CLASSIC “LAMPA” AND EXOTIC “LAMPA”, OR READING WITH A GIRLFRIEND
You can be glad just because “Lampa” magazine exists. And it does not matter what its keen supporters say, and it does not matter what its keen opponents say. What matters is that we can still buy this probably last cultural monthly that a young man would gladly read. One who, let’s look inside the holiday issue, goes to the cinema to watch a Czech comedy directed by Peter Zelenka, one who has still got in their handbag (backpack) Paris London Dachau written by Agnieszka Drotkiewicz, or one who enjoys reading Big Mac or Depeche Mode by Serhij Żadan like a child (and a more lyrical soul obviously won’t forget about Historia kultury początku stulecia (The Beginning of the Century Culture History by the above mentioned.)
More and more often during informal conversations one can hear critical words addressed at the new issues of “Lampa” – that they have run out of new ideas, that there is no one to interview, that the same authors appear all the time, that Masłowska and her friends writing under pseudonyms fill three quarters of “Lampa’s” content. Whatever is said and whatever would turn up to be true, undoubtedly – there is a group of people who would announce the collapse of “Lampa” with a triumphant grin on their faces. This group did not hide their satisfaction after recent close-down of “Arte” magazine (the story of a short life and even quicker death of this Crocow monthly is a subject for a separate article), so their joy would not be lesser in this case. Instead of waiting for the end of “Lampa’s” life, which as a reader I would not wish to see, let’s look inside the double holiday issue (7-8/2006.)
I will start with crazy comic stories by Maciej Sieńczyk, my girlfriend is among those who are keen of them. So, Skrzypek z wapna (A Fiddler from Lime) is, in her opinion, a very tragic, moving story worth reading/looking through. My girlfriend has also decided to read an extract from the new prose written by Agnieszka Drotkiewicz (Dla mnie to samo/ The Same for Me) and said that if only you do not get put off by her idolisation of Elfriede Jelinek’s works, you stop reading after one page and a half anyway. The choice is: we go back to another novel by Jelinek or, equally enticing suggestion, read poems written by sixteen-year-old Iga Woźniak who plans to graduate from a high school in the future. Let’s quote her poem entitled O czymś (About Something): “Miało tylko być, a/ było czymś/ Miało ledwie żyć, a/ żyło z kimś/Miało nie być mną, a/ było mną/ Miało tak nie działać, a/działało jeszcze gorzej.” (It was only to be, but/ it was something/ it was only to live, but/ it lived with somebody/ It was not to be me, but/ it was me/ It was not to work like this, but/ it worked even worse.) This undeniably pretty metaphysical-transcendental-ontological poem encourages you to read other poems by the young author, what you are also encouraged to do. Can anything or anyone beat with their beauty the direct words addressed at pagans whom the character speaking in the poems observes? Observes and what does he see? Well, those pagans “kissing with heresy”, pagans “with their eyes in transparencies”, “with their crotch with lousiness.”
The following pages of “Lampa” belong to Marcin Świetlicki: Jarosław Klejnocki, in his own style, analyses a poem-song of the poet (Dlatego że mnie nie chcesz/ Because You don’t Want Me). His style means a combination of a feature article and a historical-literary analysis, some rock music history in Poland, its impact on literature and history. We read about a dichotomous nature of rock music, but also about an ontological levelling of Świetlicki’s texts and “suffering tranquillised after the old bohemian-modernist fashion.” Świetlicki appears on the subsequent pages as he is one of those interviewing Wilhelm Sasnal, the cover figure of this issue of “Lampa”. It is also Paweł Dunin-Wąsowicz and Maciej Piotr Prus who nicely ask Sasnal about music, Satanic Punk International Conspiracy group or former and present relationships with the co-originators of the group. From interviews in this “Lampa”: a conversation with Peter Zelenka, a Czech director and screenwriter who is already cult in Poland (among others: Samotári and Príbehy obycejného sílenství/ Wrong Side Up) and Serhij Żadan, an Ukrainian poet, prose writer, performer and anarchist, who is already known to our readers because of his three books published here but also multiple soirées in Polish cities. Let’s stick to one quotation from both interviews. Zelenka on screenwriting: “What is unique is the fact that no one needs this, until the moment when the preparations for a film start. Everyone says then the screenplay is of paramount importance in the whole film… Sometimes the best screenplay is the worst screenplay and the other way round, it all depends on a particular moment, on the demand for a screenplay in a particular time. Besides, if someone from the Ministry of Culture gets to like it, it is the best then.” Serhij Żadan on the role of alcohol in his books: “In Depeche Mode, alcohol is just an element of realistic prose. They drink and that is why there is a lot of alcohol in the book, if they ate honey there would be a lot of honey…In Russian books or films, if a character doesn’t drink, it means he is a negative character, in the best case – a weirdo.”
It is also worth mentioning that there is more and more prose in “Lampa”, what happens evidently at the expense of poetry which is pushed into the background. Apart from works by sixteen-year-old Iga Woźniak described above, in this issue we will also find some short poem-pictures written by Wojciech Brzoska (I especially recommend początek i koniec/the beginning and the end). There is, however, five prose writers in the issue – Drotkiewicz, Joanna Pawluśkiewicz, Marian Pankowski, Dariusz Orluszewski and James Tierney. In other words, lampa-ha!rt team. So it happens.
To finish off, one more characteristic feature of “Lampa”: exoticism, that is all kinds of strangeness and oddness, uncanniness and deviation from a norm, ancient topics and authors and non-authors forgotten to the world. Inside the holiday issue, we will find, among others, Czech lyrics in the original version, Dorota Masłowska’s report from her stay in Israel (on the cover: “Dorota Masłowska on the Jewish state”), Anna Dziewit’s texts about Klaus Nomin, an interview with Lluis Llach, a Catalan bard, Marek Włodarski’s text on Dead Raven Choir’s work or an account of the editorial team’s trip to Roztocze. Some of these texts will not be a source of fascinating reading for all the readers and one could ponder on the justification for some of the signs of Lampa’s exoticism.
Let’s take for example Marek Włodarski’s text about “summer concert emotions during Poznań Malta festival and three-day Gdynia Open’er.” This text, by all means and in all possible ways, cries to heaven. To finish off as I started, one more time I will mention my girlfriend who happens to read some of the publications I buy. My girlfriend who, like me, adores the performers who have visited Malta this year and also most of those appearing in Gdynia, is in a way marked as a person obliged to read with interest the report in “Lampa”. She could not get past the second paragraph. As a masochistic reader, I managed to get through the whole of it and related it later to my beloved one. I recommend it to you as well. It is a better idea that some masochistic reader summarises it briefly, because unassisted reading may cause brain damage or chronic depression.
Grzegorz Wysocki
Translated by Kinga Witowska
Discussed journals: Lampa