James Pate - The Fassbinder Diaries

It was a face we loved and thoroughly demolished.

We extracted the bottle from the middle of its head.

The missing part of the face consisted of pink stones.

The mouth chewed its tongue in one film after another.

The weather turned white.

Then the weather turned into salt.

Then the eye turned white.

Then the eye turned into salt.

Then the missing part rested in the salt of the white light.

And turned in the white light of the salt.

The remaining puddle stared at the sky.

The weeds around the puddle glittered.

The bruised neck appeared on screen to thunderous applause.

The shadow meat flexed its fourth quietest muscle.

The Fassbinder Diaries: Day 504

The film critic jogged through the park with her dog as the sun lowered behind the trees. The film critic walked through an airport, outside of which was a dark blue sky. The film critic walked through another airport, outside of which was another dark blue sky. The film critic watched a film where children played under a dark blue sky as airplanes occasionally flew overhead. The film critic wondered what Julius Caesar might have looked like in a film, with his hair combed back and a light coating of makeup applied to his face. The film critic told the other film critic that some days she felt exhausted, some days all she wanted to do was stare at one of the movie posters hanging in her apartment for such a long time that all the meaning went away. The film critic ordered an espresso in a café with white chairs and white tables. He scribbled some lines on the back of a postcard, an idea for a film, then he addressed it to his house, and mailed it later that afternoon. The film critic in the last scene of the movie drinks a beer on a plane, outside of which is a dark blue sky.

The Fassbinder Diaries: Day 506

The film critic carries the postcard with a picture of the skeleton from Psycho on the front and her theory about the skeleton on the back, written in tiny script. If the skeleton could scream in surprise upon being turned around by the sister of Janet Leigh, what would the scream sound like? The film critic sits in the bath while listening to the couple in the apartment next door make very loud love, though he can’t tell if it is actually the couple or a porn film turned up high. The film critic rips up the postcard then scatters the pieces on the café table then stares at them then takes an envelope from her purse and puts them inside and writes her address on the envelope and mails it later that morning.

The Fassbinder Diaries: Day 768

The film critic took a shower and shaved and pulled down the window shades and sat on the bed and thought of pulling down his pajama bottoms and masturbating but decided to try to fall asleep instead. The radio played for an hour but then the electricity went out. Birds were known to kill in certain films and during certain historical eras. The film critic remembered her father as a man walking around the backyard, flashlight in his hand. She thought of her mother as the smell of suntan lotion rising from a damp box in the garage. The film critic watches the scene from Café Flesh where the woman being fucked from behind on the luridly lit stage turns her foggy expression toward us. The film critic watches the scene from Café Flesh where the man fucking the woman from behind has a jaw like an iron lung. In the shadows past the abandoned drive-in theater stood clumps of bulbous cacti, and in the sunlight behind the parking lot two dogs fought in a haze of pink dust. The film critic watched the lightning strike outside the screen door. She watched the rain and eventually walked out into it. In the movie the branches thrashed around. A shawl had been tied carefully around the trunk, remaining there past the closing credits. The film critic shaved her legs in the bathtub while listening to the radio. The seventh day of April, 1998. The redbud tree in bloom. The film critic sat by his girlfriend in the tub and shaved her legs while they listened to the radio.

Q #1:

Where was Querelle born?

Q #2:

What was his first homosexual encounter?

Q #3:

What was his first heterosexual encounter?

Q #4:

What was his favorite Jean Genet novel?

Q #5:

What was his favorite line from a Douglas Sirk Film?

Q #6:

How did he die?

Q #7:

What was found on his body at the time of death?

Q #8:

What was found in his body at the time of death?

I would like to thank Johannes Goransson and Daniel Borzutzky for helping with their laser-like critical eye. Also, this book is inspired in part by Michael Gorham’s tales of Los Angeles at its subterranean best.