Who, Me? by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2001-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Instant Action: But then you wouldn’t be you any more; they change your brain and they change you; you are your

brain . . .

Piece (Twisted hope.) But you’d still be alive . . . even if you weren’t you . . . you’d still be alive . . .

Letting people slip off into the It? Instead of Heaven or Hell? First performance at a Catholic university?

I wrote a critical study of the novels of Henry James, and one day came across a copy of Charles Bukowski’s Crucifix in a Deathhand. I was totally astounded by the man’s facile use of everyday language to deal with huge, grand concepts, and wrote to the publishers down in New Orleans and they wrote back, “He’s right in L.A.., Foxy, look him up in the phone book.”

So I did, called him up.

“Hello, this is Professor Hugh Fox at Loyola University, I’ve just finished a book about Henry James and I’d like to write a book about you.”

“OK, professor, why don’t you come over tonight and we’ll see what we can do.”

Off I went to Hollywood, found the crumb-ball motel he was living in, he opened up, was happy about my wanting to do a book about him, although he never let the professor-bit go, always ironically referred to me as “professor,” which would have been fine without the irony.

The first night he gave me copies of everything he’d ever written. Had to go into the closet and get suitcases out to put the stuff into, filled up the back seat and truck of my car.

“Whenever you find duplicates, keep one . . .”

Tons of stuff.

Of course I read everything, it changed my whole approach to writing, from snobby, “educated” writing a la Aldous Huxley/Gilbert Keith Chesterton/Hilaire Belloc/Francois Mauriac/Sigrid Undset to something approximating the way they used to spill it out in the Chicago streets I grew up in.

Wrote my book, found a publisher in Boston, Abyss publications.

When I was in Caracas I started a book called Caliban and Ariel: A Comparative Cultural History of North and South America, started getting individual chapters published here and there and everywhere. My bibliography began to grow: Southern Humanities Review, Western Humanities Review, University of Michigan Review, Northwestern Review, all the good places . . .

I began to go to all sorts of parties out in the Hollywood Hills. Thanks to Brian Avery, mainly.

And you never knew who you’d meet in L.A.

Like I was at this piano recital over at Schönberg Hall at UCLA one night, intermission came, I went out into the lobby and sat down, turned to the guy next to me: the pianist Arthur Rubenstein was sitting there like some sort of gigantic porcupine.

“Arthur Rubenstein! I’m Hugh Fox, the poet—”

“But of course.”

Of course he’d never heard of me.

Or another day, at the L.A. airport, I’m getting off a plane from Peru and I see . . . no, it can’t be . . .

“Kim Novak! How ya doin’? I’m Hugh Fox, the poet—”

“Shhhhhhh! I’m in disguise, no one’s supposed to recognize me .

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