um livro à quarta - festim nu

Não é o livro da minha vida (será que existe?...), mas, tinha mesmo de começar por aqui.

Fui avançando por leituras alternativas (o que quer que isso seja) e cheguei a Festim Nu, sem conhecer nada de Burroughs. Já li o livro três vezes. Ao princípio tentei perceber. Depois fui-me deixando levar pelas paisagens e retratos… é melhor assim. O autor corta e copia excertos sem lógica aparente.

Um livro de que tinha alguma vergonha de ler no metro cheio de gente – os relatos são pesados, para quem ainda ia estando verdinho nestas coisas. Ficou o vício pelo autor e, mais tarde, este blog, que lhe é inteiramente dedicado.

Estou a ler todas as obras de Burroughs, desta vez de forma cronológica. Hei-de reler uma quarta vez… (vou em Interzone).

Para os mais interessados, fica um excerto (uma pequena história, com princípio e fim… quem viu o filme de Cronenberg deve recordar-se).

The Man Who Taught His Asshole to Talk

Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his ass to talk? His whole abdomen would move up and down you dig farting out the words. It was unlike anything I had ever heard.

This ass talk had sort of a gut frequency. It hit you right down there like you gotta go. You know when the old colon gives you the elbow and it feels sorta cold inside, and you know all you have to do is turn loose? Well this talking hit you right down there, a bubbly, thick stagnant sound, a sound you could smell.

This man worked for a carnival you dig, and to start with it was like a novelty ventri- liquist act. Real funny, too, at first. He had a number he called The Better Ole that was a scream, I tell you. I forget most of it but it was clever. Like, "Oh I say, are you still down there, old thing?"

"Nah I had to go relieve myself."

After a while the ass start talking on its own. He would go in without anything prepared and his ass would ad-lib and toss the gags back at him every time.

Then it developed sort of teeth-like little raspy in- curving hooks and start eating. He thought this was cute at first and built an act around it, but the asshole would eat its way through his pants and start talking on the street, shouting out it wanted equal rights. It would get drunk, too, and have crying jags nobody loved it and it wanted to be kissed same as any other mouth. Finally it talked all the time day and night, you could hear him for blocks screaming at it to shut up, and beating it with his fist, and sticking candles up it, but nothing did any good and the asshole said to him Its you who will shut up in the end. Not me. Because we dont need you around here any more. I can talk and eat AND shit.

After that he began waking up in the morning with a transparent jelly like a tadpoles tail all over his mouth. This jelly was what the scientists call un-D.T., Undifferentiated Tissue, which can grow into any kind of flesh on the human body. He would tear it off his mouth and the pieces would stick to his hands like burning gasoline jelly and grow there, grow anywhere on him a glob of it fell. So finally his mouth sealed over, and the whole head would have have amputated spontaneous- except for the EYES you dig. Thats one thing the asshole COULDNT do was see. It needed the eyes. But nerve connections were blocked and infiltrated and atrophied so the brain couldnt give orders any more. It was trapped in the skull, sealed off. For a while you could see the silent, helpless suffer- ing of the brain behind the eyes, then finally the brain must have died, because the eyes WENT OUT, and there was no more feeling in them than a crabs eyes on the end of a stalk.

Fotos: Dee Love