Journal Entries
In search of an Emma
Posted Dec 18, 1999
Research published this week revealed that girls called Emma are the most likely to have sex on a first date. Sharons are to be avoided, as they apparently never do; a great time saving tip, for the party season.
Emma Freud confirmed this morning that she always 'puts out'
Emma Spice said that she doesn't have a cat to put out. (No pussy jokes, please)
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Latest reply: Dec 18, 1999
Should this be banned?
Posted Dec 11, 1999
What follows is a (not right, yet) translation of one of the six poems banned on publication of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal. Although the ban was lifted in 1948, none of them appears in more recent translations.
I spent the night with an awful jew
Like one corpse stretched out against another
I started to dream about this hired body
The sad beauty of my secret fantasy
I visualised her natural dignity
Her look of vivacity and evocative elegance
Her hair creating a scented mantle
Which revived in me erotic thoughts
For I have passionately kissed your precious body
From your cold feet to your black braids
Unravelling the treasure of intense embraces
If some night, a tear accidentally escapes,
Your sole means, oh brutal queen,
Of dimming the glint in your icey eyes
Is it a problem that the prostitute is identified as jewish? I do not understand why she is, but then, I know nothing of 1850s Parisian society.
Amongst the others which were banned are a brutal rape fantasy and a description of a lesbian affair, followed by the poet's condemnation. Hoewever, because they are without reference to ethnicity, race or religion, is that less bad? What about their attack on women? And does it matter anyway? No-one is forced to read them.
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Latest reply: Dec 11, 1999
Mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud's
Posted Dec 9, 1999
In 'You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go' Dylan included the lines:-
Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud's
Dylan, along with Jim Morrison and Patti Smith, seemed to relate only to Rimbaud.
Never understood it at the time (I was older then, I am so much younger now) but then I discovered that these two french symbolist poets were enjoying (?) a very tempestuous homosexual relationship, which culminated in Verlaine shooting Rimbaud, when they were visiting Belgium. But what else is there to do in that country?
Verlaine ended up with a two years stretch after an uncomfortable legal process, which included a medical examination for evidence of a homosexual relationship (confirmed). Verlaine, still a teenager, recovered from his minor wounding, gave up poetry (what a loss to us all) and went off travelling. According to Dylan he was gun running in the middle east, but in reality he just seemed to get into working for various general traders.
But the any research into these two is bound to lead to an encounter with Baudelaire; the master!
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Latest reply: Dec 9, 1999
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