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From page 66:
“Knowledge & its possession as National Socialism
does not divide classes but binds & unites people
in the one great will of the State…our Fuhrer
Adolf Hitler… let’s give a threefold ‘Heil!’”
“You took the part that once was my heart”
Lady Day sings & kids watch slow pan
along pyramids of bones teeth shoes eyeglasses
instant banish vanish of Hiroshima Nagasaki…
ARE YOU BLOND? IF SO
YOU ARE A CULTURE CREATOR
& CULTURE SUPPORTER!
The second chapter of Beat Thing is called Beat Thing: Commentary. Both the words “Beat” and “Commentary” seem pretty metaphorical in this instance. If the photos in the first section were unsettling, these photos are deliberately horrifying; a Statue-of-Liberty-decorated thermometer shot in negative; a skull-and-planet-decorated thermometer, also in negative, and a full-page shot of a newsstand of headlines like MAN BUYS PROSTITUTE FOR $1500 AND KILLS HER, SEX COOK FORCES GIRL TO CARVE HERSELF!, SHE GOT HER KICKS WITH KIDS: CONFESSIONS OF A SEX-MAD BABYSITTER, and let’s not forget LESBIAN LOVERS NABBED FOR ARMED ROBBERY. Welcome to Meltzer’s early childhood; not the life of the Beats, but the madness from which they, and all of their heirs, sprung. Across the Atlantic, Europeans of every politic, gender, and race explained why the specific and personal destruction of Jewboy David Meltzer was the only hope for the Earth’s salvation, while in Meltzer’s own neighborhood people of all ages sought refuge from their problems in the most fantastic and violent discussions of human sexuality imaginable. While Americans increasingly focused their fear and neuroses on those whom they might fuck, Europeans railed against the Other, the Outsider, the Unfuckable. The situation was unsustainable. Meltzer grew up in a world utterly doomed; destined to fall within his lifetime. Furthermore, he grew up with the constant knowledge that his world’s immanent destruction would be blamed on him. Meltzer makes frequent, flashing references to comic books, which must have had enormous appeal. No one should be surprised that Superman and most of the early comic books were created by Jews; Superman, despite his winking-Nietzsche name, was obviously Jewish. Who else but a young Jewish male was born with enough power to destroy the world?
The second chapter is by far the most entertaining, with its discordant and perfectly fused images of the 20th Century. The newsstand snapshot was taken in the 50’s, but it’s not there to be chronologically consistent, it’s there to give a feel of the ideas and moods already in place as the war commenced, and the mood is clear and disturbingly beautiful. Meltzer never explains what he consciously understood about the world as it was when he was growing up. Really, he never explains jack shit about anything, though he makes everything perfectly clear. Here in 2004, he certainly understands what forces turned him into a counterculture artist, the hopelessness that made him turn his back on the American Dream while at the same time fixing him as a personage of the pseudo-Republic. From page 81:
“Hitler decides: demonstrations
should be allowed to continue
withdraw the Police
once Jews get the feel of
popular anger, it is only right”
buckled nylon rayon undergarments
canyon cleavage
Exotique: Bizarre & Unusual
“Perry delightfully reached for the
lovely silk stockings & slipped his trim
ankles into their soft goodness
…It’s never too tight
I’m just so excited
that’s why I gasp so much
excruciatingly secured laces
reach the pit of his tummy
force him to arch his shoulders
throw out his chest & fairly gasp for breath”
--Fat girl! fat girl! cries Leon Parker
bari chug to Navarro nova
Scope, Pix, See, Glance, Peep Show
Wink, Eyeful, Flirt, Bare, Stare, Rave
Night & Day, Keyhole, Paris Life
autopsy to see w/ one’s own eyes
observe watch imagine spy
“I want to get back to the hotel
& see a blood-red glare in the sky
Synagogues burn…
No essay can explain what happened during the War; why the world chose to abandon reason, compassion, and humanity with such naughty and genocidal joy. Poetry comes closer, though current events come even closer. Meltzer chooses to paint a picture, distinctly Guernica-esque, but told before the massacres. The actual War isn’t really discussed in Beat Thing. The second chapter simply keeps beating that quiet, pant-shitting drum: it’s coming. it’s coming. it’s coming.
