I just read in the New York Times about the passing of Callie Angell. Shocking news. She was the curator of the Andy Warhol Film Project at the Whitney Museum. I never met her, but we have exchanged e-mails in the past so many years. The avant-garde needs its supporters and writers. Her book "Andy Warhol Screen Tests: The Films of Andy Warhol Raisonne" is pretty much a must for anyone who has an interest in film or Warhol mystique and art.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars Anyone who is a friend of Boris Vian is a friend of mine. And Albert Cossery is very close to the aesthetic quality of the Prince of St. Germain-des-Prés. This is the first novel I have read by Cossery, and because of it I am now a loyal follower of this magnificent Egyptian born, but hardcore Parisian writer.
"A Splendid Conspiracy" (Un Complot de Saltimbanques) is a novel about three young friends among other citizens of a small town in Egypt. One is a police informer, the other a European traveler who tasted the good life, and the third is basically a nihilist punk who is über-smart.
Through these three characters, we see small town conservative life and its under-current of sexual adventure, decadence, and possible series of murder. But all of this serves in the background and its interesting how Cossery introduces each character and how they become part of the narrative. Life is a remarkable adventure and this book reads as a map to appreciate your location as well as how things are connected by the dots, but those dots can lead you to something strange, scary, weird, or ...sexy.
The book is translated by Alyson Waters and the language flows easily. A classic. And of course it is published by New Directions. His other novel "The Jokers" will be published by NYRB. So he's in good company.
What is fascinating to me are music blogs. These are all curated sites with particular albums or songs on them. I think people are missing the point about getting music for free or not - the bigger picture is people's taste and how they expose that specific taste. Part of the great fun is researching this by yourself and finding new discoveries. Due to the newish technology I have discovered a lot of new music. For instance:
Patrick Vian's "Bruits et Temps Analogues"
Boris Vian's son was (still is?) a prog rock figure in Paris 1970's. This is a very difficult album to find. I found it once in Tokyo but the price was way too much for me. It's an album that doesn't have that great critical response, but on the other hand it is a work of great interest. One he's the son of Boris. Two, it is an album that was important when it came out. People who are interested in Electronica will find it interesting. Personally I like it. It's a very warm album.
Patrick Vian (back cover of the album)
Pierre Schaeffer's "Parole et Musique"
In two words: Musique Concrete. Masterpiece album. Found sounds, dialogues, snips of melody, coughing, explosions, jets going off - its basically an aural portrait of the 20th Century.
Pierre Schaeffer
Rolling Stones' "Each and Every Day of the Year"
This song makes me tearful. The tragedy of it all. Andrew Loog Oldham's brilliant production and the arrangement are just top notch. It doesn't get better then this. Listen to the song down below.
At the moment I am reading a fantastic novel "A Splendid Conspiracy" by Egyptian born, but lived in Paris Albert Cossery. Any artist/writer who looks down on work is ok with me. Nevertheless this novel is really wonderful to the max. All the characters are really interesting, but they also grow out of the pages into something else. And it's really a page-turner of a book. Nicely translated from French by Alyson Waters.
New York Review of Books, which is a fantastic press by the way, is putting out another novel by Cossery called "The Jokers." I can't wait!
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Paris, without a doubt, is never boring. And this book focuses on various 'moments' in the city's moody history. Graham Robb's book is heavy curated in the sense that he tells various narratives dealing with Paris at a point of crisis of some point.
Each chapter focuses on a particular narrative, and the one's that work for me is the chapter on Napoleon flirting with a whore at the Museum, the Occupation seen through a Parisian child's eye which is terrifying and horrible at the same time, and the one's that have to deal with the criminal element.
The chapter that rub me the wrong way is the one on the great Greco and Miles Davis. He wrote it as a film script and its too cute for the tone of the book. Yet, for me, it's a fascinating subject matter how Greco matched up with Miles - and of course anything dealing with Boris Vian's world is a must for me.
But overall this is a very enjoyable overall history of Paris. It's not the best, but it's really good.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Mostly early essays or articles by the icon of all journalists who likes to drink and feel...important. But alas don't let that stop you for enjoying one of the British prose writers of all time. George Orwell in this small edition comments on the joy of being arrested for public drunkness in East London, the joys of dirty (not really) postcards of Donald McGill, the nature of junk stores, and true-crime reading.
In other words a collection of essays that comment on the taste and passions of the typical (if one exists) British citizen during and before the war years. A big plus is the design work of Penguin's "Great Ideas" series. A well-edited series of books by classic writers on particular subjects. Mostly from bigger editions of such a writer, but here you get the feeling that these books are made for a 1 hour long train trip, and they work beautifully in the bathtub.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Academic yes, but still full of life in its history. London can never be a dull subject, and when you add the post-war world of Gay Men in a new world - that was London, it is fascinating.
The "Architect" in the title is those who plan out the vision of London after the war. The Spiv is the outsider (Gay, criminal, boho, etc) who lives in that new world - or make it their own world somewhat or somehow. Using ubran architecture, 1950's British films, Cheap paperback books and its industry, and the nature of the "bed-set room" is all told in a PHD manner, yet the subject is one of total interest.
How 'sub-culture' life exists in a world that is totally indifferent or in fear of them is an interesting tale. Richard Hornsey's thesis and paper is a must for those who are interested in British gay culture, but even more important how cities/architecture/books comment on a world that they can't control or contain.
This is a scene from "L'ecume des jours (Foam of the Daze) based on the Boris Vian novel. I am waiting for the day that this film will have English subtitles. So far, a long wait.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Typical of me. I thought I was picking up a 'dirty book' and what I got was spiritual bliss of sorts. The writer Oniroku Dan, is a well-known soft (hard?) core porn filmmaker, screenwriter, and novelist. He's an expert on BDSM. As far as I know this is his first book in English, which consists of four short stories - but I suspect that they are more like memoirs than fiction.
The first three I was totally turned on, but the fourth one is the magic one - a really great view point of the porn or more like it the essence of pleasure in a Japanese context. The main figure in the last story is Naomi Tani, queen of the bondage film. And in what is almost a documentary on the nature of these films and its world. Here Dan really captures the essence of porn that is both funny, charming, and a tad erotic.
Also you get a good sense of the bars, the film world, and the nature of Japanese blue flicks or better known as "Roman Porno films.' Which was a cult-like passion for film goers in the 1970's. For instance my wife is into those type of films - but that's another story.
It says in the back cover that Dan wrote over 120 books. One hopes that these books will get translated and published. Excellent erotica, but also a great doorway to the undercurrents of contemporary Japan.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Reading this book you can actually smell Manhattan circ. 1953. Bernard DeVoto was a Historian, who wrote the ultimate love object (the book of course) to the serious art of drinking, and drinking well. The man has a strong hatred for the drink "Manhattan" as well as Rum. In fact he hates all sweet cocktails with a passion. And if you think you should add that olive to the martini, forget it. Cocktail is not a food, its a drink.
The great thing about the book is the packaging - all the original illustrations are here, and it makes you think that there was a better time once, a time where you can control your world. "The Hour" is such a time when you have the perfect (unsweet) cocktail in a location that serves your aesthetic and well-being.
Right now listening to Edgard Varese's "Complete Works Volume 1" and it strikes me as music that has no time or place. It's a beauty. Also this was one of my Dad's favorite records as well. I remember this album cover in my childhood years. At the time he would play this album loud, and it was disturbing to me - maybe due to my youth, but it seemed like music from a dark corner of a haunted house. But alas, listening to the album now, with full volume, it's a private world exposed as a piece of music. For those who love industrial (think of David Lynch's music) and early electronics - this is an essential masterpiece.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars I'm a long term Barry Miles fan. I guess one can consider him as a cultural historian, but he also witnessed many aspects of his own field of interest. Which is American Beat/British Hippie/pop music cultural life. He was also a close associate of Paul McCartney in the mid to late 1960's, as well as a co-writer on McCartney's interesting memoir.
Miles has written biographies on American Beat Greats, as well as his own memoir of London life during the Sixties. But"London Calling" is sort of his masterpiece, and although not historically perfect (some names are wrong, or the wrong artist with the wrong piece), he captures something more important, and that is the life blood of various countercultural youth movements from post-war London to now.
It may be age or perhaps the current social life of London is not that interesting to Miles, but for sure the past is full of colorful characters and various causes in the U.K. capital. From Teddy Boys to British Beats (and how they mixed in with Burroughs/Ginsberg) to the Mods, to the Hippies, and then to the punks is really five or six books in this one volume.
But each section is really alive with details about life then, and I would think a young reader would want to check out the literature/visuals of the various underground movements that took place in the mid to late 20th Century. Also in detail it explains the importance of London as a location as well as an iconic fantasy land of sorts.
This book is by no means the ultimate history, for that you need to read at least fifty other books on the subject of London's subculture. But this is an excellent introduction to a world with great possibility and sometimes disappointment. But the adventure to go from zero to 10 is a magnificent ride.
Happy Birthday Elliott Gould
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Happy Birthday to one of the all-time greats and one of the coolest of the
cool Elliott Gould. From my 2019 New Beverly interview with Elliott Gould
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