______________________
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When Penny Goring answers the door, she does so in a platinum blonde wig and carrying a red toothbrush.
“’Ello,” she says, in a distinct London accent, foam still in her mouth. ’Max wol be here in a minute’. (I think ”Who is Max, and why?”)
I step inside the apartment, follow her down a long dark hallway, walls covered in obsolete Sex Pistols posters and two paintings of pale deformed bodies performing obscure rituals with flowers, past a giant-sized stuffed unicorn, over several stacks of A3 sketchbooks, and into the living room, which is crowded with tableaus of junk.
Penny takes a seat on the couch and gestures loosely but decisively at a chair. A tower of books wobbles on the coffee table between us, closest to me – Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. A yellow plastic ashtray sits in the windowsill.
“So how does this go” She states, picking at the fur cuffing her skin-colored leotard.
I’ve come to interview Penny because her work stands out—the phrase “boundary-pushing” gets thrown around a lot, but it actually feels appropriate here—and because relatively little is known about her, aside from the work itself. In the hyper-exhibitionist world of alt lit, which Penny has somehow become associated with, her reluctance to chronicle her everyday minutia comes across as borderline reclusive. Of course, “exhibitionist” is a hazy word, and I’m talking to a woman who’s resorted to turning her tampons into art.
“Let’s start with the basics.” I say. “Where were you born?”
“Seriously?” Penny leans back in the chair, notices the toothbrush, leans forward to put it on the coffeetable, and leans back again. “Why?” she shrugs, and the wig shifts slightly.
“That’s okay.”
“I’m not being deliberately awkward, I promise” she laughs.
“Did you make these paintings?” I ask.
“Yea.” She seems to have already wandered off in her head.
I walk over to a huge painting, it’s about 5′ x 8′ .
”What’s this one called?”
“My dad was a pornstar.”
(read the entirety)
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Penny Goring EVERYWHERECLOUD
newhive
'some ghosts manifest as columns of static hanging from roof to basement, prefer half-light, are noiseless, smell like almonds, do nothing. some ghosts blow your fuses. some ghosts make you feel more alive. lie still while i break your legs. some ghosts are fluffy and sweet, have long icy tongues, many fingers. some ghosts perch on your shoulder, breathing hot death in your ear. some ghosts are sad, they fuck you while you’re sleeping. some ghosts look better bigger, some were meant to be small. some ghosts pour their dirty milk down your bedroom walls.'-- pg
Excerpt
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Penny Goring Reading Bone Dust Disco Part 1
Penny Goring Reading Bone Dust Disco Part 2
Penny Goring reading Temporary Passport
_______________________
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'All of which is to say that Because feels to me as if it is kind of supposed to be painful to read. I came in knowing the “I want” premise of the book, expecting Because to be an experimental novel that would be a little difficult to get through. And it is that, but not in the way you think of experimental—distant from the reader, difficult in terms of breaking the code of its linguistic tricks. Instead, it is so open, bleeding, and honest that it is almost impossible to stand. This is its own kind of experimentation, I think, and an extremely valuable one—both in making us examine our readerly biases and in urging us, time after time, to transcend them by sticking with the narrator on a project, he admits, he is so unsure about.
'All that said, there’s more to Because than just “its simple mantra-like structure,” as Kevin Sampsell’s blurb calls it. The book is split up into segments that are usually between one and four pages long, titled with the first line of each section. The “wants” often shift dramatically within a given section, from college-ruled paper to grandmother’s grocery lists to bioluminescent flowers, for example. But the book really begins to stride when Riippi stays on a subject for the entirety of a section, or longer. In one segment, he speaks of his friend Jenns; how as the only freshmen on the high school football team he and Jenns had their heads shaved by a guy named Gator; how Jenns took the fall after the team TP’d a cheerleader’s house; how Jenns shot himself, later, leaving an indelible mark on the narrator’s life. The narrative continuity of sections like this is striking in a work that usually shifts desires and subjects rapidly. The Jenns thread and a few others like it almost constitute a sort of home, reminding us, suddenly, how welcome such a narrowed focus can be.
'But perhaps the most interesting strand that comes out of Because is a certain kind of “want” peppered across the book, especially in its later pages: the desire to live fully and dangerously in a world where our lives can often feel sanitized and certain.'-- Dennis James Sweeney, HTMLGIANT
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Joseph Riippi Because
Civil Coping Mechanisms
“In Because, Joseph Riippi says he wants this book to be ‘a love letter, a prayer, a purge’ but it actually becomes even more than that. It’s a bursting-at-the-seams dream that cradles so many wishes and passions into its wide scope that it constantly surprises with unexpected turns and brilliant thoughts. It transcends its simple mantra-like structure and becomes a reverberating world of beauty and wonder.” -- Kevin Sampsell
“The anaphoric ebb and flow of Joseph Riippi’s Because is bound to remind one of Joe Brainard’s I Remember. But while Riippi’s book is similarly incantatory and moving, it is also more wistful, more painful. There is a beautiful vulnerability in Riippi’s many wants, an aching sadness that stays with the reader.” -- Gabriel Blackwell
"I don’t read too many books wherein the author bares everything of himself, opens his chest and lets his innards spill out. The offal truth of Joseph Riippi’s Because stinks to high heaven with beauty. This book took me inside my own childhood, inside my relationship with my wife and my daughter, and made me want to be a better human. All this in a novel about someone else. Amazing.” -- Jamie Iredell
Excerpt
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____________________
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'Walter Mackey loves the olden days of the Internet of yore. Nestled deep in the caches of Internet lore these places used to exist. Everything was put online horribly misspelled. People can try to avoid such rank settings, the phonetically misspelled but it finds a way. Flarf ties the entire collection together from horribly outdated pop references (like Sisqo’s ‘Thong Song’) to incredibly out of style places like Myspace. Overall reading the collection is reading the documented actions of individuals across the Internet expressing themselves through errors, political incorrectness, and addiction to the Internet.
'The World of Warcraft is a World within the Internet. Runescape gets a nice mention too. Both are habit-forming and create strange levels of ranking. Much of the Internet runs itself in a similar fashion trying to throw in puns alongside greater truths. Nostalgic for WINAMP, KAZAA, these are things that have long since outlived their usefulness. Gritty in their approach they worked without as much of a hassle. Part of what Walter Mackey does is show how gritty the Internet still can be after any form of censorship is gone. Aspects, posts, are even reported multiple times, showcasing the proto-censorship that has begun. The ‘not in my newsfeed’ takes on levels of editing that can be seen as a bonus, as a way to better implement one’s own online presence. Such forms of reporting also take away from the joy of the Internet, of the celebration of stupid or silly.
'Celebrities get plenty of online attention. Paula Cole finds herself being abused by some anonymous misspelling individual who appears to have little good to say about her. Others try for a play on words with Pamela Anderson becoming Pamela Handerson, with emphasis on their loneliness. Simultaneously funny and sad it embodies a lot of the isolated aspects of life on the Internet. Most of what is funny on the Internet tends to translate poorly in other forms, because the context of comments, of interaction, is completely gone.'-- Beach Sloth
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Walter Mackey literalley 10 reasons why im a lil bitch :-)
white sky ebooks
WSE68 - a book of flarf poetry by Walter Mackey
The book
$EE YOU ▲G▲IN - /v\ILEY ¢YRU$
Leave Me For Dead (Chapbook Trailer)
i'm so sorry puppy i'm so sorry
*
p.s. Hey. ** Adrienne White, Hi, Adrienne. Yeah, my hand, ugh. Well, I was trying to make coffee in the hotel room using a hot water heater and a cup/funnel/paper cone combo, and the top of the cone crumpled, spilling the coffee/boiling water combo on my hand. So, the water/coffee was really hot. The hotels were cool, yeah. The Oval is maybe the best hotel in the world. I don't know, re: all those basketball hoops. It was art. I think the shape of the board is the clue, but the explanation was in Japanese, and I didn't understand. The Indian food was wow, yeah. We only went to that one Mexican restaurant, Salsita, but it was excellent, uncompromised Mexican food. The manmade body of water? I don't know which one you mean. I think the only manmade water body in the photos was the pool at one of the hotels? The sumo was fun, yeah. Thanks for being so interested, pal. ** Scunnard. Hi, J. Yeah, it was amazing. I'm good. My hand hasn't completely healed yet, but it's much, much better. ** Jax, Hi, pal. Yeah, totally makes sense about the difficulty of articulating a response verbally to image-based theater. One of the things I love about it. I love being flummoxed and having my safety net of language rendered weak or whatever. Internal space: Hm, well, no, I don't mean re: the characters, but I think you know that I don't think of characters as real but rather as parts of some whole. I mean ... an illusion of volume and space underneath and within the language, I guess. I like to try to get flat pages of prose to kind of create a feeling that they're 3D, or like a photograph of something that's 3D, or, I don't know, like looking at the seeming grid of stars in the sky at night, so that, when you read, you at least subliminally are perceiving the writing as something that represents something that isn't flat, or ... something like that. So, I mean a volume in the prose that isn't narrative or character-based and that kind of counteracts and plays with the traditional illusion of 3D that the storyline and characters create and that try to make the writing itself disappear. Does that make sense at all? I'm not sure. Fantastic that you'll stick around, man! ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. We did have huge fun in Japan. It isn't in the photos, but in Yakasugi Forest, when we climbed to the top of the mountain there, it started snowing. Pretty incredible. The food was whoa, yeah. ** Lee, Hi, man. One day late on my promised email, sorry. Aw, cool, awesome that the photos came off so lifelike and visceral or something. Thanks. ** David Ehrenstein, Thanks, sir. I used to be very close friends with Peter Schjeldahl, and Burroughs is not his thing at all. I'm actually surprised that his New Yorker piece is as evenhanded as it sort of is. ** Torn porter, I saw your email upon waking up, and once I'm completely woken up, which I'm not yet, despite possible appearances, I'll read it and get back to you. No, I haven't seen that, but I'm FB friends with Gael Morel so I should and want to. Thanks! The hand isn't fully healed, but it's much, much better. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. That Mandarake in Shibuya was completely amazing, head spinning, and, yeah, its depth in the ground only adds charisma. I think we might have checked out that old school amusement park in Asakusa on our previous trip, but I think it was closed when we were there, so we just gazed at it through its barriers. I saw your email, and I'll open it in a bit, thank you. ** Sypha, You should go to Japan. It's incredible. I'm really love with that country. I wish I could play 'Metal Gear Solid', so that sounds like a fine vacation to me. ** Allesfliesst, Hi, Kai. Uh, whoa, ask me about using that photo if/when the book comes about. It's probably okay, but I'm not sure that such a cover is going to move many copies. There was only pain when the scalding water hit the hand. After that, it didn't hurt at all, which was weird. I so incredibly highly recommend Naoshima and the accompanying two art islands as well, if you have the time. We went to Osaka on our last trip. I quite liked it. I was surprised by how interesting it is, given its newness. No onsens on this trip, strangely. We were going to go to the art onsen on Naoshima, but then we didn't, I can't remember why. ** Empty Frame, Hi, man! Oh, seriously, go to Japan if you possibly can. So great. Yeah, like I told Adrienne, I was making coffee when the accident happened, so the water was boiling, yikes. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Linda Cordell's giant ceramic bugs: wow, cool. You good? What's up? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I just saw the other day that Shaye Saint John died a couple of years ago. Really sad. Oh, cool. I just watched the first several seconds of your Art 101 interview, and you come off great, man. I'll finish watching it in a bit. And, heck, I'll imbed it at the bottom of the p.s. to give everyone the most sporting chance to see it. Everyone, the awesome _B_A aka the artist/writer/editor/d.l. Ben Robinson has just been interviewed on video by Art in Scotland TV about his upcoming project 'Art 101', and I've imbedded the interview down at the bottom of this p.s. so you can watch it. Please get a good look at and hearing of one of the blog's finest d.l.s, i.e. click that thing. Great, Ben! Are you happy with it? It seems like you should be, no? ** Thomas, Hi, Thomas! Great to see you! Thanks much, really glad you liked the pix. How are you doing? ** Rewritedept, So, how did you get those books home on foot? I think there must be Mexican people in Japan, I don't know. That place, Salsita, was excellent. I don't think we ate at any of the other Mexican restaurants there, but they do exist in a reasonably large number. Unicorn mask? The hand is better if not great. It's mostly red and kind of raw with one smallish scab that's taking its sweet time to peel off. Hopefully, it's not scarred. Too early to tell. We'll see. Take care. ** ASH, Hi, Ash! Excellence to have you here, sir. Happy New Year a "little" late to you! Oh, wow, good question about what's on those Itosho plates. The restaurant is the venture of the guy in the top photo. He's had the restaurant, which is vegan temple cuisine, for something like 30 years, and he does everything himself. It's like being invited to dinner in his house. Anyway, he doesn't speak English, so I'm not totally sure what we were eating. Except for the tempura, which he makes in this special, laborious way that no one else in the world does, and his tempura is justifiably legendary and is what Itosho is best known for. Anyway, whatever most of that stuff was, it was possibly the best food I've ever eaten. I'm behind on new music due to the traveling, but I'm about to gather a bunch of new stuff, so I can tell you what I've found soon. Mostly what I've been listening to is the stuff that I used in the last 'Gig: Of Late' post. What are you listening to? Recommendations? ** Aaron Mirkin, Hi, Aaron. Cool, thank you for the reminder about the Clermont screenings. I'll get that figured out today and booked if I can. Okay, and it'll be really nice to meet. My email, if you don't have it, is: dcooperweb@gmail.com. ** Steevee, Hi. Aw, yeah, I had a feeling it was a long shot on the Daney text. I don't dislike Reed's work after 'Mumbo Jumbo', I just think there was a drop off at that point. 'The Terrible Twos' is pretty good. It's just that his work got more conventional after 'MJ', and he toned down or lost interest in the incredible vibrancy and invention that was going on in his writing and ideas up until 'MJ', and I guess I think that the work became less exciting after that. I'll check out that Space Lady collection, thank you a lot! ** Keaton, Hey, buddy! Good to see you! Welcome back! Japan is ... well, strange isn't right word. Different, refreshing, but incredibly comfortable and inviting. Yeah, you doing good? It's really nice to see you! ** James, Hi, James. I got your email. I'll write back to you asap. My hand is getting better. It's a lot better than in the photos. Thanks a lot. Love to you. ** Misanthrope, We had a great time in Japan, that's for sure. Oh, I kind of explained to Adrienne how the burn happened. I was half-asleep and really not being careful, basically. Dumb. At least it was only 1st degree burns, or that was Zac's and my guess. Where I'll be shopping for South Pole clothes in Paris is very not gay. Well, I don't know. I suppose there's probably some gay subculture that involves adorning oneself in totally body obscuring, puffy garments. Michael Salerno told Zac and me yesterday that it's currently -35 degrees in Antarctica during the days and -45 degrees or lower at night, and it's the height of summer there right now, so ... yikes. Yeah, I kind of don't care so much about seeing the seals and penguins and all that sort of stuff, but I'm sure we'll be led to them by the guides during the trip a lot. I can't imagine there could be a photo of those creatures that would add anything to the millions in existence, but if Zac or I find a novel approach, we'll snap away. ** Gary gray, You like the look of my burnt hand? Ha ha, kinky. I guess counseling is different than therapy? I think I use the terms interchangeably, but I don't know. Anyway, I'm so happy that it's going so positively and fruitfully. Thinking about the future is good, I think. Or I guess about the future in a kind of general way, for me, 'cos the age thing when you're older gives the future a heavy melancholy aspect if you think about the future in mostly personal terms, I guess. You must totally go to Japan sometime if you can. Really, it's just incredible. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! Do visit there. For sure. Do it. Seriously. I read 'The Cloud of Unknowing' years ago. Wow, I forgot all about that. It was pretty beautiful. I met Fujiko when she was collaborating with Gisele and Stephen, et. al., and me on 'This Is How You Will Disappear', and we've stayed in touch, and Zac and I are very close to her. The meeting went really well. She'll be collaborating on the feature film that Zac and I are writing for Gisele to direct, so it was about that. Oh, so ALG works kind of like HTMLG but without attributions, or with more discrete attributions. Hunh. That makes sense. Congrats on the cancelled school thing. I think it hasn't snowed in LA since the 1930s. I mean other than on the tippy tops of the mountains you can see in the distance there. Have a great snow day, man. How did you spend it? ** Unknown, Hi, Terrence! Cool, I'll shoot you a message once I'm back from my upcoming huge trip and once the time gets ripe. Excited! ** Paul Curran, Ha ha, yeah, I cheated on the photo of you. I think it was taken at The Weaklings show opening? ** MyNeighbour JohnTurtorro, Hi, man. The interesting thing about Japan is that, at first, it seems really disorienting and foreign, but, within a few days, it gets this very comfy quality, I think because people there are so endlessly polite and kind and welcoming. I have the Actress album set for immediate download upon release, so it might be in my storage by now, I'll check. I'll investigate the new Indian album today, thank you. Sounds great. The Anasazi too. Hm, you know, I really liked the very first Silver Mt. Zion album or two, but then I started really not liking them due to some turn or lack of turn in what they were doing, I can't remember. Weird when that happens. Like I remember being super into the first album by The Books, and then I couldn't stand anything by them after that. Thanks a lot for those alerts. I'll let you know what I find, if I find anything remarkable. ** Okay. There are three books I loved up there. They're all short. You can see/read the Goring for free with a click on the appropriate link. The Mackey is imbedded and, thus, easy-peasy to read. And the Riippi one is very worth the low amount of dough required. See you tomorrow.
Dundee based artist Ben Robinson introduces his project ‘Art 101‘, a YouTube channel created by Ben as a response to the government’s discussions to get rid of art education.
When Penny Goring answers the door, she does so in a platinum blonde wig and carrying a red toothbrush.
“’Ello,” she says, in a distinct London accent, foam still in her mouth. ’Max wol be here in a minute’. (I think ”Who is Max, and why?”)
I step inside the apartment, follow her down a long dark hallway, walls covered in obsolete Sex Pistols posters and two paintings of pale deformed bodies performing obscure rituals with flowers, past a giant-sized stuffed unicorn, over several stacks of A3 sketchbooks, and into the living room, which is crowded with tableaus of junk.
Penny takes a seat on the couch and gestures loosely but decisively at a chair. A tower of books wobbles on the coffee table between us, closest to me – Nan Goldin’s The Ballad of Sexual Dependency and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. A yellow plastic ashtray sits in the windowsill.
“So how does this go” She states, picking at the fur cuffing her skin-colored leotard.
I’ve come to interview Penny because her work stands out—the phrase “boundary-pushing” gets thrown around a lot, but it actually feels appropriate here—and because relatively little is known about her, aside from the work itself. In the hyper-exhibitionist world of alt lit, which Penny has somehow become associated with, her reluctance to chronicle her everyday minutia comes across as borderline reclusive. Of course, “exhibitionist” is a hazy word, and I’m talking to a woman who’s resorted to turning her tampons into art.
“Let’s start with the basics.” I say. “Where were you born?”
“Seriously?” Penny leans back in the chair, notices the toothbrush, leans forward to put it on the coffeetable, and leans back again. “Why?” she shrugs, and the wig shifts slightly.
“That’s okay.”
“I’m not being deliberately awkward, I promise” she laughs.
“Did you make these paintings?” I ask.
“Yea.” She seems to have already wandered off in her head.
I walk over to a huge painting, it’s about 5′ x 8′ .
”What’s this one called?”
“My dad was a pornstar.”
(read the entirety)
newhive
'some ghosts manifest as columns of static hanging from roof to basement, prefer half-light, are noiseless, smell like almonds, do nothing. some ghosts blow your fuses. some ghosts make you feel more alive. lie still while i break your legs. some ghosts are fluffy and sweet, have long icy tongues, many fingers. some ghosts perch on your shoulder, breathing hot death in your ear. some ghosts are sad, they fuck you while you’re sleeping. some ghosts look better bigger, some were meant to be small. some ghosts pour their dirty milk down your bedroom walls.'-- pg
Excerpt
Penny Goring Reading Bone Dust Disco Part 1
Penny Goring Reading Bone Dust Disco Part 2
Penny Goring reading Temporary Passport
_______________________
'All of which is to say that Because feels to me as if it is kind of supposed to be painful to read. I came in knowing the “I want” premise of the book, expecting Because to be an experimental novel that would be a little difficult to get through. And it is that, but not in the way you think of experimental—distant from the reader, difficult in terms of breaking the code of its linguistic tricks. Instead, it is so open, bleeding, and honest that it is almost impossible to stand. This is its own kind of experimentation, I think, and an extremely valuable one—both in making us examine our readerly biases and in urging us, time after time, to transcend them by sticking with the narrator on a project, he admits, he is so unsure about.
'All that said, there’s more to Because than just “its simple mantra-like structure,” as Kevin Sampsell’s blurb calls it. The book is split up into segments that are usually between one and four pages long, titled with the first line of each section. The “wants” often shift dramatically within a given section, from college-ruled paper to grandmother’s grocery lists to bioluminescent flowers, for example. But the book really begins to stride when Riippi stays on a subject for the entirety of a section, or longer. In one segment, he speaks of his friend Jenns; how as the only freshmen on the high school football team he and Jenns had their heads shaved by a guy named Gator; how Jenns took the fall after the team TP’d a cheerleader’s house; how Jenns shot himself, later, leaving an indelible mark on the narrator’s life. The narrative continuity of sections like this is striking in a work that usually shifts desires and subjects rapidly. The Jenns thread and a few others like it almost constitute a sort of home, reminding us, suddenly, how welcome such a narrowed focus can be.
'But perhaps the most interesting strand that comes out of Because is a certain kind of “want” peppered across the book, especially in its later pages: the desire to live fully and dangerously in a world where our lives can often feel sanitized and certain.'-- Dennis James Sweeney, HTMLGIANT
Civil Coping Mechanisms
“In Because, Joseph Riippi says he wants this book to be ‘a love letter, a prayer, a purge’ but it actually becomes even more than that. It’s a bursting-at-the-seams dream that cradles so many wishes and passions into its wide scope that it constantly surprises with unexpected turns and brilliant thoughts. It transcends its simple mantra-like structure and becomes a reverberating world of beauty and wonder.” -- Kevin Sampsell
“The anaphoric ebb and flow of Joseph Riippi’s Because is bound to remind one of Joe Brainard’s I Remember. But while Riippi’s book is similarly incantatory and moving, it is also more wistful, more painful. There is a beautiful vulnerability in Riippi’s many wants, an aching sadness that stays with the reader.” -- Gabriel Blackwell
"I don’t read too many books wherein the author bares everything of himself, opens his chest and lets his innards spill out. The offal truth of Joseph Riippi’s Because stinks to high heaven with beauty. This book took me inside my own childhood, inside my relationship with my wife and my daughter, and made me want to be a better human. All this in a novel about someone else. Amazing.” -- Jamie Iredell
Excerpt
____________________
'Walter Mackey loves the olden days of the Internet of yore. Nestled deep in the caches of Internet lore these places used to exist. Everything was put online horribly misspelled. People can try to avoid such rank settings, the phonetically misspelled but it finds a way. Flarf ties the entire collection together from horribly outdated pop references (like Sisqo’s ‘Thong Song’) to incredibly out of style places like Myspace. Overall reading the collection is reading the documented actions of individuals across the Internet expressing themselves through errors, political incorrectness, and addiction to the Internet.
'The World of Warcraft is a World within the Internet. Runescape gets a nice mention too. Both are habit-forming and create strange levels of ranking. Much of the Internet runs itself in a similar fashion trying to throw in puns alongside greater truths. Nostalgic for WINAMP, KAZAA, these are things that have long since outlived their usefulness. Gritty in their approach they worked without as much of a hassle. Part of what Walter Mackey does is show how gritty the Internet still can be after any form of censorship is gone. Aspects, posts, are even reported multiple times, showcasing the proto-censorship that has begun. The ‘not in my newsfeed’ takes on levels of editing that can be seen as a bonus, as a way to better implement one’s own online presence. Such forms of reporting also take away from the joy of the Internet, of the celebration of stupid or silly.
'Celebrities get plenty of online attention. Paula Cole finds herself being abused by some anonymous misspelling individual who appears to have little good to say about her. Others try for a play on words with Pamela Anderson becoming Pamela Handerson, with emphasis on their loneliness. Simultaneously funny and sad it embodies a lot of the isolated aspects of life on the Internet. Most of what is funny on the Internet tends to translate poorly in other forms, because the context of comments, of interaction, is completely gone.'-- Beach Sloth
white sky ebooks
WSE68 - a book of flarf poetry by Walter Mackey
The book
$EE YOU ▲G▲IN - /v\ILEY ¢YRU$
Leave Me For Dead (Chapbook Trailer)
i'm so sorry puppy i'm so sorry
*
p.s. Hey. ** Adrienne White, Hi, Adrienne. Yeah, my hand, ugh. Well, I was trying to make coffee in the hotel room using a hot water heater and a cup/funnel/paper cone combo, and the top of the cone crumpled, spilling the coffee/boiling water combo on my hand. So, the water/coffee was really hot. The hotels were cool, yeah. The Oval is maybe the best hotel in the world. I don't know, re: all those basketball hoops. It was art. I think the shape of the board is the clue, but the explanation was in Japanese, and I didn't understand. The Indian food was wow, yeah. We only went to that one Mexican restaurant, Salsita, but it was excellent, uncompromised Mexican food. The manmade body of water? I don't know which one you mean. I think the only manmade water body in the photos was the pool at one of the hotels? The sumo was fun, yeah. Thanks for being so interested, pal. ** Scunnard. Hi, J. Yeah, it was amazing. I'm good. My hand hasn't completely healed yet, but it's much, much better. ** Jax, Hi, pal. Yeah, totally makes sense about the difficulty of articulating a response verbally to image-based theater. One of the things I love about it. I love being flummoxed and having my safety net of language rendered weak or whatever. Internal space: Hm, well, no, I don't mean re: the characters, but I think you know that I don't think of characters as real but rather as parts of some whole. I mean ... an illusion of volume and space underneath and within the language, I guess. I like to try to get flat pages of prose to kind of create a feeling that they're 3D, or like a photograph of something that's 3D, or, I don't know, like looking at the seeming grid of stars in the sky at night, so that, when you read, you at least subliminally are perceiving the writing as something that represents something that isn't flat, or ... something like that. So, I mean a volume in the prose that isn't narrative or character-based and that kind of counteracts and plays with the traditional illusion of 3D that the storyline and characters create and that try to make the writing itself disappear. Does that make sense at all? I'm not sure. Fantastic that you'll stick around, man! ** les mots dans le nom, Hi. We did have huge fun in Japan. It isn't in the photos, but in Yakasugi Forest, when we climbed to the top of the mountain there, it started snowing. Pretty incredible. The food was whoa, yeah. ** Lee, Hi, man. One day late on my promised email, sorry. Aw, cool, awesome that the photos came off so lifelike and visceral or something. Thanks. ** David Ehrenstein, Thanks, sir. I used to be very close friends with Peter Schjeldahl, and Burroughs is not his thing at all. I'm actually surprised that his New Yorker piece is as evenhanded as it sort of is. ** Torn porter, I saw your email upon waking up, and once I'm completely woken up, which I'm not yet, despite possible appearances, I'll read it and get back to you. No, I haven't seen that, but I'm FB friends with Gael Morel so I should and want to. Thanks! The hand isn't fully healed, but it's much, much better. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. That Mandarake in Shibuya was completely amazing, head spinning, and, yeah, its depth in the ground only adds charisma. I think we might have checked out that old school amusement park in Asakusa on our previous trip, but I think it was closed when we were there, so we just gazed at it through its barriers. I saw your email, and I'll open it in a bit, thank you. ** Sypha, You should go to Japan. It's incredible. I'm really love with that country. I wish I could play 'Metal Gear Solid', so that sounds like a fine vacation to me. ** Allesfliesst, Hi, Kai. Uh, whoa, ask me about using that photo if/when the book comes about. It's probably okay, but I'm not sure that such a cover is going to move many copies. There was only pain when the scalding water hit the hand. After that, it didn't hurt at all, which was weird. I so incredibly highly recommend Naoshima and the accompanying two art islands as well, if you have the time. We went to Osaka on our last trip. I quite liked it. I was surprised by how interesting it is, given its newness. No onsens on this trip, strangely. We were going to go to the art onsen on Naoshima, but then we didn't, I can't remember why. ** Empty Frame, Hi, man! Oh, seriously, go to Japan if you possibly can. So great. Yeah, like I told Adrienne, I was making coffee when the accident happened, so the water was boiling, yikes. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Linda Cordell's giant ceramic bugs: wow, cool. You good? What's up? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I just saw the other day that Shaye Saint John died a couple of years ago. Really sad. Oh, cool. I just watched the first several seconds of your Art 101 interview, and you come off great, man. I'll finish watching it in a bit. And, heck, I'll imbed it at the bottom of the p.s. to give everyone the most sporting chance to see it. Everyone, the awesome _B_A aka the artist/writer/editor/d.l. Ben Robinson has just been interviewed on video by Art in Scotland TV about his upcoming project 'Art 101', and I've imbedded the interview down at the bottom of this p.s. so you can watch it. Please get a good look at and hearing of one of the blog's finest d.l.s, i.e. click that thing. Great, Ben! Are you happy with it? It seems like you should be, no? ** Thomas, Hi, Thomas! Great to see you! Thanks much, really glad you liked the pix. How are you doing? ** Rewritedept, So, how did you get those books home on foot? I think there must be Mexican people in Japan, I don't know. That place, Salsita, was excellent. I don't think we ate at any of the other Mexican restaurants there, but they do exist in a reasonably large number. Unicorn mask? The hand is better if not great. It's mostly red and kind of raw with one smallish scab that's taking its sweet time to peel off. Hopefully, it's not scarred. Too early to tell. We'll see. Take care. ** ASH, Hi, Ash! Excellence to have you here, sir. Happy New Year a "little" late to you! Oh, wow, good question about what's on those Itosho plates. The restaurant is the venture of the guy in the top photo. He's had the restaurant, which is vegan temple cuisine, for something like 30 years, and he does everything himself. It's like being invited to dinner in his house. Anyway, he doesn't speak English, so I'm not totally sure what we were eating. Except for the tempura, which he makes in this special, laborious way that no one else in the world does, and his tempura is justifiably legendary and is what Itosho is best known for. Anyway, whatever most of that stuff was, it was possibly the best food I've ever eaten. I'm behind on new music due to the traveling, but I'm about to gather a bunch of new stuff, so I can tell you what I've found soon. Mostly what I've been listening to is the stuff that I used in the last 'Gig: Of Late' post. What are you listening to? Recommendations? ** Aaron Mirkin, Hi, Aaron. Cool, thank you for the reminder about the Clermont screenings. I'll get that figured out today and booked if I can. Okay, and it'll be really nice to meet. My email, if you don't have it, is: dcooperweb@gmail.com. ** Steevee, Hi. Aw, yeah, I had a feeling it was a long shot on the Daney text. I don't dislike Reed's work after 'Mumbo Jumbo', I just think there was a drop off at that point. 'The Terrible Twos' is pretty good. It's just that his work got more conventional after 'MJ', and he toned down or lost interest in the incredible vibrancy and invention that was going on in his writing and ideas up until 'MJ', and I guess I think that the work became less exciting after that. I'll check out that Space Lady collection, thank you a lot! ** Keaton, Hey, buddy! Good to see you! Welcome back! Japan is ... well, strange isn't right word. Different, refreshing, but incredibly comfortable and inviting. Yeah, you doing good? It's really nice to see you! ** James, Hi, James. I got your email. I'll write back to you asap. My hand is getting better. It's a lot better than in the photos. Thanks a lot. Love to you. ** Misanthrope, We had a great time in Japan, that's for sure. Oh, I kind of explained to Adrienne how the burn happened. I was half-asleep and really not being careful, basically. Dumb. At least it was only 1st degree burns, or that was Zac's and my guess. Where I'll be shopping for South Pole clothes in Paris is very not gay. Well, I don't know. I suppose there's probably some gay subculture that involves adorning oneself in totally body obscuring, puffy garments. Michael Salerno told Zac and me yesterday that it's currently -35 degrees in Antarctica during the days and -45 degrees or lower at night, and it's the height of summer there right now, so ... yikes. Yeah, I kind of don't care so much about seeing the seals and penguins and all that sort of stuff, but I'm sure we'll be led to them by the guides during the trip a lot. I can't imagine there could be a photo of those creatures that would add anything to the millions in existence, but if Zac or I find a novel approach, we'll snap away. ** Gary gray, You like the look of my burnt hand? Ha ha, kinky. I guess counseling is different than therapy? I think I use the terms interchangeably, but I don't know. Anyway, I'm so happy that it's going so positively and fruitfully. Thinking about the future is good, I think. Or I guess about the future in a kind of general way, for me, 'cos the age thing when you're older gives the future a heavy melancholy aspect if you think about the future in mostly personal terms, I guess. You must totally go to Japan sometime if you can. Really, it's just incredible. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! Do visit there. For sure. Do it. Seriously. I read 'The Cloud of Unknowing' years ago. Wow, I forgot all about that. It was pretty beautiful. I met Fujiko when she was collaborating with Gisele and Stephen, et. al., and me on 'This Is How You Will Disappear', and we've stayed in touch, and Zac and I are very close to her. The meeting went really well. She'll be collaborating on the feature film that Zac and I are writing for Gisele to direct, so it was about that. Oh, so ALG works kind of like HTMLG but without attributions, or with more discrete attributions. Hunh. That makes sense. Congrats on the cancelled school thing. I think it hasn't snowed in LA since the 1930s. I mean other than on the tippy tops of the mountains you can see in the distance there. Have a great snow day, man. How did you spend it? ** Unknown, Hi, Terrence! Cool, I'll shoot you a message once I'm back from my upcoming huge trip and once the time gets ripe. Excited! ** Paul Curran, Ha ha, yeah, I cheated on the photo of you. I think it was taken at The Weaklings show opening? ** MyNeighbour JohnTurtorro, Hi, man. The interesting thing about Japan is that, at first, it seems really disorienting and foreign, but, within a few days, it gets this very comfy quality, I think because people there are so endlessly polite and kind and welcoming. I have the Actress album set for immediate download upon release, so it might be in my storage by now, I'll check. I'll investigate the new Indian album today, thank you. Sounds great. The Anasazi too. Hm, you know, I really liked the very first Silver Mt. Zion album or two, but then I started really not liking them due to some turn or lack of turn in what they were doing, I can't remember. Weird when that happens. Like I remember being super into the first album by The Books, and then I couldn't stand anything by them after that. Thanks a lot for those alerts. I'll let you know what I find, if I find anything remarkable. ** Okay. There are three books I loved up there. They're all short. You can see/read the Goring for free with a click on the appropriate link. The Mackey is imbedded and, thus, easy-peasy to read. And the Riippi one is very worth the low amount of dough required. See you tomorrow.
Dundee based artist Ben Robinson introduces his project ‘Art 101‘, a YouTube channel created by Ben as a response to the government’s discussions to get rid of art education.