Month: March 2022 (Page 9 of 14)

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Diego Trujillo The 300 Year Time Bomb, 2012
‘There’s something both disquieting and strangely appealing about a bomb engineered to explode in exactly 300 years time. Even if none of us will be there to experience it. The bomb’s timer displays the years in seconds making us question what meaning such a large number holds and changing our dramatic relationship with countdown timers.’

 

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Dietrich Wegner Playhouse, 2011
‘In Playhouse, I combine an atomic bomb’s mushroom cloud, with one of the safest places one can go, their childhood playhouse.’

 

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Nancy Spero Male Bombs, 1966
‘A series of works in which a bomb becomes an anthropomorphic form spewing sperm-like heads—smoky, messy, and seemingly blood stained.’

 

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Forensic Architecture The Bombing of Rafah, 2016
‘The Black Friday report is a collaboration between Forensic Architecture and Amnesty International. It aims to provide a detailed reconstruction of the events in Rafah, Gaza, from 1-4 August 2014, based primarily on material found on social media.

‘Because our investigation team was denied access to Gaza, Forensic Architecture developed a number of techniques aimed to reconstruct the events from hundreds of images and videos recorded by professional and citizen journalists. The images were thereafter located in a 3D model of Rafah. This resulted in the Image Complex, a device that allowed us to explore the spatial and temporal connections between the various sources and reconstruct the events as they unfolded.

‘Forensic Architecture has also located witness testimonies, delivered after the war, within this 3D model and corroborated the reported events with other audio-visual material. Where the metadata of image material was missing or inadequate, we used time indicators such as observed shadows or bomb clouds to locate sources in space and time.’

 

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Atelier Van Lieshout Pipe-bomb Clock, 2018
‘The Pipe-bomb Clock is steel, working clockworks attached to a pipe-bomb on a steel frame and pedestal. This improvised explosive device suggests that time is running out.’

 

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Gregory Green Suitcase Bombs, 1995
Mixed media

 

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Moira Dryer Bomb, 1982
casein on wood

 

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Robert Longo Sickness of Reason, 2003
charcoal on mounted paper

 

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Rocío Garriga Pop-bomb, 2018
‘Sculptural installation of 19 small brass sculptures representing popcorn in its different explosion stages, in a methacrylate urn with a black base intervened with texts of the 8 types of fire bombs most commonly used during World War II.’

 

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Jeremy Deller It is what it is, 2009
‘The car in Jeremy Deller’s It is what it is, was destroyed in a suicide bomb attack in Iraq in 2007. The mangled wreckage here, as is often the case in media reports of war, stands in for the destruction of human life, in this case the deaths of thirty eight people. Though we are all too used to seeing images of such vehicles, finding oneself confronted with the real thing is a wholly different experience. Deller has gone beyond this though and taken the wrecked car on a road trip around America.’

 

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‘A Coachella man has been arrested on suspicion of threatening to blow up the Desert X outdoor art exhibition. Phillip Carrillo, 32, was arrested 8:50 a.m. Thursday at his home in the 52-000 Block of Primitivo Drive, according to Palm Springs police. Desert X is an internationally renowned biennial art exhibition which offers digital and in-person opportunities to view work across 40 miles of the Coachella Valley, will feature 13 works that range from billboards to paintings.’

 

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Chris Burden The Reason for the Neutron Bomb, 1979
fifty thousand nickels and matchsticks, signage

 

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Fernando Botero Car bomb, 1999
Oil on canvas

 

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Inigo Manglano-Ovalle Dirty Bomb, 2008
‘Dirty Bomb is a full-scale replica of Fat Man, the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in August 1945, immaculately translated by the artist into white fiberglass and aluminum. Suspended from the ceiling, the bulbous, dirigible-shaped colossus has mud slathering its otherwise pristine snout, much of it dripping to the floor.’

 

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Cildo Meireles Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Coca-Cola Project, 1970
‘For the Coca-Cola Project Meireles removed Coca-Cola bottles from normal circulation and modified them by adding instructions for turning the bottle into a Molotov cocktail, before returning them to the circuit of exchange. On the bottles, such messages as ‘Yankees Go Home’ are followed by the work’s title and the artist’s statement of purpose: ‘To register informations and critical opinions on bottles and return them to circulation’. The Coca-Cola bottle is an everyday object of mass circulation; in 1970 in Brazil it was a symbol of US imperialism and it has become, globally, a symbol of capitalist consumerism. As the bottle progressively empties of dark brown liquid, the statement printed in white letters on a transparent label adhering to its side becomes increasingly invisible, only to reappear when the bottle is refilled for recirculation.’

 

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David Adey The New Bomb, 2007
‘A full-scale replica of a smart-bomb, like the ones used in operation Iraqi Freedom, is constructed with body parts from hundreds of identical miniature, pearl-glazed ceramic lambs.’

 

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GTA 5 Sticky Bomb Mod, 2021
‘The principle for sticky bomb explosion remains something similar across GTA’s different stages, however C4 explosion requires diverse key combinations from one stage to another. Here’s the manner by which to choose, place, and detonate sticky bombs in GTA 5 on your PC. Open the inventory menu by pressing ”Tab. Utilize the mouse to feature the throwable explosives weapon type. Utilize the mouse wheel look to find the C4 within the kind. Close the weapons wheel. Your person ought to hold a sticky bomb. Point the sticky bomb using the right-click on your mouse. Whenever you’ve chosen the area/bearing in which you need to toss the bomb, left-click while as yet holding the right-click. To detonate the sticky bomb (insofar as you’re within range), press ”G” on your console.’

 

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Gert + Uwe Tobias Ribbon Around a Bomb, 2013
ink and collage on paper

 

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Damien Marchal Garbage Truck Bomb, 2010
‘Garbage Truck Bomb is “an interactive sound installation for truck bomb and detonator”. The installation takes the form of a life-size wooden model of a garbage truck, inside which is hidden a cell-phone–activated GSM detonator which at any moment can set off a violent sound deflagration. Here gas bottles, often used in bomb attacks, are subversively remodelled as pressed wood sound sources which boost the resonance of the bass speakers inside them.’

 

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Robert Heinecken Breast/Bomb #5, 1967
Gelatin silver prints, cut and reassembled

 

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Alwin Lay Permanent Sparkler, 2012
‘Everyone loves sparklers, it’s a simple fact. Alwin Lay has created one that never goes out!’

 

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Joan Rabascall Atomic Kiss, 1968
‘Because the purpose of these works is not to cause fear; you have to show the writing of disaster. We are catastrophe illiterates. Legibility is needed to try to understand.’

 

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Lee McDonald Hand grenade, 2010
wood and cardbord

 

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Vandy Rattana Bomb Ponds, 2013
‘These tranquil, almost nondescript bodies of water are known as ‘bomb ponds’ in the Khmer language: craters created when the Americans dropped close to three million tons of bombs across politically neutral Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Despite the damage, injury and deaths inflicted onto Cambodian civilians who had no knowledge of the war being waged by governments, the bombings were not formally acknowledged for years. Like a dark secret kept hidden in plain view, the ponds remain officially invisible.’

 

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Jonathan Latiano Points of Contention, 2011
‘The piece features an explosion of wood, plastic, Styrofoam protruding from a rippling gallery floor.’

 

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Cai Guo-Qiang Drawing with Gunpowder, 2012
‘In March 2012, Cai Quo Qiang worked with over 100 local volunteers to create three monumental drawings made from gunpowder explosions — from the artist’s loose sketching and stencil work, to gunpowder application, to ignition.’

 

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Stephen Johnston Petrol Bombs, 2020
Oil on Canvas

 

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Adel Abdessemed Le Vase abominable, 2013
‘Le Vase abominable is a two-meter tall copper pot positioned on top of a replica of a large explosive device, a carefully crafted bomb, whose relationship to the vase remains ambiguous.’

 

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Andrew Waits Boom City, 2014
‘Photographer Andrew Waits splits fireworks down the middle to reveal their surprising innards of colorful powders, tubes, and conductors. Its seemingly harmless looking contents might come as a surprise, but beware.’

 

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Doug Beube Blast: If You See Something, Say Something, 2008
‘Anyone who has ridden a New York City subway post-911 has heard the frequent broadcast warnings: “If you see something, say something!” or “Backpacks will be inspected!” This work, which alludes to both cautionary announcements, consists of sixteen altered volumes of an Encyclopedia Britannica. Brown wax seals the top and bottom of the cylindrical books, with black and red connective wires clamping onto metal hooks embedded in the top of each cylinder, calling to mind an improvised explosive device.’

 

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Tajinder J Singh 24, Jack Bauer, SEASON 5, Épisode 1, 2011
Polystyrene, wood, plastic

 

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Roy Lichtenstein Wall Explosion I, II, III, IV, 1965
Enamel on steel

 

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Hajra Waheed The Cyphers, 2016
‘A large platform that viewers also look at from above and cull information from. There are 18 technical drawings and a number of metal objects and shrapnel that appear to have either been collected as debris from an explosion or to have fallen from the sky.’

 

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Kichisuke Yoshimura Hiroshima, 1962
‘Their clothes ripped to shreds, their skin hanging down. On the riverbank I saw figures that seemed to be from another world. Ghost-like, their hair falling over their faces, their clothes ripped to shreds, their skin hanging. A cluster of these injured persons was moving wordlessly toward the outskirts.’

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Ian, Hi, Ian. Oh, man, big congrats on your impending son! Whoa, that’s huge. I didn’t know there were Star Trek books. But before I discovered avant-garde lit in my teens, I read almost nothing but novels based on TV shows I liked, and there were a shit-ton of them. It’s kind of nice to know that that genre is still ongoing, assuming that’s what you mean. Anyway, I hope your weekend will be exhausting-work-free. Anything cool happen? ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Not a bad version of that song, but after hearing the Basement Tapes original, it does sound a little chintzy maybe. ** Misanthrope, I’m pretty sure there are teenagers in that film, or at least people in their 20s pretending, but don’t hold me to that. I fear that we organic-doomed people are not of a sufficient number to make extra added effort on the design and manufacturing aspect of organic gear seem financially feasible or something. Ton started getting into scat when he was still pretty popular, and I assume that’s why his popularity declined, although he’s still in the field, or was as of a year or two ago. I hope for a stellar weekend for you, myself, and everyone in the entire world except for maybe a few dictators. ** _Black_Acrylic, ‘Teenagers from Outer Space’ needs a remake, hopefully not a Marvel one. Great that your piece was well-received, and I’m super excited that you’re thinking about a novella! Very noisy, enthusiastic cheerleading from me. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Poor guy. The Richey Edwards connection in your head makes sense. Fundamentally, at least. Yeah, there used two be these ‘boy band mastermind’ guys, like the guy who made Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, and the guy who made Menudo, but I think all of those guys ended up in jail for molesting some of the band boys, so … I don’t know, although I guess the sad boy band members would get molested and feel a little sadder and think, ‘Yeah, what else is new’. Wow, that dry-lipped love was a very beautifully conceived love, not that I would want to kiss him in thanks, mind you. I’d buy one of his pantings. Heck, I’d give him a whole galerie show on the blog, I’m sure. Love hiding a million high powered bombs in every room in the Kremlin and detonating them during work hours, G. ** Marc Labelle, Hi, Marc! Good to meet you, although we’re friends on Facebook, so I already know you from afar. How cool that you read my blog, and thank you for the really kind words. I’m glad my sentiment struck home. I really believe in it. It has kept me going. Thanks a lot for the link/introduction to your band. I’ll go over there as soon as I get out of here. Obviously, any relationship drawn to GbV is equivalent to gilding my imagination. Awesome, thanks a lot! Please imagine my hand grasping your hand fervently even as I freak out a little bit at seeing a hand emerge from my laptop. Take care. And it goes without saying that it’d be only excellent if you want to come back in here and blab any old time. Great weekend to you! ** Bill, Hi. Yeah, that’s it. My friend said it’s a horror western that is unexpectedly very intense and gory. My review when and if I can find it. Film prep us is so far proceeding well, but our chickens are not being counted quite yet. Enjoy your weekend, sir. ** Sypha, Yikes! Scary! ** RrYyAaNn / angusrasgbfhsdjgds, Hey. What you said a few days ago is a golden rule that was unusually well described. Insecurities are inescapable, but knowing that’s what they are will kill them, or at least chloroform them for a while. It won’t surprise you that I think your audience’s reaction is the ideal reaction, so … victoire! I remember the name Natalia Kills, but I don’t think I’ve heard her. I’ll find her stuff, starting with the link, thanks. Take every compliment from a stranger, especially a stranger with talent that you can acknowledge, to heart because that kind of compliment is as guaranteed to be the truth if anything is. I hope your Saturday -> Sunday has a gradual ecstatic build. xo, me. ** John Christopher, Hi, JC! Oh, wow, thank you so much about ‘I Wished’. That’s amazing, thank you! In a way I do agree with the general consensus that Joy Williams’ stories are her best, but, on the other hand, I think my favorite book of hers is her novel ‘The Quick and the Dead’. ‘The Changeling’ is not among my top faves of her either. Ha ha, no, I have not done a Devon Sawa/Final Destination post, but that is an excellent idea. Hm, let me see if I can figure out a way to do that interestingly. And I will endeavor to. Thanks! Have a really fine weekend, and, yeah, come back whenever it suits your purposes please. ** l@rst, I’m going to go find out what the Chuck Tingle hoo-haa is all about this weekend. Speaking of, did you have the weekend of your dreams? ** Steve Erickson, Hi. The director interviewed me for about three hours for that documentary but didn’t use any of it. I have a real problems with that film, a big one being that it hugely overstates BlaB’s importance and centrality to Queer Punk, and in doing so it distorts what QP was and what its trajectory was. And there are a lot of other problems. Like LA had a huge Queer Punk scene and presence, but because a couple of key LA figures like Vaginal Davis refused to be in the film, he just ignored LA almost entirely. And he doesn’t even talk about Bimbox and Johnny Noxzema who were not only possibly the most important Queer Punk progenitors but who transformed and ultimately signaled the end of the movement. Not to mention that the film barely even acknowledges Jayne County who is arguably the progenitor of the movement. And it’s not like the director didn’t know all of that, he just decided to tell a greatly simplistic-fied version of QP artificially centred around BlaB. It’s a shame to think that there probably won’t be another, truer doc about QP to right its wrongs, or not for a long time anyway. ** Brian, Hey, Brian. Ah, okay, well, never mind then. Of course Shakespeare is a no brainer in that context. Wait, so your prof. doesn’t see the difficulty you guys face and isn’t willing to extend the deadline? So you all get punished because one guy didn’t hit one of the assignment’s marks? Fucked up. So sorry, man. Yeah, eyes on the prize of those expired two months, I guess. What choice do you have. Urgh, though. Your day sounds pretty swell, all in all. I detect a number of rewards in there. I hope you can organise whatever school shit into a digestible area and kick back in the margins at the very least. Deep breaths, and catch you afterwards. ** Okay. I made one these thematic posts that I obviously am into making these days, this time operating within the definition of the word ‘bomb’. See you on Monday.

* all text culled from The Tom Graeff Project Website

 

‘Tom Graeff was born Thomas Lockyear Graeff on September 12, 1929, to George and Grace Graeff in the now-vanished mining town of Ray, Arizona. Before Tom was two years old, he and his parents moved to Los Angeles, where Tom grew up and where his brother James was born. Discovering a love for film at an early age, Tom enrolled in the UCLA Theater Arts program, which allowed him to study filmmaking.

 

Tom Graeff – Film career

 

‘Graeff pledged the Delta Chi fraternity and became a brother. His college career was marked by poor grades and after being put on academic probation several times, he redeemed himself by making a short film about fraternity life entitled Toast to Our Brother.

‘The film starred Graeff and a Paramount ingenue named Judith Ames, and guest-starred the Hollywood actor and comedian Joe E. Brown, a UCLA alumni. Judith Ames, who appeared in When Worlds Collide, later changed her name to Rachel Ames and found success in the role of “Audrey Hardy,” one of the longest-running characters on the popular American soap opera General Hospital. Toast to Our Brother premiered at the Village Theater in Westwood on December 18, 1951 as a benefit for the St. Sophia Building Fund. The film garnered some industry attention and, because of the work Graeff put into it as writer, director, producer, and star, he was allowed to graduate in 1952.

 

Toast to Our Brother

 

‘After graduation, Graeff made several attempts to break into the film industry. Inspired by Roger Corman, Graeff decided to work independently. Described by friends and acquaintances as outgoing, energetic, creative, and a born salesman, Graeff landed a job producing and directing a recruiting film for Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California. The resulting 20-minute film, entitled The Orange Coast College Story, was first shown on campus in May of 1954. The film was narrated by actor Vincent Price, who was a friend of the faculty advisor, and starred a young actor named Chuck Roberts, who became romantically involved with Graeff and helped him by working on Graeff’s two feature films.

 

Stills from The Orange Coast College Story

 

‘In the summer of 1954, Graeff began production on his first feature, a fantasy/ comedy entitled The Noble Experiment, to be shot in 35mm and color in Orange County, California, where Graeff was now living with his parents and younger brother. The film was photographed by Austin McKinney, who also shot Toast to Our Brother and who invented the apparatus that allowed the pre-recorded dialogue to be played back on set so the actors could lipsync. This saved on having to rent sound recording equipment or having to post-dub the actors later. McKinney had devised a 16mm version of the device while filming Toast to Our Brother, but now created a 35mm version for Tom’s first feature.

‘The film took a year to complete and premiered at the Lido Theater in Newport Beach, California, on August 2, 1955. Graeff again played the lead in this fantasy that he describes as being “about an amateur biochemist who, successful with a chemical ‘get-along pill’ for his mother-in-law, pours a barrel full of the concoction into the city water supply.” The film was not well received by the local audiences, but remained Graeff’s favorite of his films.

‘Today, no print of this film has been located. You can read Tom’s own description of the plot and themes of the film here. While a fantasy, The Noble Experiment was both autobiographical and eerily prescient about Graeff’s later troubles.

 

The only surviving images from The Noble Experiment

 

‘His hard work paid off, however, when he was hired as an assistant on Roger Corman’s film Not of This Earth in the summer of 1956. To cut costs, Roger Corman regularly used crew members to play small parts in his films. We know that Tom worked as an assistant on Corman’s Not of This Earth. Now it’s been confirmed that the car park attendant in two scenes is Tom.

 

Roger Corman’s Not of This Earth

 

‘The experience working with Roger Corman led directly to Graeff’s writing a heart-felt science-fiction script entitled Killers from Outer Space and, modeling himself after Corman, Graeff set about getting investors, hiring actors, and planning the production. Securing some of the $14,000 budget from actor Gene Sterling, Graeff placed a small ad in The Hollywood Reporter looking for more investors. The ad was answered by British actor Bryan Pearson (billed as Bryan Grant), who put up $5000 in exchange for playing the role of Thor, the evil alien, and casting his wife Ursula Pearson (billed as Ursula Hansen) in the small role of Hilda.

‘Filmed in the fall of 1956, the film changed titles several times before it was eventually released as Teenagers from Outer Space by Warner Brothers in June of 1959. The film, now considered a cult classic, tells the tale of Derek (played by Chuck Roberts, a.k.a David Love) a space alien with a conscience who must save Earth from an invasion of giant flesh-eating monsters. It was shot entirely on location in Hollywood, California. The final title of the film was apparently not Graeff’s choice. The last title he gave to the film before selling it to Warner Brothers was The Boy From Out of This World.

 

Tom Graeff’s Teenagers from Outer Space

 

‘When it was finally released, it appeared as the lower part of a double bill alongside the second Godzilla film, Gigantis the Fire Monster, and was shown almost exclusively at drive-in theaters. Critics were not kind to the film, though Graeff was mentioned in the Los Angeles Times and Variety as a director with talent and a creative approach to a minimal budget. Audiences and theater exhibitors were vocal in their contempt for the film.

‘In the early 1960s, however, the film was sold to television, where it played frequently for the next thirty years and gained a cult following as a supreme example of a film whose intentions far outstripped its budget and for its infamous ray gun that turned living things into instant skeletons, an effect lovingly borrowed by Tim Burton in his film Mars Attacks!.

 

Stills from Teenagers from Outer Space

 

‘In November of 1959, Graeff bought a large advertisement in the Los Angeles Times, announcing that God had spoken to him and wanted him to spread peace and love throughout the world. This was followed by another advertisement announcing that Graeff was now named Jesus Christ II, and would be making an appearance on the steps of a Hollywood church to spread God’s word.

 

 

‘In 1960, Graeff appeared in the Los Angeles County Superior Court to petition for his name change. With vocal opposition by the Christian Defense League, the petition was denied. Later in 1960, Graeff interrupted a church service at the Hollywood Church of Christ, shouting “I’m Jesus Christ II and I’ve got a message. Everyone must listen.” Graeff was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace. This was actually his second arrest for disturbing the peace that year. Earlier he had disrupted a college class and had to be forcibly removed.

 

Tom Graeff leaving the Los Angeles Court House in 1960

 

‘Sentenced to 90 days in jail, Graeff jumped bail and fled first to the Midwest, then farther east until more entanglements with the law and state authorities led to jail time and finally an involuntary stay in a state mental hospital. After a series of electro-shock treatments, he was returned to his parents in California by late 1964.

‘Although Tom seemed to have given up filmmaking for involvement in various social and religious causes while a fugitive, he nonetheless was hired as editor on David L. Hewitt’s ultra low-budget science fiction film Wizard of Mars in 1965.

 

David L. Hewitt’s Wizard of Mars

 

‘By 1968, he had completed a bizarre screenplay entitled alternately Please, Please Turn Me Off, The Immortalizer, and The Fate Worse Than Death. In early 1968, Graeff took out a small ad in Variety, announcing that his screenplay, now entitled Orf, was for sale for the unprecedented sum of $500,000. Gossip columnist Joyce Haber followed up and printed a sarcastic piece in the Los Angeles Times, which reported that Graeff claimed Robert Wise was attached and Carl Reiner was to star. Wise denied any involvement.

‘Graeff, hurt by Haber’s misquotes and nasty attitude, published an apology to Robert Wise in The Hollywood Reporter, accusing Haber of purposefully omitting facts and trying to destroy negotiations to get the script produced. Haber responded in her column by telling everyone in Hollywood of the Jesus Christ II incident ten years earlier.

 

Tom Graeff in the late ’60s

 

‘Tom’s final years were obsessive and energetic. He lived in a beautiful home on Rodgerton in the Hollywood Hills, apparently serving as an assistant/helper to the house’s owner. Tom was vague about how he got his money. He always seemed to have enough to get by, despite never holding down a regular job. He continued to try and interest the Hollywood elite in Orf. He called agents and actors all over the world, asking them to read his script, then following up with them until they said, “No.” And they all said no.

 

 

‘Tom was also running Evolutionary Data Foundation, a mail order business that primarily existed to sell a long-playing record of a lecture he gave at the Metropoloan Community Church. The record’s front cover had a groovy picture of Jesus and the back cover proclaimed “UNABASHED LOVEMAKING and how sexual hypocrisy got started.” The lecture is a wacky, often humor-filled explanation of why man is inherently bisexual, with stops along the way into the theories of Desmond Morris and Richard Leakey. The record was broadcast twice in its entirety on local radio station KPFK-FM in 1969.

 

Cover illustration of Tom Graeff’s LP

 

‘Ironically, the back cover text on the record claimed that one of its uses was to help end the suicides of men with “an inability to cope with the flood of convincing misinformation concerning their homosexual feelings.” Tom talked about committing suicide endlessly to his circle of friends, who laughed him off or became annoyed at what they thought was a way for Tom to get attention and sympathy. Tom swung from manic highs, running around Hollywood trying to promote his projects, to depressed lows when he just sat quietly and said little.

 

The last known photograph of Tom Graeff

 

‘What led to Tom’s suicide? Was it that “inability to cope” with his homosexual feelings? Hearsay evidence points to a very different reason, which may also explain why he moved from Hollywood to a small rented room outside San Diego. Why were many of his papers destroyed after his suicide? And what does Kurt Vonnegut have to do with Tom Graeff? My research continues as I try and track down the facts behind Tom’s last years. It’s a tale of lust, unrequited love, Hollywood studio treachery, the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, big time dreams, and the crazy emotional roller coaster of Tom Graeff’s obsessions.’ — The Tom Graeff Project

 

The sad tale of Filmmaker Tom Graeff

 

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Shane Christmass, Hi, Shane. ** JM, Thanks again so much, Josiah. ** rewritedept, Okay, I kind of understand the field kit, and if you’re smitten, that’s all that counts, obvs. And obviously excellent about the band with your roommate! Curious to hear the resulting tuneage. My day was solid, thanks. Things seem to be getting sparklier. Take care, buddy. ** Jamie, Hey, Jamie! I’m good. A bummer can be productive if you reinvent the feeling against its will, for sure. Yesterday’s post … the sad boys? They were all images from mostly Russian porn of the early 00s that I used to collect fervently. In each one, a sex act was occurring (anal, oral) and I just cropped the sex act out of them so that their looks of sadness or fear or misery were the only thing in hopes that that would make them harder to objectify sexually. I used to do that a lot. I was fascinated by the way Russian, especially, twink porn didn’t even bother to try to disguise how unhappy the boys were to be in the situation they were. I did dozens of those collections/posts back in the days of my now murdered blog. Does that answer your question? You feeling better today, I hope? What’s going on? Love, me. ** David Ehrenstein, Word association. ** Misanthrope, Yep. A few times I’ve tried to see if there was any way to find out what happened to at least the biggest of the Russian twink porn stars of that era, but there’s nothing out there. Ton is still making porn, mostly SM and scat, but the others have vanished. It would definitely be a gift from god to me if the makers of organic clothes had imaginations, but they don’t. 7 is very minimum number of hours I need to sleep every night not to feel wrecked, and even 7 hours leaves me feeling very bleah the next day. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I know, right? Kind of a hybrid of a boy band and those boys choirs who sing melancholy old religious songs. I think it’s a billion dollar idea. Maybe after Zac and I finish our new film, that can be our next project. Ha ha, your love is an ideal audience. Love adapting one of my novels, maybe ‘My Loose Thread'(?), into a movie vehicle custom-fit to star the by-then massively, internationally popular sad boy band, but it’s a massive flop, and that makes the sad boy band even sadder and, hence, more wildly popular, G. ** Sypha, Awesome, thank you so much for putting your efforts into the post reboot! ** _Black_Acrylic, Morning, Ben. How’s tricks? ** Bill, Hi. A friend yesterday was recommending a horror movie to me called ‘Bone Tomahawk’. Have you seen it? I don’t know that Monica Ojeda book, but I’ll figure it out. ** Alexandrine Ogundimu, Hi, Alexandrine! I’m bad at checking my Facebook messages, but I’ll do that as soon as I finish up here, and I’ll get back to you. Take care, maestro. ** Ryan angusraze, I like how your name slightly changes every day. I’m a very firm believer in the idea that if you’re making art that you’re exited by, that means it’s valuable and unique. I think if one is really excited by what one is making, that’s because one is accessing and working with something is entirely and meaningfully yours. And the only thing that makes any work of art valuable is that it has that uniqueness and the impression that the artist felt it to be a necessity that that art was created and placed in the world. I think trying to think about your art in relationship to others’ art just leaves you fantasising pointlessly. That’s how I think about my work and always have. And ‘success’ is a complete unknown. It comes in a million forms and by a million different routes and at a million different paces. That’s my two cents on that subject. Don’t worry, iow. I will say that if I had ever judged the value of what I do based on whether I made a liveable income off of it, I would have quit a long, long time ago. Yeah, my friend/collaborator Zac Farley and I make films, and we’re going to make our third film this fall. I’ll let you know when we get to the point of starting to cast it. The sound/score is being done by Puce Mary, but if we decide to include other things, again, I’ll let you know. Bon day! ** l@rst, Hey, man. Happy you liked ‘Castle Faggot’. It’s insanely great, I think. Amazing that the library ordered it. Wild. I don’t know who Chuck Tingle is unless I’m spacing. I’ll go find out. Great about the new zine, and, yeah, fuck circulation numbers, they ain’t no big thang. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I’m sorry about your mom’s pain issues. Yeah, great that she’s having it looked into, and I hope they can quell it and that it’s easily fixable. Everyone, Steve has written about the Museum of the Moving Image’s “First Look” series, ‘including FIRST TIME and the latest Radu Jude and Tsai Ming-liang shorts’, right here. ** Brandon, Hi, Brandon. Ouch. Yeah, try your best to very gently rub the afflicted area if you can. What did you end up doing today? Yeah, weekend seems okay. Zac and I are showing one of our films at a festival here, and hopefully I’ll see a movie or two or something. How is yours looking? ** Brian, Hey, Brian. Oh, yeah, Shakespeare is the genius everyone says he is, but writing about his stuff for million billionth time? That just seems like a rote thing to assign someone — the assignment of a teacher who’s taking the easy way out or something. But you nailed it, nonetheless! Of course you did! Oh, fuck, about the seeming delay in the shoot. Grr. I know all about the great displeasure of filmmaking delays. Of course I’m very happy that you’re so into ‘A Man Escaped’. I too think it’s way up there in Bresson’s oeuvre. If I had to choose, I think I’d say ‘Mouchette’ is his greatest b&w film, to my mind. But it’s apples and oranges. My Thursday was okay. I Zoomed with a class of students who were reading my stuff, and that was very nice, and I saw a pal I haven’t seen in too long, and we finally set up a Zoom meeting with the LA producer of our new film to talk stuff through for next week, and that’s good. No plans for today yet. We show ‘PGL’ tomorrow at a festival, so maybe some checking out the space and testing the sound and visuals and stuff. Did Friday open your weekend’s door with consummate grace? ** Okay. I made post about Tom Graeff for the blog a long time ago, and his weird estate people made me delete it for reasons I can’t remember, and I’ve made a new one hoping they’ve chilled out, but we will see. Interesting story if you’re up for engaging with it. See you tomorrow.