Page 176
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Jauqeline, Animal, Blackie, the bar, and the question of acceptance pull family pressure, sexuality, and room politics into a single exchange.
The page is interested in how spaces decide what kinds of feeling are allowed. Animal answers not with moral clarity but with a theory of rooms, keys, and the strange authority of the present scene.
Jaugeline watches her son leave 'going upity up up', sending him off as 'a radical mum refusing the release she deserves' - 'Go to it my son' - while Animal winks and the boy goes 'like a prince from courtyard to court'. Animal's refrain 'Up and down my Jauqeline; up and down' carries them into 'that narrow Santa Monica tavern' he hasn't entered 'sense his encounter with the Pranksters'. There 'the Armenian Blackie', authoritarian 'as a bartender of quality must be', reports 'The homosexuals are trying to buy the bar out', and Animal answers with his theology of yielding: 'Resistence is not your problem Blackie... acceptance is the key that gives no challange once inside the room.' The page sorts belonging through the bar's anxieties.