Dan Farson exhibition: The late Soho and its bohemian habitués

Sailors in Fitzroy by Farson

The photographs of Francis Bacon's whipping boy, Dan Farson, can ve viewed and bought at Blacks Club at London's 67 Dean Street, W1, until March 12th. Don't miss the Private View on Feb 23, 6.30-8.30pm: at 7.15pm., there will be a brief talk by the artist, writer and Soho DJ (and my fiancée) Molly Parkin, and Soho based bespoke tailor Mark Powell (both pictured below by Benjamin Maggs, a Pisces), who is currently working on an outfit for the modfather himself, Paul Weller. They will talk about their Soho experiences past and present, and their memories of Dan Farson.

The flyer reads: "Through the lens of Dan Farson, Soho scenes and its bohemian habitués of the 1950's come to life. Several of the photographs are featured in the remarkable book by Farson Soho in the Fifties, with an introduction by jazz legend and author the late George Melly."

Apparently Farson was also a gifted writer and broadcaster. The first I heard of him was from the late Robert Tewdwr Moss who met him in a Syrian hotel in the mid-90s. Robert describes the encounters in his travel book Cleopatra's Wedding Present. From memory, Farson - drunken and shambolic by this time - took against him, launching into ferocious, froth-flecked tirades. Robert's crimes appeared to be that he was handsome, gay and sexually active. I can't recall if Robert actually names Farson in the book.

As I write I can't find my copy to check. Perhaps Farson's ghost has hidden it.

Farson's autobiography Never a Normal Man

Robert Tewdwr Moss murder: 13 years ago

August 24 marked the 13th anniversary of the murder of writer Robert Tewdwr Moss - a close friend whose life was taken just as he finished his travel book Cleopatra's Wedding Present: Travels Through Syria that would make his posthumous name. A day does not pass that I do not think of him. For my memories of him click here.

Cleopatra's Wedding Present: click here. To order a copy click here.

Philip Hoare's obituary of Robert in the Independent: click here
Philip Hensher's bedside reading: click here
Chroma review: click here

First line from Cleopatra's Wedding Present:
The hot wind that had carried the early heat wave into town was laden with fine brown dust and clotted with diesel fumes, so that when it abated the suffocating heat laced with dirt hung like a cloak around us and grey clouds loomed above the chaos of the streets. First few pages click here

Some reviews of Cleopatra's:

‘The book’s series of entertaining vignettes is testimony not only to the author’s literary skills but to his courage, curiosity and happy knack of befriending anyone he met’
— Mail on Sunday

‘This elegant work stands comparison with early Evelyn Waugh’
— Independent

‘A work with the potential to become a cult classic’
— Observer

‘A small masterpiece and a delicate work of English whimsy’
— Sunday Times

Details of Robert's death and of his killers: click here

Robert's killers may be free in 2 years' time - still young men:
Isa Abdul Aziz can apply for parole in September 2011: click here
Rondell Karl Pereira can apply for parole in October 2011: click here

Some comfort: "Even once their tariffs expire, neither man will be released until they can persuade the Parole Board they pose no serious public danger. When freed, they will remain on perpetual life licence, subject to prison recall if they get into trouble with the law again." This Is Chesire

Philip Hoare: I am so jealous of this seasoned fag hag

When I heard that Philip Hoare had won the £20,000 Samuel Johnson Prize for Leviathan a little bit of me went into a coma (I have since recovered: leave grapes at the door). It was that evil, low, green-eyed feeling you get when someone you know enjoys a great succes d'estime: to rub it in, Leviathan is a marvellous disquisition on whales: mankind's spiritual ink with the beasts and our disgraceful exploitation of them. So if I offer my congratulations to Philip please note the above. Do not be entirely taken in by my remote mwahing. Imagine how my face slips back into a scowl as it turns away and sips sour wine (white).

I first met Philip many years ago through my late friend Robert Tewdwr Moss. Arcatistes will know about Robert: follow the links below if not. He took me to a council flat, I think somewhere in north London. Before the front door was an iron security gate which may have last seen service at Alcatraz. The Philip I first met looked very much like the Philip of today at 51: slight and lean. Not overly friendly, but courteous and brisk. One felt he had been dragged from his work. This was a party at Philip's pad and I was Robert's unexpected, uninvited guest.

Later, I was to give Philip work on a Sunday tabloid: he was a dream. He'd turn up, hardly talk to anyone but smiled a lot and was amiable and distant, do the work without fuss - whatever the theme - then make his exit. He'd already written his Stephen Tennant book and Noel Coward was ahead of him. I learnt he was a son of Southampton and born Patrick Moore. Wisely he reinvented himself literarily so as to avoid association with the right-wing astronomer who has the wonky monocled eye and who refuses to die. Philip interviewed me for one of Robert's obits and misspelled my name: and people wonder why they get murdered.

In all the time I saw him I never worked out anything much about him. Sexually he struck me as neuter but there's no such thing as neuter so that couldn't be right. He's a seasoned celebrity fag hag: Neil Tennant's a close friend of his - I believe Philip toured abroad with the Pet Shop Boys - and it's reported that the Hairspray director John Waters talked him into writing Leviathan. About four years ago I saw him at a Janet Street-Porter London birthday party. He pretended not to see me so I just barged up to him and introduced him to my companion: Philip gave me that odd squeal of his (delight? horror at effrontery? a squashed toe?) and behaved himself. On my way out I cut him dead.

Never mind. Buy Leviathan. I may be an old bitch but here's the link. Here's his site.

Trailer for Philip's TV doc In Search of Moby-Dick. Click image once to play

John Rechy: A midnight cowboy for Easter

John Rechy

A perfect Easter present for your friendly archbishop et al is John Rechy's City of Night published last month by Souvenir Press - it took decades for a British publisher to pick up his 1963 debut novel. (Though see comments) It was the first to delve into the gay sub-culture of America and find its heart.

Edmund White writes: "In that groundbreaking book he was... observing a whole new array of characters: drag queens, the still-beautiful boy living dangerously beyond his sell-by date, the guilt-ridden married men eaten up by desire and remorse, the vice cops and fag hags they're all there, many of them for the first time in American literature... this classic American novel."

Rechy wrote of his book: "City of Night began as a letter to a friend of mine after I had been to New Orleans. I wrote City of Night because they were my experiences hustling, and it began as a letter. I didn't think of it as a book." Gore Vidal hailed him as "one of the few original American writers of the last century."

A 2008 interview with Rechy by the scaredy cat Rupert Smith, click here. (Poor Rupert, so sexually bold, so craven in the company of "senior" journalists).

John Rechy site

To buy City of Night, click here.