In Which He Has One Foot In The Gate Of Hell Two Hands Pulling Me Around We Got Three Years Just For Giving Up And I Got Nothing To Complain About

“The joy given by the contemplation of a work of art containing the principle of revelation is a great joy, but it is not complete.”

–Isabella Far

The painter Giorgio de Chirico like me, had a Sicilian father. Perhaps that is why he resembles me in almost every way except for my complete lack of talent in the visual arts.

de Chirico was a terrific painter, but he was also a talented writer, even published a fantastic surrealist novel, Hebdomeros. Apollinaire spotted de Chirico early and gave him a career.

What follows are two excerpts from his memoirs. In the first he is just talking about how awesome he is, and in the second, he discusses a visit to an artist his father wanted him to meet.

You can buy The Memoirs of Giorgio de Chirico here.

from The Memoirs of Giorgio de Chirico

The fishing expeditions were a great joy to me. It is certain that all these spectacles of exceptional beauty which I saw in Greece as a boy and which were the most beautiful I have seen in all my life, made such a deep impression on me and remained so powerfully impressed on my mind and thoughts because I am an exceptional man who feels and understands a hundred times more strongly than others.

***

As I went in I first greeted Dom Brindisi. My parents had told me once I should kiss his hand and I always lowered my head to complete this operation, but Dom Brindisi shook me firmly by the hand and lowered it with a determined gesture to make me understand that this act of reverence was not welcome to him. I remained for an instant with my head bent, uncertain of what to do, then order and calm returned as at the end of certain comedies of Shakespeare. But this little drama which occurred whenever I met Dom Brindisi upset me a little. When the meeting took place in the street I was even more upset, because I was afraid that this scene would attract the attention of passers-by, I feared that a crowd would form and that among it would be some people I knew, and that among the people I knew would be some girl or woman with whom I was more or less in love.

“I’m Only Sleeping” — Elliott Smith (mp3)

I feel apprehensive in the same way whenever I go to a barber’s. It is my habit to have my hair cut without having friction, massage, shampoos or anything else of that sort afterwards; when necessary I wash my hair myself at home with warm water and soap. But as long as I remember going to barbers, in every country where I have been until now, there is no barber of any time or race who does not ask me near the end of the cutting operation if I want a friction. Consequently, the whole time I am at the barber’s until the moment I hear the fatal request, I suffer, I suffer until that moment occurs, just as I suffered as a boy while waiting until Dom Brindisi took hold of my hand. Naturally I try to educate the barbers, I try to always go to the same one and have my hair cut by the same boy, but this takes a lot of time. It is incredible how long it takes to make a barber’s boy understand that I don’t want to have a friction.

Then it has always happened that when, after the many months, sometimes years, it has taken me to make the barber understand my wishes, when in the end I have succeeded in having my hair cut without the offer of a friction, I have had to leave, changing either house or town, or even country, and then, in the new town, I have to start all over again. Now, for example, in Rome I am educating a barber in this way in the Via Veneto. We shall see, when he has finally come to realise that I do not want a friction, whether I shall for a while be able to enjoy quietly the fruit of my persistent labor.

You can find more about de Chirico here. He died in 1978 in Rome.

“On Teasing (live)” — Nina Nastasia (mp3)