Talk Tough Like Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective!
Don’t say “money,” say “cabbage” or “geetus.”
“Ordinarily, I don’t work on a case unless I know there’s a stack of cabbage in it for me.”
“And five G’s is important geetus in my language.”
Tag Archives: Literature
Talk More Tough
Talk Tough Like Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective!
Don’t say “bullet,” say “lead pill.”
“First one among you who tries to get away, gets a lead pill in his tripes.”
And when he heard you say that Ellen Morrow was in your apartment, he came here ahead of us and fed her a lead pill.”
Talk Tough
Talk Tough Like Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective!
Instead of saying “cigarette,” say “gasper.”
“I smoked about ten gaspers, killed nearly a whole fifth of scotch before I got lunch.”
“I set fire to a gasper to cover my start of surprise.”
Bibliobimbo
Depraved by an unbridled lust for rare books, every bookseller in town had been in her library.
Sure I’m A Flirt!
Sure I’m a flirt! So what?
This!
I struggled against his embrace and then even though I fought against it, I found myself not struggling … I wanted him to kiss me! Wanted to feel him holding me tightly … it was wrong … horribly wrong. But I didn’t care!
The Symbolist Poets
A parallel revolt against the traditional modes of expression took place in poetry under the leadership of the Symbolists, who strove for direct poetic experience unspoiled by intellectual elements. They sought to suggest rather than describe, to present the symbol rather than the state of the thing.
Arthur Rimbaud (1854 – 1891)
My Bohemian Life by Arthur Rimbaud
I went off with my hands in my torn coat pockets;
My overcoat too was becoming ideal;
I travelled beneath the sky, Muse! and I was your vassal;
Oh dear me! what marvellous loves I dreamed of!
My only pair of breeches had a big whole in them.
– Stargazing Tom Thumb, I sowed rhymes along my way.
My tavern was at the Sign of the Great Bear.
– My stars in the sky rustled softly.
And I listened to them, sitting on the road-sides
On those pleasant September evenings while I felt drops
Of dew on my forehead like vigorous wine;
And while, rhyming among the fantastical shadows,
I plucked like the strings of a lyre the elastics
Of my tattered boots, one foot close to my heart!
Symbolism as a literary movement came to the forefront in the work of Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-98), Paul Verlaine (1844-96), and Arthur Rimbaud (1854-91). These poets were strongly influenced by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49), whose writings were introduced into France by his admirer, Baudelaire. They experimented in free verse forms that opened new territories to their art, achieving a language indefiniteness that had hitherto been the privilege of music alone.
Junkie
Junkie is a semi-autobiographical novel by William S. Burroughs. First published in 1953 (Ace Books), it was Burroughs’ first published novel and has come to be considered a seminal text on the lifestyle of heroin addicts in the early 1950s. The book has also been published under the name Junky.
The novel was considered unpublishable more than it was controversial. Burroughs began it largely at the request and insistence of Allen Ginsberg, who was impressed by Burroughs’s letter writing skill. Burroughs took up the task with very little enthusiasm. However, he did realize that being a published author was in the realm of possibility after his friend Jack Kerouac had his first novel published in 1950. William S. Burroughs began to compile his experiences as an addict and small-time heroin pusher in Greenwich Village.
This film features a passage from the book Junkie as read by the author, William S. Burroughs. His distinctive voice and his peculiar outlook on life is on full display in this reading from his book.