• This entire review "Meditation on Photographer Arthur Tress" is also available in Acrobat pdf.
• Author's historical introduction
• Actual review as published
• Illustrations

Tress’ recent exhibition at New York’s Robert Samuel Gallery hung as an insight into the night-time fantasy of Male Apocalypse Now. Tress is a man of distinction, a real big splendor, good to look at when so inclined. Eight hundred dollars: the complete Tress Portfolio. Robert Samuel Gallery, 795 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

CODE 1: GIFTS OF NATURE

NYC. Subway under Sixth and Houston. Far above, horns honk. Plaster dust grinds into reluctant knees. Toes bend, hurt, slide back thru grit. Manvoice: soft, celebratory, commanding from outside frame of reference. “WORSHIP.” Kneel. Bow slowly forward. Thick scent of manbucket rises to lowering face. Wet hands palm flat on crumbling floor. Screech-wheeling train roars past. Lost in the maze. Manhattan Minotaur. Love among the ruins. Total Genuflection. This room always cubicled with dark men: tiled, wet; slam of black horseshoe seats against stained porcelain; streams of steaming tunnel dumps. Humid drips from fur-gray ceiling. Stalactite. All men gone now. But one: MANIMAL. Demolition. Terminal. LETTING GO. Finally free. Worship a man’s essence. Eat and drink. For this is his Body. His worn leather boot, rich with woolsock sweat, remains planted firmly forever.

CODE 2: BLACK BOY

Delicious Black Boy. Chocolate-flavored Treat. Damn yummy. Satisfy tummy. Dark Midnight Special spreadin’ everlovin’ light from the Great Grinding Triangle buttressed, butt-Tressed, and footshod. Kinky. Hard-handed Tool Jockey. Frayed rope. Grease smell. Foolin’ around, yeah, but meanin’ Mean Machine. Tooth-cogs slipped by a moon from the darkside of the Man. Licks Hershey never knew.

CODE 3: SEBASTIANE

Burnt-out, bound-up, slime-caked man, twisted, bent, pit-filth running wet, entrapped, snared, slings, arrows, outrageous fortune soldiers, beautiful matured man’s face furrowed, mercenary warriors, heavy-booted executioners, stomp garbage, smoke, kick impatient shit, ignore agony well deserved, life-long shit, bearded crucichristus, get-it-over-with, lingering taste of cigar-fingers deep-throating, force-feeding battleworn crap, bloody uniform beating, gunsights, warriors’ aiming eyes taking bead, warriors, harnessed, helmeted, eyes focused, finally, full severe attention, aiming at the bound-up scum with the sentenced eyes, enduring eyes, the readiness before the aim and the fire, execution, an agony as now.

CODE 4: CONFESSION DE KAFKA CACA

Top Man, tough, needs topping: severe. A muscular, hairy hustler. Expansive dick. Expensive fists. Big feet. Will pay masculine men, 30 to 45. Need man to get my attention and hold my interest. Now Former Paratrooper. Army Basic Training. Need Sophisticated Training. Now. Offbeat beatoff place. No calculated playroom decorated with toys. Real scene. Real man. Real price. Garage grease-rack for grease-gun Firestone Radial trip. Abandoned loft or pier preferred. Gag, blindfold, wire me up. Your Big-Balled Voice holds me in the perfect obedience of ropeless bondage. Real workout torture. Exhibitionist into W/S, FF, TT, LA FILTH, rubber, leather, cigars, Aroma, sex, jox, pex, pits, catheters. Top me and worship me. You: sure of your male self. Me: all too able to turn the tables on you. No telephonies, and no one not understanding my mantra: Kafka rama, Hare rama, Kafka caca. If you get the pic, you get mine. VIRTUAL DRUMMER: MAN2MAN #3

CODE 5: MEDITATION: THICK UNCUT DICK, BIG BALLS, AND MUSKY BUTTHOLE

Two buddies. Commanding. Hands spreading asshole. Presentation of manpack. Smell of pissrich, cheeselip dick. Raunch of sweaty balls. Deep dark shithole ready, waiting, spread, served up for tongue, finger, dick, fist. Butt and balls and uncut bazooka shoved out for sniffing, licking, tasting, plugging. Crotch aroma. Mansweat. Crisp curl of dark hair. Juices. Male spoor. Hardon tough stuff. Heavy equipment. Hung. Thick. Loaded. Deep rich piss, sweat, and cream. Licking up cumshot dripping down balls. Clots of thick sperm stuck gelatinous on juicy asshole. Fullbodied men. Crotch to crotch. Manhandlers. Handling public privates. The kind of raw dick men dream about flopping out of Levi’s through tonguesmooth gloryholes. The kind of sweet butthole men harden to as it backs up to wellbrowned cornhole, Kneeling to mancrotch. To a pair of well-hung, big-hung male crotches, sprung from jocks, presented wet, sweaty, smelly, cheesy, funky, nasty, dirty for eyes’ close inspection, for noses’ nostril-deep inhalation, for li’ thick pucker to lip up to thicker pucker of assbud and foreskin ring, for tongue’s deep lick, thrust and probe into the noble depths of mantastes. Suck. And swallow. Eat. World without end. Amen.

©1979, 2000, 2003 Jack Fritscher