Quasimodo von Belvedere

Description

Independent Superman of Chicago

By Quasimodo von Belvedere
Edited by Trevor Blake
mogtus-sanlux

Who was Quasimodo von Belvedere? To the police, he was Vincenc Noga, a bootlegger identified by a magnificent ten-inch mustache that he refused to shave, even when it led to his arrest. To the bohemians of 1920s Chicago, he was the proprietor of the “Gold Coast House of Correction,” a prison-themed speakeasy where the waiters wore stripes and the intelligentsia drank illicit spirits. But to history—until now—he was a ghost.

Quasimodo von Belvedere: Independent Superman of Chicago collects, for the first time, the incendiary, satirical, and bizarre writings of this forgotten figure of the radical underworld. Noga moved elbow-to-elbow with the likes of Max Bodenheim, Emma Goldman, and the soapbox orators of the “Dil Pickle Club”. He was a man who ran for President on the “Independent Superman” ticket, penned plays about pigs and potatoes that baffled editors, and wrote a lost novella, The Conscience of a Dum-Dum Bullet, originally serialized in the IWW’s One Big Union Monthly and reconstructed in this volume.