The Gloomy Day, 1565, by Pieter Bruegel (c. 1525–1530–1569)
Isola by Odd Nerdrum (b. 1944)
A Forced Duplicity Is the Beginning of Conventional Wisdom, 2020 by Jim Woodring (b. 1952)
Death-Bed, 1950 by Robin Ironside (1912-1965)
I picked up Cormac McCarthy’s latest (probably last) novel Stella Maris the other day.
I’ve avoided reviews of its predecessor novel The Passenger (okay, maybe not all reviews) and will continue to avoid reviews of both novels until I’ve finished Stella Maris.
It’s my belief that McCarthy intends for his audience to read the novels intertextually.
(This is an obvious statement to make—obvious to the point of stupidity.)
(I am stupid.)
What I maybe mean to maybe say is that I believe that, by separating his (last?) two novels into two separate physical texts, McCarthy intends for his audience to consider the novels as an intertextual response to his oeuvre proper.
(This belief is based mostly on my reading of The Passenger as an intertextual loose accounting of McCarthy’s oeuvre—although what I’ve written here so far suggests that (based on the repetition of the word belief) my reading of The Passenger is incomplete until I’ve read Stella Maris.)
(Which it is.)
(Incomplete.)
(No blurb this time.)
Connoisseur, 1969 by David Hockney (b. 1937)
A panel from Barry Windsor-Smith’s 2021 novel Monsters
Untitled, 1956 by Emilio Greco (1913–1995)
“Fans”
by
Barry Hannah
Wright’s father, a sportswriter and a hack and a shill for the university team, was sitting next to Milton, who was actually blind but nevertheless a rabid fan, and Loomis Orange, the dwarf who was one of the team’s managers. The bar was out of their brand of beer, and they were a little drunk, though they had come to that hard place together where there seemed nothing, absolutely nothing to say.
The waitress was young. Normally, they would have commented on her and gone on to pursue the topic of women, the perils of booze, or the like. But not now. Of course it was the morning of the big game in Oxford, Mississippi.
Someone opened the door of the bar, and you could see the bright wonderful football morning pouring in with the green trees, the Greek-front buildings, and the yelling frat boys. Wright’s father and Loomis Orange looked up and saw the morning. Loomis Orange smiled, as did Milton, hearing the shouts of the college men. The father did not smile. His son had come in the door, swaying and rolling, with one hand to his chest and his walking stick in the other.
Wright’s father turned to Loomis and said, “Loomis, you are an ugly distorted little toad.”
Loomis dropped his glass of beer.
“What?” the dwarf said.
“I said that you are ugly,” Wright said.
“How could you have said that?” Milton broke in.
Wright’s father said, “Aw, shut up, Milton. You’re just as ugly as he is.”
“What’ve I ever did to you?” cried Milton.
Wright’s father said, “Leave me alone! I’m a writer.”
“You ain’t any kind of writer. You an alcoholic. And your wife is ugly. She’s so skinny she almost ain’t even there!” shouted the dwarf.
People in the bar—seven or eight—looked over as the three men spread, preparing to fight. Wright hesitated at a far table, not comprehending.
His father was standing up.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” Wright said. He swayed over toward their table, hitting the floor with his stick, moving tables aside.
The waitress shouted over, “I’m calling the cops!”
Wright pleaded with her: “Don’t, don’t, don’t!”
“Now, please, sit down everybody!” somebody said.
They sat down. Wright’s father looked with hatred at Loomis. Milton was trembling. Wright made his way slowly over to them. The small bar crowd settled back to their drinks and conversation on the weather, the game, traffic, etc. Many of the people talked about J. Edward Toole, whom all of them called simply Jet. The name went with him. He was in the Ole Miss defensive secondary, a handsome figure who was everywhere on the field, the star of the team. Continue reading ““Fans” — Barry Hannah”
At the Dressing Table, 1909 by Zinaida Serebriakova (1884-1967)
Croc Boy series, 2012 by Rebecca Hastings
Portrait of Bianca degli Utili Maselli, Holding a Dog and Surrounded by Six of Her Children, c. 1603-1605 by Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614)
Lost, 1886 by Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931)
“The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man”
by
Franz Kafka
translation by
Alexander Starritt
It seems a terrible thing to stay single for good, to become an old man who, if he wants to spend the evening with other people, has to stand on his dignity and ask someone for an invitation; to be ill and spend weeks looking out of the corner of your bed at an empty room; always to say goodbye at the door; never to squeeze your way up the stairs beside your wife; to live in a room where the side doors lead only to other people’s apartments; to carry your dinner home in one hand; to be forced to admire children you don’t know and not to be allowed to just keep repeating, “I don’t have any”; to model your appearance and behaviour on one or two bachelors you remember from childhood.
That’s how it’s going to be, except that in reality both today and in the future you’ll actually be standing there yourself, with a body and a real head, as well as a forehead, which you can use your hand to slap.
“Fun City in Ba’dan” was published in Arcade, vol. 1, no. 4 in the winter of 1975. The story is an excerpt from William S. Burroughs’ then-novel-in-progress, Cities of the Red Night and is illustrated by underground comix legend S. Clay Wilson. The front matter includes a portrait of Burroughs that doesn’t show up in the story.
The rest of the story (NSFW) is after the jump:
Biblioklept 