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DoTheThing, 22
I don't know if I like it, but I really think so.

I'm a submissive gay (recently discovered) who understands what to do with that. And I noticed my particolar attention to tall and big guys with socks (also playing wrestling or something), basically everything but gore, but always being aware and joking. Not seriously and with hate.

I'd like to find someone who can be "amusing monster" if you know what I mean. But you need to want it very much. BE A MAN!!!!!!







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cannotcope, 19
cannot cope on my own






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Superboy666, 25
EVIL SUPERBOY HAS ARRIVED! BE AFRAID!

OK, LET'S TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS RIGHT NOW. I TOTALLY GET OFF ON MY MUSCLE, WORKING OUT, COMPETING (4 SHOWS), AND PRIVATE ACTIVITIES. I AM 5"11, 233LBS, I HAVE A KILLER BODY, POWER, SUPER STRENGTH, AND I AM 8" CUT.

IF YOU CAN TOTALLY CONQUER THE EVIL BOY OF STEEL, OUT MUSCLE ME, OUT FIGHT ME, OUT LIFT ME IN THE GYM, AND OUT PERFORM ME THEN I WILL SUBMIT TO YOU. HAVE MORE THAN A ONE-WORD VOCABULARY AT FIRST CONTACT. I HAVE A MASTERS DEGREE SO DO NOT INSULT ME!

"HAIL THE DARK SIDE!"






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DISCUSSION, 24
Heyy Master Dark I made this so I can talk to you hopefully :( I miss talking with you idc if u have a new slave I just wanna talk to u I'm sorry about everything how I ignored you an grew distance :( I just didn't wanna get hurt as bad as you wanted I didn't want to break up I just idk :( I didn't want to have to stick u with me forever I'm stupjd an worthless I hope that you will be my friend an talk to me I miss you Master






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pussyfuck, 21
My name is Pussyfuck for lack of a better name. I am a college student living in Southern California studying painting. I absolutely love to paint and be creative. But when I put down the paintbrush I have a secret guilty pleasure... getting tied up. Well wanting to be tied up.

Since I was 7 or 8 I've always gone to bed dreaming me and my friends would be tied up together. Finally I got tied up by an unlikely friend. It was amazing! Unfortunately it has been 10 months since then and I crave to be tied up again.

My favorite positions are the hogtie and spread eagle. Best outfit is a tank top and boxer briefs.

THINGS I REFUSE TO DO.
SEX (you may play with my dick but no more)
SUCKING YOUR DICK
EXTREME ENEMA

Update
Ok I definitely regret the name now.






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Yoko_Ono, 22
This ain't rap and rap ain't this. Tell me, "Shut the fuck up and suck my dick" I'm a real dick-pleaser, won't you make me face your dick. I like dick, dick, dick and nothin' else but dick. I eat it like candy or Swedish Fish.





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SUCHASUB, 21
Hi masters! This is Louie, your lad slave for eternity. I just got into my twenties and currently studying in college. They say that I'm friendly, exciting to berate and use, and bold.
I'm also a marathoner, traveler, and polyglot (7 languages).

I do offer sex (fucked, suck, strangled, fist, toilet and even kissing) but NOT love (I don't have any idea how to do it) . I'm a million percent bottom and I can't top other slaves or animals or children or anything for you.

I like basically everything bottom apart from getting my dick sucked. Lol I hate that. I can relocate in any country of your choice. Europe, Asia, US or even Africa is also possible but that place worries me.

You can yell at me and drive me crazy non-stop and have sex for up to 15 hours every day. I'll suck your balls with my mouth full of drool. (Trying to be discreet because I know people on here and don't want them taking the mic about what I write.)

Comments

Anonymous - 20.Jun.2015
I noticed this profile here some time - I was too attracted to this profile and picture but I did not have the courage to meet it because of what my problem is (I was in prison for assaulting and attempted to murder someone that he reminds me).

Yesterday, I cracked.

With this young pig, this was a play in two acts.

The first act: raunchy, bestial.
In short, fuck, pure, violent (he love!) and deep, violent fisting ("no, stop, no, YES, YES!!!!") but always remaining attentive to prevent the need (screaming in me!) to beat him senseless.

Then comes the second act: fusion.
If the general Sun Tzu theorized the art of war, this young man could be the art theorist of masochism. I WANT to kill, I won't.

If you know what you want you can get it if you have the courage you need to get it. Get on top and don't stop.

Billyman - 12.Jun.2015
somewhat insane and somewhat non consensual acceptable.





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SlaveHole, 19
My name is Claudius of Rome.... I am single..... I like German cars....... I am good boy with good ass........ If you want to suck me, fuck you very hard and you're a generous person....... i want to spend sub time with friends from the planet of Evil... I would like to go to the moon !!!! I also live with good friend of mine !!! Goal, to produce as much sperm as possible !!!

Comments

Anonymous - 29.Jul.2015
GO HOME RUMÄNISCH PEOPLES WE DONT WANT YOU HERE !

christophe91 - 27.Jul.2015
I tested
TOTAL SCAM
He's a thief and mytho,
his name is Axel Meniot Paris 42 rue Charlot 3rd, address exists and that is another input restaurant
may also give you an address in Fresnes (94) 12 rue du Dr. Charcot






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naziyouth, 18
I'm 17. I'm a mute. A car wreck caused me to lose my voice box. I'm extremely shy now because of it. Otherwise I'm just an average boy with a fascination with my death.





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iamlessthan, 23
i am in norway.
i had thoughts and desires when i was 6 years old and these thoughts were of Total Power Exchange, me going from free and safe to being to scared to go out, cause i knew The Dominants were coming for me, i just didnt know when, but when they did, my right to say No would be ripped away from me as i was tortured, raped, broken, branded, contracted and owned.
this is all possible.
i wont stop until i am brainwashed or dead or you let me talk my way out of it as i do think i can talk my way out of anything.








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jason23, 23
Just a worthless pain slave who serves by receiving chains, whips, blow torches, baseball bats, brain surgery, chainsaws, you call it.

Seeks a Master who can't get hard unless he sees his slave in extreme pain, suffering, disfigured and dying and can't shoot a load until his slave is dead.

Not into some drawn out master slave relationship, all that knowing you and knowing me and sex and bullshit, and I do not have the time neither.










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nerd_with_tiny_ass, 22
Hi I'm the one on the (your) right in the photo. Please get me away from this boring, stupid guy. I will do anything! Please!!!!!!!





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Hyacinthe, 18
I was happy enthusiastic, if you sad, if need should share rape, if you need someone to sadden for you, please call me
I look cute, sleek, smooth screen
Im not not totally handsome but im cute

Twink = normal guys
Crossdresser = male and dressed as a woman
Sissy = Teenage boy and woman clothes
Femboy = lightweight feminine and simply dressed in unisex

I am a Femboy

Bottom = normal passive guys
Slut = craven passive guys
Pig = very craven passive guys
Slave = passive like a toy guys

I am a Slave

Racists will be boiled for pudding.






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milchflaschen, 20
(I AM AN drunk stoned boy SLAVE!!!) I am the slave you ever desire. Come to me, and I show what a scum can do.

Life is hard and sometimes people do thing what they dont like to do....!

I dont want writte here about me how i am bad... You have to meet me and see what i am....!!!!

Booyah baby, bow down Making you so wow now! About to leave for the navy, but before I go I want to live 'encasement pig wanted'.

Comments

Anonymous - 10.Aug.2015
So the most worn-ass I've fucked, with three creams down the drain, afraid that my dick expressed loses itself in the airport of this pig, to say the least, Einflugschneise Hannover Airport.

Even as a note: Please expect for a drunk stinking fag face, so fucking slave has he on his stomach then you see him not so!!






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WisdomInSpades, 18
Hello I am now of age and can come out. Writing with my mentor who helped me get here.

My mentor trained me last week with hypnosis therapy. Now I follow orders good. I am to serve a dad or dads.

Looking for dad who would take care of me in all kind of terms. I think its right to do that now.

Mentor says I am most desirable person in this field. Mentor says I have most amazing eyes in the world (or at least slaves world).

I also am to kneel and take my shirt off when talking to a man.

As for pathological liars or disease of any kind, my mentor says please, if you still have some humanity, abstain.





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Unforgettable, 24
I am unforgettable. I can't even remember someone who knew me or fucked me who didn't say (over & over & over), "You're unforgettable." I can't count the times men have fought over me or went to war over me (and one man even killed another man once) for the right to be my lover or fuck me or even be my best friend.

I am especially very, very proud of my face and my ass. They are my spectaculars, the two sources of the power I seem to have to hypnotize people, I believe.

This has served me very well. I have never had any problem getting anything I want, from money to simple companionship to great jobs to world travel. Anything but ... what I consider great sex. Men and boys always handle my body reverently with kid gloves. Sounds nice in theory, but I'm a bottom and not a shy, vanilla bottom either.

I need a big change in my life. I need to break the pattern I've always lived within and start afresh with new challenges and struggles and without one of the laurels I've always rested upon.

I seek a very dominant, controlling, take no prisoners, bull in a china shop, destructive top to wipe my smirk off the first of my great attributes and put an end to the reign of my other, greatest attribute.

I'm looking for a man with a cock that'll bust and saw me wide open. That's not a figure of speech, I want my ass torn asunder, gaping, and destroyed permanently. I'm looking for a cock over 12 inches at the minimum, unless you're 12 inches long and at least as thick as a soda can. That might be acceptable.

Then I would like him to fill my stretched, destroyed hole with filth. For instance, poz sperm, repacked farmed shit, vomit, mud, blood human or animal, manure, compost, stale beer, toxic liquids, no limits.

Naturally you are welcome to have one last feast upon my ass and eat your brains out first if you so choose. It's only fair and understandable.







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iamhungrydog, 19
I lost all in my life for my dream to be a full slave and to be be littled and de humertised , I am not scared being a slave and aint scared what the life hold I am desprete to become owned and used with out stop and mercy 24/7

I am homeless and I have no job I live in a brothel I aint got no money desprete to become someone object

things done

think I done all

including

aggro
beating
raped
shitt
piss
bones broken
burn
blood







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infamous_drifter, 20
Dominance over me is unique in that I use no set way or pattern, there is no plan or system, it is more like a "Happening" in the moment, by letting go and having no anticipation or expectation, I let the sex and pain flow through me like water. I see it as a gift thats been given to me for you. You can also simply trust my ass. It feels your body during fuck and pain, has a connection with you. and all you have to do to traumatize it. If you want to know more meaning "me", I'm Aquarius and I hate the beach. I'm a skank, but not at the beck and call of every psychopath looking to get some.






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GrossBoy, 24
I offer a complete fuck of my ass but only until cum.
I have an ass you liked very much.
It can make you fell all better, just take it in!
Now you're in and can't get out.
Timings are 1 am to 10 am.
Call me or txt me if I dont reply Emoticon wink.







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Seekingspecificolder, 18
Hey guys any one wanna young slut I might let u have my ass if u have a car





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ScandinavianScatBoy, 24
▐►▐►▐►▐►▐► ▬▬▬▬▬▬ ►~SICK and PERVERTED ALWAYS appeals to Me!!!!! I am Northern European (Scandinavian) boy. I am fluent in 3 languages so far.

My users usually describe me as: Humble, Sarcastic, Demanding, Frightening, Reserved, Opinionated, Open Minded, Creative, Loyal, Impossible, Grotesque, Hard-To-Believe, Pathetic, God-like, Friendly, Intense, Reliable & Interesting.

I am VERY OPEN-MINDED (see my profile name for what I enjoy in this life). I am different than most slaves here, because you will NEVER IN YOUR LIFE have your shit eaten by a cuter boy, I know it, YOU KNOW IT, I LOVE IT. Nothing is strange to me. OTHER CODE WORDS: W/S, Breed, Rape, DP, Fist, Raunchy -- List goes on and on!

I can hold and keep an interesting conversation.

I'm a KEEPER :=)

Until then....ENJOY LIFE!






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Littlemeat, 20
"This project aims to stand as a queer approach to slavery in the very heart of Northern (traditionally conservative) Greece."

I dont know how shall I say what I offer to you million meny.
What is your fantasy ... whatever they are we can do togheter, schoolboy?
Or maybe ... friends of son sleepover .. ?
A boy horny wank hes cock in a forest and get seduce by a man and fuck the boy?
I dont know about story of that but you can tell me more and put on practice togheter.
So here you write me and we will have a meeting like you will.
My english is not so good, but when somebody want to learn, he can do it. i belive that.







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want, 24
I am interested in everything evil i want to be thought





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StarMoonKitten, 19
It apologies for the irrelevance of its existence and knows completely that it can never be worthy of your desire. Thank you for existing, noticing it and giving it a reason to exist. You are Gods, all of you and it splays on the ground and grovels before you.

It humbly begs you to stab, shoot, and gut its belly.







*

p.s. Hey. RIP: Wes Craven. An early-ish heads up that I'll be going to Geneva on Wednesday for several days re: the English language premiere of Gisele Vienne's and my new piece 'The Ventriloquists Convention'. That will affect the blog thusly: On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you will get 'back from the dead' posts and minimal, pre-programmed p.s.es. On Saturday, you will get a really great new guest-post to take you easily through the weekend. Then I'll be back here next Monday to do the p.s. and the other usual stuff. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Ha, a Black Metal composition, nice. Thank you! How did it start? Well, I've been interested of late in seeing what happens to the literary gif works if I push text and narrative closer to the surface. One thing that does is make their trajectories more awkward and their momentum more immediately noticeable because the match is not completely natural. I got an idea to go ahead and work with that, and I decided drunkenness as a thematic would be an interesting way to do that -- to try to match up the stumbling in the story/ content/ visuals with the awkward, 'stumbling' effect that forcing narrative into the foreground has on the actual literary gif form. So, that was the impetus and where I started from. Yeah, Okkyung Lee is so great, and that album Stephen's label put out is wonderful. His label is so excellent in general. ** David Ehrenstein, Fornes? RIP: Oliver Sacks. ** James, Hi. Nice to get drunk, so to speak, with you. ** Sypha, I know it was from 'Games of Thrones'. ** Damien Ark, Thanks, man. Yeah, me too, about Harrison. Believe me, I'm pretty sure I grabbed every black and white gif wherein drummers drumming were either situated on right or the left side of the frame that were out there. As you can surely imagine, I would be extremely grateful to get your favorite gifs. Wow, thanks a lot. And I can use them in the work? Quadruple thank you! ** Squeaky, Aw, thanks, Darrell! xx, D ** Krayton, Hi. I am liking the story a bunch, you bet. I'm not all the way through it yet. I had a weekend full of a bad combo of searing/moist hot weather and shit I had to do. But I'm close to the finish, and it's great! Description is optional always. Description can be amazing, but it's also one of those tropes that writers think they have to do when it isn't needed at all. Hope you're doing good too! Love, me. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Well, I've had my drinking days. Not in a long time and never too heavily even then, but I think I catch the drift. That festival sounds really fun. I have heard of Paul Mason's thing, but that's as far as it goes. I haven't read anything. Cool, I'll read/scour the Vice interview. Thanks a lot, man. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris. Thanks a lot about the gif work! As for why they're 'Zac's ...', there are a few interconnected reasons. First, they're for him. The making of them, how they're made, what they do, etc., is wholly determined by what I imagine will interest, please, inspire, excite, etc. Zac. They belong to him. But they're also open to the public. It's like ... you know how there's, like, Millie's Cafe or Joe's Fix-It Shop or even, say, the Beastie Boy's album 'Paul's Boutique'. When you eat there or get your something fixed there or listen to that album, you don't necessarily know who those named people are, but the fact that those places as designated as belonging to those named people colors your experience of being there. Maybe you imagine who they are based on those places' and things' particular qualities. I like that the works are personalized and have that pointed if mysterious reverberation. And, also, I'm writing a cycle of fiction books for Zac, similarly to how the George Miles Cycle were for George. The two gif books are part of the cycle, and there will also be 'regular' written fiction books in the cycle, and maybe also fiction books in other mediums too, if I decide to try doing that. So, I guess those are the reasons. Does that make sense? Cool, yeah, I thought 'Pit Stop' was really sharply made. Like a little B-movie jewel. And 'Chelsea Girls' is one of my all-time favorite films. Hope you had a really good weekend too, Chris! ** Steevee, Not yet. Excited to. I've never gotten into The Weeknd. Never done much for me. ** Étienne, Hi! Oh, cool, I see, about the classes. Sounds you're all-in then, great! I'm going to be sweating bullets and dying for a cigarette and secretly just freaking the fuck out. Yikes. Bon Monday! ** H, Ha ha, nice, I think, about the gif work's simulacrum. Thank you so much about the imminent post! Joe was always a 100% joy and sweetheart when I hung out with him. I've never heard anyone who knew Joe speak of him as anything less. I can't even begin to imagine him being nasty or even rude or anything like that. You know, he had a pronounced stutter, which added to his sweetness somehow. He was a truly and completely lovely man. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Yeah, I think his name is easily among the most misspelled, even in official places, and I count myself, of course, among the guilty. Second most misspelled might be Harry Mathews. Ditto on Keith Moon. Good god, you watch clips of him playing, and it's hard to believe he can do such incredible things in such a wild, showy way. Astonishing. ** Bill, Hi, B. I was too. Thank you, sir, about the gif work. Yeah, I working really closely with pacing in that one. I always do, but maybe even moreso in that one. I have not seen 'Stray Dogs'. I have wanted to a lot. I'll see what I can find. Thanks! 70%, not bad. I think I might have only been 60% me at most. ** Misanthrope, Thanks, George. Yeah, total pussy, I knew it, I just knew it. I would guess it's both, right? For every, I don't know, 'Balloon Boy' who flashes in and out, there's a 'Trump.' Well, actually, I guess the Trump addiction is pretty extreme. ** Styrofoamcastle, Hey, Cody! Wow, great questions. How to read it? Well, it's kind of a new thing, I guess, so I'm not sure 'how to read it' is locked in. I think that just not being intimidated by its foreignness and just going with it is best. They're fiction works, or poems, in some cases. So you read them like that. Only with motion pictures instead of sentences and paragraphs and stuff. The breaks are like the breaks in written fiction and poetry. Like paragraphs breaks, or the blank space between stanzas in a poem. They're breathers, in a sense, but there are connections within the breaks between the gif sections on either side too. It's just a different, more deliberately distanced relationship than vis-à-vis the tiny spaces between the gifs in the grouped sections. Again, sort of like the connection between sentences in a paragraph vs. the connection between paragraphs. In the case of 'Drunks', it's a novella in three sections. So everything is connected overall just as if it were a piece of writing, but the connections are stronger within the sections, and then the connections are more detailed between the gifs within the groupings of gifs within the sections. Yeah, I try to be completely aware of the background, implications, and messages delivered by the gifs that feature well-known people or that come from recognizable, well-known contexts. And I try to use the gifs' associations in the narrative. The recognizability there, and the specific associations, are worked into the narrative, at least on my end. But I also make the gif works so that people who aren't interested in taking them apart and figuring them out will be able to just take pleasure in the visual and rhythmic surfaces of them. I do that in my novels and other written fiction too. I try to make them so they work, have an interesting effect, no matter what depth you decide to explore them at. In the example you used, yeah, I made it so that, if you recognize the head thing or the Link thing, and if that colors your viewing of them, there's a relationship between at that depth them that informs the work. But there's also a play going on between the medium of video games, their interactivity, versus the immobile, passivity-creating media of film. You can think about that too, and use that association right there as well. And then the effect of animation versus the effect of the photographic. Etc. Successfully or not, I really try to think through every possibility of what each individual gif is capable of doing on its own when I make those works. And then I also fuck with, reinvent, etc. their capabilities by combining them with gifs that have either a very different or similar quality. Yes, you read the gif poems the way you read a written poem, basically, and you read the stories the way you read stories. You approach them differently in that regard. Re: the gif work you're thinking of making ... first, it sounds amazing. Second, it depends on how interested you are in reaching people who don't know DJ Khaled and won't have his back story available. Because the likelihood, in that case, is that they will see him in the work as a representative rapper character in a more general way. You can try to speak directly to people who know him and his work and his story, and then it's just a matter of whether you want to think about how to reach people who aren't familiar with him in a more general way. You could direct people to him through the work's title. Then it would be up to them if they want to better understand what they're seeing in the gif work, or whether they don't care enough and just want generalized fun.  The interesting and difficult thing about the gif work is that there is no text, no way to caption or explain things. Not that introducing original text into them is a bad idea at all. That might work great. I just haven't wanted to let myself rely on that device so far. Does any of that make sense or help in any way? Big love, me. ** Right. It's slaves day, and you know the drill, and I will see you tomorrow.

'The article called him "a massively popular teen idol" and also, even then, "a serious actor of presence and ability." The writer of that 1982 piece and this one are the same. Matt Dillon can barely recall that time. Now 41, he survived the covers of Teen Talk, Tiger Beat, 16, Super Teen and Teen Machine. These days he's seldom in gossip magazines or on TV shows like Access Hollywood. After all, it's been a few years since he and Cameron Diaz broke up.

'Dillon starred in a number of pictures based on S.E. Hinton novels including Tex (1982). Dillon is concerned with the kind of scrutiny confronting today's young actors. "Even the mainstream magazines," he said. "It's like who lost weight, who didn't. It's so superficial. They're kids, man. They're allowed to make mistakes. Adults in that kind of media should be more compassionate."

'Dillon got to know Lindsay Lohan, 18, while filming Herbie: Fully Loaded, a Disney picture. She's perhaps the country's most popular young star, her photos and personal life inundating magazines, TV and the Web. The former teen king and the current teen queen bonded. "I understand what she's going through," he said. "She's professional and sweet. Yet it's tough when you're dealing with that. You're a teenager and they (the gossip media) hold you to a standard even higher than adults."

'In the 1982 article, Dillon shrugged off the thousands of fan letters he received, mostly from girls, and the nonstop magazine articles. "How do they find out these things about me?" he said then. "Girls write and say, 'I feel this way about you, that way.' I can't deal with it."

'Dillon grew up in Mamaroneck, N.Y. (about a half-hour from Manhattan), the second oldest in a close family of six children. His brother, Kevin, 39, is also an actor (HBO's Entourage). Family life kept him grounded. Even as the most popular teenage actor of his day, Dillon didn't let it get to him, "I didn't give a rat's ---," he said. "All I cared about was acting. I wanted to do true, honest work. I wasn't in it for the cash and prizes."

'To this day, he said, "I've gone my own way. I mean, I went off and made a movie in Cambodia (his 2003 directorial debut, City of Ghosts). I've learned certain things about myself; I'm not a corporate guy." As a young actor, he said, "I gravitated to the films of John Huston (The African Queen), Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause), Sam Fuller (The Big Red One). Rich, complex characters."

'In 2005, Dillon became just such a character when he starred in Factotum, a film adaptation of an autobiographical work by Charles Bukowski. Two years later he received critical praise and earned Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for his role in Crash, the film co-written and directed by Paul Haggis which controversially won Best Picture that year. On September 29, 2006, Dillon was honored with the Premio Donostia prize in the San Sebastián International Film Festival.'-- collaged



__
Stills









































































_____
Further

Matt Dillon @ IMDb
Matt Dillon @ Twitter
'Matt Dillon: 'I've never felt comfortable as a leading man"'
'Looking Back: Matt Dillon, Gen X Poster Boy'
Matt Dillon @ Facebook
'Actor Matt Dillon puts rare celebrity spotlight on Rohingya Muslims'
Audio: On The Road by Jack Kerouac, narrated by Matt Dillon
Podcast: 'Matt Dillon — Guest DJ Project'
'What the Hell Happened to Matt Dillon?'
'MATT DILLON’S MUSICAL JOURNEY'
'AROUND THE WORLD WITH MATT DILLON'
'IGNORANT HAS-BEEN HOLLYWOOD ACTOR, Matt Dillon, joins designated terrorist group CAIR'
'Matt Dillon: Fame and family don't mix'
'Matt Dillon talks about why he is embracing TV roles'
Matt Dillon films @ mubi



____
Extras


Matt Dillon 1982 Milk Commercial


Actor Matt Dillon On Plight Of The Muslim Community in Myanmar


MATT DILLON INTERVIEW ON DAVID LETTERMAN


Fishing With John Episode 3 - Costa Rica with Matt Dillon


Matt Dillon & Francis Ford Copolla talk Rumble Fish, 1983


Jiminy Glick Interviews Matt Dillon



__
Muse

'For example, Richard Hawkins. You know that Yves-Alain Bois book, Painting as Model? Well, maybe that model should be Ivan Depinieda, a Bruce Weber discovery. You can see him glow, blinding solar corolla amid Autumn’s goodbyes, in one of Hawkins’ collages. Ivan’s a model of the impossible walking around somewhere. Hawkins’ work often defaces or trashes something beautiful to get at how it might be that it became beautiful in the first place. He disarticulates, cuts up and dehabitualises particular bodily inhabitations or infestations of the beautiful so that it (beauty) might actually be seen as the rupture it is, a schism of viewer/viewed, appearance/ blindness. Needless to say that his disarticulations, his collaging together of these parts of boys, is also a way to ask what is the nature of making a work of art, the zero degree of making something into something else by almost leaving it as it is. Ryman disrupts and shatters every constituent part of painting to make a painting; Hawkins allows incoherence to cohere in order to grapple with what really is real and what really is a representation of the real, since they’re easily confused. But is this the best way to talk about it (Hawkins’ tender research)? By trying to approach meaning or interpretation, can whatever the art is be seen more clearly, or does a narrative replace opticality? I’m endlessly frustrated by the status quo of most criticism: no matter how rigorous or trenchant, it so rarely questions its own formal presentation. What is a short review? What is a critical essay? Doesn’t it feel - not that there’s what might neatly be called a progression in the arts, but a continuing liberating delirium - that art’s public encourages change, even shock, but the language employed, the forms commentary takes haven’t changed much since the 19th century? It’s not that art craves a text to which it has only a mimetic relation, but sometimes even that would be more interesting than thesis/exegesis. (Must seeing translated into text mean or could it ‘just’ be?) Confronting Hawkins’ Ivan or re-photographed Matt Dillon, what might be the best way to convey the seeming casualness of his careful, almost pained deliberations?

'The failure to get at whatever Matt Dillon is, is so close to the attempt to get at whatever art is. The question is how to find a language lubricated enough to allow opticality’s dasein to ride the sentence bareback. Language veering off toward the impossible, the incommunicable, somehow intersects the visual as it provides a model for what is not yet, what may possibly be. Call whatever cannot be verbalised, but which art nonetheless presents: ‘Matt Dillon’ or ‘Ivan’.

'Despite the incurable imperfection in the very essence of the present moment, Hawkins’ exact formal concerns try to contain and illuminate the miraculous blossoming of specific impermanences. Proust called them chrysanthemums; Ivan and Matt are just their stand-ins. Proust wrote: they invite one ‘those chrysanthemums, to put away all [one’s] sorrows and to taste with a greedy rapture [...] the all-too-fleeting pleasures of November, whose intimate and mysterious splendour they set ablaze all around.’ 9 You once said that Hawkins contemplates the boys who might exist in Vincent Fecteau’s sculptures, which seem haunted by the possibility of occupation, resisting that occupation and any reference they might begin to allude to, the way Fecteau negotiates space. They frisk something immaterial via boys, via interiors, which is neither boys nor interiors. In their winnowing away of referent, Fecteau’s pieces resist, as Ryman’s paintings do, reproducibility - something about the slide or transparency makes them go dead, fail to communicate whatever it is that constitutes them. Hawkins’ work tries to come to terms with the surplus, the jaw-slackening excess of a will to presence in certain manifestations of human beauty and, thus, of beauty in general; how it has to be mediated or it annihilates. Hawkins magic-markers parts of it away to help figure out the figure. Magic Marker - the name gets at the problem: can the mark make magic, can the mark get at the impossible, can the mark transgress the fissures between the real as it is and the represented, the imagined, as it is and is not?'-- Bruce Hainley


















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Interviewed in 1983 by Andy Warhol & Maura Moynihan




MATT DILLON: I was at the Roxy all last night.

ANDY WARHOL: Who was there?

DILLON: Some really good band, but I forget the name. I was just basically checking out the breakdancers.

WARHOL: They haven't made a movie of breaking yet—

DILLON: Yeah, I know, it may just be too on the nose to make a movie about it.

WARHOL: But there are so many people doing it now. And graffiti artists, too.

DILLON: Yeah, it's all kind of coming together, rap graffiti. There's this rap tune about Jean-Michel (Basquiat) that the Clash wrote the music for, and Mick Jones produced it. It's really good, but it's hard to find here.

MAURA MOYNIHAN: Do you like the Clash?

DILLON: Yeah, I do.

MOYNIHAN: They disappointed me because I don't think the way they've politicized their music is particularly sincere.

DILLON: Yeah, it's hard to be true to it. In politics there are so many holes, so many contradictions, you don't know what's happening.

MOYNIHAN: Do you like reggae?

DILLON: Oh yeah, I was at the Reggae Lounge—

WARHOL: What's the Reggae Lounge?

DILLON: It's downtown.

WARHOL: Do you want to be a rock star?

DILLON: No, I just follow it with an objective eye.

WARHOL: Do you sing?

DILLON: Not really.

MOYNIHAN: I'll never stop listening to rock and roll. It was the first music I was ever exposed to.

DILLON: The first music I was ever exposed to was Irish folk music, like the Clancy Brothers. My father plays that and Christmas songs.

MOYNIHAN: Do you go to concerts often?

DILLON: No, not that much anymore.

WARHOL: But we saw you at the Police concert.

DILLON: Yeah, that was wild, but it was the Police.

MOYNIHAN: Do you play an instrument?

DILLON: No, not now, but eventually I want to get around to playing the sax.

MOYNIHAN: But the sax is difficult.

DILLON: I know it's hard.

MOYNIHAN: For a novice starting late in life I would recommend the guitar.

DILLON: I don't know why, but I like the saxophone.

MOYNIHAN: Would you be interested in portraying a rock star in a film?

DILLON: Oh yeah, that sounds really interesting. I really like that idea.

MOYNIHAN: Why is it that most rock movies don't work?

DILLON: You know what it is? You have to have good music. It's got to be new, it's got to be good and written for the scenes. And it's hard to do that.

MOYNIHAN: Do you always put oil on your hair?

DILLON: No, it's for the role actually.

MOYNIHAN: What are you doing?

DILLON: It's called Sweet Ginger Brown. It takes place in 1963.

MOYNIHAN: Would you like some orange juice or spring water?

DILLON: Spring water. You eat too much junk food on the set. I eat 12 donuts a day.

WARHOL: Well, in your contract you should say, "No more junk food."

DILLON: The film I worked on with Francis (Coppola), Rumble Fish, was incredible. With Francis you eat really well. The caterers were really good.

MOYNIHAN: Do you have a good relationship with Coppola? Is he a tough director?

DILLON: No, he's not tough, he's patient, but at the same time he likes to move. Coppola's a real good actor's director. He gives you a lot of room to experiment, and he gives you time. When we did Rumble Fish, we did 12-hour rehearsals every day two weeks before we shot.

WARHOL: What's Rumble Fish about?

DILLON: I'd rather not explain it because if I did I'd probably mess it up. It's like poetry on film. It's hard to describe.

MOYNIHAN: Can you describe your character?

DILLON: He's tough, a street guy. He has an older brother, played by Mickey Rourke, who is the legend in the neighborhood: really tough, but really intelligent and the leader of everything. My character looks up to his older brother; he's following in his footsteps, but he can't cut it. He's living in the past remember what his brother was, but his brother couldn't care less.

MOYNIHAN: Where was it filmed?

DILLON: In Tulsa, but it doesn't really take place there.

MOYNIHAN: Do you enjoy your own films?

DILLON: Sometimes I watch the whole film, but sometimes I just see pieces of it. I'll go to a screening and walk out and see the rest of it later.

MOYNIHAN: Do you get nervous?

DILLON: I get really nervous sometimes. I shake. Cause you work so hard on a film, and if it doesn't work out the way you were hoping it to or the way you expected to, it's a heavy shock.

MOYNIHAN: What kind of obstacles do you come up against when you're working on a role?

DILLON: When you're doing a film you have all these long pauses in between shots and takes, so you have to keep the energy going—stay in character, stay in the scene. It's not one continuous flow like in a play or something. You do a piece here, there, stop, take a long pause and do another piece. You gotta keep concentrated, and that's difficult.

WARHOL: How did this happen to you? When did you start making movies?

DILLON: It started when I was about 14. I was discovered, I guess.

WARHOL: Did you want to be in the movies?

DILLON: When I was 14 I didn't even think about it. I remember I was walking down the hall. I was supposed to be in class and I was cutting, and these two men approached me and asked me if I wanted to do an audition. I didn't know what to think. At first I thought it was a joke. I was trying to figure out where the rest of the part was. They said no, it's legitimate. So I said sure. I met the people from the film and went through several callbacks before I finally got the part. That film was called Over the Edge.

MOYNIHAN: When you were called back did it occur to you that you might want to be a serious actor? You weren't going to treat it like a fluke.

DILLON: Yes. When I first went in to read, I felt everything out, and I said to myself, I'm not going to let this pass me by. I was going to be cool about it, but I wasn't going to let it slip by. I saw the scene they were audition people for, and I said, "This is me." I went home and I told my mother. I didn't even say, "Mom, I tried out for this movie today." I said, "Mom, I'm going to be in this movie." I said it like that. And she kind of like just laughed. It was sort of a ridiculous statement, saying it out of the blue like that. I mean how the hell did I know they wanted me?

MOYNIHAN: Of all the films you've made, do you have a particular favorite?

DILLON: Basically, I've really got to admit that of all the ones I've made so far, at different times I didn't like 'em, at other times I've liked 'em, but I would say overall that now I like each one of them.

MOYNIHAN: Why are you so good at playing tough, angry characters?

DILLON: Those are the kinds of roles you can really sink your teeth into. Characters with an edge. When you're playing someone who's sort of seedy, there's less limitation, there's so much space you can travel. There's room to move in.

MOYNIHAN: Why is it harder to play the straight man?

DILLON: Because you can't find him.

MOYNIHAN: I think it's easier to create someone crazy.

DILLON: Yeah, because you're acting. First things first, there's the voice. You can't do anything with the voice. You can do anything with the clothing, with wardrobe. You can explore the whole character. When you're playing the straight guy it's hard to be loose, because you have your audience rooting for you the whole time. It's important for the film to think that way.

MOYNIHAN: Often I root for the bad guys.

DILLON: That's okay. I do, too. There are the good bad guys.

MOYNIHAN: And the evil ones.

DILLON: Yeah, the evil ones are fun.

MOYNIHAN: What kind of roles are you after now?

DILLON: Well, I still want to do character. It's harder though.

MOYNIHAN: Do you want to stay away from romantic leads?

DILLON: Not necessarily. I just don't want to do it in a conventional manner.

WARHOL: Did you go to acting school after your first movie?

DILLON: No, it was after the third movie, to the Lee Strasberg Institute.

MOYNIHAN: Do you socialize with other actors?

DILLON: Yeah, I do. I mean, I still like to keep in touch with my friends at home. That's a nice escape. But I do keep in touch with a lot of my actor friends. Vince Spano has been a friend for a very long time. And Mickey Rourke is a really good guy.

MOYNIHAN: Have you remained friends with the girls you've acted with, Meg Tilly and Diane Lane?

DILLON: Yeah, I mean I don't talk to them a lot. I haven't talked to Meg in a while. Meg's a great girl. She's got The Big Chill. She's doing really well.

WARHOL: Are you living at home?

DILLON: I'm not living at home now, but I had been up until now. My family's out in Westchester so it's nice. I can go out there and escape.

MOYNIHAN: Do you go to the movies often?

DILLON: I haven't as much lately. When you're filming it's hard. I just realized today when I got up and made a mad dash from some clothing that I haven't been doing, my laundry.

MOYNIHAN: Have you taken any time off?

DILLON: I took a long break right after Rumble Fish. I just took it easy. I went to Europe this summer: Germany, England and Paris.

MOYNIHAN: Did you visit all the museums?

DILLON: I visited some of them. I went to the Pompidou. I missed the Louvre actually.

MOYNIHAN: Where did you stay?

DILLON: Near the Pompidou, right down the street in this little, kind of crummy hotel. My room had a little balcony looking over the street. It was kind of exciting. It was fun.

MOYNIHAN: Where you alone?

DILLON: No, I was with someone . . . .

MOYNIHAN: Did people recognize you over there?

DILLON: No, not really. That was good. I felt like I was on some secret mission.

MOYNIHAN: Are you in love with anyone right now?

DILLON: Am I in love with anyone? Yes . . . yeah.

MOYNIHAN: Do you keep the relationship very private?

DILLON: Yeah, very private.

MOYNIHAN: Is it hard being separated when you're working on location?

DILLON: Yeah, that's the whole thing right now.

MOYNIHAN: Do you get lonely? Do you miss her?

DILLON: Yeah, and I think that she gets upset, because I can't give all my time. It's difficult to keep a relationship together.

WARHOL: Is she a model?

DILLON: No, not a model. A Buffalo girl.

MOYNIHAN: When you fall in love do you fall really hard?

DILLON: I fall really hard. I get myself in trouble. For some reason I do, but I have a hard time keeping it going.

MOYNIHAN: Sustaining your passion?

DILLON: Well, not my passion necessarily, not my interest, but commitment. It has nothing to do with getting bored with the person, it has something more to do with my priorities. My work has to be first.

MOYNIHAN: Have you ever had your heart broken?

DILLON: Sure, I've had my heart smashed, stepped on, crunched, everybody has. Vice-versa, too. I know that. I don't screw anybody over, but I know that happens. It's tough.

MOYNIHAN: Do you feel a responsibility to your fans?

DILLON: As far as responsibility goes, I feel responsible for turning in the best performance I can and entertaining them.

MOYNIHAN: I recently read that you are interested in writing.

DILLON: Yeah, I like to write. But it's hard, it's discipline, you know. I have a hard time sitting down and actually doing it.

MOYNIHAN: Are you very disciplined?

DILLON: In some areas. The hardest thing is self-discipline. You know what Suzie Hinton said? She said she wouldn't have written Tex if she hadn't had a deadline.

MOYNIHAN: Are you still very close to her?

DILLON: Yeah, she just had a baby, a boy, her first kid. I've got to give her a call.

MOYNIHAN: You've made three films based on her novels. Do you have plans for more?

DILLON: I know they're working on one now, but I'm not going to do it.

MOYNIHAN: That Was Then, This Is Now?

DILLON: Yes.

MOYNIHAN: Other projects?

DILLON: I have a lot of projects, I haven't set anything yet. There are a lot of ideas in the works I'm trying to put together.

MOYNIHAN: Are you very selective about your roles?

DILLON: Yeah, very, which is good, but you can't be overly selective. It is important to be selective, I think. Your heart really has to be in something.

MOYNIHAN: Do you have trouble finding scripts you like?

DILLON: The trouble is, right now, I think it's changing. For a while everyone was going in a set pattern, saying, "This will be commercial, this will be successful." I looked in Variety a few months ago and it looked like the top 10 movies were all sequels. I hope it's changing. You should always be taking chances.

WARHOL: Have you done any plays?

DILLON: No, I haven't. I'd like to, but I'm really looking for some more good films. That's where I'm at right now.

MOYNIHAN: Who are your favorite authors, aside from S.E. Hinton?

DILLON: Recently, I've been reading some Flannery O'Connor. She's really good. She writes about the South.

MOYNIHAN: You're really interested in astrology, aren't you?

DILLON: Well, yeah, I'm interested in it. You're a Leo, aren't you, Andy?

WARHOL: Oh, yeah.

DILLON: Leo, that's a really creative sign, really creative.

WARHOL: How did you get involved with all this?

DILLON: It's just interesting for figuring our relationships between people. I don't really follow it. It's fun to follow, but everybody's a little of everything. If you told me you were a Gemini, if you told me you were a Pisces, I would believe you, so what's the difference? I just think astrology is interesting, so why not?

MOYNIHAN: I can see from your birthdate that you must be Aquarius.

DILLON: Oh, yeah. Aquarians tend to become rebels.

MOYNIHAN: Most of your movies have been about teenagers and their particular frustrations. What do you think kids are concerned about these days?

DILLON: I think after Vietnam everyone was sort of mellow. It was like, yeah, we've done out fighting. Let's be peaceful, let's mellow out. People release frustration now through music, through dress and style. But there's a lot of frustration. That shows where the world is headed.

MOYNIHAN: Do you ever worry about getting drafted?

DILLON: No. But I guess it's scary. You can't control it. You keep going.

WARHOL: How do you keep your good looks?

DILLON: I don't do anything. What good looks?

WARHOL: Do you work out?

DILLON: I work out periodically, spasmodically. Sometimes I work out, sometimes I won't. I don't think about it too much.

MOYNIHAN: What do you do in your spare time?

DILLON: I like to keep loose. I like to read. When it rains it pours, either you have a lot of spare time or you don't. That's the best way of describing it.

MOYNIHAN: Did you do some traveling in Asia?

DILLON: Yeah, when I did the film My Bodyguard I went to Japan and Hong Kong. I liked Hong Kong a lot. Everywhere you turn there's something to see. Soon China's going to have the option of taking it back, but I think the reason China leases Hong Kong there is because it gets so many tourists, they make so much money. China has so much land as it is.

MOYNIHAN: What places do you want to visit?

DILLON: I'll go anywhere. I'll tell you a place I wouldn't want to go: Moscow. I might want to go and see it, but I wouldn't like to stay.

MOYNIHAN: I like being an American.

DILLON: Me, too. Hell yeah! But it's all relative. If you're a human being, you just try to find happiness wherever you are.

MOYNIHAN: How do you create the feeling of anger or despair when you act?

DILLON: It's more of a feeling than a thought. Working with your senses, sense memory, the stuff you get at Strasberg. But you do that intuitively.

MOYNIHAN: Some people can't.

DILLON: I can't imagine anyone not being able to do it.

MOYNIHAN: Do you think reviews are important?

DILLON: Not to me.

MOYNIHAN: Who are your favorite actors?

DILLON: There are a lot of good actors. I like specific performances. I think De Niro is a fantastic actor. Andy, you made that statement that I always hear: "In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes."

MOYNIHAN: Do you think it's true?

DILLON: It's not really true, but it is, you know?



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15 of Matt Dillon's 55 films

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Jonathan Kaplan Over the Edge (1979)
'In the spring of 1979, a small-budget movie with a somewhat corny-sounding name was released in just a handful of theaters in New York and Los Angeles, only to be pulled a few days later due to concerns that audiences would riot. Based (loosely) on a true story about suburban youth gone wild in the suburbs of San Francisco in the early 70s, Over the Edge would never receive wide distribution. In fact, over the next 25 years, the film would be shown in only a few art houses and on cable TV, until its eventual DVD release in September 2005. The film, as certain critics like to label it, is a “lost classic,” and yet—unlike the majority of lost or “cult” classics—Over the Edge is actually worth seeking out. Filled with scenes that are difficult to shake, with teen characters played by real-life teenagers (how often does that happen anymore?), and with an authenticity so intense that it appears at times as if the film could very well be a documentary, Over the Edge remains as thrilling today as it must have appeared three decades ago. While somewhat raw and certainly not without imperfections, it’s easy to understand why Kurt Cobain claimed that the movie “pretty much defined my whole personality,” and why it so heavily influenced Richard Linklater in making his own ode to restless youth, Dazed and Confused.'-- Vice





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Tony Bill My Bodyguard (1980)
'There is a terrifying moment in adolescence when suddenly some of the kids are twice as big as the rest of the kids. It is terrifying for everybody: For the kids who are suddenly tall and gangling, and for the kids who are still small and are getting beat up all the time. My Bodyguard places that moment in a Chicago high school and gives us a kid who tries to think his way out of it. My Bodyguard is a small treasure, a movie about believable characters in an unusual situation. It doesn't pretend to be absolutely realistic, and the dynamics of its big city high school are simplified for the purposes of the story. But this movie is fun to watch because it touches memories that are shared by most of us, and because its young characters are recognizable individuals, and not simplified cartoon figures like so many movie teen-agers.'-- Roger Ebert



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Francis Ford Coppola The Outsiders (1983)
'Francis Ford Coppola had not intended to make a film about teen angst until Jo Ellen Misakian, a school librarian from Lone Star Elementary School in Fresno, California, wrote to him on behalf of her seventh and eighth grade students about adapting The Outsiders. When Coppola read the book, he was moved not only to adapt and direct it, but to follow it the next year by adapting Hinton's novel Rumble Fish. The latter film's cast also included Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and Glenn Withrow. The film was shot on location in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Coppola filmed The Outsiders and Rumble Fish back-to-back in 1982. He wrote the screenplay for the latter while on days off from shooting the former. Many of the same locations were used in both films, as were many of the same cast and crew members. The credits are shown at the beginning of the film in the style normally found in a published play. Coppola's craving for realism almost led to disaster during the church-burning scene. He pressed for "more fire", and the small, controlled blaze accidentally triggered a much larger, uncontrolled, fire, which a downpour fortunately doused.'-- collaged



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Francis Ford Coppola Rumble Fish (1983)
'One of the Coppola’s most overtly stylized works, Rumble Fish uses its breathtaking black and white, Koyanisqaatsi-inspired time-lapse photography and propulsive original score by The Police’s Stewart Copland to evoke a dream world of alienated youth. A beautiful postmodern art film, Rumble Fish is wonderfully uncertain of its time and place, stranding glittering icons of Fifties Americana - pool halls, flickering neon signs - within an Eighties post-industrial wasteland. The stylistic bricolage shapes the performances too, with Matt Dillon channeling Method Acting as a young man infatuated with the enigma of his self-absorbed brother, played with whispering intensity by a Marcel Camus-meets-Marlon Brando modeled Mickey Rourke. The late Dennis Hopper makes a poignant appearance as the absent even when present father who proves that the center inevitably cannot hold.'-- Harvard Film Archive



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Garry Marshall The Flamingo Kid (1984)
'The Flamingo Kid is a coming of age story set in the Summer of 1963. Jeffery Willis is a recent high school graduate, very smart but from a working class background and unsure of where he is headed in life. His father, played by Hector Elizando when he still had some hair, wants him to go to college, preferably Columbia, and become an engineer. Like most teens, Jeffery resists doing the thing his father wants and explores some other options. His friends from the old neighborhood take him to their beach club one day and things begin to change right there. There is nothing groundbreaking about this story. It has certainly been told before and since, but it is an exceptionally well told tale with a couple of very nice performances from the lead actor and his character’s mentor and finally antagonist. The film was directed by Garry Marshall, and that may be a positive or a negative in your eyes. Mr. Marshall is a competent film maker with a lot of fine credits to his name. Pretty Woman and The Princess Diaries are successful films with big and loyal audiences and Marshall does have a distinct style that often reflects his practical roots in television. There are no fancy camera angles, the production design is spot on, and the actors are well cast and directed. Without much visual flourish, Marshall comes to depend on a good script and solid actors. Exit to Eden and Georgia Rule are good illustrations of the need for a script in his hands. Fortunately, this movie has a nice one credited to him, Neal Marshall (I suspect a relative but did not discover a clear link) and some script doctoring by Academy Award winner Bo Goldman.'-- 70srichard



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Arthur Penn Target (1985)
'Much of the fun found in Target comes from the chemistry between Gene Hackman and a young Matt Dillon (as Chris), but there are also a handful of chases and explosions to keep things moving along. Fans of 80's cinema will know exactly what I mean when I call Target a cross between Frantic and Gotcha! Directed rather well, albeit deliberately, by the great Arthur Penn (director of Bonnie & Clyde and The Miracle Worker, among others), Target is a standard "pace & chase" spy thriller, only it's got the added ammunition of Hackman and Dillon -- which is a lot more than most of these types of movies have. The European settings add a good deal of color to a narrative framework that, frankly, we could probably recite by heart at this point. Basically expect a few solid action bits, a handful of potentially hazardous allies, a few surprising twists, and the requisite explosions near the finalé.'-- DVD Talk



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Howard Brookner Bloodhounds Of Broadway (1989)
'Bloodhounds of Broadway is a 1989 film based on four Damon Runyon stories. It was directed by Howard Brookner and starred Matt Dillon, Jennifer Grey, Anita Morris, Julie Hagerty, Rutger Hauer, Madonna, Esai Morales and Randy Quaid. Madonna and Jennifer Grey perform a duet, "I Surrender Dear", during the film. Madonna earned a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actress for her performance in the film, where she lost to Brooke Shields for Speed Zone. Bloodhounds of Broadway was Brookner's first feature-length film (and his last, as he died shortly before the film opened). The film was recut by the studio and Walter Winchellesque narration added.'-- collaged



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Gus van Sant Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
'Drugstore Cowboy is a period piece, so we get an old Sylvania TV set and that groovy floral-patterned armchair in the foreground. But notice something else about this house: It’s clean. Granted, they’ve just moved in, but it’s still refreshing to see a movie about drug users—flat-out junkies, here—who don’t always inhabit a pigpen. The only item out of place is a bag of fries that’s spilled out onto a cabinet of some sort behind the groovy armchair, and it’s probably significant that Dillon moves into that armchair, giving us a good look at the mess just past his head, when Lynch starts talking about Panda. Symbolism! And yet he cleans it up right in the middle of his tirade, as if making an effort to contain the madness that’s about to spill out. Just as real-life drunks tend to over-enunciate because they’re afraid they may slur, real-life druggies are often more self-conscious than the clean and sober, which is precisely what fuels their tortured reasoning. Capturing that behavior may not be a laugh riot à la Pineapple Express or Half Baked, but what comedy is there, rooted in recognition, hits much closer to home.'-- The AV Club



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Cameron Crowe Singles (1992)
'Singles was the second movie written and directed by Cameron Crowe. It’s an amiable rom-com starring Campbell Scott and Kyra Sedgwick, and some say a great movie, but is most notable because it was filmed and set in Seattle, 1991, just as that city’s musical subculture was about to explode. In the book Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History Of Grunge, Crowe says that the March 1990 heroin-related death of Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood — and the community that came together after his death — served as something of an inspiration for the film. Said Crowe, “It made me want to do Singles as a love letter to the community that I was really moved by.” That community is represented to an insane degree in the movie. Crowe started production on Singles a year after Wood’s death, in March 1991 — months before the release of Nevermind or Ten (in fact, when he started work on Singles, Pearl Jam was still called Mookie Blaylock) — and one of the film’s narrative threads follows Matt Dillion as the leader of a fictional Seattle rock band called Citizen Dick. Rather than cast actors to play the rest of Citizen Dick, though, former rock journalist Crowe gave the parts to three members of Mookie Blaylock: Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard, and Jeff Ament; much of Dillon’s wardrobe in the film was borrowed from Ament. Singles is loaded with such ultra-specific references and cameos.'-- Stereogum



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Gus van Sant To Die For (1995)
'The film is filled with perfect character studies. Dillon, the former teen idol whose acting has always been underrated, here turns in a sly comic performance as a man dazzled by beauty but seduced by comfort. Illeana Douglas is Janice, Suzanne's ice-skating sister-in-law, who spots her as a phony and makes life uncomfortable by calling her on it. Dan Hedaya plays the father-in-law who rules his Italian family with an ebullient hand. And Buck Henry plays a high school teacher with a vast repertory of colorful verbal threats for his students. Finally, though, the movie is about Suzanne, and Nicole Kidman's work here is inspired. Her clothes, her makeup, her hair, her speech, her manner, even the way she carries herself (as if aware of the eyes of millions) are all brought to a perfect pitch: Her Suzanne is so utterly absorbed in being herself that there is an eerie conviction, even in the comedy. She plays Suzanne as the kind of woman who pities us - because we aren't her, and you know what? We never will be.'-- collaged



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Allison Anders Grace of My Heart (1996)
'Part biopic of a singer-songwriter who waits most of her career to be heard, and part paean to a golden decade of American pop music, Allison Anders’ Grace of My Heart is an ambitious comedy-drama that is energetic and entertaining, even if it loses steam in its disharmonious final act. Covering the late ’50s through to 1970, the film boasts a terrific song score written in the style of that era and amusing performances by a strong cast. Illeana Douglas would seem an admirably unconventional choice to play the gifted songwriter and later singer (reportedly modeled on Carole King) who leaves behind her wealthy Philadelphia family to pursue a music career in New York and endures a string of personal disappointments before finally finding her voice. The slightly off-kilter humor the actress brought to pics like To Die For and Grief adds much to her role here. But she is less than convincing as a big-voiced songstress not least of all due to some poorly lip-synched numbers and despite her warmly engaging performance, she seems underequipped to carry the film, especially in its more dramatic developments.'-- Variety



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John McNaughton Wild Things (1998)
'“The plot of the film delivers a number of satisfying twists and turns,” claims Columbia Pictures in a press handout for this crime story set in the Florida Everglades. “To ensure that audiences can fully enjoy these surprises, we ask that you please not disclose the events and ending.” So let me concentrate, rather, on disclosing the philosophy of the movie, which John McNaughton directed from a screenplay by Stephen Peters. What I'm supposed to find “satisfying” is predicated on the idea that almost everyone in the world is trash. Unfortunately, when one goes along with this premise, who does what and to whom doesn't matter a whole lot. Maybe the film will keep you amused—and maybe not. Despite the cast—Kevin Bacon, Matt Dillon, Neve Campbell, Denise Richards, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Theresa Russell, Robert Wagner, and Bill Murray—I found it preposterous.'-- Jonathan Rosenbaum



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Matt Dillon City of Ghosts (2002)
'City of Ghosts reminded me of The Quiet American, which likewise has visiting Westerners, beautiful women, sinister local figures, etc. It lacks a monkey, but had a more sharply-told story, one with a message. The Quiet American was based on Graham Greene's novel about America's illegal activities, circa the mid-'50s, in Vietnam. The screenplay for City of Ghosts, by Dillon and sometime David Lynch collaborator Barry Gifford, avoids a rich vein of true Cambodian stories and recycles the kind of generic financial crimes that Hollywood perfected in the 1940s. Still, sometimes the very texture of the film, and the information that surrounds the characters on the screen, make it worth seeing. I didn't believe in James Caan's cons, but I believed him, and at times like that it's helpful to stop keeping score and live in the moment. Between the Caan and Dillon characters there are atmosphere, desperation and romance, and, at the end, something approaching true pathos. Enough.'-- Roger Ebert



Trailer


Matt Dillon: City of Ghosts Q&A w/ Director, Cinematographer and 1st AD



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Paul Haggis Crash (2004)
'Crash, screenwriter Paul Haggis' multiple award-winning directorial début, is set in a Los Angeles that is part Quentin Tarantino, part Paul Thomas Anderson, part Spike Lee, and part Bret Easton Ellis. Haggis' L.A. is also a place that has precious little in common with the Southern California metropolis located on Planet Earth. Watching Crash, we learn that the Angeleno boiling – definitely not melting – pot is about to explode at any moment. According to Haggis and co-screenwriter Bobby Moresco, Los Angeles denizens spend all their spare time hating, fearing, misunderstanding, and cheating on one another. And perhaps much of that is true, except that most of that hate, fear, misunderstanding, and cheating have absolutely nothing to do with ethnic or national differences. But not in Haggis and Moresco's L.A., where everything revolves around skin color and nationality. Subtlety is a word that is unfortunately missing from Haggis' film dictionary. Million Dollar Baby, which he adapted for the screen, features mostly one-dimensional characters, while Crash is chiefly a parade of ethno-oriented verbal and physical assaults interspersed among different subplots tied together by contrived “coincidences.”'-- Alt Film Guide



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Bent Hamer Factotum (2005)
'I knew a fair amount about Bukowski. The persona that he has in the book sounds more grizzled like Ben Gazzara or Warren Oates. He sounds gravelly voiced, and then when you hear the real Bukowski, he’s kinda got this almost effeminate kind of sing-songy delivery which is interesting. I think in a lot of ways it was an affectation. He didn’t like to do readings and stuff. I didn’t want to get involved in doing an impersonation of Bukowski. They [the filmmakers] were like, "Well, we don’t want that either because it’s Henry Chinowski, Bukowski’s alter ego." That actually gave me a little latitude and I felt more comfortable. Then I spoke to Linda Bukowski and she said, "Of course you know it’s autobiographical." So then I’m right back where I started. So inevitably all roads do lead to Bukowski.'-- Matt Dillon



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p.s. Hey. Two things. (1) Like I mentioned yesterday, I'll be away from the blog and Paris in Geneva starting tomorrow for several days. While I'm gone, you'll get 'back from the dead' posts on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and then there'll be a great new guest-post on Saturday. I'll be back on Monday to do the p.s. and catch up with all the accumulated comments. (2) Please read the text I've posted in the blog's upper right hand corner and consider participating in theater-maker and longtime d.l. Chris Goode's new work based on this very blog. If you're game, please drop a note to the email address included in the text. Thank you very much! ** David Ehrenstein, Could well be. Oh, that's very sad news about Fornes. The worst. Congrats on the great traffic for your Sacks piece. Very much deserved! ** James, Hi. I don't think I know 'MOPUS' or Oisin Curran. I'l go find out what the deal is. I haven't read 'The Book of Strange New Things' by Michel Faber, and, if it's that lengthy, I probably won't, ha ha. Hope it has that particular awesomeness that huge books deliver when they're worth their weight. ** Steevee, Hi. You think it was re-closeting and not just something they decided not to go into in their allotted obituary time because his being gay has no obvious bearing on the great majority of the work by him that everyone knows? I hope that weird result on your test is no big deal. ** Damien Ark, RIP: jason23. Ha ha. Oh, man, awesomeness supreme on the link/gift. Thank you, thank you so much! ** Chris Goode, Hi, Chris! Yay about the amount you had to talk about. I mean, that's good, right? Sounds good-plus. Yes, as you see, I have posted your call-out in the blog's upper corner. I also posted it on Facebook, and it's currently getting swarmed with 'likes' and a growing number of 'I'll do it.' Monday the 7th is good for the Skype chat. And afternoon is totally good for me. We can just sort out the exact time between now and then, but, yes, it's a done deal. Thank you, like, ever so much, Chris! This is all super crazy and exciting. Talk soon, yay! ** Thomas Moronic, Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Mega. The gold at the end of the weird rainbow. Thank you, T! Stephen's music for 'Eternelle Idole' is great, of course. It's cool he's putting it out because, due to the difficulty of doing that piece live -- it needs to be performed in an ice skating rink -- not enough people have heard his crucial part. Glad my gif talk was okay and fruitful. Man, as you can imagine, I am excited with no clue whatsoever about what Chris's 'Weaklings' is going to be. Have big fun, and thank you a lot for getting involved in it from way over here on the sidelines. ** Krayton, Thanks, man, but I'm just being a person with excellent tastes as best I can. Best case writer scenario: Suffer only when writing, if then. This building does have a cellar, actually. There are no lights, and you have to put your iPhone on flashlight mode to go down there. It looks like a cross between a medieval prison and a squashed barn full of horse stalls. Very ... promising, ha ha. ** Styrofoamcastle, Cool, man. Really glad it had something in it. Big love, me. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. I feel like sometimes people mistake one obituary in one newspaper that'll fade back into the massive internet archives within a couple days with a tombstone that has been planted on the deceased person's actual grave or something. No, I think the Undertaker and I would get along like soup and sandwich. But thanks for the kind offer. ** H, Hi. Yep, he was a sweetie. I would say that he and I mutually befriended each other. Thank you about the trip. It should be nerve-wracking in the way premieres always are, but mostly a lot of fun. Have a good week! ** Alright. I've done a Day on the very endearing Matt Dillon for you, and I hope you'll find stuff of use therein. I will be back with the p.s. on Monday, and I hope you all have excellent weeks in the meantime. Don't hesitate to leave comments, especially over the weekend when you'll have a new guest-post to ponder, because I will respond to each every one of them as soon as I get back. The blog will see you tomorrow!

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p.s. Hey. Welcome to the first day of my short away time. Here's a long lost and kind of behind-the-times post regarding the first films by Todd Solondz that you will perhaps enjoy and wish to speak to, with, or about. Thank you!

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'In his complex series of paintings, drawings, sculptures, musical projects and videos, Jim Shaw fully inhabits the pop life, scouring it for mysteries, exposing its pathologies and taking it to the analyst's couch. As a member of the first TV generation, he showcases a kind of remote-control esthetic. His exhibitions seem to flip through the channels of American culture, continually exposing new formats, art styles, newsbites and plots in progress.

'Steeped in references to countless rock songs, movies and TV shows, Shaw's work reflects commercial entertainment's saturation of baby-boomer experience. Depictions of Marvel comics heroes, characters from "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and Norman Rockwell magazine covers drift into his works like snatches of nearly forgotten oldies overheard on an elevator. Juggling mass-market touchstones, he conjures the American pop unconscious, reinterpreting episodes and rewriting anthems that we thought we'd successfully repressed.'-- Michael Duncan



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The Donner Party
from New York Magazine

What do maimed appliances, mutilated Barbies, Mormons, cannibals, feminists, and Mr. Magoo have in common? Jim Shaw’s 2003 installation The Donner Party, on view at P.S.1 starting May 24, takes its name from the infamous group of flesh-eating pioneers, its form from Judy Chicago’s much-analyzed work The Dinner Party, and its philosophy from “O-ism”—Shaw’s made-up feminist-meets-Mormon religion of which we’d imagine Big Love’s Margene (wife No. 3) at the helm. Is this history rewritten? Perverse arts and crafts? Some sort of attack on Chicago? We asked Shaw to explain.

1. The Concept
“It’s not really a satire,” says Shaw. “The idea came from switching the i in The Dinner Party to o. O-ism is the feminist version of Mormonism. Its symbolic animals would be orangutans and octopi. I’m pretending that the Donner party would have converted to O-ism and headed west to find the promised land: Omaha. It starts with an O and it’s halfway west. Besides, Omaha has really good thrift stores,” the source of many of the work’s materials. “I’m also working on film elements like an O-ist exercise tape.”

2. The Wagons
“We designed them without a computer. We ordered a bunch of wheels from an Amish wheelwright over the Internet—of course, they have to have a non-Amish person to do the Internet selling. The circling, which forms the table itself, is something you’d do when you’re surrounded by Native Americans. It’s meant to be a stereotype of the Old West, but also forms a perfect self-enclosed unit.”

3. The Place Settings
To create them, the artist enlisted nineteen students and colleagues. Each chose a name connected to O-ism (Yoko Ono, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Mormonism founder Joseph Smith) and a few of Shaw’s thrift-store finds and household appliances. “[The result] was sort of childlike, and not as varied as I had hoped,” he says. “It’s supposed to be about a situation that got out of control, like the Donner party, and that’s an aspect that got out of my control.” As for the collective effort, “The Dinner Party was criticized for Chicago’s alleged exploitation of her collaborators. Up until this project, I had a hard time collaborating, so it was in part about that, but also the notion of artistic cannibalism.”

4. The Vacuum Cleaner
At the center of the circle is a vacuum, which Shaw says “sucks into itself. I was thinking about the way in which art inevitably stamps what comes after it. It’s on the ruins of a campfire, surrounded by wrapped pieces of meat representing the different artists who are being cannibalized, like Jackson Pollock and Judy Chicago. [Members of] the Donner party didn’t want to eat their own relatives, so they wrapped the meat up and labeled it.”

5. The Canvas Backdrop
“It’s set against the landscape of the Sierra Nevada. It gives the work a presentation similar to the Mormon visitor center in Salt Lake City. The figures are supposed to be confusing: feminist artist Lynda Benglis; actress Tina Louise as the anti-O, the whore of Babylon; Mr. Magoo as Bacchus; Loki; L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. They were painted by many different people who had many different styles, so there was supposed to be an element of chaos. It wasn’t as chaotic as I wanted it to be.”



You are there: ''The Donner Party' at PS1















Jim Shaw @ Metro Pictures
Jim Shaw @ Patrick Painter
Jim Shaw @ Bernier/Eliades
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Destroy All Monsters

'Formed in 1973, the first edition of Destroy All Monsters was formed by University of Michigan art students Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, Niagara and filmmaker Cary Loren. They performed in the Ann Arbor area from 1973-1976, and their only release was a one hour cassette of their recordings available only through Lightworks magazine. Their early music was Influenced by Sun Ra, Velvet Underground, ESP records, monster movies, beat culture and futurism' their sound was experimental, psychedelic, darkly humorous and droning.

'On New Years eve of 1973, the first Destroy All Monsters concert was held at a comic book convention in Ann Arbor, Michigan. At the time the instruments were a violin, a sax, a vacuum cleaner and a coffee can. They performed a demented version of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" and were asked to leave after ten minutes. The group performed "Guerilla Style" setting up for free at parties, playing for food along Ann Arbor's frat row. They used modified instruments, a drum box, tape loops, hot-wired toys, cheap keyboards and broken electronic devices. The only formal gig they had (beside the comic convention) was at the Halloween Ball at the University of Michigan art school in 1976.' -- Wikipedia



Destroy All Monsters 'Grow Live Monsters 1972 - 1976'


Take Me With You - Destroy All Monsters


Destroy All Monsters: That's My Ideal


Destroy All Monsters - Shake a Lizard Tail or Rust Belt Rump


a manifesto of ignorance; destroy all monsters
by cary loren (May 1996)

destroy all monsters began as an anti-rock band. our menagerie of words, images and sounds were an attempt to thumb our noses at the pretentious circus of rock-star bullshit and musical emptiness that filled the air-waves during the early to mid-1970"s. the images that moved us then were a strange combination of film-noir, monster movies, psychedelia, thrift-shop values and the relentless drone of a crazed popular culture. our influences were a combination of audiovisual stimuli such as man ray, the velvet underground and NICO, the hairy who, silver apples, captain beefheart, stanley mouse, SUN RA, comix, stooges, beardsley, and the mc5. we were mid-west art student loners flying through time in a blur of art and noise. it"s predictable that it would take twenty years to gain some perspective. our music sometimes contained a narrative or storytelling direction that was never well explored. a sense of gloom, disaster and apocalypse mixed with doses of anarchy, comedy and absurdity kept us together and were some of the major themes which colored our small scene. our alienation and heightened anxiety was a PSYCHOTRONIC view of life we each shared to various degrees. i felt we were creating sounds we wanted to exist but weren"t to be found in the slick desolate landscape around us. with virtually no audience and little support, we continued expressing our end-of-times messages and outsider beliefs; a sort of paranoiac-critical garage band. emerging from the detroit rust-belt stained our activities with an industrial psychedelic patina.

jim"s noise guitar added invaluable textures and a super-sonic resonance weaving throughout our jams. mike"s experimental sound-net meshed well with his sense of the comedic. my girlfriend at that time, niagara, also had a gift for grande black-comedy , her voice a blend of betty-boop and off-key nico. her scratchy violin playing was equally anti-musical but lent a strong visual statement. indeed her costuming, and ghostly-complexion helped lend the group a nightshade quality. we understood our limitations but as an underground band of mad-scientists we expected our delusions to expand and contaminate society. there was also the fact we were each strongly developed visual artists, sensitized to the decadent, theatrical, and off-beat. our constant flow of music, films, drawings, paintings, photographs, collages and magazines were a romantic imitation of an art movement in progress. the history of the band seems episodic, dreamy, and self-obsessed. i"ve often wondered at the possibilities if we had only been given more time and opportunity. although reflections of the past are a sad excuse for our DUST, the time now seemed right for some tolerance. (cont.)

THE END IS HERE FOR ETERNITY (MOTHERFUCKER): A Destroy All Monsters History, Discography, and More
Destroy All Monsters Scrapbook
Destroy All Monsters @ myspace
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The Thrift Store Paintings

'Jim Shaw, 45, has been collecting thrift store paintings since the 1970s. In 1990, the well known Los Angeles artist Ed Ruscha published a book, Thrift Store Paintings (Heavy Industry Publications), containing many pieces from Shaw's impressive collection, which he guesses now numbers at 300. In 1991, a year after the book was published, Shaw curated a thrift store paintings show at Metro Pictures in New York. The work received a lot of press; since Shaw is an artist, the art world perceived it as "a conceptual thing."

'"Someone asked me if I would sell my collection for a million dollars," says Shaw. "Back then I said 'no way.'" Once someone did actually offer him $100,000 for it. He refused. Now he wishes he didn't. His more than 300 paintings are "spilling" out of his basement. And he's not living the glamorous life out there in Highland Park, CA, either. Aside from being an artist, he says, "I teach occasionally."

'In addition to attention from art dealers, Shaw was contacted by artists who had seen newspaper articles about the book and recognized their own work. "An artist whose painting was included in the book called me and said: 'I don't know whether to sue you or ask for a copy of the book,'" says Shaw. (The artist settled for a copy of the book.)'-- Jennifer Darr, City Paper

Thriftstoreart.com


Examples:











The Book:

Thrift Store Paintings, edited by Jim Shaw (Heavy Industry Publications, P.O. Box 85428, Hollywood, CA 90072; $24.95, paper).'As nothing is more bizarre than the ordinary artifact closely observed, this full-color catalogue of 201 paintings by amateurs and hobbyists shoots to the top of the charts of estimably odd coffee-table art books. Conceived and designed by artist Jim Shaw and published by artist Ed Ruscha and Danna Ruscha, the riveting volume is all pictures, no text-save for the purely descriptive titles given to the paintings. "Indian Maidens Frolic in Bikinis,""Man and Woman Emerge From Egg in Seascape" and the ever-popular "Wolves Attacking Steer Carcass on Snowy Night" are among the subjects these vernacular artists felt they simply had to paint. These pictures were then snapped up by Shaw and other collectors at the salon des refuses of suburban American culture-the neighborhood thrift store. And you thought modern art was strange.'-- Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times
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Jim Shaw's Real Life Top Ten (excerpt)
from Artforum

1. Miss Velma’s Bicentennial extravaganza, CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA, is the most amazing piece of video I’ve ever seen. Existing at the low-budget end of Aimee Semple McPherson’s LA-based Christian spectacle tradition, she’s been putting on glitter-encrusted performances for decades. In this, her masterwork, all manner of poetry, song, and theatrics is enacted on tinsel-draped sets. In the crowning segment, Miss Velma does a Native American dance in a red, white, and blue headdress, shoots out balloons at forty paces with a pistol, and plays a carol on a penorgan. A one-woman variety show for Jesus.

2. It’s hard to imagine a more godforsaken place than Slab City, California, at the southern end of the festering Salton Sea. Yet this is home to SALVATION MOUNTAIN and its creator, Leonard Knight, who lives in his ancient hand-decorated truck and works in an igloo built of adobe, the same material used in his monument. Coated with innumerable layers of housepaint to keep it gleaming under the boiling desert sun, the awe-inspiring work bears a resemblance to early Oldenburgs in the details, which are all you see as you clamber across its surface, surrounded by Bible quotes and the Sinner’s Prayer. All of the local government’s attempts to raze it only focused more attention on Knight’s message, his only goal. It seems fitting that, after he’s gone, the mountain, like flesh, will gradually return to the dust from which it was created.3 On the LP TELL ME A STORY, AUNT B, you’ll find the most chilling children’s tales ever recorded for unsuspecting Protestants. “The Golden Age” tells of a rebellious boy wishing for adult freedoms forced to view a future of wage slavery, his mother’s demise, and his eventual feebleness and death. “Sorry Is as Sorry Does” tells of a naughty boy named Sorry who ignores his mother’s cautions about making prank phone calls, shoots his playmate with his dad’s revolver, and prays for redemption with his doubtful mom, played by the aging and malevolent Aunt B.

4. It’s difficult to choose the best JACK CHICK comic. Early tracts, like “One Way,” are endearingly perverse and have a purity lost when artist Fred Carter gave the later comics their slick veneer. However, Carter did pump up the latent sadomasochistic, Tom of Finland-esque aspects. The “Alberto” series features a hunky, biracial duo of Christian Crusaders as they listen to the paranoid ravings of an escaped Jesuit who testifies to the horrors of the Catholic church. Alberto’s delineation of a Baal-worship-based papal conspiracy to send all Bible believers to Hell, steal the Holy Land from the Jews, murder Lincoln, start the Communist and Nazi parties, send phony Christians to steal his sister, and poison his dental work puts this one over the top. It’s also pushed Chick further out of the fundamentalist mainstream, his antiCatholic vehemence making him a pariah, and only reinforcing his paranoia.5 The high point of REV. ETHAN ACRES’s debut show at Patty Faure Gallery wasn’t the rotating multihorned “Lamb of God” or his beautiful “Highway Chapel,” but a moment that occurred after his Sunday morning sermon. While Acres performed blessings of expectedly ironic things (master tapes, a poodle, Christian kitsch), another, clearly sincere, Christian artist came up, tears streaming down his cheeks, overjoyed to find a kindred soul. Here was an intersection one doesn’t expect in postmodern art, a collision of faith and artifice.

6. When AWAKE! updated its look, I was upset the magazine had yielded to the relentless forces of progress, until I realized it was still ten years behind the times and continued to distill its images to render perfect archetypes: drug addict, worried teen, Beast of the Apocalypse. The system of distribution (in whatever laundromat or bus station you’re stuck in) is genius.




7. The pivotal character in Larry Clark’s film ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE is a gunpeddling preacher played by James Otis who takes the wounded protagonist and his adopted family of drug-dealing thieves into his guarded compound. Embodying a frightening set of opposites and taking on some of his young charge’s sexual uncertainty and severity allow him an authority that eludes laughter.

8. I once found a pile of hand-tinted silkscreened images from the Book of Revelations pictorialized in what seemed to be an easy-to-understand way - if you had the long-gone interpretations of the preacher who used them to explain the mysterious final Gospel. Later I learned that V.T. HOUTEFF, their creator, was the founder of the “Shepherd’s Rod,” which evolved into the church we now call the Branch Davidians.

9. The most anomalous Christian instructional artworks I’ve found are the Bethel series. Painted around 1960 by WALTER OHLSON in a Surrealist/advertising style, these allegorical works use some suspiciously New Agey icons, like rainbows, to convey their meanings, elaborated in discussion guides whose exactitude lessens, unfortunately, the mystery of the images.

10. CHESTER BROWN, today’s greatest comic artist, has been rendering the Gospels in the back of his Yummy Fur and Underwater. They came as a perplexing contrast to the wild scatological content of Ed, the Happy Clown, the main serialized story. As he began to chart stories from his personal experiences, the Gospels became stranger, the characters reflecting the contradictory nature of Jesus - okay, maybe I can’t explain the appeal of these works, maybe as a nonbeliever in a Puritan-based culture there’s some combination of vicarious piety and guilty Christian recidivism involved in my fascination with them.
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p.s. Hey. I'm still in Geneva. In fact, tonight, in Geneva, the world premiere of the English language version of Gisele Vienne's and my new theater work 'The Ventriloquists Convention' is happening, so, while you're hopefully enjoying this old post about the wonderful artist Jim Shaw, wish us luck please. Take care.

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p.s. Hey. It's my second to last day in Geneva. Here's an oldie post. I used to make posts like this one all time back in the day for better or worse. Happy Friday!

Brandon Christopher McCartney (born August 17, 1989), professionally known as Lil B and often known as The BasedGod, is an American rapper, record producer, author and motivational speaker from Berkeley, California. Lil B has recorded both solo and with The Pack. His solo work spans several genres, including hip hop, new age, and choral. His hip-hop work in particular is often described as "based", a term also used to describe a lifestyle of positivity and tolerance. He is noted for his extensive use of social media websites such as MySpace and Twitter to build an online following.

"Based" is a reclaimed word, as described by Lil B in Complex:

“Based means being yourself. Not being scared of what people think about you. Not being afraid to do what you wanna do. Being positive. When I was younger, based was a negative term that meant like dopehead, or basehead. People used to make fun of me. They was like, ‘You’re based.’ They’d use it as a negative. And what I did was turn that negative into a positive. I started embracing it like, ‘Yeah, I’m based.’ I made it mine. I embedded it in my head. Based is positive.” --Wikipedia






































































































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Rain In England  










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Pretty Boy Millionaires (collab album with Soulja Boy)











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Angels Exodus    










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Bitch Mob: Respect Da Bitch Vol. 1









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I Forgive You 



    









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The Silent President 










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BasedGod Velli











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Goldhouse










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I'm Gay (I'm Happy)









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#1 Bitch










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The BasedPrint 2










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Trapped In BasedWorld









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Free (Collab album with Chance the Rapper)



















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p.s. Hey. Okay, finally, a brand new, amazing, massive post for you guys that was made by the incredible-plus writer and maker of many great things, Chris Dankland, especially for here and for every one of you guys. It's great. It's epic. It's Lil B to the ultimate max. Please pay close attention, and please say something or other consequently in the comments arena to Chris to show him that you have imbibed his hard work and that you care. Thank you very much! And thank you very, very, very much, Chris! I'll see everyone on Monday, and I'll catch up with everything then.

'It’s become fashionable these days to say that the writer writes because he is not whole: he has a wound, he writes to heal it. But who cares if the writer is not whole? Of course the writer is not whole, or even particularly well. There’s something unwholesome and self-destructive about the entire writing process. Writers are like eremites or anchorites—natural-born eremites or anchorites—who seem puzzled as to why they went up the pole or into the cave in the first place. Why am I so isolate in this strange place? Why is my sweat being sold as elixir? And how have I become so enmeshed with words, mere words, phantoms?
    Writers when they’re writing live in a spooky, clamorous silence, a state somewhat like the advanced stages of prayer but without prayer’s calming benefits. A writer turns his back on the day and the night and its large and little beauties, and tries, like some half- witted demiurge, to fashion other days and nights with words. It’s absurd. Oh, it’s silly, dangerous work indeed.
    'A writer starts out, I think, wanting to be a transfiguring agent, and ends up usually just making contact, contact with other human beings. This, unsurprisingly, is not enough. Making contact with the self—healing the wound—is even less satisfactory.) Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories’ shadows—and they’re grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough.
    'E. M. Forster once told his friend Laurens van der Post that he could not finish a story that he had begun with great promise, even brilliance, because he did not like the way it would have to finish. Van der Post wrote, “The remark for me proved both how natural stories were to him and how acute was his sense of their significance, but at the same time revealed that his awareness was inadequate for the task the story imposed upon it.”
    I like van der Post’s conception of story—as a stern taskmaster that demands the ultimate in awareness, that indeed is awareness. The significant story possesses more awareness than the writer writing it. The significant story is always greater than the writer writing it. This is the absurdity, the disorienting truth, the question that is not even a question, this is the koan of writing.
    'Malcolm Muggeridge wrote in an essay on Jesus, “When a person loses the isolation, the separateness which awareness of the presence of God alone can give, he becomes irretrievably part of a collectivity with only mass communications to shape its hopes, formulate its values and arrange its thinking.”
    'Without the awareness of separateness, one can never be part of the whole, the nothingness that is God. This is the divine absurdity, the koan of faith.
    'Jean Rhys said that when she was a child she thought that God was a big book. I don’t know what she thought when she was no longer a child. She probably wished that she could think of a big book as being God.
    'A writer’s awareness must never be inadequate. Still, it will never be adequate to the greater awareness of the work itself, the work that the writer is trying to write. The writer must not really know what he is knowing, what he is learning to know when he writes, which is more than the knowing of it. A writer loves the dark, loves it, but is always fumbling around in the light. The writer is separate from his work but that’s all the writer is—what he writes. A writer must be smart but not too smart. He must be dumb enough to break himself to harness. He must be reckless and patient and daring and dull—for what is duller than writing, trying to write? And he must never care—caring spoils everything. It compromises the work. It shows the writer’s hand. The writer is permitted, even expected, to have compassion for his characters, but what are characters? Nothing but mystic symbols, magical emblems, ghosts of the writer’s imagination.
    'The writer doesn’t want to disclose or instruct or advocate, he wants to transmute and disturb. He cherishes the mystery, he cares for it like a fugitive in his cabin, his cave. He doesn’t want to talk it into giving itself up. He would never turn it in to the authorities, the mass mind. The writer is somewhat of a fugitive himself, actually. He wants to escape his time, the obligations of his time, and, by writing, transcend them. The writer does not like to follow orders, not even the orders of his own organizing intellect. The moment a writer knows how to achieve a certain effect, the method must be abandoned. Effects repeated become false, mannered. The writer’s style is his doppelgänger, an apparition that the writer must never trust to do his work for him.
    'Some years ago I began writing essays. They were strident, bitter pieces on topics I cared about deeply. I developed a certain style for them that was unlike the style of my stories—it was unelusive and rude and brashly one-sided. They were meant to annoy and trouble and polarize, and they made readers, at least the kind of readers who write letters to the editors of magazines, half nuts with rage and disdain. The letter-writers frequently mocked my name. Not only didn’t they like my way with words, my reasoning, my philosophy, they didn’t believe my name. My morbid attitude, my bitter tongue, my anger, denied me the right to such a name, my given name, my gift, signifier of rejoicing, happiness, and delight.
    'But a writer isn’t supposed to make friends with his writing, I don’t think.
    'The writer doesn’t trust his enemies, of course, who are wrong about his writing, but he doesn’t trust his friends, either, who he hopes are right. The writer trusts nothing he writes—it should be too reckless and alive for that, it should be beautiful and menacing and slightly out of his control. It should want to live itself somehow. The writer dies—he can die before he dies, it happens all the time, he dies as a writer—but the work wants to live.
    'Language accepts the writer as its host, it feeds off the writer, it makes him a husk. There is something uncanny about good writing—uncanny the singing that comes from certain husks. The writer is never nourished by his own work, it is never satisfying to him. The work is a stranger, it shuns him a little, for the writer is really something of a fool, so engaged in his disengagement, so self-conscious, so eager to serve something greater, which is the writing. Or which could be the writing if only the writer is good enough. The work stands a little apart from the writer, it doesn’t want to go down with him when he stumbles or fails or retreats.
    'The writer must do all this alone, in secret, in drudgery, in confusion, awkwardly, one word at a time.
    'The writer is an exhibitionist, and yet he is private. He wants you to admire his fasting, his art. He wants your attention, he doesn’t want you to know he exists. The reality of his life is meaningless, why should you, the reader, care? You don’t care. He drinks, he loves unwisely, he’s happy, he’s sick ... it doesn’t matter. You just want the work—the Other—this other thing. You don’t really care how he does it. Why he does it.
    'The good piece of writing startles the reader back into Life. The work—this Other, this other thing—this false life that is even less than the seeming of this lived life, is more than the lived life, too. It is so unreal, so precise, so unsurprising, so alarming, really. Good writing never soothes or comforts. It is no prescription, neither is it diversionary, although it can and should enchant while it explodes in the reader’s face. Whenever the writer writes, it’s always three o’clock in the morning, it’s always three or four or five o’clock in the morning in his head. Those horrid hours are the writer’s days and nights when he is writing. The writer doesn’t write for the reader. He doesn’t write for himself, either. He writes to serve ... something. Somethingness. The somethingness that is sheltered by the wings of nothingness—those exquisite, enveloping, protecting wings.
    'There is a little tale about man’s fate and this is the way it is put. A man is being pursued by a raging elephant and takes refuge in a tree at the edge of a fearsome abyss. Two mice, one black and one white, are gnawing at the roots of the tree, and at the bottom of the abyss is a dragon with parted jaws. The man looks above and sees a little honey trickling down the tree and he begins to lick it up and forgets his perilous situation. But the mice gnaw through the tree and the man falls down and the elephant seizes him and hurls him over to the dragon. Now, that elephant is the image of death, which pursues men, and the tree is this transitory existence, and the mice are the days and the nights, and the honey is the sweetness of the passing world, and the savor of the passing world diverts mankind. So the days and nights are accomplished and death seizes him and the dragon swallows him down into hell and this is the life of man.


'This little tale with its broad and beastly strokes seems to approximate man’s dilemma quite charmingly, with the added caveat that it also applies to the ladies (“she” being “he” throughout here, the writer’s woes not limited by gender; like Flannery O’Connor’s Misfit, the writer knows there’s no enjoyment to be had in this life). This is the story, then, pretty much the story, with considerable latitude to be had in describing those mice, those terrifying mice. But it is not for the writer to have any part in providing the honey—the passing world does that. The writer can’t do better than that. What the writer wants to do, to be, is to be the consciousness of the story, he doesn’t want to be part of the distraction; to distract is ignoble, to distract is to admit defeat, to serve a lesser god. The story is not a simple one. It is syncretistic and strange and unhappy, and it all must be told beautifully, even the horrible parts, particularly the horrible parts. The telling of the story can never end, not because the writer doesn’t like the way it must end but because there is no end to the awareness of the story which the writer has only the dimmest, most fragmentary awareness of.
    'Why do I write? Writing has never given me any pleasure. I am not being disingenuous here. It’s not a matter of being on excellent terms with my characters, having a swell time with them, finding their surprising remarks prescient or amusing. That would seem to be a shallow pleasure indeed. Rewriting, the attention to detail, the depth of involvement required, the achievement and acknowledgment of the prowess and stamina and luck involved—all these should give their pleasures, I suppose, but they are sophisticated pleasures that elude me. Writing has never been “fun” for me. I am too wary about writing to enjoy it. It has never fulfilled me (nor have I fulfilled it). Writing has never done anyone or anything any good at all, as far as I can tell. In the months before my mother died, and she was so sick and at home, a home that meant everything and nothing to her now, she said that she would lie awake through the nights and plan the things she would do during the day when it came—she would walk the dog and get birdseed and buy some more pansies, and she would make herself a nice little breakfast, something that would taste good, a poached egg and some toast—and then the day would come and she could do none of these things, she could not even get out the broom and sweep a little. She was in such depression and such pain and she would cry, If I only could do a little sweeping, just that. ... To sweep with a good broom, a lovely thing, such a simple, satisfying thing, and she yearned to do it and could not. And her daughter, the writer, who would be the good broom quick in her hands if only she were able, could not help her in any way.     Nothing the daughter, the writer, had ever written or could ever write could help my mother who had named me.
    'Why does the writer write? The writer writes to serve—hopelessly he writes in the hope that he might serve—not himself and not others, but that great cold elemental grace which knows us.
A writer I very much admire is Don DeLillo. At an awards ceremony for him at the Folger Library several years ago, I said that he was like a great shark moving hidden in our midst, beneath the din and wreck of the moment, at apocalyptic ease in the very elements of our psyche and times that are most troublesome to us, that we most fear.
    'Why do I write? Because I wanna be a great shark too. Another shark. A different shark, in a different part of the ocean. The ocean is vast.'-- Joy Williams



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Further

'Joy Williams, The Art of Fiction No. 223'
Joy Williams @ Wikipedia
Joy Williams @ goodreads
'Karen Russell on how Joy Williams writes the unspeakable'
'Our Heroes Simply Write: Joy Williams, Unedited'
Podcast: Joy Williams on Bookworm
'REMEMBERING ROBERT STONE: JOY WILLIAMS'
Joy Williams page @ Facebook
'The Mission', by Joy Williams
'Some thoughts on Joy Williams
'Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp', by Joy Williams
'Joy Williams is an unsettling genius'
'Ode to Joy Williams'
Buy 'The Visiting Privilege'



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Extras


Joy Williams reading "George & Susan"


Joy Williams reading her essay 'Why I Write'


Joy Williams'"Baba Iaga and the Pelican Child" - An Electric Literature Single Sentence Animation



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Joy Williams interviewed by Tao Lin
from Bookslut




Tao Lin: In your story, "Yard Boy," from your first story-collection, Taking Care, and in many stories since, you talk about being enlightened, about seeing things without preconception, which means allowing the possibility that inanimate objects have feelings and thoughts, that everything is relative and arbitrary, and other concepts involving “enlightenment” such as that the physical world is an illusion and that nothing can be “known.” In those worldviews “morals” seem irrelevant, or aren’t addressed, since they require assumptions and those worldviews tend to not want to assume anything. In your nonfiction, though, you seem to have morals, and seem to be “against” certain things like hunting, cruelty against animals, destroying the environment, etc. How do you reconcile that in your life? When you are making choices in your life, like choosing whether or not to pay more money for food or transportation that won’t destroy the earth, what do you think about? Do you more live your life like a work of art (fiction), or like a work of rhetoric (nonfiction) or some other way?

Joy Williams: You can get away with a lot more writing nonfiction (I’m not talking lies as has been the trend but attitude) than you can writing fiction. In a work of rhetoric you can take a stand, make a case, inform and inspire, scream and demean. You can’t be angry in fiction -- it’s all about control. You create worlds in order to accept them. You create worlds open to interpretation. Facts have limitations. At the Univ. of Wyoming where I’m in residence for a year, there is this wonderful little geological museum wherein there is THE FLUORESCENT MINERAL ROOM. There are maybe thirty rocks in there sitting quietly on shelves, modest rocks, nice rocks, but nothing lovely or extraordinary about them. But when you flip a switch -- Press Switch Here -- the room goes dark and the rocks blossom into the most intense and varied colors. They are really expressing… something. Now the explanation for this is helpfully posted on the wall: Certain stimuli, such as ultraviolet light, disturbs the atomic structure of certain minerals. The energy released as the structure returns to normal results in the emission of visible light.

And there you don’t have it. Far better to have a fictional Yard Boy, prone to love and awe, come to his own understandings which he certainly would have had if he had been fortunate enough to find himself in the Fluorescent Mineral Room at the University of Wyoming.

TL: When I read your stories I feel that everything becomes more accurately balanced out and then I feel calmer, I feel “better.” There is an attempt, I feel, in your writing, to not give anything more “importance” or “weight” than anything else, and to not “rule out” anything. It is like how a child sees things -- without preconception. Or more accurately, maybe, how a robot or tree would see things -- without even the preconception of consciousness. Do you write or read to feel calmer, to feel less scared of death and other mysteries, to feel less “bad”?

JW: No.

TL: You write about nonexistence a lot, about being either not-yet-born or “dead,” and have been focused on this pretty steadily, in your writing, for more than 30 years -- speculating on what it actually is (to not exist), making jokes about it, and “trying out” ways to feel and think about it. Has this affected your life in concrete reality, do you think, as opposed to someone who thinks less, and less creatively and originally, about not existing?

JW: Annie Dillard quotes someone who ventured that “the worst part of being dead must be the first night.” The themes you mention are in the new novel I’m working on as well. Back to the non-expressible. I so wish I were smarter! All art deals with the peculiarity, the strangeness of our situation. We do all this stuff -- we think, we marvel, we despair, we care -- and then we die. That makes no sense. Surely we should be spending our time differently since that is the case, but how? With the injustice, the political stupidity, the destruction of the natural world, it is tempting to believe (in our non-believing) that things are not what they seem, that there is a link between the dead and the unborn that can replenish the void we know awaits each of us and all we love.

TL: What things have made you feel excited in your life?

JW: Excited? Why do you ask?

TL: You said about The Changeling, “That book was just destroyed. It was an awful experience. […] I felt at the time that some of the reviewers wanted me to die. They just wanted me to stop writing. They were saying, ‘We have other writers out there who we have to deal with and all the writers yet unborn, so please go away.’” Your recent novel, The Quick and The Dead, however, received a lot of praise from almost every reviewer and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Why do you think “critics” reacted differently to the two different novels?

JW: The late '70s were a tough time for women novelists. We were supposed to be feminist, engaged, angry. It was really, weirdly, a very conformist time. (Of course, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon came out around then and she avoided those problems profoundly and beautifully.) The Changeling is about a guilty young drunk named Pearl on an island with feral children. The prose is lushly stark and imaginative, the method magical, even demented. Feminism did not need a guilty drunk! The Quick and the Dead had larger, more charming and annoying characters and a bigger theme. It’s a better book. It was published in 2000, a millennium baby. Maybe people were more willing to contemplate the straits between the living and the dead. Still, the critics didn’t like it that much.

TL: Throughout the '70s and '80s there was a term, “K-Mart Realism,” or “Minimalism,” that journalists used for a group of writers you were sometimes mentioned with -- Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie, Bobbie Ann Mason, Frederick Barthelme, etc. Did -- and are -- you interested or excited by work from that “group” of writers?

JW: Of the ones you mention, it’s Carver who’s the stand-out, and he very much disliked the term minimalism as it was applied to his own work. The editor Gordon Lish was the maestro of minimalism and under his uncanny pencil, many an ordinary story became a very good one. Minimalism as a productive style can be very affective, alarming and satisfying, but I don’t think there ever was a pure strain of it. For a time, it was just a kettle into which many a strange fish were flung. Now with America’s miniaturization of not irrelevance in the world, it might return to the short story in grim and freshened renewal. Certainly the days of the giddy blowhard are over. I hope.

TL: I feel like your writing has become more concrete and less abstract over time. There are more scenes and more of a narrative, I feel, especially in your last two books, The Quick and the Dead& Honored Guest, than in your first books, specifically State of Grace& The Changeling. I like your writing more with each new book. It seems funnier and calmer now to me, I can picture things easier, the sentences feel to me more interesting like you spent more time selecting each sentence that is allowed in each story. I feel like most writers become more abstract over time, you seem like the exception to me. Do you ever think about this? Why do you think you became more concrete over time, or do you not think (or have not thought about) that?

JW: A writer is always seeing pitfalls inherent in a skill he thinks he’s already mastered. You write, you change, everything changes. The pressures on language fail to evoke the desired effect. The “gift” you feel you may have undeservedly received can’t be used for everything. The dependable friend has become untrustworthy. Your ear goes, or confidence that the delivering word will appear, erodes. You get sick of fulfilling your characters, your ease with Time evaporates. Endings, beginnings, impossible. Strategies change. It never gets easier, that’s for certain. Abstraction in fiction is supposed to be bad, but it can be just the struck match that illuminates. Much of a writer’s work is to unexpress the expressible as well as the opposite. And the “concrete” is essential to both.

TL: At the end of one of your essays on writing you said, “None of this is what I long to say. I long to say other things. I write stories in my attempt to say them.” Is there mostly just one thing that you long to say, so that you try, in each story, to “say it all,” to express that one thing, or are there different things that you long to say, each requiring a different story?

JW: The conundrum of literature is that it is not supposed to say anything. Often a reader can enjoy a story or novel simply because he can admire the writer’s skill in getting out of it.

In Corinthians there is this passage: Behold, I show you a great mystery: we shall not all sleep but we will all be changed… in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye… This is one of those terrifying Biblical passages, though not as terrifying as many others, that addresses the unspeakable heart of our human situation and commands us to be aware. The best stories, I think, always contain this annunciation of awareness, no matter how cloaked. Emerson said, “No one suspects the days to be gods.” Stories can’t be gods of course. Maybe little godlets.

TL: Do you have an “ideal” that you strive for (some already existing story, novel, movie, or song that you think of) when you write a short story? A novel?

JW: No. The first note must be sounded and why have it be another’s? To name an ideal and then seek to riff it anew is an exercise for writers’ workshops.

TL: What story or novel writers, if any, do you feel are (or were) trying to “get at” the same things you are?

JW: I can tell you who I admire greatly -- writers who always move and trouble me -- Sebald, Coetzee, Delillo. They are rigorous, merciless novelists of great beauty and integrity.

TL: Do you like to be around people and go to parties and drink alcohol?

JW: Not really. I’m shy.



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Book

Joy Williams The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories
Knopf

'The legendary writer’s first collection in more than ten years—and, finally, the definitive one. A literary event of the highest order.

'Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing as a given from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: thirty-three stories drawn from three much-lauded collections, and another thirteen appearing here for the first time in book form. Forty-six stories in all, far and away the most comprehensive volume in her long career, showcasing her crisp, elegant prose, her dark wit, and her uncanny ability to illuminate our world through characters and situations that feel at once peculiar and foreign and disturbingly familiar. Virtually all American writers have their favorite Joy Williams stories, as do many readers of all ages, and each one of them is available here.'-- Knopf

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Excerpt

The Bridgetender

I am trying to think. Sometimes I catch myself saying just those words and just in my head. It seems I got to start everything in my head with something in my head saying I am trying to think. I remember how it begins but can't remember how it ends. Even though it's over now. It don't seem right that it could be over and me back where I've always been not even knowing what it was she gave me or what I should do with it.

Because the bridge is still here and the water and the shack. And though I haven't been to town since she disappeared, I imagine the town's still there too. Her fancy car is still here sitting on the beach, though it seems to be fading, sort of like a crummy photograph. It's a black car but the birds have crapped all over it and it's white now like the sand. Sometimes it hurts my eyes. The chrome catches the sun. But as I say, sometimes I can't hardly make it out at all. It ain't really a car anymore. It wouldn't take nobody anywhere.

What it is I think is that before she came I knew something was going to happen and now that she's been, I know it ain't. She didn't leave a single thing behind. Not a pair of panties or a stick of gum or nothing. Once she brought over a little round tin of chicken-liver patay. Now I know I've never eaten chicken-liver patay so it must be around here somewhere, but I can't find it. My head's fuller'n a tick on a dog. Full of blood or something. And my prick lies so tame in my blue jeans, I can't hardly believe it's even gone through what it's been through.

She was like smoke the way she went away. She was like that even when she stayed. She'd cover me up, wrapping herself around me tight, tasting sweet and as cool as an ice cream cone, smelling so good and working at loving me. Then she would just dissolve and I'd fill right up with her like a water glass. I can't recall it ending, as I say, but I know it's stopped. Black rain at four in the afternoon like it used to be. Black trees and empty sky. And the Gulf running a dirty green foam where it turns into the pass.

But I can think about it beginning. So. That first morning I come back to the shack to get a bottle of beer and there's a big brown dog sitting there drinking out of the toilet bowl. He'd drained it. And looked at me as though it was me and not him that had no right being there. Drained it and sat and stared at me, his jaws rolling and dripping at me. Now, I like dogs all right but I could see this one was a bum. In the Panhandle, I had two catch dogs that was something to watch. Them dogs just loved to catch. They was no nonsense dogs. But this canlicker was a bum. Somebody's pet. A poodle or something. The big kind. Before I got around to giving him a good kick, he pushed the screen door open with his paw and left.

I was so mad. It ruined my beer because I drank it all in one swallow and it was just too hot for that. I got a headache right away. And an ache around my ribs. So I got another beer and drank it real slow, thinking of how I could really cream that dog. I figured I wouldn't hunt him out. I got better things to do than that, I hope. But I'd coax him along and then push him off the bridge and that would be one sorry dog when he finally dimed out. And I was thinking and figuring how to get that brown dog, not even thinking then how queer it was that there should be any dog at all, because I hadn't seen a thing for six months around the bridge or on the beach except wild. And I hadn't seen another person in that time either and then as soon as I remember this, I see the girl walking along the beach with the dog.

She's in a bright bikini and long raggedywet hair and I remember how long it had been since I'd seen a girl in a bikini or any girl at all because my wife had left me a long while ago, even then having stopped being a girl in any way you could think of, and went back to living in Lowell, Massachusetts, the place she come from and left just to plague me. Somewhere, in that town, setting on a lawn outside a factory, is or was a chair fit for a giant's ass. Forty or fifty times bigger and crazier than a proper chair. And she come from that town. And she sold off my dogs to get back to it on a one-way ticket on a bubble-topped Trailways.

I never knew her real well. She wore more clothes, jesus, you'd think she was an Eskimo. Layers and layers of them. I never knew if I got to her or not and she'd be the last to tell me. She never talked about nothing except New England. Everything was better there, she'd say. Corn, roads, and movie houses. The horses ain't as mean, she'd say. The bread rises better up North. Even the sun, she'd say, is nicer because it sets in a different direction. It don't fall past the house this way at home, she'd say. I was a young man then and I never cheated. I was a young man and my balls were big as oranges. And I threw it all away, god knows where. She caught my stuff in her underwear and washed it away in the creek.

When I think about what a honey bear I was and how polite and wonderfully whanged and how it was all wasted on a loveless woman... She had a tongue wide and slick as a fried egg. And never used it once. I guess that's what I was waiting on but I might just as much have hoped for oil in the collards patch. She said she was a respectable woman and claimed to have worked in an office in Boston. But she didn't have no respect for the man and woman relationship and she didn't have no brain. She couldn't bring things together in her head. I'd bring her head together all right if I ever see her again. I'd fold it up for her so she'd be able to carry it in her handbag. Selling the best catch dogs in the State of Florida for a bus ticket.

So. I see the girl in the bright bikini and all I can think of is the old lady. It'd been so long and all I could think of was that witch I once had or maybe never had. I spent all this time here over the water not imagining anything. I just see that when I see the girl. And I got scared. I felt as though I caught myself dying. Like you'd catch yourself doing something stupid.

I walked across the bridge and climbed up into the box and got the binoculars. They belong to the state but they're mine as long as I leave them here. And, I figure, the girl's mine as long as she keeps herself in range. She's walking down the beach, stopping every few yards and squatting down and setting out a stick. She's got a bathing suit on that's like two Band-Aids. Promising but not too promising. She had a knife strapped around her waist and wore a big wristwatch. She also had a notebook.

It wore me out watching her. She'd squat down and write something and then spring up again so graceful like she knew someone was watching her and gave the bottoms of her bikini a little flip with her finger. I watched her for a long time, but she didn't do nothing spectacular. I was real happy just watching a near naked woman move. Every once in a while she'd go into the water and swim out a few hundred yards, that damn dog swimming beside her barking like hell, and each time when she come out it was like that bikini had shrunk a little bit more and she was falling out of it every which way all plump and bubbly white.

I watched her until she got out of sight, around a bend in the beach, and then I started looking at other things. Mess of birds in the mangroves. Mullet boats way offshore. And what I'd later know was the girl's car parked on the hard sand under some cedars. A weird-looking vehicle. I know right away it's from Europe or someplace foreign. A mean car shaped like a coffin. But it reminded me of sex too, you know, though I never seen a machine that reminded me of sex before. But that car set me to feeling things, like the girl, that I hadn't felt maybe never. Though I knew what they were. And it felt so good feeling them.

I finally put up the binoculars. Wiped them off. The glass was getting milky from all the wetness in the air. As a matter of fact, I think they was shot from my never using them, never caring for them at all. Lots of things are like that. Life, you know, it begins to rot if you don't use it. Everything gets bound or rusted up. Tools especially. Gear. My tool. Ha ha.

It worried me a little about the binoculars since they belong to the state. They could hassle me about them. Like they could about the bridge. Because the bridge sure ain't being what it's supposed to be. If a boat ever wanted to come through and I had to wind this devil back I believe it would just fall apart, the whole apparatus, like one of them paste and paper bridges you see blowing up in war movies. But no boats come through anyhow. It just ain't a proper waterway. The channel needs to be redug or a good hurricane's gotta come through here and clean everything out. A pretty beach. Good fishing but no boats come and no people either. Something happened here years ago, I heard. A sickness or something. In the water. An attack or something coming in on the tide. Somebody died or got hurt. You know the way these things are. People remember bad news even though they might never have heard it in the first place.

So the state has let it slide. Though you never know when they'll show up and raise all sorts of hell because things ain't how they want them. But it was them and not me who built this crazy beach and it was me and not them who saw, on my first day on the job, the sign just above them rotting joists around the crank that says caution when installed proper this sign will not be visible.

Well, it ain't my concern. And I'll tell you I never really expect the state to come and hassle me. They know they got a bargain. It takes a special man to put up with living out here. I don't think anybody will come at all. Though I'd been waiting on this girl. It sure is easy to see that now.

So. After she got out of range, I went back to the shack and took a shower. Goddamn frogs come out of the wood and sat there while I did it. Like to have broke my neck slipping on them. Put on clean clothes and cut my nails. Prettied myself up like a movie idol. Had a beer and fell asleep right in the chair in the middle of the day. Which was unusual. And when I woke up it was practically black out and the girl was there looking at me.

She was feeding Corn Flakes to her dog. Piece by piece. My Corn Flakes. She was so brown from the sun, she was shining. And she was so warm-looking that I started to sweat. And she started right in, hardly saying anything but chatting like we were old pals. Then she come over to me and darn if she didn't sit on my lap and blow in my ear. God, she was warm. It was like being baked in a biscuit. And chatting all the while. I'd forgotten, you know, it's a whole new vocabulary with a good woman.

So the first night went by and the sun come out. The dog was still working on his balls over by the sink. And my baby tickled me up with a pink bird's feather. Bright pink like it come out of a cartoon. A roseate spoonbill feather, she said, for her specialty was birds. Ha ha, I said. Because I knew where her talent was.

But she was a nut on seabirds. She talked about them all the time she was frying up breakfast. Eggs and side meat and pancakes. She made up the best plates of food every day she stayed and we fed each other up. But that first day she entertained me... honey and butter dripping all over. Like I had died and gone somewheres a lot better than heaven.

But when she wasn't tending to me and making up inventions, she was always going on about them birds. She had a canvas bag she was always toting around and damn if inside there weren't two dead birds, perfect in every way except for their being dead. She didn't know what kind they was and she was toting them around until she could find a book that would tell her. And there were little speckled eggs in that bag too, no bigger than my thumbnail, with a hole in them and all the insides gone. And other crap she picked up along the beach. And the knives. Dinky little things. She said they was for predators on land or in the sea but they couldn't do no real damage, I told her that. Do in a splinter is about all.

What she was doing with them birds was making a study on how they copulate. And what I learned, I'll tell you, is that them terns are dumb. They don't know what they're doing because all they're really thinking about is making nests and eggs. This is because, the girl said, they don't have the time. Their hearts beat so fast they don't live long and their heads are only full of getting food and keeping alive. But I never seen anything sloppier with screwing. No wonder I never noticed them doing it in other springs. It don't look like nothing at all, not even the big birds, the pelicans and whatever.

But that girl's big pretty eyes would fill up with tears when she talked about them. She told me to respect them because they live their lives so close to dying.

OK, I said. I understood that.

But it's the inventions she made up that I can't quite puzzle out. And she started in on them the first day directly after I lapped up all them pancakes. She never made me pretend to be things I wasn't. Only things I was. But I believe we went through a hundred changes the days she stayed with me. We didn't have costumes or nothing naturally but it was like we were playing other people doing things. Though all the time it was us. I was a gangster and she was the governor's daughter, you know, or I was a bombardier and she was the inside of the plane. Or I was a preacher, maybe Methodist, and she was a babysitter. And even her dog did it because sometimes he was like a whole other object, you know. Or like he became a feeling in the shack and quit being a dog.

She messed up time and place for me. And just with her, I felt I was loving the different women of a thousand different men. We just went on for five days with them inventions and never did the same one twice. She'd go off sometimes in her fancy car, I don't know where. I'd lie there while she was gone, not even able to move hardly nor sleep neither. Lie there with my eyes open, trying to think what was happening, listening to the sound her car made traveling over the bridge, and it was like the bridge went on for miles, it was the only car I'd heard traveling for so long. There were four silver pipes sticking off the end of that car. I never seen anything like it. I was trying to think, but never once did I think about her not coming back. She always come back.

On the fifth day, I went down with her to the beach. First time I been out of the shack. Hotter than a poor shotgun. No wind. We was walking over the bridge to the beach when she said, This isn't a drawbridge. It's a solid piece. There isn't any grid. And so what do you tend, I'd like to know?

Well, of course it ain't a drawbridge. Did she think I'd been here for all these years paid by the country, here every day with no vacation and never no real quitting time without knowing that the goddamn thing wasn't a drawbridge?

I didn't say nothing but just gave her a look telling her that she should tend to what she knows about and I'll tend to what I know about.

The beach was full of eggs. She kept steering me around so I wouldn't step on them. All them eggs cooking in the heat and the birds going crazy over us as we walked along. Diving down and screaming, shitting on our heads. I went down to the water to get away from them. I was still put out with the girl and wasn't paying her any mind. She was trotting up and down the beach, slaving like a field hand, writing things down in her book. Finally she run right by me and fell in the water. Tried to tease me in. Took off her suit and tossed it in my face. Skin there like the cream in a chocolate eclair. But I paid her no mind. That day was so white my eyes ached. I was floating and felt sick. All that sun, it never bothered me before. She come out and sprinkled water all over me from her hair and even that wasn't cool. It was hot as the air. I was mad because I felt she was thinking my thoughts weren't real. But then I said, Come on, I been without loving too long. Because I thought her loving would pick me up. And we went back to the shack, me with my eyes closed and my arms resting on her because it hurt so bad looking out on that day. It ain't never been that bright here before or since.

So we went back. And I was a lumberjack and she was a dancehall cutie. And I was a big black lake and she was a sailboat coming over me. But that night she and that dog was gone.

There are sharks, I know. I seen them rolling out there. And the bars sometimes are tricky. They change. Fall off one day where they didn't the day before. But it don't really seem dangerous here. I just don't know where she went to. Leaving nothing except that car, which like I say is sort of fading out. Rats building their nests beneath the hood. I hear them in it when I walk close.

So it's over but I can't help but feel it's still going on somewheres. Because it hasn't seemed to have ended even though it's stopped. And I don't know what it was she gave me. Maybe she even took something away. And I don't really even know if she's dead and it's me sitting here in the pilothouse or if I was the one who's been dead all the while and she's still going on back there on the Gulf with the birds in the sun.




*

p.s. Hey. If you haven't seen it and would like to, writer/author Casey Henry aka d.l. Etc etc etc wrote a really excellent and honoring piece about my literary gif work in the New Yorker a couple of days ago. You can read it here.** Tuesday ** David Ehrenstein, Tim Hunter also directed easily one of the best 'teen issues' films ever made, 'Rivers Edge'. And he directed a handful of very good 'Twin Peaks' episodes as well. ** Squeaky, Hi, Darrell! Ha ha, awesome! Aw, Rick Jacobsen, so missed! Much love to you! ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul! Man, it's really nice to get to see you. I've missed you! I would love to hear what's going on with you in more detail whenever you get the time to spare. Big hug to you, big P. ** Krayton, Oh, well, thank you, sir. I'll bet you know what I mean about the cellar. ** Douglas Payne, Hi there, Douglas! Thanks a lot for reading my Cycle. Cool, thank you! I've only seen clips of 'Factotum' while making that post, but they made me put a notch titled 'Factotum' on my future belt. Or something like that, ha ha. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Remind me what that Boy George quote was. ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey! Long after the fact of your comment, thank you so very, very much for The New Yorker piece. It's great, and I'm super honored and very grateful. Really, just thank you so much! I hope you had a superb week! ** H, Hi. Nice to see you! ** Wednesday ** David Ehrenstein, Emmanuel Todd's thing about the Charlie-related protests is a complete load of crap. ** Tomáš, Whoa, hi, man. Long time no see and speak. LCTG is indeed a good movie, I must say, and, yes, I think going to see it would not be a bad idea at all, and, yes, I'll be there 'cos Zac and I are being asked/required to introduce the film and to do a post-screening q&a. So, yes. ** Kier, Kier!This is an awfully nice coming home present! Seeing you, I mean, duh! Life in hyperdrive is a good thing. Or can be. In your case, for sure, Mine is hyperdriven too at the moment, but, as I am a slave of the blog, I must include here in the drive. Which is not a problem, of course. Let's see ... I saw 'Life During Wartime'. I liked it. There are really good things in it. Enough for it to be something definitely to see. I mean, it's not as good as 'Happiness', to which it's supposed to be sequel. But it's good. I have not seen 'Dark Horse'. All your traveling is awesome! I know about 'Hannibal', and I definitely want to see it at some point. I just don't have any space in my life to watch TV shows these days, so I'm avoiding all TV stuff until I get the right space. Yay, you sound so good, my dear pal! That makes me so very happy! On my end, things have been just nuts busy. There are all these things happening at once. The new Gisele piece, which went really, really well in Geneva. The earlier problems it seemed to have at the premiere are all fixed now, knock on wood, and we still have a bit of detail work to do before it gets to Paris and beyond, but it went great in Geneva and got a very positive response. And, you know, Zac's and my film has its world premiere on Friday, and there's tons to do to get ready for that, and we're both naturally very nervous about the premiere. But all seems to be going well so far with the film. Future festival dates are starting to line up. And my new gif book comes out on Thursday. And Zac and I developing our next film. And there's Chris Goode's 'Weaklings' piece based on the blog that I'm tangentially participating in. So it's as insanely busy a time for me as I can remember having had. But it's all really good. Well, except for the scariness of the film premiere on Friday. Buddy, do come back and see me whenever you have the time, okay? Giant love, Dennis. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben! It went very well in Geneva, thanks. Curious to hear your 'SOC' thoughts. Maybe even in a comment that I'll see any minute? ** Thursday ** Scunnard, Hey, J-ster! Sweet to cross your path. It was good in Geneva. I didn't think Geneva itself was all that exciting or interesting, though. But I was inside a building a lot. That water spout thing is cool, but it looks so much cooler from far away blasting over the top of buildings than it does when you stand at the lakeside and just look at it. How are you, man? ** Bill, Hi, B! It went really well in Geneva. We're pretty happy and confident. Did the weekend find you lounging luxuriously? ** David Ehrenstein, Miss Velma was indeed the shit. ** Thomas Moronic, Wow, you're already back at work? I feel like you just started your vacation days ago. Time is so weird. 'TVC' went great. I hope you'll get to see it. I think this piece might actually get over there for a UK tour. I'm doing a Skype meeting with Chris and the 'Weaklings' gang this very afternoon. Very, very curious to see what's going on. I'm really glad you had a brilliant time there! ** _Black_Acrylic, Jim Shaw rocks, no? I've loved his work forever, since he and I were fellow aspiring LA artists hoping to be something someday. ** Friday ** Steevee, Hi, man. No, I haven't done a Hong Day, and it's an excellent idea. I've noted it, and I'll get on seeing if I can put something decent together as soon as this insane week is history. Thanks! How was the film? ** Weaklings Project, Ha ha, hi, Chris! Yep, we're on for Skyping this afternoon. Greatly looking forward to it, very natch! Okay, I'll take down the announcement in a minute. I'm very glad you got such a great response to it! Cool, talk to you very soon! Love, me. ** David Ehrenstein, Morning, sir. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Cool, thanks! That's super awesome about the zine thing! Congratulations to the editors. I'm a know-next-to-nothing about how to use Instagram, but it didn't seem like the zine is viewable yet? Anyway, that's great, man! Everyone, a very cool looking queer zine called NANCY is going to house work by the one, the only Thomas 'Moronic' Moore in its new issue. Go take an early peek at the thing here. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! I'll speak to you re: the future/past, i.e. LilB, in a minute. For now, thank you a lot for the link. Yeah, I agree, it's really great! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Thanks a lot about the New Yorker thing. Yeah, it's cool, a total honor. Oh, so now I get your thoughts on 'SOC'. Cool, cool. I definitely want to see it. Thanks! ** James, Hi. Geneva was something of a smashing success, thank you. No, I mingled minimally with the audience, more with the performers, but I hear the buzz was really good. ** Saturday ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, pal. ** David Ehrenstein, Ha ha. ** H, Hi. Thank you for the welcome back. The trip was a success, but I don't think I'm going to get a second's worth of rest until next weekend. This week is going to be the craziest, busiest set of days ever. In addition to how terrific Casey's piece itself was, it's pretty amazing to have my work written about in the New Yorker. They have basically, with one tiny exception, completely ignored my work ever since I started publishing. So, to finally be contextualized there, and so wonderfully, is quite, quite great. ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey. More and more and more gratitude! ** Krayton, Howdy. ** Steevee, Is getting a new computer out of the question? I fear this blog won't be getting less tech heavy apart from relatively easy days like perhaps the one today. Sorry. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! Man, I so loved the LilB Day. I had listened to his stuff now and then, and I had always liked it, but building and then exploring your post really gave me a full, total appreciation for how fantastic and unique and charming he is. He seems like one of those rare artists who just has inherently great instincts that always, or almost always, at least, are both really pointed and really random at the same time, and he just exudes grace in about everything he does, from music to tweets. He's kind of a total joy. It was a real thrill. Thank you so very much for it! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. ** Douglas Payne, Hi, Douglas. Good morning from the morning, Paris time. ** Okay. I decided to give the blog over today to the new book of collected short fiction by Joy Williams because she is one of my very favorite fiction writers in the world and, quite possibly, my favorite American fiction writer. So, this book is momentous, and I hope you enjoy reading both a bit of it and about it today. See you tomorrow.

*

p.s. Hey. ** The legendarily inclined Thomas Moronic is back today with the tenth installment of his always eagerly awaited gif-employing extravaganza. I am very happy about this turn of events, and I hope sincerely that you are as well. And I hope you will make noises of some sort in Mr. Moronic's direction throughout the course of the day. Thank you! And, maestro T, thank you without reservation! ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Oh, goodness, I sure do recommend dipping into Joy Williams' work. It is super rare that American sentences are born with such gorgeous and odd properties. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I don't know if you're familiar with Emmanuel Todd in general, but, in my opinion, he is very frequently full of shit. ** H, Hi. I hope you enjoy reading Joy Williams. Thank you, yes, the New Yorker thing is really cool and heartening. Awesome that you're hard at work on the manuscript. I like the title. Jean Frémon ... mm, no, I don't think I know his work. Hm. Might be a memory slip though. I'll check. I've only read Frank Bidart here and there. The odd poem once in a while, but I don't I've ever actually read a full book of his. I don't think I have a real sense of what he does. Sounds complicated. I'll try to remember to investigate him further and see what's what. ** Etc etc etc, Casey, hey! Blessings on you, man. Yeah, there is that every once in a while when the New Yorker is really supportive of a great, truly auteur-ish writer like Williams or, oh, Millhauser, and others. Have the best day! ** James, Hi. Thanks. Our film is not the kind of film that everybody is going to love, that is a guarantee. But it would be cool if a reasonable portion of the attendees do. Gulp. Oh, shit, yeah, I'll send you my address today, I promise. Sorry, I'm just crazy busy. Thanks about the New Yorker. Really, that's pretty cool, right? ** Steevee, Hi. Oops, I fear today's post won't be kind to your computer. Oh, that's too bad that the new film isn't so hot. Mumblecore meets 'Groundhog Day' is a most curious description. But, yes, one that I can easily imagine works best in the imagination. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Thank you ever, ever so much for gifting us with this latest batch of brilliant madness! Cool, do tell about the zine's release. Holy shit, Halloween is coming, isn't it? I can start doing my annual Halloween countdown posts in as soon as a mere week or two, if I can't wait, which I know I can't. Definitely a nice, really interesting talk with Chris and the Weaklings gang yesterday. Well, for me at least. I don't know how much I actually helped them. Joy Williams is definitely one of the absolute masters of the America sentence. Thanks about the New Yorker. All thanks to the amazing and generous Mr. Casey Henry. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff! Good to see you, man! Thanks about the TNY piece. Yeah, wow, that was really nice. I've been twiddling my fingers for months waiting for this new or partly-new Joy Williams book, and I still am since I haven't gotten an actual copy yet. Do you know anyone who has actually met or studied with her or anything? I would so love to meet her someday. I don't know about the omission of the early stories. Huh. I wonder why, if so. Well, it would hard to describe the changes we made to 'TVC' without having to lay out a whole bunch of background. Overall, the piece has a complex and very rangy tempo and tone. Parts are crazily frenetic, other parts are gradual and dreamy, other parts are dead still. And the tone ranges from wacky and wild to very strange to quite emotional. Gisele has been fine tuning the piece's build, and it's pretty much as perfect as it can get now. Then she made a bunch of little trims. The piece is by far the longest of our works at 1 hour 40 minutes, so it has to be really tight. There are still two problem points in the piece, things are okay but not working the way they need to, and we're working to revise them right now while there is a couple of weeks break between gigs. Another thing is that the piece seems to work better in English than it does in German for some reason. Maybe because of the distance created via the performers having to speak in a second language, I'm not sure. Anyway, I think it's pretty close to being completely in place now. Really great luck on the new theater piece. I would love to hear anything about that if/when you have the time and inclination to share. And really, really great news that you've gotten a solid handle on the novel! Obviously, that's something else I would love to hear about in more detail at some point, on the phone or here. Take care, bud. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Oh, she's pretty consistently great, so you could start almost anywhere with her, I think. Great luck re: the meeting with Andrew. And the (((echo))) thing sounds fun and enticing. Ha, a Hello Kitty bong. Super swell idea, man. Excited to see what you come up with. ** Krayton, Hi. Never say never. Thanks about the film. It doesn't seem like the kind of film that could be a hit in the usual sense of hit. Maybe a sleeper hit, as they say. I haven't read Alan Watts since I was knee-high to a bong. Much love back. ** Mikel Motorcycle, Mr, Motorcycle! Holy moly! How sweet it is to see you, my old pal! You'll be here for the film premiere? Wow. I'm going to be a total nervous, distracted wreck at the premiere, so let's make a plan to meet up once it's over. I'm around, so, yeah, let's definitely meet up for a coffee and a long catch-up and talk while you're here. It'll be so nice to see you! Big love to you, and see you soon! ** Bill, Hi, Bill. For stingy Williams, even 13 new stories is pretty sweet. Congrats on figuring out that code issue. Technical yay! Leonora Carrington is so strange and great. I really should do a spotlight post on her. Hm, consider it done. ** Douglas Payne, Hi there, Douglas. How's tricks? I really don't think you will regret reading more Joy Williams. I'm pretty confident about that. How are you? What's going on in your world right now? ** Kyler, Hi, K. Ha ha, well, thank you for into-ness. Letting go of friends is a weird, melancholy thing, yeah. Weird when that suddenly seems like an important thing to do. Progress is a fascinating thing. Best to you! ** Right. Go back up into the fray of Mr. Moronic's concoction, won't you? Thanks. See you tomorrow.

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The Hüseyin Avni Paşa Mansion in Istanbul was completely destroyed by flames on the afternoon of June 28. “[During our analysis of the incident] we discovered there were no electrical connections in the abandoned mansion … the exact reason of the fire cannot be determined, as no [concrete] factor as to what could have caused the blaze has been found,” the fire department’s report said.







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A party intended to be a small gathering for friends saw 2,000 young revelers turn up causing over £400,000 in damage. 60 police cars were called in to deal with the shindig which had been promoted on Twitter using the hashtag #MansionParty. Parents of the boy who hosted the party said they had given him permission ‘to have a small number of people over’. However, after posting news of the party to social media, the house in Brampton, Ontario was flooded with young people who fueled by drinking, drugs, and deafening techno music, proceeded to destroy virtually everything in the house. One party goer called Nick, who claimed to be 16, said: ‘There were hundreds of people here. Some people were climbing over ladders, smashing the windows, and trying to drive their cars into the party through the walls'.






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Superstar rapper 50 Cent's mansion burned to the ground Friday - and his enraged ex-girlfriend, who was living in the house with their son, accused the entertainer of torching the $2.4 million Long Island home. Shaniqua Tompkins and two of her children, including the rapper's 10-year-old son, Marquise, were among six people who fled the early morning Dix Hills blaze. "He tried to kill me and his own child," Tompkins claimed, as she stood screaming outside the decimated mansion hours after the inferno. 50 Cent's reps refused to respond to her allegations.





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Destroy the Mansion!!!! The owners are gone... The house has no one in it... and i have a rocket launcher and bombs... hehehe... BY ZORO GAMING. odd51 Wut!? I'm juste finishing to destroys!!! 4 days * LittleLittleAdelyn Yes, I know. It's just colored again. 4 weeks * SpazzMan502 Has nobody noticed how it's ALL free modeled? Completely free modeled. If you look closer, that house is a recolored version of haunted mansion. 1 month * zenny911 I I LOVE IT ME ZOMBE 5 months * amyiou Builders Club fun yayayyayayayayaya 5 months * zenny911BBBBBBBBOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAA 5 months * policeofficer295 fun!! 6 months * Artoro Awesome game! But the couch in the attic can't get destroyed. :P 1 year * epicdude5843 2 people are haters 1 year * ChefHayden FUN!!!! XDXDXDXDXDXDXDXDXD 1 year * SoulEliminator 1 person (Who disliked) was still inside the house while it was destroyed. xD 1 year





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Giant boulders the size of a house have left a trail of destruction during rockfall in rural Italy. The enormous boulders ripped through a 300-year-old mansion - causing millions of pounds worth of damage.






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Fire guts historic mansion once owned by Polaroid founder






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It’s been two weeks since this lavish seaside Mansion was beaten, smashed and burnt by angry mobs. Neighbours around the home say it was occupied by a nephew of former president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Every day, several Tunisians can be seen at the home going through debris and taking pieces of the home, Sami Soukah says, “They stole the people’s money. We are not sorry that this happened.” Another angry Tunisian described the home as an “illegal building” built on “illegal land.” Today, the Mansion is just a shell with an infinity pool filled with debris, wide screen TV’s smashed, furniture charred, 30 Foot Floor to Ceiling Windows completely shattered and the smell of fire is strongly present. There is also a large amount of graffiti spread throughout the home including “The Rich got Richer. The Poor got Poorer” which can be seen on a wall in a marble tiled bedroom, which once had a jacuzzi. Another wrote “You killed the people, Ben Ali,” in the hallway overlooking the landscaped gardens which includes tropical plants and fountains. Many of the onlookers had never known how lavishly Ben Ali’s family lived, so when the Mansion was ransacked the people were shocked.












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The film's crew and designers spent months building the replica building in the middle of the English countryside to create the perfect mansion worthy of a secret agent. But in true action film style, nothing ever stays standing or intact for too long. And last night, James Bond's countryside lodge in Skyfall was destroyed in a huge explosion as more scenes were filmed for the upcoming 007 film. The purpose-built mansion, made from plywood and plaster. Even though the house and the set were razed to the ground last night, Javier Bardem, who plays the movie's villain, was asked not to light up in case he accidentally started a fire too early. 'Javier loves his cigarettes and is always smoking on set to pass the time. The Skyfall lodge has been built in a field with some pretty dry grass, though. It wouldn't take much for one of his butts to catch alight. They've had word with him and he keeps well away now when on a smoke break.'











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Gage Lane Mansion






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A 14,000-square-foot palace built by a former NFL player has been burned to the ground as part of a firefighter training exercise. The luxurious estate in Gretna, Nebraska, was home to ex-Buffalo Bills safety Rod Kush and was once worth $2.6 million. But the 'finest mansion in all of Sarpy County' was set alight yesterday morning by the Gretna Volunteer Fire Department, after being overrun with mold. 'It would cost more to mitigate the mold damage than the house is worth,' Sarpy County Assessor Dan Pittman told the Omaha World-Herald.









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These pictures are pictures of Steve Jobs’ mansion, which is now demolished. Jackling House was designed by the famed architect George Washington Smith, who was, among other things, credited with the Spanish-Colonial Revival style in the United States. Smith designed the home for Jackling, a metallurgist who went on to become an executive at the Utah Copper Company. Jobs lived in the mansion for ten years, and then rented it out until 2000, when he stopped maintaining the building. Despite a bitter battle with Uphold Our Heritage, who held the property out as a historic landmark, Jobs was eventually granted permission to bulldoze Jackling House, which he did last February.












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The Batcave is history: A fire gutted the California mansion that served as the home of Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, in the 1960s TV series. "It was a fully engulfed inferno, for lack of a better term," Lisa Derderian, a spokeswoman for the Pasadena Fire Department. said of the fire last night. The Tudor-style home on South San Rafael Avenue was 1440 sq m and sat on 2ha of land. It was being remodelled by the owners, Derderian said. The home also was used for filming other TV shows and films, including 1991's Dead Again, which starred Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh.







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In Destroy Ghost Mansion, your goal is to destroy this wicked house and all the evil that is inside.





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Most people would be beside themselves if their home and prized possessions were destroyed in a natural disaster. But despite being 'numb' and 'in shock', former Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach tried to look on the bright side after his New Jersey mansion was destroyed by flooding caused by Hurricane Irene. Writing on Facebook , the metal singer said: 'I have been holding on to my house. I just could not let go of the only home I had ever known. Well, God has other plans for me it seems. He has made His decision for me. My home has been taken away by an "Act Of God". I just think He is giving me a much needed push, is all. New Jersey, thank you all so much for 25 years of rock n' roll.'







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Official cause of $10 million Middlebury Mansion fire remains a mystery, but officials believe spontaneous combustion is the likely reason.









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Ever wonder what it be like to skate inside a multi-million dollar mansion on the beach?! Well OC riders Dave Bachinsky, Jordan Hoffart, Greg Lutzka and friend Shuriken Shannon did! Watch them turn this house into their personal skatepark.





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The Luthor Mansion was the main estate of the Luthor family. It was Lex Luthor's primary residence after he moved to Smallville in October 2001. A locked room on the third story in the east wing of the mansion housed Lex's "obsession": computer screens with a rotating CGI image of the octagonal key, wall paintings and murals from the Kawatche caves, Roger Nixon's computer simulation of Lex's porsche hitting Clark Kent on Loeb Bridge, an enlarged photograph of Clark's face, a family photograph of the Kent family, an enlarged copy of Clark's family tree that he transliterated with Kryptonian symbols, a large meteor fragment containing green and red kryptonite and a glass-encased carcass of a Kryptonian parasite extracted from the Katwatche caves. After Lex went missing in mid 2008, he selected Tess Mercer as his caretaker CEO to watch over his estate until he returned, but when she found out his true intentions, she declared him dead. After Lex died, Tess Mercer controlled the Luthor Mansion. She was temporarily held captive in the mansion by Major Zod and his army. Later, Lionel came from Earth-2 using a mirror box, and took over the mansion. The mansion was destroyed by a fire caused by Alexander.








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Almost nothing remains of an Ohio family’s multi-million dollar mansion after a massive blaze ravaged the three-story structure Friday. Dozens of firefighters tried to save what they could of the 22-room house in Indian Hill, Ohio, but 75% of it was engulfed in flames by the time they arrived, WLWT reported. Responders lost precious time because they were originally sent to the wrong address about a mile away.







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How to destroy Luigi's Mansion





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In its Gilded Age heyday, it was the scene of lavish parties attended by the likes of Winston Churchill, the Marx Brothers and F. Scott Fitzgerald. But now Lands End, the grand colonial mansion said to be the inspiration for Daisy Buchanan's house in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, is set to be torn down - because no one will buy it. The 1902 property, set in 13 acres on the tip of Sands Point, Long Island, is slowly crumbling and costs $4,500 each day to maintain. David Brodsky, who bought the estate with his father Bert in 2004, has had the dilapidated mansion on and off the market for several years, but has never found a buyer for it. Now he plans to demolish the house, valued at $30million, to make way for Sands Point Village, a community of five custom-made homes which will cost $10million each.











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The grim search has begun of the country mansion where the bodies of a Conservative MP and his wife are believed to be after fire swept their home. Michael Colvin, 67, and his wife Nichola, 62, are believed to lie somewhere in the gutted remains of the west wing of Tangley House, near Andover in Hampshire. Conservative party leader William Hague paid tribute to both Mr Colvin and his 62-year-old wife, praising the countryside-loving MP as a "true Tory".








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Located in the picturesque Wapiti Valley, the former home of builder and engineer Lee Smith rises out of the landscape in a seemingly random collection of wooden terraces and staircases. Smith began building the home for his wife and children from locally harvested logs and wood, and in the beginning the house had a fairly mundane form. However, after completing the basic home, Smith continued to build, adding extra floors and seemingly tacked-on balconies, all from logs he would collect in his small pick-up. Even after his devotion to the building project led to a divorce, Smith simply redoubled his efforts, building winding organic staircases and scenic terraces on the upper floors. Tragically, Smith fell to his death while working (untethered, as was his way) on one of the upper balconies.






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The National Trust Clandon Park has been destroyed by a devastating explosion whose origin remains a mystery despite having been studied by several international teams of investigators. Including the Marble Hall with its original stucco ceilings and marble fireplaces. "If I wasn't a betting man," United States special disaster investigator Henry Vaxen, "I would almost venture to guess that the building committed suicide rather violently. It seems to have exploded with immense force for no reason whatsoever." Built in 1720 for Lord Onslow by a Venetian designer. It was the most complete example of a Palladian mansion and it's loss is a loss for us all.








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Just how powerful were the tornadoes that tore through Nebraska last week? Based on a newly released video, powerful enough to pull a 2 million dollar mansion from the ground and toss it in the air.





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At just £4, it was a cheap and easy way of keeping her paperwork in order. But the three-inch glass weight proved an expensive investment after it caused a freak fire which left Martin and Ruth Ball's £1million home in ruins. Fire investigators believe the paperweight concentrated the sun's rays on to a pile of books and set them alight when it was left in the first floor conservatory during last month's mini-heatwave. The resulting blaze caused an estimated £300,000 of damage, destroying the roof of the house which collapsed through to a swimming pool on the ground floor.







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Marquis de Maussabre blows up his family mansion to evade taxes. Airvau, Poitiers, France.






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Tony Stark's Malibu Mansion was a place where Tony Stark lived in California. The whole house was wired through J.A.R.V.I.S.. It was destroyed during a helicopter attack initiated by the Mandarin. Sometime after the Chitauri invasion of New York, a haunted Tony Stark became a recluse in his mansion workshop and obsessively began building several Iron Man suits. When Tony made a statement on television to The Mandarin issuing a challenge to confront him in person at his home, The Mandarin's forces responded with lethal action by attacking Stark in his home, destroying the mansion and submerging it into the ocean below.









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Aerial shots show luxury of Beijing roof-top mountain villa as demolition of the mansion begins The elaborate rooftop mountain mansion in Beijing has been filmed from above, showing the big villa, the pool and impressive rock garden as it is announced it must be destroyed. The 8,610-square foot structure, built illegally, has been ordered to be demolished and must be removed within 15 days. As the video of the impressive villa went viral, the owner, a professor Zhang Biqing, began to take his home apart.






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Ellaville was a boom town of the 1800's where approximately 1000 people lived at one time. The location was at the merging of the Withlacoochee and Suwannee rivers. George Drew and Louis Bucki had a number of business's here including logging, sawmill, turpentine, and railroad car building. On May 19, 1895 two negro men, John Brooks and Samuel Echols were lynched in Ellaville. George Drew became the first Governor of Florida after the Reconstruction. His mansion was 1/2 mile northwest of the Ellaville site. Built in the 1860's the two story mansion was surrounded by formal gardens. The mansion was destroyed by fire in 1970. The ruins are still there.








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"They took the idols and smashed them, the Fairbankses, the Gilberts, the Valentinos"! Well they smashed houses too! This was Norma Desmond's mansion in Sunset Boulevard. Its address was 641 S. Irving Blvd. and was looking towards the NW corner of Wilshire/Irving Blvd. It was demolished in 1957.





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Neighbor Joe Horacek compares the building to the Starship Enterprise. It stands seven stories tall and spans more than 30,000 square feet. It even has a 70-seat IMAX theater inside. No, it's not a mall. It's not even a commercial property. It's a gigantic mansion built by real estate mogul Mohamed Hadid, of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills fame. To the horror of his neighbors and the ire of city building officials, Hadid has constructed a massive home in Bel-Air violating numerous city codes. "He starts the work, and if he gets caught, then he asks for forgiveness and suggests that he'll make corrections and that it's all been an accident," Horacek said. The Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety alleges Hadid's home is zoned for 36 feet tall, but it stands at about 70 feet tall. Although the home was approved to be 20,000 square feet, Hadid just kept building, eventually adding about 10,000 to 15,000 square feet more, building and safety officials said. Hadid even tried to cover up his violations with plants and tarps over the top of the building, officials said. And now he's getting the book thrown at him—the Beverly Hills Courier reports the LA City Attorney will bring criminal charges. The city told him to tear down all the illegal work in April. Hadid appealed that month for a 60-day extension to comply with the permits, but was denied.








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p.s. Hey. ** Scunnard, Hi. I'm nuts busy, but I'm good. The shows went really well, I think. The venue was ... hm, Comedie? Theatre Comedie? Something like that? Near Plainpalais, or something like that?  It was in the Batie Festival. Oh, that's super excellent about the progress on your book! Is the editor, like, a formal editor, whatever that means? I mean as opposed to, say, a friend with gifts tending towards the editorial? Fingers are extremely crossed over here on my end of things with the power of my tangled digits telegraphing itself in no direction but yours. ** H, Hi. No, I knew you weren't recommending Bidart. It just made me curious to read a bit more of him and form an opinion. Frémon I will seek out and read as soon as I get through this extremely consuming week or so. 'Botanical Gardens' is what I'll aim at. I like Green Integer. It's a great press. Mr. Kitchell is departing the US? That's interesting. Why and where, do you know? Huh. ** Nick Finegan, Hi, Nick! Awesome! You were mostly non-pixelated, it was more like misty. Like talking to someone who's been sitting inside a small car with its windows rolled up for a long time on a very cold day through the windshield. But only at times. Mostly, you were visually precise. Cool, it was awesome for me to get to talk to you guys too. Like I said, if you guys need more of me, my Skype and I will be at the ready. Take care, and thank so much for all the stuff you guys are doing there. It's truly amazing. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. Never seen 'Howard the Duck' myself. If I smoked pot, I might track it down, but, alas, I do not. ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey. I saw your email. I'll try to write back to you today. Sorry, things are crazy albeit in a good way here at the moment. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T! It was a giant hit. Maybe the most giant hit of all the EIF bunch so far, if I'm remembering correctly. Thank you again so much, sire. It was mind-blowing to learn exactly how long you've been doing EIF here. Wow. Time is an insane thing. Granted, I'm a fanatic for haunted houses, but I have to say that I've been in a haunted house I didn't like. It's just a degrees thing. Anyway, not only please go but also gimme a review. ** Sypha, Being swept up in a video game is an excuse I fully appreciate, and I envy you, in fact. Excellent news about the 'Harlem Smoke' progress! ** Étienne, Hi, Étienne. Right, I figured they'd have my stuff. One of the guys who works at LMALB is in our film. I wonder if it was him. I guess you'll find out on Friday. 15 days! Hey, I'm going to be total nervous, distracted wreck at the premiere, but, if you would like to, want to, and can, we could meet up in the days after the premiere for a coffee or something. Only if you want. It would be nice to meet you, especially when not wrecked nervously. ** Steevee, Hi. I fear this particular week here is going to be tough on your computer. Sorry in advance. I read about the Richard Gere homeless guy movie. How was it on a non-formal level? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Worth the wait, I'm sure. Is it called duck tape? For some reason I always think it's called duct tape. Or maybe both are right? ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris. Things are swamped and frenetic, but good. Oh, interesting, good, about the new Lou Barlow. I'll definitely get it. I really love the early Sentridoh stuff he did, and I love all of Sebadoh up through 'Bakesale', and 'Sebadoh III' is genius and one of my very favorite all-time albums. Thanks a lot for the report. ** Krayton, The best stories-in-progress have a bullying side, I think. Or maybe more passive-aggressive than classically bullying. Bon jour! ** James, Hi. Hump Day? Okay, I like the sound of that, whatever that is, and same back to you, although I guess it's Happy post-Hump Day? ** MANCY, Hi, Stephen! Great to see you! Thanks for inhaling. That's probably the exact right tactic. Thank you! Yeah, tomorrow 'ZCP. is born. Trippy. You good? Any latest and greatest or even less than greatest and latest to share? ** Styrofoamcastle, Hey, C-ster! Thus far, based on what I've heard, which isn't all that much, I haven't found myself very interested in The Weeknd. Should I be? I'm going to be an impossible, messy busy-bee until after the film premiere on Friday, but, after that, I should be more calm about talk-worthy. Love, me. ** Okay. Yeah, I did another themed post, and this time I went with things to do with things that had been mansions at one time for some reason. See what you think. See you tomorrow.

'ZAC'S CONTROL PANEL is a collection of famed experimental author Dennis Cooper's short, transmutational works employing and 'misplacing' animated gifs. As in his highly acclaimed and popular novel ZAC'S HAUNTED HOUSE, Cooper uses the gif as a language-like material to reposition, in the case of these new works, forms considered literary (the short story, flash fiction, the poem) and nondenominational (the documentary, the reenactment) into complex, poetic, claptrap visual literary mediums.'-- Kiddiepunk Press

Download ZAC'S CONTROL PANEL for free



















































from How Dennis Cooper Turns GIFs Into Fiction
by Casey Michael Henry, The New Yorker

In Zac’s Haunted House, recognizable characters, so far as they exist at all, serve an ancillary function to patterns and themes; they mostly help to illustrate the claustrophobic logic of the house. Frightened, similar-looking adolescents are tossed forcefully down stairs or dragged into the shadows. The novel contains five chapters, as well as a preface and afterword; you can read it carefully in about thirty minutes. Cooper’s second GIF work, the forthcoming Zac’s Control Panel, is a collection of eight short-form pieces, previously debuted on DC’s. He thinks of some of these as taking on traditional literary forms, such as “poem” and “short story,” while others have what Cooper calls “nondenominational” forms, such as “documentary” and “reenactment.”

The GIFs themselves, he says, offer “a sequence of jewels before me that need to be cut and polished, each in necessarily unique ways.” Flow is important to him: margins of white space mark off sections and groupings of GIFs that are meant to scan as cohesive paragraphs or stanzas. He chooses particular GIFs in large part for their structural similarity, weighing “technical stuff,” such as, “is the circle turning in one GIF a good match to the ‘circular’ motif in the GIF beside it?” The HTML page displaying the GIFs is just “the paper I’m making them on,” he says.

I asked Cooper if he intended a resemblance to Duchamp’s optical illusions, and if he, like Duchamp, was attempting to move from the “retinal” to the “conceptual.” But Cooper avoided the brainy angle; the work, he told me, is more “emotion- and sensation-based.” Like the passive, youthful bodies that fascinate characters in his earlier novels, the GIFs are meant to be regarded with a sensual, gut-level appreciation.

The basic question with these pieces is, of course, how do you read them? In previous interviews, Cooper has equated that process with being in “a broken, dropping elevator,” the rhythms of the GIFs mimicking language and turning “the eye into an ear.” One sequence in “Mum,” a GIF “poem,” shows a slowly undulating stereo speaker matched just below with a cartoon explosion radiating infinitely outward, the images moving in odd synchronicity. One can see, in the result, traditional literary qualities, like parallelism and repetition.

Cooper uses these repetitions to modulate the speed of the action in the pieces. A “very simple” short story called “The Absolute Motherfucking Truth” is elongated through repeated images, so that it becomes “stretched out like a slinky.” The images that repeat show grasping hands and raised weapons; these pictures, interwoven with others that suggest erotic longing (a butt being firmly squeezed, a man’s rapt face with tongue lolling), imply unconsummated desire. One sequence shows a still hand with ghostly traces dancing above it, then a married couple reaching to hold hands, then a hand being forcefully held down by a gloved assailant who drives a power drill through it. Cooper says the short pieces have a “go for broke” quality, unfolding frenetically like strings of firecrackers.

A piece called “34 gusts, a documentary,” is made up mostly of GIFs depicting wind. By stringing them together, Cooper attempts to imbue the GIFs with a sort of weariness. He juxtaposes a fan’s machinery with a worn-out-looking anime character. He puts a snowflake before a jet engine blowing debris, and then follows the engine with a punk musician twirling into the crowd. One begins to notice, looking over the pieces a second and third time, the odd relationship between movement and emotion—leaves waving slowly are somehow sad, for instance.

Cooper finds the GIF work “weirdly very emotional.” And with GIFs, he contends, “fictional emotional displays and ‘real’ displays are made indistinguishable.” Many of his GIFs are drawn from webcam videos and other nonfiction sources; when a moving image is shorn from one of these videos, Cooper thinks, we are left with something that feels a little bit “real,” a little bit “fictional,” and a little bit neither.

There is also, for Cooper—and, it would, seem, much of the Internet-using public—something inherently comic about GIFs. The comedy, he says, is of a particularly physical kind. He has noted before that GIFs in which real-life people fall off bunk beds or have other accidents are often edited so that we don’t see the painful consequences. And yet, as the action is repeated indefinitely, with a “kind of heartlessness,” the implications of the violence seep out nonetheless.



Deleted scene from ZAC'S CONTROL PANEL



































PRAISE FOR ZAC'S HAUNTED HOUSE

"Literature's relationship to the internet is growing rapidly, and Dennis Cooper is on the forefront of those web-savvy authors defining the new landscape... Cooper's work promises to totally recontextualize the ground behind it, thereby revising the way we think. That innovation is particularly evident in his latest release, Zac's Haunted House. The novel appropriates an experience somewhere between carnival mirror labyrinth, deleted Disney snuff film, and a deep web comic strip by Satan, building out the idea that a book doesn't have to simply be sentences on paper, or even terribly concerned with language at all."- Blake Butler, Vice

"Cooper has always written characters whose ineloquence hints at experiences that defy language; now, telling a story almost exclusively in images, he pushes this inarticulateness in a new direction. The result is surprisingly eloquent, and accurately speaks to our experience of the present, online and IRL."- Paige K. Bradley, Bookforum

"Instead of using words or phrases, Dennis Cooper develops the story through a brilliant mix of dark and disturbing visual sequences, sequences with grotesque, sometimes comical, and, for most, unsettling. Zac's Haunted House is a hermetic exploration of the boundaries between reality and fantasy, where the word is set aside to win the evocative power of the animated image."- Andrea Bressa, Panorama (Italy)

"Dennis Cooper has written his tenth novel, Zac's Haunted House, from inside the internet. With Kindles/iPads fast replacing books, this visual maelstrom could be the future of literature."- Oyster

"Here, we do not turn pages. The novel reads from top to bottom. The reader lowers into each chapter as though falling into a hole. In Zac's Haunted House, brilliant art erases all morals and referents with a torn, chilling lyricism."- Didier Peron, Liberation (France)

"Dennis Cooper’s Zac's Haunted House is like a new kind of graphic novel. Many of the techniques and effects at work are reminiscent of those used in comics and graphic novels, but by using these moving clips, Cooper is able to take the genre to the next level. But perhaps most importantly, he is refusing the be constrained by definitions of genre or medium. Zac’s Haunted House is a bold step forward for internet literature, striving to incorporate aspects of its traditional predecessors while bravely forging its own path forward."- H. Tucker Rosebrock, Queen Mob's Teahouse



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p.s. Hey. I hope you guys will download a copy, thanks! ** Scunnard, Hi, J. Yeah, it's all really good on my end, it's just a lot. Well, strangely enough, relative to Gisele's and my usual stuff, 'TVC' is rather intentionally funny. In parts, but fairly biggish parts. Oh, the situation with the editor sounds most excellent, cool, very cool. Congratulations on such a useful situation for you. Yeah, so great! ** H, Hi. Yes, very strange about that paperweight. Green Integer is one of those presses where you can depend on every book they publish being very worth reading. Dalkey Archive is kind of the only press like that I can think of off the top of my head. Oh, Greece, nice. I don't know if the humor in the title 'What islands' is a California humor. Maybe. I, of course, kind of always want there to be some kind of faint humor in almost everything. Maybe that's Californian of me, ha ha, I don't know. ** Steevee, Hi. Thanks for the info and thoughts and link on that film. The non-narrative part sounds good. It just seemed like a premise that, combined with Gere and whatever Hollywood that comes along with him, could become unbearable. I hope your blood test goes as well as it possibly can. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. Yes, RIP John Perrault indeed. I met him a number of times back when, and he was a lovely guy and a very good critic, Also, his one book of short fictions is quite good. And I feel so much for Jeff, who is such a wonderful guy himself. Very sad. Oh, I think I might need to get my hands on that book about psychedelia. One of my favorite topics. Thanks a lot for the tip. ** Sypha, Hi. What a fascinating, complex inner build that game sounds to have. Very cool. I'm not a huge stealth and battle type of gamer person myself, but I'll try to demo it to get the build's benefit at least. 'HS' sounds so promising and terrific, James. I'm excited for me and for you and, for, obviously, everybody. ** White tiger, Hey! So cool to see you. Thanks! What's up with you? Are you in LA yet? I can't remember when you were moving there. Love, me. ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey. Yeah, I'm still a headless chicken, but soon I'll be a chicken with a regrown head. Nice about that bunker library. Thanks, man. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Ha ha, yes. Oh, is that the deal? The trade name, gotcha. Like Kleenex or Xerox. I'll bookmark that article for post-premiere imbibing, thanks, man. ** Krayton, Hi. Troubling, that's interesting. I grew up in a sort of mansion, and it was just a roomy house, really, except for my attempts to assume there must be hidden passageways and stuff in it, which sadly was not the case, so they don't call to me. Horribly bullied, that's bad. Call the cops on it, man. ** Rewritedept, If that house exploding wasn't there, there probably wasn't a gif. Or a good gif at least. I hope the feeling of being disliked is a passing cloud or an animated cloud illusion. Probably, no? Yow, jeez, very glad that kidney stone has left you. Ouch. I'll listen to your phone dub asap. Stuff is very, very busy, but good. Quite nervous though quite excited too about the premiere, obviously. But definitely a little scared. Talk soon, yes. ** Styrofoamcastle, Hi, C. Cool, interesting. You've definitely hooked me on seeing what his stuff is about generally. I'll start early, see what's what, and move forward. Thanks a lot, man. You good? I hope you're surviving what sounds to be pretty nasty heatwave. Lots of love, me. ** Okay. So, my new literary gif book is now born. I hope you'll want it. It's totally free, so I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't, ha ha. But I guess that's none of my business. See you tomorrow.

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p.s. Hey. Tonight is the exciting and nerve-wracking world premiere of LIKE CATTLE TOWARDS GLOW here in Paris. If you're here or very nearby, please come. We're told there will be some tickets still available at showtime. More info here. ** David Ehrenstein, Ha ha, kind of, yeah. ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul! Aw, thanks, man. The new gif book isn't a novel. It's a short works collection. Anyway, thank you, thank you! So very awesome about where the j-novel is at. Oh, man, I can't tell you how excited I am for that, and to hear what can be heard from you about it as you build it. And the project with Marc! Cool, you're like me, i.e. you have a bunch of works in the pipe. 'Bubblegums Funeral', which is such a good title by the way, sounds dreamy. Thanks about tonight. Pretty nervous to see our thing with a theater mostly full of strangers, but ... well, we'll see. I read about the flooding in Japan this morning It looks nuts. I'm glad you're fine, and I hope Tosh, whom I think is training around Japan sans internet at this very moment, is too. Zac and I are planning to sit down with Michael and Bene as soon as the premiere is history to talk about when and how we can get to Japan and Australia. The kind of annoying thing with the film is that it's now on the festival circuit, and we're kind of tied to that schedule, i.e. being available to attend with the film, and we don't really know if the film is selected usually until a few weeks before the festivals happen. But I think we have a clear stretch later this year, so hopefully that'll be the window where we can do the trip. Have a day, happy day! ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey. Thanks a ton, man. Yeah, after this intense day is over, I'll be able to be a semi-normal and attentive-ish at least person again. ** Sypha, Hi, James. I'm extremely interested, as you can imagine, to see what the new Zelda, which is supposed to be a massively open game, is like. Enjoy every bit and pixel of that game, if pixels are still games' building blocks. And thank you very much for the kind words on 'ZCP'. That means really a lot. I think '34 Gusts' is my favorite of the works in the book, so that's cool. ** White tiger, Hey, buddy! Oh, wow, I'm really behind. Right, it didn't take. LA is such a weird place, as you well know. Even with the idea of it 'taking', it's hard to imagine what the 'take' would be, unlike with most cities maybe where you can get a consolidated picture of their ups and downs pretty fast. I don't know. Anyway, it sounds like ending up back in Oakland is a pretty excellent thing. Give my love to Kyte! And I don't know Blank Frank personally, but give him some too anyway. I think I saw your BF video, and loved it, but I'll go check to make sure I didn't miss it, in fact. And, obviously, awesome that testosterone feels like home. Or like a birthday party at home. Or better. Lovely to get to talk to you, Math! Tons of love to you! ** H, Hi. Oh, no rush on the gif fiction. Strand is great, even since its physical upgrade and cleaning up, which initially kind of freaked me out, but it works, and the place is still a meta-store. ** Étienne, Hi. Oh, just to murder any lingering hope, no cameo in the film for me. It's a pretty quiet, intimate deal, so any cameos would have smashed like a sledge-hammer. Cool, as soon as this thing tonight is over, meaning this weekend, let's sort out an afternoon meeting as soon as you're up for it. Do you know my email? If not, it's dcooperweb@gmail.com. You can write to me there, and we can figure it out that way, if you want. Anyway, maybe see you tonight if my eyes aren't too hazed with fright, and I hope you like the film. ** Steevee, Hi, A misdiagnosis, weird. Well, that's good, right? Thank you about the premiere! It's not impossible that, well, Gaspar could be there, at least. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Aw, thank you so, so much, man! And for the well wishes tonight. Super scary. Really don't know what people will think. It's a strange, deep, demanding film, so it's really hard to tell what an audience will do with it. I guess I'll know tomorrow. And I'll share our fate. ** Tender prey, Wow, hi, Marc! It's so unspeakably great to see you! I've missed you a ton! The collab project with Paul sounds so beautiful and exciting! Thanks about tonight. Super nervous. Wait, you might be able to get here for 'TVC'? Is that what you were saying? (My brain is only semi-operable, sorry). If so, that would be so fantastic! To get to see you, I mean. Lots of love! ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks so very kindly, Ben. I'm so glad you like it. That's wonderful, thank you! Cool about Episode 3's relatively speedy development. Fingers vastly crossed. Thanks for the good wishes tonight. Here's hoping. I'm a bit of wreck in advance, as you can imagine. Love, me. ** James, Hi. I haven't heard of any problems with the downloading other than unhappiness at how long it's taking to download for some computers. But I'll ask Michael if he's heard any complaints today. Thanks about tonight! ** Misanthrope, You are back! I wondered where you were. Man, a lot has happened on your end since you last filled me in. Big congrats on 'the guardianship of LPS! He must be pretty happy and relieved. And he's back in school! Whoa, man. That's all very, very good news. I read something about something weird happening at a WWE event. That must have been it. Weird that something scary hasn't happened at a WWE thing before, really, considering the kind of folks who are sufficiently into WWE to go to the actual events. Excluding you and yours, of course, mind you, ha ha. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris. Thank you so much, my friend. That really, really means a lot! Take a hug back from me, and yeah, have the most awesome day! ** MANCY, Hi, Stephen! Oh, that's cool. It won't expire, I don't think. At least until gifs themselves expire, which hopefully won't be for ages, gulp. Total congrats on the new job! That's terrific news! And let me know when the stuff you're working on is ready to go wide. I'm excited! Have a great one. ** Kyler, Hi, K. Thank you a lot for that, man. You and your shrink have such a curious relationship. I like it. Thanks for the timed thoughts. Gulp. ** Okay. Even though it's pure coincidence that this 'shocked' stack ended up in today's blog berth, it feels totally appropriate considering the stressful momentousness of Zac's and my film's long awaited birth tonight. So, enjoy, I hope, and I hope I will see you in a state of relief and happiness tomorrow, but I will see you then in any case.

'Today would be the hundredth birthday of the cinema’s exemplary modernist, Michelangelo Antonioni, who, from the very beginning of his career, understood form to be the crucial content of his era—and made films that, themselves, had an advanced form of his own design. His fundamental subject is the bourgeoisie and the way that new methods of communication—mainly the mass media, but also the abstractions of high-tech industry, architecture, music, politics, and even fashion—have a feedback effect on the educated, white-collar thinkers who create them. These new ideas have as strong an effect on their creators and implementors as on the world around them, and knocks them off the course of their own lives.

'Antonioni is also one of the cinema’s great pictorialists—his images reflect, with a cold enticement, the abstractions that fascinated him. That’s why the word most commonly used to describe his view of the modern world—“alienation”—is, rather, a common mistake. Certainly, many of his characters find themselves out of touch with their own desires, their own physicality, and seem distanced from themselves, in search of an anchor of immediate experience and spontaneous emotion. But he wasn’t nostalgic about the premodern; he understood that technology and advanced design arose in response to authentic needs, and that there is at least as much of a problem with the long-established ways that cry out for sophisticated technical improvements.

'Let’s be specific. There has been a lot of talk lately about the death of the cinema, and one clip puts it in its place. It’s an excerpt from Wim Wenders’s 1982 film Room 666, featuring a remarkably prophetic and sanguine interview of sorts with Antonioni, when he was a young man of seventy who looked with confidence to the electronic future of the cinema. The premise of the film is that, at the Cannes Film Festival, Wenders posed one question to each of his interview subjects, film directors all—“Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?”—and left them alone in a hotel room, in front of a camera, to address it. (By chance, the clip begins with the tail end of Steven Spielberg’s segment, in which he incidentally reveals the same stunted and repressed approach to inner life that dulls his films.)

'But Antonioni would have none of Wenders’s hand-wringing. He responded by considering “the influence of television”—and adding that, if it seems like a problem, it’s “only because we belong to a different generation.” He talks about “new technologies”—videotape, which, he says, “will probably replace film”—as may other technologies “like lasers, who knows, or others that are yet to be invented,” which will solve the problem “of being able to entertain ever-growing audiences.” He recognizes that many people are attached to film, but that this attachment will eventually vanish. “We should think of the entertainment needs of future viewers. I am not that pessimistic. Actually, I am quite … I’ve always tried to adapt myself to the means of expression characteristic of a certain time.” He mentions that he had already made a film on tape and was continuing to work in video (“I’m sure that the range of artistic possiblities ofered by video will make us feel differently about ourselves”). He understood that with the “big screen” at home, together with “high-definition magnetic tape, we will have cinema in our homes. We will no longer need to go to the cinema.” He knows that the change will be a big one—but “We will have but one option: we will have to adapt.” And he concludes, “My feeling is that it won’t be all that hard to transform us into new men more suited to our new technologies.”

'He cites his 1964 film Red Desert as the place where he addressed that theme most directly. I agree; it’s his greatest film. It was forward-looking then, and remains so. Antonioni, born on this date in 1912, is younger at his posthumous centenary than are many active filmmakers today.'-- The New Yorker



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Further

Michelangelo Antonioni Overview @ Senses of Cinema
MA @ IMDb
French Antonioni Website
MA's films @ The Criterion Collection
'Michelangelo Antonioni: stately cinematic master or pretentious bore?'
'Michelangelo Antonioni: centenary of a forgotten giant'
L'exposition Michelangelo Antonioni @ La Cinémathèque Francais
'The Mysteries of Michelangelo Antonioni'
MA's films @ Strictly Film School
'Where to begin with Michelangelo Antonioni'
'Michelangelo Antonioni | Ontological Architecture'
MA interviewed by Roger Ebert
MA's films @ mubi
'Rethinking Michelangelo Antonioni's modernism'
'La vraie vie de Michelangelo Antonioni'
'Michelangelo Antonioni on the Utility of Mystery'
'Art/Form: Antonioni at the Cinémathèque Française'
'Michelangelo Antonioni—a flawed legacy'
'Antonioni’s Dome'
'Landscapes of deliquescence in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert'
'The Colors and the Spinozist Bodies of Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’avventura'
'Michelangelo Antonioni / Film as Sculpture'
'Michelangelo Antonioni and the “Reality” of the Modern'
'The languorous, achingly hip films of Michelangelo Antonioni.'
‘He was a man you could never quite reach’



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Additional


Michelangelo Antonioni en 5 minutes


Michelangelo.Antonioni.The.Eye.That.Changed.Cinema-2001


Arena - Dear Antonioni


Michelangelo Antonioni receiving an Honorary Oscar



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My Dinners with Federico and Michelangelo
by Charlotte Chandler




Somehow Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini, the two greatest film directors to emerge in Italy after World War II, sparked a rivalry in the public’s imagination that didn’t really exist for either of them. Cinema buffs still sometimes ask, “Are you a Fellini person or an Antonioni person?,” much as they would ask you to make that other necessary creative choice: Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky?

I was a friend of both of these remarkable artists and their wives for many years. I wrote a book about one of them—I, Fellini (1995)—and I hope to write a book about the other, who died in 2007. The truth is they led parallel lives. They began their careers as journalists, and both were skilled artists. Young Antonioni sketched architecture; young Fellini drew cartoons. Both were encouraged by Roberto Rossellini, the genius of Italian neo-realist cinema, who was a mentor at the start of their careers. Though they never became close friends, the two men were very respectful of each other’s work. Fellini’s 1952 film The White Sheik was based on a story by Antonioni, and when Fellini was filming And the Ship Sails On, in 1982, Antonioni visited him on the Cinecittà set. Both directors created masterpieces in black-and-white as well as in color. Fellini, whose fame caught on earlier, made, among other major works, La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957), La Dolce Vita (1960), 8 1/2 (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Fellini Satyricon (1969), and Amarcord (1973). Antonioni’s finest works include L’Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), L’Eclisse (1962), Red Desert (1964), Blow-Up (1966), and The Passenger (1975). Their films were only rarely in competition, most memorably at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival, when L’Avventura and La Dolce Vita contended for best picture. La Dolce Vita won.

“Fellini and Michelangelo were two sides of the same coin,” Enrica, the widow of Antonioni, told me. “People said they were opposites, but they were twins, though they never knew it. My Mickey was seen as a director who wanted to do highbrow films for the few, but he really wanted to make films everyone would love to see, just like Fellini.”

Antonioni once told me, “I believe Federico was more concerned with the outer life of the people in his films. I am concerned with their inner lives—why they do what they do.”

Fellini told me, “I feel my inheritance as a film director is from art, and Michelangelo’s is from literature. My films, like my life, are summed up in circus, spaghetti, sex, and cinema.”

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Interview




Nowadays is not only us critics who enthusiastically support your work, as it was at the times of L’avventura and La notte. A large part of the public has also shown its enthusiasm for your work since Blow-Up was released. How do you explain this change?

Michelangelo Antonioni: Today, the public has matured and accepts certain themes and/or language without difficulty. As for myself, I would say that, instinctively, I might have found a way to make my films more – how can I say­ Americans would say exciting, more interesting, but that is not the right word. More precisely, I might have found a way to be less reserved in showing emotions and feelings. Perhaps I have been able to deal with a topic more deeply and even more skillfully. I do not really know. A film – I will never grow tired of repeating it – does not need to be “understood.” It is enough if the viewer “feels” it. To see a film must be an overall personal, intuitive experience, like when one reads a poem. Who would dream of being able to thoroughly explain a poem? Take The Passenger, for instance (I am sorry to keep returning to this film, but this is the film that everyone wants to talk about), or its last sequence, that long uninterrupted take. There is no need for the audience to understand it from a technical point of view; it is enough if they are sensitive to that slow flowing of things through the window, while the camera slowly moves onward.

In The Passenger, however, technique is very important, even if this is not unusual in your films.

MA: It seems to me that there is something unusual here. In general, I have never made camera movements that were not justified by the movements of the characters. Here, instead, the camera moves on its own, as if it had the same interest for objects, landscape, and people that the protagonist, the reporter, has. Why this? It seems to me almost arrogant to answer. I work very instinctively, and the meanings of certain techniques become clear to me only later on. For example, in reviewing The Passenger I ask myself: Why did I film that scene in this way? It will seem strange, but I always find an answer that I have never previously thought of. The presence of a car in a pan, apparently coming from nowhere, might have been suggested to me by the fact that a character without a past of his own, but with the past of someone who is now dead, was riding in that same car.

And I took another liberty – that of approaching every sequence with always a new attitude. If you think of it, it is possible to say that there is no technical unity in the film. Every sequence was fIlmed differently from the others because the content was different. At the end, however, all of these differences seem to me to find a unity of their own. This is, after all, my attitude toward the story I’m telling.

The Passenger was released this year. Apart from the television documentary on China in 1972, your last film was Zabriskie Point in 1970. Why such a long break?

MA: Because in the meantime I prepared two films. One, Tecnicamente dolce [Technically Sweet], took almost two years. The script was ready, I even went location-scouting in Sardinia and in the jungle. Then Carlo Ponti, who inherited the project from other producers, eventually decided against it. He was probably scared that I would never leave the jungle or that I would start painting it.

The other film was inspired by a story by Calvino, The Night Driver. At first it was called The Spiral, and then The Color of Jealousy. It was an obsessive story of a jealous man who every night would leave his own city by car and go to his lover’s town. In order to have a better control of the color I filmed it with a video camera rather than with a regular camera. This time I was the one who was having serious problems with the script. I could not find the right approach, and I gave up. But in the meantime, another year had gone by.

You have stated that your next film will have an Italian subject because you realized that by making films outside of Italy you began to feel uprooted. Can a frame, a language, give you roots?

MA: We are all rooted in a language, in a culture, in an historical environment. In traveling to other countries I have assimilated parts of their culture, while at the same time losing a part of my own. It is somewhat like those writers who spend alternatively six months in the United States and six months in Europe. At a certain moment they no longer know what to write about. That is what I mean when I say that I need to find my roots. I would now like to tell the story of people born and raised in Italy. It may happen that at the last moment this country, which already makes us shiver if we look at it closely, unexpectedly will push me away and make me change my mind. I know, it is not a very original criticism, but it might be original to attempt to love this country even if you despise a part of it. And when I say “a part,” I mean a large group of people, those we see in the streets, in the public places. Sometimes I think I belong to another race.

And your films?

MA: I could answer by saying that my films are what they are because I am who I am. Some say that I am a typical elitist director. The truth is that when I come in contact with art I have a freer, less engaged attitude than most people think. Personal interests are what always move me. All of the characters in my films are fictional, but at the same time they are also real, because reality has suggested them to me. What I need is to hear a line or to see a gesture, a face, an expression, an event, a story. This grows inside of me, it becomes a sequence, the sequence becomes a series of sequences, and then I have a complete story. I’m not too sure how this happens. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I always have to make a film for someone. Not the public, but a specific person – a friend, a woman. It has always been this way, even when I used to play tennis as a young man. If I had a public, I played better. Once, in Bologna, at the final match of a tournament, practically no one was there. I lost the first two sets. Then more people came and I won the next three.

There is something else I would like to add. I wish my films were released more discreetly than the promotion requires. The publicity spots and the billboards loudly boast of how good the fIlm is, and urge the public to go and see it and to admire it. The beauty of a film, when it is there, should instead surface almost by chance, without arrogance, since the purpose of the film is different from what advertising would make it to be.

Does autobiography play a role in your films?

MA: There is only one way to be autobiographical: out in the open, without restraint. That is, one should not regard as private what one writes or puts in a film. One needs a certain amount of shamelessness to do this, and I do not have it. My way of being autobiographical is different, it changes depending on what people I see, what I do, what kind of light I’ve found on my way to work. All these things can influence the way I film or make a sequence. So if certain characters reveal something of myself, I would say that it is natural, and that it would be unnatural if it were not so.

What about tomorrow?

MA: Cinema as it is now is beginning to tire me out. There are too many technical limitations. It is ridiculous to still have to use a regular camera, not very different from what was used thirty years ago, or to still have to go to such great lengths to transform reality to conform to our desires. We cannot completely dominate color or use it as painters do. That is why I have thought of video cameras, and I am still thinking about using them for my next film. Only with magnetic tape is it possible to avoid the com­promises that the development and print laboratories impose on you. On the tape the color can be electrically corrected. It is true that there are many other technical complications, but the advantages are enormous.

You asked me: “What about tomorrow?” Tomorrow could already be today if it were not for the industrial structure of cinema that opposes it. It would be the end of film, of film development and print laboratories, of regular cameras, and of at least a third of the commercial cinema establishment. Do you think that it would be easy to destroy all of this? Among all of the arts, cinema is the one that is most solidly grounded in life, and one would have to begin to change even life. Since, the way it is now, it’s not very well organized.



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16 of Michelangelo Antonioni's 17 films

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Story of a Love Affair (1950)
'After a series of striking documentary short subjects, Michelangelo Antonioni made his first feature, Cronaca di un Amore (Story of a Love Affair), a loose, neutral treatment of a seemingly standard noir subject. Cronaca is much like Robert Bresson's early Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne—you can detect the future abstract style of the director underneath the conventional material. With these two films, a new type of reflective cinema was born, dedicated equally to the interior lives of actor "models" and the obscure surfaces of the photographed world.'-- Slant



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The Vanquished (1953)
'There’s no gainsaying Antonioni’s sense that there’s little going on in the story to repay attention to the action—but this may be why the director achieved so much with its filming. The characters play second fiddle to the environment in the Italian episode of I Vinti; the actors seem to shrink beside the awesomely looming, coldly oppressive images of modern buildings going up quickly in grandiose modern urbanistic projects. Looking down upon the city through a huge window high up in the revellers’ glossy glass-and-metal apartment building, filming the alluringly pure yet chilling shapes of modern streetlights on a bare new highway, Antonioni foreshadows his great films of the sixties—and the French and English episodes of I Vinti, with their more pointedly worked-out stories, hardly do so. The constraints that circumstances placed on Antonioni’s story-telling pushed him, perhaps unintentionally and maybe even unawares, into a freer, stranger, more probing and more inventive way with the camera. He said of his early films: "I chose to examine the inner side of my characters instead of their life in society, the effects inside them of what was happening outside. Consequently, while filming, I would follow them as much as I could, without ever letting the camera leave them. This is how the long takes of Story of a Love Affair and The Vanquished came about".'-- The New Yorker



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The Lady Without Camelias (1953)
'The third feature film by cinema master Michelangelo Antonioni, La signora senza camelie [The Lady Without Camelias], expanded the expressive palette of contemporary Italian movies, demonstrating that a personal vision could take an explicitly poetic tack; that “seriousness = neo-realism” was perhaps already turning into something of a truism; and that Antonioni would answer to no-one but himself. A riveting ‘behind-the-scenes’ show-business drama, La signora senza camelie explores themes that would haunt its director from L’avventura through La notte and The Passenger— an individual’s tenuous hold on her identity, and the dangers inherent to performance… in life and on-screen.'-- Eureka Video



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Le Amiche (1955)
'A woman friend of mine once insightfully remarked that men show much more compassion and empathy for other men than women do for other women. She claimed that the congenial smiles among a group of women may often belie far less generous feelings. This challenging subject territory – how women see themselves and how they see each other – is what Michelangelo Antonioni explores in his fourth feature film, Le Amiche (The Girlfriends, 1955). Although the film is not so well known today and appeared before Antonioni came to international prominence, Le Amiche features many of the themes and cinematic techniques that characterized Antonioni’s great works that came later. In fact it displays some of Antonioni’s innovative storytelling methods on a narrative canvas that was more complex than that of his later works. Here Antonioni traces the evolving and mutually influencing relationships among a group of young women friends who are all trying to answer the same question for themselves: what do they really want out of life?'-- Film Sufi



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Il Grido (1957)
'So much attention has been paid to Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni's films from the 1960s that his earlier Neo-Realist efforts have been overlooked – as if they represented the work of nothing more than a talented tyro. But even though Antonioni was not as consciously “experimental” in his early films as he was in those of his Alienation Trilogy (L'Avventura, La Notte, and L'Eclisse), and in later classics such as Blow-Up and The Passenger, his Neo-Realist films were both well written and visually accomplished, playing upon the viewers' emotions and providing them with believable characters and situations. That Michelangelo Antonioni's film career started out in documentaries should come as no surprise to those familiar with his earlier output. One of the best of the early Antonioni efforts is Il Grido / The Cry (1957), which he also co-wrote along with Elio Bartolini and Ennio de Concini. The nearly two-hour-long black-and-white drama has much in common with Federico Fellini's 1954 classic La Strada, save that Antonioni's film is a bit more believable and less patently heart-tugging. Also worth noting, Il Grido prefigures many of the themes that would recur in the director's later work – e.g., alienation, apathy, anomy – in addition to possessing a political edge lacking in those later films.'-- algft.com



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L'Avventura (1960)
'A group of rich Italians is on a cruise off the coast of Sicily when one of their number—a moody, unhappy young woman—disappears. Murder, kidnapping, accident, suicide? Her boyfriend and her close friend search for her, but the search turns into a new love story, and the mystery is never resolved. With this simple, elusive tale, director Michelangelo Antonioni launched himself to the forefront of the emerging European art cinema. At the time of L’avventura’s premiere at Cannes, in May 1960, he was forty-six and had directed five previous features, all of them interesting but none of them able to massively capture the public’s attention. The premiere was a disaster, with catcalls erupting throughout the auditorium. But the critics loved it, and so—when it went into international release—did wider audiences. With L’avventura, Antonioni’s career was made, and the film is now an acknowledged classic. Forty years ago, the film struck audiences mainly with its freshness, and it can still have that effect today. It surprises with its insights: characters do unexpected things in unexpected places, but in a way that provokes recognition—yes, that does happen, though it doesn’t conform to the way we think things ought to happen.'-- Geoffrey Nowell-Smith



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La notte (1961)
'With understated shifts in perspective, Antonioni captures a world that is subtly yet deeply out of joint. (In L’eclisse and Red Desert, the visual dislocation would be more radical, and the emotional one irreparable.) One sequence in La notte shows Giovanni and Lidia entering his publisher’s office for his book party. As he passes behind a rack of his books and pauses for a mortal instant, his name appears repeatedly in front of him like a caption that’s empty of meaning, an incantation of nonsense sounds that are somehow him and that he’s there to somehow impersonate—an anti-verbal opacity that lends its meaninglessness to the little bricks of words that lie beneath these tags and that also reduces to inanity the suited and dressed, coiffed and elegant, witty and eloquent intellectuals who are there to celebrate him and his opaque creation. The world of La notte isn’t an absurd or meaningless one; it’s one that hides its profoundest meaning in plain sight, that owes its almost incalculable profundity to the immediacy of its visual patterns and abstractions, and that Antonioni both damns and redeems in the same gesture, the same moment, by means of his own art.'-- Richard Brody



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L'Eclisse (1962)
'Michelangelo Antonioni’s mysterious and disquieting 1962 film L’Eclisse (The Eclipse) is a twilight zone of anxiety and alienation in which the director displays his ability to slow time down a stop and allow his characters to wander in an eerily untenanted landscape. He had a knack of making Rome look as empty as the middle of the night – in the middle of the day. Did his film intuit the emptiness of growing postwar prosperity, or just have its own strange vision of the aftermath of nuclear attack? The film really is visionary: it has a gift for unearthly images to compare with Fellini: the crashed car resurrected from the water with the hand of its dead joyrider visible is unforgettable. But it also discloses an enigmatic void in its own strange, hectic little love story: almost as if extraterrestrial forces are preparing this ground for some uncanny incursion.'-- The Guardian



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the entire film (in Italian)



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Red Desert (1964)
'Coming after the trilogy of L’avventura (1960), La notte (1961), and L’eclisse (1962), which confirmed his reputation internationally as one of the world’s leading avant-garde directors, Red Desert is the most ambitious of all of Antonioni’s attempts to ground the condition of our modern existence in a theory of alienation. The alienation in question is very complex, and it is part of the film’s difficulty, but also its achieve­ment and seriousness, that the feelings evinced in its dramatization are so fundamentally contradictory and intractable. For on the one hand, Antonioni would say, the world being created by the advance of tech­nology is undoubtedly beautiful: we see it in the fantastic sculptural shapes thrown up by science and industry—the girders and pipings and pylons that are part of a vast new network of global communications, seemingly reaching to the stars (an early sequence in the movie takes us to a deserted rural building site where the University of Bologna is constructing a massive new radio telescope). On the other hand—and here the pounding soundtrack of the film’s opening ten minutes makes its own inescapable comment—this new world is very close to hell. A wasteland is a wasteland, after all, and if a “new beauty” has been born (how power­fully the film shows that it indeed has been), the phenom­enon is shot through with poison.'-- Mark Le Fanu



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Blow Up (1966)
'Made in Great Britain in 1966, the flat-out great Blow Up (in the U.K., Blow-Up) was Michelangelo Antonioni's first English-language effort. “Inspired” by Argentinean writer Julio Cortázar's 1959 short story Las babas del diablo (literally, “The Devil's Drool”), Blow-Up was nominated for two Academy Awards – Best Director and Best Original Screenplay (Michelangelo Antonioni, Tonino Guerra, and Edward Bond) – in addition to winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the National Society of Film Critics' Best Film Award. Having first seen the two Hollywood films most influenced by Blow-Up, Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974) and Brian De Palma's Blowout (1981), I did not know quite what to expect since the former is an excellent film – arguably, Coppola's best – and the latter is a solid Hollywood thriller. Blow-Up, for its part, is not only a great work of art but a great work of philosophy as well, one as impressive as Antonioni's Italian masterpiece, La Notte (1961).'-- altfg.com



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Zabriskie Point (1970)
'Zabriskie Point was to be Michelangelo Antonioni's greatest triumph, a crowning achievement in an already seminal body of work and a bold affirmation of his commercial ascendance in America. It was to be the Italian-born director's state-of-the-epoch address, a provocative document of the political injustice, civil warfare, and extreme moral and cultural polarities defining the end of the 1960s. The eagerly awaited successor to Antonioni's stunning 1966 success, Blow-Up, a stylish mystery and an enigmatic study of naïveté and ennui in swinging, pop-art London, Zabriskie Point was to be nothing less than Antonioni's portrait of the United States -- and by extension, Western society -- at war with itself. And it was to be a film made with the kind of financial largess, technical facilities, and corporate indulgence that only a major, old-school Hollywood studio like Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, in its infinite blockbuster fantasies, could sanction. But just about everything that could go wrong with the project did go wrong, and Antonioni's great dream would prove to be his worst nightmare. Released in March 1970 after nearly two arduous years in production -- a period that included long, exhausting shoots on location in the California desert, pitched battles between Antonioni and M-G-M executives, and a protracted, frustrating search for the perfect musical score -- Zabriskie Point was one of the most extraordinary disasters in modern cinematic history. The arithmetic alone was astonishing. Reeling from severe management trauma yet eager to capitalize on the booming counterculture youth market, M-G-M -- which went through three presidents during the production of Zabriskie Point -- poured $7 million into the film, an extravagant figure for that time and nearly five times what Antonioni spent to make Blow-Up. But where Blow-Up (the first release in Antonioni's three-picture deal with M-G-M) had taken in more than $20 million at the box office, Zabriskie Point made less than a tenth of that -- a mere $900,000 -- in its humiliatingly brief theatrical run.'-- phinnweb.org



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The Passenger (1975)
'After the relatively modest results from Zabriskie Point (1970), even Michelangelo Antonioni’s loyal fans may have wondered if his powers of artistic expression were in permanent decline. But with his next feature fiction film production, The Passenger (1975), the writer-director turned away from the political and returned to the philosophical existential themes that had driven such earlier artistic successes, as L'Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), L'Eclisse (1962), Red Desert (1964), and Blow-Up (1966). And on this occasion he was supported by having perhaps the two most magnetic and compelling screen personages of the time, Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider. The result was one of Antonioni’s greatest works. Actually, The Passenger initially does seem to have a political theme, since it concerns a television reporter’s investigation of revolutionary turbulence in North Africa. But it eventually reveals itself to be an examination of existential dissatisfaction with contemporary personal and social narratives in our modernist world. So the film very much situates itself within the thematic contexts of Antonioni’s earlier successes.'-- Film Sufi



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The Mystery of Oberwald (1980)
'The easiest way to explain The Mystery of Oberwald is that it is intended to make up for this deficiency in Antonioni’s work when taken as a whole. Oberwald forms a tidy contrast with most of Antonioni’s output—shot on video where his major works are shot on film; tightly paced where Blow-Up and The Passenger are quiet and slow; primarily confined to interiors where most of his films, going all the way back to L’Avventura, indulge a fascination with landscapes and the insignificance of the individuals within them. But the video’s look in its opening moments—grainy shots of a castle interior as thunder and lightning boom theatrically outside and actors gad about in Victorian garb—evokes these stories not so much as the late ‘60s, early ‘70s TV show Dark Shadows. Indeed, Oberwald immediately seems to share much of television’s humble and undiluted desire to entertain. Like Dark Shadows and its ilk, Oberwald is so modest in its means and its aspirations that ten minutes in, you realize that your expectations are going to be dashed. Even though Oberwald is the video creation of one of cinema’s most legendary directors, it isn’t a wild, abstract experiment of the Nam June Paik variety, but a straightforward dramatization of an age-old story.'-- Pop Matters



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Identification of a Woman (1982)
'Antonioni didn’t always produce demanding High Masterpieces. And a perfect example is Identification of a Woman, his foolishly underrated 1982 film about men and women, love and cinema. When it first came out, the responses were furiously divergent—it won a prize at Cannes, got creamed by the New York Times—but three decades on, it’s easier to assess its place in Antonioni’s career. Made when he was nearing seventy, this is one of those autumnal movies—think Rio Bravo or An Autumn Afternoon—in which an aging director allows himself to be more relaxed and genial than in his most finely tuned work. Far from serving up a major statement about the human condition—something Antonioni was never shy about doing—Identification of a Woman comes tinged with modesty and irony. His first feature set in Italy since 1964’s Red Desert, it finds him taking a provisional measure of how the modern world has been shifting around him.'-- John Powers



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w/ Wim Wenders Beyond the Clouds (1995)
'Clouds are magical when you're young - remember staring up at the sky with your imagination running wild, seeing the endless possibilities of their shapes? But somewhere along the way, we often lose that sense of creativity. For example, watch Beyond the Clouds - the work of an old man who had long forgotten how to look up. The credits list two directors, Antonioni and Wim Wenders, but it's well and truly the work of Michelangelo Antonioni, the man responsible for the acclaimed L'Avventura and Blowup. At the age of 83 and not long after suffering partial paralysis following a stroke, Antonioni started work on his final film armed with a collection of his own short stories, a half-formed screenplay, a cast full of people he owed favours to, a doting wife to literally call the shots, and with German filmmaker Wim Wenders as insurance. The result is a mishmash. It's a swan song that recycles his visual and theoretical motifs - some of it works, most of it doesn't, but all of it is decidedly Antonioni.'-- SCMP



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The Dangerous Thread of Things (2004)
'Eros is a composite film consisting of three short films, two by admirers of Michelangelo Antonioni and the last by Antonioni himself. The first two films in the package, by Hong Kong’s Wong Kar-Wai and the U.S.’s Steven Soderbergh, are both excellent. As is typical of this sort of composite work, the best is saved for last, and it is to that amazing film that I wish to direct your attention. Written by Antonioni and longtime collaborator Tonino Guerra, it is called The Dangerous Thread of Things (“Il filo pericoloso delle cose”), and it is based on a short story in Antonioni’s 1983 collection, That Bowling Alley on the Tiber River. It is from this book that Antonioni drew episodes for his film Beyond the Clouds (Al di là delle nuvole, 1995). Antonioni made The Dangerous Thread of Things when he was 92 years old. He directed it from a wheelchair, to which a stroke has confined him. One never knows, of course, but it probably will prove to be his last film. It’s a brilliant piece of work.'-- Dennis Grunes



Excerpt




*

p.s. Hey. So, I think the world premiere last night of Zac's and my film went really well. I guess I'll say more stuff about it down below somewhere. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you kindly, David. I think a leg was broken, or at least badly fractured. ** James, Hi. Thanks for the good thoughts, man! ** Tomkendall, Hey, Tom! Always so awesome to see you, my pal. Thanks so much for wishing us well. ** Sypha, Hi. I seem to be pleasantly surprising you a lot lately, that's cool. Oh, wow, not since 'Ocarina'? Great game, of course, but it's like caveman Zelda at this point. ** Styrofoamcastle,
Hey, Cody! Aw, thanks, man. So happy you like the new gif book, and I think the film premiere went pretty well. Love to you! ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey. In fact, Gaspar did come to the premiere. I didn't get a chance to talk to him afterwards so I don't know what he thought, but he has seen the film, at least. ** Scunnard, Ha ha, me too! Thanks a lot, man, really, Great weekend to you. ** H, Hi. Thank you. I think there was some enchantment going on. And no doubt some ups and downs too. Thank you about the posts and Brainard work! ** Bill, Thanks, Bill! Wish you could have been there too. That's interesting, I was just reading about 'The Tribe' a day or so ago, and what I read intrigued me. Cool. Make the ultra-best of everything the weekend has on offer. ** Thomas Moronic, Thanks a bunch, T. Yeah, the premiere was good. Zac and I were nervous wrecks, but, after the onstage intros and once the lights when down, it went, I think, as well as we could have hoped. Amazing to see the film on a huge screen and with huge sound. That was a first for us. And we still loved the film even when it finally looked like a real film. The audience was quite large, bordering on a full house in a very large theater. There were a handful of walk-outs, which was to be expected since it was mostly complete strangers who had no idea what the film would be like, and it's very unconventional as well as intense but, at the same time, quiet/deep, and that combo is pretty demanding. And the focus on sex throughout, completely explicit at times but never fun and sexy, did some people in. But, yeah, it got very strong applause afterwards, and the comments we got were very positive and enthusiastic, so ... yeah, I think our confidence in the film is confirmed and even dialed up. We have two festival showings in October that we can't announce yet, and we'll see how those go. But, yeah, Zac and I pretty happy. Thank you, T!  ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Thanks a lot, buddy. 'A Field in England' sounds quite interesting. Is it in theaters over there? I'll keep an eye out for it, for sure. Thanks, B. Have a lovely weekend. ** Steevee, Hi, Steve. Thank you for the link! Everyone, Go here now or as soon as possible and read Steevee's review of the very interesting German director Edgar Reitz's new film 'Home From Home' ** Étienne, Hi, Etienne! You made it. Awesome! Zac is French/American, but he was born here and has lived in France for most of his life, so French is his first language. That's why he spoke it so good. Man, your response to the film is so great and glorious, and I'm really happy you liked it for the reasons you did. That's super-heartening. Zac directed the film solely. I mean, we talked a lot, and I gave him my thoughts and ideas when he needed them, and I was there for everything, but the film's realization is his. But Zac and I almost seem like we share the same brain sometimes, and working with him really is like having the absolute dream visualizer, and I agree that the film opens up my work without altering it at all. Very strange. Wow, really, thank you. You really seemed to totally get what we want the film to do, and that's so satisfying. I'll pass your thought along to Zac. He'll be very happy. The Q&A got cancelled because they had to slot another festival film into that theater soon afterwards, but that was fine with us, actually, ha ha. Yeah, just, yeah, thank you so much! So, let's sort out a time to meet up for a coffee or something. Let me know what's good for you. ** Alistair McCartney, Hi, Alistair! I think the premiere went really well. We really didn't know what would happen. It's a pretty unusual film, very demanding emotionally and attention span-wise and also because the content is intense and dark and sexually explicit at times. Also, it's in five distinct if aesthetically and thematically connected parts, which is unusual too. So it was a huge relief and very happy-making that the audience seemed very into it, silent/focused in the intense parts, and they even laughed at one scene that we hoped would be strangely funny. So, yeah, I think we're pretty thrilled. Oh, I'll look into the NEXT Festival. I think the DVD release in the US is early-ish next year, so I think we need to do what festivals we can before that because, once the DVD is out, festivals are less into showing a film. I'll check that one out, thank you! Anyway, yeah, thanks, my pal! I hope your novel is proceeding very apace! Love, me. ** Misanthrope, Thanks, George. I can only imagine about the WWE crowd. They're doing one of their basically yearly events in Paris soonish, and I think I might try to go. Both to actually be at one, and also because I'm so curious to see what kinds of French people are into the WWE. It's hard for me to imagine. Sweet about Randy Orton giving you the brotherly look. And, man, great news that LPS is happy. Boy oh boy, does that awesome young fellow deserve some happiness. ** Kyler, Hi, K. Yeah, it went really good last night, thank you! I hope your b'day email to your friend has the right kind of effect. That's very nice of you, obviously. Have a good next coupla! ** Okay. I realized to my relative astonishment recently that I have never done a blog Day on Antonioni. How weird. So there it finally is up north of here. I hope you guys like it. See you on Monday.

_______________




Joey: The villains are the heroes of your books, glamorous, funny, and often, like in The Show that Smells, the good guys are either idiots or sad sacks that get what they've got coming. Jimmie Rogers is constantly coughing up sputum and moaning, while Schiaparelli has page after page of glorious dead baby joke monologuing and these great insane dresses. What do you think is so compelling about evil? You first introduced me to Night of the Hunter, and Robert Mitchum owns that movie with his weird beautiful singing as he stalks those children. He's like Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight. He's bigger than the movie. Do you think that evil could be as compelling in real life? Do you think it'd be as fun, in real life? As much of a performance?

Derek McCormack: I dream of being evil. I have dreamt this dream since I was a child -- I wanted so badly to be the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz. I carried a wooden wand around until I was, um, ten? A neighbour carved a wooden rifle for me so that I could play soldier or shoot-'em-up or whatever. I didn't mind playing with guns but I would always wind up waving the rifle around as if it were a wand. I wanted to cast spells. With The Show That Smells, I had a very clear vision: I wanted to write a book that was a spell that would destroy all the books in the world. Well, maybe not all the books, but CanLit at least. I love when the gays start making magic: I'm thinking of Kenneth Anger and others, but mainly of Jack Spicer and the incantatory tone of some of his stuff. I'm thinking of Jack Spicer because he was my patron saint! Gay, ugly, alone. Glamour's what guys like us dream of -- an evil glamour that doesn't make us beautiful but that changes what beauty is. I guess this is not what most people imagine when they imagine evil -- they think of serial killers and people who put poison in parks for dogs to discover. I think of The Joker, another childhood hero. Evil is art that can make evil real. Tell me, Joey, when you were younger, did you like superheroes or villains? I don't see much evil in your books -- there are monsters, but they're often there to test family ties, or the limits of fidelity, or so it seems to me. That said, the things you've been writing lately have certainly been more brutal and bananas -- are you digging into your dark side in a different way?

Joey: You don't seem particularly flaky to me, so when you say "a magic spell" I read that as a sort of trick. An illusion or sleight of hand. A glamourousness that makes it hard for the reader/viewer to recognize evil as evil, even when it's clear that this is the villain. The poor sap characters in the movie know that Freddy is the bad guy, but half the audience is getting bored whenever he's not on screen. Part of his evil is making evil seductive and fun. Evil is art that can make Evil sexy?

DM: As for whether I liked heroes or villains, I'm not sure. When I was a kid I liked Spider-Man. The hero aspect of him didn't really interest me. I didn't care about great power coming with great responsibility. I liked his jokes and one liners. But that doesn't answer your question. I was never interested in comic book villains, I wasn't particularly interested in the heroes either. The first comic I remember LOVING was Sam & Max. They're villains pretending to be heroes, I think. Maybe vice-versa. Good and evil don't matter in that world. Those concepts are just helpful setups to jokes. The characters are complete unbridled impulse. ("What should I do with this bomb, Max?" - "Throw it out the window, Sam, there's nobody but strangers out there.") They're irreverent in the best way. Those are the kind of villains I love.

The book you mentioned that I'm writing, Bible Camp Bloodbath, has a villain like that. He's making jokes while murdering children. He's got no back story, no deep psychological motivation, he's just having a really good time. It was so much fun to write something like that. So giddy.

Joey: You've been working a lot with visual artists, and on visual art lately. Do you think it's possible for visual art to have evil in it? Or to express evil in a fun way without losing its impact? I guess I mean, is there a place for villains in art? Or architecture? That doctor's house in Chicago around the time of the Chicago fair was the site of dozens of murders. But with its trap doors and fake walls, it has the surreal fun of a grisly puzzle. I could hear the glee in your voice when you told me about that place. But that's a different kind of horrific. There's not really any glamour to that house, is there? Why is it so fascinating?

DM: Oh, but there was glamour to the murder castle – there was a jewelry shop on the first floor! The murder castle is evil because of the murders that took place there, sure, but that’s not so interesting to me. The machinery of the castle – trap doors, sliding walls, dead-end corridors, etc – that’s what kills me. I’ve written about it before – it seems to me to have influenced the development of carnival dark rides and amusement park haunted houses. It’s not the murders I love, it’s the murder castle as tourist attraction. It’s the carnival haunted house that can’t possibly be as scary as it pretends to be.

It's like: when I was a kid, I would consult the Ouija board, which I knew was a dumb board game -- still, I would play it late at night with friends and we'd scare ourselves. And in that late-night fright I would always feel the hope that it could be real, even though it couldn't be real, but what if it could? The evil I care about is Disney evil, it’s Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty– what if that type of evil, which is so operatic and elegant, could come out of the cartoon and into the world? That would be crackerjack and catastrophic. That’s the black magic I care about, that I try to conjure in my books. It’s a laughable dream I have, laughable and probably impossible, but it’s still better than dreaming of winning the ReLit Award or getting a Canada Council grant, don’t you think?








Derek McCormack The Well-Dressed Wound
Semiotext(e)

'The Well-Dressed Wound is Derek McCormack’s play script “séance”: a fashion show by the dead for the living. In the depths of the Civil War, in a theater in P. T. Barnum’s American Museum on Broadway, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln participate in a staged spiritualistic rite. But the medium conducting them has invited along another being: the Devil, disguised as twentieth-century French fashionista Martin Margiela (aka “King Faggot”). What follows is the most fiendish runway show ever mounted, complete with war dead, deconstructed couture, and gay ghosts infected with all manner of infectious agents, including oozy AIDS.

'While his previous fictions have explored the darker corners of country music, high fashion, and camp, The Well-Dressed Wound is McCormack’s most radical work yet, occultishly evoking the evil-twin muses of transgressive literature, Kathy Acker and Pierre Guyotat. The creation thus conjured is a gleeful grotesquerie, a savage satire not so much of fashion as of death, a work that, as Bruce Hainley observes in Artforum, puts “the ‘pus’ back in opus.” Here death and life spin on a viral double helix of contamination and couture, blistering and bandages, history and hysteria, semen and seams. “Being dead is so very now,” Hainley opines. “This tiny tome (a time bomb, a tomb) is to die for and radically alive.”'-- Semiotext(e)



Excerpt/Intro

Welcome to The Well-Dressed Wound

    The play is presented by P.T. Barnum. It's being staged in the theater at Barnum's American Museum on Broadway.

    The play depicts a seance that takes place in a parlor in the presidential palace, the White House in Washington, D.C.
    The characters:
    The Medium, a woman wearing a black shawl.
    Mary Todd Lincoln, the First Lady. She's in a black dress. She's in mourning for her son, Willie, who died when he was eleven.
    Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States. He's in a sack suit. The suit's black for Willie's sake and for the country's sake -- the Civil War's made the shade de rigueur.
The cast: The Medium's played by Nettie Coburn Maynard, a clairvoyant who conducted a seance for President and Mrs. Lincoln at the White House in 1862. Mary Todd Lincoln's played by Mary Todd Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln's Abraham Lincoln.
    I'm Willie.



Derek McCormack and Anwar Mukhayesh (from HGTV's "The Designer Guys") interview each other


Derek McCormack on his novel The Show That Smells


Tony Burgess & Derek McCormack -- Die Scream Die




________________




'Elaine Equi's new book, just out from Coffee House Press, is Sentences and Rain, a smart title for a poet who translates her love of things and states of being into sentences -- albeit sentences broken in signature line-breaks. Language itself is a subject that impels her to write. From "Yo y Tu," a poem wondering about the presence of the second-person pronoun in Spanish but not in English: "Intimacy, friendship, / easy access -- // in English / the formal you / is 'Yo'."

'Equi is attracted to short forms, the short utterance, the sudden revelation. This predilection reflects a certain modesty but more importantly a tremendous value placed on economy.

'As one who is by nature attracted to wordplay and the idea that the composition of a poem may resemble a game of metaphysical chess or checkers, I always find much to delight me in an Equi collection. In Sentences and Rain, she has a poem consisting entirely of favorite lines from Charles Reznikoff on the subject of time and clocks and a second cento entitled "Varieties of Fire in Hilda Morley." There are two examples of the Equi epithalamium -- all the words in the poem "are derived from recombinations of only the letters" in the names of the new spouses. It is, of course, not only the idea preceding the poem that one admires but the intelligence and wit that the idea triggers

'Among my favorites is "Lucky Lipstick," perhaps because the poet's generative conceit lies very precisely in the title and its relation to the text -- consisting, in this case, of lines associated with such masters as Gertrude Stein "A Rose is a Rose"), Wallace Stevens ("Red Weather"), William Carlos Williams. ("I Have Eaten the Plums") and Samuel Taylor Coleridge ("Frost at Midnight").

'Here is the entire text of a one-line poem entitled "Caught in a Downpour": "If I open my mouth, I might drown." And this is from Equi's take on the will as an organizing motif: "For Edward Hopper: A perfect piece of lemon meringue pie in a diner at midnight, where the only other customer is Greta Garbo reading a book."

'But if there is a secret joy informing Equi's poetry, it is in the way she accepts the world as it is, without quarrel and without illusions except those that are sanctioned by art. Like a still-life specialist she gets you to see not only the red flesh of the watermelon but the beauty of the black seeds on it. She has a feel for the comic side of things, she refuses to take herself too seriously, she is true to her own mind rather than vainly endeavoring to sound like someone else. It is this sensibility that links her to the New York School poets, James Schuyler in particular, and Williams, Niedecker, and Reznikoff among the Objectivists.

'There is a lot of fake poetry out there. Equi is real. She changes the way you look at things. You cannot fake the authenticity that informs even the most casual of her observations.'-- David Lehman








Elaine Equi Sentences and Rain
Coffee House Press

'Whether celebrating clones or revising Led Zeppelin, Equi melds verse with aphorism, wisdom with wicked playfulness."—Entertainment Weekly

'Equi's poems are under the breath asides from your cleverest friend—witty, thoughtful, and wry.

'Widely published and anthologized, Elaine Equi's work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Nation, and numerous volumes of The Best American Poetry.'-- Coffee House Press


Excerpts

SLIGHT

A slight implies
if not an insult
(real or imagined)
at least something
unpleasant --
a slight cold,
a slight headache.
No one ever says:
"You make me slightly happy."
Although this, in fact,
is often the case.



YO Y TU

In Spanish
yo means I

and tu
is a you
I know

or at least
am comfortable
addressing casually.

In English
we have no
informal form

to indicate
the you
still in pajamas —
hair wild,
drinking coffee.

Intimacy, friendship,
easy access –

in English
the informal you
is “Yo”



IMBIBING

A show globe
of red intensity,

a glass beacon
of medicinal yellow.

Both are only
colored water

meant to be drunk
with the eyes, and yet.

The ancients knew
that color heals,

makes a fine meal
for a ruined mind.

Things (maladies) thought
to go on forever

eventually do,
like summer, end.



Poet Elaine Equi reads from Ripple Effect


Fantasy Poetry Reading: Elaine Equi


Poets Elaine Equi & David Lehman @ Big Apple BAP




________________




'“I’ve written a number of essays the past few years,” Dodie Bellamy writes in her new book, When the Sick Rule the World, “and I keep vowing to quit.” We know her essay-quitting hasn’t been going well, not only because we’re reading about it in a Dodie Bellamy essay, but also because these words, which originally appeared in the 2008 chapbook Barf Manifesto, are now nestled in a new collection alongside thirteen other essays, most of which have been written in the years since.

'To be frank and detailed about sex in one’s writing, to use one’s own name and biography, to blend high and low cultural references in an intermittently casual tone, as Bellamy does, and to do these things while being a woman, as Bellamy is—all this might lead literal-minded readers to privilege what’s said over the way one says it, to fail to see the form for the subject matter. But for Bellamy, who came out of the New Narrative movement of the late 1970s and early ’80s, it’s form itself that’s juicy. She has published a post–Bram Stoker epistolary novel in which Mina Harker cuts a swath through AIDS-era San Francisco, possessing the body of Dodie Bellamy along the way; a blog-turned-book about her affair with a cultish Buddhist; a careful splicing of an erotic text into part of the 1975 Norton Anthology of Poetry. Not to mention a personal essay that begins with a set of seventy-eight “TV sutras” (“Stops more leaks than the next leading brand. End of tampon commercial. COMMENTARY . . . Distraction and lack of focus are also forms of leaking: losing track of what is valuable and meaningful”). No wonder she says she is “addicted” to the essay, yet at the same time has always found it “oppressive, a form so conservative it begs to be dismantled.” And she doesn’t merely want to deconstruct it, or to question it in the manner of a “feminist poetic essay” of the early ’80s. That kind of experiment “felt too watery for me. I wasn’t into watery, I was into libidinal”: Bellamy wants to fuck the essay (up).

'Like any subversion of a form, this is an act of aggression, but also one of love, because it shows the form how much more it could be capable of—especially apt in the case of the essay, which by definition is always an experiment, an attempt to do or discover something new. “Barf Manifesto” takes as its starting point another essay, “Everyday Barf,” by the poet Eileen Myles, a ten-page feat that also begins with a fuck-you to strict formal convention. Myles describes being asked to write a political sestina, then having the editor who commissioned the poem critique its technical flaws. She is not interested in acing her homework assignment: “It simply strikes me that form has a real honest engagement with content and therefore might even need to get a little sleazy with it suggesting it stop early or go too far.”

'As well as reading Myles’s work for us, Bellamy presents us with a portrait of the poet herself, and of their often tricky friendship (we see Myles, the more famous writer, maniacally destroying a piñata; we see her humiliate Bellamy after she clogs her toilet—“keep pumping,” Myles barks). Here Bellamy offers, both explicitly and implicitly, a way of thinking about the charged, rivalrous relations between writers and their influences, writers and their subjects, writers and readers. That’s one effect of the New Narrative practice of blurring those divides: Writers known and unknown show up in their own and their friends’ work; and they often present themselves as creative readers as well as writers, appropriating other texts in a particularly pointed fashion, not hiding or overprocessing the various foreign bodies they incorporate. In both cases the effects can be very complicated, because the texts are dramatizing several different kinds of power struggle: the obvious one in which the writer’s presentation of her subjects does battle with their own self-conceptions, but also others, in which, say, the writer grabs a brilliant passage from someone else’s work and tries to top it, or throws two incongruous, contradictory texts together and lets them fight it out.'-- Lidija Haas, Bookforum








Dodie Bellamy When the Sick Rule the World
Semiotext(e)

'A moving meld of essay, memoir, and story, When the Sick Rule the World collects Dodie Bellamy’s new and recent lyric prose. Taking on topics as eclectic as vomit, Kathy Acker’s wardrobe, and Occupy Oakland, Bellamy here examines illness, health, and the body—both the social body and the individual body—in essays that glitter with wit even at their darkest moments.

'In a safe house in Marin County, strangers allergic to the poisons of the world gather for an evening’s solace. In Oakland, protesters dance an ecstatic bacchanal over the cancerous body of the city-state they love and hate. In the elegiac memoir, “Phone Home,” Bellamy meditates on her dying mother’s last days via the improbable cipher of Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Finally, Bellamy offers a piercing critique of the displacement and blight that have accompanied Twitter’s move into her warehouse-district neighborhood, and the pitiless imperialism of tech consciousness.

'A participant in the New Narrative movement and a powerful influence on younger writers, Bellamy views heteronormativity and capitalism as plagues, and celebrates the micro-revolts of those on the outskirts. In its deft blending of forms, When the Sick Rule the World resiliently and defiantly proclaims the “undeath of the author.” In the realm of sickness, Bellamy asserts, subjectivity is not stable. “When the sick rule the world, mortality will be sexy,” Bellamy prophesies. Those defined by society as sick may, in fact, be its saviors.'-- Semiotext(e)


Excerpt
from Fanzine

BAD PLACES

I park my car in the cul de sac on Natoma. As I approach Lafayette Street, a thin woman maybe in her early 20s passes me. She’d be attractive if it weren’t for the sores on her face and the way she confronts me with too much eye contact and a sort of glazed smile. She’s wearing a short white dress and one brown lace-up boot. Her other foot is bare.

Her presence doesn’t surprise me. Since 2012, when Twitter established its headquarters two blocks away, there’s been an ongoing battle to transform “Mid-Market” from sketchy skid row to up-and-coming “New Market,” as boosters and realtors have named it, or even the hip truncation, NEMA. Many of the displaced have moved East, to my micro-neighborhood. One guy regularly sits on the corner of my alley, shouting in different voices. His range is remarkable. Kevin and I lean over the outdoor landing of our rent-controlled Victorian and snoop. Rocking and wailing with his arms wrapped around his knees, the guy looks tiny. He doesn’t seem to be saying words so much as painfully expelling them. At times he sounds just like Regan in The Exorcist and I’m convinced he’s possessed, even though I don’t really believe in possession. Stupidly I call the cops and say, “There’s a guy on my corner who needs help.” The same migration happened when the City cleaned up Civic Center; it has been happening over and over ever since I moved to South of Market in 1990. In San Francisco when neighborhood associations or other vectors of power complain loud enough, police herd undesirables to the next neighborhood over, until that neighborhood generates enough political clout, and then they’re herded elsewhere. I learned this during the crack years. The crack years were scary, but fascinating to watch from my bedroom window and as I walked down 11th Street between Market and Mission. Vans distributed to bicycles that distributed to individuals. Person to person sales reminded me of gay cruising, the way transactions happen in plain sight. Two people approach one another, and without making eye contact, one stuffs something into the hand of another. The one receiving the good then heads to the closest alley, my alley, to smoke it. I used to joke I knew so much about crack sale and distribution I could go into business myself.

The one-booted woman loses interest in me and walks down Natoma towards 11th, weaving in the middle of the street with an indifference that could be described either as saunter or stagger. She seems weightless. Her otherworldliness and that one boot—it’s as if Bess—the title character of Daphne Gottlieb’s 2013 Spolia chapbook—has materialized before my eyes. Bess too wears only one shoe: “What I haven’t done a good enough job of telling you yet: How gone Bess is. She is the a-Bess. She is covered in menstrual blood, a Carrie in pink long johns wearing one shoe.”

The story of a drug-addicted young woman lost to psychosis, Bess is a Gothic horror novel distilled to 3100 words. The drug/prostitution maze of the single resident occupancy hotel (SRO) has entrapped Bess and endangers all who enter, including her case workers. Of it the female case worker ponders, “Can a place itself be bad? Is the ground under Auschwitz—the land itself—the brown earth that smells just like dirt—is the land itself evil? Is the land under Ted Bundy’s house cursed? Was there blood spilled under the labyrinth that made it hungry for more? Is there a reason people get swallowed up or snuffed out or trapped in a labyrinth?” Stephen King would answer, yes, the SRO has become a Bad Place. From Danse Macabre: “When we go home and shoot the bolt on the door, we like to think we’re locking trouble out. The good horror story about the Bad Place whispers that we are not locking the world out; we are locking ourselves in . . . with them.” In Bess it’s difficult to locate where corruption lies. We have the behemoth of social services, designed to assist, but which threatens to dehumanize all involved. We have the two case workers trying their damnedest to be the good guys in a system that invites failure. “This is what I do: I take lost people and I give them beds in places with big rooms with many beds.” And then we have Bess, who remains remote, manipulative, un-exorcize-able. “[O]ne Frye-boot on, still makes with the vacant, absent look. Nothing much matters to her, I think. Nothing is getting through. She’s gone away someplace.” In her schizophrenic haze, Bess is unable to take care of herself, and thus legally absorbable by the social services system. “She is the graybrown of the walls. Her pinpick eyes glare right through the curtain of hair. Her mouth is an asterisk. She nods that she will come with us because she has no choice.”

(cont.)



Dodie Bellamy reads from Erotika Biblion


Dodie Bellamy Reading at Small Press Traffic


Whistle While You Dixie (excerpt) / Dodie Bellamy




________________




'Electronic globalization has turned us into relentless postdigital flaneurs; something quite different from the Baudelaires, the Prousts or the Benjamins of early modern times. For Leslie Scalapino, the flaneur, the detached stroller, no longer exists. Instead, individuals on all economic and class levels at once are both seeing and creating the ‘conceptual’ interaction that is them: whicch is then exterior, is ‘society’ (that is, the illusion of simultaneity). The classical flaneur was typically a big city dweller astonished by the perception of witnessing the birth of a new world and, at the same time, a romantic outsider digging into the nostalgia of a fictional inheritance through which modern subjectivity was initially constituted. The contemporary contra-flaneur, however, is a solitary individual wandering beyond the edge of the city in a quiet region completely isolated and around which lie ruins, as an exaltation of abandonment turning toward annihilation, abandoning all hope while jammed in Hell’s enter or exit lanes—Any narrator for the arts is already deleted, writes Sean Kilpatrick in the introduction to Grant Maierhofer’s Postures.

'Maierhofer plays the Big Brother game to find a kaleidoscopic fuckscreen of bad cameras angles that make mankind look like half a speck of civilization when you pick it apart for just a moment”, realizing that “the way the world is changing, and will change, is far more dire, far more obscene, far more anti-Human. The contra-flaneur is already deleted—already dead and having no clue to decide if the apparently one way road he’s stuck into is leading in or out of Hell. In his immediate previous work Marcel, a collection of wonderfully carved stories about ways of coping with loneliness and despair, Maierhofer introduces us to a handful of contra-flaneurs trapped in places where it’s almost impossible for them, no matter how fucked up their minds might be, to ignore the tragicomic aspects of the collapse of conventional human relationships (Friends came as unwelcome scars)—yet they’re burdened by the anxiety their awareness of the fact that whatever her/his activity accounts for, it means acknowledging the decomposition of the present. Imagine a lonesome, sick or depressed person, languishing under the dim light of the TV, suddenly discovering the reality that surrounds him when illuminated by the instantaneous lightening of language—and then lost again, faded again in the miserable electronic twilight.

'Foremost, fuck the strong—writes Kilpatrick. Because these are not so much stories about despair and loneliness, as of weakness. That weakness that makes us still human in a world that seems to be the most inhospitable and desolate place—until we learn that the real problem was our own, physical, biological weakness. The author might no be dead, but he’s positively sick.'-- GERMÁN SIERRA, Queen Mob's Teahouse








Grant Maierhofer Marcel
[The] Heavy Contortionists

'Marcel, being stories collected: stories as dashed-off failures, rubbled; stories as rotten attempts, mounting; stories as odes to others, as burnt journals; stories as misspent youths, urgent; stories as fragments, ugly; a collected puddle of Midwestern or elsewheres ennui, ground up and arranged or scaled; slim fictive etchings toward an erasure of their author.'-- [The] Heavy Contortionists

'While I was reading Grant Maierhofer's collection of fragments, names kept floating up, some ecstatically invoked in the stories, others kindred ghosts-Daniil Kharm's Today I Wrote Nothing, Robert Walser, Shulamith Firestone's Airless Spaces, Renata Adler's Speedboat, Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. I felt such connection to these portraits of Midwestern stuckness, where characters cling to art as a way out of and a way into bewilderment and despair. Reading these beautiful shards of stories might make you feel okay for a while with your own loneliness.'-- Kate Zambreno


Excerpt
from Fanzine

TABLOID PHOTOGRAPH OF DAVID DUCHOVNY WIELDING STARBUCKS (AN EKPHRAST)

Lately very few things pull me from the television, which I guess just means I’ve got too much time. I started going to the meetings again cos I thought it was best maybe or would help, I don’t know where I fit but it isn’t here or really anywhere. I’d fit on some weird tiny planet with a disgusting family who just wanted to laugh and fart and swing for centuries then die peacefully together, elsewhere I don’t fit. I’m not a good guy, I accept it because the notion of being either “good” or a “guy” or a “good guy” or any of the relatively small handful of variations therein I might be doesn’t strike me as all that interesting in today’s sense of what those words mean, or any day’s sense I should say, which is more accurate. Don’t get me wrong, though, as in I have a way imagined in which you should get me and that might be termed the right way from where I exist and I don’t want you to get me in a way that contradicts this glaringly enough to be termed wrong to the “right” that I’ve admittedly imagined, so don’t get me wrong, I’m not a revolutionary, I just have less than interest in most things. I watch a lot of television. Whatever you think is a lot of television, multiply this by at least four and that’s probably about as much as I watch and it isn’t all stimulating and most of the time I’m watching it on a laptop computer propped on my chest in bed with the lights off while feeding my facehole from a bag of rusted potato chips. This is all completely accurate at least in that there’s probably a degree of iron in the potato chips (I have no way of knowing this that would allow me to remain in the bed from which I write this note) and thus they could actually be termed “rusted” without the person writing elevating into the metaphorical and the invention of the term “facehole” really isn’t so glaring or ambitious when one considers the pretentiousness of the word “mouth” and the way we’ve comfortably used it for years to refer to this disgusting shitsucker in the center of out melting visages.

I do this stuff and maybe I feel bad about it, maybe not. I don’t think I feel bad about it but then I’m writing this thing and Burroughs said he wrote from a place of guilt after killing his wife so maybe my fat fat paunch is like a dead wife stuck to the front of me and every time I look away from the television long enough to look down at her I feel strong guilt that drives me to piddle thus. I don’t believe in masterpieces. I don’t think human beings have actually done anything that admirable in just about anything and if the structuralist mode is applied to music and the arts we’ve just been rearranging bare essentials and primary colors for centuries calling it ambitious when in the end we’re just imitating something that made us feel good when our privilege seemed to dissipate long enough for us to remove our heads from hinds. I’m like a dog grieving the death of its owner in perpetuity without knowing this means I’m free. I’m a lot like you as in I listen to Mott the Hoople some mornings and feel a bit better adjacent to heating apparatuses. I smell pretty awful. I think of sweaty geniuses and I’m not like them but I’m sweaty. There’s no place in this world for a boy like that. Sweaty without the genius no thank you at least we know why this cauldron of information sweats what’s your excuse. Physiological, alchemical, whatever. I could turn this place to something burning. That’s about the extent of where I exist. I say all these things and they all bear meaning and that’s the problem. We could just babble and swim forever. Babble and swim with alien dead maybe. I like to float out sometimes. I floated out in the lake one time in Wisconsin and it felt real good. I had all my clothes on but they were bunched up a bit so the water wouldn’t stick forever. It feels good sometimes. I watched a video that evening with my young brother and tried to inform him of something great that I perceived but that’s the problem with “great” “things” that you “perceive” it’s as relative as relative gets and by the time it’d finished he was onto the next one. Someone somewhere commented near that there was a “dead pixel” and people seemed to like it. I appreciate that. I appreciate people liking simple things when only things ultimate and spectacular grab attentions. I like simple dumb monotonous things most. I stare at ants if I can. I stare at bugs and let spiders live even while I’m shitting and close and helpless thus. The spiders treat me OK and I treat them back OK. They’re frightening creatures if you watch too much TV and doing this I think they’re frightening but thus I like to press myself toward some deeper humanity loving and even sharing space with those who do not pay rent and in turn frighten. Is this the most frightening thing about spiders. That they do not pay rent? I think it might be. We are so afraid of freeloaders and freeloaders with eight appendages are just too much to handle. I have feelings about this and more, none of which I care to share with the courts. That’s what someone somewhere said. Stay out of churches and courtrooms, something on that order. Then a mate one said “me flucky asshole” and it was too wild. I can’t handle that shit anymore. People are just too nutty. Burroughs man he shouldn’t have been published the way he was. Do you think so? I don’t know. He killed his wife. Accident or not, I just don’t want to read someone who killed their wife. I just don’t want to do it.

You know I’ve never smiled while my throat was cut. Most of the aquiline politicians about can’t seem to understand this matter, but no matter, I hobnob with them nonetheless and sink my teeth into wheels of curdled bacterium to go inside my head a bit. Perhaps our teeth are something we don’t yet understand. To visit a dentist is to visit a grave. I once slept without my molars and marauding gangs fled my cough at every snore. This world just isn’t making sense and I can’t make sense of it. I’ve never smiled while someone metaphorically or literally cut my throat as one can readily assume that the reception of a hickey at one point or another likely drew blood i.e. “cut” my throat and I doubt in these moments if smiles came. Politicos smile whatever the cost. I don’t mind as I simply “eat emotionally” to ward off the hounds of hell. I’ve never trusted dentists, boy. To remove the teeth of wisdom is to gain entry into the human palace of decadence and American royalty circa the 1990s, babe.              See you’re just like those dogs you ward off, methinks. Is this some tepid answer to some placid riddle that’ll only be unveiled on death’s bed and then we’ll be too withered to hear or care? I’d argue, yes.



CUTTYSPOT/grant maierhofer


first portion of 'had thoughts, blue thoughts'


bronchitis reading of 3 poems from 'ode to a vincent gallo nightingale'




*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. Me too. So great that you got to meet him, and those are wonderful stories. ** James, Hi. Thanks, man. Yeah, I hope I'll get to find out what Gaspar thought. That film still you like is from 'Zabriskie Point.' ** H, Hi. See my answer to James about that image's origin an inch back. Nice to see Roger Laporte's name and thoughts mentioned. He's such a very overlooked writer these days. Oh, did the post seem erotic because of the film stills I chose? Maybe I unconsciously looked for that type, I don't know, ha ha. ** Sypha, Hi. 'Ocarina' is pretty different. And I think they've just upgraded it to contemporary tech standards if you ever want to try it. I never played console games until the N64, so I missed all those formative games that weren't computer based. The La-Bas Day would be an amazing thing to have, if you find the time to finish it. Thanks so much for wanting to! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. 'Blow Up' was huge for me when I first saw it. Still is, of course. Rather embarrassingly, the only reason I went to see it at the time was because I knew that the brief, classic Yardbirds line-up with both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page were in it. Oh, okay, about the age of that film. I just saw this morning that a Ben Wheatley film played at L'Etrange Festival where 'LCTG' played, and I had a free pass to everything, and I totally missed out. ** Étienne, Hi, E. Wow, thank you so much for that. That's very, very interesting. I mean, I can believe that the film could do that, I think. I'm as happy with it as I am with anything I've made, even though Zac was at the wheel. Yeah, Zac and I have this almost supernatural connection, both personally and artistically, to a degree I wouldn't have imagined was possible. We're starting work on the early stuff re: our new film, and it's going to be even infinitely better than 'LCTG', I'm pretty sure. I got your email. I'll write back to you, but those dates you suggested should be good for me. Great! Enjoy the raining, if you can. ** Steevee, Hi. I totally agree about those films being underrated. For me, the only dreadful Antonioni film is 'Beyond the Clouds', and I think it's safe to entirely blame Wenders and his tropey, boring input for that. I have not seen the China documentary. I've always wanted to, of course. ** Styrofoamcastle, Hey! I did. Yesterday ended up being swamped with film-related stuff, and I was still in its midst when you called. I think maybe today, or tomorrow. My schedule is tricky. Maybe, if later today opens up, as I hope it will, I'll try calling you. ** Thomas Moronic, Thanks, Thomas. We're very happy. It really went as well as I think it could possibly have gone. Oh, I'll go look for those photos of Zac and me at the festival. I haven't seen them. At the moment, I don't know if we'll get chance to screen 'LCTG' in the UK. Attempts are being made, but I think the DVD will come out there early next year, so it's matter of whether we can score a screening before that or not. No, the images in the film posts are never organized. Apart from trying to space-out the gifs, I just stack them in same the order that they hold in the folder I make to house the stuff I need to build the posts. So all the exciting connections in them are excitingly coincidental. ** Misanthrope, Hi. I don't know. Why do you think that? Technically, he could remotely have still been alive, I guess. I need to find out when the WWE event is. I'll do that. If I go, you'll be the first to 'enjoy' the asides' fruit. Wood knocked forcefully on my end too. ** Bill, Hi. You'll probably need to rent them unless some film series there does a retrospective. He just had a big retrospective here plus exhibition of film-related materials at the Cinematheque. Maybe it'll travel? Psychic TV is hitting SF? Well, of course, duh. Curious to hear how their current incarnation is. ** Kyler, Hi, K. Oh, thanks about the VICE thing. Do people ever literally drool when they say they drooled? I know I haven't. I mean yuck. Dogs can pull it off, though. ** Okay. With that, I hope you'll give your attention over to the four books I read recently and loved up there. All of them are very worth your time, if you have time, I most sincerely assure you. See you tomorrow.

_____________






lovely_mike, 23
Bucharest

I like to see the sunrise in the morning, I like to see the moonlight at night.

I like to feel the music flowing on my face, I like to smell the wind coming from the ocean.

I like to look at the clouds in the sky with a blank mind, I have a house where we can be calm.

Dicksize XL, Uncut
Position More top
Kissing Consent
Fucking More top
Oral Top
Dirty WS only
Fisting No
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Sportsgear, Underwear, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans
Client age Users between 18 and 68
Rate hour 50 Euros
Rate night 500 Euros



_____________




soulless, 21
Barcelona

Hi together,
im straight and i have a relationship with a Girl but something in my mind wanna try to get fuck.
I dont like to Kiss Guys or to cuddle with them.
6 Days per week i go to the Gym and got some smarts. So please dont ask to fuck me for 70 Euro.
If you like it cheap than go to a dirty bar and try find someone who will never look like me.
Quality is not Cheap.
Ps. I can fuck your girlfriend.

Guestbook of soulless

Anonymous - 13.Aug.2015
- Again as a bum with his old clothes !!! - From the Red Cross containers!

Anonymous - 10.Aug.2015
He go by the nickname soulless since seems like he's just voided of so many things

Dicksize XXL, Cut
Position No entry
Kissing No
Fucking More bottom
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting No entry
S&M Soft SM only
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



_____________



PenisPirate, 20
Yunnan

1.Thank u for hiring me, my first man. I'm so excited to be becoming a good escort gradually. The best thing of it is that u witnessed all my first things in paid sex and all the effort I devoted along the way.
2.I want to record my changes during the escorting I will do.
3.id like to hear escorts transformation stories from other boys.
4. I'd like to practice my English 😁

新犬被训记

Dicksize M, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing Consent
Fucking More bottom
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting Active / passive
S&M Soft SM only
Client age Users between 18 and 99
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask
Locations Out Call, Hotel Call, Companion



_____________





mys**tisyourlife, 19
Zurich

Make your dreams come true and eat a young boy's shit. Or did you interested when I empty my balls? There is nothing that is not in there;)

If you have room call me and pick up me.
I can live wiz you if I want.

Guestbook of mys**tisyourlife

Anonymous - 25.May.2015
the boy is awesome .....
languorous, pretty!!!!, sick in the head ........
Of course ...... delicious smell and taste .......,
ass full of shit Premium ........
have often met him .....
always happy:-)
The best thing so far because you just make your face still on ...... lets you relish pure shit and just swallow from :-)

Have fun.........

Nicollas_Marat - 14.May.2015
this boy was my partner .. be carefull he stoled all my money and he is on way to zurich with the silver ford mondeo kombi with czech register plates .. he traveling with MIKE JASON also bastard from czech republic .. Be carreful he stoled money !!! he dont have a licence for escort in switzerland you can have a lot problems with him ...

Anonymous - 01.Feb.2015
He has very GOOD SHIT and awesome on BED. & u can fuck him whole night if u have stamina to fuck him whole night .... He has forgotten me but its life of Escort where he meet many person and only few he can remember but till I love him if God Allow

Dont forget old person of ur life as OLD is GOLD Buddy

Winner_Takes_It_All - 15.Jan.2015
Perfect Face. And a brim-filled dispenser ass. This boy knows what a sow needs!

Every time I go back for you on my knees. To see how to open your dispenser hole and portions of the very best in huge quantities are free, is a delight for every pig. Since man wants only to eat, eat, eat ...

When you gave me then filled not even with the best shit but piss and cum of your cock, I was close to madness. And despite all stench our meeting was also marked by sensuality. Any time!

Anonymous - 05.Jan.2015
how cool

got him yesterday met ... Wohh

horny ass, little dick, megasymphatisch

and the "heap" was the hottest

gladly again

lg

marco

Fucking passive
Oral active
Watersports -
CBT -
Fisting active
SM -
Bondage -
Dirty yes
Kissing yes
Massage active / passive
Safer Sex -
Rate / Hour 120
Rate / Night 400
Rate / 24h 650



_____________




EnjoyTheLif3, 24
Zurich

NAME-EDDY *HIEGHT-SMALL FRAME/BIG PRESENT *SERVICE-

▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▃ ▂ BB SEX▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █

▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▃ ▂ GOLDEN SHOWER ▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █
( pissing)
▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▃ ▂ FISTING▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █

▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▃ ▂ SM SOFT/HARD▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █

▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▃ ▂ SPANKING▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █

▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▃ ▂ KINKY/ DIRTY▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇
( shitting and forced feeding)

▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▃ ▂ ROLE PLAY▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇

▇ ▆ ▅ ▄ ▃ ▂CIGARETT-BURNS▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇

AND MORE....

EXCUSE ME, DO YOU MIND GOING BACK PLEASE FUCKING LOOSER, THIS IS FIRST CLASS. IT'S NOTHING PERSONAL IT'S JUST THAT I'M BETTER THAN YOU.

Dicksize XXL, Uncut
Position Top only
Kissing No
Fucking Top only
Oral Top
Dirty Yes
Fisting Active
S&M Yes
Fetish Leather, Uniform, Drag
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 200 Euros
Rate night 900 Euros



_____________



melksauHB, 18
Bremen

yawl i havent sucked a dick in like .three weeks what is thsi
.uh So , who aint Ded

ANYWYA
so Anyway
whats CRACKALACKIN
why louis tomlinson look like a dried Out rat ?
is sense 8 Scary

im watcgign adventure time someone give me acid. ONDGSUSUAJSG
guess Who alive
y'all ded
i been listenin to james bay all day n i Have Never been more emotional in my loife .
honetslskly . why do i keep making Typos that arent Meant to be Typos

i woke up From my nap n harry potter was playin on the tv .and im JS That i have Nevr seen harry potter before , but the colours r so nice ?

HARRYVSTYLESLS WERAIAGN WHITE JEANSS STRANGELE ME WITHBYOUR THIGSH FUCKCUK
I want HARRYSTYLES to choke me sexually
Hello nine one one I Need 2 get fukcked

Guestbook of melksauHB

Anonymous - 19.Aug.2015
not only does not know align 2 words when types but in addition he speaks very torturingly

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing Yes
Fucking More bottom
Oral Versatile
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Sportsgear, Underwear, Uniform, Formal dress, Jeans, Worker
Client age Users between 18 and 36
Rate hour 100 Euros
Rate night 500 Euros



______________



The-Perverted, 23
Reykjavik

Once the perversion starts, I cannot really be controlled. It starts slowly at first, subtly, but by the time you realize it’s there, it would be already too late. Any action to try to divert from the destined path would be an exercise in futility. Freedom awaits those who truly accept it. One might argue that they’re just enslaving themselves to this perversion but the truth is that since there is no way out, what’s the only option left?

I can definitely, and perhaps regretfully, say that I’ve been trying all my best to fight this perversion – years have gone to waste trying to fight a lost cause. My body yearns to feel liberated from its own oppression of trying to defend itself from the perversion, but it’s too weak to do so on its own. This is why I need help. It won’t be easy, trust me, but I’m sure there is a way. The path is mysterious, dark and twisted with no end in sight, with mist flowing about.

This writing is a cry for help for those enlightened who may want to lead me through this path of darkness. A date with me would need to involve brainwashing, psychological manipulation and physical subjugation. I dare not even think what the end result might be, what kind of beast will be created. And yes I say beast, not man, for such a being is not worthy of being called human. Once I would have given you my word to do whatever it takes to let this perversion irreversibly fully take control of me, anything I might say during the perversion does not count, unless it is in obvious conflict with it.

My mind will try to fight back, argue, scream and cry, but you know this is for my own, so do not take heed of such displays of a weak spirit who wants to try to latch on to its very last strands of control. Only after these crucial steps are done can my mind and body be molded and make it ready for the perversion to take full control of me.

Dicksize XXL, Cut
Position No entry
Kissing Consent
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting No entry
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Underwear, Boots, Uniform, Formal dress, Techno & Raver, Jeans, Worker
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 169 Euros
Rate night 699 Euros



_____________





DirtyMouth, 21
Porto

I don't want to have sex with you, I just want to talk with you about having sex with you. In person preferably. Is there anyone who will pay me for that?

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



_____________




NitoMex, 22
Puebla

I am a cute, thin, tall Mexican twinkly who loves the color yellow, art student (drawing).
I am available to men clients and also women clients wearing strap-ons.

What I'm into:
My first love is being forced to drink my piss and yours.
My second love is getting my throat fucked until I puke and end up covered in my own vomit.
Tied with my second love is getting my asshole ruined.
Lastly I love getting my ass spanked...it's a good.

Even people that are not Mexican had told me I am "smart". Also "tall".
Do not forget to write me.

PLEASE WRITE TO ME AS SOON AS YOU SEE THIS PLEASE I DONT WANNA LOSE YOU .

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position More Bottom
Kissing Yes
Fucking No Entry
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting No Entry
S&M Yes
Fetish Skater, Techno & Raver, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Drag
Client age Users between 18 and 50
Rate hour 65 Dollars
Rate night 250 Dollars



_____________





MilkShaker, 19
Stuttgart

Hello my name is Iker but you say me Ik. I am hear because i'm a simple guy and kind of hot looking and insatiable and in need of money so badly, just like every escourt here. I am hear for good bottoms who are boring when they alone.

Guestbook of MilkShaker

Anonymous - 15.Aug.2015
MilkShaker rides firmly and that it already when sitting on my piece flowing joy drop from his glans with such an unplayed horniness. He is super tight and it is a pleasure to watch him constantly in his beautiful face, while the charge for cargo Cum rides from my dick. MilkShaker injects itself oodles delicious juice from its XL cannon. And even fucks me - but it's heaven on earth, if it "stings". Apparently controlled completely out of control, or only of total lust, he rams his piece deep inside until it stops. MilkShaker can also repeatedly and much tasty cum out hurl from his beatings - and one has to look at him. A divine devil. Or a devilish God. One does not know. I love him.

Dicksize M, Cut
Position More Top
Kissing Yes
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting Active / passive
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Skater, Underwear, Formal dress, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 200 Pounds
Rate night 1500 Pounds



______________





EditingBoy, 22
Paris

If You would prefer capitalization to be different from the English standard, I will respect that. For the purposes of this profile, standard capitalization shall be used.

I edit and proofread at a publishing firm and am terrible at creating usernames, which -- I hope --explains the username. I have been interested in being a prostitute for years. The last time, my client became my boyfriend, unfortunately. He and I are still in that relationship.

I would prefer perhaps clients who are 35 to 50, but please note that my boyfriend is in his 70s. Pompier and military are a plus, honestly.

Dicksize M, Uncut
Position More Bottom
Kissing No entry
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting No entry
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Skater, Rubber, Underwear, Skins & Punks, Boots, Lycra, Uniform, Formal dress, Techno & Raver, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Drag, Worker
Client age Users older than 35
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



_____________



AllTheWay, 18
Dallas

Extreme worthless no loss teen whore into serious people. Need a lot of money for a lot of opportunity. I'm pretty desperate. Keywords (hour rate) cutting branding needles wax cbt tt ff rape damage. Keywords (night rate paid to someone else) longpig snuff. 100% real.

Guestbook of AllTheWay

gayrald - 23.Aug.2015
So I ask you - I hired him assuming that the boy is just an imaginative bottom, and he was not, he was SCARY REAL, but what's with the "sickened" - the boy knows what he is doing, the suitors also - because it is about business - no more, no less - nothing worse than these nuns who wish to free boys from their oh-so-evil fate and ultimately do not want to be even birds of bad money but try to love boys who need it the least!! So just leave that to the church in the town - the Escort has responded professionally and seems to have everything under control ...

Anonymous - 23.Aug.2015
Well finally an escort who fights against the old horny wankers in love, where the men can not be enough evil and criminal, so that they can all share their mental illness in disgusting ways.

Just the thought makes me sick!

Anonymous - 21.Aug.2015
Yes exactly. You bum !!!
You're just a Boy who can't handle life's usual problems and lie through your teeth to me, you mule! As with everyone in your whole life!
It brought you to nothing! And now you come here to give us the shaft!
Sad that you already have no more friends in your life you have to look for the way out on Boys Escort!
And then you have so little respect you do not publicly show for our date! But since you are so pathetic all would see you and start to throw up!
Have a lot of fun committing suicide in loneliness one day!

Anonymous - 18.Aug.2015
talked him into rough vanilla affordable sex.
he's impotent.
extremely poor service! ;)

Dicksize M, Cut
Position Bottom
Kissing No
Fucking Bottom
Oral Versatile
Dirty Yes
Fisting Yes
S&M Yes
Fetish Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 15000 Dollars
Rate night 40000 Dollars



_____________



IamFuckLand, 20
Lyon

hi,
i'm a 20 yo high school educated French person. i'm hot as he'll. you will never get this piece of lava again. when i'm not fucking you i'm making art.

i love to shove my cock in boys, mans, or old mans mmmmmmm. i love to fuck old mans.

equally adept over coffee. even just drinking coffee i'm able to take you to madness.

Dicksize M, Cut
Position More top
Kissing Consent
Fucking Top only
Oral Top
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M Soft SM only
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 100 Euros
Rate night 250 Euros



_____________




Kevin&Matt, 24
Geneva

We are two sexy beautiful guys who love and worship each other and think every other guys are inferior pigs. They offend and flatter us.

We are looking for slut among you. We are looking for someone who will worship our bodies, our feet even our secretions if it deserves it.

We are looking among you for a dog who obeys our orders on leash. Dog who loves to bark and feed from a bowl.

We are also looking for stooge. We will accept a harlot who loves being whipped to blood (or just a little) while patiently counting it.

We are looking for scum who will watch our sex while he is unable to touch himself. A trash wearing a chastity belt. Someone who will beg for its own orgasm.

Dicksize L, Cut
Position Top only
Kissing No
Fucking Top only
Oral Passive
Dirty Yes
Fisting Active
S&M Yes
Fetish Formal dress, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 80 Euros
Rate night 400 Euros



_____________








theboywonder, 20
Sarreguemines

My presentation:
Hello I am a young hetero man of 20 fully shaved and cute: $, nice, quiet.

MY RATES:
-Massage in my place: 80 euro (chest back legs)
-Massage in your household for 25 euro + per hour (short shirtless)
-Or your household for 50 euro an hour and you can occasionally do a little tap on my buttock and insult me ​​all you want :)

PRICE: for humiliation
-You just insult me: ​​50 euro
-Or in the shower you insult me ​​and spit on me: 150 euro
-I squirt: 250 euro
-Complete humiliation for 600 euro with agreed insulting, slapping buttocks and face, spitting, and ejaculation (+ 200 euro for facial cumshot)

For real sex would require you are very rich because I am hetero and blank.
So...

-8000 euro: deflowering my mouth with hood.
-10000 euro: deflowering my mouth bareback
-15000 euro: fucking me with hood.
-20000 euro: fucking me bareback
-25000 euro: breeding me

Dicksize No entry, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing No
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Top
Dirty No
Fisting No entry
Client age Users younger than 50
Rate hour 10 Euros
Rate night 10 Euros



______________





Lego, 19
Malmo

I am usually very unusual. I am a happy going guy with a huge..... pe...rsonality. Im into geopolitic. Country ass. Nature, animals, Dolly Parton. I'm also healthy as a celery. I do some sports because I eat a lot (a really really a lot) so I dont want to be fatass. Bisexual single atheist. Sex in alien positionen. Rock in roll to the world wooooh! :-)

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



_____________



TheCountess, 18
Mulhouse

Please dont show me your attitude i have my own.

Guestbook of TheCountess

Anonymous - 20.Aug.2015
no hole in the world where so many were there.

Anonymous - 20.Aug.2015
Since it is not in a position to speak a single word without ten linguistic mistakes, think his ass done the paperwork for him.

LittleShopOfHorrors - 20.Aug.2015
Although his doctor Dr. Heiko Jessen also has the virus, but is a good buddy and falsifies for TheCountess certificates from the doctor's office.

Anonymous - 19.Aug.2015
His ass his hot but in temperature only

Anonymous - 19.Aug.2015
He is hyper intelligent

Anonymous - 19.Aug.2015
HIV infected Caution

monsieur02 - 19.Aug.2015
Wow you are very beautiful and sexy!

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing Consent
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty Yes
Fisting No
S&M No entry
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Skater, Rubber, Underwear, Skins & Punks, Boots, Lycra, Uniform, Formal dress, Techno & Raver, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Worker
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 200 Euros
Rate night 500 Euros



_____________




Tattooed_Boy, 20
Wolfs Creek

I'm bored of the same tricks and the same ways they do me. I'm seeking men who want something from me I've not heard before. Small cities are full of recycled people with the same look, outlook on life and sexual reservations. I'd rather meet someone who's ready to exceed the kiss and suck and fuck circuit, find new things about my body and have far-flung experiences with it. Really weird anal insertions like baked beans, etc. would be interesting if that's your thing. And for money while we're at it.

Guestbook of Tattooed_Boy

SocialIssues - 23.Aug.2015
Oops, I know him quite well and that he meets for money with men and has sex I also knew with experience.
To me he was a "boyfriend" for almost two years.
An escort profile of this imagination surprised me, however, something I would not have given him credit for.
No matter.
Good Luck and good fuck.

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing Consent
Fucking More bottom
Oral Bottom
Dirty Yes
Fisting No entry
S&M Yes
Fetish Skater, Underwear, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



____________



Mirror_Finish, 23
L'arbresle

I'm a young intellectual with a mania for tidiness hoping to make productive use of my "problem".

I'll clean your flat.
Dressed, naked or in requested clothing.

All implements needed for cleaning are provided by you.
You watch or you don't.

No other favours apart from scintillating conversation offered.

Dicksize L, Cut
Position No entry
Kissing No
Fucking No entry
Oral No
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M No entry
Fetish Sportsgear, Underwear, Formal dress, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 100 Euros
Rate night ask



______________




Forgero, 22
Paris

Sex is a drug so horny and on drugs even better. My butthole is open.

Guestbook of Forgero

Anonymous - 23.Aug.2015
Another example, the drug makes batty !!!

Anonymous - 23.Aug.2015
a flipping idiot brings nix

cutiebln - 23.Aug.2015
Looks like the sister of Paris Hilton. Weclome pussy.

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



____________





bunny-pop19, 19
Mykonos

BEAUTY, BRAINS AND SIZE ALL WARPED IN ONE DECADENT PACKAGE!

I am only going to share a summary of who i am and what i do here as we can talk about the rest when we are on the phone.
I AM VERY PROUD OF MY ENGAGING MIND.
I hope i can get away by not sounding like i am blowing my own horn but i have THE SOFTEST SKIN YOU CAN TOUCH, WITH THE SCENT OF A BABY.
I receive compliments about the silky texture and quality of my skin since i know my self.
Like you, I am interested in quality and i like things that stimulates the six senses that i have.
NOT INTO THREESOMES BECAUSE EVERYONE IS SPECIAL.
What do I offer everything? -quickie quickly masturbation. -long And unfortunately economic fuck.
Places? -indoor (at your home). -outdoor (I know a good forest).
First timers handled with intensive care....
My clients include aristocrats, celebrities, CEO's, attaches, politicians, Pulitzer prize winning journalists, doctors etc.
I PROMISE HAPPINESS AND DECADENCE IN DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS.
YOU WONT BELIEVE YOUR NOSES, TONGUES, AND EYES.........

Dicksize XL, Cut
Position Versatile
Kissing Yes
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M No
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



_____________





whore4britney, 22
Las Vegas

i desperately need to see the britney show at planet hollywood asap and tickets are $300 so if u have that to spare u can fuck the sissy out of me. literally. im ure typical slutty attention whore lost cause sorta thing so don't try to "save me". just pay me $300 and remove all my willpower to think i dont suck. after i see britney im going to pierce my nipples & get some nice ass cheek tats.

Dicksize S, Cut
Position More bottom
Kissing Consent
Fucking More Bottom
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting No
S&M No
Fetish Jeans, Drag
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 300 Dollars
Rate night 300 Dollars



_____________



realerthanREAL, 19
Luton

Real Bashing a Faggot teen. Only contact if you are a real aggro rich man who love beating faggots for real, not into homo games (no kissing) or SM of any kind.

Whore peice off fucking shit. Spaniard teen living in Luton hot smooth worthless drug addict 19 yeard old. He have been wasted this fascinnating world long enough!

Looking for real aggro rich men no matter what, brutal and unfair.

NO rules NO rights. 48 HOURS OF EXTREME VIOLENCE in big house with big basement. Real Racist Skinheads or psycho criminals are more than welcome to our house.

Strict Admission Rules.
1. Only real extreme violent money men. Real Bashing a faggot. (Not vainillia anykind or people who become afraid with blood or broken bones)
2. Just extremely male-male.
3. Only boots or sneakers.
4. No kiss.

Things this maso teen begs for:
rape (dry bleeding)
kicks and punches (face ass cock balls)
severe beating (into hospital or coma)
full forced toilet
degradation
punishment (unfair no rights no wrongs)
drug overdozz
terror
blood

WE DO THIS SHIT FOR REAL IF YOU ARE FOR REAL WE CAN COME TO A FINANCIAL AGGREMENT

Guestbook of realerthanREAL

Manuela heart - 22.Aug.2015
Can not imagine destroying a guy without kissing him.

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position Top
Kissing Yes
Fucking Top only
Oral Passive
Dirty Yes
Fisting Yes
S&M Yes
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 1000 Euros
Rate night 4000 Euros



_____________





Onthesofa, 20
Gran Canaria

Hi, im Moroccon-Bitch from little city first time on the hot EUROPE! i want to enjoy every one second of my life! I alway make my body look perfect! I like when many people staring at my body. so i go on holiday on the sofa every day around the clock! Sex same in porno movies so you cant feel bored with me!

Guestbook of Onthesofa

Anonymous - 25.Aug.2015
Hello dear Onthesofa,
did you make a mistake with certainty and instead
40,00 € / hr. You've accidentally written € 400.00. Can happen.
So, please correct your profile and write purely realistic prices. Only then you can expect Dates.
I wish you much success and fun at escorting and maybe see you soon.
Much love.

Anonymous - 24.Aug.2015
... dream on, you dreamer.

you're really full of nuts.
400, - / 3.000, -

Moroccans are simply insane once they are in Europe.

Dicksize M, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing Consent
Fucking More bottom
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting No
S&M No entry
Fetish Leather, Rubber, Underwear, Uniform, Formal dress, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Worker
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 400 Euros
Rate night 3000 Euros



_____________





Charming_and_spicy, 21
London

Hi ♪ ♫ ♬ ♭, I'm doing this Profile for my Friend, who i picked up yesterday at Soho Square.
He's struggling with money right now (from Poland, lost his job here and lives on the street since 3 weeks)
So i put him up on here to make some money, because i know there's others who fancy a straight, clean (showers at the homeless place) homeless boy as well.
I went up to him yesterday night to ask him if I can suck him for 50 and he said yes and fucked me as well.
Didn't want to kiss, doesn't like sucking dick but likes to be pleasured.
I ended up taking him home, cause i didn't want for him to sleep on the street.
He sits at the Barclay Bank near Soho Square mostly.
Just chat him up and ask for it. I made some pictures as well
Cheers, he doesn't have internet or a phone (in the pictures it's my phone so he could call his parents) so you have to come to him.

Guestbook of Charming_and_spicy

Anonymous - 22.Aug.2015
XL-cock is a lie.
He has no more than 14x4 which is maybe charitably an M.

For me, a total disappointment, I'll never see him again. Fake cock details are the tip of the iceberg. He lies there like a stiff board. I realize he's homeless, but a job is a job.

Uninteresting Escort!

Dicksize XL, Cut
Position Top only
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 50 Pounds
Rate night 200 Pounds




*

p.s. Hey. ** H, Hi. I'm happy that you're attracted to Dodie's and Derek's books. That's very good news that Laporte is receiving English language attention. He's sadly and strangely often overlooked here, or has been. Wonderful, I will look for the new Barthes book! I too like Richard Howard's translations very much, of Barthes and Robbe-Grillet and others. But not his translations of Baudelaire. They suck.  ** David Ehrenstein, Very excellent about the find of the Warren Sonbert site! I've just bookmarked it for heavy viewing and reading. Everyone, Mr. Ehrenstein passes along this link to a generous site about the important experimental filmmaker Warren Sonbert. If you know his work, or don't yet, a visit and more is highly recommended. ** Bill, Hi, B. Yep! I was going to go see the current PTV incarnation when they played here some months back, but someone who saw them on the same tour in Brussels warned me that they/she made a big deal during the show about the audience hugging each other and holding hands and stuff, and that changed my mind about going, ha ha. True, though. Let me know what they're up to du jour. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Cool that you were into the books. The Corbyn win seems really big. A true game changer of some sort and excitingly new and 'dangerous'. Fascinating. The anti-Cornbyn propaganda and the UK media's spoon-feeding of that shit to the public has been mind boggling. Well, it's very familiar because the same exact shit is going on in the US, but it's strange to see that happen in the UK. Ugh. Well, I'm very intrigued about your new project, of course. Wow, cool. Keep us/me up on what develops! ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Yes, those four books I featured yesterday are non-stop top-notch and nourishing and all of that best possible outcome-type stuff. ** Steevee, Hi. Yeah, from everything I've read about 'Beyond the Clouds', it's almost a solo Wim Wenders film, and it really looks/feels like a particularly loathsome Wenders film with just some Antonioni-ish flourishes here and there. I'll check out that new Zorn/Ribot, etc. band. I don't their stuff. Good news. ** G.r. maierhofer, Hi, Grant! Man, the honor is wholly mine. I love the book, as I said. And I hope to get to dig into 'Postures' very soon. Yeah, I'll remember to send you my physical address. Yeah, really, I'm just happy to get to pass along my love of 'Marcel' to others. It's privilege. ** Etc etc etc, Hi, Casey. Thanks! I hope I'll get to hear what Gaspar thought either from him or from Gisele, who sees him a lot more than I do. Yes, one of the first things I thought to myself was that I should be able to finally read 'Exsang' in this semi-if-not-quite-lull of the moment. Excited to! ** Krayton, Hi, man. Good to see you! That's a cool reaction to 'ZCP'. Thanks, man! I'll take that, ha ha. I hope you're wasted in the romantic sense only. ** Douglas Payne, Hi, Douglas! Oh, I think I must have been talking about Edouard Leve? Does that sound right? Super highly recommended, if you haven't read him. Starting with 'Autoportrait' probably. Joy Williams is one of those writers' writer types, I think, who excite those who love fiction but not bookstore book buyers. Or I don't know. I think maybe 'Quick and the Dead' ended up being a hit, but only after the DiCaprio movie adaptation came out. I hope the undergrad finishing-up goes smoothly, and, obviously, that the next school(s) you want are smart enough want you, hopefully even more than you want them. ** Derek McCormack, Hi, Derek! Oh, thank you, great maestro! The novel is exquisite down to its tippiest tippy-toes. Giant respect and love, me. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Yay to the max, yes! Discovering the whereabouts and whenabouts of the Paris WWE thang is one today's finish-lines. Honestly, every time I've seen an osteopath for my physical crap, it's been like magic. Give it a try, for sure. Big happy birthday to your niece! What are you guys going to do to fete her? ** Alistair McCartney, Hi, Alistair! Thanks a lot, man. Yeah, we're really happy so far. I would and will have to ask Zac about any Antonioni influence since he was the director. I ... don't think he knows Antonioni's work hugely, but I'll find out. It's weird how those imposed limits that come with reaching a viewpoint on the finish line can be exciting. Or I guess it's not so weird, come to think of it. Tying together and extracting are pretty fun, instructive exercises always, no? But there is something special when they happen under the right kind of external pressure.  Anyway, I'm rooting you on from the heart of Paris. Love, me. ** Sypha, Hi, James. That would be really awesome. About the La-Bas Day possibly coming this year. You've made 18 posts, wow! It's weird to see that in number form. I should do a Sypha presents ... post marathon/retrospective someday. Huh. ** Dodie Bellamy, Hi, Dodie! Your book is so, so great! I managed to score an early copy, obviously. It's amazing and, as always with your work, I was in awe and learning crazily while I read it. 30 years? That's intense! Wow. I miss you too! It would be so great if you guys could come to Paris. There must be a way, right? I promise that I would show you everything Parisian that I can think of that might even remotely intrigue you. And I would love for you and Zac to meet. As would he. Well, here or there or something as soon as possible, for sure. Congratulations, Dodie! Yay for the world! Big, big love, Dennis. ** Right, So, yes, mid-month means your regular dose of escorts, and there they are up there looking at, past, and around you with their irresistible cow eyes, so please give them what you think they deserve. And see you tomorrow.