Secret Pleasure, Secret Poison

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Idea for a novel about two friends who both decide to become counterfeiters, one of whom decides to make counterfeit art while the other decides to make counterfeit money.

Working title: Secret Pleasure, Secret Poison



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The first few pages:


For years I couldn’t stop writing about the oncoming fascism and then the fascism was here and I couldn’t seem to write about it anymore. Most of the people I interacted with on a daily basis didn’t know that capitalism was already over. I knew. Which might be one of the reasons I chose to enact my foolish plan. There were many contradictory and confused reasons.

The memory is somewhat unclear, except the fact that we were both drinking, me noticeably more so. I remember her saying: “I’ve always imagined an ongoing game where the purpose is to try to invent an art movement.” And I remember thinking: Why just a game, why not actually make an art movement in real life. And then, as if reading my mind, she followed up: “I mean, art movements were a thing that happened last century. I don’t think they’re really a thing that can still happen now.” And I thought to myself: “But why not try? Attempt the impossible. Rise to the challenge.”

That was the night I first had the idea. But I’m not sure if I told her then, or some other night. And I know she never told me. I had to find out through other sources. But then, much later, when asked, she replied that I could stop by some time to watch her work. It was even more specific: she said she’d be interested in having me there, sensing my reactions. By then we were both in what one might refer to as deep trouble. I’m not sure if she knew it more than I did, or if I knew it more than her, or we both knew so on equal footing. There was also a sense in which neither of us knew, our activities too seductive, the anticipation that you could have your cake and eat it too. (The French version of this expression is to have both the butter and the money for the butter. The reference to money brings us closer to the point.)

The dilemma that most concerned me was as follows: I hated money and I wanted money. Money isn’t real. It’s a fiction, a story. But money can do things that nothing else can. So in that sense – at the level of power – it has some sort of greater reality.

Art movement became code. “How’s your Situationism going?” she might ask, then a few weeks later she’d instead ask about my Cubism, and I’d respond by asking her about the Stuckists. (If you don’t know about the Stuckists, we’ll find our way back to them a bit later on.) There have been many art movements in human history, so we tried to keep it all spread out. I didn’t know all that much about the topic when we began. I had to keep reading up. I was often looking for things to read that didn’t add any extra stress to my already stressful life.

My stress focused on the idea I’d be caught. I tried to calm my nerves with the counter-notion that there were worse things in this world then being sent to jail. I wasn’t certain exactly what it would be like, didn’t do any research into the eventual reality of the experience, but I imagined there’d be things I could learn. Conversations with individuals I would never otherwise meet, exercise I’d never otherwise do, reading and writing. It might be dangerous, I certainly intended to avoid it if at all possible, but anything that occurred would also be an experience.

At the same time, jails are getting worse, fascist jails obviously worse than previous ones, which were already unbearably cruel. If I had a choice, I would choose to live in a world without prisons. But we don’t get to choose the world we live in, we only get to choose the world we fight for. So many of my ideas about the world, what it’s like, were from what it was like before, and I often have to think long and hard in order to understand or describe what things are like now.

Many artists feel their work does not get all the attention it deserves. Jealousy of other artists is perhaps one of the most natural parts of being an artist. She responded to this common impasse in a unique way. She had a theory that the more she hid away, the more interest in her work would increase. That hiding a success were, for her at least, intertwined. It began on a whim with her not attending one of her own openings, then later announcing her absence in advance. Already there were relatively few photographs of her in circulation, and she then made a certain effort to scrub as many of the remaining ones, to avoid having her picture taken whenever possible.

Her work had a certain following, but she was far from famous, and there was certainly no one chasing after her for pictures. That she no longer made public appearances merited a certain degree of curiosity, and if someone decided to write about her they would often mention it in the opening paragraph. In fact, it seemed there was now slightly more pres than before, and sales slightly increased over time, leading her belief that her theory was correct. Many still knew what she looked like, she hadn’t magically transformed into Thomas Pynchon or Elena Ferrante overnight, but there was, nonetheless, some new sense of mystery. When I thought of this aspect I was always intrigued. How it was possible to be both public and secret at the same time. How your art was directly connected to your physical appearance and biographical details, and interest in it could be influenced by how many of these biographical details you chose to release. How when people looked at your art, they were also considering it in relation to your life.

I saw her only about a dozen times during the years we were both fully immersed in our art movements. Most of these encounters took place in my visits to her studio, across vast swathes of silence as I watched her paint. Watching someone paint is almost an artform unto itself. At least that’s how I considered my approach to the activity, giving it my full concentration. Sometimes we spoke while she painted, but most of the time it was silence, and then when she was done for the day we’d eat together, not have a drink together (since I was already clean by that point), and speak of the things we didn’t allow ourselves to speak about with anyone else, the secrecy lending intensity to every word.

I first acquired the printing press under the assumption I’d use it to publish literature. Maybe there was a part of me that believed this. In retrospect, that lie was also the first of many, all the small and big untruths I engaged in once my art movement was well under way. Before I didn’t have much experience with lying. And what was surprising was how many lies were told at the spur of the moment, without forethought, because the situation required quick explanation, and the real explanation involved information it would endanger me to divulge. I don’t know if I’m lying to myself when I still think of myself as an honest person.

I don’t think I would have bought the printing press if I hadn’t discovered the secret room. The secret room was the discovery that set off the first domino. I had just rented an apartment slightly too expensive for me, all my belongings in boxes in one corner of the main room. I was carefully exploring the apartment, wondering how I was going to set it up and also how I was going to afford it. There were bookshelves built into the entirety of one wall, perhaps the main reason I’d chosen to sign the lease, since over the years I had accumulated a rather large quantity of books. For some reason I was pressing my weight down on each of the shelves, I suppose to ensure they were sturdy enough before filling them. I also ran my palm across each shelf, difficult to know what I was hoping to find, but to my great surprise I did make a discovery. A kind of hidden switch in the back corner of the very top shelf closest to the window. I was standing on a chair when I made the discovery. The entirety of the shelf swung inward on well-concealed hinges, and behind this section of shelving was another room about half the size of the main one. The hidden room was entirely cleared out. It was impossible to guess what it had been used for, yet it had clearly served some secret purpose. I brought in a chair from my freshly moved belongings, placed it directly in the middle, sat down, and gave my mind over to a single question: what use might I have for a secret room?

Let’s return to the night at the bar. Now I’m unsure if I remember the timeline as clearly as I’d like. Was that night at the bar before or after my discovery of the secret room? It must have been after, because without the secret room I don’t see how I could have conceived, in practical terms, starting out. But I also think there might have been a different timeline: that night in the bar, ending with her deciding to start her art movement and me deciding to start mine, followed by a period I put it all out of my mind, until the moment I was sitting alone in that hidden room and the idea returned to me. Now it had a location, and every art movement needs a location. Either way, what I do know is the secret room sat empty for almost a full year before I met someone who knew someone who was selling a printing press. I did some research. It seemed this model might be just the thing. The money to buy it came from a relative who had recently died. Intergenerational wealth seems to be the case behind every art movement.

I remember going to buy my first pair of gloves. This was also a time in which most currency was digital. There was something old fashioned, even quaint, about committing my efforts toward paper currency. I tried on one pair of gloves, then another, feeling what I was looking for was not fashion, but rather something that might become an aspect of my personality. When I was wearing the gloves I could think of myself as a different person, the person committing the art movement. The pair I finally chose were white, in the hopes they would leave behind no threads or particles of color.

The reason art movements (real art historical movements, not art movements as a euphemism for something else) were prevalent during the previous century, and not this one, is because political movements were prevalent during the same period. Communism, Socialism, Anarchism, Fascism (and in a different way Capitalism and Libertarianism) each had millions of passionate, organized followers who often reformatted their lives around collective practices for bringing their chosen ideology into greater prominence. A battle as to how society should best be organized. Many of the same people who were organizing politically were also organizing artistically. Or knew the people who were organizing artistically. Avantgarde artistic forms were made and fought for in relation to avantgarde political formations. To get out ahead of current artistic practices, and to get out ahead of current political limitations, took place parallel to one another and intertwined. The removal of the Berlin Wall is often seen as a kind of marker, both in time and in relation to tail end of an ideological shift. A moment when capitalism won the so-called Cold War and Communism was no longer generally seen as a viable option. And, it seems to me, art movements suffered a similar defeat.

At the same time, I have absolutely no belief in this way of framing these events. The former Soviet Union was never Communism, or at least wasn’t from the moment Stalin took control. And Capitalism won using only dirty tricks. The dirty trick of assassinating or overthrowing any leaders who didn’t tow the line and the dirty trick of giving certain people temporary “democratic freedoms” in order to dissuade them from amassing enough collective power toward Socialism and Communism, and then removing those freedoms when they were no longer required. Don’t go over to Socialism or Communism, they said, because we have these “democratic freedoms” that make our society so much better than any other, when such freedoms were only part of a temporary propaganda campaign for Capitalism that was never meant to last. Of course, it is Capitalism that is now in decline – perhaps a victim of its own success with no other world system to keep it in check. Unfortunately, Capitalism is now rapidly being replaced by Technofeudalism (or hopefully something better if we can summon the collective political will.) Art movements might return if radical politics also returns. If we can once again believe in its possibilities. Those possibilities were once based in the idea of progress, and since progress is a lie, we will need to find another basis. Things do not progress, they go in circles like the seasons.

Let’s return again to that night at the bar. Because it wasn’t just any bar. It was the place we went almost every night. As is so often the case, the times in which we did so were short-lived. There was a moment when everyone was there, then a moment later it was gone. Yet it was all so alive. We dreamed up ideas and schemes, most of which were completely forgotten by last call. Why is one idea forgotten while another becomes one’s life? It was a time of made-up names, so I’ll call her Sable. Sable and I saw each other many nights at that bar, with few in depth conversations. Mostly we just said hello. Or danced a bit. She’d tell me how much she liked a song moments before heading onto the dancefloor. (If I give you the song it might help with the year. And I’m not sure I want to give you the year yet. So, for now, the soundtrack will remain anonymous.) I like dancing but often shy away from it, I’m not quite sure why. The bar didn’t have a dance floor but when it got late they’d turn up the music and people would dance where they stood. We were young and thought it was our place. It’s only a few years ago, but now I couldn’t possibly feel any less young. Stress has aged me.

She said “I really like this song” and took a few steps into the middle of the room, merging with the other dancers. (Something else I might have not mentioned: the bar was tiny.) But a few songs later she was back beside me and we were commiserating about how hard it was to make money from our art. The idea that there was something noble or valuable in making art that might not sell seemed like an unused relic from a previous era. I remember I spoke about wanting to bring that idea back. What would it take to bring back the idea that things had a value which had nothing to do with money? She might have been interested in the idea but didn’t really see how it was possible. Even if you admired things that possessed an unclear monetary value, you still needed money to survive.

And then it was also a question of how much money. We were both able to make small amounts from our practices, but making enough to live from or show off was perpetually out of reach. She said “I know I’m smart and talented and good at scheming and good at networking. And I know there must be a way to make all that pay. But I can’t seem to figure out the formula.” Then she once again said “I really like this song” and shot back into the middle of the room amongst others who might have liked the song even more than her, if the intensity of their dancing was any indication. That night was a conversation that happened in stages, which might have been part of the reason it was a conversation that changed my life. Soundtracked by many songs that Sable really liked.

It seems to me that people today don’t have any particular interest in the experimental. The flavor of literature I had once most wanted to promote was literature that took risks with both content and form and strived to connect these risks directly to radical politics. But no one seemed interested. In producing small, beautifully printed editions, I learned a great deal about the printing process. And, at some point, I began to wonder if I could put this knowledge to better use.

I had heard that the art market was a good place to launder money. Sable was my only real connection to that world. My plan was simply to buy “wet” painting with forged money, then flip them for “real” money, selling them for not so much more than I bought them from young artists delighted to be selling anything at all. All of this rested on a rumor that my family was extremely wealthy, an exaggeration I did my best to encourage. My plan was, whenever possible, to buy directly from the artists themselves, leaving the galleries out of it. I was also planning to do so under a variety of fake names. As you will see, things did not go as planned. They rarely do.



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