...and don't miss Poetry and Prose from John Thomas and Philomene Long The Beats: an Existential Comedy Lynne Bronstein's Venice Poems John O'Kane Eavesdropping on the Boardwalk Zendik poem: Gas House beat HQ
|
Clair Horner Clair Horner self-published his booklets of poetry, aphorisms, and Carlinesque linguistic conundrums (along with some really dumb puns) in batches of 1000 copies. "If you want a castle in the air, you must look up someone in the false estate business," is a good example of the fun he had with the language. He used to frequent the Boardwalk, selling his books to tourists, especially around Dudley, because he was an habitué of the Venice West Café. We know he was in Venice in 1960, because one of the first things Vaughn Marlowe did when he arrived, was listen to Horner, who would have been almost 40 then, read at the Gas House. Apparently he read on KPFK radio at least once. John OBrien also mentions knowing Horner, back in the day, and his memoir includes a photo which is actually a still from Leland Auslender's film, Venice Beach in the Sixties: A Celebration of Creativity. The books included: I was fortunate enough to get hold of a copy of Please Don't Trudge on the Fudge. I say fortunate, because I collect quotations, and this little book is a gold mine of them. It provides eminently quotable lines on the subjects of pets, relationships, politics, sex, genius, humor, age, suicide, creativity, racism, money and more. Horner was a hard-core atheist, so of course he had a lot to say about religion - a veritable storehouse of one-liners any anti-religionist would be proud to repeat. I don't totally endorse a lot of what he says, but then, that's true of anybody. He had disagreeable opinions about homosexuality, feminism, the penal system, and a few other subjects. He also mined an unhappy marriage for subject matter. Some people spell Horner's first name with an E at the end, but in his own books he spelled it with no E, so I expect that's the right way. By all accounts he was a fun guy to hang out with, possessing a quick wit and a raunchy sense of humor. He lived to be at least 58, because that's mentioned as his age in the 1979 book. |
I live on a planet full
of
Horner in 1979 It's well to know what's
going on,
FOR MY FRIEND I'd like to put everything I have Clair Horner |
|
© 2004 - 2008 Pat Hartman If any animations, pop-ups or other weird things show up, they were inserted by an evil third party, and I'd like to hear about it. To report website malfunctions, please email webslave@virtualvenice.info To receive VirtualVenice e-mail news: send a blank email with "subscribe" in the subject line "Table of Contents" or site map here it is |