'River Phoenix's death has startled and depressed everyone I know, even people who had previously dismissed movie stardom as a form of corporate-induced mass hypnosis. About 72 hours after his fatal collapse, a cynical friend and I happened on a recent television interview in which the earnest young actor was laying out his future plans, and we burst into horrified tears. Weird. That's what we keep saying: Weird that he's dead; weird that we care so much. Phoenix seems to have been admired by a whole lot of people in relative secrecy- an artist whose work insinuated itself into viewers's good graces, no matter how faltering its particular vehicle, nor how initially cold-hearted his audience.
'To wit: As I write this, Hard Copy, hardly a show known for its moral fortitude, is heaping praise on a paparazzi photographer who couldn't bring himself to document the actor's dying convulsions. The word on the streets, even in the gossip columns, had always had Phoenix living a pretty honorable and pristine existence relative to the goings-on of his peers- a poetry-reading, vegetarian, open-minded, Democratic life, free of Shannon Doherty's creepiness, Judd Nelson's self-destructiveness, Mickey Rourke's bombast. Occasionally you'd hear about him standing tensely and unsociably on the fringe of some art gallery opening; S/M performer Bob Flanagan, once a member of the improvisational comedy troupe the Groundlings, remembers Phoenix staggering drunkenly onto the stage during one of their skits. But big deal. He was a kid.
'Mostly he seemed, if anything, too serious, too incapable of relaxing into a benign mindlessness, even for a minute. In a recent issue of Detour magazine, he positively excoriated many of his fellow actors for being ego-driven, and spoke of wanting to move not just out of L.A., but out of this wretched country entirely. Nonetheless, he did continue to live here, and he did apparently die under the influence of drugs at a trendy local nightspot. So it's hard to know what to think right now. Death always focuses people, even if the demystification process takes years in some cases. It shouldn't with Phoenix, since his sincerity and forthrightness have never been in question. Ultimately, barring unforseen revelations, his name, his work, will acquire that particular cult holiness that people naturally create to fill in the blanks around the prematurely taken.
'Phoenix will be our James Dean, just like so many pundits are predicting. Meanwhile, by default, his fellow "outsider" types like Keanu Reeves, Matt Dillon, et al., are stuck being our Marlon Brando, if they're lucky. And that's because actors can't compete with their fans' imaginations, and the accomplishments we'll fantasize for a hypothetical mature Phoenix can't help but outstrip the potential feats of the bona fide middle-aged Phoenix. Life's funny, and even a little disgusting, that way. Comparisons between Phoenix and James Dean are lazy, not to mention ubiquitous at this point, though they did share several of the qualities that separate great actors from mere signifiers of glamour. Both were extremely attentive to detail yet seemingly incapable of submerging their actual emotions under an artifical personality.
'No matter how peripheral Phoenix's role -- the scatterbrained junior hippie in I Love You To Death, the poet/Casanova in The Life and Times of Jimmy Reardon, the loyal, spooked son of Harrison Ford's megalomaniac in The Mosquito Coast -- he was always a little more perceptive and soulful- more real- than anyone else onscreen. Even in as offbeat and dislocated a milieu as the Portland street-hustler scene of My Own Private Idaho, Phoenix's Mike stood out as unusually lonesome- someone who was afraid of, and simultaneously astonished by, his squalid conditions, who desperately sought affection from others while at the same time avoiding sympathizers like the plague. It was a performance that, like most of Dean's, seemed to distill the confused melancholy of an emerging generation.
'Phoenix was the son of hippie parents. He sometimes described his acting style as an attempt to represent how he felt upon trading his family's blanket humanism for the film industry's hatred of the unrepentent individual. Actress-performer Ann Magnuson, who co-starred with Phoenix in Jimmy Reardon, once remarked to me with a kind of amazement how solid and unspoiled he seemed even then, in the teen-idol phase of his career. As someone who entered showbiz with her own mixed feelings, she wondered how or even if he'd survive its multifarious forms of corruption. Maybe that very struggle explains why, as he aged, his performances exuded ever more sadness and pointed discomfort. His best recent work found him playing overgrown kids who clung for their lives to youthful notions of a perfect romantic and/or familial love. In a profession that divides its young into marginalized wackos with integrity like Crispin Glover and John Lurie, or hipster sellouts like Christian Slater and Robert Downey, Jr., Phoenix was that once-in-a-decade actor honest enough to connect powerfully with people his own age, and skillful enough to remind members of an older generation of the intensity they'd lost.' -- DC, 1993
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Stills
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Further
River Phoenix @ IMDb
'The Short, Happy Life of River Phoenix'
Rio's Attic: The River Phoenix Encyclopedia
The River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding
My River Phoenix Collection, a Fanpage
Thew River Phoenix Blog
The River Phoenix Discussion Group
RIVER PHOENIX WAS HERE Documentary Official Website
Book: 'River Phoenix: A Short Life'
Peter Bogdanovich interviewed about River Phoenix
'My Love-Hate Relationship with River Phoenix'
The Death of River Phoenix Discussion Forum
River Phoenix Forever, a Spanish Fan Blog
Fuck Yeah River Phoenix
Fuck Year River Phoenix's Hair
River Phoenix Lovers' Journal
A Boy Named River Phoenix tumblr
'A decade without River Phoenix'
'The Strange Saga of River Phoenix's Final Film'
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Nonfiction
Interview 1987
Interview 1988
Interview 1991
River Phoenix hometown tour
Trailer: 'River Phoenix Was Here', a documentary
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Juvenilia
A young River & Joaquin Phoenix in ''Afterschool Special: Backwards: The Riddle of Dyslexia''
River Phoenix's Emotional Performance In 'Surviving: A Family In Crisis' (1985)
Very young River Phoenix sings 'Rock Around the Clock'
River Phoenix in 'Family Ties'
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Songs for and by
River Phoenix singing 'Lone Star State of Mine'
Japanther 'River Phoenix' (live)
Aleka's Attic 'Where I'd Gone'
Panter 'River Phoenix'
John Frusciante & River Phoenix 'Height Down'
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Last Interview
A few days before his death, on October 31, in L.A., River Phoenix was interviewed by Premiere Magazine on the set of his last movie, Dark Blood, in Utah. He was 23 years old.
Your movies often contain an important social or political message. Is it a deliberate choice from yours?
River Phoenix: What inspires me first is the quality of the written word and script, and not some strategy. At the time of Mosquito Coast, I didn't choose my parts yet. I went to a casting and I had the chance to join in such a movie.
Most young actors seem to make more commercial choices than you, is it right?
RP: Maybe some of my movies would have been successful if I hadn't played in... These commercial stuff, I consider them as a pollution of mind. I don't want to contaminate my work or my convictions with things that won't contribute to my growth or to the development of my art.
Generally, how do you deal with a part?
RP: Usually, I write the detailed biography of the character. For me it's the only possible way. To play a sad scene, many will only for example think of their mother's death. I consider it's a mistake for an actor to cross the boundary that separates him from his character. Because then you impose him your own references. That's why I need to have landmarks that only belong to my character. For example, for My Own Private Idaho I wrote a lot. And once the movie was done, I burned it all.
Why?
RP: Everything was on the screen.
Was this also not to use it again?
RP: That's right, even if, as an actor, I'm growing richer and learning with each character. And a new character will then be able to raise from this compilation of parts.
You're vegan?
RP: I'm not eating any animal flesh and I don't feel having the right to take the soul of any living creature. But the movie character, on his side, belongs to the natural food chain, like Native Americans or Inuit. He's entitled to live on earth's natural resources.
Could you describe what you enjoy as an actor?
RP: When you look at the movie history, you realize that there are gaps and missing links. My ultimate goal is to try to give in a competent way a voice to characters who haven't had the chance to talk yet, those who never expressed themselves so far. Even if I've not always been able to do so. For me, the ideal recompense, what really fulfills me, is to create something new. Not only to be original at any cost or to be the first one to do it, but because these blanks need to be filled. Besides, I could play the same character again and again, in a different way each time. As many times as I have atoms in my body.
Are you satisfied with what you've achieved at this point in your career?
RP: Honestly, I don't think this way. I never think of me as an actor. I see all of this as new experiences each time, like as many different lives. As many reincarnations. So when I watch my last movie, I'm unable to judge or to be critical. For me, it's past, and I don't feel any connection to it anymore, like if it was somebody else than me that I'm not responsible for. I immersed myself in another life that the character appropriated. He expressed himself through me, not the other way around.
It sounds like you've always taken care to separate your private life from your actor's work.
RP: Absolutely. Quite often, when actors have such a strong charisma in real life, eventually it has to affect the characters they play. For myself I'm not charismatic in that way. I'm not a "performer". Ideally I would stay mute as River. That's the reason why, for a long time, I've said the opposite of what I really thought. In interviews, I've also played to be characters that I wasn't. I've lied and often contradicted myself to dumbfound people. It's all over now, because I have nothing left to hide. Eventually, I'm quite an ordinary person.
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12 of River Phoenix's 14 films
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Rob Reiner Stand by Me(1986)
'Until Stand By Me, the only film River Phoenix had appeared in had been the teen flick Explorers; he had yet to really make his mark. But in Chris Chambers, he was able to exude that tenderness, vulnerability and understated cool he would eventually become known for. In a particularly heart-wrenching scene, Phoenix sits at the trunk of a tree, the campfire flickering in the foreground, and has a breakdown because he thinks he’s worthless. It was a tough one to get right. Director Rob Reiner asked the actor to think of a time when an adult had let him down. “When someone that you really looked up to, and really loved, wasn’t there for you,” he said. The next take, he got it. Reiner never did find out what Phoenix was thinking about. “He kept crying after that scene and I had to go give him a hug. It is a hard scene to play and then snap out of.”'-- collaged
Excerpt
Excerpt
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Peter Weir The Mosquito Coast (1986)
'The little Foxes are a rosy brood, and Helen Mirren plays archetypal Mother Fox with an eloquent, Meryl Streepish glow. She and the kids -- River Phoenix as Charles, Jadrien Steele as Jerry, and kid models Hilary and Rebecca Gordon as the freckly twin girls -- form a perfect family tableau. And Conrad Roberts becomes a part of the extended family as the compassionate Creole boatman who ferries the Foxes to their new tropical home. This fantasy family of pliable progeny never challenges Fox's increasingly dangerous tyranny. Like Fitzcarraldo before him, Fox is transfigured by the tropics, a stranger in a stranger land. Theroux's theme is handily adopted by Australian director Peter Weir, who works from Paul Shrader's strange screenplay. Weir, who also directed Ford in Witness, has reworked the theme of cultural alienation time and again in such films as The Last Wave, The Year of Living Dangerously and Picnic at Hanging Rock. Here Weir wrestles with similar notions, but with an uncustomarily comic touch. So Mosquito Coast is stripped of its significance and deteriorates into an epic spoofed.'-- LA Times
Excerpt
Excerpt
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William Richert A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon(1988)
'In his first starring performance, Phoenix plays Richert’s alter-ego, a middle-class dreamer in an upper-middle-class suburban world of mansions and country clubs and keeping-up appearances. Goodbye centers on Phoenix’s hapless attempts to scrounge up enough money to travel to Hawaii with blueblood girlfriend Salenger instead of following in his dad’s dispiriting footsteps and attending modest McKinley college in the heart of downtown Chicago. Goodbye belongs to the curious literary subset of fictions concerned with what young men do with their penises. I am, as a rule, not a fan of movies or books about brooding young hunks whose overpowering sexuality renders them irresistible to beautiful women. Yet I found it entirely plausible that every woman Phoenix encounters wants to fuck his brains out. There is a sweetness and a vulnerability to Phoenix’s performance that nicely undercuts the locker-room machismo of a guy making a movie about what a stud he was as a young man. Phoenix makes his character’s serial womanizing—in short order, he lapses into romantic clinches with a coffeehouse pick-up, Baxteresque buddy Matthew Perry’s bitchy girlfriend (Ione Skye), Salenger, and lonely older woman Ann Magnuson—seem like part of a noble search for experience and truth rather than a sleazy bid to score as much tail as possible.'-- Nathan Rabin
Trailer
Excerpt
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Richard Benjamin Little Nikita(1988)
'Jeffrey Nicolas Grant (River Phoenix), a brash hyperactive high school student lives in a San Diego suburb with his parents, who own a successful garden centre. Keen to fly, he has applied for entry to the Air Force Academy. During a routine background check on Jeff, FBI agent Roy Parmenter (Poitier) finds contradictory information on his parents, making him suspect that all is not as it should be. Further investigations reveal that they may be 'sleeper' agents for the Soviet Union with a teenager son, Jeff Nicholas. Unable to arrest them as they haven't actually done anything yet, Roy continues his investigation, and moves into the house across the street from the Grant family. He warms his way into their confidence.'-- Wikipedia
Trailer
Excerpt
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Sidney Lumet Running On Empty(1988)
'In Sidney Lumet's latest movie, Running on Empty, River Phoenix portrays Danny Pope, a. k. a. "Mike Manfield" and several other fictitious names. He is 17, in a state of emotional hibernation, and a mystery to his teachers. Yet he performs Mozart's Fantasia, K. 497, well enough to move an entrance jury at the Juilliard School of Music to remark, "You are very talented, you know." The pianism in the movie was the work of local pianist Gar Berke, who coached Phoenix for six months prior to filming. Berke's rendition of Mozart is slower, more meditative than traditionally performed, but exudes the melancholy desired. While on camera, Phoenix synchronized his fingers with a prerecorded tape of Berke playing. It is an amazing feat by Phoenix, who until Running on Empty never studied piano and yet manages to keep alive the illusion that he's actually playing for extended periods of time.'-- LA Times
Excerpt
Excerpt
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Steven Spielberg Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade(1989)
'It was a touch of genius on the part of Steven Spielberg to cast River Phoenix as the young Indiana Jones. The director needed a youthful actor for a clever sequence explaining how our favorite archaeologist got his trademark hat, bullwhip, chin scar, fear of snakes, etc., so he enlisted the 19-year-old Phoenix for the role. The actor was fresh off of Little Nikita and Running on Empty, so it must have been pretty exciting to leap into a beloved adventure series. Mr. Phoenix was quite excellent as the young Indiana Jones, delivering a performance that was half of an homage to Harrison Ford and half just plain ol' heroic derring-do. It's a clever and very likable little performance, and one that indicated a little "action hero" potential from the young actor.'-- Scott Weinberg
RP in 'IJatLC' documentary
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Lawrence Kasdan I Love You to Death(1990)
'While the action takes us where we might expect -- both to the hospital and to jail -- its resolution does not. Joey emerges from his ordeal a changed man and refuses to press charges. "Somebody puts a bullet in your brain, it makes you think." In reaching for a climactic coming-together, the filmmakers seem quite consciously to be reaching for that Moonstruck feeling. But here Kasdan doesn't show Norman Jewison's precision-grip sense of timing and structure. I Love You to Death is both pleasing and baffling. It's a movie oddly out of touch with itself, simultaneously anarchic and flaccid. You can laugh at it, even love some of it, but just as likely, you'll slip off to a dreamy world all your own.'-- The Washington Post
Excerpt
Excerpt
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Nancy Savoca Dogfight(1991)
'River was an absolute pleasure to work with and to be around. He bought a banged up Volvo wagon (his weekly per diem matched my weekly salary!) and chauffeured all his fellow “Bees” and me around town when we had days off. He picked up dinner tabs and made life at the Warwick hotel amusing and unpredictable. One night he and his younger brother, then known to all of us as Leaf (now Joaquin), showed up with motorized toy speedboats that we proceeded to take down to the hotel pool and put to the test. If my memory serves, Rob Lowe was in the vicinity (jacuzzi), dating – and eventually marrying - our makeup woman at the time. River was thoughtful and sweet, not an ounce of territorial actor neurosis, a rare quality. He was also pure as the driven snow, a quality that scrambles like an ant down a drain in a stiff rain in Tinseltown.'-- Lars Beckerman
Trailer
Excerpt
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Gus Van Sant My Own Private Idaho(1991)
'It’s been 20 years since River Phoenix’s death, and Gus Van Sant’s 1991 road movie My Own Private Idaho is still almost unbearably sad to watch. It isn’t just that Phoenix’s charisma and promise are on full display, though Idaho ranks alongside Running On Empty and Dogfight among his best roles. It’s the way Van Sant’s script leaves Phoenix in a state of constant vulnerability, like a turtle without its shell. At times, his character’s narcolepsy—in which he suddenly, unpredictably falls into a deep sleep—feels like a narrative contrivance, an ongoing deus ex machina calibrated to pivot the story in whatever direction Van Sant decides to take it. But it’s really more a metaphor for a lonely, loveless drifter who has no defense against a world that can take his money, his heart, and his life. Phoenix and his character aren’t one and the same, but they share an openness and sensitivity that’s keenly felt in My Own Private Idaho. They’re prey for a rapacious world.'-- Scott Tobias
Excerpt
Excerpt
Deleted scenes of River Phoenix in 'My Own Private Idaho'
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Phil Alden Robinson Sneakers(1992)
'Written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams) Sneakers is a slightly dated, yet engrossing and humorous thriller about computers, cryptography, espionage, secrets, deception and betrayal. An industrious person could make the argument that this little-known gem - that came and went from theaters without much fanfare in the fall of 1993 - was a sign of things to come! Five techno savvy guys, led by Redford, who has been wanted by the feds since the early 1970s, are called upon to recover a black box that contains an array of computer chips that allow any computer or program to be cracked. This was one of the last films to feature the unbelievably talented River Phoenix, who died of a drug overdose on October 31, 1993, roughly a month or so after the film was released in theaters.'-- collaged
Excerpt/commentary
Excerpt
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Peter Bogdanovich The Thing Called Love(1993)
'In Phoenix's first scene, it is obvious he's in trouble. The rest of the movie only confirms it, making The Thing Called Love a painful experience for anyone who remembers him in good health. He looks ill - thin, sallow, listless. His eyes are directed mostly at the ground. He cannot meet the camera, or the eyes of the other actors. It is sometimes difficult to understand his dialogue. Even worse, there is no energy in the dialogue, no conviction that he cares about what he is saying. Some small part of this performance may possibly have been inspired by Phoenix's desire to emulate James Dean or the young Brando in their slouchy, mumbly acting styles. And maybe that's how Bogdanovich and his associates reassured themselves as they saw this performance taking shape. After all, Phoenix came to the project as one of the most promising actors of his generation, and perhaps somehow an inner magic would transmit itself to the film. It does not. The world was shocked when Phoenix overdosed, but the people working on this film should not have been. It is notoriously difficult to get addicts to stop their behavior before they have found their personal bottoms, and so perhaps no one could have saved Phoenix, who was not lucky enough to find a higher bottom than death. But this performance in this movie should have been seen by someone as a cry for help.' -- Roger Ebert
Trailer
Excerpts
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Sam Shepard Silent Tongue(1994)
'Enough with the Rehashing of how River Phoenix, 23, overdosed on cocaine and heroin last Halloween outside the Viper Room, in L.A. Either Phoenix is reduced to another drug casualty for the just-say-no crowd to duck over, or he's romanticized into pinup martyrdom – a James Dean for the '90s. Phoenix's talent and memory deserve better. He was an actor, an uncommonly gifted one. Evidence of that can be found in Silent Tongue, a haunting tale of love, death and shame in the Old West. It is Phoenix's penultimate performance: The last film he completed, Peter Bogdanovich's sweet but silly Thing Called Love, went swiftly to video. Silent Tongue, a mesmerizing mess written and directed by Sam Shepard (no acting this time), is a more apt swan song. It shows Phoenix at his ambitious best.'-- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Trailer
Excerpts
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George Sluizer Dark Blood(2012)
'Dark Blood is a film directed by George Sluizer, written by Jim Barton, and starring River Phoenix, Judy Davis, and Jonathan Pryce. The film wasn't completed due to the death of Phoenix shortly before the end of the project and remained unfinished for 19 years. Dark Blood consisted of roughly five weeks of on location shooting in Torrey, Utah and was scheduled to complete three weeks of filming interior scenes in Los Angeles, California on a sound stage. Filming was never completed due to Phoenix's death on October 31, 1993. Production halted while insurers and financiers tried to determine if the movie could be completed, but with important scenes still needing to be shot the film was abandoned on November 18, 1993. For the 2012 release, these missing scenes were replaced with Sluizer providing narration.'-- collaged
Trailer
Excerpt
Unseen footage of River Phoenix in "Dark Blood"
*
p.s. Hey. So, tomorrow morning I travel to a Belgian town called Courtai where the new theater piece I'm making with Gisele and Stephen O'Malley and Peter Rehberg, 'The Pyre', is in its late stage rehearsals. It'll be the first time I see the piece with its giant, led light-packed set in place and working, which is exciting. Anyway, point is, as a consequence of my morning train departure time, there won't be a full-fledged p.s. tomorrow. As for Friday, hard to tell 'cos I'm being put up at some unknown to me B&B where there may or may not be internet connectivity. If there is, and if rehearsals start at the usual Vienne-related late morning time, I'll do the p.s., but, if those two stars don't align, there'll be no p.s. per say on Friday either, and I'll catch up with the accumulated comments when I'm back in Paris on Saturday. ** Scunnard, Or maybe my notions of my own depletion are, in fact, a miscalculation and misinterpretation of what is, instead, a new kind of productivity on a lower-key and, consequently, more, mm, spiritual plane or something. Glad you dug yesterday. You did stuff for Lee Breuer? Wow, did I know that before? Cool. I'm good, yeah, thanks. You were first, yeah. No, it's good because you get me before the p.s. writing burn-out starts to set in, if that's a good thing. Logic says it must be, right? ** Misanthrope, 'World War Z' ... I've heard of that. Blockbuster or something. Brad Pitt? Truer words have rarely been typed than those in the last sentence of your comment. ** S., Had to? If one has to, one has to. That's the golden rule, I reckon. Anyway, the stacks are back! And a list atop it. Interesting looking list. I'll run my eye of its textual labyrinth just a bit later. Folks, if you click this word-shaped thing, you'll be at S.'s blog, or, well, you will be after you click through the content warning, but I guess you're used to doing that as visitors to good old DC's. Anyway, when you get there, you'll see, first, an interesting list composed by S., followed shortly thereafter by his latest Emo stack. So, the price of your click is a super bargain, in other words. Yeah, right? Immortality suits me really well, I think. That's why it has to happen. Overkill? Not Urge Overkill? Just Overkill? Okay. Crazy writing ideas rule. ** Wolf, Wolf! Nah, haven't managed to get to the PdT show yet, damn. I'll do that pronto. Well, I read something or somethings somewhere that they did actually film at least some of the Bond on the actual island, but who knows, and whatev', right? I've tried a few times to do a post on/re: film sets, and it's weird how scrawny the results are for such a lucrative seeming image search. I'll try again because it is a swell idea. I've never heard of 'The Place Beyond the Pines'. I wonder if it's playing here. I wonder what the French decided to rename it. I'll check. Geeky course high sounds a sweet motherfucking high. I want a contact high. Give it to me. Or, well, I guess I have the contact high right now, but give me more. ** David Ehrenstein, As you noted, France now has same-sex marriage and adoption. How about dem apples? We'll see how the crazies react. They're threatening to react like crazy, as it were. But we'll see. I think all was relatively quiet on the French front yesterday. ** Nemo, Hi, J. An email? Okay, I'll go find it. That was you buried in intense phone static yesterday? Shit. Almost nobody ever calls me on that line, so I guess the phone itself has fallen off its perch too many times and gotten fucked up. I'll see if the Recollets will replace it. I don't know who Jim Hobson is. Who is he? ** Tosh, Hi, Tosh! My honor, my pleasure, great sir! I finished reading the book. It's very beautiful. It isn't what I expected at all in the most wonderful way. Really great for so many reasons. Oh, cool, about your Tokyo friend. No, I'm going with my pal Zac, and neither of us have ever been to Japan before. I'm hoping that d.l. Paul Curran will be there then and that we can hook up. But, yes, thank you, I would very much like that guy's contact information, if you don't mind. ** Cobaltfram, Oh, Dennifer is almost going too far, ha ha. I'm going to go traditional on you. Hi, John. Well, the cool thing about writing books is you can not control the reader except in the most superficial ways, so they might totally forget what you've written, and there ain't nothing you can do about it. Scary cool. Nobody had sent me that coffee thing/link, and I welcome it, and I am not in the least surprised by its proposition. Very nice and thank you re: the post idea/offer. Sweet. Oh, shit, I didn't set my mind to thinking of good memoirs. I'll get back to that thinking. Sweet about finally meeting your cyber friend in Dallas. ** Shane Jones, Hi, Shane! Wow, very cool to see you here. I read your interview on the TDR tumblr. Very interesting, and, based on my experience with one of my publishers, I relate to what happened with 'Daniel' in pretty much every respect. Yeah, sales figures. I know in the past when I've been between publishers and looking for a new one, most of the responses have been on the order, 'Yeah, he's a wonderful writer, and we would love to have him if his sales figures were higher.' The print review coverage thing is really weird right now. My last novel, 'TMS', got very, very few print reviews, which really surprised me since that hadn't happened before, and because I hadn't been with such a giant press before, and the people at HP said that the 'industry' is in this weird phase where print reviews of literary books are happening much, much less than before, but publishers still base their opinion on how well a book does critically on the print review coverage, and they still pooh-pooh online review coverage. So, anyway, yeah. Penguin were fools not to support 'Daniel' more. It's a really fantastic book, and I can't wait for the new one, and I hope the TDR experience is a good. I really like what those guys are doing. It seems like it could be a very nice home. Best to you, Shane! ** TIM MILLER QUEER PERFORMER, Hey, Tim! So really great to see you, my pal! Yes, France did the inevitable and must-do yesterday at last. I've been following your recent travels on FB very happily! Oh, the New Museum thing, yeah! Great! Aren't they also doing some event or series of events around you, Karen, Holly, and John? The loft? You mean Arturo's parents' loft in SoHo? Yeah, I liked staying there a lot. It's very cozy and kind of kooky with a very decent kitchen and, obviously, an insanely good location. You'll enjoy that, I'm pretty sure. Love to you, T! ** Steevee, Ha ha, yeah, that fan fiction thing isn't really a surprise now that you mention it. Those teens' imagined interpretation of him seems as potentially right-on as any other explanation out there at the moment. I like Marnie Stern. I haven't been in love with her stuff so far, but I def. like it. Haven't heard the new album yet. Sounds really interesting. I'll go hear it. Thanks, man. Oh, excellent Ozon interview, btw! ** Sypha, Yeah, me too. It's funny being a huge McCourt fan while knowing shit from shinola about opera since it's so big in his work. Interesting about Gaddis. I really need to get that. Good, good, about you refocusing on your creativity, obviously! ** Will C., Fingers heavily and severely and even painfully -- you deserve it -- crossed that you'll get one of those writing gigs. You finished a novella? Sweet news there. Cool, I'd love to see it, big natch. ** Randomwater, Hey, there! It's so great to see you! Yeah, I knew you were in LA and are living with Frank and Luke from Frank and from Joel. I'm really glad that the move has worked out so well for you. I look forward to finally meeting you and seeing your pad and stuff the next time I'm in LA. I've been really good. Things are really good. Spring took forever to arrive in Paris, but it's been here for about a week and a half now. It's one of the best times of the year here, for sure. It still rains a fair amount, but it's warm and everything looks very sharp. Oh, cool, I think, that 'TMS' left an interesting after effect in you that wasn't so apparent until you finished reading it. That's kind of what I was going for. Very cool. Yeah, it's real nice to see you, man, and it would be awesome to see you here more, if that pleases you. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Excellent: new Surgeon mix. I'll hit that up straight away. Thanks, buddy. I see, about the freedom you gave the Ortons. Nice choice on their part, I think. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! Dude, that's incredible and so kind and amazing of you to do that DC's thing on Neato Mosquito. I'm very honored, and I love what you've picked, and, of course, I'm very pleased and touched that you highlighted the post about George Miles. Thank you so much! Everyone, the unimpeachable Chris Dankland, master of multiple universes, has put together a DC's-centered post or series of posts today on his great NEATO MOSQUITO ALT LIT FIREWORKS SHOW site, so, if you want to scroll through/bathe in some of this blog's selected high-points according to Chris, you can do that right here, thank you! And if you're a Twitter person, you can now follow TNMALFS there. Just click on this and do that. Oh, I think the post you're looking for is this one about the artist Douglas Huebler, isn't it? Very exciting about the 9 eBooks sequence plan. Yeah, very exciting! Obviously, I can not fucking wait for them. I haven't finished 'Taipei' yet, but it's my train trip reading tomorrow, so I think I probably will finish right away. I like it a lot. It might be my favorite Tao thing thus far, at least based on the partial/most read I've done so far. Very curious to read your review. So hard to tell how it will go for the book. Tao moving up to a major publisher is very interesting, and I can't quite figure what that will do. I could see it being a huge break out hit for him. I can also see it being the golden excuse for the Tao hating and, not just Tao hating, Alt Lit hating/fearing lit establishment pontificators to go after him. It will be fascinating to see what happens. I feel like I really can't predict. I mean, it seems like the online Tao hating has died down in the last six months or so, but the question is what the lit crowd outside of the online community is making of him and of the Alt Lit world that they probably think he leads and represents. I think it's best not to take Bret's tweets very seriously. And, even so, given Tao's status as 'the hot' young writer and Bret's former status as 'the hot' new writer, I think there has to be a lot of baggage in his opinion. Everything's going great with me, thanks. And with you too, if there's any justice. And thank you again a lot for the DC's spotlight. ** Brendan, Mr. Lott! Do my eyes deceive me? No, it's you, glory-enshrouded you! Hi, buddy! I'm doing great, man. Yeah, the late nights required to watch Dodger games over here have turned me into a kind of imaginary fan, or at least a fan who has to content himself with post-game reports, alas. Wait, didn't I see on FB that you have a new gallery show up or almost up? Did I imagine that? If not, that's something pretty exciting to report, man. Lots of love to you! ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Oh, good, phew, that Blue Square is continuing. You mean James Turrell's crater project? I haven't heard too much about it lately, so I don't know. Thanks to Google maps, it's now easy to locate, and I'm planning on a road trip to see it in whatever condition it's currently in the next time I'm out West. Sure, do pick my brain. It would be an honor. Best before about May 5th because I'll be hitting the road then. You want to Skype? ** Rewritedept, Hi. Mm, only one of the artists in the post yesterday was mentioned in 'TMS', I think. I join you in wishing a new life for you, if that helps. Sweet how sweet you are about your sis. Aw. Track list done but hidden, cool. I like hidden things. As I said up above, the Belgium trip is to work on the new theater piece. So, it's for work and for pleasure as a consequence of said work, hopefully. Yeah, Japan, in June. I am a lucky duck. No question about it. ** Lee Vincent, Hi, Lee! Oh, cool that you liked 'Hadewijch' so much. It's pretty great, right? 'Hors Satan' might even be better, I think. Let me know your thoughts re: it. I absolutely have to read that McCullers. It sounds so amazing, and it's such a good length. I like her a lot too, even from a West Coast born and raised perspective. I've had this long standing idea that I want to write a novel that's a kind of remake of 'Heart Is the Lonely Hunter', but I've never quite figured out how to do it. That novel was massive for me. Have a great day, man. ** Okay. I realized the other day that I have never done a full-on River Phoenix post, and I decided to right that wrong, and there you go. The blog will see you tomorrow, and I will see you in my p.s. costume either on Friday or Saturday. Take care until whichever of those two days.