purpose, then it ceases to be avant-garde. By the mere fact that it opposes or rejects established systems of creation, it has to remain unfinished. Do you even understand what I’m saying? We are defunct practitioners of defunct art.”
“You know what your problem is, Gimbel?” I said, leaning away from him. “You actually think you’re saying something that makes sense. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
That’s when the little Hemingway doll took a poke at me. I sidestepped the swing and watched him roll into an azalea bush. Linda and the other defunct artists rushed to his aid. I offered a shrug to the confused bystanders and stepped away toward the door.
Gimbel was on his knees now and he yelled, “Postmodern fiction came and went like the wind and you missed it. And that’s why you’re bitter, Ellison.”
I stopped, not believing that the man had actually come to fight me because of a paper that I only barely took seriously. Standing over them all on the steps, I said, “I don’t mean to disparage or belittle what you do, Gimbel. I don’t know what you do.”
Gimbel found his legs and stood straight, puffed up his chest. “I have unsettled readers. I have made them uncomfortable. I have unsettled their historical, cultural and psychological assumptions by disrupting their comfortable relationship between words and things. I have brought to a head the battle between language and reality. But even as my art dies, I create it without trying.”
His little group applauded.
“Man, do you need to get laid,” I said, shook my head and stepped through the door.
It’s 1933 and Ernst Barlach is cracking his knuckles while the cup of tea on the table in front of him cools. “My hands hurt so much these days,” he says.
Paul Klee nods, sips his tea. He is saddened himself. He has just been expelled from the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. “They are calling me a Siberian Jew.”
“Who is? Das Schwarze Korps?”
“Who else? And they are burning any books which contain pictures of our work. They call me a Slavic lunatic.”
“They’re correct about both of us.”
Ernst laughs.
Eckhart: You know I have a novel, Adolf.
Hitler: Do tell, Dietrich.
Eckhart: I call it
The Morning.
The main character is essentially myself. The character is an unrecognized literary genius wbo is addicted, but manages quite well the sweet gift of morphine.
Hitler: I hope it is as powerful as your volume of poems. Such anguish and sheer beauty those verses offer the reader.
Eckhart: It irks me no end that the whole of my recognition rests on the translation of that damn Norwegian. I actually hate
Peer Gynt.
Hitler: Oh, but how you transformed it. Now, it speaks to the German soul. That is why it is so popular with the people. And what the work led you to, your patriotic writings and how you’ve unveiled the Jews for what they are. I will fight the trolls with you.
Eckhart: They will destroy German culture if we let them.
Hitler: Then we will not let them.
Eckhart: I am
ein Judenfresser.
Hitler: Me, too.
Eckhart: I can’t believe we lost the war. These pamphlets of mine however will show our people why we lost and that the enemy we sbould fear most was not in the trenches.
Hitler: What is this one called?
Eckhart: I call this one
Judaism in and out of Us.
Hitler: I liked
Austria under Judah’s Star.
Eckhart: Everyone seemed to like that one. I sent
This is the Jew
to a professor and he sent it back to me with a note telling me it is full of hate. So, I wrote back. I wrote, “It is said that the German schoolmaster won the war of 1866. The professor of 1914 lost the World War.”
Hitler: You told him.
Eckhart: I have an idea for a newspaper, a weekly that I plan to call,
Auf gut Deutsch.
And I have been thinking. You should join the Thule Society.
Hitler: I am already a member.
Eckhart: Shall we recite the motto together?
Hitler and Eckhart:
Remember that you are German. Keep your blood pure.
Somehow these
“You know what your problem is, Gimbel?” I said, leaning away from him. “You actually think you’re saying something that makes sense. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
That’s when the little Hemingway doll took a poke at me. I sidestepped the swing and watched him roll into an azalea bush. Linda and the other defunct artists rushed to his aid. I offered a shrug to the confused bystanders and stepped away toward the door.
Gimbel was on his knees now and he yelled, “Postmodern fiction came and went like the wind and you missed it. And that’s why you’re bitter, Ellison.”
I stopped, not believing that the man had actually come to fight me because of a paper that I only barely took seriously. Standing over them all on the steps, I said, “I don’t mean to disparage or belittle what you do, Gimbel. I don’t know what you do.”
Gimbel found his legs and stood straight, puffed up his chest. “I have unsettled readers. I have made them uncomfortable. I have unsettled their historical, cultural and psychological assumptions by disrupting their comfortable relationship between words and things. I have brought to a head the battle between language and reality. But even as my art dies, I create it without trying.”
His little group applauded.
“Man, do you need to get laid,” I said, shook my head and stepped through the door.
It’s 1933 and Ernst Barlach is cracking his knuckles while the cup of tea on the table in front of him cools. “My hands hurt so much these days,” he says.
Paul Klee nods, sips his tea. He is saddened himself. He has just been expelled from the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. “They are calling me a Siberian Jew.”
“Who is? Das Schwarze Korps?”
“Who else? And they are burning any books which contain pictures of our work. They call me a Slavic lunatic.”
“They’re correct about both of us.”
Ernst laughs.
Eckhart: You know I have a novel, Adolf.
Hitler: Do tell, Dietrich.
Eckhart: I call it
The Morning.
The main character is essentially myself. The character is an unrecognized literary genius wbo is addicted, but manages quite well the sweet gift of morphine.
Hitler: I hope it is as powerful as your volume of poems. Such anguish and sheer beauty those verses offer the reader.
Eckhart: It irks me no end that the whole of my recognition rests on the translation of that damn Norwegian. I actually hate
Peer Gynt.
Hitler: Oh, but how you transformed it. Now, it speaks to the German soul. That is why it is so popular with the people. And what the work led you to, your patriotic writings and how you’ve unveiled the Jews for what they are. I will fight the trolls with you.
Eckhart: They will destroy German culture if we let them.
Hitler: Then we will not let them.
Eckhart: I am
ein Judenfresser.
Hitler: Me, too.
Eckhart: I can’t believe we lost the war. These pamphlets of mine however will show our people why we lost and that the enemy we sbould fear most was not in the trenches.
Hitler: What is this one called?
Eckhart: I call this one
Judaism in and out of Us.
Hitler: I liked
Austria under Judah’s Star.
Eckhart: Everyone seemed to like that one. I sent
This is the Jew
to a professor and he sent it back to me with a note telling me it is full of hate. So, I wrote back. I wrote, “It is said that the German schoolmaster won the war of 1866. The professor of 1914 lost the World War.”
Hitler: You told him.
Eckhart: I have an idea for a newspaper, a weekly that I plan to call,
Auf gut Deutsch.
And I have been thinking. You should join the Thule Society.
Hitler: I am already a member.
Eckhart: Shall we recite the motto together?
Hitler and Eckhart:
Remember that you are German. Keep your blood pure.
Somehow these
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