INMIDDELS
[Inmiddels is the title of a short lived crox paper of limited distribution 1995-1996]
TASTELESS, VULGAR AND CHEAP – Fritz Van
Den Heuvel (opening speech crox 27)
SUPPORTING MEMBERS (1995)
THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HEADSTAND (opening speech)
READERS’ LETTERS (author: Guido De Bruyn, 1996)
difficult name Hallo, I am a fan of CROXHAPOX (and I’m proud of it). In some pubs
people are making fun of me when I try to say the difficult name of Your firm without stuttering. Because, as a holder of a Level 2 college degree (woodworking) I’m not taken seriously. Alex can’t know anything about art, can he! But I can have my own experience, can’t I?! For example: thanks to your company I now know what installation windows are. What a brilliant idea. Go on.
Make many more windows. I love to watch tehm when I’m taking a walk, even though I don’t understand a sausage of it, Gent has become more beautiful thanks to your firm with the difficult name. Doei, A. Stevens, Gent
Vicious little sentences Dear crox-publisher, Yes I know the musselman![1] I am a teacher of modern languages in a girl’s public school, happily divorced, amateur translator and quite a reasonable snorkeler. But please do apologize for all this. At home a have a genuine Raveel, which I don’t really like, but that isn’t really necessary in
my opinion as far as contemporary art is concerned (the painting colours nicely with the curtains). Just to say that I am honestly concerned with interior decoration of my living room and with art in general. I heard about the activities of CROXHAPOX in the grapevine. Genial, I thought, till that particular evening. / At the end of last February I was a visitor at the opening of Crox 42, an exhibition in Your cellar. I went mad. Furious I was, not as much because of the lamentable quality of the works (I’m not going into that here),
but about the opening act which was obviously intended to be burlesque. In the middle of the public (a sloppy mix of well off marginals, thirty and forty somethings in trendy outfits) a bloke sat at a table eating mussels. An act as appetiser for the show, I thought, even as the way the guy was cramming himself was not very appetising (I’m not going into that here). What matters is what was presented amidst the slurping, burping and gobbling noises. The gent noisely presented a pastiche on Shakespeare’s third sonnet. Garlic in my glass!
he said (a stroke of real genious, admittedly – and from now on no one will be able to translate the line Look in thy glass
and tell the face thou viewest in a more original way) [see > Shakespeare]. I discerned some polite sniggering in the basement, a single frown from a fool who was looking for some relation
with the exhibition and contagious yawning that started at the back and rippled forward to the mussel table. Where of course it stalled because the protagonist of the evening, not hampered by any kind of humility, went on cramming mussels in his face and vicious little sentences in our ears. Stinky sentences, because I detected quite a lot of scatalogical terms, as far as the musselman – not hindered by a minimum of pronunciation either – could be understood. Fresh turds were mentioned./ Humor, boys and gals! And guts of course (throw those old monstres sacrés from their pedestal, watch, mummy, what I dare). A booklet of the complete Shakespeare sonnets – which I bought this Summer in Strattford-upon-Avon (sic) – was burning in my bum pocket. Yes, I gladly confess: I carry His sonnets on my person (exactly like the main character in the movie Sense & Sensibility, but I was first). I almost crammed the sonnets in musselman’s gob but I couldn’t do that to Shakespeare. And moreover: my booklet, gilt-edged, would shut up smutselmans eloquently, but the risk that people would take this as a part of the performance was to great./ Hence this letter. Of course you will refuse to
publish it (or it will be censured), you don’t have that much guts. Or maybe you will publish it, but then only with a few added vicious sentences of the musselman. About my rabidly conservative reflexes or some such thing. Whatever. It won’t keep me from - silently,
smutselmans – working at my own daring, I may say, translation of the greatest love poetry ever written: Shakespeare’s sonnets (my ex says my translation is sublime, but I’m not going into that now). A final question: where do you buy your mussels? At vishandel Klein’s fish shop? And were they paid with money from the
government? F. Bakkerzeel, Maldegem
Kicked in the balls Dear people of CROX, yes we know the uosselman/the musselman of
Scheveningen/ I am an unemployed teacher of modern languages (after have taught at a boy’s public school for a quarter of a century!) and happily divorced of a coleague who thinks he can translate Shakespeare. I don’t need to tell you this is about Fred. Per chance I read his letter to Your gazette and, outraged, I decided to dot some i’s. Firstly – and I write this sans racune – Fred is impotent. That is not the reason why I asked for a divorce (I will take the true reason with me to the grave), but I inform you about it because in my opinion it explain a lot
about his reaction to the infamous mussel action. I was also present that evening, in the catacombs of Your stately mansion and, admittedly I enjoyed the performance of Raymond Van het Groenewoud most. That Fred takes offence at the playful Shakespeare rranslation is in no way related to his (presumed) quality as a translator. Fred was simply kicked in the balls (c'est le cas de le dire) by the choice of that particular sonnet. You know Shakespeare addresses in the first 126 sonnetten a young gentleman of rare beauty, called Lord of my love en Master-Mistress of my passion by the bard. In the first seventeen sonnets he tries to convince the young man to procreate. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb/ Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? You got it? Surely, Shakespeare uses a very direct metaphor – The female womb must be ploughed by the man just like a field by the farmer (note: in English husband also means farmer).
So the third sonnet lays bare Freds frustration quite crudely. And taking the piss on Shakespeare taking the piss on Fred as well. Every common-or-garden psychologist can tell you that. About his own daring translation I can be very brief: they are sublimely bad. The only thing which is true is that we are happily divorced (and it is indeed a happy thing to be divorced of a man who can’t get it up). Lots of success with your well appreciated activities and the some times briljant intro’s (I remember a performer of Schubert whom I would like to hear resounding again in Your catacombs). Affectionately,
Tina Vermoes, Herdersem
a better cause to the chairman of VZW Croxhapox,/ Herewith included is the bill for the 4 kilo’s of Zeeland mussels, You bought at our shop on 28 February for a good cause. The amount of 4 x 129 = 516/ vat 21% = 89/ total = 427payable into account number 234-67895435-003./ Kind regards, Bernard Klein, Vishandel – Neither could we have thought of a better cause.
No problem Dear CROX publishers, I am not at all impotent. For this slander and infamy I will yet sue my ex, Bakeljauw Tina. In her letter, which I intercepted (I let her moonlight cleaning my appartment, silly me) she omits a few facts. Tina’s name meanwhile is Tine – but she doesn’t dare to say that openly. I myself paid for her surgery in Casablanca, goddamn, after which I gladly (= happily) let me be divorced from her. From him, actually. Because Tine is to blame that I couldn’t get ‘it’ up during our marriage. Every common-or-garden psychologist can tell you that. So the secret s/he will take with her to the grave is now known to you, Sorry Tina, pardon, Tine. Do you see now, dear CROX-publishers, why s/he
was fired at the boy’s public school after 25 years of mucking up the boys’ lives (I almost wrote fuck up the boys)? Or do I need to make a drawing? / I apologise for using Your newspaper as a forum for this intimate war which I would rather wage in court. From my previous letter I don’t take back a single word. I have my doubts that you will be publishing this. In any case: my ex will not get to read this letter. I swear. Bakkerzeel Fred, Maldegem
Imagine: we too Hi there, Croxhapoxers, I have been closely following the art scene for years. The best exhibition I saw last year as the show of children’s drawings in your space. I bet Beuyes would have been blushing in his grave. And Hoet, that failed boxer, should be tipping his hat for your policy (h’s going to open that casino with a retrospective of Raveel, imagine)./
Keep carrying on! Cause whoever goes down the pit can only see a small piece of the sky. (Japanese proverb) Dieter Pas,
Mariakerke
look in thy sonnet Dear people of CROX,/ A short postscriptum to my previous letter about Fred. For your information: Shakespeare wrote a hundred and five and fifty sonnets all in all, the first 126 of which were addressed to a young gentleman. On the contrary, the last 26 were written for a beautiful dark lady who roused in him a disturbing love-hate emotion. Was Shakespeare queer? Or a vacillating bi, such as I? I have to confess that I have recently decided to be un-manned again (for a while I was Tine) in Casablanca - payed under the money back if not satisfied programme. The reason: I coincidently read a pre-publication of the last 26 sonnets, translated by a Bakkerzeel F. Sublime, I must say, straight and square sublime. And I can know because my master’s
thesis was about the sonnets. (Fred didn’t graduate, but that doesn’t matter). I now am again the beautiful, dark lady I once was. THANKS TO SHAKESPEARE. THANKS TO FRED. AND NOT IN THE LEAST THANKS TO CROXHAPOX./ When we recently celebrated our reunion (I don’t have to make a drawing, do I?) we toasted to the happy end and guess what that good old Freia (she is no longer Fred) called out loudly? Garlic in my glass! Thanks again/ Tina Bakeljauw, Maldegem
[1]
‘Ja ik ken de mosselman’ is a phrase from a very well-known children’s song and game.