Tuesday, July 27
The Oxditch Prize
Gerald used to call Balder Lance.
Short for Lance Corporal. He was a Marine.
Hunter S. Thompson paid tribute to Lionel Olay,
“the ultimate free-lancer.” Philip Larkin wrote a book of essays
called Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955–1982.
Kingsley Amis dedicated Lucky Jim to Larkin. Amis could imitate
a man driving a car into a flock of sheep. Larkin didn’t really have
a career as a writer. He worked as a librarian. Wrote two hours a night
after work, then listened to records and got drunk. Donn Pearce concludes
Dying in the Sun
with “About the Author.” “Age 45: Living in
Broke. Still
Writing.” That was in 1974. He wrote for Esquire,
Playboy, Oui, and Capitalist Reporter. Thompson’s first book was about the
Hell’s Angels, commissioned by Carey McWilliams, The Nation. It is a book
that puts us over. Or doesn’t. If you don’t publish them, how do you write them?
For 40 years? That’s what Hick Lit: The Hidden or Unknown Masterpiece
is about. You don’t have to publish a life’s-work to write one.
And as for the masterpiece,
if it up and slapped them side the head. They’d say, “What is
your platform? Where do you teach? What prizes have you won?”
When the ox is in the ditch, one rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.
The tanga, for females, the glass stopper off a Worcestershire sauce
bottle for a male. Keep the liver flukes from swimming up
your urethra when you piss in the
Old Hick won an award for retreating, or disappearing artists.
He gave it to himself. He disintermediated.
Lance that. Hick was a boil on the ass of progress.
The Mall Builder culture needed a good purge,
a tartar emetic, insulin shock, Frederick Exley wrote
A Fan’s Notes, Pages
From a
Last Notes from Home. Venetian blind salesman.
Flaps, like a worn-out blind. “Round.” Weldon Kees.
Something inside my head.