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Elevator, a short story (for Zac)

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p.s. Hey. So, I totally fucked up. I thought I had set my alarm last night, but I guess I didn't, and I just woke up, and I have to be in the editing room working on Zac's and my film very shortly, and, unfortunately, today's p.s. will be the fatal victim of my mess. Well, not fatal because I will do double duty on Monday and interact with both the comments from yesterday and the ones from this weekend then. But I'm really, really sorry for the delay. Shit. Suckage. Instead, you just get a top heavy post featuring a new animated gif short story of mine, which I hope you'll like to some degree or another. Okay, one more apology from me, and I will see you, very wordily, I promise, on Monday. **


Gig #68: Elias Bender Rønnenfelt

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Vår In Your Arms
'It's incredible what a name change can do. For most band's it's mostly due to avoid confusion or legal problems, but other's use it to completely 180 your previous perception of them. Case in point with VÅR, formally WAR, the evil and dark synth project friends Loke and Elias (both leaders of the Polish Danish hardcore/post-hardcore scene), except now I don't know how evil they are anymore. Sure "In Your Arms (Final Fantasy)" still has the same dark and murky synths and melodic static that shaped their previous tunes, but now Elias' vocals have been ramped up in the mix, no longer just another instrument but a force within the song. There's something very beautiful in his very simplistic lyrics of just wanting to be with someone he loves, repeating the song title over and over again.'-- The Creative Intersection






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Marching Church Throughout the Borders
'Elias Bender Ronnenfelt already has the electronic-leaning Var, and now he’s formed the new protopunk and calamitous side-project Marching Church. The band’s new release, “Throughout The Borders,” is spooky minimal goth a la Death In June. It's a 7″ on Danish punk label Posh Isolation, which is run by Loke Rahbek who coincidentally is also in VAR. “Throughout the Borders” is a bleak and pounding neofolk tale, where fires can’t even be lit because it’s too damn cold.'-- collaged






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Iceage You're Blessed live in Amsterdam
'Someone brought this noisy piece of magic to my attention yesterday, which seems to be pretty overlooked. I missed it myself on its January release this year on Dais Recs. The band is Iceage, and they’re a Danish quartet, embracing the sounds of post-punk, new wave, and noise all at once. Their latest album is New Brigade. “You’re Blessed” is easily one one of this album’s more accessible tracks. It’s fast, to the point, and it’s got a great hook as well. The band’s sloppy aesthetic catches up with them after the first hook, but it’s in a really endearing way, I promise. I love the sharp guitar tone here, too, and the vocals have just the right amount of reverb on ‘em–a little splashy, hell yeah.'-- The Needle Drop






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Elias Bender Ronnenfelt dancing and singing 1
'RETARDED BOY EXPRESSING HIS FEELINGS'-- hundemad58






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Vår live, 22.12.12
'VÅR performing live at Human Resources in Los Angeles for the Sound & Vision Festival presented by Chondritic Sound, Sacred Bones and Ascetic House.'-- dash o






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Amen Dunes Lonely Richard
'“Lonely Richard” feels like an ocean wave washing over you. The swirling guitars engulf you and a calculated repetition of snare-taps motion with an ebb and flow as Ice Age’s Elias Bender Ronnenfelt echoes from the distance. Ronnenfelt’s voice is a trick at times to even discern from the fuzz surrounding it, but he has a talent for molding himself to dissonance pristinely. It helps that Amen Dunes, or Damon McMahon, give him a truly serene vehicle by which to transport his lovely vocals. There is an underlying sadness to “Lonely Richard”, though. Elias illustrates a realm of half-assed friendships on the horizon and a loss of faith in love. Yet the song is at its deepest doldrums as he wails its deceptive chorus. “Have yourself a good time”, is repeated with such jarring passion it’s tough to imagine tears aren’t streaming from his eyes as this dejection is vocalized. “Lonely Richard” fades out to rumbling bass, wiry guitars and a hushed choir of “doo doo doo’s” as if to infer that even after all that previous strain: maybe a tune on your lips will allow enjoyment as this undertow sweeps you into the deep.'-- by-volume.com






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Iceage Morals
'Iceage have posted a new video for their song, "Morals." For the video, the band performed a new version of the song in the studio in Copenhagen. The original version of the song appears on their Matador Records debut, You're Nothing.'-- collaged






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Elias Bender Ronnenfelt on CHIC-A-GO-GO
'Chic-a-Go-Go is a public-access television cable television children's dance show that airs on Chicago Access Network Television (CAN-TV). The show bills itself as "Chicago's Dance Show for Kids of All Ages".'-- Wiki






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Pagan Youth live at Lades
'In addition to his duties and frontman of Iceage, Marching Church, and Var, Elias Ronnefelt plays drums in the abrasive hardcore Danish punk band Pagan Youth.'-- collaged






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Vår Pictures of Today / Victorial
'The textural disparity between Iceage and Vår — the two bands with which Elias Rønnenfelt is most immediately associated (he’s also in Marching Church) — is pretty vast: Iceage are all sharp angles and cold, hard surfaces; Vår are pillowy, cloudlike, warm, shapeless sounds contained by thin beats. Yet the two bands manage to convey similar feelings: isolation, discomfort, tension.'-- Stereogum






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Iceage How Many
'Only a few years removed from their air-tight post-punk debut, Iceage are now breathing deeper. After "The Lord's Favorite" and "Forever", this latest Plowing Into the Field of Love cut is the most extreme expression of Elias Bender Rønnenfelt's imagination yet. Darkness has pervaded the Iceage songbook, but when "How Many" gloriously pries itself open—ominous, lopsided instrumentals and all—one can't help but wonder what drama and desperation have been eclipsed all along. A band that was once thought to be dangerous is now more about daydreaming. "An alliance in body and mind/ Such a perfect lover I could become," Rønnenfelt sings on this could-be ballad, straining his voice over the most common of desires.'-- Jenn Pelly






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Cult of Youth Man and Man's Ruin
'In celebration of their tour, the band Cult of Youth is sharing the brand new video from KONKRET FILM for “Man and Man’s Ruin”. It was directed by Kristian Emdal, Loke Rahbek and Elias Bender-Rønnenfelt, and shot while the band was visiting Copenhagen in a town called Dronningmølle. The area used to be known as “The Hills of Russia” due to its bleak and hilly landscape, but over the last hundred years the area has changed in to something much more vigorous. The beautiful shots of the countryside, and ominous statues provide the perfect visual companion to this song.'-- wegetpress.com






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Marching Church We Lose Them Through Our Hands
'When we described the first Marching Church tape, that came out about 2 years ago, we called it ”very strange music” - and now with his first 7” it is clear, that it is a label that still applies. The artist behind should need little introduction at this point. Elias Bender Rønnenfelt has over the last couple of years made heads turn. Marching Church is another proof why the young man has rightfully earned his reputation. He makes music that sounds like nothing else and with such a pop sensibility that it makes you feel as if you have met it somewhere before.'-- collaged






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Iceage Forever
'Iceage used to sound like a band unloading a dump truck’s worth of sonic sludge, with Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s sulky moan presaging the apocalypse. But their newest album, Plowing Into the Field of Love, features something completely different: They’ve traded vodka for whiskey and embraced the joy of country twang, a better backdrop for Rønnenfelt to channel his inner Nick Cave against. "I always had the sense that I was split in two" is the Cave-ian opening lyric of "Forever", which begin with a slow, swaggering progression that quickly perorates toward a barroom brawl, Rønnenfelt’s voice growling in tortured ecstasy. "If I could dive into the other, I would lose myself forever" goes the chorus, and the tension as the band starts and stops and starts again before exploding into cacophony reminds you they’re still oh-so close to the edge.'-- Jeremy Gordon






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Elias Bender Ronnenfelt dancing and singing 2
'elias bender going nuts'-- allanmallan






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Marching Church The River live at Insula Records
'bruce springsteen cover wahahahaha.'-- Jasdko Sasjlas






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Lust for Youth Epoetin Alfa
'Minds typically go to dark, severe places when describing Lust for Youth: the blackest winters of Hannes Norrvide’s native Sweden, mental and physical prisons, Joy Division songs. It’s enough of a surprise that a guest spot from Iceage’s Elias Bender Rønnenfelt on “Epoetin Alfa” results in plangent, pinging guitars more reminiscent of Studio than his own band and ensures a sense of restraint that the ill-fated Casio just can't replicate.'-- collaged






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Vår First Purchase
'Vår's final, post-humous release is a moody electronic instrumental with Mssr.s Ronnefelt and Loke Rahbek wring fragile, pulsing melancholy from their synths and laptops. A sad but fitting farewell from the great, doomed musical experiment.'-- collaged






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Elias Bender Ronnenfelt mah
'elias gør ting på østerbro fordi der er rart at være.'-- Alberte karrebæk







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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. They certainly don't come much sadder. It's weird, every year there's at least one of those, and usually a couple, and they're always in the UK, I wonder why. ** Susie Bright, Whoa, Susie! It's amazing of you to come in here! Hi, great one! How are you? Big respect and the merriest Xmas to you if you're into merry Xmases! Love, me. ** Dooflow, Hi, dooflow. Been too long a while. This is nice. You're collaborated with Richard! Wow, that's really, really something. He's a great artist, as you probably know that I know. That's really exciting! I'll go over and scour what you're linking us up to in just a bit. Everyone, Dooflow, an amazing word-maker, has hooked up with the extraordinary visual artist Richard Hawkins to make an incredible looking collaborative work. Dooflow says, 'Richard is calling it "Wild Boys" and they are a reaction to how tame a lot of WSB's word & Image collaborations are.' You can find it in two places, so either choose here, which is dooflow's site, or here, which is Richard Hawkins's site, or choose both, but definitely choose. Monumental. Thank you a lot, man, and, yeah, that is an extremely cool meeting of extremely cool talents right there. ** Cobaltfram, Hi. Oh, well, since the text I put together was collaged from numerous sources, it could well be me who inadvertently took liberties into the realm of the implausible. Well, it is weird, that dichotomy, although there are those who would say and do say that you don't actually need to be out in the world to have material. Being out there definitely helps though? The research thing, yeah. Obviously, it depends on what you're writing about. I like semi-informed imaginative leaping myself with some fact-checking later in the process. As a recipient of many, many a rejection slip back when I used to submit stuff to places, yeah, I agree that that little note means something very good. Things go well here. Tons and tons of constant work, but the pay-off seems to be happening. Keep me up on your Paris plans as the time approaches. ** Kier, I know. There's something so, I don't know, complicated about the appeal of that Xmas disaster and ones like it, at least if you like theme park-ish kind of things maybe. Thanks about the gif novel. I've been working in it for a while. The horror gif novellas that I was posting here for a while were an early draft of it. I don't know why, but that image of a huge vegetable order is so nice. Maybe it's all that color, or the possibility of all that color depending on the veggies, I don't know. Yesterday was another very long editing day, morning to late evening. Continuing work on Scene 4. Usually, we lay out a rough draft of a scene by laying it down in FCP according to the script and then working/ chopping/ rearranging from there, but Zac thought that because this scene is so strange and was so strangely made, we should just pull out the stuff we think is great whether it was scripted or something that happened spontaneously or even accidentally while we shooting, and build the scene from those high points . He was right, I think, because what we've pulled together so far is pretty special even if it changes everything that we intended originally. How we'll make that stuff into something whole is to be figured out, starting today. So, yeah, that was my whole day. The only other stuff that happened was little things, phone calls, emails. Oh, and Kiddiepunk's public announcement of 'ZHH'. I guess that was pretty big. How was today, and why was it how it was? ** Damien Ark, Hi. Thanks a lot, man, about my 'Sluts'. Cool, that's awesome, thank you! My favorite Elliott Smith album is one that most of the hardcore ES fans I know seem to think isn't one of his best. 'Figure 8'. I don't know why, but that gets to me the most. What's your fave? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Whew. I was a little worried it would be old hat to you. Ah, I see about the 'break out spot'. I like imagining it, and so I am, right now. ** Steevee, Hi. Oh, right, yeah, I see. I would imagine there are leaks/ downloads of it out there somewhere though, no? I guess no surprise about the Sony security. How did you like 'Leviathan'? ** Keaton, That would make one cold, yeah, I can see that. I can't deal with convenience store nachos. That 'cheese' ... no way, even though it does kind of remotely taste like vegan cheese, which I do kind of like. Fruit cake can be fabulous? Wow. Trippy. Cool, you sorted out Emo Xmas pix. I was half-thinking of sorting them out for the blog, but you have them sorted and arranged definitely, so I'm crossing that prospect out. Everyone, be one with Xmas in the company of a bunch of boys who know what Xmas is all about. What in the world does that mean, you ask? Find out. Here's Keaton's 'A Very Hep C Christmas'! ** Statictick, Would it fail as a Halloween attraction? That's an interesting question to contemplate. Cool, thanks, about the guest-post progress and effort. You rule, duh. ** Misanthrope, There are footing videos, yes. They pop up. They're more commonly found than triple penetration videos, at least. In fact, I think I've only come across one triple-penetration video. Perhaps you've seen it. Staxus. Awkward position central, but with a certain appeal. I think basketball is a great sport. I've only ever gotten into it when the Lakers got in the semifinals. Then I start switching the TV channel to it. And I've been to a few games. I'm just not a spectator sports guy other than baseball. And a bit of soccer/football. I had an excellent coffee just yesterday at a cafe by Zac's place when we were taking an editing break/breather. It was quite delicious. But we had just eaten delicious falafels, and perhaps it was the taste combination/ sensation that I was tasting. Any great coffee in your recent history? And I mean great, not better than average. ** Sypha, Congrats on your gauntlet containing one less day. Sorry about your headache. You count your headaches? Ha ha, definitely load my gif novel up on the nooks. It won't get you arrested or anything, I think.  Oh, wait, maybe you'd better not. ** MANCY, Hi, man! Thanks, glad it spread some Xmas cheer into you. I was going to say that was its intention, but, obviously, I don't know how one could imagine cheer being its intention. Sweet about you trying to get the collab. together. Breath is bated. Oh, man, that sucks about your back even if your lustrous little description of you did that made your back rebel against you had this really nice earthy, sad quality. Take care, M. ** Right. Today I'm giving a gig over to the very awesome Mr. Elias Bender Ronnenfelt, a fine artist to be very sure, and also just a heck of a great guy personally too. Please dig into his multi-talent. Thank you.

Steve Buscemi Day

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'Steve Buscemi doesn’t loom into view. He’s not a looming kind of guy. On an overcast day in June, as I waited on the designated corner of Union Square to meet him for the first time, I called his assistant. “He’s late,” I said. “Where is he?” Buscemi, it turned out, was standing thirty feet away from me. Round-shouldered and wafer-thin, in a gray work shirt, black chinos, and a weathered denim jacket, with a baseball cap pulled tightly over his forehead, he was virtually invisible in the crowd.

'Five feet nine and forty-seven years old, Buscemi could be almost anybody-or everybody. Give him some tattoos and a mane of shaggy hair, and he’s the squirt-gun-toting heavy-metal doofus in Airheads (1994); put him in a blue sequinned dress, a red pageboy wig, and high heels, and he’s the world-weary transvestite taxi-dancer in Somebody to Love (1994); slick back his hair and give him a pair of brown loafers, like the ones he wore as Tony Blundetto in The Sopranos, and he has the gaunt, retro lounge-lizard look of the director John Waters. (In fact, the likeness is so uncanny that Waters used Buscemi’s image on his Christmas card one year.)

'Nothing about Buscemi’s physical presence suggests the poetic lineaments of masculine film glamour. He is pale, almost pallid-as if he’d been reared in a mushroom cellar. In a certain light, he can look cadaverous. His eyes are large and bulgy, with a hint of melancholy. When he smiles, his mouth displays a shantytown of uneven, uncapped teeth. And yet that unprepossessing ordinariness is what makes Buscemi captivating as a performer. It gives him the unmistakable stamp of the authentic, and it helps to explain his emergence over the past two decades as an icon of independent films. (Buscemi himself understands the value of his rumpled looks. When his dentist suggested fixing his teeth, he told her, “You’re going to kill my livelihood if you do that.”) “Steve is the little guy,” says the director Jim Jarmusch, who cast Buscemi in his 1989 film Mystery Train. “In the characters he plays and in his own life, he’s representing that part of us all that’s not on top of the world.”

'Buscemi’s persona is understated, opaque, bewildered, ironical. “You seem a little stoned. What are you on?” someone says to his character in Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World (2000). He is in the hospital after having been betrayed, humiliated, and wrestled to the ground in a grocery store. “High on life,” he replies. “Steve’s a visitor in the world,” the director Alexandre Rockwell, who has worked with Buscemi on five films, said. “His body, his face-everything around him is whirling, but you always feel in Steve a stillness, almost a calm.” This stillness plays variously as anxiety, disconnection, and threat. Sometimes, a single character draws all three into a sort of trifecta of tension, like the silent hit man Mr. Shhh, in Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead (1995). Buscemi’s look is deadbeat; his sense of humor is downbeat. He can play loss for laughs-in The Impostors (1998) he was Happy Franks, a suicidal cabaret singer sobbing his way through The Nearness of You -- or he can play it for real.

'All the characters whose stories Buscemi chooses to tell in his films share the same predicament: they are stuck in a purgatory from which they may or may not escape. The narratives compulsively return Buscemi to the unhappiness of his blue-collar youth; at the same time, they are a reminder of his triumph over it.'-- John Lahr



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Further

Steve Buscemi @ IMDb
Disney Princesses with Steve Buscemi's Eyes
Video: Steve Buscemi Responds to the "Buscemi Eyes"
Steve Buscemi’s Top 10 @ The Criterion Collection
The Steve Buscemi Tribute Page
fuck yeah steve buscemi
'24 Times The Internet Professed Its Love For Steve Buscemi'>/a>
'America's Worst Tattoos: A Flat Steve Buscemi'
'Steve Buscemi and Elvis Costello Went Trick or Treating'
'Brief Encounters: Steve Buscemi' @ Film Comment
'Steve Buscemi no fan of city's 25 mph speed limit'
'Steve Buscemi Can Juggle'
'Steve Buscemi Movies List: Best to Worst'



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Extras


The Many Deaths of Steve Buscemi


Dinner with Vampire Weekend & Steve Buscemi


Henry Rollins - Steve Buscemi


Steve Buscemi's sequence in 'Paris Je T'aime'


Grimes Gives Steve Buscemi The Brush Off



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Interviewed by Quentin Tarantino
from BOMB




Quentin TarantinoNow, explain to the people how you came into acting. You were a fireman. When did you know you could quit firefighting and start acting full time?

Steve Buscemi It wasn’t until after Parting Glances came out and I was able to get an agent and then start to make a living.

QTYou took a leave of absence and then decided not to go back? You put all your eggs in the same basket?

SB Yeah, my time was up and I had to go back, and the movie hadn’t been released yet, but I thought I just can’t go back. I really felt like Parting Glances was an important film. The character I played in that was probably the best character I will get to play. I just couldn’t imagine that this film wouldn’t get attention.

QTThat happens in a lot of these independent films, especially if you have never heard of the people who are in them, they make the directors known, but the actors don’t get anything. No one’s ever seen those guys who were in She’s Gotta Have It again. No one’s ever seen anyone else in Parting Glances again.

SB That’s not true. Just because you haven’t seen them doesn’t mean they’re not getting work.

QTYou’ve worked in low-budget independent films and big budget commercial films. In the Soup, cost $800,000 to make, but when you were actually shooting the budget was $300,000. And you had just come from doing Billy Bathgate, which was this $50 million production. What was the difference between the two?

SB In Billy Bathgate, Dustin liked to rehearse on camera, so we’d end up doing a lot of takes. Before we’d even do the take, we might discuss the scene for a long time. The crew would be waiting around outside and we wouldn’t even be rehearsing the scene, just talking about it. Not like I had a lot to contribute to these discussions: I was a fly on the wall. Dustin Hoffman, Robert Benton, Néstor Almendros, it was fascinating to be there. They really took their time. Of course, the sets were elaborate, the food was excellent, the dressing rooms were nice. But, I don’t know if all that stuff makes a better film. It makes it all more comfortable, it’s nice to have the time to do it. In In the Soup, we tried to get things done in two or three takes. We did all our rehearsals on our own before we got there. We had to work long hours, there was no going back. When you are shooting a film like In the Soup, it gives you this incredible energy, this excitement that comes from knowing that we have to get this now. Sometimes the pressure of that bothers me. But other times it inspires me, you can’t stop and think, you are just forced to do the scene and do it right. You are forced to go on instinct more. To me, it’s a valid way to work.

QTYou have worked with a whole slew of directors, let me throw out some of their names and you give me little takes on them. Let’s start with the guy who more or less discovered you on film, the director of Parting Glances, Bill Sherwood.

SB Bill was a funny guy. He would give me very specific directions, almost line by line. And then say, “Steve, can’t you have a little spontaneity?” (laughter) Then we’d do another take and I’d be seething. It worked for that character. I don’t know if he was manipulating me intentionally, but it really did work.

QTOkay, Abel Ferrara’s King of New York.

SB I was the last guy cast for that. I remember calling the costumer to go over what I was going to wear. I said, “What do you have in mind for me?” and she said "Well, we had in mind that you were black." I was like the token white. I would try on all these hats and Abel would come in and say, "Try on another hat, that’s not working." We finally came up with something, but I don’t believe that he was ever really satisfied. As a consequence, I think he would position me in the back of the room.

QTWasn’t there one shot in King Of New York that you didn’t know you were being filmed for?

SB Yeah, Christopher Walken’s character was just out of jail. I thought Abel had placed me on the side of the room so that I was out of the frame. I don’t even remember being in character. And then I saw the film and I was like, “Oh my God, I was seen that whole time?” (laughter)

QT How did he direct you and Larry Fishburne and choreograph the action?

SB He lets you feel it out for yourself. He says, "What’re you gonna do here? What’re you gonna do?"“Well, I thought I’d do this.” And he’d say, “Yeah, yeah, all right. Good, good. Do that, do that,” or, “Don’t do that. Do that other thing you were doing.” He’s always moving, he’s like a kid on the set. He gets excited. He says, “All right! This is gonna be great!” I mean when he first called me about doing the movie, I was on my way to LA to see what was happening out there. I had my ticket; I was leaving like the next day. He called me the night before and I hadn’t read the script. He described to me that first scene and that’s what made me want to do the movie. (laughter) It’s just the way he is. He’s just fun to be around, you know?

QT You’ve worked two movies with the Coen Brothers: Miller’s Crossing and Barton Fink.

SB I auditioned for Miller’s Crossing twice. The second time they said, "Well, you still say it the fastest." And I was hired. (laughter) They’re really fun to work with. Joel always gave the first direction. But Ethan is right there and adds to it.

QTDoes Ethan talk to you or does Ethan go through Joel?

SB He tells it to me with Joel there. The two of them are always together. I didn’t feel like I was getting conflicting information. They really complement each other. They get such a kick out of actors. In Barton Fink, I was doing this scene where I was picking up the shoes to put on the cart, you know, and then like I hear a noise and kind of stop, and then continue. They had me do that six or seven times because they enjoyed that scene: (laughter) “Well, we got it but let’s do it again.” And after that, “Let’s just do it one more time.”

QTMartin Scorcese.

SB I felt like I had already worked for him because on Last Temptation he brought me back four times. He had already cast that movie but there was a question of whether all the apostles were available. Each time he had me reading a different apostle. Then I did New York Stories. He gave me a lot of room. When people see New York Stories, they assume my character, a performance artist, is an asshole because of what Nick Nolte’s character says about him. But I didn’t play it that way at all, and neither did Scorcese. That whole monologue I did was something I wrote. I wouldn’t do my own material in a film if I thought it was going to be made fun of. It was funny, I never quite knew where Scorcese was on the set. I would hear him yell, “Action!” but I could never find him. He’d come over after each take and maybe say something and then disappear. Next thing I knew, “Action!”

QTOkay now, Jim Jarmusch.

SB He used to come see my partner Mark Boone Junior and I perform at these small performance spaces and clubs.

QTSo you were already friendly with him?

SB Well, we weren’t really friends at that point. But he would come to the shows and we would hang out. Working with him on Mystery Train, I got to know him a lot better. He would make up scenes that weren’t in the movie for us to rehearse, to explore our characters. Stuff would happen in those improvisations that he would incorporate into the film. He trusts actors and casts people because he wants them to give more. He wants that input. Even on the set, we would do the takes as written and then sometimes have a take where he’d say, "All right. If there’s a line you want to change or something you want to add, do it."

(read the entirety)



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22 of Steve Buscemi's 132 roles

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Bill Sherwood Parting Glances (1986)
'Parting Glances was the first movie about AIDS, made before Longtime Companion but around the same time as the television movie An Early Frost. But I never saw Parting Glances as an AIDS movie, just as a great character-driven New York film whose characters happened to be gay and living with AIDS. I didn’t see it as risky, because it was a wonderful part. I can’t see why anyone would turn it down just because the character, Nick, was gay. Nick is in a state of denial and shock about what he’s going through, and he doesn’t want to alter his lifestyle. It’s very important to him to keep working and not be treated as a sick person by his friends. At the same time, he feels his mortality and wants to re-establish that connection again with his former boyfriend, Michael, and let it be known that he loves him. This was an independent film and Bill had the creative freedom to do it as he wanted. Hollywood would have watered it down.'-- Steve Buscemi



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Jim Jarmusch Mystery Train (1989)
'Like Jarmusch's previous films, Mystery Train enjoyed a warm reception from critics. This was particularly evident at Cannes, where the film was nominated for the Palme d'Or and Jarmusch was commended for the festival's Best Artistic Achievement. It was nominated in six categories at the 1989 Independent Spirit Awards: Best Picture, Best Screenplay (Jim Jarmusch), Best Director (Jim Jarmusch), Best Cinematography (Robby Müller), Best Actress (Youki Kudoh), and Best Supporting Actor (Steve Buscemi and Screamin' Jay Hawkins).'-- collaged



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Abel Ferrara The King of New York (1990)
'King Of New York was released during the most productive part of Abel Ferrara’s career so far. Arriving a year after 1989’s Cat Chaser– a filmmaking experience Kelly McGillis found so dreadful that she shaved her head and vowed never to act again – and the infamous Bad Lieutenant in 1992, King Of New York ranks among the best of Ferrara’s movies, and undoubtedly one of the most interesting gangster pictures yet made. King Of New York also arrived at a unique time in American filmmaking. It was among the earlier (but by no means first) movies to prominently feature a hip-hop soundtrack, and appeared in US cinemas a year before Boyz N The Hood and New Jack City– movies which dealt with similar themes such as crime and drug dealing to a much more lucrative effect. Aside from the obvious draw of Christopher Walken in the lead role, King Of New York is noteworthy for its extraordinary supporting cast, including Wesley Snipes, Laurence Fishburne, Steve Buscemi and David Caruso – all of whom were largely unknown before this film, but would later go on to forge hugely successful careers.'-- Den of Geek



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Joel and Ethan Coen Barton Fink (1991)
'Barton Fink won the Coen brothers the prestigious Palme d'Or when it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 1991. Starring John Turturro and John Goodman, with smaller roles filled by John Mahoney and Steve Buscemi, Barton Fink tells the strange tale of its titular character, a playwright who has just had his first major success on the New York stage, who reluctantly comes to Hollywood to write a script for a Wallace Beery wrestling picture. Stuck in a dank room in an ominous hotel, he meets Charlie Meadows (Goodman), an insurance salesman who seems to embody the working class everyman whose story Fink is so anxious to tell, if not to actually hear.'-- examiner.com



Trailer



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Alexandre Rockwell In the Soup (1992)
'In the Soup is a charming pipsqueak of a movie, a playful film of ragged and shaggy appeal. All its virtues are small-scale except for one, because inside this little picture is the year's largest, most robust pieces of acting, a performance that no one can resist, Aldolpho Rollo least of all. Aldolpho (Steve Buscemi) is Soup's would-be hero. A timid, idealistic, embryo film director, he lives in a low-rent, walk-up tenement in Manhattan, a poster from revered Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky on his wall and dreams of glory in his heart. Someday he'll make his movies, someday tour buses will visit his apartment and a plaque on the wall will commemorate his scuffling days. Someday maybe even Angelica (Jennifer Beals), the beautiful girl next door, will do more than snarl at him. But for now, with his erratic landlords, the Bafardis, on his case, what he really needs is money.' -- LA Times



Trailer

Excerpt



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Quentin Tarantino Reservoir Dogs (1992)
'Tarantino's original plan was to make Reservoir Dogs on a minimal budget on 16mm film, using friends in the cast, with himself playing Mr. Pink and regular producer Lawrence Bender as Nice Guy Eddie. Tarantino was introduced to the late Tony Scott in 1990 by a mutual friend, one of the director's employees, and Scott read both True Romance and Reservoir Dogs. Originally, Scott wanted to make Reservoir Dogs, but was told by Tarantino that he'd earmarked it for his own full directorial debut. Scott ended up buying the True Romance script for $50,000, which Tarantino planned to use to make Reservoir Dogs. However, Bender's acting teacher's wife was a friend of Harvey Keitel, and gave him the script. Keitel became interested, and ended up attaching himself to produce and star as Mr. White, enabling Tarantino and Bender to raise as much as $1.5 million for the budget. As a result, the young writer-director was accepted into the Sundance Institute in 1991 (see photo), and travelled there with actors including Steve Buscemi to perform scenes from the script in front of advisers including Terry Gilliam and Two-Lane Blacktop helmer Monte Hellman. Gilliam is, as a result, thanked in the credits, while Hellman was so impressed that he attached himself as an executive-producer to the film.'-- Indiewire



Excerpt


Excerpt



________________
Jonathan Wacks Ed and His Dead Mother (1993)
'There are some actors who don’t have to try very hard to convince you that whatever they say is the truth and the things they do are not out of character. Steve Buscemi is an example of an actor with this ability. Regardless of whether he is playing Carl Showalter, Seymour, or Mr. Pink, one never doubts that he is a petty thief, a record collector, or a career criminal. In Jonathan Wacks’s film Ed and His Dead Mother, Buscemi plays a mama’s boy and we totally buy it. Buscemi doesn’t always alter the timbre of his voice or even his body language unless the role demands a complete transformation. Yet, he slides into his characters and makes it look effortless. Though I might not picture Buscemi wearing overalls and a red t-shirt on my own, he dons this very outfit at the end of the film and he doesn’t appear uncomfortable or incorrectly robed. He isn’t the only actor who is at home in his role. Ned Beatty and John Glover perform nicely as two individuals trying to influence Ed to the best of their abilities. With a strong cast and a “timeless” set design—half 1950s, half 1990s— Ed and His Dead Mother is an eccentric gem.'-- Film Threat



the entire film



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Quentin Tarantino Pulp Fiction (1994)
'Buddy Holly the Waiter is a character in Pulp Fiction, played by Steve Buscemi. It is a cameo in which he plays a waiter in Jack Rabbit Slim's.' -- wiki.tarantino



Excerpt



________________
Michael Lehmann Airheads (1994)
'A desperate rock band looking for a break, holds a radio station hostage in this youthful comedy. All the three Airheads Chazz, Rex, and Pip really want is a chance to play their quirky music. While they play club gigs, they have yet to drum up interest from any record companies. No one will listen to their demo tapes. After Chazz is tossed out by his girlfriend Kayla, he decides that desperate times require desperate measures and plans to break into station KPPX and play their demo on the air. The break in is successful, but they receive a cynical welcome. This drives Chazz to the edge and he pulls out a large semi-automatic and hijacks the station. The hostages are unaware that the band's weapons are simply water pistols. They attempt to play their tape but it is destroyed by a temperamental machine. After the police and media arrive, the Airheads finally get their brief moment in the sun. A bit of a mess, but one of Steve Buscemi's best performances before hitting the big time.'-- collaged



Trailer


Excerpt



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Tom DiCillo Living in Oblivion (1995)
'I wrote Living In Oblivion in a state of mind teetering somewhere between homicide and suicide. After the dismissive release of Johnny Suede it was extremely difficult to get my next script, Box of Moonlight financed. And so one night, after getting plastered on martini’s at my wife’s cousin’s wedding, I stumbled into the Idea; a series of events taking place right on the set of a no-budget movie. All the things that could possibly go wrong actually do. The film is really a love/hate letter about the mechanics of filmmaking. I love this business but at times it really does feel that the entire process of making a film is designed to drive you into an insane asylum. Just when some miraculous moment is blossoming to life in front of you the camera screws up and that fragile, fleeting glimmer of beauty is gone. Of course the opposite is also true. But on a no-budget film the “unhappy accidents” can drop you to your knees.'-- Tom DeCillo



Trailer

Excerpt



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Robert Rodriguez Desperado (1995)
'With this sequel to his prize-winning independent previous film, El Mariachi, director Robert Rodriquez joins the ranks of Sam Peckinpah and John Woo as a master of slick, glamorized ultra-violence. We pick up the story as a continuation of El Mariachi, where an itinerant musician, looking for work, gets mistaken for a hitman and thereby entangled in a web of love, corruption, and death. This time, he is out to avenge the murder of his lover and the maiming of his fretting hand, which occurred at the end of the earlier movie. However, the plot is recapitulated, and again, a case of mistaken identity leads to a very high body count, involvement with a beautiful woman who works for the local drug lord, and finally, the inevitable face-to-face confrontation and bloody showdown.'-- IMDb



Excerpt



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Joel and Ethan Coen Fargo (1996)
'Beautifully shot and wickedly funny, Ethan and Joel Coen’s warped homage to their home state earned nominations for everything from the Palme D’or to the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film (won) to Academy Awards (won two). The film is at times quiet as falling snow, observational; then suddenly bloody and hysterical all at once. With pitch perfect performances from Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi and a silent but deadly Peter Stormare, Fargo is everything you could ever want in a black comedy.'-- pajiba.com



Excerpt


Excerpt


Excerpt



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Steve Buscemi Trees Lounge (1996)
'An impressive feature debut from indie icon Buscemi, a serio-comedy and character study of a barfly (played by Buscemi) and the entourage that frequents the same working bar day after day; John Cassavetes would have been proud of this film.'-- collaged



Trailer


Excerpt



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John Carpenter Escape from LA (1996)
'Once again, our hero does the government's bidding by dint of an implanted ''timer'' (explosives in the original; a disease here). Plissken has to rescue the President's daughter (A.J. Langer, from TV's My So-Called Life) and retrieve a black box the feds need (like the audiotape in New York). Once in the city, he befriends a woman who is quickly, randomly killed (Season Hubley in New York, Valeria Golino in L.A.). There's another tough guy (George Corraface), aided by another turncoat techno-weenie played by a hip actor (Harry Dean Stanton then, Steve Buscemi now). Zonked-out Peter Fonda has the Borgnine role, as a surfer dude who helps Snake out of a jam. If not for some jibes at political correctness and a wild cameo by Bruce Campbell (Ellen) as the surgeon general of Beverly Hills, the movie could just as easily take place in Schenectady.'-- EW



Excerpt



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Robert Altman Kansas City (1996)
'When I worked with Robert Altman on Kansas City [in 1996], he said he didn’t care if the film made a nickel. If he wanted it to be successful, he wanted it to be successful on his terms. And then he immediately corrected himself and said, “On our terms.” To me, it meant that he cares about the films he makes and he cares about the people he makes them with. It was a philosophy he had that I think is really good.'-- Steve Buscemi



Trailer


Excerpt



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Joel and Ethan Coen The Big Lebowski (1998)
'Even I thought it was a weird follow-up to Fargo, and I didn't expect anything from it. I just thought, "These guys made a really fun movie, a great character, kind of, genre, you know, weird genres that kind of mixed, and that it was really fun." It's probably the film that I've done that people have seen the most. I mean the number of times people have seen it. And I guess that started happening about five years ago, when people started to come up to me—usually it was like college guys that would tell me that they and their friends would watch it every weekend, or they had seen it five times. And at first, I didn't really believe it, you know they say five times… or seven times. But so many people would tell me that now I believe it.'-- Steve Buscemi



Excerpt


Excerpt



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Michael Bay Armageddon (1998)
'At one point during filming, Steve Buscemi mentioned to Bay that he was going to get dental work done. Bay convinced him that he had a “million dollar smile” and that he shouldn’t change a thing. Say what you will about Bay. That was a great decision.'-- Film School Rejects



Excerpt


Excerpt



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Terry Zwigoff Ghost World (2001)
'I wanted to hug this movie. It takes such a risky journey and never steps wrong. It creates specific, original, believable, lovable characters, and meanders with them through their inconsolable days, never losing its sense of humor. The Buscemi role is one he's been pointing toward during his entire career; it's like the flip side of his alcoholic barfly in Trees Lounge, who also becomes entangled with a younger girl, not so fortunately.'-- Roger Ebert



Excerpt


Excerpt



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Pete Docter Monsters, Inc. (2001)
'Monsters, Inc. is a 2001 American computer-animated comedy film directed by Pete Docter, produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton were the executive producers. It was co-directed by Lee Unkrich and David Silverman, and stars the voices of John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, James Coburn and Jennifer Tilly.'-- IMDb



Monsters, Inc.'s Homage to Barton Fink



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Jim Jarmusch Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)
'Parents need to know that this movie is nothing more than people sitting around drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes and talking about various things. This film has no plot and no story structure. It's a series of vignettes, short scenes that are like little slices of life. There is no violence or sexuality and some profanity, but the content of the film is based on conversation of rather mundane experiences.'-- Common Sense Media



Excerpt



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Tim Burton Big Fish (2003)
'After walking through a scary swamp, Edward discovers the hidden town of Spectre, where everyone is friendly to the point of comfortably walking around barefoot. Their shoes can be seen hanging from a wire near the entrance. When he enters the town he is greeted by the Mayor and his wife. The Mayor has a clipboard that says Edward was meant to be in their town but he had arrived early. He also tells him of the poet Norther Winslow (Steve Buscemi) who was also from Ashton. While there Edward has an encounter with a mermaid. She swims away before he could see her face. Edward leaves because he does not want to settle anywhere yet, but promises to the town mayor's daughter Jenny (Hailey Anne Nelson), who developed a crush on him, that he will return. He believed that he was fated to be there someday.'-- collaged



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Steve Buscemi Interview (2007)
'Steve Buscemi’s career is an American spin-off of the sea change in acting wrought by Alec Guinness 50 years ago. Buscemi’s sourpuss “full-on human rat mode,” as Variety put it recently, ratchets down mythic-sized characters to everyday guys working their humdrum psychopathic cons in plain sight. His characters are the alchemy of turning tragedy into dark comedy. Buscemi stars in two new films, both of which premiered at Sundance this past January: Interview, which he also directed, and, 11 years after starring in Living in Oblivion, Tom DiCillo’s Delirious. Both films are about media corruption, with Buscemi playing journalists at opposite ends of the food chain. In Interview, a remake of the Dutch film made by Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004 by a Muslim fanatic, he’s a serious journalist who’s been sent as punishment to interview a celebrity-fluff actress (Sienna Miller) and agonizes about being inside the room.'-- Film Comment



Trailer


Steve Buscemi on 'Interview'




*

p.s. Hey. I'm sorry again about the lack of a p.s. on Saturday. Today is another day, as will often be the case for the next while, when I again have to head off to an intensive film editing session before too long, so, given the doubled comments, I will need to move quite quickly this morning, my apologies. Lastly, an alert to those who notice or care about such things that, due to the aforementioned reasons, my post-making time has been severely curtailed, and you will be getting some rerun posts this week. I'll try to run as few of them as I can. ** Friday ** Bill, And it was a freezing cold, very drafty Gare de l'Est, which you might be able to also picture if you were here in the winter, I can't remember, but it was nice anyway. Very cool about Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. Do you take photos when you do such things? ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I'm looking forward to March too, assuming all my ducks end up in a row. ** Keaton, It didn't sound gross for some reason. Black-eyed peas and collard greens. My mom was from Texas. I like crazy shit too! ** Steevee, Interesting to read you and David talk about 'Foxcatcher' even though, or maybe even because, I have no idea what that is. Really happy to have helped lead you to tetema! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. The 5th, wait, that's ... today! ** Gregoryedwin, Hi, G.e. Cool, thanks! Oh, shit, as someone whose back is my weakness, I feel that. Rest. ** Kier, Hi! I liked den-ness-monster! No apology necessary whatsoever. Oh, I hope the sheep gets better. That's scary. Um, Friday, uh, wow, I can't remember. Film stuff almost entirely almost for sure. We didn't finish the rough cut of Scene 5 that day 'cos it was really hard, but we got within a day of doing that. But that's Saturday. Yeah, otherwise, I have a blank. Days are so often so much the same right now. But I can tell you more about the weekend when I get there. ** Thomas Moronic, I did! Really cool that novel work is going so smoothly and well, man. ** Etc etc etc, Hi. That's very interesting -- your thoughts on mastery. Yeah, huh, thank you! I wish I had more time to respond adequately. 'Inherent Vice' doesn't open here yet for another month, I think. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Thanks, Jeff. I like 'Martin Dressler', of course. It's kind of his most famous and read one because of the prize, but, as much as I like it, it isn't up among my very faves of his at all. Yes, I'm crazy behind on getting back to Mark. I will today, Thank you, man. ** Schlix, Hi, Uli. Your thoughtful responses to my music gigs and your interest/knowledge of a lot of the music I'm choosing and liking is always so appreciated. Hm, I'll ask Peter about Pan and see if he blows his stack like he can sometimes. ** Chris Goode, Chris! Buddy boy, buddy man! This is awesome! I wish I didn't get to see you after so long on a day when I'm typing like a maniac with one foot out the door. I'm glad the gloom ... subsided? Is that was gloom does? Diminished? Shit. Wow you got support for the show? That's crazy, that's great! Wow, I'm so happy! I would love to hear anything/ everything about it. Cool, wow, thank you! And love to all the replicant Weaklings. Wait, new ensemble, Ponyboy Curtis? What, what? I gotta run, shit, but, dude, come back! ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! Ah, such a pleasure for me when you're here, man. I bet you needed a break. When that mess was happening, I wondered how you were coping with it. From way out here where I am, I loved the Alt Lit community, I loved watching it and following it a lot, but it was always about all the great writing, and that's there still and will continue to be. There's not a lot of music in our film. There are two tracks by this well known young electronic music artist that we hope to use, but we haven't gotten his official okay yet. There's a track by Pita/Peter Rehberg that forms the centerpiece of one scene that's set at a gig. And one scene has an original score -- strings and electronics -- composed by the Australian experimental composer James Rushford. I think that will be it for music. Best day to you! ** Sypha, Hi. Oh, I'm interested in video game music. It's something I always mean to investigate more. My knowledge is pretty random. I mean I love what's-his-name, the great composer of the Nintendo games' scores. ** gucciCODYprada, Hi, Cody! I did get to do some reading, and the greatness continues, but I still have a ways to go, and now I'm back on the film. Really big luck on he app for that job! Let me know what happens. Love, me. ** Kyler, Hi, K. The gif novel comes out 5 days after my birthday. Apart from my awesome nephew, whose comment I addressed just above yours, I keep a pretty big distance from my family and have for most of my life. No regrets about doing that. ** Slatted light, Hi, David. Yeah his torsions are genius. And Denn-tal-Dam is pretty genius too, if my chuckling fit means anything. Mm, I'm not much of a genre lit reader, truth be told. I feel like I hardly read any, or ever have, in fact. In fact, I can't think of a single title at the moment. Weird. Recommend something? Ha ha, re: the youtube portrait of you in relationship to our film. I'll take that. I'm really excited about the film and very, very happy with it. As is Zac. I hope we can nail it in the final edit, which we're beginning to work on today, but, yeah. Thank you, D! ** Saturday ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you! I do remember Charlotte Moorman. Flashback. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Thanks a bunch. I like elevators. I think I like escalators a little more though. Yes, I did a post here a while back about the Elisa Lam case. Very, very creepy and compelling. And I remember that you saw her just before. So weird! ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T! Aw, thanks a lot about the gif story. Strange effects, cool. Blake Butler is currently interviewing me about the gif novel, and I've been talking/typing my head off about the gif as sentence, the fascination of writing fiction using looping imagery as text, etc., etc. ** Kier, Shit, Zac came up with a really good derivation of your name yesterday, and I was going to use it on you today, but I've already forgotten it, grr. Thanks about my story. Oh, man, I so, so hope the sheep gets better, Oh, God. I mean, they'll eat the meat even though the sheep was ill? Is that not, like, weird? I've never heard of brunost. It sounds intense. Sweet goat cheese? I mean, intense. My weekend: Hm, on Saturday we worked all day and finished the rough cut of Scene 5. There's a lot of work left to do on it, but we really do think it's going to be super great. We uploaded the scene to Vimeo, and our producers watched it, and then they watched the rough cut of the whole film yesterday, gulp, and we'll talk to them today and find out what they think and what their strategy is about the Berlin Film Festival. In any case, the plan is that Zac and I are going to have to finish the entire film in the next week to 10 days, which will be a huge amount of work. Then we'll probably immediately go to Berlin to do the post-production stuff -- correct the sound and color, do the compositing, make the credits, etc., etc., for probably two weeks. It's going to be a lot. Anyway, we did that from early morning until night. Yesterday, we had a day off, and I tried to catch up on the many things I'm incredibly far behind on, and I did little else other than that. Oh, this is weird and creates a strange thematic burst of a through-line between your days and mine: Last night when I went downstairs to smoke, I did so, as I usually do when I go outside to smoke, in the Recollets's courtyard, which is this kind of boxed-in field of grass that faces the street through a tall metal fence/gate and has the Recollects building on two sides and the trendy Cafe A cafe/restaurant on the third side. Anyway, as I was smoking in the dark, I looked out over the grass and saw something move. I looked closer, and it was a sheep grazing on the grass! It was totally bizarre, and the only thing I can guess, and it's a wild-ish guess, is that the sheep was maybe the pet of some eccentric person who was dining at Cafe A. Very strange. Cool, the farm gifs! Did you make those or find those? Is that the farm where you work? If so, were any of those animals in them the famous ones? Okay, onwards and upwards into today for us both. What happened on your end? ** Misanthrope, I pulled a George? Yikes! I don't often do that. So, that's what your mornings are like? Wow. Thanks about Jacobson. I'll look into him. ** Gary gray, Hi, Gary! Thanks, man! I don't know, LA rules, right? I'm sure you're making the right choice. Or I think I'm sure. P.T.?  No, I'll look it up. My ribs are all fixed now. Life is insanely busy but very good. Later, bud. ** Etc etc etc, Hi, C. The Last Bookstore is really weird. It freaked me out, I think in a good way. Frederick Seidel: I do like what I've read by him, yeah. He seems to be really hated by a lot of poets, but I'm not sure exactly why. ** Bill, You met Rie Nakajima? Cool. That must have been interesting. Her work is so mysterious, yes, and simple and weirdly compelling for how little it technically seems to involve. ** Magick mike, Hi, Mike! Cool. Glad to have scratched that itch. ** Grant maierhofer, Hi, Grant. Nice to see you! Sorry to hear that 2014's ending sucked for you. It was a blur for me. No, I didn't see the other three just because I've been so incredibly busy finishing our film that everything else is suffering to one degree or another. I'll go find them, for sure, as soon as I'm able. Gluth's great, and so is Greer, yeah. Really cool that you dug those. I hope you feel better, my friend. ** Steevee, Hi. I envy even your dusting of snow. Paris hasn't even gotten close yet. Big congrats on finishing the draft of your NK piece! The elevator theme: Well, when trying to create a fiction piece out of gifs, I've found that one of the things you need to do is find a motif that can recur through the story/sequence. It can be an abstract motif or an image or even a certain kind of motion, and the elevator was a good one because elevators go up and down, so, by using it, the image stack form turns into an elevator shaft. So that was one big reason, and the hiding and disclosing aspect via the elevator doors seemed really useful too. ** Hyemin kim, Hi! Thank you about my elevator story. Oh, well, of course I don't mind at all if anyone calls me Dennis. Being addressed as Mr. Cooper feels much, much weirder. Wow, about your mom and what she found. Really? My work has never been published or anything in South Korea, as far as I know, so that's pretty wild. Yes, it makes sense, and it's, you know, very nice and far more that your mom affirms me in your work. Cool. No, I'm way too busy to look for a new place right now. I'll starting looking next month, probably. ** _Black_Acrylic, Raring to go on this end, man! ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul! Thank you a lot, sir. Happy New Year to you! How's the J-novel going? How's Tokyo treating you and yours? ** Statictick, Yo to you! Thanks very kindly, man. Good if complicated news that you sold Dusty's place. So, you're really thinking of relocating, like, out of Detroit? Where to, if so? Love back at ya. Rewritedept, Dude, ace on the money winning. And the friendly, awesome gigs. Not so much on the puking, I guess. Unless the song consolidates the incident brilliantly. Since all it takes to be a best selling book these days is a handful thousand of sold copies, your uniquely named tome might just score. Whoa, word back on Mr. Svenonious's opinion on your novel excerpt. That's awfully cool. My weekend was film film film, as will be today and probably every day until further notice, quite possibly. All good. **  Slatted light, Hi, David. Wow, amazing. And here I am scrambling to not to be too late for the film editing session. I only had a chance to read what you wrote and quoted once very speedily, but, yes, a lot of what you said immediately gets to the heart and head of what I'm trying to do. Blake Butler is interviewing me about the gif novel right now via email, and I'm talking/thinking aloud lengthily about the material and the form and its conduciveness and fruitful lack thereof re: narrative. Too much to say to even try to start right now, but I do think that, once the decision is made to employ the gif as a text, as a pre-existing, empty, restrictive construction, it is weirdly enormously rich in things to work with, visually, rhythmically, in many ways. There are layers of narrative possibilities. And one exciting thing to me is that the story in terms of stuff like characters and plot and so on can happen at the bottom, at the deepest, most hidden level of the gif-fiction's 'narrative'. In a weird way, it's like the flip of 'The Marbled Swarm' for me, and it allows me to create fiction in a way that I've never been able to do with text, and I'm very fascinated by the form.  I could ramble on for days about it. Anyway, thank you, and as soon as I get back from the all-day editing work, I will greedily read what you wrote much, much more carefully and thoroughly. I'm honored, D. Love to you. ** Right. Steve Buscemi. What more needs be said. See you tomorrow.

Back from the dead: Henri Bergson thought he knew what laughter meant (orig. 10/19/07)

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1.

It seems as though the comic could not produce its disturbing effect unless it fell, so to say, on the surface of a soul that is thoroughly calm and unruffled. Indifference is its natural environment, for laughter has no greater foe than emotion. I do not mean that we could not laugh at a person who inspires us with pity, for instance, or even with affection, but in such a case we must, for the moment, put our affection out of court and impose silence upon our pity. In a society composed of pure intelligences there would probably be no more tears, though perhaps there would still be laughter; whereas highly emotional souls, in tune and unison with life, in whom every event would be sentimentally prolonged and re-echoed, would neither know nor understand laughter. ... To produce the whole of its effect, then, the comic demands something like a momentary anesthesia of the heart. Its appeal is to intelligence, pure and simple.

Laughter appears to stand in need of an echo, Listen to it carefully: it is not an articulate, clear, well-defined sound; it is something which would fain be prolonged by reverberating from one to another, something beginning with a crash, to continue in successive rumblings, like thunder in a mountain. Still, this reverberation cannot go on for ever. It can travel within as wide a circle as you please: the circle remains, none the less, a closed one. Our laughter is always the laughter of a group. It may, perchance, have happened to you, when seated in a railway carriage or at table d’hote, to hear travellers relating to one another stories which must have been comic to them, for they laughed heartily. Had you been one of their company, you would have laughed like them; but, as you were not, you had no desire whatever to do so. A man who was once asked why he did not weep at a sermon, when everybody else was shedding tears, replied: “I don’t belong to the parish!” What that man thought of tears would be still more true of laughter. However spontaneous it seems, laughter always implies a kind of secret freemasonry, or even complicity, with other laughers, real or imaginary.



Bill Hicks on marketing


Andy Kaufman wrestles a 327 lb. woman


Cartman 'Kyle's Mom's a Big, Fat, Stupid Bitch'


Toy Car Up the Butt



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2.


What life and society require of each of us is a constantly alert attention that discerns the outlines of the present situation, together with a certain elasticity of mind and body to enable us to adapt ourselves in consequence. TENSION and ELASTICITY are two forces, mutually complementary, which life brings into play. If these two forces are lacking in the body to any considerable extent, we have sickness and infirmity and accidents of every kind. If they are lacking in the mind, we find every degree of mental deficiency, every variety of insanity. Finally, if they are lacking in the character, we have cases of the gravest inadaptability to social life, which are the sources of misery and at times the causes of crime. Once these elements of inferiority that affect the serious side of existence are removed -- and they tend to eliminate themselves in what has been called the struggle for life -- the person can live, and that in common with other persons. But society asks for something more; it is not satisfied with simply living, it insists on living well. What it now has to dread is that each one of us, content with paying attention to what affects the essentials of life, will, so far as the rest is concerned, give way to the easy automatism of acquired habits.

Laughter, then, does not belong to the province of esthetics alone, since unconsciously (and even immorally in many particular instances) it pursues a utilitarian aim of general improvement. And yet there is something esthetic about it, since the comic comes into being just when society and the individual, freed from the worry of self-preservation, begin to regard themselves as works of art. In a word, if a circle be drawn round those actions and dispositions--implied in individual or social life--to which their natural consequences bring their own penalties, there remains outside this sphere of emotion and struggle--and within a neutral zone in which man simply exposes himself to man’s curiosity--a certain rigidity of body, mind and character, that society would still like to get rid of in order to obtain from its members the greatest possible degree of elasticity and sociability. This rigidity is the comic, and laughter is its corrective.



Jacques Tati 'Playtime'


Film - Buster Keaton - Beckett -1965


Woody Allen 'Stardust Memories' (extract)


Rushmore, Wes Anderson (1998) - Opening scene


Stanley Kubrick/Peter Sellers 'Dr. Strangelove'



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3.


When we speak of expressive beauty or even expressive ugliness, when we say that a face possesses expression, we mean expression that may be stable, but which we conjecture to be mobile. It maintains, in the midst of its fixity, a certain indecision in which are obscurely portrayed all possible shades of the state of mind it expresses, just as the sunny promise of a warm day manifests itself in the haze of a spring morning. But a comic expression of the face is one that promises nothing more than it gives. It is a unique and permanent grimace. One would say that the person’s whole moral life has crystallised into this particular cast of features. This is the reason why a face is all the more comic, the more nearly it suggests to us the idea of some simple mechanical action in which its personality would for ever be absorbed. Some faces seem to be always engaged in weeping, others in laughing or whistling, others, again, in eternally blowing an imaginary trumpet, and these are the most comic faces of all. Here again is exemplified the law according to which the more natural the explanation of the cause, the more comic is the effect.

This soul imparts a portion of its winged lightness to the body it animates: the immateriality which thus passes into matter is what is called gracefulness. Matter, however, is obstinate and resists. It draws to itself the ever-alert activity of this higher principle, would fain convert it to its own inertia and cause it to revert to mere automatism. It would fain immobilise the intelligently varied movements of the body in stupidly contracted grooves, stereotype in permanent grimaces the fleeting expressions of the face, in short imprint on the whole person such an attitude as to make it appear immersed and absorbed in the materiality of some mechanical occupation instead of ceaselessly renewing its vitality by keeping in touch with a living ideal. Where matter thus succeeds in dulling the outward life of the soul, in petrifying its movements and thwarting its gracefulness, it achieves, at the expense of the body, an effect that is comic. If, then, at this point we wished to define the comic by comparing it with its contrary, we should have to contrast it with gracefulness even more than with beauty. It partakes rather of the unsprightly than of the unsightly, of RIGIDNESS rather than of UGLINESS.

* from Henri Bergson's 'Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic'(read the entirety)



Richard Pryor interview 1980


Chris Morris 'Paedogeddoni'


Dylan Moran 'Bernard's Letter'


Sarah Silverman vs. Paris Hilton




*

p.s. Hey. The designation 'back from the dead' is an indication that, for reasons too complicated and uninteresting to explain, the post so tagged has not been accessible and visible since the day it was originally launched. So 'bftd' posts are both old and almost new at the same time, and you'll be getting a few of them this week. ** Bill, Hi. Oh, I'll miss seeing you at the top. Maybe you can still score that place from San Francisco, but I guess every commenter east of you would need to be either very quiet or wake up extremely late. Both seem quite possible. A link to photos of said place would be very nice. I don't know Pema Tseden, no, but I'll try to rectify that ignorance. Safe trip if you're not already home when you read this. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you, D. That non-named actor you referenced could be all kinds of people but I think I know to whom you gestured. ** Etc etc etc, Hi. Right, it's the bourgeois, upper class seeming lifestyle stuff that people don't like about him. Or one of the things. I'll read him again. I don't think I've looked at his stuff since the '90s. The editing schedule is intense. The Berlin post-production stint just got pushed forward to late February. I feel like gif fiction really should be a big thing based on my enthusiasm for it, but we'll see. I'm into sci-fi reality in films for sure. I'm not much interested to see 'Interstellar' though. Nolan's films don't do much for me and usually just irk me. ** Tosh Berman, It certainly wasn't his fault whatsoever, but Buscemi was pretty irritating in "Armageddon'. That's the only bad one I can think of. ** Steevee, Hi. I hope the feedback on your article is super positive. ** Kier, The maestro bowing to another maestro. You don't get to see that happen every day. I forgot to ask Zac yesterday about the Kierism, but I will today. Yeah, I saw the Buscemi eyes thing. There was a video in the Extras section of him sort of responding to that. It was cool to see that sheep graze, yeah. It was so bizarre. I still can't figure out how and why that happened, and I haven't run into anyone else here who saw the sheep yet. I wondered if the black one was Lucifer! Cool. Oh, do make more gifs! That is icky. 'Fuck off' is really a hard thing to say for me too. I came incredibly close yesterday, though. Yesterday Zac and I started the finishing of our film. We worked on the 3rd scene, the one featuring the Krampus, and it went really well, and we pretty much polished it up apart from some sound work. We stopped a little earlier than usual because Zac needed to re-familiarize himself with some sound correcting software that he hasn't used in a while, and there was no reason for me to be there for that. But before I left, we had a big Skype meeting with our producers about the film, and I can't/shouldn't talk about it publicly, meaning here, but it was very, very, very unpleasant. One thing I guess I can say is that the film's premiere will not be at the Berlin Film Festival after all, and the post-production session in Berlin will now happen in late February. After that, I came back here. When I was leaving for Zac's yesterday morning, I bumped into this guy who's staying at the Recollects, and he asked me if I was me 'cos I guess he knows and likes my books, and he and I had a coffee in the later evening. His name is Peter, and he's a fiction writer too, and the coffee/meet up was very nice. Then I just worked on some stuff and crashed. Back to the film finalizing today. What did you do, my pal? ** Gregoryedwin, Hi, G. Shuffle around self-positively, whatever the hell that means, ha ha. Weird. So exciting about 'Hospice'! I'm so sorry that I got so swamped re: a blurb, but I would totally love to do a post here about the book to help usher it into the world if you be into supplying me with an excerpt and another thing or two whenever you want. I never saw 'Boardwalk Empire', no, apart from a few clips when I was making the post. American TV of the last several years is a total blank for me. ** Thomas Moronic, I like that word knackered. I don't think an American could get away with saying that without sounding like he/she wanted too much to sound British. Man, I hope you got a billion zzzz's. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben. Tomorrow! Yeah, whenever the blog can be at your disposal, the blog will be ready. ** Chris Goode, Chris! We are busy bees. And we are lucky dogs. And we probably need cat naps. Oh, gotcha, about the continuing ensemble. Yeah, yeah, sounds good, sounds really interesting. Like you said, Gisele has a core of regular performers -- Jonathan, Anya, a couple of others -- and then usually a newbie or two each time. There's this 12 year old boy, Leon, who's in our latest piece, 'The Pyre', and who's amazing and who I hope will keep working with us. He's slotted in as a main star of the feature film that Zac and I are writing for Gisele to direct next year. Anyway, yeah, that's very exciting. I know that 'wanting to make something that's nothing like I've made or even seen before' thing. That's the best, and that's always some kind of perfect goal and ideal starting place, I think. No, I know. As do you.  But then you end up sometimes in a situation where neanderthals are the boss of some project that you find excitingly new and which you're really confident about, i.e. Zac's and my film, and it's so fucking depressing. But whatever. Yeah, err, even I like 'The Big Lebowski', sorry, I understand. Have a most splendid day today! Love, me. ** Sypha, 'Ghost World' is terrific. It seems like it has kind of been forgotten, I don't understand why. ** Misanthrope, Hi. I got really shitty sleep last night. Is that a George? I can't remember. Mulisch is, like, the biggest, most popular, respected Dutch writer. I think I only read a couple of his early books around the time I was living there. They seemed quite good, I think. A bunch of people have colds. I guess it's that season, blah blah. Get better right fucking now! ** Gary gray, Hi! Yeah, a gif novel, yeah. I'm pretty into it. I'm excited about it. I think it's a first. P.T.' sounds better and better. What system is it on? Oh, I'll go find out. Aw, you've been missed too, pal! ** Alter Clef Records, Well, hey there, Nick! Wowzer! Awfully good to see you, old chum! I'm good, and very, very busy with very, very fun and good projects. I think my number is still the same. Really excellent news about the new album and the ongoingness/ return of The Academy Of Sun. And very much and duh re: the meeting of Ben! Sweet! It's going to be very tough to talk today or tomorrow. It'll have to be played by ear, and it's probably too tricky. I'm finishing the editing of a feature film that my friend Zac and I shot this summer, and we're locked down editing it for massive amounts of hours each day into the evening. Try me if you want, and, if I'm free, I'll totally be into talking. Love, me. ** Rewritedept, Hi. He's great in 'Airheads'. I'm not a huge fan of the film, though. He's also even great 'Con Air', ditto. Thank you about my poetry. I really appreciate that. On a very quick first read of your poems, they seem pretty terrific and beautiful. I'll read with actual closeness when I'm not rushing to head off. Cool, thank you, take care! ** Okay. Yeah, that Bergson guy just knew or at least thought he knew everything, didn't he? See you tomorrow.

Back from the dead: Thomas Bernhard Day (orig. 10/12/07)

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"We had no luck with the weather and the guests at our table were repellent in every respect. They even spoiled Nietzsche for us. Even after they had had a fatal car accident and had been laid out in the church in Sils, we still hated them."(from 'Hotel Waldhaus')





"The thousands and hundreds of thousands of words that we keep trotting out, recognizable by their revolting truth which is revolting falsehood, and inversely by their revolting falsehood which is revolting truth, in all languages, in all situations, the words that we don't hesitate to speak, to write and to remain silent about, that which speaks, words which are made of nothing and which are worth nothing, as we know and as we ignore, the words that we hang on to because we become crazed by impotence and are made desperate by madness, words only infect and don't know, efface and deteriorate, cause shame, falsify, cripple, darken and obscure; in one's mouth and on paper they do violence through those who do violence to them; both words and those who do them violence are shameless; the state of mind of words and of those who do them violence is impotent, happy, catastrophic."(from a speech, 1970)





"Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Proust, I can’t do that. They are all great. A firmament. But one still has a lot of energy: something is still simmering. That’s a soup, which will never be done. One stirs and stirs and stirs. I have the feeling that what I’m doing is worth doing, otherwise I couldn’t do it."(from an interview, 1986)
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A visit to Thomas Bernhard's house (1:43)


"This city of my fathers is in reality a terminal disease which its inhabitants acquire through heredity or contagion. If they fail to leave at the right moment, they sooner or later either commit suicide, directly or indirectly, or perish slowly and wretchedly on this lethal soil with its archiepiscopal architecture and its mindless blend of National Socialism and Catholicism. Anyone who is familiar with the city knows it to be a cemetery of fantasy and desire, beautiful on the surface but horrifying underneath." ('Gathering Evidence')
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Thomas Bernhard's Novels



On the Mountain (1959)



Frost (1963)

"Newspapers were the greatest wonders of the world, they knew everything, and only through them did the universe become animated for their readers, the ability to picture everything was only preserved by newspapers. [. . .] "Of course, you have to know how to go about reading them," said the painter, "you mustn't just gobble them up, and you mustn't take them too seriously either, but remember they are miraculous." [. . .] "The dirt which people hold against newspapers is just the dirt of the people themselves, and not the dirt of the newspapers, you understand! The newspapers do well to hold up a mirror to people that shows them as they are--which is to say, revolting."('Frost')



Gargoyles (1967)

"What I said and what he said, everything I did and everything I thought and what he did, pretended to do, what I pretended to do and what he thought, it was all this stereotype, this stereotyped idea of the inadequacy, poverty, frailty, inferiority, deathly weariness of human existence, and I instantly had the impression that a sick man had entered my house, that I was dealing with a sick man, with someone in need of help. Whatever I said was spoken to a sick man, Doctor, and what I heard, Doctor, came from the lips of a sick man, from an extremely submissive, morbid brain which is filled with the most fantastic but embarrassingly derailed notions that in themselves reveal him for what he is. . . . The man had no idea of what he wanted, and I made him aware of this in the most forceful way; I said that what he was doing was morbid, that his whole life was a morbid life, his existence a morbid existence, and consequently everything he was doing was irrational, if not utterly senseless."('Gargoyles')



The Lime Works (1970)



Correction (1975)

“We mustn't let ourselves go so far as to suspect something remarkable, something mysterious or significant in everything and behind everything. Everything is what it is, that's all."('Correction')



Yes (1978)



The Cheap-Eaters (1980)



Concrete (1982)



Wittgenstein's Nephew (1982)

"A prize is invariably only awarded by incompetent people who want to piss on your head and who do copiously piss on your head if you accept their prize."('Wittgenstein's Nephew')



The Loser (1983)

"Suicide calculated well in advance, I thought, no spontaneous act of desperation.

"Even Glenn Gould, our friend and the most im-- portant piano virtuoso of the century, only made it to the age of fifty-one, I thought to myself as I entered the inn.

"Now of course he didn't kill himself like Wertheimer, but died, as they say, a natural death.

"Four and a half months in New York and always the Goldberg Variations and the Art of the Fugue, four and a half months of Klavierexerzitien, as Glenn Gould always said only in German, I thought."('The Loser') (read more)




The Woodcutters (1984)

"While Jeannie always had her Virginia Woolf madness and hence suffered from a kind of Viennese Virginia Woolf disease, Schreker always had the Marianne Moore and Gertrude Stein madness and suffered from the Marianne Moore and Gertrude Stein disease. At the beginning of the sixties both of them quite suddenly turned their literary madnesses and their literary diseases, which in the fifties had no doubt been quite genuine madnesses and quite genuine diseases, into a pose, a purpose-built literary pose, a multipurpose literary pose, in order to make themselves attractive to openhanded politicians, thus unscrupulously killing off whatever literature they had inside them for the sake of a venal existence as recipients of state patronage." ('The Woodcutters')



Old Masters (1985)

"...what depresses me so excessively is the fact that such a receptive person as my wife was should die with all that enormous knowledge which I conveyed to her, that she should have taken that enormous knowledge into death with her, that is the worst enormity, an enormity far worse than the fact that she is dead, he said. We force and we stuff every- thing within us into such a person and then that person leaves us, dies on us, forever, he said. Added to it is the suddenness of it, the fact that we did not foresee the death of that person, not for one moment did I foresee the death of my wife, I looked upon her just as if she had eternal life, never thought of her death, he said, just as if she really lived with my knowledge right into infinity as an infinity, he said. Really a precipitate death, he said. We take such a person for eternity, that is the mistake. Had I known she was going to die on me I should have acted entirely differently, as it was I did not know she was going to die on me and before me, so I acted utterly senselessly, just as though she existed infinitely unto infinity, whereas she was not made for infinity at all but for finiteness, like all of us. Only if we love a person with such unbridled love as I loved my wife do we in fact believe that person will live forever and into infinity."('Old Masters')



Extinction (1986)

"German is essentially an ugly language, which not only grinds all thought into the ground, as I've already said, but actually falsifies everything with its ponderousness. It's quite incapable of expressing a simple truth as such. By its very nature it falsifies everything. It's a crude language, devoid of musicality, and if it weren't my mother tongue I wouldn't speak it, I told Gambetti. How precisely French expresses everything! And even Russian, even English, to say nothing of Italian and Spanish, which are so easy on the ear, while German, in spite of being my mother tongue, always sounds alien and ghastly! To a musical and mathematical person like you or me, Gambetti, the German language is excruciating. It grates on us whenever we hear it, it's never beautiful, only awkward and lumpy, even when used as a vehicle of high art. The German language is completely antimusical, I told Gambetti, thoroughly common and vulgar, and that's why our literature seems common and vulgar. German writers have always had only the most primitive instrument to play on, I told Gambetti, and this has made everything a hundred times harder for them."('Extinction')



The Voice Imitator (1997)

"The mayors of Pisa and Venice had agreed to scandalize visitors to their cities, who had for centuries been equally charmed by Venice and Pisa, by secretly and overnight having the tower of Pisa moved to Venice and the campanile of Venice moved to Pisa and set up there. They could not, however, keep their plan a secret, and on the very night on which they were going to have the tower of Pisa moved to Venice and the campanile of Venice moved to Pisa they were committed to the lunatic asylum, the mayor of Pisa in the nature of things to the lunatic asylum in Venice and the mayor of Venice to the lunatic asylum in Pisa. The Italian authorities were able handle the affair in complete confidentiality."('The Voice Imitator') (more excerpts here)



Three Novellas (2003)

"Whereas, before Karrer went mad, I used to go walking with Oehler only on Wednesdays, now I go walking--now that Karrer has gone mad--with Oehler on Monday as well. Because Karrer used to go walking with me on Monday, you go walking on Monday with me as well, now that Karrer no longer goes walking with me on Monday, says Oehler, after Karrer had gone mad and had immediately gone into Steinhof. And without hesitation I said to Oehler, good, let's go walking on Monday as well. Whereas on Wednesday we always walk in one direction (in the eastern one), on Mondays we go walking in the western direction, strikingly enough we walk far more quickly on Monday than on Wednesday, probably, I think, Oehler always walked more quickly with Karrer than he did with me, because on Wednesday he walks much more slowly and on Monday much more quickly. You see, says Oehler, it's a habit of mine to walk more quickly on Monday and more slowly on Wednesday because I always walked more quickly with Karrer (that is on Monday) than I did with you (on Wednesday). Because, after Karrer went mad, you now go walking with me not only on Wednesday but also on Monday, there is no need for me to alter my habit of going walking on Monday and on Wednesday, says Oehler, of course, because you go walking with me on Wednesday and Monday you have probably had to alter your habit and, actually, in what is probably for you an incredible fashion, says Oehler." (from'Walking' in 'Three Novellas') (read more)
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'Das War Thomas Bernhard (German documentary on Bernhard's life and work)


Thomas Bernhard: Drei Tage. Ein Porträt von Ferry Radax (1970)


"I never in my life freed myself by writing. If I had done that nothing would be left. And what would I do with the freedom I gained? I’m not in favour of liberation, of relief. The cemetery, maybe that’s it. But, no, I don't believe in that either, because there would be nothing then."(from an interview, 1986)




P. 310 of Thomas Bernhard's Extinction


in manuscript



in print
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Thomas Bernhard on Martin Heidegger
from 'Old Masters'

'Stifter in fact always reminds me of Heidegger, of that ridiculous Nazi philistine in plus-fours. Just as Stifter has totally and in the most shameless manner kitschified great literature, so Heidegger, the Black Forest philosopher Heidegger, has kitschified philosophy, Heidegger and Stifter, each one for himself and in his own way, have hopelessly kitschified philosophy and literature. Heidegger, after whom the wartime and postwar generations have been chasing, showering him with revolting and stupid doctoral theses even in his lifetime.

'I always visualize him sitting on his wooden bench outside his Black Forest house, alongside his wife who, with her perverse knitting enthusiasm, ceaselessly knits winter socks for him from the wool she has shorn from their own Heidegger sheep.

'I cannot visualize Heidegger other than sitting on the bench outside his Black Forest house, alongside his wife, who all her life totally dominated him and who knitted all his socks and crocheted all his caps and baked all his bread and wove all his bedlinen and who even cobbled up his sandals for him. Heidegger was a kitschy brain..... a feeble thinker from the Alpine foothills, as I believe, and just about right for the German philosophical hot-pot. For decades they ravenously spooned up that man Heidegger, more than anybody else, and overloaded their stomachs with his stuff. Heidegger had a common face, not a spiritual one, Reger said, he was through and through an unspiritual person, devoid of all fantasy, devoid of all sensibility, a genuine German philosophical ruminant, a ceaselessly gravid German philosophical cow, Reger said, which grazed upon German philosophy and thereupon for decades let its smart little cow-pats drop on it....

'Heidegger is the petit-bourgeois of German philosophy, the man who has placed on German philosophy his kitschy nightcaps, that kitschy black night-cap which Heidegger always wore, on all occasions. Heidegger is the carpet-slipper and night-cap philosopher of the Germans, nothing else.'
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Liam Gillick 25/5 2013 WWTBD -- What Would Thomas Bernhard Do



Resources


"You won’t find books here. I don’t know anybody who reads less than I do. And I only deal with people who hardly read anything. Books are spooky, strangling."









Thomas Bernhard was born in 1931 in Heerlen, Netherlands. He died in 1989 at home in Ohlsdorf near Gmunden, Upper Austria, where he had moved in 1965. In his last will, Bernhard prohibited any new stagings of his plays and publication of his unpublished work in Austria. His death was announced only after his funeral.




*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Oh, okay. I thought you might be referring one obvious candidate. Or one of two obvious candidates. But yes. Nice that Baraka's poetry has been gathered selectively and published! I have to get that. Did you ever know him? I met him once a long time ago. He was very warm and intense. ** Hyemin kim, Hi. Oh, wow, thank you for explaining that. That's very interesting about the character of Korean contemporary language and its non-disposal to the kind of thing I do. Language parsing is so interesting. There has been interest in Seoul re: bringing Gisele's work there. In fact, it might even be that she did a piece there, but I think it was 'Showroom Dummies' which pre-dates my involvement with Gisele's work and which has no text, now that I think about it. Anyway, that's extremely interesting, and thank you very much. There's very interesting experimental electronic and noise music being made in S. Korea. But music is a very different language. ** Keaton, I hardly ever eat cabbage for some reason, but it's cool when I have. Oh, in soup, yeah, I do that. I think I'm cheerful but I don't know if I laugh a lot. I'll have to ask somebody. Mucho love boomerang. ** Kier, Hi! I didn't end up seeing Zac yesterday, so I'll ask him about the the Kier name-derivation today. Still haven't bumped into anyone who also saw the sheep, but I know I wasn't hallucinating. Dentist, ugh, but for cleaning, yeah, not so bad. I don't think I've ever had my teeth cleaned by a dentist. Yikes. I do like tea, yes! I have a total thing for iced tea. Unsweetened. But I like hot tea too. Zac and I have tea breaks when we edit. My favorite is brown rice tea. I think it's Japanese. My day: Zac needed more time to learn the sound editing thing, which I guess is pretty complicated, so he did that yesterday, and we delayed the mutual scene editing until today. So I tried to catch up on other stuff, and was only mildly and randomly successful. The thing with the producers, which I probably shouldn't have even mentioned, but which I was angry about it, isn't fatal or anything. Just depressing and annoying and something that's good/ bad/ important to know re: our future dealings with them. It's too long a story to go into, and I would probably get in big trouble if I aired that shit publicly. It'll be fine ultimately, I think. Anyway, yesterday there was some getting outside opinions and support from people involved in some way with the film about that mess, and we feel better. My birthday is on Saturday, ugh, triple ugh, but plans were made to spend it with Zac, Kiddiepunk, and Oscar B at CDG airport because the latter two will be stopping over here on their way home from Australia to London. So, I guess we'll do something to mark the occasion in that context, but I don't know what. It was cold out. I did some metro traveling and walking just to get out, period, and to run some errands and stuff. I bought some extremely good-seeming pastries at Sadaharu Aoki, the Japanese-French patisserie that is my ultra-favorite, for us to use as fuel and encouragement during our editing today. The one on the left and this one and some of these and these and some of these. That was nice, and the underground voyage was nice-ish. Otherwise, just work. Dutiful, but not sufficiently focused, and boring to detail. Blah. Back to editing today. How about you? **  Steevee, Is it common for editors to want a second draft, or I guess I mean as opposed to just wanting first draft tweaks? ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben. I think it'll work out okay ultimately. Okay, I'm not going to utter an excited 'Tomorrow!' then, ha ha. I'll just wait and be among the surprised. Best of luck nailing that. ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul. Thanks! Your holidays sound to have been pretty okay. You did more to note the occasion than I did, so it sounds crazy busy even, ha ha. Super very exciting about the novel. I love your plan. Oh, man, so exciting! Thanks about the editing. Yeah, hopefully we'll have the film finished, or finished pre-post-production in a week or slightly more. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Coolness. Um, they're going to handle the film regardless of whether they like or even remotely understand it. I mean, as far as I know. So far the editing to 'final' form has been really great and exciting, yeah. A breakthrough with the first section! That's potentially very awesome! I think I did a Guibert-related post a long, long time ago. Good idea to do a new one, yeah, I'll do that. My personal favorite of his is 'The Compassion Protocol', but I think it's very out of print? I mean, you might want to start with the obvious candidate 'To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life'. It's great, and probably the best way into his stuff maybe. ** Gary gray, Hi. Thanks. There was this different kind of tightness to the posts I was making 7 years ago. Strange. Oh, it's for PS4? I'll probably never get to play it then. That's the one system that nobody I know has. I'll read up on the game though, because, obviously, it's an extremely intriguing sounding thing. ** Bill, Thanks, Bill. Hopefully, seemingly. Tokyo layover! Oh, I miss Tokyo. So, are you finally, finally home? ** Misanthrope, I only know little bits of Sarah Silverman. Sound/image bites, etc. She always seems very funny to me, but that's all I know. Yeah, Mulisch is the big living Dutch writer, I think, at this point. Or at least the biggest who is published and known outside of Holland. Whoa, complicated, and weird as hell about the cops, ... schooling, meth head, ... all that stuff. Oh, Lord. Can it or any of it be neutralized in the bud? ** Slatted light Hey! Denn0))), is, I fear, I trust, I'm proud to say, likely to stand as the great name derivation/ offshoot moment regarding me. The film is ours. They can't make us do anything to it that we don't want to do. All they can do is handle it poorly and unenthusiastically at worst. I was just reading about the new Houellebecq yesterday. Maybe I'm wrong, but this feels like his most transparent publicity angle yet. I'm going to read more. He seemed like he's all over the place in his stance based on my initial investigation. That's interesting about Renaud Camus. I didn't know that. That's weird because he's published here by my publisher Editions POL, and they are super not right-leaning or neocon or anything like that. Au contraire. I'll ask POL about that. Among people I've talked to here, there's a feeling that 'Tricks' was kind of his most interesting book by far. They usually mention a couple more that are fairly interesting. I've never met him, and he isn't much discussed here, but, yeah, I'll see what I can find out. That's very interesting. I'm not really turned off by genre writing, or not that much. I think I just haven't gotten into it because I'm always drawn most to fiction that at least tries to do a radical reinvention of the novel form, or rather I really like writers who try to do that from scratch rather than as an off-play from some preexisting form that ends up operating behind the scenes. But then again I love Robbe-Grillet, obviously, who used the detective novel as a template a lot. I also am not very interested in plot- and character-based fiction, and genre fiction almost always has those things as the dominant factor. That said, I do think what you asked -- Can the generic be made compelling without being experimental? -- is quite possible. I like the sublime, and I'm very drawn to that, and I like the idea of the generic reaching the sublime through non-interference and obsessive attention to what causes the generic. It's beautiful. Anyway, I mostly readfiction  in some deep way to get fed as a writer, and I don't see genre as food for my particular thing. However, as I type that, I remember how much I loved and studied S.E. Hinton's novels way back when, and I guess they're 'genre'? I hope you do more than toy with that type of writing. That's a head-exploding prospect right there! Great day to you! ** Right. Here's an old, long hidden Thomas Bernhard post from many ages ago. Hope you like it. See you tomorrow.

Back from the dead: The savage art of age progression (orig. 06/05/07)

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Angelo Puglisi at 11, at 41


Aron Silverman at 17, at 31


Brian Page at 17, at 49


Christopher Temple at 18, at 35


Edward Nye at 15, at 43


Eugene Martin at 14, at 36


Gabriel Minarcin at 11, at 35


Jamie Lusher at 16, at 30


John Katsilieris at 17, at 39


Louis Mackerley at 7, at 30
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Mark Wilson at 13, at 52


Mitchel Weiser at 17, at 50


Nicholas Plaza at 5, at 11


Norman Prater at 17, at 50


Randy Pascale at 10, at 38


Reagen Uden at 10, at 22


Samuel Rawls at 17, at 36


Scott C. Fandel at 13, at 42


Taj Narbonne at 10, at 35


Thomas Roberts at 13, at 24
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Christopher Daigle at 17, at 22


Kevin Hicks at 16, at 33


Zachary Bernhardt at 10, at 17


Damien Nettles at 17, at 35


Lucius Holt at 7, at 14


Chris Dorley-Brown at 6, at 16


Christian Glen Hall at 15, at 25


Russell Mort at 2 1/2, at 34


John Haynes at 19, at 43


Jonathan Camacho at 12, at 26


Ruben Humberto at 14, at 27


Johnny Gosch at 12, at 42


Ben Needham at 21 months, at 22


Joe Pilcher at 19, at 27


Sky Metalwala at 2, at 5


Scott Kleeschulte at 9, at 24


Steven Carter at 1, at 26




*

p.s. Hey. I guess you know what happened over here yesterday. I guess I'll say whatever there is to say about that in the course of the p.s. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Ha ha, nice Bernhard quote, yeah. Baraka worked at the 8th Street Bookshop? Wow. ** Cobaltfram, Hi, John. It was definitely weird here yesterday, and yet life went on almost as usual, which was weird too, but with an edge. Bernhard is one the absolute super greats, I think. No, I think 'Inherent Vice' opens here in about a week and a half? ** Keaton, Did he? Did not know that. It makes me like him more. I don't know why. Writing while having the freakies works for me sometimes, or the right kind of freakies. I bet yours are the right kind. ** Tosh Berman, Ha ha, Blogger's spellcheck just corrected your name to Tosh Bermuda. I've met writers who don't like Bernhard, but they weren't interesting writers. Yeah, Benjamin was and still must be a huge Bernhard loving guy. You can feel the love in his prose. I see the rightward swing too, yeah, but I also see the resistance to that rising steadily and intensely. It's going to be scary for a while until we see. ** Dooflow, Hi, dooflow! Really awesome to see you! So good, that paragraph, right? Like paranormally good. How are you? ** Steevee, I'm guessing you respected the reasons that Cineaste had for asking you for the rewrite? Mm, I can see why you'd reference 'South Park', but ... only in a way. There's no equivalent in the States to Charlie Hebdo. Well, absolutely zero surprise that people are leaping to accusations of racism, etc. against the victims. That's the easy, trendily PC way to not have to actually think about it and to have an opinion at the same time, and, of course, most people insist on having a very strong opinion/take on everything within minutes of a thing happening. It blows my mind always that people can't spend even an hour or several accepting that they don't understand something and doing the work of investigating it, its context, etc., and contemplating the thing's complexity before spouting off in public about it as if stating an opinion were a time-based contest or something. I've never read Charlie Hebdo. It's a leftist satirical magazine that's been around since the late 60s. Its targets have always been power figures who want to restrict freedom of expression, and religious leaders of all stripes who push and proselytize for that restriction are frequent subjects of its satire. Its satire is quite crude and intended to bite/ provoke/ shock. They're very well known for that here. Its editorial stance is anti-racism and against the anti-immigrant sentiment. I haven't read David Peace, no. I don't know why. I guess I always had this idea that his thing wouldn't interest me, I don't know exactly. I'll check him out.** Dan, Hi, Dan! HNY to you! Oh, shit, I'll write to Carrie. Sorry, the film editing I'm doing has eaten my attention span. I'll write to her before I head off today. Sorry. ** Sypha, Hi, James. I don't know Ligotti's stuff very well at all, but, from what I do know, it makes sense to me that he would be a Bernhard fan. Mm, yeah, I see what you mean about your work's relationship to genre, but you have such a unique and personal and original take, view, style, and way of writing that I think you totally transcend that category even when you're working in some way closely with a genre's strictures.  ** Bill, Hi. Yeah, You should see my screen. Hm, entry point to Bernhard ... mine was 'Concrete' and then 'Correction'. They sold me big time, so maybe one of them? I've always been very curious, no surprise, to know what the Chinese translation of 'Frisk' is like. You never looked at that, did you? Only one person I've come across read it, and they said it was strangely quite good. ** Etc etc etc, Hi. That's funny 'cos I came to Gaddis via Bernhard. Interesting. I've never been headlong fascinated by Glenn Gould's work, although I think he's very interesting, obviously. The editing progresses. Paris is pretty weird but functioning normally as of this morning anyway. ** Gregoryedwin, Cool, yeah, Bernhard, whoa. Yeah, I'm perfectly fine. I was ... well, I'll tell my little tale in my day report to Kier. What happened is extremely shocking and very complicated. Oh, do take me up on the offer. I would love to do the blog's little part in ushering the book into the public. ** Misanthrope, Wait and seem, eh? Okay, gotcha, makes sense. I do the Zinc/Vitamin C thing when I get sick and, when I'm lucky, as I feel sickness coming on too. I don't get sick very much, so I guess you could say I'm sold on that method. You're still warmer than Paris is right now if that comforts. ** Rewritedept, Hi. No, Paris is going on as usual on the surface at least. The metro was shut down for a while right after it happened. A bunch of public events were cancelled. There were giant rallies here last night in support of Charlie Hebdo and pro-freedom of expression in general. But I haven't been out yet today, so we'll see. My week has been work-filled but fine. Yesterday was weird, obviously. That's cool about the Lizzy Mercier reissues. She was such a strange, unique artist. Hope your Thursday ...what do they say ... rules the roost. ** Kier, Hi. When I was doing my regular hunt on the master/slave sites for slaves today, I came across a slave whose name was Kierfan. I don't like sweet teas either, yuck. Definitely, if the drawing isn't happening, switch mediums. I do that all the time when my writing fails me. Those pastries were very yum. The green is macha, very delicious. Mostly, I'm sort of meh about birthdays, but now that my age is scarily in the higher numbers, all a birthday means to me is that I have one year less ahead of me, and I really hate that. Yesterday, well, ... So, I took the metro to Zac's. It appears that I exited at metro station near Zac's at the very moment the murders were happening. The Charlie Hebdo offices are literally a few blocks from where I exited. But everything seemed normal. I walked two blocks in the opposite direction to Zac's. We had a coffee and got to work editing. Then he got a text from his cousin asking if he was okay, and we paused editing and opened the Le Monde website to see what was up, and we saw what had happened. So we spent the day partly editing and partly watching the event unfold online. It was weird. The metro was shut down for a while, and I thought I might have to walk home, but it was up and running by the time I left, and everything seemed normal but tense. Then, really, the rest of the day was pretty involved in following what was happening. There was a really giant demonstration/show of support rally a few blocks from the Recollets, but I didn't go. Gisele did. She said it was pretty intense. So, yeah, that was my day. Back to editing and seeing what happens about the murders today. Your Thursday was presumably a little less dramatic and ... ? Love, me. ** Okay. Another formerly dead post today that doesn't seem to need any introduction. See you tomorrow.

Rerun: Bernard Welt presents ... Michael Daniels' Watchword Technique (orig. 06/02/07)

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I use the Watchword technique in class to introduce Jung and offer a practical example of free association. Since it isn’t a good idea to try free-associating out loud in front of a bunch of people—yes, I know, there are plenty of folks who visit this site who would do it, but you all are special—Watchword is a fast way to demonstrate that free association can quickly lead to the individual’s characteristic patterns of thought—that is, complexes.

Michael Daniels, a British psychologist, created the technique by adapting Jung’s ideas on word association, archetypes, individuation, and personality types. Here’s what he says:

“Watchword is an aid to psychological understanding. Its purpose is to help you to identify your psychological type and to examine important psychological forces and tendencies operating within your own being. Watchword is not a system of fortune telling and it does not offer advice about problems. In providing a description and interpretation of your psychological situation it may, however, assist your choices and decisions.

“At one level, Watchword may be considered simply as an amusing party game or form of psychological solitaire. At its most profound, it is a system that may be used to guide you along the path towards self-fulfillment.”

Whatever. What my students and I like about it is that, like a Tarot or I Ching reading, the results can be spooky and right on. Daniels is undertaking a research project and says that if you send him your completed “Watchword matrix,” he’ll send you his reading of your personality type. If you play his game, you may want to contribute to his research. But I think your personality type is pretty easy to read yourself, and the fun in Watchword isn’t in categorizing types, but in the eleven “Key Words” that are the result of the game, according to Daniels’ directions.

Before you try the game, though, let me tell you:

------1) This is better if you don’t know too much about what’s coming, so fill out the Watchword Matrix before you read on about what you’re going to do with it.
------2) It’s easier to focus if you have someone else administer the game/test, or administer it to someone else, at least the first time (but you can do it yourself if you like). Watchword depends on maintaining a relaxed attitude for entirely free association and that’s hard to do while you’re reading directions and surfing from page to page.
------3) This will take 30 minutes or so the first time.

So read this first:

START by downloading the blank Watchword Matrix, which you can print out in Landscape format to fill out:
http://www.transpersonalscience.org/blankmat.htm

THEN download the sequence of the game at:
http://www.transpersonalscience.org/wwseq.aspxhttp://www.transpersonalscience.org/wwseq.aspx
which you can print out or just look at online.

THEN follow these directions which can be found at http://www.transpersonalscience.org/wwinst.aspx

“Try to clear your mind of any current preoccupations. Close your eyes and focus gently on the sensations of breathing slowly in and out. Relax any obvious tensions in your body, adjusting your position if necessary. Try to forget what you are about to do.

When you feel ready, take a copy of the Blank Matrix Form and proceed as follows:

Step 1 Place the form horizontally and write eight different words, from left to right, in the boxes along the top of the sheet. You may write any words at all - just the first words that come into your head. Try not to censor your thoughts in any way and don't spend too long thinking what to write. Also, don't write a sentence or grammatically connected sequence. Simply write eight separate words.

Step 2 Write another eight different words, from left to right, in the boxes along the bottom of the sheet. Do not turn the sheet upside down to do this. Again, just write the first words that come into your mind.

Step 3 Refer to the Sequence of Connections and consider the two words that you have written in boxes 1 and 2. Now think of another word that, in your opinion, somehow connects the two words that you are considering. The connection can be of any kind at all as long as it makes sense to you. Don't worry if another person might not understand the association you make. If you think of more than one connecting word, choose the one that provides the link which, in your opinion, is the most personally meaningful. The word you choose must be different from the two you are considering but it may, if so desired, be the same as a word written elsewhere on the sheet. If you cannot think of a single word that makes an appropriate link, you may use a short phrase instead. Now write the connecting word (phrase) in box 17.

Step 4 Repeat Step 3, using the Sequence of Connections (http://www.transpersonalscience.org/wwseq.aspx). Do not run ahead of yourself - make sure that each connection is written down before proceeding to the next. Also, once you have written a connecting word, do not change it.”

COMPLETE THE ENTIRE MATRIX BEFORE READING FURTHER, HERE OR AT THE WATCHWORD SITE.

After you complete the matrix, Daniels suggests you consider these questions:
“1. Did you feel that, as you progressed through the exercise, you seemed to be tapping deeper and more psychologically meaningful layers of thought?
2. Do the eleven words that appear within the rectangular outline seem in any way significant to you, perhaps when understood as metaphors or symbols?
3. Do the central three words in particular seem to encapsulate or symbolize something very basic about your personality or present situation?”

STOP TO CONSIDER THIS AND ASK YOURSELF IF THESE WORDS MAKE YOU THINK OF A PARTICULAR SITUATION OR ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE.

NOW INTERPRET YOUR WATCHWORD KEYWORDS

Daniels’ site, as I said, emphasizes using Watchword to ascertain your personality type. But my students and I enjoy it more as something like a Tarot reading. Daniels believes that the inevitable emergence of complexes in word-association tests, coupled with our archetypal associations with directions (up and down, left and right, inner and outer), lead us to fill in the Matrix in ways that reflect our self-assessments, aspirations, and fears according to the system you find under “Watchword Keys” at:
http://www.transpersonalscience.org/wwtype.aspx

Each of the keys has a sort of Lord-of-the-Rings-ish archetypal designation, suggesting its function. You can see that they match up with the eleven boxes in the inner box of the matrix, and Daniels suggests you look at them in this order:

31 Giant – Driving forces
32 Dwarf - Inertial tendencies
29 Soul – Basic inner personality
30 Persona – Basic outer personality
25 Guide – Higher self
26 Imago – Ego-ideals
27 Shadow – Repressed material
28 Spectre – Anxieties and fears
33 Station – Sense of basic selfhood
34 Battle – Personal quest
35 Destiny – Realized self

Check his explanations for quite a bit more on each of the Watchword Keys. You can also see an example of a Watchword self-analysis at: http://www.transpersonalscience.org/wwinst.aspx
But my students have mostly enjoyed just seeing how their own Keywords match up with Daniels’ designations and ideas, and sometimes the results are a little uncanny.
If you want to know more about Watchword, you can buy the ebook at: http://us.txtr.com/catalog/document/sx1k4r9/self-discovery-the-jungian-way-rle-jung--michael-daniels/http://us.txtr.com/catalog/document/sx1k4r9/self-discovery-the-jungian-way-rle-jung--michael-daniels/

If you want to, you can reply to this Day with your eleven keywords for a symbolic Watchword self-portrait. Then we can all consult the list ourselves and know all your secrets.
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*

p.s. Hey. ** Slatted light, Hi, David. Interesting. Honestly, you lost me when you started talking about the French Left and the French Left cultural elite as though they're monoliths and characterizing the people who fall into those categories in your definitions as having lump sum opinions, beliefs, and actions. That locking down clashes too much with my anarchist beliefs and world view, and what you state doesn't ring true with my experiences here as a viewer, as a participant to some degree, and as a friend and/or colleague with a number of people who would seem to fall into your categories. It's just a personal thing with me, but I find that structuring device whereby people with loosely shared politics are solidified and generalized into holders and practitioners of an easily definable p.o.v. just obscuring and anti-clarity, and it creates solids where I don't believe there are solids, and I just can't get with that. Totally personal on my part, and even wrongheaded of me, who knows.  That's cool, and I'm happy if what I said was helpful re: your thoughts about writing. I really hope you do write. The idea completely thrills me. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did say that about my characters. It's true. My thoughts on narrative in genre writing were kind of a very mildly educated guess since my hands/eyes-on experience with genre writing is limited. Narrative is something I don't fully understand, or maybe I mean I think narrative itself is much more fluid and loaded than the term is thought to define or something. I don't know. I'm coming off feeling like I've found, through creating a novel out of animated gifs, a whole new world or secret level, in the videogame sense, within narrative that makes me wonder anew about what it is and what it can be, so I'm feeling particularly infant-like about it at the moment, which makes my thoughts hard to consolidate. Re: 'TME' vs. 'ZHH', it's more that I feel like the gif form/material allowed me to do something with fiction that language-based fiction hasn't ever allowed me to do -- that is, absolutely and deeply submerge the story, plot, characters and their development until they become a background. In 'TMS' I was trying to do that anyway, irregardless of whether it was possible, and I was very happy with the compromise that novel reached. In 'ZHH', meaning with gifs, you can completely submerge those things, sink them to bottom of the ocean, as it were, and create a flip where the structuring stuff doesn't send up just illustrating and complicating the story, characters, etc. by default for readers, it is the story and characters that the reader immediately encounters, and the other things are there to find and to allow a completion of the novel's full intentions if the reader wants, notices, cares. Something like that. Oh, I found the age progression's aesthetics quite hilarious too. ** David Ehrenstein, Definitely not hysteria over here at the moment. Everyone seems very quiet and de-centered and a little more warm to one another, I guess. ** Cobaltfram, Hi. Yeah, the clash with the producers sucks. In a nutshell, we're interested in making cinema, and they're interested in marketing to a gay audience. They somehow imagined that we were going to give them a sexy, transgressive gay romp, and that is absolutely not what we've made. Basically, they're going to have to accept the film we made and figure out how to market it. There's no other solution, and I hope it happens. The film is coming together very, very well. We're extremely happy with it. Cool that your trip is booked and that your excitement is arriving in oodles. ** Keaton, Hey. Could well be. I'm going to believe that's true, 'cos it's nice. Jihad freakies, yowzer. I'm avoiding every bullet over here that I can. Luckily, bullets don't fly here very often at all. ** Bill, Yeah, it was weird being in that close proximity and there being not the slightest sign or vibe that it was happening. I have a copy of the Chinese 'Frisk' back in LA. I imagine that it must be out of print by now, but I don't know much about it. Is there a Chinese equivalent to Amazon? I think every single one of those age progression things were of missing people, yeah. ** Sypha, Hi. Yeah, I'm staying even more away from FB right now than I usually do until some celebrity does something wack and my more vociferous, strong opinion stating American FB friends' attentions shift over there. ** Kier, Hi! The last one did take the cake, right? Cool. I thought so too. Macha is super yum. When you visit Paris, Zac and I will quickly hustle you over to that patisserie. Oh no, I'm sorry about Goth. That's so sad. I hope you'll be okay. Bear hugs to you! Beautiful sighting of the deer. No, actually, I haven't even seen a dog or cat anywhere since I saw that sheep. Maybe the sheep ate them? Yesterday we edited all day and evening. We finished Scene 4, which was a fair amount of work and involved a semi-revision of it, but it turned out very well, we think. Then we went back to Scene 1, but, after watching it, we were so happy with it and think it's so great that we barely even touched it. We did a handful of almost invisible tweaks and added about 40 seconds to the end because the ending was just the slightest bit rushed, we thought. Man, that scene is really, really great, I must say. So, yeah, we just sat at Zac's computer and fiddled and drank coffee and ate snacks, and it was big fun. Now, apart from a lot of sound correction on the four finished scenes, which Zac is doing solo by necessity today and tomorrow, all we have left to finish is Scene 5, which is going to be really a lot of work both because it's very technically complicated, and also because has all the potential in the world to be as great as Scene 1, so we're going to do what it takes to bring it up to that level. After the editing, I just came home and kind of zizzed out mostly 'cos my brain was burnt. But it was good. What did Friday hold in store? ** Steevee, Hi. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Cool, I will definitely try David Peace. You see his books here used a fair amount in the English language bookstores, so that should be easy. Fingers severely crossed about tomorrow, but making it perfect pre-launch is completely important too, no? ** Cal Graves, Things are strange here, for sure, but everyone is being very thoughtful, at least in public. It's very impressive, yeah. I've been good, man, thanks. The film is going very well and getting nearish to completion. My book continues to sit on the sidelines waiting for me. The theater piece is developing well. Mm, I've been so locked into editing that I really haven't seen or heard much of anything lately. Wow, your question. So, an Abramovic piece from the days before she and her work became completely vile, even though 'Rhythm o' was quite derivative of Chris Burden's early performances and even Yoko Ono's Cut. Um, really, I wouldn't want to be there at all, but, if I was, maybe I'd grab the implements, run out the door and steal them? I can't imagine doing anything else with them. What would you do? ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Well, most of those missing people haven't been found, and a lot of them disappeared ages ago, so maybe they're either really inaccurate portraits or most of those people are dead, which is probably the case. You can do the Japanese thing and wear a surgical mask over your face in public. ** Will C., Hi, Will! Really good to see you! Oh, I'm fine, thank you. It was very intense, and people are pretty shell-shocked here, but everything seems pretty calm, considering. The medical field, interesting! I think there have been a bunch of great doctors/writers, but the only one I can think of at the moment is William Carlos Williams. Writing slowly is good, man. I'm not even doing that at the moment. Yeah, please do grace here whenever it suits you, my friend. ** Mark Gluth, Hi, Mark! Yeah, I mean, in a way, i.e. re: 'Mad Magazine', but very political in its ostensible bent and for adults with adolescent senses of humor rather than for sophisticated kids. Maybe a bit more like National Lampoon Magazine was back in its heyday, if you ever saw that. I'm well, yeah, thanks. I'm glad you are too! ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris. Yeah, it was pretty intense. Everyone I know here who's French is very shaken by it and very worried that the National Front is going to gain strength and popularity because of it, which, very unfortunately, seems almost inevitable. I'm definitely with you on avoiding the non-stop opinion-ating on what happened by the barely informed on FB, et. al. right now. Yeah, so far people seem very and strangely united over here, very sober and determined to do what they can to counter the racism and xenophobia that could so scarily arise now. As you probably know, one of the cops the guys killed was a Muslim, and, since that was revealed yesterday, that has become something very important. You know, I've only read a little bit of Marilynne Robinson, and I remember being quite taken with it, and, actually, of thinking about Malick too, curious, and I meant to read more by her, and I've just spaced. Do you think 'Gilead' is a good place to start? Sure, I would love to talk about '300,000,000'. It truly is fucking amazing, yeah, for sure! ** Hyemin kim, Hi. Oh, that's wonderful! I'm so happy and very honored that you passed the dissertation defense and that my work was a part of that. Great, exciting! Thank you so very, very much! I'm too busy to move right now, and I think it won't be until next month that I'll be able to begin looking for a new place, and hopefully the Recollets will be patient with me. Do you like your new home? ** Rewritedept, An awesome Thursday, excellent! Mine was too but in a very different way, ha ha. I haven't had any time to read at all. I'm looking forward to it, though. I might get to do a little today and tomorrow. Bye. ** Okay, I found this very old guest-post by Bernard Welt, and it intrigued me, so I thought I would hold it up in front of you today and see what you guys think. What do you think? See you tomorrow.

Happy birthday to me

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Bresson (on Cinema) 1966










Hands of Bresson










The Devil, Probably (Excerpt, 1977)










Lancelot du Lac (Trailer, 1974)










A Man Escaped (Excerpt, 1956)










Constructive Editing in Robert Bresson's Pickpocket










Gilles Deleuze on Robert Bresson










Une Femme Douce (Excerpt, 1969)










Quatre nuits d'un rêveur (Excerpt, 1971)










Bresson (on the set of Mouchette)










ROAD TO BRESSON: A quest into the film-style of Robert Bresson










Pickpocket (Excerpt, 1959)










L'argent (Excerpt, 1983)










Au Hasard Balthazar (Excerpt, 1966)











Jean Luc Godard, Louis Malle, and Marguerite Duras on Robert Bresson










Robert Bresson Interview 1983




*

p.s. Hey. I'm giving myself and you a Robert Bresson birthday because we deserve it. ** Slatted light, Hey. Yeah, understand, and I could further question and counter what you wrote yesterday, but I don't think it would be fruitful, and it's my birthday, ugh, and I'll gift myself with a chill pill instead, ha ha. I'm definitely interested to see if the complicatedness and newness, etc. I've found in narrative-making through the gif form actually interests other people enough to try to access it. Really hard to tell, but it would be cool. Oh, gosh, thank you about my sentence to Mark, and, yeah, please use it, I'd be honored. Ha ha, things got a lot more tense here between the time you commented and the time I'm writing this, obviously, but ... well, we'll see what goes on today. It's pretty freaky here. ** Hyemin kim, Hi. Yeah, it must be too early to assess your living situation with any foresight, but it sounds like the start isn't too bad. I wish we had snow here. I think a big snowfall would be the perfect thing for poor, stressed-out Paris. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I think I understood what you meant even if I didn't respond clearly. Ha ha, yeah, I don't think I would know a romp if my imagination lead me to one by the nose. ** Cobaltfram, Hi, John. I think in 'gay film' the marketing thing seems even more conservative than in fiction, I guess because of the visual image aspect, and the idea, true or not, that gay guys won't go see a film if the guys in it aren't hot in a conventional way. Well, if that 'The Sluts' cover brought readers, cool, but I still can't stand it and would have traded less readers for a different cover if I'd had the choice. I'm definitely curious to see 'Inherent Vice'. Soon, I think. ** Kier, Hi! Oh, yeah, we had multiple hostage situation here yesterday. Pretty intense, but everyone I know is okay. Oh, Goth is beautiful. And that's such a good name for him. Oh, I'm even much sorrier than I was yesterday. Fuck knows what our producers were imagining. We were shocked. Are you feeling better today? I sure hope so! My day was ... well, there was a bunch of following the local news. I did that for quite a while and tried to work some while doing that. There's been this one Xmas present intended for Zac that has been hell to get my hands on because the place I needed to get it has the most incredibly unpredictable hours, but I ventured out for about the seventh time in hopes, and I finally got it. So that was good, and it was right when the supermarket hostage situation was exploding, so a bunch of the metro trains were stopped, and getting there was kind of twisted and turned and lengthy and unpredictable like a Hobbit journey or something. That was interesting. Otherwise, just the news and a lot checking in with local friends to see if they were okay and being in on by overseas friends who were worried if I was okay. And sleep. How did you spend my birthday, ha ha, the immediate aftermath aka Sunday? ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Yesterday was pretty wild here. I went out, and the city was really deserted because everyone was staying indoors glued to the TV or to some newsfeed all day. Thank you a lot about the film. Zac and I are so confident about it that we just feel like it'll work out okay somehow. Oh, I liked her work with Ulay pretty well. I was okay with her solo work after that even if it never interested very much, and I always thought it was a lot less interesting than she intended. Her persona, the god-meets-Mother-Theresa of performance art holiness shit, etc., etc., and the overbearing, overly framed banality of her current work nauseates me. I guess I should add that I co-curated a show she was in back in the '90s, and, in my personal dealings with her, her self-reverence and sense of self-importance was really of-putting even then. 'Goodbye to Language'! I've already said this, but that was the most inspiring art-related thing I got to experience last year. It's phenomenal. ** Keaton, Interesting take on terrorism there, ha ha. Wow, who's that? On your blog? Huh. Everyone, Keaton's place has a new little thing of much curiosity called '74 KA'here. ** Sypha, Hi. I've been slipping very quickly in and out of FB ever since the Charlie Hebdo thing, and I will be doing so until something else grabs everyone there away. Being here, where people are directly and tenably affected by and going through deep thinking and feeling about all that stuff, then watching people, most of whom don't know squat about it, jaw at each other about it like it's something they're trying to win in an auction is something I can not do anymore. My pleasure, and it was a no-brainer about your wonderful writerly gifts, maestro. ** Bill, Hi. Well, the incidents of yesterday are ... well, I don't know if it's possible for them to be wrapped up, but they reached a dramatic intermediate conclusion at least. Yeah, I think that's the book. The cover looks familiar. ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey. There are still some 'awol' people who are being hunted. Yeah, I'm done with all that related chatter. Well, re: the producers, I just don't think they've been in a situation where they've produced a film like ours, so they're flummoxed. They have a tried and true way of selling films, and it's always been to 'the gay audience', and it seems that they have relied on sexual titillation to the do a lot of the work, and our film has a fair amount sex in it, but it's not presented in a titillating way. Basically, they were interested initially in film because of my involvement and because of what they knew to some degree about my reputation, but I don't they actually read my work at all, and they were just going on the hubbub around my work, which I think they thought meant a sexy/shocking thing, and loggerheads have resulted. I am used to it, yeah, but it's been a while since I've made something that's under the power of people who just don't get what the work is about at all. ** _Black_Acrylic, Oh, my God! It has happened! Hold on. Oh, man, I just watched it. It's great! It's even better than I had imagined, and, yeah, it's hilarious. The lingering 'up and down' thing is awesome! Fantastic! Wow! I'm going to imbed the video down below, if that's okay. Sharing and all that. Man, I'm really excited for the series! Congratulations, and that reddit comment is just dumb-ass. Don't give it a second thought. Everyone, Big day! _Black_Acrylic aka artist and general wunderkind Ben Robinson has launched the first episode in a four-part series of video works called Art 101, and I'm going to heavily encourage you to watch it and ease your way into that pleasure by imbedding Episode 1 down at the bottom of this p.s. Scroll down there and click. Consider it a birthday present to you on my birthday and on the day afterwards as well. Super amazing and great, Ben! Whoo-hoo! ** Cal Graves, Hi. Ah, I like your subtle answer to the MA question too. Not bad. Performance art is one of my very favorite genres. It's huge, though, as far as recommendations. Maybe I'll do a post of performance art recommendations. Yeah, that's an idea. Yeah, I don't know. 'The Artist is Present' made my skin crawl and made me want to kill somebody or something, ha ha. But, yeah, people sure liked it a lot. Re: your new question, first, I fully intend to be the first immortal non-fictional human, but, on the remote chance that that won't happen, wow. Maybe I would like it be the exact opposite of 'The Artist is Present', whatever that would be. So, pony up about your own funeral's wishes. ** Steevee, Hi. Yeah, I can't take all that noise on FB about what happened here anymore. I'm done. I still have never heard even one Sleaford Mods song, which is pretty weird. So, no. But I will test them out today at long last. Oh, 'Timbuktu' is about to open here, I think. I'm pretty sure. Good, thank you! ** Schlix, Thank you kindly, dear Uli! ** Kyler, Hi, K. Thank you very much. I will try to enjoy it. Privilege to know you too! ** Misanthrope, Do the mask thing, man. I think it could be a big turn on or something, not that I'm the world's expert on what constitutes hotness. Thanks for the birthday wishes. Yeah, it's here, like it or not, ha ha. I don't think I'm getting a single, solitary gift. Not even a cake. Maybe a cake, Too early to tell. ** Will C., Hi, Will. Bulgakov, right! I just checked on other possible doctor/writers and, hey, not bad: Georg Büchner, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Anton Chekhov, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, W. Somerset Maugham, Arthur Schnitzler, Kōbō Abe, Stanisław Lem, Walker Percy. ** Jose Acevedo, Hi, Jose! Aw, thanks a lot, man! Your month sounds pretty fascinating. If you're going to live without working on projects, that sounds like the way to do it. Ha ha, I'll try to make my changes imperceptible. Enjoy your party! ** Postitbreakup, Hi, Josh! Thank you so, so much! It's really great to see you! ** Damien Ark, Hi, Damien, 'figure 8', really? That's interesting. Cool. You took the test! I'm so glad somebody did! Wow, cool. I didn't even take it. I thought about doing it, but it was too intense in Paris yesterday. Thanks to that video you let me see, my birthday is already a success! ** Rewritedept, Hi. Mm, no big plans, no. We'll see. My Friday resides in my comment to Kier. Nope, I haven't started reading yet. Not yet. I have a pile to read. Not sure which I'll crack first. ** Jonathan, Hey, J! You missed a hell of an interesting time here in Paris, yikes. I'm glad you're almost back. Definitely, let's hang out asap at Aoki and elsewhere. And Zac and I want to 'drag' you to EuroDisney to ride the Ratatouille ride very soon. ** Right. I intro'ed the post. It's my birthday. Enjoy yourselves this weekend. I'll see you again on Monday, right? Right.


ART101 ep. 1 - This is the first step on your artistic journey.


Spotlight on ... Nathalie Sarraute Tropisms (1939)

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'In photographs, Nathalie Sarraute stares out at us with the impassiveness of sculpture. Etched with elegantly weathered lines, her face surrounds a gaze that is frank and, one suspects, unsparing; her assured bearing suggests an impeccable if somewhat mannish grande dame. In her work, likewise, she projected an air of imperiousness, of godlike detachment. In her first book, Tropisms (1939), she gave birth to a genre wholly her own -- an amalgam of fictional sketch, prose poem, essay, and deadpan transcription of everyday speech. The daring on display in everything she wrote, her cerebral rigor as both novelist and playwright, and the crystalline austerity of her prose style collectively imparted the forbidding aura of a remote, trenchant intelligence. Sarraute's reticence toward her own biography bolstered this impression. Perhaps expecting to be graced with the gnomic utterances of an oracle, first-time visitors to her apartment near the place de l'Etoile could be caught off guard by her lively charm. Sarraute's regal manner made it commonplace, in press features and on dust jackets, for her to be cast as the doyenne of the French avant-garde. But throughout her novels one also finds oblique traces of a scarred child within: Sarraute's obsessive examination of emotion, alert to the rawest of sensitivities, reveals intensities comparable to the agony of one's earliest psychic wounds. She regarded the true artist as both conquering explorer and alienated misfit. Her resounding credo, delivered in a lecture praising Virginia Woolf -- "Every work of literature, like every work of art, consists in revealing an unknown reality" -- finds variant and more complex expression toward the end of her essay "What Birds See": "It can also happen . . . that isolated, maladjusted, lonely individuals, morbidly attached to their childhood, withdrawn into themselves and cultivating a more or less conscious taste for a certain form of defeat, by giving in to an apparently useless obsession, succeed in digging up and laying bare a fragment of reality that is still unknown." The exemplary writer is poised midway between triumph and defeat, agency and passivity, the formative attachments of the past and the unearthing of a new understanding. ...

'Just as Stendhal borrowed the scientific term crystallization to parse the mysteries of love, Sarraute appropriated the term tropism from biology to give a name to those pulses of feeling that course, swell, and churn within her characters, even during their most trivial interactions with others. Indeed, especially during such encounters, Sarraute fixes her gaze repeatedly, one might say obsessively, on scenes of quotidian drabness, on nonevents unfolding against bleak, shabby backgrounds. In Tropisms it's often unclear exactly where we are. Only occasionally does the author specify that we're in Paris; one of the book's twenty-four brief chapters takes place on the outskirts of London, and most occur in a melancholy region drained of vitality, frequently an urban milieu of enervated pedestrians, tawdry shop-windows, dank corridors in anonymous apartment buildings. Sarraute here sketches out yet another enclave in that sprawling rundown metropolis of the modernist imagination, complementing the bedraggled settings of Eliot's Preludes and Rhys's Good Morning, Midnight.

'The near-skeletal figures populating Tropisms contribute as well to the disorientation that accompanies a first reading. The most rudimentary guideposts are absent. Apart from a few glancing references to marginal characters, no one is designated by a proper name or even a bare initial. Placed beside Sarraute's characters, even what she called the "slender prop" of Kafka's Joseph K. seems bulked-out and hefty. A protagonist's very name, she wrote in her seminal essay "The Age of Suspicion," has become a "source of embarrassment" to the modern writer, who "only reluctantly" furnishes characters with "attributes that could make him too easily distinguishable: his physical aspect, gestures, actions, sensations, everyday emotions, studied and understood for so long, which contribute to giving him, at the cost of so little effort, an appearance of life, and present such a convenient hold for the reader." Using her anonymous types, Sarraute delves into the subterranean zones of personality, probing its shadowy recesses and tracking those "movements which are inherent in everybody and can take place in anybody." Such energized tropisms lurk "behind our gestures, beneath the words we speak, the feelings we manifest, are aware of experiencing, and able to define. They seemed, and still seem to me to constitute the secret source of our existence, in what might be called its nascent state."

'Sarraute's formal stringency was prompted by modernism's restless chasing after the new. Although not a member of any organized movement -- the nouveau roman group with which she was associated was a flowering of writers with affinities of purpose but rather different themes and predilections -- she never wavered in her commitment to the avant-garde as a stance dedicated to being, as Rimbaud had insisted, absolutely modern. By the middle of the twentieth century, the precincts of fiction were overpopulated with characters securely ensconced in the collective imagination -- Rastignac, Sorel, Pip, Bovary, Isabel Archer, Nana, Raskolnikov; the list goes on and on -- to say nothing of the parade of types made familiar through second- and third-rate novels. What need was there, Sarraute reasoned, to contribute redundantly to the tradition, to add yet another fully formed protagonist, yet more nail-biting episodes?

'Sarraute was one of the last in a line of artists who sought through radical innovation to renew entire aesthetic traditions, shattering the encrustations of threadbare ideas, official commonplaces, conventional and therefore lifeless forms of perception. In her complicated relation to the past she spanned a gaping contradiction 00 or, one might say, she forged her own resolution of a dialectic that had troubled writers since the advent of Romanticism. Abandoning the most fundamental building blocks of storytelling and reconfiguring fiction, so to speak, at the molecular level, Sarraute went further even than James and Proust in attempting to name the ineffable. Her works are as distinct from their predecessors as a head X-ray is from an ornately framed painted portrait. And yet, for all her originality, it was evident from Tropisms on that she'd absorbed more than a century's worth of fiction, and not just those moderns she singled out as influences: Proust, Woolf, Joyce, Ivy Compton-Burnett. Tropisms begins to yield familiar readerly pleasures once you get your bearings. In a few terse phrases, Sarraute can create a scene in as realistic a mode as Balzac: "The place had a cold, dingy glitter," runs a description of a cafe that might be found anywhere in France; "the waiters ran about too fast in a rough, indifferent manner, the mirrors gave back harsh reflections of tired faces and blinking eyes."'-- James Gibbons, Artforum



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Mss.





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Further

Nathalie Sarraute's Foreword to 'Tropisms'
'Nathalie Sarraute, The Art of Fiction No. 115'
'Nathalie Sarraute by Hannah Arendt'
'Lessons with Nathalie Sarraute'
'Nathalie Sarraute and England' by Barbara Wright
Interview with Nathalie Sarraute
Nathalie Sarraute obituary @ The Guardian
'Re: THE USE OF SPEECH BY NATHALIE SARRAUTE'
'Le bout de la langue: A propos de Nathalie Sarraute'
Nathalie Sarraute @ goodreads
'Synthese sur "Enfance" de Nathalie Sarraute'
'Cycle Sarraute' @ France Culture
'Silence, tropisme et stéréotype chez Nathalie Sarraute'
'Lieux et figures de la sensation dans l'œuvre de Nathalie Sarraute'
'Éthique et esthétique dans l’oeuvre de Nathalie Sarraute'



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Extras


Un siècle d'écrivain 1995 Nathalie Sarraute


Extrait de la lecture de Nathalie Sarraute "Pour un ui, pour un non"


Nathalie Sarraute Quotes


Tombe de Nathalie Sarraute au cimetière de Chérence



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Interview




It seems that even in the 1930's when you wrote your first book, Tropisms (Tropismes), you had already found your own voice, and your own style. What are the literary, social and political currents that have influenced your development.

Nathalie Sarraute: Social and political currents--there were none. Literary currents that influenced me go back to Flaubert, Madame Bovary, to Dosotevsky, and later to Proust and Joyce.

Could you explain the effect these writers had?

Sarraute: After the appearance of Proust and Joyce, there came about a huge upheaval in literature. I must also mention Virginia Woolf, who not only wrote very modern things, she also had ideas on the transformation of the novel. She made a strong impression on me. So when I began to write, I felt that one could no longer imitate these writers, one couldn't imitate the classics. As a result, I had to look for something, a substance, a form that belonged to me personally. These writers had shown us that the framework of the old novel could no longer meet modern needs, and I thought that it would be interesting--actually I didn't even think about it, I did it without thinking--to show interior movements existing all alone, without characters, without a plot.

These are called tropisms?

Sarraute: These are called tropisms because they are instinctive movements taking place on the subconscious level that are provoked like plant tropisms, which are provoked by external stimulii, by exterior objects.

There were no other influences? I was thinking of social influences, perhaps what was going on in the world.

Sarraute: No. Because what I write has a absolutely nothing to do with social or political events, whatever they might be. No more than in the work of Proust. It's totally removed from that. These are simply the seekings of art that have nothing to do with sociological novels. This is not littérature engagée.

In your works you seem to emphasize psychology, but you are very far removed from the traditional psychological novel.

Sarraute: It's not exactly psychology because when you say psychology, you think immediately of the classic categories of psychology. That is something very out-of-date--to analyse feelings, etc. Mine is rather a mental universe where psychological terms are not introduced. What my characters experience, what happens--let's say jealousy or love--occurs before the feelings. I show something that happens inside ourselves, in the midst of happening, something I don't analyse. In the psychological novel, there are analyses of one's feelings. In my work, there are movements that are not named, which do not enter into the category of psychology. These are interior movements at the moment that we experience them.

How do you react to the accusation that the novel is dead?

Sarraute: I have often heard this accusation that the novel is dead. Bretson said it in 1925. But I see novels produced, I don't know how many a week, in France. I have the impression it's carrying along quite well.

Do you have any misgivings at turning people away from the content of your writing because of its form?

Sarraute: Of course I have misgivings. I've always had them. As long as the readers are still searching for the character, and for a plot, sometimes they miss what I've tried to show them, because they are trying to see if the characters are married, who said what, are they the same people who spoke in the first chapter, when I don't care. I put two people, maybe they're brother and sister, maybe they're anyone. I don't care. The important thing is what they are saying, what they are feeling. But people try and see, "Oh, but it's a married couple and they met in the first chapter." They go on caring about things that I don't care for.

Do you feel that there has arisen, then, a sort of tension between the writer and the reader that occurs while a reader is going through a book?

Sarraute: There is a tension. I think it's a good thing. I think when something is too easy, it's bad. The reader doesn't have to make an effort, he himself doesn't have to create. But the reader has to be creative, when he's reading. He has to try to make the thing alive. But if you give him something easy that's just an amusement for him, he is gliding on the surface and not working. I think a good reader has to do a certain amount of work when he is reading.

But all the same, there are readers who won't make this effort.

Sarraute: Naturally there are readers like that. So what? One can't write for all readers. For example, a poet cannot begin to write for people who don't like poetry. He writes for a limited public who loves this type of thing, who are interested in it.



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Book


Nathalie Sarraute Tropisms
George Braziller

'The term "tropism" Sarraute had taken from biology, where it names the reactive, almost imperceptible movements that living organisms make, towards or away from whatever impinges on them. Sarraute's are tropisms with a human face, the buried, never quite conscious to-ings and fro-ings of the psyche that accompany all social contact, which she turns pitilessly yet very gracefully into words as she delves into the unspoken and quite often unspeakable root-system of polite conversation. Politeness is shown cruelly up in Sarraute, as the mask for aggression on the part of some and for a corresponding anxiety on the part of others. She is the unforgiving zoologist of our dissembling species, as observed in the habitat she shared with it, of "civilised" Paris.'-- The Guardian

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Excerpt

XI

She had understood the secret. She had scented the hiding-place of what should be the real treasure for everybody. She knew the ‘scale of values.’

No conversations about the shape of hats and Rémond fabrics for her. She had profound contempt for square-toed shoes.

Like a wood-louse she had crawled insidiously towards them and maliciously found out about ‘the real thing’, like a cat that licks its chops and closes its eyes before a jug of cream it has discovered.

Now she knew it. She was going to stay there. They would never dislodge her from there again. She listened, she absorbed, greedy, voluptuous, rapacious. Nothing of what belonged to them was going to escape her: picture galleries, all the new books… She knew all that. She had begun with ‘Les Annales’, now she was veering towards Gide, soon she would be going to take notes, an eager, avid gleam in her eye, at meetings of the ‘Union for Truth’.

She ranged over all that, sniffed everywhere, picked up everything with her square-nailed fingers; as soon as anyone spoke vaguely of that anywhere, her eyes lighted up, she stretched out her neck, agog.

For them this was unutterably repellent. Hide it from her – quick – before she scents it, carries it away, preserve it from her degrading contact… But she foiled them, because she knew everything. The Chartres Cathedral could not be hidden from her. She knew all about it. She had read what Péguy had thought of it.

In the most secret recesses, among the treasures that were the best hidden, she rummaged about with her avid fingers. Everything ‘intellectual’. She had to have it. For her. For her, because she knew now the real value of things. She had to have what was intellectual.

There were a great many like her, hungry, pitiless parasites, leeches, firmly settled on the articles that appeared, slugs stuck everywhere, spreading their mucus on corners of Rimbaud, sucking on Mallarmé, lending one another Ulysses or the Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge, which they slimed with their low understanding.

‘It’s so beautiful,’ she said, opening her eyes in which, with a pure, inspired expression, she kindled a ‘divine spark’.



XII

During his very well-attended lectures at the Collège de France, he amused himself with all that.

He enjoyed prying, with the dignity of professional gestures, with relentless, expert hands, into the secret places of Proust or Rimbaud, then, exposing their so-called miracles, their mysteries, to the gaze of his very attentive audience, he would explain their ‘case’.

With his sharp, mischevous little eyes, his ready-tied cravate and his square-trimmed beard, he looked enormously like the gentleman in the advertisements who, with one finger in the air, smiling recommends Saponite, the best of soap-powders, or the model Salamander: economy, security, comfort.

‘There is nothing,’ he said, ‘you see I went to look for myself, because I won’t be bluffed; nothing that I myself have not already studied clinically countless times, that I have not catalogued and explained.

‘They should not upset you. Look, in my hands they are like trembling, nude little children, and I am holding them up to you in the hollow of my hand, as though I were their creator, their father, I have emptied them for you of their power and their mystery. I have tracked down, harried what was miraculous about them.

‘Now they hardly differ from the intelligent, curious and amusing eccentrics who come and tell me their interminable stories, to get me to help them, appreciate them, and reassure them.

‘You can no more be affected than my daughters are when they entertain their girl friends in their mother’s parlour, and chatter and laugh gaily without being concerned with what I am saying to my patients in the next room.’

This was what he taught at the Collège de France. And in the entire neighbourhood, in all the nearby Faculties, in the literature, law, history and philosophy courses, at the Institute and at the Palais de Justice, in the buses, in the métros, in all the government offices, sensible men, normal men, active men, worthy, wholesome, strong men, triumphed.

Avoiding the shops filled with pretty things, the women trotting briskly along, the café waiters, the medical students, the traffic policemen, the clerks from notary offices, Rimbaud or Proust, having been torn from life, cast out from life and deprived of support, were probably wandering aimlessly through the streets, or dozing away, their heads resting on their chests, in some dusty public square.




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p.s. Hey. ** Damien Ark, Hey, man. Oh, wow, that's so awesome of you! For various reasons, I didn't look at the comments over the weekend until this morning, so I missed the chance for an actual on-site listening fest on the b'day itself, but I'll be able to score today. Really, thanks a lot, I'm excited! Lots of love back! ** Dom Lyne, Hi, Dom! Lovely to see you, buddy, and thank you for the good wishes in the recently passed holidays. Well, a birthday is kind of a holiday, I guess. Your Xmas sounds to have been really nice, and, yeah, I'm happy about how things have so turned so around for you. You deeply deserve it, my brilliant friend. Hugs back in multiples. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben! Thank you, sir! I don't think I've experiences a Vines. I think I know what it is, or maybe I don't precisely and, in fact, I've been indoctrinated already. Excited for yours. Share the word. ** Lee, Hi there, Lee! Sweetness to lay eyes on the words that form your mini-self-portrait by default. My b'day was nice. 'Like a shit Proust', ha ha. Yeah, let me know what's going with you in a more detailed fashion when the opp arises. Take care, major dude. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you kindly! So generous! ** Bernard Welt, Yay, I get to see Bernard on my birthday even if it's a bit after the fact. My imagination can do the retrieval. Aw, thank you, you're so sweet, you are, sorry. Do let me know about the Recollets app. I'm finally being evicted from here after all these years in the next couple of months, but I think I'll still have big sway 'cos it's nothing personal from them. Re: 1) Yeah, I literally have imposed a ban for the time being on reading almost anything written/ commented from anywhere outside of France on what happened and is happening here because virtually everything I was reading had absolutely no grasp of or respect for the personal and emotional effect here, and which is an extremely important part of what happened here, and, without that substance, it comes off like a bunch of clatter. I'm not sure that no one is going to learn anything productive from this. At the higher levels, yeah, logic says you're right, but on the ground, amongst people here, I see signs and I feel hope. 2) I keep coming back to the conclusion that James Franco is doing the obvious, but gosh, maybe not. It's less obvious than what Shia LeBoeuf is doing at the very least. What are you assigning/ showing in the Sex in American Cinema class this time? Dude, I don't think you did a Frankenstein post, but, even if you did, I would slobber if you wanted to make one. Literally slobber, and it wouldn't even get on your clothes. We have to see each other for more than a tiny bypass in a venue lobby soon. Might you come over this year, 'cos that would help? Let's Skype! ** Will C., Hi, Will. Thanks, man. I didn't go crazy, I don't think, but it was cool. ** xTx, Yay! Hi! I've missed you hugely! How are you? You can not even begin to remotely imagine how incredibly excited I am for your book! Are you good and even great? Well, I mean, you're incredibly great, but are you also good? Big, big love! ** Cobaltfram, Hi. No, Bresson wasn't gay. He was French. That might explain it. A conundrum of a city: novel-worthy already. Thanks for the b'day wishes! ** Derek McCormack, Derek! Thank you, thank you, it was a very pleasant birthday. ** Dungan, Whoa, Sean! This is fucking great! Man, I've missed you! Thank you so much! How are you? What's up? Inquiring mind/heart combo wants to know? ** Sypha, Hi, James. I'm really sorry about your grandmother. I hope you're hanging in there. Take care, okay? ** James, Wow, two Jameses in a row. Thank you for the song! Or for the lyrics of the song that my imagination filled in appropriately. Oh, William Carlos Williams was the original reference when we started that doctor/writer combo talk, so he was old news by the time I did the list. I'm safe over here, thanks. Oh, sure, that has happened to me all the time at certain conducive life points, yeah. It's healthy to build things and then forget them. ** Keaton, Aw, ha ha, your birthday thing is the funniest, loveliest unexpected little thing. Thank you! Aw! Robert Merton, I don't know him. I know Thomas Merton. Know of him. ** Aaron Mirkin, Hi, Aaron! Yeah, I've seen you across the landscape of FB, and I've typically been a bad message responder there because I just sort of am in general for some reason, but yay for you popping in! Oh, wow, Will Patton! Um, yeah, that's crazy. I haven't thought about that in years. In the early 80s, maybe in '84, Richard Hell commissioned me to write a play that was intended to co-star him, John Lurie, and Will Patton. He gave me carte blanche, and maybe he shouldn't have, ha ha, because I wrote this kind of insane play that I can hardly remember, and which I don't I have a copy of anymore, sadly. I mostly remember that it was in three acts, and that in one of them, Hell and Lurie and Patton would have been sitting in three speedboats suspended in the air, side by side, with their motors revving at full blast, having some very strange conversation with each other, but it could well be that they ate children at some point or something. Anyway, I wrote it, and then Hell, Lurie, Patton, and I had a meeting, and Hell and Lurie were, like, 'Let's do it', and Patton was, like, 'No fucking way. So the project died. It would have been really cool if it had happened, obviously. But yeah, Will Patton. Brilliant actor. I feel like he's never been given the great opportunities that his talent deserves. That's hilarious, that story. Thank you for it. ** Heliotrope, My dear Mark! Oh, my goodness, you're always so incredibly kind and generous on the subject of me. Thank you, thank you for everything! Are you good? ** Slatted light, Hi, David. Aw, thanks so much, man, and ditto and double ditto and infinite ditto. Love you a ton too, man. For the reasons I mentioned on Friday and to Bernard up above, I've copied and paste your thoughts on the stuff going on here in a doc, and I will read them when I'm capable of and interested in trying to look at what has happened here and might happen from afar. Right now it feels important to experience this with people who are in the immediate emotional impact zone and whose atmosphere, social dealings, politics, feelings, whole persons are sorting through this in personal ways. But I know for sure that I will be tweaked and enlightened by your thoughts when I'm ready to experience them, which will no doubt be quite soon. ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey. Thank you. I had a good one both within and without all the stuff going on here. ** Kier, Hi! Oh, shit, I hope the two days since we last spoke has caused your sickness to get the hell out of you. Has it? Holy shit, your birthday present is insane! I mean insanely great and welcome! Wow! We should do a collab. gif short story. That's so beautiful. Even if you didn't order them particularly, the order was super interesting. Gif combos can make these really interesting 'narratives' by accident a lot. In fact, letting those accidents happen and then working with them is really important to writing fiction with gifs. Thank you so, so much! And the Lynch thing is great and so perfectly put. My weekend: On my birthday, the plan had been for Zac and I to go meet up with Kiddiepunk and Oscar B. at the CDG airport during their stopover twixt Australia and the UK, but their plane got delayed 7 hours, so that didn't happen, sadly. Instead, Z. and I hung out. He gave me some amazing chocolate things. We went and checked out the new Fondation Louis Vuitton building/shows. The building, a typically overdone, boring Frank Gehry thing was meh. There was a big Olafur Eliasson show/ installation. There was one small fountain/strobe-light piece that was very cool, and the rest was incredibly expensively made and blah. He seems like he has kind of lost it in recent years. And there were a few cool artworks there amidst the so-so. But it was fun. Then we went to Hard Rock Cafe and stuffed ourselves with nachos, and that was really fun. So, my b'day itself was great. Hanging out with Zac is always a huge gift. Yesterday, I wasn't necessarily going to go to the big march/rally, but Gisele called and said that she, Jonathan Capdevielle, and our friend the artist Dominique Gonzales-Foerster were going. So I decided to meet up with them at a cafe a ways away from the rally and then maybe go look at it. As you may have read, there were at least a million and a half people there, and probably closer to 2 million, and the streets were completely jammed with people everywhere, even far, far away from Republique, which is where the march started, so even way over at the cafe where we decided to meet it was so crowded so you could hardly move. I eventually found them, and we tried to walk to Republique, but we barely got anywhere because there were so many people. So, basically, we just ended up standing packed in with all these people, barely moving and unable to escape for a couple of hours. It was pretty amazing and powerful. So many people, and of every age and ethnicity imaginable, and everyone was really ... connected, it really felt like it. It was exciting and beautiful. Oh, maybe I should add that, despite all the stuff I've seen on the news about the rally, the '40 world leaders' did not march and participate in the march. They just posed in a clump miles away from the rally for a few minutes in a photo op to look like they were marching. Then they were bussed to where the march was destined to end and sat in some backstage area until the crowd arrived, and then they just came out and 'entertained' everyone. Anyway, eventually we moved far enough along that there was a tiny opening, so we escaped the densest part of the crowd and walked forever until we found a cafe that wasn't too crowded to enter. Literally everywhere was packed with people. I've never seen anything like it, and I guess no one here has since the size of the crowd was the largest in France's history. After a coffee, they all decided to continue and march the whole route to Nation, and I decided to go home, which took a long time since all the metro stations were closed and the streets were very jammed up all the way to the Recollets, which was pretty far away from the rally, so it took over a couple of hours to walk a route that usually takes me about 15 minutes. And then I mostly just followed the rally's progress and happenings on the news for the rest of the night. It was an intense and powerful day. And now it's Monday! What happened on your side of things? ** Cal Graves, Hi. Thanks, man. My birthday was cool and fun, yeah. For my birthday? Ideally? Retroactively? Hm. How about a billion euros. Simple. ** Brendan, Hey, B! Very cool! I miss you too! I'm doing quite well, thank you! I think I saw a pic on FB of maybe the work in your imminent show (?) and it looked fantastic, whatever it was that I was looking at. Love, me. ** Gary gray, Hi. Yeah, I think you would know if you had frostbite. I think it's pretty intense. Good, man, I'm glad happiness has been hanging out with you. Is moody hip? Is moody ever not hip? Wait, maybe. I would read your cleverbot blog if you restarted it. ** Bill, Thanks, Bill. It was good. How's it? ** Thomas Moronic, Thank you for the b'day kindness. ** Steevee, I listened to couple of Sleaford Mods songs. Yeah, pretty nice and intriguing. I'll get a collection. I hope the doctor visit this morning is the least hellish thing possible. ** Misanthrope, Wtf, indeed. I got some great chocolates from Zac, and some great Sadaharu Aoki almost cake-like pastries from Yury, so my stomach was covered on the birthday front. Thanks, G. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Thank you, Jeff. Mm, once I finally get back into my text novel, I'll see. No doubt, but the gif form is really so different that I think any effect will likely be just some kind of newer grasp of what text can and can't do. I'm curious to find out. The only effect of my text novel on the gif novel is that they're both to be part of the novel cycle I'm working on, so there was obviously a lot of cross-thinking involved due to that. ** Statictick, Hi, Nick. Thanks, man. Glad you got the sale done, assuming there are no glitches, like you said. Thanks a lot about 'Elevator'! ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! I hope you like Bresson when you get to him, obviously. Fantastic and thank you for the alert and link re: the new Zachary German story! That completely escaped me. That's very exciting. Whoa, cool. He's so great. Thank you for the good birthday thoughts. I might even pick up 'Gilead' as early as this afternoon, should my path cross paths with a certain bookstore here, which I think will happen. How's your writing going? ** Rewritedept, My weekend was ... yeah, fun seems like a solid enough adjective. Curious to hear how your first day of work goes, obviously. Good luck! I will happily share your thing. Everyone, here's Rewritedept in his own words. I urge you to do what he asks. Here he is: 'hey everyone. my words and art page on facebook is SO CLOSE to having 100 likes, and it would mean the world to me of those of you who haven't liked it would do so. it is here for you to do so. i am creating some sort of present to send out to the lucky dude or dudette who is number 100, but i don't know what yet. a poem? a collage? a jar of my semen? you'll just have to like the page and find out. you can also send friend requests to chris gugino if you're into that networking shit. thanks!' Radical Monday on your end too! ** Okay. I start the blog week with a spotlight on a great book by the great Nathalie Sarraute. Be there. See you tomorrow.

Turkey

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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Well, biggest in French history. B H-L spoke too soon, as he often does. The morning after the rally, the Right was all over exploiting what happened, and they want a French Patriot Act, etc., etc. Do LeBoeuf and Franco ever talk about each other? And why do I wonder? ** Kier, Hi, K! I should really do a scour of my files someday just to make sure I don't have a copy of that play. I'm sure it was bad, but still. I basically find gifs through general keyword searches on google and directly on Giphy. I just try tricky mutations of the search terms and sometimes add 'weird' and other adjectives to try to get into the more obscure gif troves. I'm happy for at least that teentsy bit of your feeling better. You're much better though today, I hope? Mm, no I don't think I've heard the Xiu Xiu Rihanna cover. Cool. I'll grab it. My day: Zac was still working on the sound stuff, so we didn't edit. I did some writing work. I was supposed to see Gisele, but Stephen is having some visa issues, and that ended up totally occupying their day. One of the performers in our film, Paul Hameline, who's an artist and a prominent young fashion model and a really awesome guy who's become a good friend, is in Paris for a few days, so we made plans to meet up. Here's him in his model mode. In the afternoon, I met up with Zac. One of my Xmas presents to him was the transformation of him into a lifelike figurine at this newish 3D portrait studio Moimee, so we went there, and he froze inside this camera-packed cubicle for a while, and the figurine-making process was begun. Then we had a coffee and hung out for a while. The rest of my day was just dinner and blog post making and this and that of little note. Did you rouse yourself from your sickness enough to have any fun or anything else cool today? ** Steevee, Hi. No, it wasn't like that at all. The foreign news coverage was completely off. Like I said, the big wigs didn't get within miles of the rally and march. A section of the city was completely emptied, blocked off, and protected by snipers, and they exited their armored buses long enough to stand in a deserted street and pretend to walk a few meters before reentering their buses and heading off for the synagogue for their second photo op, and then I guess they went back to their hotels or something. Their participation meant absolutely nothing to the million-plus people who gathered. Nice about the no co-pays. I hope the rest of the process goes very smoothly. ** Sypha, You're free! But for how long? Hm, yeah, I get it about the acknowledgements. Well, it's a symbolic thing, isn't it? So it's up to you. I guess it's an emotional decision, really. I think I've been in situations like that, and I think sometimes I acknowledged the estranged person because I felt like why not, and I think other times I left the person off the list. Follow your heart on that one, I guess? ** _Black_Acrylic, Very sweet about the interview for Art in Scotland! Especially now that watchers can go directly to the source. Cool. Nice jumper. Yeah, sure, you can turn it around. I guess just don't sweat too profusely under the bright lights or spill any of the free red wine they'll undoubtedly hand you on it. ** Heliotrope, Hi, Mark! The crowd size was pretty willying. Wait, that's not a word, ha ha? Oh, shit, Mark, this mysterious 'episode' is, of course, very, very concerning. Please at least post on Facebook about how the neurologist visit goes or let me know or something. Fuck. Extreme, volcanic positive and health-inducing vibes from Paris with a terrible American French accent. Focus is always a plus, I'm pretty sure. I can't think of a counter-argument. I, of course, thought of you immediately when I read that Ian McLagan passed away, yeah, because I do so remember your stories about him and about you and him. Paints! What are you doing with the paints? Curious. Massive love from your ancient, loving buddy, me. ** Keaton, I loved it. Like is not enough. It was a pretty A-okay birthday, yep. Well, those are some idiosyncratic thoughts on the Paris march, and you know idiosyncrasy is my middle name or something. It is a nice monument. And strangely more so now that they removed the street that used to run around it. That effect surprised me. I'm a Haussmann fan for totally sure. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Okay, that is a weird dream. I wonder what our resident dream expert Bernard would make of that. Bernard, any thoughts? I had a dream last night wherein these two boys who used to beat me up all the time when I was elementary school had turned into wasps for some reason. Talking wasps. And they wanted to sting me to death. I killed one of them with a book, but the other landed on my arm, and that's when I woke up. You're taking antibios for your bronchitis, right? They always rid me of mine pretty well. Yeah, I'm doing good, I think. Yeah, no, I definitely am. ** Cal Graves, Hi. Jesus Christ, as it were, ha ha, that is one hell of a big, tough question, man. Hm. I really think I would probably make it just a continuation of whatever life everyone had lead, but I guess with perfect health and killer charisma and magic powers yet to be determined. Or it would be like an infinitely large Disneyland kind of place. Man, that's hard. I beseech you to answer that question yourself. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! As you can imagine, I'm very all-for you getting heavily into French literature since it made me everything I am today, for better or worse. Gosh, either 'Tropisms' or 'The Golden Fruits'. They're really different. You might have a hard time getting the latter. I think it's really, really out of print in English? I love the sound of your book, and the challenge you're giving yourself is a really exciting one. Yeah, certain French writers have done that, and beautifully. I'm spacing on examples, but I'll think of some. Perec. I think your instinct to make the 3rd person voice overtly opinionated is a really promising one. The voice needs to be very present. If you can do that, the characters can swim around in it. I've tried switching perspectives in my stuff. I guess quite a bit, like in 'Period' and 'The Sluts', and, albeit organized into distinct chapters, in 'Closer', And I even/also switch tenses a lot in 'Guide'. I think it's wholly, wholly possible, and I super encourage you to try that, and I would be extremely interested to hear how you construct that and how it works. That's very exciting, Chris! The march here was really nice. And you can feel the difference in Paris now. It seemed to de-stress people here, at least for now. ** Aaron Mirkin, Hey, man! I suspect it was pretty ridiculous play, but it would have been fun to try to stage it. No, Richard really wanted to do a play with Lurie and Patton, and I think they tried to find another writer, but I don't think they ever ended up finding anything that they all could agree on. Interesting question. I'll think about it because there must be many examples, The only that springs to mind is Alain Resnais's 'Providence', one of my very, very favorite films. Let me ask the others too. Everyone, awesome filmmaker Aaron Mirkin needs some help with suggestions re: an idea he has for a film he's making. Can anyone here please help him out? Here he is: 'Right now I'm in the process of gathering inspirations for a feature idea and I was wondering if you could think of any interesting films with more than one storyline using the same actor (or actors) as different characters in each?' I'll ponder the question, and take care. ** Dungan, Sean! Awesome, you came back! Way, way too long! Yeah, please do keep me abreast, if you don't mind. It looks like I might be going to LA finally in early March, and it would great to see if you if I do and if you're around. Love, me. ** Okay. Wow, today's post. I don't know what to say about it. It just happened the other day. I was just the fingers doing its bidding. That is all. See you tomorrow.

'Welcome to the universe of The Falling Star!': DC's select international male escorts for the month of January 2015

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sex_escort, 18
București

if u can spend money for ur pleasure ,u can also spend to make someone life worth. money m going to get from prostitution will invest in makin my future. it is imp.

Dicksize M, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Yes
Fucking No
Oral Top
Dirty WS only
Fisting Active
S&M Soft SM only
Client age Users older than 40
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



________________




DuoDad_son, 18
Berlin

You're looking for something special! WE both you are bidding only as FEW, for TWO with us (18 & 49) to:
Young Emo-Boy and senior man can be happy to see you live while they do it BARE together.
You can simply watch or you active & passive (av you only safe!) Bring with. We offer the tender caresses to a wild passionate sex, Soft SM ... the full range of common lust.

With us are common Role Playing possible (Dad / Son, teacher / student, Child molester / child, etc.). Also like horny fetish - Games (senior man active & Emo-Boy passive). Soft S / M, bubbles, AV, Kissing negotiable, with you lick, fingering, masturbate, fuck, whip. Massages. Or as the Younger is beautifully pampered with "toy".

18: Dick M, untrimmed. AV active & passive, active & passive OV, golden shower, fisting passive, Spanking passive, etc ... (Just ask for it ^^)
49 years: Dick L, beautiful uncut closely, AV active, OV and dominant, NS active, active fisting, active Spanking, etc ... (Just ask for it ^^)

Baresex we operate as a pair for two together, you're staying with us for sex Safe sex is fashionable with you! In your interests and ours

!!! We can only be booked together here !!!

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Consent
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting Active/Passive
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Skater, Rubber, Underwear, Skins & Punks, Uniform, Formal dress, Techno & Raver, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Drag, Worker
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 180 Euros
Rate night ask



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SEXYSUGARBOY,18
Riga

I'm a 18 yo boy ooking for all types of fun.
I will kiss you hard if you cum in my mouth first or if I cum in your.
I love to get fucked and if you want me to fuck you perhaps I will implement your desire.
I'm barely 105lbs, and maybe 5foot2.
I live approximately 2,5 hours flight to an every capital city of Europe.

Fucking active / passive
Oral active / passive
Watersports active
CBT active / passive
Fisting active
SM active / passive
Bondage active / passive
Dirty active
Kissing yes
Massage active / passive
Safer Sex always
Rate / Hour 200
Rate / Night 500
Rate / 24h 800



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twin_doublefuck, 24
Istanbul

hello we Cypriot, for our istanbul came all for a new university. serious, realistic, crisp. twin guys prf. double fuck only, never 1 cock inside you, never. I'm active or active, 20 years old but everyone tell me that I'm 18, loking for a passive. wake up, enjoy life.

1 hour 400 euro 2 person twin MAN
2 hours 600 euro for 2 person twin MAN

Dicksize XL, Cut
Position Top only
Kissing Yes
Fucking No entry
Oral Top
Dirty WS only
Fisting Active
S&M No entry
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Underwear, Boots, Lycra, Uniform, Formal dress, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Drag, Worker
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



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kissTar, 21
Alexandria

My nickname is Tar I looking for someone to take care me

I am both looking some good man to massage but I still looking to have relationship with that good man I hope the man I massage understand I want relationship with him and understand the massage is not mechanical it is about my life and he will love me and have a good relationship and long relationship with me

Share your blessings

Dicksize M, Uncut
Position More top
Kissing No entry
Fucking More top
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting Active
S&M No entry
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 100 Dollars
Rate night 300 Dollars



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JulianTomlinson, 21
Prague

Hi I am nice young boy from Prague who you've seen in many porn videos where I was voted "Ultimate Bottom" by the European Gay Porn Awards for 2013 and 2014. I also like sports, traveling and good food. My price is high, and I double it for bareback (HIV-) and triple it for breeding (HIV+). Kiss Julian

Guestbook of JulianTomlinson

Anonymous - 08.Dec.2014
Little adorable young man, almost pre-teen looking in person, skinny as a twig, dumb as a post, but don't be fooled.
His ass took care of me all night until it gaped and scummed and sprayed and smeared us both from head to toe like morning dew, exactly what we had agreed.
See you soon.
P.

Anonymous - 15.Nov.2014
fifth evening with julian I confirm that a dead food was no longer hungry agile and a very loose hole that knows how to do and more funny and unexpected cahque time I pass an evening of dreams julian kisses and the next;-)

Anonymous - 13.Nov.2014
A good little passive? yeah it's easy to say! :-)
My cock will long remember his passage, any rebound, no fuss, a guy who understood perfectly my expectations and was able to meet and far beyond what I had imagined.
He did not hide that it was taking a real unfeigned pleasure (it changes both mechanical and dehumanized), which released much of me to offer his rump my poz load delighted by the constant coming and going of my cock, and when he was quite relaxed, which was not very long, it's my hands that he felt suddenly dive into him in an explosion of pleasure and electric shock that shook his whole body sated pleasure and desire.
It was his first double fisting he confessed to me, certainly not the last saw his gift in the matter, I was so pleased that he shared that moment with me. What a pity he does not live in Vienna:-(

jmec77 - 10.Nov.2014
A good little passive as I gets off. Not only a great ass, a great mouth eager to eat his savory ass hole juice off my dick and hands but also the conversation and AC is nice.
Julian is just a horny slut.

Amextyy9 - 08.Nov.2014
Very sexy hole, very pretty asscheeks! I chewed them to bits! Thank you and kisses

Rayve - 08.Nov.2014
Another great evening with you Julian. Tasted good food, drink good wine, talked and laughed a lot together, also talked about our respective intimacies with mutual respect.
And then we ended up a lot of fun (shared) to the bed where you have offered me your ass w ith squalor and gutter moans of pleasure, to the point that I have filled it with three loads and mixed them together into a paste with my grinding fist, which rarely happens to me.
Soon my little Lord of the Flies.
Yum.oo

Fredhot - 07.Nov.2014
a new moment of intense pleasure at our last meeting. my tongue just loved to lick his pretty pussy that opens so large and lets himself be enjoyed as an acid drop! oh his pussy, it suffered the onslaught of my hand and wrist for a long time, which leads me to the seventh heaven ... I am looking forward to see you and start our prohibited sexual games !!!!

Archiatria - 06.Nov.2014
Always a treat. Asshole hot like fire, ready to explode wide open for fun ... His pain moans are hots and will make a surprising effect.
Ass, such an ass!
But with respect, he deserves it.

Anonymous - 29.Oct.2014
julian is a lovely warm attentive guy and I'm not talking sharer of his little hole so good to eat nor in dreams fairy finger fist of whole hours can I recommend for that last plane enthusiast

Anonymous - 16.Oct.2014
My pti JT is back! enjoy it I said to myself to see him again and was really nice !! his hole tender and crunchy (like a small read that he tell the whole story) and yes he likes the conversation which does not prevent the fucking him with violent disregard a big hole like that and very very cho please respect the kisses to all soon

demon94800 - 15.Oct.2014
very cool to breed and nice smooth

Anonymous - 10.Oct.2014
Spending time with Justin company are unforgettable and unique.
Yours.
Philippe

Anonymous - 27.Sep.2014
nasty and pro and deep in his ass my greedy tongue; foul and hot. a time to redo

Anonymous - 12.Sep.2014
Third meeting with Julian always the same pleasure. Eat it, bury huge toys in it, fuck it, breed it, snowball my dirty load into his mouth. Not a bright boy but super nice and so sweaty in bed What fun !!

Sebparis92 - 11.Sep.2014
Punctuality, smile, professionalism, attention. And what a voluptuous ass mouth, hot, humid and very greedy. I hate to take my mouth from his delicious ass mouth.

trebonzob - 09.Sep.2014
Very friendly, cute and very good cocksucking
Do not miss it!

Anonymous - 09.Sep.2014
A nice ass and eat small hole and stuff deep until his hole flowers and the glistening pink membranes everywhere everywhere ..... Mmmmm
I "ve got a nice time with him!

bcbgbc - 01.Sep.2014
very cute, jsper to biento. spooky ass. next time i stick a telescope in it. cabbage kiss

Anonymous - 08.Aug.2014
Extremely sexy butt hole!
pssst he says he doesn't do this but if you want the full julian tomlinson butt hole extravaganza i paid him extra and he shat the beautiful lunch i'd bought down my throat and moaned his cute head off.

paulomassa - 07.Aug.2014
This is my good friend Julian, it's a super nice guy, kind and above all a good slut fucked in bed again! As he likes fucking whoop and more the way he moaned it's so excited that makes us horny as horses! It's always a pleasure to eat you my boy and I still want to whip your tasty and greedy ass to shreds! hehehehehe
You can watch our sexual adventure: WWW.PAULOMASSAXXX.COM
It will surprise you what he can do! Be well and see you soon buddy;)

gdmecdirectnow - 23.Jul.2014
Exciting evening with this cool and slutty legit!
First we fix the appointment with precision the menu .... A cool and sensual plan, although we have fun, and then teasing poppers (I am not detail, I keep it for me) and finally a fist to both soft and deep, taking good care of my reactions ... A real pro, nice kind and thoughtful!
Of course we will provide that! And often I hope!
Affectionate kisses, Julian! :)
I hope you recognize me ...
Xavier

docile76 - 23.Jul.2014
Quality time spent three days with Julian tied to bed. Did nothing but fuck and eat him. Ass tastes and smells of high qualiy. Real fun time with a boy extremely unintentioned and slurry from poppers. That happiness. Take care of yourself!
Soon I hope Biz. Laurent

Anonymous - 22.Jul.2014
I do not often frequent the escorts and leaves very little feedback.
But the exception proves the rule.
Amazing and welcoming ass at will as the world have seen.
A remake soon as possible

MaitrETALON - 19.Jul.2014
Completely passive I mean this baby au.cul eats tongue cock toys fist enema piss cum even alcohol sublime ...

MaitrETALON - 19.Jul.2014
I'm not used to pour me guestbooks colleagues but here I will fear no competition, because it is also fully passive as I am fully active! His gorgeous ass cash all with professionalism contrasting with her baby gay physics. In short customers appreciate young sluts should not hesitate a single second, go ahead gentlemen plus he expects it because you do it well ...
okay !!

Rugby player - 13.Jul.2014
I confirm that this little ass is a scalding hot, gobbling, retard for any sexual adventures ... I highly recommend it.

Rayve - 12.Jul.2014
Super evening spent with Justin: good food, good desserts (he is greedy, but not only that!), Good wine and laughter on the menu. Then great night in his ass, its crazy mouth is hot, wet, deep and incredibly enduring. A wonder!
Take care my little princess lobster, you're valuable. See you soon.

Candy - 11.Jul.2014
This is beyond an escort
He knows how to feed and how to eat.
Nothing to say I see him again.

75parisien - 10.Jul.2014
We start on a sex and picks. Just time for the "appetizers" of his balls and indeed an expert nozzle, a swallower who managed the first;) and a liability of hell. In short we met, he tasted the sofas and i ate him. We are sure that you want to clean all the dish because there are resource and probably still very enjoyable hidden surprises. see you soon

ChercheJeuneEscort - 09.Jul.2014
An escort who understood everything.

Anonymous - 08.Jul.2014
already 24 hour past ... without you we always hard to part with perfection this 2nd encounter was even better than the first and probably not as good as the next Still smiling with his ass taste When in his hole the stars are not in heaven but in head you soon my JT Please respect this boy

Rugby player - 06.Jul.2014
As soon as my huge cock came out, he revealed slutty talents fan of XXXL and I was really excited. He was more excited, more excited I was, and if he had not traveled just before, I think we would not get much sleep. Incredible, he cashed my 14" long and 10" around without pain ... Awesome! At a young age, it's very rare.
I recommend this ultra hot dude.

PIPOSTAR - 24.Jun.2014
super shot, sexy boy who lets himself go and gives a max biz ... very soon

Anonymous - 24.Jun.2014
spend the extra and poz him. i dumped three very viral loads in him for the same price. each time he felt my filthy load enter him, he almost cried with joy like a little girl. he may not talk the talk, but he walks the walk.
pascal

nervice - 22.Jun.2014
I had the occassion to fuck this boy for the first time this remains a good memory whatsoever in fucking, preliminary rimming, I invite you to fuck him you not going to regret it.

lamaule - 21.Jun.2014
Julian is a real boy, very friendly, natural, uninteresting in conversation, nothing special and straightforward.
With him two rules, respect for others and no respect for himself.
Justin is an escort like any other, dull, with a horsey face, but his ass ....
It is more than escort.

SC3nantes - 06.Jun.2014
great little guy with a great little ..... Blvd.
I say more?
did role play on him with a buddy. he was a schoolboy, pissed on him, raped him, got our hands in him, spunked in his guts twice each, ate his spunk, drank his mouth dry,
please ...

Archiatria - 28.May.2014
Boiling hot hole and discussion, what more?
Oh yes: the next meeting, obviously.
Prague and is accessible from anywhere, even from Paris or Geneva (sic), so do not hesitate and meet it.
Finally, take care of his ass and it will reward you a hundredfold.

Fredhot - 25.Feb.2014
a cute boy like everything .... with ass to lick and eat! it was a pleasure to taste all the plots of his body. Asshole, it is divine, it could quickly become addicted .... It regaled me with juices and the sweetest fragrance .... so much so that I want to start eating again! kiss to it

Braize-94 - 22.Feb.2014
I have pass a good 10 hours eating out this young man but I recommend you follow the
Hugs
see you soon
Hanakin

Anonymous - 22.Feb.2014
it was my first encounter with this young and handsome nice boy, super eyes a smile that puts you at ease a sublime ass give you as much pleasure as he knows I gave him all my liquids awaits the day when i afford to again

hanakin-RP - 17.Feb.2014
am looking forward to eating your brains out through your asshole on Saturday ^^

Anonymous - 21.Jan.2014
Just incredible. This ass is a pure bomb

Anonymous - 05.Jan.2014
I met this boy yesterday and I had a very good time with him plus it is slut I recommend

Anonymous - 30.Dec.2013
revel his little Blvd. spread it open with yr fingers and Lick the ..... it will take off and you'll be in 7th heaven ..... but happiness to Lick between the wide open lips

mikagay - 30.Dec.2013
thank you to you for this wonderful moment a very pleasant boy who is putting his ass on the line and after that is it has a better encor denfer cue savourere I was without moderation you recomande

Anonymous - 21.Nov.2013
What fucking ass! I've never seen that!

Anonymous - 06.Nov.2013
What a wonderful evening! It was way too short
You are an excellent ass so moist inside and so tender
Thank you for it. Lick.

Anonymous - 02.Nov.2013
Your ass has made me cum a billion times already
I hope we'll sniff it soon!
John.

Always safe sex: Depends
Blowjob: Give and receive
Role: Bottom
Massage: Give and receive
Trios: Yes
Gangbang: Yes
Cum on Body: Give and receive
Cum on face: Give and receive
Cum eating: Give and receive
Spanking: Receive
Sounding: No
Watersports: Yes
Electro shock: Yes
Caning: Receive
Nipple Play: Give and receive
BDSM: Yes
Wrestling: No
Fisting: Yes
Roleplay: Yes
Bondage: Receive
Rough sex: Yes
Foot worship: No
Facesitting: Give and receive
1 Hour: Ask me
2 Hours: Ask me
Overnight: Ask me



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david_huge_cock, 21
Beograd

!!!REALLY BIG HUGE SIZE COCK, REALLY BEAUTIFUL COCK AND VERY HOT TEMPERATURE COCK AND ERECT ALWAYS... REALLY HARD COCK .. VERY CURIOUS COCK TO DISCOVER THINGS IT REALLY LIKES .. REAL 100% GAY COCK!!!

There is an option to have my cock for ever!

Hotels with 4 and 5 stars only! For example Hyatt Regency, Crown Plaza, Metropol Palace and Square Nine.

Guestbook for david_huge_cock

Anonymous - 25.Dec.2014
i had a date with david. yes, his cock is massive and extremely attractive. so what a crying shame that he's a total bottom who barely even lets you look at his cock much less touch it. he's also a big flouncy sissy. fucking him was ok. he has a very average ass. i told him he could make a lot of money as a top. he looked at me like i was crazy and said "ewww!"

Dicksize XL, Uncut
Position Bottom only
Kissing Consent
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Bottom
Dirty No entry
Fisting No
S&M Yes
Fetish Skater, Underwear, Uniform, Techno & Raver
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



__________________




missmymom, 24
Germany

I am so versatile I like fucking or to be fucked in my musculard ass..also cumming.
I love bareback, taking or giving. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.
I can come to any city in Germany. I LIVE NEAR GERMANY.

Dicksize XL, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Consent
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting No
S&M No
Fetish Skater, Formal dress, Sneakers & Socks
Client age Users over 40
Rate hour 60 Euros
Rate night 250 Euros



________________






TheFalling Star, 18
American Samoa

Welcome to the universe of The Falling Star!

First of all, i have to clarify some things here:
1.) I'm post-OP, that means I've had my sex change operation downwards, nothing manly to expect there!
2.) in contrast to many other TS, I won't let my breasts explode, meaning they're really really small...

My preferences:
NON-white men... ...meaning potentially everyone who's got dark eyes and dark hair.
Sorry for those who might feel offended, but this can be called sexual selection in a rather biological sense.

Respect!
i#ve registered here, even tough i consider myself as a woman with the preferred pronoun „her“ that is not offered here. thus, I don't want to be considered somewhat male. Believe me, i'm even more feminine than many genetic women are...

You've never felt more like a man before.

There's only strange pictures here and not of me here but i want to tell you a story... ...send me your picture and I'll be happy to send you mine. i'm really really cute and thin and white and blonde, and everyone in Samoa wants to fuck me again... ...i promise.

let's meet somewhere for a drink.

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



_________________




sammy1818, 18
Cologne

Hey, I offer worn boxers and socks from me. If you are interested write me a call. My cum too upon request and who is the stupid stupid or whatever

and ps please do not write any 60 EUR real accurate or so .. sell only genuine boxer and socks that would have been extremely worthwhile I would think

Dicksize No entry, Cut
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



_________________





ANGEL_BOY93, 19
Stuttgart

I'm looking for a big guy with a big cock who is down to hook up. Intelligence is not important to me if you possess any of the aforementioned qualities. I'm a real pornstar in the making but a kiddo over conversations. I'm also the most boring person on planet. Call me or what.

Guestbook of ANGEL_BOY93

AndySlimBoylover - 28.Dec.2014
Oly is so beauifull he such great young and great skinny he grat boy very very skinny Escort the skinniest here
love
Andy Freiburg

Anonymous - 23.Dec.2014
KEIN ESSEN FÜR YOU
hungrige Weihnachten wünsche ich dir
stay skinny

Anonymous - 29.Nov.2014
let oly strave he need this

Skinnyboylover - 27.Oct.2014
I fuck many skinny whore but when I fuck Oly I know God made him for me.

Anonymous - 08.Sep.2014
STAY HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNRY YOU ARE ON STIKT DIET YOU LOOK GREAT

Anonymous - 13.Aug.2014
Oly rember you are on diet

Anonymous - 13.Aug.2014
stay yery skinny no much eat allow you look great

Dicksize XL, Cut
Position Versatile
Kissing Yes
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting Active
S&M No entry
Fetish Sportsgear, Skater, Rubber, Underwear, Uniform, Sneakers & Socks, Drag
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 98 Euros
Rate night 500 Euros



_______________




Cocaine, 21
Hanau, Germany

ANGEL FACE AND DEVIL IN MIND

Hello are you between 20 and 32 years old? My name is Cocaine, gifted companion with a cute ass to enjoy the maximum pleasure. If you've always dreamed to feel your big cock break everything inside a cute ass, here's your fantasy can become reality. Melt away your pain, and put your pain in my ass.

IF YOU WANT FUCK ME

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing Yes
Fucking Bottom
Oral Versatile
Dirty Yes
Fisting Active / passive
S&M Yes
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Rubber, Underwear, Skins & Punks, Boots, Lycra, Uniform, Formal dress, Techno & Raver, Jeans, Worker
Client age Users between 18 and 32
Rate hour 50 Euros
Rate night 200 Euros



_______________



Hot_top_hunter, 21
Székesfehérvár

hiii i m shemle.. i dont have boobs.. i have big dick cut cock so any one meet mi.. i wont suck dick but if Clint want to suck my dick that is up to Clint.. i m redyy to to surve u who are sex starve.. i need monay pls sex so meet.. no electrical alow like camera n all.. so plz ping my i d ok.. my ass is shave n it s juicy like a fruit n exploded as a cauldron so intreted msg mi.. ok my charge is shot.. k ok

Dicksize XL, Cut
Position More bottom
Kissing Consent
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting Active
S&M Soft SM only
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



________________





Teen-escort, 19
Panaji, India

i want to be fucked, sucked, rimmed,, take drugs, i dont care

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Consent
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting No entry
S&M No entry
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 40 Dollars
Rate night 100 Dollars



________________




123645, 20
Berlin

durty skank Hoe needs your load for €€€

fuckin give it to me , look at me I'm young hot and fuckable and breedable as well
i can take it , i am nothing but a CUMDUMP. treat me like the worThlEss garbage i AM.

EVeRYoNe with €€€ who wants my super Hot CuNT or revenge, caN ask me mY address and i WILL be waiTTing my pussy prelubed with come..nail this sloppy cunted gutterHOE. cum play Russian Roulette.

i came into Berlin last year thinking i was all that, a fucking loser homeless pozgutterwhore from PoLAnd. i have been fucked by more than 250 dudes this year but lost count . whotf knows anymore/. all i know is that I AM PATIENT SERO
the ETerNaL eNEmY.

Fucking passive
Oral active / passive
Watersports passive
CBT passive
Fisting passive
SM passive
Bondage passive
Dirty passive
Kissing yes
Massage -
Safer Sex never
Rate / Hour 90
Rate / Night 0
Rate / 24h 0



_________________



TheMask, 24
Gran Canaria, Spain

FOR HIRED

********************************THEmask******************************

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*TheMask*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

ASK THE MASK WHAT U LIKE TO DO!!!!!

Guestbook of TheMask

Twinkyboy - 13.Dec.2014
u like take off your mask?

TheMask - 14.Dec.2014
NO!!!!!

Dicksize XL, Cut
Position Versatile
Kissing No entry
Fucking Versatile
Oral No entry
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M No entry
Client age Users between 25 and 60
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



_________________





a.remplir, 22
Paris

I'm a young Japanese tourist with a giant appetite for very heavy usage of my ass who has gotten stranded in Paris by a lying, scumbag sugar daddy.

Everybody wrote "I'm well educated". I thought that's not important in this job, but as everybody did it I guess maybe you'll like my level of eductaion. I already finished one faculty (3 yrs), and I'm starting second one now. I was best student in my generation, and received a lot of prices. I speak 9 languages (6 fluently), and I'm inventor of writing and gramatic for Japanese language. As well I'm professional Ballet dancer (15 yrs already), and winner of many awards for writing poems. If this will change you're thoughts about me, you're welcome!

Fucking passive
Oral active / passive
Watersports passive
CBT -
Fisting passive
SM passive
Bondage passive
Dirty no
Kissing upon agreement
Massage active / passive
Safer Sex sometimes
Rate / Hour 120
Rate / Night 500
Rate / 24h 600



________________






ceealex, 22
Oldbury

BLACK GUYS ONLY - no response otherwise
As mentioned above I only deal with black men, although I suppose it's possible there may be exceptions if men have a very, very, very dark suntan.
Clients will be below 30.
I speak English, Spanish to a high level, French to a low level, and Ebonics to a middle level.
Am willing to do anything with black men for money to pay my 3 month house rent.
I somehow managed so far with my house rent, but here i am again.
I dont want any fake black men as am fed up of it.
Am living with my family with my drunkard dad. So you well how a family runs with a drunkard in your house.

Dicksize M, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Consent
Fucking No entry
Oral Versatile
Dirty No entry
Fisting No
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Underwear, Lycra
Client age Users under 30
Rate hour 300 Pounds
Rate night 1000 Pounds



________________





Playwithdaniel, 21
Zurich

I am the most sexy and cute blond gay boy in the word.

I am not a professional escort but my sex buddies always praise me for my unearthy beauty and performance in bed so i thought why would be a single fuck should be free. It's not like I love anyone. So i started charging it.

Lucky for you, I am a daddy "lover". I like how having sex with me is like dieing and going to heaven as much as you do. I can also give you a never-ending Blowjob.

Dicksize XL, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Yes
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M No
Fetish Underwear, Jeans
Client age Users between 18 and 68
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



_______________




RebelHeart, 22
Athens

Fear and write.

Dicksize M, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing Consent
Fucking More bottom
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M No
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Underwear, Boots, Formal dress, Jeans
Client age Users between 20 and 50
Rate hour 30 Euros
Rate night 80 Euros




*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. That turkey put mine to shame. Oh, yeah, before I started doing my best to exile American media coverage of what happened here, the myopia was going on was insane. ** Kier, Hi, K! I hope you're much steadier on your feet today. You are, right? The Zac figurine is supposed to be ready in 3 to 4 weeks. It's not the usual kind of 3D printing. It's more ... serious? The figure is made out of some kind of mineral or something, and the 'portrait' was taken with 50 digital cameras rather than by scanning. It's some new thing. Based on the examples we saw, it should be pretty cool. How did the collaging work out? My day: Zac's still correcting the film's sound, so we didn't hands-on edit yesterday. Christophe Honore, the French film director, who's our film's associate producer, wrote this really great email to our head producers defending our film to them and explaining that it's a serious film and art and stuff, and I think will probably help a lot. I worked on some other stuff. Nothing too successfully. Zac and I met up with Paul, who I mentioned yesterday. That was great. He's studying photography in Lausanne, but he doesn't like it/the school, and I think he might quit and move to Copenhagen or London. It's trippy to see someone for real whom you've been staring at and editing on a screen for weeks. Then Zac went back to the sound correcting, and I settled back into my random working on stuff. The puppets for Gisele's and my ventriloquism theater piece-in-progress are being designed now, and the preliminary models are being made, and there was some back and forth between her and me about them and what was right and wrong about the designs. The guy designing and making them is this dummy/puppet making genius, but he has this tendency to make the faces of the animal dummies too Muppet-like, so we have to keep pulling him back from that and generally steering him away from cartoony appearances. But they're looking pretty good. Yeah, everything else was typical and blaze-ish on my end, I think. But it was okay. I hope your day included feeling a fuck of a lot better, and please tell me about it irregardless. ** Keaton, Oh, cool. I wrote a gay '120 Days of Sodom' when I was, like, 14 or something. I burned it because I thought my snoopy mom might find it. And I'm sure that it extremely sucked. Really?  I quite like Boulevard de Temple. For a while, that was the dream street on which I wanted to live, but I never look for gay bars, so maybe that helps. I never went hunting. I went fishing once. With a blond guy, but I don't think he was sexy, or maybe he was and I didn't notice. ** _Black_Acrylic, You got snow! Envy city. We haven't gotten a single flake, and I'm getting this sinking feeling that Paris might not get any at all this year, which would be very sad. Oh, so a Vine is a talking animated gif kind of thing. Now I get it. That was cool. The fanciness of the phone will be putty in your hands soon enough. ** Cal Graves, Hi, Cal. 'Holy Motors', right, duh. And, yeah, 'Cloud Atlas' was not so good. You didn't seem curt, no worries. You're much better with these pop questions than I am. I think I'm a mulling kind of guy or something. That was a good answer. An article of clothing that maintains my ego is such a curious idea. I don't think I know what that means, which is long way of saying I like it. Huh. It's kind of cool because, if you don't know, I have this weird allergy to clothing. To dyes and non-organic fabrics, so I have to wear organic clothes, which is why I always dress in an uninteresting way. So, I guess your question would free me of my limitation. Which doesn't make the question any easier. And a weird burst of dignity prevents from choosing to be certain person's underwear. So, shit, eeny-meeny-miney-mo ... this. And you? ** Bill, Really? Turkeys in backyards in San Francisco? How ... ? Never mind. Oh, I really want to see 'Babadook'. It's very on my list. It isn't here yet. Charming: cool, that's good enough for me. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Thanks. Yeah, I was cool with getting turkey, key, and a post that was kind of a turkey too, ha ha. I hadn't heard about that collection of Kathy's emails. Hm. Well, first thought: if she would never have approved it, and if even her executor says that, that's good enough for me to say no. But I don't know. Do the dead have rights? How does morality work in that regard? Tricky. I know Kathy sold her archives to somewhere just like I did, and I was fully aware when I did that that doing that didn't give my stuff any protection or rights to privacy but, in fact, the opposite. So it's pretty tricky. And in Kathy's case, because she did, as you said, carefully construct a public image, it's particularly tricky. I don't know. I personally don't like it, in theory, and I won't read the book. But on a larger scale ... it's really hard to call, I guess. What do you think? ** Misanthrope, Ha, yeah, heavy symbolism there for sure. Dude, seriously, if you don't feel better pronto, bite the Obamacare bullet and take a little work break, for goodness sake. ** Steevee, Hi. No, haven't heard a peep of the new Neneh Cherry. Heard interesting things about it. She's pretty interesting. I've never really gotten into her stuff so much, but of course I've already respected it and her. But, yeah, I'll listen in. Why not? Thanks! I didn't know the Pazz & Jop was out. Always kind of a blast to read it. I used to get to vote for it for a long time 'cos my being a Contributing Editor of Spin Magazine. ** Aaron Mirkin, Hi, Aaron. Yeah, I very highly recommend 'Providence'. It was a big influence on 'The Marbled Swarm' for one thing, and it's just amazing. ** Statictick, Aw, thanks, pal. ** Jonathan, Hi, J! Yes, Zac and I were just talking about the Euro Disney trip. We're just going to try to finish the film very soon, and then let's fucking do it, man! The best museum in Paris! You needn't given me another clue. The 3D model takes 3 to 4 weeks to finish. Well, Zac was closed away inside this camera covered cubicle when the shot was taken, but I don't think he struck a super dramatic pose or anything. It's ... uh, Tur-key, I guess? But, like I said to someone, it was also to make a post that was a turkey, if you know that American way of saying that something is a dud. Thanks a bunch for the Holly Herndon links. I'll go there pronto. Let's hang out soon, and have fun with your visiting friends! ** Okay. You get your escorts one day early this month 'cos tomorrow my gif novel comes out so I'm doing a little thing for that in the escorts' usual spot. See you tomorrow.

Born today ... Zac's Haunted House, a novel by Dennis Cooper (Kiddiepunk Press)

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Dennis Cooper’s tenth novel bears all of the earmarks of his legendary and controversial work — intricate formal and stylistic play, disturbing content, an exploration of the borderline between fantasy and reality, concern for the emotions and dilemmas of youth, etc. — but it is both something unique in his body of writing and possibly something of a world’s first in the novel genre itself.

Instead of gathering materials from language, sentences, and the developmental character and narrative possibilities allowed and restricted by written fiction, Cooper has turned his characteristic inventiveness on the animated gif, employing gifs’ tightly wound, looping visual possibilities, nervous rhythms, tiny storylines, and their status as dismembered, twitching eye candy to compose a short novel of unexpected complexity, strangeness, poetry, and comedy.

Zac’s Haunted House is as fun and eerie to explore as its namesake attraction, and, the more closely one searches and decodes its carefully detailed sequences and construction, a deep and fraught fiction puzzle.

Zac's Haunted House will be available as a free download or to view online beginning today.


Kiddiepunk Press
5 chapters + preface & afterword
Book & page design by Michael Salerno

Get yours here.
FREE



_______________
DC interviewed by Mystery Guest

Mystery guest:


Dennis Cooper:




MG:


DC:




MG:


DC:




MG:


DC:




MG:


DC:




MG:


DC:




MG:
 photo Fail-O-Meter.gif

DC:




MG:


DC:




MG:


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_________


'This is the sort of one-note joke that—like rickrolling or ermahgerd pics—normally fades after a few revolutions of the international meme cycle. But animated GIFs aren’t dying. They’re metastasizing: People festoon their Tumblrs with them, pass them around in email, and use them as Twitter avatars or signatures on discussion boards. Oxford Dictionaries even chose GIF as its USA Word of the Year for 2012. This is all the weirder considering that GIFs date back to the prebroadband late ’80s. As a medium, they’re quite old.

'It’s this ancient vintage that helps explain their true appeal. To really understand the value of animated GIFs, you have to go back even farther—to 1879 and Eadweard Muybridge’s “zoopraxiscope.” The zoopraxiscope captured evanescence, replaying tiny moments of everyday life so we could see them in a new way.

'Ann Friedman, a columnist who has tracked GIF culture closely, thinks Tumblr users are evolving a rhetorical style for their usage. “I’ll go, Meryl Streep’s eye roll is the emotion I’m trying to convey here, and I’ll search for a GIF of that,” she says.

'In a sense, the animated GIF illustrates what sharp viewers we’re becoming. Video used to be, as media critic Neil Postman worried, too slippery for analysis. But now that we have a simple tool—and grammar—for looping a half second of video, we’ve started watching with scholarly scrutiny. We’re looking for half seconds to excerpt.'-- Wired



______________
Zac's Haunted House: deleted paragraphs
























































*

p.s. Hey. So, 'Zac's Haunted House' is officially out. Use the link up there to get it. Hope you, you know, like it. ** Hyemin kim, Hi. Oh, sorry I missed your comment. I hate when that happens. Thank you for the belated b'day wishes. It was cool. I'm not sure when I'll move yet, but my current address should be okay of the next couple of months, I think. Thank you greatly for wanting to send me a gift! ** Dan Shea, Well, hello, Dan Shea! What a superb response to the dudes. If they only knew, unless they do. Occasionally one of them does know and let's me know about it. Usually they're just confused when they do let me know about it.  Anyway, that was awesome, and I'm honored on their behalves, and thank you! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Ah, a twins thing. I really briefly dated an identical twin when I was in high school, and his heterosexual-identifying brother was a friend of mine. It was very confusing, but very interesting. The Malet twins don't ring a bell, but I'll try to remember to ask my more hooked-in local friends, and I'll let you know if I find out anything. ** Etc etc etc, Hi. The future's cool. It's a great plaything if nothing else. I've always been kind of interested in Scientology. I mean, I grew up in LA, so it was everywhere, and my current pad in LA is in the thick of the area where Scientology owns a lot of the real estate and have planted their giant headquarters and The Celebrity Center and all of that. And a friend and I accidentally took their 'IQ test' indoctrination thing when I was a teen, and it freaked me the fuck out, and we literally broke the door of the place running to get away from them. Excited about your book on American-made religions. Great subject. Where are you in the project? ** Keaton, Wow, you would use your gift of a time machine to swipe my horrible thousand page teenage snuff porn blathering? I'm honored. It would be weird because it would become a distant memory, and I would imagine that by now I would rationalized the inexplicable occurrence into something logical. Either that or I would have spent my life as a paranormal investigator or something. Shit, you got attacked, no wonder. Trocadero is pretty, yeah. I never go there, or I mean rarely. It's so tourist-packed. But sometimes I get in the mood to be amidst tourists and see how I do and don't fit in with them. Fishing was kind of really boring. It was in a river. Maybe it would be less boring in the ocean or something. Yeah, it would almost be worth hiring that escort just to find out why he chose that tattoo. Maybe if I see him around somewhere, I'll freak him out and ask him. ** Cal Graves, Hi. Well, it's mostly the chemicals they use to treat fabrics when making clothes that's the problem. And the synthetics involved too. And dyes really kill me. Even with organic clothes, I can't deal even with black and really dark organic dyes. When I shop for clothes, I just have to rest my hand against something for about 15 seconds, and I'll start to get an allergic reaction, and I'll know if I can wear it or not. I basically have to wear organic cotton everything. The only non-organic clothes I wear against my skin are my jeans because organic jeans are very hard to find, and they're weird looking when you can get them. So I have to wash new jeans a ton before I wear them, and I still get a mild allergy to them until my body gradually gets accustomed. It started in the early '90s, and it sucks. Ah, gotcha on the who-maintaining thing. Makes sense. Another interesting question. You mean that I would commission something particular from the artist? That would eliminate a lot of them because most of the artists I love are loved because what they make seems so unthinkable to me. I think I would probably just ask them to make something that excites them. But that's not answering your question. Okay, hm. I always wanted to own a Vermeer painting. It would be really interesting to bring him back from the dead and plop him down in contemporary Paris or LA and ask him to do his thing using what's around him. Or maybe I would ask Bas Jan Ader to complete 'In Search of the Miraculous', the sea voyage work where he was lost at sea before finishing it, which would be cool because that would also save his life. Yeah, maybe that. Ooh, a blog thing. Awesome! Very exciting!!! Sincerely, me. ** Kier, Denology, nice. I keep forgetting to ask Zac what his Kier-derivation word was. Shit, I will today. Good, good, I'm glad you're just about healthy enough to go back to your thing. Well, I guess you're beyond 'just about' if you went to work today. I've never quite gotten Charlie Chaplin. I always feel like there's this genius thing happening that I don't understand. Wednesday wasn't too exciting. Zac decided he needed yesterday and today to finish the sound work, or a bulky part of it, so we'll start editing again tomorrow. So I did stuff here mostly, still catching up and more like trying to. Kiddiepunk and I coordinated about the tech and logistics stuff re: the 'ZHH' launch today. Zac and I had made a reservation to do a tour of the Large Hadron Collider last year, but then they shut the thing down for a long time, and our tour got canceled, but they're accepting reservations finally again, so I looked into us rebooking that for fairly soon. Oh, that's weird: the Recollets sent out an email yesterday saying they were going to test the fire alarms this morning, and they all just went off a second ago, and, boy, they're very loud and ominous sounding. Uh, yeah, I fear that my day was a forgettable blah for the most part. I'll do my best to do something describable. How was your return to work and everything around it? ** Sypha, Hi. Ha ha, you and Keaton suddenly materializing before my early teenaged eyes as I struck the match above my pile of hardcore juvenilia telling me not to do it is a most curious image. I was taking acid a lot back then so maybe it wouldn't have even phased me. Hugs about the funeral. So weird, funerals just in and of themselves, much less when they have personal meaning. Feel better. ** Steevee, Hi. Something like 90+% of the escorts I come across refuse to do bareback, and there's a high demand for bareback sex from escort seekers, and the ones that will do that tend to be very competitive and try to out slut-ify themselves in their profile texts, but, as with the slaves, the escorts' texts can be no more true to the actual offered experience than, I don't know, National Enquirer headlines are to their news items. Very good news about your unproblematic blood test. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks. Oh, wow, yeah, I guess people will read my gif novel on their phones. Weird. I didn't think about that. I wonder if it'll be like watching 'The Hobbit' on an airplane's little seatback screen. That (((echo))) event looks cool. Have fun! ** Jeffrey Coleman, Hi, Jeff! Wow, that is wild and very cool about the Hans Henny Jahnn book in paperback. I should grab one. Strange! How is 'Colony of Whores'? I'm very curious about it, obviously. That was kind of a really, really beautiful description of your training and of the location and the atmosphere and the aftermath. Nice stuff, man. Thank you! ** Misanthrope, Dude, it really, really sounds like you need antibiotics. Can't you, like, get a doctor's appointment very early in the morning and just miss half a day of work or something? And now you've got a sick household. Dude, doctor! ** Kyler, Hi. Uh, hm, you know, I don't think Denizen has come up yet. Strange. It's a very goodie. Congrats on the nothing wrong thing. What a relief. You've got good genes, man. Me too, I think? ** Aaron, Hi. I know of 'Heaven Knows What?' I've seen it written about, and I was super intrigued to see it. God knows if it's been here or will be. I'll check. Cool, thank you for the alert and reminder. I need to see a really good film. I haven't gone to the movies in ages. ** Jonathan, Hi. Oh, it's already getting downloaded. Cool, scary. Let's talk. When you are free of your visiting friends-related fun and duties? ** Okay. Yeah, go get yourself a 'Zac's Haunted House', why don't you? It's free. No skin off your anything. Etc. See you tomorrow.

George Kuchar Day

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'George Kuchar (1942–2011) was one of the most creative, original, and influential filmmakers of our time, straddling two generations of North American iconoclasts, from Stan Brakhage, Ken Jacobs, Rudy Burckhardt, Kenneth Anger, and Michael Snow to Warren Sonbert, Ernie Gehr, Abigail Child, and Henry Hills. Often collaborating with his twin brother, Mike, George Kuchar started making films as a Bronx teenager, and the brothers’ early films already show the ingenuity, exuberance, and do-it-yourself charm that would pervade scores of their subsequent films.

'Every year Kuchar made a large-scale scripted film with his students at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he taught for nearly 40 years. His students were deliriously incorporated into his queerly epic visions, shaped by his uncanny approach to lighting and color filtering, scripts, costumes, overlaying of images and effects, and soundtrack, which are comparable to the greatest Hollywood films, but all done on shoe-string budgets. Rather than being constraining, Kuchar’s production budget enriched the aesthetic power of his films. It helped that he was a genius when it came to lighting, editing, make-up, cinematography, directing, musical soundtrack, and script writing; but his commitment to film as something that can be done idiosyncratically and without huge expense has been an inspiration to generations of independent filmmakers after him. Indeed, Kuchar’s films anticipate the work of younger video artists for whom cheap digital cameras and the Web are the tools at hand.

'In his films, Kuchar is always poking fun and always having a good time, in an apparently sweet and charmingly self-deprecating way. Yet this court jester of avant-garde cinema had a sardonic edge that was as sharp as an editor’s blade. His vision bubbled out of the cauldron of his gay, Catholic, working-class childhood. This led to his lifelong tango with the high, and often dry, seriousness of the art world.

'Kuchar stayed true to his American vernacular instincts throughout his life. The body of work he produced, now archived at Harvard, is a testimony to the power, and importance, of film done without the hindrance of large-scale production.

'As a writer, Kuchar combined his genre-obsessed irony and self-reflective bathos into scripts of scintillating wit. The opening monologue in Thundercrack! (he wrote the screenplay for Curt McDowell) rivals and extends the best of Tennessee Williams’s plays.  Kuchar’s soundtracks, collages from his extensive LP collection, are exemplary for using already existing music in new contexts so seamlessly that you would have thought the music was composed especially for each scene. Kuchar’s films offer object lessons in how a splash of sound totally colors a scene; his quick sound segues contribute to the dynamism of his work and give it that wonderful, much sought-after, B-movie aura. But make no mistake: his editing is as diacritically perspicacious as any sound/image juxtaposition in Godard (even if his ingratiating style would not usually give rise to such terminology).

'Kuchar made the switch from film to digital relatively early, fully embracing the dominant technology, and as he had done with film, making it completely his own. Much of his later work consists of an ongoing diary—a sprawling, picaresque series in which he documents, in addition to the weather, his meals, his friends, his trips. These funny, endearing works, in which he is the principal character and which he shot entirely by himself, are films that revel in the sublimity of the ordinary.

'Kuchar created a small but notable body of work outside of his films: drawings and paintings in oil, watercolor, and tempera. George Kuchar: Pagan Rhapsodies, organized by Peter Eleey, including films, videos, and works on paper, is currently on display at MoMA PS1 (through January 15, 2012). He was trained as a commercial artist and after graduating from the School of Industrial Art he drew weather maps for a local news show. Speaking of his paintings, he told Eileen Myles, “I make ’em cause I like painting and I don’t like to paint my apartment. These cover the walls, they cover a lot.” Kuchar researched his paintings, looking for stories that he wanted to paint. Indeed, his paintings look a lot like his movies. “I pick characters, and I’m used to working in a box.” They are studies in light and color and are chock-full of Kuchar’s personality. He became involved in comix through his neighbor in San Francisco in the 1980s, Art Spiegelman; he went on to do many comix storyboards as well as underground comix.

'Weirdos, kooks, outcasts: these are not the people in Kuchar’s films but the ones on national TV, paraded as normal. In Thundercrack!, Kuchar plays a circus truck driver who has fallen in love with the female gorilla in his charge. In the final, touching scene, we see the driver in bed with someone in a very campy gorilla costume.

'From Baudelaire’s “À une Mendiante rousse” onward, artists have tried to find a way to portray society’s “others” without voyeurism, pity, condescension, or romanticizing. Kuchar in bed with an actor in gorilla suit is the perfect realization of the possibility of the pataque(e)rical as a quest for “otherworldly humanity” (to borrow a term Kuchar uses in one of his last class films, Lingo of the Lost).

'A man with a movie camera: nobody’s done it better.'-- Charles Bernstein and Susan Bee, The Brooklyn Rail



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Stills




















































____
Further

George Kuchar @ IMDb
George Kuchar @ Video Data Bank
Book: 'The George Kuchar Reader'
The George Kuchar Collection @ Harvard Film Archive
George Kuchar obituary @ The Guardian
'George Kuchar, Filmmaker and Provocateur Who Inspired John Waters, Dead'
Ed Halter on George Kuchar
'Storm Squatting at El Reno'
'George Kuchar’s Voice'
George and Mike Kuchar Appreciation Page
'George Kuchar 1942–2011' @ Frieze
George Kuchar @ Underground Film Journal
'The Day the Bronx Invaded Earth: The Life and Cinema of the Brothers Kuchar'
'Hold Me While I’m Naked: Notes on a Camp Classic'
'Reflections on George Kuchar'
'Color Him Lurid: Deceased Artiste George Kuchar'



_________
It Came from Kuchar
'It Came from Kuchar is the definitive, feature documentary about the legendary, underground filmmaking twins, the Kuchar brothers. George and Mike Kuchar have inspired two generations of filmmakers, actors, musicians, and artists with their zany, "no budget" films and with their uniquely enchanting spirits. George and Mike Kuchar grew up in the Bronx in the 1950's making "no-budget" films, compulsively copying Hollywood melodramas with their aunt's 8mm, home-movie camera. In the 1960's the New York underground film scene embraced them as the "8mm Mozarts". Their early films deeply inspired many filmmakers, including John Waters, Buck Henry, Atom Egoyan, Todd Haynes, Cory McAbee and Wayne Wang. IT CAME FROM KUCHAR includes numerous clips from the Kuchar brother's early films including HOLD ME WHILE I'M NAKED, SINS OF THE FLESHAPOIDS, and many others. IT CAME FROM KUCHAR features interviews of many of the filmmakers, artists and writers who've been inspired by the Kuchars.'-- Jennifer Smoot






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Underground comix
'Although mainly into making movies, George Kuchar has also done some notable underground comix work. Kuchar was trained as a commercial artist and upon graduation drew weather maps for a local news show. He became involved in underground comix through his neighbor, Art Spiegelman. He drew for the comics revue Arcade in the 1970s, for which he created among others his comics biography of HP Lovecraft.'-- Lambiek














___
Stuff


George Kuchar Interview 2010


George Kuchar visits with Nicolas Cage & Christopher Coppola 1989


George Kuchar & Guy Maddin in Conversation


Behind the Scenes with George Kuchar


I'm In love...With A Ghost! A Collective Creative Tribute To George Kuchar


George Kuchar's Parting Message to the People of the Future



______
Interview
by Steve Lafreniere @ VICE




Were there a lot of big movie palaces in the Bronx when you were teenagers in the 50s?
George Kuchar: There were a lot of theaters, and a lot of people in the Bronx went to the movies. The big one was the Paradise. It was on the Grand Concourse near Fordham Road, and that was quite a spectacular theater. It looked Roman. They had stars twinkling on the ceiling and clouds moving by. There was another theater around Southern Boulevard that played foreign pictures, Antonioni movies. I remember going there and the place was packed to see L’Avventura. And they always had a sign that said “Air-Conditioned.” You’d walk by in the summer and, man, the blast of cold air that came out of that place.

How often did you go?
Three times a week. Sometimes we’d see the same movie three times.

Do you remember the ones that made you want to make movies?
I went to see a lot of Douglas Sirk. That was like going to see work by adults. You felt like it was grown-ups making those pictures, and they really looked good. But then there were the Roger Corman pictures. They were done cheap and we thought, “Gee, it could be fun making those.” They would be double bills. Sometimes there would be pictures about Indians with Marla English, and then one of the low-budget horror movies. I used to love seeing those.

Marla English is criminally forgotten. Did you follow certain stars?
Yeah. And it didn’t have to be the big ones, sometimes it was the stars of the B movies. Or a lot of times I went to a movie because they had listed who did the music. If Bernard Herrmann’s name was on the ad, I went to the movie. I loved the sound of the score in the movie theater.

You and Mike started making movies when you got a camera for your 12th birthday. Was it expensive to process the film?
The film was $2.65, and the developing couldn’t have been more than that. You’d bring it into a drugstore, and they would process it at a place locally. But it wasn’t very good. After a few years it would crack, the emulsion would come out, and it would look like a fresco. So we would send it to Kodak. They did a much better job. A projector didn’t cost that much money in those days. They were kind of tin-looking things, with little plastic reels. If you got a better projector it could take bigger reels, so you could make longer movies.

How did two teenagers from the Bronx connect with the underground-film crowd in Manhattan?
We had friends, like bohemians or whatever they were called. A friend of mine, Donna Kerness, she was very pretty. We went to high school together, and then I started putting her in pictures. She made friends with this man, Bob Cowan, who was about ten years older, an artist. He came down from Canada with two other Canadian artists, Mike Snow and Joyce Wieland, to get into the culture scene. He was infatuated with Donna, and she introduced me to them, and they introduced my brother and me to that whole art world in New York that was going on.

Ken Jacobs helped you guys out, right?
We went to Ken Jacobs’s loft because Bob Cowan, I think, was acting in his 8-mm movies. At that time it was like a little theater there, and every Friday or Saturday night he would play underground movies. So my brother and I came with our pictures, people liked them, and we were asked to come back. Ken Jacobs told Jonas Mekas about us, and that’s how the whole ball started rolling.

Even though you were teenagers and didn’t have an art background like those other people, you were accepted?
Yeah! That place used to be full of painters and other artists making movies. We sort of became part of that crowd and began showing at the same venues, and an audience developed. But we had never known anyone like this. These were crazy people. They didn’t behave like the people we were working with at our jobs. A lot of them had never grown up. They were sort of fun, wild, and free.

Where was Warhol in all of this?
I would see him on the street with his entourage, and then he would come to our shows. I remember him coming once with a whole group of people five minutes into the screening. At that time I was also friends with Red Grooms, who was making some 8-mm movies. He asked me if wanted to go to a luncheon that Harry Abrams was holding for pop artists. Since I’d just finished Hold Me While I’m Naked in 16 mm, he asked me if I’d like to bring a projector. Warhol was there, and Rauschenberg, and Oldenburg. We showed the movie, and afterward Warhol said, “It’s good, George. It’s too good. Go back to your old style with the 8 mm.”

He got a lot of his ideas from you and Jack Smith.
Actually, at that time there was a big crosscurrent of people looking at Jack’s work. But he was an odd character, Jack Smith. He was way off in left field or something. He was very talented and all, but he had no stability. The rug was pulled. I put him into a movie because he was living next door to the guy that I was using as the star. Jack was going to the Factory one afternoon and he took me along. Warhol was doing a silk screen when we got there. Jack Smith had acted in a Warhol picture and he was mad because he had been off-camera during his biggest scenes and Warhol never told him, “You’re out of the frame.” Warhol didn’t seem to get too disturbed. He just kept silk-screening.

It’s funny that right after the macho Beat era, here come all these queeny guys like Smith and Warhol.
It was just what was happening. Around the Beat time they all wore ties and shirts and jackets. They’re kind of dressed up, you know what I mean? But then this other thing, this strange exotica, came in. It just happened.

Do you prefer editing to shooting?
I like it all. I like shooting because it’s like one big party. You get a chance to do compositions, lighting, and your wardrobe and makeup. It’s excitement. But it can be hell too, especially if you’re doing a scene and the question arises, “What do we do?” I don’t know what the hell to do.

You improvise that much?
Yeah. So you have to say, “Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom,” and then you can get your thoughts together. When the cameras were bigger and I didn’t know what to do to progress a scene, I’d just hide behind the camera. It was big enough to hide your face and you’d make believe you were adjusting the framing.

Maybe it’s because the plots are so much about your own, uh...
Probably obsessions. They always peek out. Sometimes there’s a seam of something that’s on your mind or bothering you. Or else you find somebody interesting and you wind up putting them in a plot, and somehow the plot unravels in the picture. But it’s other people playing them, so it’s all sort of dressed up. And 15 years later you realize what this picture was about, or that it was a pre-shadow of something. Pictures are kind of spooky. Especially when you handle the film yourself, and you got yourself in there. I compare them to little voodoo dolls.

Kenneth Anger believes that film collects more than just light and shadow. He said it made it hard to tell when they were finished.
Sometimes I finish a picture I’m working on and I think, “What a monstrosity.” Then I play it for a group of people and they sit there like, what just happened? And I think, “Uh-oh, what have I unleashed?” But if there’s something wrong with the picture, I fix it. The thing never gets finished unless it gets my complete seal of approval. Otherwise I’m haunted by it.



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14 of George Kuchar's 217 films & videos

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Hold Me While I'm Naked (1966)
'In a time long before YouTube, the Kuchar Brothers borrowed their aunt’s Super-8mm camera at the age of 12 and began making their films: poorly-acted, cheapo productions as much parodies as homages to the Technicolor movies they grew up watching in the 1950’s. The sweetly oddball Kuchar sensibility was also informed by the SF underground comix scene (via friends Art Spiegelman and Zippy the Pinhead creator Bill Griffith) when George ended up teaching at the San Francisco Art Institute. George, the more prolific of the twins, has made over 200 films, mostly with the help of his SFAI students, with memorable titles such as I Was A Teenage Rumpot, Pussy On A Hot Tin Roof, Corruption Of The Damned, Hold Me While I’m Naked, Color Me Shameless and House Of The White People. His best known film is probably the short, Hold Me While I’m Naked.'-- Dangerous Minds



the entire film



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Eclipse of the Sun Virgin (1967)
'Eclipse of the Sun Virgin is a 1967, 16mm, 17minute film; directed by George Kuchar. The film is based on dealing with a poignant self-identity and the feeling of void between pornography. The short film was filmed in the late 1960’s, in this era a lot was going on with politics, social surroundings and economics. The short film is set in a small apartment. There is little speaking between the characters and a variety of music and sound in the background of the film. There are a lot of visual aspects of the characters mainly focusing on George Kuchar. Observing the way the film was shot there are a lot of shots and cuts in all the scenes. I think this film is based around maturity physically and emotionally in some ways, for example in the beginning of the film the camera is focused on a slightly attractive guy and then the camera cuts to George who is not so much attractive looking.'-- gwenn k johnson



the entire film




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Pagan Rhapsody (1970)
'Since this was Jane and Lloyd's first big acting roles, I made the music very loud so it would sweep them to stardom. She once hurt Bob Cowan's back by sitting on it so this time I had her laying on his stomach. Donna Kerness was pregnant during her scenes but her stomach was kept pretty much in shadow and it's not noticeable. My stomach was the same as always except it contained more mocha cake than usual since that type of cake was usually around when I filmed in Brooklyn Heights. Being that the picture was made in the winter, there are no outdoor scenes because it's too cold and when the characters have to suddenly flee a tense situation, it's too time consuming to have them put on a coat and gloves. Originally not scheduled as a tragedy, things swiftly changed as the months made me more and more sour as I plummet down that incinerator shaft I call my life.'-- George Kuchar





the entire film



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The Devil's Cleavage (1975)
'Restless nurses! Lovesick sheriffs! Sexed-up Girl Scout leaders! Lonely motel managers! And other degenerates populate George Kuchar‘s early ’70s mock-Hollywood soap opera, The Devil’s Cleavage. Ainslie Pryor stars as Nurse Ginger, who is stuck married to a total slob, so she takes to cheating on her hubby with anybody she cans. Eventually, she leaves home and becomes the object of obsession of a seedy Oklahoma motel manager played by Kuchar compatriot Curt McDowell. The Devil’s Cleavage is one of Kuchar’s rare feature-length outings. The film is credited by its distributor, Canyon Cinema, as having been completed in 1973. While the film may have had screenings in that year and in 1974, it gained a wider release in 1975, perhaps to capitalize on the success of Thundercrack! the semi-pornographic cult comedy directed by McDowell and written and starring Kuchar.'-- Underground Film Journal



Excerpt



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I, An Actress (1977)
'One of the most enduring factors of Kuchar’s films is just how endearing his passion and peculiar personality was, especially when he was yelling things like "I’m on my knees, Harold, haven’t you seen women on their knees before or is it only on their backs?" He said that one while on his back during the screen test, kicking up at a dummy wearing a coat and a curly wig. The whole ordeal was supposed to be Barbara’s gateway into Hollywood, but George made it his own, tagging a title on the film when it was done. He called it I, an Actress, a George Kuchar picture © 1977. The clip blends his styles together great, maintaining both the exaggerated script reads and camp, while documenting an event in real time and showing the artifice from behind the camera. Watching I, an Actress makes me realize I had boring fucking teachers.'-- Vice



the entire film



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Wild Night in El Reno (1977)
'While the 1977 film Wild Night in El Reno is not the first of Kuchar’s films to have been shot in Oklahoma (A Reason to Live [1976] prefigures it with scenes filmed there as well as in California), it is the earliest in which weather is the principal character. The only human beings seen in the six-minute piece are a woman briefly shown trying to use a payphone during a downpour, and the filmmaker himself, posed enigmatically beside graffiti proclaiming that “Jimmy Rush is a Pussy”. The majority of the film’s frames draw the viewer’s attention to the wind, clouds, rain and lightning strikes that accompany an El Reno storm. Many of the initial shots especially recall an Eric Sloane painting in composition and subject; his renderings of cloud formations in pastoral settings were an influence on the young Kuchar and it’s no surprise that a film bringing out the nature observer in the director would resemble one of Sloane’s landscapes put into motion by the camera shutter and the churning winds.'-- Senses of Cinema



the entire film



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The Mongreloid (1978)
'The Mongreloid runs for about nine minutes. It opens with images of a city. Then, with Kuchar having a heartwarmingly one sided conversation with his dog, Bocko. He recants stories of their travels and all the people they've met together. He asks Bocko if he remembers salami and pooping all over San Francisco, "America's favorite city". He remembers their trip to lakes and to see a horse, one who didn't take kindly to Bocko. He relates between them what his dog likes, like curling up with Kuchar as he has dinner, and how his dog's aged since taking some of those trips.'-- smfafilm



the entire film



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Ascension of the Demonoids (1985)
'One of the most insanely confusing longer creations by George Kuchar during the 80s, just before he switched to video. This was made after a collection of movies on UFOs and George was looking to "make a spectacle" and "wanted to get off the subject". So the film wanders between scenes of cheap effects, insanely colorful and pyschedelic montages, discussions between UFO nuts and a woman who shares her recipes, angelic visitors from outer space, religious hallucinations, bigfoot and a couple playing a flute, an Arab massaging a woman, a woman beating up a walking blonde doll in her bathroom, and scenery of Hawaii. I'm lost.'-- The Last Exit



the entire film



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The Cage of Nicholas (1992)
'A 10 minute short by George Kuchar which documents a visit with producer Christopher Coppola (nephew of Francis Ford Coppola and brother of Nicolas Cage), during which Coppola rambles on about cooking, film tricks, and his shaved head.'-- letterboxd.com



the entire film



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Andy's House of Gary (1993)
'A youth and a geezer or two chew the fat about cosmic mysteries beyond the realm of scientific digestion.'-- George Kuchar



the entire film



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Society Slut (1995)
'The story of a matron and a midget in the heat of an unbridled passion. The colors run thick and heavy for paint and prurient pleasures as the electronic canvas unscrolls to reveal a bevy of beasties and beauties of nature and the unnatural. A non-stop melodrama of a patron of the arts shot by real art students in a real art school! A collaborative project I worked on with my class at the San Francisco Art Institute.'-- George Kuchar



the entire film




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Secrets of the Shadow World (1989 - 1999)
'With a new millennium almost upon us, images of space aliens invading the marketplace and sleeping habits of consumers worldwide, this miniseries abducts the viewers into the universe of John A. Keel (via a video time-warp supplied by me with Rockefeller Foundation funding). It's a leisurely expedition through a maze of kitchens and cerebral convolutions in search of the mysteries behind the mundane (or vice versa!). Mr. Keel, an author and stage magician, has made a profound impact on the pop-culture we swim in. His research and books on the UFO enigma have ignited an explosive wild-fire of imaginative invocations such as the X-FILES TV show and the Men in Black blockbuster movie. Yet you never hear about him and he never hears from the movie and television companies. In this video you see and hear him. You also see and hear a whole lot of other people and some animals. The whole show runs almost 2 hours and 20 minutes, but be sure to stay for part 3 as the UFO/Horror author, Whitley Streiber, teams up with my old star, Donna Kerness to reveal exclusive revelations on the 'visitor' experience. See this video... then read their books — and pray it's not true!"'-- George Kuchar



the entire film



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Butter Balls (2003)
'To counteract the talkie I had done with graduate student the day before, this undergrad project has no dialogue but just a steady stream of images we dreamed up on the spot. A psychodrama that’s heavy on the beefcake, our picture deals with the sexual dementia of a sex addict undergoing hypnotherapy. It’s a mixture of fantasy and desire with some animals thrown in and lots of strange angles of the leading actor’s attributes.'-- George Kuchar







the entire film



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Dynasty of Depravity (2005)
'This European flavored melodrama depicts a fictional country of refined manners and debased desires that explode into chaos, sending its prodigal son into the pit of 20th Century technology. That technology externalizes his hidden beauty just as he tries to hide the heritage of horror which was the curse of his lineage. That curse now threatens the already damned.'-- George Kuchar







the entire film




*

p.s. Hey. RIP: Kim Fowley. Here's a gig post starring him and his works that I put together a couple of years ago. ** Jeffrey Coleman, Hi. Thanks for downloading it. Yeah, my captcha when I downloaded it was weirdly apt, ha ha, too. I can't remember, something like 'insane head.' ** Lee, Hi, Lee. Cool, hope you like it. ** Slatted light, Aw, thanks a lot, David! Your excitement is a great honor! ** Dan Shea, Hi, Dan. Oh, interesting about the guy. It's curious that none of the slaves whose profiles I've used have ever contacted me to complain or tell me to delete them. It has always either been 'I don't understand', or, 'Wow, cool'. And two guys whose slave profiles I've used have ended up becoming commenters here. A few escorts have ordered me to delete their ads from here, which I did. They were mostly pissed off and confused because I didn't post their contact info with the ads. ** Paul Curran, Hey, Paul! Cool, thank you, pal. I'm virtually positive that you of all people can crawl back out. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you! ** Jack Kimball, Yay, Jack! Thank you very, very much! Respect! ** Etc etc etc, Thanks. Yeah, it was super weird. They were on a serious mission to induce paranoia and insecurity. Mega-transparent manipulative mind tripping. It was one of the scariest things I ever went through. No, I haven't downloaded the new Death Grips yet for no good reason, but getting it is a top priority today. ** Kyler, Hi, thanks a lot, K. ** Kier, Howdy! There's something really beautiful about you being prevented from going to work by a storm. Yay for serious storms. Paris needs one. We should be okay with the editing. We start again today, so we'll see. Yesterday wasn't very interesting again, I'm afraid, despite my hopes that something untoward would happen and spice up my report to you. Another day of mostly working on this and that at home and watching what I could of what was happening with the 'ZHH' launch, which seems to be going really well so far. I'm happy. It was gloomy and windy outside, which was emotionally fragrant or something. Got a really unpleasant email from our film producers, so it doesn't look like Christophe's defense had the intended effect, and a shit storm may be brewing. Ugh. Wow, it was such a nothing day that I can't remember anything else. Well, with the editing restarting today, at least there'll be that basic structure to lay my next day report upon. And you? Did you go back to work? Is it still storming? ** Sypha, Aw, thanks a whole lot for the good words, James. I really, really appreciate it. ** Mikel Motorcycle, MM! Such a pleasure to see you buddy. Oh, that's okay about the post thing. Whenever you can want will be amazing and turn me into gratitude central. That sounds extremely interesting: the classical/film music front work. Yeah, fascinating. Not entirely unlike making a first film has been for me maybe. Yeah, I would and will be very, very interested to hear anything about that, not to mention experiencing anything you want to share. Amazing luck with that! ** Steevee, Hi. I haven't seen 'Selma', but it got nominated for Best Picture, so ... I don't know. I just feel like the outrage addicts on FB are incredibly indiscriminating when it comes to choosing their fodder. ** Tomáš, Hi, Tomáš! Thank you. Well, there are no words in 'ZHH', it's all images, so it's universal. Would love to see you, of course. When we finish editing our film, I should be pretty free. Yeah, I'm also making a new theater piece with Gisele, but my portion of the work on that is temporarily finished until mid-February. Great about the guest-post! Take care! ** Thomas Moronic, Thank you, T! Awesome, awesome! Yeah, I'm pretty happy with and excited about that sucker. ** Tender prey, Hi, Marc! Thank you kindly! Can you say more about that collaborative show being constructed as a novel? Obviously, that's an extremely intriguing idea to me. I hope you're doing super great! Pass along a big hi to to the W, please! Love, me. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben. Very cool about the gratifying feedback, and, duh, about the possibility of Episode 2 arriving so soon! ** Gary gray, Well, maybe you're a reptilian shapeshifter. Maybe I am too. I wonder if I would know. If my experience holds any water, seeing 'Goodbye to Language' in 3D should be pretty major. The mystery guest demands the security of his or her mystery. Cool that you're liking the thing. The slower the scrolling, the better it is, I think. Or that was my plan anyway. Thank you a lot! ** Cal Graves, Hi, Cal. Thanks, man. Bas Jan Ader was an amazing artist. I highly recommend acquainting yourself with his work. That's okay about the time on the guest-post. I'm just thrilled that you want to do it. Awesome day to you! ** Derek McCormack, Oh, wow, thank you so incredibly much! That means the world coming from you, Derek! Thank you, thank you, and tons of love to you! ** Misanthrope, Hi. Oh, well, compared to a text novel, this all happened pretty excitingly quickly.  'ZHH' is novel #10. The text novel will be #11. Well, all that matters is that you feel that much better. I'm all for avoiding a doctor's help if you need it. It's MLK weekend, oh, right. Weird. Enjoy the heck out of it. ** Sickly, Hey! Thank you a huge bunch, pal. How are you? ** Bill, Hi. Ha ha, best interview I ever gave, I reckon. Yeah, I'm starting to pay more attention to the escorts' guestbooks now. Lots of hidden treasures in there. Awesome that the Buscemi watching paid off. Thanks, Bill! ** Oscar B, Oscy-woscy! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I miss you! Big love, me. ** Right. So you have the opportunity today to get into the crazy great films of George Kuchar, if you like. I think you will like, if you do. See you tomorrow.

Theme Park Map Day

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The World’s Worst Theme Park Guide Maps

'Theme park maps have to be practical since their primary purpose is navigation. Even beyond just showing pathways, queue entrances, and rides, they have to show and label the locations of restrooms, first aid, guest services, and other necessary structural locations. Even if many park enthusiasts know their favorites like the back of their hand, most visitors actually need the map.

'So maps are treasure troves of information for the average guest, sure. But they’re best when they’re beautiful. The location of the nearest restroom is important, but tons of visitors collect park maps for their artistic style. Like the parks themselves, they’re idealized and dreamy little miniatures of the wonders within. Maps are like billboards, highlighting key rides and recreating the park’s signature architecture.

'The best park maps are a balanced blend of style and substance. And when one starts to overcome the other, bad things happen. Here, we’ve got a few examples of maps that either forfeited all practical usefulness to focus on artistic representation, or maps that left any artistic style behind in favor of bland realism.





'Problem: Alton Towers is one complex park. Having grown organically over the last century, the park has expanded and re-adjusted its layout many times as it’s changed, leaving it with a sprawling and sometimes chaotic layout that can defy intuition. The whole thing is made a lot worse by the 2011 park map (above). Finding your way from Point A to Point B may be practically impossible with the confusing and cartoony map. A fine collector’s item if you’re into the style, but not exactly practical.





'Problem: A wave of visual disaster swept across US parks in the early 2000s during which maps became exaggerated, comic-book style representations of parks. Busch Gardens Tampa in Florida was one of the worst offenders, plunging its park map into an outrageous disaster of a situation that looks more like a child's seek-and-find book than a guide map. With rides and animals co-mingling along twisting and diverging paths, the park map might just induce nausea if you look too long.





'Problem: Contained on an island, Thorpe Park has had a most unusual explosion into the public consciousness. Existing as a simple family park with a petting zoo, 3D theater, and collection of family flat rides for decades, the park got supercharged in 2002 under the guidance of Merlin (owners of Alton Towers). Since 2002, the park has added five massive steel coasters and re-branded itself as the nation’s thrill capitol. Maybe, but the 2013 park map did no favors in guiding guests from thrill to thrill. Click the map to open a much larger version, then tell us: Can you spot the vomiting rider? How about the one with his arm cut off?





'Problem: This unfairly overshadowed German park is perhaps one of the most impressive of the parks stuck in Disney’s shadow. Its realistic themed lands and collection of incredible family and thrill rides set it apart and earn it a spot in Europe’s most attended. Problem is that for many years, its park map was practically useless, drawn in a fish-eye orientation that highlighted only a few paths and grouped the park’s many rides into an odd corner.





'Problem: Like its Floridian, Africa-themed sister, the European-themed Busch Gardens in Virginia has a storied past archive of park maps trying to make sense of its complex layout. The park is located in the dense forests of Williamsburg with extreme climbs, bridges, and very intense stairs connecting its many country-themed lands. In that same unfortunate style of the early 2000s, the park’s map was more comic book than guiding aid. It was full of exaggerated architecture and mangled paths that resemble a seek-and-find book, with little help on how to actually get anywhere or what landmarks might actually look like.'-- themeparktourist.com



_________
Maps of dead parks


The American Adventure, Derbyshire (1987)


Busch Gardens, Los Angeles (1972)


Sofia Land, Sofia, Bulgaria (2003)


Fantasyland, Gettysburg (1979)


The Great Escape, Lake George, NY (1984)


Boblo Island, Detroit (1987)


Worlds of Fun, Kansas City (1989)


Story Land, Glen, New Hampshire (1990)


Neverland Ranch, Los Olivos (1990)


Hard Rock Park, Myrtle Beach (2010)


Six Flags New Orleans (2003)


The World of Sid and Marty Krofft, Atlanta (1976)


MGM Grand Adventures, Las Vegas (1997)


Land of Oz, Beech Mountain, NC (1974)


Opryland USA, Nashville (1987)



__________
A Study into Theme Park Maps: Thorpe Park




'Thorpe Park is an English theme park established in 1979 which has recently undergone a marketing transformation due to its 1998 purchase by Merlin Entertainments. Prior to the park's Merlin ownership, the attractions within Thorpe Park were predominantly typical family-friendly attractions; including a farm, educational centre, model museum and a varied selection of rides. However, Merlin Entertainments’ purchase of Thorpe Park in 1998 meant that the company now owned two family-based theme parks within extremely close proximity; as they also own Chessington World of Adventures, located merely 16 miles from Thorpe Park. The two parks needed to distinguish themselves from each other and offer unique experiences to their collective pool of visitors to each maintain popularity.

'While the changes in Thorpe Park have appeared gradual since 1998; in 2009 Thorpe Park began to apply risky strategies to appeal to a specific audience of thrill seeking young adults. It is an unlikely tactic for a theme park to voluntarily depict itself as being unsuitable for families and children; yet Thorpe Park proceeded in this by building horrific looking attractions based on 18-certificate horror films; and harbouring a collection consisting mostly of intense rollercoasters which young children would not match the height requirements to ride. In 2010, their discouraging mode of address towards families was evident in Thorpe Parks reimagining of the theme park map, which was based upon a Where’s Wally style depiction of teenage debauchery.

'Interestingly, the self imposed limitation upon Thorpe Parks target audience for 16-34 year olds helped the theme park to grow, as visitor numbers rose to 1.87 million in 2010. Through semiotic analysis of the 2010 Thorpe Park map, we can examine how changes in the map reflect changes in the parks audience; and deconstruct the language of the theme park map to uncover its connotatively veiled issues of audience representation and reality construction.

'In semiotic analysis of the Thorpe Park map we can uncover the evaluative elements within the text – examining the ways in which its signs and codes contain pre-formed judgements on their interpretants; and how they aim to construct a specific audience appeal through signifying ideologies of youth and pleasure.

'Roland Barthes theory of ‘Mythology’ is also fitting, as the entire theme park experience is built upon the simulacra of worldwide cultures. Thorpe Park for example, has themed areas with synecdochal signs of particular cultural identities, such as the “Canada Creek” area; wherein the visitor is surrounded by wooden buildings, logs, country music and cowboys; and thus gets immersed in the parks construction of an unrealistic, tourist view through the parks’ stereotypical imagining of Canada.

'The power of Semiological analysis is that it demonstrates how latent ideologies do not exclusively belong within artefacts of high culture; as, when deconstructed, texts of popular culture can prove themselves to be a goldmine of sociological issues and insights. The theme park map can be viewed as a textualisation of Baudrillards ‘hyperreality’ (1988); in the sense that the signifiers in the map; i.e.: depictions of rollercoasters, are also signifiers, not signified things, within the park itself. For example, Thorpe Parks’ rollercoaster entitled ‘Saw The Ride’ signifies a horror film franchise; based upon simulated experience of a blockbuster film, it “appears to be more true than the real experience” (Eco, 1976); yet the film itself is a simulated experience of macabre torture. Through these constructed layers of simulation it is almost impossible to trace our way back to reality.

'Several psychoanalytic theories were also applicable in analysis of the Thorpe Park map. For instance, it could be said that the maps depiction of wild, young crowds encourages regressive behaviour – reassuring visitors that it’s ok to act like a child for the day within the confined of the group. Or the violence and blood depicted in the map can be explained using Kleins theory of ‘sadistic phantasy’; as it implores visitors unconscious desires to harm. The exaggerated depictions of the ride attractions, coupled with the grimaced faces of those depicted onboard the ride; create a sense of danger in the experience. The appeal of the dangerous experience could be explained as a manifestation of the “death instinct”, a Freudian concept based upon humans desire to self destruct and return back to an inanimate state.

'Representation of audience in the Thorpe Park map could be viewed as insulting. The behavioural signs depicted include cartoon images of visitors fornicating behind a bush whilst being spied on by an older man, visitors wetting themselves, being sick, digging graves, flashing, throwing themselves out of windows and drinking alcohol. There are also depictions of violence towards visitors; such as a visitor having his arm ripped off on a rollercoaster, a visitor getting eaten by a shark and a visitor with her hair set on fire. While alluding to the typical sense of teenage debauchery, the behavioural codes are based upon a level of fantasy danger. A rebellious behaviour which often does occur within the park, such as smoking drugs in the queue lines, has tellingly not been depicted. And while it appears on the map that a visitor could throw up or have their arm ripped off on one of the rollercoasters; a more realistic danger, such as brake failure on a rollercoaster , has not been included in the map.

'In the maps representation of audience; there are only two old people depicted. One is a preacher repenting with a cross beneath a group of teens screaming on a thrill ride; the other is an old man spying on a couple in the bushes. Both characters have an air of desperation to their behaviours and appear out of place. The connotations of these images suggest disagreement and exclusion towards those younger or older than the parks target 16-34 age group. In another form of intertextuality, Thorpe Park was used as a setting for teen comedy TV programme “The Inbetweeners”; wherein the crude sixth form characters went accordingly “nuts at the nations thrill capital”; arguably inspiring plenty of its 16-34 year old audience to do the same.

'The reality constructed by in codes of the map is not grounded in realistic representation. The images which signify the parks thrill rides are disproportionate; depicting the rides as larger, steeper and in a closer proximity to each other than they really are in the park. These exaggerations don’t just shape the visitors sense of significance toward the thrilling attractions; they also hide the less enchanting reality for visitors of walking around all day to get from one ride to the next.

'Another real experience of Thorpe Park that isn’t depicted in the map is the long, winding queues for the attractions. This deliberate lack of representation of an imminent part of the theme park experience, is due to the maps function as a souvenir. Visitors can look at the map and be reminded of the fun experiences they had, but not be reminded of the 2 hour long queues they stood in all day. The maps mode of address is also unrealistic in its crass informality; the signs are used to play up to ideas of Thorpe Parks’ bad reputation; and therefore discourage families from visiting. It is, however, assumed that target 16-34 year old visitors will be able to distinguish the difference between the inappropriate behaviours depicted in the map and the appropriate behaviours expected of them whilst in the park.

'The chaotic semantics of the Thorpe Park map; coupled with its lack of depiction of its car park and surrounding roads; demonstrate a narrative where the visitor is in equilibrium before entering the park; which is then disrupted when the visitor is inside Thorpe Park; then the visitor returns to the equilibrium of the outside world upon leaving the park.'-- Serena Cavalera, coasterforce.com



_________
Growth Maps

Alton Towers
Alton, England


1986


2001


Blackpool Pleasure Beach
Blackpool, England


1998


2003


Busch Gardens, The Old Country
Williamsburg, Virginia


1976


1983


1987


1997


2003


Cedar Point
Sandusky, Ohio


1980


2000


2007


2010


Chessington World of Adventures
Chessington, England


1987


1995


2003


Darien Lake
Darien Center, New York


1988


2007


Disneyland
Anaheim, California


1964


1980


1989


1993


2001


2004


Six Flags Magic Mountain
Valencia, California


1986


2000


2002


2006


Six Flags Over Texas
Arlington, Texas


1961


1991


2008



______________
Thoughts on Theme Park Map Design

'The majority of theme/amusement park guests explore parks naturally without consulting the map. The majority of guests won’t even pick one up in the first place, unless specifically handed one. Of those who do pick them up, most immediately stuff them in their pocket. The map might make an appearance during a queue when the guest is bored. Some people may open the map up to find food outlets, (in fact, I'd wager the majority of guests seeking out a map later in the day are looking for food options) or a toilet and fewer still for directions to a specific attraction. But the majority of guests will ask a member of staff instead of consulting their map, or rely on signposts, because people want instant answers. Besides, most maps are single, large sheets of paper. They feel less like a guide or souvenir and more like your dinner placemat to be disposed of.

'I’ve worked at a park and that's what I've observed. I’ve been that member of staff bombarded with direction questions. You will rarely see guests around a park with a map open actually using it to navigate, yes it happens occasionally, but it really is quite rare.





'A common problem of theme park maps is representing attractions closely together that may well be in real life, but their entrances are far apart. When guests do use the park map for navigation, they don’t follow pathways like with regular maps, they use them to get an idea of the general direction. Even clear maps suffer in this scenario. But by warping the layout, using heavy stylisation and graphics, or by placing the ride’s logo near the actual entrance, you can partially overcome this issue. What I hate about these styled maps is they are just so void of personality. Looking at them fails to excite. How anyone could make a park so crowded and exciting as Hershey look so lifeless and empty is beyond me. It's a talent, for sure.







'Alton Towers is well known for it's complex layout. At around 800 acres, it is the largest theme park in the world, and it's been brewing a sprawling mess of pathways, foliage, architecture and attractions for well over a century. It's no surprise then that Alton's guests have trouble navigating the place and so extremes have been explored attempting to solve that "problem." Cue a unique and highly stylised map style that lasted a a few seasons and reduced Alton to the bare essentials...





'The problem with this is that it is so fundamentally out of character. Anyone who's been to Alton knows how that weird gothic magic feels... It feels like damp, dark woodlands and strange abandoned spaces, not phone Apps for kids. The absolute rejection of Alton's personality is one thing, but the way in which this map reduces the park to so few attractions is another. It's reminiscent of faux naive illustration that's trying to be innovative simply by rejecting a history of of knowledge and understanding. It is my opinion that there was no problem to be solved in the first place and that guests will get "lost" at Alton Towers no matter what map design they're provided with - firstly because most of them won't even have a map, secondly because most people are too stubborn and impatient to use one and thirdly because it is a vast space with a maze of paths.





'Phantasialand is a park made up of narrow streets and tall themed facades. It is, I would argue, the world's most intense themed environment. I've always wondered how a park like this would cope on a very busy day, because the park itself doesn't feel very large. A very literal, practical map is kind of required with Phantasialand's network of streets and quirky attractions. Instead, it has an unusual and beautiful, but completely useless map that resembles conceptual art more than it does a usable map. The peculiar sketch seemingly drawn in real media fails to show much at all.

'Maps are not necessary, and they are not used by the majority of guests, but what they are is a convention of a theme park visit. An expected - free - souvenir. They can help to define the brands (the rides and their themes) in a park by giving them illustrative content. That's why ephemera is special - this tactile thing that usually gets thrown away, but represents memories of a fleeting event. The best maps are those that both stylistically match the atmosphere and brand of the park they represent, and successfully provide visual and written information about the many attractions and facilities within. Navigation is not their primary purpose.'-- Theme Park Thoughts



______________
Maps to Imaginary Theme Parks


Science Fiction Land


Babylon Theme Park


Bookworm Gardens


Gotham City Batman Park


Chichi Jima


Danger Zone


First Nations Theme Park


Garbage Dump Theme Park


Itchy and Scratchy Land


Super London Theme Park


Middle Earth Theme Park


Music Land


Neverland Kingdom


Potential City Theme Park


Rik Smits Theme Park


Star Wars Experience Park


Muppetville


Mystica Theme Park


The Ruin Theme Park




*

p.s. Hey. ** Keaton, Hi. Thanks a bunch, man. Your thoughts on 'ZHH' are really great. The 'Repetition' comparison is interesting, yeah. That wasn't in my mind, but it totally makes sense. I always felt like living in Paris was my destiny when I wasn't living here, so maybe the wanting is the free ticket. Anyway, yeah, thanks a lot, man. Love, me. ** Jeffrey Coleman, Yeah, seriously, that was it. Wack. 'Boogie on Reggae Woman'? Whoever programs those captchas must be my age at least. Uh, I don't know about the Torrent thing. I guess that's up to Kiddiepunk. I'll run that by him. Super curious about the new Stokoe. Hyphens are weird. I kind of feel weird when I use them. They're like shrapnel or something. I hope the training has some kind of bonus side to it, whatever that would be. I sort of like detailed studying. ** Gary gray, Every guess is a mystery or something, right? I don't know. I aim to inspire, I think, so, cool, thanks. The drugs-related loss of your ways will wear off. You should have seen me back in my drugged out 'prime'. A erotic gay comic adaptation of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam? This I'll have to see, so, yeah, do that. Good idea. Imaginable and yet fogged. Post your cleverbot convos, yes, excellent idea. ** David Ehrenstein, I never met the Kuchars, but I know people who studied with George in SF, and everybody adored him. Oh, very cool to see your Fandor piece. I'll go read it straight away. Everyone, Mr. David Ehrenstein has written a piece called 'Oscars 2015: Based on a ‘Truthiness’ Story' over on the awesome film-related site Fandor, and it is undoubtedly a thing that will improve you in some way, so please click this link and go have a luxurious read. Still haven't seen the new Dolan. I fear it's probably post-theaters by now, but I'll have a look. ** Dan, Hey, Dan! Thanks. Carrie was on vacation, yes, but I spoke with her a few days ago, and she said she would get on that right away. Hopefully you'll hear from her very soon, but, if you don't hear very soon, let me know, and I'll nudge her again. ** Sypha, Well, you could put it on a memory stick, and then you could put the memory stick on your shelf, I guess? A bookstore called The Shire is so charmingly quaint. Oh, cool, a 'Frisk' hardcover. Nice that it's still floating around out there. I don't think I know of the film 'Palo Alto'. It's new? I'll keep an eye out. I know Palo Alto, assuming that title refers to the city. Yeah, it's kind of student-y, if I'm remembering right. ** Kier, Hi, hi! Oh, don't worry about having exciting things to say about your day. I've been dulled out to hell in that regard myself lately, and you haven't even been dull. Just get yourself healthy as a horse -- what a weird saying that is; are horses especially healthy creatures or something? -- that's the only main thing. My day wasn't much again. For reasons too complicated to explain, the restart of the film editing has been delayed until Monday. So I was left to my own devices again. The producers-related shit storm seems pretty inevitable. It's just the size and shape. I sent them an email yesterday on Zac's and my behalves that will either raise the storm to tornado strength or de-energize it a bit. I'm waiting to hear back from them and find out which it is. On the good news front, the electronic music artist we hoped would agree to let us use two of his tracks in the film finally gave us the hoped-for yes yesterday, so we're psyched. But I'll keep his identity under wraps until the contract is signed and all of that stuff. Yesterday was kind of cool because 'ZHH' is getting an amazing response and tons of downloads, and it's seriously 'trending' all over the place, as they say. I've never had anything of mine 'trend' before, so that's weird and exciting. What else. Oh, there was 'suspicious package' found at the Gare de l'Est across the street from me yesterday, and they evacuated the whole train station, and it was overrun with military, and they blew up the package, which turned out to be nothing. That was initially a bit scary and then kind of fun. I worked on random stuff. I made a couple of blog posts and started others because I don't know when I'll have much free time again to do that, and the blog is again in danger of going into reruns. It was really gloomy outside, in a good way, but I was feeling strangely glum yesterday for some reason, so I couldn't feel objective about the gloomy outdoors. But now that I'm de-glummed, I have a fondness for yesterday's weather, which has dissipated into sunniness and chill of a rather standard nature today. I think that's all I scaniphon out of my yesterday. Are your feet back to supporting you with all their might? Any weekend plans? What happened? ** Steevee, Hi. I've not listened to Sun Kil Moon that much. I really liked Red House Painters, but when he shifted to SKM, I wasn't so into the first stuff he released under that moniker, but I hear the project has gotten sharper, so I should try 'Benji', and I will. Yeah, he's very good and intuitively great with language. I've heard about that Kuchar book, but that's all. Should be great, no? Cool: your review. Everyone, Steevee has reviewed Denis Côté's film 'Joy of Man's Desiring'right here, right now. Go read it, yes? ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Thanks about the shitstorm. It would extremely good if it doesn't develop. I hope Morrissey doesn't cancel. Doesn't he cancel most of the time these days? Anyway, knock on wood, and that's a great b'day gift, obviously. ** Kyler, Hi, Kyler. Oh, that's cool. It's a scalding day in Antarctica when Lambda Literary even mentions something I've done, so that's saying something. Thanks a lot for letting me know! ** Okay. I thought I would let you ponder the particular pleasures afforded by theme park maps this weekend. And that's exactly what I've done. Have great Saturdays and Sundays, and I'll see you back here on Monday.

Spotlight on ... Camden Joy Lost Joy (2002)

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'In music feature/biopics, the pressure to dramatize every microscopic detail of a short visit with a total stranger is inherent to creating story—what editors want. In my own experience of music journalism, this contrivance began as a fun challenge and has come to drive me nuts. I’d rather just invent stories of my own. This is where my appreciation for Camden Joy begins. In light of the prerequisite that one must pressurize nonfiction to establish somewhat artificial tension up front to carry intriguing and suspenseful delivery of “facts,” a piece of good music journalism can come to feel like a Jane Austen novel—that is to say fictional. With any subjective interpretation of the mise-en-scene, genre boundaries slip away—this is what invites me as a reader into the excitement of the “story,” and what attracted me to music journalism in the first place. But I find that need to deliver facts or an “angle” according to some other person restrictive & repellent, too prone to misrepresentation and divergence from the artist’s POV. ...

'Post-swagger in New Journalism is where Tom Adelman, aka Camden Joy, finds lineage, namely with the Manifestos and personal essays collected in Lost Joy—with the impetus to 1/ depressurize reportage in favor of author’s lived adventure driving story, and 2/ insertion of author as character into the storytelling; both in the vein of Tom Wolfe’s Electric Koolaid Acid Test. Next, to disconnect from the narrativity of actual event completely in favor of total artifice, loosely constructed upon heaps of pop cultural reference. Adelman’s novels do this. But historical fiction does this, too—nevertheless it typically doesn’t deal so much in contemporary cultural referencing. Fictocriticism, or fiction that develops setting and character through musical referencing—in the vein of Joan Didion, Michael Taussig, Lynne Tillman, Dana Spiotta, Dana Johnson, Darcy Steinke, Ben Greenman, Jonathan Letham, Dennis Cooper… Joy’s brand of irony finds architecture here, but pushes even this trajectory. His novels are closer relatives to countercultural dystopian satire—think Ken Kesey—contaminated with what Raymond Federman in 1973 called Surfiction: conceptual projects that seek to expose the artifice of fiction as a process. In both genres, the politic is not simply implied in the content—it’s engrained in syntax, sentence construction, concept. Joy’s critiques of music in the novels aren’t explicit, then, but embedded in their reclamation of pastiche and in the seamless dedication to the conceits he sets in each story. The concept is high artifice, possibly camp per Sontag’s definition, crossbred with the exploitation of transparent metaphor.

'To underscore irony, though, is the sincerity evident in the accuracy of the music lore, the obvious fandom implicit to each text’s concept. In Joy’s work, music journalism saves the day. Gathering facts and slavery to veracity—odious, dull, and rote back then to burgeoning New Journalists—what compelled rebellion and invention of new genre—experiences through Joy’s writing a fiery reversal. Weirdly, the more conceptual Joy’s novels are, the more journalistically accurate they feel to me. Maybe it’s because they convey, through the juxtapositions of hyper-specific (journalistic) musical fandom with poetic license to fictionalize—what Werner Herzog calls “ecstatic truth.” I’d call this “ecstatic truth” poetry through allegory, after Goethe’s adage that links allegory to poetry by differentiating them.'-- Trinie Dalton



____
Further

The Camden Joy Website
'VARIOUS OCCASIONS DEDICATED TO REVISITING THE GREAT LOST WORKS OF CAMDEN JOY'
'"Like Trenton But Without the Thrills: The Writing of Camden Joy" by Ben Bush
Camden Joy interviewed @ Glorious Noise
Podcast: Camden Joy's 'How Sinatra Affects Us' on This American Life
Camden Joy's 'Fifty posters about Souled American'
Camden Joy @ Facebook
'Majesty of Impulse: On the Great Lost Works of Camden Joy'
Matt Flaming on 'Lost Joy' @ Word Riot
'Camden Joy: Fiction as Criticism'
Camden Joy interviewed @ metroactive
'The Sound of Camden Joy Reading'
Camden Joy @ Twitter
Camden Joy @ bandcamp
The lost manifestoes of Camden Joy
'Stalker Fiction'
'Local green guru Tom Adelman recycles music skills for concert series'
Verse Chorus Press



_____
Related


2013 MMLA Keynote Address by Camden Joy "How Much is True? I Wonder"


Camden Joy and his Presidential Coin Album


Channel 53 Presents: "Finding the Advertocracy", a filmstrip by Camden Joy


Adam Wilson MMLA 2013: Ode to Joy


David N Meyer MMLA 2013: Ode to Joy



_______
Interview
from Loud Paper




I don’t know whom I am talking to. Am I talking to Camden Joy?

Camden Joy: Yes. Yes you are. It’s a pseudonym but you know my defense of that is that it is a pseudonym like Bob Dylan, like W.C. Fields, like the Marx Brothers. Like they got to change their names and no one gives them grief. I have another name.

I was attempting some sort of literary experiment when I started writing using that character and naming the pieces by the same person. The by-product a pseudonym creates is that people are not able to trust me, they feel like I am lying with everything I say. I get this strange reception, whereas if I was a rap star and I called myself whatever I did, people would just accept that and it would be fine. That doesn't answer your question though.

So where did the name come from?

CJ: I was looking for a name that had a short, compact sound, and I knew the syllable count I wanted. I had remembered that when I was writing about Trenton, N.J., someone in Trenton asked, “Why are you setting this story in Trenton?” I said I just wanted one of the darkest, saddest places in the country, and I figure that if you can find a reason to go on in a city like Trenton then that is a beacon that can carry you through anything.

And they said, “Oh, Trenton is not so bad at all, you ought to go to Camden.”

I always thought of Camden Joy as something that would carry you through the darkest times. A friend of mine and I, we had this theory that one of the things that art should do is acknowledge, never shy away from, the darkest truths. So the point is to admit, to acknowledge the dark truths and then go on. We called it “Kick Start.” That was our little artistic movement. And then we proceeded to do nothing with it. But when Camden Joy came along I was thinking that it sort of works with the Kick Start movement.

Tell me about your recent collection of past work, Lost Joy.

CJ: I have wanted Lost Joy to be published in some form or another since 1997 and it has just taken this long. It has a lot of things that I self-published, I mean, everything in there that did get published. That meant when I kept going down to Kinko’s and making more copies.

I am intrigued by the wheat-pasted posters in the chapter of Lost Joy,“This Poster Will Change Your Life.”

CJ: The thing that drew me to posters, and that ultimately ended up, by the last poster project, figuring out that was at the source of it was the way in which the street kind of mirrors the radio.

In my experience listening to radios, I am never very good at tuning in stations or figuring out what I am listening to. Usually I hear things, they grab my ear and I have no idea what they are called, where to find them or anything. I describe them to people and they have no idea and they are just lost.

I am fascinated by all aspects of disappearance and invisibility, the shadowy sorts of experiences that are at the heart of so much that we encounter. Usually we filter things out, but the radio offers an almost tangible version of those times when we either fall in love with a song for a real short bit and lose it forever and it just becomes a legend in our mind, or we discover someone and they become a favorite. There is a mystery to the radio in the way that it doesn’t have a location. I understand the science behind the way it travels, but it still always seemed extremely mysterious how it arrives in our little receivers.

When I moved to New York I was intrigued by the free use of the streets. Which is hardly free, cause the police would ticket you if they found you, but similarly I suppose if you have a pirate radio station they will find you and ticket you. And I was intrigued by the way it was entering this dialogue with a bunch of other people—you would put up a poster and it would get covered over by another poster or only slightly covered or smeared or changed by the weather or changed by people walking by who would write on it sometimes. And those were always the best—they would read it and then go and give their opinion.

And I was interested in that and that was the thing I wanted to mention to you. Just that the radio and the street seemed like similar- ___ … I don’t know what the noun is there. They are not both media, they are both canvases, I guess.

Traffic or static…

CJ: Yeah, I was intrigued by static and introducing into my own writing distortion and static. Which occurs naturally when I’m on the street but was another reason for the unreliable narrator, the untrustworthy storytelling and stuff. I was listening to Sonic Youth and I was wondering how to bring fuzz into storytelling. How do you lose the narrator behind a wall of sound?

You grew up first outside of Los Angeles and then in L.A. and then in New York. Do you think where you have lived has influenced how you write or your taste in music?

CJ: I grew up in an agricultural area outside of Los Angeles and I’d go see bands in L.A. and I could understand them being referred to as L.A. bands cause they would talk about local landmarks in their music. When I lived in New York every other band was described as the “New York sound.” But I had a band and my music didn’t make sense in terms of the Talking Heads, Television or whatever the New York music was supposed to sound like. Then I realized it doesn’t mean anything anymore. And that is one of the great things about radio. Radio transcends neighborhoods. It liberates the kids who didn’t have the good fortune to grow up in urban areas. I grew up listening to a great radio station that had a long signal all the way from Pasadena and reached me a hundred miles away. And that was my lifeline and where I learned things.

I figured out my two favorite buildings in Los Angeles: Dodger Stadium and the Griffith Observatory.

Why?

CJ: That’s hard to say. I was interested, once I realized that they were my two favorites, that they both share something I don’t really like, which is an almost cartoonish-ness. But at the same time they are also very useful. I think that what I really liked is that they both have a perspective on the city that is really nice. And the view of L.A. from the upper stands of Dodger Stadium and the view of L.A. from the wall around Griffith Observatory were things I never tired of. So I always went to the ball game and to the observatory and I drank in the view of the city.



___
Book

Camden Joy Lost Joy
Verse Chorus Press

'By the year 2000, a number of my self-published pamphlets and whatnot were scattered hither and yon. These included a series of tracts that documented my postering projects. I approached Adam Voith of TNI Books with the idea of collecting into a single volume all the remnants and reviews that just then were becoming difficult to find.

'Adam was an excellent publisher and this remains my favorite Camden Joy work. It looks beautiful and contains a range of things that had been published, with the help of Mark Lerner at Rag & Bone Shop and Steve Connell at Verse Chorus Press, throughout the mid-1990s. Titles such as:

'The Greatest Record Album Ever Told (about Frank Black’s Teenager of the Year); The Greatest Record Album Singer That Ever Was (about Al Green); The Lost Manifestoes of Camden Joy (various music screeds glued around NYC in late 1995); This Poster Will Change Your Life (painted posters “protesting” the Macintosh NYC Music Festival of 1996); Dear CMJ… Posters of Protest from the CMJoy Gang (hand-written collaborative open letters posted in public spaces in 1996); and Make Me Laugh, Make Me Cry: Fifty Posters About Souled American (ornate posters plastered around Manhattan in mid-1997).

'Despite everyone’s best efforts, the book drew little interest. It quickly fell out of print and remained so until resurrected by Verse Chorus Press for the 2015 reissue series.'-- Tom Adelman


_____
Excerpts

Total Systems Failure

As anybody who has flipped past Rolling Stone's editorial page to read their business section recently can attest, popular music is undergoing what those in the know like to call "really something." All the record company people who signed the good indie bands and orchestrated bringing us the very best music of the '90s are being put on ice in favor of rootless meanies who favor brand-name ballads, dance crazes, and tits. It's perhaps true when people paraphrase the Clash these days that "even if the Beatles flew in today, they'd send no limousine anyway" (although people declaring such usually forget that the Beatles seemed harmless at the start, which is how they got so big; they began as Backstreets and became Beasties). So far, in my debatably short life, I've been lucky enough to see punk fall out of fashion not once but twice (it was better the second time because effects pedals caught up with the theory, and deadpan wit entered the rhetoric; at long last, wiseasses got the girls!). We had some good times, didn't we, back when smart, sloppy groups had their shiny moment, back when the paying public seemed to've come over (at last!) to our way of thinking. Then the record companies ran out of Nirvana specialty reissues and Sonic Youth did not make another Daydream Nation and stupid Mark E. Smith assaulted his girlfriend while Elvis Costello forfeited his place in the pantheon and generation-defining classics were on the tips of the Breeders' and Uncle Tupelo's tongues when the band members turned on one another as Nick Cave and Morrissey became jokes and Bob Mould and Mike Watt continued on cluelessly and the gifted pop band Christmas came back as the utterly irrelevant smug swingers Combustible Edison and traditionally deserving dues-paying types like Vic Chestnutt and the Fastbacks could not get a commercial purchase on the popular imagination as everybody from the Posies to Pearl Jam to Archers of Loaf never figured out how to make an album entirely important from start to finish, forgetting the point of pop stardom is to bring together huge clumps of otherwise unaffiliated folks, and Pavement couldn't follow up the Pacific Trim EP with the requisite jubilant breakthrough (their Let It Be) and Catpower and the Mountain Goats defiantly clung to Dylan pre-'65 and Tom Waits was too late with The Black Rider and Yo La Tengo were inexplicably overlooked (how does that begin to happen?) and the fetish for releasing crappy home demos—whose very lack of finish lent them the steady hiss of a gradually disappointed public—succeeded only in stealing mid-decade credibility from keenly perfectionist pop stars like Robyn Hitchcock and Nick Lowe and They Might Be Giants precisely when they issued their masterpieces.

What a decade of sleights-of-hand and comic mistimings this has been, as we emerge with none of our alt-spokesmen standing, and their industry support utterly squeezed out between urban enthusiasts and country-western fans. Only a few years back you'd catch major-label A&R kids speaking like mature individuals who'd survived relationship counseling, saying that certain acts had to be nurtured, talking about honesty and commitment, that audiences required respect, that expectations had to be patiently shaped. . . . Well, such talkers are no more, replaced now by bottom-dwellers dwelling on the bottom line who treat imaginative singers and songwriters with contempt, like one-night stands. As a side consequence, not only have I been purged from the demographic that once used to nourish me, but also my demographic itself has been purged. People assure me the future is online and the underground will rise yet again, but lately my legs are cramping up, I'd like to sit down, so fuck you, how long am I supposed to wait? Should I be satisfied that Ween is nearly a household name? Am I to feel gleeful that Elliott Smith played the Oscars while resting in Celine Dion's bosom and that the money we paid for the song "Man on the Moon" now brings it back to us in movie form? I can march up and down my aisle of favorite '90s records and almost all I see are artists who guaranteed something they didn't deliver or just got screwed (the one exception, I can be persuaded, is the Beastie Boys), or wonderful acts like the Lilys and Lambchop who would've significantly altered our beloved revolutionary popscape had they been promoted, or musicmakers in possession of Dylan's head-full-of-ideas-that're-driving-them-insane like Very Pleasant Neighbor and Death Cab for Cutie who couldn't even get their discs into shops.

(continued)



from The Almost Revolution

Back before life was okay, imbeciles with feathered hair parted down the middle and no acne organized suburban dances, where everyone bumped and gloriously french-kissed while vomiting hard liquor down one another's champion throats. Stuck-up morons mocked me openly, said things like, "Scram, Shrimp!" so they could practice their routines in the boy's room. They told everyone I was cognoscenti (because I outpointed them in dodgeball), isolato (because I lacked adequate fashion accessories), and pozzolana (because of my big bones). They walked unscathed from totaled hot rods while I sat up late with Marie, my girlfriend, and together we cursed Jesus H. Christ for allowing them to live, with their muscle cars and glass packs, beauty rings, righteous Sat. Nite Fever bud, and primo levi weed, their blithe insistence that nothing mattered except the continued tingling of tanned flesh beneath their polyester wraps. We were two fifteen-year-olds. Long-faced, slack-jawed and, of course, down-hearted, unable to bear the lack of soixante-huitards and nouveaux philosophes in our resort-style neighborhood, Marie and I rode bikes down to the shopping center one balmy afternoon, hauling a boombox, angrily intent on accomplishing some protest. But our brains were very young, just fifteen years old, and putting the predicate to a subject like "transgression" incapacitated us. Soon we settled on candy. We would eat candy. More candy than had ever been eaten. The world would wonder where all its candy went and we alone would possess the answer, having eaten it all. That kind of thing. Ingesting the goods of our crass société de consommation to call Western culture on its fascination with simulacra and facsimile, blah de blah blah. Lemonheads, Mike and Ikes, Atomic Fireballs, Branch's Peanut Butter Rickeys, Hot Tamales, Licorice Stumps, M&M's, Mounds, Mars, Marathon Bars, &tc. You sense the magnitude of what we were planning. We bought, as I recall, thirteen dollars worth of candy; candy was cheaper then, this was a whole lot. We also bought a $3.99 cassette of Donovan's Greatest Hits which, displayed for sale near the cash register, seemed as indicative as anything else of what Johnny Baudrillard would've disdained about the dead-end way in which we were being raised.

The candy tasted good at first, especially since it was for a good cause. The first ten Hershey products went down fine. We consumed them while fidgeting around outside the store, heckling shoppers who rolled by with full carts, yelling (as kids will) about how we were going to teach you bastards a thing or two about fake serenity, about soft utopias, and so on.

We had the Donovan tape going on our boombox. A perfect soundtrack! As the digesting got tough, as we gagged on root beer barrels and choked back the stomach acids which rose, bewildered, in our over-sugared throats, Donovan too began to sound sick-but truthfully, didn't he always sound sick? The pain hardened in our guts, bellies pregnant with some devil offspring, civilization's fin de siècle hyperrealism made (ouch-!) concrete, but steadfast we continued to dine on candy, on candy, on candy (revolutions require strong stomachs). In fact, when (soon after) we began to vomit, decorating the shopping center walkway with festive rivers of speckled post-structuralist barf, we didn't even consider that the candy might've been responsible nor did we bother doubting our philosophical persuasions. We instinctively blamed Donovan. He sang in his fey queasy tone, he sang his inane ditties and we puked. Cause and effect. Perhaps our incipient revolution did founder on the shores of a sudden dextrose intolerance-but America, you can thank Donovan that you still have your candy, for without him I do believe our protest would've succeeded.



Rattled by the Rush

S.M. storms around lower Manhattan remembering the trees at dusk, how they once looked caramel-dipped, during those months of light and merry, and how brightly the taffy clouds of morning glowed after he and his friends determined that nothing like parents or family mattered anymore; nothing; just candy. From that, what--frenzy? addiction? liberation? a decade earlier, he and Spiral Stairs, this guy, a friend from school, had begun the rock group Pavement.

They were united in the decision to not call themselves by real names. They tried to make their first recordings seem like vinyl accidents, willful and erroneous, unhelpfully titled Slay Tracks: 1933-1969 and Demolition Plot J-7 and Perfect Sound Forever.

S.M. supposes that people think he's a bit, well...pinched, because of how well he separates himself from his words, sees his songs as being sung in character and all that. He can't help it. His speech drones, cuts, dismisses, has all the life of a dial tone. He wants to believe that he possesses "a new openness," but just try to give hundreds of interviews a year without developing a similar chilliness of soul and feeling like your every movement is monitored.

The video cameras show that his dark hair remains cut in its usual conservative manner. S.M. passes through a series of sugarhouse stalls where Chinese dogs sniff the cuffs of his pants and mop the concrete with their blue-black tongues. Spat-out candies in crinkled-up balls of plastic litter his path, open wrappers everywhere. S.M. fidgets with a candy in his front pocket but doesn't unwrap anything. He knows that when people see this they think that he likes denying himself things. This is what the fans bicker about on the Web, about this once when S.M. appeared to a certain reporter as if he weighed all of 120 pounds and was overheard musing pleasantly about our ability to survive eating only air, and subsequently all this misinformation leaked out.

He's very familiar with this part of town, where the sugarhouse stalls are now. The neighborhood was torn up ten years before by riots; he was thoroughly kind on candy that night, and he saw the coppers on spooked steeds galloping down Saint Mark's and the Argentine who owned the big sugarhouses ordering his muscle boys to drive a truckful of candimonium packs over to the squatters (just like in some Damon Runyon story) so they had bottles to throw at the helicopters.

S.M. lived right near here back then, with percussionist Bob, who had this hellish job with the transit authority at the time, driving a bus. Bob'd come home in a vulgar mood, sink into the couch and glare like an abused monkey. They'd unwrap a few candies and gratefully watch hockey players beat one another on the television set. By then the first few Pavement things had appeared to zero sales. Still, a baffling number of folks began to hear of Pavement. Nobody knew how or why. They crept into the dialogue like a good piece of vandalism, exactly as S.M. had hoped--suddenly, anonymously, full of challenging implications. For a couple reasons--mainly ignorance and poverty--Pavement had left the studio with only recordings of accidents, first takes, wan distortions, scratch vocals. To distract reporters from the bad mikings, S.M. talked as though by intention these were anti-songs, said they were committed to releasing the things that rock bands were supposed to record over. A brilliant strategy: Pavement became just as difficult to listen to as they were difficult to discuss.

In the suburban outskirts, S.M. was satisfied to learn, Pavement attracted a host of word-of-mouth legends: it was said they were television stars recording under fake names, that they were a middle-aged academic performing a cultural survey via false identities and noise-collage experiments. Periodically someone would find Pavement quoted by some half-reliable source as speaking of the need for silence. Nobody knew where they belonged. There'd be this passed-out drummer in some smudgy zine above a caption that read, "If you were wondering what you missed when you missed last month's Pavement gig--here it is!" This was the sort of information that was getting out. For a time S.M. succeeded so well in covering their tracks it seemed his Pavemen could turn out to be anything or anybody. Some writer helped their cause when he wrote that they were building a band with the same surreptitiousness that insurgents made bombs; he went on to say that he half expected their identities to be revealed amid a predawn ATF raid, babies wailing in the background, shopkeepers telling TV crews they had no idea that their quiet, well-behaved neighbors could've been "Los Pavementos." S.M. dug that write-up.

At the time, the candimonium underground was in a disquieting state of free fall. All S.M.'s friends were throwing their papers into the air in disgust, their bodies heavy with hate. In small venues in, for example, Los Angeles, sugarbrains felt obligated to grab the stage, whether they deserved attention or not; out-of-tune Dylan rip-offs would get up there and the crowd'd boo and boo, unaware that one of these bald-stringed, big-eyed boys would soon turn into Beck. One's certainties were in turmoil; tastes were about to take a big turn; judgments changed hourly about what constituted a truly subversive lyric, a sincere rhythm. S.M.'s friends were easily moving 20 pounds of chocolate a day. The summoning of the "Alternative Demographic" was near.

(continued)




*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Ha ha, yeah, you won't be at all surprised that I have Thorpe Park heavily penciled in for an asap visit. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. That's really inspired: Raymond Roussell as the king of theme park literature. I'm going to be thinking about that all day. ** Sypha, That Shire store sounds so cozy and want-able. Excellence about the USB recorder device. I excitedly await its fruits. Oh, that's okay about the La-Bas Day. Whenever you can do it, I'll be most extremely grateful and peeled. 2013, okay. I seem to have totally missed that film. I'll check around for it. Thanks! ** Bill, Hi. Yeah, serious hopes that the shitstorm either stays in its current looming, ominous shitstorm state or settles into something ugh but doable. It's out of Zac's and my hands until its and our producers make their next move. I've never been to Cedar Point either. It's one of my 'most wanted' US parks. Unfortunately, Ohio is not a place I get to or even quickly through very often. I'm glad your shitstorm ran its course. Such things are major suckage. Are you working on anything? ** Misanthrope, I don't know, but when I look at them, I want to slide game pieces all over them too. I'll put Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA in the lower rungs of my theme park to-do list. There was a Busch Gardens in LA when I was younger. I think I put a map of it in the post. It was bleah, which I guess is why it's an apartment complex now. Thank you about 'ZHH'. Oh, yeah, I was fully aware that I was putting your Harry in there. He's even a character in one of the buried little narratives, the one about musical performers. Sinus infection? Preempt that thing like crazy. ** Kier, Ha ha, hi! Yeah, 'ZHH' is getting around. Pretty amazing. At the moment, the shitstorm's strength is a question that will be answered when our producers respond to a simple question that I emailed to them days ago and which they seem to be ignoring, which is not a good sign at all. Oh, right, horses are vegan, aren't they? That would explain the healthy thing, although I doubt that's why that saying originally arose. Your creative malaise will pass for sure. Those malaises always do 'cos they're just phantoms, but they play super stressful mind games with you when they're happening. I hate them. Being cooped up doesn't help either, yeah. What is that magic attaching stuff? That sounds so useful. A Lukas cup! My weekend was largely uneventful, as per usual of late. The highlight was hanging out with the Z-ster on Saturday. We went to Foundation Cartier, this biggish private art museum/space here run by, yes, Cartier. There were two shows. For one, these architects emptied out the big ground floor. In one room, they put a robotic bucket of water on wheels that had a Go-pro camera in the water facing up. It scooted around the room and then would pause in certain places whereupon a drop of water would fall into it from the very high ceiling. In the other room, what the camera was seeing was shown on this giant, horizontal screen that was hung upside down close to the floor, and you lay down on these very low-to-the-ground gurney-like things and rolled yourself underneath the screen to watch. It was funnish. The other show was their 30th anniversary show, a group show of artists who've shown there over the years curated by some artist I didn't know. It was kind of blah, and the curating artist had more work in the show than any of the other artists, which was gross. The highlight was four works by the sublime, extremely great artist Vija Celmins. The low point was a piece by the curating artist that was his imagining of 'David's Lynch's living room', but it was just a stupid giant room with a badly painted faux-red-curtains motif all over the walls and a couple Lynch's dumb paintings, and some 'strange' furniture, and a stupid 'secret passageway' that was neither secret nor spooky at all, and the sound in the space was Patti Smith reading some completely lame long 'spiritual', 'eerie' poem or something that I guess she wrote and delivered in her 'Patti Smith' voice, and that was just tiresome. So, yeah, but it was fun to be there anyway. Then we ate Mexican food, and that was yum. On Sunday, I mostly worked on stuff. I kept getting really great responses to 'ZHH', and that was really happy-making. Oh, a really cool member of a really cool band who'll need to remain nameless for now asked me if Zac and I would be into working on a possible project with his band, a film or video maybe, and we of course said, 'Yes, please', and I don't know if that'll happen, but it's an exciting possibility. But I was mostly home just working on this and that all day. But, finally and definitely, we restart editing the final cut of our film this morning again, and I'm very, very looking forward to that. Are you feeling and doing better today, my pal? What happened? ** Gary gray, Hi. Yeah, as I said, I'm totally with you on 'Adieu au langage'. It really, really inspired me and upped the ante and all of that great stuff. More than cute, man. I'm definitely excited to get to see how that Rubaiyat project pans out. I went to the MGM Grand park too, and, yes, the map is a hundred times better than the park was. No, I don't collect theme park maps. I should. It's weird that I don't. I think the only Halloween ones I have are a handful from Knotts Scary Farm. I always keep those when I go there 'cos that place/event is god. ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey. Thanks a lot about 'ZHH', man. Thanks for taking the time to get into it. It's our producers whom we're battling with, and, yeah, thank you. It's kind of on the cusp of either getting much worse or settling down a bit at the moment. I love Merzbow, of course. But he does so much and is so prolific, and that's the reason why I think maybe it would be more interesting and surprising and stuff to work with someone who hasn't done a million collaborations before. Which isn't to say that if he offered to collaborate, we wouldn't be excited and interested. What ended up being your rainy day distraction? It rains here all the time right now. I'm still 'praying' for at least one dusting of snow. ** Steevee, Hi. That's strange, I was just reading about GIUSEPPE MAKES A MOVIE this morning over my coffee. Those kinds of stories are always so great to think about, and to see too, I guess. It made me curious. ** _Black_Acrylic, Aw, thanks a lot, Ben. Really, thank you for that! ** Schlix, Hi, Uli! Thank you, man. I try to make the loops that the blog throws at you guys, when it throws them, loopy. Terrible sentence construction there, sorry. Um, yeah, what we've made does not fit into the realm of what those people have produced before at all. We thought they would find that refreshing or exciting or something, but, so far, they're acting like they think aliens have invaded earth through our film or something. Sucks, but we'll see. Thanks a lot, my friend. How's stuff with you? ** Hyemin kim , Hi! I'm really glad you liked the post and 'ZHH" too, of course. Thanks very, very much. You take care too. ** Thomas Moronic, I'm so dying to go to Alton Towers. Z and I are going to the UK to go to Diggerland before too long, and I think we'll try to swing up or sideways or down or whatever which way to AT while we're there. Yeah, totally about the theme park maps vis-a-vis game maps. I miss the days when they used to publish print versions of video game solution guides all the time. I always wanted to write a novel in the form of a video game solution guide. Bon Monday! ** Right. Do you guys know the fiction and nonfiction of Camden Joy? He sort of stopped writing books ten years ago or so, but they were and are wonderful things, and they're being reprinted now, so I thought I'd pay tribute, in this case to his non-fiction book, mainly because it was the only one with online excerpts that I could use, but his fiction, i.e. 'The Last Rock Star Book, or Liz Phair: A Rant', 'Boy Island', and '3 by Camden Joy' are all very worth checking out. See you tomorrow.

Kinder Surprise Egg Unboxing Day

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'Unwrapping Kinder Surprise eggs is an epic trend on YouTube that continues to increase. Using the Octoly system, we tracked a total of 5.1 billion all-time views of videos about Kinder eggs, and the rate of views appears to be increasing. In November, we tracked no less than 489 million views of Kinder egg videos.

'99.99% of the views of Kinder eggs on YouTube are on videos made by independent creators, rather than the brand itself. At Octoly we call this a "love brand," where fans are so excited by the product that they will make videos and watch millions of YouTube views about the products, whether the brand is involved or not.

'Some observers say that the popularity of these videos is partly due to something called ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, which is a new popular term that essentially means that the sound of the unwrapping tinfoil makes you feel good. Or maybe the videos succeed because they a combination of several things kids like: chocolate, toys, and the surprise of multi-layer unwrappings. Here are the steps in a standard egg unwrapping:

'Examine the original Kinder Surprise wrapped tinfoil. It's largely white. Unwrap the tinfoil to find the chocolate egg. Break the egg open. It splits easily in half. Discover that it has white chocolate inside and there is a yellow plastic container inside. Eat a bit of the chocolate. Open plastic yellow container. Peer inside to see what you found. Reveal what the toy is by plucking it out. Play with toy. Repeat billions of times.

'The U.S. makes up more than half of the audience for Kinder eggs, totalling 2.8 billion views. But unfortunately these views are not driving sales. The Kinder chocolate eggs are considered illegal contraband in the U.S. due to worries that kids might choke on the toys. In 2011, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized more than 60,000 Kinder Eggs from travelers' baggage and international mail shipments. There is a potential fine of more than $2,500 per egg.'-- REELSEO



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12 Surprise Eggs Toy Story Kinder Surprise Eggs Unboxing


40,983,874 plays

ImperiaToys2 months ago
Nice surprises ))) I liked it!!! 

Muhammad Suhaimi Abu Hassan1 month ago
Hello every body my name is alif

jimmy russell4 months ago
how does this have 40 million views?

Leah Baker5 months ago
Robbin willams died yesterday


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Pocoyo Kinder Surprise Egg Unboxing


7,879,614 plays

Tahmid Hai3 months ago
I love pocoyo watch somuch,.

annabel galindez9 months ago
i love pocoyo i watch that on my tv


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2 Kinder Surprise Maxi Christmas Eggs Unboxing


13,860,063 plays

jowee padolina7 months ago
Not to cool but awesome

Ahmed Bani-Mustafa11 months ago
Wow nice airplane!!!

Itsme Crofty1 year ago
dude... lose your enthusiasum plz... no offense

Shotayto1 year ago
Why is everyone hating on him for the way he does videos? He's supporting a heart disease foundation and does this to entertain children. He acts excited because he wants the children watching to know that he is upbeat and fun loving.

CoPpErPiLlZ1 year ago
oh my god! i was watching this and got the biggest shock of my life that little girl looks exactly like i did when i was little no joke she looks exactly the same no difference at all 0.0 my god i never thought i would meet anyone that looked like me :O i can't stop watching this im gob smacked O.O


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2 Kinder Surprise Eggs Unboxing


33,428 plays

LonitaBricks2 years ago
wow great toy


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10 Surprise Eggs Unboxing Kinder Surprise


39,457,390 plays

SurpriseEggsToys for Kids3 hours ago
lovely surprisess

ToyScouter1 month ago MARKED AS SPAM
I haven't seen a lot of Toy Story surprise eggs - this was a good surprise :)

Jamie gaming92 months ago
How lucky are wee finding that giant red bird

Bethany Shephard1 month ago
Relly happy


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12 Ben10 Surprise Easter Eggs with Kinder Playdoh Surprise Egg Unboxing


5,526,026 plays

dilcia Arias2 months ago
Those are loser toy

kimha ho4 months ago
um i want to ask is that do you guys eat the chocolate?

FlipYard5 months ago
NukeNorway

THE DIAMOND PIG BIG FACE!7 months ago
Boo you suck you should get a docter quike


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Kinder Surprise Egg Unboxing Christmas Special (Ultra Super Rare Collections)


2,595,007 plays

Sydney Stenman7 months ago
I don't know if you speak English, but I think if you are going to do a review of old kinder chocolate, you should probably wear plastic doctors gloves.

monstertruck6111 month ago
+paws27 Chocolate cant harm you unless it's about 30+ years old. I don't know why he said to wear gloves.

DinoSoCalKayaking4 weeks ago
Add some music

The Maid3 months ago
I ate it when am in elementary then it stop selling I think at 4th grade :(


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12 Surprise Eggs Unboxing Eggs Kinder Surprise


8,842,415 plays

iSuperFusionZx1 year ago
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW

Rell1 year ago
I liked the vid. But I am wondering if this is for targeting little boys and girls and not grown adults like me. xD

aggreyd711 year ago
How do you get so many eggs

Aidan Maloney1 year ago
i want you to unbox more angry birds eggs!

Hoyt Volker1 year ago
Why do you do this.. where you stupid enough to go there, got a virus and now spread it ? you are truly fucking sad and i hope someone really close to you dies


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40 Surprise Eggs Unwrapping Kinder Surprise


40,678,602 plays

matha ramirez1 week ago
I love eggs with surprice

LPS Caramel1 week ago
OMG GOLD KINDER

Fawaz Esam2 weeks ago
Thank you very much that my son wrote a very Merry liked your channel


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Play-Doh Ice Cream Cone Kinder Surprise Eggs Unboxing


18,792,373 plays

jeffmara1 month ago
Great Ice Cream Cone Surprises!

hobbieshobbies2 weeks ago
Surprise mania, so cool! 

Ha Lam2 weeks ago
Shark


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KINDER SURPRISE EGGS!!! Let's Crack 'Em Open!


1,527,902 plays

pam phimmarath1 day ago
What happened to you evan

beyblade6 days ago
Does evan have a girlfriend I do and I am only 11 and my girlfriends name is Ria and she is 11 to 

sfighter001 week ago
I first heard of these Kinders from a weird commercial featuring a (I hope you don't mind me saying this term) "Suicidal" Humpty Dumpty. Really cool you got to obtain some.

Dylan Thomas1 week ago
Hey even do u have an instagram because if you do could I follow you please I think you and your vids are AWESOME!


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60 Surprise eggs Kinder Surprise Unboxing


112,260,278 plays

FreeMMOStation5 months ago
These videos are the only thing that make my bay daughter eat lunch and dinner peacefully :D

Toys and Eggs TV2 months ago
Like for Kinder Santa Claus egg! It's great! =)

ihkhan831 month ago
You need to go quick not slow please


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9 Surprise Eggs Unboxing Kinder Surprise


9,810,495 plays

Chaina Patalano11 months ago
where do you get those my mom and me want to know because I watch you it inspires me to get some ;) B)

Daisy Frisch1 year ago
Why are you screaming?

only1manga1 year ago
We r not deaf

jonofcov1 year ago
Were do you get the eggs your vids are awesome tell me I beg you

BFDI ice cube1 year ago
your so lucky you get rare trash packs i saw you get another one and on this waa!lol


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7 Big Kinder Surprise Eggs Explosion !!!


763,612 plays

anish gandla22 minutes ago
hey the explosion is graphic

Ponzified5 months ago
Hahahahahaha the chupa chups exploaded oh noooooo lol love that part when sammie was laughing about it he was sooooooooo adorable and cute awwwww :))))) do you know what I want for Christmas??? I want a skylanders swap force guy I just need one more guy from skylanders swap force to complete my game and same as sam the disney infinity :))))

ciosings5 months ago
Can you do a video of sammies room? :)
I would love to see it !

Cindy Duran4 months ago
Did that really explode or is it special effects


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12 Easter Kinder Surprise Bunny Rabbit Army Toys Easter Eggs Mega Unboxing


2,954,959 plays

Zaynab Baker7 months ago
I like it sooooooo much

Kinder Surprise Unboxing9 months ago
The best thing ever

Matt Klein9 months ago
I like how you actually inbox kinder unlike all the fake videos, thanks!

Pita masson9 months ago
You good

GoJoMedia Geoff9 months ago
Totally mega! Totally!


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80 Kinder Surprise Eggs Unboxing


190,500,982 plays

Surprise Eggs Play Ground2 months ago
exelents surprise eggs

Toys and Eggs TV1 month ago
I never get bored of watching this video! Great surprises! :)

Trinidad Menares1 day ago
Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooow

Макс Александров4 days ago
21:54 kill me please

Andrea Malone6 days ago
How much do they cost




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p.s. Hey. ** Tender prey, Hi, Marc! Awesome that the Kuchar post hit an already jangling nerve. I'll be curious to see if his stuff stays once you've seen it in a bunch. Oh, darn, about the 'ZHH" download. You can always just view it online rather than possess it. It's just that the loading time of the gifs is in most cases much quicker if it's generated from a separated file. The project you're doing sounds ever more extremely interesting. Maybe especially at the moment given my attempt to translate a fictional narrative into borrowed gif sequencing. Did the meeting last night bring more clarity? If memory serves, 'Period' was the GM Cycle novel where I tried not to rely on being fed by new or particular music directly, or maybe I mean deliberately. I had this idea that, using the structure I had devised for the Cycle of the books gradually being eaten away and being forced to use increasingly less material on all fronts, I was trying not to introduce fresh impetus, so I think, consciously at least, I was trying to use the remains of the music I had looked to over the course of the earlier novels and try to mine what might left over there and unused, if that makes sense. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Yesterday the impending shitstorm around our film seemed to have been averted or at least made less possibly explosive, which was a tentative relief, but it's still too early to tell. Thank you! ** Scunnard, Hi, J. I'm doing very well, thank you. What's the experimental video program for, and is there an overriding, I don't know, theme to it? Swamped is okay, and good even. I'm way swamped, but I'm digging it. You? ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Yeah, his writing is really good. The prose has this jumpiness but shapeliness that's really something. I do love me some Mexican food, it's true. I never eat proper French food unless crepes count. It's very meaty, and I'm meatless like you. Until maybe three years ago, it was almost impossible to get Mexican food here, even shitty Mexican. But it's recently become a kind of thing, and there are a number of places, always little places, springing up, of varying quality. For whatever reason, French Mexican food tends to use cactus in it a lot, and I don't like that about it. There's a very good place just down the street from me, a little corner joint called El Guacamole whose Mexican is pretty damned close to LA Mexican, just with smaller portions and higher prices. I'll take you there the next time you're here. I eat tortillas literally every day at home, and they're totally fine, and are imported American tortillas. No difference at all. ** Thomas Moronic, Cool, glad you liked Camden Joy's work. Dude, I read Diarmuid's review, and it's great and super smart and savvy, of course, he being one of the top brains out there. Congrats! Everyone, Thomas Moronic aka Thomas Moore's exquisite recent poetry book 'Skeleton Costumes' (Kiddiepunk Press, 2014) has been reviewed in the most lustrous, really knowing way by the great Diarmuid Hester, another d.l. of this blog, and I highly recommend you go read the piece and, even more highly, that you score said book. Read it here. Score the book here. ** Steevee, Hi, I noticed that 'American Sniper' seems to be the new meat that's turning FB's hotheads into a typing lion pack. I assume that's partly because of its much reported first weekend box office success? I have no interest in seeing it. But, yeah, personally I'm happy for anything to get those two-cents-spouting folks away from the Charlie Hebdo thing for at least a few days. ** Keaton, Thanks, buddy boy. The maps, even the more rote looking ones, are usually a lot better than the actual parks. Well, with key exceptions. It's like porn versus actually having sex, ha ha. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Oh, those themes are in there, but it's not necessary to pick up on them unless you want the full immersive experience. I made it so you can just wander through and get what you get that way too. Oh, you think? About HS's good guy-ness? If I ever meet him, I'll let you know. Don't know how that would happen. Maybe in court when he sues me for misappropriating his image in 'ZHH'. Proto-emo. Emo pioneer. Cool. Hats off to that young fella wherever he is. Probably not still proto-Emo, or is he? I like his shirt. I want one. I bet they don't come in organic. Allergies in the winter? ** _Black_Acrylic, Cool, thank you, about your mom. Do let me know. That's cool, thanks, man. Tomorrow already? I mean, well, today al-super-ready? Share please. Awesome! ** Kier, Hi, K! Had you seen that non 3D LH photo before? I wasn't sure if I'd put on the blog or something at some point. Yeah, I have the 3D one, or rather it's in LA. I wish it could be reproduced. I used to buy disposable 3D cameras a lot. They used to sell them on the counters of pharmacies in LA for a while. They were a trend. Then the trend died, and I guess you can still buy them, but I don't know where. That photo was taken on the balcony of the hotel where he was staying in West Hollywood. It was when I interviewed him for Spin. Modge Podge, what a cool name. I'm going to see if I can find it here. Paris has this one really great arts and crafts store. Maybe. A month? There's the catch, okay. Still. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that yesterday was a rough one for you, my dear pal. But I'm really psyched that you had upswung dramatically by day's end! Yesterday was really good. First we heard from our producers, and what I had thought would lead to a serious shitstorm turned out not to lead to one. So, we're in the semi-clear, at least for now. Zac and I worked on the final edit of Scene 5. It was great. We've had really high hopes that the scene is going to be one the strongest, maybe even the strongest, scene in the film, and we made a lot of progress towards getting it there. We'd had to rush the first cut because, at that point, we were trying to meet the deadline of the Berlin Film Festival. But now we can be more careful, and it's vastly improving. It's a tricky scene because most of it is shot with surveillance cameras, stationary ones and also a flying drone camera, and a lot of the time the viewer is watching the scene unfold via numerous shots/angles on a bank of screens in the office of a woman who's controlling and watching over surveillance of the interior and exterior of a WWII bunker on a beach, and she's obsessed with aligning the different shots to create abstract compositions on her bank of monitors, and she's also obsessed and perturbed by a boy who enters the bunker and fucks up her compositions. If that makes sense, ha ha. So choosing the footage from the tons and tons of footage we shot and making her 'art works' and compositing the footage onto the screens and so on, is tough. But it's looking really great and we'll be back working on that today. And we also need to make a trailer for the film in the next few days. So it's busy time. After that, I came home and did not a huge ton, slept. What happened during your hopefully much brighter day today? ** Sypha, Oops. $20? That is one cheap piece of equipment. Cheap in price, at least. Oh, cool, and thank you immensely for getting into the La Bas Day! I need to see 'Inherent Vice'. The first reactions I heard to it weren't so positive, but lately everyone I know who's seen it has been pretty enthusiastic. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff! 'the whisper opera' sounds very, very interesting. I'll hope it comes through Paris. It sounds like something that would or could. Another pro-'Inherent Vice' report. I definitely really want to see it. I can't remember if it's playing here now or will be or did already. Hope you like 'ZHH', of course. Take care. ** Mikel Motorcycle, Hey, man! He is really good. CJ, I mean. No, it's incredibly weird, but I still haven't listened to the Body/Head album. I have no idea why. No reason. It's inexplicable. I'll download it today. Cool, thanks! I'm very interested to read her book too, for sure. ** Bill, Hi, B. I drove through Ohio when I was 18, and I don't think I've been through there since, weirdly. When I think Ohio, I think Robert Pollard/GbV, which is a reason to go and find him or something. That is very sad that you're being prevented from doing your work. Wtf?! The world sucks. Or your world has a sucky overlay in that regard. Manhattan nightmare movies ... yeah, interesting. Huh. Let me see what my fingers can locate. Bon day! ** Right. The Kinder Surprise Egg Unboxing video phenomenon is not new, but I only found out about it the other day due to a tip from Kiddiepunk, and there's my attempt represent it fairly. What do you think? See you tomorrow.

Gig #70: West Coast Psychedelic '67 - '69: The United States of America, Blue Cheer, The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Fifty Foot Hose, The Seeds, Mad River, Clear Light, Grateful Dead, Kaleidoscope, The Savage Resurrection, Spirit, The Music Machine, The Chocolate Watchband, Country Joe & the Fish, The Strawberry Alarm Clock, Joe Byrd and the Field Hippies, Jefferson Airplane

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The United States of AmericaComing Down
'Joseph Byrd, who had frequented avant-garde circles since hanging around with Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, and Virgil Thomson in the early '60s, used the United States of America to bring cutting-edge electronics, Indian music, and "serious" composition into psychedelic rock and roll. The group's sole, self-titled album in 1968 was a tour de force (though not without its flaws) of experimental rock that blended surprisingly melodic sensibilities with unnerving blasts of primitive synthesizers and lyrics that could range from misty romanticism to hard-edged irony. For the relatively few who heard it, the record was a signpost to the future with its collision of rock and classical elements, although the material crackled with a tension that reflected the United States of America itself in the late '60s. By mid-1968, the grand experiment was over. Conflicting egos, a drug bust, and commercial pressures all contributed to a rapid split. The United States of America may have had their roots in the halls of higher learning, but ultimately they were prey to the same kind of mundane tensions that broke the spirit of many a band that lived and died on the streets.'-- richieunterberger.com






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Blue CheerJust A Little Bit
'On the surface, Blue Cheer was the epitome of San Francisco psychedelia. The band was named for a brand of LSD and promoted by renowned LSD chemist and former Grateful Dead patron, Owsley Stanley. The band's sound, however, was something of a departure from the music that had been coming out of the Bay area. Blue Cheer's three musicians played heavy blues-rock and played it VERY LOUD! The Blue Cheer philosophy, intentional or not- was to do as much with as little as possible- crude playing, crude production, reaching out, a primitive grasping, a sonic transcendence only possible through rock and roll, the blues, speed, and volume. You know, all the stuff that's powered the great confused rockers from Bo Diddley to Half Japanese. They take the idea of Jimi's explosive "Let me stand next to your fire" and cram it into every song- Jimi took a breather every now and again, but these guys come at you full-bore non-stop every single fucking song. An air of demented over-indulgence permeates their first two LP's- the songs are merely the excuse for the "jamming"- which consists of freaked out noise-making under a bluesy shuffle more than anything resembling a "solo."'-- furious.com






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The West Coast Pop Art Experimental BandSmell of Incense
'In 1960 Bob Markley, the adopted son of an oil tycoon and a law graduate, moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in entertainment. In 1965, Kim Fowley arranged a private party in Markley’s mansion at which The Yardbirds with Jeff Beck performed and which the Harris brothers and Lloyd also attended. Markley was impressed by the large number of teenage girls attracted by the band. The much younger musicians were impressed by Markley’s financial resources and potential ability to fund good quality equipment and a light show. Fowley encouraged them to join forces and with the addition of drummer John Ware, The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was formed. The general approach was intended to parallel that being developed on the east coast by Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. Markley used his legal background to ensure that he held all rights to the band’s name. The band's final Reprise album, Volume 3: A Child's Guide To Good And Evil is generally regarded as the group's high point. However, the naïve peace-and-love message of some of the songs sat uneasily beside the ironic cynicism of tracks like "A Child of a Few Hours Is Burning to Death". The songs showed a tension between the Harris brothers’ melodies, Morgan’s strident lead guitar and effects and Markley’s sometimes bizarre lyrics regarding children.'-- collaged






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Fifty Foot HoseBad Trip
'Fifty Foot Hose is an American psychedelic rock band that formed in San Francisco in the late 1960s. They were one of the first bands to fuse rock and experimental music. Like a few other acts of the time (most notably the United States of America), they consciously tried to combine the contemporary sounds of rock with electronic instruments and avant-garde compositional ideas. They released one experimental and wildly atonal single, "Bad Trip", in 1967, with the intention that the record could be played at any speed. The group had a small but intense following in San Francisco and also toured with other acts including Blue Cheer, Chuck Berry and Fairport Convention, when the band was augmented by Robert Goldbeck (bass). They broke up in late 1969 when most of its members joined the musical Hair.'-- collaged






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The SeedsMarch Of The Flower Children
'Though the Seeds' third album, 1967's Future, was pegged by critics as the band's attempt to ride the wave of baroque/psychedelic/orchestral magic the Beatles defined with Sgt. Pepper's, the recording was actually complete before the release of the Beatles' far more popular breakthrough album, making it impossible for the influence to touch the uncannily similarly minded flower power tones of Future. the Seeds had their own relatively huge smash with the raw high-pressure garage thumper "Pushin' Too Hard" the year before. Future was a deliberate attempt to move away from the band's by-the-numbers caveman garage rock toward something more experimental, spectral, and musical can be felt all over the rest of the album. While the sidesteps into Technicolor psychedelia and overly serious orchestration are interesting and sometimes good, nothing has quite the same power as Saxon's feral howls or the burning fuzz guitar that escapes in the least calculated (and most exciting) moments of Future.'-- collaged






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Mad RiverThe War Goes On
'In the onslaught of innovative San Francisco Bay Area psychedelic bands that recorded in the late 1960s, it was inevitable that some would get unfairly overlooked. Foremost among them were Mad River, whose two Capitol albums made barely a ripple saleswise. Overexposure of the San Francisco scene, however, was likely only part of the reason for their commercial failure. For Mad River were one of the hardest psychedelic bands to get a handle on, their eclecticism, oblique lyrics, and tortuous multi-segmented songs defying quick summarization. Their music can come across like a spiraling, acid-spiked descent into hell. It may not have helped that Mad River's brand of psychedelia was decidedly dark, often venturing into distraught visions in stark opposition to the feel-good stereotype of the San Francisco Sound. Frustrated by their lack of recognition, Mad River broke up by the end of the 1960s, most likely victims of the daring recklessness of their musical experimentation.'-- Richie Unterberger






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Clear LightSand
'Clear Light was a folk-rock/psych-rock group from LA that released one LP off Elektra in 1967, famously known for including two drummers, one of them being Dallas Taylor of CSNY and Manassas fame. Paul Rothchild produced the LP, which explains why the recording sessions were fraught with tension and negativity. The group was masterminded by guitarist/vocalist Bob Seal, bass player Doug Lubahn, and lead vocalist Cliff De Young. Prior to Clear Light the band had been known as the Brain Train. Seal felt a name change was appropriate to coincide with the release of a newly recorded debut single, “Black Roses.” Seal decided on Clear Light, a concept he had come across in his readings of Eastern philosophy, a name also shared by a potent brand of LSD. Rothchild’s iron fist policy coupled with the lack of commercial success led to Clear Light’s demise, shortly after the release of this solid album. Not everyone will like this record because of its eccentric nature but it really is a crime that Clear Light was unable to release a followup to this debut.'-- The Rising Storm






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Grateful Deadlive 05-03-1968 @ Columbia University
'Owsley Stanley, the grandson of a former Kentucky governor, made and supplied the LSD that fueled acid rock and California's hallucinogenic culture in the 1960s. An early patron and sound engineer for the Grateful Dead who also came up with the Dead's trademark skull and lightning-bolt logo, Mr. Stanley was memorialized in the band's song "Alice D. Millionaire," named after a newspaper headline about his arrest for dealing LSD. Mr. Stanley was credited with distributing thousands — some say millions — of doses of high-purity LSD, often for free at concerts by the Grateful Dead and "acid tests" run by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.'-- collaged






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KaleidoscopeElevator Man
'Says Chris Darrow, a member of the original lineup, being in Kaleidoscope was "like going to college. It wasn't easy learning that stuff that was unfamiliar to you. I think it changed everybody's life in terms of the way they approached music, because you were kind of forced by virtue of being in the context of this to take on things that you probably wouldn't take on yourself." No other band of the time could play so many kinds of music, and so authoritatively. A commercial breakthrough, however, was not forthcoming. Dubious management and almost non-existent record label support, coupled with the band's lack of conventional "sex appeal" or an easily-categorized sound contributed, no doubt. In any case, the band went through a few upheavals in personnel before giving up the ghost. Ultimately, says David Lindley, Kaleidoscope was "a genetical experiment that produced several mutant strains of unknown origin and eventually ate itself."'-- Pulsating Dream






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The Savage ResurrectionExpectations
'Formed in 1967 in the East Bay town of Richmond,CA. (near Berkeley) by members of Garage Rock groups Button Willow, Whatever's Right, The Plague, The Blue Boys and others. The Savage Resurrection were one of the youngest Psychedelic bands working the Bay Area circuit.“The Savage Resurrection were signed to Mercury Records by A&R man Abe ‘Voco’ Kesh, most famous for his work with fellow Bay Area-based acts Blue Cheer and Harvey Mandel. Abe ‘Voco’ Kesh” produced their lone, The Savage Resurrection album over the course of three days, capturing a group that sounded Rawer and Punkier than most Psychedelic bands, which could be an advantage or a hindrance. There were flashes of promise, especially considering their extreme youth (Randy Hammon was only sixteen when they recorded their album), but these were not fulfilled, as lead singer Bill Harper and bassist Steve Lage left shortly after the album came out. With replacements The Savage Resurrection only managed to do a little touring in the Midwest before breaking up later in 1968.'-- collaged






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SpiritIt's All the Same
'The LA group's first album, Spirit, was released in 1968. "Mechanical World" was released as a single (it lists the playing time merely as "very long"). The album was a hit, reaching No. 31 on The Billboard 200 and staying on the charts for over eight months. The album displayed jazz influences, as well as using elaborate string arrangements (not found on their subsequent recordings) and is the most overtly psychedelic of their albums. They capitalized on the success of their first album with another single, "I Got A Line On You". Released in November 1968, a month before their second album, The Family That Plays Together, it became their biggest hit single, reaching No. 25 on the charts (#28 in Canada). The album matched its success, reaching No. 22. They also went on tour that year with support band Led Zeppelin, who were heavily influenced by Spirit—Led Zeppelin played an extended medley during their early 1969 shows that featured "Fresh Garbage" among other songs; Jimmy Page's use of a theremin has been attributed to his seeing Randy California use one that he had mounted to his amplifier; and Guitar World Magazine stated "(Randy) California's most enduring legacy may well be the fingerpicked acoustic theme of the song 'Taurus', which Jimmy Page lifted virtually note for note for the introduction to 'Stairway to Heaven'." After the success of their early records, the group was asked by French film director Jacques Demy to record the soundtrack to his film, Model Shop and they also made a brief appearance in the film. Their third album, Clear, released in 1969, reached No. 55 on the charts. Spirit were offered the spot right before Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, but they were advised to turn it down and concentrate on a promotional tour for their third album. Record company managers felt that the festival would not be significant, as it did not seem so at that time, and so they missed out on the massive international exposure that the festival and the subsequent film documentary generated. An alternative view has been expressed that they did not merit widespread recognition, as they appealed to a narrow, psychedelic genre.'-- collaged






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The Music MachineEagle Never Hunts The Fly
'The Music Machine (1965–1969) was an American garage rock and psychedelic band from the late 1960s, headed by singer-songwriter Sean Bonniwell and based in Los Angeles. The band sound was often defined by fuzzy guitars and a Farfisa organ. Their original look consisted of all-black clothing, (dyed) black moptop hairstyles and a single black glove. The group's one big hit was "Talk Talk," a proto-punk single that broke into the Top 20 in 1966. It was "the most radical single" then on Top 40 radio, garage psychedelia at its most experimental and outrageous. The band's success was largely due to Bonniwell, a gifted songwriter who penned "torturous but catchy, riff-driven songs," according to the All Music online database. The original five-man lineup included Keith Olsen, known for wielding a fuzz box, an electronic device that altered his bass guitar sound.'-- collaged






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The Chocolate Watch BandIn the Past
'Back in the mid-'80s, the Chocolate Watchband were trapped in an odd paradox (which actually wasn't that bad a place to be for a band that didn't exist anymore). They hadn't played a note together in almost 15 years, but their original albums were changing hands for $100 apiece or more, and a series of vinyl reissues, first as bootlegs from France and later legit ones from Australia, were selling around the world, and in numbers that only increased as more people had a chance to hear them. What's more, the group's sound was starting to be emulated in the work of then-current bands, playing obscure clubs in places like New York's Chelsea district and other locales as far east as the District of Columbia, made up of teenagers who were too young ever to have seen or heard the Watchband play, and living 3500 miles east of where the Watchband played out its existence, and most of its gigs, two decades before. The group had reached this paradoxical situation -- non-existence juxtaposed with a burgeoning cult of admirers around the world -- simply by being the best psychedelic garage band of the '60s; or, at least, the best one ever to have had a serious recording career. While American bands of the period usually either detoured into folk-rock on their way to more elusive flights of languid psychedelia, or fell back on gimmicks and dumbing down their image (à la Paul Revere & the Raiders) to sell records, the Watchband retained an amazing purity of purpose and intent -- they owed a considerable (and undeniable) debt to the Rolling Stones for various elements of their sound, but they kept pushing the envelope, at least in intensity, and may even have matched the Stones in their psychedelic ventures when the time came to ante-up musically; they were like the Stones imbued with the more reckless and creative spirit of the Pretty Things.'-- All Music






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Country Joe and The FishSection 43
'It isn’t easy to pinpoint singular, watershed moments in a culture’s evolution – in fact, it’s a messy business, heroes and hucksters alike laying claims to history. But it is safe to say that when Electric Music For The Mind And Body arrived via Vanguard on May 11, 1967 – six weeks ahead of the fabled Summer Of Love – the pop landscape had seen nothing of its kind. Bursting forth as if it could hardly hold Young America’s collective, bottled-up repression and restlessness a second longer, Country Joe & The Fish’s super-charged debut was a game-changer, a one-of-a-kind artefact, projecting a hippy “new normal” out to an almost uncomprehending world. While certain mega-popular recording artists danced around the notion of mind expansion via recreational drug use circa 1965-67, the Fish came right out with it. “Hey partner, won’t you pass that reefer round,” singer Country Joe McDonald moaned in “Bass Strings”. In the daring “Superbird”, the Fish harboured the suggestion that Lyndon Johnson retire to his Texas ranch and, oh, drop some LSD. And then things got really weird without any lyrics at all in “Section 43”, a virtually indescribable swirl of fog and sound, a psychedelic masterpiece assembled in movements, that simulated an acid trip. “I liked the music full of holes,” McDonald said recently, “as opposed to a wash of sound.”'-- Uncut






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Strawberry Alarm ClockRainy Day Mushroom Pillow
'When the Strawberry Alarm Clock recorded their third album in 1968, they were struggling to regain the phenomenal success they'd enjoyed in late 1967, when "Incense and Peppermints" shot to the top of the charts and their debut album of the same name stopped just outside the Top Ten. Despite featuring a Top Forty single in "Tomorrow," their second album, Wake Up...It's Tomorrow had failed to chart at all. There had always been a number of musical directions at work in the band, but The World in a Seashell found them torn between their own brand of psychedelic pop and record company-instigated attempts to move them toward a softer, more orchestrated pop approach. Dissatisfied with the group's recent output, the UNI label brought in some outside writers for the album. Also added to the recipe were some string arrangements by George Tipton, who also worked in the 1960s on recordings by Sam Cooke, Jackie DeShannon, the Sunshine Company, the Monkees, Nilsson, and others. "What they probably didn't like," speculates keyboardist Mark Weitz, "was that we wrote and arranged our own songs -- some of which, the lyrics were not to their approval. [Tipton] was brought in on the third album to try our luck on recording some original songs written by popular songwriters like Carole King. I guess UNI thought it might help us get on the charts again." But as so often happens when the bean-counters try to over-egg the pudding, "eventually we found out that it practically ruined our following. The songs weren't us! They weren't strong enough! I think it hurt our image drastically -- like we were 'selling out' to the 'Suits' and going soft rock."'-- Richie Unterberger






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Joe Byrd and The Field HippiesKalyani
'Sgt. Pepper influenced everybody, and indeed was one of the arguments I used to keep the band on track (on my track, of course). Zappa was not nearly so influential, whatever his fans would like to think. In those early days he was mostly into being raunchy and offensive, so the band (during the brief time that it was still a "band" as opposed to the later stuff, which was different ensembles) didn't get much play. On the other hand, his broad brand of satire was more accessible than my more insidious (or so I like to think) kind. I never met any of those people, although I certainly heard their music. If they influenced me, it was subconscious. I've already named the groups I was aware of emulating: The Airplane, The Fish (Country Joe), and Blue Cheer; there was an interesting though obscure group called The Great Society (Grace Slick with her then husband Darby) that influenced me, and I loved The Red Crayola, although without actually trying to take stuff from them. I was pretty deliberate about exploring new territory. No, there was no "school" in which we considered ourselves. As I've said elsewhere, I regarded the avant garde art community as my peer group.'-- Joseph Byrd






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Jefferson AirplaneWon't You Try/Saturday Afternoon
'In terms of music and lifestyle, the Jefferson Airplane epitomized the San Francisco scene of the mid-to-late Sixties. Their heady psychedelia, combustible group dynamic and adventuresome live shows made them one of the defining bands of the era. Much like their contemporaries on the San Francisco scene - Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Big Brother and the Holding Company principal among them – the Airplane evolved from roots in folk and blues to become a psychedelic powerhouse and a cornerstone of the San Francisco sound. They were the first band on that scene to play a dance concert, sign a major-label record contract (with RCA), and tour the U.S. and Europe. In addition, they espoused boldly anarchistic political views and served as a force for social change, challenging the prevailing conservative mind set in “White Rabbit” and issuing a call to arms in “Volunteers.” In a sense, San Francisco became the American Liverpool in the latter half of the Sixties, and Jefferson Airplane were its Beatles.'-- collaged







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p.s. Hey. ** MyNeighbourJohnTurtorro, Hey! It's really good to see you, man! Thanks a lot about 'ZHH'. That's really, really cool, thank you! Yeah, I think it is the first of its kind. I'm really curious to see if other novelists try their hands at it. That would super fascinating. I wonder. The rest of the Cycle will be probably a combination of text novels, i.e. 'normal' novels, one of which I've been working on for about a year already, and possibly novels created in other mediums too, if I can figure how to do that. The Cycle is in development, I guess. The stuff: Zac and I are editing the final cut of our film right now. We should have it finished pretty soon, and then we'll go to Berlin in late February to do the post-production, i.e. color and sound correction, compositing, etc., and then it will be a done deal. We're starting to create a trailer for it today. My just-mentioned text novel has been on hold for a while 'cos I'm too swamped with other work, the film and a new theater piece mostly. I'll get back to working on it later this month. Oh, were you looking in here when I mentioned that I hung out with Elias (Iceage) for a few hours when they were here doing a gig? That was really cool. He's a really amazing, great guy. And how are you? What's going on in your world? ** Sypha, Hi. I'm ever more exited to see 'Inherent Vice'. Even that mumbling problem attracts me. No, I don't know about the Comprachicos, but you can bet that I'll try to find out about them right away. Very interesting. Thank you for the alert. Really glad you eeked out the usage you needed from the USB device before it conked out. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, sir. Huysman is much less neglected over here, which won't be a surprise. ** Kier, Hi! Oh, yeah, you can't get away from Kinder Eggs over here. Cool, yeah, about the video comments. They're so sweet, for the most part, and pretty refreshing compared to the usual mean youtube gabbing. The producers want to get a trailer lickity-split to show at the Berlin Film Festival, so, I guess if we make a trailer they don't think is too 'experimental' and too 'inaccessible', which are two of their ridiculous ongoing complaints about our film, to show, I would think they'll upload it somewhere, but I don't know. I'll find out. Your powers came back! Yes! I knew they would and would any second! All is again right with the world. Yesterday we edited all day, still Scene 5, still revising and refining it, and I think we're pretty close to having the final cut, probably today sometime. We're excited about it. Half of the dialogue in the scene is in French, so we need to make subtitles for that. The sound in the scene is really complicated. It kind of cuts back and forth between beach/nature sounds, the sound of the flying drone camera, the sound of the surveillance cameras, the sound of the control room, and the sound of the inside of the bunker, which we shot in this giant, flooded parking garage. There's no dialogue at all until the very end of the scene, so it's very quiet and ambient until then, and the sound has to be carefully done so that the different 'natural' sounds create this dynamic, overheard, almost 'musical' score. And we'll almost for sure start trying to make the trailer today. We're a bit flummoxed about how to do that, but we have some vague, early ideas that we'll try out. Anyway, we did that until nighttime. Then I came home. A couple of people are interviewing me about 'ZHH' by email, so I worked on that. And other normal stuff. More editing for me today, and you? Do you go back to work today, I think? ** Kiddiepunk, Hi. That post wouldn't have even been a twinkle in my eye if it weren't for you, eagle-eyed maestro. Thank you! Yes, they're illegal in the US! Nuts! That's how the Play-doh Egg Unboxing thing started. That's the sad substitute/ protest of the Kinder Egg-deprived. ** Thomas Moronic, Awesome, deserving words there from Mr. Hester. No, yeah, true, right? About the comments. I felt really soothed by them. Really glad it had such an effect. Yeah, Kiddiepunk told me about the phenom, and I didn't expect it to be that interesting necessarily, but when I started watching the unboxing videos, there was this really strange, compelling effect. Are Kinder Eggs legal in the UK? I think they are, right? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Yep. Makes sense that Art101 will get more commentary once it's more revealed and concrete. I think people are nervous about talking re: things before they feel like they can form a firm opinion one way or another. Well, unless the topic is politics or celebrity, in which case the idiocy comes flying out. But you don't want that for sure. ** Steevee, Hi. I always take those rumors with a massive grain of salt, but, you're right, and if he wins, and if he is, and if he decides to make that known at that moment, it will be lots of fun. ** Keaton, Wow, 'Dear Lort' is really interesting. I just glanced at it and scoped it, and it looks really awesome. The form is really exciting. Cool. I'll dig in. Everyone, there's a really cool text-based, fun, charismatic new thing over on Keaton's called 'Dear Lort' and/or 'BLASPHEMY' that I think I can guarantee will heavily reward your non-taxing time investment. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! Thank you so much about 'ZHH'! That's so awesome. Yeah, I'm really excited about it and happy, and the response has unexpectedly fantastic and smart and thoughtful. No, I didn't see the emoji summaries of Tao's books. Wow, cool, thank you a lot for the link. It's weird or maybe not weird, I guess, but I've been getting really fascinated by the extended emoji-only comments that seem to increasingly be popping up on social media and even as Amazon book reviews and stuff. Trying to decode them has super interesting. Yeah, thank you a lot! That's kind of next level right there. No, I have yet to see 'Inherent Vice'. I don't think it has played here yet unless I spaced and missed it, which is possible, especially if it got a French title that bears no resemblance to the English one, which often happens. Anyway, I'm starting to jones to see it. Oh, and thank you a billion for the blog post. I just saw it. It's amazing! I'll put it together and schedule it and let you know the launch date soon. Really thank you, man! It's incredible, and it's a really big help to me. You have a really great Wednesday. ** Misanthrope, Hi. Well, he couldn't get those eggs in the US since they'll illegal there which probably would just fuel his obsession even more, I guess? Oh, yeah, about HS. You do like that dude, don't you? If you weren't so busy, I would gently order you to make a post about him for the blog because your take on him is super interesting and sweet. ** Bill, Hi! Yeah, you'd have find the black market, or get them sneaked over to you by mail. If your desire peaks, I could send you some. Right, I so hear you about not wanting to get back into a project only to be forced away from it. That's the story of my text novel, although the things keeping me away from it are probably a little but less annoying than work/administrative commitments. Tinkering: there you go. That really helps. Low ambition fingering of the pie. ** Gary gray, I guess I know why you watched all of them since I did too without being able to explain said activity to myself much less to you. Wow, I missed those comments. Those are curious. Your day today in the hands of Godard seems a positively fated one. I'm really good, thanks. Working very hard on things of which I'm very happy and proud. Thanks a lot about 'ZHH'! Enjoy everything! ** Okay. I love '60s psychedelic music for all kinds of reasons, and I narrowed the field down to one locale and a three year time span, and this gig resulted. Enjoy, I hope. See you tomorrow.

Thomas Moronic presents ... EVERYTHING IS FUCKED 8

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p.s. Hey. ** Today you not only get something devised by the magic hands of the eminent young multi-genre author Thomas 'Moore' Moronic, you get gifs! So it's like Xmas and your birthday on the very same day! Show your appreciation to the guy in charge, won't you? Thanks in advance. And thanks in the present and forever more to you, Thomas! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Yes, and some aren't even moldy, wondrously enough. Me too on the love for Jefferson Airplane. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. The Music Machine, absolutely! Ever since I made the post, I've been obsessively listening to them. So incredibly ahead of their time, pre-imagining punk and New Wave in the same sound. On the one hand, it seems bizarre that they weren't huge back then, but if you look at their TV appearance videos, they went out of their way to exude this sinister, dark vibe and an aggressive, hermetic look that was totally not cozy back then. I remembering seeing them on some TV show as a young teen and being kind of scared shitless. Anyway, they were great, yeah, and Sean Bonniwell really should be recognized as a pioneer. I'm with you on the US of A album. So close but not quite a cigar. ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey. Really, wow, that you were listening to WCPAEB. So few seem to these days, that's cool. Yeah, I'm up on Marching Church. They've actually been around a longish time, longer than Iceage actually, but Elias said he has completely revamped the membership and sound. I like the advance track a lot, and I'm a really big fan of Puce Mary, so her involvement is very exciting. 'Just kinda crazy threadbare Jamaican dancehall music': can you name some names? I'm interested to investigate. Oh, no, I haven't gotten to 'Exsanguination'. Honestly, I'm not going to be able to until we completely finish the film. Between the constant, long editing sessions and work on the theater piece and trying desperately to keep the blog up and running, I barely have time right now for a semblance of a personal life. But it's at the top of the stack of things that people have sent me to read, and I'll get to it as soon as I have the space to. ** Sypha, Victor Hugo, that is interesting. Wow, yeah, that's all interesting. I really need to find out even more and try to make a post while I do. Thanks, James! Very, very cool about the first release! Everyone, Sypha has excitedly and generously begun a series of archival releases by his music project Sypha Nadon. The first volume has just been made available to you, me, everyone, and you can both get it and read the interesting story of SN's existence and history right here. ** Steevee, Hi. Psychedelic Rock was quite a huge, rangy genre. As wide and varied as, say, Hip Hop. Good luck re: Bradley Cooper's status. ** Magick mike, Hi, Mike! Yeah, American and Japanese psych are pretty different. You don't get the crazy freneticism in American psych, for one thing. I might suggest you try Mad River though, the first album, or at least that clip I posted. They made very strange, dark stuff. Thanks a lot about 'ZHH', and I wrote back to you just mere moments ago. It's so awesome not only that your book is coming out, but that CCM is its publisher. I feel like being published by CCM now is the equivalent of being published back in the '70s by Grove Press maybe meets New Directions. Super, super great all around! ** Keaton, Sex? It's ... mm, hard to define. Doing it wouldn't make you feel any less confused, if that helps. My map of Paris has the whole left half torn off. Not on purpose. I did really like 'Lort'! ** Kier, Denberry, ha ha. You are endless, it's so cool and weird. I'm glad you did some ink drawings, and I bet they're a whole hell of a lot more than goofs. Want to bet? My day: As predicted, I spent most of it working with Zac on the edit of our film. We may have finished Scene 5. We're going to give it one more look and going over today. We also sketched in the proper sound for Scene 4, which was the scene with the most incomplete sound design. That took all day, so making the trailer was moved to today. So, we're getting very close to having the first final cut of the film finished. We just need to go over each of the scenes very carefully and see how the whole film works as whole, which we'll be doing over the next few days. Then we'll get some outside opinions from select people and work on/adjust the cut accordingly, if the input challenges any of our decisions and if the suggested changes makes sense. We also have to send/show it at that point to our producers, which is something we are really dreading, but you never know. Maybe they'll finally get it. We'll likely be toying with the film until the trip to Berlin in mid-February whereupon the film needs to be totally locked down, but we're really happy with what we've got. So we did that into the evening, and then, as usual, I came home and did what I could with my rather toasted brain. Emails, answering some interview questions, eating, blah blah. Back to film work again today for me. And you? ** Brendan, Hey, buddy! Blue Cheer, yes! I got to see them live one time as a youngster when they opened for Jimi Hendrix in LA. They were really intense and confusing at the time in a great way. Being on LSD and trying to listen to them was a very weird combination. Eye surgery, yikes. But you're okay and casting your magisterial eyes on the world and art's potential again full board? How did your show go? I saw a couple of pix somewhere, and it looked really exciting. Was it a painting show, or I mean entirely a painting show? Now? You should ... hm. Everyone, d.l. and artist supreme Brendan Lott just had a show of his work open, and he lives in LA, and he's asking what he should do with himself now. What do you think? Great to see you, B., and I'll give your possibilities a deep thought. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Everyone, if you want to see the Strawberry Alarm Clock, one of the featured psych bands in yesterday's post, do their thing in the context of 'Beyond the Valley of the Dolls', you can, courtesy of _Black_Acrylic, and precisely here. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Well, dude do do that Day, I'm not kidding. Do it. Do it now or soon. Strike while the iron is hot even though I guess my iron is always hot. I saw the Grateful Dead twice. The first time it was in the late '60s when they were a super psychedelic band with a light show and everything, and I was on acid, and that was very trippy. Then I saw them again after they turned into the jam band that everyone knows them to be, and I was bored shitless, but I was sober, which was probably the problem, although I maintain that they were a really big part of the problem too. The Doors are frequently contextualized as a psychedelic band by self-styled psychedelic music arbiters, but I think that's lazy. They had psych elements in their sound on the first couple of albums, but I think they were more of an alcohol band with some marijuana mixed in. But, yeah, you see them grouped in the '60s psychedelic music category a fair amount. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi. Thank you ever so very much for your crazy efforts today and for waving the gif's freak flag and for everything else. I think I've bought and eaten Kinder Eggs, like, three times. But the prizes inside the ones I bought were always totally uninteresting, and that made them much less enticing to me. But they're cool. Wow, you're right, Kier killed right there. Everyone, Thomas Moronic, your guest-host for today, says 'Holy shit look at what Kier made!!!' And I couldn't agree more. And I think you might agree too. Find out. ** Cap'm, Cap'm! You salty dog. What a lovely thought. I do too, I'm pretty sure. How are you? ** Okay. Go get fucked by EVERYTHING IS FUCKED until you're totally fucked. Thank you. See you tomorrow.

Spotlight on ... Kitty Glitter Wesley Crusher: Teenage Fuck Machine (2012)

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'Over the past several months, a certain Star Trek: The Next Generation prose piece has ensnared the popular imagination the world over. It's a story that's been recycled since time immemorial, due to its sheer cross-cultural thematic resonance.

'I am, of course, referring to author Kitty Glitter's Amazon Kindle tour de force Wesley Crusher: Teenage Fuck Machine, an edifying fable in which the Enterprise's resident rascal has a sexual awakening during a threesome with a barbed-penised cat man. Also, Captain Jean Luc Picard is walloped in the gonads.

'Very little is known about the narrative genesis of Wesley Crusher: Teenage Fuck Machine. In fact, Wesley Crusher portrayer Wil Wheaton was completely uninvolved with this radical redefinition of the character. "I don't have to read Wesley Crusher, Teenage Fuck Machine, Dottie. I lived it," opined Wheaton on Twitter. "Well, except for the fuck machine part."

'Behold Wesley Crusher: Teenage Fuck Machine, the Amazon Kindle's new hottest book. Since debuting on Amazon February 15, WC:TFM has catapulted up the Kindle sales charts — as of this post's publication date, Wesley Crusher was the 47th most popular Action & Adventure Kindle book for sale. Its meteoric rise may have something to do with the fact that Amazon Prime users can download it for free — as happy reviewer April notes, "Clearly worth the $0.00 it took to get this thing onto my Kindle. I would have happily paid twice that amount."

'Reviewers also found WC:TFM steeped in psychological symbolism. Would you expect anything less from the author of Michael Jackson: The Sequel, whose tagline is, "What happens when Michael Jackson must face off against three of the creepiest monsters ever?"

'Amazon critic Gahvin deemed Wesley Crusher a routine affair, save for the author's bold addition of a new feline cast member who should tickle both Trekkies and those readers who enjoy a deep exegesis: "One notable exception is the introduction of an original character, the fearsome "Meow Solo," who is Glitter's representation of the primal drive of the human id (in contrast to Captain Picard's moralistic superego.) Solo's harrowing descent into the dark tunnel of collective memory is a stunning and unexpected moment in this otherwise dreary Psych 101 textbook."

'Ultimately, the onus lies with the individual to interpret the true meaning of WC:TFM— I'm pretty sure the latter half of the title leaves us open to some ripping Marxist readings about "the commodification of the fresh-faced," et cetera, et cetera.'-- iO9



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Further

Wesley Crusher: Teenage Fuck Machine @ Facebook
Fuck Yeah Wil Wheaton Teenage Fuck Machine
Podcast: 'Wesley Crusher: Teenage Fuck Machine' Audio Book
'Kitty Glitter will hit you like a steampunk catapult!'
WC:TFM' @ goodreads
'Best book ever? Wesley Crusher: Teenage F#ck Machine'
'My Bizarre Interview With Amazon Bestseller and Catfish Kitty Glitter'
'A Purrfect storm - Kitty Glitter Interview'
WC:TFM' @ The Giraffe Boards



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Interview with Kitty Glitter




Are you surprised by the attention that Wesley Crusher is getting?

Kitty Glitter: I am really surprised. A lot of it was because of Regretsy and the people on there trying to make it go #1. They got it to #9 so that was pretty awesome. In the last few days a ton of articles have been published about the story too and that has been pretty entertaining for me. I loved reading all of them.

Have you got any negative attention from it? How do you deal with that?

KG: I get a lot of bad criticism, people who think I am the worst writer ever. I don't really mind any negative attention. I find that just as entertaining as the good comments. As long as people keep buying it and talking about it, that's all I care about.

What was the inspiration to write it? Why Star Trek?

KG: The inspiration was a joke on that old show The Jamie Kennedy Experiment about Star Trek High being a series that would focus on Wesley Crusher. I have always been into Star Trek and liked the character of Wesley Crusher.

How did you feel about Wil Wheaton acknowledging it?

KG: That was pretty cool. I am not like a big fan of him or anything and it just kind of seemed inevitable that he would acknowledge it at some point. I'd be excited if Katy Perry was into it. I love her.

What other fictional characters would you like to or plan on writing about?

KG: I would like to write stories about Zooey Deschanel with kittens and unicorns. I would love to write about Streaky the Supercat. If I could legally, I would write a huge novel about Streaky the Supercat. I love that character. The Snorks too, I would love to do a sexed up version of the Snorks where All-Star commits suicide in one episode.

I have a great idea for a sequel to the John Cryer movie Hiding Out. It would work so well and would involve Keith Coogan's character going undercover as an alley cat amongst other things, but it would mainly be a brutal revenge movie that builds on the events of the first Hiding Out movie. It would definitely give John Cryer a chance to like take on a challenging and dark sort of role.

Has the popularity of WCTFM allowed you to get your other books more attention? What are you currently working on?

KG: Yeah it has. It's been really great, people have been buying all my other books and giving them good reviews so far. Especially the Sherlock Holmes one.

I am currently working on a story called "Ghostly Ellis-Bextor" and an ongoing series about an all girl Chipmunk band called The Wet Clits. That is inspired by my favorite cartoon Alvin And The Chipmunks. The Chipettes were so awesome!

Who are your writing inspirations?

KG: Anne Sexton, Patricia Highsmith, Richard Laymon, Flannery O'Connor, Shirley Jackson, Graham Greene, Angela Carter, Christa Faust, David J. Schow, and Skipp & Spector. Also Hal Hartley films.



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Him again


Picard Seduces Wesley


Shut up, Wesley!


Wesley Crusher Gets Owned


Wesley Gets Stabbed


Wesley Crusher Gets Smackdown by Picard


Wesley Crusher Must Die



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Book

Kitty Glitter Wesley Crusher: Teenage Sex Machine
Amazon Kindle

'I chose this for my book club to read this month because the reviews were good and it sounded like a fun read. It's not. I have no idea what the other reviewers saw in this hastily written piece of crap. I can't even put into words how underwhelming this story is. It wasn't even good enough to be bad, if that makes sense. It's that painfully dull kind of bad. Everything about the story felt rushed and disjointed. With a lot of books like this you can tell the author isn't taking any of it seriously. In this story it's more like the author just doesn't care. They want to type for an hour and watch the cash roll in based off title alone. Worse, the title doesn't fit the book at all. Sure, there is passing mention of sex acts but most of it is just Wesley and Meow Solo axing Borg. Even that sounds more interesting than it is because there's no real description of anything. Events happen in a sentence or two, someone says "whatevs" a half dozen time, and the author moves on to the next nonsensically boring event.'-- Devi, goodreads


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Excerpts

“Whatevs,” said Wesley as he pressed a bunch of random buttons on the wall, “I’m Wesley Crusher!”

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“You never respected my image,” said Meow Solo, “the image is the only reason Mary Sue or any decent looking girl ever even touched your dick. It’s because of me. When you hang with Meow Solo you get laid.”

*

“Why can’t we be in the mirror universe?” said the professor, “The Borg are nice there and they fly around in pyramids and everyone there has a beard. Nobody ever gets a cold face in the winter.”

*

“PREPaRE TO BE aSSIMILaTED,” said a loud robot voice. “What the fuck?” said Wesley Crusher. Wesley looked out the back window of the SHO to see a Borg scout cube pulled up behind them, headlights glaring like a thousand suns. “Turn your fucking lights off now!” said Wesley. Meow Solo said, “Don’t be an asshole Wesley, you’ll get us killed!”

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“What did they do to you Geordi?” “I’m Borgy now, Borgy Laborg. I have been assimilated. We all share one mind and soon you will join us Wesley!”

*

And that's where Wesley Crusher came in. In the girl's mouth, stifling the scream caused by the tiny barbs that encircled the tip of Meow Solo's penis.

The barbs scraped against her rectal walls, tearing out chunks of flesh as the feline pilot extraordinaire withdrew his penis from her virgin ass.

"What is the meaning of this?" said Captain Picard.

Wesley stopped fucking and turned around to look directly at none other than Captain Jean Luc Picard.

"Sup Picard?" said Wesley.

"An orgy aboard the holodeck?" shouted Picard, "This is an outrage!"

Prof. Moriarty suddenly materializes in front of Picard brandishing a silver pistol and shoots the Captain in his balls.

Picard collapses to the floor screaming in agony.

"Your days of blathering on are over Picard," said Moriarty, "now call that guy with the beard and tell him Moriarty said he was filthy animal."

"RIKER!" screamed Picard, "You are of course referring to Will Riker, one of the finest officers I have ever served with."

"Wesley and Meow Solo stepped off he girl and pulled their skintight pants up.

"Whatevs Picard," said Wesley, "nobody cares who you served with, the Enterprise is totally doomed. I filled this chamber up with space gas."

"NO!" cried Picard.

"Meow Solo, go get the SHO ready!"

"Sure Wes," said Meow Solo as he ran from the holodeck chamber.

"Moriarty c'mon let's go!" said Wesley.




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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Interesting: The Sade/Smithsonian thing. Similar thing is happening here due to the big 'Sade' show they just had the Musee d'Orsay, although, over here, the path to official legitimacy for Sade is much shorter. Wow, that 'American Sniper' sure is trending all over the place. I feel so utterly indifferent to the film. The talk is kind of interesting though. Never been a fan of Larry Kramer's fiction at all, but I'll certainly check that out since it's big tome and everything. I'll start with your review when it appears. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Yeah, you mentioned that problem with SF-based music. Can you pinpoint what the general thing(s) it is about music from there that puts you off? I don't really understand it, so I'm curious. To me, the music from there is all over the place, but maybe there's some overriding quality that I can't detect? ** Keaton, What is '“college-freshman” segment'? Like ... clean cut? I think I've only been to Nation once, other than to change metro lines. I made my mom let me drag her and the rest of my siblings to Haight Ashbury when we went through there on a family trip in '68, but it was already really touristy and kind of like a psychedelic Renaissance Fair or something. ** James, Hi. Oh, I don't think I have enough a handle on what Nine-Banded Books is doing to characterize them. I think the only writers they publish whom I've read are you and Peter Sotos, and that's quite a range right there. Cool that the Camden Joy post did good things in you. I am woking furiously on our film, and I think it's going really well. I guess we'll see once people other than Zac and me and our less than happy producers look at it. ** Etc etc etc, Hi. Yeah, Elias does no wrong in my experience. I wish Var hadn't broken up. That might have been my favorite thing he's been up to. Thanks for the dancehall names. I'll go look and listen. I know I've heard dancehall stuff, but I don't have a clear idea in my head about what it is in an overall way. Thanks for your patience and understanding re: the mss. Yeah, the detailing work is so time consuming. There are just endless little tweaks that suggest themselves constantly. ** Steevee, Hi. I look forward to reading the interview. Everyone, mighty Steevee interviews Gabe Polsky, director of the new Russian hockey documentary film 'Red Army'right here. I'm thinking of doing gig posts on other areas where psychedelic rock was generated, maybe an East Coast one, a middle of the US one, a UK and/or Europe/UK one, etc. Thanks for the warning on dancehall, I just want to see what it is. I definitely don't expect to fall in love with it or anything. ** Dungan, Hi, Sean! Yeah, tentatively early March sometime. It depends on how long it takes to do the post-production on this collaborative feature film that's getting finished up, and that starts on February 21st. I'm not sure how long I'll be in LA yet. Longish, I hope. I should know much better in the next few weeks! Have a superb day, my friend! ** Kier, You went back to the farm, cool! Jordskokk looks tasty. Potato like or more root-like or ... ? Soup! I've been craving split pea soup for months and months and not actually getting any for some reason. Very, very nice about the gift certificate! Fun. You should treat yourself royally with at least a little slice of that monetary pie, although I guess art supplies are a treat. But you know what I mean. Like ... hm, I don't know. Something cheapish but decadent? Wow, I got two name-game prizes today! I'm happy! Yesterday was editing, editing. Uh, we sat down and watched the entire current cut of the film, which we purposefully hadn't done because we've been concentrating on the details. That was interesting, and we decided for the time being at least to switch the places of Scene 3 and 4. Those two are the strangest scenes. And what had been Scene 4 until yesterday is the strangest, maybe, but in a really delicate, kind of poetic way, and we decided it needed to go first because the heavier strangeness of what had been Scene 3 was kind of smashing it a bit. We'll see. We did a Skype conference with Kiddiepunk, our cinematographer, to try to figure out what we're going to do with the title sequence and credits, and, for the moment, we're thinking something really simple. Text on black, just the title of the film first and maybe produced by ... , directed by ... , and then almost all of the credits at the end. Simple. We started working on a trailer. Not sure about it. We're going to continue on that today and probably try to make two or three different ones then let the producers choose the one they want to use for the BFF. Trailers are hard, or at least for a strange film like ours. So, we worked until night, and then I just futzed around at home. We're going to try to finish at least a tentative final cut today, if we can, because we'll be screening it for our first selected outsider this weekend. Gulp. How was Friday, Maestro Kier? ** Schlix, Hi, Uli! Oh, sucks about the internet issues. Really hope you've managed to sort that. That's great and really interesting about the life changes. Studying philosophy and putting more deep time into music and art sounds like a great idea, obviously. Cool. I think I've read little bits and maybe a full thing or two by Fichte. I've always intended to read a lot more by him. Maybe I'll get 'The Orphanage'. Thank you! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Oh, right, FA Cup week, I was just reading about that. Pleasure. More austere, interesting. I like austere. Cool. ** MyNeighbourJohnTurtorro, Hey! It would be hard to lay out the nature of the problems with the producers succinctly, and doing that in pubic is probably a bad idea if we want things to improve with them, ha ha. In a nutshell, they seemed to have wanted something dumb-ish, or, in their terminology, 'accessible', and sexy, hot, and very gay. Our film is none of those things, according to them. No idea about future screenings. I think festivals will be first. Hard to talk about the new novel cycle. It'll be pretty different than the earlier books, I think, but I'm still developing it in my head. Where would you study film, or where do you want to do that? Lovely idea, of course! ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. I don't there's a full-on very good Chocolate Watchband album. They're extremely hit and miss, and a lot of their stuff is painfully dated. I would probably go for a collection, a 'best of' or whatever. The Joe Byrd & the Field Hippies album is pretty bad, to be honest. I like that track pretty well. It's not anywhere as interesting as the US of A album. Yeah, what do they say? The proof is in the pudding? (What does that even mean?) I mean about the Acker correspondence book. Oh, shit, about your car. Ugh. Car stuff, horror. I hope you get the dough you need to get that solved straight away, obviously. Very, very best of luck! ** Misanthrope, Hi. The Grateful Dead were super psychedelic at the start. Almost an epitome of the genre. Some of the lyrics on the first couple of Doors albums qualified as psychedelic at the time. 'Crystal Ship' and all that. I've certainly seen a ton of stuff in my FB news feed about the deflated ball controversy, but I don't know what the fuck it's all about other than that. American football is a bridge too far. ** Sypha, Hey. Yeah, I think I'll get to listen to the download this weekend. I'm looking forward to it. ** MANCY, Hey, Stephen! Thank you so much! Awesome, really, thank you! How are you? Are you working on anything? ** Cal Graves, Hi, Cal. I'm very good, thank you, and you? How are the classes so far? Any favorites? Any 'oh, my god, what have I gotten myself into' classes? Thank you about the guest-post! That would be amazing! Last 5 live music things. Huh, I have to think. Iceage, O'Malley/ Ambarchi/ Haino, Amen Dunes, Plotz, Pharmakon. 5 music things I'm dying to get a chance to see? Huh. Um, Marching Church, the Ride reunion, Haxan Cloak, Pinback, Dalglish. Do you have time to list your recent 5 and your dream 5? Really great luck with the classes and everything else! ** Thomas Moronic, Thank you a million-plus again for the exquisite eye trip yesterday! ** Okay. Today's weird post: wow, I don't even know. A whim, an alert from a friend that lead to the construction of this. Good question. See you tomorrow.

Please welcome to the world ... Shane Levene & Karolina Urbaniak THE VOID RATIO (Infinity Land Press)

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THE VOID RATIO is the amount of black space in the psyche, the unresolved conflicts arising from the trauma of dying and the consequence of living.

Through a series of photographs (Artefacts of Self-destruction) Urbaniak isolates and records the forensics of a ‘lifescene’ (here being the author’s own drug paraphernalia) at times discovering a breathtaking beauty emitted by the objects. Urbaniak’s lens turns the otherwise inanimate objects into landscapes, monuments, horizons, revealing the universal blackness of history and corporeal qualities of the user in the traces of blood and carbon left behind.

For his part, Levene focuses on the physical body and the abstract mind, the struggle to come to terms with and accept time, existence and mortality. It’s quickly understood that 15 years of hard- core heroin addiction, over 60‚000 intravenous injections, have been administered in an attempt to fill this volume of void. Far more than the stereotypical writing so often found in drug literature Levene’s texts employ heroin use and addiction as a means to explore far grander themes of history, nostalgia, consequence and trauma.

“Levene’s words are something like when you find a long lost old faithful, a throbber on the shin, aaaaah.....’’

‘The Void Ratio’ left me dreaming again of the fucking nightmare...’

PETER DOHERTY

“...far from serving solely as a portrait of a mutual friend, Urbaniak’s work in the Void Ratio captures the debris left behind in the wake of the virulent drug epidemic sweeping Britain today. Stark, powerful, poetic... The Artefacts of Self-destruction is the perfect companion to this small collection of Levene’s words.

Shane’s writing is by turns beautiful, scabrous, funny, heartbreaking and dangerous. In my opinion, Shane is one of the few, actual honest-to-God Poets we still have writing today.“

TONY O’NEIL – author.
Black Neon, Digging the vein, Down & out on Murder Mile


64 Pages
Soft bound, size 18x22cm

Standard Edition £20 Collector’s Edition £40
To order a book please contact http://infinitylandpress.com/contact>/a<















DEATHLY HALLOWS (extract)

Into these deathly hallows. I Love you Darling. Do you find the landscape bleak? The fog sat low outside and the dew in the grass by the motorway? These things puncture the skin, that is all. Don’t be scared. It’s not like in the movies. I’ll wake up in the morning, you’ll see. You’ll find me just where I am now: sat at the table near the window in the breaking light of day, where the syringe replaces religion, held up, air bubbles flicked and rising free, its needle a part of the modern city skyline. London in the new millennium. All silver and aluminium and glass, reflecting the world two tones darker. Sleep well, Princess.... Who knows what life may bring today. Those clouds sure don’t look good. And the seagulls. Can you hear them in your dreaming? Screeching away and going birdcrazy over some death in the river? Their silhouettes against the sky, against the last smoke of the industrial age. Oh, I’d cry eternally if it wasn’t for THIS. Things are changing, Darling. This world is on the turn. War is coming like you’ll never believe..

* * *

There was an old black and white film I once watched. It was an afternoon matinee at the Riverside Studios. I remember how the lights dimmed dark, and then came the silence, and then the crackling sound of static and old reel. I watched in horror as my life unfurled...







INTO THE LOST (extract)

The rain beat on car roofs and bonnets and swept glass bottles and cat shit along the gutter. He could smell the city: wet brick and concrete, foliage and the soil beneath trees. The rain seemed to get right through his skin and made him want to vomit. He retched bringing up a thick elastic saliva that hung and broke down his top. The same mucus came from his nose. The retching bruised his stomach muscles and now he stooped as he moved. In the wet glossy road, under a tall street lamp, he caught a feint reflection of himself. He tried quickening his pace, desperate to find some place where he could suffer down and with no shame or pretence of pride let the sickness run rampant through him, allow the junk to seep freely from his pores, run from his eyes and nose, betray his stomach and dribble, burning out his arsehole. But he had nowhere, just this old borough where he had grown up and a hope that someone would recognise him and take him in. His clothes were now drenched and heavy and dragging off his body; his shoes like sopping pieces of cardboard, squelching past old haunts which somehow now screamed out to him and imbued him with a profound and inexpressible feeling of sorrow. Every step he took forward a terrible vision of his former self seemed to go slodging past him in the opposite direction. It was as if he were walking down random parts of his life, travelling along a radio bandwidth that was being tuned through ghostly frequencies of his past. Sick, he trudged on, his body dying and his mind infected with a loneliness that only a man adrift in a universe could understand, wandering lost through nowhere with just a vague memory of home.






SO DOG WE WERE (extract)

On screens, I’ve seen everything from armpit licking to shit-eating. I’ve seen Arabic looking girls, dressed in nothing but a hijab, crucified to railings and gagging on twelve inches of white cock with the Stars and Stripes tattooed along the shaft. In retaliation, I’ve seen fifteen of the dustiest Arabs gang-raping a small town beauty queen, close-ups of her tears and suffering as one rams it in her arse without lubricant or warning. I’ve been sent links to videos of amputees, midgets, mongols and she-males. I’ve seen horses and pigs being sucked off, and dogs eating pussy. In HD I’ve seen sheep, cows and chickens get it – living props, perfect for web cams anglais Shock TV.I’ve seen faceless erections poking through zippers, shoved through holes, men, women and beasts dancing jubilantly around them. I’ve seen cunts gang-banged out of all recognizable shape, laying spent around rooms, their only use then to help remove nicotine stains from filthy fingers. I’ve studied necks and faces, stretched taut and deformed during the climax of despicable acts. I’ve seen my own mother drink and fuck her way through 20 years of grief, falling out of taxis naked and crawling up the front yard with bloodied tits and bruised buttocks. I’ve made up the numbers in the most squalid dens and witnessed the human animal partake in the most debauched and intangible of practices: groups hunched over spoons, each man drawing up a measure of life before shuffling back to his individual hell. I’ve seen families brought up on grease and potatoes and tomato ketchup; parents in competition for **Special Offers** and fighting over reduced cuts of meat. I’ve seen teenage rent boys forced to deep throat podgy middle aged men; wrecks of humans crawling around the streets looking for scraps of food; amputees glued to skateboards in a desperate effort to adapt and survive. I’ve seen people riddled with body fungi and gangrene, abscesses and ulcers the size of tennis balls eating them alive.






SICK

Sick. We were sick. We lay in bed, wrapped up in filthy blankets, smoking, sometimes fucking, doing animal things, you know, like being sick

Sick. We were sick. Sick in bed. Sick in life. Sick by life. Sick. And we made each other sick.

Sick. Watching TV for days on end, sweating furiously but too bored to pull the covers off. Filthy feet; filthy legs. Separated by a valley of cigarette ends. Stuffing our faces full of fatty, greasy foods. Shutters down. Apartment crawling with bugs. Toilet blocked. Sick. We were so fucking sick.

Sick. Not dope sick; life sick. Diseased by pasts and visions and sounds and leather belts and erect cocks and murder. Sick. We were made sick by all these things. Sick. Sickened by cunt. Wet mushy drunken gang-banged cunt. Sick. We were sick. I was Sick. She was sick....






MY OWN FATHER NOW

I sought the wild love of my mother’s heart. That began after the murder. The which changed her so much and as a consequence greatly magnified my own significance of being.

You have your father’s chest, she would say, crying while fingering the indent below my sternum. Then she’d lay her head on me and her tears would collect in the little well of my pectus excavatum.

I would stare at the top of her head, at the dark roots which she no longer bothered to bleach. Her hair smelled of vomit. I was terrified to touch her.

* * *

My mother is besides me smoking heroin and crack. We are living together, scheming together, scoring together, getting ill together. I notice she has a wild pride besides me, that she is as energeticand as brashly sexual as in her youth. I’m all bruised, scarred and cut up.
We have terrible blazing arguments. She throws me out and I break the windows. She slings a bag full of my dirty needles at me as I wait for a taxi in the street; one sticks in my neck. As I am driven away I watch her from the back window, crying as she picks up the needles out the road. I disappear for some days and then turn back up with enough smack and crack to be forgiven.

I get terribly tortured by love and the lovers in my life. I have the most insanely psycho-sexual obsessional romances. We are both weak within them and death-pacts are always quickly agreed.

I would die for my lovers and yet I hide hypodermic needles and heroin in the cistern in the toilet and secretly inject myself up to 7 times a day. My mother knows. She scores it for me. She’s glad to have proof that someone’s need for heroin is not a measure of the desperate love they can hold for someone. When these affairs end I no longer want to live. I turn up at my mother’s door and she takes me in and cleans me up and watches over me for months as I heal, as my drug use becomes less destructive and more narcissistic and I begin to want to be destroyed to the point of feeling life again.






INTERVIEW with Shave Levene conducted by Martin Bladh Question/Answer/Image/

What is The Void Ratio, and how did this collaboration with Karolina come about?

The Void Ratio is a strange book. It’s not so easy to define. What it’s not is a novel, nor a collection of short stories, nor rock n’ roll tales of drug capered mayhem. It is a series of short, seemingly unrelated, texts which were born out of the atmos- phere given off by Karolina’s photography (Artefacts of Self-destruction) which accompany them. Each text, a page or three long, was written (as the majority of my writing is) to stand alone as a work in its own right. But all of the texts in The Void Ratio are connected thematically. Yes, there is the obvious heroin connection, but heroin is not the subject here (and very rarely is in my work). Amongst the real subjects are history, consequence, nostalgia, isolation and estrangement. It is the world that revolves post-tragedy. Not my tragedy, anyone’s tragedy – anyone who is unfortunately sane enough to experience the whole rotten lot of it. That makes up a part of the consequence of living. On the flip side of that is the dread and fear of death and dying, trying to come to terns with that trauma with- in your own lifetime.... To try and make sense of the conflicting ideas of mortality and yet the infinity of death – especially when living life without the security of religion (“and I wish I had a God.”) Between those ideas is the black space, and that black space is the conflict one must deal with: the void ratio. And everyone’s void ratio is different.

The birth of the book is just as ambiguous. For me it had it’s birth in the days of your DES book launch in London, December 2013 ( for that reason a certain telling of the story makes up the end text in the book). But still, neither the book, nor the idea of it, was ever discussed during those days. What did happen though is that through physically getting myself to London, making good on certain promises, coming into physical contact with you and Karolina, it showed that despite certain lifestyle choices or habits (on all sides, not just mine) that we were stable enough in our insanities to be able to not only be friends but to also work together. I think that if it had’ve been a nightmare getting me to London and then once there I went AWOL off on a bender and couldn’t be contacted... Turned up late and out my face... Fucked up the evening, etc... I don’t think the book would have ever been proposed. So meeting was important for everyone. The possibil- ity of the book was made in those nights. That was the foreplay. Still, it would be another 7 months before the literary legs opened and the book would be fucked into existence. But the birth was not without drama, though for the most part, for fear of unnecessarily worrying Karolina, I kept that to myself. For the second time in my life, when proposed to write a book, just as I sat down in the calm to begin, without sign nor warning, my life imploded. From the third sentence on, I wrote the book in the most appalling of circumstances.



The Void Ratio, heroin and acrylic on foil


Could you shed some light on these ‘appalling’ circumstances? I guess the writing process most have brought out several closet monsters - “post tragedy” - your unconventional (if not incestuous) relationship to your mother, the death of your best friend, your murdered father, the list goes on and on...?

Well all these events you mention I am indeed in the post-tragedy of ... my NOW is the equation of those events and a whole many more. Writing is exhausting. All art is exhausting for me. It physically and mentally drains me and I’ve often said I detest the process of creation because of that strain. But I am condemned to that process through a compulsion to create and express what is within and around me. So I am tied to this process I do not like, which exhausts me, yet which I can no more escape than I can escape myself. I enjoy the end product or my art, but not the actual journey. Having said that, even though it is exhausting, the exhaustion does not come from it being so emotionally painful. The moment I can even contemplate writing of an event means it’s at a safe point in my life where I have dealt with it – even if remembering it can still deeply sadden and hurt me. That’s normal. But it is at an emotionally safe distance where I can process it and make either sense or no sense at all of it, but accept it anyhow. When a trauma is too raw, when you’ve not dealt with it (or at least not began to), it is non-existent in one’s art. It’s why suicide often comes as such a shock as that taking of your own life is the expression of something you were suppressing and couldn’t even begin to deal with openly or within life. So those events you mention are now badly healed scars on my psyche. They’ll forever be there, will always influence my expression, but they are scars that are closed over and now inspire me. It’s not always pleasant reliving them in pursuit of literature but they don’t torture me in any way. The appalling circumstances I referred to were of the moment, an event which was unravelling through my life as I wrote The Void Ratio. I won’t go into too much detail other than to say that I had begun taking legal action against the French state and to subdue my voice, the city (what is supposedly a socialist/leftist city) all pulled together and let their dogs out to feast on me and cause me as much trouble as they possibly could. It ended with my income being suspended for four months, almost being evicted and having my electricity and hot water cut. So The Void Ratio was written in the dark and cold after spending hours sitting in the basement of the attached residence in order to charge my phone and computer. Once recharged I’d return to my room and write and correspond until the battery fell flat. In that same period I also fell terribly ill and because of my living situation that illness lingered on and kept making a resurgence, thriving on the circumstances my body was in. All texts exclusive to the book (barring ‘’Will He Murder Myself Tonight) were written under those circumstances. I had also not long split with my long-term partner and my apartment/room was like a black museum of memories which I couldn’t bear to be around and yet had no choice. But I have resolved in my life to never again let circumstances get in the way of deadlines or art and so I did everything and more to ensure the book got written and finished.



Dirty Rotten Heart, heroin and acrylic on foil


Was the book written under the influence of heroin? What’s the current situation, are you on methadone now?

No. I never write under the influence of heroin. I can’t. My mind is still just as creative, and I mentally work on stuff, but nothing ever gets physically produced. Sure, there are the odd paragraphs I manage under the influence, but that is not writing... the real writing is a long and tedious process and a drug that makes you collapse into your keyboard is not a drug which can help a writer (at least not to write). I am also passionately against this myth of drugs spawning creativity. Drugs will never give anyone what they haven’t already got (with the exception of such stuff like confidence, self-worth, calm, etc) but creatively speaking drugs cannot help a bland, unimaginative and talentless person. Sure, you can relate an LSD trip or scrawl some crazy spirals while stoned... but that’s not an artist nor a writer. Art must be within you even when the drugs are not. What drugs can do for creative types is open the mind even further and allow one to express truths that they were unaware of before. But still, most of that is done in the post period of the drug’s effect, not during it. So for me drugs and creativity is. a great myth: Jimi Hendrix was straight when he recorded Voodoo Child... not clean out his mind on LSD.

Current situation. To answer that fully would be an extremely long reply as it gets to the heart of my philosophy on drug use and abstention and drug policy. I don’t believe in the ideal of total abstention nor believe anyone should make any absolute promises to quit and never use again. It is those markers of success as to why we have such appalling success rates in our clinics and rehab centres. We need to redefine what success from addiction is. For me, success is going from ten injections a day to taking one even every few days. There’s no need to make solemn promises to quit and never use again... it’s pointless and damaging. When you finally crack and use again (and most people crack and use again) you are then treated like a total fuck up and disappointment, reminded of how badly you have let everyone down from your mother to the cleaning woman of the methadone clinic and are treated and shunned as if you’ve murdered their pets. So I live by that thinking and at the moment, as I’ve now done been doing for 7 years, I stick mostly to my prescribed methadone treatment and use heroin whenever I have the urge. It equates to using once for a couple of days every fortnight or so. The only time I ever deny myself an urge is if i have writing deadlines (personal or external). How much of maintaining that balance is due to financial restrictions, supply problems, etc, is difficult to say. But I really feel, even if I were in London with heroin never an longer than 20 minutes away, that I’d still continue as I am now. The writing is also very important in my life, and it is due to that why more than two days on heroin now frustrates the hell outta me and ensures I can resist.



Chasing the Dirty Dollar, heroin and acrylic on foil


When we met in London December 2013, it was the first time you had been back in your hometown for 9 years. How do you find your ‘exile’? It seems like you have a desperate need to resurrect London through your writing?

Yes. London is a huge part of my writing and is everywhere. It’s a character in itself. The word ‘exile’ I do not use lightly. I really feel I have exiled myself, not able to return at present due to certain legal problems. I wasn’t aware of those legal problems when I first left and they were not the reason why I shot town. They came to light during the first year in France and immediately made it clear that I couldn’t go back home without facing the music and a jail term. It changed everything. Before then I had left my city and my mother but they were only a couple of hours and a couple of hundred euros away. From that day on, the UK police phoning me, my exile began. London changed within me and her memory was suddenly a huge force which tortured me and came pouring out. Where once, while I was living in London, I sought escape from her and her people now I was desperately missing her and as you say resurrecting her - and not purely with my words. I actively sought to recreate London around me, going as far as creating TV schedules of old programmes drawn from YouTube and having them play out through the days. With the curtains drawn I could fool myself into believing that my home town was just outside. Even today I am totally riddled with nostalgia for all things British and especially Londonian. I cry for my city and when I cry it is in words. Those words come to me at a huge price: they are not free. As is always the case: we pay dearly for our art (and crimes).



Blackbird Weeping, heroin and acrylic on foil


Will you allow your mother to read The Void Ratio, if so how do you think she’ll react to it?

Yes, I have no qualms about her reading the book. There are a few very sensitive parts in there that affect her and that will maybe sadden her a little, but we have been through so much together that there is nothing that cannot be remedied. I will have to bullshit her a little to soothe any concerns she’ll have, but that is often the case with family and close friends around literature. I have no qualms about doing that. I don’t write to upset or offend or shock people and would never want to hurt anyone I love with my words. Unfortunately there is sometimes a conflict of interests with stuff I must write about without suppressing any of the facts and that becomes difficult and sensitive. It’s an age old problem with writers and their friends, lovers and family. There was one passage I removed from the book because it referred to sexual abuse and incest and I had promised my mother some years ago when she found a text called ‘A Mother’s Love’ that I’d never write of that again. For lines like “I am the man who could fuck my own mother”, well, my mother has always known me as a little bizarre in my words and living, finds my paintings weird (as she said “if it was anyone else who had painted them I’d be scared to stay here!”) and so that goes a long way in making it possible for me to play on that and soothe any problems she has. She’ll probably be disappointed, because of the references to her, that she cannot wave her son’s book about at the neighbours, but we’ll survive. There’s been such horrendous things happen between us that a book and a few words will not be so serious.



Roadkill, heroin and acrylic on foil


You’ve done some very special artworks that come with the 26 limited edition copies of the book. Could you tell me something about these pieces, your ideas behind them and the unusual technique?

The smoked heroin artwork. Well, just after finishing the book Karolina spoke about the 26 special editions and wanted me to sign the books. That was fine but I’m someone who likes to do original and different stuff and so I asked her to give me a day or two to come up with something more I could do for the special editions. It was there I hit upon the idea of smoked heroin artworks and proposed that to her. She really liked the idea and so I began creating the art on aluminium foil while smoking heroin. I wasn’t sure at that stage exactly what I would or could do, as it is extremely difficult to run heroin exactly where you want it to go, and even if you can, because of the nature of how you smoke heroin you are basically drawing blind with your mouth! So it took a while trying, but finally I produced the first work ‘The Beast’ and from then on it not only gave a vague idea of what the other works should be but also how to control the heroin as a medium so as I could create something of value often enough.

I didn’t set out with any great profound idea for the artwork. I wanted the pieces to more reflect the feel of all of us involved in The Void Ratio as well as something of Infinity Land Press. So I wanted very symbolic images, a kind of satanic/gothic feel, mixed with ideas of grief and death and romance. There was also a conscious aim of making ‘heroin art’ ... the kind of stuff many junkies do whether it’s with blood, drawing on their walls, or just scribbling emotional stuff and broken hearts or skulls on paper. People don’t realise so much but Basquiat was really steeped in heroin art. You go into any shooting gallery, in any city, and you’ll find the same kind of stuff. But back to the smoked artwork, initially, they were to be pure black pieces with a black signature. But finally, that didn’t really represent me of have any connection with my other artwork and so gradually, naturally, small touches of paint were added and instantly they came alive to me and had a very recognizable Shane’ish quality to them. Usually I do not sign my artworks, but in this instance the pieces improved with the signature and brought them even further to life. I was so taken with the final artwork I produced that it became quite dif- ficult having to hand them over to Karolina. I wanted to keep them myself and exhibit them. It had nothing to do with giving them away free, it was purely the quality of them. But finally, I think they’ll be in good hands/better hands than mine and I know it’s a first ever giving out heroin artwork with a book release. It’s also nice that people can get these great pieces for next to nothing and then have the chance of them being really sought after in some years to come. I really like that idea. Of really giving something of yourself to people. Not just a signature... something that really makes the collector edition special and each one unique. Keeping to the visual.



The Beast, heroin and acrylic on foil


There’s a certain story behind Karolina’s work The Artefacts of Self-destruction. I believe all the objects photographed being your own well exercised drug paraphernalia?

Well again, The Artefacts of Self-destruction made up a part of the foreplay to the book. Karolina’s initial mail was concerning a photographic project focussing on various death scenes and what would be left behind in the wake of each individual tragedy. So it all began with Karolina just wanting advice on an overdose death/scene. I gave that advice, and because she is a visual artist and will understand much more through visual documentation, I also sent her some pictures of my apartment after a week long drug bender so as she could see what the police would have discovered had I succumbed during it. Then I proposed maybe sending her some authentic paraphernalia to use for the shoot. She agreed and was excited about this and so I prepared and sent a box of illegal stuff across the Channel including used syringes, methadone bottles, smoked foil, alcohol swabs, heroin cooking cups (still with the filters in them and traces of heroin residue). Karolina religiously unpacked these objects, isolated them and then photographed them as one would do forensic evidence. By this time I think she had rethought her initial project and so it was at that moment there that she asked if I would be willing to write some words to her photos that we could publish together as a little zine through Infinity Land Press. I agreed immediately. But not even Karolina knew all the secrets behind what I had sent and she had photographed. Unbeknown to her I had sent two needles still full with blood and heroin: two syringes which very nearly killed me one night here some months previously. There are a few references to this night in the book and so the images and the texts really have many secret little histories which connect them but which the viewer/ reader will have no comprehension of.



Schizoid in Nilsen’s Glasses, heroin and acrylic on foil


Talking about near death experiences, there’s a short text in The Void Ratio called The Day where you imagine your corpse being found in your apartment by an ex-partner and you conclude that “Even post-mortem my effect on her is negative.” Is this how you actually perceive your future death, or is it way of terminating a destructive relationship for good?

I terminate all my relationships (destructive or not) within life. I don’t need death to help me out with that one. The text is really how I foresee my death. I sleep with my front door left open each night so as there will be access to my body. That started the night I thought I wouldn’t make it. I was alone, took an injection, and whatever happened it did something to my circulatory and coronary system. I had this enormous pressure build up in my head and then my heart went into cycles of absolutely thumping. It was so violent you could see my chest vibrating. I made two phone calls that night. It was 2am and no-one answered. I went and sat on the toilet and really expected to die right there and be found some days later. After an hour my heart calmed but this pressure thing inside my head persisted. I finally found sleep and was surprised when I awoke in the morning. I’ve felt not so much unwell these past 18 months but really weak in terms of mortality. I feel something could happen in my body any day... whether it be brought on by the needle, the effects of the heroin itself or something just gives out. Every- thing has taken a toll. As I write in the Pain of Painkilling: it’s the body: it falls to fucking pieces. So it really is how I foresee my death. But that text, The Day, actually makes up a part of the exile themed texts. A lot of people take it quite lightly when I talk of being isolated. Because I am so gentle of nature, easy going and approachable they take it I must be overburdened with friends. But I seriously do not have a single friend here in Lyon. In fact, I’ve never had more than one or two great friends in my entire life. My companionship has always been my lover. So outside of a relationship (which hasn’t happened often in my life) I am alone. In London I had my mother and even kinda the neighbours who you get to know a little, but here I live in absolute seclusion, passing months without seeing anyone but my dealer, the kebab man and the old Algerian who owns the corner shop.

So if anything untoward were to happen it would certainly be my ex-partner who would first realise something was up and would have the job of investigating it. The line about having a ‘negative effect even post-mortem’ refers to the life she endured with me. She was in love and so it didn’t seem negative to her, but really, if one looks coldly at the facts, of who she was when she arrived and who she was and the problems she had when she left, well, my presence only ever caused her harm and brought negative things to her life. She only just made it out alive after taking an overdose one night just after I had called an end to our days. But she never fell out of love with me and so my presence haunts and tears at her. I don’t think she can really be complete again until I am out of this world for good.



Crucifixion, heroin and acrylic on foil




SHANE LEVENE - THE ART OF SELF DESTRUCTION by Martin Bladh (Extract)

I first met Shane Levene at St Pancras Station, London, the evening of December 4th, 2013. Under his arm he carried a parcel which contained a painting - his own depiction of his father’s mutilated corpse - a painting brought to me as a gift in response to an intense three year long internet correspondence. The prime subject, a mutual obsession: serial killer Dennis Nilsen. That winter Shane was back in London, his city of birth, after nine years of exile in France. This time invited as special guest for the launch of my book DES (Institute of Paraphilia, 2013) which included parts of our correspondence.

I first came in contact with Shane and his writings in late summer 2010. By then Shane had followed my work for more than a year and had contacted me to express his deep admiration for a series of photographs I had made called Sad Sketches where I impersonated Nilsen’s 15 victims one by one. The reason why it took such a long time for him to reach out to me and make his presence known is a rather unconventional one:

My real fear was of contacting you and sparking of a chain of events which led to a bizarre repetition of history, namely us somehow meeting up and you taking the opportunity to murder me in an exact replica of my father’s death - thus you gaining instant infamy for your art, and the two of us going down in history together as having one of the most bizarre internet encounters ever struck up.







I’LL BE THE MIRROR
Interview with Shane Levene conducted by Martin Bladh
DES by Martin Bladh, Institute of Paraphilia Studies 2013 (Extract)

Your father Archibald Graham Allen, 28 years old, was killed by the infamous serial killer Dennis Andrew Nilsen one evening in late 1982?

Yes, my father disappeared in September of 1982 after a huge argument with my mother. The exact date is unclear as my mother did not think much of it at the time and also suffered from chronic alcoholism. But it was certainly in September of 1982 and that is also very likely the same night he was a picked up by Nilsen as there was never another sighting of him. My own last image of my father is him standing on the window sill, his arms stretched out (holding on) and screaming obscenities through the glass at my mother after she refused to let him in or lend him money to score heroin. He was bleeding from some earlier fight and hung up against the window he looked like he was being crucified. It sounds very cinematic, but that’s just how it unrolled... kinda like an excruciating last image.





How old were you at that time and what did you make of his sudden disappearance? It took awhile before the truth was revealed.

At the time my father disappeared I was seven. Due to my family set-up and the unhealthy drug and alcohol fuelled relationship between my mother and father, no-one (at first) thought too much of the disappearance. And it wasn’t the first time he’d disappeared. My parents relationship was a very stormy and violent one, and my father being a heroin addict was always disappearing for days or weeks without trace. Also, due to my father’s drug problems I was living with my half brother and sister at my stepfather’s and so for me there was no great change in my life. In fact, I hardly remember the period at all. What I do remember is my mother and stepfather (like the entire country) being completely gripped by the story that broke in 1983 of human remains being discovered in a house in North London. Of course, no-one for a minute thought that our lives and futures would in any way be affected by the story.

My real birth would come one year later when I was was awoken to life by the scream of my mother – she had been informed that my father’s skull had been discovered and identified amongst other remains found in the ‘House of Horrors’. My memories really start there... my life started there. It was the first part of the equation which adds up to who I am today.





So, this terrible news had a devastating effect upon you and your family. I think you referred to the whole incident as “surviving the Texas Chainsaw Massacre”? Could you give me some of your reflections on the immediate aftermath?

The news had a devastating effect upon my mother, certainly, and her reaction to that news had a terrible effect upon me. Also, and it’s very important, it was only after the murder that my mother came completely clean and admitted I was Graham Allen’s child. It had always been rumoured, but until that point it didn’t matter either way. Now he was dead, things drastically changed. I was all that remained of my father - all my mother had left of him - and so suddenly I became an important piece in the game: a pawn which had been promoted. So, the murder/death itself didn’t affect me, but the consequences of my mother’s reaction to it did. She took the full wallop of the blast, and I got showered by the shrapnel - ten whole years of it.

To deal with the unimaginable pain of losing her lover my mother sought oblivion and became a chronic alcoholic. When not even 40% proof alcohol could soothe her she then became seriously self-destructive and suicidal. On three separate occasions she was hospitalized in intensive care and came very close to succeeding in finding the emergency exit she sought. My mother also became extremely sexually promiscuous and easy, I think searching the world for a man who no longer existed. That spilled over into my life, and so I grew up around alcoholism and physical and sexual abuse. But I don’t blame Nilsen, nor the murder, for that. I don’t blame anything but the human instinct to soothe pain - an abstract instinct which doesn’t have an excuse of its own. From what I see blame never resolves anything, it normally just leads back to Hitler (or some over-curious amoeba sitting out in the sun for too long!) So there was an aftermath from the murder, but in that sense Nilsen is also an ‘aftermath’ of something. His acts and actions were also a natural response to things in his own life.

Yes, I did once mention “surviving the Texas Chainsaw Massacre” but was referring more to surviving my childhood, although with many scars and missing parts. But I always see gain in loss, and so ultimately I lost a conventional up-bringing and gained a more perverse one, though I think given the choice I would have chosen that anyway. What intelligent, creative person would ever want to be ‘conventional’?





That’s a very Nietzschean attitude, and to me something to admire. It makes me think of Genet’s statement in his banned radio speech where he defended the old reformatory schools – even though he was raped and abused there – because they could spawn creative geniuses like himself.

As a child and adolescent did you try to imagine how your father suffered in the hands of Nilsen? The gruesome tale about the dismembering and the disposal of his body must have been a very stark and abstract mental image for a child to muster... One of the reasons I bring this up is because of your painting Portrait of My Father during His 15 Minutes of Fame which is an explicit and excellent study of a dismembered body. I hope you don’t find this question tasteless... but in some kind of way, can you feel that Nilsen and the murder got you closer to the man that now ‘turned out’ to be your father?

No, I don’t find your question tasteless at all... my boundaries of taste are so immense I’m not sure I can ever be offended in that way – and certainly not coming from someone I respect artistically and intellectually.

So: can you feel that Nilsen and the murder got you closer to the man that now ‘turned out’ to be your father?

I’ve never thought of it like that, but now you ask the question, yes, in certain ways it did. It was because he was murdered, never really having a chance to know him, that I became as interested in him as I did. In many ways I even replicated his life, living what he was living up until the day he disappeared. My initial addiction to heroin (in part) was an extreme kind of method acting... getting to know my father and his life and struggles through completely immersing myself in the kind of life which he led. But yes, certainly the murder made me want to rediscover the person who was murdered... to understand my father that little more, and even to better understand some of the more subtle events of that night. Still, paradoxically, more than get me closer to my father, the murder (and especially the manner and the details of it) gave me an urge to get closer to the killer... to discover just what kind of a man would do some- thing like that and why? And that kind of brings me back to the first part of your question.

Yes, I did imagine what my father went through; for a while I was preoccupied with it. I couldn’t believe that someone I knew, had come from, had ended up being killed and then disposed of in such a way. Of all the men in London, he was one of the 15 (at that time) who had somehow found himself in this man’s home. At times that was too incredible a fact to be able to comprehend... and because I knew we had a personal bond, it also gave me this weird feeling like I was somehow, somewhere in Nilsen’s flat that night too. That’s hard to explain, but because I was a part of him the events felt very close. Concerning the actual murder I always saw that through two different perspectives: 1) my mother’s 2) my own.

When viewed through my mother’s perspective it was a hard thing as I would imagine the pain and torment which she must have suffered knowing the one great love of her life ended up like that... being dismembered and boiled and violated in ways no-one would really ever want their lover to experience (dead or alive). In that way I kind of felt my mothers pain, and for me, that pain always justified anything she ever did. I don’t have one ounce of spite or bitterness towards my mother as I think she had good cause and good justice to go completely off the rails.

The other perspective I viewed and thought of the murder from was my own, and that was a very different outlook. I found the murder fascinating (even as a 7 year old), and would always ponder and linger over the most gruesome parts, and wonder what my father looked like removed from life, and how bizarre it would be to have a headless torso on the floor, or even a body with the hand or arm removed. I’d imagine his head boiling away on the stove, but never with horror or disgust, always with a curiosity for the macabre. And really, from a very young age, I decided that the dismemberment meant nothing to me, that maybe it wasn’t even a crime??? That if anything was serious it was the murder - the taking of life - and anything that came after to get rid of the body was nothing in comparison to that. So for me, the worst thing Nilsen did was to kill, and what he did to the body after more fascinated me from the perspective of ‘what kind of man would do that and why?’ and ‘could I do that myself?’ So the actual dismemberment finally brought me back to Nilsen (not my father), attracted me to someone I found fascinating and wanted to learn more about. If my father had been merely strangled or killed in a fight, I really wouldn’t be interested in the killer at all, but this was different, there was something much more behind this and in it’s own unique way expressed a desperation, an isolation, and a vulnerability to which I immediately related. Of course, being a lover of unconventional people and thought I had no choice but to study Nilsen. Like many, during that study I was completely wooed by Nilsen, by what came out of his mouth and from what his mind and hands had done. It finally came that I was even proud that it was Nilsen who killed my father and no-one else. So the murder led me to ponder many things – discover the people involved, discover my mother, and more importantly, discover myself and my own thinking under extreme circumstances.





You have turned the tragedy into a source of creativity, of artistic inspira- tion and personal growth, but you’ve also used it as an ego boost – “I’m the artist whose father was killed by Dennis Nilsen”- am I right? You claim that you identified a great deal with you father – immersing yourself in his rough lifestyle which later gave away to the heroin addiction. But this also sparked a compulsive fascination for his killer. Now we enter Genet territory again (this time I think about Funeral Rites; where the protagonist sides with the murderer to get closer to his victim). My question is: isn’t it Nilsen that you actually identify with? Am I totally lost if I would maintain that he’s your muse?

No, I’ve never used the Dennis Nilsen angle as an ‘ego boost’ but rather as a ‘ca- reer boost’ (albeit a genuine one). I realised a while ago that each time I sat down to write something special was happening with me and words. At times it was quite hard to believe that the words I wrote were even mine. I knew they were, but it was a weird experience reading them back and having the feeling that they had come from some other source, maybe even a recognized hand. So I felt then that I was finally ready to do something creative with words. But feeling that, and even if one is possessed with a talent, to get recognised or to stand forward out the pulp is something very different and is an art all of its own. The world is a huge place to be in, and amongst hundreds of thousands of words, from hundreds of thousands of writers, one is even more indistinguishable than usual... you need something else - or it greatly helps. I knew I was going to use the Internet as my initial publishing medium and that to stand out from the thousands of people writing up their daily antics online I needed something powerful to use as a tab- loidish sound-bite. The Nilsen history is what I decided to use for that, a spade in face, something to stop people dead and have them take note and want to know more. I was confident that I could hold a reader, but I needed people to read to have a chance of holding them. The Nilsen history was also a history I knew would cross barriers and interests and would bring in journalists and film-makers and writers and publishers. I had reached a time in my life where I was tired of slave work, had some time on my hands and wanted to try funding a living from my art. And I don’t feel a cheat for that, because the murder and Nilsen is an honest and real part of my life and expression, and I had and have not one single qualm about using that in a material sense: as something I possess and is worth something. I’ve paid the dues for my history, and it really has served its purpose. I’ve had such traffic through my words and have been contacted by the most wonderful people. So, no, I never have used the Nilsen aspect as an ego boost, just as a career boost. I will also add that all my life I kept the Nilsen history to myself. As a teenager I had tried telling a few friends but they all waved me off as some fantastic liar and attention seeker, and so from the age of 13 on I never told a soul (outside of two lovers). So actually me putting that on my writing site was the first time I had ever used it in any way.

Yes, you’re correct, I certainly do identify more with Nilsen than with my father. I’ve had the privilege to discover Nilsen where I’ve never had the chance to discover my father. My father wasn’t a vagrant but led a very vagrant kind of life and as a result didn’t leave much trace or history behind him. Outside of the stories from my mother and step-father there was no other way to find out anything else about him. But I also identify with Nilsen in other respects, especially his feelings of loneliness, his desperation for company while possessing a personality that made it very difficult, and also that obsessive loyalty which he seemed to seek from living things which finally always seemed to disappoint him. I understand completely why and how he could love a dog above all other things. But more than that I understand Nilsen’s expression... I understand and relate to DENNIS NILSEN THE ARTIST. I can’t explain that sentiment very well, I can just say that I understand the killings and his words and sketches and regard them in an artistic light. It was a tragedy, sure, (and for him just as much as for anyone else) but in a way I kinda sense he was finally a resolved man after being caught, after ‘he’ was finally presented to the world, his work put on 24 hour display in every newspaper and magazine nationwide. I think that was an acceptable pay-off for Nilsen, and after being exposed he had no further need to carry on with that spe- cific aspect of his ‘work/expression’. I also think it probably calmed certain urges and gave him an inner peace, and to some extent even allowed him to express his fantasies and desires and thoughts and feelings in a safe environment: prison. So I have discovered Nilsen and identify with him in the same manner I have discovered yourself or Francis Bacon. But as for Nilsen being my ‘muse’, no, that’s not the relationship I have towards him. I have NO muse except the consequence of life. I feel too distinct from people to have anyone as a muse. So Nilsen, like many others, is not ‘THE’ source of inspiration, but ‘A’ source of inspiration. I think you may have put forward that conclusion based more upon our personal corre- spondences over the last year. Certainly Nilsen is a factor in my life and work, but as a percentage of the whole he registers only as much as other artists and writers and musicians who have influenced me. I think if asked to summarise my work only very few people would even mention Nilsen’s name alongside mine.

In the main my work deals with events, actions and consequence. It is about the poverty of hope which pervades this world, and is also a search through tragedy to understand ones own mortality and come to terms with it. And although one could make an argument that some of those themes could still have been born from the Nilsen history, in fact it just comes from my life which was full of bizarre things way before the murder, and things which left just a big an impression upon me. You must keep in mind that before the murder I had already been around and seen such things as: criminals, paedophiles, free and open sex, alcohol abuse, the police, the inside of prisons, injecting drug users, prostitutes, social services, poverty, suicide attempts... that is what I was born into. So I was taking in and processing a lot of weird from the day I was tugged out the womb - the murder was just the latest in a long line of bizarre events which were to pass through my life. Sure, after the murder life got even more fucked up, but by then I believe I was already viewing the world through a set of very unique eyes.

Returning to an earlier question where you mentioned Genet and reform school, yes, an abuse, severe trauma or experience can certainly help create someone very different, but not a genius. Genius comes from somewhere else and is a huge collective of unknown forces. The seeds of genius are sown a long time before someone gets gagged and fucked up the arse... that just maybe gives one’s genius an extreme event to focus on and process. For anyone to be raped or molested and even begin to look at that experience from a perspective other than what is socially or morally acceptable means there was already a huge amount of individualistic and off-beat thought even before that point. So I don’t think one event ever makes a person, although some events can be very forming, influential and totally preoccupying. The murder of my father was a defining moment in my life, my mothers reaction to it another, and the man behind that murder became another. They are all ‘muses’, but NOT in the singular. So you’re not lost if you think Nilsen is a muse, just maybe we still have much more to discover about one another than we so far have, but that’s only normal.was aware of that and had maybe even rehearsed what he would say and how he would explain himself. I think Nilsen is also turned on by such attention (terribly frustrated by it also as he’s not in control of his own image within it) but I think if he could have somehow did what he did to an ongoing media coverage, explaining away his actions as he went, I think he would have encouraged that. If Nilsen was secretive it was partly because it was absolutely necessary, he couldn’t have expressed himself openly, as many artists cannot. The arrest was kinda like Nilsen’s Vernissage... the sealing and opening of his works to the public, his coming out as an artist. Only for him, ‘coming out’, his appearance on the world stage, had more drastic consequences than for most artists. But nothing’s simple when speaking of Nilsen and I also think he took a pleasure going undetected, outsmarting the police, blatantly tossing away bag loads of human remains on street corners, getting rid of tons of meat under his neighbours eyes.... that feeling of superiority we feel when we’re outsmarting the world.

Nilsen’s eventual and almost immediate confession after he was apprehended was not given in any way to release himself of his crimes (and I’m glad of that) but to revel in them... show how clever he had been. His explanations were more to do with giving off/fixing an image of himself.... showing the police, the magistrates, the crown prosecution service that he was no idiot or madman, but an intellectual who had reflected upon his actions and had reason for each one. Like all artists I think Nilsen was obsessed with his own acts, and anyone that interested in their own productions will ultimately welcome media attention. (even if it may come at a severe price).

No, Nilsen didn’t remember my father’s name.... in fact it’s one of the murders he remembers the least about. That for me again shows how little he cared for the gore. The three murders in Cranley Gardens were the most gruesome in terms of what happened to the bodies post-mortem, and if Nilsen had have been interested or excited by that side of the killings these would have been his stand-out moments, not the murders he least remembers. That’s very insightful. I think by that time the murders had become quite routine and were losing their thrill.

The anonymity, I think that’s probably something we concern ourselves with but which was never a concern in Nilsen’s head. There were reasons from the very start which made these peoples names unimportant... they were never going to be around long enough to need to know who they were. Nilsen’s memories of them would be of the position he had elevated them to, and not of who they ever were. But I think Nilsen also had a lot of respect for his victims... something akin to what a bullfighter has towards the bull. You respect this thing because you will dominate it so thoroughly, and yet without it you are nothing. The kill is elevated to royal heights, because the kill is the killer himself.

Yes you’re right about Nilsen not really taking trophies (although he did keep small personal item and actually wore some of his victims’ clothes to work.) Indeed when he was caught I believe he was wearing Stephen Sinclair’s scarf. Still, it wasn’t to the level that many go, and I think again that says something about the depth of Nilsen’s crimes and that even if there was a strong sexual element in the killings that was maybe not the force that made him carry them out. I say that thinking that if the murders were pornographic then many more trophies would have been taken and used to relive a part of that fantasy over and over again. I see Nilsen’s murders as not only sexual but also human. After being sexually relieved I don’t think the act ended (because the fantasy was more than that; orgasm was not Nilsen’s climax). The murders were a living fantasy, even after the act they continued to give Nilsen something, make him feel more comfortable in the world. I think that’s why he took comfort in having the bodies under the floorboards, or sitting the dead in chairs – it balanced out something that was lacking in his life, but not ‘company’... more the feeling of being a ‘superman’, someone who was in complete control of something, somewhere.

I’m not sure how clear that last piece is. I’ve read it over and am not at all sure I’ve said what I intended to. But maybe you will understand? Anyway, certainly Nilsen is a very different fish to his counterparts... he is separated from most of them by his clear lack of insanity. I believe you could talk to Nilsen for years and never come to the conclusion that he is clinically insane. Yes there have been similar killings, but only in the act. So I agree Nilsen worshipped himself through his victims, but I think he also lived through them and found completion through them. And getting back to trophies/ memorabilia, not many artists keep memorabilia of their work; the expression is the memorabilia; getting it out is the keepsake. I think Nilsen’s trophies were mostly mental.

Still, for everything I have said in these writings, I don’t see Nilsen as a figure of tragedy. I think the human condition is tragic, that our consciousness of time and death is tragic. We are a tragic species and I don’t really see anyone with any greater cut of the cake than anybody else. My affections for Nilsen come from my recognition of him as a human, and I’m more interested in the characteristics and emotions we share rather than those which set us apart. Of course, what he did also intrigues me, but all my friends intrigue me... those weird things which make them who they are. I see nothing terribly immoral in what Nilsen did. If I had to choose between having dinner with him or the Minister for Foreign Affairs, I’d choose Nilsen every time. So I don’t see Nilsen in a tragic light (same as I see none of his victims in a tragic light) I see him as a human being who had certain needs and impulses and complexes (as we all do). It was just a shame that his needs could only be calmed through multiple murder and then imprison- ment, but in many ways all artists are imprisoned by their work, it’s an obsession that we have to express at all costs. I think it would be an injustice to pity him and see him in a tragic light. I see him in an exceptional light, even though my own humanity makes me wish he never had to suffer prison. My own humanity would also like to see him free.




WILL HE MURDER MYSELF TONIGHT - The Void Ratio (Extracts)

Martin sent me his scenario for the planned performance. It began with a sedat- ed, maybe partially strangled me/my father on a mattress on the floor in a black room. Martin/Nilsen would then arrive and finish the job, straddling me and strangling me into post-mortem. I would then be washed and my freshly murdered body made up with talcum power, ready to be pulled around into various positions of Nilsen’s Sad sketches. My head would then be covered with a black pillow case and with a scalpel Martin would carve the words I’LL BE THE MIRROR into my chest. My body would then urinate, all life gone, my last literary and human offering to the world.





As we prepare for the performance I enter a state of que sera sera. I am here now and my psychological make up ensures and has always ensured that this moment would come and I would confront it no matter how much I felt I should not. I know that if something happens, with all the abuse and damage I’ve done to my body over the years, I’d never have the strength to overpower a murderous Martin Bladh. Even if I struggle and kick out and fight, not one of the audience will inter- vene as we’ll be re-enacting a murder and they will think it is just a hyper charged and realistic performance. They will think the blood is fake, that the victim is acting, that Martin is Martin and it’s just another show. I do not think of much. I look at Martin one last time and wonder what he has in store for me tonight. And then in words of the killer, leaving for work wearing the scarf of his latest victim on his last day of freedom: I stepped out into my final legend.





I am not scared I am nothing, just like the day after the night when the dream blew in. I feel like I am an extra in the world. I walk out with my head slightly lowered, walk around to the mirror and remove my top and then my trousers and naked I begin to cut the word DES into my chest. The scalpel is blunt and it is not easy to break the skin. I am hurried to get this small performance piece over with, after I just lay down and shut my eyes and am passive until the end. I manage to cut the words into me and spit down myself to try and get more blood flow. I walk around to the mattress and in just my socks I lay down in front of the small crowd. I am at Martin’s mercy and artistic expression now: I have put my life and body in his hands. I close my eyes and strangely all feels totally calm.





Martin is on top of me for the first time. He feels hot, sexually awakened but not over me, over his theatre. I can hear and feel his breath. I’m not sure if it’s really Martin or Nilsen. When he moves me around into the sad sketch positions it is with a loving forcefulness, like he has that right and enjoys that right and no force of nature will ever prevent him from having me in the position he wants. I hear him taking photos of me and when he comes back the next time I can smell he is made up, that this is the death scene and soon all will be black.





Martin covers my head with the black hangman’s pillow case. I open my eyes for a brief instant and can see the vague form of Martin atop of me and a light coming from behind him. I close my eyes again; it feels more comfortable, like really peaceful. I have never been so close to death in my life and I just lay there and accept it and maybe wouldn’t mind too much if it came. I enjoy life because I am within it and have no choice, but maybe there would be a peacefulness aside from gulping air that would not be too bad either, maybe the city should have my soul this way and there can be an empty seat on the Eurostar tomorrow and an empty apartment in another city in Europe, that I will never be compelled to write when it is the last thing I ever want to do. I wonder what it will feel like to have the jugular sliced open, how my mind will react... if I’ll just give in and allow Martin to subdue me as I bleed out on stage and lose consciousness.






CONTACT & LINKS

INFINITY LAND PRESS
http://infinitylandpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/InfinityLandPress?fref=ts 

https://www.facebook.com/thevoidratio?ref=ts&fref=ts

SHANE LEVENE
http://memoiresofaheroinhead.blogspot.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/Shanelevene?fref=ts

KAROLINA URBANIAK
http://karolinaurbaniak.com/
https://www.facebook.com/karolina.urbaniak.9041?fref=ts

MARTIN BLADH
http://www.martinbladh.com/ 
http://martinbladh-vf.blogspot.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/martin.bladh.7?fref=ts

DES
https://www.facebook.com/DESBYMARTINBLADH?fref=ts





A huge HUGE thanks to our much loved and respected landlord Dennis Cooper for allowing us to use his blog in spite of the great personal tragedy that drug abuse amongst certain loved ones has had in his life. The utmost respect - Shane, Karolina & Martin X




*

p.s. Hey. This weekend the blog has the enormous pleasure of helping to usher 'The Void Ratio' into existence. Co-author Shane Levene is a veteran d.l. of this place whom you longer term readers and commenters will remember by his moniker Memoiresofaheroinhead, and the book's publisher, Infinity Land Press, is of course very known to me and admired as the home of my scrapbook book 'Gone', which they put out last year. Shane is an amazing writer and thinker, and Karolina Urbaniak is a powerful photographer, and ILP's books are always extremely beautiful objects. So, naturally, I encourage you not only to explore the post but to order 'The Void Ratio', if you can. Thanks for your attention, and my tremendous gratitude to Shane, Karolina, and Martin Bladh for giving my blog this honor. ** Jeffrey Coleman, Hi, Jeff! I was aware of Momus's eBook, but the craziness of my days of late has stalled my getting it. Today, done deal. I've read Liliane Giraudon's 'Fur'. In fact, I think I did something on the blog about it ages ago. It's very, very interesting. Let me know how you find her stories. Good to see you, man, and take care. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, sir. I have a few friends who are a bit obsessed with Wil Wheaton. I've never watched 'The Big Bang Theory'. Should I? ** Tosh Berman, Hi, T. Interesting, yeah. I'm not a big fan of SF the place at all. Just being there usually makes me feel strangely discomfited. Never have been able to figure that out. But I do like a lot of music from there, and, of course, a number of my favorite writers are SF-based: Killian, Bellamy, Gluck, and on and on. Have you ever thought of writing something about that? Ruminating with your fingers? It seems like it would be very interesting. ** Steevee, Hi. Flipper! Yeah, I mean, the 'American Sniper' blah-blahing seems post-shelf life already. ** Keaton, Hi. Weird, when I think college, I always knee-jerk think of 'hunks', jocks, that sort of type. I wonder what that's about. My one brief year at university was spent at a really hippie kind of school where being gay was cool enough that students were faking it left and right. When I was young, and when hippies ran the counterculture, they gave me the willies with key exceptions. But I liked the music they liked for the most part. Not the books. Never was into the Beats or Timothy Leary or any of that stuff. You like Phish?! That's scary. ** Sypha, I won't expect classic, okay. Good thing you warned me. But I know I will seriously relish you singing in a fake German accent. That much is guaranteed. ** Kier, Ha ha, Denicality. I always try to think up a clever name-change for you when I get to you, and everything I think up is too lame. Like I almost typed, 'Hi, Krispy Kiereme!' Just to show you. Split pea soup is godhead. I seriously recommend it. When it's done right, it makes your mouth feel like a really soft bed. Oh, I want to know what decadent thing you let yourself buy. Go nuts! So sheep and horses get along? Yeah, why wouldn't they, I guess. They're fellow vegetarians or even fellow vegans? I always wonder what animals think about each other. I really wish they could talk. Or maybe whisper. Being tenderized beat is such a good version of beat. My day: Yeah, editing. What did we do? Oh, we finished the trailer. We like it. Our producers probably won't, but we'll see. It's good, though. Then we went back into Scene 3 and revised it a bit. Of all the scenes, it was the one we transformed most radically in the editing. It was originally going to be pretty long, and it had this very complicated dialogue, most of which just didn't end up working when it was spoken. So we chopped it way down and made it something else that's just as strange as the original but more fast and poetic. And it still wasn't quite right. But we added in some footage and changed some of the shots to make them look more beautiful, and we think it's pretty perfect now, but we're going to watch the whole film again today and see if it actually is ready. Then we fiddled a little with Scene 4, mostly sound stuff because it was the scene that was shot indoors and has the fake snowstorm in it and other sound details that make it tricky to get right. I think we finished that. So, ideally, when we look at the film today, we'll decide it's finished for the time being. Tomorrow we show it to our first objective outsider to get a distanced perspective, and I'm excited and nervous about that. Anyway, the editing was most of the day and evening. Then I came home and, again, did stuff of such an apparently minor nature that I forget what I did. Oh, Kate Moss was standing in front of the Recollets yesterday smoking a cigarette. The cafe here was having some big event, and I guess she must have been part of it. She looks really great. Okay, tell me everything you can about your weekend, and I'll be back with some kind of full report about mine first thing on Monday. Love, me. ** _Black_Acrylic, Cool, glad you dug it. The prose is kind funny and dry or something, yeah. Cool, cool about you and Andrew being on the same page, and about the dual interview. May your weekend roil you gently. ** Cal Graves, Hi, Cal. Oh, that sucks about the Lit. Theory class. Lit. Theory should be fun but, hm, yeah, it isn't always, that's for sure. I, of course, passionately encourage you to write more and more fucked up things, but, of course, I would encourage that. Pharmakon was amazing live. Amen Dunes were pretty good, but I think I like them recorded a little better. I don't think I know most of those music things you saw. Any of them that you particularly recommend I get sonically involved with? Nice music wish list. I had tickets to see Croatian Amor here, and they were playing with Lust for Youth, which would have been cool too, and I was really excited to see him/them, but I got bronchitis and couldn't go. Sucks. Oh, I made a list a while back of my all-time favorite music gigs. I can give you my top five, if I can remember them. Hm. I think they went like this: Flaming Lips circa 'The Soft Bulletin' at The Palace in LA, Gang of Four circa 'Entertainment!' at this club The Starwood in LA, Buttonhole Surfers circa 'Locust Abortion Technician' at Paradiso in Amsterdam, Guided by Voices circa 'Bee Thousand' at this little club Jabberjaw in LA, The Melvins circa 'Houdini' at some temporary club on Hollywood Blvd. whose name I forget, and, hm, maybe Kraftwerk on their first 'reunion' tour in ... the late 90s (?) at The Palladium in LA. How about you? Diggety-diggety-Dennis. ** Hyemin kim, Hi! Yes, Kitty Glitter has written a bunch of books wherein celebrities are turned into rampaging sexual beings, but I haven't read any of those. I haven't read John Donne is ages, but, yeah, I thought he was great. I hope your second move goes really smoothly. That's okay about the guest-post. I'm doing my best, and if reruns end up returning, so it goes. Have a lovely weekend! ** Schlix, Hi. I used to watch 'ST:TNG' for some reason, and, yeah, everyone in the 'Star Trek' hardcore fanbase hated the Wesley Crusher character. Seriously hated him. It was funny. Cool, I'll look at 'The Orphanage' the next time I go to the English language bookstore here. Wow, you have a lot of Gisele in your near future. 'Showroomdummies' pre-dates my working with her, but I like that piece. It has no text at all. ** Okay. Your weekend post has been throughly intro'd up above, so all that I'll add is that I hope you have a super weekend in store around here should you have the time inclination. See you on Monday.
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