'Joe Sarno bridged the gap between the nudist and nudie-cutie films of the late 1950s and early 1960s and the hard-core genre that developed after sexually explicit films like Deep Throat came on the scene in the early 1970s. His early films were straightforwardly, even single-mindedly erotic, although flashes of nudity came only intermittently and the sex act took place outside the frame. Shot in a self-consciously artistic style, films like Red Roses of Passion (1966) and Odd Triangle (1968) explored the anxiety-haunted, tentative steps toward sexual liberation of middle-class suburbanites born too early to experience the uninhibited self-expression of the baby-boom generation.
'“He was one of the pioneers of the American sexploitation film and a driving force in the sexual revolution of the 1960s,” Mr. Bowen said. “The films were gritty, down to earth, with a very distinctive style. At their best they were very dirty — they just did not have explicit sex.”
'His film career began when the Navy, mistakenly believing that he had filmed bombing runs during the war, asked him to direct training films. He accepted the offer and then headed off to buy a book on cinematography. Over the next several years he made dozens of training films for the Navy and industrial films for military contractors. His first venture into feature films came when an independent producer approached him to write the screenplay for an erotic film, Nude in Charcoal, which was released in 1961 and shown, like all of Mr. Sarno’s films, in grind-house theaters.
'Mr. Sarno wrote the screenplays for all 75 of the 35-millimeter films he made over the next 15 years, and for his subsequent hard-core films. The first film for which he received sole directing credit, Lash of Lust (1962), was never released. Atypically, it was an erotic costume drama about Gaul in the time of the Romans, shot in the forests of upstate New York. With Sin in the Suburbs (1963), Mr. Sarno hit his stride. His glimpse into the sex lives of bored suburbanites was commercially successful and helped kick-start the sexploitation genre. “I went for the ragged, realistic look more than anything, and I was more interested in psychology and character development than most of the other filmmakers at that time,” he said in a 2006 interview for the Torino Film Festival.
'Mr. Sarno began shooting in color with Moonlighting Wives (1966), about an ambitious suburban housewife who organizes a prostitution ring to solve her money problems. In 1968, seeking to capitalize on the success of I Am Curious (Yellow), an avant-garde Swedish film whose sexual content had made it an international hit a year earlier, he traveled to Sweden to film Inga, a sexual-awakening story. Its success, and the thrill of filming at a studio used by Ingmar Bergman, inspired Mr. Sarno to make an annual trip to Sweden to film with Swedish crews and actors for the American market.
'In the early 1970s Mr. Sarno made some of his most joyous and accomplished films, notably Confessions of a Young American Housewife (1974), Abigail Lesley Is Back in Town (1975), Laura’s Toys (1975) and Misty (1976). But the onrush of hard-core films eliminated the market for his style of sex film. After 1977 he made dozens of explicit sex films, all shot on video and none under his real name. Although he had filmed Deep Throat II, a soft-core sequel to Deep Throat, in 1974 and worked with some of the hard-core industry’s biggest stars in films like All About Gloria Leonard (1980) and Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle (1981), he had virtually no interest in simply filming sex acts.
'He stopped working in 1990, but as younger film scholars and filmmakers rediscovered his early films, he became the subject of tributes and retrospectives in the United States and Europe. He re-entered the sexploitation arena in 2004 with Suburban Secrets, a film that harked back to his glory years. Many of his films from the 1960s and early 1970s have been reissued by companies like Something Weird Video.'-- William Grimes
___
Stills
_____
Further
Joe Sarno @ IMDb
Joe Sarno's films @ Something Weird
Joe Sarno's films @ Mondo Digital
'The Divine Joe Sarno', a film by Virgile Iscan
'Peggy Sarno on life with her husband Joe, the "Ingmar Bergman of porn"'
'The Sultan of Sophisticated Smut: Joe Sarno (1921 - 2010)'
'Joseph W. Sarno est mort'
'Joe Sarno & the Good Works'
'Sin in the Suburbs: Deceased Artiste Joe Sarno'
'Joe Sarno, Tamer of “Wildcats”'
'"Dirty Movies": a porn world love story'
'CINEMA BIS: "HOMMAGE A JOE SARNO"'
____
Extras
Trailer: 'Joe Sarno: A Life in Dirty Movies'
Joe Sarno on his early erotic features
Interview with Marie Liljedhal - Joseph Sarno's Inga
In Memory of Joe Sarno
_____
Interview: Michael J. Bowen on Joe Sarno
from Moonlight in the Gutter
I know you the most from your extraordinary work documenting and writing on Joe Sarno but can you tell us about some of your earlier work as a film historian and writer.
Michael J. Bowen: Historical research is essentially tedious and empirical. The first few times you phone up an old film personality and conduct an interview, it’s kinda fun, but ultimately the real work is 80% document-based. I’m sure I’ve ruined my eyesight reading through thirty years’ worth of Variety and scanning old film ads on microfilm, but that’s were you collect most of your data. In rare instances some of my interview contacts have preserved records that they’ve been kind enough to share with me – always very exciting – but that’s an exception. I’ve often said, documenting the careers of low-budget outsider filmmakers (as opposed to “big names”) is like the difference between eating crabs and eating lobsters – no tail meat! But over time I’ve been able to pull together lots and lots of scraps of information that are gradually beginning to add up to some sort of a “big picture.” In truth, I’m probably more of an archivist than a writer by nature; I enjoy building my dossiers and databases and think of books and articles as just a means for delivering the info. That said, I hope the interpretive aspects of my writing speak in some meaningful way to the films I engage with: that’s where writing really trumps evidence.
How were you first introduced to the cinema of Joe Sarno and how did you first come into contact with him?
MJB: first saw Joe’s films, like many people, on Something Weird videotapes. The day we met was memorable because it was September 10, 2001, the day before the World Trade Center was attacked. At any rate, I just thought Joe was the most extraordinarily kind and sincere guy - and I fell in love with Peggy right off the bat - so we just sort of became friends. Then I realized that Joe’s career needed to be documented badly. So I guess you could say that my installation as Joe’s biographer was kind of an outgrowth of the fact that I liked the guy so much and was always enthused about the prospect of foraging in new fields. Since so many of his films were missing or dispersed or difficult to find at the time I met him, it probably took a couple of years for me to actually get to see the majority of his work.
To my eyes Sarno is one of the key filmmakers of the sixties and seventies. For folks who are just being introduced to his works what film would you recommend as an ideal introduction, and do you have a personal favorite you would like to share with us?
MJB: Overall, I’ve always felt that Joe Sarno fans are very self-selected: there’s a certain rhythm to his work that not everybody is able to groove with. My favorites of Joe’s films tend to reflect my own interest in cinematic minimalism, films where Joe simply lets a situation build and is not primarily focused on the mechanics of technique. I usually weed out the Sarnoites from the tourists by suggesting that they watch Vibrations (1968): if that doesn’t strike you as one of the best fucking movies ever made, then you probably aren’t going to get too carried away by the rest of his work. For me, Vibrations is Sarno in crack form... one light, agonizingly tight framing, oodles of repressed desire. Perfect.
Among his earlier efforts (and don’t forget that several of his mid-Sixties films are still officially “lost”), I really like The Sex Cycle: it’s so naïve yet so engaging it literally makes me high: it’s like a dream I want to remember forever. And in terms of his later soft-core work, Abigail Lesley and Misty (if you can find a bootleg) are so melancholy and sincere that I feel they ought to be counted among the top 100 films of the 1970s.
Your liner-notes that have graced Sarno’s DVDs are extremely insightful and informative. Do you have plans in the future on perhaps releasing a full-scale biography?
MJB: Sometime in the next few years (but please don’t hold me that that!), there will be a major Joe Sarno biography. Joe had an extraordinary career and it has to be accurately documented. I also spent many, many hours interviewing him on audiotape a few years ago, so there are lots of observations he made that I want to get out there.
I know you have had the great fortune to meet and interview many of Sarno’s key collaborators and actors. Is there someone in particular that has proven elusive that you would like to sit down with?
MJB: Yes. Her name is Patricia McNair and she starred in many of Joe’s seminal sexploitation classics of the mid-1960s under the name Lorraine or Laurene Claire. She was an extraordinary presence in Joe’s films and someone I have never been able to track down.
Before he passed away you helped Sarno on the extras of his extraordinary Abigail Lesley is Back in Town. I think the film is a masterpiece and the DVD that came out earlier this year became an instant favorite. Along with the incredible commentary and interviews you got to go back to Sarno’s hometown of Amityville with him. Can you talk about this mini-doc a bit as I find it incredibly moving?
MJB: Since Joe shot most of Abigail Lesley in and around Amityville, we wanted to go back and find some of the locations he used. We had, in fact, not planned to interview him in the car on the way out there, but I am so grateful that my extraordinary cameraman, Scooter McCrae, thought to start rolling while we talked. Then, of course, we were lucky enough to have had access to the house where Joe grew up since his childhood friend Henry Marcley now lived there – a wonderful guy! So I wish I could say that I had the prescience to plan everything that happened that day, but it just kind of fell together – as it turns out, less than a year before Joe passed away. I’m very glad we got it on tape.
The late Jamie Gillis also was on hand for the film’s extras. What were your impressions of him and did you get the sense that he was happy to have some of his work recognized as important? Jamie was an extremely sincere, intense, thoughtful guy the few times I met him and he seemed to think the world of Joe as a director. I believe he was very happy to receive recognition for his work as an actor – not just a porn star – during his last few years.
By the late seventies, Sarno was working fairly actively in the adult film industry. How did Sarno feel about his time in that industry and did he have any favorite performers from the era he worked with?
MJB: Joe was a director’s director: if he wasn’t making a movie, he didn’t know what to do with himself. So I know he put his heart and soul into making explicit, X-rated films as well. That having been said, he also frequently observed that he felt there were inherent limitations to what one could do with a film with hardcore content, so it wasn’t his favorite way to work. But given the vagaries of the adult film market, he was very grateful to have the chance to stay in production and was proud of every film he made.
In terms of his favorite actors, Joe got along with 99% of his actors famously, so I doubt he privileged one over the other. He was very fond of Tina Russell, Georgie Spelvin (a great lady!), Jennifer Welles, Annie Sprinkle. He and Peggy were very close to Rob Everett (Eric Edwards) and Harry Reems. Joe managed to get the best out of everyone he worked with: the actors trusted him because he was intensely sincere about his work.
One thing I greatly admire about you is your dedication to filmmakers who are so often ignored and sometimes greatly maligned. Have you had a lot of opposition from certain film elitists who don’t see the value in directors you admire and find important?
MJB: The “opposition” one encounters to the kind of work I do usually takes the form of silence. And it comes more from academics than from contemporary film critics, most of whom, I have found, have a very soft spot in their hearts for the labors of filmmakers like Joe and Doris. The problem that academic intellectuals have is that most films of this nature do not naturally lend themselves to textualization: in other words, most interesting “outsider” filmmaking lacks a certain self-consciousness, an explicit aesthetic agenda, that most intellectuals look for and try to translate textually into articles, etc. So the silence of the films tends to inspire silence in the scholars – and believe me, if anybody abhors silence, it’s academics! So I guess I see myself as a little bit of a fish out of water in this respect, but it has always been a reflex of mine to respond to naiveté and spontaneity in art. Most intellectuals want art-makers to be intellectuals too. I don’t.
_________________
16 of Joe Sarno's 122 films
______________
Flesh and Lace(1965)
'Absolute tosh of course but it always looks great and is always watchable and, being a Joe Sarno film, is full of surprises, including at one point, wind-up toys! True, the performers seem often to just stand around waiting to deliver their stupid line as flatly as possible but despite this Sarno keeps the movie moving forward in it’s weird and wonderful way, as if it had a life its own. The presentation is much helped by an absolutely fantastic b/w print, being the perfect showcase for plenty of flesh (and lace and also stockings and suspenders etc etc!).'-- Chris Underwood
Excerpt
________________
The Love Merchant(1965)
'If THE LOVE MERCHANT sounds slightly similar to the film INDECENT PROPOSAL, it’s because Sarno’s basic premise was lifted wholesale for the 1993 box office blockbuster. But where that film relied on big-name stars and its sleazy scenario quite heavily, Sarno, as usual, has produced here another sophisticated sex film, with emphasis on the film over the sex. Sarno balanced his films between two philosophies: sex as a healing formula, or sex as a destructive force. The latter is the thinking behind most of his 60s outings, including THE LOVE MERCHANT, with lust ruining a marriage and leaving Harvey feeling empty and lonely. The last line, “She’s right. You’re all sick!” is almost spoken directly into the camera, aimed squarely at the 42nd Street audience expecting more tits and ass, not the sudsy soap opera playing before them. Which is what makes Sarno’s films so refreshing in the first place. They were well written, exceptionally acted, and production values top-notch.'-- dvddrive-in.com
Trailer
_________________
The Swap and How They Make It(1966)
'With Mona’s husband too busy for love, and after Karen’s fling with a college kid fizzles, they decide to take a neighbor’s advice and "trade the old model for a newer one" when they join a group of wife-swappers called "The Exchange." But when that college kid threatens to expose THE SWAP AND HOW THEY MAKE IT, he’s allowed to joing the club until a cruel joke makes his swap especially sick...So be the first on your block to savor these scintillating, stylish and surprisingly intelligent skinflicks from director Joe Sarno....And be sure to invite the neighbors!'-- Something Weird
Excerpt
_________________
Moonlighting Wives(1966)
'A disgruntled housewife turns her newly formed steno service into a lucrative prostitution ring. Her appetite for the good life leads her on an exciting and glamorous journey of blackmail, wife swapping, and just plain spicy nightlife as she cavorts with the country club set. But as the shrewd business gal and her right hand Lordess of Discipline rake in the dough with the help of the local playboy golf pro, home life goes down the tubes when the Queen of Sex and Shorthand's hubby falls into the arms of their nubile babysitter.'-- Something Weird
Excerpt
_______________
Ride the Wild Pink Horse(1967)
'Bored and sexually frustrated, two housewives become pawns of the mercenary leader of a bohemian commune.'-- BFI
Trailer
_______
Inga(1968)
'Joe Sarno isn't a name that gets thrown around very much these days; I don't really know if it ever did. But in those wild and woolly days of grindhouse filmmaking, he was the classiest director on the block, taking the charm and decidedly non-American comfort with nudity and bringing to his native shores. Inga was Sarno's early masterpiece. Sarno was much more concerned with faces and situations than he was with gyrating bodies and this really is no better displayed than in Inga. Marie Liljedahl is absolutely stunning in the title role and, though her talents were somewhat marginal and she didn't last very long in the business, her youthful charm and beauty make the star more than memorable. The story is a quiet family tale with some sex thrown in. It doesn't make a ton of sense, and Aunt Greta trying to pimp out her niece to some guy is pretty creepy, but it remains an innocent piece of entertainment. Also of interest, the theme song for this film and is one of the earliest recordings by the band who would be ABBA. If you like ABBA, maybe this will thrill you; I have no way to judge what sounds basically like murder to me.'-- collaged
the entire film
_________________
All The Sins of Sodom(1968)
'All the Sins of Sodom is a striking feature by Joe Sarno that displays to the full extent his skills in high-key black and white lighting, effective mise en scène, and casting and directing actors. The series of models parading in and out of fashion photographer Henning's life and bedroom (in a not so subtle reference to the film BLOW UP), offers the perfect opportunity for a cinematic and erotic exploration of the ideal male fantasy, which is total artistic and sexual command of a stable of beautiful and willing women. The nymph who enters his life, occupies his spare room, and slowly turns his ideal setup upside down is yet another component to this fantasy, at at least for the viewer, as it allows for girl on girl scenes in which the models are further dominated sexually, and in which there is more sexual variety and kinkiness at play. Sarno's use of the female face captures the erotic more fully than many films which are fully graphic, and the psychological components of sexual desire are both varied and realistic.'-- Anna's Blog
Trailer
the entire film
Joe Sarno Speaks on ALL THE SINS OF SODOM
________________
To Ingrid, My Love, Lisa(1968)
'Lisa (GUNBRITT OHRSTROM of The Daughter: I a Woman Part III, billed here as “Gun Falck”) is a successful but unhappy fashion designer, repressing her loneliness and lesbian tendencies with heavy drinking. On the weekends, Lisa leaves the big city to relax at her country house, and meets her neighbors and their fresh-faced daughter, Ingrid (GUNILLA IWANSON). Lisa is immediately taken with the beautiful blonde and invites her to Stockholm, where Lisa suggests she could possibly become a model. Ingrid allows Lisa to take her under her wing. Having been disappointed with her first clumsy sexual experience with a small-town boy, Ingrid is eager to experience all that Stockholm has to offer, including the men. Lisa sets Ingrid up on a date, but becomes jealous when she stays out all night. Being young and carefree, Ingrid continues to go out and sow her wild oats, picking up one guy after another, leaving Lisa feeling frustrated and yearning for her. On the way to their inevitable tryst, there are swinging sixties parties, groovy nightclubs, and the high fashion world circa 1968'. -- Something Weird
Trailer
_________________
Caresses interdites(1970)
'Katja vit seule avec son père veuf. Ils ont une profonde affection l'un pour l'autre. Lorsque son père se remarie, cette relation idyllique vole en éclats. Lorsque Katja surprend son père et sa belle-mère au lit, elle est sous le choc et s'enfuit. Abandonnée par tous ceux qui lui sont chers, Katja envisage de regagner l'attention de son père en jetant le déshonneur sur sa belle-mère. Jusqu'où ira-t-elle?'-- cinemotions.com
Excerpt
_________________
The Seduction of Inga(1971)
'The Seduction of Inga doesn't dwell on what happened to the title character, she just tells us in narration that she's older now and wants her old love back. It takes Inga out of the country and into the city for another set of frisky adventures. This one is far less interesting than the original. There is a little more sex than Inga, but neither the camerawork nor acting are close to as good. Liljedahl shows a little more talent, but this was also her final film and it's easy to tell that her heart really wasn't in it.'-- DVD Verdict
Trailer
_______________
Young Playthings(1971)
'They're the toys of the mindless generation... trapped in a never-neverland of distorted practices.'-- Iron DVD
Excerpt
Joe Sarno on his cult movie "Young Playthings"
_________________
Le Château des Messes Noires(1973)
' la suite d’un accident lors d’une nuit d’orage, un groupe de jeunes gens vient se réfugier dans un château lugubre. Il abrite toute une communauté de jeunes filles effectuant d’étranges rites mêlant le sexe et l’occultisme. La maîtresse des lieux est en fait la descendante d’une baronne vampire, mise à mort il y plusieurs siècles par les villageois pour vampirisme. Elle cherche à venger son ancêtre en éliminant les familles des tortionnaires.'-- artus films
Trailer
________________
Sleepy Head(1973)
'A fascinating, if relatively unknown, offering from legendary director Joseph W. Sarno, Sleepy Head (1973) is an admittedly minor work but it is well-worth seeking out for fans of the much-missed director. Starring adult icons Georgina Spelvin and Tina Russell, and featuring Jamie Gillis and Marc Stevens in supporting roles, Sleepy Head was Sarno's first full foray into hardcore filmmaking and, while it is a far cry from his greatest works, it is a worthwhile edition to his filmography, even though it is often just afforded footnote status in his career.' -- Moon in the Gutter
Trailer
__________________
Deep Throat Part II(1974)
'Deep Throat Part II has long been one of the most obscure entries in the pantheon of sexploitation cinema -- while a handful of fans are aware that there was a sequel to the most famous (and infamous) of all 1970s porn features, Deep Throat Part II was an R-rated comedy with no explicit sex (or even full-frontal nudity), and thanks to negative reviews and poor word-of-mouth it was a box office flop that quickly and thoroughly disappeared, very rarely revived and never released on video in North America.'-- collaged
Excerpt
__________________
A Touch of Genie(1974)
'Anyone who has watched DEEP THROAT PART II can be forgiven for thinking that Joe Sarno simply has no place in the comic genre. A misfire in just about every way, the only novelty to be found in DT2 is enjoying the over-the-top comic performances of its who’s-who cast of New York porn; even the legendary lost hardcore footage couldn’t possibly save the mess. Keeping in mind Sarno’s mishandling of comedy material there, one may go into TOUCH OF GENIE with some natural caution. So how does TOUCH OF GENIE stack up in the grand scheme of Sarno’s oeuvre? Quite well, actually. The comic script is a vast improvement over the hodge-podge storyline of DT2, combining the male fantasy of “I Dream of Jeannie” with the imagination and whimsy of WALTER MITTY, and while there are no visual flourishes so typical of Sarno’s work throughout his career, it’s clear from the overall atmosphere on-screen that everyone involved with the production is having a ball. This is not the film to introduce you to the world of Sarno, but anyone who already adores his work of both the 1960s and 1970s will definitely enjoy this excursion into the absurd from a man known for his singular melodramas.'-- DVD Drive-In
Trailer
__________________
Abigail Lesley is Back in Town(1974)
'When Abigail Lesley returns to her old fishing village hometown, it sends a sexual tidal wave through the small community that has both men and women knocking on her door. One of Sarno’s last soft-core features before the advent of hardcore, ABIGAIL LESLEY is a soul-searching study of small-town sexual politics and unrequited passion. Sarah Nicholson’s gutsy, intuitive performance is well supported by fellow cast members Jamie Gillis, Jennifer Welles, Eric Edwards, Sonny Lanham, and the late, great Mary Mendum. Shot on location in Sarno’s hometown of Amityville, New York. Steamy!'-- Alternative Cinema
Excerpt
Excerpt
JOE SARNO Introduces ABIGAIL LESLEY IS BACK IN TOWN
*
p.s. Hey. ** Sanatorium, Hi! Thank you a lot. Same in France. There's one year-round Paris haunted house attraction and nothing else within the borders that I know of. Or even outside, until you get to the UK. Good to see you! ** Scunnard, Yeah, I don't think of babies as being able to walk at all with those ridiculous decorative legs. The naked gimmick being new was weird. I switch parts when writing if the writing isn't happening. Does everyone? Can work. I don't know Labeque Sisters. Maybe I'll check them out if my brain holds this memory. The Knitters, right, man ... did I ever even hear them? I think the idea of them turned me off too much for some reason. But I'm from LA. In-group prejudice or something. That one Ladytron song is a piece of the sublime: 'Destroy Everything You Touch'. ** Thomas Moronic, The UK has a few decent haunted houses. A few more every year. They, or, rather, you guys, I guess, are starting to get it. Thanks, T. I am mending, thank fucking god. ** David Ehrenstein, Crazy. ** Damien Ark, Uh, ha ha, wrong age, technically, but, yeah, I see what you mean. We should all get jobs there. We should make our own DC's haunted house. ** Bill, Hi. Thanks, B. Yeah, the swing is gradually upwards in its motion, it feels like. Yeah, of course, HTMLGIANT's death. I think it makes sense, and I also think the place could have reinvigorated again if the right people got involved, but it's still really sad. Very important place. Learned an absolute ton there. Oh, cool. ** Cal Graves, Hi, Cal. Thanks. '? House' seems like a prank or conceptual art piece or something. I'm tracking it. I think next year they'll all be offering late night 'naked' tours. That seems like obviously the next haunted house fad. ** Kier, Hi, K! Yeah, I missed me when I was sick too. I still semi-miss me. My faves are always the homemade ones done by kids or families in people's garages or backyards or wherever. The best. '? House' is suspiciously right on. Big congrats on the getting the appointment at the clinic! Wow! Yeah, it's a ways off, but still! Great, Kier! So happy! Uh, yesterday was pretty low key. It was the day I felt better enough to try doing simple things. My friends the artists Scott Treleaven and Paul P are in residence at the Recollets for three weeks, and I had a long coffee with Scott, who I haven't seen in two years, so there was a ton for both of us to catch up on. That went okay, so I ventured off to buy Zac some modest welcome home treats 'cos he gets home today. That went okay, so being able to do that much was a triumph. I didn't do much else, though. It's a start, though. How was Wednesday? ** Etc etc etc, I should be fine in a day or two, I think. Cool, fingers crossed that the front runner status evolves logically and triumphantly. Cool about the new thing too. Oh, I didn't know the new Pharmakon is streaming. Thank you! Dying to hear that. Thanks a lot! Everyone, Etc etc etc points out that the new Pharmakon album 'Bestial Burden' is streaming at Pitchfork if you wanna hear it for free. Here. Yeah, Yellow Tears are, like, notorious in the noise scene for better and worse. ** Steevee, The making of these current posts predates my getting completely ill. Btw, I finally did the Joe Sarno Day as per your idea, so thank you. Yeah, nostalgia: cinema or ... books too, I guess, is a wholly more easily controlled and recognized thing than with music. I'm sure there are many interesting think pieces out there about why that is. ** Keaton, Wow, that looks really good. You're on a really hot roll. Everyone, Halloween proceeds only because it has been addressed and given visual manifestation by Keaton, beautifully, I might add, under the rubric 'Everything Dies', as of today. Sweet stuff, man! ** Misanthrope, What do they say ... giggliness is next to godliness. Or is that 'next to to goggliness'? I have no idea. I feel as though I am recovering myself from inside myself day by day, it's true. Sucks about your allergy attack, man. Shit. Infectious (sorry) hugs. Yeah, there's a Halloween parade in NYC where people dress up, and I think it's basically just the gay pride parade with more darkly themed drag queens, or so I hear, but I don't know. ** Patrick deWitt, Patrick! Hey, man! I was literally just thinking hard about you and wondering where and how you are yesterday. That's weird. I'm still at the Recollets, yeah. Same room even. I'm getting over a bad sickness, but I'm good. How are you? Where? What are you working on? Catch me up? Any chance? Big love, me. ** Sickly, Hi. Yeah, I think I'll get to check out that NYC one. All of the NYC ones maybe. But I'll miss all the LA ones, which is horror and depression. That naked one would have been your chance, but, really, there's something to that novelty idea that is such a no-brainer that I bet there'll be an LA spooky house offering it this year. I haven't hunted down the LA houses yet 'cos I'm, you know, worthless at the moment. Actually, St. Louis has one of the premiere haunted houses in the US, 'The Darkness'. I only didn't include it because I included it in my round-ups the last two years. It's one of the most respected standard bearer haunted houses. I've never liked or been at all good at multi-player mode. It just seems like a retarded version of the non-multi-player game. Instant boredom for me. I haven't seen that Grandieux doc but I know of it, yeah. No, I don't intend to use this golden opportunity to quit smoking. I am weak. I am counting down the seconds to the second when I can inhale again. ** Kyler, Hi. I did start feeling notably better yesterday, thank you. That's a mysterious story with a happy ending. The 'Strand' one. Nice, man. Glad it worked out ** Rewritedept, There are non-touchy ones in Vegas, a handful of them, at the same location even. Nice to have the luxury to want to make yourself sick. Nice short story idea in there somewhere maybe. Last year Zac and I did a pretty serious tour of the LA spooky houses, and the year before I did the same with Gisele. Zac and I talk about doing a road trip tour that would take in the best US spooky houses, sort of using the model of our Scandinavian theme parks tour, but it won't happen this year. Okay, I won't worry. I'm so not into rock songs right now that I probably wouldn't appreciate them anyway. Oh, thanks for the link to their video. I'll wait until I'm in a rock song mood though. Thanks! ** Right. Yeah, Steevee brought up Joe Sarno a few weeks ago, I think because maybe Anthology Film Archives had done a retrospective or something? Anyway, at his prompt, I investigated Sarno's work and put together a primer post for myself and for you guys, if you want to find out who he was and take a dip into his oeuvre. See you tomorrow.