Wissensdurst

Monday, December 24, 2012

Christmas with Bukowski

On Christmas I had Betty over. She baked a turkey and we

drank. Betty always liked huge Christmas trees. It must have

been 7 feet tall, and 1/2 as wide, covered with lights, bulbs,

tinsel, various crap. We drank from a couple of fifths of whiskey,

made love, ate our turkey, drank some more. The nail in the

stand was loose and the stand was not big enough to hold the

tree. I kept straightening it. Betty stretched out on the bed,

passed out. I was drinking on the floor with my shorts on. Then

I stretched out. Closed my eyes. Something awakened me. I

opened my eyes. Just in time to see the huge tree covered with

hot lights, lean slowly toward me, the pointed star coming down

like a dagger. I didn't quite know what it was. It looked like the

end of the world. I couldn't move. The arms of the tree enfolded

me. I was under it. The light bulbs were red hot.

"Oh, OH JESUS CHRIST, MERCY! LORD HELP ME!

JESUS! JESUS! HELP!"

The bulbs were burning me. I rolled to the left, couldn't get

out, then I rolled to the right.

"YAWK!"

I finally rolled out from under. Betty was up, standing there.

"What happened? What is it?"

"CAN'T YOU SEE? THAT GOD DAMNED TREE TRIED

TO MURDER ME!"

"What?"

"YES, LOOK AT ME!"

I had red spots all over my body.

"Oh, poor, baby!"

I walked over and pulled the plug from the wall. The lights

went out. The thing was dead.

"Oh, my poor tree!"

"Your poor tree?"

"Yes, it was so pretty!"

"I'll stand it up in the morning. I don't trust it now. I'm giving

it the rest of the night off."

She didn't like that. I could see an argument coming, so I

stood the thing up behind a chair and turned the lights back on.

If the thing had burned her tits or ass, she would have thrown it

out the window. I thought I was being very kind.

Friday, October 26, 2012

I was trying to find the right words...

Ernest Hemingway; Hem; Papa; Ernie; dear boy (courtesy of Agnes von Kurowsky) -- call him whatever you like, he still didn't write it. He wrote the words, but he never constructed A Moveable Feast -- and, after all, isn't that the only thing a novel really is, word construction?

And yet, somehow, a "celebratory" 50 years later, we see his name and likeness ablaze on yet another version of a book that never was, opprobriously daring to call itself "the restored edition."

I adamantly disagree with posthumous publishing, and altering an author's work before doing so is just sacrilege. The ultimate ignominy, however, is playing unsolicited emendator to any Hemingway work, especially a memoir -- and committing the most egregious unforgivable literary sin: ending it.

“it is not to be published the way it is and it has no end.” - what Hem wrote to his publisher in a letter received by Scribner just days after his favorite shotgun saw him off, sparing him from the publication of his letters (against his wishes) and his final works, including the memoir with "no end," which now has two ends.

As Ann Douglas said, "“there can be no final text because there is not one.” Being "a" Hemingway does not make you "the" Hemingway, and so it is this woman's opinion that we strip both Mary and Sean of the name.

A few more perspectives:

Thomas Lipscomb's rather humorous, though scathing, take on Sean's "artistic endeavors."

Author of Papa Hemingway, A.E. Hotchner shows his support for the 1964 rendition.

Some insight into this post's title

One of my particular favorites: Ernest Hemingway's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, 1954

And, of course, Mr. Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast

Friday, September 21, 2012

The Killers: Battle Born

Billboard Review

Stereo IQ's 10 Best Lyrics From TheKillers' Battle Born

The Killers' Unstaged AMEX show -- September 18, 2012

The early consensus is that: a.) this is not their best album, and b.) Runaways and Miss Atomic Bomb are the obvious standout tracks. I agree with the first point, however, the self-proclaimed revolutionary in me puts Be Still at the top as well.

(And of course Prize Fighter, a bonus track, does have some of my favorite lyrics. As detailed below.)

She's a pillar by the day, a fire by the night

She's a famous architect, like Frank Lloyd Wright

When it comes to tightrope walkin', she's world renowned

Her elegance and charm are worthy of praise

And I heard she used to throw for the Oakland A's

She works 268 hours a week, I've yet to meet her match

Monday, September 10, 2012

In the not so flesh: I am curiosity.

I promise something more interesting is in store, but seriously, a robot that takes a picture of itself on Mars, does it get any more me than that? No. The answer folks, is no, it does not.