An Interview

Wordflute: The Interview



[an excerpt, as eventually transcribed by an annoyed interviewer]


January 2010

wordflute: What’s your favourite colour?

mark reed: Are you for real?

wf: It’s a good way to break the ice.

mr: Well then, it has to be black. Black, is an immutable statement of intent. It is a non-colour, yet it has the quiet presence of a confident completist. You have no doubts about what you are dealing with when you are in the company of black. It controls you like the application of fridge-chilled nipple clamps, when bound and blindfolded. You know there is something substantial and with purpose out there, beyond the velvet, but you’re not sure what. And that’s exciting. Black excites me.

wf: Your new book ‘Do Not Fear The World, Fear Yourself,’ seems to glory in promiscuity, general, metropolitan hedonism and- of course- what still remains The Great Taboo in terms of sexual relationships. Is the latter a central issue to you as a person?
mr: Well if this is the old hackneyed ‘are your novels basically autobiographical?’ bullshit I will- first of all say- that I expected a more imaginative line of questioning from you than that and- secondly- no.


wf: But the intense sexual relationship the central character has with his aunt, is central to the whole shape of the novel, is it not.


mr: Seeing as you are using the limp art of rhetoric in this question, I will use the diversionary tactic of informing you that I do not see the use of nipple clamps as a particularly deviant sexual practise.


wf: What makes you tick?


mr: Narcissism. Which I would identify as being the central theme of ‘DNFTWFY,’ moreso in fact than any other. Narcissism is the great driver of this novel; in particular it directly informs the practise of that ‘Last Great Taboo’ issue, as you have so delicately described it.


wf: So do you see Narcissism as a central tenet of the overall architecture of your soul?


mr: Is that narcissism with a small ‘n’ or Narcissism with a big one?


wf: The latter.


mr: Ah good. The answer then, is yes. Narcissism is an essential element in both the rational and emotional make up of any writer. The more self-absorbed you are, the more potential for success therein lies. Of course true narcissism ratchets up the game even more; it truly does become All About You when you are a happy, self-aware narcissist and that manifests itself in the strength of your writing. It’s in there, in that self-absorption, that you also find sudden glimpses of God. Narcissism is a wonderful defence weapon as well; anything that goes wrong, anything you decide to do or decide not to do that has a downside effect on you or anyone else can be blamed on other people’s failings, not yours. You can therefore continue to live a blameless, stress free life.


wf: So you don’t believe anything can catch up with you.


mr: No. If anything gets too close to you, you just write about it. It is then neutered by the power of prose.


wf: You once said only two things worry you, age and fame. Is that still the case?


mr: I don’t think I used the right word there, I shouldn’t of said ‘worry.’ I must of been drunk.


wf: Okay but is there any chance of you answering the question?


mr: Well despite it being a particularly bland question, you are buying the drinks so I will say only this: age is nothing to worry about if you have true character. As some people age, the real person inside emerges. Quite literally, quite physically. You see the real person breaking slowly out, into full bloom, as the years pass. These people have a true sense of self and experienced being and are to be revered and feared in equal measure. Others peak too soon, their characters are as artificial as their non-jobs in finance and advertising, and they become nothing more than blobs of flesh in their thirties and forties. Their life expectancy shortened by taking too much cocaine and alcohol at the same time, and enduring stress under the illusion of financial and social self-advancement, when in fact, all they’ve been doing is- in true liberal capitalistic fashion- sustaining/improving the lot of the elite who hold real power further up the food chain. These delusional minions have of course fast-tracked themselves to the eventual physical collapse we will all one day experience. Which is why one can identify with Pete Townsend’s maxim of wishing he’d die before he gets old. Now there’s an hackneyed quote, to go in your hackneyed interview. Along with the fact that of course Pete Townsend never did. Die before he got old that is. So there must be a moral there somewhere.


wf: And fame?


mr: What of it? What is it. Many things to many people many times over. Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true. Steely Dan in ‘Deacon Blues’ say ‘they’ve got a name for the winners in the world, I want a name when I lose.’ I identify strongly with that, because greater, more enduring fame- ironically- can lie in the latter.


wf: Are you saying you are a nihilist?


mr: Anyone born in and living as a young person through the Atomic Age cannot escape being a nihilist. It is deeply bedded in our very basic mental wiring. We are hardwired for the apocalypse.


wf: So how would you greet the end of the world? With fear? With a sneer? Or relief?


mr: With the last thought of...’er, wait a min...’ Because as anyone who has grown up with the awareness every nanaosecond of your waking and sleeping life, that the white hot light of an airburst may occur over your shoulder at anytime, you tend to sense that there is a fair degree of futility to everything we do and when the end comes we’ll have very little time to contemplate our navel over it. And in the way of all great perversities, we are lucky if it does indeed turn out that way, if it is that simple, that quick. The pure nuclear pulse of scouring energy: The Great Cleansing. Maybe that is what ground zero is; a gateway to peace. We should turn fear in onto itself. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs sing of Zero as the ultimate sense of being without guilt; Talking Heads tell us of their Fear of Music; The Wolfgang Press say that it is all a Question of Time and I for one cannot diasagree. In The Atrocity Exhibition, Joy Divison takes us on a journey through purity as the grotesque. Decadence and distortion as purification. Therein, lies Truth.


wf: Musical reference figures strongly in your psyche. You’ve spoke before of your poetry springing from an almost musical base.


mr: Not almost, completely. I am fascinated by jazz and its structures, and how it can be applied to literary form. Frank O’Hara once spoke of how he liked to play the typewriter everyday for an hour or two after breakfast. Isn’t that a wonderful statement of free, creative intent? I take that ethos as my maxim; I like to play the keyboard, only now the analogy is more complete than that of O’Hara’s typewriter. I create poetry playing a keyboard with letters on it, rather than keys that give a physical musical note. But I am striving for the same, ultimate effect- a poetic riff, or a prose chorus, set free to be subliminally affecting with underlying rhythms, backbeats and emotional hooks. They may not get to you immediately, but like the best Coltrane and Davis, they eventually envelope you for life. Jazz Shapes For Life. Get the tee-shirt.


wf: You were born out of time. You belong in the beat generation. Isn’t that all so passé now?


mr: On the contrary. Jazz poetry lives on. Look at hip-hop.


wf: Yet this ethos doesn’t entirely translate into your visual art, does it. Although some of it is impressionistic, its trademark is strictly graphical, is it not?


mr: It is a manifestation of the chaos inside of me, trying to make order of the world so that another day can be put under the belt with a sense of some reasonable level of sanity having been self-maintained.


wf: Why did you publish your first poetry collection ‘A Pamphlet for Extraordinary Living’ under your L’ Épouvantail pseudonym?


mr: Because that is where I was with my alter ego at that time. The pamphlet fell neatly under that particular intellectual umbrella. I felt closer to Ziggy Stardust than Mark Reed. I would drive in my car and imagine conversations with Ziggy, in the way some people imagine a similar scenario only with Jesus. There were also tax implications.


wf: Why was it called ‘A Pamphlet for Extraordinary Living?’


mr: Why are you wearing that black skirt? ...a very good choice by the way. In the same way I titled that poetry volume; it was a good choice that suited me.


wf: Did you really try to make it as an actor in the states?


mr: I have tried to make it as many things. It’s in my nature.


wf: Did you really dance through the streets of Paris, as you described in ‘Lima Is The Capital of Peru?’


mr: I am a performer and an exhibitionist. I came to dance.


wf: Are you an habitual liar?


mr: I’m a writer and visual artist. It goes with the territory.


wf: But shouldn’t art be about trying to tell the truth?


mr: Absolutely. But to get to the solid gold, deep strata truth, you need to tell many lies.


wf: Do you reject history?


mr: In the same way people reject Satan at Christenings.


wf: How would you describe your written work?


mr: As handbooks for the unwary. Now then... I do believe it’s your round.


wf: I feel as I’ve interviewed an illusion.


mr: Well that’s pleasing; you could have said you feel like you’ve interviewed a clown.


wf: More brandy?


mr: Absolutely. And stick with me kid; the night is young.