"I love you...Me neither" (updated)

 If you're old enough, you'll remember the eternal French words "Je t'aime...Moi non plus", spoken by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, in what...let's look this up...in 1969 (meaning you possibly won't (remember)).

But we got struck by this not so jugendfreie poster on the internet...

We added the fig-leaves after having read a beautiful essay in The New Yorker about Nabokov's Lolita 

...and feel encouraged to engage in another act of self-promotion by invoking our novel "Green Eyes", which--regular readers of this blog may have come to regret--is always about everything, and so it's also about this song...

We're in Chapter 17 of the GREEN EYES, and the whole thing is NOT jugendfrei at all, so you'll read this at your own risk. John, the narrator, and Alex, the lead character, have met once before, and now they meet again--in Johns bed: 

We’re back in the bedroom. We finally embrace, kiss. This is it, this is the moment. Should Alex expect me to sink to my knees now, unbutton his fly, like in the porn flicks? Or unzip his zipper, most porn flicks are so cheap, they don’t have money for the more expensive, button-holed Levis—-unzip his cheaper jeans and start caressing his briefs with my lips, drawing the attention to his budding tumescence under the cotton? 
Well, I might, at least in the sense that my bedroom looks almost as bad as the motel rooms where those flicks are shot. A chest, two wooden bedside tables, two wooden chairs. A timber-framed bed done in cherry imitation, a mattress and dirty sheets, a discordant collection of things that speak of my financial (and mental) condition. 
Yet Alex isn’t waiting for the cotton kiss (besides, he doesn’t wear any fly-enhanced leg-wear but is still clad in his hospital sweatpants). Instead, he undresses unceremoniously. T-shirt, pants, briefs, shoes, socks are all arranged into a neat pile on the second chair. 
He climbs onto the bed, folds himself into some relaxed, unassuming position, like a model in a drawing class, but without the attitude. The simplicity of his movements I will never forget, they changed my life.
I follow his example and make an unusual effort at apparel-folding. Although we had fairly rough sex the previous morning, there is not the least suggestion of anything untoward between us in the past, for all practical purposes we could be virgins. I lie next to him. 
“You’re beautiful,” he says, caressing my face. I’m caressing back. This would be the moment to say ‘I love you,’ although you never know what you get back, like ‘moi non plus,’ statistically the most honest answer (moi non plus, French, used by Serge Gainsbourg, the one and only basis for his fame, this noun phrase, meaning “me neither”), or ‘I love you too,’ but uttered unconvincingly, or ‘I love you too,’ uttered more convincingly, although you know it’s bullshit.

(I hold back.)

(I cannot hold back.)

“I love you,” I say.

“No sweat,” Alex comes back—-bypassing world literature from Homer to Spielberg. Have you ever heard anybody saying ‘no sweat’ in this situation? There’s a teasing movement of his eyelashes, although his green eyes stay neutral as if it’s head or tail. “In human sexual behavior,” he says, “foreplay is a set of emotionally and physically intimate acts between two or more people meant to create desire for sexual activity and sexual arousal.” Ooh, he’s so sweet!

(There's more educational content below, first the self-promotion:)

"Click"

(And now the educational stuff:)

 

 (And the lyrics:)

Je t'aime, je t'aime

Oh oui, je t'aime

Moi non plus

Oh, mon amour

Comme la vague irrésolue

Je vais, je vais et je viens

Entre tes reins

Je vais et je viens

Entre tes reins

Et je me retiens

Je t'aime, je t'aime

Oh oui, je t'aime

Moi non plus

Oh, mon amour

Tu es la vague, moi l'île nue

Tu vas, tu vas et tu viens

Entre mes reins

Tu vas et tu viens

Entre mes reins

Et je te rejoins

Je t'aime, je t'aime

Oh oui, je t'aime

Moi non plus

Oh, mon amour

Comme la vague irrésolue

Je vais, je vais et je viens

Entre tes reins

Je vais et je viens

Entre tes reins

Et je me retiens

Tu vas, tu vas et tu viens

Entre…

Our Lady of the Flowers --- Variations on a Genet classic

Jan van Rijn, the celebrate bibliophile publisher, has a new book out, and it's about "Notre Dame des Fleurs", the mind-boggling first oeuvre of Jean Genet. Genet wrote it in a Paris prison in 1942, on brown-bag paper, whence his "manuscript" got confiscated by prurient prison guards. Undaunted, he asked for more brown-bag paper and rewrote it from scratch. Eventually it got published, so that Jean-Paul Sartre could discover it---Sartre, the inventor of Existentialism---and promptly declare the author a "saint". Genet's career was made---such was the way of French cultural life at the time. 

We read the "Lady" four times and it got better with each pass. Four times? Yes, because we had promised to contribute to Jan's publication and didn't know for quite some time what to do.

 

But then, in late 2019 we hit on an idea during a chance meeting with...

...the mysterious founding fathers of the Verse Reconstruction Movement. 

We had always dreamed of writing prose that could pass as poetry (and vice versa), and---having already isolated the "hottest" passages of the Fleurs---we undertook to turn them into poetic language. Six poems resulted, and they are in the book. Here's the first one:

EACH CELL A HISSING NEST OF SNAKES

(by Michael Ampersant)

I’m like those prisons,

Open to all the winds,

Empty and pure,

Swarming with dangerous,

Promiscuous males,

Sprawled out on their beds.

Prisons of dreams, I’d say, for a race of murderers,

Each cell a hissing nest of snakes,

And a confessional.

Their eyes,

Without mystery,

Terrifying,

Like empty theaters,

Machinery at rest,

Deserts.

I approach, my heart racing,

And see nothing,

Nothing but looming emptiness,

Sensitive and proud,

A foxglove possessed by terrible souls.

There are 16 contributors to this volume (if we don't count Genet himself), and one of them is John Coulthart, gay life's most prolific high-culture blogger. Have a look at his post about the book here.

You can order the volume here. It is also for sale in a few bookstores throughout Europe, ie,

Vienna 

buchhandlung löwenherz

https://www.loewenherz.at/

Milano

liberia antigone

https://www.libreriantigone.com/

Berlin

prinz eisenherz 

https://prinz-eisenherz.buchkatalog.de/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CK6rSnOlNM1/

and if things work well in Paris very soon at

les mots à la bouche 

https://motsbouche.com

PS: There are only 150 copies printed; it's a bit like bitcoins, and if we manage to convince Jan to rechristen his book "GenetCoins", or "CoinGenet" or anything else alluding to blockchains, the price will certainly skyrocket into the millions, especially if and when Elon Musk chips in a brief tweet. So, please, hurry.

Death on the Beach

Cool, folks, our flash story "Death on the Beach" got reprinted in the summer issue of WickedGayWays:

German for beginners -- Lederhosen

Our friend Sacha (depicted as Jack Horn in our literary oeuvre) and we have been back and forth today about receiving pictures from friends concerning a country that both of us left 40 or 45 years years ago. So...along those lines, here are pictures concerning things which are still happening today in those parts:

Why do you do this, you'll ask, putting up these pictures? Well, we want to sell our books, and here's a fragment from our first novel, Green Eyes, a finalist of the Lambda Literary Awards...and which--TADAA--came out out in a German translation last month. 
The fragment involves Maurice Dymond, a recent acquaintance of our narrator John Lee, who's telling about Godehart Wagner, a fictional fifth generation member of the Richard Wagner clan:

"[Godehart] tells me his life story. He’s from this minor branch of the Wagner family, but somehow he still holds some rights to the Wagner name. Not for the music, of course, that belongs to the public domain, but in some way Wagner’s name is still protected under German law, some special provisions enacted by the Nazis, and he makes his money with Wagner mugs, and Wagner busts, and this themed stuff that you find in tourists shops. And he sells leather shorts, Bavarian leather shorts, emblazoned with the Wagner motif. You know—-these garments that they wear with Tyrolean hats when appearing on the telly where they dance to the tune of Bavarian square dances, jodlers, if you will, and slap their thighs to the rhythm of the music. You are aware of that folly if you ever watched German television. It’s of no importance when you switch to a German channel, there shall always be men in Bavarian shorts and Tyrolean hats, slapping their thighs.”
“Impossible.” [John]
“Mind you, they don’t dance to Wagner music, just a jodler.”
“But the Wagner theme, how do you combine this with leather shorts?” [John asking]
“Good question, no idea.”
“Do you know whether Wagner was gay, too?” [John]

“Actually I asked Godehart. Wagner wasn’t officially gay, but he had an affair with the young king of Bavaria, Ludwig the Second, Godehart told me. Ludwig furthered Wagner’s career, in fact, he underwrote his productions and built opera houses for him. Wagner would not have succeeded without Ludwig. So perhaps Wagner wasn’t gay, perhaps it was just the casting-couch behavior of an ambitious composer. But we can’t be so sure. Wagner and Ludwig exchanged quite a few letters, quite explicit, passionate ones, the jury is out on that one.”
“How do you know?” [John asking]
“Well, Godehart told me, I asked pointed questions.”
“Nobody asks pointed questions anymore.” [John]
“I do,” he says.

Buy the book, here: 

"Click"

German for beginners: Grüne Augen by Michael Ampersant

Finally, folks, the GREEN EYES are out in a German translation with the DeadSoftPress. Have a look:

   

Green Eyes -- the fishbowl -- This Is Heaven

The Green Eyes are coming out soon in a German translation, so lets draw the attention of our readers to this...

...a fishbowl, yes, because a fishbowl plays an important role in the sequel to the Green Eyes, This Is Heaven.

The Green Eyes tell of a "romantic" love story between two gay protagonists, John Lee and Alexander Iglesias. The sequel continues with our heroes, and because they are already together--some reviewers complained that they are not "together" enough--the story is about something else than sheer romance, and murder is always a good substitute. And so, John, as the potential suspect of a potential murder committed in the darkroom of his town's only gay club, is called to the local police station, where he's interviewed by a certain Mario LaStrada, a homicide detective.  And, yes, I have no recollection how I got this idea, but I had to animate the scene somewhat and a fishbowl came to mind. The bowl subsequently appears in various chapters since John is called to the police station at various times, but when John is called in for the last time (after that, LaStrada wont be in the position to call in anybody anymore), John is asking himself the question:


What will be the strada this time?

It will be the fishbowl. The glass container has grown in size and is studied intently by the inspector upon my arrival. We’re watching a detective flick from the ‘40’s—-educating the audience how the suspect is broken down by sheer disregard for his awkward presence. LaStrada has a point though, the toy fish of old has gotten company by three brethren, all looking more or less like goldfish, but not quite. And if my mammal bias is of any help: the fish don’t like each other.

(...) 

He [LaStrada] is turning to the fish bowl again. Previously, a single fish turned its pointless rounds at a leisurely clip, but now there are four of them, and a sense of purpose has taken hold. Were it not for the bowl’s spherical shape, one would fear for the centrifugal forces, the fish being misled by inertia and missing a turn. 

Isn't this neat? Murphy's law inverted, partially. Whatever can get right does get right, and so we hit on this gif picture  with a fish missing its turn. There's more about these fish in This Is Heaven. Perversion, sex, anything. Get yourself a copy, here.

Kate A. Hardy -- Londonia

Our friend Kate Hardy has a serious novel out with a serious publisher printed as a serious hardcover:

The book

The author

We are intensely jealous, of course.

(From the press release:)

Londonia is a magnificently immersive page-turner. Set in 2072, it seems at first to be a dystopia in which the internet and other modern technologies have collapsed. An elite have sealed themselves up in Central London, while everyone else has to get on as best they can, making-do, bartering, and cooperating with their neighbours. Moving between the two societies is Hoxton, a "Finder" of desirable objects, her own past a mystery to be solved, with the help of new friends. Can hope and friendship survive in this strange new world? . . .

(This is how it starts:)

‘Oi! Second floor. Is Tom Ov-Brixton in there?’ Tom takes a drag on the clay pipe and squints at me through the  smoke.  ‘Scrote. That’s  my  hitch—gotta  get  to  the  Forrist  before  darking.’  He  abandons  the  pipe,  rolls  on  top  of  me  and  kisses my forehead. ‘Beauteous, you are.’ I trace a finger over his lips. ‘You too.’ As  we  gaze  at  each  other  a  brassy  note  sounds  in  the  street,  followed by the same voice, now more insistent. Tom leaves the bed and starts stuffing things into his kitbag.  ‘Merda! Can’t find my wrist-clock.’ I  hold  the  weathered  disc  out  to  him  as  he  hops  about,  one  leg  trousered,  the  other  a  naked  white  streak  in  this  dim  room.  ‘Here—it was under your felty.’ He pulls on the rest of his jeans, yanks the belt’s teeth into a well-used notch and takes the timepiece from me. ‘Wouldn’t want to go without that.’ ‘What’s the point of wearing it?’ ‘Hands  still  move,  don’t  they?  Useful  for  calculating  how  much work time’s been done—aclockface,two,three. . . any lane, it was Dad’s. Not worth nothing but it’s a . . .’ ‘Mascot? Talisman?’ ‘Where d’you come from, wordsmith dame?’ He grins at me, face still rosy after the activity that has made this bed so warm. I risk the icy chill, slip out from the covers and scoot to the win-dow,  a  blanket  about  me.  A  makeshift  carriage  waits  outside fronted by two horses, their breath pluming white. A man sitting behind  them  looks  up  at  this  window,  waves  his  arms  in  a  gesture of frustration and yells. ‘I foitling said, is Tom Ov-Brixton in there?’ Heaving up the sash I call down. ‘Just coming.’ Tom  snorts  a  laugh,  shoves  the  last  item  into  his  bag  and  envelops me, blanket and all into a hug. ‘Sorry, I gotta go, and so sorry you can’t stay here.’ I  kiss  his  now-anxious  face.  ‘It’s  fine.  I’m  ready  to  explore  this . . . Londonia—find my way.’ ‘D’accord. They’ll be here soon-time. Tell ’em thanks for the loan of the room.’ ‘I will.’ ‘Can’t xacly take your address, can I?’ ‘Not until I get one.’ He  smiles  sadly.  ‘Write  me,  p’raps.  Ov-Brixton,  Hepping-forrist—might  find  me.  There’s  a  horse-letter-mec  what  goes  in  that direction—from Bethy-green.’ The  brassy  note  shrills  again  and  I  look  out  to  see  the  now  furious-looking man, trumpet in hand. ‘Pizzin’ come  on—got  three  more  to  pick  up  and  Clasher  territory t’get through.’ Tom  shouts  out  a  response,  hugs  me  tight  once  more  then  he’s gone, footsteps clattering on the stairs. I consider the vast everything and nothing before me. I should perhaps  layer-up  and  get  out  there  to  pace  the  streets  and  find          .  .  .  the  next  piece  of  this  life,  but  the  bed  beckons  again  even  with its biting population. The people that own these two rooms will  return  when  the  sun  is  directly  overhead  but  as  the  sky  is  once   again   a   sullen   mass   of   cloud,   it’ll   be   impossible   to   anticipate  their  arrival.  Tom  said  the  merde-mec  always  passes  late morning with his cart of shit-filled buckets, so I’ll wait until then. The bed is still warm. I burrow down into the crackling straw and sweet-stale wool covers; curl, foetus-like, try to remember—anything  from  before  these  last  few  days  of  his  kindness.  A  limpid  blankness  stares  back  at  my  mind’s  eye  before  somnolence fills my conscience. A rattling sound from the street disturbs my slumber. Merde-mec? His call affirms. ‘Bring out yer merde, an’ scraps. Egg for a pail.’ Least I can do for the owners of this place. Hopping out from the covers I cram on shoes and coat and go into the tiny kitchen. The bucket of peelings is full, the other vessel, about half, judging  by  its  weight—no  desire  to  lift  the  lid  .  .  .  I  take  them  and  join  the  other  residents  walking  down  the  stairs  with  their  own  various wastes. The conversation is of never-ending cold, a possible arrival of some charitable and benevolent outfit and scoop-trucks. As we reach the downstairs hall, I ask a man in front of me what these are. He looks at me beneath impressive eyebrows as if I am from a different planet—which I could be. ‘Just don’t be out on the street if you hear a sound like this.’ He  emits  a  wailing  cry  to  which  another  resident  prods  him—‘Nah—more  like  this.’  The  hallway  is  filled  with  eerie  moans  until an old woman clangs her pail with a walking stick. ‘Foitlin’ shut it! Don’t we fear it enough wivout you lot doin’ a re-run.’ 

(You can order the book here, or here; enjoy!)

Green Eyes: One-liners on line

Cool, folks, cool. A friend alerted us to a link on Meme to our Green Eyes franchise. It has quotes from the two books, like: "That was quick but profound; more profound than a quickie":

There are more quotes. Here, "classical-drama quotes" (we are always about everything): 

"Classical drama depends crucially on people not having cell phones."

Give it a try.

The Lambda Literary Award finalist

"Click"

Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost

Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost

Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost

Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost

Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost

Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost

Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost

Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost

Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost

Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost

Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost

Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

More quotes in Michael Ampersant's new novella, Rilke's Ghost