Interview with Chrissie

[Jules Siegel]

MantaRay at aol.com wrote:

> I don't mean this to be rude, but when I saw Crumb, his physicality reminded
> me of what I thought Pynchon might be like (If anyone thinks that's a slam, I
> personally thought Crumb was cool, so eat it). But now the mention of the pig
> fetish totally recalls Crumb's leg fetish.
> 
> Thanks again for the insights.
> 
> Scott
> Scott
> Berkeley, CA

Crumb and Pynchon are very close matches physically. They probably come
from similar genetic stock.

Pynchon doesn't have a pig fetish (a negatively-charged psychoanalytic
term), though. He just collects pigs. I think his opinions about them
(which date back to the late Sixties) are a take on the use of the word
to mean police. He was defending the kindly, decent pig, see?

Crumb does have a leg fetish -- specifically for heavy, muscular female
legs. He wrote to me about it once at length in his own handwriting. 

I have been a Crumb fanatic since 1967, when I bought his tabloid
"Yarrowstalks" in the East Village. No one documented our time with his
fidelity to physical detail and psychic environment. Ubelievably great
artist, technically, and a humorist who will rank someday with Mark
Twain, I think, although the very concreteness of his work may cause him
to become too obscure with the passage of time.

He visited us in 1971 when we were living in the commune. Playboy had
decided to do an Annie Fanny on communes, so Harvey Kurzman showed up
with Crumb and Gilbert Spain to do research. They all drew in my first
calligraphic journal, "Record."

Crumb did a spectacular drawing of Chrissie on a separate sheet, which I
submitted to Rolling Stone as part of a major piece on dope-dealing I
was working on for them. Wenner rejected the story (having just begun
his full sell-out trajectory, he wanted a hard-hitting expose of nasty
gun-toting longhairs -- hardly what he got) but kept the drawing.
Chrissie is still righteously annoyed that I ever sent him the original
in the first place. I have always been the dumb one. As long as I
followed her advice about my career I prospered mightily. When I failed
to consult her, my native ineptness took over. Anita -- classic MYOB
WASP -- prudently tries to stay out of my professional decisions, but
fortunately I have my children to guide me.

It's not easy being an idiot savant, heavy on the idiot.
-- 
Jules Siegel Website: http://www.caribe.net.mx/siegel/jsiegel.htm
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