Books
in no order
1. Blake Butler Ever (Calamari Press)
2. Abdellah Taia Salvation Army (Semiotext(e))
3. Vanessa Place & Robert Fitterman Notes on Conceptualisms (Ugly Duckling)
4. Patrick deWitt Ablutions (Norton)
5. Dodie Bellamy Barf Manifesto (Ugly Duckling)
6. Peter Sotos Public: The Collected Peter Sotos, Volume 2 (Creation Books)
7. Mary Gaitskill Don't Cry (Pantheon)
8. Brian Evenson Fugue State (Coffee House)
9. Brian Pera, editor Life as We Show It: Writing on Film (City Lights)
10. Jacques Roubaud The Loop (Dalkey Archive)
11. Louis-Ferdinand Celine Normance (Dalkey Archive)
12. Gary Indiana The Shanghai Gesture (Two Dollar Radio)
13. D.A. Powell & David Trinidad By Myself: An Autobiography (Turtle Point)
14. Ellen Kennedy Sometimes My Heart Pushes Through My Ribs (Muumuu House)
15. Thomas Moore Hospital (lulu)
Music
in no order
1. Sunn0))) Monoliths & Dimensions (Southern Lord)
2. Hecker Acid in the Style of David Tudor (Editions Mego)
3. Robert Pollard The Crawling Distance (Guided by Voices)
4. Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
5. Grizzly Bear Veckatimest (Warp)
6. Natural Numbers Ocean Ghosts (last.fm)
7. Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca (Domino)
8. Deerhunter Rainwater Cassette Exchange (Kranky)
9. Wavves Wavves (Fat Possum)
10. Wolves in the Throne Room Black Cascade (Southern Lord)
11. Boston Spaceships Planets Are Blasted (Guided by Voices)
12. Consumer Electronics Crowd Pleaser (Hand to Mouth)
13. Sonic Youth The Eternal (Matador)
Movies
in no order
1. Henry Jelick Coraline
2. Steve McQueen Hunger
3. Stephen Kijak Scott Walker: 30th Century Man
4. Peter Docter & Bob Peterson Up
5. Christophe Honore La Belle Personne
6. Scott Treleaven Last 7 Words
Live
in no order
1. Yves-Noel Genod Theatre Chaillot, Paris
2. John Williams Sister Gallery, Los Angeles
3. Jarvis Cocker Galerie Chappe, Paris
4. Une image petit cache une autre Grand Palais, Paris
5. Presences Electronique Centquatre, Paris
6. Sylvain Decloitre le Conservatoire, Paris
7. Jacques Tati: Deux Temps, Trois Mouvements La Cinematheque Francais
Internet
in no order
1. HTMLGIANT
2. UbuWeb
3. Put The Lotion In The Basket
4. The Rumpus
5. Silliman's Blog
6. Diane, A Shaded View on Fashion
7. Male Movies
8. Joe Brainard's Pajamas
9. Isola di Rifiuti
10. Milkboys
11. AmericanSuburbX
12. The Free Music Archive
----
p.s. Hey. I'm hoping the post today will inspire you to share some of the things stamped 2009 that you've been liking the most. I'm certainly very interested to know, and I'm pretty sure most everyone else around here would be too. Thanks in advance for the input. So, I'm on route to the town of Belfort today where I'll be hold up working on the new theater piece through Thursday. I won't have internet access where I'm staying, but my plan is to get to the WiFi-enhanced rehearsal space -- otherwise known as the Centre Choreographique National de Franche-Comte a Belfort -- early every day whereupon I'll write the p.s. and launch the day's post before the heavy work gets going. The timing on when the posts will pop up is hard to predict at the moment, but they should appear fairly close to the time that they normally do when I'm in Paris. There's always the chance there'll be some kind of snag in my plan, but I'll try to alert you preemptively to any interference if I can do that. As usual when I'm in the midst of theater rehearsals, it's pretty likely that I'll be less talkative and in more of a rush than I normally am when typing the p.s., but I'll do my best. If the theater work is particularly interesting, I'll probably pass along anecdotes from the experience, and I'll almost certainly do a slideshow presentation of the week's activities at the end of the residency. I think that's the whole story for now. Have fine weekends both around here and elsewhere, and I'll see you on Monday.
65 comments:
Ooh I love lists like these. For what it's worth, here's a few of my own highlights:
Music:
Consumer Electronics - Crowd Pleaser (nice to see it included here!)
Serge Gainsbourg, L'Histoire de Melody Nelson (old, but listened to a lot)
Books:
Dennis Cooper, Ugly Man (of course!)
David Peace, Red Riding Quartet (hard-boiled crime fiction from Northern England)
Film:
Let The Right One In (Swedish vampire hi-jinks)
Jocks (80s Italo-disco film with spectacular club sequences)
Internet:
http://delicious.com/_Black_Acrylic All my bookmarks are on here!
Hey Dennis! Long time no comment, I know, but I'm well and hope you are too.
Movies: Coraline, Wendy & Lucy
Music: Papercuts, "You Can Have What You Want"
Deerhunter, "Rainwater Cassette Exchange"
Guess that's it.
Dennis, Hi
Oww, top music so far
Sonic Youth. the eternal and Placebo. Battle for the Sun.
Books. Let The Right One In and Ugly Man of course. I also discovered Georges Bataille. The Trail of .. and Eroticism but they old so maybe they don't count.
Film. Let The Right One In and that Sam Raimi one Drag Me To Hell.
Blogs are
My mate Shanes http://memoiresofaheroinhead.blogspot.com/
and Oscar's
http://obdealessi.blogspot.com/
and lastly Flesh world
http://kier-cs.blogspot.com/
and a diffrent catagory, top mgazine, Destroyer.
I don't think I will be able to post when I am in Spain, but I plan to write, I am looking at how I might join the Riley story with the letters from a killer thing I did or if they different projects how I might take the letters one forward.
Lastly, sorry dis is a bit long, best thing for me this year, discovering that maybe I can write, through you and other people here who comment it's given me a lotta confidence so thanks to this community and you of course.and btw has a blogger called
'Been Around, Seen a Lot' ever commented ya page do ya know, he left this comment on one of my blogs LOL.
'Great. Just what the world needs. Another emotionally crippled, Dennis Cooper-wannabe.
Get some help. You seriously, seriously need it'.
Im so fucking flattered man.
Dennis Cooper wannabe and an emotional retard, in da same sentance it's like I won da lottery.
Anyway, nuff now
Have fun
Nick
TOP TEN FOR 2K9 SO FAR:
1) Being done with my undergraduate studies
2) Being able to write whatever I want, whenever I want (and restructure this sentence to say the same thing about producing visual art as well)
3) Having a job that basically allows me to read for 6 hours a day
4) Organizing my insane collections of DVDs and Books
5) The fact that SunnO))) is playing at a tiny cafe a block from my apartment in July
6) Reading Tel Quel articles and actually "getting" them/ re-reading the George Miles cycle and have it become a million times more powerful/rewarding than when you/I read it the first tim
7) Unfettered productivity
8) Les Legions Noires & Sun Ra all the time
9) Red curtains made of thin fabric
10) The immanence of pornography.
Blogs:
01 - Bright Stupid Confetti over HTMLGiant
02 - The people I'm following on Tumblr over Fffffound
03 - The development of Speculative Realism via the blog
Books
01 - Animal Shelter (Semiotexte)
02 - Ugly Man (obviously)
03 - The architectural/narrative crossover style of John Hejduk (particularly in Victims) and Douglas Darden (Condemned Building)-- these are not from 2009, but I discovered them in late 2008/2009 via various architectural blogs.
04 - Dash Shaw's Body World
05 - The major "project" that I set myself for 2009 was to read as much of Bataille's English language bibliography as I could--ideally all of it. So far I'm up to The Accursed Share (I'm working chronologically), and my favorite non-fiction thus far has been Guilty.
06 - CF's Powr Mstrs books
Questions:
I rewatched Todd Verow's movie version of Frisk last night, primarily because it was the last movie I had with Parker Posey in it that I hadn't seen in a while (I've sort of been on a Posey kick), and also because I actually hadn't seen it since reading any of your work (it sort of got me into you, so it's good for that at least, eh?).
So basically I agree that it completely removes everything from the book except for the surface level narrative, which is stupid but not wholly offensive to me because the level of spectacle present is sort of interesting (and I have to admit that the transference of the body types of Julian and Dennis to what they are in the flick version is o.k. with me because that's closer to my taste... closer), but anyway:
1) Do you have a cameo about halfway through the runtime-- walking through a hallway as the pornstar and his girlfriend are breaking into Dennis' apartment?
2) In the "Notes on Caught" 'conversation' in the Enter and Your Own Risk collection of essays, your letter to Marcus Hu is quoted, with you saying "I question very strongly the decision in the film to leave the question of whether the murders were real or not up in the air." This makes me wonder, did the theatrical release not include the post-credit sequence where Kevin stands up, pulls the bag off his head, and then starts making out with Dennis? The combination of that plus Dennis' overt declaration that he hadn't killed anybody makes me read it as pure fantasy (though in the configuration of the film this seems utterly simplistic when compared to the level of fantasy present in the film)
annnnd this was long. hi dennis!
Hi Dennis!
We just booked the plane tickets and we'll be in Paris from 24-26 of July! We also booked a hotel in Le Marais. My birthday is on the 25th, so the trip is my birthday present from Xet. I'm so excited! I hear you're going to be very busy with the new radio play, but I hope we can hang out at some point during the weekend.
I've just finished 'Ugly Man' and I think "The Ash Gray Proclamation" and "The Anal-Retentive Line Editor" are my fave stories. I've had a lot of fun. I was going through the lists at the end and thinking about all the authors/films I have to explore. And then I come here and find more lists. I love it.
Apart from the music you mention, I've just discovered Fever Ray this week. I've also enjoyed the new Horrors album, The pains of being pure at heart and Vivian Girls.
Film:
They're 2008 but I've seen them recently and really enjoyed them, "Les chansons d'amour" and "Un conte de Noel".
I really wanna see "La belle personne" but it's only on a theatre where films are dubbed, which I can't stand.
Hope you have a very pleasant and productive stay in Belfort, Dennis.
Love,
M.
Hi Dennis,
Here's some favorites. I tend to be a year behind on most things, at least, but these are all 2009, and in no order.
Books:
We Did Porn by Zak Smith (I'm 3/4 of the way in, come out in a couple weeks)
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, his best book, I think.
Music:
Thao Nguyen has a new album coming out, but I don't know the name of it. I've heard some of the songs and they're amazing, she's amazing.
California Years by Jill Sobule.
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by John Wesley Harding
My RE-Blog is up.
Who knows if anything good is going to happen there.
Essays that aren't essays.
Presentations that aren't presentations.
I love list!
Good to see my buddy Nick (Put The Lotion In The Basket) on it!
Dennis, You rock.
Dennis, so cool that you liked Consumer Electronics "Crowd Pleaser". I wish they would release it on CD though. I believe it's LP only at the moment and, well, I don't have a record player.
I had a bad reaction to the antibiotics they put me on yesterday so today the doctor advised me to quit taking them. They say I should take it easy, do a mostly fluid diet, that kind of thing. I managed to get a doctor's note excluding me from work on Sunday, and I have Monday off so... hopefully by Tuesday I'll be feeling better.
A few recent favorites:
Books:
Aleksandar Hemon, Love and Obstacles
Kevin Wilson, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth
DC, Ugly Man
Music:
SF Tape Music Festival http://sfsound.org/tape/
Urs Leimgruber/Gino Robair in San Francisco (last night!)
Parasitic Fantasy Band
I'm really behind on movies. I'm so behind, I only saw Piano Teacher for the first time this week...
Bill
Hey Dennis- My list is vague like my brain right now. I love that you included Black Cascade. I've loved them for years but wow, the new one just does it for me.
Books
Hospital-Thomas Moore
The Show That Smells-Derek McCormack-
Ugly Man- DC
Music
fightbite emerald eyes
swanlake enemy mine
woods songs of shame
wolves in the throne room black cascade
sunn o))) monoliths and dimensions
Live
Mount Eerie-"black metal" line up Nighlight, Bellingham Washington
Most anticipated event: http://www.whattheheckfest.com/bands
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan...RIP.
He was a very special gift in my life.
i second who said bright stupid confetti over htmlgiant
Movie half-time list:
1. THE LIMITS OF CONTROL
2. DUPLICITY
3. TONY MANERO
4. HUNGER
5. ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL
Music:
1. Amadou & Mariam-WELCOME TO MALI
2. Lindstrom/Prins Thomas-II
3. Animal Collective-MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILLION
4. Dirty Projectors-BITTE ORCA
I've heard lots of music I've liked this year, but little that I'm crazy about. Bob Dylan, Scuba, the MILKY DISCO 2 compilation, Sunn O)) and Isis are all vying for #5.
I heard a guy on the Bowery selling "Bob Marley green" today. It's so refreshing to see open drug dealing in New York occasionally.
I think the issues with the critic I mentioned are more about personal rivalry and personality clashes than taste. Anyway, I've resolved to cut him out of my life. I stopped following his prolific Twitter feed yesterday.
Waste by Eugene Marten
it's sort of my goal in life to remain as hip as you have over the years. sorry, i don't mean to suggest that you're, like, old or anything. but i don't suspect many fifty-yr-olds are listening to wavves and reading blake butler. kudos.
i guess i would add these:
books:
chelsea martin everything was fine until whatever
music:
death ...for the whole world to see
movies:
rian johnson the brothers bloom
live:
the homosexuals (probably anywhere)
internet:
fecal face dot com
This is a great list... I Absolutely Love Blake Butler's EVER, Thomas Moore's Hospital and Dodie Bellamy's Barf Manifesto and deWitt's Ablutions...
AND 'Life as we show it'... that is an amazing, inspiring, delightful anthology.
OBV. i'd add 'Ugly Man', and what follows is a list of some favourite recentish poetry(or -related) books
Devin Johnston- 'Sources'
Kit Robinson 'The Messianic Trees'
Norma Cole 'Where Shadows Will'
Joseph Massey 'Areas of Fog'
Rae Armantrout- 'Versed'
Timothy Yu- 'Race and the Avant-Garde'
Spicer, Gizzi, Killian 'My Vocabulary Did This To Me'
My music list: (Some of it might actually be older than this year but we all know how behind I am on music)
1. Lustmord--Other
2. Deerhunter--Rainwater Cassette Exchange
3. Animal Collective--Merriweather Post Pavilion
4. Fever Ray--Fever Ray
5. It's Blitz--Yeah Yeah Yeahs
6. Nurse with Wound--Angry Eelectric Finger 1
7. Sonic Youth--The Eternal
Books:
Ugly Man--DC
Well, that's it! Later!
Jesse
I think the only new books I've read this year are "Ugly Man" and Thomas Moore's "Hospital" (both of which I very much enjoyed). I haven't read nearly as many books this year as I did last year.
Among the things I've liked so far this year there's the profoundly hilarious short story "The Anal-Retentive Line Editor" by Dennis Somebodyorother, Tererence Davies' documentary in the form of a poem Of Time and The City, and most reently Stephen Frears' Cheri starring Ultimate Goddes Michelle Pfeiffer.
MUST pick up Gary Indiana's latest ASAP.
And of course new JERO clips.
Dennis: Killer lists. I only recognize about 45% of the things on here. I'll get to studying.
Inclusion of EVER is very keen, and I highly agree (as we've talked about).
Some books you should add to the list:
Light Boxes by Shane Jones
Waste by Eugene Marten
Both are astoundingly good. And I can speak for Shane being an awesome human, too.
I'm excited for the theatre updates, and for this endeavor of yours!
All the best,
Ken
IWILLMAKEALLYRLISTSBYTHEENDOFTHEYEAR!
TOP TEN SO FAR (no order):::
1 seeing THROBBING GRISTLE live
2 reading the zine "TRY"
3 seeing PONYTAIL live
4 seeing LARKIN GRIMM live
5 watching GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE film
6 seeing KEVIN KILLIAN read
7 seeing ARIANA REINS read
8 seeing RELIGIOUS GIRLS live
9 seeing EBONY BONES live
10 YEARS self titled debut
books?
BOOKS?!
they're shit get a grip coop.. it's all about an animated gif these days
if you can't get your message across in a 30 second loop i fear foe you.. take the croat having his throat cut
short and to the point
that one of missy fisting a guy like he's playing on a punching bag
stuff like that fella
sort it out
btw that missy flick is censored version if you want the full "i'm cuming out your throat" version email me
music?
MUSIC?!
if you are not listening to my heartbeat you haven't fuckin lived.. that shit
you know
SHIT
that recorded shit.. fucking useless
it's all in the air my most hated/lover/bestever/not gay enough friend
escalators.. glasses dropped in a bar.. pigeons trapped under trucks.. a baby screaming because i'm punching it too much
THAT is music
btw that glass dropped in a bar sound was actually me telling wolf all the girls that didn't fancy her
if you want a copy email thedead@ghost'are.us
i obviously meant 'of the girls'
i was in no way suggesting that some girls might not find that weird face and accent humorous.. whoops i mean attractive
silly me
*runs for the hills*
Music-
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Beware
Sunn O)) - Monoliths & Dimensions
Pocahaunted - Passage
Sonic Youth - The Eternal
Peaking Lights - Imaginary Falcons CS
The Breeders - Fate To Fatal ep
Topaz Rags - Tarot Harem 7"
Antique Brothers - Season's Feast CS
movie: I'm still thinking about 24City by Zhang Ke Jia (technically a 2008 movie but I think the US release date was this year)
music: Bitte Orca is a force of nature. I'm trying to write a kind of meta-essay about Dave Longstreth, The Beatles and why I don't like them (the fab 4) even slightly
music: the Blur reunion probably belongs on a list somewhere even if I'm more than a little cynical/skeptical about it...
music: Journal for Plague Lovers is the best Manic Street Preachers in a while but I have a feeling that's not one for the uninitiated...
music: Wavves on record deserves a spot but he also desperately needs to stop playing in public... I felt like an old mid-westerner mistrustfully eyeing kids on my lawn
blog: http://homeiscornbread.blogspot.com/
twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jennyholzer/
oh yeah,
web: http://A.AAAARG.org
Wow, this sounds like cool stuff. Sorry I'm not familiar with most of the books, but it gives me an incentive to go out off the beaten path and find them. Speaking of off the beaten path, my favorite poetry book of 2009 so far is ... oh, shit, just looked at the cover page ... actually, of 2008 (just a year behind means I'm catching up) Lisa Jarnot's collection, "Night Scenes." And I quote:
"Amoebic rampage
squamous cock
a Chinese hairpiece
burly sock."
Published by Flood Editions. Really cool stuff.
-Ted Cornwell
uh, lists...
books: I spent most of the year catching up with very important books I had never read.
- Orlando, Virginia Woolf (it's been enormously important for my work this year, and I had never red it before)
- Wild Boys, William Burroughs ( same)
- Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
- Dennis Cooper, Ugly Man ( and re-reading Try and Period)
- James Joyce, Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man
- Ricoeur, Oneself As Another
- Jean - Paul Sartre,Being and Nothingness
- Baudrillard, Simlulacra and Simulation
George Bataille, Story of the Eye
- Mauriche Blanchot, Writing of the Disaster
Music:all old stuff which I can't stop listening to this year
- Rites of Spring
- Sebadoh
- Iron Maiden
- Mayhem
- Schubert
- Sex Pistols
- Black Sabbath
Films:
Hunger
Let the right one in
Milk
Damn, I still haven't seen neither Coraline nor Up
Websites:
I know it sounds banal, but I will have to say DC's...it's definetely been important for me during late 2008/ 2009.
KiddiePunk's
Put The Lotion in The Basket's
Oscar Scar's ( mine as teen boy ego)
FleshWorld
Have some great time over there at, Dennis.Produce some great stuff.
RIGBY hehe.. yeah i couldn't believe it.. you meant that HOT chick over there doesn't wan't a piece of my ass? bitch. but girls fancy me more than guys. fact. go fucking figure.
LIST? oh boy. haven't got nearly enough material.
books, not released this year, but here those that have marked me so far, though i haven't finished most of them yet :
Cormac McCrthy Suttree
Maurice Blanchot L'Ecriture du Desastre
various obscure alchemical texts and way, WAY more to come in the near future, until i become too obtuse to even speak, and the Song of Songs, which really you're supposed to become obsessed with when you fall i love or else what's the point. of it, i mean, not of falling in love.
shit, is half of 2009 gone already?
i can't come up with more stuff i'm afraid.
sorry i'm in a rush, i need to go decipher my weird dream of pharaos thawed back to life battling an ice-giant with scriptured tattoed on his back.. of course now i've forgotten half the scriptures..
Sally Potter's film of Orlando with Tilda is quite teriffic, Oscar.
I couldn't help but notice that my own blog,
the purest of treats, didn't make it into the top ten--or, wait, excuse me, top TWELVE--on Dennis's list. Nor has it been mentioned by any of the thirty-odd people leaving comments above, which happens to include two of the four people from here who are "following" it through their Blogger accounts.
Well, I have news for you four people: you're all blocked as followers. I know this may seem unfair to the two who perhaps haven't yet had a chance to comment either way, but sometimes everyone has to suffer for the actions of a few.
My cultural consumption in the last six months has consisted of old Donald Westlake novels, parts of Ugly Man, John Cale's The Island Years and Paris 1919 and the so called "final cut" of Blade Runner, sans voiceover and ( unless i slept through it)Deckard's escape with Rachel through a landscape donated by Kubrick.
The Purest of Treats is my favorite blog in the whole world. The fact that you're clearly insane doesn't really affect things either way.
BTW I notice that none of you mentioned having sex with me as one of the most awesome things you did this year, although you know you loved it.
Sorry, Bernard. I don't make the rules.
That's what Hitler said. Seriously. I have the reference around here somewhere.
For some reason my response to SV’s melonphobia didn’t get posted that day, so here is a link to photos that I recently snapped of some similarly disgusting fruits and assorted foodstuffs:
tomatoes, mushrooms and figs.
As far as lists go, here are my top ten favorite musical pitches of all time (partly based on the frequency of their appearance in various pieces of music, and partly on their innate coolness).
#10 E-flat
#9 G
#8 B-flat
#7 A
#6 D-flat
#5 D
#4 C-sharp
#3 C
#2 E
And my #1 pictch of all time is, . . . it’s a tie!
#1 F-sharp / B-double flat.
Yeaaahhh dennis. I am.... completely ...well.. alcohol. Not dictionnary today. I am speaking with my english. I'm get out dinner with family, half-brother and his son and daughter and my sister and his boyfriend. Cool but alcoohol is better for passing this moment. Why speak with you??? I'm not sure. Where is you? Paris, LA, NYC? Give news! youhhaaaaaaou Earth turn.. I'm
euh
no
nothing
music is cool and wine ok
well
it's difficult for me to speak with you, but with alcojhol in blood, it's more difficult. The key in keyboard move.
What's neews??
Speak in french, my dreammmm, lol.
Axxxxxxxxxx X same XXX, yeahhh, the same X in seXXX lol
Ax +++
hey dennis
great lists, as usual. amazed how you find time to keep up, esp. with books which seems like a much larger time commitment. looking forward to checking these out.
books: 2666 has been taking up much of my brainspace lately. large swaths of it are truly great (think you'd especially like book four, which could be read independently), but i can't help thinking that 100+ pages could have been easily cut - a few sentences here and there throughout. but then bolano has never really been obsessive on the sentence level, his power comes from elsewhere, an accumlation of details and voices, structures that only become visible when you're near the end of the novels, etc.
the other new book has been Ugly Man (of course) which I've kept returning to since devouring the galley a number of months back.
finally read dept: Fable by Pinget; Atrocity Exhibition by Ballard; Midnight's Children by Rushdie; Zeno's Conscience by Svevo.
new music: Animal Collective; Sonic Youth; Steve Lehman; Junior Boys; Michachu and the Shapes; Deerhunter; The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Just got/still digesting: Sun O))), Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear, The Field.
best old music: Lula Cortes and Ze Ramalho - Paebiru
(amazingly out Brazilian free-jazz folk-psych from '75).
new movies: Hunger, Summer Hours, Gomorrah, Waltz with Bashir, Silent Light, Duplicity, and catching up on everything else.
old movies: Noirot, The Power of Emotions, Marketa Lavarova, David Holzman's Diary, Massacre at Central High, Castro Street and other Bruce Baile, Jeff Keen films, Zabriskie Point.
hope you're well and rehearsals have been productive and fun
Hello Dennis.
Thanks for your list.
Mine.
Books:
-“Titus Groan” Mervyn Peake
-“Eduardo Haro Ibars, los pasos del caÃdo” J. Benito Fernández
-“Domme” François Augiéras
-“Jakob Von Guten” Robert Walser
Music:
-“Five Leaves Left” Nick Drake
-“All This Time” Heartless Bastards
-“Bailando en el alambre” Polanski y el Ardor
Movies:
-“Let the Right One In” Tomas Alfredson
-“Changeling” Clint Eastwood
-“The Girl Next Door” Gregory Wilson
Live:
-“Jerk”
Internet:
-DC’s
-Ubuweb
-El blog Ausente
Good luck with the new stuff!
Dennis - Thank you for including Hospital in your list. Congratulations on the theatre success! I'll be a bit more chatty in a couple of days.xx
Mark Gluth, Sypha, Colin - Thanks a lot.xx
Hmmm... Here are some movies that, though I haven't seen them yet, I highly anticipate:
Pornography: A Thriller
Godland (Kiddiepunk)
Soudain le Vide / Enter the Void
Books that, though I haven't read them yet, I am highly anticipating:
Scorch Atlas (Blake Butler)
On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno (David Sheppard)
England's Hidden Reverse (to be reissued this year in paperback)
Oh, and for ones I've read this year:
(I mentioned Ugly Man above)
Perfect: The Collected Peter Sotos Vol. 1
Dandy in the Underworld (Sebastian Horsely) (*not great but certainly amusing*)
Are they finally reissuing England's Hidden reverse in paperback Jesse? It seems I hear about that one every year but it never seems to come out... for example, it was supposed to be reissued in paperback last year but it never happened (which is why I got so fed up that I asked for the hardcover original for my birthday).
I don't know how to read, I can't see and I hate music. My list as follows:
15. brail porn
3. clubbing seals
−459.67. gin
i + 2x. hot zombie boys
Oh, Dennis, tattoo/cigarette guy from work friended me on FB. After I was on his floor talking to a coworker next to him. Must have stalked me. More later, I suppose? Have fun in Belfort. I hope the theatre work goes well. I'll ping back later in the week, hopefully with something exciting. If not, I'll make some shit up. I'm such a bore. Take care buddy.
et al., Any Dallas/Austin-ites? I'll be there July 1 - 8th. I might be in liquid form because it'll be so fricking hot. Constitute me with some flour and we'll have a blast.
Hey D. Hope you're well. I'll do my best to keep it snappy right now. These are always 'my favourites' and often come vanishingly close to 'the only things I've read/listened to/watched that originated in the year I presently live in', but still...
Books:
The Shanghai Gesture, Gary Indiana
Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, Kazuo Ishiguro
Pestregiment, Timothy Thornton
loadbang: Programming Electronic Music in Pd, Johannes Kreidler
UM.
Music:
Dark Was The Night, various.
Dark Days/Light Years, Super Furry Animals
Dark Night Of The Soul, Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse, et al.
Monoliths & Dimensions.
Live:
Charlie Haden & the Liberation Music Orchestra with Carla Bley & Robert Wyatt, London Royal Festival Hall, last night.
The Martin Simpson Trio, Nettlebed Folk Club, May 2009.
Film:
Channel Four's adaptations of David Peace's Red Riding Quartet were necessarily compromising but still managed to maintain a different-but-appropriate nightmare intensity. Not so much Blue Velvet as Fawn Corduroy, so: one hell of an achievement. I read the books an awful long time ago now and so viewing these there was frequently a sense of revelation.
I could be wrong, but I don't think I've actually set foot in a cinema so far this year. Hnh.
Hey D. Lovely message from the other day, so thank you for that. I'm not sure I'm the man to 'do' Hammer but I'll give it the benefit of my consideration when Other Shit has eased up a little. Hope Braid is working out too. Sometime I'll have to point you at a great essay by David Thomas of Pere Ubu on a TV figure named ... uhh ... Ghoulardi, I believe. D.T. pinpoints that particular kind of no-budget-anything-goes broadcasting as a direct influence on all sorts of subsequent anarchism...
Distinguished participants, dear Dennis. It is always a joy when we audit the works you like. I would like to know that I live in a country quite far from the mainstream culture. It is very difficult to get just one of those works. I will be working in a "Buenos Aires Day" to all of you and if Dennis like, it will be published and read many things.
I read for the first time Dennis (Closer) in'95. Ten years after the original publication. My Spanish-speaking contemporaries knew Cooper, and they took it seriously just in the 90s.
Finally, I would say, but do not mind too much, I published the first chapter of the second musical reference Guide. It's my small, insignificant act of love for the work of Dennis. Hugs to all.
PS Sorry for my english, dudes! i just try to do my best shot.
the first music refernce in chapter two on guide i mind. you know, new home for that http//theguidething.blogspot.com
hey dennis,
sorry it took a few days for me to get back her.
thanks for sharing this list. i love love love grizzly bear and animal collective! bob pollard is always nice too. most of the other stuff i've never heard of, and that's one of the many reasons i come to this blog btw.
here's a few of mine:
books- actually, the only book i've read this year that was also published this year was your own "ugly man." and i did love it very much!
music- "beware" by bonnie 'prince' billy
"vekatimest" by grizzly bear
movies- "the fall" by tarsem (but i think it came out last year, is that cheating?)
by the way dennis, i've been reading and rereading your post from a while back called "18 Pictures of Chris Lemmerhirt." actually i often look at the posts about your lovers and find comfort in them. it goes without saying that you write beautifully about the people you love (i.e. almost every book you've written). i'm going through some serious downtime now over unrequited feelings for a boy who just wants to be my friend after a brief affair. he's genuine about it though. he really does want us to be friends and has shown me infinite fucking patience, whereas i probably would've told me to fuck off by now. i think i'll write about him. try and exorcise these feelings in order to save our friendship. that's probably why i love those posts so much. when i feel sad about boys i see how beautifully you've written about yours and it makes me feel better. it makes me want to write about my boys. i love them all so much.
as for what i'm working on, just trying to write some poetry. i feel a little weak in that area, and i have a poetry workshop next semester that i want to be prepared for. don't want to bring in awful little poems that can't be made into something worthwhile. any suggestions, sir? i've always loved your poetry very much. they're all so small and complex, the way i want mine to be. would like to know your thoughts.
Whoop whoop! (Cop car noise)
sypha - re-issue.. i've had it in my wish list since you mentioned it TWO YEARS AGO
oh.. oh.. and i'm hearing in my ear-piece.. hang on.. oh crap
joe of "i'm sealed so i won't be opening" glasgow isn't coming to london..
joe i spent weeks WEEKS killing all the bugs in london just for YOU.. insensitive bastard
so where are we all meeting up? eh? wolf got me a ticket.. well actually it was someone elses (such a slippery bitch) so i'll be around on the 1st.. i'm sure atheist has a plan.. the mother of all fucked up plans.. hey A is atom coming?
i'm bringing 'the missy voodoo doll' but it only accepts cum.. no needles allowed (unless they're in me)
oh back to lists
20
76
138
139
400
that's the best cambodian you can get in bloomsbury
I met a Polish guy last week. I found him really attractive and I have the feeling that he feels the same way, although maybe he's just extremely friendly. Anyway, I'm going to see a movie with him tomorrow. However, this isn't really leading anywhere because he has to go back to Poland on July 10th. I'm also attracted to a record store clerk, but I've never been able to sustain a conversation with him that's lasted more than 30 seconds.
but Days of Glory algerians fighting for france
&
Ironwood
cannon fodder for 'their' cause
both heart breaking
Hey Dennis,
Nice list. I agree with a chunk of it, which is a good thing obviously.
Anyways, I've been under a rock most of the year so I'm not really up on what's current. The Sotos stuff Creation is doing has my vote, obviously as does "Ugly Man." I will add a book of poetry I purchased this year by a wise Kentuckian by the name of Brett Eugene Ralph, entitled "Black Sabbatical" published by Sarabande. Tremendous, honest, very sparse and seamless stuff. No stilted phrases, cut and dry and phrases left for the dogs to chew on for weeks in the yard. I can't say enough good things about it, so it definitely has my poetry pick of the year.
In terms of music, er, I'm pretty much into the Consumer Electronics record, the Sunn 0)))) record...the Sonic Youth album is kind of meh. I like it better than the last one but not by much, and I really didn't like the last one. The new Propagandhi record, "Supporting Caste" is far and away my declaration for album of the year because it is perfect. I'm looking forward to Sacrifice's new album "The Ones I Condemn," which should send all rank metal back into hiding for another a few decades. Kreator's "Hordes of Chaos" hangs with their old brilliant music quite well, so that gets a mention.
Shit, I need to take my ear from my pillow and put it on the ground. I always discover "recent" stuff a year or five too late, hah.
Hope all is well and busy.
Best,
Steve.
Lists! Lists are greatness. Okay, I'll try.
Music:
I am so behind on music. I just listen to whatever. And most of them are indvidually illegally downloaded songs. But I've been listening to these a lot lately:
FrankMusik - 3 Little Words
Lady GaGa (your favorite, Dennis!) - Paparazzi, Just Dance, Summerboy
Bee Gees - Run to Me
Ladyhawke - Paris is Burning
REO Speedwagon - Keep on Loving You
Innerpartysystem - Don't Stop (not related, but I think this possibly the best word combination in the history of the English language)
Books:
Again, I don't think I've read anything new this year....
Try by You
Geek Poems by Charlee Jacob
Pygmy by Palahniuk (huh. I guess I did read a new one!)
Angel Dust Apocalypse by Jeremy Robert Johnson (okay, this was a reread but I rarely reread collections, so this counts)
Exegesis by Astro Teller (a woman falls in love with an AI program... brilliant)
Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis
Movies:
you know, barely anything on any of these lists is new. Ah well.
Let the Right One In, of course
Martyrs, of course
The Informers (I was obviously in a scarily good mood when I watched this, because I really did love the hell out of it)
David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE (it may have been either the end of December of last year or the very beginning of this, can't remember which)
The Holy Mountain (Jordowsky's masterpiece, although I haven't seen Santa Sangre yet)
Okay. So my weekend: my cousin came over and modeled her wedding dress for me, and she looked beautiful, but I like wedding dresses. I started feeling sick, because I always do because I am just that unhealthy. I went to sleep, woke up this morning, decided to go to my grandparents house to relax. Saw their pool and figured a nice dip would help me. I lost track of time, and well, the sun was there to remind me of the several unprotected hours I had spent in the nice cool refreshing water.
Something about water is so hypnotic to me, and I'm not sure why.
Anyway, now I'm sick, burnt to hell, and I think my desk was given a search and destroy mission, becasue I have cut both of my knees on it in the fifteen minutes I've been sitting here.
I'm seriously on the verge of just saying fuck it with Valentine. I am sick of this shit. It's so confusing. So yeah, he's not talking right now. And I just want somebody to talk to, because I hurt, in more ways than one. Right now I'm just hoping he'll call on my birthday, but whatever. It's not going to happen.
You know, the overall happy tone of his post was overshadowed by him. Goddammit.
So how was your weekend? And I haven't heard of Ever before, but I looked it up and I plan on buying it. it seems like somethign I'd enjoy. And that's good to see you liked the Gaitskill so much.
thanks a lot again dennis, you are a generous man, as always
as for 09 books, Lara Glenum's 'Maximum Gaga' is an incredible force
i can't wait for the new Gaspar Noe film 'Enter the Void' as it has almost made my list w/o even having seen it, just based on anticipation
yrsyrsyrsyrsyrs
Dennis, You and your lists! Sheesh. Well, I'll play along. But let me say right off that the top two things of my year so far have been all the dirty gay sex I've had with Bernard and Alan's blog, The Purest of Treats. Really, is there anything better?
As usual, I haven't read/seen/listened to enough to have a best of or top 10 or whatever. So here's what I've done this year:
Books:
Ugly Man (or is it Bad Boy?)
Maldoror
Ablutions
Help Yourself Help Yourself
Hospital
2666
The Haunted Hillbilly
Portnoy's Complaint
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Show That Smells (well, not yet but next, two copies on the way, one for me, one for somebody else)
Music:
Day and Age, The Killers
It's Blitz!, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Crossing the Rubicon, The Sounds
The Bachelor, Patrick Wolf
Movies:
I've only seen two that I liked this year and these were on the tube and not the big screen:
The Go-Getter
Rocket Science
Websites:
Here
Topper's Bottom Bois
Milkboys
Dudevu
My Obsession of the Day
Gay Teen Love
Power Boys
Count Candy
How to Murder People and Get Away With It
Eating Cum, Sucking Dick, Fucking Ass, and Blowing Farts
My Grandmother, My Lover
Shit is an Appetizer
Fisting for Dummies
Hungover and Raped (Real Good)
I sent you an e-mail the other day with the stuff from my hobby. Get a chance to look at it yet? If so, what do you think?
Hope your time in Belfort's fun. Can't imagine it'd be otherwise, but then again, it is art, isn't it?
(Oh, and some of those websites above aren't real...guess which ones...)
riggers, don't forget my voodoo doll's questions for the panel! i tried to get Joe to go months ago, but he said he's used all his cum up and wouldn't be able to get my doll to work. really, i think he's just trapped himself inside his lair with yet another coat of sealing paint. i've seen this in movies before and it's not pretty. which is why i want to fly to glasgow and watch...
Hey D-
I've read Ablutions and the Ellen Kennedy which I won in a HTML Giant contest. Great stuff, just watched the Scott Walker doc last night, really cool having known virtually nothing about him save references on yr blog.
Your hologram work sounds really cool, hope it eventually makes it somewhere near here.
Latest SkullHum is up.
Here's a poem I wrote today based on a rad and spooky and depressing driftwood fort we found on the beach, I can't believe I didn't take a photo. Hope things are going well...
Speculative Beachcombing
Spent the day piling drift wood.
Shaping it into a shelter.
Knowing it couldn’t do shit against a real storm.
Watching the skies for a real storm.
Dragging the vinyl cushions stolen from those assholes’ patio.
Worrying about the rubbers.
Buying the rubbers and two bottles of DM cough syrup.
Waiting outside the liquor store.
Giving money to the bum.
Drinking four beers in forty five minutes, half a DM.
Carving the sign into a plywood plank.
“Welcome Back Brandy.”
Wondering where the fuck she is.
I wanna hear T.S. Eliot reading 'The Sluts'. Promise me in some dimension this is occuring right now...?
Wow, cool, thanks so much Dennis, this feels like precisely the record to be graced by your presence. It means a lot, thank you. I'll bring laptop/mic etc up to London early-ish on the second. Will you be contact-able on your French mobile number whilst over here? I've today started scoring a really fucking terrifying atonal violin/cello/oboe/flute/voice mass of textures as the bedrock for the spoken word. Yee. And/or. Ha.
I had an orchestration lesson yesterday, and my tutor/friend lent me a Ligeti score - have you SEEN any of the man's scores?! They come with an interpretive glossary, explaining, for example, precisely what thickness of papers to scrunch and tear within the piece, and where in the relation to the time-signature-less soprano singer said paper-annihilator needs to stand for acoustic congruency. Yup. And the scores simply LOOK amazing.
Oh and apparently my orchestration teacher personally introduced Bjork to Stockhausen when the latter was at an English contemporary musick fest in '95. Meh.
x
DFG - Robert Wyatt and Charlie haden. I'm envious, especially because I thought Wyatt had overwhelming stage fright and didn't perform live.
Aside from UM, I read one other 2009 book, Brad Gooch's wonderful and long overdue Flannery O'Connor biography.
I'm enjoying Mika Vainio and Lucio Capece's Trahnie so much, I have to add it to my recent favorites list. And I'm not even a Pan Sonic fan.
Worth catching at the SF gay film fest: Lollipop Generation, Little Joe (documentary on Joe Dallesandro), documentary on the Kuchar brothers, Maggots and Men (retelling of the Kronstadt sailor rebellion, with a cast of FTMs).
Bill
You really like THE ETERNAL, huh? REALLY??? I just don't see the appeal. The only good songs are WHAT I KNOW and MALIBU GAS STATION and maybe ANTENNA a little. The rest is so average.
I don't have any picks for this year except LITTLE JOY's record, which actually came out at the end of last year. They're also the best live act I've seen in ages. Binki Shapiro singing a cover of Mama's and the Papa's "Midnight Voyage"... bliss. They're perfect california rock. All anyone needs in life is this record, a six-pack of Corona, a sunset, and someone to smile at. Horrible, right?
I haven't heard anything by Sun))) in ages? Do they sound like they did 5 years ago? Dylan Carlson did it so much better. From what i understand they're branchin out a little, huh? Kinda like Earth's been doing for the last couple years? Dylan plays on their records now, doesn't he???
Other than little joy, the only other record that I can't live without is this crazy fucking dj set with porn mixed in with good old funk songs. 2 huge screens with pornos on them behind the turntable set up with the audio from the TVs running through the mixing board and the goings ons are mixed in with the music.
No lists then. But I'll try to give you one, which doesn't really count:
PAUL AMERICA'S 14 BEST OLD MOVIES THAT I'VE SEEN FOR THE 1ST TIME IN 2009. No order.
DONT TORTURE A DUCKLING - Lucio Fulci.
CARANDIRU - Hector Babenco
MAN ON WIRE - James Marsh
LUCIFER RISING - Kenneth Anger
M - Fritz Lang
BLACK CHRISTMAS - Bob Clark
UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS (entire series)
WONDERFUL/HORRIBLE LIFE OF LENI REIFENSTAHL - Ray MULLER
DON'T LOOK NOW - Nic Roeg
MANDA BALA - Jason Kohn
THE COCKETTES - Bill Miller
FUNNY GAMES - Michael Haneke
13 MOST BEAUTIFUL (songs for andy warhols screen tests) - WARHOL and DEAN and BRITTA (this one was actually '09).
________
and the best books:
new - "Guilty" - Ann Coulter
old - "Faithfull" - Marianne Faithfull.
______________
songs:
"o velho e o moço" - los hermanos
Bon Iver, Sarah Siskind, and Bill Frizell - "lovins for fools"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5AddiEtMn0
old - "can't hardly wait" (the electric version on TIM) - replacements.
******************
You really liked THE ETERNAL???
I just got into a fight with the drummer from The Dead Trees at a show last night about what the best SY albums were. Apparently the Dead Trees are all of the "Murray St./Experimental Jetset" camp (which I didn't know existed, fucking weird right?) Actually, I felt the same was about Murray St when it came out as I do about Eternal (and it hasn't grown on me one fucking bit). GOO, DAYDREAM NATION, and SISTER are obviously the best. There IS no debate, right? This kid's almost the same age as me, 24 - and these guys are friends with and tour with the STROKES - but he seemed to have no real knowledge of anything before Murray St - which is, believe it or not, common. I'm 26, you would think that there wouldn't be much of a generation gap between us, but it's fucking crazy. Do you think it's cuz after DIRTY they kinda sucked. I mean, Washing Machine wasn't bad at all really, but 1000 Leaves and NYC ghosts were so terrible, so all these kids who were grunge-rock tweens in the mid 90s heard all those bad records and
didn't give them a second thought other than to name drop? Doesn't Thurston always say they sell more tee-shirts than records? I was lucky, I guess...I was probably 12 and I went straight for Daydream Nation and worked my way back and then forward. Quite an education. I'll never forget what I felt like hearing the end of THE SPRAWL and CROSS THE BREEZE for the first time, and I still get goosebumps sometimes when I hear those songs.
sorry for rambling. later agent cooper.
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