p.s. Hey. Simon Guyzlack, who has been a sporadic distinguished local for a few years under the moniker 'Simon', and who is also quite an interesting guy in general who curates art exhibitions and is currently road manager for the band Grizzly Bear among other things, offers you this post-shaped alert and invitation, which I hope you'll enjoy and possibly even consider a creative possibility. Thanks a lot to Simon for the gift, and also to you who are spending part of your precious day with it. Also, as I mentioned yesterday, I will not be able to do my usual interactions in the p.s. tomorrow due to an early morning meeting on my end. As always, I'll be reading all the comments, but if you have a specific question for me, you might wait to post it tomorrow where I'll be sure to see it and respond. Lastly, I want to share some great news. Yesterday Gisele, Stephen O', and I found out that our new theater work -- the one we'll start making next week -- has been officially selected by the Avignon Festival (or Festival d'Avignon) to have its World Premiere there in the summer of 2010, which is basically the theater genre's equivalent of having your film chosen to be in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, except without the prize giving part. We're thrilled because not only is it the best we could have hoped for and hugely prestigious and all that -- we've had pieces included in the Avignon Festival before, although never in the very high profile, prime spot/slot they're giving us this time -- but this development will pretty much guarantee we'll get the funding we'll need to make the piece, not to mention incredible touring possibilities if the piece gets a good reception. Anyway, we're very happy, and I guess I couldn't help bubbling over. That said, it's cleaning crew day at the Recollets, so I'd better get going if I want to hope to get through this before I get exiled. ** Stan_cz, Huge luck to you re: Columbia College, man. When do you think you'll hear? Not sure about the usefulness of that 'Poet's Market' book. Back when I was busily submitting poems, I avoided that book and others like it, but they tended to be pretty square in their offerings then and they might not be nowadays, and back in those days you could go to any number of cool indie bookstores and find interesting poetry magazines, and that's not so easy now, and likely isn't an option where you live. There are still a bunch of print literary journals, new ones all the time. I've just noticed that a lot of the most interesting new writing I've found has tended to show up online where there tends to be more openness and less elitism to new voices and less of the often big lag time you get between submission and publication in the print journals. Anyway, I'm not sure about that book. Maybe others here have had experience with it? My learning to drive experience is pre-historical, but I remember there was some lecture aspects of it, but mostly it was hands on driving and a bunch of homework, I think. ** David Ehrenstein, Ha ha, I wish I could say my eyes have already seen the glory in emo hair, but I fear I'm still in the fresh as a daisy phase at least for a while longer. When all else fails, I guess stick to the captions, which are the best part anyway in my opinion. I'll do that objects of desire-themed SPD very soon, so that should throw some variety into the blog's male works. ** David, Finding an interesting review that doesn't just say the escort was hot in predictable terms and/or that he didn't show up is a lot harder than finding a curiously devised ad, but my eyes are and will remain peeled, and I'll pass along every really good one I can find. ** Roger P, Gosh, even in the brief description, your house sounds awfully nice. I'm very lucky to have a very small house-like apartment in LA, which I hope you'll get to see someday and possibly even stay in, although its guest room is the living room couch. It's a big couch, at least. I'll find a way to get into the novel before too long because I'll be very unhappy if I don't. After the initial theater work next week in Belfort, I should start to have some clear space. ** Bernard Welt, It wouldn't take much to keep me far away from 'The Hangover', and you've given me beaucoup reasons. It's not a genre I'm drawn to naturally anyway. The film opens here next week, but in France it's called -- in English even -- 'Very Bad Trip'. Wow, an American who doesn't know who Adam Lambert is. You don't have his refreshing phone number on hand, I take it. ** Statictick, Showboater is a good word, isn't it? Good title for something. Man, you are really on the go on the public readings front. That's very cool. Detroit is a hopping place. Are any youtube recordings of these performances going to make their way to your peanut gallery friends? Sure, you can send me a Detroit Cobras Day any time you like, and I will be super grateful. Hesitate not an unnecessary minute. ** Flit, Ah, Text Edit. I'm writing my novel in Text Edit as an experiment and challenge, and boy, it is. Yeah, do link us up to your friend David Eger's event when the time is right. You had a great time in the big B, obviously? ** _Black_Acrylic, Yeah, yeah, pass on the link when you're ready. I love your zine. It's brightened my life. I didn't know the Consumer Electronics LP was already out. I'll definitely get it in one form or another. He's always been my favorite Whitehouser, or at least since Peter left that building. ** David Saa V. Estornell, Fist piece, interesting. Not to mention the Killer Luka thing. Very curious, I am, to channel Yoda for a second. I'm seeing Gisele tomorrow for our early morning meeting, and I'll see what's up then. I hope Disneyland Paris knows what's good for it. But I wonder if they do. That has to be the palest of all the Disney parks, I reckon. You as a PP 'scort, ha ha, sure. Love right back to you. ** Ken Baumann, Hey. Actually, 'Lancelot du Lac' is on DVD. Amazon has some copies. In fact, look here. If nothing else, I have the DVD at my LA pad, and I can lend it to you when I make my next trip home. Here's hoping your third reader says all the right things. I bet he/she will. And congrats on the story in New York Tyrant. I love that place. How soon will it be up? I'm jonesing to read new fiction by you, and a new Blake story in addition is quite the bonus. ** Bill, Being read at the time as James Tate is quite the honor. I don't even mind the likelihood that he'll kick my ass all over the place. Reading Tate as a, hm, 19 year old (?), is one of the big reasons I got into this crazy writing business in the first place. Cool. ** Thomas Moronic, Yeah, there was something queasy making about that picture, right? I felt it too. It compelled me to post him. On the new theater piece, the basic idea was Gisele's. She told me she wanted to center the piece around Margret Sara Gudjonsdottir, who was 'the ghost' in 'Kindertotenlieder', and that she wanted Margret to be an Eastern European gymnast, and that the piece should be set deep in a forest, and that she wanted a heavy holographic component, and that she wanted Margret's character to have an epiphany where she would sing a very intense, tragic song acapella that she wanted me to write (as well as one or two additional songs) with Stephen, and a few other details. I then expanded those ideas, wrote spoken texts, and created a narrative out of them. And changes have happened spontaneously. Like, as I mentioned here, when we were auditioning new performers for 'Kindertotenlieder', one of them was such a compelling performer/presence to me that I spontaneously created a major character for him in the new piece, and stuff like that. So the original idea/premise and the setting and visual appearance and all the movement is Gisele's, and the structure and texts and narrative and the nature of the characters is mine, I guess. But things will shift next week, for sure, both because the performers will have a lot of input and because Stephen will get directly involved in constructing the piece musically then for the first time. I fear that's a much longer answer to your question than was necessary, so sorry if so. I've got my head quite inside the piece now, and it keeps entering my speech all the time. ** Fanny burney, So I guessed or understood correctly. Well, yes, nice new name. I'm anxiously awaiting the sight of new stuff on your blog. What are you working on these days? What's next, etc.? ** Alan, I saw your comment this morning just before I wrote to Marvin, and I did let him know that your contribution re: the blog was at my behest and official and all of that. It should be fine. ** NB, The new pieces on your blog/site are very good, both the two sentences and the newer entry, the dialogue. I thought that was very sussed and lovely. Oh, you're off until the end of the week? Are you already heading to Texas? My sense of time isn't what it should be. ** Oscar B, The heat in Venice is legendarily awful. London will no doubt cool you off a bit. Safe trip, if you're not already post-trip. Lots of love. ** Steevee, Yes, it's worrying about the fate of New Yorker Bresson DVDs. Like I told Ken, you can still buy them for now, but ... 'Tetro' hasn't opened here yet, but it got a fairly ecstatic response from the French critics, who revere Coppola, so I imagine it'll get a nice release. I'm very interested in seeing it, and your thumbs up is great to hear. The clips look really terrific. ** Derek McCormack, Hey, my pal and maestro! How wonderful to see you. I'll be writing you at long last -- sorry -- re: the post's appearance date and other stuff. The tour seems to have turned out pretty nice. You're the best, the most wonderful, and I send you the deepest bow in the world. ** JW Veldhoen, I got caught in the rain yesterday too. I hope we don't get colds. Very nice about the new video camera. I await its fruit. I wish I wasn't already kind of tired of Antony's voice 'cos it's an excellent voice. I don't know what's wrong with me. It just sounds overly familiar to me now, and I need to get over that phase somehow. ** Chris, I'm liking that Sonic Youth. It's a grower. Oh, I wrote to you and Marvin this morning, so everything should be set. Let me know what else I can do. ** Jesse Hudson, Hey. Aw, thanks. I was hoping someone would get into the latest escort post 'cos I thought it was one of the very best in a while. And, to maybe prove my point, it inspired a publisher to approach me yesterday with the idea of publishing my escort ads, and maybe the slave queries too, as a book sans the photos, which has secretly been my plan and goal from the beginning, and is one of the reasons why I've done both the escort and slave entries as an ongoing series. So that's potentially cool. Anyway, it did my heart and aesthetics very good to get your intricate and kind response and thoughts. Thank you, Jesse. ** Dynomoose, So you think I should cancel my appointment with Birky then, ha ha? I'm very glad to know Joe is finally home, and of course that he's begun his treatment, although his being in pain is of course not happy news. Are there no meds that can help with that at all? Is it a matter of having to wait for the surgery trauma to pass/ease? Please give him my very best wishes and hopes, and of course I send you a great deal of love. ** Tigersare, Mm, I can't remember which of the sites I found the Melbourne boy on. I did recently find an Australian escort site, so maybe there. Not bad, right? I think I found another nice one the other day for next month. Is your column going to readable online? I mean, I guess newspapers are mostly always online too now, at least in the US. A job is a job, but it sounds like a fun thing to be able to be a reader of. Did you find anything awesome in the record store? That sounds like a great holiday to me. Fuck the sun. ** Misanthrope, If they stuck to stats and pix, I wouldn't get my intended book out of those posts. You just wait: when you don't have the photos to distract you, you'll be raving about the Joyceian linguistic pennies from boy heaven raining down on you. Or something. When I'm stuck? You mean like right now? I do give the thing its space, yeah. I do open the file almost every day and poise my fingers above the keyboard and scrunch up my face and hope for, oh, about a minute before I usually close the text file and go back to, oh, writing something else or surfing porn or whatever. Sure, I try forcing it sometimes, but if it still feels forced after a few minutes, I bail and return the novel to the thinking arena. Main advice: don't sweat it. Bad days come and bad days go. It's weird. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Well, this revelation that he likes you in asshole mode is very interesting. In theory, you could get all your frustration with his distance keeping out on him in an asshole-ish form and lure him inwards at the same time. That's kind of possibly a very lucky break, man, unless you really, really want to coo at him. I love your little domestic details you include in your comments, i.e. the bedding and the dryer. They delight me. I'm not even sure why. Your way with words, of course, but something else. It's stopped raining today so far. You never know over here, but the clouds look wispy out my window. I hope so because I have a lot to do today since tomorrow is taken, first by my meeting and then by a very long rehearsal for this event I'm participating in at the Centre Pompidou on Friday -- a reading/ performance of Avital Ronell's fantastic book 'Crack Wars', part of a monthlong series of events in tribute to her. Between those two things, tomorrow is a goner. It's all about today. I hope I'll use my time wisely. You too, whatever wisely would constitute in your context. ** No more teenagekicks, I remember when you used to post work here. You had a different haircut then too. And the teenagekicks were still in play. Misty me. The fragment is awfully pretty. I'm seriously in love with the language, of course. Thank you, and, again, more please. ** Steven Vineis, That does sound brutal, but worth it for the literary input? Too Pollyanna? Get some sleep, man. I'll keep throwing logs on the blog fire over here in the meantime. ** Math t, Oh, glad you sought out and liked the Sannah Kvist post. Yeah, she's awfully good, right? Finding her stuff was a nice score. Is that upstairs from the Dunkin Donuts apartment the same place where Zach is having some kind of big giant party -- so big that he's invited all of Facebook to attend? Oh, yeah, ha ha, Zach wrote a whole full length novel that will cement him as the giant we here already know him to be and that Melville House has gotten the honor of publishing next year. I guess that was an excerpt of it online, I can't remember. Same name anyway. Wait, you're actually thinking of leaving AA? Wow, that's big, if so. It's really eating too much of you? You seriously do need a lot more art time, my artist friend. That's for certain. ** SYpHA_69, Really, seriously, you need to be more mysterious with these guys you chat with. Don't lay all that stuff on them at the outset. That's not going to work, I don't think. I say you should remain somewhat of a blank slate, and let them define who you are and find out what they like and don't like on their own. Because your fear of something awful happening because of you is almost certainly way out of proportion to what will actually happen and probably quite unfounded. Be as cool as a cucumber as you can, SYpH. ** Kier, Hey, my pal, my buddy, my Kier. ** Okay, like I said, just a short hello from me in the p.s. tomorrow, and then I'll be talkative again on Thursday. Check out Simon's post, show, and invite today, and do all kinds of other interesting things, of course, and tell me/us all about them, of course, and ... goodbye.