‘Master craftsman, Dadaist prankster, and unrepentant sensualist, Walerian Borowczyk and his films have yet to be both fully discovered and appreciated. Born in Poland during the 1920s, Borowczyk trained as a painter and sculptor before establishing himself first as a poster artist and later an animation filmmaker. Having relocated to France during the late 1950s, Borowczyk produced a succession of startling, often comic short films that were as innovative as they were provocative. When Borowczyk made the transition to feature films, he joined the ranks of the titans of world cinema.
‘Not only was Borowczyk a trailblazer for fine artists working in film but he also brought a keen, painterly eye to framing and editing objects, animals, and bodies. Expertly marrying film to both classical and electronic music, Borowczyk’s approach to cinema harked back to the silent days (Méliès, Keaton, Eisenstein) and even pre-cinema (Muybridge, chrono-photography, and zoetropes). From the outset, Borowczyk favored both fantasy and eroticism, tendencies in his work that became more pronounced with the relaxation of censorship. A sense of earthy humor masks a distinctly moral sensibility, eager to satirize the corruption of institutions, whether they be feudal, clerical, or bureaucratic.
‘Margolit Fox, in her 2006 New York Times obituary, wrote of Borowczyk that he was “described variously by critics as a genius, a pornographer and a genius who also happened to be a pornographer.” The problem with this assessment is that even at its most sexually explicit, and be warned, the work could get very sexually explicit indeed, Borowczyk never betrays a desire to arouse. His most notorious film, 1975’s The Beast, opens with a scene of unsimulated horse-mating, and ends with a dream sequence in which a maiden is ravished, in a variety of ways and positions, by a man-beast with a massive and rather silly-looking tool of reproduction that keeps spouting…well, you get the idea. I can’t imagine a human being finding such stuff genuinely stimulating in the way that pornography itself actually has to intend in order for it to be pornography (and no jokes about Comic-Con attendees and their predilections, please). So if Borowczyk’s not a pornographer, what is he?
‘Arguably the most controversial aspect of Borowczyk’s filmography is his approach to women. While his gaze is undeniably male and unashamedly voyeuristic, Borowczyk’s heroines are far from shrinking violets, often ready to toss off their corsets and use their sexuality as a means of transcending social constraints, while the men are left dithering between conflicting desires for physical gratification and public respectability. If Borowczyk’s erotic obsessions rendered him a marginal figure in the history books, then it is high time to reevaluate this remarkable artist’s major contribution to cinema.’ — collaged
___
Stills
_____
Further
Walerian Borowczyk @ IMDb
FRIENDS OF WALERIAN BOROWCZYK
‘The Walerian Borowczyk Collection’
WALERIAN BOROWCZYK @ CULTURE.PL
‘Object Lessons: The Films of Walerian Borowczyk’
‘Walerian Borowczyk by Way of Daniel Bird’
WB @ Mondo Digital
WB @ MUBI
Obituary: Walerian Borowczyk
‘Walerian Borowczyk: The Motion Demon’
‘Movies Directed by Walerian Borowczyk: Best to Worst’
‘Installation view of Walerian Borowczyk: The Right to Be Forgotten’
‘Walerian Borowczyk’s Heroines of Desire’
‘Walerian Borowczyk: The Listening Eye’
Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection # The Criterion Forum
‘WALERIAN BOROWCZYK – POSTERS AND LITHOGRAPHY’
‘The Artistry of Walerian Borowczyk’
‘The Ghost of Goto: Walerian Borowczyk Remembered’
‘The erotic fables of Walerian Borowczyk: A ’70s art-porn pioneer rediscovered’
‘Erotica and Subversion: The Films of Walerian Borowczyk’
‘Eastern European Animation Department — Renaissance (Walerian Borowczyk, 1963)’
‘TERRY GILLIAM TALKS WALERIAN BOROWCZYK RESTORATION’
‘Walerian Borowczyk: Nature or Culture?’
‘A Guide to the films of Walerian Borowczyk’
____
Extras
Love Express: The Disappearance of Walerian Borowczyk (trailer)
Obscure Pleasures: The Films of Walerian Borowczyk (trailer)
Daniel Bird introduces his new documentary on Walerian Borowczyk
Table Ronde autour de Walerian Borowczyk
_____
Interview
(with Daniel Bird)
The main crux of your documentary film OBSCURE PLEASURES: A PORTRAIT OF WALERIAN BOROWCZYK (2013) is an interview Borowczyk gave in 1984. What was the original context for this interview, how did you find it, and what were the steps you had to go through legally to be able to manipulate and use it to make a new film?
Daniel Bird: The original context of the interview was a program about the Annecy Film festival (directed by Keith Griffiths) which was part of the Visions TV series (produced by John Ellis) broadcast on Channel 4. Peter Hames, who has written extensively on Czech and Slovak Cinema, gave me a typescript of the full interview back in 1996. (Peter was the programmer of my local Film Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent, where I first got to see Borowczyk’s short films, along with those of Lenica and Svankmajer). As is usually the case, only a tiny fragment of the interview was used in the program. Nevertheless, I think it is a unique document in that it is one of the few instances where Borowczyk is on camera answering a variety of questions about animation, the graphic arts, ‘Polishness’ and sex. I thought it would be a good idea to edit the rushes into a rounded portrait. John kindly gave me permission to access the rushes from the BFI National Film Archive and I had them transferred.
How much of the original interview was used, and to what extent was the line of questioning re-organized? I ask because when talking about animation, he is seated, comfortable, leaning on a table, whereas when he is asked about his erotic films, he is standing, in a more exposed fashion, against a white wall, and the questions take on an accusatory tone. It almost seems like a different interview because there is such a sharp contrast tonally and visually.
DB: First, it is important to say something about the context in which I edited the film. During the last couple of years I have been working on a project involving the digital transfer and restoration of Borowczyk’s short films and early features. These transfers have been financed by Arrow Films, with support from the Polish Cultural Institute in London with additional support from contributors to a Kickstarter campaign. From the outset, these restorations were envisaged as part of a box-set of Blu-rays and DVDs. While I think both IMMORAL TALES and THE BEAST are wonderful, I was concerned that they would overshadow Borowczyk’s early films, particularly the shorts. Therefore, Michael Brooke (with whom I co-produced the series) and I, set about devising supplementary features as well as a book designed to re-introduce Borowczyk, so to speak. It is not the case that Borowczyk’s films can be divided up into ‘animations’ and ‘sex films’ – these are just different facets of the same artist. This ‘portrait’ of Borowczyk is just one of the supplementary features designed to put forward the case. For me, it was essential to provide a platform for Borowczyk to talk about his films himself. To answer your question, In terms of how much of the interview was used, I would say about eighty percent. Besides the discussion of Annecy, the only section which was not used was a passage about computer animation. While fascinating in itself, it just didn’t fit. About the set up of the interview, I do not know why the questions about sex were filmed the way that they were. That said, I quite like the abrupt shift. To focus on the sexual aspect of Borowczyk is a bit like focusing on violence in Peckinpah’s cinema – yes, it is what made him infamous, but it was not just what he was about.
In the interview, Borowczyk claims to not really be influenced by much Polish art. To what extent do you believe this is the case? Both of them seem to say there is no surrealist tradition in Poland, that the art is more folkloric or pastoral, but if you look at the graphic arts from at least the 1960s onward – the famous Polish posters – that obviously seems to be untrue.
DB: I don’t think he was being deliberately evasive. There is a tendency to shoehorn artists into the traditions of their own country. Of course, these are influences, but they are not the only influences. Borowczyk, for example, trained in the post-impressionist style, and his satirical drawings are clearly influenced not so much by socialist realism as Daumier. Also, John Heartfield’s photo-montage clearly plays a role in some of his posters, as does Max Ernst. Norman McLaren is an obvious influence on his early films with Lenica, and, as I have already mentioned, Léger had a strong presence in Polish art during the mid 1950s. Borowczyk is right in saying that there is no formal surrealist tradition in Poland, like there was in Czechoslovakia. However, Polish art is often surrealistic. Witkacy, Schulz and Gombrowicz are the names which are the most important in this respect. Of course, Poland arguably had the strongest tradition of posters in Eastern Europe during the late 1950s and 1960s, however, I think the posters from all Eastern Bloc countries are very strong during this period. I think this was the result of three factors. First, the relative freedom of the ‘thaw’ period, second, an economic poverty which resulted in an aesthetics of poverty (not just in posters, but also films and theatre), and third, that these artists were not trained as graphic designers, but painters – they were familiar with not just the surrealists, but all sorts of other ‘-ists’. Borowczyk did, however, feel comfortable being associated with surrealism in France. He regularly adapted the work of Pieyre de Mandiargues, for example, and made a film about the Serbian painter, Ljuba (L’AMOUR MONSTER DE TOUS LES TEMPS – see video below). It is also worth remembering that the word, surrealism, was coined by Apollinaire, who was of Polish decent.
How are Borowczyk’s films looked upon in Poland, and has that changed over time?
DB: Traditionally, I think he was valued by his peers – painters like Jan Tarasin and Jerzy Tchórzewski, the Różewicz brothers, writers like Mrożek, critics like Kałużyński. However, most critics deemed him as the less talented half of the Borowczyk-Lenica pairing – to the point where they started describing their films together as Lenica-Borowczyk – which is just wrong. That’s not how their names are credited on the films, Lenica himself acknowledged that Borowczyk was proposed the initial ideas for many of their films together. And, let’s face it, I love Lenica’s graphics and films, but he is very much indebted to Saul Steinberg. In short, I think he was a great poster designer, but ultimately Borowczyk is, for me, a more original artist. Today, things are changing. A new generation of critics are rediscovering Borowczyk afresh – Michał Oleszczyk, Kuba Mikurda, Kamila Kuc – there are new books of essays and documentary films underway. Officially, however, he is still something of an outlaw. Poland, remember, is a Catholic, conservative country.
_________________
18 of Walerian Borowczyk’s 45 films
_____
w/ Jan Lenica Dom (1958)
‘Borowczyk, who was commonly known as ‘Boro’, was a self-obsessed megalomaniac who never ceased to hold a grudge against his native Poland, which he left in 1958 after his sensational success at the Brussels Expo 58, where he won the international competition with Dom (House, 1958) – the stupendous, Surrealist animation he made in collaboration with his fellow graphic designer Jan Lenica (the soundtrack is by Wlodzimierz Kotoński, of the PRES electronic studio). The film’s combination of uncanny, sardonic humour, mastery of collage technology and its combination of realism, retro and the abstract made it look unlike anything before or since.’ — Frieze
the entire film
_______________
Renaissance (1963)
‘Another strange but surreal animated film from Borowczyk starts off in the dark when it quickly turns to light and we see what appears to be a room with nothing but destroyed items in it. Soon the items begin to morph themselves back to what they originally were. Here’s another winner from the director who brings his strange but imaginative views to the animation world. Having seen a number of his softcore flicks I can’t believe some would rather watch those lazy films when it’s obvious the director had a great mind to work with. This movie is really a lot of fun because it allows the viewer to try and guess what items are being formed while all the visuals are going on. I must admit that I didn’t guess a single one but the greatest scene for me is when the screen goes black and we see some sort of drawing, which really isn’t a drawing as it turns out to reveal something else.’ — Michael_Elliott, imdB
Excerpt
the entire film
______________
Les Jeux des Anges (1964)
‘Les Jeux des Anges was just extraordinary: that sense that you are on a train with walls of the city going past, and then the sound of angels’ wings – incredible.’ — Terry Gilliam
the entire film
____________
Rosalie (1966)
‘A haunting, minimalist short that mostly consists of a monologue to camera by the young Rosalie (Ligia Branice), on trial for the murder of her new-born infant. Based on the short story ‘Rosalie Prudent’ by Guy de Maupassant.’ — Corpo Clandestine
the entire film
______________
Théâtre de Monsieur & Madame Kabal (1967)
‘Mr. and Mrs. Kabal’s Theatre (Théâtre de Monsieur & Madame Kabal) is a 1967 French animated film directed by Walerian Borowczyk. It is Borowczyk’s first feature-length film and his last animated film. It consists of a sequence of loosely connected scenes, much like a vaudeville program, in which Mr. and Mrs. Kabal perform absurd, surreal, and sometimes cruel acts. A mixture of cut-out and drawn animation is used, but also clippings of old illustrations and photographs and even a processed live-action appearance by the director himself. Most images are black-and-white, with only the occasional coloured element. The sound design adds a lot to the surreal atmosphere. Mrs. Kabal speaks in an illegible collage of cut-up human sounds, sometimes translated into subtitles. The film won the Interfilm Award at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Filmfestival in 1967.’ — collaged
the entire film
____________
Diptyque (1967)
‘Borowczyk presents two seemingly distinct ‘volets’. In the first we see an old farmer and his dog shot in stark black and white. The second features a succession of tableaux vivant in startling colour featuring houseplants and kittens.’ — IMDb
the entire film
_______________
Goto, Island of Love (1968)
‘Goto: Island Of Love is a very surreal film based on a small island called Goto, where all inhabitants live under the dictatorship of Goto III (Pierre Brasseur – The Girl From The Dead Sea, The Return Of Monte Critso). Goto III is married to the beautiful Glyssia (Ligia Branice – Winter Twilight, Behind Convent Walls) who manages to save a man from execution (Grozo played by Guy Saint-Jean) by letting him fight in a gladitorial fight to the death. After Grozo defeats his opponent, Glyssia has her husband give him a job as the Island’s dog walker and fly catcher (yes, you read it correctly). Little do Goto and Glyssia know however, is that Grozo has plans to take over the throne of the island and make Glyssia his wife. The film, although containing a small amount of nudity, gives us an insight into the films that were to come from Borowczyk.’ — letterbox.com
the entire film
________________
Blanche (1971)
‘Blanche is set in 13th-century France where Michel Simon, who must have been well over 80 at the time, plays an almost senile baron with a simple but beautiful young wife (Branice) who everyone, including the King, lusts after. There is a lecherous page and a handsome but rather vacant lover too, and the film is a kind of fairytale dance of death where tragedy is probable, even if a happy outcome isn’t entirely out of the question. Almost the whole film takes place in the Baron’s castle, where the king comes to stay. And its winding stone staircases, gloomy corridors and rooms full of bizarre decor and mechanical devices are as important as any characters in the film. Once again, every tiny detail is made to count double.’ — The Guardian
the entire film
_____________
Immoral Tales (1973)
‘Four erotic tales from various historical eras. The first, ‘The Tide’, is set in the present day, and concerns a student and his young female cousin stranded on the beach by the tide, secluded from prying eyes. ‘Therese Philosophe’ is set in the nineteenth century, and concerns a girl being locked in her bedroom, where she contemplates the erotic potential of the objects contained within it. ‘Erzsebet Bathory’ is a portrait of the sixteenth-century countess who allegedly bathed in the blood of virgins, while ‘Lucrezia Borgia’ concerns an incestuous fifteenth-century orgy involving Lucrezia, her brother, and her father the Pope.’ — IFC
Trailer
_____________
The Beast (1975)
‘As I was not particularly enchanted with Borowczyk’s Immoral Tales, it came as little surprise to discover that the bulk of what worked least in The Beast came from that – an extended dream sequence in which a young aristocratic woman is raped, then pleasured by the titular animal who pours over her what could only be described as gallons of semen. In the booklet accompanying this release, Arrow producer Daniel Bird and film critic David Thompson argue persuasively that the exaggeration of the Beast’s physicality (never mind the utter fakeness of the costume) indicate that the film in general, and this sequence in particular, are meant to be viewed as comedy. I buy it, but I can’t say I was laughing. I’m just a man, standing in front of his readers, admitting that I totally have my limits and that semen humor isn’t for everybody. Nor, really, should it be.’ — Criterion Cast
the entire film
Walerian Borowczyk’s The Beast (La Bete) Unboxing
_______________
La marge (1976)
‘LA MARGE is one of the oddest films in the legendary Borwoczyk’s filmography. The great master would typically deal in period pieces for his live action epics, but LA MARGE is very much of the time it was made in. I would say that as much as any other film from the seventies, that it belongs to the decade. Everything from the clothes to the music, to the look and attitude makes LA MARGE one of the quintessential features of the 1970’s and, to my eyes, one of the best. … LA MARGE, in a way, can be viewed as Borowczyk’s last effort to really score a hit with an almost mainstream film. It was based on a well known novel by Andre Pieyre de Mandiargues (whose work Borowczyk would film five times), it would be scored with some of the seventies biggest musical acts (including 10CC, Elton John and Pink Floyd) and it would star an actress who two years before had become the biggest box office draw in French cinema, Sylvia Kristel.’ — Jeremy Richey
Excerpt
La Marge ending clip
______________
L’amour monstre de tous les temps (1977)
‘L’Amour monstre d tous les temps (The Greatest Love of All Times, continues Borowczyk’s flirtations with minimalist documentary focusing on erotica. These films come off more like preliminary visual notes for future films of greater significance, not as complete documentaries or short subjects. This one’s a portrait of Serbia’s erotic surrealist painter Popovic Ljuba, with Richard Wagner’s Tannhauser on the sound track. Coming to it with an interest in independent cinema per se, it is not much of a film, but as an introduction to an artist I previously knew nothing about, it did awaken curiosity.’ — Weird Wild Realm
Excerpt
_______________
Immoral Women (1979)
‘Borowczyk presents three separate stories centered on beautiful women and how sex changes their lives for the better or for the worse, and unfortunately the quality between the three fluctuates wildly. The second story, “Marceline”, is by far the best and most intriguing of the trio. Marceline, a young French teenager from a well-to-do family, is a free spirit, enjoying frolicking in the beauty of nature with her pet bunny, Pinky. As she explores her budding sexuality on her lush and spacious green lawn, Pinky nuzzles into her nether regions as she reaches orgasm. She professes her undying love for her fuzzy companion, but soon finds that her parents don’t approve of all the time she spends with Pinky. To give away more would be criminal, but there are plenty of surprises and startling violence and sex (as well as more male nudity) before our story ends. “Marceline” is the reason IMMORAL WOMEN gets one of my highest recommendations. It is a strange and distinctly European mix of beauty, emotion, violence, and sexuality; even by itself, out of the context of an anthology film, it is one of Borowczyk’s greatest accomplishments. It is anchored by an endearing leading lady, Gaelle Legrand. Burdened with an unfortunate frizzy hairdo a la Little Orphan Annie, she’s no Marina Pierro, but who is? With a lovely figure, piercing blue eyes, and pouting beauty, she resembles a 1970s variant of Helena Bonham Carter, and gives a wonderful performance. The beautifully composed and photographed “love scene” between Marceline and Pinky is the most erotic sequence in the film, which may surprise some viewers.’ — dvddrive-in.com
________
Lulu (1980)
‘Lulu tracks the rise and fall of a beguiling dancer whose sexuality is tied directly to her fortunes. The titular nymph-like seductress flits from romance to romance, strategically positioning herself for social and financial gain. Each of her lovers embodies a Victorian archetype, from the old professor showing off what would now be called a “trophy wife” to the bohemian artist to the bourgeois newspaperman to the naive young man. Borowczyk’s adaptation of Wedekind’s melodramas emphasizes the satirical nature of the story, skewering upper middle class attitudes towards sexual relationships. And believe you me, this is HIGH melodrama, folks! Lulu’s story is sketched out in a series of five scenes, each highlighting one of her relationships. After her first husband suffers a heart attack while walking in on her lovemaking with a young artist hired to paint her portrait, Lulu inherits his fortune. She doesn’t dispense with her philandering ways after marrying the artist, however, and her relentless–to say nothing of ENTIRELY SHAMELESS–affairs lead to the artist’s suicide. Her performing star continues to rise, and she effectively blackmails a successful newspaper owner into marrying her, but she kills him after an emotional confrontation over the fact that she’s sleeping with his son. From here, the unwitting murderess is forced to live in squalor and sell her body to support herself, leading to her death at the hands of Jack the Ripper. Yes, I know–it’s pretty much four seasons of Falcon Crest jammed into ninety-five minutes of film. This stop-and-start structure mimics a stage production very effectively, and Borowczyk’s frank camerawork evokes the experience of watching a theatrical piece, to the point where some shots are partially obscured by columns, doors, or screens. The period setting is deftly handled by the director, featuring highly detailed sets and thoroughly researched costumes. While not as bombastic as the also-Period-Piece Dr. Jekyll and his Women, which would follow in 1981, there’s an exploration of similar themes using a similar set-up of familiar literary/cinematic source material.’ — Love Train
Excerpt
the entire film
_______________
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne (1981)
‘Dr. Jekyll and His Women is Walerian Borowczyk’s sexed-up interpretation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novella. Amping up the story’s existing criticism of Victorian morality to ELEVEN, Borowczyk creates an explicit nightmare world where sublimated passions destroy anything and anyone unfortunate enough to get in their path. Udo Kier stars as Dr. Henry Jekyll and is supported by a fabulous cast of genre veterans that includes Howard Vernon (who played Dr. Orlof along with approximately a million other fantastic roles), Marina Pierro (who was so plush and lovely in Borowczyk’s “Behind Convent Walls”), and Gérard Zalcberg (already beloved of the Empire as mute henchman Gordon in “Faceless”). The film’s structure is similar to that of Borowczyk’s infamous erotic mindfuck The Beast (yes, the one where the woman has sex with the bear-monster)–it’s established that all the characters are screwed up, there’s an escalating outburst of sexual violence, and ultimately a tragic ending underscoring themes of destruction and dissolution.’ — Love Train
the entire film
Excerpt
________________
Scherzo Infernal (1984)
‘A harshly sensual world in the fiery inferno of Hell. Big-breasted tailed demoness & demons whose tails are phalluses strut, rut, reproduce, nurse, & generally show off amindst the flames. An angelic prostitute confronts God. All voices, male or female, are done by Yves Robert in his own voice, which has a disturbing effect all its own.’ — Weird Wild Realm
the entire film
______________
Emmanuelle 5 (1987)
‘First Emmanuelle film to not star Sylvia Kristel. Basic storyline is that Emmanuelle is at the Cannes Film Festival (advertising her new film) and has to run away from a bunch of reporters who strip her naked (?), leaving her running along the road in the nude. She then dives onto a boat and runs off with the captain to a fictional Arabic country. Once there she meets the countries dictator, who wants her to join his harem. She escapes and all hell breaks loose. I was actually quite surprised how good and how well made this film was. All the rest before it weren’t much good. 4 being terrible. Very surprised. Definately has it’s tongue in it’s cheek. Brilliant soundtrack. A reworking of the original “Emmanuelle Theme” is in there, all 80s up. Sounds amazing.’ — letterboxd.com
Teaser trailer
_____________
Love Rites (1987)
‘The final feature by the great Walerian Borowczyk, who delivered a uniquely spare and poetic–and obnoxiously uneventful–erotic reverie with extremely dark overtones that erupt in the horrific final scenes. Where the film is most intriguing is in the sensuous and detailed imagery of Walerian Borowczyk, who can always be counted on to come up with something visually arresting (such as a seduction sequence viewed entirely through outside windows), even when not much is happening onscreen (which in this film is unfortunately quite often). This is especially true in the unforgettable climax, when Miriam slashes Hugo with her claws. The sequence is a triumph of surreal grotesquerie, mixing beauty and horror in a manner that recalls Borowczyk’s masterpiece DR. JEKYLL AND HIS WOMEN.’ — fright.com
*
p.s. Hey. Heads up that the blog will be going on vacation for two weeks while I’m on the US West Coast hosting a screening of ‘Room Temperature’. The last post for now will be on Saturday, and the blog/posts will return on July 1st. ** Misanthrope, As if there aren’t enough actual harmful things out there to worry about. The shrooms should’ve done something if they were real. But the tasting like shit aspect pans. ** _Black_Acrylic, ‘Human Traffic’, no, but I’ll seek and bookmark if possible. Thanks. Ooh, Cookie Pie Man. That little chocolate pie thing looks irresistible. ** Dominik, Hi!!!! Welcome back to the fold! Right, the shooting in Graz was very weird. World is pretty fucking crazy, although Paris seems to still be in a lull. LA, however, yikes! I’ve been good, thank you. Just doing my usual film stuff mostly and enjoying the unfortunate ending of spring weather. What are your return to normal plans? Love making everyone else take a handful of shrooms and never come back from their trips, G. ** Bernard Welt, Yeah, Mark’s lived there for several years now. Hit him up at the opportunity. He has new book of short stories titled ‘Whites’ coming out next month, and it’s as timely and timeless as his novels, and it’s killer. Nice and convenient there about the citizenship. And I wish for rich people who want to make tiny dents in their fortunes to help a couple of wide eyed rapscallions make their films. You have a much better chance. Lovely about Tim and of course ‘G-9’. Surely that’ll be YouTubed or something? Advice? Be yourself. I’m not very up on journals, it’s true, but, goodness gracious, I can’t imagine you having much trouble getting your and Tim’s collab thing published. My goodness. Might even try The Paris Review? I’ve been my usual slow guy about email, but I just downloaded the PeeWee thing not two minutes ago finally, and thank you ever so much!!!! Love, me. ** Carsten, Me too. I’m down to nicotine and caffeine myself. I think I fed my imagination enough psychedelics over the years that it can manufacture trippy shit if I concentrate. I’m seeing Neil Young here in Paris at some big arena. I’ve seen him a bunch back in the day, but I think he might be nearing his live retirement age, so I want to take the chance. I think my peak Jarmusch is ‘Ghost Dog’ maybe. ** Steeqhen, Shannon sounds like a total pip! Shrooms are, or can be, a nice entree into the psychedelic drug realm. A very nice lobby. Or can be. My LA roommate is playing the open world Mario Kart so I’ll get good look when I get there because he basically spends most of his days playing some iteration of Mario Kart. Basically we need to find 10k to finish the game. Maybe we’ll try to find it before we get to the point where our next film’s funding has to be paramount. No, there was a growth on my baby toe on my left foot. Doc said it was like a rock growing bigger and bigger. He just sliced it out. It was weirdly easy. Luck with the big move today. ** Hugo, Hi, H. Ah, it’s still kind of nice outside here, but it’s supposed to start getting summery hot any day, fuckers. Yeah, CD-rom games of the 90s when they were pretty experimental and overly ambitious were very formative to me. I guess they were not unlike the IRL haunted houses I love so much. Anyway, that was what we’re going for in the game. Some adventure, mostly retro charm. I remember 21 being like, ‘what’s the big deal?’, yes. I should be here in late July if you guys want to come over here. Very early happy b’day. I don’t mind talking about Ryan Trecartin whatsoever. And I wish you the best with the trouble amongst your good friends. Stressful. ** Alice, Hey, Alice! Hugo just said you guys might come over and visit the big P. I hope you do. There seems to be a very exciting, snowballing trans writer and artist scene in London loosely gathered around the great Pilot Press. One of the writers, Hesse K, who has a fantastic novel out called ‘Disquiet Drive’, came over with some of their crew to do a reading here with them, and they were super vibrant and impressive as writers and people. And I think other presses are springing up in that scene too. It’s very invigorating. Watch parties are the best. I think I need to rewatch ‘Showgirls’ because I saw it when it came out and thought it was just awful, but it has so many champions that I think I might’ve missed something. What did you think? If you’ve never seen MBV it’s a singular and amazing thing. And, yes, earplugs. Great about you wanting to make scrapbooks. It helped me a bunch, as I said. Have you started drawing? How is that feeling? ** pancakeIan, The only chocolate pancakes I’ve had were chocolate chip, and I can recommend those. No, the Marbled Swarm narrator is based on nobody other than some weird realm of my imagination. Well, and the actor Pierre Clementi, the narrator’s supposed father whom he supposedly resembles and wishes he was. There was a Virgin Megastore here in Paris that strangely survived for a few years after the chain went completely bust, I don’t know how or why. But then it finally died. I remember never ever finding anything in a Virgin Megastore that I remotely wanted to buy, but my tastes are pretty offbeat. Later to you. ** julian, Well, there’s the virtue of chocolate’s taste of course. And the short-lived but welcome energy burst. And it’s supposedly good for the digestion. I’m sure there are other pluses. From my memory of Rimbaud’s biography, I think he was in fact heavily pooh-poohed in the Paris writer community because of his age. And probably by regular adults too. I think he used to cultivate and keep lice in his hair that he would throw at adults who disrespected him. My psychedelic of choice is LSD/acid. But I grew up when LSD was new and pure and not cut with all kinds of other crap, which I think it often is now. But LSD is also a huge commitment. Shrooms are nice because they mostly just bliss you out and mess with your eyesight and thinking in a relatively mild way. Not entirely unlike Ecstasy at least used to feel. ** Uday, Hi. Enjoying the sleepover, I trust. I don’t find your commenting predictable from my side of things. A Nixon yaoi?! That’s something. I was extremely too young to know him. My parents were friends with him and Pat in the years before he was President. I only have one memory of walking into the living room and seeing him sitting there with my dad. Thanks to your mind for including me. ** Steve, Oh, gotcha, chocolate, of course that’s what that must have been. I never did mushrooms in my teens. Mushrooms weren’t a popular drug back then. It was LSD, mescaline, peyote, hashish, opium, basically. I didn’t do mushrooms until, gosh, my late 20s? Saturday, nice! Countdown. No, I was a stand-out at my college radio station for totally sure. And my slot was 6am – 10am. I was the dj who was known for being the one who got lots of listeners calling in to complain because I assaulted them upon awakening with raucous stuff when they wanted to be eased awake with, I don’t know, the Eagles or something. ** jay, Haha, your dad, funny, yes. I don’t think shrooms would take you all that deep unless they’re somehow dosed with a heavier, weirder drug. You do (or at least I do) often get a half-hour, forty minutes of mild paranoia at the the beginning — shrooms’ big drawback — but then that fades away and you just feel pretty blissy. Yeah, try to talking to your friend? When that situation happened withy friend and I found out, I called him up and yelled at him, and he just kept saying, ‘Oh, that boy wanted it’, and that was all I needed to hear to cut my friend completely off. Hopefully something like that won’t happen with yours. Hi back to your sister! How cool. ** HaRpEr //, Churlish, haha. I mean, I guess the marking up you got was to be expected? I went through that in a certain way back when. I asked a prominent writer/editor to read this early prose thing I wrote, and he gave it back to me having taken a pen and drawn a big X over every page and said it was a disaster. When that same piece was the centerpiece of an early book of mine that got nominated for a biggish literary prize, I sent him a copy. Bastard. My experience with shrooms is that they start out causing a short period of anxiety/paranoia that then fades out and is replaced by a bliss effect. So you kind of have to know you’re going to have to pass through that and that it’s the drug not you. ** horatio, Hi! Oh, I plan to watch your film finally today. Sorry for my delay. You should be careful and sure if you do psychedelics, but I’ve never known anyone who got violent or anything like that. I think that’s mostly ‘in the news’ as it were. But, yeah, don’t do them, if you do, unless you’re feeling generally good, I would say. Thanks, my toe is improving hourly, it seems. Yes, I kept the scrapbooks. They’re in my archive at NYU. One of them was published in book form. ‘GONE Scrapbook 1980 – 1982’. The books had a lot of collaging and written texts and things. Kind of all over the place. How its the water color painting going? Is that clarifying the character for you in a new way? ** Right. Today I give you the opportunity to get to know (or continue to know) the wacky and sometimes wonderful oeuvre of the Polish filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk. See you tomorrow.
Psilocybe cubensis is a medium strength or typical psilocybian mushroom consisting of approximately .63% psilocybin and .60% psilocin in dried wild mushrooms. Indoor cultivated mushrooms tend to have higher concentrations. Note that potency of mushrooms can vary greatly from one batch to the next. The following chart shows approximate oral dosages for (dried) Psilocybe cubensis in grams.
1. 
Now available in North America 