American Fez

Vinyl Sidings

In consultation with my audio guy, I am delighted to discover that "Fire Escape In The Sky: The Godlike Genius of Scott Walker," an old Zoo-label vinyl record residing beneath my stereo, generally sells on ebay for roughly eighty dollars, excluding P&P.
This revelation is quite the Friday morning bonus, as I had previously believed the album to be one of my least valuable pop culture assets.
Later my audio guy tells me that he owns over ninety pairs of sneakers. Apparently such an aggregation of specialist track shoes is considered fairly negliable by the standards of most serious athletic footwear collecting cognoscenti.

Poetry Thursday

Super-Sized Slob Leviathan

So many five-toed sloths in flip flops.
Spring's hot-panted herd hath awakened!
These American elephants in tube tops
Stampeding inside a Starbucks.
Here waddles one whose name is writ in pizza,
In chedder, gorgonzola, brie, and stilton.
She's a monster, a lard ass, a big fat greaser.
Yet she dresses herself like Paris Hilton!

Drawing A Bead

For reasons that I am not at liberty to disclose unto the likes of you, I shall be spending the next few days researching contemporary Native American Art, everything from abstract buffalo-hide inspired watercolors to the sexy squaw fronted Land O' Lakes butter franchise. Much of this artwork appears to be created by ponytailed palefaces who paint with forked palette and erect Southwestern-style market stall at Northeastern craft fair. Is that a timber wolf howling at the moon, or some sort of freaked-out chihuahua? I can't tell. As far as the not-photographed-wearing-a-bowler-hat Indians goes, there is a great deal of nostalgia for a time long passed, and even more politics. Some of it is pretty good, too.

Lights, Camera, Megaphone, Jodhpurs ...

As soon as Mother Nature decides it's time to color in the world again with her photosynthetic crayolas, I shall begin shooting my film. At the moment the trees are still stark, stick figure silhouettes of themselves against overcast skies and the grass below is as yet ungreen. My film requires organic color and sunlight gleaming across the water. I can't afford to fill my 16mm Bolex with film so my frames will be 1080i high definition video. But I don't mind because interlaced HD produces a hyperreal, almost 3D effect that can work for me. The film is taking its cues from Finisterre, and the sort of short diversionary subject that Michael Winterbottom might make if he was bored. It will be about twenty minutes long, probably. Fortunately there are no actors involved, just a wry, rhetorical voice over which I can record later, so I won't worry about the bane of location sound.
Hopefully principal photography, as they say, will be completed by the end of Spring and I can begin editing. At least I should have all my shots done by then and it should be fairly simple to slot them into place.

This is a picture I took last summer with my digital still camera. However, it could be a still from this film I'm talking about, tentatively entitled "Downstream," a motion picture about stillness and stopping.

Table Talk

Moussaoui? It sounds like a Japanese delicacy: "I'll have the moussaoui with a side of seaweed."
Zacarias Moussaoui is even more culinary, that could be a Greek pudding covered in hot custard.
And like someone whose eyes are bigger than their belly, I wonder how much of what he says is true and what is self-aggrandizement. The human ego is very, very fattening.

The Elevation of the Posterior

Should your eyes casually flitter across the top of this screen, you will notice that you are now reading "American Erewhonist," so re-named as an homage to the brilliant imagination of Samuel Butler and also because I think it's a great title. I do not care what the Ydgrunians think of this.

Illustration is Joseph Gandy's "The Bank of England in Ruins" from the Soane Museum (best museum in London by a country mile)

Pawn Yesterday

Reduced to one indecisive action at a time as regulated by the cold, impassive clock, my mind has become akin to a chessboard. Sometimes I can only remember people and events on the white squares; sometimes only the shady characters and situations from the black squares.
And then, of course, there is the big ugly crease in the middle where it gets folded up and stowed away.
Perhaps there are some pieces missing. Perhaps I've borrowed a few pawns from another set, one of those magnetic ones that you can play in the car.
My memories move like bishops; recollections like rooks. Those things I’d rather forget cross the board in the manner of the Lubotkin Stratagem as deployed by Kopf against Dohpov in Stokholm in 1973.
“Hello. How are you doing?”
“Qxd3 Qxc4”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“Ra2 Qb7”
“Are you alright?”
“Checkmate!”

Your Place Or Mine: Either Ore

Without doubt, my most rewarding recreational hobby is mining; open cast on sunny days and deep shaft when it's raining.
Fortunately, the only equipment avid participants require for such hardocre excavationary activities are big red metal helmets with candles on top and a cageful of chirping canaries. And I've already got all that stuff.
My reason for entering this rather mucky sphere of activity is simply to mine and exploit my own raw materials and natural resources, since the government and its unproductive agents obviously can't be trusted to do this for me.
I've already started digging a great big hole in my garden which has rapidly developed into a massive subterranean cavern filled with muddy water. Obviously I will be providing China with first refusal on delivery of all the precious commodities I unearth.
You can have what's left, adjusted for inflation.

Through A Hummer Windscreen Darkly

I hope you've been saving all that George W. Bush paraphernalia because it's probably going to be worth significant dollars in 2026 when Bush will be a hugely popular kitsch figure. Mint quality Bush campaign buttons will undoubtedly sell for thirty bucks a pop, especially any items that feature a red W with white trim on a royal blue background. Of course, your genuine antique articles will be jostled in the marketplace by mass-produced George Bush lunch-boxes and matching Dick Cheney thermos flasks. There will be Boxing Bush hand puppets and "Find The WMD" virtual reality computer games.
Hopefully all this cheap, plastic junk will be made in Iraq by decently paid workers in a clean, modern factory in a peaceful country.

Last Days At Chez Vouz

There's nobody else left living, so who will build the pyre for Zachariah? There will certainly be no Zillah swandiving into the funeral flames to burn with her man. He should bring the bunting with him wherever he roams and keep his firebrands alight at all times: a portable crematorium and an eternal flame. Be prepared, you never know when you might croak and keel over. Bite the dust before it bites you.
Meanwhile, accompanied by the spine-chilling sounds of desperate wailing, wild gnashing of teeth, and frenzied self-flagellation, an ancient and solemn chant begins: "Where oh where, oh Lord, can a guy buy a pair of decent jeans around these parts?" We went to Diesel and asked the shop assistant if she stocked any jeans that didn't look as though they had been repeatedly shot at by some machine-gun wielding maniac, then savaged by a rabid dog, and finally slept in by an especially unfussy dirt farmer. Her reply was in the negative. We had no luck at Lucky Brand, either. And so the invisible procession of phantom mourners congregated around the changing room .... Do those fit right? How's my bum in these? Bury me standing.

All Tomorrow's Parties

So you are ushered into this downtown, nightclub zone entertainment emporium and it's exactly like a Hollywood vision of some futuristic space ship's leisure deck: lots of tubular steel with hologrammatic neon trim, billboard size television screens, robotic service, and a pulsating sound system. Frothy cocktails of pastel green and pink liquids are decanted into sippable cylinders. Dense, hazy clouds formed from perspiration vapor mixed with powerful female perfumes hover above the HVAC vents as if about to burst into monsoon rain. Architecturally speaking, you appear to be inside a series of cantilevered, helix-shaped atriums, each equipped with its own video game and signature theme. Someday soon the whole world will be so designed: The Times Square Mega Mall Food Court Las Vegas International Hotel Entertainment Arcade Leisure Lounge Marine Airport Complex Sponsored by Visa and Featuring the Cheescake Factory Starbucks Bar and Grille Disney Theme Park.
This, at any rate, is the future I considered while bemused and bewildered in the huge Play & Pleasure Palace called 'Jillian's' on Boston's Lansdowne Street.

The Romantic Movement

Beethoven, of course, is concealed inside the courier's rectum when smuggled into fashionable Belarussian discotheques. Here, fifths of Beethoven are sold beneath the flashing lights and mirror balls. Addicts prefer to spike their indulgence with a mixture of fatty acids, dandelion and fossil juice. A strange quartet, indeed. Aficionados call this potent elixir Earwig von Beethoven because it is poured into the ear despite dire warnings from the Ghost of Hamlet's Father and other narcotics experts.
Don Juan, Diamond Jim, Mata Hari, Kurt Cobain, the Dinosaurs, Widow Twankey, Paracelsus, the first Ash Ra Tempel album, John Keats, Agamemnon, Captain Hook: the list of casulties is endless.

Bust of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko by Canova

Unto This Last

Many years ago politicians were professional businessmen who were elected into parliament; nowadays they are professional parliamentarians who are elected into business. This is why we the people are constantly being ripped-off by corporate sleaze. No doubt there are a few lonely Honest Abes still clinging precariously to their posts in public office, but I am sure they spend most of their time shuffling papers in drafty corridors wondering why the room in which their sub-committee meeting is being held is full of empty chairs.
Surely it is time the medieval Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were dismounted and a new quartet saddled-up in their place. Personally I would nominate the following cataclysmic gang: Greed, Cancer, TV, and Public Office.
Giddyup!
Where is Albrecht Durer when you really need him?

I'm A Leo, I Am.

Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket? Oh no. I don't think so. Surely your new spangly possession will get all covered in lint and grubby bits of thread if you put it in you conceal it about your person in the manner suggested by that old song. And what if you forget all about this star in your pocket and it goes through the laundry machine by accident? Like what happened to that bleached dollar bill of yours that they won't accept at the grocery store now? A whole solar system of misfortune is going to come raining down your head, that's what. So I'd think twice before putting any heavenly bodies that have plummeted to Earth in my pockets if I were you. Plus, how can you be absolutely sure that this object that comes hurtling through space and crashing into our atmosphere before landing at your feet is a star? It could be a lozenge of frozen urine dispatched from the ejection chamber of a passing aeroplane. Wish upon a piece of frozen piss? No thanks. And besides, you'd feel pretty bloody stupid walking around with a rock of urine in your pocket wouldn't you? Especially when it melted! Frankly, for the sake of your own sanity, it's probably best if you avoid stars altogether and shun anything to do with them, especially concealing them about your person. You'll only get yourself into a whole horoscope of trouble.

Gentrification

He was long-faced but strangely chinless; a peanut-shaped head with a severely pitted, lunar surface complexion partly hidden by long, lank Afghan hound hair and a harrowed shrubbery of beard. He stooped and slouched, a crumpled white cigarette behind his ear, moving like an old-fashioned mechanical toy powered by static electricity, fidgety, physically awkward, itchy to look at.
He asked for someone called Joey, but the bartender shook his head. He asked again, this time for an Annie, receiving another negative. The guy sucked his teeth, heavy-hooded eyes scanning the bar like an automated security camera, double-taking the area at the end where a parliament of waitresses waited to pick-up drinks, as if he might have known one of them from somewhere else, in a time before. No luck there, either.
I used to come here a lot, he said to nobody in particular. He seemed aggrieved, as though he had expected a much warmer welcome, reminding me of an ex-con returning to former haunts only to discover that his once famous nefarious exploits have been long forgotten, that the neighborhood is irrevocably altered, law-abiding these days, respectable now, and that his brand of Bill Sykes muscle is surplus to requirements.
He ordered a beer and twitched over to the corner, muttering to himself, only to find the jukebox gone. He went to light his cigarette then remembered that he had to go outside. Damn, he said.
He never came back in.

Down On The Farm

The kind and generous Crack Young Staff at the Hatemongers Quarterly describe me as an "e-stud." I have indeed always imagined myself as the strong and salient type. Anyway, my e-ego is much enhanced.

Ol' Tin Ears

Fans of my photography (hello mom!) will be elated to learn that I shall soon be snapping again. After a brief yet fruitful recce along the riverbank this morning I retrieved my camera from the Man Ray Pawn Shop over on Walker Evans Street and filled it with film. Be prepared. Strengthen your stomach. You have been warned.
Meanwhile, lost in that canyon of books they call the Boston Public Library, I came across an untouched tome entitled "Why Sinatra Matters." This non-dog-eared object was shelved next to another called "Sedaka!" - which tells you all that needs to be revealed about this rather shoddy branch of the library's collection.
Personally, I believe that Frank Sinatra and all his works matter not one jot of some Tin Pan Alley hack lyricist's inky fountain pen. To my shell-like and well-appointed ear, Sinatra always sounds either drunk, lazy, insincere, or any combination thereof. 'Fly Me To The Moon' - yes I shall, and then leave you there, Frank, so that we on Planet Earth can listen to something better while you're gone.
I class Sinatra's voice in the same tonal category as the hammered dulcimer - - you break it out of the cupboard once a year at Christmas when forced to pretend that you actually like the hideous cocktail shaker that old Aunt Looney got you because she's mad. And there you stand, grinning like a skull, mixing an undrinkable lounge lizard elixir of gin and cranberry juice that resembles a glass of frothy porphyic urine. Meanwhile 'Foggy London Town' croaks away in the background boring everybody witless.

Tomorrow: Why Wagner Doesn't Matter A Single Rusty Nordic Helmet With Wings Glued On That Is Two Sizes Too Small.

I See A Tall Dark Stranger

I have decided that humankind should not develop any latent telepathic powers or other sensory communication skills we may possess. Why? Well, consider the unstoppable torrent of neurotic brain spam our minds will receive from those unscrupulous viagra peddlers who shall undoubtedly invade the psychic highway when telepathy becomes as popular as email. Mental correspondents won't be capable of discussing a potential restaurant rendevouz without their frontal lobes also becoming cluttered with unwanted promotions for cheap vacations packages in the Algave and slashed auto insurance rates. Of course, we suffer from a great deal of mental spam already: every persistantly banal and insidious advertising jingle that lodges itself in your head like a fat and especially warty toad farting on a lily pad. But that's just me, many people find advertising entertaining. Personally, I cannot wait until the combined forces of TiVo and satellite radio utterly demolish the thirty-second spot.
Not that they ever will, naturally. Technology is never that benevolent or benign: it merely mutates a method of forcing garbage down your throat into a method of stuffing it up your nose instead.

Yes Sir, We Have No Menu

Restaurant Week in Boston is when haute-cuisine establishments in the city's South End and other points trendy significantly reduce the available entree options for seven days, offering their customers a prix fixe choice between a sprig of X or a smudge of Y instead. The prices are supposed to be cheaper than usual, or so they say. But Restaurant Week is actually an undigestible experience, similar to what I imagine food rationing was like in Britain during World War Two, except, alas, the Restaurant Week vegetables aren't freshly dug from the earth by some rosy-cheeked and bosomy English land girl. Last night, joining a table of my equally bemused and similarly dissatisfied friends, I dined upon a thimble of lobster bisque, followed by a sliver of salmon, and then a chocolate brownie crumb for dessert; add two glasses of Chablis and my share of the bill was exactly what I'd pay for a regular menu meal any normal week of the year. Frankly, I think they should change the name of this event from Restaurant Week to "Food Fraud Week."

The Snake Charmer

Attempting to enter the bathroom facilities at some lofty artist's space last weekend, I found myself waylaid by a naked and sweating performer with flame-red, electric shock hair and an exotic snakeskin tattoo that twirled around her nutbrown limbs, flowed along her flanks and stomach, encircled her buttocks, and then cascaded over her shoulders before finally licking her breasts with several blue-green scaly and curling chevrons. "Can I cut in front of you and take a quick shower." this enchanting creature asked, wriggling her lithe way between and the door jamb and me before I could respond, as if promising to shed her spent skin once inside and return with an altogether more luxuriant and attractive epidermis.
I'd been watching her dance ten minutes prior to our restroom collision; prancing around in a spotlight to the sounds of a bass-o-matic boombox like a strangley coordinated combination of Isadora Duncan and a belly-dancing student. I had no idea what was supposed to be going on. An invocation of Glykon, the Greek snake God, perhaps? But an academic basis for her snake dance did seem pretty unlikely considering the bohemian circumstances. Actually, this Lady Cobra's act was far more reminiscent of those naked fire dancing troupes who were so ubiquitous in the 1990s, only with fiery-colored hair instead of fiery censers and sticks, and vaguely 'Hindoo' rather than ersatz gothic. But on the whole, even if slightly seduced by the serpentine movements of her athletic body, I found the whole minature ballet an attractive and bewitching spectacle for all its innocently breathless and enthusiastic dilletantism. And, true to her word, not more than five minutes after slithering into the bathroom she slithered out again, leaving that tiled chamber much steamier than it was when she had found it, in both senses of the term.
"All yours." she twinkled. If only!

Once Upon A Typepad

As you crouch shivering around this cozy internet campfire in the weblog wilderness while hungry web browsing wolves howl and prowl in the dark electronic night, I had intended to chill your spines further with frightful tales of the Cobra Girl I encountered this weekend. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and keyboards and other computer devices often go awry, and I have yet to find the time amid all my other binge thinking sessions to place the Snake Charmer in her proper context or provide her faux-scaly self with the descriptive justice she so richly deserves.
So here instead is another list, since I suspect that many readers prefer easily digestible lists to my rather longuer riddled prose. This list is a litany of artful movies that really ought to be available on DVD for home viewing in the US but have inexplicably yet to be released. Personally I blame the Criterion Collection.

1. Performance Donald Cammell and Nic Roeg go all the way. Still crazy after all these years.

2. Light Years Away Alain Tanner's curiously metaphysical sequel to his earlier film "Jonah Who Will Be 25 In The Year 2000."

3. Fellini's Casanova A film by a master madhatter about a master wig-wearer.

4. Bedazzled Pre-Liz Hurley, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore get their hands on the Faust legend and do a great deal of damage. This has been released in the UK, why not here?

5. Radio On Chris Petit's oddly evocative road movie. (actually it will be in the stores pretty soon. Actually, I'm not that bothered, but I thought I should have five films in the list.)

How Green Was My Week Old Chicken Saag

I am what you might call a "binge thinker." Like the pig-eyed, somnabulistic glutton who creeps into the kitchen to consume the contents his refrigerator as the midnight bell chimes in the dark streets outside, I steal into my personal library pajama-clad to consult an imaginary volume of Gemma Frisius or Giordano Bruno. As I pore over these invisible pages in the cold blue moonlight, I am suddenly gripped by an irrepressible urge to cock my sleepy snoot at conventional wisdom and all its vacuous and humdrum works. The result is quite often the deceits and conceits that you read here.

More Retail Invasion

Prepare for an steamy, tropical entry about the snake charmer I encountered this weekend. But until then content yourselves with the insider knowledge that Eddie Bauer - thermal underwear maker to the stars - is leaving comments here at American Wanker: "You are doing an excellent work on your blog," he opines, "many people think so as well." Eddie is also considerate enough to provide a link to an online discount clothes retailer where I can purchase his execrably puce corduroy trousers and mountain man socks at lower than department store prices. The next time I feel a sudden and inexplicable desire to own a bright purple pineapple-stitch crew-neck sweater, I shall surely check out this site.
Meanwhile, I spent much of my sunday evening preoccupied with thoughts of Derek Jacobi's televisual portrayal of the deified Claudius. He made a pretty decent fist of it all told. Anyway, the end result of these musings was the following top-five list of actors who I feel "made the character their own":

1. Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes: unbeatable brain.
2. Catherine Zeta Jones as Mariette Larkin: unbeatable bosom.
3. Margaret Rutherford as Madame Arcadi: unbeatable blathering.
4. Helen Mirren as proud Titania: unbeatable bottom (suitor; posterior; fairy at the bottom of the garden).
5. Bernard Miles as Joe Gargery: unbeatable blacksmith.

(As you might have guessed, the only reason for this list was the "unbeatable bottom" joke. I apologise in advance.)

Why Amazon Dot Com Rules

I tried to purchase a book at Barnes and Noble last night, but failed; not because the publication I sought did not appear upon their shelves, but because some metal object in my coat set the store’s alarm bells ringing before I had even crossed the threshold. Two uniformed security guards immediately fastened on to me like the fangs of an especially vicious viper, demanding that I empty out my pockets. Since I had barely set foot inside the store, I found all this heavy-handed attention personally invasive, so I told the guards that they should both go and kiss a zebra’s ass. Then I turned about on my heels, vowing never to return to Barnes and Noble ever again. To tell the truth, I have always felt slightly paranoid in that Fort Knox of a bookshop, as if some cold reptilian eye were monitoring and analyzing my every move. Even dear old ladies often receive sidelong glances from the over zealous staff. If only such stalwart Shopping Mall sentries as these controlled our Homeland Security instead of the current collection of clowns and jugglers! - - Although, on second thoughts, perhaps this tyrannical and draconian Barnes and Noble regime would be a little too much like martial law for comfort

Isandlwana

Barbarian brigades of ailments lately besiege the previously invincible fortress of my body both day and night. A battering ram of toothache has breeched the once sturdy portcullis formed by my teeth and a piercing cold shatters the parapets of my bones. Meanwhile a barrage of back pain shoots up my spine at point blank range. Even Old Mother Kringe’s herbal remedies cannot defend me against this relentless onslaught, and so .. enough already! My health is humbled in the dust and I surrender the flag of well-being.

The Arena of the Unwell

Old Mother Kringe, my herbalist, has sagely prescribed a ancient tincture comprising extract of Canker Wort and dried Snidge shag for my ailments. This medicinal mixture is brewed into a chunky and steamy tea which the patient sniffs rather than actually drinks (although many wise women advise that at least a few drops should be poured up the nose). Anyway, tomorrow, after such a course of treatment, I expect to be as fit as Nero's fiddle, watching this Rome of Coughs and Wheezes burn down around me.

The Happy Day

If I ever get married, I'm going to have a Best Woman beside me instead of the conventional male second banana most grooms get stuck with. After all, you can trust a woman with all those things that a guy might forget, such as the ring, for instance. Or what day the wedding is supposed to be on. But what will my best woman wear? Not top hat and tails that's for sure, since the last thing I need a drag artiste dragging me to the church on time, but some flowing gown that might clash with the bridesmaid's dresses is also out of the question. Perhaps she could rent a Sally Bowles "Cabaret" costume from the local masquerade shop. After all, such an outfit would seem to strike the right balance between tuxedo and attractive feminine attire.
Clearly, solving this problem will be the most important planning aspect of my entire nuptials; possibly even more crucial is the vexing issue of exactly which part of her curvy anatomy - since she obviously won't have any pockets in her clothes - will my best woman produce the ring from. Her bosom would be the best solution, naturally, but ...

I hope this is both progressive and sexist.