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EXCERPT FROM TONY NESCA'S "ABOUT A GIRL"
Winter day at bus-stop hands in pockets puffing smoke thinking ‘bout a bike I had as a kid in this very neighborhood, retarded boy named Ken used to challenge me to race wobbling from side to side as he rode making car sounds on that old fucking thing basket in front, “rooom roooom” “come on retard boy, that all you got?” racing down Garwood Avenue that crazy loon flying right by me up to corner then back and forth laughing like the world is all right and it’s there just for us my mother on front porch shaking her fist at me “beep beep” goes Ken, I’m thinking about this at bus-stop mid-day streets alive with furious wanton music, young woman shows up out of the darkness “hello” lights cigarette, winter day gray and shady,
“So who are you?” she says as the lights go wiry,
“Uh-huh, oh yeah”
“I turned 23 yesterday”
Old lady walks by well-scrubbed pink tragic like the sun she smiles at us young woman beside me we’re talking high-speed ‘bout local bands booze on her breath I should be going home on call for work security guard at downtown high-rise she’s smiling big black hair we’re on the bus going through little Italy restaurants bars cafes go by in a blur I’m telling her I used to play guitar in a band her green eyes light up “should have known” she says,
“Why, cuz I got long hair?”
“Yes”
She pulls a mickey out of her knapsack takes a swig hands it to me I decline, think about it, then I take a sip bus racing through The Osborne Village artsy part of town funky shops black clothes mohawk kids begging for money guy with glasses throws up on corner,
“Where you goin’?” she says
I explain the work thing gotta sit by the phone in case they need me, got an hour to kill she’s looking for CD’s, likes That Petrol Emotion and The Violent Femmes, going to that second-hand music place downtown lady on bus starts singing Old Man River I laugh alive in love, my friend beside me laughs too applies deep red lip-stick snow piled high on the boulevard cruising down The Osborne Bridge sweating in our winter jackets bus cramped and tired nippin’ vodka between the sheets my friend looking brave and thinking, she’s reciting a Black Flag song whistling in the wind, howling at the septic tank says she used to live in Toronto hates it grew up on Indian Reserve called Pukatawagan says Winnipeg really works for her, really like The Peg she says, guy snoring behind us, bus-driver taking crazy turns announcing each corner with lame-ass joke crowd laughing like derelicts my friend looks at me crosses her eyes sticks her tongue out I feel my ass-cheeks rumble, damn...
“Ever been to The Canadian Shield?” she says,
“Oh yeah”
Gust of wind gives Cocker Spaniel on corner a mouth full of snow few guys on bus start laughing shiny hair suburban nightmares my friend comments on them doesn’t like that type big fucking deal I say do you listen to Brave new Waves? Sure thing she says, new band called The White Stripes pretty good love that three chord unorthodox rock and roll...similar to what The Pixies did I say,
“No one’s as good as The Pixies” she says
Approaching downtown the drunks come out middle of the afternoon stumbling through parking lots and construction sites she digs it says life is about this takes another sip of vodka I join her people on the bus take notice driver looking at us in mirror let’s get off I say...heel-toe-express down the downtown streets chinese guy parking car reminds me of something I can’t remember my friend exactly same height as me short parka with hood tight blue jeans beautiful winter I’m thinking breath comes out in clouds we live one step at a time caught in the shit of things stick and move monkey man on high wind tears out brain things as usual he says, business guy walking fast briefcase dangling I point to a mall then past it to a small bar hungover mohawk-kid in front wrapping his jacket around him lighting cigarette,
“Let’s go there” I say,
“Juicy” she says....
REVIEW BY BOB WILLIAMS - THE COMPULSIVE READER -
"There is a constant poetic tone and musical sense in About a Girl. There are also some shrewd observations of great penetration."..."Nesca brings a largely unpunctuated and lyric flow of observation and thought. There is no plot in the accepted sense of the term although there is a progression in the relationship of the narrator and the young woman who ends up in the narrator’s apartment. In place of plot we have a studiedly precise description of a gritty life-style. It is a sufficient answer to pretensions and falsity in the dominant culture, sick with its material glut and fast food ethics. Through the narrator’s reflections we accumulate an unusually exact understanding of his aims and character. His life is not pretty and he may waver and wobble but he is grounded in honesty. He waves illusion away and sees life with a directness and acceptance that is refreshing and, rightly apprehended, renewing."
BOB WILLIAMS - THE COMPULSIVE READER -
"...all senses are satisfied when reading this piece..."
Sara Calnek - The Projector
The Beautiful, Wandering Flow
"About a girl" is a book that will waft the stench of smoke and liquor right up your nostrils and leave you begging for more. It is so vivid, so real, that the true sense of a dingy downtown bar will invade your inner soul. "About a girl" will transport you into the world of a pub crawl that begins in the early afternoon and ends when the bouncer shoves you out the door.
The book is about two strangers, a man and a woman, who meet at a bus-stop. The story is told in the first person from a point of view of the man who describes their journey from one downtown Winnipeg bar to the next and all the fascinating characters they meet along the way. By the end, your heart bleeds rock-rhythim guitar and you feel an overwhelming urge to stop for a drink at the nearest bar. Written in spontaneous prose with sentences that go on for pages the book flows beautifully, free, rebellious and alive. The book reads like random thoughts - all thoughts, even the wicked - frantically scribbled onto the page, not one tiny detail overlooked. All of the senses are satisfied when reading this piece. This is a raunchy read, laced with profanities - exactly the language you would hear at any licensed establishment.
All in all, this book is an insightful view into a life of free spirits who live day-to-day and love every minute of it. It provides the reader with inspiring and uplifting thoughts combined with an urge to spark up a conversation with a stranger over a drink or two or three...
Sara Calnek - The Projector
EXCERPT FROM NICOLE NESCA'S "THE SEXUAL REPRESSION COLLECTION"
moon calf
old man drooling buying courage to have just one t
ouch step out the back door for a cig leaving friend
and foes finding places where faces melt to some phony funked out trip
laughing lenny bruce groovy desiring some thing non-descript
superficial scene-scaping landing nodding kind keep moving
card carrying valley proud fractured mind club h
at worn low memorex eyes frequency flying with tuned-up ear
where the parking lot lovers artist and philosophers meet
where hearts and bodies fight for rights to mental containment
contentment knowing no one looks too long or too hard in face
ambulance screams in the distance steel nerved unaffected
frightened only by the answers to the unasked questions
heavily lubed and primed from old man bargain drink shot specials
saints in some rock-an-roll choir unglued
and let loose poets stand silent watching listening to gun shot banter
capturing some feeling some moment some weakness emotionally
plagiarized aggrandized like only a lonely angel can
times slipping dawn's colour is spitting i announce 'i'm splitting'
'chitty chitty bang bang' kiss kiss goodbyes and 'alright til next
time' scene was supposed to fade into greys
blocking his goddamn rhythm sky's-eye bright still mocking as
it they he hauntingly pace my stride bang walls of skull
forgetting pictures written melodramatic dylan lyric bathed in obscene light of the moon
exposing secrets held closed stepping harder faster
to beat pink's yellow's orange's mournings
revealing the lines from story..."crying like a fire in the sun"
drunk and beautiful she laughs and cries in a single sound
EXCERPTS FROM TONY NESCA'S "HOBO"
how the hell I would tell my family about our sudden loss of income was another story full of its own mysterious viciousness, I remember thinking about how I felt 20 years earlier, young rock and roll fucker just starting out man, I didn’t have a family, I didn’t have any heavy responsibility blocking my way of thinking, I was living dirt poor in seedy places chipping away at being alive, in my memory it felt brighter and more in tune yet I quickly realized that wasn’t the case man, it wasn’t the case at all, I had recently been hit hard and heavy and the present looked shitty but I had never felt what Izzy gave me, I had never felt the golden glow of everyday smiles and let-downs, I had never experienced a woman seeing me for what I really was all lousy and insecure and damn determined to be happy, that special sensation of immediacy was still there and that rock and roll promise of forever-today rung as true as it ever did, I was a child running with the tigers in Bangladesh, I was an idiot-savant surrounded by numbers, I was so completely flawed I was almost holy, I was walking at three minutes to midnight and I was feeling no shame, everything went black and blue and the never-ending beautiful exploded across the orange colored sky, and on the corner of River and Osborne if you look real close you can see Jesus jogging on the spot, can you hear him my friends, can you see the flamingo sketches, does he speak to you, does he riddle his way into your mind and tell you about all the sadness early morning rain in my eyes I got the catfish blues, sun hidden behind everyday-clouds working-man doing the everyday-dance, I’m going home walking down Main Street bums are all out getting their early fixes feast your eyes on them brother, I stumble through the suits and ties the perfect hobo in disguise as full of shit as everyone else and just as ready to crumble, I think about poor Cora lying in her hospital bed, I think about the last five years working at the college and my good friend Bill...
EXCERPTS FROM NICOLE NESCA'S "CANNED"
LIVING
Kamikaze White Noise
can’t know if it was something that was said or the head vices with voices
faces on the bus melt ugly? or pure?
on the mainline, with innocence slipping and not coming anytime soon
shoelace broke and stranger’s thigh is pressed too close too hard
wanting to describe every one everything every sound
finest years i’ve ever known
fin.
EXCERPTS FROM TONY NESCA'S "CRAZY LEGS"
EXCERPTS FROM NICOLE NESCA'S "KINK"
he wrote for her
EXCERPTS FROM TONY NESCA'S "THE DO-NOTHING BOYS" -
BURST ONE -
And we continued in that fashion under the barren trees rust-colored grass, couple of kids race by us, a dog barks in the distance, a mother screams out her son's name, '67 Firebird burns rubber right beside us bolts off in a cloud of smoke, three stoned chicks across the street laughing and singing looking lovely in their tight jeans and striped Adidas runners, Nazzie's wiry eyes looking at me with laughter and sadness at the same time talking all kinds of shit waving his hands driven by the manic early morning beer-buzz bounce in his step worn out fedora pulled tightly around his head, myself all sinew and energy and smoking-gun-happy, chicken joint at the end of my block bursting at the edges argument in the parking lot, Vincent Massey High across the street group of punk rockers on the front steps popping pills hurling insults at the sky, Bob Marley song pops into my head "No Woman, No Cry" as we linger on and on and on cross at the walkway start crawling along Pembina past the small apartment buildings, fast food joints, small parks, angry teenagers and the other kind, car horn rips into our reality there's Ross crazy bastard behind the wheel of the Great White pulls up right beside us halting traffic large smile on his panic-stricken face,
"GET IN MOTHERFUCKERS!"
We jumped in the back and the shark took off followed by the complaining car horns and curses and Ross opened the small window in the cab...
"This is an artless society we live in!" He shouted
BURST TWO -
But it was a mellow night at back-alley-park that I was thinking about…Ross and Joe talking in one corner about music and guitar players, Nazzie, Cindy, Brenda and Max sat on the grass in a semi-circle laughing about something, Brenda jumping up and down…me and Judy huddled against the fence on the other side of the park soft kisses in the sun-go-down beauty, my hand on her fat thighs plump and long and fleshy, we're smiling in each other's arms saying nothing just swaying in the summer breeze golden moments at dusk like these never forgotten thinking I could do that forever, thinking that life would never change and that change can go fuck itself, unwilling to accept the unavoidable ending of all things, the constant state of flux called life, the inevitable change that all things have to go through in order to achieve individuation, no, no way anyhow, not ever, I ran my fingers through the grass the leaves cool to my touch, Judy laid her head on my chest and closed her eyes, a siren echoed in the moonlight then faded, a sudden stillness came into the night where everything went quiet, or seemed to, I could feel Judy breathing on my chest and her heart beating slowly against me, happy moments at back-alley-park as the dusk settled in and we leaned forward and breathed in the moment…
Review for Tony Nesca's "Jukebox Music"
"The musical background is a strong influence in Nesca’s poetry. In the present collection there are references to Stan Getz, Billie Holliday, and Count Basie as well as to more current groups...."..." Tony Nesca is original and in the best sense tuneful...The musical influence is also apparent in the elision of superfluous words and in the multiply hyphenated words that slip and slide around precise meanings...."
BOB WILLIAMS - THE COMPULSIVE READER
Review of Tony Nesca's "La Gioconda"
Reviewed by Matthew Firth for the Canadian Lit-Mag Front & Centre
I don't often compare one book to another in a review, preferring to assess books on their own. But there's a link here I can't resist. The publisher of "Six ways to Sunday" uses word and phrases such as "brashly…gritty settings…shining bright and battered in the dingy recesses of the bar…" After reading Tony Nesca's excellent novella, "La Gioconda", I'm tempted to go back and rewrite my review of McPherson's book because it is none of the things it claims to be when held up next to Nesca's true example of down and out, gritty, yet sincere Canadian literature. McPherson's book plays at being tough and stylistic, Nesca's book is the real deal.
"La Gioconda" takes readers to Winnipeg, a city known for its dark side. In the novella Tony is a twenty-seven year old bohemian semi-student trying to be a writer. He hangs out in dingy bars, not because he's looking for material, but because he's a regular working class joe in Winnipeg and that's what there is for him to do. Here's the authenticity, the sincerity that McPherson cannot duplicate in his faux urban settings.
Tony, through an old University friend, falls hard for and hooks up with Jasmina, a visiting French teenager. The two strike up a quickie romance and live for the moment, drawn together to Winnipeg's thriving underground music and literary scene and its – on the surface – seemingly strange crossover with the aforementioned dingy bars. Jasmina savors Winnipeg's authenticity as well and thinks about leaving France for good. But instead the pair live fast and hard (their sexual relationship becomes increasingly kinky) and leave it at that. This is a story of experience. It is about what happens when two people come together and get it on. There is no contrived moralizing, no redemption or glory. Tony and Jasmina drink and fuck and carry on and that's all it takes to make a great story. When it's over and done with, Tony is where he started. The memories of his experience are enough and they make him smile. He goes back to Winnipeg's crappy bars pleased that he let life and love in.
Nesca writes in a rollicking, free-flowing style. The sentences are often long and rambling but uncluttered. It goes well with the vibe of "La Gioconda", of freedom and living in the moment and grabbing what life presents you with. Nesca has written a short, sharp gem of a book that truly represents the gritty and the urban.
Matthew Firth is the editor of Front & Centre magazine and of Black Bile Press –
Front & Centre
573 Gainsborough Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario
K2A 2Y6
Canada
"The flow is stream of consciousness reminiscent of Kerouac or Ferlinghetti (they of the beat generation) or of Patti Smith, resembling speed rap here and there throughout...It is immediate. Loss and longing recur as themes throughout. Everything is tinged with realistic sadness. This is not the rarefied or removed world of some elite rock star but a life we have all experienced at least at some point in our youth, whether we remember it correctly or not...."
- BRIAN FERGUSON - WINNIPEG GENIUS -
More reviews -
http://www.compulsivereader.com/2005/04/02/a-review-of-about-a-girl-by-tony-nesca/
http://www.compulsivereader.com/2005/04/02/a-review-of-emma-strunk-by-tony-nesca/
http://www.compulsivereader.com/2007/12/04/a-review-of-the-do-nothing-boys-by-tony-nesca/
drunk and beautiful she laughs and cries in a single sound
EXCERPTS FROM TONY NESCA'S "HOBO"
...by February anyone with half a brain and any sense in them was sick and tired of the never-ending blinding snow and the freezing air the frozen sidewalks, the heavy clothing, the constant indoor living, the downright grim mood permeating throughout, the inability to go for a simple slow easy comfortable walk, but March was the beginning of a new world for us, for Canadians in general, it was the E chord hit hard and heavy, it was the final thunder bursting open the clouds and the sunlight blissfully coming through, it was the Mongolian Lizard Queen rearing her ugly head and lopping up everything in its way, it was Alice going for another final romp in Wonderland, it was me happy and willing as Steve came up early morning like clockwork and began talking...
... how the hell I would tell my family about our sudden loss of income was another story full of its own mysterious viciousness, I remember thinking about how I felt 20 years earlier, young rock and roll fucker just starting out man, I didn’t have a family, I didn’t have any heavy responsibility blocking my way of thinking, I was living dirt poor in seedy places chipping away at being alive, in my memory it felt brighter and more in tune yet I quickly realized that wasn’t the case man, it wasn’t the case at all, I had recently been hit hard and heavy and the present looked shitty but I had never felt what Izzy gave me, I had never felt the golden glow of everyday smiles and let-downs, I had never experienced a woman seeing me for what I really was all lousy and insecure and damn determined to be happy, that special sensation of immediacy was still there and that rock and roll promise of forever-today rung as true as it ever did, I was a child running with the tigers in Bangladesh, I was an idiot-savant surrounded by numbers, I was so completely flawed I was almost holy, I was walking at three minutes to midnight and I was feeling no shame, everything went black and blue and the never-ending beautiful exploded across the orange colored sky, and on the corner of River and Osborne if you look real close you can see Jesus jogging on the spot, can you hear him my friends, can you see the flamingo sketches, does he speak to you, does he riddle his way into your mind and tell you about all the sadness early morning rain in my eyes I got the catfish blues, sun hidden behind everyday-clouds working-man doing the everyday-dance, I’m going home walking down Main Street bums are all out getting their early fixes feast your eyes on them brother, I stumble through the suits and ties the perfect hobo in disguise as full of shit as everyone else and just as ready to crumble, I think about poor Cora lying in her hospital bed, I think about the last five years working at the college and my good friend Bill...
EXCERPTS FROM NICOLE NESCA'S "CANNED"
rat’s nest rant
MENTAL HEALTH WARD been thinking too hard on the knees watching the bleed, crimson purple orange
Hollywood Boulevard coastline tourists attraction two-dollar ticket tilt-a-whirl
kiss shit thrill seeking making time and money with nothing nobody
no soul discount flyer fucking buttered biscuit gravy political show
gunned dead flowers stripped to bare taken given down from the royalty of the underground
waiting for another to pay with whatever they be getting to sooth to smooth
forgetting your roses hats literature foreign accents Fellini-esque personal personality
bourgeois bull-shit photos that you and the hes and shes hive thrive
bought and paid for lives livers veins tits brains hammered too tight too tight to think trick
poor little baby’s wearing bronzed shoes…LIVING
through the slats of the fence,
I could see a street lamp that I had mistaken
… for the moon.Kamikaze White Noise
can’t know if it was something that was said or the head vices with voices
synapses misfire line between reality and dream and memory blur
parts that can’t let go white lines on the highway (scream?) mimic down-trodden
or “happy” children of threefaces on the bus melt ugly? or pure?
mouths move and still say nothin’
phones ring, music plays, the motor hums, breaks squeal plaster a smile and keep moving into the noiseon the mainline, with innocence slipping and not coming anytime soon
shoelace broke and stranger’s thigh is pressed too close too hard
gurgling coffee and turning off, blocking the insignificance
knuckles whiten pulse quickens tongue sharpens it’s a heartache heart attack of consciencefoolish pride, thank you for calling
won’t you call back again?dependence on “things” killing the dream of art for art’s sake
nose ring is sore and there are knots in teenage girl’s blue hair in front of me drank two too many and ate a yellow rest against dirty cool window getting so strangewanting to describe every one everything every sound
tick tock tick tack
bang blame vroom painting THE thousand word picture
puzzle pieces lost and misshapenfinest years i’ve ever known
sheltered from harm and cold
perched on worn 70’s era public transit’s finest clutching back-packenvisioning blue eyes with the healing powers of morphine protecting thoughts I will never defend and
the pilot’s voice announces“BONZAI!’
and the soft droneand the soft drone
and the soft drone…is maddening.
fin.
EXCERPTS FROM TONY NESCA'S "CRAZY LEGS"
EXCERPTS FROM NICOLE NESCA'S "KINK"
he wrote for her
... mama loved her drink her new man and her mustang daddy? daddy thought life was nothing more than black & white still photos framed in pain and willed his girl the same but, she had a wicked smile with a face "that would let her get away" dark eyed lovely in a constant home grown hazed old-soul stare heart led by childish themes with a body of a woman statuesque beauty surrounded by bleached-out black-lined friends "so, you think he really digs me?" "sure, he said he did." walking the pitted gravel road through the dark, light a "red" looking cool calm unaffected focused on the mission ahead the quarries where the bare-chested duded-up-for-Saturday-night -chevy--boys, proud and posed on their chevelles and cameros waiting on the parade of rawboned and frilled kittens to purr freak show everybody drinking rolling and racing quarter miles always keeping tabs on the latest victims of the blue hearts club constant carnival ride 'tilt-a-whirl' style funny-mirrored laughter that ‘venom never burned in her veins’ she had no head for games angry hard faster-than-the-wind love tanked engines burned dreams would be promised and filled just by unsnapping your jeans she hears factory boy and girl steel-valley-tri-county mentality -
"i'll scream your name at the line, baby! i'd be nothin' without you. understand? we're gettin' out of here and i swear i'll never leave. kiss me."
at nineteen he got to join the local union and she got a baby... room with a dirty view
Greasy
stained
filthy
vessels ?
of light
dark
framing
life
marching on
blockades
glass
vinyl
fragile
yet strong
so protective
guarding
against elements
ironic against
pristine white
lace
curtains
mocking
gaze
to outside
view
hot breath
against pane
making circles
hearts
in residue
revealing
dirt
grime
found
….inside
mourning ritual
...hair wild and tangled perfumed with humid salty air and stale cigarette I wander into the dark morning...pilgrimage moving in shadows of dull street lamps listening for sounds of awakening...nirvana found; smile spreads across lips, nose and tongue unite—salivate broken neon light flickers, blinks, spits the news "closed"...shit! pretending I'm illiterate, I bang on door--invited in--we sit chat relay and relate local paper giving reviews on latest events voices click and clack like old friends in a kitchen making morning from grandma's dough clock ticks quickly as we gather familiarity in experiences shared apart--
Excerpts from Tony Nesca's "Vodka Orange Sunday"
TWITCH CITY
On Broadway the lights shine grey
winos beg for jack-shit-nothing and her and I trip through
the violin sweet water music crazy bastard asks for change
sure we say right on brother, in central park downtown Winnipeg trio
of Natives sit on park bench passing the bottle laughing and happy we share our
own cold-gin comfort under that
relentless
thirsty sun,
underground mall deserted her breasts keep moaning to the
heavy neon power
chords
river-walk hot and dizzy we
pause and light up
streetlight urchin ragged
mud-river honey not so sweet
the wink of her eye tells me everything
old guy sits by riverbank smoking a joint
other fellow with beer in hand pauses and thinks
young morning lovers race down the boardwalk,
in the Osborne Village people laugh dark and loud
the Goth-Heads hit that desperate note
mini-skirts short and ragged
thigh-high leather screaming violent love
hard rock misery blaring from dark places
yeah in the Osborne Village the hippies cry deep into
the morning come-ugly
funky shops grinning late night heartache
gloomy neon kisses you goodbye
and always beside me she sings vodka/orange-sunday
fire trucks scream in dark alleys
Irish pub dances lightly and the
sisters of mercy parade down the boulevard -
Excerpts from Tony Nesca's "Vodka Orange Sunday"
TWITCH CITY
On Broadway the lights shine grey
winos beg for jack-shit-nothing and her and I trip through
the violin sweet water music crazy bastard asks for change
sure we say right on brother, in central park downtown Winnipeg trio
of Natives sit on park bench passing the bottle laughing and happy we share our
own cold-gin comfort under that
relentless
thirsty sun,
underground mall deserted her breasts keep moaning to the
heavy neon power
chords
river-walk hot and dizzy we
pause and light up
streetlight urchin ragged
mud-river honey not so sweet
the wink of her eye tells me everything
old guy sits by riverbank smoking a joint
other fellow with beer in hand pauses and thinks
young morning lovers race down the boardwalk,
in the Osborne Village people laugh dark and loud
the Goth-Heads hit that desperate note
mini-skirts short and ragged
thigh-high leather screaming violent love
hard rock misery blaring from dark places
yeah in the Osborne Village the hippies cry deep into
the morning come-ugly
funky shops grinning late night heartache
gloomy neon kisses you goodbye
and always beside me she sings vodka/orange-sunday
fire trucks scream in dark alleys
Irish pub dances lightly and the
sisters of mercy parade down the boulevard -
she takes my hand shows me her tongue
drug-happy we bash teeth in the coming moonlight… My Tarantella
....but we were children deep heavy-deep in the throes of living large and happy, we were swinging in that love affair with life man, we were incompetent little fringe kids coming from poor working class families and our fathers screamed and cursed, our mothers loved and coddled, our friends threw rocks at windows, our neighbors fucked their spouses at night (only at night) and sometimes even fucked their neighbor’s spouses and grinned and watered their lawns and kept the secret, we were bastards of the young man, full of soul and daring and mischievous unending energy…
....I’m walking under the trees which grow tall and wide on either side of the street overlapping up top forming a green/orange canopy giving me that eternal shade interrupted solely by the sun coming through in thick beams of dim yellow nowhere - this is the urban forest I say, this is my afternoon in the forlorn happiness, this is my clumsy ode to day-tripping, my Lucy in the Sky with Hemorrhoid Fever, my Tarantella sex trade and middle class infidelity, in my bag is a bottle of water, two joints of grade A grass, a Mortadella and Provolone sandwich and a book by Henry Miller, “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch”…leisurely stoned I make my way down the residential streets smell of freshly cut grass and cooked meat all around music coming from backyards sounds of laughter and arguments and stale ideas mixed with an easy groove of sunshine morbidity, cars drift by lazily and not often and the busy sounds of main streets somewhere in the distance are always present, but in the forefront is the ever-present singing of birds and small things running and crawling and in those moments when there are no cars or people anywhere you would swear you are in the countryside, thick green all around of bush and trees and big houses with stone terraces and young housewives drinking gin and tonics on the front porch...
EXCERPTS FROM TONY NESCA'S "THE DO-NOTHING BOYS" -
BURST ONE -
And we continued in that fashion under the barren trees rust-colored grass, couple of kids race by us, a dog barks in the distance, a mother screams out her son's name, '67 Firebird burns rubber right beside us bolts off in a cloud of smoke, three stoned chicks across the street laughing and singing looking lovely in their tight jeans and striped Adidas runners, Nazzie's wiry eyes looking at me with laughter and sadness at the same time talking all kinds of shit waving his hands driven by the manic early morning beer-buzz bounce in his step worn out fedora pulled tightly around his head, myself all sinew and energy and smoking-gun-happy, chicken joint at the end of my block bursting at the edges argument in the parking lot, Vincent Massey High across the street group of punk rockers on the front steps popping pills hurling insults at the sky, Bob Marley song pops into my head "No Woman, No Cry" as we linger on and on and on cross at the walkway start crawling along Pembina past the small apartment buildings, fast food joints, small parks, angry teenagers and the other kind, car horn rips into our reality there's Ross crazy bastard behind the wheel of the Great White pulls up right beside us halting traffic large smile on his panic-stricken face,
"GET IN MOTHERFUCKERS!"
We jumped in the back and the shark took off followed by the complaining car horns and curses and Ross opened the small window in the cab...
"This is an artless society we live in!" He shouted
BURST TWO -
But it was a mellow night at back-alley-park that I was thinking about…Ross and Joe talking in one corner about music and guitar players, Nazzie, Cindy, Brenda and Max sat on the grass in a semi-circle laughing about something, Brenda jumping up and down…me and Judy huddled against the fence on the other side of the park soft kisses in the sun-go-down beauty, my hand on her fat thighs plump and long and fleshy, we're smiling in each other's arms saying nothing just swaying in the summer breeze golden moments at dusk like these never forgotten thinking I could do that forever, thinking that life would never change and that change can go fuck itself, unwilling to accept the unavoidable ending of all things, the constant state of flux called life, the inevitable change that all things have to go through in order to achieve individuation, no, no way anyhow, not ever, I ran my fingers through the grass the leaves cool to my touch, Judy laid her head on my chest and closed her eyes, a siren echoed in the moonlight then faded, a sudden stillness came into the night where everything went quiet, or seemed to, I could feel Judy breathing on my chest and her heart beating slowly against me, happy moments at back-alley-park as the dusk settled in and we leaned forward and breathed in the moment…
Review for Tony Nesca's "Jukebox Music"
"The musical background is a strong influence in Nesca’s poetry. In the present collection there are references to Stan Getz, Billie Holliday, and Count Basie as well as to more current groups...."..." Tony Nesca is original and in the best sense tuneful...The musical influence is also apparent in the elision of superfluous words and in the multiply hyphenated words that slip and slide around precise meanings...."
BOB WILLIAMS - THE COMPULSIVE READER
Review of Tony Nesca's "La Gioconda"
Reviewed by Matthew Firth for the Canadian Lit-Mag Front & Centre
I don't often compare one book to another in a review, preferring to assess books on their own. But there's a link here I can't resist. The publisher of "Six ways to Sunday" uses word and phrases such as "brashly…gritty settings…shining bright and battered in the dingy recesses of the bar…" After reading Tony Nesca's excellent novella, "La Gioconda", I'm tempted to go back and rewrite my review of McPherson's book because it is none of the things it claims to be when held up next to Nesca's true example of down and out, gritty, yet sincere Canadian literature. McPherson's book plays at being tough and stylistic, Nesca's book is the real deal.
"La Gioconda" takes readers to Winnipeg, a city known for its dark side. In the novella Tony is a twenty-seven year old bohemian semi-student trying to be a writer. He hangs out in dingy bars, not because he's looking for material, but because he's a regular working class joe in Winnipeg and that's what there is for him to do. Here's the authenticity, the sincerity that McPherson cannot duplicate in his faux urban settings.
Tony, through an old University friend, falls hard for and hooks up with Jasmina, a visiting French teenager. The two strike up a quickie romance and live for the moment, drawn together to Winnipeg's thriving underground music and literary scene and its – on the surface – seemingly strange crossover with the aforementioned dingy bars. Jasmina savors Winnipeg's authenticity as well and thinks about leaving France for good. But instead the pair live fast and hard (their sexual relationship becomes increasingly kinky) and leave it at that. This is a story of experience. It is about what happens when two people come together and get it on. There is no contrived moralizing, no redemption or glory. Tony and Jasmina drink and fuck and carry on and that's all it takes to make a great story. When it's over and done with, Tony is where he started. The memories of his experience are enough and they make him smile. He goes back to Winnipeg's crappy bars pleased that he let life and love in.
Nesca writes in a rollicking, free-flowing style. The sentences are often long and rambling but uncluttered. It goes well with the vibe of "La Gioconda", of freedom and living in the moment and grabbing what life presents you with. Nesca has written a short, sharp gem of a book that truly represents the gritty and the urban.
Matthew Firth is the editor of Front & Centre magazine and of Black Bile Press –
Front & Centre
573 Gainsborough Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario
K2A 2Y6
Canada
"The flow is stream of consciousness reminiscent of Kerouac or Ferlinghetti (they of the beat generation) or of Patti Smith, resembling speed rap here and there throughout...It is immediate. Loss and longing recur as themes throughout. Everything is tinged with realistic sadness. This is not the rarefied or removed world of some elite rock star but a life we have all experienced at least at some point in our youth, whether we remember it correctly or not...."
- BRIAN FERGUSON - WINNIPEG GENIUS -
More reviews -
http://www.compulsivereader.com/2005/04/02/a-review-of-about-a-girl-by-tony-nesca/
http://www.compulsivereader.com/2005/04/02/a-review-of-emma-strunk-by-tony-nesca/
http://www.compulsivereader.com/2007/12/04/a-review-of-the-do-nothing-boys-by-tony-nesca/
