Geniuses Together : American Writers in Paris in the 1920s (9780571309412) by Carpenter Humphrey

Author:Carpenter, Humphrey [Humphrey Carpenter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571309412
Publisher: Perseus Book Group
Published: 2013-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

fifth’s deep purring biceps, the mystic screech

of Broadway, the trivial stink of rich

frail firm asinine life …

the little barbarous Greenwich perfumed fake

And most, the futile fooling labyrinth

where noisy colours stroll …

When Cummings left the army in January 1919 he went straight back to the Village, this time moving into a garret up seventy-four stairs with no running water or heating.

Cowley and his friends intended to ‘continue the work begun in high school, of training ourselves as writers’ in the Village. Despite the need to get jobs and earn money, the dislocation of war had left them with ‘a vast unconcern for the future and an enormous appetite for pleasure’, and for a time sheer hedonism prevailed. ‘We danced to squeaky victrola records … we had our first love affairs … we were continually drunk with high spirits, transported by the miracle of no longer wearing a uniform’. Cowley recalls how the Villager would

wake at ten o’clock between soiled sheets in a borrowed apartment … On the dresser was a half-dollar borrowed the night before from the last guest to go downstairs singing … enough to buy breakfast for two … When the second pot of coffee was emptied a visitor would come, then another; you would borrow fifty-five cents for the cheapest bottle of [bootlegged] sherry. Somebody would suggest a ride across the bay to Staten Island. Dinner provided itself, and there was always a program for the evening. On Fridays there were dances in Webster Hall attended by terrible uptown people who came to watch the Villagers at their revels … On Saturdays everybody gathered at Luke O’Connor’s saloon … On Sunday nights there were poker games … There were always parties, and if they lasted into the morning they might end in a ‘community sleep’: the mattresses were pulled off the beds and laid side by side on the floor … so that a dozen people could sleep there in discomfort … Always, before going to bed, you borrowed fifty cents for breakfast.

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