A Blog of Bosh

Destiny of a great decadent
Roussel’s main literary output comprised the two novels Locus Solus and Impressions d’Afrique, adaptions of his fiction for theatre, the long poem Nouvelles Impressions d�Afrique, and a posthumously published work in which he set out to elucidate his abstruse compositional methods. Like Proust, Roussel paid for the publication of his books, and while his work invited either ridicule or neglect from the mainstream, it attracted serious attention from the surrealists, and in particular Breton, Dali and Duchamp.
The Times

Per chi vota il Mago di Oz
Ma ci sono altre interpretazione nella lunga storia degli studi su Oz. Una � arrivata in Italia sulle pagine di �Ideazione�, il pensatoio del centro destra, che ha rievocato il centenario nel numero sulle �Virt� del populismo�, dedicato a questa parola tab� che esprime abitualmente il �lato oscuro della politica� ed � sempre usata come insulto. In certe sue incarnazioni storiche, afferma Alessandro Campi, �il populismo ha anche significato affermazione di un�autentica sovranit� popolare�, contro le �lites. E la faccenda, in questi termini, investe la politica italiana, dalle �derive populiste� imputate a Berlusconi alle interpretazioni in questo senso di personaggi come Di Pietro, Bossi, per non parlare di Haider. Certo la verde citt� degli Smeraldi non � la Padania leghista. E� Washington, spiega Consuelo Angi� nel saggio sul Mago di Oz. Nel libro confluisce l�ideologia del populismo americano di fine 800, momento di dura contrapposizione economica negli Usa.
La Stampa – Libri

The Wizard of Oz: An American Fairytale
A Library of Congress Exhibition.

Braccelli: Bizzarie di Varie Figure
The Bizzarie (Livorno, 1624) can rightly lay claim to being a prime exemplar of the artistic enigma � a work truly without precedent or explanation beside itself. Its sensuous imagery, occupying a dreamlike space between thought and form, made it an underground sensation amongst twentieth-century artists and connoisseurs. The art historian Sir Kenneth Clark (1903�83) was instrumental in the rediscovery of Braccelli, and the poet Tristan Tzara (1896-1963) drew parallels between these etchings and the revolutionary artistic agendas of Dada and Surrealism.
[This is a very nice book of illustrations, about 50, which, while probably not quite nonsensical, have a lot in common with later nonsense illustration. While the reproduction is good, it is hard to appreciate the small pictures.]
Octavo Edition

My soul is a strange factory
TRY this. Your first sentence is “Time is money” and your last sentence is “Thyme is funny”. Write the story – long or short – that joins the two. Be imaginative, but please stick to plausible leaps and bounds. And while you’re at it, make it a novel, and – why not? – a novel in verse. Use rhyming couplets. Done it? Then you’ve got the hang of the strange “procedure” of Raymond Roussel (1877-1933), a millionaire, an outrageous dandy, a homosexual who liked to stay tightly shut up in the closet and a sincere believer in his own genius. You should now find Mark Ford’s elegant, intense and detailed guide to the many huge works that Roussel produced with his phono-syntactic machine at least meaningful, if not completely irresistible.
booksonline