The Man of the Crowd (BLKM)

An abridged short story from Edgar Allan Poe, the title is incorrectly announced as The Man in (rather than of) the Crowd. It's a small, but important distinction. A man in a coffee house is observing the faces of those passing by when he settles on a decrepit old man whose face seems to harbor a dark secret. Fascinated the narrator follws the old man all over London.

The opening paragraph of the short story illustrates the theme:

It was well said of a certain German book that “er lasst sich nicht lesen “ — it does not permit itself to be read. There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes — die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burthen so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave. And thus the essence of all crime is undivulged.

The story ends with the narrator's realization that he will never learn the old man's secret (if he even has one), because "he doesn't permit himself to be read."

So yeah, this is a "Seinfeldian" story in which nothing really happens. Still good, though!

Black Mass #17

The Man of the Crowd

29 July 1964
19640729(017)_BLKM_TheManOfTheCrowd.mp3

KPFA/KPFK, Los Angeles/Berkeley. Edgar Allan Poe (author), Bernard Mayes, Erik Bauersfeld (adaptor, producer), Jack Whiting (technical production), Jack Nessel (creator).

John Whiting