In “Little Lusts and Lucidities: Reading Mina Loy’s Love Songs,” Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas argues that in “The Pamperers,” Loy satirises not FUTURISM per se but rather, the Futurists’ betrayal of their own radical ideals (ML: W & P, 111–130, p. 113). With that satirical impulse wholly in view, there are a number of references — veiled and overt — to cultural figures in “The Pamperers”. Loy’s friend and the founder of Italian FUTURISM F. T. Marinetti (1876–1944) merits direct mention, as does the Florentine Renaissance painter, Benozzo Gozzoli (1421–1497). The French composer Claude-Achille Debussy (1862–1918) appears in an introductory list; “Watsiswinski” or “Stavinski” likely refers to the Russian-born composer Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (1882–1971). “Isadora Allen” is a nod to the founder of modern dance, Isadora Duncan (1877–1927), who Loy befriended during her early years in Florence, 1907–10 (BM 110–11). Loy wrote a long poem about Duncan in 1952; a segment from that work appears in The Last Lunar Baedeker under the title “Songge Byrd” (238).
ROSA
(6:175)
Loy attributes “Rosa” to one “Bjuna Darnes”—a none-too-subtle spoonerism of the name of the American writer Djuna Barnes (1892–1982). Loy and Barnes met in New York around 1920–21 and maintained their friendship in various locations around the globe, including Berlin and Paris, until Loy’s death in 1966 (BM 295, 313, 362). Loy infamously features in Barnes’s Ladies Almanack (1928) as Patience Scalpel, who has a voice “as cutting in its Derision as a surgical Instrument” (Champaign, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1995, p. 12). While it is tempting to read the weapon-wielding Rosa as Loy’s instigation of or riposte to Barnes’s parody, her papers yield little in the way of evidence, as only one undated typescript of this play exists. “Rosa” concludes with Loy’s characteristic self-attribution, “MINA LOY”.
PAGE 183
“magenta kid” reads “magenter kid”—ed.
“Recamier sofa” reads “recamier sofa”—ed.
PAGE 184
“stock” reads “stoch”—ed.
“So you believe” reads “SO you believe”—ed.
PAGE 185
“fifty of the best years” was “fifty years”
PAGE 186
“my sons. It is” reads “my sons it is”—ed.
“I am mad. Tell me” reads “I am mad tell me”—ed.
THE SACRED PROSTITUTE
(6:176)
In a letter to Carl Van Vechten dated December 27th 1914, Loy writes: “I am going to send you — a part of the Love-Sex Review—‘The Sacred Prostitute’ ” (Beinecke, Van Vechten archive, Loy correspondence folder). This play was written when Loy was living in Florence, and had befriended F. T. Marinetti and Giovanni Papini, key proponents of the Italian Futurist movement — hence the starring role allotted to the character “FUTURISM throughout.
The file for “The Sacred Prostitute” contains both a typescript and a handwritten draft. Differences between the two versions are predominantly related to punctuation; more substantial distinctions are noted below whenever they contribute to the overall understanding of the gestation of the play. All other annotations refer to Loy’s handwritten editing of the typescript. The first extant page of the written draft is marked “4” on the upper right-hand corner, and it is from this page that the typescript begins. A note midway through the typed manuscript indicates that seven pages of the original text are missing. While the handwritten version shows a corresponding gap in pagination, in the typescript, the pagination continues unabated. As there is no discernible break in sense, this note may be a narrative device to indicate that “Man and Woman,” the play within the play that might fill that gap, will not be included.
“Sacred Prostitute” is typed at the top right-hand corner of each page of the manuscript, but no title page can be located in Loy’s papers; as such, critics have tended to use Loy’s letter to Van Vechten as the definitive phrasing for the title. For dating and discussion of “The Sacred Prostitute,” see Virginia Kouidis, Mina Loy: American Modernist Poet (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1980, p. 16); Janet Lyon, “Mina Loy’s Pregnant Pauses” (ML: W & P, 379–402, p. 395); Julie Schmid, “Mina Loy’s Futurist Theatre” (Performing Arts Journal (18:1), 1–7, p. 3), and Burke (BM 186).
PAGE 188
Unlike the typescript, the handwritten draft begins in medias res with an unattributed line prior to those spoken by Some Other Man, reading: “passion? — it’s merely neurosis.”
In the handwritten draft, the sentence beginning “It’s just the same. .” reads: “It’s just the same with the higher qualities we hear so much about — in the comrade, the intellectual companion.”
“dissuade me” was “dissuade me from”
PAGE 189
In the handwritten draft, the page beneath “Woman!?!. .” is badly torn; the discernible writing that follows has been elided from the typescript, and includes the following phrases: “She harried the delicacy of my sentiments — with coarseness— / disinterestedness with cubi / signs [possibly “sighs”] of Eros— / store — a.”
“Woman must exist. . to somebody else?” is in handwritten, but not typed, draft—“somebody” was “someone”—ed.
“on you?” was “on You?”
PAGE 190
In handwritten draft, “more than twenty minutes” was “more than half an hour” in the first instance
“man is any cruelty she may deserve” was “man is the cruelty that she deserves”
PAGE 191
“(the things we hanker after not being on the market)” reads, in the first instance in the handwritten draft, “(we all know the things we most hanker after are not on the market)”
PAGE 194
“I could have shown you” is “I could have shewn you” in handwritten draft
PAGE 196
In handwritten draft, “autograph album” was “autograph-book” in the first instance
After “the proto-poem” the handwritten draft reads: “(De-claiming with super magical intonation)”; here the proto-poem includes an extra line of “ta ta ta” (13 in total) between “frrrrrr /urrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaa” and the line beginning “pluff plaff plaff”
PAGE 197
Above the last “h” of “(they sigh)” reads “N,” and the “h” is crossed out—ed.
“bare acquaintance” reads “bare-acquaintance”—ed.
In the handwritten draft, from “FUTURISM. here declaims” to “ ‘fin- ish her off’ ” is an addition on a separate, single sheet of paper. On that page, after “(most drastic)” Loy writes: “P.S. Haven’t got it here to translate / later on will do.” What follows this note are the lines, “When love has had enough. . I must just [go and] ‘finish her off’ ”—this section appears to be an incomplete prose summary inconsistent with the style of the drama throughout. It is included in this volume as a stage direction, but in the typescript, it reads as if FUTURISM were speaking the whole aloud—ed.