"The Garden of Eros: The Story of the Paris Expatriates and the Post-War Literary Scene" by John Calder (ALMA)

ISBN: 9780957452213

Along with Grove Press's Barney Rosset and the legendary Olympia publisher Maurice Girodias, John Calder is part of the powerful trio of visionaries who presented and published remarkable literature in the 20th century.   "The Garden of Eros" is both a literary history of publishing as well as a memoir of those years.  Calder also wrote "Pursuit" which is interesting, but also in the need of some editing.  "The Garden of Eros" is a better book that focuses on a huge subject matter - publishing in the 20th century.  The subtitle is correct, but rather limiting when one reads the book.  Paris is pretty much the focus with respect to the publishing history, but it also deals with the Paris Review crowd to Terry Southern to Alexander Trocchi, who is without the doubt, one of the great characters of the 20th century - both in a good, but a mostly bad way.  In fact, Calder's book may be the best with respect to writing about Trocchi's sordid history as writer and junkie.  The book is gossipy, as well as information regarding Trocchi, but also Girodias, who is an important figure in not only publishing but in his troubled relationships with his writers.  Henry Miller, Beckett, Burroughs, Paul Bowles, Jane Bowles, Alain Robbe-Grillet and so many other writers/ personalities are in this volume of delight.  As a publisher myself, I can easily identify myself with the Maurice Girodias and John Calder passion for making books and presenting authors - even those who wrote DB (dirty books).  An important document on publishing and its incredible personalities that ran into that world. 

June 1, 2014

June 1, 2014

Oddly enough, I don’t own “Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” album.  Yet, without a doubt, it is one album that made a significant change in my life.  Around March of 1967, my father received a large envelope that was addressed from London.  He wasn’t home at the time, but I made telephone contact with Wallace letting him know that he got mail from the United Kingdom.  Over the phone, he asked me to open the envelope to let him know what was inside the mail.   What came out was a black and white photograph and a letter, addressed to Wallace.  It was a very formal business letter and it came from Brian Epstein, who I knew at the time was the manager of The Beatles.   There was no specific information in the letter, but just asking my father to sign it, and then mail it back.  It also made a comment about receiving money as well, but it was in pounds, and being 11 or 12 years old at the time, it didn’t make sense to me.  Neither did the photograph that came with the letter.  My first impression was an image of a funeral, with all the people at the ceremony facing the camera.  The image was in black and white, and the picture had a flatness to it, like nothing stands out, except the whole picture itself.  Thinking back on it now, it reminds me of a Kabuki stage. 

  I have been to the Kabuki at least twice, and what impressed me was the lighting and staging of the narrative didn’t make any of the actors to stand out from the rest of the production or even sets.  Everything fit perfectly, and was in unison with the narrative, the acting, the lighting and sets.  All of it was equivalent to each other and none stood out.  Rarely have I seen something like that on a stage or even in a picture.  So thinking back and looking at this black and white image, I couldn’t focus on one thing.  I had to take the whole picture in front of me, and it demanded my attention from the very first glance.  Especially when my dad asked me what the picture was.  I told him that I wasn't sure what it was.  We then talked about something else, but my thoughts and eyes were on the image in front of me, and I was barely paying attention to the conversation.  When all of sudden, I realized that at least four of the guys in the photograph, were The Beatles.  Why I didn't recognize them right away was due to their outfits, which were turn-of-the-century marching costuming.  That, plus they all had facial hair, and John Lennon was wearing spectacles.  It is difficult to believe, due to the Internet and instant news we have now, but in 1967, the news and images came around slower.  The last time I saw a picture of the fab four, was them dressed in "Revolver" era clothing.  They still looked like The Beatles during that time, but here on this picture, they looked like different men to me.  The photograph didn't yell out the fab four to me, and at that age, I was a huge fan of The Beatles. 

The next big shocker for me was finally seeing the image of my dad in this photograph.   Whatever our conversation was at that moment I interrupt him and told him that there is an image of him on this photo and it is with The Beatles.  Wallace wasn’t surprised or even curious at that point, he just wanted to continue with our conversation.  Eventually he told me to put the letter and photo on the table and he’ll look at it when he got home.   When he did come home, he did look at it, and realize that Epstein was asking permission to use his image for the upcoming Beatles album.  If memory serves me, there was no mention of the album being named “Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in the letter, although clearly it is indicated in the photograph.   Due to the black and white image, I had a hard time seeing the word “Beatles” in a floral arrangement on the ground.  

Wallace put off signing the document and sending it, due not wanting to do it, but just had other concerns on his mind.  Epstein sent him at least two additional letters and I believe a telegram as well, begging him to sign off on the photo.   Wallace did, and sent it off, and that was it.  He received the payment which was very minimal - something like $5, and we didn’t receive a copy of the album.  Which was perfectly OK, because Wallace really didn’t think much about it at the time, and to be honest, he never brought it up afterwards it was released to the world. 

Now, what is interesting to me, is how much of that cover is around, and on all sorts of objects, such as key chains, posters, t-shirts, and so forth.   Of course, whenever I look at the picture, I think of my dad right away.  Also as I look around to see the black and white image of the cover, I think of the connection with all the other individuals in that photograph.  For instance, Wallace knew the artist Larry Bell, and was among the first people to publish William S. Burroughs’ excerpt of “Naked Lunch” in his journal “Semina.” His father who passed away when Wallace was very young, left him only two objects.  They were books, one was a short story collection by Oscar Wilde and the other book was by T.E. Lawrence’s (Lawrence of Arabia) “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.”   My grandmother Martha (my mom’s mother) used to work with cowboy actor and star Tom Mix at the 101 Ranch as a dancer, and Wallace met Terry Southern sometime in the early 1960s, and was a friend of Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, who gets a mention on the Pepper cover as well.  Wallace also had a brief meeting with Bob Dylan and Lenny Bruce. 

Again, it is odd that I don’t actually own the album or the cover, except I do have the black and white image of the cover, with the additional face or two - but what’s even stranger to me is that I share a photograph with perhaps millions of people.  They have all looked at my father’s face, but it probably didn’t mean anything to them.  For me, it’s a bittersweet moment where my dad shared space with my favorite band at the time. 

May 1, 2014

May 1, 2014

I detest the 8-hour work day.  It shouldn’t be more than 5, and that includes breaks and lunch time as well.  And to be even totally more honest, I hate clocks.  The whole clocking in and clocking out of a work place is insulting at its best.  Work should be a partner in with desire, and nothing less than that.  People live to eat, to breathe, and some to work, but work is more meaningful and beautiful when the worker sets his or her’s time and place.  It should represent an organic relationship between work and pleasure.   Work is often fastened to a purpose or to achieve something, which of course includes money - but to work with no purpose at all, except the pleasure of doing the job is the best way to live.

My two favorite painters are George Inness (1825-1894) and Jules Breton (1827-1906), both are considered to be landscape painters, but the big difference between the two, besides one being an American and the other French, is that they use the landscape to convey different meanings.  Breton was influenced by the French countryside and basically sees the beauty and idyllic vision of the pastoral existence.  Inness sees the landscape as an emotional expression of various degrees.  The aesthetic difference is great, but what is astonishing in how two artists can look at a tree with the skies, and be totally different in how one sees the world.

Of all the schools and thoughts regarding the subject matter of painting, I will always give a deep reflection to landscapes, because it expresses to me either the perfect world or the emotional state of the painter towards their subject matter.  As I write, I look outside my window on Waverly Drive, and I pretty much see the same things every morning, but the difference is not the landscape itself, but how I see it on a daily basis.  Due to my mood swings, the landscape changes on a consistent footing.  Yet, it pretty much remains the same, but only through my vision does it become something more vibrant and emotional.

On the other hand, the paintings by Cecilia Beaux (1855-1942) which are portraits of individuals of a certain class in America, are very straight forward.  I don’t really care for her paintings, but I do admire her thoughts on perfection.  She has been quoted saying "I can say this: When I attempt anything, I have a passionate determination to overcome every obstacle…And I do my own work with a refusal to accept defeat that might almost be called painful." Which I can totally identify with, because I too, struggle to overcome my personal troubles, and my rather doubtful habits, in trying to maintain a certain amount of work - but God forbid it can’t go beyond five hours a day!

An interesting figure from the past, Calamity Jane, was a force of nature that was part of the wild west, but with the additional talent of adding ‘perhaps certain’ myths along the way.  It has been commented that she was a handful, but on the other hand a very sweet person.  Yet, she was driven to make an identity of some sort, and it always makes me chuckle that she called herself “Calamity,” which is probably her take on the force of nature, and how she places herself in the eye of the storm.  Disaster is sometimes fate, but often made by eager hands to control fate or even worst, the ideal vision of a perfect landscape.

At a certain hour of the day, I like to read “The Magic Christian”, ” with perhaps music from Les Rita Mitsouko, while causally looking outside and making notes of the ever-changing landscape, that is my soul.