p.s. Hey. Gradual improvement on my end. I'm significantly more mobile and less constantly in pain, and I think I should be reasonably okay by the weekend if all the train traveling and lugging my bags around tomorrow doesn't do a tailspin number on me. Speaking of tomorrow, the p.s. will have one more bad day before everything returns to normal again on Friday. Specifically, I have a morning train back to Paris, and I won't be anywhere near an internet access point before I leave, so tomorrow's post will be pre-set today to launch at the appointed time tomorrow, meaning there'll yet another p.s. that consists of nothing but an intro to the post and a general hello, but I'll plan to catch up with both the comments from today and from tomorrow on Friday. The theater piece constructing continues to go really well, although there's still a ton of work to do, but we do have almost a year ahead of us to finesse the thing. We've now roughed out the structure of the entire piece, and the main problem is a technically very challenging long central section where we want there to be this ferocious storm -- the piece is set deep in a forest, and the finished set will resemble a very large diorama, a la the Natural History Museum model, depicting a very realistic dense forest -- where wind and other elements will shake the trees, blow things around, maybe knock down a tree or two, and occasion the arrival of ghosts (the holograms) who'll deliver these strange messages from the beyond and/or from the characters' subconscious or from ...( ? )... to the characters. (It's hard to explain in a sentence or two.) Getting that part right, if we can, is going to take quite a while. But the rest of the piece, although very much a moveable sketch and minus the score, is initially in place. Tomorrow I'll post some photos so you'll have a better picture of what I'm talking about. We might finally have a title, although I'm going to hold off passing it along until we sleep on it for a while. So all of that is good. Today we have a long rehearsal and final work session to get a fragment of the piece ready for the required public work-in-progress viewing tonight. So those are the basics, and I'll get to the comments now because the longer I sit and type, the more the pain takes me over. ** Ken Baumann, Always very happy to add inches to your already considerable stock of books, man. Thanks. ** Roger p, Hey. Yeah, I'm on an upward swing, too gradually for my taste, but I cant, you know, complain. Oh sure, Malick's 'The New World': no surprise I love it passionately as I do all of Malick's work. Did you like it? ** Misanthrope, Hey. I don't like taking breaks. Weird, huh? But I might be forced to for the four days we're in London doing 'Jerk' due to WiFi impairment, I'm not sure yet. Oh, the stuff or whatever comment yesterday wasn't about what you sent me. The painkillers and pain were swarming me when I wrote that, and I don't even remember what I meant. I think it was about the comment itself, and I think it was supposed to be a joke or something, fuck knows. ** Katsim, Oh, so you might be on fabled Fraser Island at this very moment. I want to hear and see pix if you take any. Have a serene blast. ** David Ehrenstein, Hey. Thanks for the good wishes. My back seems to be easing back into its more natural subservient relationship to my brain and nerve centers. Yeah, Butor doesn't seem to be much read these days, and he's also known as the kind of lost or black sheep member of the Nouveau Roman who didn't ride the wave of interest back in the 60s into coolness the way a lot of his comrades did. But he's very good, as you already know. ** AK, Hey, AK. Very nice to have you here. Neil Codling ... I know I know who that is, but I think my pain killers are blocking the trail between what I know and what I know I know. I'll refresh myself via google and then slap my forehead with an accompanying duh. I'll go check your blog straight away. Thanks for the pass along. I'm actually writing this while forcibly offline or else I'd look at it right now. Thanks, and, yeah, do feel free to hang out here any old time. ** Put The Lotion In The Basket, Yeah, I'm trying my best to avoid low chairs and sofas because I've been finding out first hand what they do to a poor innocent lower back. Of course it's all very low seating and couches around this theater space. I've actually just started experimenting with typing this standing up with my laptop on a ... what do they call them ... shit, pain killer-related brain attack ... those stands that hold speakers' papers when they do lectures or whatever. It helps my back, but it's a weird position to type from, and it makes my arms tired and crampy, so I think I'll have to go type sitting down again in a second. Man, I'm a mess. Anyway, blah blah. I don't know what M.A.D. is up to these days. We lost track of each other, but, yeah, isn't his 'Userlands' piece fantastic? Maybe he's still reading the blog out there somewhere and will see the mention and show up and clear the fog away from himself. All the best to you today, Nick. ** Magick Mike, Yeah, Verow is a serious dick, if you ask me. I like Parker Posey and Craig Chester in the movie, and that's pretty much it for me. Well, and the score that poor, very generous Lee Ranaldo and Peter Christopherson created for the film. ** Marcus Whale, Hey, pal. Like I said, I'm forced to do the p.s. offline today, but when I get online to post this, I'll go see what Cougar Flashy is all about, thank you. Nice name obviously. ** Math t, Same problem here. I can't look at your Kier drawings until I can get online to post this later, but I can't wait for my sneak peek, trust me. It's so fucking nice that you're back to working on your art with passion. That really, really is a lovely thing. A very nice real life top ten list tpp. ** Jose, Hey, dude. Yeah, I sort of got this vague idea that maybe Semiotext(e) might end up reprinting 'Strange Landscape', but I'm not sure if that's a phantom bit of news or not. Grove Press should just reprint the fucking thing, but they won't 'cos there's no dough in doing so. Maybe I should start scanning and posting it here as serial or something. Great about you being in the end phase of your novel, and, yeah, I love that tinker tinker phase. I can't wait to get there. ** SYpHA_69, So, today you see your doctor? Don't let him get away before you ask every question you can think of, okay? Give him the third degree while you've got his attention, and, of course, let me/us know what happens. ** Scunnard, Yeah, if we can get the hologram thing working right, it's going to be very cool. It's very complicated, as you can imagine. There's the getting the 'gram itself looking cool and weird enough because it isn't easy to get holograms to not look like video or like the ones in 'Star Wars' or whatever, and then there's getting them to move around in the space, 'cos you have to have all these screens placed at different points on the stage and also have the screens invisible, which is hard in our case because our piece needs an elaborate lighting set up and so on. I think we're going to suss it, and we need to because the other options aren't nearly as interesting. ** Bacteriaburger, Hey. Oh yeah, of course I remember your porn version of Winesburg, Ohio. That's not exactly a prospect one could easily forget. I'm really glad to hear you're back working on it, and I love the idea of it being illustrated. I don't think that would necessarily make it harder to publish. It might even be more of a lure for publishers. Obviously, you should do exactly the book you want to do and not worry about that right now. Wow, a day on Nifty Archive from you! That's awesome, thank you so much! That's super kind, and I'll await it with much excitement. ** Shane Jones, Thanks a lot, Shane. I really look forward to cracking it as soon as it gets here. Very kind of you. ** Heliotrope, Right, I read that about Kodachrome yesterday via a typically ultra-lame Aol-style headline: 'Sorry Paul Simon, They Took Your Kodachrome Away'. Hardy-har-har. You good, M.? ** Flit, Thanks, Flit. Like I said, I think I'll get a vacation (from the blog anyway) while I'm in London although, typically, I'm looking for ways to cancel the vacation part. ** Jesse Hudson, Me too, Jesse. Me too. ** October, Hey, pal. Oh, uh, things suck on the body/health front at the moment, but artistically, things are pretty interesting. What about you? Tell me what's up with you on all your fronts please? ** Steevee, Making moves like that on someone who works at a place where you shop or whatever are always so tricky. It has a weirdly preventative organization or hierarchy or something, like the space where you meet and your positions are so pre-set or something. You just have to be inventive, but I can't think of a good proposal. Hm. ** NB, Where'd you run? Anyway, hey, thanks for being you, etc. I'm getting better. I had to cancel my usual Wednesday Watusi lesson, but otherwise ... ** Stan_cz, Thanks, man, and really sorry to heat the mom-son stuff has flared up again. If history has a lesson, these bad spat phases have always passed rather quickly if memory serves, and you usually end up celebrating her good side to some degree. So here's hoping the pattern holds. ** Dan, Wonderful news about 'Weak Species' obviously. Great, great! I'm writing this offline as I said, but when I get online I'll go read the reviews. Fantastic, Dan. You and it so deserve that, and I feel pleased and proud over here too. ** Mark, The problem with knowing whether there are young French writers on a par with the masters we already know is that new French fiction rarely, rarely gets translated into English nowadays. There are writers whom I'm told are incredible and who, yeah, are apparently not of sufficient interest to American or British publishers. Which sucks very badly. 'Musion holograph'. Interesting. Yeah, I definitely will search that out, and I'll ask our holograph expert and collaborator Shiro if he knows about it when he walks in the door. Thanks very much, Mark. ** Alan, Yeah, Mathews' 'The Journalist' is really terrific. I forgot all about that. Excellent piece by a guy who sort of can't not make excellence at every turn. You can go ahead and ask me questions if you want. I'm getting better fairly quickly, and by the next time I do a proper p.s. on Friday, I should hopefully be as raring to go as I ever am. ** Creative Massacre, Hey! An early very happy birthday, pal. Awesome you're doing tons better now. I definitely feel more of a hop, skip, and jump in your comment's steps, if that makes any sense. If not, painkillers are to blame. Yeah, tell me more when you get a chance, about the photography and everything else. ** JW Veldhoen, Oh, whatever I said yesterday was writ in worse than sand or water and probably meant zip. You like Tortoise? I can't stand them. Why do you like them? I'm eternally looking for a reason to come around on them. (As luck would have it, my pain is reaching mindfuck level, so you simply must not hold me to anything I've said today either.) Twenty pages, good. I know that for sure. ** Christopher/Mark, Thank you, man. Backs are significant, and mine has been a monkey on my back, as it were, since I was a kid, but I'm still the 'top' in that relationship thus far. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Having twice in my life been hospitalized due to extreme sunburn that caused my body to swell up to the point where the doctors joked that I looked like a red snowman, I feel for you on that front, and on the grr front too. A late, heartfelt happy birthday and love to you on top of all that, my friend. ** Panda?, Hey, man. I can't wait to hear your album. That's so exciting! Oh, my back ... it was like it happened for no reason at all. I bent over to tie my shoe and, wham, I was suddenly lying on the floor yelling in agony. Strange, but that tends to happen to me once or twice a year. I would absolutely love a Day on pacific tree octopuses. I really, really would. I'm asking you please, and I'm telling you thanks. Awesome. Yeah, You-x mentioned your new band name. I love the new name actually. It's super warm and poetic. Great to see you, pal. ** Colin, Hey. Very glad you liked the Butor post, of course. Yeah, 'Inventory' is a great book. I need to find my copy of that. I'm glad you're writing. If there's any opportunity to see any of the new work, let me know, okay? Maybe there's some on your blog, and, if so, I'll check when I get online. ** Oscar B, The back is still pretty fragile, stiff, and a real ouch machine, so I'm not counting my lucky stars yet. I think the holograms will stay in the piece. It would be hard to realize the piece as we intend it without them. It's just a matter of how to do it, how 'human' they can be without looking cheesy, stuff like that. If you find out more about how that residency thing works, let me know, like if you find out how much 'say' the Recollets has in the choice, for instance, so I know how to play whatever pull I have with them. Yeah, I'll be meeting you at long last so soon. Crazy great. Good luck with the acing of the final show. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Really, you're serious about that Latin thing? (I'm a bit too zonked and simultaneously blinded by cringes to suss out tones.) If so, wow, irrationally cool, oh yeah. ** Nick Hudson, Hey, Nick. Back sucks. In fact, I've pretty much reached my limit of p.s.ing for the day as the pain of sitting and typing has reached torture status. But cool about the cello. On Stein, gosh, I guess I'd go for a good compilation unless someone else here as a better idea. Take care, man. ** Right. I made it through just in time, and now I'll go walk off the lower back-centric agony. The post: I don't know. I got all fascinated by animal balloon making one afternoon last week, and the post is what resulted. Have fun with it or something. Remember that tomorrow's p.s. will be a non-interactive quickie, and that I'll be your host of hosts or whatever again on Friday. See ya.