12 July 2011

Ontario Gothic Romance (with the scent of Brut)



Satan's Bell
Joy Carroll
Markham, ON: Pocket Books, 1976
190 pages


This review now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:
The Dusty Bookcase:
A Journey Through Canada's
Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing
Available at the very best bookstores and through


06 July 2011

Bottoms Up, Shy Photographer



Reading The Queers of New York a couple of weeks ago got me thinking about Jock Carroll, under whose editorial direction the book was published. A fine photographer, but not much of an editor, he's at least partly to blame for the novel's failings. Truth be told, Carroll wasn't much of a writer either, though he did have a number of titles to his credit. The first edition of Bottoms Up (1961) is the most sought-after, but only because it was published by the infamous Olympia Press. Carroll's only novel, it is perhaps the blandest piece of writing Maurice Girodias ever passed off as "erotica".

It's a wonder that Bottoms Up thing ever made it into print – that it was republished seems not improbable, but impossible. And yet, for more than a decade the novel was available in one form or another. There were at least thirteen editions, published in six counties, making Bottoms Up one of Canada's all-time best selling novels. Carroll once boasted that it had moved close one million copies. The editions below go some way in backing up his claim.


Bitte recht scharf
Bremen: Schünemann Verlag, 1963
Not only the first translation, but the first hardcover edition in any language. The German was followed by Italian (Il Fotografo Timido, 1967) and Danish (Den blufærdige fotograf, 1969) translations.


The Shy Photographer
New York: Stein & Day, 1964
Retitled, Carroll's novel kicked off Stein & Day's "Olympia Press Series". Short-lived, ill-fated, the series actually began and ended with The Shy Photographer. The cover was also used on the first British edition, published in 1964 by Macgibbon & Kee.


The Shy Photographer
New York: Bantam, 1965
The first and only legal American paperback edition. "Candy with a camera!" exclaims, um... whoever wrote the cover copy, I guess.


The Shy Photographer
London: Panther, 1965

"The novel that's loaded with heaven-ly nudes". Not true.
The image was also used for the 1970 German paperback edition.

Bottoms Up
Covina, CA: Collectors Publications, 1967
A pirated edition produced by the notorious Marvin Miller. "FIRST AMERICAN PRINTING" is the claim. Again, not true.


The Shy Photographer
London: Panther, 1967
A droog takes a photograph. Whoever designed the second Panther edition seems to have been intent on representing both titles.
Wholly unappealing. And is not superimposing the author's name across some guy's ass just a tad insulting?

Il Fotografo Timido
Collana: Longanesi, 1970
The first Italian paperback edition recycles the hardcover image (which was in turn borrowed from the Bantam paperback). Of all the translations, the Italian is by far the most common.

Il Fotografo Timido
Collana: Longanesi, 1972.
A later Italian edition, the last in any language, continues the tradition of misrepresentation. Protagonist Arthur King does not become a photographer for Playboy, and at no point does he don a pair of purple panties.

There has never been a Canadian edition.


Related post:

04 July 2011

My Career as a Teenage Rock Photographer



From the archives, these handbills and related photographs from my aborted career as a concert photographer. I never was serious and asked for no special favours. In fact, these were all taken using an old 35mm Canon (with broken light meter) that was smuggled into each show in a friend's purse.

Gang of Four's Jon King at Montreal's Beer Garden, 4 July 1981. thirty years ago today. I've since seen the band three more times, but have never once heard them play "5:45", my favourite of all their songs.


Dave Allen, Hugo Burnham and Andy Gill. It's my understanding that this was the last time Allen played with the band until the 2005 reunion. Here it looks like he's packing up:

Durutti Column with American Devices. Véhicule Art, Montreal. 2 April 1982. With an audience of twenty or so, it was much harder to go unnoticed at this show. Still, no one seemed to mind. Damn that light meter.

The great Vini Reilly.


Montreal was their first ever Canadian gig, squeezed between New York and Toronto on a three-date North American tour. They've never been back – no return of the Durutti Column.

Sorry.

A bootleg recording of the Véhicule Art show is out there under the title dcmtl 1982. It includes this, for three decades my favourite Reilly composition:


01 July 2011

Two Hurrahs for the New Dominion



Two poems in celebration of Canada Day, both titled "Hurrah for the New Dominion", both by Scottish immigrants. The first, penned by Alexander McLachlan, comes from his Poems and Songs (Rose, 1888):


McLachlan's verse was later included in Selections from Scottish Canadian Poets; Being a Collection of the Best Poetry Written by Scotsmen and Their Descendants (Rose, 1900), in which we also find this somewhat disturbing photograph of George Pirie.


Considered "one of the ablest writers in Canada" by Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie, a foe, on 1 July 1867 Pirie was editor of the Guelph Herald. His "Hurrah for the New Dominion" is, I think, a bit more fun:
Hurrah for the New Dominion!
'Tis founded on public opinion;
Mid the blessings of peace
May the nation increase,
Till the twin oceans bound the Dominion.
Sadly, Pirie didn't live to see the young country reach the Pacific Ocean; he died in July 1870, just one year before British Columbia joined Confederation.

A happy Canada Day to all!