March 31, 2008

This Man is Sick I Tell You, But We Want Him

 

altimage I recently watched some video footage of Sebastian Horsley having himself crucified. Really crucified, with nails on a cross. Right. Who is this guy? “My greatest work is my personality” he says. He seems to me to be the epitome or perhaps culmination of every overindulged rich person who mocks himself because he can. And I think he’s okay with that. At any rate, he’s an author of his own “unauthorized autobiography” Dandy in the Underworld and even better, he’s been banned from coming into the US for “moral turpitude.” It’s all so crazy. Flipping through his book randomly your met with plenty of cliche (“The best revenge is living well”), party scenes, navel gazing and something like rumination, yet it’s also a good reminder as I sit in front of my computer all day that I should go and have a drink, eh.

Here’s the press release from PEN:

New York, New York, March 31, 2008—PEN American Center is appealing to the Departments of Homeland Security and State to review the exclusion of British author Sebastian Horsley from the United States, calling the decision of Customs officials to bar him from entering the country on grounds of “moral turpitude” a “dangerous precedent that could be extended to bar scores of literary figures from a number of countries.”

Horsley, whose memoir Dandy in the Underworld was published last year in Britain and the U.S., arrived at Newark Liberty Airport on Tuesday, March 18, 2008. After Customs officials ran a Google search on him, he was questioned for several hours about his statements and writings and ultimately refused entry to the U.S. based on admissions of past involvement with drugs and prostitution, as well as his participation in a self-crucifixion in the Philippines in 2000. He was forced to return to the U.K.

PEN has invited Horsley back to the United States to participate in this year’s World Voices Festival of International Literature at the end of April, and is appealing to U.S. officials to facilitate his entry into the country

Read PEN’s letter to Secretary Rice and Secretary Chertoff here: http://pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/2139/prmID/172

What’s comical here is that a) I would gather Horsley’s delighted by this and b) had he not written this book, which The Rachels actually seem to have wrote, PEN wouldn’t be his champion; he’d fall under someone else’s jurisdiction – so it all comes together so nicely.

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How convenient for his publishers. This certainly IS a gold mine for them, maybe they set the whole thing up?

This is for certain. Sebastian Horsley wasn’t sent home to London for his “subversive ideas.” Foreigners with prior convictions and histories of drug abuse get denied entry into the U.S. all the time. Sad but true. Most people have a much worse time of it, since they don’t have a conglomerate behind them to further their cause.

And since it was probably the publisher who tipped off immigration, why do we care about this man or his book?

I smell a rat. This “scandal” was staged.

    – Rennie Court (04/07 05:41 PM)



Rennie, I think you’re giving the publisher credit for being more influential and clever than they probably are about such things - seriously, the funny part is Pen’s championing of Horsley, but I don’t think any of this is scandalous in the least.

    – Bud Parr (04/09 02:23 AM)


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"This Man is Sick I Tell You, But We Want Him" was posted March 31, 2008 and written by Bud Parr.

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Recent Comments

Hi Bud,

This is so bittersweet to read. I wish U of Penn more than luck in tackling the collection and making an exhibit for the books. I can’t wait to see the store again. I used to work at Gotham (all too) briefly, from the summer of 2001 to the fall of 2002 when I was 19 and in school for illustration. The building, the books, and especially the people (I had amazing co-workers, plus some really lovely customers) have a special place in my heart. I’m was hoping the link would mention Andreas (Andy) Brown, the last owner of GBM, but no such luck.

I was going to venture a guess that if the old man you met at the store was a GBM employee it might have been Phillip Lyman, but my understanding was Mr. Lyman was notoriously well-read (and had substantial library himself) so I suppose he would not have been reading Dante for the first time when you met him. More likely it was one of our splendid customers. It happened more than once that one customer on the floor would ask me about an author or title and I would meet them with my perfectly hopeless stare ‘n stammer—until another customer that had overheard the plea would effortlessly proffer the desired answer or suggestion. I learned so much working there, from everyone, but was a pretty useless specimen while the learning percolated. One of the more useful employees (our resident poetry expert) recently got a shout-out over at the New Yorker’s book blog after being made famous at the splendiferous Kwik Meal #1 cart:

New Yorker Link

One more book nerdy bit before I cut off the nostalgia trip. The above-mentioned Marc was the first person to Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino in my hands; I read it up in the 2nd floor gallery on my lunch breaks (lunch from Kwik Meal #1, of course), surrounded by art books and Edward Gorey paraphernalia. That book took (and takes, I’ve re-read it many times) me so many places, but when I’m lucky it takes me back to Gotham’s gallery, by the 2nd floor window where the constant refrain of the gold and diamond sellers coming in through the window mingled with the dulcet tones of NPR from a radio bigger than a microwave and the smell of old paper—all unchanged almost more than a decade later. At least in my mind. It’s still one of my favorite books (and authors), ever. Marc also blessed me with recommendations of Wallace Stevens’ Palm At The End of the Mind, Moby Dick with the Rockwell Kent illustrations, and my first ever NYC apartment: a little studio over in Astoria, Queens. Everyone at that store was overflowing and generous with knowledge, stories and history.

Places like Gotham do more than provide fodder for sentimental blog comment drivel though; I hope the lessons learned from the ongoing troubles are shaping a new generation of booksellers and customers that can find ways to thrive. Bookstores don’t belong in museums. Wise men fish there.

– (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
on “Well That's That”


Best wishes for the holidays, Bud.

I used to work in the Pan Am/Met Life Building in Manhattan.  I would walk over to Gotham at lunch and browse, browse, browse.  Books were the only thing I ever bought on that stree.  It’s a shame it’s gone.  Thanks for the update for those of us no longer living in NYC.  Atlanta is not so much a book haven.

Best,
Jim H.

– Jim H.
on “Well That's That”


Yeah, for all of our technology - which is great - I mean you and I are talking about this from two ends of the country - but there’s nothing like being there.

– Bud Parr
on “Well That's That”