Tosh Berman's Blog, page 211

October 7, 2014

October 7, 2014

I’m nervous.  I have read that the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced on Thursday October 9 at 1PM (CET).  I feel my whole life has reached this point, and either I win the prize or I don’t. “If I die, I die.” The moment is almost here, and I have so many thoughts in my head.  For one, some writers just write for themselves.  Others, if they’re lucky get paid for the words that appear on a page, but for me, the only reason I do write is the thought of getting the Nobel Prize.

My entire life has been one type of failure after another. It’s too sad to list them all here, but I feel that the world doesn’t give a damn about me.  I noticed my friends on Facebook have been dwelling in lower numbers, like they’re tired of me.  Also my blog has been getting less attention as well. It is a slow death of sorts, where even when I’m in exile in Tokyo, I find myself only looking at my reflection in numerous store windows.  I tend to have my meals in fast food restaurants near train stations - for instance I’m quite fond of eating places around Meguro Station.  My lack of Japanese is perfectly suitable that I can just point in the menu and nod my head. Restaurants that have fully illustrated menus tend to be a tad cheaper than the ones who don’t have pictures on their menus.  So being idiotic and kind of stupid regarding my lack of language skills is actually financially helpful here.  Nevertheless I spent a great deal of time reading about the gossip and rumors that are surrounding this year’s Nobel Prize for literature.

Haruki Murakami has been pointed out again and again that he is likely to be the winner this year.  If this happens, I don’t know what I will do.  It is like I spent my entire life, 60 years, working towards a goal, and then having that snatched away by a second-rate writer… well, it’s unthinkable.

Some years ago, when I was in my room working on my life-long memoir “My Struggle” (which title has been stolen by a Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgård, and is now an international bestseller) I had nothing but dreams of excepting the Nobel. In fact, every year for the past 35 years, I have written an acceptance speech.  I have fifteen notebooks, all written by hand, the acceptance speech that may not actually happen.  I was just so depressed during this time, that I actually suffered from nervous disorders of all sorts. The worst thing that happened to me was that I went to a showing of “Taxi Driver” and refused to leave the theater till they show it again.  That day I sat through four showings.  Finally the police came and they physically removed me from the theater.  It was at that time, I realized that I needed some professional help.



Through connections within my family, I imagined to have a meeting with the famous psychiatrist R. D. Laing.   He examined me throughly and asked numerous questions.  He made a peculiar statement to me: “Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent.” I didn’t know how to respond to that comment, so I told him what was illing me.  I told him that I write, and I only write, so I can win the Nobel Prize.  Without that prize, I’m nothing.  A waste of space in an overcrowded world.  But, and it’s a big BUT - if I can somehow win this prize, then my life will have meaning - not only to me, but to others who know my name.   As I talked, he wrote in a notebook.   After I finished my rant, he got up from his chair, to look out the window.  He then picked up his telephone and asked if I was hungry, I said no.  He then asked whether it was OK for him to order some food.  I said “sure.” I overheard him ordering a Scotch pie, which is usually a small double-crust meat pie filled with minced meat.   It seems as though you can hold the pie with your hands while eating and therefore popular with people who work behind a desk.



He approached me and sat right on the left side of me.  He spoke very quietly and told me that “insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.” Which of course means to me the chance that I won’t get the award.  “There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.” All of a sudden there was a knock on the door, and it was one of his assistants, who delivered the Scotch pie.  He thanks the assistant and came back and told me, while munching on his pie that “in a world full of danger, to be potentially seeable object is to be consistently exposed to danger.  Self-consciousness, then, may be the applehensive awareness of oneself as potentially exposed to danger by the simple fact of being visible to others.” He took another bite and then went on.  “The obvious defense against such a danger is to make oneself invisible in one way or another.” We both sat in silence and the only noise in the room was him eating the pie.



“You see Tosh, we are effectively destroying ourselves by violence masquerading as love.” Again, more silence, and then I asked him: “What do you think are the odds in me getting the Nobel Prize?” He then put his hand on my shoulder, and gently shook his head. “Time will tell Tosh.” I left his office with the feeling of depression as a winter coat over my shoulder.  We all now wait for the conclusion that will be my sad, yet pathetic life.

October 6, 2014

October 6, 2014

“To create architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Function and objects.” In the end of the day, right before I close my eyes to go to another part of my world, I think of my objects. Right now in Tokyo, due to space and expenses I have pretty much nothing. “The home should be the treasure chest of living.” A passport, my laptop and that’s it.  I’m interested in staying in my room which is tatami mat with one large window looking outside, and a smaller window looking out at displayed plants.  What more do I need in life?




Weather here changes in such a rapid pace, that I don’t know if it will rain or turn into a fierce bitter sunlight.   Once I leave the doorstep, I usually choose to go back in.  I can’t deal with change in such a rapid manner.  Also I love the design of my room.  It is just big enough for two futons, and that leaves five inches for storage or things.  Or as Le Corbusier says “objects.” Being here I feel like I’m stripping away my life, not to renew my existence, but to finally destroy it.  At the moment, I have only images of the artist Méret Oppenheim, because I find her erotic.  If there is a chance that I can build up myself again, I want to do so by meditating on her sexuality.



Man Ray took these incredible images of her naked among a large printing press.  Machinery is often sexual, but with the addition of her body, it becomes almost explosively fantastic.  But as they say in various songs, it is not her body, but her eyes that expresses an adventure of a sensual kind.  I imagine her in my room here in Tokyo. More as an object than anything else.  Owing to the fact that I really have nothing else, but me and my shadow.



The zen like intensity of a thousand electric guitars playing at once is swelling in my head, and I think I see something spiritual in front of me, and it is the image of Méret, but one has to go beyond that, and think of what love is, which obviously, isn’t the case here.  To be confined to one’s thoughts and just reflecting on the space in the room, and her place in that room, is really silly.  It is best that I go out and tackle the music of the traffic and go window shopping.  Draw up a list of things that I want, and then be satisfied that I can come back to these windows, the eyes, which are the windows to my soul.

TamTam Books Title List on D.A.P. and Throughout the World

Lun*na Menoh: A Ring Around The CollarPublished by TamTam Books
Introduction by Leslie Dick.For 14 years, Los Angeles–based artist, fashion designer and musician Lun*na Menoh has been exploring the many unexpected possibilities of the dirty shirt collar, producing paintings, sculptures, music, DVDs, performance art and fashion shows inspired by this lowly, ubiquitous aspect of clothing. The collar is a fashion boundary--the dividing line between what is hidden by clothing and the body that emerges from the cloth--and the stains commonly found there often confound sartorial panache, a fact which Menoh takes as the mischievous starting point for her work. Lun*na Menoh: A Ring Around the Collardocuments the paintings included in this series, as well as Menoh’s performance art and fashion shows. Included with this book is a flexi-disc with two songs by the artist’s band, Les Sewing Sisters, and an introduction by acclaimed author Leslie Dick.

The Death InstinctPublished by TamTam Books
By Jacques Mesrine. Introduction by Robert Greene. Translation by Robert Greene, Catherine Texier.France's Public Enemy Number One from the late 1960s to the end of the 1970s--when he was killed by police in a sensational traffic shootout--Jacques Mesrine (1936–1979) is the best-known criminal in French history. Mesrine was notorious both for his violent exploits and for the media attention he attracted, and he remains very much a public media figure in France and Europe. In 2008 there were two feature-length films based on his life, one of them starring Vincent Cassel in the lead role. Mesrine wrote The Death Instinctwhile serving time in the high-security prison La Santé; the manuscript was smuggled out of the prison and was later published by Guy Debord's publisher Gérard Lebovici (who briefly adopted Mesrine's daughter, Sabrina, before being assassinated, a few years after Mesrine). The Death Instinct deals with the early years of Mesrine's criminal life, including a horrifically graphic description of a murder he committed early on in his career and a highly detailed account of the workings of the French criminal underworld--making this book perhaps one of the most intriguing and detailed anthropological studies of a criminal culture ever written.

Red GrassPublished by TamTam Books
By Boris Vian. Introduction by Marc Lapprand. Translation by Paul Knobloch.Boris Vian (1920–1959) was a magnificent jack-of-all-trades--actor, jazz critic, engineer, musician, playwright, songwriter, translator--not to mention the leading social light of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés scene. His third major novel, Red Grass is a provocative narrative about an engineer, Wolf, who invents a bizarre machine that allows him to revisit his past and erase inhibiting memories. A frothing admixture of Breton, Freud, Carroll, Hammett, Kafka and Wells, Red Grass is one of Vian’s finest and most enduring works, a satire on psychoanalysis--which Vian wholly and vigorously disapproved of--that inflects science fiction with dark absurdity and the author’s great wit. Much in the novel can be regarded as autobiography, as our hero attempts to liberate himself from past traumatic events in the arenas of religion, social life and--of course--sex. Red Grass is translated by Vian scholar Paul Knobloch.

In The Words of Sparks...Selected LyricsPublished by TamTam Books
Edited by Ron Mael, Russell Mael. Introduction by Morrissey.Sparks--the long-running duo of Ron and Russell Mael--are among the most respected songwriters of their generation, their songs ranking alongside those of Ray Davies (The Kinks having been a formative influence), George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim. Formed in Los Angeles in 1971, Sparks have issued over 20 albums and scored chart hits with songs such as “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us,” “Cool Places” and “Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth.” While their musical style has changed dramatically over the course of 40 years--embracing the British Invasion sound of the 60s, glam rock, disco (they teamed up with Giorgio Moroder for 1979’s “No. 1 in Heaven”) and even techno--their work has consistently stretched the boundaries of pop music and the song form. Sparks continue to break new ground: they are currently working on a project with filmmaker Guy Maddin and are soon to embark on a world tour. Now, for the first time, the Mael brothers have chosen their favorite Sparks lyrics (to some 75 songs), editing and correcting them for presentation in In the Words of Sparks. As James Greer--novelist and former member of Guided by Voices--comments, “Sparks-level wordplay is a gift, and more than that, an inspiration.” This book also includes a substantial introduction by fellow Los Angeles resident and longtime fan, Morrissey.The Mael brothers (Ron and Russell) select their favorite Sparks lyrics from 75 songs.

I Spit On Your GravesPublished by TamTam Books
By Boris Vian.Written under Vian’s famous “Vernon Sullivan” pseudonym, I Spit on Your Gravestells the story of a “white negro” who avenges his murdered brother with a series of killings in a small town in the deep south. A bestseller in France, the book was notoriously used as a model for a copycat killing."Nobody knew me at Buckton. That's why Clem picked the place; besides, even if I hadn't had a flat, I didn't have enough gas to go any farther north. Just about a gallon. I had a dollar, and Clem's letter, and that's all. There wasn't a thing worth a damn in my valise, so let's not mention it. Hold on: I did have in the bag the kid's little revolver, a miserable, cheap little .22 caliber pea-shooter. It was still in his pocket when the sheriff came to tell us to take the body away to bury it. I've got to say that I counted on Clem's letter more than on everything else. It ought to work, it just had to work. I looked at my hands on the steering wheel, at my fingers, my nails. Nobody would find anything wrong there. No risk on that score. Maybe I'd get away with it."
—Excerpted from I Spit On Your Graves.

Evguenie SokolovPublished by TamTam Books
By Serge Gainsbourg. Translated by John Weightman, Doreen Weightman.Serge Gainsbourg's sole foray into fiction, Evguenie Sokolov describes an artist who uses his intestinal gases as the medium for his scandalous artwork. What once was a smelly and noisy problem in his social and sex life becomes a recipe for success in the early 1980s art world."So, as I said to myself during the dark hours of the night while trying in vain to get to sleep, the pestilential exhalations prophetic of my corporeal death were to serve the purpose of channeling and transcending that which was more pure, most enduring and most despairingly ironical in the inner depths of my creative mind, and after all the years devoted to the technique of painting and all the day spent releasing my gases in front of museum walls radiant with the genius of the great masters, these jagged, fragile and torturous lines had now rid me forever of my inhibitions."
Excerpted from Evguenie Sokolov.

Foam of the DazeL'ecume des joursPublished by TamTam Books
By Boris Vian. Translated by Brian Harper.Raymond Queneau called it the “most poignant love story of our time,” and Julio Cortázar said of its author: “I can’t think of another writer who can move me as surreptitiously as Vian does.” Boris Vian (1920–1959) was a songwriter, trumpet-player, poet, playwright and pataphysician, but is best remembered for his 1947 novel, Foam of the Daze, a jazz-fueled science-fiction romance that mingles bittersweet and surrealist absurdity with a melancholic meditation on the frailty of life. It tells the tale of Colin, a wealthy young dandy, and Chloe, his newly wedded wife who develops a terrible illness: a water lily in her lung. The supporting cast includes Chick, an obsessive collector of Jean-Sol Partre memorabilia; Colin’s libertine manservant Nicolas, a Jeeves for the jazz-age; the philosopher Jean-Sol Partre himself, Vian’s rib-poking tribute to his friend Jean-Paul Sartre and the pianocktail: a cocktail-mixing piano whose individual notes are tuned to liqueurs that mix incredible cocktails. Michel Gondry’s film adaptation of the novel, to star Audrey Tautou, will begin production in 2012.Colin finished dressing. Getting out of his bath, he had wrapped himself in an ample towel of fine fabric from which only his legs and torso were exposed. He took the vaporizer from the glass shelf and sprayed the perfumed liquid oil in his light-colored hair. His amber comb divided the silky mass into long orange strands identical to the furrows that a happy laborer traces with a fork in apricot jam. Colin put down his comb and, arming himself with a nail clipper, beveled the corners of his shaded eyelids to give mystery to his gaze. He had to repeat this often because they grew back quickly. He turned on the little light of the magnifying mirror and approached it to verify the state of his epidermis. Several blackheads were sticking out around the sides of his nose. Seeing themselves so ugly in the magnifying mirror, they quickly went back under the skin and, satisfied, Colin turned off the lamp. He took off the towel that girded his loins and passed one of the corners between his toes to absorb the last traces of moisture."
Excerpted from Foam of the Daze.

Autumn in PekingPublished by TamTam Books
By Boris Vian. Introduction by Marc Lapprand. Translated Paul Knobloch.Autumn in Peking takes place in an imaginary desert called Exopotamie, where a train station and a railway line are under construction. Homes are destroyed to lay the lines, which turn out to lead nowhere. In part a satire on the reconstruction of postwar Paris, Vian’s novel also conjures a darker version of Alice in Wonderland."As he swept the remains into a sewage ditch, the city sanitation worker noticed the peculiar green color of the lungs of the little dog that had been crushed by Agathe Marion who, as usual, was driving recklessly. Soon after, the sewer began vomiting things up and traffic had to be rerouted for several days."
—Excerpted from Autumn in Peking

The Dead All Have The Same SkinPublished by TamTam Books
By Boris Vian. Introduction by Marc Lapprand. Translated by Paul Knobloch.Vian’s second noir novel under the Vernon Sullivan pseudonym is a brutal tale of racism in postwar New York City, as protagonist Daniel Parker is blackmailed by a long lost brother. Also included is the short story “Dogs, Desire and Death,” and Vian’s account of the controversies surrounding his previous novel I Spit on your Graves."We didn't have many customers this evening, and the band was playing a bit sluggishly, as is always the case eon nights like these. It was all the same to me. The fewer people the better. Having to toss out half a dozen guys a night, in a more or less orderly fashion to boot, well, in the long run it can end up being a real drag. In the beginning I liked it."
—Excerpted from The Dead All Have The Same Skin.
To Hell with the UglyEt on Tuera Tous Les AffreuxPublished by TamTam Books
By Boris Vian. Translated and Introduction by Paul Knobloch. Drawings by Jessica Minckley.First published in French in 1948, To Hell with the Ugly saw Boris Vian's noir-novelist pseudonym Vernon Sullivan take on Vian's own burlesque pop sensibilities. An erotic crime novel with science fiction tendencies, Sullivan's third outing is described by its translator as "a pornographic Hardy Boys novel set on the Island of Dr. Moreau to a be-bop soundtrack." To Hell with the Uglyrecounts the tale of Rock Bailey, a dashing 19-year-old lad determined to hold onto his virginity amidst the postwar jazz-club nightlife of Los Angeles-a resolution challenged by the machinations of the demented Doctor Markus Schutz, who has decided to breed beautiful human beings and found a colony in which ugliness is a genetic crime. Vian's brutal depictions of American race relations in his previous Sullivan novels here give way to a frenetic fantasy of eugenics and uniformity-a parodic anticipation of the cosmetic surgery that was to rule Hollywood over the coming decades, as well as a comic-book reflection on Nazi Germany's visions of a master race. With the novel's breathless domino tumble of fist fights, car chases, kidnappings, and murders, Vian here set out to out-Hollywood Hollywood, serving up a narrative cocktail of Raymond Chandler, H.G.Wells, Brave New World and Barbarella."Taking a smack on the head is nothing. Even being drugged twice during the course of the same evening is something a guy can live with. But stepping outside for a bit of fresh air and then all of a sudden coming to in your birthday suit in a room with a naked woman, well I'd say that's when things started to get weird. As for what happened next…"
—Excerpted from To Hell with the Ugly.
Gainsbourg: The BiographyPublished by TamTam Books
By Gilles Verlant. Translated by Paul Knobloch.When Serge Gainsbourg died in 1991, France went into mourning: François Mitterand himself proclaimed him “our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire.” Gainsbourg redefined French pop, from his beginnings as cynical chansonnier and mambo-influenced jazz artist to the ironic “yé-yé” beat and lush orchestration of his 1960s work to his launching of French reggae in the 1970s to the electric funk and disco of his last albums. But mourned as much as his music was Gainsbourg the man: the self-proclaimed ugly lover of such beauties as Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, the iconic provocateur whose heavy-breathing “Je t’aime moi non plus” was banned from airwaves throughout Europe and whose reggae version of the “Marseillais” earned him death threats from the right, and the dirty-old-boy wordsmith who could slip double-entendres about oral sex into the lyrics of a teenybopper ditty and make a crude sexual proposition to Whitney Houston on live television.
Gilles Verlant’s biography of Gainsbourg is the best and most authoritative in any language. Drawing from numerous interviews and their own friendship, Verlant provides a fascinating look at the inner workings of 1950s–1990s French pop culture and the conflicted and driven songwriter, actor, director and author that emerged from it: the young boy wearing a yellow star during the German Occupation; the young art student trying to woo Tolstoy’s granddaughter; the musical collaborator of Petula Clark, Juliette Greco and Sly and Robbie; the seasoned composer of the Lolita of pop albums, Histoire de Melody Nelson; the cultural icon who transformed scandal and song into a new form of delirium."Now it's impossible to understand what will follow – namely the mad passion that will unite Bardot and Gainsbourg for no more than a few weeks but which will have serious repercussions for the both of them – without taking into consideration the reckless Don Juanism of this woman, who at the age of 33 is at the height of her beauty. Our anonymous contributor continues: 'She dealt with her conquests like a praying mantis: Serge, like me and like all the others, was zombified by Bardot. That woman had a supreme talent for grinding men into rubble. Serge was a totally atypical lover for her. He had the authenticity of a real artist, he hated money, and he led his life with a sort of heedless existentialist ethic. He was the exact opposite of the clean-cut types she had been with. I am convinced that Serge fascinated her much more than her other lovers. He brought her into a world of intelligence and talent, which no one had ever exposed her to before. Little did it matter that he had a face like a gargoyle from Nôtre-Dame. What's more, he brought a whole new world to her, served up on a silver platter, which is just what she needed at the time. Thanks to Serge she was hip again.'"

-Excerpted from Gainsbourg: The Biography

October 5, 2014

October 5, 2014

“Dr. No” was not only the first James Bond film, but the first film after my dad took me to see after forcing the movie theater in Larkspur to let me in to see Roger Vadim’s “And God Created Woman.” Most parents or fathers to be specific usually take their children to see Disney films or family-like narratives.  Not my father, he wanted to take me to see “Dr. No.” It was at the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Bouvelard, and the location was just magical.  I was 8-years old and knew the importance of movie stars, even at that young age.  I knew that they were important because their handprints were on the pavement in front of the entrance.  At that time, I wasn’t conscious of the names, but I just knew that these people were really something.  Also I knew that some were dead at that point, and never experiencing death at that time, thought it was a tad creepy.  To leave one’s handprints after they go on to the other “world.” With that in mind, I entered the palace of dreams to see one’s nightmare.

The Oriental setting of the theater was perfect for Dr. No.  Bond was pleasurable, but Dr. No was better.  I identified with the villain because one, he expressed a world that I didn’t know, but by instinct I knew that it will be a better adventure.  Dr. No was the son of a German missionary, who abandoned him and his mother, a Chinese girl with a good family.   He eventually ended up as a member of the Tongs, but working for himself, he stole funds from the gang.  They eventually caught up with him, and to torture No, they chopped his hands off.   Over time, he had hands made of metal that was able to crush metal figurines with them.  The fact that he was a freak and outsider had a huge appeal for me.   He was evil, but totally understandable. “What is a monster?  A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order. ”

As I grew older, and after my father passed away, I think of that film as an object that I shared with him. The trauma of the lost made me weary of having objects once owned by him, but at least in theory or idea, I have “Dr. No” to share with him.  That particular piece of art had a profound effect on me on many levels.  I became a fan of American noir films due to the theme of the outsider being forced by fellow citizens to take action in a manner that is perhaps not correct or right. Nonetheless, who can decide such decisions as one goes through life wearing blinders like a mistreated horse in Central Park.  I have a tendency to see the world in black and white.  Not because of the duality of those two non-colors, but more about the levels of gray that comes up in such an image.  I spend life in the gray area, not in the world of absolute fact.



I recently started to collect film stock that was shot or photographed by John Alton, the Prince of photographic shadows.  Through his eyes I can see the origins of Dr. No’s world - not exactly as exotic, but in substance very toxic in its vision of purity gone wrong.  My favorite actor of that period is John Hoyt, whose face seems to be made in celluloid perfection for Mr. Alton. I can never remember the narration, because that has traditionally been the least of my interests while watching a film.  Nevertheless the face and how it is projected on the screen is what I find interesting.  Even with “Dr. No” I have no recollection of the plot.  Just the image of Dr. No reflecting on his metal hands.  That says more to me than anything in this world.

"Doutor Story" by Tosh Berman

Doutor StorybyTosh Berman


The meeting was scheduled for 5PM at the Doutor coffee shop near the Muashi Koyama station.  I showed up on time, but not a trace of her - so I ordered a peanut butter cookie and hot blended coffee.  Found a table for two, and took a place to have my coffee - very slowly mind you.



Since I was sitting by the entrance I played a game by myself where I counted all the umbrellas that passed by that door.  It was strangely meditative and once I counted to a hundred I felt a sense of relief.  If everything else fails at the very least, I counted 100 umbrellas.  It’s raining now and it has been for the past 15 hours or so - so the umbrellas were no surprise whatsoever.

The thought that bothers me the most is my meeting with Mary-Jane.   I can’t imagine why she wanted to consult with me, in such terrible weather.  Yet, as a gentleman, I agreed to do so. Mary-Jane is what one would call a “fuck-buddy.” But this meeting doesn’t seem to be the usual case.  So I was a total nervous as I sipped on my new chilled coffee.



She shows up and she looks fantastic.  Now I’m happy that this will be a “fuck-buddy meeting - but alas, her eyes are not saying anything like that.  It is showing hesitation.  Which in my experience is always a bad sign.  She sat down and grabbed my hand and put it in between her legs.   She then removed my hand and said “no more. ”

I didn’t say anything.  She didn’t say anything.  After three minutes of silence between us, I told her: “When I say start, you must count all the people who are carrying an umbrella coming into this coffee shop.  When I say stop, let me get your number and then I’ll give you my number.”

She consented to do this.  I counted up to 3 and said go!” Our eyes glance toward the entrance and after 15 minutes I said to “stop.” She counted 12 and I counted 16.

We stared at each other and I told her that our numbers are different and therefore we cannot possibly be capable either for friendship or being “fuck-buddies.” She understood.  She smiles at me.  She got up and left the table.  She had an umbrella with her.   She raised her umbrella as she stood at the entrance of the coffee shop and yelled “one!” And then she walked out.




Tosh Berman
October 5, 2014
Meguro, Tokyo at Doutor coffee shop.

"The Death Instinct" Out Now at your favorite Independent Book Store

The Death InstinctPublished by TamTam Books
By Jacques Mesrine. Introduction by Robert Greene. Translation by Robert Greene, Catherine Texier.France's Public Enemy Number One from the late 1960s to the end of the 1970s--when he was killed by police in a sensational traffic shootout--Jacques Mesrine (1936–1979) is the best-known criminal in French history. Mesrine was notorious both for his violent exploits and for the media attention he attracted, and he remains very much a public media figure in France and Europe. In 2008 there were two feature-length films based on his life, one of them starring Vincent Cassel in the lead role. Mesrine wrote The Death Instinctwhile serving time in the high-security prison La Santé; the manuscript was smuggled out of the prison and was later published by Guy Debord's publisher Gérard Lebovici (who briefly adopted Mesrine's daughter, Sabrina, before being assassinated, a few years after Mesrine). The Death Instinct deals with the early years of Mesrine's criminal life, including a horrifically graphic description of a murder he committed early on in his career and a highly detailed account of the workings of the French criminal underworld--making this book perhaps one of the most intriguing and detailed anthropological studies of a criminal culture ever written.
PUBLISHER
TAMTAM BOOKSBOOK FORMAT
PAPERBACK, 6 X 9 IN. / 325 PGS.PUBLISHING STATUS
PUB DATE 11/30/2014
ACTIVEDISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. EXCLUSIVE
CATALOG: FALL 2014 P. 77    PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9780966234688 TRADE
LIST PRICE: $16.95 CDN $16.95AVAILABILITY
IN STOCK
The world now has jacques mesrine's "the death instinct" in stock.  buy it at your local bookstore.  and if they don't have it, they can order it for you.  

October 4, 2014

October 4, 2014

“I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is 6 to 5 against.” I have to tell ya, I’m at the end of my rope, and it fits my neck perfectly.  But that’s OK because I’m keeping my eye on the ball, and I’m not going to lose that ball.  So far, I have put out two books: “Sparks-Tastic” and “The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding.” One work is a non-fiction account of yours truly following a band (Sparks) I love in London, and the other book is a collection of poetry written in Japan.   At this point and time, and looking at my bank balance, I really need to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

 I haven’t worked at a paying job since 2012.  At this time I have lived on my wit and charm, but that can only go so far in today’s world.  I somehow managed to purchase (well borrowed to be honest) money to pay an one-way ticket to Tokyo, hopefully to find not really an adventure, but some sort of moolah.  My only talent is to be able to write.  I’m really bad at showing up at work, or even working with co-workers.  Usually I’m despised by my fellow citizens of the time-clock, and I mostly made some dough on the side, by running an on-going crap game in the employee room at a certain retail store, even to this day, I can’t mention.



I’m sort of the guy who came from nowhere - and I wasn’t going anywhere, but somehow I got I kicked off somewhere.  At times, I feel like the dice is loaded, but not towards my favor.  So dear people, my readers, and Facebook friends - I just need to ask you a favor.

I really do need to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and I can’t wait till next year, because there may not be a next year for me.  It needs to be this year.  Now, as I see it, my main competitor is the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. I actually came to Tokyo to plead with him to not to accept the award if he is the chosen one.   I ask, because basically I need the attention, and even more important the cash prize that goes with this award.  As I last heard, the award amount is now $1,100,000.00.   Now, if I get the award (and the money) this will enable me to do nothing but write.  I know you people out there are enjoying my daily postings on my blog and Facebook, and I just have to remind you that I’m not being paid for this work.  I did have an agreement with Facebook C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg to get a certain amount of payment if people out there pushed “like” on my page.  Sadly I didn’t get enough “likes” for his taste.  That is what I get for working for a guy who was born in 1984 ... if you get my drift.



So now, I must call upon you.  All of you.  I want you to write a letter or e-mail to the Swedish Academy in Sweden and comment that “Tosh Berman should win this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature.” That is all you have to mention.  I did send copies of my book to the Academy so they know who I am. I know that some members of the Swedish Academy even “liked” my page.  Also, if you can, please do “like” this post, because that too could bring attention to the Swedish Academy.  Also it has been noted that the Academy has at times awarded writers who lean to the left.  Well, I’m here to let you know that I’m a hardcore leftie.   I don’t believe in any political party in the United States.  Pro two state solution for Israel and Palestine (hardcore pro-Palestine by the way), and for every left wing movements that took place in Central, South, and North America.   So I should fit in their category of a writer who does ‘good’ in their writing.

Here is their address:  

The Swedish Academy
P.O. Box 2118
SE-103 13 Stockholm

Their e-mail address is sekretariat@svenskaakademien.se

Do write to them, and tell them that you demand that Tosh Berman should win the Nobel Prize for Literature.   Come on people.  You have read my books, you have enjoyed my daily writings here, so please do something and help support a fellow writer.  A fellow artist.  A fellow human being.

Also if you can “like” (if you’re reading this on Facebook) this post, it may help me as well.

Thank you (in advance),

Tosh Berman
Writer

October 3, 2014

October 3, 2014

Throughout my life, I have been fond of the Charlie Chan film series and the Flash Gordon serials as well.  One of the things that I picked up from my father’s generation is the love of the adventurer who faces the deadly Orient.  That far-off culture that is wise and smart (Charlie Chan) and ruthlessly evil as well (Ming the Merciless and Fu Manchu).   As a child one is approached by the things he sees on the massive (cinema) and small (TV) screen.  It is not just one angle, but the fact that my entire culture is based on a fantasy of some sort.  When I was a child, evilness came from the Orient.  I used to play on the streets of San Francisco Chinatown, thinking of myself as Flash Gordon battling the aliens that were invading Earth - which was basically, from my perspective, a very white planet at the time.


What is fascinating is that the actor Charles Middleton (Ming) and Warner Oland (Charlie Chan) were white. Yet both played a character from the Orient.  At the time, even in my childhood, I knew that these actors were non-asian, but it never bothered or broke the fantasy for me.  I was living in a world that was totally one-dimensional.  Even though my parents knew and were friends of people who were otherwise not white, I still felt like I was in a white world, and that was the only world that existed.  I never even question it.



The only TV show I watched as a child was the Mickey Mouse Fan Club.  I was fascinated with the show because I felt that the kids on the show were like me.  White. I wouldn’t have been upset if an Asian or black child would be on the show, but the fact that the issue never came up is an interesting way to examine that world.  Children from all over the world probably belong to the Mickey Mouse Club, but what does that mean?  But even that, the kids on the show were exotic to me.  It was white, but it was a weird “white” to me.  I clearly didn’t belong to that culture.  My “culture” was to adopt characters that I was fond of and pretend to be that person, as I marched up and down Grand Avenue Chinatown lost in my fantasy of chasing dragons and monsters - mostly who were produced in the mysterious Orient.  Yet, there was something sinister about the Mickey Mouse Club, but I could never put my finger on it.   For one, the theme song written by Jimmie Dodd, who can be seen as the auteur of the Mickey Club clan.   Probably the first song that I have ever sung to myself: and I would also sing along with Jimmie at the end of the show as well.  The lyrics are:

Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Hey there, Hi there, Ho there! You're as welcome as can be!
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)
Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)
Forever let us hold our banners high,
High, high, high!
Come along and sing a song and join the jamboree!
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Mickey Mouse Club!
Mickey Mouse Club!
We'll have fun
We'll meet new faces
We'll do things and we'll go places
All around the world we're marching...

Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Hey there, Hi there, Ho there! You're as welcome as can be!
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)
Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck!)
Forever let us hold our banners high
High, high, high!
Come along and sing the song and join the jamboree!
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Yeah Mickey!
Yeah Mickey!
Yeah Mickey Mouse Club!

Spoken:
Now Mouseketeers
There's one thing we want you
Always to remember

Come along and sing our song
and join our family

M-I-C
K-E-Y
M-O-U-S-E

Through the years we'll all
Be friends
Wherever we may be
M-I-C
K-E-Y
M-O-U-S-E

Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Forever let us hold our
Banner high

Now it's time to say goodbye
To all our company

M-I-C
Spoken:
See you real soon
K-E-Y
Spoken:
Why? Because we like you!
M-O-U-S-E




Jimmie was in charge of the club, and he was a role model for the kids on and off the screen.  Not only was he like that on the show, but also the cast was invited to his house for backyard barbecues and sing-alongs.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but my love for the Orient actually made me aware of another world than the one that was projected into our house.  There are many levels of illusion, and this is only one.  As a child I founded something quite creepy about Jimmie Dodd and his Mouse theme song.  I didn’t know why, but over a short period of time, I realized that Ming the Merciless actually meant more to me than the Mickey Mouse Club.  It didn’t damage me, but I realize that there was a whole world out there, and I became interested in knowing where Charlie Chan and Ming came from.  Totally fictional characters, I do know that, but I was curious in how they came to be in my culture.   Over time, I realized that I wasn’t the focus of the world’s attention.  That I was just pretending to be Flash Gordon, which in fact, I much preferred Ming.  It is amazing to think that the “American” culture can bring such great geniuses like Eddie Cochran, yet one would define themselves into a world that was made up of “white culture.” Not saying that it’s bad, but actually kind of evil when you think of it.  And with that in mind I realized that I am part of an immoral culture that doesn’t even know why it is doing what it does.  To this day, we tend to see the other world as truly “other, ” when in fact we’re projecting that image to suit our purposes either by our stupidity or naiveness.   As Eddie would say “,that’s really something.”

October 2, 2014

October 2, 2014
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.” This evening was me wondering around the ground floor of the Shinjuku station with my eyes closed and just having the crowd pull me in a direction of not my choice.  For once, I didn’t want to be conscious of where I was going, and closing my eyes at the point when everyone is leaving the station after the trains arrived was a good way to look for direction.
I opened my eyes at the staircase that leads one to the east exit of the station, and I felt “human nature is like water.  It takes the shape of its container.” So this is where I’m and this is the direction I should take. I walked up the stairs and came upon a series of neon lights.  It was close to 8 in the evening, and I found myself at the Kinokuniya Bookstore on Shinjuku-dori.  Without a thought in my head, I found myself on the sixth floor in the English books section.  It seemed that they had every edition of Graham Greene’s “Ways of Escape,” and I found this passage in the book: “Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” I have to say he makes a good point.   As I read on, among the crowd there, I came upon another quotation: “But it is impossible to go through life without trust; that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.” Alas, that is true, but I can only find solitude and happiness when I’m, or what one calls, “oneself. ”


I’m stranded.   As a fellow spy, Graham knows that the world of solitude is the only place one can feel at home.  Happy at home?  Happiness is an illusion and I don’t believe in magic, unless it’s connected to Jack Parsons, a fellow traveler of pleasure.  To project oneself by the power of the mind and imagination, is not that different from taking an object and making it go to outer space. 



“Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.” The great insurance executive Wallace Stevens wrote that, and he’s correct, but then again, has he heard of Shinjuku?   Artifice is death, but it’s imagined by someone who’s alive, and there lies the irony of feeling alive and being attached to the real world.  If one can stay conscious of both the artificial and the natural world, then you can beat the odds of not getting lost.  But once you fully accept one over the other, then you’re a lost soul.  “It's great to be anywhere as a writer. It saves you from implication in the ugliness of the place and justifies your being there. You can spend all day jerking off as long as you describe it well.” That statement alone is why I'm such a huge fan of Richard Hell's work.   All my life I have lived on the margins of society, and even though I can touch the world, it is clearly a landscape that doesn't want anything to do with me. The beauty of rejection is similar to wander around Shinjuku.  As long as they keep the neon lights on, I can exist in one's private cell. 

October 1, 2014

October 1, 2014

Here I’m in Tokyo, and I haven’t the foggiest idea why I’m here. I have a tendency to get excited about doing something in the most vaguest thought in my head.  First things first, since I’m in the land that seems to worship vinyl as if it was the most expensive currency on the planet.  People tend to collect to enhance one’s life. I, on the other hand, collect that is basically who I am. I see myself as part of a collection that is my own mind, and to be honest, I have no other interest beyond my writings and what I collect.  Vinyl is thus important to me, but I also collect my thoughts and words.  For instance, I keep a detailed journal in what I “think” in the first thing in the morning, or literally the first thought that comes to my head when I open my eyes.  Then I do another journal entry around 2PM, where I have a tendency to organize my thoughts in alphabetical order of subject matter.  At nighttime, I’m usually drunk, so that is when I get “poetic” and for a peculiar social circle, quite witty.



I have heard through the vinyl “underground” that there maybe a copy of the original edition of the Moondog/Julie Andrews recording of “Tell It Again, ” which is technically a children’s album of songs and stories.  Finding a copy, and if it’s in good condition can be expensive, which again, to be honest, I may not be able to afford the desired object.  Nevertheless I take the bite out of chance, and booked a ride on the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Nagoya, where the owner of this record lives and works.



At first, I’m scared to meet the citizens of this country, due that I can’t speak a word of Japanese - nevertheless the owner of “Tell It Again” is a French man by the name of Charles Cros.  It seems he’s a poet by desire, and an inventor by practical means.  He has lived in Nagoya since the 1960s, and it obsessed with sound.  For instance, I have heard that he came up with the first idea of the compact disc, but was not aware that Sony was also developing their (and much successful version).  Cros version was more of an updated version of the Long Player Record.   His contact disc looks very much like the Sony version, but the big difference was his invention, one actually put it on a turntable and put a needle on it.  He actually got sound, but not the sound he was expecting, and there lies the problem.  Also the fact, that when you invent a new medium, you are required to have a new player to “play” that medium.  Cros is such a whacky individual by what I read about him, that I almost want to collect him as well.

When I did eventually meet him, at a near-by coffee shop that is close to the Shinkansen station, he brought with him his copy of the “Tell It Again” album.  It looked perfect and he wouldn’t allow me to touch it. In fact, he said he wasn’t going to sell it.  He seemed to change his mind, and was sorry that I went a great distance to see him and his record. I told him not to be concerned, because I live for the experience, which of being a collector, is quite wonderful.  What happened next, was quite remarkable.  He told me he had a demo recording of Geoff Stephens singing his great composition “The Crying Game.” This song, this 20th century masterpiece… is the most essential piece of music I have ever heard.  Also it helps that I’m a huge fan of Stephens’ first (and maybe only) band The New Vaudeville Band.  “Winchester Cathedral.” Is another masterpiece.  Some think that Stephens stole the idea from The Bonzo Dog Band, who also had a similar style or interest in British music hall music.  Nevertheless that’s not the point of my interest. I like the record because it exists in its own world, and therefore a great desire for yours truly.  I bought an original mono edition of that album at Blue Bag Records in Los Angeles.

Charles Cros other great interest is that he believes that there is life on other planets - specifically Mars and Venus.  He had seen pinpoints of lights from those two planets and is convinced that it is the reflection of the lights of a large city on Mars and Venus.  He petitioned France to build a huge mirror that could be used to communicate with the Martians and Venusians by “burning giant lines on the deserts of those planets.” France refused to do so, and therefore that is why he’s now living in Japan.  He also writes poetry, which is an art that deals with thinking outside of the box, and at the end of the day, this is where he can rule his world.  I, on the other hand, left our meeting empty-handed, but a wiser man.