Ty Segall
Lo-fi god, Ty Segall, after his show at Strange Matter in Richmond, VA. Segall describes his new album, Melted, out on Goner Records, as sounding like "cherry cola, Sno-Cones and taffy." Ty Segall is currently on a US tour - view winter tour dates here. photograph by Anna Wittel
Anaïs Nin by Carl Van Vechten 1949
February 21 marked the 108th birthday of Anaïs Nin, a controversial figure perhaps best known for her romantic dalliances with prominent figures such as Henry Miller, Otto Rank, Lawrence Durrell, Antonin Artaud and Gore Vidal. She worked as a psychoanalyst, wrote fiction, trained as a dancer, appeared in films by Maya Daren and Kenneth Anger, had an affair with her father, pianist and composer Joaquin Nin, and eventually married Rupert Pole sixteen years her junior when she was forty-four (she was already married to banker and experimental filmmaker Hugh Guiler at the time.) All of this and more she documents in her diaries, which span more than sixty years. It is, perhaps, not surprising then that Nin also dabbled in erotica; collections of her stories, Little Birds and Delta of Venus, are now considered some of the finest erotica ever written.
The books were not published until the late 70s, after Nin succumbed to a three-year battle with cancer. The stories themselves were written much earlier, in the 1940s when Henry Miller and Nin were both living in Paris. Miller, after publishing Tropic of Cancer, was approached by a third party to write pornographic stories for an anonymous collector at the rate of $1 per page. Soon, many of his artist and writer friends, including Caresse Crosby, Robert Duncan, and Nin were churning out what the latter termed “an abundance of perverse felicities,” encouraged by Miller to take advantage of this unforeseen source of income.
Anaïs Nin’s Little Birds and Delta of Venus, born out of what was part joke, part moneymaking venture, are erotica in the truest sense of the word. The stories are rich, vivid, beautifully written and populated by character types who embody the multi-hued spectrum of human desire. They deftly and, at times, humorously explore the various ways in which sexual hunger is felt, expressed, and consummated and the reader is often as surprised by the events that unfold as the characters are themselves. The settings, scenarios, and figures in Nin’s stories are largely informed by her own life and enriched and transformed by her considerable powers of invention and unique poetic voice.
Little Birds and Delta of Venus can both be purchased at Amazon.com.
Text by Anna Wittel
Photo assemblage of a portrait of Julian Maclaren-Ross
Editor Alan Ross begins his Introduction to Julian Maclaren-Ross’s Memoirs of the Forties with his claim that the book is the “front-line account of Bohemian wartime Soho by its longest-serving combatant.” Maclaren-Ross, a skilled raconteur held resident court at the Wheatsheaf Pub in “Fitzrovia,” an area popular with artistic types decked out in full dandy regalia, reminiscent of Oscar Wilde, which included a carnation in his buttonhole, extravagantly tailored suits, a teddy bear coat, and a silver topped cane. His signature flourish was the long cigarette holder he used to consume exotic tobacco. (He is said to have smoked up to fifty cigarettes a day.) His apparent flamboyance, however, belied the clarity and concision of his economic prose, delivered in a style not unlike his Modernist contemporary and one-time literary hero, Hemingway, although with much less gravity, and a great deal more irreverence and sly humor.
Maclaren-Ross’ short stories about his experience as a soldier during WWII and the blatant absurdities of military life gave him his first taste of success and he later went on to write novels, radio plays, literary satires, critical essays, and noir fiction. He was also an excellent translator having been educated, for the most part, in the south of France. However, Maclaren-Ross’s love of women and alcohol, his inability or refusal to conform to convention meant that he spent much of his life firmly entrenched at the poverty line. As his biographer Paull Willetts puts it, he was the "mediocre caretaker of his own immense talent."
In Memoirs of the Forties, unfinished at the time of his death, the author recounts in vivid detail his experiences in London during that decade and his personal dealings with other major-players of the era – Dylan Thomas, Graham Greene, the painters John Minton, Robert Colquhoun, Robert Macbryde, and others.
Certain anecdotes stand out for the way in which they shed light on famous or inscrutable personalities, such as Maclaren-Ross’ description of the time the grand mage, Aleicester Crowley, borrowed a copy of one of his short story collections, The Nine Men and returned the work with copious notes scribbled furiously in the margins. Maclaren-Ross describes them as “rather petulant old-world comments, such as: ‘Yes, yes, all very well, but why doesn’t he tell us what the girl’s background is?! Who are her people?!!’ and so on.” Crowley goes on to tell their mutual friend, who lent him the book, “Well next time you see him, tell him to be more precise about his characters’ origins. He seems to ignore all the traditional social values that make up the fabric of our civilization.’” Maclaren-Ross’ response was, “since I’d always understood that Crowley’s mission as Worst Man in the World was to tear this fabric down, [his comments] amused me quite a lot. But then maybe all diabolists are conservative at heart, or where would be the fun?”
Memoirs of the Forties and other of Julian Maclaren-Ross’ works can be found on Amazon.com.
Text by Anna Wittel
A friend and fellow Francophile recently sent me a link to the Jacques Dutronc music video for “Les gens sont fous, les temps sont flous” (which translates roughly as “The people are crazy, the times are vague”). Thus began an immediate obsession with the songwriter turned singer turned actor, who, in the 60s wrote hits for his then girlfriend, later wife, Françoise Hardy while at Vogue Records. He went on to become a star in his own right with his first chart-topper,“Et moi et moi et moi." Dressed to perfection in suit and tie at a time when most musicians were growing beards and donning bell-bottoms, Dutronc’s live performances were characterized by a wink and a nod to the audience, his sly, bemused expression transforming his particular brand of pop into a subtle parody of the genre itself.
It’s no surprise then, that Dutronc later went into acting, eventually starring in Jean-Luc Godard's 1980 meta-film Every Man For Himself, in which the pop star plays an filmmaker, also named Godard, who is grappling with the dissolution of his marriage. A brand new 35mm print of the film has recently been pressed and will be shown in Chicago later this week and in Vancouver at the beginning of next month. See links for dates and times: Chicago & Vancouver.
Text by Anna Wittel for Pas Un Autre