It Sucks/Runaway Inflation (1 Viewer)

mjp

Founding member
New game: find the butcher!

A stanza from a manuscript:

all breathing tissue must
be used against the
impossible

A stanza from the same poem in a posthumous book:

all facial tissue and toilet paper
must be used again and again if
possible.
Okay, now find the butcher!

Go.

See you on the funny pages.
 
Martin'sButchers.jpg
 
I'm seriously shocked.
I'm seriously sad, because I can't read the later collections anymore (which are the majority of them at this point) without seeing ghosts at every turn. Anyone can go through the manuscripts and see that the later the date, the more liberties were taken with the work. Shit like this just casts doubt over everything, even when changes may not have been made (though it is unusual to find an example of a collected poem that hasn't been changed in the posthumous books - the changes are so pervasive that I am surprised when I find a manuscript that closely matches the published poem).

You can say that "Bukowski revised," but he didn't do most of these things. You can see his revisions on the manuscripts. You can certainly see his intention with a poem. He didn't change "breathing tissue" to "facial tissue and toilet paper" any more than he would change "Jane" to "Bob." Only someone who does not understand the poem could make those changes.

This is like Theo Van Gogh (the 19th century one) taking a palatte knife, mixing up some paint and "improving" Vincent's paintings, because, after all, he paid for the paint, and he knows how a painting should look. It's not editing, it's destruction. And the fact that it escalated to the point of ridiculousness after Bukowski's death only makes it more obvious whose hand is at work: The Butcher of Santa Barbara (cue screams from the balcony!).

I found a perfect example of good editing yesterday in a Wormwood issue. You can see it here. Malone changed "counteract" to "contradict." He fixed the piece, he didn't change its meaning.
 
C'mon guys - breathing tissue just doesn't have that skid-row feel to it. Punch it up to facial tissue and toilet paper !

We have to keep promoting the crazy-bum-on-the-park-bench image.
Is it too late to finesse these titles ?

The Flash Of Lightning Behind The Mountain Of Beer Cans
Mockingbird Wish Me Bail Money
What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through The Puddle Of Piss
 
Unbelievable.
Hard to believe JM did this.
Couldn't it have been someone/something else in the production chain?
Maybe the automatic spellchecker in WORD.
Those spellcheckers can do things like this at times.
Yeah, that has to be it!
sigh...
 

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