The Washington Canard

YES, YOU MENTIONED THE FREE WINE

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of drinking quite a bit of quality wine, courtesy of British publishing tycoon Felix Dennis. If you don't know about Mr. Dennis, here are some interesting facts:

He bears an uncanny resemblance to Joe Esterhaus.

He first rose to prominence with a hipster magazine called "Oz," which back in the early '70s got him jailed on obscenity grounds.

He's been been buying up land in central England and planting trees, aiming to recreate a natural forest where one hasn't really existed for centuries.

At one of his mansions (he has five worldwide) he has personally-commissioned bronze statues of R. Crumb, Geronimo, Muhammad Ali and Stephen Hawking.

He doesn't collect fine wine; he drinks and shares it. Not only does he party endlessly, he also gets more tail than Hugh Hefner.

But the only reason he would matter to 99% of Washington Canard readers is because he is the founder and publisher of such fine periodicals as Maxim, Stuff and Blender. The reason I'm writing about him now is that, late in life, he's become a poet.

Dennis has just begun the North American leg of the world tour promoting his first collection of poetry, "A Glass Half Full." The tour's name, "Did I Mention The Free Wine?" is highly appropriate. Before the readings, during the intermission and afterward, Dennis keeps the wine flowing.

Last Wednesday evening, I attended his DC reading at the Folger Shakespeare Library on the corner of SE 2nd, nestled between the Adams and Jefferson (Library of Congress) buildings. I stayed late after work and hopped the Metro to Capitol South, arriving just after 6:00 p.m.

Outside the building I saw a wide, wild-haired oldster gesturing emphatically at a Range Rover. As I approached the front, he crossed my path to meet a couple standing nearby. He sat down with a cigarette and started talking with a crisp English accent. Felix Dennis for sure.

I hadn't managed to convince anyone else to come along, so once inside I helped myself to the wine and occupied myself by checking out the main exhibit, about 14th and 15th century religious intolerance. Truth be told, the Folger Shakespeare Library undersells itself a bit. It's not just Billy Shakes in there -- they've got all kinds of old books, not to mention some wicked paintings with yet wickeder decapitations and public bloodletting. Where would the modern horror genre be without the auto-da-fé?

My first thought, while moving from well-preserved 16th century religious texts under glass to a tagboard poster featuring the line-art portrait at right, held at chest height by a flimsy wire easel, was: I hope you're enjoying it, because this is the last time your work will be featured in such esteemed company.

Two themes stuck out immediately, though the reading had yet to begin: Felix Dennis is really, really, really rich; and, Felix Dennis is a deadly serious artist with a populist streak. One such promo sign included this quote from Dennis: "I'm using a split brain here, where one half is working where millions of dollars could be the consequence, and the other half is trying to work out what to do with, 'Who seeks to breach the siege of song?'"

Apparently even populists can be pretentious.

I should also note, I was easily among the youngest in attendance. I'd been expecting to see more of a Maxim audience, but the New Yorker crowd showed up instead. It seems you can bring the elitists to popular poetry, but you can't bring the populace to literature.

Curious about the wine list? I know nothing about fine wine, and prefer to leave the serious wine reviews to those who know what they're talking about. But in case you're at a Parisian restaurant in the near future, you may want to give these a try:

My review: Mmmmm... wine!

Mysteriously, the lights began to dim, then rise -- dim, rise, dim, rise. I threw back what remained of my pinot noir and followed the crowd into the Elizabethan theater. It's a small theater; I doubt capacity is any higher than 100, though I didn't think to count the rows and columns. On each seat was a copy of one of Mr. Dennis' non-laddie publications, The Week, sort of like The Economist meets Reader's Digest, if that makes any sense.

Obviously, The Week was "sponsoring" this trip. In other words, his poetry tour was also serving as an advertisement for his newsmag. A multimedia display on the small stage at front showed rotating issues and endorsements by an improbable number and variety of literary figures, political commentators and Hollywood celebs. Among them:

Everyone gave a short blurb. A few declared themselves regular readers. Tellingly, most did not. Tina Brown perhaps didn't realize the implications of her cheeky praise: "The Week is better than my CIA briefing." Viz., at least it's better than nothing. Others punned on the magazine's name. Dennis Hopper blurbed: "The Week is not just another seven days.'" Roger Ebert quipped: "The Week shall inherit the Earth." P.J. O'Rourke tergiversated: "The Universe is held together by gravitation, the strong force and The Week force."

But the best quote, hands down, came from none other than MC Hammer, who declared: "The Week is great. You can't touch it."

Before too much longer, Dennis the Menace -- as some call him -- bounded up onstage, dressed expensively like a tramp. Felix Dennis was indeed the man I'd seen out front. Dennis took up a position on a high stool behind a podium in the center of the stage. With one glass of white wine and one of red within reach, he took out a pack of cigarettes and explained that while it was illegal for the rest of us to smoke or drink in the theater, it was permissible for the performer as long as it was absolutely necessary. It was the only reason he agreed to do the tour, he joked. And so he puffed away.

And the reading itself began. Now, if the thought hasn't already occurred to you, it's a neat trick to pour wine down your audience's throat before reading them amateur poetry. But the deck-stacking didn't end there: While he read the poetry, the lighting changed, a video montage played on the screen to his right and ambient mood music aided his performance. At either end of the stage, smaller televisions displayed Dennis in real-time, fed by cameras somewhere on the second level.

The first poem he read was, he said, also the first he wrote. It showed, with stanzas -- I trust I'm within my bounds of fair use here -- such as:

Never go back. Never go back.
Never return to the haunts of your youth.
Keep to the track, to the beaten track.
Memory holds all you need of the truth.

And though he spoke as intelligibly as one could ask for, the screen to his left displayed the text of his poem, line by line as he read them, like it was karaoke night at the Folger Library.

He set up each poem with a few rambling thoughts about his wild past, his business, his wine, his mother, his lack of children, his immense wealth, always concluding his anecdote or rumination with ... the title of the next poem. Used sparingly, it's a fun device, that hidden transition. If you've ever read a collection of Harlan Ellison stories, you know what I'm talking about.

At one point he stopped and asked the audience to shout the names of their favorite American poets. According to Dennis, most places he went, audience members replied with Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost (note to non-English majors: you're supposed to hiss). Various crowd members offered names such as Emerson, Ginsberg, Whitman and Bukowski. One person shouted "Wallace Stevens!" once, and then again, more insistently -- "Wallace Stevens!" After a moment's thought, I yelled: "Eliot!" partly to be a pain in ass, and partly because I meant it. I succeeded on the first point, because Dennis cocked his head to the side and barely got going before trailing off, "Well, that might be a bit of cheating..." He then admitted his favorite poets were Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost.

Later on, he claimed that 52% of poets worldwide live in the United States, but offered no proof and no elaboration. (I can't verify this, either.) I think this was just his way of sucking up to the audience.

Dennis pronounced himself to be an ardent defender of America, especially when confronted with European snobs. This elicited applause from a surprising number of people -- that being just under half of the audience. But their enthusiasm (and okay, mine) more than made up for those who sat on their hands.

At that point, Dennis launched into something called "Shanty for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security," which seemed to warn that the Patriot Act could turn the U.S. government into a monsters itself, if we weren't careful. Another poem castigated politicians in general as disingenuous, which wasn't a terribly profound insight, either. His final grave intonation on politics: "I hope someone is checking those electronic voting machines."

There was also a strange moment where he asked if anyone had had trouble with cocaine, and no one responded. This being a small audience of bookish types in sleepy Washington, it's possible this was true. In any case, he implored us all to stay away from it.

And I jotted down this Felix Dennis quote, from one of his rambling introductions: "I think plastic surgery sucks, unless you've been in a really serious accident or something."

Other poems concerned computer servers, the perils of travel, fighting with his teenage girlfriend (note: written from a teenage perspective), the '60s hippie movement, and a sonnet dedicated to water. On the whole -- here's the actual "review" part of this post -- he may be an average poet, but he's an inspired one, too. Though you wouldn't want to confuse it with modern poetry as we know it, the writing of poetry of, for and by "the people" is perfectly legitimate. What's wrong with rhyming? It's like rock music -- it may or may not lead one to get into more challenging art, but it has its place, and it's pleasing as heck. End review.

As I said, even populists can be pretentious, and even rock music can be canonized. One of his better pieces was about Hitler's pre-suicide wedding to Eva Braun, which he said would be in the next edition of the Oxford Book of English Verse. So maybe I was wrong about the evening's company. Perhaps he will be featured in the Folger Library circa 2504.

By the end of the reading I was persuaded to buy the book. I'd enjoyed the evening, the book cost just $10 and included 2 CD/DVDs, and apparently he was donating all the proceeds to a Folger elementary school program. Tonight, I would think of the children.

Back out in the exhibit hall, I grabbed another glass of wine -- my sixth? seventh? who knows? -- and got in line.

"A Glass Half Full" is blurbed by a host of what I assume to be eminent Brit lit crits (anytime you want my headline-generating services, Variety, you can call me … well, not for the next week or so). To his credit, he includes a couple of dismissive comments from established British poets. On the front are two intriguing recommendations. One is from Tom Wolfe: "A 21st century Kipling" and better yet, the other is from Mick Jagger: "I enjoy his poetry immensely."

Soon it was my turn up front. I had planned to say something like, it's the electric poetry that Jim Morrison was going for, with all of the ego but none of the pretension. Hmm ... that wouldn't come out right. All of the talent? No, too obsequious. What I finally said was something like, "Thanks a lot! It was a great evening." Dennis was friendly and had been gregarious with others in line, but I had spent too much time kicking around the "electric poet" thought in my head and reading blurbs to come up with something to actually say. Oh well. Yes, make it out to Bill. The Morrison thought survived, unrecognizably, in the Ozzy quote I asked and he consented to sign with: "You can't kill rock n' roll!" (Hat tip goes to FLOG™.)

Well, I spent too much time piecing this together in a non-linear fashion, so I didn't come up with a proper conclusion. We'll just have to leave it at that.

Suggestions for further reading:

Official Felix Dennis website

"A Glass Half Full" review from Blogcritics.org

The CBS write-up attending a "60 Minutes" profile from earlier this year

Gawker's take on Felix Dennis

Interview with Felix Dennis, at The Guardian

More tyrant-oriented poetry!

P.S. I'm afraid this post reeks of churlishness.

posted by WWB at 7:53 PM |