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La Vie en Rose  (Selby - CD Track 3) |
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Published in
the first issue of Open City magazine (1991).
The French
cabaret singer Edith Piaf (Edith Giovana Gassion)
had an American hit record with the song "La
Vie en Rose" in the autumn of 1950. (The original, French
lyrics to the song were her own, copyrighted in 1947; Mack David rendered
the English-language lyrics that she sang in the 1950 Columbia hit
version.) Piaf died in the autumn of 1963, at the age of 47.
Billie Holiday, born Eleanor Gough and known as
Lady Day, died in 1959, at the age of
44.
The pianist
Earl "Bud" Powell worked and recorded with both Charlie
Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. He died on August 1, 1966, at the age of
41.
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It Takes One to Know One (Selby - CD Track 6)
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From Selby's
autobiographical work in progress, "Seeds of Pain, Seeds of
Love".
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What the Coptic
Guy Said (Tosches - CD Track
7)
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The main text
of the poem is from "The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of
Jesus", composed, likely in Syria, in the late first or early
second century. The Gospel of Thomas is the second tractate of Codex II of
the Coptic gnostic texts known as the Nag Hammadi library, after their
discovery, in December 1945, near the modern Upper Egyptian city of Nag
Hammadi. Further reading: Marvin Meyer, "The Secret
Teachings of Jesus: Four Gnostic Gospels" (New York: Random
House, 1984); Marvin Meyer, "The Gospel of
Thomas" (San Francisco: Harper, 1992); Elaine Pagels, "The Gnostic
Gospels" (New York: Random House, 1979).
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A Feast for the
Eyes (Tosches - CD Track 8) |
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From "Spud
Crazy", though, like the rest of the poems in "Spud
Crazy", not written expressly for that work. This poem also
appeared in print in Lowest Common Denominator, No. 19
(1996).
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My Kind of
Loving (Tosches
- CD Track 10) |
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Previously
recorded by Tosches, in 1994, for the spoken-word anthology
"Relationships from Hell" (Big Deal 90104-2), also
produced by Harold Goldberg. Published in Open City, No.
4 (1996).
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Erebos (Tosches - CD Track
14)
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Published in
Contents®, No. 15 (1997). The word Erebos is defined by
the Liddell-Scott Greek-English Lexicon: "A place of nether darkness,
forming a passage from Earth to Hades." The word is encountered in Homer,
and was personified in the "Theogony of Hesiod". It was
Latinized as Erebus, and occurs in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, in
the phrase "darke as Erobus," and, as Erebus, in Milton's evocation of the
Hesiodic theogony in Book II of "Paradise
Lost".
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I with a Knife
to the Throat of Cybele (Tosches - CD Track
15) |
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The origins
of Cybele, the great mother-goddess, have been traced to Asia Minor and
the second millennium B.C. In Rome, the annual spring rites of her cult
culminated in the Day of Blood and its feast of orgiastic
castration.
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Dante in
Ravenna (Tosches
- CD Track 16) |
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The poet
Dante died in Ravenna, Italy, in September
1321.
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I Dig
Girls (Tosches -
CD Track 17) |
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From "Scratch",
a novel in progress. The title phrase is that of a minor hit record
by Bobby Rydell from the autumn of 1958.
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Blues Eyes and Exit Wounds was recorded,
in two long sessions, on October 4, 1997. Selby suggested
that the CD be titled "Suck My Dick and Go Home",
illustrated with a cover reproduction of the painting commonly
known as Whistler's Mother. Tosches went for the title, but
preferred a portrait of Princess Di to Whistler's Mother.
The CD's producer, Harold Goldberg, threatened to withdraw
from the project when Mother Teresa was proposed.
The title "Blue Eyes and Exit Wounds" came
to Tosches later, and only later still did he understand why:
"That old thing about eyes as the windows of the soul. I guess
from there I went to eyes as exit wounds of the soul. And,
in one of the pieces I recorded, "Resurrection,"
another part of "Scratch", which ended up
being cut from the CD because it was too long, there was the
phrase "exit hole," a variation on the forensic term "exit
wound," and that was fresh in my mind; and I guess, somewhere
in my mind, there was Cubby's "Last Exit to Brooklyn".
Then there was the connection between romance and violence,
love and death, which seemed to run through a lot of what
we did that day, from Cubby's "In the Heat of the
Night" to some of my stuff. The wedding of those
two phrases, the one so sweet, familiar, and evocative, the
other so cold, clinical, and deadly, seemed to ride the breeze
just right.
Track List
HUBERT
SELBY, JR.
In the Heat of the Night
(excerpt)
Only the Lonely
La Vie en Rose
A Tale of
Anticipation
Psalm 16 (Song of Forgiveness)
It Takes One to
Know One
NICK
TOSCHES
What the Coptic Guy Said
A Feast for the Eyes
From the Dream-Book of Artemidorus
My Kind of Loving
Contrapasso
Ptolemy II
May the Gods without Names Redeem Me
Erebos
I with a Knife to the Throat of Cybele
Dante in Ravenna
I Dig Girls
This limited edition CD is available exclusively through this
website.
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The image of the crucified serpent is attributed to Nicolas Flamel, a medieval Parisian notary and
alchemist who claimed to have uncovered in 1357 a mysterious and
ancient bark codex containing hieroglyph symbols whose alleged
interpretation for him by a hermetic scholar he called Abraham the
Jew, enabled him, he further claimed, to conduct several successful
alchemical transformations. The symbol of the crucified serpent was
seen as representing the healing power of the Mercurial elixir.
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Credits
HAROLD
GOLDBERG
previously produced the 1994 spoken-word anthology Relationships
from Hell (Big Deal 90104-2), which featured an earlier version
of Nick Tosches's "My Kind of Loving." Goldberg, who is based
in New York, is a journalist who has written for The New York
Times Book Review, New York, Wired, and Vanity Fair.
DAN
BOSWORTH
is best-known for his work with the Rolling Stones, which
began with the Voodoo Lounge sessions of 1993 and became a
dominant force in the recording of the Stones' Bridges to
Babylon.
SCOTT
LAWRENCE WHITMAN,
a multimedia artist and photographer, is creative director
of Alchemy Networks,
an interactive media company in Los Angeles. Whitman designed
this web site as well as the CD. There
are others to whom thanks are owed. Dan Bosworth's involvement
in this project came about through the intercession of the
Texas musical luminary Stephen Bruton, whose singular vision
shines forth from several CDs that are well worth seeking
out. Scott Whitman's involvement came about through
the intercession of Lisa Derrick, the Saraswati of West Hollywood.
Jerry Stahl, the author of "Permanent Midnight" (Warner Books),
served as godfather. Jim Merlis, editor of Smokes Like a Fish
(140 Cadman Plaza West #7-E, Brooklyn, NY 11201), served as
publicist, propagandist, and bagman.
Shootout
at Chateau Marmont
October 1997
©1998-2008. All rights reserved. Send comments to
Webmaster.
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