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p.s. RIP: Umberto Eco. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Yes, Akerman's suicide was such a blow. I didn't know that about Jean Eustache. Ugh, very sad. Yes, the Terrence Davies post will launch a week from today. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. I'm very happy that the post caused you to be intrigued by Ann Quin. Her most famous and, many say, greatest novel is 'Berg'. But I love everything by her that I've read. 'Tripticks' is the wildest and most experimental of her novels, which is not to say all of her novels aren't experimental because they are, but it's the most so, which is why I picked it, no surprise, I guess, knowing me. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi, Dóra! Yep, really atypical. Although maybe typical of what winters have now become. Sad. I will, about the film. I hope today or tomorrow. I love the metro/subway for some reason. Well, the Paris one at least because it's so great and efficient. The NYC one kind of weirds me out. I have friends here who avoid the metro. I have one friend who doesn't mind the metro but hates having to change lines, so he won't take the metro unless he can get to where he's going without having to transfer. My only guess about my fears of buses is that it might be because this kind of awful thing that happened to me on a bus when I was about 13. I was in Peru. I wanted to be an archaeologist at that point for some reason, and my parents sent me to stay at the house of this rich Peruvian friend of theirs who financed archeological digs and who arranged that I could work as an assistant on one dig for a summer. To get to the dig site, I had to take a long bus ride through the middle of nowhere. One day I was on the bus when the driver suddenly slammed on the brakes and stopped. He got up, walked to the black of the bus. When he returned, he was carrying a man in his arms. When he was passing my seat, he tripped, and the man's body fell right on top of me. And the man was dead. So I had this dead body lying on top of me, which freaked me out. Then the bus driver picked up the body, went to the front of the bus, opened the door and threw the man's body out onto the side of the road. Then he got back in his seat, restarted the bus, and drove on. I think maybe that has something to do with my bus phobia. Would make sense, I guess. Oh, cool, you knew what I meant about Outsider Art, and you expressed its amazingness really well! And very cool about your interest in the person at the hospital! That's excitement. Nothing like that kind of feeling and focus. I hope that works out exactly as you want. Fingers crossed. And have a superb weekend! ** Tomkendall, Hi, T! There aren't so many, strangely enough, considering. Same in the US, really. Oh, I'm glad what I wrote made sense. Me too, obviously. I kind of think of myself as kind of an Outsider Artist, or maybe thats a role model idea, if that doesn't sound too strange. I never learned how to write fiction properly, so in a way it makes sense or something. ** Rewritedept, Hi, C. She is. Enjoy your dad-free dad's abode. I haven't read the Viv Albertine. Yeah, I'd like to, but I'll wait until my interest refocuses on recent music history. When one writes a book or goes back to one you never know if it's a thing work doing. At that point, that question is irrelevant. Well, we'd be into showing LCTG in Vegas, obviously. The thing is, it would need to be venue that can actually show a film, you know, with a decent screen and sound system and seats and all of that kind of stuff. It's not the kind of film you can watch while standing around in a gallery. But, yeah, if you think of something, let me know. That would be kind of you. ** Steevee, I don't know CBD is. I'm kind of out of it. I'll look it up. How did the drug work with TV watching? ** Unknown/Pascal, Hi. Oh, yeah, I'm okay with abandoning the George Miles novel. I suspect there are parts that are good that I'll maybe find a way to use elsewhere or publish on their own at some point, but I'm not ready to reread what I wrote yet. Right, I too don't worry that stuff I'm writing will likely be abandoned. And really, and you know this, things that seem like extras in the moment of writing can magically end up holding something key and important when you get the novel 'complete' and go back to it. Such a great process, writing. Thanks, P. Have a great weekend. ** Armando, Hi. Well, like I wrote the other day, the editing is kind of the whole movie, it's force, its energy. It's very much a rhythmic movie with an intense but never fully predictable forward motion. It would be really interesting (to me) if someone timed every shot. I would be really curious to see the pattern. There is no narrative, really, or not much of one. It explores the fuckedupness of a guy, the chief character. It wanders through time and locations in a way that's obviously very organized but feels intuitive. There's a lot of dialogue and voiceovers, and they're very Malick, but they're less pointedly directive and less deliberately packed with meaning. They're smearier and most casual, in effect. I don't know. That's all I can think to say about the film at the moment, I hope you get to see it. I loved it, obviously, as I said. Good weekend, pal. ** Right. I made a long, narrow, teeming mosh pit for you this weekend. I hope you enjoy being on its sidelines. See you on Monday.