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'If you do not know what ecstasy means I can show it to you if possible': DC's select international male escorts for the month of May 2016

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No_LimiTs19, 19
Valencia

I need a more interesting sex life. Who is free now? I need to see a man now.

Dicksize M, Cut
Position Versatile
Kissing Yes
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting Active / passive
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Sportsgear, Rubber, Underwear, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 80 Euros
Rate night 500 Euros



______________




I_need_a-father, 19
Landkreis Böblingen

If you're rich and lonely you want to have a gay son.

(I want to know about you and I care as long as I'm inside our deal.)

Dicksize No entry, Uncut
Position No entry
Kissing No entry
Fucking No entry
Oral No entry
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M No entry
Client age Users older than 40
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



______________



twink_hole, 22
Havana

22 years old, smooth Cuban bottom boy excited to welcome American gay men back to Havana after 30 years the only way I know how. I love giving Americans complete pleasure, sucking, rimming, getting rimmed, ass fucked, mouth fucked, piss, spit, drinking piss, eating cum...all kind of pleasure at the service of only rich people.

Well, dont bother small earning Cuban people, who are just juggling with their monthly budgets, I know you dont have enough money to pay. Your jockey underwear with faded black color in the background of your display pic tells me a lot about what you're capable of financially. i could donate some money to you.

Dicksize M, Uncut
Position Bottom only
Kissing Consent
Fucking No entry
Oral Bottom
Dirty Yes
Fisting No
S&M Yes
Fetish Leather, Underwear, Boots, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans
Client age Users younger than 53
Rate hour 100 Dollars
Rate night 200 Dollars



_____________






Hexagram, 18
Bucharest

How to begin? I’m not even sure I count as an escort by the standards of this site. Regardless, I have this thing about money and I seem to need to be paid for any sexual activity or it doesn’t work for me. Nothing particularly huge, but apparently too much money for most guys to do. Pretty much anything in the high two figures could be an option.

Ultimately I’m looking for something long term. It’s just that I’ve been sexually incompatible with every guy I’ve dated so far because randomly selected men tend to balk when I ask them to pay me first.

Turn-ons: This isn’t traditionally a dating site, I know, but maybe it’s easier to find a sexually compatible date mate in the population of paying individuals than the other way around. For the most part I’m into cute twinks, but I’m not super fixated on that.

Turn-offs: I hate beards. Strong body hair – especially on the torso – grosses me out. Can’t help it. Also, smoking. And if you tickle me I will stab you. (ง •̀_•́)ง

About Me: I'm Finnish. Other than getting paid, I’m into cosmology, classical literature, using too many en-dashes, putting the cornflakes in before the milk, and K-pop. I'm a student, writer, non-binary, neurodivergent, extropian, Hufflepuff, aspiring rationalist. (If any of these words mean nothing to you, they’re not all that important. I just didn’t want to copy-paste my OkCupid profile, so this serves as a summary.)

It may not come across, but in real life I’m terribly shy. Basically a Victorian Puritan. If you think you can help me with that, go ahead, but just don’t expect sex before you’re actually paying.

Dicksize L, Cut
Position Versatile
Kissing No entry
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty No entry
Fisting Active / passive
S&M No entry
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 70 Euros
Rate night 350 Euros



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Alex7, 20
Rouen

Want to get raped for E150 in a public toilet tmorrow morning about 9:30

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position Bottom only
Kissing Consent
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Versatile
Dirty Yes
Fisting No
S&M Yes
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 150 Euros
Rate night 150 Euros



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Tanveer, 21
Vijayawada

Here's I'm Tanveer. I'm very well known in Vijayawada to some Gay's & Bi-sexual's. I'm a MEN and I'm Straight.! I love to meet new People's. I Doesn't Make them to leave Alone. the best part About me is wherever i goes My Friends will Follow me and me& My Friend's had a Group Sex at Vijayawada. My Friends and i are Drunk and High on Drugs. We are a Group and we will meet single or Group. As the persons Decision. I'm not a Bitch no i never come alone. Not always high I do have job.

Dicksize L, Cut
Position Top only
Kissing Yes
Fucking No
Oral No entry
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M No
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Rubber, Underwear, Boots, Formal dress, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night 2000 Dollars



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matthewdutch18, 18
Berlin

18 yo dutch teen with great eyes. First time im doing anything for money i really need it. Im looking for some deal. I do everything. I offer primarily anal. I do have a rule that you must be hung at least 11 inches, 13 inches even better. You must cum multiple times. Prefer fucking with condom the first time for money and getting fucked raw the second time that price open for discussion. Im sorry for the rule but Im Catholic if that explains it.

Guestbook of matthewdutch18

matthewdutch18 - 19.May.2016
O ... yes that will be acceptable. Why didn't I think of that before? :0

Uwehome - 18.May.2016
Hi Matthew. You're very beautiful and I want you very badly but I'm not even close to as hung as you require. I do have a dildo that large. Would you accept my dildo instead of my cock. Cumming multiple times is not a problem. Thank you. Hoping, Uwehome

Dicksize XL, Cut
Position Bottom only
Kissing Yes
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Versatile
Dirty Yes
Fisting Active / passive
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Underwear, Uniform, Jeans
Client age Users between 18 and 50
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



_____________




Sexwithmeisamazing, 21
Geneva

I have always been an achiever; be it academics when I was in high school or professional life when I had weekend or summer jobs or sports when I kick the ball around with my friends or sex whether it's with a girl I like or a with man who offers me something I need or any other field in my life. I believe in success through dedication to what it takes to get ahead. My motto in life is to ‘If you want something, work hard & you will achieve it; there are no short cuts’. Please name your desire, then let me fulfill it, which will mark you for the rest of your life.

Guestbook of Sexwithmeisamazing

searcher48157 - 11.May.2016
Sexwithmeisamazing has asked me to write a recommendation for him. I have had paid sex with him on numerous occasions. He is, as he states, a hard working, people pleasing, dedicated partner. During sex, he makes his face and body fully available, and they are both as pretty as in his pictures and as delicious as you would hope. If I were to venture a criticism of his performance, I would say he is an overachiever. Sex with him is like hitting the jackpot yet it lacks mystery. If you are a top who craves usage of his assets, you will come away more than satisfied. If you seek an emotional connection with him, I would probably steer clear.

Dicksize L, Cut
Position No entry
Kissing Yes
Fucking Bottom only
Oral No entry
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M No entry
Fetish Leather, Boots, Lycra, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



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Salopeenchaleur, 22
Paris

Mostly into aggressive top guys under 40. But never met an aggressive top elderly guy before, that could be hot

Guestbook of Salopeenchaleur

City-Carre - 17.Apr.2016
Looking forward to pamper your ass to tomorrow

Anonymous - 03.Apr.2016
CAUTION THIS BOY IS A GROSS

coloquinte - 03.Apr.2016
a piece of trash....

VICES_SEVICES - 03.Apr.2016
- I practice it for several years in France and abroad.
YOU WILL BE SATISFIED 100%
And you have doubt? lol

coloquinte - 03.Apr.2016
this guy sucks a shit
too old peaks; He has over 30 years now, stinks of cigarette; lives as a homeless
No not even kiss and just watches you jerk off
really more than disappointing ... pathetic

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



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BoyWithWomanVoice, 18
Marseilles

Boy with totally woman voice :)

40 Euro hour

*2 hour 60 Euro

+ Massage (+ 30 Euro)

+Woman Voice (+ 50 Euro per hour) -- It would be very special experience

Dicksize S, Cut
Position More bottom
Kissing Consent
Fucking More bottom
Oral Versatile
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M No entry
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 40 Euros
Rate night ask



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Be_my_gay, 24
Palm Springs

I just came out after breaking up (with a female). Sex with men is intensely better. I was made for sex with men. Here's why. The ancient Greeks used inbreeding to breed pleasure boys for the Royal Baths. I am Greek. I am also inbred. At puberty I saw a Beverly Hills specialist because I could not lift my legs up to the side like other kids. I have a very unusual tightly bound rectal anatomy with extra muscles on the inside and missing on the sides (a form of hip dysplasia caused by inbreeding). The result is an extreme bubble ass and a hypersensitive hole that is thick at the entrance. My Boi Pussy. In the few times I've been rimmed I orgasmed continuously way more intensely than I ever did fucking females. I never made noise during sex with females and it felt forced, requiring effort to get hard.

When a man licked my hole for the first time he filmed me on live cam. When he started licking my hole I tried to not get hard because I didn't want to look like a bitch in front of all the people watching, about 800 on live cam. But it felt better than anything I ever felt in my life. I moaned uncontrollably for the first time in my life during sex and my cock was rock hard and I was cummng all over my tummy. My cock is 5" long and my balls sit high above my cock because they didn't fully descend. The sight of him fucking me turned me on beyond my wildest dreams. The contrast between us: him, big and hairy with a big cock throbbing for my Greek Pussy Ass; Me, slender smooth pretty boy with my little dick that felt rock hard but stuck out only an inbch or two which I discovered is what happens when I get fucked.

My throat is half the diameter of normal too. The first time a guy rammed his 8" cock down my throat as he came I could feel how tight it felt as I swallowed and how I knew it made him feel made me shoot my load without even touching myself. I climax just at the sight of a cock throbbing for my full soft lips and my sweet ass. I want to be a part time prostitute for men who would enjoy filming me getting fucked and so forth for the Inbred Sexual Abomination that I finally realize I was born to be. Hail to my future clients. You don't have to be big and hairy. Just enjoy the way I lust for your throbbing cock to be rammed balls deep down my tight little throat and up my painfully swollen hole. I ride cock like a rodeo cowboy rides a bull. I put Mostly Bottom instead of Bottom cause I want to Fuck a guy too.

Dicksize No entry, Cut
Position No entry
Kissing No entry
Fucking Mostly bottom
Oral No entry
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M No entry
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 120 Euros
Rate night 600 Euros



______________



ELIO, 18
Bonn

I love the smell of a cunt as much as I do of a boy's hairy anus and I am great to hang around with! Everywhere!

Dicksize XL, Cut
Position Top only
Kissing Consent
Fucking Top only
Oral No entry
Dirty Yes
Fisting No
S&M No
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Skater, Rubber, Underwear, Skins & Punks, Boots, Lycra, Uniform, Formal dress, Techno & Raver, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Drag, Worker
Client age Users between 18 and 18
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



_____________




Mystic, 20
Zurich

I drew a smile on my face to paper over me.

Ching Ching
Bling Bling
Cut the Chatter
You ain't talking money
Then your talking don't matter
I want my riches to be filthy
cause with everytime it's fun
I get done til I'm 60

. .. .. / |.. / | _
.. , ../.. 7` ´.. ../_
._. `. ´. , - ..-.. .. +_
.` ,.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. , -
.. _7.. . O.. .O.. .. Y_
.( _.. .. .. (_) .. .. .. _ )
.. .. .. ___o___ ,. /.
.. .. ..` ., - ../., ´
.. .. . / `. === ´ .
.. .. / - | - - - - - -
.. . / - -|- - - - - - - |
.. _ 7 | - - - - - - - -|
. ( _ , .. - - - - - - /
.. (_ / - ´=====|
. _ j __ , - - . , - .. .- .
. ( l l /.. .. .. ) ..____ )
.. ` - — — ´

Sex is like an art that many waste.

Love Justin
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Dicksize XL, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing Yes
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting No
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Sportsgear, Skater, Rubber, Underwear, Boots, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 120 Euros
Rate night ask



_____________







OxY_OxY, 22
Berlin

SEX WITH ME.
Back agin after trying the sugar daddy monogmous trip. Money was hot but I'm not deep enough for that shit. Back agin with new sugar daddy who like to share my ass wth one or you or many. I'm still Spanish teen fuckhole hornyer than evver for your dicks and most extreme fantasis. Sugar daddy is not attractive he is more like you probly. 3ways wiht us only. I like geting rough bit I'm ok with passion. Cash only.

SERVICER (ASK for PRICES):
-You watch I get kissed rimmed fucked hard (no rubber) fistd by sugar daddy
- Masage lick kiss suck rim me
-Bondage hit me whip me (no marks) watchd or helpd by sugar daddy
-Death (mine) play talk (my specilty)
-Eat my shit and piss
-I have Toys Peppers and Latex

If you are a horny personal and you want have some greate time in my company just say I'm waiting for your badness. What you see is what you get, Don't ask for more! Kiss OXY

Guestbook of OxY_OxY

Anonymous - 16.May.2016
HIS AAAAAASSSSSSSSSS!

Anonymous - 16.May.2016
the most beutifull ass i saw in my life . really NO COMENT....and no only cheek , all inside is a candy ..... but........always prety nasty....

tomy30x - 16.May.2016
His ass is kindly, sexy, hot and clean.
His ass is so sweet and generous and maybe the best in Europe.
He is a bottom proud of his amazing ass and he know exactly how to spread it.
His ass is a free bitch baby!
.... It is the one !

Anonymous - 15.May.2016
SOO NICE ASS....

enjoybcn1 - 14.May.2016
Best ass in WORLD!

kobe8 - 13.May.2016
Wonderful ass ... it gives you all you need!

germanffaust - 12.May.2016
ass is amazing
do its best to please you, personnally i whipe his ass really hard and he let s me do to please me ten fuck ass fist ass a nd breed ti......
definitely the best bottom in Germany

k-a-i-l - 12.May.2016
has this comment box been infected by malware? seriously ..

welter150 - 12.May.2016
the most beautifull ass i have ever seen...

Anonymous - 11.May.2016
Definitly the most beautyfull ass in the world !!!!!!!!!!!!

TRISTAN-WHITH - 10.May.2016
very very sexy hot ass :-)

Anonymous - 09.May.2016
the best ass in Germany... and you can very fuck him hard, his ass is amazing, a dream, a fantasy, slimmy and crazed to get big cock

sebastiaobcn - 08.May.2016
He has, no doubt, the best ass in Berlin. It can take it really well. You won't regret it, you just won't believe it. I must repeat as soon as possible.

k-a-i-l - 08.May.2016
Ok now where is all this "ass" stuff suddenly coming from? Confused.

Anonymous - 08.May.2016
A very sweet, stunning, hairless, skinny, hungry ass!

malebuttlover - 07.May.2016
Your ass so fucking delicious, I couldn't believe it...

Anonymous - 06.May.2016
he is perfectly ass....you wont stop doing sex with this ass...

OxY_OxY - 27.Apr.2016
ooooop !! HAHAHAHAHA :O

diavolettobuono - 27.Apr.2016
hi guys, some of you know me from our interactions here on the site and know i talk straight. my curiosity got the best of me and i hired OxY last night. the simple answer to the "catch" is some of you are missing the word "talk" in "death play talk". if my experience is a judge, he whoresplained that i could "death talk", no sex, no touching. first i thought as a prelude to sn*ff play but no, he just listened and laughed. i think he likes the "talk" the way children like ghost stories. turned us both on then he bottomed for me, very hot, "rough vanilla" i would call it. just saying other than fantasy talk you'd be murdering someone with all the consequence. also didn't see the "sugar daddy," think that might be bull.

abschlucker_sn - 20.Apr.2016
catch is he's lying roma garbage. other catch is comments are probly by him or his roma garbage friends.

k-a-i-l - 19.Apr.2016
This boy is far too hot to be real, whats the catch?

maiasini - 14.Apr.2016
I spent the second night with you.
you are fabulous bottom!!!!!
unforgettable!!!!!!!

OxY_OxY - 07.Apr.2016
i luv u :)

Anonymous - 07.Apr.2016
if i was going to spend the rest of my life in prison or running from the police i wouldn't just to kill some romanian whore piece of shit. if someones going to off him though i hope he films it, id pay to watch this bitch die.

Anonymous - 04.Apr.2016
I spent with you on the night of Friday, April 1.
you are a fabulous bottom
I hope to see you again

OxY_OxY - 08.Mar.2016
that wld cost u ;(

azazz - 08.Mar.2016
I live in Croatia but my fantasy is to slam fuck and fist OxY for hours then shove a Khlebnikov up his gaping hole and splatter the walls with him

Anonymous - 23.Feb.2016
A street boy, no manners, but clean inside and out, cold and unfriendly, but in intimacy 'a war machine, a hole to ram without equal and never in reserve. The only his suffering 'was suppress the screams for the pleasure I gave him.

youngxlover - 18.Feb.2016
I remember when you were "Italian"

OxY_OxY - 14.Feb.2016
life happenned

DoN_SNeAKoss95 - 14.Feb.2016
I remember when you were a top only dominate boy, what happened?

MILANOSEI - 10.Feb.2016
Describe OxY's ass, you can not, because it has so many qualities that I would not know where to start.

OxY_OxY - 01.Feb.2016
u shlouldve ;p

Anonymous - 26.Jan.2016
picking up on SlimmyBoysfun, i hired OxY maybe a year ago, he billed as a "total Top", i got him wasted, took his ass by force, i was pounding him, choking him, he just lay there, i couldve, who would've cared if i did, no one.

OxY_OxY - 18.Jan.2016
try i might like it ;)

SlimmyBoysfun - 17.Jan.2016
you new pictue sitting on balcony is great

you look super on this picture

i wish i can slip knock out pill in you orange juice..fuck you untill you brains squirt out you nose

i fuck you even when you are dead you hot whore

really the best

Andreas

Dicksize L, Cut
Position Versatile
Kissing Yes
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M Yes
Fetish Leather, Skater, Rubber, Lycra, Techno & Raver, Sneakers & Socks
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 130 Euros
Rate night 600 Euros



_____________



benderer, 21
Hamburg

Hi, Im looking for cocks and why not for a relation with someone who can be kind and generous !!!
Im Daniel, from Bulgaria, and i will be here in Hamburg for almost one week looking for a ton of cocks because Im here for modeling !!!
I'm around the clock cool with whom I like to entertain interesting types me something ! I speak English !!!
I have recently started getting spanked ! However, the outcomes have been disappointing !! Looking to find a guy on introduce me to serious spanking !!
Thanks and don't forget sex it's everything !!!

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



______________



whatwhatinthebutt, 18
Glasgow

Hey my names greg, iam a teenager, iam loose sexually and into earning money. Basically gay so top bottom, doesn't matter. I love getting wasted and anything goes in the clouds. If your in your teens or twenties and in scotland and horny and can spare some money then feel free. Maybe we can do an exchange.

Guestbook of whatwhatinthebutt

whatwhatinthebutt - 12.Apr.2016
Way!!!

derma2014 - 12.Apr.2016
Bitch no way!!!! Hot!!!!

Dicksize XL, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Consent
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M No
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Rubber, Underwear, Boots, Uniform, Formal dress, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Worker
Client age Users between 18 and 26
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



_____________





DeadBunny8, 19
Manchester

I offer my boy toy for rent, open to 1, couple or group and very open to do everything.
He is a Dutch rubber boy bottom with little common sense.
His ass is tight and I hate it.
Survival of the fittest!

He had another profile on here (Bunny8) but that was before he was my rubber bottom boy toy so delete his previous account.
He doesn't do safe anymore. Cum where you desire.
Simple as 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



______________





slurp_that_spunk, 20
Las Vegas

My girlfriend lets you in. I am training my biceps and you go directly on your knees and start sucking my dick. I am young, cute and my 22x6 completely fill your moth. Also..

- pissing (in huge quantity, giving my piss in every place you want

- being sucked while drinking a cocktail

- humiliate you

- phone sex

- you as my cleaning maid, fetch items from market

- e-cig smoking

- deciding into your life, your deeds, your decisions,

I am a cute guy so forget its that you will never see my face again!

Dicksize XXL, Cut
Position Top only
Kissing No
Fucking No
Oral Top
Dirty Yes
Fisting No
S&M Soft SM only
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Rubber, Underwear, Boots, Lycra
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 130 Dollars
Rate night 700 Dollars



_____________





Swedishbae, 21
Botkyrka

There's a reason why if you ask the world's most elite tops and connoisseurs of youthful tail to name the most precious and sought after boy-pussy in the world, nine times out of ten they'll name someone Swedish.
The Nazi government had a secret squadron of undercover agents assigned to Sweden whose mission was to kidnap the prettiest Swedish boys and bring them to Berlin to give as prizes to Hitler's favored minions. I know this because my grandfather was one of these boys.
There is no boy more Swedish in every regard than myself. Towering in height, exquisitely boned from my head to my toes, with cold, riveting blue eyes, a large cock that is as pale and smooth as the rest of me, a sublime ass that can change from chiseled masculine perfection to girlishly soft and moist in a heartbeat, and just as important a personality that is impeccably reserved and unknowable inside a body that is as open as any book.
For a price we will discuss I can be your anything, your trophy boy companion filling everyone around you with envy and disbelief, or you can pull my pants down, shove it in and start hot sex right away, or all the realms in-between.
As it's far easier in my Swedishness to express deepest feelings to others from a "safe place" such as writing, I will confess to you now so you will remember and be assured that I dearly love having sex with men. As unknowable as I will seem when I am yours, never forget that the reason why I'll draw my feelings deep inside when we are having sex is both self-preservatory and my gift to you, to keep you wanting, seeking, searching me for my untenable essence.
Ultimately I'm looking for a long-term daddy who can wife me up. In that case preferably Italian and very wealthy.

Dicksize L, Cut
Position Versatile
Kissing Consent
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Versatile
Dirty WS only
Fisting Active / passive
S&M Yes
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Skater, Rubber, Underwear, Skins & Punks, Uniform, Sneakers & Socks, Drag
Client age Users younger than 80
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



______________




Hyperbolicboy, 24
Oxford

Looking for assholes to objectify me. Pay me until I'm nothing more than an object in your bedroom, and enjoy speechless interaction with your new belonging. I'm really into butt play, but willing to try most things. I wouldn't mind finding a guy around my age (early 20s) who'll fuck me me then possibly be my boyfriend. I like to think I'm open minded but I have been surprised/shocked a few times. So be sure to ask, especially if it's something weird you came up with.

Dicksize L, Cut
Position Versatile
Kissing Consent
Fucking No entry
Oral No entry
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M No entry
Fetish Leather, Sportsgear, Rubber, Underwear, Boots, Formal dress, Techno & Raver, Sneakers & Socks, Jeans, Worker
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



______________





SLUTTYASS69, 19
Bangor

Hi, if you think I'm like everyone else. No.
I am Slutty Ass on duty for just about anything, but you have me first convince them that you are a sympathetic picture.
I'm not a piece of meat, just my ass, as you and your cock are.

So trust yourself, calm down and write to me.
I am skinny, the one like it, the other not. As everyone wants.
If you do not know what ecstasy means I can show it to you if possible.

Please do not be sad, when something does not work or I have to do.
We will find a solution! My price is quite high, I know,
but who should get to know me no later than after knowing why.
Time wasters kindly your keep distance or I am gonna make your life a living hell and I mean it.

Dicksize XXL, Cut
Position Bottom only
Kissing No entry
Fucking Bottom only
Oral No entry
Dirty No entry
Fisting No entry
S&M No entry
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 1 Dollars
Rate night 2 Dollars



_____________





monster-ass, 21
Cairo

a warm welcome from monsterass

my monsterass skin feel - you are allowed to
my monsterass massage - you are allowed to
fotos of my monsterass - you are allowed to
the monsterass lick - you are allowed to
playing with the monsterasshole - you are allowed :-)
kiss from the monsterass - you are allowed to
book me as an accompaniment to my monsterass- you are allowed to
fuck my monsterass until you spurt - you are allowed to
eat of my monsterass - you are allowed to
....

the list would be endless ye may like to believe

Dicksize L, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing No entry
Fucking Bottom only
Oral Passive
Dirty No
Fisting Passive
S&M No entry
Fetish Sportsgear, Skater, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 100 Euros
Rate night 400 Euros



______________





fiavoluntau, 20
St. Louis

I found myself. I never understood what I felt or why I was a tish bit different from others; until I found men like you. I love sex and yes I will do anything I honestly do not judge and I find It funny watching people freak out because I will do sex that's against what I look like...But hey, thats me! I love the dark power villains in books give off and I can't help but fantasizing about being villainized in the stories. I find art and beautify in unglorified sleazy slutty smelly sex scenes. I love the isolation and beauty in weird sex that make people uneasy and I love teasing them about it even if it causes people to shy away from me. I love drugs especially the ones that give me perplexing visuals that don't make sense but leave me uneasy or just in wonder. I love playing roles where I birth characters that become an extension of me but sleazier and sluttier. I hate just not being desired by people. I don't like it when someone refuses to fuck me because I look or like different things. I'm fine with it and I don't do much but in my mind i am like "your a meanie" (just more vulgar) And I hypocritically I dislike people who are overly enthusiastic about having sex with me (unless I am pumped with sugar) I LOVE EATING CUM OMG AND OTHER BODY SWEEETS CX DRINKING MEN'S SALIVA OMFGGG Yes I am weird but here I feel at home!

Dicksize M, Uncut
Position More bottom
Kissing No entry
Fucking Versatile
Oral Versatile
Dirty No
Fisting No entry
S&M Soft SM only
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 150 Dollars
Rate night ask



______________



gabbie18, 18
Sukkur

i love thse people who treated me a one of them coz and i believe anyone of a gay deserves to be happy and i deserved to be respected and most of all deserved to be happy and to be loved because my simplicity makes me simply the best.

Dicksize L, Cut
Position Bottom only
Kissing Yes
Fucking Bottom only
Oral No entry
Dirty No entry
Fisting Active / passive
S&M Soft SM only
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour ask
Rate night ask



______________





champagne&caviars, 23
Nottingham

Thanks all of u for the love and support u have given me and I have been in this field for the past 5 yrs ,

I am looking for stable guys to bang me for money , I am not into many random guys, exception if u are veeery handsome .

Anyway, u can always try to buy me .

SOME CLIENTS WITH ME LAST 4-5 YEARS BCZ I AM A INCREDIBLE FUCK WHO RESPECT UR SATISFACTION .

I love to suck arab dick.

Dicksize No entry, Uncut
Position Bottom only
Kissing Consent
Fucking No entry
Oral No entry
Dirty No entry
Fisting No
S&M No
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 250 Pounds
Rate night 1000 Pounds



_____________






LIME, 18
Beijing

Hello People,

I'm an American teenager who will be traveling with my parents to China next week on a family holiday and I will be able to slip away from them sometimes while I'm there to have some hot sex and great time. I'm a very adorable teenager. I like doing almost all of the things. Don't worry about your satisfaction.

I know what sex with someone as young as me should be worth especially in China where I will become a dream come true and I cannot be afforded by most of you people. So, if you cannot afford paying eight hundred dollars for a session, please do not even try. (Let's make it as simple as possible).

(- I DONT HAVE ANY HAIR ON MY ASS -)

Just so you know my favorite place to cum is in a man's mouth, but I respect that I don't know Chinese men's boundaries and desires. My favorite thing is to be above a man, squatting or kneeling and using his mouth and getting my ass deep rimmed by him, while he lies on his back.

I'll stay at the north east part of the city so as traveling in Beijing takes a lot of time due to traffic or some other reason I estimate it will take me around an 45 minutes approximately to reach near the airport or in the center of town.

(-: IM ALREADY HORNY TO SIT ON CHINESE FACES :-)

Dicksize XL, Uncut
Position Versatile
Kissing Consent
Fucking Versatile
Oral No
Dirty No
Fisting No
S&M Yes
Fetish Underwear, Uniform, Jeans, Worker
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 800 Dollars
Rate night 800 Dollars



_____________




USSOLDIER, 25
Kansas City

Hello, my name is Hunter and I am a REAL U.S. soldier, served 3 tours and just returned from my final deployment in Afghanistan.

If you are interested to hire me, do not hesitate to hire me. You will do what I need you to do and I can do for you what you need me to do and especially we will talk about money.

Dicksize M, Cut
Position More top
Kissing Consent
Fucking More top
Oral Bottom
Dirty No
Fisting Passive
S&M No
Fetish Sportsgear, Underwear, Uniform, Formal dress, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 10 Dollars
Rate night 150 Dollars



______________



LOVE2RENT, 18
Philadelphia

Hello I prefer oldest mans from anyway of world. All the way SEX only. I can suck cock, taking deep throat fuck for long hours nonstop until u get tired. U can sit over my chest and fuck my 18 years old czech mouth till u cant recogknize my red saliva spermed face. Offering services in The States as I backpack through them. Hopefully this is the best place a man can get easily everything. My name is Clark and I am cool.

Why I get so much stupid chat from u!!!?!!
Don't ask for my ass!
Don't lost my time!
Don't ask for xx pictures because only u are horny and use my pic only for jerk off and u not gonna meet me !!!!
IF U ARE CHEAP NOTHING CAN CHANGE U!!!!
ANYWAY HOW MUCH MONEY U HAVE !!?!!!!?!

Dicksize M, Cut
Position Mostly bottom
Kissing Consent
Fucking No entry
Oral Top
Dirty No
Fisting No entry
S&M Passive
Fetish Sportsgear, Underwear, Formal dress, Jeans
Client age No restrictions
Rate hour 50 Dollars
Rate night 100 Dollars




*

p.s. Hey. So, starting on Monday, I will be away from Paris and the blog in San Francisco to show 'Like Cattle Towards Glow' through next Saturday. What that means on your end is that you will be getting rerun posts for the duration as well as pre-set, brief p.s.es that basically just intro the posts and say hi. Also, I will be launching the rerun posts from SF, so they'll appear here roughly nine hours later than they usually do. Please feel more than free to leave me comments or talk to each other in the comments arena next week because I will catch up with and respond to every comment that appears here when I return with a new post and the usual full-fledged p.s. again on Monday, the 23rd. And if you're in SF by chance, please do come see Zac's and my film and us in person on Wednesday. Here's the scoop on that. Thanks! ** Dóra Grőber, Hi Dóra! Cool, I hope you like the RE post. It's oldish, but maybe it'll still be fun? Yeah, it's amazing how different things were back then. It's weird to think that the world outside your own city was only available through landline phones and the post office. And yet it's also weird how, for such huge differences, life doesn't feel all that different, at least to me. It's harder to get bored is kind of the main difference. I don't know. Yeah, it does seem totally possible that you could get a job that's an actual positive addition to your life and not just the time-consuming chore necessary to pay the rent, etc. I hate pre-trip stress, it's so silly, but I always get it until I'm actually on the plane or train, and then I just surrender. I hope you got to write enough and that your pictures met your dreams for them. What are/were they? My Friday was just continuing to work and blah blah. I think I'll finally hit the work endpoint today. Well, I'll miss talking with you this coming week, but let me know what's going on, and I'll try to remember the highlights of my trip, and we can fill each other in 'in person' a week from Monday. Take care, my friend! ** Jamie McMorrow, Shiver ye timbers, Jamie! Thank you massively again for the amazing post. It was and is -- since posts keep getting visited for all eternity, -- a true honor. The viewing figures yesterday were quite stellar, in fact. You had a giant if silent outer audience. Did you get any thunder or anything? We got one approx. 7 second rolling thunder moment. Really interesting about your work to de-drag the song. It really sounds a lot like writing fiction, or how I write fiction. And maybe even more like how I make the gif fiction, which really is a lot about using gifs in combo to create interesting rhythms and energies. See what you think of Aarhus. I really liked Denmark in general. Anyway, it must be really exciting and intense to play for a festival audience. All those people you can't see very well and all that outdoors. Sounds exciting. Do you get nervous before you play live, or maybe I mean especially nervous? Our amusement park book has been on hold for a while because we've gotten caught up in making our films and working on the TV series thing, but we're thinking we might get back into it and finish it if possible before we start shooting our new movie. The book will be photos, videos and audio (on disc), and a series of fairytales set in the theme parks we visited that I'm writing. Might be good. My work is finally petering out by necessity since it has to end by force on Sunday whether the powers that be like it or not. My weekend will just be wrapping up the work, prepping for the trip, and hopefully hanging out with friends or doing something else, I guess. And yours? Hey, have a really interesting next week! I'm definitely excited to hear about the festival and your time there and everything else. And thank you again a ton, Jamie. Take care until next we confer. Lots of love back to you, Dennis. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank for staying that, sir! I hope you have a perfect next week! ** Tosh Berman, Hi, T. Thank you for speaking re: the work to Jamie. Have a lovely week ahead! ** MANCY, Hi, Steven. Thanks for speaking to Jamie. I will check it out, today I'm pretty sure. I see a window. Mary Clare Stevens! I've met her a few times and been at post-opening dinners with her, but I've never really talked with her much or hung out or anything. But, yes, she's tight with a lot of LA artists and curators who are friends of mine, and everyone has always spoken really highly of her. I think she's doing great work with Mike's foundation. That's great that you're going to meet with her. Say hi to her for me if she remembers me. That's very cool, and she should be knowledgeable and helpful. Let me know what happens, okay? And take good care of yourself while I'm indisposed p.s.-wise next week! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben! Ha ha, that flesh-themed kit is kind of okay. Huh, I know The Phantom Band, but I didn't know he's a visual artist. I'll see what I can see of his out there. Oh, gosh, that Andrew is ... I best not say. God and Satan willing, everything will be wrapped up well before I get to talk with you next. Post the news, if you don't mind. I'll be reading the comments while I'm away. And have the best next week possible, pal! Love, me. ** Steevee, Hi, Steve! Oh, you saw that Hardtalk. I totally agree with you. There's some fascinating about that host. While I watch that show, I always find myself trying to figure him out. I hope you have a fine next week, my friend. See you soon. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G! Whew, good news about your niece. It's kind of sad that my nephew's first concert was with bands that he was into at that age but now kind of roll his eyes about. But still. You have an excellent weekend extended through the week ahead and through next weekend as well, okay? Let me know the haps here. I'll be reading, I'll just be temporarily gagged by my trip. Love, Dennis. ** H, Hi, h! Nope, I leave very early Monday morning. Katz is worth investigating, I think. And he was tight with a lot of the New York poets. I used to see him at a lot of readings and literary parties in NYC in the '80s. Take good care of yourself next week please. ** Right. So, due to the verities of time and space, I leave you for now with escorts. I hope you'll stick around to check out the reruns next week and will type a little to let me know how you all are doing whilst I'm away. Have a sterling, productive, and pleasure-stuffed week, everybody. The blog will see you on Monday, and I will see you again in my talkative form exactly a week from then.

Rerun: Jello Day (orig. 01/12/12)

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March 12, 1994

Today I made Jello with Mom. It was green Jello. I licked some of the Jello dust off of my finger. We poured it in the Jello bowl with the warm water. Now we have to leave it in the refrigerator until the morning. It takes a very long time.

I hope it has a good skin on top. The skin is my favorite. I like to eat all along the outside of the bowl and the top part.

Sometimes Mom takes the skin off and throws it away. She says that it is no good, because that part is too old. But that is my favorite part. I like the way it feels on my teeth, like rubber sugar.

When the Jello was done I walked through the woods. It was very muddy. I found the stream and crossed it on the rocks. I saw the blackberry bushes, but they do not have blackberries yet. They don’t even have leaves. I hope they have leaves in time for my birthday. My shoes are covered in mud when I get home. I am almost seven.

-- Joe Riina-Ferrie






Jello's story

'Gelatin, a protein originally produced from collagen extracted from the boiled bones, connective tissues, and intestines of animals, was popularized in the Victorian era with spectacular and complex "jelly moulds". Gelatin was sold in sheets and had to be purified, which was very time-consuming. It also made gelatin desserts the province of the relatively well-to-do.

'In 1845, industrialist Peter Cooper (who built the first American steam-powered locomotive, the Tom Thumb), obtained a patent (US Patent 4084) for powdered gelatin. Forty years later the patent was sold to a LeRoy, New York-based carpenter and cough syrup manufacturer, Pearle B. Wait. He and his wife May added strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon flavoring to the powder and gave the product its present name in 1897. Unable to successfully market their concoction, in 1899 the Waits sold the business to a neighbor, Orator Francis Woodward, for $450. Even Woodward struggled to sell the powdered product.

'Jell-O remained a minor success until 1904, when Genesee Pure Food Company sent enormous numbers of salesmen out into the field to distribute free Jell-O cookbooks, a pioneering marketing tactic at the time. In 1923, the newly rechristened Jell-O Company launched D-Zerta, an artificially sweetened version of Jell-O. Two years later, Postum and Genesee merged, and in 1927 Postum acquired Clarence Birdseye's frozen foods company to form the General Foods Corporation.

'New flavors continued to be added and unsuccessful ones were removed: in the 1950s and 1960s, apple, black cherry, black raspberry, grape, lemon-lime, mixed fruit, orange-banana, pineapple-grapefruit, blackberry, strawberry-banana, tropical fruit and more intense "wild" versions of the venerable strawberry, raspberry and cherry. During this same period, 1-2-3 Jell-O, a gelatin dessert that separated into three layers as it cooled, was unveiled.

'In the mid-1970s, it was discovered that bone marrow was a sufficient ingredient to make jello, and gelatin manufacturers ceased using ingredients culled from animals' tissues and intestines. Until 1987, 1-2-3 Jell-O could readily be found in grocery stores throughout most of the United States, but the dessert is now extremely rare. In 1989, General Foods was merged into Kraft Foods by parent company Philip Morris (now the Altria Group). New flavors were continually introduced: watermelon, blueberry, cranberry, margarita and piña colada among others.

'In 2001, Green Jell-O was declared the "Official State Snack" of Utah. As of 2008, there were more than 158 products sold under the Jell-O brand name and about 300 million boxes of Jell-O gelatin sold in the United States each year. In 2009, a food researcher discovered a process whereby jello could be successfully produced in its characteristic wiggly form and at lower cost to manufacturers by using the gelatin substitute Agar Agar, which is derived from seaweed vegetation. Jell-O began a limited use of Agar Agar in their gelatin products in 2010, and are expected to begin producing exclusively vegetarian jello in the year 2012.'-- collaged










Amber absinthe and Black Sambuca jello shot


'In high school, you had a friend who decided the very first time he was ever going to take acid was the day of his Geometry final…You asked him how he was doing. He said he was fine except he was a jello horse.'-- Matthew Simmons


'Erica is in the kitchen making Jell-O chicken mousse for dinner. She does things with Jell-O that take people's breath away. Even as she prepares the mousse, there are nine parfait glasses in the two-tone Kelvinator. They are tilted to accommodate layers of different colors and flavors. Doing things with Jell-O improves Erica's mood, and she is oddly gloomy today.

'One of Erica's favorite words is "breezeway." It connotes "ease and breeze and being contemporary and having something others did not." She also loves "crisper." Erica can call her creation Jell-O chicken mousse or chicken-mousse Jell-O, because Jell-O is "a push-button word ...the way the whole world opened behind a button that you pushed."'-- Don Delillo



______
Galeria


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Gelatinas

'Mother Nature doesn't make them; Rosario Gamboa does. The process makes the outcome seem all the more remarkable. Trained hands can create a blossom in less than 10 minutes. (Check out the "gelatina artistica" video on YouTube.) Working in a palm-size hemisphere of freshly set gelatin, Gamboa uses hypodermic needles - some straight, some bent into a U - to inject colored mixtures of gelatin and sweetened condensed milk. It is done while the gelatin is inverted, so it's a little like sculpting a figure from the feet up. Each stab or swath is instantly encapsulated, forming a leaf or petal or stamen. Slight corrections can be made if you're skillful enough; otherwise, it's art without a do-over option.'-- The Washington Post









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Jello bowling ball






___________________
Jello cheeseburger & fries

'Rachel Morrison's "Cheeseburger in Paradise" simulates a cheeseburger, french fries, and a coke. It features a vanilla and walnut flavored Jell-O bun, pistachio flavored lettuce, cherry and cherry cream Jell-O tomatoes, chocolate and chocolate mousse flavored Jell-O burger, orange-lemon Jell-O cheese, lemon-lime Jell-O pickles, and coconut flavored Jell-O onions.'-- Eat Me Daily









____________
Jello false teeth






_________________________
Working/playable jello toy piano








_________
Jello bullets






__________________________
Liz Hickock's Fugitive Topography

'I create glowing, jellied scale models of urban sites, transforming ordinary physical surroundings into something unexpected and ephemeral. Lit from below, the molded shapes of the city blur into a jewel-like mosaic of luminous color and volume. The gelatinous material also evokes uncanny parallels with the geological uncertainties of a city's landscape. While the translucent beauty of the compositions first seduces the viewer, their fragility quickly becomes a metaphor for the transitory nature of human artifacts.'-- Liz Hickock


San Francisco earthquake


Marina Tidal Wave


Rain storm in North Adams, Massacusetts



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Jello amphetamines'
*
* they work





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Jello party olives






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Jelloware

'Sculpting gelatin into new shapes can result in new uses. Jelloware is the name for drinking glasses made out of agar agar (a vegetable-based gelatin) that can hold liquid and can be eaten, too! If they aren’t consumed, these glasses are biodegradable.'-- Mental Floss







____________________________________
Neon Jelly Chamber & Architectural Punchbowl

'British artists Bompas & Parr create fine jellies or jellos, craft bespoke jello moulds and curate immersive food installations. Aming the works that the self confessed jelly-mongers and experience-extenders have devised are a scratch ‘n’ sniff event for Peter Greenaway’s The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover which was introduced by the director, the Architectural Punchbowl in which a building was flooded with four tonnes of punch and guests ferried across it in rafts to indulge in further edible & quaffable revelry – and an expansive glowing installation of black and gold leaf prosseco funeral jellies for San Francisco’s MOMA.'-- random specific













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Broken Glass Jello

'This is one purty purty dessert. My MiL from Hawaii makes this for alllll the parties. It’s surprisingly easier than it looks! This makes for great party food. The colors are so pretty your guests will be impressed, like you took hours to make it!'-- Food Librarian











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Deviled jello eggs






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Jello corn cob






_______________________________
Jello Dianetics e-meter (with blueberries)






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The Glass Ceiling






____________________________
Green Tea & Apple Juice Finger Jello

'Heat slightly more than 2 cups of juice to a near boil. Steep one decaf green tea bag (or one serving of loose leaf tea) in the juice for about a minute, then remove. Pour 1 cup cold juice into a 7 x 11-inch pan. Sprinkle 3 packets of unflavored gelatin (.25 oz each) over the top of the juice in the pan. Let stand for one minute. Pour the hot juice/tea into the pan (sans tea dregs) and stir until the gelatin is dissolved. Stir in 1 Tablespoon of honey. Refrigerate uncovered until firm, about 2 or 3 hours.'-- DashingBean





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Han Solo in Grape Jell-o Carbonite

'Han Solo in carbonite is legendary, so I thought it’d be a fun party centerpiece to have him ‘frozen’ in grape Jell-o. Mix up the Jell-o according to package directions. Pour it into a 9×13 pan and set Han in there nice and gentle like. Chill and serve.'-- justJENN recipes







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untitled






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untitled






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Jello Worms

'Here’s the premise – you stuff as many bendy-neck straws that have been straightened out into a container that can hold at least 4 cups of liquid. Pack them in there as tight as can be (see the step-by-step pictures below). Then, pour the jello gently into and over the straws, refrigerate until set, and then delicately squeeze the worms out of the straws.'-- Mel's Kitchen Cafe







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Jello chicken stuffing and eggs







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Jasper Johns Jell-O Surprise

'Shelly Sabel pays homage to her favorite artist Jasper John's and his infamous 1958 light bulb piece. It's flavored with sweet jalapeno Jell-O because "light bulbs get hot". Sabel's invention won a runner-up prize at the 2010 Jell-o Mold Competition.'-- gastronomista







_________________
26 pound Gummy Bear

'Need an epic centerpiece for your next party? Look no further than the Party Gummy Bear. This 26-pound candy beast ensures that your shindigs have no equal. Imagine the shock of your party goers when they realize that your 32,000-calorie gummy bear also features an integrated one-liter serving bowl! Serve punches, candies, or even more gummy bears from within this seventeen-inch-long confection. The Party Gummy Bear is hand made in the USA, features a 1-year shelf life, costs $200, and is available in a variety of delicious flavors: cherry, orange, green apple and blue raspberry.'-- Vat19.com






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*

p.s. Hey. Today I'll be flying to San Francisco and then stumbling around there in a jet lagged haze. Or that's my guess. You are invited and welcome to think about jello courtesy of this post from the past. Thanks!

Rerun: Object Theatre --> Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller --> The Wild Duck --> Ibsen (orig. 01/01/12)

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'The term “object theatre” was first used in 1980. However, today there are still several different and somewhat controversial ideas of what object theatre is.

'Much of the confusion surrounding object theatre comes from its relationship to puppet theatre. Some theatre scholars (such as Henryk Jurkowski and Jette Lund) believe that object theatre is a part of the world of puppetry, and is merely a more modern expression of this genre, whilst others (including Anne Helgesen and Ida Hamre) utilize the term “object theatre” (or synonyms such as “figurteater” or “animationsteater”) in a broader way to classify all types of puppet theatre. Meanwhile, there are also those that that see object theatre as an independent art form (such as Christian Carrignon, Peter Weitzner).

'Direct translation of certain synonyms of object theatre, such as the aforementioned Norwegian “figurteater” and the Danish “animationsteater”, into English often adds to the confusion, as part of the original meaning of these terms is lost in the translation, and even worse some unintentional secondary meanings are inherited.

'Some of the confusion over the recognition of object theatre as an art form is related to the fact that some object theatre performances are more closely related to certain theater genres than others. On the other hand, others are less related to traditional forms and have more in common with performance art or other modern art forms such as cyborg theatre and image oriented theatre.

'For this reason, I have identified three new subgroups within the object theatre genre. By more clearly defining these individual groups it actually becomes easier to understand the broader concept of object theatre and how it relates to other theatre genres. It is also necessary to do this before attempting to define the boundaries between object theatre and puppetry and performance art, because each of the three subgroups is related to them in a different way.


'1) Animation theatre





'In spite of its name, this form of object theatre is not related to cartoons or animated films, but instead refers to the alternative meaning of the word “animate”, that is to “bring to life” or “to give a soul to”. In this form of object theatre the manipulator seeks to make the objects they work appear to be alive. It is common to use mundane, everyday objects such as chairs, flowers or glasses, although the objects can also be more abstract things such as sculptures or art objects. The manipulators themselves are, however, hidden from the audience by using a screen or black clothes. The attention of the audience is therefore focussed on the object, rather than the on the manipulator. This form of object theatre is more closely related to puppet theatre than the other two. Examples of this type of object theatre include works by Puppet Beings Theatre Company and TamTam Objectentheater.


'2) Theatre of things





'In the theatre of things, it is again common to use everyday, ready made objects. However, the manipulator does not seek to make them appear to be alive as they do in Animation Theatre. Instead the objects often have some symbolic or metaphorical meaning, and the illusion of them being real is more in the mind of the audience than in the way that they appear on the stage. This can be illustrated by an example where there is a small toy car on the stage and the actor acts as though he would be driving this car. The toy car does not look like a real car, but the audience imagines that the car is real and that the actor is actually sitting inside it.

'The other key difference between the Theatre of Things and Animation Theatre is that the actor is the centre of attention and not the object. The actor makes no attempt to hide himself or his emotions, and may even deliberately exaggerate them as part of the performance. There is also a more direct communication between the actor and the audience than in Animation Theatre. Due to the importance of the role of the actor and his acting in this type of performance, it is easy to see how this type of object theatre is more closely related to dramatic acting than the other two. Examples of this type of object theatre include performances by Christian Carrignon, Lasse Åkerlund and the performance Storre Stemme directed by Geirdis Bjørlo and Preben Faye-Scjhøll.


'3) Figure Theatre





'The final subgroup of object theatre is the most contemporary of the three subgroups of object theatre. It can be characterised by the human actors being disguised using masks or costumes in a conceptual way makes them to no longer appear to be a human being, but instead a lifeless object. In some cases, the actor inside the costume “animates” the object which they are performing, for example by playing a life size marionette. In other Figure Theatre performances, however, the object created by the actor may be a part of the scenography, such as a door or a piece of furniture, or they may form a part or the whole of a visual image. The actor in figure theatre balances between acting and non-acting as it is hard to say that someone is acting when they perform the part of a “door” or a part ofthe scenography. The visual image or visual impact is also a very important aspect in Figure Theatre, as it is in performance art, which is closely related to specifically this type of object theatre.

'It is more difficult to find concrete examples of this subgroup of object theatre, however, one recent performance that could be classified as “Figure Theatre” is Vildanden by Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller.' -- Svein Gundersen, ÅRGANG 28



________________

(Little pieces of) Vegard Vinge & Ida Müller's Vildanden







































'Through a genre-crossing berserk race Osvald Alving stages his ongoing dissolution as a Syphilitic Gesamtkunstwerk. With Nietzschean megalomania the artist untangles the bandage of the canonised work he is personally chained to, revealing the open wounds in a search of the stinking sewage underneath the stage floor. Illness and avoidance as salvation in the intersection between child-like genius and forcible inheritance. The ragnarok of Ibsen. A ritual and Odyssean journey towards the sun and the final liberation.'-- Vegard Vinge/Ida Müller

'Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller’s Vildanden, part of a cycle of Ibsen plays, presents a radical view of the Norwegian psyche through their vibrant and highly subjective productions of their national poet. Here in a hand-painted universe where everything – landscapes, buildings, people – is freshly-decorated in bright colours, deeper and darker forces lurk which will soon undermine this happy, shiny surface. Vildanden is presented from the perspective of the Helmer family children – human dolls or puppets - who find themselves imprisoned in a world of money and disease. Vinge and Müller’s uncompromising and unique theatrical vocabulary mixes opera, splatterfilm, puppet-theatre, cartoon and performance. It is theatre as ritual and exorcism.'-- DOPPELGÄNGER

'Ibsen probably enjoys himself, but do we? No, this can't be called enjoyment. It is perversely fun, it is interesting, it is sickening, it is annoying, it is fun, it is embarrassing, it is genius, it is long, it is much - but it is far from nice. Possibly this is such a complete overload of a production it has people turn around and leave in the door. Let us hope not, for either you like this work or not, it reeks of manifestos, will and distinct character. The references to avant garde traditions are strong, and it almost strangles itself in a scream after a theatre revolution.'-- Elisabeth Leinslie, Scenekunst



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Henrik Ibsen's Vildanden

'Ibsen's Vildanden (The Wild Duck) enacts the story of Gregers Werle's descent from Høydal and his intrusive mission into this environment of the insulted and injured. Long suspecting his father responsible for the fall that reduced Lieutenant Ekdal and his family to social disgrace and dependence, he decides to right the injustice. The family, however, is reconciled to its fallen condition, retreating from reality to live on Haakon Werle's largesse. The merchant controls this world, supplying even the wild duck, - the central feature of the Ekdals' imaginative world. Believing truth will set the Ekdals free, Gregers unwittingly destroys Hjalmar's belief in his own identity as husband, father and family breadwinner.

'To overcome the crisis that results, Gregers suggests Hedvig sacrifice her most precious possession, the wild duck, to demonstrate her love for her father. When they believe this is what she has done, Gina and Hjalmar are reconciled and the marriage is saved. But out of view in the attic, Hedvig arrived at her own mysterious decision. We know the moment of her action: Hjalmar's rhetorical question whether Hedvig would be willing to sacrifice a prospective new life for his sake: but this does not explain why her response was to kill herself. Was it a defiant suicide like that of her namesake, Hedda? Or an act of despair? Or of love? Her death is the element of the unpredictable in human affairs – an ‘uncertainty principle' that bedevils attempts at the reformation of the human spirit.

'The realist art of The Wild Duck dictates its scale and type of action; the characters' social class; the furniture and costumes; the stage directions for the actors' gestures and even the pitch of their voices. The demand for meticulous plausibility realism is expected to meet greatly increases the difficulty of the artistic act when the dramatic intention is as ambitious as Ibsen's. He needed to devise a dramatic method to circumvent the restrictions he imposed on his art, to make it do more things than its text seems to allow. The play's expanding circumferences of action encompass individual and family histories, social divisions, the surrounding natural world of retreating forests, lakes and marshes inhabited by the wild duck and its fellow creatures and, beyond these, perspectives of human history and culture stretching back centuries.

'By the multi-perspectival or contrapuntal aspect of his dramas, Ibsen's realism still performs the function of his poetic dramas: of embedding universal perspectives within the particular details of his art. This, of course, is true of most major literature and especially of dramatic art. To create his poetic realism, Ibsen devised a bi-focal strategy that requires the reader or viewer to see and hear beyond the immediate events presented to an order of archetypal implications they have been devised to evoke.

'In an effect reminiscent of Gestalt images or the pictures of M.C. Escher, what you look at gradually becomes a different image. Something like a Gestalt effect, I believe, is in the very title of the play, Vildanden, which to Norwegians, suggest Vildånden (wild/free spirit). Optical references are sounded throughout the text of The Wild Duck; of failing eyesight; seeing and failing to see; of eyes “not always clear-sighted”; of opening someone's eyes to the truth; of perhaps seeing too much like Gregers, who converts reality into parables and symbols, and who asks Hedvig if she is sure the attic is an attic. And there is the presence of the camera, a neutral, inadequate recorder of reality.

'Each character in the play sees reality from a unique point of view; voiced in old Ekdal's superstitions, Hjalmar's sentimentalism, Gina's literalism, Relling's cynicism, and Gregers' mystical idealism. These competing voices surround Hedvig, whose tragedy might be as much provoked by this Babel of voices and views as by any other cause. The play's closing lines, after the senseless suicide, are a bitter disagreement between Gregers and Relling as to the import of what we have witnessed.'-- Brian Johnston


























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'The state must be abolished! In that revolution I will take part. Undermine the idea of the state; make willingness and spiritual kinship the only essentials in the case of a union -- and you have the beginning of a liberty that is of some value. The changing forms of government is mere toying with degrees -- a little more or a little less -- folly, the whole of it.'-- Henrik Ibsen

'To live is to war with trolls.'-- HI

'Do not use that foreign word "ideals." We have that excellent native word "lies."'-- HI

'Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace and happiness.'-- HI

'One of the qualities of liberty is that, as long as it is being striven after, it goes on expanding. Therefore, the man who stands in the midst of the struggle and says, "I have it," merely shows by doing so that he has just lost it.'-- HI

'Some day, youth will come here and thunder on my door, and force its way in to me.'-- HI
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p.s. Hey. Someone, I can't remember who, requested that I relaunch this particular post the next time the blog went into reruns, which is now, obviously. I hope whoever asked and the rest of you enjoy. Presumed greetings from San Francisco.

Rerun: Richey Edwards' Uncontrollable Finale (orig. 01/04/12)

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1991

15 May: Steve Lamacq, a writer for the NME, interviews Richey Edwards backstage at a gig. Lamacq expresses concern that the Manic Street Preachers' cartoon image will drag them down. He concludes by saying that "some people might regard you as just not for real". After the interview, Richey asks Steve if he has a minute and they stand talking at the side of the stage. During their conversation Richey picks up a razor-blade and, as he talks, begins, slowly and deliberately, to carve something into his arm. Lamacq is dumbfounded as the words 4 REAL appear in striated red slashes across Richey's skin.

'He was so calm, absolutely calm, and didn't look in any pain whatsoever. One of the things that was so strange and frightening about it was that he was so calm. You didn't even feel like he was making a point. He could almost have been writing it in biro.'-- Steve Lamacq





1992

February: The Manic Preachers finish recording and release their first LP Generation Terrorists. The process is enormously stressful. In the studio Richey indulges in every kind of abuse. He cries a lot. He smokes 40 cigarettes and drinks a bottle and a half of vodka a day. It is rumored that he didn't play a single note on the album.





1 June: single, "Motorcycle Emptiness" is released. It is the band's biggest hit while Richey is a member.






1993

October: Manic Street Preachers tour Japan and Germany. In Japan, there is supposedly an incident between Richey and a female fan.

'While shivering outside a London gig one day, my friends and I had met 2 Japanese girls who loved the Manics so much that they had flown over to England just to watch them play for one night. When the Manics set off to tour Japan, our friends were just so excited. One of the girls asked if we thought she should sleep with Richey. Naturally, we told her to go for it. The next evening this girl called back, and told us that the Manics had played and that she had met Richey. He had invited her back to his room. She went to his room and then changed her mind but Richey did not listen to her. Afterwards he told her that he was sorry. He couldn’t help himself, because all men are worthless pigs. After she left, she had to go to hospital, but she didn’t go to the police.'-- Tracy Sharkpool




In Germany, Richey goes through a self-admitted "bad period". He begins to stub out cigarettes on his arm, and his drinking increases. The band send him to a health farm (for the second time), when they return to Britain.


November: single, "From Despair to Where" is released. Fearful that asking for Richey's release from the health farm even for an afternoon to shoot the video will occasion a set back, the video is recorded in a wing of the hospital.





7 December: Manic Street Preachers' manager, Philip Hall, age 34, dies of cancer.



1994

8 April: Kurt Cobain, a favourite artist of Richey's, is found after killing himself approximately three days earlier.


22-23 April: Manic Street Preachers play two shows in Bangkok, Thailand. The second night, Richey is given a set of knives by a fan, which he uses to cut his chest before the show. He also stops eating around this time. Richey is sent to a health farm (for the third time), when they return to Britain. The band will see, in retrospect, the Thai concerts as the beginning of the serious trouble with Richey.





April: Richey's friend from university, Nigel, hangs himself.


31 May: single, "Faster/PCP" is released.







June: Richey is interviewed at the Brat Awards by MTV





July: Richey disappears for 48 hours. Shortly after he returns, following two days of drinking and self-mutilation, in an apparent suicide attempt, he is committed to Whitchurch hospital, Cardiff, then the Priory Clinic, Roehampton, for ten weeks of rehabilitation.


30 July: Manic Street Preachers honour their commitment to play at the T In The Park and Reading festivals, without Richey.


8 August: single, "Revol", is released.





Early September: Richey checks out of the Priory Clinic.


7 November - December: Manic Street Preachers tour in Europe, as the support act for Suede. Sometime during the tour, Richey buys a meat cleaver, apparently intending to chop off his fingers, so that he doesn't have to play onstage, in emulation of Steve Clark, guitarist for Def Leppard. The cleaver is taken away from Richey before he can use it on himself.


24 November: Nicky Wire of the Manics discovers after a show in Amsterdam that Richey has cut himself vertically down his chest, an injury which requires 36 (by some accounts) stitches.


29 or 30 November: the last TV interview with Richey is recorded in Stockholm for a Swedish TV channel.







1 December: Nicky finds Richey outside the group's hotel in Hamburg, Germany, repeatedly banging his head on the wall, blood streaming down his face. The European tour is ended, despite several more shows on the schedule.


19-21 December: Richey's last three shows with the Manic Street Preachers, at the London Astoria. The group smashes their equipment at the end of the last show.






1995

January: Manic Street Preachers begin rehearsals for their fourth album. Richey takes £200 a day from his bank account for the two weeks before his disappearance, for a total of £2800.


14 January: Richey and his sister, Rachel, bury the dog they had for 17 years, Snoopy. It is the last time Rachel sees Richey.


Mid-January: Richey attends a show at TJ's in Newport. This is the last time he is seen at a public event.


23 January: Richey gives his last ever interview, for the Japanese magazine, Music Life, with Midori Tsukagoshi who also photographs him in his home.





23 January: Richey sees his parents for the last time.


31 January: Richey talks to his mother for the last time.


31 January: Richey and bandmate James Dean Bradfield check into the London Embassy hotel on Bayswater Road in London in preparation for leaving for their promotional tour of America the next day.



Richey's room at the Embassy Hotel


1 February: 7 AM (GMT): Richey checks out of the Embassy hotel, and is never seen again. It is certain that he drives to his apartment in Cardiff where he leaves some things before driving away again. By some accounts, he does not enter Wales for eight hours after leaving the hotel. Meanwhile, James goes on to America, believing Richey might return after a few days.



Richey in his apartment, January 1995


February: sometime during the two weeks following his leaving the Embassy Hotel in London, Richey is supposedly spotted at the passport office in Newport. Edwards' local bank is contacted. They reported that Richey had not used his account since January 31, though he had withdrawn £200 a day on the 14 previous days.


5 February: David Cross, a fan from Mid-Glamorgan, supposedly sees Richey at the Newport bus station.

'I got off the bus alone and I usually buy the Sunday papers from a newsagent's shop which is a very short distance from the bus station. As I approached the newsagent's I saw Richey James Edwards. He was stood alone near to a silver grey coloured car. I approached him as I was going to the shop. Although I do not know him, I said to him: 'Hello, Richey, I'm a friend of Lori's.' And he said, 'How is she? How is she doing?' I said: 'She's fine.' He looked at me and said: 'I'll see you later.' He was wearing a dark, blue-coloured jacket.'-- David Cross


Newport Bus Station


7 February: Anthony Hatherhall, a taxi driver from Newport, supposedly picks up Richey from the King's hotel in Newport, and drives him around the valleys, including Blackwood. 'He requested that we go via the scenic route and not along the motorway because he said he was always driving along the motorway. The fare was £68.'


8 February: German Manics fan Monika Pommer claims she received a postcard from Edwards postmarked London February 3, 1995. As 'proof', she sent police a copy of a postcard which Edwards sent her from Cardiff on December 13, 1994. The card, a portrait of Egon Schiele's 'Sunflowers' from 1913, read: "Thanks for all the presents, the coffee especially, take care of yourself, be happy, love Richey."


17 February: Richey's Vauxhall Cavalier is reported abandoned at the (Aust) Severn service station. Apparently, Richey has been living in it for a time. The battery is run down, and burger wrappers and pictures of his family, which were taken the month before, are found in it.



(Aust) Severn service station


22 February: Cardiff Police are told that Edwards is staying at Henlow Grange health farm in Bedfordshire. Biddulpshire detective DC Billy Greenwell contacted the farm, which said a quiet, withdrawn musician was staying there. However, further checks revealed him to be a Londoner.


late February: Sinead O'Connor claims that Edwards is visiting the Hereford home of a schizophrenic fan. Edwards and O'Connor had previously spoken by telephone and O'Connor had told him about the fan, who spends most of his time writing to her. She read about Edwards' disappearance in NME, then contacted police with the information that Edwards has sought refuge in Hereford. However, a police check turned up yet another blank.


July: 16-year-old Lucy Winters, of Gargrave, near Skipton, North Yorkshire, said she saw Edwards walking the streets, looking haggard and unhealthy, carrying a yellow and green rucksack type bag which was "tacky".



1996

28 February: Vyvyan Morris, a lecturer from Neath College in South Wales, supposedly sees Richey in a hippie market in Goa, India.

'Morris was on holiday in Goa with his girlfriend and had seen Richey at Anjuna outdoor market, a popular hippy and backpacker hangout. He had momentarily lost his girlfriend, who had their camera, when he spotted the man who he believed to be Richey sitting opposite him in a café. He recognised him, but couldn't quite place his face. Just as he realised who he was, after about five minutes, the man stood up, went outside and boarded a minibus - which is the reason Morris gave for not being able to speak to him. Morris described the man as "wearing a kaftan top and jeans" with "quite matted longish hair" and that he was "fuller" than the "amphetamine gazelle" he remembered from before. He also said he was "sunburnt and a bit out of it". Immediately afterwards, Morris asked a hippy sat nearby if he knew who the mystery man was. The hippy, Jeff Reid, originally from Bath who had been in Goa 20 years, told Morris that the man was called Rick, a 'newcomer' who had been there for 18 months. Morris asserts he is certain that the man he saw was Richey, as he had met him at a gig in Singleton Park, Swansea, in August 1993. Police interviewed Morris over the phone on March 3 and told him his story "rang true".'-- NME


the Goa hippie market


15 April: single, "A Design for Life", co-written with Richey but recorded after his disappearance, is released.






1998

November: Tracey Jones, a British-born barmaid on the island of Fuerteventura, supposedly sees Richey in the Underground Bar in the town of Corralejo.

'The guitarist from the Manic Street Preachers who disappeared three and a half years ago has apparently been seen alive and well in the Canary Islands.Tracey Jones, a British-born barmaid on the remote island of Fuerteventura - described as a 'Robinson Crusoe' island - in the Canary Islands, was working in the Underground Bar in the town of Corralejo. She and another customer spotted a thin man in the pub. "One of the customers shouted 'You're Richey from the Manic Street Preachers!' ," she said. "The man just started to run towards the door and within seconds he was gone."'-- The Telegraph


The Underground Bar



1999

December: As a detective in the Metropolitan police force, Keith Charles uses his rare gift for psychic detection to investigate Richey Manic's disappearance and gives some spectacular examples of his success.

'The night he left the hotel to drive west, Richey was not masterminding his own disappearance and this was far from his intention. He had a mental switch-off and set out on the first part of a trek across Europe, initially going to Holland where he settled for a while, busking and restaurant waiting to make just enough money to keep him going. I see Richey living in some poverty to begin with, in back streets, almost like a waif and stray. Then he suffered a complete breakdown and was taken in by members of some kind of religious sect who restored him to good health. For the first time in a good while, he was comfortable, well fed and well cared for. He had escaped death by a whisker. Somehow, he found his way to India - maybe through this sect - and that is where I see him now; a new person living a totally new life, probably, because of a kind of amnesia, unaware of his past life in England as a rock star with the Manics. The name "Bahktar" seems to be important, although I don't know if this is a name he has taken, or it could be the name of the place in northern India where he now lives, a town on the border with Pakistan. Richey has taken the name "Dom", so he might be called Dom Bakhtar. I just know that in the language where he is now living, the name he has adopted means "little bird". Though Richey's new life is a frugal one, he is very happy. In fact, he has never been happier. It is as though he has rediscovered himself. Where he now lives is an idyllic place; there must be water nearby because I can see boats.'-- Keith Charles



2002

January: with the seventh anniversary of Richey's disappearance near, his parents, Graham and Sherry Edwards, say they will never have their son declared dead.


4 February: The last known photograph of missing rock star Richey Edwards is been published by British magazine The Big Issue in a bid to solve the seven-year mystery of his disappearance. The parents of the missing Manic Street Preachers guitarist are hoping readers of The Big Issue - and the homeless who sell it - can find their lost son.





March: a pair of trainers, along with some bones, are found washed up by the Severn River. They are later determined to not be Richey's.


2003

21 July 21: The body of a tattooed man is found washed up off Beachy Head. Eastbourne coroner's officer Michael Davey telexes Harrow Road at 12.45pm and says: "This may be Richard Edwards, missing from here since '95, ref: 584-21-DR-95. There has been very great press interest in this as is (was?!) a member of 'Manic Street Preachers' popular music group, known very well by you, I've no doubt. Please be aware before making public." The body is identified, but it turns out not to be Edwards.



2004

October: it is reported that Lee Wilde supposedly saw Richey on Famara beach, Lanzarote.

'I know people will find this difficult to believe and that they'll think I'm some sort of crackpot, but I am convinced that is who I saw. Everyone I've mentioned it to - including yourselves - just gives me that quizzical look with a raised eyebrow, but I know what I saw and I'm totally certain of it. He didn't do anything very much, we smiled and chatted briefly - you know, just hello and some small talk. He was looking out across the water with half closed eyes because of the sun but he still watched me approach. Before I could say hello back, he just said something like "it's beautiful isn't it?" all while staring ahead. He was talking about the view obviously but I was more intrigued by his appearance - there was something quite different about him. He was incredibly thin, skinny would be a good description, a drawn complexion and greying hair. Then there were his arms. They were wrapped in leather bracelets and fabric that looked like rags - but in a fashionably untidy way, I don't think they were bandages but on the areas of his arms that weren't covered you could make out scars which looked worse than they really were because of his tanned skin. If it was him, then he's here because he wants to be here - if he wanted to be back in the UK he would be - obviously he wants to be left alone.'-- Lee Wilde


Famara Beach



2008

23 November: as of this date, Richey's legal status has been changed, by court order, to "presumed dead". His parents, Graham and Sherry Edwards, have been granted control of his estate, and the missing person case on Richey is now officially closed.



2009

18 May: The Manic Street Preachers release their ninth album Journal for Plague Lovers featuring posthumous lyrics by Richey Edwards. It is the only Manic Street Preachers album in which the lyrics for every song were written solely by Edwards.

'The lyrics are taken from a folder of songs, haikus, collages and drawings Edwards gave to bassist/lyricist Nicky Wire a few weeks before he disappeared. Edwards also gave photocopies of the folder to singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield and drummer Sean Moore. The band have described the Rymans folder as having a picture of Bugs Bunny drawn on the front emblazoned with the word ‘OPULENCE’. In promotional interviews for the album, Bradfield and Wire have revealed that the folder contains around 28 songs. Four of these appeared on the 1996 album Everything Must Go: "Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier", "Kevin Carter", "Removables" and "Small Black Flowers that Grow in the Sky". Of the rest of the folder, Wire stated: “There’s probably between eight and ten maybe that were too impossible. Some of them are little haikus, four lines. "Dolphin-Friendly Tuna Wars", that’s one, "Alien Orders/Invisible Armies", that’s one where we recorded an instrumental that takes its title from this lyric. "Young Men", which is quite Joy Division. They just didn’t feel right. We’ll probably put them all out in a book one day."'-- NME






2011

14 January:Richard, a novel by Ben Myers that imagines what really happened on the night Richey Edwards disappeared is published.

'The beck is far away below as I continue along the reptile's spine. It is nothing more than a grey wound in the earth, a meandering fissure in the earth's crust, the car-sized boulders that litter its banks reduced to jagged dots lifted down the valley during the last days of the ice age some twenty thousand years ago and randomly deposited at the beck's side – itself the last trickling traces of a glacier that must have once covered South Wales with hundreds of miles of creaking, shifting, landscape-sculpting ice. Where the beck snakes downhill, miniature oxbows have formed amongst the rocks and small shelves where the earth has been sluiced away by the flow, revealing redpeat cross-sections from which tangled roots protrude and earthworms gamely attempt to wriggle back into the wet loam.
----Across the other side of the valley, patches of flattened bracken are patterned across the hillside; great brittle burnt-orange swathes, poised for fossilization. I realize I am walking through one such crop now, a mirror image of what I can see a mile away as the crisp branches and dead leaves crunch underfoot like a frost. I am tired and I keep coughing but I intend to keep walking, even if it kills me.'
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p.s. Hey. If you're in San Francisco, you should come see LIKE CATTLE TOWARDS GLOW and Zac and me at Alamo Drafthouse tonight at 7 pm. Whether you're there and can come or not, please find out if this Richey Edwards-centric post has something in it for you. I hope all of you are well.

Rerun: 185 backstage passes (orig. 01/07/12)

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p.s. Hey. I can't remember why I decided to bring this post back. But I mean ... why not? Enjoy your sort of V.I.P. status. I'm spending my last full day in San Francisco doing something. And you?

Rerun: Spotlight on ... William Burroughs The Wild Boys (1969) (orig. 11/07/11)

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'William S. Burroughs' 1969 novel The Wild Boys introduces several themes into the author's magical universe: the struggle to escape the mechanisms of social control; the search for transcendence of the biological trap of duality, and the narrator's ability to rewrite (and thereby destroy) his own past. The Wild Boys, subtitled A book of the dead has been described by some critics as a homosexual version of Peter Pan. Set in an apocalyptic near-future, The Wild Boys contrasts the struggle between the remnants of civilisation which exist in totalitarian enclaves and the wild boys - a revolutionary tribe of youths who exist in a utopian, instinctual state. The wild boys exist outside of the conventions of civilisation, free from the control mechanisms of religion, nation, family and 'normal' sexuality. A magical universe, where rigorous training in guerrilla tactics leads towards specialised biological mutations; where the total gratification of desire creates a magical technology of liberation.

'The wild boys themselves live as a tribe - without leaders or hierarchy but with a shared group consciousness. Rather than being individual characters, they are a manifestation of all that is repressed in civilised society, in particular, the forces we know as Eros and Thanatos. In the novel, the wild boys periodically explode into orgies of wild, unstoppable violence or lust. Through the use of drugs and sex, the wild boys discover a magical technology of restoring the dead to life, and so free themselves from biological dependence on women, birth, and death. Lacking an individual sense of self, they can cross to and from the land of the dead and exist in a liminal state between the worlds. They are, within Burroughs' magical universe, a male-only version of the maenads, representing the chaotic power of instinctual desire when manifested in a living form. Also, they can be likened to the ancient Greek Pan, manifesting as the call to the wild, which reaches out to the susceptible. In The Wild Boys, the image of a smiling wild boy becomes a hugely popular media icon which spreads the wild-boy virus across civilisation, causing more and more youths to join the wild boys.

'The wild boys are a utopian (perhaps dystopian) fantasy, but that is the whole point. As an articulation of Burroughs' need to escape the confines of modern culture, he has created a beachhead into an alternative dream. The wild boys present not only a homoerotic fantasy of immediate sexual gratification, but also the potentiality to be a space where new forms of 'otherness' might develop.

'The wild boys also embody trends in modern culture that many find uncomfortable; in particular, the idea of youths escaping from social control and literally 'running riot', and anonymous sexuality. Anyone who has participated in the anonymous sex which takes place in the interstitial zones of cities - parks, alleyways, truck-stops, docklands, restrooms, etc., will recognise the group consciousness of the wild boys, where words are unnecessary and communication is based on eye contact, touch, smell; where desire is communal rather than private. Instincts and impulses are uncluttered by personalities. For Burroughs, the wild boys fucking in the ruins of civilisation, represent a return to a primal state of being, what is referred to in Tantra as Sahaja - spontaneity - the 'natural' state of a human being who has achieved liberation from artificial limitations.'-- Phil Hine



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Further


WSB's photo/scrapbook for 'The Wild Boys'
A graphic adaptation of 'The Wild Boys'
The 1971 New York Times review of 'TWB'
Blake Butler 'Fuck Now talk later: Revisiting 'TWB' @ HTMLGIANT
'Looking for the Wild Boys'
'Wild Girls: Kathy Acker rewrites Burroughs'
Mp3: Colin Bright's musical adaptation of 'TWB'
About the aborted WSB/S. Clay Wilson 'TWB' collaboration
Mp3: WSB reads from 'TWB' and other works
'William S. Burroughs - 20th Century Gnostic Visionary'
The Wild Boys Message Board




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Media



Rare footage of William Burroughs talking about'The Wild Boys'


WSB reading from 'TWB' 1


WSB reading from 'TWB' 2


William S. Burroughs 'Commissioner of Sewers'



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William Burroughs'Abstracts


'The Abstracts of 1969 are a series of seven writing experiments which William Burroughs developed in the writing of his novel The Wild Boys. He published these Abstracts that year in small-press journals and underground newspapers, his usual testing ground in the 1960s. Their unusual format of careful juxtaposition is already familiar to anyone who has read The Wild Boys. Added to the five “Abstracts” found in The Wild Boys (actually six Penny Arcade Peep Shows / Abstracts, if you include the reprint of an Abstract first published in the journal Intrepid), the number of published individual Abstracts comes to twelve.'-- The Reality Studio





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Book



William Burroughs The Wild Boys
Grove Press

'In this funny, nightmarish masterpiece of imaginative excess, grotesque characters engage in acts of violent one-upmanship, boundless riches mangle a corner of Africa into a Bacchanalian utopia, and technology, flesh and violence fuse with and undo each other. A fragmentary, freewheeling novel, it sees wild boys engage in vigorous, ritualistic sex and drug taking, as well as pranksterish guerrilla warfare and open combat with a confused and outmatched army. The Wild Boys shows why Burroughs is a writer unlike any other, able to make captivating the explicit and horrific.'-- Penguin


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Excerpt


The camera is the eye of a cruising vulture flying over an area of scrub, rubble and unfinished buildings on the outskirts of Mexico City.

Five-story building no walls no stairs … squatters have set up makeshift houses … floors are connected by ladders … dogs bark, chickens cackle, a boy on the roof makes a jack-off gesture as the camera sails past.

Close to the ground we see the shadow of our wings, dry cellars choked with thistles, rusty iron rods sprouting like metal plants from cracked concrete, a broken bottle in the sun, shit-stained color comics, an Indian boy against a wall with his knees up eating an orange sprinkled with red pepper.

The camera zooms up past a red-brick tenement studded with balconies where bright pimp shirts flutter purple, yellow, pink, like the banners of a medieval fortress. On these balconies we glimpse flowers, dogs, cats, chickens, a tethered goat, a monkey, an iguana. The vecinos lean over the balconies to exchange gossip, cooking oil, kerosene and sugar. It is an old folklore set played out year after year by substitute extras.

Camera sweeps to the top of the building where two balconies are outlined against the sky. The balconies are not exactly one over the other since the top balcony recedes a little. Here the camera stops … ON SET.

It is a bright windy morning China-blue half-moon in the sky. Joselito, the maricón son of Tía Dolores, has propped up a mirror by the rain barrel and is shaving the long silky black hairs from his chest in the morning wind while he sings “NO PEGAN A MIO.” (“DON’T HIT ME”)

It is an intolerable sound that sets spoons tinkling in saucers and windowpanes vibrating. The vecinos mutter sullenly.

“Es el puto que canta.” (“It is the queer who sings.”) “The son of Dolores.” She crosses herself.

A young man rolls off his wife despondently.

“No puedo con eso puto cantando.” (“I can’t do it with that queer singing.”)

“The son of Dolores. She has the evil eye.”

In each room the face of Joselito singing “NO PEGAN A MIO” is projected onto the wall.

Shot shows an old paralyzed man and Joselito’s face inches from his screaming “NO PEGAN A MIO.”

“Remember that he is the son of Dolores.”

“And one of Lola’s ‘Little Kittens.’”

Tía Dolores is an old woman who runs a newspaper-and-tobacco kiosk. Clearly Joselito is her professional son.

On the top balcony is Esperanza just down from the mountains since her husband and all her brothers are in prison for growing opium poppies. She is a massive woman with arms like a wrestler and a permanent bucktoothed snarl. She leans over the balcony wall.

“Puto grosero, tus chingoa de pelos nos soplan en la cocina.
(“Vulgar queer, your fucking hairs are blowing into our food.”)

Shot shows hairs sprinkling soup and dusting an omelet like fine herbs.

The epithet “grosero” is too much for Joselito. He whirls cutting his chest. He clutches the wound with an expression of pathic dismay like a dying saint in an El Greco painting. He gasps “MAMACITA” and folds to the red tiles of the balcony dripping blood.

This brings Tía Dolores from her lair under the stairs, a rat’s nest of old newspapers and magazines. Her evil eyes rotate in a complex calendar, and these calculations occupy her for many hours each night settled in her nest she puffs and chirps and twitters and writes in notebooks that are stacked around her bed with magazines on astrology … “Tomorrow my noon eye will be at its full.” … This table of her power is so precise that she has to know the day hour minute and second to be sure of an ascendant eye and to this end she carries about with her an assortment of clocks, watches and sundials on thongs and chains. She can make her two eyes do different things, one spinning clockwise the other counterclockwise or she can pop one eye out onto her cheek laced with angry red veins while the other sinks back into an enigmatic grey slit. Latterly she has set up a schedule of “ojos dukes” (“sweet eyes”) and gained some renown as a healer though Tío Mate says he would rather have ten of her evils than one of her sweets. But he is a bitter old man who lives in the past.

Dolores is a formidable war machine rather like a gun turret, dependent on split-second timing and the reflector disk of her kiosk, she is not well designed for surprise encounters.

Enter the American tourist. He thinks of himself as a good guy but when he looks in the mirror to shave this good guy he has to admit that “well, other people are different from me and I don’t really like them.” This makes him feel guilty toward other people. Tía Dolores hunches her cloak of malice closer and regards him with stony disapproval.

“Buenas días señorita.”

“Desea algo?”

“Sí … Tribune . . Tribune Americano…”

Silently pursing her lips she folds the Herald Tribune and hands it to him. Trying not to watch what the woman is doing with her eyes, he fumbles for change. Suddenly his hand jumps out of the pocket scattering coins on the pavement. He stoops to pick them up.

A child hands him a coin.

“Gracias … Gracias.”

The child looks at him with cold hatred. He stands there with the coins in his hand.

“Es cuanto?”

“Setenta centavos.”

He hands her a peso. She drops it into a drawer and pushes the change at him.

“Gracias … Gracias …”

She stares at him icily. He stumbles away. Halfway down the block he screams out

“I’LL KILL THE OLD BITCH.”

He begins to shadowbox and point pistols. People stop and stare.

Children scream after him.

“Son bitch Merican crazy man.”

A policeman aproaches jerkily.

“Señor oiga …”

“OLD BITCH … OLD BITCH.”

He lashes out wildly in a red haze blood cold on his shirt.

Enter a pregnant woman. She orders the Spanish edition of Life. Looking straight at the woman’s stomach, Dolores’ eyes glaze over and roll back in her head.

“Nacido muerto” (“Born dead”) whispers Tío Pepe who has sidled up beside the woman.

On “sweet eye” days she changes her kiosk to a flower stall and sits there beaming the sweetest old flower lady of them all.

Enter the American tourist his face bandaged his arm in a sling.

“Ah! the American caballero wishes the Tribune. Today I sell flowers but this paper I have kept for you.”

Her eyes crease in a smile that suffuses her face with gentle light.

“Aquí señor, muchas gracias.”

The paper smells faintly of roses. The coins leap into his hand.

Giving him the change she presses a coin into his palm and folds his fingers over it.

“This will bring you luck señor.”

He walks down the street smiling at children who smile back … “I guess that’s what we come here for … these children … that old flower lady back there

Enter the woman whose male child was born dead. She has come to buy a flower for his grave. Tía Dolores shakes her head sadly.

“Pobrecito.” (“Poor little one.”)

The woman proffers a coin. Tía Dolores holds up her hands.

“No señora … Es de mío …”

However, her timing schedule necessitates a constant shift of props and character … “My sweet eye wanes with the moon” … That day the tourist reached his hotel in a state of collapse for a terrible street boy followed him from the kiosk screaming

“Son bitch puto queer, I catching one clap from fucky you asshole.”

Sometimes half her booth is a kiosk and the other half a flower stall and she sits in the middle, her sweet eye on one side and her kiosk eye on the other. She can alternate sweet and evil twenty-four times a second her eyes jumping from one socket to the other.

Confident from her past victories, Tía Dolores waddles out onto the balcony like a fat old bird.

“Pobrecito” … She strokes Joselito’s head gathering her powers.

“Tell your maricón son to shave in the house.”

With a hasty glance at three watches, Dolores turns to face this uncouth peasant woman who dares to challenge her dreaded eye.

“Vieja loca, que haces con tu ojos?” sneers Esperanza.

“Tu te pondrás ciego como eso” (“Old crazy one, what are you doing with your eyes? You will blind yourself doing that.”

Dolores gasps out “TÍO PEPE” and sinks to the deck by her stricken son.

And Tío Pepe pops out tying his pants in front with a soggy length of grey rope. Under a travesty of good nature his soul is swept by raw winds of hate and mischance. He reads the newspapers carefully gloating over accidents, disasters and crime he thinks he is causing by his “sugestiónes.” His magic consists in whispering potent phrases from newspapers “ … there are no survivors … condemned to death … fire of unknown origins … charred bodies … This he does in crowds where people are distracted or better, much better right into the ear of someone who is sleeping or unconscious from drink. If no one is around and he is sure of his flop he reinforces his “sugestiónes” by thumping him in the testicles, grinding a knuckle into his eye or clapping cupped hands over his ears.

Here is a man asleep on a park bench. Tío Pepe approaches. He sits down by the man and opens a paper. He leans over reading into the man's ear, a thick slimy whisper.

“No hay supervivientes” The man stirs uneasily.

“Muerto en el acto” The man shakes his head and opens his eyes. He looks suspiciously at Tío Pepe who has both hands on the paper. He stands up and taps his pockets. He walks away.

And there is a youth sleeping in a little park. Tío Pepe drops a coin by the boy’s head. Bending down to pick up the coin he whispers … “un joven muerto” (“a dead youth.”)

Several times the vecinos shoo him away from a sleeper and he hops away like an old vulture showing his yellow teeth in a desperate grin. Now he has picked up the spoor of drunken vomit and there is the doll sprawled against a wall, his pants streaked with urine. Bending down as if to help the man up, Tío Pepe whispers in both ears again and again … “accidente horrible” … He stands up and shrieks in a high falsetto voice … “EMASCULADO EMASCULADO EMASCULADO” and kicks the man three times gently in the groin.

He finds an old drunken woman sleeping in a pile of rags and claps a hand over her mouth and nose whispering … “vieja borracha asfixiado.” (“old drunken woman asphyxiated.”)

Another drunk is sleeping in dangerous proximity to a brush fire.

Tío Pepe drops a burning cigarette butt into the man’s outstretched hand squatting down on his haunches he whispers slimily … “cuerpo carbonizado … cuerpo carbonizado … cuerpo carbonizado. …” He throws back his head and sings to the dry brush, the thistles the wind … “cuerpo carbonizado … cuerpo carbonizado … cuerpo carbonizado …”

He looks up at Esperanza with a horrible smile.

“Ah! the country cousin rises early.” While he croons a little tune.

“Resbalando sobre un pedazo de jabón Slipping on a piece of soap se precipito de un balcón.” fell over a balcony.

Esperanza swings her great arm in a contemptuous arc and wraps a wet towel around the balcony wall spattering Tío Pepe, Dolores and Joselito with dirty water. Sneering over her shoulder she turns to go inside.

The beaten team on the lower balcony lick their wounds and plot revenge.

“If I can but get her in front of my kiosk at 9:23 next Thursday …”

“If I could find her borracho …”

“And I will have her gunned down by pistoleros…”

This boast of Joselito is predicated on his peculiar relationship with Lola La Chata. Lola La Chata is a solid 300 pounds cut from the same mountain rock as Esperanza. She sells heroin to pimps and thieves and whores and keeps the papers between her massive dugs. Joselito had a junky boy friend who took him to meet Lola.

Joselito danced flamenco screeching like a peacock. Lola laughed and adopted him as one of her “Little Kittens.” In a solemn ceremony he had suckled at her great purple dug bitter with heroin. It was not uncommon for Lola to service customers with two “Little Kittens” sucking at her breasts.

As Esperanza turns to go inside six pimpish young men burst through the door in a reek of brilliantine and lean over the balcony screaming insults at Joselito.

This brings reinforcements to the faltering lower balcony. Tío Mate stalks out followed by his adolescent Ka El Mono.

Tío Mate is an old assassin with twelve deer on his gun. A thin ghostly old man with eyes the color of a faded grey flannel shirt. He wears a black suit and a black Stetson. Under the coat a single action Smith & Wesson tip up forty-four with a seven-inch barrel is strapped to his lean flank. Tío Mate wants to put another deer on his gun before he dies.

The expression a “deer” (un “venado”) derives from the mountainous districts of northern Mexico where the body is usually brought into the police post draped over a horse like a deer.

A young district attorney just up from the capital. Tío Mate has dropped by to give him a lesson in folklore.

Tío Mate (rolling a cigarette): “I’m going to send you a deer, señor abogado.”

The D.A. (he thinks “well now that’s nice of him”): “Well thank you very much, if it isn’t too much trouble …”

Tío Mate (lighting the cigarette and blowing out smoke): “No trouble at all señor abogado. It is my pleasure.”

Tío Mate blows smoke from the muzzle of his forty-four and smiles.

Man is brought in draped over a saddle. The horse is led by a woodenfaced Indian cop. The D.A. comes out. The cop jerks his head back … “un venado.”

Tío Mate had been the family pistolero of rich landowners in northern Mexico. The family was ruined by expropriations when they backed the wrong presidential candidate and Tío Mate came to live with relatives in the capital. His room is a bare, white cell, a cot, a trunk, a little wooden case in which he keeps his charts, sextant and compass. Every night he cleans and oils his forty-four. It is a beautiful custom-made gun given to him by the patrón for killing “my unfortunate brother the General.” It is nickel-plated and there are hunting scenes engraved on the cylinder and barrel. The handles are of white porcelain with two blue deer heads. There is nothing for Tío Mate to do except oil his gun and wait. The gun glints in his eyes a remote mineral calm. He sits for hours on the balcony with his charts and instruments spread out on a green felt card table. Only his eyes move as he traces vultures in the sky. Occasionally he draws a line on the chart or writes down numbers in a logbook. Every Independence Day the vecinos assemble to watch Tío Mate blast a vulture from the sky with his forty-four. Tío Mate consults his charts and picks a vulture. His head moves very slightly from side to side eyes on the distant target he draws aims and fires: a vulture trailing black feathers down the sky. So precise are Tío Mate’s calculations that one feather drifts down on to the balcony. This feather is brought to Tío Mate by El Mono his Feather Bearer. Tío Mate puts the feather in his hat band. There are fifteen black years in his band.

El Mono has been Tío Mate’s Feather Bearer for five years. He sits for hours on the balcony until their faces fuse. He has his own little charts and compass. He is learning to shoot a vulture from the sky. A thin agile boy of thirteen he climbs all over the building spying on the vecinos. He wears a little blue skullcap and when he takes it off the vecinos hurry to drop a coin in it. Otherwise he will act out a recent impotence, a difficult bowel movement, a cunt-licking with such precise mimicry that anyone can identify the party involved.

El Mono picks out a pimp with his eyes. He makes a motion of greasing a candle. The pimp licks his lips speechless with horror his eyes wild. Now El Mono is shoving the candle in and out his ass teeth bare eyes rolling he gasps out: “Sangre de Cristo…” The pimp impaled there for all to see. Joselito leaps up and stomps out a triumphant fandango. Awed by Tío Mate and fearful of a recent impotence, a difficult bowel movement, a cunt-licking, the pimps fall back in confusion.

Tío Paco now mans the upper balcony with his comrade in arms Fernández the drug clerk. Tío Paco has been a waiter for forty years. Very poor, very proud, contemptuous of tips, he cares only for the game. He brings the wrong order and blames the client, he flicks the nastiest towel, he shoves a tip back saying “The house pays us.” He screams after a client “Le service n’est-ce pas compris.” He has studied with Pullman George and learned the art of jiggling arms across the room: hot coffee in a quiet American crotch.

And woe to a waiter who crosses him: tray flies into the air. Rich well-dressed clients dodge cups and glasses, bottle of Fundador broken on the floor.

Fernández hates adolescents, pop stars, beatniks, tourists, queers, criminals, tramps, whores and drug addicts. Tío Paco hates their type too.

Fernández likes policemen, priests, army officers, rich people of good repute. Tío Paco likes them too. He serves them quickly and well. But their lives must be above reproach.

A newspaper scandal can mean long waits for service.

The client becomes impatient. He makes an angry gesture. A soda siphon crashes to the floor.

What they both love most of all is to inflict humiliation on a member of the hated classes, and to give information to the police.

Fernández throws a morphine script back across the counter.

“No prestamos servicio a los viciosos.” (“We do not serve dope fiends.”)

Tío Paco ignores a pop star and his common-law wife until the cold sour message seeps into their souls:

“We don’t want your type in here.”

Fernández holds a prescription in his hand. He is a plump man in his late thirties. Behind dark glasses his eyes are yellow and liverish. His low urgent voice on the phone.

“Receta narcótica falsificado.” (“A narcotic prescription forged.”)

“Your prescription will be ready in a minute señor.”

Tío Paco stops to wipe a table and whispers … “Marijuana in a suitcase … table by the door” … The cop pats his hand.

Neither Tío Paco nor Fernández will accept any reward for services rendered to their good friends the police.

When they first came to live on the top floor five years ago Tío Mate saw them once in the hall.

“Copper-loving bastards,” he said in his calm final voice.

He did not have occasion to look at them again. Anyone Tío Mate doesn’t like soon learns to stay out of Tío Mate’s space.

Fernández steps to the wall and his wife appears at his side. Her eyes are yellow her teeth are gold. Now his daughter appears. She has a mustache and hairy legs. Fernández looks down from a family portrait.

“Criminales. Maricónes. Vagabundos. I will denounce you to the police.”

Tío Paco gathers all the bitter old men in a blast of sour joyless hate. Joselito stops dancing and droops like a wilted flower. Tío Pepe and Dolores are lesser demons. They shrink back furtive and timorous as dawn rats. Tío Mate looks at a distant point beyond the old waiter tracing vultures in the sky. El Mono stands blank and cold. He will not imitate Fernández and Tío Paco.

And now Tía María, retired fat lady from a traveling carnival, comes out onto the lower balcony supporting her vast weight on two canes. Tía María eats candy and reads love stories all day and gives card readings the cards sticky and smudged with chocolate. She secretes a heavy sweetness. Sad and implacable it flows out of her like a foam runway. The vecinos fear her sweetness which they regard fatalistically as a natural hazard like earthquakes and volcanoes. “The Sugar of Mary” they call it. It could get loose one day and turn the city into a cake.

She looks up at Fernández and her sad brown eyes pelt him with chocolates. Tío Paco tries desperately to outflank her but she sprays him with maraschino cherries from her dugs and coats him in pink icing. Tío Paco is the little man on a wedding cake all made out of candy. She will eat him later.

Now Tío Gordo, the blind lottery-ticket seller, rolls his immense bulk out onto the upper balcony, his wheel chair a chariot, his snarling black dog at his side. The dog smells all the money Tío Gordo takes. A torn note brings an ominous growl, a counterfeit and it will break the man’s arm in its powerful jaws, brace its legs and hold him for the police. The dog leaps to the balcony wall and hooks its paws over barking, snarling, bristling, eyes phosphorescent. Tía María gasps and the sugar runs out of her. She is terrified of “rage dogs” as she calls them. The dog seems ready to leap down onto the lower balcony. Tío Mate plots the trajectory its body would take. He will kill it in the air.

Tío Pepe throws back his head and howls:

“Perro attropellado para un camión.” (“Dog run over by a truck.”)

The dog drags its broken hindquarters in a dusty noon street.

The dog slinks whimpering to Tío Gordo.

González the Agente wakes up muttering “Chingoa” the fumes of Mescal burning in his brain. Buttoning on his police tunic and forty-five he pushes roughly to the wall of the upper balcony.

González is a broken dishonored man. All the vecinos know he has much fear of Tío Mate and crosses the street to avoid him. El Mono has acted out both parts.

González looks down and there is Tío Mate waiting. The hairs stand up straight on González’s head.

“CHINGOA.”

He snatches out his forty-five and fires twice. The bullets whistle past Tío Mate’s head. Tío Mate smiles. In one smooth movement he draws aims and fires. The heavy slug catches González in his open mouth ranging up through the roof blows a large tuft of erect hairs out the back of González’s head. González folds across the balcony wall. The hairs go limp and hang down from his head. The balcony wall begins to sway like a horse. His forty-five drops to the lower balcony and goes off.

Shot breaks the camera. A frozen still of the two balconies tilted down at a forty-five-degree angle. González still draped over the wall sliding forward, the wheel chair halfway down the upper balcony, the dog slipping down on braced legs, the vecinos trying to climb up and slipping down.

“GIVE ME THE SIXTEEN.”

The cameraman shoots wildly … pimps scream by teeth bare eyes rolling, Esperanza sneers down at the Mexican earth, the fat lady drops straight down her pink skirts billowing up around her, Tía Dolores sails down her eyes winking sweet and evil like a doll, dog falls across a gleaming empty sky.

The camera dips and whirls and glides tracing vultures higher and higher spiraling up.

Last take: Against the icy blackness of space ghost faces of Tío Mate and El Mono. Dim jerky faraway stars splash the cheek bones with silver ash. Tío Mate smiles.
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*

p.s. Hey. William Burroughs, what do you know? There's an old thing about a great book by him up there, if you're interested. Me, I fly back to Paris later today, but, because of the big 9 hour time difference betwixt SF and P, I don't arrive in Paris until late Saturday morning, at which time I will so exhausted that I would be incapable of doing the p.s., which is why you're getting one more rerun post tomorrow, if you were curious.

Rerun: Fad Gadget Day (orig. 03/05/12)

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'The early 80s saw the emergence of the electronic/dance phenomenon in Europe. At the forefront of this movement were four names: Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League, The Normal, and Fad Gadget (Frank Tovey). Tovey released his first single Back to Nature in 1979 and was the first signing to Daniel Miller's Mute label. Miller (as The Normal) had previously put out his own composition "T.V.O.D." c/w "Warm Leatherette" and was thinking of starting a label when he met Tovey. As Fad Gadget Tovey played solo with a drum machine and synthesizer confusing audiences at the time used to the standard rock format. Now, obviously, the scene is radically different with electronic sounds and beat boxes being the norm.

'Fad Gadget's music was characterized by a use of synthesizers in conjunction with sounds of found objects, including drills and electric razors. His bleak, sarcastic, and darkly humorous lyrics, often layered in meaning and discussing subjects such as machinery, building construction, human sexuality, and physical violence, were sung in a droning, often expressionless voice.

'The influence of Tovey's early experiments in electronic music can be heard in the likes of the Pet Shop Boys, New Order, Depeche Mode, and all the Techno/Dance Bands of the 90s. The main characteristic of Tovey's work that distinguished him from his contempories and his followers was the quality of his lyrics. Not satisfied with singing pseudo science fiction (a la Gary Numan) or crass love songs, Tovey developed a style more akin to Dylan or Lou Reed, his black humour often confusing the punters at the time more interested in style than content. His songs "spoke of the diseases and fears poorly hidden from view. They spoke for and against the little man, the ubiquitous civilian bewildered by the speed of events threatening to sweep him up or leave him behind. And they spoke in a variety of voices: dead pan, severe, sardonic, satirical and, finally, disarmingly sincere...." -- Biba Kopf '91.

'Imagewise Tovey never played the pretty pop singer role preferring to be photographed by Anton Corbin covered from head to toe in shaving foam or tarred and feathered. His stage shows were often been mad acrobatic events. Where most performers remain untouchable he would purposely goad an audience, sometimes somersaulting from the stage (before stage diving became an international sport), like a latter-day cockney version of Iggy Pop his audience passing him around above their heads before depositing him back on the stage and screaming for more.

'In 2001, after a number of years recording and performing under his real name, Tovey resurrected his old Fad Gadget pseudonym to support his former colleagues and Mute label-mates, Depeche Mode, on their Exciter tour. He continued to perform live, and was working on a new album at the time of his death. Tovey suffered from heart problems since his childhood, and died of a heart attack on 3 April 2002 at the age of 45.'-- fad gadget.co.uk



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Gallery


















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Interview 1

on German TV





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Interview 2

by Edwin Pouncey





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Further


Official Fad Gadget/Frank Tovey Website
Frank Tovey Fansite
Fad Gadget Discography
Alex Proyas' film 'Frank Gadget by Frank Tovey'
Boxset: 'Frank Tovey by Fad Gadget'
Fad Gadget @ Mute Records
Fad Gadget @ Trouser Press
Simon Reynolds 'Cult Heroics: Frank Tovey'
Frank Tovey obituary @ NYT




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Tribute






March 1 - April 8 - EXHIBITION Opening Reception, envoy enterprises (131 Chrystie Street)
March 3 - LIVE PERFORMANCES, Dixon Place (161 Chrystie Street)
March 10 - FILM, Fad Gadget by Frank Tovey, Anthology Film Archives (32 2nd Ave)

envoy enterprises, in collaboration with NP Contemporary Art Center and Mute Records, is pleased to present FG.Ft, a three-part project series in homage to Frank Tovey – founder of the 1970s/1980s British electronic group Fad Gadget, marking the 10 year anniversary of the pioneer’s death. Summoning a diverse group of artists and musicians who have been both directly and indirectly influenced by Tovey, the series will take place from March 1st through to April 8th, 2012 featuring a group exhibition, live music performances, and a film screening. All events are free and open to the public.

Show catalog and flyer will be available for purchase along with CD released by Mute Records of rare archived material from Fad Gadget. To purchase, please contact office@envoyenterprises.com

All events are free and open to the public on a first come, first serve basis.


Participating Artist Roster: FG.Ft
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Olaf Breuning, Nick Cash, Nathan Cash Davidson, Thomas Dozol, Fischerspooner, David Flinn, Erik Hanson, Kelsey Henderson, Tom Kalin, Erika Keck, Brian Kenny, Robert Knoke, Terence Koh, Lovett/Codagnone, Slava Mogutin, Micky Pellerano, Edwin Pouncey, Alex Rose, Desi Santiago, Matthew Sims, Stephanie Snider, Gail Stoicheff, Una Szeemann, Frank Tovey, Conrad Ventur, Martynka Wawrzyniak, Liz Wendelbo, Grant Worth

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Live Performances: FG.Ft
March 3, 2012, 10:30pm: Dixon Place
Xeno & Oaklander
Ike Yard

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Film Screening:Fad Gadget by Frank Tovey
March 10, 2012, 8pm: Anthology Film Archives
Directed by Morgan Tovey Frost
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envoy enterprises



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Statement

(1984)





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Gig



'Swallow It'



'Love Parasite'



'Collapsing New People'



'Ricky's Hand'



'Coitus Interruptus'



'Luddite Joe'



'Back to Nature'



'Luxury'



'Plainsong'



'For Whom the Bell Tolls'



'Ladyshave'



Fad Gadget & Boyd Rice live at the ICA, London
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*

p.s. Hey. I'm actually launching this post from Paris, which is why you're seeing it at closer to the normal time that I launch posts. However, even though this p.s. was written last Sunday, I can guarantee you that I can barely keep my eyes open long enough to send this four year old Fad Gadget fest out to you, but I will try to right my body clock between now and Monday when the blog will be back live with a new post and a p.s. in which I will catch up with every comment you've left over the past week. Guaranteed. See you on Monday.

4 books I read recently & loved: Juliet Escoria Witch Hunt, Jack Cox Dodge Rose, Anselm Berrigan Come In Alone, Sara Tuss Efrik AUTOMANIAS

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'Juliet Escoria's poetry debut, Witch Hunt, out in May from Lazy Fascist Press, is sad and funny—but only funny if you're sad. Moving in the hollow vein of her 2013 short-fiction collection Black Cloud, Escoria navigates the tracks of symbiotic drug romance and degradation with a bleak, hilarious sarcasm. Her musings are macabre, but for a generation that regularly wonders if the kid nodded out next to us on the couch is alive or not, we find honesty in graveled humor.

'"Everything I'm working on now is a fake version of myself," Escoria tells The KIND at a closing El Pollo Loco on Sunset Boulevard. "Most of it's more recent; so it's less depressing. But I think Witch Hunt is funnier than Black Cloud."

'Juliet has just finished reading at an AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) event at Circus of Books, an iconic erotic book shop on the brink of extinction, now resembling a bodega selling porn, meth pipes, and magazines from the '90s. We retreated across the street, to a synthetic Mexican restaurant wet with ammonia.

'"It's a poetry book, which is weird. I didn't really think of myself as a poet. I started writing poetry when I was a teenager, but I stopped because I couldn't tell if it was any good or not."

'Escoria grew up in San Diego, California, depressed. Defying the highs and (mostly) lows depicted in her work, she's been sober for years, having escaped Manhattan's cocaine corridors and California's meth-bleached boredom to focus on writing/not dying.

'In 2014, Escoria married fellow author Scott McClanahan, moved to the Appalachian hills of West Virginia, a region McClanahan hails from and has chronicled extensively. "I work in the basement," explains Escoria. "My husband works upstairs in his little bedroom. Then we travel once a month, which makes me feel normal." She pauses. "At least when you get annoyed by people, they're more interesting than yuppies."

'Escoria's cool approach to poetry is unfazed by the circle-jerk formality of academia: "I was working on a novel, and I felt like I couldn't tell what I was doing. So I just started writing poetry for fun. We had a joke to see how quickly I could write a poetry book. So I did that. I wrote most of them in two months, then it took another five of me just fiddling around with them."'-- The Kind









Juliet Escoria Witch Hunt
Lazy Fascist Press

'Escoria's debut short story collection is a brazen admission of the pains of reality in a time when pretending to be happy – to make light of your sadness – is easier than ever. The tone is a combination of Denis Johnson and Joan Didion, and although the stories are focused on drugs (and a wide variety of), Escoria never uses them gratuitously. Rather, each story is a dose of potent insight on the motivations and experiences of users both active and struggling-to-be former.'-- Lauren Oyler, Dazed

'Unrelenting, violent, often scary: Juliet Escoria's debut collection of stories will likely have you begging and crying for salvation a few pages in. She's just that good.'-- Jason Diamond, Flavorwire

'Simply riveting and raw.'-- Lindsay Hunter, FSG blog


Excerpts

Contemporary Guilt

when i went home
the first time
after going off to get married
my mother begged me: please don’t have a baby.

here were her reasons:
    1) it would have problems
    2) i have problems
    3) my husband has problems
    4) all the problems would be parts of a real disaster and she wouldn’t be able to deal
so essentially she’d have to disown me

predictably, i got mad and
stormed off to what used to be my bedroom.

which is the place where
i tried to
kill myself
four times
half a lifetime before.

in the morning, she apologized
– kind of –
asking if i understood what she meant
that she was speaking
out of love but also fear.
she told me there were things
she never told me
because she had to pretend to be strong.
i think that was when i was supposed to ask
about the things i never knew
but i failed to.

a few days later, i asked her when she knew
that i’d turn out “okay”—
eighteen, twenty-two, twenty-five?
but she was honest
and said it didn’t come until i was
living in new york,
two years sober.
that she used to watch the wine bottles pile up
my skin yellow
teeth darken
and that smell.

i guess that’s a long time to be
worried
that your daughter is going
to die.





Whatever Useless Things

When he kissed
me there was only
one more thing
I wanted and that
was to completely
disappear.
The mornings left
my insides sore
and the outer part
of me in a dust
film broken
pieces of skin
and no dreams
remembered.
He did not regret
his wanting
although he
may have regretted
the fulfillment
but what else
is there
to say about
desire.
The answer is
disappointing.
The answer is
not much.


APRIL 24, 2012: BROOKLYN, NY

I don't really know how it happens but we are fighting in our bedroom and the mirror from the wall ended up on our bed somehow? And then it broke and shards and pieces got all over the sheets, and we were wrestling in it, wrestling for the bracelet she had given him but also for control and neither one of us could find any. It ends with him on top of me because he is bigger and stronger. We are breathing hard, our hearts pounding, and the slivers of glass dig into our skin. His face is in front of mine, his big hands on my shoulders, and I hate it that he has won. So I spit in his face.

Later, I see that me spitting is the demarcating line between what was before and the end of our relationship. But at the time it didn't seem like that big of a deal.

He gets off me, and is going out the door, and I am chasing him, but his lead is too much and I am not wearing shoes, and I have no idea where he went. Probably to one of the bars a few blocks away, but my hair is a mess and I can still feel glass in me and I am too ashamed to be in public and searching for him like a jilted woman. So I go back home.

Except besides not having shoes, I also don't have keys or a cell phone and I can't get back into the apartment. I sit on the stoop and although it's a warm night it is still April and it is cold and my feet are cold and I realize that my life with him is going to end now, that one of us will have to move out, that it will probably be me, that he won't be in my life anymore, that I am alone, that I am ugly, that we just yelled and broke things and wrestled in shattered glass on our bed, that I spat in his face, and my feet are cold, and it is cold, and I am locked out, and the world is spinning, and I am worried I am dying and the edges of things grow dizzy and black.

But then a raccoon is crawling up the fence. There is no wilderness anywhere near us, and I've never seen wildlife around here before, and seeing this raccoon here feels like something meaningful. It is perched at the top, looking at me, deciding if I am a threat, weighing its choices. We regard each other for a while. Then it hops my side of the fence and walks slowly down the street, in the direction of where the person who is now my ex-boyfriend has gone, and I can breathe, and things are terrible and ugly and I am still ashamed but I also know things will be OK without him.



Witch Hunt #1 by Juliet Escoria


Witch Hunt #2


Cut These Strings by Juliet Escoria




_______________




'I promise to retire this anecdote after one last airing, but here goes: When Dodge Rose first landed at my desk at Dalkey Archive Press, I thought it was a hoax. A trap. (It wouldn’t have been the first.)

'I showed it to my assistant editor of the time and he agreed: novels like Dodge Rose don’t come into one’s life in brown paper, humble, untrumpeted. They’re whispered of, recommended, enthused and griped about, passed around, gradually shibbolethed, forgotten . . . then reprinted with glowing intros, taught, accepted, and still never enough read.

'It wasn’t possible, we said, that a young, Australian Beckett with virtually no publications to his name had just dropped in our laps. No, there was some sinister plot in the works. A plot to—well, what? Was this some éminence grise of the mainstream cutting loose and producing the high-modernist novel he or she had been lusting to write since their teenage infatuation with Ulysses? Or could this be one of Dalkey’s own authors—or employees?—submitting a novel under a false name to see if we would be able to sniff out the imposture? It even occurred to me to worry that Dodge Rose was, Ern Malley-wise, a prank, an attempt to snare a small press known for publishing “subversive” fiction into signing on a book written expressly to parody said fiction. There had to be a catch, no?

'After all, when we sit down with Joyce, with Beckett, we sit down with the celebrity as well as the text, often instead of the text, even—you know who you are—in preference to the text. Sitting down with Dodge Rose, we were alone in the presence of Dodge Rose, and could not entirely believe the evidence of our senses, which told us, from the first gnomic sentence—“Then where from here”—that we were in the presence of the Real Thing.

'Even now, with the book finally hitting stores, and the author’s identity confirmed (supposedly confirmed), there is a soupçon of suspicion in me, as though the trap’s jaws are still waiting, out of sight, to bite. Perhaps this is because, even now, after multiple readings, Jack Cox’s Dodge Rose remains something of a mystery—this is a book that demands a book’s worth of exegesis, not a brief appreciation—but its elusiveness is something I have come to treasure, and is in any case central to the book’s strategy of beguilement. It is cryptographic and disorienting in its manner of presentation, in the density of the information presented. But this is not, as they say, a drawback—it’s a feature.

'Though made up largely of dialogue, Dodge Rose eschews quotation marks, wages an almost totally successful campaign against the hyphen, and, as it progresses, empties the apostrophe, the comma, and capital letters too from its aesthetic quiver. You’ll say that these are typical modernist tics, and you’d be right, but Cox goes a ways farther than homage: this is a novel that demands of the reader that she labor continually to orient herself not only in the sentence, on the page, in the plot, but in Australian history, geography, architecture, commerce, in property law, in the properties of language and personality. The reader can never sleep, letting the comfortable mores of fiction propel her from page to page, but must ask always who is now addressing whom, where in the line or paragraph did the speaker change, the tense, the object, the tongue? And neither is there any relaxing into incomprehension—the other form of readerly slumber—because Dodge Rose is that wonderful rarity, a novel that flirts so skillfully and successfully with seeming incomprehensibility, with some private order of authorial logic, that it never once crosses the line to lapse into the mere objecthood of so much “experimental” fiction, content to be read as a blank or black page. That is, Dodge Rose wants to be enjoyed, to be entered and experienced, to be grappled with and for its subjects to be grasped, not skimmed over. Its intentions are legible, but other; its tools are familiar but wielded askew. It is a work of fiction that, despite its playfulness of diction, its successful absorption and deployment of the full compliment of modernist artifice, is committed to meticulous research and deployment of the real—the real in all its definitions: “fixed, permanent, or immovable things”—while operating in a mode nonetheless dominated by a syntax of confusion, a vocabulary of multilingual malapropism.'-- Jeremy M. Davies








Jack Cox Dodge Rose
Dalkey Archive

'Eliza travels to Sydney to deal with the estate of her Aunt Dodge, and finds Maxine, a hitherto unknown cousin, occupying Dodge’s apartment. When legal complications derail plans to live it up on their inheritance, the women’s lives become consumed by absurd attempts to deal with Australian tax law, as well their own mounting boredom and squalor. The most astonishing debut novel of the decade, Dodge Rose calls to mind Henry Green in its skewed use of colloquial speech, Joyce in its love of inventories, and William Gaddis in its virtuoso lampooning of law, high finance, and national myth.'-- Dalkey Archive


Excerpt

It dawned on me in a perfectly good manner of speaking that Dodge was dead, that Eli­za was not Dodge, I was not Dodge, that we would have to do what was undone. I was looking into the hard wet patch of my own reflection. No. Because. Though the drawers of the desk and the bookcase still hung open because we had not in fact been able to find Dodge’s birth certificate and had kept looking for it until we couldn’t put off leaving for Bernard any longer without being late, that centripetal invasion of blank space only seemed to point to a deeper reticence, a fixture as secret as the clamps in a family por­trait, even now the patch of damp carpet beneath the win­dow returning as if the shock of her death had exposed the room to an image that no matter how well you cleared the place out would come back like a photograph blooming un­der the alkalies across a furious sheet of paper.

Well said Eliza quite frankly. What do you think hap­pened to the money.

I have no idea. Maybe she never had any.

She shook her head. She must have. I can’t believe Mum took everything.

Maybe she spent it.

On what.

There used to be a lot more in here. Dodge was always going out to auctions and second hand stores when I was younger and taking things with her and bringing back more than she took. Heaps of old stuff really. It all seemed worth­less to me but you know you can’t tell with old stuff.

Eliza drummed her fingers on the back of the thread­bare sofa. What happened to it all.

We got rid of it. It’s gone. That was a long time ago now. I can’t think what she could have ever got for those trin­kets. I want to know can’t I say anything straight. Have a real cigarette. Eliza tapped up a slightly squashed Stuyves­ant from its packet and began patting the pockets of her jacket for her lighter with a rapid movement that might have been nerves and I realised also as if for the first time that in a shallow way I was falling in love and maybe she was too. Maybe it was just beginning to have a friend. I guess it must have been as lonely on the farm in Yass with no one but her mother and the surrounding sheep as it was to live exclusively for a mistress in the Cross. It was Capro­tinia the day of the. Caprio. Went under, no a loir wild fig tree. I love long life. Posh, damn short shrift high school don’t remember anything. Two figs to the captor of that pro­found navel from down here over your pretended arsehole. Who the hell gave me this extravagant education.

That night I was woken by the sound of something me­tallic crashing onto the floorboards of the dining room. At first I held still in order to put nothing between my ears and the other end of the flat as my eyes adjusted to the moon­light that fell in through the open blinds spreading pink amid the wales of my woollen bedspread, shining on the rim of my alarm clock and in the silence that followed between the ticks of its infinite helix I threw the cover off and walked carefully, I won’t say I pattered down the corridor to the living room. There was no light on anywhere and still no noise. I did not want to go any further without some kind of weapon but standing in the dark of the corridor at the en­trance to the living room I could see through the open doors of the dining room to where a faintly luminous body was bent over something on the floor. It was Eliza. Again. Who else would it be. When she saw me walking to­wards her she jumped up with the metallic object in her hands and I reached and grabbed it only out of fear that she might drop it again but as she raised her hands in surprise now two pale palms against the shimmering obscurity of the dining room that for years had been no more than a hoard­ing house for family silver if it wasn’t the effect of Fagan himself it was Jack Dawkins or the Artful Dodger coming at me for his share with streaks of ash down the thighs of his nightie and with an equally vacant reflex I swung the lidless urn to one side and out of her reach. She yelped, then recovering she said my name and asked me to turn on the light. I did, and saw that her hands too were covered in ash. What is that she said.

It’s an urn I said.

She flopped down on the floor one bare leg either side of the little pile of burnt bones and the copper lid. She seemed as half asleep as I was. Come on I said in the ata­vistic fuddle of the early morning, no use crying over spilt milk. I was not long recovering my senses though. What I asked was she doing.

She looked at me and waited, her eyes resting opaque and patient on mine until at last her mind seemed to withdraw something that it must have been almost holding out, face down as it were, and it was with the kind of disappointed but levelling calm of a card player who folds before getting in too deep that she said she was looking to see if Dodge had hidden her money anywhere and I didn’t bother to ask why she was doing it at one o’clock in the morning. O God how can I wash my hands. I suggested she rub them over the top of the urn first. She did, interlocking her fingers, rubbing the backs, making a fist of each hand and rubbing out the ash from the creases in her knuckles. She went to the bathroom then and I got a dustpan and brush. I had to feel for them in the dark in the cupboard under the sink then I took them back to the dining room and crouched and swept up the ash that had fallen on the floor and turned up the dustpan so that it ran off one corner into the urn. Thanks said Eliza through her collar as she wiped her face in the doorway.

How do you feel now.

She almost said she felt like a cigarette. I thought she was going to start drooling again. Here I said and pulled out a chair from the dining table. Let’s talk a bit before you go back to bed.

She sat down and put both elbows on the table and her head between her hands. Did she say what she wanted done with those.

No. Remember she didn’t leave any instructions.

That’s right.

It’s cheaper to cremate than bury.

How could she not have any money. It doesn’t make sense. She should have been rich.

Maybe she had an expensive habit, that can add up.

But like you said she must have had a pension or some­thing. Otherwise how else was she keeping you. And anyway it was more than two million, that’s just what Mum spent on the sheep. There must have been a real fortune between grandma’s and grandpa’s families. They were bloomin bankers and squatters. It was ying and yang. Someone’s money must be hidden somewhere.

What did you want to do with it.

Get off the farm start a business.

What kind of business.

I don’t know, travelling sales. I’d like to travel.

And the flat.

What about it.

If we sold the flat.

But you live here.

There is a law you know that it goes to your mother.

Mum wouldn’t kick you out, she doesn’t need it. Besides what about the family matinee act or whatever. You can have the flat.

We could sell it I said. We could go halves and then you could get off the farm and I could get out of here.

She drew back slowly. It struck me then that I might have taken her reserve the wrong way, that she may rath­er have doubted her good fortune from the beginning, sus­pended as she was between the files and musters, deferring even conjectural investment until she could put her hands on something concrete, afraid to find that there was nothing there but unable to admit that it was possible, as if she had been holding her breath, not daring to let herself go in case there was, impossibly, nothing to take back. But no soon­er had the idea rung out than I felt with all this outward stimulation that I recognised another kind of restraint, that Yass, whose misted hills appeared to roll about her pupils as they drifted from me over the dim walls of the dining room held her somehow locked in like I had been that she was still in some sense pinned back to that far from litto­ral shore as for thirteen years I had been by Dodge and the keys and some other illegible force, some manifestly pruri­ent though untold indenture, perhaps her false but fantas­tic interest, in the foul and motley wallpapered flat (apart from skoo l, I’ll have this coven between the covers in no time), the former’s, I mean Eliza’s eyes flying open even as I told out to myself for the last time and with the faint­est, the very faintest regret the modest changes I had brief­ly foreseen, which were I would be the first to admit rather a failure of imagination than otherwise, all more or less this side the dictates of my intangible legacy, flying open as I was saying at the sudden recovery of such a pinched square of floor space, like a stump grubber’s on still colder ground who, severed the red thread in the navel string, hoes up from the decorated threshold of an expired cult the tessera going to reveal the actual value and dispensability of the whole familiar plot, our anonymous, adverse brother, adrift in the unbounded troughs. And Eliza, I have not forgotten you, pushed up against me, cast forth before your time from the same infant quarter that might in a single blow be sub­tracted to a real escape route, through whose b darkened rooms da you, of your dried tears like the underglaze, in the French sense, were beginning to sense a way out of the vast and smothering enclosure of your immediate inheritance.

I think I’m starting to get the hang of these peripli of the mind.

As I was unequipped at the time to unload such sonnets on to her, she nodded and smiled and kept nodding equally dumbly until I suggested we go to bed and talk about it in the morning. It was not, she admitted then, referring to my earlier contribution, a shite idea.

We were woken up by the phone. I was back in the din­ing room to answer it before Eliza arrived with her pyjamas tucked into her jeans mussing her curls and resembling un­der the foreign velour of the morning light nothing so much as any other punk kid. There goes the beggar king. The morning makes us new.











________________




'Why Write? Because wrapped in machinery I confess my ashamed desire. That’s actually a line from Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Why Is God Love, Jack,” a shorter A.G. poem I’ve always been fond of that uses “Because” as a line opener all the way through. I had a flash of doing an answer to the “why write?” question by stringing a lot of because-sentences together, but realized the only furtive impulse behind it other than the bogus ease of encapsulation–and the question does implicitly demand the summary axe–was gonna be figuring out where to drop the Ginsberg line for maximum impact of ambiguous nature (a form of amusement). That’s something to do with timing, and I write at this point in part to make arrangements with words, the sounds of which I love, and abhor, occasionally, and sometimes upon request, to set in time. I do not write to make images or metaphors or to reveal or to be expressive or unexpressive. I do probably write out of mad word love and also because it was something I realized at some point I could do and keep being surprised by (the doing). I wasn’t sure if I could -do- anything when I was between the ages of 12 and 18. I started writing when I was 17, for a college paper’s news desk. I started writing poems about two years later. The poems were and are the response I was looking for, and that’s always being written, that response, so I’m writing to keep at that.

'You could write because you could be good at it (and then actually become good at it, the way becoming is riskier than being, sometimes) and you could learn to make it be a filter between your consciousness and the world pouring in. That kind of thinking can contain a lot of “reasons” to write, and so may let you be various in your practice of writing. I’ve shifted to “you” to take on an affect of inclusivity and to let you in and to turn the situation around slightly, but that also makes the tonal space being constructed by this writing advice-like, and I don’t want it to be that, or be like that. I’m currently very upset with likeness. I write to have a practice I can continue and alter, and the question of how to change keeps getting raised as a result. There is entering a tonal space, building a tonal space, trying on a tonal space, stealing a tonal space, and there’s finding yourself stuck with one you didn’t realize you were in until totally immersed. There are more tonal spaces than that last sentence gets at. I do not write in order to play at or react to or fight with being contemporary or classical.

'I can legitimately say that in recent years I have written across months-long periods of time out of (this will be non-chronological): 1) a fear of being stupid; 2) a desire to stretch my ability to make and understand thought in sentences; 3) outrage, with specific regards to the ease with which this country’s general populace can be manipulated (by and through language of various stripes, in order to be rendered a weaponized generality); 4) desperation to maintain a practice in the face of life-altering changes; 5) a clear need to depressurize my practice (which meant writing poems that I didn’t think could be reproduced, thereby disarming the question of publication); 6) it’s interesting to be working very fast and very slow at the same time, all the time (I know that doesn’t grammatically connect back to “of”…what’s really at stake for that of?); 7) a recent recognition that I’ve been very serious the past thirteen years, and my body needs a break, since I’m prone to damaging it under conditions of high seriousness.

'I write because duration is so strange. “Everything lasts a certain amount of time; that’s very odd,” I heard the poet Kenneth Koch say one day.'-- Anselm Berrigan









Anselm Berrigan Come In Alone
Wave Books

'New York poet Anselm Berrigan plays with space like a painter with the prosody of a poet. Written as infinitely looping sentences around the page, the rectangular poems of COME IN ALONE act as a frame to space, outrunning thought with quickness, openness, humor, and protest. They are simultaneously inviting and impermeable, making familiar language uncanny with every turn around the page.'-- Wave Books


Excerpts













Anselm Berrigan for Poeteevee


Anselm Berrigan's Sure Shot


Anselm Berrigan reads Ted Berrigan




_______________




'Sara Tuss Efrik (is) one of the most interesting young writers in Sweden. Efrik is a writer and performance artist (and sometime writer for Montevidayo and sometime editor of Action, Yes). Her first novel is getting published this fall. I first came in contact with her when she wrote a kind of review of my book Pilot. The review wasn’t exactly a review as an amazing poem/story in and of itself, a kind of rewriting of my poems that treats through a deformation zone. And since then I’ve read a lot of her writings, including the novel. ...

'In many ways, Efrik’s work is an investigation of what Mark Seltzer (drawing on Kittler’s work) has called “wound culture,” the epoch of mass media, starting in the early 20th century in which the public arena is one of wounded bodies, mass-reproduced killers/victims (“serial killers”) and media. I also think of how this trailer shows something important: how the violence of art does not necessarily have to be what we typically think of as violence and dismemberment – hard, severe, rigorous (the fantasy of the avant-garde), but can come out making out, cuddly animals, permeation. It is an interesting spin on Bersani’s “shattering” experience of art – art can tamper with the self in other interesting ways than the “hard” kind of “shattering.” The self already contains the mutations and the art and the autoimmune disorder that will undo it and undo it and redo it and rewind it and unwind it.

'Efrik’s Automanias (are) are diary entries of sorts, but instead of diary entries, which invoke the very private take on lived experience, these diary entries are written through the experiences of art, as the texts move through other artworks. They are “automanias” rather than “autobiograhies” – they mania-ize the texts rather than biographies.

'This particular piece on the paintings of Berlin-based artist Emeli Theander as well as a kitschy painting by Efrik’s grandmother. “Chin Chin” is a series of images (from what I gather) that were grafiti–ied on various city walls around the world, translated already through various cityscapes. So already the diary is based on a reproduced images. But the poem is not “indeterminacy” in the old postmodern way, nor is it really about “reproduction” (as in a lot of art of the 1970s), but it’s about a constant tension between the many and the singular, the diary-narrative and the forces that break apart the body: she becomes not just two people (two copies without an original) but also “chin chin,” a name that evokes the realm of orientalist-freakshow-otherness kitsch (the exact realm through which translations – of say The Arabian Nights – produces the very idea of kitsch). It goes without saying that she’s “inauthentic”; she’s not worried about authenticity or mediation. For me this is about art as deformation zones.

'The rabbit is the “brand” or “symbol” of this violence; and like the tension between the one and the reproduced, like the diving in the land that produces the flood (in the statement by Teater Mutation), the speaker both doesn’t want to free the rabbit or bury it.

'It is not properly speaking a symbol because it unsettles the topographic models of the symbol: it distorts the depth that is needed in a symbol by living inside the ribcage (ie it is inside, where one is supposed to find the meaning of the symbol, but instead one finds the symbol, the vehicle) as well as outside. And unlike a conventional symbol, the concrete singular that holds together the more abstract, the vehicle that leads the way to the tenor (to paraphrase Coleridge’s famous definition), this symbol is an “epidemic” and a “coal-burning” – the singular vehicle multiplies in itself, becomes an auto-mutilation, burning itself into orphan birds. The vehicle of the symbol moves up toward the tenor/meaning, but the meaning is stuck in the insistent deformation zone (vultures ready to eat the text). ...

'I love all these explorations of gothic artifice, engagements with tensions and violent eruptions and disruptions, performances of distortions and multiplications. Greenberg famously objected to kitsch for its visceral impact: Here we get the symbol (that redeemer of Art) but its consumed by itself, turned into visceral kitsch. When people talk about using “kitsch” it almost always seems to be with the gloves of irony, thus reaffirming the division between true art and kitsch. In this poetry, the kitsch is visceral, it doesn’t have that ironic distance.'-- Johannes Goransson










Sara Tuss Efrik AUTOMANIAS
translated by Paul Cunningham
Good Morning Menagerie

'The winner of our 2015 Chapbook-in-Translation Contest, Automanias turns autobiography into a one-way mirror. When Efrik digests the work of Lars Von Trier, Alejandra Pizarnik, or Shakespeare, she transforms herself into a valve, collecting the violences of influence into a self that is aggregate, submerged, subversive, and emergent. Paul Cunningham's English translations have masterfully preserved Efrik's disturbing, and captivating, diary-like manias into language that is both hallucinatory and without boundaries.'-- GMM


Excerpts











Automanias: Selected Poems by Sara Tuss Efrik


PERSONA PEEP SHOW (2013) english subs


I LOVE MUMMY (2011)




*

p.s. Hey, everybody! ** Saturday ** Dóra Grőber, Hi Dóra! I hope you liked it (the Richey Edwards thing). Maybe you said later. I'm glad the self-portraits worked out well. I hope you had fun and lots of productive stuff this past week. How are you, how were things? ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. Thanks, and thank you so much for that amazing review! Zac and I are just thrilled and so grateful! The Cinematheque printed the review and gave it out as the 'program' for the showing. Everyone, if you haven't read David Ehrenstein's great article about Zac's and my film 'Like Cattle Towards Glow', and if you want to, you can do that by pressing down softly on these words. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. It was so great to get to see you and to hang out a little. Thanks so much! Love, me. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Huh, I don't remember that Robin thing, but it does seem plausible, although the boner itself was probably more conceptual than a real thing. Thanks for buying my book. How have things been? ** Jamie McMorrow, Hi, Jamie! My brain a little lagged-out this morning, so I'll save my powers of invention, if they exist, for tomorrow's initial salvo. Me too, re: unpredictable levels of nerves pre-readings or I guess pre-film-related talks lately in my case. Strange stuff. Oh, on the Scandinavian theme park book, at this point, I think the audio would just be on-site field recordings, but we haven't put our minds to the audio aspect yet. That was the initial idea: field recordings. How were Gluck and Kraus? Maybe you say later. I haven't read the future comments yet. Great to see you, Jamie! Love, me. ** Steevee, Hi, Steve! The Russian government seems very into being unfairly slighted. It seems like an addiction. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G! Trip went really good. Whoa, you are pervert! Holy moly! Ha ha. ** Liquoredgoat, Hi, Douglas. The Mormon ones are rarities. It's actually very rare that I'll find any American escort ads that are useable. American escorts' profiles tend be very boring and by the book. How's it, buddy? ** MANCY, Hi, Steven! Everything on the trip went great, thanks! How are you? ** Monday ** Brendan, Hey, B! I didn't get to LA after all, as I guess you realized due no alert from me. We had to get back here for some film stuff. But I'm planning a decent, longish visit home, probably in July. How is everything? ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Thanks, Dora. It was good. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, ha! ** Unknown, Hi, ... uh, Bill? How did you get unknown? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben! I watched the Eurovision Finals, and I immediately thought Ukraine would win. It was a weird or rather unweird one this year, I thought. Lots of so-so to bad catchy pop and not nearly enough dated, overblown theatrical shenanigans. ** MANCY, Hi, thanks! ** Tuesday ** Unknown, You're unknown again! Yeah, we had a nice dinner instead of a stressful meet-and-greet = much, much better. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you again! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I think San Francisco got a little rocked. Cicciolina! I have never actually heard Cicciolina until this very moment. Is that weird? ** Wednesday ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, indeed, I read it the very second I heard it was up! ** Damien Ark, Hi, Damien, That's okay. I was elsewhere anyway. Save your shit giving for the work itself, basically. 'Journal For Plague Lovers': I need to retry that. On my initial listening back when, there was something that bothered me about the post-humous illustrating thing or something. Good to see you, pal. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Cool you did like it, yay! ** Thursday ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. The SF screening went really well. The crowd was healthy, and the feedback was excellent. Nice theater too with a giant screen. We'd never seen the film at such a huge scale. It almost looked like a real movie. ** Bill, Hey! Great seeing you too! I wish I could remember the tidbits and back stories. I think there were some. I really should take notes or something. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Like I just told David, the screening went really well. We were very happy. ** Marcus Pyotr Mamourian, Hi, there! Whoa, good to see you! We're still trying to set up a screening of our film in NYC, although our luck has been really bad, but, if we can, I'll definitely be there for that. Otherwise, I'd like to. We'll see. Cool that you'll be there. What are you doing there? ** Friday ** David Ehrenstein, Interesting take on 'TWB'. Huh. ** Steevee, Hi. Look forward to the interview. Everyone, Steevee has interviewed director Roberto Minervini about his much-discussed documentary film 'The Other Side', and you are invited to indulge. Oh, a review too! Everyone, you can also read Steevee's review of the new documentary about Anthony Weiner by clicking this. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. 'The Wild Boys' is my favorite Burroughs, I think, maybe. Wow, interesting about the Best PhD thesis. And interesting that he wrote one. There'a link. Everyone, _B_A links everyone up with a download of Philip Best's PhD thesis if you like. Here. ** Bernard Welt, Hey! I hope the event went really well. Philip Clark left me an FB comment to that effect. Possibility of a description? I hope everything is going okay. Are you back in DC? ** James, Hi, man. I did make it back home safely. Jets-lagged, duh, but in one single piece. The screening went great. No, not a packed house, but it was a huge heater, and we were very happy with the turn-out. Otherwise in SF, Zac and I mostly looked around, visited the new SF MoMA, galleries, city in general stuff, saw some friends, saw the documentary about Chantal Akerman, ate some superb sushi, etc. Didn't hit City Lights, no. Never got over into that area. It was a pretty quick trip. ** Bill, Hi. The flight was long. The lag is ... we'll see. Semi-bad so far. Saw a bunch of plane movies. I don't know if I can remember. Um ... 'Deadpool' (what makes it fresh also makes it annoying), the new 'Star Wars' (fun), 'Shutter Island' (terrible, maybe the worst ever Scorcese), 'Paranormal Activity: The Ghost' (weak), 'The Revenant' (boy, is that maybe the most overrated movie ever; boring, badly written, phony-feeling), ... I'm forgetting the others. That William Davenport event/film does sound really good. Johanna Went! ** New Juche New Juche, Hi, welcome to this place, and thank you coming in. I think it's my favorite Burroughs too. Josef Winkler? Hm, no, I don't think I know him. Okay, I will go try to find those two books by him today. Thanks a lot, sir. How are you? What's going on in your world? ** Saturday ** _Black_Acylic, Oh my god, it's up, it's real, at long last! Hooray! I'll imbed it. Everyone, the third, extremely long awaited episode of Ben Robinson's exciting and already legendary web series 'Art101' is finally in the world! This is sufficiently momentous news that I am going to imbed Episode 3 right down at the bottom of this p.s., and please click where its arrow is and fully enjoy. Can't wait to watch it, Ben! Fantastic! ** David Ehrenstein, He was indeed. ** Jamie McMorrow, Hi, Jamie! Cool, I'm glad the reruns were still alive. The trip was great, all we had hoped. The screening went extremely well, yes. We're very happy. Here's hoping about my jet-lag. It seems kind of sneaky so far. Of course, you're back from Aarhus! So the performance went well? Did you see any other music or anything else that you particularly liked? I'm spaced too. I hope you got all the catch-up sleep you needed. Talk to you more and better tomorrow. Lots of love, Dennis. ** Steevee, Hi. Oh, god, ugh, I hate that. I hope your new card gets winged to you lickety-split. ** Okay. We're caught up. Sorry for the effects of my jet lag on the above. I should be brighter in the morning. In the meantime, please consider these four books I loved. Thanks! See you tomorrow.


ART101 ep. 3 - death lolz

Philippe Grandrieux Day

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'The films of Philippe Grandrieux pulsate. They pulsate microcosmically: in the images, the camera trembles and flickers so violently that, even within a single, continuous shot, no photogram resembles another. And they pulsate macrocosmically: the soundtrack is constructed globally upon unidentifiable, layered, synthesised, ambient noises of breath or wind, sucked in and expelled, which underlie the entire film and constitute its disturbed heartbeat, returning to our ear when all other sounds have disappeared. In the very beginnings and endings of his films, over the credits, there is nothing but this strangely bodily sound.'-- Adrian Martin, Kinoeye

'There is something profoundly new about Grandrieux's plastic exploration of violence, but also something very contemporary. His approach is not based on such editing and framing effects one finds and admires in Hitchcock and Ray, nor in an exploration of excess as in Tarantino. He works on the inside of an image, on the special relation between the luminous content and the vibrant and fragmentary representation.'-- Christa Bluminger, Parachute

'Grandieux's films carefully try to understand the exact inner-working of one’s psychic, and more especially the part that deals with desire and transformation. How does desire work? What are the elements that this energy-matter is using to expand its empire? What are the social repressions that desire has to face? Unlike Pasolini who is really interested in the way that society is theatrically transforming the ceremony of predating into a show, there is here an experimental cinema; it is true; that is trying to register, thanks to the camera, what humans eyes would never be able to see in order to deconstruct and analyze reality. Grandrieux’s films are analytical films, like a microscope, that give the viewer the possibility to see more accurately what is movement, emotion, sensation, colour, darkness and the emergence of the image (either material or thought). What is the process that enables something to become an image in the dark? Why can this process only be seen as a threat?'-- Jean-Claude Polack

'In his films, Philippe Grandrieux has revealed his startlingly corporeal vision of a world in which the body and its drives remake cinematic form and content alike. Often compared to the work of Stan Brakhage, Grandrieux’s films similarly reject representational cinema in favor of a mode of filmmaking that, in Brakhage’s famous phrase, realizes “adventures in perception.” In Grandrieux’s case, this approach entails a radical reworking of the frame, offscreen space, lighting and even focus, at times edging the image towards the barely perceptible. No less radical is Grandrieux’s approach to sound, which is often distorted and accentuated, with dialogue kept to a careful minimum and music alternately ambient and blaring. Grandrieux’s is a cinema of vibrations and tremors in which image and sound seem to pulsate with a kind of furious life.

'The subjects of Grandrieux’s first two features, Sombre and New Life– a serial killer and sex trafficking, respectively – quickly gave him the reputation of being something of an enfant terrible. Yet, while Grandrieux’s vision is very dark - literally and figuratively - it is never gratuitous but rather an extension of the French fascination, from Sade to Bataille to Genet, with the body’s potential to undo subjectivity in the gaps between social order and animality, where the body/corporeality itself becomes radically refigured not as the vehicle for consciousness but as flesh with a life of its own. Even those who, like Jonathan Rosenbaum, have reservations about the sexualized violence of Grandrieux’s first two films will appreciate the originality and gravity of their formal audacity.'-- Harvard Film Society

'Grandrieux’s reflection belongs to the body’s modernity – the modernity of Sigmund Freud, Antonin Artaud, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, to name only a few – and thus returns the anthropological need for representation to a state of immanence. The image is no longer given as a reflection, discourse, or the currency of whatever absolute value; it works to invest immanence, using every type of sensation, drive and affect. To make a film means descending, via the intermittent pathways of neuronal connection, down into the most shadowy depths of our sensory experiences, to the point of confronting the sheer terror of the death drive (Sombre), or the still more immense and bottomless terror of the unconscious, of total opacity (La Vie nouvelle).'-- Nicole Brenez



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Stills



































































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Further

Philippe Grandieux Official Website
PG @ IMDb
PG @ Wikipedia
PG interviewed by Nicole Brenez
Magick Mike on PG's 'Sombre' @ EEP
PG's 'Un Lac' reviewed @ Screener
PG @ Facebook
PG @ the Harmony Korine Website Forum
Video: PG interviewed (in French)
PG Torrent Search
PG interviewed @ Rouge
'Film Comment Selects: Philippe Grandrieux Films'
'Malgré la nuit' page @ Facebook
'La caméra haptique de Philippe Grandrieux'
'Propos de Philippe Grandrieux'
'Entretien: Philippe Grandrieux [critikat.com]'
'Dans une langue étrangère" Un lac de Philippe Grandrieux'
'ARTIST IN FOCUS: Philippe Grandrieux'



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Extras


Philippe Grandrieux / films by / extracts


Alan Vega ‎– Philippe Grandrieux's "Sombre" Soundtrack


Cápsula 04 - Philippe Grandrieux


Oscuro - Philippe Grandrieux


MARYLIN MANSON / Putting holes in happiness // Directed by Philippe Grandrieux


Cinéastes par eux-mêmes - Philippe Grandrieux



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Interview




I was wondering about the dimension of politics in your work. In former films like SOMBRE or LA VIE NOUVELLE you have political references and now with portraying Masao Adachi, one of the most radical and well known activists and filmmakers in Japanese history, of course you created a very explicit context. Do you consider the film as a political film?

Philippe Grandieux: Well, it’s trivial to say that, but all our acts involve politics. You couldn’t be here without thinking about politics. It is much more than ideology; it’s decision in fact. Politics means making decisions about your own life: How you act in the world and how you want to be. So it’s really something very important. In SOMBRE for instance there wasn’t any morality – no good, no bad. It is a decision, a very political decision to let the audience face their own desire, their own unrest. LA VIE NOUVELLE was more or less the relationship between the chaotic historical post-communism in Bulgaria and the chaotic psychic world. You drive inside of it. So ADACHI is politics but a very sensual movie at the same time, I hope. It’s based on emotion and sensation, as my movies generally are. Making movies, like life, is a path. So you’re following your own path as much as you can. Sometimes you’re weaker and sometimes you feel energized. This is always more or less the same question I’m working on.

I noticed as well that you link, in a very interesting way, the portrait of Adachi itself and the formal strategies of the feature films you did before, for example the dissolution of the images which are mirrored in the landscape of Tokyo that you depict repeatedly. I have the impression that the connection of this real political background with your artistic style gives your work a new layer.

PG: You’re right, yes. It’s true.

Do you intend to further follow this direction?

PG: The movie I’ve just finished now is called WHITE EPILEPSY and it’s supposed to be a kind of a tryptich on the question of unrest. This movie is very particular, because for me it’s a feature film, but it’s done out of a very radical position: the frame is vertical. The question of storytelling also became very important to me, in order to understand how I want to work with it. In WHITE EPILEPSY there are no more questions of characters and the psychological map of the characters throughout the movie, of how the story grows out of these characters – instead the question is more about the event: something happens. Questioning the event is rather in the centre of the movie itself compared to the development of the story. This is something that I really want to work on. I also want to further pursue the relation between sensation and emotion. They are two different issues, but not so far from each other. I try to explore the same possibilities over and over through cinema.

I’ve heard that after Masao Adachi you and Nicole Brenez are planning to portray other radical filmmakers as well? Will you be directing?

PG: No. We try to provide the possibility for making other movies but I’m not going to do the other ones myself. Other filmmakers will. We have a project on René Vautier, a french filmmaker. A very strong guy: at 15 he was a part of “La Résistance” in France, after which he fought against the colonization, in Algeria too. Now he’s old, maybe 80-82, but he is an incredibly strong filmmaker. We also plan a project on newsreels in America. Well, we’ll see, because for this series we haven’t got any money yet. We don’t want to write things to get money so we try to keep it very, very free. Because I think this is very important. This movie – ADACHI – as I went to Tokyo, I was facing the possibility that there might have been no movie at all in the end. So it was not necessary to finish something. This gives you a lot of freedom.

Since you were mentioning the money aspect: This is of course closely linked to the fact that depending on your work it is not easy to reach an audience. I have the impression that you’re a filmmaker who seeks to address people through cinema and move something in their way of perceiving the world. Being fairly well known now, is it easy for you nowadays to reach new audiences? Are you actively trying to reach out?

PG: I would like to try to expand the possibilities of cinema with my next feature film. It’s not necessary to reach huge audiences. Maybe the audience will be more important than the other movies had, but I can’t think in terms of that. I really try to follow my own steps.
I’m very interested in actors, stars. I think it could be very interesting to make a movie with no money at all but with very well known actors. Because this is also a part of what ‘cinema’ is. It’s about political problems, agents, lawyers, distributors and sellers. About these very well formed industrial systems and I think they offer a huge possibility for working. I would like to try something alike next.

I’m interested in the relationship between emotion, sensation and intellectualization. How has it changed over the years in your personal view and in the reception of others, in their approach of others towards your work?

PG: I think it depends on where you are, because when you are making movies – as Adachi says at the end of the movie – there is an intellectual aspect, but in the end it must be about the sensation itself. Because sensation is life in a way: something you couldn’t control, that you couldn’t put inside any kind of system. Even if the systems are very, very clever and very powerful. Think of Leibnitz or Kant – even with all these very strong philosophers we couldn’t reach the real point of knowing what life is. Maybe ‘odd’ is a possibility. Maybe it’s the only one. Sometimes I think like this, when I am in a positive mood.

To answer your question: When you do a movie, you organize things, you write, you scout, you cast, you think a lot, you take notes, you write the script, you prepare everything, it’s a very intellectual process. But when you shoot it’s something else. It’s really back to sensation, pure sensation, pure feelings, and pure intuition. A beautiful aspect is that time is an editing process, an intellectual process. You cut things and put them together, and after a while sense appears. But sensation is something else. It’s intuition, pure duration. It’s not any more the time that you can cut into discrete seconds; it’s an eternity inside of yourself. It’s a big question. Maybe the same question as: If you are thinking too much in terms of intellectuality and sense, you’re thinking in terms of immortality. If you’re thinking in terms of duration you’re thinking in terms of eternity. It’s two different ways to be and to me art is really part of these eternity feelings, which are a part of us.

What about the reception that comes from the outside, from theorists or critics? Do you still find something useful, when they interpret your work in a highly intellectual way?

PG: Well, it’s not helpful at all to make movies. It’s helpful for me to be inside of the world. I mean to be with my… I don’t know what to say. It’s helpful, because you see that what you are trying to do is not just ‘nowhere’. Of course it’s important. But after a movie is done, one can write a thousand pages. It’s strange; it’s really something completely different.

And what about beauty? Is this something you are searching for? Have you got a concept of beauty or is it pure instinct? For example Bruno Dumont says that he tries to avoid beautiful images, but that is something I can’t believe.

PG: It’s not beauty at this level; it is not the question of beautiful images. The beauty is something much stronger. When Dostojewski says that the beauty saves the world, the question is not about doing beautiful things. Beauty is a political decision in a way. It’s to be alive with your own self, strongly alive. I mean not under submissions. Beauty is the possibility to feel ‘la force’, the strength of the things, the reality and the real. So beauty is very important of course, but it’s not at all about beautiful pictures.

What about melancholy? When I saw UN LAC it seemed to me that for the first time in your work appeared a very strong sense of sadness. Do you think sadness is a proper way to react to this world?

PG: I think it’s impossible to be untouched by melancholy. We are dealing with time, memories and our childhood. We can’t escape from this and I think these melancholic dimensions are very important. It’s also in terms of politics: All the organizations are transforming more and more into paranoid systems in which you fit in. You fit in via computer, cell phone or Facebook – it’s a paranoid organization of our feelings. Melancholy is something else. Melancholy could be dangerous too, as a tendency you may incline towards. But it’s very important.

Maybe it’s kind of subversive to be melancholic.

PG: I think so, yes. You know these systems to control the streets? If somebody stops walking, after two or three minutes, the computers signal that somebody stopped walking. Something happened. Someone stopped in the middle of the street, but the person shouldn’t be immobile. This is a very interesting conception of your destiny [laughs].

You mentioned that you try to dive further into this field of pure sensation. Now you did WHITE EPILEPSY. I heard it is very focused on bodies. I wonder if it is very important for you to find a certain body. Would you cancel a project if you couldn’t manage to find a certain professional or non-professional?

PG: Absolutely. For this project I worked with a dancer, Hélène Rocheteau. We worked together on what we can call choreography, although I’m not a choreographer. It was a piece of twelve minutes; it was shown in Metz in France and was very interesting. It was a cycle and featured a loop of Joy Division music: a ceremony. We worked on insect movements, on the way insects are completely limited to their instinct. For them there is no possibility to escape their instincts at all. There are very few needs, but these needs are accordingly intense, there is no doubt. We tried to work on these kinds of movements and I was very impressed by her body, how she can move each muscle with such intense possibilities, like Butoh dancers. An when I was thinking about WHITE EPILEPSY I had this idea of this naked body, that I can be with her in this kind of very, very strong relation: very strange way of movement, human but not completely human.

Being a critic and writing about film, I’m more and more doubting that people take out a lot with them, when they leave the cinema. I’m a bit pessimistic about film and the way that it fails to activate something in audiences. Many seem to use these two hours in order to separate themselves from their lives. I would love to contribute to them connecting more to film and I’m trying to do my part through writing. Since we talked about bodies, do you think that using the body and its physicality expands the possibility of cinema to reach people more intensely?

PG: That’s an interesting point of view, the question how cinema is moving inside of us. We never know; it’s strange. Maybe cinema is less powerful than years ago. But I couldn’t really think in those terms, because I don’t like glorifying the past. We are here, just here and now, and we are dealing with our reality. This is nice and it’s strong and I like it. I have no regrets about anything – no regret about the 35mm, no regret at all. I like numeric cameras and if tomorrow there are no more cameras, ok. Then there are no more cameras; who cares. But the question you rose, how the movies are inside of us, or what we can call movies today, I think this is very important. Because I’m sure it is still operating, it is still strong. I mean you are still undergoing a certain experience when you go see a movie. If it’s pure entertainment, you get a good moment with your friends, you have a beer and that’s it. Why not? We shouldn’t be dogmatic in this aspect of the things. But you know, there are some kinds of movies that move you very deeply and sometimes even influence all of your live. Of course, this is what I would like to try to catch with my work. I don’t know if I have success. I would like to put one human being in front of these pictures, inside of this sound, inside of this world to get the possibility to feel something within itself. No words, just the feeling of being alive and of the complexity this situation achieves.



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7 of Philippe Grandieux's 10 films

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Sombre (1998)
'Philippe Grandrieux’s first full length cinema film has unleashed a storm of controversy since its showing at the Locarno initernational film festival in 1998. It had critics solidly divided into two camps – those who regard it as an obscene, unwatchable mess, and others who rate it as a sublime masterpiece of the psychosexual thriller genre. It is clearly a film which is acceptable only to certain tastes, and many will find the film very hard to stomach. Certainly, Grandrieux’s extremely minimalist photography, much of which involves jerky camera movements and hazy out-of-focus images shot in virtual pitch-blackness, makes few concessions to traditional cinema audiences. To his credit, this unusual - and frankly disorientating – cinematography serves the film well, heightening the menace in the killer and the brutality of his murders by showing little and prompting us to imagine much more than we see. The idea presumably is to show the world as the obsessed killer sees it, through a darkened filter with periodic loss of focus.'-- James Travers, filmsdefrance



Excerpt


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La vie nouvelle (2002)
'Since its premiere screenings in late 2002, Philippe Grandrieux's second feature La Vie nouvelle (The New Life) has been a cause célèbre. On its theatrical release in France, it was savaged by a large number of prominent newspaper and magazine reviewers. But the film has many passionate defenders. Grandrieux's work plunges us into every kind of obscurity: moral ambiguity, narrative enigma, literal darkness. La Vie Nouvelle presents four characters in a severely depressed Sarajevo who are caught in a mysterious, death-driven web: the feckless American Seymour (Zach Knighton), his mysterious companion (lover? friend? brother? father?) Roscoe (Marc Barbé), the demonic Mafioso Boyan (Zsolt Nagy), and the prostitute-showgirl who is the exchange-token in all their relationships, Mélania (Anna Mouglalis). Eric Vuillard's poetically conceived script takes us to the very heart of this darkness where sex, violence, betrayal and obsession mingle and decay. Grandrieux feels freer than ever to explore the radical extremes of film form: in his lighting and compositions and impulsive camera movements; in the bold mix of speech, noise and techno/ambient music (by the celebrated experimental group Etant Donnés); and in the frame-by-frame onslaught of sensations and affects.'-- Adrian Martin, Kinoeye



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Philippe Grandrieux, à propos de La Vie Nouvelle



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Un lac (2008)
'How to sum up Un Lac? It’s no easier than with Sombre or La Vie nouvelle, the two last films by Philippe Grandrieux. Suffice to say that Grandrieux has been hotly acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic as one of Europe’s most innovative and uncompromising filmmakers, his visionary films testing the very limits of screen language. This minimalist new work is at once Grandrieux’s most accessible film and his most abstract. The vestigial narrative takes place in a frosty Northern landscape of forests and mountains, where young woodchopper Alexis lives with his sister, their blind mother and a younger brother. Then one day a younger man arrives on the scene... Grandrieux doesn’t make events easy for us to follow, often shooting in near-darkness, with sparse dialogue sometimes pitched barely above a whisper. But narrative apart, the film is distinctive for the unique, self-enclosed world that Grandrieux creates with a palette reduced almost to monochrome: a world of stillness and near-silence, of forbidding yet alluring landscapes whose affinities are as much with the Romantic paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, as with the cinematic ilk of Alexandr Sokurov, Bela Tarr and Fred Kelemen.'-- Jonathan Romney



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Making of Un lac



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Il se peut que la beauté ait renforcé notre résolution - Masao Avachi (2011)
'This tribute to the radical Japanese writer-director Masao Adachi is the first in a series of documentaries that Philippe Grandrieux wants to dedicate to deeply political filmmakers. For decades, the eccentric Adachi was a member of the extremist Japanese Red Army. French director Philippe Grandrieux (Sombre, 1999; A Lake, 2009) wants to make a series of portraits of politically committed filmmakers. His film about Japanese avant-gardist Masao Adachi (1939) is the first in this series. In the 1960s and 1970s, Adachi was a prominent film critic and underground filmmaker, with experimental films such as Sain (1963) to his name. He often collaborated with his contemporary and ally Nagisa Oshima, wrote scripts for Koji Wakamatsu and made films in the pink genre. Disappointment with the political direction of Japan made him join the the extreme left-wing Japanese Red Army in the early 1970s and he started making films in Beirut. Grandieux engages in sometimes cryptic conversations with him about film, art and politics and films him in his characteristic style: sometimes out of focus, sometimes under or over- exposed. With a few clips from Adachi’s work, such as The Red Army/PFLP: Declaration of World War from 1971.'-- IFFR



the entire film



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White Epilepsy (2012)
'Philippe Grandrieux's work has often invoked the world of Francis Bacon, but in this almost purely experimental piece it is even more pronounced, as he takes Bacon's fascination with the triptych and the body and insists on utilising only the middle section of the frame. Here are bodies in primordial states, fully formed as muscle and flesh, but as if unformed in the nature of their desires and subsequently somehow closer to nature. Utilising a dense soundtrack that both suggests the internal organs (lungs, larynx and heart) and the extended sounds of the forest, Grandrieux has made a film that isn't easy to watch but equally not easy to forget. It is a strategy that has worked wonderfully well for him in the past with moments from Sombre (for example, the Punch and Judy contest), La vie nouvelle (the scenes filmed with a thermo camera) and the misty lake in Un Lac all examples of the cinematically unforgettable. Perhaps the images here are too abstract and sculptural to fascinate us fully, without that soupçon of story that can make Grandrieux's work maddeningly suggestive, but this is is still a film by a modern master.'-- List Film



Trailer



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Meurtrière (2015)
'The film opens on the body of a naked woman, lying on her back. Only her flesh, muscles, curves and hollows are thrown into relief against the surrounding darkness. Her face remains invisible. Slowly, to a rhythmic soundtrack of muffled, raspy breathing, other bodies appear, their faces also masked and their nudity on full display. In slow motion, arms, legs, bellies and breasts intertwine, collide, latch together, submit or hold still in a resolutely static and vertical frame. As each scene flows into the next, throbbing and relentless, the atmosphere grows threatening and disquieting. Cinema in its most stripped-down form becomes a pure sensory experience, the stock-in-trade of French director Philippe Grandrieux (Un lac). The second movement of his performance triptych Unrest after White Epilepsy, Grandrieux’s exploration of worry, Meurtrière is a striking tableau vivant reminiscent of Goya and Francis Bacon and populated by the bodies of four dancers: Émilia Giudicelli, Vilma Pitrinaite, Hélène Rocheteau and Francesca Ziviani. Graceful yet ruthless, obscene yet mystical, monstrous yet sublime, the film fascinates by virtue of its hypnotic, unsettling tone.'-- Festival du nouveau cinéma



Trailer


Behind the scenes



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Malgré la nuit (2015)
'Early in Philippe Grandrieux's Malgré la Nuit, Lenz (Kristian Marr) encounters a friend (Lola Norda) in a dark, abstract space illuminated only by a faint copper-toned light as smoke billows around them. They call each other out in diaphanous whispers enhanced by the absence of any diegetic noise, until their hands touch. She asks him what he's doing back in Paris, to which he plaintively responds, “I'm searching for Madeleine,” crystallizing the film's axis of conflict: the regaining of a lost love. It's an unusual start coming from a filmmaker who routinely eschews anything that so much as resembles plot markers or sentimentality. Then again, no one accustomed to Grandrieux's penchant for disruption should be too surprised by this. Since his startling debut feature, Sombre, Grandrieux has become one of cinema's most audacious chroniclers of society's underbelly, maybe even its best articulator of heightened sensations; despair and ecstasy erupt from the fabric of his films with a blistering, almost physical intensity. While Grandrieux's fourth fiction feature continues his usual investigation into the limits of experience and range of cinematic possibilities, there's also a strong willingness here to work along a more traditional narrative scheme. Not that Grandrieux has totally softened up. Malgré la Nuit still plays out like a sordid nightmare straight out of Georges Bataille's imagination.'-- Film Comment



Critics' Talk: Philippe Grandrieux (Malgré la nuit)




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p.s. Hey. ** Jonathan, Hello there, Jonathan. They do contain awesomeness to a one, it's true. What were the odds? Wow, say hi to Ariana for me, if you bump into her. Nice sounding lit fest. Ooh, do link us/me up with those sounds you're making. I really think I need that. All's good here, and the lag has been strangely almost tolerable. xx, Dennis. ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, he is the progeny of Ted and Alice Notley. And his brother Edmund, Red and Alice's only other progeny, is a poet too. Yeah, exactly, about 'Shutter Island'. Very strange. Personally, I really wish Scorcese would get over his Leo thing or rather would have many films ago. I can't say that I've ever understood what that's about. I don't know what that news blackout thing is. That site seems a little hysteria-tilted? ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Nice to be back. Well, a new writing project is pretty exciting, I must say, so that qualifies. Eek, job urgency. That pressure is the worst. I'm good, just kind of predictably hazy, but good. Well, we're about to jump back into the new film, or rather figuring out when and how we can make it. And I hope to get back into my long dormant novel. That's my ideal. We'll see. How was Tuesday on your end? ** Jamie McMorrow, Rock n roll, Jamie. Me too. On lag's dissipation. Really, it's not so bad relative to how bad my version can be. The trip was really just film-focused. and the rest was just wandering around almost aimlessly. I won't press you on the horrible band's identity. I'll just hope that I don't accidentally wind up in their audience one day. The festival experience sounds really nice, yeah. Cool, I'm glad the loved books were a little infectious. I love 'Richard Yates'. I'm a big fan of Tao's writing. I haven't done too much since getting back, mostly trying to get ahead of myself with blog posts. Today stuff starts happening again: meeting with Gisele re: TV series, photo taken for an upcoming article here on my 'Le Fol Marbre', trying to ace another 'LCTG' screening, stuff. And your Tuesday? How was it? Love, me. ** Steevee, I'm with you, as I just said to David. I just saw 'The Revenant' on the plane, which is supposed to be Leo's big bonanza performance, and I didn't buy a lick of what he was performing. A review! Everyone, eminent Steevee has reviewed Chris Hegedus'& D. A. Pennebaker's animal rights documentary film 'Unlocking the Cage', and that news is your clue to click. ** Sypha, Hi, James. No surprise that I don't know any of those writers you mentioned. One of these days I need and want to get to know those Decadent guys. Sadly or not, if there was ever a blog that wouldn't work in book form, it's this one. Oh, well. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. It is very fine. As is the new Art101! I might be my favorite one yet. Very worth the wait as waitful as the wait was. Congrats! Yep, the Cicciolina track is going to have to be a grower for me, ha ha. Nicely wack though. Great about the letter of support! What now? ** Bill, Hi, Bill! It does seem to be fading fast-ish, yes, weird. Ha, those two books are worthy, I'm sorry. I'm going to try to find 'Blood'. Oh, thank you a lot for that 'LCTG' insight. Yes, thats going on in it. Awesome. We're 'Pick of the Week'? Could it be that they're actually seeing our film as more than a waste of their time? ** New Juche, Hi! I'm glad you came back, awesome. My great pleasure on being able to intro those writers. I got an initial bead on Winkler yesterday, and I hope to actually score something in the next day or so. Thank you again very much for that. I didn't know about that Genet book. Huh. More and more intriguing. I thought it was hard to get books I want here in Paris, but, yeah, I can only imagine how tough it would be in Bangkok. How do you like living there? Do you write yourself? What are your interests, and what do you do there? If you don't mind. Very nice getting to know you. Have an awesome day! ** Okay. I did a Philippe Grandieux Day here some years ago, but it's hopelessly out of date now, and he's one of my favorite directors, so I made a brand new version. Enjoy. See you tomorrow.

Trigonometry

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p.s. Hey. ** Jonathan, Hi, J. I saw that you sent me a thing, and I'll get to realize it today. Thank you! I don't think that's Laura Dern, no. Pretty sure not. But yeah. Philip Clark, who did/does the Donald Britton page, did/is doing an amazing job, yeah. A bunch of photos there that I had never seen before. Have a great one. ** Jamie McMorrow, Good on you, Jamie, mate. Yeah, his films are hard to see, it sucks. They rarely get theater releases and barely even then. Even in France. It's strange. I think MUBI has a bunch of them if you want to join MUBI. It's a great site. Cool, thanks for the report on Gluck and Kraus. It's weird: there are biographies of Kathy Acker in progress at the same time, hers and this guy Jason's. I don't know if they're, like, competing bios with different agendas or what. Tuesday was okay, no huge shakes. Catching up. Our proposal for the TV series finally got submitted to ARTE yesterday. I guess we'll have some very initial reaction in a week or so. Nerve-wracking. And the photo thing. I don't mind having my photo taken, I just hate seeing the photos themselves. I have some kind of disconnect with the way I look, and whenever I see photos of me, it kind of freaks me out. All I can think is, That's what people look at when I'm talking to them?! That's what I look like when I'm with people?! It's weird. Did you get to fill in the blank with music? Later, gator. Love, me. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! His movies are hard to see. I think his films have gotten better and better. If you get any chance to see the new one, 'Malgre la nuit', I think that's my favorite. Among the other ones, and among the ones that are at least relatively available to watch, I recommend 'Un Lac'. It's incredible. Yay! The way that new writing project of yours is happening is the ideal way writing happens! That's very exciting. I really hope I can get back to my novel very soon, I really hope so. That's the plan. Re: the new film, we're about to meet with our producer (on Friday) where we'll try to rough out the budget so we'll know how much money we need and how little we could realistically make it with, worst comes to worst. Also, we'll find out how soon we can start working on it. Zac and I are really jonesing to start working on it. Otherwise, our producer is in the process of applying for various film grants from the French government and other places right now. We have maybe a third, or possibly more than that, of the money we'll need already raised, but we need more. Thank you for asking! Your optimism has a very good record of predicting outcomes, so tentative congratulations! Have the finest Wednesday possible! ** Damien Ark, Hi. I think you particularly will really like the new one, 'Malgre la nuit', when you ever get the chance. It's very intense. You have a good day too! ** David Ehrenstein, It seemed outlier-ish to me, yeah. It just seems really strange that Scorcese sees Leo as a vessel in which to project himself. The result has been an ongoing string of lesser films. I don't get it at all. ** Steevee, Hi. Yeah, I remember that about your friend. He sound awfully uptight. Total agreement about Leo, or at least post- maybe 'Romeo and Juliet'. And about Scorcese. For while after his great run, I thought there were flashes of his genius in some films like 'Casino', for instance, but lately I just don't see it anymore, or the flashes have gotten tinier and tinier. Very best of luck, not that you'll need it hopefully, about the meet up with the guy from the theater. ** Sypha, Hi. Yes, I do remember you waiting about Lorrain. I meant to get something of his and then just spaced or something. Bloy sounds very curious indeed. Huh. Okay, I'll see if I can find 'The Woman who was Poor'. ** Liquoredgoat, Hi. 'Sombre' is really good, but he got better later. He started backpedalling plot elements after that, and the work got stronger. As I told someone up above, I think some of his films are on MUBI. Awesome about the Phoenix move. When do you go? You have a place to live there lined up? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Good morning! ** H, Hi. Thank you, nice to be returned. 'Uncertain, normal and strange' can be a fine combination if the balance is right. I met Katz once or twice, but I never talked with him. My friends who knew him said he was kind of a difficult guy, or could be. I can't remember why, though. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Oh, jeez, man, about the ER and hernia repair issues. Eek, man. Any temperature lessening between yesterday and today? Take care, buddy. ** New Juche, Hi, Joe. I would definitely like a link to your site, yes, please. And excited to read the new pdf, and, well, the old one too. What drew you to anthropology? That's probably an impossible question, but I'm curious about that. I've seen pictures of Chaing Mai. I've never been to Thailand. My friend/collaborator Zac and I travel a lot, and we were talking recently about going to Thailand sometime soon if we can manage it. Apichatpong Weorasetakul is incredible, for sure. I would try bothering him if I were you. Well, actually, I would be too shy, but, if I weren't, I would. I've been living mostly in Paris for, wow, maybe 12 years now. I go back and forth to my other home LA, but I've gone to LA less and less in the last few years. Have you been to Paris? I really love it here. I dreamed of living here since I was a little kid and, very weirdly, it has totally lived up to my fantasies about living here. Thanks, Joe. Have a superb Wednesday. ** Right. Today's kind of an odd post, I guess. I just got on this jag of interest in trigonometry gifs and was very surprised to discover there are tons out there, and so I got this idea stack them up and see what happened, for better or worse. See you tomorrow.

Please welcome to the world ... Robert Glück Communal Nude (Semiotext(e) / Active Agents)

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'In her 2000 essay "Writing/Sex/Body," first published on the Buffalo Poetics Listserv, Dodie Bellamy describes her practice as "a writing that subverts sexual bragging, a writing that champions the vulnerable." This constantly changes her relationship to her audience, her community—and to the text: "No way I can stand in front of an audience reading this stuff and maintain the abstraction of 'author.'" She "stiffens" herself in the performance of her "I" and "invades" her own privacy. In reading, she freezes herself into a corpse, a "not a body": Is this a problem? In his response to Bellamy, "Writing Sex Body," the poet and novelist Robert Glück writes: "Why write about body and sex unless they are problems?" He argues that these categories and their performance, the thing that "stiffens" us, allow for a beginning—of an argument, of an exchange. And they are problems, of the body and of sex, and of the communities of those bodies and sexes, that are central Glück's own work, from his novels to his critical essays, which have been collected for the first time in Communal Nude (Semiotext(e) 2016). "This is the goal," he states from the outset of the collection: "to unframe writing about sex and the body, to derail the mechanisms that make a unified position."

'Communal Nude is the first new collection by Glück in over a decade. A founding member of San Francisco's New Narrative movement, a loose collective of writers that included Bellamy, Kevin Killian, Kathy Acker, Dennis Cooper, and Bruce Boone, Glück's best known for his novels, including Jack the Modernist and Margery Kempe. The latter—perhaps his best—imagines a contemporary romance between two gay men fused across the gulf of history into the medieval story of the Christian mystic of the same name. Nude opens with his important essay "Long Note on New Narrative," which articulates a history of the group and its gossipy "hybrid aesthetic," which approached narrative in such a way that put the self "at risk by naming names, becoming naked, making the irreversible happen—the book [as] social practice that is lived," and lived specifically within the community where it is placed: namely, San Francisco in the late 1970s and 1980s. It is a writing that asks, against the backdrop of Language poetry's aversion to narrative, "What kind of representation least deforms its subject? Can language be aware of itself (as object, as system, as commodity, as abstraction) yet take part in the forces that generate the present? Where in writing does engagement become authentic?"

'In Glück's work, theory mixes with porn mixes with fiction mixes with memoir, genres he borrows and dispenses with freely in order to paste together narrative collages that cycle through local gossip and world historical events, the doings of gay men in pre-AIDS San Francisco, and the blender of identity politics: a changing "I" that both obtains the look and feel of Bob/not Bob, body/no body. ...

'In a moment when autobiographical fiction—autofiction—has proliferated, Glück's essays and fiction broaden the history of the form, tracking its development in the late 1970s to now. Communal Nude adds considerably to the breadth and range of the critical heft of this work, and partially maps a history of experimental autobiography that necessarily includes poets and novelists who developed this mode long before it made the pages of the New York Times Book Review. This is important, dutiful work, and its importance isn't lost on Glück, whose best essays—and there are many—articulate a poetics of the memoir that acknowledges the genre's porousness, the tears in memory's fabric, its frayed edges. He often excels at this when he's writing about himself, the subject he doesn't quite know best (otherwise why write about it?) but which he is determined to understand better. And in him, us: "Here's Bob, he's a writer, he lives in San Francisco," he writes toward the end of "Writers are Liars," a lecture given at a literary conference in 1997. "Here is Bob's stupid love life, blow by blow. Here are his friends by name… I try to approximate the irreversibility of a performance—something you can't take back, some nakedness, some shame, some detail too intimate, something I make my body do, something that happens to it." He ends the lecture by describing a conversation he had with Eileen Myles about the then-surging interest in memoir and whether or not this had anything to do with "truth."

'"All this anxiety about the truth, and interest in the truth, seems to focus on the truth of abjection. This display of true misery has an element of theater. The heroin of The Red Shoes can play the dying swan into infinity, but the locomotive that actually kills her is delivering news from the real world."

'Glück makes sure we're on the train.'-- Andrew Durbin, BOMB



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Further

'Long Note on New Narrative', by Robert Gluck
Robert Glück @ Poetry Fundation
'Robert Glück Makes You Blow Him'
The PIP (Project for Innovative Poetry): Robert Gluck
'Celebrating Robert Gluck's Elements'
Robert Gluck @ PennSound
'Bill Berkson in Conversation with Robert Gluck
Robert Gluck @ goodreads
Audio: Robert Glück reads "Conviction"
'Gabbing With Robert Glück'
'You are what you want'
'The Alien Inside', by Robert Gluck
'I, Chimp'
Podcast: 'Rebecca Brown, Robert Gluck, Kevin Killian & Dodie Bellamy'
'Reading it Personally: Robert Glück, Margery Kempe, and Language in Crisis'
'Hidden in the Open', by Robert Gluck
'One on One: Robert Glück on Jess’s The Mouse’s Tale'
Buy 'Communal Nude'



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Extras


11/16/2015 --- Robert Gluck


False Starts: Robert Glück and Rob Halpern


Robert Gluck « 851 in Exile


Poetry will be made by all! Robert Glück



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Interview
from EOAGH




Tony Leuzzi: For a voice level, say something.

Robert Glück: My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains my sense.

Keats?

The first line of “Ode to a Nightingale.”

Wow. I would not have expected you to quote one of the Romantics!

Keats is where I got my start. He’s my guide in a sense: his enameled surface and below that the longing and loss. That combination of polished language and harsh emotion—I have never abandoned it. Words resoundingly in place—with a sense of inevitability even, that 19th-century idea of Poetry—and loss and incompletion riding underneath. For me, that’s what Keats is. In high school, I memorized Keats’s poems and then wrote them out, just to see how it feels to be writing those lines. It was a gestural experience.

That you were calling the poems to you.

That’s right. (Laughs).

Were your earliest writing attempts in verse?

Oh, yes, entirely. My first poem was a sonnet. I had the classic wonderful high school English teacher who got me reading and writing poetry, Marjorie Bruce. For me, poems were something to be fabricated. I started with the sonnet not because I felt that I had something important to say, or that I had to burst out and tell the world my feelings. Rather, I wanted to make a beautiful object with language.

Has that impulse been sustained in your work?

What beauty might be seems more complex, but I still think of my books as three-dimensional objects, globes, and in fact, at the end of the novels there is always something revolving.

At the end of Jack the Modernist there are a series of heads coming out of a body.

Right.

And there’s a scene in the beginning of the book that is loosely repeated at the end—a scene where the narrator watches Jack hug someone and wishes he could get a hug like that, only to realize when he does it’s not what he imagined it would be.

In college, in Edinburgh, I took a year-long Conrad seminar. He thought of his books as spherical. That’s where I got the idea. I recognized at once that it applied to me.

More of an understanding that this was your conception for your work all along?

Yes. I am dyslexic and dyslexics tend to think globally, rather than linearly.

Could you give me an example of that?

For a dyslexic, understanding comes in images rather than words or narratives. A lot of dyslexics are visual artists, which I was initially studying to be.

A traditional narrative suggests a syntax of action, a particular order to experience.

Whereas global suggests that experience is one, and that you take it in all at once, even though you can plug into it at different places. I think of my books not as temporal sequences but as incidents that occur on a globe. So it’s not as though one goes from one thing to the next thing to the next. Instead, all those moments, images, and tableaus make one object. There may be different elements but they exist in a sculptural relation to each other.

There are two huge groups of dyslexics in society, one in museum studies and visual arts, the other in prison. Trouble with reading will lead you into a visual field, or you become so alienated that your relationship with society is compromised.

The first pieces of literature you produced were verse poems in traditional forms. You say you were consciously trying to make beautiful things. As I look around your house, I see beautiful art pieces. Your connection to the art world is still very much with you, and you often reflect upon it in your writing.

I have a long, complicated relationship with visual art. In some way, I’m a frustrated visual artist whose medium is language. So, that’s another way of thinking about writing as an object. Add to this, my boyfriends, for the most part, have been artists…

So there’s an erotic dimension.

Perhaps a narcissistic aspiration (laughs).

Often in your work there appears to be little distinction between what some might consider a prose poem, an essay, or a short story. How do you make these distinctions?

I don’t. My way of dealing with it is to not make the distinction. But I don’t really like the term short story—and yet I have story collections. I simply call them stories. Or pieces. The short story has a history I do not feel especially related to. Other traditions are more important to me.

Such as?

Well, the modernist writer Blanchot made fictions called conts (tales). In these conts, which I admire tremendously, there’s a pressure brought to bear on language itself, and a porousness. By porousness I mean that one sentence doesn’t necessarily pick up where the last one left off. So you find a kind of air between the sentences. They can take any direction at any time. It’s composition by the sentence. These are things I think about, and one could talk about some prose poetry that way, as well as lyrical fiction.

I teach a class in prose poetry, and I teach the different modernisms through the genre: cubism, negritude, surrealism, symbolism, and so on. This inspired me to write my own prose poems, as opposed to what I call prose pieces—those one paragraph prose blocks.

The world of the short story is a world of psychological insight. The classic short story hunkers down into certain plot moments. I want to be lyrical, I want to draw away into historical perspective, or move closer into an intense sensory event. I have nothing against moments of psychological insight, and I hope plenty of them occur in my writing, but that’s not the sole purpose of my work.

Do you see yourself as an eclectic?

I assemble as much as I write. It’s rare for me to just sit down and write something from beginning to end. My old boyfriend Nayland Blake had a retrospective in New York. He asked me to be part of a night of readings where writers respond to his work, so I sat down and wrote what I felt was the trouble with our relationship (laughs). My piece was about bunnies—he uses bunnies in his work—two bunnies who are both bottoms sitting in bed not knowing what to do. They love each other but they don’t know what to do…

They want to fuck like rabbits but can’t?

That’s right! And I talk about diffidence, or even nausea, before the act of creation. I weave those two concerns together.

I get a sense of that weaving in your novel Margery Kempe, where Margery’s story is occasionally interrupted by the story of Bob and L. There are startling juxtapositions between the two contexts.

If my books have plots they’re usually borrowed. The plot of that book was lifted from Margery’s autobiography, whereas the story of L. is really just a frame for her story. It would be hard to put together Bob’s relationship with L. Those interruptions keep reframing Margery’s story. But you couldn’t make anything out of Bob and L.’s story on its own, you could say the exploration and development of their story exists in the Margery sections.

As a reader, I thought Margery’s story was framing—and/or informing— Bob’s relationship with L.

Of course it goes in both directions. I thought about Flaubert when I was writing that book. Flaubert’s reply at the famous trial. Who is this woman Mme Bovery?—C’est moi. Well, okay, I did the same thing. I said Margery, c’est moi. But I included the activity of projection inside the matter of the book. It took me a long while to decide whether to include or edit out Bob and L, because it would have been a purer book to eliminate them. And I wanted the book to be a jewel, I wanted it to be beautiful.

It would have been much more of a meditation. I remember reading the book and thinking the Bob and L. sections were pushing the book in unexpected directions.

In the end I wanted to make a book that could not be closed, that couldn’t be a unit.

Both my novels end when life becomes more reversible because obsessions are subsiding. Bob and Margery are no longer so obsessed.

Things are also potentially more chaotic, too.

Yes, when you’re obsessed, your priorities are strict.

There are other ways in which I try to make my books open and pourous. Margery Kempe is basically a collaboration with Margery. The sentence in that book is half hers. And there are all these notes—I asked men and women to write about their body. I put them in the book too. And there’s Bob, who is a person in the world. Bob lives in the same world as the reader, so there’s a way the book cannot close because you can’t close something or someone in the same world as you. In Reader, I collaborate with the different authors; in Jack I give the book to Jack and he rewrites sections.

In the sense that each of your books is assigned some genre title and your work chafes against certain conventions of those genres, you are collaborating with the readers of your books as well.

Yes, insofar as the audience will act as witness.

(cont.)



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Book

Robert Glück Communal Nude
Semiotext(e)

'Since cofounding San Francisco’s influential New Narrative circle in 1979, Robert Glück has been one of America’s finest prose stylists of innovative fiction, bending narrative into the service of autobiography, politics, and gay writing. This collection brings together for the first time Glück’s nonfiction, a revelatory body of work that anchors his writing practice. Glück’s essays explore the ways that storytelling and selfhood are mutually embedded cultural forms, cohering a fractured social reality where generating narrative means generating identity means generating community. “I’d laugh at (make art from) any version of self,” Glück writes, “I write about these forms—that are myself—to dispense with them, to demonstrate how they disintegrate before the world, the body.” For any body—or text—to know itself, it must first see how it sees the world, and understand itself as writing.

'Glück’s essays affirm this radical narratorial precept in rich spirals of reading, self-reflection, anecdote, escapade, and “metatext.” These texts span the author’s career and his creative affinities—from lost manifestos theorizing the poetics of New Narrative; to encomia for literary and philosophic muses (Kathy Acker, the HOW(ever) poets, Frank O’Hara, Georges Bataille, and others); to narrative journalism, book reviews, criticism, and public talks. Many of the texts are culled from obscure little magazines and ephemeral online sources; others have never been published. As lucid as story, as lush as theory, and as irresistible as gossip, Glück’s essays are the quintessence of New Narrative theory in practice.'-- Semiotext(e)


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Excerpt

What You Might at First Hate

One afternoon in the fall of 1965, at UCLA, I noticed a small sign that advertised an on-campus poetry reading by Robert Creeley. The reading was starting right away. A poetry reading, I said to myself with wonder. Aren't I a poet? Shouldn't I go to this reading?

I had no idea who Creeley was, and I doubted that the administration would deliver the real poetry goods to us students. I sat in the back of the auditorium. The reading was sparsely attended. Creeley was already at the podium. He was wearing a corduroy jacket and sandals -- rather informal, I thought, even inappropriate. On the other hand, two professors in dark suits were sitting on the stage emitting a gruelingly clerical sense of occasion. Someone had stationed a potted palm by the podium, signifying the presence of culture. If you've ever heard Creeley read, you will know exactly what I heard. His voice is choppy and averted; he seems to trip at the end of each short line. He read poems that I found later in his first big collection, For Love, poems that would become famous. He laughed at something in a poem -- what was funny? Another poem was about buying rubbers -- weird. I couldn't make out what he was doing. Here was a "living author," a rare bird on campus. In classes, our exemplary modern was T. S. Eliot. The study of Dylan Thomas, safely dead for 12 years, took us to the brink of the new. I became nauseated, listening to Creeley read. Shouldn't I, a poet, be able to understand any poet writing in the present time? Yet here was an aesthetic that did not admit me. Creeley seemed to be making up his poems from the inside as he went along.

After the reading, a crowd of black-suited vultures surrounded him and carried him off to dismember at some reception. Creeley looked so totally pained that I thought, maybe he is the real thing. One of the poems Creeley read that afternoon is called "I Know a Man": "As I sd to my friend, because I am always talking -- John, I sd, which was not his name, the darkness sur-rounds us, what can we do against it, or else, shall we & why not, buy a gaddam big car, drive, he sd for Christ's sake, look Out where yr going." In retrospect, Creeley's poem is not hard to understand. It has a narrative and can be taken as a little allegory. What was my problem? Literature and art show us how we experience the world. Creeley's poem said to me, "You think the world has a unified meaning, but that's false. The world makes itself up as you make it up, piece by piece, arbitrarily, out of your own perceptions. If you don't know how you perceive the world, then you don't know who you are." As Creeley wrote in an essay from 1966, "The road, as it were, is creating itself momently in one's attention to it, visibly, in front of the car. There is no reason it should go on forever, and if one does so assume it, it very often disappears all too actually."

Two things strike me. First, DIFFICULT might really mean that a pre-planned meaning does not exist. A very disjunct experimental poem may be easy to understand, because I am supposed to "co-write" it--that is, experience it through my own set of associations, rather than "de-code" the work and "unpack" its symbols. The degrees of coherence and disjunction we recognize in the world (and turn into literature) represent our deepest engagement with language, and so with reality. Second, innovative writing wants to keep me in the present, which can be experienced as a kind of DIFFICULTY. Most writing invites me to fall into a guided daydream that has its own telescoped sense of time. In much innovative writing, I am thrown back into my own present, the present of the reading instead of the present of a story. Until that becomes normal, it's hard work, like learning to meditate. Our culture seems reluctant to communicate its own realities; our labor takes place in conditions of raw capitalism far across the world, our old age is locked up in institutions, our wars don't make it to the news -- yet we are titillated with artificial sex and violence that keeps the whole culture slightly crazed.

If there is a reason for difficult writing, it is to break this shallow "fictional" plane where most of our lives are spent. My nausea at Creeley was caused by the lack of recognition. I could not see my own experience (organization of meaning, sense of time) reflected back to me in his poems, so his poems seemed to cancel my experience. No wonder I felt sick. In a way, it was the nausea of plenty -- too many possible meanings, too much awareness of time. My own discomfort led me to poetry magazines that printed Robert Creeley's work, and from there I began to piece together the literature of the present that would become important to me. Now when my students complain that they hate innovative writing, I warn them: Strong feeling -- even hatred -- suggests a first acquaintance with something you may come to love.




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p.s. Hey. ** ASH, Hi, man! Thanks for the congrats. Cool about Brighton. We're trying to set up a London screening right now, but I'm not yet totally sure whether that will pan out. A stream would be amazing! My email is: dcooperweb@gmail.com. Big congrats on your great gigs, like with The Chills. Really exciting! I'm loving the GbV a lot, actually. I think it's one of his best for a while. And you? ** Jamie McMorrow, Hi, Jamie! Thanks a lot. I'd had it in my head that the trig gifs would be more psychedelic in combo than they turned out, but, yeah, it was the weirdly soothing thing that made me go ahead and lock the stack down, so that's good to hear. I was miserable at math in school. I didn't get past Algebra and barely that. I had to sneak a way to drop my Geometry class because I was failing left and right. But, yeah, it's weird 'cos I use or try to use mathematics in my structuring of fiction and the gif stuff all the time. This week is pretty much film stuff, and I'm trying to finish a new literary gif work. I've decided I wanted to publish on more literary gif book, so I'm trying to get enough of them that I like to be enough to warrant a book. So those things mainly, and maybe hopefully some fiction. Ha, obviously cool that you kept working through the feeling that what you were doing was shit until it was debunked. Inspiration is such a mysterious thing, isn't it? Its ways are absolutely weird and kind of mystical or something. My Wednesday wasn't bad. Zac and Michael Salerno aka Kiddiepunk and I met to do an initial planning of what equipment we'll need to shoot the new film so we can talk about the budget with our producer tomorrow. And Zac and I went to the Cinematheque to see this film 'My Own Private River', for which James Franco, of all people, assembled a movie out of the outtakes from 'My Own Private Idaho' that featured River Phoenix. There were a few absolutely incredible little scenes/performances by him in it, better than the stuff that ended up in the film. Christ, he was great. So that was good. How's Thursday shaping up? Big love, me. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. Thank you about the new film. Every finger crossed. ** New Juche, Hi. I just downloaded 'Wasteland' this morning, and I've only had a quick look so far, but it really looks amazing. I'd love to do a post here featuring excerpts from the book to draw attention to it and direct people to your work and to downloading it, if that's okay with you? Anyway, what a complete pleasure! Thank you! 'Semiotics of popular religion and spirit practices': My brain turns into a whirligig when I think about that idea. Which is only good. Apichatpong is doing a book project with a friend of mine's very interesting but small press, and I hear he's quite pleasant to work with and very cool. I, of course, encourage your idea to visit Paris. If I'm here, and I probably will be, I can show you the more intriguing things. I've never been to Sicily. Friends of mine rave about it and about Palermo specifically. I hope to go. Right now I'm working on a new film with Zac. It's written, and we have a producer, and we have part of the money we'll need, so we just need to raise some more money, and it'll happen. And a new literary gif book. And a novel. And a potential TV series that I'm co-writing. So, I'm working on a lot of stuff right now. It's good. Are you woking on the new forthcoming book you announce on your site, or is out finished, and, if so, what are you working on? ** Sypha, Me too, exactly, on my schooling weak spots. I wasn't too great at sports either. A new translation of '120 Days'? Hm, that makes me suspicious, I don't know why. What Grove edition do you have? Mine is just '120 Days' and a few prefatory essays. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! They're worth the hassle of finding them. I would love to see excerpts, of course, of course! No, it's very good that we've raised part of the money. I'll know more tomorrow when we figure out what would be ideal, money-wise, and what would be just enough to be able to shoot it, but having the amount that we do should pretty much guarantee that we'll get to make the film. It's just a matter of whether we'll have to cut corners or whether we'll be able to do in the way we're dreaming. My day was good. Like I said up above, a productive meeting and seeing this film made of outtakes from River Phoenix's scenes 'My Own Private Idaho', and there were a few scenes with mind-boggling great performances by him. How was Thursday on your end of things? ** Steevee, Hi. I seem to be in the minority in not having liked 'Hugo' very much. I found it kind of rote and fussy at the same time. I haven't seen 'Kundun'. The only recent Scorcese that I remember liking much was this documentary 'Public Speaking'. I think you're right about him going back on cocaine. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. No industrial ABBA, that's sad. Is the funding you're applying for tricky to get? ** H, Hi. Thanks. Oh, they're completely incomprehensible to me too. I just liked the patterns and stuff. That interview project sounds very stressful to me. I could never do that. Is it possible you might? ** Bill, Hi, B. I seem to be in the groove again. I don't know how that happened, it just did. I was just suddenly in that groove. The new 'Tale of Tales'! Cool, I'll try to ace that. No, I don't know 'Strange Color of Your Body's Tears' at all. Curious title. Huh. I'll see if it's on youtube or streaming somewhere. Sounds kind of located in my alley. Best to you! ** MANCY, Hi, S. Yeah, soothing, it's weird, right? I was surprised that that happened. Me, I'm good. Vaguely hazed post-trip but locking in ever more so. Yes, sounds like a completely superb plan: you doing project progress. Are you? ** Kyler, Hi, Kyler. Weird, yeah, I was suckage central re: all things math-related in school. I don't think a live-stream possibility for 'LCTG' is up yet. It should be soon, I assume. I'll try to remember to alert you if I get alerted. Good to see you, buddy! ** Okay. Robert Gluck's new book of collected essays is a major thing and deserving of the full spotlight shebang, and so I aimed mine at it, and you guys do what you will, as always. See you tomorrow.

Gig #100: Of late 35: Airport, Death Grips, Dane Law, Dan Graham & The Static, Glenn Branca, FLANCH, Gobby, Pita, Girl Sweat, Wire, Klara Lewis, Samiyam, Sissy Spacek, Jonny Trunk, Oren Ambarchi/Kassel Jaeger/James Rushford, Ana Caprix, Prostitutes

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AirportPaean To Chi's Awakening
'Lorde Playlist is that fine line between background music and distraction. As if Justin Bieber were just taught how to use DJ production equipment, and that little fucker picked it up too quick. Or if the infamous “god from the machine” was Ms. Cleo dialing you from hell, but *dial tone* or *siren* and “Yo, you called ME.” And another one. But what binds us all the MOST is everything at once. If we could all have it all, then grip nuts and proudly admit to being a GIRLY GIRL. Ladies, throw up the *jerk-off* motion until y’all become rightful heirs of the gesture. Reclamation! Claim everything. Airport is an infinity of pop-culture chimes in your head. Wring out them sounds until it’s dry!'-- C Monster






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Death GripsThree Bedrooms in a Good Neighborhood
'Bottomless Pit finds Ride (aka Stefan Burnett), producer Flatlander (aka Andy Morin), and drummer Zach Hill in their most cohesive and incendiary form since 2012’s The Money Store. Flatlander obfuscates and annihilates seemingly insurmountable soundscapes with the help of Hill’s passioned and precise drumming, as well as Ride’s occultist and misanthropic rage. All of this is focused through a new lens where the band’s actions no longer dictate their relevance — Death Grips are Death Grips because of what they make, not what they do. Bottomless Pit is Death Grips 2.0, as promised. The band’s backlash against fans and critics alike who purely see them as a gimmick is tangible, too. “BB Poison” finds Ride mocking fans who wildly speculate over the band’s tweets, saying, “Zach hit them off like, ‘It won’t lit,’ they shit bricks.” Not content to stop there, he taunts them: “I’m in your house like, ‘Oh shit, I own this’/ I’ll kick your ass out, don’t bitch, bitch, it’s winter, bitch/ Take my trash out real quick or live in it,” he adds, calling back to “Trash”, a track that connects 21st century world-weariness to our constant contact with the overflow of ultimately fleeting content. On “Eh”, Ride shrugs his shoulders and brushes off egotists and sycophants alike. Finally, with eyes wide and arms out, Ride challenges on “80808” with a striking “Fuck with me.” All of this approaches an intense level of irony, considering that Bottomless Pit contains some of the most accessible tracks in the band’s history.'-- Sean Barry






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Dane LawUnited in Dance
'As Dane Law, Adam Parkinson makes music using single board and embedded computers, mixing sine waves and mangled rave samples on an entirely screenless, battery powered set up, exploring the possibilities of new digital instruments and the future of how we incorporate computers (and computer music) into sets with no obvious computer present, whilst producing glitched up beats and room shaking drones. His debut album, United in Dance, was recently released on Quantum Natives.'-- Gray Area







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Dan Graham & The StaticLive 2/24/79
'The tape’s careful presentation of minor archival material is not only a consideration of Graham’s entirely special performance, but a consideration of cultural transmission itself outputting in 1979, in 2016, and perhaps outputting into all foreseeable human exchange. Primary Information’s archival release of the performance is a post-production of affective memory embedded deeply in urban and cultural infrastructure, an archaeology of assembled data not necessarily meant for machinic dissolution or fragmentation, but deep, considered, and undeniably human interpretation. By presenting a minor moment and minor commentary on the nature of art perception, the tape is placed into an endless archival field, the endless consideration of an artist auto-performing themselves linguistically across the stage of history. Considering how this subtly is often unconsidered in plenty of modern music contexts, Dan Graham’s performance at Riverside Studios London is an enigmatic snapshot of a wholly different scenario — and an ever important one.'-- SCVSCV






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Glenn Branca BandDissonance
'Award winning 1980 recording of the "guitar attack squad" with Glenn Branca at Bogart's in Cincinnati, Ohio.'-- PB&J






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FLANCHPretty Girl
'FLANCH is a record that explores this blurring line between the online and the offline, and it is a record steeped in the aesthetics and iconographies of both the internet and religion. The production on this album melds clanging, futuristic beats with sometimes-Levantine-sounding melodies. The tone is variously devotional and oppressive, exalted and alienated. The record features hard-hitting raps and almost-rhapsodic singing, and the lyrics are at times explicitly religious, at others irreverent and profane, and occasionally a droll mixture of the two. (The track “hal0” concludes: “Come into my immortal spirit/ Come deep into my immortal soul.”) This record sounds and looks like a document of a culture in flux, a snapshot of humanity turned strange by our own creations. This is most evident in the treatment of the vocals on the record — almost all are heavily processed, some beyond intelligibility — but also in its accompanying visuals, from the futuristic humanoid featured in the cover art to the videos for the first two songs, both of which are built around images of the human form deranged by digital processes.'-- Stephen Weil






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GobbyRomance Frog
'No Mercy Bad Poet is Gobby’s sensory deprivation. And shit can get grim. Modern living is so immediately isolating. But there’s always a way out of Brooklyn. Nobody has met someone who didn’t want their own private island. Gobby is presenting that as an audible offering. It’s color-by-numbers, only you do the counting. Or a game of peak-a-boo, but with ears instead of eyes. No Mercy Bad Poet is a tactical listening experience using layered sounds that increasingly tug at one’s psychology in a way that isn’t a minor note, but a stick in the mud waiting for its next adventure.'-- C Monster






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PitaAahn
'Twelve years have passed since Editions Mego boss Peter Rehberg released his last full length release Get Off on the Hapna label. In the interim, along with running the label, Rehberg has embarked on a series of soundtracks for the French artist and choreographer Gisele Vienne. Out of this collaboration the seeds were planted for the prolific KTL, guitar/computer duo with Stephen O Malley. After a surprise return to live performance in 2015 we are now presented with Pita’s new full length document under the banner of Get In. Get In extends the perennial Pita sound into a paradox of intimidation and beauty. 20150609 teases the juncture between the human and the tool, the improvised and composed and the analogue and digital. Aahn inhabits a field of electronic nebula, simultaneously inviting and alien. Line Angel could be a new form of minimalism for the post internet crowd. S200729 harks to an acid most splintered whilst Mfbk completes proceedings as an ambient drift underscored with classical overtones.' -- EM






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Girl Sweat Off The Tracks
'With Bad Happenings, his first full length release for the prolific Box Records following a number of cassette releases for various labels, Russell Andrew Gray offers up an engaging selection of electronic beats and stomping garage rock guitar. His vocals sound as though he’s channeling something between the manic screech of Tomata du Plenty of the Screamers and the spaghetti western drawl of Suicide's Alan Vega, providing the perfect accompaniment to the motorik digitised rhythm and treble guitar. In fact, the album's opener — the aptly named 'Off The Tracks'— immediately and noticeably recalls Screamers, which is no bad thing at all. The Los Angeles-based synth punk band were a pretty amazing unhinged racket and that's the way we get going on Bad Happenings. Not for the faint hearted, but who wants to hear an album for the faint hearted anyway?'-- collaged






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WireFishes Bones
'True to that nighttime scene-setter, Nocturnal Koreans ranks among Wire’s most musically relaxed releases, with Newman mostly singing in calm, sometimes hushed tones. But it’s only relaxed in the sense that a sleepless night in your bedroom is relaxed—the pillows and sheets feel familiar, but your thoughts are riddled with anxieties over the unknown. While the droll, dry “Internal Exile” may deliver its critique of cutthroat capitalism with a smirk (“Hearts of gold/ No pot to piss in/ Join the queue of future has-beens”), its tense acoustic stalk and prodding chorus apply palpable pressure. The more wiry—and typically Wire-y— “Numbered” packs in a cheeky callback to one of the band’s signature songs (“You think I’m a number/ Still willing to rhumba”), yet that knowing nod only reinforces the new track’s doomsday messaging. Those apocalyptic intimations are rendered all the more starkly through the dead-of-night stillness of “Forward Motion,” whose eerie, frosty ambience swells into a mushroom cloud of lingering cold-war paranoia.'-- Stuart Berman






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Klara LewisToo
'It’s no secret that Klara is Graham Lewis ov Wire’s daughter, and therefore not difficult to draw a line between her investigations of laptop-as-loom for creating vast, enveloping tapestries of field recordings and electro-acoustic process, and her dad’s exploratory, studio-as-instrument work with Dome in the early ‘80s. Klara clearly has a keen ear attuned to the nuance of texture, tone, and spatial dynamic within electronic and organic spheres, underpinned with a rhythmic subtlety that integral yet not overbearing within Too. She finds a democracy of sound within the mix giving equal attention to all parts of the stereo field, from the whirring micro-organisms of View thru the whisked rhythmic torsion and distant bird calls of Twist, or the loping freedom of trip hop and avant-classical movement in Too.'-- boomkat






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Samiyam Dartgun
'Simply put, Animals Have Feelings is another fantastic Samiyam record. And I say that to be purposefully difficult because a) I opened this review in the way that I did and b) because even though it's all new, it sounds like vintage Samiyam immediately. That loud, open snare on the title track that rings out for way too long? That's pure Samiyam. The sample flip on 'Dartgun'? Same thing. You can tell it's him right away. Same goes for the oversimplified piano glued on top of that coarse LFO bass on 'Gum Drop', and the quickfire beats on 'Pier 4', 'Smoke Break' and 'Ronald', which encapsulate his melodic touch perfectly. 'Calisthenics', 'Surprise' and 'Part 1' are a great example of his iconic, if a little ham-fisted drum work and the cuts with Earl Sweatshirt, Action Bronson and Jeremiah Jae; they're heaters that also show us that he has talented friends who can rap pretty good on top of his tracks too.'-- Oli Marlow






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Sissy SpacekDisfathom
'Hellish unrelenting grindcore. No slow parts, no midtempo, no mosh parts.'-- nwn






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Jonny TrunkKraken
'20,000 Leagues. The classic steampunk novel. Here it is, in full. In a gatefold sleeve, with a blue vinyl LP of music by yours truly. The publishers (Four Corners Books) came to me and asked if I'd be interested in making an LP with a book, or music for a book or something and I immediately said yes, I will try 20,000 Leagues as it means I can try my hand at underwatery music. And that's what I have done. Artwork by cult tattooist Liam Sparkes, this releases in a fab gatefold sleeve Includes the full book, my LP and download code too. A lovely package. Or of course, just buy the download and get the music and no book.'-- Trunk Records






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Oren Ambarchi/Kassel Jaeger/James RushfordPale Calling
'This is a fine example of electro-acoustic technique and knowledge wrought to a non-academic, non-traditional purpose: insectoid field recordings and glossolalic mumbles merge with the odd, lilting lick of accordion and crying bairns over a slow-moving hummus bed of electronics in Pale; never revealing a fixed source but flitting around the stereo field with the drowsily surreal effect of a warm summer days absorbed whilst stoned on antihistamines. By that measure, Calling feels more crepuscular, largely due to the appearance of an enchanting, Badalamenti-esque chord progression connoting the looming shadows of pines and a pining atmosphere punctuated with brushes of distant, smoky jazz percussion and a sipping harmonica, before the sun slowly dips and off vocal apparitions begin emerging from the undergrowth and shadows. The effect is made all the more gorgeous from building anticipation with the previous side.'-- boomkat






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Ana CaprixM6 Ultra
'London's Ana Caprix prefers to keep a low profile ("Ana Caprix" is actually a pseudonym), but that hasn't stopped the producer from building a cult following. Caprix just celebrated the arrival of M6 Ultra, a self-released 7-track EP chock full of abstract avant-pop and imagistic music, as if the producer had strained old Taylor Swift demos through a Holly Herndon filtration system.'-- Thump






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ProstitutesChandeliers Shake
'After countless singles, LPs and performances played around the world, James Donadio is back with his first full length effort since 2014s Petit Cochon. Ghost Detergent is a consummate amalgam of fried gear, chunky bass and fractured samples. Donadio's extraordinary ability to fuse his wide range of influences into a collection of lucidly executed and concis.e jams has reached it's paragon. Ghost Detergent is a rhythm-centric maze of fluctuating patterns adorned with crooked fills and raucous melody. Tracks like "Nerve and Gall" and "Government Wrecker" stomp with a coarse, grinding fuss gliding on swinging bottomless bassline turbulence. Locked in puzzle-like sampling patchwork collides perfectly with an array of rogue electronics creating a sense of daring nearly extinct in the age of gridlocked BPM-steady 12"s. Tracks like "Pregnant Toad" and "Cheap Amplifiers" play out like a Def Jam bonus beat with ripping, cough syrup slathered DMX snare sounds. Ghost Detergent has an unhinged, unrelenting churn that stares squarely into a personal vacuum, remaining uninfluenced by the influencers and unflinching in its originality. Neither bird nor egg are relevant here.'-- EM







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p.s. Hey. ** Jamie McMorrow, Morningness galore to you, Jamie. Cool, yes, he's great. Me, I am seriously not knowledgeable about filming equipment, but Zac and Michael Salerno are, so we're covered. Yes, the script is finished. I mean, I'm sure we'll do a bunch of revising once we cast the film and find out who'll be performing and delivering the lines since we'll be working with non-actors and are interested in working with each person's natural strengths and weaknesses, but it's fully written and ready for the process to begin. We're seriously raring to go as soon as humanly possible. It's just about having to know how much money we'll have to work with, so we have to wait for a little bit until that's known. Our big meeting today got postponed until next week, grr, but we're being patient. Wow, that's crazy about the dedication! Sounds like fate to me. That's awesome. I think 'My Own Private River' is on youtube, or someone told me it is. It's definitely worth a watch if you like River Phoenix. There are some really amazing moments/scenes by him mixed in there. Nice about your trip. So, like, you're already on your way? Or did you mean soon not now? I've seen pix of Skye, and it looks pretty as a pic. Oh, on the mathematical influence on my structures, hm, I'm just really, really interested in writing fiction that has complicated and deep and tricky substructure, and I make these kind of elaborate plans and graphs for how the substructure works and what it hopefully will do and even in terms off where things get placed inside that internal, mostly invisible structure. It's kind of architectural, I guess. And I don't, like, do mathematical equations or anything directly related to mathematics, but it involves a lot of organizing the space inside the fiction and determining its size and shape and stuff, and I use calculations and things that seem like they must be based in mathematics, I guess. Thursday was okay. Work. Saw the new documentary film by the great experimental documentarian Barbara Hammer about the poet Elizabeth Bishop. The film itself was kind of problematic, I thought, but she was there and talked, and it was great to see her and listen to her. Oh, and I got your email! Your gift! Thank you so much! It looks amazing! Actually, these are rainy days right now because I'm way behind on the blog due to recent heavy work and traveling, so, if it's okay, I'm going to post your post really soon on Monday, if that's good with you? If it's not, let me know, and I can hold back on it, but, yeah, I'm in sore need at the moment. In any case, thank you, thank you so much! I hope your Friday is amazing to the max! Love, me. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi, Dóra! Yay, great, do let me know when they're showable, and I'll twiddle my thumbs patiently in the meantime. Our meeting today got delayed until next week, which kind of sucks, but a few days is only a few days. We're just impatient. Like I told Jamie, I think you can watch 'My Own Private River' on youtube. How was your meeting with your writer friend? Tell me. I'm good. I think seeing an old pal of mine who's visiting from Berlin today, so that should be really nice. Rock everything until Saturday! ** H, Hi. Oh, well, I do recommend Gluck when the time feels right. There's an anthology of 'New Narrative' work edited by Kevin Killian and Dodie Bellamy that's coming out later this year or next year, so maybe that will be a place to start if you want to. Yeah, it is really nice that your professor suggested that project to you. ** Bill, Hi, Bob Gluck is a mega-slow, meticulous writer. He's been working on a new novel for, like, twenty years or something. I hope the grump phase ends today and the weekend is like a secret treasure cave behind the waterfall, or something of that nature. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. Yes, he was Nayland's squeeze, late 80s, early 90s, back when Nayland was a thin as a rail. Yeah, I get that about 'Hugo'. It just didn't do much anything for me at all, but I'll revisit it at some point. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Okay, that sounds pretty promising. Yeah, man, it'll be so great. I like driving and cars, as problematic as they have turned out to be vis-à-vis the natural world. ** Steevee, Hi. No, I don't know Wang Bing, I don't think. Your description greatly intrigues me. I will set off on a mission of discovery, and maybe do a post on him while I search if there's enough stuff online. Thank you! Sucks about the postponement of your date. Yeah, talking to him and rescheduling next weekend sounds like a very logical plan to me. I'll go read your review. Everyone, Steevee reviews Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari’s new film "Chevalier", which he seems to find pretty good but not great. Wondering why that is? Easy to find out. ** Liquoredgoat, Hi, D. It's good, man. His book. My very favorite by him is his novel 'Jack the Modernist'. That's one of my very favorite novels in general. Essay collections ... I'll have to think. Let me think. I don't have my library here, and I need to get it in my mind's eyes and then scroll and scan. July! Soon! Awesome, man, that sounds great, and it's awesome that you're pumped. That word is so evocative. ** Chris Cochrane, Hey, Chris! Super great to see you! Yeah, how are you feeling? Is the recovery going well? How laid up are you? Can you not play guitar? Love, me. ** Sypha, Hi. Oh, yeah, so ... oh, wait, you don't like the page count thing, is that right? 'Cos, you know, the more the merrier? Although I don't remember thinking those plays were very good at all. Right. ** Okay. Jeez, the 100th gig. Time flies, etc. Anyway, that's some stuff I've been into lately and that I obviously recommend you test out, so maybe do that. Would be good. See you tomorrow.

James Coburn Day

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'For my generation, raised on Sunday afternoon repeats of The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape, Coburn was one of the great Sixties Tough Guys - part of that breed of hip macho actors like Steve McQueen and James Garner who bridged the gap between the square-jawed heroes of the Fifties (Charlton Heston, Burt Lancaster) and the neurotic anti-heroes of the Seventies, such as Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.

'These Sixties Tough Guys were old-school without being square. They'd all served in the army or navy, but were shaped by the social liberation of the Fifties, so they smoked dope and broke the rules, whilst being grown-ups and not angst-ridden adolescents. The result was a style of acting that was intense and modern without the woe-is-me excesses of the Method. In a word, cool. As Coburn liked to say, "I'm a jazz kind of actor, not rock'n'roll."

'Coburn drifted into the army after school, where he played the conga drums in a service club band before deciding on a career in acting after his formidable baritone (brought on by a childhood bout of bronchitis) found him doing voiceovers for army training films. His unlikely role model was Mickey Rooney, whom he'd watched repeatedly while working as an usher at the local cinema. His biggest influence, though, was grande dame Stella Adler, under whom he studied in New York at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting.

'He blossomed under her flamboyant approach and quoted her maxims for the rest of his life ('Never be boring, darling!'). Thanks to his rangy physique and deep voice, he was soon working steadily on television Westerns such as Wagon Train and Bonanza. He nearly always played the heavy or the murderer - everything from eyepatch-wearing hicks to waistcoated smoothies - and tended to fare best when he could add a little panache or sarcastic topspin to his lines.

'The apotheosis of all this fine-tuned physicality was Coburn's big break as the knife-throwing gunman in The Magnificent Seven in 1960. The set in Mexico was a testosterone-fest of hotshot actors fidgeting with their Stetsons to upstage the star, Yul Brynner. But Coburn went the other way, making a virtue of his minimal dialogue (just 14 terse lines), and embodying a Zen-like stillness instead. He must be the first Western hero to wait for the bad guys by sitting down cross-legged and inspecting a flower.

'By 1964, with Coburn progressing to bigger movie roles, the couple decided to buy a house to match. It was a sprawling Moroccan mansion in Beverly Hills, where the neighbours included Bill Cosby and Jack Lemmon. Beverly brought in designer Tony Duquette and turned the house into a Swinging Sixties fevered dream of turquoise walls, scarlet bannisters and zebra-skin rugs.

'Finally, Coburn ascended to leading man stardom with Our Man Flint in 1966 and the sequel, In Like Flint, a year later. Conceived as the American answer to James Bond films, the movies were unabashed campfests, but not without wit. Master spy Derek Flint boasts a black belt in judo, cohabits with four playmates and can speak in 47 languages, including dolphin. His cigarette lighter has 82 different functions - "83 if you want to light a cigar."

'These were the good years for Coburn - a giddy, decade-long whirl of jet-set travel, fast driving, tailored suits, glamorous projects and epochal socialising. When Dennis Hopper threw a wrap party at their house without actually bothering to tell them first, the Coburns simply opened the doors and pressed the kids into service. When the Karmapa of Tibet and his retinue of Buddhist monks came to town, they all stayed at his house. Coburn even took His Holiness for a spin in his red Ferrari along Mulholland Drive, saffron robes trailing.

'Coburn experimented with LSD, worked out on his back patio with Bruce Lee, and coughed up a Rolls-Royce, as you do, after losing a game of gin rummy to his wife on a plane. Beverly repaid the courtesy by acquiring a couple of pet monkeys for the household. The monkeys, called Moonbeam and Coco, had their own rope-filled enclosure, but often ran free to add to the house's chaotic anything-goes vibe, even peeing on guests' heads. Moonbeam, the male, liked to jump onto Coburn's back when he and Beverly were having sex. "I was not a fan of the monkeys," says Coburn's son, James IV. "They got all the attention I wanted. My father just wasn't into being Superdad. He was an actor and an artist and had his own agenda to deal with." But Jimmy did get to go to Mexico for the making of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and appears in the film's river raft sequence. "Look, it was a great life, no question," he says of his father's career. "All the actors he worked with, all the films he did - nothing to complain about.

'Peckinpah remained Coburn's favourite director despite his addictive extremes. "I got him off alcohol and immediately he started snorting cocaine!" protested Coburn. Yet it was precisely that unhinged quality - at least when aligned with sufficient sobriety - that produced such vibrant cinema. "Sam was a mad genius," said Coburn. "He would shove you right over into the abyss and sometime he would jump right in after you."

'Certainly, Peckinpah inspired what is arguably Coburn's best performance as the world-weary outlaw-turned-sheriff in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The film remains a woozy mangled masterpiece - even the restored director's cut - but Coburn's performance is a hard, clear and beautiful study in disenchantment and self-disgust. In the film's most poignant scene, a wounded old sheriff (played by Slim Pickens) staggers down to the riverside to die, watched helplessly by his wife. It could so easily be maudlin (the soundtrack is Bob Dylan's 'Knocking on Heaven's Door'), but the effect is heartbreaking, and properly tragic.

'Steve Saragossi is the author of the first biography of the actor, the upcoming In Like Coburn. He feels that while Coburn never achieved the superstardom of, say, Paul Newman or Clint Eastwood, he did make the transition from classic Hollywood to the post-studio system era more successfully than most. "A lot of Sixties stars couldn't hack it," says Saragossi. "Your George Peppards, your Rod Taylors, your Tony Curtises. But actors like McQueen and Coburn were just as good in the postmodern anti-heroic mode as they were in the classic strait-laced heroic mould.""If you line up Coburn's roles post-Flint," says Saragossi, "he played more anti-heroes than anyone you can think of: conman, blackmailer, huckster, outlaw, pickpocket, criminal mastermind, IRA terrorist... He ploughed that trough with abandon, more than Clint Eastwood even."

'Watching the Coburn canon again, it's easy to see why. His expansive lust-for-life charm, seasoned with a little mocking disdain, was perfectly suited to the rogues and scoundrels that flourished in the Nixon era. That vast equine grin was equal to any criminal setback, it seemed. Sergio Leone's 1971 movie, Duck, You Sucker, is probably the pick of Coburn's non-Peckinpah films, a billowy meditation on revolution and friendship drenched in dreamy torrents of Ennio Morricone. It contains another favourite Coburn moment - when he watches a firing squad from the shadows, rain dripping off his fedora, and the echoed gunshots send him back into his own tragic past. It's sublime screen acting - no dialogue, all close-up - the great-souled hero letting us in.'-- Sean Macaulay



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Stills











































































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Further

James Coburn Official Website
James Coburn Official Memorial Fan Club
James Coburn @ IMDb
'TRIBUTE TO JAMES COBURN'
'GET TO KNOW JAMES COBURN, THE ULTIMATE SIXTIES TOUGH GUY'
'Great Conversations: James Coburn'
James Coburn interviewed by Roger Ebert
Quintessential Cool'
'Was James Coburn "Cured" of Rheumatoid Arthritis?'
'Top 25 des meilleurs films avec James Coburn'
'At Home with James Coburn' @ Architectural Digest
NICK NOLTE AND JAMES COBURN IN CONVERSATION @ Interview
'Kung Fu Monthly Presents Bruce Lee Tribute By James Coburn, 7" vinyl, £20.00
James Coburn on Saturday Night Live



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Extras


James Coburn and Sam Peckinpah on Modern Films, Violence


Bruce Lee and James Coburn Chi Sau


Muppet Show - James Coburn and Animal


James Coburn 1977 Schlitz Light Beer Commercial Lite


Joe Mantell plays the drums for his brother James Coburn...


Tombe de James Coburn au Westwood Memorial Park de Los Angeles



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Interview




Your character Pop Whitehouse is one of the most loathsome villains to grace a movie screen in recent memory. Did you have trouble shaking him off once the picture wrapped?

JAMES COBURN: Not really, because I got it all out. It's really when you can't get it out or when you're doing it on stage and you have to do it over and over again that it can be troubling. But I learned long ago how to get rid of it by doing it! (laughs) You get it out...villains are really fun to play because they're usually meatier characters, because they've made decisions that haven't all been very good ones, (laughs) and are paying the price, with a little karma attached. They have something to say, I think. I never play them as a "bad guy." I play them like I have something to accomplish. In Affliction, it was "I have to get my boys to be men! If they're not strong men, by God, I'll beat the shit out of them!" That's what makes him seem so savage...it's that conflict. Scripts without conflict are really boring. Characters without conflict are really boring to play, because you're always trying to catch up with something. And this one was just loaded with conflict. Paul (Schrader) said to Nick and I in the beginning "I'm just gonna let you two guys go after each other!" And we did. We went for it. It was great fun. I'd like to do it all over again.

Is it difficult to go to such a dark place as an actor?

It's sometimes difficult to find, initially. But as actors, we don't have to be who we're playing. That's one of the good things about being an actor. But, if you let yourself get locked into that, where that character becomes your essence, that's scary. There was an old film called A Double Life (1947), starring Ronald Coleman, where he became so infected with Othello, that he actually performed it for real, with his own Desdemona. Stella Adler, who I studied with, said "Actors act. They don't have to be their roles." On Affliction, we were all joking around between takes, then when we went back to it, boom! We were right back into it again, because it was written so well. It was very straight-on. There was no ambiguity about the characters, and it's really fun and enriching when that happens. As actors that's what we try to do, enrich our own beings by absorbing impressions, then generating it out through our craft and giving it to the audience. Truth is obvious, it's always obvious, isn't it? Screenplays sometimes hide the truth, which isn't necessary. You have to give audiences some credit. You don't have to play around the truth. And what Pop Whitehouse was saying, even though you might hate him for it, was the truth! He knew exactly who he was. He was, nevertheless, afflicted, but he was also very honest.

What was it like studying with Stella Adler?

Great. I actually studied with Jeff Corey out here first. His philosophy was more improvisational. Get away from your ego, get away from lines, things like that. Learn how to play the action of the scene, that's what improv is really about. Stella, on the other hand, was into style. The style of Shakespeare, modern styles...she'd show you how to do it. You'd see her transform into a raving hag and then into a little girl. Drop of a hat, bang. That's what I mean about acting. You don't have to live it. As long as the character doesn't inhabit you, that's the kick of acting. De Niro studied with Stella. She was furious with him for putting all that weight for Raging Bull. (laughs)(imitating Stella) "What are you doing to yourself?! You'll ruin your health!" (laughs). She was very demanding, very hard on women especially. She would just strip you down, peel your ego right off your skin.

Tell us about Sam Peckinpah.

Sam Peckinpah was a genius for four hours a day. The rest of that time he was drunk. He called himself "a working alcoholic," but he was much more than that. I think the alcohol sort of quelled all the influences that were going on around him so he could really focus on what he was doing with the film. He would shoot with three cameras and just...do it. You never talked with Sam about things like motivation. I asked him one time, when we were doing Major Dundee. I said "Sam, what is it that makes my character tick?" And he thought about it for a minute and finally said "Drier. Dry. He doesn't give a shit." And that's who that character was! And that's how I played him...It was really sad what happened to that picture. The studio took it away from him and re-cut it. We had a great knife fight in that picture, between Mario Adorf and myself. And it was a viscous fucking knife fight. While we were shooting it, people were yelling for us to stop! That's how real it looked. It was a terrific piece of action, and it was cut from the film...the night it premiered at the Paramount theater, Sam saw the studio's cut and was just devastated. His hands were shaking. He had half a pint of whiskey and dropped it. It smashed on the floor. And my wife at the time said "Sam, it's okay, it's only a movie."

When you look at Major Dundee, it's sort of like looking at the U.S. cut of Pat Garrett, which was also severely compromised by the studio. You can see there's a masterpiece in there somewhere.

I agree, but what they call the "director's cut" of Pat Garrett is actually just the television cut. Sam had the only true cut that he made, and that's up in his archives in Sonoma. When he finished cutting Pat Garrett, it was taken away from him. This was Jim Aubrey at MGM and he was more interested in getting his hotel ready than he was in film. I think he really despised anybody who displayed artistry. He really like digging into them. When we started shooting Pat Garrett, I just finished shooting a film with Blake Edwards called The Carey Treatment (1973) that Aubrey also took away and re-cut. And I said to Sam "This guy's crazy! He could do this film all sorts of harm." Sam said "Don't worry about a thing, Jim. I just bought one share of stock in MGM, and if they mess with me, goddammit, I'll sue their asses!" (laughs) "One share of stock, Sam?! What's that gonna do ?!""You'll see." (laughs)

I heard a story that Peckinpah got drunk during the shoot and didn't want to kill Billy. True?

Yeah, but he wasn't that drunk. We were sitting in his trailer and he said "Goddammit! Why do we have to kill him?""Well Sam, that's the way it happened.""Well, why can't we make it un-happen?""Sam we can't do it." (beat) "Why...not?!" (laughs) I think he saw a lot of himself in the character of Billy...We found out halfway through the shoot that most of the masters we had shot were out of focus. We were using five or six cameras at once and we didn't have a camera mechanic because MGM wouldn't pay for one! So we used different lenses, different set-ups, and still, it's all out of focus. Finally the camera mechanic is sent out. It turns out the flange in the camera was off by one one thousandth of an inch, or some damn thing. So we tell Aubrey that we have to re-shoot all these masters. He says "You're not gonna re-shoot anything. The audience isn't gonna know the fuckin' difference!" Can you imagine?! It was just mind-blowing! So what we did was, we stole all those shots when the brass didn't know we were shooting and got it all! So now this really pissed them off, because now we had some real film on our hands! (laughs) So Sam had his cut previewed, and at the same time, Aubrey had his guys cutting their film. So all the editors got together and gave Sam a cut of his film, but without a soundtrack. He didn't get that back until he cut it for television. But there's only about five minutes missing from that cut he originally made.

Tell us about the genesis of The President's Analyst.

Ted Flicker and I met while we were shooting Charade in Paris. He'd come over to meet with his friend Peter Stone, who'd written the picture. So Ted was sitting in the background with his big black shades, watching us shoot. So Peter introduced us...George Peppard and Elizabeth Ashley were having a Christmas party a few years later. Ted was there. He said "I've just finished a script called The President's Analyst." I said "That's an intriguing title. Do you have a deal on it?" He said "No." So I took it home, read it, and wanted to do it. Ted said he wanted to direct it, so I said "Let me talk to Paramount." I had just done Waterhole No. 3 (1967) over there. Robert Evans had just taken over, he loved it. Peter Bart read it, loved it. They said "Can he direct?" I said "I dunno, let's find out." So they put the whole deal together in five days! It was Evans' first film at Paramount. There are some great scenes in there. It was named one of the finest political films of the decade by the Sunday Times in London...Ted Flicker never did another movie. He moved out to New Mexico, did one hit TV show, the name of which escapes me, and sculpts, paints. Just finished a script about the Civil War.

I know you were also very close to Bruce Lee. Tell us about Bruce.

Bruce was a true martial artist, created himself, from a little roustabout guy running around the streets of Hong Kong, into this magnificent fighting machine. He truly was an artist. His art had no defensive movements. It was all attack. He was so fast, you couldn't touch him. He was so fast, he had to slow down for the camera, because it couldn't catch him! It would look like he hadn't done anything. (laughs) We wrote a script together called The Silent Flute, with Sterling Silliphant. We all went to India. Everytime we went someplace, Bruce had this pad that he'd hold in one hand and punch with the other! It drove me nuts! (laughs) I said "Bruce, will you cut it out, man?! You're shaking the whole airplane!" He said "But it make my knuckles hard!""I know, but it's pissing me off!" (laughs) Everything he did was related to his art. But he had a great sense of humor, or he did until he went to Hong Kong. He came back from Hong Kong one time, and he was always very outspoken about martial arts. "This martial arts in Hong Kong is bullshit," he said, because there was no bodily contact. "Judo good. Ju-jitsu good. Aikido, best. But this other stuff, no good." So we'd go to these tournaments and he'd spout off...he was back in Hong Kong, and was invited to this tournament that was televised, as an observer. He was famous, and controversial, as being an outspoken martial artists. So they were breaking boards and ice with their heads...Bruce said "That's not martial arts." So they said "Why don't you show us your idea of martial arts..." So they taped up three thick pine boards. So he held it out and side kicked it, and everything went flying into the air, knocked one of the lightbulbs out way up. Sparks came flying down...it was one of those great, dynamic moments! And the next day, the papers were filled with this! From that, both Run Run Shaw and Raymond Chow, who were big film producers there, made him offers to do films there. So he came back and we were having dim sum at the Golden Door down in Chinatown, and he's telling me all this. He said "They want me to do this TV series at Warner Brothers called Kung-Fu. But I'm also getting these offers in Hong Kong. What should I do?" So I thought about it for a minute, because he really wasn't a good actor. But he had great dynamic presence and had this macho attitude that he could play really well...but that would be very tiresome watching for an hour on television. Plus he spoke with a very heavy Chinese accent. So I said "Go back to Hong Kong and make southeast Asian movies. You'll be huge star.""But I want to work here." I said "You want to be a movie star, right? It's what you've always wanted." He thought for a minute and said "I want to make more money than Steve McQueen." (laughs) So he went to southeast Asia, David Carradine did Kung-Fu in slow motion, Bruce became a huge movie star and made more money than Steve McQueen. Strange story...Anyway, then I get a call one morning from Sterling Silliphant saying "Bruce is dead." I didn't believe him, but I learned that a couple months before he'd come home and passed out in between really these really intense workouts that he was doing. And this girl that he was with couldn't wake him up. He went to all of these doctors who told him "Your body's perfect, you're just over-worked." He went back and within six weeks he was dead of an edema of the brain. And that was that...

What do you think of the state of most Hollywood films today?

I'm from the Billy Wilder school. Somebody asked him "Do you ever go to movies?" He said "No." They said "Why not?" Wilder said (German accent)"Build da set, blow it up! Boom!" (laughs) Finally, they've gotten rid of the actors.



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20 of James Coburn's 70 roles

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John Sturges The Magnificent Seven (1960)
'There's a famous scene in The Magnificent Seven in which the James Coburn character, Britt, proves his claim that in a showdown in which his opponent is armed with a pistol and he is armed with a knife, he can kill his opponent by throwing his knife into him faster than his opponent can draw and fire his gun. On the special features track of the DVD, Coburn says that he received knife throwing lessons from a stuntman, Richard Farnsworth, who went on to have a successful acting career of his own. Coburn regularly practiced his throw in his bedroom, making his wife nervous. But how plausible is this scene? Plausible enough for a Hollywood movie, in which through the magic of editing the knife has barely left Coburn's hand when it is shown sticking out of the gunman's chest.'-- Bowie Knife Fights, Fighters, and Fighting Techniques



Excerpt


Is the skill of James Coburn of "The Magnificent Seven" possible??



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John Sturges The Great Escape (1963)
'In July, Sturges showed the rushes of the first six weeks shooting, and McQueen decided his part was minor and undeveloped. He was particularly upset that his character virtually disappears from the film for about 30 minutes in the middle so he walked out demanding rewrites. Sturges admitted the half-hour gap was likely a problem, but with the production already behind schedule due to the heavy rain, he felt he couldn't take time out to do rewrites and rescheduling. Co-star James Garner said he and cast member James Coburn got together with McQueen to determine what his specific gripes were. Garner later said it was apparent McQueen wanted to be the hero but didn't want to be seen doing anything overtly heroic that contradicted his character's cool detachment and sardonic demeanour. At the same time, McQueen never really liked his character's calm acquiescence to his time in the cooler or the famous bit with the catcher's mitt and ball. Sturges considered writing the character out of the story altogether, but United Artists informed him they considered McQueen indispensable to the picture's success and would spring for the extra money to hire another writer, Ivan Moffit, to deal with the star's demands. McQueen returned to work.'-- The Great Escape Locations



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Excerpt



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Stanley Donen Charade (1963)
'This film is often called the “best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock didn’t make” because although the film feels like Hitchcock, it was actually directed by Stanley Donen. But Charade is Hitchcockian on purpose. Donen meant it as an homage and near-spoof of Hitchcock’s films, especially those with Cary Grant. As Donen later said, “I always wanted to make a movie like one of my favorites, North by Northwest [1959]. What I admired most was the wonderful story of the mistaken identity of the leading man. They mistook him for somebody who didn’t exist; he could never prove he wasn’t somebody who wasn’t alive. I searched [for something with] the same idiom of adventure, suspense and humor.”'-- The Blonde at the Film



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Arthur Hiller The Americanization of Emily (1964)
'The lively but somehow slightly distasteful The Americanization of Emily stars James Garner as a WWII naval officer who happens to be a craven coward. While his comrades sail off to their deaths, Garner makes himself scarce, generally hiding out in the London flat of his lothario navy buddy James Coburn. Garner falls in love with virtuous war widow Julie Andrews (the "Emily" of the title), but she can't abide his yellow streak. Meanwhile, crack-brained admiral Melvyn Douglas decides that he needs a hero--the first man to die on Omaha Beach during the D-Day Invasion. Coburn is at first elected for this sacrifice, but it is the quivering Garner who ends up hitting the beach. He survives to become a hero in spite of himself, winning Andrews in the process. Paddy Chayefsky's script, based on the novel by William Bradford Huie, attempts to extract humor out of the horrors of war by using broad, vulgar comedy instead of the light satirical touch that would seem to be called for. Americanization of Emily was Julie Andrews' second film; it should have led to a steady stream of adult-oriented roles, but the box-office clout of Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music consigned her to "wholesome family entertainment".'-- Hal Erickson, Rovi



Trailer


James Coburn on "The Americanization of Emily"



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Tony Richardson The Loved One (1965)
'Since the merchandisers of The Loved One are boastfully proclaiming it to be an outrageous motion picture with something to offend everyone, I see no reason to deny their exultation. It IS an offensive film—but for reasons other than the boldness and indelicacy of its theme or, indeed, for the many insensitive and impious things it shows. As a screen version of the famous novel of the same name by Evelyn Waugh that was one of the first blistering satires on the so-called American way of death, this latest piece of social comment from Tony Richardson, which came to the Cinema I yesterday, is inevitably startling and tough. Its candid and glittering expositions of the fantastic funeral rituals that are practiced in some of the gaudy graveyards in the vicinity of Hollywood are naturally shocking and disturbing when so vividly and vulgarly revealed and when shown with such wry appreciation of their commercial sham as Mr. Richardson shows them here.'-- Bosley Crowther, NYT



Trailer


The Loved One/ Making Of ...Featurette



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Daniel Mann Our Man Flint (1966)
'Our Man Flint (1966) presents the fantasy world of Bond as seen through the willfully silly prism of the 60s pop movement. It absolutely wallows in its campy aesthetic, giving us 007 by way of Adam West's Batman. As the film begins, we learn via some grubby stock footage and model work that something is wreaking havoc with the weather. A group of mad scientists are holding the world hostage, threatening to melt the ice caps and destroy Life As We Know It. They also turn women into sex slaves. Why not. The Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage (Z.O.W.I.E., natch) fires up its UNIVAC supercomputer to find a solution, and the computer spits out the name of the one man who can stop the evil plot: Derek Flint. Flint's former boss, Lloyd C. Cramden (Lee J Cobb) is reluctant to bring him in; it seems Flint is an unconventional loose cannon who plays by his own rules! Flint, a rich swinger with a private jet and four live-in girlfriends or sister wives or something, could give shit about the world being threatened, and turns down the job a number of times, plenty busy with his karate and fencing and screwing. But when someone tries to kill him with a poison dart while he's out dancing with his four ladies, it's on. Flint chases down leads around the globe with a preternatural intuition that would make Sherlock Holmes envious. Conferring with British agent 0008 (a ringer for Sean Connery), he learns the identity of the secret terrorist organization behind the plot and sets out to stop them from using their weather-controlling device against the governments of the world. Lives are saved, women are objectified, there's a weird stand-off between the scientists and Flint, where he rejects their idea of a scientifically-engineered Utopia because FREE WILL, and credits are rolled.'-- Birth. Movies. Death.



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Blake Edwards What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966)
'What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? is one of the mildly satirical, mostly slapstick WWII comedies that came out in the spate of ‘60s war dramas. A lot of movies were about special teams with difficult assignments, and many of these adopted at least a partly insubordinate tone about ragtag misfits, such as Steve McQueen’s character The Great Escape or the cast of The Dirty Dozen. The ideas are that regular officers are incompetent and war is hell, but rugged individuals can have a grand time. No movies were mentioning Vietnam yet (The Green Berets was 1968), but the shadow of its restless, unspoken presence looms dimly. Edwards had pioneered the modern WWII comedy with Operation Petticoat, a success beyond all reason, and here he applies himself to the Allies’ 1943 invasion of Sicily, depicted with sweeping footage of legions of soldiers assaulting the coast of California. Captain Lionel Cash (Dick Shawn), a spit-and-polish by-the-booker with no combat experience, is assigned to lead a weary platoon in capturing a strategic village. The jolly Italian army captain (Sergio Fantoni) is happy to surrender, but first the town must have its festival—a lengthy, loud, frantic setpiece anticipating The Party. One complication and crossed purpose leads to another, and soon the soldiers are staging a fake battle for a newsreel camera, as directed by loosey-goosey Lt. Christian (James Coburn), and then the German army shows up to take everyone prisoner while one Major Pott (Harry Morgan) wanders the underground catacombs losing his mind. There’s also much sexy business with the mayor’s daughter (Giovanna Ralli) and roles for Aldo Ray, Carroll O’Connor, Leon Askin, and Vito Scotti.'-- Pop Matters



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Bernard Girard Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966)
'Aside from a poetically justifiable title, Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, which turned up yesterday at the Victoria and Festival Theatres, has the refreshing temerity to thumb its nose figuratively at laws and gaily get away with it. James Coburn, who successfully entered the James Bond school of daredeviltry in Our Man Flint, has another vehicle to fit his newly found, profitable talents. Bernard Girard, the writer-director, and Carter DeHaven, the producer, making their film debuts have come up with a convoluted yarn that eventually unravels quite easily. Mr. Coburn is a lovable, craggy-faced, toothy schemer whose machinations carry conviction despite an unlikely story. Camilla Sparv, as the lissome blonde he marries; Marian Moses, as the psychiatrist; Nina Wayne, as a curvacious, dumb maid, and Rose Marie, as a widow he bilks, give him natural assistance. Aldo Ray, Michael Strong and Severn Darden, as his helpmates, and Robert Webber, as a government security aide, lend helping hands along the way.'-- NYT



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Gordon Douglas In Like Flint (1967)
'There's really been only one rival to James Bond: Derek Flint. That's because of James Coburn's special brand of American cool. He's so cool, in fact, that he doesn't care to save the world. That is, until he's personally threatened. He's a true libertarian, with more gadgets and girls than Bond, but with none of his stress or responsibility. There was bound to be a Flint sequel, and In Like Flint (1967) delivers the same kind of zany fun as its predecessor. Flint is recruited once again by Lee J. Cobb to be the government's top secret agent, this time to solve a mishap involving the President. Turns out, the Chief Executive has been replaced by an evil duplicate. The new plan for world domination involves feminine aggression, and Flint, with his overpowering charisma, is just the man to turn the hostile forces around. In Like Flint is still over the top, but some of the novelty has worn off, and it doesn't have quite the same edge as the original. Even Jerry Goldsmith's score is a bit more subdued. But the film still has James Coburn and that funny phone.'-- Bill Desowitz



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James Coburn interview for IN LIKE FLINT



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Ted Flicker The President's Analyst (1967)
'Every month the little TeleBriefs magazine comes with your phone bill. It is the most relentlessly bright, cute and friendly publication in the world. It is the Doris Day of the printed word. It is filled with stories of heroic telephone operators hauling dogs out of the river. It is overdone. One of the world's largest corporations trying to be folksy is like Godzilla giving Lassie a Milk Bone. The President's Analyst fights back against the phone company and its accomplice, J. Edgar Hoover and his Electric G-Men. It is one of the funniest movies of the year, ranking with The Graduate and Bedazzled in the sharp edge of its satire. James Coburn stars as an analyst who is called in to give the President someone to talk to. This makes problems. The President is the loneliest man in the world. But the President's analyst is lonelier, especially since the FBI bugs his room and the CIA hires his girlfriend. Writer and director Theodore Flicker's satire is modern and biting, and there are many fine, subtle touches in the film. All of the FBI agents are clean-cut, sharp-jawed, impeccably groomed men of exactly 4 feet, 11 inches tall. And when Coburn is kidnapped by the phone company, there is a nauseatingly pleasant young man who lectures him on why the phone company is his friend. To accompany the lecture, there are animated cartoons like a TV commercial -- but done in a peculiar way so all the little dancing men look uncoordinated.'-- Roger Ebert



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Christian Marquand Candy (1968)
'A spoof of Voltaire’s Candide, Candy manages to make almost each and every one of these people look like an idiot. Watch all of this film and you’ll wonder how any of them managed to move on with their careers after such a horrific experience. The loosely constructed story follows the erotic journey of naïve schoolgirl Candy (Aulin). Basically she goes from location to location as she seeks for truth and meaning in life. The only real result is that a bunch of strange and sleazy guys boff her. I suppose that I could elaborate more about the different characters Candy encounters, but what’s the point? They’re all wild parodies of different sorts. Actually, in the early parts of the film, it’s mad broadness almost seems fun. Our first main guest star is Richard Burton as heartthrob poet McPhisto. He offers such a self-mocking and over the top performance that the movie briefly - and I do mean briefly - looks like it might be something interesting. After that, unfortunately, Candy crashes. Essentially the plot follows Candy from sexual partner to sexual partner, and next she gets it on with her family’s Mexican gardener Emmanuel, played by Ringo Starr, the least Mexican man on the planet. I suppose this casting is supposed to be some sort of sly comment on something, but the ultimate result is nothing more than one of the worst performances committed to film. As a Beatle fan of many years, it pained me to see Ringo offer this insanely lame piece of work. Well, at least he got to grope Aulin. Once Ringo leaves the film, we move from one nutty character to another, all with the same results: sex and alleged merriment. Possibly the nadir accompanied Walter Matthau’s bug-eyed General Smight. In addition to the bad pun and weak performance by Matthau, this segment provides some of the movie’s more heavy-handed “commentary”. The usual “army equals bad” mentality of the era comes into play as we learn that Smight controls a squad that lives in a plane that never lands; they constantly fly so they can be ready for action. That’s supposed to be wicked satire? It felt like little more than warmed-over Strangelove.'-- Colin Jacobson



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Sergio Leone Duck, You Sucker (1971)
'Up to 1971, Sergio Leone’s films suggested meaning through their operatic tone and lack of dialogue; silence, however long held during a standoff, adds implied depth without words. Zapata or “Spaghetti” Westerns can contain social commentaries (often on America’s capitalist obsession with money and the robbery thereof), but are primarily tooled for stylistic capacity. Often, political events are used as plot devices—for example, one feels the Civil War interlude in Leone’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly may be out of place and that the brief political statements in these few scenes do not vastly affect the rest of the picture. Not so with Leone’s last great Western, Duck, You Sucker (Giù la testa) formerly known as A Fistful of Dynamite, and what in Leone’s hopes would have been called Once Upon a Time … the Revolution. Opening titles show a quote from Marxist political leader Mao Tse-tung that reads: “The revolution is not a social dinner, a literary event, a drawing board or an embroidery; it can not be done with elegance and courtesy. The revolution is an act of violence…” With this warning launches Leone’s most established, yet least personal film. After artistic and financial successes from his hugely popular ‘The Man with No Name’ Trilogy, Leone's Duck, You Sucker humanizes his protagonists, otherwise skewed by Zapata temperament. It is also his most clearly political film. In a meandering plot, much like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’s, Leone introduces antiheroes galore. Rather than Tuco (Ugly) and Blondie (Good), we get Rod Steiger’s thieving Mexican Juan Miranda and his reluctant partner John Mallory—an ex-Irish revolutionary and explosives expert played by James Coburn. Together, in Leone’s grandiose, episodic Western style, the two seek to rob an idyllic bank in Mesa Verde. Like a diptych, another panel opens when their robbery plans go awry and thrust them deep into the Mexican Revolution of 1913, where Miranda’s false heroism brings him celebrity and Mallory’s explosives provide ample bang.'-- Deep Focus Review



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Duck, You Sucker (1971) killcount



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Sam Peckinpah Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)
'Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a towering, unfinished masterpiece and one of the saddest movies I have ever seen. A compromised work about how compromise eats the soul, it has a boozy, slouchy grandeur that troubles your dreams for weeks after the closing credits roll. This is Peckinpah’s final word on a genre he helped to define, and what a hopeless, despairing word that is. It’s the greatest movie you almost never got a chance to see. On paper, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid looked like a slam-dunk proposition. The director of The Wild Bunch headed back out west for this oft-filmed tale of two old friends finding themselves on opposite sides of the law when capitalist robber-barons and government stooges started putting fences up all around the high country. Working from an acerbic script by cult novelist Rudy Wurlitzer, this bitterly revisionist take starred James Coburn as outlaw-turned-Sheriff Pat Garrett, assisted here by a posse of veteran old-timey Western character actors such as Jack Elam, Katy Jurado, Chill Wills and Slim Pickens. For maximum counter-culture kick, Billy the Kid was played by hunky, hugely popular singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, with his gang of rebels filled out by Kristofferson’s touring band, Kris’ wife Rita Coolidge, plus other early 1970s music scene denizens including Harry Dean Stanton and some twitchy little cat named Bob Dylan. (Obsessed with Billy the Kid, Dylan reportedly begged Wurlitzer to write him a small role in the movie and composed the film’s haunting, dirge-like score.) What could possibly go wrong?'-- The Artery



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Walter Hill Hard Times (1975)
'Hill and his co-writers pack a lot of memorable scenes into the film's scant 93 minute running time. Aided by editor Roger Spottiswood (another future director) and cinematographer Philip Lathrop, Hill makes every frame of the film count. There isn't a slow moment or a meaningless line of dialogue. Clearly the highlights are the action sequences. This is Fight Club for the Baby Boomer generation. Bronson, who was in his 50s at the time, performs all of his own gut-wrenching fight scenes, along with co-stars Robert Tessier and Nick Dimitri. They are brutal affairs that will quickly convince you that these men are actually beating each other up. The stunt coordination is among the best I've seen in any film. The film's more whimsical sequences are aided immeasurably by Barry DeVorzon's addictive score. With Hard Times, Bronson reached the pinnacle of his acting career. It's wonderful to see him reunited with Coburn, his co-star from The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape. However, Coburn became even more interesting as an actor as he grew older whereas Bronson grabbed for the low-hanging fruit and began to concentrate primarily on by-the-numbers action movies. The film remains a testament to his abilities as an actor- and credit Walter Hill for bringing those out in full force.'-- Cine Mareto



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Sam Peckinpah Cross of Iron (1977)
'Peckinpah wasn't exactly the go-to guy for fluffy comfort viewing, and the war scenes are as searing and brutal as you'd expect – despite the production's limited budget. While it is brilliantly filmed, though, Cross of Iron's big battle sequence drags on for so long that it feels as if Peckinpah is trying to match minute for minute the pace of the actual German retreat. As the troops fall back, Stransky makes sure Steiner's platoon don't get their orders, abandoning them in territory that the Soviets have just recaptured.'-- The Guardian



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Michael Crichton Looker (1981)
'Looker is a 1981 science fiction film written and directed by Michael Crichton. It starred Albert Finney, Susan Dey, and James Coburn. Former NFL linebacker Tim Rossovich was featured as the villain's main henchman. The film is a suspense/science fiction piece that comments upon and satirizes media, advertising, TV's effects on the populace, and a ridiculous standard of beauty. Though spare in visual effects, the film is notable for being the first commercial film to attempt to make a realistic computer-generated character, for the model named Cindy. It was also the first film to create three-dimensional (3D) shading with a computer, months before the release of the better-known Tron.'-- collaged



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Richard Donner Maverick (1994)
'Maverick is a 1994 American Western comedy film directed by Richard Donner and written by William Goldman, based on the 1950s television series of the same name created by Roy Huggins. The film stars Mel Gibson as Bret Maverick, a card player and con artist collecting money to enter a high-stakes poker game. He is joined in his adventure by Annabelle Bransford (Jodie Foster), another con artist, and lawman Marshall Zane Cooper (James Garner). The supporting cast features Graham Greene, James Coburn, Alfred Molina and a large number of cameo appearances by Western film actors, country music stars and other actors. The film received a favorable critical reception for its light-hearted charm, and was financially successful, earning over $180 million during its theatrical run. Costume designer April Ferry was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design.'-- collaged



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Tom Shadyac The Nutty Professor (1996)
'For those who have not seen The Nutty Professor, the film is a remake of the 1963’s film of the same name directed by Jerry Lewis and is also an adaptation of the novel Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Nutty Professor, which was released in 1996, was written by David Sheffield, Barry W. Blaustein, Tom Shadyac, and Steve Oedekerk. Tom Shadyac also directed the film. Eddie Murphy, Jada Pinkett Smith, James Coburn, Larry Miller, Dave Chappelle, and John Ales star in the film. In The Nutty Professor, Sherman Klump (Eddie Murphy), an obese college professor, takes an experimental weight loss drug to win over a young woman.'-- collaged



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Paul Schrader Affliction (1997)
'Nolte and Coburn are magnificent in this film, which is like an expiation or amends for abusive men. It is revealing to watch them in their scenes together--to see how they're able to use physical presence to sketch the history of a relationship. Schrader says he cast Coburn because he needed an actor who was big enough, and had a "great iconic weight,'' to convincingly dominate Nolte. He found one. Coburn has spent a career largely in shallow entertainments, and here he rises to the occasion with a performance of power. There is a story about that. "I met with Coburn before the picture began,'' Schrader told me, "and told him how carefully Nolte prepares for a role. I told Coburn that if he walked through the movie, Nolte might let him get away with it for a day, but on the second day all hell would break lose. Coburn said, 'Oh, you mean you want me to really act? I can do that. I haven't often been asked to, but I can.' He can.'-- Roger Ebert



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Alan Jacobs American Gun (2002)
'It's a shame about American Gun, really. Though it features a fantastic lead performance from James Coburn (in his final film role) and a genuinely involving mystery, the film completely falls apart in the last 15 minutes thanks to an incredibly silly plot twist. Writer/director Alan Jacobs clearly has issues with guns and gun control, and eventually turns his film into an issue-oriented think piece. Right up until that fatal last reel, American Gun is a mostly engaging and intriguing character study of an expectedly determined man. Anchored by a particularly strong performance from Coburn, the deliberate pace of the movie effectively establishes Tillman as someone's whose motives we can understand. Though Jacobs' style occasionally resembles that of a TV movie (ie a montage of Tillman and his wife doing various things after their daughter dies) and he's certainly guilty of overusing flashbacks, he effectively takes his time in laying the entire story out. The slow build allows us to sympathize with Tillman to the extent where we genuinely care about him.'-- Reel Film



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*

p.s. Hey. ** ASH, Hi! Thanks so much, yeah, I got the link. This weekend I'm going to play it hard. I'm excited. Playing with Wire, amazing. One of my all-time favorite bands, as you probably know, and Colin Newman is a real hero of mine. Exactly, on the GbV. And me too about seeing the new line-up 'cos I'm 180% positive that they'll never make it over here. Thank you again, man, and have a great weekend. ** New Juche, Hi, Joe. Oh, cool, then I will do that post. This coming week. I'll start setting it up the weekend, and if I need anything from you, I'll let you know. What's your email? Mine is: dcooperweb@gmail.com. Yeah, my offer to show you my idea of what's what here definitely stands. No, you can't smoke in bars here anymore. Gosh, there are all kinds of great things here. Depends on what you're interested in seeing, from strange museum-kind of things to locations, areas, things. It's a great place to walk around. Pretty greatly put together and organized city. The TV series would be about a woman who is the daughter of a one-time extremely famous ventriloquist, now dead. Based on Edgar Bergen, who was massively famous when I was growing up. She inherited his puppet and lives with it. It's kind of her only friend, and she has an extremely complicated relationship with it, or with herself since she's obviously projecting herself into it. And then weird, dramatic things happen. Long story. If it happen, it will be three episodes, at least to start. Fingers crossed that it happens. A major television channel here is considering it right now. My novel is still quite a ways from being finished, so I'm not sure when it'll appear. Not for a while. Next for me is one last book of literary gif fiction a la 'Zac's Haunted House' and 'Zac's Control Panel'. I'm working on that now. Have a really fantastic weekend! ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Yeah, the delayed meeting is a drag, but it's okay. I'm used to working on fiction and stuff where you can set your own pace. But making movies is very dependent on other people and on money and stuff, and there's no way around that, so ... it's okay. Yeah, there were some incredible moments in that 'movie', right? There were great things especially, I thought, in the Italy part with River and Keanu Reeves in the house. Zac and I were speculating that the only reason those parts were cut was because they were 'too gay' and pushed River's crush on Keanu a little too much. I don't know. You gave yourself a homemade tattoo! Wow. With, like, a machine or just needle and ink and stuff? That's cool. Oh, it was good yesterday. My friend and I went to the newish-ly reopened big zoo here where they have this giant fake mountain that I was obsessed with seeing. I think I might have even linked you to a photo of it at some point? Anyway, the zoo was cool as zoos go, very mellow and seemingly 'nice' for the creatures, and the mountain lived up to my expectations. Then we had a pizza with Zac. It was fun. Do you have awesomeness in your weekend plans? ** David Ehrenstein, Morning, sir. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. The Dane Law and Pita albums are really good. I'll go check out your new purchases today, thanks for the linkage. Great about the good and fruitful appointment! ** Bernard Welt, Hi, B! Ha, okay, I'll watch the market. No, I wont. Yeah, Zac and I were staying at Kevin and Dodie's place at the same time that you were meeting and greeting them. I saw the great pic of you and Michael Lally. He looked very beatific in it. Oh, sure, I probably wouldn't have known Tim and, consequently, you and half my friends if it were for Michael Lally. I had some personal issues with Michael when he was living in LA and when I published that book of his, 'Hollywood Magic' through Little Caesar, but, hey, shit happens. I went with Donald to the Mineshaft once. He immediately disappeared, but then I saw him later hovering around the fist fucking sling with a 'child watching E.T.' look on his face. Thank you ever so much for the great description of the event. Damn. You've never met Wayne Koestenbaum? That surprises me. June 17th, gotcha. I'll be around. I'll be away on the 20th 'cos Zac and Gisele and I are taking a day trip to the Robbe-Grillet chateau to see Catherine, but I think that's it. How long do you stay again? I think Michael and Bene will be in Italy for most if not all of the month of June, but I'll check. Can't wait to see you! ** Jamie McMorrow, Aloha to you, ha ha. My dad lived in Hawaii, so I'm very familiar with that greeting. Yeah, I went to the zoo with my visiting friend Eli. I told Dora about it up above. That was nice. I've always had to create these these quite complicated structures for everything I write in advance. I like doing that, but I also don't know how else to write fiction 'cos I never took fiction writing classes or anything, and I'm really not interested in the usual fiction-structuring things like plot and character development and all of that stuff. So, I just make my own structures. I make elaborate graphs and stuff to figure out how the novel or whatever will work, and then I write using that structure, but then I let myself mutate the structure while I'm writing if something isn't working. My fiction is kind of more influenced by the way music is structured, and experimental films too, and visual art, than it is by other novels. I like your picks from the gig. Yeah, I really liked the Airport and Caprix videos too. Oh, man Skye sounds really dreamy. Maybe you'll start writing folk songs or contemplative instrumentals or something? Great, about the post. It'll be up next in line! Fast service, ha ha. My weekend ... I'm not sure yet. Work, see friends, we'll see. Are you going to hike around or curl up by an open fire or other nature-y things? ** Steevee, I'm going to do a Wang search today. Mm, it doesn't sound promising, re: what I'll find, but I'll try. Thanks! Yeah, Death Grips kind of said they were suspending operations a year ago or something, but they're into surprises and stuff, so that they didn't do that isn't a huge surprise. ** Okay. Let's see ... when I was teen and thereabout, I thought James Coburn was super cool, mostly because of the witty psychedelic-era films 'The Presidents Analyst' and the two 'Flint' films and his stuff with Sam Peckinpah. You don't hear much about Coburn these days, so I thought I would make something re him. And that's your weekend, if you so choose. See you on Monday.

Jamie McMorrow presents ... TAIYO MATSUMOTO

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1. GoGo Monster: And here's Taiyo Matsumoto and the best comic of 2009, a tale of two schoolboys in their third year of classes, one of whom spends most of his time fading in and out of a world of invisible spirits facing an even more obscure threat; it was published in Japan in 2000, right before No. 5 began serialization. I've had a review half-written for a little while now -- the book came out pretty recently -- so in lieu of that I'll provide a sub-list of Reasons Why This is Great to compliment my Top Ten Funnies and Best of Show Disclaimers rundown:




John rated it really liked it
Taiyo Matsumoto is an amazing illustrator and writer but he seems to do the same story in all the works that I've read: two teenage male characters have a coming of age experience with some fantasy or magical realism elements. Typically, one of the characters is exceptional in some regard (an amazing fighter, a great Ping-Pong player, an excellent student) and seems to have some connection to an invisible world, sometimes in the form of a doppleganger. In GoGo Monster, as in Ping-Pong, the magical realism elements appear to be mostly in the mind of the Peko/Yuki character. Whether or not Super Star and the others are real, Yuki, Ganz and IQ all believe that they effect the world outside of Yuki's head. The art in this book is not quite as polished as in Sunny or Tekkonkinkreet (both of which I believe were published later?), but it's still engaging. If you're looking for a typical manga with this book, you'll probably be disappointed and/or bored as it's very long, very slow and very strange, despite the fairly mundane setting of a middle school.




“Picture a Batman and Robin story put through a Peter Pan filter by Takeshi Kitano and you’d only be halfway to conceiving the unique, terrible beauty that is Tekkon Kinkreet, previously published under the name Black & White.”




“Matsumoto’s stark, black-and-white imagery won’t be to every reader’s taste; I’d be the first admit that many of the kids in Blue Spring look older and wearier than Keith Richards, with their sunken eyes and rotten teeth. But the studied ugliness of the character designs and urban settings suits the material perfectly, hinting at the anger and emptiness of the characters’ lives. Matsumoto offers no easy answers for his characters’ behavior, nor any false hope that they will escape the lives of violence and despair that seem to be their destiny. Rather, he offers a frank, funny and often disturbing look at the years in which most of us were unformed lumps of clay — or, in Matsumoto’s memorable formulation, a time when most of us were blue: “No matter how passionate you were, no matter how much your blood boiled, I believe youth is a blue time. Blue — that indistinct blue that paints the town before the sun rises.””





“I felt dizzy after reading this.”




Taiyo Matsumoto is tough for me to write about in any kind of formal fashion. Not sure why. I think maybe some of it may be that he’s such an old influence for me—like I came into his work before Nihei or Daisuke Igarashi—maybe even before Inio Asano-though Asano hasn’t really influenced me artistically—but I think how I got there was I was reading Stray Toasters because when I was first sort of starting to figure out how to draw, I practiced by redrawing Frazetta and BWS, but I was looking at like Sienkiewicz and Ashley Wood—anyways so I was reading Stray Toasters, and my wife of the time saw one of the panels in it, and was like “oh wow, that’s Klimt”—so I went and looked up Klimt and was like “whoa” which led me to Schiele which was a life changing moment. As soon as I saw Schiele I knew there was something in there that I just FELT, and I wanted to explore that feeling through my own work and find my own expression through it.

So in trying to figure out how to take Schiele into comics I ran into Taiyo Matsumoto’s work. I think Tekkinkinkreet was the first work of his I read, then No. 5, then Gogo Monster, then Ping Pong, then Takemitsu Zamurai, and now Sunny. Ping Pong and Takemitsu Zamurai are prolly my fave works by him, with Gogo Monster a close third. But these works were huge to me, and I mean eventually I found Daisuke Igarashi—and I think Daisuke is even closer to my like platonic ideal of comics than even Taiyo is—but Taiyo was key. Maybe THE key. At least after Schiele. So there’s a lot of emotional investment with Taiyo.

I think fundamentally the strength of Taiyo’s work for his whole career is that he doesn’t just tell you here is a boy doing this thing—he gives you something more about the boy at that particular time just in the way his line jitters, or the way the shadow will cloud a face—and maybe the shadow will be these impressionistic brush strokes—or maybe it will be more traditional cross hatching techniques? But the choice always was about communicating something beyond simply what is physically there in the scene.

- Sarah Horrocks




5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece.
By Luca Vitale on September 22, 2007
Format: Paperback
This might be the best graphic novel ever written, and I don`t say that lightly. It`s a shame that it doesn`t have a wide circulation in Europe and US. It`s pretty much impossible to compare to anything else, Tekkon Kinkreet it`s the most lyrical and at at the same time the most anti-conformist comic you`ll ever read. Think Miyazaki, Tank Girl and Takeshi Kitano all wrapped up in one story that is so good it hurts. Just get it, if you like indie comics chances are this is your new favorite one.






1.0 out of 5 stars very bad
ByEvzenie Reitmayerovaon January 28, 2010
i dunno about the story.
the pictures are so bad it is hard to follow what is actually going on.
it looks like it was drawn by a 2 years old kid with no talent.
i started to read this book a couple of times but couldnt finish it.
it proves even manga can be drawn very bad.
what a dissapointment.





Joey Comeau rated it it was amazing
Shelves: recommendations
This is one of my favourite comic books. It's surreal and sort of mystical in a way that isn't lame, but is instead psychological and unexpectedly violent. I was very surprised by this book.

UPDATED REVIEW:

Two years after first reading this book, I have come back to it again and again, each time finding more to love. This has gone from being a really nice surprise and "one of my favourite comic books" to being my favourite BOOK, period.




(A) It's the most furiously cartooned book I've read all year, a no-assistants one man show of total vision penmanship that leaves its 'realistic' scenery vibrating; buildings literally wave and curve in the background while characters adopt scribbly or sharp appearances based on minute shifts in mood. It's like Matsumoto seized on the propensity of manga characters in stories where boys see spirits to shift to superdeformed mode when something funny happens and exploded it into three-dimensional sphere of hypersensitive bodily flux.




“Although, I’m still not sure why the book is called Gogo Monster.”






4.0 out of 5 starsFantastic Book
ByChristopher Luceroon January 27, 2013
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
All-in-all the book is just an amazing read and a must for everyone. My only problem is that when it came in the mail, the very top part of the slip cover was wrinkled because the shipping. Its kinda annoying but still, the book is something to own rather than just read online.






(B) Gone is any trace of the punkish action comics posture of Tekkonkinkreet. Why is that a virtue? Because GoGo Monster functions as a stealthy follow-up project; there's no doubt in my mind as to why Viz selected it to follow that long-brewing success, since it's functionally a loose remake, at one point even replicating a plot twist. The trick is, the work formerly known as Black and White concluded with its heroes extricating themselves from the heroic narrative as a means of growing up. Thus, GoGo Monster rips the explicit fantasy out and presents another two boys in a similar story that's nonetheless entirely different, more delicate, daydreamier. Better.




Mabomanji rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: bd-comics, friend-s-recommendation
J'adore le style de Taiyo Matsumoto, il dessine avec beaucoup de détails mais surtout avec beaucoup de dynamisme en choisissant des points de vue inhabituels. Il y a une qualité cinématographique à son dessin et à son travail de découpage des planches et d'enchaînement de l'histoire, un vrai travail de montage. Je me suis retrouvée embarquée dans cette folle poursuite à travers le monde entier et j'en ai oublié où j'étais. Le monde futuriste brossé est fascinant et on apprend à chaque chapitre un peu plus sur ce qui s'y passe. Politiquement c'est intéressant avec cette organisation pour le maintien pour la paix qui voit ses jours comptés car elle arrive au bout de sa mission. Reste de le mystère de cette femme libérée par Number 5, elle semble être innocente et pourtant elle a un pouvoir magnétique et semble attirer toute la nature à elle. Un tome passionnant dont j'espère la suite au même niveau.






5.0 out of 5 starsDevoted Comics Fans Should Not Pass This One By
ByGraphicNovelReporter.comon December 8, 2009
Format: Hardcover
Yuki Tachibana is an outcast at Asahi Elementary School. He sits alone, drawing on his desk and occasionally shouting out weird exclamations. If he talks to the other children, it is only to warn them about the "others," beings kept in check only by the power of Super Star, the boss of the other side. Yuki's only friend is the school's caretaker, Ganz, though he sometimes talks to IQ, an older student who is academically gifted but interacts with people only through the box he wears over his head. When Makoto Suzuki's school is shut down for mysterious reasons, he is sent to Asahi Elementary and placed in the desk next to Yuki. Despite the other students' warnings about Yuki's strange behavior, Makoto befriends the boy and soon finds himself wondering how much of Yuki's tales are true.

Matsumoto, manga-ka of Tekkonkinkreet, offers a tale that is part fantasy, part horror, and part mind-trip. On the one hand, it can be read as an exploration into the thought process of a child with autism or a similar disorder, a child who does not see or react to the world the way the rest of humanity does. But on the other hand, Yuki Tachibana might be right and Super Star may be the only thing keeping the beings of the other side from riling the children of Asahi Elementary School to rebel against their teachers, do poorly in class, and be mean to one another. However, it may be that GoGo Monster is neither of those things, or both at the same time.

Matsumoto doesn't offer an easy read. His plot twists and turns. The dialogue is spare and often consists just of overheard comments that are not necessarily relevant. The characters are mostly inscrutable. And frankly, that is much of the fun of reading GoGo Monster. It is a story to dive into, allowing it to wash over you, and then, later, after it has swirled around in your brain for a time, to dive into again.

The art is as off-kilter as the plot, keeping you searching the panels for hidden details and meanings that may or may not be there, not allowing you to turn the page immediately. Matsumoto's style is rough, purposefully sloppy. Some characters are realistically portrayed, while others have a messy, cartoonish quality. The drawings within the panels do not always correspond with the dialogue going on at the same time, forcing readers to look deeper for the connection and the meaning. As Yuki is drawn further into the world he sees, the images are terrifyingly subtle. The monsters are never obvious, which heightens the sense of a young boy caught by unimaginable and unseen forces. There is also a lot of beauty in the United States edition of GoGo Monster because of VIZ's high-quality printing job. The book is hardcover, with the story starting right on the endpages of the front cover. Bright, colorful monsters cover the outside of the book, even overlapping onto the edges of the pages, which are tipped in red and burgundy. A slipcase completes the package.

Readers looking for an artistic read, one that requires that the brain be fully engaged, will find much to appreciate here, as long as they don't mind taking their time. Other than the typical comments on poop and sex that fourth-grade boys make, there is little to keep this out of the hands of readers old enough to appreciate the strange story. It's not for every reader, but devoted comics fans should not pass this one by.

-- Snow Wildsmith






“Did you know that Matsumoto made this manga entirely on his own (no assistants) and did it in one shot. So it never ran in a magazine, he just sat down for a long while and cranked out 448 pages of genius. Seriously who does that?!”





"Tekkonkinkreet melted my mind.”





Charlie rated it did not like it
Shelves: graphic-novels, young-adult, japanese
I read this because it was by the same person who made Sunny, and because I couldn't find Sunny: Volume 2 online. This one wasn't very good. Mostly it's just left me feeling gross. I don't even really know why.





“Creating manga is kind of like you’re a child who’s stolen some money, and when asked about it you lie and say you found it on the ground, but then the grown-ups keep asking more and more questions, and you have to keep making up more and more lies and make it more real. Like, I’ve already gone and said that I’d make this series, so now I have to follow through on that original lie to the end and make it look like something real. People who are good at making manga are really good liars, I think.”

Taiyo Matsumoto, in a 1997 interview.





“When people turn into grown-ups, their insides melt into a mushy glop and their brains get hard and stiff,” he tells Makoto. “They get infested with maggots and a purple stink.”





(C) But you don't need to know that part. GoGo Monster is also a lovely self-contained unit, an original hardcover graphic novel, even in Japan, where such things are pretty rare. Every bit of the format is exploited, with a cardboard slipcase giving way to a wraparound cover that doubles as the work's first page, although the 'first' page is actually page "-8," which leads into page -7 on the inside-front cover, then -6 through -1 on tinted pages, followed by several pages of black to indicate a narrative break of two years, and then full-color titles on page 0, thereafter counting to over 450 in crisp b&w. You bet your ass the solid black inside-back cover is significant - it's another break in time, one we can't see past.





“Unnormal gut.”





Yanakano_san rated it it was ok
Dirty hopelessness, absolute inanition, students with their clapping game of bloody happiness - young people who were too old and apathetic since the very, very first moment of life.
Matsumoto may call them "the heroes of my youth" - I call them "the lost generation".
Because something (strangely sounds like "oh shit!") happens, always did and always will, and let it happen - who cares anyway? Who? Is there any point? Has there ever been?
They know the right answer (which is "no, never").
They are able to kill for nothing, to die for a far, ghostly goal and to live without feeling alive in the mess of blood, flesh and madness of Japan; their spring is blue, and their summer will come only to make them all finally fade.






(D) The main action of the book takes place over five chapters: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring. This is a cycle, though, not a schematic. If anything, GoGo Monster is reminiscent in tone (not style) of John Porcellino at his sensation-of-moments airiest, with seemingly half the pages in the book devoted specifically to evocation: word balloons floating idle chatter in the air, familiar characters' faces gazing out, words repeating, images repeating, airplanes, rabbits, scribbles on a desk, not so far from the scribbles that are the children.






5.0 out of 5 stars A uniquely brilliant manga.
By hi on 11 May 2010
Format: Paperback
Taiyo Matsumoto is not your average manga artist. Blue Spring, one of his earlier works, is a collection of short stories about adolescents in the transition between youth and manhood. They refuse to conform to what they see as a bleak present and an even bleaker future, as if confused and angered by it all, with Matsumoto showing their detachment through their daily escapades with the yakuza, society and themselves. It is unflinching in depicting the harshness of their realities with the stories ranging from a deadly rooftop game to a group of young baseball players reminiscing over a game of mahjong with 'Revolver' being my favourite and most complete of the stories.

It struck a chord with me because the anxieties they felt were very human while their brash actions and sometimes extreme violence depicted how we would act if we rebelled against our inhibitions. The characters all had recognisable qualities in them but at times felt quite disturbing, especially in 'What do you want do be when you grow up, Yukio?' The content is quite explicit throughout underpinning the nihilistic lives that these youths lead with the raw art style reflecting this.

I didn't expect to like Blue Spring as much as I did but definitely feel lucky to have found it. It doesn't try to act as a social commentary, it simply acts as a depiction, with the author himself putting it best when describing youth as a blue time:

"Blue - that indistinct blue that paints the town moments before the sun rises. Winter is coming."






(E) Dotting this mental-temporal landscape are startling scenes and images, ranging from a multi-page depiction of a boy swimming in front of an adult -- every page-topping wide panel set outside the pool exactly the same while below are jagged, tense variations of working through water with a cramp -- to one of the indelible character designs of 2009(/2000) in the form of the story's semi-antagonist I.Q., an older boy wearing a silly assortment of boxes over his head, always with a single hole cut out to reveal a spectacularly eerie photorealistic cross-hatched eye, always the most detailed bit of anatomy on any given page. Cross-hatching serves as the looming presence of adulthood throughout the book, finally erupting in a classic I-am-a-master-cartoonist-and-I-can-do-ANYTHING-I-WANT visual blowout climax in which all panels become filled with infinitesimally minute cross-hatches and stippling so that the reader is forced to stare deeply into every panel, slowly navigating as if literally in a dark room, just barely making out faces or legs or terrible animal shapes, and it's actually scary.






By L. Martin on August 3, 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This is a very strange manga. It is BEAUTIFULLY set up (pretty covers and slipcase, unusually high quality paper) which suggests to me that someone thought it was somthing extraordinarily fine. And yes it a fine manga—of a particular type. It is a story of an boy who is an outcast at school and lives in his imagination instead. This is a deeply meaningful subject for me because I was such a boy, and the first half or more of the book does a great job of showing how that feels, and what a great thing it is for a boy like that when he makes a friend. However, not much beyond that ever happens! No matter how symapthetic one is to the MC, I think any reader would like some events, developments, changes etc., and particularly a nice ending. I was waiting for some of any of those things, perhaps building interestingly upon the boy's being able to further develop his new friendship with a second boy in the school, this one also being a semi-outcast like him, but instead all I got was an incomprehensible ending. I was disappointed.

The first half or two thirds of this manga tells such a moving story of the child outcast life that I can recommend it for that. Be prepared to deal with a mysterious ending, and perhaps you'll love it as others here have.





(F) All of this seems absolutely effortless, from the most worked-over panels to the (far more plentiful) pages of perfect, energetic doodling. I have no problem believing that Matsumoto may not have known what would be two pages ahead of him at any given time, though I doubt that's true, it's too complete a work. The book is best read in one sitting; it's a breeze of a comic, sincerely refreshing. So great is its artist's expressive power that even the book's chilly, ill-fitting English typeface seems outright alien, as if drawing attention to the futility of translation. Aesthetes may still object, and they wouldn't be wrong.





__________________

Writing

https://letsfallasleep.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/taiyo-matsumoto-and-michael-arias-influences/

http://marvelous-coma.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/no5-vol2.html

http://www.cartoonstudies.org/schulz/blog/matsumoto-taiyo-a-comic-essay/

http://sites.gsu.edu/awalsh6/portfolio/critical-reflective-statement/


Podcast with great links below

http://www.factualopinion.com/the_factual_opinion/2013/06/taiyo-matsumoto-and-his-comics.html


All numbered and lettered points pertaining to Gogo Monster are written by Joe McCulloch and can be found in their original form by scrolling down at this link -

http://joglikescomics.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/most-equivocal.html











*

p.s. Hey. Today the mighty musical and other artist plus d.l. Jamie McMorrow is back in control of this stretchy white space, and he wants to take this 24 hour -> ∞ opportunity to emphasize the amazing work of Taiyo Matsumoto, and you, kind folks, are the beneficiaries, so please use your gift time luxuriously and speak to Jamie about your experiences. Thank you. And thank you supremely, Jamie! ** Jonathan Bryant, Hi, Jonathan! Whoa, good to see you, pal! Oh, cool, re: Coburn, me too, obviously. Thanks! How's stuff with you? What's going on? ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Yeah, well, you can do it yourself if you can build all the sets and get your friends to star and stuff, and some great films have been made that way, but, yeah, we need a little more than that this for this particular film. I think it'll be okay, knock on wood. Yes, those three River scenes you mentioned were exactly my favorites too! Oh, wow, your tattoo is indeed really awesome! And the photos are beautiful. I'll share, okay? Everyone, artist and d.l. Dora Grőber gave herself a tattoo, and it's relative to Richey Edwards, and it's very cool, as are the photos of the thing and the creating of the thing, so you should go have a look. Did you get extended friend time? What else happened? I did work, as usual, duh, and also this writer I really like, Lily Hoang, whose new book 'A Bestiary' was in my most recent 4 books loved post, is visiting Paris, and I'd never met her, so we hung out, and I went to see her do a reading last night, and which was great, and so is she. And I saw some other pals, and it rained and rained and rained. That's my weekend's story. ** Jamie McMorrow, Salutations from wherever the stuff that constitutes me is generated! Thank you, thank you for this great post. Another artist I didn't know before, and now I'm hooked. I hope you enjoy the day here. Weekend good? Make music, see movies, sip the dark brew? There's a mouse in my apartment too. I have my door open a crack hoping that he or she will get bored and decide to enlarge his or her world. Yeah, the planning stuff for the book that ends up being graphed out, I keep. The earlier ones are in NYU library and the rest are in folders here or in LA waiting to go to NYU. Ooh, I like that story story plan? Are you going to write it? You know music is a big generator for my writing, so I totally get that. Nice. Today I might see the visiting writer I mentioned to Dora, and I have a lot of blog post-making work I need to do, and tonight there's the opening night of this tiny film festival taking place in someone's apartment -- they're showing 'LCTG' on Thursday -- and Zac and I going to that to see what it is. Should be interesting. And you? Big love, me. ** New Juche, Hey! Yes, thank you for the emails! I'm going to set up the post today and launch it in a couple days, I think. Just like a sampling of the book and a link to where to get it, I think. The channel that's considering the series at the moment is ARTE, which is this kind of often very good co-German/French arts/cultural channel. At the moment the series is in English, and we're hoping that we can do it in English both because it's written that way and because our main star doesn't speak French. But we don't know what they'll require if they're interested. It would be hard to give a specific example of the structure experiment/ planning because it's usually a combination of graphs and notes and all kind of other stuff, and they're kind of coded/shorthand just for me, and I think that, outside of my own head, they wouldn't make much sense. Maybe I'll go try to find some of the stuff I used for 'The Marbled Swarm' if I can find it and share it at some point if I do. Thank you for asking! I hope your weekend was really great! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. I'm with you. I love his hip comedy stuff the best, like 'TPA', 'TLO', the 'Flint' films, etc. Peckinpah got great stuff out of him too. And I think he really is spectacular in his Academy Award-rewarded part in Schrader's 'Affliction'. Stevie Smith! ** Steevee, Hi. I remember 'Cross of Iron' as being pretty sober for Peckinpah, but I haven't seen it since its original release. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Well, gee, that's something of a mixed blessing without very much blessing in it. Shit, man. What is the surgery? Is it very invasive? Can they do it with, like, lasers or something? Man, I'm sure fingers crossed are probably an overreaction, but you've got mine. Let me know how it goes, obviously. Lots of love, Dennis. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I think you would like or find interest in Coburn's hip '60s stuff, especially 'The President's Analyst', if you get the chance. 'Candy' is on youtube if you can bear watching films that way. Cogent contribution. Yeah, that's hell of a big seeming mess, that whole Brexit thing. ** Bill, Hi, B. Oh, thanks. I haven't read 'Father of Lies'. Hm. Good idea. Did the weekend manage to soothe your soul or any stretch of it? ** Bernard Welt, Hi, B. Oh, yeah, I decided not to put 'The Last of Sheila' in there, but I can't remember why. Maybe he wasn't in any clips? I haven't thought about that film in ages. Right, Sondheim, so curious. I haven't thought about Dyan Cannon in a million years either. Huh. I wonder if a DC post would be fun. ** h, Hi. My pleasure, of course. New Narrative is kind of a funny term. I mean every narrative is new. You probably know there are kind of two schools of thought about what constitutes New Narrative. There's one that a tight definition where NN writers are only ones who studied with Robert Gluck in San Francisco. And then there's a broader, more inclusive one, which I think Kevin and Dodie are using in the anthology, where NN would include writers further afield like me, Kathy Acker, Lynne Tillman, and others. My weekend was pretty nice, too rainy, but that's Paris. Still, give me constant rain over a hot, moist sky, ugh. Your weekend sounds really, really nice. I just saw a new documentary film about Elizabeth Bishop by Barbara Hammer. It was a mixed blessing, but JA was great and funny in it. ** Okay. Be with Jamie and Taiyo please until further notice. Thanks a bunch. See you tomorrow.

Meet Tommy, Obedient&Adorbs, tragicfag, ScreamX and DC's other select international male slaves for the month of May 2016

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TheUnknownSource, 22
Imagine, never lifting a finger.

I'm looking to be a domestic servant for a dom guy. I'll cook you breakfast, clean your bathroom, wash your clothes, iron your shirts, massages. Anything.

Doesn't have to involve sex but I'd be pretty dejected if it didn't.





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kissmehard, 19
Sup men,

I'm in a wheelchair since I was a kid. Got into some kinky shit.

Love it when guys deprive me of my chair and make me do what they want.

I'm only available weekends until I find somewhere to stay maybe with you.

Love a guy with big white teeth.

I'm a fucking freak.






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goldenpalamino, 19
SCENARIO - poppered up deep wet kissing followed by nip & pit work leading to getting the cum fucked out of me before you coat my guts in your heavy load which you then felch out so we can snowball 'till it's all been eaten.
(repeat)

TURN-ONS - Germans, Scots

TURN-OFFS - shaved chests, lads with B/Fs, TOO many tatts ...

I'd like to stay away from HEP C.






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lookingtohang, 19
Um well I'm a 19 year old virgin and both of my holes are all yours (; as for the suit well I'm a furry but you probably guessed that so if youre not into fucking a furry or a boy wearing a furry suit sorry hun you're looking at the wrong profile. Just started doing this its a crazy idea.. ANYWAYS yes Ill always do it with the suit on but I promise I know how to please. I play volleyball so I have a nice butt.






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Blondsugar, 20
Choke me, slap me, piss on me, face fuck me until I can't breathe, ignore my safe word, and if you're feeling generous, give me a black eye for the whole world to see.

Or if you want to update my body, such as making me build muscle or adding piercings to my body or starving me into a boy skeleton, then your more than welcome.

Also, you can do what you want with me what ever race or age e.c.t; what ever you desire no matter what it is as long as you TOUCH - ME!!!!!!

🐕🐕





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SecretYoungLatino, 18
If you're below 50 and black cock I know I am unworthy of even licking your spit off the floor, but I would do anything to be allowed to be in Your presence.

I have good sex party music with Bose speaker, I play videogames, music, eating eis cream, I play sometimes basketball, but I like more black cock.

Expect as the pic.. you take it out for me to do harden with my thoat, you scew my ass and shoot inside, you return your penis to my mouth to clean then you go and everything is background.

PLEASE USE MY TELEPHONE NUMBER





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cumdumpTEEN, 19
I am going to try this one more time. My name is Princess Vanity and I am a female dominant. I wish to give away my stupid, straight, piece-of-shit teen slave named cumdumpTEEN to a gay, masculine, super-alpha-dog sadist for no-limits, brutal, 24/7/365 slavery later in 2016. he is relocatable anywhere including overseas. In the meantime, I want him cruelly broken by as many men as possible for my sadistic pleasure until he finishes paying off my house.

For locals:

cumdumpTEEN will be made available to any interested men for use and abuse once i have approved you. You can test him out as many times as you like. Let me know if you are interested in acquiring cumdump permanently. I want to be rid of him by the end of the year.

For longer distances:

With enough warning, cumdumpTEEN can be sent to you for a trial visit. After a first visit, we can discuss ownership. Multiple visits are acceptable. His passport is current. I do have interest in cumdump having an owner overseas -- especially to the Middle East although all continents would be considered.

Limits:

Until owned, cumdumpTEEN can be wrecked extensively but he MUST stay cute (desirable) and alive. Once owned by you, cumdumpTEEN will have no limits as he is with me. The torture can be as extreme as you wish. You MUST be experienced if you are attempting any extreme activities and I WILL quiz you. CumdumpTEEN has very little experience with men. In fact, he has been very critical of LGBT (and downright nasty about it from time to time) if that helps to inspire your more sadistic side.

Suggested uses now (pre-ownership):

Open handed/possibly closed fist (ask me) beating of the face, bondage, caging, sensory deprivation, corporal punishment, gags, hoods, clamps, hot wax, CBT, NT, scratching or superficial cutting of the ass or genitals or breasts or nipples, needle play, testicle skewering, etc. Bruises, temporary marks, welts, broken teeth and possibly nose (ask me) and skin are not issues on the body or face because he works from home.






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Pain4me, 23
Downloaded this app to see if I am the only kinky boy in the area. I'm a really weird son of a bitch. This kid is pretty wild. I dont do human relationships, never have. Enjoy the Tom Ropes McGurk Film "Open Your Mouth".





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Tommy, 20
Looking for a long term master. Ideally we would appear as a normal mismatched intergenerational couple to friends and family but behind your doors you would rape and beat and torture me.

I understand that my profile isn't the greatest, but gimme a chance?






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yours2keep, 22
Hello my name is patrick. For years I served a MASTER couple as their 24-7 houseboy since very young and recently they let me go because life happens.

I'm able to relocate anywhere in the world, distance wont be a problem to me. No family to bother about me, so there won't be any conditions in that way.

I'm an energetic and life-confused college student and i can do a online program if Master requires me to keep learning normal things.

I'm also an insanely sexual being, always ready to have my hole plowed inches beyond deep and my boy box drenched with sticky ecstasy.

My only limit that I can think of, and I've given it a lot of thought as well as learning through experience, is female children.







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Obedient&Adorbs, 20
Yay me.

Need an ass? Grab it.

Fuck me like a animal and you'll never be sad.

In the end, it's not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away.

I will. No offense.

Comments

ZooToni - 14.May.2016
Can confirm just as advertised the fuck was breathtaking. Also haven't felt sad in the four days since.






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Tickleseeker,18
Looking for someone to tickle my neighbor. He's evil and deserves it.





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GreenCardSlave, 19
i am a rich (inheritance, dead parents) slave cosplay/goth boy seeking a Master from europe, canada, or australia Who wants to move to the u.s. and get a green card or citizenship. (Masters inside the u.s. looking to relocate are welcome also.) i am willing to pay relocation expenses and support You while You live here, and give You a written contract to provide food, housing, living expenses, and allowance. contact me for details if You are interested. this is not a trick or a scam and I'm willing to explain it.

i am skinny, weird, gloomy, depressed, and think i am ugly. i am a 2,000,000% bottom that wants to be choked, beaten and used brutally. you could starve me into an even skinnier, uglier, weaker state. sexual use is not required as long as You are a dominant Master interested in total power exchange. how You use me is up to You but i will say this one time, promise, that You can fuck and whatever else me anytime. if You do want to use me sexually, i would not expect You to use an ugly boy like me exclusively although i am prepared to serve You exclusively.







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twink4oldguys, 20
Okay so I'm actually really new to this all. I kinda got into this stuff because of tumblr. I haven't done really anything crazy. But I am into this stuff. I'm always horny and Jack off five times a day on average. I think I'm pretty extreme.







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Nobetter, 22
I am interested in male feet. I have always wondered why feet can look so attractive on guys after seeing how one of my best friends became attracted to mine. I will be careful whose feet I involve myself with because I feel like these kind of things should be practiced with precaution.





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Tiedpermanently, 24
Here goes - I am A guy who seeks a life of constant bondage for the rest of my life. I am a young male, British, who wants to be kept permenantly tied up and gagged 24/7/365 for the rest of my life, I am genuinely serious about this.

I used to be really passionate about philosophy, psychology and (visual arts). I used to like women, been married three times, have 13 kids out there somewhere. I used to be interested in humans, no matter who they were or where they came from, but something changed.

The gag only removed to feed me, my bonds adjusted so I am in different positions to prevent me getting cramps or long term medical conditions. I also ask to be kept in a uniform of either suit and tie, or shirt and denim. Not naked.

You would keep me clean and take care of my basic needs, ensuring I have a toilet and I am washed and changed once every few days. I am willing to move overseas, please do not think I am being insincere about this.

Comments

Tiedpermanently - 06.May.2016
I don't know, man. How should I know? What a strange fucking question.

Rodinho - 05.May.2016
so what would i get out of it?






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littlefaggot, 22
things i've written in messages to people - i might as well put them here to save me time...

i've had a ton of sex with lots of men but i'm really new to being online and i've got no experience of being online so i don't know what to expect really or how it works.

i was raised in england but i'm in nyc. in real life i just like being a little faggot boy sucking cocks and embarrassment and hypnosis and sex. the men that i meet up with for real are all friendly. i don't like nasty or mean people.

i like when they call me a little boy. a lot of the men that i see make me call them daddy but i don't really have any experience yet of actually feeling like or being a little boy in any way.

apparently i have strep throat and can't suck cocks for three weeks but that just makes me want to even more so i don't know.







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tragicfag, 18
I am now a financial sub to masterBRONK96 as of today, april 21st of 2016. He is in charge of my money now and i will work hard to supply him with the funds he needs. Since I only work at McDonalds i'm looking for other cash subs to help fund him in his everyday. masterBRONK96 is the best thing that has happened to this cheap little whore in my whole life.






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slavejonas, 18
use it up

100% Degradee
99% Masochist
99% Slave
99% Rope Bunny
99% Submissive
98% Exhibitionist
95% Experimentalist
93% Pet
89% Brat
83% Girl/Boy
80% Primal (Prey)
75% Non-monogamist
57% Voyeur
57% Ageplayer
4% Sadist
2% Degrader
2% Daddy/Mommy
1% Rigger
1% Switch
1% Owner
1% Brat Tamer
0% Primal (Hunter)
0% Master/Mistress
0% Dominant
0% Vanilla

Comments

curtis58 - 14.May.2016
not4 me 2 say.if takin a picure of its body in the other room 2show u wuddnt put me in prism, i think u'd say its used up.






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2, 19
Slavery couple BOY and TRANSEXUAL or only the BOY!
You want to own a spanish TRANSEXUAL 100% feminine and with a young Finnish BOY ?
You can choose : must own both but have sex just with the BOY or sex with BOTH.
I (TRANSEXUAL) am top, sorry, but the BOY is bottom !
i speak only English, the BOY he speak only Finnish.
I very very pleased and shy person, the BOY very hyperact and loud.
with me sex is easy, with BOY is not easy so you must be very rough !






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ScreamX, 21
I am trying as an extremely lonely mentally-handicapped young individual who has received way too much mental-handicap discrimination abuse to make new friends with silly and goofy masters to make new friends with as well as new people to fuck with as I am an extremely uptight person who needs to lighten up as I need silly and goofy masters to rub their sense of humor off on me and I am also looking for new people to fuck with.






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the-boy-you-want, 19
READ SLOWLY CAUSE I AM WRITING PROFILE SLOWLY

Guess I'm here because I'm tired of people asking me 'Are you okay?' all the time during sex..

With anal I am very persistent.

Always broken hearted.

Marry me if you want.

I have a bad things before hahhahahha so..

But I bring them to the most attractive places on a body that they enjoy so much.







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needcontrol, 21
been a wild party boy slut since 14 can't stop n i'm losing it ODed twice this year 2nd time i died n was brought back can't stop drugs can't stop getting sleazy n fucked by any man who wants it enuff i tried hard to change tried rehab 4 times psychiatry nothing worked now i try slavery want to be locked up by 1 man master he should be moneyed horny sleazy full of sperm all the time i won't be satisfied if man can't afford my drugs [see list] n fuck me min. 2 time a day and 1 at night but that'll work

my drugs- meth coke pot percocet MDMA heroin & open to adds






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Mothprince, 19
Hot crow looking for goth on goth action
Sadomasochist sub goth, likes getting bitten, scratched and choked
Chems to get rid of humanity
Goth4goth







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justifymylove, 21
First of all, i'm not an American! I've only come to this Country a few years ago and it has been somewhat challenging in terms of finding the right guy. I guess its just the way and manners i find affiars and relationships around this Country. I'm kinda finding it extemely hard to get a long with it. Most guys just want to get you to bed and have their ways without the appropriate manners to doing so. Its odd! But hey, i better says a little about me here for those who cares to know more.. I'm very attractive with a very attractive personality. i'm not sure if this is a right place for me, but i'm doing this because i'm coming out of my closet, looking for something a little unique. If I choose you, you will be my all-in-all.. My priority and someone i cherish for as long as i live. I'm raised to believe in an old fashioned way, so i've got a lot of respect for people, especially the man i love. Pigs to the front.

Comments

Anonymous - 25.Apr.2016
You looks grate fuck you so hard your face will pop like a balloon!





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HighHopes, 18
Hello am the Fabian, probably sane,
living in Oberhausen, 18 years old, and from financial problems.
I offer my ass for the price of 500 Euro for defloration for one night. Has never fucked but I have long realized that I want to be fucked.
You should be older than 24 and 170-190 cm tall. Although the weight is secondary, if you ask me to my taste, I prefer men who weigh between 65 and 85 kilos
Get in touch with horny description of what you will do. Then I selected one of the prospects for the night out.
You can fuck me in the night as many times as you want. Of course, bareback and my ass spanked or whipped is ok but my No Gos are kissing and shit.
I like SO MUCH that someone would want to eat my shit but the smell will sick me. :(
I have bipolar disorder. Be nice, I'm sensitive.







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MATHEMAGICIAN, 18
IF YOU ARE CHEAP NOTHING CAN CHANGE YOU!!!!!
MR:MASTER IF U DONT WANT A ALWAYS HORNY NYMPHO CHEAP SLUT CUTIE HUNK BETTER DONT TAKE ME
DONT LOST UR TIME
NO INTERFERENCE IN PERSONAL LIFE! FUCK AND FORGET! LIFE IS EASY!
THE TIME IS SEXSEXSEX!!! THE EASY LAY SLUT IS FUN !! THE FUN IS LIFE
IF YOU DONT HAVE FUN YOU ARE ...... SORRY FOR YOU!'







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food4thought, 21
Never been with a guy before but I'm not nervous or anything and I think I know how to satisfy men in bed so no problems there.






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Akop, 20
This profile is aimed at anyone in Moscow who speaks English who wants to use a cute Russian boy's little body to expand their consciousness and take a break from everyday romantic life.

I am the only cute young fist slave you will find. I know I look and am very small stature and slight, but my asshole has been best friend with fists and other large penetrations for years. True connoisseurs of boy beauty will be very pleasantly surprised to see your fist deep inside me.

About me, I'm Akop, 20 years. I'm shy, nervous and awkward, if you're looking for a porn actor go away. I am "a slut", and I will let you do almost everything with my ass :-), but I guarantee :-( I'll be at least partly stressed and tense while you do it.

However, a few important rules:
1: No Bareback, all of my ass fluids you can taste, however!
2: We shall meet before and after fisting at eye level, but during the fisting you're in control.
3: The first fisting will take place as a rule in a bed!

If you agree with the rules, you can proceed read more ;-).

*New* because of so many offers by Masters, I am now deciding who gets me based on how much you want to fist (deep and wide). This allows me to get a hotter lay.

I'm travelling from Moscow to St Petersburg on 6th May by AC sleeper bus, anyone wanna join me?







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lovewhite, 23
No limits what so ever . looking for a honest sick sadist person, not a Big Liar that says he wants me so bad but never give any proof to show how much you mean it. Love being raped/gangbanged/tortured/almost sn*ffed while chloroformed. Hate waking up after in pain and recovering for days/weeks alone with nobody. (Dont be Liar Asshole that says he wants me bad but just does his shit to me then leaves me fucked up so bad and alone) I just been made redundant no family friends home so nothing holding you or me back ..








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GayBye, 21
Looking for some older motherfucker who can take charge and own this ass! 😘
(not long term 24/7 right now just experimenting while I'm young)

I like very menly men. Muscular/Giant 💪🏼, huge size dick🍆, body hair for me is a turn on but with out I might tolerate.

I like to be extremely man handled and thrown around a room, against walls, break furniture, through windows until I'm too hurt and exhausted to move or think 😅, getting fucked as violent as possible ✊🏼, and VERY interested in being chained and brutalized bad⛓.

I've never had it done before but the idea of being massively fucked and fisted nonstop for days by a group 👬👬😉 and not being left unfucked for even a second is a huge turn on!

The other boy in the foto is not available, quit asking, we hate each other now, I don't know where he is 😏

Whatcha got for me? 😜







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skinnydood, 19
I'm in Texas. Owned by 2ndMaster. My body and sex and life and death. 2ndMaster says I am great :) but he wants a 2nd slave :/. Master say new slave should be my type (I'm his type), teen and look like me. 2ndMaster can be contacted on his profile on here. He also has a new website. Before you say no, this sounds gross.. When I enquired to him 3 months ago I was a curious straight guy just wanting to know more for a laugh and have been turned into a gay sex slave. Best thing I have ever done so don't be afraid.






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boy2castrate&muchmore, 24
This boy to be castrated, used any way, serve as a limit none slave prostitute, destroyed, a live-in, no-way-out, no-escape 24/7/365

Comments

deepfcuk - 15.May.2016
I want you, you beautiful cock-hardening piece of boy shit, and I want what you say you want so badly I can hardly think right now. I just to make some things clear. I want you for sex, whoring you and extreme abuse ultimately fatal. I'm not looking for an emotional relationship. I just got out of a 3 year relationship with a slave boy and any relationship I seem to get myself into in only pain in the end. Our relationship didn't mean to the slave what it meant to me. I'm sure you're a wonderful boy inside but all I have experienced is deception and distrust with any boy I have owned. I'm not sure I want to experience that pain of feeling like a boy is trying to rip my heart out of my chest ever again. If anyone's heart gets ripped out of anyone's chest it'll be yours and I will use a knife to do it. So please let's just keep it at a sexual abuse and snuff level, so that we don't destroy something beautiful ok? So when I message you and offer ownership, believe when I say, I'm not trying to hit on you or be your boyfriend. Because I'm not even looking for that road, let alone trying to go down it. It's because I want to castrate you, rape and torture you, whore you out and kill you and if you are genuine and true and have a great personality that's just too fucking bad and you won't for long. I want any conversations to consist of your screams of lust and agony and my yelling. No fucking love. Why would I go out of my way for something that is here today and gone tomorrow? Your looks are temporary and once you get beyond them, if there is nothing there, there will always be nothing there.






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sexaddict4you, 20
I present myself, and do the same please we are not animals (except in certain circumstances if you know what I mean).
I freshly finished high school, and I am now in college of Art and Design after having finished my year of preparatory class for entrance to college. As I've got advance in my student cursus I could take time for me, but I prefer to take time for you.
I am yours... Beyoncé said it, I do it!
Begin your message with the word "Wasabi" and it will be have already a victory for you, you'll won all my weakness.
You can be soft if you ask to me, but if you do not ask me for it I'll expect you to be hard in my ass until you supply yourself to stop.
I shall risk to shout so hardly that you shall eventually gag me.
If you want to take me to Rome, Bali or just for a ride my suitcase is ready!
You should know I use a wheelchair. Added it to avoid awkward conversation.





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green, 18
I'm looking for someone that raped me on Saturday and I'm going through all the hookup sites





___________

BlueOrchid, 20
20, mixed, shaved, medium ht/wt, untraceable
date june 3rd week
duration 24-48hrs
location if you don't know its not for you
capacity 8
admission E12000
this one is 100% all the way (death)

Comments

BlueOrchid - 23.May.2016
yeh

herr97 - 23.May.2016
looks like he pissed his pants.

BlueOrchid - 20.May.2016
yeh

Tom121S - 20.May.2016
dum-di-dumdum









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desperado, 19
I'm a straight slim, blond, hung teen with gf kinda secretly into asshole men just needing to earn some money just now.

Regarding two things:
_ I do not care
_ The concept of beginning underpins the beginning of the beginning, the beginning of time, therefore; actually having something outside of time, timeless, without beginning or end. The physicists know.

For banalities:
Mount me + 20
I have a deep gorge and can do it in position 69
My dream is to have my ass 2
Sex without condoms is better
I'll soon be VEGAN

Let me know what my reward would be.





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GIVED_EVERY_TIME, 22
HI HI IM ALONE, AND YOU?
I am alone and you if you have time come and fuck me HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
COOL I am very pig on PrEP EXCITING YESSSSS
If you want afuck body fuck me
I like a lot of Modes
COOL MIX
SEE MY ASS AND FUCK HAHAHA
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA KISS MISSS HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHA WHAT IS WHAT
AND WHAT






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p.s. Hey. ** New Juche, Hi, Joe. I'll be launching the post tomorrow. I hope you'll like it. Me too, very, about writing methods, and very especially those of writers who devise their own methods with as little attention to the standard way as possible. I mean, your work seems structured from some very unique and very thought-out and realized place, for sure. Look forward to talking with you more about all of this stuff. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Oh, you're more interested in acting than, say, directing a film? That's interesting, if so. Do you have friends there who make films whom you could collaborate with? What a nice night, yes, you had, and not hipster at all, not that I think I understand what hipster means anyway. It just like it's become the go-to word to criticize people who are young and into being stylish and having fun. But I don't know. No, it hasn't stopped raining except for maybe a minute or two since I wrote to you yesterday. I really like rain, but it's getting kind of very old. My day was okay, work catch0up, and then Zac and I went to the opening night of that film festival I think I mentioned (?) that this guy is holding in his living room. They showed Patric Chiha's new film 'Brothers of the Night' which I had already seen, and which is great. The event/scene was very in-groupish and a little weird, I'm not sure what I thought of it exactly. But it was good. Did Tuesday lead you anywhere interesting? ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Dyan Cannon was kind of really famous and half-everywhere in the '70s, I think, in my memory. I never fastened onto her, and she was one of those actors whose appeal I couldn't figure out, but who seemed beloved of smart or smartish people older than me, sort of like Charles Grodin, and I only really remember thinking she was at an age where she seemed neither like a young sexpot or a mom-type, and I remember her dyed blonde, perpetually messy looking hair, and that she was her mostly in witty 'adult' movies that were directed at the sophisticated but not intellectual contingent of a generation that wasn't mine, but I find it strange and always kind of melancholy when someone big like that just stops being talked about and part of the currency or whatever. ** h, Hi. Yes, 'Welcome to This House'. See what you think. I wasn't sure. The film is very determinedly trying to position her as a lesbian writer, which is, of course, fine, but its approach to that angle was kind of gossipy, and I wasn't so into that. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Oh, okay. That's intense enough. Gisele just had to have surgery around her stomach area, and I guess because that area gets used so much when moving around, she said it's been a much slower process to feel free and easy than she thought, although, that said, she's in Montreal doing 'The Ventriloquists Convention' right now three weeks after the surgery, so ... Anyway, be careful, and let me know how it went today, okay? You seemed good in NYC. That's promising. Love to you buddy. ** Jamie McMorrow, Heighty-ho, Jamie! Oh, man, thank you so much! It was a total and complete boon in every way! I told Dora about the festival thing. It was okay, a little weird, a bit like going to the birthday party of someone you don't know or something, but it was cool. I want to hear everything you care to spill about the Fairy Glen, hoping and assuming, that is, that you're not in Fairyland right now, although, if you are, it's cool that you can read my blog in Fairyland, actually. One more big, big thanks, and have the day of days, pal. Love, Dennis. ** Bernard Welt, Hi, B. Man, I hope it stops raining by the time you get here. We're having a fucking deluge at the moment. Quirky, right. Did I never see 'Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice'? That seems really weird, but I think I haven't. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. 'Worthwhile' might be a bit much to describe 'Candy', ha ha, but it's the kind of extremely period film that looks much, much better now than then. Congrats to you and to the powers that be about the invitation to discuss YnY and Art101! ** Steevee, Hi, Steve. Okay, you have managed to intrigue me about the Count Ossie album, so I'll let my ears tiptoe inside. Very glad you like the Klara Lewis. Me too, obviously. I think it's a big growth over her previous album. I just listened to some of the Africans with Mainframes album yesterday, and I thought it sounded really terrific too. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Oh, it's Memorial Day over there? Or I mean it was? Little Joe, yeah, kind of a really nice magazine. Worth checking out. I didn't know it still exists. I'll hunt the latest issue. Thank, pal. Have the best Tuesday! ** Right. Obviously, the last day of the month brings you the slaves and their plaintive requests. I hope they suit. See you tomorrow.

Spotlight on ... WASTELAND (2016), by New Juche

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WASTELAND is now available as a free PDF.

WASTELAND charts a prolonged friendship and love affair with an abandoned apartment complex in Southeast Asia called The Flowers, and the swampland surrounding it. For three years the author used this space on a daily basis to confront death and solitude, and engage with the physical and mental effects of chronic illness. Over this long period he wrote manuscripts for two books inside the location and developed a feverish sensorial attachment to The Flowers which eventually degenerated into the sort of sexual neurosis for which the complex had originally provided an antidote.

The book is composed of seven short sections of prose and documentary photographs previously posted on this site, culminating in two perverted essays with much more expressive and conclusive photography. WASTELAND is a free PDF release, 274 MB in size, and can be downloaded by first clicking on this link then clicking on the cover image shown above. To download a compressed version of only 26 MB, in which the image quality is compromised, click here.


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NEW JUCHE




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p.s. Hey. Today I'm very happy to turn the spotlight on the work of New Juche, an extraordinary Thailand-based writer and visual artist who recently joined the community here. 'WASTELAND', the new book of his that I'm presenting in sampling form here, is an amazing and complex and powerful work that the pieces I've chosen to show by way of introduction can only hint at, although hopefully to a degree that you will be inspired to download the book/pdf, which you can do for free via the link near the head of the post. I think his work and the book are quite brilliant, so I hope you'll take the post's piecemeal bait. In any case, I hope most of all that you'll take the time to share your immediate thoughts and reactions and any questions with New Juche today, both to give his work support and to welcome him into the fold. Thank you very much, and thank you, NJ, for allowing me to grace this place with your wizardry. ** New Juche, Hi. And there you are. Many thanks again to you 'in person'. Structure is super difficult, I agree with you, and for some reason that makes me want to throw my imagination into it. Interesting that your sense of structure builds as you work. I always seem to want a vehicle ready in which to start, and then I'm good with it transfiguring and shedding and growing aspects as I go along. Yeah, I can see that about 'Wasteland's' physical space being enough of a container in which to move and imagine. I find the book's structure really fascinating, and the elongations and truncations of its tempo and architecture, etc. Really great. And wonderful to get to talk about this. ** Thomas Moronic, Hey, T. Sublime kernels, you essence diviner. Really, your haikus are like a masterclass in essence. With a twist. With a twirl. Thank you, kind maestro. They will be my hunger's multipurpose ladder today. And, yeah, are you settling in with the new job? Are you able to write and other important things with enough room? Not sure if this will be relevant to you, but we just yesterday finally secured a showing of 'Like Cattle Towards Glow' in London in mid-late July! More details soon. Anyway, we're pretty happy about that. ** Jamie McMorrow, Morningness supreme to you, Jamie, sir. Okay, I think I'll have to google Fairy Glen and get some peeks. Weird, yeah, about the power of superstition even over the pragmatic. I'm pretty pragmatic myself, but I would probably be like her. One time a pal dared me to say Candyman' three times while looking into a mirror, and even though I know a horror film franchise catchphrase when I see one, I couldn't do it. I hope your trip back to Glasgow is a smoothie. I just worked yesterday, mostly on my soon/last literary gif book, and ducked into the constant rain when necessary. And finally, as I told Thomas, secured a showing of Zac's and my film in London, which is great because for a long didn't look like that was going to happen. So, all in all, not bad. Was your day strictly a travel day, or did you get some interesting surroundings in too? Love, me. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! That makes sense about the shyness and interest to act thing. My friends who are professional actors are quite shy people, so, even though I don't understand how or why they have that internal divide, I know that a certain kind of shyness masks a contrasting interest in using oneself to represent oneself in an altered way. Or something like that. You guys play the scenes? Wow, that's really interesting. It's a particular kind of great friendship that allow for mutual uninhibitedness, right? Huh. Very cool. Oh, I don't direct, Zac does. I don't have any talent in that area at all, I'm pretty sure. I played with being a filmmaker during my brief time back in college and took some filmmaking classes, but every little film I made was really clumsy. Oh well. Yeah, I knew what you meant about hipster. I was just spiraling off the word for some reason. It's supposed to stop raining today. We'll see. My day, as I told someone up above, was work-filled and rained-on, but it was good enough. What were Wednesday's highlights in your realm, if I might ask? ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Ha ha, I was going to say something, but Steevee beat me to it. Huh: Proust's love letters. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Yeah, I saw that poll thing yesterday too. Wtf?! It seems like a total no brainer to me. Another example of the corrupting nature of nationalism? Well, it just seems too weird and unlikely to me that you guys would vote to leave. But then ... Trump, right? What a world. ** H, Hi. I think Barbara Hammer is traveling around and showing it. She was on a European tour thing when I saw it. So maybe she'll do that in NYC, if she hasn't. I like that about Bishop's poetry too. Using that to speculate in a gossipy way, I'm not so sure. Feet boy was an oddball. I liked finding him. ** Steevee, Hi. As I said to Mr. E, you trumped whatever I would have quipped, and I respectfully step aside. ** Sypha, Three's not bad, right? Any guy who names himself MATHEMATICIAN has to be fairly cool, right? ** Okay. Please give yourselves over to 'WASTELAND' to the degree that you want and can today, thank you again! See you tomorrow.

The Legend of Zelda Day

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'When he was looking to create a new game for the Famicom Disk System — an add-on for the NES that never launched outside of Japan — designer Shigeru Miyamoto built a prototype in which two players could make their own dungeons, and then explore their friend’s creation. The exploration proved to be the most fun part, so Miyamoto and his team scrapped the creation tools and went ahead building a world of mountains and forests and lakes that players could traverse. They called it Hyrule. The game would eventually become The Legend of Zelda, a defining game for Miyamoto, Nintendo, and gaming in general.

'“We named the protagonist Link because he connects people together,” Miyamoto explains in the book Hyrule Historia. Since the original Legend of Zelda first launched 30 years ago today, Link has starred in many adventures, each one like a retelling of an ancient fable. The core ingredients are almost always the same — you have a hero named Link, a princess named Zelda, and a villain named Ganon. But other aspects are changed, resulting in a new twist on a familiar formula. Over the past three decades Link has explored oceans and dungeons, partnered with pirates and fairies, and battled countless octoroks and skulltulas.

'The game that started it all, the original Legend of Zelda on the NES introduced all of the key elements that are still in the series to date. Characters like Link, Zelda, and Ganon all appear (though Ganon doesn’t have a name just yet), as do the iconic Triforce and the land of Hyrule. Even the structure is largely the same: it may be a 2D game played from an overhead perspective, but it lays the foundation for the entire series.

'The sequel moves in a different direction. You still play as Link attempting to save Princess Zelda, but you do you so from a side-scrolling perspective. Whereas as Zelda games tend to focus on exploration, The Adventure of Link has a heavy emphasis on combat, and introduces RPG-like mechanics, letting Link earn experience to upgrade his abilities. He can even cast spells. It’s a formula that no other game in the series emulated, making The Adventure of Link the black sheep of the Zelda family.

'For the series’ debut on the SNES, Nintendo went back to the original formula. Much like its contemporaries Super Metroid and Super Mario World, A Link to the Past takes the familiar structure of a popular NES game and expands on it for new hardware. It also introduces a new concept that became a series trademark: parallel worlds. The game has Link traversing two different realms — one light, one dark — swapping back and forth in an attempt to defeat Ganon.

'The first portable game in the series is also the first to not take place in Hyrule. Link’s Awakening introduces a new island, called Koholint, that Link needs to escape. It plays a lot like the other top-down games in the series, but it’s missing two key ingredients: neither Zelda nor the Triforce make an appearance.

'The Zelda games Nintendo would prefer you'd forget, The Faces of Evil and The Wand of Gamelon were released simultaneously as the first games in the series for non-Nintendo hardware, launching on the CD-ROM powered Philips CD-i. That extra power is used to add animated cut-scenes, complete with voice acting for the typically silent Link. Unfortunately, the games themselves are awful — though licensed by Nintendo, they're developed by animation company Animation Magic — and serve as probably the biggest stumble for the series.

'Zelda’s 3D debut was an important moment for gaming. The early days of the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 were filled with awkward 3D experiences, as game designers were still coming to grips with the notion of navigating three-dimensional spaces. Ocarina of Time, on the other hand, is confident and ambitious. Its vast, open rendition of Hyrule is a joy to explore, and it introduces concepts that helped shape the way 3D games were made moving forward.

'Much like The Adventure of Link, Majora’s Mask is a direct sequel that differed from its predecessor quite a bit. Though it looks like Ocarina of Time, the sequel swaps the wide open fields of Hyrule for the parallel land of Termina, where Link must re-live the same three days over and over, Groundhog Day-style. Its smaller scope made it a disappointment to many looking for more of the same, but the game has since gone on to become a cult classic.

'Zelda games are often about interconnected worlds, and these Game Boy Color games took that idea to its logical conclusion. Though separate, and taking place in two different locations, Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages tell one interconnected story that you can only fully understand by playing both. When Nintendo ported A Link to the Past to the Game Boy Advance, it added a special bonus: Four Swords, a co-operative, multiplayer twist on the Zelda formula that was later expanded into the Gamecube game Four Swords Adventures in 2004.

'If nothing else, The Wind Waker will be remembered for its distinctive look. The Gamecube debut for the series looks and feels like a playable cartoon, with cel-shaded visuals that turn its watery rendition of Hyrule into a beautiful fantasy world. Many Zelda games are focused on scale, giving you a huge world to explore. But The Minish Cap goes in a different, much smaller direction. The GBA game partners Link with the titular cap, which turns the hero into a miniature version of himself, letting him explore a new, tiny world hidden in Hyrule.

'After the bright and colorful Wind Waker, Nintendo went in a much darker direction for Link’s next big adventure. Twilight Princess features a hero who could turn into a wolf, and a dark parallel world called the Twilight Realm. It's the first game in the series to launch on the Wii and utilize motions controls, though a more traditional, controller-based version was available on the Gamecube as well. The cel-shaded look wasn’t gone for long, though. Nintendo followed The Wind Waker with a direct sequel on the DS. Phantom Hourglass keeps the same colorful look and aquatic theme, but introduces a new control scheme that lets you draw a path for your boat on a map using the handheld’s touchscreen. Two years later it was followed by another similar DS game, Spirit Tracks, which swapped the boat for a train.

'Nintendo continued its quest to make motion controls an important part of Zelda with Skyward Sword. Not only is it the first game in the series built from the very beginning for the Wii and its unique controller, it also requires a special add-on, the Wii MotionPlus, that offers greater precision for virtual sword fighting. More than two decades after A Link to the Past, Nintendo followed it up with an inventive spiritual successor on the 3DS. A Link Between Worlds takes place in the same world as its predecessor — though a few generations later — but adds a new twist, letting Link turn into a two-dimensional painting so that he can slide along walls to sneak past enemies and solve puzzles.

'Following in the footsteps of the Four Swords games, Tri Force Heroes is a collaborative game where three players need to work together to solve puzzle-filled dungeons. It’s also arguably the goofiest — and stylish — Zelda game yet, letting you deck out Link in everything from a Goron suit to a princess dress. The next big Zelda game is largely a mystery. We know that it will feature an open-world rendition of Hyrule, offering players more freedom to explore however they like. Other than that, though, we know very little. After multiple delays, the game is finally set to launch sometime this year, and it’s likely to be the swan song for the Wii U platform; a new console, codenamed NX, will be revealed later this year.'-- The Verge



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Further

Legend of Zelda Official Site
'The 10 Greatest Legend of Zelda Games In History'
''The Legend of Zelda' news: Nintendo lets fans play the game at E3'
ZeldaWiki
''Zelda' turns 30 and gets a browser-based tribute game'
Legend of Zelda page @ Facebook
Zelda Fan Game Central
Download Zelda Classics
''Legend Of Zelda' In the Style Of 'Game Of Thrones' Will Ruin Your Childhood'
'Nintendo Shuts Down Fanmade Browser-Based Zelda Game'
Zelda Games Play Online Site
'Learning From The Masters: Level Design In The Legend Of Zelda'
'Q&A: LINK’S GENDER IN EARLY ZELDA GAMES'
Link's Hideaway
'This blind man spent FIVE YEARS finishing a Legend of Zelda game'
'15 Things You Might Not Know About 'The Legend of Zelda''
'World's largest collection of sound effects from the Legend of Zelda series'
'The Origin of the Legend of Zelda'
'Zelda game wristwatch 1989'
'The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy: I Link Therefore I Am'
'The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess manga is coming west!'



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Extras


THE LEGEND OF ZELDA RAP [MUSIC VIDEO]


How to Make Link's Bomb from Zelda


Top 10 Japanese Legend of Zelda TV Commercials


Zelda Majora Mask: Link's Dance


Is the Gold or Gray Legend of Zelda Cart Rarer?



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Interview




Superplay: It's been 17 years since The Legend of Zelda was released in Japan. Do you remember that day?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Yes, I remember that we were very nervous, because The Legend of Zelda was our first game that forced the players to think about what they should do next. We were afraid that gamers would become bored and stressed by the new concept.

Luckily, they reacted the total opposite. It was these elements that made the game so popular, and today gamers tell us how fun the Zelda riddles are, and how happy they become when they've solved a task and proceeded with the adventure. It makes me a happy game producer!

Superplay: What visions and goals did you have when you started to develop the game?

Shigeru Miyamoto: We started to work on The Legend of Zelda at the same time as Super Mario Bros, and since the same teams did both games, we tried to separate the different ideas. Super Mario Bros should be linear, The Legend of Zelda should be the total opposite.

Superplay: And everything proceeded as planned?

Shigeru Miyamoto: During the development of Legend of Zelda we were actually able to include more ideas than we first thought was possible. And with the technical improvements that have been made through the years, we are able to include more of our original plans. During the past years many new faces has worked on Zelda and brought new ideas to the field.

Superplay: Apparently the tale of Hyrule were created by Kensuke Tanabe, and he was very inspired by Tolkien's books. How much of the original manuscript was written by him and what were your ideas?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Are you still talking about the the first Zelda game?

Superplay: Yes.

Shigeru Miyamoto: Tanabe wasn't part of the Zelda team until A Link to the Past. He wrote the story to that and Links Awakening.

Superplay: So it wasn't him that wrote the original manuscript?

Shigeru Miyamoto: No, no... All ideas for The legend of Zelda were mine and Takashi Tezukas.

Superplay: Okay, so what influenced you then?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Books, movies and our own lives. Legend of Zelda was based on my childhood.

Superplay: The sequel, Zelda II: Adventures of Link was a very different game. Why was this? And why have you never done anything like it again?

Shigeru Miyamoto: It was my idea, but the actual game was developed by another team, different people to those that made the first game. Compared to Legend of Zelda, Zelda II went exactly what we expected... All games I make usually gets better in the development process, since good ideas keep coming, but Zelda II was sort of a failure...

Superplay: So that's why the third game looked like the first one?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Exactly. We actually see A link to the Past as the real sequel to Legend of Zelda. Zelda II was more of a side story about what happened to Link after the events in Legend of Zelda.

Superplay: How do the Zelda games timelines link together? Is there any connection between the different games, or do you take tell us a new Zelda story each time?

Shigeru Miyamoto: For every Zelda game we tell a new story, but we actually have an enormous document that explains how the game relates to the others, and bind them together. But to be honest, they are not that important to us. We care more about developing the game system... give the player new challenges for every chapter that is born.

Superplay: Will the story always come 2nd when you develop games?

Shigeru Miyamoto: The most important thing for me, is that the player get sucked into the game. I want the games to be easy to understand, and that the people appreciate the games content, its core. I will never deny the importance of a great story, but the plot should never get that important that it becomes unclear.

Superplay: Hideo Kojima used to say that when people spend 10 hours with his games, he wants to give them a message. Do you have a message you want to give us?

Shigeru Miyamoto: It's worth considering, but I don't have any plans to change the world, I just try to create the perfect game. I have never had the ambition to mediate any message. All I want to do is entertain people!

Superplay: The generation that I belong to was brought up with your games in the 80s and are now in their 30s. You've never thought about making games aimed at that age group?

Shigeru Miyamoto: I have never intended to make games for a specific age, I want to make games for both kids and adults.

Superplay: I know what you mean, but at the same time many gamers think that they have grown out of Nintendo games. It's a fact that games like GTA appeal older gamers.

Shigeru Miyamoto: Yes, that's true. The games industry is broader than ever, and there are many different ways to produce a game these days. Apparently many older gamers like Grand Theft Auto, but that doesn't mean Nintendo will develop similar games, instead it's our task to find new ways and create substitutes. It is our duty to produce alternatives to GTA.

I think it's important that we producers keep things inside moral and ethic borders. I actually think that game designers have some responsibility for what we create. Of course the art of freedom and the right to speak are important, but we should be careful with what we create. Games are interactive entertainment and could affect young people...

Superplay: GTA does not interest me, but I must say that I became a little disappointed in the first scenes I saw of Zelda WW. Not that you're using cel-shading, but that Link looked childish.

Shigeru Miyamoto: You've played the full version?

Superplay: Yes.

Shigeru Miyamoto: Whole game?

Superplay: No, only the Japanese version without understanding the story.

Shigeru Miyamoto: I think you will get another understanding when you play the whole Wind Waker in English. There is humor in the game, but also deeper sections. The first trailer was just a presentation of Link's new face.

Superplay: But is this the Link you first thought of when you created the first Zelda game?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Link always looked like the same person, even though different techniques changed some details. But in Ocarina of Time 2 sides were created in him. 1 younger and 1 older. As you see now, the younger Link is the main character in Zelda the Wind Waker. He blended in better in the surroundings than older Link. Adult Link is in Super Smash Bros Melee and Soul Calibur 2. And we started with him as the main character in the new GameCube game before we changed direction and made The Wind Waker.

It's my responsibility that Link is always Link, the character I once created. And I always think about how he will look in future games.

Superplay: Shouldn't there be some room left for a Zelda adventure with adult Link as the main character? A darker, more serious Legend of Zelda with more depth?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Sorry, but I can't talk about my plans for the future, but it is certainly possible that we will make a game like that.

Superplay: What is your favorite game in the series?

Shigeru Miyamoto: We were limited time-wise, in the development of The Wind Waker, and were forced to leave some things out of it, but when I look at the finished product, I think we have created something unique, both graphically and content wise.

Superplay: What is so special about Legend of Zelda? And why has Link become such a popular character?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Link is a regular boy when the game begin, but destiny make him fight evil, and I think many people dream about becoming heroes. For me it has always been important that the gamers grow together with Link, that there is a strong relationship between the one who holds the controller and the person who is on the screen. I have always tried to create the feeling that you really are in Hyrule. If you don't feel that way, it will lose some of its magic. One of the things that makes Wind Waker so special is that we wanted to make the graphics clearer and because of that, we could show Link's facial expressions. The way Link reacts creates a closer relationship with the player.

I strive to create communication and relationships in my games. Both socially with several people gathering in front of the TV to play together and relations with the controller and characters on the screen.



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The Legend Of Zelda #1 (1986)
'In Feb. 1986, a little gold Famicon (Japanese Nintendo Entertainment System) cartridge was released into the world. Little did it’s creator (famous Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto) know that his new game would not only go on to sell over 47 million units worldwide, but it would go on to become one of the most popular and most highly revered franchises in video game history; spawning over 8 follow-ups. What Nintendo was able to accomplish with the original Legend of Zelda would effect the entire video game industry. Not only in design, but also in gameplay and how players would come to perceive console adventure games. Zelda set a standard from which all other games of it’s type would be judged, and set the bar for what players would come to expect from this new action RPG genre (though some people maintain that Zelda is really just an action adventure). It was an 8-bit masterpiece . . . an innovator, an epic and quite possibly one of the greatest games of all time.'-- Video Games Blogger



Excerpt


Excerpt: Talk-through



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Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987)
'Zelda II: The Adventure of Link featured an overhead-view map like the first game, but introduced side-scrolling action sequences and RPG Elements such as level ups, magic and health points, and random encounters, as well as more complex world and story elements, including towns filled with characters. It was originally released for the Family Computer Disk System as The Legend of Zelda 2: Link no Bouken - however, unlike the previous game, the modified NES port was only released internationally and not in Japan. The game definitely left its mark on the franchise: while later games would return to the top-down action-adventure model of the original rather than being more like an RPG, towns filled with NPCs and sidequests would become staples of the series, and the magic meter appeared in a few more games until it was retired after The Wind Waker. The story basically has two threads. On the one hand, Link, after his defeat of Ganon in the original game, is attempting to collect the third piece of the Triforce: the Triforce of Courage. Doing this will help wake the sleeping Princess Zelda (not the same one from the original) from her long magical sleep. On the other hand, Ganon's followers are trying to resurrect Ganon, and the only way to do that is with blood shed of the hero who felled him. Thus, there's lots of enemies standing in Link's way as he attempts to deposit six crystals in the six palaces throughout Hyrule and open the path to the Great Palace, where the Triforce of Courage is kept.'-- TV Tropes



Full Game Walkthrough



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The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991)
'The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (ALttP) is the third installment of The Legend of Zelda series. Released in Japan in 1991 and elsewhere in the world in 1993 on the Super Nintendo, ALttP was a truly innovative gaming experience. The scope of the game was unheard of for its time, with 13 unique dungeons, and over 25 Items, Weapons, and Equipment to acquire, as well as 24 Heart Pieces to find throughout Hyrule. Although fairly linear in gameplay, the game is praised for its immersiveness and deployability. In 2002, Nintendo re-released the game on Game Boy Advance with a few small changes, as well as the addition of a whole new multiplayer experience, Four Swords, which could only be played by linking up two or more GBAs with linking cables.'-- IGN



Full Game Playthrough



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The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (1993)
'On the surface, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening may appear to be an offbeat side-story to the main series. An oddball tale originally released on the Game Boy, it sheds some of the Zelda series' staples and fills the gaps with its own hallucinogenic story that includes more than a few left-field references to the world of Mario. But I didn't know any of that when I first played Link's Awakening. It was my first Zelda and, years before Ocarina of Time defined the series' possibilities for vast 3D worlds, the game's comparatively modest 2D island map offered up an entire continent to me. I would explore every nook and cranny. Link's Awakening launched in the era before mass internet when, for me, games lasted months, gameplay secrets took days to discover and strategies were passed between me and my friends by word of mouth alone. Despite its bizarre-sounding story and change of setting, Link's Awakening is far from an offbeat handheld spin-off. Its story, heart and humour cements it as one of the series' finest offerings and sets the stage for the games to come. It's the first time you're allowed to fish in a Zelda game, the first time you're sent on a trading quest, and the first time you'll learn songs to play on an ocarina. As my own introduction to the series, Link's Awakening was a great place to start.'-- Eurogamer



Full game walkthrough


Ending



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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
'The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the fifth installment in the Legend of Zelda series, developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. The first 3D installment of the series, the basic engine and gameplay used were later re-used for future installments, including its direct sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. The game began a tradition in the Legend of Zelda series; a major item or person in a game featured in the game's title. The game is set in the kingdom of Hyrule. A youth named Link sets out on a quest to prevent the thief Ganondorf, the prime antagonist of the Legend of Zelda series, from obtaining the Triforce, a magical relic of omnipotent power, an event foretold by the prophetic Princess Zelda. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Ganondorf successfully obtains part of the Triforce. By traveling back and forth through time using the mythical Master Sword, Link must amass the Six Medallions needed to defeat Ganondorf and restore peace to Hyrule. Ocarina of Time enjoyed wide critical acclaim as well as commercial success. It has sold over 7.6 million copies over its lifetime, and was the best-selling game in 1998, even outselling other hugely-anticipated games from that year such as Metal Gear Solid and Half-Life. It also received perfect scores from numerous gaming media publications, most notably Famitsu, and went on to place highly on top several "greatest games of all time" lists, including those from Gamespot, IGN and Nintendo Power Magazine. Ocarina of Time is often considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time, and over a decade after its initial release, it still possesses the highest average score of all professional video game reviews for all video games.'-- zeldawiki



Excerpt


Excerpt


Excerpt



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The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000)
'Majora's Mask is inarguably the weirdest Legend of Zelda game. Sometime shortly after the events of Ocarina of Time, our hero Link wanders into a country called Termina. Hyrule it is not: The ominously named region is home to an eerie cast of characters and hosts an inordinate number of strange happenings. An erratic mask salesman hoarding cursed objects? We've got one. Alien abductions? Frequent. Ghost hands in toilets and ghost giants throwing boulders and ghosts doing tai chi on huge mushrooms? More common that you'd like. The strangest happening is the grimacing moon falling out of the sky. Link is given 72 hours to find Skull Kid, an impetuous young creature, and steal back an item of terrible power, the titular Majora's Mask. To do so, Link must liberate four spirits located in four temples scattered throughout the world. These spirits can help save the world, but for now, they have also fallen prey to the bizarre magic clouding Termina. He only has three days to do it, but with the help of his trusty magic ocarina, Link can rewind time for those three days and live them over and over like some Groundhog Day redux. Time management is the name of the game here. Anytime during the 72-hour window, you can play the Song of Time to rewind back to dawn of the first day. Having this limit means you must allot yourself ample time to clear regional quests and complete dungeons. In each area, what you do in the surrounding area directly affects your access to the dungeon and side quests, so you'll need those full 72 hours. In one region the town is iced over, and defeating the dungeon boss is the only way to restore spring. In spring you have access to a handful of smaller missions that in turn reveal more major gains, like upping your sword power and finding your long-lost horse. Once, I completed this dungeon and then immediately rewound back to the first day...only to find it all frozen again. It's this kind of thing you need to be mindful of as you play Majora's Mask, and forces you to forgo leisurely exploration in favoring of beelining between quest points.'-- Gamespot



Zelda Majoras Mask Opening Cutscene


104 Ways To Die In Zelda Majora's Mask


Secrets



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The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages (2001)
'What started life as a remake of The Legend of Zeldaà la Super Mario Bros. Deluxe was quickly changed to three individual titles, each representing a piece of the Triforce. Legend has it that when the code system became too complicated to work between three games early on, it was dropped down to two: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages. Each game can be played independently or played consecutively for a true ending and a slightly-altered continuation in the second game of your choosing. Both titles push the Game Boy Color almost to its limit in graphical effects that are sure to impress skeptics of the little-portable-that-could, and the music can range from simple and melodic to mysterious and emotional. There are also quite a few nostalgic nods thrown in for good measure. There are several memorable songs that really stand out and provide the perfect emotional backdrop for what's going on in the plot, but a handful of dungeon tunes are completely forgettable. It's a bit of a mixed bag, but the majority of tracks fit well. The animations and graphic designs are nostalgic and new at the same time, and polished to the console's limit. There's even a cameo by everyone's favorite beloved/hated fairy friend Tingle in Ages, and a certain song from Ocarina with the power to drive a grown man mad that’s thrown into Seasons for good measure. On a personal note, I'm glad to report that these games don't feature a rendition of Ocarina's'indoor' song. After hearing that in nearly every Zelda game since Ocarina's release, I was relieved to find that these games have their own original generic 'indoor' music. Praise be the sound designers at Capcom. Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages have a lot to offer any gamer, from the casual player to the hardcore Zelda fan. The newcomers will be engaged by the stories and fun gameplay, and the veterans will enjoy the pinnacle of 2D top-down Zelda game design. Each of these games easily stand alone as masterpieces, and combine to make one epic story with a nice, fulfilling conclusion. They are two of the best games on the Game Boy Color, and two of the best Zelda games ever made. It saddens me that they are overlooked by fans of the franchise, whether that be a conscious decision or simply a matter of not knowing they where there. Each is worthy of a perfect ten out of ten rating if I had to give a score. I hope with the re-release on the 3DS virtual console these games can get the love and respect they deserve and find a new audience in a new generation. With the amount of content, quality, and replayability in these titles, you will not regret adding them to your library.'-- Zelda Informer



Trailer


Long play: The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons


Long play: The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages




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The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (2003)
'Nintendo's Legend of Zelda franchise over the years has defined a genre, first revolutionizing the action-adventure and then evolving it with several critically acclaimed sequels spanning multiple console and handheld platforms. For many, the Zelda brand represents the pinnacle of gaming, a perfect convergence of polished design, tightly crafted control and beautiful presentation. Indeed, the N64 Ocarina of Time is widely considered the best videogame ever created. So to say that the GameCube Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has a lot to live up to is, simply put, the understatement of the year. And yet, Nintendo delivers. Director Eiji Aonuma's latest offering is a breathtakingly epic romp into a dramatically changed world 100 years after the events in the N64 classic. Wind Waker masterfully baits and hooks us in with its scope and host of improvements over previous Zelda titles, and then it takes us on a long, ultimately satisfying voyage across troubled seas, into dangerous dungeons and against unforgiving foes. It's not a game without flaws -- there are a few minor shortcomings to speak of, but where it succeeds, it is absolutely unparalleled.'-- IGN



Trailer


The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker: Tetra's Identity Part 1


The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker: Tetra's Identity Part 2


Wind Waker HD Walkthrough Finale - Final Boss Fights + Ending & Credits



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The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (2004)
'This four-player Zelda connectivity adventure combines gameplay on both the GameCube and Game Boy Advance for a mix of competitive and cooperative multiplayer fun. By hooking up GBAs to the GameCube, the action will move from the television screen (when players are on the overworld map), to the GBA screen (when entering houses and caves). Players work together to brave 24 challenges in eight levels in Hyrule Adventure (1-4 players, multiplayer only with GBAs) or compete in 10 frantic multiplayer versus battles (2-4 players, GBAs required). Takes place in similar environments as the SNES classic Link to the Past, but features updated character sprites, new special effects, and overall improved graphics. The Japanese version included an additional mode, known as Navi Trackers.'-- IGN



The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures - Part 1: Lake Hyla


The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures - Part 4: The Coast


The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures - Part 8: The Mountain Path



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The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (2004)
'The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap is the twelfth installment of The Legend of Zelda. It was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004. Like most other titles in the series, The Minish Cap features the fully explorable land of Hyrule, although it can be viewed from the eyes of a human or the eyes of a Picori, a race of tiny people and an alternate form that Link can transform into. The game is part of the Four Swords series and features Vaati as the game's main villain. However, unlike the multiplayer focus of the other games in the series, The Minish Cap retains the original form of exploration and dungeons as seen in A Link to the Past and the Oracle series, as well as returning characters and game mechanics such as Malon and the Spin Attack. New features include fusing Kinstones and shrinking to the size of a Minish.'-- Zeldawiki



Long play: The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Part 1)


All bosses



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The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2005)
'The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is an action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo for the GameCube and Wii home video game consoles. It is the thirteenth installment in the The Legend of Zelda series. Originally planned for release on the GameCube in November 2005, Twilight Princess was delayed by Nintendo to allow its developers to refine the game, add more content, and port it to the Wii. The Wii version was released alongside the console in North America in November 2006, and in Japan, Europe, and Australia the following month. The GameCube version was released worldwide in December 2006. The story focuses on series protagonist Link, who tries to prevent Hyrule from being engulfed by a corrupted parallel dimension known as the Twilight Realm. To do so, he takes the form of both a Hylian and a wolf, and is assisted by a mysterious creature named Midna. The game takes place hundreds of years after Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, in an alternate timeline from The Wind Waker. At the time of its release, Twilight Princess was considered the greatest entry in the Zelda series by many critics, including writers for 1UP.com, Computer and Video Games, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Game Informer, GamesRadar, IGN, and The Washington Post. It received several Game of the Year awards, and was the most critically acclaimed game of 2006. As of September 2015, 8.85 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide, making it the best-selling title in the series.'-- Wiki



The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess - All Cutscenes/ Full Movie


Twilight Princess HD Texture Pack


The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess - All Bosses



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The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (2007)
'In The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass players again assume the role of a green-clad hero who, for the sake of continuity, we'll refer to as Link. The story is taken directly from the Wind Waker world on GameCube, basically picking up where the last game left off, as Link and Tetra sail off into the sunset. The game opens with the two of them manning Tetra's ship as they search for the infamous Ghost Ship that is said to sail the seven seas. After a pretty engaging opening, Tetra of course fulfills her role as the damsel in distress, and it's up to Link to get her back. It's classic Zelda storytelling, and we wouldn't have it any other way. From there Link meets up with a loud-mouthed fairy named Ciela and a Jack Sparrow-like treasure hunter named Linebeck, and the story kicks off. Right off the bat you'll notice that Phantom Hourglass brings an impressive amount of cinematic presentation to the table. The graphical style is of course a play off the cel-shaded Zelda, but what really gives the game the "pocket Cube" feel to it is that every scene is shot with theatrics in mind, as there's a ton of emotion and depth to the characters. You're also going to notice, however, that the game can be a bit long-winded for the Zelda purists out there, and that constant commentary by Linebeck, Ciela, or numerous other characters in the world will continue well into the back half of the game. This of course improves the relationship between the gamer and the cast, but we can also see hardcore Zelda fans wishing the game would just back off and let them be on their way. And when moving into the core of the gameplay this "casual vs. hardcore" aspect that Zelda's new attitude will inevitably bring is even more apparent. The controls, as mentioned, are entirely touch-based, so players looking for the classic Zelda feel will need to adapt to using a stylus instead of a d-pad. There's no way around it, no alternate control scheme, and the game doesn't apologize for its drastic change, even poking fun at the hardcore in one of the final dungeons by having a ghost of a fallen warrior mention that his desire for d-pad controls was his "only regret" in life. It's pretty obvious Nintendo wanted to change things up a bit this time around, and love it or hate it, Phantom Hourglass is a touch-only game.'-- IGN



The Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Longplay - Part 1)


The Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Longplay - Part 2)



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The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (2009)
'The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is the fifteenth installment of the Legend of Zelda series, released for the Nintendo DS on December 7, 2009. Details about the game were revealed by Satoru Iwata at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. Spirit Tracks was put on display at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. A direct sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass set a hundred years after the events of its predecessor in the new land discovered by Link and Tetra, New Hyrule, Spirit Tracks uses the same graphical style and many of the same gameplay features from Phantom Hourglass. A major difference from Phantom Hourglass, as well as The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, is that overworld travel is by train rather than by boat. It is notably the first canonical game that allows the player to control Princess Zelda.'-- Zeldawiki



The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - Part 1 - Zelda's Ghost


The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - Part 2 - Reaching Forest Sanctuary


The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - Part 4 - Reaching Snow Sanctuary



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The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011)
'The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is an action-adventure game for the Wii video game console and the sixteenth entry in the Legend of Zelda series. Developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development and published by Nintendo, it was released worldwide in November 2011. The game makes use of the Wii MotionPlus peripheral for sword fighting, with a revised Wii Remote pointing system used for targeting. A limited-edition bundle featuring a golden Wii Remote Plus was sold coinciding with the game's launch; the first run of both the standard game and the limited-edition bundle included a CD containing orchestrated tracks of iconic music from the franchise in celebration of its 25th anniversary. The game's storyline is the earliest in the Zelda continuity, preceding The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. Skyward Sword follows an incarnation of the series' chief protagonist, Link, who was raised in a society above the clouds known as Skyloft. After his closest childhood friend, Zelda, is swept into the land below the clouds by demonic forces, Link does whatever it takes to save her, traveling between Skyloft and the surface below while battling the dark forces of the self-proclaimed "Demon Lord", Ghirahim. Upon release, the game was met with critical acclaim, receiving perfect scores from at least 30 publications, including Edge, Eurogamer, Famitsu, Game Informer, GameCentral, IGN, Metro, and Wired. Much of the praise was directed at the game's intuitive motion-based swordplay and the changes it brought to the Zelda franchise. The game was a major commercial success as well, having sold over 3.42 million units worldwide as of December 2011, just one month after its initial release.'-- Wiki



Trailer


The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Movie [Complete Cutscene Compilation]



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The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (2013)
'I expected The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds to submerge me in comfortable familiarity, but what I didn’t expect is that it would be my favourite Zelda since Wind Waker, or that it would present me with some of the most inventive, cerebral puzzles in the series’ 27-year history. Between Worlds is a powerfully nostalgic experience for anybody with memories of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, but it’s also an exceptional game in its own right. It doesn’t just pay homage to Zelda’s past glories. It reinvigorates its spark. This familiar Hyrule - built from brown layers of rock topped with bright green grass, secret caves full of scuttling creatures, deep blue rivers that carve through a landscape of desert ruins, volcanic mountains, and swampy wetlands - is a childhood dreamscape brought to life, colourful and imaginative and stuffed with secrets, and it has barely changed since 1992. But Between Worlds combines the emotionally potent familiarity of Link To The Past’s Hyrule with some of the most significant innovations that the Zelda series has seen in years.'-- IGN



The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds - Final Boss & Ending


Zelda: A Link Between Worlds - All Item Locations (Guide & Walkthrough)


Zelda: A Link Between Worlds GLITCHES!



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The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (2015)
'The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes takes the foundation established by Four Swords and expands upon it in many ways. Although there is one fewer hero than before, the concept is still the same: players join up to make teams of three and solve puzzles that require a considerable amount of cooperation. Each player controls their own Link, but going solo here will get you nowhere; these puzzles are built around needing multiple players to solve and can’t be done otherwise. The result is a unique gameplay experience with plenty of moments that are both challenging and hysterical, while still feeling like a Zelda game. The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes as a whole is a blast to play, and one of the best handheld co-op experiences out there, albeit with a few understandable frustrations when playing solo. One of Tri Force Heroes’ biggest improvements over Four Swords is in the construction of the puzzle design. Unlike Four Swords, which has previously seen multiplayer playable between two and four players, Tri Force Heroes is locked at three at all times. While this can potentially feel like a nuisance when wanting to play with only one partner, the puzzles tend to be more creatively built because of it, and feel much more natural due to a constant player count.'-- Gaming Trend



Trailer


15 Minutes of The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes Gameplay



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The Legend of Zelda: TBK (2017)
'The Legend of Zelda on Wii U has been delayed again, Nintendo announced today, and the game is now expected to launch in 2017 alongside a newly announced NX version of the game. With no forthcoming details about the next-generation "NX" console, releasing globally in March 2017, The Legend of Zelda will be the main focus for the company at this year's E3 event, Nintendo of America said on Twitter. The company had previously delayed the game beyond 2015, skipping last year's E3 event entirely. Series producer Eiji Aonuma said at the time that "the team has experienced firsthand the freedom of exploration that hasn't existed in any Zelda game to date, we have discovered several new possibilities for this game". The last time the company shared footage of The Legend of Zelda for Wii U was at The Game Awards in December 2014.'-- collaged



Trailer




*

p.s. Hey. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Aw, that's so great about your great friendship. It's easy to take a really great, magical friendship for granted, but it's a rare and very lucky thing, especially one that connects you creatively too. Yay! Oh, gosh, I hope everything is okay vis-à-vis the doctor. Are you feeling all right? Catchy title, yes. I'm assuming it's not a comedy, ha ha. Things with me are good. It started raining again. It's so bad, rain-wise, that areas just around Paris are having terrible flooding. It's getting kind of spooky outside. How was your day, and did the doctor visit de-stress you? ** H, Hi. Thank you a lot for speaking to New Juche. Excitable, yeah, re: Bishop. Sometimes I like that jumpiness, and sometimes it feels a little self-conscious, but she does have a very good sense of pacing and energy leveling. My Wednesday was good. Zac and I were given a tour by the curator of this art exhibition of works inspired by Guyotat plus drawings and manuscripts by him. That was very interesting. And then work. Right now I'm finishing a new and very likely final literary gif book, a gif novel, and then I hope to actually get to plunge back into my long-sufferng written novel before something, probably the TV series thing, appears and forces me away from it again. Thank you for asking. ** New Juche, Hey. Thank you. The pleasure and honor were/are entirely mine. I'm really pleased to see the thoughtful responses. Have a very fine day! ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Ah, interesting. ** Jamie McMorrow, Howdy-doody, Jamie. Hot and sunny, wow. Yeah, we're getting floods and stuff over here. Apparently the Seine is dangerously full, so I'm going to look at that today, hopefully before it jumps its banks or something. Wednesday was good. We're presenting our film tonight at that living room film festival, so hopefully that'll go okay. And work and trying to stay dry, I think. I think that's the plan. How have you celebrated your return home? We'd love to show the film in Glasgow, of course, but I don't know where we would, and I don't think any options have arisen, sadly. Love in bunches, me. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. The timing of the Trump's visit was all over the news. Ugh. I sure hope that's not an omen re: the referendum outcome. ** Steevee, Oh, please do find your "inner Stephen Sacker", if you can. I'd love read what he does. Role-play. Master (you), slave (him)? ** Thomas Moronic. Hi, T. Thank you for getting into New Juche's work. Yeah, obviously, it would be awesome if you can come to the London screening. Tentatively, it'll be on July 20th, but I'll confirm when/if that's cemented. How does the new job's 'full on' quality compare with the old job? Is it similarly very involving and intense? I'm really glad you've found time to work on your writing, and obviously I'm super jacked for your collab. with Steven. Not sure about the TV series news. Originally we were told in six weeks, but now we're told it might be much sooner. I think we might get an initial assessment this week because this ... I don't know, scout (?) for the channel has read it and I think she is maybe going to give us some initial feedback before she presents it to the powers that be? ** MANCY, Hi, man! Thanks a lot for your excitement re: New Juche's work. ** Right. So, next week or thereabouts, or whenever E3 is taking place, Nintendo is supposedly going to present 15 minutes from the upcoming Zelda game, a thing that I am immensely excited about, being something of a ZeldaHead, so I burnt off some of my anticipatory energy by building a Zelda post, and there you go. See you tomorrow.

Guns

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Robert LazzariniGuns (2008)
Robert Lazzarini’s artwork springs from a desire to understand the perceivable limits of the material world. Conceptually and formally rigorous, he pushes ordinary objects to their limits by mining the twined threads of distortion and material veracity. By fully devoting himself to these indispensable characteristics, Lazzarini negotiates a place between two and three dimensions that challenges his viewers’ understanding of the physical world and their visual perception. Though often mistaken for mere anamorphism, Lazzarini’s work is in fact affected by multiple mathematical distortions so that his pieces elude finite conclusions and deny normative reads. In Lazzarini’s most recent exhibition, guns and knives at the Aldrich Museum of Art, he has turned his attention forward in two significant ways. The first is a shift within the sculptures, which for the first time conflate multiple objects to further complicate and abstract the forms. The second is an alteration of the actual gallery itself, whose walls are canted at varying angles to subtly disrupt the viewer’s apprehension of the physical space and further offset the distortions of the works themselves.









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Gehard Demetz Stones in My Pocket (2014)
"Stones in My Pocket" (which was shown at Art Miami last December) features a boy wearing rubber gloves, the kind used for dishwashing, but also with a gun in his mouth. Noting that many children enjoy trying on their father's and mother's clothes, slipping into shoes and jackets and such even though they're much too big, Demetz points out that this boy wears the gloves of an adult, but loses his ability to use his hands. "The gun is a fetish idea, like a ball-gag in the mouth. He is trying out same things as adults—but he loses his voice."







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Pedro ReyesDisarm (2014)
Pedro Reyes creates second generation instruments from dismantled guns. With a team of musicians and new media studio, Cocolab, Reyes has made mechanized instruments from these one-time harmful weapons.






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Claes OldenburgRay Gun Wing (1977)
In Claes Oldenburg's numerous Ray Gun works, he has an obsession with the right angle. In addition to creating several Ray Gun sculptures in a variety of materials (plaster, paper-mache, vacuum formed commercial plastics, etc.etc.), he amassed an even larger collection of found ray guns. "All one has to do is stoop to gather them from sidewalks," wrote Yve-Alain Bois, "he did not even need to collect them himself: he could ask his friends to bring them to him (he accepted or refused a find, based on purely subjective criteria).” Ray Gun Wing, published by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, in 1977, documents his collection, and proposal for a museum.










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David ČernýGuns (1994)
By far the most famous contemporary Czech artist, David Cerny has snagged a name for himself as the “bad boy” of Czech art. In 'Guns' (1994), four gigantic “Guns” are aimed at each other while suspended in mid-air. Every now and then, a blast rings out from the guns to the sound of slamming doors, flushing toilets, and car brakes.






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Vija CelminsVarious (1964 - 2010)
'I think I felt that these images belonged to all of us. they were our images. However, I must have been interested in Freudian, phallic imagery of some sort, right? There is a photograph of me taken in 1966. I had been working on a large sculpture of a pencil stub, which is sitting beside me, along with a nude mannequin that someone had brought over for me to decorate for a show. that photo would have inspired Freud! I think many young artists have sex on their minds, and I think I did too. The drawing of the gun [Clipping with Pistol 1968] came from the fact that a friend of mine had been attacked and her boyfriend gave her a gun, so I wanted to do a picture of it. I did some paintings, and then got interested in gun magazines, tore out some clippings, did this one drawing and then lost interest.'-- Vija Celmins


“Pistol” (1964)


"Gun with Hand #1" (1964)


"Hand Holding a Firing Gun" (1964)


“Hand holding a firing gun (study)" (1964)


"Table With Gun" (2009-2010)



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Felix Gonzalez-TorresUntitled (Death by Gun) (1990)
While González-Torres dealt with gay rights, AIDS, and a variety of governmental abuses in his own work and as a member of the collective Group Material, the subject of "Untitled" (Death by Gun), and its treatment, is unusually specific for him. Appropriating imagery from Time magazine, it presents 460 individuals killed by gunshot in one week in the United States, and includes the name, age, and circumstances of death for each person depicted. No opinion about gun control is added by the artist. Here an issue of public debate engages anyone who follows the artist's intention and takes away one of his sheets. Dissemination, an age-old function of printed art, is ongoing since "Untitled" (Death by Gun) is reprinted as the stack is depleted.







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Mel ChinHOME y SEW 9 (1994)
“HOME y SEW 9” features a Glock-17 9 mm handgun that Chin transformed into a working first-aid kit. “HOME y SEW 9,” Chin said, came about when he “started thinking about how weapons in our culture, especially guns, have such a tremendous aura — a tremendous presence — in the minds of individuals across the country.” The idea of hollowing out the gun to make room for a first-aid kit struck him as “a better way of understanding our gun culture. The more you deconstructed this weapon, the more you could get closer to saving your life, or someone else’s.”





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Charles GitnickVarious (2015-2016)
He’s not your average artist. For starters, Charles Gitnick is 11 years old. But age doesn’t mean a thing when you have New York, Miami and L.A. gallerists approaching you about your work. Doing art since age five, Gitnick started his ‘career’ by mixing colors, visiting art museums and learning about artists. His most famous work involves the splattering of paint and color over guns–all sizes, too, from petite pistols to heavy machine guns.









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::vtol::GBG-8 (2015)
Russian artist ::vtol:: recently created an 8-bit instant photo gun by combining a Game Boy, gun, camera, and a thermal printer with an Arduino.





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Joachim KoesterThe Place of Dead Roads (2013)
The Place of Dead Roads is a video that follows four androgynous cowboys as they enact a choreographed duel. Staged in a subterranean maze, each subject motions at their invisible opponents with actions characteristic of the Western genre—drawing their guns, shooting, and shifting their bodies to survey their surroundings. Instead of being driven by story, their actions seem motivated by hidden messages transmitted from a world deep within their bodies, a notion that evokes Wilhelm Reich’s idea that “every muscular contraction contains the history and meaning of its origin.” Watch an excerpt.








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Francis AlÿsCamguns (2008)
Francis Alÿs' series of cam guns: a group of wooden rifles that incorporate found film reels instead of bullet chambers, evoking the artist’s confrontational nature, attacking subjects through film but in this case allowing visitors to pick up the “weapons,” making them active participants.








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Karen KilimnikI Don't Like Mondays, the Boomtown Rats, Shooting Spree, or Schoolyard Massacre (1991)
Banal, degraded, abject, or seemingly inconsequential, the objects of Karen Kilimnik's installations together create jarring associations and hybrid perspectives on the issues of her day. In I Don't Like Mondays, the Boomtown Rats, Shooting Spree, or Schoolyard Massacre, 1991, Kilimnick hung, drilled, and painted some components onto the wall, and scattered others, standing and sitting on the floor. These components--including shooting targets, chicken wire, a cassette player and cassette, clothing, photocopies, a whiffle ball and bat, a badminton racket, baton, mechanical toy dog, toy guns, lunchbox, jump rope, rubber ball, pencils, notebooks, gravel, pushpins--together comprise an aggressive, unsettling scene that presents by turns as a shooting range, magazine spread, classroom, child's bedroom, and crime scene.







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John BaldessariKiss/ Panic (1984)
Kiss/ Panic (1984) celebrates the banality of gun-culture evil in a rectilinear mandala that combines black and white images of firearms with a full-color close-up of mouths colliding in a kiss. The picture’s possible meanings ripple out from its ambiguous center in a way that is typical of Baldessari’s taste for paradox.





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Burt BarrDolly Shot Twice (1997)
In the work, an attractive blonde woman (ostensibly named “Dolly”) is seen slumped over in a vintage Cadillac convertible parked in a wooded area. The scene is captured twice, first by a camera slowly moving to the left from a few yards away—in a “dolly shot”—and then again, but close-up, allowing us to take notice of the two bullet wounds in her head, as the camera slowly pans to the right.





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Laurie SimmonsLying Gun (1990), Walking Gun (1991)







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Niki de Saint PhalleUntitled from Edition MAT 64 (1964)
Solicited by Swiss artist Daniel Spoerri to provide instructions for how her multiples should be executed, she responded with a letter written to Spoerri’s collaborator Karl Gerstner enumerating a set of “operating instructions.” Though unequivocally direct, her instructions point to an unusual (though signature for the artist) creative act, one to be explicitly followed by amateur marksmen, museum professionals, art patrons, and other interested parties. They read, in full:

Lean picture against a wall.
Put a strong board behind it (if required, in order to protect the wall).
Take a .22 long rifle and load with short ammunition.
Shoot the color pouches which are embedded in the plaster until they have “bled” (or until you like the picture).
Attention! Leave the picture in the same position until well dried. Then still be careful, as remains of color not yet dry might run over the picture.

The emphasis Saint Phalle gives here to the procedures for producing the work—the precision implied in choice of gun, ammunition, and effects of drying paint—is noteworthy, though rarely discussed in the Saint Phalle literature, both for its level of detail and for its relative flexibility. The identity of the shooter is not classified by gender or any other parameters, nor does Saint Phalle indicate any specified location for the shooting event. Rather, the “instructions” ultimately remain open-ended: aim and shoot until “you like the picture.” As a result, Saint Phalle’s premise for the edition was fascinatingly simple. Her “pop gun” method ensured that the monochromatic white could instantly transform into a polychromatic field of intensity; while the multiplication of the blank plaster canvases provided under the Edition MAT portfolio could offer the experience to unknown others.







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Amir MobedCome Caress Me (2010)
It was performed in September 2010 at Azad Art Gallery, Tehran. Mobed stood in front of a target, wearing a bodysuit with a protective metal box over his head, and invited gallery visitors to shoot at him with a pellet gun. It was, he says, a symbolic execution with a message about freedom of speech and the hopes of artists of his generation being silenced. Each time 15 visitor were allowed to enter to the gallery and shoot him. Visiors should stand behind one of the three lines that were painted on the floor and then shoot.







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Antony GormleySilence (2012)





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Luz María SánchezV.F(i) n_1 (2013)
Luz María Sánchez's work V.F(i) n_1 is a multichannel sound sculpture/installation. The title is a sort of acronym in Spanish; it means Vis. (un) necessary force. It is the first of the series, hence the number 1. V.F(i) n_1 addresses the subject of violence from the citizen’s perspective. Since media is not covering everyday experiences of violence, people flock to the arena offered by social networks, and share their own sounds and images –the ones that communicate their particular experiences within this context of explicit violence.V.F(i) n_1 is assembled using 74 audio players gun-shaped, that build a large format sound-texture composed of the same number of acoustic logs: shootings recorded by citizens caught in confrontations between law enforcement and organized crime in Mexico. V.F(i) n_1 consists of 74 independent audio channels, and the sound tracks are played individually on each of these speakers. At the end of the day and as the batteries run out of charge, speakers/guns go off gradually so the circle of operation/sound non-operation/silence is restarted. The audio tracks that integrate this sound installation/sculpture were taken from different videos available at the YouTube site.








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Andy WarholGun (1981-1982)
The canvas depicts the exact style of pistol used almost two decades before in an assassination attempt by Valerie Solanas that nearly took Warhol's life. Silkscreened twice, every detail is meticulously highlighted and dramatized in raw and monochromatic screens. This work sold for $7,026,500 at the Phillips de Pury & Company Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York, 10 May 2012.






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Jonathan Fletcher MooreArtificial Killing Machine (2015)
The installation is made up of an array of 15 digitally actuated toy cap guns dangling from the ceiling. A small receiver unit controls the guns autonomously. The toy guns sit dormant until a message comes over the wire from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which collects data on drone strikes. When a strike occurs, the guns abruptly pop into action, and a thermal printer clinically records the strike onto a ledger that dangles to the floor.







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Chris BurdenShoot (1971)






*

p.s. Hey. ** Jamie McMorrow, Greetings back from temporarily non-drenched Paris. Yeah, the weather is nuts. They just closed the Louvre and Musee D'Orsay and are having to move all of the art out of the basement areas there in case the Seine overflows and floods the buildings, and the metro stations along the river are closed. I'm gonna walk down and look at the puffed-up Seine today. I love games, too much, so I've been staying away from them for the past few years because they end up eating everything, which I guess you understand. But I've learned a ton from their structures and spacial designs and so on for my writing. Plus, one of my novels is mostly set inside a video game. My all-time favorite games? Hm, off the top of my head, and for gaming systems only, I would say 'Banjo Kazooie', 'Banjo Tooie', 'Conker's Bad Fur Day', Zelda: Majorca's Mark', 'Zelda: Windwaker', 'Zelda: Twilight Princess', 'Eternal Darkness', 'Resident Evil 4', 'Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door', 'Super Mario Galaxy', ... I should stop. That is weird about the post-Springsteen crowd. I thought he was supposed instill hope and exhilaration live and all that stuff. Maybe they were depressed because they missed him so much? Old Hairdresser's? Nice name. Okay, cool, I'll look it up. That would be cool. The film screening went well last night, thank you for asking. Have a ton of fun of some respect today! Love, Dennis. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I like my Zelda better. ** Nick Toti, Hi, Nick! I've never watched any Zelda-spin off TV things. Is it good? Wait, I'll give it a spin in a bit. Thanks, man! ** Sypha, Thanks, James. Your brother loves 'Majorca's Mask', you mean? Me too. It's the trippiest, least linear 'Zelda' ever. I'm totally down with the idea that Miyamtoto is the James Joyce of video games. I think he's one of the true living geniuses. Cool, about that tribute book. I'll pass the tidbit along. Everyone, Here's Sypha with a potentially important announcement. Listen up: 'Exciting news for fans of Weird Fiction/Cosmic Horror: "Marked to Die: A Tribute to Mark Samuels" is now available to order here. Published by Snuggly Books and edited by Justin Isis, it is, as the title says, a tribute to the work of Mark Samuels, who is, IMO, one of the great living writers in the genre. At 450 pages and 18 or so stories, there's definitely a lot of content. The list of contributors is pretty impressive, featuring such talents as Reggie Oliver, Daniel Mills, Adam Nevill, Quentin S. Crisp, and many more. My novella "Chaoskampf" also makes its first appearance here.' ** Steevee, Hi. That line sounds like it totally qualifies, yes. The sites I tend to use the most to find new music these days other than The Wire are Tiny Mix Tapes, sometimes The Quietus. For more mainstream stuff, sometimes Consequence of Sound is occasionally sort of reliable. For noise/metal/punk, Fucked By Noise is a good resource. Those are the ones I'm remembering this morning. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Yeah, it's very weird, all the rain and the flooding and stuff. We're in a brief respite today, but it's supposed to start pounding rain again tomorrow. My apartment is about a three minute walk from the Seine, but hopefully that's enough. Oh, I'm so very, very sorry about your dog. That's so hard. When I was a kid, all of my dogs died tragically, and I decided I couldn't take it anymore, so I've been pet-free ever since. If you need to absent yourself, of course, I totally understand. If talking about it and or being cheered up or anything would help, I'm here and will do everything I can. I'm so sorry. My day was pretty good, just mostly work but then the screening of our film, which seemed to go very well. I hope you manage to find some pleasure or peace or something today. Please tell me about it, if you like. Much love from me, dear pal, Dennis. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff! Welcome back! Oh, god, sorry to hear about the root canal. And the house repairing. Yeah, that assessment of Berlin makes sense to me. Any minute/day we're supposed to hear  an initial reaction from ARTE about the proposal. Nothing definitive, but hopefully a sign that we're on track. The gif novel, which will be called 'Zac's Freight Elevator', is close to being finished. You've seen, or might have seen, drafts of the chapters here over the past six months or so. I'm going through everything and revising and reorganizing them to create the flow and build I want to finalize the grouping into novel form. I'm very happy with it, and I'm pretty sure it will be my last literary gif book. I'll probably still make literary gif things because I like doing that so much, but I think my abilities re: gifs are maxed out in terms of advancing the form, and moving that form forward is necessary to me just as it is with written fiction. Anyway, I'm busily working on completing it right now. Thanks for asking, Jeff. What's up with your work? What are you working on? What's new? ** H, Hi. The Zelda games are fun and adventurous and, I think, quite instructive vis-à-vis ideas about space, structure, form, interactivity, etc. I get you about avoiding that for your work. I too need to avoid things of different kinds when I'm working on something that feels precious. ** MANCY, Hey! How is 'Phantom Hourglass'? I haven't played that one yet. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. That GFT looks very interesting. I wonder how one applies to them. I'll look into it. Thanks, Ben! Watch out for the rain. No, we're only temporarily dry today. Paris is having the worse rain/flooding right now since 1910 apparently. ** Postitbreakup, Hi, Josh! Thanks, buddy. Yeah, I don't suspect Nintendo will be porting their games to Playstation anytime soon. If you do seriously want to get a Nintendo system, it's probably best to wait for the new NX system that's coming out early next year. It's supposed to be a big advance, and I'm pretty positive that you'll be able to the play the old Wii and Wii U games on it. Ha, our TV series is utterly and completely sex-free, believe it or not. And I can only guess, but I would imagine ARTE would be quite happy about that. But hey. If VK was involved and sexed-up, it would need to be via a time machine. ** Jonathan Bryant, Hi, Jonathan! That is a vivid and vividly effective memory recounting, yes. Weird, nice. Ah, complicated boyfriends juggling. Do you think you'd be satisfied with only Number One? Good luck with that. And it's great that the writing goes well! Fingers crossed for you that you get paid for something. That's a nice bonus. Take care! ** Right. Today I mushed guns and art together and then riffed. See you tomorrow.

I Quit, a fable (for Zac)

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*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I like that Sondheim song. I don't like that Chicago song. ** Nick Toti, Hi, Nick! Yeah, I tried, I did, but I couldn't make it past the 15 second mark. What an incredibly weird adaptation idea. Really hard to understand how Nintendo signed off on that. Anyway, it was exciting to have 15 such featherweight repellent moments. I'm serious. It did something to me. I can tell, but I can't tell what yet. Iow, thank you, man! ** Steevee, Thanks, Steve! Well, as of last night, they think the water levels might have peaked, but the test is this weekend when it's supposed to pound rain again non-stop. But, you know, as far as Paris goes, it's more about the rainfall in the north of France where the Seine drinks. We'll see. ** Sypha, Hi. Oh, okay. I only go as far back as 'Ocarina of Time'. I've never played a 'Metal Gear Solid' game, can you believe that? Being a Nintendo only guy has its sometimes severe limits. Huh, interesting, about Hideo Kojima. Maybe I'll try to a do post about him and figure him out while I'm making it. Those kinds of the posts are often the most interesting to make. 'Eternal Darkness' is a cult classic supreme. The insanity-making thing in that game is still a certain kind of unparalleled use of game tech. I hear they're trying to do a sequel finally, but I'm suspicious. I think it's probably way too late. I'm gonna get the anthology. Excited. ** Unknown, Hi, ... Pascal? It's you, right? No, it's Bill! Hi, Bill! The floods regarding me have so far only affected my metro travel plans since a bunch of the stations are closed now. But we'll see. It just started pouring rain again literally 30 seconds ago after two dry days. The Facebook page for your friend's project intrigues. I'll have to wade in before I understand it. Will do. You're in Portland? Wow, I'm not used to you traveling less than many thousands of miles. Nice city, yeah, even nowadays, and Powells really is the best bookstore in the entire world as long as you can read books in English. Have big fun and a sweet-as-sweet-can-be weekend! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Everyone, _B_A kindly and wisely adds Valie Export's 'Genital Panic' (1969) to yesterday's gun show. Dundee is Scotland's sunniest city? If you're not right up next to the river, and if you don't want to go to a museum, everything seems pretty normal here so far. But this weekend is apparently the big test. Oh, Afterall. I haven't read that in ages. That issue looks very good. I'll see if I can score it here. Ace news about the Whit Stillman! ** MANCY, Hey. I think my DS might be a generation too old for that game. I'll check. I should get the new generation, but I'm scared about the time-eating. Oh, gosh. Dilemma. Thanks about the gun stuff! ** H, Hi. I think I'm pretty safe, we'll see. Thank you about the post. You have a very good weekend too! ** New Juche, Hi, man! I haven't seen 'Dear Wendy'. I really don't like his films, or, well, except for the early ones to some degree. I'm guessing 'Dear Wendy' goes a ways back? I think Paris will be okay. So far, other than things being closed just in case, only one famous nightclub here that's located down at the old water level has been destroyed. I'll give you the poop on Monday, hopefully not interrupted by 'glug ... glug'. Enjoy the monsoon! ** Bear, Hi, Bear! Good to see you! Thanks about the post. Sorry to hear you've had some down days, but it's good that the busyness has likely counteracted that in some kind of psychologically medicinal way, right? Good, good about the pre-production. Do alert us/me when the crowdfunding thing is in place. I'm good. Yeah, we made a quickish visit to SF. It was cool. The screening of the film went really well, and there was fun to be had. I'm not much of a fan of San Francisco itself. People love it, though. It's just, I don't know, not my cup of tea or something. You take care too! ** Jonathan Bryant, Hi. Oh, okay, gotcha. Financial entanglement. Yeah, complicated. Been there. I hope whatever mess ensues is not too messy. Thanks about the post and for the awesome recollection. You guys were intense. My neighborhood friends/rivals and I just threw clods of dirt at each other from relatively great distances. Not to say it wasn't kind of sexual anyway, but then what isn't at that age. Here's hoping your weekend is very top notch! ** Okay. I made another literary gif work, a kind of raucous one, a fable, that's on its eventual way to being a chapter in my gif novel that I'm working on. And, as I do when I make gif works, I'm sticking it up here for your ... whatever. See you on Monday.

48 revolving restaurants

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Orbit, Sky Tower, Auckland





Egon Tårnet, Tyholttårnet, Trondheim, Norway





Confiteria Giratoria, San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina





360 Bar and Dining, Sydney Tower, Sydney





Four Winds Revolving Restaurant, Crowne Plaza, Surfers Paradise, Australia





C Restaurant, St Martins Tower, Perth





Donauturm, Vienna





Radon Plaza, Sarajevo





Revolving Mascaron Restaurant, Torre Mirante da Serra, Veranópolis, Brazil





La Ronde, Chateau Lacombe Hotel, Edmonton





Sky 360 Restaurant, Calgary Tower, Calgary





Cloud 9 Revolving Restaurant & Lounge, Vancouver





Prairie 360, Fort Garry Place, Winnipeg





Giratorio, Santiago, Chile





360° Café, Macau Tower, Macau





Epicure on 45, Radisson Hotel Shanghai New World, Shanghai





Restaurante La Fragata Giratorio, World Trade Center, Bogotá





360-The Revolving Restaurant, Cairo Tower, Cairo





Näsinneula tower, Tampere, Finland





Fernmeldeturm, Mannheim, Germany





Fernmeldeturm, Nürnberg





Olympiaturm, Munich





Telecafé, Berliner Fernsehturm, Berlin





OTE Tower, Thessaloniki, Greece





VIEW62 by Paco Roncero, Hopewell Centre, Wan Chai, Hong Kong





THE Sky, Hotel New Otani, Tokyo





Paukščių takas, Vilnius TV Tower, Vilnius, Lithuania





Bintang Restaurant, The Federal Kuala Lumpur





Bellini Restaurante, World Trade Center Mexico City





100 Revolving Restaurant, Quezon City, Philippines





Genex Tower, Belgrade





Le Kuklos, Leysin, Switzerland





Roma Revolving Restaurant, Durban, South Africa





Akemi Restaurant, Golden Jubilee PSPF Towers, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania





Tiara, Marina Mall, Abu Dhabi





Lakeview Restaurant, Center Parcs Eleven Forest, UK





BonaVista Lounge, Westin Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles





Polaris, Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Atlanta





Sun Dial, Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, Atlanta





Top of Waikiki, Honolulu





Eagle's Nest, Hyatt Regency Indianapolis, Indianapolis





JJ Astor, Radisson Hotel Duluth Harborview, Duluth





Top of the World, Stratosphere, Las Vegas





The View, New York Marriott Marquis Times Square, New York City





Spindletop, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Houston





Skydome Lounge, Doubletree Hotel Crystal City, Arlington





SkyCity, Space Needle, Seattle





Hotel El Paseo, Restaurante El Girasol, Maracaibo, Zulia, Venezuela




*

p.s. Hey. ** New Juche, Thank you. Ah, Thomas Vinterberg. He made 'Festen'. That was a terrific movie. Not yet on the Winkler front, I'm just a little behind on everything at the moment. I'll try to track that down today before everything else takes over. The weekend was dry as dry can be, strangely. Take good care. How was your weekend? ** David Ehrenstein, I'll take ineffable, thank you! Yeah, Ali, a very, very great human. I happened into Book Soup one night years ago when he happened to be there signing books in the back of the store at that desk they use for signings, and I stood about five feet away for a while and just watched. His hands were already very difficult for him to use, but he was was very slowly signing hundreds of people's books while continually chewing and eating orange wedges which someone told me helped him concentrate on steadying his hand. Anyway, it was completely mind-blowing just to stand within five feet of him for a while. ** Nick Toti, Hi, Nick. Oh, yes, I'm a million percent sure that my interest in Nintendo games is inexorably connected to the mega-influence that growing up while visiting Disneyland multiple times a year had on me. Interesting, yeah, I think I agree with you about Nintendo's future status. And about its focus and the market it was able to thusly create. I do see Miyamoto as possessing the kind of genius that Walt Disney had as well. The level of innovation within the child-friendly arena is very similar in the two maestros. And the progressive notion and employment of interactivity in Nintendo's games even seems connected to and perhaps influenced by the way Disneyland has the feeling of absorbing and disarming and arming the visitor simultaneously. Now that, as you probably know, Nintendo is branching into theme park representation, I'm very curious to see what manifests. Sadly, I don't think the current world is such that any Nintendo parks could be the manifested, pure, innovative dreams or fantasies of Minamoto and crew made solid the way Disney was able to construct his ideal park in the '50s. I suspect and fear it will be a matter of licensing and farming things out, but you never know. Yeah, obviously, these are areas I think about a whole lot. Thanks, man, awesome to talk! ** Steevee, Hi. Yes, I'm sure I have friends like that, but I think we scrupulously avoid talking about music. I find that close-mindedness wherein someone's nostalgia becomes so flush or ingrained within him or her that it completely infects their aesthetic and they can't be rational or objective about new music to be very confusing and depressing. Jailing your passion and sense of adventure about music in the past is bizarre to me. And it's a very common phenom. People my age, for instance, who remain interested in new music to the point that they can fully embrace it are really quite rare. So, yeah, very weird. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Thank you. Huh, those games sound really fascinating. I'm going to have to borrow someone's system long enough to play a game or two. Yeah, I think I'll try to do a post on Kojima. Yeah, thank you, that sounds really, really interesting. 'ED' was the initiator of the sanity meter, yes. At the time, it was so fresh and new that it was really, really mind-blowing. I'm looking forward to reading the anthology! ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Oh, Dóra, I'm so sorry to hear that. It must be really unbearable. Death is the worst thing ever. And it always just seems so incredibly wrong that dogs have such short lifespans. It's so illogical. Humans' lifespans are way too short enough, but dogs have so little time. I'm so sorry. The flooding is over, and the river is receding very quickly. They say these kinds of floods will become somewhat commonplace here now, and I guess that one was quite a wake up call. Thank you about the gif work. You take really good, my pal. Did today manage to give you some much deserved joy or distraction at least? ** H, Hi. Thank you very, very much for saying that. It means a lot. Hugs. ** Damien Ark, Hi, Damien. Thanks a whole bunch, man, Thats great, and it's really nice of you to tell me that. How are you? What's up? ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks a lot, Ben. Yeah, I think the new gif novel, which that weekend work forms a chapter in, is going to be the best literary gif book I've made. I'm going to go check out that video you linked to. Great Monday to you! ** Misanthrope, Thanks, G. I knew that pantsed boy was a Someone, but it's true that I didn't know his name, and I don't have a clue about Cameron Pierce. Ow, man. I can't even figure out how Co2 could travel around in your body, but I can imagine that pain would be kind of scary. Holy moly. I'm glad that part's over. I haven't seen Cronenberg's 'Maps to the Stars', no, but Gisele really liked it and has told me many times to see it. 'I Origins'? I never heard of that. Sounds like something I might find a plane flight. I'll check it out there if I can. I kind of really don't like Vincent Gallo. I did see 'Buffalo 66'. The only thing I remember is that there was a scene (or two?) in it where he/it made really good use of a track by Yes. That's all my memory has stored from it. I've never seen Amy Schumer do anything. All I know is that a bunch of people in my Facebook feed who seem really misogynist don't like her. Very glad you're back, buddy! Love, me. ** Right. I suspect the most or all of you won't investigate the post today very much, but it's a shame because it turned out to be almost by accident one of the most structurally and physically perfect posts ever. But, hey, what do I know, you know? See you tomorrow.
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