{"id":49808,"date":"2022-02-09T14:56:20","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T19:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=49808"},"modified":"2022-04-01T21:52:19","modified_gmt":"2022-04-02T01:52:19","slug":"a-documentation-by-florian-vetsch-the-garden-by-paul-bowles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2022\/02\/a-documentation-by-florian-vetsch-the-garden-by-paul-bowles.html","title":{"rendered":"A Documentation by Florian Vetsch<\/font><\/em>
The Garden by Paul Bowles<\/font><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UPDATED BELOW<\/strong>: Florian Vetsch speaks about Bowles on Henrik M\u00f6ller\u2019s podcast, based in Sweden. The podcast is in English<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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bilgerverlag<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

“Paul Bowles wrote a short story called ‘The Garden’ in 1963 while staying in a picturesque Moroccan settlement on the Atlantic coast not far from Tangier. Three years later, in December 1966, Joseph McPhillips asked him to dramatize the story for students at the American School of Tangier. Bowles was in Thailand at the time, about to return to Morocco by ship. On his way back he wrote scenes for a play and airmailed them to McPhillips, who immediately started rehearsals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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back cover<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

“Following Bowles\u2019s advice, McPhillip involved artists and writers such as Marguerite McBey, Ira Belline, Brion Gysin, and John Hopkins. The play was staged in Tangier in April 1967 but was never published. This documentation offers the original text of the play for the first time (translated as well into German) with illustrations that trace the play\u2019s genesis from page to stage.” \u2014 Florian Vetsch<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The volume published by bilgerverlag<\/a> is a big, beautiful, hardcover production of 184 pages, bound in sewn folios, in a trim size of 8.25″ x 10.5″. Here’s a selection of two-page spreads showing the rich motherlode of evocative documents and a freestyle book design. \u2014 JH<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Inside front cover, at left, and endpaper.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Pages 4 and 5<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Pages 6 and 7<\/em> (showing, at left, Joseph McPhillips and John Hopkins on his BMW R50 ‘White Nile’).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Pages 12 and 13 (Table of Contents)<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Pages 18 and 19<\/em> (showing a poster design by Marguerite McBey).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Pages 26 and 27<\/em> (showing Bowles’s typed letter of Dec. 27, 1966, to McPhillips from Chiangmai).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Pages 56 and 57 (showing a stage diagram sketched by Brion Gysin)<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Pages 66 and 67 (showing the title page of the original story \u2014 subtitled \u201dA Parable\u201d \u2014 and, at right, the dramatis personae with the list of props for the stage production).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Postscript: <\/strong>April 1 \u2014 Florian Vetsch speaks about Bowles on Henrik M\u00f6ller\u2019s podcast, based in Sweden. The podcast is in English:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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