have not yet found. It's not as available as avantgarde literature might indicate! Not really.
As I squat over the stinking bowl, flanked by two giant ridged footprints (you should see these toilets!), I conjure "The Land of Fuck"—a wild place, a steaming jungle of smells and tastes, everything forbidden even for flaming youth forbidden nothing.
I return to my table. The asiatic Brooklyn eyes leer at me.
"And just where is The Land of Fuck?" I ask.
"Where the Seine mingles with Alph the sacred river of Kubla Khan, wafting you to the stately Pleasure Dome beyond the sunless sea. It is bisected by the River of Dreams, guarded by Morpheus and Kali. It runs with menstrual blood and sperm, the primal ooze of creation. I am drunk on its fumes as on poppy fumes."
I move over to his table.
"Tell me more," I say.
"Literature," he says, "is over. What is wanted now is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the Face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty…."
I am riveted. That's what I want too.
"There is no more hope for civilization," says the bald man with the slitty eyes, "nor for literature. What we need is what is in the open street, not derived—life, not literature."
He also needs a place to stay, he says, so I take him in. He tells me he has survived up to now by making lists of his acquaintances and rotating among them for dinner, singing for his supper—a thing he does well.
He also does another thing well, with a kind of abandon and—shall we say—moxie that makes you think your womb has been visited by a shower of golden rain—but it is also the most purely innocent act you have ever known. And that is another thing about The Land of Fuck—its innocence. Who would have thunk it? Oh you kid. (More later.)
It is now later. I am back at my place with Val, who is sleeping like a dead man. Don't get me wrong. He is no rapist—everything is courteous, by invitation only. Nor is he tight all the time like Scott and Zelda always were (dipsomania seems a prerequisite for the literary life). But suddenly he tells me that his wife has arrived. She's called June and she's quite mad—but then mad girls always bewitch writers. (I learned this from Scott if nothing else.) Then it turns out he is also involved with someone called Anaïs, who is married to a banker! They must be discreet. The long and the short of it is they want to use my place! They even want me to stand guard on the floor below and rap on the pipes as a kind of human alarm when her husband or his wife comes to surprise them.
And why do this? Henry says it will help my novel. For art…the last refuge of a scoundrel. I already have the title of my novel: A Bad Girl in Paris. I know it will be too shocking to ever be published in America. So much the better! I will have it printed in Paris and smuggle it into New York! That way, everyone will want it more!
Love, Love, Love,
Salome
Dear Theda,
What do you mean, Artie—or, as he pronounces it, Ahtie—found the letter and has forbidden you to write me? What do you mean, he burned my letter? Good thing I keep carbons!
What use is the vote for women if Artie can burn your/my letters? Please send back all my earlier screeds. It is one thing to give a man your body—but your mind? S.
[To place the undated entries, I have had to use my own knowledge of Salome's life from other sources. Ed.]
NOTEBOOK—UNDATED
The most incredible thing has happened. I have met Mrs. Edith Wharton at her elegant manor house, Pavillon Colombe, at St.-BricesousForêt north of Paris. I wanted to bring Val, my guttersnipe and vagabond, but Scott Fitzgerald—who gave me the letter of introduction before he left Paris—warned me that Mrs. Wharton was a bit stiff, so I did not.
A few years ago, Scott was invited for tea, since he and Mrs. Wharton shared an American publisher. Apparently Scott disgraced himself with the reigning dowager of American Literature by telling her a long,
As I squat over the stinking bowl, flanked by two giant ridged footprints (you should see these toilets!), I conjure "The Land of Fuck"—a wild place, a steaming jungle of smells and tastes, everything forbidden even for flaming youth forbidden nothing.
I return to my table. The asiatic Brooklyn eyes leer at me.
"And just where is The Land of Fuck?" I ask.
"Where the Seine mingles with Alph the sacred river of Kubla Khan, wafting you to the stately Pleasure Dome beyond the sunless sea. It is bisected by the River of Dreams, guarded by Morpheus and Kali. It runs with menstrual blood and sperm, the primal ooze of creation. I am drunk on its fumes as on poppy fumes."
I move over to his table.
"Tell me more," I say.
"Literature," he says, "is over. What is wanted now is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the Face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty…."
I am riveted. That's what I want too.
"There is no more hope for civilization," says the bald man with the slitty eyes, "nor for literature. What we need is what is in the open street, not derived—life, not literature."
He also needs a place to stay, he says, so I take him in. He tells me he has survived up to now by making lists of his acquaintances and rotating among them for dinner, singing for his supper—a thing he does well.
He also does another thing well, with a kind of abandon and—shall we say—moxie that makes you think your womb has been visited by a shower of golden rain—but it is also the most purely innocent act you have ever known. And that is another thing about The Land of Fuck—its innocence. Who would have thunk it? Oh you kid. (More later.)
It is now later. I am back at my place with Val, who is sleeping like a dead man. Don't get me wrong. He is no rapist—everything is courteous, by invitation only. Nor is he tight all the time like Scott and Zelda always were (dipsomania seems a prerequisite for the literary life). But suddenly he tells me that his wife has arrived. She's called June and she's quite mad—but then mad girls always bewitch writers. (I learned this from Scott if nothing else.) Then it turns out he is also involved with someone called Anaïs, who is married to a banker! They must be discreet. The long and the short of it is they want to use my place! They even want me to stand guard on the floor below and rap on the pipes as a kind of human alarm when her husband or his wife comes to surprise them.
And why do this? Henry says it will help my novel. For art…the last refuge of a scoundrel. I already have the title of my novel: A Bad Girl in Paris. I know it will be too shocking to ever be published in America. So much the better! I will have it printed in Paris and smuggle it into New York! That way, everyone will want it more!
Love, Love, Love,
Salome
Dear Theda,
What do you mean, Artie—or, as he pronounces it, Ahtie—found the letter and has forbidden you to write me? What do you mean, he burned my letter? Good thing I keep carbons!
What use is the vote for women if Artie can burn your/my letters? Please send back all my earlier screeds. It is one thing to give a man your body—but your mind? S.
[To place the undated entries, I have had to use my own knowledge of Salome's life from other sources. Ed.]
NOTEBOOK—UNDATED
The most incredible thing has happened. I have met Mrs. Edith Wharton at her elegant manor house, Pavillon Colombe, at St.-BricesousForêt north of Paris. I wanted to bring Val, my guttersnipe and vagabond, but Scott Fitzgerald—who gave me the letter of introduction before he left Paris—warned me that Mrs. Wharton was a bit stiff, so I did not.
A few years ago, Scott was invited for tea, since he and Mrs. Wharton shared an American publisher. Apparently Scott disgraced himself with the reigning dowager of American Literature by telling her a long,
Similar Books
