Charles Bukowski is and always will be one of my favorite writers. Although I haven’t liked everything that I read by this author – Post Office is a good example of an exceedingly ordinary novel, though even so has its superficial qualities – his captivating and realistic depictions of life, mainly autobiographic in nature, and his abilities to portray everything in a relatively softer context, even delivering creatively sensible, incisive and organic lines of black humor, certainly makes the “dirty old man” a singular and incomparable literary icon of his generation, like no one else could be.

The first book that I read by Bukowski, I think more than sixteen years ago, was a very concise one, the non-fiction The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, that was originally published four years after his death, in 1998. This book is very simple in content – even more than his short stories and novels, that are mostly personal, biographical recounts of his existence –, composed mainly of excerpts and journal entries that Bukowski wrote in his last years, about ordinary events in his daily life. Although there is nothing exceptional about this book, it is so well written, and Bukowski is so frank, direct and sincere with his reader, that it became impossible, at least for me, not to immediately love this book. Of course, I understand perfectly that literary preferences are an entirely personal matter; Bukowski works very well in what concerns my taste. 

One of the greatest achievements of Bukowski – in my personal evaluation – is impregnating his literature with the basic characteristics of his personality, cynicism and skepticism, while at the same time, whether this would be a conscious decision or not, his literary art never became something dense, profound, tragic or dramatic, as opposed to more “serious” authors, like Phillip Roth. With the fewer exceptions of some short stories and some passages in his novels, the aforementioned black humor that he masterly displays, as well as his natural, spontaneous and habitual reactions to everything concerning life around him – from ordinary occurrences to more extraordinary situations – makes his literary art a very unique achievement, while concomitantly the author displays a rude simplicity, in vocabulary and expression, that certainly makes him practically an unofficial, but quintessential spokesperson for the ordinary everyday man.        

Bukowski endured great pain, suffering and misery throughout his life, especially during his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. His father was a profoundly intolerant and authoritarian figure, that imposed cruel punishments to the young Charles for literally everything he had done wrong, or wasn’t in accordance with this father’s strict demands. To make matters worse, when he was an adolescent, Bukowski had a terrible and severe case of acne that disfigured him greatly, for which he had to sought a painful and distressing medical treatment, that involved needles, ointment and bandages. By then, Bukowski was a shy, isolated and introverted individual, that had severe problems getting close to the opposite sex. This fact turned him into a more solitary and introspective individual, as his beautiful female classmates seemed distant and unreachable.   

By this time, though, he has discovered alcohol – something that would serve to anesthetize the pain and drudgery of life –, and the habit of drinking would become recurrent throughout his life, with drastic health issues as posterior consequences. The references to alcohol consumption would be constant and deeply celebrated in his literature.

These terrible occurrences of his life – which traumatized him to a degree – are abundantly narrated throughout his literature. Probably they are best retreated in his seminal novel Ham on Rye, published in 1982, which several fans and enthusiasts consider to be his masterpiece. The autobiographical work covers a large part of his life, from the beginning, in infancy, to later adulthood.     

Another book that I loved very much was Factotum, Bukowski’s second novel, published in 1975. In this book, we follow Henry Chinaski – Bukowski’s alter ego, a recurrent character throughout his works – from job to job (hence the book’s title; factotum is a Latin word that literally means “do everything”, a “do it all” person, someone who accepts wherever job is available) – wandering by several cities and locations throughout the United States, destitute of a solid and decent perspective of future, in a permanent search for employment opportunities. The book was adapted into a relatively watchable film in 2005, starring Matt Dillon. Unfortunately, the movie simplified too much the novel – that has its subtle textures and densities –, and unfavorably unveils the story as a contemporary narrative, as opposed to the forties and fifties USA, that serves as the period upon which the events took place. 

Another marvelous Bukowski book that I loved greatly was Hollywood. Originally published in 1989, the novel deals with a period in the life of Bukowski where movie director Barbet Schroeder asked him to write a script. Bukowski wrote – exclusively for a paycheck – and the result was the movie Barfly, starred by Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. On this book, Bukowski narrates his relationship and eventual friendship with Schroeder, as well as with lead star Mickey Rourke, to a lesser extent, his attendance to the movie shootings, the problems with budget constraints and production, and his overall views about Hollywood and the movie industry in general. Bukowski had a cameo in the movie, appearing during a scene in a bar. The real characters depicted in the novel have all fictitious names. Nevertheless, Hollywood is a fantastic literary adventure into the underground terrains of moviemaking, with an incredibly captured outlook by Bukowski’s lucid, acute and uncompromised sensibility.       

To read Charles Bukowski is almost an act of redemption. Besides his natural ability to tell an interesting and involving story – and the veracity behind it, because, being majorly autobiographical, he has experienced firsthand everything that he is telling to the reader – you perceive a very humane and solidary person. Behind all that apparent frivolity and rudeness, that were basically his personal defense on dealing with the hardships of life and the brutality of the world around him, there was a sensible individual, with a profound empathy for human beings, and a clear insight about the precariousness of existence. All this sensibility has definitely produced one of the best and most elemental literary iconoclasts that the world has ever known. (Want to know more about this author? Read another Bukowski article that I wrote here).


​Wagner

Maxwell Bodenheim – whose birth name was Maxwell Bodenheimer – is now a relatively forgotten American poet and novelist, who achieved great fame in the jazz era of the 1920’s. His mother and father were German-speaking European immigrants who settled in the United States by the 1880’s, and Maxwell Bodenheim was born in May, 1892, in Hermanville, Mississippi. It was in Chicago, however, that Bodenheim had started his literary activities.

There, with the now legendary writer Ben Hecht, Bodenheim founded a periodical, where several individuals that would become major icons of American literature have collaborated, like Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson and Carl Sandburg, amongst others. Nevertheless, it was in New York City that Bodenheim would become a more renowned man of letters.  
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Sadly, fortunes drastically changed after Bodenheim found fame in New York City. Only in the twenties and in the beginning of the thirties he remained regularly productive, after that he wrote and published only sporadically. Since there is absolutely no reliable biographies or documentaries about Bodenheim, everything that concerns his life, in overall, is largely obscure, and only a few facts about the writer are positively known with veracity. 

What can be said of Bodenheim for sure is that he was married three times. First, to Minna Schein, then to Grace Finan – to whom he became a widower – and last, to Ruth Fagin, a woman twenty-eight years younger than him. A little after the mid-thirties – for reasons that are largely unclear – Bodenheim’s condition and personal circumstances severely deteriorated. He even became a miserable beggar, asking for money in the streets. Despite the fact that by this time he was a published and moderately successful writer, he resorted to mendicancy for a living, and he was generally unrecognized by the people who gave him change. He was arrested by authorities several times for vagrancy, and even arbitrarily committed to mental institutions. By this time, Bodenheim had also become a chronic alcoholic. 

The death of Maxwell Bodenheim – which took place on February, 1954 –, was a particularly tragic one, and the main reason why his fame somewhat expanded; the incident supplanted his notoriety as a writer. In 1952, Bodenheim had married a woman – his third wife – named Ruth Fagin, that shared her husband’s degenerated, miserable and completely destitute lifestyle. Bodenheim did everything he could to survive, including marginal activities, treacherous, though innocent scams, mendicancy and he also wrote poems for changes. Most of the scarce money he made, though, were spent with alcoholic beverages, that Bodenheim somewhat used extensively to alleviate and anesthetize his suffering. His wife Ruth sometimes prostituted herself, to have an income, a degraded activity that frequently enraged Bodenheim. They were homeless people, used to sleep and live outdoors. 

On February 6, 1954, an acquaintance of the couple, a man named Harold "Charlie" Weinberg, offered to Max and Ruth the opportunity to spend the night in his apartment, to which the couple agreed. Once they were there, apparently – the veracity of the story is debatable – Weinberg tried to have sex with Ruth, and she was indeed predisposed to have an intercourse with him. Bodenheim was drunk, and appearing to be sleeping in the couch. Nevertheless, he was seeing everything, and suddenly stood up, enraged, and challenged Weinberg for a fight. Weinberg then killed Bodenheim with two gunshots, and stabbed Ruth to death. Weinberg shortly thereafter confessed the crime to the police, and tried to minimize his evil deed, by justifying that he had killed two “communists”, despite the fact that there is no factual evidence implying that Bodenheim or Ruth were communist sympathizers. Weinberg was arrested, considered insane, and locked for life in a psychiatric facility. The writer Ben Hecht – his friend and former literary colleague – paid for Bodenheim’s funeral expenses.     

Six months after Bodenheim’s murder, his biography, My Life and Loves in Greenwich Village, was published. Bodenheim himself, though, was barely involved in the project, whose work was commissioned by a publisher named Samuel Roth, and was ghostwritten by a professional writer named George Plotkin. Apparently, Roth had requested and paid in advance for Bodenheim’s account of his life as a Greenwich Village bohemian and respected literary icon, an assignment that Bodenheim – in this period of his life, mostly depressed and despondent – was barely willing to commit.  

Unfortunately, by the time of his death, Bodenheim was already a largely forgotten writer, and since then, his work has never been properly revived, analyzed, studied, republished or appreciated. Bodenheim remains scarcely read and debated in literary circles today. His poetry, in particular, has a peculiar charm, a picaresque and sometimes quasi-surrealist beauty, that explored in the density of ephemeral and frugal moments the most obscure and fatalist resentments of life. Never really compromised or preoccupied with form or metric, his poetry was prominently modernist, and celebrated the arbitrary agonies of existence, in a constantly candid and moderately vibrant melancholy, that, it is suspected, were typical of his behavior.  

If you want to know better the work of this marvelous – though unconventional and undisciplined, but mordacious and genuine – literary icon, the website Black Cat Poems is the perfect place to start. There, you can read more than one hundred poems by Bodenheim, for free. I hope you enjoy, as much as I do. 


Wagner

Raizō Ichikawa was one of the most famous and talented Japanese actors of all time. Despite having died very young – at 37 years old –,  he was an exceedingly prolific actor. In a career that has spanned only fifteen years, beginning in 1954 and lasting until his death, in 1969, Ichikawa appeared in 158 films. A versatile and amazingly profound actor, Ichikawa left an enormous legacy, that can also be noted in the perception and tenderness of the Japanese audiences towards him. 

Born in 1931, Ichikawa had a somewhat turbulent youth, that drove him distant of his biological family. He was first adopted by a distant relative, and then by an aristocratic theater enthusiast, with connections that would help Ichikawa to launch his career, after he was already drove to theater acting. For this reason, his legal name changed several times during the course of his youth.  

From a young age determined to become an actor, in late 1946, only fifteen years old, Raizō Ichikawa made his debut in kabuki theatre. Learning and perfecting his acting skills with easiness – despite his young age – he rapidly became a consecrated actor, recognized by the vividness, grace and intensity of his style, impressing everyone who went to see his performances. Thus, in the beginning of the fifties, he endured a successful transition to film, that would definitely establish his reputation across Japan as one of the most talented actors of his generation.  In 1954, Ichikawa made his film debut. 

Like everything in his life – especially related to his acting career – Ichikawa rapidly became an established icon in the Japanese motion picture industry, making one film after another.  By the end of the decade, he was practically a national celebrity. He could do as much as fourteen movies in a single year, and in his brief life, participated in a total of 158 films. He remained working in a very constant and rigid schedule, until cancer would provoke his untimely demise, at the age of thirty-seven years old.

In 1968, Ichikawa begin suffering severe health problems, and then consulted a doctor. The exams soon demonstrated that he had rectal cancer, but the doctor, his friends, family and closest associates decided not to tell him about the disease. He had to perform surgery, but apparently, it was too late for him to be cured. Doctors advised his family members that the cancer would eventually return. Having always suffered from precarious health, the disease could have been properly treated when Ichikawa consulted a doctor for the same problem several years earlier, but was misdiagnosed. 

As his physical condition deteriorated, soon he wasn’t able to do films properly, and in the movies he was still cast, doubles had to be used for elaborate or more intricate scenes. In the beginning of 1969, after a second surgery, he was too weak and excessively debilitated to do anything. His health had practically vanished. After learning that a substitute actor was cast in a movie for a role he desperately wanted to portray, he became too disappointed, and apparently became apathetic towards work prospects. He died some months later. A promising and brilliant career – that was, indeed, very fruitful and prolific – was cut short at the dawn of its rise.   

 Nonetheless, Ichikawa managed to leave behind a wonderful legacy, that consolidated his reputation as one of the most formidable, versatile and significant actors of his generation. He made the skill of acting to appear spontaneous – somewhat easy to execute –, because it was natural for him, despite the fact that all of his characters were profound and intense. 

On Young Boy Takechi, Ichikawa plays a young naval officer that abandons his position, to assume the leadership of a Yakuza ring after his father – the actual leader –, dies. On a lustful man, Ichikawa plays a very eccentric womanizer, that thinks that his “mission” in the world is to make women happy. 

A splendid talent that was lost too soon, fortunately, the actor had enough time to consolidate and leave behind a consistent and robust legacy, that not only is filled with some marvelous movies, but also have his deeply graceful and vivacious interpretations of exceedingly peculiar and dense characters, that engraves in a very colorful scenario the poetic beauty of Japanese cinema.   

 
Wagner

Phillip Roth, the famous and celebrated American novelist, died more than a month ago, in Manhattan, on May 22, 85 years old. Literature loses one of its greatest exponents, but certainly, his work is more than enough to certify his ubiquitous grandiosity, that manages to be concomitantly solemn and disillusioned, as Roth dives profoundly into the most depressive and collateral elements of human nature, exposing reality for what it really is, with all of its difficulties, voracious disappointments and sordid emptiness.  

One of the most revered, talented and awarded writers of his generation, Roth leaves a legacy of approximately thirty-five books, mostly novels, that reveals the arbitrary sidelines of American society by the eyes of peculiar, but inherently pessimistic characters; usually, very cynic men, that doesn’t hold any type of morality, religious beliefs or faith in life. On the contrary, his characters – upon which the more well-known certainly would be Nathan Zuckerman and David Kepesh, the first, usually considered an alter ego for Roth –, had lost completely their grip on life, and deal with a lot of sentimental affliction, emotional pain and solitary isolation, as well as the consequences of life-long sufferings. 

I have read only three Phillip Roth’s books, but they were enough for me to consider him one of my favorite writers: Goodbye, Columbus, his first, published in 1959, Exit Ghost, published in 2007, which has Nathan Zuckerman as a central character, and more recently, The Dying Animal, originally published in 2001, which has literature professor David Kepesh as the protagonist. Undoubtedly, the one that I liked the most was Exit Ghost, although I have read this book several years ago. The Dying Animal, on the other hand, I have read recently, just about a few months ago. 

Roth’s work is full of delicate nuances, although at the same time his work can be direct, incisive, explicit, arbitrarily afflictive and discreetly dilacerating on its sincere exposition of the painful hostilities of human existence.  

Sexual desire is prominent in Roth’s fiction, and the fact that sexual lust doesn’t decrease – on the contrary, it’s always latent as an individual gets old –, is one of the many literary predicaments that his characters face and are obliged to endure. Being forced to deal with all the difficulties inherent to old age, like health issues and physical precariousness and deterioration, as well as the inability to have a sex life, nor to execute satisfactorily sexual fantasies with a woman, and how people are generally obtuse to these facts about old people, are some of the personal challenges that fluctuates at the epicenter of the universe of Roth’s characters. 

Roth was a chronic cynic, derided religion, and was at least partially hateful of his Jewish upbringing – he expressively prohibited Jewish rites to be performed at his funeral – something that is reflected throughout his work, which is mostly autobiographical. His characters dive further into an inherent existential bitterness, that discreetly reflects at least a little some of his personal life experiences. Nevertheless, Roth was an exceptionally creative writer, and not everything found in his literary works must be directly related to him. On this regard, it is crucial to separate the writer and the individual from his fictional personae and situations described. The writer himself clearly has stressed the importance of this in many occasions, in several interviews he conceded to television, journalists and literature broadcasts across America.

The pain in his work is very latent, although manages to be mostly discreet, homogenously diffuse, throughout the narratives. The reading of his books are pleasurable experiences, and a great intellectual exercise. The characters are generally fascinating, but sad at the same time, as they deal with generally arbitrary circumstances, that display personal grievances upon which a darkness within the conscious personality subtlety emerges. Roth has explored in his fiction several moments crucial to United States history – like the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the communist paranoia – and how he dealt with it personally, how directly and indirectly this affected him as an individual, and how it held accountable for the ones around him concerning these situations, everything filtered by the sensible realities of his complex and tormented characters.     

Roth ceased writing and retired in 2010. I will probably never forget how I came to know about his retirement. I was ready to embark in a plane in Europe, and I had bought an exemplar of the International Herald Tribune, to read while on the flight. On the front page of the newspaper – which I have to this day –, there was this article, titled “Why Phillip Roth decided to retire his pen (in 2010)”, which continued on page 8. The article said that “To his friends, the notion of Mr. Roth not writing is like Mr. Roth not breathing”. But the article states that the motives to quit were quite clear. The beginning of the article read: ‘On the computer in Phillip Roth’s Manhattan apartment these days is a Post-it note that reads, “The struggle with writing is over.” (…) “I look at that note every morning”, he said the other day, “and it gives me such strength”’. On it, Roth confesses how difficult writing could be, since competent writing requires to completely undress the soul to the reader. Remarkably, as the article also mentions, Roth’s output increased significantly in the last decade of his writing career, and in this period he produced some of his finest works, which is uncommon among the vast majority of novelists, who usually slow down their pace. The writer was well-known as a reclusive person, was reserved towards the media and rarely was seen outside his cottage in Connecticut. He was a native of Newark, New Jersey, but also spent time in New York. Unfortunately, the individual is gone, but his legacy remains more alive than ever. 


Wagner

Article by Wagner Hertzog 

Susan Sontag was an American essayist, playwright and political activist, who achieved notoriety in the mid-sixties, through an essay published in the now defunct Partisan Review. She consolidated her publishing career with well-acclaimed books, especially her work in the field of non-fiction. 

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Nevertheless, what can be considered marvelous and uncommon for Sontag is the fact that she, as a left-wing activist, considered the possibilities of at least some items of the left ideals and political agenda to be incorrect, mistaken, or even completely wrong. Considering how belligerent, intransigent and arrogant left-wing activists can be, this attitude of Susan Sontag can be seen as a phenomenal gesture of humility, altruism and true benevolence.

She famously said the phrase “Communism is fascism”, while in a rally in New York City in 1982, while trying to explain more profoundly the true nature of communism, and comparing to fascism, alluding to the totalitarian nature of both. At that same speech, she also suggested the possibility of anticommunist activists to be right, and that they were good-natured and well-intentioned in their efforts to prevent communism of becoming a reality, correctly implying that there is a great effort of communist sympathizers to deny and to conceal the horrendous crimes perpetrated by communist regimes all over the world. This is proven right by the fact that – to this day – although communist governments has killed far more than the Nazi regime, communism is not as hated or shunned as Nazism, with only a handful of countries in Europe – like Ukraine, Georgia, Romania and Moldova – having forbidden communist parties and activities definitely, whereas Nazism is forbidden mostly everywhere.  

Susan Sontag was widely reproved by her peers, in consequence of her criticism of communism and left-wing politics, with people criticizing her for betraying her own ideals. Which I think is a superficial overlook, and doesn’t take into an analytical specter the depth of her thoughts, political perceptions and human considerations.      

A brave person with a greatly analytic mind, predisposed to investigate profoundly the main reasons for social problems, Susan Sontag clearly had no fear of confronting what could disturb her. If by any chance she felt the need to deconstruct and analyze profoundly her own political beliefs, she would do that without any regret, knowing beforehand, of course, about the possible implications, since she knew how people on the left usually reacts, always hostile, contemptuous and aggressive towards criticism. Regardless of this, Susan Sontag had no fear of admitting to herself when something she deeply believed was wrong, and was permanently analyzing her own worldview, expanding her horizons and reevaluating her own group of beliefs, in order to evolve, and to explore different perspectives on art, literature and politics, as well as in another fields of life. 

A cohesive and sensitive thinker, without fear of exploring new possibilities, nor questioning or confronting preconceived values, Susan Sontag was a different leftist. A leftist with solidarity, perspicacity and strength to admit that she was a human, that she could be wrong at certain times, that she was constantly seeking the betterment and the improvement of her own nature and character, and that the left is not always right; she surely knew how to be and make a difference in the political scene, as a true courageous activist. There is no doubt that this was a formidable attitude of her, indicative of a benevolent personality and a profoundly humanistic character, with an heterogeneous openness that only a handful of people are able to achieve. 


Wagner

Pupil of the legendary poet Masaoka Shiki, Kyoshi Takahama, born 22 February 1874, in Matsuyama, is considered one of the most important Japanese literary figures of his generation.    

An intellectual with profoundly creative vicissitudes, the literary arts soon were established in Takahama’s heart as a deeply rooted passion. In his early adulthood, Takahama, through an acquaintance, met the Japanese literary giant Masaoka Shiki, who would become his friend and literary mentor. Seemingly heated by the ardent objective of a career in letters, in a fit of audacity and restlessness, Takahama – dutifully ignoring Shiki’s advice – quit school in 1894, to pursue his dream to study Edo period Japanese literature in Tokyo.

The following year, Takahama took a seat at Waseda University – then called Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō – but soon, as his prestige and pursuits prospered, he abandoned it to take up a position as editor and literary critic in Nihonjin magazine. In 1898, at the age of only 24, he took over the board of the literary magazine Hototogisu, previously edited by Shiki, and moved the office from Matsuyama to Tokyo, establishing a new chapter to the enterprise. 

At first, he took a modernist approach to haiku, developing a brave and fearless trend of experimentalism, whose main characteristic was the irregular number of syllables. Unexpectedly, in taking over the editorial command of the literary magazine Hototogisu, he curiously adopted a more conservative approach to haiku, rejecting the form established by a literary school known as Hekigo, which did not follow the pattern of seventeen syllables. In addition, he began to emphasize "kigo" (a word referring to some season of the year), and did his best to completely exclude the more modern tendency of non-seasonal haiku.

The death of his great friend and literary mentor Masaoka Shiki – whom, suffering from tuberculosis and Pott's disease, always had to deal with a tremendously precarious health –, in Tokyo in 1902, at the young age of 34, was a great blow to Takahama, who nurtured profound admiration, deep affection and great respect for this colossal champion of the Japanese literary arts. Takahama was informed of the sad news by Shiki’s mother. 

Bearing an exceedingly creative and restless mind, Takahama had a rich and eventful life, as well as an extraordinary career in letters and a lasting impact on his country’s literary scene. It is speculated that Takahama wrote between 40,000 and 50,000 haiku in the course of his long, fruitful and productive career (although some sources openly say this number is vastly underrated). He also deeply encouraged his daughter – who had inherited her father’s literary talent – to start her own poetry magazine. In 1954, Takahama received the award of the Order of Culture from the Japanese government, in recognition of his distinguished work and contribution to Japanese literature. Posthumously, Takahama was bestowed by the Japanese government with the Order of the Sacred Treasury, 1st Class.

Extremely versatile as a writer, Takahama wrote in a number of genres: a prolific writer of haiku and short stories, he also wrote novels, dramas and essays. Envisioning some sort of artistic evolution in the literary field ahead of him, Takahama ambitioned the excellence of creativity perfectly combined with a strict and disciplined adherence to form, something he masterly accomplished during the course of his literary journey. 

Takahama died 85 years old, in 8 April 1959, in Kamakura. Unfortunately, like most Japanese writers, he is little known in the western world.  



Wagner

Andy Cato is a British record producer and DJ, that serves as the half of the English electronic music duo Groove Armada. Active since 1995, Andy Cato, started his career in London Clubs, as well as arranging partnerships with another prominent producers and composers of the local musical scene. In 1994, Cato met Tom Findlay, which would be his future partner in Groove Armada. Subsequently, they would start together a bright and original revolution in the local electronica scene. 

Groove Armada started a brilliant career in the electronic music scene in 1996, and soon became ardently promising. Rapidly, they saw a huge fan base gathering, and their music conquered a large audience. Now, more than twenty years later, it has solidified in one of the most overwhelming electronic acts to emerge from Britain. With eight albums released – with an additionally high number of singles and compilations – Groove Armada from time to time enter into hiatus, as Andy Cato has always been involved with several parallel musical projects, alongside his career with Findlay on Groove Armada.  


Birth name: Andrew Derek Cocup
Date of birth: 7 June, 1971 (Age 46)
Birthplace: Yorkshire, England
Occupation: DJ
                Musician
                Songwriter
                Record producer
Instruments: Keyboards
                 Sampler
                 Bass
Genre: Electronica
Reason for fame: Groove Armada


Wagner


 

No Tears is a French new wave group formed in 2001 in Paris, by musician Paul Fiction. While they aren’t known beyond borders, they do enjoy a formidable degree of popularity in their home country, which can be seen by the considerable attention they had enjoyed over the years by media dedicated to cover topics related to the alternative music scene.  


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With a short discography, consisting of only three albums – the last of which was released in 2010 –, with a superior number of compilations, they succeed in leaving their mark on the genre, at least in a regional scale. With a somber style, characterized by a melancholic and pungent sonorous eloquence, No Tears has really ignited a virtuous level of relevance, in what concerns their ability of impressing a darker sound to the genre, that succeeded in capturing a pervasive, but exhilaratingly intense affinity that exhibits in an innocent harmonious grace each and every abyss resting below the corporeally hidden notes of the music.

Now reduced to a duo – Kristian Dernoncourt and Paul Fiction – the lack of releases in recent years does not mean that the band is inactive: they can be followed in social media, as sporadically they post press and music related material in their official FB page. 

No Tears is the legitimate case of a band that not only deserved to be better known to the general public inside their own home country, they also deserved to have launched internationally. And this was a serious possibility for No Tears, since they sing in english. With an interesting history, a decent degree of originality, and a gracious talent for composing good music, they deserved to have had more exposure. Being like a darker version of Simple Minds and Duran Duran, the elusive and pessimistic side of new wave emerged quite right with No Tears, that should have been one of the best representatives of the genre in their home country. Now, there is one question to be answered: they will fall into despondency, or there is the possibility of a new album in the future? 

  
Wagner

Hồ Chí Minh was a communist political leader, and president of Vietnam, from 1945 to 1969. Under the political label of communism, he founded the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, when he declared his country’s independence from France. During this time, Vietnam was a divided country, split into North and South, before unification under the communist regime in 1975.

Like all communist states, totalitarianism was a common feature in the country’s political system, and a cult of personality developed around Hồ Chí Minh, aimed to maintain the population under mind control, and to create an almost sacramental image of the supreme political leader to the general public. 

The current Vietnamese political agenda is very diligent in suppressing everything concerning Hồ Chí Minh’s romantic affairs with women. Exactly like the Nazi Party regarding Adolf Hitler, the Vietnamese communist party portrays Hồ Chí Minh as a chaste celibate, who had no time for personal matters, being inherently and completely committed to the nation, to the revolution, to the development of the country and the well-being of its people, unconditionally. He was portrayed as the ideal leader, a glorious and altruistic savior, destined to free his country from evil and misery. Unavoidably, a thoroughly mandatory adoration cult developed towards Hồ Chí Minh – a common feature in communist states –, and even his father is venerated throughout the country, having temples in his homage. 

Although the West tended to see and to portray Hồ Chí Minh as a “moderate” communist, who was unlike his more “radical” political counterparts, like Mao or Stalin, this was merely a sordid fabrication from ingenious sympathizers.  Hồ Chí Minh, like all communist leaders, saw no problem at all in murdering political opponents, to capture and kill their relatives, wage conflagrations for power purposes or to engage in belligerent conflicts to assure his control. Nonetheless, a myth was created, with the purpose to portray Hồ Chí Minh in a positive light. But there isn’t a single spark of truth in these affirmations whatsoever. Hồ Chí Minh was no different from all other communist leaders. His endless, ambitious and voracious thirst for power was unprecedented in his country’s history. And all the bloodshed generated by it was typical of communist regimes.  

Unfortunately, his legacy was perpetrated in the Communist Party of Vietnam, that rules the country with a terrible and excruciating inflexibility, inherent to this political form of government. Forced to revere a mere human being, people living in communist countries are terribly dilacerated by their own government, that enslaves their people for the purpose of absolute control. And if we can attribute a legacy to Hồ Chí Minh, this is the only he truly deserves: his contribution for the enslavement of his own people, under his image. This is everything he has done for his people. An enforcement of a totalitarian governmental behavior, that has forbidden all legitimate forms of free expression, in favor of a dreadful slave mentality, where people live in constant fear, for the sake of maintaining their own lives.     


Wagner

David Parland, better known as Blackmoon, was a celebrated Swedish musician, notorious in the black metal community for being the co-founder of Dark Funeral. He also co-founded black metal groups Necrophobic, War and Infernal. A talented guitarist and an amazing songwriter, David Parland was a predominant and exponentially creative force in all bands in which he became involved, something easy to conclude by virtue of his role as a founding member and a leading figure in all these black metal acts. He was a proverbial influence in shaping the sonorous style, the dynamic visuals and the ideological direction of those musical groups, although more commonly in conjunction with other members, despite the fact that, in some of his projects, David Parland did most of the work all by himself.

Born in Sweden in 1970, David Parland first became involved in music in 1989, when he was eighteen years old, and founded Necrophobic with another musician. In 1993, he founded Dark Funeral with guitarist and songwriter Mikael Svanberg – better known as Lord Ahriman –, which would be his best known and most notorious creation in the genre. In a few years, Dark Funeral would rise to become one of the most infamous black metal bands in the world, and a reference in the history of the genre. Initially reconciling his two bands perfectly, David Parland eventually departed from Necrophobic to fully concentrate on Dark Funeral. Despite the fact that his partnership with Svanberg – and the additional cast of musicians that joined them – would marvelously succeed, David Parland remained in Dark Funeral only for three years, leaving the band in 1996, after the release of their debut album, the iconic The Secrets of the Black Arts. The recording process for this album occurred in difficult and troublesome circumstances, being a landmark in the history of the band. Completely dissatisfied with the original product, David Parland insisted with his band mates that the album should be recorded again. Although the other band members were not as disappointed as David, he won the argument, and the album was recorded again, in a different studio, with a different producer. Nonetheless, several facts in David’s life – mainly, the solitary path he underwent musically, sometime after the album was released – suggest that he became profoundly unsatisfied with the sonorous style shaped by Dark Funeral, and that was the most probable reason for him to quit the band. With another two prominent musicians of the black metal scene, David Parland founded another band, simply called War. Short-lived, whilst it was active, the band had delivered three releases: an EP, a full-length and a compilation album, but repercussion of the work was unsatisfying. Sometime before they disbanded, the band had to change their name to Total War, since an American band already had the rights to the War name. 

By this time, David Parland also founded Infernal, which started as a band, but eventually, over the years, became more of a personal project, since Parland alone wrote all the songs, and performed and recorded everything mostly by himself. Sometimes he was assisted by occasional session musicians, that usually were friends or acquaintances from his musical circle. Mainly a drummer, or a bassist.  

In 2003, after years of a marginal degree of productivity, having released only two EP’s and a split, it became clear that Infernal was going nowhere. As a result, David Parland took a hiatus of almost six years. During this period, although haven’t becoming necessarily inactive, Parland maintained his involvement in music restricted to a minimum. 

For little more than a decade, from the mid-nineties to the beginning of the 2000’s, David Parland managed his own record label, called Hellspawn Records. Within his tenure as a small label manager, David Parland printed by Hellspawn ten releases, ranging from his musical projects and bands, as well as other prominent acts within the underground metal community.   

After several years of invisibility in the musical scene, David Parland returned in 2009, to fully concentrate on his project, Infernal. Resurfacing with surprising vigor, lucidity and energy, Parland released an EP titled The Infernal Return, under the Infernal moniker. Although Parland was doing mostly everything by himself – like vocals, guitar, lyrics, songwriting and occasional bass playing –, he was being assisted by a revolving cast of musicians – mainly bass and drum players –, and was apparently seriously trying to transform Infernal in a live band, but to hold on a permanent basis by his side the right musicians, with the level of commitment that he wanted, and also on the same musical alignment, proved to be a goal almost impossible to achieve. He also announced the full length debut of Infernal, an album tentatively titled The Infernal Retribution, which was never recorded. Unfortunately, when everything seemed to be fine and going well with David, he mysteriously disappeared again from the musical scene. After some years, he resurfaced, and revealed what was going on in his life. He explained everything in a very long, honest and detailed October 2012 interview, that he gave for Rites of the Black Moon, a webzine that already had interviewed him three years earlier.    

In this interview, David Parland revealed quite frankly that he was dealing with the consequences of a series of major problems in his personal life. Some years ago, he was involved in a serious car accident, that he suffered when he ran over an elk, returning from a studio in the Swedish countryside. The car was extensively damaged, beyond repair, but he survived without major distress. Nonetheless, he sustained terrible injuries caused by the car crash, and had to deal, from then on, with chronic pain. To alleviate his suffering, he started to use medications, and eventually became addicted. Inevitably, he had to be isolated in a psychiatric facility for an undisclosed period of time for treatment. 

Parland also revealed that this problem had brought him bad financial circumstances, since he wasn’t able to work in a regular job by virtue of his pain. Nonetheless, he maintained some positivity, affirming that he was planning to return to music full time. He also disclosed the problem of getting in Sweden the medications that he needed to properly treat his condition, revealing how terrible and restrictive the healthcare system was in his country. Even prescriptions for soft medications could be hard to get, because, in his own words “nearly everything is considered a narcotic here”. Describing how difficult it was for him to properly function without medication, David Parland also addressed his indignation and resentment towards the policy that makes pharmacological substances hard to obtain, and how much suffering these flawed laws brings to people who really needs the medicine to counterattack the aggressive symptoms of their precarious health. David Parland also debated about another points of concern in his life, and meticulously discussed his ambitions towards his work and his music. He was also working on another project, simply titled Blackmoon – that was also called Darkwinds, and Blackmoon’s Darkwinds for a while –,  and under this alias, a demo, an unreleased demo and an untitled album was produced.  

Unfortunately, things did not go well from then on. In March 19, 2013, David Parland committed suicide. He was forty two years old. Nobody knows precisely what was going on in his life for a fact, or what circumstances specifically drove him to execute such a desperate act. When hearing the news of his death, former band mate, Mikael Svanberg, from Dark Funeral, expressed in a formal statement his grief and sadness. He declared that, although he and David had their differences, they were friends, and David occasionally visited him in his residence, especially when he was dealing with severe difficulties. He also declared that, four days before he took his own life, David Parland called him, and the two spoke to each other naturally. Svanberg told the media that Parland seemed normal and okay, and by what he understood from their conversation, things were going fine. He also pointed out the fact that David knew he could always count on him, and didn’t know why, before considering an extreme act like suicide, Parland didn’t called him again, asking for help. 

​Apparently, David Parland’s artistic endeavors, goals and aspirations never took the path that he wanted, although he fought hard to be in control of the circumstances, and to react against the terrible situations that constantly affected his life. Struggling endlessly with the difficulties inherent to a musical career – specially in a subgenre of the underground scene, like black metal – he always had to be pleased with little, being forced to deal with an insurmountable succession of adversities, which tormented him with an afflictive chain of frustrations, brought by a spiral of problems that always put obstacles and barriers on his way and compromised his objectives. One way or another, David Parland always had to deal with circumstances whose control was always beyond his possibilities.     

An underground icon that achieved cult status in the nineties, and a legendary figure of the Swedish underground scene, David Parland still can be considered an elemental shadow of nature, and a vigorous force of black metal. He will be remembered for the great musician he was. A pioneer of black metal, he always will have a special place within our hearts, our minds and our thoughts! Although we miss him, now that he has been absent for four years, we have a little comfort in the fact that, at least, David Parland finally is having the rest that was constantly denied to him in life. 



Wagner