Henry Miller

[Andrew Dinn]

J.D. P. Lafrance writes:

> Ah, Tom Waits - Nighthawks at the Diner is a wonderful album that
> really invokes the the late night, diner/bar inhabiting skid row
> types of Bukowski, Miller and even Kerouac's literature... Also,
> Bukowski's screenplay for the film Barfly is very good too.

I was just listening to `Frank's Wild Years' only 2 evenings back,
having retrieved the album from which my somewhat cheesy tape was
recorded, and got a chance to read those lyrics in full. So, I also
snuck out `Nighthawks at the Diner', `Swordfishtrombomes',
`Heartattack and Vine' and `Rain Dogs' and boy, that's what I call a
lyric. I think the later stuff is even more impressive than the
earlier.

So where's the obPynchon? Well, both TW and TRP betray a fluency in
low life which seems like it must depend on anonymous spectating - you
know, sitting in diners in naugahyde booths, putting up with verbal
and visual insubordination from adjacent `characters'. Of course I did
the mental arithmetic but, well, that picture of TW on `Asylum Years'
makes him look about 19 and his first songs are copyright around 1970.
Too old to be our boy. Still if ever a musician was a TRP candidate on
the strength of the lyrics and the music I'd go for TW.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.