Howth Castle and Environs
hod, cement and edifices
Haroun Childeric Eggberth
Hic cubat edilis
How Copenhagen ended
happinest childher everwere
Hush! Caution! Echoland!
How charmingly exquisite!
heathersmoke and cloudweed Eire's
the hardest crux every
Hoteform, chain and epolettes
hockockles and everything
heathen church emergency
Cheepalizzy's Hane Exposition
Eagle Cock Hostel
Habituals conspicuously emergent
Et Cur Heli!
en caecos harauspices
H2CE3
hardily curiosing entomophilust
a conciliation cap onto the eskers of his hooth
hallucination, cauchman, ectoplasm
A hatch, a celt, an earshare
hive, comb and earwax
Humme the Cheapner, Esc
hasitense humponadimply
Handiman the Chomp, Esquoro
Heidelberg mannleich cavern ethics
hup a ' chee
hotel and creamery establishments
enos chalked halltraps
Head-in-Clouds walked the earth
Harold or Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker
escapemaster-in-chief from all sorts of houdingplaces
Homo Capite Erectus
comm, eilerdich, heckleury
Hennery Canterel -- Cockran, eggotisters
emerald canticle of Hermes
combarative embottled history
Eat early earthapples. Coax Cobra to chatters.
Hell's Confucium and the Elements
eternal chimerahunter
hump of grandeur on him like a walking wiesel rat
Helpless Corpses Enactment
crass, hairy and evergrim life
home cooking everytime
erica's clustered on his hayir
handshakey, congrandyoulikethems, ecclesency
heroticisms, catastrophes and eccentricities
homosexual cathesis of empathy
Eh? Ha! Check again
A hand from the cloud emerges, holding a chart expanded
Hosty's and Cos, Exports
a hunnibal in exhaustive conflict
Here endeth chinchinatibus
he calmly extensolies
head in camera and excruciated
hidal, in carucates he is enumerated
has a codfisk ee
Even Canaan the Hateful
haunted, condemned and execrated
East Conna Hillock
Hip confiners help compunction
Edwin Hamilton's Christmas pantaloonade
Hello, Commudicate! How's the buttes? Everscepistic!
Enter the Cop and How
herreraism of a cabotinesque exploser
highly commendable exercise
The elephant's house is his castle
I was her hochsized, her cleaveunto, her everest
EXTRA BITS AND PIECES:
TERENCE MCKENNA ON FINNEGANS WAKE (Beware: he calls Joyce a British writer in the opening moments):
JIM NORTON READS THE OPENING PAGES (INTERESTING BECAUSE HE GETS TO READ THE FAMOUS MEGA-WORD FROM THE FIRST PAGE)(LOTS MORE OF THIS READING IS AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE):
THE OLD IRISH BALLAD (WITH LYRICS):
TO TOP IT OFF HERE'S JOYCE READING FROM FINNEGANS WAKE:
And, finally, more Finnegans Wake names here
*
p.s. Hey. First of all, the blog and I are very proud to host this fantastic guest-post by writer and d.l. Pascal. A rich, complex kind of beauty is going on up there, and I hope you enjoy having the weekend to cruise and unravel it. Thanks, and massive thanks to Pascal. Hm, I said first of all, but there isn't really a second of all that I can think of. Snow has finally and quite heavily arrived in Paris, if that counts as news, and my crush on it is about to be tested since I'm going to be tromping around in it all day. ** Thursday ** Chris, Hi, Chris! Your magical reappearance is a very happy thing. Hi! Me? Doing good, definitely keeping busy. I didn't know that about Borges' widow. Jeez, especially about the weak translations. Hopefully there'll be some outcry from the official critical realm that'll preemptively help undo any potential damage to Borges virgins. How are you doing? Catch me up, if you don't mind and feel like it. ** Misanthrope, Ouchy. Yeah, that makes sense about how/why knowledge accrues and gets filtered through past knowledge. The problem comes when people so often seem to mistake their emotional investment in things they've known for a while for a quality difference and start to think/say that things were better or more interesting in the past when all that's really happening is that they're getting an emotional hit from things in the past. I mean, that's fine, that's fair, but it's not objective at all. ** Un Cœur Blanc, Hi! 'What modern is' as a fashion word ... Hm, that does sound quite interesting. I can't quite picture what that class would be, which is nice too. Mallarme's typography, yum. Tarbes was good. We made the progress we needed to make. The intended step was accomplished sans problems. The big questions will come when we actually start working with the giant, super high tech stage-set in March. But, so far, it's all good. Love from me. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you, David! I appreciate that. I was actually pretty happy with that post. That is a very nice house, yes. ** Scunnard, Indeed, at times, thank you. ** Steevee, Fingers crossed re: Sight and Sound and the third proposal! ** 5STRINGS, Whoa, I wasn't ready for that this morning, ha ha. A little bit of stomach in my throat. Everyone, if you dare, 5STRINGS' Bookworm. (Not the Michael Silverblatt one). I get you on Gysin. Sure, makes sense. Hm, not sure Emos are punks. Don't think so. I think it comes from elsewhere inside them. That's a whole bunch of books. Did you polish off the big 'G'? ** David J. White, Hi, David! Real good to see you! I don't know Bjarne Melgaard personally. I know his work. He seems to have very mixed feelings about me. First he wanted to collaborate me, and then he denounced me, and then he said he loved my stuff, and then he said he hated it or something. Confusing. I don't know that book by him. I know some of his visual art. I've liked some of it a fair amount, and, at other times, I wasn't so interested in what he was doing. So, I don't know. Wow, you've shot 'TBotFR' already? Very cool. Excited! A poster! Looks good. Everyone, director and d.l. David J. White, who previously honored my stuff by making a short film based on my story 'Oliver Twink' is finishing a new short film based on my 'The Boy on the Far Left', yet another honor. Here's poster for the latter. That guy in the poster looks so familiar, like ... I know him somehow, it's weird. Thanks a lot, David! ** Grant maierhofer, Hey, Grant! It's awesome to have you here. I owe you an email, which I'll write soon. I've been traveling and tied up and stuff. Thank you about 'Try' and for everything else. I just read and really like/admire your new post at HTMLG. Excellent, kudos! Everyone, Grant Maierhofer, new visitor, is, if you don't already, a most excellent writer and thinker, and he has a very sharp new thing up at HTMLGIANT called 'A Portrait of My Failures as a Critic' and it is highly recommended reading. And he blogs here, and that's also recommended. Thanks a lot! A great pleasure. If you ever feel like coming back in here, please do. ** Anonymous/ Postitbreakup, Hi, Josh. Oh, thank you a lot, man. By the way, thank you so much too for sending me the post. I've got it set to launch next Tuesday, the 29th. May the converting begin then. Yeah, great and kind of you, Josh. ** Kyler, It's absolutely impossible to believe, ha ha. Sorry about the terrible day. If unloading about it would help, please do. Everyone, Kyler has a very interesting and tempting project/offer going on. Here he is to explain: 'Anyone who's interested, I'm doing a thing on Facebook, like the columns I used to write, where people message me and I do one answer/Tarot reading a day. It's going really well so far, lots of questions. here's my FB page, if someone wants to message me a question.' I may very well take you up on that, man. I got this tingle/ache while reading your offer. Cool! ** Friday ** Misanthrope, First again! I did have fun, or as much fun as you can have answering audience questions like, 'Why do you write about such horrible things', ha ha. Yeah, probably not such a good idea to use me as reference in that context, even though, from a legal standpoint, one pot growing bust in my early 20s is the only damning thing, as far as I know. You'll know if you're legal and ready to go in a couple of weeks? Is that what you said? ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, Thomas! Enjoy London, and I'm sure you will. Did you get tons of snow like we have? ** David Ehrenstein, Thek was/is the man, and his earmarks are all over all kinds of newbies and relative newbies. ** Cobaltfram, Hi, John. I'm not beat by the trip, as far as I can tell. Right, the Austin trip, it was as nice as you'd hoped? That's weird about South Korea and Christianity. I wonder what that's about? I always find it hard to understand why people who don't grow up with Christianity as an imposing ambience would choose it. I don't know 'Secret Sunshine', no. I'll look for it online first, I guess. Thanks! Right, I'll send you my LA address. In fact, I'll do it now before I space out. Hold on. Done. Thank you again greatly for the kind offer. Have the best weekend possible. ** 5STRINGS, Hey. Nice Thek-related stuff there, man. And Sade quote. I remember that one. The anti-Thek, ha ha, interesting, nice. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben! That black glitter piece sounds beautiful. The pic is beautiful. Awesome title/image mash-up. Yeah, sounds stellar. Should wow 'em. Oh, apropos or not, did you know that the word 'wow' dates back to 1590 AD? That really surprised me. ** Billy Lloyd, Hey, Billy! Welcome back! Did everything go okay on the school front? Oh, you said you're happy with what you made, great, that's what counts. Thanks about the book post. I was sad to see today that one of the animated gif links is already dead, which fucks it up. I have to go repair it. And thanks re: the rent boy post. That post seems to have survived in tact so far. Oh, no, that's sad about your lack of Harry Potter entry. You couldn't get tickets? It's that popular? Good to know. I'll pre-buy a ticket as early as I can once I know whenever I'll be going. I promise a report whenever that is. Maybe even a blog post report. Anyway, sorry, sad. Things are good here. What's next on your agenda, for this weekend and/or beyond? ** Steevee, I just saw that about Sachs' new film on FB. Sounds intriguing, no? Urgh, about the CD player. Electronics problems stress me out and turn me into a procrastinator too. Curious. I wonder what that's about. ** Kiddiepunk, Hey! You're probably on your way here right now. Dude, definitely prepare for body temperature shock. It's as cold as hell, and it's supposed to snow until the end of next week! If upgrade vibes work retroactively, they're sent missile-style. Call me when you get back and are awake enough to want to call me. Can't wait to see you guys! ** Sypha, That's cool that the Thek post was responsible for that insertion. 180 pp. to go in 'IF' is surely totally survivable. Nice. ** Kyler, Hi! You're entering DFW! A great thing to do, to my mind, and no news there. There's a lot of external hooh-hah to get through with David's work right now, but it's so very worth it, but it's there. Same with Robert Bolano, who everybody is majorly crushed out on right now, and the noise is making me put off reading him until the fuss dies down. 'TMS' lives in your library! Victoire! ** Frank Jaffe! Hey Frank! Oh, Billy was going to go to the London Harry Potter attraction thing. Well, sorry to step in. He can tell you that himself. It has been a while since I had the pleasure that is you, and I'm thrilled to see you! The move is happening at last! And LA looks like the place? You know I'm digging that news. And Matt might move with you guys? That's great! I don't know him very well, of course, but I feel like that would be really good for him. Excellent! Give me the latest scoops on that plan. I so hope you get the Outfest job. You so should. I'm going to, I don't know, pretend my fingers are votive candles and light them on fire or something like that but maybe less painful. Hm, I've been told fairly often, I guess, that people started reading me when they were 'too young' or too young. Let me think. Oh, a guy wrote to me just the other week and said he started reading me when he was 12. That's pretty young. And he didn't seem like he had been turned insane or into a sick fuck or anything. Or at least not a sick fuck by my standards and from what you can tell via email. Poppers in your drunken eyes. Crazy. Uh, highlights of late? Mm, back into my novel, I think, which is a huge relief. Started the heavy work on the new theater piece. Mm, made a really great new friend here, and that's been a joy. Not too much else. Had a really bad flu for a while. Anyway, so good to see you, my pal! Lots of love! And to Luke too! ** Alan, Thanks. Oh, shit, man, I'm so sorry about Melville House. That must be really disappointing. I mean, they're tough, and they don't publish all that much new American writing, relatively speaking, so there's that, and it is cool that they were interested to read the mss. even if ... yeah. My encouraging words are that the novel is fucking fantastic, and this getting published shit is really hard, especially when you don't have an agent to deal with the hopes and the waiting and the no's completely on your own. The presses that have said no so far have made a total mistake. End of story. As your fan, I await the one who will be wise enough to say yes. Sucks, Alan, I'm really sorry to hear that. ** Bill, Hey. Me too, re: the Hammer. All went as well as was expected/hoped on my trip, yeah, thanks. You're entering submissions mode? My burning, votive fingers are all crossed and double crossed. As in crossed twice, not as in having been fooled, obviously, ha ha. ** Okay. You guys have a great weekend ahead of you as far as the blog is concerned, thanks entirely to Pascal. Enjoy, say stuff to him. Thank you! I will see you on Monday.
27 comments:
Hi Dennis
wow i love how dublin still looks really dated like the 70's kinda. i use to live near there and walked up one of those roads a lot. also shopped in the park centre which was really bleak. i should read Joyce again, he was destroyed in school for me but i think its time a paid him a visit.
you got snow! snow fair we just got all the rain and bits trying to be snow. cold is gone (i hope) so im way less tired which is great cause the last week has been a struggle. finishing the pieces for the show which will be happening on the 15th.
great weekend to you of snow fun i hope!
@Pascal
this was fun. were you staying round the stoneybatter/north circular road area? that grangegorman building is amazing, always wanted to go inside. i use to live in smithfield so this was kinda my extended hood. you have made me want to read some joyce too. thanks
Dear Pascal ----debated to leave a note or not, not sure which one is better. I like images and your commentaries. & Dear Dennis ----thanks for the recommendation of that Rimbaud trans. a while ago. I started reading it the other week and it's good. I think the supervision of myth and the movement of cold reason work together, very clearly, on words and their structure. Other poetic elements look sacrificed, but meaning & learning are important, too, for me, so I meant to write thanks to you. Alright, I will get back to work, and, hopefully you enjoy the snow there. My 2013 has been very good and hope you get a good vibe from me, a far, I know. ----h
So you're home now? Okay, I'm guessing you didn't get heatstroke in Poitiers ( I still don't know if that was Poitiers) We had snow here yesterday too - kind of like everyone had pre-ordered it. Someone who goes to school got this text Thursday evening, from their school saying "We're going to have loads of snow tomorrow and shut the school so don't come!" And so it happened. Nobody went to work or school much and played in the street or park. These four angry French boys came with skateboards, which was weird. I knew they were angry and French because they were shouting "Merde!" a lot. It was like some strange film. Like extra quiet because of the snow and the people froze too. Then the small children threw snowballs at them and they laughed.
I tried with 'Hogg' again - I dunno - like my problems with it overwhelm me because I don't know whether they are actually shortcomings or intentional literary devices that I'm supposed to process in a more sophisticated way? Like more sophisticated than getting bored and mildly irritated? Like - how the character of Hogg comes over as this kind of kid's book gross delight at body stuff - kinda like Fungus the Bogeyman or the guy from the Roald Dahl book with dinner in his beard - I forget his name. Like a kind of sweet eeww thing. And I don't know whether this is something to do with the narrator being supposedly eleven, or some accident that really detracts from the
story's intention? Sorry to go on some, I just don't know anyone else that read it.
Pascal - my shit phone doesn't do your work justice. Going to check it out on a bigger better thing. My only Dublin experience was two or three days. It mainly involved going to a pub so full that I had to stand on a windowsill and drink other peoples beer and missing a bellydancer at a restarant. " Did you see the bellydancing" "No we got here too late" (Looks of massive regret and sympathy) "Well you missed a huge treat there boys" ( Sad head shaking, repeated many times) I'm taking those things as a fair general representation of that city.
Lovely stuff, Pascal. An appropriately cryptic contribution to the cotinued study of makind's most unreadable (and therefore unread) literay text (it can scarcely be called a novel.)
The Joyce Society Ladies, a cabal of eccentric lesbians who hung out at the Gotham Book Mart were obsessed with "Finnegan's Wake." One of them, Mary Ellen Bute, made a not uninteresting film version she called Passages From Finnegan's Wake. Another was Marguerite Young, who wrote the massive Joycean fandango "Miss McIntosh My Darling" (highly reccomended)
Hey Dennis!
I woke up to the cheery assonance of your LA address, so that came through safe and sound. Just let me know when you'll next be in the area and I'll try to have your books in the area when you arrive.
My mid-trip to Austin was cool, though Chad had an awful night by himself. Like really amazingly bad. It's sort of funny now how it all worked out, but he took a cab to this dude's hotel and the dude gave him money for the cab and then after Chad gets back from paying the cab driver, the dude has locked him out of the hotel (bear in mind, Chad is completely broke). Chad knocks and knocks, the front desk finally calls the cops, the cops get the boy to open the door, and he says he has no idea what Chad's talking about, nor about the kit bag Chad left inside the dude's place (lube, razor, condoms, etc). So Chad has to get a ride home from the cops, is up until 5, and has to be at work at 9. Meanwhile, I'm in Austin chilling with our friend, we talk til 3:30 in the morning or so, go to sleep, he leaves for work, comes back at lunch, we split a salad, fool around (you know me too well) and I leave and am back in Waco in time to pick Chad up from work. The shitty thing being, of course, that if Chad had come with me we could have been asleep by 1, back in Waco by 9, and still in possession of a bottle of pretty nice lube, haha. I'm not blaming Chad or anything, just the incredibly bad luck. So yeah, that's the most exciting story I've had lately. We're still going to Austin next weekend to see 'Amour' and chill for a few days.
Saw 'Zero Dark Thirty' last night and hated it. Not ~quite~ for ideolgical reasons, but for badly made movie reasons. Plot, character, structure and pacing are just a total clusterfuck. I can see how bin Laden's actual death must have been a nightmare for the filmmakers because they were in the process of making the film as it happened, but I don't think they succeeded in restructuring things properly. My first reaction was just a complete -meh-, but now with some time I can see the ideological problems I have with it. Mainly: the depictions of both torture and terrorism are so tame as to make the whole film inert and lifeless. But the torture narrative dies out early on and never goes anywhere. Nothing, ultimately, goes anywhere, and the movie is completely unaware of how -evil- most of its characters are. So yeah: I expected something intense, frightening, and morally ambiguous, and found James Bond with less sex and style and structure.
J
Latest FaBlog: The Girlfreind Experience
Hi Dennis, yes we received a fair amount of snow as well. Enjoy it while it's still novel, and I hope it didn't interfere too much with having to go out and do things. I'm still hibernating.
Yeah everything went really well thank you! Happy with it considering the backing track I had to work with.
Yeah I guess they're super booked up or something? I mean it's so popular so it doesn't surprise me, but it was a shame!
Well after a night of debauchery and cheap alcohol I am sitting in bed trying not to move in case my stomach expels it's contents haha. I'm working on a bunch of music stuff, I made a cool little video to go along with my song stranger. Well actually my friend Calvin made it while driving along the Pacific coast in California. I think it fits really nicely, I think you can see it on my google+ page, because it posts automatically, but it's not that interesting if you've already heard the song. Next on the agenda is try and not freeze (lots of snow here too, but snow in cities is always dirty and horrible) and try to not die from hangover I guess. What have you been up to as of late?
Pascal - fun post, favourite image was Jedward, because lets face it, they are beautiful.
Pascal, If I was scared of "Finnegan's Wake" before, I am now. Hehehe. Funnily, someone the other day at work asked me if I've read Joyce. I told him, "Everything but Finnegan's Wake." Strangely, that's the only Joyce he's read. This is a great little resource once I finally get the courage to tremble upon it.
Dennis, I'm hoping it's about week that I'll have to wait. My God, it'll make everything so much easier for everyone at work. And I'll be busier because I'll have a computer and email, which is fine by me because busier makes the day go by much faster.
Yeah, in discussing anything, including politics, I try not to let my emotions get involved. A friend of mine a long time ago told me, "Think with your brain, not your heart." Well, in most instances anyway. And it's carried through all right, I think. Also, I think that a lot of times your mind and heart can be on the same page so it's a wash. It's just when that red, beating one overwhelms that you can have a problem.
Great about the snow. Enjoy it. Just be careful when you're walking and whatnot. Otherwise, it's just another day with a prettier view.
And great about the work on the piece. I'm still zeroing in -as best I can- on getting over there the last week of May/first week of June to see it.
I'm going out tonight. With that rather persnickety friend who can be rather obtuse. But we'll have fun. Another friend may be joining us. We're just going to the local Greene Turtle. I think they have some live music there, though it'll probably be some sort of cover band. But it's always fun to watch live music, to watch the musicians put it together up there.
Misa, that's funny as "Finnegans Wake" is the only Joyce I've read as well. My philosophy was, "fuck it, I'll just start with the most difficult one." Did the same damn thing with DFW and "Infinite Jest." Though with Pynchon, I started with "Crying of Lot 49" which is his shortest (and easiest) read. I would like to read more of Joyce's work one day: "Ulysses" at the very least. I think with Joyce I actually want to work my way backwards and end with "Dubliners" (which I hear is his easiest).
Kyler, regarding what you said yesterday, good luck with "Infinite Jest" if you decide to tackle it, it's very difficult. I haven't read any of DFW's non-fiction work or essays, or even any of his short stories or his first novel, but I hope to one day. After I'm done with "Jest" I'll probably be taking a break from long pomo books for a bit, as I need to do some light reading.
Welcome back Dennis. Thanks for the finger-crossing. I'm used to things being a lot further along than they are at the moment, so it's quite possible I'll be scaling back those submissions. But I have a little (*little*) time, so...
A friend pointed me to this, which I'm very excited about:
http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/filmseries/schroeter
I can stop haranguing local video stores to order the DVDs, yes.
Bill
Pascal, that's a most lovely and Joycean compendium today!
Bill
Pascal, How Clever Etc. I read Joyce in high school and I guess he was the first author to make me aware of some of the more interesting possibilities of literature.
Thanks, Dennis. I have more to say but I’ll do it in an email.
Haha, not a bad lay. Deep down, I'm still a dumb kid that'll stick his dick in anything. I really need to get back to that, I'd get laid a whole lot more. Dreamachines were cool, although, not as useful as I may have thought. I could really use a Wishmachine. Their music sounds punkish. They're like the last of the long-hairs or something. I don't know, I'm one of those, every hot boy has black hair and a spiked leather jacket inside, and preferably close to no pants or no pants. I love the Emo look. If the hair is not Tom Kiefer huge, they're cute, they take it up the butt/do it in the butt, and the undies are cute, I'd call that Emo. I think I'm quitting G. for a minute to read In the Labyrinth, need a break, that shit is crazy. I wasn't like absolutely sure, but yes, Ellis can write. A couple more boys to go and I'm finished with the local market. I will have to catch the others randomly. Then I will be reading/writing full-time in my spare time. I'm getting so skinny. I will be skinny twink by summer. I think I'm going to become a bottom, seems like life may be easier that way. I do love the art. Really, you remember them? Haha, I'm starting to memorize them. There's only like a few boy ones. Sade du jour, selected randomly: "After having sucked and bitten the girl's tongue, he pierces it with a hot iron." Mwhahaha, give me a Lake Placid Blue '62 and we'll call it even. What was it Artaud said, "All writing is pigs hit." LOL that's how I felt after reading Finnegan's Wake. Years later I read Araby and Dubliners and I was like, "Hey, this guy's ok." May you all be covered in Emo boys with pinhole butts. Happy Birthday Janice! <3
christ, this is brilliant. i've oft wanted to begin Finnegan's Wake after an old Russian professor i had rambled on about its 'similarities to the human subconscious' for about an hour with lots of spit lost and a great deal of interesting insights. feels like an e-book edition could incorporate this as a sort of digital foreword, yea? videos and everything... it's difficult to know just how much you should read about something before reading the thing, but with something like FW i feel there's really no limit--everything's strange from line one, as far as i can tell; and you're only helping yourself if you bulk up, etc., before reading. thanks very much for sharing that stuff i wrote, Dennis, it means a great deal. re the emails, i appreciate your acknowledging they sent, i wasn't sure whether i was emailing some publisher somewhere or your direct address, so that's a relief. last night, i listened to Everything Falls Apart and More and Zen Arcade before finishing Try cos Ziggy's obsession/your interview with Mould in Hugs gave me a sort of inherited obsession with Husker Du. going on a long drive today with some friends, going to read the rest of Ugly Man in the car--already read The 15 worst Russian Porn Sites story on my phone awhile back; reminded me of that moment in an interview where you began laughing about Russian pornography in general, felt like a moment a lot of people should see before they try to write your work off (it's not all depressive miserable fat guys worshiping young studs; there's humor, heart, whatever, blah blah). anyway, thanks for posting this, it's greatly appreciated.
i also try and write a weekly column for this music site, Delphian Inc., talking about random shit. working on a George Miles post in a couple weeks, i hope. A Cabana of the Mind
ps have you checked out M. Kitchell's new chapbook? i've been reading it and it's epilogue a lot lately and it reminds me of your work in its best moments. Throw Yourself Out and See if it Makes Me Come
all the best! thanks for what you said re the writing!
grant
Here Comes Somebody
Really...and truly...a very very fine weekend post! For whatever intangible reason, this stuff so rings my bell! Thank you Pascal...and to our host.
Yeah, how do you do it? It's because everyone discovered how perfectly beautiful you are...well...that's happened forever around here.
As to us...listening to "secondhand Daylight" at max volume w/ a fire burning away in the place. Needless I think of you and...and...exactly how much this album figured in my "take-two" era of psychedelic music drenched days. LA punk, brit stuff, NY weirdness...it was so exciting to go to Poo-Bah's et al for the latest single. God knows I certainly had a fine time w/ all that came my way.
But the second Magazine album has a special psych place in my heart...As a matter of fact, you and I went to see the Secondhand tour at the Whiskey together...yep.
so much for my small allowance of nostalgia...zero generally...plenty for romanticism (because I am recalcitrant in that regard)...but I will split hairs there.
Otherwise, our hearts (as always) beat for you my dear friend. Hope you are happy and well Dennis,
more love than you can imagine,
M (and J in absentia)
Dennis, I don't know how I forgot this -it was the first thing I wanted to say up above- but I talked to Kelso Friday night. His mom passed away earlier this week. He's reeling, though he's playing kind of tough. Her birthday was December 23 and she started feeling bad. Finally asked the family to call the ambulance. They discovered they hadn't gotten all the cancer as previously thought. She was in hospice for a while and died earlier in the week. I thought I'd pass that on.
Sypha, Yeah, "Dubliners" is his easiest but it's also great. Love those stories.
Alan, Sorry to hear about that with Melville House. As I've said before, it's one of the best things I've read in a long time, and it's a total head-scratcher why it hasn't been picked up. Keep your chin up, my friend. It's a great piece of work and it's time will come.
Pascal, I can only echo everyone and say this is fucking brilliant! This could be a piece of instalation art, with smeone reading the thing on tape. Great pics of Dublin and makes me wanna have another go at FW. I tried, years ago, took it to Paris with me then threw the thing under a train at the Gare du Nord in total frustration. Maybe now I'm ready to try again.
Maybe I'll read it aloud - people say that works best, right?
Dennis! Glad you're getting back into the George book. And you have snow,ya bastard! We're the only place in the UK not to get it, I think, so I will have to enjoy it vicariously through you. take care.
@David J. White & Dennis
hey i saw this a while ago but hadnt watched it https://vimeo.com/55671052#at=0 its in english
i was hoping to get that Bjarne Melgaard book for xmas but i looks like i'll have to order it from somewhere, i like his work.
any way the video might be interesting.
I'm hoping to hook up with Chilly Jay Chill, who's in New York to work on his play, for a coffee tomorrow afternoon.
I saw a 1969 Koji Wakamatsu film, NAKED BULLET, last night. I feel rather ambivalent about it. It's a synthesis of film noir and softcore porn, and conceptually, it's not a million miles away from Skinemax erotic thrillers, yet the results are completely different. Unfortunately, as with much of Wakamatsu's late '60s and early '70s work, there's a hefty dose of misogyny - both men and women are victims of violence, but only the latter get shown getting whipped on their breasts in close-up. Still, it's refreshing to be reminded of that brief period when porn could be artistically ambitious.
The new issue of Film Comment includes brief recommendations of Wakamatsu's final 2 films. I'm hopeful they'll turn up next month in the Film Society of Lincoln Center's "Film Comment Selects" series.
Hi Dennis,
How goes? I hope all is well. Thanks for allowing me to do this post. I really enjoyed getting it together and thanks anyone who spent any amount of time looking at it.
Btw, Dennis, I finally finished L'abbe C. Bataille is a trip, to say the least. I totally loved it. Wondered if Cronenberg ripped it off in some way for Dead Ringers which I haven't seen in years (so can't be sure). But, yeah, a very weird hall-of-mirrors. It felt really familiar and totally alien at the same time. I like that effect. Got completely lost inside the maze of view points but when I stepped back from it at any point it seemed like I could always see the exit I could just never get there. I wanted to read it again as soon as I'd finished but decided to put it aside for a few years.
Meanwhile:
@Bollo, yeah, this is the area I grew up in and where I stay when I go over. I know Smithfield well. I love the bleakness of parts of Dublin.
@Changeling, missing the bellydancer and pubs so full you can hardly take an breath... hmm... sounds like my adolescence in Dublin...
@David Ehrenstein, Wow! The Joyce Society sounds interesting. Just looked up MY and found her description of that Joycean novel you mention: "an exploration of the illusions, hallucinations, errors of judgment in individual lives, the central scene of the novel being an opium addict's paradise”. Sounds like it’s worth a look...
@Billy Lloyd, know there were Jedward fans on here so couldn’t leave Ireland’s Golden Boys out...
@Misanthrope, I’ve only read about 10% of FW! But I’ve enjoyed that 10% so much and all the reading I’ve done around it. I’m not in a rush and may never finish it.
@Bill, thanks!
@Alan, yes, Joyce, he’s certainly exciting... dadah!
@grant maierhofer, thanks, glad you enjoyed so much, yeah, I agree: FW really improves if you read around it, it’s so impenetrable unless you’ve done some reading first.
@heliotrope, glad your bell rung!
@Jax, hmmm, I think I’d throw it under a train if I took it to Paris, best left by your bed, I think, and take Jean Rhys or Robbe-Grillet to Paris?
ps I'll sort out this Unknown thing some time soon XOX Pascal
Incredible day, Pascal! And incredibly presented.
Hey, Dennis. Back in Paris? Digging the snow? Finally feels like winter.
d-
guh, busy week. like so busy. my brain hurts. just spent like i dunno how long explaining the thematic depth in yr work to my mother. she's too freaked out by yr subject matter to try reading any of yr work, which doesn't surprise me (she's quite squeamish). i tried explaining how the subject matter is just a tool to get yr point(s) across, but i'm not sure she gets it. i'm really not sure anyone gets it, at least as regards the people i know.
anywho.
book is stalled in an interesting sort of limbo. once i realised that my dad is more excited about me publishing this thing than i am, i got cold feet on completing it. i'm mostly over it, but it reminds me time and again how it's great to write without an audience in mind, but it helps to remember that yr parents might want to read it too. i think i'm just not going to tell him when i'm publishing from now on. no worries, though. this project will see the light of day.
back home for the moment then? good travels and all? i've been able to make my morning stop all week, and there's been some awesome stuff here. i really enjoyed the paul thek day. i probably really enjoyed some other stuff too, but i can't remember what. oh, the books post was awesome.
have you heard the new yo la? i'm quite into it, but i bought it at the same time as 'i am not afraid of you and i will beat yr ass,' which i think i like better so far. everyone else is talking about how this is like the best ylt record for being all concise and not having the long jam songs, but i LOVE the long jam songs. and i love how the best ylt stuff always sounds like the same band playing a really great mixtape, which this album definitely has, but not to the extent of something like 'ianaoyaiwbya' or 'i can hear the heart beating as one.'
also, why didn't you tell me that 'a bell is a cup...' is such a phenomenal record? i'm truly smitten with it, not that it takes me much to get smitten with wire. can't wait to hear the new one.
also, it's confirmed, spzd are coming to vegas. i kinda really want to meet spaceman, just to shake his hand and thank him.
i'm thinking for my birthday of maybe going to reno and then taking a day or two to go down to the bay and kick around frisco. i really want to go check out the winchester mystery house if i can talk my dad into doing a south bay day (san jose is south bay, right? i don't really know that area too well).
ok, must get some sleep. i got wired talking about the thematic richness of yr work and it was fun, but now i'm tired from another 'longest day ever until the next longest day ever.' talk soon.
-me.
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