Back in in the early 00s, a fine gentleman and writer named Don Waters, who has been known to comment occasionally on this blog, masterminded a project wherein a number of music artists whom he and/or I liked were solicited to contribute songs and pieces of music inspired by my books that would be gathered together on a limited edition CD.
It took a few years for the project to come to fruition, but in 2006 the CD, entitled DENNIS: story - song, was released in an edition of 500 copies, 42 of which were signed by me and numbered. The package featured cover art and internal images by the LA sculptor/artist Amy Sarkisian, who is a great favorite of mine, and it included a booklet containing what was at that time a brand new short story by me called 'The Ash Gray Proclamation'.
The edition sold out quickly, and it has been nigh on impossible to buy or even hear since that time because the music on the CD has never been uploaded onto the internet as far as I know. Among the artists who have songs and/or music pieces on the CD are Robert Pollard, Xiu Xiu, Richard Hell, Fentin Quentin, Pig Destroyer, Eddie Ruscha (Secret Circuit, Medicine), Stephen Prina (w/ lyrics by me), Peter Rehberg (w/ spoken word by me), Jeremy Gloff, and others. In some cases, their contributions have never been released anywhere else. So, that's the CD in a nutshell. You can see images of it above and below.
When I was in LA recently, I happened to find a small number of copies from the signed, numbered edition, and I thought it would be fun or cool to share one of them with the readers and contributors of this blog. So, I'm holding a little contest, and the winner will receive a copy of DENNIS. Here's what you have to do: You should have a pretty good handle on my interests and enthusiasms from the blog posts that I choose to make, and of course from reading my work. To win the CD, I ask you to either imbed or copy and paste a link to something or some place that you think would really excite or interest or delight me into your comment today or tomorrow. Only one link suggestion per commenter, please. Anyone is welcome to enter the contest, whether you comment here regularly or have never commented here before.
A friend of mine will copy and paste the links you choose sans attributions into a document so I can click them without knowing who suggested them. The link that leads me to the most exciting or rewarding or whatever site, page, place, or thing will win the CD. The deadline is your bedtime in your time zone tomorrow (November 13th) night. Once the 'entries' are all in, I'll investigate them and announce the winner, probably on this coming Friday. Is all of that clear? If not, feel free to ask for clarification. May the canniest or luckiest reader and/or d.l. win.
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p.s. Hey. So, yeah, are you game? I can't imagine that anyone reading this lives in Poitiers, France, but if you do, the first 'Them' performance is tonight at 8:30 at TAP, and, if you live here, I guess you know where that is. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Ha ha, yeah, I had a mental list of artists I decided to try to not include because they were so obviously appropriate, incl. Nico, Joy Division, and a few others, and a couple of them slipped into the list anyway, but not Nico. I figured someone would compensate and add her from the comments arena, and viola! Thanks for the Ray Davies link. Always a pleasure. ** _Black_Acrylic, I actually looked for a suicidal disco song to include as a challenge to myself, and no luck on my end, and kudos/thanks to your end. Cool, excited to watch the video! Everyone, here's _B_A with a boon for you in general and an add to yesterday's gig: 'Lewis Den Hertog's 2013 AGK-winning video seems quite apt: "The Future" by Leonard Cohen is here.' ** Sypha, Hi. I don't know that Madonna song, I don't think, but I'll wander into it, thank you. ** Bill Porter, Hi. I came a hair's breadth from including that Silverchair song. I'm actually a big fan of theirs, but not of the early 'Frogstomp' era so much, though. Daniel Johns was, at one point, going to write the score for a film based on a short story of mine that never happened. I was excited and then crushed. I like Jason Molina. I don't know his work thoroughly, but I've always quite liked what I've heard, and his death was very sad. If I know 'Blue Factory Flame', I've forgotten the title. I'll go find out. Thanks, man. No it's not too long at all, no. I just keep overestimating the amount of time I have here to not be working on the performance piece. I should be fully up to speed, i.e. to the end by tomorrow, I guesstimate. Uh, my description made you want check out Lloyd Cole? That was an accident, ha ha. But, no, yeah, see what you think. ** Misanthrope, It was Veterans Day yesterday over there? That's weird 'cos it was Remembrance Day over here in France. Must be a WWII-based thing or something? ** Zach, Hi. Yeah, Suicide was on that mental list I mentioned to DE of people I tried not to program in the gig as a challenge to myself. But yeah, for sure, duh, totally. Your thesis sounds really fascinating. 'The panoramic novel', wow, yeah, nice. That's a really cool category. I'm going to spend some time reading up on that. The GM novel is really good, and he's a really good guy. Need I even ask how amazing MBV was last night? Talk about guaranteed mind blows. ** Steevee, If you ever successfully rescue those tapes, do let me in on the results. I don't really like Metallica, so I guess that's why I didn't think of them. I'll check out that Geto Boys track. I don't think I know it. Cool. ** Keaton, Me too, on the confusion thing. Oh, good, you get my strangeness. That's good. Better to know than not. How'd the story go? ** Etc etc etc, Hi. I didn't get to read your piece yesterday due to performance prep busyness, but today should be open-ish. Excited. Gotcha about Rimbaud. So much baggage and off shooting and stuff. He is as great as they/we say though, I say. Completely changed my teenaged and then forever life anyway. It is true, I think: what you say about the openness of the non-literary periodicals, relatively speaking. Or, yeah, maybe it was. The whole periodical context has been so upended and reoriented by the internet's cornering and both diminishing and enlarging of the nature of the periodical. In a way, I think the online context encourages and allows for more experimentation 'cos the volume of the volumes is so open, like what happened to music albums post-vinyl. First performance is tonight, so we'll see. We haven't done this piece in a year, so the doing of it and the response feel more unexpected in advance. And thanks about the scrapbooks. Wolves in the Throne Room is a nice add, thanks. Yeah, they didn't come to mind when I was curating the gig, and that track is a dead ringer. Good day to you. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris. Oh, man, I'm so sorry. I didn't know that Victoria Selavy had died. I think I read work of hers, and, no I know I did, and followed her a bit. God, that's terrible, I'm so sorry. Yeah, I mean, suicide ... or the possibility of it in her case ... you know, there's hardly a day that I don't think about George Miles. And there've a lot of suicides in my life by people I've known well and in many cases loved. It's just unspeakably confusing and hard. Hugs, my friend. ** Torn porter, Hi. That video you threw into the mix is 'not available in (my) country', damn. What was it, for the record? And I'll investigate that ARF link when I get this done and have more time. Give Ratty my major kudos! The first of the two performances is tonight, so we will see. I'll let you know. Getting ready for that is pretty what's going on with me at the moment. Lots of projects and stuff waiting for me to get back to them. Oh, I see, yeah, I probably can understand that liason-related freak out, emotionally or psychologically or something. I'm glad you're entering the clear, at least. Best to you, and peace too. ** Okay. So, now, if you feel like trying the contest, I hope that doing so will be, you know, interesting. Thanks. I will see you back here tomorrow.