p.s. Hey. Today the extraordinary writer and distinguished local Alan revises certain preconceived notions about a certain major writer, and, thanks both to his kindness and to his God given insight, this very blog and you who frequent here get the scoop. Have a learned weekend, and thank you in advance for your examinations and as well as for any thoughtful responses you dare to share with our guest host, with yourselves, and with me via the usual two comments arenas. Above all, thank you, Alan. Let's see ... oh, it's time for me to get slightly more urgent in my requests bordering on pleas to you re: creating and sending in your SPD contributions between now and the Monday night deadline. So buckle down, if you don't mind. What else? Originally, I was supposed to be traveling to Avignon today to check out the Festival d' and help Gisele pick out the right theater for the premiere of our new work there next summer, but the Festival d' won't pay for my train ticket and lodging costs, and I'm too broke to cover them, so I'm sticking around Paris instead. Apart from working on my novel, what I'll do for the next two days is anyone's guess. Owing to a weird mood, I cajoled Kiddiepunk into going to see 'Transformers 2' with me last night, and acknowledging that it's pretty much complete garbage and at least an hour too long, I strangely found the experience to be kind of a blast. But I'm a part time tech junkie, and the tech was dominating and quite good. Yeah, I think that's all there is to say. ** Roger p, Hey, man. Yeah, that thing yesterday was connected to the cannibal novel in some strange way. It was me thinking through an idea. I don't know why working things out visually via imagery, and sometimes in combination with text, helps solve dilemmas I'm facing in my writing, but I've always done that. Can you remind me what your thesis is about? I know you've told me, but I'm blanking out this morning. I'm glad the framework work is interesting you, and of course your presence is always missed when you're not present, but it's all good, and you're always on the radar in some way. Lots of love to you from here. ** Stan_cz, Well, yeah, relatively speaking, and speaking from my experience, LA drivers are the most considerate and mellow as a general rule. I've always figured it was because the great majority of us Angelenos are driving all the time so there's a resultant kind of 'we're all in the same boat' feeling that creates more driver to driver empathy perhaps. Or maybe it's because of LA's vaunted negative ions. Or both reasons. Or something else. Interesting that your passion has gravitated from films to books. Sounds good to me. My novel progresses in an okay fashion. I'm quite stuck as far as knowing how to move the thing forward at the moment, so I'm revising what's already there instead, and that goes well. ** Oscar B, Thanks, pal. And thanks for reminding me of the foundation's name. I'll prep myself for the schmooze. The Recollets is basically shut down on holiday until Bastille Day happens on Tuesday, but I'll watch for the reappearance of a light in the office window. Have a divine weekend. ** _Black_Acrylic, Oh, that's very interesting about the big connection between Leeds and goth. I'm going to do some google investigating about that and see what happens. Might be something that could end up here on the blog in some form or other. Were you ever particularly into goth as a result of growing up there? It felt nice to have my book in the middle of that Gaitskill/Bronte sandwich, I don't mind telling you. Thanks, and have an excellent weekend. ** Orestes, Thank you for the props on my towers. I hope Saint-Amant sees your compliment, and I certainly agree with you. ** Tonyoneill, I've seen, I think, three of the Guinea Pig movies. I agree the first one is the best. Yeah, I like them, although I think I was overly lead to believe they were ultra-shocking before I saw them, and while they're pretty out there, I wasn't as shocked as people said I'd be. I didn't expect them to be so artsy, although, ultimately, their artsiness is kind of what I like best about them. So, what now re: 'Sick City'? Does it go to Michael now, or has he already seen it? Man, that's exciting! I'm all over the place with titles. Sometimes they come fast and precede the writing, and sometimes it takes me forever to figure them out. I've gone through about seven possibilities with the cannibal novel already, so that one is going to be tough. ** David Ehrenstein, I haven't heard of 'Humpday', but I'll heed your warning. I saw Keanu across a party about a year ago, and he looked great and youthful. He and Johnny Depp both have that whole Brad Gooch syndrome thing going on. Thanks much for passing along the hello from Bret Ellis. I assume he seemed to be doing well? Love that guy. ** Alan, Thanks a multi-ton for today, man. It's an amazing post. With the non-fiction collection, the mss. as it stands is quite long and pretty packed with pieces. I'm definitely unsure about the value of a number of them, but I'm not necessarily much of a judge of my non-fiction. I honestly don't think any of it is all that special, so I'm counting on my editor to make the final decision on what to keep or toss just so long as the decisions aren't based entirely on the fame of the topic in question, although, knowing my editor, I can't see that happening. I mean, I understand why, say, this relatively long and unusually forthcoming interview I did with Christian Bale years ago should be in there because his name is a draw and our friendship gave it a relaxed and revealing quality, but I'm more interested in the pieces I've written about, say, some visual artists whom the general public won't know from Adam. Hopefully, it'll be a mix or something. I don't know. I'm very curious to see how the mss. reads because it's really hard for me to tell. ** Derek McCormack, Oh, I'm sure you did, man, and now I think you're in San Francisco where the boat will also be heavily and gracefully rocked. ** Mark, Oh, gosh I love really those movie consolidation pieces! You should do something ambitious with them like, oh, show print outs in a gallery or something whereby lots of people can be exposed to them. Let me alert people who didn't seen them yet. Everyone, high alert. You should see some things made by multi-faceted artist and d.l. Mark. In his words, ' ... here’s something I’ve been doing lately. Or rather, I’ve been letting the computer do it, since all I do is pick out the movie and then let ‘er rip. What happens is that a movie file is reduced to a single still image, with each frame of the movie becoming a single-color pixel in the image. The reading is from left-right, top-bottom. I’m still not sure if this line of work, which I’ve taken to calling Spoiler Alert, has any aesthetic value or revelatory import, but it might be amusing -- or horrifying -- to see one’s favorite films so extravagantly reduced. Links: 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Ace in the Hole, Band of Outsiders, In the Folds of Flesh (horror), North by Northwest (cornfield sequence only), Pierrot le Fou, Psycho (shower sequence only), Porno 1.' Really, really interesting and gorgeous work, Mark! ** Dan, Yeah, but your mom is either the coolest mom ever or the Antichrist or something clearly, ha ha. ** Paul Curran, Thanks, man. Yeah, exactly. Also, for me, it was about cuteness, or maybe about the level or layer at which cuteness functioned and operated and how it handled both internal and external stress in each of the towers, and especially in the combination of towers if that makes any sense. ** SYpHA_69, Yeah, I think the appeal of all that ritual and those religious overtones in art naturally depend on the amount of religion in one's upbringing, and I guess probably also on which religion you were raised with. I wish I could find that stuff appealing, but it's just heavy and kind of ridiculous to me, with exceptions of course. Yeah, I think your spin, as you describe it -- although I think your talent has a lot more to it than merely spinning the pre-existent -- is as legitimate and noble and admirable as anything else. Your talent is a highly unique one, and that's what matters, and individuality is what distinguishes valuable work from everyday work, at least in my book. ** Frank Jaffe, Oh, I saw your email this morning. I haven't opened it and watched the clip yet. Thank you so much! The only sequence from 'EtV' that they show on TV here is that long aerial panning shot one, which is gorgeous, of course, but not very revealing. 'EtV' is supposed to open here in August, but I haven't seen any warning signs of its release yet. The huge 'I Stand Alone' poster of yours makes my mouth water. Yeah, if you can snap a pic when you get back to school, I'd love to see it. I linked over to the 'Wrecked' thing, and it does look interesting, and I'm of curious to hear your thoughts. I want to see that Valentino documentary. My boyfriend is a big fashionista, and his like-minded friends have been raving about it. I also look for those French films, neither of which I've seen. Big thanks all around. ** Pascal, When I was really young and early on in writing about the stuff I write about, I used to get unnerved, but part of my long preparation for writing the Cycle novels was defining precisely where my fantasy life ended and my real life began, and ever since I started writing in a serious way, I never get scared by my imagination or by putting it into words. Things in the real world scare me a lot, but the act of processing and translating them is more like the opposite of scary, I guess. Well, Jonathan does get freaked out sometimes when he performs 'Jerk', yeah. He's an amazing performer who can let himself go to intense and very emotional places, but the material that 'Jerk' works with is not a natural interest or fantasy of his at all, so allowing himself to be possessed by the character David Brooks does shake him up. Luckily for us, he likes being freaked out. ** Bernard Welt, Oh, that fee isn't so bad at all, I don't think. I mean, I guess if you were trying to hook Matthew Barney or someone huge like that, it might hinder things. Well, I'm very glad to hear you won't be saddled with editing that Corcoran book, naturally. Thanks for the cell number. I'll use it, trust me, and probably fairly soon, and you're going to be able to really help me out, trust me again. ** Empty Frame, Very interesting Nilsen related anecdotes. Someone just told me the other day that there's currently a court case going on to decide whether Nilsen can publish his autobiography or not. I sure hope so. That Brian Masters book on him is the best 'true crime' book ever, in my opinion, and I've read far more such books than was probably healthy for me. I don't know 'Happy Like Murderers', but I'll check into it straight away. It sounds like a must. I like Ron Athey as a person, and I'm totally supportive of what he does, but the whole Catholic/ritualistic/ tribal/modern primitive stuff he works with doesn't interest me at all. He recently directed a play called 'Daddy' by Travis Jeppesen, a young writer I like a lot and whose novel 'Victims' was the first book in my Little House on the Bowery series, in Berlin, and I'm very curious to know what that was like. I only know Franko B's dj work and visual art, but I haven't seen the performance stuff. He's a sweetheart of a guy. Stelarc's work doesn't interest me very much. Again, his tribal thing just isn't mine. On the body art front, I most liked the work of my late friend Bob 'Supermasochist' Flanagan. His approach and his notion of the theatrical is much more up my alley. I'll go watch that Burroughs-Acker conversation vid pronto. I didn't know that had ever happened, wow. That sounds incredible. Thanks a lot, man. ** Uli, I didn't know that story of Mobus escaping the US and all of that. Wow, that's fascinating. I had no idea. ** Math t, Hey. I'll send you those links this weekend. See what you think. That's funny about all California accents seeming comfortable and privileged. That's so interesting. It makes a weird sense that I can't quite explain to myself at the moment. Hunh. ** Pisycaca, The Pompidou, you, you, and me it is then. You should meet Kiddiepunk too while you're here, if you feel like it. We should also go to the Place Madeline and get us some of the astounding French pastries they sell in the those high end patisseries around there as a birthday present as well. ** JW Veldhoen, Cell phone shit, ugh. The towers will fall when they're hit hard enough, I guess. Care to try? ** Blendin, I don't think I've ever seen a no hitter in the flesh. Close, but no cigar. Those closest to that kind of high I've experienced was during the heyday of Eric Gagne, when he literally was God. The way he closed games for a couple of years, the genius with which he closed games combined with the heights of awe and poetry he would inspire to emit from the mouth of the godlike Vin Scully, was literally crystal meth. ** Jose, Resident Evil 4 is awesomeness incarnate. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. looks pretty interesting and kind of R.E.-like. Great sound. What exactly is happening when they flash those zombie close-up shots? Does that mean there's a zombie attacking you from behind? I'll check my mailbox. Thanks a lot for sending it to me, man. Been craving the experience of that novel for a long time now. ** Steevee, Yeah, it's really unfortunate how everything is moving onto the internet, and with quite exciting results if you're merely a reader and viewer, but the writers whose living depends on being compensated for writing about, oh, film or whatever else are getting so hurt. I can only imagine that once the collapse and shift has stabilized a bit more, the paying writers part will return too, but who knows how long that will take? All of my friends who write criticism for a living are feeling like you do and worrying like you are, which isn't much of any kind of comfort except maybe with the little plus that at least the problems aren't something you need to take personally. Yeah, sorry and I hope those editors get back to you right away, man. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Your reaction to guro must be the correct or best one. I'm immune, for better or worse. Guro's all about studying the aesthetics involved for me. My mind takes those drawings apart like toys. Convoy means helping your friend move things? That's my best guess. When I hear 'convoy', I think country music. Strange. You have a good weekend too. ** Misanthrope, I'm this close to doing a Let's All Chip In to Buy Misanthrope An Hour or Two With Jesse Starr Day. Reviews of my books? Uh, I get in weird moods on rare occasions when I search them out, I guess. Mostly I let the powers that be find them and tell me about them or pass them on or something. The 'Ugly Man' ones I've been lead to have been okay. A couple of slash and burn ones, but they were kind of dumb and predictable. It would be cool to get a really intelligent and unimpeachable extremely bad review. I wonder if I would see the err of my ways and quit writing. That would be refreshing. ** Flit, Hi, Flit! ** Creative Massacre, Hey, pal. Oh, I'm really glad you liked 'Ugly Man'. Thanks a lot! I'm okay, busy working and enjoying the not very hot summer we're having over here so far. I'll be very interested to hear about the shooting of 'The Willows' if you feel passing any experiences or anecdotes along. That should be pretty fun, right? Awesome. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Dude, you so know your stuff, i.e. that paragraph about snuff in fiction. I'm always kind of in awe when you spill your knowledge. A friend of mine is reading 'Survivor' right now. I think the report has been positive. I forget where the term guro derives from. I knew at one point. I remember it that wasn't the obvious explanation. Hm. There've been boys in my sad boy picture posts with cum on their faces before, but maybe not as many, and maybe the lighting was better in the ones I chose yesterday. On King, I think he has terrific ideas. I think he's even kind of a weird genius on that level. I just can't take his writing. It's too loosey goose for me. I'm a prose nazi for better or worse. Your day sounds to have been pretty good, pretty full of interesting occurrences. Mine was ... hm, writing the novel, cigarettes, food, trip to the food market, emails, starting to build the SPD Day with the contributions I've received so far, saw 'Transformers 2' like I said and kind of enjoyed it against my better judgement like I said, finished reading that book 'Light Boxes' -- oh, it's about ... actually, I'm doing something on the blog about it in a little over week, so best to wait for that -- walked around, uh ... not a very eventful day. But now I have two days to do something fun to tell you about. In the meantime, I pass the mic back to you. ** NB, Hey. Research? Depends on the novel. For this one, mostly research on the culinary arts and cannibalism and a bit about chateaux. That Dropbox thing looks like just what the doctor ordered. I'll try it. So Christopher's a fast mover and boyfriend at the drop of a hat type, eh? Oh, you couldn't bore me about this stuff. Keep talking whenever. Me like Russians? What are you implying, sir? There must have been, oh, three non-Russians at the very least in that pile yesterday, I'm almost sure. Of course those three were Ukrainian, but still. ** Heliotrope, Buddy! You ever seen a no-hitter? I think I would remember if I did. I figured you would be all about the Tour de France by now. So do you think old what's-his-name ... oh shit, you know, the Republican cancer survivor and dope-accused guy, the big American dog, whatever his name is ... has a real shot? I hope not, but I know nothing. ** Alec Niedenthal, Hey, welcome. Gosh, your comment was so completely not off-putting. It was whatever the opposite of that would be. Compelling? That'll do. It's very nice to meet a fellow Blanchot lover. Yes, his work -- theory and fiction and everything else -- had a huge impact on me and my work. I've even been known to call Blanchot 'my man'. It's that serious. He shook me to the core and still does. How did he effect you and your work? Speaking of which, I love the pieces on your blog. Are they characteristic? They're very fine. What happened with NOON? Anyway, it's very nice to have you here, and you should hang out. I'd like that. ** Armando, Hey, man. Yeah, the novel I'm working on is the cannibalism one. I'm far from finished, but it's growing slowly. I really bad headache the other day, and so did Stan_cz, and now you do. Obviously, I feel for you. I hope it's dead and buried by now. Dumont: you mean Bruno Dumont, the French director? If so, yes, I do like his films. My favorite was his last one, Flandres', but I like his work quite a bit in general, and his heavy Bresson influence doesn't hurt, of course. He has a new film coming out any minute, actually, and I'm excited. It's called 'Hadewijch'. I don't know anything about it. Do you like his films? ** You-x, Yeah, Amy Gerstler and I are very close friends. We met during my one year in university, and we've been tight ever since. She's the fucking best. The Ryan Trecartin piece is in the book so far, yes. Hopefully, my editor won't cut it. No, nothing from the blog is going in there because I haven't written any non-fiction for the blog that was more than a paragraph or two in length, I don't think, unless I'm forgetting something. Great if you can see Derek read in Portland. You should talk to him, if so. He's joy in the shape of a human body, just like you are. That cheesecake sounds so luscious that I may have to go find a French equivalent today. Damn. You have the most incredible weekend humanly possible, okay? ** Right. This is really late going up, sorry. Anyway, I'm gone. Eat Alan's incredible post alive, please. When you're finished doing that, make the blog an SPD contribution. When you're through with that, you're entirely on your own. Aren't I a nice guy? See you guys back here on Monday.