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Pablo Maurer's Analysis In order for me to delve deep into this picture, it is necessary for me to be perfectly clean and refreshed, prepared for immersion. So I must bathe now. I will return shortly. There. Much better. What we have here is a rare, beautiful piece of art. The clean, fluid lines of James Manning's face truly raise deep, entangled memories far down inside of my soul. We must start by examining this picture, from the ground up. Examine the text. The crisp, bold type does a poor job of stating this child's true genius. He tells us of his desires, his likes. YES, James, TELL US OF WHAT YOU LIKE. Let us have a window into your world of dreams and fantasies. Tell us of the fairies, the gnomes, the candy-cane wielding bunny rabbits that run through your head. I am unsure, actually, whether I could handle peering through that window. Because the light that would shine through it, it would blind me, it would burn me. James, need I even point out the glasses that hang around your neck? And the croakies that support them? Only a true man, confident in his being, and above all his sexuality, could wear said croakies. I feel that I simply don't possess the peace of mind and self-assuredness that it takes to do it. This picture - no - this VISION, is a far cry from your rumored true being. My friend and research consultant Sam Smith tells me this of you: "It is rumored that at some point
in early 1992, during the winter months, Manning snuck out of a
classroom. He went to the playground, pulled his pants down, and sat on
the tire swing. It was then that he attempted to take a crap. He
succeeded at taking this crap - unfortunately, he also got stuck. He was
discovered 4 and a half hours later by Mrs. Knox. By that point he was
crying, with his pants down, hovering in a tire swing over a steaming
pile of his own crap." |
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David Lafevor's Analysis To encounter this face I enveloped myself in the yagé that was taught to me by Don Anselmo in the Putumayo valley in eastern Peru. I could not finish my vision, perhaps it was cowardice that impeded me. What I have transcribed is the product of my possession by Manning. (no, not Peyton, or Danny) I attest to this and invoke the power of the holy effluvium of Shanghai to protect you the reader, from the uncanny spirits that swirl in our midst. I feel that to convey what I wish to be known about this period in my life it is essential that I be completely candid. If what follows seems to be the story of another life, a story wrought from the confusion and conflict of a Conradian jungle of base emotion and a disparaging of any codified moral order, if you see me as the naked and utterly alone child that I was then, I may only plead with you that this may be true. Looking at this picture of myself sensory images surge forth from the abyss of cocaine nights and heroine days that constituted my longing. I see a leather boot confused and in slow flight over a pile of glistening and empty eyed fishes. I see a woman in a flannel dress, her face bathed in tears and pressed against a screen in a second story window. I see a man, my father maybe: who would have imagined that a neck could stretch like that? I feel the burn of the reddened skin in the shower as I hold myself erect with both hands to the pipe, not bathing really, not washing at least. “Only for minute.” They said. I knew then as I lament know, that it was not a minute, it was simply the end of the beginning. Land of Lamburts was not my salvation, really. I sought solace in the myopic exchange of value for value, I could focus on it and understand the opening and movement of ships in the night. I could close myself and move on, so I thought. Lamburts ate away at my at my vision of the opening path, my downy white innocence was the sustenance that empowered the sun the break through the slats on the ancient blinds in that cursed basement of sodomy and happy days. I rationalized then, in order to coercise my consciousness to acquiesce to the dull thumps that my eyes fed to my brain. My brain became the bulimic rejection of the reality of Lamburts. I survived, in a way. I smiled at this camera knowing full well that the man behind it was thinking beer caps and bottles and jamming at the cash-register. Everything is moving to the beat, the beat to keep, the beat of the heart, the beat of huskers molding pottery of the primordial earthen floor of humanity. That is about all I have to say about that. My name is Manning and I move in you like the slow passage of night. I come to you in that instant between waking and awareness. |
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