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IN THE NEXT ISSUE.... #8 (Fall-Winter 1978): Chapter from Naomi Weisstein’s

feminist-humor novel; The Decline of Jewish Stage Hu-
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(and laugh) at the miserable 70s, with many contribu- and Trial Scripts. 7Opp, $2.
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Kish; Why We Watch TV; 8-page Revolutionary Humor
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BACK ISSUES .... Young; interviews with (and poems by) Martin Birnbaum
& Thomas McGrath; Humor on the Job; Humor from
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a in
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2257 North Janssen Avenue — Chicago, Illinois 60614
 No. 10-11 CON
IO EIN IS ' Fall 1979

ORIGINAL ARTICLES TRANSLATIONS & ARCHIVES Frangoise SULLIVAN:

Dance & Instinct
Editorial: Surrealism Robert BENAYOUN & Gérard LEGRAND: Louis SCUTENAIRE: Inscriptions ...... 102
T-BONE SLIM: Heresies ............-- 103
& Its Popular Accomplices ..........--- 3 H.P. Lovecraft & the Black Moon
Paul BUHLE: American Horror .......... 4 H.P, LOVECRAPFT: On Surrealism ....... 17 Pierre MABILLE:
Franklin ROSEMONT: Robert Allerton PARKER: Science & the Marvelous
Free Play & No Limit — Explorers of the Pluriverse
Edward Bellamy’s Utopia ............. 6 André BRETON: O. Henry POEMS
F.R.: H.P. Lovecraft, Benjamin PERET: A Note on Slang
Surrealism & Revolution ............. 17 Aimé CESAIRE: Introduction to Ephraim AUERBACH (21), Jayne CORTEZ
Paul BUHLE: Afro-American Poetry (excerpts) ...... 24 (77), Leonid FEINBERG (21), Samuel
Surrealism & Yiddish Poetry .......... 20 Ivan SVITAK: An Ideal Television GREENBERG (114), Emeterio GUTIERREZ
F.R.: T-Bone Slim & the Paulo de PARANAGUA: ALBELO (41), Georges HENEIN (49), Joseph
Phonetic Cabala ..............--.--- 22 Manifesto fora Violent Cinema.......- 43 JABLONSKI (23), Philip LAMANTIA (57),
Philip LAMANTIA: Radio Voices — Benjamin PERET: Against Penelope ROSEMONT (48), Selwyn S.
AChild’s Bed of Sirens ..............- 25 Commercial Movies ............00.05 44 SCHWARTZ (21).
F.R.: Mel Blanc — Wizard of Audio ..... 32 Robert DESNOS: Movies —
Joseph JABLONSKI: Introduction to Freneticor Academic? ............... 44 TIME-TRAVELERS’ POTLATCH
the Hearing of Lord Buckley ..........33 Ado KYROU:
Anthony REDMOND: Heirs of the Dream— The Marvelous is Popular........----- 45 Preface ss 4 ieee eecas ona anes ss eee 111
Please Stand Up! (on children’s art) ....34 Jacques BRUNIUS: Chaplin’sHumor ... 45 Hilary BOOTH:
Paul BUHLE: Ernie Kovacs & the Paul NOUGE: TowardCinema ....... . 45 A Note on Time-Travelers’ Potlatch ...113
Surrealist Promise of Television Ado KYROU: Surrealism & Film — Examples by J. Karl BOGARTTE, Hilary
P.B.: The Three Stooges ..........0-006. 37 Mack Sennett, Charlie Chaplin, BOOTH, Mario CESARINY, Guy
Ron WEISBERGER-:Bewitched .........38 Harry Langdon, Buster Keaton, DUCORNET, Schlechter DUVALL, Paul
Nancy Joyce PETERS: Backyard W.C. Fields, & Popular Eroticism GARON, Robert GREEN, Paul HAMMOND,,.
Bombs (Horror Movieson TV) ........39 Antonin ARTAUD: The Marx Brothers ... Joseph JABLONSKI, Petr KRAL, Philip
F.R.: Buster Keaton Jacques BRUNIUS: Room Service LAMANTIA, Conroy MADDOX, Leon
Nancy Joyce PETERS: Peter Ibbetson . . .49 Nelly KAPLAN: MARVELL, Nancy Joyce PETERS, Anthony
‘Nancy Joyee PETERS: “Enough or Still More” REDMOND, Michael RICHARDSON,
Nelly Kaplan’s Nea — Contributions to Texaverian Studies ..... RIKKI, Franklm ROSEMONT, Penelope
Woman & Eroticism in Film ........... 50 Ado KYROU: Animated Cartoons ....... 56 ROSEMONT, Cheikh Tidiane SYLLA, Debra
FLR.; Homage to Tex Avery ............. 53 Robert BENAYOUN: TAUB, Michael VANDELAAR, Ronald
FAR SBupsiBunhy, acest nomen wees +pk mind55 The Phoenix of Animation ............56 VANDELAAR and John W. WELSON.
F.R.: Surrealism in the Comics — Robert BENAYOUN:
George Herriman, Gustave Verbeek, Comics vs. “‘Pop Art” REVIEWS
Milt Gross, E.C. Segar, Bill Holman, Robert BENAYOUN:
Chester Gould, Jack Kent, George No Rhyme for Reason! ‘Peter BATES, J. Kar! BOGARTTE, Paul
Carlson, B. Wolverton & Carl Barks . . . .57 (Walt Kelly’s Pogo) ..............055- 74 BUHLE, Joseph JABLONSKI, ranklin
P.B.: Winsor McCay .. 0.060 eee 73 Horace Meyer KALLEN: ROSEMONT
Penelope ROSEMONT: Swing as Surrealist Music ............. 82
Poetry in the Comics — Walt Kelly’s René MENIL: Poetry, Jazz & Freedom...
Churchy La Femme Songs ............ 74 Alfred JARRY: Barnum REPRODUCTIONS OF WORKS BY
Michael VANDELAAR: Karel TEIGE: Movies, Sports & Dance . . .90
The Eye’s Shadow —- Michel LEIRIS: Fred Astaire ............ 93 Tex AVERY, Karo!) BARON, J. Karl
Surrealism & Black Music Ado KYROU: Gene Kelly's ,BOGARTTE, Victor BRAUNER, André
Paul GARON: Singin’ in the Rain . 00.0... ..00. 0000 e- 93 ;BRETON, George CARLSON, Emile COHL,
Magic & Voodoo in the Blues .......... 80 Hannah COHOON, Henry J. DARGER, Phil
Norman KAESEBERG: Harry Partch —
An “‘Unheard Of Music
CULTURAL DAVIS,
MAURIER,
S.P. DINSMOOR, George Du
Schlechter DUVALL, Anne
Debra TAUB: Dance & the
Transformation of the World.......... 87 |
CORRESPONDENCE ETHUIN, W.C. FIELDS, Max FLEISCHER,
Chester GOULD, E.F. GRANELL, Robert
F.R.: Isadora Duncan & the Magicians ....91 GREEN, Georges GRONIER, Milt GROSS,
George HERRIMAN, Edward HICKS, Bill
F.R.: Sybil Shearer
Debra TAUB; Annabelle Gamson HOLMAN, A.K. El JANABY, Gerome
Joseph JABLONSKI: Hannah Cohoon — KAMROWSKI, Walt KELLY, Jack KENT,
The Mirror of Equality Maurice KISH, Conroy MADDOX, Earl
Clarence John LAUGHLIN: MAYAN, Winsor McCAY, _ Tristan
A Pleasure Dome in Los Angeles— MEINECKE, Jacinto MINOT, Hal RAMMEL,
Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers .......... 97 RIBITCH, RIKKI, Franklin ROSEMONT,
Robert GREEN: Spontaneous Sculpture Penelope ROSEMONT, Pierre SANDERS,’
& the Law of Entropy Guest Editor for this issue: Debra TAUB, Felix VALLOTTON, Gustave
Joseph JABLONSKI: Henry J. Darger -— VERBEEK, Abraham WALKOWITZ and
Franklin Rosemont
Homer of the Mad.................. 101 Basil WOLVERTON.
J. Karl BOGARTTE: Revolutionary Editors: Paul Buhle, Marcia Blair, Ron * xk *
Aspects of Everyday Life — Weisberger.
(on lacerated posters) Associates: Danny Czitrom (New York), Edith Special thanks to Edouard Jaguer, Abdul
P.B.: Saucer Eyes Sorcerized ........... 106 Hoshino Altbach (Buffalo), Dave Wagner Kader El Janaby, Justin O’Brien, Jim and.
Nancy Joyce PETERS: (Madison). Amy O'Neal, Henry Rosemont, and to the
Long Live the Living! (Les Blank’s Typesetting by the Living Blues Collective, translators, for their help in preparing this
film, Always for Pleasure) Chicago. double issue.
 Mp we, as,

Wy esi

Robert GREEN: ink drawing (1979)

 KEMMM SUPPOSE MORTALS SAW
MORTALS USED ‘TO PAINT GOOD stuFF! ADIEFERENT WORLD ! A SURREALIST Af
THEY CALLED IT SURREALISM! BUT NOW WORLD! “THEN THEVD HAVE 70 i
ALL THE GOOD SURREALIST IDEAS PAINT DIFFERENTLY! WHAT
ARE PILING UP, WAITING FOR SOMEBODY A WONDERFUL IDEA!
ON EARTH TO THINK OF THEM J. ;
_ MEANWHILE, ARTISTS LIKE THIS HANS.
KREMDLER KEEP PAINTING WHAT THEY
SEE IN THE WORLD! y
Ils DISGRACEFUL:

From “Captain Marvel and the Surrealist Imp’ (CAPTAIN MARVEL, May 1948)

SURREALISIN
and ifs
POPULAR ACCOMPLI(ES
It probably started in poetry; almost everything does. it nothing but insidious capitalist ideology calculated to
—- Raymond Chandler dupe the masses. As far from the laughable idealism of the
former as from the miserable mechanistic materialism ofthe
latter, surrealists approach this question (and all others)
An appetite for the impossible, lust for adventure, readi- dialectically, and in the spirit of André Breton’s cardinal
ness for the marvelous; an appeal to exaltation, acceptance principle that “criticism can exist only as a form of love.”
of risk, scorn for pretense, hatred of sham; an expectation The German romantic Franz von Baader, in his Secret
of the triumph of love, insistence on emotions experienced Teachings of Martinez Pasqualis, wrote that “if modern
to the hilt, and a passion for life‘lived wondrously on the philosophy knows nothing of many sciences and powers
brink: These qualities of the best in popular culture are no which seemed important to ancient philosophy, we may
less qualities of surrealism. conclude with Hegel that this privation constitutes a proof
This issue of Cultural Correspondence assembles a of what the human mind has lost.” Popular culture main-
number of writings by surrealists of the past and present, tains, and surrealism confirms, that these powers can be
focusing on popular expression in literature, radio, comics, recovered — that the world, and everything in it, can and
movies, television, music, dance and the plastic arts, with will be transformed according to desire. ‘‘Poetry must be
the immediate aim of exploring this common ground, and made by all!”’ said Lautréamont. And this too is certain:
with the larger hope of advancing on it. The road forward is illumined not only by Hegel, Marx,
Surrealism’s warm responsiveness to popular culture is Lenin and Freud, but also by Memphis Minnie, Ernie
one of the features that from the start have distinguished it Kovacs, The Shadow and Bugs Bunny.
from all other intellectual currents. If the bourgeoisie see in Like popular culture, surrealism allows us all to have our
popular culture only the barbarous caterwauling of un- cake as well as to eat it.
lettered riffraff, too many would-be revolutionaries see in Why settle for less?
 A. K. El JANABY: collage (1979)

The chief contribution of American lit- This reflects, of course, the morbid meta- Dunlop called “the asylum of European
erature is horror. From first to last it has physics of the Puritans, whose abstract intel- crimes.”
illustrated what C.L.R. James calls the un- lectualism and bourgeois expectations Here, especially in the Old Southwest,
certainties of life and the ultimate doom of separated them from the ritual spontaneity horror becomes popular culture and estab-
Western Civilization’s claim to escape the of the European peasant life they willfully lishes American literature on its own turf.
universal human fate. This is a negative left behind. The sense of impending Here, the modes are settled for the horror to
Romanticism, to be sure, for no more hope calamity outlasted their specific culture, follow in all fields. Horror is a blankfaced
is given for the collective promise of the however, because each succeeding American joke, the linking of the terrible to the hys-
lower classes than for the pretentious op- generation learned afresh that material ad- teria of Unreason, the lack of control over
timism of the bourgeoisie. But it contains a vancement alone could not satisfy an inner human events linking the two together.
revolutionary kernel, nevertheless. In a longing for some fateful resolution to the Here the ghosts play on the ideals of untram-
society infatuated by the illusion of New World quest. meled individualist democracy, revealing
Progress, horror speaks to a human essence If reason and happiness did not prevail in beneath its superficial freedom the alienated
beyond History. Poet and writer strive to this most ideal of human experiments, what struggle of all against all.
regain their ancient role: the magic story- of Man’s fate? So political (and revolution- Southwestern writings took the solid
teller who gains coherence through use of ary) a personality as Tom Paine wondered ground of the ordinary frontiersman, who
universal symbols, offering a break with anxiously about Dream Life, Imagination’s described with a straight face the incredible
current existence and all its limitations. rampant run over mental judgment in its exaggerations of social life and nature into
The depth of horror in the American hours of weakness. America’s first major the utmost grotesquerie, or unraveled a
spirit is shown by the first national literary novelist, Charles Brockden Brown, at the cruel practical joke with what Max Eastman
classic, Michael Wigglesworth’s Day of turn of the 19th century, put these intuitive later described as the “perfectly naked angle
Doom, which remained fora century after its fears into several fantastic works, unified by of meaning,” cracked and not “talked
17th century publication second only to the the notion that Americans had escaped the around” in European intellectual fashion. If
Bible in New England sales: . Old World class society only to confront this were a barbarian culture, drunkenness
their inner selves — revealing the disastrous and licentiousness along with random vio-
No heart so bold, but now grows cold . quality of sheer human existence and ofideas lence endemic, what made the pioneer
and almost dead with fear unique was his self-consciousness of his re-
‘No eye so dry, but can not cry which (in Brockden Brown’s own words)
and pour out many a tear. “can be accounted for by no established version as the basis for humor. Not for
Earth’s potentates and pow’ rful States, laws.” The American Revolution may have nothing had Baron Munchhausen gone
Captains and Men of Might triumphed. But this achievement, too, through twenty-four American editions by
Are quite abasht, their courage dasht 1835 and had Daniel Boone sat around the
at this most dreadful sight . . . would past finally to dust, and in its crumb-
The mountains smoak, the Hills are shook ling reveal a fearful inner decadence. campfire with Gulliver's Travels. In the face
the Earth is rent and torn Brockden Brown’s confidant, William of the fantastic, the true agony of asocial
As if she shall be clean dissolv’d Dunlop, whose production of the gothic existence grew more dim, and what Marius
or from the Center born Bewley called the “illicit marriage of disease
Monks of Monks’ Hall was among the first
The Sea doth roar, forsakes the shore and rippling muscle, or horror and hearty.
and shrinks away for fear; triumphs of the American stage, foresaw the
The wild Beasts flee into the Sea arena where the macabre spectacle of decline iaughter” actually soothed the isolate with an
as soon as He draws near... would be played out: the frontier, what acceptable self-vision.

4
 The ghoul may occupy a special place in War of its crusader’s mission, the “Winning (England’s commentary on the world
medieval popular literature about the vio- of the West” of its pseudo-heroic spiritu- conflict’), hero and heroine find themselves
lation of the Dead; but a random frontier ality, the entire American Dream of its alone surviving a vast and mysterious de-
boatsman swears he eats corpses when he’s claim to virtues and happiness. The land the struction. Only after trials and agonies,
ill. Augustus Longstreet, frontier politician pioneers had left behind, New England, stumbling through laughable architectural
and chronicler, wrote astonishing tales about sported a weird sentiment in its emptiness, wreckage and inhuman mutation, do the
dinner-and-dissection mixups of the baby in where the brilliant Mary Wilkins Freeman couple help to found a new order where all is
the stew, “Gander Pullings” of man tor- depicted her heroines as almost ghosts al- pure and socialistic. Thus the moral: first
turing animal, endless physical and psycho- ready, deprived of true human contact. As Armageddon where America pays for its
logical violence. Frontiersmen talked tall Lovecraft said, the landscape had become sins; afterwards, with luck, the rebuilding
about pulling the stars down from the skies, one where “mere grotesqueness is very on a new and universal basis. The blood-
drinking from the moon, riding lightning common; sly, malignant madness sometimes price must be paid for a ruined and ruinous
and provoking rain, passing consciousness Jurks around the corner.” At the highest civilization, above all for the hubris of
animistically to bears and wolves and in level of social critique, Bierce summed up American Exceptionalism.
return acting out the ritual barbarity inter- the apocalyptic view of the future. His short Mark Twain’s late and superficially pes-
preted from animal life. The frontier story, “Ashes of the Beacon,” looked ahead simistic document, The Mysterious Stranger,
woman in particular — one-eyed, hair- to the future American revolution amidst the predicts better than any other literary source
lipped, wooden-legged — defied all the tra- “noise of arms, the shrieks of women and the the proper successors to these political
ditional sanctity of civilized character. Like : red glare of the burning cities.” Capitalist prophets. Not the Socialist Realism that the
Lottie Richards, who personally “carried political pretentions, always a fraud, were to Communist Party school of literature
twenty eyes in her work-bag that she had be crushed and obliterated by History. claimed as the on/y revolutionary ground,
picked out of the heads of certain gals of her This is the final horror and the final but rather the pulp fantasy of science fiction
acquaintance,” she wasas bestial as her mate, drawing of the political implications that — and toa lesser extent, detective stories —
infinitely more savage than the Amerindian have been centuries in the making. The in- portrayed the horror whose other side is the
“savages” she did her share to eradicate. tended American escape from the Old sublime and_ ecstatic.* “Dream other
Behind the violence and mockery of civil- World past to the frontier, the search for a Dreams, and better!” Twain’s protagonist
ized ways, cultural historian Constance timeless small-property Republic, proves demanded, and H.P. Lovecraft, Frank
Rourke saw better than anyone, lay the same not only illusory but a mad and self-destruc- Belknap Long, Clark Ashton Smith among
emptiness of feeling that drove the Puritan tive concept for those who believe. Pessimis- others followed the precept. They did not
to apocalyptic religion and Captain Ahab to tic of alternatives, writers of the political wholly succeed in their pursuit of the Mar-
stark madness: “Anger, love, hatred, catastrophes etched into American self- velous. The tenacity of capitalism permitted
remorse were absent; fear alone was re- consciousness the portent of a true 2()th an escape only temporary and hag-ridden
vealed, but only ina distant and fragmentary century dilemma: Socialism or Barbarism. from the building tensions of war and multi-
fashion, only to cast away with laughter. Ifit Ricardian Socialist George Lippard’s plied human suffering. Yet somewhere in
created unities, the resilience of the comic Quaker City (1845) set the guidelines for a the 20th century, the uncomprehended fan-
spirit seemed a destructive agent, so blank political horror in America. The day would tasies of Wigglesworth, Poe, Bierce and
were the spaces where emotion might have come when Independence Hall would be London would realize themselves in a still-
appeared... .” torn down for a palace of the wealthy, and unwritten Epic of travail — and of the
The great writers — Poe, Twain, Bierce, the American flag replaced by a banner of march into Paradise.
Mountains toppling evermore
even Melville — might disavow the heart- crowns and chains. The heavens weep as the
Into seas without a shore
lessness of the frontier. But they could not constant refrain is heard in the background, Seas that restlessly aspire
escape the alienation of spirit, the essential “Woe to Sodom.” The graveyards stir, and Surging, unto skies of fire...
loneliness, which animated its sentiments. the dead rise en masse to avenge the ruination Are not these oneiric phrases of Poe’s the
Each found the means to confront that of the Republic by the avarice and cupidity echo of Wigglesworth, the passing glance of
emptiness and search out a road of escape, of of individualistic striving. Dedicated to Brockden Brown and Twain and Bierce, and
transcendence, or ultimate acceptance that - Charles Brockden Brown, and set in the also prediction of the Hell that American
nothing fundamental in the human Philadelphia where the first workers’ Capitalism has prepared for its victims
condition could truly be altered. General Strike had risen and failed to alter across the globe? But again, are they not too
The fantastic shaded briefly into op- the course of economic events, Quaker City spirit and
the phrases of volcanic eruption of
timism with the utopian novels, above all depicts only catastrophe ahead. body required once and for all to make an
Fdward Bellamy’s Looking Backward. The Ignatius Donnelly’s Caesar's Column, end to a hateful system? Away with the
defeat of indigenous radicalism, the splin- Jack London’s The Iron Heel and a dozen horrors of the old frontiers as we approach
tering of potential revolutionary forces into other less notable works carry the catas- the final frontier, Space, with ecstatic de-
Black and white, immigrant and native, trophe closer to our own world of inter- sires of cosmic unity. Speak, mute prophets
male and female ~— these returned horror to national class conflict. Socialist novelist of mass self-awareness at this step — and you
its natural abode at the center of creative George Allen England, in his Darkness and will have upon your lips the phrases of our
literature. Dawn (serialized just before the First weird literary champions!
In the last decades of the 19th century, World War in Munsey’s Magazine) con- Paul BUHLE
“Local Color’ writers spoke with new veyed the expectation of disaster to the center
* Let us say here that the banalities of William
vividness about the American decadence. In of contemporary popular literature. Just as Faulkner and James Dickey, whose apocalyp-
the West, Ambrose Bierce sketched out a socialists are on the verge of creating a new tic sense is sheer fraud, have no place as the
comic diabolism which deprived the Civil society, the entire society is blotted out continuation of the horror tradition.

5
 Artist’s Conception of Future Aircraft, as Suggested by Thomas

CPFREE °“PLAY & SNO “LIMIT

AN INTRODUCTION TO EDWARD BELLAMY’S UTOPIA
Looking Backward opens in 1887. A wealthy but disappeared. There are no locks or lock- Revolution there has been no difference in the
young Bostonian retires to his bedroom in a smiths, and no safes (“because we have nomore education of the sexes nor in the independence of
secret basement vault which he has had specially thieves’’). Coercion is a thing of the past, every- their economic and social position, in the exercise
constructed to shut out street noise. A chronic in- thing having become “entirely voluntary, the of responsibility or experience in the practical
somniac, he is put to sleep by a hypnotist. He logical outcome of the operation of human nature conduct of affairs. . . . In every pursuit of life
wakes up in the morning — 113 years later. under rational conditions.” Working hours are {women} join with men on equal terms.”
Like Rip Van Winkle, Julian West finds the short. Work itself has been greatly simplified Moreover, ‘“‘the sentiment of brotherhood, the
world in which he wakens very different from the and, as far as possible, rendered attractive. Vaca- feeling of solidarity, asserted itself not merely
world in which he fell asleep. The intervening tions are ample; emigration is unrestricted. In the toward men and women, but likewise toward the
years have witnessed nothing less than,a “‘com- new society of the year 2000, “liberty is the first humbler companions of our life on earth and
plete transformation in the human condition,” and last word.” sharers of its fortunes, the animals. . . . The new
(1) the result of a thorough-going social revolu- All this has in turn fundamentally transformed conception of our relation to the animals ap-
tion that has realized, for the first time, full the human personality. ‘“‘The conditions of life pealed to the heart and captivated the imagina-
human equality. In abolishing private ownership have changed, and with them the motives of tion of mankind.”
of the means of production, society also has done human action.” In Bellamy’s utopia there is no
away with social classes, exploitation, poverty, more selfishness, greed, malice, hypocrisy, The 113 years also have seen, thanks to the
hunger, war, sex slavery, race discrimination, apathy; no more “struggle for existence’; no Revolution, an unprecedented flourishing of
slums, crime, jails, money, rent, banks, charity, more hunger for power; no more anxiety or fear science, technology and the arts. Bellamy differs
corruption, taxes, advertising, housework, politi- as to basic human needs. “The highest possible from many utopians in his confidence that
cians, merchants, servants, lawyers, the army, physical, as well as mental, development for modern technology can be conquered and put at
the navy and the State Department. everyone” is the aim of the new education. the service of human desire. His forecast — in
Government itself scarcely exists, its functions Everyone is happier, healthier, brighter, friendli- Looking Backward and its sequel, Equality —
having been reduced to the coordination of in- er; more active, more adventurous, more of such things as automobiles, radio, television,
dustrial production and distribution. There is creative. helicopters, air-conditioning and waterbeds, has
very little disease, insanity or suicide, and vir- “Perhaps the most notable single aspect of the assured him a permanert place in the history of
tually no legislation (“‘we might be said to live Revolution” was “the elevation and enlargement science fiction. Interspersed through a charming
almost in a state of anarchy”). Churches have all of woman’s sphere in all directions. . . . Since the love story and an unremitting attack on capital-

6
iem and its institutinns these inventions doubt- phists, trade unionists, populists, feminists, Shelley, Tennyson, Defoe, Dickens, Thackeray,
Christian socialists, spiritualists, homeopathists, Hugo, Hawthorne and Irving. Dickens he ad-
less added to the appeal of his utopia.
Its appeal was, in fact, extraordinary. Indeed, it vegetarians, prohibitionists, members of the Far- mired above all: “He overtops all the writers of
is generally atknowledged that Looking Back- mers’ Alliance, an appreciable number who his age ... No man of his time did so much as he to
ward was the most widely read and influential thought of themselves as Marxists, and several turn men’s minds to the wrong and wretchedness
book of the late 19th century. It provoked Union Army generals — including Arthur of the old order of things, and open their eyes to
vigorous debate in newspapers and magazines, in Devereaux, “hero of Gettysburg,” and Abner the necessity of the great change that was
lecture rooms and living rooms, in union halls Doubleday, the apocryphal “father of baseball.” coming, although he himself did not clearly
and saloons. It fascinated the ‘‘man in the street” Among Bellamy’s adherents were Edward foresee it.”
as it did the “leading intellectual.” Because of Everett Hale, William Dean Howells, Charlotte Living most of his life in the small milltown of
Looking Backward, said Vida D. Scudder, “the Perkins Gilman, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Chicopee Falls, Mass., Bellamy’s personal ac-
fading emotions of the old Abolitionist era Lucy Stone, Hamlin Garland, Julia Ward Howe, quaintance with contemporary writers was
flamed again.” A broad movement sprang up, for Helen Campbell, Frances Willard, Jesse Cox, limited. It is interesting to note that Mark Twain
the purpose of realizing the dream set forth in Lucian Sanial, Florence Kelley, Thomas Lake — who found Looking Backward ‘‘fascinating”
Bellamy’s book. More than 150 Bellamy Clubs Harris, Solomon Schindler, Laurence Gronlund, ~—— once arranged to meet with him. Twain’s
were formed around the country. Eugene V. Thomas Davidson, Burnette Haskell, Sylvester friend William Dean Howells became an active
Debs and Daniel DeLeon were among countless Baxter and Clarence Darrow. supporter of Bellamy’s ideas, and corresponded
thousands who entered social radicalism through with him for years.
the door that Bellamy opened. J.A. Wayland,
* * * To some extent he knew the work of Hegel,
founder/editor of the Appeal to Reason — the and even Marx; his acquaintance with the latter
Looking Backward was written fast and furi- would increase appreciably after the publication
largest-circulated socialist periodical in U.S. ously in the dazzling light of one of the pivotal
history — gave Looking Backward credit for of Looking Backward when, devoting himself
American labor battles: the bloody Haymarket unreservedly to agitational/propagandist work in
having “popularized socialism, made it inter- Affair and its aftermath in Chicago, 1886, in
esting, and started millions to thinking along lines the service of the Revolution, he came into con-
which a group of innocent labor leaders were tact with representatives of virtually every radi-
entirely new to them.” framed and hanged at the behest of Big Business.
A number of American utopian novels had ap- cal/revolutionary tendency. Bellamy’s critique of
The book appeared in a period of unprece- capitalism, however, was derived less from
peared before Bellamy’s, but except for dentedly rapid and convulsive change in Ameri-
Nathaniel Hawthome’s Blithedale Romance books than from the things he saw with his pene-
can society. The Civil War and Reconstruction trating eye and felt with his dreaming heart.
(1852), none had made a lasting impression. paved the way for extensive industrialization,
Looking Backward put utopia on the map of the His critique is as unsparing, in its way, as
which in turn exacerbated class stratification Fourier’s or Marx’s. Bellamy denounced capital-
U.S.A. It started a vogue for utopian romances beyond anything even dreamed of earlier in the
that ran through the ’90s and well into the new ism as “the source and sum of all villainies,”
U.S. To meet the mounting threat posed by the “utterly unjust in all respects,” “mutual throat-
century. If it is still unclear to what degree it in- great trusts, workers thronged into the Knights of
fluenced Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee or L. cutting,” “‘a system which [makes] the interests
Labor. 1887, when Bellamy was readying his of every individual antagonistic to those of every
Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz, its impact on many book for publication, has been called “the year of
other works — including William Dean Howells’ other.” Zeroing in primarily from the moral
10,000 strikes.” angle, he recalls Lautréamont’s maxim: “Place a-
A Traveller from Altruria; Caesar’s Column by Historians have debated the backgrounds of
Ignatius Donnelly; Frederick Upham Adams’ goose-quill in the hands of a moralist whois alsoa
Bellamy’s thought. From book reviews and edi- first-rate writer. He will be superior to poets.”
President John Smith; and Charlotte Perkins torials he wrote for the Springfield Union in the
Gilman’s Herland — is firmly established. ’70s, we know that he was familiar with the work
Nor was Bellamy’s influence limited to his na- of such utopians as Robert Owen, Frances
tive land. Looking Backward was wildly popular Wright, Charles Fourier, Albert Brisbane,
throughout the English-speaking world — in Etienne Cabet, John Humphrey Noyes, Josiah
Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well as Warren and others. Greater than any of these, ‘per eae * amscuian
England; William Morris acknowledged that he however, was the influence exerted on him by AIAN STINT

wrote News From Nowhere as a “reply” to it. the Old Testament prophets and the millennial/ a NAY
Tolstoy, finding it “exceedingly remarkable,” heretical tradition in Christianity — the Anabap- j SZinv
‘ mis
= be
jee,

arranged for its translation into Russian; Maxim tists, for example.
_Gorky once called the U.S. “the country of Descended from a long line of Baptist mini-
George, Bellamy {and] Jack London.” sters, Bellamy sometimes has been called a 74:<
WSSNT Soe
Henry
Jean Jaurés, the outstanding figure of pre-World- “Christian socialist,” but the tag does not fit well.
)
ESSvA
War-I French socialism, saluted this “American His early essay, “The Religion of Solidarity,” is
masterpiece” which did ‘wonders toward dissi- closer to Transcendentalism than to any
pating hostility and ignorance against our ideas.” Christian creed. Till the end, it is true, he hoped NiSSS
if
9
The renowned Marxist theorist Clara Zetkin, that the remnants of radical egalitarianism in the aan
leader of the German socialist workingwomen’s margins of Christendom would add their re-
movement, translated it into German and wrote sources to the revolutionary ferment. Noting that
an introduction to it. And, by way of exempli- the church’s pro-slavery position had dealt ‘“‘a
fying the exceptional range of its appeal, Helena blow to its prestige in America from which it had
P. Blavatsky — author of Isis Unveiled and The not yet recovered,” he warned that “‘its failure to
Secret Doctrine — declared Bellamy’s work take the right side in this far vaster movement
“magnificent” and in harmony with the perspec- would not leave any church worth mentioning.”
tives of Theosophy. (2) Of course, this warning went unheeded; indeed,
some of the most venomous diatribes against his
* * * utopia came from priests and preachers. His last
book, Equality, includes a scathing indictment of
The history of the Bellamy movement in the “ecclesiastical capitalism.” After his death, his
U.S. remains to be written. (3) As a link of the works were a major influence on the short-lived
older radical Abolitionists and Reconstructionists “Social Gospel” movement; but the fact remains:
with the new generation that would form the he himself stood with the infidels.
Socialist Party in 1900 and the I.W.W. five years We may glean something of Bellamy’s literary
later, its study could teach us a great deal.
Few social movements, if any, have been so
preferences from a passage in Looking Backward
in which Julian West looks over the bookshelves
+ RY
colorful or so heterogeneous. Under the banner in his 21st century home, and joyfully discovers Launching Tower for Aircraft
of Looking Backward were Unitarians, Theoso- the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, on Preceding Page

7
 Bellamy’s historical insight was formidable. He “Bolshevism” quickly upstaged all other currents cause of the totally different definitions that this
perceived elusive connections between seeming- of socialist thought. The new movement, priding term later acquired.
ly disparate phenomena — the social reality be- itself on its “hard line,” looked askance at the Bellamy’s system retained the interclassist
neath the ideological veneer. It was he who first seemingly naive visionaries who had exerted character common to most utopias, reflecting a
pointed out that the millionaire and the tramp such influence a few years earlier. Anything specifically petit-bourgeois longing for harmony,
entered the American scene at the same time. He tainted with “utopianism” now was automati- free not only of the oppression of monopoly
called the 19th century “the century that in- cally suspect. And so, having been the best capital, but also of the potential uprising of the
vented poker’ — because of the bluff needed to known name in American radicalism, Bellamy proletariat and subproletariat —- an uprising
sustain its political/economic machinations. He became taboo. feared as a vengeful cataclysm certain to be
railed against the “utter hypocrisy underlying the Adding insult to injury, the rejection of ruinous for all. It was Bellamy’s belief that capi-
entire relation of the sexes, the pretended chival- Bellamy was carried out in the name of Marxism, talism could be abolished in the U.S. without the
ric deference to women on the one hand, coupled overlooking Marx’s and Engels’ deep apprecia- violence of class war.
with their practical suppression on the other.” tion of Fourier, Saint-Simon and Owen; and in The notorious instability of utopian move-
That Bellamy independently, and following a the name of Leninism, ignoring Lenin’s and ments is a direct consequence of the instability of
very different method, arrived at certain conclu- Trotsky’s enthusiasm for Chernyshevsky, the petit-bourgeoisie as a class. And just as this
sions of Marx surely is not without interest. But Dobrolyubov, Pisarev and Tolstoy, who surely intermediate class, at different periods, neces-
what draws us to a writer, a thinker, an artist, is were Russian counterparts of such men as sarily leans either toward the proletariat or
not so much what he shares with others as it is the Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, John toward the bourgeoisie, so too the various uto-
unique charms of which he alone disposes.- Swinton — and Edward Bellamy. pian currents sooner or later ally themselves with
Bellamy’s real importance lies precisely in those While those who have monopolized the title of one or the other of the two great classes. Most of
‘qualities that distinguish him from all others: his revolutionary in this country have been notably these currents eventually dissolve into the parties
particular moral/revolutionary attitude and its zealous in advertising their ignorance of of capital; this has been the case, for example,
underlying psychological and poetic dimensions. Bellamy, the apologists for modern liberalism with the many movements advocating currency
It was these qualities that made Looking Back- have been no less assiduous in their neglect. reform panaceas, and nearly all campaigns of
ward so vitally a part of its time. And it is these Bellamy’s indictment of capitalist civilization, monomaniacal reformism. But other currents,
same qualities that render so much of his message like Fourier’s, was too merciless and too all- just as utopian, have found their way to the revo-
as acute,and vigorous today as the day it was encompassing for it to have proved serviceable, lutionary workers’ movement: the followers of
written. in the long run, to the essentially “civilized’’ — Proudhon and Blanqui, for example, joined the
* * *
i.e., repressive — ideology of bourgeois reform- First International.
ism. If welfare-statists and social-democrats now Bellamy clearly belongs to this latter category.
The esteem in which Bellamy is held even now
in many countries of the world stands in marked and then lay claim to his legacy, it is precisely as His solidarity with the oppressed peoples of the
they claim Marx: by doing violence to the in- earth, and his concomitant hatred for the capital-
contrast to the disfavor which has befallen his
work in his homeland. Of the pre-World-War-I tegrity of his views. Contrary to widespread ist system responsible for their oppression, out-
radical generation in the U.S., probably a sub- belief, Bellamy was in fact strongly weighed his fond faith in interclassist coopera-
stantial majority initially were drawn toward so- anti-reformist. Rejecting the notion that reforms tion. Significantly, through the ’90s he and the
cialist solutions by Looking Backward and the were a “‘sufficient method of overthrowing capi- Nationalist movement moved closer to organ-
furor it provoked; surely there were few who had talism,”’ he stressed that “they did not even tend ized labor, and developed ties with revolutionary
not read it, or did not at least have a clear idea of toward such a result, but were quite as likely to workers’ groups. The New Nation, edited by
its content. Of today’s vastly smaller radical help capitalism to obtain a longer lease of life by Bellamy, regularly ran advertisements for the
generation, the reverse is true: few have more making it a little less abhorrent.”’ He went on to Socialist Labor Party’s paper, The People, and
than the vaguest notions of his work, the merest express his “considerable apprehension” lest the for other periodicals issued by socialist, anar-
handful seem to have read Looking Backward, revolutionary movement “be diverted from its chist, populist, communitarian, Knights of Labor
and scarcely anyone outside the universities real aim, and its force wasted in this programme and independent Left currents, Equality featured
knows his other works. of piecemeal reforms.” a stirring homage to “The Strikers” as the pio-
American Marxists, disregarding the appreci- neers of the Revolution. Nationalists took an
Shortly after Bellamy’s death, John Clark
ations of Debs and DeLeon, have long treated active part in the celebrations of May Day, which
Ridpath said: “He who believes in the Existing
Bellamy with condescension, as noted by Bellamy called “the most significant and impor-
Order can have no part or lot with Edward
Heywood Broun in his preface to Looking Back- tant anniversary of the year.”’ When Illinois gov-
Bellamy. He who does not believe in the Existing
ward in 1931. Notwithstanding Kropotkin’s ernor John P. Altgeld pardoned the three sur-
Order, but fears to disturb it, has no part or lot
early enthusiasm for Bellamy’s work, anarchists with him either.” viving Haymarket anarchists, Bellamy ap-
plauded the deed in his weekly paper.
have been just as indifferent.
Not that Bellamy has vanished from American * * *
Too many historians have been contest merely
bookshelves: On the contrary, Looking Back- to note the Nationalist movement’s predom-
ward has steadily remained in print (seven edi- One other reason for the eclipse of Bellamy lies inantly middle-class leadership, and have utterly
tions are currently available), and widely acces- in the name he gave to his system: nationalism. ignored the extent and variety of its interaction
sible even in small town libraries. The anomaly is He meant by this that the whole population of the with the militant proletariat. It is thus rarely
that Bellamy now lives almost wholly outside the country would take over the means of production acknowledged that in the decisive labor struggles
currents that style themselves radical in this from the capitalists; the word thus had not a trace of the period, such as the 1892 Homestead Strike,
country. He is read primarily as a precursor of of its later connotations of jingoistic patriotism the Nationalists stood with the workers. The pro-
science fiction, or as a curious contributor to the and chauvinism. Bellamy at first expressly re- tracted drive for shorter hours, the central issue
“American Experience,” or as a minor survivor jected the names socialism and communism, of the class struggle in those years, received
of Romanticism in the dawn of American literary which in the America of the 1880s still signified Bellamy’s support from the start. The fact that
realism. isolated and exotic communitarian experiments, Looking Backward — the best-selling book of its
The reasons for Bellamy’s eclipse from the often led by eccentric religious sects, or small pol- day — took for granted a much shorter workday
spectrum of American revolutionary thought are itical sects, equally isolated and exotic, such as surely was an important boost for the Eight Hour
not difficult to discern. World War I was a water- the German immigrant socialists in New York movement, just as Bellamy’s acknowledgement
shed for radicals everywhere. As the best-known who were sharply criticized by Marx and Engels of full equality for women doubtless contributed
figures of international socialism (and anarchism) for their supercilious irrelevance to the American to the cause of equal suffrage.
endorsed the expansionist aims of ‘‘their”’ respec- ‘workers’ movement. Seeking a new name for a His enthusiastic support for the women’s
tive national capitalist rulers, the Second Interna- new idea — one that would not be limited to the movement contrasts sharply with the masculine
tional ignominiously collapsed. Then the October needs of any sect but would express the aspira- arrogance (pathetic disguise of a deep-seated
Revolution in Russia, 1917, brought enormous tions and interests of all producers, among whom fear) so characteristic of other Left currents, then
prestige to an unfamiliar and rigorous interpreta- he included workers, farmers and petit-bourgeois as now. Most of those who enjoyed the mantle of
tion of Marxism. Draped in the glory of the first tradesmen — Bellamy selected “nationalism.” orthodox Marxism in the U.S. retreated in holy
conquest of state power by the working class, His reputation has suffered immeasurably be- horror from this bold, new current —~ of women

8
speaking and acting for themselves — and many of utopias. ‘‘A dream, yes,” as Ida Tarbell said of The “industrial army’’ is perhaps not the most
went so far as to contrive abjectly specious argu- it, “but a dream built upon materials in our appealing feature of Bellamy’s system, but one
ments to “keep women in their place.” Bellamy, hands.” should at least try to see it as it was meant to be,
to the contrary, saw the women’s movement not Repeatedly Bellamy stressed that it was his aim rather than vilify it solely on the basis of a pos-
as a competitor or threat, but as a natural and in- “to extend popular government, the mule of the teriori projections. Bellamy’s “industrial army”
dispensable ally. people, to industry and commerce.” By National- is not military at all, of course, since in his utopia
His writings on the ‘‘woman question” retain ism he meant “the translation into industrial and there are no wars — no possibility of wars — no
all their freshness. ‘‘While some men oppress economic terms of the equal rights idea, hitherto weapons with which to fight them. His marching
other men,” he wrote in The New Nation, ‘all expressed in terms of politics only.” He argued bands of ununiformed working men and women,
men oppress women.” Looking back from the that without equality in industry, political demo- with their great festivals and musical pageants
year 2000 it was perfectly clear that “the key to cracy “must forever fail to secure to a people the through garlanded streets and pleasure gardens,
the fetters the women wore were the same that equalities and liberties which it promises.” have nothing in common with the brutally dis-
locked the shackles of the workers. It was the This conception of industrial democracy was ciplined troops of any bureaucratic/hierarchical
economic key.” taken up a few years later by the Industrial military regime. To find something comparable
Bellamy was neither sectarian nor fetishistic Workers of the World; indeed, it was the corner- in military history, we would have to point to the
about labels. By 1894, the year of the great stone of the IWW program. Bellamy deserves joyous libertarian throngs who fought at John
Pullman Strike, he declared that he and his co- greater recognition as a forerunner of the Ziska’s side in the Hussite wdrs, or to the glorious
thinkers were, in fact, socialists. “Holding all that Wobbly theory. In an 1890 article he wrote that Durutti Column in the bright early days of the
socialists agree on,” he added that he and his “in the progress toward National cooperation, Spanish Revolution.
comrades “go further, and hold also that the dis- there shall be a question of an organization inclu-
tribution of the cooperative product among the sive of different trades, and ultimately of one in- * * *

members of the community must be not merely cluding all trades,” thereby prefiguring the
equitable, whatever that term may mean, but central TWW idea of One Big Union of all Not surprisingly, the ideologists of “things as
must be always and absolutely equal.” workers. It is noteworthy that long after Bellamy they are” greeted Looking Backward with deri-
His ambivalence regarding class struggle, his had become unfashionable among communists sion. Bellamy was probably the most denounced
inclination toward nonviolence, his naive and socialists, his ideas were still seriously dis- man of his time. In church and classroom, in
appeals to men and women of “good will,” would cussed in the [WW press. (4) “respectable” assemblies and in the bourgeois
seem to situate Bellamy at the antipodes of Close in spirit to the WW, too, is Bellamy’s press, he was pictured as the devil in disguise.
Marxism. But on several essential points his ‘<ndustrial army.” His “‘military”’ metaphor has Volume after volume appeared in opposition to
position was far closer to Marx and Lenin than to caused considerable consternation among critics, his work — if not to “refute” his program, then at
populism or social-democracy or Laborism. and has been woefully misconstrued by many. least to ridicule and revile it.
These latter currents, let it be noted, advocate
“nationalization” to preserve the capitalist sys-
tem, whereas Bellamy sought to destroy it. _
Bellamy was, as we have seen, an inexorable
dialectician. He recognized the need for a speci-
fically revolutionary party, fundamentally dif-
ferent from and opposed to all other parties. He
foresaw that, as the Revolution developed, a situ-
ation of dual power would arise, in which this
party would be called on to intervene, decisively.
He perceived that, during this crucial phase, the
old bourgeois state apparatus would become in-
creasingly unusable and therefore would have to
be dispensed with. And finally, since the goal was
a society without classes, he saw that the new
state would hardly qualify as a “state” at all, on
account of the “prodigious simplification in the
task of government. . .. Almost the sole function
of the administration now [i.e. in the year 2000]
is that of directing the industries. . . . Most of the
purposes for which governments formerly
existed no longer remain to be subserved.”
There can be no doubt, in any case, of the so-
cialist/communist tendency of Bellamy’s utopia.
The principal slogans of communism — abolition
of the wage system and production for use, not
for profit — he made his own. “Unless humanity
be destined to pass under some at present incon-
ceivable form of despotism,” he said, “there is
but one issue possible. The world, and every
thing that is in it, will ere long be recognized as
the common property of all, and undertaken and
administered for the equal benefit of ail.”
It should be clear from all this that, in the or-
dinary sense of the word utopian — meaning
something unrealizably fanciful — Bellamy’s
views are not utopian at all. Acutely sensitive to
the dialectic of “ultimate ideal” and “first steps”
(in his words), he elaborated a practical transi-
tional program leading from present conditions EDWARD BELLAMY
to the abolition of wage-slavery. If we consider (1850-1898)
the distinctions made by Engels in his Socialism:
Utopian and Scientific, it becomes plain that
Bellamy’s is, in Marxist terms, the most scientific
 It is piquant, today, to look back on that If vanity and smugness could make a thinker,

“The People” plethora of uniformly idiotic literature. Of what

“crimes” was Bellamy convicted by bourgeois
“public opinion” in his own day? Here are a few:
Mumford would have few peers. His critique of
Bellamy is a shameless exercise in superficiality,
carelessness and falsification. (8) In this grand
He wanted to give mankind “too much free- imaginary millennium he pretended to see
dom.” He was essentially an anarchist. He nothing but paternalism, monotony, an immense
thought that ordinary working people were bureaucratic state apparatus, a “high-powered

A Weekly Socialist Newspaper. capable of running industry. He wanted to

“change the nature of woman.” He questioned
engine of repression,” “rigorous discipline,” and
even militarization (“the organization of this
the integrity of the clergy. And he dared to utopia is an organization for war’). His hideous,
suggest that happiness was attainable on Earth. gloomy caricature calls to mind a passage from
Such overtly capitalist “criticisms” are but the “The Book of the Blind,” the closing chapter of
ONE DOLLAR PER — Equality: “It seems almost incredible that the ob-
veriest balderdash, of course, and need not
detain us. More pertinent to our inquiry are other vious and necessary effect of economic equality
criticisms made, rightly or wrongly, by Bellamy’s could be apprehended in a sense so absolutely
Office, 184 William Street, political opponents on the Left, and by the his- opposed to the truth.”
torians of utopia. Unlike the outspokenly pro- Among many other preposterous allegations,
NEW YORK CEPY.
capitalist criticisms, which long ago vanished into Mumford stoops to this: “As for criticism of the

Modern Light
the mire whence they came, these latter have administration, that would be treason; admira-
helped shape the attitude toward Bellamy that tion for the practices of another country would be
prevails today. disloyalty; and advocacy of a change in the

WEEKLY.
method of industry would be sedition.” 1
One of the earliest of the Left critics was the wonder: How many of the numerous critics and
English painter/poet William Morris, who re- scholars who have heaped the highest praise on
viewed Looking Backward in the socialist jour- Mumford’s book are aware that, in all of
Devoted to the interests of the nal Commonweal in January 1889. (5) It is not Bellamy’s writings, there is nothing — absolutely
easy to understand how Morris could have so nothing — to justify such absurd defamations?
Poople’s Party. completely misinterpreted the book — how he
could so abysmally have failed even to recognize One would prefer to laugh away such misin-
formed inanity, recalling that in the same book
COLUMBUS KANSAS. the passion and integrity of Bellamy’s motives.
We know that he was disturbed by the book’s
Mumford referred to the magisterial Fourier as a
“pathetic little man” who “‘it is hard to take...
popularity; perhaps Upton Sinclair was correct in
TERMS, $1.00 PER YEAR. contending that Morris was prejudiced against it seriously.” Unfortunately, however, Mumford’s
for the simple reason that it was written by an utterly false evaluation of Bellamy has been
widely accepted and is currently almost
The New Nation American. (6)
“standard.” The same poisonous portrait turns
In any case, Morris’s refusal to see in Looking
Finns ORDERS FROM CLUBS
Backward anything more than a “cockney para-
up again and again, even in the work of authors
for
dise”’ does not show the author of Art and Social- from whom one might have hoped for something

‘Looking ism at his best. Indeed, when we read another of

his remarks on Bellamy — “If they brigaded me
better. With only minor variations we find it in
The English Utopiaby A.L. Morton (1952) and in
Erich Fromm’s Foreword (1960) to what is cir-
_ Backward.”
into a regiment of workers, I’d just lie on my back
and kick” — we see rather the “rich artist- rently the most available paperback edition of
enthusiast” and “sentimental socialist” described Looking Backward (New American Library). It

ONE DOLLAR by old Engels. Morris’s most ardent defender in does seem that each of Mumford’s echoes likes to
our time, E.P. Thompson, has had to admit that add a flourish or two of his own. Thus Fromm, a
the great Preraphaelite’s “opposition to Looking neo-Freudian social-democrat, laments that life
Will give you LIBERTY and Three
Masterpieces of Fiction. Backward \ed him to willful exaggeration, more in Bellamy’s year 2000 is in some way “‘similarto
the Khrushchevist form of communism’; while
ADDRESS than once.” (7)
Changed conditions and the passage of time Morton — who even with Stalin on the throne
BENJ. R. TUCKER have blunted the edges of Morris’ ill-considered
polemic against Bellamy, just as they have
regarded things in the USSR as just fine and
dandy — alleges that Looking Backward is an
rr. O. Bow 3366,
blunted the edges of Engels’ hasty gibes at “exposition of the now familiar doctrine of
super-imperialism.”
BOSTON, AXASS. Morris. Today, as we struggle to find our way out
of a vastly more horrible maze than any of them It is downright disheartening, however, to find

CAPITAL: could have conceived, we find that all of them Mumford’s fundamentally and despicably bour-
help to light our way. That they had their faults is geois thesis recapitulated in Marie-Louise
the merest truism, and is hardly to the point for us Berneri’s otherwise estimable Journey Through
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF
who have faults of our own. What matters is that Utopia (1950). An anarchist, Berneri does at
CAPITALIST PRODUCTION. the going is easier, thanks to them, than if we least concede that what she (misleadingly) cails
BY KARE MARX, were trying to go it alone. Bellamy’s “state socialism” allows ‘a greater
o(— Morris’s peculiar blindness to Bellamy — alas! degree of personal freedom than most other
Translated from the third German edigion —— has worked its mischief over the years. Those utopias based on the same principles,” But then
by SAMUEL Moor and Ebwarp AVELING, who have followed him in this blindness, need- she goes on to argue that “his rigid regimentation
aml edited by FrenertcKk Knees. First of men’s lives takes little note of the differences
American edition carefully revised. Paper,
less to say, have rarely shared his redeeming
41.20; Cloth, €1.75, genius. in the psychological makeup of individuals.”
Bellamy himself observed that his opponents Detailed refutation of each and all of the fore-
NEW YORK:
The Wumboldt Publishing Co., generally criticized his program “for what it is going criticisms may be found in Bellamy’s
19 Astor Place. not”; their criticisms tended to be based on mis- works. By way of a brief reply — in passing, as it
understandings and aimed at straw men. All the were — here is just a sampling ‘from the horse’s
old misunderstandings, Morris’s and others, mouth”:
THE FARMER'S WIFE. besides an astonishing dose of new ones, some-
how found their way into Lewis Mumford’s in-
“(We do] not propose a paternal government,
but its logical and practical antithesis, a coopera-
A Monthly Alliance Journal for Women. fluential Story of Utopia (1922). The most tive administration for the benefit of equal
dyspeptic and pusillanimous pages of this partners.”
overrated book are devoted to Looking “Our system is elastic enough to give free play
Advertisements from THE NEW NATION
Backward. to every instinct of human nature which does not

10
aim at dominating others or living on the fruit of becomes infinitely more precise, more alive.
others’ labor.” That Bellamy’s early tales are inseparable from DON’T READ THIS.
“Equality creates an atmosphere which kills his utopia is further suggested by the fact that
imitation, and is pregnant with originality, for Looking Backward in no sense represents a ‘2014 auOoN ‘siuad $ saidog adweg
everyone acts out himself, having nothing to gain “break” with these tales but is rather their con-
by imitating any one else.” tinuation and culmination. Looking Backward ‘VLOWVG HLNGS "N330838V
“While we insist on equality, we detest uni- was begun as “a fairy tale of social felicity” with
formity, and seek to provide free play to the
greatest possible variety of tastes.”
“Instead of the mind-paralyzing worship of the
“no idea of attempting a serious contribution to
the movement of social reform.” And yet
looking over a text he had written when barely
oqe] jo siysluy eoyeg ayy
past and the bondage of the present to that which out of his teens made him wonder, some years *poyustand
is written, the conviction [of men and women in later, “not why I wrote Looking Backward, but JBUANOF WUOJOY seOIMeY ISO SUL
the year 2000 is that there is] no limit to what why I did not write it, or try to, twenty years
they might know concerning their nature and ago.”
destiny and no limit to that destiny.”
Free play and no limit: There is the heart and
His novels and tales show Bellamy’s early,
deep and enduring interest in psychopathology, The Western Advocate,
soul of Bellamy’s utopia. psychical research, hallucinations, obsessions,
dreams, spiritualism, erotic passion, interplane- MANKATO, KAN,
* * x
tary travel, exalted moods, extreme situations.
“The Blindman’s World,” which carries us to
If I have attempted to rescue Bellamy’s work Mars, poses the question: ‘‘When will man learn
A Weekly devoted to the People’s
from some of the worst distortions and falsifica- to interrogate the dream soul of the marvels it
tions to which it has been subjected, it is not be- Reform Movement.
sees in its wanderings? Then he will no longer
cause I regard his utopia as unassailable — far need to improve his telescopes to find out the
from it. But I do think it is high time for a fresh secrets of the universe.” Another story, “A
look at his revolutionary message, with all its ec-
Recognizes Nationalism as the only prac-
Summer Evening’s Dream,” takes place in
centricities, faults and contradictions; and such ticable solution of the Industrial
reverie — that “magic medium” in which ‘‘the
an attempt at reassessment is not even conceiv- distinction between imagination and reality fast and Social Problems,
able without first dissipating the critical fog that dissolved,” allowing us to follow its characters as
shrouds all that he wrote, all that he was. they go ‘wandering in some . . . mysterious
I want to emphasize, above all, how much TERMS . $1.00 PER YEAR.
between-worlds.”
more there is in Bellamy’s work than even his “To Whom This May Come” chronicles a so- Six months on trial, 30 cents,
best-intentioned critics have dreamed. journ in the “islands of the mind-readers” in a

THE PITTSBURG KANGAN,

Let us make no mistake: Much of his “system” corner of the Indian Ocean, where descendants of
is naive; many solutions he proposed surely are ancient Persian magicians have abandoned
not the best possible; his picture of the year 2000 speech and writing for “direct mind-to-mind

A RADICAL ALLIANCE PAPER.

unquestionably leaves something to be desired. vision.” Telepathy, particularly in its relation to
But can’t we get beyond the puerile notion that hysteria and love, is also the topic of “‘At Pinney’s
utopias are drawn up as finished blueprints re- Ranch,” set in the mountains of Colorado.
quiring only our simple yea or nay? Are they not, “Two Days’ Solitary Imprisonment,” centered IT HOLDS THAT
rather, contributions to a discussion — a dis- around a murder, powerfully conveys the decep-
cussion that should and must continue, because it tiveness of appearances. All pieces of “circum-
touches everything that matters? And is it not NATIONALISM
stantial evidence,” all the facts, add up to a
prerequisite to such discussion that any specific wholly mistaken conclusion: a theme taken up ls the logical outcome of the present Reform Movement.
contribution to it be understood as fully as decades later by such writers as Dashiell
possible, in ali its dimensions, and viewed ini- Hammett and Raymond Chandler. One cannot
tially on its own terms? That is precisely the By J. ©. BUCHANAN,
but be impressed by the range covered by
problem confronting the study of Bellamy today: Bellamy’s tales. His spoof on positivism, “A Posi-
his contributions have been slighted — even
slandered — to such an extent that they are
tive Romance,” looks forward to O. Henry and PITTSBURG - - - - KANSAS.
Ring Lardner. ‘““The Cold Snap,” with its “name-
scarcely known at all. less forebodings and . . . great, unformed fear,” Terms, $1.60 a Year.
Indeed, crucial areas of his thought remain prefigures H.P. Lovecraft.
wholly unexamined. It is difficult, for example, to THE
reconcile the prevalent view that the world of

ALLIANGE TRIBUNE.
* * *
Looking Backward is “grim,” “static” and
“mechanical,” with William Dean Howells’ Several recurring themes are discernible in
assertion that ‘in Edward Bellamy we were rich Bellamy’s earlier work, and show up again
in a romantic imagination surpassed only by that vividly in Looking Backward and Equality.
of Hawthome.” (9)
Howells’s opinion deserves the fullest respect,
Together they constitute what I have referred to AN 8 PAGE, 48 COLUMN,
as the psychological and poetic dimensions of his
for it is based — as few estimates of Bellamy have mora}/revolutionary outlook.
been — on a long-standing and intimate know-
ledge of all of Bellamy’s writings: not only
Looking Backward and its sequel, but also the
Aliance People’s Parly Paper,
five earlier novels, the more than thirty short SUPERSESSION OF MEMORY Ably edited, and Tis the best corps of correspondents
stories, and numerous articles, speeches and in the State, Among them are Senator Leffer, Congress.
nen Davis, OK, Simpson, and others,
short sketches published in Nationalist and other First let us consider Bellamy’s unrelenting
papers. hostility toward memory, and his corresponding- Every People’s Party man in the United States should
ly passionate preference for the future over the subscribe for the paper published at the birthplace of
Bellamy’s earlier writings, especially his tales
the People’s Party.
— and it is worth noting that he regarded himself past.
above all as a romancer — shed an invaluable A citizen of Mars calls planet Earth ‘‘The Blind-
light on his utopia. Much that might seem am- man’s World” (in the story of that title) because ONE DOLLAR A YEAR.
biguous in Looking Backward finds its clear ex- Earth’s inhabitants almost all are afflicted with Address
plication in his ‘“non-utopian” fiction; any what he calls “the disease of memory.” On Mars, THE ALLIANCE TRIBUNE,
number of “gaps” are filled in, and our image of to the contrary — so the Martian assures us — the Torgra, Kansas.
the new moral world that Bellamy envisioned faculty of precognition is highly developed, while

a
 above all, the way memory is used as an obstacle

THE HUGE HUNTER: or, THE STEAM MAN OF THE PRAIRIES, to the transformation of the present and the crea-
tion of a desirable future. This orientation is not
far from that of Marx, who wrote that “the
BY BDWARD SS. HELLIS. tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a
AUTHOR OF “THE BOY MINERS,” ‘(SETH JONES,” “BILL BIDDON,” ETC, ETC., ETC. nightmare on the brain of the living,” and
stressed that the proletarian revolution “cannot
draw its poetry from the past, but only from the
future.” It is comparable also to Freud’s theory
that repression can be overcome only by re-
storing unconscious conflicts to consciousness
and then advancing beyond them.
Because he focused on the elusive links
between social and psychical factors, Bellamy
may be regarded as a precursor of Freudo-
Marxism. But his work has yet another dimen-
sion — essentially poetic — that points, however
sketchily, beyond the territory delimited by
Marx and Freud. In the dialectical supersession of
memory, he not only saw (as they did) the nega-
tion of the negation, but saw also, to use Feuer-
bach’s expression, the ‘‘self-supporting positive”
—- in this case, the poetic imagination.
If we recall that memory is chiefly the vehicle
of guilt — and thus a fixture of the Reality
Principle — Bellamy’s orientation appears all the
more clearly in its true subversive light. In view
of his own Christian background, he would have
agreed whole-heartedly with Baudelaire that
“true civilization does not lie in gas, or in steam,
y
Yo , or in turntables. It lies in the reduction of the
WeWith, YiGY).
iy
OLE, MY
f .
traces of original sin.” The supersession of
memory by the poetic imagination — “‘the free
S; — play of every instinct’”” — is necessarily accom-
§ Vd
heme af

ig
pe
WY
Ny
* ~

ts _—s
panied by the release of eros in all directions, In
Bellamy’s utopia, the age-old conflict between
ON Sle
ey, MEM Pleasure Principle and Reality Principle is de-
cisively altered — in favor of the former. (10)
A Dime Novel Cover from the 1880s His antagonism to memory thus brings
Bellamy to the very threshold of surrealism. Let
memory scarcely exists. “We live wholly in the The Duke of Stockbridge, “A Romance of us recall that Andre Breton, in his “Letter to
future and the present.” The result, we are told, is Shays’ Rebellion,” portrayed the 1786 Massa-
Seers”’ (1925), evoked the surrealists’ “hatred of
a life lived to the fullest, free of the burdens of chusetts revolt of debtor-farmers and poor me- memory”; shortly thereafter he hailed the appar-
yesteryear, and always ready for the morrow. On chanics, led by a Revolutionary War veteran. ition of what he called ‘souvenirs of the future.”
Mars, our Martian tells us, “we write of the past Based on extensive original research — including
In his better days, when he was still a surrealist,
when it is still the future, and of course in the searches through old family records and small- Nicolas Calas advanced the challenge that
future tense.” town archives, with his ears always open for “history is a conception of
the future,” an aggres-
In “The Old Folks’ Party” we meet a group of revelatory popular local traditions — this was
sive thesis delightfully exemplified by the chroni-
young people who, as a diversion, hold a party more than a historically faithful work of fiction: it cler of the year 2000. How else could one
which — with the help of costume, makeup and was a major contribution to American histori- describe the historiographical approach of an
mannerisms — they attend as if they had already ography. Before Bellamy, historians had author whose masterwork permits us to gaze into
reached advanced age. Pursuant to this curious followed the lead of George Richards Minot’s the distant morrow by “looking backward”?
sport, one of them remarks: “Ghosts of the future vituperative History of the Insurrection in
are the only sort worth heeding. Apparitions of Massachusetts (1788) in presenting the most un-
things past are a very unpractical sort of demon- flattering view of Capt. Daniel Shays and his
ology, in my opinion, compared with apparitions comrades, seeing them only as malevolent mal- REINTEGRATION OF THE PERSONALITY
of things to come.” ; contents. Bellamy dug deeper. Uncovering the
The overcoming of memory is the theme of an social and economic causes of the great revolt, he In several works Bellamy evidences his in-
entire Bellamy novel, Dr. Heidenhoff’s Process gave us a picture of the Shaysites painted with terest in the problem of divisions in the person-
(1880), in which we find this bold affirmation: understanding and sympathy. Later historians ality, and the possibility of its reintegration.
“Macbeth’s question, ‘Canst thou not minister to have come to agree with Samuel Eliot Morison “The three persons of grammar are not really
a mind diseased; pluck from the memory a rooted that The Duke of Stockbridge gives “‘a more enough,” we read in “The Old Folks’ Party.” “A
sorrow; raze out the written troubles of the accurate account of the causes and events of fourth is needed to distinguish the ego of the past
brain?’ was a puzzler to the sixteenth century Shays’ Rebellion than any of the formal his- and future from the present ego, which is the only
doctor, but he of the twentieth, yes, perhaps of torians do.” true one.” In Miss Ludington’s Sister (1884), a
the nineteenth, will be able to answer it affirma- That Bellamy was writing a sustained attack on novel centered on spiritualism, this notion is de-
tively.” Bellamy in this book sums up his atti- memory, against the fixation with the past, and veloped at greater length: “When the world
tude: “Memory is the principle of moral simultaneously was poring over musty records of comes to recognize the composite character of
degeneration. Remembered sin is the most the previous century, preparing a purely his- the individual, that it is composed of not one but
utterly diabolical influence in the universe.” torical work, may seem paradoxical: but it is not. many persons, a new department will be added to
Interestingly enough, at the very moment he His antipathy to memory was no mere intellec- ethics, relating to the duties of the successive
was writing Dr. Heidenhoff’s Process -— which, tual idiosyncrasy but rather the critical lever of a selves of an individual to one another.”
as he wrote it, was being serialized in The Spring- far-reaching dialectic. This remarkable insight, prefiguring Freud’s
field Union — he also was at work on a historical It was not an abstract memory or past that he model of the mental processes, should be
romance, The Duke of Stockbridge, serialized in opposed, but the concrete ways in which they are regarded not as a mere piece of clinical data but
the Berkshire Courier. used to allow the dead to dominate the living — as a hypothesis to account for the contradictori-

12
ness of human behavior and also (as developed in was melted by the hot breath of . . . passion, and Backward with full force in the subplot telling of
his later work) for the extensive transformation the confines of the natural and the supernatural the narrator’s love life.
of the personality which cannot fail to occur were confounded.” More audaciously, in one of In the year 2000 Julian West falls in love witha
when the social basis of this contradictoriness is his most extraordinary tales, “With the Eyes young woman who, as it turns out, is the great-
overthrown. In “To Whom This May Come” our Shut,” the clock is seen almost as the symbol of granddaughter of the woman who had been his
attention is called to ‘“‘a shifting of the sense of all ideological conflicts rooted in the Reality Prin- fiance in 1887. Unknown to him, however, this
identity.” In its implications this view seems to ciple. We are ushered into a display room of girl — Edith Leete — had known since childhood
correspond to Rimbaud’s “I is someone else”’ (je clocks that are equipped with phonographic of her great-grandmother’s love for him, and had
est un autre), an observation that helped pave devices, so that on the hour, on the half-hour, long felt herself to be, in some strange way, the
the way to the systematization of what later etc., they recite excerpts from the works of cele- living spirit of her ancestor, “come back to the
became known as surrealist aufomatism, the ex- brated writers. These timepieces also feature world to fulfill some work that lay near [her
pression of the “real functioning of thought,” “effigies of the authors whose sentiments they great-grandmother’s] heart.”
outside of all controls exercised by the apparatus repeated.” “There were religious and sectarian In a dramatic climax, we find Julian West
of repression. clocks, moral clocks, philosophical clocks, free- brooding over his weird isolation in this new
Bellamy recognized that social revolution im- thinking and infidel clocks, literary and poetical world, feeling that “there was no place for [him]
plies a mental/affective revolution —- that the clocks, educational clocks, frivolous and bac- anywhere,” and that he was “neither dead nor
contradictions of the “divided self” in capitalist chanalian clocks. ... Modern wisdom was repre- properly alive.” It is at this moment, as he is on
society will be resolved, and that a new and sented by a row of clocks surmounted by the the verge of suicide, that Edith Leete affirms her
vastly higher consciousness will emerge as the heads of famous maxim-makers, from Rochefou- reciprocal love and thereby retrieves him from
repressive obstacles to such consciousness are cald to Josh Billings.” Standing near the religious the depths of despair.
discarded. The ‘‘intellectual splendor” which he and skeptical clocks at the hour of ten, he says, Erotic passion thus triumphs — symbolically at
signaled as one of the Revolution’s most notable “the war of opinions that followed was calculated least —- over time and even death. A further
consequences is only one of many indications of to unsettle the firmest convictions.” implication is that love will flourish at its wildest
this qualitative leap. As early as “The Religion of Solidarity” best after capitalism has been overthrown. “That
Here too, of course, the liberation of eros is (1874), when he protested “the barrier of time” evening the garden was bathed in moonlight, and
central. In the year 2000, “the vacuum left in the and affirmed our hunger “not for more life, but till midnight Edith and 1 wandered to and fro
minds of men and women by the absence of care forall the life there is,”’ Bellamy took his stand for there, trying to grow accustomed to our
for one’s livelihood has been entirely taken up by the poets’ eternity. “Each moment of fullness,” happiness.”
tender passion.” he would have agreed with André Breton, “bears
That Bellamy’s approach to this question can in itself the negation of centuries of limping and
best be seen in the light of surrealist automatism broken history.”” Can anyone doubt that the
“free play of every instinct” requires the aboli- THE NEED FOR WILDERNESS
is suggested by numerous passages in his work. In
a notebook from the early 1870s he opposed the tion of time? Against the miserabilists’ mechani-
cal measurement of misery, Bellamy called for A fourth theme is Bellamy’s sensitiveness to
“old literature,” with its “one-sided revelation of
Blake's “Eternal Delight.” The passions — es- the call of the wild which, in turn, emphasizes the
the mind in its attitude toward some single object
pecially the passions of solidarity and love — “open-endedness” of his thought.
or direction,” to an entirely new idea: “a tran-
demand the primal timelessness that alone allows In his unfinished autobiographical novel, Eliot
script of the mind itself undominated by single Carson, he wrote rapturously of the remotest
motives and marked with the almost infinite us to live, as Bellamy urged, with ‘‘calm abandon,
a serene and generous recklessness.” wilderness: ‘‘to chance all awed and silent upon
variety of the mind’s own operations.” (11) “Is
not the succession of ideas that in an hour passes those secret places of the woods, those room-like
the focus of our mental vision . . . amore hetero-
* * * nooks whose air is warm with the sense of some-
ever
thing living there . . . to lie beneath the pines and
genous, and fantastic, procession than
The three themes — supersession of memory, listen to the song of eternity in their branches till
graced a day of carnival?” Noting, furthermore, he forgot what manner of life his was.” (12) A
overcoming of divisions in the personality,
that “books are dull” because they “present character in his early story, “Deserted,” says
unnatural distorted arrangement” transcendence of time — reoccur in Looking
thoughts in pies ONE INCH
which “gives little idea of the mind,” he declared Rye i TY
beg

his intention “to follow the law of the mind in

making a book,” to try to write his “thoughts as
they throng in the mind.”
To what extent Bellamy carried out this
experiment in automatic writing is not known.
Most of his papers were sold after his death, and
have not been accessible to researchers. The
remarks quoted above, however — especially in
view of his critical interest in spiritualism and
psychical research —— would seem to indicate that
he had indeed heard and heeded what André
Breton would call the automatic message. That
this was for him much more than a “literary” aid
is made clear in this unequivocal testimony from
“The Religion of Solidarity”: “‘It is especially in
moments of the deepest anguish or of the
maddest gaiety . . . that we become, not by force
of argument, but by spontaneous experience,
strictly subjective to ourselves, that is, the in-
dividuality becomes objective to the universal
soul, that eternal subjective. We call such an ex-
perience abnormal; it should be normal.”

TRANSCENDENCE OF TIME

Throughout his life Bellamy dreamed of the

conquest of time by passion.
In Miss Ludington’s Sister we meet a character sel RES

for whom “the veil between time and eternity Edward HICKS (1780-1849): The Peaceable Kingdom

13
 “finished” system; it was deliberately expansive.
Recognizing, as he did, that “human nature in its
essential qualities is good, not bad,” Bellamy was
convinced that once capitalism is abolished, and
replaced by a rational social system, men and
women will know well enough what to do with
their lives. To paraphrase his own watchwords,
there is no limit to the splendor that the ‘free
play of every instinct” can create. “The way
stretches before us,” he wrote of the year 2000,
“but the end is lost in light. ... With a tear for the
dark past, turn we then to the dazzling future
and, veiling our eyes, press forward. The long
and weary winter of the race is ended. Its summer
has begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The
heavens are before it.”
* * a

Relating Looking Backward to his earlier tales

emphasizes that his utopia is above all a work of
the imagination. He himself regarded his stories
as “the working out of problems, that is to say,
attempts to trace the logical consequences of cer-
tain assumed conditions.” (13) Acknowledging
that it was “in this form” that the plan of Looking
Backward presented itself to his mind, he added
that from that moment “‘the writing of the book
was the simplest thing in the world.”
The facility with which Bellamy recorded his
utopia is a measure of its truly inspired character,
and helps explain why it has proved so inspiring
to so many others. William Dean Howells
touched on this point when he wrote, regarding
the method of Bellamy’s tales, that “he does not
so much transmute our everyday reality to the
substance of romance, as make the airy stuff of
dreams one in quality with veritable exper-
ience.” (14)
In Looking Backward, Bellamy’s moral/revo-
lutionary enthusiasm was suffused with just the
right touch of scientific anticipation, the poetic
marvelous and erotic promise for it to become
Sy
=

or
contagious for a generation that dreamed at night
Gerome KAMROWSKI: Marvelous Freedom of the Winds of Darwinian evolution, baseball, bicycles,
boxing, the eight-hour day, Barnun’s circus,
pomt-blank: “I wouldn’t give much for a country reflected in many tales. His utopia could be aeronautics, anarchists, Whistler’s Mother,
where there are no wildernesses left.” This is viewed, in part, as an outgrowth of his desire to world’s fairs, the cancan, steam locomotives, the
essentially the view set forth by Thoreau in protect these unpretentious people — and with Ferris Wheel, the Statue of Liberty, Lily Langtry,
Walden, where it is urged on us that “we need the them, the last remnants of their sturdy indepen- Loie Fuller, Tennyson, Edison, Jack the Ripper
tonic of wildness, to wade sometimes in marshes dence, their quirks and foibles, their grandeur — and Alice in Wonderland. As the vivid expression
where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk. ... from the onslaught of the capitalist juggernaut. of a dream already lurking in the backs of the
We need to witness our own limits transgressed, A deep sympathy for “outsiders” runs through minds of millions, the book “caught on” and
and some life pasturing freely where we never Bellamy’s work. No one could fail to note his af- “sold like hotcakes.”
wander.” fection for the spiritualists, for example, in Miss If the same cannot be said for the much longer
Ludington’s Sister. His stories show him to have and heavily didactic Equality, it has its own
Contrary to the misperception of nearsighted been drawn toward eccentrics, dreamers, people brighter moments nonetheless. Who could be in-
critics who persist in mistaking Bellamy for an in some way “touched in the head.” The world of different to the account of the ‘great bonfire”
advocate of some sort of technocratic urbanism, Looking Backward leaves room — as too few where, in the midst of the Revolution, masses of
this same attitude characterizes his utopia. It is utopias have done — for such ‘‘exceptions,” such people dance around an immense conflagration
implicit in.the vast reforestation that begins im- marginal beings who live “outside the system.” — fueled by a mountain of stocks, bonds, money,
mediately after the Revolution; in the ensuing In Equality it is emphasized that “the new order deeds and other examples of capitalism’s mysti-
transformation of relations between man and {has] no need or use for unwilling recruits. . . . If cal paperwork — on the site of the New York
in his vision of “the works of man
animals; anyone did not wish to enter public service and Stock Exchange?
blending with the face of nature in perfect
could live outside of it without stealing or beg-
harmony.” ging, he was quite welcome to.” The chief interest of Equality lies precisely in
Extending even beyond the apparent barriers Of course, Bellamy believed that the attrac- the details it supplies to our image of Looking
of “external nature,” Bellamy’s solidarity em- tions of the new society would be so many and so Backward. Asa tale it is the meagerest shell, but
braces also the wildernesses of human society, irresistible that eventually everyone would come as an extension of the earlier book it is
the wildernesses of the mind. Throughout his life into “the new social house.” But he insisted that invaluable.
“no sort of constraint [would be] brought to bear Among its many suggestive and appealing
he admired the sturdy independence of the
American villager, whose unique way of life was upon... anybody.” He preferred to rely on such details, we learn in Equality that this utopia is
vanishing before his very eyes under the blows of things as “the undreamed of possibilites of symbolized by the windmill, replicas of which
bourgeois industrialization. Where others saw human friendship.” adorn the roofs of public buildings: “The mill
only quirks and foibles in these plain and simple It is worth calling attention to the fact that stands for the machinery of administration, the
folk, Bellamy saw real grandeur, which he Looking Backward was not intended as a wind that drives it symbolizes the public will, and

14
the rudder that always keeps the vane of the mill prisoned Oscar Wilde, Merrill spoke out in his the leading and most of the lesser figures of
defense. French and Belgian Symbolism. During his stay
before the wind, however suddenly or complete-
ly the wind may change, stands for the method by On the walls of his New York apartment were in the U.S. in the ’80s he wrote on French poetry
which the administration is kept at all times paintings by Gauguin and Rops; on his book- — on Gérard de Nerval and others-— for the New
responsive and obedient to every mandate of the shelves, works of the greatest living poets in York Times and the Evening Post. lt was during
people, though it be but a breath.” French and English. Merrill knew, down to the his active participation in the Bellamy movement
That he would select such a symbol, at once so very marrow of his bones, that the revolutionary that he prepared a volume of translations from
simple and so strange, tells us much of the man spirit of the new painting and the new poetry was the French titled Pastels in Prose, prefaced by his
who wrote Looking Backward. From the weird fundamentally inseparable from the revolution friend William Dean Howells and published by
in the streets. Harpers in 1890. This book introduced American
effigies surmounting his oratorical clocks, to his
readers to the work of Aloysius Bertrand, Baude-
indignant Martian critic of Earthian psychology; The second issue of The Nationalist (June
from the haunted and obsessive wanderers 1889) featured his strident “Ballad of the
laire, Mallarmé, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and many
others. A second volume, to have been called
through the anticipatory nostalgia of Miss Outcasts”:
Ludington’s Sister to the beautiful and free- Poems of the Symbolists, was readied for publi-
cation but unfortunately never -eached print.
spirited girl of the year 2000, walking arm in arm Beware, O Kings whom Mammon sways,
Merrill also translated works by William Morris,
with her lover: 143 years old but still young! — Lest morrows nearer than ye ken
Oscar Wilde, James Thomson, Ernest Dowson,
Bellamy’s imaginary world runs far and deep. He With our red flags of battle blaze!
Arthur Symons and William Butler Yeats into
has been called ‘‘the Jules Verne of socialism.” For we are hated of all men.
But he deserves better. Could it not be — espe- French.
Like many of Bellamy’s followers, Stuart
cially in view of the appreciable role of glory in In an article in the same magazine, Merrill
his utopia — that he is rather socialism’s defined the Bellamy movement as the “expres- Merrill evolved into a revolutionary socialist. But
Raymond Roussel? sion of the evolution of society from competition we cannot help being struck by the depth and
to co-operation,” and summarized its perspec- passion of his youthful conunitment to the world
tives: “Upon the ruins of the competitive state of Looking Backward. \f he later advanced
will arise the Co-operative Commonwealth, with beyond its limits, this was a matter of growth, not
its system of equilibrated production and con- renunciation; his underlying motives, his basic
sumption. Then private interest will no more be orientation, remained unchanged. At the same
The foregoing presentation of Bellamy, as time, the adherence of such an outstanding poet
libertarian and hostile to public interest, but they will become
essentially eros-affirmative, identified, and as in a huge partnership, the to Bellamy’s movement helps us to see that
richly imbued with the poetic spirit — one whose purest altruism will prove the truest egoism.” movement in a new light.
approach to key questions is analogous to that of As a leader of the Nationalist movement he “Regret, remorse, love of the past,” Merrill
the greatest, most revolutionary poets —- is organized meetings, wrote “articles of combat,” wrote, in an admonition that Bellamy could have
admittedly at variance with, even wholly anti- written, “are forerunners of mental decay and
and — with his friend Clarence Mcllvaine — ran
thetical to, the prevailing view. In attempting to a “correspondence society” to promote the diffu- death. . . . We have eternity before us.” Like
see his work as a whole, relating his early stories sion of radical literature.
Bellamy, Merrill dreamed of a new society
and essays to the later utopian works, I have tried As militant in poetry as in politics, he was in founded on freedom, equality, solidarity, love,
to rectify the false and narrow conclusions of more ways than one a follower of Blake, Shelley imagination and poetry. Like Bellamy, he de-
critics whose “‘critiques” too often have been voted his life to the realization of such a society.
and Swinburne. ‘Modern society,” he wrote, “is
based on nothing more than a hurried and preju- Like Bellamy, he kept his inver eye focused on
a badly written poem which one must be active in
diced skimming of Looking Backward alone. the revolutionary future.
correcting. A poet, in the etymological sense,
The internal evidence of Bellamy’s writings, as remains a poet everywhere, and it is his duty to
I have tried to outline it here, seems to me more restore some loveliness on the earth.”
than enough to warrant a new hearing, so to Merrill’s poetry, nearly all of it written in
speak, for him and his work. It will also prove il- French, has a touch of the Preraphaelites’ sunlit
luminating to call on an interesting if little-known melancholy but is always shot through with a In spite of the myriad defeats, disappoint-
supporting witness. Our effort to see Bellamy and sweetly seductive undercurrent of revolt. It is this ments, failures, defections, betrayals, collapses,
his achievements in the light of Blake, Baude- quality that distinguished him from most of the false starts and other unending calamities that
laire, Rimbaud — above all in the light of surreal- Symbolists and made him a notable precursor of have afflicted the revolutionary cause in our
ism — is enhanced and substantiated by his asso-
surrealism. time, some of us remain determined, no matter
ciation (unnoted by his biographers or commen- His close friends included Stéphane Mallarmé what, to hold out for everything that revolution
tators) with a remarkable poet: a poet of whom and René Ghil. He was well acquainted with all — and revolution alone —- can bring. However
André Breton said that he was one of the few of dim the prospects, however rare the signs of re-
his generation who “commands the high waves,” surgence, we concede nothing in principle:
(15) and who also was among the first to translate modern society is slavery and misery. Nothing
Baudelaire and Rimbaud into English. 1 refer to can stop us from dreaming of freedom and the
Stuart Merrill (1863-1915). A major figure of the
marvelous —- dreaming, above all, of the great
Symbolist movement in France, he happens also day when those dreams will find their way, irre-
to have organized the first Nationalist Club in
versibly, into action.
New York, 1889. (16)
If there is one crucial lesson of revolution in the
Born on Long Island, Merrill spent most of his
20th century, it is this: without the dream of free-
childhood and adolescence in France, where his
dom, the act of liberation too easily becomes a
father, an abolitionist who had fought in the
trap. Therein lies the permanent value of the
Union Army, was employed as legal advisor to
great utopias. They give us an irrevocable sense
the American legation. By the time his family of what revolution meant when the dream and
returned to the U.S. for a few years in the "80s,
the act were seen and felt as one.
young Merrill was already a poet as well as a How many are there, today, with the courage
revolutionary.
to admit that we shall never get anywhere till this
Prior to taking up Bellamy, he had helped on
sense has been fully renewed?
Henry George’s mayoral campaign, defended the ] know of no American whose works could
Haymarket anarchists and sold socialist publica-
contribute to such renewal more than Edward
tions in the streets of New York. His whole life
Bellamy. He is one of those great dreamers who
was an impassioned crusade for the transfor-
dared to imagine means of escape from a suffo-
mation of the world. He fought for the freedom of
cating social order. With Winstanley, Blake,
the American blacks, the Chinese, the whole
working class; he supported every struggle STUART MERRILL Shelley. Owen, Fourier, Flora Tristan, he
dreamed of a life made livable at last.
against injustice. When British hypocrisy im- (woodcut by Felix Vallotton)

15
 all the help we can get. We can ill afford to wave certain as a deed that has already happened,”
Much of his strategy may be questionable; his
away those who have so much to offer. then Bellamy is one of the greatest revolution-
economics may be superseded; this or that fea-
aries that the U.S. has known. He did, moreover,
ture of his program may be rendered obsolete by If we agree with Amadeo Bordiga that “‘a revo-
what very few ever have done: For millions of
technological developments foreseen by no one. lutionary is one for whom the revolution is as
people, he made revolution attractive and
But capitalism — wage-slavery — remains, with
all its insidious institutions. And just as Bellamy’s desirable.
indictment of the whole system still stands vivid- Looking Backward, he wrote, ‘“‘was written in
ly true, so too his portrayal of the nonrepressive the belief that the Golden Age lies before us and
21st century remains at once a brilliant promise not behind us, and is not far away.” To read
and a burning challenge. Bellamy today is still to look ahead: It is a
moment’s breath of fresh air from a future worth
To leave Bellamy to the technocrats would beas
dreaming about.
foolishly wrong as to leave Marx to the Stalinists
or Freud to the American Psychoanalytic Associ- Franklin ROSEMONT
ation. Long, bitter struggles await us; we need

“one of the greatest of living poets’’; he is mildly it becomes clear that Mumford’s ‘‘explanation” is
NOTES
critical only because “as to the industrial sys- truly a confession of his boundless pretension and
(1) All quotations from Bellamy, unless otherwise tem ... Mr. Morris is provokingly silent.” dishonesty — of his pompous eagerness to pro-
(6) Upton Sinclair, Mammonart: An Essay in nounce himself dogmatically, and with an ap-
specified, are from Looking Backward (Boston,
Economic Interpretation (Pasadena, 1925), p. pearance of scholarship, on problems for the
1888), Equality (New York, 1897) and Edward
238. solutions of which he had not even the rudiments
Bellamy Speaks Again! (Kansas City, 1937). of knowledge.
“The Religion of Solidarity” is included in (7) E.P. Thompson, William Morris: Romantic to
Revolutionary (London, Merlin, 1977), p. 693. (9) W.D. Howells, preface to E. Bellamy, The
Edward Bellamy, Selected Writings on Religion
(8) Mumford never even manages to get Julian Blindman’s Tale and Other Stories (Boston,
and Society, ed. by Joseph Schiffman (New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1898), p. xiii.
Liberal Arts, 1955). West’s name right: he makes it Julius. His plot
summary says that it is “needless to observe that (10) Regarding the erotic implications of Looking
(2) Sylvia E. Bowman’s Edward Bellamy Abroad Backward, see also David Bleich, “Eros and
(New York, Twayne, 1962) traces Bellamy’s in- [West] reawakens to the world of 1887 as soon as
the institutions of 2000 have been described” — Bellamy,” in American Quarterly (Fall 1964),
fluence in twenty-eight countries. The bibli- pp. 445-459.
ography lists eighty translations of Looking needless indeed, for it is not true. One begins to
(11) Quoted in Morgan, op. cit., p. 179.
Backward, into twenty-three languages. wonder, did he read the book at all?
In his preface to the 1962 Viking reprint (in (12) Ibid., p. 155.
(3) The best sources remain Arthur E. Morgan, (13) “How 1 Wrote Looking Backward, in
Edward Bellamy (New York, Columbia, 1944), which, by the way, all his errors are left uncorrec-
ted), Mumford acknowledges the “superficial-
Edward Bellamy Speaks Again, op. cit., p. 221.
and Howard H. Quint, The Forging of American (14) W.D. Howells, op. cit., p. vi.
Socialism (Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1964). ity” of his work and offers his explanation: “‘1
conceived this book in February 1922, did the (15) André Breton, “Le Merveilleux contre le
(4) See, for example, the long review of Looking
necessary reading for it by the end of March, and mystére,” in La Cle des champs (Paris, 1953).
Backward in Industrial Solidarity, Nov. 17,
turned the final drafts over to the publisher in (16) Marjorie Louise Henry, Stuart Merrill: La
1926.
June, in time to read the proofs before I sailed to Contribution d’un Americain au symbolisme
(5) A long excerpt from Morris’ review is in-
cluded in A.L. Morton, The English Utopia Europe toward the end of July.” frangais (Paris, 1927). See also Vincent O’Sulli-
(London, 1952). In The New Nation (Feb. 14, When it is recalled that his study concerns van’s article on Mermill in the Dictionary of

oe =
some forty utopias, to each of which he could not American Biography.
1891), Bellamy reviewed News From Nowhere,

an
a book “exceedingly well worth reading” by have devoted more than a day or two of research,

HPL.
Lovecraft’s grandeur resides in nothing less Two Articles From
MEDIUM/COMMUNICATION SURREALISTE
Reaching back beyond Arthur Machen and
Algernon Blackwood, in the gigantic shadow
than the creation of a personal mythology
which ridicules “modern history.” Scattered No. 1, November 1953 of A. Gordon Pym and Waldemar, stands
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937). This
through the pages of popular magazines until
his death, this mythology reflects an authen- recluse of Providence, Rhode Island, was not
content to distill the very pulp of nightmares
tic occult knowledge, treated with entire free-
—- that terror of time and space signalized by ectenn
tte
eer
eeeg
ee
gant
pert
dom. From unknown planets there
DeQuincey and evoked by Benjamin Paul
descended to earth, long before man, the
founders of religions of which something still Blood in Pluriverse. Engulfed by the shores of
surrounds us. It is striking that this point of Mu, Lovecraft — in his displaced prose,
forged in the furnaces of the alchemy that he
departure sheds light on scientific works cer-
tainly unknown to Lovecraft, such as the venerated — announced the occult return of
glaciary cosmology of Horbiger and certain the Ancient Ones.
developments in South American archae- It is in the essence of such vertigoes to be
ology (cf. Denis Saurat, “Atlantis and the propagated, as if by vibration, at the very
Reign of Giants,” Nouvelle Revue Frangaise, heart of subsequent works. And this has been
August 1953). amply demonstrated by the Sauk City group
Presuming and analyzing a whole ante- — represented among others by August sett
et
glint
geen,
gay
yee
toe
heat
nth
teggtites
: diluvian literature, under their own direction, Derleth, Robert Bloch, Hazel Heald and
} this impeccable writer and his group have Robert E. Howard— who have perpetuated
} given themselves the luxury of verifying their the black legend of Cthulhu.
\ mythology. Rarely has such rigor served the Silhouette of
RSs evocation of the unfathomable depths. H.P. Lovecraft
by Perry (1925) Robert BENAYOUN
Gérard LEGRAND pony gente wetenqgemrtte eettinyerttere
entersgenset

16
LOVECRAFT, SURREALISM « REVOLUTION
among the writers of fantasy and horror I corres- Beyond the always uncertain ground of “in-
‘The Second World War, and the Nazi occupa- fluences,” however, there is the broader field of
tion of France, forced André Breton and other ponded with forty years ago: George Sterling,
Smith, Henry S. Whitehead, Donald and Howard objective parallels and above all of elective affin-
surrealists to seek refuge in the U.S. Regrouping ities, where we find ourselves on surer footing.
Wandrei, Derleth, etc.” (7)
in New York, they began a fruitful search for “Neither HPL himself,” Long tells us, “nor the
“surrealist evidence” in the New World. Among In his volume of reminiscences of HPL, Long
members of the Lovecraft circle, were as in-
their greatest discoveries was Howard Phillips resumed this discussion: “Lovecraft’s knowledge
of surrealism . . was of an exceedingly restricted fluenced by surrealism as they were by Poe,
Lovecraft and the “Lovecraft circle,” including Bierce, Dunsany, Blackwood, Machen, etc. But,”
nature. He was familiar with it only in the domain
Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Donald he adds significantly, ‘they could hardly have
Wandrei and Frank Belknap Long. of painting, and although he had, of course, found
many parallels between the work of the early been the kind of writers they were if the out-
In the works of these authors the surrealists standing surrealists of the period had not made
found confirmations and extensions of their own Flemish artists and that of Dali and others, I am
quite certain that even twentieth century surreal- some impression on them.” (9)
quest. Appearing in Weird Tales and other Long has avowed his own lively interest in sur-
“pulp” magazines, these works seemed to them istic painting influenced him very little.’ (8)
realism, especially in its current American mani-
more truly poetic than the stuff in Poetry or other festations, in which he says he perceives “a rare,
official organs of High Culture. Lovecraft and his
friends reached beyond mere “‘literature” into
LOVECRAFT’S mountain-peak kind of free-associational splen-
dor.” (10) Unaware of VVV in the ’40s, he now
the volatile shadows of a new mythology.
In a pioneering study of Lovecraft, in the
LAST LETTER recognizes R.A. Parker’s esssay on HPL as one of
the finest early appreciations. Citing Parker’s
American surrealist. journal VVV, Robert (excerpts) tribute to HPL’s “uncensored testimony of his
Allerton Parker saluted his “primordial creatures inner adventures,” Long comments: “It is an “un-
of Manichean evil surviving from prehistory.” (1) During the past few months so many of my
censored testimony’ of that nature which forms
Lovecraft boldly confronted the problem of evil, correspondents in the pest zone have been
the foundation upon which present day surreal-
with no concessions to religion (he was a militant writing me about that display of fantastic and
ism has built much of its structural cohesiveness,
atheist). A Lovecraftian sense of evil permeates surrealistic painting at the Museum of
and though many of its tenets would doubtlessly
several of the surrealist painter Matta’s late 40s Modern Art that I’m hoping its travelling resi-
due will include ancient Providence on its have been rejected by HPL, this aspect of surreal-
canvases, such as Atyarth Insolent and Rghuin ism is certainly in accord with what he most
Monstrous Triumphs. route. The group of elder sources — pictorial
wanted to achieve.” (11)
In 1953 the first French translations of Love- fantaisistes as far back as El Greco and Hell-
would have especially It so happens that Lovecraft himself left a veri-
craft were hailed by Robert Benayoun and Fire Bosch —
table “testament” on this subject. The very last
Gérard Legrand in the surrealist journal Medium. fascinated me . . . but I fear it won't be in-
cluded in the migratory aftermath. In general, letter that he wrote, found unmailed at the time
I recall vividly how Claude Tarnaud, during our of his death in 1937, contains a long passage (re-
meeting in New York, 1963, invoked the urgency though, I am not a surrealist enthusiast, for I
think the practitioners of the school give their printed here in its entirety) on surrealism. His
of Lovecraft’s ‘‘cosmic malevolence.” This ur- estimate, though not uncritical, is favorable over-
gency owes nothing to esthetic/literary conven- subconscious impressions too much
automatic leeway. Not that the impressions all — amazingly so for an American of that time.
tion: It touches the world, life, all that we do. It is
are not potentially valuable, but that they Elsewhere in the same letter he affirms his com-
not accidental that Edouard Jaguer has suggest- mitment to anti-fascism and the labor movement.
ed Lovecraft as an aid to sculptors (2), for his tend to become trivial and meaningless
He had long before outgrown the provincial
tales give us glimpses of the ‘‘Great Invisibles” except when more or less guided by some
racism and conservatism that disfigured some of
assuming visibility in the defiant vitality of coherent imaginative concept. A thing like
Sefior Dali’s humorously-dubbed ‘““Wet his early 1920s letters, But in this last unfinished
matter. Writing from the Oregon Caves in 1974, text we see how far the author of “The Call of
Philip Lamantia signaled there, in “the dialectics Watches” tends to become a reductio ad ab-
surdum of the fantastic principle, and to Cthulhu” had advanced on the road of revolu-
of calcination,” a “pure Lovecraftian view of the tionary clarity.
‘old ones’ growing their mineral thorns and exemplify the aesthetic decadence so mani-
It is an extraordinary fact, well worth thinking
bangs.” (3) fest in many phases of our moribund and so-
about: In his last words, H.P. Lovecraft was
For surrealists today, the works of the Love- cially transitional era. However, I surely con-
cede that this form of expression should be deeply preoccupied by the decisive question of
craft Circle remain a central source. (4) our century: revolution, socialist and surrealist.
adequately recognised; since many of its FR.
products undoubtedly do possess a powerful
* * *

imaginative reach and freshness, whilst the

One cannot help wondering to what extent, if NOTES .
whole movement cannot but make important
any, the surrealists’ interest in Lovecraft was re- (1) “Such Pulp As Dreams Are Made On” in VVV
and revivifying contributions to the main-
ciprocated. To an inquiry on this subject, August No 2-3, 1943. This article was reprinted in the
Derleth replied: “I doubt very much that Love- -stream of art. There is no drawing a line be-
surrealist issue of Radical America (1970).
craft was ever much aware of the surrealist twixt what is to be called extreme fantasy of a
(2) Poétique de la Sculpture (Paris, Musée de
movement. .. Neither Lovecraft nor (Clark Ash- traditional type and what is to be called sur-
tealism; and I have no doubt but that the Poche, 1960), p. 66.
ton] Smith would have considered himself sur- (3) Postcard, 16 September 1974.
realist.” (5) Frank Belknap Long, who probably nightmare landscapes of some of the sur-
(4) Recent studies of Lovecraft in the light of sur-
realists correspond, as well as any actual cre-
knew Lovecraft better than anyone, adds: “I’m realism include Paul Buhle: “Dystopia as Utopia:
sure that HPL never read a word of surrealistic ations could, to the iconographic horrors
HPL and the Unknown Content of American
writing in his life. And I doubt very much that attributed by sundry fictioneers to mad or
Horror Literature” in The Minnesota Review
CAS did in the early years. He may well have daemon-haunted artists. If there were a real
(Spring 1976), and Franklin Rosemont: “Notes
done so in later years, but as to that I possess no Richard Upton Pickman or Felix Ebbonly, (*)
on the Legacy of Cthulhu” in Arsenal No. 3
knowledge. Neither HPL nor Smith, in letters to I am sure he would have been represented in
the recent exhibition by several blasphemous (Spring 1976).
me, ever mentioned Breton or Lautréamont.”’ (6) (5) Letter of 4 June 1967.
Lautréamont and Breton were not, in fact, well
and abhorrent canvases!
H.P. LOVECRAFT (6) Letter of 3 July 1974.
known names in 1920s/’30s America. Surrealism (7) Letter of 3 February 1974.
was almost as unknown in this country then as it (March 1937)
(8) Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the
was in Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR. None Nightside (Sauk City, Arkham House, 1975), p. 9
of Breton’s manifestoes, none of the movement’s (*) Fictional artists in tales by HPL (ed.)
(9) Letter of 3 February 1974.
pivotal works, had appeared in English. It is not From HPL: Selected Letters, Vol. IV (10) Letter of 3 July 1974.
surprising, then, for Long to acknowledge that (Sauk City, Wis., Arkham House, 1979) (11) HPL: Dreamer on the Nightside, p. 10.
“surrealism was not discussed to any great extent
7
 Explorers of the Pluriverse
The ‘realist’ polishes his lenses to capture the not only an innocent man, but the vowels, and wrote of the ‘Absurd genius of
fleeting aspects of the external world. He prides most pitiable of all men. To such de- U flat’’:
himself upon the soundness and the sanity of his gree may malign machinations and
vision. The totality of that objective world he deceptions impose. So far may even “U, gutteral, or flat, is a humorous
never doubts. But there are others: they cultivate the best man err, in judging the con- savage, best described in his own
the inner vision, abandon the paved highway of duct of one with the recesses of whose words: a huge, lubberly, blundering
standardized points of view, brave the quick- condition he is not acquainted.” dunderhead, a blubbering numskull
sands of non-conformity, and seek their own path and a dunce, ugly, sullen, dull, clumsy,
through the jungle of subjectivity. For artists of William James rescued from oblivion the ob- rugged, gullible, glum, dumpish, lugu-
this type, no less than seers and poets, the ex- scure genius of Benjamin Paul Blood (1832- brious — a stumbler, mumbler, bun-
ternal world provides no more than the symbols 1919). Blood was a village philosopher of Am- gler, grumbler, jumbler — a grunter,
and alphabet of communication, and the “‘field”’ sterdam, New York, most of whose literary out- thumper, tumbler, stunner — a
into which they may project their visions. put consisted of letters addressed to the editors of drudge, a trudge; he lugs, tugs, sucks,
Such adventurers are by no means alien new- Utica newspapers. He also published visionary juggles, and is up to all manner of
comers to this continent. America has produced poems at his own expense. Blood discovered the bulls — a musty, fussy, crusty, dis-
pioneers of the inward realm no less than of dis- “anaesthetic revelation,” and believed that the gusting brute... .”
tant horizons. Old Cotton Mather himself pub- deepest insight into reality came just as the in-
lished a book entitled The Wonders of the Invis- dividual consciousness takes flight under the in- These homegrown eccentrics of ours are speci-
ible World which contains passages reminiscent fluence of ether or some such anaesthetic. The mens all of the marginal consciousness, doughty .
of the diabolic visions of Hieronymus Bosch. illuminating moments so experienced led him to defenders of the subjective from the regimented
Jonathan Edwards, in the middle of the eigh- the formulation of a philosophy of the “Pluri- invasion and standardized error of the external
teenth century, preached his famous sermon verse,’’ as opposed to our commonly accepted world. It is fortunate for us that the spirit of
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which “Universe.” “Certainty is the root of despair,” Charles Hoy Fort lives on in his published work.
literally had his listeners writhing in the aisles. Its Blood asserted. ‘The Inevitable stales, while This Socrates of the Bronx died in 1932. He
power was generated by the inner compulsion of doubt and hope are sisters. Not unfortunately the was primarily a collector of newspaper clippings;
Jonathan’s obsession, a, compulsion that ex- Universe is wild ---- game-flavored as a hawk’s out of these clippings, by a craft of literary
ploded like a bomb into fiery, devastating elo- wing. Nature is miracle all. She knows no laws: collage and montage, Fort managed to project his
quence, which spread terror among the credu- the same returns not, save to bring the differ- picture of a paradoxical and highly unpredictable
lous. Some such obsessive power has been exer- ent... .” Blood’s Pluriverse was published in universe. He was a connoisseur of the incredible
cised by prophets and messiahs of all the 1920, the year after his death: but his work and -—— a snatcher up of unconsidered, yet discon-
egregious sects and cults which have proliferated vision still await exhaustive examination. certing, trifles — the alogical, the illogical, the
upon this continent. The folk-lore and folk-art of If, too often, Blood wrote in the pedestrian analogical, the neological.
such cults, from Mother Ann Lee and Joseph measures of his own period, he succeeded at “We shall’ have a procession of data that
Smith to Father Divine, invites examination and times in liberating himself from the network of Science has excluded,” Charles Fort challenged.
preservation, current verbiage that hindered his flight into And so he marshals his army of incredible details
1 have neither time nor space to touch more super-consciousness. Nor, as his “poetical Alpha- — of snowflakes the size of saucers, of black
than superficially upon the endless procession of bet” demonstrates, was he without humor. Thus, rains, the fall of a thousand tons of butter, ofjet-
native eccentrics who have, in various media and independently of Rimbaud, he diagnosed the black snow, pink snow, blue hailstones, of hail-
arts, sought to project their obsessive vision of the stones with the flavor of oranges. In response toa
invisible. Edgar Allen Poe springs most directly query Charles Fort confessed his faith in “the
to mind -— though without doubt the psycho- oneness of allness.”” Furthermore:
analysts and psychiatrists have picked this case to
the bone. Poe is a superb example of “marginal” “.. we and all other appearances or
consciousness —— the external rebel, Lucifer the phantasms in a superdream are
fallen, diabolically possessed, driven to express expressions of one cosmic flow or
his inner vision of a demonic universe. In Poe, graduation between them; one called
everything is calculated and cryptographic, all disorder, unreality, inequilibrium, ug-
motives are malefic. A sort of mephitic ether liness, discord, inconsistency; the
numbs the reader with this poet’s specially con- other called order, realness, equilibni-
cocted poison, in which'state he senses the erotic um, beauty, harmony, justice,
obscenity, half-masked, in such lines as these — truth... .”

“Well I know this dim lake of Auber, In the visual arts, the eccentric or subjective
This misty mid region of Weir: craftsman has been ridiculed and rejected by his
Well I know this dank tarn of Auber, contemporaries. One recalls immediately the
This ghoul-haunted region of Weir.” case of Albert Ryder and the tardy acclamation of
his genius; and more recently, that of Louis
Herman Melville is another giant who utilized Eilshemius, who despite belated appreciation,
the space-time symbols of the outward world to passed so many years of his lonely life. asa figure
project the somber vision of his somber universe. of ridicule. In the arts, as in other realms we have,
In “Benito Cereno” he presents a vivid allegory on the whole, placed too high a value upon “stan-
of appearance and reality, puncturing the safe dard equipment” and have too long remained in-
and sane assumptions of the “normal” vision. In hospitable, to borrow the words of the poet, to
the words of the victim, Don Benito, he points his “all things counter, original, spare, strange.” _—
moral: It is fortunate that a new spirit is emerging at
last. Despite the exigencies of our hot, sputtering
“you were with me all day; stood immediacy, this spirit recognizes the sanctity of
with me, sat with me, talked with me, expression in all forms, and values authenticity
looked at me, ate with me; and yet rather than empty professionalism. This spiritis
your last act was to clutch fora villain BENJAMIN PAUL BLOOD IN 1860 no longer frightened by the expression of ob-

18
 publi- * too, may have cast out the misunderstood
session and delusion. For without such compul- ~ ploration — the common matter of such visionary from our midst. But he too belongs to
sions, bereft of fire and vitality, expressio n dies. cations — but he possesses a power to transmute
this base material into an imaginative and hu- our common humanity. However evident his ec-
morous allegory of human aspirations. Three ex- centricity may appear to our eyes, let us not
We have but to use our own eyes, cultivate our forget that self-propitiation does not in itself
own emerging powers of observati on, to make plorers of the outer universe rocket through
significan t eccentrics . space so swiftly that they seem not to be moving insure immunity from self-deception.
our own discoveries of
Some may be re-discoveries from a more or less at all. Overcome by the monotony of the speed-
less speed which seemed to be motionless, two of Robert Allerton PARKER
forgotten past; others may be hidden in strange
out-of-the-way places or pages. I myself have these adventurers murder their companion, cast
long wondered why some enterprising editor or the body from the rocket-plane. There it floats
publisher has never “discovered” the talent of and follows them with accusing immobility —
since the plane itself is the only body exerting any from First Papers of Surrealism,
Clark Ashton Smith. I came by chance upon his ‘catalog of the
black bitter humor in the pages of a pulp-paper gravitational pull in that vast emptiness!
Maybe here is a fable for the rest of us. In our International Surrealist Exhibition,
magazine devoted to quasi-scientific fiction. New York, 1942
Clark Ashton Smith writes of interplanetary ex- frenzied rocketing through time and space, we

mag

Jacinto MINOT: ink drawing (1978)

O. HENRY (1862-1910)
draughtsman with a real-estate agent. Im- only by an admirable cavalier. “A man lost
O. Henry, who visited Niagara in a top-
prisoned for an alleged fraud, later found in the snow wanders, in spite of himself, in
hat, claimed to be able to distinguish the
innocent and released, eventually he became perfect circles.”
register of the falls on the musical scale as he
editor of a satirical magazine. Moreover, O. Henry is kept from any
listened to them. ‘The note was about two
O. Henry’s humor (“gebrochenor” bitterness by his sense of wonder-struck
feet below the lowest G on the piano,” he
humor), like that of the early Chaplin, is af- love, as well as by his knack of leaning at
said. This great popular humorist trails a
fectionate and does not seek to modify the pleasure over the well of childhood illusion.
lyrical past throughout his work, evoking
the first years of American structure of the world. “All of us,” he wrote, He wrote to his young daughter from the
the bright eyes of
blazing stanzas of Apollinaire’s “have to be prevaricators, hypocrites and country: “Here it is summertime, and the
movies, the
liars every day of our lives; otherwise the bees are blooming and the flowers are
“Emigrant of Landor Road” and Jacques
social structure would fall into pieces the singing and the birds making honey. . . .
Vaché’s loud appeals to the unique vocation
first day. We must act in one another’s And I haven’t heard a thing about Easter,
of a whole generation: “I would also be a
presence just as we must wear clothes. It is and about the rabbit’s eggs — but I suppose
trapper, or a robber, or a prospector, or a
for the best.” you have learned by this time that eggs grow
hunter, or a miner, or a driller. Arizona
Bar...” His good will, his heartfelt sympathy, on eggplants and are not laid by rabbits.”
In this same way O. Henry, a pure like Thomas DeQuincey’s, extend no less André BRETON
product ofthe state of Texas where he did his electively toward the “rapscallions,” the from Anthology of Black Humor
early work, bordering on Mexico and on outlaws. The grand poetic trails which he (Paris, 1939)
Indian Territory, was in turn cowboy, gold covers so alluringly in tales like “The Voice
prospector, drugstore clerk and of the City” are those that can be followed Translated by Peter Wood

19
 PADRICR NIBH |
CRRA gt
Sea ee

Maurice KISH: The Tunnel of Love (oil on canvas)

Surrealism and Yiddish Poeiry were marked by a brutal

the U.S. via Palestine and Britain. He is among Yiddish (1950),
Self-conscious surrealism has been rare in his Red pessimism.
Yiddish poetry. (I have explored this subject in an the most curious authors in Yiddish;
essay to appear in the forthcoming issue of Thread (1927) is a unique revolutionary defense Selwyn (Shloime) Schwartz, perhaps the most
Arsenal.) But whether or not they ever heard of of the vegetarianism then common in Yiddish surrealist-oriented of Yiddish-American poets,
surrealism, many Yiddish poets — within as well
radical circles. was bom in 1912 in the district of Lomea,
as outside the boundaries of the political Left — Poland; he emigrated as a child. Associated with
approached the world of dreams, the irrational Leonid Feinberg, born in 1897 in Podolea, the In Sich group of introspectivists, he made a
and the marvelous in a spirit which can be called Russia, was an outstanding young poet in Russian transition to English-language poetry as few of
surrealist in essence. as well as in Yiddish. An officer in the Red Army his elders could do. He has been close to many
Some of the most remarkable poets in Yiddish during the Revolution, he was captured by painters — Marc Chagall and Rufino Tamayo
are among the least known, precisely because Deniken, escaped in 1920, and emigrated to the among others — and came into contact with the
their work departs so sharply from the main- U.S. Long known asa leader of proletarian poets, French surrealist exiles’ milieu in New York in
stream of realism. Three such poets are repre- he bitterly attacked the rising Soviet bureau- the 1940s. Author of several books of poems, in
sented here. cracy, the lack of party democracy, and the Yiddish and in English, he lives today in Chicago.
general Stalinization of the communist P.B.
Ephraim Auerbach, born in Bessarabia in
1892, was an agricultural worker who came to movement. His later writings, epitomized in

20
NEW YORK
Kaleidoscopic, grotesque and more varied
Than theater, museum or morgue,
Towers the miracle of the century,
The apocalyptic city, New York. NEWS
A sorcerer in purple togas
In my feverish fingers the world writhes.
Wrapped in loud outcries
Iam a net of wire,
On a sparkling chariot of fire
Along Broadway's brilliant lights. A pulse ofathousand pulses,
A seismograph of world-quakes.
When the evening — a lusty drunkard — In the East there rises in me the sun,
In the West there sets in me the sun,
Drives the sober day from the skies,
Morocco storms myfortresses,
Lights stream like colorful liquor
A hurricane devastates my harvest fields,
From the lamps on every corner.
In Broome Street I perish in flames,
The black Hudson drags me to its bottom,
In the city of steel rhombuses
Where one rhombus rests on another, I kindle the world in the fire of decline;
Red electric lamps set aflame With naked heaving breasts, with hungry eyes,
Dazzling unrest in the blood of hermits. Raging fists upon sated worlds I advance —
In my feverish fingers the world convulses,
L. FEINBERG AndI within it — a sullen sadness.

Dusty papers and sooty faces,

Machines — palpitating hearts,
Frustrated thoughts on questioning shoulders,
Imps in weary eyes,
Andfingers jerk as if on wires.
The leaden Destroyer above
Swallows the letters in his burning belly
And regurgitates them in lines, lines.
The Moloch of emotions is unappeased.
He will gulp me down, too,
And spit out in leaden lines
The world in my fingers
And| in the seething belly of the press-machine.

PRE-SURREALIST Suddenly the world paused

And myfingers remain at rest
On the keys of the typewriter,
last night on the verandah
Scattered, stiffened.
she and i drank the stars
The head sinks like lead on the desk,
from a blue saucer.
The wire-net becomes like stinging flies
the night was intelligent and sad. That spread themselves on me with blind repose
my wristwatch in song aloud
With tiny freezing pins —
in fractured space the smoke of her Chesterfield. And Moloch above rips his belly within him.
His fury exhales gray fumes,
a young love gossiped of spring and wombs. The hunger cramps his entrails,
the minister would gladly die beside her, Red worms crawl from his eyes —
her hot wind tongued the black fish to fry And my fingers
the river like Sunday passed slowly on. On the keys of the typewriter,
Spread out and stiffened.
but her music rich in profane swings;
each step a cradle Ephraim AUERBACH
down
the stairway spines.
my young one powdered the back of the m6on
while the night sang psalms of rape, of nightmare.

she & i have hoisted so many hours over last night

to keep my wristwatch off the last minute.
in vain the dawn, its coiffure done up
while the sun wrote a sonnet on naked feet.

Selwyn S. SCHWARTZ
 Ne
Tristan MEINECKE: Amerika (assemblage). At the 19 76 World Surreal ist Exhibition this work became “The Domain of T-Bone Slim”

T-BONE SLIM AND THE PHONETIC CABALA

The greatest writer of the Industrial Workers work a special flavor that is unlike anything else LUSTY COVES fe has milled . . . the SAUCY
of the World (IWW) —- and one of the most in our literature. He veered constantly toward SWELLS he has pinked”’— all of which translate
curious figures in American literature -— was the the extreme limits of language, to the disquieting into “the fighters he has vanquished” —— we may
man known as T-Bone Slim. Little is known of his no-man’s-land of puns, palindromes, malaprop- appreciate the remark by a writer in Blackwood’s
life. Of Finnish descent, he was born Matt isms and slang. For T-Bone, the words “stiff Magazine (1820) that ‘‘the man who has not read
Valentine Huhta around the turn of the century, without a brother’ equal “ship without a Boxiana is ignorant of the power of the English
probably in or near Ashtabula, Ohio. He died in rudder.” “Betterments,” he tells us, “should be language.”
New York, where he had been employed as a better meats.”” His work is strewn with sparkling In T-Bone’s case, however, word-play assumes
barge captain, in 1942. neoligisms -- Brisbanality (after the top a significance that is deeper and darker. This
The IWW’s most persistent columnist, T-Bone columnist on the Hearst papers, Arthur Brisbane), revolutionary hobo -~ a conscious member of
Slim wrote regularly for One Big Union papers Saphroncisco, civilinsanity, inexhorrible, sar- that class “with nothing to lose but its chains” —
and magazines for some twenty years. Three of casthma — and incomparable maxims: “Half a realized, perhaps more than any of his American
his songs --- ‘‘Mysteries of a Hobo’s Life,” “I’m loaf is better than no loafing at all.” “Wherever contemporaries, that language is not ours to
Too Old to Be a Scab” and “The Popular you find injustice, the proper form of politeness is facilitate esthetic, literary or moralistic pursuits,
Wobbly” -— remain among the best-loved lyrics attack.” “Juice is stranger than friction.” but rather fo be unfettered so that it can help
in the famous Little Red Song Book. In 1922 his Slang and word-play always have been charac- extend the universal unfettering known as
only extended work, a 38-page pamphlet titled teristics of popular literature, as well as principal Revolution.
Starving Amidst Too Much, was published by the vehicles by which the expressiveness of language In Jack London’s tale, “Local Color,” a curious
IWW’s Foodstuff Workers Industrial Union No. is continually enriched. The best-read authors digression tells us that the words hobo and oboe
460. An impassioned critique of the food indus- have drawn heavily on puns and the “language of derive from the French haut bois (high wood):
try, it also is a classic of black humor. the streets,’ often with marvelous results. When “In a way one understands [the word hobo] being
Humor as black as midnight is, in fact, the hall- we read, for example, in Boxiana, by Pierce Egan born of the contempt for wandering players and
mark of all of T-Bone’s writing, and it was (1772-1849), an oft-reprinted work by one of the musical fellows.” This is especially suggestive in
heightened by a remarkably acute sensitivity to most widely-read authors of his day, such lines as view of the alchemical scholar Fulcanelli’s con-
the hidden ways of words. It is this that gives his “the numerous GILLS he has punished . . . the tention (in The Mystery of the Cathedrals, 1925)

22
that the expression “gothic art” has nothing to do It is worth emphasizing how perfectly surely more than a “joke.” Does it not suggest
with the Goths, as so many have believed; rather, Fulcanelli’s perspective coincides with the dis- T-Bone’s consciousness that ‘Something Else”
“gothic art” (art gothique) is simply a corruption covery by philologist/philosopher/poet Fabre circulated “between the lines” of his penciled no-
of the word argotique (slang) which sounds d’Olivet (1768-1825) that the word poetry does tations — that his “grammar” exceeded the
exactly the same. This is in conformity with the not derive, as is still commonly believed, from accepted boundaries of discourse and carried on
phonetic law, which governs the traditional the Greek word meaning maker, but rather from a kind of “double monologue,” or rather a mono-
cabala in every language and does not pay any the Phoenician word signifying the highest prin- logue to the third power?
attention to spelling.” Moreoever, Fulcanelli ciple of language. We may thus reinterpret Shakespeare’s cele-
continues, ‘‘dictionaries define argot as ‘a That the quest for this highest principle of brated remark about puns being the lowest form
language peculiar to all individuals who wish to language should be pursued by those held to be of of wit: In the light of Fulcanelli and T-Bone Slim,
‘communicate their thoughts without being the “lowest” class is one of those exhilarating pri- it would seem that “lowest” here means deepest
understood by outsiders.’ Thus it is certainly a orities of dialectic that help clear a “humid path” — that is, that word-play penetrates to the physi-
spoken cabala.”’ And he goes on to point out that through the ice of ideology, and thus help to cal foundations of language. The embarassment
‘4n our day, argot is spoken by . . . the poor, the make us masters rather than victims of the provoked by puns in “polite” society suggests
despised, the rebels calling for liberty and inde- bottomless bag of tricks that Hegel called ‘“‘the that they do indeed touch something vital and
pendence, the outlaws, the tramps and the cunning of history.” hidden, as has been amply shown, of course, by
wanderers . . [It] isthe cursed dialect, banned by T-Bone’s theory and practice — “humor,” he psychoanalysis.
high society, by the nobility (who are really so wrote, “is the carefree manhandling of ex- T-Bone takes us to the very heart of this elusive
little noble), by the well-fed and self-satisfied tremes”’ — situates him at the juncture of tradi- domain — to the erotic spaces between words.
middle class, luxuriating in the ermine of their tional phonetic cabala and the surrealist image. He shows us the wild dances of suffixes and pre-
ignorance and fatuity. It remains the language of The sureness of his poetic direction is exemplified fixes, the explosive matter and anti-matter of
a minority of individuals living outside accepted in a brief sketch, teeming with alchemical impli- homonyms, the gambols of etymological roots,
laws, conventions, customs and etiquette.”’ cations, wherein he announced “T-Bone Slim’s the magnetic attraction of syllables.
For Fulcanelli, finally, argot is nothing less than Golden Discovery,” a “motion mirror’: “You “Words make love,” said Andre Breton. Who
“one of the forms derived from the Language of throw a dead cat in front of it and it shows the cat better than T-Bone Slim has shown us the infinite
the Birds . . . the language which teaches the tearing up a live buzzard.” variety of verbal foreplay? Without even trying,
mystery of things and unveils the most hidden When he remarked, moreover, that he wrote he left us the prolegomena to a veritable Kama
truths .. . the key to the double science, sacred “using a cross between a Chinese and a Hebrew Sutra of language on the loose. ER
and profane.” grammar,” this may not be a plain “fact’’ but it is

GOD IS A SCAB
for T-Bone Slim

Heads float in incense

hands float in blood Even today in the most ad- recapitulates, on a higher level,
the last pope’s last will and testament vanced industrial societies, it the whole process of the develop-
floats in the grease shed by world-weary would be easy to witness the de- ment of language once it has sat-
worms velopment of a poetic language, isfied the most primary human
not among the ‘‘upper classes,’’ needs. The entirety of linguistic
It is out of their golden yawn but among the pariahs and out- evolution can be retraced in slang,
that the crippled skeletons emerge to break laws. | refer to slang. from onomatopeia all the way to
wind On the part of the popular the most evolved poetic imagery,
and to count the banknotes that the heaven- masses who create it and use it, to such an extent that Victor
ly courriers gnawed with their leprous slang reveals, first, an uncon- Hugo was able to see
in it ‘‘im-
gums scious need for poetry that is no ‘mediate words, created all of a
longer satisfied by the language piece, no one knows where or by
No rest in this century for the Universal ‘of the other classes, and second, whom; words lacking etymology,
Scab! ; an elementary and latent hos- analogy and derivatives; solitary,
the hogs stand in line with the gods tility toward those classes. It barbarous, sometimes hideous
at his perfume counter to be born again reveals also the tendency of the words which have a singular ex-
workers (who, in France, all have pressive power. Some of these
Joseph JABLONSKI a trade jargon) to develop into a words are like claws; others like
‘distinct social group having its dull and bloodshot eyes.’’
own language, manners, customs
and morality. Benjamin PERET
From the slang of these dis-
inherited classes, new words con- From La Parole est & Peret
stantly arise. Perhaps slang (New York, 1943)

23
 Introduction to Afro-American Poetry
It is in the cry that we recognize a human being: in the cry, plains, too, these poets’ virtuosity in discerning the fundamental
eldest son of life, or rather life itself which, without diminution, and primary energies which move their people.
without renunciation, in a free and unforeseeable movement, in-
carnates itself in the immediacy of a voice... . * * #
The dominant sentiment ofthe black poet is discontent, or better
yet, intolerance: intolerance ofthe real because it is sordid; of the Ah, Black Paradise! How strongly we feel that it is the poetic
world because it is caged; oflife because it is robbed of sunlight: escape ofa brutalized people stuck for centures in material misery
and spiritual gehenna, under the constant guard of vigilant
I speak in the name of the black millions. butchers!
In heaven there is fine grape jelly to eat, and delicious golden
On the muggy ground of anguishes, recurring indignations, biscuits. Heaven is where the best stories are told, and where we
despairs long since disposed of, there rises and breathes an anger can hear good music, from David’s guitar and Gabriel’s trum-
oe) ‘pet. . . . Not for a moment do we feel out ofplace, for we recog-"
nize all our old friends who haven’t changed a bit since leaving
Earth. . . . Here is old Peter Johnson, puffing away on his corn-
cob pipe, looking a little like the No. 9 train highballing west.
And here comes Mammie, with her wrinkled face and brown eyes,
so strangely sweet; she’s tired and stretches out in the best armchair
in the place.

Ah, when the saints go marching in!

Here is a poetry which does not offer ear or eye an unexpected

and undiscussable body of vibrations nor the explosion of color nor
magic of sound. All the more is it imbued with rhythm, but it is
“a primitive rhythm, of jazz and tomtom: that is to say, pushing
E.F. GRANELL: Ink drawing from ISLA COFRE MITICO human resistance to its deepest point, in the nervous system. . . .
—and America, on the disordered bed ofits conformisms, grows
anxious wondering of what atrocious hatred this cry is the deliv-
erance:
T speak in the name of the black millions.

The black court of miracles is stirring: all that there is of suffer-

ing humanity in the slums of Harlem, the cornfields of Maryland,
the cotton plantations of the Carolinas. And they march past —
men, women and children, pell-mell, ankle-deep in the obstinate
dust of poverty and hunger. There are some from the chain gang,
some embittered, some optimistic, some who are sharp-witted,
some who are drunk. They are from Mississippi, from New Or-
leans, from Atlanta. There are musicians with their syncopated
rhythms; there are shoeless pickininnies, prostitutes with chocolate
complexions, players of epileptic trombones, jazz players tossing
their drumsticks to the moon. A vast horde passes, cries, sings,
E.F. GRANELL: Ink drawing from ISLA COFRE MITICO
gestures and dies.
* * *
This poetry, written only to the rhythm of a naive spontaneity,
and at the precise intersection of the ego and the world, forms a
The poet, amidst this lamentable humanity, is not content to drop of blood. A drop. But of blood.
present it picturesquely—from “outside,” so to speak—which
would be to reduce the whole human being to a state of organic * * *
tinsel,
On the contrary, he wishes to be not at all a painter or evoker of
Let’s not fool ourselves. The value ofthis poetry lies in the fact
images; rather he is engaged in the same adventure as his least
that it opens on the entire human personality... .
commendable heroes. He lives their life, in its grandeur as well as
Is it such a little thing to create a world?
its squalor . . . He is not above them but among them. He is not
their judge but their comrade. And it is this camaraderie which ex- Aimé CESAIRE
plains these poets’ astonishing faculty of renewa/, as signaled by Tropiques, No. 2
Browning: this ease of putting oneself in another’s place. It ex- (Martinique, 1941)

24
 Wg
if
‘

Activity is the faculty of receiving. cliches of ‘law and order.” But beginning in the early
— Novalis evening the purer mystery fantasies were featured: Fu
Manchu, Chandu the Magician, Mandrake the Magician
Whatever its limitations, it was generally acknowledged
and The Shadow. Deeper into the night, fantasy fiction
that American radio between 1920 and 1950 had the virtue _ came on: Lights Out and The Witch’s Tale, aimed presum-
of providing a stimulating vehicle, albeit technical, for ex-
ably at adults and adolescents, but certainly heard by the
ercising a listener’s imagination. Determined by radio’s in-
more precocious or less disciplined children, by those of us
trinsic structure, the listener was “forced” to “see” by
responsive imaginative activity the invisible content of
who possessed secret handmade crystal sets or managed to
acquire personal bedside radios, dropping off to sleep at
what is, by contrast, given and visualized in movies and
least once or twice a week by means of a kind of audial
television. With adults such imaginary collaboration may
Weird Tales, the Lovecraftian pulp magazine many of us
have been, more often than not, confined to what was di-
would not discover until the brink of adolescence, but for .
rectly suggested by the broadcasters, but for children up to
which we were being adequately prepared by radio late at
the age to puberty certain radio dramas sparked realms of night. For those who lived in the Western and Mountain
terror, desire and reverie which infinitely improved and areas, around nine or ten in the evening, radio on Sundays
heightened the content far beyond the limits set rationally transmitted the long running series of individual dramas
and consciously by the original producers. In some adven- ° linked by a basic structure fictionalizing “heinous crimes”
ture and mystery programs of radio’s so-called “golden of capitalist greed: The Whistler. The Whistler and The
age”’ (I was listening, intensively, as a child between 1934 Shadow were conceived no doubt under the rubric of
and 1942)radioland was peopled by figures, images and escapist adult fare, along with the detective adventure
mythic concepts which served as formidable initiators of group which was also aired usually at prime time, such as
poetry and enchantment. I can trace a profound awakening the very sympathetic Alias Jimmy Valentine (based on
of the poetic sense of life and language directly to the O. Henry’s genial safecracker) and Boston Blackie, both
exemplary magical myth of The Shadow and to those dis- prototypes of the “good-bad guys,” as well as Bulldog
quieting transgressions — veritable sagas of symbolic patri- Drummond, an exotic lone-wolf from England. But what
cide and matricide — revealed by The Whistler. was intended by the radio producers and what occurred in
Among the programs aimed primarily at children, a child’s imaginary reception and associational
along with the science-fiction genre represented by Buck development of the thematic materials from these audial
‘Rogers and Superman, were the realistic adventure serials: sources were often contradictory —- and humorously so
Jack Armstrong the All-American Boy, Dick Tracy, Jungle considering the rigorously-adhered-to serious intentions of
Jim and Terry and the Pirates. Though not devoid of some the producers and writers behind the formulas.
spirit of risk, adventure and exoticism, the whole group For children the excitement and crystallizing imagery -
was a varied expression of diurnal mentality, characteristi- generated through audial reception of violence, mayhem,
cally broadcast in the afternoon hours that followed school. murder and terror far outdistanced and superseded in im-
Most of these daylight dramas did more or less reinforce aginary grandeur any possible parallels of thought and-
old fashioned ideals and morals of capitalist culture and the feeling an adult might have experienced. For sophisticated
25
 adults most of the radio dramas were received as variants, and myth, of earlier times where the magician such as
often banal, of the formula-fictions of the pulps; the great Merlin, that counselor of vengeful battles, and the multitu-
mass of listeners, often too tired after a hard and anxious dinous transformations of “The Shadow” have served as
day of work or the fatiguing anxiety of looking for work in permanent cultural motifs. If for adults The Shadow or
the Depression, may not have been hearing too distinctly at Mandrake may be said to connote signs of regression and
all. Gilbert Seldes insisted in The Great Audience (1950) narcissism, for children these beings can represent truly ef-
that radio was not, in the strict sense, a mass-media cultural fective symbols of triumph, power and necessary ego-
form; hence, the dramas were mostly the creation of building —- interacting with the child’s psychical needs
connoisseurs of certain genre-literatures who, representing during the successive stages of the latency period. On the
a minority of the reading public, projected their special in- poetic plane, The Shadow and Mandrake are paragons of
terests onto everybody, at least onto whoever was listening hermetic knowledge: modern forms, respectively, of the
through the evening hours. Seldes also noted that the fairy tale wonder-worker and sorcerer. The opening
broadcasters were well aware of the positive effect on and theme of The Shadow is among the most memorable for
high responsiveness of children to the more violent pro- those whose childhood games were often sparked and
gramming, so “that fifteen hundred murders take place charged with imaginary adaptations of this potent figure.
each week on the air. This does not include murders medi- His literal visual image was known to us from two sources:
tated or suspected in daytime serials, but it does take in graphic conceptions from the covers of the widely circu-
manslaughter specially arranged for children’s programs.” lated pulp magazine devoted to him and at one juncture we
were nourished by the Saturday matinee movie serial in
Such shows of violence were generally salutary for which he was adequately portrayed by Victor Jory, who re-
children and carried for them necessary degrees of repre- sembled, as well, some of the magazine portraits. _
sentational non-repressive sublimation, as parallel expres-
sions in comic books and movie serials (and, long ago, fairy Psychoanalysis long ago located correspondences be-
tales) had adequately conveyed. All the more the inter- tween practical magic and ritual in primitive societies and
ventions of marvelous figures, or even merely fantastic certain phases of our childhood psychical development.
ones, such as The Shadow, Fu Manchu, Chandu or The child’s psychical reality is structured in early infancy by
Mandrake the Magician, some attaining mythic dimen- a high sense of omnipotence continuing dynamicaliy and
sions, themselves transforming agents of violence and transformationally though the “magical” power of words
terror, transmitted audially to children, continued in new and gestures, “calling,” in Geza Roheim’s theory, “on all
forms the unbroken line of fabulous oral literature, legend the child’s sources of pleasure within its own body.”
Roheim wrote:

“Magic in general is the counterphobic attitude, the transi-

tion from passivity to activity .. . It is probably the basic
element in thought and the initial phase of activity . . . We
ers: grow up through magic and in magic, and we can never out-
grow the illusion of magic. Our first response to the frustra-
MAGA tions of reality is magic; and without this belief in ourselves,
saaa4, in our own specific ability or magic, we cannot hold our
own against the environment and against the super-ego.
The infant does not know the limits of its power. It learns
in time to recognize the parents as those who determine its
fate, but in magic it denies this dependency. In magic, man-
kind is fighting for freedom...”

Simultaneously with the daytime heroines and heroes of

the earliest mythology came the beings of the Night. For
example, to Spaniards La Sombra (The Shadow) is to this
day a familiar figure, often the name of a restaurant, cafe or
other popular haunt; and charmingly depicted graphically
with cape and sombrero, silhouetted in black on the label of
a popular wine. In folkloric investigations, Alexander
Krappe found superstitious variants of the identification of
“the double” or “‘soul’”’ with the Shadow. By 1925 Otto
Rank completed his milestone psychoanalytical study of
The Double in which he interprets innumerable appear-
ances and transformations of this subject from anthropo-
logical and literary sources. Maxwell Grant’s pulp maga-
zine version of 1931 — perhaps inspired by Dickens and
Poe — united the sense of the Shadow’s earlier supersti-
tious traditions to those of a near-omnipotent and mysteri-
ous personage with an Avenger motif; adapted for radio,
The Shadow was altered to possess, as well, perhaps the
most appealing of magical powers. The opening theme of
the program clearly delineated both “the double” and the as The Shadow, The Vampire, Mandrake or.even Chandu!
extraordinary power: Though it has been understood in the historiography of
Hollywood movies that certain filmic representations of
“The Shadow is in reality Lamont Cranston. .. . Several “‘private-eyes” —- foremost, the prototype of the “bad
years ago in the Orient, Cranston learned a strange and good-guy” or “good bad-guy’”’ in Sam Spade of The
mysterious secret ... the hypnotic power to cloud men’s
minds so they cannot see him... .” Maltese Falcon — are ‘‘ambiguous” vis-a-vis established
law & order, all the more the magico-mythic hero inter-
Since, during radio’s golden age, children were generally vening in ordinary human affairs is able to turn the con-
trained rigorously to respect the given institutional author- ventional context of cops and robbers inside out and by his
ities, any representation of the police as weak and ineffec- superimposition of improbable means and ends implies a
tive as portrayed in The Shadow may be interpreted as an profound subversion of societal norms.
effective communication of a subversive sign, all the more For an imagination highly anticipatory, such as a child’s,
enhanced by its weekly repetition. Since the depiction of not yet corrupted and overwhelmed by associations of
police impotence was conducted within the context of com- routine reality, the narrations of many of radio’s “opening
parison to an “improbable” power, the broadcasters pro- themes,” repeated ritually week after week for years,
bably rationalized the subversive quality as having been formed some of the most lasting germinal impressions ema-
rendered diluted in a manifestly irreal form. But for nating from popular culture. It was these thematic crystalli-
children who would grow up to question or reject institu- zations that resonated with a poetic insistence and inspired
tions which uphold the generalized criminality at the base irresistible moments of fervent exaltation throughout my
of capitalist society, the subversive dimension of The childhood. Spells they were, auditory enchantment; talis-
Shadow may have been more germinal than any rationalist manic voices cabalistically conveying us in vehicles struc-
adult could suspect. tured by breathtaking excitement, irresistible affective
It is the imaginary intervention of magical power, as pos- surges of our eyes on fire beating on winged corridors of
sessed by The Shadow and the radio magicians, among the sound; waves and rivers of pulsating phonemes that swept
urban landscapes of daily life which suggested the pre- us immediately from the first phrases into deliriums of anti-
cariousness of normal social relations and hence the possi- cipation . . . And as we continued to “grow up” in the
bility of extraordinary transformations (here suggestions remaining few years, with the underlying sense of having
of the marvelous, but always generally intuited by hu- conquered lost ground in the passionate embrace of newly
nianity as rationally possible). For children who were de- arriving landscapes emerging ever more clearly from the
fending themselves against the repressive demands of the Ps, , Soa 7
parents and were capable later of questioning societal
norms, great magical beings furnished the sign of a ‘“‘con- MAY ist, 1938 |’
science”’ deeper and nobler than that enforced by capitalist
morality. As another mythic figure of the night, The
Vampire, can be seen as a symbol of the latent power of the
proletariat rising “from the dead” of social existence, so
The Shadow becomes the Avenger of the victims of the
“hidden” criminality of capitalism which has been internal-
ized in psychical reality: “Who knows what evil lurks in the
hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” Though the radio pro-
'“CARDS OF DEATH”
_ Smashing Shadow Mystery
ducers counterbalanced the exceptional qualities of The A And an
Shadow by the use of a conventional device, i.e., enlisting , ALL-STAR GROUP OF
, DETECTIVE STORIES
him as an “aid” to ‘‘the forces of law & order,” this i ‘and FEATURES
manifest sign of accommodation was itself rendered
“improbable” by the logic of the magical context in which
it operated and the magical response of children nullified
the device entirely. Any hypothetical rationalist or positi-
vist “sociological” argument to the effect that The Shadow
and other fantastic and mythical night-beings are reducible
to mere “‘defenders”’ of capitalist law and order by the fact
of adult rationalizations via mass-media ideological rein-
forcement, misses the point here and errs by not taking into
account the determining significance of psychical life
materially interacting with socio-economic structures. Nor
with such rationalist reductionism, totally inept at under-
standing cultural exchanges, could there ever emerge the
rich layers of latent meaning or the uncovering of in-
ferences which signify the specific logic of the poetic mar-
velous. Any effective interventions of the marvelous
impose their own logic on events, including even those
fictionalized moments in crime stories which otherwise
progress “realistically” but are capable of transmutation
by the determinations of a magico-marvelous symbol such
27
 (Sound-effects:
Foghorn blasts, slow footsteps, gunshot, police whistle.)

hado
is NUMBER 4q

“Out of the fog

out of the night
and into his American adventures
comes...
MAGAZINE Ww| BULLDOG DRUMMOND.”
* * *

(Sound-effects:
Tower clock tolling, eerie music, howling wind.)

“The fascination for the eerie ... weird, blood-chilling tales

told by Old Nancy, the Witch of Salem, and Satan, the wise
black cat...”

“Boston Blackie
Enemy to those who make him an enemy
Friend to those who have no friends!”
* * *

If in realms of a child’s wish fulfillment The Shadow rep-

resented the sign-symbol of an ultimate defense
mechanism, i.e., the power to appear invisible to others
(“the cloak of invisibility” is a concomitant of legendary
shamans, magicians and yogis), Mandrake, who stepped
into radioland from the pages of a nationally syndicated
daily comic strip, was a twentieth century interpretation of
the traditional Magus displaying ‘‘all the powers” that have
been universally ascribed to this archetype immemorially
in history and myth. He was also characteristically “Ameri-
can.” Though I imagine one could by exhaustive research
find any number of “reasons why,” the fact remains that
steamy vermilion mists, we continued almost semi-con- the United States has not had in its history a mythic figure
sciously to hear the radio voices of anticipation and in- corresponding to Merlin in Britain, Faust in Germany, the
satiable desires for the unknown — in a great headlong historically authentic Cagliostro in eighteenth-century
rush into whatever was to be: “invitation to the voyage,” Revolutionary France. Cagliostro — who fascinated half
“on the road to Xanadu,” “coming on like gangbusters.” of Europe, from kings and courtiers avid for his “secrets” to
The following few examples, dense as I have become, great masses of people who eagerly sought him oui for
still flicker from having once been bathed in the first lights thaumaturgic cures —— was perhaps the last truly popular
of glowing words: The quoted narrations and sound-effects of the modern Great Magicians; he is doubly interesting for
directions are from the opening themes of, respectively, his anti-monarchical and subversive influence in the Free-
Lights Out, Fu Manchu, Bulldog Drummond, The Witch’s masonic secret societies of his time, “the friend of liberty”
who died in a dungeon in Italy as a victim of the Papal In-
Tale and Boston Blackie:
quisition.
(Announcer’s voice:) Most fictional accounts of the modern Magus, from
Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni, a seminal popular novel of the
‘Tt... is... later... than. . . you... think! Victorian age, to Doctor Strange in the recent comic book
Lights out e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y!”’ extravaganza, have their sources directly and indirectly in
* * * Cagliostro and his more esoteric, royalist counterpart, the
“London at midnight Count of Saint-Germain, who also distinguished himself in
a great city wrapped in a heavy shroud the resurgence of magical belief which curiously paralleled
of dense yellow fog the rationalist enlightenment and the birth of capitalism. In
... Street lights weird as elfin lamps
grow mistily as something fashioned this latter connection, the sociologist Marcel Mauss, writing
ina dream... in France at the turn of the century, stated in his Theorv of
Magic, “Magical beliefs which are active in certain corners
The murmur of creeping traffic. Behind an ancient wall, a of our society and which were quite general a century ago,
vast gloomy mansion crouches like an evil beast of prey.
... The princeof evil .. . are the most alive, the most real indications of a state of
a superman of incredible genius possessing a brain like social unrest and social consciousness . . .”
Shakespeare and a face like Satan... Though by powers and accomplishments Mandrake was
... the shadow of easily the equal of his European counterparts, his comic-
Fu Manchu...”
strip inventors during the Depression years chose to depict
him, interestingly enough, in the guise and attire of what
28
 from the standpoint of ‘‘high magic” signifies a mere carica- Gilbert Seldes also informed us that radio producers in
ture of the Mage. Mandrake was drawn to look exactly like their ‘‘golden age” deliberately aired what they considered
a conventional stage magician, hypnotist or mentalist. the most violent dramas when children were apt to be
Could it be we were confronted with another appearance listening. Gangbusters and the more realistic cowboys &.
of ‘‘the double,” or (also implied ironically) that hard times indians, cops & robbers and the crime adventures were
in Depression America had forced the truly great magician what the producers had in mind mainly, but The Shadow,
Mandrake into “‘selling himself’’ in the more credible and The Green Hornet, Inner Sanctum and a few others had
lucrative disguise of a theatrical performer of legerdemain? their share of homicide. Many of us were listening long
But as they say here, ‘it worked, man,” and presto — be- after “the lights” of the normal household had “gone out”
hold! — the heir of Merlin, Faust, Cagliostro and “the great and the violence, including the murders, became stranger,
Unknown Magus” arrived in full morning or afternoon more gothic, and (even in adult eyes) fantastically “‘poeti-.
daylight replete with evening clothes, black tie, tails, short cal.”” With the contempt reserved for children in this
cape, tophat and pencil-thin mustache, as if he had just society, it was agreed by the cultural arbiters that the
finished his act from a vaudeville stage of 1920s America. “kiddies” could be “safely” left to their own devices with
Among his superior attributes he also possessed “the ne kind of irrational violence The Witch’s Tale might
power to cloud men’s minds,” the ability to go through offer.
solid steel walls, levitate himself and others, paralyze Then, as recently, all kinds of fools parading as moralists_
enemies and oversee events at a distance, divert lethal insisted on unqualified repression of representational vio-.
objects from attaining their mark, and to cloud men’s minds lence, projecting their own fears and conflicts onto chil-
to the pitch of producing prodigious hallucinations to their dren’s psychical capacities. This normal reaction to subli-
disadvantage, etc. He even sent his seductively beautiful mated and symbolical representations of violence is pro-
companion and accomplice, Princess Narda, unscathed and portional to the rejection of the findings and insights of
intact, through a full-length mirror.
This combinational adaptation by his inventors turned
Mandrake the Magician into a veritable theatrical dandy of
the occult whose stage of operations was basically the
whole world of certain interiors of an urban landscape. He
was most often depicted inside luxurious Manhattanlike
apartments, fashionable restaurants and cocktail lounges
of the 1930s. And it was into interiors of all kinds that he
invariably was drawn, as if fulfilling the old hermetic-
magical invitation, in order to acquire knowledge and
power, to go “‘into the insides of the earth.”’ So, lo, to the
extreme delight and wonder of children, Mandrake took
off one day for what was to be perhaps his longest adven-
ture; he descended into another universe, to another in-
habited planet which existed in the sub-atomic spaces
within the interior of an ordinary American coin! Among
childhood friends and acquaintances this series of comic-
strip adventures “inside the coin” was the source of endless
reveries at every chance turn in the long chain of phantas-
magoric events.
rhough we had ample visual prefiguration of Mandrake
from the comicstrip, the opening theme in 1940 of the radio
series had the surprising quality of an extraordinary, antici-
patory annunciation. We listened to a truly oracular sum-
mons, the Latin words intoned slowly as if swept by a
whirling wind and coming from a deep cave, to float over
the world:
“INVOCO LEGEM MAGICORUM!”
Whether or not we understood literally the English equiva-
lent, “I Invoke the Law of Magic!,” these Latin sounds
communicated the ‘‘cabalistic’” meaning perfectly as the
_ emblematic motto which joined to the provocative words,
Mandrake the Magician, was instantly received as a
doubly crystallized sign, an efficacious password to gain
entry to the deepest realms of the marvelous, perfectly
serving our real needs as children for the pleasures and
excitement of an authentic magico-poeic experience:
poetry invoked and provoked.
* * *
MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN

29
 |-WASN'T REALLY ANY WALL { HIS LAST IF YOU DON’T STCP--I°LLBLOW
| THERE ATALCY JUST ANOTHER TRICK FULL YOUR TIRES TO PIECES. I°LL
|OF MANDRAKE’S TRICKS J GET HIM GIVE YOU THREE! ONE, TWO--
THIS TIMES

3. x Poze.
Pek «gn -- THREE -- WHAT THE--S | |
‘ | :

ee rent

oe pata

\i es d roe= yee
pay eee We

San hywalt Nig.

feate, Toe WoreE te
AND MANDRAKE’S CAR SUDDENLY
VANISHES INTO THIN AIRS
From “Mandrake in Hollywood” (1938) Drawing by Phil Davis

Freud and the psychoanalysts concerning all aspects of psy- whose “trick” (similar to what Baudelaire said of the devil
chological development in infants and children. What is en- in the last century) might consist in hiding himself behind
raging, though, is the fact that often the moralizers who are the very events he determines, by keeping everyone fo-
dead set against any representational violence in the arts— cused exclusively on the manifest content of reality, in the
specifically those of the mass media — are the staunch up- glare of high noon(obviously blinding)— a delusion but-
holders of'repressive police and military violence institu- tressed by the general obsession with “good health” which
tionalized inthis society toreinforceits cracking structures obscures any profound sight of the festering, hidden causes
and to repressall revolutionary actiondeemed a threat to of the obvious social maladies, certainly curable, of a world
capitalist power, and it is this capitalist state violence, whose shadow and substance are held fast by the deadly
threatening our veryexistence asa species, which of course and death-dealing institutions, not the least being the habi-
must be suppressed. This stupid state of affairs, cultural tations of cultural death.
and political, could not continue a moment if it were up to * * *

some of us who have reached the far points of black humor,

who interrogate the night to transform the day, who see the Since language is basically an audial system, for those in
vital necessity to reveal what goes on ‘‘in the shadows” of process of extending their recently acquired capacities for
reality. language-acquisition, poetic crystallizations of verbal signs
For the true poet, lover and free spirit, certain cultural received directly by the ear were complementary to the
necessities are as primary as breathing, unless one would poetic and mythical expressions on the visual plane offered
come to be, in any degree, at the mercy of all the diurnal in some comic books and films, e.g., the Saturday matinee
‘thealthy-minded” worshipers of Thanatos, the death god, serials: Fu: Manchu, The Shadow, Black Dragons and Dr.
30
Satan,the latter a primitive masterpiece of the marvelous European balladry and fairy tales. In short, poetry in ele-
featuring one of the greatest of Hollywood actors, Eduardo mentary schools of the United States was presented as
Ciannelli. For me, three fertilizing rivers of popular culture™ reified and deadly by its channelization into a totally inap-
— certain radio dramas, comic books and movies — often propriate form of mental gymnastics (memory and recita-
interchanging subjects or content, were the authentic tion drills). This set of cultural crimes perpetrated by the
sources of poetic and life-transforming expression a child of schools from childhood on contributes in no small measure,
the Depression and war years was offered, in contrast to I feel, to internalizing almost insurmountable barriers to
the poverty of institutional culture, in the schools and else- the various forms through which poetry seeks its end,
where, whose results we would confront soon enough in specifically in writing but also extending to the poetic
the general miserabilism mercilessly enforced in adoles- organization on the graphic and plastic planes of expres-
cence and young adulthood. As in other fields, the high sion. One cannot help being reminded that we are dealing
quantitative content of dross was immediately dissolved by here with pedagogical practices initiating that special -
certain exalting words, purified images and sounds, all the “hatred of the marvelous” Breton noted in the First Sur-
more so with radio materials which the producers deliber- realist Manifesto. But every day significantly after school,
ately structured, they believed, to last but a day and be for- imaginary crimes of violence were celebrated on radio with
gotten. But as I have tried to indicate, rich thematic matter the sublime obsessive intensity of dream images, and
-was ritually repeated and latent messages were received Mandrake’s opening theme -~ “I Invoke the Law of
and often recreations of exceedingly subversive and Magic,”’ — served also as a motto for all that was most
mytho-poeic information was heard as iffor the first time. | passionately responsive in the inner ears of children as-
find little trace of poetry coming to me in childhood from piring in identity with the mythical heroes and heroines,
any external cultural sources other than the three popular fulfilling absolute needs to recapture ‘“‘the lost unities” and
ones I have indicated. And no wonder, since elementary a sense of omnipotence; to respark impatience, curiosity
school rooms represented poetry, derived solely from so- and unlimited capacity for imaginary life; to open the win-
called “high culture,” as a hideous reduction to memori- dows to the unknown, to desire more life —- the key sources
zation exercises, confined to the most insipid examples of of all authentic poetry.
nineteenth century versifiers, the bowdlerized versions of Philip LAMANTIA

The Shadow as drawn by Earl Mayan

31
 It is not by his image alone that everyone

CIMEL
It is a long way from Daffy Duck’s rau-
knows Bugs Bunny; it is also by his voice. cous “woo-woo” to the gravelly snarl of
That tough, nasal, Brooklyn/Bronx twang ts Yosemite Sam; and when we recall that he
as distinctive as any of the rabbit’s other fea- has made a romantically inclined skunk
tures. His voice — as well as the voices of
Daffy Duck, Sylvester Q. Pussycat, Porky
Pig, Woody Woodpecker, Screwy Squir-
CBLANC: sound exactly like Charles Boyer, and that he
can make a horse whinny with an English ac-
cent, we are inclined to agree with those who

Wizard
rel, Pepe Le Pew, Elmer Fudd, Tweety insist that there is no sound that Mel Blanc
Pie, Yosemite Sam and countless others — cannot make. He says he once started to
are all the work of one man, “The Man of a count the number of voice characterizations

of
Thousand Voices”: Mel Blanc. that he had devised, but fell alseep after 400.
Even asa child Mel Blanc invented voices Warner Brothers shut down its cartoon
and performed at grammar school assem-: studio in the late 50s, but Blanc has not been
blies. “The teachers would laugh,” he re-
calls, “then give me lousy marks.”
When an intended musical career didn’t
Audio idle. Among his many activities in recent
years, he taped all the voices for a two-hour
revue, “The Bugs Bunny Follies,” per-
seem to be getting anywhere, he applied at_ formed by live actors and dancers; and he
Leon Schlesinger’s animated cartoon studio. did Bugs Bunny’s voice on a CBS-TV
“J kept coming in looking for a job, and this special, “A Connecticut Rabbit in King
fellow kept saying, ‘Sorry, we have all the Arthur’s Court.” He also does radio and TV
voices we need.’ Eventually he died, so I commercials, speaks at college campuses,
tried again.” That was 1937; forty-two years and dreamed up the Bugs Bunny Birthday
later Blanc still remembers the first voice he Call Kit: for only five dollars and a postcard,
did for a cartoon. “They said, ‘Can you doa you can arrange for a birthday telephone
drunken bull? and I said, ‘Sure,’ and did greeting from Bugs Bunny himself.
it.” Some of Blanc’s best work has long been
Leon Schlesinger Productions eventually available on record. Bugs Bunny and the Tor-
became the Warner Brothers cartoon studio. ‘toise, Bugs Bunny and His Friends and Bugs
Over the years Blanc did voices for virtually ‘Bunny in Storyland recently have been re-
the entire cast of some 3000 cartoons by Tex issued by Capitol.
Avery, Chuck Jones, Robert MacKimpson, Now in his seventies, Blanc refuses to
Friz Freleng and others. N) slow down. “My wife talks to mea lot about
In his Introduction to The Looney Tunes retiring. I say to her, ‘What the hell for? I
Poster Book (New York, Harmony Books, !never want to stop.”
1979), Blanc describes his modus operandi: Something of the poetic power and the
“In creating all my character voices I fol- secret glory of Mel Blanc’s voices is sug-
lowed the same pattern. First I would be gested by a poignant anecdote. In 1961 he
shown a storyboard and would be given a was injured in an automobile accident, so
brief summary ofthe situation and moods in severely that it seems he was actually listed
which the character would be placed. . . . All in the obituary columns of some papers. For
of the Looney Tunes were done in full ani- three weeks he lay in a coma in his hospital
mation. The process followed for every car- - bed. “They say that while I was unconscious,
toon was always the same. After I recorded the doctor would come into my room and ask
all the voice lines, the animators would then ,me how I was, and — nothing: I wouldn’t
draw the characters to fit these voice tracks. answer him. So one day he comes into my
Precise mouth movements were thus created :room, he gets an idea and he says, ‘Hey,
to match each word being said by the Bugs Bunny! How are you?’ And they say I
character.” ; ‘answered back in Bugs’s voice, ‘Ehh, just
uring much of his long stay at Warner fine, Doc, how are you” Then he said, ‘And
Brothers, Blanc was also on radio. For a ‘Porky Pig! How you feeling? and I said,
while there was even “The Mel Blanc Show” ‘J-j-j-just fine, th-th-th-thanks.’ So you see,
(also known as “The Fix-It Shop” and “Mel I actually live these characters.”
Blanc’s Fix-It Shop”). For years he was a And if these characters in turn continue to
regular on the Jack Benny show (on radio ‘live and to contribute their magic to our
and later on TV); at first he did only the ‘managed to provide the “voice” of a strug- lives, it is only fair that a good share of the
growling of Carmichael, the polar bear who gling antique automobile. credit should go to the grand audial wizard
stood guard over Benny’s subterranean Voices by Mel Blanc were also heard on behind the scenes. It is touching to read that
vault, but later he did the voices ofthe train the Abbott and Costello Program, the Burns Mel Blanc considers Bugs Bunny one of his
announcer, the sarcastic parrot Cheapskate, and Allen show, “The Cisco Kid,” and the “closest friends.” We can add, for our part,
and others. One day, when a radio tech- “Major Hoople” comedy show (based on that any friend of Bugs Bunny is a friend
nician neglected to plug in the recording of Gene Ahern’s daily newspaper comic panel, of ours.
Benny’s sputtering Maxwell, Blanc “Our Boarding House”). F.R.
32
 Introduction to the Hearing of

LORD BUCKLEY
On the way to Eldorado you will meet, if Chorus. But apart from the imitators, the _ Hip Ghan), Jesus (The Naz) and Cabeza de
image of “pallbearers” seems to arise here Vaca (The Gasser), while contriving some-
you travel far enough, the wandering shade
specifically to remind us of Ishmael Reed, how to diffuse their mythical, miraculous
described in Edgar Allen Poe’s haunting
poem of that name; then you may even who has captured some of the spirit of Lord gifts within a spirit of bop egalitarianism
chance to meet the utopian legions of Ameri- Buckleyism in his books, such as The Free- and universal aristocracy of the free.
can Fourierism, lost but still searching; and lance Pallbearers. Like many of his routines, Lord
then, farther along than these or any other In any case, Buckley’s legend has a Buckley’s own life was a hectic and chaotic
aspirants ofthe impossible, you will certain- built-in resistance to facile adulation. The parody of grandiosity. He held court con-
ly espy the frontier’s hip Paracelsus himself moment anyone begins to revere or eulogize stantly and he had willing courtiers because
—~ none other than Alvar Nunez Cabeza de him, one hears in response the creaking ofan he was, for many admirers, the Living Pre-
Vaca (The Gasser), who once upon a time insidious laughter. It appears to emanate sence of Swing. According to Charles
was reincarnated as Lord Buckley. from the pores ofa creature half sphinx and Tacot’s liner notes to the album The Best of
No doubt can exist about this: if the spirit half pomegranate. Suddenly, in a flash, Sun Lord Buckley, he once marched a troupe of
ofthe 60s was in vibrant life anywhere prior Ra approaches in a chariot from the dir- sixteen nude people through the lobby of the
to December 31, 1959, all of it (if not more) ection of his ancestral star, and Apache Royal Hawaiian Hotel. He inaugurated his
was concentrated in Lord Buckley’s aggres- warriors in terrible garb line the horizon. own “religion” — the Church ofthe Living
sive, optimistic humor. And optimism is a Inflammatory spectacles of Umor attend the Swing — which featured, besides his up-
colorless word indeed with which to describe thought or mention of Lord Buckley. Post- roarious monologues, two belly dancers.
the brilliant dialectical gold whose rays the humous fame of the conventional order is The “church” was raided by the vice squad.
one and only Lord of Swing could direct to completely irrelevant. Ironic as it may seem to some, Lord Buckley
blind the apostles of 195(s-style miserabil- in his humor took up the sword of the many
ism. No American entertainer or humorist lay prophets throughout history who fought
had ever done what Buckley did in the sense to free man’s inner gifts from the repressive
ofbringing a great reality and immediacy to and authoritarian deformation of. them
the notions of genius and inspiration (free- contained in religious ideology. His bois-
dom, really), and at the same time demysti- terous hedonism, challenging bourgeois
fying the “greats” themselves. Lenny morality at every turn, fits the same context.
It is the pleasure principle allied to poetry,
Bruce, who is said to have been influenced
which fights against the reality principle,
by Buckley, could hit very hard; but he
allied to the religious “truth”: “There’s
lacked Buckley’s extravagant generosity and
someone bigger than you on the block, boy,
his instinct to transcend malice with moral
so kneel.” Lord Buckley gave proof of an
miracles.
Richard Buckley, who later became Lord When Ht, throws out a large
immense awareness of the grandeur that
assortment of Favors, Gifts, existed outside of him, but he did not think it
Buckley by his own decree, was born in Cal- etc.
would represent any tribute to that grandeur
ifornia around the turn of the century to a
Fourier, because of his extravagant good if he groveled in front of an altar. “People
part Indian family. His career as a stand-up
comedian and humorist began in the 1920s will which wreaked havoc on the acknow- should worship people,” was his reply.
ledged principles of rationality, has a special Lord Buckley was capable of doing many
in the speakeasies of Chicago, where for a
place in Andre Breton’s Anthology of Black things to get an audience to listen, to dig.
period of time he enjoyed the direct protec-
tion of the Capone gang. At the time of his Humor alongside Lautreamont, Peret, The most astounding thing of all was what
death, in the early sixties, he was the most Roussel and the other exemplars of mad he said when he got their attention. An
noted of the “hip” or “bop” comedians who laughter. Perhaps there is no fitter com- example is the “Gasser” routine. At the con-
by which to gauge the extremes of clusion, Cabeza de Vaca, the lost explorer-
performed their routines in jive slang. At parison
one juncture or another he had been obscure, Lord Buckleyism than Fourier himself. An soldier who became a famous healer among
ignored, imitated, and applauded. appalling and ruinous generosity pervades the native Americans, writes a letter to the
If Buckley’s fame has slipped a little both men, begetting a kind of white humor king of Spain to explain his unaccounted
during the “slipped-disc ’70s,” that of his serving the same subversive function as the years in the New World. Buckley addresses
imitators has vanished. They were the black. The key to Lord Buckley’s alchemy the words of this letter to his audience, and
drunken pallbearers who quickly fell on was undoubtedly his umorous technique of the way he pronounces them evokes a most
their faces in the mud, while the royal coffin inflation that allowed him to both valorize eloquent affirmation: “There is a great
floated away to the strains of the Hallelujah and satirize Great Men like Gandhi (The power within, that when used in beauty and

33
immaculate purity, can cure, and heal, and street lingo; it is deeper than that, in the BIBLIOGRAPHY /DISCOGRAPHY
cause miracles; and when you use it, it spirit of his work which shares the enthu-
The texts of some of Lord Buckley’s most
spreads like a magic garden, and when you siasm and aggressively impossibilist orien-
popular monologues were included in the
do not use it, it recedes.” tation of Afro-American art, culture and
book Hiparama ofthe Classics, published by
mythology.
Lord Buckley’s entire career was a con- City Lights Books, San Francisco, in 1960.
It was this most ebullient vein of black
tinuing tribute to an exalted gift which, if it Recordings of his performances have been
existence that Lord Buckley mined for
is not the same thing as the poetic marvelous issued periodically since the °50s.: Euphoria
moral gold, so that his magic was directly
sought by surrealism, is certainly a close (Vaya Records); Way Our Humor (World
inspired by the poetic values of that tra-
cousin to it. Pacific Records); Gettysburg Address (&
dition, On this plane the question of a ripoff
A final point about Lord Buckley con- James Dean (Hip Records); /7ipsters,
does not arise; for Buckley himself not only
cerns the question of sources. The humor- I lipsters &F Finger Poppin’ Daddies (Victor).
would acknowledge his debt but would
ist’s affinity with Afro-America (which he More recent releases include: The Best of
actually proclaim it. To see his work side by
himself acknowledged) is enormous. It is Lord Buckley (Electra EKS-74047); Lord
side with its primary sources is to enjoy the
one that he developed on the entertainment Buckley, Blowing His Mind (And Yours Too)
signal illumination produced by the
and jazz circuits, as well as in his private ex- (World Pacific WP-1849); Lord Buckley in
symbiosis.
pertences through association with blacks Concert (World Pacific WP-1815); and
Joseph JABLONSKI
and exposure to their influence. It is palpa- Bad-Rapping ofthe Marquis de Sade (World
ble not only in his rhythmic-oral style and Pacific WP-21889).

RIBITCH

A Note on Children’s Art

Though more than seventy years have elapsed since Freud first took his stale crust of conscious thought, announcing the discovery of an under-
analytic mallet to the ludicrous icon of “childhood innocence” (Three world of “polymorphous perversity,’’ — that is, a world in which a whole
Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1905) we find ourselves still pestered multitude of bodily zones were employed in attaining erotic satisfaction, a
by those utilitarian doctrines which maintain, flagrantly choosing to world wonderfully oblivious to the distinction between male-ness and
ignore all the evidence to the contrary, that sexuality is an adult female-ness, and a world in which the painful distinction between the
prerogative. subject and the object of his/her desire asymptomatically ceased to exist
It is little wonder, then, that the persistence of such myopic suppositions the further one traced back along the veins of sensual ore.
has only left ‘‘adult” sexuality so hopelessly “in the red” when we come to Meanwhile, the observers dabbling on the surface, those employed in
settling the accounts between desire on the one hand, and the demands of the mystification of misery and profit, blandly recite from their various
reality on the other. behavioral catechisms that there is an irreconcilable distinction between
For it is of critical importance to a civilization deplete of genuine sensual the sexes (and so women especially must bear the lacerating conse-
gratification, and rotten through with neurosis, that every magnificent quences); that there is a total incompatibility of non-object sexuality with
span supporting the psychic bridge between the lusts of our childhood and social needs (and so neurosis must continue to take its toll); that the patri-
our mature, responsible lives of impoverishment, be mercilessly ripped archal family is “innate” and “natural” (and so guilt must pervade every
down and sunk out of sight forever. sexual relationship); that our sexual lives suddenly begin at puberty (and
Fortunately for us, though, the efficiency of this demolishing process so children must be continually told to keep their hands out of their pants),
can never be total for, like every other movement, the traumatic passage Against all this dross we have in the arsenal of sexual emancipation (and
from child to adult bows to the laws of dialectic and contains within itself not without certain devastating effects in the economic sphere) the magni-
its own negation. Thus, the most rampant symptoms of our diseased- ficent revolt presented by images concretised by children from within the
beyond-repair christian/capitalist society — crippling anxicty, madness, very eye of the storm —above all, an eye which does not observe itself arid
sexual violence — bear internally the luminous seeds of a period of com- proceeds, outside any concern for esthetic or moral veils, to illuminate the
plete and instantaneous sexual gratification experienced by every individ- shadows of the erotic nucleus of existence, energetically bent on the no
ual during infancy. Such a resplendent specter in the historical develop- longer obscured object of desire and prepared to attain it “by any means
ment of one’s subjectivity never departs entirely but remains on the necessary.”
threshold of consciousness, always haunting the present and becoming
collectively represented in the abundant myths of “The Golden Age,” in The unmistakably subversive implications of such works, unceremoni-
the psychotic regressions through which religion comes to espouse an ously throwing off the fetters of an oppressive rationality, always pointing
“afterlife,” and in the indomitable spirit with which Marxism turns science to an horizon where no fruit is forbidden and, meanwhile, not hesitating to
to the task of materially gratifying our nostalgia for the future. bare their teeth with striking cruelty at any who stand in the way, no doubt
(Let me point out here that I by no means ignore the fact that apart from sends the timid, be they art critics, bourgeois psychologists or school-
the sensations of wonderment and a vertigo of omnipotence, the other teachers, running back to their “Virgin Mothers.”
most characteristic traits of children in our society are grief and utterly Supremely tempting and threatening to the forces of repression, chil-
desolate boredom. Indeed, this is only a further indication of how quickly dren’s art will have nothing to do with equilibrium.
the law of the father saddles every human being with its abominable Those intent on preserving their stupor best stay clear.
deprivations.)
With scientific weapons that were soon to be proved beyond doubt Anthony REDMOND
Freud had intrepidly called out from far within the seismic faults in the

34
 ERNIE KOYAGS
and the Surrealist Promise of Television

Television has shown its contradic- Call of the Wild Goose, intermixing of Walter Puppybreath, song-peddler;
tions boldly in the 1970s .with Black cartoons with live action, wild bits like savage satires on current TV shows,
and women stars as never before, sym- conducting the 1812 Overture first personalities and commercials. His
pathetic and intelligent blue-collar with a chair, then a stuffed dummy, and “Question Man,” framed after the
characters, detective shows with a finally a pillar. He and his resident cast Shell Answer Man, ran for instance:
Lower
social conscience, even occasional took the cameras into the streets, ANNOUNCER: L.U.B. from
Superhero depictions (such as The where they conducted live imprompt u Lip, South Africa, writes: I am writing
t
Hulk) scripted toward an anti-authori- satirical drama. Kovacs could also you from the bottom of a twelve-foo
tarian content. Only rarely, and at the convey the incredible: He would shoot pit which we dug early this week to
mus. Unfortunately,
margins, has television exceeded this an arrow and “follow” it until it came trap a hippopota
to rest in an apple on his own head; or two of my companio ns and I fell into
modest liberal humanism for more
striking, subversive, and wildly hilari- he would appear as both organ-gri nder the pit early this morning and
ous entertainment. Beyond the power and monkey, “peeling” bananas with discovered to our alarm that during the
oot python has
of the sponsors lies the sheer cowardly zippered skins — and so forth. Now night an eighteen-f
and then he threw eggs and custard pies killed both my companio ns by crushing
inability of corporate executives and
at the studio audience to keep them on them to death. As I am writing this
their lackeys to offer the public some-
had to letter, it is completely wrapped around
thing grittier than mush to chew on, their toes. All this and more he my body. Several of my ribs have
sh on a negligible budget.
and more innovative than last year’s accompli cracked under the pressure and I have
As he shuttled through morning and
stylized Friendly Cops and Zany a blood blister on my big toe. Please
worth- afternoon shows on local TV, Kovacs
Sitcom Characters. That a little advise.
ard character s
while material slips through is a tribute picked up the calling-c
him the KOVACS: I sure hope you will be
to concessions exacted by the discon- and skits that would stay with
rest of his career: Uncle Gruesome , a amused to learn that you have commit-
tent of millions, and the courageous (or
activities by a scary reader of children’s stories; Percy ted a faux pas. It is not the python who
plainly intelligent) kills his victims by crushing, it is the
poet; Cromwell
minority of producers, writers and Dovetonsils, the effete
Cranston, private eye; Wolfgang von boa constrictor. I hope that you and
technicians.
German disk jockey; J. your dead companions do not think me
Erie Kovacs stands out in the Sauerbraten,
history of television like a looming
shadow on the landscape. David
Whalley, in The Kovacs Phile (New
York: Bolder Press, 1975. 244pp.,
$5.95) suggests that Kovacs combined
a naturally uproarious personality with
a sense for television’s capacities in its
early, plastic days — and that he got in
on the ground-floor, forcing his bizarre
shows on otherwise unwilling execs
and sponsors.
Born of first-generation Hungarian
parents in 1919, Kovacs came out of
the bowels of Popular Culture in
Trenton, New Jersey, harassed as a fat
kid, active in theatre, and making his
big break through the local radio sta-
tion and newspaper. Here he invented
crazy bits, insulted celebrities, and
became a famous local character. By
1950, he joined television in Philadel-
phia, where he could enlarge his oppor-
tunities for the bizarre: Polish versions
of Mona Lisa, Yiddish versions of The ERNIE KOVACS
35
too overbearing when I say that I may have added that he was the last for cowboy outfit enter. They do not have
suggest you read up on your reptiles some time. He himself would say that heads. The girl opens a small box and
before making any further trips into “The television audience of today is a takes out a folded guitar which she
foreign countries. sophisticated, alert, discriminating au- snaps out larger than the box — con-
Kovacs went on from show to show, dience,” denied the pleasure and the ceivable in happy cartoon land. Then
in the evening hours by the mid-50s, challenge they deserved. If he male figure going rapidly through his
never quite completely successful but described his Trenton, NJ. newspaper pockets, pulls out small balloon-type
always in contention for new possibil- column as the ‘lowest rung in litera- thing which he blows up and becomes a
ities. Toward the end of the decade he ture,” he surely meant that all-crucial bass. He stamps his foot, one and two
advanced to Hollywood, where he rung on which the entire ediface of and one and two, then with gesture
played in a number of films that he evolving society rested — the culture prevents guitar player from beginning,
could not control, and in which he of the masses. exits and returns with two boxes
could not fully utilize his comic talents. marked his and hers. They open the
Throughout this high phase of his The strong side of Ernie Kovacs, to boxes and each puts on a head...
career, his great enemies were himself his very end, remained the black He puts Kovacs head on girl’s body and
and the TV powers-that-be. Kovacs humor attack on the crass commerciali- Edie’s on his....
loved to play the personality, to drink zation and phony estheticization of This scenario from 1959, characteris-
and play cards all day and night, take Culture. The early Mad in the days of tically Kovacs in form and direction,
three hours sleep and keep up with a Harvey Kurtzman’s glory, Spike Jones suggests —- as well as words can — the
schedule that would have ruined a per- and his brutal assault on classical music logic which incited his activities from
fectly healthy actor-producer. The — these found their echoes for the larg- his first days until his fatal car crash in
strain was obvious in the uneven est possible audience in Kovacs’ inven- 1962. The British import Monty
quality of his shows, from the weird tion of imaginary sponsors and satire of Python, closest to his work and evi-
and explosive to the merely offbeat, real ones, his mocking poettaster Dove- dently derivative from it, lacked the
the missed shot, the exploitation of all- tonsils, and above all his gorilla-suited sheer pathos of Kovacs at his best.
too-familiar symbols like busty Nairobi Trio doing Swan Lake. One can Saturday Night Live, in turn drawing
women. The commitment he had only imagine how he would have from Monty Python but bolder
expressed to the labor and civil rights passed through the ’60s where Anarchy sexually and politically than TV in
movements during the 1940s in New became (however briefly and ludicrous- Kovacs’ time was allowed to be, still
Jersey also seemed to fall by the way in ly) amass sentiment, and the ’70s where cannot reach his level of manic
the course of his drive for acceptance as dark humor in diluted forms took stage madness. With a few props and a small
the world’s most serious clown. center among the late night TV audi- budget, Kovacs went to the verge of
The very nature of commercial tele- ence. Kovacs knew, better than anyone truly Revolutionary Television. We are
vision, one can suggest, did much to else, the elements of a truly revolu- still waiting for the rest of comedy to
drive Kovacs into a stupor. While the tionary critique delivered in absurd catch up.
other comics were doing old vaudeville caricatures and insurrectionary
bits, he boldly seized the potential of imagery:
video experimentation. Harriet Van Paul BUHLE
Horne described him as the “‘first sur- A figure of a girl in a cowgirl
realist in television,” and she could outfit...and a figure of a man in

Sa
Contoy Maddox 9

Conroy MADDOx: ink Drawing (1979)

36
 TV
RESIDUAL
GLORY

THE
THREE
x
STOOGES
ai
Only a decade ago, any child could spend the afternoon (like the figures commonly played by the boys) practiced a
in the wicked delight of utter destructiveness. Marx thousand wiles to find some living, each more ludicrous
Brothers on the Cheap, the Three Stooges rambled through than the last and all suggesting the ludicrousness of a sys-
literally hundreds of two-reel shorts destroying the houses tem that made life so. They had no liberal solutions, but like
of wealthy matrons, breaking up football games, smashing the Happy Hooligans of the turn-of-the-century comic
strips, they ‘‘accidentally” vented their rage against the
illusions of bourgeois reality as they smashed each other in
rich: pouring alum into the lemonade of a teaparty,
the longest-running Theatre of Proletarian Cruelty in
screen history. The witchhunt against “violence in the
bringing polite conversation and card-playing to an
hilarious end; appearing spuriously as fumigators, or
media,” Repressive Intolerance of the Liberals, and the
gardeners, or in the guise of some other menial occupation,
aversion of local stations to black-and-white programming
to utterly destroy the treasured estates; insane waiters at a
has deprived millions of that opportunity. In New York,
fancy club; sham doctors with ruinous advice for the
Chicago, and the Buffalo of American culture, you can still
wealthy. They turned _ respectable only for the Anti-Fas-
see them — on the verge of an avant-garde revival (the
cist effort, and bizarre hits like I’/] Never Hetl Again over-
Stooges achieved a special film festival in New York last
whelmed Chaplin’s paler caricatures of Hitler’s battle for
year) but sturdily resistant to Aesthetic treatment, awaiting
world control.
the kind of order which will appreciate their self-punishing
At their peak in the satire of phony humanitarianism,
antics.
they provided in Men in Black (a parody of Men in White,
Moe Howard’s autobiography (Moe Howard and the
vehicle for Lew Ayer’s saintly demeanor) an unforgettable
Three Stooges: Secaucus, Citadel Press, 208 pp., $14)
romp. “For Duty and Humanity,” they swear repeatedly,
reveals less than one would hope about the “boys,” their
to heal the sick and nurse the wounded. They ride up and
real lives and their ideas. The characteristic Jewish slum life
down the hospital aisles on motorcycles, operate with
stands behind the stage routines that featured the slap and
mechanic’s tools, and finish off the short by shooting the
poke alongside the recreation of improbable events. ‘Voice of Authority” — the hospital
its forms. pseudo-God
Howard notes his vitriolic hatred for racism in all
loudspeaker. “Why are we whispering?’ Moe asks the
He should have recalled a famous photo (I saw it in the
the nurse before an operation. “I lost my voice asking for a
West Coast Communist newspaper, People’s World) of
raise.”” Humor will have its revenge.
Stooges signing a petition for the Seaman’s Rights Bill in
Moe, Larry, Curly and Shep — how could they be for-
1945, a favorite measure of the Left to extend the New
gotten? Millions on millions of us grew up with their unre-
Deal into some more socialistic reality. My notion is that,
pressed violence inside, ready to ask the Higher Authority
consciously or unconsciously, the Stooges were at the
“how many” fingers, and answer with “two”——smack.into
Leftward fringes of a popular-culture interpretation of the
Depression and its causes. Reel after reel bears out that the eyes, lift the nose up a few inches and then drop it sud-
notion. denly, come around with a fist smack on the skull. To hell
The blue-collar life is at the center of the Stooges’ 1930s with gentility! Let’s give the enemies of human freedom a
experience. ‘Where do you live?” the cabbie asks them. real thumping.
“Down by the old winegar works,” in the roustabout Paul BUHLE
neighborhoods of the big cities, where the unemployed
37
 AN IDEAL TELEVISION
I would like to make a few notes on the and is a wishful dream. It would bring us a ber one. Ifthis postulate were to be realized,
problem of the social function of television, critique of our everyday life, help us to over- what kind of topics would appear on the
because the decisive questions are not in tele- come illusion. I imagine television programs. screen? Those which are today pushed back
vision itself, or in the analysis of the struc- which could criticize mass illusions, destroy into the dark corners of the television
ture of television programs, but in the his- ideological camouflage, reveal the trump studios. ;
cards of power institutions, and demystify Television should show programs which
torical scene in which television and its audi-
consciousness. Television should be able to would de-ideologize consciousness ~~that*
ence appear. Much has been said ofthe rela-
critically understand our everyday life. It is, do away with lies and falsifications. Tele-
tion between television and cinema, and
should be able to struggle against fetishes and vision programs should express critical
almost nothing of the consumers of these
masks of reality, which the establishment of- thoughts against dangerous tendencies, es-
programs: namely, the audience
fers to modern man through the mass media. pecially against totalitarian tendencies. This
Television, by disseminating ideologies
It does not matter whether the power institu- would establish a critical counterbalance to
in a more or less concealed form, is an in-
tions are churches, political parties or other the “ideas” which misuse television in favor
strument of power institutions. Ideology
power conglomerates. . . of partial interests. Television arrives at a
creates false notions about reality; it creates
myths which conform to the given power
The duty of areporter, whether in news- point at which it transcends a merely de-
structure. This is the real function of tele-
papers or on the TV screen, is to tell the scriptive stage. It has the potential to go
truth. The key problem is not the artistic deeper into reality and offer more than mere
vision. However, television should take a
presentation of various programs; the key facts.
critical stand toward reality. Let me imagine
problem is the ¢ruzh. This is postulate num- Ivan SVITAK
an ideal television, which does not exist... _

THE
—B EN LC AE D
IMPROBABLE IN TELEVISION
Did you ever want to stop time to rear- tations) to an almost poetic pursuit of wild White, joined from time to time by some of,
range an event, disappear and reappear at joy and sudden, jarring terror. the finest character-actors in the business in-
will, turn an adversary into a frog or “zip- The central plot of Bewitched deals with cluding Marian Lorne, Paul Lynn and
per” shut the mouth of an in-law? Bewitched, the efforts of ayoung couple, Samantha and Maurice Evans. When such luminaries are
a 60s show still going strong in daytime re- Darin Stevens, to live a normal life in the exiled into the chilly realm of the mirror, or
siduals, makes the fantasy come true. face of family interference. This would be pursued by fantastic creatures, we are inevit-
Despite its sexual traditionalism and sheer pretty ordinary stuff except for the fact that ably reminded of W.C. Fields as Humpty-
corniness, the show rises above the banal toa Samantha is a witch and her relatives’ intru- Dumpty in the best film version of Alice in
species of Wonder. sions have more punch than anything a run- Wonderland, or Laurel and Hardy in their
The sitcom “unreal” is situated best, not of-the-mill family could come up with. Pos- Babes in Toyland fantasy-epic. Then again,
in a fantasy world or outer space (where, for sessing the power to transcend time and the domestic/female bent of television can
the purposes of action dramas, the human space, and to transform human bodies into show itself with astonishing verve, as in the
narrative must be similar to earth-life to all manner of animate or inanimate objects, episode where Samantha entering the hospi-
maintain some semblance of believability) the witches and warlocks amuse themselves tal for childbirth suddenly has her mind ex-
but in the most mundane and expectable cir- at the expense of Darin and other mortals changed with Darin’s. Humor pulpwriter
cumstances. Television script-writing 1s so who happen to cross their paths. That they Thorne Smith, whose ’30s novel T'urnabout
formulistic that even the bizarre element fail to break up the marriage speaks to their unraveled a similar notion (and was recently
readily becomes a tedious device. And yet limitations — they are quirky pagan entities made into a mediocre and unsuccessful
moments of the ludicrous maintain, in and not saints on the take with Jesus — but show), could not have orchestrated a better
flashes, an autonomy from their hackneyed they possess enough supernatural energy to shock to the mortal male.
origins, One thinks of the floating hats and keep the domestic world topsy-turvy. It If the fantastic implications for human
shoes or the drunken St. Bernard’s hiccups turns out all right in the end, of course, but consciousness tend to be suppressed rather
in Topper, the loquacious wisecracks of Mis- the intervening chaos furnishes our real than offered up whole by such shows, and if
ter Ed, the robotic black humor of Gropo in pleasure. specifically social issues are clearer in the
Get Smart, as well as certain sketches on the The show’s continuing success is attrib- more realistic universe of M*A¥*S*#/ or the
old Steve Allen and Jackte Gleason shows. utable to the scope it provides for imagina- destroyed world of Mary Hartman, never-
Short of the avowed assault on staid con- tive possibilities, underlined by a combina- theless Bewitched and its kin supply an im-
sciousness implemented by Ernie Kovacs, tion of technical virtuosity and generally portant glimpse of television — and life —
such humble offerings at least tip the scales good acting. The principals include Eliza- that will be.
away from stock replication of so-called beth Montgomery, Dick York (later Dick Ron WEISBERGER
Reality (in its reactionary or liberal interpre- Sargent), Agnes Moorhead and David

38
 ~BACKYARD BOMBS
4

AND INVISIBLE RAYS

h Horror Movies on Television
their nightdresses almost sleepwalking through the shad-
After the legitimation comedies and the frauds passed off
owy cane fields suddenly encountering the spectral Carre
as “news” have left the air, that is, late at night and in the
Four on their way to voodoo rites.
dark, we are likely to find roving our television screens
Generally, it is possible to follow in these pictures a
ubiquitous and disquieting figures—vampires, were-
mummies, zombies, abortive creations of fusion of themes and imagery with historic moments, in the
wolves,
other masked and mutant beings. present era with the cataclysms of capitalism. Certainly the
diabolical doctors, and
magical practiti oners have always been in- direction of horror films after Auschwitz, Hiroshima and
Monsters and
60s Vietnam was more overtly violent and sadistic— from
separable from the human imagination, a fact confirmed in
the bloody Hammer productions to Franju’s elegant and
ancient civilizations, rites and myths of tribal peoples, folk-
hallucinatory The Eyes Without a Face; and it tended
tales of peasant societies, the fantasies of childhood and the
toward mutants -—— from the Japanese Godzilla saga in
dreams of “civilized” adults. Only the means of expression
which Tokyo is compulsively and repeatedly destroyed to
changes.
films like The Split in which a horrific double emerges little
At the end of the ancien regime on the eve of explosive
by little from the suffering hero’s shoulder. Recent
industrialization, as D.A.F. Sade was working out his bril-
audiences have responded strongly to Night of the Living
liant theories in prison isolation, the modern horror tale
Dead in which all the dead of the world rise to avenge
grew in European literature and blossomed in the dark
themselves in an orgy of cannibalism, leading to an ironic
gardens of gothic romance. Matthew Lewis’ The Monk and
Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1795) coin-
cided with others of the type which set the scene with
images of the castle, the night, the dungeon, the storm,
19th
mysterious ruins haunted by spectres. In the early
friends wrote stories which were to give
century four poet
form to charact ers still seen on the late show: Percy
Shelley’s St. Irvyne, Lord Byron’s The Giaour, John
Polidori’s The Vampyre and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,
or the Modern Prometheus (1813). Through them and their
its
heirs the gothic tradition with its marvels and terrors,
amalgam of cruelty and love, the quest for supern ormal
into the
power, and acts of violent transformation carries
late 20th century in essentially the same outline s.
the first
Tales of terror and the supernatural were among
Melie s made Le Manoi r du
to be translated into film.
ire) in 1896, and Cleop atre (mum my) in
Diable (vamp
in 1910. Many
1899; Edison’s Frankenstein was filmed
the first
others were to be made before the 1920s when
recog nized in Nosfe ratu, eine Sym-
surrealists in Paris
des Graue ns the revel ation of the poetic marve lous,
phonie
, the
heralded by the words, ‘‘on the other side of the bridge
the ’30s
phantoms came to meet him.” Mass audiences in
the
and ’40s sitting in rococco movie palaces thrilled to
Lugosi),
oneiric delights of scores of films: Dracula (Bela
vampire par excellence, evoki ng anoth er, more seduc tive
of the night” ; Dracu la’s Daugh ter
world for his “children hi
Holde n) unabl e to awake n from her night mare of
(Gloria :
e’s two wome n in Scene from F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu”
perverse sexuality; or Night of the Zombi
 the idea that the horror film is beneath contempt, fare fit
only for children — revealing an awesome denigration of
childhood, that stage of life in which imagination has not
yet been wholly exterminated by this society. In spite of
constant subjection to ridicule and scorn, more horror films
are being made now than ever before and they seem des-
tined to remain an immensely popular cultural form. Un-
daunted, filmmakers proceed with rock-bottom budgets,
so it is no surprise that “masterpieces” are rare. Technical
achievements are often crude, scripts sometimes banal,
actors inept. Yet, even when great strains are placed on the
“willing suspension of disbelief,” the poetic marvelous
may emerge astonishingly even in those films termed
“bombs,” those apparently made in an ordinary backyard
with homemade materials. Potentially explosive, any
object can be an object for transformation. A flying saucer
fashioned from an automobile hubcap, a monster
composed of three people inside gunnysacks stitched to-
gether, a rubber and seaweed humanoid lurking in an
ocean cave: these images I have recently seen on late night
television summon a sweeping nostalgia for childhood, the
delirious transports at the Saturday matinee where the in-
comparable Eduardo Ciannelli as Dr. Satan ruled the
world from a control panel made out of a cardboard box
while his adversary The Mysterious Copperhead could
become unrecognizable by his family and friends simply by
donning a stocking mask pulled from a vest pocket. This
RIBITCH
was an inspired game anyone could play.
climax where imbecile politicians and murdering cops
The horror genre can be considered today to be in an em-
bryonic stage; it had an auspicious beginning in the magical
reveal their own zombie nature.
images of Melies; it has far to go, and there is an infinite
The second film in George Romero’s zombie trilogy, road ahead. Because it forces the imagination to operate in
Dawn of the Dead, released this year, extends a view of the a surrealist manner, this kind of tale issues a profound
eclipse of human values in a mechano-SWAT-bureaucracy challenge to the filmmaker (and the viewer), an invitation
out of control. The 70s — decade of mass carnage, cult to transform reality, a prospect with dizzying potential.
suicides, nuclear menace, urban disintegration, monetary Realistic conventions can be dispensed with: the logic of
terrorism, technological catastrophe — has been the decade time and space and proportion does not apply here.
of the horror genre with a new focus on impotence, anger Barriers between external and internal, dream and waking,
and revolt: science fiction apocalypses (Star Wars, Close the monstrous and the beautiful, desire and fulfillment, the
Encounters, The Alien), cannibals (The Hills Have Eyes), categories of mineral, vegetable, animal, human can dis-
demonic possession (The Omen, The Exorcist), and tele- solve in a second through the magic eye of the camera. The
kinetic adolescents (Carrie, The Fury). intrusion of the poetic image might occur at any moment in
Television has altered the social context of the ritual the most unusual places: I think of The Night of the Lepus, a
aspects of horror film as the landscape of the transfigured pedestrial effort with a far-fetched theme if there ever was
collective dream moved from the communal warmth of de- one, featuring, as it did, mutated hares. Yet what a delicious
pression movie houses into the isolated living room. Yet and strange charm was exerted by the moonlit apparitions,
the sheer frequency with which these films are available for giant rabbits floating over an ordinary American farmyard
viewing on television gives them a peculiarly obsessive with an air of totally unexpected menace.
quality. King Kong’s immense head and eye at the window 4u poetry, content, especially latent content, is always
of Faye Wray’s hotel window; yet another metropolis sovereign over form. Sometimes the maker of a film is
devastated by a gigantic insect; Dr. Pretorius displaying his quite unaware of the resonances of the marvelous it
enchanting homunculi dancing in their little jars; or Henry emanates. Dream figures of animals appear as regularly as
Hull (The Werewolf of London) in the mists of a Tibetan they once did in legends told around fires on starry nights in
plateau, bitten by a mysterious animal, searching for the the past, and their sense of enchantment is not limited to
marifasa lupina lumina that blooms only in moonlight: one the dialogues concerning radioactive mutation. Transfor-
sees these images over and over again until they are mation into cat, wolf, ape, spider, cobra, alligator, plant,
granted a kind of mythic privilege. owl, bat, vulture, wasp: an uncannily familiar scenario ex-
As for plodding realists and cynical purveyors of pressing universal impulses to live outside social
“camp,” they can have their impoverished and reactionary regulations prescribed by human law and to recognize
horrors: the “horror’’ of Watergate, the spectre of so-called deeply felt bonds with earth’s other creatures. Here is a po-
“terrorism,” airline disasters and condominium fires. tential meeting ground, in film, with the wisdom of
Beware the enemies of poetry who try to foist on the public non-Western cultures, a hint of a future myth for all
40
humanity which might break the chains of habitual of Dracula with his promise of the eternal ecstasies of the
conventions. night? Recent Draculas, I note, experience. a diminishing
“So on his nightmare, through the evening fog, flits the reluctance on the part of their “victims.” And who can
squat fiend o’er fen and bog, seeks some love-wilder’d forget the haunting image of triumphant desire as Imhotep
maid with sleep oppressed...” begins botanist Erasmus (Karloff), despite 4000 years of death in mummy wraps,
Darwin’s poem on the incubus vampire. The capacity for hypnotically draws his lover, the reincarnated Princess
transformation, particularly of humans into animal forms, Anck-es-en-amon, to him across the deserted streets of
has an erotic basis. Psychoanalyst Ernest Jones in his classic London?
On the Nightmare traces how the masochistic and sadistic I have always wanted to make a film based upon
components of the sexual instinct come to expression in the Empedocles’ Fragments, which display an amazing array of
figures of the vampire, werewolf, witch and demon; how animal and human forms whirling in a cosmic kaleido-
these creatures of popular belief and folklore derive from scope. Moreover the sense of loss, of profound isolation
nightmares and anxiety dreams; and how these dreams, in and pain of existence, the terror of mutability, and the in-
turn, arise out of tabooed sexual impulses. Unconscious de- timation of cosmic error in this poetry shares a kind of
sires and repressed sexuality become visible on the screen gnostic vision common to the horror genre. “The might of
in fangs, fur, teeth and claws, materializing before our eyes the air pursues him into the sea, the sea spews him forth on
in the forms of beasts. The modern viewer, no longer the dry land, the earth casts him into the rays of the burning
sun, and the sun into the eddies of air. Of these I too am
believing in the old superstitions, nevertheless is not
now one, a fugitive from the gods and a wanderer, who put
immune from dreaming, nor from the fascination of
my trust in raving strife. Iwept and I wailed when I saw the
encounters with transformational symbols in movies or on
unfamiliar land. From what horror, from what height of
television.
bliss have I fallen to go about among mortals here on earth
The horror film is the terrain where heroes and heroines
...come under this roofed-in cave.”
dream their sexuality, where the unrepressed image ts
The hero’s destiny under such circumstances pits him
allowed.
against savage nature, nature as Sade sawit, immeasurab-
It is not difficult to discern parallels to primitive cere-
ly cruel and implacable. The hero’s goal is to win victory
monies which mediate untempered infantile wishes, the
over death, to liberate love, to discover the “great ray that
Oedipal passage, motifs of cruelty, guilt, revenge, the
first brought life into the world,” to replace gods with self,
perversions. The power of eros appears with the force of in-
to establish Man on earth. The hero’s weapon is
evitability: “Even a man who is pure at heart and says his
Knowledge. Usually he is defeated in the rituals seen on the
prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane
screen, but not because he tampers with sacred things in the
blooms and the moon is full and bright,” says the old gypsy
sense of prerogatives of established religion, or because he
to poor Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) who succumbs to
is existentially fated to lose. Rather he does not understand
his sadistic wishes in the excesses of lycanthropy. What
the dangers of unadulterated rationalism, and he fails be-
heroine in her passive, virginal beauty could resist the spell

VAMPIRIC FILM Acult of Undead Creatures

seek fresh warm Human Blood!
Your Joan Crawford eyes
I made them larger, even larger | iN |
With what cruel scalpels I widened COLOR!
your eyelids.
And your eyes were opening and opening €>|GP)
immense,
in a white crescendo
in such a form
that they became two large eggs
desolate and frightful.

(And you, absent, untouched.

Without a presentiment even though
the hideous crime was committed
just a few feet away.)

Emeterio GUTIERREZ ALBELO

translated by P.L. and N.J.P.

41
cause he denies the demands of eros, stupidly ignores his The protagonists are on a quest as authentic as that of a
dreams and intuitions. The methods of the mad scientist are medieval knight or a historic revolutionary. The dreamers
the methods of positivist science. Sometimes we glimpse in are not satisfied. And although the passages of transfor-
the shadows an outline of a mediating figure, a high priest mation are dangerous, dreamers will change the world.
burning the tanna leaves, a Van Helsing who believes in the Some have seen in zombies and monsters the sleeping
vampire, a guardian of ancient knowledge, a wise old people, the workers of the world, coming awake and rising
woman. It is this figure, the poet-scientist, the forerunner of to seize power from their exploiters. Deprived of love,
a possible surrealist hero/heroine uniting the opposites, living a living death, disoriented among the electric rays of.
resolving the dualist dilemma, who holds the promise of the 19th century’s magneto apparatus and 20th century
things to come. weaponry, the monster destroys an alienating world. Por-
Under the surface, horror films deal with essentials: the traying in fantasy the images of defiance, negation and
exaltation of desire, wishes for the excessive possibility, revolt, the horror film grants a powerful assent to freedom.
the truth inhering in the non-rational, and the absolute
necessity for transmuting and surpassing present reality. Nancy Joyce PETERS

scene trom James Whale’s “Bride of Frankenstein”

NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION

PUBLIC BROADCASTING SERVICE
See Ambrose Bierce, Devil’s Dictionary (1906) “Educational” television’s policy directors and “Non-commercial” television sponsored by
program managers: Exon, Ford, Standard Oil, General Motors, Gulf,
“Independent” public broadcasting supported by Philistine, n. One whose mind is the crea- et al:
government: ture of its environment, following the Hypocrite, n. One who, professing virtues
Politics, n. A strife of interests masquer- fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment. that he does not respect, secures the advan-
ading as a contest of principles. The conduct He is sometimes learned, frequently pros- tage of seeming to be what he despises.
of public affairs for private advantage. perous, commonly clean and always solemn. N.J.P.
 f
e 4
A Se ye:
J. Kar! BOGARTTE: The Obsessive Image (photomorph)

MANIFESTO
FOR A VIOLE NT CINEMA
st Exhibition
Reprinted from the catalog of the 1976 World Surreali

be- its original faculties for lifting the humiliated heads in a magnificent
Whenever the lights were extinguished the enlightened ones
heroic epoch of mysteri es had returne d with an unin- and unanimous erection—forerunner of delirious commotions cap-
lieved that the
week to able of violating the citadels of the cowardly for allowing a single
terrupted program of orgies and revels, continuing from temple to remain standing. ...
pit be-
week, transporting the unknown silhouettes in the theater
of an incur- Make violent films! Show violent films! Show Simon of the Desert
yond the Marvelous. The adventurer who took the risk
hall asked only that the ray of light dazzle the to the lions swept away by mystical ecstasies—and then we shall
sion into the darkene d
The see if a wave of destruction is not provoked by spirits carried to
vision of everyday life with the wonders of a new reality.
burst erectile eruption; then we shall see if priests and young girls do not
provocation felt by each viewer challenged him to let poetry
join together with the gods and devils to have done with all the old
into his whole being.
sold. vestiges of classes whose time has passed.
But the animated images have been bought in order to be
into commerc ial cinema, locus solus, within The cinema will be violent or it will not be at all.
The light is transformed
which lost beings masturbate with a maximum economy of colloidal (written in a few minutes after several years)
g
material. The masses have been led by prudent onanistic plannin
Paulo de PARANAGUA
to demand the purified air and laxative preparations which bring
them a sleep without dreams as a remedy for clogged bladders.... Rio de Janeiro, 1966
The dragon of light and shadow has had its tongue put in an insu-
lated thermos.
The cinema is domesticated. Or rather, the pieces it produces
(translated by Michael Lowy and Dale Tomich)
eject only disinfected artifacts, while the mechanism itself retains

43
 AGAINST
COMMERCIAL
MOVIES
No medium of expression has engendered ~ Nonetheless, the hope that the young have nized that creativity and money are eternal
so much hope as the movies. Through them placed in movies, from their earliest begin- enemies.
everything becomes possible; the fantastic it- nings, isa sure sign that their intrinsic possi- Then the young will associate freely to
self is placed within reach. Yet never have bilities remain, boundless and unexplored, produce the movies we have awaited since
we observed so much disproportion between despite all the endless frustrations. Already our own youth — the movies whose first
the immensity of possibilities and the pauci- it appears that young men and women have manifestations, oases in a desert of asphyxi-
ty of results. attempted to escape, individually at least, ating dust, are Nosferatu, the early Chaplin
Acting directly on the viewer, movies are from the sterilizing influence of capital. films, Peter Ibbetson, L’ Age d'or, etc.
capable of overwhelming, agitating, Their results, however isolated and frag- Benjamin PERET
transporting him as nothing else can. But mentary they may still be, are nonetheless
they can deaden as well as awaken; this has highly promising and permit conjecture as L’Age du cinéma, No. 1
been only too easy to confirm, alas! as motion to the next stage in a rebirth of motion (Paris, March 1951)
pictures have been transformed from an un- pictures, when it will be generally recog- Translated by Cheryl Seaman
precedented cultural instrument into an in-
oy a
ss
dustry, subdued by the laws of asordid com-
merce which is incapable of distinguishing
works of the mind from a sack of flour. For
the film producer, nothing counts any more <Q
beyond the profit he can derive from the mil-
lions he has tied up in the legs of one or
another idiotic female, or in the voice of MOVIES: FRENETIC OR ACADEMIC?
some cretin. ... The modern voyager seeks the marvelous. scenario that is banal to the point of nausea,
The obvious result of such an orientation He thinks that, gropingly, he has found his way. dragged along through cheap but clever technical
can only be an interminable series of films As absurd shadows tremble in the brush, the stunts —- enough to keep the average spectator
devoid of the slightest interest — that is, modern voyager thinks he recognizes the happy till the vulgar ending.
promised land of his nocturnal dreams. It is night- The modern voyager yawns. He goes to the
when they are not frankly odious or stupid street, where luminous signs rival the stars of
fall now, full of mystery and promises. A great
— intended, with skill and efficiency, to an- magic searchlight is following fabulous creatures. paradise, and admirable women pass by... . . The
esthetize the public. If three or four films Here is Nosferatu the Vampire. Here is the modem voyager returns to the road leading to
out of ahundred are exceptions to this rule, asylum where Cesar and Dr. Caligari will have the mysterious forest of nocturnal marvels. He
revealing themselves as works of value, it such memorable adventures. Here, rising from remembers the miracles of Charlie Chaplin. He
poetic caverns, are Jack the Ripper, Ivan the remembers Pearl White and the Mysteries of
matters little: It is the general tendency that
Terrible and their old friend from the Wax New York.
counts, and exceptions remain precisely Museum. In motion pictures, as everywhere, we are
what they are —- exceptions, powerless to The modern voyager, ravished at last by the taking part in the great struggle which opposes in-
transform the rule. powers of this tragic poetry, is at the very heart of telligence to sensibility, poetry to literature, life
Film production today is fundamentally the miraculous regions of human emotion. to art, love and hatred to skepticism, revolution
At this moment there appears a grotesque per- to counter-revolution. Man’s fate is played in de-
corrupted by money — that is, by capital — sonage who at first sight might not seem out of tail and in general in these struggles whose be-
the ends of which are foreign, nay, contrary place here. We recognize — by the dandruff in ginnings go back to the closing years of the
to any disinterested enterprise. Now in any his hair, by the inkstains on his fingers, by the dirt eighteenth century.
domain at all, nothing truly valuable can re- under his fingernails, by his nearsightedness — a When we speak of movies, it is necessary to
redoutable specimen of that species known as insist firmly that it is not a question of corporative
sult unless it is free of all commercial preoc- or technical interests, but of their very spirit and
“Men of Letters.”” He announces that poetry is a
cupations. Artists who have chosen to ex- matter of literature; that cinema is an art; that art their links to the solemnity of our restlessness.
press themselves in movies (I refer especial- consists of copying nature, naturally (sic); that ... It is important to realize that it is not tech-
ly to screenwriters and directors, rather than the duty of the artist is to represent people in nique and the material future of the screen which
actors whose importance remains secondary) their foulest and most trivial occupations. Once are at stake. On the contrary, under the guise of
this personage gets his dirty hands on the white perfecting the former and assuring the latter, an
necessarily confront capital, which demands attempt is being made — and already has been
apparitions, on the sympathetic phantoms of the
of them before all else: “How much will my night, on the pure faces of exceptional creatures, successful in several countries — to dry up the
money bring me?” everything disappears. magnificent sources of inspiration.
As long as this situation remains u.i- The modern voyager finds himself seated in a
room. He is told that he is at a motion picture Robert DESNOS
changed, movies will be condemned to (1927)
theater, and that he is going to see a film that has
senselessness, additionally aggravated by an cost millions of dollars to produce.
anachronistic censorship based on musty and A title appears on the screen. Great actors and from Cinéma (Paris, Gallimard, 1966)
odorous Christian prejudices. good-looking women begin to stir. They act out a

44
 wk
IS POP
AY
%,

Island, The Mystery

L abhor aristocrats and aristocracies, of class or Today movie theaters cover the globe, andif ever - the superb Houdini (Terror
expression were ungagged the world Master); those films forgotten by historians in
otherwise. Let them have their Bressons and cinematic
the could live in a climate from which the impossible which, for ten episodes, a gang carries away
their Cocteaus. The cinematic marvelous, the bride just at the moment she is about to pro-
was banished: ideal climate for surrealist
modern marvelous, is popular; and the best and nounce the fateful words, ‘I do”’ — in which the
most exciting films, since the time of Melies and consciousness.
But let’s not delude ourselves. The films that hero, to get past a locked door, flattens himself
Fantomas, are those shown in low-class dives — not the ones con- like a sheet of paper, slides beneath the door and
enjoy the greatest success are
films that seem to have no place in the history of blabbering or obtuse real- seassemble s himself on the other side; in which a
sisting of psychologi cal
motion pictures. disdained by hand, a single hand, tears out the hearts of trai-
No longer is anyone “‘privileged” in the mar- ism; on the contrary, they are films
“esthetes” and reproved by the church. Popular tors, who die like flies; in which all the avengers
velous, no cliques monopolize the imagination. shout to the world of their joy at being free.
Movies today tear open caches of weapons — films: serials with their extraordinary heroes, re-
jected by the “‘best” theaters; the great Tarzan Those despised masterpieces, such as The Raven
Arnim’s double-edged swords — and distribute which the lead actor (directed by Louis Friedlander, alias Lew
films and old Westerns, in
them to all. Film offers the example of Houdini, Landers, with Karloff), The Black Cat, The Mys-
the man who will not be kept in chains. was not some stupid sheriff but an eagle-headed
man or a man with a body ‘of tin, Douglas teries of Dr. Fu Manchu, and the admirable films
The great visionaries always addressed an ex- drawn from the most cinematic of modern au-
tremely large public, but the diffusion of their Fairbanks’ films, with their tree-men and giant
thors, Gaston Leroux: Baloo, The New Dawn,
works remains limited, appropriated by society. spiders (The Thief of Baghdad, etc.); the films of
The Phantom of the Opera (the first version, by
Rupert Julian, made in 1925 with Lon Chaney),
The Perfume of the Lady in Black, Mister Flow,
CHAPLIN’S HUMOR eles: as
In these ‘popular’ productions, films that are
It has been said that the difference be- It may be added that taking part in humor not addressed to pretentious pseudo-intellec-
tween wit and humor lies in this: that wit, a may equally well be passive, indeed is more tuals, a real freedom of thought is often present.
faculty for perceiving superficial connections often passive than active, for receptivity to Impossible voyages (I think of certain films freely
between things that escape other people, humor, the “‘sense” of humor, does not neces- drawn from novels by Jules Verne and Arthur
amusingly expresses a personal view of its sarily imply a gift for humorous invention Conan Doyle); exotic adventures (recall the de-
author in a finished form, whereas humor and repartee. If this were not so, it would be lirious Adventures of Hajii Baba by Don Weiss);
demands the complementary participation of impossible to explain the wide response certain “peplum” movies deliberately and sub-
the one to whom it is addressed. Though this evoked by certain manifestations of humor, limely idiotic, such as Richard Thorpe’s Prodigal,
distinction far from exhausts the definition of Chaplin’s in particular. His latest (Monsieur more demented than biblical, are often the invol-
humor, it has the merit of recognizing the Verdoux) follows in the footsteps of Swift’s untary equivalents of surrealist collages. Mere
social and economic functions of the two ac- Modest Proposal, DeQuincey’s On Murder “anecdote” disappears, and all that remains are
tivities. The witty word (or gesture), a fin- Considered as One of the Fine Arts, sparks some unexpected images, at times as dazzling as
struck by Lacenaire, and a few other sinister the prose of Benjamin Péret or the paintings of
ished product, is destined to dazzle an audi- Clovis Trouille. All these films are accepted by a
ence —— however stupid or intelligent — at jokes rich in meaning.
public ever ready to devote itself to mental exer-
once, and then to sink into the oblivion of Jacques BRUNIUS cises of liberating complexity. But here the com-
consummation. Humor retains the eternally plexity disappears, since with everything pos-
unfinished object of a perpetual exchange, in sihle evervthine is fundamentally simple.
which all those and only those who are senst- from “Monsieur Verdoux,”
tive to it can share. Horizon (London), March 1948 1s it not characteristic that science fichon per-
fects alchemical systems, permitting voyages in
time, where we can meet crystal men and birds of

TOWARD CINEMA fire, in strange worlds where the word “‘surprise”’

loses its meaning? Science thus finds the place it
those to which we are accus- truly merits. It becomes the auxiliary of the mar-
If cinema were only what some velous; it exceeds the simple anticipation of Jules
people would want us to believe, tomed, would be to show only a Verne and attains the freest marvelous. | am
perhaps it would be necessary to very few films, the strangest thinking of some admirable films from around
despair. Everywhere it is over- that have appeared, and nothing 1930-39 that I have had the good luck to see:
Stephani’s Flash Gordon, The
shadowed by the props, the but those. Frederick
This confrontation, for which Phantom Empire by Otto Brower (Houdini’s
writer, the painter, the public, son), Sam Nelson’s Mandrake the Magician, etc.
and the actor. And it is true that undoubtedly none of them is pre- Science fiction is undeniably a great intellectual
in the beginning these elements pared, would present the prob- stimulant, and certain of its themes —~ mutants,
lem from a rather unexpected parallel worlds, great invisibles, alchemy of time,
had to be discovered. But among new dimensions — take up surrealist themes . . .
s0 many riches, so many new angle. At this point, we believe,
Frankenstein and Fantomas are favorite films
riches — now that they are al- it would not take much more to of entire peoples. Such admirable complements
ready being squandered — it elucidate the crux of the matter to Peter Ibbetson and The Battleship Potemkin
finally seems that we should be as definitively as possible. will inevitably support the springboard from
which long-awaited new myths will extend their
able to use them with some mod- sway.
Paul NOUGE
esty, with a greater efficacy.
We think that the best pro- (February 1925) Ado KYROU
cedure, if one hopes: for cinema From Histoire de ne pas rire (1956)
to serve in more delicate and Translated by Keith Holloman
Le Surréalisme au cinéma
subtle ways, less uncertain than (Paris, Le Terrain vague, 1963)

45
MACK SENNETT W.C. FIELDS HARRY LANGDON
Mack Sennett was the great promoter of de- A bomb destined to revolutionize our If Chaplin has crosged all frontiers and
structive cinematographic humor. Chase ways ofthinking was dropped on the world touched, with the tip of his cane, the most di-
scenes and gratuitous transformations were in the absurd and wonderful form of verse publics, the surrealist Harry Langdon
no longer enough. He created the comicstyle, William Claude Dukenfield, known as still remains ignominiously misknown. “The
introducing certain gags which are infallible Man Who Didn’t Want to Wake Up” was
W.C. Fields. He has not the slightest use for
even today, and letting his imagination run ahead of his time, and I believe that only a
wild throughout the shooting of his almost natural laws, and it is precisely this indif- public that appreciates the spirit of surrealism
wholly improvised shorts . . . ference which gives him his explosive could enter into the sleep of the poet Harry
He gathered around himself a band of ex- force... Langdon.
traordinary actors and actresses — Mabel His films and his personality form a Limits, prohibitions, logical distinctions
Normand, Ford Sterling, Roscoe ‘‘Fatty”’
single whole: Entirely alone, and paralyzed glide over him; he is glazed with sleep and
Arbuckle, cross-eyed Ben Turpin, Mack dream. There resides his absolute revolt: he
toward the end of his life, he stubbornly re-
Swain, Al Saint-Jones (Picratt), Chester definitively denies the manifest world and its
Conklin, as well as great stars of the future sisted this society which inevitably rejected laws; he sees around it by means of the dream
such as Wallace Beery, Buster Keaton, his total revolt. Immense and marvelous, he .. .The dream is his invincible force . . .In the
Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, W.C. Fields hated all the fossils who did not know how to end the dream will vanquish everyday
and Charlie Chaplin. All these comedians, reality.
surrounded by the unforgettable “Bathing be happy. He spat in the face of logic; syste-
Just as he refuses all love that does not con-
Beauty Brigade,” run along electrical wires, matically he devastated sports, old folks, form to his marvelous dream, so he tramples
throw pies at each other, ride elephants bothersome brats, “cinema,” tnventors,
on every sordid aspect of life. In war he
through the streets of New York, leap onto money — substituting for all of them a real amuses himself by shooting at boxes of candy,
their horses from the tops of six-story build- joy in living. and if he is obliged to pursue an “enemy” he
ings, chase hearses whose drivers are furious, does so by hurling onions at him with a sling-
fight phantoms with their bare fists, and dyna-
After this terrible earthquake, a new
shot. The world of men, where everyone is
mite entire cities. The improbable reigns world will be put together. W.C. Fields is killing everyone else, horrifies him, he
supreme, surrealist in everything. returns to his dream, but not without first
With the aid of a bottle of seltzer water, recruiting a few rare beings who will blindly
Mack Sennett irremediably ridiculed a world follow him throughout his voyages.
that did not even know what ridicule was. If the word “‘adult’’ signifies one who ac-
cepts logical laws and denies all poetry, it is a
word that has never applied to the surrealist
Harry Langdon.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
One thing must be made clear from the start:
Chaplin’s spirit is surrealist. He never raised a
barrier between his works and his life. Movies
PHANTOM FILMS
were not his “employment.” . .. The publicity (Popular Eroticism)
at the time of his second divorce revealed the
thorough honesty and sincerity of Chaplin’s re- Let us have the courage to declare openly
volt, a veritable beacon of our conduct. that some of the semi-pornographic short films
On October Ist, 1927, in La Révolution Sur-
that could be viewed in slot-machines before
réaliste, there appeared a collective text titled the Second World War (the more recent ones
“Hands Off Love!” (signed by Aragon, Arp,
are clearly inferior) were masterpieces. What
Breton, Desnos, Duhamel, Eluard, Ernst,
could be more mysterious and more unusual
Leiris, Masson, Naville, Péret, Prévert,
than those ladies in fur coats getting out of their
Queneau, Man Ray, Sadoul, Tanguy et al) — W.C. FIELDS: Self-portrait
bourgeois cars to plunge with a dancer's steps
surely the most beautiful Homage ever
rendered by free men to one of their brothers. BUSTER KEATON into the forest, where they revealed themselves
to us ostentatiously in some strange rite?
tn Chaplin’s defense, and in the accusations
Keaton’s genius, equal to Harry Langdon’s, Much more than simple and base excitants
against him by Lita Grey, the surrealists clearly
is overwhelmingly demonstrated in Sherlock, ior old men, these short films constituted the
recognized a unique and exemplary person-
Junior, which contains one of the most beauti- sincerest and purest expression of cinemato-
age who — like Rimbaud, Lautreamont and
ful dreams in the history of film. graphic magic. Automatism, objective
Jarry — will always light the signals of human
Employed as a film projectionist, he falls chance, revolt and love are provided the most
sensibility... Here are the closing words:
asleep while showing a film. Dreaming, his poetic rendezvous in an immense commercial
“We understand now exactly what place machine which they are able to transform from
double watches the film and recognizes in its
genius has in the world. Genius seizes on a top to bottom. Obviously these flashes of the
actors the persons who play a role in his own
man and makes him an intelligible symbol and spirit are drowned (and have been for a long
the prey of sinister creatures. Genius serves to
life. Intrigued, he goes down the theater aisle
and effortlessly enters the movie screen. time) in mercantilism and reactionary propa-
point out to the world the moral truth which ‘ganda. But | see them, | see only them. From
universal stupidity obscures and endeavors to
There he is subjected to terrifying changes of
scenery: If he leans on a tree, the scene the screen to me, they form sensitive ties of the
destroy. Our thanks, then, to the man who, greatest importance — flames that only a very
over there on the immense Western screen,
changes and he finds himself swimming in the
ocean; again the scene changes and he con- few poems have been able to ignite till now.
beyond the horizon where the suns decline | urge you: Learn to see the ‘‘worst”’ films —
one by one, projects your shadow, O great re- tinues swimming in the middle of a heavily
trafficked street; etc. they are sometimes sublime.
alities of mankind, perhaps the sole realities, Ado KYROU
moral truths whose worth is greater than that of Here the supersession of the concepts ftJm,
reality, dream etc. is total. A new mode of
the whole universe. The earth sinks beneath
your feet. Our thanks to you above and beyond thought, completely free of habits and prohi-
bitions, comes to light. Here surrealism flows Le Surrealisme au cinéma
the victim. We offer you our thanks; we are
directly from nonsense. (Paris, Le Terrain vague, 1963)
your humble servants.”

46
 }
BD
/ /

| EATON rather as vehicles of an exalted subjectivity:

Joseph Francis Keaton (1895-1966) got profound sense of the truly inspired human
from his godfather, Harry body exceeding all known limits. elements, like everything else, of a dream
his nickname
His comic method consists in creating sit- within a dream within a dream.
Houdini, when, as an infant, he fell down-
uations, to use an expression of Marx, from These two films best exemplify Keaton’s
stairs without getting “busted.” Raised in
which all turning back is impossible. A past revolutionary/poetic world-view. When he
the whirl of vaudeville, he had more ardu-
master in the art of keeping cool in a crisis, passes through the looking-glass, he is not
ous adventures before he reached the age of
he accepts all challenges, and always in his content merely to see what is on the other
two than most people know in a lifetime.
own way: with the greatest of ease. He lights side: he braves his way through a whole suc-
Once he was picked up by a cyclone and sent
his cigarette with a bomb thrown by an cession of looking-glasses, each behind the
flying for hundreds of feet through town. other, and each reflecting only the meagerest
Almost from birth he was performing anarchist, and then blithely tosses the bomb
into a throng of police (Cops, 1922). hint of what we call “the real.” And what
regularly in his parents’ comedy routines.
motive could possibly underlie such feverish
His father would hold him by his ankles and
wanderings back and forth through the
sweep the floor with Buster’s hair (he was interpenetrating spheres of the pluriverse?
billed as “The Human Mop”), then hurl the The answer is crystal clear: Keaton’s auda-
lad across the stage or into the audience. city is in the service of sublime love. His
Almost before he could walk, Buster Keaton agility is always radiant with a lover’s grim
knew how to fall without getting hurt. determination. There is no risk that he will
He was, indeed, something of a specialtst not take for the woman he loves. Only
in falling (throughout life, he almost never Buster Keaton, moreover, can sustain a
used stunt men). This is by no means as easy single kiss for two years (The Paleface,
as it might appear. The art of falling re- 1921).
quires not only an incredible coordination We do not know to what extent Keaton
and equilibrium, but also a certain way of was aware of the magnitude of his achieve-
looking at things —a certain “attitude” akin ments. Always modest, devoid of pretense,
to the experience of safer in Zen, or to the he spoke little of his intentions or deeds. We
“pure psychic automatism” of surrealism. have his autobiography, My Wonderful
“Because I find it easy to scratch my left ear World of Slapstick (1967), and a number of
with my toe,” Keaton once said, “you may interviews — all warm, informative, help-
think me incapable of having opinions on ful, yet somehow strangely reticen . There is
poetry or music. But after all, learning how no doubt that he knew much more than he
to scratch your ear with a toe requires strong ever cared to express in words. It is inter-
muscular discipline, and every discipline esting to note, in this regard, that when he
implies another, cerebral discipline.” made the remark about scratching his ear
in any with his toe, in 1929, he was reading a
Keaton’s marvelous resiliency,
underscores his perfect tranquility. volume of selected writings by Karl Marx.
case,
It was in his silent films that Buster
His “Great Stone Face” surely is the most
expressive blank stare of all time. Magic Keaton said everything he wished to say, and
he:said it with such brilliance and verve as to
lamps burn in each of his eyes, signaling the
intense passion that seethes beneath this mask
preclude all misunderstanding. Nothing
of Spinoza’s imperturbable calm. There is could be plainer than the fact that every one
of his films is implacably against war,
nothing superfluous in Keaton’s move- F.R.: Buster Keaton (collage) alienated labor, law ’n’ order, sentimentality
ments. His indomitable grace owes much
— against all the rotten values and institu-
to the subversive directness of his ges- It is significant that, unlike Chaplin, who
tions‘ of bourgeois/christian © civilization.
tures. Entering a workplace, he notices a consistently mistrusts machines, Keaton films, Buster
with the In dozens of marvelous
sign that says “Punch Clock”; finds that machines can be sources of plea-
merest glance at this instrument of degrada-
Keaton lives as the embodiment of a quality
sure and play. Ample evidence of this exists all too rare: an exemplary ‘otal freedom. An
tion, he puts his fist through it (The Play- in nearly all his films, but it is shown, with a
intrepid foe of the inhuman, he is never
house, 1921). particular force in two of his greatest: mere superman and always much more than
Sherlock Junior (1924) and The Cameraman
Inall his films Keaton isa man with things a “humanist.” Overreaching himself at.
both of which are movies about
to do. He has tasks to accomplish, obstacles (1928),
every turn, he urges us to try to overreach
movies. Camera and projector are seen here
to overcome, aims to fulfill. With his ourselves. For many of us, he is one of the
not as intrusive impersonal devices in oppo-
unique kinesthetic/poetic energy, he super- few who have made life worth living in the
sedes the mossgrown distinctions between sition to human activity, threatening the in- ER.
twentieth century.
acrobatics, athlectics, dance, and gives us a dividual’s autonomy as alien forces, but

47
 +te THE MARX BROTHERS “aly
The first film of the Marx Brothers that we for three-quarters of the picture one is watch- But the fact that the music to which the
have seen here, Animal Crackers, appeared to ing the antics of clowns who are amusing couple dances — the hunted man and the
me and to everyone as an extraordinary thing: themselves and making jokes, some very suc- beautiful woman — may be a music of nostal-
the liberation through the medium of the cessful, and it is only at the end that things gia and escape, a music of deliverance, suffi-
screen of a particular magic which the cus- grow complicated, that objects, animals, ciently indicates the dangerous aspect of all
tomary relation of words and images does not sounds, master and servants, host and guests, these funny jokes; and when the poetic spirit is
ordinarily reveal, and if there is a definite everything goes mad, runs wild, and revolts exercised, it always leads toward a kind of
characteristic, a distince poetic state of mind amid the simultaneously ecstatic and lucid boiling anarchy, an essential disintegration of
that can be called surrealism, then Animal comments of one of the Marx Brothers, in- the real by poetry.
Crackers participated in that state altogether. spired by the spirit he has finally been able to if Americans, to whose spirit (espirit) this
It is difficult to say of what this kind of magic unleash and whose stupefied, momentary genre of films belongs, wish to take these films
consists. It is probably not specifically cinema- commentator he seems to be. There is nothing in a merely humorous sense, confining the ma-
tic, nor theatrical; perhaps only certain suc- at once so hallucinatory and so terrible as this terial of humor to the easy comic margins of
cessful surrealist poems, if there were any, type of man-hunt, this battle of rivals, this the meaning of the word, so much the worse
could give an idea of it. The poetic quality of a chase in the shadows of a cow barn, a stable for them; but that will not prevent us from con-
film like Animal Crackers would fit the defini- draped in cob-webs, while men, women and sidering the conclusion of Monkey Business as
tion of humor if this word had not long since animals break their bounds and land in the a hymn to anarchy and wholehearted revolt,
lost its sense of essential liberation, of destruc- middle of a heap of crazy objects, each of this ending that puts the bawling of a calf on
tion of all reality in the mind. whose movement or noise functions in its turn. the same intellectual level and gives it the
In Animal Crackers a woman may suddenly same quality of meaningful suffering as the
In order to understand the powerful, total, scream of a frightened woman, this ending that
definitive, absolute originality (I am not exag- fall, legs in the air, on a divan and expose, for
an instant, all we could wish to see — a man shows, in the shadows of a dirty barn, two
gerating, | am trying simply to define, and so lecherous servants freely pawing the naked
much the worse if my enthusiasm carries me may throw himself abruptly upon a woman in
a salon, dance a few steps with her and then shoulders of their master’s daughter, the
away) of films like Animal Crackers and, at equals at last of their hysterical master, all
times (at any rate in the whole last part), Mon- whack her on the behind in time to the music
amidst the intoxication — which is intellectual
key Business, you would have to add to humor —~ these events comprise a kind of exercise of
as well — of the Marx Brothers’ pirouettes.
the notion of something disquieting and tragic, intellectual freedom in which the unconscious
And the triumph ofall this is in the kind of exal+
a fatality (neither happy nor unhappy, difficult of each of the characters, repressed by conven-
tation, simultaneously visual and sonorous, to
to formulate) which would hover over it like tions and habits, avenges itself and us at the which these events attain among the shadows,
the cast of an appalling malady upon an ex- same time. But in Monkey Business when a in their intensity of vibration, and in the power-
quisitely beautiful profile. hunted man throws himself upon a beautiful ful anxiety which their total effect ultimately
in Monkey Business the Marx Brothers, each woman and dances with her, poetically, in a projects into the mind.
with his own style, are confident and ready, sort of study in charm and grace of attitude, the
spiritual claim seems double and shows every- Antonin ARTAUD
one feels, to wrestle with circumstances.
Whereas in Animal Crackers each character thing that is poetic and revolutionary in the Translated by Mary Caroline Richards
was losing face from the very beginning, here Marx Brothers’ jokes. From The Theater and Its Double (1938)

ROOM SERVICE
KEY LARGO The Marx Brothers exhibit the only admis-
sible form of optimism, an optimism based on
Service, if only to support one of the rare free
endeavors still being made today. The offen-
aggressivity, an optimism justified by authen- sive Legion of Decency must not black out the
for Lauren Bacall tic consciousness, outside all heroism. They only elements through which cinema
exemplify men who have overcome the blem- survives.
The stairs’ wings were floating ish of their original inferiority through Among present film production, such a film
humor, and who have resolved their guilt is moreover one of those which do not permit
among the hawks a wasted evening. As usual, it displays toward
complexes.
The floor’s feet were sinking There is every reason to think that rather concepts at the base of our civilization (for
between the lizards grave economic difficulties at this time de- example, respect for the dead) an irony that
The cetling’s head was rising prive them of some of their resources. Their spreads uneasiness through the theaters of the
toward the people latest film, Room Service, a “poor’’ film, does Champs Elysees — a delightful chill for lovers
not escape suffering from this indigence. ‘of black humor.
The derision which they hurl against the Jacques BRUNIUS
A narrow cascade bourgeois world, Harpo’s erotic violence,
of butterflies Groucho’s lovable scurrility, could not but
translated by N.J.P.
fills the cavern arouse, more or less covertly, the powers of
in my hand reaction and puritanism in the U.S. From Clé, No. 1 (1939)
Though disappointing in relation to their Bulletin of the International Federation
Penelope ROSEMONT earlier films, one ought to go see Room — of Independent Revolutionary Art (FIARI).

48
 Fote on

Peter Jbbetson!, 72
“TI eo
Poet, -

George du MAURIER: I!lustration for “Peter Ibbetson”’

being burnt by its flame, its profound their separation. Years later their paths
One of the most inexplicably neglected again converge by chance: Peter Ibbetson, as
American films is Peter Ibbetson (1935), a
understanding of love and death.”
The tilm opens on the deep emotional at- an architect hired to design new stables for a
love story of astounding dimensions. Never duke, meets Mary, now Lady of Towers,
tachment of a little girl and boy. When the
really popular in the U.S. or Europe, it wife of the duke. Their mutual attraction
boy’s mother dies, he is taken away to
nonetheless has had a history of admirers, cannot be stifled; in a memorable storm
among them the surrealists. As Alain and England. The children are heartbroken by
scene, their desire seems to reverberate in
Odette Virmaux report in Les Surrealistes et correspondence with the forces of nature.
le cinema (Paris, Seghers, 1976), adherents
of the surrealist group in France referred to PETER The duke is jealous. Peter shoots him acci-
dentally and is sentenced to life imprison-
it often, and always with enthusiasm; it had a
place in a kind of oral tradition. André IBBETSON ment. Mary visits him and asks him to re-
main alive so they can continue to meet in
Breton called it “a stupendous film, a tri- dreams. Of these extraordinary dream
umph of surrealist thought,” and cited it in The glades with their beautiful sable meetings Benjamin Péret wrote, in his
Mad Love (1 Amour fou, 1937) as one of two profile
Anthology of Sublime Love (1956), that one ts
examples in cinema (with Bufiuel’s L’Age set free by nimble fingers
“taken from the outset to the fluctuating
@or) of the exaltation of total love, the per- are oddly connected
point where dream and reality interpene-
fect union of the sexual and the spiritual. At to memory’s tenacious reefs
trate; but the dream here does not hesitate to
the World Surrealist Exhibition in Chicago, dominate reality and order it according to
for the very first time
1976, Peter Ibbetson provided the theme for the wind regrets its swiftness the most imperious desire. Amorous
one of the “Eleven Domains of Surrealist and never wants to close passion, which was forbidden in the waking
Vigilance.” the reciprocal eyes of lovers state except in timid flights, suddenly finds
Published in 1891 by Harpers, the novel in the dream the opportunity to spread its
Peter Ibbetson was written by George du crowded forests wings. Peter Ibbetson moves with such ease
Maurier, a Frenchman living in England, a interpose themselves vainly in oneiric life that it becomes his sole exis-
painter and at one time a cartoonist for between the blood and its fairy wound
tence; in spite of his situation of imprison-
Punch. He told the story of Peter Ibbetson to ment, he is able to know all the joys of
Henry James, who encouraged him to write they infallibly meet again
shared love.”
the book. It was subsequently adapted as a on the keyboard of certainties
undemonstrable and innate At the film’s conclusion, Mary dies, after
play by John Nathan Raphael; this became
years of oneiric meetings, and a final dream
the basis of the film version by Henry Georges HENEIN vision leads Peter to death so that the lovers
Hathaway, a director whose other work in can be together. As Ado Kyrou observed,
no way shares the distinction of this power- (translated by P.L. &N.J.P.) “the dream attains its true grandeur; as it
ful cinematic achievement. The film, in materializes it unites the two bodies.
fact, surpasses the novel, concentrating its
Human constraints, even death itself, are as
imaginal beams on the metaphysics of the nothing to a love more powerful than all
dream and the transformational power of
notions of overt life.”
love. “It is difficult to discuss this film,”
said Georges Sadoul, “‘without tending to in- N.J.P.
vent certain details twenty-five years after
 “ENOUGH, OR STILL MORE”
Painting and color, beauty and con- the antechamber of the real, cinema is to throwing the dice which will abolish
vulsion, cinema and surrealism — thus made flesh and blood by our chance, surrendering itto the triumph of
certain relationships are so self-evident looking, so that the latter ends up in some all revolts,oflove withoutconstraints, of
that we end up, as in The Purloined ways conditioning the former. I often this truth ina soul and a body, road of the
Letter, no longer perceiving them. They order the arabesque of adream — or is it absolute.
become part of us and our landscape. the dream which orders me? — in the “The composition of images is a spirit
Dislocation of time and space; amal- manner of a cinematic decoupage. On in a body,” wrote Picatrix. “As to what
gam ofdreams and what is called reality; my wakening, each scene appears with images are, sages call them The/gam or
incantation of faces where a close-up such clarity of focused image that Tetzavi, which is interpreted as a trans-
unveils the eye in the savage state and the nothing remains but to film it. I have re- gressor, because everything that makes
hint of a quiverat the corner of the marked elsewhere (and I owe the fixity of an image makes it through violence.”
mouth. All adventures (from Latin my attention on this to the reading of The adventure of cinema (from Latin
adventurus: what ought to happen) — John W. Dunne’s Experiment with Time) adventurus: what must happen) will be
made possible and, like a unique hand- that dreams often have a premonitory as- convulsive: surrealism. Or it will not be
rail, the ambiguity of a nearly smooth pect, which a kind of snare of the mem- at all.
fragment of cloth, a fragile two-dimen- ory prevents us from verifying further. Nelly KAPLAN
sional frontier between the voyeurs ofthe
third dimension and the seers of the Thus a dream is also an adventure
fourth. (from Latin adventurus: what must Translated by N.J.P.
To those who know that the imagin- happen). To film our maddest dreams Etudes cinématographiques
able — even the unimaginable — is only would be equivalent — would it not? — (No. 40-42, Paris, 1965)

NELLY KAPLAN’S ‘NEA:

WOMAN & EROTICISM IN FILM
“Smile, but not for long, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Patriarchy.” Axel (Sammy Frey). She boasts to him that she could write
— Nelly Kaplan a great erotic novel which he promises to publish if she
does. Back in her lair she writes in a furious automatistic
Although widely admired for its wit and elegance, a de- trance, but realizing she needs more than imagined sexual
lightful eroticism, and the beauty of its lush color photo- experience, she chooses the attractive Axel to provide
graphy, Nelly Kaplan’s film Nea has met with some oddly “material” for her book. He reluctantly complies; they be-
paradoxical responses: “controversial,” “reactionary,” come lovers and both know great sensual happiness. He
“progressive,” ‘‘a satire of interest to feminists only,” “ul- publishes the book which becomes an astounding best-
timately anti-feminist,” ‘not for the squeamish.” This is _ seller, but to “protect” her anonymity he makes her agree
surely because Nea zeroes in on an explosive problematic: not to see him until the snow melts from the chapel roof.
how female power — sexual and intellectual — is per- Denied love, Sybil suffers and waits while Axel protects
ceived, imagined, experienced, or might potentially be himself in promiscuous encounters with others, including
realized. Moreover, Kaplan takes the scandalous position her conventional seductive sister. When she discovers his
of insisting on love. The film’s use of image, symboland dis- betrayal she sets up a phony rape scene, a gem of black
course violates (at the same time that it gratifies) conven- humor in which the bleeding Sybil, whom everybody
tional expectations with a finesse and comic irony whichin _ imagines has been violated, falls down in the snow in the
no way negate its moral rigor. midst of a bourgeois wedding party coming out of the
Sybil (Ann Zacharias), a rebellious sixteen-year-o ld chapel. Axel eventually returns to get even, but in a
virgin, escapes from the claustrophobic atmosphere of her _ surprising denouement, she confronts him with psychic and
bourgeois family by reading the world’s erotic master- _carnal truths too powerful to be denied, and the lovers are
pieces and trying her hand at writing her own in aneccen- _ re-united, setting out together in their boat across the dark
trically decorated hideaway she shares with her cat, Villiers lake to Axel’s castle.
d’lle de Cumes. She chafes under the stupid, repressive Kaplan wrote in 1964, “If in this domain (eroticism) the
rules imposed by her father, a philistine Geneva industrial- _cinema has already performed miracles, one facet is absent
ist; she is contemptuous of her fatuous sister and fascinated _nevertheless. Is there anything so exciting as a beautiful
with her mother’s lesbian liaison with her aunt.Onherway woman knowingly caressed by the caprice of the lens? Yes,
home from school, she is caught shoplifting pornographic the sight of a beautiful young man captured by a
books in the bookstore of a handsome young publisher, heterosexual camera.” There is more to this statement than
50
 nient chapel bursts into flames under her gaze as her desire:
meets the eye, for it goes beyond the reversal of conve con-
a sexual subjec t as well overpowers the regular procession of the seasons. This
roles — Sybil as active protagonist, of female sexual ity has, of course , been repre-
a Roman tic narrat ive. It also and flagration
as sexual object — in and in his-
lly opens up the revol ution ary possib ility of sented by the figure of the witch both mythically
more crucia is illumi nated, yet Sybil is.
challenging the Patriarchal order becau se it dissec ts and tory. The significance of witch
never reduced to the vulgar witch, and she is decide dly no»
subverts the way in which we signify and order reality. In her to
femme fatale. Her naturalness and directness allow
this it courageously sets out on quite new terrain. , insurg ent adoles cent girl, and
carry the image of a normal
How woman’s sexuality is contained and assimilated of Stendh al’s devast atingl y honest
to me she is reminiscent
into Patriarchy during a period of desublimation has beena
central issue in popular culture commentary for the last Lamiel in her purity and innocent inevitability.
Molly Haskell (From Reverence to Rape: the Treatment
decade. Woman’s image in the movies has always been hos-
of Women in the Movies) traces in depth the escalating
abundantly analyzed and everybody knows that a woman expres sed in Ameri can films, pointi ng out how
tility to love
in control of her erotic and intellectual destiny almost to a
themes of love have been contemptuously relegated
invariably gets married off, jailed, exiled, defeated or an’s movie. ” She unders cores
despised genre, the ‘“‘wom
killed. Parker Tyler, an early commentator of the sad de-
this finding by singling out in particular the neglect of that
cline of the movie heroine’s integrity, noted that after the masterpiece of mad love Peter Ibbetson in which the
y
1930s the representation of a woman who was sexuall
intelli gent, and endow ed with strong persona lity lovers, separated by prison walls, are “transfixed at the
asserti ve,
sublime moment of their love (denying yet improving on
and moral energy, virtually disappeared from the screen.
red, reality) by the power of the imagination, by the screen, by
Ado Kyrou (Amour, Erotisme et Cinéma) concur
same histori cal momen t that with rare their permanence in our memories.” Even these films,
finding at this
Americ an film began moving in the directi on of good ones at any rate, were rare, and in the present period
exceptions
gratuit ous sadism of crisis, threats to deeply entrenched sexism being
mechanical sex, Coca Cola eroticism, launched on all sides, love between men and women, she
and a despicable hatred of women.
ex- notes, has been dispensed with altogether. Narcissistic af-
On the most accessible level, films reflect subjective
femini sts tend to fective relations occur between men, a tendency Ado
periences and social realities so that many Kyrou remarked in The Outlaw where Jane Russell, re-
what happe ns to the women
evaluate only whether or not
unate duced to breast fetish, is continuously debased and never
characters is positive or negative, under the unfort
that ideolo gy is confer red from above by some allowed to interfere with the erotic flows circulating
assumption
appro ach to cinema tic between man and man (or between man and horse); today
mysterious office of sexism. Such an of
s and realist ic depict ions
analysis, looking for role model
severe limita tions in the long:
liberated women, imposes
real life; in film
run. Perceptual reality is illusory enough in
it is profoundly more so since cinema is locate d in a nexus
libidin al wande rings, de-
of fluctuating ego identifications,
Kaplan ’s brillia nt use of types, symbol-
sire dreaming itself.
of disloc ating
ic images and mythic elements has the effect ptual
the circuit s of conce
a frozen reality. By overloading
speak — she is
thematics — blowing the realist fuse, so to
complexity
able to achieve allegorical resonances of great and sym-
intern al, real
ina fluid elaboration of external and
Nea takes the guise of a per-
bolic at once. In one respect
d of the wicke d stepm other and the
verse fairy tale: Instea
, we have a repres sive patria rch and a mother
good father
Sybil does
emanating a benign bisexual voluptuousness.
; she refuses his
not wait to be “exchanged” by her father
world leaving him with the sister who is adjusted to her
fairy godmoth-
“inferior” woman’s place. Sybil is her own will,
desire and
er, effecting transformations through her
prince from his sleep, i.e., a neurot-
rescuing the handsome
to the memor y of his dead mothe r and an
ic attachment
inability to love.
ly explores the
From another angle, Nea simultaneous
revealing how she
myth and fact of woman’s sexual nature,
skillful disorien-
is imagined by both man and woman. The provoke a
refle cted,
tations of categories, highly self- might be
as fetis h and as woma n
consciousness of woman her charm-
ied by
beyond fetish. Sybil the witch, accompan nd the
real yet beyo
ing feline familiar, works a magic, very
subversive power
confines of the rational. For instance, the nce
of her sexuality is wonderfully realized in a “cha André BRETON: Tragic — In the Manner of
melt, the
happening”: Unwilling to wait for the snow to the “Comics” (collage, 1943)

51
the touch of hyperbolic self-parody in this film has disap- within that mass hallucination; on the movie screen is the
peared in the process of expropriating the mode. display of not only what happens but the key to the oper-
It is true that films are evidence of actual experience and ation of social and individual events. Like the inspired acti-
the workings of ideology and so it comes as no surprise that vity of automatism, latent content surfaces to scrutiny,
many women regard love as impossible; they see only one making screen images available to decipherment and
choice — either emancipation or love. This is a grave situa- making “reality” available to demystification. _
tion and one for which there is no facile solution, given the For the filmmaker, the irresistible opportunity presents
phallocentric nature of the world, yet to relinquish love is itself to project images which transcend the present and
clearly insanity; even if it appears utopian I think we must imagine a future which escapes the bondage of petrified
demand a future in which love triumphs and triumphs ab- structures. Above all, the cinema spreads before us the
solutely. Beverle Houston’s perceptive review in Film spectacle of how the erotization of the world takes place.
Quarterly (Spring 1979) situates Nea as an essential recog- To caress the male with a woman’s camera violates, in the
nition that “romantic love is valuable, honorable, thrilling, psychoanalytic sense, the place in the unconscious of
and not to be debased.”’ Kaplan’s powerful fable, she woman as the sign of castration. In that we live the way the
thinks, works with unexpected epistemological and moral difference of the sexes is experienced in the unconscious,
sophistication in the way it demonstrates that love is not in- Kaplan effects this shift of focus with subtlety, necessarily,
evitable in the human condition, but a project of Sybil’s. insofar as the objectification of the male is a threat to psy-
Like the “fiction’’ of her erotic novel, she and Axel elect to chic need. Kaplan gives us, through Sybil the seer, the first
exalt imaginative activity, to create and liberate. love. shadowing outlines of a new world-view, one originating in
Reality (which includes love) is what we bring into being, at woman’s look. Though she remains the object of desire,
least in part, and derives from desiring, risking and acting. Sybil goes beyond being the object of desire, the passive
Kaplan’s cinematic expression of this concept is a far cry catalyst of men’s action and discourse which convey the:
from the customary wedding bells and incarceration in the film’s meanings. A revolutionary in the realm of desire,
nuclear family suggested when ‘‘The End”’ appears on the Sybil is the transcendent prefiguration of Nea, the new
screen in the stereotype romance. woman, conferring the promise of a happier existence, as
Surrealists have frequently observed that film is an in- she speaks not only her own reality (now oppressed under
trinsically surrealist medium. It shares a close affinity with Patriarchy), but a higher reality, too. Hers is a pioneer
dreams in its delirious imagery, mechanisms of displace- voice announcing a possible destiny, the realization of
ment, and dispersal of desire through a prismatic lens. love, humanity as it would be.
Cinema is in a unique position to throw light on the fact that
reality is a mass hallucination. For the viewer it offers an in- Nancy Joyce PETERS
vitation to unravel how meaning and value are determined

Robert GREEN: ink drawing (1979)

52
 Tex Avery is not merely the greatest of all animated car- gulf separating Avery from Disney. Screwy is a ferocious,
toonists; he is one the freest spirits of our age, or any age. psychotic “wise guy” opposed absolutely to everything
He has given the imaginary a force of propulsion which for that Disney stood for. He is Avery’s exterminating angel
out on a mission to mop up every trace of the sickeningly
generations will carry passionate dreamers on voyages
beyond their most extravagant hopes. sweet sentimental cute little fuzzy-wuzzy claptrap. Screwy
Tex is a direct descendent, on his mother’s side, of Judge Squirrel is so hopelessly unendearing that he finally
Roy Bean, a genuine old wild west hero of folkloric dimen- becomes admirable. The cartoons in which he is featured
sions. Avery shares his illustrious forebear’s taste for free-
are generally regarded, even by many Avery enthusiasts,
wheeling violence and a rollicking good time, but there is a as a bit excessive. But shouldn’t we be grateful that Avery
sharp distinction between them: Judge Bean introduced always has had the courage to go too far? The disarming
“law ’n’ order west of the Pecos,” whereas Tex has nonchalance with which he annihilates common sense, ele-
mentary decency and good taste is the surest proof that his
fomented lawlessness and disorder on both sides, as well as
all points north, south, up, down and inside-out.
poetic reflexes are attuned to the infinite.
It has often been remarked that film animation provides In addition to his creation of “characters” —- many of
freedom unparalleled in other media. It makes the impos- whom, of course, have gone on to enjoy long and fruitful
sible easy, and places the inconceivable within reach. Such careers under other directors — Avery has made several
one-shot features of such rare poetic quality that to call
freedom exists, of course, precisely so that surrealist use
can be made of it. And indeed, from the early days of rinsesnothing more than masterpieces would be to demean
Winsor McCay and Emile Cohl, through Pat Sullivan’s them.
Who Killed Who? (1943) is an uproarious distillation of
Felix the Cat and Max Fleischer’s Koko the Clown, no
medium has brought forth such an abundance of surrealist
all whodunits and ghost stories, set in a huge old mansion.
moments as the animated cartoon. And no animationist has An elderly gentleman is seated in an armchair nervously
been so consistently and relentlessly surrealist as Tex
reading a book titled Who Killed Who? — From the
Avery. Cartoon of the Same Name. His chair is furnished with a
In Slaphappy Lion a kangaroo vanishes into its own
sign telling us that he is “The Victim.” A skeleton in the
pocket. In Billy Boy a goat is rocketed to the moon, eats it,
cuckoo clock announces that ‘“‘at the sound of the gun, the
and then proceeds to eat the movie screen as well, In time will be exactly twelve o’clock.” The gunshot is
Dragalong Droopy gunfighters firing at each other from followed by an incredible whirl of gangsters, malevolent
butlers and ambulatory corpses pursued by a dopey,
behind boulders “just happen” to shoot away bits of rock
heavy-set, cigar-chewing detective. There are numerous
so as to form perfect replicas of the Venus de Milo and
Rodin’s Thinker. In all of Avery’s work, the marvelous mad chases up and down long winding marble staircases
“just happens.” The adage ‘‘wonders never cease”’ loses its and along ominous and gloomy corridors. Searching for
lame irony and assumes a breathtaking actuality. The clues, the detective comes to a closet labeled ‘‘Do not open
unexpected occurs with such rapidity and force that it be- until Christmas.” Opening the door, he finds himself
comes as natural as breathing — and as intoxicating as face-to-face with an indignant Santa Claus who immedi-
breathing nitrous oxide. ately reshuts the door— and is not heard from again. In the
If he had done no more than create Bugs Bunny (A Wild end it is the chief lawman — arguably J. Edgar Hoover —
who turns out to be the culprit.
Hare, 1940), Avery’s immortality would be assured. But if
bringing into being the world’s greatest rabbit can be re- In King-Size Canary (1947) we meet a hungry cat who
garded as his crowning achievement, it must not diminish wants a canary for lunch, except that the canary is pitifully
our appreciation of Avery’s other achievements, which are small. Discovering a bottle of Jumbo-Gro plant food, the
both numerous and impressive. He has given us, among cat tries it out on the canary, who grows indeed: In seconds
others, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Chilly Willy Penguin, he is larger than the cat. So the cat too drinks some Jumbo-
Droopy Dog and Screwy Squirrel. Gro, and is soon even larger than the giant canary. But
This last, although he starred in five cartoons (1943-46) before the cat can get his hands on him, the bird takes
remains too little known. It is he, perhaps more than any another drink. And so it goes. A mouse and a bulldog also
other of Avery’s characters, who best exemplifies the vast get into the act. Soon we see them on the boulevards,
53
looming larger than the skyscrapers. Each of the four keeps is never only hokum, and that Avery’s is always — or
taking drinks to get larger than the others until, in the end, almost always — sublime, those who manipulate Critical
only two immense and forlorn figures are left standing atop Opinion in this country have largely succeeded in ex-
a seemingly very small planet Earth, holding each other for cluding his cartoons (and cartoons generally, for that
dear life as a close-up shows the now-empty bottle of matter, except Disney’s) from the field of Serious Con-
Jumbo-Gro. sideration.
Bad Luck Blackie (1949) shows us a defenseless kitten
tormented by a vicious bulldog. Along comes Blackie, a A number of critics, without actually deigning to discuss
black cat whose calling card announces that he specializes Avery’s work, have been nonetheless eager to go on record
in bringing bad luck wherever it is needed. Immediately he against his “‘violence.” A veritable hue and cry has been
goes about afflicting the bulldog with a spate of misfortunes raised over the wonderfully insatiable mayhem in cartoons
such as no one has ever seen. Each of Blackie’s avenging of the Avery “school.” A special study should be made
intrusions is accompanied by a few bars of “Comin’ sometime of the particularly disgusting variety of hypo-
Through the Rye.” It is our privilege to see, falling from the crite who, having no objection to nuclear weapons or to im-
sky onto the bulldog — as if out of one of the cantos of perialist oppression, reserves his self-righteous wrath for
Maldoror —— a flowerpot, and then another, a trunk, a cartoonists and others whose imaginary violence never
piano, a cash register, a locomotive, a horse, a fire engine, a hurt anyone but is supposed to be such a “‘bad influence”
brick and then a whole brick wall, an anvil, a tree, a kitchen on children. Doesn’t this show all the signs of being a rather
sink, a bathtub, a steamroller, a passenger plane, a Grey- shabby defense mechanism? Do not these protestations
hound bus and a battleship. against cartoon violence conceal a deep-seated fear of pri-
Because they are unpretentiously and extremely funny mary process thinking, a contempt for the child’s modes of
-— and also because everyone presumes (wrongly) that apprehension, a horror of unrestrained sexuality? Them-
they are intended only for children — Avery’s cartoons selves repressed, these custodians of bourgeois Virtue seek
have rarely been “taken seriously,” as the expression goes. to repress others. They are against violence only when it is
amorous, poetic. They hate
Hard as it may be to believe, some full-length studies of liberating, revolutionary,
animation have relegated them to a disparaging paragraph Avery’s work not because it is violent, but because its vio-
or two, or evena footnote. However plain it is that hokum lence is in the service of freedom and the marvelous.

CONTRIBUTIONS
TO
TEXAVERIAN
STUDIES
Juggling with dimensions, and following a rig- Tex Avery is simultaneously the Man in the There is one kind of humor, in our opinion
orously logical progression, Avery makes us Iron Mask, Fulcanelli, the Invisible Man, B. specifically modern, which . . . is based on the
evolve from the infinitely small to the infinitely Traven, and the Missing Link. . . . Blaise Pascal, rational structures of the mind so as to disarticu-
large. Erecting the absurd into a totem, in his flanked by his couple of infinites, gets the cold late the mechanism of these structures by means
subject matter as well as in his development of shoulder before this cosmic jugglery that empha- of the absurd. . . . To characterize this critical
action, he breaks one after the other every law of sizes the obsession of changing size. From the humor by means of an image, let us say that is...
the three-dimensional world. Next to this dust under foot to the clouds in the sky, Tex nowhere to be found in the Disney cartoons, but
Swiftian Mad Hatter, Disney truly appears as an Avery scoffs at all notions of landmarks, metric is omnipresent in those of Tex Avery.
insignificant figure. systems, scales of comparison. Francois VALORBE
Abner LEPETIT Robert BENAYOUN “{’ humour critique”
“Bilan du dessin anime” “Tex Avery, ou le cosmos en perdition” Medium: Communication Surréaliste
L’Age du cinéma No. 1, 1951 in Le Dessin animé apres Walt Disney No. 1, 1953
(Paris, J.-J. Pauvert, 1961)
* * *
* * *

Impelling the absurd to the point of delirium,

The veritable poet of the explosive animated
nonsense to the point of the surrealist Marvelous,
cartoon is Tex Avery. In an inspired hurricane he
and the gag to the point of nightmare; superbly
has neatly overturned all established notions.
rejecting every rational pretext, assaulting screen
With the aid of sound gags, color gags, and off-
and spectator as with so many luminous blows of
screen gags . . . he has stripped bare an extra-
a thousand brilliant inventions, elevating the
ordinary universe in which we are no longer dis-
cream-pie fight to a cosmic level; discovering a
crete initiates but rather actors playing leading
powerful libido in the gentlest animals; and
roles. ... The great disquiet that overcomes us
finally, returning the corrosive power of the gag
after the showing of each Tex Avery film is a
against itself: Tex Avery’s work makes the work
purifying bath which obliges us to reconsider all
of others appear fatally conformist or, at best, as
our beliefs.
simple preludes to these magnificent orgies.
Ado KYROU
Le Surréalisme au cinéma Petr KRAL
(Paris, Le Terrain vague, 1963) “Tex Avery ou le delire lucide”
* * *
Positif, 1976

54
 In its essence, Avery’s violence — comprising the quali- Ridiculing all natural (not to mention human) laws, this
ties of exaggeration, distortion, spontaneity and aggression absolute enemy of the Oedipus Complex has never hesi-
that are the principal characteristics of his work — is the tated to bump off the entire cosmos with a swoop of his
violence of Jonathan Swift and of Isidore Ducasse, Comte hand, or to rebuild everything from scratch in the wink of
de Lautréamont. And it is precisely in such company that an eye. Rarely has the child’s omnipotence of thought been
Avery’s work must be situated, not merely on account of so capably reinforced by so lucid and critical a reading of
formal or stylistic similarities but because of all-pervasive the “signs of the times.” And even more rarely has this free
affinities of content. union of desire and consciousness, consummated by a
In his “Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1726), the author definitively merciless humor, been allowed to create cata-
of Gulliver’s Travels wrote that “Elephants are always clysms of such proportions and with such speed — for let us
not forget that from start to finish the shows in Avery’s
drawn smaller than life, but a flea always larger.” In Les theater of cruelty take only a matter of minutes.
Chants de Maldoror (1870) we read that “An elephant
If the ‘“new myth” that everyone, every thing, every-
permits caresses. But not a louse.” With these twin obser-
where, has cried out for all these years is slowly but surely
vations — by the “‘veritable initiator” of black humor, as
beginning to emerge — more or less “between the lines” —
André Breton designated Swift in the famous anthology
a large share of the credit must go to this elusive lone wolf
that gave this humor its name, and by the poet of whom
who, always at least a step ahead of himself, knows so well
Breton said, in the same work, that “for centuries to come,
how to jump the gun before crossing his bridges. In his best
everything thought and explored most audaciously will
gags there flourishes a defiant new beauty, disquieting and
find here, formulated in advance, its magic law” — we are
convulsive. And in his most unlikely complicities, we can
transported to the very heart of the Averian dialectic. discern authentic tremors of the Great Invisibles.
Wherever he goes, in whatever he does, Avery manifests Tex Avery is one of a handful of creative figures of our
his obsession with changing size: from the portentous time whose work truly can be called indispensable. Few
shambling of his King-Kong-size canaries in the streets of
things are more urgently needed today than his non-stop,
New York, to his tantalizing quest for the world’s smallest
rip-roaring, havoc-wreaking, free-for-all splendor. Here,
pygmy in central Africa (“Ha!” says an almost impercep- as nowhere else, the blackest humor boils over uninter-
tible figure on the screen, under a magnifying glass. ‘“You ruptedly into the reddest dawn of dawns.
think I’m small! Wait till you see my Uncle Willie!”).
Equally conversant with the infinite and the infinitesi- E.R.
mal, Avery is supremely equipped to take on all comers.

Bugs Gunny
ion)
(Reprinted from the catalog of the 1976 World Surrealist Exhibit
Bunny stands as a veritable symbol of irre-
It is no accident that all that is revolution- Fudd, and, more generally, heckling this
same Fudd in ever new ways. ducible recalcitrance.
ary and scandalous in the work of Georg Wil- If the Bunny/Fudd choreography reflects
helm Friedrich Hegel came to be symbolized, It is impossible to appreciate the genius of
a particular historic moment in the class
ina uniquely umorous way on the eve of the the world’s greatest rabbit without under-
slow- struggle—a period of class ‘‘symmetry’’ in
second world imperialist slaughter, by a little standing Fudd: this bald-headed,
which the workers here and there win a few
gray rabbit whose very name embodies a dia- witted, hot-tempered, timid, petty-bourgeois
of their demands, only to be chased back into
lectical resolution of contradictions: Bugs dwarf with a speech defect, whose principal
activity is the defense of his private property.
their holes in the ground—nonetheless the
(nickname of a notorious gangster), Bunny mythic content of this drama exceeds its orig-
(almost a synonym for. gentleness). Fudd is the perfect characterization of a spe-
cifically modern type: the petty bureaucrat, inal formal limitations. The very appearance
the authoritarian mediocrity, nephew or on the stage of history of a character such as
A more or less urbanized ‘descendant of
Br’er Rabbit, Bugs Bunny (whose ancestors grandson of Pa Ubu. If the Ubus (Musso- Bugs Bunny is proof that some day the Fudds
lini, Hitler, Stalin) dominated the period be- ‘will be vanquished—that some day all the
include also Lewis Carroll’s eccentric White
Hare) is tween the two wars, for the last thirty years it carrots in the world will be ours.
Rabbit and the psychotic March
has been the Fudds who have directed our Until then, one can scarcely imagine a bet-
categorically opposed to wage slavery in all
its forms. Content with a modest subsistence misery: Fudds and more Fudds in the White ter model to offer our children than this bold
House; Fudds on the Central Committees of
creature who,with his four rabbit’s feet, is
on the edge of the forest, his residence is
the so-called Communist parties; all the the good luck charm of total revolt. Confront-
marked only by a mailbox béaring the name
Bugs Bunny, Esq. Aside from wondrous ad- popes have been Fudds; the best-selling ed by any and all apologists for the status
ventures that only rigorously applied laziness novelists are all Fudds; Louis Aragon and Sal- quo, Bugs Bunny always has the last word:
can lead to, his major ‘‘vocation’’ is pilfering vador Dali, beginning as anti-Fudds, degen- ‘Don’t think it hasn’t been lovely, because it
carrots from the garden of a certain Elmer erated into two of the worst of all possible hasn’t.”’
F.R.
Fudds. Almost alone against them all, Bugs

55
 SURREALISM & ANIMATED CARTOONS
Is there a separate genre known as “animated morphism, and “‘tricks” — either on us or on them. tions of ordinary life. Censorship kept Popeye fron
cartoons” or “cinema of animation’’? I think not. Disney and his studios, after their promising begin- being too cruel; kept Betty Boop from being too
As a film can be either silent or with sound, either nings, quickly foundered, became facile, and “sexy.”
black-and-white or color, so it can be either photo- remained mired in bourgeois sentiments. Disney
graphed directly or drawn. The painted or drawn has been called the “La Fontaine of the cinema,” We had to wait till the end of the Second World,
being is as real asthe objects which we regard as in- and surely he deserves this ignominious title’ ‘War to see cartoons divest themselves of logical.
animate but which are set in motion by film. And For a while it seemed that animated cartoons dross and the reactionary precepts of the “wisdom:
living persons, by means of camera tricks, can go were about to lose their surreal aptitudes, and that of nations.” Then cartoons returned at last to the
through the same deformations as actors bom of — in imitation of the rest of motion pictures —they © example of Emile Cohl in depicting the latent con-
penand ink. It is a quirkoffilm producers to want to were ahout to sink to the level of mere transcrip- tent of this life that animation is so capable of
build walls between the various possibilities of: undermining, destroying and perfecting... Woody
film... Woodpecker, Heckle and Jeckle, Bugs Bunny,
Max Fleischer’s delicious Koko the Clown rebels Tom and Jerry, Beep-Beap the Roadrunner and
against his immobility as a drawing and, without Tweety Pie arrived to overturn all our habits and
asking permission, animates himself so that he can break all taboos. . . .
mingle in the life of beings of flesh and blood. The The animated cartoon has discovered its own
totality of life can be expressed in movies — so why world and explored its complexity. It has revealed,
try to impose limits on film and compartmentalize meanwhile, a part of our own life that we did not
its possibilities? know existed. Our senses have been enriched.
But the fact is that the animated cartoon almost Were this new vision, these new sounds, to make
always has been relegated to the margins of film their triumphant entrance into the non-drawn cine-
production, forcing it to follow its own course and ma, I am convinced that the supersession of the
to form its own line of conduct and its own manifest content of life, and the penetration of its
myths.. latent content, would be greatly facilitated.
Pat Sullivan’s Felix the Cat removes his tail and
hurls it into the air where it assumes the form of a Ado KYROU
large question-mark. Does this indicate his disturb-
ance about the future of the animated cartoon?
The fantasy of the first cartoons too soon vanished Le Surréalisme au cinéma
under the accumulation of “cuteness,” anthropo- (Paris, Le Terrain vague, 1963)
Max FLEISCHER: Koko the Clown

The Phoenix t
of Animation
Over the years, film critics have refused to take film by Resnais. When certain critics write, there- the course of animation, has seldom been influ-
notice of what they consider a puerile sop on the fore, that the animated film is not cinema, they - enced in return. The great contemporary artists
weekly theater programs, and some animators commit the same error as so many neophytes have never been tempted by animation. Those
have declared that, far from being a link between who imagine, once they have used an animation who have integrated a form of movement into
the cinema and the older plastic arts, animation is stand to shoot a number of free forms in the act of their work — Calder, Frank Malina, Vasarely,
an autonomous eighth art. They refuse to be moving, that they have made a film. They treat Agam, Tinguely, Takis, Munari, Davide Turconi
called film-makers, and they refuse to be called the genre as if it were a kind of annex to the —~ have centered their efforts on an exploration
artists; they prefer an undefinable niche in an oc- beaux-arts, an after-dinner amusement. But if an of kinetic laws, but left to themselves they have
cult fraternity, jealously guarded, whose rites are animated film is made to be projected in a hail, its not gone on to an analysis and decomposistion of'
celebrated at certain places along the Loire images registering at 24 per second on the retina, movement, or to its creative manipulation as
river. ... it surely constitutes a film. An animated film did Alexeieff.
And in truth the animator today defies defini- made without traveling shots, without pans, Animation, by contrast, its fashion and ephe-
tion. He may be an able sketcher or may never without cuts or other cinematic grammar, with- meral revolutions aside, has produced a certain
have held a pencil in his life; he may have a de- out dramatic progression, would not only be a number of authentic artists, who merit in their
gree in engineering, hold patents on inventions, ludicrous anachronism but would also be as silly “ndividual sphere the same admiration, the same
or manifest a colossal lack of culture together as those dance films which record a beautiful critical exegeses, and the same respect as Miro,
with a perfect instinct for the laws of movement. ballet with deadly stolidity — and in so doing be- Tanguy, Arp, or Magritte. Unfortunately the lack
He may be a meticulous lab-man within the ex- tray the spirit of dance as well as that of film. of publicity and distribution of their works con-
perimental branch of some official organization, However, these curious motions which circu- demns them to a narrow audience of cinephiles
or a freewheeling publicist, devoting his energy late about the “autonomy” of animation help and to the film museums, isolating them from the
and talent to an ever-renewed praise of consumer explain the regrettable isolation which seems to rest of the public. A vicious circle thus arises: the
goods. The diversity of form which is the result of have become the lot of so many animators, who problem of distribution itself drives the ‘anima:
all this can be surprising, detestable, even fatal, keep themselves away from everything else tors to cultivate a regrettable esoteric spirit.
but nonetheless is what we must work from in happening on the screens, and work increasingly which leads some of them toward a sterile self-
defining animated film today. in ivory towers. They are animating exclusively pigeonholing among the arts, as if they were the
All these films illustrate, channel, or release an for other animators. keepers of some lost secret.
irresistible craze for speed, a realization sympto- During the more than fifteen years that I have The great artists of animation seem to be dis-
matic of one of the central compulsions most been an enthusiastic follower of animation, I tinguished very clearly from the experimenters.
typical of our era — for it is superposed, in have observed all the fluctuations, all the swift- Art in animation begins at that moment when
different forms, on disciplines as static in their passing fads and formulas of the genre. These dis- the ‘experimental’ phase ends, and freedom
basic laws as painting or sculpture. turbances are incidental. Sometimes, they bring ensues.
Animation, in principle, has no other plastic with them technical discoveries of importance; Robert BENAYOUN
imperative than movement. Stills from the most sometimes an abrupt break (always late) with en- (excerpts)
beautiful animated films are as deceptive, as little trenched styles. Modern art, though it has con-
representative of the original, as are stills from a tinually influenced, modified, or given impetus to Film Quarterly (Spring 1964)
56
 Surrealism in the (Gomics
they were self-consciously insatiable, as if poetry. Significantly, in this regard, several
Many who admire drawing and enjoy surrealists have explored the comics
reading strangely balk when the two are they knew they were growing and therefore
hungered for everything in sight, boister- medium, especially in recent years. Among
combined, as in comics. The widespread
ously asserting their mastery over every ob- others have been Thomas Arnel, Karol
condescension toward comics reflects the
stacle. “People are usually good,” said Baron, Paul Colinet, Maroin Dib, Robert
bourgeois prejudice against all truly popular
Richard Outcault’s Buster Brown, ‘“‘when Green, Maurice Henry, Matta, Jacinto
expression, aggravated by the age-old Hal Rammel, Ribitch, Rikki,
there isn’t anything else to do.” Minot,
“civilized” scorn for children. For comics
Often the early comic characters didn’t Pierre Sanders and Martin Stejskal. Some
still are regarded as pre-eminently a juvenile
seem to know what they were doing; they got of their work is reproduced in this issue of
medium. The first comics were ineed in- CC. A special study should be made of
tended for children. But editors soon saw into trouble unwitting/y, in spite of them-
surrealism’s contributions to comics.
that adults by the millions were reading over selves. And so it was with comics as a
the kids’ shoulders. The anomaly continues: medium: Under the pretexts of “entertain- In these pages, meanwhile, we have
“officially” a children’s genre, well over ment” and even “boosting circulation,” started at the beginning, with the aim of
half its readers are adults. poetry found an unexpected refuge. specifying some of the comics’ contributions
In their infancy, comics evidenced an Tending beyond literature, beyond “art,” to surrealism.
“hieroglyphic”
comics point to a new kind of
overriding infantilism. But from the first

THE COMICS

Cussing
the men are going home to work
on sleeping horses
and automobiles come alive
and return to the factories
wearing lingerie ad makeup
Steering wheels chrome fenders and Sallis
gears
leer at the computers
in the outer offices
and the engines — ah those seductive
engines —
get into black boots and thrash the A fooferin’ remains
clouds
rushing through gargantuan windows
east Leside
the pistons are eating The clouds iy
with anthropoid teeth
SZ
My, an ke
Wy ]

Philip LAMANTIA whos ania 88 riteterallic

From Blood of the Air

(San Francisco, 1970) Hal RAMMEL:
Comic Strip based on a poem by Penelope Rosemont (1979)

57
 AAD ON THE TREE OAF HE HIDES | HIDE BEHIND THE
1) DRAW- 1 PRAw BEHIND A DRAWING, DrRawinG cF A Roux}!
OF A TREE

GEORGE HERRIMAN
(KRAZY KAT)
Next to “What is Truth?” the question “hit his head that day; time and again, follow- Pupp has lost his memory (“lost about a
“Who is Krazy Kat?” is the most perplexing ing such moments ofdespair, the kat is duly quart of memory where but a pint existed
in the annals of philosophy. clobbered in the end and sings, “Now I'ma before”). Leaving the doctor’s, he runs into
Rather than even attempt a definition, let heppy, heppy ket.” Ignatz but fails to recognize him. Upon
us begin on more modest terrain with a At this stage in the drama we meet the questioning, he admits that he does not know
simple description of George Herriman’s third and last of its central figures: a sort of the name Krazy Kat. Gleeful at this turn of
magnificent creature and the drama that bulldog, Coconino County’s official repre- events, Ignatz rushes off, brick in hand: “At
unfolds around it. sentative of “law ’n’ order,” who happens to last I’m free to toss this ‘brick’ at that ‘kat’
Nominally a cat (or at least a kat) — albeit be in love with Krazy, and who is ever vigi- without that kop’s interference.” But by the
with few typically feline characteristics — . lant in protecting his love from the violence time he finds the kat he has forgot what he
and of indeterminate gender, Krazy is a of the mouse. As often as Ignatz tosses a intended to do; indeed, he has forgot who he
gentle, wistful, poetic, eccentric, innocent, brick, Officer Pupp tosses Ignatz into jail. is and, face to face with Krazy, recognizes
impractical, exuberant, inspired, idealistic Officer Pupp, also known as Kop, may be him not. Whereupon an alarmed kat runs
and amorously passionate dreamer wildly in more or less doglike, but he is hardly cop- off shouting “Oh-h doctor!” But when
love with a mouse named Ignatz. If Krazy 1s like. Aside from his touching fondness for Krazy finds the doctor, he too has a memory
not like other cats, Ignatz is not at all like the kat, his incessant philosophical solilo- failure — can’t remember what he wished to
other mice. Inordinately strong, Ignatz is quies — delivered with old-time oratorical say. The final panel shows all three —
not easily frightened. He regards himself as grandiloquence and accompanied by exag- mouse, kat, kop — together in the amnesia
coldly logical, realistic, rational, materialis- gerated theatrical mannerisms — makes ward of Dr. Ambrose Phleeze’s sanitarium,
tic, practical, and unsentimental; he is also ‘him, as a law enforcer, odd indeed. And if each ignorant of the identity of the others.
hot-tempered, short-sighted and malicious. he does, several times a week as a rule, In Krazy Kar the old cat-and-mouse game
He is by no means scrupulously honest; he is . apprehend Ignatz and jock him in a cell, is remorselessly inverted, subdivided,
sometimes hypocritical and is always thor- nonetheless the mouse — repeated offender stirred up, hopelessly confounded and, ul-
oughly cynical and pugnacious. In contrast though he is — always is back on the street timately, superseded in a unique “eternal tri-
to Krazy’s unabashedly lowbrow tastes, next day: rather a poor showing, by police angle” adjusted to non-Euclidean specifica-
Ignatz prefers Mozart, Beethoven, the standards. tions. The action takes place as far as possible
classics. Perhaps the mouse’s most en- There are many other characters in the from Reason (probably in that very domain
dearing quality is his wholehearted dis- story: among the regulars are Mrs. where, once upon a time and long, long ago,
respect for the law; indeed, we can forgive Kwakk-Wak, the gossipy duck; Kolin Kelly Reason was invented —— as a plaything).
him much (and even grow fond of the little the brickmaker; Y. Zowl, an owl with an Everyone and everything appears here with
demon) because he is such an incorrigible M.D.; and Joe Stork (sometimes referred to a staggering freshness. All stereotypes have
sinner. by his Spanish name, Jose Cigueno), “pur- been forced through the sieve of schizo-
Far from returning the kat’s affection, the veyor ofprogeny to prince and proletarian.” phrenic dercalization. The world is not only
mouse insists that he despises his krazy ad- But the aforementioned trio — kat, mouse topsy-turvy, but shifted into unexpected and
mirer and, to demonstrate his scorn, hits the and kop — hold an indisputable centrality in ever-changing dimensions. Here is a um-
kat again and again —— many thousands of the strip: They are the driving forces in verse governed exclusively by its own laws,
times over the years —~ with a brick. Krazy, Herriman’s irreducible dialectic. which essentially are the laws of free asso-
however, does not interpret Ignatz’s overt It is necessary to emphasize the peculiar ciation, passional attraction, Jacques Vaché’s
aggression as hostile. For the kat, the brick symbiosis of these three characters. They are immortal umor, spontaneous play, and the
is the proof, a veritable symbol, of the engaged in a complex contest in which there physics of poetry.
mouse’s deep devotion. Time and again is no question of our “taking sides.” They Through it all, year in and year out, we
Krazy is anxiety-stricken that no brick has are all in it together. In one strip Officer are treated to a laugh a minute — or oftener.

58
 Fortunately for us, we know now that laugh- and Daggoo in Moby Dick. This sort of shallow and lukewarm prejudices. Just as
ter — like everything truly desirable — thing, of course, can go on forever — but little are we aided by a more recent attempt
must lead somewhere. does it help us understand anything? to read the strip through the double lens of
If theDon Quixote analogy collapses in a Kierkegaard and Sartre. (2) Hard as it may
* * *
heap after a few faltering steps, ¢. ¢. cum- be for the partisans of simple solutions to
mings’ effort (1) to see in the strip an accept, Krazy Kat simply is not reductble to
Herriman’s magisterial strip has elicited allegory about Democracy versus all ex- any simple formula: literary, philosophical,
numerous paeans of praise, a few detailed tremism — in which Krazy represents political, — psychological, esthetic or
commentaries, several widely conflicting Democracy struggling against the Individu- otherwise.
interpretations and, most plentifully, polite al (Ignatz) and Society (Officer Pupp) —- There are indeed very real difficulties
confessions of despair to the effect that, tan- never even gets to its feet: Herriman’s posed by Herriman’s many-sided message.
talizing as the strip is, it doesn’t have abit of mighty epic just does not conform to such The strip developed, day in and day out, for
meaning. Although it is “universally ac-
we claimed as the greatest comic strip of all \F COARSE, 1 COULD
Pivcie THROUGH THS
time,” as Bill Blackbeard says in The World WEY- HOLE AN SEE
WIT My OWN) EVE
Encyclopedia of Comics, surprisingly little Wor's BEHINE iT —
light has been shed on Herriman’s motives, BUT .
methods or achievements.
Traditional critical approaches will
always shrivel to nothing before this unpre-
tentious yet sublime work. The arduous
search for “sources,” with which philolo-
gists like to commence their exegeses, has
turned up little more than the faintest clues.
It is unquestionable, for example, that ELSA Le Tae ES \F_ Bory You An”
BOTH ME_PIKICED -
HURIOSITY Is
KURIOSTTY
Herriman was influenced by Cervantes. : ae INTROLEarMY2 /;
This is plain from any number of internal }uRVosrry —
details (there is even a character in Krazy
Kat named Ion Kiyote), as well as from
abundant affinities of atmosphere and
theme. Krazy is very much like Don
Quixote: a romantic knight-errant who faces Doni. you CAUL
impossible odds in a madcap effort to revive 40 “SNOOPER Me.
the Golden Age. And the perils that Krazy
confronts, like those of Don Quixote, are all
the greater, all the more hilarious, in that the
kat does not see them the way we do. All that
Krazy Kat does, moreover, surely qualifies
as quixotic. Society, for Herriman as for
Cervantes, is a welter of meretricious “SNOOPER~oP
THe AERVE
schemes and devious designs, all working at “THAT “MOUSE ” -

cross-purposes —- over which a solitary

dreamer may somehow, almost “accident-
ally,” triumph, doubtless thanks to his per-
severance in his solitude and to the integrity
of his dreams.
If Krazy Kat is a passable Don Quixote, PEEIC, IF tT “PIQUE $”
Ignatz is rather a poor Sancho Panza. And YouR. KURIOSITY,
yytt.” 'SO.t<
Officer Pupp is wholly unsatisfactory as
17), roe
Rocinante. Some critics have attempted to "4 Te RIPPIT7T,
DUNT: TEMP’
compensate for these shortcomings by com- ny i ec -
pounding the confusion. It has been sug-
gested, for example, that Krazy is not only
Don Quixote but also Parsifal; and Gilbert
Seldes proposed, no doubt jocularly, that
Ignatz is not only Sancho Panza but also
Lucifer. We could add that Krazy is both
Romeo and Juliet, and probably also
Hamlet and Ariel; the kat has much in
common with Immalee in Maturin’s
Melmoth the Wanderer, and embodies the
principal qualities of Queequeg, Tashtego
59
more than thirty years; and if its thousands or the later Peanuts but nonetheless an allegory, nor a riddle, but rather a series
of incidents retain an unmistakable co- appearing daily for decades in dozens of of radiant glimpses into a unique world of
herence — and form what can be regarded as papers, and second, that although its pub- the imaginary: a window — a kaleidoscope
a “unified whole” — still there were count- lisher was William Randolph Hearst (the of windows — opening on the Marvelous,
less digressions, sidelong glances and a mul- most demagogic and reactionary figure in through which it is our privilege and our
tiplicity of subtle ramifications. The very the U.S. news media of his day) it aroused pleasure to look and see. And how could one
magnitude of the work, and its incontestable the sympathetic interest and even devotion expect to see anything there if one does not
complexity — together with the mediocre of many who were generally antipathetic to seek, first and above all, for emotions? Con-
attempts made thus far at critical interpreta- everything Hearst stood for, then it becomes fronted with such splendor, our affective
tion — have led some critics to conclude that clear that with Krazy Kat we are in the responses, provided that we allow them the
it is not in fact interpretable at all; that it is presence of an extraordinary phenomenon. fullest freedom to roam far and wide, could
“meaningless.” The most assertive propo- Such coincidence oftaste between “advanced hardly fail to throw light not only on the
nent of this view, Robert Warshow, bluntly intellectuals” and “the masses” testifies to work under consideration, but on our whole
stated: “We do best, I think, to leave Krazy Herriman’s rare prescience, which reveals destiny — our destiny as individuals as well
Kat alone.” (3) For Warshow, and for
as the collective destiny of humankind.
others who have followed his. lead,
MY -AAY - ALL Thar To avoid misunderstandings, it is neces-
RINGIA © sary to begin with some first principles — a
Herriman’s strip is without significance AlL THAT,
except perhaps as a symptom of the “R-R-RINGIN trayful of kategorical aperitifs:
“extremity of . . . alienation” in “L.umpen 1) Krazy Kat is not only a work of
culture.” Behind this abstentionism we “fantasy” — it is, much more importantly, a
cannot miss the ill-concealed sneer of the work of nonsense: indeed, one of the master-
snob. He recognized the power of the strip, pieces of nonsense. This does not mean, of
and even begrudged it “‘a certain purity and course, that it therefore lacks “significance”;
freshness,” but only by way of condemning on the contrary, there is more significance
it all the more for being outside the purview and worth in the best nonsense than there is
of High Culture. Warshow typifies the un-, in the great bulk of what passes for “sense.”
happy bourgeois intellectual who would It so happens that the significance of non-
choose at all costs to remain unhappy rather sense lies outside of formal logic, but this in
than cease to be bourgeois. He perceived no way diminishes its interest, for logic itself
that once it was admitted that the “mass is almost negligible as a factor in human
image” deserved the same consideration as affairs,
any other “work of art,” then traditional es- The strip’s dialogues often have the flavor
of Zen koans, or the surrealist “one-in-the-
thetic values (and beyond those, traditional
social values) would stand exposed as laurel other” game, or — at times — the excruci-
wreaths whose leaves have long since ating ambiguity of certain mystical para-
doxes, such as St. Teresa’s “I die because I
withered to dust.
As if to illustrate the extreme backward- cannot die.” A riot of rhyme and “reasons
ness of American critics as far as the “popu- beyond Reason,” and therefore situated out-
Warshow’s bitter side of any traditional discipline, Krazy Kat
lar arts” are concerned,
drinks from sources deeper and more far-
polemic has sometimes been mistaken foran
“appreciation” of Herriman. That there is ranging than philosophy or religion. “The
more than a little hypocrisy in the voluble world as it is, my dear K,” Ignatz explains,
acclaim of Krazy Kat is further indicated by “ts not like it was, when it used to be.” To
the fact that seventy years after the kat’s which Krazy responds: “An’ wen it gets to be
initial appearance, and thirty-five years after wot it is, will ite”
Herriman’s death, only a minute portion of 2) Krazy Kat is before all else a poetic
his complete works ever has been printed in work, and George Herriman is one of the
book form. Surely the prerequisite for in turn a deeper truth: that Krazy Kat ex- greatest American poets. If he kept his dis-
serious evaluation of any artist’s or writer’s pressed, in a uniquely captivating way, the tance from the abject literary cabals that
contributions is that the work under consid- latent content of the historical drama that writhed and bribed their way through the
eration be accessible. To read Herriman, convulsed the first half of the American English language of his day, it is all the
however, one has to pore over musty and twentieth century. more to his credit. Krazy Kat is definitive
crumbling newspapers or scan mile after proof of our oft-reiterated contention that
* *% * American poetry in this century has lived
mile of microfilm.
The many and disparate attempts at analy- primarily oudside the poem.
sis to which Krazy Kat has been subjected The following notes are offered as jottings It is astonishing that no one has yet taken
have at least the virtue of demonstrating the from a “log,” so to speak, of repeated jour- the trouble to approach Herriman’s work
extraordinary and lasting power of fascina- neys through the kat’s enchanted domain. I from the linguistic angle. Such an explora-
tion that this comic strip has exerted on never have been able to view Herriman’s tion could not help yielding important dis-
minds very different from each other. If one work as primarily a “problem” to be coveries. Hlerriman’s language was drawn
recalls, first, that it was a highly popular “solved.” It is rather a gift to be enjoyed. It more or less equally from lush Victorian
strip, perhaps less widely read than Blondie seems to me to be neither a chess game, nor prose and the Yiddishized street lingo of

60
 The origins of the strip —— how it “jes visitors and friends include Teddy
New York’s Lower East Side: something
grew” — are revelatory. Born in New Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Buffalo
like a synthesis of Emily Bronté and
Orleans in 1880, Herriman sold cartoons Bill, the Czar, the Ku Klux Klan, Ty Cobb
Groucho Marx. This gives his dialogues a
and other drawings to leading magazines and many, many more.
very special rhythm, a baroque pulsation,
while still in his teens. It is striking that his The Dingbats’ travail ends — as the
found nowhere else.
early work included illustrations for short struggle against religion and all oppression
Herriman’s word-play is invariably loose
stories by Charles Fort, that important pre- must end —— with the toppling of the entire
and lively. The kat would never say “Of
cursor of surrealism, whose later works — structure. The last strip of The Family Up-
course | wouldn’t,” but rather “If coarse ]
starting with The Book of the Damned (1919) stairs shows a wrecking crew demolishing
wooden.” Richard Wagner becomes “Rigid
— elaborated a world-view as unpredictably the whole apartment building — to the great
Vogna”; “solar eclipse” is “solo ecklip.” In
and humorously surrational as Herriman’s. joy, let it be said, or Mr. and Mrs. Dingbat.
strip after strip we find enticing queries
After several more or less short-lived Meanwhile, momentous developments
(“Do the moom always come ova the
strips --- most notably the deliriously zany had taken place literally “between the lines.”
mountin? Dunt the mountin evva come ova
Major Ozone’s Fresh Air Crusade, which In the Dingbats’ apartment, almost wholly
the moom?”) and grand assertions: “You
gave more than a hint of the grandeur to independent of the story, we meet a cat, soon
turn off the light and turn on the dark. You
come — Herriman in June 1910 started The to be called Kat; and we meet also a mouse
turn off the dark and turn on the light. Post-
~
pe Dingbat amily, soon retitled The Family who, very early in the series, hits the cat with
tivilly marvillis!” and “I like my kit fits in
Upstairs. This remarkable strip featured the a brick. These unobtrusive and appealing
riddim — I do.”
constant struggle of KE. Pluribus Dingbat cat-and-mouse adventures are soon set off
3) Krazy Kat was not “conceived,” not
and his wife, Minnie, to drive away the in a small strip directly below the Dingbats’
“born” — it “jes grew.” (4) Herriman was story. From these modest subterranean be-
as surprised as his readers by the doings of noisy and otherwise extremely irksome
family that lived in the flat above. The ginnings emerged, a few years later — in
his kat, whose “marvelous secrets,” more-
Dingbats never see their tormentors; do not October 1913 — the separate strip known as
over, were as elusive to him as to us.
even know their name. They try everything Krazy Kat.
Consider these words by Herriman him-
---a raging bull, acannon, sneeze powder, a
self, which I think may be taken as a kind of
testament: “You have written truth, you quartet of boxers (Jack Johnson, Sam
friends of the ‘shadows,’ yet be not harsh Langford, Young Peter Jackson and Joc
“Come, let us dedicate the Great Ameri-
with ‘Krazy’ — he is but a shadow himself, Walcott), a bomb, a jujitsu champion, wild
bees, a ventriloquist, a cobra, the Pied Piper can Desert to Terpsichore!” This curious ex-
caught in the web of this mortal skein. We hortation from one of Edward Bellamy’s
call him ‘cat’; we call him ‘crazy’: Yet he 1s and three man-eating rats, an elephant, a
hypnotist, bagpipe players, a trio of suffra-
early stories is realized in Herriman’s saga.
neither. At some time he will ride away to The choreography of Krazy Kat is set pre-
gettes, Desperate Desmond (a villian
you, People of the Twilight. His password cisely in the wide open spaces of Arizona, a
will be the echoes of a vesper bell; his coach, borrowed from another comic strip) a scor-
pion, a tarantula, a gila monster. They even
brick’s throw from the Grand Canyon and
a zephyr from the west. Forgive him, for the Petrified Forest.
try patience, kindness, generosity — to no
you will understand him no better than we Choreography is the word. I am convinced
who linger on this side of the pale.” (5) avail. All their efforts fail; the Dingbats
always get the worst of it, The more the that the strip’s special appeal owes much to
Wonderfully nonsensical, —_defiantly its graphic interpretation of the primordial
poetic, and proceeding unconsciously — or Dingbats suffer, the more The Family Up-
stairs flourishes. urge to dance: the sense of standing on pins
rather surconsciously, as if by magic — Krazy and needles, jumping for joy, falling head
Kat is one of the triumphs of pure psychic In view of Herriman’s zeal for suggestive
ambiguities, puns and innuendoes, it seems over heels in love; the sense of dizziness,
automatism. It is its esssentially surrealist swooning, of being swept off one’s feet. It 1s
character —— recognized by nearly all com- reasonable to see in this strip a critique not
only of apartment living and obnoxious no accident that so many commentators on
mentators — that not only makes it resistant Kat should call it a ballet. (5) An
to every variety of “specialized” criticism neighbors, but of all “higher authority” — Krazy
appealing. including the highest: The Holy Family attentiveness to dance-imagery permeates its
but also renders it endlessly
Which Art Upstairs in Heaven, credited by every panel. (It is worth noting that the
With this in mind, let us look more close-
believers with being almost as omnipotent as period when the strip began was the most
ly — a telescope to one eye, a microscope to
the Dingbats’ persecutors, and surely just as dance-conscious in U.S. history).
the other — at just what’s happening in Even in the earliest strips, when it stil
Coconino County. unseen, Significantly, in this regard,
Herriman’s Family Upstairs are intimately supplemented 7Ae Family Upstairs, we meet
* * * allied with the whole gamut > power; their Krazy in the guises of “Katlova, the Russian
 | Vou Ca4xenpLy 1 Dip

Teage
| THAY DEAR
Way \/ SE BueAE
' iN SWING
1) “THar YES 3 (music
Lente oP
- ¢
SO J's
|
|

ee Rie Deetom Sento te Dera erate

dancer” and “Little Egypt”; once Ignatz Without dance, how could we account for | know what music fits the strip toa T— the
mistakes the kat for the popular nightclub the most overwhelming quality of the whole music that shares the same free-wheeling in-
singer/dancer Eva Tanguay. Moreover, strip: its supreme grace? souciant magic: it is the music of the early,
from ballet to ballroom, from vaudeville to crazier black swing bands. When I read
voodoo, from jig to jitterbug, Krazy Kat is * * * Krazy Kat \ can hardly help hearing Jimmie
always dancing up a storm. Lunceford’s “I?m Nuts About Screwy
Krazy Kat is not only the “danciest” comic Music” or Cab Calloway’s “Kickin’ the
Indeed, Krazy Kat offers us a unique
strip but also the most musica/. Herriman’s Gong Around.”
example of a “danced drama” within the
knowledge of music was considerable. He Is it purely by accident that the first re-
limits of a printed page. Everything con-
was even something of a musician himself: corded blues vocal (by Mamie Smith, 1920)
tributes to this effect: the bold play of chiaro-
in the 90s he wooed his girlfriend with was called Crazy Blues? When jazz
scuro; the constantly changing background;
songs, accompanying himselfon mandolin. musicians, some years later, began talking
the exceedingly resilient /ine. Few artists
The mandolin is also Krazy’s favorite instru- about “crazy cats” —- meaning inspired men
have a line so sinuous and yet so strong as
ment, but the kat, “imbillivibly” versatile, ~~ were they not heralding the proliferation,
Herriman’s. René Crevel wrote of Paul
also plays piano, bass viol, several kinds of rather, of Krazy Kats: that is, a new genera-
Klee that “he takes a walk with a line”; for
horn, harp, drums. And he bursts into song tion of footloose dreamers, rebellious and
his part, Herriman takesa line out for amad
at every opportunity —— even when it isn’t innovative outsiders, whose sensibilities had
fandango. In portraying his characters he
opportune at all. been shaped to an appreciable degree by
was deeply aware of centers of gravity, of
I do not know what music accompanied, events in Coconino County? Weren’t the
nuances in poise and differences in gait; each
or was meant to accompany, the Krazy Kat “hep cats,” who later evolved into hipsters,
movement, each gesture, each glance, con-
animated cartoons made (under EJerriman’s following in the footsteps of a certain
veys depths of meaning. With the slightest
eee by pale in 1916-17, But “heppy, heppy ket”?
agitation of a pen, he brought to life an
imagery vibrant with rhythms unknown Let it be borne in mind that jazz and the
before him. comic strip —— universally acknowledged as
When we read a text or look at a picture this country’s most important contributions
— or do both at once, as in a comic strip — to the arts —~ were equally subject to derision
we too easily forget that it is our whole bodies by the guardians of bourgeois High
JY
that read. Beyond the eye that exists in its eae.
22 3
Culture. These two despised media were thus
“savage state,” invoked by Breton, the £in-
besa, Yi) well situated to express the deep and secret
esthetic sense is ready to avenge itself on the longings of the most despised sectors of the
immobile. Krazy Kat, too restless to stay population: the most exploited of the prole-
confined in the world of two dimensions, tariat, immigrants, blacks, slum-dwellers,
leaps out into a third, a fourth and a fifth, hoboes, drug victims, prostitutes, lunatics
thereby appealing powerfully to this too- and jazz musicians. (7)
little-understood “sixth sense.”’ * * *
In his classic Code of Terpsichore (1828) S
oS,

Carlo Blasis wrote that love — “of all

passions the finest and most powerful” — It isevident in all his work that Herriman
was “the principal spring of action in a had more than a vague “sympathy for the.
ballet.” It is the spring of action, too, in underdog” — that he shared an active spirit
ue
aaa
; of solidarity and revolt and was very much
Krazy Kat: “Love,” as the kat says, “will
fine away.” on the side of the outcasts. In addition to
In Krazy Kat dance does not appear as an Krazy Kat and his other strips, see his re-
alienated spectacle, but as the simultaneous view of Charlie Chaplin’s film, The Gold
emancipation of body and mind which are, Rush, and his illustrations in the volumes of
moreover, no longer perceived as contradic- ORGANIZING THE INSECTS satirical verse by Don Marquis, featuring
tory. Krazy’s dances are the untrammeled . For a Revolt Against Mankind Archy the anarchist cockroach.
(from ARCHY’S LIFE OF MEHITABEL, 1933) A more particularly subversive aspect of
expression of a free and imaginatively
exalted life. his work is also discernible. Krazy is not

62
 only a cat but a d/ack cat. Long a fixture of several hundred doughnuts. Another time,
folklore, the black cat as a symbol of bad luck when he buried a dead mouse in a loaf of
is second to none. At the time Krazy began to bread, he was kicked out of the house, never
appear, however, the black cat was enjoying to return.
hetx:
an unprecedented notoriety as an even more It was under the sign of sabotage, then,
specific symbol: the symbol of workers’ We WAS ALL that the man who would create Krazy Kar
“BQUALS? AN S
; gained his freedom. From then on, George
sabotage, or “striking on the job,” bringing wwArs
bad luck to the bourgeoisie. Herriman was on his own.
Throughout the American labor
movement in that era — most especially in
the IWW, the Socialist Party and the anar-
_chist movement — sabotage was a major Krazy Kats profound appeal to aspira-
topic of discussion and debate. Numerous tions which are fundamental but brutally re-
pamphlets and articles hailed it as an impor- pressed in this society — aspirations covered
tant form of class struggle. Its praises were by the words poetry, dance, freedom and
‘put in rhyme and set to music by leading love —and its subtle but very real links with
Wobbly songwriters such as Joe Hill and such “outeast” currents as the revolutionary
Ralph Chaplin. Black cats abounded in workers’ movement and the Afro-American
LWW cartoons, and “silent agitator” jazz scene, help explain how and why
stickers emblazoned with ferocious or funny Herriman’s strip originally became and has
black felines turned up on walls and win- since remained such a dynamic force in
dows across the country. modern mythology.
It is noteworthy that this literature and art Herriman’s deep affection for “the
favoring workers’ sabotage was character- wretched of the earth” also underscores the
ARCHY’S LIFE OF MEHITABEL, 1933
ized — like Krazy Kat — by a genuine lyri- overriding sfopian quality of his work:
sooner or later, the ]WW and the black cat utopian in the best sense, signifying the
cism and an all-pervasive humor. A Wobbly
of sabotage. According to The World Ency- imaginative critique of existing values and
known as Shorty wrote a poignant ditty
clopedia of Comics, Herriman “rode the institutions, and the presentation —of
called “The Kitten in the Wheat” which in-
rails” from California to New York at the imaginary alternative societies organized on
cludes these stanzas:
turn of the century. If this means he “rode lines completely different from our own, It
the rods” or hopped freights, he surely is not often remarked that the first comics
A sab-cat and a Wobbly band,
would have met some of the migratory appeared in the heyday of American utopian
A rebel song or two; workers who, a few years later, became the
And then we'll show the Parasites
fiction. To a greater extent than has been ac-
backbone of the One Big Union. knowledged, comics (the best of them, in
Just what the cat can do.
In any case, even if he never met a single any case, such as Herriman’s and Winsor
revolutionary worker or Wobbly or advo- McKay’s) are an extension — we could even
The sab-cat purred and twitched her tail,
cate of sabotage — even if he never read an say the flower — of this important critical/
As happy as could be;
IWW or left-wing socialist or anarchist utopian current.
They'd better not throw “wobs” in jail
pamphlet or periodical — still he would Of all utopias, moreover, Krazy Kat’s 1s
And leave the kitten free.
have had plenty of occasion to “read all about the simplest and the grandest, because it
it,” for in those years the |WW, impending leaves it up to each and every one to do as he
And Ralph Chaplin’s “Sab-O-Tabby
revolution and sabotage were “big news” or she pleases. “In my Kosmis,” says the
Kitten” adds: and prominently featured throughout the Kat, “there will be no feeva of discord.” In
capitalist press. one strip a fortuneteller predicts a future
On every wheel that turns I'm riding,
Still more important, however, is the fact without jails or bricks or kops: a future, in
No one knows, though, where I'm hiding.
that Herriman himself, in the finest |WW other words, without repression. 1 know of
The fight is tough and you can’t see through
spirit, is known to have practiced sabotage. few writers or artists, anywhere or anytime,
wt?
As a teenager he was unhappy with his who devoted themselves so tirelessly, or for
Shut your traps and a cat will do it.
parents and hated his job in the family so long, to the exaltation of the Pleasure
bakery. Once, to get even, he poured salt on _ Principle, as did George Herriman in his
It hardly need be added that the wor-
shipers of private property, the philistine Krazy Kat.
champions of capitalist class rule, con- Ethereal and earthy at the same time, 1n-
sidered IWW saboteurs hopelessly crazy — corruptible in his infinite tenderness, Krazy
as crazy as Ignatz considered Herriman’s in- : reaches out confidently for values that do not
_vincible wonder-working kat. yet exist. Here we have a “kounter-kulture”
Is all this mere coincidence? I think not. resonant with everything the heart desires.
Herriman was, after all, born and raised ina Against odds that seem impossible to every-
poor immigrant family; he reached maturity one else, the Kat holds out for nothing less
with unassailably proletarian credentials. than dancing in the streets, poetry made by
Moreover, he traveled the length and all, total love, permanent festivals of what
breadth of the country. He could hardly Edward Young, in his Night-Thonughts,
have avoided encountering somewhere, called “unprecarious bliss.”
 The world of a comic strip might seem (1) e. e. cummings, “Introduction” to Krazy Kat
(New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1969).
small, but Krazy Kat’s world looms larger
(2) Arthur Asa Berger, The Comic-Stripped
than “life as we know it.” Emphatically in- GEORGE HERRIMAN American (Baltimore, Penguin, 1973).
conclusive, neither Herriman nor his Kat in print (3) Robert Warshow, The Immediate Experience
pretended to have “the” answers. Rather (New York, Doubleday, 1962).
they proceeded — and we proceed with them (4) On the notion of “Jes Grew,” see Ishmael
Krazy Kat (Grosset & Dunlap, 168 pp., Reed, Mumbo Jumbo (New York, Doubleday,
~—— by means of a continual questioning. $7.95) 1972), which is, by the way, dedicated to George
“Nobodda but me,” the Kat once said, Herriman.
“would care to go where I’m going, an’ The Family Upstairs, Introducing Krazy Kat (5) Quoted in the Krazy Katbook, op. cit., p. 168.
ivvin I dunt know where I’m goin’ until I (Hyperion, 212 pp., $8.95) (6) A ballet version of Krazy Kat, with music by
John Alden Carpenter, was choreographed and
get there.” And so it is that each reader must Baron Bean (Hyperion, 101 pp., $5.95) staged by Adolf Bolm for the Chicago Grand
make his own way, by his own means, over Opera Ballet in 1920, and by Walter Camryn in
this magical terrain: There are no shortcuts. Illustrations for Don Marquis, Archy and 1948.
But one thing is certain: The spectre of Mehitabel (Doubleday, $1.45) (7) Rumors of Herriman’s Afro-American ances-
Krazy Kat will long continue to haunt the try persist; if true, this would appreciably sub-
world. stantiate these speculations.

GUSTAVE VERBEEK
(THE UPSIDE-DOWNS)
“The Incredible Upside-Downs” strip an elaborate pun on the first), Raymond hermetists and other seekers of “occult”
featured the unending perils of Little Lady Roussel would begin a story with one of correspondences. With him the comic strip
Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo. Starting these sentences and end it with the other, assumes an almost divinatory quality.
on October 11, 1903, its sixty-four weekly supplying the continuity between these two Cannot the “Upside-Downs” be seen as a
episodes are unlike anything else in the “poles.” Verbeek’s affinity with Roussel is kind of ‘Tarot?
world. further indicated by another of his strips, It is impossible to read Verbeek without
Drawn in six panels with captions, it was “Terrors of the Tiny Tads,” the saga of four sooner or later being struck with the notion
designed to be read first in the conventional tiny people venturing over a dark and for- that his work might, after all, point to some-
way, and then continued upside-down, with midable landscape where they encounter the thing, somewhere, somehow. Its absurdity
new captions. That is: first you read it like most fantastic creatures: creatures invented is so wonderfully total, and yet so perfectly
any other strip, then turn it over and read it by combining words, — i.e., hippopota- coherent —- so resonant with oneiric truth
again. Every element in the strip thus had to mosquito, trolleycaribou, — eleganteater, and poetic justice — that a whole new way of
make sense both rightside-up and upside- wildcaterpiller, falconductor, etc. life, or at least a new morality, could easily
down. Moreover, since each strip told a More than any other comic artist, be derived from it.
story, each panel had to be meticulously Verbeek approached the preoccupations of
coordinated as part of a coherent but
amazingly complex whole.
Few artists inany medium havechallenged
themselves to such an extent as Verbeek. With
unfailing rigor, he pursued his unlikely
quest week after week for over a year,
turning loose an astonishing horde of con-
vertible images. An elegant lady becomes a
duck. A farmer tugging at his beard be-
comes a hand reaching tor a squirrel. A
tousle-eared dog eating froma plate becomes
a moustachioed fortune-teller in a wide-
brimmed hat. Two men sleeping under a
haystack become a flying owl in tears. Ina
unique hermaphroditic pas-de-deux, the
Little Lady and the Old Man also turn into
each other, upside-down.
The strip strikingly recalls the literary
method of one of surrealism’s major precur-
sors. Starting with two different sentences
sounding exactly the same (the second being
Gustave VERBEEK: TheUpside Downs

64
 MILT GROSS (COUNT SCREWLOOSE)
Milt Gross presided serenely over a uni- loose, which ran for several years, starting in
verse in which unruliness was the golden 1929. Like Little Nemo and Krazy Kar, it
rule. Whether he was depicting the simplest consists of endless and never-tiring varia-
incidents of everyday life in New York’s tions on an elementary theme: The Count,
Lower East Side, or retelling the classics in an inmate of the Nuttycrest lunatic asylum,
his own inimitable way, or rewriting esoter- makes his escape at the beginning of each
strip, only to return eagerly at the end, after

3
ic chapters of ancient history, hilariously
calamitous intrusions could always be seeing that those “outside” are even crazier
counted on to disrupt the proceedings. than his fellow patients. “Iggy, keep an eye
His profusely illustrated narrative, Nize on me!” he says each time to his faithful ac-
Baby (1926), with its colorful Yiddishized complice, who happens to be a dog, and who
English (“Like for a nexample: is de law happens to think he’s Napoleon.
from gratification wot it proofs if it sets A lunatic’s critique of the “normal,”
onder a tree a man — so it'll fall him on de which is shown to be only another (and far
had a hepple!”), demonstrated his mastery of Milt GROSS: Nize Baby more malignant) form of lunacy, Count
comic dialogue. He Done Her Wrong (‘the evident in all his strips, from the early Phool Screwloose is a truly magnificent series. Its
Great Americian Novel and not a word in it Phan Phables (1915) through That’s My hard-hitting and unremitting satire often
— no music, too!”), published in 1930, re- Pop! which began in 1935 and was still overflows into the most glorious poetic non-
vealed his flair for mad and melodramatic turning up in comic books more than a sense. When this strip is collected and pub-
situations; it also showed his drawing at its decade later. lished as a book — it is high time! --~ it
vigorous, nervous, jolting, knockabout, Gross’s most powerful work, however, should be required reading for all
exaggerated best. These qualities are amply was a Sunday strip, Count Screwloose of Too- psychiatrists.

ELZIE C. SEGAR (POPEYE)

In his celebrated anthology in which the, and moocher (“I'll gladly pay you Tuesday he has had to fight for, and he is prepared to
term black humor first saw the light of day, for a hamburger today”); weird Alice the defend it tooth and nail. Popeye can be taken
André Breton called attention to the curious Goon; and the endearing Eugene the Jeep, almost as a symbol of the power, the historic
fact that two early partisans of this specifi- that “mysterious animal” with a “fourth- weight, that the working class had attained at
cally modern humor (Jonathan Swift and dimensional brain,” who lives on a diet of the time of the stock market crash. He ts
Petrus Borel) shared the same motto: / am orchids and predicts the future. (Goon and proud of his achievements, but still self-
what I am. This also happens, of course, to jeep, by the way, are words that Segar in- critical; sure of himself but rarely boastful,
be the motto of Popeye the Sailor, in a vari- troduced into the language.) and never complacent. He manifests a
ant of his own: J yam what I yam. And so the The illustrious forebears of Popeye’s strong sense of loyalty and solidarity, and is
great two-fisted, pipe-smoking sea-dog motto help us situate his epic historically. always ready for anything. I like to think
stands third in this grand epoch-spanning Swift was among the first to ridicule the’ that all these years he has had a red card in his
triumverate. ideological pretensions of the rising bour- ' pocket, signifying his membership in the
geoisie; Gulliver's Travels was a burning in- IWW’s Marine Transport Workers IU
Breton’s anthology is dated Paris, 1939.
The year before, Elzie Crisler Segar, crea- dictment of every dominant social value. 510. (Interestingly enough, Popeye ts blind
Nearly a century later Borel, as part of the in one eye, as were two of the best-known
tor of Popeye, died in California. Under
Segar’s infallible direction, Poopdeck extremist wing of French romanticism, Wobbly organizers: Frank Little and Big
Pappy’s trouble-shooting son mumbled and threw in his lot with the most revolutionary Bill Haywood. )
brawled his way from one wonderful adven- current of his time, and stood with Auguste Those who know Popeye only in its later
ture to the next, meanwhile eating enough Blanqui in the 1830 Revolution. “I need an incarnations as a gag strip for small children
spinach to cover every inch of Earth as well enormous amount of freedom,” said Borel. may be unaware of the far-soaring splendor
as the two moons of Mars. Popeye is always After yet another century, Popeye needs of its originator’s intrepid imagination. The
triumphant, yet always ingenuous — an even more freedom. All the freedom he has, Thimble Theater strip —— which Popeye
American proletarian Ulysses (or Lemuel entered as a guest, but soon took over —
Gulliver) whose odyssey started with the ELZIE C. SEGAR featured dramas born of dark and melan-
in print
Great Depression of ’29. choly brooding, defiantly aglow with dis-
Here isa figure of truly mythical propor- Thimble Theatre, 1928-1930: Introducing quieting surprises. Drawn by E.C. Segar’s
tions, known to hundreds of millions of Popeye (Hyperion, 173 pp., $8.95) inspired hand, the first decade of Popeye’s
people. Segar’s strip featured a host of mem- Bud Sagendorf, Popeye: The First Fifty Years adventures constitutes one of the comics’
orable beings, including J. Wellington (Workman, 144 pp., $8.95). Includes greatest glories.
Wimpy, rotund hamburger-addict, reputed several strips by Segar.
genius (with a 326 IQ), and full-time loafer
65
 Lwerte, How DYA LACQUER WHAT A
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HOLMAN , VAR SAIS SOAERI
CM A

(SMOKEY
STOVER)

In 1928, in La Revolution Surréaliste No. misadventures. These frantic fire-fighting or beards that protrude beyond their frames;
11, Louis Aragon and André Breton pub-- clowns-—~ who, incidentally, start more fires leap entirely outside these frames; recline in
than they put out — seem to live by a single hammocks slung between one frame and
lished a manifesto hailing “The Fiftieth
Anniversary of Hysteria.” (1) Deeply in- principle: extravagant disorder at all times another; or shoot peas through a pea-shooter
and at all costs. at figures in other pictures, or even at the
spired by some photographs of hysterical
taken a half-century In his own way Holman does exactly what main characters.
women patients
earlier but just discovered in the archives of the surrealist painter does: coneretize the ir- And everywhere — on the walls, doors,
the Saltpétriere Hospital where Charcot rational, Throughout Smokey Stover we see windows, floors, furniture, and even on the
pursued his research into this most elusive of the craziest furniture (an easy chair, for characters themselves —- are words. The
“mental ailments” -—— the surrealists af- example, rests not on legs but on the letters E. world’s zaniest graffiti grow wild, simply
firmed that, for them, hysteria was “the and Z); incomprehensible household wild, all over Smokey Stover. Words and
greatest poetic discovery of the end of the gadgets (“windshield viper,” “scrambled images freely collide in a frenzied Brownian
19th century,” and a “supreme means ofex- ax”); and vast ultra-elaborate contraptions movement, to the tune of Universal
pression.” Their manifesto not only indi- that prove Holman a worthy disciple of Analogy. In Holman’s hysterical hierogly-
cates the gulf separating surrealism from Rube Goldberg. Ever-changing portraits phic, a never-ending array of labels, tags
traditional esthetic categories but also adorn the walls. The figures in these por- and captions indicate the never-ending pos-
suggests to what extent the surrealist practice traits lead adventures of their own, often sibilities of relationships between signs and
of poetry had superseded all merely “clini- wholly unrelated to the rest of the story. things signified.
cal” frameworks in understanding the “real These portraits smoke real cigars; wear hats .
Asa master of punch lines, Holman has
functioning of thought.”
ELLIE, few peers. But no one in comics comes even
Elsewhere I have had occasion to remark
that “independently of the surrealist move- Gag close to his prowess as a wizard of wordplay;
ment, but wholly in the surrealist spirit, unquestionably, per square inch, he packs in
qualified defenders of the poetic spirit more puns — visual as well as verbal — than
staged, right in the midst of American popu- any artist before or since. He shows us green
P’s, blue J’s, brown I’s. The picture of a
lar culture, nothing less than their own cele-
bration of hysteria.” (2) In the forefront of little boy with the seat of his pants on fire is
this celebration was Bill Holman, who was
labeled “Flaming Youth.” A government
already actively cartooning in 1928 but official’s writing implement ts a “state pen.”
whose magnum opus was not to begin for A small globe in which two hatchets are im-
seven years. March 10, 1935 —a red-letter bedded becomes “The Earth and Its Axes.”
day for black humor — Smokey Stover was Puttering around in the kitchen, Smokey
-holds a whip in his hands —~ a “prune
unloosed on the world.
All that the word Aysterta implies gushes whip.” A man standing amidst a cluster of
from this fast-paced strip in unheard-of taxicabs sings “Deep in the Heart of
quantities, every which way and all at once. Taxies.” And so it goes, pun after pun after
The setting is a firehouse where Smokey pun — sometimes over a dozen in a single
Stover and the Chief, with an unending sup- strip. “Of chorus,” as Smokey says, “it
porting cast, pursue their nonstop rapid-fire could be verse.”
 All this mad “handwriting on the wall,” his objects are eager to make known their and published in book form, it will be one of
all these goofy pictures within pictures, all objections. a very few books of which we can say that it 1s
these irrational objects whose sole function is Smokey Stover could be regarded as the surrealist from cover to cover.
symbolic —— all these elements of a back- last holdout of vaudeville burlesque slap- 1 have said it before and Pl say it again:
ground in constant metamorphosis — form stick. But it is something more. For in order Everlasting glory to Smokey Stover!
a kind of oneiric counterpoint that serves to enable his slapstick to survive at all,
above all to emphasize the pervasive, total, Holman had to raise it to the third — or (1) A translation of this document is included in
fourth, or fifth — power. Quantity inevi- André Breton, What Is Surrealism?(New York,
definitive delirium that characterizes the
Monad Press, 1978), pp. 320-1. 2
whole strio. Nothing is stable or static in tably passed into quality, and lo! a new and
(2) “The 100th Anniversary of Hysteria,” catalog
Holman’s world. His images refuse to stay unhoped-for marvel was added to our lives. of the Surrealism in 1978 exhibition at the
put; his words are out looking for trouble; When every one ofthese strips is collected Ozaukee Art Center, Milwaukee.

CHESTER GOULD
(DICK TRACY)
It is the same with comics as with movies count for little: it is the /afenf content that
W ve cons! it’s— commands our notice. What do these comics
or paintings or poems: out of ahundred, one LA LASOne ORY :
or two may hit the mark. The dominant show us? A mercilessly steady stream of
ideas of an epoch, as the ABC of Marxism snapshots: brutally altered primal scenes,
demonstrated so irrefutably so long ago, are traumatic memories, Oedipal rages, savage
the ideas of the ruling class; and when the impulses, fits of ferocity, lust and venge-
ruling class is the bourgeoisie — intrinsi- ance. The seven deadly sins multiplied a
cally hostile to art and poetry, as Marx ob- thousandfold cavort and grovel in these
served — the things expressed in the great stark panoramas of unconscious mental pro-
bulk of what passes for art, including cesses. In Will Fisner’s compelling Spirit,
popular art, inevitably are saturated with in The Shadow (drawn by several hands), in
bourgeois values. Jack Cole’s admirable Plastic Man we are
And thus for every Krazy Kat or Little DICK TRACY presented with shattering, nightmarish
Nemo or Smokey Stover — sparkling with comics that challenge musty traditions and dramas —- as gory and disfigured, perhaps,
all the colors of freedom and love — there overturn mental habits; comics that give a as Grunewald’s Crucifixion or Goya’s Disas-
are dozens, scores, Aundreds of Steve chance to the “impossible” (the mask behind ters of War, but also just as authentic in their
Canyons, Mary Worths, Brenda Starrs, which the desirable is so frequently forced to passionate portrayal of the return of the
Rex Morgans, Captain Americas, Little hide). Is it necessary to add that virtually repressed.
Orphan Annies and Star Wars: four-color nothing which matters to us — nothing in- Pride of place among the comics’ detee-
props for a dying social order, fundamental- spiring, subversive, emancipatory, poetic tives belongs to Chester Gould’s pioneering
ly prosaic and hopelessly subservient to the —- will be found in the plethora of comics Dick Tracy. Starting on the 4th of October,
ideological needs of the whole repressive devoted to family life, soap operas, spies, 1931, this laconic, angular, trench-coated
apparatus, from the State Department all the military exploits, sports, pets or the shenani- knight has ventured boldly through the
way down the chain of churches, Boy Scouts gans of “bobby soxers”? That there are, here streets of Chicago to do battle with an aston-
and Ku Klux Klan to the stoolpigeons for the and there, a few rare exceptions, serves only ishing cast of villains. In the very nerve-
CIA. as usual to prove the rule. center of America’s criminal underworld,
In the comics, as everywhere else, the Still less should we expect to find subver- Depression/Prohibition Chicago -—_ the
struggle between the marvelous and the mis- sive/poetic qualities in those comics that con- Chicago of Al Capone and Bugs Moran,
erable is waged unrelentingly. We want sciously aim at the glorification of detectives whose rival gangs of bootleggers were
comics that dream and inspire dreams; and cops. And yet, though the great majority machine-gunning each other all over town
of these comics are irredeemably dreary, the
exceptions are both sufficiently numerous
and of such indisputably high quality that we
are confronted with what might seem to be
an anomalous circumstance. The problem,
however, 1s easily solved: The extreme in-
tensity of conflict in these comics, their
fevered acceptance of the omnipresence of
crime and malevolence, their dark obses-
siveness and constantly recurring violence
are such that the artists often are carried
away by their creations. On such emotional-
FLATTOP ly charged terrain, conscious intentions SHAKY

67
 early years. Wet streets glisten with greed ferings and a stack of sympathy cards arrived
—~ Tracy was the first in comics to begin, in at the office of the syndicate which distributes
Chester Gould’s words, “fighting it out face and fear as we follow crazed killers in their the strip. That night a crowd of bereaved
to face with crooks via the hot lead route.” gloomy sedans, roaring through the citizens gathered... and held a wake, com-
Gould has expressly denied being influ- shadows to an inexorable doom. plete with a coffin and candles, for Flattop.
enced by Dashiell Hammett or other “hard- Many people have since written Gould
It is beyond question that Gould con- touching letters, expressing their deep sense
boiled” mystery writers. But there is no sciously — with all his heart — is on the side of personal loss... . A woman living on the
doubt that the work of such writers, which the cops. He is an inveterate champion of
of West Coast asked the ageless question, ‘Why
enjoyed such wide popularity from the mid- law ’n’ order, a hater of crooks who likes to did he have to die?’ and added sadly, ‘All
1920s through the ’40s, helped prepare an spend his free time visiting police stations to America loved Flattop.” (2)
audience for Tracy. And Tracy, in turn, has see how the boys are doing in their war on We read Dick Tracy the way we read
influenced the crime/mystery genre, not crime. But at night, when he shuts his eyes, Cotton Mather’s Wonders af the [nvisible
only in comics but in literature, radio, and sometimes
he can’t help dreaming; World. Both are works of apoplectic puri-
movies. Ellery Queen has credited him with
tanism, bursting at the seams with an uncon-
being “the world’s first procedural detective
trollable and “righteous” fury. But we are as
of fiction.” (1) CHESTER GOULD
in print little interested in Gould’s respect for the law
The real interest of Dick Tracy, however,
as we are in the fine points of the old witch-
lies elsewhere. Tracy himselfis of decidedly
hunter’s theology. What interests us is the
minor interest, always peripheral to the strip Dick Tracy, The Thirties: Tommy Guns and insuperable violence of the dramatic colli-
that bears his name. The central figures of Hard Times (Chelsea House, 320 pp.,
sions and the dazzling profusion ofobsessive
the strip, its prime attractions and the $15)
reasons for its success, invariably have been
detail.
Let us conclude by paraphrasing Blake:
the “bad guys.” The real theme of Dick dreams enjoy the sweetest revenge. “I don’t The reason Chester Gould writes in fetters
Tracy is: the fascination of Evil.
outline the whole story when I start,” Gould when he portrays Iaw-Abiding Citizens and
Look at its unparalleled roster of gro-
has admitted. “I feel if Idon’t know how it is Cops, and at liberty when he portrays Evil-
tesque rogues: Littleface, B-B Eyes, Mole, going to come out, then the reader can’t, and doers and Criminals, is that he is — uncon-
Flattop, Pruneface, Mrs. Pruneface,
if you keep enough punch and enough in- sciously at least, and in spite of himself — ‘a
Mumbles, The Brow, The Blank, Shaky
terest, the intervening ground seems to be true Poet and of the Devil’s party without
and a host of others. It is these incarnations covered automatically.” knowing it.”
of Satan — these insatiably cruel, deformed, Even such a casual concession to automa-
horrible abominations — who hold the spot- tism has serious consequences. In spite of
light as they move from outrage to outrage,
Gould’s precautions, poetry wreaks its own
gun or dagger in hand, through an imme- havoc and achieves its own infallible justice.
NOTES
morial darkness spattered with moonlight To cite but one example: When one of the
and blood. We are in the old Gothic wilder-
Dick Tracy villains, the psychopathic killer (1) Introduction to The Celebrated Cases of Dick
ness; it has been industrialized and urban- Tracy, 1931-1951 (New York, Chelsea House,
Flattop, died
ized, of course, and the moldering castles re- 1970), p. xxv.
placed by skyscrapers, but the atmosphere “|. Gould received half a dozen telegrams
(2) Lancelot Hogben, From Cave Painting to
Comic Strip (new York, Chanticleer Press, 1949),
remains essentially the same. A cold metallic from people who offered to claim the body.
p. 216.
solitude rings through the Tracy epic in its ... The day of the funeral, several floral of-

JACK KENT (KING AROO)

King Aroo belongs to that comic fraterni- runs away from home, seeking to join the “Spells and Curses — 5¢.” We also meet an
ty of half-pint monarchs whose entire de- Gypsies. elephant who is plagued with forgetfulness
meanor qualifies them, however paradoxi- Whoever sets foot in Myopia must expect (“Pm one of those animals that ‘never
cally, as anti-Oedipal father figures. The the unexpected. In this tiny kingdom where forgets’ — 1 know that much — but I’ve
child-sized King of Myopia, however, has enchantment is the natural order of things, forgotten what animal that is!”); a mountain
neither the tight-lipped arrogance of O. each of Aroo’s many boon companions dis- goat afflicted with acrophobia; and a bird
Soglow’s Little King, nor the sheer paranoid poses of unique and compelling charms. that has built its next of violin-strings (“Pve
cantankerousness of the royal midget in The The bald and moustachioed Yupyop is the ‘got the only nest in Myopia that has to be
Wizard of Id. Aroo is rather a mild- king’s official yes-man —— a one-man royal periodically tuned!”).
mannered, unassuming, even jovial fellow, retinue who holds every position from chan- It should go without saying that these un-
though very much inclined to nostalgia and cellor to pastry cook. Mr. Penntpost is a compromisingly oneiric creatures engage
reverie. He dreams of living happily ever kangaroo who delivers the mail and plays the only in the most improbable adventures.
after with a beautiful princess who lives in saxophone. Drexel, the fire-breathing The humor of King Aroo exudes much the
the Kingdom Next Door. Fundamentally dragon, declares himself to be a pacifist. same spirit as the silent film comedies of
indifferent to his kingly duties, he frolics The irresistible little Wanda Witch orders Harry Langdon: the wide-eyed innocence of
with his friends, brightens up his castle by magic potions through a mail-order cata- a lovesick somnambulist playing solitaire
doodling on the walls, and now and then logue, and pushes a handcart peddling chess in a rowboat about to go over Niagara

68
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Jack KENT: King Aroo

Halls. And so the story proceeds: one de- pushed by the king himself. Once Aroo pher is so engrossed by the bird’s perfor-
lightful catastrophe after another, viewed stumbles on some ants who are having a mances that he forgets to snap the picture.
through the lens of gentle wonderment. picnic; he tries to help himself to the potato
Jack Kent’s Myopia can be pinpointed on
chips, but an ant angrily protests: “I wish we the map. It isat the exact geographical center
At every turn we confront situations that ‘ants’ could have a picnic just once without between the Land of the Houyhnhnms, the
could happen nowhere else but in this de- ‘people’ pestering us!” Then there is the original Wonderland, Coconino County
fiantly dreamlike dominion. A flea bites photographer’s “little birdie” who, in his and the Okefenokee Swamp. It is close to all
Yupyop and = gets ptomaine poisoning, efforts to rivet the attention of those who sit of these, but nonetheless far enough away to
whereupon he — the flea, that is — is before the camera, does a juggling act as well have a climate and a way of life that are
regarded as a ward of the state and gets the as a song-and-dance routine; alas! he proves wholly its own.
royal treatment; his plush wheelchair is to be only too successful, for the photogra-

GEORGE CARLSON
(JINGLE JANGLE TALES)
Comic books aimed at the tiniest tots are so far beyond the field of credibility that one Faustroll, row through the streets in a boat,
nearly always insufferable. As is the case quickly despairs of ever making sense of using a broom and a banjo for oars —~ or 1n
with most literature imposed on children, them. Bristling with an extravagance of ir- emergencies take a faxicrab (in homage to
they are utterly devoid of imagination. In its rational detail, dramatized by an over- Gustave Verbeek). Carlson’s apocalyptic
place we get a stereotyped silliness, the same whelming nervous fluidity, his work is the daffiness is as unique as the Taj Mahal, buta
stupid stories over and over, and an all- most militantly baroque in comic art. thousand times more formidable. All of his
pervasive “cuteness” so repulsive that it Only Carlson could have given us a tale “Jingle Jangle Tales,” and the adventures of
would give heartburn to a snowman. These such as “The Extra-Stylish Ostrich and the “The Pie-Face Prince of Pretzleburg,” are
comics are not only dull — they are deadly Sugar-Lined Necktie,” with its cigar- closer in spirit to Lautréamont, Benjamin
dull: a hideously typical product of a civili- smoking
sun and its self-winding watchdog; Péret and Joseph Jablonski than to Little
zation engaged in a permanent war against in which the characters, much like Dr. Lotta, Atomic Mouse or Casper the Friendly
children, Ghost.
The most notable exception-proving-the- The 1940s were years of counter-revolu-
rule is Jingle Jangle Comics, which ran for tion, and consequently of reactionary
forty-two issues from February 1942 to De- “realism”: abject surrender to the “‘accom-
cember ’49. Never really a big hit in its day, plished facts” of Hiroshima and the House
it seems all but forgotten now except by col- Un-American Activities Committee. “In-
lectors. What made it exceptional then, and tellectuals” were taking up existentialism,
still worth recalling today, are the stories (in “coolness” and other accomodative fads —
nearly every issue) written and drawn by one knocking each other down as they quit the
of the most eccentric artists in or out of Left for higher-paying jobs on the Right.
comics: George Carlson. Meanwhile, unpretentious artists such as
Defying the timeworn formulas of fables George Carlson — and the workingclass
and fairy tales, Carlson’s work is outlandish- parents who read his stories to their three-
ly original — to such an extent that it some- year-olds at bedtime — were helping to pre-
times gives the impression of having pare the way for the revolutionary imagina-
George CARLSON: 1001 Riddles tion’s inevitable revenge.
emanated from another planet. His plots are
69
 ab.

Penelope ROSEMONT: The Duckburg General Strike (oil on canvas, 1979)

70
 BASIL WOLVERTON (POWERHOUSE PEPPER)
war against everything the Comics Code
The post-World-War-II war on comics kids. Some artists, of course, and countless
kids, fought back with all they had. Harvey stands for.
— which led to the infamous “Comics Wolverton is a truly scandalous artist: in-
Kurtzman’s Mad served as a rallying point
Code” — was not, as is commonly believed, ruthless. His
for a whole generation of recalcitrant solent, uncompromising,
an exclusively Right-wing campaign. Of
American youth. Fventually it too was do- work ranges from the white-hot to the unbe-
course it was McCarthyist in essence, and
mesticated, but not before unloosing some of lievably cold. He has created an immense
championed by fascists and churchmen. But
the most vigorous satire ofthe 1950s. And at number of comic characters, and has worked
it also was supported by liberals, free-
least one of the Afad stars never gave up: the in nearly every genre, including humor,
thinkers, Communists and Leftists of all His
westerns, horror and science fiction.
kinds. That is just the sort of thing that heroic Basil Wolverton, aone-man guerrilla
featuring the “lone
haunting Spacehawk,
happens in counter-revolutionary periods.
wolf of the void,” is superior in all respects
Leaf through some comic books of those
to better-known outer-space strips, such as
days and you will see just what it was that the
Flash Gordon. Powerhouse Pepper, probably
—
oo
guardians of the “American Way of Life” =

Wolverton’s best work, isa hard proletarian

=
2,
were so eager to suppress. Horror comics i
2z bourgeois Joc Palooka,
sock at the corny
with foaming-at-the-mouth ghouls, half- £
Wi drenched in the blackest humor. In “Disk-
rotted corpses, ax-murderers and necro- =
? Eyes the Detective” a cast of cold-blooded,
philes on the rampage; crime comics
hard-boiled maniacs play a goofy cops-and-
showing honest citizens getting their heads
robbers. “Flap Flipflop, the Flying Flash”
blown off by joy-riding, machine-gunning featured a tiny pilot ofa tiny plane; unable to
gangsters and their heroin-using teenage concentrate on flying, he prefers to read or
girlfriends; adventure comics featuring
sleep. In his first appearance he crashes
voluptuous, scantily clad, high-heeled
through an army depot control tower, but ts
heroines in the cluches of an endless series of too engrossed by Einstein’s Theory of Rela-
sadists. Middle-class parents simply didn’t tivity to notice: “This book I brought hasr’t
want to look at such things — above all got such a hot plot for a tot,” he remarks,
didn’t want their children to look. For these BASIL WOLVERTON “but it’s not a lot of rot.”
comics contained a stark, brutal, unmis-
in print In all his work, Wolverton defies the law
takable message: The war for “Democracy” and spits in the face of authority. Incessantly
may have been won, but barbarism
excessive, he always has refused to “know
flourished everywhere. Spacehawk (Archival Press, 64 pp., $3.95)
when to stop.” Yet even at his most out-
The anti-comics crusade was not aimed Folio rageous, he is always prince/y: elegance runs ~
Foopgoop Frolics Frantic Funnies
primarily at the publishers, who easily ad- (Glenn Bray, 52 pp., $10) through his uproariousness. Much of his
justed themselves to the changed conditions work might be in the worst possible taste,
and put out a new “safe” line. The war on “GJDRKZLXCBWQ” Comics (Glenn Bray,
but still: Its the highest quality bad taste in
comics was aimed at — and hit— the most 32 pp., 65¢)
the world.
vulnerable sector of the proletariat: school

CARL BARKS
(UNCLE SCROOGE)
Carl Barks never explicitly quarreled The greatest of all comic storyre/fers,
If the Comics Code made few waves in the Barks is at his best in the narration of mar-
with the Disney Code. Quietly taking the
world of Walt Disney, it was because “Cit- velous guests. He takes us to the Seven Cities
formulas as handed to him, he nonchalantly
zen Walt, the Last ‘I'ycoon” had long before of Cibola, King Solomon's Lost Mines,
his transformed them from top to bottom, Out
enforced a repressive, parochial code of ghost towns of the Old West, the Ever-
Disne y's ambit ion of readymade material he elaborated a uni-
own on his employees. glades, Atlantis, the Yukon, and even to the
verse precisely as he wanted it, gradually
seems to have been to impose bourgeois re- center of the Earth which, we learn, 18 in-
adding to it until soon there was far more in
spectability on the raucous nihilism of the habited by tribes of rolling ball-like people
it of his own than of Disney’s. He is the crea-
early comics and animated cartoons —~ to known as Terries and Fermies (their favo-
. tor of Unele Scrooge and author of most of
tame these savage genres: for a fee, of course rite sport is making earthquakes). With
Walt Disney's Comics && Stories. His comics
His success is only too well known. Barks, the oldest myths spring to life and
It so happens, however, by one of those were so immensely popular that his depar-
tures from orthodox Disneyism were allowed lead to heroic adventures. We follow his
“twists of fate” that make life always more
to pass; Barks enjoyed an autonomy that no dauntless ducks eagerly as they search for the
interesting than philosophy, that the Disney
other Disney artist ever approached. And it Golden Fleece, the lost crown of Genghis
studios harbored for decades an artist who
is our good fortune that he consistently made Khan, the Flying Dutchman, the Fountain
can be regarded as truly and wonderfully
the most of it. of Youth, the Philosopher’s Stone.
subversive, in the best sense of the word.

71
 ciple: “the hand that inflicts the wound is
We encounter outstanding adversaries,
CARL BARKS also the hand that heals it.”
most notably the “terrible Beagle Boys,” a Because of his obession with voyages of
in print
yang of cutthroats who wear their masks all
seekers, his preference for symbolic dis-
the time, even when locked up, and wear course, and his ambiguous irony, Barks
their prison numbers even when outside. In Uncle Scrooge (Abbeville Press, 213 pp., could be regarded asthe Herman Melville of
or out of jail, they spend most of their time $15) 18 stories in full color; foreword by
comics. Unquestionably, as the art of
contriving schemes to plunder Scrooge Barks
graphic storytelling develops, he will be
MeDuck’s untold fantasticatillions. There is Donald Duck (Abbeville Press, 195 pp., recognized as one of those who did most to
also the ‘“‘spitfire sorceress” Magica de $15) 10 stories in full color; foreword by advance it. He has given the comic strip
Spell, who lives on the slope of Vesuvius, Barks
power to express things considered inex-
and who, seeking to devise a powerful talis-
pressible before him. Perhaps the time is not
man, will stop at nothing to get Scrooge’s neath a naive and taciturn exterior, he is
far off when people will speak of Melville as
first dime. clearly a man of great passion and deep in-
the Carl Barks of literature.
The heroes of most of Barks’ tales are not tegrity. Subtly and serenely, he kicks the
For those of us who grew up in the 195(s,
the world’s richest duck or his scatterbrained ground out from under numerous retro-
Barks’ work was a life-saving oasis. It was
nephew Donald, but Donald’s trio of grade cultural assumptions. He has the
highest regard for primordial innocence, his work that first made us aware of the ex-
nephews: Huey, Dewey and Louie,
tent to which comics could express our
members of the Junior Woodchucks of the and distrusts the enemies of that innocence.
World. Armed with their Junior Wood- The story of Scrooge’s sojourn in the fara- deepest aspirations.
This much is sure: Without comics, sur-
chucks’ Guidebook, that incomparable fount way valley of Tra-la-la is a devastating attack
realism would be very different from what it
of universal wisdom, the brilliant duckling on money. In the tale of the “Seven Cities,”
is in the U.S. today. Those who wish to
brothers find answers to questions that leave the hidden splendor is destroyed through
know the specifically American sources of sur-
their elders paralyzed and helpless. It is greed. “The Land of the Pygmy Indians”
(featuring a lost tribe who speak in iambic realism here and now could hardly do better
Huey, Dewey and Louie who, for example, than to study the comics — especially of the
in ancient Colchis, literally pull the wool pentameter, like Hiawatha) is a poignant de- ’40s and ’5(s — and above all the works of
over the eyes of the sleepless dragon. nunciation of capitalist rapacity. Steeped in
the tireless chronicler of the doings in
What | have called Barks’ subversive history and mythic lore, and scorning empty
quality is manifest particularly in the de- didacticism, Barks inspires a thirst for Duckburg.
Franklin ROSEMONT
lightful irony that permeates his work. Be- knowledge in keeping with Hegel’s prin-

Sin
George CARLSON: 1001 Riddles

ICS vs. “POP ART”

One must never have read a single comic work of this latest scoundrel, whom they the size of the frames of the comics he copies,
strip, in one’s whole existence, to find the exalt, some insignificant detail from the most one would see that his work never equals the
slightest interest in a painting by Roy stupid of all strips, with which to cover their latter, either in force or in efficacy. Confront
Lichtenstein which reproduces a gigantically immaculate walls. his paintings with any frame by George
enlarged frame fron. a sentimental comic such We are told that Lichtenstein “has raised Herriman, Hal Foster, Alex Raymond or Lee
as The Heart of Juliet Jones, or from the mili- the comic strip to the level of painting.” But I Falk: you will see that the ugliness of his work
tarist sort such as Ranger Comics. Nonethe- would reply -— only to the level of the worst in comparison, far from incriminating the
less, the snob collectors who spend millions so painting: that of the stereotype, imitation, comics as a genre, condemns only the choice
that their Chiricos and their Pollocks can face blundering and sterile repetition. . . . [In Lichtenstein has made of them, in his base-
these ‘‘denatured” images (they consider Lichtenstein’s work] we see only the weakest ness and esthetic totalitarianism.
them “denatured” because they have been examples of comics, the most insipid and Robert BENAYOUN
enlarged) will continue to look down on the retrograde: because those are the ones he Le Ballon dans le bande dessinée
comic strips; they are happy to find, in the prefers. If one were to reduce his paintings to Paris, André Balland, 1968

72
 OH! 1 CAN'T SIT
NEXT 10 A FROG!
1 MIGHT SIT WITH
A HOG BUT NOT ,
FROG OR
ACrags HAP TOAD
va ee

Winsor McCAY: Dream Days

WINSOR McCAY: ONEIRIC PHILOSOPHER

and was quickly recruited to New York City decade 1904-14, ably introduced by Bill
It staggers the mind to realize that thou- Blackbeard and Woody Gilman.
where he spent a frenetic career till his death
sands, many thousands, of Winsor McCay’s McCay combines the most mundane de-
sublime dream drawings lie in the in 1934. Painstaking craftsman, delirious
artist and film animator, he has remained tails of daily life with the most far reaching
molde ring files of old newspapers, while the
perhaps the greatest cartoon artist of them all. possibilities of the mind. His characters and
most ludicrous and pretentious “Art” domi- scenes do not merely help us momentarily to
nates the walls of American museums. How escape a humdrum existence — a service
and how stupid, that American To date, the most impressive effort at re-
tragic, they no doubt performed for the chief audi-
printing McCay — and the only one with
Culture pays off its dreariest esthetes and ence ofthe early comic pages, the blue-collar
buries the true architects of the mass culture color plates — is the Nostalgia Press Edition
of Little Nemo, priced well beyond the urban mass; as McCay himself might have
soul,
means of the ordinary reader. Dreams of a guessed, they also foretel/ the future. When
But there is a logic to this. McCay has
Rarebit Fiend (Dover, 1973) offers a our revolutionary reverie becomes the
been largely ignored because his mode of human pattern, we will all Ave ina McCay
drawing and his message are universally
delightful selection from another McCay
series. Most recently, Dream Days (Hy- world.
translatable, insensible in any non-popular
Born in the late 1880s, he began perion, 1978) puts together a fascinating
context. Paul BUHLE
drawing for a Cincinatti newspaper in 1903 sampler of oneiric creations spanning the
73
 POETRY IN THE COMICS:
WALT KELLY’S
CHURCHY LA FEMME
SONGS
Some of the best American poetry of re- extravagant plays on words, following a McGinty.” Churchy’s version of “My
cent years is the work of a turtle who lives in kind of phonetic equivalent of the “para- Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” goes like this:
the Okefenokee Swamp. noiac-critical” method, by which any given
The lyrics of Churchill Ia Femme — image can be indefinitely multiplied. Ma Bunny lice soda devotion!
Churchy to his friends -— have never ap- “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” thus May booney life-saver D.C.!
peared in elitist “magazines of verse.” becomes “Caramel Bag =‘Twofold McBoniface Rover Commotion,
Blithely unconcerned with Literature, our Oh, brickbat Mahoney Toomey!
troubadour turtle sang his songs for years in
the daily newspapers, as an integral part of His “Home on the Range” has this
Walt Kelly’s justly renowned comic strip, chorus:
Pogo.
Each character in Pogo, as in every comic Whom, how many rage,
strip (and in real life, too, for that matter), Weary beer in the cantaloupe age?
has its own very special, personal qualities:
Dr. Howland Owl, the mad scientist; Porky Here is another old favorite, thoroughly
the cynical but sentimental porcupine; revised:
Beauregard the nostalgic dog; Albert the
Alligator, lovable braggart and would-be Oh, pick a pack of peach pits,
playboy who is always hungry and will eat Pockets full of pie,
anything; and Pogo Possum himself, the Foreign twenty blackboards
calm, quiet Voice of Reason, always willing Baked until they cry.
to lend a hand, and always taken advantage
of by all and sundry. Winnipeg was open,
Churchy is the Okefenokee’s poet. The burst again to sing,
Unlike most turtles, he is neither slow- NO RHYME OA, worse than that a Danish ditch
moving nor dull-witted. On the contrary, FOR REASON! Was two-by-four the king!
he is fleet and graceful as a dancer, with an
intelligence that always sparkles even if it In the Okefenokee Swamp an absurd po- The utterest nonsense? Of course! Non-
etry contest is staged between an earthworm sense has long been one of poetry’s chief
does, often, go far afield. Everything about ‘and an alligator; a self-taught cow does not
him helps characterize him as an imspired know how to moo; a dog takes himself for a hideouts, relatively safe from academic
dreamer. He is a pirate, but very gentle. He cuckoo. Genus and species yield wholly to a meddling. And the comics, so derided by
is one of the most gifted clowns in comics. carrousel of errors and defiances, formally those afflicted with the esprit de serieux, re-
contradicting Buffon at every turn. mains one of the chief outposts for nonsense.
Sometimes he pretends to be a beautiful Such is the climate of Pogo, written and
young girl. He is obsessively afraid of drawn by Walt Kelly, one of the rare comic As Gelett Burgess mourned, there is far
Friday the 13th, especially when it falls on strips to win the recognition of being pub- too little “sheer, premeditated absurdity” in
Monday. He is an ardent partisan of calen- lished in book form. Edward Lear, whose our world. Nonsense allows the mind to
spirit pervades the series from beginning to wander in delight. It helps us recover
dar reform, seeking to prolong the month of end (preoccupied as he was, long before
October to a full year, so that New Year’s, Magritte, by the relation of word and image),
equilibrium in an insanely over-rationalized
for example, would ‘fall on October the would certainly have appreciated such mani- society.
96th. festations as these, further enhanced by a Walt Kelly’s Pogo is one of the great
Often we see him playing a musical in- graphic sense worthy of the best nonsensical works of nonsense. In Churchy La Femme’s
doodlers. songs we have an imaginatian running amok
strument. And at any moment he is likely to
Robert BENAYOUN
break into song. to the point of magnificence. What more
Médium/Informations Surrealistes
His songs are based on well-known No. 8, June 1953
could we ask for?
songs, but are not exactly parodies. They are Penelope ROSEMONT

74
 The Eye’s Shadow
SURREALISM & BLACK MUSIC
By Way of an— “Not interested in music,” said Giorgio de - thought, and also to suggest certain reciprocal
~-Like a Thief in the Night — Chirico. communications.
Introduction
“The most confusing of all forms,” wrote
express Music Is Dangerous :
“Every notion of black is too feeble to Breton on musical expression in Surrealism and
the long wailin g of black on black as it glows Painting. Paul Nougé, the leading theorist of the surreal-
brilliantly.” But most important, for surrealists, what is at ist movement in Belgium, delivered in 1929 a lec-
— Cesar Moro stake (and this applied as much then as it does ture which was published in English under the
now) is not merely the elaboration of an esthetic title Music Is Dangerous. Beginning his essay
When the sun sinks its teeth into the red hori- attitude peculiar to music but also the elaboration with an elaboration of the different reasons ad-
zon, the black flag of night unfurls its shimmering of a revolutionary poetic conception of life: vanced for a person’s affection for music, he con-
colors over a landscape whose shadows are the
Asserting the primacy of imaginative modes of tinued by discussing the relative roles of auditor
lovebeds of a thousand chimeras, all apprehension over the fixed forms of logic, and and performer at musical performances, insisting
molten
attired in suits made of liana keyholes, exuding a the primacy of inspiration over memory, this that we suffer under a gross illusion if we believe
that “‘in the presence of music, we retain our full
scent which invites temptation, like the echo ofa conception of life, in the eyes of surrealists, has
been audaciously confirmed by the whole spec- independence while in the role of witness or spec-
deathcry, bitten on the wing, and which pierces
trum of black sensibility — from the body tattoos tator,” and further that “we are not long in
the honeydew serenity of the African jungle’s
ot the Nuba to the paintings of Wifredo Lam, realizing that actually we are not judging some-
“fore day chorus.” This night landscape, open thing, but taking part in something.” The jazz
like a map of flaming tongues, now discloses itself from Yoruba trickster tales to the poetry of Aimé
Césaire, from the “underground railroad” to the musician Leo Smith affirmed this position, stating
to be the arena par excellence of magnetic em- that ‘‘a piece of improvisation is done, and after
braces, the embraces within embraces of those Moroccan War, from Haitian voodoo chants to
in the music of Thelonious Sphere Monk. it’s done there’s nothing to be said about it be-
who, with no exceptions, dare to risk their lives
As expressed in the liner notes to the album cause it affects your life whether you like it or
the hope of perceiving, if only for a fleeting blue
moment, “the light that will cease to fail.” Andat Fanfare for the Warriors by the Art Ensemble of not.”
No culture or com- Whether you like it or not! And how many
the heart of this landscape, with his feet firmly on Chicago, “TRUTH SAYS:
of munity of people has provided as much latitude people recoil at the black musician’s bold articu-
the ground and his eyes anchored in the orbit lation of the drama of freedom, merely — or
the heavens, is the shadow through the Jooking for creativity and uplifted as many other cultures
as the African experience and input into the field should I say especially? — because their ears
glass — like a thief in the night, The Black Man. have been reduced to nothing, pierced as they are
It is also this night, this hotbed of seething pos- of so-called Art. Those contributions were not
only original, rich and innovative but have con- each morning by the shrill cry of the alarm clock,
sibilities —- this permanent rendezvous of signaling the end to the freedom of dreams, in
repressed desires, where the wildest vicissitudes tinued through the ages to serve as a spiritual
barometer of things to come! An indisputable which their very wishes are fulfilled; summoned
of our everyday life are acted out — where sur- to a daily grave where even the vestige of a
realism, from the start, set its sights, and where
it fact of here, there and after . . .” The object of the
following discussion is to synthesize the evidence, memory of this momentary gratification of their
recorded its first resounding victories on the desires is denied them? The black drummer
seismograph of poetic vengeance. With its ex- rational and otherwise, of this intervention of the
re- black sensibility in the evolution of poetic Milford Graves, perhaps the most outspoken
periments in hypnotic and trance states, the commentator on the relationship of music to the
cordin g of dreams , the practi ce of automa tic
— public, once said, “There’s a different rhythm of;
writing, the exploration of objective chance the self that a lot of people are not aware of,” and ,
the
that is, with a sensibility acutely attuned to it is this rhythm, a rhythm conceived as a violent
farthest reaches of human destiny — it could not
rit
NVAPY A WALT
_ antithesis to the miserable noise of our existence,
be long before surrrealism, armed with such a hh it alls4
which assures us that each of our encounters with
in ac-
marvelous arsenal, should make contact, music is, despite appearances, a serious adven-
cordance with Fourier’s theory of passional at- ture” (Nougé).
ex-
traction, with the life (and its mythopoetic Another surrealist, Franklin Rosemont, has
-
pression) of the African peoples and their descen suggested that “the entire evolution of jazz from
whose lives are charac terize d by a keen +:
dants, the 1920s to the present reads like a line-by-line
and
receptivity to, and fear of, the unknown, response to the challenge advanced by . . .
whose mythology develops under the aegis of ~ Nougé,” stressing Nougé’s argument that the
ative modes of apprehension, in contrast
imagin prosperity of music and musicians depends on “a
~.
to the restrictions of logical modes plaguing the deliberate will to act upon the world.” Certainly
Western world.
one of the most outstanding characteristics of
References to black music by the early sur-
". jazz, especially since bebop, has been its elabora-~
realists, as noted in derogatory tones by bour- tion of protest, its impassioned resistance to all
-
geois hack critics, were indeed few, mainly sur- forms of repression. As Max Roach put it, “the
-
facing in poetic texts and the like. But even these artist must reflect the tempo of his times, he must
preliminary reverberations were extremely pro- try and bring about changes where possible.”
vocative — articulating, in the boldest terms, a And this is only the beginning!
correspondence still in the process of becoming,
and even tacitly suggesting a disquieting in- “We cannot escape music”
fluence of black music on surrealism from the ‘-
_ Nougé also proposed that ‘the feelings pro-
very beginning. The hue and cry raised by critics
over the early surrealists’ attitude toward music B voked by music” could produce ‘‘the most sur-
was no doubt mainly due to the surrealists’ Victor BRAUNER: prising effects — sometimes utterly unexpected
refusal to reduce their interrogation of music (or Portrait of Thelonius Monk by those responsible for them.” In December of
of anything, for that matter!) toa mere voicing of (1948) 1929 the fantastic writer H.P. Lovecraft said in a
esthetic affection. letter to J.F. Morton: “You cannot tell me that an

75
Aeolian harp plays anything but jazzy blues. .. .” historical stage reached in this epoch of the de- ly influenced by his profound awareness of all
This line, surprisingly similar in content to cline of capitalism) in all its forms, and thus the that blues comprehends and implies, has devoted
Breton’s phrase, “the mysterious wind of jazz,” preparation for a future vastly more livable. As a detailed study to the subject of Blues and
invoked in his Introduction to the Discourse on an oft-sung lyric states: ‘’The sun’s gonna shine in the Poetic Spirit. Combining psychoanalytic
the Paucity of Reality (1924) as well as the my back door some day; the wind’s gonna rise, methodology with a surrealist critique, the book
phrase by Nadja, ‘the blue and the wind; the blue blow my blues away.” surveys the whole gamut of creative activity as
wind,” would seem to have come, as they say, References to blues by the early surrealists in it appears in the blues. His discussion is organized
out of the blue, if it were not for certain sug- Paris are virtually nonexistent (because of their around the themes: Eros, Aggression, Humor,
gestive, albeit farfetched, evidence. indifference to music, and also because blues is Travel, Alcohol and Drugs, Male Supremacy,
During the summer of 1926 Duke Ellington sung in the English language). But just as jazz is Liberation of Women, Night, Animals, Work, the
and his band, with the addition of Sydney Bechet, “the continuation of blues by other means” (F. Police and the Church, Crime, Magic.
were playing regularly in New England. In his Rosemont), so the blues weaves an elegant web The author, himself, of violently humorous,
memoirs, Music Is My Mistress, Ellington recalls of erotic glances and disquieting encounters humorously violent and violently erotic automéa-
the peculiar quality of the music played at the through a veritable orgy of poetic corners. tic texts, Garon has been able to appreciate the
time. “Call was very important in that kind of There is the possible — highly probable —- poctic qualities of the blues from the inside, as it
music. Today, the music has grown up and be- blues influence on the works of Marcel Duchamp were, permitting his critique to be substantiated
come quite scholastic, but this was au naturel, at the time of his momentous and key work, the by an understanding of his own internal evi-
close to the primitive, where people send large glass, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her dence. Since the book is readily available (1),
messages in what they play, calling some- Bachelors, Even. This is poignantly suggested by there is no need to discuss it at length here, within
body ...” This elucidation of the dynamics of the one of the constituent elements of this piece, The the limited capacities of this article, and so I shall
mental processes conditioning the music played Chocolate Grinder (descendant of the “Coffee content myself with quoting its concluding para-
then veritably seethes with hidden implications Mill” of 1911). Duchamp wrote irhis notes to the graph: “The blues, like the dream, continues to
when one considers that it was also “around New glass, “The Bachelor grinds his chocolate him- retain its rights — even if its future is uncertain.
England” in 1926 that Lovecraft wrote The Call self” — i.e. grinding something black, an expres- We can see in it an appeal to close the shutters on
of Cthulhu. Frank Belknap Long, a friend of sion which in French (broie du noir) signifies a withered concept of virtue and a harsh and op-
Lovecraft and a writer in his circle, wrote a story having the blues. Particularly in view of the pressive civilization; we see in it a demand for
set in the distant future, featuring a character erotic implications of this key work by Duchamp, non-repression, elaborated by the images of a
who takes great pride in his collection of antique the analogy retains a certain desperate perti- capacity for fantasy that has not been crushed.
Duke Ellington records. nence when one recalls all the coffee grinding and We see in it one of the few modern American
broken-down mills in pre-war blues. poetic voices through which humanity has fierce-
ly fought for, and managed to regain, a sem-
The Blue and the Wind “I can’t get no grinding, blance of its true dignity.”
tell me what’s the matter with the mill.”
“1 can tell the wind is rising, -~—Memphis Minnie (‘‘Can’t Get No Grinding”’) At the Rendezvous of Friends
leaves trembling on the trees.” The surrealists in Chicago also edited a supple-
—- Robert Johnson There are also suggestions that we could pos- ment to the magazine Living Blues (Jan/Feb
sibly see much more in Pablo Picasso’s blue 1976) in which the blues is presented in its true
Already when H.P. Lovecraft had invoked period than we first suspected. Aside from the revolutionary colors — the kaleidoscopic colors
their presence in 1929, these “jazzy blues,” fact that a painting from this period, “The Guitar of an electric storm inside a lighthouse. The
carried on the wind, were reaching storm dimen- Player,” was used (by chance?) as the cover illus- subject is approached from many different
sions among the black working class in the rural tration to the anthology album, The Blues in angles: as arevolutionary poetic tradition (‘‘The
regions in the South and later in the urban Modern Jazz (which, for the record, included outstanding characteristics of blues lyrics —
ghettoes of the North. Unknowingly fulfilling the ‘works such as Thelonius Monk’s “Blue Monk” materialism, eroticism, humor, atheism, a
challenge posed by Nougé for a form of musical and Charlie Mingus’s “Haitian Fight Song’), we passion for freedom, a sense of adventure, an
expression established ‘“‘according to the mea- also have it noted that Picasso considered blues alertness to the Marvelous — are the outstanding
sure furnished by the feelings, desires and inten- to be the most brilliant discovery, along with characteristics of the works of the great Eliza-
tions of those who depend on musical means to Polish vodka, in the 20th century — this from the bethan poets, of the great Romantics, of all poets
act on the world,” the blues, as the poetic voice of man who was among the first to introduce worth their salt’); its relation to jazz (“Jazz
a people particularly victimized by the whole African artistic expression to the European art always has been the continuation of blues by
gamut of the repressive forces of bourgeois/ world, and which he himself acknowledged as an other means”); its attitude toward. eros, particu-
christian civilization, set its sights, at its very be- ongoing inflence in his own artistic evolution. larly its tendency to sexualize the role of ma-
ginning, on that point in the mind “at which chines (“For blues-singers and surrealists, ma-
life and death, the real and the imagined, past and chinery, like everything else, exists to be used
future, the communicable and the incommuni- The Devil’s Son-in-Law poetically for the realization of desire”); as a
cable, high and low, cease to be perceived as music of despair (‘A music of despair, but not of
contradictions” (Breton). ‘Thane you, thank you, honey! self-pity; a music of sadness, but not of maso-
Relying on a mode of apprehension relatively ‘I got three shows tonight; we gonna have chism; a music of night, but not of day’’); in the
free from repressive restrictions that act like a some fun until five o'clock und heck if the po- light of millenarianism (“the black blues tradition
brake on the free play of the imagination, the lice are gonna stop us. ‘Cause I don’t care.” vibrates to the same liberating currents as the
blues singers passionately harvest the arena — Hound Dog Taylor Brethren of the Free Spirit”), etc.
where these crippling contradictions define the
In a statement introducing the supplement,
extreme precariousness of man’s individual and Understandably, it was only with the forma- the surrealists’ attitude toward blues is expressed
social existence, revealing to the light of day tion of an indigenous surrealist movement in the definitively: ‘In regard to the blues... we cannot
mental products usually relegated to the United States in 1966 that the full implications of accept its restriction to the category of ‘entertain-
shadowy depths of the night, and doing so with- the blues as an autonomous poetic current would ment,’ or even music. We find blues to be, rather,
out hesitation or plagued by pangs of guilt. be realized. As Franklin Rosemont wrote in Sur- a magnificent dream implying the total transfor-
“Whoever worships the accomplished fact is in- realist Insurrection, in 1968, ‘Surrealism will mation of reality — an ardent appeal for a new
capable of preparing the future,’ wrote Leon ‘demonstrate why the blues singers Robert life from the other side of all travestied hopes.”
Trotsky. And it is precisely because of its re- Johnson and Peetie Wheatstraw are greater
markable candor when it comes to communi- poets than T.S. Eliot or Robert Frost or Karl The Mysterious Wind of Jazz, or The Blood ot
cating the incommunicable, to focusing on the Shapiro or Allen Ginsberg... .”” One can add, the Air
terrifying vistas of the unknown, that the blues, without any trace of false modesty, that surreal- “A new myth?”
in revealing something of man’s original gran- ism has proved this point beyond question. Paul — André Breton
deur by exposing from the very heart of the night Garon, who is the most meticulous chronicler and
the limitless capacities of the mind, becomes an defender of blues as poetry of revolt, and whose Early in the 1940s August Derleth, friend and
impassioned critique of miserabilism (the latest adherence to the surrealist movement was large- collaborator of H.P. Lovecraft, wrote ‘Beyond

76
the Threshold,” a rigorously suggestive tale, the air” at the time. Like a rainbow with wings of has been of pivotal importance to the whole
written as a contribution to the “Cthulhu mica: Charlie “Bird” Parker. (2) future generation of surrealists, greatly
Mythos.” This open-ended mythology is based Franklin Rosemont, who has done more than influencing the evolution of the movement, parti-
on the belief ‘‘that this world was inhabited at any other surrealist to turn back the tide of cularly its intrusion into the domain of black
one time by another race who, in practicing black critical miscomprehension under which black music.
magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet music has suffered since it first let loose its fiery Acknowledging his own indifference to music,
live on outside, ever ready to take possession of message on the ears of the world, succinctly dis- Breton recalled the selfsame prevailing attitude
this earth again” (Lovecraft). Derleth’s tale cussed the implications of Parker’s intervention among most of the poets, worthy of the name, of
chronicles an episode with the terrifying Ithaqua, in his essay “Black Music and the Surrealist the 19th century. He continued: “In spite of my
the Wind-Walker. The coming of this Ancient Revolution” (1976): “Impossible to re-enter. as it diametrically opposed attitudes toward poetry
One was heralded by the sound of the wind were, the ‘process’ by which the original revela- and music, due to my individual make-up, I have
roaring and thundering, but without any move- tions of Charlie Parker and his collaborators not renounced all objective judgement concern-
ment, or physical disturbance, in the air whatso- were set loose on the world. But one thing at least ing them. Should I hold to the hierarchy proposed
ever. ‘‘The wind’s sound was now a terrible, is beyond dispute: the boppers effected a re- by Hegel, music, by virtue of its ability to express
demoniac howling, and it was accompanied by markably explosive, lyrical crystallization of rev- ideas and emotions, would come immediately
notes of music, which must have been audible for olutionary sentiments shared toa great degree by after poetry and would precede the plastic arts.
some time but were so perfectly blended with the the black proletariat as a whole .. . Charlie But above all lam convinced that the antagonism
wind’s voice that [ was not at first aware of them. Parker’s achievements in music are on the same that exists between poetry and music (apparently
The music was similar to that which had gone plane as Rimbaud’s in poetry, or Picasso’s in affecting poets much more than it does musi-
before, as of pipes and occasionally stringed in- painting, with this difference: Bird, unlike cians), and which for some ears seems to have
struments, but was now much wilder, sounding Rimbaud and Picasso, did not allow the last years now reached its height, should not be fruitlessly
with a terrifying abandon, with a character of un- of his life to detract from his earlier grandeur ... deplored but, on the contrary, should be inter-
mentionable evil about it.” The substance of Parker’s courage and lucidity preted as an indication of the necessity for a re-
In the eye of this fantasy, one is faced with a permits us to define the quest of bop as a heroic casting of certain principles of the two arts.”
holocaust of associations farfetched but wildly and victorious effort to expand the field of im- Returning to one of his “favorite themes”
umorous. What dark shadows in the wall mirrors provisation — that is, to expand the prerogatives Breton again expressed the need, on the plastic
of unsung abysses, where the external weds the of imagination over memory’s fixed forms.” plane, to overcome the antinomy between physi-
temporal, where the latent weds the manifest, Things, as they say, have never been the same cal representation and mental representation,
could have influenced, so decisively, the hand of since. further projecting these feelings onto the auditive
Derleth as he recorded the terrifying spectacle, plane. “The painter will fail in his human mission
borne on the wind, which was being acted out in Silence is Golden if he continues to widen the gulf separating rep-
his mind’s eye? One may well ask, for early in the Soon to follow the audacious example of resentation and perception instead of working
1940s — 1941 to be exact — the Jay McShann: Charlie Parker were such black geniuses as toward their reconciliation, their synthesis. Inthe
Orchestra entered the Decca recording studios in Thelonius Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, same way, on the auditive plane, I believe that
Dallas, Texas, where six sides were recorded, in- Charles Mingus and others, consolidating the ad- music and poetry have everything to lose by not
troducing a black alto saxophonist, whose vances made by Parker in the area of improvisa- recognizing a common origin and a common end
playing was characterized by a wild exuberance, tion and creating a volatile atmosphere of collec- in song; ... Poet and musician will degenerate if
a “terrifying abandon”’ (“If you come in loose, tive experimentation, producing a majestic river they persist in acting as though these two forces
you'll get ideas and play good notes. If you act of fertile discoveries. At the same time that were never to be brought together again.”
Just a little foolish, good ideas will come to you’’) these new developments were creating a storm in Further, Breton insists that “now only the most
and an aggressively destructive approach (im- the musical atmosphere, Breton, in exile in the radical methods could hope for success,”
plicitly and explicitly evil) to the restrictions im- U.S. owing to the Second World War, wrote an affirming “that we must determine to unify, re-
posed on sound by traditional European modes article, originally published in the American unify hearing to the same degree that we must
of composition, and whose adopted nickname is magazine Modern Music, entitled “Silence is determine to unify, reunify sight.” Suggesting
Suggestive enough to situate him perfectly as the Golden,” in which, for the first time, he tackled in that the synthesis of music and poetry “could
glistening receptacle of a poetic sensibility —- ex- detail the problem posed by “‘that most confusing only be accomplished at a very high emotional
tremely far-reaching — which was very much “‘in of all forms’’ — musical expression. This essay temperature,” Breton states that “‘it is in the ex-
oars
IT’S. NOTHING

/1’s nothing
this tragedy in our arms
swe can invent new bones
new fleshes
new flowers against madness
another red dress
Blind Lerman another apple jack
Jefferson
another mug from
the neck bend of our conflict
yes
we can tolerate a still heart
against our ears and
relax with the crusted
confessions of a blood cake
it’s nothing

Jayne CORTEZ

(from Scarifications, 1973)

pression of the passion of love that both music depths of the labyrinth of broken mirrors through could not be found in any compromise or eclecti-
and poetry are most likely to reach this supreme which the unforeseen draws a revolver, point- cism; that the victory of the ‘jazz revolution’ re-
point of incandescence.” blank, between our eyes, that jazz was first quired absolute fidelity to its own means —
assigned its proper and exalted place among the namely, the definitive triumph of improvisation,
The Biue Wind major poetic advances of our century. Franklin pursued (as it could only be pursued) in condi-
After the publication of this essay and the re- Rosemont, in his treatise The New Argonautica tions of moral asepsis.”
turn to Paris of many of the surrealists from their (3), by breaking with a whole tradition of white An excerpt from Taylor’s book which ap-
wartime exile in the United States, the number commentators of jazz, whose critical peared as the liner notes to his album Air Above
of references to black music, direct and indirect, meanderings only served to betray their own Mountains (Buildings Within) (Inner City 3021)
increases markedly. This was coupled with an in- impotence when faced by the somnambulist’s is written in poem form and contains this lucid
creased predilection for the culture and lives of onslaught of the waking dreamers of jazz, was definition of improvisation from the inside:
so-called primitive peoples, greatly influenced by the first to situate black music under the triple
the firsthand contact many of the exiled sur- cause of love, poetry and freedom: “Jazz may be “Improvisation is a tool of refinement
realists experienced with them; for example, regarded, in fact, as an independent manifesta- an attempt to capture ‘dark’ instinct
Breton’s visit to Haiti and Martinique. Breton tion and reinforcement of that specific all-perva- cultivation of the acculturated
also made a point of attending jazz performances sive climate of readiness for the actualization of to learn one’s nature in response to
while in New York. The surrealist painter, the Marvelous that defines the revolutionary group (society) first hearing ‘beat’
Roberto Matta, introduced the younger ad- poetic spirit today . . . The poetic cause today as it exists in each living organism”
herents of the surrealist movement to the bop re- would be defeated at the very onset if it failed to
cordings of Parker, Monk, Powell, Gillespie and recognize in jazz a fraternal movement, a power- This alone would be enough to affirm that not
others, all of which were received with the ut- ful ally, above all a complementary adventure. only are surrealists and black musicians speaking
most enthusiasm. The veteran surrealist painter One must admit at the very least that jazz has the same language, albeit in two distinct forms,
Victor Brauner did an exalted symbolic portrait covered inestimable ground entirely on its own but that on the foreseeable horizon Imagination
of Thelonius Monk. Several poetic works by and that its most ardent adepts show every sign of is readying itself for a complete vindication of its
surrealists, notably Claude Tarnaud and Gérard their willingness to go all the way.” And further, rights.
Legrand, were inspired by and/or dedicated to “Let us proclaim .. . that the quest to remove the
jazz musicians. Legrand also wrote a book en- obstacles to the free development of the imagina- “To Play what one hears
titled Powers of Jazz (Puissances du Jazz, 1953). tion. . .is advanced inexorably not only by a long is our objective
Despite this evident affection and admiration a Downward and inward
for the accomplishments of the black warriors of are the forces bent
the new sensibility, these two currents — surreal- to live as recognition
ism and black music — remained pretty much of the invisible: spirit”
mutually exclusive, in keeping with the stage of —Cecil Taylor
development reached by both parties. This
would remain so until vital new discoveries in Out of the air into the wind, and in 1976 with
both fields reached the light of day. [am speaking the publication of Arsenal/Surrealist Subversion
here of the birth of the Association for the Ad- No. 3 and the presentation of the World Sur-
vancement of Creative Musicians in Chicago in realist Exhibition in Chicago, the collaboration of
1965, followed a year later, with the publication black musicians and surrealists became definitive
of the tract The Forecast Is Hot!, by the forma- and beyond question. Not only did Arsenal con-
tion of the original nucleus of the surrealist move- tain the most complete synthesis of the surrealist
ment in the U.S., likewise centered in Chicago — evidence in support of black music, Black Music
the Windy City. and the Surrealist Revolution by Franklin
Judging from the preoccupation with atmos- Rosemont and an essay on Joseph Jarman by the
pheric disturbances in the preceding discussion, same author (“All of Jarman’s recordings, and
Beatie
sk, above all his live performances, are nothing less
the title of the U.S. surrealist’s first tract and the Robert GREEN: Hammer & Rhino (1978)
nickname of Chicago certainly appear in a new than a majestic and fertile revenge of the wisdom
light —- a light which exudes from the oneiric and continuing revolutionary current of poetry of Africa on the unhappy conscience of Europe:
solitude in the eye of a crystal ball, endlessly and and painting . . . but also by the long and con- which is to say, as well, the triumph of poetic
indefatigably exploring the possibilities of a de- tinuing revolutionary current of jazz... The truth over prosaic lies . . .”) — this issue of
sirable future of desire supreme — a veritable torches with which we proceed into the abyss of Arsenalalso included “The Musician,” a poem by
weather forecast of the Pleasure Principle. This the unknown may vary, but they are lighted from ~ Cecil Taylor, and the myth-poem ‘‘Odawalla” by
portent of what was to come, this wholesale trust a single flame.” Jarman. That this collaboration of poets and
in the future, was admirably expressed by trum- This will seem capricious only to those suf- musicians was actually a portent of the things to
peter Leo Smith: “I only play when there is an fering from an incurable myopia, those who come, rather than an isolated instance based on
opportunity for you to really explore yourself, cannot see the forest for the trees. The fact is the misplaced enthusiasm, is admirably shown by the
when each occasion would bring to those people question of the hierarchy of artistic expression fact that on an increasing number of recently re-
and myself a complete challenge. And when I say formulated by Hegel — where music comes after leased jazz albums, poetry by the musicians
‘challenge,’ I don’t mean some reference in the poetry, ‘‘the universal art,” but before the plastic themselves and by others replaces the usual liner
back past, but like challenge right now, where arts — is still to be settled. What is beyond doubt notes —- notes usually written by paid white
we're at right now — because it is the future,” is that the most audacious solutions to this prob- lackeys, which seldom add anything except
The surrrealists in the U.S. have from the very lem will come from those who have made of - maybe a gray haze, to the appreciation of what
beginning stressed the vitality and importance of music their means to act on the world. In this exudes from the shimmering black disc inside the
the black musical evidence, and its growing in- regard we look forward to the publication, hope- sleeve.
fluence on the evolution of the movement is re- fully in the near future, of a book which promises Furthermore, the World Surrealist Exhibition
affirmed at every turn of its thought. Penelope to discuss methodological concepts of black gave the affinities between surrealism and black
Rosemont, in an article published in Arsenal/ music: Mysteries by Cecil Taylor — a black music an even more burning actuality. In cooper-
Surrealist Subversion No. 2, in 1973, in which pianist whose playing evokes the penetrating ation with Living Blues magazine, a special
she explores the ‘‘absolutely modern” implica- scream of a midnight chorus of panther eyes, and World Surrealist Exhibition Blues Show was or-
tions of totemism — a discussion situated in the a writer of poems of an exalting hermetic reso- ganized on June 5, featuring Eddie Shaw and the
revelations set loose by the majestic destiny of nance. As Franklin Rosemont has written else- Wolf Gang as well as Honeyboy Edwards. And
objective chance —- wrote of her fortunate where: ‘The decisive lessons of Taylor’s work on the nights of June 19 and 20, in conjunction
discovery of “the enchanting music, dance and seem to me as follows: that the emancipation of with the AACM, the surrealist international pre-
myths around which Sun Ra has created his own what has been known as jazz could be achieved sented two performances by the “Sun Song”
cosmology, combining ancient Egypt and outer only by rigorously following through the pro- Ensemble (Gloria Brooks, vocalist; Hank Drake,
space.” And it was also while plumbing the foundest essence of this music; that salvation percussion; Douglas Ewart, reeds; James

78
Johnson, bassoon; Rrata Christine Jones, dancer; (ec) Miraculous, in the sense that it is to be ac- wrote a song about him titled “Jim Squashy” —
George Lewis, trombone; and Reggie Willis, complished by, or with the help of, supernatural _ “John Coltrane died in vain of a Love Supreme.”
bass). From the surrealist point of view, this ad- agencies. Oliver Lake, on his album Life Dance of Is, in-
mirably unholy collusion of forces was in a sense cludes Big Youth in his list of ‘‘inspiration/dedica-
a confirmation, reinforcement and extension of “Guide us, Jah” tion to’s,’ and the album includes a song,
many of our wildest hopes, a sure sign that in — Matumbi “Change One,” where the reggae influence is
Spite of unceasing efforts on the part of all re- marked, to say the least; throughout the song the
guitarist Michael Gregory Jackson continually
pressive agencies to “‘keep the lid on,” the revo-
lutionary tempest was gathering momentum and shouts, “Reggae!” “Reggae power!” Dudu
finding its indispensable poetic accomplices. Pukwana, South African jazz saxophonist,
played as a session musician on a song by Toots
Lighthouse of the Future and the Maytals. This will surprise none but pigs
and downright cretins. The fact is that what
Rastafari — ever living, ever faithful, ever appears as two vastly disparate movements are
sure, but two tongues of the same flame, two eyes of
Selassie — I, the First... the same iceberg. As Paul Nougé has written,
Yeah, yeah “Nevertheless the certitude persists that spirit
Rastafari, ever living . . . lives only through an illimitable adventure with
RASTAMAN VIBRATION, positive...” movements and perspectives that must be un-
— Bob Marley flaggingly renewed (emphasis added: M.V.); in
which the dangers that we discover and, at every
In 1976, in his article “Blues, Dream and the moment, threaten to cut short its progress, are
Millennial Vision,” Joseph Jablonski wrote: also — if we but refuse to bow before them — the
“Characteristically, the great wish that animatesa surest guarantee of the only victories that can still
vast body of blues, jazz, as well as the older spirit- tempt us. Hence . . whether we deal with music
invoking black music, is the transformation of the or some other human event, spirit is at our mercy
world — the Millennium.” And it is precisely at and we are, in reality, accountable for it.”
this fork in the road of the crisis of human con-
* * *
sciousness where the reggae musician ‘“‘digs in,”
Waging a protracted war against all forms of op-
Pression and alienation -— a veritable tropical With the desperation ot “hot” merchandise on
resort of carnivorous mirrors, ready for anything a flotilla of swordfish, Black Music — from the
and everything. ‘The impossible has a habit of ancient to the future — shuttles its invatuable
happening,” sings the band, Steel Pulse. Reggae, cargo into the artery of hermetic solutions: the
as the poetic voice of the black proletariat of alchemical process by which the base metal of
Jamaica, and of the Jamaican working-class quotidian misery is transformed into the pure
migrants in England, can best be viewed from the gold of eternal freedom.
istorical perspective as being the “absolutely Philip Lamantia has written: “I continue to
modern” defender of the millennial vision, lure the wind’s eye I am one with the wind. There
In the introduction to his book, The Pursuit of are no other friends. The avalanche begins.”
the Millennium, Norman Cohn summarizes the Today, the mysterious wind of jazz opens its
basic premises of millenarian movements, which legs onto tomorrow’s liberty.
are equally applicable as an outline of the reggae Georges GRONIER: Waiting For Bird —
Musicians’ program of action. “Millenarian sects Homage to Charlie Parker Michael VANDELAAR
Or movements,” says Cohn, “always picture (collage)
Salvation as
_ (a) collective, in the sense that it is to be en- Consider the names of the adepts of reggae,
Joyed by the faithful as a collectivity; and it will become quite clear that the revolution
which they are helping to prepare will not be only
(b) terrestrial, in the sense that it is to be a reshuffling of property relations; what is in
NOTES
tealized on this earth and not in some other-
store is a complete vindication of man’s inner- (1) Originally published in cloth edition only
Worldly heaven;
most desires, a desirable dictatorship of the Plea- by Eddison Press in London, 1976, Blues and the
sure Principle. They call themselves Burning Poetic Spirit has recently appeared in the U.S. as
“But if you know what life is worth,
Spear, Tapper Zukie, The Mighty Diamonds, Jah a DaCapo Press paperback.
You will look for yours on earth”
— Bob Marley, Peter Tosh Lloyd — the Black Lion, King Tubby, Prince (2) Perhaps someone in the future will devote a
Hammer, the Abyssinians, Max Romeo and the detailed study to the history of the wind as a ve-
Upsetters, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Big hicle for revelation and its ramifications on the
(c) Imminent, in the sense that it is to come poetic consciousness as suggested by a poem by
Youth, and Peter Tosh — self-proclaimed ‘‘Mini-
oth soon and suddenly;
ster of Herb!” Nancy Joyce Peters, “Seeing and not Seeing,”
within the scheme of The fundamental means adopted by these which appears in her monograph, It’s in the
“Redemption stands
black alchemists from the “‘Isle of Springs” to act Wind —
things”
— Bunny Wailer on the world differ very little from those of their
black brothers in the United States — the key So it will begin again, and
similarity being the primacy of automatic modes eloquent as the lips of a jackknife
(d) total, in the sense that it is utterly to of apprehension and representation. Says Tapper the winds will continue divulging
transform life on earth, so that the new dis-
Pensation will be no more improvement on the Zukie: “Bunny Lee... give me eight rhythms, six riches of a mad prescience
of them was on ‘MPLA’ album. And he give me
Present but will be perfection itself;
one hour in the studio and | use that hour and — implying, as it does, the presence of a continu-
voice eight rhythms then ... We line them up on ing tradition concerning the intervention of the
“So long we've been as slaves and no more
the tape and as one finish I start on the next, and wind in the poetic atmosphere.
will we roam.
So I will hope and pray that the day will come that finish I start on the other one.” (3) See the special section devoted to, and
When we will see the rising sun. The unity of aspirations of the jazz musician edited by, the Surrealist Movement in the United
When no more crying, no victimizing, and the reggae musician, suffused with the tropi- States in the City Lights Anthology (City Lights
cal snow of a zebra’s dream, has long been af- Books, San Francisco, 1974). Reproduced on the
No more starvation, no more,
firmed by individuals from both sides. Big Youth cover of this anthology is Victor Brauner’s por-
No more killing.”
— The Mighty Diamonds considers John Coltrane a master musician and trait of Thelonius Monk.

79
CHENIER Magic & °Voodoo
| DreamBook

cary
in the “Blues
i |
NAPOLEONS ORACULUM
According to Geza Roheim (Animism, Magic and the Di- I win every time.
When I rub my root, etc.
vine King, 1930), “it is by magic that man takes the offen- (Muddy Waters, My John the Conqueror Root)
sive against the world at large.” And in the blues we en-
counter an insistence on the power of magic in the form of The revelation of the often unconscious meaning of such
various spells, charms, rituals, etc. “lucky objects” (John the Conqueror Root = penis) is but
She had a red flannel rag, talking about hoodooin’ poor me. (2) the revelation of desire. Often magic is called on when frus-
Well, I believe I’ll go to Froggy Bottom so she will Jet me be. tration threatens desire.
(Alex Moore, Goin’ Back to Froggy Bottom)
I’m going to Louisiana, get me a mojo hand. (x2)
It must be emphasized that despne a probably common I’m gonna fix my woman so she can’t have no other man.
origin magic and religion are fundamentally dissimilar — (Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mojo Hand)
the differences are especially evident when the religion in
They say it’s bad luck when you see a black cat cross the
question is Catholicism or another form of Christianity. street. (x2)
The surrealist Benjamin Péret (“Magic: The Flesh and} Ah, the black cat must have slept in my bed, oooh, Lord, the
Blood of Poetry,” 1943), in discussing the evolution of black snake must have crawled across my feet.
myth as well as the evolution of religion from magic, has (Big Bill Broonzy, Bad Luck Man)
said, “Innumerable generations have added the diamonds Many blues singers were (and in some cases still are) at-
they discovered as well as the dull metal they mistook for tracted to certain aspects of voodoo and its attendant ritu-
gold.” For Péret, Christ is the dull metal. He continues:1 als. This is not the place to attempt a detailed discussion of
“While it is true that poetry grows in the rich earth of the complex subject of voodoo. But it is worth noting that it
magic, the pestilential miasmas of religion rise from the is still widely practiced today: not only in Haiti and
same ground and poison poetry... .”’ Péret then relates the - throughout the Caribbean but also in the U.S., and not only
myths of “great poetic exuberance” of certain tribes to in New Orleans but even in the black ghettoes of the North.
their lack of moral precepts. ‘On the other hand, more Of course it has undergone extensive modification over the
evolved people see their myths lose their poetic brilliance years, but even today in Chicago one can still find shops
while multiplying their moral restrictions.” Alienation and displaying for sale numerous magic powders, potions, talis-
religious morality are the enemies of poetry and desire! mans — ‘Attraction Powder,” “Uncrossing Powder,”
Through magic, the rational and the irrational, the subjec- “Black Cat Oil,” ““Hex-Removing Floor-Wash,” John the
tive and objective become whole again, poetically pre- Conqueror Root, etc. — as well as in impressive array of
figuring the dialectical resolution of all the dualisms rooted popular dream-books (the Napoleon Mascot, the Three
in class society. Poetry is created by the destruction of the
Witches, etc.) more or less voodoo in origin.
barrier that separates the wish from its fulfillment, the Several scholarly studies of voodoo can be recom-
dream from waking life. The blues songs of magic and su- mended*; Paul Oliver (The Meaning of the Blues, 1960)
perstition compel our attention through their links with has briefly surveyed voodoo traces in the blues. The most
poetic activity. “In the language of magic, different gram- stimulating suggestions toward a fundamentally new inter-
matical forms are used because . . . the magic of language pretation of voodoo, however, have come not from tradi-
was evolved on the basis of the magic of love’’ (Roheim). tional anthropologists or scholars but rather from poets and
My pistol may snap, painters, above all the surrealists. André Breton was able
My mojo is frail, to witness voodoo rites in Haiti (a rare privilege for
Ah, but I rub my root, whites); his deep appreciation of their significance was
My luck will never fail.
When I rub my root, my John the Conqueror root. clearly derived from his poetic affinity with the mental pro-
Aww, you know, there ain’t nothing she can do, Lord, cesses involved.** Surrealism, in permitting us to see voo-
I rub my John the Conqueror root. doo in a new light, also enhances our appreciation of yet
another aspect of the blues — for, to a far greater extent
I was accused of murder,
In the first degree. than anyone has conceded, the blues may be viewed as a
The judge’s wife cried, vehicle for the expression of voodoo. More specifically, the
‘Let the man go free.’ voodoo trance state, in which the subject is seized by
I was rubbing my root, etc. powers “from below,” approaches the ‘‘pure psychic au-
tomatism’’ of surrealism; and the blues, too, in its improvis-
Oh, I can get in a game,
‘Don’t have a dime. atory intensity in the heat of inspiration, also draws on
All I have to do is rub my root, these same powers “from below.” In this regard it is inter-

80
esting to see Michel Leiris (Manhood, 1946) remark, in a Superstitions may be restrictive of human freedom just
discussion of jazz in the surrealist milieu in the 1920s — as are the dogmas of Christianity. Yet the differences as
and the same could certainly be said of the blues — that “it elucidated by Peret remain inescapable. Superstitions re-.
functioned magically, and its means of influence can be veal less alienated mental processes and a closer contact
compared to a kind of possession.” Once again we are able with the unconscious. This quality of magic thinking is
to observe the intimate connection — here the link is en- clarified by an example provided by Freud (The Psycho-
trancement — between ancient primitive magical tradi- pathology of Everyday Life, 1901). “The Roman who gave
tions, the blues, and the most audacious and revolutionary up an important undertaking if he saw an ill-omened flight
current of modern poetry and thought. of birds was . . . in a relative sense justified; his behavior
was consistent with his premises. But if he withdrew from
The evidence of voodoo in the blues is not limited to a the undertaking because he had stumbled on the threshold
certain identity of spiritual values. On the contrary, the of his door . . . he was also in an absolute sense superior to
lyrics of blues songs reveal a profound and enduring preoc- us unbelievers; he was a better psychologist than we are
cupation with voodoo themes and imagery. Blues singers striving to be. For his stumbling must have revealed to him
refer constantly to voodoo, “hoodoo,” mojos and all sorts
the existence of a doubt, a counter-current at work within
of magical apparatus. It would be futil here to attempt to him, whose force might at the moment of execution sub-
distinguish between specifically voodoo elements and tract from the force of his intentions. For we are only sure
magical elements derived from other sources; Curtis Jones of complete success if all our mental forces are united in
clears up this confusion:
striving toward the desired goal.” Of course, the close rela-
I call it black magic, some call it plain hoodoo. tionship between magical thinking and the more primary
(Black Magic Blues) processes succeeds in unearthing the source of powerful
Black cats, black snakes, black cat bones, all appear fre- and fantastic imagery, which by its nature reintroduces the
concept of poetry.
quently in the blues. Yet often our interest is heightened by
references which seem more obscure. In the darkest cor- In magic, there is poetry — religion poisons poetry. ‘Vhe
ners of the mind, the shadowy vestiges of totemism flour- surrealists have long argued that one exceedingly crucial
ish. Frogs, for example, are occasionally mentioned in the task of modern poetic activity is the dechristianization of
blues, usually in a most enigmatic fashion. the world. There is no poetry of religion. There is only
poetry of revolt — revolt against the degradation of lang-
If I had wings like the bullfrog on the pond. uage; against the repressive forces of the church, the police,
(Yank Rachel, T-Bone Steak Blues)
‘the family and the ruling class; against the inhibition of
But the use of the frog in magic is less obscure, and may sexuality and aggression; against the general repugnance
throw some light on references to frogs in the blues. of everyday life. As we have said, the songs do not always
depict liberation, but even when they do not, they invoke
an insistence on the instinctual and unconscious, an insis-
* * *

tence which is at once revelatory of the poetic process and

destructive of the techniques of academic depreciation and
dissection. The blues songs reveal indelible traces of hu-
manity’s original grandeur, and by comparison, they indict
the ludicrous spectacle of modern civilization.
Paul GARON

* Milo Rigaud, Secrets of Voodoo (New York, Pocket Books, 1971):

Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen: Voodoo Gods of Haiti (New York, Dell,
1972); Robert Tallant, Voodoo in New Orleans (New York, Macmillan.
1946); and Alfred Metraux, Voodoo in Haiti (New York, Schocken,
1972).

** For an introduction to the surrealists’ perspective on voodoo, see par:

ticularly Breton’s essay on the Haitian voodoo painter Hector Hyppolite
(in Surrealism and Painting); Pierre Mabille’s Le Miroir du mereeilleur;
the poetry of the Haitian Clément Magloire-Saint-Aude.andthe Martini-
quan Aimé Césaire; as well as the works of the Cuban surrealist painter
Wifredo Lam. See also Michel Leiris’ essay “On the Use of Catholic Re-
ligious Prints by Practitioners of Voodoo in Haiti” (in Evergreen Review,
No. 13, 1960). For a brilliant discussion of voodoo from the angle of poetic
creation see the essay ‘The Writer and Society” by the Guyanese Wilson
Harris, in his Tradition, the Writer and Society (London and Port of Spain,
New Beacon Publications, 1967).

‘Magic & Voodoo in the Blues” 1s excerpted from

BLUES & THE POETIC SPIRIT
by Paul Garon
just published in paperback ($5.95) by DaCapo Press
Robert GREEN: ink drawing (1979)
 SWING AS SURREALIST MUSIC
Horace Meyer Kallen (1882-1974) was the sounding musical instruments. Popular songs so formal music brought them forth. Percussion and
greatest of William James’ followers, the one treated were said to be “ragged,” and the treat- wind instruments — brasses, saxophones, trom-
who most fulfilled the late leftward leanings of ment came to be called Rag-time. The singers and bones, xylophones, bells — became more notice-
his teacher. At James’ prompting, he began in the dancers and players who devised Rag-time were able in orchestras. To atonality or to polytonali-
1910s a correspondence with presurrealist poet/ American Negroes with remnants of an eroding ty, which dropped modulation, which set key a-
theorist Benjamin Paul Blood, protagonist of the African culture in their body-rhythms, in their gainst key and scale against scale, was joined a
“anesthetic revelation.” Blood’s last book, social habits and in their personal outlook. They continuous shift of rhythm or a contrapuntal op-
Pluriverse (1920) had a long introduction by were primitives indigenous to industrial civiliza- position of many rhythms. In 1893, Dahomey
Kallen. tion, with its timeclocks, its rigid divisions of the Negroes, beating tom-toms for the entertainment
in his two-volume study, Art and Freedom hours of the working day, its patterns of machine- of gaping Americans at Chicago’s World Fair,
(1942), Kallen approached surrealism far more logic and rationality. Negro Rag-time was the be- had, by using feet and heads as well as hands, pro-
insightfully than did most U.S. Left intellectuals ginning of a break from that. In less than a gener- duced a triple cross-rhythm which constituted an
of the time. As the following excerpt makes clear, ation the Negro’s social heartbreak was absorbed unconscious counter-point of rhythms, .
he perceived surrealism’s integral relation to the into Ragtime’s terpsichorean breakdown and Formal professional music, however modem,
global crisis of “culture” throughout the modern Ragtime transmuted to Jazz. The vehicles of the somehow failed to release the emotions which
epoch, and thus was able to recognize the move- American Negro’s heartbreak is the Spiritual and the industrial workday blockaded and starved.
ment’s universal implications. Jazz, which is said to derive from jaser, an Night, that so long had been the time, not for
—editors Acadian word meaning to gabble, to chatter, is living, but for sleeping away the fatigues of the
* * * the compenetration of the rag and the spiritual. living day, became conspicuously the time for
Body, voice, wind and percussion instruments living. The existence of the folk of the industrial
The musical equivalent of surrealism in paint- are its vehicles. cities is now a cultural schizophrenia of day-life
ing and literature is not obviously connected with Jazz began to spread through the great indus- and night-life. Day is the time when they earn
cither its theory or practice. It develops as a prac- trial cities of the North American continent about
their livings; night is the time when they live their
tice entirely innocent of theory, as n unwilled ex- the same year that the First International Exhibi-
lives. During the day most people are producers,
pression of alogical spontaneity, of irresponsible, tion of Modern Art began its epoch-making trek
disciplined to the machine, their bodies held to its
personal invention unenchanneled by form, un- across the States. This exhibition, which for the
rhythm, their minds constrained to its motions.
checked by musical knowledge or learned tra- first time brought before the unaccustomed eyes By night, they are consumers; their body-rhythm
dition; develops thus with all the differentiae of Americans the works of all the schools and seeks to recover its native physiological patterns,
which the connoisseurs ascribe to surrealist crea- cults that Europe had bred in two generations, their movements search to resume the human
tions. The name for it is Swing. Its native habitat had been arranged under the auspices of the As- form appropriate to autonomous human
is the United States of America, and it is indige- sociation of American Painters and Sculptors.
function,
nous to the southern portion, especially to the Ragtime, which might be said to correspond to The extraordinary spread and influence of
Mississippi riverfront at New Orleans. Unlike its the cubist phase of the pictorial and verbiform Swing testifies that in it the seeking and searching
literary and pictorial parallels, which sustain a arts, spread to Europe while modernist painting come to a haven; that it owns the power of grati-
Jocal life already below the level of subsistence and poetry were acquiring a vogue in America. fying the needs which launch them. Also its well-
among selected groups of intelligentsia, Swing The four years of the First World War were a spring is the Negro of the urban jungle in New
has attained a world-wide diffusion among all plowing of a cultural soil wherein Jazz could take Orleans; also its centers of power are the great
classes and occupations. The event is natural deep roots, and wher. the War ended it flowered industrial areas -- Chicago, New York, London,
enough. Verbiform and graphic symbols require indeed... . Berlin, Moscow, Shanghai, Tokyo. Atonal, poly-
interpretation; sheer sonorous rhythm does not. The metronomic noises of the railroads and rhythmic, Swing cuts itself loose from every rule
Swing is caused in a medium which issues from factories, the monotonous roar of the cities de- and canon that tradition has brought down or
and speaks to Dr. Freud’s Unconscious direct, manded their rhythmic compensation. Even craftsmanship confirmed. It asks of the performer
without disguise, without distortion. two things, a maximum of virtuosity on his in-
And its emergence parallels the emergence of strument, a maximum of spontaneity in his per-
visual and verbal surrealism. That arrived in a formance, That must needs be sheer, unrestricted
progression from post-impressionism to cubism, improvisation, the free, the anarchic expression
from cubism through dada, to surrealism. of his Unconscious, undisguised and unashamed.
Throughout the transition there was an urge to- Nor is the expression sonoriform only. His whole
ward “‘the primitive,” toward the primitive Ta- got body collaborates: as he plays, he dances, he acts,
hitian, toward the African primitive, toward their he sings, he leaps and twists and weaves like an
works and their ways. In post-impressionism this acrobat, and the different behaviors pass seam-
primitive was external and real, a flag of rebel- lessly into and out of one another. He becomes
lion and a shape of flight. Cubism, by geometriz- the leader, not only of his band, but of his au-
ing, internalized it, assimilated it to figures of the diences: they step from their seats into the aisles
imagination, to the patterns which feeling designs and dance with him in an ecstasy -~- orgiastic or
on space. Surrealism reabsorbed geometry in mystical or both according to the observer’s
emotion and reconcentrated emotion into the lights —. of release and self-recovery. It is the
dark impulsions of the freudian Unconscious. liberation of Dionysos from Apollo, of the living
Surrealism gathered the primitive without into organism from the automatic machine, an insur-
the savage within, made them one and endeav- gence of the depths into a conscious experience
ored to utter them as one. Concurrently, Swing without connection and without analogue,
arrived as the latest phase of a progression from though perhaps revivalist religious gatherings do
Rag-time through Jazz. The trick of heightening enfold likenesses wherein convert and jitterbug
emotional tension by opposing one rhythm to are one under the skin. Swing might with good
another became conspicuous as a practice about reason be called surrealism in excelsis.
the same time that post-impressionism made its
start. The matrix of Swing is said to have been Horace Meyer KALLEN
opposed and mixed body-rhythms of the pasmala
as danced in New Orleans bawdy-houses and
honky tonks. The manner of mixing and opposi- RIBITCH From Art and Freedom
tion was carried over from dancing bodies to (N.Y., Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1942)
 A.K. El JANABY: collage

CPOETRY, JAZZ c& “FREEDOM

More than any critical reflection, it is the acrobat on the tightrope of circumstance. modern and ancient works, between new
phenomenon ofjazz — quite considerable A beautiful work is a work of circum- works (not yet consecrated) and culture. The
for us ——- that has enabled us to realize the stance. latest work, although it may not be “quali-
historic character of style and content in a But who will agree with Goethe that the fied” -—— in other words, regarded as
work and even, at its limits, to grant them only lasting works are the works of cir- valuable at present — implies all the steps
only (so to speak) “instantaneous” value. cumstance? taken by the society under consideration,
The essence of jazz is improvisation. The time we live in is poisoned with A poet, therefore, is not modern because
An esthetic derived from jazz would be @ eternity. Jazz has been one ofthe best means he is ignorant of the past or has abandoned it,
technique to create beauty as one goes along, For of purging us, and for re-creating in us the but rather because of a dialectical super-
jazz results from an approach consisting of sense of the instant and the sense of tran- session of the stages of that past —~ that is to
the very somersaults of life, and its style is sition. For our part, we shall not hesitate to say, a simultaneous living negation and
simply an immediate informing through see in actuality, however defined, the place living conservation of old cultural forms.
music or in any other way — I realize that to resolve all human problems that can be This modernness, moreover, will be fuller
such an esthetic can apply to poetry in posed, in this or any other domain. . . . In and more valuable because it is totally in-
general — of feelings and images, progres- actuality we find all the instants prior to a formed of the past.
sively as they appear in the mind. Any crys- particular act of becoming — because, in If cultural tradition 1s embodied in the
tallization, any lazy imitation of self, any any life, “that which has been superseded is poet, it cannot serve as a model — there is no
petrification of life, threatens the validity of at the same time something preserved model for what is yet unborn. But it will
the fragile elaboration. which, in losing its merely immediate exis- serve as a support of the past to situate the
No detailed rhythm set beforehand. tence, is not thereby destroyed” (Hegel). poet inflexibly in time, to make him a
No content concretely preconceived. The actuality of a being is its present, but modern man in a specific period.
No rhythm, no content, other than in the this present is that very being marked by the Such is poetic necessity: all of the past in
form of a Aunger for life —a life marked, let extreme temporal indication of its duration. oneself.
us say, by a passion demanding to be Thus, for a living being, there is no irrecon- Such is poetic freedom: before oneself,
satisfied, substitutively, by the sublimation cilable contradiction between its present and the faceless future.
of “song.” The “player” does not know, must its past except in the heads of the abstractors Tropiques, No. 11 René MENIL
not know, his next note, his next phrase, his of its quintessence. Similarly, in a social (Martinique, 1944)
next adventure. Yet he goes forward, like an setting, there is no antinomy between translated by Keith Holloman

83
 Debra TAUB: collage (1979)

a
ae

KOREA
AN “UNHEARD OF” MUSIC
“None of his harmonies had any relation to any inhumanity to man. He was an “outsider,” a solitary
music I had heard before. .. . Sounds which filled me
with an indefinable dread . . . unimagined space alive seeker, but never a snob. If an insane/insipid/inhuman
with motion and music, and having no semblance social setup made his preoccupations seem remote from the
of anything on earth. .. . I shouted in his ear that day-to-day concerns of the great majority of humankind,
we must both flee from the unknown things of the
night. But he neither answered me nor abated the keeping all but a small minority from knowing his music, he
frenzy of his unutterable music.” nonetheless consistently affirmed and helped fulfill the
— H.P. Lovecraft
best aspirations of his species-being— for liberty, equality
“The Music of Erich Zann” and fraternity, beyond all preposterous dualisms and other
pitiable constraints. And notwithstanding the fact that he is
See them dance, watch them move: a full moon rising still regarded by the lame police dogs of “‘musical appreci-
suddenly over the north woods, or the snow falling with a ation” as impossibly far out, he always drew — deeply and
bang — it is the apocalyptic joker, Harry Partch, the powerfully — on authentically popular sources. He was
Human Fly of musical consciousness, climbing the highest warmly responsive to the music of tribal societies and to
structures and beyond! medieval choral chants, and no less attentive to sounds
Hegel said that nothing great was ever accomplished very much “‘in the air” of our own time. His long-standing
without passion. It is passion, above all, that is exemplified obsession with hoboes, whose presence looms so large in
in Harry Partch’s music. He was a vertiginous one-eyed some of his works, unmistakably indicates his social direc-
jack, an inspired rebel— no, a revolutionary: Having over- tion, passionately on the side of those who have nothing to
thrown all conventions, he revealed endless sunrises and lose.
sunsets of tonal quality and modular vibrations, mysteri- Partch’s specific lifelong aim was the expansion of music,
ously soft at times, then cut in half like a wave by a mania- which naturally entails the expansion of consciousness and
cal speedboat, and invariably more delicious than a psy- therefore the expansion of the possibilities of life. Recog-
chopathic diamond sleepwalking through a shattered nizing that the potentialities of music immeasurably ex-
mirror. ceeded the capacities of existing musical instruments, he
Exemplary partisan of an extreme Romanticism, Partch calmly set about inventing his own. Utilizing dozens of
was forced to pursue his auditory dreams in that peculiar these weird and captivating instruments, he devoted him-
domain of solitude set aside for “‘artists,” courtesy of man’s self untiringly, year after year, to unleashing furious,
84
restless, defiant, untamable collages of sound against a pass — at least intuitively — thousands of
world that uses its portable radios primarily to prevent
years of man’s sensitivity to his world is to nse
above the merely encyclopedic.
people from hearing the voices of their own dreams. His
vibrant, Beowulf-like sounds bring forth emotions long Let us listen to Harry Partch before the critics and schol-
considered extinct, and simultaneously inspire the appari- ars submerge him irretrievably under the “merely encyclo-
tion of other emotions that are wholly new and unheard of. pedic.” His annihilation of musical dogma, and all repres-
His music is initiatory, appealing to all the senses, won- sive frameworks, is the proof that his was first and last a
drous and wet, a passion-fruit lamp that reveals the light of quest for freedom. Screaming for life, his music helps real-
the unknown. ize the future.
While so many other ‘modern composers” have only Let us add that his music is vastly more than what we
kidded themselves into a dull, empty corner by following have been accustomed to regard as music. It could more
“avant-garde” recipes — often little more than forlorn accurately be called ritual drama. His players are also
rainchecks on satori experiences read about in books actors and dancers — intermingling, trading places, undu-
written by misinformed tourists — Partch quietly (musica]- lating through a shifting hysteria of musical/magical pro-
ly) followed his own ferociously anti-academic path, re- gression. Human ritual generally has been accompanied by
fusing the star-studded plaudits of mere virtuosity and per- an activity called music: Christian choirs, Buddhist bells,
fection for the thankless but irresistible pleasures of Hindu and Moslem chants, African and Native American
reckless temptation and carefree discovery. drums, Australian Aboriginal bones — All are born of the
Envy of the criminal, which borders on a se- primordial mud of the rhythmic swellings and pulsations of
cret American nostalgia, lies — very logically the earth, and wakened by the very cry of life. Equally at
— in the fact that crime is one area where indi- home amidst the most ancient hieroglyphs and tomorrow’s
viduality is taken for granted. news, Harry Partch helped restore to music something of
Others will come to write his biography, to compile the incendiary promise that once permitted it to shake
memoranda and anecdotes, to analyze, annotate, criticize, walls, disturb gods, and make the universe jump for joy.
discourse, dissect, discourage and disgust. It is hardly good
news that his instruments are to wind up on display in the Originality cannot be a goal. It is simply in-
Smithsonian Institution, under the uncomprehending eye evitable.
of the capitalist State. Is Partch to become another King Tut Walk through the darkened room, feeling your way with
— his works enshrined by card-carrying members of that your hands, and turn on the Harry Partch switch. It will
class of fools who, after extracting every trace of a person’s help you see where you have been, where you are, and
living magic, can only bury his instruments behind theft- where you are going.
proof security glass?
I care even more for the divination of an an- Norman KAESEBERG
cient spirit of which I know nothing. To encom-

Delusions of the Fury: A Ritual of Dream and Several other works (including Six Poems by Li
DISCOGRAPHY
Delusion (Columbia Records M2 30576) l The Wayward are avail-
Po, U.S. Highbaland
able on Gate 5 Recordings.
The World of Harry Partch (Columbia Master- The Bewitched — A Dance Satire (Composers * * *
works Ms 7207) covetesares
Recordings)
See also Harry Partch’s important book, Genesis
And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma
Ulysses Departs from the Edge of the World of a Music (New York, DaCapo, 1974), from
(Composers Recordings, 170 W. 74th St.,
(Orion)
which the above quotations have been taken.
New York, N.Y. 10023)

Pierre SANDERS: Comic S trip from LE BLEU CIEL, Belgian surrealist newspaper (1945)

85
 ADO Owmlocl
TGSIEG|Rt es ||& |]

BARNUM
Emile COHL: Animated Cartoon Gag (1908)

it is an odd prejudice that makes a night at the Nouveau Cirque realizes spectable dimensions. Once they
periodical devote so many pages, or as much beauty as a premiere at the have been positioned, you notice
even all of them, to recording, criti- Comedie Francaise. One or another that they take up just as much room
cizing or glorifying the manifesta- mundane marriage should not dis- as three plates on a tablecloth. Into
tions of the human mind — taking in- tract our attention from the true wed- each of these rings you unleash a few
to account the activity of a single ding ceremony of a certain stallion herds of elephants, and then you
organ, the brain, excluding the rest. ona stud farm, any more than an auto begin to get a glimpse of what it really
No reason is assigned for failing to race should distract us from the more means to be enormous, unless you
make such a thorough study of the modest but more edifying perfor- would rather tell yourself that “an
stomach, say, or the pancreas, or mance of a procession. What is a pro- elephant isn’t so big!” Entangled in
whatever member. We need hardly cession, in short, if not footwork? the air is a virgin forest of rigging ne-
point out that sports news is buried (Excellent footwork at that.) And now cessary for several dozen tightrope
on the back of the daily papers, and that such public displays are banned, walkers and trapeze artists, who fly
that ninety-nine of a hundred novels have not the Middle Ages be- among themselves with never a mis-
—— but no more! — are exclusively queathed us that marvelous proces- hap. Down below swarm a colony of
devoted to exploiting man’s concern siodrome, Notre Dame? Footwork clowns, a herd of horses. A historical
for his reproductive apparatus. yet again: horseback riding! For, of cortege sets out: Nothing less would
Under the title ‘Gestures’ (gestes) the two elements of this sport, horse be presentable to us than Balkis,
will be found henceforth in this jour- and rider, which is indispensible and Queen of Sheba — musicians,
nal {La Revue Blanche], through our characteristic if not the horse? And, singers, dancers, fan-wavers, idol-
personal attention, commentaries on whether mounted or not, does he not bearers, charioteers: a more multitu-
all kinds of plastic performances. travel on foot? Gladiatorial combats, dinous dazzling than novel or legend
These are so varied that it would take whose tradition has been preserved dare suggest is lavished by Barnum in
a long time to compile a full list. A in all its purity since Antiquity, offer his circus, beginning simply with a
good number already have been enu- us three categories of movements ac- masterpiece passed off as an episode.
merated, better than we should know cording to the number of adversaries What superiority over actors do
how, in this very magazine, by Mr. on either side: (a) one against one — these acrobats display, finding it nat-
Thadée Natanson — concerning dueling, boxing, wrestling; (b) one ural to give themselves up to their
Toulouse-Lautrec: ‘‘Perfection of the against several — nocturnal assaults perilous job, in and among twenty
muscles, nerves, training, skill, crafts- and acts of self-sacrifice; (c) several other acts, without even knowing if
manship, technique . . . elbow wres- against one — legal execution and they themselves are being watched!
tling, horse racing, cycle-tracks, military exploits. In the freaks’ gallery, let us bring
roller skating, automobile driving, As for the latter-day fairgrounds your attention to Colonel Shelby,
beauty care, the operation undertak- shows, always cherished by the pub- who, for the audience’s pleasure, has
en by a great surgeon... a tavern, a lic, an exceptional concurrence ex- himself electrocuted every night in
dance hall... adrunken authority on empts us from celebrating thera to- the appropriate electric chair, as will-
drinks ... an explorer who has eaten day: Barnum is within our walls — ingly as any other colonel would take
human flesh . . . the young of a cat or we wish to say that, if it pleased him, his seat at a bar.
a squirrel . . .a sailboat taking you off he would fill these walls to the point
onthe wind... a brawl among drink- of bursting them, as easily as he has Alfred JARRY
ers .. . the burial of a pope... .” submerged them with his advertising Le Revue Blanche (1 Jan. 1902)
All these movements (gestes), in- posters. Reprinted in La Chandelle verte (1969)
deed all movements, are esthetic to It is just a big circus, people have
an equal degree, and we attach equal said. True — but imagine an arena in
Translated by Peter Wood
importance to them. The closing which you drop three others of re-

86
 and the
Transformation
of the
World

Debra TAUB: collage (1979)

the hallmark of the luminous serpentine

Everyday life of the Pygmies in the African rain forest in- ~ kind, was also
cludes the custom of allowing anyone, at any moment, on dances of Loie Fuller, who exerted so profound an in-
any occasion, to break spontaneously into dance. When- fluence on the French Symbolist poets and the sculptors
ever a member of this marvelous commun ity feels like it, and painters of art nouveau.
he or she may simply begin to dance, and others may join as These four women — Isadora Duncan (unquestionably
they please. first and foremost), Loie Fuller, Ruth St. Denis and Mary
Does this not reveal the true meaning of dance? Yet it is Wigman (all of them American except the last) — were the
all too plain what would happen if one was to express one- outstandi ng pioneers who emancipated dance from the
self in this fashion on a streetcorner in any city in the world stupefying and crippling dogma of centuries. It is they,
— it would mean certain incarceration. more than anyone else, who — in the opening years of our
Dance demands this freedom: this same freedom that own century — restored to bodily movement its possibili-
Isadora Duncan demanded when she danced her joy on the ties as a medium of human expression. Their individual
hillsides of Greece; the freedom she demanded, for herself invocations remain a permanent source of inspiration, es-
and for everyone, when — grief-stricken over the multi- pecially to those of us who are trying, today, to emancipate
tudes of dead carried away from the Winter Palace in dance from the shackles of minimalist/conceptual abstrac-
Czarist Russia after Bloody Sunday, 1905 -— she danced tion and merely decorative acrobatics.
her sorrow and her rage on theater stages through out the Repressed as it is in our repressive civilization, the
world. impulse to dance nonetheless continually resurfaces, often
Dance traditionally has been a form of invocat ion, a where we might least expect to find it. It is interesting to
primary instrument in the construction of a magical note the way people move in the simplest kinds of social
precipice: from the ancient Bacchanals through medieva l situations. People engaged in conversation, for example,
pagan festivals to the innumerable frenzie d “trance no matter how mundane the topic, go through an actual
dances” known to all societie s. This “occult ” power of “dance” (particularly if they are standing), which is often
dance on the human psyche was compellingly demon- complete with a specific beginning, some complicated steps
strated by the German dancer Mary Wigman, in her (changing places, crossing legs to sidestep, clapping hands
“Witch Dance” (available on film). Exchang ing her per- and other manual gestures, stomping feet and turning), and
sonal identity for a univers al identity with the use ofa even a formal ending. The erotic essence of this uncon-
magnificent mask, she takes us through ancient rhythms scious dance is much more pronounced when the partici-
and Druidic footsteps, always rooted to the ground and pants are of the opposite sex, especially in couples. The
emerging organically from a timeless space in which dance movements then assume a more sensuous quality in a
is free to articula te every issue in the most radiant hues. dance that is probably in many cases far more communica-
In her “Incense Dance” (also on film) Ruth St. Denis, a tive than the accompanying verbal dialogue.
woman with unbelievably fluid movemen ts, no less liquid Francois Delsarte (1811-1871) was deeply interested in
than water, makes an offering in such a way that the gods this “language of movement,” and the extensive social cur-
cannot refuse her. Fluidity, although of a very different rent that took up his ideas in the U.S. contributed appre-
87
 servile acceptance of what Herbert Marcuse has called
“repressive desublimation.”
Once the disco-victim purchases the proper attire, pays
for the necessary dance lessons and buys his practice
records, he or she can enter one of the invariably expensive
disco lounges, only to be awed by competitors still more
expensively attired, and harassed by waiters or waitresses
for the two-drink minimum. Disco is a game of exchanging
‘commodities in which dance is only a flimsy pretext: The
actual dancing, in fact, is decidedly secondary, and con-
trary to the situation of the rural dances mentioned earlier,
the possibilities disco provides for meaningful social con-
tact are negligible. It is symptomatic of the crisis of civiliza-
tion that this fraudulent pseudo-dance is the only type of
public dance which is truly acceptable in advanced capital-
istic society.
The situation is hardly better, however, in today’s ‘‘per-
formance dance.” If Dance (with the capital D) has never
enjoyed such widespread interest — not to mention such
financial support from giant corporations and government
agencies — it cannot be said that the results, so far, have
been more than mediocre. Those who pretend that we are
in the midst of a “dance renaissance” only advertise their
stupidity, or blindness, or both.
In the West, the two principal categories of dance as a
performance art are ballet and modern dance. There is not
ciably to freeing Victorian women of the ridiculous gar- much to say about classical ballet, except that it requires
ments of their time, which bound them to the point of years of strict training and considerable skill only to bore us
strangulation, thereby preventing the possibility of any into oblivion. The dazzling virtuosity of a few exceptional
free movement. Just as a beautiful horse galloping majesti- ballet dancers, such as Pavlova and Nijinsky, has made too
cally in an open field shrinks to half its size when saddled many people overlook the utter barrenness of this intrinsi-
and bridled, so it is with people strapped into the monotony cally aristocratic and irremediably lifeless genre. Whatever
of stifling clothes exemplifying a meaningless ex- semblance of vitality it has been able to muster has almost
istence. always been plundered from sources which its snobbish
‘The late 19th/early 20th century revolution in women’s apologists are loath to admit, but which are scarcely de-
clothes underlines the extent to which modern dance ori- niable: folk dances, peasant dances, carefree frolics of vil-
ginated as a movement of protest and emancipation. The lage and farm.
dance pioneers all were outspoken partisans of women’s Isadora Duncan, in her spendid autobiography and the
rights; in the case of Isadora Duncan, her critical spirit grew articles compiled in her Art of the Dance, definitively tore
into a consciously revolutionary attitude, leading to her es- ballet to shreds, refuting it all along the line. Today ballet is
pousal of the Bolshevik Revolution and the cause of no more than a quaint museum-piece feebly posing as a
communism. living art. The best that can be said for this peculiar and
It is noteworthy that the same period in which modern obsolete form of gymnastics-with-fancy-costumes is that
dance came into being also witnessed an unprecedented some wonderful music has been written for it. A notable
flurry of developments in popular or “social” dancing. In example is Erik Satie’s scores for Parade and Relache,
the early years of movies and jazz, and helped undoubted- loosely called ballets, although they were the scandals of
ly by the rapid diffusion of radios and phonograph records, their time and remain unsurpassed in daring by any subse-
dozens of new dances — lively, exuberant, expressive — quent ballet.
took the country by storm. Unfortunately, this develop-
ment long ago ran its course, and little trace of its original Modern dance, with very few exceptions, has not lived
impulse remains. The vast difference between what is up to the promise of its vibrant beginnings. It is true that the
known as “folk dance” and what passes today for leading figures of its second and third generations main-
“popular” dancing is only too painfully evident. tained much of the audacity and zeal of the great dance pio-
In many parts of rural America it is still possible to attend neers, and it is worth emphasizing (especially since dance
a local fe-do-do, or a square dance, or a barn dance — historians usually ignore it) that modern dance as a move-
communal events that are socially valuable, unpretentious ment in the 1920s and ’30s was intimately linked to the
and above all fun. Their contemporary urban equivalents, radical political Left. There were well-known dance groups
however, tend to have undergone a rigid stylization, affiliated with the Communist Party, the Socialist Party
almost a sterilization, which is the very opposite of what and other Left parties and trade unions; they choreo-
dance is all about. Unquestionaly the worst and most reac- graphed and performed dances dedicated to Sacco and
tionary tendency in this regard is the recent fad for “disco,” Vanzetti, to the Scottsboro defendants, to the anti-Franco
which is wholly consumer-oriented and bourgeoisified in forces in Spain. Significant, too, is the degree to which they
every way, and ultimately nothing more than a hideously derived their inspiration from essentially popular sources:
88
 American folk dance, vaudeville, the circus, silent movies and jazz —
Martha Graham from pagan myths and the
Hump hrey “from the Shaker s; Kathe rine and so neurotically obsessed with justifying their cowar-
circus; Doris
am from Africa n, Carri bean and Afro- American folk- dice under the pretense of Art, that they are no longer ca-
Dunh
pable of expressing anything except their own emptiness,
lore; Sybil Shearer from dreams and fairy tales.
But as the revolutionary workers’ movement
was vir- death and decay, and even that in an insipid and half-
rated in the course of the secon d imperi alist hearted manner.
tually oblite
ent (and the radica l But in spite of all this treacherous inanity, we are entitled
world war, this radical dance movem
to the winds. to retain some hope. Now as ever, the possibilities of dance
cultural movement as a whole) was scattered a
Its dwindling forces were increasingly unable to
withstand remain limitless. We have everything to expect from
ism, existen- dance that will defy conventions, leap boldly into the un-
the encroachments of academism, commercial a
tialism. With Merce Cunningham it adjusted
the itself to known, and never hesitate to start from scratch: that is,
e of the Cold War. And it’s been downhill surrealist dance.
political climat
ever since. For what is dance if not the physical expression of poetic
Today, more than a century after the birth of
Isadora vitality and exaltation, the moving magic of marvelous
Duncan, the exalte d potent iality of the free dance seems freedom? That is what Antonin Artaud sensed in the
practically to have perished in the hands of such incred ibly dancers of Bali, and in the peyote dance of the Tarahumara
in the
reactionary idiots as Mered ith Monk, Twyla Tharp and Indians in Mexico; what Michel Leiris discerned
accla imed as “inno va- funeral rituals of the Dagon in Africa; what André Breton
Laura Dean — all of them wildly
tors,” of course, by bourgeois dance critics from
coast to found in the midst of voodoo ceremonies in Haiti; what
coast. Benjamin Péret discovered in the dance-games of descen-.
This trio, constituting the best-known culprits in
the de- dants of slaves in Brazil; what Philip Lamantia recognized
generation of dance today, has consp ired to remov e all in the Katchina dances of the Hopiin Arizona. These are all
content from dance — above all erotic and poetic conten t, fundamental points of reference for surrealism in dance.
thus removing the very heart of dance. Surrealism began in poetry but soon took over painting
And what is left after sending dance to the dry-cleaners
? and gradually extended its sway over the whole field of
Well, here we have Laura Dean, specia list in “twirl ing and human expression. In the last few years the surrealist revo-
stomping,” wandering aimlessly about the stage mutter
ing lution has brought dance under its fiery imperatives. The
“My name is Laura Dean,” and even “ma-ma.”
Oh, yawn! surrealist dream of “poetry made by all” (Lautréamont)
Her “Circle Dance” consists of people shuffling endles
sly will be realized only when everyone is free to dance when-
in a circle; later, by some miracl e, they chang e direct ion ever and wherever he or she pleases. It is time to heed the
and shuffle the other way. What more could we want! Jesus lessons of the Pygmies!
songs? “The Star-Spangled Banner”? Yes, she gives us that,
too. Aspiece de resistance, she pours Ivory Snow on the
stage, repeating the remarkably witty line: “snow.”
a
Then tnere is Mereaith Monk sitting motionlessly in
in the theate r lobby. The box has a hole in it
cardboard box
so that we may peek in and observe her feigned catalepsy.
still
Meanwhile, on stage, a film shows the performer,
motionless. Those who have forked over their ten dollars
st
for tickets are doubtless expected to express their humble
gratitude for this rare opport unity.
in
Twyla Tharp, in her routine blankness, is interested
is minima lly or
such labored microproblems as ‘‘that which
maximally visible.” To be more precise: How far away can
a dancer be without becoming invisible to the naked eye,
and how close before we can no longer detect movement,
but only a wart on the cheek? Such miserabilist preoccupa-
tions deserve the Who Cares? award of the decade.
Besides all this bombastic dreariness, the latest dead-end
currents of modern dance have cheated us out of
1) all hand movements (which can hardly be ignored, for
hands are among our most powerfully expressive in-
struments);
2) costumes (almost exclusively limited now to the basic
Danskin), as well as masks; and
3) stage sets (which have all but disappeared except for
an occasional black backdrop).
Thus, those who have appointed themselves the
“leaders” of what they pompously call “post-modern
dance” have done nothing but confess to their incompe-
tence and worthlessness. They are so utterly terrified of the Anne ETHUIN: Isadora — That Is, Iris
truly popular roots of modern dance — in street-dancing, (coated collage, 1976)
89
 The point is that anything and everything can be ours Dance is the inscrutable sorcery by which we are trans-
with the flick of an imagination. Why should we settle for ported by every gesture to the terrain of the imaginary,
nothing — or less than nothing — when we could thrill our- where all things become possible along the magnetic fields
selves and everyone else with new, constantly changing of the body’s waking dream, where the charmed humming-
and wondrously illumined landscapes, not only on stage birds of our most extravagant reveries soar through a lunar
but everywhere? To be inspiring, we have only to allow eclipse to the break of a new dawn.
ourselves to be inspired. We have only to follow through And it’s all ours!
the dignity of thought and the power of dreams. Debra TAUB

‘At\ hes Ge Keene” 492 P

Penelope ROSEMONT: Sun Dance of the Kite-Birds (ink, 1978)

MOVIES, SPORTS & DANCE

If movies owe nothing to the theater, they Movies, as an art, are a development ot The poem of sport, looking beyond the
nonetheless owe a great deal to sports, ath- modern spiritual culture. But they are at the merely educational and orthopedic tenden-
letics, acrobatics. Is it necessary to enlarge on same time the glorification of modem physi- cies of physical culture, develops all the
something so obvious? Films, which are as cal culture. They find their equilibrium senses. It lavishes itself on the pure sensations
much a collective effort as football, rarely re- between the two, and therein lies their con- of muscular activity, the pleasure of bare flesh
cruit their actors or actresses from the trage- siderable moral significance. in the wind, marvelous physical exaltation.
dians of the stage —especially not American the drunkenness of the body.
films. French cinema is relatively closer to * Oe ® The free dance: autonomous, corporeal,
theater. . .But in the overwhelming majority dynamic poetry ~ independent of music, lit-
of cases, the movies have found their most re- A Poetry of the Corporeal erature and the plastic arts — opens the way
markable interpreters among sportsmen, and Spatial Senses to sensuality, to the art of the inspired body.
athletes, acrobats and circus clowns. The The most physical and nonetheless the most
celebrated boxing champion Carpentier — a Sense of direction, sense of speed, chrono- abstract art, its medium is a palpable body of
friend of Charlie Chaplin’s — is now playing spatial sense of motion: sports and its various flesh and blood: this body which composes
in films.‘ Only the sports world, with its high disciplines — auto racing, aviation, travel, through its movements the dynamic and ab-
degree of perfection, has been able to furnish gymnastics, acrobatics; the thirst for records, stract forms of the dunced poem.
the movies with sufficiently “smart” automo- the competitve sense of the athlete, the
passion for victory all resound at a football Karel TEIGE
bilists, cavaliers, cowboys and cowgirls such
as Rawlinson, Fairbanks, Marie Walcamp, game along with the collective joy of play and
the sentiments of harmony, precision and co- (early 1920s)
Helen Holmes, Pearl White, Maciste, Harry
Carey, W. Hart, Ruth Roland, et al. ordination.

90
 ISADORA AND THE MAGIGIANS
interests: they recur too often, too consistent-
de-
Because of her undisputed centrality in the ly and over too long a period. It would be no
velopment of the new art of modern dance,
Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) has Been the
exaggeration, indeed, to say that her mean-
subject of a vast literature — most of it, alas! derings into the “Mysteries” form an integ-
merely sensationaand l anecdotal. In the last few ral part of the Isadorian world-view.
years, however, some attempt has been made Paris, where she lived off and on for ex-
not only to disentangle truth from legend in her
tended periods, beginning in 1900, was still
life, but also to get beyond the tiresomely re-
iterated generalizations regarding her epochal the center of awidespread revival of occult-
ideas and achievements. ism which deeply affected the cultural life of
Part of this new research has focused on the the time. Secret societies, magical cults and
“influences” discernible inher choreography and circles of initiates that had flourished in the
of
her writings. Much has been made of her study
dance-f igures on ancient Greek vases; she her- 1880s and ’90s still lingered. Spells and
self insisted on the influence exerted on her by counterspells, possessions and exorcisms,
the Preraphaelite painters, the poetry of Walt hexes and hoaxes were “in the air.” It was
he.
Whitman and the philosophy of Nietzsc also a time of major work in the area of psy-
Recent research has brought to light some impor-
tant details. But the picture is still far from
chical research, as witness the many publi-
complete... . cations of Theodore Flournoy. An artist as
adventurous and heterodox as Isadora could
* *

hardly fail to come into contact with this

“At different periods of her life,” ac- milieu. Several of the authors she frequently
cited, most notably Maurice Maeterlinck,
cording to one of her friends, “Isadora was
was immersed in this occult atmospherc.
troubled with hallucinations and she were
strangely influenced by evil omens and Also significantly, the printed program for
curses.” (1) These incursions beyond the one of her 1920 performances included, as a
mind’s wildest frontiers have been noted by kind of preface, a lengthy excerpt on
many others and, indeed, were by no means Orpheus from The Great Initiates by
concealed by Isadora herself. Her writings Edouard Schuré — that is, from the major
teem with allusions to altered states of con- work by a central proponent of the Theo-
sciousness and to “secret sciences.” She ac- sophical movement in France.
Far more suggestive, however 1s
knowledged her interest in “the recent dis-
coveries of mental telepathy,” reported Isadora’s association with the curious and
several precognitive dreams, consulted for- Abraham WALKOWITZ: Isadora Duncan striking personage who proclaimed himself
tunetellers, and readily admitted that her the Sar Merodack Péladan. At least one of
dance was conceived “as if in a trance.” (2) Isadora’s celebrated performances at the ‘Tro-
One of her most compelling essays is titled “Very little is known in our day of cadero in 1913, when the famed tragedian
“The Philosophers’ Stone of Dancing.” Mounet-Sully sang the choruses, was pre-
\the magic which resides in move-
Though hardly an adept of astrology, she ment, and the potency of certain ges- ceded by a long lecture by Péladan on
nonetheless boldly declared that “it is certain tures. The number of physical move- Isadora’s art.
that our psychical life is under the influence ments that most people make Along with Stanislas de Guaita and
of the planets.” She often identified herself through life is extremely limited. Gerard Encausse (better known as Papus),
with the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis who, Having stifled and disciplined their Josephin Péladan (“Sar” means ding in
for the hermetists, represented the Elixir of movements in the first states of child- Assyrian; “Merodack” refers to Merodach
Life. She held, moreover, that the dance she hood, they resort to a set of habits Baladan, son of a Babylonian king,
had discovered had curative powers and was seldom varied. So, too, their mental mentioned in Isaiah xxxix), was a major
capable of greatly prolonging life. On her activities respond to set formulas, figure in the French occult revival of
pilgrimage to Greece she “became greatly often repeated. With this repetition of 1880-1920. A prolific playwright, poet,
impressed upon reading of the Mysteries of physical and mental movements, novelist, essayist, author of numerous vol-
Eleusis.” With her mother and siblings she they limit their expression until they umes on the “black arts,” he was the founder
“actually danced every step of the way” from become like actors who each night and leader of a Rosicrucian sect, the Aes-
Athens to Eleusis — a distance of thirteen play the same role. With these few thetic Rose Cross. His work is a feverish
and a half miles — and remained there two stereotyped gestures, their whole blend of magic, eroticism, a virulently deca-
days, “studying the Mysteries.” lives are passed without once sus- dent Catholicism, ancient mythology,
Customarily dismissed by her biogra- pecting the world of the dance which Satanism, blasp hemy and homeopathic
phers as a frivolous diversion or a “quirk,” they are missing.” medicine. Today he seems all but forgotten,
Isadora’s interest in this shadowy domain has recalled only as a “muddled exhibitionist”
not received the attention it deserves. It is — ISADORA DUNCAN (3) and as “a charlatan who used to walk the
worth emphasizing that these preoccupa- Paris boulevards in a silver waistcoat and
tions were not at all peripheral to her other
91
black burnous, his hands devoutly folded Defining tragedy as “the masterpiece of these currents might have been, outstanding
upon his breast.” (4) In his own day, how- the human spirit,” and deploring the fact characteristics united them:
ever, he was recognized as “one of the most that in the modern epoch it has remained a 1) all were opposed to the bourgeois/
fascinating personages . . . and as a front- Sleeping Beauty, Péladan credits Isadora christian mainstream of Western civiliza-
ranking esthetician.” (5) (and Mounet-Sully) with its reawakening. tion; and
That Péladan was no ordinary spiritual- “Isadora Duncan is Dionysiac,” he says, 2) all shared a confidence in the ability of
ist/mystic hack is further indicated by the di- adding that “this epithet alone expresses the human beings to retrieve “lost powers,” and
versity and caliber of many of his friends freedom of her inspiration and the radiant to change the world.
and collaborators. ‘These included writers charm of her art.” He notes that the ancients Isadora’s essentially Promethean impulse
such as Villiers de PIsle-Adam (author of based their dance on poetry, and applauds drew her to Péladan as, later, it would draw
Axeland the Cruel Ta/es) and Barbey d’Aure- Isadora for restoring her art on the same her (and more powerfully) to Lenin. And so
villy, last of the great Dandies (author of D7- basis. Finally, observing that rhythm eludes it happens that magicians and mediums had
aboliques), as wellas the artist Felicien Rops, all efforts to define it but that everyone auto- a place alongside painters and poets as well as
so admired by Huysmans. It is significant, matically recognizes it, he provides his own anarchists and communists in the Isadorian
too, that he was held in high esteem by no definition: “the agreement of a voice or a perspective for social transformation. Her
less a discerning critic than Alfred Jarry, the gesture with the harmony of the spheres” — enthusiasm for everything contributory to
illustrious founder of ‘pataphysics, who a declaration that could easily have been the new myth was nourished by her sensi-
-endered Peladan the honor ofincluding one made by Pythagoras, or Giordano Bruno, or tivity to all that was vital in the myths of old.
of his works (Babylon) among the twenty- , Isadora herself. Opposed to everything repressive,
seven “equivalent books” of Doctor Faust- That Isadora should have been involved Isadora Duncan exemplified a glorious rest-
roll, along with Homer’s Odyssey and works with a character such as Péladan is not so sur- lessness that reached into the future, a rest-
by Coleridge, Lautréamont, Mallarmé and_ prising; the concurrence of their views, lessness that could not settle for anything less
Rimbaud. (6) however — at least on the subjects outlined than the restoration and limitless expansion
Péladan also has been called the “chief?” of in Péladan’s conference — is truly remark- of the Garden of Eden: “Everything
the “Wagner cult” in France; one of the aims able. One cannot help wondering, on the rustling, promising New Life. That is what
of his Rosicrucian order was to “regulate the strength of this, whether she delved more my dance means.”
arts according to what was alleged to be the deeply into the society of practicing occult- BR.
Wagnerian esthetic.” (7) The order’s offi- ists. It would be interesting to know if she
cial composer, however, was the far-from- ever read, for example, Fabre d’Olivet’s
Wagnerian modernist Erik Satie. little treatise on music, or if anyone ever
Also associated with Pélagan — and, at placed in her hands the works of Nicolas
least for a time, an adherent of the Aesthetic Ilamel, or Hoene Wronski, or Eliphas
Rose Cross —~ was the great Symbolist poct Levi. One wonders, too, to what extent she
Saint-Pol-Roux, author of — many was aware of esoteric traditions relating to
outstanding works, including From the dance.
Crow to the Nightingale by way of the Peacock. * * *

Saint-Pol-Roux, whose work is one of the

grandest prefigurations of surrealism, 1s of If we take the trouble to consider, care-
special interest in this connection because in fully, Isadora’s association with Péladan —
his “Choreologie,” a poetic exploration of and, more generally, her incursions into
dance, he saluted the “luminous passage psychical research and the occult — it will NOTES
of . . . Isadora Duncan.” (8) serve to deepen our appreciation of her radi- (1) Mary Desti, The Untold Story: The Life of
Except for a reference by her adopted cal nonconformist spirit. Isadora’ Duncan, 1921-1927 (New York,
daughter Irma (9), the name of Péladan 1s In her dance, she knew she had dis- Liveright, 1929), p. 49.
not to be found in any of the books on’ covered something new that was yet, in (2) Quotations by Isadora are from My Life
(1927) and The Art of the Dance (1928).
Isadora in English. Fortunately, however, another sense, ancient. “I did-not invent my (3) Richard Griffiths, The Reactionary Revolu-
excerpts from his conference on Isadora dance,” she stressed. “It existed before me, tion: The Catholic Revival in French Literature,
were published in French, under the title but it lay dormant. I merely discovered and 1870-1914 (New York, Ungar, 1965), p. 123.
“Isadora Duncan and Greek Tragedy.” (10) awakened it.” (11) Attempting to develop (4) Robert Baldick, “Introduction” to Joris-Karl
Huysmans, Down There (La-Bas) (New York,
‘hat it was printed even in an abridged the implications of her discovery, she found
University Books, 1958), p. xvi.
form leads us to deduce that it may not have little guidance in the dominant systems of (5) Théophile Briant, Saint-Pol-Roux (Paris,
been a lecture from notes but rather a com- thought. Indeed, more often than not these Seghers, 1951), p. 18.
pleted written text; one likes to think that the ideologies repelled her, having revealed (6) See also Jarry’s appreciations of Péladan in La
original manuscript may yet be discovered their utter impotence to solve any ofthe fun- Chandelle verte (Paris, Livre de Poche, 1969).
(7) Rollo H. Myers, Erik Satie (New York, Dover,
in some archive. The published excerpts in- damental problems of human existence, as 1968), p. 23.
dicate that it was an ambitious study, savor- proved by the persistence of such evils as (8) Saint-Pol-Roux, Les Plus belles pages (Paris,
ing of an “old-fashioned” grandeur. The poverty and war. Thus she ventured far Mercure de France, 1966), p. 191.
excerpts alone constitute a well-argued, sus- from the beaten track, into curious hetero- (9) Irma Duncan and Allan Ross Macdougall,
Isadora Duncan’s Russian Days (New York,
tained appreciation in which the author of doxies and doctrines of revolt. Over the
Covici-Friede, 1929), p. 358.
How One Becomes a Mage situated Isadora’s years she allied herself, to one degree or (10) Unidentified clipping in the Dance Collec-
Jances at the very heart of his wildly another, with many and widely varied cur- tion of the New York Public Library.
wayward esthetic. rents. But great as the differences between (11) Quoted in Imma Duncan, op. cit., p. 6.

92
 DANCE
FRED ASTAIRE and
for Jacques Baron would see the severe jacket which suddenly
runs riot, the quality leather shoes which enter
INSTINCT
Fred Astaire dressed in black with a tophat, abruptly into trance and rap the floorboards as
Fred Astaire hatless, wearing a tuxedo, Fred if to defy or enrage them; the fine silk handker- Dance is above all a reflex, a spontaneous
Astaire in checks and a boater, Fred Astaire chiefs draped over a heart which suddenly expression of vividly experienced emotions. In
with a bowler and umbrella, Fred Astaire ina begins to bleed — for this window-manne- dance mankind has found a means of satisfying
trilbee, without gloves, Fred Astaire in a quin, this automaton, this sylph, is also aman, its desire for tangency with the universe.
double-breasted jacket, with gloves, Fred and all his finery, his panoply of costly trifles,
Astaire in shirt-sleeves, Fred Astaire in a cardi- his little manias, cannot always exonerate him *,
gan, Fred Astaire in an overcoat carrying a suit- from love or boredom. We must reject as a profound error the static
case, Fred Astaire knotting his tie, Fred Astaire Fred Astaire is the incarnation of one of the idea of a dance that is always the same.
tweaking his braces, entering a restaurant, most acute features of the modern disorder: a Academic dance, still with us at this late date,
waiting in the rain, playing with his lighter, prestigious dancer and a rather macabre albeit offers the viewer an exclusively visual pleasure
strolli the countryside, courtaing
inng woman: well-dressed clown (the cut just shabby by means of an exceptional virtuousity of the
There is a whole gallery of Fred Astaires, enough to make him seem a bit disreputable, limbs, opposed to the rest of the body. It tends
viewed by night and by day, in winter or just ample enough to make him appear skinny to derive solely from the law of gravity.
spring, in comfortable apartments or on the and underfed, and to rend our hearts as the Confined by such obsolete methods, the
street, contorted or humming a tune, jerking or song takes off). It is this man who, when I saw dancer becomes a mechanical instrument exe-
stretched out, with a consumptive look but a him dancing in London about a year and a half cuting meaningless movements. Choreogra-
laughing eye, a beatific grin on the taut fea- ago in The Gay Divorcee, reminded me irresis- phy repeats, in a language withered and weak,
tures of an alcoholic — not to forget the tibly of the drawings a schoolfriend and | used what has already been said. Thus we get ‘‘pure
feather-brained, innocent look, and that to scrawl on our notebooks during the war, all dance,” “art for art’s sake”: expressions of dec-
supreme distinction which is the prerogative of of which depicted skeletons of perfect ele- adence, crystallization and death. ai
certain royally dressed hoods. ‘‘It was about gance — some of them civilians, others sol- And thus dance loses its human character,
time for that cursory air of ours,’” said Vache. diers: the expression of a quite special kind of which consists in translating the intensity of life
“Cemetery of uniforms and liveries,” said frivolity. in all its sentiments and aspirations, individual
Michel LEIRIS
Marcel Duchamp. And Rimbaud, too, who as well as social. Reduced to acts that are con-
La Béte Noir, No. 1
spoke of “the cruel swagger of rags,” though trary to life, dance loses its poetic place in
concerned with something very different, (1935) reality, and drags mankind downward.
would hardly have guessed that one day we Translated by Lorna Scott-Fox Academism is a vicious circle.
*
In dance today we see a return to the magic
of movement, to natural and subtle human
forces. Dance today aspires to exalt, to charm,
GENE KELLY: to hypnotise — to wholly engage the sensibility.
It is a matter of restoring to our movements

Singin’ in the Rain the expressive surplus enclosed in the human

body, this marvelous instrument. In line with
current needs, we must rediscover the truths al-
ready known to the ancients, to primitive
Since the long-gone epoch of the first musi- Gene Kelly has not made a film in which peoples, and to Oriental civilization, as con-
cals, dance films unfortunately have been song and dance numbers are interspersed
through an idiotic and insipid story (as is the cretized in the dances of the African fetishist, the
overrun by syrupy songsters. Only the genial whirling dervish and the Tibetan rope-dancer
Fred Astaire has remained to recall for us that case in 99% of today’s musicals). He inte-
_.. Dance attains its reason for being when it
once, in the very beginning of “talking pic- grates his dances into a story which is inter-
knows how to enchant the onlooker and to re-
tures,” things were different. esting, charming and amusing; the final se-
vive him by means of the organism. . . For that
Then along came Vicente Minelli. Shame- quence, with its atrocious albeit justified cru-
elty, would not be out of place in a film by to happen, we must be unafraid to go as far as
lessly he ushered his dancers into the world of necessary in exploring our whole person. . .
dreams and arrayed them in dazzling colors. Stroheim or Clouzot . .
In such films as A Cabin in the Sky, Ziegfield The musical numbers are not simply a rec- x
Follies, The Pirate, Yolanda and the Thief, An reation of an old style: Gene Kelly, the man
who dances with his double as well as with Today we are striving to reconstruct the
American in Parts, he demonstrated how world, Our life-saver in this task is instinct. Part
viable the marriage of film and dance could be animated cartoon characters, has brought to
them all his tenderness and transformed them of our effort now consists in uncovering our in-
His favorite actor, Gene Kelly, not content
into poems. The declaration of love in the stincts, which have been imprisoned for so
to be the best cinematographic dancer (after long.
Fred Astaire) as well as his own choreogra- huge studio, empty but yet overflowing —
thanks to his moonbeams, soft lights, mist and Happily, there are vital needs, irresistible
pher, has now become his own director. He
wind: all the requisite features of the roman- forces. There is hope and, besides, there is
collaborates with Stanley Donen, who is
tic landscape —— constitutes a highly poetic se- science which, however, must not be isolated
black, which for a European would be of no
quence. And Gene Kelly’s dance which gives but rather must preside, as in olden times, over
significance, but is otherwise for an
the film its title is an admirable affirmation of our adoration and our magic. Everything must
American.
Gene Kelly, moreover, is an intelligent the joy of living and of amorous exaltation. be organized for liberation, for the rediscovery
man: He truly loves motion pictures which he of vertigo and love.
Ado KYROU Francoise SULLIVAN
does not dissociate from dance. His first film,
On the Town, was delicious; his second, Sing-
ing in the Rain, is a real masterpiece of its Excerpts from a lecture,
genre. : Bizarre (Paris), No. 2, 1953 “La Danse et l’espoir,”
Montreal, 16 February 1948

93
 +SUBIL SHEARER
Kirst and last, Sybil Shearer is an ardent dance. The unfettered imagination always transparence, golden with our wildest
free spirit who has persistently gone her own has been her surest guide. This is as evident dreams.
way. She has run all risks, challenged sacro- in the simplest improvisations of what she It should not be too surprising, in the
sanct assumptions, leaped over obstacles calls “liquid acting” (a kind of pantomime light of all this, to learn that she has many
regarded as insurmountable. Everything feverishly carried to the point of pure psy- times avowed her profound affinities for
about her serves to remind us that dance, ifit chic automatism) as it is in her most complex surrealism. What makes this especially
is to exist at all, must be a passionately choreography. The inspired oneiricism of worthy of remark is that surrealism did not
pursued adventure. her every muscle and nerve allows her with exist in this country as an organized move-
She was a leading member of the Doris seeming effortlessness to transgress the ment during her most active years. In her
}{umphrey/Charles Weidman company in bounds of the possible. Her sheer bodily own activity as a dancer she followed a
its best days (mid-1930s), and in 1942 she poetry is enhanced by striking costumes closely parallel path, and her choreography
received John Martin’s prestigious Dance which she designs and makes herself, as well brims over with authentic surrealist mo-
Award for “the most promising debut per- as by her often austere but invariably evoca- ments. She always has been “absolutely
formance of a solo choreographer.” Then tive use of props. Everything is additionally modern,” in the sense intended by
suddenly, the following year, to the amaze- underscored by the exceptional lighting pro- Rimbaud. “Modern,” she says, “is the
ment of the “dance world,” she fled New vided by her longtime collaborator Helen desire and the attempt to reach eternity
York and its maddening maze of jealous. Morrison. now.”
coteries, and has worked ever since in rela- Alone on stage, Sybil Shearer makes us It is our good fortune that much of her
tive isolation in the northern suburbs of see a veritable horde of somnambulists on work is currently available on film. Cer-
Chicago. the rampage. Abruptly everything changes: tainly her admirable examp/e will long serve
This deliberate self-occultation, reveal- now we see a solitary dragonfly, at daybreak, as a blazing torch to all for whom the art of
ing her utter indifference to an ordinary hovering over a grassy knoll after the rain. dance is inseparable from the triple cause of

26
“successful career” — and her scorn for the She takes us through the dark delirium of poetry, love and freedom.
hardly disinterested pretensions of critics — fertility rites, the riotous frenzy of “dancirtg Through her marvelous kinesthetic al-:
doubtless helps explain the reticence with in the streets,” ambiguous tragedies in the chemy, Sybil Shearer has brought a whole
which dance historians have approached her moonlit wilderness, the bitterest melo- world into being —~ a world of irreducible
appreciable contributions. Thus, whereas dramas, the most sinister comedies. Out of radiance, warm with the glow of ancient
many lesser dancers have been made the sub- the seething cauldron of gestures, she has suns, caressed by winds from a wholly
ject of full-length biographies and numer- brought forth endless images of magical desirable future. E.R.
ous monographs, Sybil Shearer — indis-
putably one of the greatest dancers ofall time P.R.: drawings
---- has been awarded primarily silence and
more silence, especially in recent years,
Per fierce independence was unmistak-
able from the start. A critic in Dance Ob-
server (June/July 1949) remarked that
Shearer “took all the devices and develop-
ments of modern dance and threw them to
the winds, returning . . . to the period of
Isadora.” This was meant to be sharply criti-
cal, but succeeded only in missing the point.
By the 1940s modern dance had been
DANCE OF A FURY:
largely reduced to reified formulae. Every-
thing had become tiresomely predictable — cANNABELLE GAMSON
exercises with no surprises. In revolt against
this deadly uniformity and repetition,
‘lu solo dance, which has seemingly all but vanished trom both
Shearer returned not so much to Isadora as to the theater and dance studio, lives on (and gloriously), with
the essentials of dance — to its “prime Annabelle Gamson.
matter,” in the hermetists’ sense — which’ Her brilliant re-creations of Isadora Duncan’s and Mary
she discovered for herself as Isadora had dis- Wigman’s work ate equalled by her own superbly arresting chor-
covered before her. eography.
Moreover, while so many dancers suc- In her dynamic performance Gamson illustrates the commanding
cumbed so easily to a stifling “realism” — as presence of a single dancer who has much to say and a furious
later they would give in to existentialism and desire to say it.
other deplorable fashions —- she never ac- Debra TAUB
cepted any limits to the possibilities of
 Hannah COHOON: The Tree of Light or Blazing Tree (1845)

CHANNAH COHOO
THE MIRROR OF EQUALITY
“And we would urge all children, who are thus izations, as is the auditory tendency that Breton personally
growing in this tree, friendly to ponder that each favored, for many of the Shaker creations were described
branch and twig helps to shelter the other from to the artist by a voice rather than being executed by a hand
the storm, and we commend ourselves unto their
love and growth.”
directly manipulated by a spirit.
~-Jacob Boehme Different though they may be in some ways, the Shaker
drawings would in any case necessarily obey an automatic
André Breton’s essay “The Automatic Message” (1933) exigency. For like all Shaker expression, they were precip-
treated in some detail the question of mediumistic/auto- itated psychologically in response to a human situation
Matic drawings. Many drawings of the type he mentioned characterized by rigid sexual abstinence and the prohibi-
Were executed in the nineteenth century under the influ- tion of artistic images as such. Under these conditions, such
€nce of spiritualistic ideas which gave a certain sanction to pictorial sublimations as would inevitably tend to arise
automatism viewed as the result of a benign form of spirit would have to assume a rather primitive and immediate
Possession. The then obscure existence of the Shaker quality. Also inevitable would be the need for an accep-
“spirit drawings,” dated from the early and middle nine- table ideology to justify the maverick indulgence in visual
teenth century in America, was probably unknown to imagery, which violated the Shaker reading the first com-
reton. Certainly their formal tendency is generally dif- mandment of Moses.
ferent from the kind of drawing usually identified as auto- The necessary rationale was provided by the spiritualist
Matic in surrealist writings on art. They are typically more inspirationism that served to justify most, if not all, Shaker
Naive and child-like in their imagery and structure, some- art forms which carried the burden of expressive needs ina
times reminding us of crewel embroidery and folk art community wherein ‘Fine. Art” was unknown. Their
igurations. Still, it is noteworthy that Breton himself “spiritualism,” which brought the Shakers of the 1830s and
Quoted Herschel on ‘the involuntary production of visual 40s into communication with their own deceased saints
lmages whose principle . characteristic was their and even with secular greats such as George Washington,
Tegularity.”’ This trait is well exemplified in Shaker visual- preceded even the first stirrings of that more widely known
 and shapes remain free. In these drawings we can see that
the elimination of overbearing masses is a principle in
Shaker art that points to a kind of joy. Perhaps the supreme
moral tendency of these works lies in a symbolic assertion
of complete balance between the male and female
principles.
The drawing entitled “The Tree of Light, or Blazing
Tree,” from 1845, memorializes the visionary tree that the
early Shaker James Whittaker saw while he was still in
England with Ann Lee’s original entourage, and which he
spoke of as a ‘‘vision of America.’’ The vision is probably
intended to portray a Shakerized America. The symbol is
an ideal representation of a united human community,
each leaf equal in the quantitative dimension, each glowing
by itself with a light that is inspiration.
The “Tree of Life” from 1854 is a sensuous variation.
Roots, trunk and branches are little different from the
drawing done nine years earlier. However, this drawing is
dominated by oversized red and green fruits covered with
Hannah COHOON: The Tree of Life (1854) tiny seedlings. The fruit dances in the branches, and the
Spiritualist movement that sprang trom the mysterious leaves arranged between them are marked with a criscross
rapping sounds audited by the Fox sisters. If a derivation pattern to suggest veins. Here again we have a uniform
for Shaker spiritualism is to be found, we must search for it sizing of all the elements: the fruit, differentiated only in
in the ecstasies of the prophets who fueled the Camisard color; the seedlings that cover the outer surface of the fruit;
revolt in France in the 1700s, and who exerted an influence the uniform leaves; the criscrossing of the veins: Nature and
on the extremist Quaker circles from which the Shakers life in its ripeness, all things grown to be equal. “J entreated
emerged. Mother Ann to tell me the name of this tree; which she did
One of the most remarkable series of Shaker drawings Oct. 1st, 4th hour P.M. by moving the hand of a medium to
was that executed by Hannah Cohoon of Hancock Village write twice over Your Tree is the Tree of Life.”
in Massachusetts, which community was renamed the From the same year of 1854 we have a stately vision of
“City of Peace” during the burst of inspirationist fervor “A Bower of Mulberry Trees.” The trees compose an
that swept over the Shaker movement in the 1830s and archway with large-sized leaves whose shapes are some-
’40s. In contrast to the dispersed imagery of most Shaker what hallucinatory in a strictly optical sense, reminiscent
drawings, which feature collections of miniaturized sym- for me of certain shapes in the paintings of the early twen-
bolic gifts matched and balanced in a dominant rectangular tieth century abstractionist Arthur Dove. A smaller arch
pattern, Hannah Cohoon’s drawings contain only one within the arch is composed of the dream-like text in which
major symbol — a tree, in various permutations. This tree Hannah Cohoon describes the vision. Under the word-arch
is so striking in its evocation of the unity or totality of life is a golden table, set for a feast. “Sept. 13th 1854. Blessed
that even someone who is only casually acquainted with Mother Ann came into meeting we had a very powerful
the writings of Jacob Boehme will receive a shock of recog- meeting .. .Afterwards I saw many brethren sitting upon
nition have they but read his ‘‘Author’s Preface to the benches in the bower.”’
Reader” from Six Theosophical Points.
The series of watercolor drawings referred to are only
four in number. They are usually on display in a preserved
building at Hancock Shaker Village with a representative
selection of other Shaker works. They are also discussed
and reproduced in the volume Visions of the Heavenly
Spheres by Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews,
which deals with the Shaker drawings and is a valuable
source of information on the inspirationist/spiritualist
wave in Shaker history.
Of the four drawings, the first three were directly in-
spired by communication with the spirit of Ann Lee,
founder of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s
Second Coming (known as the Shakers). The precipitating
visions are described by Hannah Cohoon in a short text on
each sheet. We are shown roots, trunk, branches and leaves
rendered with an ease of line and a delightful feeling of life
and motion in the context of an overall harmony. The uni-
formity that threatens the movement of the lines and the
various shapes is a trait that nsks monotony; however,
here it is not productive of rigidity or monotony. The lines

96
 “golden apples of the sun.” A corrugated rectangle repre-
sents the basket; a twisted line represents the handle. This
is the plainest of the Cohoon pieces, but apparently the
spirit made it a point to compensate the few plain lines with
a rich golden color on the perfectly matched apples, four-
teen in number. “Seen and Painted in the City of Peace by
Hannah Cohoon.”
An ideal organicism radiates from these works,
indicating perhaps the sublimation together of latent
sexual themes and preconscious social perceptions within a
compatible symbolic content. The degree of genuineness of
the automatism involved and the question of Shaker sexual
' doctrines and mores can be argued elsewhere. The
EG BR ARES
BO AS Pee eae AE ALY
watercolor drawings we have surveyed speak for them-
selves; that is, they speak for themselves provided one sees
in them more than just a vague “love of nature,” a senti-
mental tangent not entirely consistent with the Manichean
element in the sect’s outlook, even though it is sometimes
averred to explain Shaker symbolism.
Hannah Cohoon captured the essence of Shakerism in
these inspired works. In her terms, Holy Mother Wisdom,
the female principle of divinity, told her what to draw and
paint. What came out of that rapport was a symbolic affir-
mation of equality, unity and balance in the community of
the sexes and of humanity altogether. The symbols
employed, or the symbolic elements unconsciously pro-
jected, are simple indeed and would be almost: invisibly
elusive if we did not have the context of Shaker culture to
which to relate them. But as they are, with their fine co-
herence and harmony, and with their inspirationist aura
Hannah COHOON: Basket of Apples (1856) and origin, they are moving expressions of a mature com-
A watercolor drawing called “The Basket of Apples” munist instinct, or of what Wilhelm Reich called a “longing
dates from 1856 when Hannah Cohoon was sixty-eight for socialism,” subliminally fulfilled. They are indeed the
years old. It is a tree drawing only in the sense that the mirror of equality.
apples are froma tree, but wecan guess what treeit is.
Straightforward and triumphantly beautiful, these are the Joseph JABLONSK]

Pleasure Dome in Los Angeles

Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers
1"Xanadu did Kubla Khan form of livelihood rendered him, in a Sam _ Rodilla, or more often simply
Stately pleasure dome decree... sense, a social outcast. as ‘‘Sam’’.
WoPwice ve miles offertile ground In Los Angeles, Rodia became a tile-
tth walls and towers were girdled round... The man was Simon Rodia, born and setter, evolving into a master of his craft,
christened Sabatino Rodia in the village which was later to serve him in good
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge
of Serena, in the province of Avellino stead. Wiry and undersized, but en-
In Watts, a singularly ugly and mono- in Italy, in 1878. He came as an immi- dowed with extraordinary energy, he man-
tonous suburb of Los Angeles, a poor un- grant to America when about ten or aged to earn enough money to buy the
educated Italian immigrant acquired in twelve years old. Later he worked in plot of ground, triangular in shape, in
920 an unwanted plot of ground, about logging and mining camps as a cook, and Watts. Near the base of this plot he
1S0 feet in length. There, during the next apparently arrived in the Los Angeles built his own house, a fantastic house,
Irty-five years, he erected with his own area in the early 1910s. He had no edu- later burned by vandals.
ands an architectural fantasy which is cation by academic standards. He never
Unique in the world. at any time attended any sort of art or Then something that had been growing
Its conception, execution, use of color, architectural school, and until his death within him, from the very depths of his
and wild but visionary precision of de- his English remained imperfect. He came subconscious being, took over. In his
ail, are unlike anything attempted else- to be known by his friends and neigh- spare time mysterious and beautiful
Where, And it was created by a man whose bors in the poor Mexican and Negro sec- structures took shape. Composed of short
Poverty, lack of education, and humble tor of Los Angeles where he settled as lengths of scrap steel, overlaid with a

97
special cement mix in which were em- ‘‘New City’’ in imperfect Spanish. Com- inspiration of so much of the whole fan-
bedded tens of thousands of pieces of parisons are not easy to find, but this and tasy is indicated by the fact that another
broken bottles, dinner plates, vari-colored the other vertical features have an af- ‘“‘ship’’ was called by its creator ‘‘the
tiles and multiformed sea shells, these finity with Buddhist temples of Bangkok. Ship of Marco Polo.”’
structures consisted of three main steel What I have called the ‘‘Pleasure The ship imagery is echoed in the whole
towers, a ‘‘Pleasure Dome,” a ‘Jewel Dome”’ because it seems to have been triangle enclosing the towers, which has
Tower” (these are my names for them, not designed as a central place to sit and something of the shape of a ship, with
their creator’s), a fountain, a fish pond, meditate on the beauties around, is masts rising from it. Does this express
and several structures which Sam himself visually an ideal form, with its mush- a baffled sense of adventure, a voyage
called ‘‘ships’’. His artisan’s skill made rooming structure, to set beside the tall of discovery to some fabled Xanadu?
these structures stick together. His hands,
towers, with their piercing verticality. Or should one change the imagery and
guided entirely by intuition, created the It is significant that every unit used in regard the whole enclosure as a magi-
designs and colors of a visionary world. the construction of this dome is different cal garden, a garden where the shrubs
at from the rest in length, thickness, tex- and trees are of steel and cement, and
Without any engineering training
or ture and color., There is constant modi- the flowers of glass and tile — a garden
all, and without welding equipment,
fication everywhere. Nothing was ready-
even bolts or rivets, he found a new way representing to his own design and in
made; nothing was pre-shaped or the
to put steel together. And he put it to- result of intellectual calculation. It is an
the only materials which were available
gether so well that the Towers survived to him the lost gardens of Italy which
empiric work of the hands and eye. Rodia's
an earthquake. Later, when the city of Los - Rodia would never see?
dome is the complete antithesis to the
Angeles building inspectors had the yames Johnson Sweeney nas described
famous geodesic domes of Buckminster
Towers condemned as ‘‘unsafe,’’ after
Fuller, which so well express the scien- Rodia as ‘‘an intuitive genius of con-
Rodia had given the Towers away to a
tific and mechanical cast of our society, struction.’’ Viewing his extraordinary
Mexican friend and disappeared, they
the domination of intelligence and the or- fantasy in architectural terms one comes
were able to withstand, undamaged, a
dered world of geometrics. Rodia’s dome to three conclusions. First, it is a pioneer
10,000-pound horizontal pull, in a test de-
is intuitive in conception and execution. work in a new kind of non-utilitarian
vised by a professional engineer. The city
It is, however, interesting that when architecture. One of the very few valid
of Los Angeles was then forced to reverse
Buckminster Fuller himself visited the comparisons is with the work of Antonio
its condemnation of the Towers, and they
Watts Towers in 1960 he said: ‘‘Rodia Gaudi, architect of the Familia Sagrada
are now considered to incorporate the
was a master of his material — cement. in Barcelona.
longest unwelded columns in the world.
This is an astonishing achievement Rarely have I seen a construction stand- Secondly, it is an example of a truly
for a rather undersized man, working ing as long as the Watts Towers showing contemporary kind of beauty — just as
without human or mechanical assistance, so few and so insignificant cracks.’’ ‘‘contemporary’’ as the works of any of
whilst also working eight hours a day to What I call the ‘‘Jewel Tower’’ is less ‘the ‘‘modern’’ school, since its materials
make a living as a tile-setter. No wonder high than the three central towers, and re- come very largely from scrap heaps, the
it took him thirty-five years and he did minds the viewer inevitably of a jewelled discarded excreta of our city civilization.
not complete it until he was seventy- crown, The fountain has all the charm and
gaiety of a huge Italian wedding cake. Thirdly, 1 1s a superb aemonstration
five years of age. of what is so often lacking in modern
The highest tower is 104 feet in height. This is a remarkable example of Rodia’s
instinctive gift for decoration. The cir- building — the use and function of color,
The method of construction used by Rodia Rodia died in Martinez, California,
resulted in a system of wheels within cular walls are mosaics of broken tiles of
every shape, pattern and color. Water was on July 16, 1965. In his last years
wheels, so to speak, and with radiating he lived in a rooming-house in straightened
members interconifiecting all thé parts: intended to flow down the descending
levels of this structure, but, because of circumstances. Today the extraordinary
There are semicircular members attached nature of his achievement is at last being
to the periphery of the tower, carrying some municipal regulation, the City of
Los Angeles never permitted Rodia recognized. A Committee has been formed
balloon-stype horizontal members which to preserve the Watts Towers as a cul-
expand rhythmically as they ascend up- to turn the water on.
Close to this fountain is one of the tural center and as a unique example
wards along the axis of the structure. of the triumph of the creative and. intui-
strange ‘‘ship’’ formations which Rodia
This tower was begun in 1921, and the built up, with a mast-like spire, and tive mind over the technical outlook which
date, with Rodia’s initials, is inscribed several stalagmite-like concrete growths dominates our age.
at its base. Below, in deference to his rising from the ‘deck’ and sprinkled with
Mexican neighbors, he announced his broken multi-colored glass. The oriental Clarence John LAUGHLIN

José ARGEMI:
Surrealist Postage Stamps

98
 a nei” pons
Clarence John LAUGHLIN: The Watts Towers (photograph)

99
 SPONTANEOUS SCULPTURE
& the Law of Entropy
Sculpture is an activity rarely engaged in by those who broken pieces of Seven-Up bottles and seashells; Grandma
do not think of themselves as artists; rarely, in fact, by Prisbrey, maker of countless wonders out of old bottles;
anyone who has not had at least some “esthetic” schooling. and our friend Stanley Papio, proprietor of Stanley’s Iron
But occasionally, as if possessed by a mysterious force, Works in Key Largo, Fla., who has unleashed a whole
sculpture erupts out of the matter at hand. menagerie of inspired junk-metal creatures.
In spare moments, in the secrecy of their homes and These sculptors, whose work is so dissimilar (probably
workshops, plumbers, pipefitters, welders, woodworkers not one of them ever heard of any of the others), nonethe-
and electricians construe the irrational and the marvelous less have a lot in common: All have been self-taught and
out of the very materials they manipulate so rationally and wholly oblivious to the machinations of the “‘art market.”
mundanely at work day after day. Something beneficial They have sculpted primarily for their own pleasure and
must be derived from this natural impulse, or else it would incidentally for the pleasure of all humankind: they are not
not occur to the extent that it does. And much more often in it for the money.
than one might think, it results in sculptures a thousand The inescapable conclusion is that, in societies where
times more vital and more expressive than the miserabilist sculpture exists as a commodity, the number of sculptors is
monuments imposed on us by the officially acclaimed much reduced proportionately.
Great Sculptors of today. Sculpture, too long regarded as one of the “secondary”
Most often this impulse toward spontaneous sculpture arts, is emphatically social in its very essence. A renais-
manifests itself in moments of leisure, as a contrast to work sance of sculpture requires a complete transformation of
that is routinely performed. A striking example is the pro- society. There is perhaps no better way to begin than by
liferation of snow creatures after great blizzards, when the demanding not freedom (much less government support)
material literally is dumped on the imagination abandoned for Art, but rather freedom from Art.
to leisure. The transient character of snow conforms well to
the play of spontaneity and humor. Moreover, as with Robert GREEN
waves lapping against castles of sand on the beach, no great
principles are lost to anyone’s approval or disapproval.
The probability of spontaneous sculpture developing in
any given society could be calculated only if we were able
to consider all the factors that aid or inhibit its production.
The question poses itself: Would it flourish if it were free to
do so?
A fundamental relationship exists between the entropy
of a system left to its own, and the logarithm of the
probability of formation of its structures (S=E log P). The
availability of time and material, the two major factors in
the production of sculpture, is not sufficient to assure its
proliferation. Yet it would seem to follow that the greater
the abundance of these prime factors, the greater will be
the development of sculpture.
In this respect, the differences between the older so-
cieties (in which sculpture flourished) and the modern in-
dustrialized society (in which sculpture languishes). would
seem to indicate a deficiency, in the latter, of some vital
component.
Significantly, what is almost universally regarded as the
greatest sculpture is the product of precapitalist societies:
ancient Egypt, Greece, India, China, Tibet, and — of still
greater interest from the surrealist viewpoint — the tribal
societies of Oceania, Africa and the Americas. Just as sig-
nificant is the fact that under capitalism the greatest sculp-
ture nearly always is the work of marginal, disenfranchised
loners who stubbornly refuse to run in the rat race: S.P.
Dinsmoor, creator of the Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kas.;
the French mailman Ferdinand Cheval, who built his extra-
ordinary ‘Ideal Palace” with pebbles collected on his daily * Ho a! ‘ ij E i Pes ss sae

rounds; Simon Rodia, who built his Watts Towers with S.P. DINSMOOR: Sculpture from “The Garden of Eden”

100
 Henry J. DARGER: coll /painting from “Realms vi ure Vitieai'’

ENRY J. DARGER:
-_THE HOMER OF THE MAD
Henry J. Darger was a self-taught ar- Ind. A major Darger exhibition was held whom the aging fantasist rented a room
Uist in the realm of epic fantasy. According at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago for many years. Sooner or later Darger's
to his own account, he was born on April later in the same year. life story will be told in some detail.
12, 1892, in Brazil. But he lived his life in Because of his use of strictly popular To me it is obvious that Darger was in
rural Illinois and in Chicago where he died vehicles — comics, coloring books, ad- that class of men whose extreme poverty
in 1972 as an invalid in the dubious care vertising art, war news, popular religious and lowly social station at birth lead them
of the ‘‘Little Sisters of the Poor.’’ Having lore, etc. — as a basis for his epic, Darger almost inevitably into the path of in-
no formal education, he worked for dec- could be considered as an unknown and fantile and pre-adolescent trauma: or-
cades in menial jobs, usually in hospitals. unheralded predecessor of ‘‘pop art.” phanhood, lifelong scars of humiliation,
Perhaps the most impactful experience There is a crucial distinction, however, in and inferiority neurosis that precludes
of his life was witnessing the Easter the fact that he was one with the people to the possibility of any work or ‘‘career’’
Sunday twister which destroyed the entire a vastly greater extent and truly expressed beyond the most elementary servitude.
town of Countybrown, Illinois, in 1913. the naive exaltation of popular heroism, Unfit for military service, unfit for mar-
Darger’s magnum opus Is composed of whereas the so-called pop artists were riage, unfit for the game of life; but all
many large collage-drawings, often shock- specialized denizens of the ‘‘art world” the time burning in secret, with secrets
ingly gory, along with a dozen or more vol- and could only provide more or less alien- known only to themselves.
umes of prose narrative. It is titled ‘‘The ated stylistic glosses on the subject of Darger, however, was somehow dif-
Story of the Vivian Girls in What is Known the mass image. ferent from the great majority of those who
as the Realms of the Unreal or the Glan- But just who was this grand unknown? get the worst of it in the school of hard
delinian War Storm or the Glandico- knocks. Different in that he possessed,
Abbiennian Wars, as Caused by the Child x * & along with his desire, a fully activated
Slave Rebellion.'’ His works were first imagination capable of focusing this desire
Shown to the public at the ‘Surrealism There are a few residents of Chicago with images to which he attached an
tn 1977°' exhibition organized by the who knew Henry Darger, or at least about obsessive fealty. He was able to create
Surrealist Movement in the U.S. in Gary. him, most notably Nathan Lerner, from living myth. He was a self-sufficient

101
 be amazed by his corny posed photo. sessions, consisting or strange letters,
poetic being. Though his destiny may have
graphs of ‘‘cute’’ children from the daily pictures of children and babies that he
conspired to render him rude or awkward,
newspapers and advertisements? These treasured, hbly pictures, etc. He was
or even stunted, it did not succeed. For
pictures created such a storm within him dangerously extended. He went so far as to
by the evidence of his work he was com-
that they activated a compelling dia- write letters to agencies charged with the
pletely and nobly human; great struggle
lectic of aggressive desire and immedi- care of orphaned children in an attempt
and passion and love were known to him,
ate sublimation. He took these pictures to adopt a young girl. Darger applied to
beckoning through the most unusual and
home, to his room, and transferred them society in pursuit of his muse. Of course
sentimental disguises.
by means of his technique of tracing he was refused.
Yet Darger was more than a senti-
and collage into the frontal images of a Henry Darger died in 1972, eighty
mentalist. He was a naive surrealist, in
sentimental delirium and horrific years old, a charge of Catholic charity.
that the power of the desires dictating We shall consult an almanac to see what
his imagery forced asunder the conven- martyrdom.
It took an entire self-contained world the weather was like that day, and we shall
tional swathings of his vision and his story
to provide an enveloping matter dense compare it with the predictions of the
and reached the point of convulsive
enough to contain the explosive forces weather bureau.
gratification. His epic reveals to us one
latent within his fantasies. So much is self- The ‘‘Glandelinian War Storm’’ is over,
of the most important things that. sur-
evident. This man could not function as but we are endeavoring to discover its
realism is: a sublimation that reveals all
an occasional naive, producing now and historical causes and effects.
the psychic dimensions at once.
Surely, in the course of creating a per- then some fossil evidence of a vanished One cause: Desire.
mythos to contain and sublimate passion or impulse. His need to create One effect: There is not a Catholic
sonal
and sublimate within a dynamic process of church standing, in the entire world,
his enormous internal conflicts, Darger
mythic-poetie expression was constant, whose rigid stone walls have not been
was hypnotized, outmaneuvered and over-
powered by the aggressive eroticism la- it was his being. transformed into the muscle-flesh of the
tent in his fantasies. The scenes of battle The need extended even to his arti- human heart and been burst open.
and carnage, the tortured organs, the facts, those trivia that surrounded him
naked waifs with magnificent rams’ horns, in his densely cluttered room. We need Joseph JABLONSK)
the monumental death statistics, the blood- consider only what remain of his pos-
chilling omnipresence of throttling and
irresistible storms — he integrated these
things into an allegory, a military fairy
tale balanced innocently on the oppo-
sition of the most naive and simplistic
fantasies of good and evil. Still, what-
ever elements of a morality his work con-
tains, we recognize the truth that beneath
the sublimations his mind thirsted for some
kind of abyss. He adored and worshiped ss
SeyFer “CSG
y
the innocence of his models precisely
because this innocence presented the op-
portunity for an infinite violation. ‘“Throw
Sy ned) é
€ ?
PADD
out the battle line,’’ he sings. He revels
in this erotic Iliad; his joy in the supreme
tension can only be represented in ,the
imaginative marshaling of millions of
angels and demons, whose formations
are capable of a strife that can in its turn
only be comparable to storms of galac- Schlechter DUVALL: ink drawing
tic dimensions: ‘‘The Glandelinian War

WSCRIPTIONS
Storm’’ in the ‘‘Realms of the Unreal.”
Darger’s decades-long involvement in
the creation of this epic must have been
intensely sustaining as well as grati-
fying to him, and thus we must assume
that in the process of creating it he lived| xx Bad films are sometimes very beautiful. ++
Behind signs, signs are hidden. w The real is.
vicariously many of the experiences he imagined, and the imaginary is realized. + After Margo, my favorite stars are Claire Trevor,
depicts. This eternal sojourn of his in the Everything is alwaysnew. ‘x Iamneither my Marlene Dietrich (in Blue Angel), Connie
“Realms of the Unreal’’ was for Darger master nor my slave. % I AM AGAINST. Bennett, Eleanor Powell. + My actor was
his real life. Commonplace events in his (Groucho Marx) + The theater is the imagi- Lon Chaney. % My taste for Popeye the
ination for those who have no imagination. + Sailor, in the cartoons by Max Fleischer, owes
room, at his menial jobs, at Roma’s Res-
Novels are too long. % Science and poker: much to the liberties he takes with those cher-
taurant in his neighborhood where he often ished beliefs of humanity: space and time. +
took his meals, in his memories of his games for adults. * I don’t write: I box.
vr Imagination is action. % The day will Sometimes ! repeat myself, to counterbalance my
own childhood and youth, at mass, and come when people will hunt for texts in popular contradictions. + People love you for your
in his contacts with alien beings from the entertainment magazines the way they hunt now vices and not for your faults. % That’s my
realms of the real — these fragments for old Gothic novels, for works by literary hina- opinion, and I don’t share it.
of daily life were relentlessly transformed tics and for works by the most outrageous minor
Louis SCUTENAIRE
and incorporated into his personal myth- romantics — looking for their absurdity, their
ology, which was more vivifying to him sense of the marvelous, their freedom. + To Mes Inscriptions
organize an expedition to explore the banal. (Gallimard, 1945)
than any daily bread. How can one fail to
102
 HERESIES
Let us not lose sight of the fact that we are at grips with
“the noble white man”’ that made agony both ingenious
and scientific, and relegated life’s possibilities to the select
few and life’s “garbage”’ to the many.
* * *

Once again speech is free — but you must not mention

anything.
i aos
* * *
My t
' %
hess
eee
I’ve been rather skeptical about my own intelligence. /
Without any apparent reason I’d find myself in the most
compromising positions — jobs.
* * *

At times | have a craving to run for office, like I did this

spring. I fully intended to run for mayor of Chicago, but
was held up on the eve of nomination by slow freights.
* * *
a) 'a

Only one bad flaw about radio: worker is on wrong end

— the receiving end.
%.Ak:
Mee, ®
7) bn

arrange! ike =n
Edison backwards spells no side. pres wuzz/le t ¥,
a
winst- the ar Mr!
* * * "%

Tear Gas: The most effective agent used by employers to

persuade their employees that the interests of capital and
labor are identical.
| ly

* * * sabi
hit

They floundered ’round in Flanders Field

In mud up to their ears

All for ‘dear old plutocracy” and possible pie a la mode

(pronounce: pile-o-mud).

Chimerical, what?

Christian civilization (exploitation of man by man).

Western civilization (exploitation of man by man).

European civilization (exploitation of man by man). Hal RAMMEL:

Comic Strip based on a poem by Franklin Rosemont (1979)
ETC., far into the night...
T-BONE SLIM
(1920s-’30s)
103
 Lacerated Poster (Chicago, 1979)

REVOLUTIONARY ASPECTS
OF EVERYDAY LIFE
An Introduction to Lacerated Posters
Surrealists always have had a predilection for the streets By making ourselves available, for anything, an exciting
where, amidst the seeming confusion of the banal and atmosphere of anticipation surrounds us. The air itself be-
ordinary, startling evidence of a deeper and truer sense of comes magnetically charged with desire; it would not be far
reality continually pierces the consciousness of those who from the truth to describe existence as haunted. In the
know how to look for it. Wandering at all hours, and deter- chance phenomena of everyday life are intricate relation-
mined — like arrows en route to their targets, or rather, ships which are fundamentally recognizable as erotic
magically en route to other, more revelatory kinds of comminglings of internal and external reality. Propelled by
targets — we may find ourselves waiting at some particular desire, we find ourselves constantly alert, in our waking
place for which we feel a certain fondness, or even a certain dream, to occurrences of “another nature.” Indeed, we
anxiety; where, with a fierce resolution— a will to find that could ask, as did Breton on the first page of Nadja, whom
which sparkles, that which tears the veil from the normal — or what do we haunt?
we become wholly engaged in a search that is not just an Thus the aleatory not only attracts our attention but
isolated adventure, but rather part of a unique way of life. commands it, for we take part in and are part of “that
which shall be” to a greater extent than we generally sup-
In the world of objective chance, premonitions are ram- pose. What we say or do, for one reason or another, often
pant, and coincidences are everywhere a criscrossing net- without our even being aware of it, has implications — not
work of static and interference. The slip of the tongue is as only for us, but for others who may not have the faintest
revelatory for the one who speaks as for the one who hears. notion that they are looking for something of which our

104
action or verbalization provides the substance. Several Starting out as dreary manifestations of a commercial so-
years ago I received as a gift an Indian bearclaw ring that cial order, these advertisements end up — thanks to “ordi-
triggered a whole series of events which held sway over my nary” people who are just waiting — as emblems of “some-
waking moments for more than a month, provoking thing else.” Such images, liberated from the grip of commo-
around me an almost other-worldly atmosphere of antici- dity fetishism, reveal aspects of the latent content of the
pation and mystery. While walking home late one evening ceaselessly unfolding mythology of our epoch.
a few days after I received this ring, I was suddenly — as if “The urge to destroy,” as Bakunin noted, “is also a crea-
out of nowhere — confronted by a large bear rug staring at tive urge.” In a society that sanctifies private property,
me from a store window. To say the least, it registered as a vandalism is one of the principal means by which people
shock. An acquaintance subsequently spoke of his inten- who do not think of themselves in any sense as poets none-
tions to go bear-hunting. During the weeks that followed theless can contribute appreciably to the poetic cause.
came one link after another in the chain of events, ending These posters, mutilated and therefore transformed,
of numerous disquieting revelations.
with my discovery — late one night, while waiting for a bus are fomentors
— of a woman’s black glove, on the ground near my feet. Collective, anonymous, continually changing, they are
Though not having anything to do with bears, the glove —!I infinitely better attuned to the pulse of the times than
felt certain of this — was the culminating link in the series ninety-nine per cent of the Works of Art enshrined in
(there is, of course, an obvious parallel between the bear- today’s galleries, museums, police stations and banks, Un-
claw and the glove which once covered a hand). And thus a mistakably authentic products of pure psychic automatism,
long series of curiously related incidents, to which slight and created against the law, they are vehicles of radical
attention would have been paid had someone not pro- demystification as well as incitements to change life.
voked me into it by his gift, carried me along who knows The lacerated posters are an important example of pop-
where on an adventure that may yet reveal its secret. ular revolutionary poetic activity — modest and unassum-
A comparable instance was related to me by Joseph ing, indeed, but capable of affording us, if only for odd
Jablonski. He had just purchased a book of André Breton’s moments here and there, ineradicable glimpses of the
poems published by Jonathan Cape, and had it on the front marvelous.
J. Karl BOGARTTE
seat of his car as he was driving home. Waiting for a light to
change, he noticed a sticker on the car in front of him that
read, “Cape Breton.” He told me that he should have
dropped everything and driven straightway to Cape
Breton. Who knows what might then have transpired?
Whether they know it or not, everyone — at every mo-
ment — is involved in such quests. Breton wrote in The
Communicating Vessels that it is significant “to observe
how the demands of desire searching for the object of its
realization make strange use of external things, tending to
take from them only what will serve its purpose. The
vain bustle of the street has become hardly more disturbing
than the wrinkling of the sheets. Desire is there, cutting
Straight into the fabric which is not changing fast enough,
then letting its sure and fragile thread run back and forth
between the pieces.”
Such temptations cannot be ignored. Psychoanalysis has
taught us to study the seemingly most insignificant details
of everyday behavior. But surrealism has carried the psy-
choanalytic effort further, permitting us to recognize in
these generally “unnoticed” details signs and symptoms of
an impending revolutionary social transformation. The
smallest actions can have the greatest consequences.
The program of the “Systematic Cycle of Conferences
on the Most Recent Positions of Surrealism” in Paris, 1935,
featured a discussion by Leo Malet on “The Surrealist
Physiognomy of a Street,” accompanied by a “‘presenta-
tion of lacerated posters.” Thus emerged the concept of
decollage (unsticking), defined in the 1938 Abridged Sur-
realist Dictionary as ‘“‘the generalization of the process of
peeling pieces off a poster so as to reveal fragments of the
Poster or posters beneath it,” in turn provoking “‘specula-
tion on the disruptive or disordering quality of the results
obtained.”
Lacerated posters surely must be among the most gen-
uinely popular and widespread of all media: They are on
View aplenty in the streets of every city in the world. Lacerated Poster (Chicago, 1979)
 SAUCER EYES SORCERIZED =
GO

concurrently accomplished what the Air Force Kindly Alien image with a threat that sounded
They're here! Or are They? And if They aren’t, suspiciously like Cosmic Stalinism. Christian
had never managed alone: discrediting of the
what are They waiting for? theology and Western logic frowned on the possi-
UFOs and their observers. In spite of numerous
We're someplace in the middle of a sixth or bility of forces more “occult,” and potentially
sightings, the idea of extraterrestrial contact
seventh wave of sightings that began in the US in more powerful, than their own.
harmlessly invoked the image of 1950s culture,
1896-97, disappeared until the post-Hiroshima A quarter-century later, the basis of the old be-
along with the hula hoop, Buddy Holly records
gloom of 1947, recurred in the Cold War 1952 liefs has been shaken. Only a highly selective
and 1957, again in the wild years of the mid- and the Edsel.
The last few years have seen another paranoia still places Evil entirely outside Ameri-
sixties, and have gone on more or less unabated can society, and the old promise of technological
turnaround. The sheer number of eerie incidents
from 1973 to the present. The earliest observers
is again on the increase. Tabloid headlines cornucopia seems less real than ecological disas-
reported strange lights and sounds, metallic ve-
scream, “UFO FLEETS BLITZ EARTH — ‘It ter and thermonuclear Doomsday. A new stage
hicles, sometimes friendly but also frightening
Could Mean That Alien Beings Are Finally Get- has been reached with what might be called
interchanges with aliens. The basics have re-
mained ever since pretty much elaborations on a+
ting Ready to Talk to Us’ ” (National Enquirer, Saucer Theology. Domenico Grasso of Gregorian
Jan. 30, 1979), South African children are re- University, formerly an adviser to the present
theme. But the scale of observations, and the ex-
citement aroused by them, grew wonderfully in portedly accosted by gleaming humanoids; the Pope, has vouchsafed to the Enquirer (Feb. 13)
the years that followed World War II. Despite population of an entire Brazilian city flees from a that meditation has given him insight to the exis-
government efforts to suppress speculation as strange yellow light; residents of Petrozavodsk, tence of Aliens who lack Sin! Naturally, they are
groundless, the saucers inevitably escaped froma in Russia, grow so accustomed to regular visits by more technologically advanced than mere hu-
classified military subject to a popular culture “their” UFO that they count on it as a tourist at- mans, and they may (not surprisingly) be willing
icon. If the saucer enthusiasts could not be cor- traction. 1978 was supposed to be the “Year of to help their Fallen counterparts. If the doctrine
ralled into amphitheaters for organized obser- Alien Contact,” hyped by the Enquirer, random of Original Sin stops at the stratosphere, most re-
vations spacepeople turned into cosmic jocks for psychics, and Close Encounters of a Third Kind. ligious authorities haven't yet got the news. But
public enjoyment -UFOlogy has nevertheless But the new enthusiasm is not to be dampened by in this depressed and dragged-out era, many
climbed into the arena with Roller Derby and a temporary setback. people in all walks of life have apparently come
SciFi paperbacks --- somewhere between the lu- The growing respectability of the Aliens is per- to the conclusion that the human race, helpless to
dicrous and the sublime. * haps the most important change. Once in the guts find its own way out of impending disaster, may
Five blue-collar workers from southern Cali- of popular culture, Saucers could be laughed off get a helping hand from the Stars.
fornia paved the way for cult followings in the as the product of atmospheric peculiarities, The implications of this mass sentiment are still
mid-fifties by spectacular reports of alien contact mind-games and outright hoax. But the Air Force undetermined. The fervent desire for a Savior,
popularized in books like The Flying Saucers abandonment of investigations in 1969 opened even couched in a disaffection with the existing
Have Landed, Secrets of the Saucers and From up the field for more independent inquiry. Prom- order, seems to suggest Jonestown more thanany
Outer Space to You. Recounting bizarre ex- inent scientific figures, such as Carl Sagan, also . positive social movement. But the thirst for inter-
periences from bus terminal conversations to eased the way for positive investigation by popu- galactic contact, for a human destiny bounded
earthling-alien romances, these workaday larizing the hypothesis of intelligent life on other neither by earthly reality nor by the NASA-
messengers told of Utopian societies on other planets. Erich von Daniken and a host of other cowboy-style “conquest” of Space, raises other
planets and of an Earth mission both to prevent cranky speculators threaten that respectability possibilities as well. Science Fiction has long been
atomic holocaust and to protect the galaxy from through pathetic pseudo-explanations of early an important vehicle for social criticism, and the
homo sapiens’ crazed aggressions, Extraterres- human history, translating biblical quotations generalized wish to place human life in a new re-
trial intervention had a strong appeal, filmically and anthropological guesswork into ancient lation with the cosmos, to see the common
best captured in The Day the Earth Stood Still space visitations. Hoaxers with their falsified destiny of all Earth’s children transformed in a
(1951) with the aliens a combination of inter- sightings remain at large. But a level of public gleaming moment of peaceful understanding, is
galactic UN and God, And the boom spread. acceptance seems finally to have been attained, no mean craving. The believers may be fore-
Saucer enthusiasts organized clubs, published from Jack Webb’s television “UFO Reports” and telling humankind’s doom amidst its own re-
magazines, held conventions, even developed a its ambiguous acceptance of the “‘unexplainable”’ sources, or then again they may be voicing an
modest political base through which a Cali- to the development of such academic citadels as expectation of social change larger than any that
fornian received over a hundred thousand votes the Center for UFO Studies in Evanston, Illinois. humanity has known heretofore.
in a Peace and Space bid for the Senate in 1962. The saucer watchers have dug in for the duration. There's a jocular argument going around the
Steve Allen’s original “Tonight” show, New As J. Allen Hynek of Northwestern University’s heterodox Left these days: Would a socialist
York radio’s Long John Nebel and other talk Astronomy Department says, “There will indeed civilization conquer space because the beings
shows offered spectacular forums for earthling be a twenty-first century science, and a thirtieth possessed collective, unalienated _ scientific
contactees to further publicize their experiences. century science, to which the UFO phenomenon power? Or would technological supershots be
Cottage industries formed here and there; one may be as natural as television, atomic energy, abandoned for the simple joy of living? The im-
contactee sold packets of hair from a 385-pound and DNA are to twentieth century science... .” possibility of answering, and the need to make
Venusian St. Bernard dog. By the time bus driver Scientific credibility alone cannot, however, these jokes at all, are revelations of our time.
Ralph Cramden (Jackie Gleason) came to a cos- fully explain why the world is more ready to look Observing, wondering, no more able than
turne party in his own self-made Spaceman suit and listen. The simple or “‘naive’’ vision of extra- anybody else to act on the mysterious UFOs,
(Norton/Art Carney won first prize as Alien terrestrials as guardians of space come to pro- some of us can’t help watching the watchers pre-
when he showed up in his sewerage worker nounce mandatory changes in a failed human pare themselves for what they hope will be the
fatigues and gas mask), American culture civilization has deep popular culture roots, after greatest spectator sport of all time
reached the saturation point. all, from the Millenarian uprisings of medieval Paul BUHLE
Inevitably, public interest faded away. The European peasants to the Melanesian Cargo Cult,
long-awaited tete-a-tete between world leaders to the Messianic strains of Socialism, to religious
and the supercivilization never (as far as we or other cult rebellions of all kinds. The threat of
know) took place, and as nineteenth century atomic annihilation first stirred these energies.
Americans had turned their attentions from But the old faiths, religious and secular, kept the
Spiritualism to electricity, their descendants results within bounds. Saucer advocates in those * Much of the historical narrative, as well as the
dropped Saucers for the real-life Moonshot. days had to guarantee their anti-Communism to quotation from J. Allen Hynek, is derived from
Actually, government-sponsored investigations, get a hearing. Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body the admirable scholarly study, David M. Jacob’s
Snatchers and a horde of lesser films refuted the The UFO) Controversy (Signet Paperback).
Congressional hearings, and “official” reports
106
 2 SCIENCE & THE MARWELOUS
No. 419X
No. 421X

sight of analogy beyond or above empiricist the spectacular being of Elsa Lanchester} and
Mechanization has had an inherently para-_ help turn the desultory scuffle against Capitalist
doxical relation to popular culture in the United _ verification. Science into revolutionary conquest?
States: seen at once as the friendly magician, the Yet the glimmer of wonder persists, from every
backyard Gyro Gearloose working on an un- The results remain to be seen. We console our-
demon, the impersonal device and the personi- of Borts
fied character of the civilization writ large. Notknown solar principle to the child’s dreams of selves historically withbythetheexperience
insecurity and ter-
in his au- self-power ed flight. We know also that the popu- Karloff who, enraged
in any society, notes Siegfried Gideon
is deep and pene-_rible working conditions of putting on and re
thoritative Mechanization Takes Command, has __lar critique of mechanization disguise long before and
moving his Monster
as Dr. Frankenstein in
the proportion of inventors exceeded that in the _ trating. When Colin Clive
enth century. Just The Bride of Frankenste in (1935) reveals a mys- after the paid shooting hours, became a pioneer
United States of the mid-ninete
zation, machines _ terious source of power that “Man was not of the Hollywood unionism that helped mspire
at the cutting edge of industriali the CIO. It is not the monsters we fear, at last,
seemed to suggest a dreamlike visage of render- meant to know,” the foreshadowing of nuclear
technology is transparent. But will the jagged, but their Masters in this order.
ing the marvelous possible — like the Spiritual- The following excerpt from Pierre Mabille’s
ists who believed the invention of the telegraph _jerry-built monster-children of the Nuclear Age
only destroy the laboratory while the oldsociety Mirror of the Marvelous (Le Miroir du mer-
key would perfect communication with inhabi-
weeps and riots outside? Or will the machine veilleux: Paris, Les Editions de Minutt, 1962)
tants of the “Other Side,” beyond Death’s veil. sheds a valuable light on these preoccupations
The same Spiritualists feared correctly that the regain through them its old promise of the PB
bourgeois rationalizers would seize Science for magical device (rendered in Frankenstein by
Si
purely exploitative purposes, and deny the in- the monster’s recognition of erotic possibility in
ennsvis
pnaeecgvastnaccvoap eens
eyccac cosansvocag TEN
uervaee AEE ucacnsep Ena
arma sanyvegeyveeyreuestgg aosauaseeacang aauegpt vest aatant natant SE
HHiimaiisimimneaniuiiumnununiamanena nsstanimniimancaiaieaasanigecenstansateagieutaiiat UN eeuyayeyaeyratsoesteaseastuaadcuib SSS 0¢g4)eU0UCUI9GUUBHUCacEEUAQoEvenaez ane naH
VUTEC
Mecuii ieee vn BIGMATO YMA nse

favor of an impersonal and mechanical in- learn limited sciences in particular tech-
For me, as for the realists of the Middle niques, ina special vocabulary. Their lang
Ages, there exists no fundamental difference vestigation.
By a curious paradox, the more humanity ages, increasingly precise and abstract,
between the elements of thought and the
extends its knowledge and its mastery of the shun concrete and poetic images — words
phenomena of the world, between the visible
world, the more estranged it feels from the which, having a general value, engender
and the comprehensible, the perceptible and emotion.
the imaginable. life of the universe, and the more it separates
human needs from the data of the mind. A The biologist would think himself dis-
Consequently, the marvelous 1s every- honored if he described the evolution of the
where. Comprehended in things, it appears definite antimony seems to exist at present
between the way of the marvelous and the blood corpuscle by means of the story of the
as soon as one manages to penetrate any ob- phoenix, or described the function of the
ject. The humblest alone raises allproblems. way of the sciences.
Emotion subsists for the scientist at the spleen by the myth of Saturn begetting chil-
Its form, testimony of its personal structure, only to devour them afterward.
moment of discovery; he perceives the obsta- dren
results from transformations which have Such parceling out, such will to analyze,
been taking place since the beginning of the cle overcome, the door opening onto an un-
explored domain. Emotion is felt again by are destined to cease. Soon, thanks to a vast
world; it contains in germ the countless pos-
the uninstructed who, without understand- synthesis, humankind will establish its auth
sibilities that the future will undertake to
ing anything, falls into ecstasies before the ority on the knowledge it has gained. Science
realize.
theatrical character of modern technology. will be a key to the world when it is capable
The marvelous is also between things, be- of expressing the mechanisms of the um-
ings, in that space in which our senses per- The others, pupils and professors, do not
feel themselves involved in a mechanism in verse ina language accessible to comm unal
ceive nothing directly but which is filled by
which memory and pure intelligence are at emotion. This language will constitute the
energies, waves, forces in unceasing move-
work. Learning is a suitcase they carry. No new lyric and collective poetry — a poetry
ment, where ephemeral equilibriums are freed at last from shudders, illusive tricks,
evolved, where every transformation is pre- internal transformation seems necessary to
them in order to understand a theory or fol- obsolete images.
pared. Far from being independent, isolated Consciousness then will cease to enclose
units, objects participate in compositions, low a curve in space. Successively, they
: the impulses oflife in an iron corset; it will
vast fragile assemblages or solid construc-
be in the service of desire. Reason, going be-
tions, realities whose fragments only are
yond the sordid plane of common sense and
perceived by our eyes, but whose entirety is logic where it crawls today, will join, at the
conceived by the mind.
stage of transcendences, the immense possi-
To know the structure of the external bilities of imagination and dream.
world, to reveal the interplay of forces, to If Iadmit the external reality of the mar-
follow the movements of energy: This is the velous, and if I hope that science will permit
program of the exact sciences. It would
its exploration, it is with the certainty that
seem, then, that these should be the true keys soon the internal life of the individual will
to the marvelous. If they are not such keys to
no longer be separated from the knowledge
a greater extent, it is because they do not af-
and development of the external world. For
fect the whole human being; their severe dis-
it is only too evident that the mystery 1s as
ciplines exclude emotional perception. They
much in us as in things — that the land of the
reject the individual factors of knowledge in
marvelous is, before all else, 1n our own sen- thing is soon replaced according to a truer by little he acquires mastery of the dark
sitive being. order, deeper reasons, a rigorous hierarchy. waters.
To gain this internal lucidity in a more ex-
Adventure travels at once over the ways of In this mysterious domain which opens
tensive sensibility is not less necessary to
the world and onthe avenues leading to the before us, when the intellect — social in its
origin and in its destination —- has been mankind than to possess scientific disciplines
hidden center of the ego. In the first case,
abandoned, the traveler experiences an un- and techniques of action. Magic ceremon-
courage, patience, the habit of observation,
comfortable disorientation. The first mo- ials, psychic exercises leading to concentra-
well-conducted reasoning are indispensable.
ments of amusement or alarm having tion and ecstasy, the liberation of mental au-
In the second, other necessities arise for
passed, he must explore the expanse of the tomatism, and simulation of morbid atti-
gaining access to the sources of emotion.
He who wishes to attain the profoundly unconscious, boundless as the ocean, and tudes are so many means capable, through
the tension they induce, of refining our vis-
marvelous must free images from their con- likewise animated by contrary movements.
ventional associations, associations always He quickly notices that this unconscious is ion and enlarging our normal faculties:
dominated by utilitarian judgments; he must not homogeneous; planes stratify as in the They are ways of approach to the realm of the
learn to see the human being behind the material universe, each with their value, marvelous.
their manner of sequence and their rhythm. But the mind is not content to enjoy the
social function, break the scale of so-called
moral values, replacing it by that of sensitive Paraphrasing Hermes’ assertion that contemplation of the magnificent images it
values; he must surmount taboos, the weight “that which is above is like that which is be- sees while dreaming. It wishes to translate |
of ancestral prohibitions, and cease to con- low, to perpetrate the miracles of One visions, to express the new world which it
nect the object with the profit one can get out thing,” it is permissible to say that every- has penetrated, to enable others to share it,
and to realize the inventions that have been
ofit, with the price it has in society, with the thing is in us just as that which is outside us,
action it commands. This liberation begins so as to constitute a single reality. In us the suggested to it. The dream is materialized in
diffuse phantoms, distorted reflections of ac- writing, in the plastic arts, in the erection of
when by some means the voluntary censor-
monuments, in the construction of mach-
ship of bad conscience is lifted, when the tuality, repressed expressions of unsatisfied
desires, mingle with common and general ines. Nevertheless, the completed works,
mechanisms of dreaming are no longer im-
symbols. From the confused to the simple, the acquired knowledge, leave untouched —
peded. A new world then appears where the
from the glitter of personal emotions to the if not keener — the inquietude of man, ever
blue-eyed passerby becomes a king, where
drawn to the quest of individual and collec-
red coral is more precious than diamond, indefinite perception of the cosmic drama,
tive finality, to the obsession of breaking
where the toucan is more indispensable than the dreamer’s imagination effects its voyage;
down the solitude which is ours, to the hope
the cart-horse. The fork has left its enemy unceasingly it dives to return to the surface,
bringing from the depths to the threshold of of influencing directly the mind of others so
the knife on the restaurant table; it is now be-
consciousness, the great blind fish. Never- as to modify their sentiments and guide their
tween Aristotle’s categories and the piano
actions, and, last and above all, to the desire
keyboard. The sewing machine, yielding to theless, the pearlfisher comes to find his way
amid the dangers and the currents. He man- to realize total love.
an irresistable attraction, has gone off into Pierre MABILLE
the fields to plant beetroot. Holiday world, ages to discover his bearings amid the fugi-
subject to pleasue, its absolute rule; every- tive landscape bathed in a half-light where
thing in it seems gratuitous and yet every- alone a few brilliant points scintillate. Little

itt
omysunraysapNEES} ONEDDe H FELIB

“TLRS oll
gm,

Karol BARON: ink drawing

108
 ee
The Wild Tchoupitoulas: from Les Blank’s ALWAYS FOR PLEASURE (photo Michael P. Smith)

“LONG LIVE THE LIVING” Cemetery” in a jazz funeral parade, “This is how I want to
“There’s nothing I crave more than to percolate down go out, with a little band behind me and my friends havin’ a
the boulevard, followed by my entire residue,” said John
nice time cuttin’ up on the way back. But I’m living now
etoyer, late president of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure
and I’m not gonna wait, till I’m in the ground, be laid out, to
lub. This marvelous lyric statement perfectly describes
have some fun in the streets.”
the elan of a rare tradition, the pleasure clubs and neigh-
Or as Luis Bufuel said, ‘Long live the living!”
orhood parades of New Orleans. In that city, around 175
Blank’s most extraordinary footage chronicles activities
Parade permits are issued a year, and most of these cele-
Dratory occasions with their single bands and handful of of the black ‘Indian’ tribes whose annual rites have a
‘second liners” dancing behind them through the streets remarkable heritage. Slaves were allowed to gather in New
Orleans’ Congo Square on Sunday afternoons to engage in
ear no resemblance to the official, commercial parades
Which are the miserable lot of most cities. For an dancing and drumming competitions which had their
increasingly administered, banal, Disneyland culture, so origins in West African tribal associations. In the early
that it 1800s insurgency and rebellion by slaves led to the banning
Tare is spontaneous communal joy, a sense offestival
such pockets of resista nce of these activities which were forced underground, only
Comes almost as a shock to view
allowed on Mardi Gras day. Escaped slaves were harbored
to dehumanization that still exist in the U.S.
Les Blank’s Always for Pleasure films this tradition of by Louisiana Indian tribes, and the Indian was adopted as a
of in- carnival motif by working class blacks whose “tribes” pay
revelry, the camera moving through the back streets
dustrial and ghetto neighb orhood s catchin g intoxic ated homage to the dignity, courage and strength of native
Irish marche rs; cooks prepari ng munific ent feasts of craw- Americans and express solidarity with them against racist
fish or Louisiana red beans; parades and pageants; musi- oppression. Mixed with French, Spanish, Trinidadian and
Barker, Haitian elements, the nearly century-old tradition evolved
Cians Professor Longhair, Irma Thomas, Blue Lou into its present form in which twenty to thirty tribes meet in
Allen Toussaint, The Wild Tchoupitoulas. These images
dimension, uptown bars during the year to construct the splendid
Convey a sense of another time, almost another
Indian regalia which they will wear on Mardi Gras and to
recalling the great rituals of tribal peoples or old pagan fes-
of social practice songs accompanied by the polyrhythms of drums
tivals with their periodic abandonment
public drinkin g and feasting , ecstasie s and and tambourines. Song lyrics recount rivalries between
Constra ints,
imperat ive of life over tribes, momentous events of past Mardi Gras, describe life
Masks, Above all they convey an As in ghetto or prison, and treat other themes of community
that pleasur e 1s a human necessi ty.
death, a recognition
man says returni ng from the “Ready or Not interest.
@ young

109
 Tribesmen hold sewing sessions throughout the year to between rival tribes led to combat, sometimes to death, but
make the astonishingly opulent robes, headdresses and today competitive displays are sublimated into complex
dances, comparisons of the fabulous feathered robes,
moccasins from ostrich plumes, feathers, beads, flowers,
ribbons, rhinestones, sequins, beads and other ornaments. verbal rituals involving threats, boasting, exaggeration,
The thousands of stitches represent hours of labor; like humor and improvised dialogue: ‘“‘it just comes to you,”
Malangang of New Ireland or Kwakiutl potlatch, this tradi- says one Indian, ‘‘there’s no script to follow, you just say
tion insists on the living moment of poetry — the Indians what you feel.”’ Blank’s film captures a singular dynamic of
take each garment apart after the annual event and remake a participatory theatre that carries the charge of a magnifi-
entirely new ones each year. Although a few tribes have cent fusion of work and play, aggression and sexuality, risk
cut a record or performed at the New Orleans Jazz and and joy.
Heritage Festival, there is a strong tendency to resist com- Other documentaries by Blank focus on similar stands
mercialization and tourist exploitation. Every tribe finds against alienation taken under inauspicious circumstances
in rural and marginal city populations; unfortunately the
strength in black solidarity, a sense of continuity in friend-
traditions are steadily eroded while the poverty which sur-
ship, mutual aid and close social ties.
The ritual itself commences when the tribes go out on rounds them prevails. These films escape sentimentality or
festival morning — spyboys on the lookout for rival tribes,
attitudes of “hip” adulation due to Blank’s obvious respect
flagboys in charge of signals, wildmen who keep spectators and admiration for his subjects who are allowed to speak
from crushing feathers, trail chiefs, higher ranking chiefs, for themselves and who invariably reveal a gift for ardent
Big Chief and Little Chief, queens, princesses and enjoyment and an unaccustomed wisdom.
years ago, ritual encounters Nancy Joyce PETERS
followers. Until twenty

Other Films:
Spend It All — French-speaking white cajun folk; The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins — the
Dry Wood — black Cajun fiddle and accordion, accordion making, a hog boucherie great bluesman at home in Texas, songs and
“Bois Sec” Ardoin, his sons and Canray thoughts
Fontenot; a rural Mardi Gras Chulas Fronteras — Nortena musicians; migrant
laborers in Southwest U.S.
Hot Pepper — Clifton Chenier, “Zydeco”’ king, For information: Les Blank, c/o Arhoolie
performing in the bayous and in country A Well Spent Life — Texas sharecropper, phil- Records, 10341 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito,
dancehalls osopher, lover, songster Mance Lipscomb California 94530

Olympia Jazz Band Returning from a jazz Funeral

(“The end of a perfect death” — Jelly Roll Morton)
110
TIME-TRAVELERS' POTLATCH
In the game of Time-traveiers’ Potlatch, each
participant indicates the gift that he or she would
give to various historic figures on the occasion of
most kernel of desire, underlying the more or less
conscious revery. The object — the gift — func-
tions symbolically between the giver (who lives
unanticipated angle, to all the old and unresolved
problems of projection, idealization, fixation, ob-
session, identification, etc.
their meeting. The first examples of this new sur- in the present) and the receiver (who dwells in For this issue of CC, we invited some surrealist
realist game appeared in Arsenal/Surrealist Sub- the past). Altering the relationship between the comrades from the U.S. and other countries, to
version No, 3 (1976). two, it constitutes the third term — a catalyst of play a few rounds of this game focusing on
the future in the form ofa crystallization of desire figures of American popular culture. Comple-
Introducing the object into an imaginary re- — in a humorously dialectical and materialist menting the critical explorations elsewhere in
lationship that otherwise runs the risk of being exchange which, presupposing the annihilation these pages, the gifts enumerated below help
defined too superficially by an arbitrary and ab- of conventional chronology in favor of the ima- define surrealism’s relationship to its popular
stract subjectivity, this game effects the con- gination’s vertical eternity of the magic moment, accomplices from the angle of poetry and play.
tretization of the irrational ‘‘secret,” the inner- seems to open an entirely new approach, from an

Chicago (see Péetie Wheatstraw’s “Mr.

‘J. KARL BOGARTTE 4. For Krazy Kat: A Japanese tree which, as
soon as it is given a cigar, shows a telephone, on Livingood”) § For Elmore James: A pack of
the line a Yugoslavian priest continuously gives playing cards containing only court cards and
For Clark Ashton Smith: A copy of Les Chants de aces § For Gypsy Rose Lee: An underwater
Maldoror printed on veils of black lace and or- information of the Utrecht Frankenstein experi-
{| For ence § For T-Bone Slim: A “Lincoln” squirrel microscope which would work only by correctly
chestrated by Sun Ra with musical ink and deftly manipulating a G-String § For
H.P. Lovecraft: The satin-gloved hands of a dis- 4 For Jerry Lewis: The Chicago Water Tower,
but a little higher and sliced longitudinally in Daffy Duck: Stacks of unread comic book mss.
ordered sponge clapping in the burning living- Mr. Duck would have the ul-
room of a haunted castle, where a flutter of a 41-inch slices § For Buster Keaton: An air- from editors’ desks;
piloted by a giraffe; on weekends , giraffe timate decision-m aking power regarding these
thousand vaginal butterflies is like a chandelier plane
§| For Ernie Kovacs: The complete works of
assaulted by adream §| For Gypsy Rose Lee: only.
4 Alfred Lawson, inscribed to Mr. Kovacs in dis-
A three-week Engagement at the Vatican appearing ink § For Rube Goldberg: His bi-
For G.W.G. Ferris: The Eiffel Tower, with wings ography, written by Lightnin’ Hopkins (or vice
enabling it to fly wherever it wants, and webbed GUY DUCORNET
versa) | For Memphis Minnie: A Cadillac car
feet for great landings {| For Samuel Green- as in her songs, with Henry Ford as chauffeur.
For Charlie Parker:
berg: A jellyfish for a telephone, having direct
communication with astrological
beings {| For Lightnin’ Hopkins: His own pri- LA MERVEILLEUSE
ROBERT GREEN
vate zoo filled with every beast and bird now
considered extinct | For Harold Lloyd: A ORGUINETTE AMERICAINE. For Ernie Kovacs: A wincing goose with a tic
longhaired timepiece that announces the phases mo
§| For Lucille Ball: Horseshoes equipped with
of the moon with a tiny phoenix that appears out tail-lights § For Loie Fuller: A vast gown of
of a tiny flame on the dial, then lifts slowly into white smoke.
the air, growing in size as it flies away {| For
Jack London: An African mask that bestows on
the wearer the power to create constellations of PAUL HAMMOND
anything imaginable; once put on, it cannot be re-
moved, and thus exists as a fetish of extra- For O. Henry: A hand grenade charged with
Ordinary temptation.
soot, buttons and umpteen different samples of
barbed wire § For Loie Fuller: Fifteen
Le plus merveillenx Instrument do thumbsticks bound in bundles of 5, 4,3, 2 and 1
HILARY BOOTH Musique du Monde. respectively; each bundle is tied with switches of
hair of different colors, all infected with lice
For Simon Rodia: The task of redecorating the 4 For Krazy Kat: A watermill worked not by
Grand Canyon or the Panama Canal {| For SCHLECHTER DUVALL
H0 but by the shifting sands.
Herman Melville: Awhite submarine in the shape
§ For Ambrose Bierce: The phone For Jack London: The water of the Thames
ofasnake
number of Ambrose Small’s mother {| For pumped into the belly of Santa Claus and then
thrown into Trafalgar Square, by daylight JOSEPH JABLONSKI
Charles Fort: An ‘inexplicable’ rain of heated
revolutionists from all corners of the world — to 4 For T-Bone Slim: Something the length of the
Eiffel Tower, divided by the width of the Leaning For Ernie Kovacs: An invisible TV set plugged
fall in the back-streets of Chicago {| For Bugs into Bakunin’s grave §| For Mother Jones: An ex-
Bunny: A hot-dog stand in Alaska, a camel to ride Tower of Pisa, and multiplied by the little finger
of my thirdhand {| For Fred Astaire: Another quisite corpse etched with a diamond stylus on a
along Miami Beach. chunk of anthracite coal by Marie Laveau, Moun-
shadow of this magnificent veiled world put into
tain Mary andHannahCohoon | For Samuel
his left dance shoe, while the other shoe makes
MARIO CESARINY love to the piano of motion § For Felix the Greenberg: A piece of black sail streaked with
Cat: The Holy Trinity ina fishbowl § For O. blood § For Arthur Cravan: An admission
Henry: A volume of texts by the infamous pass so that he can get in to cause a disturbance
For Bugs Bunny: A cross-country race on the
ground floor of the Chicago Art Institute Anatole France, wrapped around the navel of the during the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in
cathedral of New York. 1985 § For Buster Keaton: Paracelsus’ lost
4 For Fred Astaire: A dozen very fresh lizards lucky piece § For Bud Powell: A tool kit for
{| For Marilyn Monroe: A war vessel ironing repairing flying saucers {| For Jack Johnson: A
her first gala dress | For Bessie Snuth: Leonar-
PAUL GARON hand-shaking machine that breaks apart playing
do da Vinci’s Mona Lisa equipped with an elec-
The Star Spangled Banner when you shake hands.
tric system, two arms and two legs, allowing it to
For Peetie Wheatstraw: $1000 and a walk down with it § For H.P. Lovecraft: A biplane that
walk all over the house, including up the stairs flies of its own power and guidance to the South
{| For Harpo Marx: lago’s role in Othello the “Magnificent Mile” of Michigan Blvd. in
i
RIKKI: For Little Lulu —
The Fountain of Youth and the Singing Clitoris Sisters

“The right eye’s duty is to dive inside the telescope

while the left eye interrogates the microscope.”
—- Leonora Carrington

2
 An instrument that sounds like the noise mice
Pole whenever anyone boards it { For
make on midnight revels {| For Marilyn
Thelonius Monk: Several vials filled with tears Monroe: A boat that travels along the rivers of
of joy shed by Cabalists | For Alfred Lawson:
A mechanical flying horse to be ridden in hail- A NOTE ON hell and that ports only in Elysium where / would
clothe her in robes made of moth’s wings (sleeves
Storms § For Mary Lou Williams: The Altar
of St. Peter’s Basilica converted into a piano, with
relief carvings depicting the life of Duke Elling-
TIME-TRAVELERS’ fastened with Death’s Head moths) and we
would count sheep. She would tell me what she
saw in Hell.
ton | For Rube Goldberg: An anatomy book
illustrated by Salvator Rosa and the Portuguese POTLATCH
Nun, with the text by de Sade {| For John NANCY JOYCE PETERS
Reed: A set of implements used in early Egyptian Morton (1932), H.P.
Inaletterto James
burial practices. Lovecraft wrote, on the subject of games, For Michael Wigglesworth: A Pisco Punch from
both physical and intellectual; “They reveal the Eureka Saloon of Phantom Moll, Girl Foot-
no actual secrets of the universe, and help not pad, and a recording of her singing “ ‘Tis a jolly
PETER KRAL at all in intensifying or preserving the tan- life we outlawed sinners lead” For Isadora
talizing moods and elusive dream-vistas of Duncan: A glittering amphitheatre designed and
For Groucho Marx: A whole ham enveloped in a
the aesthetick imagination.” And ina letter to constructed by a hundred birds of paradise who
bouquet of flowers § For Harpo Marx: A Robert E. Howard, same year; “There is a will accompany her in whatever ways they see
small potted tree with a possum permanently sus-
basic difference between the tense drama of fit § For King Kong: An executive desk at
pended from one branch {| For Buster
meeting and overcoming an inevitable prob- RKO studios, Carl Denham’s skull for a paper-
Keaton: A raft with a landscape-painter’s easel
lem or obstacle in real life, and the secondary weight, and a stack of scripts by Little
For Larry Semon: An anthill {| For Fred
or symbolic drama of meeting or overcoming Nemo § For Clark Ashton Smith: A rain
Astaire: A silk dressing-gown, with an ostrich a problem or obstacle which has merely been forest suspended over the American River by a
egg in one pocket § For Lauren Bacall: A tie
artificially set up.” spider’s thread § For Jack London: A pillow-
cut from the flag of England {| For Cab One could say further that the games legit-
Calloway: A bulldog with golden fangs {| For case on which is embroidered in scarlet letters the
imated by this society tend to be merely an secrets of Zuni § For Ma Rainey: A cloud
Thelonius Monk: A complete edition, in Turkish,
extension of the repression necessary during chamber filled with elephant-tusk arrowheads in
Of Brehm’s World of Animals { For Bessie
the workday; an extension into the few hours a configuration suggesting the permanent seizure
Smith: A canopied bed (red).
of “leisure” before we sleep; a stopgap to pre- of Harpers Ferry §| For Buster Keaton: The
vent real desires and fears from catching us -wishbone from a giant bird risen from the waters
‘PHILIP LAMANTIA “offguard.” It is as well that miserabilism of Lake Stymphalus {| For Samuel Green-
finds it impossible to harness the dream in any berg: The Sierra Nevada.
For Simon Rodia: The sudden appearance, at ‘such fashion!
Once, of a million Americans in Watts, in order to The surrealist use of games can only be of
€ in close proximity to his Towers {| For an absolutely opposing nature to those of ANTHONY REDMOND
Charlie Parker: The materialization of his old which HPL speaks. With the seriousness of
black humor, we continually invent them for For H.P. Lovecraft: The complete works of Sun
8reen jacket re-forming the flag of the future re-
Public of desire and dreams {| For Edgar the purpose of exploring the dark realms of Ra with album designs by Ian Jones {| For
Allan Poe: Upon awakening, an original copy of the unconscious, of chance, of the mysterious Bessie Smith: A bottle of October 1917 bour-
correspondences of thought that arise be- bon § For Hound Dog Taylor: A night out
the Manifeste du Surréalisme § For Charlie
tween us (due to both the universality of the with Juliette — dinner at Cheval’s Ideal Palace,
Chaplin: tis wrencn of Modern Times recon-
Stituted as Merlin’s magic wand §| For Bela language of the unconscious, and also, per- music and dancing on Easter Island, then his place
Lugosi: A chance meeting with Morgan Le Fey at haps, thought-transference), of the conse- orhers § For Daffy Duck: An airline ticket to
the observation-roof of the Empire State guences of love as a gorgeous vehicle of Florida, every winter {| For Bugs Bunny: A
Building | For Magloire Saint-Aude: The freedom, with sparks of light that are ex- blue burrow between Billie Holliday’s breasts
Cinematic projection from a hummingbird’s eye tremely pleasurable in themselves. Many of 4 For Duke Ellington: A red satin piano on the
of Charlie Parker’s spontaneous musical session them, such as the exquisite corpse and the slopes of Mount Killimanjaro.
at “Bop City,” San Francisco, in 1954, fixed in an collective relation of automatic stories, have
order of black, white and red crystallizations, been practiced by children for many years,
Volatilizing the human brain on the brink of an before the logical modes of thought ex- MICHAEL RICHARDSON
Fe tonany mutation through a circle of blazing tinguish such delights so brutally.
m. To the ludicrous domino-toppling For Marlene Dietrich: A beautiful necklace ex-
buffoons, to the meanderings of absent- quisitely carved from Josef von Sternberg’s
minded chess whizzes, to the pointless physi- teeth § For W.C. Fields: A child’s rattle loud
CONROY MADDOX cal prowess of Olympic nationalist idiots and enough to permanently deafen the President
to the boredom of the daily cryptic cross- 4 For O. Henry: Combinations to all the bank
For Fatty Arbuckle: An ice bucket filled with word, we say: “The joke’s on you!” Childish safes inthe U.S. § For Billie Holiday: One ot
field crickets | For W.C. Fields: A sawed-off pleasures will reign supreme. When the Joseph Cormell’s boxes {| For Thelonius
Shotgun made or glass and filled with goldfish imagination is set loose, all of Hell is too. And Monk: Two tickets for a performance of Ubu
that, no doubt, is precisely where these gifts Roi 4 For Clark Ashton Smith: The key tothe
1 For Hedy Lamarr: Asmallstatue of the juggler
will have to be delivered, via the Under- Snow Queen’s ice palace.
of Nazareth and a pair of bloodstained bicycle
clips § For Marilyn Monroe: A Warhol- ground Railroad, perhaps in the midst of an
infernal jazz concert featuring Duke
Shaped inflatable in the process of pu-
trefaction §| For John Reed: An oak tree, Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and FRANKLIN ROSEMONT
€ach branch shaped like a finger {| For Jack Fats Navarro — with Lautréamont on ma-
London: A skull in a sound box. chine-gun . . . For Lauren Bacall: An immense amphibious
“The things which interest me,” as Ferris Wheel, powered by hurricanes; at its high-
Lovecraft said, ‘‘are . broad vistas of est point one may see throngs of “Abominable
LEON MARVELL dramatic pageantry in which cosmic laws and Snow-women” in the Himalayas, avidly studying
the linkage of cause and effect are displayed the just-arrivedreports of the 1848 Seneca Falls
Amonolithic image in ball-shot on a large scale.” Convention; at its lowest point it passes through
For Little Walter:
of Daffy Duck struck with black graffiti, an the exact centerof the Earth, pausing at intervals
atomic pince-nez.§) rur Daffy vucx: All tne Hilary BOOTH : for those who wish to stroll through Little
Weapons of the world, gold-plated and loaded Nemo’s Ice Palace § For Clark Ashton Smith:
With poison ruby needles {| For T-Bone Slim: The old Chicago Riverview amusement park,

n3
 Don Talayesva’s {| For Woody Woodpecker: MICHAEL VANDELAAR
fully restored on the floor of the Atlantic, and
A chance to direct the reforestation of the
directed by Ludwig von Beethoven and Pretty Chicago Loop, accompanied by a chorus of all the For Clark Ashton Smith: A magic carpet with in-
Boy Floyd 4 For Charlie Parker: The whole §) For H.P. Lovecraft: A copy of
birds within 2000 miles § For Annie Oakley: A built stereo
state of New York, transformed into a tropical gold-plated, double-barreled shotgun, on which Freud’s ‘Interpretation of Dreams’ annotated by
ourden full of Carolina parakeets and Patagonian is engraved the whole of Mary Wollstonecrait’s Elmore James, illustrated by Winsor McCay
giant sloths | for Thonas Skidmore: A re- Vindication of the Rights of Woman 4 For 4 For Montezuma: A head-band made of
cording of the sixth canto of Maldoror, in Chero- Harriet Tubman: A flock of white-crested panther’s eyes and the pleasure of seeing Disney-
kee, played at full volume in the cab of a loco- laughingthrushes (garrulax leucolophus) who land reduced to.dust {| For Edgar Allen Poe:
motive highballing across the country during the would help her in whatever she does For The august humor of the raven saxophone: the
coming General Strike For Moshe Nadir:
Frank Hamilton Cushing: A special edition of complete recordings of Charlie Parker For
An unabridged Martian-Yiddish/Y iddish-Mar-
prefaced by William Blake, an-
Carl Barks’ tale of “The Seven Cities of Cibola” Lady Usher: A bouquet of flickknives with which
tian dictionary, § ForAmerican
Greenberg, and profusely (Uncle Scrooge No. 7, 1954), with fold-out maps to slash the orbit of the moon
notated by Samuel
|) For Joe Hill: pinpointing the exact locations. Prairie Dogs: A night in Tunisia.
iastrated by Maurice Kish
a drive-
Vhe Morne Tabemacle, converted into
ay theater featuring Marlene Dietrich’s early
in the RONALD VANDELAAR
jihns, and serving the finest Chinese food
workd © Por Black Hawk: A huge forest CHEIKH TIDIANE SYLLA
is now Washington, D.C.; at its For Herman Melville: A tattoo on the right
covering what
a For Bessie Smith: A second birthday after mid- shoulder with the letters S.A.D.E. § For John
center, where the White House now stands,
enlarged night, with the sporadic sound of a buzzing Brown: A totem pole of ravenous bears and a bi-
towering house: pole surmounted by an
giraffe, and a silver candle smoking upside-down cycle pedaled by the wind § For Marcus
replien of the Maltese Falcon.
4] For Mae West: Asculptured smile with green Garvey: An axe, a molotov cocktail and a por-
lipstick on the mountains of the Sierra Madres trait of Patrice Lumumba § For H.P. Love-
{For Lightnin’ Hopkins: The blue light of a craft: A side-street that looks upon the residence
thousand ribs exhuming hopefully the cloudy of 42 Rue Fontaine §| The
For Art Tatu m:fuse
voices of last night. that will ignite the explosives to the police head-
PENELOPE ROSEMONT
quarters of New York, the explosion from which
will illuminate the grave of Joe Hill.
For George Franeis Train: The Great Transcen-
dental & Northwest Utopian Railway Co., using
DEBRA TAUB
only 1870s steam locomotives; he would be chief JOHN WELSON
engineer, following a schedule calculated by
For Harpo Marx: A porcupine-quill coat that
Pasmional Analogy © For Timothy Dexter: For Charlie Parker: A night full to the brim with
exchange (all sings him to sleep § For Ernie Kovacs: The
‘he international monctary
tallest building in the world, turned upside-down the eggshell of yachts {| For Lester Young:
currency having been converted into smoked sar-
4. For Mae West: A tropical forest on the back Habitual flames of snow-filled laughter {| For
dines) and a larger-than-life statue of Isadora
“ Por Victoria Woodhull: The U.S. of a beetle §| For Buster Keaton: The last Bud Powell: The frozen bowtie which has lost its
Duncan
languorous dream of a frozen night {| For temper at sea, and breaks into the screams of a
Senate and ffouse of Representatives ina bottle, point {| For Babs Gonzalez: The
Lightnin’ Hopkins: An island that can be moved vanishing
including every senator and congressman, with largest bunch of flowers, holding out its hand to
pleased 4 For anywhere § For Daffy Duck: An airplane
she could do as she
wham
with an apple in its mouth. enable it to map the path of hidden handshakes.
Albert Minstein: A pueblo in Oraibi, next door to

CANAL
There it seemed ablaze
The quiet Heed uncertain
The strain was Sapphire glace
With puint, mirth and no curtam

The Twilight question dim

Were ceasing shade a light
That fell to mortal’s eye
The gift of simple sight

The Bird of love sank faint

A musical syniphonic strained
While here | must chant
The goblin’s joy acquaint

Samuel GREENBERG

(circa 1915-16)

john W. WELSON: The Bush-Fire of Slumber —

Homage to Kurt Seligmann (oil on canvas, 1977)
14
 these “works” of his spiritual hero. With this pejorative. A useless sort of vendetta, it is hoy dhy
REVOLUTION & THE PROPHETS unfamiliar. In Sontag’s case the dishonesty m-
book one meets two giants of the poetic intelli-
gence of the twentieth century. If one does not volved isso blatant and the hatred so thickly rein:
The Prophets by Shmuel Eisenstadt. Trans. from forced by willful ignorance that if strikes one as
accept everything that they have said on this or
the Yiddish by Max Rosenfeld. Yiddisher Kultur rather bizarre. After all, she is supposed to be
that subject, nevertheless their projects and con-
Farband (YKUF), 80 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. rather clever, an esthetic moralist from there:
clusions have to be reckoned with as fundamen-
10011.
tal in the areas they have demarcated. nowned pages of the New York Review of Books
—. someone from whom her peers would expect a
This is an essential book for those who are en- ‘a3 modicum of knowledge and competence.
deavoring to create a methodology for the study But in this most recent book, the famous critic
of social revolution within religion-saturated SELF-ABUSE IN PRINT combines her love-hate relationship with photo
periods of history. More than that, it is a book graphy and her pure hate relationship with
that can be read easily and profitably by workers, English and American Surrealist Poetry, ed. by surrealism, and as a result no one on plavet Parth
farmers, students; even by Sunday-school pupils Edward B. Germain. Penguin Books, 1978. is any the wiser about either. Fmploying no ert
who desperately need to learn exactly what they teria based on surrealist theory or practice, or on
are not being taught about the prophetic move- This is the most ridiculous anthology ever pro- the history of the movement, or on genume
ment in ancient Israel. According to Shmuel duced by anyone, anywhere, on any subject. It is examples of surrealist works past or present. she
Eisenstadt, the ancient Hebrew prophets repre- so saturated with stupidity and falsification that creates her own arbitrary definitions with the
sented a tradition of popular, militant revolt its sole purpose scems to have been to serve as a sole purpose of applying the attribution ‘surreal:
against the class society of their time. He intro- platform on which editor Germain could castrate curren! photograpiny thal
ist’ to Varrousaspectsof
’ duces us to the heart of their social ideas, their himself in print, and then —. with his Introduction
revolutionary strategy and tactics, and_ the she dislikes. In this way she proves that there bas
-— kill himself. beena “surrealist takeover” of photography. She
meaning of their agitational language, relying Such a ludicrous spectacle gave us a good goes even further to insist that all photographers
largely on the biblical documents that so often laugh, But it is still necessary to alert American — without exception — are surrealist, as ts any-
are used for purposes of confusion by proponents readers, notoriously misinformed about the aims
of religion or Zionist ideology. thing else in the world the least bit “strange.”
and principles of surrealism, that this book has And yes, Sontag considers the whole situation
This book has an interesting history of its own. no redeeming feature. Quite simply, it has perverse and frightful.
Written originally in Yiddish in the still-revolu- nothing to do with surrealism. How could the Now, it is one thing fora writer to attack apo
tionary U.S.S.R. of the 1920s, it comes to us editors at Penguin have been taken in by such a ticular kind of sham surrealist sensibility aibecied
today in an English translation by Max Rosenfeld swindle? by so many dilettantes within the commercial:
through the publishing auspices of the Yiddisher It is worth noting that Germain begged rep- ized cultural orbits of America. tis another thing
Kultur Farband (YKUF) in New York, with the resentatives of the Surrealist Movement in the to try and foist all this on surrealism.
last author’s foreword dated October 1970 in Tel U.S. for contributions to his anthology, and that
Aviv. It must be said that Eisenstadt persevered Plainly, Sontag cannot generalize as she does
the surrealists flatly refused when his complete without committing gross deceptions, indulmug
in a most worthy aim, for his work joins hands incompetence and imbecility became obvious. in outright critical doggerel, falsifying every
with that of such nineteenth century socialist With shameless dishonesty, Germain asserts that thing.
writers such as Engels and Kautsky, who ad- Philip Lamantia “assisted” in preparing the For what it’s worth, Susan Sontag is very “big”
dressed the subject of popular prophetic revolt in book; however, as Germain and his publisher
right now. She is perhaps the only figure current:
medieval Europe. know very well, Lamantia explicitly refused to ly filling the once-popular esthetic-moratistic
Jish, have anything to do with the project. niche in the devotions of the mass media. In (1
The book is a hodgepodge of puny exercises by Photography she gives no positive suggestions
PAZ ON DUCHAMP false poets who would themselves, in almost toward a kind of photography that mighi be goor
every case, admit that they are openly hostile to for us. She just advances the slogan “ecology of
Marcel Duchamp by Octavio Paz. Viking Press, surrealism and its revolutionary aims. Old-line images.” This is a “trendy” sort of phrase. of
N.Y. 1978. reactionaries such as John Crowe Ransom are course, but it is not a new thing with Sontag. Hes
featured with up-to-the-minute opportunist scum
career was begun in step with a particular phase
This volume by Octavio Paz combines a re- such as Ted Berrigan. The best-represented in recent “avant-garde” complications that sin
publication of The Castle of Purity with a new “poet” in the book is the prize-winning idiot
the inauguration of an “esthetic of silence,” #
essay on the artist’s final work, “Given .. .,” an Robert Bly —- with his own insipid mulings and
“criticism without interpretation,” 9 “novel
assemblage that was created in secrecy by some translations of the Stalinist thug Neruda.
without content,” a “poor theater,” a “minimal
Duchamp and exhibited at the Philadelphia The closest Bly ever has got to surrealism, as is
art,” and numerous other varieties of inasochistic
Museum of Art only after his death in 1969. well known, is when the surrealists in Chicago
mysticism that pretended to inherit the entire
This book is the latest, but surely not the last, in threw a pie in his face in autumn 1977. field of human expression.
the swelling body of Duchamp exegesis. It prob- The book, in short, is a disgusting fraud. If I
Any attempt to list and refute all the follies in
ably could be argued superficially that this ever run into the sniveling intellectual pimp who
this book would be useless, for they are almost as
torrent of commentary has compromised what- calls himself Edward B. Germain, it will give me
numerous as its many judgments. The reader wil!
ever is left of the idea of lucidity, austere rigor, the great pleasure to kick his face. notice for himself that these follies hide thei
it
artist as exemplar, the work as gesture, etc. But intent behind some justified, if unoriginal, objec-
is not so. In fact it is fitting that Duchamp’s work J.K.B.
tions to the widespread abuse of photography
should attract enormously more attention and and various other fads of the bourgeois “pop”
comment than all his imitators combined, those
ON PHOTOGRAPHY?
sensibility. Thus, using the bait of a readily
pathetic starvelings of the “nothing” esthetic. shared disdain, Sontag fishes on one level fur tbe
On Photography by Susan Sontag. Farrar, Straus
It is fitting also that Octavio Paz has continued reader’s sympathies in order to clear a path. on
to write about Duchamp. A great poet himself, & Giroux, N.Y., 1977.
another level, for her meaningless gencraliza-
and one who has written about poetry and art tions and false formulations regarding surrealism
with a searching passion that seems omnivorous, Susan Sontag belongs to that part of the U.S.
literary establishment that wants nothing more and regarding the allegedly embarrassed condi-
Paz is able to suggest to us the presence of an tion of photography as an “art.”
acute crisis and drama of the mind that become intensely than to reduce the word surrealism to a

Ws
 the in- PATTERN IN AMERICAN white maniac think up?” After Never Eat Any-
On. Photography is nothing more than THE MYSTIC
. Every thing Bigger Than Your Head (1976) and Whack
voluntary self-criticism of Susan Sontag CULTURE
Your Porcupine (1977), what more is left?
Jimmy
snapshot she looks at, every newsphoto of There’s no end to it; Kliban always delivers. Yet
Carter or the pope in the N.Y. Times, becom
es for In Search of White Crows by R. Laurence Moore.
Susan his books are neither better nor worse than ear-
her “surreal.” Such “surrealism” and Oxford University Press, N.Y., 1977.
of Roland lier ones; the humor is so other-dimensional that
Sontag deserve each other, courtesy it never quite matters where he’s going or what,
Barthes. If he had done nothing else, R. Laurence Moore gear he’s in. He is so slaphappy and silly he defies
JJ. could be remembered as the discoverer of a key relativity. He is not “like” anyone. He recognizes
to 19th century Spiritualism in the real character the humor of the past, he even follows its laws.
of the Medium: the lower-class woman, driven Everything must have a point, a hook, however
PAGAN EVIDENCE by lack of status and low pay to weave Spiritual- minuscule or elusive of our grasp. Says Breton of
Paganism in the ism into the Popular Culture, draw from and reci- Swift: “He makes you laugh without sharing
Gargoyles and Grotesques, procate the impulses of mass society for the
Medieval Church by Ronald Sheridan and
Anne your laughter. It is precisely at this price that
strange, the unbelievable, the forces Beyond.
Ross. New York Graphic Society, Boston, 1975. humor, in the sense that we must understand it
Moore’s unappreciated In Search of White Crows
[italics mine], can exteriorize the sublime
offers a powerful analysis of the American Ir-
‘his book was put together by the pho- element which . . . is inherent in it and transcends
rational from the inside, rank-and-file practi-
tographer Ronald Sheridan and the scholar Anne the forms of the comic.” Kliban’s cartoons make
tioners as well as major thinkers who captured
Ross, a specialist in Celtic antiquities. The sense on a high/black humor level. He may juxta-
public attention just as capitalism began to pro-
volume is a fortunate compilation of photographs pose two unlikely elements (see illustration), find
claim the utter rationality of its Machine Age.
and explanatory notes presenting sculptural humor in contrast, then go further, turning ortho-
From a Pantheistic impulse, legitimated by ref-
evidence of the survival of pre-Christian mythic- dox religion into a parade. The leap from the sub-
erences to Swedenborg, masses of mid-nine-
poetic iconography in the Christian churches of limina! to the obvious never was more fun.
teenth century Americans began to outgrow their
medieval Europe. It contains remarkable ex- There are almost no captions or balloons in
narrow maintine Protestantism for something
amples of practically every kind of early meta- Tiny Footprints. In that respect it is like his first
more exciting and more humane. The connection
morphic sculpture known to the continent: book, Cat (1976). It’s a move toward the mass
with political radicalism was apparent from the
strange giants, The Green Man, Cemunnos, market, where visual cartoons can be reproduced
beginning. William Lloyd Garrison, hero of the
Glaring Creatures, Biters, Solar and Lunar almost anywhere. (Captions are distrusted —
antislavery struggle, defended Spiritualism from
Heads, foliate heads, horned and beaked heads, they smell Thomas Nasty.) Many of the cartoons
its attackers by disclaiming as ‘“puerile’? and
bicorporates, mermaids and mermen, fertility “preposterous” the so-called scientific
-— and they are cartoons, not “drawings” -—
figures, sphinxes, serpentine horrors, obscenities refutations. The movement’s great theorist, could make it into the New Yorker. A priest
and appalling nightmares. hooks his earphones up to a crucifix (defanged
Andrew Jackson Davis, served asa political com-
The authors confront forthrightly the question rade to an outstanding American Communist and Goya!). An artist paints the lightbulb above him
of whether or not this imagery is assimilable to (cutesy Steinberg!). These are the glib cartoons,
free-lover, Victoria Woodhull; fellow Spiritualist
orthodox Christian “hellology” and aver that it is Stephen Pearl Andrews edited Woodhull & the more controlled. They have a short half-life;
not. Their view, which corresponds to ours, is Claflin’s, the first English-language newspaper to there’s not much room to lurch around in them.
that the pagan myths were in retention of their translate and print (serially) the Cominunist
They are from a familiar mold: the “zany-
integrity during these periods; they were neither puncho!” effect. Like Picasso’s Greek Period,
Manifesto.
displaced by Christian doctrines, nor incor- Moore is right in assaying that Spiritualism they are Kliban’s simple homage to the past.
porated by them. Sheridan and Ross hold that But there are those others! A frequent com-
failed because it could not offer ‘‘miracles” as
these carvings were powerful magical efficacies plaint about popular satire is that it is all too
great as the electric light or automobile. He fol-
in the minds and lives of the people. In effect, tame, too too polite. (Nasty Habits is the best
lows with great care the modern experiments
then, what we have to deal with here are so many from William James to Joseph Rhine and their
available film “spoof” about Watergate, Delta
instances of concrete poetic hallucination that signal attempts to recapture popular interest. As House TV’s sorry answer to frats.) Satire draws
plastically formulate nothing less than the latent anemic blood. Kliban is the only American mass
he says, the very effort to demonstrate the un-
content of the Christian cathedrals of old Europe. provable by scientific means was philosophically culture product who is both unprincipled enough
As much as has been made of the great cave
misconceived. If the future of Spiritualism lay and vicious enough to resuscitate the pseudo-
paintings of the pre-historic era, there is yet as anywhere, it was in the manifestation of the un-
dead art of satire: when a gawker’s brain falls into
tnuch to be made of the shocking apparition of a woman's cleavage, our scruples get scraped. No
conscious joined to the revolutionary intentions
these grotesques which arose in a society closer friction, no stimulation; sorry. A man stamping
of its early visionaries. PB
to our own, a class society. What were the politi- “Happy Day” smiles on bombs is a sly night-
cal and psychological motivations of those who mare; we know it, we can’t look away from it.
carved and placed these stones? What were their Tension is most felt when it crushes.
ties to the traditional cults, to magic, to alchémy, Kliban’s visual puns are blunt but poetic. The
to agencies of malediction implied in some of the leap to recognition is mostly exhilarating, no-
carvings? Are the carvings hints of primordially man’s-lands of possibility gape wide open: The
ancient themes? Do they bring forward into hunter, shooting a plumber’s helper at a toilet
medieval Europe the wild visages of a previous deer — what does he do with the trophy? Kliban
era — an era of masks? provides the tales, we footnote them. The
The authors are never more encouraging re- absurdity is compounded.
garding these matters than in the statement: “< “What sort of profession is it for a grown man
“One thing we hope has been established in the to sit around drawing pictures?’ But then |
course of this book: the medieval artists were not thought, ‘What does an actor do but stand around
engaged in haphazard decoration merely for dec- and make faces at a camera?’ and I came out of
oration’s sake; everything they did hada purpose it.” (“Interview with B. Kliban,”’ Rolling Stone,
and it is not their fault that we do not really know Sept. 21, 1¥/%.) nliban aoesn’t seem to under-
about it.” It was the church’s fault, of
much stand the effects he produces; he sees cartooning
course. And? Rationalism. TINY FEATS as just another job in the vast American enter-
So we are not willing to leave the final interro- tainment network, Perhaps it’s just as well — he
gation of these figures to scholars either. It is the Tiny Footprints and Other Drawings by B. may become self-conscious, and that would im-
poetic interpretation of these carvings by Kliban. Workman Publishing, N.Y. 1978. mobilize if not demoralize him.
inspired artists that will lead us to their profound- It’s well known that satire is a moral victory
est understanding, by leading them back into life. out with a lacking a material one. Kliban complexifies this
Whenever Benny Kliban comes
polarity. His satire flubs and flutters around the
J.J. book, we wonder, ‘“‘What more can this black &

116
 B. KLIBAN
Ut hidd
His most recent monograph discusses the life together make up the re-emerging Surrealist In-
Material world and posits a warped one where ternational. The appearance of such a volume in
and work of a great but too-little-known
People can detach hair from their bodies and, like English would be especially useful.
Mverted merkin-sports trophies, mount it on Romanian/Jewish painter who, though never
formally associated with surrealism, for fifty
display plaques. It’s disturbing and painful. It’s F.R.
funny. It keeps on coming; his pen is mean and years has participated in it objectively, through
accurate. He shoots it from a crossbow and it his work. This is the first book anywhere on Jules
THE GNOSTICS’ RETURN
aves a tiny hole. The question: What do we Perahim. Lavishly illustrated, with numerous
Perceive through that paper lens other than the color plates, it affords us an intimate view of
Next cartoon or neutral whitespace? The answer: “Pythagoras’ Happy Childhood,” ablaze with Gnostic Review No. 1. Giordanisti Press (3230 N.
“Possible Birds,” in a magic garden where King Clark St., Chicago 60613. $2.95
ait a while.
Ubu — en route to Africa — dances madly in the
midst of frantic fauna, looming large at the inter- Conceived as a “Religio-Magic and Astrologi-
Peter BATES and B, KULIK cal Exposition of Books, Ideas, and Art,” the
section of desire and the laws of chance. on
Gnostic Review has just been launched in
PHASES OF A SECRET MOON Chicago by Russell Thorne and Jennifer Pendur.
It will be available twice yearly.
Perahim by Edouard Jaguer. (Editions Non-Lieu, Judging by the first issue, the title “Gnostic” is
not a mere label. The editors and their associates
4 des Pyrenees, Paris 20, France). Text in
Tench. have been inspired to prepare this publication by
Jacques LaCarriere’s work The Gnostics
AFFIRMATION & COMBAT (Dutton, 1977); they aim to revive the world-
A surrealist poet since World War II (see his view and mode of critical thought associated with
Collection, The Night Is Made to Open Doors, Textos de Afirmacao e de Combate do Movimen- the second-century thinkers and sects usually
Published by Oasis Editions in Toronto), Edouard to Surrealista Mundial, ed. by Mario Cesariny. designated by that name: Valentinus, Simon
Jaguer is best known as a writer on art. He (Editora P & R, Rua Ruben A. Leitao, 4-2 Esq., Magus, Carpocrates; the Peratae, the Sethians,
approaches the multifarious questions of painting Lisboa 2, Portugal). Text in Portuguese. the Barbelognostics, etc.
and sculpture, the whole field of graphic and Proof of the active seriousness of this project is
Plastic expression, with an admirable _clair- found in the contents of the current issue, which
Mario Cesariny is widely regarded as the fore-
Voyance, an encyclopedic knowledge, and a pas- most Portuguese poet of our time. Less often it is
does not consist of retrogressive ruminations but
Slonate revolutionary/poetic critical emphasizes modem intimations of gnostic pro-
Consciousness. His many essays are still uncol- acknowledged that he has been a major figure of
world surrealism since the 1940s. cesses found in such diverse manifestations as
€cted, They may be found in the journals and In his stupendous compilation of documents Dada, the music of John Cage and Scriabin,
exhibition catalogs of the international Phases (Texts of Affirmation and Combat of the World . Frances Yates’ researches, as well as more typi-
Movenient —.a movement which, together with Surrealist Movement) the accent is on surrealism cally “‘occult” themes such as Magic, Tarot and
ean-Pierre Duprey, Georges Henein, Wifredo today, in its most active centers: Sao Paulo, Astrology.
am, Gherasim Luca, Claude Tarnaud and Chicago, Prague, the Arab countries. One of the In approaching this review — and approach it
Others, Jaguer founded in Paris, 1953, to coordi- largest sections of the book (36 pages) is devoted one should — it is best to be prepared beforehand
Nate a diversity of plastic researches. to the Surrealist Movement in the U.S. Important
by reading LaCarriere’s book and other studies
tireless organizer, Jaguer has arranged of ancient gnosticism. Gnosticism is no hodge-
“dossiers” also trace the surrealist presence in:
Scores of exhibitions in dozens of countries. He Cuba, England, France, Holland, podge; it is a profound method founded in an in-
Mexico,
Was co-organizer, with André Breton, of the credible insight embedded in a brilliant and com-
Romania, etc. A second volume will cover the
Surrealist Intrusion in the Enchanters’ Domain” pelling creation myth. What is rarer in this day
Iberian peninsula.
New York (1960-61), and played a key role in and age?
Superbly heterodox, the book conveys the vi-
Srganizing the massive 1976 World Surrealist JJ.
“xhibition in Chicago. tality and force of the various tendencies that

NW
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FATA MORGANA by André Breton pher, poet and pamphleteer Benjamin Pau! Blood. Second print-
A Jong poem written in 1940, illustrated by Cuban surrealist painter ing. 24 pages. $1.50
Witredo Lam. 32 pages. $1.50
a 4. Rana Mozelle
ATHANOR by Penclope Rosemont Fifteen automatic texts, preceded by a short treatise on the “Fate
Seventeen poems illustrated with alchemical engravings. “A as in of the Obsessive Image.” by Paul Garon, author of Blues and the
Athanor, cormorant-poems by Penelope Rosemont” loyce Man- Poetic S25
Spuit and The Devil's Son-fn-Law., Second printing. 20
sour). Third printing. 16 pages. $1.25 sakes.

THE MORNING OF A MACHINE GUN by Franklin Rosemont . da Moths Wing

Twenty poems, profusely illustrated ‘with drawings by the author. Eighteen poems, with a preface, “Dream Bait — or, Dr. Faust,
64 pages. $1.75 Your Hair Is On Fire.” by Joseph Jablonski, with drawings by
Franklin Rosemont. Second printing. 28 pages. $1.50
SURREALIST EXHIBITION Catalog
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Fourteen poems by Nancy Joyce Peters, illustrated with papercuts

SURREALISM
by Mado. 16 pages. $1

WORKS FROM OTHER PUBLISHERS

available trom Black Swan Press
THE OCTOPUS. SVPEWRITER
OPEN THE SRESONS! SUL WTEOLS MAGNE, TOUCH OF THE MARVELOUS by Philip Lamantia
DISHAND 1 ARMY! 2 a
Poems 1943-1946. Cover by Toyen, 47 pages. $2.50

BLOOD OF THE AIR by Philip Lamantia

Poems 1967-1970. Frontispiece by Marie Wilson. $2.25

BLUES AND THE POETIC SPIRIT by Paul Garon

Illustrated. Paperback. 178 pages. $5.95
. "VITAL CONELAGR ATIONS es
THE DEVIL’S SON-IN-LAW by Pau! Garon
Study of blues-singer Peetie Wheatstraw. 111 pages. $2

TWELVE DRAWINGS by Hal Rammel $2.50

SCARIFICATIONS by Jayne Cortez

Forty-two poems. 64 pages. $3
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FLYING PIRANHA by Ted Joans & Joyce Mansour

Poenis and collages. 45 pages. $6

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250-page anthology including a 50-page section edited by the Sur-
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Eight-page surrealist new spaper. Lyrical invective, poems, polem-
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‘
*,.. exceedingly well done; many things I have never “An excellent, if partisan, introduction... . A few of the
seen before; many things which should be recalled again chapters read like radical pamphlets that culminate in the
and again.” author's appeal for a ‘surrealist transformation of Amer-
— Herbert Marcuse ica’; but in general, this is a valuable study of surrealism
and its aims with respect to life and language, the likes of
which were previously not available in English.”
“.,, An invaluable text. Rosemont met Breton in 1966 — Choice
and later that year organized the first indigenous Ameri-

What
can surrealist group. He played a major role in organiz-
ing the 1976 World Surrealist Exhibition in Chicago,
where he lives and edits Arsenal/Surrealist Subversion “A tremendous book! ... The profundity of [Breton’s]
... Not an esthetic doctrine nor a philosophical system thinking in many areas was a revelation to me.”
nor a mere literary or artistic school, surrealism aims at
— Frank Belknap Long
nothing less than complete human emancipation.”
— Peter Harris
1S
wre
The Militant (London)
“No one interested in the movement . .. should miss
[this volume] .... The translations are excellent.”
“|. ,a publication of genuine political importance... .
Comrade Rosemont is an outstandingly sympathetic and — Norbert Lynton
eloquent editor demonstrating the true political clarity Art Monthly (London)
of a man and a movement who the bourgeoisie are still
trying to turn into a quaint species of artist.”
“For the first time we have the materials for a close study
— David Widgery ‘ of surrealism’s overtly political implications; the
Socialist Worker (London) dialogue which hopefully follows such study could go far
to resuscitate a moribund, dogmatic and humorless

?
Left... . This book holds within it the power and prom-
“|. .a beautiful book . . . . the first serious contribution ise of the Communist Manifesto ....”
to the understanding of surrealism in the U.S.... so — J.N. Thomas
important that it must be considered a point of departure The Berkeley Barb
and obligatory reading.”’

— Stefan Baciu
Le Combat Syndicaliste “True surrealism, like true love, is hard to find....
& Solidaridad Obrera (Paris) Edited and Rosemont sets out to rescue the movement from the lies
and attacks it has suffered, to take up one by one popular
introduced by and often reactionary misconceptions surrounding
it. ... But above all, it is its living aspect that he wishes
“.., unusually captivating .. . the most comprehensive
Franklin to emphasize.”
treatment to date of surrealism as a political and social Rosemont — Colette Malo
movement.” Socialist Voice (Toronto)
— Columbus Free Press

‘Now, at last, we can hear Breton on a staggering range

of subjects, sounding the call for humankind to listen to
“There is something wistful about Rosemont’s latter- its dreams... . Franklin Rosemont adds a meticulously
day surrealism, but he impresses with his cogency, and researched, book-length introduction, itself a manifesto
the grand scale of his scholarship. [The] book brings into on the continuity of the movement into the pres-
sharp focus the high social seriousness of Breton’s ent .... What Is Surrealism? takes its place alongside
thought. . . Surrealism became, in the hands of Bre- the classics on the revolutionary bookshelf.”
ton, a general critique of society.”
— Paul Buhle
— Jed Perl In These Times
Art in America

By arrangement with Monad Press, CULTURAL CORRESPONDENCE offers What

Is Surrealism? at a generous discount along with a one-year subscription to CC.
What Is Surrealism? regularly retails at $8.95; a sub to CC costs $7.50.
We offer BOTH for only $12 — a saving of $4.45! ORDER NOW!
CULTURAL CORRESPONDENCE, c/o Dorrwar Bookstore, 224 Thayer St., Providence, Rhode Island 02906