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Season 2 Episodes

Allan Taylor, artist, academic and writer joins Charles Adrian for the 43rd Second Hand Book Factory. Beginning with a modern classic and then navigating onward between banks of paradox and proto-trash, the episode finishes with the soundtrack to Allan's own, internal bad-day-to-good-day montage sequence.

Another book by George Orwell, Fighting In Spain, is discussed in Page 30.

Once Is Not Enough by Jacqueline Susann is also discussed in Page One 172.

This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.

A transcript of this episode is below.

Episode released: 10th December, 2013.

Book listing:

1984 by George Orwell

Pierre Menard, Author Of The Quixote by Jorge Luis Borges (trans. James E. Irby) (from Labyrinths)

Once Is Not Enough by Jacqueline Susann

Links:

Page 30

Page One 172

Charles Adrian

Episode transcript:

Charles Adrian
Hello and welcome to the 62nd Page One. This is the 43rd Second Hand Book Factory. I'm Charles Adrian and my guest today is Allan Taylor...

Allan Taylor
Hello.

Charles Adrian
... sitting in my kitchen.

Allan Taylor
[laughs] It's a very lovely kitchen.

Charles Adrian
Oh. Thank you. I wasn't fishing but thank you for that. Now, we're going to start with a track that I've chosen. And I listened to yours and I thought to myself... I was going to play something which... I'm acting as the “you liked that so why don't you try this?”...

Allan Taylor
Okay, that sounds interesting.

Charles Adrian
... function.

Allan Taylor
I love music. So...

Charles Adrian
Good. Okay, so this is just something that... I mean, I'm slightly overselling th... This is just something I wanted to play. But I think you might like it. And I think you ought to like it. So this is James Blake. Do you know James Blake?

Allan Taylor
Yes. Yes.

Charles Adrian
Do you like him or do you not like him?

Allan Taylor
I've only had a couple of his tracks so I don't know him very well.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] That means you don't like him.

Allan Taylor
[laughs]

Charles Adrian
But [laughing] we'll listen to this. See if I can change your mind. This is Take A Fall For Me and it features RZA.

Music
[Take A Fall For Me (feat. RZA) by James Blake]

Charles Adrian
So that was Take A Fall For Me by James Blake featuring RZA. I've realised, listening to that again, there was another reason why I wanted to play that for you. And that was just the phrase “sex shapes the body”, which I think... Well, I see in that photograph which I love of yours, where you're sitting in your suit putting on lipstick... I think there's something about gender in that, which is something that interests me anyway.

Allan Taylor
Yeah. I think gender is really interesting because... I wouldn't say that I am transgendered or interested in transvestism but my work tries to play on queer as a real kind of otherness. You know, something that isn't in gender binary but truly different from male or female. But I think, in terms of as you say “sex shapes the body”... for some reason, I am very male. I mean, I'm not butch. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that even if I tried... One of the things I do sometimes in my pictures is try to do elements of drag but it always looks really bad because I think I'm really bad at drag. But then that becomes a part of it.

Charles Adrian
Well, I think that... I mean, there's... I mean, we don't have time to talk about – unfortunately – to talk about drag and what that is… and even really much to talk about what queerness is but I think that... Because drag is so odd. The notion of crossing a gender boundary... it's not just about wanting to be the other gender, it's something else. It's something... Because you have you plus the whatever you're putting on.

Allan Taylor
Yes. Yeah.

Charles Adrian
And that's, I think, what I see in that photograph, which I'll try and link to somehow. But I should ask you – sorry – before we get totally off topic: Allan Taylor, how do you describe yourself? I've kind of jumped the gun a little bit.

Allan Taylor
No, it's fine. Do you know, it's very interesting. I did a lecture recently to Roehampton students. They asked me to come back as, like, a Roehampton alumni [sic]. And of course the first thing they want to know is: who are you and what do you do? And I always struggle with that question because I do many things. So I end up telling people just everything that I do and they can make up their own mind. I usually say that I am an artist, an academic and a writer. So, I mean, in terms of my artwork, I'm work across performance and photography. But my paid work is, you know, writing features, writing advertorials for magazines. And I'm also studying my PhD part time. I'm obviously hoping that that will go somewhere, you know, even if it's just writing an academic book.

Charles Adrian
Let's move on to the book that you like. What have you brought that you like?

Allan Taylor
I thought that someone might have brought this already but you have said no so I'm really chuffed.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Not that I remember. I mean, this is the 62nd Page One so it's quite possible that somebody has but I don't think so. I think I'd remember.

Allan Taylor
[speaking over] It's actually 1984 by George Orwell, which is a very well known book.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] A classic. A classic.

Allan Taylor
Yes, indeed, a modern classic. The reason I chose it is because I remember I used to visit my gran's very, very often when I was a child. And when I was about eleven, my mum gave me a book to read while I was there and it was Animal Farm by George Orwell. And I really enjoyed it. And it's simple enough for an eleven-year-old to understand – not that an eleven-year-old is stupid. But after that I said, “Do you have any more books like this?” And she gave me 1984 by George Orwell.

Allan and Charles Adrian
[laughter]

Allan Taylor
An eleven-year-old! Which could explain a couple of things. But I think it was the first book I read where it doesn't turn out exactly the way you want things to. And so that was an interesting dilemma for an eleven-year-old to confront because so far their world has been full of fairy tales and, you know, simple children's stories. And I think 1984 really offers something different. And most people encounter this when they're doing their GCSEs so I was really lucky that I managed to form my own opinion of it before that. And it has become a treasured book since. So.

Charles Adrian
Read us the first page.

Allan Taylor
Okay, so the first page:

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering in [sic] along with him.
The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed down [sic] from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you wherever [sic] you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption ran underneath [sic].
Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable.

Charles Adrian
Great. And that's one of those pages, isn't it, that has entered our subconscious somehow.

Allan Taylor
It's great, isn't it? I just... I think from the off there's this unsettled dystopic feeling. And it's even managed to get that iconic – well, now-iconic – slogan in there, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU”, onto the first page.

Charles Adrian
That's all in there. Now, I'm going to play the first music track that you brought, which is by Brian Eno, who is one of these... It's one of these tracks where I know the name but I don't think I've ever heard anything by Brian Eno – or listened to it.

Allan Taylor
I don't think this is very typical of his work. This is from his very first album after Roxy Music – he was in Roxy Music. And the reason I like this track is just because it's so camp. It's really camp.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh, yeah, I liked it too. I think probably for that reason.

Allan Taylor
And it just starts off and you can almost see the wrist flopping, you know? “Oh cheeky cheeky”.

Allan and Charles Adrian
[laughter]

Allan Taylor
And it just continues. Madness, utter madness all the way through.

Charles Adrian
This is Dead Finks Don't Talk by Brian Eno.

Music
[Dead Finks Don't Talk by Brian Eno]

Charles Adrian
So that was the amazing ending of Dead Finks Don't Talk by Brian Eno. Thank you so much for that.

Allan Taylor
So nutty, that song. I love it so much.

Allan and Charles Adrian
[laughter]

Charles Adrian
Now, the book that I brought that I think you should have is just a book... It just jumped out at me today and I've been wanting to give this to somebody for a long time. And I thought maybe you are the person. And I think it's appropriate. It's a collection of stories by Jorge Luis Borges.

Allan Taylor
That sounds interesting.

Charles Adrian
Have you read anything by him?

Allan Taylor
No, no.

Charles Adrian
I think you should. He's very interested in games and in... he loves patterns and paradoxes. There are some wonderful, wonderful stories in here. I'm going to read you one that I particularly like. It's not the first story in here but I think it's a good example of why I like Borges as an author. I'm just going to read you the first page of it. It's called Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote – and I don't pronounce Quixote very well but you know what I mean: Don Quixote.

Allan Taylor
[laughs] Yes.

Charles Adrian

The visible work left by this novelist is easily and briefly enumerated. Impardonable, therefore, are the omissions and additions perpetrated by Madame Henri Bachelier in a fallacious catalogue which a certain daily, whose Protestant tendency is no secret, has had the inconsideration to inflict upon its deplorable readers—though these be few and Calvinist, if not Masonic and circumcised. The true friends of Menard have viewed this catalogue with alarm, and even with a certain melancholy. One might say that only yesterday we gathered before his final monument amid the lugubrious cypresses, and already Error tries to tarnish his memory.... Decidedly, a brief rectification is unavoidable.
I'm aware that it is quite easy to challenge my slight authority. I hope, however, that I shall not be prohibited from mentioning two eminent testimonies. The baroness de Barcourt (at whose unforgettable vendredis I had the honour of meeting the lamented poet) has seen fit to approve the pages which follow. The countess de Bagnoregio, one of the most delicate spirits of the principality of Monaco (and now of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, following her recent marriage to the international philanthropist Simon Kautzsch—who has been so inconsiderately slaughtered [sic]...

Slandered, sorry.

… alas… slandered by the victims of his disinterested manoeuvres—has sacrificed “to veracity and to death” (such were her words) the stately reserve which is her distinction, and in an open letter, published in the magazine Luxe, concedes me her approval as well. These authorizations, I think, are not entirely insufficient.
I have said that Menard's visible work can be easily enumer[...]

So that's the first page but actually I'm going to completely cheat. And as last week's guest, Chella Quint, told me, it's my podcast, I can do what I like. Because I don't think that gives a... that doesn't tell you why I really like this. The point of this story is that Pierre Menard... he's written all sorts of things and this is a wonderfully pretentious little essay about him by somebody or other. But what makes Menard special is that his main life's work was to write Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes. And I'm just gonna read you another paragraph here.

He did not want to compose another Quixote—which is easy—but the Quixote itself. Needless to say, he never contemplated a mechanical transcription of the original; he did not propose to copy it. His admirable intention was to produce a few pages which would coincide—word for word and line for line—with those of Miguel de Cervantes.

I just love this idea. I think it's so beautiful. And that's the kind of... that's exactly the kind of thing that Borges plays with. What does it mean for somebody to write what somebody else has already written? I think it's gorgeous.

Allan Taylor
[speaking over] I'm just trying. I'm thinking of it as a performance piece now, you know, trying to accurately transcribe or remember something or write it in the way that it is remembered.

Charles Adrian
And... but what makes it even more so is that he's at pains to point out that that is not what he's doing. He's not copying, he's not transcribing, he's not trying... He's actually writing the same thing. And so I think you have all these questions about what does that mean? What does it mean to write anything? And what does it mean to write something new because everything's been written before? And so all these questions, which I think also come up in live out and performance art a fair amount.

Allan Taylor
Can I just say that the difference between being slaughtered and being slandered is hilarious.

Allan and Charles Adrian
[laughter]

Allan Taylor
Although she goes on to say that... sorry, he goes on to say that he felt that he had been... butchered or something like that. Is that right?

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh I don’t remember anymore.

Allan Taylor
So it's interesting that that was kind of like a Freudian slip that occurred. Maybe you were, like, pre-empting that adjective.

Charles Adrian
Yes. Perhaps so. Perhaps so. I think it's just carelessness myself.

Allan Taylor
Oh no!

Charles Adrian
Here you are. So here's Labyrinths. It's a wonderful little selection of [the] stories. And, yeah, I hope you will like some of them.

Allan Taylor
No. I will... I love short stories. I'm thinking of... Dubliners by James Joyce is one of my faves and Kafka as well.

Charles Adrian
Okay. I haven't read much Kafka.

Allan Taylor
Oh my god. There is a very, very small book with short stories in it. It would take you, like, I don't know, an hour to read but... They're each only a couple of pages but the feeling of bleak despair [laughing] you get after each one is unparalleled. He was great at what he did. It's such a shame he was never recognised in his lifetime. It's fantastic. So...

Charles Adrian
So. There we go.

Allan Taylor
It's my turn to...

Charles Adrian
And it's your turn now.

Allan Taylor
Well, after that, you know – which I can already tell from that page had tones of, like, concerns with class and etiquette – comes something really trashy and... [laughs]

Charles Adrian
Superb.

Allan Taylor
But not trashy. I think what's interesting about this book is that it feels like it's going to be a kind of trash novel but it isn't. And it's Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough. Now, her book before this was The Valley Of The Dolls. You may have heard of that.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Oh. Which I've heard of, yes.

Allan Taylor
Yes. And so this is kind of not as well known as Valley Of The Dolls but it's layers of complex character building and how on the surface it seems really superficial but once you start to delve underneath those layers it becomes quite harrowing and dark, you know. So, just to give you an idea and,see, if I read the first page it will give you an idea of the superficiality but... So that's page one but by page... what... five hundred you'll be blown away. [laughs]

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's another [indistinct]. Okay. Okay. I trust you.

Allan Taylor
So. Yes. Okay:

HE BURST upon the theatrical scene in 1945. He was Mike Wayne—a born winner. He had been known as the best craps [sic] shooter in the Air Force, and the thirteen thousand dollars in cash, strapped around his waist, proved the legend to be fact.
When he was in his late teens he had already figured out [sic] the stock market and show business to be the two biggest craps [sic] games in the world. He was twenty-seven when he got out of the Air Force and crazy about girls, so he picked show business. He parlayed his thirteen thousand into sixty with five hot days at Aqueduct.
By investing it in a Broadway show he became co-producer. The show was a hit and he married Vicki Hill, the most beautiful girl in the chorus.
Vicki wanted to be the [sic] star, and he gave her the chance. In 1948 he produced his first big lavish musical on his own and it [sic] starred his wife. It was a hit, in spite of her. The critics praised his theatrical know-how in surrounding her with talented performers, a foolproof book, and a hit score. But they all agreed that Vicki was less than adequate.
When the show ended its run, he “retired” her. (“Baby, you gotta know how to walk away from the table when the dice are cold. I gave you your shot. Now you give me a son.”)
On New Year's Day, 1950, she presented him with a baby girl.

Charles Adrian
[laughs] Cool! I like it already.

Allan Taylor
I think it's indul...

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I think it's going to be really fun.

Allan Taylor
So Jacqueline uses that kind of world of glitz and glamour to draw you in and then later really kind of unravels it.

Charles Adrian
Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Allan Taylor
Oh, I hope you enjoy it, honestly.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] I'm going to enjoy that. And thank you very much for this podcast.

Allan Taylor
Oh, I've had a great time. I think it's been wonderful.

Charles Adrian
Oh great!

Allan Taylor
It's such a great idea.

Charles Adrian
Well, I've enjoyed having you and we will talk more. Sorry listeners, you won't be party to that. I'm going to play us out with your second choice, Empire State Human by The Human League.

Allan Taylor
[laughs] Yes. Whenever I'm having an off day, I always imagine my life having a montage sequence where things are better by the end. And this would be the soundtrack to the montage. So if you're having a bad day, that'll pick you up.

Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Superb. Well, we'll imagine. I'm going to imagine Allan Taylor's bad-to-good-day montage as I play this. This is Empire State Human by The Human League. Thank you Allan.

Allan Taylor
Thanks.

Music
[Empire State Human by The Human League]

[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]