DC's

 

“Ferocious and unsparing, Paul Cunningham’s incomparable poetry is a carnivalesque, nightmare voyage through the dark wasteland that is twenty-first century America.”
— Jonathan Crary, author of Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist Earth

“In your fantasy, am I duck or dog? The world is ending, but not as fast as one might hope, so let’s kill time at the 7/11 forever. Let’s kill all the time. You bring your bloodlust and your Warhol wig, I’ll bring my copy of Paul Cunningham’s Sociocide at the 24/7, plus the ant-farm I’ve wired to my fear receptors. Here, hold this riveting glittery reliquary of our glitchy lateness, slick w/ambivalence. Btw I drank your smoothie of Gila monster venom, microplastics & adaptogens, so cold and so sweet.”
— Joyelle McSweeney, author of Death Styles

“I love this new collection by Paul Cunningham!”
— CAConrad, author of Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return

“If our post-internet era is in a semiotic labyrinth, Sociocide at the 24/7 is like bringing a disco ball into a mirror maze. Fast, fun, and having its way entirely with the language of our culture: this is my kind of poetics. I really loved this book.”
— Ben Fama, author of If I Close My Eyes

“Honestly, Paul Cunningham’s sociocidal masterpiece fulfilled my dream of being close to Mary Magdalene’s foot bone. That said, there is something here for everyone: skulls, encryption, landlord cemeteries, CYAO for pseudo-variants! Theologians, this book contains the only soundscape involving the BABE trinity. Pastors, you will witness the resurrection of figments from their encoffinated forms. Rentiers, your horrible landlords are accurately depicted and de-fanged in parentheses. Algorithms and necro-romantics will swoon for the situational hyperpigmentation. I felt simultaneously implicated and liberated by the presence of big data bodies in this sonically-extravagant simulation that slams wellness culture while replicating the hum of socially-mediated existence. We are not well! Long live poetry and Sociocode at the 24/7!”
— Alina Stefanescu, author of My Heresies

Buy SOCIOCIDE AT THE 24/7

 

SOCIOCIDE AT THE 24/7 SHORT FILM:

 

“My fans are much cooler. When I went to Chicago to read — there was a kid who came, all the way from Pittsburgh — to give me a Texas Chainsaw Massacre poster…Of course that kid was the young Paul Cunningham. A heroic youth”
— Aase Berg, author of With Deer

 

BOOK LAUNCH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME:

 

“It’s VHS culture, the irrational exuberance of Ryan Trecartin, the giggling virtuosity of Tom Hulce’s Mozart in AMADEUS, the mall engagement ring desideratum of Chelsey Minnis, the way David Bowie wears Warhol’s actual wigs to play him in Julian Schnabel’s biopic of Basquiat just so David Bowie can say ‘Oh Jean, let’s go to Pittsburgh. I’m from there sort of.’”
— Joyelle McSweeney

 

VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR:

 

EXCERPT FROM AMADEUS:

 

RYAN TRECARTIN’S A FAMILY FINDS ENTERTAINMENT:

 

BOWIE AS WARHOL:

 

“For the majority of the earth’s population on whom it has been imposed, the internet complex is the implacable engine of addiction, loneliness, false hopes, cruelty, psychosis, indebtedness, squandered life, the corrosion of memory, and social disintegration. All of its touted benefits are rendered irrelevant or secondary by its injurious and sociocidal impacts”
— Jonathan Crary, Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist Earth

“In Scorched Earth, Jonathan Crary writes about the ‘sociocidal impacts” of what he terms an ‘internet complex.’ He describes this complex as an ‘implacable engine of addiction, loneliness, false hopes, cruelty, psychosis, indebtedness, squandered life, the corrosion of memory, and social disintegration.’

Crary’s importantly critical visions of our capitalist world have not only served as a major influence on Sociocide at the 24/7, but his life’s work has proven extremely formative for me as a poet and a critic. Since the first time I read Techniques of the Observer as a grad student in 2013, something just clicked.

As a young gay man, I found myself very much attracted to Crary’s musings on the kaleidoscope in Techniques of the Observer, Crary notes that the view of a kaleidoscope presents the viewer with infinitely unfamiliar and unpredictable repetitions. Therefore, an infinite promise of something new. He links this seductive multiplicity to Baudelaire’s fascination with modernity (and also Proust) by highlighting how the infinite excess of the kaleidoscope has the ability to fragment ‘any point of iconicity’ and disrupt ‘stasis.’ In many ways, this made me think of the kaleidoscope — its patterns, its garish colors, its imaginative shapes — as a queer weapon. This concept is explored in more detail in the film component of the book. The film, Sociocide at the 24/7, will premiere in Los Angeles at AWP in March, 2025.

From the photographic to the pornographic, I remain grateful for Crary’s indelible contributions to philosophy and art history. His criticisms of 24/7 capitalism/consumption and his insistence on new and radical forms of refusal to submit to billionaire behavioral norms is something we should all take into consideration as we slowly consider how to protest the dark days to come.
I can’t recommend his books enough. He is a personal hero, and I am forever grateful for his reflection on Sociocide at the 24/7.

— Paul Cunningham

 

INSIDE A KALEIDOSCOPE:

 

DAMIEN HIRST’S BUTTERFLIES:

 

STAN BRAKHAGE’S MOTHLIGHT:

 

“I guess it’s part of every country that if you’re proud of where you live and think it’s special, then you want to be special for living there, and you want to prove you’re special by comparing yourself with other people. Or maybe you think it’s so special that certain people shouldn’t be allowed to live there, or if they do live there that they shouldn’t say certain things or have certain ideas. But this kind of thinking is exactly the opposite of what America means.”
— Andy Warhol, America

 

WARHOL IN DRAG:

 

WARHOL PAINTS DEBBIE HARRY:

 

One of several major inspirations behind Sociocide at the 24/7 was Warhol’s writings — fascinating meditations on both celebrity and death — that appear in his 1985 photography book America. At one point he compares tourists in Washington to tourists in Disneyworld. But, perhaps most memorable, is when he says he’d wished he had died after he was shot in 1968. Two bullets ripped through his stomach, liver, spleen, esophagus, left lung, and right lung. Juxtaposed with photographs of a cemetery in Lenox, New York is this quotation which opens Sociocide at the 24/7:

“I always thought I’d like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I’d like it to say ‘figment.'”

Upon learning this, I was doubly reminded of Baudrillard’s writings on simulacra and Disneyland, but also Disney’s somewhat failed mascot “Figment” — first introduced in 1983 as part of the “Journey into the Imagination” attraction at Epcot.

 

FIGMENT PUPPET TEST:

 

FIGMENT RIDE:

 

Many of the poems of Sociocide at the 24/7 attempt to expose the dangers of unchecked imaginations — especially the imaginations of American influencers and so-called entrepreneurs.

Today, video of Warhol’s gravesite can be livestreamed 24/7. The project is a collaboration between the The Andy Warhol Museum and EarthCam. The collaborative project has been called “Figment.”

 

POEM EXCERPTS:

WARNING:
this big gulp delinquent’s
gone 7/11 at the 24/7
gone all stations of the cross
at the Hollywood gas and go
BP Shell Sunoco
what i meant to say was
this is an insider’s guide to
what to gas and how to die it
everything you wanted to know
about Prince Harry NOW
is this a convenient store or
IS THIS A CONVENIENT STORE???
members only members
are granted EARLY ACCESS
to exclusive content
CYBERTRUCKS, AM I RIGHT???
mmmmmmmmm
Big Torn Campbell’s Soup
Can YOU share
your most googled
fears? I’m thinking
the same

 

Fresh hot coffee ANY SIZE
don’t burn me or I’LL SUE
another missing persons sign
conceals another bullethole
newsreels to channel
your inner Mad Men
your reaction to the reaction
is getting so many Likes
THIS IS EVERYTHING
WE KNOW SO FAR ABOUT
glass-clad polycarbonate
another attack on cashiers
on a different kind of screen
in the land of smash-and-grab
no safe transactions, only punch-ins
corruption and clock outs
measured by poolside fools
who only WANT IT ALL for
HALF THE PRICE

 

COLLECT THEM ALL:
science-backed rodent of voltaic spiral
ditto with the hypertension ditto what
the mirror flaunts ditto distorting
smudge of DNA the soft cursive pulse
of alphabet ditto with the numbers
traceless in the maze faceless if a protein
butchered by a name or another word
for accident
—————–ditto like a hoax ditto
in the ripsnorting gray of this world
in the storm of it all in our carcass
country drunk on bloodlust dreams

 

EXPOSED SOFTWARE:
actually the gas and go
is nothing but a front
for a server farm
for data generative painting
a TMZ leak in real time
DUNH DUNH DUNH
creating new futures via
wish fulfillment via
deepfake laggers
fairy godmothers
gossip and rumors
it’s an open source model
frequented by bad actors
i don’t know
call it an immersive
art experience
i guess
if it sells
i mean
if it doesn’t
Van Gogh
call it something
groundbreaking
compare it to
the Met Gala
et cetera
et cetera
something about
the art of
looking?

 

Mary’s blackened skull speaks to me
as i order everything i can online
order everything i can
selfie with Mary Magdalene’s FOOT BONE
selfie in Greece with her LEFT HAND
NOW let’s do scientific facial reconstruction
and compare facial volume
MINE FOR YOURS, BABE
FIGMENT, it’s one of those days, BABE
BABE i’m did this to myself
BABE i’m not even trying to sell anything
i don’t think i like the people who watch us anymore
and since when did ME become an US?
fucking #gross
i don’t think i like doing this anymore
even if i did get you through the pandemic
IT DOESN’T MATTER
#shoptherealdeal BABE
maybe i’m just your imagination
maybe i thought you thought I was doing something
REVOLUTIONARY
and maybe i think i don’t think i am
but i’m reading years and years of birthday cards
from THE PAST that you and i share AND
WELL, i hate to say this, BUT
they all read: i’m so proud of you
CONGRATS!!!

 

ENCRYPTED
too much unseeable earth for
ailing geomancer, I
feeling out the cyber
bleeded out the hollows
of my hyssop veins
still feeling the scars
of a bitcoin haze
a coke-white darkness
glitching like an NFT candle
across shadowed bodies
what am i worth
a 4 eva 4 eva?

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. Today the blog re-upholsters itself with its red carpet (which only looks white) to help steward an excellent new book by the poet Paul Cunningham into the public sphere. Paul has put together a highly tasty aperitif for said book that I hope you will investigate, enjoy, and consider siren-esque. Thanks, Paul, and thank you all in advance. ** rene, Hi, rene. Yeah, I think it’s the same with writing, not that I know what it’s like with music, but that seems like an educated guess nonetheless. Summer, gotcha. Same for DITZ. I’m on it. Thanks! ** Misanthrope, 200 hours is a whole lot of hours. So, surely you can slot Paris in there somewhere, finances willing. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Will do, but we need to get a little further with the script first. Its current considerations are still just a strong maybe. Hopefully soon. It was wonderfully deserted here too yesterday. Even though all the stores were open. Strange. Love getting ready to crack open the new SCAB but without the cracking, G. ** jay, All credit to the Glove. It’s true: if I hit the patisseries today, I might be able to sweep up all kinds of retro chocolate things. Good thinking. I think if your boyfriend is really such a good boyfriend and curator he will take you along with him to Japan next time. Although I understand there may be extenuating circumstances. Aw, what a thoughtful, odd friend (who gave you the framed  delight). Luck with your work. I don’t have anything to work on strangely. Well, the blog, of course. Anyway, toodeloo, which I believe is a UK-invented word. Wait, let me check. Yes, it is! ** _Black_Acrylic, Go, Leeds! This is your year, man, I can feel it even as an ignoramus. ** James, I’m sure the Glove is relishing your attention and kind words wherever he may be. And I personally relish your successful entrance into the lustrous world of Pavement. I’m just about fully awake and almost worthy of your prose. Well, I was very happy to read your initial, ecstatic report on Edinburgh and your seemingly destined future there, but then I saw your less certain follow up, and now I, of course, wonder what in the world could have happened to dash your dreams within such a short period time. Maybe you’ll jolt back into being smitten again? Anyway, what’s the current scoop? ** catachrestic, I hope the Glove got your message. Stereolab are lovely. I would personally start with ‘Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements’, although ‘Emperor Tomato Ketchup’ could maybe work too. They’re playing in LA soon, but I think it’s sold out. I will discover Lamartine sufficiently to form an opinion. And I will start with your second translation/link. Thank you for going to the trouble. Okay, your theory of stability occasioning better art makes sense, but then I also think about all the great films made in the late 60s and wonder again. I think I’ll speak with some native French friends today, so I will launch my Tocqueville query. I’m tired too but no good reason. Well, body clock issues, which are a reason but not a good one. My week? Nothing much yet, but I think a US friend is visiting in the next days, and another friend who’s almost always on tour is here briefly, so I think it’ll be a friends week maybe. ** Måns BT, Hm, I guess Slint could seem screechy, but that seems a bit of a stretch. I so love your rollicking to GbV! We’re even more posse-mates than previously. Um, I want to see some friends this week now that I’m kind of awake again. And some art. And I would really like to eat Ethiopian food. And a bunch of film stuff: chasing opportunities and so on. Just pretty much that. Valborg: I’ve heard of that, or rather I’ve heard of a Swedish holiday where people light huge fires and get drunk, so I assume that’s Valborg unless you guys have multiple holidays where that’s the activity. French holidays are so demur. No matter was holiday it is, Parisians, at least, always do the same thing: leave Paris and go to their summer vacation homes or wherever and I guess drink wine, I have no idea. xo, me. ** oliver jude, Hi, oliver! Really good to see you! I know when the next US ‘RT’ screening is, but I’m not allowed to announce it publicly for another couple of weeks. It’ll be on the West Coast. Yes, I’d really like to see your short film, so do send me the link. Thanks! And congrats! I assume you’re happy with it? ** Darbz, My stomach and bowels were only relieved to have such fine cuisine back inside them. Yay about your Monday, and, yes, that was a fine sentence. I live for weird cadences. I spend excessive amounts of time trying to build the perfect weird cadence in my writing. So, if anything, I will consider you a role model. Whoa, you’re going to Brooklyn! That’s really exciting! Are you going solo or with friends or do you know people there or are you going as a total pioneer?That’s so cool, pal. I read ‘The Man Who Killed Boys’ back when I was voraciously reading every book about gay serial killers. I think I still have it somewhere or other. That’s cool. I think I only really know Tallulah Bankhead from back when cartoons used to include very famous celebrities and actors and so on as cameo characters, but I don’t know if I know her, like, mano a mano. I’ll go check. Oh, my roommate did say he had your package, but then when I got there he didn’t remember. He smokes enormous amounts of weed all the time. But I’ll get to the bottom of it. ** Steeqhen, Ah, curious coincidence. Honored and wild that you’re reading the whole Cycle. Knowing you as much as I do, I think your writers block will be a shorty. I need a stray particle from the sun to rush through my body too. I guess I need to go outside if I expect that to happen. ** HaRpEr, I’d probably go for Slint and Stereolab too. And maybe Mogwai. Image attachments are ideal, but if you send them imbedded in the Google doc, I can do screen captures of them if need be, so no sweat. Thank you! Take whatever time you need, no worries. ** Uday, Wow, Jeff Jackson judged that contest? That’s wild. I use some sort of organic soap that barely produces even a smidgen of foaminess, which is sad but functional. I say tell your friend. He will only feel very touched, no? ** Steve, The jet lag is on its last legs. Just some lingering mental vagueness. Which Radio Not Radio will undoubtedly ease/kill. All possible luck with the conservatorship/ court appearance. That really does not sound fun even in the most perverse sense. ** Poe, The Glove was a very stylish dude. Haptic, huh, interesting. Definitely a compliment in my book. I’m sharing the drawings with Zac today. I guarantee he will love them. ** Bill, I wonder too. Last time he popped in here, I think he was moving to South Africa from the UK. That’s the last I heard. Where are you off to now/next? I can’t remember if I already said so, but, on my flight home, the entertainment I ended up choosing was, let me think, ‘Napoleon’ (blah), ‘The Batman’ (kind of silly/Gothy okay at first but then it turned into a standard fare blockbuster with gloomy looks), ‘The Meg 2: Trench War’ (guilty pleasure funnish), ‘Alien: Romulus’ (lousy first half, serviceable second half), ‘Venom: The Last Dance’ (completely dreadful). ** Okay. Spend your local day with Mr. Cunningham’s talents, thank you, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

* (restored)

Post-rock first appeared in inverted commas and it might have been better if it’d stayed there. But it didn’t, and it looks as though we’re stuck with it. Still, never mind:

 

1. Bark Psychosis, “Scum”

As usually happens with genres, the label has provoked no end of anguish among artists and audiences, all understandably protective of their identities, keen not to be cashed out for the convenience of lazy journalist slags.

 

2. Slint, “Breadcrumb Trail”

I think post-rock is a label in the same way punk is a label: “Never Mind The Bollocks” sounds nothing like “Horses”, which sounds nothing like “Ramones Leave Home”, which sounds nothing like “The Feeding of the Five Thousand”, which sounds nothing like “Double Nickels On The Dime”, which sounds nothing like “Bad Brains”, which sounds nothing like “The Scream”, which … yet, when we talk about punk, we kind of understand what we mean. We understand that we’re talking about an attitude, a discipline, moreso than about how loud the guitars are and whether you can hear the words.

 

3. Mogwai, “Rollerball”

What I’m saying, then, is that post-rock was a useful label during a phase in pop music when the fabric of what a band / performance / recording could be was getting playfully tailored into new shapes. Of course, this goes on all the time, often un-apprehended. The cyclic view of history as applied to pop music doesn’t sell any significant number of inky newspapers, which used to be considered an important thing. But more importantly, a label could be a license to create.

 

4. Disco Inferno, “Footprints In Snow”

It probably isn’t important to point out where this stuff comes from, exactly, its precedents. They’re well documented. More important than any one figure, I think, is access to technology. I’m pretty sure about this: throughout the 80s and into the 90s, a bunch of affordable, viable studio technology emerged, meaning that it was no longer absolutely necessary to be Brian Eno or Trevor Horn before you could spend days playing around with samplers or synthesizers to see what happened. Conventional wisdom has it that this is part of how acid house happened; I think the same forces were at work here, too.

 

5. Godspeed You Black Emperor!, “Moya”

It’s also tempting to consider a lot of this music as oppositional, or at least pointedly individual. To take one example: for a long time I didn’t care for Godspeed, for exhaustively thought-out reasons I won’t bore you with. But, as I’ve realised, what happens in Godspeed’s music is defiantly their own thing. The reverent, solemn pacing of their music is as purposeful as the presentation of their records and live performances. That I used to bridle at this, then, was my problem.

 

6. Stereolab, “Super-Electric”

A drone can be a powerful thing. It says things like “I persist,” and “I contain multitudes”. Anyone who’s had the chance to hear Charlemagne Palestine’s “Strumming Music” or Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “One Note Samba” will have heard how a simple group of notes repeated over and over again can reveal animation and interest in a way that seems simultaneously magical, irresistible and defiant. In isolation, like in the Palestine performance, a drone can be beatific. Forced to exist among other musical events, a drone can feel inconvenient, itchy, destabilising. It can be, particularly in Stereolab’s music, the presence of an active resistance.

 

7. Tortoise, “Glass Museum”

I find it interesting to think about the relations between a lot of this music and vocals. In an earlier draft of this piece, I wrote that if there was any unifying concern of the music considered under this label, it might be that it desires deep reflection in the listener. That’s not quite sufficient, but I think there’s something to it. Somewhere and often, speech seems to have become a problem.

 

8. Bowery Electric, “Fear Of Flying”

Then again, words might only get in the way. The songs on Slint’s album Spiderland are sinister, elliptical stories set to measured, pacing music that feels disconcertingly like what brooding on deep hurts actually feels like. As the gathering storm of the last song on the record finally breaks, the narration becomes inaudible for a few crucial seconds, and the thread of exactly what awful thing was going on becomes forever lost to the listener. But the scariest song on this frightening record is still the instrumental.

 

9. Gastr del Sol, “Every Five Miles”

If we want to think about the practice of making music like one or another of these examples, we might start by thinking about manipulating context, as a director and editor manipulate the context of a shot in a film. For Don Caballero and Labradford, song titles become super-verbose, turned against their function, (“In the Absence of Strong Evidence to the Contrary, One May Step Out of the Way of the Charging Bull”) or otherwise disappear altogether (“S”, “Recorded and mixed at Sound of Music, Richmond, VA.”). Meanwhile, GYBE’s records materialise in editions that combine the haphazard and inscrutable with the painstakingly deliberate.

 

10. Miles Davis, “He Loved Him Madly” (part 1)

“Haphazard and inscrutable and painstakingly deliberate” would also be a fair description of Miles Davis’ “He Loved Him Madly”, a funereal elegy for Duke Ellington that sprawls like a luminescent jellyfish in a deep dark sea. The animation in this limpid music is animation in space, in timbre, and in utterance. Spliced and mixed down from hours of improv, it drifts, seemingly motionless, but under the surface it teems with meaning.

 

11. Labradford, “Lake Speed”

Portentous brooding isn’t the only permissible mode, even if some people seem to think otherwise. If this practice of music is truly open, after all, that means it must also being open to being upbeat, melodic, even charming. It might be an unlikely prospect that the Jonas Brothers will get together with Jim O’Rourke to do an album of faith-crisis-themed tropicalia with extra VCS3, but it doesn’t feel altogether impossible.

 

12. Do Make Say Think, “Classic Noodlanding”

There is something that I find particularly satisfying about any sort of music or theatre or cinema that attempts to engage with these concerns of space, context and utterance. I have some fussy, half-formed notion that doing so enables these artforms to access the audience’s imagination in the same way that fiction does, but I don’t have the theory chops to back these sorts of assertions up. Ultimately all I know is that it involves me in ways other music, including some of my favourite music, does not, and I like that.

 

13. Mono, “Follow The Map”

I know that I respond to recognising that people are trying to achieve something. It doesn’t have to be something brand new. I think there is a unique thrill that comes with witnessing a particular quality – I originally wrote ‘tangible effort’, but I might as well write ‘daring’ – that doesn’t come with anything else.

 

14. Pluramon, “Time (catharsia mix)”

It’s also a question of faith: willingness on the part of the listener to hear “He Loved Him Madly” as a drifting elegy is pretty much all that keeps it from sounding like a guttering jam session by a band that can’t remember how to play “Mood Indigo”. The listener has to be daring too.

But given the choice between someone who’s precisely in control of his utterance, and someone who might well fuck it up but is absolutely committed nonetheless, I’ll always opt for the latter. When we’re asked to bring something of ourselves to a performance or a film, we’re asked to do work. It’s always easier and more pleasurable to work with people who take care with what they do.

 

15. Fridge, “Five Four Child Voice”

I think the post-rock label identifies a phase in musical history where this sort of experimental play was something people became excited about. But I think that some of the music from this time remains so rewarding because of its interplay with more familiar forms and aesthetics. I think that experimentation for experimentation’s sake can often be valuable or remarkable, but I don’t think it’s often as daring or rewarding as expression is.

Critical theory or this or that other baggage isn’t necessary to either understand or justify wanting this sort of discovering-experience with music, because when you get ahold of it you feel a sensation that’s completely immediate. It’s a sea of possibilities, as P. Smith puts it, and we can walk into the waves any time we like.

 

16. Xinlisupreme, “All You Need Is Love Was Not True”

 

Music credits:

1. “Scum” by Bark Psychosis is on the compilations “Independency” and “Game Over”

2. “Breadcrumb Trail” by Slint is the first track on their album “Spiderland”

3. “Rollerball” by Mogwai is on the compilation “EP + 6”

4. “Footprints In Snow” by Disco Inferno is the last track on “D.I. Go Pop”

5. “Moya” by Godspeed You Black Emperor is on “Slow Riot For New Zerø Kanada”

6. “Super-Electric” by Stereolab is from “Switched On”.

7. “Glass Museum” by Tortoise is from “Millions Now Living Will Never Die”

8. “Fear of Flying” by Bowery Electric is on “Beat”

9. “Every Five Miles” by Gastr del Sol is from “Crookt, Crackt or Fly”.

10. “He Loved Him Madly” by Miles Davis is on “Get Up With It”

11. “Lake Speed” by Labradford is on their 1996 self-titled album.

12. “Classic Noodlanding” by Do Make Say Think is from “& Yet & Yet”

13. “Follow The Map” by Mono is on “Hymn To The Immortal Wind”

14. “Time (catharsia mix)” by Pluramon, featuring Julee Cruise & Keith Rowe, is on “Dreams Top Rock”

15. “Five Four Child Voice” by Fridge is on “Happiness”

16. “All You Need Is Love Was Not True” by Xinlisupreme is from “Tomorrow Never Comes”

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Charalampos, Still say, apparently. Instagram seems ok so far. I haven’t looked at your page yet, but I will. I’m still figuring the place out. Meat = yikes at the very least, true. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yes, we’re writing the new film. I’m waiting for Zac’s feedback on the latest draft right now. I was thinking and hoping you’d say Orbán. Mine? I guess I would have to say Trump, but the bullet would need to then ricochet and pass through the skulls of Vance, Stephen Miller, Rubio, Hegseth, Bondi, and at least 10 or so other Trump minions. I’m down with love’s directive of yesterday. Love wondering whatever happened to The Dreadful Flying Glove, G. ** James, You remain the ideal post reader and responder. I salute you! And it’s a salty salute to boot. I’m almost cogent enough to begin my initial exploration of your substack. My body is twiddling its fingers. I’m sure your voice is singular and bears no traces of mine. Those are very elegant paper cranes. Nice. I didn’t expect such mastery of the crane anatomy. I don’t know what I expected though. They’re meaty too. Oh, so you’re off to the north today. Gosh, I hope you’re dazzled up there. When are you back? Be yourself. ** Poecilia, Oh, wow, those PGL inspired things are beautiful and poignant and, gosh, so nice. Thank you for doing them and letting me see them. I’m going to click and drag them onto my screen so Zac can see them if that’s okay. Or I guess even if not. Conspiratorially mean … ooh, I’m going to look for that. Anyway, that’s amazing. And I’m not easy to please actually. xo. ** Steeqhen, Always happy to bolster. Nice: the questioning yourself angle. Good prying. Awesome re: the planning. Thanks, pal, and apologies for this hazy-ish response. But I think my mind is starting to break through. ** jay, Hey. Guns aren’t really a powerful symbol for me either, I don’t know why. I’ve never been drawn to ‘the phallic’, but again I don’t know why. I fired a gun once at a shooting range when I was teen. I did not expect firing it to make my shooting arm fly wildly in the air as a result of the firing’s impact, and I did not like that, and I left guns to others ever since. Watching ‘Martyrs’ seems like a solid Easter plan. I didn’t even do that. I planned to go out on Saturday to investigate what fancy, imaginative Easter-themed chocolates that the patisseries might have cooked up, but I didn’t do that either. I just tried to stay awake basically. Anything exciting this week? xo, me. ** _Black_Acrylic, I like staple guns too. Who doesn’t, I would imagine? Yay re: and to your brother Nick. What a good dude. ** Tyler Ookami, Oh, I thought ‘TTA’ was new. I can’t remember what I read. What’s his name plays the Toxic Avenger, I think … I’m spacing on his name. From ‘Game of Thrones’ and all that. Oh, that’s a great painting! Maybe it kind of works with today’s post? I’m happy to have your imgur now available and bookmarked too, surely needless to say. Everyone, Go check out Tyler Ookami’s really swell new large painting at his imgur right here What do you do at the pizza store? It’s a pizza ‘store’ as opposed to ‘restaurant’? I like the idea of a pizza store. ** Nicholas., My body’s less jet lagged, but my brain is still pretty fuzzy. I’m close to being fully returned, I think. I’ve never used ChatGBT. I don’t even know how. I suppose it’s easy to figure out. I guess I’m still a little wary of it, but I don’t really have a reason to feel wary. Strange. That I didn’t realise until now? Hm, I don’t know. I think I realised everything that was great at the time? I ate really, really good vegan Persian food at some newish place on Sunset Blvd in Echo Park whose name I can’t remember and that was fun. Say more about your newly birthed brand. That’s exciting. ** Bill, Hey! It got through. It’s not just you. I don’t know about the Burroughs reference. I’ll have to scroll back up and investigate. So you’re home now. And hopefully you’re not as jet lagged as I have been and remain to some degree, ugh. Hoo Mojong … not off the top of my head. I’ll go look. Solar Return … no, I don’t think I know them, but they’re from Nantes?! Then I should. Off to the races or their race or whatever, cool. Safe and suitably in-flight entertainment-packed flight, I hope. ** Steve, Cool, I need some sonic input badly. Everyone, The new edition of Steve’s radio show is now up and fully listenable here. I’m going to head over there in a short while. How about you? We wanted to submit ‘RT’ to Prismatic Ground, but we missed the deadline, drat. I’ll definitely go use their site to watch stuff. Thanks! ** scunnard, Hi. I’ve resisted doing a crowdfunding thing, even when our film was in desperate need, but I do have colleagues who’ve made that work well for them and their projects. The ‘getting the word out’ part is really the part I don’t feel confident I could do. But it’s probably easier than it seems. Right, that Christ guy I’ve heard so much about. Welcome back to him, I guess? ** rene, Hi! No problem on the timing of the comments. Time is kind of relative around here. Your novel description sounds neither pretentious nor stupid whatsoever. Quite the opposite. So no worries as far as I’m concerned anyway. Keep at it. When I write novels, I always try to do something that would seem to be slightly (at least) out of my talent’s range, and so far I’ve managed to pull it off albeit sometimes not in the way or to the degree that I planned. If that makes sense. Bristol … I think I went to a gig in Bristol, but it was a long time ago, and I don’t remember much of anything about the gig’s context. Next time I’m in the UK, I’ll try to go wander about in Bristol attentively. Thanks! Luck with the novel. Let me know how it’s going, if you like. ** Malik, Hey, hey. I have to say that sounds really fun, the one day only aspect, now that you mention the collaborative nature. I love collaborating. It’s exhilarating when you normally just sit at a computer tapping. Right, getting your feet wet that way makes sense. Awesome! ** catachrestic, Well, I wouldn’t mind, but I kind of hate parties, so no sweat if it’s logistically nonsensical. The FN P90 is pretty attractive. I like guns that aren’t phallic. Revolutions are bad for art because artists make agit prop, political art that both isn’t very persuasive and dates horribly? ‘Napoleon’ will put you right to sleep. Swear to god. Okay, Lamartine makes me curious. Maybe I’ll look into that. Maybe I’ll even make a Lamartine post, who knows, whoa. I … don’t believe I’ve read Tocqueville. Sounds pretty interesting. I’m going to ask my literate and trustworthy French friends what they think about him. My guess is they’ll say they read him in school and don’t remember. Week starting appropriately? ** Misanthrope, Hi. Leeds: that’s where Ben lives, I think? I do remember Rigby grew up in New Zealand. I’m glad you’re connected with Angela. Yeah, that must really help. And I remember that you guys were hoping to come to Paris. I hope you still can. With Alex maybe? Hugs, man. ** Måns BT Hej, Måns! Cool, thank you a lot about contacting Zits about RT! You’ve gotten the GbV bug! Congratulations! They’ll eat you alive if you let them. Hard to pick my fave GbV albums given the volume and constant greatness, but … ‘Under the Bushes, Under the Stars’, ‘Universal Truths and Cycles’, ‘Bee Thousand’ of course, ‘Let’s Go Eat the Factory’ maybe, … actually their new one, ‘Universe Room’ is my favorite among their recent output. Favorite songs is too hard. I’d have to really think, and my brain is still kind of jet lag-clouded. I recently read a book I really liked called ‘Plants Don’t Drink Coffee’ by Unai Elloriaga, who’s a Basque writer. Haven’t seen any films of amazement recently. I watched Ulrich Seidel’s documentary ‘In the Basement’, which was quite interesting but not amazing. xo. ** Uday, I like stapling guns, but not guns themselves so much. I’ve twice had guns pointed at me, once by a kidnapper when I was young and once by a guy who was robbing the 7-11 I was shopping at. No pleasure there for sure. Congrats on the prize/voucher. There’s something by me in The Thing book but I don’t remember what it is. It might be an interview, or I might’ve written something? No idea when ‘RT’ will be streaming. It’ll be a while. We’re still in the phase of showing it at festivals. I’d like a foamy shower. I don’t think my current soap can provide that, but I hope yours does. ** Darbz, Hi! Gosh, I don’t remember which gig I was referring to. Shit, sorry. My mind is really hazy from jet lag. The trip was very good. Mostly I ate bean and cheese burritos. I had them at Poquito Mas, Mixto, Del Taco, El Coyote, and a food truck whose name I can’t remember. I didn’t get your package, no. I will check again with my LA roommate just in case he stored it somewhere and forgot to tell me. Sorry. If it is there, I’ll get it when I go back there in June. Honestly, I think you still communicate very interestingly and complexly and inspiringly. Maybe you just do it differently now, or I know you well enough to read between the lines maybe? Anyway, no worries, you’re being very interesting as ever. Seriously. No question. How did your week start? Afreshly to your mind, I hope? Love, me. ** HaRpEr, Hey. Oh, my email is [email protected]. Huh, I’ve been wanting to watch ‘Megalopolis’, of course, but I keep wondering if I should. Strange. You make it sound doable. 400 pages, so … big enough. I have to prepare for that. I haven’t read a novel over 200-ish pages in a long time. Exciting. Thanks, pal. ** nat, Easter is a holiday that should be fun given the bunnies aspect but kind of isn’t unless you’re under 12 years old? ‘Targets’ is good, right? Bogdanovich was an interesting director when he first started out. I wonder what happened. Once you’ve mentally upended your project to your satisfaction it starts getting exciting again, as I guess you probably know. ** Arno, Hi, Arno. That Frank & Robert work looks cool. I’ll investigate it. Thank you. We’ve only had the premiere screening so far, so we’ll see. The response and critical stuff has been very, very good. That’s interesting: my friend the American writer Jeff Jackson just wrote a trilogy of novels all at the same time too. You’re lucky to have that publisher, and, you know, they’re the really lucky ones. Anyway, thanks! ** Right. Sorry, my lagged brain kind of started dying out partway through the p.s. Let’s see … Today you get a revival of quite old post made by the legendary, long lost commenter and distinguished local The Dreadful Flying Glove that I certainly hope will be of interest to you. See you with hopefully more wakefulness tomorrow.