p.s. Hey. If you're wondering what's up with the photo, that's my fulfillment of a dare from distinguished local Koes. It's the weekend. That's good. Me, I'm going to hang out with my friends and the only current Parisian distinguished local(s) CyCyLoLo, and I have a lot of writing to do on the new radio play I'm creating with Gisele and Catherine R-G, and Yury and I need to start preparing for his upcoming French visa renewal, and this local art space Point Ephemere is having a night of French noise bands that I might check out, and maybe I'll work on my potential novel, and surely other unexpected stuff. Mm, yeah. ** Porcelain Skull, Yeah, and all that loneliness, or maybe that's just me. You good? ** Bernard, You seriously need to cook for me. Well, for me and yourself and whoever else. Somehow, somewhere. Plus, I'm a sitting duck for the Mexican angle in and of itself. Oh, I spied your emails or rather their subject lines, for which I exude gratitude, and I'll open them and write to you this weekend. I've never had sex in a public bathroom. Oh, wait ... no, I haven't unless fake bathroom sets in other contexts and/or merely watching counts. But I love the framing and compartmental stuff.  Oh, and I'll take those scans of yours any old time.  Oh, and that's great news about your STH essay.  Have I read that one?  What's the catalog, and when is it out?  **  Akkeri, Like I kind of just said, I can see that the way the space is organized in bathrooms could make having sex there kind of like playing hide and seek or something, and that interests me in theory.  But the only thing I like about that porn mag yesterday was the voyeur boy's sadness throughout and happiness at the end.  Glad you liked the Bowery day.  Yeah, I don't think the books are distributed in Australia.  They're very minimally distributed in the UK, like in three stores or something.  Funny you were going to send me a mss.  I wouldn't have been able to publish it obviously, but I would have read it, for sure.  Have you caught the Slint reunion tour?  Friends who have say it was pretty great, but the whole polishing the antique aspect always puts me off such things, and I did see them at the time, so ...  You sound like you're feeling better, yes?  **  Erik, Fantastic that Artforum fucking finally did something on Kluge.  I tried to do something on him for them years ago, but they shrugged.  Houellebecq on Robbe-Grillet is a very weird idea since H. very famously despises R-G's work.  I don't think I'm going to like that article much.  I'm excited for the new Miyazaki, are you?  **  Statictick, Thanks for the Hebb and Mars links.  I'll follow them.  And I'll go look for your email.  As usual, I'm way behind on my mail.  Good weekend, man.  **  DavidC, I want to hear how the Lepage is.  I love and miss the really, really long theater and movies of decades past.  So long that you need a meal break.  Really demanding and immersive.  Like Robert Wilson's early works that would last for 24 hours and others of that ilk.  This Italian theater guy Castellucci still does theater works in that ilk, but I haven't seen them.  Anyway, blah blah, how was it?  **  Winter Rates, Poking at revisions?  That sounds good.  Revisions of what?  The fiction thing you mentioned a little while back?  **  Atheist, Is sarcasm and the form you're working in antithetical?  'Academic writing' has so many rules, yes?  It seems so.  Is the strictness comforting in some way?  **  Bill, Hey.  That work by Shen Shaomin looks really good even in little jpegs.  I've never heard of him before.  So a hearty thanks.  I'm going to keep an eye out.  Has it really been 90 degrees in SF?  That's boggling.  Take care.  ** Patrick deWitt, I might actually be going to Arles to work on our theater stuff, and I'll check out the Actes Sud presence if I do.  I guess I was hoping they'd bring you over for promo stuff, but French publishers don't really do that much, I guess.  Have a great, wound-free fishing trip.  I forget what 'fly fishing' in particular is.  I doubt it's because you use a fly as bait.  I'll check out or try to check out the Jesse Ball book.  An antidote sounds tasty.  **  SYpHA_69, The thing with fiction is you have to make it as wild and exciting as music and art and film can be.  You have to throw out the baby with the bath water as it were.  And it's totally doable, but it's not easy, and I'm living proof at the moment.  And then there's trying to get the baby-free fiction published.  That's always fun too.  **  Mark, I'm very glad to hear Mia's home and swinging upwards in the health department.  Phew.  I'll be writing you about some LHotB ball rolling stuff, probably next week.  **  Chris Stamm, Sure, I'd love it if you wanted to do a straight porn day for here.  I've been waiting and hoping someone would do something like that for the blog for a long time.  Yeah, great idea, if you don't mind.  Obviously, I'm the complete opposite on Trecartin's work.  'Baby talk' seems way off.  His texts are very sophisticated and smart and complex.  But it's cool.  His work is pretty divisive, and I'm just on the other side.  **  Jose, Don't worry about the hype.  There isn't any.  Just glittery anticipation.  On the piece by me that your friend mentioned, hm.  The only piece with a long title that I can think of is my little Glam rock memoir thing that was in an anthology and is in 'Ugly Man' but there was no 'punk' or 'acid' in the title.  Maybe I'm blanking.  And your mini-art project, awesome.  **  David Ehrenstein, Very witty and refreshing links yesterday, sir.  Oh, in the forthcoming you-know-what, you didn't mention 'Assassins'.  Was that on purpose?  That UCLA bathroom was infamous, but I never set foot in it, but a lot of people I know put a lot of feet in it.  **  Tonyoneill, You already have six chapters?  That's serious.  I was imagining you sitting glassy eyed before an open Word doc like I tend to do these days.  But six chapters is a veritable party animal.  Nice.  Is Purpleman post-Yellowman?  Yellowman is all homophobic and shit, so I'm not too keen.  But with a name like Purpleman ...  And Snow Man.  What's all the 'man' stuff?  Is that like an albino dancehall rule or something?  **  Stan_cz, Well, yeah, exactly, about your mom, of course.  People who aren't artists or intricately interested in the arts have a really hard time conceptualizing an artist's life.  The tendency is to see artists as pretentious bums or poverty stricken drug addicts who have orgies all the time.  And of course they're absolutely right, and the day to day lives of the fine people around this blog are living proof, or Bernard's is at least, ha ha, but it does seem to be very difficult for people who equate success with monetary accumulation to grasp the kind of abstract reward artists seek.  Based on my experience, I'm not sure it's possible to make your parents understand.  My parents eventually did feel a certain pride re. me, but I'm not sure they ever really gave up the opinion that I'm a bum.  **  Stephen, Pat Califia Day?  That might be tough.  Honestly, I don't have a whole lot of thoughts about her/him or much experience with his/her work.  I think I only read one Califia book.  Califia's always been slightly off my radar.  I feel a general positivity about Califia, but I've never felt like I've known enough to have much of an opinion.  I mean that might be the perfect reason to do a post on her/him and try to figure it out.  Okay, I'll give it a shot.  What are your thoughts on his/her work?  You a big fan?  Oh, have a great first rehearsal, and tell Kevin he's a god for me.  **  JoeM, Yeah, I do like her French thing.  But she also just kind of freaks me out in a way I like.  I watched the biopic clip, but, as is so often the case, I didn't think the actress caught thing that intrigues me about FC so far.  For one thing, FC's face is so scary.  It has kind of an UFO alien meets post-accident reconstructive surgery look to it.  I'm still getting to the bottom of her.  But she's a great find.  You're as bent out of shape about McCain/Palin as I am, which is very comforting.  I hate being way over here during all this.  I feel like the guy behind the plate glass window screaming, 'Watch out!', at the guy who's about to get hit by a truck, and I also feel like the guy in the street staring confusedly at the guy in the window making weird faces at me as the truck barrels down.  Or something. I think Biden/Obama are trying to figure out how to play the Palin thing.  I guess Hilary is going to do some attacking, which she seriously needs to do.  Biden needs to bite and bite hard, I think.  **  Jeff, Hi, Jeff!  It's great to see you, man.  We're missed you.  A 90% done Day?  Fantastic.  That's super good of you, Jeff.  I'm excited.   **  Chilly Jay Chill, Welcome back.  Yeah, I have to say the 'Daily Show' has been in top form about McCain/Palin.  It's been some comfort.  About 'Luna', well, you know, what is that makes a movie one of one's faves?  It's hard to pinpoint it.  I guess I thought it handled subject matter that's of inherent interest to me -- disaffected youth, drugs, complicated desire, adult/youth sexual tension and confusion, etc. -- extremely well.  The Matthew Barry character is also very like the kinds of characters I'm very drawn to creating myself, both internally and physically -- he bears a strong resemblance to the real George Miles, which doesn't help.  I don't know.  For those reasons, I guess.  You didn't think all that much of it?  **  Tomkendall, Dude, very cool of you to lend my 'MLT' to the projectionist, and very cool that he likes it.  I've always felt like if 'MLT' had been given a real chance to reach people, people would have liked it.  But of course I'd feel that, duh.  The banned books list Noah Cicero posted seems to have been debunked elsewhere, but, as I said, I so hope she tried to ban 'Harry Potter' because just that tiny thing might be enough to pull a lot of votes away from her.    Ryan Trecartin believers unite!  **  Distimium, Hi, man.  Using my memory, I think the new GBV CD I'm referring to in 'Guide' would be 'Under the Bushes, Under the Stars', and track 15 would be 'Underwater Explosions'.  I'm pretty sure I chose that song in particular because it has a secret clue in it about something going on in the novel.  As ever, doing this 'Guide' project is so cool of you.  If I can help about anything, just ask.  **  Steevee, Oh, that's great you're edging into the Artforum world.  It's a good place for your voice and your mind, in my opinion.  Good for them as well as good for you.  **  David, Hi.  I don't know Ruth Ellis, or else I'm spacing  out.  **  Jesse Hudson, Yeah, doesn't a porn and horror combo seem totally ripe?  I mean there's these guys, but their stuff isn't porn and it isn't really very good, unfortunately.  But I'm learning from how hard it's turning out to be to make my porn just how hard it would be to really go for it unless you had the money to finance that kind of film yourself.  The necrophilia thing in mine is a huge problem.  Even the producers, who are totally on my side, have said that I might have to make the 'dead' boy 'wake up' afterwards, which I obviously don't want to do.  I tried to do this post-modern thing in the script where the necrophilia scene continues later in the movie with new performers playing the boys in the first scene, as though to suggest the first scene had been real and the later scene is a fiction based on the first scene, which I thought would then bring home that the whole movie is playing with the real and not real, but even that strategy seems to be too controversial.  The objection seems ridiculous to me.  Like you said, porn is kind of inherently necrophiliac, but most porn watchers don't think like you or I do.  Anyway, maybe I'll have to put the porn/horror thing into a novel or something.  And you might know I've been trying to write a novel about/with cannibalism for a couple of years now.  I want the cannibalism to be a kind of sex substitute or more like an advanced and evolved version of sex.  I want it to have a really intense sexual charge but have no conventional sex involved in the novel at all.  Yeah, I liked what you were doing with the Rotten poem a lot.  It was inspiring.  On a good serial killer fiction book, hm, that's tough.  I can't think of any real good ones off the top of my head that you haven't already read.  Have you read a lot of the non-fiction books?  Have you read 'Killing for Company' about the English killer Dennis Nielsen?  If not, I think that's probably the best, most intelligent non-fiction book about a real sex killer.  I'll keep thinking about a fiction possibility, and I'll pass anything I can come up with onto you.  Your school sounds tolerable, good.  As a smoker, yeah, I know what you mean for sure.  You can only imagine what it's like for me on the 12 hour plane flights from Paris to LA and back.  Me, I've been pretty okay, I guess.  A lot of projects going on, which is great.  Yury's pretty good, just a little stressed about the upcoming French visa renewal.  It should go okay, but having your whole life in the hands of stupid immigration beauracrats is no fun.  Yury and I originally met on the internet.  It's a very long story that I'll tell you someday if you want, but the short version is that I was planning to write something on male prostitution in Russia 'cos it's a massive industry there, and I was doing research on these Russian escort sites, and, via various links, I ended up on the Russian version of Facebook which is called Facelink, and I saw Yury's profile and, you know, was intrigued and wrote to him, and the relationship just strangely developed against huge odds into what it is today.  Kind of bizarre, but it's good apart from the visa-related nightmares.  And you?  How are you doing in general?  Apart from writing, hopefully, what's your weekend ahead?  Whatever it is, you have a great one, and I look forward to seeing you back here on Monday.  Oh, and I did manage to put together a Bataille birthday post.  See what you think.  **  Alana, Oh, that's okay.  Paris can fulfill my skinny needs.  And your post is all I really need.  **  Matt, Maybe it's post-trip depression too, you know?  That can happen.  But I'm glad you're feeling better, pal.  You have anything exciting planned for the next couple of days?  **  Misanthrope, Oh, okay, the KTL dolls are pretty good even in the light, I must admit.  They definitely look better with their clothes on, though.  Naked they look like dirty clothes hampers.  Hm, you and Riggers dolls attacking the audience, hm.  I'll run that by Gisele, but I'm sure she'll love the idea.  Anyway, we're moving on into holograms now, you know.  Oh, dang, about your thwarted meet up with the lad from the north country.  I say spend the left over money and jujitsu on an escort.  I say here's your perfect excuse.  It's too bad Damian Lucas got those bad reviews, but with those jujitsu skills of yours, I bet you can turn him into a rave review.  **  Alan, France has these kind of wannabe Japanese toilets in the top hotels.  When you rise up, the seat revolves, and while it revolves, it gets washed off and then dried.  But it doesn't politely thank you for using it, which is a problem.  Houellebecq: I think he's very interesting.  And relative to a lot of what's happening in contemporary French fiction, he's really something.  At the same time I haven't gone completely wild for his work, and over here where you kind of can't get away from him, there's a bit of what I might call the Radiohead problem.  Plus, he has this anti-experimental writing stance not entirely un-akin to Franzen's, and he's very vocally opposed to a lot of the French writers I revere, and that makes me not like him so much.   But on the level of the writing, yeah, I think he's impressive.  And if he ever comes back to the States to do an event like the one I saw, he's pretty entertaining to watch and listen to.  **  Lord_s, Sunn0))) has a lot in the can, and I think it'll get out there, but Stephen at least is more interested in getting out the brand new stuff which reflects more where he's at post-Ktl and other music experiments related to our theater work and some artist collaborations he's been doing in the last year or so.  Interesting about these straight porn/ horror hybrid works you mentioned.  I'm going to see what I can find with those names you mentioned as my tips.  Straight porn has a lot more money to work with than gay porn, so it makes sense that more daring things would happen there.  The budget of an average straight porn is quadruple or more that of an average gay porn for the obvious reasons.  Your comments aren't getting dumber unless I am, which is quite possible.  **  JW Veldhoen, I'm so sorry stuff sucks at home.  Do you want to talk more about it?  I mean we being your widely shouldered friends and all.  **  Koes, So, there you go, you darer you.  But I forget what happens next.  Did you Truth or Dare me?  Give me your orders or request or whatever.  It's cold here too.  I've got the shivers.  **  Amputaciones, Oh, my God, what did you just do to me!  The Stray Cats?  I'm going to have nightmares for weeks.  Oh, my God.  **  2HB, Oh, wow.  It's you, my love.  Yeah, you think so?  You think they can push their way to the tippy top?  'Cos I've been getting a little excited that way the last two days too, but ... you know our accident prone Dodgers.  Oh, I hope you're right.  Dude, I so miss you and E.  Halloween spooky houses: you're in, right?  Say yes.  I can't wait to see you.  Lots of love from me.  **  Jax, Drawing + my right hand = ? Example: see that smiley face on my cheek up there?  I drew that.  It was supposed to be round.  Need I say more?  The best stuff I've been reading is by the folks here, in the Writer's Day and comments and so on.  That Mark Gluth novel I'm going to publish is really good.  But I'd love to cry in the good way about something I read.  Being over here really fucks my book reading.  It's such a problem.  I read stuff I find online almost excluivcely.  It's not the same.  Books bring out the emotional part for me.  I don't know.  But I agree with you about what excites one into fiction again.  I'm going to try really hard this weekend.  You too, okay?  It's a deal, right?  You have the best weekend in any case, pal.  **  So, yeah, the ending has been reached.  I highly recommend spending some time here with the late, great Tony Duvert this weekend.  But I would recommend that, wouldn't I?  Again, excellent weekends to you all.  On Monday, we'll speak again.  Take good care.