The Stripper in Her Natural Habitat
Le Urge advertised itself as a European Gentleman’s Club, which meant it wasn’t run by Armenians like most of the clubs in Hollywood and the Valley. The owners, full-blooded Germans, staffed the place with still more Germans. All the bouncers were big fleshy Teutonic golems with hair the color of bleached teeth.
By Jim Ruland.
The Defiant Prose of Stewart Home
His use of deceit and plagiarism is a light-hearted prank, a thrust against the fetish of originality and genius that he sees as being part of the structure of modern notions of art, especially perhaps in fiction writing that draws attention to the power of such ideas. Similarly, the use of shared names, such as Karen Elliot, Luthor Blissett, Monty Cantsin are equally prankster routines designed to reveal modern art’s need for the genius. The unsettling of these ideas–of drawing attention to the fact that ‘Art’ is structured around concepts of genius, of originality, of creativity by producing things that look like art but don’t involve them–is of course what these routines are about. But such work can have surprisingly violent effects and what is interesting about Home is the way he continues to direct his writing through the present age and its canonical authors, philosophers and artists towards a different kind of future.
By Richard Marshall.
The New Bohemians
City workers wash the streets. Sometimes the drinkers see the big, low, street-cleaning trucks inching by. More often they don’t notice; they only look outside, marvelling at the lightness and the hour, as they deposit more quarters in the jukebox next to the door. They see that the street is wet, and each time it tricks them for a moment. Has it rained? They look at the sky, clear and lavender and growing lighter by the moment. Soon the sun will shine. They will wend their way home, helping one another. They may stagger or skip or meander. Sunglasses are de rigueur, now.
By Utahna Faith.