Who knows how to make love stay?
1. Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.
2. Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.
3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.

I sincerely do not understand what is the whole fuss about this book. While I am a fan of Tom Robbins and loved ''Jitterbug Perfume'' this one disappointed me so much, maybe due to the fact that I had set hight expectations. The story has no depth, no clear point, no deeper meaning and the main characters-with the exception of the Woodpecker-were somehow very static and dull. The main female character was nothing but a sexual fantasy of the author: a dull version of Barbie who just waits the prince Dynamite to save her from her boring princess life. And in the end what was the meaning of the book? Keep love mysterious. Wow. Thanks Tom Robbins. I could easily have read this in a Cosmopolitan article. Sorry for the harsh criticism but Tom Robbins you can definitely do better!

Oh my goodness gracious where to begin with this one?

This thing was nuts, absolutely crazy ... or was it! I don’t know. It confused me, befuddled me, induced laughter and suppressed snickers at inopportune moments, made me cringe and blush at its crudeness and lewdness (over the years I’ve heard tons of street slang describing human genitalia but never before have I heard a vagina referred to as peachfish or peachclam), pushed me to reconsider 1970s U.S. history, conjured up images of Patty Hearst, aka Tania the urban guerrilla, machine gun in hand standing in front of the seven headed cobra of the Symbionese Liberation Army, domino theory and American intervention around the world, the man in the moon and lemac (as high school kids we smoked cigarettes to be cool and Camel was the brand to smoke. Camel spelled backwards is l-e-m-a-c. I don’t remember why we referred to our Camel cigs as Lemac, maybe just because we were stupid high school kids!). At least this book made me think right? Small world – the Camel pack is a star performer in this story.



The plot? Oh yea the plot. It’s a strange and unusual love story/fairy tale loaded with lots of political and social commentary, some literal, lots figurative. Without personally experiencing the life and times of the 1960s and 1970s, I’m not sure if this book would have much meaning at all, unless you have a decent understanding of U.S. history and culture, or maybe counter culture, of the 60s and 70s.

King Max and Queen Tilli Furstenburg-Barcalona and their daughter twenty year old Princes Leigh-Cheri, live in exile on the shores of Puget Sound in Seattle after a United States and Catholic Church supported right wing junta deposed the Furstenburg-Barcalona royalty. The CIA resettles them in Seattle with a small living stipend to keep quiet about the coup and not incite loyalist revolutionaries.

Princes Leigh-Cheri, a redheaded vegetarian liberal who crusades for ecology, conservation and preservation, meets 36 year old Bernard Mickey Wrangle aka T. Victoria Firecracker aka The Woodpecker, leader of the Woodpecker Gang, a self-proclaimed outlaw who blows up draft boards and induction centers during the last days of Vietnam, at the Geo-Therapy Care Fest in Hawaii. Despite Bernard’s penchant for dynamite, he is a good guy! Only bombed buildings, not people. Under the influence of tequila The Woodpecker dynamites the UFO Conference instead of his intended target the Care Fest. Princess Leigh-Cheri attempts to invoke a citizen’s arrest of Bernard and they fall in love!

“Woodpecker’s my name, and outlawing’s the game. I’m wanted in fifty states and Mexico. It’s nice to be wanted, and I’d like to be wanted by you. In fact, I just blew my disguise in the hopes that it would open your eyes and soften your heart. There. My cards are on the table...”

Strange so far right? It gets weirder and weirder but enough with plot regurgitation. Suffice it to say Bernard is in and out of jail through escapes and plea bargains while the Princess holes up in the royal attic on the shores of the Puget Sound to contemplate the moon, life in a Camel pack and pyramid power, a redhead conspiracy, CHOICE, lunaception and the planet Argon! How does one make love stay, she ponders, and where does passion go when it goes?

On the fourth day of self-imposed attic dwelling, Leigh-Cheri thought about the problem with romance. “When we’re incomplete, we’re always searching for someone to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we’re still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with someone more promising. This can go on and on – series polygamy – until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure in every relationship we enter.” Hummmm ...

Escaping imprisonment from within the replica of the Pyramid of Giza A'ben Fizel had constructed for her as an engagement present using Bernard’s last stick of dynamite, The Princess and the Woodpecker return to a quiet life in the royal home in exile on the shores of the Puget Sound. Leigh-Cheri takes up easel painting. Still lifes. Bernard The Woodpecker carried around wooden matches!

My initial reaction to this book was, “This was a #1 Bestseller back in 1980? What???” It seemed so frivolous, a monumental time suck! But I stuck with it and actually got into it. As whimsical, satirical and at times poetic as it was, it brought back some very interesting memories about growing up in the time of pyramid power, domino theory and the Vietnam War but also the birth of environmentalism, feminism and individualism. Even the reference to the Remington SL3 brought back some very fond memories of typewriters and my old IBM Selectric!

This thing is truly odd indeed. But lots of fun too!

ве-ли-ко!


Самолетът, с един малък зелен пътник по-малко, но с премия от седем пръчки динамит, продължаваше пресичането на онова, което всеки начинаещ сърфист знае, че е най-неуместно назованата водна площ на Земята. Самолетът свиреше, за да скрие страха си от гравитацията. Лий-Шери четеше списания, за да прикрие възбудата си.
Възбудата превръщаше очите й в точки, досущ като ония, които стоят в края на всяко изречение. Запетайки на възбуда се поклащаха в стомаха й, където се гърчеха също и въпросителни знаци. От време на време тя се чувстваше така, сякаш седи върху възклицателни.

* * * * *

В опит да възстанови реда, на платформата се качи известен йога, делегат на фестивала. Той зае поза лотос. Започна да сияе. Спокойно, педантично, той разглоби една паяжина, а после я сглоби отново. (Не останаха ненужни части.) Погълна три пеперуди, а после ги избълва здрави и читави. Беше впечатлена само онази част от тълпата, която вече се беше успокоила. Йогата вонеше на вечност, а сред широките кръгове вечността просто вече не беше модерна.

* * * * *

Издуха носа си - сигнал за всички сълзи да се върнат по домовете и семействата си.

* * * * *

Като толкова обичаш Земята, знаеш ли, че тя е куха? Земята е куха, Лий-Шери. Вътре в кълбото има телено колело и една кетарица тича в него. Една малка катерица, която си изкарва джигера заради теб и мен. Вечер, преди да заспя, чувам тази катерица, чувам лудото тракане, чувам как бие малкото й сърце, чувам скърцането на катеричата клетка - колелото е старо, раздрънкано и разядено от ръжда. Катерицата върши цялата работа.

* * * * *

Под стъклото имаше морска карта на Хавайските острови. Чаши от кафе и текила бяха оставили кръгли отпечатъци върху стъклото, влажни атоли в океан, обсипан с трохи.

Мъжете, с които си била, вероятно никога не биха целунали зърната ти на гърдите ти от страх да не всмучат някакви пестициди.

* * * * *

Под масата, под една карта на Хавай с несъществуващи атоли, тя потопи ръка в дълбините на своята пола и я плъзна по равнината на бедрото си. Разтършува се из гащичките. Дръпна. Ох! Мама му стара! Тя дръпна пак. И, разгеле, ето го, къдрав и твърд, червен като конец от социалистическо знаме.

* * * * *

Отидоха на пикник в една гора под вулкана. Мравки, вероятно окичени с микроскопични гирлянди от цветя, се стекоха да ги поздравят. Бърнард захапа един домат. После изплю семките. Семките образуваха кръг на земята. Те седнаха в този кръг. Решени да им пожелаят ‘алоха’, мравките шурмуваха преградата, но кръгът не поддаде. Лий-Шери подаде на Бърнард туршията. Бърнард подаде на Лий-Шери сиренето. Някъде в джунглата вятърът удряше едно о друго бамбуковите дървета, от което се получаваше едно мелодично трак-трак като от зъбите на древен тотем.

* * * * *

Кралят и Кралицата щяха да приемат Бърнард в библиотеката. Тя беше вехта стая, но на пода й лежеше рядък и скъп бял килим. По-бял от лебеди, по-бял от зъбобол, по-бял от дъха на самия Господ. Бърнард не беше виждал Лий-Шери от от почти две седмици. Той реши да опита незабелязано да й предаде бележка чрез Жулиета. В бележката си щеше да призове към находчивост. ‘Нека бъдем изядени от гладуващи малки щраусчета, ако не скроим някакъв план за тайни срещи’.

* * * * *

Колкото и да е странно, Лий-Шери беше най-спокойният член на домакинството. В известна степен това можеше да се отдаде на любовта, която я обгръщаше като копринена треска, но това също така се дължеше на факта, че в сряда, с две седмици закъснение, задъхан, притеснен, но без да се извинява, нервиран, но без да дава обяснения, пристигна нейният мензис.

* * * * *

Стаята беше прашна, мрачна и гола. Беше задушно и миришеше на гимнастически салон за хамали. Съвсем на��коро тук можеше да е тренирал отборът по борба на пияниците.

* * * * *

Беше истинско пладне, когато тя застана на своя прозорец и зарея поглед над града без сенки, нисък, избелял и разхвърлян като костница, като пикник по случай пенсионирането на употребявани училищни тебешири.

* * * * *

Луната няма нищо общо с това. Тя е само един дебел, тъп предмет, небесната тиквичка. Честно казано, Луната е голяма глупост. Изгоряла шлака с цвят на помия; изсъхнала сива бисквита, покрита с белези. Всеки свободен камък в нашата Слънчева система я е боцвал. Тя е била засипвана с камъни, изгаряна, пробождана, измъчвана. Ако възлюбените са избрали тази съсипана развалина, тази изтерзана топка прах, това разровено и изпъпчено парче безплодна земя за хранилище на своите мечти, Луната няма нищо общо с това.

* * * * *

Но мога и ще припомня два от най-важните факти, които знам:
1) Всичко е част от романтиката
2) Никога не е късно да имаш щастливо детство

how can love stay???

actually don't expect to find an obvious answer by reading this book, but you'll have a pleasant time, reading about every-day things that are around you but you never notice and, most importantly, you'll never imagined how intellectual and meaningful is a packet of camel cigarettes!!!! (Leigh-Cherry found the meaning of life by reading it!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

“Unwilling to wait for mankind to improve, the outlaw lives as if that day were here, and I love that most of all.”

A fine, fine story about the last quarter of the twentieth century, written in 1980.
Tom Robbins recently shot off to Argon for what, I surmise, is his final, delirious ride, so he won’t be writing “like Dolly Parton looks” (as one British critic once said) anymore.
A sad loss indeed. But reading his obit reminded me of the pure glee reading Even Cowgirls gave me long ago, and so up to the library I went for this book.

Created a short 45 years ago and completely prescient, I can not recommend reading this highly enough. It’s magical realism from the USA, a love story saved by a pack of cigarettes and lots of fun with cocaine, all being bugged by the CIA. What could go wrong?

It is urgent that you do not hesitate in immediately becoming an Outlaw.

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet.”

Among the many prophetic bits, Robbins describes the Left cannibalizing itself with its purity tests (1980) at a ‘Care Fest’ in Hawaii:

“...Meanwhile the seminar on solar energy was eclipsed, and the lecture on immortality drugs was killed…”

But mostly this story is about how it's all failing, the rules, the edges, the old stories, how they’re not holding, way back when, and the new ones we were making up aren’t either. It’s about how to stay Alive. And Robbins does it with such grace and humor. I particularly loved Leigh-Cheri’s (our heroine, a real ex-Princess from an overthrown European country) complete attachment to a closed pack of Camel cigarettes which she was certain her incarcerated lover was also concurrently obsessed with (he wasn’t).



She, self-isolated in an attic in rainy Seattle, Washington, succored herself with visions of being in the desert in North Africa, resting under a date palm. She’d dream of questioning sheiks and belly dancers, Berbers and Bedouins driving their dromedaries to drink:

“... about any red-haired outlaws they might have passed on their route, while they in turn hit her up for cigarettes.

“But I can’t open the pack,” she’d try to explain. “If I did, all this would collapse. A successful external reality depends on an internal vision that is left intact.”

They glared at her the way any intelligent persons ought to glare when what they need is a smoke, a bite, a cup of coffee, a piece of ass, or a good fast-paced story, and all they’re getting is philosophy.”

A few pages later:

“Yet, as any half-awake materialist knows, that which you hold holds you.”

That, and other riffs on the inanimate, set me thinking about Stuff. Robbins here was talking about the Moon. I’m talking about your Roomba. Or your books. Don't ask me about my Pavoni, I don't know you well enough. Our relationships with the inanimate. So much fun.

How many of us talk to Our Things? Beg for the electric gate to open properly and thank it when it does?
Why is that different from wishing on a star or worshipping a sky god?

I’ve begun to think of myself as simply no longer a carbon chauvinist. All living things (as we define life - eat / breathe / grow at a rate humans can appreciate) deserve respect - but why just them? Leigh-Cheri’s attachment to a pack of Camel cigarettes is passionate enough to take her to North Africa to build a pyramid of her own.
Talk about a Thing!

But it’s really a narration about the fizzling out, the sputtering of the arc of …Whatever in the last quarter of the twentieth century, watching it go kaput like a wet sparkler on July 4th. And look what happened next! Too bad Tom Robbins isn’t here to write a story about it.

“It was autumn, the springtime of death. Rain spattered the rotting leaves, and a wild wind wailed. Death was singing in the shower. Death was happy to be alive. The fetus bailed out without a parachute…”

Finally, just because this was so wonderful:
“Plato did claim that the unexamined life is not worth living. Oedipus Rex was not so sure.”

Δεύτερο ανάγνωσμα του Ρόμπινς κ οδεύω προς τα αστέρια!!!

Oh my goodness, how is that I always forget how much I love Tom Robbins? The man knows how to turn a phrase that is without equal in modern literature. If my funny bone could write love songs they would sound like him.

I find it hilarious that he writes constant asides about the typewriter that he's using, the Remington SL3. I can't tell if this is because the asides are actually funny or if it's because I have a long and storied history with that same beast of a machine. When I was young, eight or nine, I picked up that same baby blue behemoth at a garage sale down the road from our house and spent the next year and two ribbons that came with it banging out mediocre stories and abysmal poetry. So when Robbins writes about the persistent hum of his electric typewriter and how the hum makes him think that the typewriter is impatient with the author taking time to think through his sentences, I can relate. I was so driven to distraction by that infernal hum that once I ran the ink ribbons dry I never sought out replacements. Likewise, it led to an adoption on my part of the Beat's preferred methodology- first thought, best thought- which has been relatively crippling to me as a wanna-be writer unable to revise, redraft or reimagine. So, Mr. Robbins, I feel your pain.

Reading this book, I am reminded what I love so much about Tom Robbins. It's not the story itself. If anything the plots are weak and strung together with chewing gum and baling wire. Instead it is the constant asides and digressions that please me so immensely. It is Robbins' way of recounting the history of Sunday as the day of rest (from the ancient Babylonian belief that Ishtar, goddess of the moon, was on the rag on Sa-bat (later the Sabbath) and thus incapable of work which was later coopted by the Christians who extended it from a once-monthly occurrence to a weekly occurrence) or an imaginary group of Buddhists trying to learn about Christian burials from the Irish wake in Finnegan's Wake (the first in a long series of Finnegan's Wake cameos in Robbins' oeuvre) or the history of mongooses in Hawaii.

I love the digressions. I love Robbins' extremely florid style. It inspires me to want to be a better writer, or at least a more expressive one. It makes me think that writing about the thoughts of my socks as I walk around my apartment isn't such a ridiculous thing. I'm really glad that January is my month for revisiting all of my favorite Robbins. I'm already on board for Woodpecker and Jitterbug Perfume and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues has been our bathtime reading material for over a year now, but starting in on this fresh read today has me wanting to tackle his entire bibliography again. I'm really considering adding Fierce Invalids and Another Roadside Attraction back to my to-read stack.

A reread through this book has been extremely beneficial to me. There are so many references that went over my head the first time but are making so much more sense this time. Dr. John Lilly, who also worked in psych-warfare for DARPA in the use of hallucinogens in interrogation sampled his own wares a bit too often and became heavily convinced that dolphins are the highest form of life on Earth (which makes sense considering his speech at Care Fest). Or when Bernard, the titular Woodpecker, goes to court Princess Leigh-Cheri in Seattle and he stays in a rundown tenement in Pioneer Square called the Been-Down-So-Long-It-Looks-Like-Up-to-Me Hotel. It's the little things like that which make me laugh the hardest. (Though it's hard to contain a chortle when Bernard sits on the chihuahua.) Pyramidal mysticism, lunar magic, the strange and mysterious allure of redheads- Robbins packs them all into this book.

Ηθελα να το διαβασω εδω και καιρο, αλλα με απογοητευσε πληρως καθως η γραφη του Ρομπινς με κουρασε πολυ και η υποθεση δε μου κεντρισε το ενδιαφερον ουτε για μια στγμη. Ειχε καποιες καλες στιγμες , κυριως φιλοσοφικης χροιας για τον ερωτα και τη ζωη αλλα σε γενικες γραμμες δεν το απολαυσα.

Romantic outlaws move in mysterious ways…

Outlaws, like lovers, poets, and tubercular composers who cough blood onto piano keys, do their finest work in the slippery rays of the moon…

But nevertheless outlaws are prone to fall in love…
A book no more contains love than a clock contains time… But book may serve to measure love as clock serves to measure time. And Still Life with Woodpecker is this kind of book…

A romantic, however, recognizes that the movement, the organization, the institution, the revolution, if it comes to that, is merely a backdrop for his or her own personal drama and that to pretend otherwise is to surrender freedom and will to the totalitarian impulse, is to replace psychological reality with sociological illusion…

Book contains just words but love can contain everything.

Reading this book is like being invited over to someone's house for dinner, and finding that they're serving you a buffet of artisanal maraschino cherries they've made. At first you're like, "Oh, how whimsical!" Then you're like "Oh, and you flavored this one with cardamom! How clever of you." And then you're like "Oh, another one? I really shouldn't..." and as your host just keeps piling on artisanal maraschino cherries they crafted from hand telling you how each one corresponds to an orgasm by a famous historical figure, you're like "No dude seriously, this is getting fucking irritating."

That was this book for me. No denying Robbins has a way with words, but the way is over-engineered, contrived, and extremely irritating.

Also, the way he writes about female genitalia grosses me out. It reminds me of how an 14yo honors student virginal boy would talk about genitals. Impeccably worded, very clever, and sort of clueless and icky. I loves me some vulva, but am not interested in "folds of saltmeat and peach... with a seaweed trigger."

n  "Non è mai troppo tardi per farsi un’infanzia felice"n

Strampalato, divertente, romantico, ironico, commovente, surreale, illogico e anche profondo (a suo modo). Leggere questo libro è stata una corsa a perdifiato per tenere il passo di Tom Robbins, a volte arrancando, ma sempre con un’espressione beata sul viso.
Re e regine, principi azzurri bombaroli e principesse dai capelli rossi, rospi, pacchetti di Camel, macchine da scrivere saputelle, lunacezione… e su tutto, sotto tutto, dentro tutto sorge una domanda: come si può far perdurare l’amore?
Il libro è il regalo di un’amica, l’ho letto qualche anno fa, non lo ricordo benissimo, ma mi basta guardare la copertina per mettermi a sorridere. Lo adoro!

“Quando se ne va il mistero nel rapporto a due, se ne va l’amore. Semplice, no? Il che spinge a pensare che non tanto l’amore è importante per noi, quanto il mistero stesso. Il rapporto amoroso forse è solo un accorgimento per metterci in contatto con il mistero, e desideriamo che l’amore perduri affinché perduri l’estasi di stare vicino al mistero”.

https://youtu.be/5rkNBH5fbMk