“Sod the wine, I want to suck on the writing. This man White is an instinctive writer, bloody rare to find one who actually pulls it off, as in still gets a meaning across with concision. Sharp arbitrage of speed and risk, closest thing I can think of to Cicero’s ‘motus continuum animi.’

Probably takes a drink or two to connect like that: he literally paints his senses on the page.”


DBC Pierre (Vernon God Little, Ludmila’s Broken English, Lights Out In Wonderland ... Winner: Booker prize; Whitbread prize; Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman prize; James Joyce Award from the Literary & Historical Society of University College Dublin)


.

.

.

.

27 April 2016

MORE NOTES FROM MARS EXPO


Big Moustache Wine Crumpetry Nastachio Gris 2096 

This hirsute hairshirt outfit has impressed the writer with the success it’s had marketing the Big Moustache at the cricket. Everytime there’s nothing much happening the cameras zoom on its mighty bristle and you can hear the lips smacking round the ground like a Mexican Wave of anticipatory goozie.  In its wake they all spit lemon. Back that up with the sort of badland behaviour you never ever showed post the feminist revolution and you’ve got flavour all the way to the bank.  Deck it with meaningless bling about a showgirl or a showpony or something that came by so long ago it could have actually come by. wind up the mariachi octet and you’re rockin’.  It’s not so much a drink as an effort, really, and none of it was exerted by its connections.  Have it with a pillar of salt, and, as somebody else remarked, be envious of the people of Gomorrah.  It was a lot worse in Sodom. Anyway, cricket?  See, I toldja. This can't be Juarez. This is Valladolid. I'm with Mr. Burgess.

Brilliantry Jesus Box Sefriken Blancmon Noir Captain’s Reserve 2240 

At first I thought this had a crank handle, but it’s merely the opening device, which should stay folded behind the label until you’re thirsty or need it to whack some peanut.    Otherwise, it’s pretty much straight down the line for Blancmon, even a piebald.  It’d go with pie, too, come to think of it, but when you get it in your eyes you’ll find yourself yearning for something more muscle-bound and less Rounded Up.  I don’t how long it is since the Brilliantries made one with so much mustard-ammonia seepage, but you can overlook that and revel in the audacity of the maker’s neckline while the staff peel you an antelope.  Try it with alkaline batteries.  If you must use pearls, stick with the wild ones.  Cultured is common and shows little culture in comparison. Keep your diamonds on ice. 

Steelojex Taxi Spackasity Gonas Glosav Blanco 2099 

You know the lick of a clean urinal?  Clean, I mean, with the big lollies down the trough at the bottom.  That lovely reassuring whiff of clean?  Take your taxi cab.  Before the hyper-normal-smelling Punjabis took over the cabs and made them clean, most taxis smelt like a dirty public toilet, even though we don’t smoke ’em up anymore on account of the law replacing the lure and the lore.  Then you got one that smelt like a clean toilet, usually because of that little blotting paper Christmas tree swinging by its neck from the rear view mirror, exuding the overwhelming stink of clean.  Whatter you gonna do?  Which taxi are you gonna drink?  I’ll never forget the floral bouquet of the cab the Hon. Tom Koutsantonis MP drove for Bill Gonas’s brand new Adelaide Independent when he’d shuttle me between the Exeter Thirst Emporium and the square named after the first bloke in South Australia to get a knighthood, where I sometimes slept.  Like before he became a member of parliament. Tom sweated a lot in his neat poly uniform in the heat of the summer, and in the winter, too, for that matter, (heating), but you could depend on him getting you there quick.  He was a man on the make. Very very busy. When he became the Minister for Road Safety a bit later on, and somebody advised the electorate of some 58 traffic offences and over $10,000 of unpaid fines, they fired him from Road Safety and put him in charge of everything radioactive, like the world’s biggest uranium mine, and then made him Treasurer as well. So bugger this wine. Tom’s got a clean ticket now, and I wanna drink the uranium mine in his honour. I was in that business.  It’ll have a longer finish.



this illo from a 1973 notebook: party at Birksgate by me ... pearl illo and photo above also both by me ... engraving at top: Don Quixote goes mad from his reading of books of chivalry by Gustave Doré.





No comments: