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

Rilke's Ghost -- "A word journey unlike anything you have ever done."

Another review is in, and it's by the fabled review-veteran Amos Lassen: 

I always look forward to something new from Michael Ampersant because he not only entertains but he provokes us to think. That is what good literature is all about as far as I am concerned. Even in this ghost story, I spent more time thinking about it than I did reading it. In just 23 pages Ampersant opens a whole new world for us.

Amos Lassen

I fell in love with the wit of the prose and the attempts to answer whether this really happened. More than that I can’t say except that we are taken a word journey unlike anything you have ever done. More than that I cannot say without ruining the reading experience. Find a half an hour and lose yourself in this delightful read.

Judge yourself:

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Quote--unquote -- Rilke's Ghost

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

Rilke's Ghost -- "Chang has to feed the hungry FaceBook beast"

We've started working on an ad campaign for our new novella, Rilke's Ghost, fashioned along the lines of our previous campaigns, adding quotes from the text to an odd picture. Here's one preliminary result:

And here's the corresponding fragment. Having fled Duino, where we stirred Rilke's ghost with a Google-translation of his poems, we now summer in Bürchen, in the Swiss Valais region, only a stone throw away from the grave of the poet: 

The village of Bürchen is wonderful, 1,600 meters up on the Alp, and so much cooler than the muggy summer-Riviera (the road up to Bürchen was finished in 1934—-the preceding thousand years the villagers were left to their own devices). There is only one problem: Rainer Maria is buried nearby, yes, Rilke, in Raron, a small, historic town right beneath Bürchen down in the valley. We’ve given Raron a wide berth so far, but Chang is playing the social networks and has to feed the hungry Facebook beast. His Korean followers can’t get enough of snow-topped mountains and geranium-studded chalets, and the 24-hour cycle dictates daily posting. We’ve ravaged the entire region already—-natives of many cultures believe that you steal their image when you take their picture—-along those lines we’ve grabbed photons until nothing seems to be left of the Valais—from the Matterhorn via the James-Bond-historic-marker up on the Furka pass to the longest glaciers and highest vineyards of Europe—-save Raron.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Chang asks. Of course, we don’t. And it’s a sunny, wonderful day, and Rilke is interred in a vault on the southern side of the Burgkirche, which itself is built on a rock hundred meters above the floor of the valley. The views would be fantastic, and a light breeze would play with the pages of the tourist guide which tells about the local Rilke-wine and the XIIth-century town hall next to the church. A Rilke Pfad leads up there. Half-way there’s a bench. “Remember the bench?” I ask. We sit down. And now I have a really bad idea. I google for “Rilke translations,” and the first entry connects to a learned article by a certain Marjorie Perloff...





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Rilke's Ghost -- the first review

Cool, folks, we've got the first Amazon review for "Rilke's Ghost", and it's Five Stars:


James Beamon
5.0 out of 5 starsLoads of fun
October 3, 2019
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a very enjoyable ghost story, full of charm, wit, great touches of humor and a perpetual meta question of "did this really happen?" and "what's up with this priest?!" Ampersant takes you on a scenic journey, one where I for one learned quite a bit of European history along the way. Definitely worth picking up.




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Rilke's Ghost

We're trying to clear our desk in anticipation of the line-edit of "Dolly" (the play), and so we've finally managed to put our new short story Rilke's Ghost  up on Amazon. And it's a real story---at least the beginning is true-true. 

The blurb is as follows: 

While visiting the lovely town of Duino on the Adriatic Italian coast, Michael provoked the wraith of the legendary German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, by applying Google-translate to the wordsmith's famed "Duineser Elegien" (Elegies from the Castle of Duino). Now Michael spends the summer in Switzerland, in a chalet only three kilometers away from the grave of the poet. Will Michael be stupid enough to challenge Rilke again, thus unleashing the most sophisticated ghost story of modern history, including an exorcism of serendipitous proportions...?

We'll have two or three posts about this; here's the first one, with the story's opening:

I still see myself sitting there as a boy on the greenly-striped couch of my parents in Berlin, Germany, reading Rilke, Rainer Maria (1875-1926), Bohemian poet, best known for his “Duineser Elegien” (Elegies from the castle of Duino). I read only the first two elegies then, but still, I went with the flow and was impressed.

*°*

Chang and I moved to the French Riviera where we rent our house to holiday makers. We got a surprise booking in April and decided to visit Croatia, a new country that isn’t too far away and reasonably cheap. Chang collects countries; he’s never been there. Bonus: on the way we’d have to cross Slovenia, yet another nation missing from his collection. We would drive non-stop the nine hours from Cannes to Croatia but should stay overnight somewhere on the way back, someplace nice. So Chang went on the internet and suggested a town between Venice and Trieste, on the Adriatic coast. A hotel without a view, budget-friendly. “How’s the place called?” I asked. 
“Dunno,” he said. “No, not Dunno, Du-i-no.”
Dui-no…Du-i-no…haven’t we heard of Duino before? On the Adriatic coast? “Chang! Rilke! Duineser Elegien! Chang, we must stay there.” 
“Rilke?” 
“Rilke!” 

Duino is off motorway A4. We descended into a villa town and got lost because budget-friendly hotels are hard to find. There is a ludicrous little beach attached to a harbour of a few fishing boats and a pier doubling as boardwalk; three restaurants, the castle (tower, battlements), and a university, ie, a small building labeled Collegio Sapienza Rainer Maria Rilke with lots of kids milling outside speaking American and a concierge inside who knew the directions to our hotel. 

It was still a bit early in the afternoon, so we would have a nap in the budget-friendly double bed. We should have had a nap, that is, the room was quiet and reasonably dark, save for a distant wailing, a sound like “Oohh, oohh”--a human voice almost that appeared to come from nowhere--“oohh.” Not a typical hotel sound you’d say. And it wasn’t going away. “Oohh.” Impossible to fall sleep. We should complain. We should get up, descend the noisy stairwell and thwack the bell on the reception desk. And, of course, the moment the manager appeared the wailing was gone. 

So we had to explain. “Bizarro,” the receptionist said. “Oohh,” I intoned to give her an idea. “Insolito,” she said and shook her head. “Oohh,” Chang intoned. “Pronto,” she said and answered the telephone.

(To repeat, this really happened; it's true-true)

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Green Eyes --- German Translation

Not sure we ever told you, but we found a publisher for the German translation of the Green Eyes. Together with the translator, Xenia Melzer, we've been quietly working on said translation during the last couple of months, and now we are getting somewhere. Two more passes through the text, two more weeks, perhaps, and we are done.

It was quite an experience, and I'll reflect on it soon in another post. Here's just a sample, the crucial paragraph in the last chapter where Alex explains why---for heavens sake, WHY---he loves John. The English original is underneath.

And the picture? We'll that's just the view from our house this morning (click on it for a larger version)

„Also, John, lass uns durchstarten. Du würdest nicht wollen, dass ich dich liebe, nur weil Alice es mir gesagt hat?“
„Nein.“
„Und du würdest nicht wollen, dass ich dich liebe, weil es dir zu sehr wehtun würde, wenn ich es nicht täte?“
„Was?“
„Würdest du jemanden lieben, nur weil er dich liebt?“
„Wahrscheinlich nicht.“
„Würdest du jemanden lieben, weil er dich von den Toten erweckt hat?“
„Amy-Lou hat dich von den Toten erweckt.“
„Sie sagte, du hättest es getan.“
„Sie hat es getan. Sie hat dich wiederbelebt.“
„Sie sagte, es war dein Kuss. Du hast mich zurück ins Leben geküsst.“
„Ich habe dich nicht ins Leben zurückgeküsst. Ich habe einen Kuss auf deine Stirn gedrückt, um mich zu verabschieden. Du warst zu dem Zeitpunkt tot.“
„Ich habe also recht.“
„Wie?“
„Du hast mich nicht zurück ins Leben geküsst, Amy-Lou hat mich nicht von den Toten erweckt. Q.E.D. Ich bin im Himmel. Alles ist Himmel. Sogar du bist der Himmel, jemand der mich nicht betrügt trotz der herausfordernden Umstände eines BDSM-Calls.“
„Ebenso wie Amy-Lou und Alice. Wenn es nach deiner Logik geht.“
„Die mich auch nicht betrogen haben.“
„Du weißt, was ich meine. Warum solltest du mich lieben?“
„Weil du, John, einzigartig unter uns Engeln bist. Du bist der einzige Engel, der meine Liebe braucht. Der sie will. Warum sollte ich dich nicht lieben? Wir sind zusammen im Himmel. Hier gehen Wünsche in Erfüllung.“
„Das habe ich nicht gewusst.“
„Jetzt weißt du es“, sagt er und rollt wieder mit dem Kopf.

And here's the English original:

“So, John, let’s reset. You wouldn’t want me to love you because Alice told me to do so?”
“No.”
“And you wouldn’t want me to love you because it would hurt you too much if I don’t?”
“Huh?”
“Let’s simplify. Would you love somebody because he loves you?”
“Possibly not.”
“Would you love somebody because he brought you back from the dead?”
“Amy-Lou brought you back from the dead.”
“She said you did.”
“She did. She performed the CPR.”
“She said it was your kiss. You kissed me back to life.”
“I didn’t kiss you back to life. I planted a kiss on your forehead to say goodbye. You were dead then.”
“So, I’m right then.”
“How?”
“You didn’t kiss me back to life, Amy-Lou didn’t bring me back from the dead. Q-E-D. I’m in heaven. Everything is heaven. Even you are heaven, not cheating on me despite the challenging circumstances of an out-call.”
“And so are Amy-Lou, and Alice. According to your logic.” 
“Who didn’t cheat on me either.” 
“You know what I mean. Why should you love me?”
“Because, John, you are unique among us angels. You are the only angel who needs my love. Who wants it. Why shouldn’t I love you back? We’re in heaven together. Wishes are fulfilled in here.” 
“I didn’t know.”

“Now you do,” he says and rolls his head again. 

The man from Dior

Cool, folks we have a new flash story out on Gay Flash Fiction. And what's even better...it's hassle-free. Except for 17 words, you don't have to read it. This is how it ends:

Give it a try!

Best gay erotica of the year -- Renaissance Miracles -- teaser

Cool folks, we have a short story in Best Gay Erotica of the Year (IV) which is out now, published by Cleis Press, the notorious imprint.

As the title suggests, the stories are extremely adult, including Michael's, so it's not so easy to find a short passage that rhymes with the PG-rated content of this blog. Okay, here...

Jamie and Dex, the notorious couple, find themselves rooming in the Savoy Palace Hotel of Florence, where the former, an unassuming math genius, takes private lessons with the mysterious Professore Pellegrini. They've run out of money, and a convenient sexual arrangement between Dex and Luigi, the hotel manager, is upended by Savoy's new, all-knowing booking system. Dex starts a career as rent boy, and is remunerated with a very sizable check from his very first customer--a veritable billionaire--for having public sex in the Uffizi, the museum...Dex narrating: 

So, I hurry home—if you have to call a hotel you home, sadly—eager to settle the Savoy Palace bill once and for all. Luigi, the reception manager, is still on duty. I hand him the check. He raises his brows. “Giovanni di Cristallo,” he reads up. “A mineral water. Let’s see.” His eyes travel to a small, yet articulate toy robot that sits on the reception desk and doubles as digital reader of Savoy’s all-knowing reservation system. Luigi presents the check to the reader. 
“Ah ah ah,” the robot snickers. “Ah, ah, ah. Giovanni di Cristallo. Risanto. Another mineral water.”
“I knew it,” Luigi exclaims, trying not to snicker himself.
“What is it,” I ask. “Anything wrong with the check?”
“Cristallo…well, the name is new,” he answers, “but it gives him away. He used to call himself Fabia, or Grazia, or Pellegrini…He sports a distinctive Roman nose, è vero?”
“Yes.”
“Still quite young? Fuckable, save for the nose? Dressed like a billionaire in Bond-Street fashion?”
“Yes.”
“He’s an impostor, a poseur. But he’s more when he rises to the occasion. He becomes a true make-belief artist, someone in the tradition of Houdini, Ponzi, and Donaldo Trump. Believe me.”
“He makes his money as an impostor?”
“The old-fashioned way. He spent three months in our hotel not paying a cent—room and board and Martinis and cum and everything—well, you know how it is. I still remember his nose on my underbelly. I’m a bit ticklish. Meravigliosa. That was before we got the new reservation system.”
“Well,” I say, “he didn’t make any money from me.”
“What did he do, then?” 

---

"Artful intercourse is all the rage"

---

I tell him the Uffici story.
“Mmmh,” he says, tapping his fingers on the reception counter. “A new beesiness model. Wouldn’t have worked fifteen years ago, when people still frowned upon smuttiness and raunch. But these days? Grab them by the pussy. The Volpe network, you say? Never heard of it. But there’s the deeep internet where he can vend his wares. Under the Annunciation! Artful intercourse is all the rage. A brilliant idea. A brilliant guy, I told you.” He grips my arm and rolls his eyes the way Italian hotel managers roll their eyes. “If I were you I would be careful, though. Giovanni has a dark side. You may have had a chance to observe his anatomical peculiarity during you leetle get-together under the Annunciation?”
“You mean that nose?” I ask disingenuously.
“You know what I mean,” Luigi replies. “A problem not uncommon in Florence. With all those renaissance willies around us, many a young man develops a penis complex so profound that he becomes unable to unfold his virilia into distinctive proportions. You understand?” 
“Yes. No.”

“But Giovanni,” Luigi continues, “has turned his complex into a twisted, nay perverted advantage. He poses as sexologist on the internet, promising healing to youngsters with erotic or other relational problems. If he finds a taker, he invites the lad to Florence and fills him up with talk as to how true satisfaction is best achieved with very smallish organs. You understand?” 

Any questions? Find the answers here.

The best of LGBT fiction 2018

Cool, folks, we're on Amos Lassen's influential The best of LGBT Fiction 2018 list with The Fountain of Geneva. TADA.

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I don't think we ever published a teaser of the Fountain. Alex and John of GREEN EYES fame have married and flown to Europe for their honeymoon trip. They find themselves in Geneva, where Richard Zugabe, the librarian of the Geneva City Archives, shares the secret story of the fountain---the "largest ejaculation on the planet"---which was commissioned by Roman emperor Hadrian to celebrate the most spectacular moment of his love life. Here are a few lines from the introduction:

“You boys have possibly heard of Hadrian, the Roman emperor from 117 through 138 AD. Hadrian was a spectacular personality, highly intelligent, schooled in the gymnasia of his native Spain and the philosophical academies of Greece, widely beloved as a ruler—-especially after his death—-and famous for his liaison with the Greek youth Antinous.”

(Yes, we heard of him, sort-of.)

“Antinous drowned during a pleasure cruise on the River Nile in 130 AD. It took Hadrian a lot of casual sex to get over this loss—-read Marguerite Yourcenar’s biography if you don’t believe me—-so he traveled the length and breadth of his realm to meet new people. Eventually he passed through Geneva, then a secondary town on the border of Helvetica with access to the mysterious, largely unexplored Alps. Geneva had been the butt of jokes for quite some time because Julius Caesar had visited the place once and—-preceded by his reputation—-been presented with a special welcoming present, a young slave of Nordic extraction, blue eyes, blond hair, oh-my-god body, and special training in the erotic arts. Caesar, to the despair of the town’s aldermen, had given the boy one casual glance, ignored him forthwith, and sold him off to the highest bidder. Aldermanly careers were cut short, people had to spend more time with their families, enfin, the whole empire knew about Ceasar’s snub, possibly the only thing the whole empire knew about Geneva; I’m not making this up.

Looking at Hadrian irreverently --- a new review of "The Fountain"

Amos Lassen

Cool, folks, there's a new review of "The Fountain" out, and it's by LGBT-lit-authority Amos Lassen. He normally reviews people like Hanna Arendt and Albert Einstein. And now this: 

I had a great time reading this new and revised history of Hadrian in Geneva. Ampersant is a wonderful satirist and he writes so casually you actually feel like you are having a conversation with him. I am sure that there are some historical facts here (...) This is so unbelievable, it must be true: Roman Emperor Hadrian---yes, him of the liaison with the Greek youth Antinous---is asked to help the Swiss with a crazy, all-male Nordic tribe (...) I can promise you that you will have quite a few laughs.

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The fountain of Geneva --- reviews

We were supposed to put some meat on the last post and share our thoughts about the "The New Dark Age"---that's you and me and Donald Trump and the internet (which he invented)---as seen by the British author James Bridle, the writer who alerted us to the video clip of the previous post. Instead, we got a new five-star review of our novella, mercifully short, and since we forgot to talk about its first review we'll post it as well. Both are on Amazon.

Here goes:

Roma
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sexy, quirky and highly imaginative

Format: Kindle Edition

I adored this short story. Loved the poetic language with fun dialogue and vivid descriptions along with a cast of memorable, sexy fauns. A delicious, irreverent portrayal of Hadrian, all-powerful emperor and lusty lover of a boy lost.

James Beamon
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fun and tawdry bit of history

Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

This was a really fun look at an aspect of the Roman Emperor Hadrian's time in Geneva, which amounts to one of the most zany sexual conquests I've ever read. Michael Ampersant delivers the story mostly through dialogue, which provides a very casual feel as if an eccentric neighbor is telling you this crazy wild happening in history while you were just minding your business. Grasping some of the surrounding details may require some Googling or a passion for history, but the core is very clear and concise. Well worth the buck just so you can know the story and can tell it to others!

The Fountain of Geneva -- now out as Kindle book on Amazon

Ever wondered about the Fountain of Geneva, the world's foremost liquid monument? Michael has all the answers you need, now out as quick read on Amazon:

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"Grab your copy of this fun, sexy, and very cheeky short story featuring our dear Emperor Hadrian." --- JP Kenwood

"This is a really fun look at an aspect of the Roman Emperor Hadrian's time in Geneva, which amounts to one of the most zany sexual conquests I've ever read. Michael Ampersant delivers the story mostly through dialogue, which provides a very casual feel as if an eccentric neighbor is telling you this crazy wild happening in history while you were just minding your business. Grasping some of the surrounding details may require some Googling or a passion for history, but the core is very clear and concise. Well worth the buck just so you can know the story and can tell it to others!" --- James Beamon

This Is Heaven -- for the record

We've started some sort of add campaign for This Is Heaven on LustSpiel, much of which is NSFW. He's one post that's OK (dunno why it's blurred here):

More of this in Michael Ampersant's This Is Heaven

In eigener Sache

Perry Brass

The eponymous Perry Brass shared the link to Death on the Beach, and wrote:

My friend Michael Ampersant's story "Death on the Beach" has just been published at a site called Transnational Queer Underground. Michael's work—his original language is German—has often reminded me of Vladimir Nabokov—they both have a pristine functionality to their English that opens up amazing vistas and places where forbidden desires become reality.

Well, hope springs eternally.

Death on the beach

By Michael Ampersant

We have a new story out in TRANSNATIONAL QUEER UNDERGROUND (whatever that means).  And like so many of our shorts, it's almost true (only the punch "line" is fiction). Serious first-time material, folks. NSFW. Here's how it starts:

Zeeland is a collection of islands nestled in the delta of the Rhine river. There are beaches, and the nearest one from our house is-—or was-—ten minutes on the bike. Zeeland was famously gereformeerd then-—prudish-Calvinistic-—and there was no animo for the naked beaches they had up north near Amsterdam. So, our seashore had changing facilities, clapboard cabins with a fore room, closet hooks, doors, locks, and a plank running along the wall of the main room serving as a bench.

Original illustration by Heather Sinclair

I had just turned twelve. Something had happened to me during the winter, and when I went for the first swim of the new season, something had happened to the dude--not always the same one--that was hanging out there. You would show up, he’d gaze at you, conspicuously, then disappear into the dunes. In previous years I had ignored him, but this time I couldn’t fail to pay attention. His gaze did something to me. It was like a loopy ditty in my ear that followed me as I biked home. And I knew I wouldn’t tell Mom.

Continues here. Give it a try!