.... was like running through a crumbling haunted house, each room more horrifying than the last. And you never know when one of the wood floor planks would give way, dropping you into a bottomless abyss from which you'd NEVER, EVER ESCAPE!!!!!!!!!!!
Surely that bitch mother of his should be in jail, and I so badly wanted to and would slap the shit out of her (and I don't care if she's a woman). Who could guess with a casual glance at the trailer from outside what wretchedness burns inside. A child raised in such circumstances is destined to either be a brilliant writer or start another Manson family, and perhaps that's next.
The makeup lesson in Baby Doll is one of the very few rays of sunlight beaming through the prison bars of this stinking dungeon. Yet I found myself strangely turned on by the sado-masochistic eroticism/torture of the early part of Lizards. Wrongdoing on purpose so you have an excuse to get your ass whipped by a stern yet frenzied master. Or watch other handsome blonde boys suffer the same fate. Tragedy, torture and titillation all wrapped in one. The big bad wolf on the way to Grandma's house.
[This message was edited by Luxury Lex on 10-18-03 at 10:46 PM.]
I'm gonna kill...
Another Christian!
The religious material is so severe, uglier than the sex, but then it's because the Christians fuck with sex...
JT pens with vitriol the reality of the Christian's living nightmare of guilt, punishment, and washing clean of sin, and guilt again... and the marked PLEASURE both in the giving and the receiving of that torture.
I mean - Clorox as holy water? Mother rubbing her genitals down with Clorox after tricking? Because otherwise "They can smell the sin on you!"
When you realize the Mother was fucked with (and perhaps fucked) by the grandfather... herself tortured and made ragged by that 'sex-is-bad' circle-of-Hell - it IS enough to make someone into a Mary Magdalen whore... her whoring was her OWN processing of the shit.
In interviews JT is quoted as saying of course her parents and grandparents cannot deal with her writing, at all. Course not. But again you never hear her whine about what they put her through. There's just the facts of the behaviour, 'I saw this, he did that' - the purest indictment!
That issue of the parent giving you their worst - for YOU to process... what else can you do with their disgusting violence but use it, and thereby become The Artist?
Oh, right - you could also kill yourself.
Another Christian!
The religious material is so severe, uglier than the sex, but then it's because the Christians fuck with sex...
JT pens with vitriol the reality of the Christian's living nightmare of guilt, punishment, and washing clean of sin, and guilt again... and the marked PLEASURE both in the giving and the receiving of that torture.
I mean - Clorox as holy water? Mother rubbing her genitals down with Clorox after tricking? Because otherwise "They can smell the sin on you!"
When you realize the Mother was fucked with (and perhaps fucked) by the grandfather... herself tortured and made ragged by that 'sex-is-bad' circle-of-Hell - it IS enough to make someone into a Mary Magdalen whore... her whoring was her OWN processing of the shit.
In interviews JT is quoted as saying of course her parents and grandparents cannot deal with her writing, at all. Course not. But again you never hear her whine about what they put her through. There's just the facts of the behaviour, 'I saw this, he did that' - the purest indictment!
That issue of the parent giving you their worst - for YOU to process... what else can you do with their disgusting violence but use it, and thereby become The Artist?
Oh, right - you could also kill yourself.
I'm She-ing JT as she makes mention that she 'used to be' male-identified in one of her interviews.
I mean the image of the prick is so wrecked in her writing, not to mention that classic 'bad, bad, bad' when the erection happens.
Of course that's in the writing. Might not be with the person.
I mean the image of the prick is so wrecked in her writing, not to mention that classic 'bad, bad, bad' when the erection happens.
Of course that's in the writing. Might not be with the person.
We have so missed you S'tan...
I really liked "Heart" - of all people, Alba gave me a ziney galley version years ago and I gagged when I finally read it.
I really liked "Heart" - of all people, Alba gave me a ziney galley version years ago and I gagged when I finally read it.
Did Alba read it? Can you imagine that stuff in Italian... they must have got the galley from GVS.
I missed you toooo. I am back to do evil, and your bidding!
(My avatar disappeared for some reason so I had to go with the skeleton...)
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-20-03 at 07:10 AM.]
I missed you toooo. I am back to do evil, and your bidding!
(My avatar disappeared for some reason so I had to go with the skeleton...)
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-20-03 at 07:10 AM.]
Do you really think she's some other famous other posing under a pen name? Sometimes it all seems "too good" to be true.
I can't think of a more searing indictment of religeous zealots than the depiction of the grandparents in "Heart". Other than the Pope himself of course, who surely MUST BE insane (see Opposition Report) but also spouting the rhetoric of that historically insidious institution, the Catholic Church.
And those scalding hot baths! The vigorous scrubbing! And pouring bleach on your genitalia! So bad for your skin. What would the Fab Five say?
I can't think of a more searing indictment of religeous zealots than the depiction of the grandparents in "Heart". Other than the Pope himself of course, who surely MUST BE insane (see Opposition Report) but also spouting the rhetoric of that historically insidious institution, the Catholic Church.
And those scalding hot baths! The vigorous scrubbing! And pouring bleach on your genitalia! So bad for your skin. What would the Fab Five say?
No, I think JT is a real kid, unless she's Bobby Miller in astral projection.
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-21-03 at 09:03 PM.]
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-21-03 at 09:03 PM.]
This story is so demented. I've read it four times... describing how he lived inside his mother's insanity. His devotion is absolute at this point. She thinks the walls are moving, he sees them and warns her when they're about to move again... Food is considered poison, there's an orgy of vomiting and descriptions of vomitus that will interest anyone familiar with acute self-loathing. That feeling there's something irrational and living in you. You vomit until you are turned inside out, and that's the point, the visceral rejection of the entire thought of existence...
Mother goes completely mad, and he follows her there. A living schizophrenic nightmare perfectly described. I mean paint it all black: they dye their hair, their clothes, everything black... the beautiful mad language. A little boy playing with lumps of coal like dolls, the mother coal, and the baby coal,and the bleeding coal and its heat from hell, I
mean it makes me feel like I'm crazy too while I'm reading it.
Mother goes completely mad, and he follows her there. A living schizophrenic nightmare perfectly described. I mean paint it all black: they dye their hair, their clothes, everything black... the beautiful mad language. A little boy playing with lumps of coal like dolls, the mother coal, and the baby coal,and the bleeding coal and its heat from hell, I
mean it makes me feel like I'm crazy too while I'm reading it.
I might have to recant JT at this point.
I mean on the second read of the story "Las Vegas" I realized he's describing taking a shit
in his pants. At first read I only thought it was a fart.
Now really. Totally unedifying.
A fart was enough. Shit is over-writing.
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-22-03 at 05:24 PM.]
I mean on the second read of the story "Las Vegas" I realized he's describing taking a shit
in his pants. At first read I only thought it was a fart.
Now really. Totally unedifying.
A fart was enough. Shit is over-writing.
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-22-03 at 05:24 PM.]
I made the same mistake the first time I read that passage as well. Later I went back, re-read and realized it was actually SHITTING.
Perhaps it was over-writing, but I'm the type that enjoys the overdone, over-the-top things "dropped in" from time to time.
Perhaps it was over-writing, but I'm the type that enjoys the overdone, over-the-top things "dropped in" from time to time.
Perhaps it's his way of saying he is not just her victim, but also an obnoxious brat who deserves to be ditched, what mother wouldn't drive away and leave a stinkin' little bastard by the side of the road.
I do love all those images of being ditched, though... in Baby Doll, when he leaves the trailer for the dog house, but then turns around to check that it was still up on blocks, and hadn't suddenly sprouted wheels.
Everybody leaves.
I do love all those images of being ditched, though... in Baby Doll, when he leaves the trailer for the dog house, but then turns around to check that it was still up on blocks, and hadn't suddenly sprouted wheels.
Everybody leaves.
And Sarah's misguided determination to perservere as a mother, like a bargain basement Courtney Love. I mean, what value is there to dragging a little kid along on her shenanigans? It's one more mouth to feed, one more body to cloth and besides the kid seems to obstruct her objectives at every turn. It would be so much easier for her to give him up for adoption, or leave him with the foster parents or the grandparents. But she keeps slugging away.
The park ranger turned and ran.
The park ranger turned and ran.
FUCKIN FOSTERS!
It's true--Sarah's odd and sudden need for him is distressing.
So much to catch up on. S'tan, we'll dish soon!
xo
It's true--Sarah's odd and sudden need for him is distressing.
So much to catch up on. S'tan, we'll dish soon!
xo
Yes Michael let's... Now go check up on what wig JT is wearing this week so we can dress like ha for next Cabaret... or for the "Wonder Bra" party? That sounds suitably demented...
"The park ranger turned and ran...." HA! Lex, I did smirk over that, you can imagine what a total sleaze she must be!
Did you like that use of the word 'cast' and 'casting' though, for how she describes her pickups... "She's casting". It's a mixture of throwing out a line for fishing, and hiring someone to be in her movie.
From my experience in the sex business, some whores like to have their children around because it 'verifies,' in their minds anyhow, that they are real women, in fact MOTHERS, and not just depositories for faceless sperm. But then in "Sarah" he's not supposed to tell anyone he is the son... well it's obviously nothing she really thought through.
JT says in one of his interviews, if he had been allowed to stay with the 'fucking fosters,' he would never have had all those experiences to process and write about... and wouldn't have been a writer. But really who the fuck knows. He might have still been a little pants-shitter. Jane Austen stayed in a few rooms all her life and it didn't make her sensibility vacuous. I really am over the conceit that crazy shitty fucked up lives make interesting prose.
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-23-03 at 07:28 PM.]
"The park ranger turned and ran...." HA! Lex, I did smirk over that, you can imagine what a total sleaze she must be!
Did you like that use of the word 'cast' and 'casting' though, for how she describes her pickups... "She's casting". It's a mixture of throwing out a line for fishing, and hiring someone to be in her movie.
From my experience in the sex business, some whores like to have their children around because it 'verifies,' in their minds anyhow, that they are real women, in fact MOTHERS, and not just depositories for faceless sperm. But then in "Sarah" he's not supposed to tell anyone he is the son... well it's obviously nothing she really thought through.
JT says in one of his interviews, if he had been allowed to stay with the 'fucking fosters,' he would never have had all those experiences to process and write about... and wouldn't have been a writer. But really who the fuck knows. He might have still been a little pants-shitter. Jane Austen stayed in a few rooms all her life and it didn't make her sensibility vacuous. I really am over the conceit that crazy shitty fucked up lives make interesting prose.
[This message was edited by S'tan on 10-23-03 at 07:28 PM.]
"I really am over the conceit that crazy shitty fucked up lives make interesting prose."
I second that! It's so contrived.
I second that! It's so contrived.
Glam baby, tell me a story. 
Ya, you see that alot in bad poetry/slams. Spilled guts have no literary value in themselves; when the poem does not resolve, it's just more goo.
Michael, you erased your post. Negatively tinged though it was (that you don't believe you're creative) you are magnetized by the context of the creative and do add to the setting! That is worth alot. Don't malign yourself, neither for having had a decent childhood.
I know first hand the awfulness of having a shit-for-mother. Mine was more along the lines of "You're weird, you're wrong, you're an incompetent, you're crazy."
End story, she tried to justify her belief/need to believe I was 'insane' by trying to have me committed. I was very 'experimental' as per the times, taking drugs, lots of sex, etc. But no serious trouble... Fortunately my father (a writer too) refused to agree to my incarceration, and anyhow they soon were divorced. I escaped & left for school, then moved to NY. At one point I didn't speak to her for 14 years.
You are lucky you will never know the disgusting inversion of a Mother actively trying to ruin you. Someone betraying who should have loved you 100% - it's an abyss...
And what do they care. For the space of your childhood, they distract themselves from their self-hatred by gambling with your life.
There's nothing in the world that makes up for it, I would hazard to say not even a bloodie best-seller. The alleged problems his family has with his successful writing is of course with the subject matter; but moreso that they have now been 'caught,' and did not succeed in running the boy JT down. Shoulda kilt him when they had'im.
Ya, you see that alot in bad poetry/slams. Spilled guts have no literary value in themselves; when the poem does not resolve, it's just more goo. Michael, you erased your post. Negatively tinged though it was (that you don't believe you're creative) you are magnetized by the context of the creative and do add to the setting! That is worth alot. Don't malign yourself, neither for having had a decent childhood.
I know first hand the awfulness of having a shit-for-mother. Mine was more along the lines of "You're weird, you're wrong, you're an incompetent, you're crazy."
End story, she tried to justify her belief/need to believe I was 'insane' by trying to have me committed. I was very 'experimental' as per the times, taking drugs, lots of sex, etc. But no serious trouble... Fortunately my father (a writer too) refused to agree to my incarceration, and anyhow they soon were divorced. I escaped & left for school, then moved to NY. At one point I didn't speak to her for 14 years.
You are lucky you will never know the disgusting inversion of a Mother actively trying to ruin you. Someone betraying who should have loved you 100% - it's an abyss...
And what do they care. For the space of your childhood, they distract themselves from their self-hatred by gambling with your life.
There's nothing in the world that makes up for it, I would hazard to say not even a bloodie best-seller. The alleged problems his family has with his successful writing is of course with the subject matter; but moreso that they have now been 'caught,' and did not succeed in running the boy JT down. Shoulda kilt him when they had'im.
Preparing by popular demand another ranting dissertation on this final story in "Heart is Deceitful..." I think it's the perfect coda to all the horrendous abuse, a rickety triumph, as self-consciousness rises... as well as a dominatrix I appreciate hearing the side of the 'subject', what he's suffering through.
Anyone have anything to say about this story - til I get back to you...?
Daddy I might want to request we move this whole thread over to 'Hopelessly Devoted.' Don't you think. It may have more of a shelf life there too as we comment on new appearances of Le Roi...
Anyone have anything to say about this story - til I get back to you...?
Daddy I might want to request we move this whole thread over to 'Hopelessly Devoted.' Don't you think. It may have more of a shelf life there too as we comment on new appearances of Le Roi...
Only one thing puzzles me: Are we born this way or were we made into what we are by people like Sarah and her father?
Just finished " Heart.." and still trying to think this one through.
Just finished " Heart.." and still trying to think this one through.
I think the best etiology the moderns (after 1920) can muster on this issue is: a lack of breast-feeding and caressing at the infantile stage between 6 months and a year. In that scenario the mother stopped breast-feeding before the infant was 'done,' or the infant's connexion with her is in some other way interrupted. This makes the child what they call 'orally aggressive,' which then evolves into the sadomasochistic faculty if you will.
If this is so, there is not much you can do to re-determine yourself (at least until you've gained maximal self-acceptance.)
Wilhelm Stekel stands upon the determinating force of VIEWING violent activity at a very young inpressionable age - the excitement thereby confused with/fused into the sexuality.
Stekel states that "...in sadomasochistic men, the faithlessness and/or promiscuity of the mother/mother figure is extremely determining; positing for his sexuality either punishing sadism towards women, or submissive placativeness towards women who do not love him."
In my essay on this subject I extend this to "In sadomasochistic women, again there would be a type of 'Don Juan' character in the father, rake-hellishness and cavalier attitudes which create in the woman a similar punishing archetype, or a fixation upon men indifferent to her. How does this occur in the psyche?"
[Quote Stekel] "The parent is despised for the promiscuity; the hatred splits off and carries over to the entire sex; then, the sense of guilt and overcompensation result in a deification of the original, dishonored incest object.'
Deification! So the beloved is a god we worship - or gleefully blaspheme. But never again are we free of that god."
http://www.sternangel.com/whobecomes.html
I am finishing up reading "American Psycho" before I get back to JT. The sadism of that character, Patrick Bateman, is totally unsubstantiated and therefore it's very irritating to read. We're convinced he performs disgusting mutilations only because he can't get a good table at the swankest restaurant in town? Ridiculous. It had better end well.
If this is so, there is not much you can do to re-determine yourself (at least until you've gained maximal self-acceptance.)
Wilhelm Stekel stands upon the determinating force of VIEWING violent activity at a very young inpressionable age - the excitement thereby confused with/fused into the sexuality.
Stekel states that "...in sadomasochistic men, the faithlessness and/or promiscuity of the mother/mother figure is extremely determining; positing for his sexuality either punishing sadism towards women, or submissive placativeness towards women who do not love him."
In my essay on this subject I extend this to "In sadomasochistic women, again there would be a type of 'Don Juan' character in the father, rake-hellishness and cavalier attitudes which create in the woman a similar punishing archetype, or a fixation upon men indifferent to her. How does this occur in the psyche?"
[Quote Stekel] "The parent is despised for the promiscuity; the hatred splits off and carries over to the entire sex; then, the sense of guilt and overcompensation result in a deification of the original, dishonored incest object.'
Deification! So the beloved is a god we worship - or gleefully blaspheme. But never again are we free of that god."
http://www.sternangel.com/whobecomes.html
I am finishing up reading "American Psycho" before I get back to JT. The sadism of that character, Patrick Bateman, is totally unsubstantiated and therefore it's very irritating to read. We're convinced he performs disgusting mutilations only because he can't get a good table at the swankest restaurant in town? Ridiculous. It had better end well.
I met Miss Ellis once years ago when I was temping at Random House around the time that American Psycho was first published. Pretty much the entire staff, especially the staff of Alfred A. Knopf, was in an uproar that senior management had dirtied the reputation of Random House and its imprints by agreeing to publish such poorly-written filth. Miss Ellis came to the office one day to meet with an editor, and shaking her hand felt squeezing a cold, dead fish.
In my hierarchy of reading there is Literature, then there is Good Trash, and finally Bad Trash. American Psycho is definately in the latter category, as are pretty much all of Bret Easton Ellis's works with the exception of his first novel, Less Than Zero. Even that work became tiresome after a point when the novelty of the free associative narration experiment wore off. Perhaps Less Than Zero would've worked better as a short story. I attempted to read both The Rules of Attraction and American Psycho but put them both down when it quickly became clear how bad they were and that Miss Ellis is a one-trick pony with her fixation on trust fund kids and designer labels. Both novels were populated with despicable, reprehensible characters with little or no redeeming qualities and there was simply no one to cheer for. Like a dry, joyless fuck. American Psycho reads like a misogynist wet dream. She probably hates humanity in general.
In my hierarchy of reading there is Literature, then there is Good Trash, and finally Bad Trash. American Psycho is definately in the latter category, as are pretty much all of Bret Easton Ellis's works with the exception of his first novel, Less Than Zero. Even that work became tiresome after a point when the novelty of the free associative narration experiment wore off. Perhaps Less Than Zero would've worked better as a short story. I attempted to read both The Rules of Attraction and American Psycho but put them both down when it quickly became clear how bad they were and that Miss Ellis is a one-trick pony with her fixation on trust fund kids and designer labels. Both novels were populated with despicable, reprehensible characters with little or no redeeming qualities and there was simply no one to cheer for. Like a dry, joyless fuck. American Psycho reads like a misogynist wet dream. She probably hates humanity in general.