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p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, B. Happy you were happy to see it again. Thanks for the alert about her name change. Is there any interesting reason for the change? Ah, Play Therapy to the rescue! Everyone, Yesterday’s guest-host with the most _Black_Acrylic isn’t done with us yet happily. His life-giving and addictive podcast Play Therapy is –and here I begin to quote him — ‘online here via Tak Tent Radio! Ben ‘Jack Your Body’ Robinson rings in 2022 with Italo, Peruvian tape experiments and even some Ballardian Ambient sounds too.’ Seriously high recommendation to click that ‘here’. ‘Peruvian tape experiments’, whoa! Have a fine weekend, sir. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I think Pfizer and Moderna are equivalent, yeah. I hope you sail through your third shot a la me. The show was wonderful to see last night. It’s such a strange, ambitious piece. It’s from 2010, which isn’t that long ago, but it’s sad how people don’t make trippy, huge spectacle-style theater like that anymore. It felt very fresh, and I felt proud, so it was a good night. I had to google to see if “Deadly Dentists” was a real thing, and it is! Crazy. Crazy that such a show got greenlit. I’ll go get some popcorn somewhere. Thanks! Monday’s my birthday, and some friends and I are doing dinner to mark the occasion, and I really want to eat Ethiopian food for some reason, and I don’t know of a good Ethiopian restaurant in Paris, so all I ask of today’s love is that he write an entirely believable TripAdvisor rave review of an Ethiopian restaurant in Paris to help me out, G. ** David, Hi. I had to walk through a shopping center/mall last night to get to the theater I was heading for, and how strange and depressing those places are now. It needed you dancing, for sure. Glad your test was predictably neg. Now you’re free and have a whole weekend to decimate. And you did? ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, Jarry, gotcha, now it makes sense. Yes, RIP Sidney Poitier. What a giant and impressive actor/figure he was when I was young. And Bogdanovich. I’ve been meaning to rewatch ‘Saint Jack’ recently for some reason. I quite liked it at the time. ** David Fishkind, Hi, David. Lucky you vis-a-vis the snow. Even though I don’t have the shoes for it. I’m honored that ‘Period’ had an effect on your work. Thank you for the links. I’ll dig in thoroughly. Oh, I knew Logue, or, rather knew of it. I never actually had a copy. Impressive people in it. I’ll get myself an issue or two. Oh, you’ll send me one? Thank you! Yes, I’ll email you my mailing address today. Understood about the head- and heartache of getting a book published. There are so many really good smaller presses these days; surely one or more would realise a boon when they read your mss. The first time is tough but then it gets easier for the presses and for you or else you understand the ropes of the process and resign yourself to them or something maybe? My coffee isn’t doing me its usual favor this morning for some reason either. How annoying. Have a lovely weekend if possible! ** Misanthrope, I do indeed know Ben is ace. Chilling sounds like just the ticket. Yeah, I think it’s totally possible that I got Covid or Omicron or whatever and never knew it. Yury had it, so that would make sense. What a world. ** Jack Skelley, Jackster! Yes, god, the Butthole Surfers live in that era were kind of unbeatable. I saw a show by them on the ‘Locust Abortion Technician’ tour that is a top five best gigs ever. Dude, I will see you in mere hours from now, and probably minutes from the time you see this. ** l@rst, Hi, bud. Despite my no rereading thing, I would love to reread ‘IJ’ one of these days. Weekends don’t tend to be that special for me: blog day off, remember to buy cigs and food on Saturday since things actually close here on Sundays, … uh. Like that there. You have anything giant planned? ** Brian, Hey, Brian. Indeed he does. Right, 411. 911 is ‘911 is a Joke’. Duh. Trippy stagecraft is no small thing. Chandelier-based or whatever. The Gisele/me piece I saw again last night has this 25 or minute huge, roiling fog sculpture in the middle of it that was designed by the great Japanese fog sculptor Fujiko Nakaya that is really mind blowing. It’s just a technical trick, but its effect is really something. So, yeah. Gisele’s and my piece ‘Crowd’ is coming to NYC (at BAM) but not for a while yet. Good old Hitchcock. Your brother is cool. I’ll check around for that manga. My friends and I were just talking about how great ‘Paris Spleen’ is last night. My Friday was mostly seeing ‘TIHYWD’ and the trek to get out to the theater. And a little work and this and that. No big, but solid. I hope your weekend blows your mind even if it’s only on a technical level. ** Okay. There are few things I love more in the world than fireworks packaging. Why, I don’t know, other than what seems to me to be their obvious wonderfulness. And I haven’t indulged this love on the blog in several years, so it seemed high time. I strongly advise you to search yourself to find your inner, lurking fireworks packaging geek because otherwise you won’t have a great time around here this weekend. So, please do your best in that regard, and I will see you on Monday.
Now available in North America 
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These unlit fireworks look a lot like Xmas Buches
Bogdanovich’s Cole Porter musical “At Long Last Love” was an enormous flop, but Jacques Rivette loved it and it’s more than worth a second look,/A>
Yippee! fantastic fireworks!!!…. l love them! haven’t seen a firework display for quite sometime… the closest I’ve got is when I left my silicone eye mask in the microwave too long and it exploded the other week…
Did you see in the press about Madonna’s son and his paintings? can’t help thinking it’s somewhat uncharitable of folks to be berating him so much…. literally saying outright that they are shit… saying such things as ‘how dare he try to mimic Francis Bacon.?….’ it psychologically tapped into my head….. I don’t like the ‘picking on’ factor.. I may go and rescue him in a van or something Den….
enjoy your weekend!! xx
x
Hi!!
Some of these fireworks look like candy. A very fine collection!
Ah, this sounds wonderful. The video you sent me and the few photos I found on the internet of “This Is How You Will Disappear” were completely mesmerizing.
Yeah, I read the “Deadly Dentists” title somewhere, and I had to google it too because I didn’t want to believe such a show existed. But it does, haha, and it looks like something entirely serious. Some true crime stuff.
Love spending most of his weekend traveling all over Paris to find the best Ethiopian restaurant, then rushing home to compose a very persuasive TripAdvisor review and sending it to you in an email entitled “Happy Birthday – This Is Not Spam”, Od.
I love fireworks, though I was relieved there wasn’t much around New Year’s Eve last week.
I remember something similar to the Hen Laying Egg near the top from when I was a little kid. After you light it and it does its thing, it leaves an ashy egg-shaped imprint on the ground.
Poitiers and Bogdanovich gone, a bad week.
On the Buttholes, this looks promising:
https://deadline.com/2021/12/the-butthole-surfers-documentary-director-tom-stern-1234889091/
Enjoy the pre-birthday weekend…
Bill
D-
Buying Cigs Dennis? I thought you had preceded me in the smoke-free lifestyle? Did I misinterpret?
Shitty Kitty! Earth Soldier. Yeah fireworks packaging is awesome.
Man my weekend, I’m having my wisdom teeth yanked on Tuesday and I’m opting to get knocked out like any sane person would (oh and I’m blessed with good insurance). So that means I had to get a Covid test today and then isolate and then fast on Monday so this weekend isn’t gonna be too special. I do look forward to a couple of days off after the surgery, on painkillers. I’m a little behind on my weekly poem writin’ so I’ll be doing that.
I saw The Buttholes at The Lyric theater in times square, which I later noticed Travis Bickle took Cybil Shepard to see a porno in Taxi Driver. It was scary as the flames from Gibby’s burning cymbal nearly connected with the asbestos hanging from the ceiling and when a guy came out with a fire extinguish he beat him back with his guitar. It was incredible. I look forward to the documentary!
Listened to the Apology podcast, very much enjoyed it. See ya next week.
-L
There’s a definite beauty to be found in this stuff, all nicely wrapped up presents just waiting for their explosive big night.
Happy to report there are no side fx from Friday’s booster jab. Also my brother’s wife is now officially pregnant so I will be an uncle soon! Also Leeds Utd are live on ITV later today 2pm, nationwide fame at last. Here’s wishing you an excellent birthday on Monday x
Hey Dennis. It feels like longer than usual since I wrote you here – I don’t remember if I told you if I had come back to France or not, but yeah, been here just over a week now. Worse even than me getting omicron, it’s meant that the majority of my colleagues are on isolation, which has more than doubled the workload of my usually stress-free job, hence my silence here. And wow, yeah after combing through this post, I’m totally with you, firework packaging is definitely something that demands proper attention. My landlady’s husband is a chemist by trade, and I think he spent some time designing chemical formulas for fireworks, which I find very cool and I should ask him more about that, but then he went into designing bombs for the French army to blow up the Middle East with, which is not so cool to say the least. I went to see ‘This Is How You Will Disappear’ last night, and I really, really, really loved it. Like it’s very probably my all-time favourite thing I’ve seen in a theatre. I was sat right down at the front so I got the full force of the sound, and the moment when the fog started for the first time and there’s that massive guitar on the soundtrack, I got all the vibrations hitting me, and damn, it was so so amazing. I was wondering, was it you who wrote the song at the end? Just because I loved it too and fell in love with the performer’s voice as well. Anyway, I’m just gonna play obvious and wish you a week that comes wrapped in its own packaging that says ‘CAUTION: Emits showers of sparks!’ xT
I’m surprised you can’t find Ethiopian food in Paris. After getting serious food poisoning in 2017 at the East Village Ethiopian restaurant I used to frequent, I never went back there, but I miss it.
Do you think you’ll learn anything, production-wise, about the film this week?
Hi Dennis! Happy Birthdayyyyy to youuuuuuuu! Hope you’re having a birthday as exquisite as yourself? xoxo
(I’m sad I couldn’t post you a present as the stupid postage rules prevented me from posting what I wanted to. )
Hey, Dennis,
A certain excitement and menace in these packages: they’re just waiting to explode. And evidently more than ready for it, given their exuberance of design. Your description of your theatre piece’s fog sculpture has me so terribly intrigued, and more eager than ever to see one such production. I’ll keep an eye out for “Crowd”, definitely. In the interval I’ve satisfied myself with a look at some of Fujiko Nakaya’s fog sculptures and whoa, they’re really something. I can hardly imagine what it would be like to witness that onstage. I still haven’t read any Baudelaire. “Paris Spleen” is such a great title. So I’ll start with that or “Fleurs”. The manga was pretty absorbing, a sort of unsettlingly perverse spin on familiar young adult scenarios. Very heavy with the French lit allusions too, which was fun and hamfisted in equal measure. What does “TIHYWD” (the title of your piece, I assume) acronymize? My weekend: aunt left for Ireland; I finally introduced myself to the work of Jean-Daniel Cadinot, wow wow wow, can’t wait to watch more of *that* stuff (your post is a handy aid in that regard); and I introduced my friends to Ken Russell’s “Tommy”, which certainly blew their minds, as it did mine when I first saw it a couple of months ago. Pretty good weekend by any measure. Your own?