p.s. Hey. Top of the Monday to you and all that. Oh, just a kind of forewarning that this will be rare week on the blog in that there'll be two days when by necessity I won't be doing an interactive p.s. but rather just saying hello. That'll happen this Wednesday because Gisele and I have an early morning meeting and pow wow that day with the company that will be helping us with the technical aspects of constructing the holograms for our new theater piece, and then again on Saturday because I have to catch an early train to Belfort where G., Stephen O'Malley, the performers, crew, and I will spend the next six days starting what will likely be a yearlong process of building and finishing said theater piece. (I will be doing the blog, perhaps in some slightly impaired form, while I'm there.) So, yeah. I'll mingle now, and I imagine that anything of note which occurred in my world this weekend will come out in the wash. ** Perfecto, Hey, it's always a pleasure. Very interesting, very down to earth of you, good piece in the Urban Coaster. I've only been able to have a very speed read so far, but I can already tell. Thanks for the alert, and I hope you're quite well in general. ** Mark P, Hey, man. James definitely came through for all of us. ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, RIP Harold Norse. I was the opening act for him at readings several times when I was a newer writer, and amidst his body of work there are a number of pining love/lust poems for one of my former boyfriends. He seemed a charming, good guy on top of his work. ** Statictick, Hey. On readings, I write thinking what I write will be read by a person with a book in his or her hands, so pronouncing the work aloud brings something unnatural and limiting to the work in my mind, and I've never liked being the center of attention, so I guess that's why not. ** G.V., Yeah, I thought it was an interesting and twisty and successful voice, and I'm glad the experiment was helpful. Of course, feel more than free to return here in that guise whenever you like. If the blog can help you or anyone with their work in any way, that's about as high an honor as I can imagine. ** Franny, Hey. Oh, you're an East Village guy like I was back in the day. Except for the job part, it sounds like we were/are birds of a feather. Oh, I'm actually fairly squeamish, I think, when it comes to real world violence and death and cruelty and brain surgery and eyeball poking and stuff. Fictional movies don't bother me hardly at all, but documentaries and news photos and in-person is a whole other story. You might be amazed, or maybe not. ** David, Yeah, I'm quite interested to read Ed's 70s memoir too. When I first got to know him and then moved to NYC and got to know his writer gang and social scene, all of that heady 70s stuff was just ending, so I'm looking forward to having the blank filled in as well as chewing on his prose and all that. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey. Sorry to be taking so long. I'm very behind and overcommitted right now, but I'll get there. ** Tosh, Howdy, Tosh, my friend. Is all weller than well? ** Chris, Excellent that the gig went so well. Damn, to have scrunched myself inside there. I hear you about the strange experience of going through your mom's stuff and deciding what to save and not. I had that exact experience and exact feeling about two years ago when my mom died. Very, very, very strange. Oh, on the NYU thing, I'll write Marvin Taylor an alert email. You should call or write him -- I'll send you his email address -- and just explain that we're hoping to remount 'Them', and that you need to go through the 'Them' related stuff and make copies of any videos if possible officially on behalf of me, Ish, and you. He'll be into that. So, yeah, I'll send you his email address today. ** Dan, No, I don't know when the 'Bookworm' show will air. A few weeks, maybe? I'll let you know as soon as I know. How did the SF screening go, etc.? ** Blendin, Oh, the Venetian. That's one of the places I haven't stayed and most want to stay. Probably Paris too at this point just to amuse myself. You gonna see a big show or anything? What did you win? ** JoeM, You might like 'Coraline'. It has the 3D but it has a kind of an odd, homemade vibe about it too. Twenty-four years in the writing, yeah, uh ... That probably means twenty-four years ago he scribbled down a few ideas in some notebook and two months ago he found the scribbles that he forgot he'd even written and then sat down and wrote three novels. That sounds more like Felice. Yeah, even at their least enlivened, the PSB are still elegant and noteworthy. I think the last album of theirs I liked thoroughly was 'Bilingual'. The last song of theirs that made me giddy was 'Flamboyant', and that was only three or four years ago. ** Bernard Welt, Oh, that sounds very pleasant. St. Marys, Colby, etc. 'The Hangover' was that bad? What's up with the critical thumbs up it's getting? Very interesting indeed about Beckett having been in object relations therapy. I'm going to read the full Coetzee piece later. ** JW Veldhoen, Oh, shit. I get bad back stuff. It's my weak spot. You get a very gentle hug from me. 'Furrowed' is nice, isn't it? I don't know if I've heard that particular Antony song. Nice title. I'll hunt it down. ** Kier, I won't take any photos you don't want me to. My camera is so crappy it'll never pick up your tongue scar, although we should certainly give it a try, but the lens turns everyone into crap to one degree or another. The scripts for the theater pieces with Gisele wouldn't really work on their own, I don't think. The text parts are too involved with the visual and performances and music and so on, and the scripts are mostly a guideline and structure for us to build from. Some of the texts from the theater pieces have ended up elsewhere. Some of the fragments from 'I Apologize' are in 'The Weaklings', and in the expanded version of that book I've included some of the texts from 'Kindertotenlieder'. Thanks for asking, though. My head's all right, back to being overworked again as per usual. ** Christopher/Mark, Very glad to have been able to give James the home that occasioned his pleasing you. ** Kiddiepunk, Hey. Yeah, I would imagine you're in heavy prep mode. Any news on the film being shown and stuff like that? Hope your weekend flew by and showered you while doing so. ** Misanthrope, I see some people here helped solve the mystery of your hardening and coming re: the raping beast. Interesting. When you're a vegetarian, carbs are like wedding cake. I love wedding cake, mind you. Hummus always does a number on me though. Maybe I'm allergic to it. A page or so a day is good, at least by my standards. I haven't gotten a whole page of novel writing out of myself in two weeks. It's starting to drive me a little batty. ** Stan_cz, No, I never talked to Bukowski, just watched him. The young Tom Waits was at every Bukowski reading I ever attended, slouching near the back smoking and nodding. Let me pass along your request. Everyone, Stan_cz asks, 'Can anyone tell me a few good venues (websites, magazines, whatever) to submit some poetry to? A few recommendations would really be welcome.' Please help him out, if you can. I know you would never ever join Facebook in a billion years, but it's actually a good place to find poetry and literary magazines and sites. Lots of them, quite a number of them very interesting seeming, have pages and do some networking there. I've found a lot of cool journals and sites via Facebook that I probably would never have discovered otherwise. ** Roger P, 150 euro a month is a wild amount of rent. I pay 960 euro for a glorified dorm room, as pleasant as it is. Is it an apartment or a house or what? I guess I've been imagining a small house for some reason. ** Alan, No, I don't a strong or really any bad feeling about the scrapbooks being made into books. If someone wanted to do that, I might say yes. It's just not likely at all. Making those kinds of books costs a pretty penny, and the audience for my scrapbooks would be awfully small. I mean, there haven't even been facsimile books of Burroughs' scrapbooks, and his are really stunning, the best work he ever did in my opinion. So it's more that I just can't see that kind of thing ever happening for practical reasons than a matter of me not wanting it to happen. Glad the court thing went well, phew. That sure took a while to happen. ** Bill, Hey. Yeah, I was starting to wonder where you were and how you are. Interesting out of town work? I guess I mean, was it for creative work? ** Paul Curran, Excellent indeed. We can sort it out this or next week. Sounds easy, and I'll anxiously await it. ** Thomas Moronic, It's weird how voicing (or typing as the case may be) novel-in-progress ideas can really help. I mean it makes total sense that the de-abstracting would be revelatory. My weekend was work heavy. Like yesterday, I worked non-stop from 8 am to just after 8 pm writing the script for the new theater piece. To this point, it's been something we've discussed and understood and agreed upon, but we need something really solid to begin the rehearsing next week, so it had to be done, and that was my job. It was a frying experience, but it's cool to have the whole thing laid out now with the structure and tentative stage directions and all of the texts in their initially proper places. So the weekend was productive. I'm just looking whenever I can for the time to get back into my novel because I'm chomping at the bit, as it were. But it doesn't look imminent between the beginning of the theater piece construction and my needing to organize and edit my non-fiction book starting this week. Anyway, I'm complaining about things I should be (and am) grateful for. ** Distimium, Hey, my friend! How great to see you. Are you doing okay? Oh, amazing about Chapter One of The Guide Thing being finished. I just looked at it and got very excited. I'm so humbled by this effort, really. Oh, wait. Everyone, as some of you know, our friend Distmium has been making this project called 'The "Guide" Thing' based on my novel of the same name, where he ... Well, go see for yourself if you feel like it. Thank you so much, man. I'm just blown away by you doing that. Take good care. ** NB, Dude, it's good to talk about stuff, and we're your interested, caring friends, so remember that. Sometimes when you nurse troubling things too privately, they can become infected with insecurity and paranoia, and you can lose the plot without even realizing it. I'm just saying do what you think is best, but we're definitely here for you and here to hear. My novel is frustratingly stuck. I've figured out a lot of stuff, and I'm ready to plunge (ha ha) ahead, but I don't have any time right now, and it's making me bonkers, but I have my eyes peeled for future opportunities. I did, as I said, write the whole script of the new theater piece this weekend, so I'm feeling at least pretty good about having gotten something important done. Did you get some novel or story work in this weekend? ** Ken Baumann, Oh, fucking hell. That sucks. The ending of 'Pickpocket' is, yeah, pretty important. You could try 'Lancelot du Lac'. That was the first Bresson I ever saw and the one that started changing my life and all that. How's stuff? Any forward momentum on the script(s) front or anything else? My very best to you. ** Steevee, Fingers crossed they're mosquitos. Wow, I never thought I'd say those words, ha ha. Like I said to Ken, I started with 'LdL' and the later work of Bresson's before I delved into the earlier films, and, at least in my case, that worked like the ultimate charm. ** No more teenagekicks, I don't know know how the Maddin blurb came about exactly. Some act of magic on Derek's part. Derek's novel is fucking amazing, if I don't say so myself. He put together a great post about it for here that I'll be putting up ere long. Oh, listen, Jesus, I love that you want to post pieces of the chapter here to help you finish. I mean, that's not only such a huge honor to a blog whose main goal in life is to in some way facilitate the work of the artists who gather here, but, based on this first chunk, it's a god damned joy on the reading front as well. I love that piece. Gorgeous. And the ending drove me kind of crazy with happiness. More, more, more ... ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Yeah, I've got to see this 'True Blood' show one of these days. Maybe it'll make it onto French TV, albeit dubbed. Oh, you can talk about that guy or guys or whatever here in any way you want anytime. But I guess you know that. Like I said, I had a working weekend. Other than that, mm, it rained a hell of a lot, and it still is. I almost went to see the 'Terminator' movie, but I didn't. I almost did a lot of things I didn't end up doing. But it was okay, all in all. ** SYpHA_69, No one knows who Adam Lambert is here. None of the American Idol stars are known here at all. I don't think their records are even released here. France has two American Idol shows of its own, and none of its stars are known at all in the US either. Tit for tat. I don't think these contest winning stars get very famous if at all outside of their own countries, except maybe between the US and the UK. ** Fanny burney, Hey, wait, aren't you my old blog pal D. Walls? Did I get that wrong? I don't remember why I made that assumption. I think I saw something connective online somewhere. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The point is the now, this you, my new friend Fanny Burney and the wonderful things you do. Consider me at your behest. ** Oscar B, Hey, hey! How cool that you posted from Venice. Shit, what a totally glorious place that is, right? I still dream about it. But you're there so briefly, or else I've lost track of time. Yeah, if you see anything really special at the Biennale, pass the word along, and, mainly, have a very safe trip back to jolly old London. Hm, I wonder if London was ever really jolly. I guess it must have been. ** Marcus Whale, Yeah, interesting kid, artist, etc. You saw that he's giving up the Numbers identity for some new phase as yet to be made public, right? Curious. Well, I'll try to stream that show on the 26th, but, if I fuck up, it's great to know you'll have it saved. Definitely looking forward to the almost week of heavy working on the new theater piece with Ms. V and Mr. O' and crew. I wish I could share some of the stuff Mr. O' is planning, but it's hush hush so far. The non-fiction collection is basically just a book of the 'best' of the non-fiction I've written in the last few decades, mostly for magazines and newspapers. It's all over the place from movie/rock star interviews to think pieces about this and that. A big mess, basically, that I need to organize into something that makes sense. ** James, Hey, James! Istanbul, very nice. Thank you again profoundly for the weekend which seemed to go down very well. Enjoy your time there and have the safest traveling experience possible when you head home. ** Okay, I'm off into the rain to do some stuff of limited interest to you and even to myself, come to think of it. Today you get your month's worth of talky escorts, and don't take any wooden nickels. See you tomorrow.