Luc Sante vs. FLANNEL BALL

“Surrealism is the order of the day, and Desnos is its prophet”

“Poetry should be made by all. Not by one.”

He discovered photography’s affinity with the social uncanny.

The clochard who chronicled freedom from the straight world.

Dashiell Hammett vs. The Situationists

She could make a rising inflection transcend all the bitterness.

In American humor, she discerned “a deep-lying mood of dis­severance.”

He was a model for the “gentleman cambrioleur” Arsène Lupin.

Jules Verne on laudanum, and four other writers rolled into one.

A founding member of the Bouzingos.

He was called “the musketeer of anarchy.”

One of his novels argues that theft is a reasonable career path.

He was poet laureate of the live ones.

Robbed a train, recorded with the Sex Pistols.

He was a great writer and a cautionary tale.

He was a poet of the urban night.

Poet, boxer, and enigmatic pioneer of self-invention.

“Bookworm parrot Legba biker orphan pirate poet.”

His untranslatable wordplay never fails to dazzle.

Like knives, the beats cut through layers of murk.

His best stuff hits the ear like music — dirty saloon music.

You are the host of a virus; the virus is life; you are fucked.

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART (Don Van Vliet, born 1941) is — like Thelonious Monk…