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Wait for Me At the Bottom of the Pool
During years of astonishing activity as a filmmaker, photographer and performer, Jack Smith produced a body of creative, antic writing that intersects and transcends the genres of hothouse fantasy, criticism and social comment. This title reveals the ideas and personality of this artist.
177 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1997
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About the author
Jack Smith
3 books1 followerDuring his lifetime Jack Smith was a legendary playwright, critic, and filmmaker with a small, but faithful cult following. His movie masterpiece Flaming Creatures defined avant-garde cinema in the 1960s. This collection of interviews, essays, and play scripts brings together most of Smith's unpublished work. With his sharp wit, shrewd observations, and radical aesthetics, Smith--who died of AIDS in 1989--is now viewed by many as an innovative founding father of post-modern performance and gay sensibility. Smith's work is still shocking and Wait For Me at the Bottom of the Pool is indispensable for anyone interested in contemporary theater and film.
For additional biography see: Jack Smith (film director)
For additional biography see: Jack Smith (film director)
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 30, 2023
In three words - "weird but wonderful." That would best sum up this book.
Jack Smith has to be the most ...................... interesting ? unique ? artist I have come across in quite a while. Some of the essays in this book I absolutely adored - it's not that they were necessarily what you would call 'well-written' but they are so off the wall, and in your face, by their quirkiness, zaniness and singularity, that you can't help admire them. Completely inimitable. One of a kind. I've NEVER come across anything quite like it in my life, which is the greatest strength of this book.
There are some fantastic essays in here which truly deserve five stars. My particular favorites were "The Perfect Filmic Appositeness of Maria Montez," "The Adorable and Pasty Creatures ...": Journal Notes on the Uses of Pornography, and the great interview with Smith himself recorded in "Uncle Fishook and the Sacred Baby Poo-Poo of Art." If you are wondering about some of those titles, just remember they come from a guy who once said, "The title is 50% of the work." Smith strongly believed that the title should represent the aura or give off the most important aspect of the work, no matter how exotic it may be, and perhaps 'exotic' is the best way to describe his work.
Unfortunately, there were a few entries in this collection which were little more than random notes and they did not do much for me personally (these I would give 3 stars on average).
Therefore, a strong four stars for this stellar and flamboyant collection.
Jack Smith is reportedly the artist who invented the whole 'camp' style among the LGBTQ community of the 1960s and if you take a look at some of his movies and the costumes used, you will soon get an idea of what I am talking about.
His most famous / notorious film was Flaming Creatures, which was shown by Jonas Mekas (Smith's constant bugbear in this book - he is the 'Uncle Fishook' among other terrible names he is given), and Mekas in turn was arrested for obscenity. Quite civil by today's standards but for its day - "a product of its time" as Louis Landes-Levi once told me. Louise was a close friend of Ira Cohen's, and Ira once called Jack Smith "the greatest artist of my generation."
I'm not completely convinced that the guy was a "genius" as some have called him but he was definitely unique, iconoclastic and extremely creative both as a writer, filmmaker and overall artist.
If you are looking for something a bit whacky to whet your literary appetite, and something which will hit you from way out of 'left field' then this is your bag baby. As someone else once said, Jack Smith WAS the art himself. Most of his movies are extremely hard to track down and watch online so this is one place I recommend starting if you are interested in the artists of what Ira Cohen once called 'electronic multimedia shamanism', a form of 'post-beat art'.
Jack Smith has to be the most ...................... interesting ? unique ? artist I have come across in quite a while. Some of the essays in this book I absolutely adored - it's not that they were necessarily what you would call 'well-written' but they are so off the wall, and in your face, by their quirkiness, zaniness and singularity, that you can't help admire them. Completely inimitable. One of a kind. I've NEVER come across anything quite like it in my life, which is the greatest strength of this book.
There are some fantastic essays in here which truly deserve five stars. My particular favorites were "The Perfect Filmic Appositeness of Maria Montez," "The Adorable and Pasty Creatures ...": Journal Notes on the Uses of Pornography, and the great interview with Smith himself recorded in "Uncle Fishook and the Sacred Baby Poo-Poo of Art." If you are wondering about some of those titles, just remember they come from a guy who once said, "The title is 50% of the work." Smith strongly believed that the title should represent the aura or give off the most important aspect of the work, no matter how exotic it may be, and perhaps 'exotic' is the best way to describe his work.
Unfortunately, there were a few entries in this collection which were little more than random notes and they did not do much for me personally (these I would give 3 stars on average).
Therefore, a strong four stars for this stellar and flamboyant collection.
Jack Smith is reportedly the artist who invented the whole 'camp' style among the LGBTQ community of the 1960s and if you take a look at some of his movies and the costumes used, you will soon get an idea of what I am talking about.
His most famous / notorious film was Flaming Creatures, which was shown by Jonas Mekas (Smith's constant bugbear in this book - he is the 'Uncle Fishook' among other terrible names he is given), and Mekas in turn was arrested for obscenity. Quite civil by today's standards but for its day - "a product of its time" as Louis Landes-Levi once told me. Louise was a close friend of Ira Cohen's, and Ira once called Jack Smith "the greatest artist of my generation."
I'm not completely convinced that the guy was a "genius" as some have called him but he was definitely unique, iconoclastic and extremely creative both as a writer, filmmaker and overall artist.
If you are looking for something a bit whacky to whet your literary appetite, and something which will hit you from way out of 'left field' then this is your bag baby. As someone else once said, Jack Smith WAS the art himself. Most of his movies are extremely hard to track down and watch online so this is one place I recommend starting if you are interested in the artists of what Ira Cohen once called 'electronic multimedia shamanism', a form of 'post-beat art'.
July 16, 2007
Pieces of Jack Smith's writings and some little drawings, with occassional explanation or context from the editors. Smith's dazzling and unique creativity shines through, and his film work is illuminated from a deeper glimpse into his thought/creativity process. In this book, in his movies, and it seems that in his life, he created his own world, including his own vocabulary, set/apartment designs, and characters. Jack Smith made the movie "Flaming Creatures" in the early 60s. An "art" movie that was banned in New York.
In his writing, and his movies he shows his exuberance for films that had been cast off as trash, and even (as in the quote below) for trash itself. His affinity to cast off items and people is part of what draws me to him. I saw an interesting new documentary about him at the Harvard Film Archive. It was exuberant and heart-breaking. I also saw J. Hoberman, one of the editors speak to a class at Harvard about the current series of books he's working on.
"..in the middle of the city should be a repository of the objects that people don't want anymore, which they would take to this giant junkyard. That would form an organization, a way that the city would be organized...the city organized around that." page 115
In his writing, and his movies he shows his exuberance for films that had been cast off as trash, and even (as in the quote below) for trash itself. His affinity to cast off items and people is part of what draws me to him. I saw an interesting new documentary about him at the Harvard Film Archive. It was exuberant and heart-breaking. I also saw J. Hoberman, one of the editors speak to a class at Harvard about the current series of books he's working on.
"..in the middle of the city should be a repository of the objects that people don't want anymore, which they would take to this giant junkyard. That would form an organization, a way that the city would be organized...the city organized around that." page 115
April 20, 2010
i loved "flaming creatures" but i didn't until recently realize that there was more to jack smith than that short and dazzling film. i think the editors of this book were a bit too concerned with gathering enough material for a book of a respectable length; you get pieces of more or less coherent art and film criticism but you also get journal entry rants about pot and porn, oh and a pretty terrible interview. while i'm not sure that a book is the best way to experience or document jack smith and his work (he even implies throughout these texts that he has no real interest in language), i did very much enjoy his appreciation of maria montez, and i think it hits a certain mark that sontag's "notes on camp" so often misses. thank you for the recommendation, steakbone!
October 12, 2008
A collection of Jack Smith's writing. Much of this material was nigh impossible to come by before publication of this book. Although he's best known as a filmmaker, and many of those films are silent, he has an inimitable verbal style in which intricate skeins of words are strung together. Witness titles such as "Amonia Pit of Atlantis: Evil in the Art World, or Walter Versus the Giant Knick Knacks."
December 19, 2009
This was a fantastic read-full of the complex musings of Jack Smiths performances and notations.
Want to read
April 27, 2010How is it I've never heard of this until now??
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March 24, 2025Jack Smith was a trip. His films and performances express a toxic Hollywood, in doses like a hallucinogen. His work is potently freaky, curdled mash ups, bitchiness. He was also a true starving queer artist, a sort that seems so rooted in NYC 1960s-1980s. This book provides a fascinating window into his psyche, though his more creative pieces are too wild, and pornographic to follow. This book is a collection of writings culled from what seems like a very limited archive. The best here are two pieces on Maria Montez, Smith's goddess, one he appreciated for her bad acting but pure identity as a star. These are the most coherent and enduring insights, and remain meaningful. The rest is super hit and miss.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews