Book of Humiliation
The Book of Humiliation has no ISBNs—no international standard book numbers, which facilitate a book’s commercial life. A book without an ISBN is “withdrawn from the international trading system,” as Cella, Flindeisen and Blaha put it in their 2016 book, NO-ISBN. The Wikipedia entry on ISBNs—or any explanation of ISBNs—is overrun with the word “standard.” NO-ISBN actually has an ISBN and is available on Amazon. It does belong to the international trading system. But I still recommend it. I found the premise hugely inspiring. The lack of ISBNs is to me one of the things I love most about the BoH. But I must take care. According to Wikipedia, while “privately published books sometimes appear without an ISBN[, t]he International ISBN Agency sometimes assigns such books ISBNs on its own initiative.” In other words, They may come after me and ruin my beautiful ISBN-less publications.
The Book of Humiliation also does not have—here in a university town, where everything else does have—a research question. I have called the BoH an “anti-novel.” It is also anti-academic. If it did have a research question, it might be: How can one tell one’s own truth (and others’) without being flatly, carpingly literal? How can one tell one’s truth (and others’) without telling everything? By deliberately withholding or obscuring certain information? Or by acknowledging certain information as permanently obscured? How can one tell those truths using fantasy? Or humor? Or double entendres? Or surrealism? Does the surrealist “really” see the world as he portrays it? Yes. No. And what is elitist? Anything you find uncomfortable? How long can one bathe in language before wishing crystals to form? I started The Book of Humiliation because I was writing something I thought was/would be free form, and I found I needed an even freer form.
Many questions may hover around Nicholas Williams’s extraordinary designs and illustrations for the BoH. I made a few suggestions for numbers 2, 3 and 4; after that I made none, except for occasional comments about image placement. Niki and I saw one another only occasionally. We were quarantined for all but the first zine and last two. We could and did meet outdoors, but zines 8-12 were created during cold weather. I had heart surgery right after 11 went in the mail, so I was a bit out of it as we put 12 together. But by then I had long found it great fun and very authentic to let the designs be what they would be. Each time I scrolled through the pdf Niki sent I thought, How did he do that? How did he know? What is it like to have that eye? Do I have an ear like that? I don’t think so. Like Salieri in Amadeus, I wish God would dictate to me better. But I digress. If we do another zine or zines, here in the almost-post-Covid era, I will not suggest anything about the design.
In their own words…
I am queer and I acknowledge my responsibility to make my artistic output comfortable for and comprehensible to heterosexual people. Haha! Not! The Book of Humiliation is not comfortable and sometimes not even comprehensible. Suggestion: Read it slowly and let it wash over you. And yes, there are perfectly regular, comprehensible stories within it. Just listen. Hard, sometimes.
Which brings us to one, final issue: If you were not a subscriber to the original zine series, how do you get your hands on this stuff? Excellent question. The full The Book of Humiliation is not posted online because I am devoted to the tactile publication. Unfortunately, keeping 16 tactile publications in stock is expensive and time consuming in ways you might or might not guess (some are printed at home, one is printed in France, one has a surprise tucked in an envelope inside the back cover, etc.). BUT…if you would like a full set of The Book of Humiliation, just email me at hostapress@gmail.com, and we’ll tawk, as they say back where I come from.
Thank you for your interest in The Book of Humiliation and in Hosta Press. I hope we communicate soon!
DP
As a self designated conscious entity, I view the world as a stage; its inhabitants are characters who became so immersed in their roles, they forgot the whole thing was scripted. I don’t believe in free will. I believe in witnessing. It was a true pleasure to witness and respond to David through his Book of Humiliation. In general, I view the making of art as the shedding of masks. David and I littered the floor with ours. Zine-making is a long and storied medium for puncturing Gutenberg’s Galaxy with “outsider” art or perspectives.
Hard to say who is in, or out these days…
NW
#1 - Do No Harm
“They saw a priest. And then they saw me. ‘They don’t have a prayer,’ we would say. But some did. Men and women of faith had an escape, believing there would be something else. Still, when the long, final walk ended, when they turned the corner and the mechanism was revealed, when they were standing in the room where it would happen, the room fitted for it, the last room they would ever occupy, when they saw the bright, just-cleaned tile, the mechanism itself, of course, interlocked and efficient in every detail, when they saw the drain in the floor, some collapsed and had to be carried forward. I made it as quick and dignified as I could. I had the tipping board, the so-called bascule, replaced by a fixed bench. This shortened considerably the time from revelation to death.”
#2 - What’s the Matter
“He was regularly berated for . . . what? Striking out. Okay. Not being able to sing. Slow, fat. But for what, really? His mother said some boys were ‘natural athletes,’ and while he was not, that didn’t mean he couldn’t become “hard” if he’d just try. (It was tempting. But even that would do no good. He was up against something as awful as sunrise.) His mother loved the phrase ‘natural athlete.’ She tasted each syllable and he saw her experience a frisson. Same as she loved saying her mother had had ‘perfect pitch.’ And high above ‘fat,’ ‘slow’ ‘tin ear,’ black, flickering clouds blocking out, funnel extending, touching down, undulating, coming hard at her museum, mangling the flying machines of her youth.
#3 - Wanderer I
“The ANZAC Club had a staff of two: my mother and Colonel G—, an Australian. It operated out of the hot spot of Boston haute société, the oldest and most sumptuous of the city’s hotels. Say it aloud: ‘Hotel Vendôme.’ ‘Mesdames et m’sieurs, ladies and gentlemen! Le circonflexe, the circumflex!’ And chandeliers with frosted-glass shades and cut-glass teardrops throwing subtle rainbows on Italian wallpaper, plush Oriental carpets, dark, polished wainscoting, brass rails and doorknobs, Italian marble floors, walls accented with French tiles and gilded plaster filigree, extravagant bouquets in Chinese vases set on polished wood or glass tabletops, chairs and divans upholstered in purple velvet, smoky-dark forefathers presiding in heavy gilt frames. Upstairs, silk sheets. Downstairs, chatter and silver and crystal cake stands and silver tea services: pots, tongs, creamers, serving racks. Bone china with roses. Ting-ting of spoons. On darkly polished shelves, leather-bound atlases, travelogues, genealogies, dictionaries, histories of Rome, Shakespeare plays, Emerson and Romantic poets. Askew on an end table: Vogue, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar with a stylish Red Cross nurse on the cover.
#4 - Wanderer II
“At thirteen I discovered two things: 1) thrusting your erect penis into your pillow feels good, just as it said in the book she gave me; and 2) the book failed to mention that this makes semen come out, and that semen leaves nasty stains on percale. I am sure I am not the only adolescent to solve the problem by pressing my thumb down over my piss slit—defined by Wiktionary as the ‘external urethral orifice’—just as I was about to erupt. This is in fact a self-induced form of a physical condition called ‘retrograde ejaculation,’ where outgoing semen is pushed back toward the bladder. Do not try it at home. It is not good for you. That stuff was meant to come out and come out with force. Allowing it to do so may make a mess, but keeping it in can cause infertility. I don’t know if you see the analogy here to my mother’s need to perform everything, but I find this whole paragraph so amusing that I’m keeping it in (speaking of), whether it is perfectly illustrative or not.”
#5 - DP
“I’d love you the same if you were purple with green polka dots.”
Congregation: I am sorry that you had to go through that.
“We just knew he was our friend and we loved him. We didn’t think about anything else.”
Congregation: I am sorry that you had to go through that.
“She’s just like anyone, to us.”
Congregation: I am sorry that you had to go through that.
“It’s only recently we’ve even had to think about things like that.”
Congregation: I am sorry that you had to go through that.
#6 - We’re Going to See How He Does on His Own for a Little Bit
“One autumn afternoon in, oh, 1963 or so, the administration sent me a new student—quite polite, self-possessed lad in a tie and jacket, who had a penetrating gaze and a firm handshake. He had the same name as my son and was about the same age. He climbed onto the bench as though it were some great reunion, faced the mechanism, and played it quite well, as a matter of fact. Naturally. I knew because I truly listened, rather than waiting to correct. His few mistakes were, in a manner of speaking, peculiar rewards for reaching. He began lessons, and I could tell he practiced, and I could tell that he wanted to. As I had. To less apparent end than I hoped. Imagined. Perhaps. But I looked forward to his lessons, Tuesdays at 3:30. We understood each other. He was quite young, but I began to think he would be the one. Perhaps I should not say, but I did think about that. He could be the one I would say one day that I had taught, the one who would mention my name and people would be curious. I had taught for several years at that point, and that particular one had not come yet. Others in the building could claim, if they wished— Well, I’m not sure any of that is worth going into.”
#7 - Downtown Saints
“Martin will be twenty-one, and on that great, sad day, he has to go. They’ll shake his hand, so glad it’s not them, knowing more than ever that it is them. He applied for a job at a messenger place, but they did not believe he could ride a bike. He showed them the bike he rode over on. One of them went inside while the other still questioned him: Their messengers had to be able to go really, really fast. Like, really fast. And dodge traffic. Split second. Like the bike messenger movie with Kevin Bacon, minus the stunts. But really fast and really, really sharp reflexes. (Of course, those aren’t questions.) The guy kept looking down the street. Martin volunteered to get on his bike and ride up and down the street for the guy. The guy said yeah yeah, whatever, but he didn’t watch Martin; he kept looking to the other end of the street. The other guy came out again. Martin stopped. That’s when the cops came. ‘Young man, is this your bike?’ ‘Where did you get it?’ ‘Don’t lie to us.’”
#8 - Institutionalized
“The class sang for Freddy’s birthday and Mrs. Trink said, ‘All right, Freddy, time for your spanking!’”
#9 - Institutionalized 2
“She loved Beckett and Brecht and Grotowski, but she missed her true calling: directing gay porn. But that didn’t offer tenure.”
#10 - Last Night
The question remains, is consciousness shared? Are we, dear reader, all one in the same, experiencing each other as fingers connected to the same hand. When I look into your eyes, do I detect a glistening of this shared joke? What would the burden of proof of this even be?
#11 - Commonplace
“He came to the dictionary; every morning he looked up ‘brave,’ ‘coward,’ ‘boy,’ ‘spank,’ ‘penis.’ At eleven, for the first time, he looked up ‘homosexual.’ ‘What did you think, visiting that place?’ ‘I didn’t like it.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I always thought I was supposed to do something for them, and I couldn’t.’ Sitting on their beds, nodding and saying ‘Hello,’ waiting, faces falling. ‘I don’t know what to think, either, Mrs. Carson.’ There were no other children, except on holidays. Finally she was moved to the new wing, where she seemed even older. ‘GOOD MORNING!’ Framed pictures on the windowsill. Plastic cups on the nightstand. She looked out the window all day, except when she ate and when she shat. Youth saved him from empathizing too much, but not from sitting in the library thinking, I am dead. There is something that doesn’t work. It works for everyone, but not me. He of course had strict control over who ‘everyone’ was. Made assumptions. Deliberately misinterpreted. ‘Dear Mother and Dad – I am almost done with my destruction. You will be very happy. See you in June. Love…’”
#12 - Sanctuary
“Childhood is an authentic, silenced, abandoned civilization. Maybe you once danced in a candle room. A sukkah, such a natural, fun idea. I built enclosures from a very young age. Building material for a fort falls from Heaven.”
#13 - You Play
“You play.
“One guy had been arrested several times, including in front of his mother, who was a widow on disability.”
#14 - Heart Broken (Death Issue)
“Come all you fair and tender laddies
That flourish in your prime, your prime,
Take care, take care, hold your garden fair
Let not real boys steal your thyme, your thyme,
Let them not steal your thyme.
For when that thyme is past and gone
Know they never cared for you, for you.
And every place that your thyme was waste
Will all spread o'er with rue, with rue,
Will all spread o'er with rue.”
#15 - Wanderer III
“Little Momo sees her neighbor futzing with a watering can. She steps across. ‘I saw your son doing that a few days ago,’ she says, nodding at the can. The neighbor straightens up and briskly informs Momo that she had to throw her son out. ‘Dear me! Whatever for?’ Momo asks. ‘He always seemed like a nice—’ The neighbor’s face hardens. ‘He couldn’t fuck me the way I wanted,’ she says. ‘So I told him to get out. I said, “Return with your shield or upon it!”’ ‘Really?’ Little Momo says, nonplussed (a disconcerting feeling, as she likes to think of herself as a plussed person.) ‘At first I was joyous at having a son,’ the neighbor says. ‘We danced ring-around-the-ring-o. But he became whiney and afraid. I’d say, “Come darling, whip out your trouser mouse and give Mummy bangy-bang in the yoni-mound!” And he couldn’t do it!’”
#16 - Discord
“Mother and Dad, who are my heroes? I love you, but I do not think I will see you again. Yet I don’t know where to turn. Some people seem relieved to see me, or they just agree to be with me, one way or another. All I ask is one who doesn’t look away. Some I fall in love with. I can’t say they look away, because they would never look at me in the first place.”