___________
Ken Baumann
'We Speak'
Writer/actor: Ken Baumann
Director: Jesse Grce
Sound: Thomas Snodgrass
__________
Casey Hannan
Viper Missing
Lee’s across the river on the stone where we clean animals. He’d be naked, but he has a beard. He’s got one hand going in and out of a dead deer like he’s trying to restart the heart. The other hand is lifting one of the deer’s legs. Lee runs his tongue over the leg like he’s sealing an envelope. He spits out a hair and does it again.
I stand by the fire. I’m naked, too. Last night was the last night for us. I pee in the fire, and it hurts. A black snake out of season goes heavy across my foot. The snake wraps my ankle because I’m warm.
I grew up with snakes. We kept them in the basement and pulled them out on Sundays. My mother prayed for her hair to turn into snakes so she could always be tested. She stuck her head in one of the snake boxes and yelled, and that’s how she lost her nose. My family has a lot of incomplete ghosts.
I’m quiet, but Lee sees me anyway. He puts his tongue away and pulls his hand out of the deer. He stands, and he’s mostly blood. I try to make a face he can’t read.
I fail.
__
Flit
'Tent City'
‘Untitled Diagram Piece’
‘Untitled’
‘Standing Figure’
________
Mark Doten
The Spider and Salt Hearts: A Fragment
The spider and salt hearts were retrieved from the 17th lacustrine vault of the robots, and it is to the robots with their worship of Quaterniana in all its varieties that we must direct our thanks for the majority of the images herein. In all fairness, I, the author, should now answer your questions on the relationship between the robots and trains (in which year of the occupation, for instance, did maps of the perimeter of the Green Zone first omit the railroad station that nestled so lovingly between the Isolation Hospital and the Iraqi Dates Commission? and why do the sedimentary tunnels three leagues beneath the Tigris and Euphrates not crumble as the trains howl through?…in that perfect darkness, skull pressed to the window of your Pullman car, you could almost hear it, listening your way past knocking pistons, through the giddy tweet and hiss of live steam, beyond the vastly dulled ticking of giant wheels and the whoosh! of the firebox—the pleasant slippy sound of the bivalves (Pseudodontopsis and Corbicula are fellow travelers, though ideologically suspect and not to be trusted with your best secrets) crawling up the sedimentary walls with sighs of pleasure at the exhaust steam that blasted them into an indestructible enamel…but that is only one theory) however, I’ve forgotten too much, and here in my boxcar it’s all I can do to listen to the same scratched sarabande, the vinyl stuttering and popping in rage at the corvid quill I inflict (rooks aplenty split cuntwise by my Beretta 92F, which even now only pretends to sleep beneath my left hand; as the safety clicks off, my right hand takes no notice, preoccupied as it is with these scribblings), and in any case, you’d sing out your canary soul the moment the interrogator whisked the cloth from his cranial drills and water pics. In lieu of information, shall I offer you my sufferings? But this sadness of mine no longer pleases—your yawns rattle a last tacked-up shred of tympanum from a thousand miles off—and END TIMES, after all, provides its own strange happiness. Like the humans, the robots will fall victim to the sycamores and perish, but not before you and I, my child—for I have seen the future.
__________
Chilly Jay Chill
Memory by Memory: CV talks with Michael Kimball
by Jeff Jackson
Michael Kimball is the author of four novels, including Dear Everybody, Us, and, most recently, Big Ray. His work has been translated into a dozen languages, and been on NPR’s All Things Considered and in Vice, as well as in The Guardian, Bomb, and New York Tyrant. He is also responsible for Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard).
Big Ray recounts a son’s complicated feelings in the wake of his obese and abusive father’s death. This deeply affecting novel was recently selected as Oprah’s “Book of the Week.” I discussed the novel with Michael via email, using his own interview technique of sending one question at a time.
One of the most striking and immediate features of Big Ray is how it’s written in very short bursts – sometimes the entries last only a sentence or two and they’re never longer than two paragraphs. It’s a very effective way of conveying the narrator’s fragmented and grief-stricken memories of his father and I was curious if this stylistic idea arrived fairly early in your process and whether it significantly evolved over the course of the project?
The entries were fairly short from the very beginning, but there were sections that ran for many paragraphs, even a few pages. I was revising as I wrote, though, and at some point I started making each entry a single thought of sorts. It was pretty easy to go back and back down some of those early sections, though I found myself breaking entries into multiple pieces all the way through pages. My idea was that the entries would work like the brain remembers one memory leading to another memory – I was interested in the kind of natural form that would create. And that in turn led to the thematic chapters that are sprinkled throughout the novel – on sleeping, on being fat, etc.
(cont.)
_________
Tender Prey
________
Mark Gluth
Interview with Mark Gluth
After Sam and I had the conversation that became this interview, I started thinking back about the things that influenced me while I was writing The Late Work of Margaret Kroftis. Predictably most of them were musical, in large part because I listen to music while I write. I ended up thinking it would be cool to create an assemblage of some of the things that I found compelling while writing the book. I’m not sure if this will be illuminating in any way, and I’m not sure I intend it to be. I guess my goal is that you enjoy listening to and/or viewing this stuff.
____________
Alter Clef Records
'Letter Number One'
Letters to the Dead, by Nick Hudson
Track 4: Letter Number One
Directed by Chris Purdie & Nick Hudson
__________
Postitbreakup
The Showrunner
But it’s okay that I’m an unemployed screenwriter still living with my parents, because one day I’ll turn this into a great sitcom.
Like the episode where Hal McCallum (my TV alter ego) convinces a girl his parents are living with him and not vice versa, but after several comical mishaps (“What’s with all the baby pictures?”) the truth emerges. Hal, rejected, asks his mother something definitively childish like, “Can you tuck me in?” Canned laughter, credits roll.
And maybe one where Hal’s lawyer brother Grant visits and, realizing how depressed Hal has become, waits until their parents are off-screen visiting relatives, then stocks the house with a keg and lots of girls. (My brother—I mean, Hal’s brother—can always find girls.) Hal, distraught after bombing yet another job interview, arrives home to the thudding bass of whatever’s popular. He acts like he’s enjoying this “killer party,” but really he’s having trouble choking down even sips of beer, and is completely flustered by all the girls, so when one drunkenly shatters his mother’s favorite duck figurine, Hal sends everyone home.
Grant is all, “But bro, I did this for you—I was trying to give you back your college experience,” and Hal tearfully (but masculinely) admits, “That’s the thing, Grant… I never had the college experience. I studied my ass off all four years, turned down every invitation, and now I’ve failed anyway. Not only at being a screenwriter, but at having a life.”
The audience will “awwww” at this Special Moment and Entertainment Weekly will declare, “While the show at first seemed sophomoric, tonight’s airing of ‘Surprise Kegger’ proved that creator Marshall Winkleton, talented beyond his years, actually knows how to write characters with heart…”
(cont.)
________
Billy Lloyd
_________
Joshua Nilles
written upon quitting one of my medications last week
1. reading would be the best remedy. my eyes too weak for the lights. on my phone, i have some new finds to leave pathetically unfinished. obvious to me, not inclined to think it through. when the book is over... i am in an even greater sense of control over the outcome.
2. ...anger, sadness, pain. it occurs first without proper warning, strange sensations in my chest. an absurd uptake in cigarette input/output arises. the next hour, i struggle against my better judgement to be an accessory and adorn this triple threat as innocuous, more than usually so...
3. my speed of action in response to thought has been warped as ink in the sauna. a storm vs. daily-life, huddled in the basement, worried (....and i of them) that a gust from nowhere new, might rip the house right off the ground... i humored myself with the feeling this morning, that i don't know how many more medications i have left to quit. as many as they'll recommend, i will one day quit.
4. actually, i was unsure, to be serious, how high the number was... the amount my body will be equipped with the strength to cease. to travel cross-country, i think, survive on my depression (which i can build 'til it is really something grandiose and affable) and the open road, ramblin' alone. i don't believe in much else.
____
Jebus
____________
Chris Dankland
YOU GODDAMN BREEDERS
For Djuna Barnes
Dr. O’Connor limped drunkenly down the avenue, his ankle painfully twisted from when the bartender had shoved him out of the bar and down a short flight of steps, only ten minutes ago. They said he’d had enough. There was an argument. “All bartenders should be castrated,” he growled.
The doctor straggled across the sidewalk in a double affliction of hiccups and wet coughs. “Humanity is nothing but a heap of humping dogs…” he whined, suddenly leaning against a wall. He lifted his face and stared up at the full moon. “The moon a dog. The moon is like a dog’s eye rolled back in ecstasy, as it humps and lolls its dumb pink tongue,” he said. “What generosity…shining through the darkness so that we may never forget the world. I hate the fucking moon!” In a sudden gesture, he threw his clenched fist through the air as if to strike it down, losing his balance and in the process falling sideways against a large metal trash can, knocking it over. Nauseous odor poured from the trashcan’s open mouth into his, blanching his already doughy face. He vomited across the sidewalk.
Dr. O’Connor always drank heavily after performing surgery, but tonight he drank even more than usual. Finances were on his mind, specifically his lack of them. The patient he had treated earlier in the day had given the doctor a bag of antique silverware as payment—silverware honestly procured, she claimed, from a jewelry shop in Wichita. She was short on money that month. Might the money gotten from the silverware’s hock be enough to cover the doctor’s fee? He felt cheated. “She waited till the last moment to spring it on me, of course, after it was already over… I should have refused her offer then and there.” But, despite himself, he’d accepted the jangling pouch with a hesitant nod, for he was a fool…and, arm around her waist, assisted the girl as she woozily staggered out from his office and into a waiting cab.
“Doctor…” he hissed. “You’re nothing but a rose colored sucker, that’s all.” His eyes rolled. “God, I must get back to Paris. City of lights, light in the darkness. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to arrive there in time for New Years? Start off the year 1900 from the fresh side of the pond. Oh yes, that would be marvelous. If I only had the money to do it, I would leave this very night.”
(cont.)
_______
Dom Lyne
A Broken Coda
_____
Steevee
Leos Carax Express: With Holy Motors, the Great Director Returns in a Rush
By Steven Erickson
“This film was born out of the rage of not being able to make other projects,” Leos Carax says of Holy Motors, an anomaly in the French director’s oeuvre as its production was relatively stress-free. Speaking at a hotel bar in New York, Carax says, “It was imagined very quickly, but I knew that the film would be shot in Paris for little money. I would not watch dailies. Those were the only things I knew.”
Holy Motors arrives on American shores within six months of its premiere at Cannes. That's rare for Carax: His 1991 masterpiece Les Amants du Pont-Neuf killed off his hopes of pursuing a steady career by bankrupting its production company; unfortunately, it took eight years to get an American release. It would be 1999 before his next film, Pola X, got made.
Only the fifth feature Carax has directed, Holy Motors depicts a man, Oscar (Denis Lavant), who spends a day traveling around Paris in a stretch limo, dressing up in elaborate costumes and makeups, and participating in role-play scenarios whose degree of reality seems to vary wildly. Like The Artist or Hugo, the film expresses an anxiety about the technological changes affecting Carax’s chosen medium. (Needless to say, it was shot on digital video.) And like David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, the image of the limousine is crucial to Holy Motors.
(cont.)
_______
Scunnard
Some Say She Lost Her Head single channel video, DV transfer from 16mm film, 2 minutes and 42 seconds.
_________
Frank Jaffe
HAUSUUUUUU!!!
__________
Hyrule Dungeon
“Mercy…mercy…mercy…mercy I only offered her a cup of water for the sake of nature, for the sake of mercy I am not sick, that’s only a superstition. The last to die of it was in my mother’s time Everybody dies in shame which they find impossible to endure, but not me. I die because of mercy. They only keep me here because I show mercy. They say I summon the fattest rats, the grandest ol’ emperors of rats, but that’s because they are lowly hungry slobs and I show them mercy. To be the daughter of god is to be the mother of rats, to be the greatest gift giver, holding back nothing but the deluge of doubt which runs away from the lord like rabbits from barking dogs, the lord who gives gifts because she must. But what is this key good for now that doors become locked at the mere mention of it? My right to salvation tricked away from me, tricked from under my nose, I’ve been tricked into being too kind—the lord of darkness is the lord of kindness, the lord of words is the lord that lies. Who will take the same dumb risk and sneak me heaven? In who’s pocket? Under who’s shadow? Only rats are kind enough to carry me in morsels to the land that promised. It is better to be rat-vomit than rape-fodder. Mercy… mercy … mercy …mercy …who remembers me?
___________
Grant Scicuna
Trailer: 'The Wilding'
Directed by Grant Scicluna
Produced by Jannine Barnes
Cast: Reef Ireland, Frank Sweet, Luke Mullins, Shannon Glowacki
__________
Randomwater
Hyasinge, who can suck the music land
I know pulverized glass may not seem fun now, but in time
you’ll know a uniform worthy of Captain Crunch, your mouth
near Blaze cornered by its heavy heavy coals. Infinity, not so
bad in circuits, red_hairy haloes rising out your neck suit me.
This is, of course, only the future of things. There is no Moon
without a Wig. There is no Emergency without your Openings.
Our eyes now. What sweet UFOs to grow cemetery forth,
because I was not raised on nipples but mothership logos.
Where red lights, in traffic, as you know, dangle down dentless
of mosaic gloss_cradles. Ah, no one likes my heart_sized wink?
There is Nothing in the kids and Nowhere in the wind. Hurts,
how much time I’ve wasted perfecting my October Lobotomy.
Please, travel with me a bit. I’ll shred away your fading home.
Places places, why so real, right? Just raise bit-maps under
ligament’s hippodrome tart for a century, wer-mantis fumes
tracing the cascaded lines of sinew all over-- tada, our skeleton.
Once every thousand steeples, the Flare resurfaces. Pale near
to blind with basement icing, quietly stirring in its bright glares.
Mom says that good things are the result of best people. Some
sign I watched in my guidance counselor’s bedroom says no
place is a wasteland where hope crawls. My friend Hope says
I will never find anything. But I own your muted roast of colors.
When all else fails, I can come out of the window and hold you.
Nothing spreading by the lightless channel, all TV super_scalding.
Perhaps we don’t live on a globe but just this really ugly circle.
All those pits and shoots who glimmer like depth are just tumor
butter, crescent to strident, permanent throat_banging. No win?
Nothing says ‘I love you’ like gag melodies, phlegm_sorted bolts.
World I first made over you: worm_twinkling darkspam, neon
wound of saint echoes. Priest robed in some fleshless tranny.
Doors split from the PVC of boy cocks. Snot-crinoline only
visible by cirrus, all skin ribboned in your asshole rain. Our Best.
Pump my skull_flock back up until your kidneys drown in eclipse.
People confetti speckles after, gargles past awe. Enjoy me, ok?
_____
Starlon
___________
_Black_Acrylic
Yuck 'n Yum Winter 2012
_________
Tomkendall
The old man’s voice was calm, not self consciously calm or measured rather his voice followed the natural pitch, modulations and evolutions the particular subject had brought to bear on it. Likewise everything quantifiable about the old man’s presence was entirely consistent with itself and one could not even say that the lack of drama in his tone was itself dramatic or that the speech was inherently boring because of its common place-ness or that it was indeed common place. Perhaps there was an ambient neuronal swarm gathered behind his abeyant musculature that hummed at the edge of becoming and which elided the two of them with a strange charge of time.
All that you can really say was that something occurred in their relations, a change that was real and emanated but from which intent and causation had been liberated despite the unilateral direction of power’s drift. The old man was condemning the other to an experience one, further more, unanchored by event. The old man had just needed to talk and now everything was out of his hands and soon they would both see this and the experience would thankfully start to deteriorate as each started to become aware of themselves in relation to the other.
….
You are in a room with a woman who resembles your mother. You do not speak though occasionally the woman who resembles your mother will regard you for a moment or two. There is a tenderness in this look that would be unequivocal but for the pity beginning to seed out from her heart, arms branching forward from the cracked bean of torso.
If the woman who resembles your mother looks at you for longer than this the resembling woman’s face will gradually shift into one of confusion and horror. It is as if she has lost something. Her eyes widen and the mouth draws an invisible circle around itself. You cannot look at the resembling woman now without feeling the invisible, labouring processes of your own body. Materiality is a limit, fossils are just hidden in things that already are.
If the resembling woman looks at you for any length of time she will begin to fold and break into herself like a chicken entering a coop. The woman who resembles your mother’s forehead will begin to bead with sweat, her elbows dislocate, her forearms windmill and she drops to the floor as if through a hole and then it is over.
___
Bill
Video demo for HCA installation
____
Oliver
The Rich Being Rich
“I believe in the rich being rich and looking after the poor, because in my experience, the poor cannot look after themselves”
In the spirit of recent-ish moves towards a proper understanding of conservatism, I thought I’d take a look at a BBC documentary on his party by late Tory pinup Alan Clark. It was made in the immediate aftermath of the 1997 general election and the end of 18 years of Tory rule. Indeed, one of the first shots is Clark standing outside a desolate Tory election soiree, with chants of “You’re out, and you know you are” echoing behind him. Interestingly, Clark is already talking in the past tense about events happening as he speaks.
Clark’s thesis is that the origins of this Tory defeat go back “to when they first became the party of government, in nineteen-twentytwo-oooo”. Implicit in his argument is that the sexism and snobbery that many would see as intimate to the party were the flaws that allowed both for the spectacular rebellion of Thatcher, but also caused them to lose to a man who publicly distained such discrimination while remaining essentially conservative: Tony Blair.
Clark sees the rebellion that caused the Tories to split from Lloyd George’s Liberal coalition as marking the foundation of modern Toryism. “The toffs and the grandees suffered from that customary illusion of politicians: that they were indispensable”. An ability to change – “that innate sense of self preservation”, Clark calls it – is what kept them in power.
(cont.)
______
Katalyze
___
Alan
the sense of an end
1. The extremity of any thing materially extended
2. The last particle of any assignable duration
3. The conclusion or cessation of any action
4. The conclusion or last part of any thing; as, the end of a chapter; the end of a discourse
5. Ultimate state; final doom
6. The point beyond which no progression can be made
7. Final determination; conclusion of debate or deliberation
8. Death; fate; decease
9. Abolition; total loss
10. Cause of death; destroyer
11. Consequence; event
12. Fragment; broken piece
13. Purpose; intention
14. Thing intended; final design
“End”
Johnson’s Dictionary (1755)
__________
Bernard Welt
Alex Trebek has bad dreams
________
5STRINGS
Halloween Story: Part II.
The cars wheels grinded to a stop on the gravel drive. Tim looked around at the many cars parked outside. Tim's sister pulled the keys from the ignition. "You better fucking behave yourself, and I mean it." "If you don't, you're gonna get fucked up." "You know how these guys are." "Fuck, I just wanna go home. Can we just go home please." "Tonight is an epic night Tim." "Ever seen a corpse necromanced?" "Just play along and nobody gets hurt, ok?" "What the fuck?" "Oh fuck you, you're the one that fucking murdered his ass." "Tesla! Timmy! Welcome to Hell!" "Hey Tes, want a beer?" "Yeah, thanks." "Is he here yet?" "No, everybody's just now started getting here." "Mike and 'em are preparing the basement." Tim and Tes walked inside. Tes took off socializing with her Neo-Nazi boyfriends. Tim watched them salute her and almost vomited, then tried to remember if he had blown off that one guy or not. The party was crowding and the music was blaring fucking loud. Tim could feel the vibration of the speakers as he watched the stranger of the faces from about town fill the old farmhouse. He sat down on the couch and tried to gather himself after taking a hit of a crack pipe with some pretty black girl. He felt jealous, he felt ambivalent, he wanted to fuck, he thought of Dakota, thought it was sad. He listened to the voices around the room, it looked like a fucking cocktail party. He had been here before, it was nothing new. It would only be new, if it actually fucking worked this time. The previous failures were only slight, and there was something about Dakota they said would make it work. Something about his birthmark and virility and whatnot.
Tim got up and walked into the kitchen to get a drink. Big Mike came up the basement steps and tackled him, shaking him violently by the arms. "Tim, it's fucking perfect." "You're our fucking hero man!" "That boy is going to be it." "He's hot, I can feel it man, this is it." "Tonight's the night!" "Hey Mike, do you know that black chick on the couch?" "Nope, I've seen her around." "I think I'm gonna try to get with her, I'm bored." "Good luck man, just don't be late." They started passing around the punch soon after Tim had sat back down. They drank deeply, savoring the quick intoxication. Tim took another hit of rock and flirted with his new friend. "Ladies and Gentlemen, if you will, please make your way to the basement." "The time draws near." Tim listened to the music, Morbid Angel or some shit. It was almost midnight.
There must have been forty or fifty people there. Many of them sat on the folding chairs. The others stood along the walls. It looked like a funeral or a holy-roller wedding. The basement was very dark, Tim could hardly see Dakota's body resting beneath the sheet at the front. He sat in the back biting his nails. More punch was passed around and the music was ended, the conversation stirred around the cold basement. Tim looked around at the crowd again, a doctor, a professor, the barista kid, prostitutes, quite a motley crue. "This is fucking sick," he thought and laughed to himself. Tim's sister had changed into a pair of very short Daisy Dukes and a faded out Baphomet tee, she had tied into a knot at her ribs. He looked at her big tits and her navel ring, and felt proud. He watched Dakota's body lie there motionless beneath the sheet as the room washed over him. The candles were lit and a call for silence was made. The room grew darker and darker as they sat there silent. The noise filled the air, the house, their ears, as the motorcycles roared up the drive. The sound of conversation outside, motors, and the clink of chains. Heavy chains and feet drug the floors upstairs as the robes descended on the room. There was minimal discussion as the incantations began. Hearts raced, vulvas filled, like worms they squirmed with anticipation. At the back of the room, two columns of slaves parted, opening to The Master. The candles flickered lighting his black hockey mask into a thousand grotesque faces. Tim picked his nose and held his face. He was starting to trip out hard. He looked at his sister standing with Mike and Johnny, who was sliding her hand into her panties beginning to masturbate. They dropped the chains from his vestments, and he raised his leathered fist high and opened his hand. He let it fall softly and walked naked butt-cheeks clinched to behind the altar. He removed his mask, his blond hair falling about his ears. He looked at the room with his crazed blue dead eye. A sinister grin breaking on his pale face. The incantations were deafening. He did what looked like rock, paper, scissors, on Dakota's stomach. The electricity to the house gave out with an explosive surge. The candle flames grew tall burning dark crimson. He screamed what sounded like a war cry and called for Tim to come to the front. Tim smiled with jitters and adjusted his erection as he walked to the front and bowed before the corpse and master.
One of the robes took Dakota's right hand and put two of his fingers in Tim's mouth. "Suck! Suck deep child!" The Master took the position of the crucified Christ as Tim sucked. The room cheered and clapped. Tim felt his nuts swelling with pain as he sucked. He looked around at the snotty, bloodied faces of the slaves who were brought around the corpse. The sheet rose with a death's erection. The Master threw back the sheet revealing Dakota's naked corpse and glowing member. The Master's dead eye rolled into his skull as he opened Dakota's eye. Black as night, Dakota stared into the rafters of the ceiling. Tim felt his nuts explode with the force of a thousand orgasms and he fell to the side. Dakota's mouth opened, filling with thick cum, it filled his mouth to the brim, then slowly receeded inside him. The Master lay down into him, disappearing completely. Dakota's body taking him like a sinkhole. The slaves whimpered and screamed with abject horror and truest fear. The corpse rose, and the crowd broke toward chaos. He stood high upon the alter, his long smooth legs dripping with the blood tearing through his pores, it spoke in tongues of an hundred demon's viscera. Black acidic death lashed the air and was thrown upon the riotus room. The slaves now free, fell upon the corpse, dragging him down, devouring his every taste, the unholy purity of lust, filling their teeth. Their heads glowing as they tasted him. At the back of the room, Tim's sister put herself around The Master, kissing him all over. He smiled with joy and ravished her. The crowd dispersed falling over each other up the stairs. Tim lie there, his smile bleeding into the calfs and ankles of hunger's divine delight.
Dakota woke, he couldn't breath, he was burning up, trapped. He couldn't see, he pushed, he kicked. As he emerged from the animal's body, he crawled like afterbirth. They laughed as their cum hit on him like rain. Tim's sister in her panties. Mike cummed making some stupid face. Tim's dirty yellow boxers around his knees as he skeeted. Some chick straight sprayed. Dakota laughed vehemently and rolled on the ground in the sunshine kissing his friends.
________
Patrick DeWitt
Patrick deWitt's 'The Bastard'
Animation: Joanna Neborsky
Music: Lewis Pesacov
Sentence: Patrick deWitt
______
CAP'M
In this forest we give fear, alms to the Begging
Rajah, who straddles a red-eyed dog named
Shab. M' lord, your palms once carried, gave
Vajras as gifts, cupped milk curd and batteries.
Once, riding home to the Moist Pinkish Cave
From a tour of generosities, which were your
Fetish, you came upon a poinsettia as high as
The Fordamal Chank, at Chukka. Its star-shape
Mouths bobbed in thickets of plaited wondry;
It's hunger smelt rough and good and buttry;
But as your fingers slid thru the crinkled folds
In bliss, there was a neuro-chemical stab,
Your eyes rolled, and the Monster Poinsettia's
Incisors chopped your hands off at the wrists.
_______
MANCY
_________
Misanthrope
I really don't have much to offer,
there's not much I can do.
I write poems, but they're not very good,
even though every single one is about you.
posted by The Hated
________
Kiddiepunk
'Middle of Nowhere'
Michael Salerno - video
Marcus Whale - audio
_________
Paul Curran
The newspapers only talked about the coat hanger.
They wanted to know why I coiled it up and inserted it into my ass.
I said the sickness and fear of things has always lived there.
I told them I was very miserable,
and it occasionally overwhelmed me.
I visited gravesites,
violated them,
high.
The coat hanger protected my notebook
until I had written on its pages so many times
that the words became illegible.
Skin and bone,
tendon and ligament,
heart values.
People became the margin.
Substantial damage was permitted.
When the newspapers reported this to the police,
my freedom was terminated.
Where I lived was ransacked.
It was better than the typical orgasm associated with ejaculation.
I was the sibling of my own body.
______
Oscar B
'Better By You Better Than Me'
____________
David Ehrenstein
'Masters of Cinema: Roman Polanski' (Phaidon Press)
________
Changeling
Shining
He spreads the handkerchief on the ground. It appears luminous in the gloom. Stilled, our hands like this on our hearts. When you start laughing it gets echoed and muffled impossibly. The same time. "Shut the fuck up" I'm licking the walls, I thought - the haul glints on the white handkerchief. I'm shut. My heart, over expands.
"She wasn't dead tho?"
"Shut the fuck up"
In the dark it's hard to know if it's this mouth, or that.
The upstairs room: the girl jumps rhythmically, bites at the bread. We watch her from the rug, a fire in the grate. The bread has a sweet resistance. Hollow lifts the skirts and his legs shine. The girl stops jumping, but the mattress takes a while to catch on. She pulls the bread thoughtfully, her sorry teeth. Our eyes together in the same place, cos he glows so, there by the fire.
__________
Esther Planas
________
Allessfliesst
I want my society without x
Please try to be...
1) specific: If what comes to your mind is something like 'I could do without government,' consider which functions of your national or local government that affect you personally you don't need or would be willing to live without, e.g. organize education yourself in networks instead of municipal school.
2) honest, even if the statements are or seem incoherent and contradictory - e.g., I could do without privately owned cars but not without taxis.
3) subjective: Do think about things that would not or would be necessary to you, not things you think 'the society' should be able to do without (unless you're someone who cannot do without generalizations...).
___
Tosh
"Style of Spectacle" First episode with Lun*na Menoh and Tosh Berman
____
Sypha
2012 Reading List Monthly Update: November
Books completed in November of 2012:
"The Drowned World" (J.G. Ballard) 11/3/12
"The Illuminatus! Trilogy" (Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson) 11/13/12 *
"The Maids/Deathwatch" (Jean Genet) 11/16/12
"I Murder So That I May Come Back" (O.B. De Alessi) 11/16/12
"The Feast of St. Rosalie" (Poppy Z. Brite) 11/18/12
"The Story of the Eye" (Georges Bataille) 11/18/12 *
"Ghost of Chance" (William S. Burroughs) 11/18/12 *
"The Cat Inside" (William S. Burroughs) 11/18/12 *
"Love" (Angela Carter) 11/18/12
"The Drought" (J.G. Ballard) 11/22/12
"Masks of the Illuminati" (Robert Anton Wilson) 11/25/12
"The Verifiers" (Andrew Champagne) 11/30/12
2012 Reading List Total:
1. "In Youth is Pleasure" (Denton Welch) 1/26/12
2. "Grapefruit" (Yoko Ono) 2/2/12
3. "Sub Rosa" (Robert Aickman) 2/7/12
4. "Grimoire: uncorrected publisher's proofs" (James Champagne) 2/9/12 *
5. "Dark Companions" (Ramsey Campbell) 2/17/12
6. "The Inhabitant of the Lake & Other Unwelcome Tenants" (Ramsey Campbell) 2/17/12
7. "Goose of Hermogenes" (Ithell Colquhoun) 2/23/12
8. "Obsession" (Ramsey Campbell) 2/29/12
9. "Mason & Dixon" (Thomas Pynchon) 3/10/12
10. "The Crystal World" (J.G. Ballard) 3/24/12
11. "Finnegans Wake" (James Joyce) 4/14/12
12. "Dark Gods" (T.E.D. Klein) 4/22/12
13. "High-Rise" (J.G. Ballard) 4/28/12
14. "It" (Stephen King) 5/7/12
15. "Grimoire" (published version) (James Champagne) 5/20/12 *
16. "Grist to Whose Mill?" (Kenneth Grant) 5/29/12
17. "Sam's Port" (Andrew Champagne) 6/13/12
18. "Spreadeagle" (Kevin Killian) 6/19/12
19. "Tales of Horror and the Supernatural" (Arthur Machen) 6/25/12
20. "The Croning" (Laird Barron) 6/28/12
21. "Orthodoxy" (G.K. Chesterton) 7/6/12
22. "Lord Foul's Bane" (Stephen R. Donaldson) 7/16/12 *
23. "The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell" (Chris Colfer) 7/24/12
24. "The Ceremonies" (T.E.D. Klein) 7/30/12
25. "The Bloody Chamber" (Angela Carter) 8/4/12
26. "To The Lighthouse" (Virginia Woolf) 8/11/12
27. "The Magic Toyshop" (Angela Carter) 8/19/12
28. "Jhonn, Uttered Babylon" (David Michael Tibet) 8/21/12
29. "The Sky Went Red While He Was Inside" (Ken Baumann) 8/27/12
30. "Death Poems" (Thomas Ligotti) 8/27/12
31. "Orlando" (Virginia Woolf) 8/28/12
32. "Dare to Dream: Life as One Direction" (Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik) 8/31/12
33. "Venus in Furs: (Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch) 9/5/12
34. "Notes From Underground" (Fyodor Dostoevsky) 9/8/12
35. "Noctuary" (Thomas Ligotti) 9/20/12 * (1st time I ever read this edition, however)
36. "The Garden of Mercedes" (Tom Champagne) 9/24/12
37. "Drama" (Raina Teigemeier) 9/29/12
38. "The Magic Mountain" (Thomas Mann) 10/6/12
39. "All God's Angels, Beware!" (Quentin S. Crisp) 10/11/12
40. "The Dark" (Scott Bradley & Peter Giglio) 10/18/12
41. "Edwin Mullhouse" (Steven Millhauser) 10/27/12
42. "The Drowned World" (J.G. Ballard) 11/3/12
43. "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" (Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson) 11/13/12 *
44. "The Maids/Deathwatch" (Jean Genet) 11/16/12
45. "I Murder So That I May Come Back" (O.B. De Alessi) 11/16/12
46. "The Feast of St. Rosalie" (Poppy Z. Brite) 11/18/12
47. "The Story of the Eye" (Georges Bataille) 11/18/12 *
48. "Ghost of Chance" (William S. Burroughs) 11/18/12 *
49. "The Cat Inside" (William S. Burroughs) 11/18/12 *
50. "Love" (Angela Carter) 11/18/12
51. "The Drought" (J.G. Ballard) 11/22/12
52. "Masks of the Illuminati" (Robert Anton Wilson) 11/25/12
53. "The Verifiers" (Andrew Champagne) 11/30/12
*= book I read at least once in the past
Currently Reading:
"Against the Day" Thomas Pynchon (up to pg. 226)
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Bollo
'Some But Not All My Spam (Ka$h4GLD)'
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xTx
And I Love Her. You Don't Even Know
The fairy is naked. Her ass. It’s covered in green transparent. She’s made for children but I want her.
Have you ever wanted to lick a four inch naked sex doll?
I bet you could do it with your whole tongue and would she even taste the same? Her tiny twat (alliteration) a speck of spice in your mouth. It would be hard to get enough. She would be insignificant and so maddening in that. In how she could never be enough. Her breasts; uvulas.
I will just look and mentally masturbate instead. At the cartoon fairy that is not naked but yet, pretty fucking naked. WHO DECIDES WE SHOULD SELL THIS TO CHILDREN?
I want to fuck Tinkerbell now but she isn’t who started all of this.
p.s. I hate the word 'twat'
I have a restless leg. I swear something slipped inside of it. Probably a ghost or a devil or some sort of thing that wants to prove it’s Jesus. My leg is a severed lizard’s tail. I want you to strip me naked and tie my leg down and then cover me with a blanket and put a dick in my mouth while my leg tries to jerk free.
Fuckin leg.
I pulled a blade of grass out of my dog’s throat. Felt like a fucking hero. Ever want to fuck a hero?
________
Marc Vallée
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Cobaltfram
Remembering… Planescape: Torment
by John Fram
Planescape: Torment is more than a legend in the ranks of those who know their old-school games. Unlike it’s better known cousin Baldur’s Gate or its scrappy younger brother Icewind Dale, Planescape has been difficult to find in the years since its release. A used copy of the game (all four CDs worth) could run upwards of a hundred dollars. It was a relatively poor seller when it launched, despite being a critical hit, though this is perhaps no wonder: its world is bleak and grisly, a realm of brown slums and scorched earth. Even when walking on paved streets, the world’s inhabitants are always the same: selfish, arrogant, ever seeking an angle, trying to advance themselves, entertain themselves at other’s expense, or survive when they have hit rock bottom and continue to fall. The game begins in a mortuary of flayed bodies and ends in a fortress built by lifetimes of sin, and the entire motivation driving players from one end of misery to the other is the hope that they can finally, truly, die. To call the game’s focus dark is an understatement; its moments of humor are bleak laughs, and they are few and far between. The game is long, deliberate, exhausting, and even exasperating. And it may be the single best Western-style roleplaying game ever made.
Its hero is a scarred, blue-skinned man who has difficulty staying dead. He doesn’t know the reason for his immortality, his past, or his name, though several people that he meets remember him. He begins in the slums of the city of Sigil, the center of the multiverse, where one can find the portals to every plane of existence. Right from the start Planescape accomplishes a neat trick perfectly, without even seeming to realize it, a trick that games like the Dragon Age series have congratulated themselves for doing while never really accomplishing: it paints a portrait of a truly dark fantasy world. This is not dark in the sense that the characters occasionally use the F-word. This is the kind of dark with painful real-life parallels: a starving homeless population, jonesing drug addicts, howling prostitutes, orphaned children surviving in packs, all living in dirt and all with no way out. While modern RPGs have come a long way with voice-acting and lush 3D environments, they have somehow lost the feeling of being in an unfamiliar place, or among people we would see walking down the street in real life and hope to avoid.
(cont.)
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Rewritedept
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Brendan
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Kevin Killian
The Bulletin Board
'White Columns is proud to present in our project space The Bulletin Board the first solo exhibition of photographs and a handwritten and embellished poem by the San Francisco-based writer Kevin Killian. The project has been guest curated by Darin Klein.
'The photographs offer a glimpse into an ever-expanding index of Killian’s artist and writer contemporaries, highlighting his commitment to a grassroots social networking practice including actual, face-to-face interactions. Inviting a broad range of critical and aesthetic interpretations, the work fetishizes both a coveted original artwork by Raymond Pettibon and the corporeal/intellectual properties of the subjects Killian poses with Pettibon’s brush-stroked genitalia, and “…suggests an alternative to the surveillance camera, while weakening the power of collaboration between disciplined subjects, sexed identities and systems of control.”
'Killian’s poem, after which The Bulletin Board installation is named, bridges his writing practice with this recent photography project and conveys ideas including “…hurt feelings + revenge + the impossibilities of the alphabet as a means of maintaining concord and order…”.' -- Darin Klein
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Daveyhoule
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Chris Cochrane
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Shannon
Familiar Skin
Normally I don’t wear skirts so short that the right twitch of my hips treats the public to a glimpse of my bottom, I’m not the kind of girl who gets so dressed up that I command attention from passers by. Normally, I’m a shy invisible type of femme, in this city women look at me for a moment and their eyes pass right by.
It took a chance meeting to turn me back on. To remind me of the familiar joy of Black on Brown- girl on girl love. At least the possibly of such touched something deep in my heart and I was ready.
I met her at the beauty supply store as we both reached for the same bottle of conditioner. This was shocking only in that I had never seen another person of color in that particular store and thought I was the only one who bought that product. I found myself face to face with a woman my height with big round black eyes and big black curly hair, brown skin and amusement written all over her face.
That was the first time in this city that I have had that moment of deep recognition and desire. There are not many brown faces in the queer spaces I inhabit. I’ve spent most of my time trying to be the one invisible brown face in the crowd, trying to duck the whispers about how exotic I am.
I was too stunned by the recognition of the way she smiled at me to do much of anything except put my phone in her palm when she told me she was giving me her phone number. I remembered who I was in time for me to stop gaping at her for a moment and commit an act of brilliant femme chivalry, I gave her that last bottle of conditioner.
“Thanks. Maybe we can share it on Sunday.”
She winked and walked away.
Sunday is a day for hair like ours. Hours spent oiling, combing gently to coax tangles out of tight coils. The way she said it resonated with me and tickled the idea that perhaps I had met a woman who understood my Sundays. The idea that I could share my Sunday in a way that wasn’t strictly fascination thrilled me.
That is how I found myself flexing my femme muscles hard on a late Saturday afternoon. I decided to not just look good, I could look good anytime. I wanted to look like a chocolate incarnation of some esoteric and long forgotten fuck goddess. So out came the tiny skirt and gleaming legs.
At the club I felt visible. I felt the eyes of women on me, long appreciative looks. I didn’t care. Those eyes were not the ones that mattered. As we got close I opened my arms for a hug, her round arms wrapped around me and I felt her small hands on my ass, we fit together curve for curve, almost lip to lip.
For that instant, in that moment I felt everything beautiful and familiar, terrifying and mysterious. As we made our way onto the dance floor together, she curled her fingers in the tiny nappy coils of my hair on the back of my neck and pulled me close, I couldn’t hear the exact words but it didn’t matter. I was hers.
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L@rstonovich
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Bitteruk69
Paper Dress Vintage DJ Set List 1 December 2012
Pretty, pretty? In an ideal world, she would be the official “face” of Lobotomy Room. All women should have this photo taped next to their make-up mirror as a reference guide! (Are there hairs growing out of her Liz Taylor "beauty spot"?)
Saturday night marked my DJ’ing debut at hip new Shoreditch fleshpot Paper Dress Vintage. It was a bit of a trial or audition for possibly doing my own heretofore jinxed club night Lobotomy Room there. After Lobotomy Room’s botched “non-launch” last summer (it was bedevilled by chronic venue problems), I put the whole idea on ice for a while. But recently I've been testing the waters and shopping my sleaze / trash night concept around again and I'm hoping to unveil Lobotomy Room somewhere suitable early in 2013.
Anyway, Paper Dress Vintage: by day it’s an ultra chi chi and frou frou vintage clothing boutique and cafe. By night, they clear some space, darken the lights, start serving beer and cocktails and it’s transformed into a bar/nightclub/performance space (there’s a makeshift stage in the shop window for musicians, and a DJ area to the side). The place definitely has a beatnik / Boho vibe that appeals to me.
I didn’t actually DJ for very long: there were three bands on the bill and I played in brief snatches between them while their gear was being set up. The highlight (for me!) was the last bit when the bands were finished and I got to do a stretch of uninterrupted DJ’ing. By then I’d had a few beers, got my head screwed-on tight and was feeling more relaxed. Early on I was rattled with nerves and my set was pretty disjointed. One of the bands was quite Mumford & Sons (beard-stroking folkies, banjo, sea shanties): I probably sounded jarring playing right after them. My priority was to do a kind of compilation / greatest hits version of what I tend to play at Dr Sketchy, to give the promoter of Paper Dress Vintage a sampling of what I’d play if I did Lobotomy Room there: so a mix of rhythm and blues, rockabilly, tittyshaking instrumentals, weird kitsch stuff and punk.
(cont.)
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Pascal
from The Poetry Library
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Jax
'It's an all too familiar scene—two Glaswegian lads, sat on a park bench, nasally bantering on everything from the Jimmy Savile scandal to how giraffes sleep- but this sharp play by Jack Dickson is like an unpicking of scabs, revealing the vulnerability of both young men.
'Malkie (Johnny Austin) is on the make, wearing a placard bearing the slogan "WAR WOUNDED IN AFGHANISTAN''. It seems unlikely he has ever left the East End of Glasgow. His best friend Raz, played by Steven Ritchie, is babysitting little Princess, who is gradually revealed to be his baby girl to an ex- girlfriend.
'Dickson's script never dips in consistency, his witty, well-observed dialogue so effortless from both actors that it is as though we are eavesdropping and Peter Arnott's astute direction keeps things nicely paced. Cat Grozier also does excellent vocal work as the crying, gurgling baby.
'The awful slow-burning realisation of the men's drug habit is grim indeed- they shoot up into arms and feet, sharing a syringe, before 'Uncle' Malkie cradles the little girl in his arms, promising her the world, a safe world with limitless possibilities and achievements. The father, meanwhile, is passed out.
'As the two men falteringly vow to get clean sometime soon, the bonds of friendship and family have never seemed more poignant, nor fragile.
'Hilarious, achingly sad and true, with no real answers.' -- Lorna Irvine, Across the Arts
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David J. White
*
p.s. Hey. So, I've decided to take tomorrow (Xmas) off and not launch a blog post/p.s. combo then. So, that means you get your Xmas present(s) today. Some of you guys made the presents, so you might just think of me as a kind of faux-Santa who only kind of thought about what would go where. So, in other words, you guys should go 'wow' about each others' mega-talents and thank each other for the great gifts between now and Wednesday morning, and I'll just be over here in Paris nodding my head sagely at your hopefully happy goings-on. If someone from around here doesn't have something made by him/her in the gift pile, that means that either I could find anything recent by you or that I spaced totally out. If it's the latter, I'm very sorry. Anyway, I'm thinking this post will keep you more than busy locally for the next 48 hours, right? Definitely, right? Merry Xmas to you, you wonderful, heavily genius-inflected bunch of very cool people! ** Bitteruk69, Greetings and Xmas salutations! Aw, thanks, man. You interviewed John, awesome, I'll go devour that. Everyone, mad talent and d.l. Bitteruk69 interviewed Mr. John Waters not so very long ago, and consider this link to said conversation a key addendum to the John Waters Day of the other day. So happy that my John thing coincided with with your brain, man. ** Cobaltfram, Hi, John. No, no big, I understand totally about the post. Don't waste a second of fretting on that. Bresson is amazing, yes. Last I heard, John still hasn't managed to secure funding for a new film. I find that absolutely and utterly bewildering, but apparently it's true. What sort of world wouldn't provide John Waters with some mils to make a new film? Shocking beyond belief. No, the namesake in 'My Mark'/'Safe' was this boy named Mark Lewis whom I was infatuated with and fascinated by in the the early 80s, but 'My Mark' was really a kind of secret love letter to George Miles, and it worked because the piece was partly why he and I became boyfriends for a while. Yeah, there's a complicated system in the Cycle through which George starts mixing, dispersing into, becoming disguised by, etc. other characters that reaches a certain density mid-Cycle, whereupon George gradually reemerges late in 'Guide' where he is given his own name again and then starts reforming as the original but very damaged George again by 'Period'. That system mirrors the other systems that structure the Cycle, and, no surprise it's way too elaborate and train-spotty to explain. Whatcha doing on Xmas Day? ** xTx, Hey, pal! The merriest of Xmases to you! I hope the real world Santa gives you all kinds of cool shit tomorrow or tonight if you're a Xmas Eve celebrator like the French are. This is an ultra-sweet community -- see the above post for further proof -- and it's more like you guys cultivated me. Anyway, you're so nice. Getting a real world friendship going on with you has been a total 2012 highlight, for sure. Lots of love, and be joyous until I see you next. ** Scunnard, I know. I think John's darkness is too light to be dark. I'll write back to you asap, and, yeah, have a swell tomorrow. What are doing to nail that Xmas tag onto the day itself? ** HeyMin/a white fiction resumes its punctuality, Hi! Wow, I really like the second screenname you used. Yes, I'm getting the second cake as soon as I finish this. And we're springing for this third kind of crazy Xmas confection too just to go ahead and be hedonistic about the holiday, and I'll show you pix. A new snow globe! I have a bit of a snow globe fetish, so I like that. Thank you a lot about the Day, and please have a wonderful day tomorrow by whatever means necessary. ** Billy Lloyd, Well, on those rare occasions when I have to leave my pad and enter the world earlyish, I will admit that I do stick a little fuel in my stomach, but since I mostly just sit here and write and do the blog, coffee is perfect-ish for some reason. Of course now that you've mentioned buttery toast, I feel pretty challenged to continue sitting here with just my coffee cup. Paris is a good place to do the whole love thing most of the time, I think. That's how I ended up here, and I haven't gotten unstuck yet. Interesting that you listen to 'Stranger' daily and then fiddle. It really sounds not dissimilar to the writing process, or to mine anyway. Yeah, heads up when it's finished, yeah, please. I'm just trying and trying to get back into the obsessive swing of this new novel that I'm trying to write. And it's still warding me off, the fucker. Well, my favorite thing of mine that I've ever written is 'The Marbled Swarm', so I guess that would be my suggestion. I hope Xmas treats you as well as humanly possibly, Billy. ** Paradigm, Hi. Great to hear that you're starting to collect and make sentences re: your new work. Is that helping that particular piece become the priority and cast its spell on you? That does sound really interesting: the interactive drive up the east coast by your bro. What is that makes the east coast suited to his project? Times like this I realize how incredibly little I know about greater Australia. I'm glad the work is relatively easy, and, of course, much respect to you for doing that. The Triffids sound very tempting, hm. I think I may join you in that listening experience today. Okay, if I don't see you until the new year gets here, and if you see this before you go, have a great, great, rewarding time, my friend. ** G., Hi, G. You're new, yes? Your 'G." is new anyway, so, if so, welcome, and thank you a lot for speaking to James' work, and please come back. ** Tender prey, Hi, Marc! Great to see you! Right, you guys are splitting for China, and maybe you're already in flight. Can not wait to hear about all of that. Wow. I found your site just the other day when I was looking for stuff for this post. I tried to steal new things from there, but they're locked in place. Understandably, of course. Kudos to Rigby on the beautiful design. Everyone, the superb artist and d.l. Tender prey aka Marc Hulson has a new and beautiful website where you can see his amazing work, and it's designed by another stellar d.l. Rigby, and, yeah, click the shit out of this link and check it out. I will do my best to have a magical Paris Xmas, and you do the same in presumably magical China, and just have an incredible time, and give my love to Wolf, and, of course, you take a bunch too, and I too will hope to see you as early into next year as possible. ** David Ehrenstein, Merry Xmas, David! And to Bill too! Thank you for the link to Wikileaks documentary. I didn't know of it. Everyone, David E. recommends this documentary made by Wikileaks, which you can watch after merely clicking that link. See you post-festivities. Did you guys do anything particularly special? ** JoeM, Very happy Xmas to you, Joe! Thanks for the holiday sonics. I like your #4 the best, no surprise. #1 isn't too shabby either. ** 5STRINGS, I think you'd like 'Over the Edge', I don't know. It seems really underrated to me. I'm mulling over that Xmas poem possibility. Hm. I will try to be a good boy so Santa will leave your thing for me, and I guess you'll just have to take my word for the 'being good' thing, but I'm mostly a good boy, I think, I don't know. Florida, interesting. Why not? Like on the coast or something? Man, so intensely rock around the Xmas tree, okay? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben! Merriest of the Merry Xmases to you! Our rain let up yesterday too. And it's looking okay for today too so far, which is good since I'll have to tote an expensive designer cake around the streets today. You do Xmas tonight? Maybe that's the European tradition in general? All the Frenchies are holding up and doing the fois gras, etc. thing tonight. Anyway, safe trip there, and have all the fun in the world. ** Flit, What would Xmas be without an ecstatically happy Flit, so make that happen. The rest of us are counting on you. ** Statictick, Hey, N! I couldn't find anything recent by you out there anywhere to put in the Xmas fest. Put something somewhere so I can steal it for the next one of these things. Okay, that sounds cold. We've backpedaled into fall here lately for some reason. Yep, the Lonely C paid me a visit. Nice. What's your Xmas going to be this year? What are you doing? Whatever it is, may it give you its all! ** Steevee, Sounds like a good plan. No, I'm kind of the opposite in that I'm hoping to somehow get back to hard work over the holidays 'cos it's the wanting to work and not being able to that's the source of fretting and stressing for me. Have a really and totally lovely Xmas, my friend! ** James, The man of the previous many hours in the cyber-flesh! Thank you so much again, and I hope the warmth coming back at you and your work was a pleasure. Excellent piece, of course, of course. It definitely knew the way around my dance floor. Turned it into a veritable rave, man. Difficult time with your novel: Man, do I hear you on that, and hugs and fingers crossed. Well, yeah, that's happening to me rather violently right now, so, yes, it does happen. How do I get through it? Keep at it as hard as I can hoping that will unlock the thing. If that doesn't work, I abandon it for at least a while. I really don't like to step away completely from the work. That always fucks things up for me. I just did that with my new novel, and it has really screwed everything up. Generally, I do everything I can not to get too far away from a novel. The only time it's ever happened to me before was with 'God Jr.' when I got freaked out in the middle and didn't look at it for a year. That worked out in the end, but 'GJr.' was kind of an usual, special case for me. And, well, 'The Sluts' was written over a period of ten years off and on, so I don't know if that counts. Anyway, extremely Happy Xmas to you, big J! What exactly will you be doing tomorrow, or, rather, what did you do, I guess? ** Schlix, Hi, Uli! Oh, that's okay. Time is relative around here. Merry Xmas, btw! Big time Merry Xmas even! I really like Bee Mask a lot, so I'm really into whatever he does. I'm not sure if I like his newest as much as the first album, but, if you like his work, there's definitely a lot there. I just really like his sensibility and brain. I also like how you never know what you're going to get from Boris. It has definitely put a crimp in their career trajectory, but, as long as they don't mind, I like the strategy. What are you doing to mark the whole Santa Claus-centric event? Whatever you do, may it please you to no end. ** Bill, Hi, Bill! Merry merry merry! That's what 'Premium Rush' is? Okay. I keep seeing its name and thinking it's a porn movie. I'll try to see it anyway, ha ha. When do you leave? Or are you gone by now? If you like gifts, I wish you a gentle avalanche of goodies tomorrow. ** Right. So, you've got a ton of gifts up there to accept gracefully and play around in/with, and I hope you will, and I'll go do my Paris Xmas stuff of sorts, whatever that will be, and I'll rejoin you on Wednesday. One last Ultra-happy Xmas wish to you all! Love, me.
