About Me

My photo
Adalbert is a forum for me, to post ephemera, photography, poetry, occasional travel notes, and various spontaneous motions. Cover photo: Parsonage where my great-grandfather spent his early years. Taken near Liegnitz, Silesia, ca. 1870. The "xothique" portion of the web address is a nod to Clark Ashton Smith's fictional continent of Zothique.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Breslau 1937

 
 


"Wroclaw not Breslau" doesn't have quite the same ring as "Istanbul not Constantinople."



Friday, September 27, 2013

Shade of Branches

 
 
 
 
 
This picture depicts solid, sturdy people who looked as if they could stand up to troubles and challenges. 

Thursday, September 26, 2013

And the Hippos were boiled in their Tanks

 
 
 

Months and years after I first gained awareness of William S. Burroughs' (http://realitystudio.org/ -- thanks to Ray of Rigadoon23 for making me aware of this website) and Jack Kerouac's (http://www.dharmabeat.com/kerouac.html) early collaborative novel, And the Hippos were boiled in their Tanks, I finally rolled over my eyes it.
I also am working over Junkie, or the edited version of it, re-reading this one.   Guys, couldn't you have tried a little harder with the Hippos cover?  Based on the covers of the two above, which book would you be drawn to?

And the Hippos were boiled in their Tanks reeled me in with its great frame of Kerouac's and Burroughs' fictionalized self-portraits, Mike Ryko and Will Dennison.  Any novel with the title, And the Hippos were boiled in their Tanks, and which uses the same phrase in its text, is already commendable.  (James Grauerholz's sterling afterword explores the possible sources of the Hippos title, along with discussing the Carr/Kammerer case which inspired the central events of the novel.) Rimbaud and "Phillip Tourian's" New Vision pepper the novel's trajectory to its ambiguous climax.  Some pages I lost track of which author wrote which chapter, a sign that Gysin's third mind here germinated.  Burroughs' writing, while not fully confident and crystallized, has a characteristically darkly dry and funny quality.  "Monday morning I got a letter from a detective agency to report to work.  I'd applied for the job about a month ago and almost forgotten about it.  Evidently they hadn't checked on my fingerprints and the fake references I'd given them."  Kerouac's melancholy descriptions of New York and picaresque accounts of merchant marine matters hold great appeal as well.  World War II, always over the horizon, influences the work in a lunar, tidal fashion.

Reading Junkie again, I was startled by its magnificence -- one great observation and character description following another.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Lisbon

 
 
 
Someone sent me this card from Lisbon in 2004.  It takes some work to be that tired.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Oddities V (ca. 1983) back cover

 
 
 
 
 
Cosmic planaria god art by Roman Scott.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Oddities V (ca. 1983), Inside Back Cover

 
 
 
Drawing by Jonathan Falk

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Oddities V (ca. 1983) page 8

 
 
 
 
"Hypostasis" by Steve Sneyd.  "Art World Oddities" by John Engebretson.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Oddities 5 (ca. 1983) page 7

 
 
 
Background by Roman, poem about the soul-lacking social Darwinist by Steve Sneyd:  http://steve-sneyd.com/.  The "ransom note"-style poem and the unsigned "tarantula love" poem are mysterious -- I don't recall who created them, if I ever knew.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Oddities (ca. 1983) page 6

 
 
 
Drawings/ Collages by Paul S. Colvin, Jonathan Falk, and Marc Myers
 

Friday, September 6, 2013

Oddities V (ca. 1983) page 5

 
 
 
Poetry/ collage by Roman Scott

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Oddities V (ca. 1983) page 4

 
 
 
Poetry by Bruce Boston.  More info about Bruce Boston:  http://bruceboston.com/