"I'd be keen to see the state of your tongue after tryin' to wrap it around such a contradictory set of musings."
And me too, I'm soon thinking. And me too.
"But enough of the style" says Beautiful Ms Gillian the following evening, "What of this substance?" She says this to me whilst the pair of us are stood about a pool table in a bar a shit fling's shy of the university. She says this and thank God for that, for if she hadn't I could've spent another twelve paragraphs talking about how much most of the mercifully-brief dream-sequences annoyed me and what have you and afore you know where you are you've got a Negative Review, you've got Three of a possible Nine stars and no, that would be wrong, for I enjoyed Beat Angel immensely.
Principal to my enjoyment was the writing, fittingly enough, but I'll concern myself with that in due course, for first of all a man must rightly applaud the central performance of Mr Vincent Balestri. The central performance of Mr Vincent Balestri is a thing of no small wonder, right enough, straddling that line 'twixt cute caricature and Proper Performance with incredible, assured grace, much like Phillip Seymour Hoffman managed in Capote, a film about, if my sources are accurate, celebrated author Dean Koontz.
The Voice, specifically, is eerily accurate. Thon banter-patterns are spot-on, all monotone stretches all a sudden set upon by manic, 'lectric charges of jiving, evangelistic delirium, and then again with the drooping and the slouching of the vowels and the shit-myself-waddle of the consonants.
"Would you say he's the stand out then?" Ms Gillian enquires as she pots the black for to shame the five red blotches still looming out the green on account of I'm crap at pool. "No, on account of I'm exceptionally good."
"Fair enough. And yes, Balestri is the man the eyes crave and the ears pine for throughout much of every scene. Although, in saying that, the other principals are by no means a pox on the fine profession of the acting. For sure, there's the odd line delivery here and there has a fella pickin' splinters out his ears for a fortnight, but now and then they right blossom, they do. Soon, a fella's noting the sadness in your painter woman's eyes, the flickering of both naivety and uncertainty in the shrug of the young scribbler's shoulders and the curious amalgam of sorrow and resentment and spite and affection all flushing about Tabbita's well-slung jowls."
And then, as I hinted up yonder, there's the writing.
The poetry let loose now and then for to thunder about the screen like a herd o' buffalo afire with rabies and with Christ… the funny, altogether right touching slabs of biographical anecdote related with much color and charm and wit every so often… the grand banter about Kerouac was a God, no, he was a twat matter of fact, no, he wasn't etc etc… All of it, most every syllable, is glorious. Refreshing and thought-provoking and sore beguiling, and by the punctured palms o' Padre Pio it's liable for to leave a man with fierce erection of the brains, or a touch o' cerebral panty-weep, if'n you're perchance a lady.
Article comments
1 - Jon Sobel
Cerebral panty-weep indeed. Holy garbanzo beans! You've out-diddly-diddled yourself with this essay, my man.
2 - El Bicho
[with both hands snap out a rhythm of your chosing]
Duke, pay no attention to those faux elitst bastards, I say. They show how dim and phony they truly are because any true literary snob would know that instead of "you've never heard it read 'till you've heard it read on acid," they should be saying, "you've never heard 'On The Road' read 'till you've heard it read on Benzedrine," or "you've never heard 'Naked Lunch' read 'till you've heard it read on junk with a naked young man in your bed."
Regards,
A former reader of "On The Road" and "Howl" and I don't care who knows it.
3 - Duke De Mondo
Ha! Damn right, El Bicho. I dare say my bitterness was heightened somewhat on account of knowing full well the joy of hearing, say, ol' Will reading Junky through that fugg of a cracklin', slurrin' throat. But a man can hardly let anyone hear tell of it in public anymore.
by god, maybe it's time to reclaim the beats? and whilst we're at it, we'll reclaim Dylan and Revolver by The Beatles (the record most sorely put upon by those fiends) and maybe even some of Timothy Leary's scribbles. Certainly it's high time The Doors Of Perception by Aldous Huxley was plucked back out the hands of the Morrison Heads.
i smell a revoloution... A revolverlution. Isn't that a Public Enemy song? i dare say Chuck D's heard many's a man tell him about reading Heaven And Hell on Peyote.
And Jon! I'm altogether very glad you dug it, man! thank you!
4 - Howard Dratch
Your Review Card is safe, is surely good for a time more. It is, I think, a special edition of Review Cards honored for entertaining and finding something lost.
The Ms. Gillian knows her stuff, too, and makes me wish I was young and somewhere near Ireland, she does.
"I think you should watch it" she says. "You love Jack Kerouac. You dig the purple parpin' of a bop-fried trumpet of an evening. You're pretentious and self-obsessed. Go for it."
This story of the writer-poet of the Fifties sounds interesting and I will put it on my list of "bop-fried trumpet(s)" (a special, Irish dish, I presume), but I fear I might like the review better than the reviewed.
It is the reviewing of the reviewed that charms and "by God it has a right savage way with the words".
5 - Duke De Mondo
Mr Dratch, i am very pleased you found this screed to be pleasing to your eyes and ears. now, i must say, i think you might well enjoy yourself a right giddy while if you give that particular motion picture a go, and i can reccomend with no fear of comeuppance that you put it on one of thoes netflix lists or whatever folks do nowadays instead of heading down the VHS Dive of an evening.
And as to Beautiful Ms Gillian, it took manys a month and year of wandering to uncover the like, and so for this reason i will say nowt to her of the sophisticated lad by the name of Howard who sung her praises just this afternoon.
ach, i will indeed say, but i'll have a fine witticism waiting far-side of it so as she doesn't go bounding off for Mr Dratch!
thank you again, sir
6 - ms gillian
wonderful! as always! :)
7 - Fearon
I have read Howl thrice or more over and am amidst on the road and have naked lunch ordered as I intend to read everything that generation has to offer myself