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Angel by Graig Anderson
Val Kilmer’s James Brown, by Eddie Martinez KNOCK #10

- KNOCK Book Launch Watch -

Ernest Loesser

Touched By Lightning, an excerpt

Each issue of KNOCK, we feature one or two new books that made a mark on us as we put the issue together. Books that are either just released or set for release within the next few months. Ernest Loesser’s new book, Touched By Lightning, will be released by Emergency Press in December, 2008.

“I’m humbled before this book. If Félix Fénéon had written Spoon River Anthology it still couldn’t be more memorable than what we’ve got here. Touched By Lightning is the kind of fearless, border-defying writing our era desperately needs.”

– Jayson Iwen, author of Six Trips in Two Directions and A Momentary Jokebook

Elsa Derringer, 92, Left a Tall Reputation

Elsa Derringer, who emerged upon the Hollywood screen from a traveling circus died on October 14. She was 90 years old and 39 inches tall. Her death was reported by Gretchen Nordstrom, Derringer’s nurse and long time companion. Ms. Derringer was born in Weimar, Germany in 1914, the youngest and shortest of eight children. Derringer’s grandfather was a celebrated entertainer, applauded by members of the Prussian court, but immediately following the Kaiser Reich, the youngest of the Derringer clan were cloistered off to the United States where they were received by a Midwest circus. It was during this period that Ms. Derringer crafted her acrobatic and dramatic skills eventually taking center stage from her other three siblings. She traveled through New England, the Mississippi Delta, the Badlands and the Painted Desert, but it was in Los Angeles that she received her big break when she won the role of a fang-toothed goblin in a mid 1930’s horror film. Ms. Derringer proceeded to take dramatic, mystery and romantic roles; she was a convincing schoolgirl and a capable Parisian madam and her roles were as varied as the colors she died her hair. Her performances at Hollywood nightclubs became as infamous as her onscreen roles; Ms. Derringer was bawdy and brawling and always drunk. Some critics suggest her revelry was fueled by a cocaine dependency, an unfortunate vice adopted during her exhausting days with the circus. According to one story, Ms. Derringer once pulled a six-shooter revolver on houseguests during a New Years party. She retired in the mid 1950’s and after contracting an illness doctors were unable to diagnose, Ms. Derringer drove herself in her specially outfitted Mercedes to receive ritual healing from a Navajo medicine man in Arizona. She is survived by no immediate family.

May 15

I saw you at the diner this Sunday. It really put a smile on my face to see you again and I couldn’t stop laughing. I didn’t want to say anything so I thought it would just be better if I kept my face stuck down in the newspaper. I’d heard you were moving to the Lower East Side and this was the last place I expected to see you.

I’ve been pretty busy lately and haven’t had the opportunity to give it all that much thought. I was afraid that forgetting about you would be more difficult than it was. Actually it’s been peaceful, but sometimes I’ll look up, see something, and start remembering. I knew you were seeing different people, but it might have been something you said or the way we were together. Whatever it was, it made me believe I could persevere and win you over. After everything I felt twisted, a little used, and for a few days some people were worried. Now I just laugh. Thanks for everything.

You always said you weren’t that cool. You kept reminding me, prepping me for the letdown we both expected but I thought better to ignore. He wasn’t what I really imagined. Someone told me he’s a painter and that made me excited for you. Some of my closest friends are painters and they are the best kind of people once you get to know them. But he’s just an ordinary house painter, a real Benjamin Moore type, it must be really bad work in the summer time and it’s getting hot out already. You were right, you aren’t that cool.

You told me that I was fun, smart and gorgeous, sensitive and soulful and that I didn’t need to hear this because I knew it already. Maybe I needed it then, and maybe now I don’t.

I’d already been up for hours when I saw you, running around town, trying to get things done. I’m still writing the article I told you about the last time we were together. I think it’s almost finished now. You ordered French Toast when we had breakfast. It’s too easy when these things start. Let’s just fuck and get fat and not worry about the fights until later. I can’t stand that attitude and I am trying to avoid it at all costs. I would have felt worse putting you into those routines. I never wanted that for us.

I wasn’t wrong trying to stick it out a little longer. The measure of flirtation you showed and then the affection triggered inside me some unconscious channel of vanity I hadn’t experienced before. I learned I can’t live with that weight of self-indulgence right now. It is something I won’t swallow. When I saw you, I felt the cold panic of some lingering instinct that imitates suffocation. Then I laughed and realized I am completely unburdened now. I can do whatever I want…xoxo…

Ernest Loesser was born and raised in New Jersey. He studied journalism at New York University and has since contributed to publications including Stop Smiling and Tokion. Touched By Lightning is Loesser’s first book. He lives and works in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

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