DC's

Alan presents .... Rimbaud's "Illuminations"

2009-11-24T00:59:00.000-08:00

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The set of texts and images below was originally built as a series of individual daily posts for my blog, the purest of treats. But as soon as they started to appear I realized, a little too late, that they didn't quite fit into my blog's particular structure.

Hopefully they'll work better here. Please join me in gazing through the still-dripping glass at these marvelous images.

"des mouches éclatantes / Qui bombinent autour des puanteurs cruelles"

Insect-verse. Rimbaud's poetry is the music of the swarm: quick and repeated agitation or vibration, a force field of unassigned frequencies ominous or lulling depending upon the context, resounding, resonating:

Des fleurs magiques bourdonnaient. Les talus le berçaient. Des bêtes d'une élégance fabuleuse circulaient. Les nuées s'amassaient sur la haute mer faite d'une éternité de chaudes larmes.

[Magic flowers hummed. The slopes cradled him. Animals of a fabulous elegance wandered about. Clouds gathered on high seas made of an eternity of hot tears.]

The immediate effect of the verb bourdonner (hummed) is a crowd effect, the multiplication of voices. Here the vague murmur of the flowers combines with the pluralization of all the nouns, the accumulation of the clouds, the repetitive movements of rocking and circulating, to culminate in the image of the high seas, whose waves, already multiple, dense and moving, are further broken down into "an eternity of hot tears." At each step the emphasis is on the multiple: each of the limitless number of drops that make up the sea made palpable by its individual identity as a separate tear.

from The Emergence of Social Space: Rimbaud and the Paris Commune by Kristin Ross

APRÈS LE DÉLUGE (After the Flood)

As soon as the idea of the Flood had subsided, a hare paused among the sainfoins and the swaying bellflowers, and said his prayer to the rainbow through the spider's web.

Oh! the precious stones that were hiding, —the flowers that already looked around.

In the filthy main street butchers' stalls rose, and barges were tugged toward the sea rising up in tiers as in engravings.

Blood flowed, at Bluebeard's, —in slaughterhouses, —in circuses, where the seal of God whitened the windows. Blood and milk flowed.

Beavers did their building. Glasses of black coffee steamed in the cafés.

In the still dripping big house with glass panes, children in mourning looked at the marvelous images.

A door slammed, and, in the village square, the child waved his arms, understood by weather vanes and cocks on steeples everywhere, under the glittering downpour.

Madame *** installed a piano in the Alps. Mass and first communions were celebrated at the hundred thousand altars of the cathedral.

Caravans departed. And the Hotel Splendide was erected in the chaos of ice and of polar night.

From that time, the Moon heard jackals howling through the wildernesses of thyme —and ecolgues in wooden shoes grumbling in the orchard. Then, in the forest, violet-hued, burgeoning, Eucharis told me it was spring.

Gush forth, pond; —Foam, roll above the bridge and over the woods; —black palls and organs, —lightning and thunder, —rise up and roll; —Waters and sorrows, rise up and release the Floods again.

For since they have vanished, —oh! the precious stones burying themselves, and the opened flowers! —it's a nuisance! and the Queen, the Sorceress who kindles her coals in the earthen pot, will never be willing to tell us what she knows, and what we do not know.

Arthur Rimbaud

translated by Enid Rhodes Peschel (and slightly modified)

"The banner of bleeding meat on the silk of the seas and of the arctic flowers; (they do not exist)"

The entities designated by the text of the Illuminations are essentially indeterminate: we do not know where they have come from or where they are going, and the shock effect is still more striking because Rimbaud does not even seem to be aware of this indeterminateness, and continues to use the definite article in introducing them as if there were nothing odd in this. The precious stones, the flowers, the main street, the stalls, the blood, the circuses, the milk, the beavers, the glasses, the big house, the children in mourning, the marvelous images, the caravans: these objects and beings appear (in "Après le Déluge"), one after the other, without our knowing anything about them, and without the poet noticing our ignorance—since he speaks as if we were informed.

Those devices which are supposed to keep a discourse coherent—anaphoric and deictic pronouns—are here used to the opposite effect. "Magic flowers buzzed. The slopes cradled him": who did they cradle? Or consider "this personal atmosphere," and "the embarrassment of the poor and the weak over those stupid plots!" ("Soir historique"): but there has been no previous mention of plots or atmosphere.

Rimbaud sometimes proposes two very different terms, as if he did not know which was more appropriate, or as if the choice were unimportant: "a minute or entire months" ("Parade"); "a small carriage abandoned in the woods, or rushing down the path" ("Enfance v"); "in bed or in the meadow" ("Veillées I"); "lounges of modern clubs or rooms of the ancient Orient" ("Scènes"); "here, anywhere" ("Démocratie").

Rimbaud has a very pronounced tendency towards abstraction, and this is made clear from the first sentence of the first poem: "As soon as the idea of the Flood had calmed down..."; it is not the flood but the idea of it which subsides. Rimbaud prefers abstract nouns to others. Not monsters, not monstrous actions, but "all the monstrosities violate the movements...." In the same poem ("H") there is not a child who observes, but rather someone "under observation by a childhood." The sea is not made of tears but of "an eternity of warm tears."

adapted from "A Complication of Text: The Illuminations" by Tzvetan Todorov

SOIR HISTORIQUE (Historic Evening)

On whichever evening, for example, that the naive tourist finds himself withdrawn from our economic horrors, the hand of a master animates the harpsichord of the meadows; people play cards at the bottom of the pond, mirror evocative of queens and favorites; there are saints, veils, and threads of harmony, and legendary chromatisms, in the sunset.

He shudders at the passing by of the hunts and the hordes. The play drips on the stage of sod. And the confusion of the poor and the weak over these stupid plots!

In his slavish vision, Germany raises herself on scaffolds toward the moons; the Tartar wildernesses light up; ancient revolts stir in the center of the Celestial Empire; on stairways and armchairs of rocks a little world, pale and flat, Africa and Western lands, is going to be built. Afterwards a ballet of well-known seas and nights, a worthless chemistry, and impossible melodies.
The same bourgeois magic at all points where the mail transport deposits us! The most elementary physicist feels that it is no longer possible to submit to this personal atmosphere, mist of physical remorse, whose ascertainment is already an affliction.

No! The moment of the sweating room, of the seas raised up, of the subterranean conflagrations, of the planet swept away, and of the ensuing exterminations, certainties indicated with so little malice in the Bible and by the Norns and which it will be granted to the serious person to inspect. —Nevertheless this will by no means be a result of legend!

Arthur Rimbaud

translated by Enid Rhodes Peschel (and slightly modified)

"One can never depart for liberty from a train station."

Perhaps no one understood so well as Rimbaud the futility evoked by that aphorism of the flight of the bourgeois tourist from what was his own creation. This can be seen if we turn to one of his last poetic works, "Soir historique" (Historic Evening).

The shifter "our economic horrors" establishes the present historical moment of the poem; the simple tourist is indicated precisely and by the whole rhetoric of vision and theater—the spectacle—which dominates the poem up to, but not including, the final paragraph: mirror, chromatisms, drama, stages, "before his captive vision," and so forth. The spectator in the poem is "withdrawn from our economic horrors," as befits a tourist who has fled the workplace for leisure; but the rest of the poem will erode the possibility of such a withdrawal.

It soon becomes clear that it is a whole spectacular panorama of world history that is being displayed before the tourist's captive vision. The tour guide's weary formulas ring out in the opening paragraph's revival of a waning aristocratic or feudal stage set: favorites and queens, hunts and hordes, you have saints, veils, etc.

The flood of geographic names in the third paragraph announces the triumph of the bourgeoisie. Rimbaud presents this triumph less as a movement of social homogenization than one of spatial homogenization, for while the rise of the bourgeoisie is indicated by a vertical, ascending topography (Germany goes scaffolding up, deserts light up, stairways, etc.), all this upward effort and energy results in a chilling spatial platitude: "a little world, pale and flat," "the same bourgeois magic wherever your baggage sets you down," "a ballet of familiar seas and nights, worthless chemistry."

It is as if in the face of the monolithic force of bourgeois spatial conquest, the social upheaval—the "event" announced by the title—could only be played out on a global scale. If administrative rationalization, if a total colonization of all social and cultural relations eliminates the possibility of exercising freedom, then nothing less than an apocalyptic reversal of this fate and a cataclysmic break in the continuum of history can set an emancipatory dynamic in motion.

Rimbaud's reply to Mallarmé's fetishization of the poetic text, best summed up by the latter's famous dictum "The whole world is made to end up in a book," occurs in the last line of "Soir historique": "There will be nothing legendary about it."

adapted from The Emergence of Social Space: Rimbaud and the Paris Commune by Kristin Ross

[all images except the last via Agence eureka ]
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2009-11-24T00:58:00.000-08:00

p.s. Hey. The very fine fiction writer, blog maestro, and distinguished local Alan (Horn) returns as guest-host today with a characteristically beautiful post that I will leave to you explorers without further any further top-heaviness from me. Please enjoy and express yourselves accordingly in the comments arenas today, if you don't mind. My warmest, eternal gratitude to Alan. It's Tuesday aka cleaning/exile day here at the Recollets, so I'll be moving through the p.s. a little more swiftly than usual in hopes that I'll beat the knocking on my door as usual. ** GLOSSOLIA, Hey, Alex. Oh, Gary Numan, nice. I just indulged in a listen of the first Tubeway Army album -- still my fave re: him -- the other day. Whoa about the citywide woes. It's been soggy here too, but all I have to show for that is my wet Paul Smiths. Hang in there as only you can. ** Frighteyes, Hey, welcome to here. My pleasure, and thanks a lot. Do feel more than free to return, hang out any time. ** Winter Rates, Geek alert, yum. You were Geordie? Not bad. I assume there must have been a little power struggle to get the Worf role. I would have fought for it. No, I haven't heard the Duchess and the Duke. I will. I do love their name, of course. Absolutely about Math's drawings. Borges remix album ... hm, no, I don't think Mark mentioned that unless I'm spacing. What's the scoop? Thanks, blush, for the kind words, man. ** Michael Karo, Hey, man. Well, I was not so secretly hoping you'd spot my hint-hint and give the Joni Day some muscle. End of month would be most thrilling if you can manage that. Much appreciated, Michael o' mine. ** Stan_cz, Well, if you say your tastes have remained unchanged since consciousness, I'll have to take your word for that, obviously. Far be it for my memories to compete with your certainty. In any case, my good opinion of 'Last Tango' stands, so ... to each his own, I guess. ** Bollo, Hey. Oh, that's all too bad about the no show and building wrecking egotist. More time on your hands to make art or love or something, no? Oh, no, no, I'm the honored one. (We could do that forever.) I'm in love with your ghost drawings. All your stuff is just terrific, but those especially wow my internal particularities. Oh, and thanks for the tip on the Not Not Fun sale. That's very handy news. ** David Ehrenstein, Oh, gosh, I should have known those costumes were by Gauthier. Duh. Yeah, they kind of singlehandedly made whatever show there was. My favorite Bertoluccis are 'Luna', 'The Conformist', and '1900', I think. Yeah, I can't think of a more sexually complicated, conflicted, and fascinatingly so director. I think Hicklin's just falling into AL's trap. What AL is causing to be revealed is most interesting. ** Bernard Welt, You want to know plodding? John Berger's novels make his criticism seem like Joe Brainard poems. ** Misanthrope, Yeah, I'll be in New York for the five or six days and no more. I might go to LA or maybe visit some East Coast friends for a few days while I'm there too. That's sorting itself out. Aw, thanks, man, about the blog and all that. Hope your mom gets through the dentist thing dandily. Lucky her with the drugs. Hey, I wonder if you could get high too if you gave her mouth to mouth afterwards? Only one way to find out. ** Uli, Yeah, I like Sun Araw too. In fact, I think I'll revisit him today, thanks to you. I really liked Pocahaunted, but they also split recently. ** Oscar B, Cool, you posted that video! I'll have to wait until I'm de-exiled to watch it, but ... Everyone, the divine artist Oscar B just posted a video work from 2006 on her blog, and not only is it guaranteed sharp, but its title makes it so coincidentally timely re: today's blog feature, and I guess what I'm saying is, if you don't click this, you're probably tempting fate. See you in a while. ** SYpHA_69, Well, I can only assume Adam Lambert is well aware that he's in a position to cause a particular and new kind of stir that will reap publicity galore and that he's working it and all the angles quite deliberately, as anyone given that opportunity should, and I can't really see any downside other than the fact that he'll now have to equal or top that AMA thing in some creative way continually or he'll end up being the guy who caused that stir on the AMAs. I think all the resulting pro and con is totally fait accompli and precisely what he'd hoped would happen, and even people worrying about what harm he might have done to his career is fulfilling part of the narrative arc he had in mind. I'm trying to give him as much credit as I can. It all just seems very predictable to me if interesting in its lack of precedent nonetheless. ** JW Veldhoen, This is John Gardner, late and once very prominent and controversial proponent of 'moral fiction'. I would fucking love to have a Ingebord Bachman tribute by you. That would be fantastic! ** Wolf, Glad you dug the baker, pal. Crazy, right? And, oh, the honor was mine. Job: grrrrr. ** Pisycaca, Save your pennies then 'cos we're chomping at the bit for you, pal. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey, Ben. Oh, so you've ended up doing the chat piece on Trecartin after all. That's cool. Still, that idea of you doing a multiple voice piece was a good one, so maybe you can find another place for it? That DVD looks cool. Not knowing UK TV from that era, or from any era really, I guess, I wonder what effect it would have. ** Kier, Me too. My chompers are primed and craving. I hope your conversation with the friend helped her through the rough spot. I like 'Delicatessen'. 'City of Lost Children' too. 'Reality Bites' no, but it might have accrued a charming period feel to it by now. ** Steevee, I'm a big James Quandt fan, so that list was fascinating, and thanks much, Some surprises for me, and things I didn't know and will definitely now seek. Congrats on the 5 pounds. ** NB, Did I detect a new little twang in your comment today? Are you staying there through the whole turkey and cranberry sauce dinner table debacle? Kick some shit for me, man. Or at least kick up some dust. ** Heliotrope, Mark, my man. Such a little peep from you. I'm hoping the quiet means good quiet. You doing Thanksgiving with the bros and co.? I'm okay, writing, dealing with the usual blood relative stress fest, behind on a million things, but all right. Tell me more. ** Joseph, Your reading sounds so colorful. I wish it was youtube right now. You know Alec Niedenthal? See, I didn't know that. That's cool. Too bad you did hook up with Alec or see Blake. You should know him too. At least before you're both competing for the same National Book Award. Did I already tell you that I can see the future? Well, now you know. ** Iamcuriousblue, Hey, man. Yeah, they're edible. You can walk into that guy's bakery and buy them like you buy, well, bread. I couldn't find any reports on what they taste like. Yeah, I'm guessing the eucharistic symbolism is on purpose. It would have to be, wouldn't you think? And Christopherson would have to know about the guy too, wouldn't you think? You good? How are you? ** David, I do actually try to make the Monday posts have a little something extra whenever possible. ** Jake, Hey, Jake! Great to see you, man. Oh, it was a lovely, lovely thing, your piece, and I was honored to borrow it for the weekend. Congrats on putting high school behind you. That's big. What's next? You going to do the university thing? I'm doing reasonably well over here. The cannibal novel is going okay right now, I hope. I think I might have figured out something big or rather very helpful that'll make finishing it a bit easier, we'll see. And what's up with you creatively? I hope leaving high school behind will give you more time to write and everything else. ** Flit, Hey. Oh, okay, totally understood. Seriously, if I or this place can help on the smiling, etc. front, I'll do all I can, my friend. I see some raves about something new on your blog, so I'll be heading over there as soon as the cleaning crew is out of my hair. Lots of love to you, pal. ** Math, Yeah, the new drawings really, really look great! You haven't lost a step, and I think you're only more amazing than ever. Well, everything I read about the baker guy kept saying it was bread, so I guess that's the substance plus chocolate and sweet (?) goo/sauce and stuff. I sure would like to taste them. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Well, I for one look forward to your Thanksgiving report. Your family is just one big fog bank so far, and I'm curious to know from what you sprung. My brother isn't emotionally dead, I don't think. He just absolutely refuses to let emotion out, I guess. Fuck knows, really. Let's see ... my day. Oscar B, Kiddiepunk, and I thought we'd go wander around the Left Bank and have a literary history kind of day, but by the time I went down to meet up with them, it was pouring rain, so that plan got dashed. So we went and had a coffee at the Recollets cafe, and fellow resident Scott Treleaven happened to wander by on his way to the washing machine with his satchel of dirty clothes, so we made it a foursome and that was pleasantness. Then one of this blog's fine d.l.s, the writer Tim Jones-Yelvington called me to say he and his boyfriend were in Paris, so no sooner had I parted ways with my Recollets pals than that trusty duo showed up, and we had a very nice meeting and coffee drinking session in the very same cafe, even though the cafe was gradually taken over by a bunch of people giving and/or attending some kind of power point lecture on architecture, and we kept being shushed due to our coarse, loud American voices. Then they set off to eat dinner somewhere, and I headed into my little room here whereupon I wrote a wee bit, ate a wee bit, dealt with a wee bit of the family crap, talked with Yury a wee bit, and then slept a wee bit. That's the deal. Your turn. ** Put The Lotion In The Basket, Oh, I know, sigh, what a field trip that would be. No, I haven't read or heard a peep about the NWW show. I did an online search and everything. Strange. I bet whatever needs to be shaken up will rear its unpleasantly immobile head before you know it. I'm all idealistic like that, you know. Love and respect to you, Nick. ** Alec Niedenthal, My pleasure on your sad chronicling. That sounds weird, but it's weirdly true. Yeah, let the way it looks happen organically. I say just don't fight any experiments that leap out at you. I try to do that. Better to go the wrong way for a while than turn away too quickly from what seems wrong. Or something. I'm not so into the painful experience being fodder either, although it's weird how once the pain gets out the experience after a while, it can become really useable. On the ending, if I can pull off what I'm thinking, basically I'll be able to implement all the endings that didn't work on their own at the same time. That's why I'm kind of jazzed by the idea, but whether I can pull it off, I don't know. Thanks for everything, Alec. Good day, and see you tomorrow. ** I beat the cleaning crew again. I'm on a roll. Let Alan and Rimbaud wash over you today, and I'll see what happened as a result tomorrow.

Galerie Dennis Cooper presents ... Kittiwat Unarrom's Bakery

2009-11-23T00:55:00.000-08:00

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'Inside a dark room, realistic-looking "human body parts" are stacked on shelves and hanging on meat hooks. The place looks like a mortuary or the lair of a serial killer, but in fact, it's a bakery. What appears to be putrefying body parts are the bread sculptures of 28-year-old art student Kittiwat Unarrom. "Of course, people were shocked and thought that I was mad when they saw the works. But once they knew the idea behind it, they understood and became interested in the work itself, instead of thinking that I am crazy," said the fine arts masters degree student.

'He hopes his realistic artwork will make people ponder whether they are consuming food, or food is consuming them. "Everyone's life is rushed nowadays, even when it comes to eating," he said. "When we eat, we don't think about our health or safety, we only think of our taste buds." As an undergraduate art student, Kittiwat started painting portraits. He then moved to mixed media and finally dough - a natural medium for him since his family runs a bakery.

'Along with edible human heads crafted from dough, chocolate, raisins and cashews, Kittiwat makes human arms, and feet. He uses anatomy books and his vivid memories of visiting a forensics museum to create the human parts. By the end of the year, Kittiwat's confectionary slaughterhouse will go on display at Bangkok's Silpakorn University. It's his final dissertation, and he hopes it will secure him a master of arts degree.' -- Watcharaporn Taithongchai, First Coast News

Meet Kittiwat Unarrom

(2:15)
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2009-11-23T00:54:00.000-08:00

p.s. Hey. Thanks to everybody near and far for the blog's great weekend. I am and remain your hugely honored, flabbergasted host, and I'll be getting started on Volume Eight before too long. Otherwise, I'm sans much news this morning, so I'll just get started. ** GLOSSOLIA, Hey, Alex. Thanks for letting me rob your coffers. Portal ... I don't think I know them, or not much of them. I'll go find and unearth 'Swarth'. Tip is much appreciated, as is the yellow flag re: the new Gorgoroth. I'm kind of not surprised about that smoothed turn in the slightest. ** Stan_cz, Yeah, exactly, from Jack Smith to Strindberg: what a medium. Well, needless to say, I sure hope that I'll get to see a play of yours produced, and, oh, I bet I will. On Bertolucci, well, your tastes changed, obviously. Your tastes have been known to do that. I think 'Last Tango' is a terrific film. ** Empty Frame, Yeah, that was pretty cool how Zadie Smith mentioned 'My Loose Thread' in that Guardian essay, and it was an excellent essay in general. I was getting messages and emails all weekend altering me to that. That was super nice of her, and an honor, and I'm especially glad it was 'MLT' 'cos it's both maybe my favorite of my novels and generally the least read/talked about. Great about the Genet essay, thanks, man. Hope your weekend fulfilled its entertaining duties. ** David Ehrenstein, Happy Monday, David. The combo of M. Duberman and L. Kramer is kind of a funny in my mind. I definitely want to see what they had to say to each other. ** Alan, Thanks a lot, man. ** Bill, Sure, that Xenakis mixtape would be awesome if you don't mind. Hopefully you can hand it to me in Paris. I'm hoping and assuming the performance went really well last night? That Charline von Heyl piece is a knock out, as were a bunch of others I saw on the Petzel site. I've only known her work a bit from ads for her shows and some Artforum coverage, but I'll going to look more closely now. Thanks, Bill. That hallway did sound very Evenson-esque. Happy to get that hi from him, and happier still that you guys got to meet. ** Bacteriaburger, Thanks for giving the weekend's general brilliance some much needed oomph plus brilliance. ** Bernard Welt, I talked a tiny bit about the Magic Lantern show here the other day. A really exquisite show, one of the best shows I've seen of late, period. Like all shows at the Cinematheque, it's incredibly beautifully installed. It's a real shame you won't see it. I can tell you more about the show if you let me know what you want to know. SNL is known over here, but, apart from little clips, mostly the political Palin/Obama ones, it's not shown here. Whenever I ask people if they know SNL, they always say, Yes, that's where Bill Murray started. That's their main reference point. If they're feeling loquacious, they'll mention Eddie Murphy too. ** Mark, Hey, Mark. It was great to be able to house a bit of your work, obviously. ** David, Hey, gracias. ** JW Veldhoen, Yeah, obviously people still read Berger since the books are still out there, but I sure don't know anyone who does and almost no one who even ever has. I think of him as one of those guys like John Gardener, et. al. whose work died when they did. ** Killer Luka, Nice peacock/Thompson story. I need to read up on his life one of these days. Ha ha, you're such the balloon burster, Luka. Well, actually, I don't think everyone here has actually read my books or necessarily likes them if they did. I think there are people here just because they like the blog, which I think is awesome. So I come down on the side of there being some collective magic going on around here, but I am a big fan of human beings, so that has to be taken into account. ** Kiddiepunk, They finally opened the new playground this morning. Can you hear the squeals in 101? ** Paul Curran, It was all just like taking candy from a baby, my friend. ** Joseph, My pleasure. I hope you saw the props your poems so deservedly got from the folks. ** Steevee, That would be big fun to go to SXSW. Or so I've always imagined in my dreams of being there. Hope you get the yes. ** Math, This is kind of a duh, but living outside the US for a while is such a good thing for so many, many reasons. I can't recommend it rapturously enough, which is surely another big duh. Oh, gosh, your new drawings are so awesome! My favorites so far for some reason are 'You're the Reason I'm Leaving', 'Unfair', and 'Outside Fairness', but they're all knockouts, and what a fucking pleasure to see new work by you! Wow! Everyone, the ultra-great artist, human, d.l., etc. Math has some very long awaited new drawings up on her blog, and you really do need to go have a look at them asap aka now. Thank you, Math. That's some serious manna right there. ** Oscar B, No, thank you, awesome one. Yeah, let's brave the chill and go look at some Paris today. Call me, or I'll call you once this post/p.s. hits the cyberwaves. ** Kier, Yeah, what a mindboggling batch of works this weekend. It seems I'm always pinching myself around here. Melatonin is really subtle, and I think it works better once your body gets used to getting it nightly as a routine. For me, anyway. Oh, I really like that piece on your blog. I think sculpture looks like a really good medium for you. Everyone, new Kier three-dimensional artwork in photo form now available for your viewing pleasure. ** Put The Lotion In The Basket, Hi, Nick. Arm significantly better, I hope? It's always a really big honor to be able to have your work here, so cancel your thank you and replace it with mine. Yeah, it sure would be great if you could come to Avignon. See how it goes and if you can. The festival itself is pretty invigorating, giddy fun in general, and Avignon has the whole ancient French medieval thing going for it in general. ** Flit, Hey, Flit. How are you, pal? Give me/us an up to the minute-ish scoop. I've been missing you. ** Tender Prey, I too have a sense of a kind of commonality to the work made by the artists who linger here, but I can't figure out what that would be for the life of me. I suppose I wonder if whatever unconscious curatorial biases that I bring to choosing works when I put those days together has anything to do with it. I certainly don't consciously pick and choose things via my own tastes, but I guess I might be doing that without realizing? Don't know. ** Winter Rates, Happy to slap your beautiful poem into the ranks, man. Gosh, geek alert maybe, but I love the sound of that TNG party. Who were you? ** SYpHA_69, Glad you got through that meeting and out the other end with a gold star. I heard some bits of the Adam Lambert album, and I just don't think I'm going to get with it. I'm happy to attribute that to problems in my own taste. Oh, Annie isn't Annie Lenox, she's just Annie. Check Pitchfork, where the pundits are into her stuff. I think it's pretty good: pure pop but a lot smarter than the usual. You might like it. ** Chris, Very nice about the Cobra thing, and cool if you get more reinvolved, at least to my mind. I saw some Ish performance pix on Facebook. It looks to have been pretty cool. I hope the procedure with your mom goes as well as can be expected. Yeah, my mom had pancreatic cancer bad. She lived much longer and with more mobility and less pain than had been predicted. Stuff for us to share, absolutely. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Oh, yeah, I sometimes in the labor of cutting and pasting things for posts here don't concentrate as sharply as I might on the details, and so Hemon's name just flew by me. I don't know his work at all. But I'll definitely investigate him straight away. I'm so waiting to see the new Jarmusch, which hasn't opened here yet. I think maybe early next month. I won't miss it. Stephen, whose music in the film as I'm sure you know, said he'd alert me to any early screenings that happen. That and the Wes Anderson are the two films I'm most anxious to see. I haven't come up with any title that's better or more right for the novel than 'The Marbled Swarm', not yet at least, so for now that's still what it's going to be called. ** You-x, Dude, thank you for not calling the cops on me for robbing your work. As to your blog question: No, you're not, period, as far as I'm concerned, and as for why someone would say that? Anyone can say anything, and being that he's just some anyone, who knows? His problem, not yours. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Absolutely. Where would we be without our dreams? I'm so glad I'm over here where Thanksgiving is just a compound English word after reading about your dinner. Jesus Christ, how many movies called 'Nine' or '(something) Nine' can there be? That's three just in the last six months. Enough already. My weekend, okay. Saturday: I think I wrote while it was light or for most of the light. Bought some food, I'm sure, since the stores are closed on Sundays here. Uh, oh, family stuff. Let's see ... I mentioned somewhere here how I was positive my psycho brother wouldn't be changed in the slightest by my dad's difficult, heroic phone call asking him to stop being evil, and I was right. Psycho brother wrote me a crazy letter on Saturday, and I spent part of Saturday writing him back to say he's a hateful scumbag in a 1000 or so words. At some point, I got rescued by Oscar B, and we walked to the Centre Pompidou to look at the shows there. There was a very good, huge survey show of Surrealist photography and film called 'La Subversion des images' that basically made me think what a total blast it must have been to be a French Surrealist back then. Most of the work looks pretty naive now, which is okay, I guess. I came away thinking Dora Maar was a really good artist, and convinced the only reason she's not as famous as the dudes is due to the misogyny of taste arbiters and nothing else. Oh, the catalog for that show is really stunning if you/anyone else are interested in the Surrealists, so check it out if you're in that camp. There was also a big show of this French painter I'd never heard of before named Soulages who only uses black paint, and I thought his work is pretty intense and impressive. Anyway, then Oscar and I had a lovely coffee and chat at Cafe Beaubourg before walking back to the Recollets and bidding each other goodnight. After that, it's a blur and then sleep. Sunday wasn't very interesting. I wrote on my novel, and it went better than it has in about a week or so, which was good, and I did more family crappola -- i.e., we've tried to corner my psycho brother legally in such a way that he'll give up, but he has a five day deadline to decide, and he'll use every second of that, and chances are he'll spend those five days figuring out a loophole whereby he can fuck us over again. In the evening, Yury cut my hair, which is good 'cos it was getting ugly. Ate. Half-watched 'The Fifth Element' dubbed into French on TV, and it looks so 90s now, wow. I think that's enough. Bed, the end. And your Monday? ** Pisycaca, Hey, buddy. Yeah, it would be awesome if you could pop over to Paris and hang out with The Osc and Le Punk du Kiddie and me. I bet Kiddiepunk would let you crash on his blow up mattress. I bet he would. Just a little temptation there. ** Misanthrope, You sure do like that word mung. I wonder what that means about you. Ha ha, the sad fact is I'm completely extraneous to the theater pieces once they're finished, and I'm entirely dependent on the big budgets or kindness of their venues. I may not like it, but it's sadly logical. I might be forced to do a reading at the festival to warrant my being brought along, we'll see. Dude, it's money, you're right. ** Alec Niedenthal, Hey, Alec. I'm really glad and not really surprised at all that Blake's lecture was great. Guy's got the future of literature as we know it written all over him. Yeah, and he's a lovely dude as well, right? Cool. I'm doingokay, family shit aside. I've come up with my ninth or tenth idea of how I can do my novel's ending, and I haven't yet figured out that this one won't work either, ha ha. As for you, tight skin is an excellent start. You just have to embrace the ambiguity, I guess, right? It could be a gift. It's been known to be. ** Uli, Well, that's too bad about Black Sabbath Blue Fiji. Soundwise, sans the visuals, they're promising enough. Time will tell and all that, yeah. What a trippy time you had at the gallery. That curator sounds, well, err, complicated. Perhaps even quite an asshole, but, if you were entertained, we'll cut him some slack, shall we? Weirdness. ** Bollo, Hey, man. Glad you liked the show. It's been really windy over here too. I like it a lot, although the new nudeness of the trees is a bit ominous. Oh, fyi, I've got a little show of your work set to go up here on Tuesday, Dec. 1st. I hope that I'll have done you a bit of justice at least. Also, oh, I read somewhere that you're curating a show at Monster Truck starting next week, but I couldn't find any details. Is that still happening? ** I believe we're done for today. The reason I did today's post isn't going to surprise a single one of you, I'm sure, but see if my interests and yours have colluded a little or not. Bye.

Recent works by some of the artists who also hang around here sometimes, Volume Seven

2009-11-21T00:52:00.000-08:00

----

ToC

Kier Cooke Sandvik/ Kier

Steven Trull

Mark

Steven Erickson/ Steevee

Alex Rose/ GLOSSOLIA

October

Natty Soltesz/ Bacteriaburger

Kyle Brod

Joseph Goosey/ Joseph

Ovmujyo/ You-x

Bill Hsu / Bill

Mark Lancaster/ Christopher/Mark

Oliver

Jose Alvarado/ Jose

Alan

Bernard Welt

Thomas Moore/ Thomas Moronic

Tom Jones-Yelvington

Esther Planas

George Wines/ Misanthrope

Jake

Joseph S Nockles

Marc Hulson/ Tender Prey

Aspen Michael Taylor/ Kiddiepunk

Put The Lotion In The Basket

Emma Wolf/ Wolf

KYTE

Oscar B. De Alessi/ Oscar B

Jared Pappas Kelley/ Scunnard

JW Veldhoen

Alec Niedenthal

Yuck 'n Yum/ _Black_Acrylic

David

CL Martin/ Killer Luka

David Ehrenstein

Pacific Blush/ Panda?

Paul Curran

Nick Hudson/ The Dirty, Holy, Sleeping Gods

The Dreadful Flying Glove

Winter Rates

____________

3 drawings by Kier Cooke Sandvik

aka 'Kier'

Flesh World

____________

1 novel excerpt by Steven Trull

Death to Whitey
from Everyday Genius

There was this long silence where nobody said anything and we just sat there staring into space. The space was everywhere, like, all around us. So, the space made us feel, I don’t know, just kind of spacey, like we were there and there was, like, nothing but space. So, there we were, I guess, like doing nothing in the space that was all around us. And I wanted to do something that I like to do when there is nothing. And, so, like, I wanted to say something to Crystal. But, when there’s all this space, it’s sometimes hard to say something. So, I leaned, to over, into the Crystal. And I tried to nudge her with something, but I didn’t know what it is. So, I said to myself that was inside me I don’t know what to say. And Crystal, it was cool, cause she didn’t say anything. It was like I wasn’t even there. Like I was sort of nothing, I guess. And I went back and I thought about it for a long time. Then I stopped thinking about this for a moment. And then I noticed the moment got longer until I realized that we were just sitting there not doing anything. I didn’t know what to say. So, I just sat there with Crystal and I didn’t say anything for a long time. Crystal was all quiet. Like, I was somewhere else, like, not even there. Which is cool because there was all this space and I don’t know where I could go in it. So, I just sat there with Crystal. Things got weird. And then she looked over at that thing and she said: So, what do you want to do?

It was funny cause the space just kind of took it and made it go away, like, whatever she said just sort of disappeared into the space and this made me sometimes forget it, if, I have all spacing, out in the space. So, I said something like: What? And, I don’t know, there was this long time, like when nothing happened. Like, we were sitting there and she didn’t say anthing again, and I sat there, like, all wondering about stuff. And so, I thought about it, like, it took me forever, but I said something Um, I don’t know. Just kind of like, I don’t know, nothing. The space was back there, like it was all around us in the space of stuff. And if you looked around you’d see stuff, but it was just apartments and things like trees and other things and this made me feel like there is sometthing to do, like, with all these things you could like do something other than just stare but because there was also all this space in the air that was kind of weird too. So, I thought about it a long time, like, all just sitting there in the space place and I said: Um, so, like, what do you want to do?

(continued)

Book Report

____________

2 proof sheets by Mark

MPPHOTO2006/CONTACTSHEETS//20091030BONDAGE2/

MPPHOTO2006/CONTACTSHEETS/20091030BONDAGE1/

____________

1 essay by Steven Erickson

aka 'Steevee'

Animal Attraction
from Artforum

THE WORK OF FRENCH SCIENTIST-DIRECTOR Jean Painlevé defies pigeonholing, which may explain why he’s relatively obscure in the United States. Are his shorts documentaries, educational films, or avant-garde experiments? Most of the time they’re a blend. Criterion’s three-DVD set brings together twenty-three of his shorts—he made more than two hundred—along with The Sounds of Science (a cycle of eight films set to a 2001 score by Yo La Tengo) and a lengthy documentary on Painlevé.

Scott MacDonald’s otherwise comprehensive liner notes remain mum on Painlevé’s sexuality, but it’s worth noting his films’ insistence on denaturalizing conventional ideas of gender and sexual orientation. The Sea Horse (1934) shows a male seahorse giving birth, while other shorts depict hermaphroditic animals and asexual methods of reproduction; although subtly and gently expressed, there’s a queer sensibility at work. The view put forth in his movies is relatively jovial; even The Vampire (1945), made under German occupation and widely interpreted as an anti-Nazi allegory, takes a sardonic glee in the snacking of a vampire bat on a guinea pig.

Painlevé's tendency to make parallels between his animal subjects and human behavior may be out of fashion, but it’s hard to argue with the results. Sea Ballerinas (1956) and Acera, or the Witches’ Dance (1972) create dances from extreme close-ups of swimming animals; particularly in the latter, it’s hard to believe their movements aren’t choreographed. The director divided his work into “popular” and “research” films; the former used jazzy scores, while the latter were more austere and aimed at an audience of scientists. Nevertheless, Painlevé’s use of music often adds to his films’ drama without dumbing it down. From the 1920s through the early ’80s, the director made a wide range of work, including films as abstract as Liquid Crystals (1978). Science Is Fiction brings a substantial survey to American audiences.

____________

4 works by Alex Rose

aka 'GLOSSOLIA'

GLOSSOLIA

____________

1 poem by October

Thoughts On Sexualality and Sexual Acts

Looking out over the zoo of youth
This'll be me someday

No more war cries
No more wasted paper
For god sakes the trees have enough problems as it is
I'm sure you could argue with them if you wanted though
Are the children's minds but wood to you?

I didn't ask
Frankly I didn't care
I was still in the arms of your supposed god
Yahweh or something like that
And let me tell you
He is one motherfucking asshole
Is he really worth all that hate you perform for him?

But I'll be here someday
My paper's ink will read into knowledge
Unlike the ones that you use to destroy
And mind-fuck with
I'll be worth more than you
And you'll know it
So will the Kodamas

invert sketch

____________

1 porn film co-written by Natty Soltesz

aka 'Bacteriaburger'

The porn film I co-wrote with director Joe Gage, "Dad Takes a Fishing Trip," will be released soon (I think), and you can view the trailer here . I've seen the completed film and it's got some pretty great stuff. More info as it happens.

FUN in the End Times

_______________

4 entries by Kyle Brod

PLAIN I SEE YOU WESTERN YOUTHS

I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Walt Whitman

(Photo by Danny Lyon)

LE RAVISSEMENT DE LOL V. STEIN

--- Que vouliez-vous?
Lol se tait. Personne n'insiste. Puis elle me répond.
--- Les voir.

Le ravissement de Lol V. Stein, Marguerite Duras

THE BACK OF A SPERM WHALE

Melville saw a whale in the hills of Mount Greylock from his house in Pittsfield, MA.

FALL EQUINOX

Kyle Brod

____________

2 poems by Joseph Goosey

aka 'Joseph'

RYAN

You should be
his boyfriend, says
my girlfriend,
you could hang out
once a week
and even fuck but
if it got to be
three to five times
there'd be
a problem.

THE PHONE RINGS

The phone’s ringing, says mom,
it's your father.
I ask
when it isn't.

WATCH ME AS I JUMP UPON A DISASTROUS BANDWAGON

____________

1 track by Ovmujyo

aka 'You-x'

This was the, can you guess it?, last Ovmujyo track before the project went on indefinite hiatus. It was recorded in 2004. Initially it was going to appear on the third coil-list compilation and then the most unfortunate happened and eventually it appeared on a tribute compilation to Jhon Balance entitled "The Loneliest Link In A Very Strange Chain" (itself a line from a Coil track). It had long been one of my dreams to work with, or at the least share my work with, Balance, and I think this was probably the closest I'll ever come. Yoink,

The track is called "Transmarginal Abreaction, Dude". It's something I'm still happy with and I hope you will like it too. I tried to reference a little TG in it, as I'd always heard Jhon was their biggest fan.

You can listen below or, if you'd like, download it here .

The photo is of my childhood best friend Tim and I, though you might have to take my word for that on the latter. Tim features in the track, though the recordings of his voice are from a few years after this was taken.

Japanese Alice

____________

1 video by Bill Hsu

aka 'Bill'

Thorns Wallpaper from Bill Hsu on Vimeo.

Bill Hsu's Vimeo Channel

____________

1 photograph of Mark Lancaster

aka 'Christopher/Mark'

Mark Lancaster by Edward Lucie-Smith, Cambridge, 1970.

Shirt by Ossie Clark/Celia Birtwell

____________

1 entry by Oliver

Emotional Steroids

As movies and videogames continue to assimilate each other it’s becoming common to see the Hollywood concept of “movitation” embedded into player characters. In a way, of course, it has always been there. Mario (then called Jumpman) is after Donkey Kong because the ape kidnapped his lover, Princess Peach (then called Lady). That relationship and the motivation it contains was of course inspired by King Kong and Popeye, but it is simple enough not to be intrusive; it is there to set the scene. Compare that with Gears of War 2. This is a very simple game. Shoot badguys, chainsaw badguys, stamp on badguy’s face. The badguys are an alien race and the goodguys are enormous humans. So the motivation is obvious; save humanity. Fine. But then, perhaps because it is a sequal, an extra level of emotional motivation is deemed neccessary. Now the supporting NPC (or player 2 in co-op) needs to be looking for his wife. This Not Without My Anus motivation is a familiar one in Hollywood and it is just as mawkishly executed in Gears 2. Gears of War is a big-dumb-fun game, so why do the big-dumb heroes need to be on an emotional quest (“It’s my wife, man!”) to provide this asinine level of motivation to a flimsy, but functional, plot? The saving grace of these profoundly stupid and obnoxiously macho videogames is that they are simple and simply fun. Adding the melodrama just makes the player unable to suspend her intelligence, makes the player ask herself, incredulously, “Am I supposed to care?”. It all climaxes in a crass spectacle involving the discovery of the NPC’s half-dead wife and her euthenasia at the hands of her husband.

(continued)

voorface's preposterous

____________

1 artwork by Jose Alvarado

aka 'jose'

Jose Alvarado

____________

1 entry by Alan

My grandfather read two or three books a week.

He never graduated high school. He laid brick and cinder blocks for a living. Sometimes he pointed out houses and other buildings he had worked on. He used to tell me, "I worked hard, very hard."

He started reading seriously as a young boy. He knew a lot about history and geography.

When I knew him he read mainly fiction. He liked most kinds of popular novels but especially ones that were historically based. He also liked spy novels. I remember him reading John le Carré, James Clavell, Gore Vidal, Robert Graves, E.L. Doctorow, James Michener, Robert Ludlum, Philip Roth, Richard Russo, Leon Uris, Umberto Eco, and Norman Mailer.

He would go to the library once a week and come back with four or five books, because he knew there would be one or two he wouldn't like.

He didn't like writing with a lot of description. When he liked an author's style he said, "It flows."

A lot of the books he liked I couldn't read and vice versa, I guess, but a favorite of his that he let me have when I was in middle school has been very important to me: a one-volume edition of the novels of Dashiell Hammett.

the purest of treats

____________

1 blog post by Bernard Welt

From uncannily excellent Washington artist James Huckenpahler comes word of a 3-disc recording of seances, possessions and exorcisms, spooky haunting noises, speaking in tongues, EVPs, and "paranormal music." Just in time for your Christmas shopping. Find it here .

Checking out a recording of an exorcism (in German, by the way)
here .

Bernard Welt's Team Blogs

____________

1 animated gif found by Thomas Moore

aka 'Thomas Moronic'

Thomas Moronic

_____________

1 story by Tim Jones-Yelvington

Seducing Adam Lambert
from Storyglossia

Today, to prepare for my seduction of Adam Lambert, I got a haircut.

Longtime readers are aware of my profound ambivalence regarding hair care. In the past, questions posed by stylists—How long do you want it on top? Bangs or none? Sideburns or shaved?—have caused me anxiety. Furthermore, I've found it difficult to converse with my head motions constrained and eye contact mediated by a mirror.

However, I am happy to report with the success of my research I've developed increased social competence, and nowhere has this more been more evident than in my encounters with my hairstylist Tiffany, who has recently become a confidant. I could see Tiffany was puzzled by my frequent requests for radical alterations to my appearance, and so I felt compelled to offer an explanation.

"I have sex with gay celebrities," I told her. "And I blog about it. It's a research project."

I explained my goal to understand the social construction of celebrity and its relationship to shifting articulations of sexual identity, but it was clear she didn't follow this portion of our conversation. However, being a consumer of copious quantities of mass media, sex with celebrities was something she understood quite well. When I revealed my latest subject, she shrieked. Her shears fell, clattered against the floor.

"I love him!"

She pointed to a small photo of Adam Lambert she'd affixed to the lower left-hand corner of her mirror. He wore a silver jacket, collar popped. Legs spread, he fellated the mike.

She began grabbing clumps of my hair, pulling them across my forehead, holding up the back in crested peaks.

"Please let me hawk it," she said. "Or die it black."

"Sorry," I said. "I don't need to look like Adam Lambert. I need to look like I'm his type."

Ejaculations of a Perverse Adult

____________

1 art installation by Esther Planas

'I Love to See You Pissing for Me ...', White Cubicle, London, 2009

Esther Planas

____________

1 story by George Wines

aka 'Misanthrope'

Jerkin'

Mark unscrewed the shower head from the extension and snuck the end of the rubber tube an inch up his ass, the warm water pouring slowly into his intestines until he could no longer stand the pressure against his bladder. He flipped off the water, popped the tube out of his asshole and stepped out wet and cold onto the bathroom rug. Then sat on the toilet, his ass cheeks spread so far apart he thought he was going to rip in half, and forced, through an amazing act of willed peristalsis, the contents of his guts into the toilet.

Several wipes and two flushes and he tiptoed naked across the hall to his bedroom, locking the door behind him. He grabbed the Astroglide, squirted too much into his hand, then thoroughly lubed the 12 X 8-inch dildo suctioned onto his wooden chair, as well as his puckering hole. Turning around, he grabbed the slippery dildo behind him and backed up until it was snugly between his cheeks. With a deep breath, he impaled himself an inch at a time, only stopping because the chair wouldn't let him go any farther. He rocked back and forth, alternating this with wide circles of his hips, as he watched the pre-cum drip from his tiny cock in waves. He grabbed it and began to stroke, his head thrown back as his brain pulsed images to his tight, leathery chode

(more more more)

The Autobiography of Mark Dennison

______________

1 entry by Jake

At night I fill up the indentations left in your mattress.

I smell the beer fermenting under your finger nails

and dread the sun.

You fill this space up with clutter and watch me eat.

Speak softly, sparsely. The syllables are lost in disorder.

The frost embalmed us in Princes Park. You offered

me your jacket, but it was too small.

CLOSED.

______________

1 essay by Joseph S Nockles

Sister Ray: The Shop That Won't Stop

Independent Record shops are a dying breed and the few that are left fight a constant battle to survive. Joe Nockles takes us to Sister Ray to see what it is that keeps this iconic store afloat.

In 1968, The Velvet Underground closed their White Light/White Heat album with the 17 minute epic, Sister Ray. It was recorded live with each of the players agreeing beforehand that whatever the outcome, it would be done in one take. As a result, the album’s finale is a psychedelic mash of improvisation, instrumental conversation and chaos. The sound engineer reportedly left saying, “I don’t have to listen to this. I’ll put it in record and then I’m leaving. When you’re done, come get me.”

Undeterred by this, the avant-garde rockers went on to unleash a fresh version of this unstructured “heavy metal” saga as a finale for most gigs. These performances would often outrun the recorded version with one live album featuring a 38 minute rendition of the piece. These live performances are now the thing of legend and Sister Ray has become iconic to music fanatics the world over.

Equally iconic, is the music-lover’s Mecca that took its name from The Velvet Underground’s mammoth song. Sister Ray Records has occupied 34-35 Berwick Street in Soho for just over 25 years. In that time it has whittled its way into musical history in its own right by appearing on the cover of Oasis’ What’s the Story, Morning Glory?, the third best selling album of all time. They were also the first shop to stock the Arctic Monkey’s debut EP, Five Minutes With… which these days has a starting price on Ebay of £150.

(continued)

CONglamourART

_____________

1 painting by Marc Hulson

aka 'Tender Prey'

THERE. HERE.

____________

1 video by Aspen Michael Taylor

aka 'Kiddiepunk'

'Untitled' (6:24)

Aspen Michael Taylor / Notebook

_____________

1 story by Put The Lotion In The Basket

Riley's Tale

I stand away from the restaurant, over by the garage, watching her through the highly polished glass, the waiter brings the bill, she opens her purse and pays, there’s some conversation and both of them stand and walk outside, down a few steps that lead to the street. She opens her purse and takes out some cigarettes and offers him one too. He takes one and cups her hand as she offers him a light, the touch is too long. They smoke and chat, laugh, like we don’t, there’s no distance between them, just an intimacy, an intimacy I don’t remember we ever had. She grinds the cigarette out under her highly polished heels and walks back up the steps with the waiter, her arm through his. The door shuts and I see them disappear inside. I unlock my bmx from the post, put the chain inside my backpack and push the pedals hard, I need to feel something real, I head for Hawthrone Hill, I’m gonna storm that fucker when I get there. Past cars with men in, past cars with men and women in, chatting, arguing, sitting in silence, past cars where you can feel the loneliness oozing out the doors, past cars, past cars, past cars and then cars pass me, pass me, I feel them as they pass.

Then, top of the hill, steep, the road dips, white marks the middle, it disappears into a right hand bend on the horizon, trees, flats and houses, like a miniature village. I push the souls of my feet into the road and the bike rolls forward, I push the pedals hard, the wind hits my face and I can feel my heart pound through me tee, eating that white line in the middle, a car oncoming, I move right as if into it’s path, the driver leans on his horn, closer it gets, he try’s a manoeuvre but the roads too narrow, he horns it again, see someone cares, I swerve to avoid him and carry on down the hill, knowing someone cares.

Put The Lotion In The Basket

____________

2 drawings, 2 photographs by Emma Wolf

aka 'Wolf'

WOLF

____________

1 entry by KYTE

Bed

I laid in bed, for maybe two more hours after I woke up.

I imagined what it would be like if they were sleeping next to me.

Waking up with them.

What we would do.

What we would say.

Oh, I would love to just spend a day in bed with them.

Hell Is For Conversation

____________

6 drawings by Oscar B. De Alessi

aka 'Oscar B'

Fear

Trap

Bohemians

Oscar B. De Alessi

____________

1 essay by Jared Pappas-Kelley

aka 'Scunnard'

Giving Up the Ghost: Carey Young
from The Rumpus

“On the whole Young’s work deals with issues of corporate culture and the artist’s place in it, but the spaces they were cast in no longer seemed to exist culturally.”

It’s not often that you look at a line forming in history while it’s happening. Usually it’s from some vantage in the future—here’s how life used to be and now things are different. But over the past year I’ve had this feeling that things are changing and we all actively sense the stakes on some different level, drawing lines in sand every morning as we wake up, only to revise them again before tucking ourselves into bed. Art helps gauge our shared place in the world, but the environment of art changes, everyone proclaims that a bad economy is great for art, that it thins the herd and reinvigorates the impulse. But there’s panic in these affirmations—what happens to the art that we are moving away from—the art that comes from the time just before?

(continued)

En Tarde-Garde

____________

1 video by JW Veldhoen

Anima from jw veldhoen on Vimeo.

____________

1 story by Alec Niedenthal

Move Over

from Everyday Genius

In fifth grade my mom gave me her CD player. I didn't own many CDs, only a few I remember, but I couldn't take it off my head.

"Take those headphones off," my teachers would say.

"Yes ma'am," I said.

Once or twice I did my hands like I couldn't hear so I'd be able to finish the song.

Inevitably the headphones landed on the teacher's desk. We would talk after class. She would hold and shake my wrist and accuse me of being a limp fish.

"I just really like it," I said.

"You have music class for music," she said.

"Music class is for the birds," I said to my mom after work.

"Speaking of, could you feed Walter?" Walter is a bird. "Barry is coming over later. I'm going to make bruschetta. You know, the bread." Barry was my mom's friend who I shared my bed with once over winter break.

My bed isn't big enough for two people. Maybe two small ones. I almost fell off so Barry stretched his arm over my chest to save me, and kept it that way.

Though in sixth grade my father took my CD player.

the book to come

____________

1 zine called Yuck 'n Yum

aka '_Black_Acrylic'

Quarterly, downloadable, online viewable, black and white, outgoing. Based in Dundee but interested in the world beyond. WTLM creatives for discreet liasons, public meets, online flirting, networking, art projects, maybe more.

Yuck 'n Yum

____________

1 entry by David

30 Nights of Horror October 30
This is for Bernard Welt and David Ehrenstein.

The Seventh Victim is, after Cat People, my favorite Lewton movie. A young student ( Kim Hunter) is informed that her sister, perfumier Jacqueline, has quit paying Mary's tuition and cannot be located. Fearless and naive as all Lewton heroines, Mary sallies forth into the Village bohemia of the '40s iso her sister. She learns that Jacqueline has quit the perfume racket and left her business to the overbearing Mrs. Redy ( Isabel Jewell). She meets her brother-in-law Hugh Beaumont, an italian hostess named Bella and, of all people, Jacqueline's psychiatrist ( Tom Conway). Obviously, in the timeline of Lewtonia, Conway has not yet met Elena the cat person.
A queer logo catches Mary's eye. We learn that it is the symbol of the Paladys, a cabal of "non-violent" satanists. "Non-violent", my eye. They have already murdered private eye Irving August and dispatch a knife wielding killer after Jacqueline when, at last, she turns up. All the fuss is over jacqueline's blabbing the secrets of the Paladys. I don't know why she'd want to belong to a club that can only afford a one armed pianist.
Mary is confronted in the shower by Mrs. Redy, a scene that presages the Marion Crane murder.
Jacqueline had taken a small room containing a chair and a rope slung over the rafters with a noose at one end. Mary meets her tubercular neighbor, who's determined to go out and trip the light fantastic and damn her health. I will not reveal the ending of this film. It's the grimmest ending in the Lewton canon.

worth a look

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2 drawings in progress by CL Martin

aka 'Killer Luka'

habitat

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1 essay by David Ehrenstein

The Morty Manford that Obama Missed

from The Los Angeles Times

The gay-rights fighter wouldn't have settled for the president's platitudes on equality.

Sometimes the present makes an unexpected flip into the past. This past weekend, President Obama's speech to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's most financially well-off gay-rights group, was chock-full of all-too-familiar unkept promises. But just as I was beginning to doze off from the familiar drone of "intentions" to repeal "don't ask, don't tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act (an endorsement of same-sex marriage itself being still a bridge too far), one thing bolted me wide awake. He mentioned a dear departed friend of mine, Morty Manford.

"Soon after the protests at Stonewall 40 years ago," the president began, "the phone rang in the home of a soft-spoken elementary school teacher named Jeanne Manford. It was 1 in the morning, and it was the police. Now, her son, Morty, had been at the Stonewall the night of the raids. Ever since, he had felt within him a new sense of purpose. So when the officer told Jeanne that her son had been arrested, which was happening often to gay protesters, she was not entirely caught off-guard. And then the officer added one more thing, 'And you know, he's homosexual.' Well, that police officer sure was surprised when Jeanne responded, 'Yes, I know. Why are you bothering him?' "

(continued)

David E's Fablog

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1 song by Pacific Blush

aka 'Panda?'

Illuminated house is one of the last songs off the forthcoming album 'Fashion Chrysalis', which should be out by late november, early december. The track is kinda halloween-y, so i thought I'd make it into a little single to post for today. The other track is a song recorded just for the single.. You can download it here for the time being. Hope you enjoy it, and Happy early Halloween!

Japanese Alice

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1 story by Paul Curran

Section

A prostitute on a beach sucked the ocean from my cock. I saw her grinning toothless as she rode past the market on a rusted bicycle. I huddled in the corner of a shower cubicle and scrubbed the blood from my jeans. A majority of what I say about myself is false. I met my wife and son at the airport. This statement is not true. They weren't really my wife and son. They were impostors. Almost perfect replicas. Only the smells had not been cloned correctly. I always lie. I killed them and quit my job. I faked my own death by abandoning my scars and sentiments on the beach. I grew a beard and hitched a boat ride to Indonesia. The next sentence is false. I killed backpackers and sold their passports. The previous sentence is true. Their identities were more valuable than their lives. I guessed passwords, replied to emails, and updated online statuses. Their bodies were abstractions. This statement is true and this statement is false. I arranged some like untouched porn stars, fucked some with blunt objects, and smeared blood in random patterns on hotel walls. The authorities interpreted the signs as a desperate language that I had constructed to conceal an absence of meaning. Everything I say about myself is true. They concluded I was impotent.

Paul Curran

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2 music pieces by & videos of Nick Hudson

aka 'The Dirty, Holy, Sleeping Gods'

'Nocturne' live at St. Mary's Church, Brighton, September 14th 2009 (4:39)

'Cale' (5:54)

Altar Clef

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1 entry by The Dreadful Flying Glove

hello, who are you?

I found something blue and spongy in my ear when I woke up this morning. I could hear it in my dreams. I think it is going to be friends with me.

This is what it said: I have been watching you for a long time. Would you like to go somewhere else? There's a place. You'll need some paranoia to get there. Paranoia is available from all leading retailers and supermarkets in a variety of ergonomically-designed biodegradable containers. It is useful as a propellant, a pesticide, and an unmistakably piquant seasoning for red meats. Try it on steaks. I could get you some paranoia delivered tomorrow by courier. Will you be able to stay at home? The couriers we use won't ship to commercial addresses. It's a 90-day evaluation trial. There's a form and everything. It's from Korea.

fairly secret diary

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1 poem by Winter Rates

Empire Building

Her client, the imperialist, woke jealous
Of his neighbor’s wind chimes. He found
Her business card used as a bookmark in
“A History of Land Mines.” He lived next

To a Latino family who sold warm Budwieser
To crack heads and college kids after hours.
She urged her client to research the climate
And name his moods like the weather bureau

Names tropical storms. She said imperialism
Grows where crops fail and then works its
Way to the equator. He said he was pleased
because quinine was such an excellent flavor

Agent. She’s taken to wearing a pith helmet
To their bi-weekly sessions. Yesterday it was
Their bird bath, he said. She smiled and rubbed
A lime on the edge of their highball glasses.

itchy dreams

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2009-11-21T00:50:00.000-08:00

p.s. Hey. So, I hope you'll spend some of the weekend exploring and glorying in the incredible talent of some of people whom I'm so unspeakably proud to have as members of this blog's community and to call my friends. Obviously, this post covers but a big handful of the many distinguished locals' great output, and I'll hope to gather works by the people who aren't included in this particular grouping for the next installment. Thanks so much to everyone whose work I've borrowed for ... well, thanks for just being you, as they say, and equal thanks to everyone else for your presence, your attention, and for any remarks or feedback you care to leave here. ** Alan, There is something nouveau roman-ish about its detail orientation and flow, although there's a lushness that ends up making it seem to belong elsewhere maybe. Kis is quite the wordsmith, definitely worth a read. I really appreciate your thoughts and support on the stuff with my brother. It just seems to get ever more labyrinthine, maze-like in the way you mentioned you don't like. To wit, and very briefly, and sadly unsurprisingly, the only effect of my dad's intervention so far has been my brother launching a high and mighty witch hunt to try to find out exactly who 'leaked' which emails or what information to my father. What my father said to him has been totally brushed off, and he's just fixated on his latest conspiracy theory wherein my sister is an evil genius who has everyone in the family except him hypnotized and duped. Anyway, blah blah, thank you a lot, Alan. ** Dandysweets, I actually did hear someone call Copenhagen the Paris of the north once. I can't remember what his or her reasoning was. I really want to see/visit it for the first time one of these days. Do you ever get to Paris? It's strange because geographically France and Denmark aren't that distant, and yet, traveling-wise, the distance seems so daunting. To me, anyway. Strange. I'll go try Mew with your caution on the vocals in mind. Yeah, Math is still here. She's just a bit more occasional in her commenting right now because she's in heavy 9 to 5 work mode of late. Math, did you see Dandysweet's query? If not, here it is: 'By the way, is Math Tinder still around? If so, hope all's well Math. Still in New York? Actually, I was wondering if you still live in Brooklyn, if you've ever been to the Vox Pop cafe in Flatbush?' Hopefully, she'll see that and chime in. No, that guy you linked to is not a problem on my eyesight whatsoever, trust me. He clearly should have been the lead. Thanks for the kind words about my brother. I'd be curious to hear how the Monsters of Folk show is, if you don't mind sharing. That album didn't do anything for me, but with the talent involved, I'm guessing the live show has to be pretty good at the very least. ** Stan_cz, Hey. Yeah, theater is such an interesting form. There's so much room to move, ways to create plays or what have you, so many possible experiences available to a theater goer. That one could approach it in a forefronted way as you are doing, and I could tackle it in such a different, piecemeal way, and these approaches, so technically different, are equally valid and able to achieve interesting work. That's not even to mention artists to really push the medium of theater and the traditional setting of 'a theater' into areas where there are almost no traditions or conventions of the play remaining, and yet it's still theater in a general sense. It's a much more vast medium than novels or movies or any other medium I can think of apart from visual art and perhaps music. Great stuff. I hope you'll get to see one of our pieces too. Maybe we'll get one to LA one of these days. ** David Ehrenstein, I think Renata Adler still writes essays or something. I hear her name occasionally, but I haven't personally come across her pieces. Banned, you? Well, what a bunch of wusses, obviously, but with a name like 'After Elton', I mean, ugh. Someone should start a site called 'After Jobriath'. I might even post on that one. Anyway, fuck 'em, David, yeah. ** David, No prob on the Joni allergy. I'm actually still hoping Michael Karo will make his long offered Joni Mitchell Day, hint hint. I'm open to a conversion if skeptical. I'm not sure about the size of the new 'HHU'. It can't really be reduced, or not by very much at all, given the tiny details and texts that are a big part of it. ** Bollo, Hey. Oh, cool, I'll put something together for the blog in the next couple of weeks then. Thanks a lot! It'll be an honor. Well, you should come visit Paris. Flights are kind of cheap relatively speaking. The art scene here is quite healthy, although it's kind of hard to get an overall grip on it, which might be a good thing. The museum shows here tend to be pretty consistently killer. I can definitely say that. ** JW Veldhoen, You're welcome. 'Feathered' hadn't occurred to me on that particular occasion, ha ha. John Berger, yuck. Do people still read him? Nothing much there at all as far as I'm concerned. ** Uli, Mm, true about leaving the old behind in favor of the new, but if following the old work around had had a free trip to Berlin attached, and if the timing wasn't doomed, I think I could have made a big exception, ha ha. Oh, Black Sabbath Blue Fiji! That should be really good. I like them. They're French? Interesting. They're on that really good Not Not Fun label, or they were at some point, I think. Enjoy. ** Put The Lotion In The Basket, Happy to drain your meagre student loan, man. No, actually, I apologize. I just can't help myself. It's weird. See a doc about that arm if you need to, okay? You're going to need that magic arm. For the new piece, well, there'll be the premiere at the Avignon Festival, and those dates aren't set in stone yet, but they'll be roughly in the ballpark of July 7 to July 17. Otherwise, the dates aren't set yet, but so far it'll be performed in Japan (Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto), South Korea, Bergen in Norway, Stockholm, Paris, Brest, Rotterdam (I think), Vienna (I think), a place or two in Switzerland, and a few other places, and hopefully a lot more to come. You should come to Avignon for the premiere, man. I'll you put on the list, guaranteed. ** Bill, 'Bohor' is incredible, right? I can imagine how formative it must have been. I'll look for your recommended works. I think I can find them here. Well, if you feel like you want to say hey to Brian Evenson, tell him you're a pal of mine, if you want. He and I have never met, but we've written back and forth, and we're big mutual fans. I do alcohol very rarely, but I do. Sometimes the wacky mood strikes. Make mine a screwdriver. I'm really behind on John Greyson's work. I've missed the last several, but I definitely like what he's up to. Any solidity or progress or whatever on the Recollets? Have a great performance on Sunday, my friend. ** Amputaciones, Hey, pal! Oh, thanks for the review. I'll go feed it into a translation machine when I get done here, gulp. According to my severely weathered Spanish, it doesn't look negative or too negative at least. You good, man? So nice to see you! ** JoeM, As I said to Alan up above, my brother is typically in denial about my father's gesture and is fixated on his having been 'ratted out' or whatever. Completely predictable, and totally unbelievable. I didn't know that PSB/Cicero thing. I'll pursue that. I think what Cale is playing on those songs is a viola, but I'm not positive. No, that guy in the pic you linked to looks just fine to me. Not as fine as the guy Dandysweets linked to. It's that Pattinson guy who I don't get all swoony shit about. ** Winter Rates, Thanks a lot, man. Got it, and I'll grab that today well before it expires. Loved your second to last show, man. It was a very nice relaxer yesterday. Going for the most recent one today, I think. ** Misanthrope, Oh, you're coming to the NYC 'Jerk' shows, right? Try to come at the beginning of the run, like for one of the first three or four performances if you can, because I just found yesterday that I'm only going to be there for the first five days due to the usual if understandable cheapness on the part of the festival that's bringing the shebang over, grr. ** Kier, Oh, awesome on getting your work off to the shippers. When are you going to be there? Oh, gosh, you don't need to thank me for my cursives. They're spontaneous eruptions, and the forces that cause them are beyond my control. I definitely want that reality show, especially with stick figures. Wow, a great idea: a stick figure reality show. I'd be all over that as long as they/you weren't singing and there were talent judges. Singing's okay, but no judges. I take melatonin every night. It works for me. It's one of those things that seem to help some and not others. Try it. ** Oscar B, Buddy! Glad you liked the Kis thing. He's cool. Sure was fun yesterday. Let's have even more today if that's humanly possible. ** Pisycaca, Hey, Montse! That's so incredibly cool about the Atlas Sound gig and his shout outs to the great you. Guy has excellent taste, not a doubt about it. No, fuck, I missed seeing them yet again. Confusion. The site I saw had them playing at a particular venue on a particular day, but it was wrong, and they actually played at this place Point Ephemere which is literally a ten minute walk from my place on a completely different night. I seem to be doomed when it comes to shaking Bradford's hand and shaking in his music's wake. It's still warm there? No, it's just the right kind of chilly in Paris at the moment. I wish you were here. ** Joseph, Ah, grr, on the no on the job, man. But that substitute job sounds pretty potentially interesting, I must say. Fodder for writing even maybe? Has that crossed your mind? I'm okay, worn pretty much out by the family hell shit, but not so bad otherwise, really. You? ** The Dirty, Holy, Sleeping Gods, Well, I'm glad you've finally found your inner Faust. I've just been waiting for you to come to your senses, ha ha. Seriously crossed fingers on that article for The Wire. Wow, that'd be very cool. That's one of the only two or three print magazines I can't live without these days. Let me know what happens. Excellent about the new video, and, coincidentally, I've got a link up there all set and ready to send the folks around here over there without any cursiveness required. ** Dan, Hey! I'll get back to you today. Thanks a lot. ** Steevee, Weird about the Blogger trouble, although if Blogger had two names instead of one, Trouble would be its middle name, that's for sure. Hope that clears up, obviously. ** Ken Baumann, Thanks re: my evil bro. Yeah, I'm sort of kind of at peace with the tortoise pace too, which is not to say I'm not heavily employing my spurs just in case. NYC sounds like it'll be total fun. Blake Wood ... I wonder if your Blake Wood is the same BW who's a friend of mine and very occasional d.l. here at ye olde blog. Photographer among other things? Long hair? If so, high five him for me. ** Chilly Jay Chill, No, I haven't read 'Hourglass'. That's long been the next in line for me. I don't think I know Alexander Hemon, unless I'm spacing. Who is that? You make the Wadada Leo Smith album sound delicious. I'll check that out. I'm hoping to get my ears around the Vijay tracks today, and I'll definitely let you know. Thanks a lot, man. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Nice to see Bendy back in action. How curious. Your non-day was short but sweet. I tingled but not sparkled, don't worry. My day: I never say I showered, but I always do. My clothes may not be clean, but I am. So I did that and ate some bites of things. My new constant companions Oscar B, Kiddiepunk, and I took the metro to the Palais de Tokyo , which is the big contemporary art museum/space in Paris. Generally, the thing with the PdT is I love going there, and, space- and looks-wise, it's one of my very favorite contexts in which to see art, and I love that it's open until like 3 am every night and that you can skateboard in the museum and that it's often full of cool, artsy, hanging out young Parisians, but their shows tend to be trendy and kind of meh. But the show there right now, 'Chasing Napoleon', which is themed around the Unabomber, is maybe the best show I've ever seen there, if for no other reason than because it has twenty really great paintings by the amazing, kind of looney Paul Laffoley, and I just put together a post on him for here, so I'll save my blah blah on him until then. Anyway, the show was quite good, and we all had fun, I think, and then we had coffees in the museum's outdoor cafe which overlooks the Seine and the Eiffel Tower and stuff. Then we headed back to the Recollets. I worked a little, and soon enough the family craziness started up, and, again, between it and stressing out about it, everything was eaten until I went to bed. But at least I got a good afternoon in there. Now you've got a whole weekend to tell me about, and please do. ** Killer Luka, Well, you're most welcome, Luka. My pleasure. I like the look of the shirt design, and it intrigued me. I liked the colors even in the low res jpeg. So, like, why peacocks? Is that his real typewriter? Etc. So, that curiosity part is good, I think. I like it. Will it have text too, or not? So, yeah, I'm into it. Do the powers that be dig it too, I imagine? ** I'm off and away. You guys have plenty to be entertained and instructed and etc. by around here this weekend thanks to the blog's circling and circulating gods. Enjoy, and I will obviously see you back here on Monday.

Spotlight on ... Danilo Kis 'Garden, Ashes' (1975)

2009-11-20T00:56:00.000-08:00

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'Kis’s ability to infuse detail with the material, cosmic, literary, cultural, self-referential, historic, structural and philosophical, and to do it with self-effacing ease, makes him one of the greatest twentieth-century writers. His books are not page-turners, whose pages one keeps turning in search of something to read, but page-gazers—one keeps going back to the same page, compelled to go deeper and find more below the surface of words. This is a sign of poetry at its purest—the ability to condense the world and concentrate experience, whereby the language is not a mirror, but a magnifying glass, or indeed a prism. No wonder that Joseph Brodsky considered Garden, Ashes "the best book produced on the Continent in the post-war period." The scarcity of Kis’s work—four novels, a few essays—is in a strange way a testimony to his talent, even if his life was cut short by cancer. If writers were paid per unit of meaningfulness rather than per word or per page, he would have been one of the richest.' -- Aleksander Hemon, Context

"In Kis's case . . . it is the consistent quality of the local prose that counts. It is how, sentence by sentence, the song is built, and immeasurable meanings meant. It is the rich regalia of his rhetoric that leads us to acknowledge his authority. On his page, trappings are not trappings, but sovereignty itself."—William H. Gass, New York Review of Books

"Garden, Ashes will influence the most current trends in the art of the literary avant-garde—so much so that it may even shape the course of the novel."—Le Figaro

The books of Danilo Kis @ Bookfinder

A conversation with Danilo Kis (1984)

Danilo Kis Homepage (in Serbian)

Borges: Influences and References

A remembrance of Danlio Kis @ The Rumpus

'To Die for One's Country is Glorious', by Danilo Kis

The grave of Danilo Kis

____________

'Danilo Kis opens his novel Garden, Ashes with a tray, as though offering his enormous talent on it. The narrator’s mother carries the tray, with a jar of honey and a bottle of cod-liver oil, along with "the amber hues of sunny days, thick concentrates full of intoxicating aromas." Kis goes beyond the content, as it were, and gives us a nearly microscopic description of the form of the tray, with "a raised rim" along its edges and flaky patches of nickel that look like "tin foil pressed out under fingernails." There are "tiny decorative protuberances—a whole chain of little metallic grapes" on the outer edge of the rim, which can be felt "like Braille letters, under the flesh of the thumb." And around those grapes "ringlike layers of grease had collected, barely visible, like shadows cast by little cupolas."

'Opening a novel with a beaten-up tray loaded with details is the exact opposite of the God-like point of view of the "great-novel" openings: say, a Dickensian description of the city; or Tolstoy’s great generalizations about happy and unhappy families; or Bellow’s immediate invasion of Herzog’s mind. Many a novel opens with a peal of self-importance, which Kis systematically ignores, always opting for the barely visible.' -- Dalkey Archive

Excerpt

Late in the morning on summer days, my mother would come into the room softly, carrying that tray of hers. The tray was beginning to lose its thin nickelized glaze. Along the edges where its level surface bent upward slightly to form a raised rim, traces of its former splendor were still present in flaky patches of nickel that looked like tin foil pressed out under the fingernails. The narrow, flat rim ended in an oval trough that bent downward and was banged in and misshapen. Tiny decorative protuberances – a whole chain of little metallic grapes – had been impressed on the upper edge of the rim. Anyone holding the tray (usually my mother) was bound to feel at least three or four of these semicylindrical protuberances, like Braille letters, under the flesh of the thumb. Right there, around those grapes, ringlike layers of grease had collected, barely visible, like shadows cast by little cupolas. These small rings, the color of dirt under fingernails were the remnants of coffee grounds, cod-liver oil, honey sherbet. Thin crescents on the smooth, shiny surface of the tray showed where glasses had just been removed. Without opening my eyes, I knew from the crystal tinkling of teaspoons against glasses that my mother had set down the tray for a moment and was moving toward the window, the picture of determination, to push the dark curtain aside. Then the room would come aglow in the dazzling light of the morning, and I would shut my eyes tightly as the spectrum alternated from yellow to blue to red. On her tray, with her jar of honey and her bottle of cod-liver oil, my mother carried to us the amber hues of sunny days, thick concentrates full of intoxicating aromas. The little jars and glasses were just samples, specimens of the new lands at which the foolish barge of our days would be putting ashore on those summer mornings. Fresh water glistened in the glass, and we would drink it down expertly, in tiny sips, clucking like experienced tasters. We would sometimes express dissatisfaction by grimacing and coughing: the water was tasteless, greasy like rainwater, and full of autumnal sediment, while the honey had lost its color and turned thick and turbid, showing the first signs of crystallization. On rainy days, cloudy and gloomy, our fingerprints would stay on the teaspoon handle. Then, sad and disappointed, hating to get up, we would back under the covers to sleep through a day that had started out badly.

The branches of the wild chestnut trees on our street reached out to touch each other. Vault overgrown with ivylike leafage thrust in between these tall arcades. On ordinary windless days, this whole architectural structure would stand motionless, solid in its daring. From time to time the sun would hurtle its futile rays through the dense leafage. Once they had penetrated the slanting, intertwined branches, these rays would quiver for a while before melting and dripping onto the Turkish cobblestones like liquid silver. We pass underneath these solemn arches, grave and deserted, and hurry down the arteries of the city. Silence is everywhere, the dignified solemnity of a holiday morning. The postmen and salesclerks are still asleep behind the closed, dusty shutters. As we move along past the low one-story houses, we glance at each other and smile, filled with respect: the wheezings of the last sleepers are audible through the dark swaying curtains and accordion shutters. The great ships of sleep are sailing the dark Styx. At times it seems as though the engines will run down, that we are on the verge of a catastrophic failure. One engine starts to rattle, to lose its cadence, to falter, as if the ship has run aground on some underwater reef. But the damage has apparently been repaired, or possibly there had never been any damage at all. We are sailing downstream, at thirty knots. Alongside the panting sleepers stand large metal alarm clocks, propped up on their hind legs like roosters, pecking away at the fine seeds of the minutes, and then – charged to the point on an explosion, stuffed, enraged – they strain their legs against the marble surface of the night table just before beginning to crow triumphantly, to crow in swaying, bloody crests.

(Read more)
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2009-11-20T00:55:00.000-08:00

p.s. Hey. Paris is underneath a cold, bright sun today. I mean that as a plus. Anything else? Oh, this is basically just a big whoop for me, but it's official that Keith Mayerson's and my long o.o.p. graphic novel 'Horror Hospital Unplugged', originally out from ReSearch/Juno Books back in 1996, is going to be republished next year by Harper Perennial, and I'm ultra-happy about that. Anything else? No, I think that's a wrap. ** Misanthrope, Wow, I'm not used to you being at the top. What did you find out about the financial aid stuff? I had a quick image of your grandma as the grandma in The Beverly Hillbillies. Yeah, man, go back to sleep. Do it for the sake of literature. ** Stan_cz, Hey. Well, the thing is, I'm not even sure the works I'm doing with Gisele could be called plays, definitely not in any traditional way. Other than in the wordy 'Jerk', which was based on a pre-existing work, the text is mostly created during the process of rehearsing, and it is intended to have no more value to the pieces than the music, lighting, movement, etc. In my head, I guess my theater artist models would be Robert Wilson, Heiner Muller, Brecht, Richard Foreman, The Wooster Group, but I don't think our works resemble theirs much, although I guess Wilson is the closest. Whatever the form we're working in is -- play or performance art or whatever -- I do love it a lot. But the thing I love most about it is how the texts and everything else in the pieces are so interdependent, and that the writing happens in a completely different, less egocentric way than with fiction, which comes about in total in solitude, obviously. I think maybe the kind of playwriting you're talking about is more like writing fiction, i.e. creating a play that then largely dictates the specifics of its performance? Strindberg's great, I agree, btw. ** Empty Frame, Oh, yeah, please do send the Genet piece. I'd love to give the blog over to it. The stuff with my brother is insane, and it never ends, and it just gets worse and worse. Yeah, it's either going to end up costing my siblings and me a shitload of money or a gigantic shitload of money. Those are two the possibilities. That LSD quip was a quip, but there was a lot of truth in it. If you've done high quality acid, you probably know what I mean. ** JoeM, When Kraftwerk plays live, or at the least the two times I saw them, there's a segment where they're replaced by lifelike robots who then 'play' the music for a while. It's a beautiful thing. At the time I was asked to interview Sonny Bono, he was a senator or congressman -- I forget -- who was on a committee that was negotiating between the movie industry and congress about movie content and the industry's moral responsibility and all that, but, in any case, he was a crappy interview. All superficial talking points. I think I got two useable lines from it. No, I just can't stoop to my brother's level and rat him out. It just isn't in me. I'll mention this because you talked about it a while back, but things are so terrible at the moment that my father, who is not in good shape at all and finds talking difficult now, actually called my brother yesterday to say that he is extremely upset by my brother's actions and the harm it's causing to the family and telling him to stop. I don't think it will do any good because my brother is truly a sick person, but the fact that my father gathered his wits and strength to make that effort is very telling and dramatic. It should be the ultimate wake up call to my brother, but I don't think it's going to make any difference. If I could, I'd pop over with some popcorn and do that 3D festival with you. I love that shit. ** Bill, Hey. I've been listening to a bunch of Xenakis' tape pieces -- 'Bohor', 'Polytope', Persepolis' -- and some of the chamber and vocal pieces, and I'm not clear on the titles 'cos Stephen burned that stuff for me. Incredible work, wow. You a fan? You're going to hit that 'Babyleg' event? I'm envious. Is Evenson going to be there and read? I'd guess so. ** David, Hey. You probably know or have gathered by now that I just can't take Joni Mitchell. I know it's only my problem, but I just can't relate to her stuff at all. The voice, the lyrics, the sentiment, etc., just drive me up the wall. I'm sure there's something really telling re: me about that. ** Tosh, Wow, I didn't know about that Louis Armstrong book. That sounds just incredible. I'm going to start looking for it in Paris today. Armstrong is, of course, revered here. Nobody respects jazz like the French. ** Nicki, Okey dokey. ** Alan, Strangely, I'd known nothing about the Lynne Stewart case until you guys mentioned it. Obviously, it's just shocking and appalling that she's being sacrificed via this insane, vindictive, paranoid official crap. I read that there was supposed to be the possibility of a stay granted yesterday, but I didn't see if the stay was granted or not. Thank you for clueing me in on her situation. It's hard to know what to say except that it's infuriating even at the very beginning of coming to know about it, and obviously I admire your being active in her defense tremendously. ** Christopher/ Mark, You knew Renata Adler? Well, I'm not surprised, I guess. I've always wondered why she stopped writing fiction so quickly. I had really liked 'Speedboat' and 'Pitch Dark' in their day back when she and they were sort of the hot literary thing. But I haven't kept up with her very well, and I imagine the reason is well known. Anyway, blah blah. That Vidal line is just insanely clever, wow. Thanks, Mark. ** Dandysweets, Your mysteriousness is beautiful. You're a cozy enigma, ha ha. No, I mean, I like that people feel they can just come in here when it feels right to them, and that, whatever their pace, they're always distinguished locals. I do know the Raveonettes, of course, although, gulp, I didn't know they were Danish, silly me. I don't know Mew except by name. Should I download something? ** Bollo, Hi, Bollo, welcome to this place, and thanks for the kind words. Let me fire some back at you because I had a quick look at your drawings over on your myspace page, and I like them a lot! I'm going to investigate your gallery over there more thoroughly, but, in the meantime, kudos from me. Any chance you might show your work in Paris sometime? Would you be okay with me featuring some of your work on the blog sometime? The Ala-Maunus album cover pieces look very interesting. I didn't know that work before. Thanks for the tip and view. Anyway, it's very nice to have you here, and please do post again and more if you feel like it. That'd be a pleasure. ** JW Veldhoen, Yeah, thanks a lot, John, for the further info and links re: Lynne Stewart. What's being inflicted on her is very disturbing, obviously. And how are you today, my fine friend? ** _Black_Acrylic, The book shouldn't be out of print, or not the new 200 page one. It literally just came out. Hold on. Well, you can buy it via the big French store Fnac, and here's the link if that'd help. I think maybe Amazon just hasn't put the new volume in its memory banks yet. I like your new idea on how to do the Trecartin piece, yeah. Sounds very promising and, obviously, it formally interacts with his work's use of voice very intriguingly. ** Steevee, Oh, cool, yeah, Fuck Buttons are really nice, aren't they? Terry Gilliam should be an interesting interview. He seems kind of a freewheeling guy. Is his film not opening in the States until then? It's gotten shrugs at best over here. I don't really think I'm going to make the theater going effort. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Wow, great timing on the Threadgill thing. I'll go read the interview and listen to the Iyer tracks too. That's awesome. The Threadgill albums I have so far, and I'm still a beginner, are the most recent two Zooid/Pi albums, 'Live at Koncepts' and 'When was That?" All great. For some reason, the newer music is hooking me the most straight off, but that might be because the way the new work was discussed in The Wire article really intrigued me. Nice stuff you're listening to, obviously. What can you tell me about Wadada Leo Smith? I don't know that work. ** Uli, Sure, possibly hurtful honesty is really difficult. Really hard for me too. Ugh. Yes, I got your email, and, wow, thank you, man. Really, that's just enormously nice of you. I'll write to you. Long story short, it turns out there are other factors that will keep me from that Berlin trip -- we have a intensive technical work session on the new theater piece at basically the same time, ugh. Anyway, thank you, Uli. I'll write to you. But, yeah, thank you. ** David Ehrenstein, Sounds like it went just splendidly with or without a baking hot sky. Hard to imagine Palm Springs when standing outside isn't equivalent to being cooked. Anyway, welcome home and back, sir. ** Tigersare, Hey! Nice nice nice to see you. I'm super glad the post was up your alley as well as mine. I don't know the Linda P album. I will, though. It's scribbled down. Whoa, you might release the new Pollard/Davies album? Uh, mind if I reach through the computer and shake your shoulders and, Dude, you gotta do it? If it makes sense financially or whatever of course. Cool. How's your music going? You writing songs? Have you got a new album in some stage of development in the pipe? ** Creative Massacre, Hey, awesome! That's great news! I hope the last exam isn't any harder or more of a hassle. I'm sure you'll do just fine, pal, but I'll be waiting for the official word. Hang in there, and enjoy the first victory! ** Amccartney, Howdy, Alistair. Hm, favorite song on 'Warehouse Songs and Stories' ... Going on memory or on my fave as of my last spin of that baby, hm it's hard. How about 'Friend, You've Got to Fall'. That song started unwheeling in my mind first. 'It's Not Peculiar' is great, yeah. I love that album. I've always thought it was one of Husker Du's very best. Yeah, I know, that slight of Brad Renfro by the Oscars was painful and shocking and really sad, even though, obviously, fuck the Oscars. Great about finishing the chapter! Can't wait, duh. I know what you mean about that forcing thing. I keep reminding myself about that when the going gets trickly. Lovely to see you, my pal! ** Chris, Oh, man, I'm sorry about your mom. My mom had pancreatic cancer, as you may know. Yeah, it's complicated, but my heart goes out to you no matter what. ** Kier, Mm, I'll have to ask some friends about the English language art school thing, which is no problem at all. I don't really know the situation myself. I'll let you know when I've gotten any scoop. ** SYpHA_69, I think you should definitely call your GI doctor right away. Don't hesitate, okay? Ugh, man. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, I think the 200 pg. book is out. They're having launch events here for it right now anyway. I think the closest I ever get to that mass, shared bliss thing is at music shows. It happens there sometimes. I think I like that part as much as the shows. That's an odd thing, the story of you being there with your friend getting shitfaced. It's kind of sweet from a distance, or at least sweet of you, like, as you said, most things are, I guess. I saw the preview for that new Twilight movie before '2012'. My God, it looks like just about worst movie ever. I didn't see the first movie, but, Jesus, what a bunch of pretentious, shitty looking malarky, and I think that actor guy, whatever his name is, just looks weird and really unattractive. My Thursday: First part was okay-ish. I wrote. It went not so well. I think I'm in a phase where my imagination is doing the work, and my fingers need to be patient. Oscar and Kiddiepunk and I were going to go see something, but I needed to work, so maybe they went somewhere to see something yesterday without me, but today we are going to see something, I think. Blah blah. Not much to tell. Beginning in the afternoon, family hell descended and took up everything until bedtime. We might have to go to court after all since my brother basically lied and fucked us instead of doing what he said he'd done. Ugly. I need to make a bunch of phone calls and emails and stuff today in an attempt to try to maneuver my brother into a corner again and avoid the court thing. Blah blah. Really, you don't want to know any more than that. Bad day report from me, sorry. Today might hold something that I can link to at least. We'll see. Now gimme. ** Rigby, Oh, absolutely, lunch, yes. And it's even on me. ** Winter Rates, Yes, you are correct in assuming I'm a Harry Pussy fan. I was just planning to pull them out of storage 'cos in the new issue of The Wire what's-his-butt who runs the No Fun Festival was talking about them in a way that made the idea of them filing the air seem imperative. Yeah, man, hook me up with that album if it's no sweat. Coolness and gracias. ** Oscar B, Cool your friend and you had fun. He lives near Saint Honore? Yikes, rich kid, that one. The dream Paris location. One of them anyway. Yeah, I'm going to call you when I finish this and see if you want to go see something soon. ** Gong. If you don't know the work of Danilo Kis, it's pretty gorgeous stuff, and the novel up there is my favorite one of his, and I thought I'd ease it into your view today. As virtually always, I'll see you guys tomorrow.

Galerie Dennis Cooper presents ... 36 pages from 'Discographisme Récréatif'

2009-11-19T00:59:00.000-08:00

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'Discographisme recreatif, edited by Patrice Caillet (Editions Bricolage/ En marge , 2009) is both a documentary and collectional work begun in 1996. It’s composed of different iconographic montages made from French record sleeves and CD jackets. The distinctive feature: these covers, be they 45s, 33s, or CDs, found at flea markets in cities and towns across France, have all been redone or modified by anonymous individuals using the original covers as a guideline and as a source of inspiration. The first book issued in 2004 compiled around 100 examples of found altered or homemade record sleeves. The second one, published in October 2009, contains around 200 sleeves.' -- Editions Bricolage

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2009-11-19T00:54:00.000-08:00

p.s. Hey. Let's see ... Oh, for those of you in or fairly immediately around NYC, I want to alert you to the fact that the fantastic visual and musical artist Bill Hsu (aka this blog's d.l. Bill) will be performing a short sound/visual work on this coming Sunday at 7:30 pm at MIX 22: New York Queer Experimental Film Festival, and I highly recommend you try to make it. The festival looks to be quite strong in general. Anyway, here's the main website for MIX 22 where you can find across the board information, and, to cut to the chase, the venue is MIX Factory, 125 W. 21st Street (between 6th & 7th Ave). Nothing much else I can think of today that belongs perched up here atop the p.s. ** David, Hey. There should be a fair amount of stuff in the book you haven't seen. It's fairly huge, by my usual standards, and a bunch of the pieces have never shown up online, I don't think. I'm trying to think back, and I can't recall ever being in a situation where I was told not to ask certain question or address certain topics in advance of an interview. More common was that the magazine on whose behalf the interview had been undertaken would tell me to ask particular questions, usually gossip-related stuff that didn't personally interest me. With Brad Renfro, there were no rules, but there was censorship afterwards, mostly having to do with a drug bust he'd just had right before I interviewed him. I asked him about it, and he gave a totally normal answer -- that it had been a big mistake, that he was fighting hard to stay away from drugs -- but his handlers threatened that if I printed that exchange, they would refuse to let the interview be published, so I said fine, I won't, because the exchange wasn't very interesting anyway. The only instance of pre-set limits I can think of is when I interviewed Sonny Bono for an article I wrote for George, JFK Jr.'s magazine, about political pressure on Hollywood, and I was told not to ask him about Cher, so I didn't, but it would have been kind of odd if I had brought her up considering the topic anyway. But, otherwise, I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I entered an interview with pre-set restrictions on what I could ask or not ask. ** Edward, Yeah, I know. As someone else here noted, when they did the 'dead this year' scroll at the Academy Awards in the year BR died, he wasn't even included. I have seen 'Bully', yeah. Thanks for the suggestion and for posting, man. ** Puella Aeterna, Hey there! Nice to see you. Yeah, it's been a while. I'm glad you're still there and here. If it's no trouble, I would love to get those Elizabeth Young scans, of course, and thank you a lot again. Yes, I know Robert Duncan's poetry, and I was really fortunate to meet and talk with him a few times. And, sure, I know and very much like Jeremy Reed's work. I think he might have written to me once years ago. A Day on him is an excellent idea. You offering, or should I give it a shot? Anyway, it's very nice to see you. ** Afk4life, Hi. Oh, I owe you an email, and I apologize for my sluggish correspondence skills, and I'll write to you soon. I'm real glad you liked the interview, and thanks a lot for coming by. ** Jonny Ross, Hey, welcome, and thanks a lot for chiming in. I started reading that piece on your blog this morning, and I'll definitely go back and finish it. Fine work, sir. A pleasure. ** Stan_cz, Well, yeah, all great artists' works are complex by default, as are all great critics' essays naturally. It's nice when the twain meet. Everyone's a critic, as they say, and the 'critics' who reduce Artaud to madness or Bukowski to alcoholism or Varese to noise at this point in time are just self-stylers chewing their simplistic cud in public. When I think of 'critics', I don't think of those losers. But, ha ha, I guess there's the difference in looking for the positive rather than the negative that we just were talking about. ** Nicki, Apparently my eyes didn't register something because I really don't have a clue what you're talking about, although if VK is involved, I'm in, whatever it was. ** Alan, It actually is interesting how the combination of viewing eyes and film can fuck with scale such that an actor's actual height is averaged out in one's imagination to some personal, I guess, unconscious standard of 'normal' height. Well, in an interview like the one with Brad Renfro, you end up doing pretty heavy edits to get the result down to the size the magazine needs, and I'm sure the exchange at the end, which was hardly an important part of the conversation, did happen to match up with my imagination's idea of a nice back and forth. ** DavidEhrenstein, Oh, I do remember running into you before the BR interview! That's funny. Well, I hope the Palm Springs audience was suitable respectful. Do tell. ** Tonyoneill, Thanks, man, about the interview. Yeah, he was a very straightforward, no bullshit guy. So much so that the minute I got home from the interview, his handlers were on the phone to me telling me what I could and could not print from the conversation even though nothing he said would in any way have made him look bad. I think you'd quite like Derek Raymond. I've only read two books of his so far. I'd say, yeah, probably start with 'Dora Suarez' since that seems to be the 'best' according to most people. My post covers another novel, an early, more experimental one. Have a great time tonight, man, and I'll hope for some youtube coverage. ** Paul Curran, Thanks a lot, Paul. ** Put The Lotion In The Basket, Your arm? Shit. Skateboarding thing? I hope it's not harsh. I hope you're well past the pain. Love, me. ** Bill, I hope some folks from the constellation around here make it to your performance. I so wish I could. Renfro made a lot of bad movies. I'm not personally a huge fan of 'Bully', but many are, and it might be the best place to start, yeah. I think the best film he was in is 'Ghost World', but his part in it is pretty minor. The Lepage sounds really good. I wonder if it'll get over here. Seems possible. He's known, respected here. I hope so. ** Tosh, I want to read more Raymond too. Pretty terrific stuff from the two books I've read, and what a wild life that guy had. ** Bacteriaburger, Thanks, man. ** Jose, You can use those police sketches in any way you want, of course. I use stuff from other places all the time, and people can use stuff from here too however they like. Curious to see what you do with them. I think Stephen King is a clever guy with a good imagination for entertaining twists and fantasies and eeriness and stuff. I can't take his prose except in little doses, though. But I can be kind of a prose/style nazi, and there are very bright people with excellent taste who think he's not only really good but important. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Glad you liked the Johan work. That slighting comparison with Bill Henson is absurd though, of course. No, I haven't seen the Denis doc on Rivette. God, what a great idea to watch that, though. I'll see if I can find it with English subtitles over here. I was just yesterday eyeing a documentary on Serge Daney that I didn't know existed and which I would really love to watch. Listening: Gisele and Stephen recently went to a couple of live performances here of some Xenakis pieces, and their enthusiasm got me into listening to him a bit. And after reading that feature on him The Wire an issue back, I've been listening to some Henry Threadgill, especially his newer stuff, which I'm pretty excited by. Are you into him? Otherwise, the new Atlas Sound, Fuck Buttons, old Superchunk ('On the Mouth', especially), and ... this and that. What about you? ** SYpHA_69, No, I haven't seen 'The Informers' yet. I'm pretty wary of it, but I suppose I'll catch up at some point. Yeah, Yury helped me do a day here on Gareth Pugh. He's pretty interesting, I must say. ** Kiddiepunk, Maestro. No, that wasn't in 'All Ears'. I would say that in the new book, about 70% the pieces weren't in 'AE'. I think all but two of the 'AE' pieces are in the new book, though. See you later? ** Killer Luka, No, I haven't gotten anything from Cornell yet. Should I have received something from them by now? I'm on the look-out. ** Mark Gluth, I swear you'll love Real Food Daily. Don't get me started. Heavy yum-ville. Oh, cool, about Portland. At Powells, I'm guessing? ** Christopher/Mark, Thanks, Mark. What a great story about the Warhol 'Wanted' piece. Really great! I'll keep an eye out for 'An Education' and whatever its French title will be. You good? I sure hope so. ** Wolf, Ha ha, humanity seems divine when you spend your life either sitting at a laptop or wandering around the most beautiful city in the world. Privileged position, I guess. But, I don't know, I've just always thought humans were so fucking fascinating and moving to know and think about since I was a little kid. I don't know why. Nothing's ever happened to me in my life that's made do more than just dislike the occasional individual. Strange. ** Creative Massacre, I so hope you get a big fucking smile from your exam results today. I bet you will. Chefs don't lie, do they, ha ha? You should celebrate the end of the stressy very end of the semester somehow. Eat the shittiest food you can possibly find or something, ha ha. Seriously though, I don't even know how many days of exams you have left before you finally get your freedom, but I'll be counting them and thinking the most positive thoughts I've got in this weird head of mine. Let me know how all it all ends up, okay? ** Tomkendall, Yeah, that was sweet, right? Poor guy. He had a really good heart, that guy. He really did. ** Steevee, This was the interview where I was prodded ... well, more like threatened after the fact. It was a weird one. I got the feeling that the reason BR was so nervous during the interview wasn't because of my questions, which he was completely cool with, but rather with the hovering and monitoring of the publicity staff. He was being treated like a child, and he may have been 16, but he was also pretty tough, resourceful kid. ** Ken Baumann, Oh, no! First Blake and now you? What's a Von Trier disliker to do? Well, hm, okay, at some point I'll give 'Antichrist' a shot, but it really is best to wait for the right time because it's going to be hard for me to enter that film clean. His stuff puts me enough of a bad mood that I'll need to make sure I have some Ecstacy and a glass of water handy, ha ha. Anyway, the important thing is that the film juiced you up creatively in your work. On that basis alone, I'll doff my hat to it. 11,000 words, nice. I saw that Blake's up to 50,000 on his. Damn, that guy's fast for a great writer. You and I can try to count on the wisdom behind that old tortoise and the hare story, ha ha. Awesome you're getting a break from the show. Hopefully, a decently long one. You going to NYC for kicks, basically? Will you do any readings or anything while you're there? I forget if you like doing public readings of your work or not? And I'll be getting that new NY Tyrant in any case, but great news that you'll be upgrading it. Take care, pal. ** JW Veldhoen, I don't know about the Lynne Stewart thing. I'll search out the story. I do really like chocolate cake, it's true. Yellow cake with chocolate icing in particular. Dark bitter chocolate icing especially. Heated with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Make that two scoops. I don't know why I'm such a positive person. I can think of every reason and yet no reason. Push comes to shove, I credit LSD. ** Chris, I heard one track from the newfangled 'Destiny Street', and that's it so far. I wasn't sure. I love Richard, and I trust him, so I'll dive in. Oh right, Ribot's the new guy on it, right? I really like Fuck Buttons. It's just a lot of fun, all in all, but the dissonance counterbalance is smart, I think. Best wishes to your mom, ugh, I'm sorry to hear that. Love to you, big C. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, So far so good on the 'Horror Hospital' reprint. A few things that I hope will get ironed out. I don't know if Harper Perennial does graphic novels generally. The thing is, the people there really are the coolest, and really adventurous. You'd never know HP is part of a huge corporation. It's almost surreal. I'm lucky, lucky, lucky. Oops about Bendy. But guys who do a lot of drugs can shapeshift. That Dallas interchange looks pretty. It looks like LA, actually. The other pic of Dallas looks like LA too. Weird. Believe it or not, apparently some straight guys think Marilyn Monroe is really hot. If you'd bought a Barbra Steisand lighter, you'd be dead gay meat. My day: It started out pretty well. Some writing. Oscar B, Kiddiepunk, and I went to La Cinémathèque française to see this , and it was really exquisite and installed like a fever dream just like all the shows there tend to be. Plus, we found out there are some really cool film series happening there these days, the most fun and likely to bring us back there pronto being Le Cinema in 3D , a big retrospective of 3D films past and present including a super rare showing of Paul Morrissey's 'Flesh for Frankenstein' in 3D, which can not be missed. So that was all very cool. But then I got home, and the psycho brother fueled war was erupting horribly, and so I literally spent the entire rest of the day and most of the night either on the phone or exchanging intense emails with siblings, lawyers, etc., and it was very exhausting, and there's no sign of abatement, so ... fuck. The only other kind of charming thing was that last night were some qualifying matches for the Eurocup, and first Algeria beat Egypt, and, there being a lot of French-Algerians here, the streets filled with revelers yelling happily and honking their horns and stuff, and then a couple of hours later, the French team beat the Irish team to qualify, and the ranks of the earlier revelers swelled gigantically, and the air was jam-packed with the sounds of extremely happy, drunk Parisians going bonkers, and it was sweet in and of itself, and it also made made me kind of sad that I couldn't think of anything that would make uncontrollably happy enough to rush into the streets going crazy with thousands of other equally wildly happy people, and that made the whole thing even more beautiful. So that was yesterday. Hit me up with your Thursday. ** Kier, Don't fall through your floor, or, you know, land on your feet if you do. Oh, yeah, back in the 'Tenderness of the Wolves' days, my work couldn't move an inch this way or that without accruing the words Salo and Burroughs. I don't miss that. ** Rigby, Puke? Annihilate humans? You're just trying to wind me up, you English person. I know how you English people get your jollies. Well, it won't work. Here's a flower for your gun barrel. ** Misanthrope, I didn't see nothing, man. I swear to God. I don't think there was anything there. I think you and Nicki are just trying to freak me out. I think I've mentioned this before, but Brad Renfro was the most obviously troubled person I've ever interviewed. Or at least the person least capable of hiding how troubled he was. The interview was very intense in that sense. ** Uli, Seems like the right decision. I'm glad you able to be very clear with him, and you sound more resolved now, more able to give him the benefit of his social problems, and, yeah, if you guys have been friends for that long, it's important to be super honest with him, and it might even sink in and help him, you never know. My brother is impossible. Beyond the pale. It's shocking, and once I don't have to deal with him hopefully ever again, it's going to feel pretty tragic. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Hey, pal! I'm very glad to see you. You okay? I've been hoping your away time wasn't due to bad things on your end. Wow, that's an incredible passage you posted there. I've never read him. I will, I definitely will. Great words! Thank you a lot. So, what's new with you, man? ** Oscar B, Me too, re: the lingering lanterns and their magic. Yeah, let's go somewhere today. Call me or I'll call you, and let's plan out the fun. ** Okay, so ... oh, the post: I found those altered record cover images, and they pleased me, and I remembered doing things like that, and I found the premise of gathering record covers by anonymous French folks into a book/show very charming, and I guess I hoped you'd think so too in some way or another, obviously. That's it. See you tomorrow.

My interview with Brad Renfro * (October 1998)

2009-11-18T00:59:00.000-08:00

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Brad Renfro in the fall of 1998

* This originally appeared in Time Out (New York), and it will reappear in Smothered in Hugs: Essays, Interviews, Feedback, Obituaries (Harper Perennial, July 2010)

Brad Renfro is best known as a kind of teenager Marlon Brando, beloved of the Hanson crowd. Like River Phoenix before him, Renfro glares from the pages of magazines like 16 and Bop, seeming every inch the high-school outsider forced to attend the prom. The thousand of boys and girls who clog online newsgroups with Renfro-related posts love him exactly for this contentiousness. Well, and for his looks, which are as cute in freeze-frame as his on-screen behavior is moody and implosive.
----The more Renfro the actor ignores the needs of this fan base—choosing roles in R-rated fare like Sleepers and in indie-circuit films like Telling Lies in America—the more his young admirers long to mother, date and save him. Unlike Leonardo DiCaprio, who also straddles the worlds of puppy love and serious acting, Renfro has yet to toss his more innocent fans a Titanic-size bone. You get the sense that he doesn’t have it in him. His favorite word is real, and you can feel that in his work.
----Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Renfro was discovered while performing in a local public-service announcement. Beginning with his first film, Joel Schumacher’s The Client—made when he was just 11—and continuing with his new film, Bryan Singer’s Apt Pupil, in which he costars with Ian McKellen, Renfro has turned in consistently fierce, willful, deep and increasingly nuanced performances that make it easy to forget that he only turned 16 this past July.
----But in person, he’s unequivocally 16—a not-especially-hip, not-quite-square, polite, jokey, intensely emotional young guy forced to give an interview in his agent’s L.A. office and visibly weirded out by the prospect. Having been intrigued enough by Renfro’s looks and style to name-check him in my recent novel Guide, it’s interesting to discover that while he’s as disorientingly well put together as I’d imagined, my urge to gawk is outweighed by caution in the face of his awkwardness. It doesn’t help that Renfro’s handlers seem worried that he might say something a little too real. At several points, we’re interrupted by office workers: One woman takes Renfro into the hall, and later, a wary-looking man plants himself in the room, his ears so perked, they’re practically vibrating.

Dennis Cooper: Your agent said you’re not feeling well.

Brad Renfro: It’s just stress. Being in L.A. does this to me.

DC: You live in Knoxville, which looks very nonstressful in pictures.

BR: Yeah, it’s cool, but it’s getting violent these days.

DC: What’s up?

BR: Well, this guy got shot last week outside a club, and he died. A friend of mine works at this café right by there. Luckily, she wasn’t there at the time, but the café’s windows got shot out. So it’s not too scary to live there yet, but for such a small town, that seems pretty hard-core.

DC: So where would you move, if you moved?

BR: Not here, that’s for sure. You can be young and stupid anywhere, but staying in Knoxville keeps me away from the business itself, the whole grind—everybody going out to eat and such. It keeps me real. ’Cause out here, there isn’t much reality. There really isn’t. That’s why Tennessee Williams stayed in the South.

DC: So you don’t have any Leonardo DiCaprio envy?

BR: No, no. He’s a great actor, and now he can’t do anything. It used to be I’d see him all over the damn place, and he wouldn’t get too bothered. But now, phew. Man.

DC: Talk about demystifying fame.

BR: No shit. I don’t know if the money would be worth it, either. Because he does make bank. He makes a lot of money. Hell, I haven’t even made a million dollars. But is $20 million worth no life? I don’t think so.

DC: You and he are both top dogs in the Tiger Beat scene. Does that have any value for you?

BR: No. I’m quite flattered, but I don’t know what to think of it. I don’t strive to be a teen idol, you know? But the teen-idol thing is probably why I’m able to pick and choose the movies I want, because I have those fans. Who says those teens don’t have the right idea? You’re always going to have those who look at you because you have interesting looks or whatever.

DC: It’s not like your films cater to that audience. For the most part, they’re fairly heavy. I guess Tom and Huck is kind of the oddball in your oeuvre, as it were.

BR: Yeah, well, I don’t regret making that movie, because my little sister loves it. It’s just that I thought I was making an American classic, and it was very Disney family. If you really watch, you can see that I’m not in the same damn movie as the other actors. I’m all hard-core and shit, and it seems like I’m bigger than the rest of them. There’s an edge there that doesn’t really fit, but to me, that was Huck. Who’s to say it was tobacco in his pipe, you know?

DC: Disney didn’t want a hard-core Huck?

BR: Not at all. It was constant friction. I just did it and got through it, because it was my job. But, you know, I maybe showered six times the whole damn shoot. That’s where I got this bad reputation, you know. How I’m, like, whatever…

DC: Trouble.

BR: Yeah, trouble.

DC: But you’re not?

BR: No, I’m not. I’m real. Real only seems like trouble if you’re not real yourself. Honest to God.

DC: You seem drawn to characters who have moral dilemmas.

BR: As in, like…?

DC: I think I’ve seen all your films, and from The Client through The Cure, Telling Lies in America and now Apt Pupil, you seem to play the wide-eyed kid with a secret dark side.

BR: Well, that’s me, but that’s also mankind. Someone asked me about Apt Pupil—you know, “Brad, are you saying people are evil?” And I go, “All people have evil natures.” And they go, “What about babies?” And I go, “What about when babies turn two and start fighting in the crib over a toy?”

DC: Babies are purely selfish beings.

BR: Exactly. They are purely selfish. I love children, but….It’s human nature to constantly be in a fight with your own being.

DC: So Apt Pupil must have played into your interests.

BR: Definitely, definitely. I was really excited to get that part. It was the only really cool film at the time. Well, there was that and American History X, as far as what was available to someone my age. And Bryan Singer’s great. Ian McKellen’s a genius to me.

DC: Your styles are so different, though. His acting is so capital-B British, really organized, and—

BR: I’m so off the wall? Yeah, I learned so much from Ian McKellen, but it wasn’t like I could learn the craft of acting. I’m sure you’ve heard of doing something and not knowing how you do it? That’s pretty much where I come from. What interested me about him was how he handled people. He makes everyone feel so comfortable. I tried to learn that from him, because that’s something I need to learn.

DC: How do you approach acting?

BR: Just saying the words and believing them. I literally believe what’s going on is really happening.

DC: Is it like fantasizing?

BR: Pretty much. I’m a person who doesn’t show a ton of emotion until it’s time. I ball too many things up—to the point where I cry for no reason. And I have to sit down and go, “What the hell is this for? Oh yeah, right.”

DC: So I guess I have to ask you about the whole Apt Pupil shower-scene controversy.

BR: I was there.

DC: A number of the extras, who are basically your age, said they were ogled by gay crew members during the shooting of that scene and consider it a form of molestation.

BR: I was there. I didn’t notice anything.

DC: So you don’t support the boys who brought the lawsuit against the film?

BR: No. As far as I know, it got thrown out of court anyway.

DC: Are you into politics?

BR: No. I don’t care.

DC: So you have nothing to say about the whole Clinton-Lewinsky thing?

BR: Oh, I can say a little something about that. I think the only place where Clinton went wrong was in being married. I just think he’s a man of the times. Fuck it. If I put myself in his shoes, I would have lied like a motherfucker too. And there’s the whole “If she only swallowed, none of this would have happened” jokes. But I shouldn’t get into that, I guess.

DC: Are you religious?

BR: I’m a firm believer in God. I wouldn’t be where I’m at if it wasn’t for God.

DC: You never question that?

BR: Okay, here’s a great Bible verse. Jesus is sitting and eating with politicians and sinners, you know, one of them asks one of his disciples, “Why does Jesus sit there and eat with sinners and such?” And Jesus turns and says, “He who is not sick has no need for the physician, and vice versa.” I think when we’re all at our rock bottom, there’s nothing else but God. But I think all Christians have questioned Him at one time or another.

DC: Did you ever investigate Buddhism?

BR: I think any religion’s okay, except Satanism. I can’t think of anything in Satanism that could benefit you.

DC: But there’s something flashy about Satanism, don’t you think?

BR: I think it’s more powerful in the short term. That’s the trick that the Devil plays on you. It’s like, cocaine’s great the first couple of times, you know? I think that’s just the Devil. That’s how he works. I’m as firm a believer in the Devil as I am in God. I’m just not a supporter.

DC: So do your musical tastes run to Stryper and that sort of thing?

BR: Fuck, no. I’m into blues and jazz. Wes Montgomery, Buddy Guy, Electric blues and old-school, too. You got your Blind Boy Fuller, Robert Johnson, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. And I still like punk, of course. Anyone who ever liked punk will never not like punk. It’s very easy to like. Being punk rock means not caring what people think of you. At one point, I did have green hair when I was 13 or so, but I thought it was more punk rock to be just kind of normal than to go and pierce my dick or nose.

DC: Are you into old-school punk or new-school punk?

BR: I can’t stand new-school punk. It’s so poppy, like Offspring or Green Day or whatever. I’m more into the D.C. bands—Fugazi, the Teen Idols, shit like that. And the L.A. late-’70s scene stuff—Descendents, Black Flag, Germs.

DC: At one point, you wanted to make a film about the life of Darby Crash of the Germs, didn’t you?

BR: Yeah. It’s funny. I didn’t get to do that. Some other guy’s doing it, I guess. It would have been cool to play a totally reckless punk. I think I could do that pretty well, but fuck it. Right now, I’m wanting to write and direct a film about a boy in a mental institution. He doesn’t speak, and the film’s about his theory that dogs are superior to humans and how there’s really no need for conversation in a perfect world, because everything would be about unconditional love. You wouldn’t have a need for verbal communication. I haven’t written it yet, but I have the thought.

DC: Do you write?

BR: I write poetry and stuff but not scripts. I just have to sit my ass down and do it. It seems a bit overwhelming, like writing a book of haiku or something. It’s a weird form.

DC: Do you have favorite actors?

BR: Steve Buscemi, definitely. I love him, because he just does his thing. Jack Nicholson, Chris Walken. Those cats are cool. I’d love to work with them. But, hell, I’d even work with Ann-Margret, you know? Who’s to say she’s not a genius? You never know.

DC: Do you ever approach actors or directors you like and ask to work with them?

BR: Just the normal shit. I mean, I don’t go, “Hey, I want to work with Stanley Kubrick. I’m going to chase his crazy ass down.” I don’t send fan letters. I don’t make picture collages and shit, like little strips from a magazine. “I’m Brad. I want to work with you.” No.

DC: I guess I’ll end this by clearing up a really common rumor about you. Did Joel Schumacher adopt you when you were making The Client with him?

BR: Fuck. That’s not true whatsoever. When I was 11, I made a joke that he was going to adopt me, or some shit, but that’s all. I think I liked the idea back then, ’cause my life was kind of hard or something. I live with my grandparents, pretty much always have.

DC: A lot of people think the rumor’s true.

BR: What a bunch of dipshits. These rumors, man. I’m like the [rumor] magnet; I don’t know fucking why. Supposedly, I’m doing some movie with Natalie Portman and Liv Tyler called The Little Black Box. I’ve never heard of that in my life. I think Milos Forman is directing it. It would be fucking cool as hell, but it isn’t real.

DC: I heard you were in the Star Wars prequel, too.

BR: Oh, yeah. Go. I’m all over the place. That’s cool. Wait a second. Ouch.

DC: What’s wrong?

BR: Shit, I’m getting a stress cold sore. [pulls out his lower lip] Look at this.

DC: Charming.

BR: Exactly. I’d better go do whatever with this.

DC: Well, thanks.

BR: Yeah. Have a good day, sir.

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2009-11-18T00:52:00.000-08:00

p.s. Hey. ** Winter Rates, The new Fuck Buttons is a sweet thing, right? Get some sleep, man, or have gotten. ** Empty Frame, You sound positively giddy. That's a nice fucking sound or 'sound', I guess. Can text have a sound? Why not. Oh, yeah, do send me that Genet essay 'cos then I can make it into a day and share it here with the folks. Awesome. ** Tonyoneill, Thanks for sending me beak tracks. I'll find them. Is Andrew WK going to read something at that thing? He's trippy. I just put together a small post re: Derek Raymond, and I thought, Tony must like his stuff. ** David Ehrenstein, You lived near the World Fair grounds? That's cool. It's amazing that those bits of it are still there rotting away. Leaving them like that seems so indecisive, which I kind of like. Three Dog Night, sure. God awful Randy Newman covers that were huge hits and hopefully helped make Mr. Newman comfortable. They still play the oldies circuit, but I think there are only two dogs now. Have a great time in Palm Springs, whatever it is that draws you there. ** Stan_cz, Hey. Thanks a lot for the clarification. I hope it wasn't too much of a hassle. I appreciate it, and I understand completely now, and that all makes sense, yeah. It's interesting that you love Celine's work, but you also Fellini's work as well. I just last night saw a big, terrific Fellini exhibition at the Jeu de Paume wherein one of the major themes was his passionate and voracious love of human beings. So I would guess that attitude in an artist's work doesn't necessarily deter you from loving it. Perhaps when you find that attitude at play in an artist's work, you can find it poignant? ** Bill, Hey, Bill. Oh, I can't seem to find that comment where you noted the date, etc. of your performance at MIX. I searched their site, and they list and illustrate your performance, but I couldn't find any info on when and where it is. If it's no hassle, could you remind me so I can alert the blog reading folks? I'll try 'Vive l'Amour' first if I can find it first, and I'll do my best to imagine I'm in a movie theater while I'm watching it. If you see the Lepage, report back, if you don't mind. ** Bacteriaburger, Thanks, man. Yeah, I kind of figured the thing was that Don hadn't gotten to the mss. as quickly as he'd hoped. Good, good. Give us the address of your new site when it's up, if you don't mind. Take care, pal. ** Uli, Oh, that sucks. I totally hear you on that, and on the trickiness of the decision. I'm guessing you said no? Am I wrong? I don't know what I would do. I guess I'd think about that small room and say no. Ugh. So, what did you decide? ** Alan, Thanks a lot, Alan. Well, I was looking for something else re: the blog, and I happened upon a blog where some guy posted a few police sketches to note how ridiculous they were, and I thought they looked beautiful and strange and other things, so I just hunted down some sites where the police post the sketches, and I decided to narrow the options down to 'deadly weapon' crimes, and I stole the most intriguing ones, basically. It was pretty easy if a bit labor intensive, but that's doing this kind of blog for you. It's been explained to me that male porn stars tend to be short because, one, shorter guys tend to have more ideally proportioned bodies according to some generally held idea of what the most perfect, desirable male body would look like, and, two, cocks look bigger when they're on small bodies. ** SYpHA_69, I have noticed that friends of mine who work in retail tend to find their view of humanity growing more bleak by the day. Oh, it's a bacteria replacement thing. I've read about that. Yeah, that's supposed to work pretty well in many cases, as I recall. Well, consider me hanging in there waiting for proof positive. ** Jose, Yeah, if you see 'Antichrist', let me know what's what in your opinion. ** Kier, You might come study in Paris? Well, surely my jumping up and down over here won't surprise you. What a splendid idea! Hm, I don't think I get referred to as monsieur very much at all. I can't remember the last time, although I might just not pay attention. I guess probably in stores sometimes workers might say that casually. But I don't think that would happen in Paris any more than it would in any other city in the world. It's not like addressing people as monsieur or madam is a prerequisite or a given or anything of personal exchanges here, or not in my experience. Wow, that's trippy: I tried that highlighting of the post yesterday too, and I found that word arty. Strange. I have no idea how that got there. I must have originally had some text there, deleted it, and missed the word arty, but I don't remember doing that. Huh! Where are you thinking of studying here? JCVD's monologue is killer. It blew me away too. ** Mark Gluth, Oh, the scalloped seitan was crazy good. Best vegan meal I've had this side of the sublime Real Food Daily in LA. When you're in LA for the reading(s), we have to go there. All vegan menu, all heavenly good. ** Joseph, Too 'gross' or 'sciency', ha ha. They just sound like aspiring power mongers to me. Fuck 'em. Less competition for you. When will you hear if the job is yours? I'm doing okay at the moment, thanks for asking. ** Dandysweets, Hey, DS! Always a deep bow-inspiring pleasure to see you. You good? What's going on in that life of yours these days? Cool about the link. Let me ... Everyone, The kind of mysterious and very precious d.l. Dandysweets has something for us. Quote: 'I wanted to post this link to the blog of one James Maker. The post I'm linking to is an excerpt from an upcoming auto biography, and the particular chapter is about Maker's friendship with a certain Morrissey. Great writing for anyone who is interested in Morrissey.' Let me add that I just did a quick read of it, and it really is something you want to read if you're into the Moz. Thanks a lot, my pal. You take good care. ** Wolf, Glad you liked it, Lord Wolf. Your vegan rant was very interesting and instructively rough going, my friend. Thank you. I'm still going to eat my cheese for the day, but I will be scowling at myself. ** JW Veldhoen, Yeah, I'm kind of old fashioned or something because I tend to think the term 'radical' should only be applied to particularly progressive things moving to the so-called Left, and when things swing towards the so-called Right, the term 'reactionary' is more correct. In which case, yes, saying something is too radical is like saying there's too much chocolate cake on my plate. Or vegan chocolate cake, which, if it's well prepared, is even more delicious than non-vegan chocolate cake, actually. ** Steevee, Isn't there supposed to some sort of biological thing going on where bodies can gain weight as winter encroaches regardless of diet? I'm not sure, but I've read that. Further good luck on the actor thing, of course. ** Killer Luka, Oh, cool! Thank you. Let me ... Everyone, Killer Luka was talking yesterday about these drawings she did several years back that ended up framed on her mom's wall, and now we can see them for ourselves, and, seeing as how Luka's kind of a genius artist, we should, of course, so join me in going right here. I love those 'follow mr. santa' photos too, btw. Yum. But your mom's wall is just a bit of a disappointment. ** JoeM, Well, I still think you could win, and I'm going to maintain that belief until the elitist scum prove me wrong. But, yes, it's the opportunity that matters. The contest is just your work's fodder. I'm kind of at the beginning or slightly past the beginning of my grasp of the fashion world. I know it's possible for unconnected nobodies to make it big because my pals Rodarte aka Laura and Kate Muleavy are now one of the hottest designers out there, and they came from totally out of nowhere and live with their mom in Pasadena and until recently made their clothes in her garage. What's interesting to me is that apparently even most of the top designers don't earn very much money, or certainly not much when one considers how famous and successful they are in the field of fashion. That surprised me a lot, and that makes me think maybe fashion isn't as corrupt or exclusionary or whatever as I had originally assumed. ** _Black_Acrylic, Ha ha, that was cool. That 'this man' thing. Everyone, courtesy of _Black_Acrylic, meet this man. Nice, Ben. Hope all is very well with you. ** KYTE, Hey, pal. I think the qualifications are not being able to draw very well. And probably being able to pass random drug tests. ** NB, Various sizes. Not quite rat sized, but some of them were pretty hefty. The weird thing is they would never actually come over to where I was sleeping or even very close. Not even when I'd accidentally leave an open bag of chips by my futon or whatever. They feared me or disliked me or thought I was boring or something. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, I sometimes enjoy pictures of cows grazing in fields, so don't hesitate to illustrate. Finding non-meat items on the menu is a lot harder in France than in the US unless you're happy to eat a salad for dinner, and I'm not one of those kinds of people. I don't eat out hardly ever, but if I had to for some reason, and if I had 15-ish euro to spare, I'd go to La Passage Oblige again, yes. I'll prepare myself for the addition of Regis & Kelly to your day reports. God knows how I'll do that, but I'll find a way. 'Monster' ... with Haile Berry and Heath Ledger's ass crack? That 'Monster'? No, wait, that was another movie. Oh, the Charlize Theron thing, right? I tried to watch that 'An Education' trailer, but my internet connection is molasses at the moment, so I didn't get past the first shot of girls playing cello or whatever while faux-gamelan music played. Was it good? My day: During my cleaning crew exile period, I bought food, the new issue of The Wire, cigarettes. I sat and smoked and ate a vegan cookie and read The Wire until my room was habitable again, whereupon I wrote for a while. Oh, guess what? You remember how I said it seemed like my psycho brother had signed on the estate stuff? Well, he did technically but he didn't. It was a ruse. He is engaged in frivolous, vengeful, money draining legal maneuvering at my siblings and my expense as we speak. We figured that out yesterday, and so the war and stress and shit continues. This is cool if very tentative news for me: Harper Perennial wants to republish Keith Mayerson's and my long out of print graphic novel 'Horror Hospital Unplugged', which would be awesome because I'm really proud of that sucker, and it never had much of a life. But Keith has to agree, and whether he will or not, I don't know, because the money they offered isn't that much, and I don't care about that at all, but he might. I hope not. Anyway, in the evening, Oscar B, Kiddiepunk, and I went to see this big exhibition about Fellini at the Jeu de Paume . It was excellent, with lots of Fellini's drawings, photos, clips, behind the scenes stuff, context explanations, etc., etc. Did you know that Fellini invented the term paparazzi? I hadn't. That was swell, and then we stood out on the Place de la Concorde looking at nighttime Paris for a while and talking about how Paris is God and stuff. Then we came back here, made plans to go see another show maybe as soon as today, and parted ways. After that ... I ate, made a blog post, talked family shit with my sister, etc., slept. Wednesday? ** Slatted Light, Hey. Lustrous take on the post, sir, so like my own. Well, with the escort posts, really, the images and text and their (dis)connection are of equal importance and interest to me, but since there's a reasonable portion of people don't seem to pay much attention to the texts, and who see those posts more as eye candy with disposable captions, I tend to end up on the text's side. Your thinking on the meat eating issue has been fascinating, a gift, man. Re: the follow up question, well, that's only happened to me in short term relationships, say with guys where the idea of seriousness ended after a week or month or two. In those cases, it was always different. If the guy and I had sort of realized it was basically about lust in the first place, then I've had no problem sleeping with him again. If one person had nursed more feeling and than the other, usually my pragmatism kicks in and I've nixed the idea. If it's a situation where a relationship ended, and subsequent experiences and analysis or whatever has seemed to cause both of us to wish to try again, and that's been a rare occurrence for me, I've gone for it, but always keeping a close watch on myself emotionally for a while. So, I think that kind of reengagement can work, yeah, but obviously there are so many little factors having to do with the specifics of the relationship and the other person and one's own emotional makeup that it's really hard to answer the question in a general way, you know? All the best to you, my bud. ** Tender Prey, Hey, Mark. Thanks, man, I'm glad you liked it. You've never seen Sunn0)))? Oh, you definitely should take that opportunity, and I suspect Om's live show is pretty strong. For one thing, I don't think they do some of the illustrative stuff that I at least kind of question re: that album when they perform that material live. ** Alec Niedenthal, Hey, man. Well, being alone can be okay, you know, once your sense of yourself as solitary isn't locked into a comparison thing with your identity as part of a couple or whatever. It just takes time, blah blah, but the strengthening is like clockwork. It makes sense you can't write right now. I couldn't write if I was in your shoes. Let yourself ride this out, and just try not to dwell there if you can. I'll definitely go read Shya Scanlon's interview with you. Very cool. I just saw your name in association with Opium. Are you in the new issue? Take good care, man. ** Misanthrope, Hey. No, I wasn't surprised by the lack of carnage in '2012'. The disaster movie genre tends to be about big sweeping apocalyptic vistas wherein the human figures are just tumbling dice. They're painterly things. I kind of like that about them. Carnage is more a slasher/horror genre thing. Wow, you think twinks are hotter and more fuckable than kittens?! That's crazy talk! ** Oscar B, Nice and sunny out today so far, no? Yes, let's go do/see something today. I'm way game. Call me later. ** End. Oh, I decided to post this interview I did with Brad Renfro sort out of out the blue since it has never been online as far as I know and because my book wherein it will reside isn't coming out for a while, so .... Us, tomorrow,okay?

Police artist composite sketches of 30 people sought on charges of assault with a deadly weapon

2009-11-17T00:53:00.000-08:00

arty----

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2009-11-17T00:51:00.000-08:00

p.s. Hey. Nothing newsworthy to tell you today, and its cleaning/exile day here at the Recollets, so I'm going to go go go. ** Trees, I've been waiting for someone here to know someone in the escorts posts too, so thanks for getting me over that hurdle. There's an escort who emails me once in a while, and he won't tell me who he is, but he's waiting for me to find his ad and include him, and I guess I haven't yet. I keep telling him if he writes something clever and weird enough in his ad, I'll find him. I can wait a few extra days for your blog if it's for the good cause of that tattoo. It's a theoretically excellent one, and that back story about Peter is fascinating. Nice thinking and planning, man. ** Stan_cz, Dragging a printer all the way to LA, yeah, why? Plus, you'd have to use a power converter plug to employ it there. Your stated bleak view on humanity isn't a surprise, no. It's been as plain as the nose on your face, as they say. I'm surprised you're surprised by my more positive view. I thought it was as plain as my nose. It's not doing a blog in and of itself, it's the way I make, do, run this particular blog. Mm, I have an issue with the idea of an 'average' human. I don't know what that means. Average, how? Based on what? What are the qualities or lack thereof that would cause a human to be average? Capitalism and its power structures render the generally held notion of an 'average' person totally bogus and makes the idea of determining an 'average' person totally subjective to me. That term 'average' implies that there are superior and inferior humans as well, and I don't buy that, I guess. I think you know that I don't find thinking about people in generalities accurate in any case, but I can't get my mind around the idea of an average human, or maybe I've just never encountered one, or maybe it's that my tendency to concentrate whenever possible on the positive, surprising aspects of the people I encounter causes me to feel suspicious of -- or maybe uninterested in -- determining what an 'average' person would be. Anyway, your bleak view of humans isn't mine, but it's totally understandable. It's the determination that there is an 'average' person who is inherently dislikable due to that 'averageness' that confuses or bugs me for some reason. ** Empty Frame, Congratulations, man. I think you know I think you made the right, richest, most progressive choice. You'll be fine no matter what. Far better than fine. Yeah, I have read that Genet piece. Totally gorgeous, yeah, incredible. ** David Ehrenstein, Louche, nice, ha ha, yes. I'd love to ask Bill about Miles Davis, and you can bet I will the next chance I get. ** Tonyoneill, Hey. 'beak', got it, and I'll get it. Let me pass along the info about your event to the lucky ones. Everyone, the incredible writer, dude, and d.l. Tony O'Neill is doing an event this Thursday in Brooklyn in the company of Andrew WK and a few other intriguing folks, and if you're in the area and in your right mind, attending is a no brainer. All the logistics and info you need are right here. Rock the house, Tony, and take care. ** Alan, Thanks for standing side by side with me on Von Trier. I'm glad you and Nobuko were able to get something out of the ceremony, and of course that's very cool and a relief, etc. that she made it out the other side of that program, not to mention $75 richer. ** Oscar B, Hey, neighbor. Awesomeness so far, and tons more to come. Call me, or I'll call you, in a bit, and let's meet up. ** Kier, The Swedish boy has the Kinski hair and bone structure to a 'T', but luckily, for our sake, not those eyes nor, it seems, the volcanic temperament. ** Tosh, I can not wait for the Wes Anderson. I'm twitching, literally. ** Pascal, Thanks, man. I'll try to find one of the films you listed. I think they're on DVD over here in France, or I could have sworn I saw them in a store somewhere. Hope your Monday was good, and that your Tuesday will trump even it. ** Nicki, Yikes, on that email, etc. Ha ha, you were mentioning Colin Hay, and the first time I read your comment sans much coffee in me, I thought you meant that guy who has the same or similar name in that awful 80s band Men at Work, and I was very confused. Not that I'm not still confused, but now I'm confused by the misogyny rather than by the idea that there should be another guy like the lead singer of Men at Work. I'm loving the discussion going on here between you and others here, surely needless to say. It's an honor. ** Statictick, Biopsy, yikes, yes, please pass along the results, etc. I saw your email, and I think I'll be able to wend my way into it today. Dexateens, click, I'll hunt. ** Joseph, Wow, that internship sounds really promising. As you can imagine, that forensics stuff is pretty interesting to a transgressive guy who's into the human body as a linear structure and blah blah. How did the interview go? I think that's completely fascinating. ** _Black_Acrylic, That Trecartin plan/piece is just sounding more and more intriguing. As I'm sure I've said before, I really admire not only your great talent, but also the grace and originality with which you think on your toes as an artist and creator. ** JW Veldhoen, Wow, I think I missed something or something got deleted or something. Interesting. On the scary thing, I mean. Great, very not scary thinking aloud yesterday, my friend. I noted a bunch of things to pursue. Voice is hard for me too. Kind of the hardest thing or the thing that takes me the longest to figure out and then get right enough to start. It was lacking the voice that explains all that time, years, between when I said I wanted to write a cannibal novel and when I started. ** JoeM, That's really great you're finishing a story, much less submitting it to the UK Sunday Times competition! Can the public vote? Will the Times be making the entries or at least the finalists or winners available to us? And it's extra nice that you can use the opportunity to add to the novel as well. Opportunities to kill two birds with one stone like that are always really good, obviously. I know I love it when they arise with my stuff. Yeah, yeah, on your thoughts on religion. I'm there too, on the wings of your prayer, ha ha. Yury's 5'7". Porn actor size, but four or more inches too short for the runway, etc. I think fashion and art are probably tied. I wonder where literature would fall in the fucked up industry stakes? ** SYpHA_69, How are you doing after the first day of the Priobotics? I'm going to google that 'cos I don't know what that is. ** Mark Gluth, Really nice input on the debate. Obviously, we're pretty like-minded on this stuff, sans the punishment thing, including on the abortion issue. I'm looking forward a lot to that Derrida clip, which I'll watch later. So thanks a lot for that, man. ** Dynomoose, Hey, Adrienne! I know, and how about those wacky sunglasses Killer & Kisser were wearing. I want a pair of those. I hope you're doing well, my dear pal. ** Killer Luka, Not a bad round of reviews that time, yeah. It takes a lot more foraging to find interesting reviewers than it does interesting escorts. I suppose that makes a strange kind of sense. No way you could snap some pix of those drawings on your mom's wall and upload them somewhere? I'd also love to see your mom's wall. I'm pretty sure I'll finally write back to you today. The snakes in the imaginary snake pit of my in-box seem like they're sleeping today. ** Creative Massacre, Hey, pal! So nice to see you. Yeah, urgh, end of semester, urgh. At least the stressed out-ness has a time limit, to look on the positive side. I hope you're near the end of it. I'm okay, I think. Writing a lot, always good, and otherwise decent, yeah. Soothing vibes from me to you until the last school bell rings. ** Steevee, Yeah, irksome as hell, I'm sure, about the OCD. What a total hassle. Making the locking a deliberate piece of theater does seem like the way to go, but, what a hassle there too! Sorry, man. I haven't seen 'The Road'. What I've heard/read has been meh, mixed at best. ** Uli, A friend fuck over, huh? That definitely sucks. Let me know the latest. I'm guessing I'm not going to get to Berlin for the 'Jerk' shows. No one has offered to bring me, and I'm too broke to do the trip on my own right now. Berlin's and my relationship seems to be ill-fated. ** David, Ha ha, nice, the Nicholson Baker quote. Have you read his latest? I keep hearing things that make me think I really should. ** Ken Baumann, Hey. Great that you and Joel had a blast. Yeah, he's great, Joel, one of the greats, as you are, Mr. Ken. I can't believe you saw our earthquake kit. My mom gave that to us. It's supposed to be in the trunk of my car, but it wasn't the last time I checked. Word count still building? I'm in a one step forward, two steps back phase on the word count front, which is the course's par or whatever. It's all good, though. Anyway, novel or any other news would be greatly appreciated, duh. ** NB, It's always escort time on this blog. It's just that I only let them leak out one day a month. Mouse, yeah. I probably told you before that when I was living in Amsterdam, my little apartment was mouse central. At one point, there were twelve mice running around in my place at night. And I slept on the floor on a futon. You want to know about stressful? You should go to Sweden. Sweden and Swedes rule. I want to go on a road trip there sometime after it warms up. Wanna go? ** Slatted Light, My escort tastes haven't changed really. It's a combination of me being 70 to 80% more interested in the texts than the photos plus the fact that I do in some way aim to please, and I'm quite aware that not everyone here thinks skinny Emos are worth their weight in gold. Mostly, the muscle encroachment is only because for some reason recently, the muscled types have written ads that are as interesting as the scrawny guys'. In any case, I'm glad the post put an extra droplet on your lips. Well, I embarked on vegetarianism due to my being a pacifist in my teens, and, having not debunked that reason, I suppose I still think of it as a variety of pacifism, but, as I've said, it's so second nature to me now that whenever I half-think about my vegetarianism, I think mostly about its practicality since my body has an extremely difficult time digesting meat after being coddled with tofu and stuff for forty years, and about how unappetizing and blatant and harsh meat smells and presumably would taste to me now. Well, if I understand what you were saying, and I may not, I don't believe in the value of punishment or revenge in general -- gosh, I may in fact still be pacifist; how interesting -- and luckily for me, I have the luxury, ha ha, of not being in a position where I'm forced to seriously consider punishment as an option, although the situation with my psycho brother has been the biggest a test on that front that I can remember having. I'll go read your Von Trier comment. I've been trying to avoid the Von Trier discussion over HTMLG just because he puts me in a bad mood, but I'll brave that. I remember us talking about Von Trier, but not anything discussion-wise that didn't just seem very interesting. No, I've never broken up with a boyfriend and then reunited with that person. I tend to stay in 'wrong' relationships until I'm absolutely sure they're unworkable, and then that's that. I've become very close friends with some of my exes, but that's different. Does that answer get me a follow up question? I hope so. ** Math, Hey. I don't recognize that ICEandSNOW image, but I know what you mean. It had a borrowed and fake vibe about it. But, no, it's not familiar. ** October, My next Halloween will be better, you're right. One way or another. No way I'm going to twiddle my thumbs through two Halloweens in a row. Tentatively, the plan is to come to LA next year for some Halloween stuff in October, if I'm not already living there by then, and then I'm supposed to be in Japan on Halloween itself doing one of the theater pieces, and you can bet I'm excited to see what Halloween in Japan is like. You good, things better? There was a nice positive feeling in your comment. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Oh, that Belle du Jour thing. I've seen news item headlines about that, but I haven't clicked them open. Obviously, I will now. You should come Paris. Start saving up. I'll give you the grand tour. What's an Electronic Rubix Cube? It sounds, well, fun? My day: Well, after I did the blog business, I walked over to Gare du Nord just in time to greet Oscar B into Paris. Oscar only had one small suitcase, and I was surprised since Oscar will be here for three months, and I admired the concision. We walked to the Recollets, which took about ten minutes, and I introduced her to the boss, and they did their biz, and I went and worked for a while, and then she and Kiddiepunk and I met up for a lovely coffee and visit in the Recollets cafe, making all sorts of tentative plans to do this and that. I went back to my room eventually, worked for a while, and Yury got home just in time for us to take the metro to this restaurant in the Marais called Le Passage Oblige where we had dinner with Gisele, my friend and publisher Paul of POL , and my friend the writer and artist Emmelene Landon . Nice restaurant. They have a bunch of vegan dishes on the menu, and I had this scalloped seitan entree that was monstrously delicious. Very nice dinner, talked about all sorts of things. Then Yury and I walked back to the Recollets, which took about half an hour, at which point it was past my bedtime, so I think you know what I did. Tuesday, you? ** Winter Rates, The texts are always the best part of the escort posts, if you ask me. Anyway, cool, thanks. Gonna go get that new show and dip heavily into Fiftytwopoems before it's secreted into collection form -- nice! ** Alec Niedenthal, Oh, fuck, Alec. That's like ... yeah. I can't sugarcoat that one with my rosy California eyesight, etc. I'm sorry, man, really sorry. Sleep it into as near a state of oblivion as you can. I hope Blake will cheer you up. He's got a real cheering vibe about him. Seriously, a warm hug and grr to you from your pal, me. ** Misanthrope, Oh, sure, that happened with escorts a few or more times but mostly not. As for how I dealt with it, well, you know me and basically how I approached hiring escorts. I just took the situation as what it was and tried to figure the guy out. Most of the time, I hired escorts to spend time with them and explore the experience of renting an hour or more with the guy as much as to fuck them, so it wasn't a catastrophe or anything to me. That's some low income, man. Whoa. I'm glad you're alive. Yeah, fuck it and write that story. ** Morgan, No problem at all, man. Yeah, just write to me when the time's right. Use this address: dcooperweb@gmail.com. That'll get to me safe and sound. ** I beat the cleaning crew again. It feels good. Anyway, uh, oh, the post. It tells its own story. Enjoy, I hope. I'll see you tomorrow.

DC's likeliest international male escorts for the month of November 2009 bid you a fond hello

2009-11-16T00:54:00.000-08:00

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LittleStudent, 19
Lyon, France

hi! ! ! !I m sexy ! ! ! ! ! I can do anything! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !what you want! ! !and now trying to make a profile they says you text meaningles,I m tying more words! ! !

Role Bottom only
Kissing Yes
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Top
Dirty Yes
Fisting Active / passive
S&M Yes
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask

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Flaubert, 23
Barcelona

I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity. One mustn't look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm which attracts us. I hate that which we have decided to call realism, even though I have been made one of its high priests.

Height 190 cm (6 feet 3 inches)
Weight 80 Kg (176 pounds)
Hair Blonde
Eyes Brown
Chest Hair Hairy Chest
Preference Versatile
Orientation Bisexual
Cock Size 20 cm (8 inches)
Cut or UnCut Uncut
Rates: Inquire

____________

ICEandSNOW, 18
Lucerne, Switzerland

hello my name is branden i live in lucerne i smoke weed aka dank i like girls who smoke weed i like death metal i like nice men no depressives just u know happy ones i also drink and smoke cigs and i do not like fakers so if u are YOU BETTER GET OFF THIS FUCKING PROFILE OR YOUR GOING TO TALK TO MY FISTS:) but other then that i like to hang out with friends mostly men cause they live near me and i sell weed for my neighborhood on my dirt bike so im a busy man so yeah

Fucking active / passive
Oral active / passive
Watersports no
CBT no
Fisting no
SM no
Bondage no
Dirty no
Kissing upon agreement
Massage passive
Safer Sex always
Rate / Hour 120
Rate / Night 220
Rate / 24h 350

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Matthew_Murder & Damien_Eclipse, 18
Pittsburgh, PA

Our sexual appetites cannot be satisfied.

Role Versatile
Kissing Yes
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting No entry
S&M Soft SM only
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask

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ChadPhoenix, 21
San Diego

Hey guys, thanks for checking out my ad. I am one of the hottest twink models in gay porn today based in San Diego, CA and available to travel to any area. Please email me for more details.

Age 21
Rates varies
Height 6'3"
Weight 175
Ethnicity White
Facial Hair no
Body Hair no
Hair Color Blond
Eye Color Blue
Dick Size 8.5"
Cut or Uncut Cut
Sexual Positions Versatile

Review: I was so excited when I came across an ad for the twink porn superstar Chad Phoenix on a popular gay escort website. I had jacked to his videos and photos more times than I could begin to count, and when I saw he was based in nearby San Diego, I wrote to Chad immediately asking to set up an appointment. He couldn't have been nicer, or so I thought, and we made a date for an in-call at his apartment for the next night.

To say I was shocked when he answered the door doesn't begin to cover it. Even though I own a DVD starring Chad that is dated 2008, he must have gained 60 pounds at least since his porn heyday. I recognized his distinctive features somewhere in the bloated face that greeted me, and he tried to act like nothing was wrong, but my double take and gasp were surely unmistakeable.

He invited me inside, and while I should have ended the date right then, I was in something of a state of shock and followed him into his living room without really thinking. We had a very awkward conversation where he asked me a little about myself and what I was into sexually. I held off expressing my horror for fear of seeming rude for as long as I could, but when he suggested we get undressed, I blurted out the opinion that he looked rather different than I was used to him looking.

"Yes, I'm a little heavier," he said, and he went on to explain that he had been very overweight for most of his life. He had been on a crash diet for the three years he worked in the porn industry, but he had decided recently that he is an attractive and sexy person, and those qualities had nothing to do with his weight so he had made the decision to be himself. I told Chad that this was an admirable way of thinking, but that I was not physically attracted to him as he looks now.

With that his friendly demeanor changed, and he started calling me names in a very loud voice. He said I was superficial and a "body weight nazi" and other demeaning epithets. He demanded I pay him for his time, and after a short argument, I pulled out half of the agreed fee and laid on a table before rushing quickly out the door. Before you think I'm a was too hard on Chad, Iet me draw your attention to three images I found of him online that are accurate to what he looks like now. I have included them with my review, and I feel confident that they speak for themselves.

Handle: Couldnthelpit6
You: Business executive, late 30s, in very good physical shape, and the world's biggest Chad Phoenix ex-fan

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neptuno, 20

Oslo

My sharings will never be less than the Angel’s blessings.

Tool: 8’’ thick, cut n mushroom cocked head with 2.5’’ to 3’’.

After asking for my revenue, i’ll bless u with endless Love, Happiness n Satisfaction.

My balls are in your court.

Well have a great time together of high quality long lasting sex sessions, based on respecting each other.

And offering each other huge loads of sperm.......

If fucking me is wrong, I don't want you to be right.

Body & Ethnics No entry, No entry
Hair No entry, No entry
Body hair No entry
Eye Color No entry
Dick size XL, Cut
Role Versatile
Kissing Yes
Fucking No entry
Oral Versatile
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 40 Euro

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Killer&Kisser, 22
Cleveland

helo ther simple persons her with a simple dreams if you what to no us more ask our digits and were going to gave it you. guys enjoy life. be a simple and be good always guys.

Role Top only
Kissing Consent
Fucking Top only
Oral Top
Dirty No entry
Fisting Active
S&M Yes
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 200 Dollars
Rate night ask

Review: On the occasion of my birthday, I decided to spoil myself by hiring this hot duo for a 2 hour session. It was the first time ever I have done a threesome and it was certainly fantastic. They both look exactly like their pics, or actually even better. No photoshopping here. They were very clean and hygienic.

They kissed my body, worked my nipples and then took turns to fuck me really well. I am tight and need care, but even though they both have well above average cocks, they never hurt me. I enjoyed having my arse worked until I came. I had mentioned that I was treating myself to a birthday present with this session, and to my surprise they gave me a birthday card when I arrived and brought out a birthday cake after I had showered! In summary: they were sexually fantastic.

Handle: SirHugeaLot
You: I'm a caucasian man in my fourties, short and overweight with a beer belly, but intelligent, friendly and very clean and hygienic at all times.

______________

rose_butt, 20
Rome

I am patient young man,sometime drunk,I look for someone can help to find job or be my Boy friend,I like 30-50 years old,and have hairy in their body

Fucking passive
Oral active
Watersports passive
CBT no
Fisting no
SM no
Bondage no
Dirty no
Kissing upon agreement
Massage active / passive
Safer Sex always
Rate / Hour 100

________________

:: only_the_best_4_u ::, 20
Prague

If you would like sex, I will only be oral passive. I am not in any way whatsoever arrogant, but I know who I am and know what I am not able to do sexually with a man. I have a LOT of experience with sex and I know how to fuck so if you like to have your mouth fucked then you'll be very happy with that part of what I am offering. If you think the mouth I am offering is outrageous please keep that to yourself.

(A quick personal apology to the gentlemen who wanted to meet me before when I didn't feel I could do this work, I am sorry for any disappointment)

Stats 180cm.87kg - 5'11".191lbs
Body & Ethnics Muscular, Caucasian
Hair Short, Brown
Body hair Little
Eye Color Brown
Dick size XL, Uncut
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 400 Euros
Rate night 400 Euros

______________

ColeCrush, 25
San Francisco

Loads Of Fun. Crush shoots an amazing 3' to 5' every time and never has a problem getting excited.

ETHNICITY Caucasian
LANGUAGES SPOKEN English
WEIGHT 149lbs (68kg)
HEIGHT 6' 0" (183cm)
BODY HAIR Some Hair
BUILD Lean/Swimmer
EYE COLOR Brown
HAIR COLOR Brown
FORESKIN Cut
COCK SIZE Large
SAFE SEX Always Safe
SEXUAL POSITION Versatile
Overnight Rate $1000 USD

Review: What a great choice. The old "cliche". I am someone who really likes to rim and he has the most perfect ass for that activity. In fact I could have spent the whole time with my face buried in his butt if he wasn't so very intelligent. I was so torn between his intelligence and his butt that bright boy Cole said why choose? We had a great conversation on the importance of intimacy both with and without sex while I was rimming him! I swear he has the hearing of a dog (he also gives great massage).

Handle: dogman
You: Mid-fifties, average build. I love everything oral and personality is really important to me.

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womanizeralex, 21
Everyfuckingwhere, Europe

Hi, i am Alex,I am a new guy in Austria... and i wait for you... my mob. Have a slim bodu, smooth and sexy. I want to give you the best of me. I'm very complacient. Write me... baby.

24.3 -5.4 PRAGUE

6.4-14.4 Frankfurt

5.5-15.5 Paris

15.5.22.5 Prague

22.5-27.5 Vienna deleted .)

3.6-11.6 Frankfurt

6.7-20.7 Paris

20.7-7.8 Prague

7.8-12.8 Vienna

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...../´¯/..../´¯\.........../¯`\....\¯`\
.././.../..../..../.|_......_|.\....\....\...\.\..
(.(....(....(..../.)..)..(..(.\....)....)....).)
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..\................. /........\................../
....\..............(............)............../

......\.............\.........../............../

Height 165cm (5'4")
Weight 56kg (123 lbs)
Body slim
Hair Length short, brown
Eye Colour green
Body Hair little hair
Dick M
Cut no
Orientation Gay
Smoker yes
Fucking active / passive
Oral active / passive
Rate / Hour 125
Rate / Night 800

____________

Evan Patrick, 20
London

Hi. Boring evening again? I know something about that.

Height: 6'0" (183 cm)
Weight: 130-140 lbs (59-64 kg)
Build: Slim
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Dark Brown
Cock: Uncut 6-7" (15-18 cm) Average
Smoking: Light
Drinking: Yes
Kissing: Yes
Masturbation: Both
Anal: Versatile
Oral: Both
Kink: Switch
Rates for time only (British £):
1st=110 Overnight=400

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Shane, 18
Columbus, Ohio

I am a gay shy male looking to be spoiled. times are ruff and call for desperate measures lol. I have a 7 in uncut cock and shaved. Just be a good person to me ha hehehe.

Height 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm)
Weight 140 pounds (64 Kg)
Hair Brown
Eyes Brown
Chest Hair Smooth Chest
Preference Versatile
Orientation Gay
Cock Size 7 inches (18 cm)
Cut or UnCut Uncut

____________

tony_bcn_18, 18
Barcelona

only fews euro I play with my cock?I invite all to a warm climate together. "SMALL" is beautiful.

Height 183cm (6'0")
Weight 61kg (134 lbs)
Body slim
Hair Length short, black
Eye Colour dark brown
Body Hair shaved
Fucking active / passive
Kissing yes
Rate / Hour 100
Rate / Night 400

Review: This was my first time hiring an escort. I was in Barcelona to visit Spain's churches and seeing all those statues of almost naked Jesus made me feel strange. Disappointed by the escorts I found on a website, I settled on Tony and called him. He said he was going out for a drink but would be available later on in an hour. He agreed to what I wanted. Which was no penetration, deep kisses and oral.

When I got to his hotel room he demanded the money up front. Stupid me after reading countless reviews here went ahead anyways and paid him. Well after he got the money he drew me in close and took off his clothes. I tried to kiss him and he said no kisses. I was like" but you said said you would kiss." He said" light kisses" as in pecks and also limited pecks. No french kissing. I asked to leave and my money back. He said he wasn't going to give my money back as he got naked for me.

He said he would make it up to me. Ok now we were naked and I decided I would just get the oral. He said he said he would smell me and if I was clean he would give oral. He inspected my penis, strapped on a condom and performed oral. I couldn't get hard. His oral was really bad as it felt like he was trying to stretch my penis. He wanted me to give him head, I said No and he got angry at that.

Anyways he tried cumming for me by watching straight porn on red tube but I got bored. I started putting my clothes on and then he got angry and started telling me he wasn't able to get me hard because I was kissing him all over and talking too much. He couldn't "concentrate".

He also told me I lied about my age as I said I was 29 and he said you look like your 23-25. lol I didn't mind the accusation.I was like I am sure your a nice person I just want to leave. He couldn't say anything and said here take a bottle of water and would you like chocolates. I said no I am trying to lose weight but thanks for the water.

I will be honest, I don't have any experience with escorts and am a former christian. I never had intercourse because I was so conservative and decided now to come out. Better late then never I say. But this was dreadful, dreadful. God loves the innocent wisdom of children, and I felt myself a child and innocent but very wise. Never pick someone just because he looks good.

Handle: Handsometoyboy
You: cute, 36 waist, 5'11

_____________

moldovaescort, 18
Tiraspol, Moldova

young bottom boy with art heart and open head

Height 183cm (6'0")
Weight 68kg (150 lbs)
Body average
Hair Length short, blond
Eye Colour blue
Body Hair no hair
Dick L
Cut no
Orientation Bisexual
Smoker yes
Fucking passive
Oral active / passive
Rate / Hour 30
Rate / Night 60

____________

cumOnMe, 23
Oakland

Please cum on me! Will you be so gentle and paste my face? please ... i need this!

Height 175cm (5'8")
Weight 64kg (141 lbs)
Body slim
Hair Length short, brown
Eye Colour brown
Body Hair little hair
Dick -
Cut no
Orientation -
Smoker yes
Oral active
Kissing no
Safer Sex sometimes
Rate/Hour 0

____________

Scott, 18
London

The closer to my age you are, the better the price, the further, the more it increases. Also, same with body type, and what services you seek. I do speak english and a bit german also, but i have to admit that my german isnt perfect and I do prefer to speak english. I have a nice flat. Mostly what I do, I even like to do.

Height 183cm (6'0")
Weight 65kg (143 lbs)
Body defined
Hair Length average, blond
Eye Colour blue-grey
Body Hair no hair
Dick L
Cut yes
Orientation Bisexual
Smoker no
Fucking active / passive
Oral active / passive
Watersports no
CBT active / passive
Fisting active / passive
Rate / Hour 200
Rate / Night 500

____________

Daniel_morel, 19
Lisbon, Portugal

There are several types of people in the world, but I am sure that boys like me in the 4 corners of the world you will not find. Maybe I am looking for who you are.

Height 167cm (5'5")
Weight 63kg (139 lbs)
Body slim
Hair Length average, blond
Eye Colour brown
Body Hair little hair
Dick L
Cut yes
Orientation Gay
Smoker no
Fucking passive
Oral active / passive
Watersports active / passive
Rate / Hour 0

Review: I have such clear and vivid memories of my time with Daniel. My senses were clearly heightened. I love being able to close my eyes and let the intense (we’re talking hi-def resolution!!) detailed visuals play out in my mind… …he’s standing before me, clad only in a low rise, stretchy shiny pair of jet black briefs, exactly what I wanted him to wear, I’m delirious with pleasure, running my hands over his torso, up and down his back and sides, across his muscular chest and around his taut waist, his skin is so smooth and silky, it’s irresistible, I shift my focus to the briefs, massaging and fondling his package, smiling to myself as it responds to my attentions…

I’m perched above him, in push-up position flexing my hips, looking down and back along his stomach, I see my cock, fully engorged and rock hard rising and falling slightly as I run it over his flat swimmer's belly, he grabs the shaft, arches his back and presses his torso against my cock…he reclines again, squeezes and milks my rigid tool and guides it up and across his chest, stopping to run the tip of my dick over and around his nipples, teasing and arousing the little pleasure bullets… … he’s straddled over me, giving me a spectacular view of his equally spectacular body…I’m pressing my fingers into the tender boyish muscles of his chest as they heave against his breath and tense while I clench my ass and drive myself upward, plunging my cock deeper and deeper inside of him…

I’m on my knees behind him watching my glistening cock, slide inside him, taking it nice and easy, each thrust just a little deeper, he’s moaning softly, perfectly in time with my action, the end of each thrusts triggers a soft cry of pleasure, I cannot help myself, my pace quickens, the moaning grows more rapid, my thrusts are deeper, the cries of pleasure are louder, this is an amazing fuck, I’m so hard and he’s so good, the harder I pound the more pleasure he feels, and the more pleasure he feels, the harder I pound, OH Daniel!! I’m gonna cum… …

Despite the fact that I only had a couple of drinks, I really did lose count of the number of times we fucked. Romann is so sexy, just being close to him made me swell up. Whenever I touched him, I was hard in seconds. And he loved taking advantage of my easy arousal. He’s insatiable, which made me feel so desirable and so sexy. Not to leave anyone with the wrong idea: I’m not a totally one-dimensional person and despite the impression I may have given so far, this was not just a complete and total fuck-a-thon. I'm sure we had nice talks in there somewhere while it stormed and rained outside.

Handle: Tops4Fun
You: Middle aged, white professional. Travel a lot. Hire occasionally, indulging my other side while I can. Slim, good shape, top. I like smooth trim muscled guys -- affectionate and intelligent seal the deal.

____________

little_dream, 21
Cologne

To Hey write me you it net to repent on Naja which I am greatly about me to say to best if you me to book want write down me and ask briefly times for is better like if I everything enumerate now here.

Height 176cm (5'9")
Weight 62kg (137 lbs)
Body average
Hair Length short, dark blond
Eye Colour blue
Body Hair little hair
Dick L
Cut no
Orientation Gay
Smoker yes
Fucking passive
Oral passive
Rate / Hour 100
Rate / Night 1000

______________

Adam, 22
New York City

Distinguished young man burning as the sun and the skin in torrid warmth with developed muscles dryness waiting for you numerous offers his accompaniment in party.

Height 177cm (5'9")
Weight 64kg (141 lbs)
Body defined
Hair Length average, black
Eye Colour other
Body Hair no hair
Dick L
Fucking versatile
Oral active
Rate / Hour 0
Rate / Night 0

Review: GOD this guy is awesome, he was sooo able to deliver sexually, kinda short attention span when out and about but besides that he is great in bed. I mean he is so great i was literally in the hospital the next day with my intestines and stomach in my throat. AND NO im not kidding, but it was worth it to have this many make me swallow him whole and fuck me hard the first time around he made it totally worth it. I have tried to hire him again for an entire weekend but my cell phone number changed and i have been unable to get him my new one and my email crashed so im really frustrated but this guy is awesome. The date is approximate cause i honestly dont remember the date of our fun it was so exciting.

Handle: bottmboi4u
You: 29 year old college student in New York on a research grant and first time bottoming.

______________

vip, 21
London

Well, hello. Welcome and thank you. I am a young muscular National Kickboxing Champion. The benefits of being a 20 year old include include flawless smooth skin. My masculinity disguises my sexual preferences. If you are passionate about muscle I would be delighted to flex my large muscles for your feel.

Height 188cm (6'2")
Weight 93kg (205 lbs)
Body Bodybuilder
Hair Length average, brown
Eye Colour brown
Body Hair little hair
Dick XL
Cut no
Fucking active
Oral active / passive
Rate / Hour 150
Rate / Night 500

----

2009-11-16T00:53:00.000-08:00

p.s. Hey. Decent weekends? Hope so. Mine was all right. It'll be parsed out in the usual spot down below. Today the artist as well as the blog's own Oscar B arrives in Paris to begin a couple of months long residency at the very Recollets where I'm in residence, and I'll be heading off to meet and greet her in the Eurostar corner of the Gare du Nord shortly after I finish up here, which is cool. Anyway, I'll proceed apace now. ** Johnny, Hey. Okay, got it. Well, then you don't need to be literary scenester to do what naturally comes next. Basically, you just need to figure out what magazines and zines and zine-sites and so on that you like and want to have your work seen in. Do you keep up with them at all? There are tons out there, and it's really just a matter of deciding what places seem compatible for the kind of writing you do. The easiest way to begin at least is to submit work to online zines since you can check them out with your computer and just email your stuff to the appropriate mailbox. It's hard to tell you which ones to go for since I don't know what your writing is like. I recommend getting into the habit of reading HTMLGIANT , if you don't already, as it's a cool site/blog and you can get a lot of tips, info on, and links to magazines via the postings there. Let me know how I can be more specific. The literary magazine world is so vast and growing so quickly at the moment that my inclination is to suggest you start checking out the possibilities and then just submitting stuff fairly willy nilly. I can try to be more precise in my suggestions once you get a sense of the possibilities. ** Slatted Light, Hey. Very, very pleasing news that the project is proceeding hitch-free towards realness. I'll hold my tongue about what I know it to be, but I'm hugely excited by the prospect, and I think it could be really major. Well, that is one hell of a dilemma and question there about ethical killing and animals vs. humans and the gradations. I'm glad I don't need to think too hard about it, ha ha. I made my decision to go vegetarian when I was a wide-eyed teenage pacifist, and I may have remained a teenage pacifist to this day since I've never found any reason to question my decision even when sophistication gradually encroached and complicated the issues involved. I guess I still have my original and very basic idea that I don't want to be responsible for a death when there is absolutely no reason that it should happen. I don't see merely liking the taste of meat as a justification, and that's the only excuse for eating meat that everyone I know who eats meat ultimately ends up giving. For them, that's fine, and I don't think my values are inherently more correct than anyone else's, but I guess that, for me, allowing an animal to be killed because you like the way it tastes is a luxury, and I've never been into the idea that luxury is an ideal thing to begin with, and I certainly don't think it's worth having an animal killed. That's a really simple argument, I know, but it works for me. ** Stan-cz, I don't have a printer either, which creates all kinds of hassles, but then buying a decent printer costs very little, so I'm the only one to blame for the headaches. Thanks for the Li Po link. I'll grab the pdf. Ha ha, well, I guess if you like the blog, be happy at least that I think humans are inherently amazing because I would never ever have done this otherwise, trust me. ** David Ehrenstein, I find dignity to be a really problematic virtue. I find that most of the people and artists I know lack it. I think dignity can be a beautiful thing to encounter in someone, but at the same time, I'm inherently suspicious of it, I'm not entirely sure why. That Berkson/Bachardy double bill sounds heavenly. Damn, I'd loved to have been there. I only met Berkson once, but he seemed such a good guy in addition to his many virtues as a writer and figure. I'm sure you know my favorite O'Hara poem as well as one of my favorite poems in the world, period, is that big one for Berkson and the Chinese New Year. ** Empty Frame, You weren't whinging at all. Not to me. No, I don't find not speaking fluent French to be that much of a problem, but it's true that my friends here speak good English and don't seem to mind conversing in English. I like being eternally foreign and somewhat disempowered here in some way. People say Paris is very expensive, and I guess it is. People do get deals, of course, usually through friends of friends. I live in one room here at the residency, and it's 960 euro a month, and that's a real bargain, if that gives you an indication. Anyway, just come check it out and see what you think, basically. It's a dreamy city in which to live. No, I've never had a 'normal' job. I've been on staff at a couple of magazines doing journalism, and I was an adjunct professor in the visual art graduate program at UCLA for three years, but those were far from normal jobs. I've scraped by on my writing, and I had a generous mother who helped me out when I was terrifyingly broke, which was fairly often. The most supportive community of artists? Los Angeles, hands down, no competition. So I'd say try LA, but if you don't know to drive and/or don't have any acquaintances there, then it's probably not a great idea. ** Alan, I'm real glad you're easing into the novel, and now that last hampering weekend you spoke of is over. How was Nabuko's graduation? I mean was there something honestly or particularly moving or victorious or something for her and/or you in it. Was it meaningful? ** Bernard Welt, That dream thing you wrote was very interesting to look in on. SL started such an interesting discussion this weekend, and you built upon it wonderfully. I'll do a report on the Lanterne show, yeah, here on the blog if there's enough evidence to make that possible. Or I'll report to you if nothing else. I didn't see the Ensor. I bailed on behalf of my novel. I think I'll get there this week. ** Tosh, Hi, Tosh. ** Pascal, Well, I'm very game for hiring that cinema. I know just the one, but it's in Paris. One of these days, man. Interesting you mention Tsai Ming-Liang because there was just a retrospective of his work here at the Cinematheque, and I marked my calendar -- or rather scribbled on a post-it -- to remember to go, but then I spaced. I haven't seen his films. I watched a long video about the retrospective online that showed lots of clips, and I was very taken with what I saw. If I was to start with one, what would you recommend? ** SYpHA_69, Thanks again so much for the weekend, and I was of course really pleased to see all the good responses. I've got my copy of 'Grimoire' all ready to be devoured at the soonest opportunity. Cool someone finally bought that 'Ugly Man'. Ka-ching, ha ha. Hang in there on the new meds and just see what happens, I guess. At least if you can get the throat problem out of your way, you can try to target the big problem. ** JW Veldhoen, Is it 'dagnammit'? I always thought it was 'dagnabbit'. I think you're right, though. How do I feel about the term outsider artist? I don't like the hierarchical thinking that goes with it, but, that said, and since it's there and part of the lexicon whether I like it or not, I find it useful because it creates a context where I can find officially unsanctioned art. I don't have a decent definition for it either, I guess. I think my work would probably qualify in a perfect world. Oh, I really liked Jacques Attali's 'Noise'. It's weird: I've been looking into doing a post about him here the last few days. I don't generally read academic stuff when I'm preparing for a novel. I am doing so for this one only because Slatted Light sent me this great book about cannibalism, and it's been a real helper. I did for 'My Loose Thread', but that was when it was going to be a non-fiction book back at the very beginning. Generally, I try not to read anything when I'm preparing apart from things I think will help me figure out the voice. The voice is always the part that's the trickiest for me to decide on. ** Daniel Portland, Hey, Daniel! It's always a great pleasure to see you. No, I've never been to Iceland. Have you? Definitely want to, and I have two Icelandic friends now, and I'm in the hood, so I should get on that. Let me pass along your kind request. Oh, first, I'd be totally happy and very into being questioned in a heartbeat. Everyone, this is the great Daniel Portland speaking: 'i wanted to mention that the birdsong zine collective i'm a part of is always on the lookout for victims for this quick and dirty interview series we do, so if you or any d.l.s are willing, please get in touch (gorimbaud3@gmail.com) and i can send the questions asap.' Take care, man. ** Nicki, Hey. Oh, okay, understood about the book. I just think it's great that your writing, and writing articles is plenty awesome, and the book will always be there. Mark's book is great, you'll see. I'm a proud 'papa'. Wonderful to be able to read your back and forth with Slatted Light. I'm bedazzled. ** Kier, Urgh re: your Friday the 13th. Hopefully it's ancient history by now. Oh, yeah, I'll see the Ensor. Maybe Oscar will want to go with me. ** Ken Baumann, Oh, man, dude, I'm so dying to finish this novel, I can't tell you. Definitely a ways to go, but I might have figured out how to do the ending this weekend, maybe, big maybe, but still. Sussing the shape and frame of the ending has been a real stopper, so ... we'll see. Thanks for urging me on, man. I so appreciate it. Cool you cracked 10 k. That's going along pretty damn well, no? What you said about it is ultra-intriguing. Here's some very gentle whip cracking right back at you. I hope your visit with Joel was cool. Oh, loved your little Joyce/Facebook thought yesterday. ** Blendin, There'll be a pristine and empty and flat white throne waiting for Newsstand Day until further notice. I can't wait to buy something from you. ** David, Why those three together in one documentary, I mean other than them all being famous guitarists? Do they just like each other's work or whatever? Strange combo. Or the Edge is a strange third. ** _Black_Acrylic, Happy one day late birthday, Ben! Did it work out or start to work out with the Trecartin article? ** Math, Hey, M. I'm sorry to hear you've been way under the weather, and you've got my total sympathies on the job's erosion of your magnificent realness. I forget, are you going to be doing AA work here in Paris while you're here? If so, I hope not too much. I'm hoping you'll head back Stateside with a big stack of new art. Email your stuff re: the Recollets whenever you want and can. I'll be watching. Yury's now on his third day of work. All is completely well so far. He hasn't complained once, which is really something for him. Yeah, looks like it all turned out very well so far. Love to you, my pal. ** Winter Rates, Howdy, man. ** Paul Curran, You ever need juju, you know where to come, comrade. ** Killer Luka, I think the Fever Ray album is really good. I think I have to just get in a mood where the kind of medium pace of the music is right for me. I'm too jumpy and wanting dissonance and speed at the moment. Okay, I'll go get your email, and we'll get it done, no problem at all. Lots o' love to you, Luka. ** Flit, Hey. You good? Totally, about Photoshop. It's just helping art get reinvented, and not a moment too soon. Gosh, that gallery, that picture ... so pretty in such a totally New England way. I immediately wanted to be standing there. ** Steevee, Good, good, on the first step. ** JoeM, Hey, Joe! I've missed you. Really great response to SYpHA. It was a real pleasure to read. Well, for now, Yury has to take another salon job rather than one in fashion for the simple reason that in almost all cases, people who enter the fashion industry basically have to start work as poorly if at all paid helpers and gofers and stuff, and to be able to stay in France, he needs to be earning at least minimum wage. That's the reason he can't just jump into that field at the moment. He's already scheming a way to be able do that and stay in France. On modeling, he's too short. With rare exceptions, mostly in the cases of celebrities who model for fun or added fame, male models have to be reasonably tall. It's just one of those fashion rule things that don't make a lot of sense but are pretty hard assed. How is your writing going, Joe? ** Jose, I don't really mean creepy sadism in the sense that would lead one to think of Sade. I was just tossing off a few adjectives loosely. I guess I'd say a really big problem for me with Von Trier is that I don't think he's that bright at all, and I don't think he has interesting or original ideas about film or his chosen subjects, but he seems to think he's quite the brilliant thinker and iconoclast, and he seems to think his audience is fairly stupid, too stupid to figure out his brilliant ideas and art on their own, and so he insists on hammering the audience over the head with his film's points, points that I don't find to be very complex or nuanced or deep in the first place. His films can start in ways that are quite mysterious and curious, but they inevitably become mere illustrations of his very obvious and ham-fisted ideas and points, and I at least can only sit there for so long thinking, 'I know, I already get it, I know, it's obvious, I get it, I get it' before the exercise becomes completely pointless. So sadism might be the wrong term. I assume he thinks we'll enjoy being instructed or that we all have some inherent masochistic streak that his genius will unearth and feed or whatever he thinks, and people who like his work seem to think that experience is useful or somehow brilliantly calculated or something, but I think with the exception of some his early films, he and his work are a tiresome and simplistic bore, basically. ** You-x, I haven't yet read 'Inherent Vice', but I'm really looking forward to it. Oh, I've heard a little of those early Tim Gane cassettes. They're not great by any means, but they're cool and kind of fun. ** Joseph, Hey, Joseph. Oh, yeah, 'Discrete Charms ...' is fantastic. I recommend watching the whole thing. Bunuel's a bit uneven, but a number of his films are really killer. Thanks for seconding Ken. I'm on it, man, and no one's more impatience to get that thing wrapped up than me, believe me. ** Chris, Well, there you go. Proof-ish that the gig exceeded your initial assessment. Great about the new gigs. It would be awesome if one could get arranged for while I'm there in January. I'm gonna hope. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Two bowls isn't a lot. Well, it depends. If I take one hit, I'm a paranoid, heavily stoned mess. So for me, two bowls would be assisted suicide. But for most people, nah, I think that's pleasantness. Of course I don't know what 'Secret Diary' is, me being France bound and TV mostly impaired. I'll check. Oh, thank you about 'Period', man. That's very kind. My weekend: Let's get the fair amount of writing I did out of the way first. Fill in the blanks with that. Well, on Saturday afternoon, Gisele and I were supposed to audition this Swedish boy Sebastian for the job of G's assistant for our new piece, and we went to the location where this was to take place, and waited and waited, and he never showed up or called, so hm. Not good. So she and I just had a meeting about the work and hung out. After that, uh, oh, I had coffee with Kiddiepunk. That was charmed, of course. And I think I just did what I always do basically for the rest of the day and evening. Or I can't remember. On Sunday, Gisele called and said Sebastian had gone to the wrong address or something, so we spontaneously met with him at a cafe on Place Gambetta , a nice if a little out of the way area of Paris. He's a cool guy, smart, should do the trick. Gisele had described as looking a little like a young Klaus Kinski, and he does, but without those giant, scary eyes. Anyway, that happened. Then Gisele and Stephen and I planned to meet up and see this big exhibition about the life and work of Miles Davis at the Cite de la Musique , and so I went there at the appointed time, and they never showed up, so hm. I saw the show myself, and it was pretty fantastic if you're interested in Miles Davis. Amazing footage, his musical notations, his trumpet, clothes, all kinds of stuff. Really terrific. Then I went home and ate and stuff, and, hm, watched some TV -- a documentary about some young French guy who got murdered in San Francisco; the case has never been solved -- and I, you know, crashed. I think I forgot stuff. Oh, well. Now it's Monday and, naturally, your turn. ** Michael_Karo, Welcome back from the hell-mouth, man. I'll go check your Facebook gallery when I'm through with this place. ** Misanthrope, Yeah, I can tell the IRS is looking everywhere if they're bugging poor, unmoneyed me. I read your email quickly this morning. I'll write to you, but the short answer is I think you should do it. I think the potential good outweighs the potential downsides, but we'll confer further. ** Rigby, Hey, Rigster! You really need to darken this door more often. Big up on 'Babykiller'. You'll see. Don't die, but the shrunken head would be safe with me. I'm just saying. ** Morgan, I've heard of Peste Noire. I have a fondness for French Metal. It's so wrong it's right or something. I'll check them out. Oh, sure, of course on the recommendation letter. I'm very happy to do that if it'll help you at all. For sure. Send me whatever you need to send me, and we'll get that done. ** Okay, I'm going to go tidy myself up a bit and trudge through the rain to welcome my new Recollets sharing pal Oscar B to Paris. The post: Well, I can't imagine that you don't know precisely what to do or not to do with the monthly escorts post at this point. Have at it. See you tomorrow.

James Champagne's 'Grimoire' Day

2009-11-14T00:55:00.000-08:00

----

Invocation (Missa Niger)

This book is dedicated to the Great Old Ones, to Cthulhu, who lies not dead but dreaming in the sunken tombs of R'lyeh, to Yog-Sothoth, the Gatekeeper of Daath, to Azathoth, the blind idiot god at the center of Ultimate Chaos and the Lord of All Things, to Shub-Niggurath, Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, to Nyarlathotep, the Messenger of the Outer Gods, to Tsathoggua, Saint of Toads, Basatan, the Master of Crabs, to Ubbo-Sathla, the Demiurge and the Unbegotten Source, Ithaqua, the Wind-Walker, to Y'golonac, the Defiler, the obese headless and neckless one, to Zoth-Ommog, the Third Son of Cthulhu, to Bugg-Shash, who exists only in darkness, to Hziulquoigmnzhah, Saturn-dwelling son of Cxaxukluth, to Atlach-Nacha, the Spider Goddess of Mount Voormithadreth, to the Lloigor of the energy vortices. This book is dedicated to the Ancients: to Ulyaoth, to Xel'lotath, and to Chattur'gha. This book is dedicated to Typhon, the Primal Mother of the Seven Stars, to Kali, Black Goddess of Time & Space & Death, to Set, dark twin of Horus, to Hecate, Goddess of Witchcraft. This book is dedicated to the 22 qliphotic guardians of the Tunnels of Set: to Amprodias, to Baratchial, to Gargophias, to Dagdagiel, to Hemetherith, to Uriens, to Zamradiel, to Characith, to Temphioth, to Yamatu, to Kurgasiax, to Lafcursiax, to Malkunofat, to Niantiel, to Saksaksalim, to A’ano’nin, to Parfaxitas, to Tzuflifu, to Qulielfi, to Raflifu, to Shalicu, and to Thantifaxath. This book is dedicated to Choronzon, the Guardian of the Abyss and King of the Vampires, to Camazotz, the Bat God and Vampire Lord of the Mayans, to Humwawa, He Whose Face is a Mass of Entrails, Dark Angel of Excretion, Lord of Abominations, to Baron Samedi, the Loa of the Dead, to Baron Limba and Baron Lundi, the most perverted and homosexual of all the Loa, to Moloch, Beliel all the other old and terrible gods of sacrificial fires, to Yaldabaoth and all of his archons, to Abraxas, to the Tsalal, the Shadow that swallows all gods and all things, to the war-crazed and bloodthirsty mutants of the planet Yuggoth. Finally, this book is dedicated to the Cobwebbed Ones of the Crooked Universe: to Tuluruz, to Urluk, to Ezaba, to Llinghul, to Doh-Hak, to the Lar-Vi, and to the Unholy and Almighty Zumb Zumb, God of Infinite Angles, Cosmic Infecter, the Final Vampyr.

The Book

Grimoire is my second major work, the first being Confusion (which I self-published in 2006). The two books are in some ways connected, though one does not have to read Confusion to appreciate Grimoire (those who read my first book, however, might enjoy spotting some of the in-jokes and references). Grimoire consists of 11 interconnected short stories, and is structured to resemble a collection of previously published material that has been compiled together, even though this is false: nearly every story in Grimoire was written specifically for this collection, and the one that wasn’t (“Reaping Time Has Come,” which I had originally entitled “The Apocalypse Inoculation” and published on my old and now defunct Necronomicon Transhumanism website back in 2005) was rewritten and heavily retooled to make it fit in with the present collection. Grimoire is my official homage to the writings of H.P. Lovecraft (and to a lesser extent, Thomas Ligotti). At the same time, it is an attempt to condense everything I enjoy about the books of the Typhonian occultist Kenneth Grant into a fictionalized setting. The book is full of references to obscure surrealists, writers, occultists, musicians, and so on, and I also took great pains to laden it with bizarre, obsolete and archaic words. As a result, the book utilizes a fairly outdated writing style which has more in common with the 19th century French Decadence than the writing of today. In fact, there’s barely any profanity used in the book at all, which was also deliberate, as I was trying to capture Lovecraft’s prudish, stuffy, and somewhat pompous style of writing. Whether I was successful in this endeavor is up to the reader to decide. I would also like to add here that, while Grimoire is my contribution to the Cthulhu Mythos, I was also very careful to populate it with many of my own monsters, creatures, cults and sinister magical tomes (such as the Cobwebbed Ones and the Booke of Calthurr, both of which were briefly alluded to in my first novel), and it is my great hope that future Mythos writers make references to my own creations in their own works, in much the same manner as I do in Grimoire. Should this ever occur, I will view the project as a success.

The Back Cover Description

If all books are gateways to other realities, then Grimoire is a portal into a realm of the most profound darkness, a twilight world of black flowers thriving under the monstrous shadows cast forth across time by the writers and poets of the 19th century French Decadence, the art of the Surrealists, and the weird fictions of H.P. Lovecraft and his acolytes. Each of the eleven stories, or Neo-Goth Narratives, which make up this collection presents the reader with a worldview of cosmic nihilism, a morbid atmosphere haunted by the revenants of the fin de siècle practitioners of black magic. Those who lose themselves in these sunless and Satanic vistas will learn arcane words of power, experience forbidden knowledge, and encounter fantastic and grotesque alien beings whose forms and powers we are unable to comprehend, whose very presence can drive one to insanity. Grimoire is no mere book: it is a 90,000 word scream from the Abyss of non-existence, a descent into Hell itself, a dream journal of God's nightmares. Let the Danse Macabre begin!

Where to get it

Grimoire may be downloaded for free at my Mauve Zone Recordings website (where it’s classified as audio, perhaps because up to this point I’ve only used my netlabel to release albums). The link is here: http://www.archive.org/details/MZR020 . The easiest way to download it is to click on the “Whole Directory” link on the left side of the page, under the “Listen to audio” column, and just follow the instructions from there. The book is in PDF format and around 220 pages.

The Stories

1. London After the Rain

2. Under the Leaves

3. The Nightmare Syndicate

4. Mauve Movies

5. 18 Fragments of a Nightmare

6. Mr. Orwig's Midnight Monologues

7. They Came From the Shadow of God: a Review of Prof. Roland Cavendish's Cults of the Dark Gods

8. The Old Chemical Factory

9. The Onyx Glossary

10. Reaping Time Has Come

11. Nihil

The Cover Art

The cover art was done by London-based artist Stafford Stone. Stafford was a member of Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian O.T.O. for nearly 20 years, and during that time he did design, illustration, and typesetting work for both the Typhonian O.T.O. and also Starfire Publishing, the publisher who releases much of Kenneth Grant’s books. When I was thinking of who I could employ to create Grimoire’s cover art, I naturally thought of him for two reasons. Seeing as he was heavily involved with Kenneth Grant’s organization, and seeing also as Grimoire was my attempt to, among other things, create a fictionalized portrait of Grant’s Typhonian occultism, it seemed symbolic to ask Stafford to do it. It helps that I also very much admire his art: I even own a framed print of his portrait of Cthulhu!

The Influences

H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, Grant Morrison, Current 93/David Tibet, Kenneth Grant, David Lynch, Maya Deren, Michael Bertiaux, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, J.K. Huysmans, Neil Gaiman, Kenneth Anger, Man Ray, Jan Svankmajer, The Brothers Quay, Junji Ito, Edward Gorey, William Blake, Jorge Luis Borges, J.G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Frank Belknap Long, M.R. James, and Colin Wilson.

Grimoire in particular makes many references to the music of Current 93, mainly some of their earlier albums, such as Dogs Blood Rising and, most importantly, Imperium. In some ways, the Imperium album almost serves as a sort of Rosetta Stone or mirror to the text of Grimoire, and there are many references to that album scattered throughout the book.

The Writing Process

I began writing Grimoire on August 25th, 2008. Originally, it consisted of a single short story, entitled “Mauve Movies,” which I wrote specifically to accompany a compilation album that I was assembling for Mauve Zone Recordings, my non-profit net label (this compilation was “A Dream as White as the Death of a Seagull,” as some of you may recall). It was shortly after I began Grimoire that I began to conceive the creation of a supernatural/horror short story collection. H.P. Lovecraft has been one of my favorite writers for years now, yet I’ve never written a truly Lovecraftian project. For that matter, I also liked the idea of doing a short story collection, something else I had never attempted, even though I’ve written a fair number of short stories over the years. As the rest of 2008 went by, I debated whether Grimoire should be 11 short stories, or 6 short stories and a novella (which was the original plan). By December 8, I had begun to refer to the project online as Grimoire, and this was the title that stuck. It was also in late December that I decided the project would consist of 11 stories. By January 12 of 2009, I had completed 5 of the stories. By April, I had completed 12 stories. Around this point, I considered the first draft to be complete, and I began the editing process, a task that would stretch out throughout the entire summer and the early fall. Around this time, I began my ultimetly fruitless search for a publisher. In August, I wrote two new stories (one of which was “The Onyx Glossary”) and cut out two of the older stories: I also took one of the older stories and combined it with one of the other older ones, thus bringing the story number back to 11 (which is a number of important significance, seeing it is the number of magic and also that of the Qliphoth). For those curious, the two stories cut from Grimoire were entitled “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and “The Agony of the Plasma.” Final edits were completed in early September, then again throughout October. Grimoire was officially released on Halloween Day of 2009. The toughest part of the project was interconnecting all of the stories. And the editing, which pushed me to the brink of insanity.

Some unused story titles: The Omega Constellation, Amprodias, Universe B, The Sound From Beyond, Morgua, The Dollhouse, The Fifth Window, The Inner Shadow, Funeral Music for Horselover Fat, This Carnival is Dead and Gone. Amprodias eventually became “18 Fragments of a Nightmare,” while many of the ideas I had for Universe B and The Inner Shadow I incorporated into “Mr. Orwig’s Midnight Monologues.”

The Soundtrack

What follows is a list of songs which are specifically name checked and which play an important part in Grimoire:

Dead Can Dance: The Fatal Impact (Title Song)

Current 93: Antichrist and Barcodes

Coil: Various Hands

Annie Lennox: Love Song for a Vampire

David Bowie: Life on Mars?

Cromagnon: Ritual Feast of the Libido

Throbbing Gristle: Hamburger Lady

Skinny Puppy: Convulsion

The Verve: Bittersweet Symphony

Spice Girls: Mama

Semisonic: Closing Time

Sunn 0))): It Took the Night to Believe

Whitehouse: Nzambi Ia Lufua

Aphex Twin: Radiator

Current 93: Locust

Adam Lambert: Mad World

No Doubt: Artificial Sweetener

Siouxsie Sioux: Drone Zone

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Death is not the End

Liars: Drum Gets a Glimpse

Nico: Evening of Light

Current 93: Christus Christus (The Shells Have Cracked)

The Swans: Time is Money (Bastard)

Wolf Eyes: Human Animal

Adam Lambert: Dust in the Wind (live at the Upright Cabaret 2007)

Ministry: Cannibal Song

Madonna: The Power of Goodbye

Current 93: Twilight Twilight Nihil Nihil + Alone

Sypha Nadon: The Nightmare Factory (end credits)

Extract (from “Mauve Movies”)

----The movie that night was named Idols of Eigenlicht. It was a color film, a collection of short vignettes, some of which lasted a few seconds, others a few minutes, though I don’t believe that any of them exceeded five minutes in length. I lost count of exactly how many of these vignettes I saw, as they seemed to unfold on the screen like a hazy opium dream, lulling my senses into the usual hypnagogic state. I was, fortunately, able to recall a few of the more memorable ones, which I shall now relate.

----The very first vignette took place on a vast, flat arctic field, the sky a blue void unblemished by clouds. In the center of this field was a square etched in black chalk on the icy ground, and drawn inside this square was a circle whose interior was marked with eight lines, each line meeting to form a point in the center. Crouched down at the diagonal cardinal points of this circle were four small creatures who had a very strange appearance. Their bodies were covered in white fur, while their legs and feet resembled those of albino frogs. Their faces were vaguely bat-like, with large pointy ears, while their eyes were hollowed-out black orbs, like empty sockets on a human skull. They were barely moving at all, and appeared to be meditating. In the background, the instrumental song “Nzambi Ia Lufua” by the band known as Whitehouse played throughout this first vignette.

----Then, a woman seemed to rise right out of the snow outside the circle. She was completely covered up in a white sheet, like those cliché ghost costumes one always sees around Halloween time. Into this sheet two eye holes were cut. The right eye hole was just a simple round circle cut in the sheet, but the left eye hole was smaller, and a piece of diamond-shaped fabric was sewn around it, the eye hole located in the center of this piece of fabric, the fabric itself resembling a floral design, reminiscent of some rare species of nosferatu convolvulus. In the woman’s hands there was clasped a immense black rose, just the bulbous head of the flower, with no stem. She slowly marched into the center of the circle in a stately manner, carrying the black rose before her as if it were some sort of holy artifact, or if she were the sole member of a solitary and somber funeral procession. Upon taking her place in the center of the circle, she stood still, as if she had became a statue, while the little furry white creatures began to become animated, as they chattered excitedly to one another, masturbating themselves in pagan abasement. The composition of the scene reminded me of Leonora Carrington’s 1968 painting, The Ancestor.

----The woman began to softly wail in a barbarous tongue as she stooped down to place the black rose in the center of the circle. Kneeling over it so that her left eye hole hovered directly above it, I watched as red droplets began to issue forth from this eye hole, landing with small wet splashes on the flower below. She wept tears of blood on the black rose. It was then that I knew I was witnessing some malefic type of evocation, as the Whitehouse song continued playing in the background like a stellar hymn to some obscure African god of death. Sure enough, green mist began seeping out from the circle, curling around the prone form of the woman, and as the mist rose into the sky it began to stabilize and coagulate into a new form. While all this went on, the sky became dull gray in color, and a tremendous, pulsating black star appeared in the distance. Or maybe it was the mysterious transyuggothian tenth planet known to the initiated as Nu-Isis? The mist formed a shape in the center of this dark planet, and soon the transformation was complete: the summoned entity resembled an enormous mass of ears, ears of all shapes and sizes and from all different species, in the shape of an orb, an orb that was the size of the Unisphere at Flushing Meadows in New York. This bizarre god (whose name I later found out was Urluk) hovered above the woman, the ears throbbing in grotesque undulations, and it emitted a weird metallic buzzing sound, like the kind cicadas make. The woman looked up, then took off her white sheet. Underneath, it was revealed that she was actually a quivering, holothurian mutant, just with a long flowing mane of black hair streaming atop her virescent skull. Then the vignette ended while the dark planet hummed over this surrealistic tableau.

----Here was another vignette: the scene unfolded in a bedroom, and the only objects in the room were a bed, a night stand, and, against the wall near the door, a holy water fount. The room was illuminated by a bare light bulb which hung from the ceiling. I watched as the door to the room opened and a teen boy entered. As he did so, a gong sounded from off screen. The boy looked to be somewhere between the ages of 16-18, with short reddish-brown hair and intelligent blue eyes, his face achingly beautiful and without blemish. The boy was naked, and his penis was quite impressive to look at. He closed the door behind him, stared at the bed. Then he dipped his hand in the holy water fount and did the sign of the cross. With that done, he walked over to the bed and lay down on it, flat on his stomach, his ass now exposed to the camera. He lied in this manner silently, without moving.

----A minute or so later, the door opened again, and a mysterious figure entered (once again, a gong sounded off-screen). The man was clad in a black robe that draped down the entire length of his bumpy body, and this robe was decorated with a number of cryptic sigils, done in red. His face was blocked from view by a mask which resembled that of an angler fish. Like the boy, the man dipped one of his gloved hands in the holy water fount, only he did the sign of the cross backwards. The masked man walked over to the bed and climbed on it. He stared down at the boy, then lowered his gloved hands until they rested on the boy’s ass cheeks. The man gently opened the ass cheeks, exposing the boy's asshole. The man lowered his masked face to it. Bumblebees began to buzz out of the boy’s asshole. This didn’t shock the masked man, though. He positioned himself so that his mask was faced directly over the asshole, and I watched as the bumblebees flew into the mouth portion of the fish mask, as if they were being swallowed whole, like souls being sucked up. Finally, the bumblebees stopped coming forth and the man let go of the boy’s ass cheeks. He turned to look at the camera, then pulled off his mask. To my shock, he had the face of a giant bumblebee, and I realized that what I had just witnessed was an invocation to Zam Pollum, the queen of all bees! Though in retrospect it could also have been a rite of Beelzebub, who though often linked with flies is also known as the ‘Lord of the Buzzers.'

----I will describe one more vignette, though certainly there were many other ones that would have been just as interesting to choose from. On the screen before me was a vast library, whose ceiling was so high it was shrouded in darkness, so that one was unable to see how far up it truly went. The walls of this library were lined with very tall black bookcases, with about 6-7 feet in between each shelf. The reason for these huge gaps was due to the fact that the shelves were crammed with human beings, humans of all shapes and sizes, some wearing clothes, others completely naked. These humans were neither alive nor dead, rather they existed in a twilight neither-neither state in between those two states. Thus they were all standing up along the shelves in formation, as if they were in a parade, paralyzed. The library was then a mausoleum of human incunabulum.

----The library itself belonged to an odd-looking race of creatures who I shall try my best to describe. Their heads resembled giant open books, only the pages that made up their faces were blank. The book heads were connected to the bodies of the creatures via three spindly necks covered in purple fur, while the bodies themselves looked like round, bloated Christmas Tree ornaments that had been coated in ichor (I should add here that these necks were adorned with frilly Elizabethan collars). Instead of legs and feet, the creatures thumped along on two thick stumps that looked like grossly overgrown human thumbs (with the curved toenails serving as feet), while in place of arms long green vines protruded from the sides of the creature’s bodies. As if all this wasn’t flamboyantly weird enough, they also wore black and purple capes whose shape brought to one’s mind the semblance of a bat.

----In the vignette, I watched as those very large and odd-looking creatures took humans off the bookshelves and placed them on long wooden reading tables in the center of the room. They would gently lay the paralyzed humans down on the table, then “read” them by placing their vines against the foreheads of the human. By doing so, they read the brains of the humans, extracting memories and dreams as if they were downloading data from a computer. As this process went about, the images that entered in the minds of the creature were displayed on the blank pages of their book heads, the pages flipping as each new memory was extracted and recorded. After they were finished “reading” the human, they would rise from the wooden table and exit the library, stepping onto the street of a futuristic city. They would then go to a public gathering place and wait for a crowd to amass around them. The citizens of the city were small books, only they were books with spider legs. There were also flying hourglasses with the wings of bats. These spider books and bat-winged hourglasses would gather around the book-headed creatures and watch as the pages began to flip, from the first to the last, displaying for the spider books and the bat-winged hourglasses the thoughts and memories of the humans that they had just read. After the book was done, the book-headed ones would return to the library, place their vines back on the foreheads of the human, and download the memories back into the human books, until once again the pages of their faces were blank. They would then return the humans to the bookshelf.

----Ah-ha, I thought to myself. What I’m looking at here is a society in which books have evolved, become sentient, a world in which books have taken over everything, switched places with humanity. These book-headed creatures are the storytellers of this strange new society, it would seem. A conclusion that anyone would have come to, by my estimates.

Links

The official website of my net label, Mauve Zone Recordings, where Grimoire may be downloaded.

The official website of the artist Stafford Stone, who did the cover for Grimoire.

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2009-11-14T00:53:00.000-08:00

p.s. Hey. I'm very proud to be able to turn the blog into a sleek white frame around this planetary launch event for the new story collection by the ultra-gifted and unique beyond original author James Champagne, perhaps better known around here as beloved, longtime d.l. SYpHA_69. Not only is 'Grimoire' a must-read in any case, but, as you'll have noticed or will notice if your eyes have yet to drift upwards, it's entirely free. Please celebrate this big occasion by poring over 'Grimoire's' posted scoop then linking and downloading James' amazing tome. As always, feedback to James/SYpHA re: the post or his writing or anything at all is requested and would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, Paris is getting a really big, wet, windy, crazy storm this morning. I woke up too early, and I'm kind of sleepy, and I'm going to try to get this posted earlier than usual because I have an appointment thing in the late morning. Hence, ... ** Besa mis sombres, Well, hey there! It's awesome to see you, man! You good? No, I don't get to come to Madrid for the 'Jerk' shows, if that's what you mean. I'm not even sure if Gisele's going. I wished, but my wish did not come true. But one these days I'm going scour your country, I swear. No, my polaroid camera broke a few years ago, and I haven't gotten around to buying another one, although I keep wanting to, 'cos I miss that medium. Maybe I'll use your reminder as a nudge. Again, it's really sweet to see you. Catch me up on what's going on with you, if you feel like it. ** David, Thanks, man. Btw, I think your storm moved all the way over here. It's a real knock down, drag out kind of thing, and here I am due out into it with only a 5 euro umbrella by my side. ** Catachrestic, Hey, hey! It's super nice to see you, Jared. I miss you. Hey, my nephew Cody was just up in Portland checking out Reed, which is where he's really hoping to go next year should they accept him. Anyway, if you can spare a minute, let me know how you're doing, okay? ** Johnny, Thanks, man. My honor. As per your question, well, tell me a bit more specifically what you're hoping to get published --- fiction, non-, poetry, ... ? Do you mean in book form or in magazines/zines or all of the above? I'll give you any tips, etc. that I can think of. ** Kier, Yeah, right after I put the Johan post together, I noticed there was an image by him on you and your pal's blog. You watched the entire second 'TP' season last night? ** Paul Curran, Glad you're feeling better, Paul. Novel's been going pretty well the last few weeks. A nice spurt. I'm doing everything I can to keep that going 'cos it feels awfully good. Here's some of my luck coming your way: whoosh. ** Alan, Yeah, from the clips I've seen, the animation looks really good. And I understand Anderson's love of heavily composed, detailed framing is in play too, and I'm really fascinated to see what that means. I wish it would open here already. Have you managed to find time to get back into your novel yet? ** Tonyoneill, Thanks, pal. Good luck on your upcoming events. So wish I could be there. ** David Ehrenstein, There wasn't the slightest sign of ill health or ill-temper in the Morrissey I saw. I figured being adored by Parisians was some kind of cure. I'm shocked I haven't read 'Dhalgren' or seen 'L'Eclisse' too. It's fucking bizarre, but, at least in the latter case, easy enough to rectify. ** Pascal, Yeah, that made total sense, and your explanation was both lucid, very interested, and much appreciated. I totally agree with you, and you've gotten me in a Antonioni-jonesing mood. Great about the nearness of the novel's completion, and I'll go have a look at the stray parts on your blog when I'm not speeding along as I am by necessity this morning. Where will you be sending the novel: agents, directly to publishers, ... ? ** Uli, I'm pretty good at the moment, and I'm awfully glad you're in perfect shape again, Ha ha, that's great about that UK ad. Wonderful thinking there, man. Yeah, that was awesome. Thanks! ** Bacteriaburger, Thanks a lot, Natty! ** Bernard Welt, I'm not sure if this will be of interest or relevant re: your silent film class, but the Cinematheque has a new exhibition/ retrospective on at the moment called Lanterne magique et film peint that's supposed to be quite incredible. I'm heading there to see it next week. ** Oscar B, Yeah, just get the arrival time to me, and I'll be there. Weather's been all over the place. The previous two days it was 23 degrees and exquisite. Today it's storming wildly. It hasn't been too cold. I'll check the forecast. Hold on. It says that on Monday, it'll be 13/9 degrees and basically hovering around those temperatures more or less all of next week. ** Empty Frame, Don't blame yourself, blame capitalism and, if the pundits are correct, blame that strange phenomenon that accompanies age increases called 'wisdom'. Anyway, dilemma understood and felt. I'd recommend Paris, but I can't say it's affordable. Culture's real good. Gay-centric scene's nothing special. Well, keep talking if it helps, and I'll keep trying to bat your thoughts back at you, if that helps. ** Tosh, Hey, man. Let me link up the folks. Everyone, Chapter 5 of Boris Vian's forthcoming Tam Tam Books wonder-novel 'To Hell with the Ugly' is now available for your reading pleasure, as well as some beautiful installation shots of the Wallace Berman show at Nicole Klagsburn Gallery in NYC. Be there. ** Misanthrope, Your poor mom and grandmom. The IRS is hounding me too. I'm new to paying taxes, having been a scamp all my life until recently, and what a bunch of heartless, obsessive mofos! Bernard's your guy on that dream thing. I don't know squat. Bernard, help a brother out, if you can? See Misanthrope's question from yesterday. Rockettube is slightly improved if all you want to watch is officially delivered clips from current sites. If you want weirdness or amateur stuff or vintage or anything unusual, it's still weaker than shit. But beggars can't be choosers. ** Blendin, Hey, man! I've been thinking about you and fantasizing about you as an Angeleno. Yeah, send me pix. Let me do a Day on your newsstand. I'm serious. I think it would be awesome fresh. ** Trnsfrmag, Hey! It has been a long time. How nice. TRNSFR's out? Very cool. I'll go scour my mailbox for your email. Wunderbar! Paris is sublime. I still want very much to go home to LA for good, but I'm also in love with here. So, I'm ready, but it's ever more complicated. ** Jose, I almost always feel like I'm discovering a novel more than writing it, absolutely. Well, if you see 'Antichrist', let me know what you think. Since all his movies ever do for me is make me think he's a sadistic creep, I'm holding off until god knows when. ** Stan_cz, Yeah, all that expense and hassle re: the visa, sure. Yury went through all that just in trying to get one, including the photo that must be precisely sized and formatted, etc. So it goes. Until last year, Russians weren't eligible for the Green Card Lottery. Yury entered, didn't get it, of course. I mean the odds against must be astronomical. ** Bill, Good, good, on the Recollets email exchange. If I hear/learn anything on my end, I'll let you know. I want to read that new ltd. ed. Brian Evenson. The one with 'Leg' in the title. I'd better get off my ass and order it already. I just got a promo thing about MIX in my email or somewhere. It looks quite good, and I'll do some sort of announcement or something here about it. ** Put The Lotion In The Basket, That line was totally true. The new playground they're putting in is crazy, crowded, total sensory overload. It's a siren. It screams, Be with me while you're enhanced! I'll try to take a picture. ** Joseph, Oh, right, I forgot it was Friday the 13th yesterday. It felt so entirely normal. I can't think of anything that happened that could remotely qualify as an instance of bad luck. What the hell has happened to Friday the 13th?! I think it's those fucking movies. I think Friday the 13th was so pissed by being used like that, it slipped away when we weren't paying attention and is now hiding in a different day and date that we haven't figured out yet. Now that's spooky. ** Wolf, I was hoping you'd like them. There's definitely a fair amount of digital manipulation in the photographs, animal and otherwise, although it's not easy to pinpoint how/where in the most recent images of the animals, which is nice. ** Nicki, Your experience at the Cambridge seminar is really disgusting. Weird that old boys club shit is still in play and tolerated. It's so prehistoric. It would seem to totally negate all their braininess. Ugh. But, on the other hand, how awesome that you've had your long awaited breakthrough on your writing! That's completely splendid news! Is the writing you're doing for your book? I'd love to hear more. ** Ken Baumann, Yeah, right? The sync thing is great. It's both weird and totally not weird that it would feel so helpful. When I started the novel, I had a ton of basics in place. The main things, like that there would be this manner of thinking and speaking called 'the marbled swarm' both at the center of the novel and hidden in the novel, constantly hinted at and continually misrepresented by a narrator whose faulty, piecemeal, hand me down version of that manner of thinking and speaking would form the reader's amateurish guide, and that every character and setting and so on in the novel would be a physical manifestation of 'the marbled swarm' which would reach the reader unreliably through the aspiring voice of the narrator, and that this way of thinking would cause him to view cannibalism as a suitable pursuit and higher calling, etc., etc. -- which I'm thinking probably doesn't make much sense, sorry -- that was all there. But how all of that has ended up unfolding has been pretty intuitive and surprising to me, or, rather, I've been surprised by how much room to move I'd left myself despite having so many intricate rules. So the conception hasn't actually warped at all, although the narrative and content has been nothing but warped, if any of that makes any sense, ha ha. ** Pisycaca, Rock en Seine is shockingly sucky. Oh, Yury's first day seems to have gone perfectly well. He hasn't complained yet, and that's pretty good 'cos he quite the complainer about work type situations. Yeah, good, keep sending out CVs and not letting your freelance life go easily. Some good situation is bound to come along. ** Steevee, Oh, yeah, the first Mayhem album cover/art, yikes. Kind of sweet. Fingers ongoingly crossed re: the actor. ** Tender Prey, Hey, Marc! How cool that you liked the work so much. Like I said, it's Kiddiepunk who gets the tossed roses. Oh, interesting exhibition. Let me pass that along, Everyone, may I have your attention? Here's Tender Prey aka Marc Hulson: 'An artist I met in Vienna who runs a very very cool art book shop (more like a gallery for books) is inviting submissions for an exhibition of recent art publications that don't have distribution or ISBN numbers: all the info is here. It's a tight deadline if anyone is interested - he's looking for submissions by 20th of November but it might be worth it - it seemed like a really good project.' I'm disappointed by the new Om album. I love them, but I'm not so into how illustrative and specifically 'psychedelic' the new one is. I'm going to try it again. I'd still go see them live in a heartbeat. Hope you're doing wonderfully, my friend. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, It was just too wonderful not to coo over, man. Word. ** Jonny Liron, Well, hi, Jonny! This is a true pleasure, having you here. You're very kind, and I'm moved by your good words, man. Oh, how I wish I could see the work you and Chris are doing in the ongoing festival over here. I haven't given up hope of leaping the channel to do so. I hope you're doing great. Well, with the ice now broken, return anytime. I would be so very pleased. ** Trees, Was your friend named after the giggling one? Great guy name no matter what. Well, I certainly hope I've prodded you into instituting that work filled blog. Here's another prod, if you need it. Gosh, I'm no punk or no longer a punk if I ever did officially qualify as a punk, but, that said, you seem plenty punk. You could even recognize when you were sleeping with the enemy. What more proof do you need? I say don't worry. It sounds like tunnel boy sees what he needs to see. ** JW Veldhoen, Any old time at all, man. 'Well heeled' is one of those archaic, undying terms that's strangely nice. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, They're photographs with varying degrees of manipulation going on. We're not completely in the clear. Psycho brother signed off, but he demanded an audit because he thinks he might have found a way to technically take some money away from my sister, and apparently he has that right, and hopefully he's wrong, but the drama isn't over yet. You sound pretty good for a guy who'd had no sleep and smoked two bowls to boot. I'm impressed. My Friday went like this: Upon completing the p.s., posting, etc., I met up with artists, my friends and fellow residents Scott Treleaven and Paul P , and we walked over to Montmartre to have lunch with fashion designer Marco Zanini at some little restaurant whose name I wish I could remember because it served superb macaroni and cheese, wow. Very pleasant lunch. They then headed off to see the James Ensor retrospective at Musee d'Orsay , and I found my way home rather than accompanying them because I really wanted to work on my novel, which I did. That went okay. I talked to some friends and made plans to do some stuff. It was incredibly nice out, so I went for a walk along the canal solo and indulged my love of being in Paris. I bought cigarettes and discovered that the price of my Camel Blues has suddenly gone up a shocking amount. That startled me. I came home, ate what I usually eat, wrote some more, figured out two future blog posts and put three-quarters of one of them together. Yury got home and told me about his first day at work, which, as I said above, went off without a hitch. I think time must have zoomed at that point because I can only remember getting tired and going to bed. Voila. Now you've got a whole weekend to tell me all about. ** Thomas, Hey, Thomas! Long time no see, man. How are you? Oh, thanks a lot for that alert on the Doug Gillard show. I had no idea. I'll do everything to hit that Friday show or the Saturday one if I can figure out where it is and if where it's occurring happens to be preferable. Anyway, you good? Playing music or ... ? Catch me up, if you don't mind. Take care, my friend. ** James Greer, Yeah, man, alert me when the time's right. Your site/blog is full of riches. I'm going to be scrolling and poring over it this weekend. Yeah, you, me, and Mark Gluth taking two bookstores somewhere or other by storm, apparently. It had to happen. ** Iamcuriousblue, Ivana Fuckalot is a real chip off the old Russian block. I wonder why it is that the Russian boy porn stars never take on awesome names like that. So true: your characterization of what makes Russian porn so ... itself and ever alluring to me, at least. Understood about the photoshoppiness of Johan's work. It doesn't really bother for whatever reason, but it does create a particular kind of barrier. Anyway, welcome back from your few days away. Were you somewhere worth talking about? ** Killer Luka, Oh, you're in league with Iamcuriousblue on the photoshopping thing. For some reason, I sort of like the cheapness of that look, but it's only what it is, true. Sounds like I'm never going to get the Fever Ray live experience. Rennes isn't hugely far, but it's a lengthy train ride, and I'd probably have to stay overnight there in a hotel, and that's too much dough for me to fork out these days, so I don't think I'll make the trek. I like the Fever Ray album, but I'm not in love with it the way I'd have to be to thrown monetary caution to the wind. But I totally believe you and my other pals about the show's splendors. I bet there'll be a concert DVD. I have a good fill-in-the-blanks imagination, so I'll be okay. What do you hear about The Knife's opera? I've heard only two reports, both bad. Hard to believe somehow. ** Michael_Karo, Sir, greetings, lovely to witness you, as always. Enjoy all the SF revelries. I'll have to watch your video later 'cos the clock is starting to scare me at the moment, but why deprive others? Everyone, his eminence Michael Karo offers you a musical teaser and clue right here. I'll say no more. ** I made it through almost just in time to make my appointment. You all have weekends to remember, let 'Grimoire' and its related post guarantee that your next two days are memorable, and I will see you back here on Monday.

Galerie Dennis Cooper presents * ... Simen Johan's Odds

2009-11-13T00:56:00.000-08:00

* via a recommendation from Kiddiepunk
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'Swedish artist Simen Johan trucks in the demystification of artful dodging. Regardless of what medium he works in or the subject he chooses at any given moment, whether it is live llamas, roadkill fox, or children, forcing us to look behind our rationalizations is foremost on his mind. A former film student from Sweden, Simen switched to photography when he moved to the States out of necessity, since it was too costly to pursue film. He wouldn’t, however, call himself a photographer in the traditional sense.

'The primal experience of life is what he aims to get at, which is why animals and children are subjects that interest him. “We act on desires and fears,” he says, “rather than reason.” Adults tend to reason around their efforts to enable pursuit of that which is desired. Johan contends that we want truth and answers but don’t always get the answers that satisfy us, which leads us to fabricate answers we like from whole cloth. Children and animals are privy to the primal instincts that adults craft careful disguises for.' -- Rozalia Jovanovic, The Rumpus

Simen Johan Official Website

Simen Johan @ Robert Koch Gallery

Simen Johan interviewed @ Lifelounge

Room to Play, a book by Simen Johan

Simen Johan's print ads for the TV series Skins

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2009-11-13T00:52:00.000-08:00

p.s. Hey. How's it? I don't have any headlines for you today, and I'll let any subheadings or news or whatever leak out as I descend. Oh wait, late breaking alert: Are you fortunate enough to know the work of James Greer, author of (among many other things) one of the highlight books in my Little House on the Bowery series, a little hell of a novel called 'Artificial Light'? And let's not even mention that he was a member of Guided by Voices, which in and of itself would make him a holy man if it weren't that his fiction is even a million times more godlike than his bass playing. Well, whether you are or aren't already a Greerhead, I recommend you check out his brand new official site , okay? The guy is seriously tops. ** Heliotrope, Well, I was hoping you'd like it/them/that, so very cool. You did notice that two Verlaines fans raised their hands here yesterday, and one of them specifically requested a Verlaines Day, so me thinks with that plus my greener than green light, you have all the encouragement you could possibly want to make that V Day for us, so I won't take no for an answer. If you build it, they will come. That's the philosophy around this blog. Scary scary time to be between jobs, especially in California, from what I gather. Jules will prevail, I just know it, but be very assured I'm over here stressing for you guys. ** Renaud Cerqueux, Hey! It's just the truth, isn't it? Oh, wait, you're the guy who does those drawings I like so much. I think I told you that before, right? Nice to see you. Even though my understanding of French is too sad to even be called understanding, that thing about Claude Lévêque on your blog was nice and nice to see. Anyway, thanks, hi. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yeah, that's potentially very interesting, exciting. Do report back on what transpires, please. Thanks, pal. ** Pisycaca, I'm very happy that I got my timing so right on the Malkmus post. Yeah, I heard Pavement are doing Primavera. I'm hoping they add a Paris date, although I imagine and fear it'll be at the very crappy Rock en Seine Festival which thinks having The Prodigy or The Red Hot Chili Peppers on the bill is exciting. Yury's very happy to have that particular job, yes, although today will be his first official day, so we'll see if the real thing lives up to his hope. I'm so sorry about the job shit, Montse. Things are so rough right now, it's pretty fucking scary. I hope that if you do have to get a 'normal' job, and I really hope it doesn't come to that, it'll only be for a short time, and that the offers will return in a generous bouquet. Feel very free to worry aloud here, my friend. We care, and we want to know how you're honestly doing always. ** David, I'm guessing you didn't brave the film festival under those conditions? Are the raucous skies gone now? Have you ventured out? ** David Ehrenstein, Adam Lambert song? It must have played during the closing credits. I'm one of those people who bolt out of theaters as as soon their screens say Finis. Just call me a smoker, I guess. So I didn't hear it. I'll give it a listen, although from what I've heard so far, his music thing isn't my thing. Thanks for the Wes Anderson report. It's the film I'm most anxious to see between now and Xmas. ** Bernard Welt, Well, snows can be news, and, in poetry at least, news can be snows. ** Empty Frame, Oh yeah, totally with you on 'Microcastle/Weird Era'. Deerhunter and Bradford Cox's solo project Atlas Sound are both great. My big moves? Well, I moved from LA to NYC in 1983 because I was tired of LA and had a lot of friends in NYC and the writing scene there called to me. Then I moved from NYC to Amsterdam for love and because I was too broke to afford my NYC rent or the drug habit I had there. Then I moved from Amsterdam back to NYC in late '87 because I was miserable in the big A and a friend in NYC offered me a place to stay for almost no rent and because Artforum offered me a job writing for them. Then I moved back to LA from NYC in 1990 because I was sick of NYC and missed my LA friends. Then I moved from LA to Paris in 2005 for love. So I went forwards in some cases and technically backwards in others, but ultimately they were all hugely forward, progressive moves regardless of whether they were returns or ground breaking. What are your doable options, or what places are on your shortlist? Berlin isn't seeming as bright-eyed an idea as it did a while back? ** Nicki/ Atheist, My great pleasure, pal. I hope it helps at least in some small way. ** Chris, Oh, I bet it was splendid. The proof is in the pudding and the pudding is the punters? Yeah, I'm hoping we can get some 'Them' work done while I'm in NYC definitely. I'm even counting on it. ** Alan, Thanks for getting me safely and soundly to the right destination, man. ** Jose, Yeah, I understand. I suppose I'm the same way. It's just that, like, say with the novel I'm writing, I set out to write a book about a cannibal, and I had a pretty specific idea of how I wanted to do that, but in the novel I've actually ended up writing, the cannibalism is more like a red herring than the subject, so my initial plans were ultimately just the right waving flag for me to be able to start the race or whatever. Hugely interesting and promising list of topics there. You've gotten me even more excited. No, I haven't read 'Dhalgren' actually. I've read pieces of it, and I'm pretty sure I will at some point based on the praise I've heard and the sources of that praise. ** Pascal, Hey, man! Good to see you. Hm, no, I don't think I've seen Antonioni's 'The Eclipse' come to think of it, unless it also goes by some other title. Antonioni's killer, definitely. What is it about his work that's particularly exciting you, if you can say? How is your writing going? What's happened with the revised novel? ** Ken Baumann, It's on PS3? Oh, gosh, you're making my decisions so complicated, ha ha. Luckily and tragically, said decision is many months of to-be-accomplished writing away. 600-800 words a day is good. That would be a very good day for me. So you're using a fair amount of improv and intuition with the novel right now? Seat of your pants type thinking? Yeah, I can not wait to have the privilege of reading that sucker either as a whole or at any stage. There's something very invigorating and comforting when you know a comrade is making a novel at the same time you are, for me at least, I'm not sure why unless the reason is totally obvious. Great that you and Joel are going to finally meet up. You guys are both the awesomest, so I only wish I was there to sip a double espresso and do the tennis match watching thing with my head. ** Kier, Ha ha, well, Yury only wears black these days from neck to toe, so that's interesting, and he'll be pleased to have been portrayed so accurately. I can vouch for 'JCVD', 'Alligator', and 'Brain Dead'. ** Roger p, Apparently my brother actually did sign the document, whew. That hasn't stopped the yelling and fighting, but now it has an expiration date at least. Hope your day was swell, and lots of love from Paris where they know how to smooch. ** JW Veldhoen, Very nice thought pattern and subsequent typing pattern on the Verlaines meets Malkmus song. Greatly enjoyed over here. Try to use being broke the way Robert Smithson used the ground beneath his feet. ** Steevee, I think covering your bases re: getting ahold of the actor is the way to go, obviously. And I'm glad to hear you're thinking of other people and ways to make it happen too. Heliotrope offered to do a Verlaines Day, and I encouraged him heartily with your request's help up above. ** SypHA_69, Tomato sauce is so weird. Love the stuff, but sometimes it totally inflames the roof of my mouth. It seems so harmless. Could you possibly have an allergy to something that's causing the throat thing? Have you had an allergy test, I forget? If not, it might be a smart thing to try. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, He was the main guy in Pavement. Maybe that's how you know of him. Glad the Valentine thing was just a scare. My brother is extremely far away from sanity, but it seems he did sign off on the estate, but that was only because if he hadn't, he would not only have lost a lot of money in the court case but he wouldn't have been proven wrong, and he can not be wrong. Day: Worked on my novel, went well. Dealt with family crap via email. Finished my copyedit of 'Smothered in Hugs'. Watched workers installing the new playground equipment in the park behind the Recollets. It looks fun. If I was a kid, I'd sneak in there at night. If I was still a druggie, I'd sneak in there at night and do drugs. Bought a couple of food items. Tried to find the new issue of Film Comment so I could read David E's article on Bresson, but it doesn't seem to be in stores here yet. Around 7:30, Yury and I met up with Scott Treleaven and Marco Zanini, the head designer of Rochas and a new pal of mine, and we took the metro to Park Villette where the venue Zenith is located, entered, and waited for Morrissey to appear while watching a crappy opening band called Doll & the Kicks. The place was packed, and the crowd was all giddily revved up like Morrissey fans tend to be, and then he did his show. I'd never seen him live before, like I said, and I thought he was great. Very witty, very into it, very charming and into all the excitement he was causing and very interactive with the crowd. He didn't do any of the songs I most hoped he would -- 'Last of the Famous International Playboys', 'Handsome Devil', and a couple of others -- but it was a good selection of relative newbies and Smiths nuggets even if those nuggets weren't too adventurous -- 'This Charming Man', 'Ask', 'Is it Really so Strange', 'How Soon is Now', 'Sheila Take a Bow', and a couple of others. It was big fun, and all of us dug it a lot, although Marco has seen him a zillion times since he's a very hardcore fan, and he said there were no real surprises. Afterwards, we headed to our respective home bases, and presumably crashed, or I did at least. That's the deal. How was your Friday? ** Misanthrope, Thanks for the evil. I'm quaking in my boots or rather bare feet over here. Oh, yeah, I noticed dudevu had been hacked into non-existence or something. Strange. It really wasn't such a bad place. I'll miss quite a few clips I'd favorited there. It was a lot better than Rockettube, which is my last resort. ** Alec Niedenthal, Oh, cool. I mean that you're a fellow Malkmus lover. I know, such a sweet version of 'Box Elder', and I like the camera view stuff too. Everything that's great now was always a very small, unclean child in its distant past. Weren't you? I can't remember if I was. Do keep me updated. Like I was saying to Ken, I feel all strengthened when writers I admire are also locked down in novel making mode at the same time I am. I'll have a good one if you have an excellent one, man. ** You-x, Wow, Thinking Fellers Union Local 182. I haven't thought about then in ages. Hm. I'd like to revisit them 'cos my memory has vagued them out. Cool, thanks. Oh, really good new pieces over on your blog. I've only glanced, but it's obvious even in a blink. Especially love the 'soul collector' one. Everyone, there's a new painting, drawing, and collage over on the mighty You-x's blog, and they were made by the man himself, so do have a look, clearly. Kudos, my friend. ** James Greer, Jim! How fucking cool this is, all of it! You're over here right now? Yeah, I'll be pretty much completely in Paris until early January, so definitely let me know when you're and where you are as soon as you think you can bear my company. That's awesome and long awaited good news right there. Oh, sure, on the website thing. I'll insert it at the top of the p.s. Hold on second while I do that. Here's some muzak for you while you wait. Seriously, click that. Okay, I'm back. Hey, we're going to do a couple of readings together in LA and SF. Did you know that? I'm psyched. That's thrilling about the 'Sot Weed Factor' adaptation. That could really fly, or it really flies in my mind. You'll have to tell me all about it over espressos and the like while you also slip me that new Pollard album under the table at faux-gunpoint, okay? Hey, Jim, thanks a lot for being here, I can't wait to see you! ** The Dirty, Holy, Sleeping Gods, Hey, Nick. Whoa, happy birthday! Everyone, it's TDHSG's aka Nick Hudson's birthday today, so wish him something good. Loving the sound of all that equipment related music goodness, you can bet, and I'll zoom over to your blog and watch said video when I get the hell out of here. Lots of love, and enjoy today massively. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, That Pavement paean was just gorgeous, wow. I really, really thank you for gracing here with that. In fact ... Everyone, you really should leap back a day and go to the bottom of the southernmost comments section and then read The Dreadful Flying Glove's exquisite words of wisdom and fondness about/for the band Pavement. Really, you should. It's so worth it. Really, that was a beaut, my brilliant friend. ** I must depart now for a location quite a ways across Paris for an appointment. Today, I'm showing you the work of the artist Simen Johan based on a tip from our own Kiddiepunk, who deserves any credit you feel the post and its subject deserve. Right, tomorrow then.

Just Stephen Malkmus singing eleven songs is all

2009-11-12T00:53:00.000-08:00

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'Box Elder' (2:40)

'Jenny and the Ess Dog' (3:23)

'Mama' (3:27)

'Trigger Cut' (3:14)

'Baby C'mon' (2:43)

'Heaven is a Truck' (2:40)

'Freeze the Saints' (4:24)

'Spit on a Stranger' (2:46)

'Post-Paint Boy' (4:04)

'Gold Soundz' (3:11)

The Verlaines' 'Death and the Maiden' (4:33)
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2009-11-12T00:52:00.000-08:00

p.s. Hey. A couple of things I want to alert you to. First, the splendid writer and d.l. Alex Niedenthal wrote quite a seriously excellent piece on The Mountain Goats over on HTMLGIANT the other day, and, if you haven't read it, you really should, and here's how you can. Second, the beloved, long time d.l. Atheist asked me to pass something along to you, and I'm happy to do so. Here's Atheist: 'Could you possibly put a link to this petition in your p.s.? As both a member of the University and (more importantly) as a social scientist, I'm really worried and shocked by the proposed closure of the enormously important Department of Sociology at the University of Birmingham (once the home of the truly-legendary social theorist Stuart Hall). So, like many other academics in the UK who are very alarmed by this proposed development, I'm trying to do everything I can do to get as many people to sign the petition as possible!' Everyone, I urge you to please sign the petition if you agree. Thanks! Okay, now I'll wade in. ** David, Good God, David, that is a heck of an irksome week. And it's only Thursday! And tomorrow is Friday the 13th! Be sure you wear heavy boots as you walk on gilded splinters for the next couple of days. The mazes post thing had a kind of vague relationship to something I'm working on in my novel at the moment, yeah. Sometimes the posts here of late are evidence of me investigating something novel-wise or thinking out loud in public or something in that regard, and that post was one of 'em. ** Trees, I had my Klark phase too. Well, duh, I guess. I was slightly more of a Ton guy, to be honest. Actually, I was even more of an Ilya and Vitya guy, if you know/knew those two underdogs. Oh, wow, nice supergroup thesis committee there, needless to say. It can't surprise you that the promise of profound alienation from capitalist society plus fucking makes me kind of pant to read your thesis one of these days. Yeah, if you put any work online, give me a heads up. Tunnel boy sounds more tunnel-like with every report, which is a good thing, at least in theory way over here, mind you. ** Empty Frame, I want a WV! Why don't I get a WV like you guys do? I feel so alone. ** David Ehrenstein, I couldn't translate your French sentence in my lacking head, and I so wanted to do that, so I copied and pasted it into Babelfish, and what it told me you typed was 'Or are Russian porn stars d' antan?', which doesn't help at all! ** Tonyoneill, Oh, I do want the behind the scenes Cherie stuff, but, goodness, don't worry about curious me for now. My curiosity and my patience are pretty good buds. I'm just waving pom-poms or holding out bottles of Evian or whatever here on the sidelines until further notice. My things are going well. Novel's cool, theater piece is slow but steady, way behind on the foreword to my non-fiction book though. Great to see you, Tony. We'll be here all juiced up like always when you get the time to come back proper. ** Stan_cz, Nice about the early documents, man. Hope you can score that earlier appointment. ** Bacteriaburger, I wish I had found a Santa's Elf picture to show you. I could find any left online. They were on some now dead website. They were funny but also strangely, mm, effective. ** Alan, Well, I think your and my views on that kind of thing are differently organized, but you know that. ** Roger p, Oh, it's true that I imagined your trip to China as being an epic, jumbo jet sort of thing. My geography is a little weak sometimes. Yeah, for whatever reason, I'm not as interested in re-contextualizing porn as I was a couple of years ago, or not at the moment, or not enough to risk getting the blog shut down by Blogger, I guess. ** Bernard Welt, I'd certainly be interested, depending. ** Winter Rates, Half a Scottish show sounds A-okay to me. I don't think you need to hear Snow Patrol, unless I'm crazy, which I'm not. Anyway, looking forward to it, man. ** SYpHA_69, Here's extremely hoping re: the new medication, James. ** Oscar B, Yeah, just tell me what time your train gets in, and I'll be there, wow, so soon! ** Kier, I'll make another try at finding Klark in that elf costume. It's got to be somewhere, online or on some disc somewhere. I love that Klark and Ilya drawing! I miss Ilya. I'll tell Yury he was in your dream. I bet you anything that his first question will be, What was I wearing? That's my boy. ** Dynomoose, Hey, Adrienne! I know, it would be so cool to get a thank-you email from Klark. At one point quite a while ago, this guy was trying to arrange for me to interview Klark for this very blog, but the helpful guy just sort of disappeared. I hope you're doing well, my dear friend. ** Joseph, I guess it was sort of a dance party, at least initially. They even did the hokey-pokey, as I recall, and then, well, I think you can imagine what ended up happening. I like porn in other languages too, and I don't know why any more than you do. Strange. Oh, thanks for the link! I appreciate it. I'll go read to my heart's content and take better care of the bookmark this time. ** Ken Baumann, Hey, Ken. Thanks for the congrats. There's definitely a sense of relief with the new job secured, although now he's stressed that he'll do a good job and thus remain hired, but that kind of stress is permanent, and we all know how that goes, obviously. Really, PS3? But I need to play that 'Resident Evil' game, man. What a dilemma. How's your novel going? Tell me. ** Jose, Understood. Do you not think you could start writing with the idea of fulfilling the genre requirements and then let the novel transcend and exceed them while in process if that feels right? ** Christopher/Mark, Nice paean to Rhode Island. You don't see all that many, or I haven't. I've always liked that name. 'Rhode' sounds so classy or something. Like 'we don't have roads in this state, we have rhodes'. I was only there once, and my memories are mostly full of sailboats moored in coves, but the memories are pretty. ** Steevee, Trying is all you can do, obviously. Here's hoping. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, I'll look for a download of his album. I'm sufficiently fixated. It's always so nice when attractive looking people are clattery inside, isn't it? I hope today far outstrips yesterday for you. ** _Black_Acrylic, That sounds potentially really interesting. The collaborative writing thing. It's about Trecartin, I'm presuming? How would/will the collab work in terms of how/what you'd each write? ** Cody, Well, hey. 'Never' is an awfully strong word, ha ha. How about 'usually but unpredictably'. How's Reed? I still have no concrete news, and I suppose if this goes on much longer, you and I will just go it on our own. But it would be helpful if said help did arrive. Still, yeah, it's getting too lonnnnng. Well, I'm guessing with the beer bottle up the ass thing, it's probably worth the bacterial infection because it must feel so fucking sexy, you know? ** October, Hey, man. Oh, my Halloween was a total bust. I was in the middle of nowhere. All my friends went somewhere else to eat or sleep or whatever else, so I was alone. I surfed the internet. That's all I did. Happy fucking Halloween, right? But I don't care anymore. How was your Halloween? It had to have been a lot cooler than mine. ** Oliver, Hey. I'm doing fine too, I guess, basically or basically enough. Well, the problem with playing a video game while writing a novel has to do with both the immersion and the time it takes. When I'm writing a novel, or when the writing is going well, the vast majority of what I think about has to do with it, and everything else really feels like a background, and nothing else is able to really pop or penetrate my thinking, and I feel a lot less present in my life across the board. I'm always trying to solve a novel-related problem or figure out how to get from point A to point C or whatever. And to a slightly lesser extent, that's what happens to me when I'm playing a video game. When I'm lying in bed waiting to go to sleep, I'm thinking, wait, did, oh, let's say Link, who needs to get that bridge to lower so he can enter that distant cave, look behind that particular tree when he was trying to find the trigger? Nowadays, I lie in bed doing the same thing with my novel's characters, and I don't have any room to do both sorts of immersive thinking at the same time. A movie is different. It takes two hours, and it doesn't require any input from me to come and go, and it just clears the air a little. I guess that's the difference for me, if that makes sense. With the blog, I would put it on hold for a while if the problems it caused to the writing of my novel became drastic, but so far I'm managing to do both. ** NB, I don't know how I do the blog thing either. It's a mystery to me. Understood about the work stuff. Keep those lip pried apart. I like hearing about it or about anything else. What movie did you watch? What's Carollton, Texas like? ** Statictick, That ' ... will be back when my dick is just skin' thing made me cross my legs. Not in a bad way, but not in a good way either. Interesting. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, I watched the video. Yeah, she knows what she's doing or knows who to hire to make her thing happen or is savvy when it comes to hiring people to design her thing or whatever. There's long been talk of either combining the George Miles Cycle books into one volume or into a box set or something, but Grove Press doesn't think those ideas would be financially advantageous, so I think I'm going to have to die first. Hm, hard to pinpoint the exact drug based on Bendy's symptoms. Probably a combo of drugs type thing. Whatever it was, I hope he learned his lesson. Let me know what happens with Valentine today. I mean, I don't know him, but I feel like I know him by now. Gosh, yours was quite an eventful day. I don't think you realize your own linguistic gifts. My day was a long, exhausting one. I'll be as brief as possible. So, I think I mentioned I was drafted into being the family member who would attempt to talk sense into my psycho brother at the last minute because I'm 'good with words', at which point I wanted to say 'how would you know since you treat even the mention of the existence of my books as the verbal equivalent of farting in close company', but I didn't. So a lot of the daylight hours yesterday were spent trading intense, argumentative, waste of time emails back and forth with my psycho brother. Then the post-daylight hours were spent amidst a flurry of emails and phone calls with siblings and lawyers and accountants. At the end of the day, it seemed that my brother had miraculously signed off on the estate, but, as of this morning, there is much debate as to whether he actually did, or whether it was a trick because the wording of his agreement is carefully ambiguous. So it continues. In the midst of all of that, I saw '2012' with Yury and Kiddiepunk at the Gaumont Opera movie theater. First, that movie is going to be a gigantic success, in France at least, because I have never in all my years here seen a mob scene like the one at that movie theater. Huge, huge lines, people freaking out and jostling and fighting to get into the theater, crazy applause throughout the movie and at the end. Really, the whole experience didn't seem French at all. So, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I thought it was a satisfying big blast. That said, it is totally a traditional disaster movie in every respect. Lots of characters, lots of time introducing the characters, corniness and cliches and so on all over the place. I love disaster movies, so I didn't mind that stuff at all, and all of those conventional cornball elements are done very well and with enough of an ironic wink at the conventions that it wasn't a problem and was even quite charming. The disaster scenes, and there are a lot of them, are killer, especially the early destruction of LA stuff and the world being completely flooded. Very well done, very exciting stuff. So, it's just a disaster movie and nothing more, but it's a very good one. I think that's more than enough of my yesterday. Tonight I see Morrissey in concert. I'll give you the scoop. Your turn. ** Alec Niedenthal, Hey. I thought your piece on HTMLG was great, I really did. Wonderful, brilliant stuff. I hope folks from around here use that link up at the top and check it out. Very fine work, my friend. And that's very awesome news about you starting a novel/novella. Keep me up on how that goes as it goes, okay? Respect. ** T H O M, Hey there, Thom! How nice to see ya! I should be here on January 24th, 25th as far as I can tell. I think I'll easily be back from NYC by then. What's the CD that's being released? Cool. I can't wait to meet you, man. You sound good. I'm assuming things are going swimmingly? ** Slatted Light, Sir. Funny you should mention that Old Murder Mystery serial thing I did because when I was foraging through the dead blog in order to resurrect the Klark post, I looked at the MM thing for the first time in ages, and I was really embarrassed by it. I thought it seemed really stupid. That could have been because the photos or were missing, or maybe I'm being too hard on it, I don't know. Hm. Maybe I'll look at it again. If I can find the disc where I burned the pictures -- if I did burn them -- it wouldn't be that hard to rebuild. If I didn't save the images, it would be basically way, way too much work to try to gather them again, I think. 'Babyfucker' is really something. You won't be sorry. Oh, yesterday a little bird with an Australian accent was telling me about this possible project thing that the bird and you might do together, and I'll say no more, but it sounds potentially incredible, if you want to hear my opinion. I want to visit Australia, but maybe I'll wait until it's not 35 degrees in the shade, thank you very much! Love to you, man. ** Misanthrope, Yeah, I don't know why Dahmer doesn't interest me that much. I'm not so into the childhood stuff. Maybe that's it. You might have noticed that none of the serial killers in my books had childhoods. Speaking of evil, I'll go look at your blog. Or is that evol? ** You-x, Yeah, I seem to be a tall guy in France. Not freakishly tall, but definitely more towering than the average French guy. Sort of like I am in the States, but even more so here. In Sweden and even Holland, I'm much less of a sore thumb. Your prize can be happiness from the day before and the day after today too. How about that? ** Right, bye. Today's post is a really simple one. The other day, I wanted to watch and hear Malkmus sing without leaving my desk chair. And I did, and I thought I'd give you the chance to either do what I did or look the other way. Make your choice, and enjoy the consequences. Bye again.