Editor, publisher, distributor, educator, creator Austin English flies solo on the anthology Crease, after collaborating with Floyd Tangeman on the recent Domino Books Jaywalk anthology series. Where Jaywalk was artist-oriented English here focuses on “transgressive” authors of the past: Jean Genet, Anonymous, Alfred Jarry, Georges Bataille, and Harriet Sohmers Zwerling. He pairs them with a who’s who of Domino Books regulars: John Hankiewicz (Hot House); Ian Sundahl (Social Discipline Reader); Chris Cajero Cilla (Feast of Grease); Pris Genet (Penetration of the Skin); and, E.A. Bethea (Francis Bacon). Covers are by Le Dernier Cri co-founder Caroline Sury and Brooklyn artist Marlene Frontera. Miscellaneous frivolity courtesy of Lillian Ansell.
“Much of the work here focuses on the intersection of repression and action,” is how editor Austin English sums up his aims with the anthology on the Domino Books site. All the stories deal with the basic sexual urges and social situations of various characters, but not filtered through a romantic or pornographic lens.
‘A Thief’s Journal’ by Jean Genet, adapted by John Hankiewicz, elevates the everyday scraping by of a male prostitute and con artist to a lyrical dissonance. Hankiewicz’s realistic images of their criminal actions are contrasted with Genet’s words expressing the “poetry” of life no matter the circumstances.
‘My Secret Life’ by an Anonymous Victorian-era author, is updated by Ian Sundahl (above). He takes the Victorian-era sexual ruminations of the author, and pairs it with contemporary scenes rather than a literal illustration of the text. This seems to transform a 150-year-old social history into more of an autobiography from Sundahl’s viewpoint, rather than straight adaptation.
Pairing Alfred Jarry ‘Fear Visits Love’ and Chris Cajero Cilla art (below) produces one of the most vibrant collaborations of the anthology. Cilla’s surreal images fairly shimmer on the page, the energy in his thick lines carrying the discordant/absurd narrative, not forward, but outward.
‘Blue of Noon’ by Georges Bataille is illustrated by Pris Genet not so much in a dream-like state, as more a fog enshrouds Troppman and the three women in his life as if the characters don’t want to confront the horrific onset of fascism from the shadows of the Spanish Civil War to the beginnings of Hitler’s reign over Europe. Troppman and Dorthea’s relationship is examined in less a representational manner and more a series of declining states of being.
Excerpts from ‘Abroad: An Expatriate’s Diaries 1950-55’ by Harriet Sohmers Zwerling (below) are illustrated by E.A. (Francis Bacon) Bethea in a perfect match of subject and their style of representative illustration under big blocks of text. The diary entries depict an expatriate’s life in Paris in the 50s. Harriet is almost a ghost floating through the different Parisian scenes, the most relevant of which are Harriet’s depictions of lesbian and gay life in Paris at the time through her complicated relationship with poet Susan Sontag. Bethea brings a more personal perspective to the adaptation by framing the diary entries with their own personal connections to Harriet and the text.
The overall effect of Austin English’s efforts are to bring together the repressed (or hidden in plain sight) sexual mores, social upheaval, and intellectual derogation of the past not to reexamine or see through a contemporaneous lens, but show us these circumstances are art in themselves, beyond the attitudes of society then and now.
Austin English (E), Jean Genet, Anonymous, Alfred Jarry, Georges Bataille, Harriet Sohmers Zwerling (W), John Hankiewicz, Ian Sundahl, Chris Cajero Cilla, Pris Genet, E.A. Bethea, Lillian Ansell (A), Caroline Sury, Marlene Frontera (CA) • Domino Books, $12.00
Review by Gary Usher
