Lookit that…. almost a bloody YEAR since the previous post! Who could be responsible for this travesty? Man up and step forward and take what’s comin’ to ye, ye neglectful piece of what the cat dragged in! Yes, yes, well said, bastid got away, innit? We’ll never know who did it, most likely. It’s a shame what happened to Society THESE DAYS….

Thought I’d enter the premises and run a gloved finger through the dust, etc. So it goes, as the V-Meister said.

The main thing, what the fuck happened to Mendicant City. Were you to visit its Amazon Page, you would discover a product without a proper listing. There’s no official price, but it is listed as “available” at an absurd markup. The price is supposed to be $6, whereas the current listed price is $17.76 (up from its price of $11 when I first discovered this issue). I don’t understand the situation, since this is a Print-On-Demand type book, it should be easily obtainable. (Not to mention, that price point is enough to inspire conspiracy theories. I’m NOT some Jan 6 Triple-K Patriot, or whatever.)

Coincidentally enough, I procured a large number of author copies from Snuggly Books earlier this year: the cover art for this book was drawn by my son when he was maybe 7 or 8, and so I wanted to have a shit-ton of copies, I guess. I wasn’t thinking very clearly, it just seemed like the thing to do. But it does mean that I have all these copies to sell at the proper price of $6. If you would like a copy of Mendicant City, please contact me, and I’ll be happy to send one along. I believe there’s a contact page on this site, I can’t remember what I used. Probably yarrow along with the at symbol and then yarrowpaisley.com. That should work. Or you could try ordering one from Snuggly, I don’t know if they sell direct outside of their bundles. What can I say, I’ve been lost in my own little world for years now.

As for Divine In Essence, my next collection from Whiskey Tit, I anticipate it coming along early next year. That’s the fingers-crossed date, anyway. So be patient, it’ll be worth the wait, I promise. I love my first book I, No Other, of course, but Divine In Essence is better. And I should mention, it features stunning cover art by the same artist who provided the art for I, No Other: the inimitable Jeremy Hawkins.

Alright, anything else? Well, if I think of anything, I’ll edit the post.

Me kicking literary ass.

Meanwhile, the Octopus wept.

That’s just how it goes down in Northampton.

In this photo, your eagle eyes may have descried, I am reading from a manuscript. That would be “Fever Visions,” a previously unpublished story that will appear in… drum roll… my forthcoming Whiskey Tit collection Divine In Essence. That’s right, this is the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. Interestingly, it appears I already added this book to Ze Boooks and promptly forgot. Can I even coordinate with myself? Apparently not!

Fellow Whiskey Titters Samuel Kaye and Aina Hunter also read from their works at this event: Samuel Kaye’s novel Cinema and Aina Hunter’s novel Charlotte and the Chickenman.

All three of us are so different in style and substance, but UNIFIED, I think, in artistic commitment. That’s the Whiskey Tit Promise: ARTISTIC COMMITMENT. When you read a Whiskey Tit book, you get what the author INTENDED, not what the marketing department AMENDED. 100 Proof Unfiltered Literary Whiskey from THESE tits…. I don’t know if that’s a coherent metaphor, but I’m leaving it up, folks.

My estimable publisher Whiskey Tit plans to seize a prime piece of Northampton Real Estate (1 Amber Lane) for a pleasant hour or two starting at 6 PM on Wednesday, October 19.

The Main Event being Whiskey Titter Samuel Kaye, touring the States to promote his novel Cinema, and who else is going to be there? Moi, of course! And Aina Hunter, yet another Whiskey Titter…. Egads, there’s no end to us. It’s Whiskey Tit all the way down.

Bergman’s Dreams (1955) is a bit awkward in execution—mashing character psychology into an arbitrary mold, a THESIS… and, gulp, how many times have I been guilty of this myself—but moving and intriguing nevertheless, saved by the seismic acting talent of the leads.

How’s this for an artificial construction: the film’s “protagonist” is split into three people! You have Harriet Anderson, a young woman who is essentially a child; Eva Dahlbeck, a grown professional woman; and Gunnar Björnstrand, a tragically meaningless old man—three characters intertwined like a braid. The “development” of the character is shared among them in separate but linked storylines. Not only linked, but parallel. It all sounds so abstract, put this way, but the story itself IS well grounded and clearly presented. Bergman has the chops to pull it off, but it does feel forced in this film, or maybe I was just in the wrong mood? I got a paint-by-numbers vibe, but on the other hand, the actors were so impressive, it didn’t bother me.

The title presumably refers to the self-delusions of the characters. Dahlbeck is obsessed with her former lover, a businessman who’s just pathetic and unworthy on all counts. Anderson wants the sweet life, which she thinks her job as a photographic model will deliver her, and when that seems to fall through, she latches onto the opportunity afforded by Björnstrand, who is rich and wants nothing more than to spend money profligately on this gorgeous young woman who so closely resembles (as averred by the painting hung prominently in his lushly decorated parlor) his looney-binned wife in her pre-lunatic youth.

In each case, a hard-nosed third party steps in to set these softies straight:

The businessman’s wife shows up to splash Dahlbeck and her beau with the cold water of her own disillusionment, coolly retrieves her husband back into the fascistic bosom of their domestic bliss—which is HER domain, not Dahlbeck’s—and gives Dahlbeck to understand in no uncertain terms that HER particular Romantic dream is DONE.

Meanwhile, Björnstrand’s estranged daughter shows up to shake him down for a little dough and mercilessly pops the fantasy balloon that he and Anderson have hitherto been mutually inflating, leaving them both in a state of jittery shame, nauseated by the unseemly tawdriness of their shared dream. Anderson slinks away as Björnstrand peers miserably out the window.

Line up those dominoes and knock ’em down, it’s not hard, we’ve seen these tropes a thousand times before! What sets it apart from trite melodrama is the artistry of the acting and the sincerity of the dialogue, as well as the lovely cinematic flourishes: it seems Bergman is reliable for his sublime craft. Great stuff with mirrors again, he loves that shit, to the point where he’s literally splitting the screen at some points!

Harriet Anderson is Monika, by the way, from Summer with Monika. And it must be said, Bergman was romantically linked to her—indeed, left his wife for her! And the way he films her, you can understand why. This pair comes a decade before Godard / Karina, but it’s the same dynamic, each inspiring the other to new artistic heights. Both men were much older than their respective girls, who were both undeniable cataracts of youthful, feminine vitality overflowing all banks. Bergman hated Godard’s films, I know, but I wonder if he ever contemplated (or even perceived) the striking parallel between the muses Anderson and Karina.

I watched Vivre sa vie again, knocked me the FUCK out even more than the first time. I’d say that I wish I’d seen it earlier in my life, but I wouldn’t have fucking gotten it. I’m grateful that it waited for me. I wrote plenty about it behind that link, I don’t know that I have much more to say—or rather, the energy to say it—other than I LOVE this movie. Every now and then, I see a film that I understand to be “perfect,” and this is certainly one of those. That is a completely subjective assessment, of course, and I am content for it to be so. Other films I’ve thought of as “perfect” are The Hustler, Inherent Vice, La Dolce Vita, Solaris, and Mulholland Drive, off the top of my head. There are certainly others. 2001, of course. I should really sit down and make a list, someday….

Godard ended his life a few days ago, and I feel an uneasy connection to that event since I’ve been so strangely obsessed with him for the last few months… Him and Bergman. Slowly making my way through these fellas. And, absurdly, writing about them… why? That’s not my thing, never has been, and I haven’t really questioned it. You’re looking for meaning, idiot.

These guys, Bergman and Godard, were so different from each other in temperament—but in their sublimity the same. They transcended mechanical reproduction to put life itself into their films. It’s so rare to see, and only happens for a few moments even in these great films. I never understood, or even discerned, the value of that quality in cinema until so very recently. A light bulb went on, and suddenly I see the room I’m in…. I have so much catching up to do. What have I missed in the films I’ve seen over the years? So much….