Serpent's Egg Day

 

I feel now I want Astral and the Carnival club again; isn’t that perverse?! (21st March 1997)

I feel now I want Astral and the Carnival club again; isn’t that perverse?! I want to sit in Astral in shorts, with big breast girl in white top and purple thong on screen. I want to sit in Carnival with black-haired Amazonian with green-tattooed arse on stage. I want to go back up Brewer Street stairway to those warm lamplit rooms. Monday or Thursday. If Monday is dark, go Monday as well. Last week of darkness.

I love going to the models! But I can’t feel anything (19th March 1997)

I love going to the models! But I can’t feel anything. Going up the steps is so exciting, standing outside door reading the sign, knowing you can touch them in a minute. Rachel, voluptuous chubby red bob girl. Black bra, breasts hanging over the top, see through tights, nothing underneath. As I lay in bed, she took bra off and pulled tights down. What a sight. So voluptuous sitting next to me, I touched breasts, her pussy, her slit. She put me in, and it was warm, I could feel her clamping me. I pulled out, and put it back in again, back in the warm clamp again. Try it sober maybe. You do what you want. W--ked in Astral to get ready for model. 

I can always go to Brewer Street when I want to now. 

I want to spend lots of money, and go back to work, earn lots of money and spend it all in Brewer Street. Write off for jobs, start signing on, when the money goes. Spend it fast as you like. All those doorways to be investigated, and stood outside. I wouldn’t want to go back to Carla, but Rachel I definitely would.

“Lautrec only placed his trust in people when he felt that they understood him" (17th March 1997)

“Lautrec only placed his trust in people when he felt that they understood him, when he knew them for a long time or when something about them had made a special impression on him. 

Lautrec tried—in spite of, or because of, his handicap—to find the most positive sides of life for himself. At a disadvantage because of his health and his outer appearance, he felt himself magically drawn to everything vital and beautiful and was addicted to the colourful, lively activities of the so-called demi-monde. He undoubtedly suffered because of his abnormal appearance. Once he said, ‘You have to be able to suffer yourself,’ but just this was apparently difficult for him. However, the inner loneliness remained. In order to fight this or at least to cover it, he hid his innermost feelings behind a protective veil of self-irony and cynicism. It was unusual for him to utter such melancholy words, he mostly tried to appear composed and gay, and in many of his letters and diary entries he developed a sort of grim humour. 

The only thing which was able to give Lautrec consolation and strength in this difficult time was drawing and painting. ‘…I am now obsessed by painting,’ he wrote to Etiene Derismes on Feb 11, 1880, ‘my room is full of things which do not even deserve to be called daubs. But it helps to pass the time.’ From this pastime an art developed which rapidly matured. 

He gave himself no peace and just wanted to learn diligently and do something which he could be proud of, as art was the best means of self-realisation for him. It distracted him from his sad fate, he found a joy in living through it. With art he counterbalanced his inferiority complex. The older he became, the more his stunted body stood out and his facial expressions became less attractive. ‘He never blamed anyone although he suffered a lot because of his appearance. People turned away from him, but generally more in sympathy than derision.’ 

Lautrec often had to suffer other people’s thoughtlessness. He was called ‘the gnome with a child’s legs’, ‘shorty’ or suffered even more hurtful descriptions. Only those who knew him closer appreciated him. They did not see the cripple in him but rather the ingenious, amusing human being, and they recognised that behind what the others so quickly called horrible, values were concealed which counted more than any ideals of beauty. 

He longed for true love which he never found because he sought it in a milieu where there was naturally no room for lasting feelings. Instead of realising this he blamed his outer appearance and said resignedly, ‘I would like to see the woman on this planet who has a lover who is uglier than me.’ 

Lautrec was a cynic who, especially when he felt hurt, cheated or used, churned out his irreverent, frivolous and sometimes vulgar platitudes like little poisoned arrows. However, in his heart he was very sensitive, he just did not want to show anyone this side of his character if possible.” [source material currently unknown]

I stay very pure (16th March 1997)

I stay very pure. I’m going to follow my own path, and not be deflected. 

“Theo had long since liberated himself from such constraints. He had managed to adapt to a world of night life and love, a world where absinthe and ‘the hour of the flesh’ were there to be enjoyed. The prostitutes in Dean Street, there since Marx.

I miss that black skipants, big tall black-haired Amazonian girl in Carnival so much! And big breasts blonde black jumper. 

It’s there to be enjoyed.

 

I am Oscar Wilde (11th March 1997)

I am Oscar Wilde. Dandy, laughed at, reviled, but triumphant, forever above them all. I am Aubrey Beardsley, sad, frustrated, repressed young artist. I am Giacometti, a very private man who spent all his time in brothels. I am Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh.

Love how you want to love; love who you please (9th March 1997)

Love how you want to love; love who you please. 

Give me greater self-knowledge, but that doesn’t mean I dislike what I feel inside. I don’t want to open up and let people inside my Swiss bank vaults because they’ll take everything. I trust you. This self-knowledge has just given me the belief that I have got the strength and inner riches to stay on my own. 

Summer’s coming and perhaps I will come into my own: Misadventures finished at last, money to spend, films to see, strolling around London under the trees, I’ve removed the last taboo with the prostitutes. I felt I was deliberately stopping short of something which I didn’t really want to think about. I was deliberately limiting my experience. Now I’ve done everything, I can get on my with my work. 

It was fascinating to be on that bed and have her putting condom on and wanking me wasn’t it? Then lying back for me, and putting me in. The Astral kept me permanently turned on and bored at the same time.

"For some of us at least he hasn't lost any of his old vulgar vitality"

"For some of us at least he hasn't lost any of his old vulgar vitality, his willingness to give something a go, his relish for chaos, his failures of nerve, his inability to become respectable no matter how hard he sometimes tries, his contempt and anger at the follies and cruelties of the powerful."

"Walking with a yellow star on my coat, some woman spat at me" (6th March 1997)

"Walking with a yellow star on my coat, some woman spat at me....You have to look straight through people like that, without seeing them, or else how could you bear it.....They came to watch us at the station; they expected wailing and crying. We had a dignity which made my heart overflow with respect." So I did it. Went in model's room in Dean Street. Big breasts blonde in Carnival again. Plus big new long black-haired girl, with green shockwave tattoo round bottom. Big voluptuous bottom, in black ski-shorts over white knickers and bra. Great dancer, sensational big girl, big hips, big bottom. Her bottom dancing in front of me. I had a permanent erection in Astral but you don't really see anything. I go to prostitutes. Whatever turns you on. Prostitutes turn me on. That's what I want. I've done it now. I can do it whenever I want now. I am Wedekind. Toulouse Lautrec. Van Gogh.