We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us

i have this feeling i could spend a long time gushing about books with you

My favorite still goes to:

"The problem with these people is that their cities have never been bombed and their mothers were never told to shut the fuck up"

with a second place at:

"Some people never go crazy, what truly horrible lives they must lead"

i drink, i have a shit job, i fuck sometimes, life sucks, i endure, i drink, i have a shit job, i fuck sometimes, life sucks, i endure, i drink, i have a shit job, i fuck sometimes, life sucks, i endure, i drink, i have a shit job, i fuck sometimes, life sucks, i endure, i drink, i have a shit job, i fuck sometimes, life sucks, i endure, me, me, me

please let me know if i missed something...

dearcassie, well i am in hospital collecting dust allover the place, so if you wanna trade ideas, recommendations and talk alot, then please do.

The expression of common existence undoubtedly, then again it probably helps if you've managed to stop fisting your family for the afternoon and to take a few things in.

no, you got it all sting-bono. beautiful isn't it?

x-post obviously..

hospital? i'm sorry to hear it i could go on all day. just bought 'three players of a summer game' (tennessee williams) today for $7, excited to read some short stories of his rather than plays

hospital? i'm sorry to hear it (line break necessary)

i could go on all day. just bought 'three players of a summer game' (tennessee williams) today for $7, excited to read some short stories of his rather than plays

Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante’s Inferno will be made to look like a children’s playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.

i read a streetcar named desire through school when i was younger and i really loved how young marlond brando made me wonder if i was gay and also there were soem amazing things that jumped at me from that book, in fact i wrote this book when i was younger that was just abstract scenes and mis-placed sentences and i think the idea came from some of the beautiful things that fell outta that play. i remember reading and following and going "wow, i could just cut and paste the beautiful parts of this book, fuck plot, fuck story, fuck williams, i would love to just read those moments."

yeah, the man just has the most beautiful way about him. i'll let you know what the short stories are like once i'm done with them. just finished re-reading alice munro's 'the progress of love' but still think that 'dance of the happy shades' was her best. i should be reading things for school but it's hardly worth it.

what do they want to make you read? i am writing down alice munro right now and the next time i have the oppourtunity i will get my hands on some, also i need some henry miller, betony and chris both told me big time to read the black spring. fuck i love that poem.

And The Moon And The Stars And The World

Long walks at night--

that's what good for the soul:

peeking into windows

watching tired housewives

trying to fight off

their beer-maddened husbands.

i'm a lit major,but made the mistake of taking a cultural studies/literature cross over class, and i'm fighting my way through a lot of postmodernist theory. there are some perks but i'm so preoccupied by my own seperate interests, not to mention trying to find the time to do some writing of my own, that i don't pay much of it any attention.

i don't know if you're a fan of gorky, but 'my childhood' is a nice read, and i'm also guilty of getting into 'the go-between' by LP Hartley. The ending was worth my bitterness towards the era its set in.

i haven't read much miller, i own the tropic of capricorn but must admit, it frustrated me so i never finished it.

!!! do you wanna do a trade? by post? tropic of capricorn for open all night by charles bukowski?

what does post modernist mean? i like the title "my childhood." ive never read gorky, but i will write it down too. when is teh go-between set? see, i don't know much, but i have ideas about the things i do read and i am always eager to talk.

last time lakes of russia played at the afterdark the first song was him playing guitar over a lecture that bukowski gave. pretty awsome.

damn that would be cool. has anybody scene factotum? goddamn, who needs that? it's liek someone telling you how good the book is as you read it, i just felt like telling it to fuck off so i could read now please.

trade- definitely! PM and we'll sort something out post wise.

post modernism, essentially, is the movement that followed modernism. the disintegration of high art. i don't really agree with a lot of things created under the term 'post-modern' but what ever you like, you like.

i really don't know a great deal - i tend to stick to my favourite authors and read everything they ever published. when i try and experiment with new texts i dread disappointment.

yeah, i expected factotum to be bad but not quite as much as it actually was.

saw 'born into this' with an ex-boyfriend at dendy, we were in the theatre alone, tainted the experience. the film really gutted me.

gawd i love me some hank - this one slays me:

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

this one's my fave:

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight in you.

-The Laughing Heart; Charles Bukowski

Reading 'Women' at the moment... it's damn good... a slight departure from his usual drunken nonchalant style (more serene than Ham on Rye, more vulnerable than Post Office, more resonant that Pulp etc.).

“We have wasted history like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men's crapper of the local bar.”

that's my other favourite nicko.

The recording I used during the Lakes Of Russia song was of Bukowski reciting Dinosauria, We. (Born Like This, Into This........).

Fitted well with the song.

PS: Miller's my other favourite writer... I'm so excited to find references to both men in one place I'm about to do wees, although I guess it makes sense since the both write about the beautiful, the ugly, the crazy, the debauched and the boring mechanisms of life in the same tone. I got into Miller after reading the diaries of Anais Nin in my teenage years which are incredibly beautiful books themselves...

people! let's develope the collection!

Cause And Effect by Charles Bukowski

the best often die by their own hand

just to get away,

and those left behind

can never quite understand

why anybody

would ever want to

get away

from

them

Bookclub!

there was a cool line in that film factotum where a guy says something like
"the problem with women is they want to fuck all the time. they get mad if you want to go out drinking and gambling"
"well, why not go out with a girl who likes drinking, gambling and fucking?"
"who'd want to go out with a girl like that?!"

karate, i find miller incredibly over-rated - his life and essays and general personality are far more inspiring than anything he's written. the only actual book of his i really dig is Black Spring, which was written/completed while he was staying at Louviciennes with Nin and her seppo banker husband, and their affair commenced. you can taste the thrill of the new affair on nearly every page, it's just charged with energy. the rosy crucifixion trilogy got too repetitive for me.

I can see where you're coming from Nicko. His charismatic nature is probably the base appeal for me rather than anything stylistic/subject matter/etc ... having said that, I find his writing very evocative (but can appreciate that I'm being very subjective... I'm kinda enamored with dirtbags). I loved the Rosy Crucifixion, the Tropics, and Black Spring is awesome. I got The World of Sex recently which was interestingly written, it's an old short story which he dug out and heavily revised (keeping in all the editorial marks, which is lovely from a printing/design/layout perspective).

What do you think of Anais Nin's work..?

i went through a Nin phase while living with two gals who were obsessed with her. we were working for a group of book dealers at the time, so the one i was in love with was pretty stoked when i cam across an original first edition (Black Sparrow) of Ladders To Fire and gave it to her as a gift... : )

i don't mind some of her writing, but it's in the diaries she shines. the fucked thing is, she quite rightly recognised they were her best writing, so fictionalised the fuck out of lots of parts. she's certainly very evocative about desire in general, but where that segues from a need for intimacy to lust she (perhaps deliberately) muddies the waters quite a bit, to my mind. this is an observation, not a criticism.

Mmm... first editiiiooonnn... Nice.

I agree completely... I enjoyed her novels/ short stories, however it's her diaries that I really fell in love with. Your observation about the segues is very interesting... I found her, uh, erotic/romantic omissions kinda ebbed and flowed... and I kinda noticed it was effected by external influence. For example, she'd be more aggressive about sex/lust when she was in the company of men (Miller, Artuad, Rank - which kinda telling as he was her analyst- etc) (sorry, aggressive to the reader, not the other characters), more reflective/feminine/softer in the company of women... an interesting Women's Studies case (gender roles! hysteria! sexuality! Okay, so I never studied it) I guess. The fictionalisation of certain parts (as well as the complete omission of certain characters, such as her husband?!!) is kinda annoying, you're right. It seems especially redundant considering her colourful experience.

And speaking of segues... I just got the collected works of Kenneth Anger DVD (Nin featured in on of his films... Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome), highly recommended.

did you know she had a huge thing for Gore Vidal, too? until she found out he didn't bring a bat to girl games, so to speak - she was pissed when he didn't want to bone her, and he's said some nasty shit about her in some of his writing, too.

though she played away for the passionate, fucked up men, hubby Hugo apparently had a monster cock...

Yeah, she initially dedicated Ladders to Fire to him but then removed it from later editions after their falling out. How'd you get the monster cock (RAAA!) lowdown? Hahaha, talk about random literary facts. She probably circulated the rumour herself to counter the lesbian rumours (which she never dealt with well). But yeah, I don't blame her for being pissed at Vidal, she was pretty foxy.

Have you seen the Simpson episode he's on? Jonathan Franzen and Tom Wolfe are on it as well.

"How'd you get the monster cock (RAAA!) lowdown?"

she actually writes about it in the unabridged diaries (though unabridged doesn't mean much; they've been published in a few different forms, and the various biographers have had differing levels of access to different manuscripts). also, hugo 'took some lovers' in order to try and get his wife's attention, as well as seeing whores with her, so there are various third parties who've mentioned the knob.

literature is fascinating, huh?

Sorry, I envisioned scales and red eyes and pointy teeth (like an elongated 'Where the Wild Things Are' character)...

I might have just overlooked said wang-facts... Nin was obviously more subtle than, say, Bukowski ('I banged on her door with my purple thing' or whatever the line is), haha.

back on track...

if you wanted to set a child straight about the world in a short amount of time this could do the trick. beautiful...

the genius of the crowd.

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it and the best at hate are those who preach love and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god those who preach peace do not have peace those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers beware the knowers beware those who are always reading books beware those who either detest poverty or are proud of it beware those quick to praise for they need praise in return beware those who are quick to censor they are afraid of what they do not know beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone beware the average man the average woman beware their love, their love is average seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you to kill anybody not wanting solitude not understanding solitude they will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own not being able to create art they will not understand art they will consider their failure as creators only as a failure of the world not being able to love fully they will believe your love incomplete and then they will hate you and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond like a knife like a mountain like a tiger like hemlock

their finest art

excellent. this thread is fast becoming the best one i started.

Exceeeeeelent! I finally figured-out how to post on this site, I did not realize I needed to reply to the initial M&N email before I had access to post.

Great thread, even better site. While trying to kill time this morning at work I was browsing the Internet for Bukowski quotes and stumbled across this thread.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Celine on this thread being that he was one of Buk's favorite writers and influenced him greatly. As for Miller, he is one of my personal favorites. I highly recommend The Air-conditioned Nightmare, it is one of his lesser-known novels but in my humble opinion his most comprehensive piece. If you're looking for Henry Miller's unbridled passion at it's best Sexus is a must read.

spark

I always resented all the years the hours the minutes I gave them as a working stiff it actually hurt my head my insides it made me dizzy and a bit crazy – I couldn’t understand the murdering of my years

yet my fellow workers gave no signs of agony many of them even seemed satisfied and seeing them that way drove me almost as crazy as the dull and senseless work.

the workers submitted. the work pounded them to nothingness they were scooped-out and thrown away. I resented each minute every minute as it was mutilated and nothing relieved the monotony.

I considered suicide. I drank away my few leisure hours. I worked for decades. I lived with the worst kind of women they killed what the job failed to kill. I knew that I was dying. something in me said go ahead die sleep become as them accept. then something else in me said no save the tiniest bit. it needn’t be much just a spark. a spark can set a whole forest on fire. just a spark. save it. I think I did. I’m glad I did. what a lucky god damned thing

--Buk