Beefheart & Gormenghast

Capt. Beefheart played at Goddard, the last summer I was around there, and although memory is inexplicably foggy about goings-on in Vermont in the late 60’s, it may have been the alternative media festival held there in 1970. Somewhere online you can probably find some of young Robert Altman’s photos of the event.

Meanwhile, I’m tempted to revisit The Third Policeman, which was originally lent me by Jerry Jarvis. I have it around here somewhere, with his other works (Flan’s, not Jerry’s or Capt. B.’s).

Oh, I guess I do have a little Capt. B. in the archives of doodah.

Have you read Mervyn Peake? His only noted work is the nearly-finished (and ne’er to be, as Mr Peake is dead) trilogy of Ghormenghast. An exercise in splendiferous (yes, literally) purple prosody, in which the entire many-hundreds of pages of Book One span about a week (the birth) of Titus Groan, 77th Earl. It’s a strange and monumental piece of work, but so extraordinarily eloquent and over the top that you might enjoy it even though it lacks certain conventionally esteemed literary qualities.

Wait. Who am I talking to? This happens a lot.

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