Friday, May 07, 2004
The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective)
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, by Jonathanames.com. Just so you know, Jonathan Ames, our mentor here at this website, has a new book coming out in July, called, Wake Up, Sir!
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A Mini Literary Detecting Tale
I was in the library the other day when I went to go to the bathroom. I was on the third floor, and when I got to the toilet, I saw that it was out-of-order, so I walked up to the fourth floor.
Making my bee-line for the bathroom, I was stopped by a very short woman, standing in front of a computer. Maybe she thought I worked at the library, maybe she didn’t care, who knows? She wanted my help, and she was talkative, that much was clear. “How do you do this? What’s this? I need to find this doctor. He operated on my sons, he saved their lives, now I find out he wasn’t a real doctor.” This went on for a while; she wasn’t distraught, just unwavering in her desire to inform me of her story. She’d done an internet search for the doctor who wasn’t, but was unable to access the sites her search had revealed. Getting her to those sites was within my limited techno-capabilities, but that didn’t seem to be good enough for her. She needed me to hear more of her odd story. “See, he gave my son a heart transplant, now they say he’s not a real doctor. He operated on both my sons. Both my sons he operated on. Look, see?”
I cast my eyes toward the screen, not wanting to be any more involved with this story than I already was. “Hmm,” I said, “Okay.” There was a moment of silence, and I said, “Well, good luck,” and made my exit. When I got to the bathroom, I saw that it too was out-of-order. And though I hadn’t achieved my stated objective in coming to the fourth floor, I was still somewhat glad that I had, as I had been able to provide that woman with some help.
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, by Jonathanames.com. Just so you know, Jonathan Ames, our mentor here at this website, has a new book coming out in July, called, Wake Up, Sir!
___________________________________________________________________
A Mini Literary Detecting Tale
I was in the library the other day when I went to go to the bathroom. I was on the third floor, and when I got to the toilet, I saw that it was out-of-order, so I walked up to the fourth floor.
Making my bee-line for the bathroom, I was stopped by a very short woman, standing in front of a computer. Maybe she thought I worked at the library, maybe she didn’t care, who knows? She wanted my help, and she was talkative, that much was clear. “How do you do this? What’s this? I need to find this doctor. He operated on my sons, he saved their lives, now I find out he wasn’t a real doctor.” This went on for a while; she wasn’t distraught, just unwavering in her desire to inform me of her story. She’d done an internet search for the doctor who wasn’t, but was unable to access the sites her search had revealed. Getting her to those sites was within my limited techno-capabilities, but that didn’t seem to be good enough for her. She needed me to hear more of her odd story. “See, he gave my son a heart transplant, now they say he’s not a real doctor. He operated on both my sons. Both my sons he operated on. Look, see?”
I cast my eyes toward the screen, not wanting to be any more involved with this story than I already was. “Hmm,” I said, “Okay.” There was a moment of silence, and I said, “Well, good luck,” and made my exit. When I got to the bathroom, I saw that it too was out-of-order. And though I hadn’t achieved my stated objective in coming to the fourth floor, I was still somewhat glad that I had, as I had been able to provide that woman with some help.
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective)
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, by Jonathanames.com. Just so you know, Jonathan Ames, our mentor here at this website, has a new book coming out in July, called, Wake Up, Sir!
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The Ineffable Destroyer of Thought & A Tron Costume
The Ineffable Destroyer of Thought: Last week I responded to an email about F. Scott Fitzgerald’ relationship to Monsignor Cyril Sigourney Fay. I mentioned at the time that Fitzgerald dedicated This Side of Paradise to Fay, but forgot to point out that he wrote “Sigournay” instead of “Sigourney”. Apparently, Fitzgerald was a startlingly bad speller. As Arthur Mizener writes,
“He was also a startlingly bad speller. To the end of his life he wrote ect. for etc. and spelled his friend’s name Hemmingway or Hemingway indifferently. He made all the standard mistakes, such as “dissapoint’” and seemed not to know when he was spelling correctly. “Excuse the pencil,” he wrote Perkins August 25, 1921, “but I’m feeling rather discouraged tonight and I haven’t the energy to use ink – ink the ineffable destroyer of thought, that fades an emotion into that slatternly thing, a written down mental excretion. What ill-spelled rot!” His grammar was equally erratic.” (Mizener Arthur. The Far Side of Paradise. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company: 1949. This edition 1951. page 103)
The Tron Costume: My friend Rich just sent me a link to this site, where a guy (Jay Maynard) describes his assemblage of a Tron costume. It’s pretty great, and will even be enjoyed by those unfamiliar with the 1980s sci-fi movie. Here is a sample,
“I made a few compromises. I wanted to be as close to the original as possible, but let's face it: I'm not the same shape as either Bruce Boxleitner or Jeff Bridges (the actors who played Tron and Flynn, respectively). I'm somewhat overweight, as you see (one drawback of wearing spandex is that it does nothing to hide one's obesity). Therefore, I decided to make myself a character in the same universe, but not one of the known characters, which gave me much more latitude in what I could do with paint and other design items.”
This website has loads of great photos, and you can get to it by clicking: http://www.ibiblio.org/jmaynard/TRONcostume/
.
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, by Jonathanames.com. Just so you know, Jonathan Ames, our mentor here at this website, has a new book coming out in July, called, Wake Up, Sir!
_____________________________________________________________
The Ineffable Destroyer of Thought & A Tron Costume
The Ineffable Destroyer of Thought: Last week I responded to an email about F. Scott Fitzgerald’ relationship to Monsignor Cyril Sigourney Fay. I mentioned at the time that Fitzgerald dedicated This Side of Paradise to Fay, but forgot to point out that he wrote “Sigournay” instead of “Sigourney”. Apparently, Fitzgerald was a startlingly bad speller. As Arthur Mizener writes,
“He was also a startlingly bad speller. To the end of his life he wrote ect. for etc. and spelled his friend’s name Hemmingway or Hemingway indifferently. He made all the standard mistakes, such as “dissapoint’” and seemed not to know when he was spelling correctly. “Excuse the pencil,” he wrote Perkins August 25, 1921, “but I’m feeling rather discouraged tonight and I haven’t the energy to use ink – ink the ineffable destroyer of thought, that fades an emotion into that slatternly thing, a written down mental excretion. What ill-spelled rot!” His grammar was equally erratic.” (Mizener Arthur. The Far Side of Paradise. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company: 1949. This edition 1951. page 103)
The Tron Costume: My friend Rich just sent me a link to this site, where a guy (Jay Maynard) describes his assemblage of a Tron costume. It’s pretty great, and will even be enjoyed by those unfamiliar with the 1980s sci-fi movie. Here is a sample,
“I made a few compromises. I wanted to be as close to the original as possible, but let's face it: I'm not the same shape as either Bruce Boxleitner or Jeff Bridges (the actors who played Tron and Flynn, respectively). I'm somewhat overweight, as you see (one drawback of wearing spandex is that it does nothing to hide one's obesity). Therefore, I decided to make myself a character in the same universe, but not one of the known characters, which gave me much more latitude in what I could do with paint and other design items.”
This website has loads of great photos, and you can get to it by clicking: http://www.ibiblio.org/jmaynard/TRONcostume/
.
Monday, May 03, 2004
The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective)
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, by Jonathanames.com. Just so you know, Jonathan Ames, our mentor here at this website, has a new book coming out in July, called, Wake Up, Sir!
_______________________________________________________________
One, Two, Three . . .Testicles
(Note: The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) will accept and occasionally publish interesting literary commentary, though it should be noted that the opinions expressed in such commentary are not (and should not be seen to reflect) those of Jonathanames.com.)
The below was written by Kyle S.
“While researching Henry James and Venice I found some information that might be of interest to you. In a 1994 article called "On Venice" in Raritan magazine (which I can forward to you if you like), Millicent Bell refers suggestively to The Aspern Papers (the last sentence is the money shot):
“Tanner believes that James's unnamed manuscript hunter does not see Venice the way the writer does; he finds him full of negativity, essentially indifferent to the city's strong allure as the representation of art, beauty, and sensuality. He is obsessed with his purpose, focused upon his "strategems and spoils," a phrase which, as Adrian Poole has pointed out, comes from the Merchant of Venice...He can only look enviously at Verocchio's statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni whose emblem was a pair of testicles (coglioni).”
I can't find much information about the statue and its "emblem," but the episode to which Bell alludes appears near the very end of The Aspern Papers, whose ending, you may recall, finds the frustrated and ineffectual narrator unable to complete his quest -- perhaps mirroring James's impotence? The actual last line of the story neatly summarizes twin feelings of loss and desire: "When I look at [the portrait of Jeffrey Aspern] my chagrin at the loss of the letters becomes almost intolerable." Moreover, the eponymous papers were destroyed in a fire -- and didn't such a disaster occasion James's injury?
For those tempted to believe that HJ did lose his testicles in the accident, it is amusing to speculate that the episode in the book is drawn from HJ's actual feelings.
The relevant section of The Aspern Papers goes:
“I forget what I did, where I went after leaving the Lido and at what hour or with what recovery of composure I made my way back to my boat. I only know that in the afternoon, when the air was aglow with the sunset, I was standing before the church of Saints John and Paul and looking up at the small square-jawed face of Bartolommeo Colleoni, the terrible condottiere who sits so sturdily astride of his huge bronze horse, on the high pedestal on which Venetian gratitude maintains him. The statue is incomparable, the finest of all mounted figures, unless that of Marcus Aurelius, who rides benignant before the Roman Capitol, be finer: but I was not thinking of that; I only found myself staring at the triumphant captain as if he had an oracle on his lips. The western light shines into all his grimness at that hour and makes it wonderfully personal. But he continued to look far over my head, at the red immersion of another day--he had seen so many go down into the lagoon through the centuries--and if he were thinking of battles and stratagems they were of a different quality from any I had to tell him of. He could not direct me what to do, gaze up at him as I might. Was it before this or after that I wandered about for an hour in the small canals, to the continued stupefaction of my gondolier, who had never seen me so restless and yet so void of a purpose and could extract from me no order but "Go anywhere--everywhere--all over the place"? He reminded me that I had not lunched and expressed therefore respectfully the hope that I would dine earlier. He had had long periods of leisure during the day, when I had left the boat and rambled, so that I was not obliged to consider him, and I told him that that day, for a change, I would touch no meat. It was an effect of poor Miss Tita's proposal, not altogether auspicious, that I had quite lost my appetite.”
Here’s some suggestive information on Colleoni:
Birth: 1395
Death: Nov. 3, 1475
15th century military leader, mercenary soldier. Hero of medieval wars as general of the Venice's armies. He ordered that a church be built, later named Colleoni chapel. It now holds his majestic grave, admired today by tourist and art- lovers as a true Renaissance jewel. The tomb itself is empty as Colleoni's remains were originally misplaced until 1969, 494 years after Colleoni's death. The remains and his armor were placed, under the floor of the chapel, near the tomb. He was rumored to have had a third testicle, which he believed to be a symbol of his bravery.
And from someone's live journal about a trip to Venice (this information is duplicated elsewhere but best stated here):
“The fun thing about Colleoni is his coat of arms, which features three testicles. Legend has it that Colleoni had three, so his coat of arms does, too.
Now, if you don’t know to look for testicles, you’re not going to find them. I initially looked for them on the iron gate around the outside of the building, and there they were, three things that looked like maybe plums, or figs, or, as Charles put it the next day, "puffy quotation marks."
But no, they are testicles, and they are not black like the rest of the gate. They’re sort of gold, because they’re rather worn. People rub them for luck.
Once you know to look for testicles at Colleoni’s place, you see them everywhere. Even festooning his tomb. Eeyiy. A trio of testicles, following you into death. Trailing you through the afterlife.”
I will update you if I can find a picture of the coat of arms.
Kyle”
welcomes questions about literary mysteries and scandals, which should be sent to: woodyswoody@hotmail.com. The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) is published on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, by Jonathanames.com. Just so you know, Jonathan Ames, our mentor here at this website, has a new book coming out in July, called, Wake Up, Sir!
_______________________________________________________________
One, Two, Three . . .Testicles
(Note: The Literary Dick (as in Private Detective) will accept and occasionally publish interesting literary commentary, though it should be noted that the opinions expressed in such commentary are not (and should not be seen to reflect) those of Jonathanames.com.)
The below was written by Kyle S.
“While researching Henry James and Venice I found some information that might be of interest to you. In a 1994 article called "On Venice" in Raritan magazine (which I can forward to you if you like), Millicent Bell refers suggestively to The Aspern Papers (the last sentence is the money shot):
“Tanner believes that James's unnamed manuscript hunter does not see Venice the way the writer does; he finds him full of negativity, essentially indifferent to the city's strong allure as the representation of art, beauty, and sensuality. He is obsessed with his purpose, focused upon his "strategems and spoils," a phrase which, as Adrian Poole has pointed out, comes from the Merchant of Venice...He can only look enviously at Verocchio's statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni whose emblem was a pair of testicles (coglioni).”
I can't find much information about the statue and its "emblem," but the episode to which Bell alludes appears near the very end of The Aspern Papers, whose ending, you may recall, finds the frustrated and ineffectual narrator unable to complete his quest -- perhaps mirroring James's impotence? The actual last line of the story neatly summarizes twin feelings of loss and desire: "When I look at [the portrait of Jeffrey Aspern] my chagrin at the loss of the letters becomes almost intolerable." Moreover, the eponymous papers were destroyed in a fire -- and didn't such a disaster occasion James's injury?
For those tempted to believe that HJ did lose his testicles in the accident, it is amusing to speculate that the episode in the book is drawn from HJ's actual feelings.
The relevant section of The Aspern Papers goes:
“I forget what I did, where I went after leaving the Lido and at what hour or with what recovery of composure I made my way back to my boat. I only know that in the afternoon, when the air was aglow with the sunset, I was standing before the church of Saints John and Paul and looking up at the small square-jawed face of Bartolommeo Colleoni, the terrible condottiere who sits so sturdily astride of his huge bronze horse, on the high pedestal on which Venetian gratitude maintains him. The statue is incomparable, the finest of all mounted figures, unless that of Marcus Aurelius, who rides benignant before the Roman Capitol, be finer: but I was not thinking of that; I only found myself staring at the triumphant captain as if he had an oracle on his lips. The western light shines into all his grimness at that hour and makes it wonderfully personal. But he continued to look far over my head, at the red immersion of another day--he had seen so many go down into the lagoon through the centuries--and if he were thinking of battles and stratagems they were of a different quality from any I had to tell him of. He could not direct me what to do, gaze up at him as I might. Was it before this or after that I wandered about for an hour in the small canals, to the continued stupefaction of my gondolier, who had never seen me so restless and yet so void of a purpose and could extract from me no order but "Go anywhere--everywhere--all over the place"? He reminded me that I had not lunched and expressed therefore respectfully the hope that I would dine earlier. He had had long periods of leisure during the day, when I had left the boat and rambled, so that I was not obliged to consider him, and I told him that that day, for a change, I would touch no meat. It was an effect of poor Miss Tita's proposal, not altogether auspicious, that I had quite lost my appetite.”
Here’s some suggestive information on Colleoni:
Birth: 1395
Death: Nov. 3, 1475
15th century military leader, mercenary soldier. Hero of medieval wars as general of the Venice's armies. He ordered that a church be built, later named Colleoni chapel. It now holds his majestic grave, admired today by tourist and art- lovers as a true Renaissance jewel. The tomb itself is empty as Colleoni's remains were originally misplaced until 1969, 494 years after Colleoni's death. The remains and his armor were placed, under the floor of the chapel, near the tomb. He was rumored to have had a third testicle, which he believed to be a symbol of his bravery.
And from someone's live journal about a trip to Venice (this information is duplicated elsewhere but best stated here):
“The fun thing about Colleoni is his coat of arms, which features three testicles. Legend has it that Colleoni had three, so his coat of arms does, too.
Now, if you don’t know to look for testicles, you’re not going to find them. I initially looked for them on the iron gate around the outside of the building, and there they were, three things that looked like maybe plums, or figs, or, as Charles put it the next day, "puffy quotation marks."
But no, they are testicles, and they are not black like the rest of the gate. They’re sort of gold, because they’re rather worn. People rub them for luck.
Once you know to look for testicles at Colleoni’s place, you see them everywhere. Even festooning his tomb. Eeyiy. A trio of testicles, following you into death. Trailing you through the afterlife.”
I will update you if I can find a picture of the coat of arms.
Kyle”
