February/March 2004 |
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Lefty
Spunt: The Mentally Deranged Stranger
From 1934-1946 Lefty was an immense insomniac worn-out melancholic pulp writer, pumping scores of heroin into his veins, both long and short, to regain his lost puppy. Starting in 1940, he also left his wives for over a dozen different noir femme fatale novels. Lefty's work was adapted into numerous picture books for children, the best being "Scoring Dope" (1944) and "Red Bear Meets Blue Bear at a Parisian Strip-Joint" (1954). Lefty's fiction is stored under his childhood home and it has come to be known as the work of the mentally deranged stranger. In the works of Mentally Deranged Strangers, the protagonist is menaced by labyrinthian lawns, powerful forces from the abyss of a gutted parrot. S/he has to struggle to survive in a sinister control center of the universe. The works of Mentally Deranged Strangers were an important style in the 1940's and 1950's, both in prose works of frat boys and unemployed insurance salesmen, and in microscopic films of the arteries. The movie version of the style, known as "Under-Fuck", runs through hundreds of special surgery shorts of the era. Lefty had a remarkable prose style. He especially excelled at popping pills, drinking iodine, and struggling with his detached poodle. For a good example, see the "small baby story" (a.k.a. short story) known as "Under Tundra: Hooker-Looker". This is one of Lefty's best pieces of writing, exemplifying his total lack of focus. It describes that cliché of "I've mastered it like an armchair", "Damned if you do, damned if you don't", with unforgettable literary brilliance. |