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p.s. Hey. Welcome back from my vacation (and welcome to my jet lag)! ** Dominik, Hi, D!!!!! How are you? I did have a lovely trip, all in all. And my gums happily stopped attacking me the day I departed. How were your last few weeks? What’s new? Love hoping that the world has become more indelibly yours, G. ** Misanthrope,Thanks, bud, and here’s the other side, and I can ‘see’ you! ** Bill, Hey, Bill! Holidays filled their bill. ‘Nowhere’ is the only so-called ‘prime’ era Gregg Araki film that I like more than barely. What’s the recent haps, sir? And, yes, as I say to Ben just below, Peter Rehberg’s completely unexpected death is a very, very hard thing to understand and accept. Thank you. I’ll check out ‘Rock, Paper and Scissors’ ASAP. I’m so old that I saw those Halsted films in the theater when they were released and when they were only seeable in theaters. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey, hey, Ben! I’m going to go catch up on Play Therapy and hope it jams some life into my very jetalgged brain, thank you! Everyone, If you missed clicking on the latest episode of Ben ‘_Black_Acrylic’ Robinson’s wondrous and jamming podcast Play Therapy a couple of weeks ago — this one featuring ‘Italo, Synth Wave, EBM grit and some Murder Balladry on a lo-fi Casio drum machine too’ — join me in digging deep. Yes, news did reach me of Italy’s triumph, and I trust you’re well over whatever ill effects that had on your psyche now. There aren’t words to express my total and profound shock and confusion and sadness about Peter’s completely unexpected death. It’s utterly devastating. I’m still in a state of disbelief about it. He was my good friend and collaborator for so long. Gisele and Stephen are a complete mess. Yes, it’s beyond terrible, so terrible, and thank you for noting his passing. xo. ** Billy, Hi, Billy! Welcome! And thanks! Well, of course I hope Bresson’s spell worked on you. … did it? I wish you very well too! ** Licila Lanza, Hi, Licila, I will write in English, my apologies, because I don’t trust google translate, even though it seems to have a pretty good job of helping me read your message. Wow, that’s quite a dream. I feel honoured to have been its special guest. Thank you very much for letting me know about that and for recounting it.It’s very nice to meet you, and please come back anytime, okay? ** G, Hi, G! Big congratulations on you on making the Polari Prize shortlist! Whoo-hoo! I’m rooting for you big time, don’t you know. Yes, the film of ‘Jerk’ is probably completely finished by now. I haven’t asked Gisele. Yes, the film is full of puppets. You’re basically watching a guy do a puppet show for the whole film/piece. Great to see you! Love, me. ** K, Hi, K. Oh, yes, I’ll email you my mailing address shortly. Thank you very much in advance. ** Brian, Hi, Brian! So nice to see you, pal! The trip was good, thanks. I’m happy to have intro’d you to Lionel Soukaz. Yeah, his films are excellent and very underseen/rated. Plus Zac and I hung out with him when we showed our films in Marseilles a while back, and he’s a very interesting guy. How’s ‘2666’ going? And everything else? Catch me up when you get the chance please. ** DC, You again. ** Steve Erickson, Hi, Steve. The trip was very good, and it was so nice to be back in LA again after so, so long. Mm, LA, unlike everywhere around it, was in some kind of bubble and didn’t suffer the extreme West Coast heatwave so much, so it felt kind of normal there — especially after the utter living hell that was Orlando’s severe heat/humidity. The main global warming effect on Paris of late has been unusually huge amounts of rain, which I honestly don’t mind too much. The summer has been extremely mild here so far — 74 degrees w/ 10 perfect humidity today! — but I doubt that will last. I think the Hasted films had a short theatrical run at Quad a couple of weeks ago, if I’m not mistaken. Great to see you! ** T, Hi, T! Thank you, happy to be back. The trip was good. We spent three days at Orlando at the top going to amusement parks. Apart from unbearable heat and humidity, that was fun, and we got to ride all the hyped up new(ish) rides we’d been dying to try. (In fact, for any looky-loo theme park lovers out there, here are my ride ratings — Velocicoaster: A+, Mickey’s Runaway Railroad: A++, Avatar Flight: A, Avatar Boat: B-, Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure: A+, Star Wars; Rise of the Resistance: A+). LA was pretty great. Zac’s and my new film has an Executive Producer in London and an on-the-ground producer in LA who will coordinate the actual production, and we had a bunch of good meetings with him and worked out stuff. And seeing friends, art, etc., was a blast. I hope the restfulness of being with the fam outstrips the ‘being with the fam’ part, ha ha. How are you entertaining yourself of late? I’m glad you found the longterm post useful. Take care, and hopefully chat with you again soon. ** HR, Hi, HR. Thanks a lot for popping in. Very good to meet you. You’re in LA or thereabouts? Happy you liked the haunted house. Me too. What’s going on with you? Let me know if you feel like it and don’t mind. ** Right. I thought I’d welcome everyone back with a marathon kissing fest. And there you go. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Hi Dennis! Welcome back! I’m obsessed with this sweet Kiss post. Thank you so much re the Polari shortlist. You know what: I firmly believe you revived The Ministry over Xmas when you put it on your blog. The book was dead, gone, and you revived it just like that. It’s your magic & I’m so lucky to be receiving it. Thank you. Omg, JERK the film with puppets! We need. I’m dying to read I WISHED. I’m also going to review it for QUEERGURU if you don’t mind. Hope your vacation was as divine as you.
Hi, Dennis!! So glad you are back! I hope you had a nice vacation. How was it? Wow! I love this post. This work reminds me of Warhol’s Kiss but feels much more innocent and various. And amazing rhythm. Anyhow, hope to see you soon here in September. Please keep me posted! In the meantime, enjoy the rest of summer.
Hi!!
Welcome back, Dennis!! I’m really glad to hear your trip was lovely! How were the amusement parks?
I’m all good. Mostly working, but my brother finally came home a few weeks ago, and that’s really great. I haven’t seen him for a year! Other than this, I’m planning to fire up SCAB’s social media presence a bit because I’ve been incredibly lazy with that lately. Yeah, all good, really. It’s really nice to have you and the blog back.
Love kissing away your jet lag. Obviously. Od.
[Alright, this is another of my “hope this doesn’t appear twice” replies. Sigh]
A lovely post to celebrate your return, Dennis. Look forward to hearing more stories.
San Francisco has (for now) been spared the heat wave. I’ve mostly been hanging around home trying to finish a little piece at a snail’s pace. But it’s almost done, and just before the deadline, whew.
Soukaz’s early films are hard to come by. But worldscinema.org has one, which I plan to download soon.
Bill
Hey Dennis, welcome back. Did you happen to watch any movies during your flights?
Someone told me you had a dental emergency right before your trip? I can sympathize. Last week a big piece of my upper left incisor fell out (a piece so big you could see all the way out of the hole through the other side, ha ha). The dentist put a temporary cap on it for now but next week I need to have a root canal done…eek!
Rehab after my MS relapse triggered by February’s Covid jab is going okay, though not nearly as fast as I’d like. Daily sessions on the exercise bike (recumbent model, more of a free-standing pair of pedals) and the occasional hour of physio back at the hospital. Next week I’ll be in for a bone scan plus X-ray, and also starting a weekly hour of oxygen therapy which will be good. So progress is slow but it’s progress nonetheless.
Today I recieved a Bobby Orlando record in the post, a German pressing so that I could be the owner of this supercool cover. To be heard in a future edition of Play Therapy, you can be sure of that!
How bad is your jet lag now? Melatonin is supposed to help with it, but I remember you saying it’s illegal in France.
Do you have a return trip to the U.S. planned when the film will be closer to production? Or can you and Zac do most of the pre-production from Paris?
While you were on vacation, I saw Tim Hunter and Bret Easton Ellis’ SMILEY FACE KILLERS. If you’re friends with Bret, you probably know about the project, but it was dropped on VOD with no publicity last December and hasn’t found much of an audience. It does a great job of translating the ambience of LESS THAN ZERO into a horror film, and it even reminded me of your own work (especially the inarticulate characters and objectification of young queer men leading to violence.)
Who was it that said a kiss is the first step to cannibalism? Something’s telling me it was Georges Bataille, or I would put money on it being him haha. I started writing a poem a year or so back that was provisionally titled ‘Kiss With Your Eyes Open’, after someone said to me that only psychopaths kiss with their eyes open, but I’ve always found looking at people whilst they’re kissing me to be…well, I keep on doing it however it feels and no one has been any the wiser, so far at least. The poem stopped being interesting quite soon after I’d started it, but after today’s post I added a few lines and maybe it’s salvageable after all. I also noted that none of the gifs seem to have characters kissing with their eyes pointedly open? But the kisses that were most interesting to me today was the one where someone’s throat was being stroked with an index finger with ‘Hmmm’ periodically appearing, and the one that was minimally animated with the two faces moving together and apart with the thread of saliva left from between them.
I’m really glad the trip was both big fun and productive to boot! I guess since you’re shooting the new film in LA you’ll be heading back before long, right? Relatively speaking, I’m an absolute rookie when it comes to theme parks, but if ever I’m in Orlando I will def refer back to your scorings! I don’t know if this is a boring or interesting question, but if you were asked to design a ride for a theme park, what would the experience be like? I think mine would have a hall-of-mirrors-type vibe, with a plunge into a long underground section, and a bit where it looked like you were about to collide with your own reflection. As I think more about it, I’d like there to be strobes and lasers as well as mirrors, so with the speed it would become totally visually disorienting. I guess it would be a sort of sci-fi theme, but more in terms of light and speed rather than retro spaceships.
In terms of how I’ve been entertaining myself/keeping sane, it’s mainly been working on art stuff quietly, reading and watching shit, and meeting up with the occasional friend as they pass through. My hometown seems to get deader every time I come back, but my tolerance for it is probably decreasing as well. Oh, in more personal news, I accepted the Paris(-ish) teaching job. It was slightly frustrating, because the twin bullet of brexit and covid made a preliminary recce trip as good as impossible, plus I’ve been assigned to a school that’s even further out in the country than I was led to believe. That said, since the only feasible alternatives for the immediate term were to stay in uni, or worse, with my parents, I think just going for it is the best choice, plus Paris and my friends there are still less than an hour by train. So as it looks now, I will probably get the ferry in about 3 weeks, spend the first month crashing with my friends, and then finally go to where I’ve been posted, which all in all makes for a pretty sweet prospect. So all things considered, I’m doing pretty well! Speak soon, xT
(Andy Warhol Kiss)
Dear Dennisitas. I’m having a sale
LAVISHLY ILLUSTRARED FILM BOOKS FOR SALE
Martin Scorsese’s “Th Irishman”, Geirge Clooney’s “The Midnight Sky,” Audrey Hepburn $75.00 each.
numerous books, CDs and DVDs for sale at bargai prices. Call me and come over ASAP.
Cheers,
David Ehrenstein
[email protected]
Allen Midgette Obit
Jeanette MacDonald
A Kiss Between Brothers
Kiss of Death
Prince
A Room with a View
Marc Almond and Nico
Sondheim
“Love me less but love me for a long time”
Dear Dennisitas. I’m having a sale
LAVISHLY ILLUSTRARED FILM BOOKS FOR SALE
Martin Scorsese’s “Th Irishman”, Geirge Clooney’s “The Midnight Sky,” Audrey Hepburn $50.00 each.
numerous books, CDs and DVDs for sale at bargai prices. Call me and come over ASAP.
Cheers,
David Ehrenstein
Contac tMe via [email protected]
LioHere’sAndy Warhol’s Kiss”nel Soukaz and Fred Halsted have much in common
Cue Tom Jones</A.