Bring your computer with you into the bathroom and shut the door. Go ahead. I'll wait. I have plenty of time. I will read "Tut, Tut! Mr. Tutt," by Arthur Train, while I wait for you.

***

"TTMT" is a collection of short stories about a wholesome lawyer named Ephraim Tutt who takes on big city corruption and the plight of the common man by using unconventional methods.



Tutt is a complicated creature who simultaneously reveres justice, yet scorns the way simple lives are mangled by the aggressive American penal system. It is deeply archaic and quaint, and yet -- in ways -- always timely, always important.

***

In your bathroom yet? Excellent.

I know it's a bit cramped in here, but I think there is still room for one more.

Why, look who it is! It's Henry Miller!



While you chop some rotten logs and sandblast the wet whitewash, I'll get him talking. Trust me. He may look like he's about to die, but he's got a million stories, and they've all got more life in them than your toothbrush does.

(You should clean your toothbrush. And not with your mouth, or with "the sanity of time.")



HENRY MILLER'S "BATHROOM MONOLOGUE ONE" BREAKDOWN:

00.44 Henry Miller does not remember where he got his pictures or why he put them up. He spends long minutes every day, remembering.

01.33 You are free to make free associations. Go ahead: try it. I'll start. "Cancer."

02.29 Henry Miller is pretending he didn't put that picture up because it looks exactly like him and says "Diary of A Mad Old Man." He will tell you a long, long lie about why he put that picture up. A long, sexy lie.

04.41 The erotic possibilities of a boiled salmon have not been sufficiently explored in the pages of American pornography. I am envisioning a specialty magazine: "Red Hot, Red Hot Ladies." Any investors?

06.43 How to embarrass and puzzle Henry Miller. NOT WHAT YOU EXPECTED.

08:33 It has been suggested that Henry Miller also writes one-handed. "Big, long novels."

09:23 Never, ever, ever let Henry Miller fly your airplane.

09:49 Now you know why you are not allowed inside the cockpit of a 747. You do not hear the secret music. You are not meant to fly above the clouds of modern cares.

*FLUSH!*

Comment!

Posted by miracle on Thu, 15 May 2008 23:16:41 -0400 -- permanent link