,” Mrs. Sinquier went on, “at the Palace fête last year! Roaming all night in the Close…. And when I went to look out next day there stood an old mulattress holding up the baker’s boy in the lane.”
—“There, Mary!”
—“Tired, dear?”
—“Sunday’s always a strain.”
—“For you, alas! it’s bound to be.”
—“There were the Catechetical Classes to-day.”
—“Very soon now Sally will learn to relieve you.”
—Miss Sinquier threw up her eyes.
—“I?” she wondered.
—“Next Sunday it’s time you should begin.”
—“Between now and that,” Miss Sinquier reflected, shortly afterwards, on her way upstairs, “I shall almost certainly be in town.”
—“O London—City of Love!” she warbled softly as she locked her door.

*

p.s. Hey. ** Misanthrope, Me, I think every building looks better covered with scaffolding. Always. Crazy night. Yours, I mean. That’s one of the reasons I don’t like being around drunk people. Just recently here, this young guy, interesting lad, friend of friends, got drunk at a party, blacked out, and when he came to it turned out he had sexually assaulted a girl while he was blacked out. Girlfriend broke up with him, none of his friends will talk to him anymore, he got kicked out of his band. Alcohol: bad shit. Nice that you had a good tete-a-tete with Elio Jr. though. And a new TV. ** Jack Skelley, Hi, Jawk. Yeah, I started reading SCAB, and it rules utterly. Big plans?! House of Pies in Los Feliz? There was a time years ago when I never went in that House of Pies without seeing Kenneth Anger in there eating a slice of pie. Cool and seemingly wise about her move to LF. Your fun redefines fun. I got nothing to compete with it. My big highlight yesterday was being in the mini-mart and asking myself, ‘Should I buy a jar of peanut butter?’ and answering myself, ‘No’. Whoo-hoo. Love featuring Arthur Lee, Dennis. ** kier, Whoa, kier!!!! Howdy doody! So sweet to see you, buddy! Awesome about your pad and studio. And the second hand thrift store gig. I can feel the pleasure involved, yes. And about your show! Document that down to the dust particles please. Yes, Zac and I are bandying about the idea of a return road trip to Scandinavia. Partly to revisit our favorite theme parks up there. We would definitely go to Oslo to see you. That was/is the top of our agenda. We’d like to go up to Bergen this time, and add Finland to the itinerary. I don’t know when it would happen. We’re kind of tied to what’s going to happen with our film and waiting to see what that does to the immediate future. But I’m pretty sure we’ll do it. Nice! (as in Neese). You know, Zac’s mom lives there, and he goes down to visit her frequently, so he might be there, and you guys could see each other at least maybe. I’m strangely excited for the Olympics and all the hordes of people cramming into the city and stuff, I don’t know why. And I think it’s going to be an ‘only in theory’ excitement. Anyway, pal!!!! I wish I could see you, but hopefully I will one place or another. Take the best care. All the love!!!! ** Allegra, HI, A. Thanks a lot. I don’t know ‘How To With John Wilson’. Thank you for the link. I’ll hit it once I’m outta the p.s. And the Vedder one too. Curious. The Paper Mario games are super. They’re the smartest, most clever and weird of the Mario games by far. Did you go to UC Irvine? I know Keith went there — that’s when I met him — but he could’ve gone elsewhere too. No, I don’t know ‘Inner City Romance’, but I’m on the hunt as of now. Thank you! Oh, I will, hit you with a FaceTime from therein. We can exchange deets once I know my LA dates. It’s a date! xoxo, me. ** Darbyyyy 🐒🐒, Ah, you’ll get out of that geographical doldrum of a place and see all kinds of wonders, pal. You do seem like an optimist to me. I vibe that totally. Takes one to know one. Cheese and vegetarianism are totally compadres. Actually, I eat eggs too. My definition of what I don’t eat is anything with an asshole. So you qualify in my book. Business like what? I don’t think I have business on my agenda although I suppose everything is business somehow. Ooh, profound. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey! Today is my new PT absorbing day. Can’t wait. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I’ve just read the first several SCAB works so far, but I’m mightily impressed as ever if not even more so. I hope you and it are getting tons of love or at least affection. Whew, lucky break on the no business trip. Love can lounge around instead? Love making everyone grow a ponytail, even bald people, G. ** Mark, Always happy when my nerdiness finds a soulmate. Oh, thanks, a studio visit, that would be sweet. Thanks, buddy. ** Growl, Hey, No, it was clearly my brain freeze because everyone but me seems to know what ‘hbu’ stands for. So, wait, the sizzling list … I’m forgetting … you mean the escorts? Hold on, I’ll have to check back. Uh, maybe melancholyslut, cuteasiandeafboy, and fistzilla. What’s new with youse? ** Steve, No, I haven’t. That seems like it would be hard, or rather it’s hard for to imagine there being enough odd, form transcending candidates to make the building worth doing? I could try. Maybe I will. I do like a challenge. When is your trip? Good luck checking off your to-do list. ** Uday, If only it was everywhere. Sigh. Yeah, no, I spaced about ‘hbu’. I overcomplicate things sometimes. Kneeling is gross and ludicrous for sure. Anarchist me doesn’t like it one little bit either. Maybe as role play or something. Writing … I’m trying to put together a short collection of short fiction things from the past ten or twelve years. One-offs, experiments, unfinished things, things that were intended for novels but didn’t end up there, etc. I’m trying to revise them and polish them up and see if they make a collection. A very short collection. Right now it looks promising. That’s my writing du jour, although I’ll probably start writing Zac’s and my new film once we figure out more exactly what we want it to be. Thanks for wanting to know. I do wish I was writing that secret project you suggest however. Maybe I can co-opt your idea and throw together another short fiction piece. The collection could use more bulk. Much caffeine-revved love/affection from moi. ** Right. Today I turn the blog’s light source onto the fanciful and exciting (at least to me) prose stylings of the one and only Ronald Firbank. That’s the scoop. See you tomorrow.