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p.s. Hey. If you're interested, this new gif work has a backstory that might be useful. Recently, I've felt as though I am in a plateau with the literary gif work. I like what I'm making, but I haven't been able to figure out how to make the work progress in a significant way, and it has always been very important to me that there's a clear progression in each new work I make, at least to my mind. So, in an attempt to push the gif work forward, I'm embarking on a series of specific experiments within the form. In the case of today's work, it's about rhythm. Rhythm is always one of the very major components and concerns when I'm making a gif work, but, in the previous work, it has always been explored in conjunction with other simultaneous building block-like factors to do with narrative, color, light, comedy, surprise, emotion, various connective aesthetic tissues, and so on. For this new work, I completely prioritized rhythm. Each gif sequence was constructed to create a unique rhythmic pattern, and the sequences were combined and ordered as they are in the work to create an overall rhythmic composition. I did this specifically to see if I could turn the images, and the things and people that constitute the images, into percussion instruments. And to discover to what degree I could do that, and, in the process, manage to background or even erase the gifs' content as a result. Was that goal more possible with a tight, fast rhythm? With a slower rhythm? With a more complex rhythm? With a fucked up, glitchy rhythm? Etc. And how were those rhythms affected by the rhythms of the sequences surrounding them? And to what degree was the rhythm affected by the image content of the gifs? Do images of people interfere with or enhance the rhythms more than images of things do? Faces more or less so than other body parts? Do close-ups add heft to the rhythm more than long-distance views do? Are close-ups of people 'louder' than landscapes? Or clearer? Or more echoey, or less so? Is a more static image 'quieter' than a more violent one? Are brief rhythmic patterns a better disguise than longer rhythmic patterns, or vice versa? What does the image of a drummer do to images that it is juxtaposed with? Etc., etc. Those are some of the many things I am investigating and trying to represent in this new work. I have my own ideas about how the experiment worked, and about which compositions are more successful in achieving my goal, but maybe you have thoughts and reactions too, only if you feel exploring the work to that degree and sharing your related ideas. Totally up to you, obviously. ** Jeffrey Coleman, Hi, Jeff! Good to see you! No, it was an interesting mutation rather than a redundancy, effect-wise. Lutz is amazing. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. Lutz is just about the best living sentence writer in the English language, to my mind. If you're into sentence construction, his can be like LSD. ** Steevee, Oh, that is very excellent news about the Akerman! Frightening is the word. That they feel like they can even say something so threatening and fascist and irrational without appearing to fear being called on it in any way that matters to them is terrifying. Def. very curious to read your 'Carol' review, and, perhaps even more so, the Seidl one too. Thanks for the share! Everyone, We have a Steevee doubleheader for you this weekend. First, here is his review of Todd Haynes's much anticipated new film 'Carol', and then here is his review of the equally anticipated new documentary film from that moody auteur Ulrich Seidel entitled 'In the Basement'. Riches galore from the mere price of two clicks. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Yow indeed. You can actually buy a copy right now at Small Press Distribution. They have it in stock, which is why I went ahead and jumped the pub. date's gun. ** James, Hi. Oh, and, even though I don't remember, or, I guess, have any way of knowing what happened to my face when reading your comment, the appearance of a smile, probably a quizzical one, was logically the outcome. Lutz rocks. Well, you'll be able to build an igloo-like shelter with all the books, at least. 'Under 100 pages' are the magic words, my friend. ** Martin Bladh, Hi. Okay, cool. Let me know when it's time to alert people out there that they can order it, and I'll do that. Thank you very, very much! ** _Black_Acrylic, Ah, shame that. I mean no bonfire having been within your reach. But you made the best of it, it sure sounds like. ** Liquoredgoat, Hi. Oh, yeah, 'Hoarders' has a strange effect. There's the anger thing and, for me, weird thinking about hoarding as a kind of art form, meaning thinking about how they organize or place the stuff in their houses, and then the kind of thing where their houses become sort maze-like and haunted house attraction-like in a way, and also weird personal stuff because my mom was a relatively very mild hoarder. So, yeah. ** H, Hi. I read Bishop originally because Ashbery and the older New York School poets in general were so into her work, and that was an interesting way into her stuff. The Ashbery/Bishop resemblances are very interesting, or I mean to me as an Ashbery devotee. You have a fine weekend too! ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Ha ha, me too. Maybe I'll try. ** Okay. I already gave you far more of an introduction to the post than is necessary, to say the least, so I'll just say that I hope all of your weekends are extra special-to-groundbreaking ones. See you on Monday.