June 30, 2003
MEMORABLE QUOTES
For your entertainment, from Stanley Elkin's The Living End:
"It's the same with dirty old men, boys. Maybe they can't have a relationship-do you know what a relationship is, boys?-with a person their own age, so they seek out children. Your moms are right, boys, when they tell you not to accept rides from strangers, to take their nickels or share their candy. Children are vulnerable, children. They don't know the score. You give a dirty old man an inch he'll take a mile. His dick will be in your hair, boys, he'll put your weiner in his pocket. They can't help themselves, boys, but dirty old men do terrible things. They want to smell your tush while it's still wet, they want to heft your ballies and blow up your nose. They want to ream and suck, touch and diddle. They want to eat your poo-poo, boys."
Sounds rather like the Democratic National Convention to me. Posted by Kim Crawford at June 30, 2003 10:40 PM
Warning: Genius at Work
Posted by: Jack Straw at July 1, 2003 7:58 AMMy God. I had forgotten that passage, having blipped through "The Living End" back in the early 80's at an age when worrying about my own child's safety was a concept far over the horizon. What I remembered more were the descriptions of hell, which rivaled Dante for pure intensity.
It's this kind of passage that reminds me why you rarely find Elkin on the public library shelf or at Barnes and Noble. Stanley was too much for the American pop sensibility. We much more crave Bret Easton Ellis' cartoon psychos, or books that were movies first. Something removed and sophmoric, a roller coaster jolt to the pit of the stomach instead of the creepy dread of every day perversion.
I did buy a hard cover edition of "The Dick Gibson Show" at a used book store during a walk through Greenwich Village a few years back. A great book on Radio and Satan and where the two intersect.
Elkin's gone. I recommend James Ellroy for sheer low-life re-bop. I'm re-reading his latest book "The Cold Six Thousand" right now. Great American History alternative.
Posted by: rankin rob at July 1, 2003 9:28 AM