I will try to go straight home Wednesday night and not come back till Saturday morning, that will minimise my costs as much as possible. A missed call from Olga at 23:06 on Friday night apparently. Strange I did not notice it before. I should not feel too bad. Going to the Bell to see Florence only cost me £20 on the girls and £12 on drink. That is only £32. That is not bad for a Saturday night when I won’t have another Saturday off for three weeks. It is good to be there when it is so busy. I look forward to getting to work to listen to Boogieradio, and to read the newspaper articles of Karl Marx. “Berlioz’s unstinting lionisation of Beethoven in the pages of La Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris,the most important and influential music journal in 19th-century France, also played a major role in establishing him at the centre of the repertory for the concert hall.” In my journal, what would I write about, who would I lionise? I would lionise the Midnight Bell, perhaps, and its dancers, extolling the virtues of Sylvia and Florence and Janet above all others. Extolling them in messianic, apocalyptic, grandiose, diva-esque terms, like they are Sarah Bernhardts. Invoking Hungarian history. Giving reviews of their performances just the way one would with reviews of violinists or pianists. They are all on a stage, why not? Instead of one paragraph reviews of Anita Berber’s Bethanien or Marlene Dietrich’s grave, extend them into full page articles, enabling me to digress into talking about the Blue Angel, Lola, etc. Berber at the Romanisches Cafe, Tucholsky. It would be a journal devoted to the strip clubs of London, the pubs, to Berlin, and Vienna, and Brussels, and Munich. Florencia, from Brazil, has made Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie her own, Crazy her own, Check On It her own. Talk about them the way you would about great opera singers of the 1880s, from the stage side box. Write a magazine where on one page there is a review of Barbara Frittoli at the Wigmore Hall on Wednesday night, and on the facing page, a review of the Flying Scotsman on Thursday night, each with equal analysis. My reviews are scurrilous and scandalous, like James Ellroy, Charles Bukowski. Winter is coming. Remember those cold icy days when I first moved in here? Remember the excitement of those Astral nights? Missing in Action Painter film? The unable to breathe shaking with excitement as I headed down the steps not knowing what I was about to see? Remember that unbelievably huge breasted beautiful Czech girl at the Boulevard? It is almost like a dream. I cannot believe I witnessed something so spectacularly sexy as her and made so little of it. If only I knew where she was now.
I would like to write my own magazine like the Fackel, full of my hard-hitting sometimes scurrilous articles and reviews of London life. Write about Barbara Frittoli and the tyranny of not being able to write about the singer’s beauty, and sexual allure, as if this must not be mentioned, like some guilty secret. Write about La Traviata at the ENO, a weepy opera about “some consumptive whore, when in real life whores are treated like the lowest of the low, yet here she is celebrated as something glorious”. I love writers like Peter Wilby, Sidney Blumenthal, Naomi Klein, Maureen Dowd, and in the past of course Karl Kraus, Karl Marx.
The sensible thing is to not go to Vienna but to keep saving and rid myself of this crippling, dangerous debt. I have been reminded for the first time in a long while of the psychological horror of my missed opportunity with Florence. The Tombe moment came in two parts, like a double break of a bone. It is sad what our friendship has turned into. When she spots me her face is so bleak and stressed and unhappy.
I would rather write a paper magazine. People get tired of scrolling and clicking on links. Only if they have got a physical paper magazine in their hands can they leaf through and see everything in one place. My magazine, which no one else need ever see, can run alongside and counterpoint to my books which people also never see. This will be my Fackel and my Simplicissimus side by side with my Grundrisse, the manuscript copy of Das Kapital.
I would like to write my own magazine like the Fackel, full of my hard-hitting sometimes scurrilous articles and reviews of London life. Write about Barbara Frittoli and the tyranny of not being able to write about the singer’s beauty, and sexual allure, as if this must not be mentioned, like some guilty secret. Write about La Traviata at the ENO, a weepy opera about “some consumptive whore, when in real life whores are treated like the lowest of the low, yet here she is celebrated as something glorious”. I love writers like Peter Wilby, Sidney Blumenthal, Naomi Klein, Maureen Dowd, and in the past of course Karl Kraus, Karl Marx.
The sensible thing is to not go to Vienna but to keep saving and rid myself of this crippling, dangerous debt. I have been reminded for the first time in a long while of the psychological horror of my missed opportunity with Florence. The Tombe moment came in two parts, like a double break of a bone. It is sad what our friendship has turned into. When she spots me her face is so bleak and stressed and unhappy.
I would rather write a paper magazine. People get tired of scrolling and clicking on links. Only if they have got a physical paper magazine in their hands can they leaf through and see everything in one place. My magazine, which no one else need ever see, can run alongside and counterpoint to my books which people also never see. This will be my Fackel and my Simplicissimus side by side with my Grundrisse, the manuscript copy of Das Kapital.
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