The World of Tosh Berman: Saturday, May 15, 2021 (The Mysterious Michael Braun and Love Me Do!)

 

https://tosh.substack.com/p/the-mysterious-michael-braun-love 

The World of Tosh Berman: The Mysterious Michael Braun and Love Me Do!

Book Review: "Head-to-Toe Portrait of Suzanne" by Roland Topor; Translated by Andrew Hodgson (Atlas Press)

ISBN: 978-0-9931487-5-0

Roland Topor is very much like my beloved Boris Vian, in that he's mentioned, and thought of, but still a mystery figure, especially to the English reading world.   I know of Topor's work as a visual artist/illustrator, but I also read his novel 'The Tenant" which was later made into a terrific film by Roman Polanski.  Topor's literature/illustrations are a combination of absurdity and physical/psychological dread.  Writing-wise, he reminds me a bit of Kafka, but even more focused on being uncomfortable in social settings.  There are toilet anxieties, as well as sexual fear, or the feeling of being exposed to the public.  It reminds me of my dreams when I walk into a school room full of people or classmates, but I forgot to put pants on and hoping no one will notice my nudity. 

"Head-to-Toe Portrait of Suzanne" is a novella focusing on the dread or the feeling of not being worthy in a world that is harsh and borderline logical in its treatment of the oddities of humans.  This fable-like narrative is about a fat man whose left foot is his lover, or perhaps what he thinks of his diseased foot as - a broken relationship with a woman.   Topor is an incredible presence in 20th-century European literature and fiction.  Another childhood figure who was on the run from the Nazis, and that experience, of course, is tattooed in his existence.  Like Georges Perec and Serge Gainsbourg, the experience of being alienated in Occupied France is a horror show, and all three artists/writers express that dread.  "Head-to-Toe Portrait of Suzanne" is a remarkable little book. 

- Tosh Berman

Marek Hłasko's "Beautiful Twentysomethings"

ISBN: 978-0-87580-477-4 NIU Press

Due to my newly interest in the Polish composer/musician Krzysztof Komeda, I discovered "Beautiful Twentysomethings" by Marek Hłasko. It may be the case Hłasko killed Komeda in a drunken mishap in the woods near Los Angeles in the late 1960s. Hłasko was very guilty what happened to his friend, and eventually, within a week he died in Germany. Both were friends of Roman Polanski - who is a guy that seems to have bad luck as his permanent friend. 

Hłasko is described as the James Dean of Polish literature, and that may be the case, but to me, he really reminds me of the French poet and author Blaise Cendrars. Both are guys-guy and there is a certain amount of charm that runs with Hłasko, even though it sounds like he was a nightmare of a person to actually know or be a friend of. "Beautiful Twentysomethings" is Hłasko's memoir, which sometimes reads like a rant and at times literary criticism on his fellow Polish authors and Russian literature as well. He was very fond of noir films and knows a lot about the cinema. His observations on Humprey Bogart is pretty fantastic. He would have made a great film critical writer/journalist. Alas, I don't think that happened. 

This is a fascinating book on what it's like to live in Poland during the 1950s, and really living the life in the rough with no dough and a heavy drinking lifestyle. He wanders over to Israel and Paris, but he is a man who doesn't really have a home. He is at home in bars, the streets, and reading books. Handsome devil he was, he could have been a world literature figure, but nothing seem to connect for him. Oddly enough this is not a depressing read, due to his character in that he's funny. Hłasko writes and expresses serious issues, but it's in the style of the wise guy in the street, who's whispering devilish things to you that can be dangerous. A fascinating post-war figure, whose insight will be welcome by those who want to study European life during those times, but also a great introduction to a very interesting writer. 

August 18, 2014

August 18, 2014

There are numerous ways of looking at one’s life, and it can be measured by the objects one owns, or their sexuality.  For instance, I’m a pussy hound.  Why? That is the million dollar question that I simply don’t have an answer for.  I think the main reason is either a life where one sleeps through the day, and just function whatever is in front of them.  For instance, you wake-up and make a cup of coffee without thinking of it.  I say 90% of my life is on that zone.  The sexual aspect of one’s life are mere moments when you see a woman, and it jabs one into another existence.  An inner-life comes out of you and all of a sudden you’re in a world full of color, and it has absolutely no meaning.  It’s a zone you’re in that has no rules and it is all about the sensuality of the moment.  Each woman is different.  There is no such being where one is exactly like the other.  So if you’re having sex with one, it is totally different from the other.  The truth is that no individual is like the other.  And that becomes obvious when you’re fucking a series of women.

The great thing about a book like “Lolita” is that the intellect is there, but here the British professor of French literature, who has a guideline in life is totally disrupted by the presence of Charlotte’s flirtatious daughter.  All logic is launched out the window, and there lies the problem for our hero of the novel.  Or is the true hero Clare Quilty, the drunk and sometimes incoherent shadow figure that floats into the narrative like Satan looking for a lost soul.  Nevertheless one has to disguise their desires nowadays.  When I was a teenager, all my girlfriends were mostly going out with much older men, and to me, it was more common to know a beautiful girl in school, is clearly dating the questionable male that is waiting outside the campus with his car running.

Sex is passion, but it is also about details.  As they say, the devil resides in the details.   I recently read Alain Robbe-Grillet’s last book, “A Sentimental Novel, ” which is about a professor having a S&M affair with his daughter.  It struck me as being ‘sick, ’ but also I found it attractive because it is ‘sick. ' Usually the older man, who is obviously a pervert - is also a very educated and well-read person.  To dwell into such depraved sexual practices, does one need to be an educated and smart person?  Being a filmmaker and writer, one can easily go into the darkness of one’s sexuality and address those issues.  The problem is the case that the reader or audience member may have trouble either in dealing with those issues, or at the very least, being very judgmental in such an obvious fashion.   I have always been attached to a specific photograph of Robbe-Grillet’s wife Catherine.   It looks like she is a little girl. Yet her expression is totally adult-like, and I feel I’m being pulled into a very precarious position.  Roman Polanski is such a man who has dealt with a bad hand, where he suffered greatly through the loss of his wife and childhood (due to war). Yet his work comes alive with the sensual aspect of living.  In fact to live is the ability to accept and further one’s adventure into the world of sex.

If I had one role-model in my life, it would be Jack Pickford.  He was the younger brother of Mary, and it seemed his life was spent on drink, drugs and a passionate addiction to sex with women.  His first wife was a wild number named Olive Thomas, who had a thirst for the carnal life just like her husband.  Both were talented actors, but according to a source close to both of them “they were more interested in playing the roulette of life than in concentrating on their careers.” She died under mysterious circumstances, and he had two further marriages, that of course, ended up as a failure. I was taken by him, because I wanted to expose myself to all the harm he has done to himself.  The loser is always more romantic than the winner, and it is usually those who lose, that we remember their presence more.  The taboo is what keeps us in line, and to go against the grain is the thrill some look for.  I have fallen for the passion of my times, but I now walk in various shopping centers and imagine what the girl tastes like, and in that small world, in my imagination, I find a certain amount of peace.

August 11, 2014

August 11, 2014

The only thing I like about The Dave Clark Five is Denis Payton, their tenor and baritone sax player.  It’s easy to find Dave Clark recordings on I-Tunes, but of course it is preferable to find the recordings on the original vinyl.  There is one outstanding track of the Five called “Time, ” which features Payton as a solo player.  I don’t know much about this tune, but it almost sounds like a Stan Getz song - and it has to be one of those pieces that were made in great haste as a b-side to some smasher-o a-side.  Nevertheless it’s not easy to locate the sounds of the Five, due to the control that Dave Clark has over his material or to be more precise, the music of the Dave Clark Five.  One wonders why someone would want to hoard the music to such a great degree, but perhaps it is something that is very precious to him.  Or maybe he feels he can drain more money out of the dying music business.  I always suspect that he pretty much stole his sound from the great Joe Meek recordings from the early 60s.  The sad thing is the case that the work becomes a shadow of an era, instead of what it naturally is - a piece of music.

The control of one’s image by someone else is a very natural thing to be done.  Whatever it is your work, or worst yet, a family member, it’s an uphill battle because you want to do the right thing, but sometimes you are only getting in the way of what is interesting about that person.   Peter Folger, who was part of the Folger (coffee) family spent a great deal of his time protecting his daughter, Abigail from the damning articles or books about the Tate-LaBianca murders, which resulted in very little information about her and her life.  Which is a shame, because it sounds like she was a very wonderful person.  I rather know her as a living person, than as a dead victim, who by all accounts was at the wrong place at the wrong time - or maybe at the right place that was intruded upon people who were clearly wrong being there.  Nevertheless I found it interesting that she had an interest in the arts -especially poetry and the theater.  She was a debutante from San Francisco, who wore a bright yellow Christian Dior gown that she had purchased in Paris some years before the debutante ball.  The interesting thing about her was her devotion to the issue of civil rights as well as the art world.  She took a job at the University of California Art Museum in Berkeley as a publicity director.

In 1967, Abigail moved to New York and found a job as a clerk at the Gotham Book Mart on 47th Street.  When I worked at Book Soup, I met the most amazing people, that I still remain in contact with, and some went off and became huge stars, writers, or … dead.  Nevertheless each one had a profound effect on my life, and I just try to imagine what it would have been like to work with Abigail at the Gotham.  Would we discuss Frank O’Hara, or maybe she liked French poetry.  I imagine her more of being a fan of the New York School of poetry (whatever that is).   The thing is there is very little information about her.  We don’t know what her taste in music, books were and yet we do know that she was devoted to the art form of literature and music.   All we know are the facts, such that she met the author Jerzy Kosinski at the bookstore and he introduced her to Wojciech Frykowski, a fellow Pole, and a bit of an adventurer.  The perfect boyfriend for this New Yorker, who can only communicate fully to each other in French.  Frykowski wanted to move to Southern California, hopefully to work with his good friend Roman Polanski, or at least hoping that would happen.   Abigail decided to move with him to Los Angeles, where she wanted to be a social worker.  Of course, things didn’t work out well.

I want to know more of Abigail as well as Denis Payton, but alas, due to a certain amount of controlling one’s history and the passing of time, it now becomes a world of shadows. As I have stated before, I ‘m OK in that world.  I got the Dave Clark Five’s very rare album that came out only in Canada (of all places) called “Instrumental Album.” It has the Payton sound of sax sounding like metal against metal.  It’s raw. I find it beautiful.  There are certain instrumentalists who totally dominates a sound, and the only other person who can do that is Jah Wobble, with his bass on PIL’s “Metal Box.” In memory of Abigail Folger and Denis Payton, whose  birthday, I’m celebrating today.