Gratzi, from Maxine

Thank you for your thoughts; they comfort me like Patrick's large arms used to.
When I picture Pat Lockwood, and thanks to the humming songs dear Felix taught me, I have seen him standing in front of me several times,
I am reminded of a cauldron, boiling intensely, but a hard glazed exterior keeping everything inside. So many times, after long nights of story-telling and drinking wine, I would try to seduce him, but he would let himself go only so far and then he would put up walls around himself, and even with all my talent and skill I could not touch him.
Deep inside was curiosity and humor, and a passion for music and history. He would ask so many questions, and I would say “Later! Later!”
Now I wish I had told him so much more of our story, so he could have written it down for you, gracious visitors. So many were the good times together, and so few…

Why, Father, do you fuck with me?? Why give me a vagina if I get it in the ass all the time?? Why give me happy songs and only sad occasions ? I gave my daughter Mia to your daughter Sybian, and then to your prophet Felix, and what did I get back? Mia buried in a Mausoleum in Rosarno under the outrageous name of **********! and a husband and lover, friend and brother, teacher and rogue, who once again travels only by a smuggler’s moon, sleeping in many beds ---none of them mine. How dare you pass me by and give your gifts to a juvenilia genitalia such as Esperanza. She dances and fucks, dances and fucks, and counts on Emilio to get her out of jams.

Forgive me. Your way is best. It is this inferior wine speaking. I have not had a decent wine since I said to Patrick, sweet Patrick, “Ciao. I will see you soon.” I was counting on his help putting together the concert of Felix’s music. Do you not want that? Do you not want to see once again young boys and girls dancing across the stage in Sybaris, and disappearing into the orange groves? Do you not want to see mayors and priests and councilwomen faint in shock at what they see? Do you not want to excite them in their sleep as you did to Bishop Bassanni? Have you forgotten how we laughed as he snuck to his kneeler in the middle of the night, and moaning and groaning, all with so little pleasure? Can we not do that again? Bring back Felix and sound the trumpet and we will start the blood surging in the youths of Sybaris. Lead Esperanza to us! Give me new stories to tell Patrick.

O Father! I miss him so!!

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[sigh]









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Bulletin From Culpa Institute, Sybaris, Italy

Last updated at: Friday, April 19, 2007
Four Killed, Dozens Injured in Plane Crash in Italy
The death toll rose from two to four on Friday after a small tourist plane slammed into a high-rise government building in the city of Milan, Italy. According to reports from Rome, dozens of people were also injured in the incident.






It is with deep sorrow that we inform you Mr. Patrick Lockwood, noted musicologist and friend to all Neo-Sybarites was a passenger on the plane that crashed in Milan over the weekend. He was on his way to Sybaris to assist in the retrospective concert of Italian outlaw-composer Felix Culpa. He did not survive.

Hymn to the Night

"O Night, who gavest birth to the Gods! How sweet thou art upon my lips! How warm thou art in my hair! How thou enterest into me now, and how I feel pregnant with all thy springtime!
The flowers that shall blossom shall all be born of me. The wind which respires is my breath; the perfume which passes is my desire. All the stars are in mine eyes.
Thy voice: is it the roar of the sea? Is it the silence of the plain? Thy voice: I comprehend it not, but it bends my head to the ground, and my tears lave my two hands."
(The songs of Bilitis)

Comings and Goings. Mostly Comings...

With Emillio now travelling with Esperanza as she does dance workshops and performances around the Eastern U.S., Maxine, Emillio, and Esperanza all agreed that Ramona and Francesca would be "co-directors" of the Yarez estate and be responsible for the training of new students, male and female, and welcoming them into St. Sybian's embrace.







With the news of "Danny Boy's" ongoing celebratory romps with Esperanza (Father help us all if he ever figures out the true extent of her powers!) helping to spread the word among seminarians and ex-seminarians at DePaul and Mundelein Seminary, new recruits are arriving all the time.

To: Sis
From: “Danny Boy”, “Daniel the Preacher” “Prodigal Dan”

Sis, sorry I haven’t replied to all your E-mails – laptop crashed. Aw hell, you know better. It’s my life that’s crashed and this time BIG TIME!! I’m betting Mom or Dad has already filled you in. I just got to the point where I couldn’t stay in the seminary another
night!!! It’s not at all how they portrayed it back in Cedar Rapids. Look, I’m not against gays in the priesthood, but I could count on one hand the seminarians I felt weren’t gay. It became a major distraction. I couldn’t study. I couldn’t pray. I didn’t know who to pray to anymore! That was the breaking point: I don’t even know if I believe in a god anymore. My confessor, Fr. Cszyzk, said I should sort things out in the world and come back if I felt it was right. When I told the folks I was coming home, shit flew. No doubt you’ve heard I’ve broken my Mother’s heart, and Dad’s too embarrassed to go to the Knights of Columbus hall for his nightcaps.

“Three years!! Three years we’ve supported you! And now you have doubts!! What the fuck is there to doubt???”---- It was vintage Dad.
So anyway, I can’t go back to Iowa right now. I’m keeping up my studies at DePaul, and crashing with a couple ex-seminarians from the Grad School. At night, I hit some clubs, see some movies, hear some music.

Last Friday I went to a concert at the Metro School of Music, where they were playing music by Felix Culpa, the janitor at the school ----the janitor!!! How weird is that! Very weird! The music was called “Shallow Graves” and it’s about this guy’s wife who’s buried in Italy, and he loved her very much.There's women with beautiful voices singing lush harmonies. And there’s this gorgeous woman/child dancing around in this flowing, white, nearly see-through gown, sometimes humming along and looking at the audience, and other times seemingly in her own world. That would be “ESPERANZA!!!” (caliente!!!)

So the concert ends and everybody’s doing the stand-up-and-clap number, and people are chanting “FEE-LIX! FEE-LIX!” But the dude’s a no-show. At his own concert! No Felix Culpa! So I went backstage and everyone was concerned about Felix, except for Esperanza, who was just standing in a corner, sipping on a bottle of Rolling Rock She was smiling a bit as she looked right at me ,
She took my hand and said, “Let me teach you how to dance.”

Then she started to hum softly over and over this sweet tune as she led me back past the light booth, to the prop room. And ----well, you know----we knocked ourselves out -----I mean, she knocked me out. Remember the rollercoaster back in Cedar Rapids? This was better!

Dan

Maxine in Italia

(Maxine at the Admiral Theater in Chicago)

Maxine has now returned to Italy, to Calabria, where there has been growing interest in the news from Chicago concerning Felix Culpa. The legend of Felix and Maxine grew larger when the Sybarites saw Bishop Bassanni come home in a coffin. They knew it was their vindication, and somehow St. Sybian had intervened. The grave of Mia, Felix’s other wife and Maxine’s daughter, has become a secret destination of pilgrims. (I am sworn to secrecy about the name on the grave, until Maxine releases me.)


(Maxine in latest photo from Italy)


She has now become, she says laughingly, a high-priestess of sorts.
In other words, people line up to go to bed with her! She is managing the Bergamot orange presses, and making a variety of balms and perfumes from the essence of that bitter fruit.

She is planning a retrospective concert of Felix Culpa’s Music, culminating in a performance of “Malocchio del Amore”, that large-scale, dramatic ode to the licentiousness at the heart of St. Sybian’s teachings, which set in motion so many unfortunate events. As only scraps of papers exist along with the fading memories of some of the performers, she has asked me to come to Calabria, to help recreate the composition. It is very tempting as I miss Maxine greatly and would love to see the places she has told me about. I am also intrigued by her plans for a grand finale. All Maxine will say is that she knows where “Bastardi Bassanni “ is buried.

Pedro is Buried

With Felix not to be found, Maxine buried Pedro on the grounds of the estate. Esperanza presided over a most secret and sacred ritual ----- “The Embrace of the Moon.” Pedro’s brother Emilio, now the director and protector of those on the estate, was inspired to compose the “ dance chant” which the men of the estate intoned as the women danced around and over Pedro’s body, anointing it with the “Scent of the Saint”, the essence of the Bergamot oranges that only grow around Sybaris, on a coast far away.





Circles ‘round the moon
Halos sway and swoon
Tidal waves all synchronized
Seasons all in tune.

Arms of stars embrace him,
With distant lightning grace him.
All dignity to him belong:
He was gentle strong, he was strong.

Circles ‘round the moon
Halos sway and swoon.
Had he lived to be a thousand
He would have died too soon.

No statues be erected
By those he protected
Yet on the lips of every lover
No other’s name will hover.


Now the invisible road is shown,
But it is his destiny alone.
Sybian’s grotto awaits its plower
She wishes it to bloom and flower.

The tidal waves all synchronized,
Seasons all in tune,
Halos sway and swoon,
Circles ‘round the moon.

Moon embrace.mp3