p.s. Hey. So much for the weekend. I hope yours rang true. I spent mine working, and I feel as though I only left my laptop long enough to smoke or eat, but I have vague, lingering memories of the outdoors, so perhaps that's not the whole story. Tonight, or, more precisely, at your bed time tonight, the deadline for sending me your SPD contributions will come and go, so if you haven't sent me stuff but have every intention to do so, please do. The turn out has been pretty healthy so far, but I could really use some more entries to turn the SPD into the kind of whopper that would align it with classic SPDs of the past. Thanks a ton in advance. Paris has turned very sunny in the last couple of days, but not in an agonizing way. Tomorrow is Bastille Day, i.e. fireworks, parade, closed stores, and a curious French BD tradition whereby fire stations open their doors to the public who then flock to the nearest one they can find and party drunkenly all evening with their local firemen. Not sure if I'll be willing to partake of that. Yeah, all is reasonably well if unexciting around here, in other words. ** Mark P., Hey, Mark. It's great to see you, and big congrats on the Oslo festival gig for your film. You going? I'm surprised I saw 'Transformers 2' too, although I've been known to see every summer blockbuster out of ... curiosity as to what 'the people' want or something? Listen, 'T2' is absolute junk, don't get me wrong. I just weirdly got a kick out of the tech and didn't care otherwise. Anyway, yeah, nice to see you, man. ** Joshua Caleb Weibley, Hey. Thanks a lot for chiming in. ** Ken Baumann, How's it going, Ken? Writing, news, ... ? Lovely to see you. ** Mark, Here's some imaginary confetti for your Milton observations. Love the 'HUNGER' thing. Beautiful. ** Roger P, Call me crazy, but I find the topic of your thesis pretty fascinating in theory. So, yeah, send it along when it's a concrete 'it'. Oh, on the image based investigation re: my writing, it depends. The scrapbook page the other day was specific to trying figure out a particular character in the novel, or, more specifically, how the character's obsession with guro could create an alignment with his willingness to participate in the novel's cannibalism-related activities. I'm interested in making the character's decision to move from the imaginary into the real both sensible and alluringly un-spelled out. I'm always looking for ways to not to work with novelistic tropes like motivation and psychology-based explanations and all that crap, and sometimes in order to employ a more structure- and aesthetics-based connective thread/ explanation, I find I need to construct a kind of equational version of the problem I'm facing -- albeit a rather simplistic equation in the case of that scrapbook page -- in visual 'art', which is a medium that doesn't have heavy-handed expectations that narrative or motivation or explanatory psychology, etc. need be utilized. Or something. I'm not sure that made much sense, but thank you for wondering. ** David Ehrenstein, Now you've got me obsessively trying to figure out the perfect vehicle for a Depp/ Reeves co-starring gig, ha ha. It's actually an interesting puzzle of an idea. Like you, I think with just the right choice, it could really be something. I'm probably just blanking out, but what is 'MOPI'? I saw Liza Minelli on a French talk show maybe a week ago. She didn't sing -- she was mostly talking about MJ -- but physically she looked as healthy and slim and good as she has in decades, I thought. ** Chris, Is 'Happy Days' the play where one of the characters is gradually buried up to the neck during the play? That's my favorite Beckett play, whatever it's called. I really like 'Krapp's Last Tape' too, but I've never seen a really good production of it. I think Michael Mantler did an album back in the 70s based on 'KLT' that was more successful than I'd expected, but my memory might be playing tricks. When do you leave or Austria again? Oh, sure, pieces of music is more than just fine for the SPD. Absolutely. That would be great. ** Empty Frame, I'm going to look for 'Happy Like Murderers' on my next trip to Shakespeare & Co., although it isn't the kind of book they normally grab and stock. You never know, though. No, I don't think I know Gordon Burn's stuff, but I'll add that book you mentioned to my shopping trip list as well. Thanks! Yeah, I remember reading about that whole thing with P.P. Hartnett and Nilsen, but it felt at the time like a Hartnett publicity grab. The Burroughs/ Acker thing was fascinating. It was so interesting to see Kathy being so shy and reverent, and I thought she managed to get Burroughs to be awfully charming. Very, very nice. Got your SPD, and the follow up email. All is well. ** Kier, Thanks for the good words on my scrapbook page. That means a lot. Thank you, thank you. Are you working on stuff right now? If so, what? If not, what does life consist of at the moment? No, I haven't been following the Lynch interview project, which kind of ridiculous of me. I've been meaning to. I'll try to start today. What are you thinking of it so far? ** Stan_cz, So nice when the muse is ever-present, no? Awesome about all the writing pouring out of you. I'm pretty much with Bernard on the Conrad novel. Haven't read it in ages, but I was pretty knocked out when I did. But, yeah, it's all about what one needs literature to be at any given time. I can imagine transitioning from writers like Bukowski and Fante to the more strategic and circuitous Conrad provided a jarring shift in and of itself maybe. Very different literary cans of worms. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yeah, I've been reading about the attacks on Goths and Emos in Leeds this weekend. Depressing. Also, I'd completely forgotten that Gang of Four were born in Leeds. Once I was discussing GoF, whom I adore, with the writer Jon Savage, and he was very dismissive of them, and I remember him saying, they were 'so Leeds', as though that were evidence enough against them. ** Bernard Welt, A double handful of confetti for your Milton and Conrad thoughts. The latter read my mind. 'The Secret Agent' is my favorite Conrad as well. Lovely to chat with you yesterday. ** Dan, Wow, that's very exciting about the script making the initial Sundance workshop cut! Feel my burning hopes on that front. Man, that would be incredible. Oh, when is the Outfest screening? I'm, of course, anxious to hear how that goes. Very well, no doubt. ** SYpHA_69, So you're seeing the GI doc today? Yeah, don't hold back, and let me/us know how that goes. Of course you're right about the SPD always ending up bigger than I start fearing it will be, and, yeah, I've had to divide it into two parts already. ** JW Veldhoen, Wow, Alan's Milton post had some awfully fine fallout. Your fallout positively swizzled the motherfucker. They should have built those twin towers of light. There was that shellshocked moment when bizarre sentimental Vegas things could have happened, but they didn't. ** Alec Niedenthal, 'The Space of Literature', yeah, astonishing, of course. For me, it was 'The Infinite Conversation' for some reason. So incredibly hard to pick and choose though. That's extremely interesting about Levinas re: Blanchot. I need to reread the former pronto. Can you characterize the paper on Levinas and Foster Wallace, if you don't mind? A most intriguing idea. I haven't read Stewart Homes' 'Memphis Underground', or, rather, I only read the beginning before my copy fell out of my coat pocket and onto a train track. You remind me that I need to get another copy. What do you think of it? I love Stewart Home. Sure, I'd like very much to read some of your short shorts, of course. How can I? Re: music and writing, it depends. Usually, the music soundtrack is part of a deliberate experiment, so I've tried various things. Slow and sad works for me, yeah. The more experimental wing of electronic music (Autechre and various others) has helped. For the new novel, I'm doing no music at all. That's pretty interesting and hard in a difficult but useful way. Hope your weekend was great. Mine was okay. ** Colin, Hey, man. How are things? How's the writing, etc.? ** Frank Jaffe, That 'EtV' clip was amazing! I hadn't seen it. Thank you so much. They're not advertising 'EtV' on TV (yet anyway), but during Cannes, the aerial panning clip was omnipresent. France is a very different beast than the US. Noe and the cast of 'EtV' were guests on the most popular TV show in France, and there was literally a forty-five minute segment on the show just about the film with all kinds of famous people there talking about it and asking Noe questions. Well, that would be criminal if 'EtV' isn't released in States. I would have thought 'Irreversible' got enough buzz and press to make it a shoe-in, but I'm an eternal optimist. I can't believe you read 'The Hostage Drama' to your sister, ha ha. That's so cool. Yeah, me too about the Outfest reaction to 'Weak Species'. You saw that he made the long list for the Sundance Workshop, which I'm thrilled about. Fingers crossed on both fronts, eh? Thanks, man. ** Bill, Hey. Welcome back. I love that Tate story. I love that you love Tate too. Oh, how did it go with that gig where the powers were going to be observing your work? Has that happened yet? ** Armando, 'Twentynine Palms' is a good place to start, I think. It got mixed reactions, but I think it's very interesting. Oh, he's heavily and quite obviously influenced by Bresson, and he cops to that in a very upfront way. In fact, for this French magazine Les Inrokuptibles, Dumont and I had a conversation that was mostly about Bresson a couple of years ago. If you see any of his films, you'll see how Bresson is heavily integral to what he does. It's very clear. ** Flit, Jump? Don't jump. That's an order. What's going on, Flit? Why did you say that? Tell me. ** Laurabeth, And give it a go you so did in a classic, luminous LB fashion. Thank you, my pal! ** Memoirs of a Heroinhead, Hey. Welcome to this place. I know you a little from hanging out at Nick/Lotion's place. I didn't know that about your father. That's intense, and of course I'll go find what you wrote about it. I did start reading your blog yesterday when I looked into the comments area, and it's an extraordinary work and ongoing piece of writing. Wait ... Everyone, I highly, highly recommend that you go check out and read the blog of Memoirs of a Heroin Head today or as soon as possible because it's an amazing thing. I'll be reading you regularly now. Yeah, thank you very much. You're in Lyon, right? Do you get to Paris very much? ** Math t, Yeah, you having lived on the West Coast added fuel to the fire of my intrigue re: your observations on the accents there. Everything you say makes such sense, and I'd never thought of that difference between the East and West manners of speaking before. It makes complete sense, and I'm going to be rolling that comparison around in my head for quite a while, I think. ** Killer Luka, That was a juicy response. Wow, yeah, hm, cool. Being something of a satisfied lurker in Alan's head on the issue at hand, I felt singed. But it felt good. You can't spell 'Satan' without 'tan'. ** Bacteriaburger, Hey. Oh, I got the 'Nifty' day, no problem, and thank you, and I'll get back to you about that very soon. The new address and the old one basically go to the same place. The new one just helps get me around any email sent not to me but rather to the DC website. I was just horning in on their address for a while there. ** Alan, Yeah, the Milton Day went really, really well. One of the most interesting days and related comments sections here in a long time, I thought. Thank you again, man. Oh, right, yeah, I'll get onto downloading the blog file(s). Thank you for that too. That task got lost in my space. ** Oscar B, A melancholic SPD sounds most appropriate. Don't stress too much about it, okay? My weekend felt like it entirely took place within the vicinity of my laptop, like I said. Maybe it did. So it was a technically quiet albeit productive couple of days. Is the melancholy and forefronted emotion you're feeling a good thing? ** Dynomoose, It's very good to see you, my friend. Does this mean you'll likely be going to Bethesda for Joe's treatments? Are the treatments a long term thing or more of a sock it to him and send him home kind of thing? Heavy love and hope to you both from me. I'm, of course, quite distressed to hear that Statictick is in the hospital, and I will write to him straight away if not call him should I be able to get the time difference problem worked out. If it's okay, I'm going to repost your call on his behalf here where people who didn't see it over the weekend can. Everyone, our great friend and comrade Dynomoose says, 'Statictick (Nick Rhoades) has been in the hospital for a week now with some pancreas thing (the doctors do not know what) and doesn't know how much longer he will be there. He has nobody visiting him, taking him books, calling or anything. He is all alone. He's worried about his cat, who is locked in his apartment. His landlord said he'd feed her, but he doesn't know what is going on. Obviously, I am over 1000 miles away and cannot get to Detroit to help now. Nick needs phone calls, visits, books and any other kind of help anyone can give him. If you're in the area, or just have a good long distance plan, he's at Henry Ford Hospital (2799 W. Grand Blvd. Detroit, MI 48202) room H432. 313-916-2600 is the operator number, then ask to be transferred to H432. We don't have a direct number. Call him. Visit him. Send him flowers, books, magazines... whatever. When I say books, they have him doped up, so think trashy, easy to read.' Thank you, Adrienne. Take care, and please let me/us know how Joe is doing whenever you have the time and inclination. ** Winter Rates, Hey, man! What's going on? What's new? ** JoeM, Hey. Yeah, Memoir of Heroinhead's blog is really something, and, as you see, I did an alert and recommendation above. I've only read the first or rather newest part, but I intend to read it thoroughly. I'm of two minds so far about his thinking, but then so is he, and obviously I'm coming at the subject with a lot of baggage from experiences and suffering via addicted friends in my personal life, but it's a powerful and beautiful work in any case. Thanks a lot for drawing attention to it. On a different topic, how is your writing going, Joe? Are you working on the script? What's been occupying your incredible talent of late? ** Pisycaca, My mouth's watering about those pastries too. I've almost tempted myself to head over to Place Madeleine any second, but I'm going to do the right (for me) thing and wait to share the taste bud rapture with you guys. Yeah, it would have been nice to go to Avignon, but oh well. Gisele had fun, and I think she found our perfect theater. Apparently, the Honore piece will play in Paris, so all is not lost. ** Pascal, Hey, man! ** Tomkendall, That love and anarchy brain offshoot of yours was a beautiful thing, man. Your confusion is mine. A fucking pleasure to share it and to be so enlightened. ** Steevee, Hey. I guess WR got you sorted out on the images thing. I saw an email from you this morning. I'll open it and get back to you shortly. Thank you! ** Misanthrope, I so dug all the Milton talk, yours most assuredly included. Thanks, man. Jesse Starr retired? Likely story. I've noticed that a few of the ex-Helix boys have moved over to this other site called something like TeachTwinks, so I'll keep my eyes peeled there and let you know. Haven't spotted him escorting yet. If I do, whoosh. Thanks for calling Statictick and passing on the more positive report. I'll hope to write or talk to him today. ** Jesse Hudson, Oh, gosh, thank you so much, dude, about the scrapbook post. Please feel extremely free to use any of those images for your own work as you see fit. It would be nothing but the highest possible honor. I bow to you, retreat a few steps, bow again, retreat, bow, retreat, bow, ad infinitum. ** NB, New laptop, woo! That writing's rust won't last long, I'm sure. What exactly are you going to do in Portland? ** Inthemostpeculiarway, I heard about 'The Last House ...' Not that it was possibly a real snuff, more that it was so obviously not. Maybe it's just me, but it's amazing how easily people can be fooled on that front. I think they must want it to be real so badly. The only real snuff film I know about that was actually in any form of circulation was this Russian snuff film called 'The Thief's Punishment' that was briefly sold on the web ten or more years ago. I didn't see it, of course, but I saw some screen grabs at the time that gave me serious chills, and when the people who made it were arrested and it turned out to be real, I was freaked out but not surprised. There is a Robot Heaven scene in 'Transformers 2', yes. The movie is totally ridiculous, as was I for getting a smidgen of enjoyment from it that afternoon. What's with all this sickness you're going through? He seem so blaze about it, but, I mean, that's not good, man. What's up? Like I said, my weekend seemed like it barely happened. Just me and my laptop and occasionally smoke filled lungs and a food semi-filled stomach. It's really a blank. I'm not being coy. It was sans tidbits. I'll see what I can come up with today to tell you. In the meantime, you know what I'm waiting for. ** Blendin, You were there in person for the astounding a legendary Gagne-Bonds face off?! Wow. That's a TV memory I'll take to my grave. One of my biggest dreams was to interview Vin Scully about Eric Gagne. I just wanted the whole interview to be me asking him about Gagne. I tried to do it for the LA Weekly, but Scully politely declined. It still makes me sad. ** Shaiological Processes, Well, hey there, man! Been a while. You all right? You gonna fill your old pal Dennis in on what's been going on in your world of worlds? ** Postitbreakup, I think there are a few people here who are heavily into 'True Blood' I know one of them is Inthemostpeculiarway. Oh, I don't actually know how to count the hits or visits to my blog, mainly because I don't want to know. A long time ago, a guy sent me an email telling me how many hits my blog got each day, but that was the only time. I'd rather not know. So I know there's a way to find out, and I think it's fairly simple, but I have no clue about how to do it. ** Spunky, Spunky! Howdy, pal. I've missed you a lot, you know, duh. I follow your little status squibs on Facebook, and in fact only yesterday I learned that your increasingly pendulous breasts were threatening to hurl you face first to the floor. Four months, yikes. Time flies, or at least it does when you're the pal of a pregnant person. I suppose for you, the time moves a bit more slowly, just as I imagine you do (move more slowly) yourself. I'm doing okay, same old. Paris is in a charming warm and clear but not painfully hot state at the moment. Yeah, so, so good to see you, Spunkster! ** Right, Monday's blog related festivities now end for me. Today's post: I was in a psychedelia loving mood the other day, and I thought why not go ahead and psychedelicize all you too? That's what happened. Send me any SPD contributions you haven't sent me yet. Bye. See you on Bastille Day.