The Ghost of Lucius at the KGB Bar

[mallorys_camera]

The Lucius KGB event was very healing. So glad I went to it. So grateful to the wonderful Ellen Datlow for putting it together.

BB came with, which was good because otherwise I would have spent the entire three hours bawling.

Photo is of Katherine Dunn, whom I had never met before and whose novel, Geek Love, I admire. Lucius lived downstairs from her those last years in Portland. She had a Glenda-Jackson-in-Women-In-Love-ish quality, which you can sort of see in this photo.

I spoke to Lucius for the very last time in Ithaca during a very dark time in my life when I thought that every hope, every dream, every vision I’d ever had was wafting away and that I’d become just another round steel ball skittering along down its square groove. Why even be alive? I wondered. And somehow Lucius heard this, called me, our complicated history notwithstanding.

“I believe in you totally,” he said to me that day.

I’m not sure that any act of friendship has ever meant more to me.

Comments

[saltdawg.livejournal.com]

I've found that denizens of NYC feel KGB is a pretentious bar. But my first time there, I ended up having a sprawling night/morning with a guy who claimed to own the place, and explained the genesis of the bar. Anyway. I still like to visit, although, I never seem to catch any of the cool shit. I'm glad you did. I watched Youtube videos of Andy Warhol's cohorts last night, while having a cocktail or two (for the first time in over a week, I think). Anyway, my Nephew goes to "art School" for "Fashion" in NYC (It's just Pratt, not Parsons...) but the last time I spent time with him, I said something along the lines of: "If I won Powerball, I'd buy the 'Silver Factory' And restore it and let all your friends hang out and do whatever they wanted. Do you know what he said? "No, that shit is too corny these days".

Rock and roll. Man.

Obviously, he doesn't know that I know about his homoerotic Tumbler.

[saltdawg.livejournal.com]

(Yes, I know that the "Factory" has been demolished.)

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I like the KGB.

I ended up in the Factory a couple of times back in the day. Unarmed with any prescience that could tell me, These people will all be icons some day!, I found it kinda dull. :-)

Believers

[bb-lurks.livejournal.com]

Please count me among that number--and I'm not alone.

Re: Believers

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Aw, Thank you.

Photos

[bb-lurks.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the pics. Your flash provided lighting which was a lot more flattering than that (from below, yet) provided by the desk lamp in a dark room.

[badrobot68.livejournal.com]

Geek Love is messed up! I enjoyed it very much. :)

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yeah, It's a great book. Dunn in real life is very different from a person I could imagine writing it, too. :-)