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p.s. Hey. Happy Halloween! ** Steevee, Hi. Tentative celebrations on your good night of sleep. May it be an omen. Well, on the WA thing, I think people (and I’m not talking about you) who think that, when they personally believe in something that adheres to a generalized politically correct dictate of what’s okay or not okay, their belief is automatically rendered into something legitimate and factual that they can wield over others like a law and, as far as Woody Allen’s marriage goes, who get all moralistic and pass judgement on the love lives of people they don’t know in the slightest and who think the content and thematics of artists’ work can be used as evidence re: who those artists are and what they do in their lives are the reason why the saying ‘Get a fucking life’ was invented. And I personally don’t see anything ‘tone deaf’ about Allen continuing to explore something that obviously interests him in his work. If his doing that makes people who have a moral problem with intergenerational relationships queasy or if it tires people who aren’t interested in that subject matter or if it bugs people who think he has some obligation to take their suspicions about him into account, that’s their problem. In a nutshell. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Hi, Glove. Ha ha. The Hecker concert was immense. He had this trippy set up whereby this giant lighting rig was lowered onto the stage and smothered in fog and fastened with many variously directed led spotlights that performed this kind of complicated light show while he played, and it was really something, musically and visually. If that reads imagistically at all. Okay, yeah, I must have heard from you when you were on a UK visit and guessed incorrectly that you had shifted homes. Wow, I’m super excited by your description of what you’re doing. The constellation I’m imagining you controlling and figuring out is really exciting. It makes me want to figure out how to write a novel that has what you’re doing in its belly. Thank you a lot for that. Sweetness. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T. Ah, superbly reactive and transfigured material mashing into a state wherein your exquisite digestion turns out powerhouse after powerhouse. How do you do that? I know it’s just me, but celebrating Halloween in a gay bar just sounds so depressingly scarcely unusual or something. Did you find a horror film? That is really sweet and fantastic about your books being in the queer studies curriculum! That’s beautiful of whoever is in charge. My weekend was pretty quiet other than the Tim Hecker concert, which was incredible. (see description to TDFG). Just this and this. Work and time filling. Fine. No big. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. I do like the avant-garde approach the slaves take to flirting. That makes horrible sense about black cats in the shelters. People can be so destructively boring. ** H, Hi. Thank you on behalf of Kristen about the art show. And cool about the Watkins film. I should do a post about his work. Hm, I’ll try to get on that. Thank you for the kind words. The Tim Hecker concert was very, very good. Highly recommended if he comes through your town. ** Puddentane, Hey! Wow, I accidentally nailed it? What were the odds of that? I’m very happy about that swift and happy outcome. I hope you like the book. And thank you for the video. It works wonders. Please come back any old time and whenever you like please. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! That division is weird and kind of illogical-seeming. I think we’ll send the finished video to him today if we can polish it off by nightfall. Hopefully, he’ll like it. He gave us complete freedom, and hopefully he won’t regret that, ha ha. The Hecker concert was fantastic. Amazing visual presentation too. If his tour takes him to you, you should go, if you can. My weekend was okay. Didn’t get as much work done as we’d planned for various reasons, so I think I’ll spend Halloween getting that delayed work done, which is fine. Are you looking forward to your party tonight? What was it like? ** Hyperbolic_plain, Hi, there. Whoa, it has been a while. Good to see you. Holy shit, that was you who said hi at the Hecker concert? I loved the show. It was a mind blow, no? Why are you in Paris? Are you living here or something? Want to get a coffee? Huh, really nice to see you the other night albeit briefly, and here too. ** Bill, Hi, B. Specific and cryptic is the best combination, no? Thanks about the art show. Did you see ‘RB’ big? Did Halloween have a specific yet cryptic impact on your day today? ** James Nulick, Hi, James! Yay, you checked in from Tokyo! Please do snap some pix at the Shibuya Halloween fest. Ah, you’re so lucky! Is not Tokyo like the ultmate boyfriend-shaped city? I miss it so. Great that you and Paul got to join forces. Tonight is not looking too Halloweeny. Possibly go to Paris’s only haunted house attraction, but I think it’ll be too crowded. Remote chance I might go see Dinosaur Jr. and Thurston Moore play tonight, but I’m not sure. Not sure, long story short. Enjoy every second of your last glorious days in the biggest T, man. Love, me. ** Jamie McMorrow, Hi, Jamie! I hope Halloween gives you a bear hug. My weekend wasn’t too newsworthy other than the great Tim Hecker show, but I was cool with it. The video isn’t done, but we still have today, and I think doing that will constitute today. Right, wtf about the stingy outlet thing. Minimalism/suaveness gone mad. Ooh, I’m going to google Jennifer West. I love the sound of that show, no surprise. Cool you caught that comment on the slave profile. I thought it was the post’s sleeper hit. What about Halloween? Any related plans or any theoretically scary fun? Love carved like a pumpkin, Dennis. ** Mavado, Hi! Welcome! Well, I’m very happy and honored to have provided inspiration for your work. Thank you for saying that. How can I see your comixx? Please come back anytime, and Happy Halloween. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Awesome, thank you so much for starting on the post! I’m glad the Wiseman film lived up to your hopes. And thank you for the cogent Halloween tune. It’s put me squarely in the mood.Now we’ll see if Paris can follow up. ** Misanthrope, Well, I think the only logical answer to your question is that Jeff Seid is moonlighting as a slave. That has to be it. No other explanation makes any sense at all. It’s true that food outlets do use bread as an exaggeration sometimes. It’s very disrespecful to bread. And I guess to customers too. Happy if my query re: your writing ends up being a influential nag, obviously. You must be doing something special of your own invention on Halloween, surely? What was it? ** Sypha, Hi, James. I’ve been wondering where you were and how you are. I thought maybe the blahness of the new Lady Gaga album threw you into a depression or something. Like I said to Misa, clearly the fact of the matter must be that Jeff Seid sneaks around in dungeons when he’s not doing whatever it is that makes him famous enough for you guys to recognize him. I have heard about the Voynich Manuscript, yes. But, naturally, knowing about it is the totality of my reference so far. But I will check out the story re: that new facsimile book. Thank you. What are your and Halloween’s plans for this evening? ** Okay. I made a Halloween gif work for Zac and for everyone else within sight of these words. May it add something or other to your holiday. See you tomorrow.
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Happy Hallowe’en, Dennisimo!
Lovely gif suite. Seems like a while since you last posted a gif piece here, or maybe I’m forgetting. Looking at this, I was having the same feelings as when I first saw your gif work and I’d scroll down thinking that I wasn’t smart enough or just plain not getting it, then next thing I’m completely absorbed. You always get this tone in the gif pieces that I can’t put into words, but is wonderful and bewitching. Apologies for my lack of erudition, but I love it and will be looking at it many times. Thanks!
If you google ‘Jennifer West Tramway’ there’s a ton of nice images of that show, which I’m really glad we caught before it closed, but would love to have gone to again.
No Halloween plans for tonight, as I’m working, but I walk through town on the way there and back, so I’m hoping to catch some costumes, at least. We watched the Innocents last night, as an early Halloween treat, and that was really great and made me want to read The Turn of the Screw. Have you seen it? I walked into work yesterday morning and there were lots of bits of costumes on the ground, discarded moustaches and witchy materials, which was kind of cool. A few years ago, my old flatmate was walking through the city centre on Halloween night and some folks were shouting ‘Groovy, baby!’ and ‘Do I make you horny?’ and other Austin Powers things at him and someone said ‘Great costume!’. The funny thing was that he wasn’t dressed up.
I hope that you’re happy with the video when you’re done. It sounds like it’s been going well. I do believe that by the time you read this it’ll be Salon du Chocolat time…..?! I hope that’s intensely wonderful. I’m quite jealous.
Love like a (kindhearted) witch on a broomstick,
Jamie
Happy Halloween Dennis. I see enigmatic gif grab bag here. Looks amazing and generous.
See you on Nov 7th, which is already quite soon. I’m excited to learn more about the topic at the event. I would look shabby again as it’s a work season, but I guess you don’t care such things. Hopefully, I can talk to you longer during your nyc visit this time. Please have a safe trip this coming weekend.
I don’t know what happened to Woody Allen and his wife, but I’ve heard that gossip in relation to my race (which I rarely think about — well, thank you for labeling me) and it was kind of disgusting (excuse my language) that people talk about others’ personal life and, by extension, similar looking others, focusing on race, age, etc. I believe film critics may criticize the thematics of his films if it really matters, but if its nature is gossipy, I wouldn’t care it at all.
Wow. That’s just, like . . . perfect. I know the gif suites are fiction, but this one is like listening to the very best album for the first time. Maybe cause I’m a fellow Halloweenster, this is my personal favorite. Every little moment and transition gets me.
I’ll check in later and say why I’m on multiple deadlines again and also how great it was to see you and Zac and to see the film in a proper theater, but things are good here, very good. And I couldn’t agree with you more 1000%ly about Mr Allen, most of whose films I don’t even like, personally.
And my NY talk date got changed and I won’t be there mid-month but at end of Nov-beginning of Dec, so rats.
Happy Halloween, Dennis!!
This Halloween gif suite is hypnotic and amazing. Thanks a lot for sharing it.
How are you? How’s work? I guess you’re still very busy, but I hope you’re enjoying it too. I listened to Youth Code’s last album after you told me about them. I quite like it, and I need to listen to more of their stuff. So thanks for the tip!
My highlights are that I started lu jong (Tibetan yoga) and chi kung (a martial art similar to tai chi). It helps with my back problems and my anxiety and stress. I’m really enjoying the classes so far, so I’m excited.
Have a great night whatever you end up doing (I’ve read about the haunted house and the gig. Both plans sound great to me).
Much love to you and Zac.
Hi!
Happy Halloween! Thank you so much for today’s GIF post! It’s absolutely amazing! I really enjoyed it!
It definitely is. I have no idea why it is the way it is…
I don’t think he’ll regret it. I’m really excited! Both about his opinion and about the video itself!
Ah I’m glad the concert was so fantastic! I’ll check out his tour schedule right away!
Yes, I’m just starting to prepare for the party. We’re going to the concert of a Hungarian band I really like, they’ll have a special Halloween gig so I think it’ll be a blast!
How was your day? I hope you managed to make progress with the work that needed to be done today! Do you have any special plans for tonight?
It’s a Gif-tastic Halloween!
Lovely suite today, Dennis. The mostly short diptychs give it a rather different rhythm from some of your other sets. Do you have to make some specific annotation to get different gifs to synchronize their start points? Hope you’re having a creepy and festive Halloween in Paris…
I did see Rosemary’s Baby (1st time!) on a big screen. Really enjoyed the slow buildup in the first part. The ending was a bit wackier than I expected. But I can totally see Polanski’s producer yelling at him: “but no one will know what’s going on unless you call them WITCHES and explain EVERYTHING!” Polanski seemed to be poking fun at the old cliches in that last scene, quite hilarious.
Lot of stuff to deal with at work, so I might disappear for a bit. Hope to be back by the weekend.
The biggest bit of fun he pokes is not showing the baby. We hear them describe it but it’s left to our fevered imagination.
Producer William Castle (who has a great scene in the Bistro Gardens segment of “Shampoo”) was utterly delighted with what Roman did.
Latest FaBlog: Picking Daisies
A good way of having my first cup of coffee and seeing today’s blog. Thank you!
Happy Halloween Dennis! This is such a satisfying collection. I’m pretty sick right now, but I just wanted to drop by and leave a kudos since the last few posts have been great. Can’t stop thinking about the slave post saying “I want to be bread” lol. Transformation fetishes are pretty weird.
The third night of withdrawal went really well too. Unfortunately, I’m eventually going to have cut down on some of the medications I’ve been taking because I don’t have enough pills, and I fear the return of insomnia when that happens.
It would be one thing if Woody Allen’s younger woman/older man narratives put some kind of interesting analysis or spin on intergenerational relationships (CAFE SOCIETY hinted at this by suggesting Kristen Stewart’s character was making a mistake by abandoning a man her own age in favor of an older man), but they’re just playing out a sexist male fantasy trope. Why not let a woman get involved with a younger man once in a while? None of this means that he’s a child molester, of course; I have the impression he’s attracted to girls in their late teens and early 20s. And his relationship with Soon-Yi seems happy and has lasted longer than his relationship with Mia Farrow.
A fact that enrages Mia every nanosecond.
Hi Dennis. Happy Halloween!! We would like to get in touch with you about a conference we’re organizing. Could you email us at [email protected]? thanks! -Daniel B and Eric S
HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!
Dennis – yup – I get what you mean about the gay bar/Halloween combo. I didn’t go, mainly because I knew it would be a boozy night, which I can’t do. I’m at a small Halloween get together with friends tonight which is nice. We’ve carved pumpkins and have food and we’re gonna watch horror films.
This is a great piece today – I particularly love how it ends – kind of like a crescendo or something.
Here’s my Halloween look: https://imageshack.us/i/poBXRVWGj
Hey Dennis – Happy Halloween! This is one my favorite GIF suites. So many great combos. The hand pressing the button and the kid below him collapsing sticks out, as does the pink crystals, pink putty/gum, and bleeding neck wound. The pillow and breakdancer on fire feels like its own ghost story. The hand being cut and the book being given to someone is the combo that’s haunted me the most for some reason that language won’t cooperate with explaining.
Finally finished up local arts residency and had a show that included 13 of my sculptural assemblages arranged as an installation. I think it turned out well and will share some photos on FB at some point soon. Should have more time to hang out here and catch up on life in general.
What’re you focusing on now work-wise?
Hey Dennis
Happy Halloween! Enjoyed today’s post, and am looking forward to 9th Nov also. Exhausted by work right now but I’ve been checking in here every day as ever. How’s the opera going?
Hope all’s well,
warmest
Joe
Happy Halloween! And thank you for this lovely gif suite, which sure does whet the appetite ahead of the imminent Zac’s Freight Elevator.
Had my regular jab at the hospital this morning which was fine, but the exciting news is that I had an idea for my forthcoming screenprint! As I woke up I thought about a sad emoticon 🙁 = colon-dash-open brackets, and I’m gonna offset that with another blue/lilac-coloured image. I can picture it in my mind’s eye and can see it being good.
Hello Dennis!
Happy Halloween!!
The streets of both Brooklyn and Manhattan are mobbed by children in costume. Is Halloween as big a deal in Paris? I got invited to a Halloween party, but cough medicine has put me in a woozy daze and I don’t think I’m gonna attend.
Hey Dennis!
Fucking nice. Turned me on because of the sadness.
When will you have characters with dicks coming out of their shoulders, hands, etc…?
I’ve always had a thing for the guys in your novels. I’d love to find the guy grabbing his dick through his pants with the tattooed arm. Hot.
And the guy with the white baseball cap is another beautiful character. Almost like something Balthus would create if he was still around (and into males).
I’m having trouble identifying with the order of the gifs. I’ll have to show it around and get some advice. You know who I mean.
Anyway, looking forward to next week’s affairs. You remain the best; Happy Halloween! Muhahahaha……..
Joey
Hey Dennis!
Echoing the sentiments of everyone above, I took pleasure in looking through the post today! It was the perfect work to engage with on this most spooky holiday(ish?) I’m curious about the title? I did a basic google search but nothing came up…is it entirely random? Any other DL’s care to speculate?
I also just saw the tickets for the New Museum event went up and will definitely be there!
Hope you had a most wonderful day.
Bear
Dennis, Very good. I see what you did there. 😀
Hmm, the writing. I started a story a couple months ago that to me was quite promising. I was thinking about this place and starting thinking about that story again. Weirdly, I couldn’t…find it. I don’t know it seemed gone.
I need to think about writing and about what it’s all about more and more to find it all again. Ugh.
I Ugh-ing a lot lately. But things aren’t bad.
You know, you might be right. Jeff Seid probably is a slave. Actually, there are rumors about him doing gay for pay stuff, so …you never know.
I’m all about David Laid and his little group of bodybuilders. What’s strange is that if you were to Google image search him, you wouldn’t get one tiny percent of one fraction why I like the dude. You’d have to see one of his (rather boring) videos to understand.
But aren’t lots of obsessions like that?
Maybe.
Happy Halloween! Or I hope yours was a happy one. 😀
Dennis, by commenting on the blahness of Lady Gaga’s new album, are you implying that you have in fact heard Lady Gaga’s new album? Or are you just assuming that it has to be blah (in which case you’re pretty much right). I have had many thoughts about all this (Gaga’s new album) but I’m nursing a headache tonight so I won’t bore you to death with them right now (as it were, you may have even seen me address the issue on Facebook). For now I’ll just say that I liked Gaga a lot more when she wasn’t trying so damn hard to seem “respectable.”
In any event no major Halloween plans, as usual (I worked today from 12-8). I like Halloween but to be totally honest I liked it more when I was a kid and I got to dress up. Then when I reached a certain age my parents told me I was too old for that and I’ve never worn a costume on the day in question since!
As for adult Halloween costumes, one of the clerks at Rough Trade was dressed entirely in black, with corpsepaint on her face. There was an upside-down cross on her forehead. When I walked in, they were playing THRILLER. I suggested that Darkthrone might be more appropriate. She said they kicked off the day by playing Slayer, but it made people too tense.
Happy Halloween Dennis! Beautiful GIF suite, very hallucinatory, just the right thing for me to take in tonight! Its nice to be back here–I like the space of this blog much better than the old one.
Re my book, its been an interesting experience. We sent it out to a bunch of big houses and got a bunch of passes, which was kind of a drag, but one of the passes said something that was quite general but got me thinking and sent me into to doing another revision. I really stripped the book back, to reveal the core that was there but was hidden–I was studying Le Diable Probablement around the same time, which was incredibly inspiring–and retooled the voice. It’s a much better book now and this revision was really necessary. I’m pretty happy with it. Anyway, we also sent the earlier draft to the press who did my first book, University of Wisconsin, and their editor really likes it, but I’m just waiting to hear from their review committee (you get outside reviews and then the committee has to approve publication.) I should find out just after the election. I’ll keep you posted. If they don’t approve I guess we’ll send it out to some new places. Lots of love, and I hope you find lots of great chocolate at the salon!xo
Dennis,
Happy Halloween! Love the gif post.
Yeah the Hecker show was so rad! I was really into that scaffolding and back-lit fog, and I didn’t notice until about halfway through the set that Hecker was right there at the front inside it. I always think of Hecker’s music as being delicate, so I enjoyed it as the opposite: It felt like this schizo, psych-you-up insanity happening in a misty, empty football stadium. Are you into Ben Frost and/or Jóhann Jóhannsson? Reading about Hecker’s new album, in anticipation of the show, I learned that Frost and Jóhannsson did some production and arranging on it. I really like Frost, and I don’t know a ton of Jóhannsson’s stuff but I do listen to The Miner’s Hymns a lot. Anyway, there was something sort of violent about the Hecker show that keeps bringing Ben Frost to mind for me.
I have a research appointment (I’m a mathematician), which is letting me live just outside Paris for the next year.
I’d love to get a coffee some time.
i love this latest gif set, this is a great Halloween present — i didn’t do anything for the holiday besides eat a big pile of candy (i bought some for trick-or-treaters but there wasn’t even one kid that stopped by…although i wasn’t too surprised, my neighborhood is weirdly kid-less, i never see any) & dig into your gif set which was a pretty nice way to celebrate so thanks
some of my favorites were:
the pentagram pizza straight from the oven of hell
‘satan is your friend for a very short time’ (which is a sentence worth tattooing on yourself to keep in mind)
the scarcecrow torturing jennifer lawrence is kind of legitimately scary to me, damn
the fire roasting the feet (which makes me think of this obscure SALEM song, have u ever heard it? i’m posting it in the hopes that u haven’t b/c it’s one of my favorite by them & it’s very Halloween appropriate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEAoUIekNA8 — also did u hear they’re working on a new album? i’m psyched)
the flashing ghost saying ‘we exist’ (i kept thinking how cool it would be to have that as a functioning poster or something, it’ll be cool when we all have LED wallpaper someday)
the anime guy chopping a hole in the person’s head (which had like a really percussive effect on me…i think b/c watching it makes me flinch slightly…but it’s weird, it’s like i can hear this loud percussive sound accompanying the gifs)
i thought ‘satan loves you’ was great, it made me laugh haha — but also i laughed a little bit nervously b/c…idk, i think the religious upbringing has permanently turned the idea of satan into a little bit of a trigger for me, i feel superstitious about it. like, what if satan really does ‘love’ u aka ‘wants’ u aka wants u to stay in Hell with him for all eternity chained up Prometheus-style while demons pull out your intestines again & again, that’s not good
‘i’m not who i was before’ was sort of spooky too, it’s spooky to think of a ghost saying that to u. have u ever seen a ghost or anything like that? i haven’t. Dorothea Lasky recently put out a really great essay called ‘a belief in ghosts: poetry & the shared imagintion’ about different times that she’s seen ghosts, i liked that one a lot. sometimes i wish i could see a ghost, like maybe just once. to reassure myself that things keep moving. (although i guess the core idea of ghosts is that things stay around.) but–i wouldn’t want to that reassurance at the cost of, u know, being ectoplasmicly murdered to death or whatever. i wouldn’t want to encounter a bad ghost. now i’m thinking about that line from Period ‘a boy i would kill myself to see’ & i feel kind of melancholy now, that’s one of my favorite lines of yours. anyway…yeah. ghosts are complicated.
i really liked the hand pushing the button & the guy falling down
ok well i’m done rambling & shit, just wanted to compliment u on the latest gif work. i’m excited about Zac’s Freight Elevator coming soon !! i’ve already decided to spend most of my November 9th with my head buried in that instead of post-election coverage, i’m gonna be so glad when this is finally over blleeehhhhheehehehhh
take care <3
Happy Halloween, Dennis!
Probably post-Halloween in Europe by now. If I remember the time differences correctly.
Anyway, it’s still Halloween here, so, boooooo!
Did I scare you?
I *am* a ghost here now, I suppose. It occurred to me to comment here tonight, because Halloween is the most DC’s of all holidays, and I realized I haven’t commented since you got your blog back. I actually saw the announcement at Facebook a few minutes after you started this blog, after Google stopped being horrible, and I was going to do a “First!,” but I hesitated a few moments too long. Alas.
Anyway, I will have to catch up.
Hope you’re doing well. (I died after falling into a well.)
*Smoke demon Jeff is sucked back into the tiny little door at the bottom of your bedroom wall… door vanishes.*
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