*
p.s. Hey. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T! Awesome about your birthday. Naturally, I heartily approve in retrospect of your b'day cuisine choice. Yeah, nice. It would so great if you want to make the Varioso! That's really exciting to think about. Take care, bud. ** Slatted light, Hi, David. Oh, man, I'm so sorry and smothered in hugging impulses to hear about the internal roughness. That answer or riposte: that one doesn't want help enough, specifically when coming from professional help givers, always seems like it's caught up in some strange blend of self-consciousness on their parts and a predetermined strategy re: instructions and a complicated lack and denial of close attention to the person being addressed, and an impulse on their parts to self-protect, and I don't know what else. It's like a moment when the ideally collaborative structure of therapy, or at least the believability of that illusion, is deliberately made imbalanced, and the ambitiousness necessary to hold up their end of the therapy bargain reveals its limits, reveals the overall game too much or something. I guess in that probably unclear way, I'm trying to say I agree with you that the problem becomes its problem. I mean that, in that deflection, the helper's inability and/or unwillingness to search you, and his/her requirement that you qualify for help by showing some conventional, easily visible form of desperation or a usable manifestation of weakness becomes the problem, maybe not with therapy as a practice itself, but with the problem within the practice that the help seeker's chaos must immediately be recognizable or interpretable. Man, I'm probably not even speaking to what you're saying centrally enough. And I don't wish to encourage you to 'give up', however that works. I'm so sorry, D. If related discussion would help, I'm interested, and my brain has the ambition to engage even if my language problems gum up its signals. Right, Dorothy did found Lesbian Sex Mafia, I think. I miss her. She was a very cool pal back in the day. I hope your day today surprises you with pleasure, man. Love, me. ** Torn porter, Hey! That's weird, or not weird: I just texted you not five minutes ago. Hopefully we can sort out a meeting today finally. Hopefully see you ultra-soon. ** David Ehrenstein, Morning, David. Shit, I just realized I missed 'Nebraska' when it played here. I saw the posters and made a mental note, and then the note drowned inside my head or something. ** Schlix, Huh, wow, I never imagined Excepter having such a strong performative aspect to their shows. Curious. Cool. I hope you've gotten some decent sleep by now. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. You're in Leeds, cool. The Tetley looks interesting, or its website seems promising. How was it? ** Lynne Tillman, Lynne! My dear friend, my hero! This is so incredibly cool to have you in here. I'm so sorry that I'm such a shit correspondent. Really, emailing has become such a stand-offish foreigner of an activity to me, it's really strange. If you see this, I want your book so badly, yes! I keep reading about it and biting my nails, literally. My snail mail address is: c/o Centre International des Recollets, 150 rue du Faubourg St, Martin, 75010 Paris, France. Lynne, I miss you! I wish NYC and Paris were down the street from each other. I wish Paris was Veselka and NYC was The Poetry Project, or something. You're the best, and I send you massive love! ** Sypha, Hi, James. Nice guy therapist, great! Interesting: the relaxation, visualization, etc. techniques. Anyway, obviously I'm really happy that you're off to a positive, hopeful start with him! ** Zach, Hi, Z! I always tend to think that 'Blood and Guts' is a great way to start reading Kathy Acker. I started with ... what did I start with? .. oh, with 'Great Expectations', which I love. But, yeah, 'BaGiHS' is definitely one of her super-peaks, I think. I'm sure I've done an Acker post. Hold on. I know there've been a few, but the only one I could find quickly is Spotlight on ... Kathy Acker 'Dead Doll Humility' (1990). I liked Travis''The Suiciders' a lot, yeah. An excellent read. You're definitely off to a great post-'Ulyssses' start. ** Kier, Hi, Kier! Oh, holy shit, you bet that a kier/lamb selfie drawing would do nicely, and even more nicely than a photographed one, and even much more nicely. Awesome! Can't wait! xo, me. ** Schoolboyerrors, Hi, D! Yeah, but the chill is important. Or an importance or something. Well, yeah, I mean I put them here to do something with blog readers. That's key, or as key to them as it is to everything on the blog and in my own writing or whatever. I think they're very rich, textually and emotionally and in the way they straddle and quick-jump tones, depths, guesses at audience and self, etc. Obviously, they fascinate me since I keep doing them, and they've been influential on my writing. My new novel is definitely beholden to their particular, exciting (to me) form in places. Yes, Lynne! ** Steeve, Hi. No, I mean record/music store in general and period. You really would think that Paris would have an Amoeba- or Other Music-like store, but it doesn't. I've looked, and I've asked countless people, and they all say no. There are some very small, good stores, but with quite limited selection and stock. It's the strangest thing. Lynne's new book is a collection of non-fiction, I think. ** Aaron Mirkin, Hi, Aaron. Yeah, Barthes on wresting. Did you ever see the Barthes/wresting post I did here a while back? If not, hold on. Here it is: WWE Special: The Undertaker vs. Roland Barthes. Hm, I do remember being really surprised at times by people/artists who revealed themselves to be pro-wrestling followers, but I'm blanking on who. Stephen Malkmus is, but I feel like somehow that's not as surprising as it sounds. Death Metal band ... oh, you mean the band that the performer in Zac's and my film is in? They're not known outside of gigging in Paris a bit, but, weirdly, they're actually starting to record their first EP today. They're called Dragons of Hell. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Ah, drat that you didn't win the LA Times Book Prize. I was in that boat once. My second poetry book 'Tenderness of the Wolves' was nominated and lost. I think ceremony was sort of fun/weird or something. Sweet about the time you spent with Michael and that show went well. If he said it did, I'm sure it did. He doesn't really bullshit about that stuff. I'm so excited to hear your and his minds interact. Oh, and thank you for having my name in there. That's really nice. TMoJT: sublime, right? Amoeba! Tosh! It sounds really, really nice. That's funny, yeah, I can totally see the 'Performance' vibe now that you mention it. Huh. I wonder how deliberate that was. Welcome back, pal! ** Les mots dans le nom, Hi. Very interesting about your experience and about the relevance of the thing I wrote about why the escort posts interest me. 'Depersonalization and impersonality (associated with the neutral, the third language, gentleness in utopian encounters) are not so distant to each other': oh, yes, for sure, I agree, very complex, thank you for that thought. That post idea is amazing, of course. Yeah, if you have the time band interest to make it, that would be amazing, thanks so much! Oh, I deliberately don't invite people to comment here. Sometimes someone will write to me and express their liking of blog, and I'll let them know they would be most welcome to comment if they want to. But I kind of have an overriding principle about trying not to oversee or tamper with the idea of who comments here. I'm interested in that happening of its own accord with as little of my influence on people's decision to do that or not as possible. Yeah, of course it would be really great if there were more women here commenting more regularly. There have been at times in the past, but not so much right now. ** Rewritedept, Hi, man. A slow day sounds really nice. I haven't had one of those in a while. I haven't heard Future Islands yet. I was thinking of checking them out. If you went, how were they? ** Postitbreakup, Hi, Josh! It's always so really good to see you. Oh, shit, I'm sorry, my friend. What an interesting story. What a curious sounding guy. Maybe his Christianity started to fuck with him inside or something. Yeah, I'm sorry, Josh. Hugs from Paris if you want and need them. ** Okay. Today's post is today's post. See you tomorrow.