Sunday 26 April 2015
From My Commonplace Book
"When not close enough to be killed, the atomic bomb is one of the most beautiful sights in the world." - from a US Army information film in the 1950s.
Overheard Conversation #2
Someone on
their mobile phone on a bus:
“I, like, work for this big American company and have to, like, work for them, but they’re, like, a big American company and in Puerto Rico, and, like, I work on big projects for this big American company and they’re, like, big and westernised…”
“I, like, work for this big American company and have to, like, work for them, but they’re, like, a big American company and in Puerto Rico, and, like, I work on big projects for this big American company and they’re, like, big and westernised…”
Neglected Authors - Djuna Barnes
"There is always more surface to a shattered object
than a whole." – Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes was born in 1892 in a New York artists’ colony. Her father was a dilettante painter and polygamist, whose wife, mistress and their children all lived in the same household supported by his equally free-thinking mother Zadel. Djuna Barnes received little formal schooling (though Jack London and Franz Lizst were often house guests) until she enrolled in art school in the 1910s. After her parents divorced she became a journalist and illustrator in New York, soon entering the bohemian life of Greenwich Village and becoming friends with the likes of Marcel Duchamp and Eugene O’Neill. Her journalistic style was often “sensational” and participatory, as she would write about such things as entering a gorilla’s cage, being force fed, and getting rescued from the top of a skyscraper.
Djuna Barnes was bisexual, and had relationships with both men and women during her years in Greenwich Village. In 1914 she was engaged to an Ernst Hanfstaengl, then a publisher of art prints and friend of Franklin D Roosevelt. Hanfstaengl broke up with her in 1916, apparently because he wanted a German wife, and he later returned to Germany and became a close associate of Herr Hitler.
As a poet Djuna Barnes made her debut in 1915 with The Book of Repulsive Women, a collection of poems and Beardleyesque drawings of women in states of physical and moral degeneration.
In 1921 she was sent to Paris on an assignment and would remain there intermittently for the next fifteen years. She arrived with letters of introduction to Pound and Joyce, and soon entered the bohemian world of Gertrude Stein and Scott Fitzgerald. In Paris she became involved romantically with various ladies and gentlemen, including Nancy Cunard, Peggy Guggenheim, and Baroness Else von Freytag-Loringhoven. In 1928 she met the great love of her life, the sculptor and silverpoint artist Thelma Wood. Although Djuna Barnes desired monogamy Thelma Wood was unfortunately somewhat wayward. Often Djuna Barnes would traipse from café to café searching for Miss Wood (who was usually “out on the pull”, gender no object) often ending up as drunk as her quarry. They finally separated in 1928, the same year in which Djuna Barnes produced the Ladies Almanack, an erotic pastiche and roman à clef of Parisian lesbian life. It was promptly banned by the US customs.
In 1931 Djuna Barnes went to England as the guest of Mrs Guggenheim, and stayed there until the outbreak of the Second World War. It was in England in 1936, with the help of TS Eliot, that she published her masterpiece, the novel Nightwood. The novel, written in poetic, stream-of-consciousness style, tells of the doomed homosexual and heterosexual loves of five damned characters, and is characterised by malevolent characters, dark humour, and a decidedly decadent flavour.
After Nightwood she produced only one major work, a surrealist verse play, The Antiphon (1958). In 1939 she returned to Greenwich Village, living off the charity again of Mrs Guggenheim. She became a recluse, spending the next forty years in her apartment refusing to see old friends and calling the police on young lesbians who came to pay their respects.
(A version of this post first appeared in The Chap magazine.)
Djuna Barnes was born in 1892 in a New York artists’ colony. Her father was a dilettante painter and polygamist, whose wife, mistress and their children all lived in the same household supported by his equally free-thinking mother Zadel. Djuna Barnes received little formal schooling (though Jack London and Franz Lizst were often house guests) until she enrolled in art school in the 1910s. After her parents divorced she became a journalist and illustrator in New York, soon entering the bohemian life of Greenwich Village and becoming friends with the likes of Marcel Duchamp and Eugene O’Neill. Her journalistic style was often “sensational” and participatory, as she would write about such things as entering a gorilla’s cage, being force fed, and getting rescued from the top of a skyscraper.
Djuna Barnes was bisexual, and had relationships with both men and women during her years in Greenwich Village. In 1914 she was engaged to an Ernst Hanfstaengl, then a publisher of art prints and friend of Franklin D Roosevelt. Hanfstaengl broke up with her in 1916, apparently because he wanted a German wife, and he later returned to Germany and became a close associate of Herr Hitler.
As a poet Djuna Barnes made her debut in 1915 with The Book of Repulsive Women, a collection of poems and Beardleyesque drawings of women in states of physical and moral degeneration.
In 1921 she was sent to Paris on an assignment and would remain there intermittently for the next fifteen years. She arrived with letters of introduction to Pound and Joyce, and soon entered the bohemian world of Gertrude Stein and Scott Fitzgerald. In Paris she became involved romantically with various ladies and gentlemen, including Nancy Cunard, Peggy Guggenheim, and Baroness Else von Freytag-Loringhoven. In 1928 she met the great love of her life, the sculptor and silverpoint artist Thelma Wood. Although Djuna Barnes desired monogamy Thelma Wood was unfortunately somewhat wayward. Often Djuna Barnes would traipse from café to café searching for Miss Wood (who was usually “out on the pull”, gender no object) often ending up as drunk as her quarry. They finally separated in 1928, the same year in which Djuna Barnes produced the Ladies Almanack, an erotic pastiche and roman à clef of Parisian lesbian life. It was promptly banned by the US customs.
In 1931 Djuna Barnes went to England as the guest of Mrs Guggenheim, and stayed there until the outbreak of the Second World War. It was in England in 1936, with the help of TS Eliot, that she published her masterpiece, the novel Nightwood. The novel, written in poetic, stream-of-consciousness style, tells of the doomed homosexual and heterosexual loves of five damned characters, and is characterised by malevolent characters, dark humour, and a decidedly decadent flavour.
After Nightwood she produced only one major work, a surrealist verse play, The Antiphon (1958). In 1939 she returned to Greenwich Village, living off the charity again of Mrs Guggenheim. She became a recluse, spending the next forty years in her apartment refusing to see old friends and calling the police on young lesbians who came to pay their respects.
(A version of this post first appeared in The Chap magazine.)
Things I Miss #3
In the 1970s
there was a brand of American bubble gum called Bazooka Joe. Inside the packet
was a piece of paper with a comic strip featuring the eponymous character
(wearing a baseball cap and an eyepatch) "and his Gang." There was also an advertisement for a
piece of kitsch (a telescope; an ID bracelet; a birthstone pendant; a “real
camera). Although my friends and I assiduously collected these tokens, none of
us ever sent off for anything nor knew anyone who had. Somewhere in a cupboard I
have a small box full of these slips of paper…
From the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue - C
CABBAGE. Cloth, stuff, or silk purloined by taylors from their employers, which they deposit in a place called HELL, or their EYE: from the first, when taxed, with their knavery, they equivocally swear, that if they have taken any, they wish they may find it in HELL; or, alluding to the second, protest, that what they have over and above is not more than they could put in their EYE.—When the scrotum is relaxed or whiffled, it is said they will not cabbage.
CACAFEOGO. A shite-fire, a furious braggadocio or bull huff.
CACKLING FARTS. Eggs.
CALIBOGUS. Rum and spruce beer, American beverage.
CAP ACQUAINTANCE. Persons slightly acquainted, or only so far as mutually to salute with the hat on meeting.
CAPTAIN QUEERNABS. A shabby ill-dressed fellow.
CHALKERS. Men of wit, in Ireland, who in the night amuse themselves with cutting inoffensive passengers across the face with a knife. They are somewhat like those facetious gentlemen some time ago known in England by the title of Sweaters and Mohocks.
CHAP. A fellow; An odd chap; A strange fellow.
CHERRY-COLOURED CAT. A black cat, there being black cherries as well as red.
CHICKEN NABOB. One returned from the East Indies with but a moderate fortune of fifty or sixty thousand pounds, a diminutive nabob.
CHOAK PEAR. Figuratively, an unanswerable objection: also a machine formerly used in Holland by robbers; it was of iron, shaped like a pear; this they forced into the mouths of persons from whom they intended to extort money; and on turning a key, certain interior springs thrust forth a number of points, in all directions, which so enlarged it, that it could not be taken out of the mouth: and the iron, being case-hardened, could not be filed: the only methods of getting rid of it, were either by cutting the mouth, or advertizing a reward for the key, These pears were also called pears of agony.
CLOUD. Tobacco.
CONGO. Will you lap your congo with me? will you drink tea with me?
CACAFEOGO. A shite-fire, a furious braggadocio or bull huff.
CACKLING FARTS. Eggs.
CALIBOGUS. Rum and spruce beer, American beverage.
CAP ACQUAINTANCE. Persons slightly acquainted, or only so far as mutually to salute with the hat on meeting.
CAPTAIN QUEERNABS. A shabby ill-dressed fellow.
CHALKERS. Men of wit, in Ireland, who in the night amuse themselves with cutting inoffensive passengers across the face with a knife. They are somewhat like those facetious gentlemen some time ago known in England by the title of Sweaters and Mohocks.
CHAP. A fellow; An odd chap; A strange fellow.
CHERRY-COLOURED CAT. A black cat, there being black cherries as well as red.
CHICKEN NABOB. One returned from the East Indies with but a moderate fortune of fifty or sixty thousand pounds, a diminutive nabob.
CHOAK PEAR. Figuratively, an unanswerable objection: also a machine formerly used in Holland by robbers; it was of iron, shaped like a pear; this they forced into the mouths of persons from whom they intended to extort money; and on turning a key, certain interior springs thrust forth a number of points, in all directions, which so enlarged it, that it could not be taken out of the mouth: and the iron, being case-hardened, could not be filed: the only methods of getting rid of it, were either by cutting the mouth, or advertizing a reward for the key, These pears were also called pears of agony.
CLOUD. Tobacco.
CONGO. Will you lap your congo with me? will you drink tea with me?
CREW. A knot or gang. The canting crew are thus divided into twenty-three orders, which see under the different words:
- MEN. 1 Rufflers 2 Upright Men 3 Hookers or Anglers 4 Rogues 5 Wild Rogues 6 Priggers of Prancers 7 Palliardes 8 Fraters 9 Jarkmen, or Patricoes 10 Fresh Water Mariners, or Whip Jackets 11 Drummerers 12 Drunken Tinkers 13 Swadders, or Pedlars 14 Abrams.
- WOMEN. 1 Demanders for Glimmer or Fire 2 Bawdy Baskets 3 Morts 4 Autem Morts 5 Walking Morts 6 Doxies 7 Delles 8 Kinching Morts 9 Kinching Coes.
CRUSTY BEAU. One that uses paint and cosmetics, to obtain a fine complexion.
CUCUMBERS. Taylors, who are jocularly said to subsist, during the summer, chiefly on cucumbers.
Random Memory #3
In August 2001
I was at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. I was admiring an
installation in the museum’s courtyard of human figures by the Spanish sculptor
Juan Muñoz. An attendant noticed me and came out to chat. “The Spanish fella, Muñoz,
it was on the radio this morning, he’s just dropped down dead. He was only 48.
Of course the price of his stuff will skyrocket now he’s dead. See the fella in
there? [He indicated an exhibition of abstract paintings by an Irish artist.]
He’s 83 and still going strong. Stuff’s not worth a bean.”
Sunday 19 April 2015
Neglected Authors - Peter Fleming
Peter
Fleming was born in 1907, and was a part-model for James Bond, the creation of
his younger brother, Ian. Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Mr Fleming
travelled widely, chiefly as Special Correspondent for The Times. In 1935 he
married the actress Celia Johnson, best known for the chappist kinema film Brief
Encounter. In 1939 he joined the Grenadier Guards, serving in Norway,
Greece and Burma, ending the war as head of strategic deception in South East
Asia Command. Along with his brother he helped establish
the Auxiliary Units,
a "secret army" of civilian volunteers that would fight on, behind
enemy lines, in the event of a German invasion of Britain. After the war he
retired to his estate in the Chilterns, to lead the life of a literary squire.
Mr Fleming went to Brazil after seeing an advertisement in The Times: “Exploring & sporting expedition… to explore rivers Central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate Colonel Fawcett [who vanished in 1925 searching for a lost city]; abundance game, big & small; exceptional fishing; ROOM TWO MORE GUNS”. The resulting book, Brazilian Adventure, is a masterpiece of irony and self-deprecation. As he says himself, beyond the completion of a 3,000-mile journey, mostly under amusing conditions, and the discovery of one new tributary to a tributary to a tributary of the Amazon, nothing of importance was achieved. "I had meant, when I started," wrote Mr Fleming in the foreword, "to pile on the agony a good deal; I felt it would be expected of me. In treating of the Great Unknown one has a free hand, and my few predecessors in this particular field had made great play with the Terrors of the Jungle: the alligators, the snakes, the man-eating fish, the lurking savages, those dreadful insects - all the paraphernalia of tropical mumbo jumbo lay ready to my hand. But when the time came I found that I had not the face to make the most of them.”
One’s Company is an account of a journey through Russia and Manchuria to China, and is full of amusing incidents such as brake-failure on the Trans-Siberian Express, and an Eton Boating Song singing lesson in Manchuria.
News from Tartary describes, with masterly understatement, an undeservedly successful attempt to travel overland 3,500 miles from Peking to Kashmir. With his companion, the Swiss adventuress Ella Maillart, he set out across a China torn by civil war. It had been eight years since a traveller had crossed Sinkiang, which was under the control of a rebel warlord supported by Stalin's Red Army. Entering the province by a little known and almost lethal route and following the path of the Silk Road, they ended up in Kashgar before crossing the Pamirs to India. Beautifully written and superbly observed, this is also a marvellous insight into the last days of the Great Game.
Mr Fleming also published several books recounting historical episodes, including the Younghusband expedition to Lhasa, and the siege of Peking during the Boxer rebellion.
Mr Fleming died in 1971, while on a shooting expedition to Scotland. Mr Fleming was, in the words of one of his dust jackets, "the epitome of the enlightened English gentleman adventurer and explorer", the embodiment of the cheerful British amateur confronting the anomalies of abroad with unfailing pluck, intelligence, good humour and modesty.
Brazilian Adventure, One’s Company, and News From Tartary are all available in paperback.
Mr Fleming went to Brazil after seeing an advertisement in The Times: “Exploring & sporting expedition… to explore rivers Central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate Colonel Fawcett [who vanished in 1925 searching for a lost city]; abundance game, big & small; exceptional fishing; ROOM TWO MORE GUNS”. The resulting book, Brazilian Adventure, is a masterpiece of irony and self-deprecation. As he says himself, beyond the completion of a 3,000-mile journey, mostly under amusing conditions, and the discovery of one new tributary to a tributary to a tributary of the Amazon, nothing of importance was achieved. "I had meant, when I started," wrote Mr Fleming in the foreword, "to pile on the agony a good deal; I felt it would be expected of me. In treating of the Great Unknown one has a free hand, and my few predecessors in this particular field had made great play with the Terrors of the Jungle: the alligators, the snakes, the man-eating fish, the lurking savages, those dreadful insects - all the paraphernalia of tropical mumbo jumbo lay ready to my hand. But when the time came I found that I had not the face to make the most of them.”
One’s Company is an account of a journey through Russia and Manchuria to China, and is full of amusing incidents such as brake-failure on the Trans-Siberian Express, and an Eton Boating Song singing lesson in Manchuria.
News from Tartary describes, with masterly understatement, an undeservedly successful attempt to travel overland 3,500 miles from Peking to Kashmir. With his companion, the Swiss adventuress Ella Maillart, he set out across a China torn by civil war. It had been eight years since a traveller had crossed Sinkiang, which was under the control of a rebel warlord supported by Stalin's Red Army. Entering the province by a little known and almost lethal route and following the path of the Silk Road, they ended up in Kashgar before crossing the Pamirs to India. Beautifully written and superbly observed, this is also a marvellous insight into the last days of the Great Game.
Mr Fleming also published several books recounting historical episodes, including the Younghusband expedition to Lhasa, and the siege of Peking during the Boxer rebellion.
Mr Fleming died in 1971, while on a shooting expedition to Scotland. Mr Fleming was, in the words of one of his dust jackets, "the epitome of the enlightened English gentleman adventurer and explorer", the embodiment of the cheerful British amateur confronting the anomalies of abroad with unfailing pluck, intelligence, good humour and modesty.
Brazilian Adventure, One’s Company, and News From Tartary are all available in paperback.
From My Commonplace Book
"Next, big soft girls will read Len Deighton aloud in jazz workshops." - from a review in LIFE April 1965.
From the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue - B
BACKED. Dead. He wishes to have the senior, or old square-toes, backed; he longs to have his father on six men's shoulders; that is, carrying to the grave.
BANG UP. Quite the thing, hellish fine. Well done. Compleat. Dashing. In a handsome stile. A bang up cove; a dashing fellow who spends his money freely. To bang up prime: to bring your horses up in a dashing or fine style: as the swell's rattler and prads are bang up prime; the gentleman sports an elegant carriage and fine horses.
BAPTIZED, OR CHRISTENED. Rum, brandy, or any other spirits, that have been lowered with water.
BARKING IRONS. Pistols, from their explosion resembling the bow-wow or barking of a dog.
BATCHELOR'S FARE. Bread and cheese and kisses.
BANG UP. Quite the thing, hellish fine. Well done. Compleat. Dashing. In a handsome stile. A bang up cove; a dashing fellow who spends his money freely. To bang up prime: to bring your horses up in a dashing or fine style: as the swell's rattler and prads are bang up prime; the gentleman sports an elegant carriage and fine horses.
BAPTIZED, OR CHRISTENED. Rum, brandy, or any other spirits, that have been lowered with water.
BARKING IRONS. Pistols, from their explosion resembling the bow-wow or barking of a dog.
BATCHELOR'S FARE. Bread and cheese and kisses.
BEAU-NASTY. A slovenly fop; one finely dressed, but dirty.
BEAU TRAP. A loose stone in a pavement, under which water lodges, and on being trod upon, squirts it up, to the great damage of white stockings; also a sharper neatly dressed, lying in wait for raw country squires, or ignorant fops.
BINGO BOY. A dram drinker.
BLACK FLY. The greatest drawback on the farmer is the black fly, i.e. the parson who takes tithe of the harvest.
BLACK SPY. The Devil.
BLOWER. A pipe. How the swell funks his blower and lushes red tape; what a smoke the gentleman makes with his pipe, and drinks brandy.
TO BOX THE JESUIT, AND GET COCK ROACHES. A sea term for masturbation; a crime, it is said, much practised by the reverend fathers of that society.
BRISTOL MAN. The son of an Irish thief and a Welch whore.
BULK AND FILE. Two pickpockets; the bulk jostles the party to be robbed, and the file does the business.
BUTTER BOX. A Dutchman, from the great quantity of butter eaten by the people of that country.
Things I Miss #2
I miss middle-aged, middle-management men with a type of red-blooded Tourette's Syndrome that meant every possible double entendre was bracketed with, "As the actress /bishop said to the bishop/actress." Smooth operators used verbal shorthand and merely said, "As the a said to the b." Apparently The Saint in Leslie Charteris' impeccable stories used the phrase.
Random Memory #2
In 1979 I was strolling along the banks of the Saône in Lyon, shopping in the fruit and vegetable market, when I suddenly heard the ear-splitting sound of an air-raid warning. I asked a passing Frenchman, unconcerned by the noise, what exactly was happening. He explained that it was the 4-minute warning for a nuclear attack, which was tested at noon on the first Wednesday of every month. "It's part of the Réseau National
d'Alerte," he added, helpfully. "Where are the nuclear bunkers?" I asked. The Frenchman stared at me for a few seconds and then broke into helpless laughter.
Saturday 18 April 2015
Flâneur
He is the man who makes notes,
The observer in the tall black hat
Face hidden in the brim:
He has watched me watching him.
The street-corner in Buda and after
By the post-office a glimpse
Of the disappearing tails of his coat,
Gave the same illumination, spied upon,
The tightness in the throat.
Once too meeting by the Seine
The waters a moving floor of stars,
He had vanished when I reached the door,
But there on the pavement burning
Lay one of his familiar black cigars.
‘Je Est Un Autre’ – Lawrence Durrell
The observer in the tall black hat
Face hidden in the brim:
He has watched me watching him.
The street-corner in Buda and after
By the post-office a glimpse
Of the disappearing tails of his coat,
Gave the same illumination, spied upon,
The tightness in the throat.
Once too meeting by the Seine
The waters a moving floor of stars,
He had vanished when I reached the door,
But there on the pavement burning
Lay one of his familiar black cigars.
‘Je Est Un Autre’ – Lawrence Durrell
From my Commonplace Book
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.
TS Eliot "Burnt Norton"
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.
TS Eliot "Burnt Norton"
Overheard Conversation #1
In an Italian restaurant
a couple were talking to a waitress whose first langauge was not English.
[Lady]: "I want something green!"
[Waitress]: "Do you want a green salad?"
[Lady]: "No! I want something green!"
[Man] "Like, what he's [me] eating." [I was eating an avocado and mozzarella salad.]
[Waitress] (understandably confused): "Do you want an avocado?"
[Lady]: "Is it green?"
[Man]: But is it green?
[Lady]: "I don't want any salami with my green salad."
Later, as I was leaving, the man was saying: "You know when you meet people and they are, like, people, and they are really people?"
[Lady]: "I want something green!"
[Waitress]: "Do you want a green salad?"
[Lady]: "No! I want something green!"
[Man] "Like, what he's [me] eating." [I was eating an avocado and mozzarella salad.]
[Waitress] (understandably confused): "Do you want an avocado?"
[Lady]: "Is it green?"
[Man]: But is it green?
[Lady]: "I don't want any salami with my green salad."
Later, as I was leaving, the man was saying: "You know when you meet people and they are, like, people, and they are really people?"
From the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue - A
ACE OF SPADES. A widow.
ACORN. You will ride a horse foaled by an acorn, i.e. the gallows, called also the Wooden and Three-legged Mare. You will be hanged.
ADMIRAL OF THE NARROW SEAS. One who from drunkenness vomits into the lap of the person sitting opposite to him.
ALDERMAN. A roasted turkey garnished with sausages; the latter are supposed to represent the gold chain worn by those magistrates.
ALL NATIONS. A composition of all the different spirits sold in a dram-shop, collected in a vessel into which the drainings of the bottles and quartern pots are emptied.
ALLS. The five alls is a country sign, representing five human figures, each having a motto under him. The first is a king in his regalia; his motto, I govern all: the second, a bishop in pontificals; motto, I pray for all: third, a lawyer in his gown; motto, I plead for all: fourth: a soldier in his regimentals, fully accoutred; motto, I fight for all: fifth, a poor countryman with his scythe and rake; motto, I pay for all.
AMBASSADOR OF MOROCCO. A Shoemaker.
TO AMUSE. To fling dust or snuff in the eyes of the person intended to be robbed.
ANKLE. A girl who is got with child, is said to have sprained her ankle.
APOSTLES. (CAMBRIDGE.) Men who are plucked, refused their degree.
APPLE DUMPLING SHOP. A woman's bosom.
AVOIR DU POIS LAY. Stealing brass weights off the counters of shop.
ACORN. You will ride a horse foaled by an acorn, i.e. the gallows, called also the Wooden and Three-legged Mare. You will be hanged.
ADMIRAL OF THE NARROW SEAS. One who from drunkenness vomits into the lap of the person sitting opposite to him.
ALDERMAN. A roasted turkey garnished with sausages; the latter are supposed to represent the gold chain worn by those magistrates.
ALL NATIONS. A composition of all the different spirits sold in a dram-shop, collected in a vessel into which the drainings of the bottles and quartern pots are emptied.
ALLS. The five alls is a country sign, representing five human figures, each having a motto under him. The first is a king in his regalia; his motto, I govern all: the second, a bishop in pontificals; motto, I pray for all: third, a lawyer in his gown; motto, I plead for all: fourth: a soldier in his regimentals, fully accoutred; motto, I fight for all: fifth, a poor countryman with his scythe and rake; motto, I pay for all.
AMBASSADOR OF MOROCCO. A Shoemaker.
TO AMUSE. To fling dust or snuff in the eyes of the person intended to be robbed.
ANKLE. A girl who is got with child, is said to have sprained her ankle.
APOSTLES. (CAMBRIDGE.) Men who are plucked, refused their degree.
APPLE DUMPLING SHOP. A woman's bosom.
AVOIR DU POIS LAY. Stealing brass weights off the counters of shop.
Neglected Authors - Henri de Monfreid
Henri de Monfreid was born in France in 1879, the son of a painter and art dealer who was friends with Gauguin and Matisse. After schooling, de Monfreid was judged unfit for military service and spent ten years working variously as a chauffeur, chemist and milkman.
In 1911 aged 32 he settled in Djibouti (then a French possession) where he became a trader in coffee and hides. Tiring of the petit-bourgeois colonial life, he travelled into the Ethiopian interior, becoming friends with the Danakil tribe, and learning their language. He also converted to Islam, adopting the name Abd-al-Hai (“slave of life”). After his travels he built himself a dhow, the “Altair”, and between 1912 and 1940 he earned a raffish living on the Red Sea diving for pearls and sea-slugs, gun-running, and smuggling hashish. Needless to say, he also had several spells in prison. During the World War I he also spied for the French, his knowledge of the various anchorages in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa proving invaluable.
In the 1930s, de Monfreid began writing about his adventures, publishing several books such as Secrets of the Red Sea and Adventures on the Sea. His book Towards the Hostile Lands of Ethiopia incurred the displeasure of Emperor Haile Selassie, who expelled him from Ethiopia in 1933, although he later returned after Mussolini’s conquest. During World War II he worked for the Italians until he was captured by the British, who deported him to Kenya. After the war he retired to France where he quietly raised a plantation of opium poppies until this was discovered by the authorities. He narrowly escaped prosecution, and settled down to a life of writing, turning out over 70 books over the next 30 years. His books reflect his peripatetic life and thirst for action and violent adventure. As well as travel books, he also wrote several novels such as The Slave of the Golden Boat, and Abdi, the Man With the Severed Hand.
His
most famous and best book is the non-fictional Hashish: Smuggling Under Sail
in the Red Sea (1935), a classic yarn about a smuggling trip. He makes the acquaintance of a Greek sailor in Marseille who seems to
regard the buying of hashish as a perfectly normal activity, and gives him the
address of his family in Greece who happen to own a farm in the mountains. With
the help of a local bishop, he avoids the Greek customs, and sails via Djibouti
to Suez with his narcotic cargo. On the way he is attacked by Eritrean soldiers
who he scares away by letting off dynamite, and is chased by the Italian navy.
On arrival in Suez, he contacts some Bedouin who help him smuggle the hashish
into the desert.
During barren periods, when writing was not bringing in enough money, he sold off his father’s collection of Gaughin’s paintings. Only after de Monfreid’s death in 1974 were these discovered to be fakes…
(A version of this post first appeared in The Chap magazine.)
Things I Miss #1
In the 1970s and 1980s one could not walk down a street
without seeing the spool from a broken cassette tape spilling along the
pavement and wrapping itself around lampposts and trees. I suppose most were
thrown from car windows after getting jammed in cassette players. It was sometimes possible to rewind the tape into the cassette using a hexagonal pencil or a Bic biro.
A friend tells me they were also used for voodoo: one would record onto a blank cassette the person’s name and what ills one hoped would befall them; and then the cassette would be stamped on and the tape left to unravel in the wind and, it was hoped, the enemy’s life would then also begin to unravel…
A friend tells me they were also used for voodoo: one would record onto a blank cassette the person’s name and what ills one hoped would befall them; and then the cassette would be stamped on and the tape left to unravel in the wind and, it was hoped, the enemy’s life would then also begin to unravel…
Random Memory #1
I lived in
Nigeria for many years, and the first place I called home was Kano, on the edge
of the Sahara. I landed at Kano aerodrome in a BOAC aeroplane in December 1963. Kano aerodrome
employed a bird-scarer, a man on a camel with a long trumpet who would amble to
the end of the runway and tootle away hoping to scare off the vultures.
A family friend,James, was born a century too late. As my father says, "He should have been here with Lugard." James was an area manager for the Bank of British West Africa and instead of a Land-Rover he successfully put in a chit for three camels. He used to dress in Tuareg clothes and travel around northern Nigeria on his camels visiting the various bank branches. He also used to leave word with my father that he was "off into the blue" and would disappear for two months into the desert. James' Hausa name was Me Rakume, which translates as "Camel Man". His pidgin English name, as he wore a monocle, was "Window for Eye". Apparently he didn't like visitors so if anyone came into his compound he would stride onto the stoep and shout, "State your business!"
I don't remember much of Kano, but vaguely remember other towns in northern Nigeria: Maidugri, Kaduna, Sokoto. I was taken to a durbar where the Emir of Kano's guard of honour galloped up to him and reined in their horses in inches from his throne. The horsemen were wearing chain-mail vests, supposedly handed down from the Crusades. I later found out they were manufactured new in Wolverhampton.
A family friend,James, was born a century too late. As my father says, "He should have been here with Lugard." James was an area manager for the Bank of British West Africa and instead of a Land-Rover he successfully put in a chit for three camels. He used to dress in Tuareg clothes and travel around northern Nigeria on his camels visiting the various bank branches. He also used to leave word with my father that he was "off into the blue" and would disappear for two months into the desert. James' Hausa name was Me Rakume, which translates as "Camel Man". His pidgin English name, as he wore a monocle, was "Window for Eye". Apparently he didn't like visitors so if anyone came into his compound he would stride onto the stoep and shout, "State your business!"
I don't remember much of Kano, but vaguely remember other towns in northern Nigeria: Maidugri, Kaduna, Sokoto. I was taken to a durbar where the Emir of Kano's guard of honour galloped up to him and reined in their horses in inches from his throne. The horsemen were wearing chain-mail vests, supposedly handed down from the Crusades. I later found out they were manufactured new in Wolverhampton.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)