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BBaSStard4BBaSStard, 21
29/03/14: just arrive in sg.im at THE PORCELAIN HOTEL MOSQUE STREET room 317.has a loose sweet and cute ass.rape me now in my hotel.go up straigth to my hotel.

30/03/14: sometimes when i say "im okay" i wish someone would look at me in the eyes,hug me @ say,"i know ur not",....






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impawster, 22
Slave wants to suffer and be in extreme pain for his master. I seek to intensify my pain by completely eliminating my cock. Pain and extreme torture are beautiful and amazing.






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smirkylittleasshole, 20
i am not very experienced but some guys like it, am i right?

try me to be your slave, ill make you happy. you would be the luckiest person ever if you can try me.






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SexSlaveForFree, 22
I must give my slave away due to a terminal illness, lung cancer. I will be receiving hospice care within three months. My slave does not know of my plans to give it away. The slave is 22 years old and has been with fo eight years. It is 5’8” tall and very thin. It has lost weight in the past year because I have not been able to monitor his weight. It has no limits except one: fire. It is afraid of fire like Frankenstein. Slave is located in Virginia, and if you want him I will tell you or have someone where to pick it up. Let me know, my time is short.
Master Joe





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Littlecock, 18
I like to think the least I use my cock, the smallest it get, and it seems to be proven…

I like to take my trousers down when I'm in public and show what I got.

I'm a caring sweet sensitive guy, I like rainbows. I don't speak Germany.

I've you want to see what I got underneath, you may ask and only risk is to found out.

I'd like to find someone ridiculously older than me.






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andthensome, 23
First off I'm kind of hesitant in meeting up with guys because the whole online thing. Hence I kind of prefer to meet in public. A public bathroom or maybe even a hotel if you're in one.

My sexual experiences are limited to meeting two guys on Grindr. All very vanilla unfortunately.

I'm constantly horny and desperate and dream of being dominated. Tell me your fantasies or ask me for one of mine along the lines of something.

"The cool kindliness of sheets, that soon smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss of blankets." No matter whatever you have ... RUM, VODKA, GIN, or POPPERS ... your day & night will be worth a lot once you have me IN.

I'd love to get with a skinny/twink guy who might even be younger than me. Just let me worship you. No reciprocation is needed for anything I do. I live to serve.







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Ghostboy, 22
Slave looking for Masters who knows how to dose and strangle me out.





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nochance, 21
feet always is the best thing in the world...
love the smell of feet when someone take off their socks
hope I can meet someone around 30s will take their shoes and socks off and let me smell it!!
if your not from Poland you can take off your socks using e-mail messages.
i am willing to pay you





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slavewantlife, 24
slave life purpose to surf masters any way they chose for the rest of my life

i would love a master send a contract that he signed and dated and email it me so i could print and sign and send back i would be owned what i despretly needed and need

i got a passport and i would also crawl or swim or take what ever means to get to my new owner

i'm finally become what i wanted to be






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BeverlyBlvdBitch, 19
When my Master still liked me he said I look like what you hoped that McCulkin boy from Home Alone would have grown up to look like at 19 instead of what he actually ended up looking like. I want to leave my Master. He has really bad B.O. but mainly because he's gotten obsessed with killing me. He keeps saying I would look really hot dead, and all of our sex ends with him pretending to kill me in different ways like strangling me, hanging me, shooting me in the head with a gun, and beheading me with a knife. He says its a fantasy but I really don't think so. I think it's really hot when he "kills" me too so obviously I'm going crazy. He can't know I'm leaving him or he'll kill me for real, so I would have to sneak away. Any Masters out there want me like NOW? If you're into snuff play that's a plus but not if you really want to kill me because I think I could have that happen right now if I wanted. Maybe I even do want that but not by him I guess. I'm so confused. I promise that I'm cute.





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screamloudforever, 24
slob on ur knob like corn on the cob.

hi gays if u are not happy i have many thing that will make u happy more u thing

looking for someone who can support and love me all the way

are of romanian origin and are very of excited to my knowledge

will suck u till u ask me to stop and i wont

ur so important to me. i need u. get me to u.






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hipsterfag, 19
I am looking for an older man who will invite me to EU for a few days or weeks and who will pay for my staying and tickets. I am in Kiev. Now you understand? I have a visa permission for EU. I'll do anything you want other than have sex with a dog to get out of here.





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shakemetolife, 22
"No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had"

I compare my self in a "pen"...

In reality everything undergoes changes. Even the smallest thing can grow into huge one.Development is always present in everyone's lives. That's is why there's no doubt that even pens can evolve and develop into a newly improved one. as people says "pen is mightier than sword".

I'm not a sex maniac but if I do get your interest maybe we can do something





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TinyTeen, 19
Its an unusual request, I agree, but sub and obedient guy who likes to please, and likes to suck, is squeamish about swallowing your seed. I'd like a man who likes to be sucked to teach me, over a number of lessons probably, to teach me to relax and end up enjoying swallowing his seed. Weird.





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tormentedfrenchboy, 20
hot french boy with a naturally sad face want a extreme night or nights/24/7 preferred with a evil rich english man ... i am not an escort i am a cashslave looking for paymasters, cash cows and human atms who want a hot slave to own and rape but whollfeelguilt and will paymeaspenance youknowlikeatchurch. then you can relax (to some extent) you have found your haven. but honestly for me money is anexcuse tomeetsomewhomake me crack...

tormented by name, tormented by nature






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Buckythedog, 22
For loility hier a dog i acept myself i work for yur tortturing you seee me what is yurr dream





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MouthofStorm, 19
Submissive gamer who loves smelly athletes!

Very non-Athletic gamer / Automotive mechanic.

The following stuff makes me happy!
-Sweaty, smelly athletes fresh from a game.
-Getting overpowered by athletes and being used as "Furniture" by them (AKA having them sit/lay on me and relax in their sweaty gear).
-Being forced to smell body/gear odor while being crushed is... Oh god I fucking love it.

I can't stress how much I love buff athletes no matter the sport honestly, but Hockey is by far my favorite. But I'm also into MotoX riders.

I'm in the midst of wonderful gay men all around the universe, after all that I have gone through, because I refused to stop being gay. How I never once thought I could be opportuned to be open to the world where my type and my kind are. It is more than me being lucky, it's because I'm blessed. I love you forth coming athlete, every body reading my bio, and every gay man all around, I love you all, thank you.





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DissoluteLibertine, 25
Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to be slapped or punched so hard blood splatters from my busted lips and nose and ears or to get asswhipped till my legs are like blood drainage pipes turned inside out and to be treated like the worthless whore that I am. Im a no limits pig and a pathetic, deviant, cum hungry, twisted faggot that cant get enough raw cock from all the overly aggressive, dominant tops just aching to abuse me and smash me and cover the walls and floor and ceiling with my blood. My sole purpose in life is to live it on the ground so bloodied you cant see what I look like or if Im even human as a disposable nothing.

Yes yes yes I used to be that porn star but things changed obviously.








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FireBiker, 18
Hello. I've faced the truth. I'm into a strange obsession of being wedgied! Nothing I love more than having my undies pulled over my head. You can look like motherfucking anything.






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HoneyTrain, 19
IM THE REASON WHY MASTERS CHEAT ON THERE SLAVES!

5'4", 102 lbs, S dick, no body hair, weak, shy, OCD, nymphomaniac, ... see, what did I tell you LOL!

I like: apples, ERA, eyes, Helena Bonham Carter, crumble, dressing up, JK Rowling, the frogs, the zinage, crafts, find stuff on the floor, ranting about people with my best friend, Kyo, pasta, take photos of people without their knowledge, the biscuit dough, dancing, make up, churches, American Horror Story, Tim Burton, Fringe, theater, biology, the Moldy Peaches, spent the afternoon at Emmaus or in other écocycleries, Danny Elfman, Harry Potter, pastry, Code Lyoko, men, natural history museums Chat, the nice grannies, reading, remake the world, origami, video, family, insects, movies, Olivia Ruiz, cats, my eyes even though I do not know how I qualify, chestnuts, green hair (yes, green), ...

I do not like: cotton candy, football, houses decorated in a banal evil way, rap, ladies hall, miss my bus, offal, the texture of seat belts, ...

Then if you want to have sex with me and I hope you will?

I like: HUGE dicks, tall men (6'3" plus), getting fucked or choked so hard I pass out, the way my ass smells, being drowned until dead then revived with CPR (I had this done to me three times, LOVE), man pissing down my throat and up my nose, bruises, screaming so much I get laryngitis, this man with a HUGE dick who was so horny he fucked me constantly for three days only stopping to eat and use the bathroom a few times (a lot of drugs were involved) GOD I GOT SO OBSESSED AND CRAZY WITH HIM AFTERWARDS THAT HE MOVED TO ANOTHER CITY TO GET AWAY FROM ME AND I MISS HIM SO MUCH, oblivion, men doing whatever they want with me in excruciating detail, ...

I do not like: my voice, how obsessed I get with every man who fucks me and how that makes them hate me and change their cell numbers and email addresses (although thats what made me realize I need to be a permanent slave, so maybe that should be a like), that the medication Im on makes it almost impossible for me to cum, ...







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blondpower, 18
I want to see a guy kick my moms ass, butt naked! I want a hot guy to choke me out and say mean things about my mom.





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forgivemeplease, 23
Please listen I do want this you didnt make a mistake by giving me another chance. I am ready I was honestly falling over at 6 am I had to get some sleep. Im sorry that Im human but Im really ready to surrender master. Please forgive me, I know we can make this work.






*

p.s. Hey. ** Bill, Hey. Great about the smoothness. Of the event not of the art, I mean. I'm sure smooth would not be the first adjective to spring to mind re: what you guys did. Or complicated smooth, or ... ? Anyway, sorry, riffing, coffee problem, you know. Yeah, the Frankfurt cancellation blows. I was even half-thinking of going. So what now for you and Europe? ** David Ehrenstein, I see your 'My Heart is Empty' and raise you 'My Head Is Empty'. ** Steevee, Glad on behalf of Rewritedept that you liked it even though he doesn't need any behalving from me. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Cool, you sound very excited and jazzed, and it's clearly contagious because now I am too. I can wait a month, I think. Hold on. Yeah, I'll manage. ** Schoolboyerrors, Cool, you did tell me about your day. Job application, yeah, urgh. For what job? It's probably a secret or bad luck to say, right? I'll be most curious to hear what your cantankerous super-smart badass academic makes of Marie Calloway's book if you remember. Shit's getting real. Wow, okay, now I don't want to see 'Locke', but ... wait, *reading further* now I kind of do again but maybe not as determinedly as I did yesterday. My day? Let's see. The great majority involved Zac and me auditioning a series of prospective guy performers for our film. We sat side by side in a room facing a chair in which 5 guys came and sat and went. They talked, read some dialogue, stood, walked around and were filmed doing everything. We liked them all to one degree or another, but, so far, only one is into doing what is required to fulfill the needs of the character/part in the first scene, whom/which is we're particularly focused on casting right now as said scene is to be filmed hopefully in about three weeks. So, we'll see. Otherwise, I made a couple of blog posts and worked on my novel a little and did a revision on one of the scenes in our film and answered a few emails and made some plans. I think that was everything except for boring and or predictable things. Oh, I saw Natalie Portman crossing the street near where I live, but that wasn't hugely interesting. So, yeah, excitement central over here, ha ha. With love, me. ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Thanks for talking to Rewritedept. ** Rewritedept, Thanks again for yesterday. You found some fellow Dulli-loving dudes. Cool. It seems pretty rare that people have jobs they actually like, at least among my friends and acquaintances, not that that factoid provides any balm or anything, sorry. The auditions went well, maybe not well as we had hoped, but merely well is good, right? We might be semi-ready to start filming after we have a big meeting with our prospective Director of Production today, assuming she comes onboard, fingers crossed. There's a ton to organize, and we need her or someone to do it for us. So, news about our readiness is forthcoming. Nope, I haven't heard the new Fucked Up song or even knew there was one until just this very moment. I will find it. Thanks, C. ** Flit, Hi, F! Really? I think I like at least a small bunch of 90s rock a lot, or, yeah, I think I do. I would have to go back and check the release dates. I mean, God Themselves aka GbV is 90s, and that's enough to make the decade the best music decade ever in my book, so, yes, on further thought, I guess I'm cool with the 90s. Even keeled with a scowl sounds kind of almost perfect or something. I guess the scowl is a little controversial. I don't think I even know how to scowl, or maybe I do unconsciously or something. It must be an eyes/lips combo thing, no? Maybe plus a head tilt of some sort? Hm. Warm Bresson plus badly and hopefully interestingly mangled English by performers with heavy French accents. Something like that. ** Oh, that's it? Okay. Last day of the month brings slaves like it always does and probably always will until this place inevitably bites the dust either willing or through no fault of its own. See you tomorrow.

'Maurice Ronet (1927-1983), about whom Eric Neuhoff said, he had "eyes for looking into chasms..." was a major figure in 1960’s French cinema. He continues to haunt our thoughts as the incarnation of the mysterious, upsetting, untenable man. Thirty years after his death, Maurice Ronet remains an enigma. He left his mark in many cult French films: Elevator to the scaffold (Louis Malle, 1958), Plein soleil (René Clément, 1960), La Piscine (Jacques Deray, 1969), and Raphaël ou le débauché (Michel Deville, 1971). His greatest role was in Le Feu follet (Louis Malle, 1963). This creature of the night, a fan of lavish parties, was close to the “Hussards” (Roger Nimier, Antoine Blondin) and was a true heartbreaker: "Alain Delon had groupies, Maurice Ronet had admirers".

'Ronet entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1944, where Jean-Louis Barrault was one his mentors. By the time he made his film debut at the age of twenty-two in Jacques Becker's Rendez-vous de juillet (1949), in a role that was written specifically for him by Becker, he had little interest in pursuing an acting career. He tried his hand at ceramics, painting, writing and music (piano, organ). Throughout the early 1950s he made a living selling some of his paintings. (He was encouraged by Georges Mathieu and his work was once exhibited along with Jean Dubuffet). He also acted occasionally in small roles in the films of established French directors like René Wheeler and Yves Ciampi, with ambitions of possibly becoming a filmmaker himself. Gradually, however, he came to discover a freedom in acting, and a creative satisfaction that provided a synthesis of all that interested him in painting, literature and music.

'Ronet first garnered acclaim at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival for his work in Jean Dreville’s Horizons sans fin and over the next few years, notably as the romantic lead in André Michel’s La Sorcière, 1956 and in Jules Dassin’s Celui qui doit mourir (He Who Must Die, 1957). It was at the presentation of La Sorcière, at Cannes, where he met a creative and an intellectual counterpart in Louis Malle. Two years later he made his international box-office breakthrough as Julien Tavernier in Malle’s first feature film, Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows, 1958). He is probably most known for originating the role of Phillipe Greenleaf in the French adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley (Plein soleil, Rene Clement, 1960).

'His defining role reunited him with Malle and Jeanne Moreau in their finest collaboration: Le Feu follet (“The Fire Within”, 1963), in which he played an alcoholic writer, Alain Leroy. His indelible portrayal of depression and suicide earned him the highest critical acclaim of his prolific career. He was awarded France’s Étoile de Cristal (Crystal Star) and the prize for Best Actor at the 1965 São Paulo Film Festival; the film also won a Special Jury Prize at the 1963 Venice Film Festival. He was also a collaborator of Claude Chabrol. He appeared in four of his films including Le Scandale (1966), for which he won the Best Actor award at the 1967 San Sebastián International Film Festival & La Femme infidèle (“The Unfaithful Wife”, 1968). He co-starred with Alain Delon and Romy Schneider in La Piscine (Jacques Deray, 1969).

'Ronet died in a Paris hospital in 1983 after a long battle with cancer. He was 55 years old. In his last appearance, Mr. Ronet portrayed the role of a thief in La Balance. The film, directed by Bob Swain, an American, won the Cesar, the French version of the Oscar, as the best French movie.'-- collaged



___
Stills







































_____
Further

Maurice Ronet @ imdB
Maurice Ronet Filmography
'Le mystère Ronet'
'Maurice Ronet, l'autre Delon!'
'Maurice Ronet, une hésitation devant la vie'
'Maurice Ronet: le splendide désenchanté'
Maurice Ronet @ The Criterion Collection
'Hommage à Maurice Ronet' @ Cinematheque Francais
'Maurice Ronet, le dandy désenchanté'
'Maurice Ronet: la victoire du vaincu'
'Hommage à Maurice Ronet, le cinéma de la droite absolue'
'Maurice Ronet, «le désespéré hilare»'
'Les larmes aux yeux de Maurice Ronet'
'Maurice Ronet: feu follet incandescent du cinéma français



____
Extras


Interview


Interview (1957)


Pascal Thomas rend hommage à Maurice Ronet


Le charme inquiet de Maurice Ronet


Hommage à MAURICE RONET



_______
Interview




It seems to me you chose to be an actor not only out of professional interest but as a way of life. Am I wrong?

No, you're not wrong. I didn't become an actor right away, though I made Rendezvous in July with Jacques Becker a long time ago. It was a complete accident and not what I wanted to do. No one knows at that age what they want to do, but I wanted something other than theater or cinema. Immediately after Rendezvous in July, I went to the south of France to do ceramics. I did many things before becoming an actor, which came along as a sort of conclusion. I painted. I wrote. And after a roundabout journey, I found in cinema a synthesis of all that interested me in painting and literature. You also become an actor by your behavior. In this profession, what you're able to produce is always a result of your own life. Anyway, what's interesting in the life and career of an actor is being offered roles that fit your personality and allow you to express your true nature. It's an encounter between the character, the actor, and the man.

Does that happen often for you?

No, not often. But when things worked, it was there.

Can you give examples?

It happened on Purple Noon, and especially on The Fire Within. It happened on Elevator to the Gallows. It's funny to see the similarity between Elevator to the Gallows,Purple Noon, The Fire Within and Time Out for Love.

What similarity?

The characters are similar.

How do you see your characters?

It's like asking how you see yourself. When you're an actor, people know more about you than you do yourself. All these characters belong to the same generation I do, a generation that's a bit "transitory." All these characters are heavy drinkers... have a sense of humor... and leave a bitter taste of hopelessness in your mouth.

Where do they come from? Are they the product of a certain Parisian way of life,
or something deeper?

Parisian, perhaps. They're characters from a certain kind of bourgeois literature, like that of Drieu La Rochelle and others. They're also a product of circumstance. This generation was 17 years old at the end of WWll: too young to have fought, too old to be just children. More and more, this generation merges into the following generation. For 10 or 15 years, a difference of five years really counted between those who were 12 at the end of WWII and those who were 17.

There was a big difference?

There was a terrible chasm but gradually, with passing time and various events they're starting to melt together.

A generation is a lot of people.

Yes, and among them, one of our spokespersons, Roger Nimier, wrote really beautiful things about our generation. He always wrote the same thing: that it was a "sacrificed" generation, because we really didn't have any myths. We really hadn't had many to lean upon among our elders. You might say the future was ours in that sense.

Not much to believe in either.

That's right.

Do you think there's a crisis of faith? Do you think it's important to believe in something?

Yes, certainly. We're going through a moral crisis right now.

While making The Fire Within, weren't you obsessed with the idea of suicide?

Not at all. Perhaps on a totally different level, but not as an automatic reflex. It's not my job to obey the characters. They should obey me.

A typical actor's answer. Perhaps that's why you'd like to direct too.

Probably.

To make the characters obey you.

As I said before,the character is a framework in which an actor expresses himself. It's not just a costume he wears.



_________________________
14 of Maurice Ronet's 103 films

_________________
André Michel La sorcière(1956)
'La sorcière (The Blonde Witch) is not a horror movie or a movie about witches doing evil things. Marina Vlady plays a young woman who has been isolated with her grandmother by villagers in a remote place in Sweden. Consequently, her knowledge of civilization, even village life, has been thwarted. She lives in a cabin beside a lake in a deep woods. The villagers thought her mother a witch and think she is a witch, and she does indeed have a power. It is nothing to fear, but the villagers are very fearful and suspicious, not only of her. They are superstitious in general. Maurice Ronet is an engineer who comes to supervise the building of a canal. He and Vlady fall in love, but it leads to tragedy. This is a captivating and romantic story, filmed in a realistic way but with generous helpings of the visual mystery of nature and this nature girl. Ronet, who wants to marry Vlady, is up against an obstacle and he does not know quite what it is. He attempts to overcome it in a straightforward way, and Vlady cooperates, but it is not meant to be. As an engineer who scoffs at superstition and is not a "people" person, he does not take into account the culture he has entered.'-- msroz



the entire film



_________________
Jules Dassin He Who Must Die(1957)
'Celu Qui Doit Mourir (He Who Must Die) represented director Jules Dassin's first professional collaboration with his future wife, Greek actress Melina Mercouri. Filmed on the island of Crete, the story concerns the efforts by the townspeople to stage their annual Passion Play. The priest in charge of the play, anxious not to rock the boat with the occupying Turks, refuses aid and comfort to a rebellious priest from a battle-scarred village. But three townspeople do their best to help the visiting cleric, an act that splits the town right down the middle and forces the previously benevolent Turkish overlord to take decisive action. Melina Mercouri offers a dry run of her Never on Sunday character as the town trollop. Co-staring Maurice Ronet. The best adaptation ever made in a Nikos Kazantzakis novel, far superior to Zorba and The Last Temptation.'-- collaged



the entire film



___________________
Louis Malle Elevator to the Gallows(1958)
'François Truffaut once wrote, “All of Louis Malle, all his good qualities and faults, was in Elevator to the Gallows”—a statement that, even given French film criticism’s traditionally high tolerance for the counterintuitive, pretty unambiguously qualifies as, well, false. What’s most striking about Elevator to the Gallows, in fact, is that Malle, having made this almost insolently proficient Série noire thriller, never went anywhere near the genre again, and for the rest of his career rarely displayed much interest in the sort of tightly controlled visual and narrative style he uses with such mastery here. It would be more accurate, I think, to say that “all of Louis Malle” is all that is not in Elevator to the Gallows—or, for that matter, in any individual Malle movie—but is, rather, what lies in the spaces between his films, in the habit of renunciation that required him, it seems, to turn his back immediately on whatever he had just accomplished.'-- Terrence Rafferty



Excerpt


Excerpt



__________________
Rene Clement Purple Noon(1960)
'If René Clément’s Purple Noon (1960) is not a guilty pleasure, it certainly feels like one. But before getting to the guilt, a word about the pleasure. Aside from anything else, it is a film that lingers in the mind as an irresistibly satisfying slice of worldly enjoyment. The original title, Plein soleil, conveys the pervasive power of that enjoyment, with its suggestion of the Mediterranean sunlight in which so many of the film’s scenes are baked. When it first came out in America, Purple Noon was like an advertisement for a life of luxurious sensuality, with hints of La dolce vita–style decadence and New Wave–style modishness, pristinely opulent hotel rooms and lobbies, and large helpings of sand and sun. The passage of time has only accentuated that allure, since the Italy we sample here in such generous detail is a vanished tourist’s dream, underpopulated and unpolluted, a paradise for footloose Americans: the seaport waterfronts teeming with fresh-caught fish, the bodies bronzed from long and carefree afternoons in the sun, the luscious blues and greens of a sea made for open-ended yachting excursions.' -- Geoffrey O'Brien



Trailer


Excerpt


Excerpt



__________________
Louis Malle Le feu follet(1963)
'Le Feu follet (a.k.a. The Fire Within) is the bleakest and possibly greatest of Louis Malle's films, one that confronts the highly problematic issue of suicide with a rare insight and directness. Throughout his career, Malle made a habit of courting controversy and often dealt with what were (and to some extent still are) taboo subjects: marital infidelity, incest, child prostitution, Nazi collaboration and the Holocaust. It was his unstinting sincerity as an auteur, coupled with a profound desire to understand human nature, that enabled Malle to confront the most difficult subjects without alienating his audience, and there are few subjects as controversial and misunderstood as suicide.'-- filmsdefrance.com



Opening scene


Excerpt



___________________
Carl Foreman The Victors(1963)
'Two years after he produced The Guns of Navarone, Carl Foreman returned to the battlefield with The Victors, an altogether different sort of war film. Gone is the all star derring-do; in its place, a realistic – at times brutally so – portrait of the liberation of Europe. Even by the standards of most war films, it's an episodic picture: keeping up with the various characters requires concentration. Cumulatively, however, the results are extremely powerful: the horror of war is shown not in the combat scenes but in the things that war obliges people to do. This is the war as it was really fought, shorn of Hollywood heroics and sentimentality.'-- James Oliver



the entire film



__________________
Claude Chabrol Le Scandale(1966)
'This stylish psychological thriller from Claude Chabrol has such labyrinthine plotting that many critics mistakenly called it too confusing. Christine Balling (Yvonne Furneaux) tries to convince Paul Wagner (Maurice Ronet) to sell his venerable champagne business to an American company. She asks her husband Chris (Anthony Perkins), who is also Wagner's friend, to help her to persuade the stubborn Paul. While on a trip to Hamburg, Wagner picks up a German girl in a restaurant. The next morning, the girl turns up dead, and Paul can't remember if it was he who killed her. Chris, who becomes aware of the incident, promptly tells his wife, and she tries to blackmail Wagner into signing a deal with Americans. Later, another woman turns up dead, and again Paul was the last person who saw her alive. He begins questioning his own sanity.'-- Yuri German, Rovi



the entire film



______________________
Claude Chabrol Line of Demarcation(1966)
'The Germans have already invaded France. In the winter of 1941, in a village in the Jura Mountains, the Loue River divides Free France and Occupied France. The bleak grayness of Jean Rabier’s immaculate black-and-white cinematography in writer-director Claude Chabrol’s La ligne de démarcation expresses the sadness of the French people, and the defeatism of some, such as Pierre, the Count de Damville (Maurice Ronet, superb), a military officer just released by his German captors. But just as the river divides Unoccupied France and Vichy France, it also divides the attitude of the people: Pierre’s English-born wife, the Countess de Damville (Jean Seberg, acting amateurishly—the film’s one weakness), maintaining hope that France can reverse its defeat, aids Resistance fighters. Perhaps the highest value of the film is the density of its communal portrait—the interrelatedness of its inhabitants. For the most part, it is an army of civilians living their diminished lives and keeping hope alive. The film’s finale is immensely moving. At the same time, it restrains itself from employing the cliché that the outcome of the war provides.'-- Dennis Grunes



the entire film



_________________
Jean Aurel Les Femmes (1969)
'This film maintains interest because of it's duality of purpose and accomplishment. It is, at once, a witty "battle of the sexes" repartee vehicle, while making it's essential points via humor, instead of using more direct means. It does this while portraying the film's protagonist as a shallow, womanizing predator, thus many female viewers, recognizing the type, will resent this film. But, throughout the film, the male anti-hero is disarmingly honest as to his superficiality, and his lack of commitment intentions with his many female "love interests," which, of course, poses a distinct challenge to them all, and makes him all the more desirable and successful in his dalliances. Bardot, nearing 35 when this film was made, is nevertheless coquettish and cute, and no pushover for the man's sexual aggressiveness, giving her an independent ambiance and a social maturity aspect not readily found in her earlier films.'-- bonfirexx



Excerpt


Excerpt



___________________
Jacques Deray The Swimming Pool(1969)
'Erotic languour turns gradually into fear and then horror in this gripping and superbly controlled psychological thriller from 1969, now on rerelease. Alain Delon and Romy Schneider play Jean-Paul and Marianne, lovers who appear to be gloriously happy in a sumptuous villa in the south of France: but more reflective moments reveal them both to be anxious and unfulfilled. Then Marianne's ex-lover shows up for a visit: breezy record producer Harry (Maurice Ronet) who makes no secret of his continued desire for Marianne. Meanwhile, Jean-Paul is fascinated by Penelope, the sexy teenage daughter Harry has brought along. The pool itself is the centre for all sorts of sensuality and something in the very lineaments of the pool itself creates their own awful destiny: it is a primordial swamp of desire, a space in which there is nothing to do but laze around, furtively looking at semi-naked bodies.'-- The Guardian



Trailer


Excerpt



_______________
Léonard Keigel Qui?(1970)
'This is basically an Italian giallo with a much more "A-list" cast than usual, namely German beauty Romy Schneider and French actor Maurice Ronet, both of whom were usually in much more prestigious projects like Bocaccio '70, Innocents with Dirty Hands, Beau Pere, etc. The third lead, however, is Gabriele Tinti, who did some of his best work in gialli like Tropic of Cancer and Death Occurred Last Night, but he is most well-know for the even sleazier, low-rent softcore porn he later appeared in with his wife Laura Gemser. The plot involves a woman (Schneider) who is in an abusive relationship with a violent cad (Tinti). While driving recklessly, their car goes off a seaside cliff. The woman is mysteriously thrown clear, but the man's body can not be found. The nice-guy brother of the man (Ronet) suspects foul play, and he tries to get the woman to confess, but winds up falling in love with her. . . There is a nice (if pretty predictable) twist near the end, but the VERY end is extremely weak and padded out with strange polarized stills of the attractive cast members. I strongly suspect the version I saw of this was cut for some unfathomable reason. Besides the abruptness of the ending, Schneider has about five brief nude scenes, but nothing that really goes beyond brief (a crying shame if you've ever seen HER nude). There are also these strange comic longeurs with both characters getting sloppy drunk, and Ronet throwing water balloons from his apartment window at passer-byers(?).'-- lazarillo



Excerpt



______________________
Roger Vadim Don Juan (Or If Don Juan Were a Woman)(1973)
'A veritable orgy of campy decor and even campier dialogue ("If there's one thing I can't stand, it's being treated the way I treat other people!") this would-be erotic extravaganza stars an ageing and puffy Brigitte Bardot as a jet-set nymphomaniac - who fancies herself a reincarnation of the 16th century Spanish seducer. Both the film and its heroine labour under the delusion of being a whole lot sexier than they really are. The "plot" (I use the term loosely) involves Bardot confessing to a dishy priest (Mathieu Carriere) how she drove one of her lovers to suicide. Half an hour into this mess, and you'll know how the poor b**tard felt. Undaunted by the tedium around her, Bardot seduces a married lawyer (Maurice Ronet) and they jet off to Sweden, supposed Paradise of Free Love. (Never mind if the Bacchanalian revels we SEE are no more steamy than your average Sunday school picnic.) Granted, Don Juan '73 is an abysmal movie, but there is fun to be had. Birkin looks heart-meltingly gorgeous and Ronet even tries to do some acting - though why he should bother when nobody else does is one of life's mysteries. Anyone who shares my weakness for bouffant hairdos, zebra-skin rugs and purple velvet flares will probably enjoy it. Still, the final impression is of Vadim, after 15 years as a high-style provocateur, struggling to keep up with a Flower Power audience. Is there any sight sadder than hipster who's been out-hipped?'-- David Melville



Excerpts


Excerpt


Excerpt



_________________
Terence Young Bloodline(1979)
'When Bloodline was released in 1979, a major magazine review pointed out that in the course of the story, ostensibly for failure to pay a gambling debt, a character's knees are nailed to the floor. The critic then went on to say, `This is what Paramount Pictures is going to have to do to get audiences to sit through this picture.' There aren't enough negative things to say about this abomination of a movie. The meandering, incoherent story is hampered at every turn by ludicrously bad production values. The direction, the inept blocking of the scenes, the lighting, the sets – in every case conspires to make the results look cheap and hollow. The movie is really a miracle of dreadfulness. The following is one of thousand small crimes against cinema throughout the picture: There is an explosion in the street. This is conveyed by a flash of light on the actors in the scene and a sound effect. The next shot, meant to be the view of the street from the window, is a still photograph beneath which someone is apparently waving a lit piece of paper. Just before the cut from this scene, the photograph actually starts to buckle from the heat of the flame. And the filmmakers left this in the film! The real crime against cinema is the fact that the name of Audrey Hepburn is associated with this repugnant film, a monstrosity so putrid, one wishes every single copy of it would magically disappear.'-- M. David



Excerpt



___________________
Bertrand Blier Beau Pere(1981)
'Beau Pere begins by introducing us to Remy (Patrick Dewaere), a sadsack restaurant piano player whose marriage is falling apart. For the last eight years, Remy has been married to Martine (Nicole Garcia) and has cared for her daughter, Marion (Ariel Besse), as if she was his own. But Martine is fed up with his lack of earning power and ambition and is ready to leave him. Then, as she's going to work following an argument, she is killed in an automobile accident. Remy is left to care for Marion alone. His initial reaction is that the girl should live with her alcoholic father, Charly (Maurice Ronet), but she resists the idea. And, although Charly pays lip service to wanting his daughter with him, he eventually allows her to remain with Remy. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Marion's reasons for wanting to stay with Remy have little to do with the affection of a daughter for her father. He has become the object of her sexual fantasies, and she makes it apparent that her feelings go far beyond what is proper. Equally attracted to her but unwilling to admit it, Remy puts up token resistance, but his attempts to ward off Marion are halfhearted at best. (After all, if he really wanted to put a stop to the situation, he could demand that she live with Charly.) Eventually, he gives in and a sexual relationship is consummated. In the end, Blier does not give us an overwrought conclusion featuring histrionics, threats, recriminations, and police action. In fact, the resolution is handled with chilling civility, and the last scene - which strongly hints that history may repeat itself - is Beau Pere's most disturbing moment.'-- reelviews.net



the entire film




*

p.s. Hey. ** Torn porter, Hi, man! Thanks, yeah, I got lucky this month, I think. Oh, disappearing is okay. It even sounds kind of utopian to diligent me. I'm good, really busy in a totally good way. Film and theater stuff and novel. Oh, that's a great idea re: doing your documentary on Un Regard Moderne. Hm, hard to tell whether he'd be down for being filmed or not. I mean, he can be really nice and sweet, but he seems kind of moody. I think it's worth asking him, for sure. It's a great idea. Let's meet up sometime again soon, yeah? ** GeorgeStobbartify, Hi. I don't keep any records or notes re: where I find the profiles. Those posts are a study in a particular kind of presentation for me. I guess people who actually want to try to track the guys down are on their own. ** David Ehrenstein, I know, that 'pen' thing was strange and nice. Oh, gosh, you might have raised me so far with that one that I may have to fold. Hold on, let me try something. No, nothing that could top that. I fold. You're the best. ** Bill, Hi, B. Your band name idea went kind of viral. That's cool. Cool too re: the possible video. Do alert us. Wow, not only Nicholas Cook but Nicholas Cook text! Holy shit. That's exciting. Is he all right? Is he still in ... was it Texas? ** Kier, I know, I adored that ' ... banal evil ...' line too. I really, really love the first three New Pornographers albums. After that, not so much. If I had to pick one fave, I guess I would say 'Electric Version.' You good? What's your day? Love, me. ** Thomas Moronic, Wow, T., those are kind of exquisite. Slave haikus. There was this great Bob Flanagan book called 'Slave Sonnets' consisting, of, well, the title says it all. It's been o.o.p. for a million years, unfortunately. Anyway, those were great and weirdly serene in a very exciting way. If you're honestly curious about DissoluteLibertine, he was Kyros Christian. I'm good, very good, crazed, but really good. Oh, you interviewed Dean. Curious. I haven't seen him or heard about him in ages. Very interesting, I'll read it in a short bit, thanks. Everyone, Thomas Moronic has interviewed the contemporary queer culture deritus-focused artist Dean Sameshima over at the always crucial Fanzine site, and that's your cue to click this. Great day to you, buddy. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Jazzed is a good word, right? Yeah, what you wrote made perfect sense, for sure. Or I felt super clear in the head and cogent while reading it. Cool about the new (((Echo))) event. Such a nice premise. ** Steevee, Hi. It's so blah to romanticize the past in any case, I think. It's true that the horror of the early AIDS crisis is an overwhelming memory from the 80s, but there was a lot of great art and music and other stuff then too. I don't miss it, but that era was really formative for me, I guess. ** Rewritedept, Hi. I think reading/seeing the photos and texts in combo is the ideal way to experience those posts just so long as the images don't overwhelm or cancel out the texts, but, when that does happen, it is interesting and says something about how desire works. No, no time to hear the Fucked Up song yet. Haven't heard the Bob Mould either. Your mom thinks I've maybe killed someone? I mean, for real? Ha ha, no, I can't say that I have, not even accidentally. You can put it past me. I'm going to ask my friends to tell me if they ever see me scowling so I'll know what my face feels like when I'm doing that. 'FU:EL' is really good, underrated. It's not up there with 'Copper Blue' and 'Beaster', but it's real good, I think. My Thursday was very productive, and hopefully today will be too, and hopefully your today will be too, even if it's framed by jury duty somehow. Got your present. Awesome! Man, you're like ... becoming like Johnny Carson's designated guest host on the Tonight Show or whatever. Talk show hosts don't do that anymore, do they? I mean they don't have designated guest-hosts? I never watch those shows, but I don't feel like they do that anymore. I wonder why, if so. Anyway, thank you! Launch date forthcoming. ** Schoolboyerrors, Thanks, man. Of course they get all the credit. Well, I do a little editing here and there sometimes, but not enough to be the slaves' Gordon Lish or anything. It was weird seeing Natalie Portman in my neighborhood. I mean, it is getting trendier and groovier around here by the moment, but still. Coincidentally, she's married to a choreographer who's best friends with the guy who's facilitating Zac's and my work-field trips to the Opera Garnier and ballet school re: the ballet-themed haunted house in the film we're writing for Gisele. Wow, that wasn't very interesting information, but whatev'. Reading Tim Dlugos is such a great thing to do. His "Moral Imagination": yes! Oh, man, that photo of the spooky house is completely gorgeous. What a beautiful spooky house. Did you go inside? The insides almost never live up to the facades unless you're really detail-oriented about them like I am. Thank you! My Wednesday? Very good. Zac and I met with and snagged the services of a Director of Production for our film, which is a huge help and relief 'cos she can get us all the stuff that we have no clue how to get ourselves like locations, crew, equipment, and so on. So that and just hanging out with Z. was my day, basically, and so it was a really good day. Tell me about that funfair. Really, anything at all. And/or about your Thursday, if you prefer. Or both! ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Thank you! ** Flit, Hi, pal. Oh, yeah, for my money, there was great guitar-based stuff in the 90s, if you like that kind of thing. Lo-fi was major for me. And a lot of great experimental stuff. And GbV, Pavement, Sebadoh, Slint, blah, blah, on and on. But it's all about what kind of kitchen you're into eating from or something, I guess. Yeah, the day-to-day, minute-to-minute slave ownership thing seems like something that most of the slaves and masters don't think about very carefully. It's so fantasy-based. I think they think they will and will want to be incredibly horny 24/7. Maybe they will be? Hard to think, though. Weird. ** Okay. Let's see, what is the post today. Oh, right, Maurice Ronet. He was one of those French actors who did some great stuff but was never a big star and whose films aren't really au courant anymore apart from 'Purple Noon' and who only has a minor cult following these days, and I guess that interested me about him. There you go. See you tomorrow.

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (Atari 2600) Walkthrough and Easter Eggs


'Atari's tendency to port arcade games for its home console had led to some of its most commercially successful games, including the port of its own coin-op Asteroids, and the licensed versions of Taito's Space Invaders and Namco's Pac-Man. But Atari faced great difficulty as a result of its video game adaptation of the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The game, also titled E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, was a result of a deal between Warner Communications and the film's director Steven Spielberg. The objective of the game was to guide the eponymous character through various screens to collect three pieces of an interplanetary telephone that will allow him to contact his home planet.





'The concept of a video game based on a film, instead of porting an arcade coin-op or building on an established franchise, was unheard of at the time. It was later reported that Warner had paid $20–25 million for the rights, which was at the time quite a high figure for video game licensing. The problem was, rights were acquired in August 1982, leaving designer Howard Scott Warshaw with only five weeks to get E.T. ready for the holiday season.



Top Ten "Atari 2600" Commercials


'Atari manufactured 5 million cartridges for the game; however, upon its release in December 1982, only 1.5 million copies were sold, leaving Atari still holding onto far more than half of the game cartridges. The game was critically panned, and is now seen as one of the worst ever made. Tina Amini, deputy editor at gaming website Kotaku, says the game tanked because "it was practically broken." A recurring flaw, she said, was that the character of the game, the beloved extraterrestrial, would fall into traps that were almost impossible to escape and would appear constantly and unpredictably.



Ma vieille console Atari 2600


'Kevin Bowen of GameSpy's Classic Gaming called the gameplay "convoluted and insane", also criticizing its story for departing from the serious tone of the film. Author Steven Kent described the game as "infamous" within the industry, citing "primitive" graphics, "dull" gameplay, and a "disappointing story". Emru Townsend of PC World discussed the game with a group, and found a universal dislike for the pits that E.T. falls into, describing it as "monotonous". Reiley ranked it number one in a list of the 20 worst games of all time in Electronic Gaming Monthly. Michael Dolan, deputy editor of FHM magazine, has also listed the game as his pick for the worst video game of all time.





'The game is considered to be one of the causes of the video game industry crisis of 1983. By the end of 1982, Atari had begun to lose dominance as more competitors entered the market. Poor critical reception and lack of a profitable marketing strategy made this game one of many cited decisions that led Atari to report a $536 million loss in 1983 and led to the company being divided and sold in 1984. GameSpy's Classic Gaming called E.T. Atari's biggest mistake, as well as the second largest financial failure in the history of the industry. The game's poor quality was responsible for ending the product life of the Atari 2600.



The E.T. pit problem


'In September 1983, the Alamogordo Daily News of Alamogordo, New Mexico reported in a series of articles, that between 10 and 20 semi-trailer truckloads of Atari boxes, cartridges, and systems from an Atari storehouse in El Paso, Texas were crushed and buried at the landfill within the city. It was Atari's first dealings with the landfill, which was chosen because no scavenging was allowed and its garbage was crushed and buried nightly. Starting on September 29, 1983, a layer of concrete was poured on top of the crushed materials, a rare occurrence in waste disposal. An anonymous workman's stated reason for the concrete was: "There are dead animals down there. We wouldn't want any children to get hurt digging in the dump."





'The cartridge dump was a monstrous fiasco for Atari, at least from the perspective of a small desert town. The company, he says, brought truckloads from El Paso, where at the time scavenging was allowed in the city's landfills. "Here, they didn't allow scavenging. It was a small landfill, it had a guard." The guard, however, was either away or unable to stop scores of teenagers from rummaging through the Atari waste and showing up in town trying to sell the discarded products and equipment from the backs of pickup trucks, Lewandowski, said. Eventually, the city began to protest the large amount of dumping Atari was doing. The local manager ordered the dumping to be ended shortly afterwards.



The ET Burial Theory


'All of these factors have led to wide speculation that most of the 3.5 million unsold copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ultimately wound up in this landfill, crushed and encased in concrete. The conflicting information surrounding the burial has led to the claim of it being an "E.T. Dump" being referred to as an urban legend, which in turn has led to a degree of skepticism and doubt over the veracity of the dumping story itself, and the relevance of conflating the event with the later industry downturn.





'As recently as October 2004, Howard Scott Warshaw, the programmer responsible for the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial game expressed doubts that the destruction of millions of copies of the game ever took place. Writing for the Pacific Historical Review, John Wills has also described the burial as an urban legend, calling it "widely acknowledged but rarely substantiated". Wills believed that the location's place in the public psyche—its proximity to the sites of both the Trinity nuclear test and Roswell UFO incident—has aided the popularity of the story.





'The search for the trove of discarded cartridges has taken on a sort of mythical importance for some gaming fans, who see the mystery of what became of millions of consoles as an explained event in digital culture. It's part of a broader field some call "archaeogaming" that, as you might guess, combines elements of archaeology with the study of video games. And then there's the simple nostalgia for the 1980s in general. A comment by gamer Kascha Klaussen sums up those sentiments nicely: "I wish that the second they pulled the first shovel full of dirt out of the ground over this pit, the entire Earth would be pulled inside out centered entirely on this spot and when it came right side up again? It would be 1982 again and I could be in the arcade with my girlfriends trying to impress boys and waiting to go see Tron with them while Love Plus One plays over the loudspeakers."



Project moving forward


'On May 28, 2013, the Alamogordo City Commission granted Fuel Industries, a Canadian entertainment company, six months of access to the landfill to film a documentary about the burial and to excavate the dump site. Xbox Entertainment Studios plans to air this documentary series as an exclusive to the Xbox One and Xbox 360 in 2014. Though the excavation was momentarily stalled due to a complaint by the New Mexico Environmental Protection Division Solid Waste Bureau citing potential hazards, the issues were resolved in April 2014 to allow the excavation to proceed. Excavation started on April 26, 2014 as an open event to the public. E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial designer Howard Scott Warshaw and director Zak Penn attended the event as part of a documentary about the burial.





'About 200 of residents and game enthusiasts gathered to watch backhoes and bulldozers dig through the concrete-covered landfill. But strong winds that kicked up massive clouds of dust mingled with garbage led some to leave the Alamogordo site. Among the watchers was Armando Ortega, a city official who back in 1983 got a tip from a landfill employee about the massive dump of games. "It was pitch dark here that night, but we came with our flashlights and found dozens of games," he said. They braved the darkness, coyotes and snakes of the desert landfill and had to sneak past the security guard. But it paid off. He says that so far they've found hundreds of crushed cartridges, a dozen of which they took home and were still playable in their game consoles.













'Assuming the initial trove of hundreds of unearthed E.T. games is just the tip of the iceberg and millions of the games turn up, one of the gaming world's greatest mysteries and legends will be solved, but what to do with the game itself, which remains a shitty disaster to play? Neocomputer.org is here to help. They have created a fix for the game that requires only a basic understanding of hex editor's basic functions. Some of the many fixes include making the game less incredibly hard to play, removing the problem that causes E.T. to fall into the dreaded pits every time any part go his body visually overlaps them, changing E.T.'s inexplicable yellow color into his natural green. To turn E.T. into a playable and possibly even fun game, you need only open your NTSC E.T. ROM in a hex editor and make the following changes.'-- collaged

-------------------------------------------
- E.T. is Not Green
-------------------------------------------
17FA: FE FC F8 F8 F8
1DE8: 04

-------------------------------------------
- Difficulty Fix (Walk, Run, Hover)
-------------------------------------------
0707: A4 F8
071B: A4 F8
0685: A4 F8
0FEF: AD 82 02 29 08 4C 4E BB
0B4D: 60 4A 4A 4A 49 01 85 F8
04F0: A5 81 29 1E

-------------------------------------------
- Falling Fix
-------------------------------------------
002A: 4C F6 BB
0BF6: A5 9C 69 07 85 F6 4C AB BC
1013: 05 D9 65 E3 65 F6 85 8B 4C 4B F0
101E: 08 E4 8B D0 06 24 13 70 02 85 2C E4 9E 08 E8
102D: A4 86 8A
1034: 85 02 84 1C
1060: A5 87 85 1B A5 88 85 06 8A A8 B1 BA 85 0E B1 BC
1070: 85 0F E4 9F 4C 1E F0
18F3: 2E F0
0B40: A9 EF
07ED: E9 04
0BA5: 22

--------------------------------------------
- BUG FIXES
--------------------------------------------
- Don't Fall Leaving Forest on Right
-------------------------------------------
0D54: 4A
0D6C: 01
-------------------------------------------
- Ship Shouldn't Crush Elliott
-------------------------------------------
07BD: 4C D9 BA

-------------------------------------------
- FIX SCORING TO MATCH MANUAL
-------------------------------------------
058E: 85 F4 A5 DD 85 F5 65 F4 85 DD 69 10 EA EA
1382: 4C 9D F3
1395: A9 99 85 D3 85 D4 D0 09 A5 F8 D0 02 AA A8
13BD: A9 01 05 DE 85 DE A2 07 A0 70 20 41 F3 EA
1341: A5 D2 C9 0A F0 08 E9 10 85 D2 A2 04 A0 90 A5 DD
1351: F8 4C E9 F7
17E9: C9 1F 90 0A 8A 09 10 AA A5 D3 E9 07 85 D3 D8 60
13FD: A9 99 85 D3 85 D4 A9 00 85 F4 85 E3
147A: A9 00 85 DD 85 D9 85 94 A5 29 C5 DC B0 02 A5 DC
148A: 4C A5 F4

Note: If you don't include the difficulty fix, make
the following change to the scoring fix:
139D: EA EA EA EA EA EA

-------------------------------------------
- Easter Egg - Ninja E.T.
-------------------------------------------
148A: A5 F4 C5 F5 D0 0C C9 03 D0 08 A9 AA 85 D2 85 D3
149A: 85 D4 4C A5 F4 EA EA EA

--------------------------------------------
- Add Extra Game Option - Scientist Only
--------------------------------------------
0471: E0 05
02ED: 29 01 F0 09














*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Yes, Ronet did a lot of films in his quite shortish life, most of them seemingly lost to time, or lost to youtube at least. Sad about Bob Hoskins. My favorite role of his is in the imperfect but very interesting, hardly ever mentioned Christopher Hampton film 'The Secret Agent', which also features a very rare, very good, creepy performance by Robin Williams, of all people. ** Empty Frame, Hey, man! How're you doing? Sorry about Blogger getting all fancy and elitist on you. Wtf?! No, I don't think I know that Richard Wilson piece, but I'll google it straight away. Huh, that's really interesting about the stage production of 'The Notebook'. Yes, the Agota Kristof novel trilogy which includes 'The Notebook', is one of my very favorite all-time literary works. Kristof was a really well-known playwright as well, and I wonder if the theater version is an adaption by her or by someone else? I'll check. That might be an occasion for a London visit for sure. Thanks, buddy. Really good to see you, man! ** Torn porter, Hey, T. Well, I think Bardot's evolution into a National Front sympathizer and seeming racist also has something to do with the qualified at best acknowledgment of her animal rights work. She's a complicated person. Oh, yeah, I was thinking you were offline in general, and that gave me the utopian attribution idea, I guess. Yuppies in Paris makes me sad for some reason. Well, I guess the reason is obvious. Cool, yeah, I would say gauge the mood of the URM guy when you go in there. You can usually tell pretty fast if he's in a warm, congenial state or not. Yeah, maybe later in the weekend would be cool for a meet up. I'm film work-eaten up until then. Let's email or text or something and sort it. Cool. ** Tosh Berman, I think Un Regard Moderne is also my pick for greatest bookstore in the world. Ronet's eyes are crazy intense. I thought that quote about him at the top of the post -- he had 'eyes for looking into chasms' -- was a beautiful way to describe them. Thanks, T! ** Steevee, Hi. True about most of Ronet's later films, but he's really good in one of his last films, 'Beau Pere', which isn't a bad film at all. Looking forward to your review. Everyone, here's Steevee aka Steve Erickson's review of Richard Ayoade’s new, kind of buzzed about, Gilliam-y and Lynch-y film 'The Double'. Check it out. Glad to hear that the CT seems to have gone very well. ** Thomas Moronic, Yeah, I didn't think he'd be your thing. He was quite a huge twink porn superstar for a couple of years, which makes his evolution into a slave -- if, that is, it's not just a matter of stolen photos -- kind of interesting. Yes, those were very mastered haikus in my book. Beauties. Not an easy form to ace at all, as I'm sure you know. Yeah, I knew Dean in/from the LA art scene back in the 90s mostly. Wow, you found 'Slave Sonnets'. Wow, they're online! I had no idea. I think that, rather than linking to them, I'll do a post about them or something. Cool. Cheers to you, pal! ** Kier, A cabin the countryside sounds so nice. Were you around here when Zac and I did our Scandinavian theme park investigation/road trip last year? Man, Norway is so crazy beautiful. Really enjoy your time there, and I hope you gets tons of drawings done for all kinds of reasons include purely selfish ones on my part, and I look forward to seeing you when you get back! Lots love to you, K! ** Schoolboyerrors, Hi, man. 'Black Swan', yuck. I've never liked an Aronofsky film. Our partly ballet-themed film will be a lot better no matter what happens. Promise. We probably won't start actually making the film until early next year, but we might be building at least a maquette of the 'haunted house' sculpture in the fall, so pix of that are highly possible. Oh, no, no plans to kill the blog. That was just a passing acknowledgment that nothing lasts forever, but blog foreverness is still an operating plan. Kimball, yeah, good, for sure. I still haven't read his most recent book. I have to do that. Sure hope you get that lecturing job. By mainstream stuff, what does that mean? Like Eugenides and Franzen and all that kind of sales- and critic-friendly 'literary fiction' blah? Weird to think that Nicholson Baker isn't at least a mainstream encroacher, but, yeah, I guess he isn't. My yesterday? It was heavily film-work-oriented. Uh, Zac and I successfully finished the revision on the script of the scene we're shooting in a few weeks. The revision will hopefully make the scene possible to be performed by a few guys we really want to have in one of the two roles but who were wary of certain aspects that we have hopefully changed. We sent it to the guys and hope we can audition them early next week. We met with one of performers we really, really want to play probably the toughest role in our film, and he signed on, so that was great. We met up with Michael 'Kiddiepunk' Salerno and Bene/'Oscar'. Michael is the cameraman for our film and will assist Zac with the art direction. We caught him up on stuff. The four of us had too much dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. Other than that, a bit of novel work and a bunch of project-related emails and phone calls, basically. It was a good day. Your day? What do you need a sleeping bag for, for instance? ** Misanthrope, G., sir, hello. Busy, I hear you, I feel you. Bonkers, me? That's interesting. I'm kind of famous for never going bonkers, but maybe my explosions of bonkerness are textual. That would make sense. The early Cormack McCarthy is the best, for sure. But he's a heck of prose writer, so it's all relative maybe or something. Pretend it's twink hair. Twink porn star hair. Surely there's a twink porn star with longish blond hair whom you wouldn't mind fibbing that you did it with or something. Obviously really glad that LPS ended up okay. Oh, yes, our meeting day. Okay, hit me up. We'll need to figure that out because, at the moment anyway, Zac and I will be shooting one of the scenes our film around the end of May, so we'll want to get around that 'cos I'll be 99% occupied for the few days that we do that. Anyway, yeah, let me know your possible dates when you know them, and I should know our shooting dates pretty soon, and we'll sort it. No, I never use a travel agency. Zac and I just figure out our trips via the new-fashioned online way. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! Oh, yeah, those recordings. I heard that someone youtubed those. In the early '80s, this guy Harvey Kubernick, who's this kind of longstanding LA music world fixture/ author/ producer/ etc., supervised and produced a trilogy of albums featuring spoken word pieces by a combo of LA poets and punk band members who wrote poetry. I was featured on the first two, 'Voices of the Angels' and 'English as Second Language'. The records definitely graph out the energy and excitement of the poetry scene in LA at that time in a way, and they partly represent and partly romanticize the connection between the young LA poetry scene and the LA punk music scene. They did merge, and there was crossover, but maybe not as much as the records make it seem. I think those records are valuable for documenting that kind of amazing time, and they actually sound a lot better now than they did back then. At the time, a bunch of the poets, including me, were not into how he grafted music and sound effects onto our readings, but now there's something charming about that. It's kind of funny for me because two of the three pieces he featured by me are poems I never used anywhere else and that I forgot I even wrote for a long time. Anyway, yeah, those records are nice, and I can see that they could seem inspiring. That's cool. If you want to know more about them or about that project, I can tell you. Just let me know. Things are really good with me, thanks, man. And with you too, I sure hope. ** Postitbreakup, Hi, Josh! Oh, that's okay. Random coming and going here is part of the way this place works or something. Well, with that added info about the guy, I hope you don't mind me saying that it sounds like you might be a lot better off without him, but I don't know. You try to have a good day too, 'cos I'll try, and, that's like us making a deal or something maybe. ** Kyler, Hi. Your sister sounds like quite a can of worms. Freudian analyst sounds intense. Hell, yeah, mention your nephew, and if sticking to his first name isn't enough of a compromise, fuck her, although that's easy for know-nothing me to say. The only trouble with my work re: my family, if you want to call it trouble, is their utter indifference and disinterest in my writing and everything to do with it. Apart from my cool nephew, who's a very good writer, and who reads/likes my books, and my dad, who would at least acknowledge that I'm a writer on occasion. Take care, K. ** Rewritedept, Oh, man, I'm so very sorry. That's just ... there are no words. Heroin has destroyed and really fucked up and killed a bunch of people I've loved. I don't think there's anything in the world I hate more than heroin. I'm so sorry, Chris. Just do your best to process what's happened and honor your friend as best you can. Warmest hugs to you man. Love, me. ** Okay. Well, ugh. Um, yeah, I put together this post just before the news about the Atari dumpsite went viral, so it's possibly old news, but I tried to cover as many bases in the post as I could, so maybe it'll be interesting, who knows? See you tomorrow.

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The BodyHail To Thee, Everlasting Pain
'Perhaps extreme music is the ideal method for sublimating an unfulfilled death drive: a fantasy of death’s fascinating potentiality that mediates our access to the truth of its nothingness, accreting in the process all the symbolism that attends our visions of mortality. It’s dark, fearful, rent by screams, discordant guitar, and pounding drums. More importantly, it lasts. Unlike death, which occurs in an instant, music unfolds through time, expanding this phantasmic death into an album-length experience, a succession of death moments, or better yet, a succession of moments that teach us to crave death. The Body’s music, here compounded by The Haxan Cloak’s Bobby Krlic, exemplifies this dual process of the suicide fantasy, evoking both the surrounding “craziness” and the terrifying march toward self-slaughter.'-- Tiny Mix Tapes






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Amen Dunes w/ Elias Bender RonnenfeltGreen Eyes
'Over the past few years Damon McMahon’s Amen Dunes project has been serving up loose and crackly, almost improvised psych-raga jams, but where McMahon’s pumped out “largely improvisational first-take affairs, recorded in a matter of weeks at most” in the past, he says his new album Love took him close to a year-and-a-half to put together. Everything’s rubber-banded up tight by the background violin. The whole deal softly, softly chugs along partly because of that little drum beat, the one that practically lopes while it loops. It’s all quarter note snare, kick on the “ands” of three and four. One slightly more relevant things you also oughta know is that Iceage’s Elias Bender Rønnenfelt is featured on the track "Green Eyes", and, woah buddy, he even gets his duet on with McMahon.'-- Tiny Mix Tapes






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Wanda GroupMasculinity is a Wonderful Thing
'Louis Johnstone's Wanda Group project has been making a growing name for itself across the course of this year. With a quick-fire succession of cryptically titled records, accompanied with greyscale collage artwork built from images of fragmented rock, he's established a particular aesthetic that's both unique and tough to pin down. Certain elements coincide with the styles and ideals of musique concrete, or artists like Joseph Hammer, Atrax Morgue and the school of industrial/ experimental/ minimal cassettes that cropped up in the late 80s and early 90s. But throwing names to see what sticks seems a little at odds with the nourishing aspect at the heart of Wanda Group, a certain verisimilitude that sidesteps overt abstraction towards something more beautiful. His tracks are complex, intimate structures: webs of samples stripped of their original setting, closely examined, then messily smeared and reapplied into radically new shapes. The overall approach and final appearance is closer to papier-mache than any traditional style of production.'-- The Quietus






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Max RichterUntitled Figures
'Max Richter’s debut album Memoryhouse was originally recorded with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra in 2002 for the BBC’s Late Junction classical music label. A masterpiece in neoclassical composition, the album has languished in out-of-print obscurity since the dissolution of Late Junction as a label. Indeed, inquisitive listeners might now know Richter better for his earlier collaborations with electronic pioneers The Future Sound of London and Roni Size, as well as his elegiac score to Ari Folman’s 2008 animated documentary Waltz with Bashir. But Fat Cat Records has plucked Memoryhouse from the doldrums to introduce a new audience to Richter’s first major solo work, and give old fans an excuse to fall under its spell all over again. And what an intoxicating spell it is. A 65-minute journey through the beauty and tragedy of 20th century Europe, Memoryhouse is like an immaculately observed postcard journal, albeit one informed more by imagination than documentary accuracy.'-- BBC






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HeteroticRain
'Throughout his 20-year career, Mike Paradinas has peppered his fruitful career (as μ-Ziq) with a handful of collaborations that have seen the Wimbledon producer work with heady artists like Marco Jerrentrup, Speedy J and Aphex Twin. With Heterotic, Paradinas has found a musical project that seems, sonically and personally, close to his heart. Recording with his wife, Lara Rix-Martin, the music of Heterotic is a tempered blend of spacey synthesizers, analog drum machine beats and mournful vocals, courtesy of French artist Vezelay, giving each track a haunted, uneasy feeling.'-- exclaim






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Energy GownFreedose
'It was a bit prophetic that I was reading Ginsberg prior to my interview with local experimental quartet Energy Gown, whose philosophy of embracing the now and delving into the darker echelons of the human psyche recalls the inquisitive creativity of the 1950s and 60s. Energy Gown’s quest though isn’t to bring back the flower children of bygone eras but instead probe the codes and structures that make up the human body and creative impulses of their music and audience. Although only formed less than a year ago, the group has already self-released two tapes, performed at Chicago’s strongly curated Psych Fest and are releasing their first EP I Watch The Sun on March 23. Clearly the now is truly now.'-- IMPOSE






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NochexxxAquaverse
'Marshaling his battered MPC, teasing out warped grooves and punching in staggered beats that sit somewhere between vintage electro and techno - though often spiked through with pleasingly crunchy b-boy signifiers - Nochexxx tunes are idiosyncratic and heat-warped expressions of a sinister twitchy velocity. Indeed, it's this very tension that gives Nochexxx tracks such personality; raw music that works the floor but exists on a rather different mental plane, with an oil haze cinematic undertone that's often accentuated in his performances with distinct yellow and black visual accompaniment from Plastic Horse. This month sees the release of the Cambridge-based musician's debut album Thrusters on Ramp Recordings. Featuring 11 tracks that solidify his vision of skewed homespun electronics, this is music in constant forward motion – a hallucinatory journey to the centre of the cactus, and an instantly recognisable audio world.'-- The Quietus






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Whirling Hall Of KnivesVolaré Symptomatic
'A collaboration between Magnetize and The Last Sound, Whirling Hall Of Knives' harsh smouldering circuits and eruptions of panicky white noise have a profoundly unsettling quality, a sense of gnawing paranoia but interspersed with moments of almost euphoric epiphany, as if in the grip of an unshakeable 4am psychosis a growing sense that the door will be kicked in at any second and the world outside will come pouring in. Psyche electronics of a particularly greasy and grime-flecked hue. A feast of swirling hypno-psych, blown out and buried in sheets of corrosive feedback with all manner of buzzing and swirling guitars blending into a pulsing, throbbing, hypnotic and mesmerizing noise-scape underpinned by a seriously wild and propulsive groove.'-- collaged






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EMASatellites
'Production-wise, EMA has said she wanted her new album The Future's Void to sound like Nine Inch Nails demos and - fair enough - this is what we hoped How to Destroy Angels would be, or what Zola Jesus might do next. That said, EMA draws on sci-fi visions of dystopia (hence names like ‘Neuromancer’, ‘Cthulhu’) rather than targeting Christianity, for a more astute criticism of the late-capitalist era. The raw, chaotic, noise-collages of her former band, Gowns, seem a long way away – but these elements are suspended to make humanity seem all the more precious. The music operates less as an end in itself and more as a counterpoint to the keening, whispering, screeching, gasping voice-as-expression-of-humanity: within the silicon maze, she suggests, there’s a ghost trying to get out. A crucial part of the EMA formula is the lullaby, nursery rhyme, or folksong updated. Her songs look back to that first moment in childhood when we realize we can be creative – that music can be democratic – and they look forward to a moment in our collective history when all the icons that have so much power over us in 2014 are just material for children’s songs.'-- Drowned in Sound






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PyrrhonThe Architect Confesses
'Pyrrhon’s oft-suffocating, teetering-towards-self-destruction din works because they are one confident, brash group of dudes. Guitarist Dylan DiLella deftly crosses brutality with riffs that can only be described as “zippery” and “alarm-esque.” Drummer Alex Cohen’s natural prog tendencies feed off of the chances to explode with some relentless blasting. Bassist Erik Malave moves in and out of the main motifs while showing no hesitance in going as bonkers as his bandmates. (Plus, that thick bass tone may be the greatest benefit of a fine Ryan Jones production and Colin Marston mastering.) Moore uses a variety of effects to enhance his many voices – a full range of maniacal growling, screaming, yelling, ranting, and preaching – while delivering an album’s worth of nuanced, intelligent lyrics.'-- Last Rites






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Marching ChurchWe Lose Them Through Our Hands
'Elias Bender Rønnenfelt is probably best known for being the vocalist and guitarist of the excellent Danish post-punk band, Iceage, and probably second-best known for being the frontman for Vår (née War), the spooky electro Iceage side project. Now Rønnenfelt is releasing new music from his other musical outlet, Marching Church. The band’s new release, “Throughout The Borders,” is spooky minimal goth a la Death In June. For Marching Church, Rønnenfelt exercises a cold, dark, and dry sound, in debt to both early post-punk and dark-folk.'-- collaged






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Gezan『癲癇する大脳たち』PV
'Gezan is a crazed Tokyo outfit that reconfigures the stylings of Anglo-American rock subgenres into their own delirious negation. The four-piece have been cultivating a homebound notoriety for a bonkers live set since their inception in 2009, garnering plaudits from some of the acts (Melt-Banana, Ruins, Acid Mothers Temple) whose faithful desecration of rock trademarks they’ve taken it upon themselves to extend into the second decade of the 21st century. More importantly, their accolades are fully justified by the pulverizing, anything-goes caprice of It Was Said to Be A Song, a debut LP that found a domestic release in 2012 and that begins its flight into barely contained insanity with the Babel of “Full Claw Lunar Surface.” Here, scathing guitar fireworks are pockmarked by non-sequiturs into feral tape manipulation and industrial rap, the high-pitched braying and fluid pendulations from 7/8 into 8/8 exuding a volatility that’s mouth-watering precisely to the extent that, like with so many great Japanese bands, it refuses to swear wholesale fealty to externally-imposed conventions and dictates of taste.'-- Tiny Mix Tapes






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Brett NauckeLuau
'If previous releases for Nihilist, Arbor and his own Catholic Tapes established Chicago's Brett Naucke as one of the more accomplished practitioners in the American synth underground, Seed, his debut LP for Spectrum Spools, is a veritable career apex, brimming with sonic ingenuity, detail, and mastery over both instrument and musical form. It is hard to fathom due to the sheer diversity of sound and affectations of the eight individual pieces on the album, but Seed was recorded - almost impossibly - with the same synth patch, slightly modified for the unveiling of each track. This testifies to the intensity of Naucke's macroscopic conceptual vision for Seed. Each track's complex arc points towards a mind rooted in academic electronic processes, keenly trying to surprise and disarm by prying open new textures, rhythms and structures. But Naucke has struck a perfect balance that unites this avant-garde intuition with a compositional sophistication - bringing each unique molecule of sound into cohesive songs and further still into a supremely listenable and closed album that operates entirely on its own logic.'-- Editions Mego






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Aleksi Perälä Dynamic Light Scattering
'The music of Finnish electronic composer Aleksi Perälä's uses Perälä and Grant Wilson-Claridge's custom musical scale, the Colundi Sequence. Wilson-Claridge says of their invention: “Instead of dividing the keyboard into octaves with semitones, we have chosen specific frequencies to work around... The scale is 128 resonant frequencies chosen via experimentation and philosophy, each relating to a specific human bio-resonance, or psychology, traditional mysticism or belief, physics, astronomy, maths, chemistry.” “I’ve always felt somewhat frustrated or restricted with a standard keyboard," says Perälä, "I started exploring different TET [equal temperament scales] in 2006." Perälä's music is both natural and electrical, with an emphasis on sine waves of different frequencies, amplitudes and phase to demonstrate Colundi Level 1 to the listener, whatever the shape of one’s ear and one’s ability to hear may be.'-- collaged






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Cevdet ErekRoom of Rhythms
'Cevdet Erek’s (1974, Istanbul) work is characterised by a marked use of rhythm and site specificity. Erek combines video, sound and images, often in an attempt to alter the viewer’s perception and experience of a given space. The result functions as a hypothesis, probing the viewer’s instinctive logic and thus appealing to the senses. Interestingly, Erek manages to combine rational components such as references to architecture and linear time with instinctive impulses thereby levelling the gap between two supposedly opposing spheres. Part of an ongoing exploration, “Room of Rhythms 1″ is based on a conversation between Cevdet Erek and Duygu Demir that reflects on themes of sound, architecture, rhythm, measured time, dance music and site-specificity.'-- collaged






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Puce Mary Ultimate Hypocrisy V
'Puce Mary is the solo project of Copenhagen-based experimental musician Frederikke Hoffmeier. Closely affiliated with the punk scene that grew out of the danish capital and spawned labels like Posh Isolation and bands like Iceage, Vår and Lust for Youth, Hoffmeier has chosen a somewhat different path. As a solo project, Puce Mary is constantly evolving and never stays in the same place for very long. Where the early tapes and vinyls on danish label Posh Isolation have been minimal with a dark edge, Hoffmeier has recently showcased her diversity through live performances and collaborations. From the concrete sound-poetry of the collaboration vinyls with swedish noise champion Sewer Election to her latest livesets of rhythmic industrial and harsh power electronics, Puce Mary never ceases to push the boundaries of contemporary noise music.' -- collaged






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DatashockTod in der Saarvanne
'Datashock is a ritualistic “neo-hippie-spook-folk” collective from Saarlouis, Germany. There is no constant lineup, as the group is joined by new members every now and then. Their music is defined almost entirely by psychedelic multidimensional live-improvisations stemming from 70ies krautrock influenced by contemporary electronic music and psychotic dronescapes. As a result we find complex layers of sultry muffled vibrations met by heavy waves of electronic sound experiments and strangely disfigured images. Here and there reality-distorting bits of whispers and cut-up voices are woven into the texture of these alien patterns of sound. Every step here is like nervously stumbling through the swampy ground of a jungle. Here every look is like a secret glimpse at a hidden ghost-train world.'-- nicknicknick







*

p.s. Hey. ** Armando, Hey! Yeah, really great to see you, man! A couple of people have told me that that 'Captain America' movie is fun. Huh, cool. I'll probably end up watching it on a plane because I always seem to see blockbusters on planes partly because it's really hard to find anyone in Paris who's into seeing them in the theater. Ha ha, wow, I love Godard. Yikes about BlB. Um, the producer of the film I'm making with Zac is the producer of almost all of BlB's films, so I'll stay mum on that topic, ha ha again. 'Gone' is a book that's a facsimile of this scrapbook I kept in the early 80s when I was developing the George Miles Cycle. Weird that they don't ship to Mexico. I wonder why. Maybe if you write a note to them or something? The guy who's publishing the book reads this blog so maybe he'll pop in to say why that is. Shit, that was one intense shrink session. I'm sorry, man. I guess it's good that Xanax was so friendly to you. I mean to see the silver lining and all that. Anyway, yeah, really swell to get to talk with you, my friend. Take care, and come back soon, if it suits you. Love and hugs back to you! ** Jeffrey Coleman, Hi, Jeff. Cool! I mean to see you! I'm good, thanks. That is a weird and most curious coincidence or something about the Ohle book. I have this odd belief or half-belief in fate and destiny and things like that, so I can buy that there's something bigger than mere luck guiding that seeming happenstance. No, I don't know about gnOme. A quick initial scroll through their books does indeed reveal how interesting they are. Thanks a lot! I'll go scour the place in a bit. Everyone, d.l. Jeffrey Coleman tips you guys/me to a press called gnOme whose books look really interesting. I recommend that you follow Jeff's lead and check them out. Yeah, great, you're such a fount of interesting tips, man. I've found such terrific books and presses and music and stuff thanks exclusively to you. Take care. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. I hope the installation came together perfectly. Did it? What is it? Is Hamburg cool? I drove through there once on the way to Scandinavia but didn't stop, and I couldn't tell what the place was like or about. ** David Ehrenstein, I did read that about Ronet and Anna Karina, but it didn't end up in the post for some reason. 'Snowpiercer', what is that? Wait, I'll go find out when the p.s. is over (for me). Have a lovely weekend, sir. ** Empty Frame, Hi, man. I did a little check on that production of 'The Notebook'. It looks quite promising, it's true. Great in any case that that book is getting highlighted publicly 'cos it's so incredibly undervalued in a general way relative to its greatness. I'll ask Gisele if her manager people know about Battersea Arts Centre. Yeah, the UK is really squeamish or something re: Gisele's work. We get nibbles all the time, but nothing ever ends up happening. Maybe the new ventriloquism piece will get over there since it's very verbal/text-oriented and the powers that be always say that the UK is all 'we want lots and lots of talking on our stages'. If I can manage to get over for the Kristof thing, I'll def. let you know. It'll mostly depend on whether we'll be shooting our film around then. Ha ha, actually that HODGKIN/ smashed piece doesn't sound so bad in theory, but I trust your judgment implicitly. Cool that you'll see TNP and WB. I haven't seen either live yet. Cool, cool, cool. Ha ha, whoa: 'DENNIS COOPER LACKS PERSPECTIVE'. I mean, sure, probably, but still. Of course now my mind is scurrying to figure out what I do that would have made her say that, which is not an unfun pursuit, I guess. Wow, trippy. I do know that there's no place in the world where me and stuff are more actively and overtly disliked than England. Not sure why, though. But then Will Self's old-fashioned blowhard literary antics are considered edgy and daring over there, so maybe that's a clue. I just read this think-piece by WS this morning about how the literary novel has been killed by the internet that was so 20th century out-of-it. Anyway, blah blah, thanks for passing that quote along. Pretty funny. ** Steevee, Blb's 'Gerontophila' has been kind of a success over here in France, or in Paris at least, so I'm guessing that's why MK2 has come onboard for him? Great luck with the James Gray review. You know, I don't believe I've seen any of his films, come to think of it. Would 'The Immigrant' be a good place to start? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Ha ha, maybe I should quickly copyright that sentence. Actually, Cory Arcangel is all over that. I think I read that he's doing some big installation work about it. No surprise, right? ** Schoolboyerrors, Ooh, getting the LA airport in there is a nice meta-touch. The wilds of England: how wild are they? Sounds sweet. Oh, historical fiction, right, sure, got it. Nicholson Baker is great, yeah. That dude can write a mean sentence, among his other many virtues. In addition to the sex novels, I have a great fondness for his earlier novel 'Room Temperature'. The prose in that novel is crazy pristine. And I've always envied that title for some reason. My day? Almost all film stuff again. It's gonna be mostly that way for a while. Uh, Zac and I met with the guy we've wanted badly to play one of the roles in the scene we're shooting in a couple of weeks, and he said yes, so we're very happy! We have to send the producers a photo of us for use on some flyer about our film that the producers plan to circulate at Cannes, so we went through the archive of photos of us together and found a couple of maybes but decided we should get a more formal one done, which we have to do today. More film stuff: emails, phone calls. Some work on the novel. A bit of walking around in the rain. A bit of reading. Nice day, but not a day so interesting to hear about, I think. I'll expected to hear how you coped with the wilds today when society has you in its grip once again if not before. Have huge fun! ** Sypha, No, not a fan of 'Black Swan' at all. You played that 'E.T.' game? Cool. Yeah, it looks like a tear-your-hair-out frustrating mess of a thing. I'm sorry to hear about your household full of sickness, but there's something kind of goth and haunted house-like about it in my imagination. It seems like it would make a cool premise for a stage play. Maybe I'll suggest it to Gisele. But, all riffing aside, I am sorry for the suffering part of that otherwise aesthetically interesting situation. Cool that you've managed to get your short-story collection in order nonetheless. 'All the way back to 2010': that's a funny phrase. ** Magick mike, Hey, Mike! Always a great and serious pleasure to have you here! What were doing in Santa Fe? Did you see Ken Baumann? Very best to you, sir! ** Misanthrope, Yeah, that's so, so rough about Rewritedept's friend. Heroin is a beast. Its grip is insanely tight and its lies are horribly convincing. I think I'm kind of kerazy and goofy in my real life, so maybe that's why I don't notice it. Never in my life have I heard of Luke Bryan, for very good reasons, it sounds like. I'm not even going to google him. I don't want that pollution in my memory banks. Thanks for taking his bullet, man. Okay, that week you're over there/here is the week we'll be rehearsing and then shooting our film unless something goes terribly awry. But there'll be days when we're not shooting, so, as soon as our dates are locked down, and yours too, let's sort it out. ** Rewritedept, Hi, man. Yeah, I can't even imagine how hard that must be to process. I don't even know if it'll be possible to process. I think it's probably something you'll more just incorporate and then move on changed in some way. My day was good. I told Schoolboyerrors about it above. Man, hang in there and do and feel the very best you can this weekend, okay? Lots of love. ** Okay. This weekend I've put together a slightly extra-sized edition of the only semi-/cultishly liked gig posts I do on occasion featuring new music I've been listening to and liking lately, and you guys who want to hear and, in some cases, also see some awesome current sonic treats can have at it until Monday. Thank you. See you when the weekend is over.

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Elizabeth Ellen: I am often wary of writers/artists/actors/et al who use their past drug use in their art or for some sort of (seeming) street cred. I have to be honest. I wonder how much heroin Cheryl Strayed did. Black Cloud is a collection of stories, fictions, based somewhat on yr life. Do you ever feel like a poser? Or like you have to prove how big a druggie you were in the way ppl who write about growing up poor are always telling you just how poor they were? How they had chickens in their living rooms and shit.

Juliet Escoria: LOL. I don’t worry about those questions. People are going to talk and think shit, and there’s really no point in trying to defend myself against it all.

I worry about different things related to that, though. I worry that I will be one of those writers who did drugs for a while and then only writes about drugs until the end of time. Drugs are easy subject matter because drug use is both funny and sad. I don’t want to only do the easy thing. But. I tried so many fucking times to write stories that had nothing to do with drugs. And they were shitty. In March of 2013, I decided I would stop giving a fuck about this and write what I wanted to write because I wanted to write it, and then I wrote seven of the stories that make up Black Cloud (the other five I had written either in grad school or the year after).

I feel like I had to get that book out of my system. I put all of myself into that project, like really tried to skin myself for it, and I am proud of the result. But right now I am writing about other things and I hope this trend continues.

EE: what drew you to writing, and to the style/culture of what is being called ‘alt lit’ in particular?

JE: I write because I’ve always written. I started taking it seriously because I’m stubborn and I didn’t want to be one of those people who thought of themselves as a writer yet never did anything concrete with it, so I set up my life in a way where I’d feel like an asshole if I failed.

I’m pretty sure people consider me alt lit because I have a book on CCM, use visual stuff in my work, and am in a relationship with Scott. This is funny to me because I didn’t fully understand what alt lit was until like a year or two ago. This is how I’m a poser, EE. I’m an alt lit poser. Doesn’t get much more pathetic than that.

I like being aligned with alt lit because they are the new impressionists. Like the impressionists, I too get ornery when someone tells me what to do or how to do it.

But shit, guys. Maybe it’s time to move into surrealism.








Juliet Escoria Black Cloud
Civil Coping Mechanisms

'Reading the stories in Black Cloud is like getting punched in the throat; Juliet Escoria leaves you speechless. Her honesty teaches us that beauty can be found in violence, truth in pain, and life where we’ve always been afraid to look.'-- Benjamin Samuel

'Juliet Escoria is like a gutter-punk Grace Paley.'-- Adam Wilson

'This book is like Julia Child meets Michael Jackson.'-- Mira Gonzalez

'Black Cloud is one of the best things I’ve ever read… I want more literature to be like this: brutal, honest, dark, and incredibly real.'-- Beach Sloth


Excerpt


FUCK CALIFORNIA

That was the summer the waters in the lagoon swelled, and the gnats and mosquitoes swarmed in black clouds. We would sit on the beach in his rusty lawn chairs, the nylon threads turning white before snapping. We drank cases of beer, first cold and then no longer cold and then warm, out of cans hidden in paper bags, and the bug bites popped red on our heels. The day turned into night, and we rolled from the chairs onto the sand, not really minding the bugs, and I whispered to him, “I love you,” for the very first time, and I meant it.

I thought I meant it.

The days grew shorter and the mosquito bites healed. That was the winter the kelp uprooted itself, splaying on the sand in rusty, rotting piles, making the beach stink of death. We went down there one night, hopeful, but I could only stand it for ten minutes. Right before we left—he didn’t want us to go—I said to him, “It just seems like the ocean is trying to get at us,” and he smiled at me like I was a morbid and silly child. He was one of those that came here from somewhere else, and saw everything as great, waking just about every day to declare it a beautiful morning. Fuck California, I said under my breath. And also: fuck you.

We took his lawn chairs back where they came from, to the deck at his house, where we could see a little of downtown and the bay, which was polluted, but mostly we were looking at the airport.

This was also the winter I couldn’t get warm. The sea air dug into my bones, it seemed, and wouldn’t get out. There really was no other explanation. My skin was thinner, more transparent, than before, and my veins seemed much more blue. My arms and chest looked like maps, maps with a whole lot of rivers. I drank to melt away the chill. I couldn’t tell you why he drank, all I know was he did it too.

In the kitchen before dinner one night, it turned out I’d had too much and I fainted. One moment I had my elbows on the counter and the next I was a sloppy puddle on the floor. I’d hit the tile smack on my cheekbone. In the morning I had a black eye. “Looks like you talked back,” he joked. I pretended to laugh, but really I was thinking about how his dumb jokes made me sick.

Our last night together, and we went to the sex shop to buy whippets. I hadn’t done those things since I was fifteen. We went out on the patio and sat in the chairs, our big pint glasses forming rings on the old wooden planks of the deck. The empty cartridges made a pile at our feet, silver and glinting spent bombs. The iciness of the gas brought blis- ters to our fingers. And our thoughts — they stilled before they burst, and then we laughed, and then we laughed.

It smelled like gasoline because of the airport, and looked nothing at all like the beach. But if I sucked enough nitrous and shook my head the right way, I could trick myself into thinking the roar of the jets was that of the waves, and the lights on the landing strip were, in fact, stars.



FUCK CALIFORNIA by Juliet Escoria


Ghost Stories by Juliet Escoria


Taking Antipsychotics & Puking by Juliet Escoria




____________________




'Lodovico Pignatti Morano was born in London, England. He grew up predominantly in Australia, but also England, Italy and Switzerland. After finishing high school in Sydney he moved to London to study Art. In 2009 he graduated from Goldsmiths College (University of London) with a BA in Fine Art Practice, he subsequently moved to Italy to take a job with the legendary Italian bicycle brands Cinelli and Columbus. In 2011 he left his job to pursue other areas of interest. Since then he has written the short Milan-based identity thriller Marco, Milan (forthcoming, Semiotext(e), spring 2014), the large-scale monograph Cinelli, the art and design of the Bicycle (Rizzoli New York, 2012), and served as the Consultant Editor of the first ever monograph dedicated to the Italian sportswear pioneer Massimo Osti, Ideas from Massimo Osti (Damiani, 2012).'-- through europe













Lodovico Pignatti Morano Nicola, Milan
Semiotext(e)

'It was the lies he told that reminded me of that past of mine that I hadn't encountered in a while. He was telling me the kinds of lies where the teller implies that things that have only happened to him once are long-running habits. Things about too much whiskey, Céline and De Sade, eating alone in expensive Japanese restaurants, knowing nobody (this last fact he would continue to repeat in later meetings, it seeming more barbarously unreal each time).'-- from Nicola, Milan

'Vaguely employed as a brand strategist in a B-version of the Italian Glamour export economy, the twenty-five-year-old unnamed narrator of Nicola, Milan is an international loner, watch checker, tip leaver, shit-talker, drifting from bar to airport lounge, taxi to hotel foyer, drunk and caffeinated at the same time, trying to explain to you the finer points of how to pitch an idea of Italy to Americans.

'But when he meets the slightly older, richer, and worldlier Nicola, he becomes fascinated with him, seeing Nicola as a transcendental exemplar of the international-creative class culture he both envies and loathes. As the narrator stalks Nicola through the streets of Milan and its outskirts, what began as a casual friendship develops into an obsessive attachment, a crisis of identity connecting two hustlers, and a struggle against the quiet oblivion usually hidden by the web of tics and affectations that constitute a personality.

'Combining a Houellebecq-like sense of the psychic malaise beneath the surface of contemporary cultural life with the dispassionate voice of a police report, Nicola, Milan tells a story of perverse, asexual frenzy emptying out into the void.'-- Semiotext(e)


Excerpt










LODOVICO PIGNATTI MORANO & TRINE RIEL: SERIAL EUPHORIA AND ITS LONG-TERM PROBLEMS


Download Link : http://www.rarshare.com/nicola-milan-...


Cinelli: The Art and Design of the Bicycle




_____________________




'Her aura as she moved onto the stage was both casual and nervous. It was clear that she had done this before. She was not going to stumble or fumble to get the audience on her side, but that confidence was matched by a guardedness, an unease, and a way of maintaining a distance that might have been theatrical. I was not sure. In one of her books, she writes of a character: “Once she dreamed, on the night before a reading she was to give, that rather than words on paper, there were tiny objects linked one to another, which she had to decipher instantly, and turn into words, sentences, a story, flawlessly, of course.”

'She was wearing black; she had a glass of whiskey on the rocks in her hand. Her delivery was dry, deadpan, deliberate. There was an ironic undertow in her voice, and a sense that she had it in for earnestness, easy emotion, realism. She exuded a tone which was considered, examined and then re-examined. She understood, it seemed to me, that everything she said would have to be able to survive the listeners’ intelligence and sense of irony; her own intelligence was high and refined, her sense of irony knowing and humorous.

'I had not come across anyone like her before. It was May 1990 and both of us were touring what they call the United Kingdom in the company of an English writer. All three of us were promoting books. Although I had been in New York once and had read American fiction and seen the movies, I had never really known any Americans. Thus I could not place Lynne Tillman. All I could do was watch her.

'One thing she said made me laugh. When our English friend spoke of London and how hard it was to live there since it was so large and one had to travel miles and miles to have supper with friends, and then, if they moved, one often had to travel farther and indeed farther to see them, Lynne looked pained at all this talk of traveling and said: “Oh, no. In New York, if someone moves more than a few blocks away, you just drop them.”'-- Colm Tóibín








Lynne Tillman What Would Lynne Tillman Do?
Red Lemonade

'Would Lynne Tillman Do? offers an American mind contemplating contemporary society and culture with wit, imagination, and a brave intelligence. Just as many of Tillman’s short fictions have an essayistic quality about them, Tillman’s essays often surge with narrative power. as she upends expectations, shifts tone, introduces characters, breaches limits of genre and category, reconfiguring the world with the turn of a sentence. Tillman, like other unique thinkers, sees the world differently, she is not a malcontent, but she is discontented. Her responses to art and literature, to social problems and questions about politics and the polity, change the reader’s mind, startling it with new angles. Which is why so many of us who know her work often wonder: what would Lynne Tillman do? A long-time resident of New York, Tillman’s sharp humor is like her city’s, tough and hilarious. It pervades these pages; Tillman’s generosity and humanity are al- ways there, though, consolations for the sad truth. There are distinct streams of concern coursing through the seeming eclecticism of topics—Hillary Clinton, interior design, Jane Bowles, O.J. Simpson, art and artists, Harry Mathews, the state of fiction, film, the state of her mind, the State of the Nation. There is a great variety, but what remains consistent is how differently she writes about them, how well she understands, how passionate and bold her writing is—she is always surprising and convincing. What does Lynne Tillman do? Everything. Anything. You name it. She has a conversation with you, and you’re a better, smarter person for it.'-- Red Lemonade


Excerpt

I once read: “All journeys have destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” The beginnings of journeys and narratives can be as surprising as their secret destinations. They can start as mysteriously as they end, they can start before one thinks.

I was living in Amsterdam in 1972 when I was given a Valentine’s Day gift, an anthology entitled Americans Abroad. It had been published in The Hague in 1932, in English, and was an out-of-print and rare book. It included well-known American expatriate writers—Stein, Pound, Eliot—less well-known ones—Harry and Caresse Crosby—and many unknowns. The unknowns dominated, the way they usually do. Immediately, I wanted to edit a new one, to represent American writers now, or then. Some months later, I was introduced to an editor who had a novelty imprint at a large Dutch publishing house. He liked the idea. He also liked enormously obese women and had posters of them, nude, hidden in his office. After he got to know me a little, he showed them to me. I remember this very well and the fact that on signing the contract he paid me an advance of fifteen hundred guilders.

I think 1971 was the year I read Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky and Jane Bowles’ Two Serious Ladies. I knew that Jane Bowles was ill, in a Spanish hospital, unable to speak her name, and I also knew that Paul Bowles was installed in Tangier and had been since the 1940s. To me, he was the preeminent American abroad (the term is aptly dated), and I was determined to have him in the book.

Writing a letter to Paul Bowles was alarming, and I worked on it for a week. After deliberating, in a circuitous and paranoid way, I decided not to reveal that I was female. It was the era of William Burroughs’s vicious or satiric retort to feminism, The Job. Burroughs and Bowles were friends; I considered, in a convoluted way, that even though Paul Bowles was married to Jane Bowles, if he was in any way like some of his friends, or affected by their mean-spiritedness, he might now hate women and not want to be in a book edited by one. This might not be true at all—and if it were, why would I want him in the book? But I was in Amsterdam, smoking hash. I concocted a sexless letter, signed it Lynne Merrill Tillman (Lynne is also a man’s name; Merrill is my mother’s maiden name) and mailed it.

Bowles quickly replied that he’d be happy to be in the anthology. I’d asked for original material; he wrote that he’d send me some, and did. After another letter or two—I’ve kept all of his letters—I received one in which he inquired if I were a man or a woman, and how he should address me—Miss, Mrs. or Mr.? Otherwise he was “obliged to use Dear Lynne Merrill Tillman.” I wrote that I was female, in a letter I hope is lost, and he thanked me in his next letter for setting him straight.

The anthology’s publication date kept being postponed, and everything Bowles had given me appeared elsewhere. Finally he wrote that he had no more new or unpublished work to contribute except some poems he’d written in the late 1920s or early 1930s, and, he said, they weren’t very good. I wrote that they’d be included even if they weren’t very good, because I had to have him in the book. But, I asked, didn’t he have anything else, maybe some letters he’d written?

Bowles sent two letters he wrote his mother when he first went to Europe in 1931 with composer Aaron Copland. One told the hilariously anxious tale of his and Copland’s nearly missing a boat from Spain to Morocco. The other was written from the south of France, where he was visiting Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas for the first time. I was overwhelmed by my good luck.

Encouraged by our friendly, frequent correspondence—it was now 1976 or 1977 and I was in New York—I asked him for some writing from Jane Bowles. Requesting her work was even harder than asking for his. She was dying when I began the project, and I didn’t feel comfortable asking him for her work then or right after she’d died. I didn’t want Paul to feel taken advantage of. I thought her death must have been so painful for him that even mentioning her name would upset him. I hesitated a long time. I didn’t appreciate then that people usually don’t want the people they love to be forgotten. Jane Bowles is often and usually forgotten.

(cont.)



Lynne Tillman at the NYS Writers Institute in 2011


The Photographic Universe: 'The Life and Death of Images' with Lynne Tillman and Eduardo Cadava


Lynne Tillman presentation at the School of Visual Arts MFA Art Criticism and Writing Program




____________________




Q: I was telling someone the boiled-down set-up for Crystal Eaters– a village believes in crystal count: that every person contains within themselves a number of crystals that designate how long they have to live, and once they reach a zero-count they die; so a young girl named Remy, in an effort to save her sick mother, sets out to discover a way to increase one’s crystal count – and the thought occurred to me that the premise sounds somewhat like a videogame. Many games that I remember playing – Myst, Zelda– have a fable-like quality to them. Have videogames influenced you at all?

Shane Jones: I think videogames from my childhood influenced me a lot and while writing Crystal Eaters I remember looking at images from a bunch of games like Zelda, Super Mario Bros, and Myst. I think the fable-like quality you mentioned probably comes more from reading fables early on, or just some hardwired thing inside me that leans toward alternative realities, or hating on reality. But some of the images in games like Zelda and Super Mario Bros I really love, I think they are just beautiful pieces of art, and I’m sure they burned into my brain early on. Sega had a game called Alex Kid In Miracle World which was basically a more fucked up Super Mario Bros, more raw and poorly developed and just weird, and I played that game religiously. And a lot of those old school Sega and Nintendo games have main characters with health points or HP and I just love that. The idea of a number you have and you’re losing the number and always trying to increase it to avoid death. That’s a detail from videogames that influenced this book. I will say I don’t play videogames now. The last system I owned was the original Playstation. And here’s a confession: I never owned a Nintendo as a kid. I’m not sure I’ve ever told anyone that. I went to a friend’s house whose Dad was a heroin addict and we’d play Nintendo all day and cook hot dogs in a fire pit in the woods. For some reason, I only had a Sega. I was the weird kid playing Alex Kid In Miracle World. You should look that game up if you don’t know it. If I remember right, at the end of each stage you had to play rock, papers, scissors, to defeat a boss, which seems really lazy on the developers side and just strange. This is after you spend the entire stage punching things and avoiding skulls.

Q: Crystal Eaters contains this incredible line: “As a child what you see is creation. As an adult what you see is destruction.” What do you see?

SJ: If I talk to people or read the news I see a lot of destruction. Adults tend to talk about everything that is wrong with the world. Tell a coworker the weather for tomorrow and they’ll probably say what’s wrong with it. But if I just keep to myself and my family and, I don’t know, just walk around and be inside my own head, I see a lot of creation and beauty. The books I read and the books I write are a reflection of destruction and that reflection leads to creation. It’s a cycle, right? The line from the book you mentioned singles out Remy and her father and how the two see the world differently, which creates tension in regards to the dying mother. Sometimes adulthood feels like a trap because the responsibilities, the mundane nature of work and shopping and eating every day, can wear on you and I think that can feel like destruction. That can feel like you’re moving through mud. But not kids, no way. They are constantly in forward motion, always discovering, always creating, and I try and tell myself that often when writing: be a kid and play, don’t be an adult and complain it’s been cloudy for three days.








Shane Jones Crystal Eaters
Two Dollar Radio

'A grounded epiphany of the highest order, revealing the stark and majestic grace that is present within the loss each living thing must endure. Page after page, Jones's exquisitely styled prose drugs the ear like otherworldly music—this pyretic, hallucinatory novel stings with beauty at every turn.'-- Alissa Nutting

'Remy is a young girl who lives in a town that believes in crystal count: that you are born with one-hundred crystals inside and throughout your life, through accidents and illness, your count is depleted until you reach zero.

'As a city encroaches daily on the village, threatening their antiquated life, and the Earth grows warmer, Remy sets out to accomplish something no one else has: to increase her sick mother’s crystal count.

'An allegory, fable, touching family saga and poetic sci-fi adventure, Shane Jones underlines his reputation as an inspired and unique visionary.'-- Two Dollar Radio


Excerpt


The sky is laced with turquoise worms, and where the sun normally is there’s two red lips, a parting mouth with clouds for teeth. Remy’s bed contains 24 stacked pillows that form a wall. She gets into bed and looks up at the black crystal drawn on the ceiling. She closes her eyes, steadies her breathing, and touches the pillows. The mouth in the sky fills with red and the teeth vanish and it’s the sun. The worms wail and turquoise cascades down an arc in the sky.

The first pillow Remy places on her feet. The next, her legs. The next, her stomach. Finally, her chest. She builds layers until she has to balance the pillows on her body with her breathing. She puts the last three pillows on her head and hugs her face until she passes out. Her arms flop off the sides of the bed and her fingertips dangle near the floor.

She’s a baby. She takes wide, unsteady steps, and on a few occasions, tips backward, arms extended as her diaper thumps the floor. She wears a blue shirt with a hand-drawn black crystal (Brother). Her face is blond hair. She stumbles from her bedroom and into the hallway where she falls down the stairs, blond hair blown open and her body awkwardly sliding down the stairs as Mom shouts from below. Afterward, Remy cried for fourteen hours. Mom stayed awake the entire time, tapping her back in sets of ten, feeding her sips of tea, telling her it would be okay, they will come back on again.

Remy twitches in the wobbly picture and her eyelids flicker. Her arm as baby arm snaps like a bird’s spine beneath a boot. The pillows fall. One hits her arm. Mom moans from her bedroom. Her negative weight floats upward from her refusal of food. Her falling numbers hurt everything around her, even the carpet looks depressed. Dad skips between loving companion to distant husband to angry father. He spends his days alone. Each day this week he’s been sitting gargoyle-perched on the roof. Recently, Remy thought the problem of Mom’s sickness isn’t Mom’s sickness exactly, but Dad’s reaction to Mom’s sickness.

Remy writes in a notebook:

FELL DOWNSTAIRS AS A BABY -5 CRYSTALS.

SUBTRACT -1 FOR EVERY YEAR AFTER FROM AGING.

She puts three pillows on her face and grips tight until she passes out again, her hands falling off the bed, eyes now moving over a dark road. She’s riding her bike with the blue and yellow tassels tied to the handlebar. She wanted red and green, to be special, but Dad bought the commons. This vision like the last is broken from reality but more severe – Remy riding her bike on the road to the mine, blue and yellow tassels blowing endlessly backward and touching her home. Her hair is also endlessly long and it touches the house. She’s followed by a spotlight. Her feet blur on the pedals. She’s trying to escape the light. Skin three inches above her right ankle catches on the rear derailleur and the bike breaks into a severe slide. Water sprays from where the tires skid. The road becomes a beach and Brother is standing there covered in glistening sweat, jogging in place, with Harvak at his side who is also jogging in place. Sea crystals the shape of hexagons colored white foam then harden to black stone on the sand. An octopus is flung by the sun across the sky. The spotlight disappears and the man, who looks just like Dad, who held the spotlight, twirls his hand goodbye, bows, then jumps off the cliff at the top of The Bend.

(cont.)



Shane Jones reading from 'Light Boxes'


Trailer: Shane Jones 'Daniel Fights A Hurricane'


Trailer: Shane Jones 'Light Boxes'




*

p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Yep, on the Naucke. So want to see 'Under the Skin'. We have about a month to go before it opens over here. I'll check out Sandra Plays Electronics, thanks! Oh, I have no doubt whatsoever that your excitement about Art101 is going translate perfectly into the moods of those of us out here. ** Jeffrey Coleman, Hey, Jeff! Well, yeah, your more practical explanation for the coincidence makes a lot of sense, but the senseless/fated idea is so much more imagination-friendly, and it's hard to deny oneself that boost. Long story short, you deserve to have that book, that's a fact. Awesome that we help each other out on the great discoveries front. Thanks a lot for thinking about and getting into the gig post. That's, you know, the kind of boon that the post and I were dreaming about. Gezan are bonkers, yeah, cool. Envy on that Melt Banana show. Kier just saw them too. I do indeed remember you telling me about that friend, yes, Obvious relief that he's not just alive but okay. Jesus, he's a lucky guy, both for getting found/saved in time and for spending time in Japan. Fascinating story and update all the way around. Thank you for being so awesome and generous. ** Colbaltfram, Hi there, John! Welcome back! I've been great mixed with crazy busy. They're not incompatible. You reading and especially writing a lot is the ultimate excuse, so your absence is fully accounted for. Yes, please link us up when the Billfold piece appears. Great, I haven't gotten to read anything new by you in far too long. Zac's and my film is moving along, yes, and the clock is ticking, and there's a ton to do, but I'm very excited. Nope, I won't be in NYC then, sadly. We'll be shooting the first scene in our film exactly during that time. I read a couple of earlier Bruce Wagner novels, but I haven't kept up for whatever reason. I think I liked them pretty well. I've never even heard of 'Dead Stars', so I'll go see what that's all about, thanks! 600 pages, though, gulp. Bon Monday! ** Torn porter, Thanks a lot, man! Sorry we didn't get to meet up this weekend. I was thinking Sunday would be great, but this film project is a lot hungrier constantly than I had figured, but this week maybe, if that works for you? Cool, yeah, I hope the URM guy says yes. Oh, yeah, I really want to plant myself in that new Seven Dwarves coaster. Really have to get to that multi-theme park utopia spot in Florida one of these soonest days. Thanks, buddy. Hope to see you in the real really soon. ** Steevee, Hi. Will Self wrote a very negative review of one of my books, and that's all I know re: his opinion on my stuff. I'll see if I can find or download 'Two Lovers'. Or 'The Immigrant', if I can't. Thanks a lot. How was your interview with Gray? ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. I'm glad you liked the music day, thank you. And wonderful, and thank you even more, for the work you did on the post. I'm excited, needless to say. I'm so sorry to hear about the limited use of your arms, yikes. Please take good care of yourself. Yes, please. ** Sypha, If going to work is even the slightest bit dreamy, your home life must be even more theater piece-worthy than I thought, or Gisele Vienne-friendly at least. A new Day for here from you would be amazing, of course. Your posts are always the gold standard. Thanks for wanting to, James, and feel much, much better! ** Bill, Someone really needs to get on making that t-shirt, clearly. Nice looking festival you played at there. I would love to be in its vicinity. How much longer are you there? And then what? Back to Berlin, or ... ? ** Kier, Hi, Kier! Thank you for putting here on your away-time agenda! I want to see the spirit tree, for sure, and any lambs that happen to wander in front of your lens. Yes, we went to Tusenfyrd. It was big fun. Tivoli in Copenhagen is fantastic! One of the rides there inspired the way Zac's and my in-progress 'Scandinavian theme park-exploring' book project ended up being shaped. Actually, maybe Zac's and my very favorite park of all the many Scandinavian theme parks we visited is near Stavanger. It's called Kongeparken. It and BonBon Land near Copenhagen were the top 2. Is that the park you mean? We totally adored it. It haunts our dreams and heavily haunts our book project. ** Alan Hoffman, Well, hi there, Alan Very nice to see you! Really glad you like Wanda Group. Me too, obviously. Cool, I'm seeing Christophe H. this week, and I'll ask him about that. Ha ha, I will indeed tell Stephen about Sunn0)))'s presence in the Marathon. Ha ha, nice. And I'll pass along any pictures, of course. Thanks, man, good to see you! ** Misanthrope, Interesting: the negative sentence with 'lacks' in it is so much more catchy than your kind positively spun one. Weird. I'm an older fogey than you, but I totally get drug crazes. Been there. Just not heroin. And crystal meth is some scary, heavily downsided shit too. But I'm post-drug crazing. Yeah, I should know the exact shooting schedule soon. As soon as we meet with our Director of Production (today) and find the second performer we need for the scene (this week, I sure hope). New story by you, way cool! Pretty short, way cool again! ** Rewritedept, Hi, man. You sound better. Im very happy to see that. Oh, your great guest-post is launching on this coming Friday. Thank you again so much! I've never been to the Vegas HOB venue, but the other two HOB venues I've been were gross. My weekend was pretty busy, as has been and will be the case re: my days for the next few weeks at least. But it was all good. Take care, C. ** Randomwater, Hi! It's really great to see you! I've been really good, thanks. That's a scary and weirdly beautiful and sad image of you helping the woman with the dog down the Griffith Observatory path. Antarctica was indescribably mind-blowing and amazing. Literally indescribable. I didn't end up being able to make an illustrative post about the trip that did enough justice to the place to actually finish and post. It's totally empty and raw. There were places to walk and hike and camp in a couple of instances, but there is literally nothing there apart from a few small research centers. No plants or trees or weeds or insects or anything. Maca, no, I don't think I tried that. Huh. I'll look it up. I don't know what 'You and the Night' is, so, no, Frank hasn't clued me in. What is it? Yeah, if you want to hang out here anytime, t'would be awesome. Take good care. ** Right. Those are 4 books I read recently and, yes, loved, and, yes, highly recommend. See you tomorrow.

'Have you heard of the The Lonely Doll? For my birthday one year, my friend Drew presented me with a reissued copy of A Gift From the Lonely Doll and these solemn words: “You need this book.” It was one in a series of ten "lonely Doll" books by the late photographer/author/model Dare Wright, the first of which was originally published in 1957 with a trademark pink-and-white gingham cover. The story was told via beautiful black-and-white photographs of a curious doll named Edith and her teddy bear friends, Mr. Bear and Little Bear.

'Like so many children’s books, A Gift From the Lonely Doll was an aching mix of absurd and profound. But there was also something unsettling about its images of dolls come to life. Why was this little doll knitting a scarf for a stuffed bear? Why did she have to go shopping for the yarn in the city all by herself? Why was her skirt so short, and why was she so frequently photographed from behind? My first flip through the book stirred a sense of strange familiarity—I intuitively understood this peculiar universe, yet it creeped me out and left me wanting to close the book and back away, kind of how I felt as a kid after watching too many Twilight Zone episodes on a Sunday afternoon. When Drew pointed out the author’s photograph on the book jacket, I got quiet. Dare Wright looked exactly like little Edith.

'Edith was named after Dare’s mother, who gave her daughter the felt Lenci doll when Dare was just a child. Years later, Dare unearthed the doll from a trunk, and like Edie Sedgwick to Andy Warhol, little Edith became Dare’s blank slate. She created a blonde wig for her, added small gold hoop earrings similar to her own, and dressed her up in a pink-and-white gingham outfit that she’d made by hand. Soon Edith came to bear an uncanny resemblance to the photographer herself. The side-eye of the Lenci allowed her expression to go from quizzical and innocent to complete bitchface with a slight change of perspective, and Dare proceeded to depict little Edith in a variety of scenes: opening the door to greet the two bears, brushing her hair while gazing into a mirror, hanging out at the beach, standing at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, dressed up as hippies protesting city pollution, tied up to a tree and gagged—YES.

'The story behind the stories is a whole other story — a true gothic tale. On the surface, Dare’s life was super glamorous. Her mother, Edith (aka Edie) Stevenson Wright, was a successful portrait painter for whom dignitaries and celebrities like Dwight Eisenhower and Greta Garbo once sat. Dare was intelligent and beautiful, and Edie taught her how to paint, draw, and sew. A high school teacher pushed her into acting and then modeling, but she became interested in the camera, and soon became a fashion photographer for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

'The portrait of Dare that emerges from Nathan’s biography is of a sad and troubled woman. Growing up, Dare felt the absence of her father and her brother, whom she’d last seen when she was three and her parents divorced. Her mother retained custody of Dare, but she worked a lot, and Dare was left home alone with instructions to “keep the door locked” for hours on end. Edie dissuaded Dare from making friends, and the two often played dress-up, photographing each other in gowns and other outfits, and Edie encouraged Dare to pose nude during their summer vacations (in other accounts, it is Dare who orchestrated these shoots, while Edith merely clicked the shutter).

'Dare eventually reconnected with her brother, Blaine, and was briefly engaged to one of his friends, but the bio suggests her affections were directed toward her sibling, and that their relationship was intense and “highly charged.” Dare remained close to her mother—they often slept together when they stayed at Dare’s apartment in New York, or on their many vacations. After Edie died in 1975, Dare became a recluse and an alcoholic. According to Nathan, she may have remained a virgin all her life. She was reportedly raped by a stranger when she was about 80; after that she moved into a public hospital in Queens, New York, where she lived out the last six years of her life. She died in 2001 at the age of 86.'-- Rookie Magazine







Dare Wright NYC exhibition (walk-through)


Dare Wright~The Lonely Doll Author & Those She Loved


Tosh Talks: DARE WRIGHT


Kodagain 'Dare Wright'


Dare Wright in Central Park

















'Actress Famke Janssen says that an intruder broke into her home in New York City and left a creepy children’s book called, The Lonely Doll next to her bed. Despite the fact that Janssen says she has never seen the book in her life, detectives believe that it is actually Janssen’s book and that there was no intrusion involved. A source said, “They [detectives] believe that the book belongs to Janssen. The book has some connection to her home.”

'Janssen originally told the police that she discovered the book after coming home from running errands on August 1. She filed a report at the First Precinct station house two days later. “She walked into her bedroom and noticed a children’s book standing on the shelf beside her bed,” a source said. However, after investigating the situation and watching surveillance videos thoroughly , police have found no evidence that anyone broke into her home.

'“There is nobody suspicious” and “all the people on the video are accounted for,” said the law enforcement. Also, police said they found a “to-do” list hidden between the pages of the book with Janssen’s name on it. Janssen is not expected to be charged for filing a false report because she actually believes that someone broke into her home and left the book.'-- collaged


















'Following the news of actress Famke Janssen's unsettling Greenwich Village home invasion, in which a copy of the 1957 children's book The Lonely Doll was placed near her bed, the story can't help but take on a new eeriness. But Wright's only living heir and the owner of her estate doesn't want people to get the wrong idea. "My Google Alert is just going nuts," Brook Ashley, who considered Wright her "surrogate mother," told Daily Intelligencer today. "But I want to separate the crime from the book." As for Janssen's unwanted houseguest, "Perhaps the person who left it there is saying, 'I can be your friend, too. Let me into your lonely life the way Edith let the two bears into hers.' That is creepy! Not the book, but the offering," said Ashley. "That's the most logical interpretation, but it is disquieting," she said. "Why The Lonely Doll? This is like a Castle episode or something." If she could speak to Janssen, "I would say I hope she reads it at some point to see it's not terrifying," said Ashley. "No one left a Stephen King book. I wonder if it was the first edition, which is quite valuable," she added. "I guess it's sitting in a police evidence locker right now."'-- NY Magazine



























































































*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Top of the morning, sir. Yeah, I read that Will Self whine in think-piece form. Guy doesn't seem to get out much. ** Steevee, Excellent that the interview went so well. A friend is burning me 'The Immigrant', so at least I'll get to see that. Also, I spaced and didn't realize he directed 'Little Odessa', which I have seen and thought was very good. Sorry from your stress-filled home imprisonment day. I hate when that happens. ** Cobaltfram, Howdy, John. Yeah, I'm a bundle of nerves/excitement/etc. for sure. We have a finished script, yes, originally written about 6 years ago by me then rewritten last year with Zac. It's subject to all kinds of alterations during the rehearsing and shooting process, but it's solid for now. The filming will be partly very organized in advance and partly very intuitive. Zac is kind of a visionary, so he'll have the freedom to invent and improvise the visual component as he wishes in the moment. I'm not surprised about the 'Marienbad' pre-planning so much, knowing the way R-G worked. 'Dear Stars' sounds very Wagner from what I remember of what I read -- all the playing. Glad it's working so well on you. Did the minutes provide you with the Billfold piece's finish line as expected? Cool. I stay away from Twitter for the most part even as a visitor because it does feel like like a major time and brain vacuum, partly to its credit, I guess. Nothing wrong with being strategic, I don't think. More catching soon, indeed, I hope. ** Tosh Berman, It is such a beauty, right? Lynne's book. I think 'Nicola, Milan' comes out in June or something, but you can preorder it now or try to snag a galley from Hedi. ** Torn porter, Hey, man. 'Crystal Eaters' is super interesting, the game influence/input, the writing, etc. You go to London later this week? Just briefly, right? Tomorrow's bad for me. Heavy film work day. It's gonna be a bit crazed until we find the second performer for the 1st scene, hopefully this week, although I fear not. So, if nothing else, once you get back, for sure. Weird about your exploding prof. Wtf?! Your presence and energy seemed most impressive and generous to me. I've seen the enticing poster for 'Tom à la ferme', and I saw that it's playing at that cool theater next to the Pompidou, and I decided to go see it, but I haven't yet. Report? Ha ha, awesome playlist! Tell Ratty thanks a bunch for me! ** Schoolboyerrors, Oh, gosh, thank you, D. But there's so much great stuff coming out now that I could do those posts several times a week if I wasn't so crunched for reading time. LT's book is very wunderbar for sure. The Juliet Escoria book is really nice. Weird, and coincidentally, believe it or not, she just interviewed me by Skype this very morning for Fanzine. She's very cool. I'll go check that JE/SMcC interview, thanks! Dude, nice: you and the wilds, and you and that particular relationship with the wilds, and the adjectives you chose, all of which added up to pleasure central. My new novel is going very well, I think. It's very different than my earlier novels, or it feels very different. It's completely grounded in the personal and autobiographical, much moreso than I've allowed myself to do before. It's extremely different from 'TMS', apart from furthering my exploration of longer, more discursive sentences, but in a totally different way. It has small, imbedded, illustrative, interconnected narratives in certain sections but no overall narrative. It's exciting and very challenging to write. I don't think I want to talk about what it's 'about' yet, mostly because it would be very difficult to describe its 'about-ness' with any economy and partly because it's one of those novels that's happening because I don't know of any other way than the novel I'm writing to represent what it's about. If that makes sense. Thank you a lot for asking, man. With love back. ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. When you get the time, Lynne's book is very worth reading. That's okay about the post, of course. Oh, okay, about doctors and self-care. I understand. I haven't been to see a doctor in forever. I really dis-enjoy that experience too. ** Sypha, That Clark Ashton Smith prose does seem very up your alley. It's impressive in its way, for sure. Cool about mailing off the mss. to RS. Fingers crossed. I would say 400,000 words sounds big enough, yes. Whoa. That might be bigger than all my novels put together ha ha. ** Zach, Hi, Z! Great to see you! Tillman and Amen Dunes, for sure, The new AD is quite interesting, different, much more planned out than I've heard his work be before. Your Herzog-focused bike mate thing is cool. You must have given off heady vibes. Yeah, good to see you! ** Postitbreakup, Hi, Josh. Gosh, well, I would hope you've changed since 9th grade, and playfulness is something that evolves and shows its evidence differently over time, I think. I don't know. Just in terms of aesthetics, the double circularity of the relationship interests me, but I'm being too writerly when I think that. I think your idea of making a book about the borderline experience sounds great and fascinating. Granted, I love the editing and revising process, but I felt excitement that you have all that material to work with. But if it's really painful, yeah, I don't know. Having forced myself into a very painful state to to try to write that novel about George Miles a couple of years ago and ended up a wreck with only a total, unusable novel-length mess to show for it was not a great experience. Thank you for being here/there all these years, my friend. ** Rewritedept, Hi. I saw a gig at the Anaheim HoB once. What was it ... ? Oh, GbV and that band that Spiral Stairs had for a while post-Pavement. It was a less offensive a place than, say, the West Hollywood HoB, which is, one, too big, and, two, way, way too Frontierland/Disneyland. My Monday was very film-work-oriented for the most part. I did get to have an excellent vegetarian Indian meal and wander around Paris a bit with Zac between work stints. And got some novel writing in. It was good. No, I did not know q and not u before. I'd never even heard of them unless I was/am spacing. ** Cap'm, Hi, Cap'm! Ha ha, wow, cool about your extended ruminations on clarity. Cool because I ruminate about clarity all the time. Clarity ruminating is the inward spiral of my life. Or one of them. If that was your vomit in the comments area, lean over here any old time. I am indeed honored by 'a permanently wide-open masonry eyeball', how did you know? That would almost make a good book title or poem title or almost Robert Pollard song title or something. You rule, buddy, thanks! ** Gotcha. Maybe look into Dare Wright today if you feel like it. Thanks. See you tomorrow.

'Bob Flanagan, a performance artist and poet whose writing and sadomasochistic performances centered on his lifelong battle with an incurable illness, died on Thursday at Long Beach Memorial Hospital in Long Beach. He was 43 and lived in Los Angeles. The cause was cystic fibrosis, said his companion and collaborator, Sheree Rose. Mr. Flanagan was said by doctors to be one of the longest-living survivors of cystic fibrosis, which is genetic and usually kills before adulthood. An older sister, Patricia, died of cystic fibrosis in 1979 at the age of 21.

'A former cystic fibrosis poster boy, Mr. Flanagan recalled that he grew up being told that he had only a few years to live. And he attributed his longevity in part to his ability to "fight pain with pain," by which he meant that he took control of his suffering through the ritualized pain of sadomasochism. In time, he made his art out of this proclivity. His work related to the often painful performances of such early 1970's body artists as Chris Burden, Arnold Schwarzkogler and Carolee Schneemann. Mr. Flanagan's work was the subject of a disturbing exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in SoHo in the fall of 1994.

'Mr. Flanagan was born in New York City on Dec. 26, 1952, and grew up in Glendora, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles. He had little formal art training but began painting as a teen-ager and then switched to poetry. He studied literature at California State University, Long Beach, and at the University of California at Irvine. After moving to Los Angeles in 1976, he became involved with Beyond Baroque, an alternative literary center in Los Angeles, where he gave readings of autobiographical poems about his illness and his sex life.

'In 1978 he published the first of five books of poetry and prose, The Kid Is a Man. He also worked as a stand-up comic with the Groundlings, an improvisational theater group that included Pee-wee Herman. His readings and comedy routines gradually evolved into performances involving masochistic acts in which Ms. Rose, a video artist and dominatrix with whom he worked for the last 15 years, participated. The New Museum show, first organized by the Santa Monica Museum of Art, was Mr. Flanagan's only exhibition and it generated widespread debate about its claim to be art. In it, he displayed sculptures, videos and also spent time in a hospital bed in the middle of the gallery, talking to visitors.'-- Roberta Smith, NY Times, January 6, 1996



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Gifs













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Further

Excerpts from Bob Flanagan's 'Pain Journal'
'Bob Flanagan’s Body: Ecstasy and/or Self-Annihilation'
Philippe Liotard 'Bob Flanagan: ça fait du bien là où ça fait mal'
Interview w/ Bob Flanagan
Lisa Carver on Bob Flanagan @ nerve
Bob Flanagan & Sheree Rose @ WESTERN PROJECTS
Transcript of the film 'Sick: The Life And Death Of Bob Flanagan Supermasochist'
Bob Flanagan & Sheree Rose Collection @ ONE
'Ode to Bob Flanagan'
'Masochism for Masses'
Bob Flanagan's 'The Kid is the Man'
Bob Flanagan & Sheree Rose 'The Wedding of Everything'
'Sheree Rose: A Legend of Los Angeles Performance Art'
Bill Mohr 'Bob Flanagan’s Birthday Bash'
'Listening to Sheree Rose'
2 poems by Bob Flanagan & David Trinidad
Book: 'Bob Flanagan: Supermasochist'
Book: Bob Flanagan 'Pain Journal'



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Extras


Why? by Bob Flanagan


Bob Flanagan: Visiting Hours


Bob Flanagan 'Smart Ass Masochists'


Bob Flanagan 'Fuck Sonnet'



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FLANAGAN’S WAKE: RIP Bob Flanagan
by Dennis Cooper

Bob Flanagan and I met in the late ‘70s. At the time he’d published one thin book of gentle, Charles Bukowski—influenced poetry entitled The Kid Is the Man (Bombshelter Press, 1978). We were both in our mid 20s, born less than a month apart. I was sporting a modified punk/bohemian look and hated all things hippieesque. Bob looked like one of the Allman Brothers: thin, junkie pale, with shoulder-length hair, a handlebar mustache, and an ever-present acoustic guitar that he’d occasionally strum while belting out parodies of Bob Dylan songs. His style put me off initially, as mine did him, but I found his poetry amusing, edgy, and odd, and his clownish, sarcastic personality belied a deeply submissive nature.

There was a new, upstart literary community forming around Los Angeles’ Beyond Baroque Center, where Bob was leading a poetry workshop. I had met the poet Amy Gerstler in college, and she and I began to hang out at Beyond Baroque in hopes of meeting other young writers. After a few months of hunting and pecking through the crowds, a small, tight gang of us had begun to form, including, in addition to Bob, Amy, and myself, the poets Jack Skelley, David Trinidad, Kim Rosenfield, and Ed Smith, artist/fiction writer Benjamin Weissman, and a number of other artists, filmmakers, and the like. We partied together, showed one another our works-in-progress, and generally caused a ruckus in the then-dormant local arts scene.

Very early on, Bob told us he had cystic fibrosis, and that it was an incurable disease that would probably kill him in his early 30s—if he were lucky. But apart from his scrawniness, his persistent and terrible cough, and the high-protein liquids he constantly drank to keep his weight up, he was, if anything, the most energetic and pointedly reckless of us all. At that stage, Bob’s poetry only obliquely described his illness, and barely touched on his masochistic sexual tendencies. In fact, it took him a while to reveal the details of his sex life to his new chums. I think the fact that my work dealt explicitly with my own rather dark sexual fantasies made it relatively easy in my case, and I remember his surprise and relief when I responded to his confession with wide-eyed fascination.

Bob was working on the densely lyrical, mock-humanist poems that would later be collected in his second book, The Wedding of Everything (Sherwood Press, 1983). He began to encode within his poetry little clues and carefully offhand references to S/M practices, and gradually, as his vocabulary became more direct, the sex, and in particular his unabashed enjoyment of submission, humiliation, and pain, were revealed as the true subjects of his work.

Writing was difficult for Bob. One, he was a perfectionist. Two, with his sexual preferences finally out in the open, he was more interested in talking about and enacting fantasies that had already played themselves out in daydreams and in private autoerotic practices. It was around this time that Bob met Sheree Levin, aka Sheree Rose, a housewife turned punk scenester with a master’s degree in psychology. They fell in love, and, profoundly influenced both by her feminism and her interest in Wilhelm Reich’s notions of “body therapy,” Bob changed his work instantaneously and radically. For the rest of his life, Bob, usually working in collaboration with Sheree, used his writing, art, video, and performance works to chronicle their relationship with Rimbaudian lyricism and abandon.

Bob began to live part-time at Sheree’s house in West Los Angeles, along with her two kids, Matthew and Jennifer. Bob was an exhibitionist, and Sheree loved to shock people, so their rampant sexual experimentation became very much a public spectacle. It wasn’t unusual to drop by and find the place full of writers, artists, and people from the S/M community, all flying on acid and/or speed, Bob naked and happily enacting orders from the leather-clad Sheree. During this period Bob published two books, Slave Sonnets (Cold Calm Press, 1986) and the notorious Fuck Journal (Hanuman Books, 1987). He also began an ambitious book-length prose poem called The Book of Medicine, which he hoped would explore the relationship between his illness and his fascination with pain. At his death, the work remained incomplete, though sections had been used in his performances and have appeared in anthologies.

I was programming events at Beyond Baroque in those days and, as we were all interested in performance art, I organized a night called “Poets in Performance,” in which we tried our hands at the medium. Bob and Sheree’s piece involved Bob, clad only in a leather mask, improvising poetry while Sheree pelted him with every imaginable food item. It was such a hit, and Bob was so thrilled by this successful merging of his fetishes, his art, and his exhibitionist tendencies, that he and Sheree began doing similar, increasingly extreme performances around town. Perhaps the most famous and influential of thee works, Nailed, 1989, began with a gory slide show by Rose and concluded, after various, highly stylized S/M acts, with Bob nailing his penis to a wooden board. The performance made Bob infamous, and he was subsequently asked to perform in rock videos by Nine Inch Nails, Danzig, and Godflesh, as well as being offered a role in Michael Tolkin’s film The New Age. Nailed also interested Mike Kelley, who later used Bob and Sheree as models in one of his pieces and wound up doing several collaborations with the duo.

Coincidentally, interest in S/M and body modification was growing in youth culture, especially after the publication of Modern Primitives (RE/Search), which profiled Sheree’s life as a dominatrix. Bob was a hero and model to the denizens of this subculture, even as he found much of their interest to be superficial and trendy. Bob was always and only an artist. He never cloaked his masochism in pretentious symbolism, nor did he use his work to perpetuate the fashionable idea that S/M is a new, pagan religious practice. His performances, while exceedingly graphic and visceral, involved a highly estheticized, personal, pragmatic challenge to accepted notions of violence, illness, and death. For all the obsessive specificity of his interests, Bob was a complex man who wanted simultaneously to be Andy Kaufman, Houdini, David Letterman, John Keats, and a character out of a de Sade novel. So his performances were as wacky and endearing as they were disturbing and moving. For example, at the same time he was making a name for himself as a shockmeister, he was performing on Sundays with improvisational comedy troupe The Groundlings, in hopes of fulfilling his lifelong ambition to be a stand-up comedian.

By the early ‘90s, Bob’s physical condition was worsening. He was having to hospitalize himself before and after performances just to get through them. He and Sheree proposed a performance/ installation piece to the Santa Monica Museum of Art, which was accepted and became Visiting Hours, a multimedia presentation comprising sculpture, video, photography, text, and Bob himself poised in a hospital bed acting as the work’s amiable host and information center. Visiting Hours was popular and critically well-received, eventually traveling to the New Museum in new York and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In 1993, RE/Search published Supermasochist, a book entirely devoted to Bob’s life and work. Also that year, filmmaker Kirby Dick began to shoot a feature-length documentary film about Bob and Sheree entitled Sick, which will be released this fall.

There was some hope during this period that Bob might be able to have a lifesaving heart and lung transplant, but, after months of tests it was determined that his lungs has deteriorated too much to allow him to survive the operation, and he began to accept that he had maybe a year yet to live. He and Sheree concentrated on visual art pieces, some of which were exhibited at Galerie Analix in Geneva and at NGBK Gallery in Berlin. The duo collaborated on a last installation work, Dust to Dust, which Sheree is currently completing, and Bob kept a year-long diary of his physical deterioration, Pain Journal, which will be published in the future. Even as most of Bob’s life began to be taken up with stints in the hospital and painful physical therapy, he was still on the scene, frail but good-natured, using his omnipresent oxygen tank as a comical prop just as he had once used his acoustic guitar. Right after Christmas, Bob went into the hospital one final time and died on January 4, 1996. In the 15 years I knew him, Bob grew from a minor poet into a unique and profoundly original artist who accomplished more than he ever imagined he could, and whose loss, predictable or not, is one of the greatest difficulties those of us who knew and loved him have ever had to face.




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Slave Sonnets



















































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p.s. Hey. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Cool post and viewing combo there, yes. Ah, Copenhagen. Very nice. I'm sure you've been to the lovely Tivoli Gardens. If you have a car or transport, I so highly recommend the theme park BonBon Land -- scroll down to #2 -- which is just outside of Copenhagen. It's a crazy, bizarre, great place and easily in the top 2 of the theme parks Zac and I hit on our Scandinavian theme park field trip. ** Randomwater, Antarctica is kind of beyond surreal, like surreal and hyper real at the same time. You can visit it, but it's a lot of work to arrange, and the traveling involved to get to where you have to be to depart for it (Ushuaia, Argentina) is a lot in and of itself, but it's totally worth it. I do like Kobo Abe, yes. D.l. Jose did a post about him for the blog a while back. Let me see if I can find it. Hold on. It's here. 'You and the Night' does sound super intriguing, cool. I'll find it for sure. Thanks again. You and Gisele should meet up someday and talk dolls. Have a really swell Wednesday. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. ** Paul Curran, Thanks, Paul! Great to see you, duh. I read that hilarious interview with you a couple of days ago. It's fantastic! Everyone, you really, really want to read a wild, very funny, etc. interview with the one, the only Paul 'Left Hand' Curran over on the Entropy Mag site. It part of a new series called 'The Weird Interview', and Paul's 'grilling' is the second in the series after Scott McClanahan's (also recommended). Seriously, take the minutes to check it out. Really great, Paul! ** Tosh Berman, I was so happy to find your 'Tosh Talks' when searching out Dare Wright post stuff. You probably saw that your thought re: her work was addressed by the estate holder later in the comments, but, if you didn't ... You found 'Nicola, Milan' already. Pub. dates are so loosey-goose. Yeah, it's terrific, right? The prose is really delicious. ** Cobaltfram, Cool re: the finishing. Link us up to that sucker. Well, no surprise, I guess, that your writing goals as described in your first paragraph get heavy encouragement from me since my own goals are not dissimilar in my own weird fashion. Right, 'The Great Beauty': I need to get back on trying to see that. I will. Thanks re: my novel. I'm doing a big pour into it, and we'll see. The rape thing comes from the biography of her. Later, gator. ** Dom Lyne, Hi, Dom! I just yesterday got a copy of Marc's/your zine in the mail, and it's completely splendid. Thank you and Marc so much. Yeah, it's gorgeous. I hope you got through yesterday okay, Hugs, man. Great that you've glimpsed your novel! I'm obviously jonesing to read it. Yeah, my address is the same. Marc seems to have it, if you need a prompter. Wow, and more greatness about your poetry book, not to mention that it's free. I'll read it greedily as soon as this film prep work lets up for a minute, meaning tomorrow. Everyone, Dom Lyne, writer and guy and d.l. supreme, has just had issued a book of his poetry, and it's free with a click, and here he is to direct you there, and please follow his directions: 'Today I released a free poetry ebook entitled 'The Voice that Betrayed' which contains 80 poems written between 2011 and 2013, so the book charts my emotional life over two years. You can download it here. I hope you find some time to take a look at it, and hopefully enjoy.' Thanks a lot, Dom, and it's always really great to see you! Lots of love back to you. ** Sypha, He does sound interesting. Thanks for that fill-in. I'll try some form of him. Nice Pynchon epigraph. Definitely very magnetizing re: the novel in the way that epigraphs should always be. I do remember Lee, sure. That sounds really confusing, I'm sorry. The silent treatment is the worst. You can't help by try to decode someone's silence, and it's impossible to not take it personally, and it might be personal but it might also have only the most tangential things to do you with you personally, and you can't know, which is why going silent is so powerful and scary. Anyway, yeah, I'm sorry, James. I hope that gets resolved somehow and happily. ** Quentin S. Crisp, Hello, welcome, and thank you a lot for entering here. You wrote the lyrics to that song? Wow, it's a terrific song. Kudos. Do you run Chomu Press? It seems so from clicking into your profile. It's new to me, and it looks extremely interesting. I will investigate. Everyone, Quentin S. Crisp, who kindly graced the blog yesterday, seems to be behind quite an interesting seeming publishing venture called Chomu Press, and I urge you to take a look. Also, there's a youtube video of him speaking about Dare Wright and 'The Lonely Doll' that I urge you to watch in order to complete your Dare Wright experience of yesterday. It's here. Thank you again very much, sir. ** Lonely Doll, Hi, Brook! Well, I'm very honored that you not only saw my post but entered to say so and to say hello. I send great respect to you for your work and support for Dare Wright's work from a humble fan. Let me pass along your links. Everyone, in a real coup, Brook Ashley, who runs Dare Wright's estate, was kind enough to comment here yesterday, and she passed along links to Dare Wright's website and Dare Wright's Facebook page, both highly recommended stops on your day today. Oh, I will remove the image from the post that wasn't her work. I apologize for the mix-up. Thank you very, very much! ** White tiger, I know, right? Math! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I saw your email in my box as I was awakening, and I'll go open it shortly. Thank you. Yes, patience plus diligence are the words. They'll be so worth it. ** Zach, Hi, Z. I'm surprised I didn't find that Cass McCombs tune in my post material hunting. Yes, I do in fact know Robert the Doll. I did a post about, hm, haunted dolls, I think, a long while back, and Robert was one of the stars. Wait, ... here it is: 'Gloomy is the house of woe, where tears are falling while the bell is knelling, with all the dark solemnities that show that Death is in the dwelling'. Fascinating story, for sure. I hope your day is great too.. Thanks about the actor. Unfortunately, it'll be a few or more days until we've hopefully got that figured out, but, you know, patience is golden or something and all that sort of blahblah. ** Torn porter, You leave for London ... now! Have fun, if you see this pre-voyage, and let me know when you're back so we can sort out a meet-up. I guess I should see that 'Tom à la ferme' film. Benevolence is quite an impressive effect. Yeah, the MK2 by the Pompidou. I guess that's where I'll see it. Auditions: They happen in three tiers. An initial visit with some reading and talking and filming. A second visit for the guys we're interested in with a bit dialogue testing, more filming, and, because our film involves a lot of nudity, them getting nude. Third and final tier is a more thorough audition. For instance, for the first scene we're about to shoot, we'll put whatever candidates we have for the un-filled role with the actor we have confirmed for the other role and then have them rough out the scene together in a limited, walk-through kind of way. No, I didn't notice that about Ratty. Yikes. But she seems to be as okay with it as it's possible to be, right? She's a shining creature. See you soon. ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Cool, glad you liked the doll and her style. Me too. That's interesting about the pretentious writing. You mean overwritten, too stylized, too 'knowing', or ... ? ** Magick mike, Hi, Mike! Yeah, I thought the same thing about Antonio, I did. I think there would have been some genius-related riffing coming off that guy. Oh, you visited Bett! I love Bett! I miss Bett! I hope she's doing really great. 'A queered/ fantastique version of Mallarmé's Igitur': I mean wow, I mean yum. 'Nicola, Milan' is somewhat queered, that's a good way to put it. See what you think. I liked it a lot, obviously. ** Schoolboyerrors, Hi, D. Yeah, I think maybe half the reason I made that post was so I could send an email to Gisele, who's in Japan, and link her up to it because I know she'll go nuts. No, the logistics of sending the final draft of my novels to Amy while I'm over here seems daunting 'cos we always used to talk about the final drafts in person, so I don't, but her opinion is always the one I most crave and rely on. At the moment, I'm thinking of the novel I'm working on as possibly the first in a cycle, not sure of how many novels, and that, if so, the cycle will be my last novel collectively. I don't want to talk about this very much right now, but the novel is being written as an act of devotion to someone and something, and I like the idea of ending my work as a novelist by making my work an act of devotion for however many novels it takes to fulfill that goal. So, yeah, I think either it'll be my last or the first part of my last. Writing and/or receiving an email like the spam one you got is such a common fantasy. Or it seems like the belief that that mode of approach would magically bring a wannabe lover and intended beloved together is a big fantasy. Or it seems like it. I guess people do write and receive them. They must, right? Or maybe those kinds of emails are as mythical as snuff films. Anyway, yeah it's totally fascinating in precisely the way you described, I agree. With love back. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Yeah, I just stopped too. It was weird. I just felt it was time. I just felt like, maybe partly because of the knowledge that my body and brain were aging, that the damage would outweigh the enlightenment or interfere with it too much or something. Sad that your niece isn't coming. She's great. ** Steevee, Hi. I don't know if it's related but everyone I know over here is having weird symptoms right now, which makes it seem like it might be atmospheric and season change-oriented, but I don't know. I hope your version of all of that passes asap. ** Okay. D.l. Thomas Moronic alerted me to the existence online of the above scan of Bob Flanagan's rare chapbook 'Slave Sonnets', and I thought I would make a Day of it. And I have, clearly. Enjoy. See you tomorrow.

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p.s. RIP: The great artist Elaine Sturtevant, to whom this blog was devoted for a day recently and less recently, and the great master of the prose poem, Russell Edson. ** Hey. As always with these sorts of posts, apologies for the slow page load. ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Oh, yeah, I was curious to hear an answer to the question. Thank you for answering. That makes sense. I mean I can understand why the over-stylized, etc. would be a bane in the reading that interests you. Sometimes I quite like the over-stylized, but it's a rare thing when I think it works well enough to compensate for the chore part of reading thickened prose. Oh, that's okay, your comment wasn't an irritation at all. Have a good day! ** Paul Curran, Hi, P. I was hella great, man. ** David Ehrenstein, Bob was, for sure. Did you know him personally at all? Thank you very, very much for the link to that Bresson piece! ** AdamB, Hi. I'm very sorry for the mess. I am inexcusably awful re: emailing. Joel Westendorf called me a few weeks ago, I think on your behalf, to inquire about the status of the camera/photos, and I told him that either the camera had never arrived in the mail or that it had somehow been misplaced and that I couldn't find it, and I had thought he was going to tell you that, but of course it was my responsibility to do so, and I didn't, and I greatly apologize for my neglect. Given that I don't have the camera, I'm afraid the answer is no, I won't be able to do it in four days. Again, I'm very sorry for my unresponsiveness and for trying your patience. ** Quentin S. Crisp, Hi. Thank you for coming back. Oh, yes, I did meet Justin Isis when I was in Tokyo, in a Shibuya pizza place. That was cool. Thanks for the link to the Kodagain song. I definitely want to familiarize myself with their/your work. Thank you very much, and please make yourself at home here anytime, and kudos and respect to you. ** Sypha, I hope it works out with Lee and that he's just going through a temporary self-silencing phase. ** Tosh Berman, I didn't know that Bob's passing impacted your decision to leave Beyond Baroque. Yeah, Bob's death was very, very tough. Even though it always had been inevitable, and all of us who knew and loved him always knew that, and even though he almost set a record for longest lived person with CF, he had such an indomitable attitude towards his condition that, I don't know, magic was somehow expected from him on every front. ** Keaton, Keaton! Holy shit, I've been wondering where you are and how you are! What's happening, man? Well, you said a teaspoon's worth. Emo boy novel! Say more? So great to see you, old pal. ** Kier, Hi, Kier! I could go on and on about Kongenparken. I'm not sure when you went, but this really ambitious guy bought it at some point not so very long ago, and he's determined to make a world class park, and I think he has been doing a lot of upgrading. He's cool. For instance, as part of Zac's and my trip/project, we brought along with us this giant working ferris wheel made of K'nex construction toys, and every day we set it up in front of the theme parks and filmed/photographed it turning with the park in the background. At Kongenparken, the owner heard we were doing that and came out and invited us to bring the ferris wheel into the park, set it up, and film it there, so we did. Pretty nice and wild of him. Also, all the employees working in the park and running the rides and so on were these wan, fragile looking, nerdy or Emo teens, which gave the place this really strange, magical atmosphere. Zac's and my favorite Kongeparken ride, and one of the best, weirdest rides I've ever seen, is this one: Fabeldyrene. An incredibly weird, trippy old ride. Yeah, Bob-Bane was great! Your Kongenparken photos are really beautiful. Wow, thank you! I'm virtually positive that I did a post here about our Scandinavian trip, but I just searched for a while, and I couldn't find it. Weird. I'll keep looking in my off-hours. Rule your day, my friend! ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben! ** Bill, Oh, cool. That your new piece is/was a touch sensitive version of the Five Years piece. Ooh, I'm imagining it. You still having a lot of fun? Are you in Copenhagen yet? ** Steevee, Sorry to hear about the ongoing external maladies. Whoa, you're interview Lukas Moodysson! That should be very, very interesting. I didn't know he had a new film. That's a must. ** Schoolboyerrors, Thanks, buddy. About the Bob post. Very cool alert about the downloadable/streamable. Everyone, awesome Schoolboyerrors has now hooked up anyone out there who wishes with a linked place where you can find a watchable streaming version of Kirby Dick's amazing documentary about Bob Flanagan -- 'Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist'. Very highly recommended to you, obviously. Well, the novel cycle plan I mentioned is a half-hoped for, half-schemed out thing, so you never know, but that's my wish and goal. 'Calvary', I heard about that. Pummeled sounds good. I haven't been pummeled by a projected image in ages. I'll see if/what I can see. With love from me because, yes, love does exist, it's so amazing! ** Brendan, Hi, B. I loved, and I mean loved, even loved that cucumber photo. Only my emailing disabilities prevented me from telling and thanking you privately. It's really unusual for people who live in LA to have 'move to the country' longings and fantasies. In my experience. I was just talking about that with someone from the East Coast the other day. Envy on that Dodgers/Giants game. Sigh. Eat something semi-awful without meat in it for me. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. She sure seemed great to me. But, yeah, I can understand why the trip might not seem like a pot of gold for her. Mr. Levene might be around? I've never met Mr. Levene, even though we live only a somewhat short train trip apart. ** Rewritedept, Hi, Chris. Things are good here. The usual busyness for the usual reason, but good, even great maybe. What movie did you watch? ** Right. You know I like to do these animated gif stacked constructions, and I have done so yet again today. Wonders never cease. See you tomorrow.

q and not u were a band from washington, DC. their original lineup consisted of chris richards and harris klahr on guitars and vocals, matt borlik on bass and john davis on drums. they formed in 1998 and released their first 7", an EP entitled hot and informed in 2000 (as a split release between local labels desoto and dischord).



busy lights, busy carpet.


being that q and not u were a DC band at the beginning of the last decade, the fugazi comparsions were frequent in reviews of the EP as well as their first LP, no kill no beep beep (it probably didn't help that all of their releases were on ian mackaye's dischord records). on the surface, it's understandable. both bands traffic in dual guitar pyrotechnics (i won't use the word 'angular' to describe their guitar parts, as that's something assholes do) and some knotty, gnarled wordplay. but q and not u were a spikier beast. their beats were more polyrhythmic and fucked up, and even on their early releases, it was easy to see the band's roots in not only smart-kid post-punk but a long tradition of dance music.



'sleeping the terror code' and ' we heart our hive' live in 2001.


the album version of 'we heart our hive.' this was probably the first q and not u song i heard, sometime in 2001.



an outtake from the no kill cover shoot.



hooray for humans.


performing 'hooray for humans' live, some time in 2000 or 2001.


fever sleeves.


'fever sleeves' and 'end the washington monument (blinks) goodnight,' live, 2001.



live around the time of no kill no beep beep. note the text on richards' amp, a habit he would keep until the end of the band (he would also come to write on his guitars and, at their last two shows, face).


in late 2001, after tours with ted leo and the pharmacists, milemarker, engine down and others, original bass player matt borlik left the band. rather than replace him, q and not u continued on as a three piece, with richards playing bass on some songs and klahr playing baritone guitar on others, while some songs featured one or the other guitarist on synths and yet others featured no bass at all, instead relying on interlocking guitar parts and, more and more frequently, stacked vocal parts sung by all three members (though drummer john davis didn't usually contribute vocals live since he was too busy beating the shit out of every drum in front of him).



here is a version of 'washington monument' as performed by the three piece version of the group at their first show in las vegas (which i sadly was unable to attend as i was on a plane to reno at the time, despite frenzied lobbying on my part to be allowed to attend the show and then fly up the following morning [also known as one of the shitty perils of being fifteen and having to travel with family]).


in april, 2002, the band issued the on play patterns EP, consisting of one track which was to appear on their upcoming LP and one b-side.



soft pyramids.


ten thousand animal calls.


in septmber, 2002, the band released the LP different damage, which fully showcased where their sound had moved to in the intervening year without a steady bass player. the guitar tones are mostly clean, the syncopation inverts the funk-math ratio of the previous album. jarring transitions abound, like the swift change from punky rager 'everybody ruins' to the placid 'snow patterns.'



everbody ruins.


snow patterns.


when the lines go down.


o'no.


no damage nocturne.


recreation myth.


the above six songs comprise the entire second side of the LP, which stands to this day as one of my all time favorite records.

different damage was followed by even more touring, though for the most part, q and not u were headlining this time out.



'soft pyramids.' live in las vegas, 2002.


'black plastic bag.' same show.


so many animal calls.


in september 2003, the band released another EP featuring 2 tracks from yet another upcoming LP (that wouldn't see release for more than a year). this coincided with yet another tour of the US, accompanied by DC groups black eyes and french toast (featuring former nation of ulysses guitarist james canty and sometime fugazi percussionist jerry busher). somewhere around i have a video recording of all three bands playing, though my battery died before the end of q and not u's set (during o'no). unfortunately, it's on a miniDV tape, which is a very obsolete format. i had a minDV camera and all the equipment i needed to transfer everything over, but that was before my house burned down last year. sorry for the unecessary digression.



here is the EP version of 'book of flags.'


more touring. in 2004, the band decamped to new york city to record what would become their final album, power, with the members of relocated DC group super/system, formerly known as el guapo. where the last album found the group skirting minimalism, power abounds with layered synthesizer parts, piano and multi-part vocal arrangements, as well as finding the group wholeheartedly embracing their love of dance music that they'd only hinted at on previous LPs.



wonderful people.


'x-polynation' live on burn to shine, a series of live performance DVDs directed by fugazi's brendan canty in which they would go to different cities (DC, portland, chicago, etc) and record a selection of local bands performing one song each inside a house which was due to be demolished. the day after filming the performances, the crew recorded the demolition of the house (and if i remember correctly, one house was actually burned down in use as an exercise for firefighters-in-training).



passwords.


collect the diamonds.


wet work.


here is the album version of 'book of flags.'


"After seven years, hundreds of shows, thousands of miles, 46 states, four continents, three albums, only one flat-tire and countless nicknames for Shawn Brackbill, Q and Not U is disbanding. With all of your support, we feel that we've reached all of our shared goals as Q and Not U and we're ready to move on to other projects in life. We all hope to play music together again someday, but we feel that it's a beautiful and natural time to bring this band to a close."
-chris richards, announcing the impending split of the band in 2005.

after q and not u, chris richards released an album under the name RisPaulRic (a semi-abbreviation of his full name, chRIStopher PAUL RIChards) on academy fight song records (check the burma reference). in 2009, he was named pop music correspondent for the washington post.



purple blaze.


harris klahr moved to brooklyn and began making music under the moniker president, though by and large he seems to have disappered from public music making.

john davis started a group after q and not u called georgie james with fellow washington DC songwriter laura burhenn. they released a single on dischord before moving over to omaha-based saddle creek records. georgie james split in 2008 and davis shifted focus to his new solo project, title tracks.



georgie james - need yr needs.


title tracks - steady love.


ephemera, etc...
dischord.com's page on q and not u and related bands.
chris richards on twitter.
title tracks on blogspot.
a 2005 interview with pitchfork conducted shortly after the release of power.



these are a bunch of pictures i took at the last two q and not u shows ever, september 20-something-ish, 2005. sorry i don't remember the exact date, it's hard to keep track of shit that happened 9 years ago when i rarely if ever know what day of the week it is (case in point, today is wednesday, but depsite the fact i've told myself that several times throughout the day, i still think it's thursday). note the stage invasion by black eyes, which was something they decided to do the second night after a bunch of us who were up front on the first night decided to rush the stage during the encore. if i can track down the disc with the higher resolution copies of these shots, i will gladly upload them. that, however, will proably take a while.



a cover of 'don't let it bring you down,' originally by neil young. appeared on the pictured compilation. one of only three tracks that wasn't released in an alternate version on one of their three LPs, the other two being 'busy lights, busy carpet,' from the hot and informed EP, and 'ten thousand animal calls,' from on play patterns.







*

p.s. Hey. ** Guest-post conjurer of note Rewritedept is back on this ... inclement, if you're in Paris, Friday morning to introduce or re-familiarize and, in any case, up your interest in a beloved band, whom I at least didn't know of before, so there is the possibility that you can join me in becoming learned, should you pay the post back with your attention span, and I hope you will. Thanks, and thanks muchly, Rwdt! ** Jonathan, Hey, bud. Coolness to see you! Sounds like you've been up to and incorporated by a lot. Nice reading there, obviously. The new Mark Fisher I did not know of 'til now. I will check appropriately. No, I didn't even know Paris was doing Record Store Day until 11 pm when the cafe here in the complex where I live was unusually filled with what generalizing, category-obsessed people insist on calling 'hipsters' by the look, whereupon I was informed that it was some kind of post-Record Store Day party. So, no, I didn't, unfortunately. ** David Ehrenstein, Is that a lyric? Every circle-centrically lyric I can think of this morning is clunk central: the Joni Mitchell thing, 'windmills of your mind', etc. There must a good one and even ones. Kirby's great. He was a pal back in the day. I miss him. ** Sypha, Hi. Oh, that Siouxie sing, there you go, there's a good 'circle' song. Cool, thanks for the tip on which Quentin S. Crisp book to hunt down first. I will. ** Kyler, Wow, thanks a lot, man. Me, mystical? More like mystifying maybe, ha ha? ** Tosh, Hi, Tosh. Thanks for that about the post, my pal. Okay, I won't fill in your blank about said gif's realness or lack thereof. I know, I'm extremely loving those daily narratives/essays of yours. Um, you mean do I feel strange on Sundays when I don't do the blog? Mm, no. For the first several years of this blog's existence, I used to do Sunday posts too until one day it dawned on me: what am I doing?! I guess that, with this blog, I feel like I can do anything I want and change it up daily however I wish within in the pretty limited confines of the blog format, so it always feels freshly like an 'anything almost goes' thing. Kind of the same with Bob and me. His inevitable early death would just seem conceptual sometimes. The most devastating, harrowing moment for me in Kirby's documentary is at the end when Bob is in the hospital, and he suddenly wakes up from a state of unconsciousness and asks Sherrie, 'Am I dying', and she says, 'Yes', and he says, 'I can't believe it.' I don't think he ever really believed it was going to happen either, and it was so easy to believe him. ** Steevee, Hi. Yeah, like I said, most of the people I know over here are having weird sleep issues and minor depressions and things right now that do seem weather/ allergy-related. I had a semi-splitting headache all day yesterday for no reason whatsoever that I could tell. Great that the Moodysson interview went so well. Gisele will be jealous. 'Lilya 4-ever' is her all-time favorite film. I'm excited to read your conversion with him. ** Kier, Hi, K! Oh, do go to Kongeparken and tell me all about it. I miss that place. Oh, okay, I've put a photo showing our K'nex electric ferris wheel inside Kongeparken at the bottom of the p.s. Voila. Entirely in the forest? Wow, I'll have to search my memory banks at greater length. There must be. There's that one Zelda game that takes place mostly but not exclusively in a forest: 'Twilight Princess'. I would love that proper selfie, yes, please, if a camera cooperates with you. ** Will C., Hi, Will! Really good to see you! I was just wondering where you were and how you are not two days ago, so this is sweet. Things are great with me, man, thank you. Hectic-ness aside, it sounds like greatness on your end too. You like Seattle, sure, makes sense. What is your work at the University exactly? Yeah, again, great to see you and to get to start to catch up. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Thanks about the circles. You good? ** Bill, Hi, B. Oh, I find them here and there and everywhere. Via mutating search terms. Right, I think Eurovision is tonight! And my TV is broken! Is it streamed? It must be. I have a nagging, minor addiction to watching that thing. Damn, I have to sort that out. Zac and I wanted to go to Louisiana when we were in Copenhagen, but we ran out of time. Never been there, but it's considered a totally top-notch, world class contemporary art museum, so, if you're not in a BonBon Land mood, you fool, ha ha, I can only imagine that you should go. And tell us all about it. ** Toniok, Hi, T! Really great to see you! I'm really good, thanks. 'Maiden Voyage': yes, for sure, of course! Someone else here recommended 'Snowpiercer' not even a few days ago. I don't know it or of it. I'll definitely hunt it down. Thanks. I'm going to look into 'Slender' too. You good? What's going on, man? ** Schoolboyerrors, Hi, bud. Gosh, thanks a bunch re: the stack. No, I haven't seen Joanna Hogg's 'Experiment'. In fact, I don't think I've heard of it before. I'll do a heavy googling number on it in a bit. It sounds incredibly delicious. Thanks for that! I had an usually quiet day, relatively speaking. Meaning I only worked on the film in an emailing capacity. So, I got to work hard on the novel, which was a boon. Otherwise, it rained a lot. Walked in that. Made a blog post. Got obsessed for a little while with this: Webdriver Torso, after reading this: 'The mysterious 11-second sequence of red and blue rectangles could easily have been lost, unexplained and unappreciated among YouTube's plethora of kittens and music videos. But 28 minutes later Webdriver uploaded an almost identical video, and another an hour after that, and another, until eight months later - apparently happy with nearly 80,000 clips - they fell silent, with 236 hours of video to their name. Almost all of the uploads follow the same pattern - 10 slides, each with a red rectangle, a blue rectangle and a computer-generated tone. The shapes change size and the notes change pitch. Each video appears to be unique, but the format stays the same.' And you? Your day? Your head? Love, me. ** Zach, Hi. Cool that the post lead you through Bob's NiN guest-starring role into his actual stuff. Yeah, I can imagine that search was treacherous. I had a friend back when who obsessively drew speakers too! He had these notebooks filled with nothing but drawings of speakers. They were genius, or I thought so. I should have made him give them to me. ** Misanthrope, I dig, re: your niece's fun level over here and why she's okay with sitting out trip #2. Oh, Shane will be in London maybe. I thought you meant in Paris. I don't think he ever gets over here, or he doesn't alert yours truly when he does. ** Rewritedept, Thanks a billion and half for the glories of today, man. I remember 'Talladega Nights'. Or the ads, or the something. My day was fine enough. Minimal details about half an inch or something north of here. Cool about the return of your friend. And recurring hugs for your loss, my friend. Will my today be sexy? Hm, you never know. Wondrous? Quite possibly. Time will tell. Love, me. ** Gary gray, Hey there, Gary! Welcome back to this ... whatever this place is. Designed, open space. LA, yum. Were you there for the little earthquake? 'The drama of living': interesting. Never done the LA to SF train, always wanted to. Sounds like you had a most momentous and I guess maybe dramatic (?), certainly colorful in many respects trip down there. They serve White Castle? Yuck. The first paragraph of your second comment was beautiful. Not to the say the others weren't, but that one stood out or something. Ugh about meth's takeover of your friends. That can't end well. Things are great and crazy busy/productive with me, thanks. I'm doing an intro/ promo/ celebratory post thing about 'Gone' here tomorrow. Good to see you! ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Yeah, the p.s. is a wholly inadequate place to discuss anything with any real thought and care, for me anyway. When I try, and I do try, it always feels like writing a postcard. Your description of what constitutes pretension makes total sense, yes. I think I agree, yes. Thank you for liking the circles! ** Keaton, Thanks. 'The horns': nice. Ha ha. Move where? Urbane, yeah, the allure there is a biggie. Coolness. You're here. Nice. Bonjour in return! ** Right. Back you go into the post-shaped proposal of time occupation by Rewritedept. Enjoy, comment, have fun. See you tomorrow.

_______________________________
from the introduction by Martin Bladh

Put together in secrecy during late 1980 until early 1982, the Gone scrapbook is a tour de force into Dennis Cooper’s most private obsessions and macabre fantasies. We’ve never seen him exposed like this before, without leaning on (or hiding behind) his remarkable craft. Cooper mingles picture and text collages, prose and poetry, with news reports and pornographic renderings. The tabloid killings of William Bonin, Dean Corll and John Wayne Gacy – their victims catalogued repeatedly – bleeds into late 70s/early 80s teen stars and anonymous, forgotten porn actors in a crude, yet rigorously composed collage of Sadeian proportions.

Official Detective, 1977: The killer apparently offered the boy a ride home. Instead the child was taken to an as yet, undetermined location. He seems to have been tied up for several days. What ensued during this period can only be pieced together and speculated upon. The boy appears to have been well fed and kept clean, but there are signs of brutal and wide-raging sexual misuse. Multiple bruises and deep cuts across the back and legs would seem to indicate numerous beatings with what may have been a coat hanger or electric appliance cord. The neck is deeply bruised, as well as broken, presumably from the force of his strangulation. Teeth marks up to 1/4” deep cover the face, neck, upper arms, thighs and the buttocks. He had been savagely sodomized with a large instrument, possibly a man’s hand and arm.

The scrapbook must be looked upon as much as a document for research as a work of art. an example of cooper’s unorthodox investigation can be found on pages 122-123. Next to the first page which shows the faces of the freeway killer William Bonin’s twenty victims - all minimized down to postal stamp size - he has written: “The faces of dead boys are usually average to look at, with an occasional mystery or allure that only the madman or the aficionado would find and desire.”
Who is the madman and who is the aficionado?
does it come down to indicators and signifiers?
Which ones do you look for?
Which trigger your imagination and desire?
What do you read into these monochrome faces?
you, the investigator, would need to confront your own sexual desire and use it as your guiding tool to understand the urge of the killer.

Mark Shelton looks energetic, cocky and cute, and his reportedly “particularly brutal” molestation and death would seem to indicate something about him astonished his killer.

Donald Hyden has a rough cuteness and sullen arrogance about him which could have infuriated/excited the killer and caused the man to want to “tame” him.

Thomas Lundgren is a sweet faced boy with a sane air about him. His calm and sensible air surely appealed to his killer’s sense of aesthetics i.e the destruction or elimination of composure.

What does it mean to you, the investigator; if you find that you and the killer share the same taste in men? What does it say about your nature?

James McCabe is the kind of boy I fell and still fall for, with his sureness about himself so there in his face. He is a type of boy who is, at his age, inevitably liked by his fellow students and girls, whose body is pale by its nature... (his) somewhat expressionless face registers its pleasure and ... [illegible] ... casually that one is drawn into speculation over his thoughts. In a killer’s mind this moves one step further and plans were un- doubtedly made to quash this boy’s serenity and utilize this temporal beauty.

Cooper seeks to connect to a certain madness or monstrosity deep within himself. As readers we must remember that this document was not created as a provocation intended to shock an audience, but was put together by the author for the author’s private use, and wasn’t displayed in public until early 2013.
Is this clandestine multimedia collection of death and desire a way for cooper to test his limits to the full, to find an iconoclastic, subversive voice, or does it reveal something more unnerving?
Is this the first time we see the author’s true face and pathological template laid bare? Troubled writers like Henry Darger and Yukio Mishima spring to mind.

1. at 3 months with toy
2. at eleven months old
3. With sister at four
4. Guest starring on “family affair” at the age of eight 5. With sister at eleven
6. With football at thirteen 7. Sunshined and battered 15
8. teen sex god at sixteen
9. World’s number one teen idol, 17
10. former # 1 teen idol, seventeen
11. dismembered body found in a trash bag, eighteen

In a two-page-spread collage called The Story of Leif Garett, Cooper collects ten black and white photographs of the celebrity spanning from his earliest childhood year until his peak as a teen idol. The eleventh picture shows two middle aged men carrying a big plastic bag.

Under a small picture of teen stars the Williams twins cooper has written:

Hi, we’re twins and we’re fourteen and a half years old. We’ve been trying to be pop singers but it’s not work- ing out because our act is a little perverse – two boys who coo romantic songs to one another. Oh, well. So, you can kill us, just so long as you do it up right. Fuck us totally over, strangle us and bury us together in a deep hole, that’s all we ask. Otherwise we’re yours. Really. Where’s your sense of danger. Prove you’re a man. We’ll put out our hands there. Don’t be shy. Take them.



______
Samples



























____________________
from the interview in Gone


DC in 1981


Martin Bladh How important is scrapbooking for your creative process?

Dennis Cooper It’s extremely important, and I’ve almost always made scrapbooks to help me develop a novel. The only times I haven’t, it was a decision to see what would happen to my writing if I didn’t fall back on that habit. I still make them, although now I create them online, usually on my blog, rather than in blank books with scissors and glue and so on.

MB The scrapbook originates from the time just after The Tenderness of Wolves came out. Did you ever have it in mind as prima materia for a specific work? I’m thinking about how it has been stitched together, the continuity with different leitmotivs that overlap each other, and it looks like you’ve gone back on some occasions and reworked the composition?

DC As I said, it was to help me figure how I could write the novel cycle that I had been dreaming of making since I was a teenager. I started making it because I had just had a small paying job that involved helping the man who, at that time, owned the William Burroughs archive, organize the papers. In the process, I was able to really study the scrapbooks that Burroughs had made while writing his early novels, and I was very inspired and influenced by the way Burroughs had combined texts, both original and found, with magazine images and photographs in a collage-like way, and I thought that trying to work out my ideas and sense of style and structure through that kind of multi-media approach without the pressure of having to start writing the novels might help me, and it really did.

MB How much time did you spend in the early 80s going through printed matters to find the specific material that you were looking for?

DC Quite a bit, I guess. Once I’d started the scrapbook, it became an important project to me, as important as actually writing a novel, which is pretty consuming state for me to be in. So, I spent a lot of time looking mainly for either detective magazines, teen idol-oriented magazines like Tiger Beat and so on, or pornography that I could use in my studies and ultimately in the scrapbook itself.

MB The scrapbook contains a fragment from an early manuscript called Diary of a Mass Murderer, with a handwritten note where you claim it to be your first real attempt to explore mass murder, and that it was supposed to be accompanied by photos of fictional victims. Would you like to put some more light upon this piece? Was it the forerunner to A Herd?

DC I don’t remember much about that piece. I guess if I noted that it was my first attempt, it must have been, so it would have preceded ‘A Herd’, probably by a fair amount of time. My original idea was that I would try to write from the viewpoint of the murderers rather than from the p.o.v. of the victims, and I’m not sure why that was. That ‘Diary ... ‘ piece is just dreadful, and I think that, in addition to the fact that I just didn’t know how to write interestingly at that time, the failure is due to the fact that I can’t write from that position, or not purely and wholly and primarily. The entire scrapbook, for me, shows the struggle I was having locating my imagination and writing within that material. I think that, at least over the course of making most of that scrapbook, I was still trying to find some kind of amorality and sadism in myself, and I never was able to find that. So, the scrapbook feels very naïve to me except when, in some of the texts and collages, I work more with the emotions of the targeted boys. In the scrapbook, I can see myself struggling not to identify with the victims and trying to play the ‘evil’ God or something. But I just couldn’t do that. When I tried, what I was doing lost its complexity and just became silly and horny and too wannabe, I think.

MB There are several references to teen stars such as Scott Baio, Ricky Shroeder, Jimmy McNichol, Matthew Labourteaux, the Williams brothers and most notably Leif Garrett. Pictures of these boys have often been remodelled and put into a pornographic or sadistic context - some scenarios even end with them dying. Did you have a problem finding pornography that satisfied your taste and urges, so that you had to invent it yourself, get it down on paper and put the subject of your desire into a fictional, erotic context?

DC Mm, my fantasies and imaginative desires and so on were pretty complicated, and the representations of them that were around in pornography didn’t interest me very much other than as a dumb, failed, one-sided picture. I made the collages and juxtapositions to try to represent my fantasies in a way that was true to them as they were in my head, which meant trying to make things that were simultaneously disturbing, sexy, tragic, absurd, and mostly unrealizable because I’m interested in how the sex/violence axis can only be illustrated in the imagination, or perhaps in the safe, hallucinogenic context of fiction, where people don’t really suffer or die or care if they die or care if they’re doing something completely unfair and unacceptable to someone else. I think the kinds of things I was interested in couldn’t be represented in photographs or movies or videos. For me, if they were going to be represented visually, they had to appear in the collage form where my hand and intentions were as important or more important than the acts that the collages were trying to represent.

MB There’s a ten page gap in the book destroyed by Fales Library due to its ‘potentially illegal’ subject matter. This section starts out with a handwritten introduction where you describe a series of pictures from the first “real porno magazine” you ever bought that had a particular erotic importance to you. although you give a thorough explanation of this piece, I’m still curious why Fales thought this section was so disturbing that they tore out ten pages of the book. Do you have any recollection of this series today?

DC There are actually quite a number of pages that were defaced and censored by Fales Library. I don’t have an intricate memory of that porn sequence itself. I assume the pages were removed because, in the porn narrative that was tacked on to the pictures, one of the models was said to be 14 years old. As far as I can remember, the model in question was clearly not that young, and that magazine was widely available and sold openly in porn shops for years, so it doesn’t seem likely that he was underage, but I guess Fales decided that the narrative’s designation of the model’s age was reason enough to remove the pages. I think that in the photo sequence the two models just had the usual kind of sex, and I think the images were softcore with no actual penetration shown, which was pretty typical of porn magazines of that era. I’m not sure why 10 whole pages were removed because the sequence wouldn’t have taken up that much space, so there must have been other things removed as well, but I don’t remember what they would have been.



____________________________
Some of the censored/defaced pages










_________
Backgrounds



William Bonin


Leif Garrett


Robert Piest


Dean Corll


The Williams Twins


Steven Stayner


John Wayne Gacy


Scott Baio


David Brooks


Larry Eyler



_____
Further

GONE's page @ Facebook
DC's scrapbooks @ Dennis Cooper Website
A Scrapbook on THE MARBLED SWARM @ the purest of treats
Guide to the Dennis Cooper Papers @ Fales Library
Slideshow: 'Closer: The Dennis Cooper Papers' @ Kunstverein Amsterdam
'Closer: The Dennis Cooper Papers'
'The Tenderness of the Wolves' @ goodreads





*

p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Hiatus, yeah. I get these little hour or two-long hiatuses these days, and they're nice, but I guess I'd go stir-crazy if they stretched out much longer. 'The Orange Eats Creeps': That's a terrific book. 'Lolita' annotated as in external annotations or Nabokov's? ** Armando, Hi, man. Oh, shit, that sucks. Families really don't know best. Really, it's weird, but, in my experience, families are the most clueless, agenda-heavy people you can know, and guilt-tripping is evil. Guilt is the lowest, cheapest, most selfish manipulation there is. Don't fall for it. It's totally self-indicting and issued from their problems, not yours. You're awesome. Word. You are. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, it's a Carol Burnett thing most importantly housed inside the great Madeleine Kahn. Cool. I forgot that Kramer did that 'Lost Horizon' writing. Huh. I'll hit that link in a bit. Thank you. ** Kier, Hi, K! Do share those photos, please? Thank you. Ouch. Maybe the work itself is clumsy, and you're like one of those bunking bronco riders. No, I stopped doing the Self-Portrait Days a while back because of an unpleasant kerfuffle here around a group participation thing the blog was doing, but it's funny you mention that because I had an idea for a SPD the other day, and I think I'm going to run the idea by you guys in the next few days and see if there's enough interest to do it. So, yeah, maybe they'll restart. Take care and watch your arms, hands, and fingers today, my pal. ** Keaton, Oh, okay. I keep forgetting about upbeat music. I should try some of that stuff. Those periods where you feel like you've forgotten how to write can be amazing ports. I'm often trying to forget how to write, so that sounds kind of nice. Much love back. ** Gary gray, a NPC, ha ha, that's cool, a cool way to think about it, you, anyone. I like that. Oh, sorry to have jumped to the conclusion that you were between LA and SF. I don't know why I found that conclusion jumpable. Weird. Emotions are good. Oh, my pleasure, my honor, my stating of obvious re: your lovely prose. That K'nex ferris wheel was a great. It's back to being a colorful pile in a bag at the moment, sadly. ** Toniok, Hi, T! I do remember the video game project, and I remember how exciting it sounded, so that sucks that it didn't pan out. Onwards to the next extremely promising project. Abdellah Taia's movie just opened here. I'm going to see it asap. Have a sweet weekend, man. ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Ha ha, I have a long way to go before I master the p.s. if I ever do, but thank you kindly. The internet can be intense for sure. Other than the p.s., I try to stay relatively mum or like a man of few words out there. You're an excellent commenter, don't think twice about it. We've been being rained on here almost non-stop for days and apparently for days to come. It's not bad. ** Rewritedept, Big thanks again for the great show and tell yesterday. I saw 'I Heart Huckabees' when it came out in the theater. I remember having a problem with it, that it was maybe too self-consciously cutesy or something, I don't remember, and it's been ages, so who knows? Cool that the post stoked your friends. Rightly so. My Friday was productive. Zac and I had a great meeting with Christophe Honore, who's the associate producer of our film, and we auditioned a guy for the film who was really cool, so that was good. I got some bad news last night that I don't want to think/talk about, but you can't have everything, obviously. I hope your weekend is awesome too. I look forward to the backwash. ** Schoolboyerrors, Oh, yes, Leve's 'Suicide' is incredible. Oh, wow, you translated Leve! Crazy. I'm going to fine-toothed-comb that as soon as I click 'Publish'. Everyone, the incredible mind and talent with fingers named Schoolboyerrors has translated a short work by the great French writer Edouard Leve called 'A Night at the Strip Club', and this is a great thing for so many reasons, such as the paucity of Leve's work in English and the chance to parse Schoolboyerror's fiercesome mind happenings, so, yeah, read it, click this. Yeah, that book was tough on me. Re: George, and also because I knew Edouard, so there's that. I'm excited because Dalkey is publishing another Leve book soon. Right, about the Webdriver Torso thing? Cool, cool that they caught your fancy too. All right, have a weekend of your dreams, D. ** Steevee, Hi. Oh, man, I hope your auditions go really, really well today. Let me know. Zac and I did one for our film last evening, and we have another one this evening, and a bunch more next week. ** Misanthrope, Yeah, Shane lives in Lyon. It's not that far from Paris, but it's just far enough that you can't just hop back and forth. I've only been to Lyon maybe 5 tines in the years I've been over here. I have no tattoos. No, never had any. Never have given serious thought to getting one, no. I think they're fine and sometimes more on other people, but the idea of being tattooed has never appealed to me. I guess I want my body to be ambiguous and unmarked and not locked down or definable by some reference or period of my life or whatever. Ha ha, I think you totally need Rose Kennedy's face imprinted over yours. For so many, many reasons. ** Okay. There's an introduction of sorts to my 'Gone' book, and I hope it's of interest, and thanks for whatever time you put into it in advance. See you on Monday.

Yukari Ehara






Slinkachu



















Ben Sack





Takahiro Iwasaki








Donald Eigler, Crommie, and Christopher Lutz








Vincent Bousserez












Vik Muniz






Cerkahegyzo












Malcolm Douglas Chaplin








Anatoly Konenko






Lisa Swerling














Osaka engineers






Yury Deulin










Frederik De Wilde












Wendy Originals






Jonah Samson














IBM






Hasan Kale
















dOvetastic






Eldon Garnet






Mykola Syadristy












Maurizio Cattelan





Anatoliy Konenko






Anastassia Elias










Matthew Albanese










*

p.s. Hey. ** Dom Lyne, Hi, Dom. Aw, thanks for ordering the thing. Awesome, and thanks a lot for sending me the novel and the printed eBook! Sweet! I'll start eyeing my mailbox like a stop watch. Bon Monday, and love right back. ** Torn porter, Hi, T. Leve's stuff in English in Paris? Very limited options ever since the fairly great English language-oriented Village Voice bookshop closed down a while back. I fear Shakespeare & Co. is your only hope. Their stock of French books translated into English is better than their purely English language book stock, so you never know. If you mean in French, it should be pretty easy. The best French bookshop in Paris I know of is Le Cahiers de Colette, 23 rue Rambuteau, near the Pompidou. I'm really good, super busy with the film prep, but really good. Yeah, I'll try to find some schedule space this week, and it would be great to meet up. Good morning or afternoon or ... good whenever you look at this. ** Lee, Howdy, Lee! Really good to see you, man! Writing what? I mean, what are you writing? I don't know that Joshua Ramey book on Deleuze, no. My pal Zac is a big Deleuze fan, so I'll ask him about it. Interesting. I don't think I even know who Giordano Bruno and Pico della Mirandola are, but I think I get Deleuze, but, yeah, I could be seeing him from outer space or something. Best wishes laser-targeted back into your invisibility, my friend. ** Bill, I ended up finding a streaming version of Eurovision, so I watched it from my computer. The French band were awful, no surprise, and only got 2 votes, which seems to happen to the French entry every year. You still in Copenhagen? ** David Ehrenstein, We all need movie scoring or writing or something gigs, clearly. I mean big movies. Ha ha, 'windmills of my mind', good one, ha ha. ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. I would guess my big eyes were a combination of deciding to widen them to their full extent for some reason, enhanced, yes, by cocaine, if I'm remembering my recreational life at that time correctly. I actually did imbibe a good amount of coffee and bread this past weekend, how did you know? Yeah, I think the price of 'Gone' basically just covers the press's costs. Yeah, scissors and the worst kind of glue I could have possibly used -- rubber cement -- as far as longevity goes. The scrapbooks are gradually yellowing into oblivion. Your comments are great. No worries about that. Everyone has their own levels of energy and interest and time and so on here, I think. It works fine. ** Will C., Hi, Will! Glad you came back. Office assistant doesn't sound bad at all. Well, I guess it would depend on the office, obviously. But you're okay with it, and if it's an opened door, cool. Hope your weekend was swell. Was it? ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. No, I don't think the Burroughs scrapbooks have been published, and I don't know why. I think they're easily among his very best works, and, in the case of a couple of them, almost assuredly his best work. Very strange. Maybe the current owners are holding out for big money and/or some giant publisher or something? ** _Black_Acrylic, Oh, very interesting about the Annotated 'Lolita'. I will definitely have a look at that. Very cool to see that stack of Art101 imagery. Very intriguing. Most curious. Wow. ** Kiddiepunk, Mikey! Thanks, buddy. Let's hang and shoot the shit pronto! ** Steevee, Auditions are such a crapshoot. I'm sorry your first day didn't go better. Keep at it, though. If Zac's and my experience is anything to go by, find the right performers is a long process. ** Sypha, Thanks, pal. Are Bret's archives somewhere? Probably. I imagine you could at least see the outlines if they are and if you want to make a pilgrimage/field trip to said location. Your book has a Roger Dean cover mock-up, wow, ha ha. That's ... trippy. ** Keaton, Morning, K. Thanks a bunch about the scrapbook, man. Strange craft, it is. Have you managed to do some crafting? ** Randomwater, Hey! Traveling is so great. I never used to travel much at all, but my friend Zac's and my wanderlusts have rubbed two sticks together or something and lit the fire of that happening or something less ridiculously metaphoric. Japan! Go to Japan! It's so fantastic! Oh, I really, really want to see and get 'Celadon'! How can I do that? You'll tell me, right? ** Kier, Hi, K. Yeah, I'll put a feeler out re: my SPD idea very soon and see if there are enough people into the idea to give it a shot. Don't scratch your wound too much. Or, I don't know ... man, I just channeled my mother or something when I said that. Weird. Never mind, scratch away. Is it getting better because or despite your fingerwork? Ha ha, I love that dream. Whoa! ** Schoolboyerrors, Hi. Thanks, man. I think the Burroughs scrapbooks are owned by some big collector in Switzerland, last I heard. I'm not sure if I'm up to date, though. It's truly bizarre that his scrapbooks haven't been published. They really are amazing. Better than a bunch of his novels. Oh, wow, I don't think I can be much help on the romance/sex thing. I'm a really romantic, head over heels in love type when it has happened, and, in between that happening, which is always out of the blue and rarely and very unexpectedly, I've never looked for a relationship. When I've been solo, I've been totally content. So the whole dating and see what happens thing is really foreign to me. Which is just my weird way of approaching that stuff. I was really impacted when I was a teen by Rimbaud's famous 'love must be reinvented' thing, and I always feel like looking for it via conventional routes sets up too much pre-determined stuff around love or something. I trust fate and stumbling and all that. But then I've hardly become a maestro of love or anything as a result. Anyway, see, I told you I'm not big help about that stuff, ha ha. You're awesome and you'll find whatever it is you want, I'm positive. ** Jonathan, Hi, J! You should scan your scrapbooks sometime. I, for one, feel a little slobbery imagining them. Slobbery in the good way. Yeah, a new Leve book is due. 'Works'. Due any minute in fact aka this coming June. I did enjoy Eurovision in the way that one can. I kind of was disappointed that it wasn't a jaw-droppingly tacky at times this year. Nothing really stood out to me. I'm glad Austria won, all things considered. My hood is good, yeah, thanks. Yours sounds pretty good. ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul! Aw, thanks a lot, man! Martin just wrote to me and asked if he could publish the scrapbook. I guess he saw it at Fales. And I said, Sure. So, it was easy. And, on a really awful but important (to me) note, if Martin hadn't scanned the scrapbook, I might never have found out that Fales had defaced and censored and kind of destroyed the scrapbook behind my back without my knowledge or permission. That has made things kind of ugly between Fales and me, but at least I know, and having the scrapbook published, even in its permanently wounded version, is really cool, obviously. ** Misanthrope, Ha ha, the scary Williams Twins. I can see that. I met one of them, David, once, but later when he was in his 20s. My boyfriend at the time that I made the scrapbook on show yesterday, Chris, had previously been boyfriends with a guy who had dumped him to become boyfriends with the very same David Williams, and I met David at a very tense dinner between the four of us. He seemed quite nice. Wow, cool about the no roaming charges thing. I wish my French company would do that. That would be a fucking godsend. Very cool, yes. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff! I figured that, what with 'DotRC' in motion, you'd understandably be AWOL, no prob. Great that it's going so well so far. I'm in a state of constant jonesing to see it. You guys should try to do it in Paris. Parisians would really eat it up, I assure you. Everyone, if you're in or near NYC, there's still time to see 'Dream of the Red Chamber', the completely amazing sounding theater piece co-authored by our own Chilly Jay Chill aka Jeff Jackson. All the details are here. If I was in NYC, I would be there in a fucking heartbeat. Oh, yeah, ugh, about the diminishment of your text component. Well, yeah, I do understand. I mean, for instance, with 'This Is How You Will Disappear', we started with a lot of texts by me, and, as the rehearsals progressed, more and more text was cut until the final version has very little text in it. It was confusing and tough at the time, but, I don't know, with Gisele's work, it's really her work, and I'm just the language provider ultimately, so I just have to trust her instincts, and I always do, but, in the moment, it can be and has been a source of disagreement. I think that, in every case, I've wound up thinking she was right. So, I don't know. And I don't know what your stake as a collaborator is in the project. With Gisele, I always think of her as being the boss, ultimately, because it's her ass that's on the line, just like it's my ass that's on the line with my novels, I guess. I think the other scrapbooks by me are probably too dependent on the novels for which they were made to be of much general interest, I'm not sure. ** Rewritedept, Hi, C. Jane's Addiction are still playing live? That's weird. I saw Fishbone once. They were very energetic. PF Chang's, jeez, I haven't eaten there in ages. Jeez. My weekend was good. Yeah, film stuff mostly, all very productive. We have two meetings with performers today that we hope will nail down their participation and also a meeting with our casting guy 'cos we need to do more auditions. Busy day. May yours be busy in the 'big up' way. ** Kyler, Hi, K. You're so lucky to get to see Jeff's theater piece. Kudos and grr, ha ha. Gosh, I wish this was a better response. I hope its blah didn't spoil your morning. I'm in a rush due to a meeting with one of the performers in our film, and my brain is hallway out the door. ** Armando, Big *hug* back to you, man. I don't know that film you mentioned and that you saw at all. Huh. I'll totally, totally try to track it down. Thanks a lot for clueing me in. I'm really good, thanks. You have a very sweet day today, okay? ** Okay. I've got tiny artworks for you today. Some just tiny, some managing to be both tiny and interesting. Kind of all over the place. See what you think. See you tomorrow.

* This post was requested/commissioned by silent reader Nathan Bartholomew




'Gordon Hessler passed away in his sleep January 19, 2014 at the age of 83. An underrated horror director, Hessler cut his teeth on the Hitchcock Presents TV show then helmed several genuinely creepy and atmospheric British films. He worked with Vincent Price three times, all with scripts by Christopher Wicking; SCREAM & SCREAM AGAIN (1970) was an outrageous sci-fi/horror hybrid that presented a berserk view of swinging 60′s London (and also starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee). CRY OF THE BANSHEE (1970) was gritty and mean-spirited featuring Price as a sadistic monarch with an intense hatred of witchcraft and a sardonic sense of macabre. THE OBLONG BOX (1969 – co-starring Chris Lee) was a dark and moody tale of voodoo, body snatching, medical experiments, brotherly betrayal, and being buried alive.

'Hessler’s MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE was like a Vincent Price movie without Price (it starred Herbert Lom and Jason Robards). It mixed Poe with Phantom of the Opera and was an interesting take on Paris’ historic Grand Guignol theater. One of his last films, GIRL IN A SWING (1988) was an effective, low-key ghost story worth seeking out. Hessler directed Ray Harryhausen’s GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD in 1973, a film that’s always lived in the shadow of 7th VOYAGE as an inferior sequel but has aged well. It’s a terrific fantasy film worthy of big screen reassessment (and was recently released on Blu-ray by Twilight Time). No one could mistake his KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK for a good movie, but the 1978 TV movie plays like a live-action Scooby-Doo episode and has a huge cult following. He also directed two martial arts films in the late ‘80s starring Sho Kusugi, the best known actor/martial artist during the 1980s ninja cinema craze: PRAY FOR DEATH (1985), and RAGE OF HONOR (1987).'-- collaged



___
Stills
















































_____
Further

Gordon Hessler @ IMDb
'KISS Co-founders Simmons and Stanley Remember Gordon Hessler'
Gordon Hessler @ MGM Channel
Lumière ! Réalisateurs : Gordon Hessler
Gordon Hessler: An Alan Smithee Podcast
DVD Savant Double Feature: Gordon Hessler
'And You Call Yourself a Scientist!'
Shock Cinema Issue #38
'Alfred Hitchcock Presents': The Quality of Humor
SATANIC PANDEMONIUM: THE OBLONG BOX



_______
Interview
from DVD Drive-In




What was your relationship like with AIP?

Gordon Hessler: I always got along well with Deke Heyward, the head of DIP. He was very politically adept at handling things at AIP. He would protect you from [Sam] Arkoff and [James] Nicholson because they'd come into town and stay at the Savoy Hotel, and then they'd go in to discuss the picture, or they would see the finished product and make their suggestions.

Obviously they were happy with you, as you continued to work with them.

GH: Well, THE OBLONG BOX was very successful for them. They were in tremendous trouble with DE SADE. They didn't get along with Cy Endfield and all sorts of other problems existed. It was the greatest piece of luck that I was fired from it. When I did THE OBLONG BOX, they left me alone, there was nobody there. The day I started, Nicholson came on the set and said, "Good luck." That's it, and he was off. That film was made for £70,000, which is about $250,000. At Shepperton Studios, you could shoot from 8 AM until about 4 PM because of the union. If you wanted to do overtime, you'd have to let them know by lunchtime that you were going to take it one more hour. And only if all the union leaders agreed would they go along with it. It was a very tough assignment to shoot and get finished. Actually, when we were finishing it, I had three or four more days left. They [AIP] said, "Look, we like what you're doing, take an extra week. Can't you make this bigger?" This never happened to me before, so I was happy with the situation and I took an extra week at the studios and built up certain sequences. I can't remember which, but whatever we were shooting, we elaborated on it. And the film did very well for them.

How did you get along with Vincent Price?

GH: Oh, marvelous, he was a marvelous man, highly intelligent. I remember at Shepperton Studios, during THE OBLONG BOX, we had an African prince who was the head of this tribe. So we put them in the film for this dance sequence. I asked Vincent if he wouldn't mind having lunch with this African prince, or king, or whatever he was. You know, most actors always talk about themselves; Vincent was completely the opposite. He talked to him about African art, and all about the various art he knew about and so on. I was just stunned at the conversation and his knowledge. What a unique man.

I'm sure you're aware that your director's cut of MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE has been restored and remastered by MGM and recently aired on U.S. cable TV.

GH: I'm amazed that MGM had the instinct to do this version of it after so many years. I was appalled when I originally saw the theatrically released version. I wrote a five-page letter to Arkoff. I knew it was his picture and he could do what he wanted with it, but I asked him to do certain things so it would at least make more sense. But by that time, it was already out and released. There's another film that I did--which I feel very strongly about--called GIRL ON A SWING that was terribly mauled. It's awful what Miramax did. They spliced ten or 15 minutes out of it, and it didn't make any sense. We all wanted to take our name off of that picture. In my contract, they had to give me a 35mm print of the original version--it's the only one in existence. But as far as MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, it seems that someone at MGM is doing some researching or something, releasing my cut of the film. This cable TV version--which I haven't yet seen--is apparently the original. I remember the flashbacks were originally never tinted, but AIP tinted them for the theatrical release. The whole idea was not to tint them so that you wouldn't know when you're more or less in a dream sequence or just being puzzled by it. The whole trick in that was instead of it being a flashback, this would be a flash-forward, which people really hadn't done before at that time. It was a premonition of what was going to happen. When it's tinted, it's just so obvious. Audiences picked up on it immediately.

SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN is an extraordinary film, very different from the typical Poe/Price cycle. Was AIP happy with it?

GH: Well, they didn't know what the film was about and were always questioning what I was doing. The editor kept assuring them that everything was fine, but they didn't quite know what they had as a picture. I'm sure they were a little queasy when that film came out because Arkoff had to try and sell it. We knew we had a good film. It was different. It was a science fiction film really, but the thing is, although the pulp book was very badly written, once Chris Wicking had put the nucleus of that idea into it, it elevated the whole picture and made it much more interesting. But all these pictures were made so quickly with so little money, I think we shot that in three or four weeks. But we had fun making it.

You had Christopher Lee in small parts in THE OBLONG BOX and SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN. How did you get along with him?

GH: I got on very well with Christopher Lee. He became even more talented as he moved on in his career. I was quite surprised at how good he was in certain movies. When you're shooting, you're so busy and you never really get to know the actors very well. You meet them and they get a sense of what you want, and then you don't see them again because they're off doing another picture. I think that the thing with a horror picture is that you have to convince your actors to believe in what they're doing. You really have to get embellished in it and enjoy it.

You also worked with Peter Cushing in SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN.

GH: I really didn't get to know him because he was put into the picture. That was Deke Heyward's idea. Deke would try to find some well known actor to dress up the picture--who at least Americans would be familiar with--which was a good idea. He did the same thing with Lilli Palmer in MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. When I was doing the AIP pictures, I tried to keep a stable of actors and give them different roles. They were so wonderful, and they had to work for practically nothing. Since I was producing and directing, I had to go to the actors and tell them that I could only offer them so much, and that they could take it or leave it. It's not that I was in a situation to bargain with them. I just didn't have it in the budget. When you only have £70,000 and you're working in a large studio, everybody else got screwed--these actors. Hopefully they get some residuals of some kind, I'm not sure.



__________________
The Lost Son of Batman




'The financial position of DC Comics in the early 70’s was precarious. A number of publishing moves initiated by publisher Carmine Infantino had failed to see a substantial return, coupled with a number of their creators either retiring or crossing over to work at Marvel, lead to new owners Warner Bros-Seven Arts selling off the movie rights to their characters to the highest bidder to raise capital. While ABC television picked up the option on Wonder Woman, and the Salkind family snapped up Superman, the rights to Batman were sold to Canadian producer, George H. Brown in 1972. Brown himself would be declared bankrupt the following year with the rights being brought up by the Hong Kong based Shaw Brothers, whose primary output was kung-fu pictures, yet who had just signed a joint-production deal with British based Hammer films. The resultant Batman film produced is probably one of the strangest and most schizophrenic films ever produced – it is certainly one of the cheapest with a reported budget of £300,000.

'John Phillip Law was cast as Batman but he had to withdraw due to sickness, leading to the casting of David Chiang. The Shaw Brothers answer to Bruce Lee, Chiang would play Bruce Wayne’s son, who assumes the mantle of Batman after the death of his father, now played by Stuart Whitman. Anton Differing appeared briefly as a very Germanic Alfred, his performance hampered by a lengthy bout of food poisoning. As the non-comic book villain Lady Ice, Julie Ege looks stunning but her line readings were so weak she had to be re-voiced by Joanne Lumley. Chiang’s usual sparring partner Ti Lung appears as Ege’s bodyguard, Dragon Fist and the climatic duel between him and Chiang is the film’s one real highlight.

'Original director Gordon Hessler was fired after a month due to repeated clashes with the screenwriter and producer Don Houghton, leading to Hammer’s Chief Executive Michael Carreras having to complete the picture himself. Issues with the Shaw Brothers Hong Kong studios meant that much of the film was recorded without sound leading to a very costly series of post-production work which gobbled up much of the film's already meagre budget. Chiang looks absurd in the Batman costume, something which Carreras/Hessler seem to admit to given that Chiang only wears it twice in the whole film. The tiny resources granted to Hammer means that Hong Kong Harbour, doubling as Gotham City, only manages to reinforce the fact that the budget is almost non-existent. When shooting finally drew to an end, Carreras realised that they only had just over 60 minutes of usable footage. The Shaw Brothers managed to pad out the running time by splicing in unused scenes from earlier Chiang/Lung films, the majority of it from 1971's Duel of Fists. Carreras' hope that Hammer's own team in the UK would handle the special effects were for nothing,with the Shaw's handing it over to a subsidiary of Toei. "It looked one of those bloody cheap Godzilla films by the time they got through with it! The fire at the docks at the climax? I could've spit on that burning model and put the fire out!", Carreras would later say.

'The final film limped out to British cinemas in November 1975 as the bottom half of a double bill with Man About the House. After only managing to take a paltry £1,014 in its first month, Bernard Delfont pulled the film from his ABC cinema chain. In the Far East, the Shaw’s assembled a more action-orientated edit, released under the title The Legend of the Lost Son of The Batman which did much better. Unfortunately, due to a carefully worded contract, Hammer Films did not see a cent of that revenue – all box office receipts for that region went straight to the Shaw Brothers. DC were mortified when confronted with the completed picture and instigated a major lawsuit to reclaim the rights from the Shaw Brothers, finally buying their own property back for a rumoured $2 million. The film would not be released in the US until 1979 when Roger Corman’s New World Pictures picked up the film as part of a package buy-out. Corman re-cut the film, bookending it with scenes shot by Allan Arkush featuring Dick Miller as “Matches” Malone. Corman has stated that the edit was an attempt to catch some of the excitement following the success of Star Wars. It failed to do so and either Corman's version or the original are hardly seen at all today. Bootleg DVDs have been known to sell for up £70 to £80 on the comic convention circuit.'-- Warning: Contains Traces of Bowie



______________________
14 of Gordon Hessler's 46 films

________________
The Oblong Box (1969)
'This troubled production from American International Pictures initially began life as the next project for young British filmmaker Michael Reeves. He had clearly impressed his backers with the strength of his third film Witchfinder General (1968). The death of Reeves during the pre-production of The Oblong Box was a major blow, not only to the film, but to British filmmaking in general. With the death of Reeves any ambition the film might have had began to dwindle and this was signposted by the arrival of the undistinguished Gordon Hessler as his directorial replacement. Hessler was a capable director, but one who rarely achieved any kind of inspiration - and this derivative and clichéd piece of gothic horror was badly in need of inspiration.'-- Son of Celluloid



Trailer


Finale


__________
De Sade (1969)
'I was asked to produce a film, DE SADE, for AIP while I was in Los Angeles that was taking place in Munich, Germany. I flew into London and met the writer, and the director was supposed to be there, but he never showed up. He didn't come to the meeting; he was sick or something like that. Having met the writer, I flew to Munich to set up the film about eight weeks before they were going to start shooting. I was there preparing the production and then I was told that the original director was not going to make the picture. So we waited for a while, and finally the American director who did ZULU, Cy Endfield, came in to do it. This was a big picture for AIP, which usually made very cheap pictures, and I was an outsider. I was not an employee, just a freelance director. My position got very shaky there, even though I was very friendly with everybody. I was actually fired from the job because the local people employed by AIP wanted to produce the picture rather than have an outsider like me.'-- Gordon Hessler



Excerpt


Excerpt


___________________
Scream and Scream Again (1970)
'With its daft one-size-fits-all title and unassailable front-line of Cushing, Lee and Price, one could easily be forgiven for writing off Scream and Scream Again as another entry in the ill-fated cycle of ‘old boys club’ horror movies that began to take off as the box office for old-fashioned horror flicks started to diminish through the ‘70s. All bets are off however the second one sits down to actually watch Scream and Scream Again. By some strange quirk of fate, this modest Amicus/AIP co-production turns out to be one of the most beserk, imaginative and unconventional British horror movies ever made - a real kick in the teeth for anyone who bought a ticket expecting to see Vince and the gang rattling around dark old house for eighty minutes. That’s not to say it’s actually all that great, but ... '-- Breakfast in the Ruins



Trailer


Excerpt



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Cry of the Banshee (1970)
'Within Cry of the Banshee can be found the groundings of what most people know as folk horror. The witchcraft elements will of course be attributed to Reeves’ film but there are more aspects in Cry of the Banshee that would crop up in later films. The worship aspects and group gestalts would be put to more dramatic and disturbing effects in Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971); a film that similarly embraces the reality of the supernatural to explain away its evils. However the purely humanistic evils found in Banshee can be seen in the sub-genre’s poster boy; The Wicker Man (1973). There’s little visually to tie in but there’s no doubt that Cry of the Banshee can be seen to be a step closer to the ultimate in folk horror madness. Some of the performances may be colourful but the film’s horror is still strong. However the better moments come from the human evils rather than the supernatural ones. The banshee creature bares little on scenes of torture and burning which have a documentary shake to them and are just as effective as Reeves’ prolonged agonies. Coupled with some Hammer like pulp and Price’s usual villainy, a film is left that is enjoyable, flawed and surprisingly influential.'-- Celluloid Wicker Man



Trailer



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Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)
'Murders in the Rue Morgue is a 1971 American horror film directed by Gordon Hessler, starring Jason Robards and Herbert Lom. It is ostensibly an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name, although it departs from the story in several significant aspects, at times more resembling Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera. In an interview on the film's DVD, Hessler said that he thought everyone already knew the ending of the story, so he felt it necessary to reinvent the plot. According to IMDB.com, the film was banned in Finland in 1972.'-- Wiki



Trailer



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Medusa (1973)
'A couple of empty champagne glasses lay between a pair of corpses, a man and a woman – their hands folded peacefully together in the prose of two lovers who’ve opted to end it all with suicide. This is the shocking scene that greets a group of Greek police officials who have just boarded a floating yacht in the opening minutes of Medusa, a 1973 curio from television director turned big screen auteur, Gordon Hessler. Clearly this film isn't for everyone but if you love to see actors getting crazy and going over the top and generally having a great time, you should check it out.'-- CrankedOnCinema



Excerpt



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The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)
'Following manuscript-styled opening credits, an incantation of Baudelaire's albatross: A swooping creature drops a fragmented amulet on the vessel's deck, Sinbad (John Philip Hall) decides to hang on to it after a faceless odalisque with painted eyes on her palms comes as a vision. Another piece of the tablet belongs to the noble Vizier (Douglas Wilmer), who hides a charred visage behind a gold-plated Hellenistic mask; together they reveal a navigation chart, the answer to its riddle is at a mystical island populated by natives who paint themselves jade-green and worship Ray Harryhausen behemoths. The climactic brawl between a centaur and a griffin has to be some kind of stop-animation benchmark, and a few wide-eyed words are all it takes for the Amazonian figurehead at the ship's prow to come to vengeful life. Still, Harryhausen's most touching work is done in the quiet, beguiling scene in which the villainous wizard (Tom Baker) patiently breathes life into a tiny gargoyle, a concise ode to the divine qualities of the craftsman's art.'-- cinepassion.org



Trailer


Excerpt



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A Cry in the Wilderness (1974)
'On his isolated farm in the wilderness, Sam Hadley (played by George Kennedy) has an unfortunate run-in with a rabid skunk. How Sam and his wife handle the situation is the basis for the story, which is totally not convincing. Sam reacts in ways that defy logic or common sense. Plot devices include hallucinations, a coincidental flood, and menacing hillbillies. The acting is not bad, but the actors have nothing to work with. The story's premise, in my opinion, is not credible. It relies too much on coincidental timing, improbable behavior, hokey characters, and a predictable outcome. Indeed, without the skunk, there would be no story at all. The DVD version of this film is 74 minutes, but it seemed more like two hours. I don't wish to be unkind, but the film seemed to me to be a cross between a bad episode of Green Acres and a poor remake of the movie Deliverance. A more interesting film might have resulted if the story had been told from the POV of the skunk. How did the skunk react to the encounter? Was the skunk traumatized? Did the skunk suffer nightmares? What did the skunk learn, and so on.'-- Lechugilla



Excerpt



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KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park (1978)
'A crude opening montage sees the members of Kiss super-imposed on top of night-time fairground footage. Inexplicably, Peter Criss is seen miming the drums on a roulette wheel. Drink it in, Kiss Army recruits, as this is the last glimpse of your commanding officers you’ll be getting for quite a while. Director Gordon Hessler (whose horror credits include Scream and Scream Again and Cry of the Banshee for AIP, as well as taking over The Oblong Box after the death of Michael Reeves), clearly has other things on his mind. Like FUN, primarily. Beautiful, sun-dappled, 1978 suburban American amusement park fun, to be precise. Thankfully I’m a bit too young and located on the wrong side of the world to be fully smitten by this full-scale nostalgia landslide, but anyone currently in about the 35-45 age bracket and raised somewhere in the Southern half of the USA should probably prepare themselves for paralysing wistfulness and bouts of uncontrollable sobbing, as gentle, smiling Dazed & Confused teens fade in and out of focus, enjoying a summer’s day out in their local parentally-approved leisure complex.'-- Breakfast in the Ruins



Opening credits


Excerpt



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Tales of the Haunted (1981)
'This low-budget feature is actually comprised of re-edited installments from a syndicated television serial. Jack Palance stars as a self-serving, abusive boor who becomes stranded -- along with his two hapless children -- by a thunderstorm, forcing them to take shelter in an isolated country estate owned by a group of mysterious and wealthy old dowagers. Seeing a golden opportunity, Palance soon turns to plundering their estate, but his plans collide horribly with the secret activities of a Satanic snake-cult who carry out ritual sacrifices in the attic. Guess who's next in line? Given the cheap-looking confines of the shot-on-video production, director Gordon Hessler manages to generate some creepy atmosphere, and Palance chews acres of scenery as the diabolical daddy, whose tyrannical behavior makes his eventual fate quite satisfying.'-- Cavett Binion, Rovi



Excerpt



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Pray for Death (1985)
'Pray For Death is essentially a carbon copy of Revenge of the Ninja. In both films Kosugi plays a Japanese businessman who relocates his family to America for the sake of his job, but once there runs afoul of gangsters. In both movies his respective wives are killed, AND in both films Kosugi’s two sons play the roles of his onscreen kids, which end up surviving the bloody carnage father and gangster doll out among each other in both movies. Pray For Death is notable for two things, it’s Kosugi’s last role in a movie where he plays a ninja, and it’s notorious for being his most violent and sadistic. Kosugi find’s himself going head to head wtih James Booth, who plays a gangster psychopath that enjoys beating old men to death, torturing Kosugi in front of his kid, and raping and killing Kosugi’s wife towards the end.'-- You Won Cannes



Trailer



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Rage of Honor (1987)
'Starting from the opening “party boat” scene, you know you’re in for a heavy dose of 80’s awesomeness. (frustratingly, the one song used in the film, a Wang Chung/Mister Mister-like jaunt, is not listed in the credits or anywhere online that we could find). Both here and throughout the whole film, Sho’s thick accent is in full force. Some of the most hilarious moments in the movie come during the dialogue scenes, where the other actors have to simply pretend his accent isn’t unintelligible. So, to keep Sho Kosugi’s dialogue to a minimum, he pauses instead of speaks in many cases. The result is amusing. But the other actors aren’t blameless here either - while Sho’s name in the movie is “Shiro”, it sounds like most people are calling him “Churro”. While this would be insulting to Mexicans and Japanese alike, I think we can put this down to lack of understanding of Japanese naming traditions. While this is part and parcel of the whole Sho experience, fans really want to see Sho in action, and they are treated to some great stuff here.'-- Comeuppance Reviews



Trailer



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The Misfit Brigade (1987)
'The Misfit Brigade is adapted from a novel from Sven Hassle; who was a former Nazi Soldier and thus a bit of a questionable and slightly controversial figure himself. Regardless of his background, The Misfit Brigade definitely isn't pro-Nazi and actually quite blunt and uncompromising in the expression of its political opinions. The protagonists in this movie are anti everything and that's probably why this is such a good and plausible film. And by plausible I do not necessarily mean the depicted events in the film, but the characterizations of the rejected SS-soldiers and deserters. Director Gordon Hessler – known from the early 70's Vincent Price horror movies The Oblong Box and Cry of the Banshee– does an admirable job as well and he could rely on a fantastically devoted cast, including Bruce Davison as the uncrowned leader of the bunch, David Patrick Kelly as the eloquent and provocative Legionnaire and Jay O. Sanders as the big & dumb kamikaze freak Tiny. David Carradine is sublimely nefarious as the power-hungry Colonel Von Weisshägen; complete with his glasses for one eye only to make him look extra evil. Oliver Reed receives top billing but only makes a cameo appearance during the hectic and extremely cool climax. The role, however, is perfect for him and he gives his absolute everything in only five lines of dialog.'-- Coventry



the entire film



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The Girl in the Swing (1989)
'Gordon Hessler first made a name for himself as a producer of Alfred Hitchcock's TV series in the 1960s, and later, as a director of several interesting (if not entirely satisfying) British horror films of the late '60s and early '70s. The Girl in a Swing is not a good movie, but it is so ambitious in its strangeness that it cannot routinely be dismissed. Among the many curious decisions connected with this European film is the choice of Meg Tilly, an American actress, for the leading role -- a young German woman who speaks English with an almost-impenetrable accent. Twenty years ago, the great director Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M) hailed Hessler's Scream and Scream Again as one of the outstanding suspense films of the '60s, largely because he was impressed with the political subtext of what was otherwise a stock, modern horror movie. Movie buffs have been waiting for Hessler to live up to Lang`s praise since. The Girl in a Swing brings him closer than anything else he has made. That probably isn't enough to satisfy a mainstream audience, but it`s enough to warrant that the film not be totally ignored. Hessler has emerged from a long stretch of obscurity with The Girl in a Swing, a bizarre, almost hypnotically fascinating study of sexual obsession.'-- collaged



Trailer


Excerpt




*

p.s. Hey. ** Bill, Hi, B. Aw, awesome, thanks, so glad you dug it. Wow, a lengthy stay there in Copenhagen. You liking the place? I liked it a fair amount that one time I was there. Click Festival, nice. I just checked the website, and it looks quite fantastic. Anything you're particularly looking forward to at Click? ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. Oh, you were saying goodbye, okay, I mean ... you should do what works and feels best for you, although of course I'll be sorry you're away. I hope all of your work and concentration goes as well as humanly possible, and, if the mood strikes, and if this place beckons in a positive way for you, please come back any time. Take good care. ** Scunnard, Hi, J! Uh, god knows where the post idea came from. I don't think Paris itself had anything to do with it? Some imagination tangent-meets-search engine spontaneous combustion event or something, I guess. You're going to LA! Sweet! Where are you staying, what are you planning to do there? That sounds really nice. I hear it's being unseasonably warm or rather hot there, thanks, I guess, to the good old powers of the fucked up climate, so you should get plenty of heat. I've been great, really really busy, but in a nothing but a great way. ** David Ehrenstein, Ha ha, perhaps so. ... meets David and Goliath? Oh, that bookstore has a dreamy selection of books, you should check it out, and, duh, you should get over here for goodness sake. Yeah, the Antarctic horrible news. That melting ice shelf is not so far south of where Zac and I were on our recent Antarctica voyage. ** Sypha, I remember seeing that Roger Dean image on ... an album cover, I guess? It's one of his most pedo lite, ha ha. There's never a cogent argument against blurbs, is there? I think it's a 'well, it certainly can't hurt' thing. Poetry, interesting. You going to share those somewhere at some point? I'm definitely curious to see what happens to your mighty talent inside that size of housing. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. That's a great Friedman piece. He's done 'micro' a fair amount. Like this notorious one, for instance. I read about that 'Frank' film a while back. I hoped it was going to be an homage, one of those things that would lead to wider appreciation of the inspiration. Shit, if it isn't. You can do a Frank Sidebottom post for the blog, you betcha. It would be awesome! ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul. Oh, yeah, Japan is a king of that, huh, true. Thanks, yes, the scrapbook defacement thing was a big shock, and I'm, as you can imagine, extremely unhappy about it. ** Schlix, Hi, Uli! Welcome back! Holy wow, 9 Bresson films in kind of a row? Envy. You saw Datashock! Was it good? I'd really like to see that. And Melt Banana as a two-piece, which is hard for me to imagine. Why only two of them? Did the others quit or get fired or something? I'm doing fine. I hope you're doing fine too! ** Schoolboyerrors, Hi, D. Yeah, understood about the self-observation. It's a good thing to do in preparation for when you find what you want and it does that overwhelming thing that makes a true separation of yourself from the effect so impossible. In, well, my experience. It'll be cool, I'm sure. Right, yeah, I resisted reposting the Martin and Munoz snow globes again, although it was hard, loving them and craving the possession of one of them as I do. With love back. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. You live in the Waldorf Astoria?! Oh, wait, Waldorf period. right. Any relationship there? Definitely a different David Williams. The twin one didn't seem very bad ass. In fact, he seemed good ass, if you catch my drift. Pollen-central here too, but mitigated by the fact that it has barely stopped raining here for a week and a half straight. Silver lining. ** Keaton, You think gross when you think gay? Don't let Mr. E. know that, ha ha. Outta jail?! What?! You're being metaphoric or something or something else, no? I thought your Will Wheaten penis reference was connected to the 'micro' thing there for a minute. Apparently not. Not 'micro', someone told me. ** Will C., You sound really good, man. That's so awesome. And, yeah, your writing's stride is particularly good news. Writing is such a moody thing. It can make writers so codependent. Or me anyway. I haven't even seen an ad for 'Breaking Bad'. TV has become my weakest point since I've been over here. I'm missing the entire 'quality TV' revolution in the US or whatever people think it is. I'll catch up with 'BB' one of these months. ** Kier, Agent Kier! Ha ha, oh, I think talking to a worm is the coolest thing ever. I'm going to try it today. The ground here in Paris is soaked from a week-plus of rain into a wormy mulch, so that shouldn't be hard. Yesterday? Zac and I met with two of the performers we want in our film, and they both said yes, so we're very happy. And we met with our casting director and had a sobering but useful discussion. And I wrote some emails, which is not a small thing considering my terribleness with that form. And I worked on my novel a bit. And I bought some Japanese/French pastries as a gift for someone. And ... I can't remember what else. What did you do today? Tell me, please. ** That's it. So, a reader of this blog wrote me an email and asked or maybe more like dared me to do one of my filmmaker posts about Gordon Hessler, a minor (I think, I don't know) director of mostly horror-ish movies, and so I did it, as you see, and I hope Nathan Bartholomew is happy with the results, and, you know, I hope you are too. See you tomorrow.

'Orchid Tapes is a online + cassette tape-based record label founded in Toronto (now based in Brooklyn) and run by Warren Hildebrand and Brian Vu, two friends with an shared interest in the creation and curation of music and artwork that breaks free of the established norm, disregards trends, reflects the dedication of it’s creator and provokes a strong emotional resonance within whoever experiences it.

'The overall goal of Orchid Tapes is to share and explore music that reflects these ideals with those who are willing and able to listen, and also to unite and expose like-minded artists from all over the world under a collective-style label. Many of the other early bands signed to the label met Hildebrand through MySpace. According to Hildebrand, "It felt good meeting a group of other sad weirdos that recorded music from home that I felt like I genuinely connected with, even through something as seemingly alienating as the Internet."

'Orchid Tapes was first founded in 2010 by Hildebrand, while he was attending an art university in Toronto, Ontario. He had first started putting the idea for a label together in 2009, and had picked the name Orchid Tapes partly after a song by the band Deerhunter, called "Tape Hiss Orchid." According to Hildebrand, "I was really inspired by all the little cassette labels that were popping up on different blogs around that time. It seemed like a really cheap and easy way to get music out into the world beyond just the proliferation of mp3s."

'He founded Orchid Tapes while living in his apartment in downtown Toronto and working on the debut album of his solo project, Foxes in Fiction. Hildebrand had started Foxes in Fiction in April 2005 while still in high school, and began to take the project more seriously in 2008, while inspired by artists such as Brian Eno and Atlas Sound.

'For most of the label's lifespan, Hildebrand would dub each cassette tape on his stereo tape deck, a several-day process he was still using after the 20th release. Finally in the fall of 2013, he purchased a cassette duplicator for the label. According to No Fear of Pop in 2013, "Orchid Tapes embodies the D.I.Y. aesthetic that has implanted itself on the internet. Digital downloads are always free and cassette prices are reasonable, and the quality of music is so good that it entices intrigued listeners to search through the rest of the catalog."'-- collaged



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Further

Orchid Tapes
Orchid Tapes blog
Orchid Tapes @ Bandcamp
Orchid Tapes @ Facebook
Orchid Tapes @ SoundCloud
'Briefly Touching: An Orchid Tapes compendium'
'Top 10 Orchid Tapes songs you can download for free'
Warren Hildebrand interviewed @ Interview Magazine
'MONDAY MIX: ORCHID TAPES'
'Label Spotlight: Brooklyn's Orchid Tapes'
Orchid Tapes @ The Vinyl Collective Forum
Foxes in Fiction site
Orchid Tapes @ Instagram



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Gallery

























_________
Some OT artists

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Foxes in Fiction



'Foxes in Fiction is Warren Hildebrand, an experimental pop and ambient musician based out of New York (formerly Toronto) who has been recording different genres of music in various locations under this name since the age of 15. After the sudden death of his 16-year-old brother, Warren found peace through music, and so he became inspired to take on a new musical direction. Foxes in Fiction has a way of creating music that is not only beautiful but therapeutic. Foxes in Fiction create soundscapes to comfort and heal, experimenting with elements of pop, compositional looping effects and ambient sound waves. In times of distress, listen to any of Warren Hildebrand’s material and you will surely clear away some of the cloudiness that once clogged your vision.'-- collaged



'Bathurst'


'Static Cults'



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Elvis Depressedly



'For the better part of the last five years, South Carolina's Mat Cothran has plied his trade under the name Coma Cinema. Over four albums under that Joy Division-referencing moniker, Cothran has explored the limits of moody, downtrodden songwriting. For Cothran, it's just as important to be able to laugh into the void. That much is evident even in the name of his onetime side project, Elvis Depressedly. Though his work under the Depressedly banner is largely simpler and shorter than his album-length statements as Coma Cinema, these full-band efforts have illustrated the full breadth and depth of his songwriting repertoire.'-- Interview Magazine



'Goner Mickey yr a fuck up'


'Weird Honey'



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Ricky Eat Acid



'Ricky Eat Acid is Sam Ray, a Maryland-based musician who has his hand in a few other projects and was booked to open a late-February New York City show by R&B aesthetes Rhye; wonderfully (and tellingly), a recent mix Ray made for The Fader consists mostly of scruffy, heart-on-sleeve indie guitar pop from bands like Go Sailor, Joanna Gruesome, and Rocketship. Though it takes his new album Three Love Songs until the eighth of 12 songs to reach its dying-real pinnacle—the LP title is a slight misnomer—how it gets there is a patient journey across nuanced, digital-meets-organic soundscapes, fraught with gnawing heartache and wistful reminiscence.'-- Pitchfork



'I can hear the heart breaking as one'


live @ Shea Stadium



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Infinity Crush



'The duo Infinity Crush is comprised of friends Caroline White and Dan Cordero; the two have a reputation of releasing seriously sad lo-fi songs. And by seriously sad, I really, really do mean heartbreaking in the most vulnerable way possible. White's voice is a patient coo but with lyrics like “lock the door and eat me out” there’s a sort of inherent sexual recoil present throughout. No matter how sincerely White might have meant these tracks, they’re so bare that any sincerity is obliterated in sparsity, resulting in five disorienting and haunting tracks that bely their less than ten minute running time in emotional weight. These sound like demos, no doubt, but they’re rewarding far beyond their fidelity and track closing clicks.'-- collaged



'Paper Dreams'


live @ 8908



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arrange



'Arrange, a.k.a. Malcom Lacey’s bedroom pop project, paints elegant sonic landscapes with broad strokes of grey skies and flickering highway lights. However, these words sound cheap when you listen to the richness that Lacey is able to conjure. He contrasts the instrumentals with distinctly un-dreamy and direct vocal work, plainly singing about the typical indie pop subjects without ever becoming overwrought. It’s actually pretty masterful. On tracks like “Home,” with its perfectly placed triumphant horns, he even manages to create the same lofty chamber pop sounds that Justin Vernon did on Bon Iver’s self-titled. Highly recommended.'-- collaged



'Dream'


'Medicine Man'



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Euphoria Again



'Produced by Mat Cochran of Elvis Depressedly and Coma Cinema fame, Euphoria Again is a sturdy and spirited collection of songs that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with any of the brilliant works that already make-up his back catalogue. It’s a shadowy and often gloomy trip, but also one that is both dependable and enlightening. You might not find any answers here but you’ll find a hell of a lot to love – and it would be rather unwise to ask for much more than that, don’t you think?'-- GoldFlakePaint



'Change'



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Home Alone



'I was in a band called Stacey Adams before Home Alone. The music was totally different, less pop and more grime, I guess. It was fun playing music in a band, my first live shows were played in that band and it taught me a lot. One thing that drove me nuts was recording. I didn’t know anything about recording and had no resources. I eventually started stockpiling gear and learning how to produce music. That was around the same time that I realized I really love creating by myself. I spent a year recording Teddybears & Weed and the entire process opened my eyes to the world of software, MIDI controllers, synths, sampler, and drum machines. They got my back and help me fulfill my musical vision.'-- Home Alone



'Wishful Sinking'


'Blunts' live @ Shea Stadium



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R.L. Kelly



'This project started to get all the sad, deranged, fucked up feelings outside of me. I was letting it rot inside me and I couldn’t take it anymore. I never have had any real confidence in making music on my own, so I haven’t really done it. I love collaborating though, and have been fortunate to do it with my best friends. I guess I needed something different. I didn’t want to even release this stuff it’s just so personal and I can’t listen to it because it makes me sad all over, the rotting just comes back. If I can get it out and if other people dig it then, damn, heck ya. All my friends inspired/inspire me to turn the ugliness inside of me into something else.'-- R.L. Kelly



'Life's a Bummer'


'Everything's Cool'



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Coma Cinema



'All of Coma Cinema’s stuff is recorded on a shoestring budget. Around age 15, Cothran started recording simple guitar songs on a Dictaphone recorder and eventually graduated to late-‘90s digital equipment. But he continues to work exclusively in his now-empty childhood home—a space in the woodsy loneliness of the nearby Glendale—where he plans to record forever. “It’s in the middle of this super scary old mill town—there used to be a mill there but it burned down. I grew up hearing crazy stories about that place. My grandparents used to tell me there were demons there and stuff,” he says. “Even if I move to Nebraska or something, I’d probably come back to record there. It’s sort of become the official studio.”'-- Paste



'Satan Made a Mansion'


'Her Sinking Sun'



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HAPPY TRENDY



'Die Young, the third release by HAPPY TRENDY (Dylan Khotin-Foote, of Kumon Plaza fame) represents a huge growth in the sonic pallet and pop understanding that Khotin-Foote has already demonstrated through his previous releases. Gone are the lo-fi signifiers that initially drew comparisons to other toy-synthpop musicians like Casiotone for The Painfully Alone. In their place stands a lineup of songs that retain the warmth and intimacy that HAPPY TRENDY is known for but also with the benefit of more complex structures, a wider range of sounds, and sharper production than on anything Khotin-Foote has released through any of his projects.'-- Orchid Tapes



'January 6'


'Spirit Week'



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Alex G



'It’s a very good time to be an Alex G. fan (or an Alex G.) right now. The Temple English major may be young, but he’s got a firm, if lofty, five-or-so year plan laid out ahead of him. Alex G. the recording name of 21-year old Havertown native Alexander Gianascoli, has been serving up the emotionally rich, lyrically mature, and sonically lush since 2010. It's striking just how much he does himself, even under the DIY label. Or more accurately, how good it sounds considering. This is truly bedroom pop, his bunk bed barely feet away from his makeshift studio.His recording set-up is essentially his desk and a dinky microphone hooked up to his MacBook . Much of his recording is a multi-"studio" affair, scrambling around the neighborhood to record each Garageband track. "I’ll record my guitar here, then go to my girlfriend’s house — they have a drum kit in the basement and a keyboard — and I’ll record some stuff there and finish up from [my house]. I just go to where the instruments are."'-- phillymag.com



'Dust'


'after ur gone'



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Interview
from No Fear of Pop




When and where did the idea of Orchid Tapes first begin and how did it evolve into becoming an actual label?

Warren Hildebrand: Orchid Tapes was first conceptualized in late 2009 right after I moved out for the first time and into a small apartment in downtown Toronto, I had already released a few tapes as Foxes in Fiction while living at my Mom’s house in the suburbs but I hadn’t put them out under any kind of name or anything. In February 2010 I released Swung from The Branches and it was kind of the official kick-off for Orchid Tapes existing. For the first few chapters of it’s life it really felt more like a pet project than an actual legitimate label, it took bringing Brian Vu onboard with the label and getting to know some really talented musician friends to really bring it into it’s current incarnation.

How has OT changed in growth since the first few releases?

WH: Orchid Tapes today is almost completely different than when it was when I first started it. In the beginning I didn’t really know too many musicians who had much interest in releasing things on a brand new label (this was right after Arcade Sound Ltd. had been revealed to be a scam label so there was an understandable amount of apprehension hanging around a lot of people that I associated with). Also, a lot of the early releases I did were really amazing, but I don’t think there was much of the sense of cohesion or togetherness that defines the label these days. I would basically just say ‘yes’ to anyone who asked to do a release, and got turned down by 95% of the people I would ask to put out a tape.

Even just in terms of resources, there’s a lot more available to now; for the first 20 releases I would dub every single cassette tape on my stereo tape deck, which would literally take days and days to finish. It wasn’t until last fall that I got a proper cassette duplicator. Also, since moving to New York it’s become a lot easier to get things like blank tapes, j-cards and other goodies that we use to put our packages together. And there’s two of us now, which is great!

How have you found most of the artists you release on OT? Internet relationships, shows, through friends?

WH: Most of the releases we’ve done have been the product of internet relationships. Thankfully we’ve all met and hung out in real life a bunch of times now but I had become internet friends with people like Mat (Elvis Depressedly / Coma Cinema), Rachel (RL Kelly) and Dylan (HAPPY TRENDY) long before we ever made any plans for them to release music on Orchid Tapes, but that’s been a really nice thing, and it’s made doing releases a lot more fun and easy going since everything’s discussed and arranged just as a friends. I also met Tom of Home Alone after he started dating my best friend Amanda, and I met Dan of Four Visions, who we’re working on a release for right now, at a show we both played in Brooklyn.

Having seen two out of the three OT showcases, it has been so impressive to witness how cohesive and moving they have been, especially to the community here in Brooklyn. Were the showcases relatively easy to organize?

WH: Aw thanks! Honestly, we had no idea how the first one was going to turn out and it was a total shock to see that many people show up and have there be such feeling of positivity. It’s all really thanks to all the bands and musicians who travelled from so far away to come and play, and to the fans who travelled just as equal amounts of distances to come and see us do our thing. There was a lot of organization that went into planning each one, but it definitely wasn’t as much as I thought it would be; we’ve been really lucky with the spaces and organizers that we’ve worked with who’ve helped to make everything a lot easier for us.



_________
Compilation

'“Can you see it’s bloom?” It’s a mindful foundation for Orchid Tapes’ Boring Ecstasy compilation to begin with a question, one oh so relevant to both the Springtime currently taking root and the nature of its internalized conversation. Over the last four years, beyond nurturing a family of musicians to bring the world a stream of life affirming sounds, label organizers Warren Hildebrand and Brian Vu have developed a universe in which the personalities of their contributors and appreciators can exist within. Less business more friendship, Orchid Tapes has created a social economy of genuine interaction and a love for alternative forms of communication. To ask of the label is to ask of ourselves, and that’s a startlingly beautiful relationship absent in much of today’s music landscape.

'Beginning with Warren’s own Swung From the Branches and present throughout the entire Orchid catalogue, there is a total sincerity that extends itself as a loving embrace. For every R.L. Kelly, Ricky Eat Acid or Happy Trendy release there is a diasporic community of bodies and feelings waiting to share a life. For every Home Alone or Arrange track to surface online there are a handful of hobbyist songwriters inspired to share their own homespun recordings. Alone, any of these tape deck treasures could have slipped into the uniform depths of Bandcamp but through the loving vehicle that Orchid Tapes has always been and ever grows into we Orchidians bear our tapes, teas, and handwritten thank you notes as badges in support of an honest and independent music distribution process. There is no mystification in a transparent partnership, and in 2014 that’s exactly what we need.'-- NFoP





Tracks

1. Ricky Eat Acid - Can You See It's Bloom 02:46
2. Alex G - Cards 02:37
3. R.L. Kelly - Everything's Cool 02:23
4. The Sweater I Gave You - Nobody's Baby 01:57
5. Four Visions - Hazy Past 04:15
6. Home Alone - Catching Hours 03:41
7. Julia Brown - Without You 02:39
8. Infinity Crush - Spoiled 02:28
9. Elvis Depressedly - N.M.S.S. (Amy's Demo Tape) 02:21
10. HAPPY TRENDY - Spirit Week 02:25
11. Yohuna - Badges 03:49
12. Foxes in Fiction - Rearrange 03:21
13. Euphoria Again - Change 02:14
14. MEISHI SMILE - Sincerity 03:42




*

p.s. Hey. Just a brief preamble to say that I'm really happy to launch this post today because not only is Orchid Tapes a fantastic label, but its co-mastermind and the guy behind the wonderful music project Foxes in Fiction, Warren Hildebrand, used to be a regular commenter here some years back before his label and FiF blew up, and it's always really heartening to me when someone from around here does so deservedly great. ** Keaton, Hey. That saying 'te gay' or sometimes 'teh gay' is so weird to me. I wonder how that came about. Scenes have a way of getting old pretty much always, whatever their ...bent? Okay, mum's the word about your (censored). Archaic language is kind of making a literary comeback amongst the newest and brightest. So I say nail that. ** Kier, Hi, K! Holy wow, those Melt Banana drawings are crazy great! The band should license them for t-shirts, record covers, patches, merch in general. Super deep bow to you, maestro. Everyone, Kier, a most incredible artist if there ever was one, has made some stunning drawings of the great band Melt Banana, and, if I were into requirements, I would use that power to force your finger on to this connective link. And, while you were at that, I'd further employ my dictatorial powers to hook you up with two more Kier drawings that are superb and not Melt Banana related and located here and here. Really beautiful, pal! Cool that the session was a good one, and, yeah, a tough one since I guess that's part of the turf of a good one, right? You have a great morning or whenever too. Bunches of love! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. Right, 'Scream and Scream Again' is terrific. Yeah, minor, major, those terms are so short-sighted. Michael Gothard does deserve a DC's Day, you're right. Huh. I'll go see if I can find enough of his stuff to make it work, thank you. And, yes, as you can imagine, I'm over the moon excited that Malick has finally finished his legendary film. Wow. ** Lee, Howdy, Lee. Oh, your thesis, right, that makes sense. Dude, if you're happy and excited about it, I mean, say no more. I trust your instincts, and your mega-talent is a long-since established fact. Okay, I'll get on trying to find and read that Frances Yates book in some form as soon as this afternoon. You rule. ** Sypha, I'm pretty sure that the reason I recognized that Dean illustration is because it was on some Yes album that some Yes-loving fellow teenaged friend had on show back in the day. Cool, I hope that 'might' re: posting your poems someday becomes a 'must'. ** Bill, Hi, B. Relaxing is good. I can sort of remember what that felt like. Dude, use some of that relaxation to go to Tivoli Gardens and ride The Flying Trunk. It's a stellar manifestation of that sort of theme park ride, and it was kind of the inspirational nugget behind Zac's and my in-progress Scandinavia book. I'll go look at Robert Henke's site and find those videos, cool, thank you! ** _Black_Acrylic, Friday is a mere hop, skip, and a jump away. Maybe even sans the 'skip'. Very cool. ** Steevee, Hi. Mm, I guess I find all the auditioning exhausting mentally 'cos of the concentration involved, but it's kind of a joy too to get to interact with strangers in an organized way. We haven't had them simulate sex, and we've only had some of them get naked briefly. Three scenes in our film require actual onscreen real sex, and we're not going to make them enact that until the shooting. We're just seeking reassurance and confidence that they will and can do it. Glad that you have another audition day scheduled. Wow, curious to hear about that one-man Serge Daney show. Never heard of that before. What a curious project. Even in France, it's hard to imagine that being more than a limited audience kind of attraction. Anyway, yeah, very interested to hear your report. ** Misanthrope, Maryland is famous for that? It must be the East Coast version of LA's famous 'devil winds', and, man, they are the devil. That is a most peculiar thing you did in the middle of the night there, yes. Drive fucking carefully, man. Not that that near incident was your fault, obviously. Well, let's just say the timing on your visit could hardly be worse on my end. Nonetheless, at the moment, and this could easily change, Zac and I have intensive rehearsals with the actors on the 26th and 27th. On the 29th, we have to set up the scene/shooting, i.e. put in the decor, arrange the lighting, and so on. Then we shoot the scene on the 30th and 31st. So, the window is a very narrow one. But hold on just a little, if you can, because the exact schedule is clarifying quickly. ** Will C., Hey, Will! It seems like people I know in the States who have admirable brains and tastes talk more about TV these days than, well, about movies and even maybe more than about music. It's strange and interesting from afar. There's no corresponding TV revolution in France, unless you count all the American shows 'of quality' that are hogging the schedules here now. Yeah, sad about Giger. In an accidentally fall, no less. Ugh. Great day to you! ** Rewritedept, Hi. Your working on writing and, of course, on blog days is really good news. I was thinking more that you're my David Brenner, no? Cute animal pictures and things on Facebook freak me out. I know it's just some weird prejudice on my part, but when people put cute animal stuff into the FB the feed, it's kind of like a super-lightweight, benign version of them announcing they're Republicans or something. Which is way too harshly put. My day was good, heavily film-oriented, as usual. Just figuring things out and trying to figure things out, organizing stuff, etc., etc. It was good. Today seems to be a relatively day-off maybe, and I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet. Hope your today is beautiful. ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. I completely understand about your reasons for needing to buckle down with your work and studies. I feel nothing but respect and total understanding about that, for sure. I do read your emails, they're just innocent victims of my seeming inability to write emails back to people except in cases of emergency. Thank you so much for the gifts you're going to send. That's very, very sweet of you! Okay, I won't open a way for you to comment via hospitality. I'm not sure how not to do that, though, ha ha. Very best wishes and respect and affection to you, my friend. ** Schlix, Hi, Uli! I haven't seen Melt Banana live in a relatively long time. But, as I've mentioned before, when I did, it was the loudest or at least the most painfully, damagingly loud gig I've ever seen, I think. Not that I didn't love it. I think, sadly, I need my hearing at the moment, so I'll keep my experiences of their current tour confined to iPhone youtube uploads. You quit your job, cool! Well, that sounds like a weird thing to say, but I do think it's very cool. No clear plan for the future is very good, or it can be. Great, pal! ** That's that. Do investigate Orchid Tapes and its roster and all that good stuff today, if you will. I really don't think you'll be sorry if you do. In any case, see you tomorrow.

_________________



primadonnawhore, 20
Bangkok

I'm not professional Gay. Actually I've some problem. But I have a lot of CUM, I'm like a bomb exploding.

SugarDaddy wanted. If you can't afford me do not ever ask me out. I don't like bad breath guys so go over it babes! Anyway I am femme.

I AM VERY DOWN TO EARTH
JUST NO ON THIS EARTH

Dicksize S, Cut
Position Bottom only
Kissing Consent
Fucking No entry
Oral No entry
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M Soft SM only
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 2000 Dollars
Rate night ask



____________________





sizzling_charm, 21
Lisbon

I Love to Fuck Your Mouth

Get Rich or Die Trying

I'm Looking at You

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position More top
Kissing Consent
Fucking Top only
Oral Top
Dirty WS only
Fisting Active
S&M Soft SM only
Client age Users younger than 99
Rate hour 100 Euros
Rate night 400 Euros



___________________




DavidDeca, 18
Zürich

Hello

Im young gay boy from Anywhere. But I live in Prague. Im planing go to Swizerland next week. Parents just kick me from home ,that.i have oné week to move.I hear your country is so beautifull .so I need to buy a ticket, that I may come to you. The ticket price of 100 euros. Somebody want také care of me ? i am open to bareback, and chemicals. I promise to make you all proud...thanks.

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Yes
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty No entry
Fisting Active / passive
S&M No entry
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Skater, Rubber, Underwear, Skins & Punks, Boots, Lycra, Uniform, Formal dress, Techno & Raver, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Drag, Worker
Client age Users between 18 and 50
Rate hour 100 Euros
Rate night 100 Euros



______________________






Nick18Hamburg, 18
Hamburg

Hy my name is sam i have big cock i want money bicos i want bike and samsung note2 and bicos u need laid

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Consent
Fucking More top
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M No
Fetish Sportsgear, Skater, Techno & Raver
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 100 Euros
Rate night 350 Euros



____________________




TWINK94, 19
Milan

IN BEAUTIFUL FACE, A VERY BED
Initially, my voice
Do not ask for the moon, but
perhaps to see each other regularly

Looking for the particular ... ?
If I am ok, I will be ready
For your heaven, STAY CALM
So let me tell you what I believ ...

You will not find a smooth ass like mine, anywhere in Milan or in Italy for that matter

Dicksize No entry, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Consent
Fucking More top
Oral No entry
Dirty WS only
Fisting Active
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Skater, Rubber, Underwear, Skins & Punks, Boots, Lycra, Uniform, Formal dress, Techno & Raver, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Drag, Worker
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 100 Euros
Rate night 500 Euros



_____________________





harddrillass, 18
Budapest

open your eyes

Dicksize No entry, Uncut
Position No entry
Kissing No entry
Fucking No entry
Oral No entry
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M No entry
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



______________________



FreewayUnicorn, 18
Colorado Springs

Screw everyone----To anyone who reads this: life is short and so is your penis---- I'm Ashton. My life is boring. I play video games a lot and love to fuck. Fucking is my hobby. I'm on Xbox Live add me---GoReCubes ---I'm not here to find love. I need fucks because i have none. I want money because i'm cute and deserve it. If you're broke don't ask me. I love bands. ._. My top 10 are: Rings of Saturn, Bullet for my Valentine, Infant Annihilator, Immolation, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Slipknot, Of Mice & Men, Skip the Foreplay, Brain Drill. (Not in order. i don't know the order) I love alcohol! Don't fuck with that love. Ill kill you.I honestly love alcohol. It's the only something that can make me smile. My best friend is Ethan aka xXbloodyhandsXx. He helps me with a lot of things. He's a whore too. i love you bro (no homo).-. I take dick better than FaZeclan does trickshots. I'm weird and awkward. I'm not telling you my life story. Just be my fuck. Please? No ok-----life is short and so is your penis (ha you read it again) btw I'm 15.....i think

Dicksize M, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing Yes
Fucking More bottom
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting Active
S&M Soft SM only
Client age Users between 18 and 35
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



______________________



sealedpain, 22
Helsinki

hi i create this account... i dont like girls anymore since i've been broken hearted for someone ilove most, i'm not a gay, i am a boy... i'm not handsome like other person, i only need someone who hold me when i'im lonely.

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing Consent
Fucking Top only
Oral No
Dirty No
Fisting Active / passive
S&M Yes
Fetish Sportsgear, Underwear, Lycra, Formal dress, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 4 Dollars
Rate night 7 Dollars



______________________








beautyimpossible, 20
Stockholm

Hello, how u doin'? Hopefully everything goes well and you have lots of pennies haha. just yoking. My nik name is 'TONGUE MASSAGER' given by my partners. That's why i'm all that. Want to have some fun with me? Fucking PERFEKT. Lets ask for permission to my manager.

Dicksize M, Cut
Position Bottom only
Kissing Yes
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Sportsgear, Skater, Underwear, Skins & Punks, Uniform, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 100 Euros
Rate night 300 Euros



_____________________






aleksey2014, 20
Moscow

I am extremely polite, and I like to lough. My sexual skills arren't great but I am working on it with you all. I don't have a big dick and being passive doesn't do I need one. I am not a six-pack boy. I use poppers and I can bare sex only for a certunn amount and I do not speak German. Suggest what else I could tell here!

Dicksize M, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Yes
Fucking Bottom
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting No
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Skater, Underwear, Boots, Lycra, Uniform, Formal dress, Techno & Raver, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Worker
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 150 Euros
Rate night 600 Euros



______________________





Lukas_Frey, 21
Prague

I think you all know me, and you know I needs much money, and you know you'll never want anyone else in sex is like on a show. Please let anyone known who I am.

Dicksize XL, Cut
Position Versatile
Kissing Yes
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting Active
S&M Soft SM only
Client age Users older than 30
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



______________________



ticklingbrussels, 23
Brussels

MALE FEET RENT

I am here to show you and give you pleasure by renting my handsome 42 european size feet. FEET ONLY ( LICKING, MASSAGE, TICKLING, BASTIANDO, WAX, DOMINATION, ECT... )

total body tickle torture possible for 100euros/h

Dicksize No entry, Cut
Position No entry
Kissing No entry
Fucking No entry
Oral No entry
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Sneakers & Socks
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 70 Euros
Rate night ask



______________________





nick_isntmy_name, 23
Istanbul

JUST ASK ME.
maybe uhhmm
.Hi I'm just want to find my love one for long time relationship.
AGE,DISTANCE,WEIGHT,HEIGHT is just a damn number.
age is doesn't matter.
you think your one.. drop me.
thank you. I like all guys seriously, thank you..

Dicksize S, Cut
Position More top
Kissing Consent
Fucking Versatile
Oral No entry
Dirty No
Fisting Active
S&M No entry
Fetish Sportsgear, Rubber, Underwear, Skins & Punks, Lycra, Uniform, Formal dress, Techno & Raver, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Worker
Client age Users older than 18
Rate hour 500 Dollars
Rate night ask



________________________



PRETTYBOYZZ, 20
Stockholm

What can I say about me...? I am a bad boy, the one who likes to make you feel hopeless --- gives me pleasure to watch you enjoy to feel the good pain and the very bad pain --- I will make you suffer (in a good way).

Before you judge me and see the negative in me specially in whatever you see in my profile think 1st if your totally flawless and so damn a person of good virtue and good attitude!

I am a natural leader, and people respect me. I tend to have a lot of power over people. Generally, I use my powers for good. I excel at solving other people's problems. Occasionally, I do get a little selfish and persuade people to do things that are only in my interest.

HOBBIES
Watching informative shows on tv.

DISLIKES
Self righteous people, selfish, discriminating people, judgmental, people who think their smarter than anyone and knows everything in this worlds, don’t accept defeat when it befalls to them and people who think they can rule the world because of their looks if you got some of these attitude you absolutely sucks!

Meet. Pay. Fuck. In that order.

Dicksize L, Cut
Position More top
Kissing No entry
Fucking No entry
Oral No entry
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M No entry
Fetish Underwear
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



_______________________





nicecocklover, 24
Moscow

lets talk about us .
just tell me and we talk about it
then i show you .

whats in here ?
just curious...............
explore the other side of the world .

lets come together and be happy again .

Dicksize XL, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing Consent
Fucking No
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Sportsgear, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Worker
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 80 Dollars
Rate night ask



______________________




blondparisien75, 19
Paris

Hey man* one look at me 19 years
I study philosophy.
Mouth also able to talk to suck.

* You Learn
J.L.Borges

After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position Top only
Kissing Consent
Fucking Top only
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Sportsgear, Skater, Underwear, Formal dress, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



_____________________



BEAUTIFULWILLIAM, 22
Laredo

i am just looking for someone to be my first time in terms of same sex

i am not sure but i love to experience having sex in a very yummy gay or guy

ILL FUCK YOU BUT DONT FUCK ME

Dicksize M, Cut
Position Versatile
Kissing Yes
Fucking No entry
Oral No entry
Dirty No
Fisting No entry
S&M No entry
Fetish Underwear
Client age Users between 18 and 38
Rate hour 20 Dollars
Rate night 50 Dollars



_____________________





Nabokovfan2, 21
Fréjus

Just for easter!

If you did not get enough ass for your big dick just tell me and you will get mine!

As long as you want, as hard as you want!

IF SOMEONE PAY ME I WILL MAKE HIM THE HAPPIEST MAN IN THE WORLD Im virgin and I need help now for this!

Take my ass!

Dicksize M, Uncut
Position Bottom only
Kissing Consent
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Versatile
Dirty Yes
Fisting Active
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Skater, Rubber, Underwear, Skins & Punks, Boots, Lycra, Uniform, Formal dress, Techno & Raver, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Worker
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 20 Euros
Rate night ask



_____________________



GoWithYou, 20
Liverpool

I have a boy who is looking for a fuck.

Apart from having a.... passion I guess, for having rough,lumberjack type of men slap or choke him he's a pretty downright average sort of fellow I suppose.

Oh wait... he is very cute and likes money I suppose.

Not sex where one person wants to wreck another, but he enjoys putting up a small struggle, something similar to that scene in The Fountainhead between Dominique and Roark.

Dicksize S, Uncut
Position Bottom only
Kissing Consent
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting Passive
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Formal dress, Jeans, Drag
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 35 Pounds
Rate night 100 Pounds



______________________



Former-Mormon, 19
Salt Lake City

Being bisexual is not a sin,Its just a matter of choice.
A matter of choice between life and death,
and its so sad that
sometimes some people around me don't easily understand that being a gay
is a part of being bisexual sometimes,
and im doing that for FUN,just to break the ice.
Im still having a CRUSH or FALLING IN LOVE with a girl
but if you be friend and fun, I be bottom.

Dicksize No entry, Cut
Position Versatile
Kissing Consent
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Sportsgear, Skater, Underwear, Uniform
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 500 Dollars
Rate night 3000 Dollars



______________________



SilverStorm, 18
Prague

Mail me if you like drunkn, stoned btms to fuck.

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Consent
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M No
Client age Users younger than 36
Rate hour 80 Euros
Rate night ask




*

p.s. Hey. Those of you who've been visiting this blog for a while might remember that we used to do these 'Self-Portrait Day' posts where you commenters and silent viewers were asked to contribute to the blog in a kind of mass way based on an assigned theme. I stopped doing the SPDs a year or so ago for various reasons. But I got an idea for one recently, and I thought I would try the idea out and see if enough of you are game. So, you see that escorts post up there, right? And you might remember a short while back where I posted some stray escort photos in a Varioso post that I had collected but not used in the proper escorts posts because the accompanying ad texts weren't interesting enough. I have a whole bunch of them. Here's my idea: I would like you guys to devise escort ad texts for the the stray photos. If you're interested and willing, I would send you an escort photo via email. You would then devise/invent an accompanying promo text for the guy in the photo. You would make a fictional escort, basically. I would ask you to use/parrot the regular format as seen above (name, age, location, profile text, and the statistics), but you could do whatever you like with the text and other elements of the format itself. That's the idea. Okay, so who's game? If enough of you want to do this and participate, we'll do the SPD. If you comment here and if I already have your email address, you can just indicate in your comment either today or tomorrow that you're willing. If you view this blog silently and don't comment here, or if you comment here but have never sent me an email, send me a email either today or tomorrow if you want to participate. You can just write 'yes' in the email if you like. My email address is: dcooperweb@gmail.com. If enough of you say yes to make for a healthy-sized post, it'll happen, and I will then send you said escort photo by email in the next few days. Cool? Cool. Let me know. Thanks. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. I do know and very much love Kenward's 'Orchid Stories', yes. It doesn't surprise me that gay bashing spiked in France last year. The legalization of same-sex marriage caused French religious extremists and the far right to really lose their shit for a while. There are terrified, dumb, intolerant assholes everywhere, even here. It should be said that, before the marriage issue roused violent nuts, incidents of gay bashing in France were very rare, so the spike started from a very low place. I think things have settled somewhat on that front this year over here. It seems like it has anyway. ** Keaton, I've never heard anyone actually say 'teh gay' aloud, as far as I know. It seems like a text thing. Recommend a good ghost story, if you don't mind. 'Writing is time-traveling': that is really nice. Nice one, man. Beautiful. Dude! ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Good, I'm really glad that you guys are sorting out the text amount issue in your favor. Huh, weak attendance? I'm really surprised by that. Seriously, Downtown people are resistant to traveling up to Times Square to see it? That is utterly bizarre. I would think it's an awesome excuse to go up there. Is adventurousness that dead in Downtown? That is grim, if so. Sorry, man. That's ridiculous. I will ask Gisele about theater possibilities for your piece. There are a few festivals in which it would fit beautifully. In fact, I think I'll see the guy who curates performances at the Pompidou tonight, and I'll alert him, and I'm sure he'll be curious about it, so I can send him links and stuff, at least to begin with. So great about the reading. I saw a sweet pic of you and Lynne on FB today. Orchid Tapes is highly recommended. I'm really into what they do and virtually all of the music they put out. The novel is inching along at the moment due to the film project's interference, but I'm at least working a little on it every day. Yury's fashion line is progressing very well. I think he'll be ready to launch it this summer, or I know that's his plan. ** Steevee, Hi. Interesting about the Daney theater piece's run here. I'll see if anyone I know saw it. I hope the trip to see your parents and get some dentistry in goes really well. Ah, great, your James Gray interview! I'm excited to read it. Everyone, Steevee aka Steve Erickson interviewed the film director James Gray very recently, and their back-and-forth is no doubt fascinating, guaranteed, so do yourself the favor of clicking this and reading the conversation. ** Warren Hildebrand, Warren! Hooray! Oh, man, doing the post was absolutely nothing but a huge pleasure and honor. I've been thrillingly absorbed by and in love with Orchid Tapes for quite a while now, and it's so great to get to celebrate it and to get to give you my mega-respect 'in person'. Really, I literally love every single thing OT has released, which is kind of unbelievable. So, yeah, such strong kudos to you, man, and thank you so much, and it's really, really nice to get to talk to you. Take care, and all the very, very best to you! ** Sypha, Hi, James. It's true about prog's poor aging, or at least the bigger midstream groups. Some of the more 'out there' bands who got lumped into the prog category rightly or wrongly like, oh, Magma, Amon Duul, Henry Cow, and others still sound fresh, but the big name bands do sound very 'then'. The days when people wanted to build religions around Rick Wakeman are long, long gone. Misa's eyes seem like a good pair of eyes to run your poems by first, yeah. I didn't know that Kiddiepunk is doing your cover, Well, that guarantees greatness, very cool! I can see you in front of a stained glass window, or I would like to. ** _Black_Acrylic, Alan Parsons Project, wow, I haven't thought about them in a long, cobwebbed time. ** Schoolboyerrors. Hi! Yeah, OT is great. Great music, and a really great project overall and in every way, I think. That's an interesting celebration event you attended there, huh, yeah. What a curious trio. That theater adaptation does look inherently interesting at a glance. I'll give that page a more detailed look in a bit. Thank you, man! Oh, hm, I really don't know why Dodie changed the letter's attribution. Aesthetic reasons due to internal interlinking structural stuff, I would imagine. She made a lot of changes and revisions and cuts along the way. There are some really great letters she didn't include. I keep hoping she'll do a Mina Harker leftovers book or chapbook one of these days. Have a swell day! ** Misanthrope, Always smoke standing up when you're sleepy. That's a golden rule. Off the top of my head and tentatively, the 28th would be the day because I think on the 29th we'll be setting up the shooting location. I promise I'll tell you more as soon as things clarify, which should be soon. I would invite you to watch the filming, but we're imposing a strict no visitors or crew members who aren't absolutely necessary rule to give the performers as much privacy and comfort as possible. There's no full-fledged hardcore sex in that particular scene, but there's a lot of nudity and 'sexual' activity going on. I think we'll be able to sort it, G., and I'm sorry not to be able to be clear on the dates quite yet. ** Rewritedept, Hey. I'm not nostalgic for cassettes at all, I just really like cassettes. I like the way they sound and operate and all of that. I think liking the cassette format is not necessarily nostalgia-based. Or not in my case, and definitely not in Orchid Tapes's case. It's a cool, unique way to house, present, and experience music. I'm am very busy, but I'm not neglecting the novel. It's just doing its best in the margins at the moment, but I'm still all over it. Cool, I can't count the times I've written something inspired by porn I wish existed. Not that I've published a whole lot of that writing, ha ha. Well, some of it, for sure. Yesterday was an almost day-off for me. It was pleasant. Today it's back full-board into the film project and then seeing a dance piece tonight, a revamp of 'Rite of Spring' co-featuring the awesome Jonathan Schatz who's one of the stars of Gisele's and my 'This Is How You Will Disappear'. That's my foreseeable day. You have a great one. ** Right. There are your escorts for the month. Please do consider being an escort inventor as described at the top of the p.s. for the benefit of a Self-Portrait Day post, and let me know if you're into it. Thanks. See you tomorrow.

'A leading Russian Constructivist artist, graphic, and costume and set designer Varvara Stepanova was best known for her textile and clothing designs and, like her husband Alexander Rodchenko and Vladimir Tatlin, became committed to utilitarian designs geared to social needs and economic mass production.

'After studying at the School of Fine Arts in Kazan from 1910 to 1911 she moved to Moscow where she studied at the Stroganoff School of Applied Art from 1913 to 1914. After working with avant‐garde abstract forms she was, from 1920, an active member of Inhuk (the Institute of Artistic Culture) which had been established in 1920. In the following year, with her husband Rodchenko and others, she became involved with Productivism—the mass‐production of industrial and applied art.

'She designed utilitarian workers' clothing, strongly coloured, geometrically patterned sportswear, and theatre costumes and sets, such as that for The Death of Tarelkin produced by Meyerhold in Moscow in 1922. She also taught at the Moscow Vkhutemas and, in the mid‐1920s, produced many designs for mass‐produced cotton textiles often characterized by flat, coloured abstract patterns.

'In the same period she contributed to a number of avant‐garde periodicals such as LEF (1923–5) and Novy LEF (1927) and increasingly devoted her attention to book and periodical design, often in conjunction with her husband Rodchenko, with whom she collaborated closely on photographic albums in the 1930s. After the Second World War she worked on the periodical the Soviet Woman (1945–6). She died in Moscow in 1958.'-- collaged



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Portrait gallery














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Further

Varvara Stepanova @ Wikipedia
VS @ MoMA
VS @ Monoskop
Stepanova's 'The Results of the First Five-Year Plan', 1932
'Badass Lady Creatives [in History]: Varvara Stepanova
'The short life of the equal woman'
Book: 'Varvara Stepanova: The Complete Work'
The Russian Fashion Blog: 'Constructivism in Russia in the 1920s'
'Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova Heritage'
Toot as in foot.: Varvara Stepanova
'Adventures in Feministory: Stepanova and Popova'
'Varvara Stepanova: Standing Ovation, Seated
Russian Avant-garde Gallery Forum: Varvara Stepanova



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Dangerous Art: From Varvara Stepanova to Pussy Riot





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Program of the First Working Group of Constructivists (Excerpt)
Varvara Stepanova & Alexander Rodchenko




The Group of Constructivists has set itself the task of finding the communistic expression of material structures.
    In approaching its task the group insists on the need to synthesize the ideological aspect with the formal for the real transference of laboratory work on to the rails of practical activity.
    Therefore, at the time of its establishment, the group's program in its ideological aspect pointed out that:
    1) Our sole ideology is scientific communism based on the theory of historical materialism.
    2) The theoretical interpretation and assimilation of the experience of Soviet construction must impel the group to turn away from experimental activity `removed from life' towards real experimentation.
    3) In order to master the creation of practical structures in a really scientific and disciplined way the Constructivists have established three disciplines: Tectonics, Faktura and Construction.
        A) Tectonics or the tectonic style is tempered and formed on the one hand from the properties of communism and on the other from the expedient use of industrial material.
        B) Faktura is the organic state of the worked material or the resulting new state of its organism. Therefore, the group considers that faktura is material consciously worked and expediently used, without hampering the construction or restricting the tectonics.
        C) Construction should be understood as the organizational function of Constructivism.

    If tectonics comprises the relationship between the ideological and the formal which gives unity to the practical design, and faktura is the material, the Construction reveals the very process of that structuring.
    In this way the third discipline is the discipline of the realization of the design through the use of the worked material.
    The Material. The material as substance or matter. Its investigation and industrial application, properties and significance. Furthermore, time, space, volume, plane, color , line and light are also material for the Constructivists, without which they cannot construct material structures.

The Immediate Tasks Of The Group
    1) In the ideological sphere:
        To prove theoretically and practically the incompatibility of aesthetic activity with the functions of intellectual and material production. The real participation of intellectual and material production as an equal element in the creation of communist culture.
     2) In the practical sphere:
        • To publish a statement. To publish a weekly paper, VIP [Vestnik Intellektual'nogo Proizvodstva; The Herald of Intellectual Production].
        • To print brochures and leaflets on questions relating to the activities of the group.
        • To construct designs. To organize exhibitions. To establish links with all the Production
Boards and Centres of that unified Soviet machine which in fact practically shapes and produces the emergent forms of the communist way of life.

3) In the agitational sphere:
    i) The Group declares uncompromising war on art.
    ii) It asserts that the artistic culture of the past is unacceptable for the communistic forms of
Constructivist structures.



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Graphic Design

'Though too often under-represented in its history, women were central to Constructivism in Russia. Varvara Stepanova designed some of the period’s most arresting graphics for posters and publications, working alongside her husband, Alexander Rodchenko. Collage played a key role in the development of the movement’s style, allowing for a mix of clean typography, active figures and engaging faces cut from photos, and thrusting geometric forms emblematic of the relentless march of Communism. Even in non-propaganda work, Stepanova’s shrewd ability to evoke motion on a static page shines.'-- NC A&T


























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Textiles

'Stepanova carried out her ideal of engaging with industrial production in 1922 when she, with Lyubov Popova, became designer of textiles at the Tsindel (the First State Textile Factory) near Moscow, and in 1924 became professor of textile design at the Vkhutemas (Higher Technical Artistic Studios) while continuing typography, book design and contributing to the magazine LEF. As a constructivist, Stepanova not only transposed bold graphic designs onto her fabrics, but also focused heavily on their production. Stepanova only worked a little over a year at The First Textile Printing Factory, but she designed more than 150 fabric designs in 1924. Although she was inspired to develop new types of fabric, the current technology restricted her to printed patterns on monotone surfaces. By her own artistic choice, she also limited her color palette to one or two dyes. Although she only used triangles, circles, squares, and lines, Stepanova superimposed these geometric forms onto one another to create a dynamic, multi-dimensional design.'-- collaged




































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Clothing

'In 1921, Stepanova moved almost exclusively into the realm of production, in which she felt her designs could achieve their broadest impact in aiding the development of the Soviet society. Russian Constructivist clothing represented the destabilization of the oppressive, elite aesthetics of the past and, instead, reflected utilitarian functionality and production. Gender and class distinctions gave way to functional, geometric clothing. In line with this objective, Stepanova sought to free the body in her designs, emphasizing clothing’s functional rather than decorative qualities. Stepanova deeply believed clothing must be looked at in action. Unlike the aristocratic clothing that she felt sacrificed physical freedom for aesthetics, Stepanova dedicated herself to designing clothing for particular fields and occupational settings in such a way that the object’s construction evinced its function. In addition, she sought to develop expedient means of clothing production through simple designs and strategic, economic use of fabrics.'-- collaged
























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Gaust Chaba

'Stepanova spent the 1910s studying at various art schools and working as a bookkeeper and secretary to make a living, all the while experimenting with abstract art forms. Her earliest notable body of work is her zaum’ (“transrational”) poetry, an approach spearheaded by the Futurist poets. Gaust Chaba, considered the masterpiece of Stepanova’s Visual Poetry series, is book of collaged paper and colored crayon and gouache text on found newspaper leaves.'-- collaged

















*

p.s. Hey. So, by my count, I have 14 yeses for the faux-escort SPD. That's probably enough to go ahead and do it, but it would definitely be great to have more participants. Everyone, whether you're a silent viewer of this blog or a commenter, I invite/urge you to participate in the upcoming Self-Portrait Day post. See the explanation/description at the top of yesterday's p.s. If you'd like to take part, let me know by tonight in your time zone via a comment or an email (dcooperweb@gmail.com). Thank you! For those who've already volunteered, I will send you your escort photo(s), a sample form, and your deadline via email tomorrow (Saturday). ** Rigby, Rigs! Another Stockholm syndrome victim. Understandable, by the way. No, I'm a screenwriter now. My friend Zac is the director now. I always wear my baseball cap sideways. ** Keaton, I think it's a written thing exclusively, but, hey, it's not like I hang out in crowds of flippant gay guys very often if ever. Yeah, it was a good escort batch, right? The post was like a great flash fiction anthology. Oh, Bierce, yes, I always forget about him. Gotcha. I'll find a thing by him somewhere. Thank you, and I copied and pasted your specific recommendations into a TextEdit file which I will send to my phone somehow for easy pickins in future bookstore ventures. And thanks, obviously, for ponying up for the SPD. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. Oh, is the SPD an ambitious assignment? Yeah, maybe, I can see that. Oops, oh well. I know you could compose a consummate one if the mood to do so strikes you. ** Dom Lyne, Hi, Dom! Thanks for agreeing to do the escort thing. Yeah, I got your email, and, as lucky timing would have it, I'll get to launch the intro book post on your official pub date, i.e. next Thursday, the 22nd. Thank you! And, yes, your book arrived this very morning! Thank you a million for that. Excited! ** Sypha, Thanks for doing the SPD, pal. Well, it was either let Misa on the set, which would require using some of our precious budget money to buy and suit him up with a straight-jacket and ball-gag, or deny him entrance. For financial reasons only, I had to make the hard choice. The cover sounds beautiful! I'll get Kp to show it to me asap. Man, Rebel Satori is so fucking fast, if that happens. I don't think I've ever had a novel that I turned in to a publisher get released in less than a year's time. ** Steevee, Hi. Well, I think he was being ironic, and he is '15...I think' years-old, and, in any case, I say 'I love you bro (no homo)' to my non-gay and even gay friends quite frequently. The phrase has a nice combination of colorfulness, a slightly disconcerting comedic vibe, and an efficiency without the dullness and predictability that normally come with efficiency. No fun indeed on the dentist thing. Demand awesome drugs at least, obviously. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. I told the Pompidou guy I had a recommendation and that I would email him with a link, etc. So, we'll see what happens, and I'll do my best. I hope that last performance with your attendance in tow was maybe even the best one? Would be nice. I am a fan of 'Fire Walk with Me'. I wasn't so into the first, what, 20 minutes of it. I definitely, definitely want to see the new version. Yeah, exciting. Safe trip home. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Cool, thanks about the SPD. Studio Jamming looks like a really interesting project and event, and your YnY proposal sounds unsurprisingly awesome. Hope the progress was made! ** Bill, Nothing's not to like in that case. Gracias for the SPD involvement. Thanks for the Henke link. I didn't get to see his site yesterday, but today's free-ish enough, and thank you! Oops on missing/skipping Current 93. Seems like you've made the right choice, though. ** Flit, Flit! No problem on the space. I've been jonesing to space out. Not for more than maybe an hour or so 'cos I like the busy thing, mind you. I might get to today. Yes, thank you, re: your SPD agreement! Do I have your email address? I totally agree with you about that particular text. I think that one was the crown for me. I'm meshed. Are you? You had a mesh-outshooting vibe. ** Lee, Hi, Lee. Way cool about you doing the SPD. Sweetness and light aka thank you! ** Schoolboyerrors, And you're up for the SPD! The blog is scoring all over the place. Thank you, man! I agree with you re: your Kraus/Dodie comparison big time. I can't even imagine referring to her as Bellamy. Which of course makes it something imperative to do. Hm, I'll try that in a comment on one of her FB status updates and see what happens. I bet it'll freak her out. Could be fun. I ... wait, do I know the O'Hara and Ashbery 'EoE' thing? I thought I did, but I don't think I do. Can you tell me, just in case? Do you mind? I'm a billion percent in on New York school trivia nerd trolling. Are you a frequenter of this. I so am. With love back. ** Schlix, Hi, Uli! I think it depends on the size of your bank account and the degree to which you're wiling to proportion it towards happiness and how both honest and sanely self-reflexive that escort is. Thank you re: the SPD! I'll send you the escort photo on Saturday, hoping that will give you enough time. I think I have your email address, don't I? Cool, I hope I'll get to see  Datashock, or I hope I'll know when they're playing here in Paris next time because I seem to miss everything due to Paris's lack of a decent information site about local gigs and their scheduling. I haven't heard the Klara Lewis album. I'm sure Peter R. will give me one at some point, but I'll go dip into what I can find in the meantime. ** Misanthrope, The golden rule when considering escorts as a financial investment is to decide they look like they look in their least flattering photo, in my experience, which admittedly is kind of antique. Sort of. Maybe. Like I told Sypha, we don't have the straightjacket and ball-gag necessary to allow you safely onto our set in our budget. And before you offer to spring for them yourself, no. Ha ha. Oh, it's a serious endeavor all right. We're even barring our producer from the set except in one instance where he insisted, and, even then, either he brings along a straitjacket and ball-gag, or we're barring the door. News on my possible free day as soon as I have it, which should be very soon. Yuck, traffic, yuck, I'm from LA, high five, yuck. And thank you for the SPD agreement, bud. ** Rewritedept, Thanks for saying yes to the SPD. I think I'm going to choose the escort photos and corresponding assignees by the old eeny-meeny-miney-mo method. I think every porn scenario at this point is inherently a standard porn scenario that's being subverted. That genre has been everywhere. My day was good. Things got done. Another guy we really want for a particular role in our film said yes. I remember thinking "Chasing Amy' was absolutely god awful, but I am not, repeat not a Kevin Smith fan. The 'Rite of Spring' thing was in two parts. The first part, which was an 'experimental''Rite of Spring' dance piece, might well be the worst thing I have ever seen in my life. The second part, which was a exacting recreation of the original 'Rite of Spring' dance piece, was really fun. Never saw 'Weeds'. Heard of it. Rock Friday, man! ** Right. Check out my humble overview thing on the wonderful Varvara Stepanova, thank you. Consider saying yes to the SPD: Escort post proposal and letting me know by one of the two methods mentioned above by tonight, thank you. See you on Saturday aka tomorrow.

Preface











Chapter 1

















Chapter 2



















Chapter 3















Chapter 4









Chapter 5















Chapter 6









Chapter 7















Chapter 8



















Chapter 9














Chapter 10











Chapter 11














Chapter 12















Chapter 13















Afterword










*

p.s. Hey. Those of you who said yes to the Escort SPD will be receiving your escort photo(s), template, and deadline via email today. Thanks a lot! ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Thanks a lot re: the post. Yeah, she was/is something. It's okay about the SPD, of course, and thanks for wanting to. **
_Black_Acrylic, Cool, thanks, Ben. Argh about the delay, but, yeah, I know from personal experience that the time things take is out of control, which is even kind of educational in an interesting way if you think of time's flakiness as a collaborator. The Sugimoto stuff at the Palais de Tokyo is definitely on my agenda. Thanks. ** Dom Lyne, Thank you so much again. Very cool about getting to see at least a preview of Marc's photos of you and your b'friend. I'll go check them out asap. Everyone, the fine photographer Marc Vallee has shot a sequence of images featuring the fine writer, d.l., and much more Dom Lyne and his boyfriend Christopher Rudd-Perry, and you can see some of them really, really easily by clicking this. ** Keaton, I have a bead on some Bierce already. You must be very Apollonian. Makes total sense. Your and everyone's escort is being chosen via a game of chance, so good luck. Who or what was in the concert hall? I mean on the stage? Or in the audience, if you prefer? ** Schoolboyerrors, Thanks a bunch, D-ster. I'm going to steal that pun. Or accept the offer of it gracefully. His blog's great. No, I haven't read his book. I don't think I even knew he had one. Wow, your description, brief though it may have been, has turned my eyes into a microscope and it into the cure for cancer. That is a great EoE/Ashbery/O'Hara story, and, no, I didn't know it, and not just because I'm a calf in clover re: anything New York School related. Thank you, kindest of sirs. Have such a knock out weekend! ** Steevee, Cool about the drugs. See, there's a silver lining to ... well, I was going to say everything, but we all know that's not true. I haven't heard the new Tune-Yards album, I've never been all that interested by what I've hear of theirs to this point in time, but I will test the new stuff out. Yeah, the 'no homo' thing has been co-opted and made subversive by at least certain happen-to-be-gay folks I know, including myself, not that I know myself, mind you. ** Daniel Portland, Daniel! The great and mighty Daniel! Thank you ever so much for joining the SPD brigade. I think I have your email address, right? If you've changed it since you last wrote to me, can you send me an update? Are you good? ** Kier, Hi, K! Why were the turnips so long ignored? I mean, I don't like turnips, so I kind of understand, but someone planted them, right? Or do they grow wild even on farms? Anyway, that sounds a little yucky. The herding doesn't, though. Wow, I want to herd sheep someday. It's messy? Then I especially want to do that someday. Do you work the farm on the weekends too, or do you get those days off? I guess farms are eternally in need of care, right? Oh, okay, that's cool about sitting out the SPD. It is kind of a tough assignment. I kind of didn't realize that when I thought it up because I'm so used to reading escort ads or something. I was in Oslo on National Day of Norway last year! People dressed up in these archaic looking costumes and walked around the city all day. It was very weird. My day? Let's see, oh, Zac and Gisele and I are going to see two experimental theater pieces. They're both by this theater collective called Rimini Protokoll. We're seeing this one at 5 pm, and then this one at 8:30. The first one is kind of a research field-trip for the film Zac and I are writing for Gisele to direct since it involves moving around in a labyrinthine structure. The second one is for curiosity. That plus some work and hanging out is my day. How was yours? Did you do the beer plus films combo? What films, if so? ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Jorgen Haugen Sorenson's work looks very intriguing and tempting, so I'll do a full investigation, thank you, pal! I think you're seeing that piece tonight? Have fun, if so. ** David Ehrenstein, Morning, mister. ** Schlix, Hi, Uli! Peter Roehr: no, I don't ... think I know his work. I'll go find out if I do or not. Thank you a lot. Hope you find your escort inspiring. Have a very excellent weekend. ** Misanthrope, Antiques still make sense in some cases. Maybe not in a ton of cases, but I'm all about the future, so what do I know? Leo D. is kind of strange looking in person. Not bad strange. But photographs usually make his giant Mojave desert cheeks and forehead scrunch up in a way that is perhaps more aesthetically sound. Her clothes designs aren't ugly. You crazy. Zac is the films's director. I am its co-screenwriter with Zac. Michael Salerno is its cameraman and co-cinematographer with Zac. The names of the lighting person, sound person, make-up artist, and art director would mean nothing to you, and to me too, in a way, since I'm only going to meet them for the first time tomorrow. Oh, have I ever mentioned the film's title here before? Maybe not. The film is called 'Like Cattle Towards Glow'. ** Aaron Mirkin, Hi, Aaron! Really great to see you! Thanks a lot about the post's nourishment in your regard. That makes me happy. I've been ridiculously busy too, so I dig and take a high-five. Your Xiu Xiu video is now watchable! Awesome! I'll watch that the very millisecond after I launch this here post. Everyone, Aaron Mirkin, filmmaker extraordinaire, has directed a brand spanking new music video for the very great Xiu Xiu! It's for the very beautiful song 'New Life Immigration'. This is big! Go watch the video right now or very, very soon. Do that without breaking a sweat or taxing your internet abilities whatsoever by pressing on this. Congrats to you and even more to Jamie! Very exciting! Have the best weekend you can manage! ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Bleah about your return trip's elongated time shit. No prob on the SPD, I understand. I'm on the 'DotRC' case, and, yes, that NYT Times will not hurt the case one little bit, so I'll get that to the guy pronto. Everyone, I think you know about 'Dream of the Red Chamber', the sleep requesting and enhancing theater work authored by our own Chilly Jay Chill. right? The New York Times has now given its big stamp of approval to the work, and, if you don't believe me, prepare to be rendered wrongly skeptical. Thanks, Jeff. All's well here, and I trust the same is true with you. ** Kyler, Hi, K. Thanks for venturing a comment. Proof correction is fun. They're cool to let you make actual changes at that stage. Mine usually arrive with the caveat that I am only allowed to fix typos. Hooray for French people! Fuck everyone who is anti-French people! Excited to see the stuff you're putting together for July 8th. Crazy days are often the best days of all. Definitely not always, but frequently enough. I'll be filmmaking on your pub date, but I wish I could fly over. I know Josie Woods Pub, or I think I do, or I mean I think I've walked by it any number of times, or I mean I think I did back when I lived just south of there on 12th Street between 3rd and 2nd. ** Okay. I made that horror novella adaptation thing up there for Zac, but, since I'm posting it here, I obviously made it for you too. It's not an exclusivist kind of thing. I don't think the magical ingredient will work on you however, although I have no idea if I'm a butterfingered gif-utilizing magician or not, so who knows about that? I think that's the story. Have good weekends, and I'll see you again come Monday.

_______________
BuzztheFuzzify School
'I love the sound of roundwounds clacking violently against the frets! FUCKING RAGE!!! Best part of playin music!'






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Weatherwax Aneurysm
'Weatherwax put heart and soul into every performance, at Witney’s Fat Lil’s along with music festivals and charity gigs across Oxfordshire and beyond. The band’s YouTube channel – Nirvanakiduk – has had nearly half a million views. Channel 4’s Alex Zane said: “Rock has a future, my friends, and they are called Weatherwax!”'






__________________
Jay Houck Territorial Pissing
'Kurt Cobain was the John Lennon of the 90's.'






__________________
Ukrainian Nirvana Smells Like Teen Spirit
'Ukrainian 19 year-old guitarist Roman Bulakhov's progressive rock/fusion Nirvana tribute band.'






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Weird Suckers Breed
'Un cover de la canción Breed de Nirvana por Weird Suckers.'






_________________
Dee Dee Ramone Negative Creep
'Dee Dee Ramone, a former member of the well-known punk group The Ramones, covered the song "Negative Creep" on the 2001 Nirvana tribute Smells Like Bleach: A Punk Tribute to Nirvana.'






__________________
Nonsense Something in the Way
'Something in the Way (In Version) by Nonsense. A cover of Nirvana's Something in the Way. Nonsense is Shaun Kelly and Devin Edward. We are not the Nirvana tribute band Nonsense, we just have the same name. kind of a weird coincidence, as i only found out about them from uploading this video.'






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Little Jimi Hendrix Polly
'All u gotta do now is let him use his fingers on the frets and let his imagination go wild.'






________________
We Made God Something in the Way
'In february we had a rehearsal at a mexican restaurant. We decided to play around a bit and here is a song you might recognise. First take, not played it in a few years..'






______________
fishenelmar On a Plain
'This song, All Apologies and some others are tuned a half step down with drop D... also called drop C#. Try playing your guitar along in E flat and you'll hear a disonance, then tune it half step down and the disonance will be gone. Or maybe you won't be able to tell the difference, in that case go ask a more experimented musician to help you understand the difference.'






_______
CN13 Polly
'NirvanaのPollyを耳コピ自己アレンジしてみました。'






________________
Антон Плоходько Smells Like Teen Spirit
'Записывал с 1 раза. Гитара Schecter C-1 SGR, комбоусилитель Marshall Mg 50 CFX.'






__________
Heaven Drain You
'Scentless_Apprentice: You guys live in Germany? Mike Griffioen: No man Netherlands ;) Representation: He even has a Jagstang! TheX-RatedKiwi: fuck yeah this guy has it. Mike Griffioen: haha thank you ;) Berke Tufan: I wish you a better crowd to play, you deserve it. Angover102: why so fast? are you late for something? Noah Hendley: Wow amazing!!! Angela Garcia: ovaries explode. PunkFuckinRock: the cover of break on through sucked but damn... the vocalist really sounded like kurt and the whole cover was really amazing. well done guys. גרמן סיניצין‎: Presenting you, The Kurt Cobains! Tyrone Gotswagg: HEELLL YEAH. TheShittyGuitar: Nothing like Nirvana covers and bouncy castles! Kelsey Epic: i think i love you'






_________________
Mathieu Come As You Are
'Mathieu plays a drum cover of Nirvana, Come as you are. Mathieu 9 years old (03/2011), Music by Nirvana Copyright EMI Publishing, on Roland TD12KX with snare PD125XS.'






_________________
Real Nirvana Heart Shaped Box
'We are Real Nirvana.... a nirvana tribute band from the west midlands.'






_____________
minamiryusuke Blew
'miyavi cover of nirvana by me. C# tuning. i don't remeber this video have 4 years. sorry =Xx. i don't have a tab sorry.'






___________________
The Toxic Muffin Smells Like Teen Spirit
'Brooklyn kid rock band "THE TOXIC MUFFIN" performs during an outdoor Father's Day Event in front of some of the proudest parents in Brooklyn.'






_________________
Exothermic Weirdo Rape Me
'we are a grunge band from Florida called "Exothermic Weird" (originally called "Head in Hands" but didnt dig the name too much). Ryan-Rhythm guitar and Lead Vocals. Dylan-Lead guitar. Tristan-Bass.'






___________
Strayed Old Age
'Hey all.. This is... uhm... yeah... Me and my bass player Lee decided (randomly) to try and cover Old Age by Nirvana with... limited success... Anyways, this is completely unedited footage wise and completely live... apologies for the weird aspect ratio... I sincerely hope you enjoyed. :)'






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Aftershock Breed
'Kid rock band ages 11 to 13 at Suzy's in Hermosa Beach on March 18, 2012. Jane on vocals, Evan on guitar, Sage on guitar, Ben on bass, and Justin on drums.'






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Ambrož Pušnik You Know You're Right
'Še en cover... Tudi bobne sem sam posnel in kasneje dodal zvok. Na kakšen mestu bodo mogoče zveneli čudno, ker sem malček zajebal ritem kitare, ki sem jo posnel najprej in sem zato moral bobne prilagoditi kitari. Ampak nima veze...'






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CoraYako Heart Shaped Box
'Un cover de Nirvana. Disfruten, comenten y critiquen.'






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Pangea In Bloom
'Pangea- getting all KURT on a packed Halloween crowd!!!'






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Austin Malone Messin around on guitar
'Song I wrote & mixed in "about a girl" by nirvana.'






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The Tomato Paste Brigade Polly
'Dylan Berg and Evan Thomas bring the house down with their cover of Polly by Nirvana. Pardon the first 2-3min of gibberish.'







*

p.s. Hey. So, here's the last nudge from me to those of you who are doing the Escort Self-Portrait Day thing. Please send me your entries by tomorrow morning in your time zone. Meaning, I guess, before noon tomorrow wherever you are. Thanks a lot! ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Thanks, and I hope Francis is glad and is okay with my humble attempt. I sent you an inspiring escort?  Cool. Thank the wheel of chance operations. The Henke piece sounds super interesting in your description. He'll be at IRCAM? I'll definitely try to see that. I think the 11th is a non-filming day, so I think I probably can. I have seen/heart Tarik Barri's work, or a little of it, and quite probably thanks to that sampler of yours. You're back in Berlin. Are you getting all this rain, rain, rain we're getting? ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. That's an interestingly wending connection: head hair fetish to Ezra Miller. And why not? ** Jeffrey Coleman, Hi, Jeff! I have, I think, three locks of hair stored away in my LA pad. All from people I knew and wanted that particular souvenir from for reasons I don't remember but were probably love-based or for amorous reasons. I am looking into CJ Bradbury Robinson. I was hoping for some extensive online excerpting or something, but it seems I might have to spring for the CD-rom eventually. I do know about Cabell McLean. He was a friend of a friend of mine who talked about him with great frequency. Have I read his writing? Hm, I'm not sure if I have. Maybe a sample or two. I will definitely pick up that book of his, that's for sure. Thank you so much, Jeff! Rob Hardin, wow. He's a Facebook friend so I see his occasional updates. You probably know he was a student of mine way back in the 80s when I briefly taught a writing workshop at St. Marks Poetry Project. I haven't seen new writing by him in ages. New stuff by him would be a boon. ** Douglas Payne, Hi, Douglas, welcome, and thank you a lot for commenting. Yeah, I have some hair of an ex- or two, or of a hoped for pre-ex- maybe, I can't remember. A well known and great experimental writer whom I know and who shall remain nameless just in case used to collect pubic hairs he found in public restrooms for a long time. I don't know if he still does, but he had a sizable collection. He had this intricate, fascinating criteria for why certain pubes made the grade or not that I don't remember. Cool, thanks, and do return whenever the mood strikes, please. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. I remember when I was first going silver. And them it seemed like, boom, overnight or something, I was totally silver. How strange that is: the life-span of the hair root. Yeah, I mean is there anyone in the world who thinks McCartney or Jagger would have completely brown hair in their ... what, 70s? I know it happens on rare occasions, but ... Not to mention that the color of their is far more more reminiscent of the color of Nutella than of any brown hair realistically produced by the human head. ** Kier, Thanks, buddy! Ha ha, that is too bad. I mean that you can't give those teeth to Satan. Teeth are like Satan doggie treats or something, I think I heard. You are so correct that it's high, high time for you to have a website and for us to have a website filled with you and yours. That's exciting! Link us up the very second it's ready. Well, as close to the very second as your schedule allows, I mean. I haven't seen 'Only God Forgives' yet. I do want to. My day was ... uh, coffee with a friend, a lot of negotiating about film locations, none of them leading to success yet. Writing. Emails. Texting, phoning. Rain, lots of it. Oh, I went to get a chocolate or candy as a gift for someone from this legendary, really great Paris chocolatier called A l'Etoile d'Or run by this really eccentric older woman with long blonde pigtails and crazy energy, and when I got there, there was a sign saying she died and the place was boarded up. That was really sad. It was a great shop, and she was a total trip. I ended up going later on to another chocolatier and buying the same someone this cool confection that is a little box of chocolates designed and sculpted to look like a make-up kit with an edible, chocolate brush and everything. So those were the only colorful things I did. How was Wednesday? What was the highlight? ** Torn porter, Hi, T. Thanks, man. Yeah, the hair collecting thing is weird, right? Cool, I will be curious to hear your 'Situation Rooms' take. Oh, when you first go into the area where you will embark on the journey, you need to tell them that you want the English language version -- if you do want it, I mean -- because the whole game of the piece happens on an iPad that you carry around with you, and you'll need to clearly understand what it tells you to do. For the first scene, we need a particular kind of apartment. Zac knows what kind of apartment he needs precisely. I haven't seen the Bill Viola show because I really don't like his work, but I'll probably go at some point if I have nothing else to do just out of vague curiosity. The Self-Portrait thing involves people who read or comment here and who volunteered to create a fictional escort ad using a photo of a real escort that I sent to them. And, yeah, I think it's too late to start now, sadly, 'cos it's due tomorrow morning and also because I ran out of escort photos. No big, though. Maybe I'll do a slave one if the escort one turns out okay. Peace out, T. ** Aaron Mirkin, Hi, Aaron. Wow, what an incredibly interesting sounding documentary. You still happy with it? Is it seeable by the likes of me? I still haven't watched that mash-up. I just drilled a mental note to do that today into my own head. Your work and Swans seems like the veritable match made in heaven. I did get some free time, thank you. An hour here and there. Thanks for the wish to help us. Yeah, you know more fully well than us by a long shot what a complicated thing filmmaking is, but we're getting closer to being ready, and hopefully the last few outstanding confusions will demystify and get practical and accomplished in the next few days. So kind of you to offer to help. If there's anything, I'll let you know, and, yeah, thank you very much. What are you working on right now? ** Keaton, Hi, K. I think there is voice activated internet, isn't there? Hm, maybe not. Weird. Yury might be able to hook you up with hair-styling if that desire sticks, but I think you have to go to school first and get a degree or something. Cotton candy blue hair-color is definitely a Pavlov's dog kind of thing. Got your escort thing, thanks, pal. Did you write? ** Steevee, Hey. Well, nothing ever breaks down into clear categories, that's for sure. A lot of people objectifying him as a sex object are also not in their teens. I had a brief intensive interest in the backlash and did some studying of it, and the number of people out there who went nuts with hatred for him who declared that he should be raped as punishment was quite high, possibly even more than 50%. The people in their teens who are objectifying him are just more open about it, and their objectifications tend to be a lot less sadistic, from what I've seen. I think you're right, obviously, that his privileged position is irksome and fuel to people too. But, again, that's not really about him personally. And the 'deport him' thing is just nationalist and ugly. Oh, yeah, the lawsuit brought by DSK, as he's known over here, is big French news. French laws are much more rigid about what constitutes character defamation than American laws are. I don't know where the suit will play out, but if it's in France, he could win that one. ** Rewritedept, Hi. 50's country stuff is pretty good, or can be, yeah. I think the great majority of the great girl group stuff happened in the early to mid-60s. I think they should add a definition to the word 'reportedly' in the next edition of the dictionary or whatever to the effect that it's a word that should produce great skepticism. No, still no location yet. Now they're saying hopefully by Friday. It had better be by Friday, that's for sure. ** Misanthrope, Um, well, err, good for you re: how to employ Styles' hair snippet in a practical way, although shoving hair up your butt sounds, I don't know, less orgasmically helpful than mildly irritating, but what do I know? The Elvis and Biebz locks look like pubes? Uh, sure, buddy, whatever you say, ha ha. ** Robert-nyc, Hi, Robert! Me too. I had that reaction about a number of the locks. Like ... Walt Whitman was a platinum blond?! I know what you mean. In some cases, and ... let's take James Dean as a random example, I mean ... did someone snip that off his dead head or raid his barber's floor? The sellers never seem to say how they got them. I would think that would be, I don't know, an important issue? So glad you said 'hello, how are you'? What's going on? ** Sypha, Hi. I think maybe in the history of your and George's imaginations, but, otherwise, I would think the day that Biebz isn't referenced in some way on or inside this blog would be the historically important one. Ha ha, okay, that hair flip thing was pretty nice, okay, thank you. I think people are cool with plot holes when they're inadvertently funny. Or when they're in Japanese films and can be seen as having been based on 'foreign' mistakes or strategies a la the old 'Godzilla' movies. I haven't seen the new 'Godzilla' yet, but, I mean, the humans don't have to be boring in action movies. Boring human characters is not why those films work. And when there's 160 million dollars available to get an interesting script and nuanced performances, I can see why boring characters would just be boring and why people might complain. But I haven't the movie yet. ** Done. Let's see ... oh, 24 Nirvana covers. Some of them are kind of really great, albeit not for the reasons intended in certain cases, and having nothing to do with the value of the songs themselves, in many cases. And some of them make the songs shine. And some of the interpretations are awesome, and some of them are weird, and some of them are bad in a very interesting way, and so on. That's my opinion. What's yours? All hail Weatherwax, and I'll see you tomorrow.