2010

21st November 2010

I was left alone, all I could do was mutely watch everything going on around me from a corner. I have not changed now. I standing in the darkest corner of a tingel tangel where I can see all the customers, the barstaff, and the girls. I sit in the darkest back corner of porn cinemas where I can see everything going on around me. This is life in the ruins. While at home I have the most sexy, beautiful woman anyone has ever seen, they would be amazed why I still need to come to these places to come. Last night she described to me how she discovered her last husband was a gambling addict, and she asked to go with him one time,

 and described how he just went into a trance, when she tried to talk to him, he turned and looked at her like he didn't know her, like a stranger, and could only mumble, not talk clearly, before turning back to his game. I recognise all of this in myself. I become dead eyed, a zombie, thinking only about my hand and my penis. Lost in a world of pleasure so sublime, raised to such an exquisite pitch that no one can break through and communicate with me. It is like an opium trance. I have always described my addiction as a gambling addiction but I gamble with my life, I will pay so much money to enter this club and let us see what sexual highs I get in return; or an opium addiction, but pornography and prostitution and strippers was my opium.

5th November 2010

"In 1893 and 1894 Gide traveled to North Africa, learning different moral and sexual conventions. At Biskra Gide fell ill and narrowly escaped death. These experiences gave basis for his psychological novels The Immoralist (1902), about the destructive force of hedonism and hunger for new experiences, and Strait is the Gate (1909), the counterpoint of the former work, or the "twin", as Gide called it. "The capacity to get free is nothing," says Mchael, the narrator of the Immoralist, "the capacity to be free, that is the task."

Phil Collins Take A Look

He related his peregrinations in a journal called Travels in the Congo (French: Voyage au Congo) and Return from Chad (French: Retour du Tchad). In this published journal, he criticized the behavior of French business interests in the Congo and inspired reform.

Les Nourritures terrestres (Fruits of the Earth, 1897), like the preceding works, was published at the author's own expense. It is the most extreme and meticulous example of Gide's early predilection for poetic prose. But it was also a breakthrough for Gide. Here he gave up irony and indirection for a positive celebration of the senses, of self- indulgence in beauty. He stopped putting off temptation, or being ashamed of it, and celebrated its savour, its liberating qualities, no longer in a tone of lamentation but with a hymn-like fervor."

4th November 2010

My books are Journals. Autismus is the journal of the start of a war against me and my trips to Munich, Vienna, Berlin, Stockholm and Norway (via the most massive masturbation of my life in the Vienna Dorint hotel! In the moment of my greatest psychological blackness I was also coincidentally or not at my absolute sexual peak). Lotta is the journal of a trip to Vienna and Venice. The Cold Icy Air of the Mountains is the journal of a series of trips to Berlin, Brussels and Munich when I broke down so many barriers and crossed so many Rubicons and passed through so many Ishtar Gates in achieving liberation. Casanova is the journal of those final sad trips to Vienna, Brussels, Frankfurt, Berlin, when liberation changed from over-ripeness to rotting decomposition and the sinning became mechanical and joyless and eventually the realisation that I wanted something real and the imminent discovery of --. 

2nd November 2010

Walser was "the "aide" of an engineer and inventor in Wädenswil near Zürich. This episode became the basis of his 1908 novel Der Gehülfe (The Assistant)."

"Apart from the novels, he wrote many short stories, sketching popular bars from the point of view of a poor "flaneur" in a very playful and subjective language. There was a very positive echo to his writings. Robert Musil and Kurt Tucholsky, among others, stated their admiration for Walser's prose, and authors like Hermann Hesse and Franz Kafka counted him among their favorite writers."

The Black Pig cries out for a painter like Grosz or Dix, or a writer like Roth.

"The larger part of his work is composed of short stories—literary sketches that elude a ready categorization. Selections of these short stories were published in the volumes Aufsätze (1913) and Geschichten (1914)."

I have to carve out some private time, drinking, and note writing.

"Walser, who had always been an enthusiastic wanderer, began to take extended walks, often by night. In his stories from that period, texts written from the point of view of a wanderer walking through unfamiliar neighborhoods alternate with playful essays on writers and artists."

"In his writing, he made use of elements of Swiss German in a charming and original manner, while very personal observations are interwoven with texts about texts; that is, with contemplations and variations of other literary works, in which Walser often mixes pulp fiction with high literature."

"'A woman is more than just her exterior. The lingerie is also important'. The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span. 'Art serves to rinse out

our eyes'. Uniquely combining humor with profundity and venom with compassion, "Dicta and Contradicta" is a bonanza of scandalous wit from Vienna's answer to Oscar Wilde. From the decadent turn of the century to the Third Reich, the acerbic satirist Karl Kraus was one of the most famous-and feared-intellectuals in Europe. Through the polemical and satirical magazine "Die Fackel" ("The Torch"), which he founded in 1899, Kraus launched wicked but unrelentingly witty attacks on literary and media corruption, sexual repression and militarism, and the social hypocrisy of fin-de-sicle Vienna. Kraus' barbed aphorisms were an essential part of his running commentary on Viennese culture. These miniature gems, as sharp as diamonds, demonstrate Kraus' highly cultivated wit and his unerring eye for human weakness, flaccidity, and hypocrisy. Kraus shies away from nothing; the salient issues of the day are lined up side by side, as before a firing squad, with such

perennial concerns as sexuality, religion, politics, art, war, and literature. By turns antagonistic, pacifistic, realistic, and maddeningly misogynistic, Kraus' aphorisms provide the sting that precedes healing. For "Dicta and Contradicta", originally published in 1909 (with the title "Spruche und Widerspruche") and revised in 1923, Kraus selected nearly 1,000 of the scathing aphorisms that had appeared in "Die Fackel". "

Karl Kraus, Apocalyptic Satirist: The Post-War Crisis and the Rise of the Swastika [Hardcover] 

South from Ephesus: Travels in Turkey [Paperback] Brian Sewell (Author) 

An Alphabet of Villains [Paperback] Brian Sewell

Speaking to the rose: writings, 1912-1932 By Robert Walser, Christopher Middleton

The Microscripts [Hardcover] Robert Walser (Author) , Susan Bernofsky (Translator), Walter Benjamin (Contributor) 

Illuminations: Essays and Reflections [Paperback] Walter Benjamin  Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings [Paperback] Walter Benjamin 

14th October 2010

The Pope puts a record on his gramophone, playing Berg, Webern, Schoenberg, then it plays Bad Romance by Lady Gaga. Airships droning over with black silkscreen pictures of Anita Berber on the sides. The saddest thing when he saw all his old favourite brothels dark and shut down, the Voltaire Restaurant between them dark and closed. Disillusion and depression. All those magic nights, were they fantasies, drunken illusions, or were they really as magical as he remembered them? Had things really got so much worse and the women so much older and uglier or were they really this bad even back then and he had just been more easily pleased? -- had raised his bar higher and before he would even consider sinning it would take a very spectacular woman and they perhaps never were that spectacular. Oh but Yulia, Riccarda, Olga, Alla, Iga, Martina, Emily, Maria--they were special weren't they? All the people who wanted --, lusted after her from place to place, and now she is mine. 

13th October 2010

When Callixtus became pope in 1455, Rodrigo decided that the Church would be a great place for him to realize his lofty ambitions. At the age of 25 in the year 1456, Rodrigo was appointed Cardinal Deacon of St. Niccolo in Carcere. The following year he was made vice-chancellor of the Holy See. The position of vice-chancellor afforded Rodrigo the opportunity to amass great wealth. After Callixtus' death in 1458, Rodrigo's star continued to rise within the church. Callixtus' successor, Pope Pius II, also supported the young cardinal. Pius did warn Rodrigo not to engage in public orgies anymore as it was 'unseemly' for a man of the cloth. Of course, it was common for cardinals, priests and other members of the Church at this time to have mistresses and sire children. Unfortunately, it seemed that Rodrigo was less discreet about it than the Church would have liked. Around the time that Cardinal Rodrigo took up with Vannozza de Cattani, the mother of four of

his seven children, including Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, who are infamous in their own right, he was appointed Cardinal-Bishop of Albano.

Once he became Pope Alexander VI, Vatican parties, already wild, grew wilder. They were costly, but he could afford the lifestyle of a Renaissance prince; as vice chancellor of the Roman Church, he had amassed enormous wealth. As guests approached the papal palace, they were excited by the spectacle of living statues: naked, gilded young men and women in erotic poses. Flags bore the Borgia arms, which, appropriately, portrayed a red bull rampant on a field of gold. Every fete had a theme. One, known to Romans as the Ballet of the Chestnuts, was held on October 30, 1501. The indefatigable Burchard describes it in his Diarium. After the banquet dishes had been cleared away, the city's fifty most beautiful whores danced with the guests, "first clothed, then naked." The dancing over, the "ballet" began, with the Pope and two of his children in the best seats. 

Candelabra were set up on the floor, scattered among them were chestnuts, "which", Burchard writes, "the courtesans had to pick up, crawling between the candles." Then the serious sex started. Guests stripped and ran out onto the floor, where they mounted, or were mounted by, the prostitutes. "The coupling took place," according to Burchard, "in front of everyone present." Servants kept score of each man's orgasms, for the Pope greatly admired virility, and measured a man's machismo by his ejaculative capacity. After everyone was exhausted, His Holiness distributed prizes -- cloaks, boots, caps, and fine silken tunics. "The winners", the diarist wrote, "were those who made love with the courtesans the greatest number of times." 

-- A World Lit Only by Fire - The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance, by William Manchester

Alexander's orgies were often attended by his illegitimate children, Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, whom Voltaire in his Philosophical Dictionary described as two of the most wicked persons in European history ...

The incestuous Pope Alexander VI and his incestuous offspring"His daughter had just turned seventeen and was at the height of her beauty. We now know that he was, in fact, her lover. ... Here, however, the tale darkens. Romans had scarcely absorbed the news that the father lusted for his daughter when they learned even more. Lucrezia was said to be unavailable to her father because she was already deeply involved in another incestuous relationship, or relationships -- a triangular entanglement with both her handsome brothers. The difficulty, it was whispered, was that although she enjoyed coupling with both of them, each, jealous of the other, wanted his sister for himself. 

On the morning of June 15, 1497, Juan Borgia's corpse was found floating in the Tiber mutilated by nine savage dagger wounds. 

-- A World Lit Only by Fire - The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance, by William Manchester

The adulterous Pope Alexander VIContemporary reports wrote of how Alexander had a passion for adultery. The best-known among his mistresses were Vannozza Catanei (mother of four of Pope Alexander's children) and Giulia Farnese whom he took as his mistress when she was 15 and he was 61. Giulia bore him two more children. 

"Borgia's enjoyment of the flesh was enhanced when the woman beneath him was married, particularly if he had presided at her wedding. Breaking any commandment excited him, but he was partial to the seventh. As priest he married Rosa to two men. She may have actually slept with her husbands from time to time -- since Borgia always kept a stable of women, she was allowed an occasional night off to indulge her own sexual preferences -- but her duties lay in his eminence's bed. Then, at the age of fifty-nine, he yearned for a more nubile partner. His parting with Rosa was affectionate. Later he gave her a little gift- he made her brother a cardinal." 

There were critics of the corruption in the church, and they invariably met gruesome deaths. Girolamo Savonarola, (1452-1498) gave marathon sermons denouncing the church's hypocrisy saying "The Papal Palace had literally become a house of prostitution where harlots sit upon the throne of Solomon and signal to the passersby. Whoever can pay enters and does what he wishes." At last, "the Pope condemned him as a heretic, sentenced him to torture, and finally had him hanged and burned in the Plaza della Signoria." 

-- A World Lit Only by Fire - The Medieval Mind and The Renaissance, by William Manchester

12th October 2010

The weekend was horribly tense because I knew I could not watch any dancing but out of it came the little Autismus book in miniature format which I love, and the idea for my new Pope book which thrills me. Is it a lesson that the tension of repression and continence are what I NEED to write? Sublimation produced two great leap forwards in my writing on Sunday--the first steps forward in four years.

I love my little Autismus book. Must do the same for Lotta, and The Cold Icy Air now. But Cold Icy needs so much work on it. Lotta I really cannot add anything to it--every word was already written and laid down on those incredible five days in Vienna. The words I write on holiday always seem to be written in blood and ready to put straight into my books. The words I wrote on this last trip to Brussels & Berlin can form the basis for the start of POPE. Travelling missing his love but hoping for some erotic eureka moment to make it worthwhile which never comes. Have him in Papal Palace all blood red back in Rome keep sneaking out to the ripe whores while she is at the Tivoli. Is there a third section? BERLIN, ROME, IBIZA? Caravaggio. Paintings of all the Pope's favourite Esmeraldas. One room filled with butterflies, night parrots, sloths, trees that burst through the ceiling. Feel excited about going to Gran Canaria or Tenerife, 9 days writing in the sun, drinking by the hotel roof swimming pool, letting the sea crash over us. From The Cold Icy Air to the hot sun of Tenerife--that is part of the arc I have travelled. Even from Berlin at the start of the Pope book to the hot summer palace looking out over the shimmering Atlantic Ocean.  

10th October 2010

I celebrate the anniversary of Pope Pius XII by being with the sex dancer -- now. This morning I was thinking dirty thoughts about putting him in a book, SEEDS OF THE POPE, or THE POPE IN BERLIN. 

"The Pope wore long red satin robe from head to foot. He wore nothing underneath. He could feell his member rolling from side to side as he walked along the massive corridor of the Berlin Palace. It felt good. "

Later they send a German girl soldier to tend to him in his room, "As she bent over her short black skirt rode up over her thighs to reveal the crack of her arse and showed his Worship that she was NOT WEARING ANY KNICKERS."

Yess!!!!!!!!!!!!

18th September 2010

Naughtiness is essential every day. Transgression is not only possible but it is beautiful. In Brussels I should have stayed the whole time in the Ibis and the Station, encrusting myself to it like a barnacle. In Murphy’s drinking and the egg & ham roll shop eating. The Ibis bar at night with my Stellas before ABC Cinema. Where can I go in London? All the time I just want to be seeing big tits. But there is nowhere in London. Let us find what double life we can. My life must revolve around priapism and sex otherwise it is nothing. The books. Work on Autismus, Lotta, The Cold Icy Air of the Mountains, Casanova, these are my Fackels, print and bind them very small. Get up early in the mornings before -- awakes to work on them, or late at night after she sleeps. That is where my future must lie, priapism and working on the books. 

I must wrest something from every day. I must put myself into an altered state of mind to make it possible for me to cross the Rubicon--every day. Whatever you do you must do it to the nth degree. When with -- love her to the nth degree, when drinking do it to the nth degree, when whoring do it to the nth degree. Nothing in moderation. There is nothing better than sitting in a bar watching people passing drinking yourself into oblivion. In oblivion you think such thoughts. You go totally inside your mind. A new regime then: I get up early on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday mornings while -- is still sleeping to be alone with my writing. 

Live in a dream of Brussels, Berlin, Munich, Vienna. Construct a fantasy in my citadel built out of my incredible memories, in the tropical ferns, classical music playing, storms outside lashing the fauna against my open French windows. This is my life now and this is the new book.

2nd September 2010

"Did I ever see Blair the worse for wear? Of course not. I didn't see Charlie Kennedy the worse for wear and whenever I drank in his company – towards the end we were looking for signs of excess – he was always careful. Friends who knew Blair better noted that he could knock it back over dinner, and after. Mostly wine. Does it matter? That depends. Blair admits being torn between the benefits of relaxation and the loss of working time which drinking caused. On balance he opted to relax. But – as with driving – decisions taken in drink aren't always the best. It works out fine if the PM can hold their liquor, as HH "Squiffy" Asquith (1908-16) could not. Nor could Anthony Eden (1955-57), who also took pills. Winston Churchill, who became PM at the depth of Britain's crisis in 1940 – at the age of 65 – drank a great deal all his long life. "I took more out of alcohol than it ever took out of me," he explained.

The question with Munich is always whether it is going to be the tawdry desperate emptiness of last visits or the magical nights of Irina, Suzy, Patricia, Emily memory; was it tawdry because I had become infatuated with Viktoriya and without that could I enjoy it? Munich was only good until I discovered Berlin though wasn't it? Only one way to find out but that must wait till October now. 

I love that Churchill quote, "I took more out of alcohol than it ever took out of me". I too feel I have taken so much out of alcohol, those amazing nights in Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Nuremberg, when I went further and further and did more than ever before, to extraordinary sensory explosions, life-changing experiences of pleasure. I took more out of sex dancing and whoring than it took out of me, people tried to destroy me for it but like Blair I developed a hardness that allowed me to "float above the demonic rabble" and enjoy it, enjoy flaunting my freedom in their jealous shrivelled faces, to enjoy playing them like a piano, to enjoy recasting their cannons into my St Stephen’s Cathedral bell. They were at my Gates, and I repelled them, in the battle of my life. An epic war told in the pages of Autismus, Lotta, The Cold Icy Air of the Mountains, Casanova. The thought of travelling again is reinvigorating my erotic and literary juices.

 

29th July 2010 

Cut a lot more out of Autismus last night, all the Oscar Wilde quotes, now it is down to 40 pages. I like it. The red cover monograph of a man under intense personal pressure, whether from society or his own internal problems or combination of both. How he finds a way through this extreme pressure and squeezes through the narrow gap, the eye of the needle to the other side, and liberation, and provocation, and flaunting, and triumphant indulgence of one's own pleasures. And how in that world he finds his true love, the woman he was meant to meet and look after, and how she then wants to pull him out of that world when he wants to stay in it at the same time as looking after her; but that for a later book! How to talk about it in a displaced Semele-style way? Citadelesque? A man will not stop taking his drug even though he has got the woman of his dreams now.