37 Unreturn

A story I particularly like is when the hero doesn’t in fact return. The opposite of circular. Our minds just go on and on, and it’s exciting. I’m not sure if this automatically converts them to antihero status. That’s OK, heroes are never as lovely as antiheroes. Plagued with insecurity.

A favourite example is The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles. There is also a pretty good film version of the novel from 1990 from Bernardo Bertolucci, with John Malkovich heading off into the North African desert at the end. For me it triggers the same romantic sensations as Peter O’Toole had in Lawrence of Arabia. Luxuriating in myth and landscape. 

Kurt Schwitters didn’t entertain insecurity or orthodoxy. Right on! Collage is a kind of non-linear unreturning.

Not Schwitters

One day Schwitters decided he wanted to meet George Grösz. George Grösz was decidedly surly; the hatred in his pictures often overflowed into his private life. But Schwitters was not one to be put off. He wanted to meet Grösz, so Mehring took him up to Grösz's flat. Schwitters rang the bell and Grösz opened the door.

"Good morning, Herr Grösz. My name is Schwitters."

"I am not Grösz," answered the other and slammed the door. There was nothing to be done. Half way down the stairs, Schwitters stopped suddenly and said, "Just a moment."

Up the stairs he went, and once more rang Grösz's bell. Grösz, enraged by this continual jangling, opened the door, but before he could say a word, Schwitters said, "I am not Schwitters, either" And went downstairs again.  They never met again. Hans Richter

I am not Schwitters -- not he

who wheezes at the tops of hills

Not Sturm und dung-wiping Schwitters

the delicate ego smeared on canvas

Not Kürtchen -- Mama's blond-eyed boy

Not Anna Bloom's snivelling lover

Not Schwitters

Not Pfc. Schwitters, Army corps

pppppppffffffffffff

cacacacacacacaca cucu -- No

Not he

I'm not dada

Not anti-dada either

Not anti-Schwitters but definitely

not Schwitters

Not Huelsenbeck's nor Spengemann's Schwitters

Not Schwitters the ad man -- buy bye bye!

Not this quaint old easel-leaner

peddling landscapes to the tourists

Not Kurt the pharmacist's chessmate

Not that file they keep down in Oslo

No -- I'm not Schwitters

I'm Merz

I'm a gleam of sun over mountain peaks

reflected off the glacier

I'm a foehn wind howling down the fjord